#and used to be humans before ascending

[carpp]

I think a lot of people are taking the Amphoreus legends about the titans and their pasts too literally.

A lot of them seem more like fictionalized versions of past events (common in ancient greek myths and legends and those are obviously the inspiration for the amphoreus story)

the stories we got to read about so far seem to deliberately be written like those greek legends, stories that changed over time, have different versions because people added their own spin on things or filled in the blanks with their own ideas.

stuff like mnestia crying herself to death or one of the titans being made from the eyelash of the other (dont remember which ones they were, i think one of them kephale?) just seems very metaphorical and not actually the true version of the stories.

I feel like a big part of the amphoreus story is gonna be about learning the truth about what happened in the past and figuring out that a lot of the legends are actually inaccurate.

[2tcs]

I just had a thought. In most "humans are deathworlders" stories I've read aliens either don't have any major predators on their planet or advanced to a point, then wiped out their preditors before ascending to the stars.

What if humans are the hippies of the galaxy? We are constantly seeking peace and harmony with ourselves and our environments for one. But it's not just that. We have conservation, breeding, and rehabilitation programs for many animals on our planet including some major predators and competitors for resources and food.

So here we are. Going into space. And just baffling our galactic neighbors when they find out that not only do we still have animals that can eat us, but we actively fight to keep these animals alive and off the extinction list.

[dilf-docs]

Call It What You Want

husband!pedro pascal x younger!reader

summary: you and pedro are married, but you've kept it a secret up to the point you sometimes forget there's supposed to be a golden band on your finger. but then you both get cast in your first movie together. the chemistry is off the charts, and it starts to catch upon you: will the lines between shipping and reality finally blur?

warnings: 18+ (minors dni), age gap (ñom), smut, dry humping, oral (m. receiving) while pedro wears the skirt™️ (welcome to another episode of the writer's barely disguised fetish), p. in v., teeny bit of angst because i malfunction if i don't bring sad vibes to the function, the worst ever attempt of comedy witnessed by human kind, they're so down bad it hurts, jealous!reader, possesive!pedro, reader speaks spanish and may or may not have direct/indirect latino blood somewhere, use of spanglish but no translations ☹️ (boo go do your homework, citizens. that's what u get for making my dieter bravo fic flop BYE), i transcripted two real interviews for this so keep those likes, reblogs and comments up in the air where i can see 'em 🪓🪓

word count: 11,706 words

side note: hello! this is me, sliding my cv to become president of the pedro pascal fics. i'm kidding, just on duty to fulfill another request 🫡 believe it or not, i envisioned something like this but for myself IJBOL we have to keep the delusional levels UP!! i hope this meets ur expectations, it was fun to write :)

part: prev | masterlist | next

"Please welcome, the internet's newest darling, Y/n L/n!"

You walk into the set, cameras flashing bright and the band playing on the back. You hug Jimmy Fallon, and when he notices your body trembling he tells you everything will be alright. So did your manager before you stepped inside, but you can't help the nerves. You've never been this big before, and now it's all coming down together without letting you breath.

You take your seat and so does Jimmy.

"Hello, Y/n. This is your first time here, right?"

"Am I being too obvious?" you snort. The crowd laughs with you.

"Don't worry. It happens, especially when you're so young"

"Oh, please" you blush. "I can promise you there are kid actors who could handle this better than I am right now"

"Kid stars?" he lets out one of his famous cackles. "No need to be humble. You are great! Let's just talk about the year you've had: big breakout roles, ascend to fame, you're rocking it!" the crowd cheers, and you again turn into a flustered mess.

"Yeah, I suppose. It's hard to dimension when you've started as an extra for popular shows, to now being, you know, the main face of projects. But I could get used to it" you smile, "it's been a dream. I still can't believe it sometimes, look- I'm shaking"

The camera pans closer to the hand you're showing to Jimmy.

"Oh my God, even big stars like you get nervous"

"Big star? I wish I could feel like a constellation. I'm feeling more like a red dwarf star, baby"

The whole place bubbles in laughter. You feel better, your manager even giving you a thumbs up from behind the cameras.

"So, Y/n" Jimmy says once the laughter dies. "You just got casted in the upcoming Gladiator II movie, directed by Ridley Scott. How does it feel to be on your first big movie, alongside names like Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal?"

You try to steady your heartbeat. "First of all, I have to say, it's such an honor to work with Scott. I grew up watching his movies. Like, Thelma and Louis is definitely my go-to movie. So, like, getting paired with such a talented cast is as awesome as terrifying" you answer with a laugh.

"Talking about that, you see" he leans closer, like he'll tell a secret. "I've heard things about you and a certain future co-star of yours"

You shift your position on the couch, your ring(less) finger itching. You have to avoid breathing in relief when Jimmy pulls out a picture.

"Oh. My. God"

He stiffles a laugh. No way. Has the room's temperature suddenly gotten hotter? Why is your face burning?

"Will you tell us the story behind this?" he asks, the camera focusing on the picture in question. The audience laughs, and you pray to God this is a nightmare, because it's too much embarrasment for a human to bear.

"Okay" you clear your throat, coughing awkwardly. "For my 25th birthday, I uploaded a bunch of pictures on Instagram, including ones where I was a teenager" you begin to giggle, "So. Um, there was this one, you see, that's, me, in my childhood home's bedroom, and my fans were quick to notice the poster above my bed"

"You mean, this one?" and Jimmy points it out. You cover your face with your palms. "It's a... Narcos poster" the audience laughs as you get redder. "A Pedro Pascal's Narcos poster"

"I know" you groan. "Picture this: me 18, and while my friends had posters of their favorite bands and artists, I was so different because I had a whole ass poster of a crime drama show about the world's most famous drug dealer on my bedroom" you recall with a laugh. "It was hard to explain to my mom. I believe she thought I wanted to sign for the DEA or something. When I told her I was going to be an actress, she was so relieved! She said: Oh, well. You'll die, but of hunger! Not a bullet in your head, at least"

"Oh. I'm so sorry. You proved her wrong though!"

"I did! Don't worry, Jimmy. She's my biggest fan now" you look at a specific camera before saying, "Te amo mami!"

"I see you speak spanish. I sometimes forget" he comments. "You've got one thing in common with Pedro, it seems. Think that'll make working with him less awkward?"

"I just hope he forgives me or I'm capable of moving out of the country and changing names" you giggle. "Pedro, lo siento!"

"Well, that's Y/n L/n, everyone! Pedro Pascal's number one fan" you burst out laughing in shame. "More on her lastest movie after the break"

mandoshoney: tell me i'm not the only one who started shipping pedro pascal and y/n l/n PLEASE can't wait to get content of them interacting ㅤㅤann-gell: mandoshoney y/n's pedro pascal's controversially young gf era starts now! i wonder how the press tour for #gladiatorII will go 🤔 unhing3dprincess: i bet my grandma they are dating ㅤㅤstarlightt180: unhing3dprincess ptwt can never tweet like normal ppl…wdym you're betting your grandma?!!!?

You were never a fan of secrets.

But then Pedro waltzed into your life with his charming smile and iconic mustache, and before you knew it, you had married him off in some church in California one random sunday morning ("I love you so much, can't wait to marry you, cariño" "If you can't wait any longer, why not now?")

Flash forward, four years later, and you'd think such event would be plastered all over the internet. But there is a reason why only you, family, a selected number of friends and your agents knew: you kept it a secret.

To the world, he was Chile's most elegible bachelor and you were a young rising star. The public loved both of you for the same reasons: charming persona and acting skills. Yet inside the privacy of your home, he was Pedro and you were y/n, wife and husband; he was yours as you were his.

And of course, no marriage is perfect, and your first real challenge is rather funny: you both get casted in your first movie together.

It shouldn't be hard, but it is. Being inside the Gladiator II set during seven months, so far away yet so close at the same time, was torture. You were Rome's empress and he's Marcus Acacius, yet behind the scenes, the actual married couple were you both.

It was hard to pretend you didn't know what he looked like without clothes when he wore his bathing suit, or that you didn't know his favorite food when Paul asked, or acting like you weren't interested in dating when a local in Malta during your trip at the beach asked you out (he didn't know who you were. You were flattered when he called you pretty in such a hot European accent, but then Pedro appeared from seemingly "nowhere" and you remembered what your real favorite accent was. He immediately called you bonita after that)

It was so hard to keep hands to yourself when he walked by you, covered in fake blood. To not think about licking it all over and under his armour. So was to pretend the thought of dry humping him with his Roman skirt on wasn't tempting. Or that the urge to kiss him got harder and harder to fight each passing day, even getting to a point where you would envy Connie for being able to kiss your husband in the open more, a privilege you didn't have.

You were loosing your mental health here. But Pedro was no better.

It was so hard to see you, the Moroccan sun shining over your features like you were an angel. Otherworldly. That he'd see red when you'd finish filming a scene with Joseph, forcing himself to interrupt the small chat you'd engage in after. He too couldn't keep pretending he didn't want to tear off those silk dresses out of your body, and kiss you out in the open like Joseph did.

He almost failed once, cornering you in the hallway of the hotel you were staying. His hot breath lingered on your neck. I miss you, he had said. You felt his hard brush the inner of your thigh. We can't, you whispered in a dragged out voice.

It was hard.

So you gave him your used panties, and you swear you could hear him jacking off in the bathroom of his room, next to yours. He'd screamed your name, and your hand had found it's way to your dripping cunt, doing what he was supposed to do; touching you the way he did. And you came, drowned out moans against your pillow. But it wasn't like when he did it.

But God has heard your prayers.

For the first time in weeks, you're lucky. You find Pedro sitting alone in the cafeteria, his phone in hand. He's still wearing his armour and skirt, not bothering to change for the break. You aren't God's strongest soldier, but you're trying not to go down on him so badly right here and now.

"Hey" he raises his head when he hears your voice, smile adoringly. It only grows wider when he notices you alone. "Thought you'd never get rid of Paul. He's like, stitched to you"

"Same can be said about you and Joseph" you sit across him, and despite most of his tone being playful, there are still hints of jealousy behind. It arouses you deeply, and with this hot summer day above you, your skin isn't the only thing that's getting sticky.

"In case you haven't read the script, I'm his wife" you wink. "Sorry this is how you find out"

He laughs loudly, and God, how have you missed that laugh. Sure, it's been there when you've been out with the cast together, but it doesn't tingle your chest as when you're the cause of it; it feels like it's for you only, and that's what makes it special.

"I miss you so much" he whispers, his hand sliding across the table, finding yours. His thumb carresses your soft palm, and you melt under Pedro's tender touch.

"I do too" you sigh, but it's instantly replaced by what could only be described as a smug face. You lean closer, whispering on his ear, the warm meeting cold. He shivers. "Wanna know something?"

"I'm all ears"

"I just came back from walking. Guess what?No one is 'round here" you lean back against your chair, shit-eating grin on your face as all his body tenses up. "Made sure of it. The trailer zone is empty too"

Pedro gulps, his adam's apple bobbing as his eyes look at you.

"Y/n" calling your name as a warning.

"What? Can't a girl find ways to have her husband all for herself?" you snort. "Please say yes" you let go of his hand, but the free fingers now travel across his broad chest, taunting him. "C'mon, we both deserve a break"

He can't say deny you anything, can he? You know it, he knows it.

Before you register, his big hand engulfs yours as you run across the set. You giggle at his rushed steps, even more when you stand before his trailer and he's fumbling his slippery hands with the doorknob, sloppy movements erratic.

"But you told me to stop" you tease, and he doesn't even let you add more because he's pushing you inside, forcing you with rough calloused hands to a chair and then you to sit over his lap.

"Fuck, babygirl. I've spoiled you way too much" he groans against your lips. "Lo sabes, ¿verdad? Just can't say no to you"

Your eyes darken dangerously, the hunger on them mirroring his own.

"How could you ever say no to this?"

You press your chest against his broad one as your lip bites into his lower one, teasing. Pedro feels his underwear getting tighter when your tongue finds its way inside his mouth, even getting a glimpse of the taste of the strawberries you had earlier before.

He deepens the kiss, and when you pull away to catch your breath, he doesn't waste his lonely mouth and busies himself with the task of kissing your sun-kissed neck, licking and pressing his lips under your jaw. Pedro goes even lower, down until he's reached your collarbone, making you groan a bit under his wet sloppy needy mouth. He's enjoying how putty you are under his intense kissing, fingers in his curls, that have begun to damp under the ablaze of the small space and pleasure that fills the air.

"Kiss me again in my lips" you whine after a while of him teasing you with kisses that get only rougher. "Pretty please, papi"

You cup his face in your hands, and Pedro's back to kissing you in the mouth, tasting all of your insides as he hasn't had in what feels like a lifetime.

"Of course, baby. Missed this pretty mouth" he mumbles in between hot kisses, his now growing boner pressing into you.

"Baby" you giggle. The skirt he's got on may hide it, but your fingers refused to wait, pulling it up. His bulge presses against the shorts he's got under the skirt, and you can feel your pussy and mouth drool. "We have to do something about this big boy" your hands pull down the short, leaving just his underwear on. He's about to remove the skirt, but your demanding hands stops him. "This stays"

His brown concerned eyes make you laugh, but you don't give him time to think about it, rather grinding against his erection. Pedro's breath hitches when he feels your daring movements, bucking his hips against yours.

The friction is addicting, and he captures your lips once again to make you feel what he can't with words: how fucking good this feels.

You keep moving over his aching dick. Your husband throws his head back, groaning in pleasure at the way your hips move against him, knowingly. His hands find their way to your ass under the flowy almost translucent skirt you chose to change in, gripping the rosy skin tightly, hands almost covering all of it.

"You wore this for me, right, cariño? Knew I couldn't say no" he groans, firm hands on your cheeks, the grinding meeting his hips now harsher. "Less with you walking around with this slutty skirt of yours"

You make little sounds he's obssesed with, dripping out of your filthy mouth.

"Fuck" Pedro groans after a while, "I need to have you, mami. Missed you so much" eager fingers make it to your top. He growls, deep within him―guttural, ready to pull it off as he mumbles naughty wife when he realizes you got no bra on, chastising you for a "rushed" plan that seemed planned all along, when a sound cuts through the air.

You both stop.

The sound gets clearer.

It's a knock. A knock at his door.

A knock in Pedro's trailer.

And you are inside. Both.

While you're grinding him.

With his skirt on.

(It's time to build a bomb and kill yourselves off and whoever is stading behind that door)

"Pedro!" a familiar accent calls. Peudrou. It's Paul. "Hey, man. Just wondering if you are here"

He's debating on speaking up when he sees your red face and rising-falling chest before him.

"Answer" you whisper breathlessly. He tries not to groan when he fills you slip out of the spot in his middle while also trying not to think about murdering Paul as soon as he gets out.

Aside from the order, you're unexpectedly quiet, and Pedro quirks an eyebrow at you. He knows you better―you're his wife after all, and if there's something he's aware of, is your inability to loose.

"I'm here" tone clipped and annoyed. But no footsteps backtracking are heard: the Irish man is still there.

You bite your lip, watching the skirt with his legs spread, a sight too tempting. Also, he was still hard, as hard as the task to not go and keep doing your job.

Oh, fuck this shit.

Your devilish hand equals the grin in your face, fingers making their way toward his unattended bulge.

"What are you doing here?" Paul asks, but Pedro's attention has completely deviated, now focused on how they land right over his clothed dick, skirt pulled up by your other hand. "I thought you were at the cafeteria"

"Yeah?" but it comes out strained, yet the younger man doesn't notice or comment.

His hips raise when your fingers press his member, massaging it.

"Yeah" he uses a tone that equals a duh. "You texted me yourself"

Pedro rolls his eyes, wishing desperately he would go away, annoying him just as much as a fly hovering above fresh food. Talking about food, fuck, weren't you hungry? He tried to warn you, holding your wrist, but all resolve was lost the moment you looked in his eyes: he immediately pulled down his briefs, dick sprouting hard.

"Well, changed my mind" his tone falters in between words, member now free from the confines of his tight underwear.

"Are you tired, man? You sound tired" Paul comments on his tone. "Came to rest?"

You spit on your hand, and he gulps.

"Somethin' like that"

You start to jerk him off, leaving little wet kisses and licks just above his dick. Pedro's eyes are hypnotized, glued to every lick of yours across his girth, the spit making your movements smoother. Sexier. Fuck.

"Well, sorry to break it to you but rest time is over. They want us back on set now"

Your tight needy lips are wrapped around his his length and it's so hard to keep the talk normal when he justs wants to yell at Paul to fuck off. Your hand is there too; you are as of help as much as you aren't.

"I'll be there, Paul, just―Fuck!"

But his attempt to cover a moan doesn't go unnoticed.

"Are you alright in there?" he tries to enter, but Pedro locked the door. He's yelling he's fine, but Mescal doesn't sound convinced. "I can't go inside; it's locked. Are you sure you are okay, mate?"

"Didn't want you to take a picture of me drooling on my sleep" he manages to get out in a monotone voice. A real win if you take into account you've gotten to a point where you squeeze under his cock, massaging his balls.

"Smart move!" he chuckles from outside. "I guess I'll see you there"

Pedro covers a moan with his palm as he's throwing his head back in pleasure. He can feel his orgams looming over, minstrations growing sloppier around his pulsating cock, the need to fill your greedy evil mouth with his seed making him sick. He's a simple man: he just wants his pretty wife to fuck his cock silly and come in her mouth in peace. Is that so hard to get this days?

Paul seems to be finally gone as Pedro can't keep containing his grunts anymore, steps moving: until said steps sound closer again.

"Oh, I almost forgot, have you seen Y/n? I can't find her anywhere" it's coming. His orgasm is coming in the absolute worst moment. He can feel you gagging at his hard rock cock, hitting the back of your throat now. Still, your hands don't loose their grip on his cock and skirt, determination filling that sexy little body of yours. It was rather admirable the effort you were putting in this. "Think she went to the beach? She said she loved it. God, that little rebel. Anyway, if you see her, tell her-"

He leans his head back once again, seeing stars. No one knows him like his wife, truly.

The sight of you drooling from your chin, the wet sounds of him fucking himself onto your mouth as your spit-coated fingers pump his girth, you gulping down the precum from his tip, his fingers holding your face roughly by the cheeks...

"Yes, Paul, yes!" Pedro barks, barely hiding the moan that erupts from his ribcage, thick shots of his hot cum hitting your tongue and deep of the throath. "Fuck off and let me get ready"

"Jesus, mate, chill. I'm sorry. See you there"

And Paul Mescal's hovering fly ass is finally gone.

"Poor Paul" you say as soon as you pull off his length, voice raspy as you huff for air. Pedro lovingly cleans rests of your saliva and his cum from your chin as he chuckles at how much audacity, courage and horniness could fit in such a small young body. "You've ruined the friendship"

"You think?" he licks off some as you sit on his lap again, tongue directly on your face. You feel aroused again, but time's up. "It's your fault. That and this"

He points down.

"Just as you used that pretty head of yours to think of the trouble you just made, think of an excuse for Mr. Ridley about the skirt"

at0michips: wait wdym paul is sick??? ㅤㅤl-u-n-a-m: at0michips he's died vnightx: i'm wondering who'll do now the do you even know me interview with pedro now :( i was so excited!!! hope they don't cancel it :( ㅤㅤunhing3dprincess: vnightx i bet my grandma it's y/n ㅤㅤat0michips: unhing3dprincess why do u keep betting ur grandma omg 😭😭😭

"You know what I think would be fun?" Pedro comments while you wait for the interview's set to be prepared.

Tour press has finally begun. That meant you could go home for a while after the filming wrapped, just to be back for the promotion of the film. You were excited of course, the experience new and thrilling. After much needed battery recharging and husband/wife time, you were ready to take over the world.

But then Paul got sick.

Today's interview was scheduled to be him and Pedro, but since he was unavailable, they paired him with you, since you both spoke Spanish (which felt slightly racist in your opinion), and because Fred and Joseph were already paired up for the other.

You leave your coffee, knowing he's about to say something stupid or endearing, perhaps both, brown liquid probably spilling out of your mouth. Or worst, nostrils.

"Tell me"

"What if we left little hints that we're together?" his smile is one of mischief. "Like you could wear my cap, or I could wear a chain with your initial around my neck, like Ryan Gosling did at the Barbie premiere"

"Or as Taylor Swift sang" you counter. "But Pedro, dear, you're underestimating our fans. You don't think they'll match it sooner than we think?"

"Maybe" he agrees. That's just what I want. "What's funny is we're about to do a type of interview where we could blow our cover"

"Maybe" you repeat, "or maybe you don't know all about me as much as you think, Mr. Pascal"

He fake gasps, feigning hurt. "Is this a dare, Mrs. Pascal?"

"No" you try to be mature for once, cutting the banter as much as you'd like to go on and kiss him right there. "Also, remember to answer incorrectly sometimes, you know..."

"There's no way I'm letting you win though"

"Pedro, no seas necio!"

The producers arrive just in time to let you know it's ready.

"After M'lady" he's back to being charming as he is, not as husband charming but just Pedro Pascal charming. The nerve of this guy to do it in front of the LADbible crew.

"Whatever" you grumble, the nerves getting the best of you as you realize this interview may or may not give away more than you've been allowed before.

"Hello, I am Y/n L/n" you present yourself. Wow, the camera is really close. This isn't going to end well.

"And I'm Pedro Pascal"

Hearing his voice soothes you. It's okay, y/n, you got this. "And this is Do You Really Know Me- No wait, it's do you even know me. Okay, let's start again: Hello, I'm Y/n and this is-"

"I don't even know anymore" Pedro jokes, making you laugh. "Do you even know me?" he asks while looking forward, now making the crew laugh.

"This is Pedro Pascal, that'll do" you sigh.

"This is gonna be sad, she's not going to know any of these" he says, but in reality, he's mocking you, the mischief in his eyes glowing as he only looks at you tauntingly.

"Same can be said about you" you tease, "we're like a million years away"

"That's not true!" he gasps, "I watch your every move" punctuating each word. God, you try not to make a face. "I have Google alerts on you"

If he was gonna play, so were you.

"Glad to know I have you alerted" with the sweetest voice ever, seeing how his friendly façade falters for a bit at the tone you've used. You laugh, and Pedro takes the chance to laugh it off too.

After the introduction, they ask one of you to keep score, and you offer yourself because, well, you don't trust Pedro.

"I'll go first" you say. "Which was my first ever role in the industry? As an extra during an episode of Stranger Things, as a voice actor in A dog's purpose" you can't help but laugh, "or as a back-up dancer in Hustlers?"

"In Hustlers?" Pedro inquires in disbelief. "You're telling me you were in Hustlers?! I didn't even know you could dance!"

Lies. You and Pedro sometimes put some bachata and dance in the kitchen. God bless Juan Luis Guerra.

"Jennifer Lopez and I are practically besties" you answer nonchalant.

You know the answer. He does too. But he chooses the last one for comedic purposes.

"I'll go with Hustlers. Now that I'm looking at you, you do have a... dancer face"

"It's okay, you can say the forbidden word. I'll take it as a compliment" you laugh, "you're wrong, though. The answer is Stranger Things"

"No way!" and it sounds as if he genuinely didn't know. Good lying son of a bitch; Jim Carrey on Liar, Liar would've been proud.

"Yes. If you look in the background of season two, on this one episode where Nancy and Steve appear to have broken up during a halloween party, you can see me drinking from a cup on a corner"

"That's so crazy"

"Yeah, I was twenty already, yet playing a highschooler" you giggle. "Wow, time flies by. Anyway, we're both at zero. Your turn"

"What film did my dad not let me see at the cinema when I was, uh, ten years old?" Pedro reads from his card. "Rambo: first blood, The Breakfast Club, Day of The Dead"

"I'm going to base this in the year you were born. Okay, so 1975. Let's see" one of the things Pedro loves about you is that you're like a film encyclopedia, but right now, that'll cost him a point. "They all came out the same year, and they were also R rated. Hmmh, I'll choose The Breakfast Club"

Your analysis was just mindless bragging really. You knew the answer the moment he started reading the question, because the anecdote came during a time he heard you listening to the movie's soundtrack ("Did you know that my dad...")

"You complain about Paul all the time, but you're just the same" he comments. "She's a real competitor, people!"

You flush in embarrasment. "Okay, that's one for me. Next question" you read the card in your hands. "What pet do I own? An orange cat named Louis after my favorite singer, a fish, or a Shih Tzu named after my brother"

The orange cat lives with you both. You're curious as to how he'll answer.

"You aren't naming a Shih Tzu frickin' Fernando" he laughs, so loud, it ends up catching up to you and the crew. "I'll go with the cat"

"That's correct" you lament. "How would you know?"

As if the damn cat doesn't love him more than he loves you.

"I follow you on Instagram" he defends himself. Clever. "We are, um, what do you call it-"

"Oomfs"

"I'm not gonna try to pronounce your made up language. Okay, my turn. Which of these characters I've played in Saturday Night Live? Naughty daddy, protective mom, or weird uncle who has a creepy sneeze" he reads out loud in a confused tone.

This is easy. It was all over your timeline.

"Protective mom" you answer on a beat.

"This isn't fair, that was really popular!" he complains.

"It's still two for me and one for you" you mock. "Now, what is the nickname the internet has given me? I won't give you clues because it's an easy one"

"Easy? You said we were million of years apart and now I'm supposed to know?"

"Well, you seem to manage Instagram so I think you'll be just fine" you tease, and Pedro just wants to rip that smirk off of you. So he caves in first.

"It's people's princess"

"What?!" your eyes grow comically large, shimmering with betrayal as you shout with an incredulous tone. "I can't believe you know" more like can't believe you said it.

"You're royalty! How am I supposed to not know that, internet darling? Besides, told you: I keep my eye on you" and he winks.

This motherfucker. Oh, he's totally sleeping on the couch tonight.

"Talk about internet darlings" your snarky tone comes out, and Pedro knows he's pissed his competitive wife off. "I guess we have a tie. Your turn"

"What are the initials of my full name?" his brows furrow. "I forget. JBPP, JPBP, JBPP"

"José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal" you recite. "B, of course"

"But that's too easy, everyone with Google knows it!" but then he's leaning into your ear, whispering in a very low voice to make sure only you hear. "I'll let it pass, though. Love hearing you pronounce my name, mami"

Your face grows obscenely red. "I'm back ahead. Let's see if you can keep up. Okay, here it goes" you read the card, "what is the director I've stated I want to work with? Greta Gerwig, Pedro Almodóvar, or Quentin Tarantino"

"Pedro Almodóvar, no? You said you were jealous I had already worked with him" he playfully nudges you. Too much contact, face hot again. Maybe in group interviews you'll do better, because right now, you're doing a rather poor job at controlling yourself, even as an actor; you can already picture your agent pulling her hair behind the cameras.

"It's Greta Gerwig, actually"

"What?! No way, you told me this!" he grumbles. "This game is rigged"

"Don't get me wrong, I'm still jealous. I just think working with Greta Gerwig is peak womanhood, and I gotta live that. So, Greta, if for some reason this silly video gets to you, call me. I promise I'm not that childish"

"She is" Pedro slips in, "don't call her. So unprofessional" in a mocking exaggerated tone.

"Whatever, you sore looser. Me three, you two. Next!"

"Fine. Which of these songs would I have played at my funeral? My Heart Will Go On, Purple Rain, Nothing Compares To You"

He looks at you, silently pleading you to not answer correctly. Your competitive side screams in agony.

"I have no idea. Why do I feel you've already said it somewhere, though? I'll go with Nothing Compares To You, because the first its too corny for you and the second too epic"

He scoffs, amused at the fact that you did obey, but at what cost? Pedro's well aware his princess can get as competitive, if not worse, than Paul.

