#but it smells wonderful and lasts a shockingly long time

[peaches2217]

My mom got me two Lattafas for Valentines Day and they just arrived today, so here’s my full-size collection as of right now! I’m so proud 🥹🥰

[ephie-om]

Song: Talk Too Much: COIN

Yes I know this is 1.5 times as long as any other piece I've written for this event. A man can have favorites ok

Day 10: Diavolo

In retrospect, you really should’ve known it was him. Unfortunately, a lack of knowledge about Devildom culture and a large amount of your own insecurity had conspired to make you completely oblivious. Everyone except you had known, and for some reason, absolutely none of them had decided to come out and tell you.

It started with the classic romantic gestures, notes in your locker. They were simple little declarations of love from your secret admirer, talking about the way your eyes light up or the way you laugh when you’re not worried about how you sound. You kept them all in a shoebox stashed under your bed, worried about what the brothers might say if they found you holding onto them. They received fanmail and love letters constantly, which meant they were jaded to the prospect of any of them actually meaning anything. So you kept it a secret as best you could. Through your subterfuge, you completely failed to see that every letter on your notes was embossed with gold.

After a few weeks, you started to find flowers on your desk in the morning. Just a single blood-red rose at first, petals tipped with a deep purple. It became your daily routine to breathe in the smell, the scent bordering on bitter, but not unpleasant. You kept them hidden in your bag to take home, and the vase you kept on your nightstand was filled for the first time. Then it became three flowers, then five, and eventually you were getting full bouquets every morning, tied with a deep red silk ribbon. Your classmates didn’t pay it any particular attention, in fact, they looked away hurriedly from your flowers, so you assumed this was normal. You had to crush the flowers a bit to stuff them into your bag, but you tried your best to revive the petals once you got home. Thankfully, none of the brothers who came into your room ever commented on the three vases you now owned.

The gifts started to get a little more personal, cases of your favorite Devildom candy at your doorstep every week on the dot. Those you couldn’t hide, so when the brothers asked you about them, you were forced to explain the situation. Shockingly, they didn’t force you to surrender the candy until they could check it for poison, or rip your flowers apart to search for traces of a love potion. The biggest reaction you got was from Mammon, whose eyes flashed yellow when he sniffed the note, and he dropped it immediately. Asmo had just winked at you and told you to be careful.

Your secret admirer tripped up a few times, not that you had particularly noticed. You had found a letter in your locker for an intensive spa session, covering every area that needed attention head to toe, fully paid for. Unfortunately, none of the ingredients in the Devildom’s high-end skincare were human-safe, so you regretfully threw the paper in the trash. You received two more letters the following days, then they disappeared entirely.

Three months after the notes began, you were receiving golden jewelry on a weekly basis. You happily used all the gifts you could, relishing in the anonymous affection. You had no particular desire to know who this person was, worried that it would break the illusion. Some part of you was scared that it might all be over once they actually talked to you, so you tried to push it out of your mind.

You had mentioned your worries offhandedly to Satan, wondering how this person could be so sure of their love for someone they had never met. Satan had snorted derisively at you and refused to answer, so you stormed off. Your mind held onto his reaction, and now you were worried that your suspicions were justified. You resolved to put an end to the situation, so you wrote a note to your admirer and placed it in your locker after your last class of the day. The note kindly asked them to meet you at a small, out-of-the-way coffee shop the next day so that you could break the news to them.

That was how you found yourself in front of your closet trying to decide what to wear to break up with someone you weren’t even dating. You sighed, tossing another pair of pants into the rejected pile on your bed. You had tried to get Asmo to help you with the outfit, but he had made some half-assed excuse about a hair emergency and left you to your own devices. You finally settled on a black pair of ripped jeans with a sage green cropped t-shirt and a thin gold chain, before you realized that the necklace was from your admirer. You threw it on the floor in frustration, running your hands through your hair. You didn’t have enough time to match more jewelry, so you gave up and headed out.

