#but he doesn't feel like he has any other option to feed his magic

[lilbitosunny]

Just do it. Even though it hurts- just do it.

Anyways hi hello This is a cover I made for my book- Grief In Your Walls UuU

A few close-ups below!

[llamagoddessofficial]

May I have some Fae Killer dating headcanons?

Fae Killer is... weird

He's extremely hard to get a read on. At least the other Winter courtiers are easy to make sense of - Dust is quiet and serious, Horror is big and scary but shy, Nightmare is regal and refined with an undercurrent of rage. They make sense.

Killer? He's violent, but he's always got a friendly grin. He has the same "who, me?" expression whether he's eating a cookie or murdering someone. His backstory is unknown, changing every time someone asks. He appears to speak genuinely and openly, yet no one can trust a single word that comes out of his mouth. His knack for tricking and stealing is unparalleled, he tricks people out of things as small as their eye colour or as huge as their ability to breathe, all with the exact same 'silly' easygoing aura. He rescues stray cats from the cold and brings them into the castle, feeding them fish and chicken every day, but he also delights in torturing people he doesn't like.

Perhaps the only consistent thing about him is how obviously he's in love with you.

Even before dating him, his affection is blatant. He acts like he wants to be your best friend, your closest confidant, he's always looking for reassurance that he's your 'favourite'. The other skeletons will tell you that he doesn't shut up about you when you're not there. He's constantly outrageously flirting - he seems to show love through stealing from you, taking minor things like your ability to read the word 'strawberry', just so you'll get mad at him (it's obvious he thinks you're hot when you're mad). You're always covered in black marks and he laughs at almost everything you say.

When you do start dating him, he just... stops tricking you. Stops stealing from you, too. There's no warning, and no clear reason; you're just suddenly the only person in any world who's safe from his trickery. You could say something that leaves you wide open and the guy who could steal someone's nose from their face will act like he heard/saw nothing.

He's cuddly. So, so cuddly. It's actually kinda cute, when he's sleepy and aggressively snuggly with you. Kinda feels like he's been starved of affection, and he's making up for it by never letting you go.

No matter where you fall asleep, you'll wake up to Killer cuddled up. Probably a few of his cats piled in as well.

His number 1 goal is to get you laughing. There's always jokes, always remarks, it's so hard to be serious around him because he knows exactly what'll get you giggling. That's worth more to him than all the treasures in Summer and Winter.

He's generally an easygoing datemate, he has outlets for his jealousy. But he takes EXTREME offence to another fae stealing something from you. That means immediate violence.

This man will kill for you. In fact, he'll offer that option alarmingly quickly. Please ask him not to kill for you, for everyone else's safety.

His romantic side is dialled up to eleven. You're always coming home to mood lighting and surprise dinners, he's always taking you to beautiful scenic spots he's found in the Winter realm, he gives you things that remind him of you (typically flowers and gemstones, but sometimes magical artefacts, and occasionally something rather expensive that looks like it was stolen right from the Summer realm).

He's constantly wearing a 'happy' face. But sometimes, in private, the face falls. You can glimpse the part of himself he hides from everyone. If you can still hold him when he's not funny anymore, when the mask has fallen off... then he will burn down the whole world for you.

[nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos]

Short break from the ask request because I was almost finished with this.

And I've already done Mihawk, Shanks, and Zoro's so...

Sanji's turn!! 💙💙💙

Honestly chef whites have never looked better on anyone.

Ever.

(Please don't tell my husband he's a chef)

(Also he wants us to watch OPLA together, please send a prayer for my tainted soul)

(Gonna be twitching like I've downed two pots of coffee through all of Sanji and Mihawk's scenes)

And also HOW DARE NAMI NOT GIVE THIS MAN A HUG?? The actual AUDACITY??

Absolutely uncalled for 😒

Deep breath.

Anyway. Here's the headcanon thing.

Spicy, super fluffy, NSFW.

ABC's of Romance

A — Afterglow (How are they after sex?)

Absolutely, totally and hopelessly devoted to making sure you know just how much of a goddess you are.

Kissing you all over—your neck, your shoulders, your chest, your jaw and your lips.

Praising you endlessly.

"You're so perfect. I don't know how I ever lived without you."

Leaving you only long enough to prepare a quick snack, likely something like a fruit and cheese board paired with a light and tart Rosé wine.

Bonus points if you let him feed you.

He wants to pamper you like the queen you are, so just let him and he'll be in heaven.

B — Backrubs? (Do they like them? Like giving them?)

Yes and yes, and also *yes*.

Any reason to have his hands on you.

Obviously works with his hands all the time, and they are absolute magic.

One can get pretty sore being bent over a cutting board and a stove half the day, so if you get behind him and start rubbing his shoulders, he's going to melt right into your hands.

"Oh, my love, what did I ever do to deserve you?"

C — Cuddling (Do they enjoy cuddling a lot ot only at certain moments?)

Super clingy.

Like super super clingy.

He would probably just glue you to his side if the option presented itself.

Forever coming up behind you and wrapping his arms around you, kissing the top of your head and your cheek.

Nuzzling into the crook of your neck.

Any moment he isn’t holding you is a moment wasted.

D — Dance (Are they good at it? Do they enjoy it?)

Being a good dancer sort of goes hand in hand with being a hopeless romantic.

And again, he never gets tired of being close to you. Any reason is a good reason.

Seeing you in an evening gown or a cocktail dress is going to floor him absolutely every time.

"You look absolutely stunning, darling. Not that you aren't always stunning."

Lacing his fingers with yours, wrapping his other hand around your waist and rubbing his thumb there in slow little circles.

Resting his forehead against yours so he can gaze into your eyes the whole time.

Curling an arm around your back to dip you, and using it as an excuse to oh-so-subtly brush his lips to your neck.

E — Extravagant Gestures (Things they do to make you feel loved)

Preparing a surprise full-course candlelight dinner for just the two of you (and locking the rest of the crew out of the kitchen to ensure you won't be bothered, very much to Luffy's irritation).

Buying you little presents literally all the time, potentially to the point of financial ruin if you can't convince him to stop.

Laying out a blanket and pillows at the helm of the ship in the evening so you can watch the sunset or stargaze with a bottle of wine or mixed drinks.

F — Fighting (How do they handle arguments/apologies?)

Absolutely endless apologizing.

Literally begging on his knees if he has to.

Doesn't matter if he was in the wrong or not, he just can't stomach you being angry with him for any length of time.

"Please, love, just tell me what I can do to fix this. I'll do anything."

He's going to brush it off if you apologize because he just wants it to be over and done with.

Holding you close and cradling your head against him, kissing your forehead and assuring you he isn't upset.

G — Getting Hot (What do they do to turn you on?)

Full-on seduction.

Moving in behind you and brushing your hair behind your ear, his knuckles across your neck.

Rubbing his his hands up and down your waist, grazing his fingertipa across your stomach.

Trailing soft kisses up and down your shoulder and neck, soft little purr in your ear.

"Do you have any idea how badly I want you?"

Pulling you gently back against him and turning your head to gaze into your eyes.

Caressing his thumb across your cheek and brushing his lips slowly against yours. 

H — Heartache (How would they handle it if you broke up with them?)

Oh dear. Let's not do that.

It would absolutely shatter his entire world.

He will do anything in his power to fix whatever is wrong.

He is absolutely not above begging you to take him back.

And if you don't, well, you're his whole universe, and he'll almost definitely fall straight into a depression and refuse to get out of bed ever again.

I — Intimacy (When are they intimate with you? And how often?)

When isn't he?

The rest of the crew is constantly cringing and rolling their eyes.

Keeping his arm around your waist any time he has the chance.

Pulling you close and playing with your hair while he kisses you slowly.

Sneaking up behind you to lift you off your feet and ravish your neck and jaw with kisses.

It can honestly get to be a little much sometimes, but you really can't stand seeing how pitiful he gets when you shoo him off or tell him you're busy.

J — Joker (How do they make you laugh)

His relentless flirting makes you giggle more than anything.

The way he acts like he's still trying to win you over.

His little pout when you tease him about it.

"Well, who in their right mind wouldn't shower the most beautiful woman in the world with praise and affection?"

K — Kissing (How good? How often?)

All the time, and all over.

Your lips, your neck, your shoulders, your chest, your cheeks, your forehead.

Rubbing his hands up and down your waist, tilting his head in to kiss you slowly and deeply. 

Lightly brushing his tongue across your lips, letting you set the pace.

Absolutely losing his cool when you deepen the kiss, pulling you flush against him, picking you up and backing you up onto the nearest counter or table.

He absolutely doesn't care if there's anyone else around, because the rest of the world just melts away when your lips are on his.

L — Lay down (How do they sleep with you? Are they cuddler or do they prefer their space?)

He wants you absolutely flush against him.

Facing you with one arm under your neck and his other around your waist, cradling your head under his chin.

Pressing his lips to the crown of your hair.

Always making sure to tell you how much he loves and cherishes you before you fall asleep.

"I love you. So much. You're the best thing that has ever happened to me. I wouldn't ever trade this for anything."

Maybe more than once.

M — Making babies (Do they want to settle down and have kids?)

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

Maybe not right this moment, but starting a family with you would be an absolute dream come true.

Two or three kids, your own ship, searching for the All Blue together.

He literally daydreams about it.

N — Nervous? (How confident are they when it comes to romance?)

He was absolutely confident about winning your heart...

But he's a little nervous about keeping it.

That's why he's more than a little clingy. He wants to make absolutely sure that you know how devoted he is to you.

To your happiness, your hopes and dreams, your pleasure.

He wants you to know, every moment of every day, that he is absolutely and hopelessly in love with you.

O — Oral Fixation (Giving or recieving? And how good are they?)

Absolute giver, through and through.

Would gladly suffocate to death between your thighs, as long as the last sounds he heard were your moans.

He's going to eat you out like a man dying of thirst in the desert and you're the first water source he's seen in weeks.

Gripping at your thighs and your hips to pull you closer, his tongue working a steady rhythm, his eyes rolling back when you grip at his hair and moan.

Just living vicariously through your pleasure.

Kissing around your thighs and your stomach when you orgasm, before going right back in to get you there all over again.

You're going to have to tell him to stop, because he could literally do this all night.

He's not going to complain if you return the favor.

Watching you the entire time, his breath shuddering and his fingers combing through your hair, biting the side of his fist.

"O—oh god—oh god yes, love, you're so perfect...."

Absolutely losing his mind when you gaze up at him through your eyelashes and swirl your tongue around his cock.

Gripping at the bedsheets and pushing his hips up, swearing under his breath.

P — Pet Peeves (Things they don't like in a partner)

Being disrespectful toward hospitality workers (wait staff, line cooks, hosts, etc)—big pet peeve for anyone in the culinary industry, and he absolutely will not abide it.

Being inderect/aloof. He's more than happy to give you anything you want or need, so just tell him and he will.

Flirting with Zoro. Just don't, for god's sake. He'll kick that moss-head's face in.

Q — Quiet Time (How much alone time do they need, or do they want to be with you 24/7?)

Just let him glue you to his side already.

He wants to be with you every minute of every day, and he's going to make it known.

Every second of downtime he has, he wants to spend it with you.

Cuddling, kissing, making love, he doesn't care.

What you're doing together is completely on your terms, as long as you're together.

R — Romance (How romantic are they? Do they have to force it or does it come natural?)

Sanji is the most hopeless romantic you have ever met in your life.

It's impossible to count how many times he tells you he loves you throughout the course of a day.

It's also impossible not to believe him, the way he pulls you close and gazes into your eyes.

Cradles your head in his hands and curls his fingers in your hair and kisses you like might never have the chance to kiss you again.

S — Spending Money (How much do they like to spend on you?)

Too much.

No, literally too much. If you don't stop him he's not going to have any money left for basic needs.

Hide his wallet, for heaven's sake.

T — Trust (Are they trusting of you? Jealous?)

Yes, on both accounts.

Sanji absolutely trusts you.

But he gets jealous pretty easily. He does not abide anyone else trying to flirt with you.

He's not going to get upset with you about it. He wholly understands that you're the most beautiful being in the entire universe and that men are going to flock toward you.

But he's going to make sure that they know they can't have you.

U — Underwear (What kind do they wear, and what kind do they like on you?)

He tends toward boxer briefs, but if you told him you wanted to see him in a thong he probably wouldn't object.

You could wear a trash bag and he'd still be ga-ga over your.

But he still loves seeing you in soft, feminine things. 

Lace and satin and silk.

Seeing you in any kind of lingerie is almost enough to give him a heart attack.

V — Vulnerable (How vulnerable are they with you? Is it easy for them to open up to you?)

Sanji is a complete open book with you.

Wants you to know that it's perfectly safe for you to be open with him, and the best way is for him to be open with you.

Even if it's a difficult subject, he will bite the bullet and be completely honest.

Even if it's harder for you to be vulnerable, he will be without question.

Because he wants you to know that he'll be there to listen and understand wheneveryou feel like you can be.

W — Wine and Dine (Do they prefer meals at home or going out with you? Who does more of the cooking?)

Both, honestly.

He wants to take you out to lavish five star restaurants where he can focus all of his time and energy on you.

But he's always thrilled to cook for you.

The best answer is that he would prefer to cook with you.

Asking him if you can help in the kitchen melts him into a puddle.

X — X-Rated (How good are they in bed? What do they like?)

Absolutely hellbent on making you feel like a goddess, and he definitely knows how to.

While Sanji is a relentless flirt, he doesn't tend to jump into bed with just anyone, prefering that sex have both a physical and an emotional connection.

Slow, tender, and loving, making sure that you know he worships every single inch of you, inside and out.

Fingertips caressing up and down your inner thigh while he kisses you slowly.