"You're saying I'm not epic enough for Purple Rain? Too bad, because that's the answer" you grunt, crossing your arms. "That's right, I am cool enough to have it played. I guess we're tied again!"

"No, you don't loose a point. It's still three to two. This just gives you the opportunity to tie"

"W-wait a minute"

"Settle down" you pat his thigh, "you can still try, handsome"

He gulps when your hand meets his skin, despite the layer of clothes. It's still something that gets him on edge, no matter the years you've known each other. And handsome? You came here for blood.

"Okay, here's your chance: what image of me became trending topic on twitter? An image of me eating a typical dish from my country, an image of me watching Deadpool and Wolverine with glasses while Hugh Jackman's shirtless scene reflects on them or C, me meeting Taylor Swift at the backstage of the Eras Tour"

"The typical dish is tempting" he muses out loud, "but I'll go with the Taylor Swift one because that sounds like something that'd trend"

"You're right" you throw your card. "I'm not complaining though. Best day of my life"

"Does this mean I'm winning?" he beams excitedly. "Oh, in your face Paul! I will finally win something!"

"Slow down, cowboy. There's still some left"

He purses his lips. "Let me have this one thing, would you? Guess not. Here it comes" he starts to read his card, "At school I competed in state competitions, in which sport? Soccer, lacrosse, swimming"

"Swimming" you answer hastily, trying not to think on Pedro wearing tight little swimsuits, as you've only seen him wearing swim trunks.

"Okay, that's dissapointing. Please continue"

"I participated in which play while I was in highschool? Hamlet, The Iliad or Much Ado About Nothing"

You doubt he remembers. The only time it ever came up, was when you visited your parent's house and a photography of you during said play was showed to him by your dad.

"The Iliad, right?" you laugh. The answer is wrong: It's Hamlet. "What? I swear it was that one! It's just you have very..." beautiful is at the tip of his tongue but he refrains himself, "...very greek features"

You can't help but laugh.

"Why of course! This is a face people go to war for"

"I agree" your heart skips a beat, "but I don't think I'll make it that far, if we talk about a war"

"You big fat liar!" you slap his arm playfully. "You've played all sort of characters, from soldiers of all nationalities and places, and like, superheroes, f*****g Joel Miller, even a DEA agent. You at least learned something!"

"Wow, slow down, this isn't a filmography recount" he jokes. Liar, you mouth to the cameras. "Okay, last one: I became a viral sensation for eating what type of sandwhich in LADbible's snack wars: BLT, PB&J, grilled cheese"

You remember the video fondly. Even your brother had sent it to you, along a text that said: Isn´t this your husband?

"PB&J, I win!" you cheer, instantly getting off the chair to do a celebratory dance. Pedro doesn't say anything, just throwing the cards away while the fondness of his eyes betrays him.

pyramiidsf: i want someone to look at me the way pedro looks at y/n mybritishstyle: guys they're just friends 😭 he's like that with all his female co-stars ㅤㅤann-gell: mybritishstyle me when i'm delusional af mandoshoney: where's that girl that's always betting her grandma??? SHE WAS RIGHTFLKRGJ

"Hello, I'm Paul Mescal. I'm here with my friends from the cast of Gladiator II" Connie and you both raise your palms to greet the camera, laughing when you realized you'd done it at the same time, "and we are going to play a game about how well we know each other for Vanity Fair" the irish man introduces the interview you're filming today.

"Did they prompt you?" Pedro speaks up, "or did you just make that up on the fly?"

You laugh a bit too loud, hoping they cut it off in the editing process.

Paul goes first, taking up a card with the first question written on it.

"Okay. Question: What's my least favorite day of the week?"

"Tuesday" answers Joseph once Paul is done reading. "Oh, you're writing it down?"

"Yeah" he answers.

"You just wrote Tuesday" Connie points out, Paul's card on his legs. You laugh along the rest.

"Yeah" he repeats laughing. "I actually, when you said Tuesday" Yeah, he said Tuesday Pedro adds on the background of laughter. "I was like...I'm gonna give everybody a point for that"

"I think I deserve a point for being observant" Connie complains.

Everyone gets a point and Paul moves towards the next question.

"What was the name of my character in Normal People?"

"Connell" both you and Joseph answer, looking at each other before squinting your eyes playfully.

"Callum" Pedro answers out loud at the same time, and you laugh. He clearly had slept when you played it for a re-watch last summer.

"No, you're out" Paul pokes Pedro next to him.

"Connel" Joseph repeats, and Fred agrees to the same answer.

Paul then asks Connie what's hers after he confirms you three.

"Connor?" she asks, confused.

"Incorrect. Three points" while pointing you three.

"You got wrong" he tells Pedro, "Callum's a different character"

"See? You just don't pay attention when you watch things" you blurt out, stopping yourself before adding the with me. It would be harder to come back from that, but so is this as everyone looks at you, even your husband, subtle panic in his eyes. Where the cameras this close? How long had you been silent?

"It's just, quick funny story" you improvise. "Pedro didn't know much about Paul's career, and as I am a fan, I took the time to show him and recommend him your stuff" Paul smiles. "Clearly, my fanatism didn't rub on Pedro but a girl can try"

He laughs, before saying "So the answer is Connell" and you try so hard to remain normal like the energy hasn't shifted.

"He only plays characters with the letter C in the name" Pedro jokes, chewing on a toothstick he seemingly pulled out of nowhere. More laughs follow, and you are so grateful for how he's handling your little metida de patada.

"What's number one on my bucket list?" he asks next, "and don't look at my answer"

The marker is the only sound to be heard, and then Pedro jokingly tries to take a peek.

"No peeking" Connie berates as Pedro laughs.

"You're not gonna be able to see that" Paul replies in an anyways tone.

You repeat the same joke, before Fred blocks you. "Not you too!"

Paul finishes after a while, Connie commenting it was long. Joseph raises his hand.

"Yes, Joseph"

"Is it to see the Great Wall of China?" he asks.

"No, but it's in that-"

"It's close, isn't it?" you interrupt.

"...family of thought" he finishes.

"It's to go and see something" Pedro points out.

"Okay. Rajasthan" tries Connie. "Go to Rajasthan, for a tour"

"Travel to South America" Paul interrupts with the correct answer, "I've never been to South America"

"I'm from South America" Pedro comments, never missing a chance to shout out his dear Chile.

Paul jokes about him getting three points while the rest of you laugh.

"I was born in South America. 17 points for Pedro"

"I want points too" you jump on the joke. "I know Spanish, so I can take you there and avoid you getting lost, mi querido amigo"

"But who was born there?" Pedro counters, "you get no points"

"I think Joseph is the only person who gets a point there" Paul adds, "because everybody just jumped on the bandwagon"

"He said to visit the Great Wall of China" Pedro protests, "which is nowhere near South America"

"It really is not" Connie agrees.

"Qué gente tan tramposa" you complain. "That's unfair. I remove my offer"

"Think about bucket list, and he came up with travel to bit" he tries to reason Joseph's point.

"And by the way, where in South America?" Pedro questions.

"Don't fight, don't fight" pleads Joseph, the calm one. Fred just sits there, enjoying the chaos.

"I want, any, I want to do a big tour of everywhere" Mescal defends himself.

Pedro doesn't back down. "'Cause it's very different"

Paul starts to get angry too. Jesus, men. Competitive men of it all.

"I know it's very different" making an annoyed face.

"Well, different is nice" you intervene, a hand placing in Pedro's left shoulder. "If you stop giving points for free, I'll come with you to the big everywhere tour"

"Alright" Paul agrees. "When's my birthday?" is the next question.

"February" all of you say.

Joseph struggles with the date first, saying seventh, then fourth. Fred tries with ninth, Pedro with eight, and then Joseph starts counting from one to two. Fred counts from eleven to twelve.

"Second" Mescal reveals. "Point to Joseph"

"Oh my God, you guys are good" Connie mentions.

"That's all my questions" and it's time to move on the next one: which happens to be your dear husband, Pedro.

"Paul is like" he brings up while the toothpick dances on his teeth, "Paul is motivated to catch up on points. He's coming for you" to pick on his competitive side as Mescal looks deep in thought.

"He's coming. He's coming" Joseph repeats as Fred laughs.

"What is my full name?"

"Oh! Pedro-" Paul tries in a blink. "Something, J? Jose? Juan?"

"Pedro Pascal, something, something" says Joseph.

"Nope"

"No?"

"Pedro Maria, Jose Maria Pascal" Paul struggles.

Pedro is about to answer when your voice cuts through the air.

"It's José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal" you recite.

"It indeed is!" he says, smiling a bit too much. "She gets a point"

"Jose Pedro Balmaceda Pascal" your husband repeats in a more english-friendly pronunciation, looking at the camera while toying with his toothpick.

"I said Jose, I said Jose" Paul protests.

Pedro shakes his head. "You said Jose, but then you put it-"

Connie takes Paul's side. "You did say Jose"

"But then you put it behind Pedro which eliminate- which disqualified you" he replies.

Paul gets angry. That sore looser.

"That's absolute bullshit"

"Don't worry mate, the game has just begun" you joke, making the man more irritated. "Think you can get ahead of me?"

"Joseph is still ahead, y/n" Paul counters, still irritated. "Besides, wouldn't it be cheating? You can speak Spanish!"

"So? Not like speaking a language allows you to know every person's name Paul" you mock. He just snorts, despite still being half angry. Pedro is allowed to continue, trying not to make a face at yours and Paul's banter.

"The question is, who is my favorite actor?" he reads. As the cast members laugh, he uncaps the marker with his mouth, and now you have to try not to make a face, thinking about those teeth sinking into your flesh.

Quinn raises his hand. "It's me"

"That you're my favorite actor?"

"Yeah. You said that to me once" the bald man sounds sure of it.

Paul tries to think in the background. So do you. How can you not know this? he must've brought it up at least once.

"Do you remember?" Joseph insists.

Pedro finally remembers. "I said you were- I said I thought you were special"

"Oh" he sounds rather dissapointed.

"And special can mean a lot of things" he jokes, laughing by himself. Fred laughs with you as Joseph makes a face, your laughter turning even louder when you notice Paul all moody, trying to get this point.

"Who's your favorite actor?" Paul asks, "I think we just have to shoot from the hip here guys"

"Marlon Brando?" Connie guesses.

"Is it Harrison Ford?" Fred guesses.

"Let's go with Harrison Ford just because he's my favorite actor..."

You can't believe you didn't know this. You've re-watched and watched so many Star Wars content together. He gives you a brief look, knowing you're embarrased at your lack of answer.

"As a kid?"

"He's most influent, yeah" Pedro agrees.

"What job did I have before I became a full-time actor?" is next.

"Dancer. You were a great dancer" Paul aswers. Both Fred and Joseph repeat it, adding he was specifically a go-go dancer.

"Oh, he is" you add. "Videos of you dancing are lovely. Ever thought of getting back in the bussiness?"

He laughs, what appears to be a light blush creeping up his cheeks.

"Sure, darling. When you ask me to dance, I'll be there"

Nobody comments on this, too busy waiting for Pedro to say yes or no to the answer they believe to be right. But he isn't saying it is. Now you remember why.

"Come on, come on, come on" Paul begs.

"Can any of you guys remember?" Pedro pleads.

They insist that he danced in Spain, then New York, then settle with Spain again, even Pedro confirming so. But it still isn't the answer written on the card, no matter how much the boys insist.

"Connie?" he tries. She just looks confused.

"The answer in the card is-"

"Waiter" you answer. "You were a waiter"

Now you have three points under your belt.

"Why do you always say the answer at last?!" Paul grumbles. "You are cheating!"

"I'm not" you laugh the accusation off. "You just can't accept I'm better"

"Si que lo eres" Pedro agrees. "Es divertido hacer que se enoje Paul"

"What did you say about me? It's not fair, you're probably sharing the answers!" he's still adamant on insisting with the supposed cheating issue, making you laugh.

Now it's Connie's turn, who starts with: "How many languages do I speak?"

You put a puzzled look.

"You speak seven, eight maybe" Joseph guesses. Pauls says she speaks french, "but most likely seven"

Pedro points his finger at him. "Once he gets going, he's on a roll"

"Joe's got it" Connie agrees.

"Paul, end this reign" Pedro jokes. He looks rather frustrated.

"And the bonus points" Connie offers. "Okay, bonus, what are they?"

"This is an emperor's reign" your husband adds.

Joseph answers: Italian. Danish. English. Swedish. French. Spanish. Norwegian.

Connie agrees she speaks Spanish, making you jump in excitement.

"Oh, I didn't know that!" you beam. "Wait, does that mean you did get what Pedro and I gossiped about you?"

"What?" Joseph asks.

"Nada" you quickly correct yourself. "Yo no dije nada"

"Not that much. I just speak a bit of Spanish. I mostly dominate my own language, German and English"

"You blew our cover!" Pedro nags, hitting your bare leg, yet its devoid of anger.

"He needs a bonus" comments Connie, surprised at Joseph.

"This is horrifying" Pedro says when Joseph gets another point and a fricking bonus on top of that. "This is a slaughter"

"Oh, for which film did I have a gym built in my garage?"

Both Joseph and Paul answer the question correctly, saying Wonder Woman. The latter is quick to state they both get that point.

"That's one for me" Paul says, then looks at you. "And none for you"

You stick out your tongue at him as Connie reads the next card.

"If I were to take this cast on a vacation where would I take you?"

"Ibiza" answers Joseph. Connie agrees in Spanish, with a cute and excited correcto.

Your husband feels the need to crack a joke at Quinn's expense.

"Somebody was paying attention to Connie Nielsen very closely during the shooting of this movie"

"Okay. What is my favorite curse word in Danish?"

"Fuck" Pedro tries.

"No"

"Nobody is going to get that, Connie" Paul bickers.

"Oh, I don't know any Danish" you lament.

"At least now you know how it feels" Mescal drops, making you snort. You playfully kick him on the ribs with your shoe.

"It's very simple" Connie gives as a clue. "It's the same word in every language"

"Shit" Paul tries.

"Satan" she reveals.

Everybody is laughing in confusion at that, saying there's no way you could use that.

"Vos Satan!" Connie curses.

Now it's Fred's turn.

"What is my weirdest on-set habit?"

"I haven't noticed you do anything weird on set" Paul tells.

"I have" Pedro interrupts.

They all get on a small briefing about what could it possibly be, that it was weird, and wasn't part of his character, as you ponder. It was funny before, but now Paul is behind you by a point. So think fast.

"Yeah. I would say being yourself" Pedro jokes, but surprisingly, it works.

"Me! Five points for Pedro" he celebrates as you all laugh. "Love Fred. Oh, Fred"

"Oh, oh, okay" he moves to the next question. "What is my favorite reality TV show?"

Joseph tries with Survivor and Paul with Alone. Truth is, you don't watch any show of said kind, only vagely hearing about Love Island.

"You and I have talked about reality TV" Pedro reveals, "It's just that we never identified one"

They keep guessing shows that sound like a foreign language to you.

"You know what's offensive? That I'm the second youngest of this cast and I have no idea what are you all talking about"

"She's not to be trusted" Pascal quips, "can't trust someone who doesn't appreciate the art of reality TV"

You huff, annoyed.

"Is it A&E stuff?" Pedro asks.

"Yeah, it's the competitive cheapskates" Fred answers. "It's people that really save money on everything"

Pedro gets the point because he mentioned the A&E bit.

"There's like this amazing guy that made a stew out of fish bones, and I just thought it was incredible" he shares. Then, moves to the next question. "What is my go-to crafty snack?"

Nobody remembers eating snacks on set, and Fred gives the clue that it's a drink. Joseph says it's a smoothie, and he does remember it but it isn't the answser.

"I'm thinking of something specific. That Emerge-C that you put in the water"

"Oh, that's very good" you agree, so does the rest, even discussing the best colors

"Who in the cast would I ask to bail me out of jail?"

Everyone even Pedro agree its him. Everyone gets a point, yet Joseph remains ahead.

It's Joseph's turn. "What is my favorite sport?"

"Skateboarding" Paul is so quick to answer, earning him two points for both being correct and time.

"What celebrity do I get mistaken for?"

"Daisy Edgar-Jones sometimes" says Mescal. Of course he had to bring her up.

"No, she gets mistaken for me" Joseph jokes. "Yeah, poor Daisy. But I'm writing it down"

"That was the two letters?" Pedro notices. Still, no one gets it.

It's fucking Justin Timberlake. You'd never guess that.

"What is my favorite film franchise?"

You've probaly named all the existing franchises to no avail. You think fo your dad, a huge geek, trying to remember if there is one missing.

"Oh- Lord of the Rings!" you both answer with Paul at the same time.

"C'mon!" his celebration is short lived when he realizes you tied to him.

"What is my favorite British slang word?"

Pedro says it can't be said, but Quinn insists they can, even adding it's his favorite one too.

"We can say bad words? We can say-?" but the camera beeps over it.

The answer is Bellend. What even is that? Joseph feigns sadness and Pedro keeps apologizing, even as you sit on the chair.

"Okay. I'm last"you wiggle your eyebrows with interest. "Let's see. Okay, first question: what did I take from the Gladiator II set?"

"You took something?" Joseph asks on disbelief.

"Why wouldn't I take something?"

"Is it like an item or memorabilia?" asks Connie.

"It's an item" you uncap the marker, scribbling down the answer.

"It's a short word" Fred points out, but still can't provide a guess.

"You took the rings home" Pedro answers. You snap your had on his way, probably obvious. "What? You told me" he says.

Of course Paul complains. "Hey, that isn't fair! He knew the answer before!"

"Well, if you payed more attention to me, you'd know it"

Lies. Pedro knows because it's sitting in the jewelry box inside your house.

"See? I do pay attention" Pedro playfully hits Mescal.

"I could pay you more attention" he looks at you.

"Alright, then do. Ready? Next question: what is my go-to movie? Oh, this is a good one. I'm always changing it, but most of the time I end up choosing the same one"

They all give you a puzzled look as you scribble.

"C'mon, guys! I've said it on interviews before too. Paul?" the man shrugs. "Thought you said you'd pay me more attention. Heads up, you're doing a terrible job so far!"

"Hey!" he protests. "It's not fair if the answer's changing. Give us a clue"

"You didn't give any clues to yours!" you giggle. "Besides, I don't want you to win"

"Hey, that's against the rules!"

"I'd say it depends on the season" Pedro speaks up. You quirk an eyebrow. "Like, if it's changing, I don't think your Christmas go-to movie is the same as your summer one"

"Actually" you smile fondly, "that is true. On summer, it's Mamma Mia. So I suppose, if you can't guess the one, that'll do"

"No" he smiles, cheeky. "I know it too"

"Yeah?" you challenge, "what is it, then?"

"It's Thelma and Louise" he answers, and your heart beats fast.

"How do you know?" Paul inquires. "Somebody was paying attention to Y/n L/n very closely during the shooting of this movie"

Ah, his joke from earlier. Joseph giggles behind him. Karma, he supposes.

"She said it on an interview, guys. C'mon, learn your sources!"

"Okay" you clear your throat. "What movie got me into acting?"

"Thelma and Louise" Joseph tries.

"No" you laugh, "you're just recycling the answer"

"Is it an old or modern movie?" Connie asks.

"Hmh, old" you pause, "just not... I don't know if you'll ever guess it"

"Is it a Pedro Almodóvar film?" you shake your head. "What? You're always mentioning him!"

Pedro looks into your eyes amid the others' discussion, and you can tell he remembers the conversation.

"There isn't one"

You smile, chest pounding at his soft tone.

"That's correct"

"A trick question?!" Paul yells. "I quit"

"When there's just one left?" you tease.

"Yes, because you've been hiding it all the time but no more" he counters, pointing both you and Pedro. You feel the space getting smaller, breaths going from even to noticeable. "You are sharing answers"

You try to make your breath of relief pass as a chuckle.

"I'm not even gonna win, relax. And drop the charges, please. Loose like a man"

"You didn't explain it though" Connie speaks. "What did Pedro mean?"

"While I have many movies that are inspiration to me, they aren't the reason I chose this path. I did it because I saw an Oscar's ceremony when I was 11" you explain fondly, feeling warm at the memories. "I still remember when they handed the award to Diablo Cody for best original screenplay. I don't know, man, it moved me. What it meant for young artists who came from nothing. I guess I wanted, one day, to be the one standing there, for other dreamers to see it's possible"

"Wow, that's beautiful" Connie says.

"Thank you" you get flustered. "Suppose it was worth it, you know, to do interviews about not really knowing my cast mates" and laugh.

"How does Pedro know, though?" Joseph asks.

"We talk a lot" you clear your throat. "Last one: what indie horror movie did I make a small appearence in? I'm feeling generous because it's the last so I'll give you a clue. It's a Stephen King adaptation"

Paul is the first to speak. "You where in a-"

"Yeah but it wasn't such a huge role. Don't make yourself any ideas"

"I have no idea" Connie surrenders. "Other clue, as in how many words?"

"It doesn't even have any words" you laugh. "You give up? It's 1922. Was an extra as well. Made me think Netflix had my name highlighted in the extra call sheet, because I did so many minor and background roles during that year. Grateful, though, because now I get to be Rome's empress and not fortune teller or highschool #6"

The interview ends, and the camera may or may have not captured the last seconds, Pedro's gaze fixated with you the entire time.

elysyannemimi: we all saw that right? GET PEDRO AND Y/N IN A ROMCOM ❗THEIR CHEMISTRY IS INSANE❗ at0michips: love paul and y/n so much 😭😭 gimme enemies to lovers RN ㅤㅤbobgirllll: at0michips wait what if paul and y/n are secretly dating 😳 ㅤㅤann-gell: bobgirllll quick question are u dumb unhing3dprincess: i bet my grandma they're married. it has to be. trust me ㅤㅤstarlightt180: unhing3dprincess BESTIE U ARE BACK

You arrived in London today. The premiere will be in a few days, and things have been, well, hectic.

Lux couldn't stop talking all the plane ride, but your mind kept going back at the email your manager had sent you before you had boarded the plane.

It's catching upon you, read the haunting message. Attached below, a TMZ article that claimed a regular church attendee had seen you both getting married. It also used a lot of the noise fans had been making on social media, connecting dots or just hyping up the undeniable chemistry. It ended with a little paragraph saying it was obvios, and they're just hoping you'd confirmed it.

You came to realize you didn't care about it anymore. Sure, the pushing around annoyed you, but the thought of still keeping your marriage under wraps feels pointless now. Why wouldn't you shout to the world how in love with your husband you are?

Yet, when you arrive at the hotel, you keep the same protocol of arriving after Pedro, who has already checked in with two keys, claiming its for him and his sister, while you ask for the key to Lux's actual room. After you swipe cards with her, you head over the room you'd be sharing with your husband.

His face appears in your frame, everything happening quickly.

"Get inside. Now"

Your body is dragged inside the hotel room, not even giving you time to swipe the key for yourself.

"Pedro!" you exclaim, between surprised and confused. "What the hell is your problem?"

"Did you read it?"

"What? The article?" your tone is filled with annoyance. "Yes, I did. Why?"

"What do you mean why?" he snaps, voice raising higher. "Don't play dumb with me. You know fans have fuelled the rumors, and tabloids have started digging every corner in fucking California"

"So, what? You're acting as if people finding out is the worst thing in the world" you roll your eyes.

"It is, yes!" Pedro bursts out, caving in to the stress.

It feels like you've been hit across your face.

"Excuse me?" you seethe, hurt etched all across your features. "Would it be the worst thing in the world to admit you're married to the person you supposedly love the most?"

"I love you, y/n. It's just-"

His voice softens, trying to reach for you, yet you pull back, his hand falling to his side in an akward manner. He sighs in frustration, running a hand through his hair as he sits on the edge of the bed.

"I love you" he repeats, sounding much more sure this time.

Your frame seems smaller as your voice comes out hoarse, filled with emotion, appearing to be in the brink of tears:

"Then why do you act like you're embarrassed of me?"

He hates himself for making you feel this way, making you think things that aren't true.

"I don't. Never" he emphasizes. Then, tries to reach once again when you move a little bit closer to him, recognizing that's your way of letting him know you're ready. "You're the most precious thing in the world to me, don't ever think the opposite" then he sighs, heavy. "I'm just scared"

You silently ask him to explain, rubbing his thumb soothingly across his tattoo.

"You're so young, and I'm, well- I know we're aware of it, but people are cruel and the press is ruthless. I don't want to see your name dragged across the mud because you decided to marry me. Your career is starting, and I'd never forgive myself is something happened to you because of me. Not trying to make this about me, yeah? But this industry is fucked up. You've work hard to get to where you are, and it'll be unfair if you'd loose it. I'm scared because us..." he wavers, words trailing off. "I want us to be. I wouldn't want to live in a world without you, i-it would kill me not to have you be my wife"

You desperately want to kiss off the worry on his face, but let him finish.

"N-not saying our love is weak, or anything! That a couple of opinions or tabloids will- you know? Just, I-I don't want them to break us apart. Mi vida, you're the light of my life. Please, forgive me, I-"

He feels his throat closing up, words failing to come out. You sense the grip on your hand to be stronger, immediately letting loose of it.

"Hey. C'mere" your voice is tender, allowing him to bury his face in your stomach as you comb his messy curls with your fingers. "It's okay, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere"

He lets himself melt under your touch, his mind loosing itself in the soft of your digits and your perfume up his nostrils. He's again breathing normaly, hands now hugging your waist.

"There you go. Better?" Pedro nods, still not being able to talk. "That's okay, take all the time you need. We have all day"

"Do we?" he raises his view, his eyes soft yet there is something else to the brown shade.

You hum as to nod. "We agreed to join Lux for dinner. It's barely 1pm"

"Tell me you're thinking it too" his voice cuts throughout the air, boucing off the tapestry on the walls.

You laugh, nervously. "I don't think I do"

"Hmmh, I see" he stands up, towering over you. "You sure you don't?"

"You sure you want this?"

Before you know it, his lips capture yours in a passionate kiss, cutting off all words to be said. What a waste of air, anyway. You are quick to reciprocate, whimpering against his lips.

Pedro picks you up like you're as light as a feather, his arms flexing as he carries you and places you on the bed, frame hovering over yours. He breaks the kiss to breath, but you're pulling him back in, his hold on your hips tighter and the wet spot in your panties wetter.

"Look at you, pretty baby. So needy" he whispers against your face, hot breath lingering above your lips. "And mine. Mía. Only mine"

"I am, yes. Yours only. Need you so bad right now, papi" you answer in a rush. "Now shut up and fuck me"

"Con gusto" he chuckles darkly, "gotta keep the wife happy"

"Happy wife, happy life" you recite, stripping him off of his plain shirt, revealing his toned torso, bulging biceps defined by the movements. You gulp. "Fuck, papi. Gotta thank Marvel for this. I love all of your versions, but I can work with this too" you dreamily stare at him, your hands cupping his face.

He strips the rest of his clothing, but a cute blush adorns his cheeks.

"Yeah, well, it's Scott's fault too"

Your impatient fingers reach the middle of your panties to rub your clothed pussy, letting out a sound that darkens his hazel orbs.

"Fuck that guy" you mutter. Pedro laughs.

"Thought you said you loved the guy"

"Until I learned what he said about your body" you groan, still rubbing. "Connie told me"

His hands now travel to remove your clothes, almost ripping them off.

"Who cares? I just want to fuck you now" he breathes out, practically drooling at the sight of your damp panties. "Lemme take this off too"

He unhooks your bra, seeing the hard nipples. The urge to lick them is so bad, but his desire to fill you silly to the brim is stronger.

