#and possibly all readers

[deafmangoes]

Courtesy of myself and my wife, for your consideration:

Scrooge, But Instead Of Greed It's About Having The Biggest Tits.

~~~

[INT: Scrooge's home, Marley, with Big Naturals, has breastfed boobily through the locked door.]

Marley: "Yours were as heavy as mine seven Christmases ago, and you have laboured on them since! They are ponderous breasts, Ebenezer!"

~~~

[EXT: A churchyard, Scrooge stands before the Ghost of Christmas Present, who open his robe to reveal a large set of knockers.]

Scrooge: "Are they yours, Spirit?"

Ghost: "They are mankind's!" (Gripping each in turn:) "This is Ignorance, and this is Want!"

~~~

[EXT: The street outside Scrooge's home. The bells are ringing out for Christmas day. A small child passes under the window.]

Scrooge: "You there, boy, do you know the plastic surgeon's in the next street but one?"

Boy: "I should hope so!"

Scrooge: "Have they sold the XXXL silicones that were hanging in the window?"

Boy: "What, the ones as big as me?"

Scrooge: "Go and buy them!" (Aside:) "I'll send them to Bob Cratchit! They're twice the size of Tiny Tim!"

~~~

Is this anything

[meo-eiru]

"Trick or treat! I've prepared all of the best treats for you darling!"

I actually designed costumes for all of the boys but due to time restraints couldn't make an illustration with all of them but worry not! Silas has all the treats you could possibly want

[the-raindeer-king]

Simon Riley who hates his dad more and more every day after you have a child together. Especially if it's a little boy. Because Simon can see himself (and Tommy) in your son, and will never be able to understand how anyone can abuse their children.

Simon Riley who would move heaven and earth for your son, if it'd make the little boy happy. He absolutely hates seeing your son cry, and going to the store is a losing battle for Simon's bank account.

Just Simon Riley who promised himself, and more importantly you and your son, that he'd never be like his own father. That he'd be better, kinder, loving. He's the kind of father he needed growing up, and he's the perfect father for your kids.

[something-something-peaceful]

How fucking dare, you come into my house, fuck my wife and you don’t even offer any of your bean dip casserole?!

[rottiens]

i believe the first time you let (virgin) kakashi play with your pussy, it comes accompanied in an unusual way of talking on his part. it's almost like he takes notes to himself, almost like he doesn't talk to you. the tired gaze is set between your sticky thighs, watching carefully how your folds stretch as he puts his finger in and pulls it out, you exhale. 

"oh, here?" he slowly bends it and pushes, you cry out. "too much?" 

he doesn't even look at you as you gaze at him in raw adoration. you don't even know what expression he has because he refused to take off his mask. 

"you're squeezing so tight." his eyebrows draw together for a second before returning to his usual expression. with the thumb of his free hand he squeezes and strokes the bundle of nerves. "so wet." kakashi pushes deep, faster this time and your legs tremble, you call out to him and he ignores you with a hoarse throaty purr. "here. i like that sound." 

wet clicks fill the office. kakashi fucks your pussy with one finger and then adds another with perspicacity, careful of every step he makes next. 

"I think it's gonna cum for me." your looks become one, unbreakable as he massages you like someone with experience and makes you wet his knuckles, juices dripping down his fingers and wetting his gloves. you scream his name clinging to that intangible, rushing to hold on to his thick white strands pulling him further into you. 

kakashi do it, he's guided by your fingers leading him further in; to take a glimpse of how you open up for him, how you tremble, how you squeeze. "does it always get so swollen?" he asks, and you know once again he's not talking to you. he leans in and the tip of his nose brushes the lovely sore nub back and forth almost as if he's teasing, then he takes a deep, shameless inhale, and you forget to breathe. "cute. you can cum now, I have to try again to see your reaction one more time."

[sharkenedfangs]

— ☆ “SWEET LIKE NECTAR.”

— #. synopsis. because to whitney, there’s nothing prettier, downright satisfying to gaze upon the rosy cheeks you adopt in response to the invasive questioning, that pride of yours so amusing to patiently chip away at, piece by piece. in fact, if you could, you’d evade it altogether though that would mean defeat, wouldn’t it? and there’s nothing you detest more in this shitty world than to fucking lose.

— #. content warning! step-cest, dub-con, anal fucking, nipple sucking, some light degradation here and there as in the use of ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ , referring to whitney’s chest as ‘tits’ , big brother whitney being a bitch, loser male reader being an even bigger one in that respect and fuck, did I forget anything else?

— #. word count? 5.2k, if I remember correctly. this is a repost.

— #. something more to say, asher? : “I couldn’t help myself. had to bring back the classic onto here, y’know. ruining whitney’s slutty hole never gets old, specially big brother.”

Moreover, you should’ve probably have expected this one measly question to slip past your older brother’s lips, leering gaze openly taking your conflicted expression in as if taunting you to properly answer. You wouldn’t lie to me, would you? ‘Course not, like you could anyway. He’d see right past it like he usually does, testing the waters — he’d call it, laying out the fresh bait for your conscious little self to latch onto immediately.

Because to Whitney, there’s nothing prettier, downright satisfying to gaze upon the rosy cheeks you adopt in response to the invasive questioning, that pride of yours so amusing to patiently chip away at, piece by piece. In fact, if you could, you’d evade it altogether though that would mean defeat, wouldn’t it?

And there’s nothing you detest more in this shitty world than to fucking lose.

Especially to this one bastard. Too damn nosy to discreetly mind his own business, y’know? Always the one to hover too close for comfort, bated breath feathering delicately against the soft skin of your flushed ear, to keep you tightly on edge. Long past that, it’s starting to get on your nerves how self-assured he is in his flawed reasoning, simply since he had you sloppily suck him off once on the worn couch and now, it’s what? Only natural to drag you around like some sort of thoughtless puppy? Shamelessly refer to you as his trained, little bitch who’ll get on his knees for the right price?

Gotta be fucking kidding then.

It was the alcohol. Nothing, but the intoxicating substance drumming along your veins that had you act in such a debauched manner, had your painfully hard cock straining against the front of your pants. Yeah. Right? That’s all there was to it. Nothing more.

At least, that’s what you keep insistently reminding yourself of despite the growing, churning heat in your stomach, the not-so-subtle twitching of your hardening cock stirring beneath your ripped jeans or the individual droplets of sweat gently trickling down the navel of your slouched back. Alright, keep fucking lying to yourself then. Surely that’ll help you with your current predicament that you’ve stuck yourself into, muddied foot deep within the shallow trenches and a solid grasp firmly placed around your ankle, threatening to snap your dignity in half.

“Well?” Visibly irritated by your lack of answer, it’s Whitney’s increasingly impatient, snappy voice that unfortunately draws you back from your spiralling calculations — whether to respond with the humiliating truth or not. Can’t let it go, can he? Hence why he so nonchalantly has you sat on his used bed, the rusted springs hidden beneath the dusty mattress alerting your every subtle movement with a distinct creak reverberating through the thin walls.

“Well, what?” Idiot, you know very damn well what he’s getting at, it’s not like you suffer from some sort of amnesiac disease to utilise cluelessness and have him fooled with such blatant tactics.

“You’re a virgin, aren’t you?” Should be wiping that snide, awful smirk that instantly appears on his face as he carelessly articulates the question once more. Shameless in his pursuit, hungrily eyeing you up and down like an untouched piece of meat to greedily feast upon, sink his pearly, white fangs into.

Oh, thank the heavens that you weren’t consuming any sort of liquid right this moment because it would’ve been shot straight out of your throat, maybe your nose even considering the absurd sentence from your very own brother — step-brother, to be exact. Still in denial that you two could potentially call each other family, far too homely of a term than the puzzling relationship you both share. Speaking of, you haven’t replied to his question yet and by the looks of it, he isn’t looking too pleased with you if you were to stretch this on any further than it should be.

“N-No, I’ve actually fucked my fair share of girls.” Oh yeah, he’s definitely believing you with that stuttering, the uncertainty all too evident in your tone that only a complete, utter moron would’ve fallen for it. Fucking liar. It wasn’t as though you were entirely lying though, having indeed fucked a girl before, but does it really count if that same person were to be your younger sister, Kylar? At most, you’ve had your decent amount of experiences with others, dated a few girls here and there which is to be acceptable for the average boy of your age. However, beyond the intimate acts of holding hands and bashful kissing, you remained oblivious to the process of well, sex — save for the over the top, raunchy porn you’d occasionally watch and that sole encounter with Kylar that taught you far more than any cheap film ever could.

So, it’s still reasonable, is it not? Though this is Whitney you’re directly dealing with and you know better than to assume he’d take plain ‘no’ for an answer, often brash in his selfish desires. No, more like every time whenever he does act, it leads up to the very same, repetitive situation you’ve familiarized yourself to. You, beneath him. You, helpless in the face of his cruel actions.

Not this time though — fuck, that nasty, little scheme of yours slowly, but ever so surely lurking within the depths of your working mind, grateful for the blonde’s clear ignorance of the shit you were ready to commit to regain that minuscule shred of dignity back. None the wiser, preferring it’d remain that way.

And he can only sharply scoff back to your half-assed attempt at muttering obvious falsehoods. Too cunning of a bastard and god, does it mess with you. “Bullshit. You think I’d believe that? Fuckin’ cmon, admit it. You’ve never really fucked a girl before, huh?” That sickening, creeping nausea steadily filling the depths of your guts from the way he so arrogantly taunts you through his ‘light-hearted’ insults, inadvertently painting you as some sort of virgin loser that never so much as had the slightest chance of growing affectionate with another woman. Fucked your goddamn sister so that’s a one-up on you, huh? Hell, you know better than to let such an obscene admission escape you — since she’s your sister now too, that innocence you so greedily stripped away that one faithful evening within the four corners of her room.

Rather not indulge in such sinful thoughts at the moment, not when your prolonged silence is only confirming his self-righteous suspicions to which he so stubbornly convinced himself of. Knowing better than to reason with your older brother, it’s merely when you do finally relent with a reluctant nod of your head — still maintaining a thin layer of deceit, mind you — that his smug grin widens considerably in return. “So you’re an unused slut, basically.” Choice of words never was the delinquent’s forte, but his crude, frank vocabulary certainly is as he so eloquently puts it. “Hah — I fuckin’ knew it. Wouldn’t be cumming so quickly if you weren’t.” He huffs back in amusement at the sight of your apparent fluster, always so damn squirmy whenever he playfully pokes fun at one of your concealed insecurities. Oh, you really don’t know the dizzying effect you have on him, do you?

The numerous nights spent lazily fisting the base of his cock underneath the woollen covers placed over his bare, sweating body to at the very least obscure his depraved actions — not that he cared much whether he was scandalously caught or not. Much so, he’d prefer if it were you to coincidentally’ walk in on him mid-jerk off session, land a helping hand to big brother and let him use you however he saw fit. Fuck, yeah. That’d aid him in his ever growing lust for you, borderline animalistic in how he addictively sought you out as expected, like a sweet, sweet drug longing to be taken. A sweet nectar freshly ripe for the taking, plucked free from the gracious buds of the tree to gratefully sink his fangs into and savour the refreshing taste lingering on his tongue.

Feels so right to defile your prudish self, doesn’t it? So, don’t blame him then. Don’t blame him when he suggests— no, coldly orders you to strip off your damn pants which prompts another gaping stare of yours to the sudden command. Handsome, but so, so clueless, aren’t you? Needs to tell you to do everything for your sluggish brain to eventually catch up to his ever approaching rhythm, cocky grin plastered onto his lips signalling that your step-brother is indeed not kidding around as per usual.

“What’re you waitin’ for? I said, strip.” It’s not a gentle reminder nor a well-intentioned push in the right direction, it’s a repeated warning of his thinly veiled frustrations peeking its way through, past the useless restraints he placed onto himself when he could easily be given what he’s wanted. Not without force, though that is in Whitney’s nature to be as rough as possible, having grown accustomed to things going his way whenever he inevitably turned to bloodied brutality. After all, the bully doubts so himself that you don’t furtively desire this all the same too, conflicted movements headed towards the leathered loop of your belt as you willingly comply as tasked to. Good boy, knew you had it in y’a.

“Do I really gotta do this?” If it weren’t for the pretty, pink flush adorning the entirety of your face right now, your older brother would’ve definitely snapped back with a snarky remark of his own, however the sight itself is enough to let him have your dumb self uselessly hope a little further. What does it look like, little brother? Has Whitney ever backtracked on his truthful words?

“Yeah, you gotta cuz’ I told you to. Now just fuckin’ do it already, slut. I don’t got all day.”

“..Fine.” Having fully predicted such a response, heavy shoulders slouching lazily in defeat from the refusal, you shyly carry on with the clumsy strip tease of yours. Can never get your way with him, can y’a?

Goddamn it, shamefully reprimanding yourself for even following suit to his harsh retort though, can you really blame yourself? He’s got you — fucking, trained you like a dog. That’s what it is, a stupid, dumb mutt that can’t help but intrinsically cave in to its depraved instincts as his rightful owner happily taught him to, mindlessly huffing and wagging its fluffy tail to the sugary sweet praise whispered to him. Conditioning you to his every whim as a promising, rewarding treat awaits in exchange for your dutiful obedience, not bothering to keep your remaining underwear either. Big brother knows best, huh? Look at that pitiful expression etched along your features, averting gaze straying away from his piercing own that’s settled precisely on the drooling tip of your fat, twitching cock dribbling out an alarming amount of pre-cum. How you resist the underlying temptation to automatically press your legs together, denying Whitney of that upfront, perverted view of your spread thighs. So damn easy to get you riled up in a matter of seconds when a tight, warm hole is involved in the filthy equation.

As ensured, you’ll receive as you wish, pup. Only natural to fulfill what you so gravely desire when you’ve been so good so far, right? Offer you the bearing fruits of your well-earned efforts in return while you thoughtlessly salivate over the mere idea, yeah?

“Whitney, this is kinda embarrassing..” Kinda? Practically humiliating to display yourself so lewdly like this, however not as if you hadn’t experienced this rarely either in the past few weeks that steadily transpired. Should’ve grown used to it by now, actually. Still, the lingering shyness of brazenly exposing yourself like this was too much to bear at times, especially with the other’s daunting ogling. Really has to unabashedly eye-fuck you every single time or something. It’s.. somewhat flattering to be throughly appreciated like this despite instinctively knowing it’s out of pure, utter objectification.

Aimlessly losing yourself in the middle of your straying thoughts, it’s the recurring shuffling of fabric carelessly being thrown onto the wooden, creaking floor that draws you back to the hazy reality before you. Fuck, a wet dream is a far more suitable term with how this is stereotypically playing out, the confident, sure movements of your older brother’s calloused hands busying themselves with the hem of his waistband and — oh, he’s surely tugging his sweats down, okay. His.. fucking dick, god — how didn’t you conveniently notice how rock hard his cock was beneath that cotton thin material? Leaving you to breathlessly gawk at the free view of Whitney’s drooling tip roughly smacking against the tensed muscles of his stomach, briefly connecting strings of pre-cum to meld with his cooling sweat. Retaking that relaxed, slouched position along the single bed as if he isn’t currently stark naked in front of your unmoving eyes. That distracting to you, huh? Horny mutt.

“Like what you see, slut?” That fucking conceited tone of his makes you want to respond with anything but an affirmative yes, though through the thick lump you swallow down your throat, it’s the muted nod of your head that further serves him to grin widely in satisfaction. Wanna prove him wrong so badly, so damn so. Yet, how can you when he’s shown you all the reasons not to?

Should’ve been paying closer attention then, baby brother. How your brain immediately shuts off in a haze of confusion, numbing static prickling at your empty mind once the blonde instead settles himself comfortably onto your awaiting lap. “Fuckin’ nice seat.” Would’ve been a more comedic remark if it weren’t for the provoking press of his bare ass flush against your pulsing cock, questionably twitching in approval from the brief physical contact. Christ, get a grip on yourself, you moron but, oh — Fuck. You could just.. fucking slip it in and it wouldn’t hurt to let Whitney take the lead as predicted, greedily relish in the slippery warmth fervently welcoming you? Since at the end of the day, you’re just a man, no? A simple man with stupidly horny urges and needs to gratefully sink his cock into the nearest wet hole that merely happens to be his big brother’s whorish one.

Still, that portion of your mind beckons you to reason along with the weirdly alluring pull of plainly muttering out fuck it, shove it in and— and, do the nastiest shit possible, y’know? Yeah, you should do it. Actually, no. No way in fucking hell should you proceed with it. Uselessly humping your hips upwards with a sickening jolt that draws a relieving sigh from the both of you. Stop it, you pervert. You’ve become no better than him, have you?

“W-What’re you doing..?” Is all you can pathetically muster to his blatantly obvious actions, knowing full well what he’s truly doing. Riling you up. Teasing along the edges of your withering limits till it collapses fully onto the ground. It’s what he does best, driving you insane on the daily from school, to outside, to home and his room you frequently pay visits to at night.

“What does it look like I’m doin’? I’m about to fuck your cute cock, pretty boy.” Pretty. Ah, that shouldn’t be your main focus with how he announces it so casually, essentially admitting he’s planning to ride you. Struggling to grasp onto the foreign concept of him, well— being on the receiving end of sex. Doesn’t he like, usually prefer to be the one in the dominant position? In fact, you wouldn’t have been surprised if he had selfishly decided to fuck your ass next, fill it to the brim with his seed. Yet, here he is, contently rubbing himself on your flushed, oozing tip, swearing gently as it barely grazes his puckered hole, thoughtlessly clenching around practically nothing. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m only doing this to stake my claim on you, alright? Not fuckin’ fair if some bitch gets to fuck your virgin dick first so, hah— I’m making you into a proper slut. My slut.”

Very convincing, Whitney. Not so much so when he’s shuddering eagerly above you like a man about to be given the slightest taste of heaven itself, namely your cock it seems. Hot. Shit, it is a pretty hot sight, you’ve gotta admit.

So, is this purely a flimsy excuse of his to fuck himself stupid on your dick? Need that much to blindly persuade you he isn’t some sort of drooling cockwhore deep down? Nice try, big brother. Well, you can effortlessly see through his nonchalant act, the barely discernible, rosy flush dusting along his cheeks confirming his secretive, depraved and filthy desires simmering deeply within his core.

“Fuckin’ — ah, help me put it in already.” The resounding gasp escaping him is so breathy, so unlike the dominant, assertive Whitney you’ve familiarized yourself with that your lethargic brain hardly registers his direct order, sounding more like a frantic plea than anything else. Put it in? The little, stuck-up bastard is having difficulty sliding it in, resorting to your aid to lend a helping hand to his futile struggles? That’s cute. The indiscernable trace of a smirk beginning to form onto your lips from his uncharacteristically submissive demeanour, still withholding a decent amount of control in this situation here. Ah, what’re you even saying? He’s given you full leverage to wreck his tight, little hole as you happily please, fuck yourself deeper in that wet warmth you’ve been subconsciously seeking out. You’re the one cupping him within the palm of your hand, oddly contented with this newfound revelation, this switch of power dynamics.

“Can’t you put it in yourself then. It’s not that hard, is it? You’re the one always wanting to everything so I think it’s only fair you do it.” Indulging in the scowl that appears shortly on his straining features only to dissolve under another one of his tough exteriors. “Fuck, you want me to? Can’t put it in yourself, huh?” He counters snidely, grasping for the bottle of lube conveniently placed on the night dresser nearby, accompanied by barking out a sharp huff of laughter as you cuss out loud a fuck! from the cooling, sticky mixture squirted plainly onto your cock.

“Shit! That’s cold! Why’d you pour it on me? Aren’t you supposed to put it in your— y’know? Your—“ Pausing bashfully in your tracks, immaturity running so deeply you couldn’t even properly stammer out the term if you wished to.

“My what? My ass? I’m not putting that in there, I can fuck myself on your cock just fine without that crap.” Lewd. That’s so lewd how he outwardly states it, blazing face hidden behind your cupped palms as though such a gesture would make this alright, make whatever he’s doing — smoothly grinding on the tip of your lubed, quivering length, how his hole teasingly snatches onto your flushed, leaking cock head only to disappointingly let go again. Fuck, fuck — Fuck. Doing this on purpose, isn’t he? Intent on driving you mad before he even manages to shove it in.

But, as previously stated before, there’s nothing you hate more than to lose, don’t you?

Really, he should be the one blaming himself for your rash and impulsive movements, shouldn’t be letting out that surprised yelp, silenced by a high-pitched gasp as you finally have had enough of his provoking mockery to mutter out a sharp fuck it and drive your increasingly impatient cock right in. Head stupidly thrown back in sheer shock from the unfamiliar yet admittedly pleasurable sensation of having his tight, virgin hole stuffed full of your cock right about now. Clear outline of your entire length pulsing deep within him by the noticeable quivering of his toned tummy, which you don’t hesitate to firmly plant your palm against to draw another satisfying, strangled whimper past his lips. Whore.

