#at which point you pick another random piece and start all over again

[flash-from-the-past]

Are You Ready for the Hardest Jigsaw Puzzle in the World?

[wardenparker]

Baked in Soulmates

Pero Tovar x plus size reader Co-written with @absurdthirst

Rating: E for Explicit! 18+ Word Count: 14.5k Warnings: Fluff, random historical factoids, flirting, grumpy-sunshine dynamic, discussion of past lovers/lives, talking about sex, food/alcohol consumption, oral sex (female receiving), vaginal sex, unprotected sex. Summary: After having a premonition about him many decades ago, Peor Tovar finally walks into your bakery and turns your world inside out. Notes: Inspired by and based upon The Smell of Fresh Bread - a Writer Wednesday that Keri did some time ago, which has long been one of my favorite Pero pieces ever. It's a great way to bring Spooktober to an end! 🧡 As always, I apologize for any errors I might have missed in proofreading.

It was a rare day that saw you sitting at the table in the staff sitting room with nothing to do, and today unfortunately was no exception. While the cook took her time with the menus and the pantry and fussing at the scullery maids, you put in the long and diligent hours of a baker all for the benefit of this one great house.

It worked well for you, or at least it had in the past, to come into a large house like this and cook here for as many years as you can remain inconspicuous before finding an excuse to move on. It's easier that way. There are fewer explanations to give.

At least in this house there are more like you.

Kneading the dough for buns that will be studded with dried fruit and candied peel to be slathered with butter at tea, you hum quietly to yourself and focus on the rhythm of the work. Baking has been your steady companion through every lifetime you've lived and every country you've passed through, keeping you steady even when your magic became erratic or the treacherous uphill march of immortality weighed too heavily on your shoulders. A soft hum and the steady pace of kneading dough will keep you moving forward. They always have before.

“Ohhhh they are wanting their tea early.” Sally comes bursting into the kitchen, flustered and annoyed. “They are wanting it at three instead of four.” She huffs as she rushes over to the large cabinet. “And the mister wants another cup of coffee now that he has let the last one get too cold.”

"And he'll not perish during the five minutes that it takes to make," you hum pleasantly, not looking up from your work. The young housemaid seems always to be in a tizzy and you're far too old at this point to get worked up about anything so generally small. "Tea at three is just fine. Everything will be ready in time."

“Are you sure?” She hates when they change things around, believing that the house should run like a clock and it shouldn’t change.

"I will work a little faster, that is all." And there may be a dash of magic in the teacakes if necessary, just to make sure they rise in time. The family need never know.

“You are magical.” She heaves a sigh of relief, always put at ease by your unflappability. “It is always when he decides to come home.”

“If I had a shilling for every time a man made plans needlessly complicated, I would be rich as Croesus,” you hum, almost dismissively, but laugh to put Sally at ease. The fact is, you are fairly rich. But the wealth accumulated over centuries of immortality must be carefully parceled out. “There is no need to get worked up just because the master is in a tizzy.”

“You are right.” She sighs again and rolls her shoulders as she waits for the pot to boil. “As you usually are.”

“With age comes wisdom, my dear.” Though you look no older than thirty, the young housemaid has no idea how much wisdom you truly have.

“I suppose that is true.” She huffs slightly and starts to set up the sugar and milk for the coffee.

Down the hall, the servants’ door opens, letting in a gust of autumn wind that carries the scent of crisp leaves and the apple trees in the garden. It wafts in the scent of the wood fire from the next room over and picking up the muted notes of lingering from the cup of tea you had made for yourself which is now growing cold on the work table nearby.

It also carries, somehow, the crisp, atmospheric smell of stardust.

And within seconds your mind is engulfed with entirely another scene altogether.

Cardamom, cinnamon and rosemary scent the air along with the yeasty smell of fresh bread. A man opens the door. Dark, scarred with eyes that are brooding and seemingly holding a thousand years worth of secrets. Even in the unfamiliar and very informal dress, his stance is one of a solider. This is a man who has seen war and is on guard from unseen enemies lurking around every corner. Dark hair, short and practical, is unstyled and accompanied by facial hair that is not in fashion during this time. “Buenas—”

An entirely different, sharp and acidic, unpleasant smell pulls you from the vision. In just a moment you've gone from standing at your work table to lying on the stone floor of the kitchen, with Sally wailing and fretting in the background and the caretaker kneeling over you with a stern frown painted on his face.

Smelling salts have been useful for centuries, but that does not mean the smell of them has improved any.

"I'm alright." Your voice is hoarse though, and weak, and the man looks less than impressed. Under the cover of Sally's wails, you are able to murmur the truth to the warlock surveying you for injury. "It was a vision. I'm alright."

“A vision?” He frowns and helps you sit up. “Do you need to go to your room to write it down?” He asks quietly.

"I ought to." You nod, scrubbing your temples with your fingers and feeling them sticky against your skin. "But the dough..." That dough needs to be finished kneading and rested if tea is going to be served early today.

“I can finish it.” You have shown him how many times and he knows how important it is to write down specifics while they are fresh in your mind.

"Cover it in the bowl and put it by the stove when you're done?" It's no small thing to offer to finish your chore for you, and you're grateful for the kindness. "I'll just go and freshen up," you say a little louder, hoping to quell some of Sally's vocal worrying with reassurance.

Helping you to your feet, he snorts and waves Sally away. “Take the coffee where it belongs.” He orders, even though he had no authority in the house, he is tired of listening to her caterwauling.

“Thank you.” Touching his arm gently, you give the man a nod. “I’ll be back in a few moments.”

Smirking slightly, he sweeps his cap off his head and bows. “Anything for you, my lady.” He intones playfully and winks at you before turning to take an extra apron off the hook and wash his hands.

******

Life in that house was good. The family was reasonably kind, they paid as well as they could, and the company you had kept then was amiable. The caretaker had been kind enough and gentle enough that when he had confessed love for you, you had gone to his arms and to his bed for more years than you had expected. But as always, you had needed to move on.

Sometime in the early 1950s you had made it back to America for the second time, and found work in a bakery in the North End of the city run by an Italian family. The focaccia you made there was different than the type the cobbler's wife in Rome had taught you to make, but only out of necessity. That cobbler's wife and that Rome were nearly six hundred years gone by then.

Here, you told the family employing you that you were a widow and supplied stories of the caretaker whenever pressed for details of your late husband. They assumed that he had died in the war. You did not contradict them.

And then one day the scent of warm spices and a new vision of the dark man with his scared eye came to you, and you learned his name.

Pero Tovar.

******

The bell above the door tinkles, letting you know that someone has come in. A necessity when you are so often in the back with your ovens. “Buenas Dias.” Pero has learned that manners are necessary in this time, if you want to have people not refuse your coin. Even if it is a small plastic card. “I need a loaf of whatever smells so good.” He grunts, slapping his card down on the counter, belly rumbling.

The visions had not many sense for many years. Of course the familiarity of a bakery was something you could understand. A customer. A sale. But the little rectangle in his hand did not begin to make sense until plastic and credit cards became realities. But all the visions of your past had eventually come true, so the faith you have in your magic had brought you to today. To the loaves of bread leaving your oven and being set lovingly on wire racks. The lingering, mingling smells of cardamom, cinnamon, rosemary, and yeast mixing with autumn air and your customary tea.

To the man walking through the door of your shop.

The loaf you had handed him in your second vision was what most bakers called artisan now. An old world thing with wheat germ and oats and none of the processed white flour that was most popular in the modern world. This was bread that smelled of dirt-floored cottages and honey – more precious than gold – being stored in clay pots and bargained over. This bread smells of home, and through your vision you had felt the same would be true for him.

So you took it from your racks and savored the scent, placing it on a trencher with jam and butter, and handed it to him to enjoy. When he tried to pay, you only gently refused. "For you, Pero Tovar, there is no charge." You tell him, enjoying a private smile and his shock all at once. "Eat and remember."

“How do you know my name?” Pero had been drawn here by the smells of the past. The scent of time forgotten. Pulling from him the core memories that have almost been forgotten until they are recalled. Sitting unused and dusty like a book on an abandoned library shelf. In the time he came from, books were more rare than gold, now people carelessly toss them aside when they don’t care for the words written inside them.

"I have known your name for a long time." You can't say just how long. Not yet. There are still many things to learn about the man from your visions. "Sit," you encourage, nudging the plate toward him again. "Remember. Enjoy."

He doesn’t question you, he doesn’t attack you. Despite this time’s view on weapons, Pero still does not walk around unarmed. He could have a knife at your throat in an instant. Instead, he sits at a small table and tears apart the bread with his hands like he would have when he was on his first set of years.

It is a satisfying sight, you have to admit that much. Raw enthusiasm is in short supply in this modern age. To see someone devour the food that you prepare is an enormous part of why you have continued to bake century after century. In continues to be a challenge to feed all of the hungry people in the world, but you do your part. And this one man is included in that number.

For more than a century, this man's face has held a place in your mind, so you stop at his table to put a cup of coffee at his place as well. Let him enjoy himself, you think, and offer him a smile when you put down the mug.

Pero pauses, glancing up at you and then back down at the steaming cup of coffee. “Gracias.” He murmurs after a moment and picks it up. It doesn’t appear to have all the sweet creams and syrups that they have in this era and for some reason, he’s disappointed by that. Although it would be more than what he had drank when he was riding towards the East and selling his sword.

"Come back after sunset," you tell him, and walk away again to greet the new customers who have come through the door.

He frowns at the comment, wondering what he will need to come back for. How you know his name, he had checked his credit card. The name is on the back, so you didn’t get it from there. He is suspicious, but that just means he will come back.

******

It’s not that your shop strictly closes at sunset, but as the proprietor and only employee, you have the luxury of making your day what you like. From sunrise to sunset you sell breads and sweets and coffee and tea to your customers, and luxuriate in the ability to do as you please. If someone upsets you or is rude? You can simply turn them away. If they are kind and lovely? They can have their treats for free. The only person keeping track is you.

Tonight, like every night, you bundle up your unsold things to be picked up by the young lady who works for the village, and she distributes them amongst the poor and the hungry at night as she makes sure that each and every one has a roof over their head and a warm place to sleep. This, you have already decided, is the person from this life you will be leaving a great deal of money to when you must disappear and move on. You always choose one, and this time it will be her.

It is in this state, humming yourself as you load up paper bags with bread at the end of the day, that Pero Tovar finds you once more.

This time, the bell does not alert you to his presence, he had manage to slip inside without disturbing it. “How do you know my name?” He asks, watching as you look up from your task.

“Good evening, Señor Tovar,” you murmur politely, undisturbed and unperturbed when you look up.

It makes him frown even more when you aren’t surprised by his presence. “You seem to know me, but I would remember meeting you.”

“Would you?” That is what surprises you, and you look up to find him watching you carefully.

He doesn’t know what game you are playing, but he is starting to get frustrated. “Who are you?” He demands again.

You supply your first name easily enough, and finish depositing the bread loaves and sweets into bags. Everything except the small white cardboard box on your counter. That is marked with his name and tied up in string. “I’m like you are.” You tell him calmly.

He highly doubts that. “A bastard?” He snorts, purposefully misunderstanding. “You seem too sweet for that.”

“Actually?” You chuckle a little. “Yes. I am. But I meant that I am older than I look. As you are.”

"I'm thirty-eight." At least that's what it says on his driver's license. This lifetime at least. "Do you think you know me from somewhere?" He demands, wondering what you are playing at.

“I would sooner believe you to be five hundred and thirty-eight.” Your visions never specified too much about him, but the aura of magic he held around him had some of the same hallmarks as yours. Namely, enchantments and immortality. “We have never met, but I have seen you before.”

His jaw tightens and Pero growls dangerously, stepping closer to you. "You are mad, witch." He hisses, shaken to his very core that you might know of his plight even though he much older than your claim.

“Perhaps.” You actually laugh a little. “But at least you are right about one thing. I am a witch.”

That confuses him, making him furrow his brow together and frown. Looking around the kitchen to see if there something to explain all of this.

“Come and sit down.” That feels like the right thing to do, and you motion to one of the tables close by. “If you would like me to, I will tell you what I know.”

He watches you for a moment, gauging you before he moves over to the table and pulls out a chair and sits.

"You know that magic is real." Coming to sit down with him, you bring two cups of coffee to give you both something to do with your hands. He had frowned at his cup earlier when you set it down, so this time you had added a touch of caramel and vanilla to the hot steamed milk to see if he liked that better. "We have both been touched by it in different ways. But both of us have been given immortality. Whether that is a blessing or a curse depends on the day."

“How old are you?” He demands after a moment, leaning over and staring at you with an intensity that would make a mere mortal uneasy.

"That would be a rude question to ask a lady in any century, but fortunately for you it is a moot point." An amused smile curls your lips as you sit back and sip your coffee. "I do not know. When I was born they did not keep track of birthdays so studiously."

“What is the earliest century you remember?” He asks instead, aware that it is only because of his own parents he had been aware of his age before his trip to the Wall.

Thinking back as much as you can, you sip your coffee in silent thought for long moments before finally being able to answer. "I remember the news that Charlamagne had been crowned emperor." You tell him. "I was a child, and a messenger came to our village. But life went on as usual, unaffected by the change in man who supposedly ruled us."

“How did you come to live this long then?” You are older than he is, but a good four hundred years. His eyes are wide and curious, never meeting another than has been cursed with walking the earth without end.

"I tended to a dying witch," you tell him, sitting forward again at the table with your cup in your hands. "She was very powerful. The woman who taught us all and who raised us up to the goddess. It was an honor to tend to her even in her painful last moments. And she blessed each of us with a gift. The other girls were older than me. One she wished eternal kindness on, that she and her family would always be good to each other. To the other she gave an endless curiosity of spirit. That girl died within the year from eating things she should not, which I do not think was the intention of the gift." You shrug slightly, having thought of these other girls so often that it no longer brings you sadness to think of them so long ago. "When it came time to give me a blessing, she was in the throes of more pain, and she wished to the goddess that I should never know the pain of death that she endured in that moment."

“So you never find the peace of eternal slumber.” Pero leans back, still confused as to how you could have known about him. His own existence is a curiosity that he has never been able to explain despite the theories. Witches no longer hold the same fear that they might have centuries ago. He has seen too many gods and people fall through the ages.

“I understand it is possible.” But you shrug your shoulders. “But it would require enchanted items that seem to no longer exist.”

Pero nods. “So how do you know about me?” He asks. “Have you been watching me?” He thought he had been more careful. It was hard to cover his tracks with the scar on his face, but he had used prosthetics a few of the lives he has lived and explains the scarring away as the boons of war. He had tried hard to keep from being photographed, but now it was impossible.

"No." You sip your coffee again and nudge his cup toward him, encouraging him to do the same. "I have visions. And I had some of you."

“Visions?” In his entire life, Pero Tovar has never had a vision. He has memories, often coming to him while he sleeps in the form of dreams - or nightmares, but never visions. He picks up the cup and examines it for a moment before taking a sip and his eyes light up in delight at the sweetness.

Sweet things for this man, apparently. That will be easy enough to achieve. "My senses tingle. Smells become more acute and I can hear the songs in the wind. Then my mind's eye fogs over and I see..." Describing this is easier now, since the advent of new technologies. "As though I were watching a film, made from my own point of view. I see the future."

“So you saw me walk into your shop.” Pero reasons. “Any knowing my name?”

"The older I get, the more intense my visions are," you explain. "Centuries ago, they were more frequent and far less detailed. Now? I will rarely have more than one every few decades. But they are much more intense. More detailed. They instill knowledge in me instead of simply showing me an image."

Pero cannot say that he would envy a gift like that. It would put him on edge more than he normally is. “Why would you have visions of me?” He questions that part, taking another sip of his coffee.

“That,” you tell him, having the last sip of your coffee. “Is what I do not know.”

Your answer simultaneously makes him unease and relaxes him at the same time. Unsure of why he believes you, but he does. “I don’t know why I still walk the earth.” He admits quietly. “I had long believed it to be because of the Tao Tei, but no one else from those battles still roam.”

“Tao Tei?” The term isn’t one you’re familiar with, which is surprising. You’re familiar with quite a lot.

He looks out the window the modern streets and huffs to himself slightly. “Demons, aliens, monsters.” He shakes his head. “I still don’t know exactly what they are, but they were ferocious.”

“So they were creatures.” At that, you nod again and lean forward on the table. “That is most likely why I have not heard of them. Unless you can eat them or milk them I have had little interest. My many lifetimes have been spent mostly in a bustling kitchen.”

"They were in the far East. The Nameless order worked hard to keep word of them from spreading." Pero explains. "It is not like now. The word traveled so much slower than now."

“I miss it,” you admit without shame. “Things are so fleeting these days.”

"Some days I would have talked to no one but my horse.” Pero snorts, “now having a horse is rare.”

“I do like my bicycle.” That makes you grin. The bicycle you had bought while living in Boston in the 1950s is vintage now, but you learned to repair and care for it yourself. The basket on the front was long ago replaced with one of your own making as well. “But horses are wonderful companions.”

"So you have just been waiting for me to show up?" He asks, still trying to wrap his head around the idea that you know him. Even if this is the first real conversation you have had.

“More or less.” You agree. “Since 1909. Or really, since I bought this shop. I walked in the front door here about ten years ago and realized it was the bakery from the visions, so I got a job here and bought it when the previous owners decided to retire.”

He nods and looks around. “Looks like it is a nice place to live one of the many lives we experience.” He compliments. “Have you always been a baker?”

"Most of the time." He is entirely right. The two of you have lived countless lifetimes. Endless choices of where to go and who to be. But you have mostly kept to what makes you happy. "In different parts of the world, in different ways, and always learning new things. Have you always been a warrior?"

“Always.” He nods. “Although it is harder to do these days.” He admits. “Private security is more about using technology now than brute skill.”

"I imagine your sword is in far less demand these days." In fact you can't think of a single way he could use it outside of sport and discipline, which is a shame. A talented swordsman is a gloriously indulgent sight to watch. "Have you tried any of the new martial arts?"

He sighs, “all of them.” He admits. “But the MMA shit is boring.”

"Pobrecito," you tease, chuckling a little at his dismay. "You should fight fires, then. Use your strength and immortality for something valiant. Just to try it out."

“Fires.” He snorts and shakes his head. “I will scare the little girls hiding under their beds while the wallpaper burns.”

"Or inspire beautiful women to open their legs in gratitude." Standing from the table, you take the two empty coffee cups and round the nearby counter to rinse them and set them in the dishwasher.

“I have not taken a wife in many years.” Pero admits, looking down at his hands. “I do not wish to bury another.”

"Surely that does not mean you cannot enjoy a warm bed from time to time?" When you reemerge from behind the counter, you sit down again, sensing that there is plenty more talk to be had. "The last time I married was 1810, but that has not kept me from pleasure."

He chuckles. “I did not say that.” You have a modern take for one so old, but he doesn’t mind that. “It is hard to not feel dirty.” He snorts. “They are all so young.”