His lips slipping away to trail down your neck, fingers trailing higher up your thigh, across your soft folds, rubbing your clit in slow, gentle circles. 

His breath catching a little when you moan or arch your hips arch toward his touch.

Every sound you make, every moan amd whimper amd gasp, is like music to his ears.

Trailing his lips lower, kissing and caressing every square inch of your chest.

His lips and his fingers brushing across your nipples.

Circling them with his tongue.

Alternating between rubbing your clit amd pushing two fingers inside you to focus on your g-spot.

Keeping a steady, perfect pace that sends you over the edge in a matter of minutes, over and over again.

Trailing soft kisses back up your neck, murmuring against your ear and gently stroking your wet folds.

"You're so beautiful when you're moaning."

Brushing his lips to yours in a slow, tender kiss before sitting up, gently pulling you with him by your waist and hand.

Pulling you flush against him so your thighs straddle his hips.

Slow, deep kisses, breath shuddering as he grinds his cock slowly against you.

Gripping your hips and lifting you up slightly on your knees, lowering you back down slowly.

Drawing in a sharp breath and moaning quietly against your lips as he slides into you.

Tightening his grip on your hip and your waist, fighting the urge to thrust right into you, wanting to savor the feeling of your tight inner walls slowly enveloping his cock.

Lifting a hand to cradle your head, his thumb brushing your hair behind your ear.

Lips slipping away from yours with a slow sigh once he's fully inside you, gazing into your eyes.

"Oh, you feel like heaven, love."

Lips brushing against your neck and your collarbone as he rolls his hips to meet yours in long, deep strokes.

One hand on your hip to guide your movement and his other trailing up your waist, caressing your stomach, your breasts, tangling in your hair as the pace increases steadily.

Lying you back on the bed and lacing his fingers through yours, gripping your hand to keep himself under control.

Kissing your neck and shoulder and caressing your thigh, grianing quietly, whispering in your ear that he loves you, how perfect you are, his beautiful goddess.

Pressing his lips to yours when you come again, your moans and the tight contractions of your orgasm driving him over the edge.

Thrusting fully into you and coming deep inside you, hands gripping your thigh and your hair, his moans answering yours amid a deep, passionate kiss.

Y — Yearning (How long will they pursue the person they're interested in before losing interest?)

Literally to the ends of the earth.

Sanji is a little obsessed with you. Just a little.

He isn't going to try to push you into anything you don't want, but the flirting will be utterly incessant.

He can't help it, it's his default setting.

He worships the ground you walk on and will stop at nothing to make sure you know it.

Z — Zen (What do they do to wind down and relax? Do they prefer to do it alone or with you?)

Always, always with you.

If it's coming up with a new recipe, he wants your input.

If it's lounging back on a lazy afternoon, he wants you lounging back against his chest so he can play with your hair and breathe in your perfume.

You are his peace.

[queen-of-deans-booty]

Out Of Options

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Avenger!Fem!Reader

Word Count: ~2k

Warnings: angst, anxiety and being paranoid

Summary: As much as Dean wants to help you, his methods aren't working and you're getting worse. You turn to your brother and a trusted friend to try and help, but you might have to create the reality that this Mark doesn't want to part from you.

Past, Present, and Future Masterlist

Square Filled: dean winchester (crossover bingo) for @fandombingo

Author’s Note: any and all comments are appreciated <3

x

The Mark craves power and you have a steady source of it on your other wrist. The effects for Dean were different because he was a human with no powers to supply the Mark. He had to kill in order to satisfy it whereas you’re in a constant state of wanting to kill something and using your powers to feed the Mark.

All you want is to get the damn thing off your wrist. Taking it at the time seemed fine but now that you’ve had time with it, you don’t like the evil presence it has. There is something dark and dangerous about this that you don’t like and you’re not sure how to part from it. What Dean showed you--the alcohol, the shooting, the rage room--helped a little bit, but now you’re back to how you felt before.

Anxious, paranoid, stressed, and everything else that makes you question the motives of everyone around you. Stephen isn’t much help either even though he says he’s trying to figure out a way to get it off you. What if he isn’t? What if he says he is and doesn’t have any intentions of helping you? What if everyone around you is against you?

“Y/N, you need to calm down,” Dean says.

You keep pacing the length of the library while muttering to yourself and scratching the arm the Mark is on. Sam, Dean, and Castiel are standing off to the side watching you with worried looks.

“I can’t. Get this thing off me. Please tell me you can get it off me,” you whimper and continue to pace.

“Cas?” Sam asks.

“If I couldn’t get it off of Dean, what makes you think I can get it off an Infinity Stone?”

“Will someone tell me they can get this damn thing off me?!” you shout.

Every source of light flickers on and off, and the tables shake from the intensity of your voice.

“Y/N, we’re trying--”

“I know you are,” you cut him off. You try to force yourself to calm down because you don’t want him to worry. If he knew the damage it’s doing to you, he’d only feel guilty for forcing you to take it. “How did you get it off in the first place?”

“The Book of the Damned,” Sam answers. “We could try that again.”

“Do you know what happened the last time we used that thing? Amara got free and terrorized Earth. God and Amara are locked up. If we use that thing, they will be free and who knows what will happen because of it.”

“We live in a world with magic and wizards. Someone out there has to know how to get this off me and keep it contained so they don’t get out.” You stop pacing when you think of that word. Magic. Stephen isn’t the only one who knows how to do magic. “I think I know someone who might be able to help.”

“Who?”

“My brother and his wife live in Westview. He’s not magical but his wife is. I think she can help.” You look at Dean. “Do you want to come with me?”

“Why not? I’m not doing anything else,” he shrugs.

“Let me know how it goes,” Sam says.

You create a portal to Westview which is at a different timezone than Kansas. The city of Westview is small and isolated from the other towns but the people seem happy there. Vision gave you his address when he and Wanda first moved there in case you ever needed him, and now you’re taking him up on that offer.

You easily find their house and see kids’ toys and bikes all in the yard. You knew they were trying to have children but didn’t know they managed to do it. He’s not human so he can’t produce sperm. She must have used magic to bring her children to life. You walk up the porch steps and knock on the door rapidly. The door opens and Vision stands there looking like a real human being. No stone in his head and wearing a suit and tie like he has somewhere important to be.

“What did she do to you?” you ask.

“Y/N, it’s good to see you. Come in.”

“No seriously, what did she do to you?” you ask and walk inside.

“It’s to help him blend in,” Wanda says from the stairs. “We both agreed it would be easier on the town if they saw him this way.”

“Right.”

“What are you doing here?” Vision asks.

“I need your wife’s help.” Dean clears his throat and he shuffles from one foot to the next. “Um, right. Dean, meet my brother, Vision, and his wife, Wanda. This is Dean, my…”

“Friend,” Dean says for you and shake both their hands. You’re not sure if that’s what you two are but it’s so hard to focus on other things when your head is always pounding. Though, you feel some sort of disappointment at being called his friend. “Nice to meet you.”

“What’s wrong?” Wanda asks.

You open your mouth to explain to her what’s going on when you notice Dean looking at you. You can’t do this with him listening. Two seconds later, his phone rings and he steps off to the side to answer it. Now’s your chance. You explain to both of them what you did for Sam and Dean, how it affected Sam, how you took the Mark off him, and how you took it on. You explain everything as fast as you can without leaving anything out, and you show both of them to Mark on your wrist.

“I‘m falling apart over here, Vis. I can’t tell Dean any of this because he’ll feel worse than he already does. I thought I’d be able to handle something like this. I’m the Time Stone. I know power but this is unlike anything I’ve ever come across in the universe. This is something evil. Please, you have to do something to help me.”

“Have you talked to Dr. Strange?”

“Yes and he says he’s working on it but he’s taking too long. I need it off now. Isn’t there anything the Mind Stone can do?”

“Let me see.”

You hold your hand out for him to examine the Mark. Dean comes back and looks a bit worried.

“Who was that? Are you okay?”

“It’s Sam. He caught a vampire case.”

“Do you need to go?”

“No, he’s got Cas. Can they get it off?”

“He’s looking at it.”

Vision runs his thumb across the Mark, and you flinch from how sensitive the flesh is. He turns back into his robotic purple self, and the Mind Stone glows brightly on his forehead. He shoots a light beam onto the Mark to try and minimize the effects it has on you, but it does the opposite. You yank back in pain and cry out from the sudden urge to kill something. A sharp pain shoots up your arm and into your heart.

“I’m sorry. The Mark drew power from me. I’m not sure what it is but it’s powerful and unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

“May I?” Wanda asks.

“Yes, please.”

She takes her left hand and holds your wrist while red magic comes out of her right hand. Her magic encompasses the Mark as she tries to pull it from your body but the second she does, you two get the shock of your life. Both of you are blown back to opposite walls, and she cries out in pain when her magic bounces back into herself. You fall into the wall where a couple of picture frames fall on your head, and Dean rushes over to you to help you up.

“What the hell happened?”

“The Mark doesn’t want to leave you. It found a source of power it doesn’t want to part from,” Wanda explains. “I can’t help you.”

“There’s nothing you can do?” you bite your lip worriedly and lean into Dean’s side.

“Wakanda might be able to help,” Vision says and holds his wife close. “They tried separating the stone from me, and Shuri nearly succeeded. Maybe they can separate the stone from you, and the Mark won’t have any use for you.”

“Fine. Thanks for trying.”

You create a portal to Wakanda right outside their dome because you don’t want to go in the middle of the city and have them start firing at you. Dean has never been out of the country much less to Africa, so this is all new to him. It takes some effort but the border is open for you and Dean to pass through.

The Dora Milaje meets you halfway to the castle and escorts you the rest of the way where Shuri, Queen Ramonda, and King T’Challa are. Again, you explain to them what is going on with you and keep out the part about how much it’s destroying you since Dean is here. He’s distracted and taking pictures to send to Sam but you keep it vague right now.

“Vision and Wanda couldn’t help and they suggested you, Shuri. I don’t know what else to do, and you nearly succeeded in getting that stone out of my brother.”

“Follow me.”

She and her brother take you inside the castle and down to the lab, all the while Dean is gasping at everything he sees and taking even more pictures.

“Sorry about him,” you mutter.

“It’s not a problem,” T’Challa smiles. “Just no pictures of the lab.”

“Yeah, you got it,” Dean nods.

“So, this is the same process as with Vision, right? Removing the Mind Stone is the same as removing the Time Stone from me?”

“Each stone is complicated in its own way, but I will definitely try.”

Shuri and T’Challa look at each other, and you see the unspoken words between them.

“What is it?”

“The only issue is that Vision is more than just the stone. He’s Jarvis, Ultron, Bruce, and Tony all rolled into one person. You’re just the stone. It’s going to be a lot harder to separate it from you.”

“But Stephen Strange is the one who did this to me. I have a part of him inside me, right?”

“Right. It’s not impossible, just more difficult. Come.”

You look at Dean once before following Shuri into the back room where she once worked on Vision. This time, there isn’t a threat looming outside so you think she’ll have all the time she needs to get this done. She hooks you up and starts diagnosing the stone before actually starting to remove it.

As soon as she’s ready, she begins trying to separate the stone from your body. You wince in pain and look away, and Dean walks over to grab your other hand. You smile painfully at him and he rubs his thumb on the back of your hand letting you know he is here for you. Even through all this pain, you still get butterflies whenever he does this sort of thing to you.

“Something is wrong.” You and Dean look at Shuri who looks like she is struggling to separate the millions of nerves attached to you. “It’s fighting back.”

“It’s the Mark that is, not the stone,” you say.

She tries to remove a nerve but what happened with Wanda happens here. She and T’Challa go flying back while you and Dean fly back in the opposite way. The small blast is enough to break the machine Shuri was using, so much so that two Dora Milaje come rushing in with spears thinking their King was attacked.

“We’re okay. Stand down,” T’Challa orders.

“I’m sorry,” you whimper and stand up. “This happened with Wanda but much less damage.”

“The Mark is protecting itself. It doesn’t want to part from the stone so it will do anything to keep it intact.”

“What do I do now?”

“I don’t know,” she sighs.

You fall back into a chair and silently cry at the lack of options.

x

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[quillkiller]

need some more lily headcanons from you bc u just get her so well!!!!!

mwah thank u this is so sweet.. <3 lets get into it…..

the worlds biggest imposter syndrom... my girl feels like a monster rather than a girl. hates herself for her monstrous deeply rooted carnal desires, her wants and needs. she feels vile, disgusting, neatly packaged into a an unsuspecting teenage girl. the inherent female experience of feeling monstrous and other simply for having a body…

she's a blank canvas that people project onto, and no one ever sees her or knows her. only turns her into the person they want or need her to be. she's the girl next door, she's the teachers favorite, a martyr, put on this pedestal- all of it against her will. she didn't ask for any of it, but it was assigned to her anyway. and she feels like a FRAUD !! but she so badly wants to be normal, so badly wants to feel like a girl instead of a monster in disguise. so badly wants to prove petunia wrong. petunia who calls her a freak, feeding into her imposter syndrom and she's convinced that petunia sees right through her. sees her twisted disgusting insides that she's trying so desperately to hide behind a girl next door-exterior. thinks petunia sees her nail-biting, the scratch marks, the cigarette burns. the hot and simmering Thing that wants to burst out of lily. the greediness, the selfishness, the short temper, the violent desire. but the thing is...... petunia is, at her core, the same as lily. she's trying to keep lily at an arms length, calling her a freak so that lily wont see her own twisted disgusting monstrous insides. she's calling her a freak out of envy and resentfulness. lilys strawberry hair, sun-kissed freckles, her welcoming and kind eyes, her magnetism. the things that lily hides behind. petunia is frail and angular, pale and blonde thin hair, harsh eyes. she has nothing to hide behind. lily is even MAGICAL !! proof to petunia that lily is special in ways she'll never be, proof to lily that she's the freak petunia makes her out to be

nobody speaks to her, no one knows her. james falls in love with her when they're 11 and just never lets her go. he doesn't even KNOW her, he just decided she's the love of his life. she's popular among boys, unpopular among girls. caught in the teenage girls hate each other type vibe. people roll their eyes at her when the teachers play favorite with her, thinking she's an an arrogant know it all. no one sees her, no one speaks to her. she could say something absolutely wild and genuinely vulnerablr like ’i want to kill myself’ and it would be dismissed immediately as a charming self deprecating joke. shes trapped and doomed

she hates herself for being so ungrateful for all her 'privileges', hates herself that she's never satisfied. hates the overwhelming boiling need threatening to break her open and tear through her ribcage. hates that she feels like a monster in disguise, trapped in this girl costume. she just wants to be normal, more than anything she wants to be normal. so she keeps repressing her emotions, keeps cutting off her rough and sharp edges to fit into the box of whoever people need her to be. it's not like she knows who she is outside of how other people percieve her, because she has never been seen. you are who you're percieved as, and her only other option is letting the monstrous thing living inside of her swallow her up (<- which would SAVE her, it’s NOT monstrous !!!! just REPRESSED !!!).

so she adapts….. makes herself small, easily digestible, the head-girl, the girl next door, james' girlfriend and then wife, top of the class, etc. she disguises herself as the picture perfect girl, desperately grasping for normal.. desperately trying to kill her monstrous need

[toyouhellohowareyou]

We can ask you for a director's cut??? Let me come on here and enable you. Please.