“Ah, fucking shit— You’re so fucking tight. Relax a bit for me or I can’t move.” Might as well be snapping your dick in half from the unbearable clenching of his unused insides, warm insides that you’re pervertedly staining white with every glide of your forceful thrusts, every harsh slam of your hips against his ass. Can’t stop yourself though — God, no. Not when the addictive heat of his hole envelops you so damn fucking well, rendering you both to mindlessly cling onto each other, entangled bodies slick with hot sweat trickling steadily down the navel of your arched backs. Namely his. And oh, he really does feel so good. Never mind all the shit he’s done, the stingy tugs of his fists deep within your messied hair, urging you to fuck yourself deeper into his trembling frame. This is the sweet taste of revenge you’ll so dearly savour, hungrily imprinting every choked moan to memory for later reminiscing.

Isn’t he so cute too? Tightening fingertips digging harshly into your shoulders for proper stability, an immediate roll of his eyes to the back of his skull whenever you angle your hips to hit that overly sensitive spot that sends a sickening jolt up his spine. Bound to be leaving marks, though that’s the least of your concerns with how goddamn pretty he looks when fucked stupid, fucked utterly brainless to match the feverish haze of his glazed over eyes. “See? I think you secretly enjoy it, Whitney. I think you— hah, fuck — enjoy that I’m taking the lead for once. ‘S that it? You like havin’ my cock inside you, huh? Like it when your little brother fucks you?” No matter how many times he may blatantly refuse and deny it, through the clawing of his nails, etching bloodied scars into your back that are sure to reside in your skin later on— You fucking know by the squeeze of his slutty hole, ring of cream having settled nicely around the base of your cock.

“F-Fuckin’—“ Big brother having trouble speaking? “Bastard, shut— ah! up!” The pitiful whine echoing deeply from his throat almost makes you want to cease your endless blabbering, but y’know what? Fuck that. May as well endure the severe consequences of his actions, from the second you had arrived here, it was bound to end solely in one conclusion. You, balls deep in his ass. You, stupidly drunk off the mere act of ruthlessly fucking your older brother cuz’ shit, does it feel so amazingly good. “If you keep looking at me like that, it only— hah, makes things harder for me here. God, Whitney.. Don’t fucking stop squeezing me, ‘kay?” Not really doing any better than him either, any semblance of control within you possibly thrown out the window with every pleasurable stroke of your cock being sucked so sloppily by his stretched out hole. One thing the delinquent was right about — You being the equivalent of a dumb mutt. A dumb, drooling mutt huffing over his bare chest, depraved instincts kicking in to suck on whatever happens to be nearest and that consequently leads to your dazed gaze zeroing in on his swollen nipples.

Pretty, so fucking pretty. It’s not fair.

Deserving of every torturous inch his tight hole greedily swallows up, the sight of his neglected, puffy nipples almost too much to bear for your watering mouth.

A little taste wouldn’t hurt, would it?

How careless of you to overlook such an area that so desperately needs your loving attention too. Bad little brother you are for that, huh? “Promise to make you feel so good.” Sighing out a guttural groan as the softened pad of your thumbs find home to idly flick at the erect glands, eliciting another strangled curse from the delinquent once again. Sensitive here, isn’t he? “Shit.. Every time I touch your tits here, you tighten up like crazy, hah. Want me to suck on ‘em too?” It’s more of a fervent heads up for your upcoming actions than a polite request, pink tongue curiously poking out to glide along the sheen of sweat settled thickly on the rosy buds. “M-Motherfucker.. Don’t you fuckin’ dare— hmph!” Hastily cut off by the palm of his own hand clasped upon his mouth, he can’t help but to cave in at your perverted antics, specifically that weird obsession of yours with his chest or tits as you so obscenely call ‘em. Shivering lightly at the rhythmic lapping at his nipples which is soon followed by the roll of your tongue against the sensitive flesh, fully latching onto on of them to appreciatively suckle on. The things you do to him, a full on body shock simply from having his pretty tits toyed with, his nipples coyly sucked on by the moist engulf of your warm mouth. “W—What?? Stop, ah, that!” How the fuck do you get to him like this every damn time?

And why the hell does it have to feel so fuckin’ good too?

Screw you, really.

Having managed to get past his carefully placed barriers he put upon himself, a means of protection for his fragile pride that you so selfishly tear away. Because it’s fun to, an absolute power rush to intently observe your slutty older brother fall apart on your fat cock, split his ass open while you’re at it. Teary eyes threatening to spill free more droplets down the length of his scarlet cheeks, bitten lips oozing fresh blood from your nipping teeth and tongue to gently suckle at as a well-deserved reward. Golden locks becoming increasingly more disheveled from every bounce on your cock, the guidance of your hands locked firmly onto his hips to witness the disappearance and reemergence of your leaking tip to reach that one single spot deep inside him.

And it’s real adorable when you draw your hips further only to be halted by the weight of his legs wrapped securely around your waist to prevent you from pulling all the way out, so stubbornly too. “Oh, want me to cum inside?” The derisive pitch of your laughter has the blonde simmering in his humiliating position, too caught up in the intoxicating pleasure of being fucked so mercilessly like this to bother uttering out a curse of denial. Fangs bared, seething glare shot solely towards you, its you. Of course, it’s you who has the final say, the upper hand regardless. As always. “I-I swear to fuckin’ god, if you pull out now— I’m going to fucking kill you, asshole.” He threatens as per usual, but the shaky incoherence of his speech riddled with whiny moans discredits his shitty attempt at intimidation, coaxing you to readily follow suit to his orders.

Ah, look at him. Fucking bitch in heat.

Can’t say no to that face, can you?

“Wasn’t planning on it anyway, Whitney.” You mutter out soothingly in the shell of his ear, slightly unsettled by the softening tone you’ve taken on to address him. Is it due to the pathetic appearance he’s took on from your relentless bullying? ‘S not fair he gets to look all cute and pouty while you’re struggling to keep up here, stuttering hips clumsily humping forward to make up for the messy pace because ah— fuck, you’re nearing your fill and so is Whitney, by the looks of it. “You can’t—“ Cutting himself off in a soundless gasp as your balls heavily smack against his ass, mind gone completely blank from the sheer euphoria of having his hole filled to the brim. Can’t? Sure, he can handle just a little more, can’t he? Cmon, he can do better than that. Drool dripping freely from his parted lips for yours to plant sloppy kisses against, stifling his open moans. Drawing your hips one last time to relish in the tight warmth of his wet insides— really, you’ll miss it, fuck— you barely get to process the thick ropes of cum spurting out of his bobbing cock, accompanied by your own climax shortly after. “S-Sorry, oh my god— I’m so sorry, you feel too good. I can’t—“ You sputter out uselessly, a hollow excuse when you continue on with your sloppy thrusts, burying yourself to the hilt to shoot your thick load into. Staining his walls white with your seed since your hips can’t stop themselves from fucking your cum deeper till the both of you tirelessly settle down in a heap of bodies on the creaking mattress.

Alright, so maybe you did end up going a tad bit too far this time, but it’s not like he didn’t ask for it. Or so you mumble to yourself to soothe your ever growing worries of where this may lead after the shortly lived, euphoric high you’ve just experienced. Nervously lifting your gaze to seek his as you’re greeted with.. ah, it seems you did fuck up. If anything, you’ve dug yourself a hole so steep you couldn’t possibly climb out of it now. Okay, he looks pissed. Doesn’t mean you don’t have time to mend things, right between the two of you, right? It’s as you finally muster up a foolish smile to meet his sour expression, that his frown significantly deepens in return.

“..So, uh. Did you like it?”

You’ve got a death wish, don’t you?

Should’ve probably expected this one. The shockingly loud slam of the wooden door closed shut on your face, promptly interrupting your frantic pleas and apologies. Heaps of dirty clothes thrown right into your arms for you to awkwardly pick up from the floor soon after. “Whitney, don’t be like that. Whitney, c’mon. I’m sorry—“ You’re not actually all that sorry, it’s just he looks too cute when angry, really.

“Fuck off!!”

Stubborn as ever, huh? At least, you’ve got to imprint those slutty sounds to memory for later use, having gotten your answer to leave him be for the time being. And oh, glancing down to be met with the sight of your still-hard, neglected cock tented pitifully against the front of your jeans. Seriously? Didn’t you just cum too?

..Well, you’ve always got the bathroom to take care of that.

[aestheteanime]

how long they last during a sex ban

your boyfriend has been a little too... bold for your liking recently. after getting caught fucking in the training room, you felt it was necessary to enact some sort of punishment to make up for your embarrassment.

✶ ft: ichikawa reno, hoshina soshiro, furuhashi iharu, narumi gen

✶ cw: afab, semi-public sex, grinding, mutual masturbation, cunnilingus, pet names [baby, pretty girl, etc.], edging, orgasm denial (very very briefly)

✶ wc: 2.9k

✶ author's note: i've never written for kn8 so im not totally sure how well im gonna be able to write for these boys but i tried my best, hopefully it's okay lol

nsfw minors DNI

— ✶ ICHIKAWA RENO | 4 days

at the beginning reno thought he had this whole "sex ban" punishment in the bag. it's not like his sex drive was higher than yours-- so why, after only four days, was he begging for you like he had been deprived of your touch for eons?

"please, baby," he mumbles, face pressed into your neck as you shift uncomfortably on the couch.

you wanted to touch him so bad. wanted to indulge in him as much as he wanted to indulge in you, but you knew you had to keep a cool head. this was his punishment after all, and he had to face the consequences of his actions.

you had been mortified when kafka walked in on you two fucking against the wall, bodies sweaty and sticky-- and so so so close to orgasming. reno had been humiliated too, apologizing profusely on both of your halves and begging kafka to keep this a secret. he'd reluctantly agreed, but it was definitely still awkward between them. so then if reno was as embarrassed as you, why was he so eager to fuck you again?

reno's hand caresses your cheek, pressing a soft kiss under your ear before peppering them down your neck to your collarbone. they're soft, delicate even, almost as if he's afraid he'll hurt you if he kisses you any harder. it was infuriating. you wanted more-- needed more. "i'm sorry," he murmurs against your skin, fingers trailing to your chest before finding your tit, squeezing gently. "it won't happen again, i promise. just please touch me." his voice drawls out into a quiet whine and you can feel arousal begin to soak your panties.

his hand moves yours to palm at the erection through his pants and you nearly moan for him when your hands shift slightly to cup his balls.

shivering at the feeling of him smirking against your neck-- almost as if he knows he's won-- your head falls back to expose your entire neck to him. every passing second you feel your composure begin to slip. each touch seers hot against your skin, aching-- no, begging-- to give into him. it had only been four days. four days. a mere 96 hours and he was already on you like a dog in heat. "reno," you warn, though you're not sure how much conviction your voice displays. in fact, you're pretty sure it shakes with each breath.

"come on," he sighs, whining-- you can practically hear him pout. "it's been long enough, hasn't it?" his voice is raspy in your ear, vibrations going straight to your core. "wanna touch you. want you to touch me."

you groan in frustration, finally looking into his eyes only to see them glazed over. reno's pupils are dilated, focused solely on you and you alone.

his hand pulls your face closer to his, eyes fluttering to your lips, then your eyes, and back to your lips, silently asking for permission to close the gap.

you finally oblige.

your lips collide in a mess, spit mixing with each other's as reno moves to pull you into his lap in one swift motion. legs straddle his as your arms move to hook around his neck. your tongue slides against his, a fire lighting itself in your stomach as reno's lips move against yours, only proving to further fan the flames. there's a primal desire in the way his hands roam your body, squeezing your waist and pulling you against him, back and forth against his groin.

hands move to unbutton his pants before your lifting your body so he can pull them down, cock springing free as you notice your mouth practically drooling at the sight.

regardless of how many times you had fucked before, you somehow keep forgetting how pretty it is. the way it curves slightly to the left, veins running up the shaft, and oh the way it twitches when your hands find it.

reno nearly cries when you spread the precum along his head, jerking up into you at just your mere touch alone.

the sight is beautiful. reno's hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, head leaned back against the couch as his hands have no idea what to do with themselves. it's as if he was a bumbling, nervous virgin all over again.

that thought is quickly relinquished however, when he lets out a, "fuck, baby... missed this."

— ✶ HOSHINA SOSHIRO | 2 weeks

it wasn't soshiro that broke the sex ban. in fact, he could've gone longer just to prove a point. but with the way you were cuddled up next to him, leg slung over his, pelvis flush with his upper thigh as he felt the pulse of your cunt against him, he figured two weeks was plenty long.

he could tell you were pent up-- knowing that he was jacking off in the same bed, night after night, while you struggled to even reach your own release. it was a constant battle, and the humiliation of envying his right hand only seemed to intensify the torment. you needed him to get the job done, it just wasn't the same by yourself.

hearing the slick of his cock as he stroked himself every other night was pure, psychological torture-- and he knew it.

he knew listening to his rapid, heavy breathing riled you up. he knew his quiet, restrained moans and muffled whimpers soaked your panties. he knew not being able to see or feel his cock pulsing in his hand drove you crazy.

"soshiro," you mumble, your breath tickling his ear as your hand finds the curve of his neck, fingers tracing the line of his jaw before settling in his hair. "sex ban is over." your voice has a hint of embarrassment that soshiro immediately picks up on, and you brace yourself for what's coming next.

he hums, glancing down at you over his phone before setting it on the bedside table. "hmm?" he coos, eyes meeting yours as you prepare for the worst. "done already? you need me that badly, huh?" he speaks in an almost mocking tone and you have to hold back from turning over, red-faced and giving up. but you needed him, no matter how embarrassed he made you.

"don't tease," you plead, hand tracing a path down his chest until it reaches the waistband of his sweats. they hang low on his waist, hugging his hips oh-so-perfectly that you can't help but palm at his length through the fabric, wishing nothing more than for him to just let you have him.

you missed the feeling of him in your hand, jerking when you first brush your thumb over his tip, smearing the precum down his length. you missed how sensitive he gets when your mouth is wrapped around him, tongue swirling around his head, teasing his slit. you missed the unintelligible whimpers that leave his throat when you take him all, spit pooling at the base of his cock, nearly choking at the size. you missed how--

"you can't even handle your own punishment, baby," soshiro breathes, words laced with a dangerous amusement. his head falls back at the feeling of your hand against him. a shaky sigh escapes him, heat spreading to form a knot in his lower belly as he feels his cock harden. "shit," he mutters. "shit, shit, shit."

you smirk at the profanities he so rarely says, fingers inching to dip under his waistband as you trail down the sensitive skin, causing him to shudder. "you want it too," you pout, eyes fixated on the rhythm of his chest rising and falling-- the way he brushes a hand through his hair in an attempt to calm himself down. "or... maybe not?" you tease, pulling your hand away before moving to turn over, but not before soshiro's hand can grip your wrist, stalling your actions.

soshiro's skin is hot, face flushed as he relishes your touch, yearning to feel your soft, velvet walls wrapped around him. it had been too long, he thinks. too long of trying to convince himself he didn't need you, but now, with you so willing to give yourself back to him, he's changed his mind.

"i do," he whispers, although his actions speak louder when he pulls you back to him. "fuck, i want you."

your hand is placed back on his cock, and through the fabric you feel him throb, begging to be taken out. the drawstring of his sweats seemingly unties itself when soshiro pulls the material off, watching as it springs free-- tip leaking with precum. silently gazing at you with hooded eyes, he pumps himself one, two, three times.

sochiro lets out what sounds like more of a whimper than a sigh, "stop gawking and help me out here, would you?"

— ✶ FURUHASHI IHARU | 20 minutes

iharu is a simp through and through. as soon as you enacted the sex ban, he made it his life's mission to eradicate it. i mean, he couldn't just let his girl go without having his cock, right? that would just be too cruel...

"come on, baby. that's not fair, i didn't do anything wrong. it's not my fault vice-captain walked in on us. how was i supposed to know he trained that late?" iharu rambles, pressing his body against your back. his body is hot, still sweaty from the session earlier.

it had been 15 minutes since you had made it back to your dorm in total and utter embarrassment. both of you had left the the gym with red faces and blue balls.

iharu's cock had been slamming into you at an unrelenting pace, one that you weren't even sure was human. too enamored with the way your pussy squeezed him, all he could muster were lazy fingers messily rubbing circles against your clit. you could feel yourself throbbing against his girth, each thrust practically molding your walls to the shape of his cock-- memorizing each detail.

his muscles flexed as he held himself above you on the bench press, the red leather beneath you wet and shiny with sweat, sticking to your skin.

he looked like a god, hell, he felt like a god, with the way his breath fanned your neck, balls slapping against your ass. each slap echoed through the quiet gym, the filth of the sound only spurring the both of you on. "so pretty for me," he mumbles, tongue swiping up your neck before letting out a shaky sigh. "so good to me." your back arched, leaning into him as the heat in your stomach grew, breath picking up in an attempt to chase your orgasm.

and then the door creaked, causing you both to freeze in place and look for the source of the sound. there, hoshina stood, eyes wide as he swiftly turned, back facing you so that you can only imagine the look on his face. "gym is closed after midnight." he'd stated, voice loud, almost like he's trying to block out what he just saw. "go to bed." walking out and closing the door behind him you lay there, iharu's cock still twitching inside you.

"sex ban for two weeks, iharu." you turn to face him, crossing your arms to push him away, watching as he nearly trips on the end of your bed.

his mouth drops, hands gripping your shoulders in a plea. "what? why?" his hold on you isn't strong by any means, just firm, and you can tell you've struck a nerve.

you know he was still pent up from being cock-blocked earlier, but you make no motion to even spare his hard-on a glance. "what do you mean why? i told you we were going to get caught and we did!" your voice raises but you nearly instantly regret it when iharu takes a deep breath, trying to calm the ache pressing against his sweat pants.

he only gets hornier when you're mad at him.

you lower your voice this time, taking his hands off your shoulders. "you didn't listen to me."

"you liked the idea." he lowers his head to whisper in your ear. "i heard the way you were moaning, begging for me to let you finish. how much tighter your pussy squeezed me than normal at the thought of someone walking in." iharu's hands move to the small of your back, tracing his finger tips up and down your spine.

you huff, trying not to concentrate on the way his nails tickle your skin. your head dips down, attempting to calm your breathing before realizing your mistake.

your eyes meet the bulge in iharu's sweats and you nearly let out an audible gulp, thighs pressing themselves together at the sight. he wasn't the only one still pent up.

you hear a low chuckle from above as you absentmindedly move your hands to untie his drawstring.

"so much for a ban," you hear him mumble before shooting him a glare. "not that i mind though, pretty girl."

— ✶ NARUMI GEN | 2 days

there was a mutual end to the sex ban between the two of you... well, sort of. gen had broken it but it's not like you were mad about it.

your breathing was hot and heavy when your eyes open to a half-lit room. absentmindedly, you reach for the right side of the bed, feeling an empty, cold space. it was strange, usually you'd wake up to the man clingy to your side, shivering from the blasting air conditioner.

you had gotten used to his weight as he laid half of his body on you, lips pressed into the crook of your neck. he'd curl into you like a cat, and you swear some mornings you could hear him purr. his hands rested under your body, one cradled your shoulder while the other rested protectively across your waist. it's be a funny looking sight to outsiders-- japans strongest, the number one anti-kaiju combatant in all of the country, snuggled up on top of his girlfriend-- but to you, it was everything.

gen was nowhere to be found next to you, so you nearly jump when you feel a wet kiss press to your upper thigh. you're quick to lift up the covers, your aforementioned missing boyfriend squinting at the light. his hair was a tousled mess, colored ends curling to frame his face. had he been not been between your legs, you'd have thought the sight innocent and sweet.

sleep-heavy eyes meet yours, glazed over in exhaustion before he's swiping his tongue between your folds. you shiver.

it's such a dirty sight. the way he smirks into your pussy, maintaining eye contact. the way his lips find your clit and gently suck, slurping at the excess arousal dripping from your cunt.

and god the noises.

the wet slurping of his mouth savoring your juices filled the room, breath fanning hot against you. the feeling of his lips latching to your clit, tongue gliding through and dipping into your hole caused you to jerk up into him and he only smiled, chuckling at your reactions.

the humiliation burned, too embarrassed to look any longer. but his touch, the rough calluses of his hands holding your legs apart despite your desperate attempt to close them around his head, was intoxicating. "mornin' sleepyhead," he mumbles, pressing a caste kiss to your lower stomach. it was sweet compared to the sight from two seconds ago.

the pads of his fingers trace circles along your thighs, eliciting chills from your body. yet his hands are warm, especially against the cold air. with every shift of your body, a rush of air brushes against your cunt. you shiver, not saying a word but instead curling your hands through his hair and pushing his mouth back to where you needed it most. you needed the warmth-- needed him.

no further words needed to be said as gen drags his tongue ever so slowly through your folds. it's agonizing, it's not enough, it's nearly torture the way he curls his tongue and laps at your juices. so so so slowly as you twitch and buck into him, grinding against the muscle for more. he just huffs out a laugh, actions somehow slowing even further and you finally build up the courage to seek a glance at him again.

his gaze remains firmly fixed on you, meticulously observing every subtle twitch of your body in reaction to the flick of his tongue. and he notices when your breathing starts to pick up, chest rising and falling with increasing fervor as you feel yourself near your release. you close your eyes, concentrating on the heat rising in your core. it's hot and it's approaching fast, bubbling down your stomach and to your cunt.

and then he stops, a gasp leaving you at the sudden halt and your quick to scoff in frustration. sliding up the bed to rest his entire body on you, gen presses a long, wet kiss to your lips.

your eyebrows furrow at the action but relax when his head rests against your chest. "not gonna let you cum until the sex ban is gone," he mumbles into you. hands sliding under your shoulders.

you groan, hand gently slapping the back of his head as he just laughs. "it was gone the second you started eating me out."