"Well that is true enough." And well worth sharing a laugh over. For there are very few in the world as old as the two of you. "There is not much to be done about an equal age, though. The community of immortals in the world is quite small, and always on the move. For reasons you understand all too well."

“Community?” Pero frowns, his head jerking up and he looks at you in confusion. “There are more?”

"I have met thirteen others, over the centuries." You tell him, nodding. "Mostly witches or warlocks, but also some who were enchanted at random, like you were. Mostly we acknowledge each other, share a few stories, and then go our separate ways."

“You are the first I have met.” Pero tells you. “I have always believed I was alone.” It had been a lonely existence, but he had felt like it was his punishment, or reward, for what happened at that wall. Although he could never explain why William lived out his life as expected and died an old man.

"There are many theories. About what could eventually kill us, or what can weaken us." Theories that you had been over time and time again with the few other immortals that you had come across. "Apparently it is possible for us to die. But...not easy."

“You mean being stabbed, blown up, crashing, or drowning would not do it?” He asks sarcastically, ticking off the ways he should have died many times over. He had come out with little more than a scratch.

"Apparently." Your head cocks to one side, wondering how he will take this. "It is more like a fairy story. Where true love restores us to our mortality."

Pero chuckles. “I have loved many times, bruja.” He reminds you. “Yet there is still no grey in my hair or beard.”

"True love." You correct him. "Not just love. I have loved more times than I can count. Endless, depths of the oceans of love. But supposedly the truest love our hearts can feel...that is what is supposed to do it."

Pero frowns, digesting your words and trying to understand them. “You are speaking of soulmates.” He murmurs. “Those do not exist.”

"Until today, you believed you were the lone immortal in the world." The reminder is stark, but not unkind. "Who is to say soulmates do not also exist?"

Pero sighs and nods, having to concede that fact. “You are right.” He grunts. “But if I had not found them in nine hundred years, then I fear I have none.” He smirks and huffs to himself. “My soul is long rotten.”

"Perhaps. Or perhaps not." There is really no way to know. No way to open up one's heart or soul and read the name written there in destiny's hand. "I suppose we can only wait and see."

He shakes his head and stands. “Then I guess that your vision has been fulfilled.” He feels oddly disheartened by that, but his face is set.

"Has it?" You do not rise from your seat, but watch him intently. "My vision could have had any of ten thousand meanings. But all I know is that we were destined to meet. I should hate for it to only be one time."

“Perhaps it will not be.” Pero nods to you and then glances at the door. “The darkness settles.” He reminds you. “You should go home, bruja.”

"Come again at closing time, if you would like to talk more." This time you do rise from the table. There are bags to gather and things to distribute to the needy. "I am always here. In this lifetime, anyway."

Pero nods and he’s unsure if he should offer to walk you home, but he reasons that you have been taking care of yourself for far longer than any other woman walking alone at night. “Gracias.” He murmurs before he disappears through the door as silently as he came.

“Buenas noches,” you murmur to his back, watching the swift and sleek way he retreats. Pero Tovar must have been an admirable opponent in his warring days.

*****

It takes an entire week for Pero to come back. He had been purposely avoiding that side of the village so he didn’t drop in. Doing research and trying to learn everything he can about you. Your digital footprint is good and the way you have set up your ‘lives’ is admirable. Now he wants to talk to you again.

His stealth is admirable, but you catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of your eye as you wipe down the counters. The last guest has left for the night and the village girl has come and gone for the bags of leftovers already. “Good evening, Pero Tovar.”

He almost asks how you knew he was here, but he doesn’t. Instead, he steps closer to you. “You have lived under the radar.” He says. ���It was hard to find your trail at first.”

“But you have been successful now?” Finishing up your cleaning, you take your apron off and toss it in the small hamper you keep under the counter to accumulate washing. Every few days you take your towels and aprons home from the bakery to wash and dry at home. The ritual is soothing.

“As far back as 1841.” He admits. “The trail is harder to follow any farther back. Records are not as good from before as they are now.”

"1841..." You think back, trying to remember where you were an who you were then. "That was...Greece, wasn't it? Did you find employment records from the hotel?"

“Your marriage record.” Pero shakes his head. “But before then, it seems like you had just arrived from somewhere else.”

"From here," you tell him, smiling nostalgically. "From Spain. I was living in a fishing village on the Portuguese border. I met a Greek merchant who begged me to come away with him and..." Trailing off, you shrug your shoulders a little but never stop smiling. "It sounded like a grand, romantic adventure. Cristos was a good man, and I worked at a hotel in the islands for a long time."

Your voice takes on a soft, dreamy quality and for a moment, Pero is jealous of the Cristos you speak of. It must have been a grand romance. “I was in America during that time.”

"Oh?" You're interested in anything he is willing to share about himself. Unlike him, you did not go digging into his past. More hopeful that he would return to share with you when he was ready. "What did you do there?"

“Went west.” He had found the rough and Wild West fascinating and had enjoyed the hard journey. Remembering vividly blazing that trail to the East, so it was only fitting that he also went West.

"You were a cowboy." That image of him is actually fairly charming, morphing the smile on your lips slightly but not at all dimming it. "It must have been easy to blend in. With so many Spanish speakers all over the west back then."

“The language has changed so much over the years.” He snorts, knowing you are well aware of that fact. “There were a lot of Germans there too.”

"Did you sell your sword there as well?" It would have been guns by that point, far more often than swords, but your question is the same. Was he a warrior in that time too?

“Homesteader.” Pero shakes his head. “Started a ranch. But there was plenty of gunfights.”

"You actually settled down?" That surprises you, but you nod. It's impressive that a man so restless seems to have found moments of tranquility in this long life. "That must have been a welcome change."

“It was nice.” Pero frowns slightly, remembering the last wife he had taken. He had buried her on that ranch. Her and the baby who had also died in childbirth. “It wasn’t going to last though.”

"Not everything does," you say, but before you can stop yourself, you chuckle a little. "Except us."

“The only good thing is that I’ve not started aching like people complain about as they grow old.” Pero rolls his eyes. “Besides the normal middle-aged aches.”

You laugh again. "I count it as one of my truest blessings that I was given my immortality before the aches and pains set in."

“And that bone cracking doctor is amazing.” Pero groans, rolling his eyes slightly. “In my original time, he would have had all the riches in the world riding with a group.”

"A chiropractor?" Once again, your laugh rings through the shop. He is straight forward and honest, despite being suspicious and grumpy, and it makes you smile unexpectedly. "I would not have thought of that myself, but you're perfectly right."

He likes the sound of your laugh, his own grin quick and broad before his face slides back into that normally fearsome set. “I know I am.”

Letting your laughter linger in the air, you lean on the counter between you and consider him. The things you have wondered in the last week - and in the century before that - are running wild in your mind again. "I'm glad you came back."

“Not sure why.” He steps closer and tilts his head. “For you or for me.”

“Handsome and hungry,” you tell him with another laugh. “That’s my favorite kind of man.”

He lifts a brow, surprised that you would find him handsome. “Your bread is very good.” He admits. “I might have dreamed about it.”

“If you think my bread is good,” you hum, tucking a pleased smile into the corner of your mouth. “You should try my pastries.”

He glances towards the empty cases. “I will have to try them sometime.” He is hungry, but it seems like that has something that has never gone away despite the availability of food now compared to in the past.

“Or…” Noticing the expression on his lips and the hunger in his eyes, you tilt your head. “Have you eaten dinner yet?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I was going to find food and I ended up here.” He had been trying to avoid coming to you for another day, but his feet had other ideas.

“We could…eat together?”

He obviously hadn’t thought about that, but it doesn’t sound bad. Often he eat alone and it would be nice to have someone sitting across from him. Perhaps a beautiful woman would help others not be so wary of him.

“Tovar?” Brooding and silent seems to be his way, but you asked a question that deserves an answer.

“What?” He frowns in confusion and realizes that he has not answered you. “Sí.” He nods. “Yes. What do you want to eat?”

“Do you like seafood?” You had made friends with a family that runs a restaurant on the nearby cliff overlooking the ocean. It is beautiful and the food is stunning. “I know a place.”

“I like food.” Pero jokes dryly, smirking slightly when you grin.

“We can walk.” Motioning toward the door, you excuse yourself for just long enough to disappear, grab your purse, and reappear again.

Pero watches as you step outside the shop after him and carefully locks up. Silently guarding you even though he’s not needed in that capacity.

“Down to the cliffs.” You tell him, wondering if he is accompanying you out of curiosity or out of boredom. Either way, it’s at least nice to spend time with someone like you. “This way.” Almost as soon as you say it, you head out through the village streets toward the promise of a warm meal and a cold drink.

Pero isn’t familiar with the town, if he’s honest. He doesn’t explore much, but he watches as you confidently saunter off down the road.

The walk takes only a few minutes, but when you arrive it is to the comforting smells of fresh food and the warmth of friendly smiles. You ask to be seated outside, enjoying the last sunset and thanking the owner when she lights the candle on your table to ward off the nighttime despite there being plenty of other light sources nearby. Your table on the edge of the patio is away from the others, giving you privacy to talk, and you have a feeling the owner might have mistakenly believed you to be on a date this evening.

Pero chooses the seat that gives him the view of the patio and anyone approaching, but he’s not so unmannered that he doesn’t pull out your chair for you, even if he doesn’t wait for you to sit to walk around to his own.

“The women these days must think you’re very gallant.” Gallant and grumpy, you think to yourself, smiling again. That is surely how his latest conquests describe him.

He rolls his eyes and huffs as he sits down, watching the movement behind you before he picks up the napkin and drops it in his lap. “Don’t know.” He admits. “I never ask.”

“Not out for romantic companionship in this lifetime?” Even if it’s not marriage, having a companion is always possible.

"I've had one." Pero shrugs slightly. "She wanted kids and I cannot give them to her."

“Cannot or will not?” It is a bold question, you admit, but immortality does not take away a person’s ability to have children. Not as far as you know, anyway.

"It is the same answer." Pero shrugs. "I would not want to watch my child grow old and die. I could not bear it. Not after losing -" He sighs. "It is better that I not populate the earth."

“People like us…we lose everyone eventually.” That is an unavoidable truth, though also undesirable. “I’m sorry for the ones you lost.”

"You have lost others too." He points out, glancing at the waiter when he pours out wine and he lifts a brow. "Come here enough they know what you drink?" He asks you.

“Yes.” There is no shame in that, and you thank the waiter with a smile. “Do you know what you want to eat?” You ask Pero, though neither of you has looked at the menu very much.

"Food." He snorts, and looks around at the other tables as if he can just pick something from their plates that looks good. "What do you get?"

“Either the grilled octopus or the spicy bacalao.” Over the centuries you have tried almost every kind of food possible. Seafood dishes truly are some of your favourites, though. “Or scallops. Really, everything is good here.”

He grunts and nods. “Sounds good.” He does open the menu to read through the options. It’s amusing that when he was riding with William, he could not read, now he reads in multiple languages. Including Chinese. Knowing the language would have been helpful back then.

The waiter departs to give you time to decide, and when he returns a few minutes later you order your usual octopus and Pero opts for a prawns dish that sounded good to him. It leaves you alone together again at your table to look out over the ocean and you sigh happily at the comforting scent of salt air.

You like it here, that is obvious and Pero stares as you unabashedly, curious to your thoughts.

"What is it you want to ask me?" There must be something. You are no longer so insecure that you would be confused as to why a man would stare at you. There is nothing on your face. No food stuck in your teeth. He is simply curious.

“You do not feel it?” Pero asks finally, unable to refrain. “You seem so relaxed.”

"I do feel relaxed," you agree, smiling as the wind wraps around your shoulders. A hug from the earth that you happily appreciate. "People and places come and go, but the wind and the ocean? They are as permanent as we are."

Pero frowns and leans back, unable to understand why you would not feel it. He looks around and sighs before he picks up his wine glass.

"You pout when you don't get your way." The observation makes you hum in amusement. In some ways even this man with his hundreds of years is still very much a boy. "What ought I to be feeling, Tovar?"

“I do not pout.” He grumbles. “You really do not feel the vibration in the air? The pull?” He doesn’t understand it, but he does feel it. He’s drawn to you. “It feels like the air is dancing right now.” It makes him uneasy because the only time he’s ever felt that was when he was in danger but there is no danger here. Confusing him even more.

"Like...electricity." You nod slightly, but tilt your head slightly as you look at him. "I thought that was simply my magic. But if you can feel it too..." Truthfully, you had thought it was your magic's response to your intense attraction to him. But if he can feel it too, it must be much more than that.

“So you do feel it?” He leans in, eyes wide. “It is your magic then? You are that powerful? You pulled me to you?”

"If it is my magic..." Shifting forward in your seat slightly lets you talk a little more freely. Even at a table that is slightly isolated you have lived through too many witch hunts to simply go around shouting about magic. "Then it is doing something I have never felt before."

That makes him frown even more. If you don’t know what it is doing, he has no hope of having the question answered. “If?” He catches that. “What else could it be?”

"Are you sure you want the answer to that?" He will not believe you, you can predict that now. That the other thing you could liken this feeling to is one that was described to you three centuries ago by a couple in the islands of the Caribbean.

He rolls his eyes and purses his lips. “I wouldn’t have asked the question.” He reminds you.

"Fine then." You wave one hand as if to say he asked for it. "I have heard of this sensation once before. Centuries ago. From a pair of soulmates."

Brows pulling together, he takes his time to connect what you are saying. Then the dark orbs are blowing wide and he jerks back to look around quickly again. “You are saying—?”

"It is possible." Anything in the world is possible, after all. Long life has taught you that. "But I do not suggest we go testing the theory by getting into danger."

“What does danger have to do with soulmates?” He asks, frowning again.

"The chance that immortals bonding with their soulmates restores their mortality is...very high," you remind him quietly.

Clarity shines in his eyes and he leans back again. “But we don’t know if that’s what it is.” He hums, picking up his wine again. “We will not test it though.”

"Two meetings do not constitute a connection." And that is all you have had, despite the fact that your vision had stretched over decades and you had dreamt many times of those things your magic revealed to you. "But I agree. We will not test it."

“Soulmates.” He whispers, as if he is trying it on. He looks over at you again and licks his lips. “How would we know? For certain?”

"There are a few tests – magical ones – that could be tried." Their origins all seem dubious to you, or they require ingredients for potions that are unavailable in this new and modern world. They are less than ideal. "Or there is a more...primal test."

“Primal test?” He wonders if it is some kind of blood ceremony or something.

You smirk, hearing in his voice that he expects you to say something deeply mystical or esoteric. "We could have sex," you clarify, pronouncing every syllable.

You are enjoying teasing him. He can tell, but his body is too busy agreeing with your suggestion to care. “We could.” He growls, hands curling on the table as his entire being shifts into something much more dangerous.

"You are interested." It doesn't even need to be a question. His body language makes that clear, and your lips turn up in a smile all over again. "Good."

“You are a beautiful woman.” He reminds you bluntly. “I am old, not dead. My cock still stirs.”

"I'm very glad to hear it." Feeling more confident and looking forward to the night, you shift in your seat to sit a bit taller and survey the man before you unabashedly. "It would be a pity to waste such an enticing man."

It has been a long time since a woman has called him enticing. Instead of preening, like the young boys seem to do now, he lets you look your fill.

"Are you the sort of man who needs to be in your own space?" It is now a negotiation of sorts, but you are happy to be able to study him while you talk and wait for your dinner.

He huffs, amused by that idea, and shakes his head. “I don’t know if I’ve ever had a space that I considered my own.” He points out. “We are both nomads.”

“True. But some people feel the need to exert control wherever possible.” Satisfied that he is not one of those men, you sit back again. “Think of it as asking ‘your place or mine’.”

“Your place.” He decides immediately. “If you want to kick me out, it’s easier.” He doesn’t also say that it will be later in the night and not safe for you to go home alone, not wanting to seem sexist.

“My place.” Your smile is crooked and calm, intrigued and anticipatory. “Good.”

He wonders why that is good, but he shrugs it off, his eyes shifting behind you to see the waiter bringing the food.

You give the waiter warm thanks when your plates are set down, and look back to Pero with interest as the two of you begin to eat. “Tell me a story,” you request, wanting to know more about the man now that you will be spending at least one night together. After all, he has never met anyone like you and you have never met anyone specifically like him. Who else could you share your life stories with in the same way?

Pero frowns slightly and decides that you should hear a story from his original lifeline. "There was this bastard I knew." He begins, the gruffness of his voice is belied by the glimmer of fond remembrance in his eyes. "William Garin. He was a pain in my ass. Getting me into scrapes and saving my ass on the battle field. But I saved his life more." He adds. "He heard about this mystical black powder the Chinese had. And he convinced me to go in search of it. The weapon of our dreams."

Garin is obviously not Spanish, nor is William, and the time spent as a warrior connects dots in your mind. Dots that most in this day and age would find unsavory, but you know better. Survival was harder back then. “You were mercenaries together?”

"Sí." He nods, happy that he does not have to explain every detail to you. "We had fought together for this lord and when he was done with us, we had managed to not kill each other, so we rode together."

“A friend you don’t wish to run through is exceptionally valuable when the sword is already in your hand.” Mercenaries were never long on friendships, as you recall. Which makes it doubly impressive that the men stayed together. “So you went to China together?”

"We collected a group of men." He continues, looking down at the wine and the water at his plate. "All of us desperate for the powder for our own selfish reasons, but we were foolish enough to believe that we could obtain it."

“Fools sometimes have great success,” you point out, sipping from your wine glass. “But I think your luck was not so good, judging from the expression on your face.”

"Twelve of us started out." He nods. "Two of us made it to the Wall."

“The Great Wall?” It is still great today and in nowhere near the splendorous condition that he must have seen it in then.

Pero nods. “Some were killed by bandits, some from disease.” He huffs. “One poor bastard broke his back when his horse fell on him.”

“An unfortunate fate for anyone, bannered soldier or freed lance.” You nod slightly, not wanting to make light of his brethren’s fate but knowing that happened to many.

“The last three died the night before we reached the wall.” He stares at his wine before he takes a large gulp of it. ��Eaten by the Tao Tei, though we did not know that at the time. Ripped away from the fire in the blink of an eye while we were resting from running from bandits. Will and I survived together and he took the creatures hand when it had come for us.”

“What became of your brother?” It sounds like he was far more than simply a brother in arms. Pero is likely to have tracked his entire life and legacy.

“When we left the Wall, after the Tao Tei had been defeated, he left his heart behind.” Pero frowns slightly. “After three months, we turned back and he return to his general.”

It’s sweet, or perhaps bittersweet, but you off him a soft smile of understanding. Laced with curiosity, of course. “An unusual love, or an unusual general?” You ask gently.

“She was ferocious.” He chuckles, understanding your meaning and appreciating the tact. “She brought out a side of him I didn’t understand at the time.” He admits. “He was better because of her, the best version of himself.”

“That is what soulmates do, they say.” Satisfied that you haven’t offended him or the memory of his friend, you settle back into your meal. “Did you stay long with them?”