You see his hesitation, which is why you grab him by the neck to pull him in for a kiss. He kisses back fiercely, labored breaths as he struggles to focus on your lips, his wet mouth darting to your jaw, neck and collarbones. His hands roam all over your body, needy.

"Gotta be inside of you, mami. Can't wait any longer"

"Then stop waiting" you plead, tugging at his boxers with urgency.

Seeing you so cockhungry, lips parted and pupils blown wide makes his hard dick twitch with anticipation.

He mutters a labored fuck, aligning himself to enter your sticky folds. Pedro enters your tight pussy with a low groan, burying himself deep inside of you, used to his length by now. You're basically begging for it, nails digging and eyes supplicating.

He can't deny you anything, can he?

A messy whine leaves your widened mouth as you adjust, pleasure mixed with pain.

"Mhmm" you moan.

"Mhmm what?" he mocks. "You asked for it. Now take it, cariño"

He thrusts deeper into you, watching in awe how his dick enters your pussy; it was always perfectly, your pussy made for him.

"You're drippin' baby" his rough voice caresses your cheek. He kisses the are, giving a lick to the sweat starting to form. "S'fucking tight too"

You move your hips towards him, trying to augment the friction. The overstimulation starts to cloud your sense, reducing you to a whiny mess as you grip his steady arms.

"I can't think of anything but you, baby" he confesses between grunts, "filling up your pussy to the brim, you dripping with my seed for days"

You moan at the filthy words.

"Love how you take my dick, amor" stretching you as Pedro moves in and out. "S'made for me"

"Yes" you moan, skin slapping sounds bouncing off the walls. "Fuck, I love your dick..."

His pace picks up, and it comes to a point where he's just fucking you silly, his grip on your hips surely to leave a bruise as you keep spilling obscene sounds of pleasure from your lips.

"Your pussy's mine, yeah? No one else gets to have you like this"

"N-no, just you, Pedro. My h-husband" you manage to squeeze, more moans vocalizing the pleasure you felt with each thrust, his big dick inside of you moving in a a steady rhythm, making your eyes roll back further and orgasm closer.

Your breasts bounce with each thrust, and he finds impossible to resist the urge anymore, licking the sensible skin and hard nipples, your hands moving to his back, scratching him harshly, both chasing your release.

"Please!" you whine out loud, not caring how desperate you sound.

Harder. Faster. Rougher.

But your husband knows you, so he indeed starts to fuck you harder, heavy breaths and slippy kiss noises hanging in the spaces between each thrusts. He pants with every motion of his dick, a knot forming on his belly.

"Shit, baby. I think I'm gonna cum. Gonna come so hard"

"Do it. I'm on birth control, remember?" you groan, feeling your high approach as well. "Fill me up, please. Give me all your cum"

Your bodies move as one, precise thrusts hitting exactly that sweet spot of yours repeatedly, chasing your orgasm. For a brief moment, your eyes lock with his and then he's saying:

"I love you, y/n. So much"

Your heart skips a bit, his dick twitching inside as his gaze glimmers with adoration and possesiveness, teeth grazing your skin with marks for him to call you his.

"I love you too, Pedro. More than you know"

A final thrust is delivered. Fuck, feels so good you think you hear him say. Just like promised, he fills you with his release, shots of his thick, warm cum inside your sticky walls. You follow soon, back arching, toes curling, and both head and eyes rolling back. Pedro falls on top of you, his broad body collapsing over yours, as you both pant hard, trying to steady your pulse and breath. He then removes himself and positions you to be the one on top now, lazily throwing the covers over your bare bodies. We need to shower, you said, but he argued you'd do it later before going out.

"I needed that" and you happily hum in agreement at your husband's dragged out words.

Your head falls and rises, with the movement of his chest, silence settling on the previously filled with sex noises room. That until he speaks up:

"One day, I'm gonna fill you up so good until you have my babies, mami" he murmurs, just then realizing what he said. But you snuggle closer, hand and legs drapped over his bare body. You look at him closely, seeing nothing but certainty on his eyes.

I choose you. I'll always choose you.

"Whatever it is with you" your nose brushes his, a small sweet kiss on his lips, "I want"

His eyes shine, probably with tears or the glow of affection.

"Let's do it"

"What?" you look into his eyes for any sign of doubt, bull all you see is love. "Pedro, are you serious?"

He nods. "Wouldn't you want that?"

You feel the corner of your lips pull up.

"Never have I wanted anything more"

poppysplayground: Y/N AND PEDRO RED CARPET DEBUT AT THE LONDON PREMIER OF GLADIATOR II WTF I JUST WOKE UP ptwt is in SHAMBLES mostannoyingbillioner: UM HELLO pedro showing up with two hot women on his arms LUX GIMME A CHANCE pompeiianbollockr: WAIT WDYM THEY ARE MARRIED?!??! ALL THIS TIME?@?#? HOW???! NEED BIGGER CAPS TO SCREAM I'M GOING INSANE at0michips: that article better come out now or i'll burn the TMZ building ann-gell: not me thirsting for a married man 😭😭😭 how they kept this a secret for so long?? we should've noticed ㅤㅤunhing3dprincess: ann-gell i did. knew betting my grandma was the way all along ㅤㅤpyramiidsf: i'm gonna start betting my grandma too

[8housevenus]

placements that symbolize intelligence

gemini rising / virgo rising - both are ruled by mercury, these people think fast and logically. rational in thought and retains information much better than those around them. gemini rising will be able to compartmentalize and virgo risings will be able to use their gift of detail to help them remember.

mercury in 3rd/6th/10th - 3rd house mercury exchanges and learns very fast, they are open to lots of conversations and they take away a lot of lessons from them. 6th house mercury listens and picks up any underlying information that can help them in the long run. 10th house mercury has an awareness for their image and understands gravity of their words than most people- giving them the upperhand when on the spot.

uranus in 8th/11th - 8th house uranus is somebody who’s mind goes to places where the majority don’t, there is an innovative personality and a purpose of transformation to humanity, they can really turn pain into a tool. 11th house uranus conceptualizes and understands what needs to be done to an environment or a mass, they are gifted with ideas that can take everybody very far including themselves. both like doing deep dives on themselves and the rest of the world to figure out what advances it takes to change.

saturn in 1st/9th - 1st house saturn gives someone the appearance of knowing everything. these people speak as if they have lived 100 lives before and can go through life very “nonchalantly” because every life lesson they have learned has taught them to be non-reactant instead of impulsive. their demeanor is trustable and respectable, their resilient attitude makes them reliable and smart to the world. 9th house saturn creates an individual who can see things for what they are. these are realists at heart and they need reasoning before jumping to conclusions. they take a while to get answers, but once they figure it out they seal any doubts.

saturn conjunct mercury - their brains work overtime to connect their ideas to reality.

uranus trine/sextile mercury - unique ways of conversations or adding significant details to very light conversations, intriguing and brings insights to those around them.

saturn trine/sextile/conjunct ascendant/midheaven - gets told they’re a secret genius or appears extremely mature. credible and usually as they get older they are recognized for their intellect.

[girl-lostconnection]

Continuation to this post, that came down to me like a message from a god.

“Lieutenant, you have to let go”, the voice is muffled, all sounds are, like you are underwater. The blood pumping in your ears is so loud you aren’t sure if you can still hear properly.

You aren’t sure if the rapid ascend of extraction shuttle didn’t burst your eardrums.

“Lieutenant, look at me.”, the voice is closer and you can’t help but curl away, your whole body tensing, grip tightening.

Why are they speaking to you? Why- shouldn’t there be medic by now? Shouldn’t someone come out? What’s going on?

There is a stubborn nagging feeling in your chest — poking and prodding, fraying your nerves, sending twitch to your nervous hands.

Your wrists ache, tension coming through them to your fingers, every knuckle burning but the pain is dull.

You are just so cold. Why are you so cold?

It’s not supposed to be so cold on the ship, you just paid for an upgrade, just fixed the ventilation and heating, just —

Another Helldiver crouches in front of you, their eyes unusually soft — glimmering through the visor of their helmet. You don’t know them, they probably came through on the SOS beacon you deployed, just a little too late. The mission is done.

You are out.

But you are wet and cold, lighter armour that let’s you run faster, that lets you get to the exfil as soon as possible is now clinging to your body — wet and sticky in a way that makes your skin crawl.

God, do you hate sweating that comes with running like a mad fucking chick through the terrain that’s never on your side.

“Lieutenant”, the voice of commander — their rank shining like a fucking supernova — is practically gentle. Almost soft.

Unusually so. It grates down on your nerves. Helldivers aren’t soft. You aren’t made to be soft, it gets trained out of you. You can’t be if you want to survive.

“Lieutenant”, but they are soft and you want to scream at them, rage and despair coiling in your belly, your wrists ache, your fingers burn. “You need to unclench your fingers”.

Your mind is so blank, so painfully empty but you just grip harder, your knees joining in, boxing in your valuable cargo against your body, your vision blurring for some reason.

“…Why?”, is a broken quiet whisper, your voice hoarse in a way that makes commander carefully cover your hands with theirs.

Prying your fingers open.

“They are gone, lieutenant”, their voice is just as quiet as yours when they get your right hand uncurled.

Off the vest of your teammate.

The notion hits you like a dumbbell, your eyes sliding to them, your whole body instinctively tries to curl harder around the diver you managed to shove into Pelikan-1 before it got off the ground.

It’s impossible.

You got them inside, you got them out, you two got back, what do they mean?

You saved them, you brought them back, medic will just need to patch them up, why isn’t medic there, why is no one here?

You don’t realise you are shaking until commander physically pulls you off the ground, their gauntlets cold against the torn fabric of your armour.

You don’t notice. You aren’t sure you remember how to breathe.

There is a small persistent sound, that reverberates through your chest, that rises to your head and your mind is so blank and you are shaking.

Sound just gets louder — raw and wet, broken wail no human should be able to make, no human should be made to make.

You realise that it’s yours only when commander forces your head in their shoulder, muffling it effectively.

“You did your due, lieutenant. Democracy’s dignity is protected”, they murmur the script you both know too well.

Words echo through your skull as another wail rocks your body with a force enough to make your knees buckle.

Whats good is your due right now? What’s use of this protection if you couldn’t save the young diver that answered your SOS beacon and bought you time?

“You did good. We’ll be able to bury them. You did good, lieutenant, you didn’t leave them behind”, the voice above your head is thick with something you can’t place and hands around you just get tighter.

Uniform clings to your skin, your body still shaking, awful sticky feeling making your skin crawl.

You don’t realise why until you get back to your quarters, mirror making you lightheaded with panic, suddenly clicking that it’s not sweat.

It’s blood

Gaz looks over your ship with the same excitement young cadets usually have, his eyes shining when he turns to you.

“This sure is something. You keep your bird in prime condition, captain”

You hum, helmet in your head shining with metal detailing in fluorescent lights of your ship.

Prime is an understatement. You poured all resources and money you earned into this ship. You still do.

“I was just wondering…”, sergeant starts carefully with the wariness of someone who knows that it’s not up to him to wonder. Not when it comes to things so much higher his pay grade. But you nod, encouraging him to speak his mind and he continues. “You don’t have med bay around here. Seems like you could use one in your line of work.”

Gaz smiles, lips curling wider and god, he’s so young.

Young and brilliant, eyes so bright you can feel the phantom feel of the blood seeping through your uniform again.

“Had one. But command pulled the funding and pulled the stuff while we were deployed. Said that it’s not profitable use of resources”, your tone is carefully level, your helmet covering your whole head. Nothing to give you out. Nothing to report.

You are a picture of devour Helldiver.

But Kyle’s eyes still sharpen.

Like he can sense years-old rage and despair under your breast plate.

Like he can see the blood seeping though your uniform.

(It’s impossible, you washed it so much skin on your palms started to peel. You washed it so much you no longer smelled anything other than bleach when you wore it)

“Must’ve costed you a lot of good soldiers”, he muses carefully and something in your chest snaps painfully.

Something important. Something soft.

“Well, you know how it is, sergeant”, you say and there is rage in your chest and years-old blood in the threads of your armour (you will need to wash the bloody thing again until you can’t remember how sticky it was).

Kyle’s eyes are sharp and he’s brilliant and you never wanted to get someone off your fucking ship this quickly.

Your voice strings higher but you push through it, turning away, your words coming out more of a script than human speech.

“We do our due, sergeant. We protect democracy’s dignity”

You don’t add that the same can’t be said about your own.

[phoenixrisingastro]

ASTRO OBSERVATIONS VIII: “The Manipulation Edition”

1. Aries Mars: They thrive on your rage. Push your buttons until you explode, then tilt their head and ask, “Why are you acting crazy?” You’ll believe them.

2. Taurus Venus: They starve you of affection just enough to make you beg for their love. Then, when they finally give it, you’ll be so grateful you won’t even notice you’ve lost yourself.

3. Gemini Mercury: They plant one little doubt in your mind and let you destroy yourself. They never lied. They just didn’t correct your assumptions.

4. Cancer Moon: They don’t fight fair. They cry, shake, look you in the eyes—make you feel like the worst human being alive. You will apologize even when they are the ones who burned you alive.

5. Leo Rising: You are a pawn in their grand, dramatic love story. They are the main character. If you don’t play your role right, they’ll find someone who will.

6. Virgo Sun: They don’t argue. They diagnose. They break you down, flaw by flaw, with precision so sharp you won’t even realize you’re bleeding.

7. Libra Mars: You won’t see the knife until it’s already between your ribs. And when you finally open your mouth to scream, they’ll convince you it was your fault.

8. Scorpio Venus: They don’t fall in love. They devour. And if you ever try to leave? They won’t chase you—they’ll just make sure you never love again.

9. Sagittarius Moon: They will always belong to the wind. But they will leave just enough of themselves behind to haunt you forever.

10. Capricorn Mercury: They never lose control. They make you feel so small, so ridiculous, so weak—and they do it with three well-placed words.

11. Aquarius Sun: They make you want them so badly it hurts. And just when you think you have them, they disappear, laughing.

12. Pisces Venus: They will never be yours. You will spend your entire life chasing a version of them that never existed.

13. Pluto in the 1st House: You don’t realize you’ve been under their control until you’re staring at yourself in the mirror, wondering who the hell you even are anymore.

14. Mars in the 8th House: Sex is a weapon. And once you’ve had them, you will never be satisfied with anyone else.

15. Neptune in the 7th House: You will fall for their illusion. You will fall for them over and over again, even as they destroy you.

16. Saturn in the 5th House: You will never feel like you’re enough. You will chase their approval like a starving dog.

17. Venus Square Pluto: Love should not feel like death. But it does. And you wouldn’t want it any other way.

18. Mercury in the 12th House: They know what you’re thinking before you do. And they will use it against you.

19. Sun Opposite Neptune: They never actually lie. They just let you build a fantasy so beautiful, you would rather die than let it go.

20. Moon Square Pluto: They will shatter you, then offer you comfort while you bleed out in their hands.

21. Jupiter in the 8th House: Your suffering is their enlightenment.

22. Lilith in the 10th House: They don’t chase. They just exist. And that’s enough to make you fall to your knees.

23. Uranus Conjunct Descendant: The second you expect them to stay, they’re gone.

24. Venus in the 12th House: You will never know them. They will love you in the shadows, and you will spend your life trying to drag them into the light.

25. Mars in the 3rd House: Their words will stick with you forever. They cut deeper than any blade.

26. North Node in the 8th House: You were never meant to live an easy life. You either evolve or die.

27. Pluto Trine Ascendant: They don’t need to say a word. You just obey.

28. Chiron in the 1st House: Their wounds are now your burden. You will spend your whole life trying to heal them, but you never will.

29. Mercury in Scorpio: They can kill you with a whisper.

30. Sun Square Pluto: You will either belong to them, or they will make sure no one else does.

If you read this and thought of someone else, you already lost...

© PhoenixRisingAstro, 2025. All rights reserved

[sunderwight]

Been thinking about the potential of a Luo Binghe transmigration fic where he has a similar experience to Shen Yuan's -- meaning, he transmigrates into a story that didn't originally have a "Luo Binghe", but rather a different character with a similar name, and Bingmei himself still has his canonical personality and broad strokes modern version of his backstory (i.e. abandoned, adopted, orphaned, struggling with the foster system, etc), whereas the character he transmigrates into has a different background and personality.

So, concept: Luo Binghe transmigrates into Su Binghe, the spoiled prince of the demon realms, son of Tianlang Jun and Su Xiyan and scum villain of the novel he read.

In said novel, Su Binghe was driven by a perpetual lack of satisfaction with things. He had almost everything handed to him on a silver platter, but none of it seemed to actually matter to him. His parents were powerful and loving, but also extremely busy and somewhat distant. His sibling relationships were soured by the fact that they were all basically raised separately by different groups of servants and expected to compete with one another for the supreme throne of the demon realms one day. The servants who raised him also had only limited authority over him, thanks to his rank, so he was encouraged to be self-centered and tyrannical from an early age because behaving that way helped him get whatever he wanted. Yet he felt ultimately purposeless and lonely, lacking any actual friends or companions.

Shen Yuan, the main character, was the third son of a wealthy noble house and was stolen by demons during a raid on his family's properties. He was rescued by Tianlang Jun's people, who officially disapprove of attacks on humans (special cases like Huan Hua Palace being an exception), but not before the rest of his family was killed or else sold off into less friendly territories. Shen Yuan himself was subsequently taken on as a ward of the emperor, as a sort of apology for the whole deal, and inserted into the somewhat younger Su Binghe's household as a companion and tutor to try and curb the prince's loneliness. The empress also took Shen Yuan on as a personal disciple, as the only person able to teach him human-style cultivation.

This worked about as well as anyone expected, which was to say that the spoiled prince treated his weakling human tutor like his own personal chew toy, blowing hot and cold, manipulating and mistreating, jealously resenting Shen Yuan's attention from his mother while also taking every opportunity to insert himself into the additional lessons as well.

Eventually the situation came to a head, with Shen Yuan lashing back after being pushed to the limits, and Su Binghe using the "attack" as an excuse to exile him in the midst of hostile demon territory. Thus began the protagonist's power-up montage segment, where he was forced to fight and survive, leveling up his skills until he came across Xiu Ya.

Xiu Ya was a legendary sword that had been wielded by an equally legendary human cultivator, an actual secret ancestor of Shen Yuan's, long ago. It was sealed away by a past Heavenly Demon emperor, after its wielder managed to use it to successfully kill one of their kind (a difficult feat). By sealing the blade deep within the demonic realms, the past emperors had assured themselves that no human cultivator would successfully venture so deep into their territories nor uncover its hiding place, and so they mostly warded it against other demons (who might want to return it to the humans in order to sabotage the Heavenly Demons). Thus, Shen Yuan successfully liberated the blade, and after winning a harrowing battle against an ancient evil (boss fight!) with it, he ascended to godhood.

But, even the heavens weren't merciful in this story, and Shen Yuan was tasked with using Xiu Ya to end the threat of the Heavenly Demon race once and for all before he could claim his rightful place among them. If he failed, his soul would be forfeit and Xiu Ya would shatter, eternally condemning the mortal plane to the tyranny of demonic rule.

Luo Binghe absolutely loved the character of Shen Yuan, even though his story was kind of trash, and he did not want to transmigrate into Su Binghe, especially not with a mandate hanging over his head that he had to one day cast his favorite protagonist out into the wilds, and then let him kill Binghe in order to fulfill a mandate from the heavens!

Featuring:

-Modern day culinary student Bingmei, absolutely revolutionizing food prep in the demon realms and desperately wishing he could change the genre to one of those slice-of-life cozy escapist novels instead.

-Bingmei being actually a thousand times sneakier and more self-aware than his predecessor, taking Su Binghe's absolutely pathetic attempts at politics and making it work for him instead (between the foster care system and the food service industry, Bingmei takes no prisoners).

-Su Binghe originally had a sprawling harem by the time Shen Yuan reunited with him. Luo Binghe wants nothing to do with it, so he has to just keep on dodging his parents attempts to set him up in political matches.

-Some of Shen Yuan's original household and family actually did survive, so Luo Binghe dedicates himself to rescuing the rest of them to try and farm points with the protagonist. This results in him retrieving Shen Yuan's brother, Shen Jiu (asshole rat bastard feral cat of a guy, Luo Binghe almost wishes he'd failed), Shen Yuan's personal companions the Liu siblings (terrible decision, Shen Yuan's always waxing poetically about how beautiful they are), Shen Yuan's younger sister Yingying (annoying but nice), Shen Jiu's situationship Yue Qi (there is something deeply wrong with that guy), and the son of the family's head servant, Shang Qinghua (weird rodent man, somehow has evil advisor vibes despite also looking sort of like the designated non-threatening one in an idol group).

-Bingmei identifies Mobei Jun as a fellow transmigrator pretty early on, when he absently whistles the notification sound for a smart phone and Mobei reaches for his pocket. Mobei Jun's approach to transmigrating is basically to say and do as little as possible. Bingmei subsequently doesn't find out that he is in fact the author of the original book until some time after the main plot has passed.

-Despite not wanting to, Bingmei is fully prepared to die in order to secure Shen Yuan's eventual destiny as a god. He only hopes he might go out cleanly and with more sympathy than the original goods got. Imagine his horror when Shen Yuan decides he's going to fight the gods instead of wiping out the Heavenly Demons.

[fenkko]

one who had dreams of being a hero

This comic is based on Story 3, which speaks of his hobby of ice fishing originating from the days he'd go out with his father on the ice, 'accompanied by his father's unending tales of adventure,' and dream of being the protagonist.

Nowadays, he keeps up the hobby, though only as a method of training... and it seems he fishes alone.

I thought a lot about fairytales and stories told to children -- how they are used to impart lessons and shape a child's growing sense of morality.

I think these stories were Childe's father telling him what kind of man he hoped his son would become.

In Story 5, 'his father had no choice but to hand his beloved son over for conscription into the Fatui' in an attempt to discipline his temper, but was disappointed when Childe continued ascending the ranks, further and further from the gentle boy he was..

His father named him after the hero Ajax. Is he still disappointed in the path Childe has taken? Does he still see his son in the man he sees before him? Does Childe feel in himself the chasm between who he dreamed of becoming and who he is now?

It's interesting, that fairytales should often have a very strict good/evil morality. Childe professes he has no use for such things, and will gladly become a mindless weapon so long as he can continue honing himself for battle. And yet, has he truly given up on being human?

For a Harbinger, Childe is oddly principled, preferring straightforward battles without deceit. He retains a sort of moral code, reluctant to involve those who are defenseless in his plans.

And of course, he deeply cherishes his family. What sort of weapon has a family? Why does he cling so desperately to this identity as a defender of childhood dreams, of being his sister Tonia's knight?

Perhaps his own dream of being a hero died long ago, but a part of him still recognizes the tragedy of it and maybe... in some way, is still trying.

This is somewhat of a companion piece to my Scara comic "one who has given up on being saved". Childe, unable to live up to his childhood ideals of heroism, and Scara, whose pleas for help went unanswered.

A failed hero, and someone who never had one.

ARGHH yknow it drives me nuts. I haven't known peace since I started thinking about it.

[moonchild9350]

Back to you

Summary: in a world where everyone has a soulmate, you find yours in the least expected way.

Pairing: Felix x fab!reader

Genre: fluff, angst, smut, sci fi au, slice of life au

Word Count: 8.8k

Warnings: time jumps, kissing lol, unprotected sex (don't), creampie, making love, dirty talk?, kinda an open ending

Notes: stuck in my sci fi era lol i had this idea for a while and decided to finish it recently. let me know what you think!

If you enjoyed, please consider a like, reblog, or comment as it keep me motivated.

Divider by @sweetmelodygraphics

Please do not copy, translate, modify, use, or repost this work elsewhere without my permission. ©️moonchild9350 (2024)

“We’re done!”

Two words, two little words. Who would have thought those two words would break Felix’s heart. He thought Xania was the one, after all she was supposed to be his soulmate.

Felix turned to walk down Xania’s stairs, taking each step slowly, one foot in front of the other. He scratched his blonde hair, messing up the little hairs that were pulled back into a ponytail. He had a frown on his face, as he contemplated where he went wrong.

Now, without Xania, he was back to square one. He needed to remedy this and fast before others found out. The world frowns upon a twenty five year old bachelor, especially in a world where people have a soulmate assigned to them since birth.

It’s the year 3050, and humanity has improved for the better, natural selection weeding out the weak. Aging is slower due to scientific advancement, where now every year the earth rotates around the sun, humans do not age as they did a century ago. Instead every five years, a human ages one year. In this case, Felix has been twenty-five for five years now. Next year on his birthday, he will finally be twenty six…and still without finding his soulmate.

Felix continues to walk down the street, muttering under his breath, conflicted on what to do next. He would have to go back to the company Soulmate and Co. and file a complaint against the lady who told him Xania was his soulmate. Deciding that this is what he’s going to do, he turns around and hails a hover car, giving the address of the building he needs.

The ride doesn’t take long as the car glides through the sky, bypassing other hover cars and buildings. Once there, he slips a coin into the pouch next to his seat and exits the car. He takes a moment to view the building in front of him, tilting his head back so he can take in the whole thing.

It seems to reach all the way to the sky, the glass reflecting the bright sun that is shining today.

He marches up the steps and through the double doors, walking past the seating area, which is filled with various other clients, some smiling while others are distraught, their heads in their hands. He continues to walk through the foyer, making his way to the front desk.

“The matchmakers please,” Felix tells the person behind the desk.

She nods at his request and signals for a guide to take him to his destination. He follows the lady, to an elevator with glass doors at the end of the hall. She beckons him to enter the glass container and presses a button labeled ‘level 50’ before stepping back with a smile.

The elevator ascends gracefully, gliding on the gears without a sound, the many floors passing by with a blur. A minute passes and then two until he finally reaches the floor he needs. The elevator doors open with a hiss and Felix exits, stepping outside of the box.

He looks left and right, before noticing a directory plastered on the wall straight ahead. He doesn’t give this a second glance, having been here before, but instead makes his way down the hall until he reaches a door with a placard on it identifying “Mavis, Matchmaker”

Felix pushes open the door and marches in, determination in his step. Mavis’s secretary looks up and smiles, waiting for him to approach the desk.

“How can I help you?” She asks pleasantly, ignoring the annoyed face Felix makes at her.

“I need to speak with Mavis,” Felix pauses for a moment before he decides to add, “now.”

The secretary eyes him, most likely deciding if he would be a threat. She must have ultimately decided he was ok because she smiled once more before pressing a button and announcing that he was here.

Felix only had to wait a brief moment when the door to the left opened, revealing a beautiful girl in the doorway. She had the signature insignia, signaling that she was a matchmaker plastered on her chest for all to see.

“Mr. Lee,” she said shocked, her eyes widened at the sight of him.

“Mavis, I need to speak with you.”

Mavis stepped out of the way, beckoning him into her office. Felix quickly walked over, sitting in one of the many chairs scattered throughout the small office.

“What can I do for you? If I remember correctly, you had found your soulmate? Why are you here?”

Felix looked at mavis incredulously. “Why am I here? Because xania broke up with me! She’s not my soulmate, which means you messed up!”

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He was furious, and how can he not be? Because of the matchmakers mistake, he’d be the laughing stock of his family, having to explain that he was told the wrong person was his soulmate.

Mavis looked at him, her eyes widened at the accusation. “Surely there was a mistake. Xania is your soulmate…the roster confirmed it,” she hurriedly said as she pulled up a database with her fingers.

She scanned the various documents, her hand moving this way and that as she looked up his profile. finding the page she needed, she stared at it for a moment, her eyes moving across the screen.