"well in that case--"

[chaosfantasmic]

It’s wars angst hour boys.

[cheesecakethots]

chrollo is a bit uncanny in some ways. sometimes he seems more like a monster attempting to be human than an actual one. his gentlemanly façade is akin to a perfect imitation of a person; but it serves to characterise him as just that - an imitation.

it’s why he adores how human you are. messy hair, tired eyes with dark circles, a glean of sweat on your warm skin and a yawn leaving your tempting lips. on the rare nights he gets home late he’ll find himself sighing wistfully at the sight of you in bed, sprawled out and snoring.

sometimes he wonders if he’s even capable of love, if he’s fooled himself into believing a man like him is able to feel such a thing for another.

and then he imagines losing you. he imagines finding you in some abandoned building, your body broken and your eyes wide and your skin cold. he imagines what life would be like after you, or at least tries to. instead his mind revolves around a question he doesn’t want to find the answer to - would there be life after you?

chrollo isn’t sure if what he feels for you is love, if so simple of a word can describe even an ounce of the raw emotion he feels for you.

[jesuistrestriste]

Sage hear me out.

Imagine taking pictures of Stanford art in the SLUTTIEST lingerie and using it as blackmail or to get what you want.

“Huh, I guess I’m gonna have to show Patrick that photo-”

“W-wait- fine.. just take my credit card..”

oh i’m hearinggg you out !

dressing him up in pretty pieces of frilly pink and black lingerie; caressing the straps of the bralette while he flushes and looks away. he pouts while you snap pictures and tell him how beautiful he is, but he secretly adores the way you dote on him—the way you put him in vulnerable positions while he’s in front of your lens..

it gets him throbbing under all of the lace.

so when he involuntarily cums all over the inside of the panties (that basically hold only half of his cock) after the first fifteen photos—a brush of your hand along his inner thigh being all that it takes for him to lose it—you have to blackmail him a little so he’ll pawn over his bank cards or some cash (for you to buy a new, clean set).

at first, he shakes his head and blames you for his premature ejaculation:/ telling you how he ‘wouldn’t have climaxed so fast if you hadn’t touched him in one of his weakspots’. which is basically him telling you that he won’t pay for a replacement pair of panties.

but his tune changes veryy quickly when you flip the camera around and show him all of the nasty photos you took of him just a couple of minutes prior.

including one where he’s actively orgasming.

his toned tummy curled in while his eyes stay squeezed shut and his mouth hangs open in a sharp keen. he’s pink from his cheeks down to his chest. dribbles of sticky, milky white cascading over his skin.

“if you don’t pay for what you ruined, i’m gonna send this to everyone i know. and that includes patrick.”

and art’s eyes widen immediately. he’s scrambling to pull his wallet out from his abandoned gym bag on the floor, while also trying to ignore the twitch he feels down there at the idea of being exposed in such a way..

he’s a complex guy.

and he thinks you’re manipulative, but at least you’re 80 bucks richer !!

[nerdallwritey]

Cheeks All Flushed (Part 1)

***IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ: Unfortunately this chapter was longer than tumblr wanted, so I've split it into two posts. The smut is in the other part if you'd rather skip shenanigans and Get To Business. And that's valid! Part 2 is here and also linked down below. Apologies! It IS all in one place on AO3 if you'd prefer that!

Summary: You looked at him thoughtfully. “Hang on, weren’t you and Karlach trying to get drunk?” Astarion giggled stupidly. “Yes.” You snorted. “How’d that go?” “Fine,” he sighed. “Takes me a lot longer to get drunk. What with the dead liver and all.” You furrowed your brow. “Wouldn’t lacking a working liver make you drunk immediately?” Astarion whined, “I don’t know, but Karlach is completely inebriated and I only have a buzz I can already feel fading. OR It's time for the Tielfing party! Antics ensue.

Pairing: Astarion x f!reader Rating: 18+ Word count: 23.1k (This particular part is 18.5k) CW: smut, reader is new to sex, oral sex (f receiving), mentions of Astarion's past trauma, soft Astarion, porn with feelings, consumption of alcohol, reader is an idiot (and a bard), so is Astarion (not a bard, just an idiot), the other companions are also idiots, reader likes kids, shenanigans amongst friends, general party antics Spoilers: Spoilers for Act 1 (in-game dialogue, plot points, etc.) Also posted to: AO3 FAIR WARNING: This is PART 3 in my series, "Beauty and the Bard." Find Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Find the masterlist here.

a/n: Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who's read the first two parts!! It means so much to me that you guys are enjoying my writing and silliness. This chapter is much more slice-of-life than the last two parts, in that it's mostly fun at the Tiefling party with less smut. It's also the longest part so far! Apologies to those of you here for vampire penis, it'll show up again in the future surely, but tonight is more about tipsy/soft Astarion. I hope you all enjoy :) (Thank you once again to @kermitwazowski for beta reading!) As a reminder of where Part 2 ended, you and Astarion just entered camp after dallying, even though Shadowheart told you not to. Rest in peace, you will be missed.

Taglist: @a66-1, @khaleesiofthewolves, @khywren, @lollipopsandlandmines,

@minestrones, @mizuki-nautilus

It was Wyll who spotted you first. He’d been wandering close to the treeline, gathering extra kindling for the fire, but something told you he’d also been keeping an eye out for you.

“You two are in heaps of trouble,” he muttered, ushering you behind Karlach’s currently vacant tent. “You’re lucky it was me who saw you first.”

“How is she?” you whispered, looking around to see if you could spot Shadowheart.

“I think seeing you might calm her down,” Wyll said, “but be prepared for an earful.”

“Oh please,” Astarion scoffed. “I’ve dealt with worse than an affronted cleric of Shar-'' He stepped out from behind Karlach’s tent and was met face to face with the cleric in question.  

“What was that?” Shadowheart’s hands were on her hips.

Astarion retreated, shielding half of his body behind you. “Hello, Shadowheart,” he waved his fingers delicately and smiled awkwardly. 

You leaned over to Wyll. “Save yourself,” you muttered. “We’ll be fine.”

Wyll gave you a sympathetic look and nodded. “Coming, Karlach!” he called, to which Karlach responded, “What?”

Shadowheart stood before you, looking frustrated and tapping her foot. You adjusted the pile of blankets in your arms. 

“Got the blankets,” you said sheepishly. Astarion raised his pile up a little higher in agreement.

“What was the one thing I said?” Shadowheart ignored the blankets.

You sighed. “‘Don’t dally.’”

“Mhm. And what did you do?”

“We-”

“Astarion?” Shadowheart turned to the vampire. 

He let out a reluctant whining sound. “We dallied.”

Shadowheart looked pleased by his admission. “Whose idea was it?”

You and Astarion shared a look. 

“Don’t tell me, I already know it was Astarion’s,” Shadowheart rolled her eyes.

Astarion scoffed. “You don’t know that!”

Shadowheart raised a doubtful eyebrow and looked at you. You avoided her gaze. She looked back at Astarion. “Yes I do.” 

“Darling,” Astarion hissed at you.

“I didn’t say anything!” you hissed back.

Suddenly Shadowheart grabbed Astarion’s left ear and your right ear and pulled you both out from behind Karlach’s tent. You and Astarion protested as you went.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!”

“Ah! Watch the hair, you heathen!”

Shadowheart flung her arms forward, releasing both of you and sending you stumbling forward towards the roaring fire. You caught yourselves before crashing into the flames. 

“You could have KILLED us just now!” Astarion exclaimed.

Shadowheart ignored him. “Look who’s finally back,” she addressed the rest of camp. 

Lae’zel scoffed, pausing the loud sharpening of her greatsword. “I must give you credit, Astarion, you last longer than I would have thought.”

Astarion straightened. “Thank you, I- hey.”

Lae’zel rolled her eyes and returned to her blade. 

“Sorry, everyone,” you said, feeling your cheeks heat up. “We lost track of time, that’s all.” You adjusted the blankets still in your arms.

“We have nothing to apologize for,” Astarion said, moving close to you and going to kiss your cheek, but thinking better of it when he saw steam pouring from Shadowheart’s ears. “Sorry,” he said to her softly. 

Shadowheart pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head disapprovingly. She clapped her hands together before she spoke. “Okay,” she said and turned to face you, “go wash those blankets and hang them to dry.” You nodded and she turned to Astarion. “Once you help carry those blankets to the lake, you are to help Lae’zel hunt for tonight’s dinner.”

Astarion made to argue. “But-”

“‘But’ nothing. I want the two of you as far away from each other as possible until everything is prepared for tonight’s festivities.”

“Here, here,” Gale agreed from over by the cookware. 

“Oof, tough break,” Karlach smirked. 

Astarion sniffed. “Just because some of us aren’t getting laid, doesn’t mean all of us should suffer the same fate.”

You hid your face in the laundry you were holding and groaned loudly. 

“Watch it, Fangs,” Karlach warned.

Shadowheart took you by the shoulders and turned you towards the lakeshore. “Go,” she said, a bit of a bite to the word. 

“Yes ma’am,” you sighed and started making your way to the waters gently lapping the sand by Withers. 

“You too, Astarion,” you heard Shadowheart behind you. 

“I’m going,” Astarion spat. His footsteps caught up with yours. 

You dropped the blankets by the waterline and grabbed the bucket and soap that you kept nearby for laundry duty, one of your commonly assigned chores. Astarion’s pile of blankets joined your own, then his arms came around your waist from behind, and his chin came to rest on your shoulder.

“Sorry, love,” he murmured, kissing your cheek. 

“At least we’re not dead,” you leaned into his caress. 

“You are so incredibly out in the open it’s unbelievable,” Shadowheart called from a few yards away. 

“GIVE US A MOMENT,” Astarion snapped back in her direction. He turned to look at you, his frustration turning into fondness. “I’ll see you soon.” He kissed the crown of your head just as Lae’zel began to complain. 

“Let’s go, vampire. Before someone else steals what is rightfully ours.”

“I’m not anyone’s!” you complained to the sky above you.

“Is it truly so hard to believe that she actually likes me?” Astarion asked as he made his way to his tent to prepare for the hunt.

“You are handsome but weak,” Lae’zel informed. “Far from the optimal pleasure partner.”

“I could make you eat those words,” Astarion teased.

“You would not last a single minute with me,” Lae’zel said and then returned to her own tent to prepare. 

You sighed, embarrassed but not surprised by the camp’s reaction to your delayed arrival with Astarion. There was no talking your way out of it, especially with Astarion’s line about getting laid. The bastard. He could be so annoying sometimes.

At least you didn’t have to dance around it. Even though less than twenty-four hours ago you would have insisted that there was nothing going on between you and the Astarion, now you smiled to yourself, happy that that was no longer the case. 

“Thou hast now a bosom companion-”

“MISTRESS OF REVEL,” you yelped, clutching a hand to your chest to slow the pounding of your heart. You exhaled and turned to see Withers looking more or less unbothered. “You scared me, Withers.”

“Take care that thou are not distracted on thy quest, seeking the comforts of the flesh.” 

You stared at him. “Gods, you sleep with a guy ONE time.”

Withers stared back.

“Okay, two times.”

The stare continued.

“Okay, so he made me cum, like, five times total, is that what you want to hear?”

Withers said nothing. 

You groaned and picked up a blanket, hiking your pants up your legs. “Whatever, stop looking at me.” You waded out into the water, blanket in one hand, soap and bucket in the other. 

“Recall that in time, all becomes dust and bone.”

“All becomes dust and bone,” you mocked quietly. “You’re a pretty morbid guy, you know that?”