“Until their third child was born.” He hums. “It had become obvious to me that they were aging but for some reason I was not.” He frowns slightly. “I went to a monastery to search for answers and when I returned, my friend was on his deathbed, old and feeble.”

“You were there for his joys and returned to show him your love at the end.” That is honorable. Commendable, even. “That is more than many friends can say they have done.”

“He deserved it.” He shrugs as if it was not much. It was the least he could do in his mind after so many years. “After they were buried together, she had passed the year before, I started my path alone. Never meeting anyone like myself until now.”

"Perhaps it is a sign?" If he even believes in them. As likely as not, he thinks them child’s play.

“Perhaps.” He takes his wine and finishes the rest of it. “It has been a long time since I have seen any signs of anything beyond this existence.”

“I cannot claim to know anything of what lies beyond.” How could you? “But this life is valuable despite being infinite.”

“It is getting harder with technology.” He admits.

“Avoiding being photographed is difficult.” It is a hazard, if you’re honest, which is why you have stayed out of the big cities for decades. “I stay out of cities and tourist traps now. We have to be so careful.”

“Especially with my scar.” He gestures towards his face. “I have thought about surgery but who knows if it would work?”

You consider him carefully for a moment, letting a smirk turn up one corner of your lips. “It might be a pity to lose,” you tell him finally. “The effect is rather dashing.”

His brow lifts, the one affected by the scar and he hums. “You like a more….rugged appearance on a man, hermosa?”

“I do.” And you are old enough and have had enough lovers to know that you do have a preference. “It is not necessary, I would say. But certainly my preference.”

“Then I am pleasing to your eye?” He asks, smirking slightly. He might not be a vain man, but he does enjoy when a woman wants him.

Far be it from you to deny a truth, especially when it is one you have already confirmed. He has let you look your fill during this meal, after all. “I would not be taking you home with me if you were not,” you confirm, and let you smirk grow a little wider.

“Depended on how desperate you might be.” Pero jokes dryly. “Thought I do not believe you have had much trouble warming your bed over the centuries.”

“More than you might think,” you admit, but shrug. “I thank you for the compliment, though.”

“You are a beautiful woman.” He grunts. “Interesting too.”

“More compliments?” Your face blossoms into a teasing, playful grin. “Since I am sure you do not hand them out meaninglessly, I am even more glad.”

“Tell me about yourself.” He asks, wanting to know more about this witch who had known he was somehow coming into your life. “You ever been wrong with your visions?”

“In the early days.” You nod to that, willing to admit that you had needed much training to learn to wield your power effectively. “I have honed my skills. Learned how to tell when things are important. Listened to the way the visions sing to me. I have been wrong before, but not in many centuries.”

He nods. “And you knew that I would come to you, but not exactly when.”

“Because I do not presume to know everything from the visions anymore. Early on, we are so eager to know all. We cannot abide mystery. But now?” You wave one hand dismissively, picking up another forkful of your meal. “The universe will tell me what I am to know when it decides I am ready.”

“It is not like you do not possess the time.” He snorts, finding comfort in your ideology and he picks up his own fork. “Your bread is probably the best I have had in years.” He compliments. “I dreamed of it last night.”

“Is that all you dreamed of?” You doubt it, much to your own amusement, and are not ashamed of what your own dreams have consisted of since meeting the mercenary.

“No.” He admits easily, a ghost of a smirk pulling at his lips. “It was hardly decent.”

“Good.” The way your thighs clench in anticipation is no accident, but all he sees is the pleased expression on your face and perhaps the fire in your eyes. “Then it matched my own.”

“Then tell me what you want.” He demands. “I am sure you have expectations after being here so long and seeing how sex progresses.”

“We have both been here a very long time, Tovar,” you remind him with a wry chuckle. Your meal is finished and your wine as well, so you sit back in your seat and inhale the ocean breeze. “We will take pleasure in each other until we are exhausted, we will sleep curled in the same bed, and when we wake tomorrow we will indulge again if it pleases us to do so.”

“You are very sure of yourself.” He chuckles, not minding the idea of your evening at all. “It is a trait I admire in a woman.”

"If I was certain of myself, I would plan beyond tomorrow morning," you tell him, valuing honesty more than pretense in this moment. The meal is ending and the next steps you take together may change everything. That is what you are unsure of. "But I don't presume to know your mind. Only my own."

“You know it well.” Even though it would not be considered the newer custom of a date, Pero pulls out his wallet to pay for the meal you shared.

It's gentlemanly of him, and after hundreds of years walking this earth you have both accumulated fortune enough to always keep food in your bellies, so you simply thank him for the gesture. You will make him breakfast in the morning before he decides to be on his way, and that will be payment in kind. There is a sort of uncertainty in your bones about how this coupling will turn out – not because you doubt that you will find pleasure but because Tovar seems prone to run from anything he perceives as comfort.

Wiping his mouth one last time, Pero stands and he waits for you to get up as well. “Then let us go find our pleasure with each other.” He offers.

Your home, like everything else in this village, is close enough to walk to. There is no soft sweetness of hand holding or stolen looks, but instead a sort of comfort of knowing what is to come. He walks closer to the street, shielding you from anything that might splash or come too close. When you make it to your door, though, the air of anticipation seems to tighten around both of you and you suddenly become hyper aware of how close he is standing as you turn your key in the lock.

“You can change your mind.” It’s not that he is trying to get you to send him home, but he always prefers to know there is no doubts when he takes a woman to bed.

"I don't want to change my mind." You push open your front door and step back, letting him enter first if he wants to. "You can as well. If that is what you want."

“I would regret it for a thousand years if I left now.” Pero shakes his head and steps into your house.

"Considering we may well live that long, I would hate for you to live with that feeling." You step in behind him and close the door, deciding to throw the lock closed because he is a warrior of many lifetimes and will be on high alert if the house isn't secure.

He hums in approval, sure that after so many years walking this earth you can protect yourself, but no one openly invites the bear into their home. He looks around, finding your private space to be an extension of the bakery you run. Warm and inviting, although he recognizes the antiques that must be collections from your past lives.

"Look around if you like." Shedding your bag and jacket, you don't mind that the space is a little untidy and obviously lived in. This new fascination with making a home look as if no one lives in it is maddening. "Would you like another drink?"

"I am good." He declines as he start to poke around shamelessly. Picking up trinkets and examining them. If he had been the Pero from years ago, he would thinking of stealing from you. Now, he just admires them before setting them back down as he learns more about you from what you keep in your home.

"Do you have a favorite?" As he shuffles through the shelves and collections of keepsakes from your past lives, you smile softly to actually be able to share them with someone who understands.

“Why did you keep this?” The flower is dried, encased in resin and obviously of some importance to you.

"Because I promised the little girl that gave it to me that I would keep it forever." You tell him honestly, stepping into the living room to gaze on the dried wildflower bud. "When the plague came through the village we were in, almost everyone died. She could not have been more than ten years old, but I promised her I would nurse her parents while they died, and she gave me a flower in thanks before her grandmother took her and they fled the village together. The flower was for my kindness, and I took the promise that I made to her very seriously."

“Hopefully the girl had a good life.” It was doubtful, times were hard back then, but it was the best he could hope for anyone.

“Hopefully.” Not having been able to find her later on, you could not say for sure. But she was a sweet little girl and you liked to imagine she found happiness of some sort or other as a woman.

“Your home is very cozy.” The word sounds rough on his tongue, but you don’t seem to mind his gruffness.

"I see no reason not to surround myself with things that bring me joy." You extend your hand, wondering if he will take it and how that will finally feel. You have wondered about his touch for more than a hundred years. "That includes people."

Pero stares at your hand for a moment, then he reaches out. The scars on the back of his hands have faded over the millennia, but he can still see each one. He watches his fingers touch your palm and slide over your skin.

In modern times, they talk about electricity between people. Between a couple coming together. But in the centuries past that spark of new passion was always what happened before an all-consuming fire. The calluses on both of your hands seem to slide over each other with ease, letting your fingers lace together and making your breath catch in a way it hasn't in centuries.

And all at once desire seems to banish every other thought from your mind.

His eyes widen slightly, feeling tug deep in his belly, lighting a hunger in his loins that has long been dormant. Even though he had told himself he would let you control the pace of the night; he is dragging you close. Already obsessed with the next step that you would take. A kiss.

It’s as if you fuse together instantly, that kiss being the mere byproduct of your union into one being. Arms wrap around each other as fiercely tongues entwine, the kiss already deepened into something hungry and exploratory as soon as your lips met.

Once he’s tasted you, Pero is ravenous. Growling as he slides his tongue against yours and holds the back of your head, tilting you like the heroine in a romance novel. The need pouring through him into the flick of his tongue against yours and the groans he is feeding into you.

Every inch of your body is alight with need, and while the fingers of one hand sink into his hair to tug sharply as much as to keep him near, your other hand explores. His frame is even broader than you expected, shoulders and arms thick with corded muscle. You are pliant under every demand of his kiss, returning his moans with enthusiasm even as you start to blindly feel what lies ahead for your pleasure.

He does not know your little house, but he is learning your body. Caressing you with large, sweeping passes over your body. Listening for when your moans intensify. Wanting to memorize what brings you pleasure.

The little cottage only has one floor, though, making it easy to navigate blindly. You could not tear yourself from his embrace now even if you desired it — but the only thing you desire is to bring him with you as you slowly pull your intertwined bodies toward your bedroom.

He lets you guide him. Shuffling with you as you start to pull away. Not wanting there to be any space between you, he follows. Trusting you more than he has anyone in hundreds of years.

Out if the living room, across a small hallway, and through the doorway into your bedroom, you keep hold firm hold of him. Of the countless lovers you have had over the course of your overly-long life, none have set a fire in you that could compare to what you’re feeling right now — and the shocking thought that a soulmate might exist somewhere in the world for you narrows itself into an almost inevitable reality.

He’s never felt like this. Not even when he was a wet behind the ears whelp tumbling into bed with his first whore. The craving he has for you has burrowed under his skin and his fingers reach for the tie to your dress to strip it off your body.

Your hands work just as fast and thoroughly, pulling his sweater over his head despite having to part from him to do so. If you never breathe another breath that did not come from his mouth first, you would live another thousand happy years.

Modern clothing is both a gift and a curse. A gift because there is less of it, a curse because it was easier to just throw a woman’s skirts up and sink into her if she was not wearing drawers. Panties now are alluring but so restrictive. His fingers dig under the band and he shreds them in his haste to rid your body of the barrier between you.

If you felt any sort of restraint whatsoever, you might be amused by his eagerness, but it matches your own. It matches how frustrated you are to have to tear through the shirt under his sweater just to get to bare skin, then the belt and sticky zipper on his trousers to get to what you're craving. His cock is hard as stone – as desperately hard as you are wet – and you moan with a measure of uninhibited relief when you slip your hand inside his pants to discover he isn't wearing any sort of underwear. One less layer to have to tear off of him.

He would chuckle if he could breathe, but that is beyond him right now. Groaning when your fingers wrap around him, he bucks his hips forward and only takes his hands off you to strip down his pants and kick them off with his shoes.

Your bra is the last thing tossed aside, and you sigh into the feeling of his calloused hands kneading your flesh. He has made no mistake about appreciating a woman with curves, and in this moment you have never been more grateful for them. Any additional patch of skin for him to touch is worth praising.

"Beautiful." He growls, cupping and squeezing your tits, appreciating the lushness of your curves and the way you fit into his hands. It's as if you were created to slot into him perfectly.

“Enough to keep your hands full?” You huff a breathy laugh, already knowing the answer.

“You could be a little plumper.” Pero snorts, never denying a thicker figure is sexy. Back when he was younger; that meant you were well fed.

You grin, laughing with him, and tug him toward your bed without shame. “Then it is a good thing I am a baker.”

“Does that mean your cunt is sweet?” He teases, reaching out to brace his arms so he doesn’t collapse on you when you both fall into the bed. “Tastes like honey?”

“You’ll have to tell me.” The blankets are pushed aside immediately, letting you both tumble onto the mattress eagerly. “For the sake of your sweet tooth, I hope so.”

He flashes a predatory grin, eyes dark and full of mischief as he bites your chin. "Then let me have a taste."

"As much as you like," you assure him, sliding back to lie down amongst your pillows. "Until we are both satisfied."

He hums and attacks your mouth again, intoxicated by the taste of your lips and sure that the rest of you is equally addicting.

Every inch of you is plied with those hungry kisses. From your lips and jaw down the length of your neck, paying tribute at the temple of your breasts and growling into the soft flesh of your belly as he makes his way down. No detail is spared his voracious attention. No scar missed. No stretch mark unadored.

You are exquisite. A map of time, of experience. Random scars that have faded to non-existence. A lesser man wouldn’t even notice them, except Pero wears the same faded marks on his body. His tongue and teeth worship them until he has bitten each of your thighs and his shoulders are wedged between them, inhaling the musky, tangy scent of your sex like it’s a stimulant.

"I will go and get the honey jar if it will get your tongue inside me faster," you gripe, smirking at him even as your thighs bracket his head and his breath wafts over your cunt.

“Impatient witch.” Pero huffs, frowning so he doesn’t laugh. But he takes your lead and buries his tongue deep inside your walls, his prominent nose pressed against your clit.

"I will not apologize," you groan, sinking further into your mattress with a keening sound of bliss as he dives in with enthusiasm.

He wouldn’t expect you to. You are too brash for untruths. You are impatient and he groans into your folds as he sets about learning what makes your thighs quiver about his ears. It’s been years since he’s eaten a cunt with this much enthusiasm and he wants to prove that he can make you squeal.

Your fingers find his curls, tangling in the long strands and encouraging him to seek the deepest parts of you. It bows your back and makes your skin tingle, and you anchor yourself to him as he begins to build you up in pleasure right away. Every stroke of his tongue is magic, and you have experienced enough magic in your life to know that sensation deeply.

You respond so beautifully to him. Synchronizing your moans to the flick of his tongue or the nudge of his nose. Urging him on with breathless chants of pleasure that have him aching against the sheets he is grinding down against.

The pleasure is almost blinding, taking over all of your senses so that you forget everything in the world beyond him. His name is the only one one your lips, barely joined by breathless praises. A thousand lifetimes of practice have made him a skilled lover and you are glad to reap those rewards tonight.

You melt into him. Your cunt is better than honey but he laps at you continuously. Sampling the sweet nectar and pulling the gorgeous sounds out of you with a glee that is bordering on smug.

Time is as liquid as your body by the time you fall apart for him. All you know is that your world has narrowed to the man between your legs and that this is what you want more than anything in the world. You sob his name as he drinks down your release, fingers twisted both in his hair and in the bedsheets. The unapologetic ringing of bliss through the walls of your house seem to reverberate back to you, as if knowing that this pleasure should not be shared with anyone else.

Watching you shake apart is a privilege. One that he is determined to have. Again he curls his tongue around your clit to help you extend the fluttering of your walls. Obsessed with the way that you sob his name.

A satisfied sigh passes your lips when you can finally breathe again, and you open your eyes to find him staring hungrily up at you with his cheek resting on your thigh.

“Did I satisfy you?” He’s smug, because he knows he did, but he wants to hear you say it.

"Better than I expected you to," you promise him, not at all upset with how satisfied with himself he looks. He should be that satisfied. You certainly are. But you still shoot a grin back at him. "Now do it again. With your cock this time."

He snorts, taking the backhanded compliment and he leans in to nip your hip and starting to untangle his shoulders from your legs to crawl up your body.

"You wouldn't like a girl who fawned over you." That part of his personality is abundantly clear. Praise is good, but honest praise. Not when it is empty. "But I knew from the way you devoured me with your eyes at dinner that you could do it with your mouth, too."

He grunts, placated by your answer and his lips find yours again as he slides into your arms and wraps his arms around your back.

You’ll take the kiss as confirmation. As an agreement that you have learned him well in a very small space of time. And that is all you need to deliver the measure of passion back to him twofold.

You fit together so naturally. So easily. His body slots against yours with no discomfort, no need to adjust. His cock is pressed against your entrance and all he has to do is push forward to sink into you.

Gasping in unison, the sharp intake of breath turns to a shared, shuddering moan as he pushes inside you. Your arms wrap tight around him just as his hold you close, and the seemingly endless moment of just being joined is better than you ever remember feeling with any man before.

It’s not that it has been so long since Pero has filled a woman that has him groaning your name. It’s how perfect you feel. Transcending beyond physical into something almost primal, like you are his.

One long, breathless moment of amusement is needed before you search out his lips again, nipping the lower one and squeezing your cunt around his cock to spur him into moving. This blissful elation has mountains to climb before the night is over.

He grunts, twitching inside you because of your boldness. He likes a feisty woman, especially in bed. One that demands that her needs be met and met well. He pushes even deeper before he is dragging his cock back out, making sure that your walls feel him retreating to anticipate the next commanding thrust.

The rhythm you build together is damn near athletic with the amount of push and pull you give. Not quite right but all the way to the edge of wondering whether your creaking bed will give out before you decide you don’t care. He would be worth the collapsed furniture, this rough-hewn warrior with his heart of golden softness. And you wonder, in between moaning his name into the darkness, whether anyone has ever told him that before.

The mattress undeath you doesn't give him the leverage that he wants, that he needs to snap his hips forward and pull another beautiful cry from those lips of yours. Obsessed with how you take every demanding thrust and still seek more, he reaches up and grabs the headboard for better purchase. Growling your name while he rocks into you. "Fuck, you are perfect, bruja, taking my cock and begging for more. I'll give you everything you want and more." He pants, almost breathless, but determined to keep the brutal pace up. He had fought in hand to hand combat for hours, he can make you cum before he collapses in exhaustion.

Some lovers are sensuous, some are tender, some are eager or greedy. Pero matches the way you feel in this moment — the unbridled surety of what your want and need and crave — without question and with great enthusiasm. He is as hungry for a partner to be unrestrained with as you are. To find someone with whom you can remove your mask. The wet noise of slapping hips and growling of praise fills your senses like a drug and all you can think is how you want more.

Every thrust feels like he’s going to impale you. Hurt you. Your legs wrapped around his waist feel like they are the only thing keeping him from fucking up into your throat and still you cry for him. It’s the most beautiful, greedy sounds he’s ever heard and he wants more of them ringing in his ears. His lips kiss and his teeth bite along your neck, your jaw while he huffs and puffs, grunting his own pleasure into your skin.

Too much, not enough, absolutely perfect, overwhelming, and yet the most unbridled you’ve ever felt. It is everything. The first time you come apart for him it is like the explosion that heralds the beginning of a new world, tearing you apart from the inside out but only granting you a new and vital life force. Pero ends up on his back beneath you, trading places so that he can watch you ride him with greedy eyes and explore your body with calloused hands as you take more pleasure from him.

You are a witch. You’ve bewitched him. In awe of the sight of you, tits bouncing, head thrown back, you ride him like you are riding a horse across the desert. Every time you slam back down in his cock, his toes curls and his body lurches in pleasure under you. Hands filling with every inch of your flesh he can possess, growling and moaning like he is in pain, but it is pure pleasure bleeding those sounds from him.