The rusty hinges squeaked as you pushed open the heavy door. The rich smell of espresso hit your nostrils, and for a moment it reminded you of the roses in your room. You glanced around the room to find that you were the only one here. Since you got here early, you ordered a drink and settled yourself at a corner table, waiting. Anxiety twisted your stomach and you fidgeted with your fingers, grateful when your drink came out so your hands had something to hold onto.

The door screeched again as a massive demon walked in, having to stoop to fit through the frame. The demon behind the counter froze in their tracks, eyes wide. The pit in your stomach faded as you recognized Diavolo. You let out a slow breath, relieved. His eyes swept the room, finally finding you. You waved at him happily. “What are you doing here?” you asked cheerily.

He swallowed hard. “I’m here because someone asked me to meet them.”

“Oh, I’m meeting someone too! You could sit with me until they get here if you want.”

He sighed. For some reason, the sight of the smile on your face didn’t cheer him up, which was odd for him. “I’m here to meet you,” he finally admitted.

The pieces had only just started to come together in your head, but you weren’t ready to think about it just yet. “You came to meet me?”

He nodded, a deep red blush across his cheeks. He settled his large frame into the chair across from you, not quite meeting your eyes. “Your note sounded bad.”

“My note?”

He looked at you, a mixture of embarrassment and disappointment in his eyes. “The note you left in your locker. You titled it “to my secret admirer”. I thought I’d done a terrible job at keeping it secret.”

You blinked at him, your mouth opening and closing like a fish. “It was you?”

He laughed nervously. “Of course it was me. I really thought you knew.”

You took a few more moments to process the revelation, burning your mouth on your drink twice. He looked at you curiously. “So what did you want to tell me?”

You wanted to tell your secret admirer that since he didn’t know you, the relationship would never work. You wanted to tell him the constant gifts set a standard you weren’t sure you could reciprocate. You wanted to tell him that since he was Diavolo, none of that mattered any more.

It was your turn to go bright red. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” he asked bemusedly.

“Nope.” You fiddle with your cup, melting under his gaze. “Just… thank you. For all the gifts and the notes and everything.”

He laughed. “You don’t have to say that if you didn’t like them.”

“What do you mean, I didn’t like them? I loved them.”

“I watched you stuff an entire bouquet of roses in the bottom of your schoolbag and keep them there for eight hours. To me, that doesn’t say you liked them.”

You wanted to crawl under the table. “I loved them. I’m just so sick of the brothers trying to keep everything unknown away from me and I was worried they would, I don’t know, find you and kill you.”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly unknown. The minute I figured out I was in love with you I told Lucifer.”

You gaped at him and he just shrugged in response.

“He’s my right hand man. He knows everything he needs to know, and you live in his house, so he needed to know. I gave very clear instructions for none of his brothers to interfere in any way,” he said, so nonchalantly he might be talking about the weather rather than his attempted wooing of you.

He shifted his hand slowly across the table, looking away. You narrowed your eyes; you were onto his games now. “You can just hold my hand.”

He grinned. “Really?”

You grabbed his hand first. His large hands might have been even warmer than your drink as he stroked your knuckles with his thumb gently. His golden eyes shined, and he made eye contact with you as he brought your hand to his mouth and kissed it softly. You can’t keep the smile off your face, and you saw it mirrored on his mouth. He set your hands back on the table, savoring the moment.

You gasped as you were struck with a sudden realization. “Diavolo, you shouldn’t be doing this in public. Someone could see us!”

He laughed heartily. “My dear, you already did most of the work for me by picking such an inconspicuous place. All I had to do was kindly speak with the owner.” He motioned towards the door, which now had the ‘Closed’ sign facing outwards. He winked at you when your gaze traveled back to his face. “Perks of dating the ruler of the Devildom.”

You grinned back at him. “I like the sound of that.”