You looked over at him and swore you could see a small smile before his expression faded into one of cool indifference as usual. 

~~~~~

It had taken nearly all afternoon to finish washing and hanging all the blankets to dry on  the makeshift clothesline you’d erected lining the water’s edge, but you’d done it. Shadowheart had been kind enough to cast Lesser Restoration on you to combat the fatigue of blood loss and to help fade the marks still leftover on your neck. As a result, all you’d suffered from washing was some mild back pain from constantly bending to dunk and soap the blankets and standing back up to hang them. Laundry out here wasn’t the easiest task, especially without the proper tools you’d usually find in the city, but you enjoyed the peace that came from the still waters of the lake. Today, you’d been extra thorough in your work and you were pretty sure the blankets were cleaner now than they had been when Astarion had nicked them from your companions in the first place. 

Speaking of your companions, Shadowheart was doing her best to keep Astarion away from you for as long as possible. When he’d come back from hunting with Lae’zel, she’d made him help Gale prepare the meat.

“Even though I can’t partake in the meal,” he’d protested, “I have to help prepare it? Really?”

“Ah, relax,” Gale smacked him a little too hard on the back, “you can drain it dry first. Much easier if you go to town on the creature rather than letting me exsanguinate it myself with a blade.”

“I’m not some personal predator,” Astarion crossed his arms. A beat. “But fine, I suppose I can help this one time.”

After he’d drained tonight’s meal, a large wild boar, Shadowheart had sent him and Wyll to scavenge for more wine at the Blighted Village. He’d complained about the long trek and the poor quality of the wine they’d probably find, but Wyll had been able to drag him off after a bit of flattery and the batting of eyes. The man was too easy sometimes. 

By then, the sun hung low in the sky and you’d asked Karlach to come stand by the blankets and act as a heater to speed up the drying process. 

“Do you miss him already?” she teased.

“Who?” you teased back, adjusting another blanket.

“Do you loooove him?”

You sputtered. “What?! No! I mean- I don’t know! This is new for me, and new for him and we’re figuring things out, we’ve barely talked about it and-”

She laughed at your word vomit. “Was it good?”

You paused. “Was what good?”

Karlach rolled her eyes. “You know what.”

You felt your cheeks heat up and your heart begin to pound. “Can we not talk about this?”

Karlach groaned. “Come on Soldier, I’m so pent up it’s criminal! I know I’d ride him to the Feywild and back if I had the chance.”

“Karlach!” You whisper shouted. Luckily the others were too busy with their assigned preparation tasks to pay attention to the two of you huddled behind the damp blankets. 

She didn’t say anything, but raised her eyebrows at you to encourage you to talk.

You sighed and avoided eye contact. “It was really good,” you muttered, hoping she might not hear you.

A smug smile graced her lips. “I knew it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you waved her off, wringing the water out of one of the blankets on the end of the clothesline. 

“He seems like the type who’d know his way around.”

“Yeah, well.”

“And how does he compare? Best you’ve ever had?”

“Um…” You pursed your lips.

“Wait, but you just said it was really good?”

“It was!”

“But-?”

“There is no but! He was really good!”

“You’re hiding something, Soldier, I can tell. He wasn’t the best you’ve ever had?”

“It’s just that… there haven’t been… others… to compare it to.”

Karlach stared at you. “WHAT?!” Her flames erupted to the point where you had to take a few steps back. 

“Shh! Quiet!” You listened for your other companions but heard nothing. 

“Don’t tell me Astarion was your first?!”

“And so what if he was!”

“The smug bastard,” Karlach muttered. Her face grew serious. “If he so much as looks at you wrong, tell me, and I’ll kill him.”

You laughed. “Shadowheart’s first in line to kill him, but don’t worry, I’ll have you waiting in the wings.”

“I’m serious. I’ll kill the pointy freak before he can hurt you, mark my words.”

You laughed again, moving closer to her now that her flames were calming. “Astarion and I are both adults. I’ll be fine.” Your voice went soft, “And I think he truly cares for me.”

Karlach huffed in disbelief. “Gross little vampire probably smelled your virgin blood and couldn’t keep away.” 

You narrowed your eyes at her. “Don’t be ridiculous. He likes me.”

“We all like you,” Karlach sighed. “You’re a lot of fun.”

“Thank you.”

“But none of us would want to see you get hurt by the leech.”

“You know, I think he’s more sensitive than you all realize.”

“Astarion.” It was more of a statement of disbelief than a question. She raised a skeptical eyebrow. 

“Yes.”

“Mr. ‘Tell Me How You’d Like to Die?’ Mr. ‘Describe How I Look in the Mirror and Tell Me I’m Beautiful?’ Mr. ‘I Have A Troubling Relationship with Power Over Others?’” She looked at you pointedly. “Mr.-”

“Alright,” you cut her off. 

“No wait, I've got another.” Karlach held up her finger like she was about to say something. “Nope. Lost it. Damn, it felt like a good one, too.”

“We all have our quirks,” you said, steering the conversion back on track. “Astarion, I think, has a few more than one might deem acceptable, but I trust him. He’s been true to his word about everything so far.” Your voice got small, “And I really like him.”

Karlach blew out a breath of resignation. “I know you do, Soldier.” Her hesitance turned into thoughtfulness. “And he did look pretty smitten when I found you both this morning.”

Your face went red at the memory. “Gods, that was so embarrassing. I still can’t believe we fell asleep out there.” Your brain took a second to process what she’d said. You turned to look at her, a small smile forming. “‘Smitten?’ Do you really think so?”

Karlach rolled her eyes affectionately. “Yes, he couldn’t take his eyes off you.”

Your small smile grew into a smirk of satisfaction. You grew giddy. “You should have heard him, Karlach! He was so sweet, and gentle, and he kept checking in with me, and didn’t make me feel awkward or bad, and his body, oh my GODS, his body! When I say he’s unfairly beautiful, it truly is unfair because, how in the Nine Hells do you get abs like that and-”

Karlach was watching you with a fond smile on her face. She grinned and lifted a hand to stop you. “Okay, okay, I believe you. He took care of you.”

You sighed happily. “He did.”

“I’m glad.” After a moment, she sighed dramatically. “Okay, so maybe he didn’t just fuck you in some sort of weird vampire power play because you’re a virgin.”

“Karlach!” You furrowed your brows. “Seriously?”

“Oh, sorry,” she amended, “you were a virgin.”

You scrunched your nose at her. “You’re so lucky you’re a walking inferno, otherwise I’d punch you so hard right now.”

“You don’t have the guts,” she teased. “You’re too soft, Soldier.”

“I am,” you sighed in agreement. 

The two of you stood in a pleasant silence while Karlach paced back and forth to dry the blankets evenly. 

“I’d hug you if I could, you know,” she said quietly. “I am happy for you. And if anyone is getting laid around here, I’m glad it’s you.”

“Thanks?” you laughed. 

“But if he gives you any trouble, you come find Mama K, yeah?”

You saluted her playfully and she mirrored you.

“Your guests dost approach from the east.”

“WITHERS,” you stomped your foot, pretending to be upset, but smiling over at him. “We need to put a bell on you to remind us that you’re still alive.”

“I am not still of this realm of existence,” Withers corrected.

“You know what she means, skelly boy,” Karlach grinned over at him and then at you. “Come on soldier, let’s go greet our adoring fans.”

Karlach led the way to the center of camp where sure enough, Halsin and the tieflings of the Emerald Grove were emerging through the brush. Halsin caught your eye and waved affably. You waved back, happy to see him looking so well after the rescue from the goblin camp. 

Behind him, he tugged a cart meant for an ox, filled to the brim with food and booze and the eight troublesome kids who’d been kind enough to show you their hideout hidden beneath the Grove. Mol hopped out first, followed by Arabella and Mattis and the others who looked around briefly before zeroing in on the abandoned little temple past the waterfall in the corner of camp. They made their way over to it and disappeared inside.

Noted. You’d have to check on them later.

Suddenly a flash of blue and pink was launching itself at you and you stumbled backwards as it wrapped you in a tight hug.

“Alfira!” you wheezed, returning her hug.

She pulled away, grinning. “I’ve been looking forward to this all day!” She was positively giddy and her mood was infectious. “I need to get some wine in me first, but we must play something together!”

Your smile faltered a little. “I’d love to, but my lute’s a little worse for wear.” You led her over to your tent and gathered a few pieces of the shattered instrument from your bag.

“Oh, you weren’t kidding.” Alfira took the pieces and examined them closely. 

Lakrissa found her way over to you. “Is this one causing trouble?” she asked, playfully slinging an arm around Alfira’s shoulders. “She was buzzing all afternoon about this shindig.”

“Hi Lakrissa,” you greeted happily. “No, I was actually just showing her the state of my lute.” You pulled a loose string out of your bag to emphasize your point. 

“I’ve seen this before,” Alfira took the string from you and inspected it along with the few shards of wood you’d already handed her. “The music overtook you during a particularly powerful song and your trusty instrument suffered the consequences. Did you bash it into a rock in a fit of musical liberation? Been there.”

You gritted your teeth sheepishly. “I wish it was in a fit of musical liberation. No, I kind of got backed into a corner protecting Astarion from a bugbear attack.”

“The mouthy one?” Lakrissa asked.

“You’ve met a mouthy bugbear?”

“No, Alfie, I mean their mouthy friend. The one with the hair?” She lifted her hand up to her own head to try and emphasize the height of his hair. 

“Oh yeah! Hard to keep track of you all,” Alfira shrugged.

You laughed, “Think about how we feel! There’s a billion of you!” You gestured around to the tieflings that were now acclimating to your spruced up camp.

Shadowheart had done a great job of tidying the clearing of fallen branches and mischievous weeds and had gone around making sure that everybody’s tents were in order. With the help of Lae’zel and Karlach, the three had managed to move a large log into the center of camp that was acting as a table that currently housed the booze your party had gathered, along with the food Gale had been preparing all afternoon. 

Gale, as soon as he’d declared the meal to be sufficient, had gone around hanging colorful banners throughout the camp with a few magic words and the snap of his fingers. You’d offered to help him in his effort but he politely declined, citing Shadowheart’s wrath. 

Now Halsin, Zevlor, and a few of the other adult tieflings were unloading the cattle cart and adding their hoard of food and drink to the table. Shadowheart and Gale were already filling goblets with wine and Lae’zel was chatting with (or maybe threatening) a tiefling that you recognized as one of the guards at the gate to the Grove. Karlach waved over at you from where she was talking with Dammon and you returned it happily.

You turned back to Alfira and Lakrissa. “Sorry Alfira, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to play with you tonight.”

“Nonsense!” She took you by the hand and led you and Lakrissa to the cattle cart. She pulled out two lutes and held one out to you. “One’s my teacher’s. I’ll play hers and you can borrow mine for tonight.”

You took the instrument she offered carefully, testing its weight in your hands. It was lovingly worn and smooth to the touch. You gave an experimental pluck at one of the strings. Perfectly in tune. You strummed a chord and minor illusioned Gale’s robes to go from deep purple to a loud, obnoxious orange. 

Gale paused in his pouring of wine as Shadowheart snorted. He looked down at his robes then looked over at you smirking at him. “Hey…” He scolded with no ice behind his words. He addressed Alfira and Lakrissa who were holding back giggles, “You realize you’ve just given her a literal instrument to channel the weave more potently, and now she can make tonight extremely irritating for us all?”

“You missed my illusions,” you teased, strumming again and returning his robes to their royal purple hue.

“On the contrary, we were only gifted about twelve blissful hours without you tormenting us with your tomfoolery.” 

You pouted at him teasingly. “How sad.” You poised your hands, ready to strum another chord. “I could make things so much worse,” you threatened, your voice lowered to a stupid octave.

“Behave,” Shadowheart raised her eyebrows at you, but you could see the amusement that played at her features.

“Fine,” you groaned and turned back to Alfira. “Thank you for this, I promise not to attack another bugbear with it for the sake of the mouthy one.”

A voice sounded from behind you. “The mouthy one?”

Astarion came to stand beside you, his hands clasped behind his back and skin speckled with blood spatter. For some reason, he absolutely stank. 

“Oh gods,” you said, scrunching your nose and turning away. “Did you and Wyll wander into a stinking cloud or something?”

“Hello, dearest,” he purred, pulling you to him and puckering his lips for a playful kiss, but you pushed his face away, avoiding his mouth at all costs.

“Get away from me, freak,” you laughed as he was able to plant a kiss on your cheek with a loud “MWAH.” He looked very pleased with himself. 

Alfira and Lakrissa, meanwhile, watched this display politely with their noses plugged.

Lakrissa gestured between the two of you. ��When did this happen?” Her voice was nasally. 

“He’s always been a jackass,” you said.

“She means, love, when did you finally pluck up the courage to confess your undying love for me?” The flamboyant lilt in Astarion’s voice made you smile. 

“This just happened, actually,” you said, pointing from you to Astarion. “The stink is extra new.” 

“Do you like it, darling? A gift from one of the goblins at that Blighted Village. They weren’t pleased we came for their wine, stink bombs were thrown, blood was spilled, a tale as old as time.”

“Did you get to murder a bunch of goblins?” Despite the topic, you spoke to him as if he were a child. 

“I did,” he said, his voice gravelly, his face twisted in a wicked smirk. 

“Good for you. Now get the hells away from us.” You pointed in the direction of his tent. “I don’t know why you haven’t already scrubbed your skin raw to get rid of that smell. You hate things of a vile nature.” You adjusted your accent to sound like him as you said the last bit. “Though you do love gore.”

“I had to share this delightful experience with you first, my sweet. Obviously.”

“Obviously.” You gave him a teasingly sour expression and pushed him off in the direction of his tent. “Get fresh clothes and go jump in the lake or something! Then burn that armor!”

Astarion grabbed your arm and pulled you closer again, much to your dismay and protest. He brought his mouth to your ear. “Care to join me?”

You met his gaze, which flickered down to your lips for a moment, only for a roguish grin to spread across his face. You grew flustered and looked away.

“Maybe later.”

He chuckled, “Can’t wait.” Then he spun on his heel and headed off to his tent.

“Sorry about that,” you said, turning back to Alfira and Lakrissa, only to discover that they’d already walked away. You spotted them pouring themselves some wine a little ways off and sighed. 

“They left ages ago,” Astarion called over his shoulder.

“And you’re still here?” you called back, smiling. 

He laughed and you settled Alfira’s lute safely within your tent before you meandered your way over to Rolan and his siblings who were seated not far off. Rolan was bent over, his eyes closed in concentration. 

“Evening, folks,” you greeted and were met with joyful hellos from Lia and Cal.

“You’re just in time for Rolan’s extremely cool magic trick.” Lia teased.

“That is, if he’d hurry up and do it already,” Cal added.

“Patience,” Rolan said. “Have you no respect for showmanship?” He cracked his knuckles enthusiastically. 

Cal leaned forward and whispered loud enough for all of you to hear, “Having performance issues, Rolan?”

“Hush, you,” Rolan rolled his eyes.

“I, for one, love a good bout of showmanship,” you settled in next to Cal. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Rolan gestured to you, vindicated. “Thank you,” he said through gritted teeth as he looked at his siblings. He took a deep breath. “And…”

A burst of colorful light erupted from his hands as he lifted them into the air.

“...behold!” He exclaimed as the colors faded into tiny bursts of light, dissipating like fireworks.

You clapped excitedly. “Beautiful!”

Rolan looked over at you, clearly pleased. “Adoring applause? You’re too kind.” He bowed dramatically, making a show of his gratitude. 

Lia turned to Cal. “Remember when he could barely cast that?”

Cal nodded. “They grow up so fast.”

Something caught your attention from a ways off. Peeking out from behind the large cluster of rocks you found yourself facing was Silfy; the younger sister of Mattis, the tiefling child who tried to sell you a “lucky ring.” Astarion had halted your hand when you went to give him a coin, shaking his head and explaining that you were being scammed. 

Now, however, Silfy seemed alone. You remembered how upset she’d been when you caught her trying to rifle through your pockets. 

“Never have I met such troglodytes,” you heard Rolan laugh. “Now, pass the wine.”

“I have to take care of something,” you said as you stood up. “I’m sure I’ll see you again before the party’s over,” you smiled and waved, making your way over to Silfy’s hiding spot. 

You saw her see you and duck behind the rock. 

“Hello,” you coaxed gently, bending on your knee to level your height with hers. Silfy poked her head out but looked nervous. “It’s okay,” you encouraged. “You’re Silfy, right?”

She came out slowly and nodded. 

“That was a pretty cool show just now, huh?” You said, referencing Rolan’s trick which she’d no doubt seen. 

She nodded again and looked at her feet.

“What are you doing over here all alone?”

She sniffled. “Mattis was mean to me.”

You tilted your head. “What did he say?”

Silfy looked up at you. “He said Mol would never let me in her Guild in the city because I’m no good at pick-pocketing.” Her voice wobbled and you could tell she was trying not to cry.

You hid a smile. The things siblings fought about… And this particular fight was extra unusual. “Should we go talk to him?” you asked.

“Okay,” she said and watched as you stood. 

“Come on,” you said and took her hand.

Together, you and Silfy walked around the length of camp, passing people as you went. You tossed out polite greetings and a few kind words, but eventually made it to the waterfall and the slippery log that connected your camp to the little temple where you knew the other kids were hanging out. You held tight to Silfy as you crossed the log.

Mol stood by the entrance. “Silfy!” she exclaimed, clearly happy to see her. “There you are.”

Silfy let go of your hand and approached Mol. “Sorry I’m no good at pick-pocketing,” her voice barely audible above the roar of the waterfall a few feet away. 

“Is that what Mattis said that made you run away? Ah, don’t listen to him. You’ll get plenty of practice before we reach the Gate.” 

Silfy stood up a little straighter and looked pleased. 

Mol cocked her head towards the temple entrance. “Get in there,” she smiled.

Silfy smiled back and ran inside. Mol turned to face you. 

“Thanks for that,” she said. 

“Happy to help,” you said, attempting to subtly peer into the temple and see what the others were up to.

“You came through for us. That’s a change from most adults I know.” 

You shifted a little to try and get a better angle. It was too dark.

“What are you guys doing way over here?” you asked absently.

“Watching a bunch of old folks get dumber by the dram-full. And when they run dry… I’ve got a few bottles tucked away to keep things flowing.” She grinned at her own ingenuity. “For a price, of course,” she added. 

“Smart,” you nodded and crossed your arms. An idea had struck you earlier in the evening when you saw the kids slink over here. You readjusted your feet, trying to look like an authority figure but knowing Mol was probably immune to the act. “How would you guys like to get a little practice in, this evening?”

Mol looked at you curiously. “Practice what?”

“Scamming. Scheming. Stealing.”

“I’m listening.”

“One of the men I travel with, the one with the hair-”

“-long or floofy?”

“Floofy, for sure,” you answered almost immediately.

“Right. I know him.”

“Well he considers himself to be an expert at sleight of hand.”

Mol scoffed.

“I know,” you agreed. “I think you should all prove you’re better than him.”

“Easy,” Mol crossed her arms. “How?”

“Here’s my proposal: You each try to take something from his tent or off his person without getting caught. If you get caught, you’re out.”

“And if we don’t get caught?” 

“Depending on what it is you took, I might let you keep it.”

Mol scoffed again. “What’s the point of stealing off him if there’s a chance we won’t be able to keep our spoils?”

You pursed your lips in agreement. “Honestly, I really want to prank him and I think it would be hilarious if you guys took his stuff. He loves his stuff.”

“I do love a good con…” Mol pondered for a moment. “Alright, counteroffer.”

“Lay it on me.”

“Since you happened to catch me in a good mood; we do this for you and we have your sworn loyalty once we establish ourselves as the best Guild in the Gate.” She thought for another moment. “Also two hundred gold.”

You sucked in a breath. “You drive a hard bargain, Mol.” You held out your hand for her to shake. “But you’ve got a deal.”

“Hang on, you’re not gonna try to talk us out of it? Not gonna haggle?”

“I already tried to talk you out of it back at the Grove,” you shrugged. “But you’re all way too clever for your own good and I know there’s no changing your minds. Besides, it’ll be nice to have some friends waiting for us in the city.” You smiled at her, your hand still outstretched. 

She returned your smile and took your hand, shaking it firmly. “Deal.”

“A pleasure doing business with you,” you bowed dramatically and Mol snickered.

Mol made her way to the open door of the temple. She looked back at you. “I expect to see that two hundred gold before the night is through.”

“I’ll go get it right now,” you said pointing back towards camp.

Mol nodded, satisfied, then entered the temple. You heard her shout as you were leaving: “Alright, listen up! We’ve got a job.”

You smiled to yourself. You didn’t know what had come over you, and you knew that it was dangerous to be negotiating deals with con artists in the making, but you couldn’t help yourself. Especially after Astarion had crowded you in the aftermath of the stink bomb he’d been hit with. You loved watching him squirm and this was a great opportunity to do so. Mol and her gang of tiefling troublemakers were harmless as they were right now. They’d managed to take odds and ends from around the Grove, minus Arabella’s attempt to take the idol from the druids’ ritual. There was nothing currently at camp that couldn’t be replaced on the road. After all, you’d all crashed onto the same beach with nothing but the clothes on your backs. Well, except maybe the artifact Shadowheart concealed on her person, but you had just sicced the kids in the opposite direction towards the vampire. 

You made your way back into camp, stopping to chat with Zevlor and Halsin. 

“Gentlemen,” you acknowledged, trying not to seem guilty after conspiring with the leader of the child criminals a few yards away. “A pleasure to see you both.” You noticed Zevlor was enjoying a goblet of wine, but Halsin was not. “Not partaking in the revelry, Halsin?” 

He chuckled. “I assume you mean my lack of a goblet of wine or a cask of ale?”

You nodded.

“In truth, I rarely imbibe. The stuff goes right to my head. Before you know it, I’d be breaking into song or declaring love to the first person I laid eyes on.”

“Oh, ho, ho.” You and Zevlor made amused eye contact. “You sure you’re not a bard, archdruid?” You elbowed Halsin playfully and he chuckled again. 

“You’ve never heard me singing. Which makes you very fortunate.”

Zevlor laughed. “Yes, the singing we could probably do without. It feels so good to see these people smiling, let’s not ruin it. ”

“Then I shall not keep your ear any longer,” Halsin said, holding up his hands in playful surrender. He nodded to you. “There are many grateful people here who want to spend time with you. Go enjoy yourself. Seek out some wine before it runs dry; there are a lot of thirsty people around here.”

Zevlor raised his goblet to you. “Here, here.” You mimed raising your own cup to clink with his. You exchanged goodbyes and the men resumed whatever conversation they’d been having before you walked by. 

Your tent wasn’t far off and you knew you had plenty of gold in your bag to spare for your hired thieves. You exchanged a few more hellos before making it over to your tent. You lit a single candle to help you search your bag in the dim light of your tent and tried to not draw attention to yourself. You started digging through your bag for your coin pouch. 

Just as you’d counted out the last of the gold, you heard Astarion behind you. 

“Here’s my little treat,” he purred.

You stood up quickly, miscalculating where you were located in space and hitting your head against the top of your tent.

“Agh!” you yelped, turning around to face Astarion and ducking to properly exit. You looked away from him, hoping he wouldn’t ask what you were up to.

He looked you up and down. “With their cheeks all flushed.” 

“Hi,” you said, not knowing how to respond. 

“Hello,” he smiled, drawing closer. “You’ll notice a distinct lack of blood stains and horrid stench to me.” He held out his arms and spun to show off his fresh, clean appearance. “It’s crazy what a little water and perfume can accomplish.”

“Well done,” you teased. “You’ve mastered basic hygiene.” 

He moved even closer. “Go on,” he said, leaning towards you, “give me a sniff.”

“And smell more rotten eggs? I’ll pass.”

“Come on,” he said, rolling his eyes.

You looked at him skeptically, then leaned in a little and inhaled. 

He smelled just as good as he had this morning, perhaps even better given that he’d just reapplied whatever it was he used to scent himself. You leaned in closer to his throat and inhaled again. It was a clean scent; one that was mature and distinctly male. It was delicious.

“What is that?” you asked, not pulling away.

Astarion chuckled lowly. “You like it?”

You finally pulled back and nodded. 

“Just a little scent profile I concocted to mask the unfortunate smell of death that comes from being, well, dead.”

“Do tell,” you probed, just as you noticed Mattis and Silfy sneaking around, a little ways off, clearly on their way to you and Astarion. You did your best to hide your stare, but Astarion noticed when your eyes shifted back a little too quickly and he looked behind himself. Mattis and Silfy quickly ducked behind a nearby tent. He turned back to face you.

“Thought I saw something. It was nothing.” It was a bad excuse, was what it was.

Astarion narrowed his eyes but continued, excited to talk about his scent mixture. “Mind you, my undead smell is very faint, but it’s nothing a little bergamot, rosemary, and a hit of aged brandy can’t hide. It’s the perfect olfactory disguise for a corpse.”

“Sounds like you missed your calling as a perfumer,” you said, genuinely interested in what he was saying but noticing Mattis and Silfy out of the corner of your eye. 

“I did, didn’t I?”

It was then that Mattis and Silfy approached you both.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Mattis said, the picture of innocence. “Silfy and I just wanted to thank you again for finding her earlier.”

Silfy nodded.

“Oh!” you said, doing your best to sound shocked. You bent to get on eye level with her again. “I’m glad you’re okay, Silfy.”

Silfy sniffled and threw her arms around your neck. “Oh, thank you, Miss Hero!”

“Aw, this is too much,” you said, rubbing her back and making eye contact with Mattis. “I’m always happy to help.”

Mattis came around behind you and hugged you as well. 

“Thank you for reuniting me with my baby sister.”

You felt his hand reach for your own and grab the pouch containing the two hundred gold for Mol. He concealed it expertly. 

Both he and Silfy pulled away from you at the same time. “Well, guess we better head back to the others. It was so nice meeting you.” Mattis turned to leave but Silfy lingered.

“Come find us in Baldur’s Gate!”

You smiled at her. “We definitely will,” you squeezed her hands before she shuffled off to join Mattis walking back towards the temple. 

You stood up, dusting off the front of your pants. 

Astarion looked at you with narrowed eyes and crossed arms.

You pointed with your thumb over your shoulder in the direction the kids were headed. “That was weird.”

“Why’d you give them a coin purse?”

You sputtered. “Why did I-? Whaaaaat? I didn’t-”

Astarion placed his hands on his hips. 

You sighed and looked at your feet. “Okay, I didn’t want to tell you this, but Silfy was upset because Mattis said she wasn’t good at pick-pocketing, so I went to the kids and said Silfy could practice on me.” You smiled lamely.

“So why did the brother pocket it?” He was onto you.

“I uh… think it was a round one type of thing. So next time it’ll just be Silfy.”

“Uh huh.” Astarion didn’t look convinced. “I’m going to assume you lost some sort of bet with Mol and her fleet of child criminals and that those two are the ones who came to collect.”

“Ah!” you exclaimed. “You caught me! I said I could beat Arabella in a staring contest and lost big time. Like, double or nothing lost.”

Astarion tsked and stepped forward, wrapping his arms around your waist. “You really must stop picking fights with children that you cannot win.”

“I can win,” you got defensive, even though you were lying through your teeth. 

Astarion tilted his head in disbelief. 

“I can!” You doubled down. 

“Mhm.” Astarion leaned forward and kissed you deeply, tilting you back a bit and bringing his hand to your cheek. 

He pulled away and you blinked back at him, dazed. 

“I missed you,” he murmured, resting his forehead against yours. “You and your weird soft spot for those urchins.” He pretended to gag, as if admitting such things was making him sick.

“Aw, shucks.” 

He groaned. “I’m going to have to insist that you remove ‘aw shucks’ from your vocabulary immediately.” 

“Or what? You’ll kill me?” Your eyes went to his mouth.

He flashed his fangs. “Don’t tempt me, darling.” He bent forward to kiss your neck and you tilted your head to give him better access.

“Astarion,” you half protested, “people can see us.”

“Let them,” he hummed against your throat. He moved his mouth so it was beside your ear. “Come to my bed tonight.”

A pleasant chill ran through your body. “I’ve seen your bed,” you sighed, thinking of the wooden pallet in his tent that was often covered with jars of half-drunk animal blood. “Come to mine instead.” 

Astarion growled from the back of his throat and kissed your neck again. 

“Yo, Astarion!” Karlach’s voice called from the food table. 

He pulled back slowly and turned to her, his arms still resting around your waist. “I’m a smidge busy here, Karlach.”

Karlach held up her hands innocently. She made eye contact with you and winked. “I just wanted to know if you’d seen all the wine the tieflings brought.”

“Of course I’ve seen the wine, I procured half of- wait, the tieflings brought wine?” He immediately pulled away from you and marched over to the table, examining the copious bottles of liquor. “So I got a stink bomb thrown at me and it was for nothing?!”

Karlach sucked in a breath. “Seems like it. Sorry, mate.”

Astarion turned back to look at you, clearly distraught by this discovery. You withheld a laugh.