As she came to a certain area, her eyes widened and her mouth opened as she took a deep breath. Recovering quickly, she straightened up and looked at Felix.

“It seems there indeed was a mistake. I am so sorry Mr. Lee. Xania was not your soulmate.”

Felix stared at Mavis, fighting the urge to say something he would regret. Instead he said, “thank you, yes there has been a mistake. And now I need you to tell me who is my soulmate.”

Mavis hesitated, not sure what to say. “Well…I can but it’s complicated. It seems like your true soulmate is already bound to someone else…”

Bound to someone else? Shit. What is he to do now? His soulmate is galavanting with another person.

“So what do I do now?” Felix asked dejectedly, his head hanging down.

Mavis thought for a moment, considering the options. Typically there’s no way to go back and change the pathway of things, but she had pity on Felix. After all it was her mistake.

“There is a way…but mind you it’s very dangerous.”

Felix perked up, his ears intent on listening to what Mavis had to say. He’d do anything and he means anything to be with his proper soulmate.

“You can go back in time and find your soulmate, meet them, talk to them, convince them they’re your soulmate. Rewrite the story. You’ll have to time travel, but we can get you there. Five spins around the sun should do it.”

Time travel? Felix didn’t even know such a thing existed, but then again, he shouldn’t be shocked.

“Ok, I’ll do it,” Felix said with determination.

Mavis nodded, pleased with Felix’s answer. She pressed a button on her desk, before speaking softly, “please send a device member to my office.”

She released the button and smiled as she placed her hands on her desk. Felix shifted awkwardly in his seat, unsure of where to look or what to say as Mavis was silent. He decided to look at the files on her shelf, his eyes roaming over script he couldn’t understand.

He looked with interest until the door opened suddenly, causing him to jump slightly in his seat.

“Ah, come in please. Have a seat. “ Mavis said as a shy looking girl in blue scrubs walked in.

She looked curiously at Felix, taking him in. She carefully sat in the chair next to him and looked at Mavis, waiting for instruction.

“Melody, this here is Mr. Lee. Due to some unfortunate circumstances, he needs to go back to the past, specifically five years ago. Can you escort him to the vault and assist him please?”

Melody nodded, a soft smile spreading on her face. “Most certainly.”

Mavis smiled, “great! Well off you both go! Good luck Mr. Lee!”

She swiveled away, her back to Felix and melody. Felix got up as his escort got up and followed her out of the office. They walked through narrow hallways, went down flights of stairs, the walk seeming to go on forever until stopping at a large metal door.

Felix watched as she placed her palm on a scanner, the laser reading her dna ensuring her identity matched who she said she was. A soft beep rang in the otherwise empty corridor, the door springing open slightly.

Melody stepped in between the crack, Felix following right behind her. The door shut with a finite click, locking them within the room.

As Felix faced forward, the lights within the room turned on, illuminating the area with soft light. He scanned the room nothing seeming of interest until his eyes landed on the machine in the center of the room.

It had glass walls, just like everything in the building, a small panel just to the left of the door. Melody walked over to a switch on the wall and lifted it, a soft humming sound present within the room as things powered up.

She went to the panel and started pressing button after button, most likely setting the time frame for which he has to go back. After a while, she turned to face him.

“Mr. Lee, please step within the box.”

Felix cautiosouly walked to the glass box and stepped inside. Despite the walls being made of glass, he couldn’t help but feel a little claustrophobic, the walls closing in on him.

He jumped at the sound of static, melody’s voice echoing in the small chamber.

“I will transport you back to five years ago. You will still be twenty five. Complete your mission but know you only have one year to complete your task, whether you are successful or not. Once you are done, you’ll know what to do in order to get back.”

Felix was nervous, his heart rapidly beating so hard within his chest, he felt as if it would jump out any moment. He wiped the thin sheen of sweat that had formed on his forehead as he stared at Melody through the glass wall.

She gave a thumbs up and smiled before pressing a green button. The humming noise slowly intensified, until there was a buzzing sound echoing in his ear.

The air in front of him started to ripple, the atoms slowly manipulating themselves to transport him to a different time and place.

As his surroundings started to fade and become unrecognizable, he felt a tingle on his skin, almost as if he was being touched with a million needles. The feeling intensified until his belly started to churn, nausea taking over as the air became harder to breathe.

There was a flash of white light and just when he thought he would pass out from the sensation within the room, there was quiet and stillness…but only for a moment.

The air expanded, his breath caught off until…. -- -- It was a clear night, the sky black, the stars twinkling and the moon bright. There was barely any wind blowing, but the trees swayed nonetheless, providing a refreshing breeze on this summer night.

You were laying on a blanket in your backyard, star gazing, enjoying your night off. The night was silent, that is until you heard a low buzz, traveling from one ear to the other.

You dismissed the sound until the buzz got louder, almost deafening. Sitting upright, you looked around, searching for the source of the annoying sound.

You were about to give up after not seeing anything when the space in front of you shifted, a small hole opening up in the night air.

You stared horrified, unable to move as the hole got bigger, and a bright light appeared within the space.

You let out a scream as a man fell from the hole, his arms outstretched as he tumbled through, landing directly on top of you, causing you to fall backwards.

You let out a huff as your head lightly bounced on the soft grass, your eyes wide as you stared at the man who came from nowhere.

He laid there dazed, his eyes trying to focus as he attempted to breathe. You took him in, eyeing his features of dazzling brown eyes that seemed to shine even at night, millions of freckles littering his face like the stars of the night sky, and small, plush heart shaped lips.

This man was beautiful, that you couldn’t deny. An angel for sure sent from heaven. However, that thought dashed from your head as he opened his mouth to speak.

“Oh shit! I’m sorry!” The man said as he scrambled to get off of you, grunting as he fell over in the process.

“Ahh!” You exclaimed, scooting over to him to help him up. “Are you alright?”

He looked at you, his eyes taking you in before he blushed and looked down.

“I’m ok,” he replied softly. “I’m sorry, I um…I think…actually, I have no clue what happened…or if I’m even in the correct place.”

You chuckled as the man stuttered through his explanation, as he clearly had no clue what was going on.

“How about we start with your name?” You suggested, sitting next to him.

“Name. Right. Yeah. Ummm…I’m Felix,” he said as continued to stare at the ground.

“Well, Felix, I’m y/n.”

'Y/n,’ Felix thought, ���such a beautiful name for a beautiful girl.’ When you said your name, he felt his heart flutter and a warm sensation spread through him, which was contrary to how he felt not even five minutes ago.

He was in the right place. He’s not sure how he knew, he just felt that it felt right deep within.

Felix returned his gaze to you, taking in your calm demeanor, despite just seeing him come out of a black hole essentially. His eyes roamed your face, your eyes trained on him in concern, your lips slightly parted.

He felt his heart race as he continued to stare at you remembering how you felt underneath him, so soft and perfect.

Felix shook his head, coming back to the time at hand. He looked around the yard, taking in the little oasis you had created. There were fairy lights illuminating the space, the lights twinkling in the night air in such a way it almost seemed magical.

In the corner was a hot tub, the steam rising in the air beckoning whoever was near to relax within its waters. He looked down at the ground in which both of you were sitting, taking in the blanket and pillows you had set up.

“Looks like I interrupted you…I’m sorry,” Felix said softly.

“It’s ok,” you said with a smile. You let a moment pass before opening your mouth once more, curiosity getting the best of you.

“So um…time travel?” You said gesturing to the air in which Felix fell from.

You wondered where he came from and most importantly why, especially why he landed within your yard.

“Uh yeah, I’m from the future on a mission,” Felix replied, as his hand ran through his blond locks.

“Ahh the future. What’s your mission?”

Felix hesitated unsure if he should tell you the reason why’s he here. He decided against it, wanting to get a feel first before diving in. He has a year after all, why rush it.

“I can’t tell you that unfortunately,” Felix said apologetically.

You hummed and brushed his statement away, leaving it at that. You knew he would tell you when he’s ready, if at all.

“Well, it’s late and you probably have no where to stay, so you can crash here while you work on your mission if you’d like,” you said as you got up and dusted the dirt from your shorts.

Felix stared at you in shock, surprised you would offer your home to someone you didn’t know so readily.

“Oh..ok, yeah…sure thanks!”

Felix got up as well, reaching down to help you fold the blanket you were sitting on. He followed you to your door, curiosity plastered on his face as you opened the door and stepped into your home.

He was taken aback, the space feeling so…homey. It was decked out in lights, their glow illuminating the space with soft light, making it more intimate. The space radiated a floral scent, one that was intense but surprisingly was not overwhelming in the small space.

Your home was just so…you.

The thought made Felix chuckle in delight.

“Well it’s not much, but this is my home,” you said, gesturing to the small space.

“I like it, it’s very comfortable,” Felix said in earnest.

You smiled and nodded, happy that he liked your little space. You bustled around, making your way to the kitchen.

“Tea?” You asked as your hands started dancing through the air, shifting through the options you had in your inventory.

“Sure,” Felix said watching as you selected an option, the kettle appearing from thin air onto the stove.

You turned the heat on, the flames licking the bottom of the kettle immediately. Felix watched silently as you bustled around the kitchen, humming a little song as you prepared snacks.

The kettle whistled, the shrill sound loud in the otherwise quiet room. You grabbed two mugs and poured the tea before carefully carrying them to the couch. You gave Felix his, and then brought the snacks over.

Sitting down, you looked at the man next to you. He seemed nervous, his fingers drumming on the cup. Your eyes roamed his body, taking in his little frame, his baby face. He really was cute you’d have to say.

Felix looked up at you suddenly, his eyes meeting yours. You smiled reassuringly, hoping he’d understand he can be himself.

It didnt take long for Felix to open up, his bubbly personality shining through. You listened to him talk about his life in the future, his job where he helps others figure out what they want to do with their lives.

He talks about his friends, how close they are and how they’ve saved him more times than he can count. He even mentioned how he thought he found his soulmate, but apparently it was a mistake, one that is rarely made.

You eyed him, noticing that something was off when he mentioned his soulmate. You couldn’t place a finger to it but decided to leave it, knowing he’ll tell you the details when he’s ready.

The night passed in conversation, you feeling at home with Felix which was odd since you’ve just met him. You looked at the clock and noticed how late it was.

“Shit,” you muttered, “I need to get to bed. I work tomorrow.”

Felix nodded and helped you clean up. He knew the night would have to end eventually but he’s sad it did so soon.

“You can have the couch,” you said as you started making a makeshift bed.

Felix stood in the corner watching as you finished his bed and then went to your closet grabbing a shirt. He took it from your hands gratefully.

“Sorry, it’s the biggest I have,” you said sheepishly.

“It’s ok, thanks.”

You nodded, happy he didn’t mind the clothes. “Well I’m going to grab a shower, make yourself at home.”

Felix watched as you grabbed some clothes and stepped into the bathroom, closing the door softly. He heard the shower start, the sound of water hitting the wall.

He sat down on the couch, his eyes roaming around the room. He can’t wait to shower you with love, take care of you, after all you’re his soulmate whether you’ve realized it or not.

-- --

The next morning, you awakened to the smell of bacon, the scent permeating your home. Your belly growled, signaling you to feed it which made you chuckle.

You stretched and stood up before padding to the kitchen. The sight of Felix at the stove cooking made your heart swell, a smile gracing your face. You stood in the corner and watched him, watching as he tried to finish the meal.

He was struggling a little bit but trying nonetheless, little curses falling from his mouth. Turning around he noticed you, causing him to drop the spoon he was holding.

You chuckled at his clumsiness, bending down to pick up the utensil.

Felix was startled at the sight of you, his cheeks instantly reddening. There you stood in your little sleep shirt and shorts, leaving nothing to the imagination. He could see your tits, your nipples hardened and poking through the silk. His eyes wandered down to your ass, so round and plush within the little shorts.

He looked away in embarrassment as you stood up, spoon in hand. He took it from your hand and went back to finishing up breakfast.

You sat down and waited, your chin in your hand. This was nice, a man cooking for you. A cute one at that. Felix walked over with your plate in hand, setting it down in front of you.

“Bon appetite!” He said, bowing slightly.

You giggled and picked up your fork to dig in. The first bite was…interesting so to say, the taste strong mixed with…

“Umm, Felix? Did you use salt in this?”

Felix looked up at you, his eyes wide. “Yeah, I did. Is it too much?”

You shook your head yes, shyly looking down.

Felix put down his fork and bowed his head. “I’m sorry, y/n. I’ll get better I promise. I just wanted to fix something for you after you took me in.”

Now you felt bad, your heart falling at the sight of the little pout that formed on his face. He did work hard to prepare this for you, waking up way before you to do so.

“It’s ok, it’s still good. Let’s dig in ok?”

Felix smiled at your attempt to reconcile, picking up his fork once more. You both ate, enjoying each others company.

It’s been awhile since you’ve had anyone else in the house with you, since you opted to live alone. So it was weird to share such an intimate meal with someone else and a stranger at that.

After eating, you sat back, content that your belly was full.

“Thanks for breakfast Felix. I have to get ready for work now. You can make yourself at home though.”

Felix smiled, happy you enjoyed his meal. He watched as you got up and padded away to your closet, your hips swaying with each step.

He got up and started clearing away the dishes, falling into the routine of cleaning. He had everything planned out, and would start his mission once you left for work.

Felix startled as you came up behind him, now fully dressed with your work uniform, your hair nicely done and your makeup complete to perfection

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. I’m leaving now. If you need anything while I’m gone just call. Here I’ll send you my phone number.”

Felix watched as you scrolled through your book, punching in your number and swiping your finger away sending it to his contact list. He pulled it up, staring at the digital screen in front of him. He saved your number, smiling at the name you gave yourself.

He walked to the door with you, standing aways back as you slipped into your shoes. He wished you a good day at work, watching as you softly shut the door behind you.

Felix stood there for a moment more before turning to go back into your home, ready to set his plan in action.

Day after day, week after week, month after month, Felix doted on you. He made your meals, helped around the house, he did anything you wanted him to do.

You had game nights, movie nights, crafting nights. Any type of activity he could do while spending time with you, he did it.

Felix loved spending time with you too. He learned your habits, how you immediately went to the snack cabinet after work. How you liked your baths, the bubbles not too high, the water hot, and with a glass of wine.

He learned that you didn’t like scary movies, remembering how you locked yourself in the bathroom after a scene, refusing to come out until he coaxed you out with the promise of cuddles.

That was on the agenda tonight, a movie and cuddles. You snuggled in within Felix’s arms, your head on his chest as his arms wrapped around your body protectively.

You were growing to love these quiet moments, just the two of you in a room illuminated with fairy lights. There was a storm brewing outside, the sound of the wind rattling the windowpane. Fall has rolled in into your little town, therefore, it has rained almost everyday, blanketing the world with the little drops falling from the sky.

However, you didn’t mind, being safe and warm within his arms. You nuzzled in, your head rubbing on his chest, causing Felix to look down at you.

“That tickles,” Felix chuckled, squeezing your arm.

“Mm sorry,” you sighed as you repeated your action.

Felix chuckled and returned his attention to the screen. You listened to his heart beating loudly beneath your ear, the rhythm increasing with each passing second.

You smiled at the fact, your eyes traveling back to the movie Felix had picked out to watch. You both went back to watching the movie, the end nearing.

Once the closing scene played, Felix started to shift, causing your head to move. You let out a whine, disgruntled at the fact your pillow was moving.

You slowly got up, your hair disheveled. Felix began laughing, his voice filling your small space as he clutched his stomach. You pouted and swatted at him, crossing your arms in defiance.

Felix wiped the tears from his eyes and pulled you into a hug, his arms wrapping around your body tightly. He squeezed and rocked you back and forth, ignoring your giggles and protests to let you go.

You felt your heart flutter, the cute but intimate moment making your cheeks flush with a hint of red.

Felix continued to rock you, his breath hot in your ear as he laughed. You know how to make him stop. With renewed vigor, you grabbed his shoulder and bit down lightly, your teeth sinking into his soft skin.

Felix yelped and scooted back, his eyes wide as he looked between you and his shoulder.

“You bit me!” He accused, as he chuckled.

You shrugged and giggled, getting up from the couch. You were tired and ready to go to bed. Felix watched as you went through your bedtime routine, his eyes following you with every step you took, forgetting about the slight sting on his shoulder.

Occasionally, you’d stop and strike a funny pose, giggling as Felix laughed at your antics. Eventually Felix got up and started getting his bed ready, as you finished up in the bathroom.

You settled into bed and watched as Felix finished his routine. You chuckled as Felix rushed to his bed, complaining that he was cold. He settled in quickly before sitting up and looking your way.

“Night y/n!”

“Night Felix,” you said blowing him a kiss.

You let out a giggle as Felix quickly laid down and covered himself with his blanket as he let out a little squeak. You turned out the light and settled in, closing your eyes to sleep.

The rain was pelting the windows, the sound calming in the dark. You snuggled in, preparing to sleep when a loud crack of thunder rang out, causing the house to vibrate.

Did you hear a scream? Your eyes snapped open as you strained your ears, listening for the sound again.

Time passed and the rain continued to fall. You were about to close your eyes once more when you heard a soft whisper within the room.

“Y/n?” Felix whispered, listening for your response.

When you didn’t say anything, he repeated his question, calling out to you softly yet a little more loud.

“Yes?” You responded, sitting up within your blankets.

“Can I sleep with you? I’m um…I don’t really like thunderstorms…”

You could hear the panic in his voice, his voice cracking as he said the last word.

“Of course, come here Lix,” you softly said, pulling back your covers for him to join you.

You felt the bed dip and Felix shuffle beneath the covers, scooting as close as he could to you. You wrapped your arms around him, cradling his head to you as if to comfort him.

Felix was shaking in your arms, his face tucked into your chest. He was embarrassed. How could he be your soulmate, the person who’s supposed to love and protect you, if he’s scared of a measly thunderstorm?

He closed his eyes and breathed you in, your scent calming him despite the storm outside. Eventually he lifted his head up and looked you in the eyes.

You stared back at him, holding his gaze as you held him close.

“Thank you,” Felix whispered, his lip turning upwards as if to smile.

“Of course,” you whispered back, as you slowly stroked his back.

You both laid there, listening to the rain and gazing into each others eyes. You were glad it was dark, that way Felix couldn’t see the crimson that littered your cheeks.

The air was charged with want, the need to be close to each other palpable. Felix shuffled closer until his lips were inches away from yours.

You could feel his nose on yours, his ragged breath on your lips as he held onto you. Your heart was beating rapidly, as nerves took over, your palms sweaty as you gripped Felix’s shirt.

“Y/n,” Felix whispered before closing the gap between you, his soft lips pressing gently to yours.

He held them there for a moment more before breaking away, a shaky breath leaving his lips.

“Felix,” you whispered as you connected your lips again, wanting to feel his lips on yours again.

the rain pelted the windows, the thunder rang out, and the lighting illuminates the two of you, tucked away within your blankets, bodies pressed against each other as you lazily pressed your lips together.

The moment was soft, gentle, intimate, as if this moment was meant to be.

And in Felix’s mind, it was, without a doubt fate.

After the eventful night embraced in each others arms, kissing the night away, your relationship turned for the better.

Felix was ecstatic as he felt closer to his goal than ever. He was holding your hand, swinging it back and forth as you both walked home from a day of shopping.

He took the opportunity to spoil you, buying you whatever you wanted. He found himself smiling whenever you would thank him, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“I spy something blue!” You exclaimed, squeezing his hand in yours.

Felix’s eyes roamed the street, looking for whatever had caught your eye. Spotting a blue car, his grinned sure he got it this time.

“That blue car there,” he said as he pointed at the vessel.

“Ugh how are you so good at this?” You whined, pouting at the fact that he got another guess right.

Felix shrugged and chuckled. He pulled you along in the direction of your home, wanting to get back as soon as possible.

A few minutes later, you arrived at your home. Felix pressed his finger against the scanner on the door, the box emitting a tune signaling it accepted his fingerprint. You both tumbled into your home, laughing at the joke you had just made.

Felix dropped the bags he was holding and pulled you in for a kiss, swallowing your shriek of surprise. You relaxed instantly in his embrace, matching his pace as he moved his lips with yours.

He pulled away for a moment before pressing a sweet kiss to your lips again and again until you were giggling, your face warm, and heart fluttering at his affection.

“Such a sweet sound,” Felix cooed as he pressed another kiss to your lips.

“Come on, let’s get the snacks ready! I’m ready to have a nice soak!”

You both decided to have a relaxing night in your hot tub, the weather not too cold or hot. You began cutting up various fruits and veggies, as Felix gathered some sweets.

“Make sure to get my favorite cookies!” You reminded him as he piled the plate high with a bunch of his homemade brownies.

“Right,” Felix said as he snapped his fingers, hurriedly searching through the inventory for your favorite chocolate cookies.

You chuckled and began plating the food you just cut up. Satisfied with your work, you walked to your closet, reaching in to pull out your swim suit.

You let out a shriek as Felix wrapped his arms around you and peppered wet kisses on your neck, mumbling at how beautiful you were.

You giggled as you attempted to get away, but to no avail as his hold on you was iron tight.

Felix spun you around before crashing his lips to yours, kissing you passionately as he moaned. You let out a whimper as he nipped at your lip, your core dripping with arousal as you clutched onto his shirt.

But, what were you doing? You both really shouldn’t be doing…whatever this is.

You pulled away suddenly, ignoring the look of shock on Felix’s face. You grabbed your swimsuit and made your way to the bathroom, letting Felix know you’d meet him outside.

Felix stood rooted in place confused, wondering what he did wrong. He always kisses you like this, shows you this type of affection ever since that night of the storm.

Typically you didn’t mind, fully embracing his kisses, cuddles, and teasing. What made you pull back like that?

Felix slowly turned around and began to change, slipping on his swim trunks and tossing his shirt to the side. He went outside and made his way to the hot tub, his mind preoccupied with what just happened.

He lowered himself in the warm water, sighing as he felt his muscles loosen. Shortly after he got in, you came out, slowly making your way to the hot tub.

Felix tried not to ogle at you, at your curves that were accentuated in the swim suit that barely covered anything. He felt his self blush and his cock twitch.

He needed to calm down and not ruin this night. He took a few deep breaths as he closed his eyes, opening them a few moments later feeling renewed.

You placed the snacks down before getting in and sitting next to Felix.

You both sat there in silence, looking anywhere but at each other. Felix traced the bubbles that popped up in the water, his fingers drifting closer to you.

The tension was thick, palpable in the night air. You tried to focus on the bubbles, the way the warm water enveloped your body, but all you could think of was Felix.

Felix with his bubbly self. Felix and how he takes care of you, cooking, cleaning, treating you as if you are the only woman in the world. Felix with his blonde hair that you love to run your fingers through. Felix with the smile that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, your stomach doing flips as he looks at you.

Felix. Felix. Felix. That’s all your life has become since you’ve met him. Normally you wouldn’t care but you realized you were developing feelings for him, which was playing with fire.

You had a soulmate out there and so did Felix and here you both were playing house. You felt the tears form, threatening to spill over any moment as you continued to think of him.

You couldn’t do this. Excusing yourself, you got out of the water and walked back to the house. Felix stared after you, his lower lip trembling.

He’s messed up, big time. You can’t even look at him. He stayed a little longer, his mind racing over the last few months and how things were.

He remembers your sweet smile as he cooks yet another amazing meal for you. He remembers your giggles as he spun you around the room, dancing to the slow song on the radio. He remembers your sweet face as he rained kisses down your face and neck, the sweet sounds you’d make as he nipped at your skin.

Things were perfect and he blew it. Wiping the stray tears that had fallen, he gets up and gathers the untouched plates and carries them to the house.

You left the lights on for him, but you yourself were asleep, buried underneath your layers of blankets. He tidied up as quietly as he could and then changed.

He figured you would want your space tonight, so he made his bed on the couch, somewhere he hasn’t slept in ages. As he lays down and looks at the ceiling, his heart breaks once more, this time because of his own stupidity.

He has to fix this, make things right. And he needs to do it soon.

Things between you two did not improve. It was the middle of spring with the flowers blooming and most days the rain fell from the sky blanketing the world with a chill that went to the bone.

Felix still resided with you, still made your meals, made sure you had everything you needed. He gave you your space, too scared to approach you and here you tell him to leave for good.

You worked long hours, opting to stay at the office then be with Felix in your small house. You figured if he was out of sight, he couldn’t plague you with his puppy dog eyes and sweet pouts as he doted on you.

However, that came to an end when Felix pleaded for you to come back at a decent hour and let him cook for you. You wanted to say no, but then he looked at you with wide eyes, his pink lips in a pout.

As you stared at him, you caved agreeing to his dinner. You tried not to break the facade as he grinned, his eyes sparkling at your acceptance.

You left for work as usual, your mind preoccupied with the little night he had planned for you two. You were nervous, not having spent a night alone with him since…well since that one fated fall night.

You willed the day to go slowly, but of course that was not the case, the end of your shift approaching rather quickly.

To make matters worse, your boss let you off early, thinking they were doing you a service to get your weekend started early.

Grabbing your bags, you made your way home, opting to walk instead of riding in a hover car. Approaching your door, you placed your finger on the scanner, the pad turning green.

You stepped in your apartment, taking in the scent of something delicious being cooked in the kitchen. You kicked off your shoes and padded into the kitchen, watching as Felix scampered around the space, adding finishing touches to the meal.

It took him a while to notice you but once he did he yelped, startled at your presence.

“Y/n!” Felix said as he rushed to your side.

“Welcome home!” He said as he grasped your hand, ushering you to the kitchen. “Sit, sit.”

You sat down and waited as he dished up dinner. You had to admit everything smelled and looked amazing. Felix dished his plate and the sat down.

“Well let’s dig in!” Felix exclaimed as he picked up his fork.

You forked some of the pasta into your mouth, your eyes rolling back at the flavors as they burst on your tongue. You recovered quickly as you continued to shovel food into your mouth. How could you be mad at this man when he cooks like this?

Felix watched from the corner of his eyes, pleased that you enjoyed his meal. He needed tonight to go well. He would reveal it all to you, his purpose, his reason.

Halfway through the meal, he decided to begin, thinking it was as good a time as ever.

“Y/n, can we talk?”

You put your fork down and looked at Felix. Here we go, you thought.

“I want to explain to you why I’m here.” Felix took a deep breath before continuing on. “I’m from the future and if you remembered, my soulmate was actually not mines but someone else’s. The matchmakers proposed I go back in time to find my true soulmate, to start over almost. To find…you.”

Silence rang out through the space, neither of you saying a word.

Felix was your soulmate? Felix is your…

Maybe that’s why it just always felt good, felt right with him. Why you always trusted him.

Felix is your soulmate.

You felt your heart beat, your cheeks flush, as you fumbled with your fingers. You didn’t dare look at Felix, ashamed at how you’ve treated him over the last few months.

Shit. What a mess this is.

“Y/n?” Felix inquired cautiously.

“Sorry. I was just processing everything.”

You truly were, your brain trying to wrap around the fact that you found your soulmate.

“I’m sorry. I just felt like you should know. The timing felt right.”

You nodded agreeing. You got up and started clearing the dishes, your mind reeling with his words. Felix helped you, working silently along you.

After you set the dishes down, you turned and almost bumped into him. You muttered an apology and cautiously looked him in the eye.

Felix stared back at you, his lips parted. You watched as a strand of his hair fell in his face. His beautiful, perfect face. You stood still as he came closer, until he wrapped his arms around your waist.

You both stood there in your kitchen, gazing into each other’s eyes, taking in every detail, of the need and lust hidden behind the orbs.