[mysticwolfshadows]

Taken - Zutara - Part 49

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They make it to the Fire Nation with very little fanfare. It was shockingly easy, given how difficult it had been to get past the barricade when they went to Roku's temple. But there they were, landing harmlessly in a cave on one of the outer islands.

While Sokka lamented about how this was their life now, hopping from cave to cave, until the invasion began.

Zuko rolled his eyes, and shared a look with Katara and Suki. One of them had to talk sense into Sokka.

"We could try finding some new clothes?" Suki suggested, glancing at Katara.

"Zuko and I know how to blend in with the Fire Nation."

Aang was quick to jump in. "Yeah! Blending in is better than hiding out. Wouldn't having Fire Nation disguises be just as safe as hiding in a cave?"

"Plus, we can get real food out there." Toph punches a wall, making cave hoppers jump out, Momo diving after them. "Unless you'd rather eat cave hoppers in the dirt."

Sokka purses his lips, looking at Zuko as his last hope.

Zuko rose a brow, arms crossed. "We need to conserve as much of our supplies as we can. If we keep using our reserves when we don't have to, we'll run out before we reach the Black Cliffs."

Finally, Sokka caved. "Fiiiine."

They start by finding the nearest farm. There was a series of clothes lines, which they studied carefully for a moment. Aang wondered about the ethics of stealing for a moment, before Katara rushed forwards to snag a silk robe. Suki and Toph weren't far behind, and the boys soon followed.

They returned to the cave to get changed, Toph putting up walls to give them some semblance of privacy, while Sokka and Zuko scrounged together a wig for Aang to wear to hide his tattoos.

"What about your scar?" Aang whinged, as they tied the headband(?) around the wig to help keep it in place. "It's distinctive!"

"Burn scars are common in the Fire Nation," Katara said, as she stepped out. "While they aren't usually on the face, you'll probably see a lot of them, especially in outer islands with fewer resources and physicians like this one."

Zuko turned to say... He couldn't remember. As soon as his eyes landed on Katara, his mouth went dry and his head empty. She looked...

"You look great!" Aang said, beaming.

"Thanks, Aang," she said, moving to get a look at their handy work. "It looks good. Should hold for a day." She glanced at Zuko, and her own smile tugged at her lips. "You look nice."

He swallowed. "You... You too."

Over Katara's shoulder, Zuko could see Sokka making a gagging motion, as Aang watched on in confusion.

"So!" Toph called, as she stepped out of the barrier with Suki. "Where are we going for lunch?"

Heading into town, Katara and Zuko took lead, pointing out different kinds of shops. Katara hadn't had much time to explore the city when she'd been in the city before, but the signage was enough for her to give recommendations. Zuko was more straight forward with his answers, and helping steer them away from the more niche establishments.

Katara was so excited to be eating fresh and authentic Fire Nation cuisine again, she barely noticed Aang wondering off. She made sure to order something more mild for the others, giving a smile to the frowning waiteress.

"We just moved from the colonies," Katara explained, before gesturing to Zuko and herself. "We spent a good amount of our childhood her on the islands, though. We've missed it. If you could hold the spice on theirs, but maybe add a little to ours...?"

The waitress hummed, but made a note on her pad. Then she was off, and Katara felt herself begining to relax. The smells of the Fire Nation filled her. The warm ocean spray and the spices of cooking food. The feel of Agni on her skin, filling her with a pleasant warmth she hadn't felt in so long...

They ate in comfort, giving simple conversation and enjoying the food. She listened to other patrons, hearing about how lucky they were that the draft hadn't reached their island yet. Apparently, in the wake of Prince Zuko's 'death', the draft had been instated but not entirely enforced on outer islands. More prominent families, like Mai's, were voluntarily enlisting their sons as 'officers'. There was speculation, with only Azula as heir and there having never been a female Fire Lord, that the Fire Princess would need to marry, and her spouse become Fire Lord in her stead. Others thought that Azula would be skipped over, with Ozai being fairly young for a Fire Lord, and that her first son would become the true heir instead. Of course, Katara knew that Ozai would never pass on his throne willingly, much as Sozin and Azulon had before him, and that Azula would never let herself be forced to marry, much less be skipped over in succession.