It’s sunrise before you’re done with each other, collapsing into a pile of satisfied bodies and damp sheets. One of the best fringe benefits of immortality is the stamina and you fully abused that tonight.

“You have to work?” He asks, panting as he runs his hand down your sweaty spine and smirking tiredly when you shiver in response.

“I’m closed today.” You chuckle, breathy and light, deciding that taking a single day off from running the bakery won’t make a difference to the village. “There are more fun things to do at home.”

He chuckles. “Sí? Like what, bruja? Casting more spells over me?”

“Sí.” Laughing together, you hold him a little tighter, as though a whisper told you he might slip away. “Claro. Of course I will.”

He hums after a moment. “I have never felt that strongly before.” He admits after letting the silence settle between you and your breaths have slowed down. “That connected. Did you feel it too?”

“I did.” A small smile quirks at the corner of your lips. “I do feel it. Perhaps it is as they say.”

“Soulmates?” His eyes widen when he puts it together and his fingers twitch against the curve of your ass where he had been idly caressing. “You believe that is what we are?”

“Perhaps.” Your lips find his, brushing a reassuring kiss there while you still smile. “There is only one way to be certain.”

“How?” He kisses you back before he frowns slightly.

“Sleep, hermoso.” When he looks surprised you only laugh sweetly. “Sleep. And your bruja will cast into the shadows after some rest.”

“As long as you sleep with me.” Pero grunts, pulling you close again and closing his eyes even as the room becomes brighter with the coming day.

******

The sound of the cock crowing penetrates Pero’s sleep, making him grunt and curl around you a bit more as if to protect you from the coming day. “Too early.” He grumbles, although he knows that you must wake, pressing his lips to the warm skin of your neck where his face has been buried through the night.

“Ignore it.” You grumble back, shifting backward in a sleepy shuffle to burrow closer to him under the heavy wool blanket. You’ve only half woken up but you don’t want to leave this bed.

He grunts in agreement, holding you tight and his cock twitches when you press your ass against his crotch.

“Ready for more already, mi caballero?” Not that you’re surprised — you’re ready for him again too. You dreamt about it.

“Sí.” He growls quietly. “Your cunt is too good not to be craving every chance I get.”

"One night and you are already addicted?" You chuckle from somewhere low in your chest and roll over to face him, only to sit straight up in bed when you finally open your eyes.

Pero frowns slightly, feeling the rush of cool air when you pull the warmth of your body and the covers away from him. "Lay down."

"Pero." With your eyes darting around the room, you start to twist and look in every direction, turning a little more frantic with every change of direction. "Pero, look!"

He grunts, opening an eye cautiously and then he is opening the other, sitting up in the bed with a frown. “Where the fuck are we?”

“Flanders.” You practically gasp out the word, looking around in shock. “In a cottage on the river outside Gent…” Practically springing from the bed, you reach for the nearest blanket to wrap around yourself and go to the window.

The garden and meadow behind your little cottage look brighter and sweeter than you remember, but very much the same. It has been hundreds of years since you lived in the Flemish countryside yet here you are.

Swallowing a sharp gasp, you turn back from the color-stained glass window. “When do you say you were from?” You demand. “Originally, I mean?”

Pero frowns as he follows you, not bothering to find his breeches and he looks out the wavy glass. You must have been very well established to have glass. He tells you the year. “Why?”

You swallow thickly, disbelief coloring your features and all you can do is choke out a laugh. “Pero, look around you. We were in an entirely different cottage when we fell asleep.”

“I can see that.” He huffs. “I’m asking why you wanted to know what years I was originally walking through life.”

“Because…” You can feel your heartbeat pounding, adrenaline beating in your veins. “Because in your first walk of this earth, I was living here.”

He frowns, brow pinching together in thought. “Where are we?” He demands, thinking back to that time.

“Flanders. The country. I was already baking then…there is a tavern down the road where I made bread and cooked suppers and helped keep guests.” The awe and confusion on your face are so deeply etched into your skin that it feels like they go all the way into your bones. “For two immortals we should not be so cods walloped by the notion of time travel.”

“Because I have never woken up in a time different from which I fell asleep.” He reasons. “I was supposed to travel to Flanders.” He whispers. “After I left the wall. That was mine and Garin’s plan.”

“You were?” You wrap the blanket around yourself a little more tightly at this surprising news, as if it might bring on more unknown magic.

“Sí.” He frowns as he peers out the window at the sleepy little scene in front of him. It’s almost jarring, how quiet this time actually was. There is none of the low frequency noises that he had grown used to hearing in the modern world.

“I wonder…”

“Wonder?” He turns back to you, watching you as you contemplate this newest development in your lives. “What are you thinking, cariño?”

The term of endearment does not escape you, but rather it almost seems to confirm the thought that has cropped up in your mind. “I wonder if there is something in soulmates…being people who were supposed to meet?”

Pero, despite his humble beginnings at this time in history, is not stupid and he understands what you are saying. “So we have been brought back to the time we were supposed to meet and understand our connection?” He theorizes and looks around the cottage again. “You were unwed at this time?”

He has followed your train of thought exactly and you nod. “I was. When I came to this village, I presented myself as a widow. There was more freedom in it.”

“And I was to come and spend the winter here.” Pero muses. “A sexy widow would have been a very appealing way to spend the winter.”

"I would have welcomed you." He is as to your taste after hundreds of years as he would have been then, and you would have let him into your bed without hesitation. "We would have kept very warm that winter."

He chuckles and leans over, pressing his lips to your bare shoulder. "Overheated." He promises. "Do you think we are here to stay?" He asks.

"It seems likely." Though you do frown, trying to think through the logistics in your mind. "We could travel. Make our way east. You could see your friend again."

"Does-- does this mean we are no longer immortal?" Pero asks, looking down at his hands and body. "Or does this mean we live these times again together?"

"I don't know." You murmur softly, placing your hands over his and gently squeezing. "But we will find out. Together."

------

Master Tags: @pixiedurango @chattychell @winter-fox-queen @lady-himbo @artsymaddie @princess76179 @paintballkid711 @missminkylove @pedrosbrat @ew-erin @sarahjkl82-blog @sharkbait77 @justanotherblonde23 @lv7867 @recklesswit @mylittlesenaar @f0rever15elf @gallowsjoker @steeevienicks @athalien @sherala007 @skvatnavle @thatpinkshirt @jaime1110 @girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics @goodgriefitsawildworld @greeneyedblondie44 @littlemousedroid @harriedandharassed @churchill356 @ajathegreats-blog @haylzcyon   @beardsanddetectives @kirsteng42 @ladykatakuri @adancedivasmom @madiebear @tanzthompson @emilianamason @bigsdinger @xocalliexo @pedr0swh0r3 @avaleineandafryingpan @charlyrmv @avidreader73 @iceclaw101 @loveslide @elegantduckturtle @becsworld @julesonrecord @its-nebuleuse @itsrubberbisquit @mikeyswifie @guelyury @lizzie-cakes @for-a-longlongtime @vabeachazn @purplerain04 @weho2kcmo @madnessofadaydreamer

[vitaminseetarot]

PAC: Random Messages You May Need 🌈🎆⛅

Sup, y'all. I'm finally back for another pick a card reading. I really apologize if folks have not heard from me over the past month, I meant to get this reading (among other things) out a while ago. I have not been able to touch tarot for the past few weeks. Life has been… topsy turvy, to say the least. Heh heh. [sweating profusely]

I meant to have another game out and to have paid readings available by now--that is still part of the plan. What was meant for June will be in July. So this blog might go from 0 to 100 mph real soon, to move along with plans as intended!

I was loosely inspired by the Baker pride flag from 1978 for this group selection. These piles are pretty nondescript: each one contains a random message that may resonate with you. Pick based on whichever color of the Prism Oracle speaks to you most, and feel free to choose more than one. Take only what resonates.

Pile 1 - Strength (Red) Pile 2 - Happiness (Orange) Pile 3 - Illumination (Yellow) Pile 4 - Movement (Green) Pile 5 - Flow (Turquoise) Pile 6 - Trust (Blue) Pile 7 - Intuition (Violet) Pile 8 - Love (Pink)

Pile 1 - Strength (Red)

10 of Swords, Insight

You've been asked by the universe to put up with a lot, especially recently. You're reaching a finish line of a very long and brutal marathon. There have been too many times where you questioned whether or not to throw in the towel. If you have, you may also have questioned whether or not it was the correct choice. Sometimes, things don't work out, and it's better to move on. It can be difficult to hold everything up when one thing after another seems to fall apart at the seams, but either way you're being reminded of the light at the end of this long and turbulent tunnel.

Collect yourself, pick up what pieces you can. Time has shifted everything, but the essentials still stand. Gather the wisdom you have learned from this ordeal. There is still beauty to be found in the decay, glittering gems in the rough.

Maybe you don't want to get stronger. Healing may feel like a better option than grinding for difficult experience points. Give yourself the rest and repair you need. Let go of only that which is keeping you from starting again, but you don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. You've gained so much wisdom and strength, this trial wasn't without gain. Treasure it and begin anew.

Pile 2 - Happiness (Orange)

2 of Swords, Clarity

Whatever answers you seek are coming to you. Or perhaps they've already arrived; open your eyes and see for yourself. You may be wondering which path will satisfy you more. The process of reconciling this could take forever unless you lean on your gut here. This can't be decided based on intellect alone, for you could get stuck mulling it over for days. Imagining all the different possible outcomes could be taxing for your brain, so narrow it down. Eliminate the weakest links and home in on what excites you. It should feel like an "aha, yes!"

If you cannot see the answer right away, go within to the realm of imagination. Feel your way through. Visualize not just with sight but with yearning. Does the light of the sun make you feel hopeful? Does the cool rain make you feel relaxed? Would an art class expand your capacity to imagine many things, or would taking a science class?

The X mark in 2 of Swords is like a railroad crossing sign. Redirect that train of thought into brighter and more positive avenues of expression. Say "what if" as if you can't wait for something to happen. "What if I saw a shooting star tonight? What if my cute neighbor asked me out?" Let the future shine its beacon for you. It will all make sense in due time.

Pile 3 - Illumination (Yellow)

Ace of Cups, Reconciliation

Have you been staying up way too late trying to figure everything out? Please give yourself a brain curfew: no problem solving or saving the day after 10 pm! I'm getting that you may tend to ruminate on the same strong emotions. For some I'm getting that there is a crush here. There's inconsistent text messaging. I know it's easy to get too nervous about their reply, but try to wait until at least the next day to hear back. They may need time to formulate their words right. They may not even see your message straight away. Take it all in stride and sleep on it; if they want to reach out to you, then they eventually will.

For others in this pile, you may be going through a rough patch with another person right now and could be wondering how things will pan out. Give them time to respond, they could still be processing it. Stay on the more positive end of things with the idea that things will work themselves out. I feel like if you can manage this in a relaxed and non hurried way, the knot will untangle easily. The coffee in the Ace of Cups is very hot, so give it a chance to cool.

There is opportunity in your near future to make up for something that went awry due to a miscommunication error. You may get a chance to make up for a test, appointment, or an interview. You will receive grace for any mishaps. Remember that tomorrow won't necessarily be the same as today, so cherish both the good you have now along with the good that soon awaits you.

Pile 4 - Movement (Green)

IX Hermit, Devotion

Looks like things are progressing faster than you even thought they would. You may be blinking your eyes in partial disbelief: could this ball really be rolling? Indeed, thanks to your efforts, goals are being met and results are more evident by the day. You eschewed a lot of distractions to make this work, so give yourself a pat on the back for the level of commitment you put into it. Some of you in this pile may have just graduated, if so then congratulations! But try not to get too comfortable with your laurels, for you have a long road ahead of you in whatever you do next. This one completion is the start of many.

Does that thrill you? If so, wonderful! On the other hand, some of you may be feeling uncertain about continuing. You may be reviewing your options to see if this really is worth pursuing. Something that requires a lot of dedication and focus on it to the exclusion of all else… yeah, I can see how that can get tiring after a long time. There are folks who can get their Master's right after their Bachelor's, or have another child right after the first, but people can also happily move on to what feels more right for them instead.

It's okay to stop and assess your tracks if necessary. Taking time off is not the same as quitting. It's not losing motivation, it's recovering it. This is your passion and your discipline, not anyone else's. If you need to give other parts of your life more room to breathe, then do so with the confidence that your great work will wait for you.

Pile 5 - Flow (Turquoise)

4 of Wands, Hospitality

Have you been stuck with something for a while? There's a strong sense of a blockage that is being eroded away over time. This process can be sped up by allowing the ice to thaw a little more. "Break the ice." You may be wanting to open up and spend more quality time with other people but don't know how. Or you could be faced with meeting new people and being nervous about interacting with them. Even more so if they're roommates. A few people in this pile could be moving or have just moved. This is a chance to ease up and get to know new people.

This blockage could be a result of the past and of anxiety. The sound of a turning doorknob just jumpscared me as I typed the last sentence. You may benefit from learning about social anxiety and how to manage it. It's not an overnight job for you to fix this, though, but to just be aware of it and not allow it to get in the way of positive change in your life.

If you're struggling to figure out how to deal with meeting new people, I would suggest looking up videos or how-tos on social interaction, especially if a certain etiquette is required for an event. Learn about conversation starters and fun things you could do together like hosting a game night. Practice makes perfect, and over time the blockage will melt into the stream.

Pile 6 - Trust (Blue)

3 of Swords, Conversion

You have a very soft and tender outlook on life, which makes it all the more painful when reality doesn't conform to such a compassionate vision. It doesn't always try to respond to vulnerability in appropriate ways. Much of the time, this isn't from natural events as much as it stems from the ways in which people can treat one another cruelly. You've had some toxic people in your life who have put you through the wringer and attempted to squeeze every ounce of kindness they could from you. Making light of this pain to them only resulted in further deflection and antagonism on their part. The only outcome was to salvage whatever you could and pray for the best.

It is not your job to change their closed minded perspectives. They're on their own, here. Do not concern yourself with their messy inner world and lose any more of your energy. Also, do not attempt to regain what energy has been lost through bargaining either, as much as it hurts to press onward without looking back. You will recover, but you have to move on first and prioritize what you deeply care about most (you included).

There will come a time when your heart will be healed so you can see the brighter side of human connection again. All the beauty that your gentle soul is seeking is still there, shrouded by layers of protective petals that will one day bloom again and your life will truly flourish. For now, this is a time to give yourself all the comfort you can.

Pile 7 - Intuition (Violet)

XII Hanged Man, Spring

I get the feeling that you've been waiting quite a while for some good results to come in. This could either be from something that you started back in the spring, or are waiting to see results which may come around springtime. It is a season of flowers, so you may be waiting for this thing to blossom--that is, to be fully presentable to the public in some way. To have something to show for the time you put in. Like "hey, this is what I've been working on, this came from the seeds I planted." It could be growing in a direction unlike what you're used to, leaving you wondering how it could succeed in such unusual and burdensome conditions.

Lean on your inner guidance when it comes to the right timing. I don't believe that you're currently in a space where you need to push so hard for the best results. You can let things move at their own pace. Over tending to anything can end up in just as much trouble as neglect. There's only so much you can do before you have to let the flower do the growing and blooming for itself.

It's not always easy to sit in the place of uncertainty with the idea that doing more will provide more. But sometimes less is more. What you're creating is coming to fruition and may even turn out better than you expected. Trust in both the knowledge you've earned over time from learning lessons, as well as your natural intuition, to help you decide when it's time to take action.

Pile 8 - Love (Pink)

7 of Swords, Gossip

Let your heart lead the way here, not your worries over what others will think. Sure, you may end up with some people talking about you, but opportunities will keep passing by if you wait for everyone else to catch up to you. Leaning too much on everyone else's perspectives will only distort the vision you have for your own life journey. We all have unique journeys to go on, but unconditional kindness remains at the center of the Love card, the one thing that brings us together. Following life from a heart centered place may result in having others glance over and whisper, but that shouldn't distract you.

There is a rather delicate message here about dealing with friendships, colleagues, or possibly even family. You may have a tricky situation between several other people right now who have beef not with you but with each other. They may be coming to you to air their grievances and ask for advice.

If you care about both of these people, then it's best to approach this issue as diplomatically and impartially as possible and avoid feeding into the conflict. What would an enlightened mindset do in this situation? How would you want the other person to behave if they were in your shoes? Come from a place of pure compassion. They may choose to make amends or not, it's up to them. If their butting heads is bringing you down, it's always okay to step back and take a break. You are not responsible for what's going on in their heart, only your own, so protect yours well.

This reading has not been evaluated by the FDA to diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure any disease or infection. Please ask your physician before going online.

2024, @VitaminseeTarot ™

[lolokouhm]

PRETTY PLEASE? pt.I

Out of all humans walking on this Earth, Satoru Gojo might be the most impatient one.

The clock seems to have stopped the moment you walked out of his apartment, and despite his efforts to make the time flow at least a tiny bit faster, he’s miserable. That’s not how the night was supposed to go - he had plans, and one thing about Satoru is that he hates when his plans end up in ruin. This time though, there is only one person he can blame, and that is himself. It’s not your fault that when you were telling him about the girls’ night you had planned weeks ago with your besties, he was dozing off, playing with those tiny buttons on your favourite shirt. He couldn’t help himself - there was something so mesmerising about the act, and Satoru got invested.

He’d very much prefer to get invested in anything involving you than to sit alone in his apartment, waiting for you to call. At least you asked him to pick you up after you’re done - otherwise, he’d be sulking for weeks. He’s sulking now, laying on the bed, frustrated and alone, scrolling through every possible social media you use. At least there’s a tiny chance he’ll get a glimpse inside of the party you’re at, right? Wrong. You seem to be doing that on purpose, as there’s no new content for him to indulge in and sulk over even more. Satoru knows you’re the type of person who loves to overshare on the internet, so the current silence is quite suspicious. He’s trying his best not stress over it, as he swore he wouldn’t text and call, but his inner demon is really starting to sweat over it. He sighs. It’s so frustrating. Your relationship is a rather fresh subject and there were some areas of it that you haven’t really explored, but he was more than ready to do it tonight. To set the record straight - and after weeks of dating, movie nights and cook-offs in your apartment to officially ask you to become his girlfriend. 

The thought of his perfect night with you yet again pops in his head as he drops the phone on the bed, trying to shake the uneasiness. In normal circumstances, he’d have you wrapped around his finger after a week, throw a random sentence that would suggest you’re a couple from now on and be done, but when it comes to you, nothing seems normal. Not his heart rate. Not his sex drive. Not his thoughts. If love’s a war, then he’s not the brightest soldier on the battlefield - it seems like everything about him is ruthlessly occupied by you.

Even his speed. It’s abnormal, how fast he’s picking the phone up when a notification from you finally appears on his screen. Satoru rushes to his car, excitement filling up his entire being to the point where the speed limits become relatively unimportant - even if he gets a fine, he would have more than enough to pay for that. There’s only one thing that’s priceless, and that is, time. To be exact - time with you, which he has a severe shortage of, no matter for how many hours he’s blessed to be in you presence. Even infinity seems like not enough.