He turned back and picked up a bottle and goblet. “Well, we’ll see who’s the better sommelier: me or the half-fiends.”

Karlach turned quickly and whipped him with her tail.

“Hey!” He stumbled a little, but caught himself. 

“Whoops! Sorry, you can never trust us half-fiends.” She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Oh,” Astarion backtracked. “Apologies, Karlach. I didn’t mean that.”

“Mmm,” Karlach crossed her arms. Then she smiled. “Wanna get drunk?”

“Gods, yes,” he sighed and uncorked a bottle, grabbing two goblets. He turned back towards you, still standing at your tent. “Care to partake?”

You smiled and shook your head. “I’m going to continue with my rounds,” you said, pointing vaguely towards the party at large.

Astarion shrugged and turned back to Karlach.

“Your loss, Soldier!”

“Save me a glass of the best stuff,” you called before walking in the direction of Gale’s tent. 

“No promises,” Astarion sang as you rounded the corner and found Gale at his tent, a goblet of wine in his hand and a half eaten plate of food set off to the side. 

“And how’s my favorite wizard enjoying the evening’s festivities?” you asked upon arrival.

“Ah,” he smiled, “come to turn my robes yellow this time?”

You held up your hands. “No lute. Sorry about earlier.”

“All in good fun,” he reassured. “I did miss your tomfoolery.”

“I knew you did,” you elbowed him playfully and he laughed.

“A beautiful night, don’t you think?” He looked up at the stars. 

Your gaze followed his. “That it is.”

“Nothing like a brush with destruction to make one appreciate the majesty of the celestial canvas.”

“Yes, destruction by cleric would have been a tough way to go.”

“Indeed,” he chuckled and looked back up at the stars. “This is a view I once might have shared with my companion. Though definitely unaccompanied by such revelry.” He gestured over to Danis and Bex, drunkenly giggling with each other not far off. 

He turned back to you. “She preferred it when we were alone, curled up before a crackling hearth with some ancient, esoteric tome between us, ink glinting by the firelight…”

You smiled at the wistful look on his face. “I hope you’re referring to your cat and not Mystra.”

“By Ahghairon’s lost nose- no!” His voice cracked a little as he exclaimed. “Tara is not any cat. She’s a tressym. And given your confusion, I’m guessing you’ve never met one.”

“Guilty,” you said, smiling sheepishly.

“They’re brilliant creatures; fine company for any self-respecting wizard. She’d be most impressed by our efforts saving these tieflings. Proud, even. And I’ve given her little to be proud of recently.” 

“Not true! Gale, you have so much to be proud of.” 

“You’re very kind,” he sighed. “She’s the one who discovered that the orb’s fury could be quelled with magically-infused items, you know.”

“You’re kidding! How’d she figure that out?”

“A lot of trial and error,” Gale laughed, holding a hand to his chest where the orb laid quiet for now. “I can still feel the phantom torment of her claws prodding me. Regardless, after so long being cared for by someone else, it feels good to repay the favor. Not directly to Tara, but these poor tieflings. I’m sure she would approve.”

You placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “I know she would.”

He smiled at you, then looked away. “So… you and Astarion.”

“Me and Astarion,” you bobbed back and forth on your feet.

“He has a certain charm about him, Astarion,” he nodded. “Then again, so does a tiger when it purrs.” He took a swig of his wine.

“Gale, if I did something that led you to think-”

“Nonsense,” he interrupted before you could finish the thought. “You did nothing of the sort. I think I’m just too deep in my cups.” He looked down into his goblet and sighed before looking back at you. “I’m glad you found each other. And better I have this revelation now than farther into our journey.”

“You’ll always be my favorite wizard,” you said, punching his bicep in playful camaraderie. “I hope this doesn’t change things between us. I value our friendship too much.”

He chuckled softly, his hand ghosting over where yours had just made contact. “This changes nothing.” A reassuring smile graced his features. 

Movement to your left on the beach caught your attention.

“Is that Wyll?” you asked.

Gale followed your eyes over to his right. “Ah, yes I believe he’s been pensively staring at the water for a majority of the evening.”

“And you didn’t check on him?”

“I did, but he insisted on being alone. Though I’m sure he would much rather welcome your company than that of a babbling wizard.” He nudged you with his elbow. “But after that, go indulge in the frivolities! They’re good for the heart. And mine will be lighter, to see you enjoying yourself.”

You surged forward and hugged him. He held you tightly while still clutching his goblet. When you pulled away you pointed at him. “You still need to teach me lanceboard.”

“And you need to stop enchanting the pieces to attack each other.”

“I will when it stops making you laugh.” You grinned at him, then waved and headed towards Wyll.

Just as Gale had said, Wyll was standing alone by the water’s edge, past the drying blankets that swayed subtly in the evening air. 

“Thought I smelled you over here,” you said, sliding down some rocks and making him noticeably flinch.

“Oh gods, do I still stink?” He raised his arm to his nose and inhaled deeply. “I fear I’ll never be fully rid of it.”

“I was teasing,” you came to stand beside him and looked at the lake. “Though, Astarion seems to have a promising career ahead of himself as a perfumer if you need his help.”

Wyll chuckled. “Good to know that your new beau smells as good as he looks.”

“Indeed he does,” you smiled at him and he smiled back. 

After a moment, Wyll sighed. “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice I was gone.”

“It’s no party without the Blade of Frontiers.”

“Really? I’m honored.” He turned back to face the water. “In truth, I don’t feel in a festive mood. And I didn’t want to cast a grey cloud over the night.”

“What? Why?” It concerned you deeply that one of your beloved companions was feeling down and you hadn’t even noticed. “What brought this on?”

“I’m a devil,” Wyll scowled. “I love the people from the Grove, but I unsettle them deep down. As I seem to unsettle everyone nowadays. You don’t want a devil at your party.”

You were surprised he felt that way. Mizora had so kindly gifted him his devilish features not long after Karlach officially joined your team well over a tenday ago, and the people of the Grove had long since come to terms with the Blade’s new horns. He was still Wyll; kind, fiercely protective, and above all, a good man. Those who couldn’t see that were fools.

“Claws will pop the balloons, you see,” Wyll teased, trying to lift the mood. “And the sweetcakes don’t taste half as good as raw eggs with this blasted forked tongue.” 

You smiled sadly. “You don’t unsettle me. Or any of us. You know that.”

Wyll laughed humorlessly. “If only half the world had half the heart you do.” A small smile tugged at his lips. “But off with you. This is your day! Have a dance. Enjoy the music.”

“I suspect you’re the best dancer among us, Mr. Upper City. I’d love to dance with you sometime.”

Wyll laughed. “In truth, I always enjoyed a bit of pomp.”

“You seem like the type,” you laughed.

“I once beat the Baldurian record for the most sarabandes dances in a single evening. Much to the exhaustion of the good ladies and gentlemen of the Gate.” 

“I can see it now,” you said wistfully.

“I had years of lessons, but honestly, it’s all about your partner.” 

You took a step back and bowed dramatically. “Well I hope one of these evenings I might be a proper partner to stumble along with.”

Wyll smirked and bowed back to you. “One of these evenings,” he agreed. He inhaled deeply and turned back to the lake. “I just need some time alone beneath the stars, and I’ll be back to my old self. Promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” you said, walking forward and hugging him. He returned it and you squeezed him tightly. 

“Okay,” he jokingly wheezed, “you have my word.”

“Good,” you pulled away. “You know where to find me,” you said, nodding your head in the direction of the party. 

“I do,” Wyll nodded, looking at you fondly. 

You turned and called down the beach, “Keep an eye on him, Withers!”

Withers simply stared at you from his spot by the boats. 

You placed your hands on your hips. “One of these days I will crack him.”

Wyll laughed and waved you off. “Good luck with that.”

As you reemerged into the party, you saw Zaki run past you holding a tin of one of Astarion’s hair products. You snorted and looked around to make sure Astarion hadn’t seen. 

No, he and Karlach were still busy downing goblets of wine and comparing them to each other. 

“Bitter!” Astarion exclaimed, sticking out his tongue and pulling the goblet away from his mouth as if it had bitten him.

“Ah, you’ve got no taste, Astarion!” Karlach clapped him on the back. “This one’s better than the crap you served three cups ago.”

Astarion scoffed. “That was a classic vintage! Gods, it’s like you know nothing of fine wines.”

Karlach rolled her eyes. “Um, hello? Ten years in Avernus, mate. Didn’t get much drinking in while enslaved. Anything’s better than fire wine.”

“Tragic,” was all he said in response.

Suddenly Alfira was running over to you. “There you are!” The sweet scent of alcohol wafted off of her and she held a goblet in one hand and her teacher’s lute in the other. “Now, this might be the wine talking, but I’m feeling inspired. Thinking of writing my next song… about you.” 

“Me?” you asked, placing your hands on your chest and batting your eyes. “I’m flattered.”

Alfira nodded. “But I need an angle. Any ideas?”

You thought for a moment, then made your voice pompous. “Let it be only as truthful as true poetry would permit.”

Alfira grinned and matched your tone, “But of course.” Then she became serious, “You achieved something beyond mere fact by helping all of us. That deserves to be remembered.” She shut her eyes for a moment, regaining her thoughts. “Buuuut, like I said, I need more wine before I truly start waxing poetic. Shall we play a song together now?”

“Great idea,” you grinned and started making your way to your tent to retrieve her lute. 

As you passed by Astarion and Karlach, you watched Arabella reach into Astarion’s back pocket and come away with what looked like a few coins. She made eye contact with you and smirked before running off.

Karlach clearly saw this occur and held in a laugh. She looked past Astarion at you and you held a finger up to your mouth, signaling for her not to say anything. She snorted.

“What’s so funny?” Astarion asked.

“Nothing, you just look so stupid when you sniff wine like that.”

“I do not!” he protested. A beat. “Do I?”

You shook your head to yourself as you made it to your tent and grabbed the lute, walking with Alfira to the center of camp by the fire. 

“What shall we play?” she asked. 

“How about a classic?” you suggested, strumming the opening chords to “Bard Dance.”

Alfira grinned and nodded, immediately picking up the harmonies to the song while you took the melody. A sudden whistling caught your ear and you turned to see Volo performing the song with just as much gusto as the two of you. Had he been here the whole time?

Around you, the tieflings and your companions gathered around to hear you both play. They were stiff at first, merely listening and swaying to the familiar tune they’d no doubt heard many times. It wasn’t long before Danis bowed to Bex, who curtsied back, and the two began dancing merrily around the clearing. 

With the ice broken, others coupled off to dance together, and others formed groups of three or four. 

Shadowheart clapped along to the beat as Gale approached her and twirled her around happily. Karlach joined the fray, swinging her hips and waving her arms, but was careful not to hit anyone by mistake. Even Halsin joined in on the fun, awkwardly marching back and forth to the beat and encouraging shy tieflings to join him. Lae’zel and Astarion remained on the edge of the crowd, but you could see Lae’zel tapping her foot to the beat despite her best efforts to remain unaffected by the merriment. 

As your fingers danced over the strings, you sent off a few minor illusions of fireworks to add some dazzle to the performance. Alfira added her own dancing lights to swirl around the audience.

You made eye contact with Astarion who was smirking at you. He made to raise his goblet to you in a toast, but his hand was empty. He looked around himself to see if he’d misplaced it, but movement farther back in camp let you know that it was Meli who had absconded with the cup. You smiled widely at Astarion and shrugged. He shrugged back, smiling and reaching for a new cup. 

As the jovial song came to an end, the audience clapped and a few members approached you and Alfira, thanking you for the music and placing a few coins in your palms. 

“Marvelous!”

“Such fun!”

“Alfira, you simply must play for us on our journey to the Gate!”

“No praise for the wizard, Volo?” Volo complained to an unhearing crowd. He humphed and returned to scribbling in a notebook closeby.

You and Alfira thanked everyone before you handed Alfira her lute back.

“Thank you for this,” you said. “I’d love to play again with you some time.”

Alfira took the instrument from you and nodded. “Oh, yes please!” She looked at her lute for a moment, then held it back out to you. “You should keep this one.” 

“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” you shook your head. “You’ve clearly had it for a long time. It must hold sentimental value to you. I don’t want you to part with it, I’ll have a new lute in no time.”

“Please,” Alfira insisted, still holding it out. “You play so beautifully.”

“Don’t go inflating her ego now,” Astarion said as he approached carrying two goblets of wine. “She’s annoying enough as it is.” 

Behind him you saw Mirkon run by with a set of thieves' tools.

Astarion handed you one of the goblets of wine and smiled at you. “Hello, my sweet.”

“Hi,” you said shyly, still not used to his full attention but enjoying it nonetheless.

“Oh, stop teasing her,” Alfira said, rolling her eyes. “Tell her how well she did and make her take my lute.” She held it out again.

“While yes, she did play wonderfully-”

You looked at Astarion, a little shocked. You weren’t sure he’d ever complimented your music before.

“-she won’t be needing the lute.”

“See,” you said to Alfira before pausing for a moment and turning back to Astarion. “I won’t?”

He shook his head at you. “It’s taken care of already,” he said to Alfira. 

She understood what he was saying and nodded. “How very kind of you,” she said, smiling. She reached forward and squeezed your hand. “I’ll make sure to see you again before we leave.” 

You nodded and smiled as she left to rejoin Lakrissa at the wine table.

You turned to Astarion who looked smug. He turned to face you and grinned.

“What was that?” you asked.

“What was what, darling?”

“With Alfira. ‘It’s taken care of already.’ Did you steal me a lute or something?”

Astarion brought his goblet to his lips, ignoring you.

You gasped, your mouth open in faux horror. “You did not.”

“And if I did?”

“Where?”

He groaned. “Enough questions. Come enjoy a drink with me.”

He took your hand and led you over to his tent. When you arrived, he dropped your hand and held up his cup for you to clink with his. He took a sip. 

“You know, I never pictured myself as a hero.”

You snorted. “Bold of you to assume that’s what you are.”

He rolled his eyes and continued. “Never thought I’d be the one they toast for saving so many lives. And now that I’m here…”

He held you in suspense as he took another drink of his wine. 

When he pulled the cup away, he scowled. “I hate it. This is awful.” 

“Aw,” you said, walking forward and wrapping your arms around his neck before pulling back a little. “Is this okay?” you asked softly.

He nodded.

You continued. “It’s not that bad. Think of all the goblins you killed.”

“True,” he agreed. “That was fun. Still, I would have liked more than a pat on the head and vinegar for wine.” 

You raised your eyebrows. “I’m sorry, weren’t you the one who curated the wine?”

“Yes, but it’s not like I had much variety to choose from. Plus the tieflings didn’t bring anything to write home about.” He cocked his hip to the side, then nodded to you. “Go ahead, give it a taste.”

You stepped back and swirled the wine in the goblet that Astarion had provided for you. You took a tentative sip of the heavy, rich red. It was dry and sharp. To be honest, it tasted like most other reds you’d had before.

Astarion leaned forward a bit to gauge your reaction. “See what I mean? Awful.”

You rolled your eyes fondly. “Why didn’t you pick a better one, then?”

“Darling, this is the best they had.” 

“How sad,” you sighed, clearly not as upset as he hoped you’d be.

He held up a hand and turned away from you. “None of you have any taste.” 

“I’m sorry, my love,” you brushed some hair out of his face. “You’ll have to share once you find something you actually like. That way I’ll know what to look for.”

He sighed heavily. “What would be the point? You probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”

“Rude,” you scoffed, “but fair.” You looked at him thoughtfully. “Hang on, weren’t you and Karlach trying to get drunk?”

Astarion giggled stupidly. “Yes.”

You snorted. “How’d that go?”

“Fine,” he sighed. “Takes me a lot longer to get drunk. What with the dead liver and all.”

You furrowed your brow. “Wouldn’t lacking a working liver make you drunk immediately?”

Astarion whined, “I don’t know, but Karlach is completely inebriated and I only have a buzz I can already feel fading.”

You looked over to Karlach who was still dancing despite the fact that you and Alfira had finished your performance several minutes ago. She was trying to get Dammon and Zevlor to join her but both looked like they were searching for escape routes. 

You laughed. “Shame there’s no music to accompany her,” you said, half joking.

“An excellent point, my dear.” He turned to bend down, wobbling, but catching himself. He started rifling through his possessions. “Odd,” he mumbled, “I swore it was here.”

“What are you looking for?” you asked.

“Hmm?” He was clearly lost in thought. “Oh nothing, darling. But, um, do me a favor and go somewhere else for a minute.” He waved you away without looking at you.

You smirked. “Okay,” you said, pretty sure he was looking for the lute he’d snatched for you. As you were about to step away, you paused, remembering the gang of young thieves actively stealing from Astarion. “I-” you shook your head. “Nevermind, keep looking.”

“I will, now go away.” He got up to look behind his tent. 

You held in a laugh and made your way over to Shadowheart, who you just witnessed pour herself a fresh glass of wine. 

“Hello,” you said, joining her at the refreshments table and popping a grape into your mouth. The crisp snap of the grape reminded you how hungry you were and you began to fill a plate with food. 

“Hungry?” Shadowheart laughed.

“I haven’t eaten all day,” you said through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “I missed bread and cheese this afternoon.”

“Uh huh,” Shadowheart rolled her eyes. “And whose fault was that?”

You slowed your chewing and slouched. “Mine.”

“Uh huh,” she took a swig of wine and smiled at you. “I think it’s safe to say you learned your lesson.”

You nodded as you took a large bite off a bread roll. 

Shadowheart took a step back to rest against the table. She surveyed the party at large. 

“Everyone seems to be in high spirits.”

You swallowed heavily and willed yourself not to choke, clearing your throat instead. “You put together a great party, Shadowheart.”

“I know,” she smiled. She shimmied closer to you and nodded over to Astarion’s tent where the man was still searching around, looking deeply confused. “I saw you and Astarion have been reunited.”

You lifted your gaze to Astarion’s tent, your expression melting into one of pure adoration. He was such an idiot. Even though you knew you were the cause of his ignorance. You shook your head, snapping out of it.

“Sorry again.”

Shadowheart blew out a puff of air. “Far be it from me to keep you two apart any longer. Besides,” she nudged you playfully, “blood must still be running hot. After everything.”

This time you did choke. Shadowheart’s eyes widened and she smacked you on the back.

“I’m fine!” you insisted. You cleared your throat and took a sip of wine. 

Shadowheart laughed. “It’s fun getting you flustered.”

“I’m sure Astarion would say the same,” you agreed.

She sighed happily next to you and returned to looking into the party.

“You know who I never thought I’d find myself caring for?”

You stuffed your mouth with a hunk of cheese on a cracker to the point where you could barely get out the word, “Me?”

Shadowheart looked at you and laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I mean, desperate people… like these refugees. Never gave them much of a thought. Certainly not this bunch from the Grove. Yet we came through for them. We saved their lives. Odd.”

You nudged her with your shoulder. “I hate to say it Shadowheart, but you’re a good person. Though given your sentimentality, it sounds like the wine is talking,” you teased.

“It’s not talking enough for my liking.” She turned and grabbed the bottle you’d seen her pouring from moments ago. “Share a bottle with me?” 

You looked at her skeptically. “Just a bottle? You’re not trying to poison me for disobeying you earlier, are you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Just a bottle of poison free wine. You’ve suffered enough. Besides, I think you have other plans afterwards. Wouldn’t want to keep you.” She kicked her foot out towards Astarion’s tent which was now vacant, minus Doni slinking away with a hairbrush.

Before you could give her an answer, she was filling your goblet to the brim, despite the fact that you hadn’t finished the wine that was already there. She poured the rest into her own goblet, shaking the bottle to get out the last few drops.

“There,” she said. “Liquid courage.”

She tapped the brim of her goblet against yours and took a long sip. You joined her. Mixing the two wines hadn’t been a bad idea after all. There was a pleasant fruity aftertaste that you enjoyed. You went back in for another sip. 

She watched you as you drank. “Do try to get some rest tonight if you can. Tomorrow’s another day.”

“Yes, mom.”

She smacked your arm. “How dare you! I’m nobody’s mother.” She took another swig of her wine just as Lae’zel approached with her greatsword. 

“Are you aware that the child thieves are taking our belongings from camp?”

Shadowheart choked a little. “Excuse me?” She patted herself down and was relieved when her hand made contact with the artifact still on her person. She didn’t dare pull it out in front of everyone and instead looked at you.

“Oh, that,” you said smiling. “I told them they could.”

“And why would you tell them that?” Lae’zel narrowed her eyes. 

“Don’t worry,” you sat up straighter. “I told them they could only take from Astarion.”

Shadowheart snorted. “What?”

“Yeah, I thought it would be funny if the rogue got robbed by a bunch of kids.”

“Chk,” Lae’zel scoffed. “He is failing miserably at what he claims to be very good at.” She eased her stance and loosened her grip on her greatsword.

You laughed. “I think it’s partially Karlach’s fault. She suggested they both get drunk.”

“That’ll do it,” Shadowheart nodded, taking another sip of wine. 

“Hang on, Lae’zel, were you planning on attacking the kids?” You pointed at her sword.

Lae’zel eyed the weapon, then looked at you. “All children should know how to defend themselves from enemy attacks. I had already killed two of my cousins by the time I was their age.”

You nodded slowly. “Killing isn’t as much of a priority when you’re a kid here.”

“You make that blatantly obvious everyday with your oafish battle stance and shoddy swordsmanship.”

You scoffed and Shadowheart laughed. “I’m a lot better at fighting now, thanks,” you smiled at her, not actually offended. You knew she’d been raised on an entirely different plane, and who were you to judge their customs? At this point in your adventure, you knew not to take her harsh words personally. Even though she was usually right.

Lae’zel looked you up and down. “Perhaps so. I have seen the kith’raki tear a screaming neogi’s legs from its belly to fashion into blades.”

“Ew,” Shadowheart scowled. 

Lae’zel kept her eyes trained on you. “Yet, they could not match your nerve at the goblin camp. It was enough to drive me to madness.”

“Oh,” you said, a bit taken aback. “Thanks?”

“I smell their blood on you still. I smell your sweat.”

Your eyes widened. “Oh gods, I thought I washed that all off-”

Shadowheart set a hand on your shoulder and shook her head. You turned your focus back on Lae’zel. 

“I meant to taste that sweat. Pity for us you’ve already promised your body to Astarion.” She crossed her arms, annoyed.

“Ah,” you nodded, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Lae’zel, I didn’t know you felt that way about me.” 

“Chk,” Laezel rolled her eyes. “It is your loss. Come morning you will wonder. You will wonder how my lips might have tasted. How my fingers on your skin might have felt.”

You looked down at the ground, feeling guilty for not picking up on her intentions sooner. Shadowheart laid a comforting hand on your back.

“Enough, Lae’zel,” she said. “She was bound to make a choice sooner or later. Let’s respect her decision.”

“And what a foolish decision it was. Astarion can’t even handle a few children. I would skewer them the moment they touched one of my belongings.” She thrusted her greatsword forward as if to demonstrate. 

You swallowed. “Then let’s be glad they aren’t after your belongings.” 

Lae’zel looked down her nose at you. “Let us hope that continues.” 

“Hope what continues?” Astarion approached the three of you and grabbed another bottle of wine, not bothering to pour it into his goblet and instead opting to drink directly from the source.

You shook your head, feigning annoyance. “Are you following me?”

“Darling,” he purred, sidling up next to you, “didn’t I tell you last night that I wasn’t going to leave you alone anymore, especially after we-”

Lae’zel groaned loudly. “I’m going to keep a vigilant watch for any of those whelps stepping out of line.” She turned on her heel and headed back to her tent, but not before intimidating a few unfortunate tieflings milling about nearby. 

Astarion took another swig from his bottle and winced, not enjoying the taste. “What’s with her? Apart from her usual Lae’zel…ness?”

“Don’t worry about it,” you said, sipping your own wine and feeling warmth spread through your chest.

Shadowheart leaned over to look at the vampire. “Enjoying yourself, Astarion?”

Astarion did a double take, apparently having not noticed her when he first walked up. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around you protectively.

“Ooohh no,” he said, “you’re not sending me out on another long errand to keep me away from her.” He sounded whiney, likely from the buzz he was still nursing with the wine.

You and Shadowheart laughed.

“It’s okay, dearest,” you teased, poking his nose. “We’ve made peace with Shadowheart.”

Astarion looked from you to Shadowheart skeptically. “No more errands?”

Shadowheart smirked. “Don’t dally again and we won’t have to find out, will we?”

That answer seemed to satisfy Astarion, who pulled away from you and continued to drink from his bottle. “I suppose that’s fair. But to answer your question, yes, surprisingly I’m having a delightful time.”

You scrunched your nose. “What happened to hating all the attention and the bad wine?”

Astarion rolled his eyes. “Must you always question the details, darling?”

You laughed. “Yes, evidently I must.”

Astarion waved his hand in the air, ignoring your answer and continuing to address Shadowheart. “It’s been centuries since I’ve been able to really let loose at a soiree such as this without being told what to do or hunting for something.” He wrapped you in his arms again. “Not when I already have my prey for the evening right here.”

Your eyes widened at Shadowheart and you avoided eye contact with her, flustered.

“Astarion,” you muttered as he kissed your shoulder from behind.

Surprisingly, when you looked back at her, Shadowheart had a small smile on her face.  

She addressed you when she spoke. “Seems like you’ve really captured this one under your spell.” She nodded her head towards Astarion who had his nose pressed against your neck. 

He pulled back and looked shocked. “Is that what this is? Have you cursed me? Vile witch!” He smiled at you like a dope. He snapped his fingers at Shadowheart. “Remove this curse, cleric!”

Shadowheart grabbed his hand and set it back at his side. “What you’re not going to do is snap at me as if I were a dog.” She looked at you. “Who knew liquor would make him even more insufferable?”

“We should have accounted for this,” you agreed. 

“I am right here,” Astarion pouted.

You reached for one of his hands wrapped around you and squeezed it. “We know, dummy.”

His slightly unfocused eyes went gooey. He looked at Shadowheart. “You know, Shadowheart, we were each others’ firsts.”

You went rigid under his touch and Shadowheart inhaled her wine by accident, coughing briefly.

“That can’t be true,” she said looking between the two of you.

“Astarion,” you elbowed him.

Astarion scowled. “Oh, perish the thought, she was the first thinking creature I ever drank from.”

Shadowheart nodded slowly. “Congratulations?” She looked at you. “You didn’t drink… his blood too, did you?”

You shook your head and Astarion laughed. 

“No dear, I took her virginity.”

You elbowed Astarion with a good amount of force. 

“I will kill you,” you muttered exasperatedly.

“You will not,” he wheezed.

“I will not,” you sighed, looking up at Shadowheart, whose eyes had gone wide. 

Her expression morphed from one of shock to one of anger. She stood and walked over to Astarion. Her hand glowed with the makings of a guiding bolt. You stood quickly and stepped in front of Astarion, shielding him.

“Shadowheart!” you exclaimed. “It’s alright!”

“He’s a vampiric freak,” she said loudly, drawing the attention of a few party goers. “He’s using you for your blood and your innocence!”

Astarion scoffed and stood, stepping to the side, rendering your body shield useless. 

“How dare you,” he said, stomping his foot. “While, yes, that does sound like me, and was my intention originally,” Shadowheart raised her glowing hand and you held up your arms to stop her, “I did not make passionate love to her for no reason!”

You brought your hands to your face and ran them down your features slowly. This was mortifying.

“Can we keep it down?” you asked quietly.

Shadowheart rolled her eyes and dropped the prepped guiding bolt. She crossed her arms and looked at Astarion expectantly. “And what was the reason?”

He groaned dramatically. “Gods, I only brought it up as a joke for a laugh, do we have to keep it up?”

“Astarion,” both you and Shadowheart warned.

“Fine,” he avoided looking at you. “I like her, alright? More than like her, she’s- well, I don’t know what she is.” He took your hand in both of his own. “But isn’t it nice not to know?”

You looked at each other for a moment, his face soft, but a little concerned. You smiled and brought the back of his hand to your mouth for a kiss.

“So you didn’t bed her for the sake of gaining power from her virginity or something?”

That snapped Astarion out of his focus on you. “What? No, of course not! I’m a spawn anyway, so even if I wanted to I couldn’t.” He smiled at you. “But I didn’t want to!” He added quickly. 

“Nice save,” you teased, ruffling his hair, then thinking better of it and moving it back into place. “Let’s keep our sex lives to ourselves from now on, okay?”

“Gods below, if I’d known she’d react like that-” Astarion looked up at Shadowheart who was crossing her arms and looking at him as if daring him to finish the sentence. He cleared his throat. “Noted.”

Shadowheart shook her head and rolled her eyes before perching on the refreshments table once again.

“If he hurts you, I’m going to kill him and not revive him. And I’ll pay Withers for him to stay dead.”