As they were wrapping up their lunch that they heard about the local academy. A pair of mothers, talking about how the headmaster was cracking down on students behavior, as they passed by to their table. One was worried, as the school was so strict already, and her daughter On Ji was such a sweet and gentle girl, who had such a creative mind, and was worried that innovative thinking might get her in trouble. The other woman wondered if perhaps it was a good thing for her own son, Hide. He was becoming rather unruly and disrespectful at home, with his father gone on the warfront. Perhaps the headmaster's stricter rules would bring Hide into line.

A faint memory, of a young Zuko in a boys uniform, more militaristic than academic, tickled the back of her mind. But the FIre Nation was know for their similarities in uniforms. In the military, the main difference between a foot soldier and a captain was the more angled and spiked shoulders, with more gold accents. And Aang...

"Zuko," Katara whispered, as they were walking back to the cave. He blinked at her, inclining his head to show she had his full attention. "Do you remember what Fire Nation school uniforms look like? I only saw the Royal Fire Academy uniforms, but..."

For a moment, Zuko blinked. Then, his brow scrunched, and he cursed so venomously under his breath that a lick of flame was spat from his lips. Reaching out, he grasped her elbow, squeezing it.

"Make sure the others know we might have to run," he said, turning to look back down the road towards town. "I'll find him and bring him back. If his cover is blown, we'll need to leave immediately."

"Be careful," she said, as he let go. They shared a look, the air tense around them, before turning away from each other and rushing off.

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[spaceandbones]

OH OH and 💖 for gothfox pleasseeeee

💖- A chilvarous kiss to the back of their partners hand

YOU ARE SICK FOR THIS !!!!!! sick!!!!! Set post-tpof with 49 year old human trafficker Ren and vampire Reymas

Ren should not have let her rope him into this.

It's not that he's a stranger to crowds, or formal events for that matter, and he's done quite a bit of this shtick in the past decade- enough to know how to act and how to charm the old rich fucks all dressed to the nines that are always the mass majority at these things. Its just that he fucking hates it.

He can practically hear Reymas in his head when he thinks it- you're an old fuck dressed to the nines. He makes a point not to linger on how easy it is to conjure her voice in his head.

She insisted on picking him up. At the time, he was too flustered and irritated to bother arguing, but now that he's standing in his porch in a black-tie suit, he feels like a fucking teenage girl awaiting her prom date. He has no idea what she drives, and is already working himself up for the wash of embarrassment when she has to hand the keys for whatever beater she is inevitably going to pull up in to the valet.

It's a mixture of feelings when she smoothly rolls up to the curb outside of his house and gives one polite honk to address her arrival. She refuses to exchange phone numbers with him, which he thinks is ridiculous- they spent five years so far up each other's ass they may as well have been conjoined twins, and now she wants to act like distant strangers-

The point is he gets no text from her stating she's arrived, just the honk. When he peeks out the window, the car is also shockingly not a beater from a scrapyard.

It's a Volvo, something new but clearly not brand new. All black, completely spotless, and it looks like a hybrid, based on how quiet the engine is.

He can feel her eyes on him the second he opens the door, tracking every step he takes down the driveway that he's cursing himself for making so long. Nobody should be able to have him feeling so awkward and jittery, least of all her, but he finds himself pausing with a hand on the passenger side door, trying to swallow his anxiety.

The atmosphere in the interior of the vehicle immediately hits him like a wall. It's warm inside, the heat blowing softly, and all he can smell is her. Licorice, blood, cherries, and a slight hint of tabacco. He wonders if she's taken up smoking again. If she ever stopped. There isn't much reason not to, given she can't get cancer.

"At least you look nice," is her first utterance to him, done so under her breath and looking straight ahead.