You held your breath as Felix leaned forward to connect his lips to yours, the feeling so familiar, as if he was welcoming you home.

Your lips moved together softly, gently, neither one of you in a rush. You wrapped your arms around his neck, your fingers teasing the hairs there as he deepened the kiss.

Felix moaned as his tongue met yours, the two appendages tangling together in a passionate dance. He needed more of you. He trailed his hands down your waist, your thighs, tapping the flesh to signal you to jump.

You caught on and jumped, wrapping your legs around his waist. Felix walked you to your bed, his lips on yours whenever he got the chance.

Right as he got to your bedroom, he tripped over his feet, dropping you in the process. You landed on your back, shocked as Felix tumbled onto the floor.

“Oh my god! Are you ok?” You asked, scrambling to peer over the edge of the bed.

“I’m fine,” Felix responded, his face red in embarrassment.

You chuckled, not believing that just happened. Felix looked at you in shock, his embarrassment increasing so much so his ears turned red.

“Oh come here,” you giggled pulling him on top of you.

You crashed your lips on his, smiling as he immediately reciprocated. You lost yourself in his kisses as his hands wandered your body, trailing his fingertips along your skin, goosebumps rising in its wake.

Felix moaned as he cupped your breasts, massaging the flesh gently. He could feel his cock swell, straining against the fabric of his boxers. He ground his hips into yours, his bulge nudging your clothed core.

You whimpered at the feel of him, canting your hips up into his, silently begging for more. Felix leaned back and shucked his shirt and sweats off and made his way to you, helping you rid yourself of your clothes.

You laid bare before him, your chest heaving as you panted, your slick leaking out of your pussy.

Felix gazed down at your body, feeling like he was in heaven.

“So beautiful and all mine,” he whispered as he parted your legs to slot himself between them.

He connected his lips to yours once more as he grasped his cock, running it through your folds. You were so wet, your slick coated his length as he teased you over and over.

“Please Lix,” you begged, wrapping your arms around his neck.

You let out a groan as he slowly pushed in, his cock sending shocks of pain through your core as he stretched you open. You whimpered as he continued to push in, slowly, gently until he was completely inside you, his cock sheathed snuggly in your warm walls.

“Are you ok?” Felix asked, concern laced in his eyes.

You nodded and swiveled your hips, silently begging him to move. Felix grinned before pulling out just to push back in right. Over and over and thrusted into you, the pain transitioning to pleasure as he fucked you.

He watched you with every thrust, not wanting to miss your moans, your little pants, the way your eyes rolled to the back of your head as he hit your sweet spot over and over.

“Taking me so well love. God I love you y/n.” Felix groaned as he snapped his hips into yours.

He wasn’t going to last long, not with how you clenched around him, how you whispered his name. He reached down to thumb at your clit, grinning as you let out a squeal at the added pleasure.

“That’s it love, feels good doesn’t it?” Felix teased as he circled the bud, adding more pressure as he dragged his cock within your walls.

You looked up at Felix, how flushed he looked above you as he fucked you, as your walls took him like you were made for him. You felt more arousal gush out of you as you remembered you were made for him.

You were his. He was yours.

And as your mind flooded with that thought, the way his finger thumbed your clit, at how he fucked you just right, your orgasm washed over you causing you to let out a straggled moan.

Your walls clenched around him rhythmically as you came, driving him insane. Felix let out a growl as he stilled his hips against yours, his cum flooding your walls.

He leaned down and pressed his lips to yours, mumbling “you're mine,” again and again.

“I’m yours,” you breathed out as you came down within your lovers arms.

The days passed into summer, each day a treat with Felix by your side. You both have found each other and that was something to celebrate on a daily basis.

Felix showered you with love, waking you up with kisses as he slid between your thighs, making love to you as the sun rose in the sky, bathing you both with its warm light.

He made sure you were well fed, that you wanted for nothing. He peppered you with kisses whenever he could, loving how you would giggle as he kissed your nose, your cheeks, your lips, your neck.

Life was good which is something you haven’t been able to say in a long time. — — You both sat in bed one morning, tangled in each others embrace. As you slid your fingers through his hair, you hummed a little song, happy and content.

Felix lifted his head up and smiled. “What has my love so happy this morning?”

“Hmm maybe you,” you chuckled as you pulled him close.

“Now why is that I wonder,” he teased as he pressed a kiss to your lips and pushed his cock within you.

“Ah Felix!” You groaned as he rocked his hips into yours, slow and gentle as the wind gently blew through your open window.

Felix buried his head in your neck as he brought both of you to your highs, your fingers playing with his hair.

“Y/n, this pussy, your sweet pussy.” Felix moaned as your pussy clenched around him.

“You’re mine!” He growled as he bite into the side of your neck, soothing the area with his tongue afterwards.

“I’m yours!” You whimpered as you came, wrapping your legs around him.

Felix’s hips stuttered as he reached his climax, his seed painting your walls white in the early morning hours.

He collapsed on top of you, steadying his breath as he came down. You both laid there in silence, basking in each other’s afterglow.

“So what happens now?” You asked breaking the silence. “Do I come back with you? To the future?”

Felix thought for a moment. Deep down he knew what he had to do, but he didn’t want to leave you. What if it doesn’t work and he doesn’t see you again in the future?

No, he wasn’t going to take that chance. He would bring you with him.

“Come with me. We can go back together.”

You considered his words for a moment. You didn’t want to part with him, so going with him seemed like the best option.

“Hmmm ok,” you agreed.

“Let’s get dressed and we can go back to the agency and see what we can do.”

You agreed and got up with him. You both showered and got dressed quickly, not wanting to waste any more time.

Felix hailed a hover car and you both got in, directing the driver to go to the agency. Once there, Felix ushered you quickly to the matchmaker’s office, hoping to see Mavis.

He grinned when he saw her, running up to the woman and accidentally startling her.

“Mr. Lee! What are you doing here?”

“I was successful Mavis! I found my soulmate. We’re ready to go back!”

Mavis looked over his shoulder and saw you standing a ways back, swaying back and forth slightly.

“Ah, I can see that,” Mavis said with approval. “Come with me.”

She led both of you to the room Felix was in before, the Time Machine familiar this time around.

“Alright, get in,” Mavis said gesturing towards the glass box.

Felix grabbed your hand and pulled you into the box. Once settled, Felix gave Mavis the thumbs up, signaling you both were ready.

Mavis nodded and pressed a few more buttons, the buzzing sound Felix remembered from last time intensifying.

Felix turned to you and pressed a kiss to your lips.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you too,” you gushed as you squeezed his hand.

The air began to ripple, the room began to disintegrate. The air became thin, both of you gasping for breath as a pain hit your stomachs.

Felix closed his eyes briefly as he felt a stabbing pain in his chest. He squeezed your hand in earnest, hoping it would be over soon.

However, time passed and the feeling remained.

Something wasn’t right.

Felix opened his eyes and stared ahead in horror as his eyes took in the vast emptiness. You were still with him, gripping his hand as tight as you could, your face laced with pain.

“Y/n!” He said, wrapping you in his arms.

Felix looked around. You were both in an empty space, nothing was around. No people, no buildings, no trees. Nothing.

He felt like he was going to throw up, the pain in his chest slowly dissipating, but not fast enough.

You both sank to your knees, kneeling on air, clutching each other.

How is this possible? Where are you? Was there a malfunction with the machine?

Felix screamed for help, pleading, begging for anyone to help him. To help you.

But to his horror, no one came to the rescue, both of you trapped in some type of glitch.

Felix held you in his arms, glancing at your beautiful face. At least he had you, his soulmate.

That’s why he went back into he past in the first place right?

To find his soulmate and here you were with him, in his arms.

His soulmate, someone he can love for eternity and you both had eternity now locked in whatever place you were in.

He brushed your hair away from your face, and gazed into your beautiful brown eyes and whispered

“I love you.”

Taglist: @jehhskz @jeonginsleftcheek @simpforleeknaur @armystay89 @palindrome969 @slut4hee @ivydoesit23 @amarecerasus @kaysungshine @fun-fanfics @baby-stay92 @velvetmoonlght @possum-playground

[sfznyxio]

-ˋˏ REQUIESCAT IN PACE ˎˊ

SYNOPSIS. the dead deserve their happy endings.

CHARACTERS. dainsleif, tartaglia, zhongli

CONTENT. gn!reader. afterlife au. angst. 1.8k wc. rewrite of requiescat in pace at my old main blog @/verxsyon. everyone dies and ascends to a higher plane of existence. fan interpretation of snezhnaya and celestia arc. allusions to war, so expect blood and death. tartaglia and reader adopted children together in the afterlife. dainsleif killed reader from the curse. reader is killed by their spouse (zhongli). petnames (my dear, darling - zhongli).

VERA. it’s been three years since this fic was posted. crazy how time flies. i remember crying when i wrote this. hopefully i’ll make you all suffer as well hahaha.

𝄞༉‧₊˚. DAINSLEIF

five hundred years ago is when dainsleif committed the gravest mistake of his life. he was the twilight sword, a royal guard sworn to protect the people and the royalties of khaenri’ah. his people placed their trust in him to stop the destruction of the nation, only to watch them turn into monsters from the curse laid upon them.

the castle he enters with the traveler and paimon holds many memories he wishes to forget. it was occupied by the eclipse dynasty, the ruler of khaenri’ah before its destruction. he was well acquainted with the heir at the time: you, and soon fell in love. he passes by your room, where he killed you to stop your transformation. realizing what he had done, he left for them to suffer.

“dainsleif,” the abyss herald sneers. dainsleif is so used to that tone of voice. him and the rest of the abyss, especially its leader, have the right to resent him. the traveler and paimon are not here to back him up as they are looking for the twin, so he must atone his own sins himself.

“do whatever you need to do,” dainsleif says, starry voids emitting from his palms. “i don’t intend to hold back.”

the curse of immortality. how sickening. for five hundred years, he has wandered aimlessly for information about his nation. regardless of the amount he has gathered, he wants to end his journey here. he trusts the traveling duo to answer the rest for him.

is death supposed to be this painful? well-deserved for a coward like him. he can sense the satisfaction from the herald destroying him inside his body with hydro. the abyss now has one less problem to deal with. dainsleif can feel himself slipping away, departing the world still a sinner. 

“sir dainsleif. their highness requests your presence.” he is at the castle, decorated with life instead of the dust and cracks when he first arrived. the guard with him possesses no signs of abyssal features. everyone here doesn’t.

behind the double doors is you admiring the plants on the balcony. he gapes at your appearance: the heir of the eclipse dynasty, beautiful and regal as ever. you thank the guard for bringing him over, and they take their leave. this can’t be real.

“my dear dainsleif.” he loses his composure, rushing over to you to pull you into his embrace. your eyes soften upon feeling his sobs on your neck. “my love? are you alright?”

he sniffs, tightening his grip. your touch, your voice, your love for him, he misses them all. “forgive me, your highness. let’s stay like this for a while.”

“i told you to drop the formalities when we’re alone. we’re lovers, aren’t we?” you chuckle, your fingers finding purchase in his blonde locks. oh, how he misses that feeling. “and what are you saying sorry for? we’re all human here. if that makes you feel better, we can stay like this as long as you like.”

dainsleif lifts his head to kiss your knuckles and then presses his lips on yours. he does not know what brought him here, but he is truly grateful. whatever this realm is called, as long as you’re by his side, he will always be forgiven.

𝄞༉‧₊˚. TARTAGLIA

tartaglia is naive about the future. the desire to protect it influences his decision to serve the tsaritsa. with the mora he earned as a harbinger, he hopes to buy his family a house and send teucer to school. when the war is over, he plans to settle with you and live in a cabin where the two of you ice fish with your children.

if only it was that easy. his family is suffering from financial hardships, and the mora he sends is their savior. as for you, you severed ties with him a long time ago because of moral differences. in fact, you lead the faction that opposes the cryo archon and the fatui as your act of revenge for your family.

the palace is in shambles. the traveler and paimon escort the tsaritsa out of the throne room to allow you and tartaglia to compromise. your mind is not easily swayed as expected, given that you spent most of your life waiting to kill. your fate has been decided, when bloodlust overtook him and made him pierce his weapon through your stomach.

“no!” he cradles your body into his arms. his grief causes his delusion to spiral out of control, bringing the palace to destruction. the traveler and paimon rush back inside the room, yelling at the harbinger to get out of there. but he chooses to stay.

“traveler, can you please do me a favor?” they look at him in shock when he places the tip of their on his chest. “put me out of my misery before i lose control. i want to see my friend again. and when you see my family, tell them i’m sorry for everything.”

swift and painless, exactly how he wants death to feel like. the boulders come crashing down upon you and him, and he blacks out. he wonders if the tsaritsa and the traveler will succeed in preventing the second cataclysm. he wonders how his family will handle the news. teucer will be affected the most, feeling betrayed by his big brother lying that he’ll come home soon.

he wonders about you. if you two ever come to a mutual understanding, will the future be any different?

“papa!” a voice of a child calls, waking him up to a scenery full of snow. he spots a cabin in the distance, where a little girl is waving at him with a proud grin. she runs up to him with a bucket in tow, tripping on lumps of ice along the way.

“papa, look! i caught some fish!” she exclaims, showing him the content of her bucket. a cacophony of high-pitched screams echo. more children spook him by hugging his legs.

“good job, baby. you found papa.” he gasps at the sight of you kissing the girl’s forehead. he can’t believe it. “okay, kids. since papa is here, let’s go home. we’re going to eat fish for dinner.”

“yay!” the kids who seem to be his children happily zoom to the cabin, making you chuckle. tartaglia doesn’t waste any time hugging you tight. he can’t lose you again.

“ajax?” it’s been a while since you called him by his birth name. you cup his cheeks with worry when you see tears streaming down his face. “are you okay?”

he nods, kissing you as if his life depends on it. “i’m okay. shall we go home? we don’t want to keep our kids waiting, do we?”

hand in hand, the two of you follow your children to the cabin. in a future where a war between all creatures of teyvat is over, ajax is finally home.

𝄞༉‧₊˚. ZHONGLI

the past six thousand years have been prolific of brutality. old friends and acquaintances were subjected to erosion, being forced to neutralize them. one is unfortunate enough to perish from the archon war, leading to the creation of liyue harbor.

if there is one thing to take away from her advice, it’s about the concept of change. he is the type of person to slowly adapt into it. her death and the death of the land they both created is not easy to accept. change isn’t a bad thing, she had said. he did not take her words into heart until he met you.

you’re a mortal who lived in a village, you spent more time exploring the outskirts without letting everyone know. you couldn’t care less, having a dream to live in a lively city like liyue. a certain archon would’ve loved you, for you valued freedom. 

he finds you to be quite humorous. once you joked about eloping with the former archon somewhere teeming with fireflies and crystalflies. when he asked you to define the term, you brushed it off and changed the subject. if he knew you weren’t kidding, you wouldn’t have fallen victim to your marriage.

shame, at such a young age too. he regrets not being able to keep you safe, reminding him of his failure with his old friends and the people who are fighting in the second cataclysm by his side. at the climax of the war, he comes face to face with the gods who stirred the calamities around the world for centuries. as much as he wants to stray from violence, he can’t let them win.

“i will no longer stay silent,” he growls, summoning his pillars around incoming enemies. contracts are sacred, no matter who he established them with. breaking any of those would result in facing the wrath of the rock. breaking the one he signed with celestia would mean he would suffer under his own wrath.

gold liquid spills onto the floor, and his ears are blocked by white noise. no, he can’t die like this. not right this instant. his allies haven’t reached an advantage yet. how is it possible for the strongest deity to already fall like this?

six thousand years of changes and sacrifices. the geo element is strong and unmoving, yet it can also crumble. zhongli has to keep on fighting for the sake of his allies and those who have perished, and yours. all he needs to do is take that extra step to victory.

“zhongli?” that voice is familiar. too familiar. he gazes at his swarms of fireflies and crystalflies circling around your figure. your fingers lingers across his cheek with a somber smile. “my dear, you looked troubled in your sleep. do you want to talk about it?”

he leans on your shoulder, inhaling your scent. he’s so tired, enduring six thousand years worth of cycles of life and death among his nation. “hm, i will eventually. but please let me rest first, darling…”

“okay,” you hum, linking your hand with his. “rest well, zhongli. if you need a shoulder to cry on, i will be here. i won’t ever leave your side.”

you tilt his head to kiss him, tasting the salt of his tears on your lips. his allies may be gone and treasured in his memories, you choose to remain by his side and give him relief that he won’t be alone. not anymore.

zhongli is not the same person he was before, and believes he will never be. cradling the finger adorned with the ring crafted from the abundant rocks in liyue, it gives him hope. you are his pillar. when at his lowest, you and your army of lights will guide him back to the surface.

[blindmagdalena]

All That Glitters

18+ 15.7k words. Dragon!Homelander x F!Reader fantasy au, messy world building, referenced cannibalism, handfeeding, super dubious consent, sexual coercion, monster anatomy, size difference, cunnilingus, breeding kink, dirty talk, marathon sex, mating bond/bite, knotting, tongue baths, virgins, scent kink, overstimulation, body betrayal, fairy tale schmoop. AO3 Link!

Summary: In a world where the only currencies that matter are gold and blood, the gods are lavished with both. Your regions god is a fearsome beast said to reign hellfire from the skies should his appetite not be satiated. When the demand for human sacrifices increases, you make the choice to volunteer yourself, determined to bring an end to the bloodshed, and ascend into the jaws that await you in the old stone tower deep in the woods.

illustration by the ever incredible @anon-nee, who was instrumental to the writing of this fic. see the full piece here! originally written for Monsterlander Mania, but obviously spiraled wildly out of control.

For as long as you can remember, there have always been sacrifices.

Such a thing is not unique to your village. Gods–and the creatures worshiped as such–throughout the world demand all manner of recompense for protecting the lands of those who idolize them. If the slaughter of a single lamb ensures green pastures in which the herd may thrive, few ever think twice before they lift the blade.

Not all townships worship for benevolence, however. Yours has always worshiped for mercy.

For generations, stories of hellfire raining from the sky have been passed by your people. A great, terrible beast with wings as wide as ten men were tall once patrolled the skies above you, wielding power so devastating that not even ballistae firing bolts the size of tree trunks could fell it.

It had a hundred names, each more terrible than the last. Scourge of the Skies, the Red Death, Flame’s Maw, and perhaps most unfortunately, the Devourer. Named as such for the countless lives it began to claim when treasures were deemed an insufficient tribute. Sacrifices were initially sparse, required only every dozen or so seasons. As time went on, the Devourer grew greedier and greedier, with the timespan between sacrifices shortening.

By the time you offer yourself to the council, there has been a sacrifice every month for over a year.

The wagon hardly jostles on this well-trodden road. You imagine it used to be a rougher ride, but with the increase in frequency of travel, it has smoothed. The thought worsens the feeling of icy weight in your stomach. One might think the exquisite fabrics you’re dressed in would bring some measure of comfort–softer than anything you’ve worn before–but the extravagance of them only serves to further alienate you from yourself.

You have become a thing. A finely adorned offering, and the fabric makes your skin crawl for it.

The tree cover breaks, revealing a monolithic stone tower that stands so tall, it splits the sky in two.

The Tower of the Seven. It’s been generations since anyone knew exactly what it was named for, but legend speaks of mythic creatures that were once held in such reverence, this tower was built in their honor. It served as both a temple and home to these venerated beings.

The years have not been kind to it. The stone pillars have become wild with overgrowth, and the air about this place reeks of stale, old death.

It stands now as a graveyard.

Even the horses refuse to venture much further than the threshold of the treeline, forcing you and your attendants out of the wagon to tread the remainder of the trek on foot. The men who walk with you carry short swords, but they serve no practical purpose, their edges having long since dulled. They are not here to protect you, they are as much a part of the ceremony as your fine clothes.

You shield your eyes as you look up at the staggering height of the tower, but swiftly drop your gaze. Best not to think of what awaits you.

On paper, sacrifice seems a simple thing. Slitting one’s throat upon an altar, floating a burning pyre across the river, or feeding the tribute a concoction of sleeping death and burying them into eternal slumber. Murder can be a righteous thing in the hands of a believer, or so they say.

For you, and those who have come before you, martyrdom is not as effortless as lying down and dying for the cause. The tower presents a trial to you. You must willingly climb the hundreds upon hundreds of large stone steps in order to prove yourself a worthy tribute.

Why you must prove your flesh worthy of consumption is beyond you. You’ve never heard of a farmer who sends his cattle to run laps before the slaughter. It seems a petty thing to demand. Perhaps the Devourer has grown indolent and slovenly in its feasting.

It’s easy to dream up nightmarish images of such an awful creature. A legless winged wyrm with a ribbed body, fat and slimy like an oversized earthworm. It would have an enormous maw with hundreds upon hundreds of jagged teeth, its breath reeking of charred flesh and sulfur. Such a wicked beast would stink like the layers of hell. 

Somehow, tormenting yourself like this is an oddly calming distraction. The more nightmarish it becomes in your mind, the less real all of this feels. It’s just a bad dream.

No one speaks as you reach the base of the tower. There’s nothing left to say. You’re one of a dozen in the last year alone these men have ferried to their death. It almost seems cruel to expect eye contact, let alone sympathy. For that reason, it catches you off guard when one of the older of the three, a man named Hector with a thick set of troubled brows furrowed above kind but bloodshot, watery eyes puts his hand on your shoulder, offering a light squeeze.

The last sacrifice had been his own daughter.

In his gaze you find grief and gratitude in equal measure. Neither brings comfort. You return a small nod and move your eyes back to the ordeal that awaits you. 

The tower is like an optical illusion: the proportions make it seem a reasonable size at a distance, but the closer you walk to it, the more mythical a thing it becomes. The archways curve high above your head, sized for creatures of legend, and the head of the building disappears completely into the sky.

In the center of it, a spiraling stone staircase beckons you. The masonry is exquisitely smooth despite the age of it, carved in an era when magic was a hundred times more prolific than it is now. It’s wide and open, the steps so large that you’ll be taking them one at a time. Worse than that, however, is the complete absence of any kind of protective railing.

If you sway, you very well may fall to your death.

At the center of the spiral stands a pile of debris. As you approach, a rustling catches your attention and you freeze, eying the pile warily. The head of a creature suddenly pops up, startling your heart into a thunder, but after a beat you recognize it for what it is: a small fox, its muzzle dirty. The two of you stare at one another for a long moment before one of the men behind you calls out, “Shoo, shoo now.”

Everyone keeps hushed, as if terrified of disturbing what is yet unseen.

Moving closer, you anticipate you might see a dead rabbit, or perhaps a chicken. Anything would have been a more welcome sight than the gnarled half-eaten body of a woman dressed just like you piled amongst the debris. You gasp, both hands flying over your mouth as you stumble a few steps backwards.

For a horrifying moment, you swear you see your own face in the rotten remnants staring back at you with black, empty eye sockets. It’s the hair that gives away the delusion, however, and with a chill down your spine you recognize the sacrifice who came before you; Hector’s daughter.

“Nadja,” the man groans morosely, the weight of grief in his voice palpable. You move away, towards the stairs, and watch with a morbid sort of fascination as the man weeps over the corpse of his daughter, touching her hair and her clothes, the only parts of her not twisted and rotted with death, the body left for maggots and scavengers. It’s sick, nothing like the beautiful and noble gesture sacrifice is always said to be. You look up at the dizzying height of the spiral staircase, following the line of it until the stone disappears into darkness. Did she fall, or was she cast away, having somehow proven herself unworthy?

In a strange sense, watching the men wrap her body in cloth to be carried home feels very much like playing the part of voyeur to your own demise. You stand at a distance, hand braced upon the stone, unable to shake the dread that you’re witnessing a vision of the future. Your future.

No. You will not be left for the insects and carrion-feeders. You turn your back to the sound of Hector’s weeping and, without another world, determinedly begin your ascent one large stone step at a time. Although you feel the men’s eyes heavily upon you, they remain silent, as if already grieving you.

Do not, you think brazenly, skin flushed with unexpected fires that bring your blood to a boil. Do not dare mourn what isn’t dead.

Those flames burn hot enough to carry you easily up the first several floors, indignantly stomping your way. You’ve heard stories of this tower all your life, but nothing could have prepared you for the true scale of it. Most of it is in a terrible state of decay, full of overgrowth and rot that, centuries ago, may have been wood and cloth.

You stop for a breath beneath the remains of what looks to have once been a vibrant mural. You can see trace evidence of beautiful paints, but whatever it depicts has been brutally clawed from the stonework. You lift a hand up high to trace one of the deep gouges in the stone; the marks are spread too far apart for your fingers to reach, but you can make out five distinct patterns nonetheless, like drag marks from a hand three or four times the size of your own.

Beyond the ruined mural, there are statues, too. You pass a grand monument of a woman who stands over seven heads tall wielding a sword of equal might, the statue adorned with steel bracers. You think she might have been beautiful in the same way a frightening storm is, but the head of the statue is long since gone.

On the next floor, you see upon the ground the ruins of a statue of a mermaid–at least, you thought it was. Upon further inspection, however, you see that the statue depicts a man. He has the lower body of a fish and strange indentations along his ribs, just beneath his bare carved chest. He, too, is headless, torso split horizontally, stone strewn across the floor.

This temple must have belonged to these lost figures, their monuments as desecrated as the rest of the tower. Whoever the Seven was, the world has since forgotten.

You wonder if the Devourer did this, defiled this temple to erase whatever history of heroes came before its tyranny.

Ultimately, you only find six statues. None of them have managed to keep their heads, and some are in worse shape than others. You imagine the seventh might have been destroyed entirely. It’s easier to imagine how or why these things might be than it is to focus on how badly your body aches, how you started this venture with the morning sun barely upon you, and yet you barely feel any closer to your destination as the darkness of night encroaches.

Every limb screams for rest. You stop occasionally, but you feel you must not sleep. Was poor Nadja pitched to her death for sleeping through her trial? You’d rather not find out. You’re not even sure if you would wake with the same angry conviction that drives you forward now, climbing step after unforgiving step. It’s gotten colder the higher you’ve gone, too. There’s a chance if you slept amidst the stone, you would turn to it yourself.

“Grant me strength,” you whisper to whomever may be listening. Be they fae or devil, benevolent or malevolent, it would be a boon to know there was some manner of being on your side.

You lean on the wall far from the edge as you ascend the spiral, too nervous of a fall to look over the edge and gauge your progress. A brisk wind chill has begun howling through the tower, whipping your clothing about and biting at your skin. You hug one arm tightly across your chest, bracing against the cold. At this rate, you’ll make for a crunchy meal not just for your bones, but for the frost you arrive covered in.

Your foot slides on something on the step that shifts and clatters. You nearly fall, heart hammering in your chest as you manage to catch yourself. Looking down, you’re shocked to see a pile of shining gold coins spilling down the steps amongst the debris. There is enough wealth discarded on these steps to see a dozen families fed for years and years to come.

You must be getting close. Carefully, despite the tremble running through your body, you shuffle your way through the mess, kicking it aside when you need to clear more of a path. The sound of rubble and gold and the like falling off the edge of the steps makes you flinch, the prolonged clattering of it serving as a reminder of just how agonizingly high you’ve managed to climb.

The familiar flicker of fire light draws a gasp of relief from you, tears gathered in your eyes from the sheer pain of moving your body forward. You can see shadows dancing across the walls, beckoning you from the cold with the barest hint of a warm draft. You’re practically crawling up the steps now, every part of you aching horribly. The tremble in your body is so severe, you worry you would fall to your death if you continued trying to walk through the hoard of treasures that have spilled down the steps.