So we narrowed this down a little more and I'm going to mention something from Two Moon Pearls and the Master Sword that doesn't get brought up often, and that's that (in my opinion) the scene where Link (Baby Legend/Lore) is the most like Legend is the scene in chapter 4 where he's stuck as a rabbit and tricking Twilight into getting him into the flight.

Link needs that red cape. Link needs that cape so bad.

Sees an item that can solve a problem and builds a plan around it. He's a brave kid and looks for what he can do rather than trying to stay out of it.

Link wonders if it’s actually possible to die from a fright induced heart attack [] He can’t answer, he’s not sure he can breathe.

Rabbits will just drop dead from fright heart attacks sometimes. Poor bunnies. This was a bunny thing. Twi didn't mean to scare him so badly.

Also note his default response is still Flight, while Legend's has more Fight response because Legend is angrier, more confident, and has had too many times where running wasn't an option. This holds and is more obvious in Ocarina, Oracle.

One of the big differences between Legend and Link is that Legend is very sure of himself and his capabilities.

He’s, he’s… he doesn’t know what he is, who he is, it was confusing enough before he met this group.

Being a tween is confusing enough without being orphaned or turning into a rabbit or finding out you're a destined hero, you know?

He can’t worry about that, that’s not a priority. There’s something he has to do, focus, focus, everything else can wait.

Okay, this is very Legend, and more than that, this is one of his bad habits developing. Push everything down to deal with later because there's something more pressing at the time, then never deal with it. It starts as a response to, and way of dealing with, fear, but then expands to other unpleasant emotions.

Link does it in chapter 2 as well when he's trying not to cry around them. He's not allowed to feel any of this until Zelda is safe. He's terrified if he lets himself slip he'll fail.

He is aware the boy before him failed, and he is so, so afraid.

He sits abruptly, takes a single deep, gasping breath, holds it, then lets it out slowly and deliberately. Then he does it again. And again.

Physical manifestation of doing the above and getting his bunny body freak out under control.

It’s so big, so strong, it has claws and teeth and it’s watching him with blue eyes, like a person. It’s a person. (People aren’t any safer). He shoves that thought away, he doesn’t have time.

Baby boy has dog trauma. Baby boy has knight trauma. He's been hunted by both for months. But Legend is the one who gets things done. Core character trait. *The* Legend character trait in this. He's not the strongest or smartest or most charismatic, but he finds a way to get the job done. He just did all that repressing and he keeps it up because there's something he has to do. He was very brave with both Wars and Twi.

“I need it and I’ll get it without you if I have to!” the rabbit faces down the wolf, glaring.

It snorts at him and Link’s fur puffs up.

Brave, indignant boy. He's still a Link after all. Twi likes his pluck.

Link takes the cape and after some fumbling, practically crawls into it and holds the collar around his neck. He feeds magic into it and is relieved when it works

Established in chapter 2: Legend can power items while transformed. They're just hard to hold in bunny paws.

There’s no way he can get where he needs to go quickly enough or without running out his magic.

Has to rejig the plan and does so quickly. He's a clever kid, he had to be to make it this far. He's *good* at this

And what Wind said is true, there’s no way they’re going to let him do anything if they can help it.

lol yeah, they weren't going to let him fight.

“I need to get to the pyramid,” he says urgently.

“Kid, don’t do anything dangerous.”

“I’m not,” he lies, he doesn’t like to lie but this is important, “Please, I need to get back to the fairy who upgraded my sword. I’ll be safer there anyway.”

He's also very pragmatic and while he's a good kid we come back to Legend being the one who gets things done. Also he's been on the lam for a while now. He's been bold faced lying to survive.

The final sword upgrade is from a fairy in a little room on the Pyramid. This whole thing follows the game path much more than the manga.

Edit: oh yeah, and Twi made the mistake of seeing him as being a kid more than being a Link, more than being Legend

Easter egg: You need to have beaten Ganon and Vaati to get into the Palace on the GBA version. And between them, Legend and Four had. The text from that section in ch3 is straight from the game.

And it works, and he's the one to kill the Vio shadow because maybe he's not as capable as he will be, maybe he's still young, but he's not helpless. He's the goddamned Hero of Legend.

The wolf hesitates, then caves to that innocent bunny face, “Alright.”

And with this he's (without noticing) done the same thing Legend did in using his sweet, guileless bunny appearance to get someone to let their guard down so he could run off to a fight he knows he would get resistance to joining. He hasn't internalised 'someone else can maybe handle this' at all. He's using what's at his disposal to get what he wants. That's the planning/problem solving Legend excels in.

Thanks Thea! 💕

[whetstonefires]

Thinking about lying in mdzs and how wwx's two primary personal foils also spend significant amounts of time sustaining major lies around people they've got personal relationships with. And how differently that goes.

Because Wei Wuxian, Xue Yang, and Jin Guangyao are very different sorts of liars.

Wei Wuxian maintained his deception about his core for roughly three to five years, the first few of them in close contact with a couple of people who knew him very well. It relied mostly on misdirection and omission. It damaged his relationships and he didn't like it, but he didn't fuck it up either.

Xue Yang spent...a couple of years? Maintaining a lie. And the thing is he's a fairly shit liar, actually. If he'd had to do anything other than 'not tell the truth' to a blind man who voluntarily didn't ask him for so much as a name to call him by, he'd have fucked it up pretty quick.

But the act of deception itself didn't cause him any discomfort at all.

And Jin Guangyao spent most of his life maintaining a ridiculous panoply of lies to absolutely everyone. He of course is an amazing liar, by far the best of the three of them, and this is because he's good at both parts.

His sell is beautiful; he's got just as good a sense as wwx of what other people are thinking so he can adapt his story to it, and does so more consciously and deliberately though also more compulsively. And he's got better discipline over his reactions and (I think) less healthy basic self-respect, so he has more options for how he shapes himself to those expectations. (Whereas Wei Wuxian is more narrowly restricted to strategically emphasizing aspects of his actual self, such as 'proud disobedient prick' or 'impulsive embarrassing flirt.')

But Jin Guangyao's comfort with deception is also top-tier. He probably actually feels more comfortable when he knows he's gotten away with lying to any given person. And his patience with his own lies is infinite, between the excellent self-command, the perfect memory, and what are clearly fantastic multi-tasking skills.

Wei Wuxian likes to lie, but without a pressing reason he also tends to admit it almost immediately so he can laugh about it. When he has to keep it up, he doesn't like it nearly so much--a lie he can't admit to is a trap he's stuck in. And one that isolates him, which he does not enjoy at all.

Of course his Big Lie was largely for Jiang Cheng's sake; judging by how 'Mo Xuanyu' goes he wouldn't have been able to maintain it half so well for his own.

Xue Yang doesn't seem to feel any of that discomfort, he just also doesn't have enough interest in other people's thoughts to tell especially believable lies; he can't tailor his story to his audience.

He lies like it's a magic trick, a special move; you can just open your mouth and say whatever you want, isn't that strange? Isn't that funny? People will do things that are actually bad for them because you gave them untrue information!

And it reliably pisses people off, especially when they know you're lying but you won't admit it! You win no matter what! Haha!

There are a lot of other elements to being good at lying other than 'a convincing sell' and 'keeping up the front,' of course. Lying is complicated. So many moving pieces that all feed into one another. There's having the nerve to lie to people's faces. There's thinking on your feet enough to make up a lie on the spot at all, regardless of whether it's plausible. There's not having any obvious tics that give you away. There's the ego.

All three of them can manage all of these, though. The main variation across the set crops up around the aspects of lying that deal with 1) self-control (obvious spectrum there) and 2) empathy.

Xue Yang has none. He's a human disaster with very limited theory of mind and no self-regulation to speak of; naturally straightforward and almost entirely without kind impulses.

Wei Wuxian has a full complement--his social intuition is actually fantastic, and while he's not reliably nice he is easily moved to compassion. This latter is bad for his lying skills.

(His self-control ranges from reasonably good to fantastic, when he bothers, but his first instinct is not to bother.)

Jin Guangyao's cognitive empathy is also very strong; he can generally determine what someone wants to hear, and say that. Be that. But he seems to be almost wholly free of the instinct to feel bad about tricking people, even people he likes. Is that inherent or habituated? Idk probably both.

So Jin Guangyao is far and away the best liar of the three of them, because he maxes out all the necessary traits.

But then when it comes down to it. Wei Wuxian and Xue Yang, when they're rumbled or the lie isn't useful anymore, they can let it go. When Lan Wangji finally calls Wei Wuxian by name he drops Mo Xuanyu on the spot with no ceremony; when Wei Wuxian calls out Xue Yang's impersonation of Xiao Xingchen, he doesn't keep pushing it, he just laughs.

Jin Guangyao can't. He's unmasked violently and repeatedly, and he drops any story that isn't sustainable or useful anymore, but he always tries again. He's such a fantastic liar that reverting to honesty just. Isn't an option available to him.

[satancopilotsmytardis]

Moth God Shigaraki! Yes!

Oooh, the hinted backstory is nice so far! I like magic AUs :)

A bit different from your usual writing style, probably because it's a God AU. God AUs are always a bit different. But I like it a lot! It still has your characteristics, but the general vibe is a bit more fairytale like? Dark fairytale, but still. More mythical than your usual fics.

I like the nicknames Shigaraki gives Dabi. The little spark that starts the fire. The kindling that sets the forest ablaze.

I want to wrap Dabi up in blankets and keep him safe. I think Shigaraki might agree with that idea.

Dabi, you are such a simp. Not that Shigaraki is any better.

"Will you feed me to the roses?" "Would you like to be roses?" I love the conversations in this one.

Shigaraki has such a sad existence. I mean, yeah, he wants to kill everyone who lives on his land and destroy their homes, but they locked him up for so long. I feel like his story might be a selffulfilling prophecy. They anger him, so he wants to take revenge, so the keep him locked up. A, to Shigaraki, neverending cycle.

And even still Dabi manages to find a way to cook. Nice.

For once Shigaraki can handle the cold better than Dabi.

They are both lonely and desperate for good connections :(

Oh Dabi. Shigaraki doesn't want him to die. I think the other sacrifices made their choice quicker. I don't think he interacted with another person for as long as he did Dabi in all the time he was trapped. He doesn't want Dabi to die, so he gives him the chance to save who he wants to protect.

"I can't just let you kill everyone." "Yeah, but what if we were boyfriends, would that change things?"

Ugh, this whole fic is a tragedy. They are both so, so desperate to protect who they love. Shigaraki would become a monster a hundred times over to help Dabi. Dabi would give up his life, his choice, to the ambition of others if he believes that to help his siblings. He is still so caught up in "his purpose".

Oh, stabbed by his own father. Ouch.

And Shigaraki gave up his destruction for the person he loves. That's a theme in your fics, him willing to give that up for the League, even when they would never ask that of him. Just like it's always Shigaraki accepting Dabi's plan, trying to give him options that allow him to survive but ultimately accepting his choice.

Honestly, it's impressive how this stays the same even in an AU so different from what you usually write.

They are so in loveeeee. And now they can spend eternity together ;-;

"I will give up my weapon to save you. I will give up revenge as long as I can have you." "Then let me be your weapon, let me destroy what harms you."

The last time Fuyumi sees her brother is next to her mother's bed, with golden blood on his face and hiding in the shadows after he was supposed to be gone forever. Then she's away and her mother wakes up and her father is dead and her brother is gone (and who knows what happened to her village). How is she supposed to explain that to her brothers? (What happens when mortals spot Dabi, one of the two monsterous Gods of the forest? Will his siblings look at him and realize what happened?)

(the comment is so long because that was my prompt request and I love fantasy AUs. Amazing work! I love this one.)

Thank you so so much! I'm so glad that so much of this story resonated with you!

I'm glad that the change of tone came across! I definitely wanted this one to read like a poem/fairytale, so I'm glad that the writing achieved that!

Shigaraki's situation was absolutely supposed to showcase that self-fulfilling prophecy, and it was inspired by the imprisonment of Morpheus in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman!

Dabi was definitely the sacrifice Shigaraki spent the most time around, but not the only one who took the full week to make their decision. But Dabi is among a very small handful who ever entered his prison and stayed with him during that time.