His sufferings have finally come to an end, as Satoru has already parked in your bestie’s driveway. He takes out his phone and texts you „I’M HEREEE” with a million of random emojis, and then slowly leans his head on the cold window glass. From the pieces of information he’s managed to pull out from the darkest places of his memory, it seems like these girls’ nights are an annual thing that happen when one of your closest friends comes back to the city once in a while - she’s been studying overseas for the past few years, but your girlfriends and you are very serious about friendship and do everything in your power to keep it alive and kicking. The effort you put in the relationship pays off - you always have your girls to talk to, vent and cry, and they have you. He grins unconsciously. Another thing Satoru loves about you. You’re just such a sweetheart.  

He observes the entrance, waiting for you to finally come out. It’s past 1 a.m and the whole neighbourhood seems to be sleeping. Satoru rolls the windows down a bit and as the freezing, but nicely refreshing air hits him, his eyes light up when he picks up a faint sound of your voice coming from the house. And then, just moments later, the doors open wide and a familiar shape emerges. Satoru instinctively fixes himself on the seat and brings both of his hands on the wheel, just to tighten his grip on them as you slowly come out from the shadows. He finally can see you, in your whole glory, when the light coming from one of the reflectors catches your frame.

You are so fucking cute.

Satoru’s smile grows bigger and bigger until it almost doesn’t fit his face. Cute is a perfect word to describe your whole being - incredibly wholesome, bright, at the same time dumb in some ways and extremely knowledgeable in the others. And tonight, Gojo Satoru is set on making you officially his. 

He’s ready to go out and open the passenger’s door for you, but you’re faster, even though your legs feel slightly wobbly as you almost sprint to his car, determined to run away from autumn cold. You grip the handle and suddenly you’re welcomed by cozy warmth and Satoru’s overwhelming scent. 

„Toru!”, you exclaim, basically throwing yourself into his open arms, giggling non-stop. The white-haired man in the driver’s seat grabs you instantly, hugging you tightly in his arms and you hide your face in his torso. You’re home.

He’s home.

„Hi, princess. I missed you so, sooo much”, he coos, not really paying attention to the fact that your body twisted in this awkward position may be activating some car options that he has no idea exist. You fit into his frame perfectly and that’s all that matters. 

„Toooru”, you purr into his hoodie, words barely audible. He raises his hands from your waist to cup you chin and kiss you, but you’re faster - you sit up properly, making a place for yourself right on his lap. You slowly raise your head and then - Satoru notices. Your flushed cheeks. Your shiny eyes. Your adorable smile.

And then you drop it.

„Toru, I need you to fuck me. Please?” 

masterlist ❤️

this will get a part two, it's just been sitting in my drafts for so long I had to post it haha based on a drabble I wrote some time ago. prepare for subby gojo I guess

[wexhappyxfew]

24. whispering in their ear, lips touching the skin

For Annie and Brady please!!! I adore them and your writing!

HI ANON!!!! thank you so much for stopping by the askbox!! greatly appreciated, especially when it is annie and brady!! :) these two have my heart and deserve all the best things life has to offer. please enjoy this take on the prompt and these two just being so soft on each other (and brady well....brady being BOLD). lmao! ENJOYYYY!!! thank you for all the love on them! :D

you in my A-2

(a/n): partially inspired by the prompt, partially by an ask i got earlier. just....annie x brady getting more and more comfortable and slowly realizing things about this war that they didn't realize earlier. them. them them them. i need them to be the happiest they can be when this is all done :')

Ever since that first night in the Stalag that she'd crawled into the bunk with Brady, it had become a nightly thing that she'd evacuate by the time morning came, but yearned for with each passing day.

Where it was just the two of them, side by side, curled into one another's bodies, their eyes the only innocent thing held between one another in this horrid place.

Sometimes they'd talk, whispering quietly between another about random things, about some of the sad things of the world, about their lives back home that would be entirely different if they ever got out of here. Sometimes they'd just stare at each other, with what little light there was from the moon outside or the lights from the guard huts outside.

And by that point, Brady would usually thread his fingers into her somewhat tangled hair and she'd apologize for something she could hardly control and he'd whisper all the sweet things that it was fine, he just wanted to be there with her. And that usually lent to her fingertips brushing against his stubbled cheeks, her pointer finger tracing all those stress lines that popped out when it was just them, or she'd let her hands dip into his hair and brush it back in a calming motion that usually got him right to sleep.

And so by morning, when she was back in her bunk, curled in her blanket, looking across the way as people would start moving about, waking up, rubbing their eyes, yawning and stretching, she'd meet Brady's gaze from across the room and they'd share that silent look that meant more than whatever words either of them would manage to find.

It never went past that - the longing looks, the occasional forehead kiss. Maybe they were both scared to go over that line they'd drawn. That maybe if there was anything more, they'd lose it just as quick.

As Annie slid out of her bunk and crossed the small room towards where Brady was, she couldn't help but feel her heart bit a little faster just at the sight of him asleep there - his face scrunched up in a way that made her heart ache. The visible stress on his face even in his sleep made her want to pull him right into her arms and tell him over and over that everything would be okay, that they'd make it out, that she was okay beyond anything. Because he cared so much, that he stopped taking care of himself sometimes. And she always would pick up what pieces were lost and stitch them back together again and hold him in the darkness.

As she approached, she softly bit back her lip and reached out to prod him awake, which always made her feel guilty for doing such a thing, but he welcomed it and told her it was fine, despite her want to make sure he got a full nights sleep. Brady woke with a shake awake and turned to look towards her and smiled softly in the darkness.

"Hey," he whispered, before opening up the blanket, "hop in." Annie watched him for a moment, before her cheeks warmed - they always did when he looked at her like that - and she slid in beside him and let him engulf her in a mixture of his arms and blanket.

The second she felt her body pressed against his in the cocoon of blankets and warmth, her worries were stripped away, as they normally always were. She curled herself against the heat from his neck, her body begging for some sort of comfort in all of this, as he pressed a kiss against her temple, something he'd grown more akin to recently it seemed. It's not that they didn't want people to see them, it was more of the fact that they finally were back with each other and trying to keep things like they had been back at Thorpe Abbotts - friendly, maybe dancing the line of flirting but not nothing more. But here at the Stalag, they were anything but. And they both seemed to recognize that.

"You doing okay?" he whispered softly against her ear as she cuddled further into him the best she could and sighed, "That cold finally going away?" She nodded against him.

"Yeah," she whispered, "just a little bit of a stuffy nose, but can't complain. How about you?" She leaned back from him, from his warmth and smiled at him as she leaned a hand up against her head. Reaching forward, she ran her hands through his hair and watched a sense of calm wash over his form for a minute as she did so. And it did settle Annie's own nerves and worry for Brady that she constantly endured day in and day out. She always worried about him and seemed, but it was always mutual for the two of them.

"Okay," he said quietly, before the corner of his lip turned upward, "better now that you're here, I gotta admit." Her cheeks warmed and she shook her head before holding his gaze in her own.

"You're too sweet on me, John Brady." she whispered softly to him, cupping his cheek for a minute and brushing her thumb across his cheek as she grinned at him with her rosy cheeks. Brady watched her, that slightly far-off look in his eyes, a hint of a smile. He grinned.

"You deserve it, Annie," he whispered back to her, reaching up his own hand and brushing his fingers against her warm cheek and grinning, "that and you blush red like a tomato."

"You a fan of that?" she whispered back quickly with a laugh and she watched him bit his lip and smirk.

"I'd say I'm a big fan of that," he whispered back, "'specially when you look like this." Annie watched him - she could probably be covered in mud and he'd be staring at the way he currently was. And now, stuck in a Stalag camp, looking slightly malnourished and sickly, with slightly matted hair and sunken in eyes and he still looked at her like that and said things like that.

"I could say much of the same," she whispered back to him, turning her head slightly to nuzzle into his hand against her cheek, "you look cute when you blush." John Brady did in fact blush when she said that, even though she couldn't even really see much of his face in that darkness of the room. She grinned and then leaned forward and cuddled into his neck again, Brady chuckling the slightest bit as he curled into her as well.

"You're so warm." Annie whispered against his neck as the rumble from his throat echoed in her ear and made her grin like a loon, "You're like a personal blanket." That got him to chuckle quietly again as her lips danced near her ear and she could practically hear each and every breath that left his lips - a mixture of knowing he was alive and right there next to her - and even more so; knowing that all they were in that moment right now were two people dying for an ounce of comfort in this world.

"Consider me your personal blanket," he whispered back as his lips continued to ghost over her ears, "I was thinking….." Annie listened to him trail off and gulped for a moment as his breath trembled and his heart pounded.

"I'd give anything if it was me and you back at Thorpe Abbotts, just you in my A-2 jacket and nothing else." he whispered and her body grew hot - whether from his soft, husky voice in her ear or the way his hands had found their way underneath her clothes, fingertips grazing her bare back, traversing her battered and hot skin, her thoughts were suddenly in a blunder and all she could think about well was….that. Annie pulled back from her spot curled against his neck and met his gaze.

"Just your A-2?" she whispered softly, looking at him shyly from underneath her eyelashes, a small smile growing on her face as a look dawned on his features that almost seemed like he hadn't meant to let that slip from his lips, but it had, "What does that mean for you?" Brady watched her, the look in his eyes matching the touch of his fingertips on her skin and she suddenly couldn't focus on anything else but that gentle touch of his fingertips. He leaned closer and brushed his lips against her forehead again with that tender touch.

"You can have me anyway you want me." he whispered against her forehead and her eyes instinctively shut as he pressed up against her and she overwhelmed with him. His presence, his touch, the way he held her so gently and close to him, but with a level of protectiveness and care that made her know that this was safe, that she was safe, just like this.

Annie reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, slowly running her fingers up into his hair as his head fell to the inside of her neck and he pulled her close, like a warm, tender hug that you never wanted to pull away from. Gleefully his hands raced along her bare back as she curled against him, feeling the way his hands explored underneath her coat and wooly top, dancing across her skin and making her feel things she hadn't quite felt in some time.

"Can I tell you something?" Annie whispered softly to him, rubbing slowly again through his hair as he sighed against her.

"What is it?" Annie listened to his heartbeat for a moment before blinking.

"This is the safest I've felt in years." And to even say a statement like that, in a place like this was ironic even in it of itself. She hadn't even felt the safest at home, a place that was supposed to be safe. No, no, she felt safest in the arms and embrace of someone she had only met a couple of months ago and had proved himself to be more of a home to her beyond anything.

"With me?" Annie nodded against him.

"Right here." she whispered back to him, "You and me." His grip didn't loosen, he only held her tighter and it seemed in that moment, the realization and the weight of whatever was going on between them seemed to hit. Her truth spilling from her lips quietly into his body, his grip tightening, their bodies pressed against one another in a way that should've felt foreign. Brady seemed to want to say something, she could tell, but when he stayed quiet and instead pressed another soft kiss to her forehead, she didn't question it. Because whatever they had here was okay for right now.

"I feel safe with you too, Annie." he whispered back and Annie was convinced even she wasn't so comfy, that she wasn't sure what she would've done if they'd been looking right at each other, inches apart. For now, she cuddled closer to him, enjoying his hands on her stomach and his lips near her ear, their soft breaths, mixing into deep slumber as they laid in each other's embraces until the world went quiet.

[seabirdtxt]

Hey, back at it with a request. I wanted to dump you with requests, but I also know that it takes you a bit to write, and I didn't want to overwhelm you ^^"""

Honestly though, with the requests I have in mind, I have a feeling they're going to become a spinoff series called "In which the Puppets learn the Creator is really, really bizarre."

With that said, this request will consist of some habits I have, and how our puppet boys would react to them! That being: reader is a night owl magpie who likes to collect a number of things. Whatever sparks their fancy, they hoard (It's why the Traveller has such a hoarding problem in the first place).

They collect some semi-formal things, like flowers and different plants, and like shiny rocks (Reader is familiar with the Language of Flowers, and I can fully see them and Kabukimono spending hours going over them. With Scara, Reader finds a piece of Rose Quartz in the shape of a heart and gives it to him, saying "You said you wanted a heart, right? Here you go! I know it isn't a real heart, but that's okay: because you already have a real one!")

But then they have the weird stuff they collect, like bones -and teeth -and scales - and bugs (Scara or Wanderer: "Why do you have this?" Reader, holding up the carcass of a beetle: "I just think they're neat!")

Or the worse part: literal trash. I'm talking broken pieces of glass and random metal parts, and like old candy wrappers that they've been keeping. (Again: Scara or Wanderer: "Get rid of this." Reader: "But it has sentimental value-!!!" S or W: "IT IS LITERALLY TRASH!!!")

But yes. Reader is a hoarder of many things.

i love this LOL i also hoard some pretty random things so like 🤝

(Might not have touched on all the same points as your ask bc i tried to keep it in-universe, but i tried to hit the major themes of each!)

WC. 1.5k

----- ⚘ -----

Flowers and Gems: Kabukimono

This collection is one of your gentler ones, and you take care to replenish it often with new blooms and interesting stones you pick up along your way. There is so much more novelty to collect here than back on earth, after all!

Kabukimono is fascinated by the variety of it, begging to be taken along with you the next time you venture out into the world to add more to your stash, and maybe take inspiration to start a collection of his own! It takes a bit of convincing, but you eventually relent and allow him to accompany you.

He follows you with wide eyes and an awed grin, asking you all about the various plants that the pair of you come across. You try to remember them as best as you can, reciting what you remember from the ingame tooltips.

“Wow! What’s this one?” Kabukimono asks, bounding up to a reddish pink bush. He delicately plucks one of the flowers, showing it to you proudly.

“That’s a silk flower!” You tell him, smiling as you take the flower from his hand. He only smiles and picks himself another one. “The people in Liyue can process them and make them into a very fine fabric!”

Kabukimono nods in understanding. “That makes sense! I know lots of kimono makers back home often talk about the quality of fabric from Liyue.”

“Fun fact,” you add, “back in my world, silk is such a sturdy material that it can resist piercing damage, to a certain extent! But it is very weak to slashing, or cutting damage.”

“That’s so interesting!” Kabukimono’s eyes go wider at the information. “I wonder if that's true of the silk from this world, too!”

“We probably shouldn’t, y’know… test it or anything,” you interrupt him before he lets his curiosity get the better of him. “We can probably ask a seamstress about it later.”

“Ohhh, good thinking.” Kabukimono agrees. He pockets his flower and looks around the area, scouting for the next object to collect. “Hey, do you have an electro crystal, yet? I heard you can only mine them using pyro!”

You let Kabukimono lead you to your next destination, already planning to press the new flower for your collection. Distantly, you wonder how the two of you are going to get an electro crystal, considering neither of you have pyro visions.

----- ⚘ -----

Beetles and Bones: Wanderer

“I went back to Springvale to ask if those hunters still had some of those ancient boar bones,” is what you say, offering a sheepish grin to Wanderer, who stares down at you with his arms crossed. In all honesty, you probably deserve the scrutiny for having somehow escaped his supervision for several hours.

“Did you at least get the, uh,,” Wanderer gestures at the cloth bag you’re holding in your arms. “Special bones you were looking for?”

“Yeah!” You exclaim, shaking the bag excitedly. It makes a rattling noise as you move. “Do you want to see them?”

You don’t wait to hear the answer, instead leading the way to your room, where part of your collection resides. You hear Wanderer step in and close the door behind you, waiting in curious silence as you carefully put your bag on your bed, pulling open the drawstring with reverence.

One by one, you bring out the intact bones the hunters were able to unearth from you. You brush off some of the remaining dust, then you begin laying them out on your bed in their approximate positions.

“That’s your special ancient boar?” Wanderer asks, sidling up to you and looking at the bones with you.

“Yes!” You finally place the jawless skull at the top of the unfinished skeleton, putting your hands on your hips with satisfaction. “I found it during a quest when I was still guiding the Traveler. I knew I had to have it in my collection when I got here!”

“Fair enough,” Wanderer nods. “Can I see the rest of your stuff?”

You are more than eager to show off the cool stuff you’ve been hoarding since your arrival in Teyvat, from smaller animal bones, to surprisingly intact shed lizard skins and molted duskbird feathers, and even some hollow onikabuto shells.

Wanderer picks up each one with care, mindful of your enthusiasm for your strange collection. He turns each object over slowly, inspecting them as you’re explaining the particularities of your collection.

“Hey, do you mind if I borrow some of these?” Wanderer eventually asks, as you’re nearing the end of your impromptu lecture. “I’ve got this Amurta elective that I haven’t started my project for, and some of these are interesting enough. I could probably write something about them.”

Your sudden silence is worrying, and he’s quick to backpedal in case he’d offended you in some way.

“Or, forget it, I mean-” he turns and pretends to scratch his nose to hide the dumb expression he knows he must be making. “I know this is all probably hard to get, so if you don’t want to risk it getting broken or stolen…”

“I would love to share it with you!!” Your sudden shout scares him out of his foul mood, and he looks at you in bemusement. Your eyes are wide and shiny, matching the stupid grin that settles on your face. Just as he’s about to reply, you leap up and scramble for one of the unopened drawers.

You proudly present a wooden box, and when you open it Wanderer can see the interior is padded and separated with thin wooden strips, creating protected compartments just big enough to fit some of the larger items in your collection.

“You’ve got to take extra good care of this stuff, okay?” You instruct him, and you help him pack the items he’d chosen into your carrying case. “I mean, I can probably find some of this stuff again, but the more delicate things are harder to come by. Promise you’ll be careful?”

He looks up at you, closing the lid of the box slowly and fastening it shut. “Yeah, I promise,” he says, a faint smile tugging at his lips.

----- ⚘ -----

Literal Garbage: Scaramouche

“You’re throwing this shit out, right?”

The noise you make, of absolute disgust and denial, is enough to make Scaramouche second guess his own words for a moment. He recovers faster than you’d give him credit for, picking up the broken clay jar and the dull shard of a broken sword. He holds up both in front of you, an accusing glare pinning you.

“Does this look like normal stuff to collect, to you?” he demands, tossing both back into the bin where he’d found them, retrieving a foil candy wrapper and a graphite pencil with no nib. Again, he discards both items with a noise of exasperation. “None of this stuff has any use! It’s all just garbage! Where do you even find this?!”

“Like,” you say, shuffling closer to your collection bin and putting the cover back on it slowly. “On the ground and stuff? I don’t know what you’re expecting.”

Scaramouche pinches the bridge of his nose with a loud sigh, but doesn’t make any move to reopen the bin. “You’re seriously testing my patience, here. Why are you collecting all this garbage? Can’t you collect something less… bizarre? Like seashells, or something.”

“I have some of those, too!”

“Not the point, here!”

You look down where your hands are pressing down on the lid of the bin, then back up at Scaramouche with a bit of a pout.

“Are you really making me throw it all out?” You ask, pitifully. He takes one look at you and grumbles with displeasure.