You practically sob with relief when you reach the final step, limbs quaking beneath you as you haul yourself up onto the top floor and away from the awful railless edge of the spiraling stairs. You bury your face in the fold of your arms. The mixture of relief and exhaustion is so intense, the rest of the world falls away briefly, and the only thing that matters is catching your breath while you all but dry heave on the floor.

“I’ll be damned. I didn’t think you were going to make it,” purrs a resonant, honied voice, snapping you immediately back to reality. You shoot into an upright position so suddenly your head spins, blinking rapidly in an attempt to clear your blurry vision.

Before you rests an enormous circular hall lit with dozens upon dozens of torches. The walls are lined with beautiful arched windows, and the interior is piled nearly to the vaulted ceiling with obscene amounts of coin, weapons, artifacts and similar treasure. Your gaze drifts towards the center of it all, where the source of the voice awaits you.

As it turns out, The Devourer is no oversized earthworm.

Reclined upon a magnificently carved marble throne, you behold a creature made of equal parts man and beast. Even sitting, his stature easily brings him heads taller than you. He is adorned exquisitely in gold embellishments–jewelry and piercings alike–and rich navy slacks, serving as a fine centerpiece to the lavish, untidy wealth that surrounds him. He wears a crown fit for a king, the jewel of it a radiant blue that matches his sharp predatory gaze. His lips spread into a wolfish grin. You’re utterly bewitched by the flash of his fangs.

“Rise,” he orders you, gesturing with a clawed hand that’s easily the size of your head. His rings shine beautifully in the firelight. “And speak.”

Shakily, you fight to climb to your feet. Worm or not, this man–this creature has been preying upon your people for generations. You remind yourself of the countless lives lost, of the mourning families, of Nadja’s desecrated corpse and the sound of her father weeping over the rotten remains of her. You steel yourself. 

“You who the people know as Scourge of the Skies, Red Death,” you begin, blinking rapidly. Your head began swimming the second you stood. You’ve never been so worn out in your life, and though there are flames here that offer a slight degree of warmth, the cold has sunk deep into your bones. As you speak, your vision gradually begins to tunnel. “Flame’s… Maw… and the Devourer,” you address, fighting desperately to stay focused even as he fades in and out of clarity. “I’ve come to pay my village tribute, and to… to…”

The darkness at the edges of your vision thickens. Your words feel heavy and slurred on your tongue. You sway, feeling your own head slosh like a bucket of water, and before you know it, you’re pitching forward, and the world goes black.

That was anticlimactic.

There was a time he would have been met with awe. Reverence. He didn’t expect you to simply black out.

Scourge, Red Death, Flame’s Maw… Maw. He’s always despised that word in particular, and the ugly imagery it evokes. Just a handful out of hundreds of names he’s been called over the years–if you can call them that. Many border on insults, if not are so outright. The most tolerable name he can remember is Homelander.

They called him that in celebration, he recalls. Those were the last of the days he had any care left for them.

He blows a smoky little raspberry as he stands, hands clasping behind his back beneath his wings. His tail sways idly as he approaches, tentatively intrigued by your splayed form. It’s rare that a sacrifice makes it all the way to the top at all, let alone in a single day. The last one only made it halfway before she decided falling to her death was a kinder fate than him.

Truth be told, he should have reigned hell upon their little village for her insolence. Fortunately for them, her display filled him with far more apathy than it did fury. He crouches down near enough to touch, though he hesitates, hand ghosting just over your body. He tilts his head to the side. Your breaths are shallow in your sleep, a slight wheeze to each one. Your body is clearly overexerted.

Delicately, he slips his hand under your cheek to turn your face to him, examining your features. You’re prettier like this, the tension drained from your expression and replaced with peace. Certainly not the worst tribute he’s been offered. You were at least determined to reach him.

The corner of his mouth twitches.

He won’t kill you. Not yet.

Homelander lifts you up into his arms, supporting your comparatively slight form with ease. You feel as frail as any mortal might, but the weight of you in his arms strikes him with a peculiar sense of melancholy. He takes pause, more closely observing the shape of you cradled in his arms, head lolled against his chest. You fit there nicely, small as you are. He can almost pretend you’ve simply fallen asleep in the crook of his arm; somewhere you’ve always belonged.

It’s an intriguing little fantasy. He hasn’t felt the need to indulge in one of those in a long while. He keeps his eyes on you as he walks you to the collection of pelts gathered on the far side of the room, where he lays you down atop them.

What had you been intending to say before you passed out? Your departing words spin round and round in his mind while he looks you over, lowering himself until he’s on his hands and knees above you. Tributes used to come richly adorned in jewelry and glittering things, but such pageantry has long since vanished. He’s surrounded by enough of it that the absence doesn’t bother him anymore.

The glitter of gold hardly catches his eye these days. He doesn’t call for sacrifices to add to his wealth. He only seeks to quell his boredom. Perhaps you will prove useful for this, at least for a time.

Pressing his clawed thumb lightly to your chin, he tilts your head away and leans in, nosing up the line of your throat, lips barely ghosting your soft flesh. He inhales the salt-sweet smell of you, a mixture of sweat, the dusty stone steps you’ve scaled, and the sweet herbal oil bath your kind always receives before you’re sent to him. The blend is strangely intoxicating on you.

It makes him wonder if you taste as good as you smell. Parting his lips, his split tongue spills past them and drags a slow serpentine pattern from your neck to your jaw. Mmm, fuck. You taste better than you smell, the rich oil you were bathed in still clinging to your skin beneath the salty tang of your sweat.

It would be too easy to devour you. He groans quietly at the thought, nuzzling into the crook of your neck. He’s known few things more intimate than sinking his sharp teeth into warm, pliant flesh. The feel of a pulse slowing against his tongue. The metallic rush of blood down the back of his throat. He hasn’t craved human flesh the way he does right now in years, yet something in the scent of you has ignited that primal aspect of him. Salivating already, he swallows it away and draws back.

Not yet. He still wants to hear what you were going to say.

It makes him smile to see the goosebumps that have erupted on every inch of your exposed skin. He cocks his head to the side and trails his index claw down the center of your chest, dragging down the pretty white fabric of your sacrificial dress, stopping just shy of the swell of your breasts. More goosebumps there, too.

None of it compares to the sound that you make. In your sleep, your brows furrow, and you exhale a noise somewhere between pain and sheer exhaustion, your small hand brushing his as you adjust against the pile of plush fur pelts. His gaze drops sharply, hand lifting tentatively. After a beat, he sets it down lightly atop yours. Captivated, he watches your whole body respond to his touch, turning and curling in towards him like a flora bending to the light of the sun.

Fascinated by your innate reactivity to him, Homelander lowers himself onto his side next to you. After a beat of hesitation, he encircles your wrist with his thumb and index finger and brings your palm flat to the warmth of his bare chest. A tantalizing shiver rolls through your unconscious form. Just as he had anticipated–hoped?–you follow the feel of him, moving completely onto your side and into him, breathing out a shuddering little exhale while the fire that runs through his veins warms you.

It isn’t enough to stop you shivering, though. Shifting, he spreads out his wing and curls that over you, blocking the draft that spills in from the surrounding windows. Only then does the tension in your body begin to ease, warmth chasing out the chill from your bones.

Homelander smirks, feeling inexplicably accomplished over this mundane little feat. He’s never particularly cared for the comfort of his tributes before; they’ve never served as anything more than playthings and meals. You should be no different. He knows you would be a delectable thing on his tongue, warm and wet down his throat, yet the thought of you in pieces–cold and unmoving–instantly vanishes his appetite.

He wants you in a new way entirely. Against him, with him. He wants to taste more of you, drag his tongue along the plains of your body and see how else you’ll react to him. He wants to find the places that quicken your breath. Would you sing your pleasure for him? He’s barely heard your voice, but already he can imagine it vividly.

You would. You will.

He’s begun to pant at the thought alone, smoke wafting from his mouth, his eyes softly aglow with crimson light. The smell of you has filled his senses so thoroughly he feels intoxicated by it, and between his thighs, his cock has begun to throb. He leans closer and nestles into your hair, inhaling deeply, a rumble leaving him on a warm exhale.

His entire body has taken on the heavy pulse of his heart, alight with the most visceral feeling he’s had in centuries. This is more than hunger, more than carnality–you mean something. Never before has he felt compelled to find pleasure in the frail body of a human, yet his blood sings it voicelessly in the back of his mind, his every instinct screaming one word again and again and again.

Mate.

Homelander had given up on the concept of a mate a long time ago, given that he’s… abnormal. Sterile. As an unnatural creature, there could not be a natural match for him. Someone who would call to his very blood and set it aflame. Yet here you are, seeking him as desperately as he once sought you. Is that why you were able to accomplish what so few before you had, pushing your body so clearly beyond your limits?

A low, possessive rumble leaves him. Reckless.

He pets your hair, testing the texture with his fingers awhile before letting his hand roam down the back of your neck, between your shoulders, up over your hip, down your leg. You’re no longer cool to the touch or shivering. He flattens his palm to your back and closes his eyes briefly. He’s never heard of a dragon bonding to a human before. He wonders if you’ll feel it too, recognize it for what it is, or if your mortality will make you oblivious to the depths of it.

It takes every ounce of his restraint not to shake you awake to find out. 

Instead, he patiently learns the cadence of your heart. He commits your scent to memory, weeding out the natural musk of your skin beneath the herbs and oils you’ve been lathered in. Soon enough he’ll be able to pick you out of a crowd by the thump of your pulse alone, track you down from miles away with nothing but the barest whiff of you. 

Not that he’d ever let you get so far from him now that he has you.

All you’re missing now is his scent. Leaning down, he licks a line adjacent to the one he had prior, and then another, mindful of his horns. The sweet taste of you makes him moan. He spends hours with you tucked in against him, idling away the time by learning your body as well as teaching you his. He nuzzles his cheek lightly against yours just so that he can turn and taste that same spot, something deep and primal in him appeased by tasting himself on your skin. 

“My mate,” he half sighs, half growls. 

He can’t wait to meet you.

Consciousness comes back to you in a gradual slew of sensation. Your fingers twitch, flexing in what feels like a lush, thick pelt of fur beneath you. Your whole body is pleasantly warm, as if you’ve fallen asleep in front of a crackling hearth, the cold of those awful stone stairs a distant memory.

The stairs…

Your eyes snap wide open, your spine going stiff. You’re laying on your back. Something wet and hot is dragging along the exposed skin of your shoulder–your dress pulled askew–in repetitive swipes. Looking down, all you can see is a mess of flaxen colored hair and one long, angular horn, the tip of it adorned in gold. The press of what you can only imagine to be a tongue is unnaturally smooth, as hot as settled coal against your skin. The beast gives a growl, and sharp teeth graze your skin. Your throat feels tight, the scream that bubbles up locked behind the tension of your jaw.

Oh gods, you think, beginning to shake. He’s eating me! 

“Good morning,” purrs a familiar voice, the words vibrating against your skin. He lifts his head from your shoulder, though he doesn’t go far. You half expect to see his maw bloodied with your entrails from all the horror stories you’ve been told, but his grin is as clean as it was the first moment you beheld him. Up close, he’s even larger than you had initially realized. His face is well defined, with strong cheekbones decorated with smooth red scales that ascend into his hairline, where a golden crown sits neatly behind his horns. “Mmm, someone got their beauty sleep,” he says, the words a low, pleased rumble. You’re speechless, watching in bewilderment as he cups your face, hand so large it covers most of your neck, too. “You were out for hours.”

Your eyes dart to your shoulder, where your dress has been tugged down, but your skin appears unmarred. Around you, one of his enormous wings is curved over, shielding you both from the light and the cold beyond. You can’t move your legs, and with a glance, you understand why: his enormous tail is draped across both of them, pinning you in place. You look back at him, eyes wide in fear and confusion. You wonder if he’s been with you like this through the entire night. “You’re… You’re not eating me?”

The broad smile he flashes makes your heart skip a beat. His eyes, though sharp and a shade of blue you’ve only ever seen in the sky, are disarmingly human. Beautiful, even. They crinkle at the corners with what almost looks like fondness.

“No.”

“Why not?” You ask instantly, adrenaline making your voice sharp. “Not that I wish for you to eat me,” you say just as quickly. “But do you not–were you not–” He cuts you off with a noise that you belatedly realize is a laugh, the resonance in his chest so unearthly it gives every sound he makes an inhuman quality. “No, I was not eating you,” he says, sounding far too amused for your liking. “Tasting you, yes. And you do taste divine,” he says, leaning in again. You push your head back into the furs as much as you can, but he moves to the side, bringing his lips to your ear. “I knew my mate would.” Mate?!

Your hands fly up to his chest–gods, he’s as warm as hearth stones–as if to push him back, but you may as well attempt to push an oak tree aside. “What?”

He draws back, glancing down at your hands pressed to the bare skin of his chest before his gaze returns to yours, eyes narrowed in distinct pleasure. “Mate,” he says again, deliberately drawing the word out. “Dragons bond only once in a lifetime. Usually to another dragon. Clearly exceptions can be made, and you, precious little thing that you are… appear to be mine.”

His eyes fall shut, he leans in, and with a lurch of your stomach you realize he means to kiss you, his lips pursed and rapidly approaching. Your own lips part and a noise wholly outside of your control escapes you; a scream so shrill and sudden that it knocks even him back in surprise. 

Blinking several times, he gives you a quick once over, visibly expecting to see you wounded and bloody somewhere. He looks back to your face when he finds nothing amiss. “What?”

“I can’t–I don’t know you,” you blurt out, equal parts flustered and alarmed. You can feel yourself burning up, and it isn’t just from the heat of him against you.

“So?” He dismisses, smiling with an array of sharp pearly teeth. “I’m your mate.”

“Humans don’t have those,” you counter, squirming under the weight of his tail. It’s like he’s draped several sacks of grain across your legs. “My lord Devourer, I–”

He scoffs, tail lifting as he shifts, bringing himself up onto his hands and knees over you, his wing unfurling and allowing the sun to spill in, washing you both in its light. “Homelander. If you must use one of those silly names, use Homelander. I’d prefer beloved, though,” he says with a sly lilt to his mouth.

A shiver rolls down your spine. Along with light, brisk morning air has slipped in between your bodies. 

“Homelander,” you repeat, a name you’ve never heard before. It’s a great deal less menacing than the others, but that doesn’t change the fact that he has been eating your townsman for as long as anyone can remember. “I–”

He takes hold of your jaw with just his index finger and thumb, the rest of his fingers curling lightly over your throat. “You talk too much,” he tells you, eyes hooded and hungry. “Are you going to scream every time I try to kiss you?”

“Maybe,” you choke out, fists clenched tightly in the furs beneath you. He leans closer, tilting his head, his nose barely brushing the tip of yours. “I’ve never been kissed by a dragon before. Like I said, we don’t have m-mmm!”

It happens so swiftly you don’t have time to gather the air to scream. He presses his lips firmly to yours, making a noise so close to a moan that, despite the relative chasteness of the kiss itself, you flush with the indecency of it. It feels… hot. The heat of him is nearly too much to handle, like touching your lips to a hot mug of tea, but there is something intoxicating about it. He uses that heat to mold you to him, pulling you closer, his body sinking down against yours.

You’re too dumbstruck by the whole of the situation to struggle–not that it would accomplish much–which leaves you to simply experience it. His lips are tentative against yours, not harsh or demanding. He coaxes yours with his as if to dance, luring you into something that almost feels good.

Your heart hammers in your chest, his warmth pooling in your belly and spreading slowly through the rest of your body like boiled water poured into a lukewarm tub. He’s immovable, inescapable, and to your dismay, not entirely awful.

 “I want to claim you,” he all but growls against your lips, his other hand clawing slowly down your side, tugging at your dress. 

Your heart leaps painfully against your ribs. “Homelander,” you say, though he’s hardly paying you any mind, kissing your cheek now, your jaw, carving a wicked trail with his lips while his hand dips lower and lower, seeking the bottom hem of your dress. Heart racing, you breathlessly cry, “Beloved!”

That gives him pause. He rears back to look down at you, head slightly cocked, eyes bright and attentive. Your breaths are shallow, pulse pounding in your throat. You swallow dryly. “I’m thirsty,” you tell him, which is no lie. Your throat is so dry it almost hurts to speak. “Horribly. And hungry, I’ve not eaten since yesterday’s breakfast. You mean for me to survive, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” he says, expression twisting like he finds offense in your words. “You’ll want for nothing.”

“Then please. Water?” You push, praying that he is more man than beast.

He regards you quietly, eyes subtly darting back and forth. There’s a petulant kind of impatience to his gaze that catches you off-guard, like a boy who’s been told he has to wait before he gets to play with his new favorite toy. “Water,” he echoes eventually. You nod. He startles you when he exhales a little plume of smoke from his nose, reluctantly lifting himself off of you. The chill of his absence is immediate. “Don’t move,” he says, suddenly looking displaced. You’ve caught him by surprise. Perhaps you’ll survive this yet.

You watch him rise to his full height, standing easily eight feet tall. You sit up, pulling the furs over your legs to combat the cold seeping in. The muscles of his back give a mesmerizing flex as he stretches his wings out, the span of them just as jaw-dropping as his height. He wears furs over his shoulders held in place with thick leather straps that cross over his back and chest, emphasizing his musculature as well as the crimson plating that covers his body. Spines run down the length of his back, transitioning down into a tail that’s even longer than he is tall. It moves along the ground in zigzags, almost like a serpent. You don’t realize how intensely you’re staring until you look back up and realize he’s looking at you over his shoulder, those piercing blue eyes keenly set on yours.

The corner of his mouth twitches like he’s fighting a smirk. Something about his expression makes you feel like you’ve been caught doing something naughty. You drop your gaze. “Back in a jiffy,” he says. You look up just in time to see him step off the ledge, those brilliant red wings fanning out behind him. He disappears so suddenly that you can’t help but gasp, sitting up on your knees. You hear the beat of wings against the air, and then a second later see him lift back up into the skyline, twisting in the air before gliding back down out of sight. 

You sit in stunned silence, listening to the fading thrum of his wings. It doesn’t feel real. You don’t know if this is some kind of twisted game he pulls with every sacrifice, or if you’re truly somehow different. You weren’t entirely expecting him to listen to you, but he did. He’s gone, presumably to fetch you food and water. You don’t know how, but you just commanded the Devourer to not only let you go, but bring you a meal.

In hindsight, you’re a little concerned that it was never specified what kind of meal. As far as you’re aware, he primarily eats people.

Adjusting your gown, you haul yourself up to your feet, crossing your arms in a vain attempt to protect the heat of his body lingering on your skin. When that doesn’t work, you pick up one of the several fur pelts strewn on the floor and drape it over your shoulders, sighing in relief. The pelt still holds some residual warmth; a boon over the lovely but ineffective fabric of your ceremonial gown.

In the light of day, you can make out a great deal more detail throughout the lair. The floor to ceiling archways deter you from venturing too far beyond the center, but still there is plenty to investigate. For example, the throne catches your eye immediately. The size of it makes you feel like a child again, navigating a world not built for you. The masonry of it is exceptionally smooth beneath your fingers, save for a handful of deep, jagged gouges that marr the arm rest. Tilting your head, you realize that you recognize these marks: they match those that you’d seen on the ruined murals.

You trace them with your fingers, connecting them now to the draconic claws that, just moments ago, had so delicately followed the curve of your body. He could so easily tear you apart, and yet in that moment you had never known a gentler touch. You pull your hand back beneath the pelt, feeling a shiver roll through you that has little to do with the morning chill.

Mate. That word sticks in your brain like a wad of gummy tree sap.

Circling the throne, you carefully step around the glimmering mess of gold, silver and jewels that litter the stone floor. There’s so much of it that it doesn’t even look real, stacked over itself like forgotten hay bales left to rot. There is more wealth here than you’ve seen in your life. A single satchel of it would keep you comfortable for the rest of your life, and yet here it serves as little more than clutter. As far as you can tell, it means nothing here.

The Devourer stopped seeking material treasure generations ago.

As you explore, part of you expects to find the corpses of all those who have come before you. Dozens upon dozens of bodies stacked up in varying states of consumption or decay, or maybe a monument built of their bones. You find no such construct, though. In fact, nothing about this place seems put together. You can’t imagine the madness that living like this for a week would induce in you, let alone decades.

To the east, movement catches your attention, startling your heart into your throat. It looks like a silhouetted figure at first, but your brain catches up quickly, and you approach the gently billowing fabric. It’s draped over a statue, giving it the illusion of a person, and your curiosity gets the best of you as you tug the drape down off of it.

You suck in a sharp breath. Once again, you find yourself faced with a legend given form– a painstakingly and intricately carved statue in the Devourer’s perfect likeness. It comes as no surprise that this is the only in-tact statue you’ve seen, but what you don’t understand is why it’s even here. If the Devourer was a usurper, some vicious interloper, why would there be a monument to him in the same vein as all the others?

The plaque beneath it reads: Homelander. Son of the Skies, Protector of the Earth.

Devourer, Scourge, Flame’s Maw–these names are all you have ever known, and yet this is the name carved in stone. He was once worshiped not out of fear, but reverence that you can see in every gentle curve of stone.

What happened?

Shuffling closer to the statue, the discarded fabric gathers at your feet. It’s not quite to scale, but it’s a handsome likeness nonetheless. It’s certainly been cared for more than anything else in this place. You wonder if it’s just vanity or if it’s something less obvious. You trace the smooth stonework, letting yourself get a better look at this version of him that’s less likely to eat you.

Objectively speaking, it’s a handsome visage. The resemblance is uncanny, clearly the work of an intensely skilled mason. His jaw is strong, eyes set forward in unerring determination. Tentatively, you touch the lips of the statue. He’d been so certain that he wanted to kiss you. Just the thought of his closeness and heat makes your stomach erupt in a flutter of butterflies.

Mate.

“I thought I told you not to move.”

You barely hear the full sentence, your own scream ringing loudly in your ears. You move to spin around, but your foot catches on the pile of fabric you had dropped to the ground and suddenly your whole body is pitching backwards, the back of your skull destined for the smooth, unyielding stone behind you. Fortunately for your brain matter, your descent is halted just shy of contact, one familiar clawed hand cupping the back of your neck while the other lands at your back, steadying you.

Homelander stands over you, a curious quirk to his brow. With his hand at the small of your back, his claws press lightly through the fabric, effortlessly upholding your weight. He holds you as if you’ve been caught mid dip in a dance.

“Gods, you scared me,” you say, eyes wide. “I didn’t hear you.” You had been so certain you would hear his return based on the sound of his wings when he’d left, but his approach had been terrifyingly silent.

“Yes, I know. It makes me a very effective hunter,” he says, dipping down to nuzzle at your neck, taking advantage of how the pelt has slipped off of your shoulder. He inhales the smell of you, prickling goosebumps all over your body. “I missed you.”

“You’ve barely been gone,” you reply impulsively, awkwardly trying to adjust yourself out of this arch he has you in. No use. His size makes him impossible to maneuver around, and your foot is still tangled up in the fabric that he’s currently standing on.

He gives another one of those rumbling sighs, drawing back to look at you. “You’re supposed to say that you missed me, too,” he chastises you, and though his tone seems light, you’re sure you see a flicker of impatience or irritation in his gaze. Maybe both. Despite how fearsome the sum total of his features make him, you’re once again caught off guard by his eyes. Though the color of them is icy, there’s a distinctly human warmth to them that grounds you in his gaze.

Still, the last thing you want to do is make him angry.

“Oh,” you croak quietly, realizing he’s actually waiting for you to say it, staring down expectantly while he holds you. “I… missed you, too,” you return stiltedly, unsure your hesitant delivery will be satisfactory. Shockingly, his expression lightens, lips curving into a smile. He lifts you off of your feet, untangling you from the mess beneath you and turning around to set you back down on relatively clear flooring. 

“Good,” he purrs, stroking his hand down the back of your head like he’s petting an animal. He seems determined to touch you, but entirely unaware of how to. He cups the base of your skull and tightens the gap between your bodies, enticing you with his warmth as much as he terrifies you with the hunger in his eyes.

You put your hands to his chest, soaking up the heat of him as you vainly try to maintain an ounce of personal space. “Ah, the–the statue, it’s beautiful. Why do you cover it up?” You ask, the words leaving you in a flustered tumble.

He pauses, glancing over his shoulder, looking at the statue like he’s only just remembered it exists. “Oh, that. Mmm. Don’t always like what he has to say,” he replies, fitting his hand over top of yours, pressing it to his chest. You blink. What in the world does that mean? “You humans chill so quickly. I’ll have to light the hearth next time I leave you,” he says, earning a yelp from you as he abruptly lifts you up into his arms, tail slithering audibly along the floor as he carries you back to what you suppose for all intents and purposes is his nest. His touch instantly warms you to your core, making the fur you wrapped yourself in seem like a thin sheet in comparison. Despite your apprehension, you can’t help the way the tension in your body naturally eases with his warmth. Upon returning to the collection of pelts, you see the fruits of his labor.

Literal fruits, in fact.

Homelander has returned with a small bounty consisting of apples, two melons, and even a handful of peaches, all of it held in a beautiful–albeit aged–woven basket. You don’t get the chance to eat those often; the trees they fall from grow high on the surrounding mountains, and the farmers in your village are content enough with the established agriculture that no one bothers to grow them.

In addition, a tall golden pitcher stands filled to the brim with water. You’re once again hyper aware of just how incredibly thirsty you are, lips dry, throat parched. It’s the only thing you care about, clambering towards it the second Homelander sets you back on your feet.

The pitcher is heavy. It appears made of solid gold and it’s three times the size of any you’ve ever seen before. You don’t lift it so much as you just tip it back slightly, sighing loudly as you drink back the crisp, clear water.  You sputter as the flow abruptly increases, water spilling from the corners of your mouth. Homelander has lifted the pitcher to help you drink, holding it one handed as if it’s no more than a drinking cup, his other hand settled upon your waist. He looks thoroughly pleased with himself, eyes half-lidded, lips gently curved upwards. Once you’ve drunk your fill, you push against his hold and he relents quickly, unnerving you with just how attentive he really is. He sets the pitcher back down and watches you wipe your chin dry.

“Thank the gods,” you sigh habitually, finally not feeling as though there’s grit in your throat with every word.

“I’d prefer you thanked me,” he says coyly, his gaze drifting down to where the water has wet your gown. The fabric clings to your skin, sheer where liquid has touched it.

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry. Thank you, Homelander,” you correct. It’s taking every ounce of your fortitude to speak in full sentences with the way he’s staring at you, let alone the idle way his thumb is stroking your hip. No one has ever touched you with this mixture of ease and clear intent, the weight of his hand practically thrumming against you. The magnitude of him is a difficult thing to parse both in terms of his sheer size and the legend he represents. You don’t know how to reconcile him with the monster you grew up dreading.

No one warned you that monsters could be warm and handle you gently.

“Time to eat,” he says, setting the pitcher back down. He takes hold of both of your hips and pulls you down with him as he sits cross-legged on the pelts, the circle of his legs large enough that you fit perfectly inside it, your own legs hanging out over his crossed calves. His tail loops around as well, encircling him and draping over your legs. The underside of his tail is not unlike the belly of a snake, with large overlapping scales that layer down the length of it. It’s just as warm as the rest of him, and feels like an unnaturally soft stone that’s been baking in the sun.

Reaching over, Homelander plucks one of the peaches from the assortment. It looked perfectly average in the basket, but between his fingers it looks almost comically small. With a deftness that you wouldn’t expect from a creature of his size, he begins to slice through the peach with his blackened claws, delicately cutting out a wedge that he does not hand you, but he instead brings it directly to your lips. 