You patted her shoulder. “I know. Thank you.”

Astarion leaned over to look at her. “To be clear, I don’t plan on hurting her.”

Shadowheart changed the subject. “What were you looking for over there?” She nodded her head towards Astarion’s tent. 

“Hmm?” he looked confused as to what she was referring to, then caught on and perched on the refreshment table again beside you. “Oh, just a little something for our beautiful bard here.” He started playing with the ends of your hair.

Shadowheart returned to her wine. “Couldn’t find it?”

“You know, it’s the strangest thing, I’ve been misplacing things all evening. Must be because of this delicious buzz I’ve got.” Astarion remembered the bottle he’d set down mere moments ago and returned to it.

Shadowheart lifted her eyebrows at you over her goblet. “Strange,” she said with an air of “We know exactly what’s happening and Astarion doesn't.”

You sighed, thinking he’d suffered enough at the hands of the kids. You took his free hand and hauled him up from the table. 

He eyed you curiously but made sure to take the wine bottle up with him. “What is it, darling?”

“Come on,” you started leading him towards the temple. 

“Oh ho,” he chuckled, stumbling a bit behind you, “wanted to get me alone, did you?” He sped up a little and gently bit the tip of your ear. 

You gasped at the sensation and he pulled back to smirk at you. You blinked and shook your head. “Trust me, you’re not going to want to ravish me in there,” you nodded ahead to the temple. 

Astarion caught you by the waist and lifted you a little, forcing you to stop moving. You yelped and he pulled you back so that he could whisper in your ear. “I can take you wherever I damn well please,” he growled. 

You shivered as he set you back down. “As sexy as you are, my love, you’ll see what I mean momentarily.”

You grabbed his hand again and led him across the log bridge and into the temple.

Only to find it empty.

Your stomach dropped. Uh oh.

Astarion sighed. “I don’t see what the problem is, dear.”

He took advantage of his grip on your hand and pulled you back to him, then spun you around so that your back was against the damp stone wall of the now truly abandoned temple. 

His knee came between your legs and he pinned your hands above your head. 

You were too shocked to say anything.

He grinned, and leaned into your ear again. “I could take you right here and right now,” he bent to kiss your throat and moved his thigh to rub deliciously against you. When you let out a small noise of satisfaction, he pulled back to look at you, his voice low, “If that’s what you want.” 

“Astarion,” you whined, closing your eyes and rolling your hips. 

“Yes, sweet girl?” he smirked at the pathetic look on your face.

“Kids, Astarion,” you exhaled shakily as he adjusted his thigh to give you a better angle. 

He paused. “Kids?” Then he chuckled. “I don’t think you need to worry about that, darling.”

You opened your eyes and gave him a confused look. 

He gave you an equally confused look. “I’m dead,” he said slowly, “I don’t think it’s possible?” He raked his eyes over your body and rested on your stomach. “Is it?”

You gently whacked the side of his head. “No, idiot, I’m talking about the tiefling kids.”

“Oh!” Astarion let out a relieved laugh. “What about them? You didn’t lose our entire camp over a game of hopscotch, did you?”

You rolled your eyes and pushed off the wall, looking around for any sign of the kids. It was dark and you couldn’t make out a thing. You groaned loudly up at the ceiling and ran your hands down your face. 

“I shouldn’t have trusted them…” you muttered.

“What did you do?” Astarion asked, sounding prematurely annoyed. 

You ignored him and opted to march out of the temple and up the log back into camp. 

A small laugh rang out from behind Gale’s vacant tent a ways off.

It sounded distinctly childish. 

You huffed some hair out of your face and marched up to Volo who was near Wyll’s tent, still writing in his journal. 

He lit up as you approached. “Aha! There you are! Come now, settle in. I do hope you have partaken in something bracing? This may well take up all night.”

You grabbed him by the arm. “No time.”

He protested as you dragged him towards the edge of camp. “I say! Unhand me! I’d hate to see your name slandered in an upcoming tale of your heroic escapades!” 

You ignored him and spun him to face you. “How loud can you whistle?”

Volo puffed his chest proudly. “I’m surprised you have to ask, given my accompaniment to your performance earlier this evening.” He cleared his throat and stood up straighter. “As loud and as lively as necessary.”

“Great. I’m going to need one sharp, loud whistle on my say so.”

He leaned in conspiratorially. “Ah, drawing attention, are we? Giving a rousing speech? Toasting to your fine accomplishments?”

“Neither.” You cupped your hands up to your mouth. “MOL AND COMPANY.”

The party grew silent.

Volo tilted his head. “Oh. Interesting choice of audience. But, children are the future-”

You elbowed him. “Do it now.”

“Right.” As instructed, Volo lifted his fingers to his mouth and blew harshly, emitting a loud, high pitched whistle.

You saw heads turn to you, as well as the figures of the kids clamoring to look at you from behind Gale’s tent.

“TO ME,” you called firmly, making eye contact with Mol and motioning for her and the others to come to you. 

As the children filed towards you, Volo shrunk back. “Do you need-”

“You can go.” 

“Thank heavens. Good evening.” He tipped his hat to you, then scurried off back to his post by Wyll’s tent. 

Mol came to a stop in front of you, crossing her arms and scowling at you. “What do you want now?”

You looked down at all eight of the hired thieves. Most avoided eye contact but Mol and Arabella, who smiled at you. You crossed your arms.

“It’s time to go over your spoils.”

“What, in front of him?” Meli asked, pointing behind you at Astarion, who lingered behind you looking rather in awe of what was occuring. 

“It’s been long enough,” you confirmed. “You all did very well and I’m very pleased with your efforts.”

You watched as the kids grew smug and shared excited looks with each other. 

Mattis spoke up. “What do we get in return for doing so good?”

“So well,” Astarion corrected.

“Didn’t ask you, did I mate?” Mattis snarled. 

Astarion flashed his fangs in retaliation and Mattis shut his mouth.

You placed your hands on your hips. “Well let’s see what you gathered, huh? Then we can determine.”

Mol clicked her tongue. “I already told ya’s, we have her support when we get to the Gate.”

“Lame!” Zaki exclaimed. “We should get some kind of physical prize or something.”

Doni made a noise of agreement. 

Mirkon shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s nice that we have the support of the hero of the Grove to help us.”

Arabella smirked. “I kind of want to see what else she has to offer.”

You did your best to stay stoic in front of them all, but you were too endeared by their curiosity and felt a smile tugging at your lips.

“Alright cretins,” you teased loudly, “show me where you buried the loot.”

Silfy giggled. “We didn’t bury it, silly!”

“Silfy,” Mattis hissed.

She grew quiet. “Sorry.”

“Be nice,” you warned, resting your hands on your hips. You took a deep breath, thinking about how to proceed. “Alright, first one to show me where you hid the loot gets their prize first.”

“Prize?!” Zaki gasped and Meli was already running across camp.

The other seven raced off after him.

You sighed fondly, choosing to walk after them at a leisurely pace.

Astarion caught up and strolled beside you. “Am I to understand that you had the urchins steal my belongings this evening?”

You clasped your hands behind your back and looked straight ahead. “Perhaps.”

Astarion chuckled. “I’d kill you if I didn’t desperately want to kiss you right now. Seeing your command over those children was really something.”

You cleared your throat. “Later. We need to get your stuff back first.”

He nodded, his brows furrowing. “You seem to like kids. Not just those brats.”

“I do,” you smiled. “They can be the best audience. Plus they’re hilarious in their own ways without even trying most of the time.”

Astarion nodded. “A collective of child criminals is rather funny from an objective point of view.”

“They’re pretty good, too,” you bumped his hip. “Got past our master rogue all evening.”

Astarion tsked. “I blame the wine, darling.”

“I think you’re getting sloppy.”

“Would you STOP FLIRTING and GET OVER HERE?” Mattis yelled from the boats near Withers.

Arabella leaned against the boat closest to the living corpse. “Bone Man here said we could hide our stuff in the boats.”

“Withers!” you exclaimed with no actual anger in the cry. 

“I did no such thing,” he denied, as stoic as ever. 

“Uh huh,” you said, then leaned in conspiratorially to the kids. “He hides our stuff all the time.”

The kids snickered, looking from you to Withers.

“I do not,” he said, his tone holding the same inflection as always. “I hast no need of thine earthly possessions.”

You clicked your tongue. “And yet you require compensation from us whenever we need something from you. Where’s the money going, Withers?”

Silfy giggled.

Withers didn’t budge.

You turned back to the kids. “He absolutely hides our stuff.” 

They snickered again. 

You moved closer to the boat to peer inside. Doni stepped in front of you, blocking your view.

“Alright, alright,” you laughed, taking a step back, “who wants to show me what they took first.”

“So you really are going to reward them for this behavior?” Astarion crossed his arms and you ignored him. 

“I got here first,” Meli said, stepping forward with his hands behind his back, “just so we’re clear.”

“You did not,” Zaki protested, “Doni got here before any of us.”

“Doni doesn’t count! He’s the best sneak of all of us!”

“He does count and that’s why he won!”

“Quiet, you two,” Mol said with a bit of an edge to her tone. “Doni did win fair and square.”

“Told you!” Zaki stuck out his tongue.

Meli rolled his eyes. “Whatever.” He stepped forward and addressed you. “May I present…” he pulled his hands out from behind his back, revealing Astarion’s wine goblet from earlier.

“You little whelp,” Astarion hissed but you held up a hand to silence him.

Meli smirked at the vampire. “You’ll notice,” he tipped the goblet forward so you could look inside, “not a drop wasted.”

Sure enough, the goblet still contained a hefty portion of deep red liquid. 

You applauded his effort and a few of the other kids joined in. “Well done, Meli. But, uh, you didn’t drink any, did you?”

Meli scowled. “Yuck, no thanks. I don’t know why adults like this stuff.”

Astarion bent forward. “I’ll be taking that,” he swiped the goblet back, “thank you.” He took a long, deep sip, then wiped a drop that rolled down the side of his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“Who’s next?” you asked.

Silfy reached into the boat and pulled out a small brooch, covered in rubies and emeralds. “I got this from his tent.”

You got down on your knees in front of her again. “Oh Silfy!” you said, in awe of the craftsmanship. “This is lovely! Good job.” You turned to show Astarion.

He looked uninterested. “That was my mother’s.”

You stiffened briefly, then relaxed. “No, it wasn’t.”

He snorted. “Of course it wasn’t. I swiped it off some dead-” You made a face at him and nodded towards the kids, reminding him that young ears were listening, “-teddy… bear?”

“People die,” Mattis said flatly. “We’re not idiots.”

“I’m missing a gods damn eye,” Mol pointed to the bandage around her head.

You sighed. “I don’t know why I’m even trying, you guys are way too smart.” You turned and handed the brooch back to Astarion who pocketed it without question. 

“The smartest,” Mol grinned, looking around at the other seven.

Mirkon stepped forward. “Me next!” he reached into the boat and pulled something out, concealing it behind his back. He looked very pleased with himself when he revealed a set of thieves' tools. 

Astarion laughed once, humorlessly. “I have a million of those.”

Mirkon smirked. “Yes, but only one on your person.”

Astarion’s face fell and he patted himself down. His mouth raised into the smallest smile. “Not bad.” 

Mirkon tried to look cool, but he burst into a grin and stepped back to rejoin the others. You handed the tools to Astarion who hid them on his person once again and took another sip of his wine.

Zaki reached into the boat. “Here’s what I got.” He held out an unmarked tin but one that you recognized as one of Astarion’s beloved hair products.

Astarion spat a bit of his wine. “Give that here,” he held out his hand and Zaki clutched the tin closer to his chest. 

“Why should I?”

“Um, Zaki?” You made eye contact with him and shook your head. 

Zaki sighed and handed it over to Astarion reluctantly. “Tasted terrible anyway.”

You laughed and Astarion sputtered. “This is NOT to be ingested, you twerp.”

“Weirdo man!” Zaki exclaimed in response.

“Oof,” you turned to Astarion, “that’s gotta hurt.”

The kids laughed. Astarion narrowed his eyes. 

He examined the contents of the tin to see how much was left. When he saw that not much had been sacrificed, he sighed in relief. “This is a fine hair product from a particular salon in the Upper City that I was able to snatch while on the road. I only have the one container, if you must know.”

You turned back to Zaki. “Well done,” you clapped for him. “It’s like you stole his baby.”

Zaki blushed and smiled before Doni stepped forward.

He made a small noise and held out a hairbrush. 

Astarion gasped and snatched it from Doni quickly. “This was actually on my person during the Nautiloid crash.” He held it close to his chest. “I had it hidden away, how’d you find it?”

Doni responded with another unintelligible noise.

Astarion looked at the other kids.

Arabella shrugged. “We try not to question his methods.”

You patted Doni’s arm. “Great job, Doni.”

He smiled and Arabella took his place. 

She held out a small coin purse. “Tah dah!”

Astarion bent forward to examine it closer. “Sorry darling, that’s not mine.”

Arabella smiled. “I know.” She loosened the string to the purse and emptied the contents into her hand. A substantial amount of coins fell into her palm. “But these are.”

Astarion gasped and felt around his person again. You and Mol laughed at the look on his face. “Har har, I’d like those back now, please.”

Arabella handed the coins back a little too eagerly.

Astarion rolled his eyes. “All of it.”

Arabella’s shoulders slumped and she reached into the pocket of her skirt, handing him another handful of gold. 

“Work on your poker face, darling.” 

Arabella pursed her lips but nodded. 

“Mattis,” Mol said, motioning for him to step forward. 

Mattis nodded and looked between you and Astarion with a smirk. 

He extended his arms, revealing a dagger in each hand. “Whoa,” you said cautiously, motioning for the other kids to step away. 

Astarion laughed. “Be careful with those, kid.” He knelt next to you, looking Mattis in the eye. He elbowed the tiefling gently in the ribs, but it was enough to shock him into loosening his grip. Astarion caught one of the daggers and expertly grabbed the other one by the hilt and yanked it from Mattis’ hand. 

Before Mattis could even register what happened, Astarion was back on his feet, sheathing the daggers through his belt.

You looked at him with a shocked expression. He raised an eyebrow.

“What? Oh please, I didn’t hurt the child, and now he’s no longer armed. You’re welcome.”

You turned to Mattis. “You okay, Mattis?”

Mattis rubbed his chest and nodded. He looked up at Astarion in awe. “You have got to teach me that.”

The other kids agreed and crowded the vampire. 

He laughed uncomfortably. “There are… so many of you.” He looked to you for help.

“Alright guys, let’s give floofy hair some space.”

“Floofy?” Astarion brought a hand up to his hair as the kids dispersed. 

Mol stretched her arms over her head. “Best for last, I suppose.”

She went to reach into the boat for what you had to assume was the lute Astarion had hidden away for you. What she pulled out made you audibly gasp.

You’d expected something tattered, nothing special. Something plucked from the road by someone who didn’t understand the intricacies and nuances of musical instruments, but you knew you’d be content to make due with it because someone you deeply cared for had taken the time to pick it up and take it home to you.

Instead Mol presented you with a lute that looked like it hadn’t even been played yet. It was crafted from rosewood, giving it a pinkish hue and its surface shined as if it were just polished. Delicate roses were carved into the face and the strings were coiled tightly along the neck. 

“Oh,” you breathed out.

Mol raised an eyebrow. “Okay there, hero?”

You shook your head to break the spell. “I- yes.”

Mol turned to Astarion. “And what does this one mean to you? You had it stowed away so carefully with all those pillows and rags. Must be pretty special.”

Astarion cleared his throat. “It’s um… a gift.”

Mirkon giggled. “For who?”

Arabella crossed her arms. “It’s a lute. Clearly it’s for the bard.” She gestured to you with a nod of her head. 

Mattis blew out an unimpressed breath. “I saw her already carrying one around the Grove. Some gift.”

“So what?” Mirkon argued. “I think it’s nice.”

“So do I,” you confirmed, looking at Astarion, who caught your eye then turned away sheepishly. You turned back to the kids. “Want to know something funny?”

The kids looked intrigued and nodded, a few of them giving “yeah’s.”

You leaned in to whisper loudly and placed a hand next to your mouth as if telling a secret. “He broke my other lute,” you pointed your thumb over your shoulder at Astarion.

He scoffed. “I did not!”

You tilted your head at him disapprovingly. “It’s your fault it broke.”

“I-” he tried to dispute you, but came up short and shut his mouth.

Mol laughed. “No wonder she wanted us to swipe your stuff. Although, seems kinda pointless now.” She handed you the lute.

It was a comfortable weight in your hands and you tested the sound. It would need a bit of tuning, but it was good enough for you to cast a minor illusion of fireworks around the kids, who all looked up in awe. You flipped the face of it up towards you and ran your fingers over one of the rose etchings. 

You turned to Astarion who was avoiding eye contact by drawing shapes in the dirt with the tip of his shoe. “Where did you find this?”

He looked at you and perked up, gaining an air of confidence that you usually saw when he was showing off in battle. “Found it on the Risen Road. Some poor soul perished with it hidden away in their belongings under a bunch of useless junk.” He examined his nails, feigning disinterest. “It was from the same horde where I found my hair product. I suspect some Upper City patriar accidentally stumbled into a pack of hungry gnolls on their way back to Baldur’s Gate. One can only imagine why they were all the way out here. But their loss was our gain.” He laughed airily. 

You stood and held your breath. “You’ve held onto this for that long?” 

Astarion deflated a little, caught. “I… may have been saving it for a special occasion.” He saw you move towards him. “Don’t be weird about this,” he warned, holding up a finger. “If you really annoyed me I was planning to give it to you and then destroy it. The look on your face would have been priceless.” He laughed again.

You ignored his deflection and took one of his hands in your own. “You’ve had this since before we-” you paused. “Since before last night.”

Astarion smiled softly. “I told you I liked you.” He looked away again when he asked, “But you like it?”

You bent forward to kiss his cheek. “It’s gorgeous. I love it. Thank you.”

“Gross,” Mattis moaned. “Can we just get our prizes now?”

You turned away from Astarion to face the kids again. “Right.” You clapped your hands together. “GALE!” You shouted, not bothering to turn your body in his direction, knowing he’d hear you anyway. 

Not even a second later, he misty stepped beside you. “Yes?” he asked. “How can I help?”

“Gale,” you said, your tone implying that you needed him to play along, “the kids did a great job of stealing from Astarion tonight.”

Gale furrowed his brow in confusion, but sensed the kind of answer you wanted. “Oh, that is most excellent news.”

You nodded and placed your hands on your hips. “I think we need to discuss their reward.”

“Absolutely,” Gale agreed. He motioned over to a patch of grass a little ways away, “Shall we?”

“Be right back,” you said. 

As you and Gale walked, you heard the kids talking to Astarion.

“So why do you have fangs? You some kind of demon?”

“My father was a bat.”

“Cool, can you fly?”

“No.”

Gale spun on his heel to face you. “So,” he started, “what’s going on?”

“Fair question. I wanted the kids to rob Astarion.”

“Sure,” Gale nodded. “Why?”

You shrugged. “Thought it would be funny. Didn’t think that far ahead.”

Gale nodded again. “Let me guess, you didn’t want them to actually keep the loot and now you need to satiate their desire for spoils of some kind.”

“You got it,” you confirmed.

He held a finger to his chin, lost in thought for a moment. “Alright. Play along.”

“Can do,” you said and followed after Gale back towards the kids.

“Why would I need echolocation if I’m not blind?” Astarion asked, exasperated.

“I don’t know!” Zaki shouted in the same tone. “You’re the one who’s half bat!”

“Tell me you can screech at least?” Meli asked.

Gale cleared his throat and the kids turned to face you.

“I don’t see no prizes,” Mol said, crossing her arms.

“An astute observation, Mol,” Gale agreed. “That’s because I’m going to summon your prizes from the Astral Plane.” Gale raised his eyebrows at you, talking out of his ass.

“Ooohhh,” you gushed, making what he said seem really impressive. 

“You’ve been to the Astral Plane?” Mirkon asked excitedly.

“Of course,” Gale lied.

Arabella cut in. “How do we know you’ve actually been?”

Gale chuckled. “How do you think we met our Githyanki friend?” He pointed to Lae’zel over his shoulder who was in the process of skewering watermelons with her greatsword as a few others watched.

The kids looked back at Gale, seeming to accept his reasoning.

Astarion rolled his eyes.

Gale rubbed his hands together, his fingers sparking with the purple glow of the weave. Something you suspected he was doing to try to further impress and convince the children.

“Who’s first?” he asked.

Meli was about to step forward, but Arabella stopped him.

“Doni got here first, he gets his prize first.”

Meli groaned. “I’m next, then.”

Gale smiled at the boy before him. “Well Doni, it’s Githyanki tradition that their most skilled warriors receive Crowns of Valor.”

You placed a hand on your heart, further playing along. “Gale! You can’t mean-”

“Oh, that’s right,” Gale nodded. “These young, intrepid adventurers deserve the highest of honors.”

You looked at the kids and raised your eyebrows. “That’s amazing!”

The kids shared excited glances and giggles as Astarion leaned in to you.

“To be clear,” he whispered, “Crowns of Valor don’t exist, right?”

“Correct,” you said through an unmoving smile. 

“And I knew that,” Astarion said unconvincingly.

Gale spun his hands through the air, the purple glow of the weave glowing brighter and brighter until a small, Doni sized crown appeared in Gale’s hands. It was of simple construction, made of tin with pointed peaks at the top, like the paper crowns you would make as a child. Then, Gale moved his hands some more and the crown molded itself into something similar to Lae’zel’s armor that you’d first met her in; polished silver with delicately raised patterns throughout, adorned with shining red jewels. 

“Whoa,” you said, genuinely impressed. 

Gale smirked and lifted the crown above Doni’s head. “I now bestow unto you the Githyanki Crown of Valor. Well done, lad.” He placed the crown on Doni’s head, who smiled widely and stepped back for the other kids to observe. 

They ooh’d and ah’d, a few even reaching to touch it, but Doni brought his hands up to the crown to keep it on his head.

Meli excitedly jumped forward. “Me next!”

One by one, the kids stepped up to receive their incredibly real and not conjured on the spot Crowns of Valor from Gale. 

“Thank you for the lute,” you said quietly to Astarion as the two of you watched the parade of children marching up to the wizard.

Astarion clicked his tongue. “I’m not sure you even deserve to keep it, given that you hired a bunch of children to steal it for you.”

You sighed loudly. “Just admit you were bested tonight and move on. I won’t think any less of you for it.”

He hummed in acknowledgement. “Don’t use this one as a club.”

“No promises,” you lifted the lute to mime hitting another imaginary bugbear. 

When Mol received her crown, the last of the kids to do so, Gale stood.

“Oof, the knees,” he muttered before rubbing his hands together to convey that his work here was finished. “Well then! I believe everyone has been thoroughly rewarded for their hard work.” He looked at you and winked. You mouthed a thank you.

Mol took off her crown and inspected it. “Hypothetically, how much could a Githyanki Crown of Valor sell for?”

You and Gale gasped dramatically.

“Why would you want to do that?” you asked, scandalized.

Mol rolled her eyes. “Oh please. Just tell us how much coin we’d get.”

Gale thought for a moment. “Hypothetically, if it were to be appraised, maybe about-” You elbowed him. “-a lot. Despite the absolutely priceless nature of the objects, you’d probably get a lot of coin.” He sounded pained to be saying such things.

“Excellent.” Mol said, examining her crown and then placing it back on her head. “Now,” she said, placing a hand on her hip, “do you need anything else from us? Or can we go? There are drunk adults to swindle.”

“Charming,” Astarion said flatly. 

You straightened. “Yes, you’ve all done an excellent job tonight and are free to go.” 

As the kids were about to leave, you stepped in front of them, blocking their path. 

“No more stealing tonight-” you said and a few of them groaned, “-but it’s fair game again when we see you next. Which will be in Baldur’s Gate when you’re members of a highly respected new guild.” You smiled at Mol who looked at you smugly and nodded. 

“Damn right!” she said proudly. 

The others buzzed with agreement and started dispersing after saying their goodbyes. You hugged Silfy, Arabella, and Mirkon, and waved to the others who promised they’d be careful on their journey to the city. 

You stood back and watched them go, flanked on either side by Astarion and Gale. 

Astarion examined his nails. “Those weren’t worth anything, were they?”

Gale shook his head. “Not unless transmuted tin suddenly gains a lot of value amongst merchants and traders. I’ve been gathering different alchemical items and ingredients all throughout our journey, and that tin that I used was actually from-”

“Ugh, stop talking,” Astarion interrupted. “I merely asked if they were worth anything in case I needed to nick one of them off one of the little roaches before they leave and we never see them again.”

“Astarion,” you whacked his arm lightly. “They’re just kids. And I’m sure we’ll see them again.”

“Whatever you say, darling,” he sighed.

“You could also just ask Gale to make you one if you want.”

“I’d be happy to-”

Astarion held up a hand. “And ruin this hair? I don’t think so.”

You looped your arm through his and watched as a few of the kids retreated into their makeshift headquarters for the evening, while a few others made a point of walking by Lae’zel’s tent first. It was clear they were trying to show off in front of her, but Lae’zel paid them no mind and focused instead on cleaning her greatsword of watermelon chunks. After a moment of them pacing back and forth in front of her, she leered at them and the kids quickly ran back to the temple, terrified she might stab them. Scratch and the owlbear cub chased after them.

You turned to Gale. “Thank you for coming to the rescue. I owe you one.”

Gale smirked. “Is it really a party if one isn’t rescuing their friend from the clutches of their own antics?”

Astarion snorted. “What kind of parties have you attended?”

“Well, I thank you for your quick thinking and skill with the weave.”

Gale puffed his chest. “I am rather excellent at magic, as I’ve said many times over. Though I fear what will happen once those miscreants try to pawn off those fraudulent crowns.”

You shrugged. “That’s a problem for future us.”

Astarion tsked. “Assuming they can catch us.”

You and Gale laughed. 

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” Gale agreed. “I’ll leave you two to your evening. Let me know if you find yourself in any more trouble.” He nodded his head to you. “Good night.”

“Good night Gale,” you smiled as he walked back towards the excitement of the party where Karlach and Rolan were partaking in a loud drinking contest.

Astarion pulled you closer to him and squeezed your hip. “I still can’t believe you did that. After everything I’ve done for you.”

You smiled at him. “Ah yes, thank you for deciding not to kill me every day since you’ve met me.”

He pulled you into a kiss. “You’re welcome,” he said, muffled against your mouth. Unsurprisingly, he tasted of wine.

You pulled away and inclined your head towards Withers, still standing stoically nearby.

Astarion rolled his eyes. “I’m not even entirely sure he’s paying attention half the time, what with his distant stare and lack of meaningful conversation.”

“He called you my ‘bosom companion’ earlier.”

“He did what?” Astarion looked past you at the skeleton who made no move to acknowledge either of you. “I’ve barely had any time with her bosom yet, thank you.”

When Withers didn’t respond, you laughed and bent down to get a better grasp on your new lute. Astarion joined you, picking up his recently returned items and turning to face you. 

“Care to join me on a walk?” he asked.

You smirked. “This isn’t part of another plan to bed me, is it?”

Astarion laughed. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He made his voice low and gravelly.

Your face went red. “Aren’t you drunk?” you asked, deflecting his advances as the two of you started making your way towards Astarion’s tent.

“Ah, ah,” Astarion tutted, “I was only ever tipsy. And to be honest, I believe the last of it burned off when the one person I stupidly trust most for some reason, betrayed my trust and stole my things.”

“We got them back!” you argued. 

“Hmm,” Astarion hummed. “Perhaps we should break up.”

You gasped loudly. “How dare you!”

He smirked. “I suppose you’ll have to make it up to me.”

“Am I going to regret asking what you have in mind?”

“I can think of a few options,” he said as you reached his tent and he knelt to return his items to their proper places. 

You yawned. “Oh yeah?”

Astarion rose back up and looked at you softly. “Tired, darling?” 

You mentally surveyed how you were feeling. “I suppose I am.”

He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around your waist. “A side effect of playing hero for dozens of tieflings. Told you it wasn’t worth it.”

You rested your arms over his shoulders. “And it surely has nothing to do with my lack of sleep last night, does it?”

“I don’t know what you’re implying,” Astarion teased, kissing your forehead. “Go say your good nights.” He nodded towards the heart of the party where Karlach and Rolan were drunkenly singing an old dwarven drinking song. 

You looked at him curiously. “What about you?” 

“Trust me, my sweet, none of them are here to see me.” He tucked some hair behind your ear. “Even though I’m world-endingly beautiful.”

“I think you’ve mentioned that,” you teased. 

“They should count themselves lucky they even caught a glimpse.”

“Alright.”

“I mean, look at me.”

“I got it,” you laughed and pulled away from him, lifting your new lute one last time. “Will I see you later?”

Astarion furrowed his brow. “Do you truly think so little of me?”

You smiled shyly. “I don’t know, I’m still new at all of this.”

His expression grew soft. “As am I. We’ll get the hang of it.” His voice became flamboyant again when he said, “We are the most impressive pair in Faerûn after all.” Then he laughed brightly.

You laughed and turned to make your way to your tent to drop off your lute. “I’ll see you soon.”

“I await on baited breath, my love.”