I like to play on the theme of love and sacrifice in my works, I think it's romantic for a character so devoted to a specific goal, to choose the person (or people) they love over that goal when it comes down to it. It often shows most with Shigaraki because I usually really want to avoid any final confrontation with Endeavor, but in my writing, Dabi would do the exact same thing for Shigaraki and the League. In fact, in this fic, the final thought he has before killing Endeavor is not about him getting his revenge, it's about protecting Shigaraki and all of the innocent people who would have been used as kindling to fuel the stone in his father's plan. He was killing to save people, not for his own revenge, they just happened to coincide in this instance!

Poor Fuyumi had a NIGHT. While Rei was being seen to by healers, and reeling herself from the fact her young daughter is now a full-grown woman, Fuyumi would be sending arcane messages back to the house through a magic mirror. Of course these would get no replies, she would try the guard station next and be informed that the house had burned down and that her father was dead. She would jump to the right conclusion that Dabi killed him and burned down the house, but she would have no idea why because, like Dabi guessed, she was not told he was sent to be the sacrifice that year. She would try to reach out to him, but of course he's not home either. From there she would call Natsuo and Shoto to get them to come see their mom and the three of them would try and figure out what to do next from there. Ultimately, I don't think they could be stopped from going back to their village when Rei is well enough to travel, but it wouldn't probably be until the following spring!

[brotherslayer]

Your Villainess!Jennette hc's?🥺

Villainess Jennette headcanons part 2

Jennette wants to create an utopia for Athy. Her final goal is to take over the mind of every human in Obelia, strip them of their free will and control them like dolls. After turning back time just to meet Athy and lose her in the most gruesome ways possible, she came to the conclusion that she's exhausted every other option and the only way to prevent Athy's death is by erasing the will of others and imposing her own will on them.

Later she does childish things like turning her fanfictions into reality by using humans as puppets to act out her fantasies when she is bored. She doesn't feel guilty at all. On the contrary she thinks it's beautiful when she makes two people who used to hate each other fall in love with each other and make them have a baby.

Jennette doesn't like any form of negativity as she is hyperempathic (unless she choses to turn her emotions off) and rapid shifts in a mood can irritate her. That's why she programs every citizen to be in a perpetual state of bliss. They are always smiling. It's very creepy.

once Jennette has complete control over the citizens of an area Athy gets to explore it with her. Jennette writes down some extra scenarios so the day will be eventful and fun for Athy. Otherwise the people would run around like sims left on autopilot.

instead of using her black magic unconsciously and turning it on and off again, she is now using it consciously 24/07 meaning she burns tons of mana. Anastacius build her to be energy-efficient, she needs less magic than a normal magician needs for a powerful spell but in this case Jennette is messing with fate itself and playing god. She's making the impossible possible. In an AU where Athy still has her mana Jennette is metaphorically and figuratively addicted to her. In an AU where Athy isn't her main energy source Jennette is pulling mana from everyone (humans and animals) and everything (plants) around her and shortening their life spans by a day or a week or a month or a year.

The more people she has under her thumb, the less mana is taken from each of them (the less they suffer from it and the less guilty Jennette has to feel about about any untimely deaths in the distant future) that's why Jennette strives to have as many people as she can under her control. At least that's what she's telling herself when in reality she does it because she is a mana junkie. It's also in her nature wanting to be loved and worshipped by everyone.

would create friends from black mana for Athy and then get jealous of them, alternatively she picks some noble girls to be friends with Athy and removes any undesireable traits from them. Athy is very confused why Jennette's friends change personalities every few weeks and why the girls who used to bully her are suddenly so nice. She sticks to Jennette since she doesn't trust the change. Jennette is satisfied with it.

she condemns Anastacius for his theft of mana yet she uses the same method when she forces stolen mana into LP Athy's body to restore her magic and make her immortal. All this happens without Athy's knowledge or consent. She's very nonchalant about it too. One day Athy notices "hey Jetty, why am I not aging?" and Jennette is like "Surprise! I have been feeding you foreign mana while you were asleep for 15 years. Now we can be immortal together. Give me a kiss. Praise me. 😊"

although Jennette is very possessive of Athy she understands from her own experience that isolating Athy in the Ruby palace with no human company but herself will do her no good. She doesn't like to stand in the way of love either since this would make her feel like the villanious rival in a second-rate romance novel. That's why Athy and Ijekiel are allowed to be together under the condition that Jennette has to know every single detail of what they are doing. If Ijekiel wants to move his relationship further than hand kisses he either has the choice between terrible threesomes or voyeuristic sex. Athykiel are experiencing the horrors of a couple that is friends with an rpf shipper who wants to smash them together like barbie dolls. I think sometimes Jennette would compel Ijekiel because she thinks he is shy and she is helping him by giving him a little push.

Jennette is a lesbian but Roger has fucked her up so bad she thinks she is in love with Ijekiel and continues to sleep with him to please the elders. In a way she feels entitled to him. Plus she thinks siblings are supposed to share everything.

Jennette has main character syndrome. If she isn't the center of attention she gets mad. If Athykiel make Jennette feel excluded (aka if they aren't constantly showering her in love and attention) she'll get very jealous. Visiting rights will be revoked for half a year and Jennette will get clingier and even more overbearing than she was before whenever she visits them separately.

Jennette leaves Snowy/Snow White (her black mana pet) to guard Athy when she has to leave to do her duties as Empress. Athy is never alone. She always has a piece of Jennette with her. Before that Ijekiel had been Athy's assigned guard but then Jennette got paranoid that they'd grow even closer than she is with Athy and that they would keep secrets from her.

one of Jennette's many talents is that she is an excellent tracker and hunteress. Should Athy run away she could chase her to the end of the world and she would treat it like a game of tag. She's also an animal whisperer and very good at beast taming. When she's freed of her work and isn't spending her time with her beloved, you can see her riding out at midnight into the woods to set a trap and catch another pet for Athy. She wants to cheer her up after Blackie disappeared.

her favourite color is blue, the color of Athy's eyes.

the sculptures of the Emperor's concubines in the garden of the Ruby Palace are replaced with gold statues of Athy. Every day is Athy simp day.

Obelia becomes a culinary paradise. The most well paid professions are cooks and bakers because Jennette knows how much Athy loves to eat. Jennette spends more time practicing to make sweets than taking care of governmental affairs.

Athy gets a Siodonnian dancing teacher, Jennette hopes it will combat her depression and that reconnecting with her mother's culture will make it easier to forget about her father. Half of Athy's wardrobe consists of loose clothing from Siodonna. It's more comfortable to cuddle Athy if she isn't restricted by hoop skirts and layers upon layers of fabric, finds Jennette.

among Athy's gifts are never chokers or heavy bangles, because it reminds Jennette of the time when she was lead to the gallows restrained in iron shackles. Her blouses are never completely buttoned up. The maids are instructed to always leave the last buttons open. Jennette wants to see Athy's skin and feel her warmth to be assured that she is still alive.

she has a weird relationship to Claude. She hates him for what he did to Athy, but he has always been good to her. She was raised to love him and to her he was the closest thing she had to a father. After she had killed him, she ripped his body apart and scattered them to the four winds, but she kept his heart in a jar in her room. She still refers to him as her father and insists that Athy refers to her as a sister.

Upon Jennette's orders Penelope's remains were taken from the Judith crypt and transferred to the Imperial tomb. She was declared Empress posthumously. A memorial of the concubines who died during the slaughter of the Ruby Palace was comissioned as well and a recompensation for the families of their servants was paid.

The portrait of Penelope hangs above a desk in her office. Soon a new portrait of herself and Athy will follow.

[dalgursbate]

take a bite out of me for dinner first (astarion/tav oneshot)

Summary: Tav didn’t let Astarion bite her when he asked. Not because his bloodthirst bothers her or anything, because it truly doesn’t. It’s just that she’s a fighter and can’t afford to risk her strength like that when there are other options available. She doesn’t regret the decision, either—now that everyone knows he’s a vampire, he seems to be getting more than his fill of the goblins, gnolls, and Tyrrans they fight. To Tav, it seems like a pretty reasonable solution, and she’s mostly happy with it. She just doesn’t know why he has to look at her like that while he feeds. (Alternatively, Astarion masters the art of the hard sell.)

Rating: Explicit WC: 2,590 Pairing: M/F Astarion/F!Tav CW: horny violence, bloodsucking, transactional sex

—

once is an instance, twice is a hobby, but three times is a threat.

—

The first time it happens, Tav almost convinces herself she’s hallucinating it.

It’s the kind of thing that would make her sound paranoid if she said it out loud, that Astarion looks at her funny when he feeds on Flind. Because it’s not like he’s staring at her; their eye contact only lasting a moment. She can’t even really put her finger on what makes it so weird, except that there’s a kind of intensity to the way his gaze meets her own.

Even if there is, though, Tav’s not really sure what that would mean. Maybe it’s because he’s searching for any sign of disgust or fear on her face, she thinks. Maybe doing something like this so publicly is vulnerable or intimate in a way that discomforts him. Either would be a perfectly reasonable explanation.

It’s just. That isn’t what it feels like, if she’s being honest. What it feels like is that she’s the one Astarion is biting, and she has no way of knowing if the imagined sensation of it is even slightly accurate but there’s a phantom pain in her neck all the same, as keenly felt as if it were actually happening.

Her face grows hot and she looks away quickly, slicing brutally into the shoulder of a nearby gnoll to distract herself from the way her insides are vibrating.

Somehow, she doubts Flind is having the same reaction.

When Astarion asked to bite her, back in the early days of traveling together, Tav had refused. She still feels good about that decision, to preserve her own strength in the interest of none of them getting killed. If there had been no other options, she would have more than happily volunteered. But there are other options, so it just doesn’t make sense for her to.

She sort of has to remind herself of that in the days following the incident with the gnolls, though.

After giving it some (too much) thought, Tav comes to the conclusion that she must have been projecting. Astarion was probably only thinking about feeding himself and winning the battle; how would he have had the time to do anything else, really? If she was more affected watching it than she should have been, then maybe that says something about her that she ought to reflect on.

This is the thought that carries her through defeating the paladins of Tyr, clearing out the goblin camp, and eventually entering the Underdark. As a result, her relationship with Astarion has been nothing but professional, even approaching companionable.

She just doesn't look at him much in battle anymore, and it's fine.

That is, until she has no choice but to during the fight against the duergar in the abandoned village. Shadowheart looks like she's about to topple over all the way across the beach, surrounded by two undead, and Tav knows she’s already used the magic it would take to turn them. In an instant, she’s running towards the cleric to offer aid, passing by Astarion on the way.

And he notices her. And she notices him, and she notices him taking a bite out of Gekh Coal.

And that’s just unfair, really. Because the second their eyes meet it’s like a light switch, how quickly his gaze becomes heavy and wanting. He looks like he wants to devour her, and Tav has no idea if that means he’s going to kill her or fuck her, and she doesn’t have time to interrogate it because she’s already running past him to Shadowheart. She swears she can feel his eyes on her back the entire time, but she has no way of knowing if it’s true because there isn’t an amount of gold in Faerûn that could tempt her to turn around and face him again.

She doesn’t have time to dwell on it now, though; there’s too much they need to get done and their days are growing increasingly short in supply. So she figures she’ll just do what she’s always had to do as a fighter: endure it and keep going.

Enduring is easy until it isn’t, because the last straw is unceremoniously placed upon Tav’s back with a heavy hand at Grymforge.

Their plan had been specific and well thought out, thank you very much. Astarion was supposed to mount a ranged assault from above while the rest of the party and Brithvar’s troops handled the ground offensive. Tav decided on this plan for a couple of reasons; namely, the obvious altitude advantage, but also because with Astarion splintered from the group and further away from the fray, it would be much easier for him to escape and revive them later should things go truly pear-shaped. Which are serviceably good justifications, she thinks, for putting him as far out of sight as possible.

And it’s been working splendidly—so well, in fact, that all of Nere’s troops are either dead or all but. So well that the next time Tav stabs her sword into the drow's gut, the blood drains from his face and rushes to greet her blade. He grunts softly, and Tav knows he must be only barely hanging on.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a flurry of motion from above and thinks to herself, Good, all it’s going to take is one arrow and this bastard will be done for. She expects to hear the attack whiz past her any moment, but it doesn’t. Instead, the movement leaves her periphery and enters her line of sight proper, growing larger and closer at a pace that suggests Astarion is sprinting towards them as fast as he can, and within a fraction of a second he arrives to stand behind Nere.

Which, to be clear, was not the plan. The plan really only had one part to it, and that part was that Astarion should stay up top. It was such a simple plan that his sheer dedication to undermining her is almost inspiring.

And, of course, Astarion does not get within melee range so he can use his dagger. Obviously not. Obviously what happens is that he slides one hand around Nere’s waist, until his fingers just barely dip into the spilling blood from the wound Tav just gave him. What happens is he fists a hand in the drow’s hair—a drow with white hair and red eyes just like hers, Tav notes numbly—to bare his neck.

What happens is he sinks his teeth in Nere’s throat without looking away from Tav. He fixes his stare to hers, half-lidded and entirely self-satisfied, and rumbles a groan so low that it harmonizes with Nere’s thin, squeaky death knell. Astarion’s fingers splay wide over the cultist's hip, coating them in even more blood in a way that, in other circumstances, could only be interpreted as a lover’s caress. He pulls the drow back to lie against his chest, Nere’s head rolling lifelessly onto Astarion’s shoulder as his body spasms and jerks for the last time in the grim pantomime of a tender act.

At some point, Tav realizes she’s holding her breath. If not for her reflexes intervening, she is certain she would have dropped her sword by now with the way her limbs go watery. Worse still, the sudden rush in her ears is so deafening she can’t hear the rest of the fight anymore, and that’s so fucking risky because they haven’t won yet. 