You stare for a moment, struck by the rich red center of the fruit, how the juice of it drips onto his hand in sweet smelling rivulets. You turn to look at him over your shoulder, and he quirks a brow, nodding towards the slice of fruit. You decide that of all the potential battles you have in front of you, this one in particular isn’t worth fighting, and you part your lips, watching him as you do.

His own lips mimic yours, falling apart in quiet entrancement. He slides the wedge between your teeth and watches with rapt fascination as you bite down on it, holding his gaze in an exchange that feels so unexpectedly raw and intimate, your pulse ticks up a notch. You swear he notices it by the way his head tilts ever so slightly, almost as if he’s listening.

“Good?” He asks, voice little more than a rumble.

Gods above and below, it is good. Despite the preternatural heat of his hand, the succulent flesh of the peach retains the morning chill, sweet and cool on your tongue. It’s perfectly ripe, yielding easily to the cut of your teeth and flooding richly across your tongue as you chew. He feeds it to you until it disappears, pressing the last of it in with his thumb, which then follows the line of your bottom lip, smearing the sweet juice on it. You nod and lick your lips, tongue narrowly missing his thumb, and what that does to his expression makes your stomach flip. 

He’s quick to cut another slice to offer you. You repeat this process in silence, the air thick with tension that feels so palpable you’re sure you could swim through it. The sounds of the world have narrowed entirely to the sound of his claw cutting through the delicate flesh of the fruit and the tip lightly scraping the pit inside it. His hands have a sticky shine to them by the time he’s tossing the pit back into the basket, stripped as clean as a bone. 

You chew your final bite, jaw slowing as you watch him take his fingers into his own mouth. He’s unabashed in the way he slurps the nectar off his digits, tongue slipping between them. That’s when you realize that his tongue splits down the middle, dexterously sliding over his fingers to lap up every drop of juice. Not only that, but you spot a flash of gold; the same kind of piercing he has on his ears. Watching him stirs something hot in you, a radiating heat that lights a flickering pulse between your thighs. You audibly gulp the last of your bite, tensing subtly when Homelander looks at you.

Slowly, his lips curl into a devious smile. “See something you like?”

You flush, fighting the urge to look away. Don’t play into it. Change the subject. “What happened to your last mate?”

His expression shifts to something slightly more incredulous. “There wasn’t one. You’re my first, my last, my only. Dragons only bond once,” he says, that split tongue rolling along his sharp teeth, that gold tongue piercing clicking against them. You wonder where else he’s decorated himself with gold.

Wait, what did he say? Your gaze snaps back up from his mouth to his eyes, which are once more set into that self-satisfied slant. He’s closer to you now, and nearing by the second.

My first, my last, my only.

“But I am no dragon,” you say, leaning away subtly, though there isn’t far to go. He’s got you trapped nicely in place, like a butterfly beneath pins. “How could such a bond form?”

“I’m as mystified as you are,” he says, his hand sliding up the small of your back. “I didn’t think a bond was even possible for me. Apparently there’s something different about you,” he says, and you notice a brief twitch of his lip, a flicker that looks just a touch like disdain. It disappears as quickly as it had appeared. “Something special,” he murmurs, close enough that you can feel the heat of his breath on your cheek. 

Your heart races, your capacity for thought slowly disappearing the closer to you he gets. New subject, new subject! You think, frazzled by the warm spiced smell of him. His hand flexes on your hip, claws prickling your skin through your dress. “Aren’t you hungry?” You ask, eyes darting to the basket full of fruit just to his side.

“Yeah,” he rasps, voice so low you feel it reverberate. His nose brushes your cheek, trailing down from your jaw to your neck. You shiver, and the pulse between your thighs grows into a steady throb. He inhales deeply. “I’m famished.”

The world around you spins and the next thing you know, you’re on your back staring up at the aged banners draped along the stone ceiling, the fur pelts warm and plush beneath you. Homelander pins your arms down at your sides, once more poised on his hands and knees over you. His tongue draws a wet molten line from the collar of your dress to your throat, and you let out a soft, nervous cry as his teeth graze your skin.

Perhaps he’s going to devour you after all. 

Oh gods! Gods, gods, gods, please no!

“Wait, wait! Don’t–please don’t eat me,” you plead in a panic, pushing up against his hands with all of your might. He doesn’t yield at all. You may as well be pushing against the stone walls of the tower itself.

He does laugh, however. It’s that same rumble of amusement that travels through your skin and into the core of you. “For the last time, I’m not eating you. I can smell your arousal, though. Practically taste it in the fucking air,” he says, trailing lower down your chest with every word, brazenly nuzzling the space between your breasts before continuing down. A wave of humiliation rolls through you at his words, and you look away. He releases your arms in favor of sliding his hands up your bare legs, pushing your dress up with them. “I’m just going to have a little lick.”

Frantically, you try to grab at him as soon as your hands are free. “Hold on, stop–”

“Enough!” He snarls suddenly, startling you quiet. You swear for just a moment that his eyes flash crimson. You clutch your hands to your chest. “You’ll not be harmed. Understand? Just… let me,” he says tersely, gaze hard before gradually softening as you silence yourself, watching him with wide, uncertain eyes. Satisfied, he lowers back down.

His sharp claws kiss harmless welts all the way up your legs, up to your hips, where he catches the band of your undergarments. He hooks his fingers over the waistband and drags them down, seeming to enjoy the way you pant and writhe under him, your heart racing.

“Have mercy,” you slip in quietly, squirming beneath the hot press of his hands, though you’re no longer struggling against him. “I’ve never–no one’s ever–I’m inexperienced,” you desperately explain, your mind running wild with what his size will mean for you if he decides he wants more than to taste you–to claim you, as he’d said before.

“Good,” he replies simply, pushing your knees up into a bend on either side of his head. “As you should be. As am I,” he says, turning his head to drag his split tongue in swirling patterns on your inner thigh, moaning at the taste of you.

You grip the pelts beneath you, brows furrowing. You stare down at the top of his head in confusion. “You are?”

“I told you. I’ve never had a mate. I’ve never felt the need to put my cock into what I intended to eat,” he says against your skin, erupting goosebumps all over your thighs. That should horrify you, but you’re instantly distracted by the sheer burning heat of his breath wafting over your wet cunt, a gasp slipping from your lips when he eagerly presses his tongue to it.

His tongue feels as smooth as glass, like liquid in the way it contours to your every curve. The split of it rubs on either side of your clit, massaging it between the two sides in a way that makes your knees shake. “Ffffuck,” he groans, immediately pushing his tongue into you, licking up the wetness of you twice as eagerly as he had that ripe peach.

You buck against him, a moan escaping you. The sound only encourages him to plunge his tongue deeper, that golden stud on his tongue brushing hotly against your inner walls. He drags it up and pushes it flush, half inside you and half grinding against your clit before pushing back in deep. It feels unlike anything you’ve ever known, so much better than your own curious, clumsy fingers. He laves attention on you like he’s starved for it, drinking just as thirstily as you had from the pitcher.

There’s no rhythm to the way he moves, no sense of consistency. He slips his hands under your ass and tugs you forward with ease, lifting you to push his thick split tongue even further inside you, plunging it in and out, growing greedier with every dive. He growls low in the back of his throat, tail thudding repeatedly against the floor. Instead of the little lick he claimed he was after, he’s working himself into an obvious frenzy feasting on you.

“H-Homelander, please,” you keen, his relentlessness rapidly building an unfamiliar pressure within you. He’s as sloppy as he is voracious, the wet sound of him obscene and loud in the enormous lair. His claws bite into your ass where he holds it firmly to his mouth, but he doesn’t seem to hear you. If he does, he’s taking it only as encouragement. 

His tongue touches something inside you that makes your whole body jolt. You grab hold of both of his horns, your back arching as you desperately cling to them. You’re certain you meant to shove him back, to struggle. Instead, your body is ablaze as you yank hard on his horns, hitching your leg over his shoulder and riding his tongue with a shaking gasp.

The pressure bursts, and the wave of euphoria that crashes down on you is unlike anything you’ve ever known. You convulse against his mouth, walls tightening around the intrusion. You don’t recognize your own voice in the sounds you make as he continues to ruthlessly fuck you soaked and open with his tongue, his breaths so hot they nearly burn. The waves of your climax feel like they’ll never end, spurred on by every deep, wet thrust.

“Homelander! It’s too much, Homelander, too much, please, please–beloved, please, I can’t, I can’t,” you beg, desperate to get his attention. You’re on the verge of sobs when he finally withdraws his long molten tongue from you. You suck in a shuddering breath, releasing his horns and collapsing back against the pelts, sweat prickling along your hairline.

However, your shallow breaths are nothing compared to the sound of Homelander’s ragged panting. He looks entirely wild, smoke billowing from his mouth and nose, his cheeks flushed a dark red, the lower half of his face shiny with a mixture of your slick and his own drool. He takes his hands from under you and yanks the sash around his waist loose, dropping it to the side. Reaching behind him, he unfastens his pants.

Your mind is still a haze, but even through the delirium, you’re shocked by what you see when that rich navy fabric falls from his waist: his cock is as large as the rest of him, thick and dripping. The underside of it is strangely ribbed, a feature you’re certain is to be attributed to his draconic nature. Not only that, but he’s adorned in gold here, too, with a ring pierced into the head of his cock and studs between each ridge. Your eyes widen.

It’ll never fit.

Nevertheless, he looks entirely undeterred. Homelander adjusts himself between your legs, eyes thoroughly glazed over with lust, and presses his nearly scalding palms to your inner thighs, pushing them into a wide spread and down to the ground. Arousal and fear lance through you like a twin bolt of lightning.

“H-hold on,” you stutter, lifting a trembling hand. “I–” Bending over you, he silences you with a firm kiss. You press your hands to his chest and feel it thrumming beneath your palms, the heat of him more intense than ever. You can’t help but moan softly into it, overtaken by the smell of sex and something akin to burning incense. His tongue slips as deftly into your mouth as it did your cunt. Even after having felt it inside you, it’s thicker in your mouth than you’re prepared for, sliding in deeper, like he means to fuck you with it here, too.

It wholly distracts you until you feel a heavy, blunt press to your wet cunt. You make a half-hearted noise of protest, but his only answer is a low rumbling growl, claws biting into the meat of your thighs as he holds you still, effectively gagging you on his tongue.

His cock is as hot as the rest of him, but a great deal more solid than his malleable tongue. The thickness of it slowly spreads you wide, an aching pressure. You’re not sure if the burn of it is from the stretch or the heat, but either way it’s driving you insane. It’s hot and painful and good, frictionless with how thoroughly he soaked you, and despite your nerves, your cunt is loose with orgasm. It’s as if your body, independent of your mind, is eager to welcome him in.

You make a keening noise, the sound of it muffled in this devouring kiss. You grab hold of the leather straps across his chest and yank on them, twisting at them, but nothing takes your mind from how intense it feels to be split apart on the fat head of his cock.

The sounds Homelander makes in response are downright bestial, low and rumbling from his chest. Your only relief is when the widest swell of his cockhead finally breaches you, just the tip of it settling perfectly inside you. You cry out when he gives an exploratory backwards pull, and then shivers as he begins to rock gently, breathing heavily from his nose as he fucks you with nothing more than the head of his cock.

You’re starting to feel lightheaded, pitchy little noises leaving you with every exhale. Homelander sharpens his pace, breaking the kiss with a loud, carnal moan as he tips his head back. He’s barely even inside you and yet the girth of him is overwhelming, the ridges of his cock stimulating you in ways you didn’t know possible, the fat curved head rubbing against that same spot inside you that his tongue had previously made you see stars with.

Thoroughly overwhelmed by the incomprehensible assault of sensations, tears gather in your eyes. That pressure is building back up in you once more, starting at the base of your spine and slowly crawling up it. Desperate to tether yourself, to feel connected, you move your hand from the strap at his chest and touch his face. To your surprise, that instantly snaps his attention down to you, his beautiful blue eyes lost in a crimson glow.

Homelander meets your gaze, some level of cognizance returning to him, and whimpers, something hidden and vulnerable escaping in that exchange. He bends down, his nose brushing yours, and rests his forehead against yours while his thrusts grow more and more erratic, but never deeper. He fucks you in shallow, jagged snaps until finally that mounting pressure overwhelms you and you come again, simultaneously squeezing him into his own sudden release. 

The flood of him inside you is burning hot, spilling into your core even from here, and he practically roars with it, burying that loud primal cry into the crook of your neck while his body stills, releasing pulse after pulse of thick, hot seed into you.

His breath billows hotly across your neck, the burning scent of him thick in the air. Your mind is so addled by your own euphoria that it takes you time to realize he’s speaking, fervent murmurings against your skin. “M’sorry, still, be still, I’m–don’t move,” he rasps, fractured little noises leaving him in between his words. You choke on your own breath when he sinks in, working you open slowly, shivers pitching up and down your spine. Gods above, he isn’t done.

Surely he doesn’t mean for you to take all of it… Does he?

You moan weakly, pushing your hand up into his hair and grabbing hold, which elicits a rumbling sigh from him in return. It’s silkier than you expected it to be. “Too big, it’s too much, it’s not–it’s not going to fit,” you pant out, screwing your eyes shut tight. While his release had initially softened him some, you can already feel his cock filling back out. Every bit he slips in further, you feel the mess of his release being forced out of you, come dripping down your thighs, slicking the way for the rest of him.

“It will,” he says at your ear, kissing the spot just below your earlobe, then your neck, his tongue slipping out to taste the sweat there before he kisses that same spot. He’s set upon you like an animal, lost to the drive of instinct, determined to fulfill his promise to claim what is his. “It will because it must. Because it’s yours. Because you’re mine.”

Homelander releases a breathy whine, sounding just as overstimulated as you are, nuzzling at your throat while he slowly works his way deeper, practically vibrating with restraint. He sounds as overwhelmed as you feel, but he refuses to stop, to lose. He holds you in place, growling whenever you squirm or struggle against him. The feel of it is dizzying, unbelievably hot and heavy, like fire given form, filling you in ways you didn’t know were possible. You’re feeling it again, the slow rise of that carnal pleasure building to an inevitable climax, and your whole body trembles with it.

You make a desperate keening noise, and Homelander hushes you, kissing your shoulder. “Sshhh, good, you’re doing so well for me. Don’t move yet, it’s almost over. You were made for this, for me. You feel it, don’t you? How easily your cunt opens to me. Nnngh, hah… Fuck, you fit me. You fit me. You do, and you always will,” he pants, voice hitching.

He slides his hands from your thighs to your waist, the press of his claws just shy of painful. With one final move, he lets out a quaking moan as he pulls you down onto the last of it, finally burying himself completely in your snug, come-soaked cunt. 

The fullness of it breaks you–snapping the last tether that was holding you in place–and you come again, your velvety walls seizing up around him impossibly tight before spasming your pleasure around every vein, ridge and piercing he has. You can feel the shape of him so viscerally that you’re sure your body will remember it, carved out in the shape of his cock forevermore.

He cries out with your release, a reverberating sound that you feel all the way down to the marrow of your bones. You don’t know if he’s more in pleasure or pain, but he makes no move to retreat. Instead, he brings you that tiny bit closer, pressing every inch of your body to his. He rides out your pleasure, panting a wet spot into the crook of your neck.

Tears roll from your eyes to your temple, disappearing into your hairline as you breathe roughly. You’re overwhelmingly hot, oversensitized and raw, but as the aftershocks of your orgasm fade, your body steadily loses that quiver. You feel as if you’re melting down into the furs, struggling to even keep your eyes open as a gentle ecstasy sweeps over you.

Once he recovers enough, he lifts himself up onto his hands, and then sits  back onto his legs, his hands on your hips to lift you partially into his lap to keep himself buried deep, hitching your legs around his waist. His eyes are completely glazed over, lips parted around heavy, hungry breaths. He doesn’t look at all sated. If anything, the look of his desire has only intensified, despite his obvious sensitivity. Sliding his hands up your body, he pushes your pretty white dress all the way up over your head, tossing it to the side so that he may finally see all of you.

“Look at you,” he breathes, voice utterly frayed. He stares at you as though you’re a vision sent from the gods, a nymph plucked from the heavens and nestled snugly upon his cock. His hand sweeps down your stomach, settling low on it, where he lightly presses down. You both moan with the pressure, with how keenly you both feel it. “Told you it would fit,” he says, but his voice is not smug. There’s a breathless wonder to it, like he’s awestruck by the look of your body against his.

His tongue rolls out to sweep along his lips. He opens his mouth, and you can see threads of saliva snapping between his sharp teeth, his mouth wet with hunger. He continues to reverently stroke your stomach, his large splayed hand easily covering the expanse of it. “You’ll make a beautiful mother,” he says, a concept you don’t even know how to begin to unravel, but the way he says it makes you feel worshiped. “Perfect. So fucking perfect for me,” he says, a shudder in his voice. His crimson wings spread and curve in on either side of you, the hooked tips of them bracing on the stone floor.

“Mother?” You slur belatedly. You feel dizzy, your body as warm as burning coals and tingling all over. He lifts your legs one at a time, bringing each one up parallel to his chest. They hook over his shoulders as he leans forward, wasting no before time kissing you. His wings support his weight while he grips your thighs, squeezing possessively.

“Mother,” he confirms between kisses, bending you practically in half as he begins to rut against you. He’s not thrusting so much as he’s grinding into you, wringing a low moan from you. “You want that, don’t you? I’ll keep you safe. Feed you. Fuck you. I’ll take care of you, be yours, and you’ll be mine, won’t you? Sweet little thing, fucked happy and heavy with my children. Tell me. Tell me you want that.”

“Yes,” you moan, kneading the furs on either side of you. He paints a beautiful picture in your mind of fresh fruit, crisp water, and this dreamlike pleasure for the rest of your days. Beneath him, any thoughts of the world outside this moment melt away. There’s only the two of you, resplendently warm and living amongst the clouds. “I want it. I want–I want you,” you say, touching either side of his face. He leans heavily into your touch, his eyes falling shut. A soft noise that sounds like relief escapes him as you kiss him, coaxing that long, clever tongue out to meet yours.

The eagerness with which he reciprocates nearly chokes you, his tongue slipping over yours and halfway down your throat before pulling back, practically devouring you in this kiss. In your fever, this consuming passion feels so much like love it makes your head spin, makes you forget where, when and who you are.  He breaks the kiss to moan unabashedly,  shifting to put his lips to your throat, mouthing at your skin like he’s trying desperately not to sink his teeth in. The thought thrills you. You almost want him to.

“Again,” he pants, grip tightening on your thighs. “Say it again, please.”

“I want you,” you say again, more certain now. The desperation in him is disarming, and despite the animalism of him, you can clearly see the man in him now, hear it in the way he pleads for you to indulge him. That and the euphoric spill of pleasure electrifying your every nerve imbues you with some kind of sense of power, and however misplaced it may be, you immediately feel drunk on it. You can feel your body beginning to build back towards that ultimate swell of euphoria again. “I want to be yours. I want you to be mine.”

He groans, dipping lower to suck a mark at the junction between your neck and shoulder. This time, when you feel the brush of his teeth, you don’t shy away. You cup the back of his head and drag your nails down his scalp. Homelander thrusts his hips jaggedly, wringing a throaty gasp out of you. “Keep talking,” he demands, but you hear the plea for what it is.

“You feel good. Y-you fit,” you say, echoing his own words, though it’s getting harder to speak with the way he’s starting to fuck you in earnest, just barely withdrawing before he drives back in, as if he can’t bare to be more than an inch outside of you.  You moan for him, chasing the bliss swelling rapidly between your legs.

Wait… Something really is swelling.

“What is that?” You ask, voice reedy. You whimper. Somehow, it feels as though he’s getting bigger. “What’s h-nnngh, what’s happening?” Your words are starting to slur together again, your mind split down the middle between your mounting orgasm, and the surreal feeling of the base of his cock growing inside you.

“Knot,” he explains between swipes of his tongue. “Keeps every drop of me inside you,” he says, giving a shuddering moan as that swell catches on the rim of your cunt when he tries to draw back. Just when you thought you had adjusted, that swell makes you ache, has you whimpering and squirming under him.

He could have told you it would get bigger!

“Oh gods, it–mmm, I’m–it feels–” You stop and start again and again, writhing, but he keeps you firmly in place, the sound of flesh slapping against flesh loud in your ears as he fucks you harder and faster, spurred on by the quiver of your cunt as your own climax nears.

“Come for me again. Show me that you want it. I want to feel your pretty little cunt squeeze my cock for my come,” he urges, voice reduced to a rough growl in your ear. He sounds like he’s barely holding himself together, every word more strained than the last. “Give it to me. Give yourself to me.”

The tug of his swollen knot bouncing off of your rim and the feel of his thick ridged cock massaging your walls completely overwhelms you. “Y-yes, okay, I’m–oh gods, gods, I’m–I’m coming, Homelander, Homelander!” You call, lips falling open on a silent scream as your throat locks up, a third orgasm crashing down on you with a force that knocks the air out of your lungs.

Homelander muffles his own cry into the crook of your neck, stilling halfway through your orgasm with one final slam. This time, the rush of his release is pressed tightly against your cervix, pooling inside you with nowhere to go, his knot doing precisely what he said it would. The heat of it fills you in hot, rushing spurts, his cock jerking against your spasming walls with every load he empties into you.

A sudden stinging pain makes you gasp, confusion seeping into the euphoria that has thoroughly addled your brain. Fuck, you realize he’s biting you. His teeth sink in as smoothly as a knife through fresh butter, the sting giving way to the sheer heat of his mouth, the stroke of his tongue, and the inexplicable way it intensifies your orgasm.

The room falls deafeningly quiet save for the pound of your own heart in your ears and the heavy way you’re each catching your respective breath. Your arms fall bonelessly to your sides as you pant, your vision slightly blurry. Homelander begins lapping at your shoulder, soothing the spot he’d bitten. Your whole body feels heavy, stuffed fuller than you ever could have conceived possible. All you can do is whine as he adjusts you, gingerly bringing your legs down to settle on either side of him.

You’re not sure how you’ll ever get off of his cock now that you’re on it. His knot feels like a permanent part of you, fitted so snugly that, just as promised, you don’t feel a single drop spill.

Homelander doesn’t stop at your neck. He drags his tongue down to the dip of your clavicle, where it splits apart slightly anywhere it moves over bone. It feels surreal, but somehow different from the first time you woke to him licking you. For starters, you’re not terrified he’s going to eat you. That has an entirely new connotation now.

He moves down further, slinking down into the valley between your breasts, sighing as he pushes them together to lave his tongue between. He’s languid, practically purring with each breath as he savors the feel and the taste of you. You don’t have it in you to feel much more than exhausted, your limbs as heavy as stone, but it does feel good. Your breath catches when he opens his lips around one of your nipples, sucking almost half of your breast into his preternaturally hot mouth. His pierced tongue swirls over your nipple while his teeth flex precariously against the tender flesh. You lurch, letting out a breathy noise.

“Careful, please,,” you exhale, earning a glance up from him. His eyes are completely glazed over, soft and dark in a way that takes your breath away. He hums quietly in some weak acknowledgement before his eyes flutter closed, his throat bobbing with every swallow as he sucks your breast with unexpected gentility.

Watching him stirs a wash of strange feelings in you. With what little strength you have, you bring your hand up to touch his horn, contemplating the texture of it beneath your fingers. You follow the line of it down to his skull, tracing his hairline just beneath the crown that adorns his head, slipping behind his sharply pointed ear. He’s truly incredible to behold up close like this, beautiful without the lens of terror you had been viewing him through.

On some level, you know you should still be afraid, but it’s a difficult feeling to muster when he’s warm and lax on your chest with his cock buried inside you, suckling on your breast as you’re still riding the high of three consecutive climaxes.

You push your fingers into his flaxen hair. You’ve never seen hair this color before except in very young children. In your experience, age always darkens it away to a sandy color, but his is as bright and warm as sunshine. There doesn’t seem to be any part of him that isn’t golden. He exhales a deep sigh as you run your nails along his scalp, nuzzling sweetly against you. You smile despite yourself.

Who would have thought that a dragon might be so very much like an overgrown house cat?

When Homelander lifts his head, his tongue is the last to leave, returning to his mouth with a wet slide across his lips. He’s left your skin shiny with saliva, but he isn’t finished. He immediately lowers himself to your other breast, taking it into his mouth in precisely the same way. You bring your other hand up into his hair and continue to massage his scalp, earning yourself an appreciative little moan from low in his throat, his tail sliding audibly back and forth on the stone floor.

The two of you lay like that for an indeterminate amount of time. You drift in and out of consciousness, worn thin and soothed by the heat of his body seeping into your muscles, fairly certain you’ll never be able to sit up on your own again. Homelander eventually releases your breast with a soft pop and settles his head on your sternum, narrowly avoiding taking one of your eyes out with his horn. You continue to stroke through his hair as your strength gradually returns.

The swell of his knot, too, lessens, but even soft his cock fits snugly inside you. It isn’t until Homelander gingerly lifts himself off of you that it slides out, coming free with a significant gush that soaks your thighs and puddles beneath you. You flush, making a strained little noise. You feel carved out and left hollow by the sheer size of him. His wings withdraw and tuck in behind him while he sits back on his legs to admire the splay of you beneath him. 

“You’re beautiful,” he says, smoothing his hands up and down your thighs. You’ve never felt as exposed as you do in this moment, laid bare under his gaze. Even now, visibly drunk on pleasure and thoroughly satiated, there is an undeniable lingering famine in his stare. He sinks down and slowly spreads your legs apart, leaning in to run his tongue up the crease of your inner thigh. He laps languidly at your skin, earning hitched little breaths and sounds from you as his tongue deftly cleans the mess he’s made of you. He’s much more tame now than he had been, focusing not on overstimulating you, but simply washing you. It’s a strange and animalistic thing to do, but it’s intimate, too. Sweet, even.

Gods, he’s really done a number on your psyche.

Once he’s satisfied with the state of you, he climbs back up and settles on his side, looking at you with his hand poised over you, hovering like he isn’t sure what to do with it. His expression starts to shift, concern seeping into it. “You’re quiet. Did I hurt you?”

You huff a little breath. You’re quiet because you’ve just been fucked within an inch of your life by a dragon’s cock, but aside from that, of course he had. “You bit me, for starters.”

He turns somewhat sheepish at that. “Instinct. I wanted to mark you.”

“You succeeded,” you say, touching your shoulder tentatively.The skin is still raw, but it isn’t bleeding. It doesn’t even feel like it’s going to scab. 

You must wear your confusion plainly, because Homelander is quick to explain: “I sealed the wound. It should be fully healed by sundown.”

“How did you seal it?” You ask, bolder now with how you touch it. It feels like simple indentations, a perfect mold of his teeth.

“My saliva has particular properties. There was a method to my debauchery,” he says, pointedly licking his lips.

You suppose that’s far from the most miraculous thing about him. “That’s convenient,” you say, to which he smiles. It’s bizarre how easily this comes now. You’ve heard of breaking the tension before, but this is certainly the most intense way you’ve ever broken through that initial barrier to more casual conversation. 

Seeing that his hand is still hovering over you, you make a choice and take it, pulling it down to settle on your hip. Relief and excitement flash in his eyes in equal measure, and he takes that as permission to tuck you the rest of the way against him, settling on his side. He rests his head in his palm, propped up on his elbow. You curiously explore the plains of his chest with your fingertips, testing where flesh meets scales. They feel almost like bone, crimson colored protrusions that catch the light as prettily as rubies. They’re smattered along his body in the same way a human might have moles or birthmarks, incidental and seemingly without rhyme or reason.