~~~~~

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Unfortunately tumblr thought this piece was too long (fair) so I had to split it into two parts. The second part can be found here.

[avalordream]

Prompt: Imagine you get isekaied in Our Life. Only thing is that you wake up as a child and remember everything. You can only save at this point but you can still access the save and load menu and see your previous runs.

Meanwhile your precious neighbor is slowly becoming self aware, getting deja vu with every passing second- as if this has all happened before...

A/N: A few days after I posted this- a few other thoughts came to mind- SO HERE IS MY ATTEMPT AT VOCALIZING THEM

You’re keenly aware of how small and tiny you are the moment you wake up. 

For the first few days, you started to acclimate to…the family home. 

It wasn’t YOUR family though. It never was. It was MC’s. Not your’s.

You could project all you wanted onto MC but it was never your family or your life to experience. It was theirs.

Even so, you quickly found yourself missing the life you were used to. More specifically:

The cuisine.

It was hard not to draw suspicion to the fact that you were craving different food genres aside from Mom’s Pamela’s mac and cheese and cheeseburgers. 

Ma’s Noelani’s Hawaiian food helped quite a bit to hold you over as you started to ponder over how to approach it.

Kind of hard to bring it up to your MC’s parents that you wanted Asian/Middle eastern/Indian/Pakistani/Mexican/etc food when there was none of that for miles around

For the time being, you had to quietly hint and nudge their thoughts into that direction but not enough to make them suspicious. Noelani obviously had her suspicions about Cove getting into the house from Step 2-3 but never brought it up once. From what you could tell, she was scary observant

Another issue was how clumsy your new body was.

Your mind might be able to remember how to do everyday tasks like writing and such but this tiny body didn’t have the muscle memory to match it

Much to Liz’s dismay, you spent quite a bit of your time forcing your hands and legs to train to do things your adult body could do in a snap

Time wise- technology was a huge sucker punch. It made you feel bad for taking your own devices for granted. 

That being said, self learning everything was going to be hard without a phone or computer on hand, especially knowing that you’d have to go through the cursed education system all over again- but most likely much harder

There had to be a reason older folk complained about it, right?...

Your MC’s birthday was the same as your own, just that the birth year is 1997. That being said, the current year was 2006… Funny. You were only two in 2006…

…

Back to self learning, you tried to practice what you considered basic math long after everyone had fallen asleep

Usually, your day was filled with entertaining Shiloh and Liz, playing in the park or going along with whatever Liz said. Judging by the giant for sale sign across the street and the date, you figured out that you got isekaied roughly at least a month or two before Cove and Mr. Holden would move in. 

Who knew how that would go now that you weren’t subjected to just three choices?

Even after playing around, your body was exhausted and your baby mind was just as pooped out.

The first few days you would wake up early as children do and tried doing your math and remembering as much as you could at that time

Yeah, Liz nearly gave you a heart attack after she barged in and you had to play it off as you scribbling absolute nonsense cause you were bored

After that near collision, you changed your prep time to being at night. Sure, you woke up to Liz shaking you and not getting enough sleep in the morning, but you needed to refresh your memory the best you could

You couldn’t do it every night though and did your best to keep some sort of schedule so you wouldn’t forget - and worry your MC’s moms

They noticed the first few times of how sleepy you’d be when you’d wake up later than usual - granted if Liz didn’t wake you up - and a few nights after, you nearly got caught right in the middle of your review.

Pam was more sneaky than Noelani, so you should’ve seen this coming- but even so, you had everything spread out on your rug when you just barely heard her footsteps come to your MC’s door

You had enough time to shove everything underneath your bed - your room was messy enough but better safe than sorry - and quickly dive under the covers before you heard your door open with the softest of clicks

She was around for a good while before you heard the door close again but you didn’t relax until you were sure her footsteps went back to the master bedroom

After that, you were much more careful about how long you spent studying and when. You haven’t been caught since.

Occasionally, you’d have to sneak in your MC’s parent’s room to grab any books that you needed. Good thing Noelani was a book nerd.

You did have to be careful about your self learning- you didn’t want them getting any suspicions that their kid was suddenly…different out of nowhere.

You had no idea what MC was like as a kid before the events of Our Life so you tried your best to piece together what you could 

Speaking of, there were a bunch of things you quickly realized about Our Life, one of which is that game didn’t go over nearly everything that MC went through, let alone before Cove came or others that it only touched on briefly

For example, the tourists that came and went every year happened to be close friends of Pamela’s from her time in university, hence why they were so friendly to you and Liz in particular. 

It was also why they knew how to… handle your ever changing moods. At least-

That’s what it looked like to them.

To you- it was because you had to battle MC’s initial responses to these scenarios.

Go figure, this body still had its fair share of emotions inside of it, leaving you to figure out if this sharp pang of fear or worry was your own or not.