Astarion releases Nere with a smirk, pushing him so he topples towards Tav and she nearly stumbles getting out of the way. He brings his bloody fingers to his lips, dragging his tongue leisurely in between and up them.

Not once does he stop looking at her.

There’s a dark smoke rising through her insides and tickling her stomach. She stares back at him silently, mouth closed as though afraid of it spilling out into the air between them. He doesn’t say anything, and neither does she, but he tilts his head inquisitively at her. The message is more than clear. Tav knows what he’s asking, and she knows what he’s offering for it. And hells, she doesn’t think she has any choice but to accept. She can’t keep getting knocked out in one hit by Astarion’s fucking eyes of all things every time they have to kill a monster. And she doesn’t know him well, but she knows him well enough to know he won’t stop until he gets what he wants from her.

That much is abundantly clear.

Gods, Tav has no idea if he even likes her. But she’s pretty sure she doesn’t care, unable to stand the idea of being wound up like this forever. So she does something that will almost certainly wind up being a mistake: she nods.

Astarion finds Tav later that night before she has the chance to find him, leading her out to a clearing a little ways off camp. Without her armor, the night air feels cool and pleasant, and the spot he walks them to is covered in soft-looking, lush grass. Once they get there, he drags his gaze over her form greedily, and Tav feels goosebumps rise on the skin of her arms at the attention.

“Strip,” Astarion orders, and his voice comes out through almost-clenched teeth, shaking slightly with the enormity of his want. Like he’s been waiting for this forever and it's almost in his grasp. Like there is nothing he would not do to try to satisfy the dark, yawning hunger inside of him.

Tav complies wordlessly, dropping her clothes unceremoniously to the ground next to her. In mere moments, she stands before him utterly nude.

“Come here,” He breathes, and his eyes are so wild and wide and open, his each and every craving playing out in the way he can’t keep them still.

And how is she supposed to resist him, when he looks like that? So she goes, stepping towards him until there are only a few breaths between them.

Gently, Astarion turns her so her back is to him, a tremor in his hands as he does. He positions her the same way he’d positioned Nere, and fuck, that’s so messed up but Tav can’t stifle her moan when her shoulders come into contact with his chest.

She can hear him inhaling through his nose as he tangles a hand in her hair, forcing her to bare her throat to him. Then he’s exhaling a sigh over her neck, and the frigid thrill of it is enough to make her shiver.

The hand that isn’t buried in Tav’s hair (and oh, the way he tugs at her locks ever-so-softly is fantastic) creeps around to dance just barely over her hip, and she nearly jumps at the contact.

“Don’t worry, love,” Astarion says in a tone that she thinks really ought to have her worried. “I’ll take it slowly.”

And he does, leaning closer to brush an open-mouthed kiss on her neck at the same time that he walks his fingers unhurriedly over the skin of her hip and down, down, down towards a place they’d be so much more useful. Tav whines high in her throat when he reaches the apex of her pelvis, his tongue coming out to taste her pulse point as his fingers slide to either side of where she really needs them, so close but not nearly enough. She feels more than ready to get on with it, so she tries to buck into his palm to signal her mounting impatience. He pulls his hand back before she can get the contact she seeks, however, stubbornly refusing to let her rush him.

Because the pace isn't for her, is it? The way he draws it out, torturously languid—it's not Tav he's trying to tease.

When the tips of his fangs graze her jugular, Astarion's fingers finally begin rubbing calm, feather-light circles over her clit. A needy little noise escapes Tav’s lips at the sensation, and her head falls back onto his shoulder. It gives him even better access, and he rewards her for it by caressing her more firmly, until his touch is almost something she could actually come from.

“Fuck,” Tav cries, incapable of smothering it.

“Yes, I'm sure you'd like that. But let's not be greedy, shall we?” Astarion chuckles with his mouth pressed against her, and his teeth push slightly into her flesh, and it’s not enough to pierce but it makes her squirm against him. He skates the two fingers lower, teasing at her entrance, his thumb replacing their presence on Tav’s clit.

“Please,” she begs, and the word breaks in half like a wishbone. Astarion inhales once more, the cool tip of his nose tracing down one of her veins. The hand in her hair is trembling even as the one playing with her cunt remains utterly steady.

There’s a moment where it seems like even the wind stops. But then Astarion is plunging his teeth into her neck at the same time that he drives his fingers inside of her, and both of them let out an obscene moan into the quiet evening.

He fucks her carefully, deliberately—his fingers curve up as though beckoning her towards something sinister, exactly in the spot that she is most sensitive, while his thumb finally starts applying the speed and pressure she’s been desperate for. A tingling fire takes hold of her body, then, skating across every nerve before gathering in her core as she gets closer to release. It’s like he knows where to press and pull at her without even needing to ask, so eerily good at this, and the thought makes her shudder as her hips roll into his hand.

Tav can feel the blood leaving her, can feel that she only has so much time before she’ll need to make him let go of her. She doesn’t know if he’s cruel enough to stop touching her when that happens, but it doesn’t matter because she wants to come like this anyway, with his teeth sunk deep into the meat of her and her head growing lighter by the second. So she grinds against him with fervor, one of her hands reaching down to cover his as she ruts against his palm to achieve her own end. The other grabs the back of his head to hold him in place while she furiously brings herself off against his fingers, the hot static buzzing in her veins finally reaching a delirious crescendo until the only thing she can hear is the weakening, fluttery pounding of her own heart in her ears.

The hand she has in his hair goes limp and falls back to her side, and Astarion releases his hold on her throat and wipes delicately at his mouth. After allowing her a moment to breathe, he puts a hand on her shoulders to force her to stand upright, putting some distance between them. His eyes are glittering, sharp, focused as he levels her with a grin.

“I must say," Astarion says, and it isn't quite cold but whatever warmth in it probably owes itself to the heat of her blood inside of him, "it’s been a pleasure doing business with you.” He bows in a charmingly dramatic manner, then immediately turns to leave. 

Tav watches as he saunters off back in the direction of camp, and this time, she finds she can't look away.

[jynrso]

on second glance

hi all! i'm back with a new installment in this series, though it feels like i'm destined to be writing all of these oneshots out of order. chronologically, this one takes place before exorcism i've shifted the timelines slightly – the gang doesn't find out that astarion is a vampire until after the goblin camp in this one, so they still all think he's human just about now read it on ao3!

Astarion smells her before he sees her. 

Even with his darkvision, the night’s haze obscures the forest around him. With clouds covering the light of the moon, there are more shadows than usual, leaving more hiding places for a predator like him. Using it to his advantage, he’s already taken down a deer and gotten his fill from its blood, leaving the rest of it for nature. 

Despite never truly feeling full, he’s eaten enough tonight to clear his head some. Without the burning need to feed at the forefront of his mind, the urgency of his current dilemma returns. Nearly a week has gone by and he hasn’t yet figured out the best path to make himself invaluable to the group. Without a clear leader, he’s floundering, unable to decide who to try and endear himself to, ensuring that they won’t leave him on his own when Cazador comes. 

Shadowheart had been his first choice, especially with how vocal she’d been about their course of action so early on. But her hatred of the githyanki is a problem, especially since he’ll need her sword against Cazador. Lae’zel has no patience for his antics (he’s tried), Gale lacks the necessary drive to lead, therefore making him a less-than-ideal choice, and unless he wants to constantly risk getting third-degree burns, Karlach is out. Wyll might work, up until the monster hunter figures out that he’s been sleeping with a bloody vampire!  

And Tav? He’s long since realized Tav isn’t a viable option, either. As good as she is in a fight, she rarely gives her opinion on anything and doesn’t seem to care about fostering relationships with the others. She has very little, if any, sway within the group. Anytime he returns to camp, he half-expects her to be gone, having decided that striking out on her own is better than sticking with them. 

(Well, that’s what he suspects, anyway. He can’t fucking read her, not like everyone else –– though, after coming to the conclusion that seducing her would be useless early on, he certainly hasn’t put much effort into learning her.) 

So maybe his first instincts had been correct. Shadowheart, then, and if he can seduce Lae’zel on the side, that’ll get them both over to his side. But gods, that’s a shaky plan at best –– at least he doesn’t think Gale will kill him if the truth comes out (his attempt at manipulation and the whole vampire spawn thing), just look at him like a kicked puppy dog, so maybe that’s––

He growls, running a hand through his hair as he paces. He’d thought a hunt would clear his head and magically provide him with a viable solution but all it’s done is left him more agitated. Even though he’d taken down a deer, he’s still hungry, a never-ending, aching pain gnawing at his gut.

And when he smells blood in the air, hot, fresh, and human, his feet are already moving in that direction before his brain catches up with his body. 

It’s only once he manages to shake off his bloodlust and get a proper look at the woman leaning against the tree in front of him to realize that it’s Tav. 

Tav, who never speaks her opinion out loud unless asked, and even then, she says very little. Tav, who’s lethal with her twin daggers and rivals his lockpicking abilities. Tav, who he finds watching him more often than not.

Tav, who’s currently bleeding from a wound in her gut. 

He stands there in the shadows for a few seconds, just watching her. She hasn’t looked up yet, her head dipping down to look at the hand pressing against her injury. Her hood obscures most of her expression as she pants against the tree, her muscles tense and strained with effort. And with the amount of blood he smells. . .it must have soaked through most of her shirt by now. 

He could just leave her here. It would be too easy to take a few steps back and sink back into the night, no one the wiser. And it’s not like leaving her to her fate would affect their little group; as effective as she is in battle, she hardly contributes anything else –– they’ll be fine without her. 

All the same, he muses to himself, the more the merrier when it comes to taking down Cazador. Considering the threat his master –– former master –– poses to him, it surely would be better to have more people to throw at him than less. 

But before he can make up his mind on what to do with her, she glances up, looking straight at where she’s standing. Her eyebrows furrow, mouth parting slightly before she questions weakly, “ –– Astarion?” 

Well, that solves his little moral conundrum. 

He supposes he could still walk away now but in the event she survives and makes it back to the group, it won’t help his already poor reputation. While he doesn’t need her to live specifically, he needs to garner enough goodwill in their group that they’d be willing to help him to permanently break free of Cazador. 

“My, my, it looks like you’ve gotten yourself into a little spot of trouble,” he says smoothly, stepping into the clearing. Her eyes flash as he comes flowers “Hasn’t anyone told you that it’s dangerous to be out after dark, my dear?” 

Tav grunts, shoulder pressing harder against the tree in an attempt to keep herself standing. The movement jostles her wound, more blood flowing out of it. At the smell of it, Astarion’s nostrils flare; had he not eaten earlier in the night, he’s not sure he would have been able to keep his composure. 

“I’m not the only one. . .out after dark,” she replies pointedly, though it clearly takes her some effort to keep her words measured and firm. 

He clicks his tongue, finally closing the distance between them, but doesn’t move to touch her. It’s both purposeful and due to uncertainty; having rarely touched anyone without ill intent in decades, he’s unsure how to help her properly, even if he hadn’t been undecided on what to do. 

Leaning forward enough where their foreheads are only a breath or two apart, he purrs, “No need for me to worry –– I am the danger in these words.” 

Eyes narrowing, he huffs out a breath (and it sounds suspiciously like a laugh at his dramatics, making him frown, affronted). “Noted.” 

Now that he can get a better look at her, he observes the way her gaze shifts uneasily from his face to the forest beyond, how her free hand strays toward the dagger at her waist. Based on her body language, he realizes with widening eyes, it’s clear that she thinks he might do something to her, to hurt her while she’s alone and vulnerable. 

(He doesn’t know why that offends him; after all, he’d just been contemplating leaving her here to die a few seconds ago, but he has no intention of getting his hands dirty, especially not now that she’s recognized him.)

“That’s a nasty little wound,” he comments mildly. Likely caused by a dagger or arrow, if he has to guess. He doesn’t yet offer his help, nor does she ask for it; rather, he stares down at her, almost like a predator, but she’s far from prey. Even hurt as she is, the look in her eyes tells him that even if he manages to take her down, she’ll get a few good shots in before she goes. 

“A glancing blow,” she mutters. 

It’s far more than that and they both know it. But even with his darkvision, he can’t tell just how bad it is under her layers of clothing, only that it’s still bleeding sluggishly by the scent alone. He continues, pressing further, “You’re not the type to take ‘glancing blows.’”

In the numerous battles they’ve faced in the past week, she’s managed to get through each fight with only minor cuts and bruises. Like him, Tav tends to stick to the shadows, coming in with a well-placed blow when an enemy’s back is turned. It’s not like her to be in the middle of the fray like Karlach or Lae’zel, who usually end up needing more healing than the rest. 

He’s beginning to put together a picture in his mind of what might have happened. He figures the most likely scenario is that someone took her by surprise –– she’s too quick to get stabbed in the gut in a head-on skirmish. 

Instead of responding to his probe, she shifts uncomfortably and changes the subject. “Just. . .” she trails off, then shakes her head slowly. He watches as she clenches her jaw in anticipation and steps away from the tree she’d been leaning up against. One hand remains pressed against her stomach, and he watches as her expression briefly reflects the pain she must be in. “Point me in the direction of camp.” 

Astarion scoffs. “As if you’d make it back to camp without my help.” 

He has no doubts that she could do it, albeit much slower on her own, but he’s quickly come to the realization that this chance meeting provides him with the perfect opportunity to hold something over her head ––  if he plays his cards right. He helps her now, she helps him later. In the circles he suspects she’d run in before the nautiloid (small crime rings or bands of petty thieves), then life debts, even half-assed ones like this one, are as good as gold. 

But she doesn’t take him up on his implicit offer. Instead, she stares at him for a few seconds, brows furrowing, and then sets off on her own in a random direction. 

Infuriating woman! 

It’s the correct direction, too ––  damn her all to hell. 