His ribs are guarded by stiff plates that aren’t as solid as the scales, but look to serve as hardy protection. You let your fingers swoop down the ridges of them, comparing the textures along different parts of his body. It’s fascinating.

“I’ve never seen anything like–” you begin to pull your hand away as you speak, but Homelander takes hold of your wrist, bringing it back to his chest.

“Don’t stop.” You look up at him. His expression catches you off guard. He looks wounded, those fiercely blue and ever human eyes of his intensely focused on you. Swallowing, you nod. He lets go, and you begin to traipse your fingers along his chest again, following the line of the leather straps that cross over it. He lets out a heavy breath. “No one’s ever touched me like this,” he tells you after a long few beats of silence. “Not that I can remember.”

You glance up at him, but he’s staring down at your small hand tracing patterns on his chest. “What happened to this place?” You ask, because that seems politer than asking what happened to him.

“Guess it’s been too long for anyone else to remember. They’re all dead,” he says, the mood of his words difficult to discern. He inhales a contemplative breath, clicking his tongue at the end of it. “Time happened. I used to be something else to my people. I was… war. I brought fire down on their enemies, and they loved me for it. I won them their home. Homelander. There were others like me, but I was the best of them,” he says with conviction, though you sense bitterness in his voice, too. “When all the wars were won, they built this tower. They built monuments to their gods, and they placed us here with them as though we ourselves were relics.”

The end of his tail has begun to slap lightly against the ground. You can feel a slight uptick in the heat of him beneath your palm. 

“They placated me with gold. Adorned me in it. At times they would summon me to festivals. Use my strength to build their stone cities, but they didn’t celebrate me. They had forgotten their love. They treated me as you would any other tool. Something to be taken off the shelf for work and put away when the task is done.”

The seething resentment is more clear in his voice than ever. While you didn’t ask it, it seems he understood what you really wanted to know. You’ve never heard this story before; The Devourer had only ever been a tyrant upon the people. No one ever spoke of a Homelander. No one ever spoke of a hero.

“When treasure failed to keep me impotent and obedient, they tried meat instead. They sent me livestock, as if the simple act of killing a cow would satiate me,” he snarls through his teeth, smoke wafting between them. He sucks it back, tipping his head up slightly in a bit to regain his composure.  “They thought they could control me indefinitely. Out of sight, out of mind. It worked for too long, but only because I allowed it. Because I thought things would change. They never did. So I took their gold and their cattle and their crops and demanded more still. I demanded until they couldn’t ignore me any longer. When they failed to provide, I reigned fire down on them as I did their enemies two hundred years ago, and I gave them no choice but to look at the monster they made.”

His tail cracks like a whip against the stone floor. His anger is so visceral it makes your heart race, but there is more in his gaze than just fury. You feel as though you’re watching him rip apart the stitching over a wound that has been festering for far too long. “After that, they sent people. Simpering peasants who had no fucking idea who or what I really am. They bathed them in oils like slaughtered lambs basted for roast,” he growls, the blue of his eyes fading into an eerie crimson glow. “So I did. I devoured them, and I spat their own blood in their faces. If they wouldn’t have me as a man, they would have a beast instead.”

The Devourer.

You sit in stunned silence, watching as the glow of his eyes gradually fades, though his temperature remains the same. He looks at you, his expression braced, as if he anticipates a specific reaction. Rejection, you suppose. It seems to be the only thing he’s known for centuries. Within his gaze, you recognize a profound need to connect, to feel you, to hear that there might be a single soul in this gods damned world that wants him.

What does one say to such a story? The anger in his voice strikes such a wounded chord, you can practically smell the blood. The rawness of it alone makes your eyes prickle with tears, a lump gathering in your throat. How warped he has become not for the absence of love, but the deprivation of it. It’s clear in the way he speaks of them how desperately he wanted them to still love him.

“I’m sorry,” you say so quietly it’s a wonder he hears you. His expression flips completely, morphing into bewildered surprise.

“What?” His voice sounds small.

“I’m sorry that they abandoned you.”

If his own words are a knife in the wound, yours twist it deeper. He flinches like he’s been struck, staring at you with such bruised incomprehension. He opens his mouth to speak, but it’s as though he doesn’t even believe what you’re saying enough to formulate a response. He kisses you instead, holding your jaw in his claws. “I was good once,” he says against your lips, voice hushed as if he’s confessing a far graver sin. “I’ll be good for you. Let me be good for you.”

The desperation in his voice sets loose your tears. You nod, kissing him just as fervently. Centuries of bloodshed on the back of willful neglect is difficult to stomach, but you believe him. You believe the love that went into this tower–this beautiful prison–that they made for him, and you believe the love that you saw in his face carved in stone. You have no doubt that the wonder of him once inspired all those who beheld them, and that they were fickle enough to grow weary of him. Desensitized and disinterested.

When he rejected their apathy, they rejected his humanity.

Homelander lifts you up into his arms, sitting up, kissing you properly with a hand cupping the back of your head, his arm around your middle. His wings curve in around you, and he kisses you until your lips turn sore and you have to protest, your words melting into muffled laughter. He draws back with a brilliant grin. It’s different from the others you’ve seen; it’s the kind of smile that brings deep warmth to his eyes, crinkling them at the corners. He lingers close to you, stroking your cheek with his thumb.

“I stopped believing a long time ago that you could be real,” he murmurs, unable to stop himself from stealing another quick kiss, his nose purposefully brushing yours. He’s thoroughly starved for every little touch.

“I am. So are you. Not the Devourer, the Scourge, nor the Red Death,” you say, tucking back the stray locks of hair that have fallen over his crown. This, too, had been carved for him. He had been loved once, and as he said, he had been good. There is love in you enough to help him find that goodness again. There’s no reason you cannot live for the being you intended to die for. “Just you. Just Homelander.”

He kisses you, and suddenly you feel as if you’re free falling. From this point on, your life is something new. Something inexplicable and unpredictable. It’s yours, but it’s also his.

All that glitters is not gold, and sometimes the monster in the dark is just your reflection.

phew. thank you SO much for reading. this fic took me almost a full month to write, and it often felt like it was never going to end. that said, i'm already kind of chomping at the bit to write more in this universe. i feel like these two have a ton of potential, and there's just so much more that i want to do with them now that we have the groundwork done. once again, a huge shoutout to the amazing artist @anon-nee, who not only illustrated our dragon boy himself, but these awesome environment sketches as well. please be sure to go give them some love! The Tower of the Seven

The Dragon's Lair

[meisaboo]

I want to quickly talk about Sky and Viktor's final words to each other, as it gives us some insight into Viktor's motivations in Act 3, as well as implications of his feelings for Jayce:

Christian Linke (Co-writer) confirmed Sky isn't alive; she's a manifestation of Viktor's guilt, created by the Hexcore to manipulate him.

Here's the audio excerpt if you're curious:

https://x.com/Spideraxe30/status/1861424676578435381?t=p5X3TbHjC-LTd4rTUGdRIw&s=19

It's also confirmed Amanda Overton (Writer) that Viktor was hopelessly projecting his relationship with Jayce onto Sky/the Hexcore as a way to cope with his loneliness.

Viktor's defeat and Jayce's rejection is what ultimately pushes him to give himself over to the Hexcore, shedding his humanity. This was the Hexcore's plan all along (CL's words). Once it had what it needed, Sky was no longer required to push Viktor toward the Glorious Evolution.

Before learning Sky wasn't real, I interpreted "No, you won't" as her knowing Viktor would lose his humanity, forget her, and lose himself after ascending. But now knowing she's a projection of his guilt, that interpretation doesn’t hold up.

"You won't," coming from an omnipotent being focused on evolution and higher understanding, should probably be taken at face value. It's a matter-of-fact retort, like it sees right through him.

It doesn’t make much sense as a premonition. The Hexcore, while powerful, doesn’t seem capable of seeing the future. You could argue, "You won't," translates to, "I’ll take over your mind and body, and you won’t really be you anymore." But this doesn’t fully align, as even after Viktor’s transformation, he is still present. The Hexcore uses him as a vessel, steering him with guilt, not erasing his identity. This interpretation feels unnecessarily cruel for something above human emotion.

The line is nothing more than an observation, stated plainly after the ruse was up. It acknowledges that there was never truly any of Sky to miss—Viktor barely knew her before her death, and that is one of his biggest regrets contributing to his guilt. 

Here’s what I think:

The Hexcore conjures Sky to ease Viktor into his villain arc. As a manifestation of his guilt, she subtly manipulates him into pursuing the Glorious Evolution by giving him a false sense of righting his wrongs. But Viktor’s connection to her is a facade, and the Hexcore knows it. Viktor is hopelessly seeking in Sky what he desperately missed with Jayce—and the Hexcore knows this too. Remember when Viktor talks to Singed about Vander/Warwick? Viktor intuits Singed’s true motivation—saving his daughter.

This means the Hexcore is undoubtedly aware of Viktor's pain.

“I will miss our talks," Viktor says, speaking to someone he’s using as a stand-in for Jayce.

It's easy for Viktor to say he will miss their talks. Sky was filling a hole for him. That's all this version of herself existed to do. Talking with her was the closest approximation he had to what he really wanted. 

The tragedy of this line doesn’t solely come from him mourning a relationship that was never real. Remember viktor made the decision to transform immediately following jayces rejection of him. He's not mourning Sky- he's mourning the loss of what he had with Jayce.

"No, you won't," simply meant, "I'm not the one you will be missing.”

As the kids say, food for thought.🍞

[wontmindd]

Alastor with a pure hearted s/o

a/n I'm fully aware that Alastor is aroace. My scenarios are meant to be interpreted as a deep, unconditional love, not necessarily romantic. I'm not aroace but I'm all for educating myself, so please if something's off let me (gently) know. Hope you enjoy :)

TW! canon typical violence

being a twisted person is not a requirement to reincarnate in Hell. Sins depend on religion, culture, societal norms. You were more of a victim, in fact.

you never got used to being in Hell. Surviving not only the Extermination but also the inhabitants becomes harder and harder every year.

it's kill or be killed, but you just can't bring yourself to do any harm to anyone, even if it means risking your own life.

as soon as you hear about princess Charlie Morningstar's new hotel for souls who want a second chance, your bags are PACKED

it's not like you really need redemption, you are pure hearted already. it's more a matter of understanding the reasons why you ended in Hell and coming to terms with them. maybe then the gates of Heaven would open for you. it's also a safer place for you to be.

Charlie welcomes you excitedly; Angel Dust, Husk and Vaggie aren't that friendly at first since your personalities don't match, but they eventually grow fond of you

and then there's, well...the Radio Demon.

you never met an Overlord before, and Alastor was supposed to be gone for years. But his presence wasn't frightening. A big smile spread across his face, he welcomed you like a gentleman.

you heard stories about his lifestyle and even previous murderous acts as a human, but for some reason you just can't bring yourself to fear him.

at first you were kinda pathetic to him. so naive, out of touch with the evils of Hell. he didn't dislike you. just thought your life was so easy to throw away in a society like that and that you wouldn't last long.

it seems like you two don't have much to share. he just wanders in his den, while you spend time in your room. you greet each other and have small talks, but nothing more than that. that's until he hears jazz music play behind your door.

he mentions it during dinner, and you start talking about your interest in 30s jazz music, especially the one of the Roaring 20s. you come from a later era, but you're very much cultured about jazz and its forms and that's enough for Alastor to develop an interest in you.

he has so many jazz artists recommendations, and you share some of your favourite pieces with him through your gramophone.

without even noticing, Alastor starts spending hours in your room just listening to music. some time even practicing swing dancing. and talking about jazz culture all around the world, and entertainment in general. he has many fun facts about the history of radio too!

the others at the hotel notice your growing bond and low-key support it, in their own, weird way. Angel Dust is especially convinced that you two are hooking up, as Husk not-so-kindly explains that it's more likely for Alastor to ascend to Heaven than express interest in sex.

you would start to open yourself up a bit to the Radio Demon. he doesn't understand why, since it didn't ask or never showed much empathy. but he just can't bring himself to tell you to stop. he wants to listen.

you manage to make him talk about some glimpses of his own life and thoughts. you knew that he was the complete opposite of you. incline to Evil, an enjoyer of all things that made your stomach clench. but he's still the one person who spends hours with you just listening to both jazz and your fears.

one day, Alastor decided that in no way you are walking around the city without him. it's just too dangerous for you. he tries to teach you how to use weapons and demonic powers to defend yourself but he doesn't feel like you can make it into Hell by yourself.

you like strolling through the streets with him, arms intertwined, chatting and laughing even if demons around you are shitting their pants just by seeing the Overlord walking around.

but one day, Alastor can't find you.

you're not in your room, or in the Hotel hall. No one saw you that morning. He starts to feel something he never felt in his life: fear.

he darts out the Hotel, trying to find you. that's when he sees you just a few streets away.

a group of animal-like demons is encircling you. you are on your knees, arms over your head to protect yourself. A lion-demon is holding a knife over you and your arms are covered in cuts. you hold something close to your stomach.

that's when Alastor realized that he had feelings for you.

when he threw himself between you and the demons attacking you.

it's the first time you see Alastor without a smile. his teeth are gritted, face full of unprecedented violence and will to kill, breathing heavily in and out in a sort of animalistic way, but there's no trace of his characteristic smile you love.

his body starts to morph into his full demon form. his horns grow exponentially, his body too as it hovers menacingly on top of your aggressors as they start to feel a pure fear they never felt before.

in a matter of a second, they are gone. Alastor has always been a calculated, elegant killer, but this time he only felt a raw, ferocious instinct to kill.

as he's done, he turns around towards you. he doesn't want to, but he snaps.

"W̶̞̐H̷̻͒Y̷̰̅ ̶̠͛D̸͕́I̸͔̍D̴̿͜ ̷̯̇Y̶̭͌Ỏ̴̬U̵̖̍ ̷̛͎Ģ̷̕O̸̩͑ ̷̹̈́O̶̮͆U̸͍̇T̴̙͆ ̷̧̀W̴͓̅I̷̞͑T̸̗͒H̴̹͒O̴̺̓Ṷ̵̂T̵̺̚ ̵̢́M̴̜̅E̶̬̋?̸̻͋!̸̦͂"

you flinch, you never saw Alastor lose his composure. he was always so calm and collected. his voice was static, choppy.

the tears that were cornering your eyes start streaming down your face "I-I..."

"Ţ̶̈Ḧ̴͙́Ė̵̩Ỳ̷̳ ̷̳̒Ã̸̡L̷̛͚M̶͇̚O̸͈̔S̴̜̎T̸͚̊ ̷̤͝K̷͊͜I̵̺͝L̵͚̎L̴̤̆Ẽ̴͖D̶͍̈́ ̵̻͝Y̵̰̑O̸̜͘Ù̶͍!̵̻͝ ̸͓̾D̴̯͒O̶̅͜Ṉ̶̌'̷̹͒T̵͎͋ ̶̺́Y̴̹͂O̶͍̅U̴̘͌ ̵̘̾Û̷̪N̸̩̊D̵͎̋Ȅ̴͜R̵̮͂S̸̰̄T̸̝̅A̵͓͘N̷̩͂Ḏ̴̀?̵̗̍!̸̭̎"

suddenly, your bleeding arms fall from your head. you expose what you've been protecting all along.

a vinyl, a really old record from Alastor's favourite jazz artist. a rare find.

"I-I know but...tomorrow it's your death anniversary and I wanted to give this to you...as a surprise. I'm sorry"

Alastor's face immediately softens. Eyebrows raised, smile still not seen. He's just surprised and...moved.

He doesn't say anything, he just picks you up in his arms and takes you back to the Hotel where he bandages your arms.

Feeling guilty for putting yourself in danger, you ask Alastor to come to your room in order to apologize to him.

As he closes the door behind him, he says that there's no need to apologize.

"I'm...glad that you are still in your room. Listening to jazz, alive"

words didn't come easy, but he did feel the need to say it. you smile at him.

you propose to put his gift on the gramophone and so you do. music starts to flow between the small space you shared with the Radio Demon.

that's when you and Alastor start slow dancing. his arms around your waist, yours encircling his neck. his smile is back, but soft and...almost loving.

with his silent agreement, you reach for his cheek and graze it.

"Thank you for saving me, Alastor. Even if you are everything I distance myself from in this life...I'm glad you are the person that you are with me. In my next life, I'll make sure to be a sinner again if it means dancing with you like this"

Alastor now understands his feelings. It's something deeper than care. It's love. But not the same love you reserve to a friend and not even romantic. It's something deeper, more visceral.

He doesn't answer, just closes his eyes and leans in to press his forehead against yours.

you later fall asleep on your bed to the quiet sound of the gramophone playing, hands intertwined on Alastor's chest.

[naiadic]

I have so many emotions about the finale but I also have thoughts

~~~~~~~SPOILERS~~~~~~~

First off, AAAA HES SO BABYGIRL, but more importantly he implies he was with Eve, too

Now admittedly, what he "had to offer" could have just been free will and the fruit of knowledge, but given the sexual vibe here I really want to believe this man got busy with Eve as well

But that also raises the question..

...we know Lilith is Charlie's mother, but was Lilith really the one that raised her? In almost every mention of Lilith we see her horns, but not in those family photos (or her finale scene, come to think of it...)

Plus I mean we have this whole hair thing going on, Lilith is usually shown to have swooped back hair, like a lil pompadour deal, while Eve has straight unstyled hair. Idk about you but it sure looks like Lilith loved and cared about charlie, but somewhere in there Eve came in and started being Bad Mom

i think there's a lot to be uncovered there. Somehow, somewhere the girls must be pulling a twin-switcharoo on us, I Just KNOW IT

Then we have Adam

I feel like its almost guaranteed that fucker is gonna pop up in hell, hiding for awhile or otherwise, just like Sir Pentious popped up in heaven after dying. They're both human souls! He's committed pretty much every sin during his time in heaven (pride, lust, and wrath being the most prevalent) and if sinners can rise by doing well, angels can fall by doing bad

Then..well...Alastor.

Honestly homeboy is still quite a mystery. It's clear to me he's made a soul contract that binds his powers, somehow making him weaker than he could be. Whether this was with Lilith or someone else is up for debate, but most fans think it was Lil herself.

One piece of possible evidence for this is in E1 when Zestial mentions rumors of Alastor "falling to holy arms". He says this BEFORE any mention of Charlie, too.

Personally, I think Alastor might not even be a human soul, or that he's somehow made a deal with himself for better control of his soul, and maybe he fucked it up somehow or had another deal impact it, just because of what he said during the finale about sinner's recognizing their full potential. I look forward to seeing his story play out!

(Also I wonder if he has some sort of power bank deal cuz that cut healed suspiciously quick once he got to all that green light...maybe he's got an item that lets him access bits of his greater power? And repair that staff of his?)

So yeah that concludes my rant, Im so fucking excited for S2

EDIT: Someone pointed out that Sir Pentious wasnt killed by an angelic weapon, but by a power blast if sorts (plus we dont SEE him physically die). That makes me wonder if he might've simply ascended at the last moment rather than specifically dying and then respawning...if that's the case maybe Adam won't return..

[natalyarose]

𝒥𝓊𝓅𝒾𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝒩𝒶𝓀𝓈𝒽𝒶𝓉𝓇𝒶𝓈 & 𝒢𝑒𝓃𝒾𝑒𝓈 🧞✨💐✩

I've always thought Jupiter ruled Nakshatras (Punarvasu, Vishakha, & Purvabhadprada) to be veryy magical with their themes of limitlessness, expansion, sheer spiritual abundance & power. I'm not sure if it has been talked about before, but something that always comes to mind when I envision Jupiterian Nakshatras or meet heavily Jupiter influenced people, is the concept of genies.

Jupiter's abundance and endlessly giving nature is known to be a blessing and a curse. A Jupiterian can be the sweet, generous, selfless friend who is there when you need them; providing you endless support, refuge & material generosity.

The dark side of this inherently generous 'wish-fulfilling' nature of Jupiter Nakshatras, is the possibility that they enable dark behaviours in others & themselves. Always saying yes, always being available and endlessly giving to the wrong type of cause or person, can make you complicit in the crime so to speak, even if the intention is simply to give, or give chances (Punarvasu's themes of second chances, 'return to the light'). Jupiter Nakshatras entail hugeee lessons regarding purpose (Vishakha, 'the Star of Purpose') & being intentional and wise as to how you use your power and influence (the infamous test of character in Purvabhadrapada 'the man with two faces').

These Jupiterian themes have always made me think of genies- wish fulfilling creatures who are inherently unable to say no to the wishes uttered to them. Having to just sit and watch people wish for dreadful things and just go... 'as you wish'. Obviously in real life, there really is a choice not to feed into others' and ones own toxic patterns but with Jupiterians, the urge to give, to be constantly available to others, can almost feel like it's not a choice. It's energetically intertwined in their make-up.

I would love to gather more examples, but it's 3am here and this was a bit of a spur of the moment thing I had to get out haha- I looked into a few of the most prominent 'genie' roles in movies and as I suspected, every single one features an actor/actress with strong Jupiter influence.

Jeannie from 60s sitcom 'I dream of Jeannie' - actress, Barbara Eden has Punarvasu Ascendant

Kazaam from 90s comedic film 'Kazaam' - actor/basketball player Shaquille O'Neal has Purvabhadrapada Sun

Genie from Disney's Aladdin - played in the live action movie by Will Smith, Vishakha Moon.

This genie theme really makes me think of all of the Jupiterian Nakshatras, but Vishakha especially. A friend of mine who is a Vishakha stellium always tells me about how it is said that Vishakha has the ability to generate 'instant karma'. So Vishakha natives to an extent greater than other Nakshatras will receive the raw manifested result of their thoughts/actions veryy quickly. Much like a genie granting instant wishes.

I was going to mention also that the whole genie archetype also reminds me of Rohini a bit- the wish-fulfilling aspect, the element of fulfilling desires without shame/inhibition. It's a little different in nature, but Rohini Nakshatra's got a similar theme where the native is incredibly nurturing of who or what sets their heart on fire, sometimes to a fault. Rohini is capable of immense growth but can forgo morality/practicality for the sake of immersion in the process of creation & sparking joy. Rohini's philosophy is something along the lines of 'let go of judgement because judgement inhibits creation and disrupts purity'. This is very true, but of course as humans on the divided and dense Earthly plane, we know that having a sense of judgement & boundaries is also important.

That was very wordy, but hopefully y'all see what I'm getting at lol. Although I'm more inclined to associate Rohini with wise old wizard dudes with cool beards & mad but genius scientists lol.

Back to Jupiterians-

I believe that Jupiter Nakshatra's 'remedy' is to eventually realise that they are not a slave to their giving nature, and the power lies in them to decide, & give only to a person, dream, goal or cause that truly is aligned with their own soul's path. Break free from the shackles lol- with wisdom hopefully. Without that element of wisdom, Jupiter can run wild with that discovered power.

Jupiterians struggling with discernment is why Jupiter Nakshatras oppose Venusian Nakshatras (Bharani opposes Vishakha; Purvaphalguni opposes Purvabhadrapada; Purvashadha opposes Punarvasu). Venus masters the fine art of 'necessary cruelty' sometimes ya gotta rip out the weeds, warn off the pigeons and trim the rose bush to make your garden a beautiful, pleasant, luxurious place. Jupiter can struggle with this, instinctively wanting to be a safe space for everyone and everything.

Jupiter ruled Nakshatras also partially oppose Solar Nakshatras (Krittika, Uttaraphalguni & Uttarashadha) illustrating the Jupiterian struggle with putting oneself first. Solar Nakshatras keep their energy strong and vibrantly resounding at their core; wheras Jupiter Nakshatras are kinda messy with their energy (lol, not necessarily in a bad way)- they disperse their energy everywhere, giving & giving. Both Solar & Jupiter Nakshatras deal with themes of limitless reserves energy, but in opposite, contrasting ways.

There's so much I could write about Jupiterians, I love Jupiter energy very much. I really love all of the Nakshatras lol, I mean how could you not? Every Nakshatra holds teachings that are integral to making the world a better place 💕🪷

Thankyou for reading!

[narxcisse]

★ — I Wish I Was Your Girl

Pairing: MH!Viktor x GN!Reader

CW: Angst, hurt without comfort, no happy ending, unrequited love

English isn't my native language

The metallic hum of Viktor’s laboratory was an all-encompassing presence. The rhythmic ticking of gears, the occasional flicker of artificial light, and the cold sterility of the environment were as constant as the man—or machine—who inhabited it. You stood at the edge of his sanctum, feeling out of place amidst the towering machinery and data readouts that likely made more sense to him than human emotion ever could.

Your voice was soft, barely rising above the whirring mechanisms. "Viktor... I think I need to leave."

The Machine Herald barely paused, his glowing eye swiveling in your direction. “Leave? You’ve spoken of this before, yet you remain. Explain.”

You swallowed, the weight of the past three years crashing over you. Touring the shattered continents, trailing behind Viktor as he spread his gospel of evolution and perfection. You didn’t regret it—how could you? He was brilliant, mesmerizing even in his cold, calculated way. But you were only human, and humans break.

“Do I need to explain?” you whispered. “You’re not blind to how… hollow I’ve felt.”

Viktor turned fully toward you, his towering frame casting a shadow that felt more oppressive than comforting. "You humans rely too much on feelings, on fleeting notions of inadequacy. They only hinder progress. You are not hollow; you are simply inefficient."

The words stung more than they should have. Three years at his side, years of chasing his approval, and this was all he saw you as—inefficient.

“I wish I was more to you,” you murmured, your voice cracking. “I wish I was... something.”

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Viktor tilted his head, as though analyzing you like a broken machine. "Your companionship has been a statistical anomaly. Useful at times, distracting at others. But sentimentality... is illogical."

It wasn’t the answer you wanted, but it was the one you expected. You took a shaky step toward him. “You never stop, do you? Always creating, always perfecting. But what about the things you and I will never do?”

“Things we will never do are irrelevant,” he stated plainly. “What matters is what can be achieved now, in the present.”

You laughed bitterly, rubbing at your eyes. "Then why do you let me stay? What purpose does keeping me around serve?"

His pause was uncharacteristic, almost imperceptible, but you noticed it. The faint hum of his augmented body filled the space between you.

“I have... no explanation,” he admitted finally. “Your presence has become routine, a constant variable. Disrupting it would—” He stopped, his mechanical fingers twitching. “It would be noticeable.”

Your heart twisted. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t even care. It was habit.

Tears welled in your eyes, but you forced a smile. “Late at night, when you’re lost in your work, I wonder if you ever think about me the way I think about you. I wonder if you even could.”

Viktor stepped closer, his towering frame a mix of cold steel and faint humanity. “What you wish for is impossible. My mind has ascended beyond such frivolities. And yet…” His voice dropped into a softer hum, almost a whisper. “...there is a strange sense of loss at the thought of your absence. Illogical, but... real.”

You reached out, your hand brushing against the cold metal of his arm. It was ironic—he didn’t feel, and yet his words cut deeper than anything you’d ever known.

“I wish I was yours,” you said, barely audible. “But I’m not. And I never will be.”

His glowing eye flickered, and for a moment, you thought he might say something, anything to make you stay. Instead, he stood there, silent and still.

You stepped back, the weight of the years dragging behind you. “Goodbye, Viktor.”

As you turned to leave, his voice followed, flat but tinged with something you couldn’t quite place. “Your inefficiency will be missed.”

The door closed behind you, and for the first time, Viktor stood alone in his lab, his machinery humming, his thoughts uncharacteristically scattered.