“That’s not what I said,” he rolls his eyes, crossing his arms as he looks down his nose at you. “You want to waste your time picking up other people’s trash and pretending it has meaning to you? Fine, be my guest. But don’t come crying to me when you realize you’re stuck with a container full of useless junk that nobody wanted anymore.”

“Sometimes, even the things that people feel have no practical use can be worth a lot to someone else,” you tell him. “Things don’t have to be worth anything to be wanted.”

Scaramouche chews on your words for a moment, then shrugs. “Sure, whatever you say, I guess.”

He doesn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon, so you tentatively open the bin and reach inside, fishing around until your fingertips grasp what you’re looking for.

“Are you sure you don’t recognize this one?” You ask, holding up the candy wrapper so he can see it. He scrunches up his nose at the offending item.

“Am I supposed to?”

“It’s from that festival in Inazuma,” you smile, bringing the wrapper to yourself gently. “The one you guys took me to when you found out I hadn’t been to one before.”

Scaramouche looks at it closer, out of the corner of his eye. He lets his shoulders slump and shakes his head with a huff.

“Whatever,” he says. “The rest of it is garbage, though.”

You put the wrapper away with a cheeky grin.

[distort-opia]

I'm wracking my brain with what Joker would do in an established situation, like how would he keep those homicidal urges at bay (sex and intimacy can only go so far I imagine) and also there's so much unacknowledged mental health concerns. Bruce would just have to always be ready to pick up the pieces I feel like (God these two are a tragic mess). I don't think normalcy is possible but I don't think their relationship is built for that anyway (I've been writing notes down for a story for days and it's just been consuming me)

An actual relationship between Bruce and Joker is a very complicated thing to imagine, yeah. I agree with you that normalcy is entirely out of the question-- as in, a typical "healthy" relationship. What I think they could have is something that works, but not something that most people would understand or approve of. If you're writing a story, I would say it depends on how they got into the relationship a lot, and if Bruce is compromising as much as Joker perceives he is. For instance, a rehabilitation scenario inherently implies a power imbalance, which Joker would resent and Bruce would not be able to help not taking advantage of. This would not end up working out, in my opinion, unless they got back on equal footing somehow. So a scenario with them an equal footing is what I will be rambling about.

Joker's homicidal urges and mental health issues are indeed a big obstacle. It'd take a whole lot for him to even agree to try for a relationship that involves something other than violence, but this denotes a willingness to compromise from the start. It means he cares about Bruce enough to risk opening the door to his humanity, something that he's very keen on eradicating. Joker can allow himself to love Batman as long as love equals destruction; but once love begins to mean more tender things, things that only people and not monsters can feel... it's a threat to his very identity, to his very core. Hence, just the fact that Joker is in an established relationship means that he's accepted, one way or another, that he's a human being.

Human beings don't need to kill people. Monsters do. It's relevant to note that Joker has an incredible capacity to reshape himself. He's done so multiple times in canon, and always in relation to what he perceived Batman needed. He was murderous when he emerged, but after Robin appeared on the scene he went for funny silly gags, and then he recreated himself back into a horrific threat... In his head, Batman -- the drive to see meaning in all life, to fight for sense in one's existence -- is the force of nature that he's the opposite of. Joker molded himself as the force of chaos: he kills carelessly, sometimes almost joylessly, because he believes he's embodying the true way the world works (though he's shown signs he'd like to be convinced otherwise).

After all, like his fall in the acid and the trauma he went through proved, catastrophe is random. It doesn't matter if you're good or evil, if you've got a family or if you're alone, if you've contributed to society or not. You can get run over by a bus, you can have a heart attack, you can mix the wrong medications, you can get shot in the head by a madman because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. My point with this is that Joker sees himself as an agent of the cruel randomness of existence, and him killing people is very much part of it. So if he stopped seeing himself as an inhuman force for chaos, I think killing would not be a necessity anymore.

That's not to say he wouldn't think of other people's lives as worthless or that he wouldn't instinctually want to kill someone because they're inconveniencing him as some kind of fly buzzing around, but it does mean he wouldn't need to do it. Being with Bruce undermines the very point of being Joker, it means being a person instead of raging at the world. In an established relationship, he'd need to once again reshape himself, figure out who he can be. It'd be very difficult, if you add Bruce's controlling tendencies in the mix. You mentioned Bruce always having to pick up the pieces, but the thing is, Bruce would want to. He'd want to do that too much, he would enjoy seeing Joker be vulnerable, because afterwards... Bruce would be able to put those pieces back together the way he wants them to be. And Joker would be rightly afraid of that, and Bruce himself would be afraid of his own need to do just that, and it'd be a constant push and pull. That's basically what I think it'd be like for a while, before Joker figured out who exactly he's comfortable being, and if he can trust Bruce to still be there when boundaries are being pushed. It'd be a lot of "make me" even in the context of intimacy, until Joker initiates something that doesn't hurt on his own and like... Bruce doesn't move a muscle as if he might spook a wild animal or something. And then Joker snaps at him to stop making it weird, hah.

I'm going to stop here to avoid turning this into a Batjokes relationship essay, but I hope this helped inspire you, Anon! We can always use more Batjokes stories, excited to eventually read yours.

[hereforreadandwrite]

Chapter Five

Masterlist

"I don't know why I didn't think of this. The elevator is by far the most efficient way to get around the factory."

Willy pressed a button, the elevator. The double doors opened, allowing the small group to enter the cramped cabin. You were uncomfortable seeing the void beneath your feet. You leaned against the glass wall, taking a deep breath. Your gaze rested on the many buttons that covered an entire wall. How was it possible for a chocolate factory to have so many floors? Even Mike was puzzled.

"There can't be this many floors," muttered Mike, glaring at Willy.

"How do you know, Mr. Smarty Pants?" Willy asked, glaring at Mike. "This isn't just an ordinary up and down elevator, by the way! This elevator can go sideways, longways, slantways, and any other ways you can think of! You just press any button and, whoosh! You're off!"

Willy pressed a random button. The elevator doors closed and the cabin moved suddenly, tripping the group. Because of the jolt, you fell on Willy. You had to cling to him to keep from falling. Surprised, Willy wrapped his arms around you, keeping you from crashing to the ground. You felt your cheeks heat up as you met Willy's amused gaze. The chocolatier helped you to your feet, wrapping his arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him.

"You should be careful, Barley sugar. You shouldn't hurt yourself," Willy said smiling at you with all his perfectly white teeth.

"S-sorry."

"Oh! Look! Look!" Willy suddenly exclaimed.

The elevator entered a dome. You were surprised to see the glass cabin pass over a mountain. Oompa Loompa were climbing the mountain, collecting the ingredients.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Fudge Mountain!"

The glass elevator continued on its way, leaving the dome and entering a room with candy pink sheep being shaved. You cast a puzzled look at Willy who tensed slightly, saying he didn't want to talk about this room. The elevator left the sheep room and entered a room for the badly burned welcome show dolls. Willy giggled, commenting that this piece was relatively new. You couldn't help but roll your eyes as the elevator descended into the administrative department. The chocolatier greeted a woman named Doris who greeted him back. The elevator started again suddenly, arriving in a huge dark room. The sound of cannons and fireworks was deafening. It was all strange, but oddly enough, you and Charlie liked it. But Mike was unimpressed. He even seemed bored by all this.

"Why is everything here completely pointless?"

"Candy doesn't have to have a point. That's why it's candy," Charlie replied, which made Willy smile.

"It's stupid! Candy has a waste of time!"

You felt Willy's grip tighten around your waist. You turned to the chocolatier. His eyes were lost in the void. He seemed, once again, reliving a painful memory. Mike groaned as he turned to Willy.

"I wanna pick a room," the boy growled.

Willy shook his head slightly, snapping out of his thoughts. The chocolatier was smiling, showing all his teeth. His smile made you feel uncomfortable.

"Go ahead," he replied in a deceptively soft voice.

Mike turned to the buttons. His gaze was drawn to a button leading to the TV room. The elevator stopped short, before heading off in another direction. You looked at Willy out of the corner of your eye, the chocolatier had become silent, swallowing painfully. You didn't have time to ask him if he was okay when the elevator suddenly stopped. Willy quickly let go of you, rushing out of the cabin to put on some weird glasses.

"Here! Put these on quick, and don't take them off whatever you do!" Willy ordered, putting his weird glasses on your nose. "These lights could burn your eyeballs out of your skulls! We certainly don't want that, now, do we?"

He finished his sentence by pressing his finger to your nose before turning his back on you.

"This is the testing room for my very latest and greatest invention: television chocolate! One day it occurred to me: Hey! If television could break up a photograph into millions and millions of tiny little pieces and sent it whizzing through te air then reassemble it on the other end, why can't I do the same with chocolate? Why can't I sent a real bar of chocolate through the television all ready to be eatent?" Willy explained as he walked towards the checkpoint.

"Sounds impossible," replied Mr. Teavee.

"It's impossible!" Mike cried, following Willy closely. "You don't understand anything about science! First off, there's a difference between waves and particles, duh! Second, the amount of power it would take to convert energy in matter would be like nine atomic bombs!"

"Mumbler!" Willy shouted, turning to Mike. "Seriously, I cannot understand a single word you're saying."

The chocolatier's body was tense because of the little hacker. Mike hated being contradicted and having no one follow his point of view. You hated that kind of person. Even if you put all the evidence in front of him, he would still tell you that you are wrong. Mike might be smart, but he wasn't going to last long in the real world.

"Oki Doki! I shall now send a bar of chocolate from one end of the room to the other by television! Bring in the chocolate!"

Oompa Loompas entered the room with a huge Wonka chocolate bar. It was the biggest bar you had seen in your life. The little men put the huge chocolate bar on a pedestal. Willy explained the fact that the bar had to be huge in order for it to come out of the television at a normal size. That it was the same basic basic as when a camera filmed a tall person and he came out normal sized. Willy pressed a button. The pedestal rose, to your surprise, the chocolate started avoiding it, a huge glass tube joined the pedestal, holding the huge bar of chocolate as a strange camera pointed at the candy. A flash illuminated the room. The bar had disappeared.

"It's gone!" exclaimed the two cousins.

"Told you. That chocolate is now rushing through the air above our heads in a million tiny little pieces," Willy explained smiling at the two cousins before rushing over to the television. "Come over here! Come one. Come on. Come on!"

The group followed the ecstatic chocolatier. They stood in front of the television, blocking the view of the Oompa Loompa settling into his chair. The screen image showed howling monkeys. It only took a few seconds before the chocolate bar appeared. Willy had succeeded? It was surreal.

"Take it," Willy said, jostling Mike slightly.

"It's just a picture on a screen," replied the young hacker, unimpressed by what had just happened.

"Scaredy-cat," Willy replied before turning to Charlie. "You take it. Go on, just reach out and grab it."

Charlie looked at you puzzled. Should he? You nodded slightly before nodding at the television. Charlie took a deep breath, moving closer to the screen, slowly plunging his hand into it. Your cousin's hand entered the screen, grabbing the chocolate bar he pulled out of the television.

"That's great," you breathe.

"Eat it. Go on," Willy said, catching Charlie's attention. "It'll be delicious. It's the same bar, just got a little smaller on the journey, that's all."

Charlie slowly opened his tablet, a little perplexed. His gaze rested on Willy who bit into the void, encouraging him to bite into the chocolate. Your cousin bit into the chocolate bar before smiling at his idol.

"It's great!"

"So imagine!" Willy exclaimed, stepping away from the group, facing them. "You're sitting at home, watching television and suddenly a commercial will flash onto the screen, and a voice say: 'Wonka's chocolates are the best in the world. If you don't believe us, try one yourself.' And you simply reach out and take it. How about that?"

"So… can you send other things? Say like… breakfast cereal?" asked Mr teavee uncertainly.

"Do you have any idea of what breakfast cereal's made of?" spat Willy in disgust. "It's those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners."

"But could you send it by television if you wanted to?" you asked, eyeing the chocolatier.

"Of course I could," he replied, shrugging.

"What about people?" Mike asked suddenly.

"Well, why would I wanna send a person? They don't taste very good at all."

"Don't you realize what you've invented?! It's a teleporter!" Mike exclaimed, frustrated that no one thought like him. "It's the most important invention in the history of the world! And all you can think about is chocolate!"

"Calm down, Mike. I think Mr. Wonka knows what he's talking about," said Mr Teavee, trying to calm his son.

"No, he doesn't!" Mike spat angrily. "He has no idea! You think he's a genius, but he's an idiot! But I'm not."

Mike suddenly runs towards the checkpoint, jumping over the chair and pushing Oompa Loompa out of his way.

"Hey, little boy. Don't push my button," Willy warned.

Unsurprisingly, Mike didn't listen to anyone. He pushed the button, jumping over the checkpoint to land on the pedestal. Mr. Teavee runs ahead of Willy, helplessly watching his son's stupidity. Mike began to float in the air. The arrogant boy began to dance before waving at Willy. The chocolatier was rolling his eyes when a flash lit up the room before disappearing. Mike had disappeared.

"He's gone," said Mr. Teavee under his breath.

"Let's go check the television and see what we get," Willy suggested as he walked back to the screen.

The rest of the small group moved closer to the television, watching the screen intently. Looking for Mike who was slow to appear.

"I sure hope no part of him gets left behind," Willy muttered, bad luck, Mr. Teavee heard him.

"What do you mean?!"

"Well, sometimes only half of the little pieces find their way through. if you had to choose only one half of your son, which one would it be?"

"What kind of a question is that?!" cried Mr. Teavee, turning angrily to Willy.

"No need to snap. It's just a question," Willy muttered before turning to the Oompa Loompa. "Try every channel. I'm starting to feel a lillte anxious."

The Oompa Loompa picked up the remote, beginning to zap. An image of a reporter Oompa Loompa appeared on screen with Mike, miniaturized, materializing on his desk.

"There he is," you say, pointing your finger at Mike.

"Mike..."

The Oompa Loompa began to sing about Mike being in front of the television for far too long; that it was rotting his brain and driving him crazy. The boy was always close to dying crushed under the tenderizing hammer of a cook, under the drumsticks of a drummer, a boxing game and under stab wounds which he managed to dodge before ending flattened under the papers of the Oompa Loompa journalist, startling the small group.

"Ew! Somebody grab him!" Willy exclaimed.

Mr. Teavee ran his hand across the screen, grabbing his son, now tiny and speaking in a high-pitched, unpleasant voice. You couldn't help but feel sorry for Mike, even though it was deserved for playing with fire. But you didn't wish that, even on your worst enemy.

"Oh, thank heavens. He's completely unharmed," Willy commented without being truly relieved for Mike.

"Unharmed?! What are you talking about?!" exclaimed Mr. Teavee, placing Mike in his hand.

"Just put me back through the other way!" Mike ordered.

"There is no other way. It's television, not telephone. There's quite a difference," replied the chocolatier.

"And what exactly do you propose we do about it?" asked the father between his teeth.

"I don't know. But young men are extremely springy. They stretch like mad. Let's go put him in the taffy puller!" Willy finished with a huge smile.

"Taffy puller?!"

"Hey, that was my idea," Willy replied before looking at Mike. "Boy, is he going to be skinny. Yeah… taffy puller. I want you to take Mr Teavee and his… little… boy… up to the taffy puller, okay? Stretch him out."

The Oompa Loompa rose from his seat, tugging Mr. Teavee's pants a little. He followed the little man out of the room, leaving Willy with you and Charlie. The light went out, allowing the people in the room to remove their strange glasses. The trio tossed their glasses into a small bin on their way to the elevator.

"There's still so much to see! Now, how many children are left?" Willy asked, turning to the two cousins.

You and Charlie looked at each other for a few seconds. You cleared your throat, looking nervously at Willy.

"Willy...Charlie's the only one left," you say, putting your arm around your cousin's shoulders, pulling him closer to you.

Willy was surprised by your words. His gaze fell on you, then on Charlie before scanning the room, looking for other children.

"You mean...you're the only one?" Willy asked softly.

"Yes," Charlie answered with a slight nod.

"What happened to the others?"

You didn't know what to answer to that. With everything that had just happened in this strange chocolate factory. It was a miracle you and Charlie were still together.

"Oh my dear boy, that means you've won!" Willy cried grabbing Charlie's hand, shaking it frantically. "Oh, I do congratulate you. I really do. I am absolutely delighted! I had a hunch right from the beginning! Well done! Now, we mustn't dilly, or dally. We have an enormous number of things to do before the day's out. But luckily for us, we have the Great Glass Elevator to speed things along-"

As he spoke, Willy let go of your cousin's hand, heading for the elevator. But to your surprise, and Charlie's, the chocolatier collided with the glass doors before collapsing to the floor. Willy sat up quickly, putting his hat back on his head, an embarrassed smile on his lips.

"Speed thing along," he finished pushing the button, opening the doors. "Come on."

You took Charlie's hand, stepping into the glass elevator. Willy entered in turn, looking for a button before pressing a button labeled: Up and Out. Charlie asked which room it was, to which Willy told him to hang on with a huge smile. The elevator moved, going up faster and faster. You felt your heart race, especially hearing Willy say that the cabin had to go a lot faster if he wanted to get out.

"I've been longing to press that button for years! Well, here we go. Up and Out!"

"Do... do you really mean?" you asked terrified, hugging Charlier to your chest.

"Yeah! I do!"

"But… It's made of glass! It'll smash into a million pieces!" you exclaimed horrified. "Stop it!"

Unfortunately for you, Willy just laughed like crazy. You looked at the ceiling, seeing the device approaching at full speed a huge window. The glass elevator passed through the window. With the impulse, the elevator rose high in the sky before plummeting. Charlie was burying his face in your chest, not wanting to see what was going to happen. The cabin was passing between the chimneys when Willy pressed a button, activating the reactors. The glass elevator suddenly froze. You slowly let go of Charlie when you saw the device floating in the air. It wasn't more reassuring, but it was better than being in free fall. The cabin began to move, flying above the entrance to the chocolate factory. The trio could see the children, punished, going out. Augustus was covered head to toe in chocolate, Violet was back to normal size, but she was still blue and had become extremely flexible, Veruca and her father were covered in filth and trash. You noticed the spoiled girl looking in your direction before talking to her father. Probably to request a flying glass elevator. As for Mike, he was now taller than his father and as thin as a sheet of paper.

"Where do you live?" Willy asked, leaning slightly towards Charlie. Charlie smiled before turning to look around for his house.

"Right over there. In that little house."

Willy pressed another button. The elevator started up to the little house. You were about to tell Willy to land in the garden, but the elevator went through the roof, landing in the only room in the house. Your uncle, aunt and grandparents looked at the trio surprised by their sudden entrance. Charlie was smiling broadly, greeting his mother. The elevator doors opened. Charlie rushed into his parents' arms, you followed more calmly, leaning against the table. Willy walked slowly out of the elevator. All eyes fell on the chocolatier.

"Mr. Willy Wonka," Grandpa Joe said with a huge grin.

"He gave us a ride home," you say, smiling at the chocolatier.