But he’s never been one to let a chance like this go so easily. He cuts her off before she can get too far, hands out in front of him in a mockery of a gentlemanly-like manner. “Really, darling, I must insist. You’re looking positively ghastly bleeding out like that. I doubt you’ll make it twenty steps before collapsing.” 

Tav once again considers him, blinking once, then twice. He doesn’t like that he can’t judge what she’s thinking; other than the haze of pain settling more heavily over her features the longer she goes without proper healing, he can’t parse out a damn thing. 

“I’ll manage,” she grits out finally. 

Gods, maybe he should have just left her–– 

“Well, I’ll just leave you to it, then!” he says in false cheerfulness, doing his best not to let his irritation color his tone. “If I see your corpse on your walk back to camp, I’ll make sure to drag it in with me!” 

(He won’t be doing that –– it would take far too much effort.)

She doesn’t say anything in response, just continues on her path in a slow, lumbering stride. He lingers ––  just in case –– and his patience is rewarded. 

“I suppose. . .if you’re just going to follow me all the way to camp,” she says finally, interrupting his train of thought. She swallows and closes her eyes briefly as she finishes, surprisingly rational,  “Then you might as well make yourself useful.” 

He grins, feeling slightly giddy at the prospect of his small win. Already, he can see their future conversation playing out in his mind: Hello, my dear, remember that one time I helped you when you were bleeding out from a gut wound in the middle of the woods? Well, I have a small issue –– minuscule in comparison, really –– that I could use your help with, now. Have you ever heard of the vampire lord, Cazador Szarr? 

He gently tugs one of her arms over his shoulders, wrapping his other one around her waist. As he does it, he feels her body tense underneath his touch, all of her muscles rigid and stiff. Even though it must make things more difficult for her, she doesn’t lean on him too heavily. 

As they begin to walk, he steers them a little out of the way, going in the “right” direction. It’ll take them a little longer to get back to camp on his adjusted route but he can’t have her thinking she’d be able to do this on her own, after all. 

The journey back is a slow process, with fumbled, clumsy steps. Despite his invitation to help, he’s barely carrying any of her weight. He doesn’t want to push her any further but he’s feeling rather useless here. 

Though he doesn’t really care what happened, curiosity gets the better of him. In an attempt to fill the silence, he asks, “Now, are you planning on telling me how you’ve gotten in such a state?” 

She remains silent for long enough that he gives up hope she’s going to answer him. When he finally huffs in irritation, she mutters, voice tinged with what he believes is a hint of embarrassment,  “Goblin camp.” 

Now that isn’t the answer that he’d been expecting. He’d assumed ––  well, he’d just thought that she’d run into some unsavory types and had been caught unawares, not gone off on her own to the bloody goblin camp.  

“Was this morning’s visit not enough for you?” He asks incredulously. Their camp is far enough away from the goblins to limit suspicion while they plan –– and argue about –– their method of attack. There’s a part of him that’s surprised she’s made it this far with that kind of wound. “Hells, how are you not dead in a ditch somewhere?” 

She pauses, then says vaguely, “Took a potion,” which doesn’t fucking answer either of his questions.

“Fine,” he hisses, growing increasingly more done with the situation. He doesn’t even care anymore, he just wants to drop her off at camp and be done with it. This ‘hero’ bullshit is exhausting. “Don’t tell me.” 

Once again, she huffs out a break; he’s beginning to wonder just how much air she has stored in her lungs to do that so frequently, especially considering how she’s started to lean on him more and more the longer they walk. 

“I. . .poisoned the goblins’ drink this morning,” she rasps, voice low. He blinks, thinking he’d misheard her; he hadn’t seen her do it and it’s likely no one in their merry band of misfits had either ––  how had he missed that?

She waits until he’s helped her maneuver over a fallen tree before continuing. “And since no one could make up their fucking mind about a plan –– “ 

“ I had no part in any of that,” he interjects smoothly, because it’s important to him that he sets the record straight on his lack of involvement. 

She ignores that. “So I went back. . .and finished the job.” 

“And –– what?” he questions, tightening his grip around her waist when he feels her slacken against him. As he speaks, he jostles her slightly to keep her awake –– after all, it’d look bad on him if he’d returned with an unconscious, bloody Tav in his arms. “Someone got a lucky shot in when you tried to assassinate them?” 

“The drow.” 

“And I hate to question your abilities, my dear, but I have to ask: did you finish the job?” 

Underneath her hood, he can just make out her scowl. “ Of course I –– ” 

Before Tav can finish, she stumbles, knees giving out. Astarion veers sideways with the sudden force of her weight dropping onto him, just barely managing to remain standing. But the same can’t be said for her; with a hissed curse, she weakly tries to push herself up and falls once again. 

The thought of leaving her behind once again enters his mind but he’s quick to push the thought away. If he were to leave her now, with her blood all over his shirt, it would look very suspicious. They’re close enough to camp that he’ll be able to manage to carry her dead weight over such a short distance –– besides, he can’t just deny himself the chance to play hero just feet before the finish line. 

And maybe there’s a part of him that’s looking at Tav in a new light. She’d effortlessly solved a problem that the rest of the group had been bickering about all evening, unable to come up with a conclusion that they all agreed on. That’s. . .more than he’d expected, based on his previous assessments of her. As painful as it is to admit, he might have misjudged her, believing her silence for indifference or passiveness. 

With a grunt of effort, he scoops her up off the ground and into his arms, bridal-style. He picks up the pace, moving much quicker now that she’s no longer slowing him down. “I don’t know why you couldn’t have waited to go back until tomorrow,” he mutters under his breath, not expecting her to reply. “Because then I wouldn’t have to lug your deadweight in the middle of the fucking night––” 

One of her hands reaches up and grabs the front of his shirt, doing her best to hold on despite the way he jostles her. She still remains stiff and rigid in his arms even though it makes it all the more difficult for her to hold on; she’s seemingly so disgusted by him that she can’t stand to be in his arms even when he’s helping her. 

“The kids,” she whispers. 

But his anger dissipates when she speaks, turning into yet another shocked exclamation, “The –– what ?” 

“Tiefling kids,” she tries to clarify. “Better take care of it now than. . .” 

“Oh, you’ve got to be joking,” he swears in annoyance, gritting his teeth together at the sheer stupidity of her actions. She’s gone to all of this trouble, almost bloody died, just for some kids? He’d thought she’d had some sense, but clearly, he’d misjudged her! 

But her words jog a few memories in his mind: how she’d bought all of those fake magic rings without blinking an eye or how she’d let one of them pickpocket her. And when she’d disappeared for an hour –– gods, she must have gone down to the damn kids’ hideout Shadowheart couldn’t find the entrance to! (He’d seen it, too, of course, but had simply been amused by her growing annoyance with the lack of answers from the grunting kid in front of it.)

Yet earlier in the day, she’d shown no sign that she cared about the refugees in Emerald Grove. When asked her thoughts on what they should do next, she shrugged and said talking to Halsin was their best bet ––  nothing about how they needed to stop the druids or kill the goblins to save the bloody tieflings! 

By then, however, she’d already had her plan in motion and had told no one. By that point, the drunk goblins had probably just begun to feel the effects of her tampering. A slightly hysterical laugh bubbles up in her throat at her ingenuity and discretion. If he weren’t so irritated that she’d managed to pull the wool down over his eyes as well, he’d give her a round of applause for solving their goblin problem with some poison and a few well-placed blades. 

Wyll’s on watch when he crosses the boundary into the camp and immediately jumps up at the sight of them. By the time he begins to set a now-unconscious Tav down on the closest bedroll, the rest of their party is blearily stumbling out of their tents at the commotion. 

Shadowheart reaches them quickly, kneeling down next to Tav with a healing spell already sparking at her fingertips. She barks at him as if he’s somehow at fault, eyes widening as she takes in the state of their companion, “ What happened?” 

He holds up his hands, eyes widening in mock dramatics. “Before you start, I had nothing to do with this.” 

Karlach arrives just as quickly, close enough to him and Tav that he can feel the heat radiating off her body against his back. At his words, she frowns. “Well, that’s not suspicious at all.” 

“Somehow, I have trouble believing that’s true,” she mutters in response, pressing her hands against the wound in Tav’s gut as she begins the healing process. Blue light illuminates the darkness of the night. 

“Now, Shadowheart,” Wyll cuts in. “Astarion did bring her back to camp. Why would he do that if he’d caused this in the first place?” 

“See––!” 

“Though that isn’t to say that the heroic rescue thing wasn’t a trick,” Wyll continues, his voice still light but his eyes are narrowed in suspicion. Maybe he hasn’t made the best impression on the other man. “

Astarion splutters. In any other situation, he’d back the other man up –– but not when he’s the target. “Now listen here––” 

“All right!” Gale interrupts loudly, clapping his hands once and cutting the pair of them off. A beat later, he summons up a ball of magelight to illuminate the dark around them. “Let’s let Shadowheart work without the sound of bickering, shall we? Then we can all get back to it.” 

Despite Gale’s little intervention, Astarion scowls, crossing his arms in irritation at being made the villain when all he’s done is try to help. ( This is what he gets for sticking his neck out for someone else!) 

There are a few minutes of tense silence as they all stand around waiting. When Shadowheart pulls back Tav’s ruined clothing, giving them all a first look at the injury. It’s not exactly the glancing blow that Tav had described to him but once all of the blood and dirt is cleaned away, the stab wound isn’t as bad as it’d first looked. There’s no exit hole and the bottom of the puncture is jagged and rough, leaving him to wonder if she’d pulled out the blade almost as soon as she’d been stabbed with it. 

(And if the thought of her pulling the dagger out of her body only to kill the drow with the exact same blade brings him a bit of pleasure, well ––  no one has to know .)

Shadowheart stays silent as she works; her healing magic and Gale’s magelight illuminate the space around them but no one speaks, despite him watching Lae’zel open and close her mouth in impatience. 

When it’s nothing more than a puffy, pink mark on Tav’s upper stomach, the cleric leans back on her heels, sweat beading on her forehead. “The wound is mostly closed,” she says, exhaustion coloring her voice. “The dagger –– and I’m assuming it was a dagger –– didn’t hit anything important. Tav likely passed out due to blood loss but she should be fine in a few days.” 

The atmosphere of the camp eases significantly once she says it. As Shadowheart stands, a bit wobbly on her feet, the attention turns back to him. 

Already anticipating yet another barrage of attacks, he speaks swiftly before anyone can even open their mouths. “Tav was already bleeding when I found her. Without me, she wouldn’t have made it back here alone.” 

“And just what were you doing up so late?” 

“Is it a crime to go for a walk in the middle of the night?” Astarion exclaims, throwing up his hands. “I couldn’t sleep so I went to clear my head. Should I have asked permission first, dear Shadowheart?” 

She scowls in response and he takes that as a sign to continue. “Like I said, I found Tav a ways away from camp. She was in bad shape so I didn’t get all the details but. . .” he pauses for effect, eyebrows furrowing as he plays up the severity of her injuries in an attempt to gain more goodwill for himself. “ Apparently , our little silent thief here just took out the entirety of the goblin camp.” 

There’s a moment of stunned silence before Gale asks, rather eloquently, “She what?” 

“Yes, yes, I know! I was surprised, too,” Astarion placates. “She told me she was sick and tired of all your arguing that she took it into her own hands.” 

Lae’zel, for the first time, speaks up instead of glaring silently. “So the istik has cleared the way for us. Good. Now we can focus our attention back on the creche.” 

At the gith’s proclamation, Shadowheart rolls her eyes and ignores her entirely. “Did she say how she did it?” 

Astarion hums, waving an errant hand. “Poison and blades, that sort of thing. She was rather mum on the details –– for obvious reasons, of course .” 

He doesn’t know why he omits it but he says nothing about her reasoning, how her main motivating factor to do so had been to ensure the tiefling kids’ safety. (Later, he’ll tell himself that the less the others know about her, the better –– he can’t have any competition when trying to manipulate her, after all.)

Wyll rubs a hand over his face, staring down at Tav with an inscrutable look on his face. “We should let her sleep,” he says finally. “We can talk more about this in the morning when she’s awake.” 

The prospect of them trying to get answers out of silent, stubborn Tav is a delightful thought.

“We should revist the goblin camp as well,” Gale adds. “Not that I don’t believe in her, of course –– just to cover all of our bases. But that can wait until tomorrow.” 

Gleefully, Astarion watches them all stare down at Tav for a few more seconds, practically seeing the gears in their minds turning as they realize their initial assessment of the other rogue likely had been incorrect. Slowly, everyone turns back to their tents

“I’m going to clean off,” he announces no one in particular, propping his hands on his hips. He feels he might as well since they’d all attacked him for “taking a walk” earlier. “I certainly can’t trance looking like this.” 

With silence as his response, he heads down to the nearby river, eager for a bit of distance to finally put his thoughts in order. 

Kneeling down at the riverbank, he scowls at the way his white-ruffled shirt has now been stained with Tav’s blood (especially with all the work he’d done to keep it clean when drinking from the deer). He moves to tug it up and over his head but as he does, his attention is drawn to the dried blood on his hands. 

Thou shalt not drink of the blood of thinking creatures.

But Cazador isn’t here right now –– it’s just him, the river, the ache of hunger in his stomach, and the blood on his hands. And if he’s able to walk in the sun without burning. . .

Almost as if in a trance-like state and anticipating punishment at any moment, he raises his hand up to his lips; his tongue darts out to taste the blood and the dark, heady flavor of it immediately bursts into his mouth. 

It’s unlike anything he’s ever tasted, even dried and old –– like an aged brandy mixed with a hint of spice –– and he wants ( needs ) more of it. Before he knows it, he’s licked his entire hand clean of her blood, a wild desperation to his actions. When he runs out, palm clean and glistening, he groans deep in his chest, desperate for more. 