It left you second guessing everything you did, especially when you’d be up at night, studying and practicing your writing

It seriously irked you, knowing your writing was sloppy even though you knew this body couldn’t help it. It didn’t make seeing your scrappy writing less frustrating though

Despite how much you tried to hide how YOU felt, not MC, Noelani still picked up on the small shifts in your behavior. 

One of these being the irritation you harbored for your writing. 

Speaking of emotions, you found your body easily overwhelmed by any stronger ones- your own irritation making you cry- an alien feeling and one that took even you by surprise.

Worse part? The first time happened was in front of Noelani when she tried to help you practice your penmanship

Naturally, she tried to comfort you MC by trying to console you, saying it’d be better with practice and wiping away your tears but no matter how YOU tried, the tears wouldn’t stop flowing

It wasn’t until much later that you realized that MC’s tiny self had their own limits and by pushing those adult feelings and expectations that YOU had onto it sent it into a messy overdrive.

After that, you had learned to slow down- the world wasn’t ending…even if it felt like it.

…

The nail in the coffin for you that made YOU cry. Not MC’s body: Your dreams started to resemble parts of your life. 

You’d dream that you were back at your desk job or filling out mundane paperwork but no matter how boring it’d be, it was YOUR life.

The one YOU were used to and familiar with

You’d always feel so relieved to be back where you were supposed to, whether you were happy with that life or not

It was that feeling of having all your choices in your hand and being in control of where you wanted to go, if that made sense.

Nobody made those choices for you except well…you.

Only to have that feeling of familiarity ripped away once you registered Liz waking you up to play while “Ma and Mom snooze the day away!”

…

You just want to go home…

To YOUR home…

-> Next... <-

-> Extras <- ⊹ ‧₊˚ Isekai Self Aware Taglist: @lilqi @annoying-mary @mellozhi ˚₊‧ ⊹

[zorrasucia]

13. Hot Cocoa + Baking

from @carmenberzattosgf list

Reader x Carmy Berzatto (The Bear FX)

Rating: Mature (2.3k)

Tags: Chocolat (2000) AU, Friends to Rivals to Lovers, Food, Curvy Reader, Fluff, Sexual Tension, Smut, Dry Humping, Dirty Talk, Both Carmy and Reader have a bit of a praise kink

Maybe it was corny and provincial, but you always welcomed your neighbors with a batch of cookies. It was good for business most of the time too - the insurance people next door bought pastries every other day for their breakfast after you gifted them some for their opening.

So, there you were, close to the counter of the new specialty chocolaterie, box of cookies in hand, captivated by the smell of chocolate... There was so much more though: caramel, vanilla, almonds, coffee, cardamom, berries, and was that pepper...?

"Welcome to The Bear, what can I do for you?" a tall man greeted you.

"Oh, hi!" you smiled politely. "I'm from the bakery down the street. Wanted to say hello and give you a little welcome present."

You handed him the box, delicate calligraphy marking the name of your shop.

The man beamed. "That's so sweet! Pun not intended," he chuckled to himself. "Now we definitely have to give you something on the house!"

You looked at his name tag. "Richie, that's not necessary at all..."

"Nonsense. Plus, you get to see the magic happen. Cousin!" he bellowed to the back, where you assumed the kitchen was.

"Magic?" you frowned.

A blond guy with blue eyes emerged from the door and gave you a polite nod.

"What is it?" he asked Richie, he seemed irritated.

"Cookies from our neighbor, cuz," Richie offered him the open box, he was already biting into his second one. "Say thanks and do your mind-reader thing."

"It's not... Never mind," he mumbled in exasperation, rolling his eyes. "Carmy Berzatto," he said and offered you his hand to shake. "Thank you for the cookies."

"You're welcome," you smiled at the sight of him eating with gusto.

"Is that piloncillo sugar?" he asked after a moment of savoring.

"Yes!" you beamed.

"Tremendous," he said earnestly, wiping his hands on a dish towel. He walked closer to the counter and stared at you, intensely, for half a minute. "Mocha frappe, double espresso shot, whipped cream and chocolate shavings on top. That's your favorite."

You stared right back, mouth agape. That was your comfort drink, no matter the weather. How did he know?

"Do we still have the nice Mexican coffee? She'll appreciate it," he asked Richie.

"Yeah, third shelf. Neat trick, huh?" Richie grinned, enjoying the shocked look on your face as Carmy went to the back.

"How does he-?"

"Fucked if I know," he shrugged. "He says it's a family thing. He never misses."

"Did he guess your favorite too?" you asked, fascinated.

"Yeah," he chuckled. "It's hot cocoa with marshmallows. He says I have the palate of a six year old but if it ain't broke..."

While Carmy prepared your drink, you looked around the shop. There were beautiful confections with crazy flavors, covered in gold leaf, almost too beautiful to eat. But there were also dollops of milk chocolate with puffed rice, humble looking and ready for a kid to devour. Truly something for everyone.

When he handed you your coffee you asked: "What's your favorite?"

Carmy gave you a tense smile. "Hope you like it. Pleasure to meet you," he said and left.

"He says it's a secret," Richie handed you a napkin, then he added in a whisper: "I don't think he has one. He doesn't enjoy things that way."

"What way?"

"Uh, the normal way, I guess," Richie shrugged. "He barely eats the things he makes. Lives like a monk. It feels like he has to make chocolate 24/7 or some family curse is going to get him. Dunno if I'm making sense."

"Kind of," you said.

You took a sip of your drink and knew you were fucked forever. No chain coffeehouse would be able to compete with this.

~

It had been a couple of months since The Bear opened. They had a few loyal customers plus whatever weirdos wanted to see if Carmy was as spot on with his predictions as online reviews said he was - he never missed.

You had become friendly with the staff and had developed a routine of sorts with Carmy.

It probably wasn't healthy but you saw him as a mystery to solve. You didn't know about chocolate, not the way he did, but you knew baking, you understood how comfort and love could be encapsulated in a dessert. So you tried to find his favorite, the thing that would make his heart sing like he could do to you and every other person that walked into his chocolaterie. If nothing else, you got constructive criticism from a kindred spirit on a weekly basis.

Could use less cinnamon. 

Maybe with brown sugar instead? 

Oh, that's good. 

What about blackberry jam? 

Delicious... but not my favorite.

"Anyone told you you're a buzzkill?" you said with a dejected sigh.

"Many people. Often," he replied dryly.

"Richie doesn't count."

"Point still stands," he said, wiping crumbs from the flaky pastry you had brought. "People think I'm supposed to be having fun in there for the chocolate to be good when it's probably the opposite."

"It doesn't have to be like that, Carm," you said, exasperated. "You don't have to be fucking miserable for this to work."

He took a deep breath. You had never spelled it out so clearly and it clearly struck a nerve.

"I appreciate you," he said. "I do. But I'm fucked up. And you can't fix me with pies and cakes and-" he looked at the ceiling. "You're an incredible pastry chef. And you're so fucking nice but, uh, I think we should stop this."

"This?"

"You coming here and asking for feedback on your already perfect baked goods. I don't know what you're expecting from me but you look at me with those Bambi eyes and I always disappoint you," he ran a hand through his hair. "It fucks me up."

"Right." You picked up your stuff as quickly as you could, feeling heartbroken and humiliated. You knew you probably came off as needy but you hadn't realized just how much. You felt tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. "Sorry to bother you. Won't happen again."

And you left.

~

Weeks passed, weeks that you devoted to yourself, to feeling better, dressing pretty, baking delicious treats for happy customers, standing in front of the mirror to say nice things about your curvy body.

You had tried and failed to make Carmy see how much better his life could be if he let himself enjoy things, actually savor his chocolate instead of finding four things that were wrong with it upon his first bite. Only now you realized how similar you two were, both wanting to fix things that were probably best left alone. Carmy wasn't a recipe you could perfect and he wasn't your anything really to worry about.

It wasn't lost on you, the metaphor for everything you had been doing - his lithe body and your slightly overweight one, and how much you wanted his toned biceps on either side of your head as he panted above you, letting himself lose control for once. As you indulged in these fantasies, your fingers deep inside your pussy, you wondered whether he ever desired stuff that way. You pictured him, eyes rolled back in bliss, while he held you, and you came with a cry.

~

You were closing up for the night, cold wind ruffling your hair and your skirt.

"Hey."

You turned to see Carmy, blue apron underneath his wool coat.

"Hey," you said curtly, avoiding his glance.

"I, uh, I've been wanting to talk to you..." he said.

"Okay? Can you make it quick? I have to get up at four in the morning," the prickly part of you woke up at the sight of him.

"Listen, you don't need to do it if you don't want to but-" he handed you a paper bag with The Bear's logo on it. "I was wondering if you could make pain au chocolat with this?"

You received the bag cautiously. "How many?"

"I only need two," he mumbled and you scoffed. He knew - he fucking knew how hard it was to make the dough and that you couldn't just make two. "You can keep the rest of the chocolate," he offered.

"I'm still gonna charge you full price," you warned him.

"Of course."

You eyed him suspiciously, his bright eyes and open hands, his overall apologetic manner...

"Fine. I'll come by tomorrow after I close."

~

Maybe it was pride but you didn't try the pain au chocolat with Carmy's chocolate. Not one bite out of the entire batch you had baked. It would, of course, be excellent and you didn't want to give him that satisfaction.

"Here you go," you handed him the box, all pretty with a ribbon and a blank card ready to be gifted.

"Thank you," he gave you a shy smile. "Wanna sit down? I'll make you hot chocolate."

His shop was empty - only half the lights were on, and the sign at the door read 'Closed'.

"Come on," he insisted, his blue eyes pleading and you sighed in defeat, sitting by the counter next to him.

He served two cups of hot chocolate and plated the pastries, one for you and one for him.

"What are you-?" you started.

"When we first met, you asked me about my favorite," he explained. "Then you started bringing cookies and pie and muffins and it was so nice. I'm not used to nice things. And you were getting close. So I pushed you away and I Iashed out. I was an asshole."

"Yes, you were," you took a sip of your chocolate. He would be so much easier to hate if the things he made weren't so tasty.

"I'm not asking to go back to the way things were if you don't want that. I just hated how things ended," he nudged the plate towards you. "This is my favorite."

The pastry you had baked with the chocolate he had made.

"You haven't even tried it," you challenged him.

He took a bite and chewed slowly, savoring, a moan stuck in the back of his throat. You squeezed your thighs at the low, delicious sound.

"Fuck. That's perfect," he declared. Your heart beat faster. "Try it."

You took a bite. It was cozy and delicate, the rich chocolate caressing your tongue.

You nodded. "What a way to put my chocolate supplier to shame."

Carmy smiled, taking another big bite. "I'll give it to you for free if you keep making these."

You blushed at the double meaning and turned away.

"Fuck, that sounded awful. Sorry," Carmy said after a beat.

"It's okay," you laughed. You turned to face him, he had a giddy smile on his face that made him look younger and prettier.

"You have a-" he pointed at your lip but then he reached over and rubbed at your lower lip, wiping some leftover chocolate. He brought that same finger up to his mouth and sucked it clean. Your stomach dropped and you could feel yourself getting wet.

Carmy stood up, you could see his pupils dilate the closer he got, see his eyes linger on the low cut of your shirt.

"I thought that if I stopped seeing you, I would be able to focus," he whispered, his breath tickling your face. "I have never been so fucking distracted. Just thinking..." he kissed the side of your face, open mouthed and hungry. "Kept thinking of things I'd say to you, recipes I could share and shit like that," he mumbled, his hands ghosting over your thighs, playing with the hem of your skirt. "Thinking about your hands, kneading, working, and how they'd feel," following his lead you placed your hands over his chest, caressing his sides. He groaned. "Thinking about your body. Every part of it..."

"Touch me," you practically begged, moaning in satisfaction when he squeezed your breasts over your clothes.

"Imagining how sweet you'd taste," he panted against your lips, letting you close the small distance left, tasting his own chocolate in your mouth as he devoured you. You pulled on his hair, desperate to return every bit of passion he was giving you.

"Carmy," you gasped and brought him closer, opening your legs and scooting to the edge of your seat. His hard cock rubbed against your center, his hands were everywhere.

"So soft," he said, kissing down your neck to your chest. He palmed your breast with one hand and squeezed your hip with the other, guiding you to grind against his erection.

"Fuck," you cursed. "Like that."

You tugged on his hair, getting a low groan in response. You took the opportunity to shove your tongue inside his mouth and kiss him with all the hunger you had for him. He bit your lower lip and you moaned.

"You even sound sweet," he said absently, a desperate rhythm building between you.

"I thought of you too," you said, looking into his blue eyes, squeezing his ass to bring him closer. "Thought how'd beautiful you'd look when you came - all sweaty, your eyes on me."

"Fuck," he growled, his thrusts becoming frantic. "Can't wait to take you home. Fuck you properly. Fucking taste you..."

You could feel fireworks inside you, your pussy clenching around nothing, grinding desperately against Carmy, biting on his bicep to muffle a cry of ecstasy.

"Oh, my God," you gasped for breath as he chased his release, you grew pliant in his embrace, carding your fingers through his hair, legs shaking around his waist, your underwear soaked.

"Fuck," he froze and exhaled hard, his nose tickling your neck. "If you feel this good with your clothes on..."

You giggled. "Come on," you kissed his temple. "Let's close up shop."

[tls12lessthan3]

thinking about orvs metatextual engagement with its genre and specifically how that interacts with its women again. kim dokja is a self insert for the reader - what he thinks is largely meant to represent what we think, especially in the beginning before sing shong really fleshes out his character. kim dokja sees the world through tropes, directly acknowledging the genre around him and the cliches we expect e.g. the overpowered mc, the scheming villain, the beautiful heroine.

but a major part of his arc is deconstructing this reductionist view of the world in a way that parallels the author's deconstruction of the genre, and that plays really well with the way orv writes women. yoo sangah is perhaps the best exanple - shes introduced as the heroine, a one-dimensional pretty girl who in any other novel would become kim dokja's love interest. but the authors allow her to be her own character, directly challenging the stereotype of the heroine and calling attention to the genre's typical lack of depth for such a character. i think this undercurrent plays in the background often but really comes to the forefront when yoo sangah reminds kim dokja of her putting pepper in their bosses' coffee, a memory kim dokja had supressed because it didn't fit with the pretty girl persona he made for her.

i interpret that moment as yoo sangah pushing her way out of the mold of heroine often found in these stories, demanding a depth be added to her character, asking kim dokja - and thus the reader - to see her in her entirety, to see the heroine archetype for what she could be. orv is at all times in conversation with its genre, and its simultaneous writing of female characters with agency and depth and acknowledgement of the tropes these women are expected to fulfill is undeniably a part of that. and its a part i enjoy. most of the time.

[rainychaoloveshack]

ﾟ ⋆ ﾟ ☂︎ ⋆ ﾟ 𝐋𝐚𝐭𝐞-𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐲. 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐠.

you accidentally woke up shadow after some drinking. oops.

⋆°•☁︎ content. shadow x gn!reader, mentions of drinking, slightly tipsy shadow (he’s pretty sweet), kinda ooc, very very fluffy, mentioned engagement

☂︎ wc. 1k ☂︎ a/n. this is kindaaa a spiritual successor to this fic, cause i ended up using the fiance idea again huehehe… (maybe like a sweet moment a few days after?) the stories aren’t directly linked but they can be! its sorta like a series but they work as standalones lol

likes, reblogs, and especially comments are extremely appreciated!!! (i like chatting to you guys!)

“What’s wrong, honey?” Your fiancé's gruff voice breaks you from your thoughts, and you turn your head to meet his crimson gaze, glancing up at you curiously from his laid-out form. You almost didn’t catch the use of your nickname at the end, one he rarely uses unless on a special occasion.

This special occasion happens to be from your late drinking party with him around three hours ago. A mission went well, spectacular even, deserved a celebration, even if it was something small between the two of you. Shadow rarely drinks, but he held his liquor better than you thought he would, downing more drinks than you’ve ever seen him do.

Not well enough that he had to be assisted by you to your bedroom, unfortunately. He was insistent on sleeping beside you tonight.

“Was it a nightmare?” He shifts around on his side, his eyes looking into yours with a half-lidded stare, still clearly drowsy, with the way his voice almost slurred at the end of his words. But you shake your head and try to ease his drunken worries with a smile, reaching over to pet his head.

Shadow accepts your gesture with no protest, not even a frown or a flinch away, and his eyes shut once you make contact, ears tilted down and twitching as you pet the red stripe on his head, whispering sweet nothings to him as you enjoy his favorable reaction.

“[N-Name]...” He purrs, letting a small smile spread across his mouth. “Ah, stop it, stop it…” He grumbles, his words not matching his mannerisms, giving up trying to sound menacing as his ear flickers in your direction. A chuckle gives out from your throat before giving him one last pet with the back of your hand, settling yourself down from waking up so suddenly. Flipping back over and lying on your back, your eyes shut as you try to catch some much-needed shut-eye after tonight's celebration, yet you can feel Shadow’s stirring and shuffling around from the mattress, and your eyes peel back open to see what’s the matter with him.

“You know it’s my day off tomorrow.” Shadow says gently, finding his way over to your side, the soft mattress compressing below you two. “Do you have anything special planned?” His chest fur brushes against your arm, rising and falling with his slow breaths as he awaits your answer in anticipation, tail wagging back and forth slowly under the blanket you two share. It seems he doesn’t care to hide it tonight like he usually does. “You do, huh? Is it a date?”

You respond with a small shake of your head, and a frown spreads onto his muzzle as he tenses up slightly, displeased at your bland answer as his tail stops immediately. You really didn’t have anything planned; a simple day in with Shadow is good enough for you.

But it looks like he doesn’t like the thought of that this time. “I don’t want to just stay in the apartment tomorrow.” He mutters, his ear flicking once you poke and fidget with the tip of it as he speaks.  “I want to go out. I want to spend time with you outside…” 

The fact that Shadow’s so blunt tonight catches you off guard, forcing a small twitch through your arm as your brain processes it and forces a double take.

“What?” Shadow registers the shocked expression on you, and tries to get out a menacing growl, but it falls flat. “What’s with that face?”

You shake your head, shrugging your shoulders as your fingers find their way to his quills, trying to distract him from your reaction to his forwardness. It seems to work well as he nudges his head up into your hand, before shuffling around to straddle himself above you, easing himself down onto your body as he leans forward, almost pinning you down against the bed, but then he drags a lone finger down your arm gently.

“Let’s go walk around Station Square.” Shadow murmurs, leaning down and tracing imaginary circles on your chest. “I want to go out with you; I want to…” His voice trails off, a blush spreading across his muzzle, along with a small frown; clearly aggravated by something. Perhaps it's about the fat, amused grin on your face? 

“You’re making fun of me in your head.” Maybe a little. Yet you lie to him by shaking your head no, but he already knows the truth.

He clicks his tongue, shuffling off and sitting back on the bed as another growl grows in his throat. “It’s not funny.” You sit up onto your elbows to meet his gaze, cocking your head to the side giving him an amused yet happy smile.

Your future husband is so cute, tipsy or not.

His brows furrow, yet he leans down and cups your cheek with a hand, pressing a small kiss on the other, then tilting your face up to give you a quick kiss on the lips, smiling during it as you lean into him. He scoots back to you, and rests his body down next to yours, snuggling his head against your chest as he hugs your torso.

It’s always been hard for Shadow to express his feelings directly, whether it be ones of love or sorrow. Maybe he won’t feel so embarrassed about it when the sun rises; perhaps he will. Who knows? While the embarrassment may be present, he means every word he says out of his mouth. Of course, he does. And you never doubt it for a second.

“I love you, [Name]. Goodnight.”

⋆°•☁︎⋆°•☁︎⋆°•☁︎

“Rouge, I was acting like a pure idiot that night. I woke up feeling like some imbecile. I couldn’t even look them in the eye. It’s not something that I can just-”

“Now why would they care about something like that, Shadow? You know they love you.”

“Yes, yes, of course, I know that, but-”

“Honestly, you worry too much about how you act around them. You’re both engaged for crying out loud! Some honesty with your emotions would do both of you some good. You’re lucky they’re such a patient lover.”

“Hmm.”

“So… How was your date with them? Was it fun? I haven’t had time to talk to them about it in detail, but they seemed happy about it when I brought it up in passing. Mentioned some real nice things about you. And about what happened that night…”

“Really? What did they say?”

“That’s between me and [Name].”

“Damn it, Rouge-”

“Yeah, whatever lover boy. I gotta go; shopping with the girls and all. See ya!”

"Rouge-"

"Ah..."

“Useless bat.” 

[weirdenbyferret]

Day 2, Squid and Carnivorous

LOOK AT THIS PRETTY MAN HE SO PRETTY AHHH

First chapter of my mermay fanfic and some doodles. Warning, this newest chapter has blood

How flamboyant cuttlefish reader is put together and drawn is inspired by @zus-a-fungi's cuttlefish eclipse!!