"I see that," your aunt commented looking at the hole in the ceiling.

"You must be their-" Willy yawned trying to say the word.

"Parents?" Mr. Bucket asked puzzled.

"Yeah. That," he replied with a forced smile.

Under the puzzled gaze of all, Willy began to search the house. Opening all the cupboards and closing them quickly.

"He... he s'ays Charlie's won something," you say, turning to your family.

"Not just some something. The most "something" something of any something that's ever been," Willy said, turning to you with a huge smile. "I'm going to give this boy my entire factory."

"You must be joking...," you say under your breath.

"No, really. It's true. Beacause you see, a few months ago I was having my semiannual haircut and I had the strangest revelation. In that one silver hair, I saw reflected my whole life’s work. My factory, my beloved Oompa Loompas. Who would watch over them after I was gone? I realized in that moment: I must find a heir. And I did, Charlie. You!"

"That's why you sent out the golden tickets," says Charlie excited by his award.

"Uh huh! I invited 5 children to my factory and the one who was the least rotten was the winner," Willy explained before stopping his digging to turn to Charlie with a huge smile. "So, what do you say? Are you ready to leave all this behind and come live with me in the factory?"

"Sure. Of course. I mean, it's all right if my family come too?"

"Oh! My dear boy! Of course they can't!"

This announcement throws a chill in the dilapidated little house. You couldn't suppress a nervous chuckle, tucking hair behind your ear. Maybe you heard wrong. Willy couldn't say such a thing.

"You can't run a factory with a family hanging over you like an old dead goose. No offense."

"None taken. Jerk," Grandpa George muttered.

"A chocolatier has to run free and solo! He has to follow his dreams! Gosh darn the consequences!" Willy continued, ignoring Grandpa George's insult. "Look at me. I had no family and I'm a giant success!"

Your nails dug into your arms, you wanted to cry, to scream, to run away. Why was he doing such a thing? Was it just a cruel game for him? A big joke? The news of the chocolatier had considerably dampened Charlie's joy. The boy's gaze fell on you. You had curled up on yourself, refusing to look at Willy.

"So… if I go with you to the factory, I won't ever see my family again?" Charlie asked.

"Yeah! Consider that a bonus!"

You couldn't help but shake and lower your head, cupping the bridge of your nose between your fingers. You didn't have to cry. You shouldn't be cracking up now. You turned your back on the chocolatier, going into the small kitchen.

"Then I'm not going," Charlie replied with a neutral expression. "I wouldn't give up my family for anything. Not for all the chocolate in the world."

"Oh... I see. That's... weird. There's other candy too besides chocolate," Willy tried.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Wonka. I'm staying here," Charlie replied.

Willy hadn't expected such an answer. Why Charlie refused to leave everything behind to live in his marvelous chocolate factory? His gaze fell on you, trying to find support, but you turned your back on him, refusing to look at him. The chocolatier felt his heart sink when he saw that you were upset. So it was going to end like this? Without an heir and without being able to talk to you anymore?

"(Y/N)?" Willy called, taking two steps towards you.

"Leave me alone!" you growled without turning to the chocolatier.

"Okay... If you change your mind Barley sugar, my door will always be open to you."

Willy returned to the elevator, stunned. It was a surprising turnaround.

"Wow... well, that's just unexpected and... weird. But I suppose, in that case, I'll just... goodbye then," he said, pointing his finger at a button before stopping, looking one last time at Charlie. "Sure you won't change your mind?"

"I'm sure"

"Okay. Bye." Willy pressed a button.

The doors closed and the elevator left through the hole it had made. Once the chocolate maker left, the house fell silent. You couldn't hold back your tears any longer. Charlie was the only one to come and console you while the others preferred to look away until Grandma Georgina spoke.

"Things are going to get much better."

[awakentheeldritchabomination]

The Thing About Redesigns, Rewrites, and Reimagines…

(Part I: Broader Discourse)

To those of you who’ve been keeping tabs or maybe seen my posts floating around the tag, you might recall me mentioning that I felt a bit of hesitancy toward the prospect of joining in on the recent wave of redesign/rewrite content. In the more likely scenario that you haven’t or do not know what the crap I’m talking about, that’s fine lol. Understandable. It was a little thing I had written into my first rewrite/redesign post about Charlie. In a short aside, I explained that it was because I’d felt “bad about tinkering with someone else’s work like this”, and then I’d left it at that. So… yeah. Why am I bringing it up now?

Well, I don’t think I need to tell you that this fandom is… a lot. Y’know people have been talking…discourse is being had… heated, moral arguments are being hurled left and right. And in light of all the growing, reactionary accusations, I…found myself starting to feel bad again.

My initial issue, the reason why I didn’t immediately jump to sharing my ideas was that, for all her faults, I empathize with Viv as a creator and didn’t want to feel like I was disrespecting her, her characters, and her vision by reworking it to suit my own. I had frustrations and criticisms, but I never wanted to make it seem like I was trying to ‘fix’ her work or her style. I really didn’t want to be one of those pretentious dipsh*ts (the kind that take a piece of art, digest it through their own preferences and biases, then spit it back in the artist’s face with a, “There. I made it better”). In the end, I went through with it because I had a small hyperfixation and a tendency to project my own issues onto characters I love (I’m sure some of y'all can relate). And also, I was having fun. But… then more discourse poured in, and I saw all the concerns I expressed reflected in the arguments presented by other fans and artists.

And well… That made me feel like I was doing something wrong, like perpetuating and becoming the exact problems I had wanted to fight against. So, I took a step back. I reevaluated.

Now, I have thoughts (shocker!).

And they are conflicted.

On one hand I agree with the idea that redesigns/rewrites are not inherently bad or disrespectful things when it comes to productions like Hazbin since Viv is not a small creator with no power. She and her team have ultimate authority over the show’s events, and those plans will not be derailed by what is basically some random tumblr artist’s fanart/fanfiction.

In regards to the critical side of things, that kinda comes with consuming and digesting the messages and presentation of a work of art. Ideally, it should get people to discuss in this capacity, especially when it deals with such sensitive subject matter as Hazbin does (and especially when it is executed with evidently problematic notions which do bleed into the designs at times).

Still, I do think this trend can be disrespectful if the intention and presentation are made with an aggressive holier-than-thou attitude which explicitly seeks to one-up the creator. Though I understand where it comes from, I think that can be just straight, undiluted maliciousness with a generous helping of pretentious, self-appointed superiority. And I don’t think it’s necessary to pick apart the style itself. You don’t have to like it, of course, but I feel like stating your preference for one way of drawing over another and asserting it as if it were some objective truth antagonizes the entire point of individual artistic expression and personal taste. Criticize the lack of diversity (something which, I’d like to add, is not actually unique to Hazbin) and potentially problematic aspects, but not the style. Even then, it’s important to be constructive not destructive.

That being said, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me (especially if anyone who’s a die-hard fan finds this) Whether you do or not is on you, and that’s okay.

This is more a snippet of my thoughts than a fully developed rant. I just wanted to share where I’m at right now. There will be a part 2 to this expanding some of my feelings while also outlining where I might go from here because things are going on in my head, and I don’t actually know whether I will continue or not with this project. Right now, it feels like it’s drifting toward a more original direction (Charlie feels like an entirely different yet vaguely similar character and dang it I’m attached…It’s kinda weird lol) so….anyway—I digress.

Thank you for reading.

[cowboysandpilots]

Hangster Ask

A hitchhiker, who favors the heart over the head.

A bed and breakfast owner, who has become jaded.

It's a romance-tinged story about accidental love. It kicks off near the beach with someone being accused of theft. (Note that: someone in the story is still haunted by a past mistake.)

And there's a twist! The best friend gets the happy ending first.

You don't have to do all of it, just pieces if you find something interesting.

(I LOVE the hitchhiker and b&b owner concept, so I went with that. Thank you 💕)

—

Jake really should've thought things through more before he decided to leave his whole life behind with nothing but the clothes on his back. In his defence, things had become boring, and the only thing he could think to do was to get out. To make something exciting happen.

He stood on the side of the road with his thumb out, thankful that it was a rare nice day, not too hot and not raining. It wasn't torture to stand outside for hours which is what Jake ended up doing. People were pretty weary of letting a random person into their car, but he had made it this far, and he couldn't just go back now.

At some point, his legs started to ache from pacing along the side of the road, and he found a small patch of grass where he could sit down for just a minute. Only after his ass makes contact with the ground does someone pull over and wave him up, inviting him over.

The driver asks Jake where he wants to go, and he realizes that he has no earthly idea where he wants to go or what the hell he's doing. "Uh... just the nearest place, I guess." He shrugs.

The driver gives him a curious look but starts driving anyway and doesn't say another word until they pull up to small and very homey looking bed and breakfast. The only reason that Jake knows it's a bed and breakfast is because of the sign out at the front. If there was no sign, he probably would have assumed that it was somebody's house.

"This is it."

He wasn't going to argue with the man, he had asked to be taken to the nearest place, and here it was. Given the loose parameters of what Jake had asked for, he was just grateful that it wasn't somebody's house. What would he do then, just get out and hope someone else picked him up?

Jake got out of the truck, feet hitting the pavement with a rough slap, and he waved the driver off as a thank you before he walked up the small stone walkway to the modest white house with a balcony across the top and the bottom and a blue door at the front.

Bradley never thought that he would be running a bed and breakfast. It was always his mom's gig, but after she passed away, he felt a responsibility to take it over. He hadn't wanted to hand it off to someone who might ruin everything she had built.

At first, he enjoyed it, but as time went on, and fewer and fewer people cared about going to bed and breakfasts over the choice of a hotel, he couldn't help but feel like he was doing the exact thing he thought all those prospective buyers would do, failing his mom.

A knock at the door pulled Bradley from his thoughts. Most people, once they saw the 'open' sign, just walked right in and never knocked. He got up out of his chair at the dining room table and went to open the door with a soft sigh.

Even looking at the beautiful, slightly dishevelled man standing on the other side of the door, Bradley couldn't get up the motivation to give him more than a soft smile and a flat greeting. He should maybe work on his customer service; it used to be much better, but years of this place wearing him down had left him exhausted all the way down to his bones.

"You have any rooms available?" Jake asks brightly, pulling Bradley yet again from his cloudy head.

"Yeah, lots of 'em. You looking for one?" Of course, he was; why else would he be here? But the words left Bradley's mouth before he could stop them, stepping aside to let the man in. He moved behind the small front desk and pulled a key off the hook.

"How much?" The man asks, and even though he's already reaching into his pocket for his wallet and Bradley knows nothing of his story, he feels a strange urge to give the man a discounted price on his room. A gentle voice inside his head that sounds suspiciously like his mom.

"$50," Bradley answers easily, half price; that should be enough to get the ghost of his mom off his back.

Jake nods and pulls $50 of cash out of his wallet, and sets it on the wooden desk. "I'm Jake, by the way." He smiles, and again, Bradley's smile doesn't reach his tired eyes.

"Bradley."

"It's nice to meet you, Bradley." Jake gives a wink and wanders off to go find the room number that's printed on his key tag. If he wasn't so eager to get a shower, he would've stayed to get to know the brooding owner some more.

It didn't take long for Bradley to become interested in Jake. Who he was and where he came from. It was hard not to when Jake was the only occupant that Bradley had in over a week. There wasn't much to do except talk to each other. Bradley was the only worker, and Jake was the only guest.

Things started off with Bradley cooking Jake's meals like he was supposed to, but after about a week of Jake living there, it turned into the two of them cooking together. Slowly, Jake could feel his attempts to get Bradley out of his shell working. The man was smiling more, he seemed lighter, and he didn't flinch away when Jake leaned in a little too close.

Jake had always been very big on one philosophy, and that is, 'Don't think, just do.' It had been working out for him so far, that's how he ended up here, so when his brain was screaming at him again to do something after two weeks alone with the older man, he pulled Bradley in and kissed him square on the mouth.

It was a miracle to Jake when Bradley didn't immediately pull away. When he kisses back with just as much enthusiasm as Jake gave him and even pulls him in by his hips. The pair only separate from each other, breathless and flushed, when the little bell on the door rings.

—

✨Request a $1 blurb?✨

[blackjackkent]

The guards inside the creche entrance round on them with startling rapidity the moment they show their faces.

"Sentries! To arms!" one of them snaps. Her eyes fix on Rakha in a sharp glare like that which she has often seen in Lae'zel's expression. "Istik. State your purpose - quickly."

"Stand down, gish," Lae'zel snaps back, equally sharp. "Is it not Vlaakith's command to welcome her faithful?"

"I expected no visitors, faithful or otherwise," the guard says coolly. "Why have you come?"

Rakha's eyes narrow warily. The antagonistic tone sends a flicker of irritation through her, something that could easily spiral into something more. But for Lae'zel's sake, she keeps her tone even with an effort of will. "I was infected by an illithid," she says. Little point in dancing around the subject; Lae'zel has made it clear that this is something the gith know of already - along with how to deal with it. "And was told to seek a githyanki creche."

She waits for the gish to direct them - but instead, the other woman's eyes widen and her mouth sets in a thin line.

"You are infected?" She spits the word out like a curse. "A ghaik thrall is something to eradicate, not reason with."

Her hand is already going towards her sword, and Rakha feels her pulse start to thump in her temple with the sense of impending battle. But Lae'zel's voice cuts across the moment, shattering it.

"The faithful may be purified!" she snaps. "This is Vlaakith's protocol!"

(A/N: I remember being a little baffled by this on my first playthrough - that Lae'zel seems so confident about this while it seems like literally every other githyanki clearly already knows the score. It makes sense for Voss to be like 'nah actually you're gonna die' - he's already rebelling against Vlaakith - but even this random guard goes straight past the cleansing concept and straight to 'time to eradicate this thrall.'

I find it kind of interesting tbh.

On the one hand - clearly this is partly a manifestation of how young Lae'zel is under all that confidence. The implication seems to be that yeah, it's hammered into you in your training that you need to report to a ghustil and get "purified" if you're ever infected, but that once you're actually out on duty it becomes an open secret that "purification" is just another word for death; Lae'zel just didn't happen to get that far before the nautiloid picked her up.

However - this leads to other questions. How are there not more rebels, if it's common to reach a point where you realize the purification lie is nonsense? What is the party line within these more adult units? Alternatively - is K'liir unique (and uniquely cruel) in framing it as a salvation, and every other creche treats it like a necessary sacrifice on behalf of the greater group?

IDK, I'm getting rambly here but it's intriguing to ponder. The whole creche sequence, if I'm honest, isn't always entirely clear in its writing, but if some of the minor holes are extrapolated I think it gets kind of interesting. :D )

The guard stares at Lae'zel for a long moment, reading her expression very carefully. Then she nods slowly, her lip curling with evident disdain. "Chk. Fine. Let the ghustil carry out your fate. Report to the infirmary at once."

Her eyes move over Rakha and the others briefly, then back to Lae'zel. "And step carefully. Creche Y'llek watches you."

-----

"She did not expect us to request purification," Rakha mutters matter-of-factly as they walk on further into the creche.

"I know," Lae'zel says curtly.

"You said it was a protocol. A standard procedure."

"It is," Lae'zel hisses. "That she did not honor it is no fault of mine."

"Voss also did not."

"Voss is a traitor. Should I find him again, I shall feed him pieces of his own skull."

Rakha tries hard to ignore the way the beast in her head shivers at this mental image. "But why do they deny it?"

"I don't know!" Lae'zel snaps at her; her voice whips out like a weapon, sharp as the blade on her back. "These inane questions serve nothing. Let us find the ghustil and finish matters."

[mostly-delusional]

I tried posting this shit like 3 fucking times but tumblr just won't go through with it so i had to make a whole ass separate post sorry 😭 this is in continuation to this post (for those who have no clue what I'm talking about) @abla-soso

yes, as it so happens, i am considerably new to the fandom. which is probably why i haven't seen the side of it you're referring to. and yet i still stand by my initial point of not throwing around words at random. you can't go around calling anyone a misogynist just because the fandom overall is shitty. you can't go around calling me a misogynist even tho I haven't ever participated in any of the stuff you mentioned above (idk why the fuck do i have to defend myself lmao but apparently i do).

the post this all started with was simply a meme referencing a scene from the latest episode. there are a thousand ways you could've taken it instead of straight up assuming I'm a raging women-hater lol. and then you mentioned another one of my posts where I called her misinterpretation a foolish mistake, again assuming the same thing.

"if the king's words are law [...] then Alicent would have been obligated to respect the king's dying words".

are you fr rn? 😭 "blaming a woman for what men did?" did you not read what i wrote? or maybe you just couldn't be bothered to understand? or maybe you would rather pick and choose and come to conclusions based on whatever conveniently furthers your own rigid opinion of me? not once did i throw all blame on alicent's shoulders. not once did i say she was the only one responsible for the events that went down. what i did say was that she was complicit in the act (which, according to the dictionary, does not equal to me saying she is the only one to blame).

"Otto is the fucking snake who schemed for decades to usurp the throne (the prophecy is fucking irrelevant to his plans). Viserys is the fucking dumb bitch who never undermined his daughter's claim by having legitimate sons and not bothering to codify her claim through a binding legalised law (giving any lord the legal justification to dismiss Rhaenyra's claim). Amond was the irresponsible brat who charged at Rhaenyra's brat and killed (being the actual one who kick started the violence)."

bro where did i excuse or defend any of the men you mentioned above? otto is a piece of shit and i won't bother talking about him (will agree with you about him being the mastermind of the entire usurping and the one behind all of alicent's suffering).

i multiple times agreed with you about viserys being a shitty father/husband and you still somehow think I'm defending him. so I'll state it here again to appease you: viserys was a shitty father to every single one of his children. he sidelined his own fucking daughter because all he wanted was a son. which led to his wife losing five of her children: one dead in the cradle, two stillbirths, two miscarriages. aemma was forced to have children over and over again despite everything she went through as a result of those pregnancies. and that bitch of a man killed his wife (there's no other way I'm going to interpret that scene), had her cut open just so he could have the son he always wanted (even tho aemma kept insisting she was scared and she wanted them to just fucking stop). he only named rhaenyra heir because daemon was too rash and impulsive for the task and there was no other better option. he considered marrying a literal fucking child only to turn around and marry a slightly older child. alicent was manipulated and disgustingly pushed into a marriage (by her greedy dick of a father) with a man who was decades older than her (not saying viserys was resistant to the marriage before you go ahead and call me shit for that too). she was maritally raped, forced to have children when she herself was a child. then comes aegon. viserys had the son he always wanted. and although he had already named rhaenyra his heir, he should have been there for his children. he should've played a role in their upbringing. instead he was— like you mentioned earlier— a deadbeat father. he couldn't be bothered to pay attention to the things happening right under his nose. he couldn't be bothered to acknowledge and do something about the resentment festering between rhaenyra, alicent, and their children. he was downright horrendous for a lot of shit that he did. nobody is fucking defending that. i'm not defending that.

you're right about aemond and I'll agree with you on that. him killing luke was one of the major reasons behind the dance and why everything went down to shit so quick.

i had no fucking idea that if i don't explicitly mention how i hate every man in the show and say that they were a piece of shit every time i talk about alicent, I'll be labelled all kinds of stuff. but there you go. does that make you feel better?

i said all that and i will still stand by the fact that alicent was complicit in the entire plan. she was a part of it. most of what i said was centred around alicent because that's who my original post was about and that's who we were talking about.

and i knew you'd make the "she was protecting her children argument". to that I would say: so was rhaenyra. alicent never left an opportunity to call rhaenyra's children bastards. she instilled hatred for luke and jace in her son's minds for years. to the point where aemond almost bashed one of their heads in, leading him (aemond) to lose an eye. yeah, she was protecting her children when she let aegon bully aemond to no end, so long as it didn't happen within public eye. yeah, she was protecting her children by completely ignoring her rapist of a son (I'm sure you have some kind of explanation for that too). she was being protective of her children when she spread rumours about the legitimacy of rhaenyra's children. it was only out of protectiveness over her children that she shamed and ridiculed rhaenyra for years. it couldn't have possibly been anything else. sure. (I'm never going to be convinced her attitude towards rhaenyra was solely a result of her fear for her children).