Desperate for it straight from the source. 

His mind whirls with his reassessment of her character. Tav’s one of those stoic, silent types –– but underneath all of that, he suspects there’s a heart of gold. She clearly cares for children, so much so that she’d risk her own life to save them. 

It won’t be difficult to mold himself into a closer mirror now that he’s seen a different side of her (though, hells, he’s not looking forward to being kind, especially not to people who can’t even save themselves). He’ll get her talking more, try to dazzle her with random acts of (eugh) heroics. That, combined with a slow increase of physical touches, will have her eating out of the palm of his hand in a matter of few weeks. Once he gets all of the pieces into place, she’ll be begging for him to take a bite out of her. 

As a new plan begins to form in his mind, Astarion’s lips curl up in a smile. 

[sadboytournament]

ROUND ONE

Propaganda

Jonathan: Jesus Christ this poor man. He’s had severe survivor’s guilt since he was 8. He got eaten by worms. He’s been kidnapped like five times. He spent most of a season slowly starving to death and yearning for his boyfriend who went to work for an evil god of loneliness. He literally lives in his office. He is literally so scared of everything that he was used to kickstart an apocalypse of pure fear. I Am So Sad About This Man.

Sev: Sev is the Earth-97 version of Psychic, a psychomancer who works for the antagonists of Friday Night Funkin'. Sev is a younger, kinder, and ultimately more tragic version of Psychic in a universe where his employers, the Dearests, are crueler to him than in the original universe. In his universe, he was born in a lab as an experiment to recreate the Psychomancer species, and being artificial, cannot enter the dimension where others of his species reside. Like the original Psychic, Sev is a being entirely made of energy, but unlike him, he must feed off of the mental energy of others in order to stay alive. In this universe the Dearests took him in and raised him when he is very young, in return for his service. Being much kinder than his original counterpart, Sev would have been horrified had he known about his employers' actions behind the scenes. In order to keep him beholden to them they twisted many truths and essentially manipulated and abused him into serving them without question. One way they did this was by shaming him for his need to take others' energy to survive, despite that being his only option. Eventually, when he by chance caught them trapping one of their rivals in another dimension, he later confronted them about their misdeeds in righteous anger. This led to a fierce magical fight that ended with him being expelled from the family and forced to survive in the streets on his own. A year and a half later, he has become an urban legend in the city, as he resorts to luring passersby into alleyways and draining them of energy before moving on. He cannot eat or drink and so has no other means of sustaining himself. Additionally, every time he uses his magic, that expends his power and so he uses it very little in order to stay alive. He's the ultimate sadboy due to his incredibly low self esteem and inability to trust anyone, including himself. He believes himself to be a bad person by the very nature of how he survives. He sees life as a give-and-take situation and his own life as a situation where he takes and takes and gives nothing back. Sev doesn't feel like he deserves anyone's help, and if he did receive help he would wonder how to make up for it. Still, he would gratefully accept it out of pure necessity. He used to be much more vibrant, but now he can't afford to indulge in any kind of pleasure as his priorities have shifted entirely to survival.

[concubuck]

The Downside

Alastor had been warned the first few weeks with a baby would be exhausting. He'd expected it to be exhausting. However, since leaving the hospital, he's made a startling discovery:

It's exhausting.

Alastor's a powerful man. He has magic at his fingertips that would make any overlord tremble in fear. He can go days and days without a full night's sleep and still be wired and ready to raise hell.

However, his ability to go days without sleep is predicated on whether he started with a full battery. But Alastor has been pushed to his limit for months, physically and mentally—then drained the last of his reserves pushing out a new person—and he hasn't got more than an hour and a half of sleep in a row since then. He's empty.

Usually Alastor can replenish his magic and energy by eating a little more, but with most of what goes into his stomach getting alchemized back into milk, he's choking down a meal nearly as often as the baby is (about ten times a day), and he still feels like his energy deficit is growing.

Is this how normal people live? Struggling onward with only just enough energy to carry them from one nap to the next, without the benefit of days of stored-up magical power to propel them onward? It's awful. RIP to humans.

On top of that, once the last of the mood-suppressing medicine he took to get through the birth is out of his system, he makes an even more unpleasant discovery: feeding the baby makes him orgasm.

It takes a frantic call to his doctor and a panicked voogle search for Alastor to learn that this is not only near-universal for succubi, but also even some human mothers have the same problem. And like him, the human mothers are usually mortified by the experience. That's reassuring. At least he isn't alone. At least it's not something wrong with him, not some perversion that's wormed its way into his mind. It's just an accident of biology. Knowing it doesn't mean anything makes it easier for him to try to ignore it. Plenty of other mundane, meaningless things force him to orgasm, too.

At least it isn't satisfying. It leaves him more aroused, sure, but he can deal with being more aroused. He just wishes it wasn't so hard to get laid.

Right now, it seems like he just doesn't have enough time for sex. There aren't enough hours in the day for him to feed the baby, eat, fuck, and sleep—his most basic biological necessities—much less for him to do anything less important, like shower or work. He's been stuck in this hazy-brained cycle of exhaustion and hunger and feeding for weeks, and the only thing that keeps him pushing through is the memory of reading that in a couple months, this phase ends.

But until then, it's a damn good thing he has the option to stay at Cal's place—because if he was doing this by himself, by now both he and the kid might be dead of starvation.

He hates this helplessness. He hates that his own alternates, of all people, are seeing him like this. He hates that he needs to be surrounded by people to keep him alive.

[sonicasura]

Like with the Fierce Deity Characterization Poll, I'll be providing some context for First's Residual Reincarnation Poll. This is long hence the cut.

For those who haven't read the Skyward Sword prequel, First is the Link where the Hero's Spirit originally came from. He was considered a traitor to his people for something he didn't do, a 'Will By the Gods' to strengthen his spirit. And his heroic spirit was 'blessed' to constant reincarnation by Hylia so double whammy when Demise threw his curse in.

This sudden reincarnation is spurred from his spirit being split in twain, everything that can be seen as heroic was torn away which left everything else behind. Wrath, loneliness, hatred, rebellion and such can become quite volatile without their missing half. These remains seek the stolen parts of First's soul thus follow each incarnation.

Reason? Companionship, let the truth of their origins come to light. I Am Thou and Thou Art I. The connection between First to his Hero's Spirit incarnations are linked to their very core. He knows where his missing half is at all times and seeks them out.

Those that follow Hylia or tries to enforce Destin will always attempt to repel First in whatever way they can. Most detrimental is telling the current incarnation of Link to view their missing half as a threat. Once they first meet is when the connection begins to solidify. First and his reincarnations shall start to feel each other's physical pain, if one gets hurt so does the missing half.

Their feelings soon follow, then memories, power, the opposite's visage and finally spiritual unity. It is how First's remaining soul can recover from the damage done to being split. To reclaim every lost piece as the two can never become one again unless the Goddess's spell is broken.

Now each residual incarnation has a key issue that needs help from their missing half to fully rectify. Something which can only be done as the form and deepen this lost bond. Link must take the role of First's moral guide.

Lamortmon, Loss of Control

The owl rabbit beast, Lamortmon, is a berserker whose primal instincts are in the forefront. Any negative view(not from Link) on this First iteration is a death sentence as he won't stop until the offender is dead or his missing half holds him back. (Fitting since Lamort means Death in French) He completely despises this because his restraint has been taken.

First is very protective of the Hero's Spirit akin to a mother bear. Absolutely ferocious if his Link shall be harmed by others. He can only focus on the Hero's Spirit wellbeing and has to be to taught to take others into account.

The current Link has to reteach the reincarnation control, that First can ignore how people view him as a monster. Show them he is more than a vicious beast and is a person like everyone else. Doing this grants the current Hero's Spirit incarnation the power of First's Storm Beast, wind element swords fueled by the user's emotions.

Scar of Vendread, Lack of Reasoning

Vengeful remains given life, Scar of Vendread, is First's original body twisted by wrath. He bears no reasoning as he will mercilessly torn apart or even DEVOUR any potential threat. First mainly feeds on the undead to repair any damage done to his body and even go after living creation if no corpse is available to him.

First acts like a servant to his current incarnation. Whatever Link wants him to do, he'll do it with no issue. However if something is detrimental to his incarnation's wellbeing, First won't follow any command and instead care for the Hero's Spirit. A quite awkward caretaker who doesn't remember how to care for others.

Link has to help First reclaim his morality. That there are ways to solve a problem without hurting others. He always has an option even in the worse moral situation possible. Doing this grants Link First's immense regeneration, to reclaim life and lost magic when on his last legs. A second chance.

Chien Pao, Lack of Concern

Broken blades engulfed in snow, Chien Pao, is First's hatred imbue to his broken original sword. A spirit driven by hatred that does what he wants without care for anyone else but his incarnation's wellbeing. His forceful aura makes everyone either retreat or face him with their defenses weakened.

First is a playful snowy feline who is quick to anger if outsiders interrupt him. He likes to frolick in snowfall or avalanches he creates for him and the current Link to merrily enjoy. First will begrudgingly behave himself for the sake of his missing half.

Link must teach him how his actions can affect others. To be responsible with such fearsome powers and when to use them. If Link accomplishes this then First's ice imbued blade is his alongside the ability to devastate opponents through the power of wrath.

Magnamalo, Loss of Morality

The barbarous beast that breathes hellfire, Magnamalo, is First's malice taken form. He voraciously feeds on the life force of others from animals, monsters, to even people if the latter garner his rage. First's hellfire can burn someone down to their souls and cut down them mercilessly.

He acts like a ferocious protector to his current incarnation. Only Link is given the beast's compassion from First while any 'companions' are ignored or threatened if they get too close. He shall be the Hero's Spirit blade to strike, rage to burn and shield to protect.

Link must teach First that he can trust others. To show their people out there who sees him as more than just a tool or monster. Doing so grants Link First's mastery of hellfire and wield as an extension of his being.

Myotismon, Lack of Compassion

The vampire king, Myotismon, an entity born from cruelty and hate First endured. He will inflict or brutal torture against those that get in his way. Draining blood and life force of those the vampire sees are below him.

Link is considered First's personal treasure. The only person who deserves his kindness, love and care. If Link doesn't want him to harm someone, then First will back down with little issue.

The Hero's Spirit must teach his missing half compassion once more. How everyone should be treated as an living being unless given the proper reason not to. Doing so grants Link First's vampiric power, to weave darkness and command the beasts of night such as bats, wolves, etc.

When delving into Linked Universe territory, First will accompany one of the Links as the Chain come together. His actions are much different around the group than with other people. First will equally share any compassion and care amongst them.

If one Link has an issue or there's a problem that drives a wedge in the group, First will immediately address it. Any turmoil to his fractured spirit isn't something he'll tolerate if he can do something about it. Just like with the Link he came, the residual reincarnation will form a connection amongst the rest of the Chain.

First's pain is equally divided amongst the group that it feels more like an itch. He can share one Link's feelings, emotions or even memories to the other if it can solve an issue amongst the group. But once the bond between the Chain and First is strong enough, the hero can finally retake his true form.

The hero's original personality returns as his spirit has fully recovered from the split. First will seek to break Hylia's spell and Demise's curse so this endless reincarnation of suffering can come to an end. That they can live in peace should their spirit naturally reincarnate as the hero's responsibility wouldn't thrust onto them if trouble emerges. An escape from a terrible fate.

That's all I have for now! Until next time folks, I'll see you later!

[pellelavellan]

Pelle's Magic part 10,000

I am sure I have made posts about this before but never too late to talk about it again.

Pelle carries a staff, but it is not his. It is his mother's and he doesn't use it really. He carries it for sentimental reasons like a sign that his mother is still with him even if she is no longer among the living. The staff he carries is very clearly not his own as it is too short for him because his mother was shorter than him. He has actually never used a staff and for the entirety of his life has actually never owned one of his own as he did not see any reason to have one. Deshanna never argued with him about this as it was his magic and he was free to feel it and use it however he felt best.

Ever since he was very young, Pelle has felt a deep connection to all of nature be it the flora, fauna, other people, and the spirits that coexist with it all beyond the veil. As a toddler and young child he had little to no control of it and so Deshanna had a charm crafted to protect him until he had some autonomy of his magic and understanding of all the elements that held it all together.

He discovered healing first when he was six years old. His people took notice of this when the small animals they had caught in snares began escaping. Pelle had been healing them, feeling a deep sense of empathy towards the fear they felt caught in traps and the pain their injured bodies endured. He was taught not to do this as to not cause a shortage of food, but to this day he has never been able to stomach eating an animal because of this unique experience he has with the animals the hunters catch to feed them. He had the luxury to be picky about this in a permanent settlement when there were options of crops grown.

For the majority of his childhood and early teens his magic remained unchanged as he became familiar with it. By the age of ten he had an understanding that he could manipulate the world around him be it encouraging a dying plant to find new life, cause fire to spring from the wick of a candle or a pile of wood, and repair the flesh of injured animals and fellow elves. He had an unspoken bond between the animals the clan kept, but also the dangerous animals in the woods like the wolves and the bears. They did not attack him, and he soon found he could approach them and touch them without disturbing them. Additionally, much to the detriment of his friends he could sense their emotions even if he could not read their minds. It was a blessing when times were good, and a curse when he could feel the hatred that radiated off of the humans that meant them harm.

All of these reasons Pelle relied on to justify his refusal of a staff. To him, the sense of touch was invaluable to his magic. He needed to feel the swell of life beneath his fingertips, he enjoyed it. With magic that was so firmly established upon a connection to other living things, it made perfect sense to him that he ought to honor that with his own body and as a result has never once used to a staff to direct his magic, but his hands.

When he was sixteen he learned something new about himself. It was in a moment of desperation, and he will never forget the first time he used his magic to take a life both because it forever changed the way he and everyone else viewed him and his magic. In the moment he had simply summoned a scrap of destroyed wood from a damaged building to bend to his will and hurled it into his assailant, but it was this accident that not only saved his life but also told him that he not only felt the world around him so intensely, but it recognized him as a part of it as well.

It took him years to master the new power he had discovered, but with time he learned to use not just his hands but his entire body to harness the world around him. At his current age of 23 in Inquisition he can only manifest this ability with the wilderness, and while he has some control of certain forms of stone he is ultimately at a disadvantage when surrounded by man-made materials.

That being said, he has on more than one occasion terrified a human by entrapping them a prison of tree roots he summoned by digging his heels into the ground, and allowing the trees to become his arms to fight enemies for him that he could not best on his own. He's never been particularly tall or strong, and has always been the smallest of his peers at home. His method of magic is meant to keep people away rather than inflict harm, but if he must the wrath of the trees is powerful and not to be trifled with.

[maple-the-awesome]

Birthday Wish ||

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Words: 2,749

Requested by @sourpatchspinster: Hi hun,ay I make a request please? It's my birthday coming up in a month and I'll be 30 🙃, I'm totally having an existential crisis about it. Can I have a fluffy fic about the reader turning 30 and she is just being very dramatic like ... , She's single and think she going to die alone lol, but Bucky and his 106 year old ass tell it's going to be okay and she not going to die alone because he loves. Sorry this very specific, but I'm having a moment lol

I love this idea (mainly because I've had this same moment before😔). Here you go, sweetie, and I hope you have an amazing birthday 🥳

Marvel Masterlist 🖤 Fandom Masterlist 🖤 Requests

You should be happy. The weather's perfect and everyone you care about is near, many of whom you haven't seen in what feels like ages. There's also not a single threat in sight; no rouge super soldiers threating peace nor murderous aliens threating existence itself. It's just your friends singing 'Happy Birthday' terribly yet purposefully off key while being all smiles and laughter; a look so foreign for the Avengers these days. So, you should be happy...but you're not.

Three zero. Your hatred for the number only grows the longer you stare at those red and white candles. It's insane to think that as a child, you actually looked forward to turning thirty. What the heck was wrong with you then? No sane person wants to be thirty! When you turn sixteen, you can get a driver's license, turn eighteen to be considered a legal adult, and at twenty-one you can finally drink alcohol. What happens at thirty? Nothing except more body pains in places you'd never expect and the terrifying reminder that the clock is ticking down.

Staring at those two cursed candles, you wonder if they'll reverse time if you wish hard enough. Perhaps you could even pull Stephan aside later and strike some kind of bargain, begging him to work some of his wizard magic to make you younger somehow...No, you doubt he'll do that. He was already complaining earlier about the entire fiasco that occurred after he tried helping Spiderman. With Stephan not being an option, you're really just going to have to wish with all your might.

Alas, nothing happens when you suck in a breath and blow out the tiny flames; nothing except the cheers of the crowd as they’re the only ones celebrating your new age. Not wanting to hurt their feelings nor burden them with your inner worries on such an joyous occasion, you put on your best smile. You're happy, that's all they need to know at least.

Being the birthday girl, you get your first pick of a cake slice, deciding to feed that inner child within by getting the slice with the most intact cookie on top. From there you slip past the group, finding a quiet spot on the porch of the Wilson home where you can eat in peace and alone...as you worry you'll be spending the rest of your life.

In the past (meaning up until earlier last month), you've tried not to worry too much over the status of your love life. You went on dates and tried your best to land a guy without any red flags, but on its own that can be a difficult, time consuming task which only gets worse when added to your busy life as an Avenger. It doesn't help that you pretty much took a five year hiatus during the Blip, only managing to go on one or two dates during that time before realizing you're too depressed to try.

Now that the Blip is over and everyone is back, you've been trying to slowly get back onto the dating scene with little luck. Before you could usually find a guy or two who peaked your interest enough to warrant other dates or even the eventual title of boyfriend, but now you can't even recall the last time you’ve called a guy back after the first date. Did the Blip change you that much? Has your age made you more picky? Or perhaps...

To be honest, if you allowed yourself to dwell on it long enough, you'd realize there's a reason for why you had such a hard time dating during the Blip and why no guy has seemed to spark a light inside your heart afterwards. It's because deep down inside, your heart already knows exactly what type of guy it longs for right down to the name no one else has been able to compete with.

It isn't that you're necessarily blind to this fact, only that you're too stubborn to admit it. You’re thirty years old today which means you're also officially a beggar who can't be a chooser and far too old to hold onto a stupid school girl crush. It doesn't matter what your heart wants to make of all those gentle touches or the playful flirting that surrounds your purely platonic relationship; it won't wash away the line carved in stone and the sooner you cut that pesky rope of hope, the sooner you can return to your quest of actually finding someone before you end up being too old to grow old with them.

"Is the cake not good?" At this point you're certain Bucky hangs around watching you just in waiting to approach at the worst possible time. There's no other reason for him to drop whatever argument Sam and him had been having just to walk over to you with a teasing smile that looks way too mischevious to hold any ounce of innocence; like he knows he's caught you thinking about something forbidden even if that's impossible.

Luckily, he concludes by the way you lift your head with a raised eyebrow that you hadn’t heard his question properly. Poking his fork into his own cake slice, he nods towards yours," the cake? Do you not like it? I had no idea which to get; there were like fifty there. I honestly just got Oreo because I like it, but I probably should've had Sam pick one out-"

His last comment seems scolded more towards himself, but you cut him off by quickly scooping up another piece of the ice-cream cake which had already began to melt," no, no. It's good...You did a good job picking it."

Bucky smiles more at this, although he doesn't leave. Instead, he hovers there mere feet in front of you like a child waiting to annoy their mom over something. You, meanwhile, fight to keep your eyes on the plate, only barely glancing up to notice his eyes lingering over the sliver of space beside you. Getting the message, you scoot over," wanna sit?"

"Yeah...Yeah, I do," he chuckles in embarrassment before gratefully sitting beside you. Despite the amount of room you've provided him with, he still decides to sit close enough to have his arm and leg rub up against yours; a usual habit you've noticed he has not that it means anything.

The two of you eat together in silence, enjoying how nice the cool treat tastes against the warm weather. Everyone else has migrated into different groups to share conversations while Clint's kids and Sam's nephews chase circles around the adults. You actually manage to smile at the sight, happy to see everyone back with their families after so much recent heartache, however the feeling doesn't last long before being bittered.

You're thirty years old without a partner. How much longer will it take to find Mr. Right, and how long will it take for the relationship to progress into something considered stable? While marriage is optional these days as is the concern over concrete long term plans, there’s always the possibility that you might decide to start a family with your future partner. Will you be too old to get pregnant by then? Would even adoption prove to be too much?

"You alright, doll?" Doll...Another habit of Bucky's that means nothing aside from a prick to your heart at such a vulnerable moment.

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?"

"You seem...distant," he notes, following your eyes to the group of kids who've successfully dragged Scott into their game of tag," is the party too much?"

"No, it's been great and I've enjoyed getting to see everyone again. I just..." You cut yourself off with a shake of your head, not wanting to get into it. Instead you pick up your plastic solo cup and fiddle with the smooth edge in desperate search for a good excuse," I haven't really gotten much done this week, so I'm gonna need to play catch up. I haven't been grocery shopping yet, 'need to clean the house...I might even update my dating profile, who knows?"

You mention the last part while lifting the soda to your lips and taking a long drink, ignoring the sudden change in Bucky's facial expression which scrunches up as if he has just been asked to solve a difficult math equation.

"...Dating profile, huh?" If you didn't know any better, you'd say his echoed words sound forced, but you don't dwell on that.

"Yeah, ya' know...Thirty's pretty old. I'd like to find a guy before I run out of time..." You hate how pathetic your voice gets with each word, reflecting your inner concern more than you'd prefer.

You really don't want to seem dramatic especially in front of someone you respect as much as Bucky, but you can't help yourself. You've lost count to how many times people have joked about your old age just today alone, never realizing the jabs they’re causing to your confidence not that they can really be blamed. This is the first time all day where someone's noticed your inner demons and it's making you fall apart at the seams.

"I'm gonna pretend you didn't just say that."

"Huh? What?" You raise an eyebrow, slightly offended at the way Bucky turns away and takes a drink from his beer bottle with a look of mild interest if it can even be called that.

"That you said 'thirty's pretty old', 'cause if you're old at thirty and running out of time, then that means I'm ancient and out of luck," he wears a smirk nearly identical to the teasing one from before, however the more you stare at him, the more different it seems. It's almost like there's a hidden pain of his own bitterness against the curl of his lips.

"...Well, I hate to break it to you, Barnes, but you probably do belong in a museum-"

"-Hey!"

"Don't 'hey' me. You're like what? A hundred?"

He bites his lip and looks away with a stubborn whisper,"...a hundred and six."

"Ancient," despite your sour mood, you still manage to smile at the way he nudges your arm playfully. This smile fades only slightly as you stare down at the dark liquid rippling in your hands, preparing to be a bit more serious with your next topic," but even so, I don't think you have as much to worry about."

"Why not?" He's generally curious, facing you fully once more with a cute raise of his eyebrow.

"Ancient people have mirrors in their apartments, right?" You pause solely to get a good look at his frown before carry on," because I find it hard to believe you'd have any problem getting a date with your looks. Even the other day when we went down to the docks to help Sam with his boat, there were girls giggling about you. I bet if you stood on the side of the street with a sign that said 'please date me', there'd be a line of men and women wrapping around Louisiana."

"I don't get that much attention," He leans back against the stairs, propping his leg up and bringing his beer to his lips yet never actually taking a drink. If anything, he's just using it to hide his face from you while pretending to be watching the party from a distance.

"You get all the attention. Everyone knows that...but if you don't believe me, we can do a vote-"

"-Nope. No need for that...Just sit your ass down, doll," you go to stand only for Bucky to grab your arm in a hurry and pull you back down, his cheeks dusted from what you assume is embarrassment as you laugh. Shifting uncomfortably, he mumbles," if that's your logic, then you shouldn't have much trouble with dates yourself."

"What makes you say that?" Now you're the one confused.

"Old people have mirrors in their apartments, right?" He quotes you from earlier, bashfully glancing your way for only a second before turning to pick at the peeling paint on the steps," you're a beautiful gal not to mention you're funny and caring along with countless other things- what I'm trying to say is, guys should be lining up around the block for a chance to date you."

There's a heat to your cheeks at his words, however you're quick to remind yourself of their worth as a simple build up from a good friend. Instead of letting them sink into your already fizzy heart, you curl your knees to your chest and shake your head," the problem isn't getting dates with guys, it's finding the right guy...Every time I go, I find something that doesn't work for me. I don't like his style or laugh. I don't feel anything when he holds my hand or kisses my cheek. It just always ends up feeling...wrong. Like..."

"...Like you're meant to be there with someone else?" You're shocked at how fitting Bucky's words are, a reaction he notes. Flustered, he gives a shrug while sitting up straight again," I get that. I went on a date not too long ago and ended up leaving half way through because I couldn't stop thinking about someone else."

"...Oh...?" You frown, fiddling with your fingers in mock distraction," why not just ask that 'someone else' out then?"

Bucky hums absentmindedly, certain you missed the way he glances at you a few different times in the corner of his eyes while weighing his choices in response. It feels like a good minute goes by, one where you watch the party in a somewhat tense atmosphere as if both of you are aware the conversation has hit the same stubborn door you’ve always somehow managed to find. It's a door that appears whenever Bucky leans his arm over your shoulders during movie nights or the way his words trail off as you both stand close enough to feel each others breath while enjoying the sunset on Sam's boat; a door that reminds you both that to pass through would be to cross that stone line of a platonic relationship into something not meant for friends.

"...I think she might be too old for me," Bucky finally confesses, his voice purposefully low to allow fate to decide whether or not you hear.

Fate decides that you do, shown through your confusion," too old for you? What girl is too old for a hundred and six year old man? Are you checking out the ladies at a retirement home or something?”

He shrugs, leaning forward slightly while cupping his hands together," I don't know…I just heard her say thirty is pretty old."

You blink once then twice, letting his words sink in," you..."

Chewing his bottom lip, he refuses to steal glances at you anymore, instead beginning to feel the suffocation of regret set in," look, I get it if you’re not interested. It’s weird, I mean, we’re friends and teammates, but I…I really like you, doll, and if you’d give me the chance, I’d like to be the first guy in line for a date with you- If not then that’s fine. I won’t bring it up again, I promise. I-”

“-I’m free Friday…”

“H-Huh?”

“Friday night. I’m, uh, free if you’d like to go out then,” you rub the back of your neck shyly, your face feeling like it’s on fire as Bucky stares at you in surprise.

It takes some time for your words to process in his head, the outcome where you agree to a date having never actually been considered for some reason. He figured it would be a longshot, one against his better judgment that would possibly ruin your friendship, but not in a good way; not in this way.

“Friday night,” he echoes breathlessly before seeming to snap back into it, his voice noticeably more uplifted as he nods frantically,” right, Friday, I can do that. Uh, how about we go dancing? Do guys still take girls dancing? I don’t have any idea how this modern dating thing works.”

You chuckle at his eagerness, finally finding the courage to look at him with an uncontrollable smile of your own,” I think any date would be amazing with you- as long as you don't take me to a bingo night somewhere that is."

“...Bingo's actually kind of fun, doll.”

“Maybe you are too old for me.” 

“Hey!”

You laugh, standing up from the porch with your empty plate and cup in hand," Friday night dancing...It's a date then, Barnes. I'm looking forward to it."

Going on a date with Bucky might not be what you wished for today, but it's something far better, that's for sure...Maybe turning thirty isn't actually that bad after all.