"her snake of a father convinced her they'll be killed for merely existing as potential rivals to Rhaenyra's claim"

that was the same argument used by the greens as an explanation for why rhaenyra and her children had to die. since they so graciously placed aegon's ass on the throne, it was only reasonable to kill rhaenyra and all her children because they were the biggest contenders for the throne and had a rightful claim to it. right. this was the same argument alicent used to ingrain resentment towards jace and luke in her son's mind.

and yes, she is also responsible for starting the war (as most of the characters are, in one way or another). because— might come as a shock to you— alicent went along with everything her family was planning. she is not as innocent as you want her to be but that's not a conversation you're willing to have (again, because apparantly everything has to be explicitly stated, I'm not saying she's the only one who's ever done anything wrong in her life. every single character on the show has done some or other awful shit. neither side is completely innocent. but alicent is the one I'm particularly talking about in this post). you're so adamant about alicent being oh so innocent and saintly that you're taking away all kinds of nuance, complexity, and moral ambiguity from her and turning her into some kind of mary sue with absolutely no fucking agency. because— "this might blow your mind"— but having trauma doesn't absolve someone from being wrong or making mistakes or facing the consequences of their own conscious fucking actions. there's only so much about someone that you can excuse using their past suffering. there has to come a point where a character needs to be held accountable for their actions and choices instead of justifying all of it in the name of trauma. but that's clearly not something you're ready to talk about.

I'm sure you'll still manage to pick something up from what i said and turn around and say "look!! misogyny!! you're a disgusting piece of shit!!" because apparently saying anything negative about a female character is a heinous crime. female characters aren't supposed to be morally corrupt. they aren't supposed to be wrong. they are only two dimensional. they can't have depth. they're all fucking mary sues.

this is the last time I'm adding anything to this argument conversation because we'll start going around in circles after a certain point and the whole thing will be pointless. so whatever opinion you hold of me after reading all of it is going to be your problem.

(also,,, I'm sorry if my tone offended you, i wasn't trying to be condescending or anything, i was just too goddamn pissed when i wrote this. have a good day <33)

[neopuff]

Little timeline I've been using in my GenRex fics. I know there's only supposed to be one year between Six finding Rex and Promises, Promises, but I don't like that it's such a short amount of time so I made it two years lol It's fine, I can ignore canon sometimes (slams my head thru drywall) I'm good at that it's fine

Rex is presumably 14 when Six finds him. They celebrate his 16th (or ?) birthday in Nov 2010, but when Caesar arrives they would learn Rex's real birthday (I picked April 'cause I wanted something earlier in the year) and so Rex would be 17 in S3

I also really want Rex to have had a blackout at some point while at Providence. I would've liked it to be earlier but the timeline really doesn't work out lol I mean it doesn't really work in timeline anyway but I don't caaaaaaare. Six says "You only remember the last 18 months" in Wasteland, which I assume is letting the audience know that 6 months have passed between Promises, Promises and Wasteland but I'm just shortening up that timeline. They can rebuild Providence HQ faster than that it's alright

Some notes:

One would've been an EVO for more than 5 years in Divide By Six but I figure it's okay to round down. 5 years sounds more dramatic than 5 and a half years

(Plus Caesar says he missed five years in Mixed Signals even though the Nanite Event was five years prior to The Day That Everything Changed, which means characters are doing a lot of rounding)

A Family Holiday would be Beverly's 18th birthday

This isn't referenced in the above image but I put Holiday at 33 and Six at 35 (start of series). Noah calling her 28 doesn't make her actually 28, he is a 16 year old boy he doesn't know how old women are

Holiday and Six got in less than a month of dating before Six Minus Six lol

And Six got about 2-3 weeks to get to know Rex before Lions and Lambs

Uhhh hmm. Anything else? Sorry I typed this all once and lost it all so I'm trying to remember what else I had.

OH YES a pre-Providence Rex timeline with a focus on his amnesia blackouts. Here we go:

Late 2004/Early 2005: Rex has an accident in Abysus. His family infuses him with nanites to help save his life. Rex has his first mini-blackout (not full amnesia, but he starts to have trouble remembering bits and pieces) due to the accident or the nanites it's hard to say. While his body adjusts to the nanites, he has a bunch of mini-blackouts and starts forgetting important things. He starts keeping a digital notebook around Feb/March 2005

April 2005: Nanite Event - Rex blacks out due to the shockwave/trauma/both. He turns into the Giant Robot EVO Thing and flies out of Europe. Heads in a random direction and ends up tired and without memory in Hong Kong. He still has his digital notebook and it's kind of the only thing that keeps him sane

Mid 2005 - Mid 2008: Rex in Hong Kong. He starts working for Quarry because he needs to make money/get food somehow. He also meets the Hong Kong Gang one-by-one and they become good friends, though Rex is secretive and anxious and paranoid. Incident with Scarecrow doesn't help.

Mid 2008: Rex knows he has family in Mexico thanks to an early entry in his digital notebook and decides he wants to find them. Quarry agrees to help Rex get to Mexico if he makes a deal with him. Rex hasn't blacked out in so long and is feeling confident about finding his family (Quarry told him he had a contact in Mexico City who would help Rex out) so he doesn't think he needs the notebook anymore. Quarry keeps it as collateral.

Nov 2008: Rex gets to Mexico but he is lost and scared and Quarry lied about having anyone there to help him out. Rex has another blackout (combination of stress and guilt) and turns into the Giant Robot EVO Thing again. Six finds him and brings him to Providence.

Aug 2009: Rex has another blackout while training with Six (something similar to what happened in Frostbite). Holiday and Six don't realize this is a Thing with him so they just start over from the beginning. Training is easier and faster now that they know how Rex's powers work and they're prepared for everything. Six gets Rex some goggles, Holiday gets Rex some gloves.

[odyssean-flower]

ok i played the new story update in hsr and here are my thoughts

warning: it's kinda negative

first things first: yeah i know this isn't the end of the xianzhou story, there are six ships after all and i guess luofu is supposed to be like the opening act to a bigger conflict with the aeons but m a n the execution was not good

the 1.3 story is more like an epilogue, which is fine, but it really should have been added to the previous patch. tbh the luofu story didn't need to be stretched over three patches with its overall length

i feel like everything went wrong when they decided to make the dan shu quests optional instead. i feel like they had to scrap a lot of stuff because of that? i agree that the dan shu quests felt out of place but they could have moved it around instead of just cutting them out of the main storyline. It's fully voiced after all and it has interesting lore

the problem is that the writers wanted to incorporate so many concepts but didn't want to (or can't) increase the length of the story. There are so much stuff going on like the conflict between Lan and Yaoshi, the bad side to immortality, the vidyadhara politics, the stellaron and the lord ravager, the sanctus medicus, dan heng & dan feng, dan heng and blade, the stellaron hunters, the high-cloud quintet, luocha, but all of these things only get brief moments of spotlight before we move on to something else. it makes everything feel kind of inconsequential and confusing

Especially the dan heng il thing which really should have been the main point of the story. his transformation is cool but it also feels random. the opening cutscene with blade also comes off as baffling in retrospect bc he didn't really do or explain anything??

i think they tried to rectify this by making the companion quests (like yanqing's and dhil's) basically main quests but they only raise more questions that may or may not get a definite answer. also these quests are optional

the ending is so abrupt, but they still try to tease continuations (see: jingliu and luocha cutscene at the end) even though we're leaving?? and who knows when these threads will get picked up again

Another problem i have: the vagueness of the lore and story. We finally know what dan feng's sin is...kind of. We maybe kind of know what happened to baiheng. tingyun's dead...or is she??? the writers love teasing resolutions instead of giving them, and it's honestly annoying. And im saying this as a genshin lore fan who loves finding random readables and trying to piece together what happened

The high-cloud quintet: ok this might be an unpopular opinion but i don't really care about them. maybe it's just my inherent dislike for the trope of "super elite group full of hot people who have a lot of history with each other and they feel sad about it :(" but they are just not doing anything for me right now. I like them all individually but as a group? meh. Part of the problem is that their lore is scattered all over the place and is very vague, so you really have to read between the lines and speculate in order to get their story, which requires a certain amount of investment from the start. i repeat that im a genshin lore player, but the thing about genshin lore is that it's not needed to understand the main story most of the time. Important stuff about the characters, on the other hand? tbh i care way more about spina di rosula trio or the narzissenkreuz people, and most of those people are npcs (faceless even)

honestly high-cloud quintet deserved a world quest chain or something instead of just (a very nice) animated short. as it is now i don't know why we would ever revisit them in the future considering dan heng doesn't want anything to do with them. maybe a rematch with blade?

tldr xianzhou had a lot of cool ideas but the execution was bad. oh well at least it had jing yuan

[aquilamage]

had a small random burst of aa inspiration and whipped up an excerpt of the untitled aai2 au. context: I didn’t want Kay Seb and Badd in the same place until Forgotten but couldn’t find any good reason for Badd not to be at the Zodiac Gallery. So I took Kay and Sebastian out of Inherited. Kay goes digging for info on what happened to Sebastian (or at least tries to). Except then she runs into him and they continue to butt heads. These bits are before and after that scene

.

To avoid Badd having any last-minute suspicions about her outing, Kay strategically waited in her room until after he left (accidentally slept in until her 10:00 alarm). She was still yawning as she made her way to the door to put on her shoes. When she picked up the second one, she noticed a piece of paper stuck in it.

Snacks in fridge.

Dropping the shoe, she ran over to check. Sure enough, on the middle shelf was a small lunchbox. Its contents: cheese sticks and pepperoni, apple slices in water with side compartments of peanut butter and cinnamon sugar, some homemade chocolate chip granola bars, and a little bag of pretzels.

She stared at it. Well, now she felt a little bad about lying. Not bad enough to change her mind. She needed to uncover the truth here, with or without his approval.

.

She made her way out of the Prosecutor’s Offices with a bit less caution than when she’d come in. (Almost no one who might even recognize her was left, anyway.) Jumping all the stairs from the outside doors to the sidewalk, she cut across the grass in the direction of the nearest bus stop.

Dropping her weight against the plastic back wall of the bus shelter, she huffed out a sigh. Well, that had been stupid. Not only had she gotten to do zero digging, but Sebastian had turned out to be just as insufferably...Like That...when he was alone as any other time. After that disaster, he’d lost all rights to her even dropping hints about who she was. (If she hadn’t seen him stumble over so many other seemingly obvious hints, she would’ve thought he had to be doing it on purpose.) Ugh. If she didn’t see him for another month, it would be too soon.

Someone had walked into the bus stop moments ago and she’d ignored them, busy glaring at a plastic bottle on the ground and bouncing on her feet as she ruminated. But then the hair on the back of her neck prickled too much to ignore the impulse to look.

It was Sebastian. Standing at the far diagonal of the shelter, staring, baton threatening to snap out of his grip. “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” she retorted. Based on everything else, she thought he would’ve gotten his own brand new car the moment he was old enough to drive.

His expression scrunched. “I asked you first!”

She put her hands on her hips. “I asked you second.”

For a moment, he continued to watch her with what was probably meant to be a glare but was actually a squint and a wobbly pout. Then, with a huff, he spun around to stomp off.

Right as it began to absolutely pour.

He shrieked and tripped over himself running backward into the shelter.

Kay sighed to herself. Pulling out her phone, she slid along the wall until she got to the point furthest from the bench. After a minute of Sebastian not moving she said, still not looking up, “You can sit. I don’t want to.”

It took another long moment, but finally he went and sat. Still not talking, which she was thankful for.

Opening her internet browser, she flicked through the hundred plus tabs she had open to locate that one article on knot tying she’d been meaning to read. Nah, not that one. Or that one. Ooh, a parkour technique video.

She’d just gotten through the initial explanation segment when she heard a low stomach growl. She looked down at her own with a frown before almost immediately remembering Sebastian. Hm. Well that was his problem. She started up the video again.

It happened again. Despite herself, she couldn’t help but be a little impressed. Getting through her earbuds and the incessant drum of rain.

(She did still have most of her snacks in her bag, her brain reminded her.)

Her finger hovered over the play button.

(...And Seb always really liked the granola bars every time she’d brought them to school.)

With a sigh, Kay yanked out the container in the same motion as she crossed the couple steps over to hold it out in offering.

He flinched once as she approached, and then a smaller one when she dropped it in his lap.

“You, uh, sounded hungry.” She rocked on her heels.

“Oh.” He lifted the lid cautiously. “Thanks?”

“Yeah sure,” she said quickly, scooting back to her corner. “Just give me the container back.”

She put her earbuds back in, but didn’t start the video up. Not yet. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him pick one up. It was silly, to think that just tasting the snack would be enough to make him recognize her, after everything else. That was something out of a story.

...But it also wasn’t impossible.

If that was even what she wanted anymore, she thought again, stomach turning.

He paused, frowning slightly, after his first bite, but otherwise didn’t visibly react. (Also still not taking his gloves off, despite the fact that he was definitely gonna get chocolate on them. So he really did wear those all the time. Maybe it was a texture thing? He’d had a bunch of texture things in school.

So she went back to her video.

Nearly at the end, absorbed in calculating how long she might take to learn it (and how spectacularly she could injure herself if she messed up), Kay startled when he interjected, too loud, “Hey?”

From his expression as she turned, he hadn’t expected the volume either. “Um, what time is it?”

“2:13.”

He nodded, biting his lip. Hands gripping the bench, he rocked slightly, now staring out into the rain.

“...Is your bus late?”

He tensed, and then tears started to collect at the corners of his eyes. “Yeah,” he squeaked.

With an internal sigh, she began pulling up the bus system tracker. “What number is it?”

“Thirty-four.”

Kay froze. That’s my route. Not the one she was currently waiting for: the one that went right by her childhood home. It was the kind of thing she would have laughed and commented about, if she was talking to a friend. Or a friendly acquaintance. Or a stranger. “Yeah, it says that one showed up like, super early. And the next one’s at 2:40.”

He nodded, still in the same pose.

When he didn’t give any other response, she rolled her eyes and looked back at her phone. She swapped over to one of her game apps, but just as it loaded she realized. Of course that was Sebastian's bus route; she could have guessed before she even asked him. He was probably still living in the same house, the one he'd grown up in – safe, familiar, with his parents the whole time-

Her throat burned like acid. She had so much energy: to scream, to stomp, to run out into the rain all the way back to the apartment. Instead, she threw herself to the ground, wrapping her arms around her knees. Sebastian moved out of the corner of her eye, but she ignored him. He didn't say or do anything else. Good. If she had to talk with him right now she'd explode.

She stayed like that until her bus came, then ran for the door. Sebastian yelled something after her, but she ignored him, sitting on the far side of the aisle and refusing to think about any of the day all the way back home.

[science-bastard]

yaaaayyyyy thank you for your endorsement in the notes :3 i’m putting this under the cut in case people from my d&d group are following me (i know the DM does but they already know the lore on the how and why of the cannibalism ;3c)

okay so her name is Diphylleia (Dip for short) and her backstory is a bit of a Giorno Giovanna ripoff but shhhhh don’t worry about it. she’s named after the flower of the same name, whose petals turn clear when wet. unrelated but she also talks :) like :3 this :0. don’t ask how she pronounces the emoticons out loud but she does it very distinctly. you can feel the “:)”.

her hometown is a busy port full of fairies and features a less-than-stellar cartography guild. the guild is making bad maps on purpose so they can lure sailors into traps and extort them for their money or their lives. they also may or may not have carried out a few hits in this manner. basically they’re super corrupt despite only being a cartography guild.

Dip’s dream is to take down this guild from the inside, so she joins the guild and gets assigned to one of their ships. she learns how to make maps (duh) and really builds on her existing background in ass-kicking when she starts defending the ship from monsters. (and also that one tax collector in one of the ports they visit.)

somewhere in the middle of all this, she befriends another fairy on her ship by the name of Echeveria, also a slayer of sea monsters and tax collectors. at one point he talks about his experiences as a trans man, making her realize that she herself is a girl actually. T4T bi4bi romance ensues. Dip proposes to him, and he says yes.

during one absolutely dogshit storm, their ship sinks. Dip, Echeveria, and four others wash up on what is, charitably, a very large rock. no animals, no fish, very few plants to speak of, none of which are edible. over course of the next several weeks, the survivors slowly starve.

eventually, it gets to a point where people start dropping. four of them are down within two days, leaving only Dip and Echeveria. they’re too weak to even move the bodies, let alone get up and search for food again.

they resort to mutually cannibalizing each other. it’s genuinely very romantic for both of them. Dip realizes that eating her fiancé doesn’t feel bad at all, not at all like she thought it would, and loses control of herself. Echeveria instinctively fights back at first, but soon he relaxes of his own volition and lets her eat her fill.

when she finishes, she’s in complete horror at what she’s done. this leads her to take one of his bones with her when a passing ship finally picks her up a few days later, which she later incorporates into the hilt of her rapier.

Dip immediately boxes all of this up and pretends none of it ever happened as she is assigned to a new cartography ship upon her return. sometimes though, she finds herself experiencing a new sort of hunger. she knows what it’s like to be hungry for food (better than most people, even), but this is… different.

so she ends up eating more people occasionally, but she has rules about who and when and how she eats them so it’s basically fine. :] the rules are:

any humanoid creature is fair game. (she is not limites to just fairies.)

no eating living people.*

no killing people for the sole purpose of eating them. if someone attacks her and she kills them, then it’s fine, but she won’t kill some random passerby just because she’s feeling peckish.

no eating friends, even if they die. (yes this is very hypocritical but echeveria was ✨special✨)

*one party member, COMPLETELY of their own volition and without knowing Dip’s backstory, is cutting off pieces of his own flesh to feed her once he finds out about her uhhhh “protein-heavy diet.”

there’s waaaaayyyy more still but i’m unironically having so much fun :3c

hey who wants to hear about my d&d character she’s a fairy fighter and also a cannibal