He Almost replies with something similar, but catches it on time. "Remind me again why you're dragging me out to this."

She puts the car in drive and pulls down the street smoothly, though a little fast given they're in a suburban neighhorhood. Its bizarre to see her driving- she didn't have a license last time he really knew her.

She lolls her head to the side with a flashy grin, "Don't act a stranger to black-tie charity galas, I know you're a frequent flier."

He nods, "Yes, but you aren't."

She sucks her lower lip between her teeth and releases it with a pop. She looks nice, he has to admit that. Dangerous, not at all like someone who would be attending a charity gala, but nice all the same. He doesn't know how she's planning to hide the teeth from the other attendees, but he also isn't very worried about it. She can handle herself. She's made that very clear.

"There's someone here I've been trying to get my hands on for months. His security is really tight, and he rarely leaves his estate."

Ren groans and leans back into the seat, "This is a murder," he says with a flip of his hands, "You fucking idiot."

She gives another catty smile, "Did you think it was for fun? I don't think I'll recognize the guy in a crowd, but you will. Hence, your entire prescense tonight."

He turns to face her, briefly taken aback by how alive she looks for someone who is technically dead, "You brought me to a charity fundraiser where I will know people in attendance?" He looks at her in open shock for a second, expecting an explanation, but when he gets none he shakes his head in disbelief, "You are a demented cunt, Reymas."

She isn't shaken by his insult in the slightest. It's a little unnerving, if he's honest with himself. She's just so- so poised. So together. He's never seen her like this before, but then again- most of his visual memory of Reymas is either from them as fucking kids, or her covered in blood, lashes wet, face twisted in pain or desperation or hatred. So rarely has he seen her.... calm.

Her dress is all black, matching her hair, and the straps are a respectable width, but the cut is slightly too low to be formally acceptable. It looks long, and he only hopes she's wearing appropriate footwear, though he can't imagine how she'd drive in heels. She's wearing minimal jewelry, just some modest but expensive looking gold pieces here and there. The makeup is slightly outlandish- her eyes too dark, her lips too red, but anything else with this look would have been out of place.

They pull up to the venue auspiciously late, which is only proper. Ren really did not want to be a pre-placed fixture by the time the big dogs started strolling in. At least this way everyone he may know will be caught up in their own conversations by now, hopefully a few drinks deep and entirely unable to recognize him.

Reymas leaves the car idling, and reaches over to rifle through the center console for a hand-bag. Ren takes the opportunity to begin the process of making her regret inviting him, so he gets out of the car and wraps around the front of it. When he swings the drivers side door open for her, he's met with a deep scowl etched into her features.

She says nothing, because what is there to say? Don't show me the bare minimum of chivalry expected at an event I invited you to?

She swings her legs out and to his disgust, her bare feet touch down on the asphalt. A second later a pair of heels click down beside them, and when she has them on she stands and tries to take the door from him, clearly intending to rob him of the baseline satisfaction of closing it for her.

He gives her a thin smile, and tightens his fingers over the top of the door. She pauses for a second, and then abandons the pursuit entirely, clearly not wanting to fight with him over something so small in such an open, public place.

She hands the keys off to the valet, and they're direct towards the sprawling estate the chairty event is being hosted within. On the climb up the ridiculously lavish marble steps, Ren leans in close.

"Do you even know what charity this gala is for?" His voice comes out in a low hiss.

Reymas looks momentarily perplexed, like the thought had never occured to her before now, "No," she admits, "Kids with cancer probably. Does it matter?"

He straightens up again, "No. How did you get invites to something like this?"

The tops of her cheeks color slightly, and she waits a suspiciously long time before answering him. "You really weren't careful about hiding your psudeonyms from me," she says slowly, "the first one I submitted the request for worked, and they all come with a plus one."

As if to prove it, she hands him the tickets. Sure enough, a name tied to most of his legal, above-board dealings is looking right back at him, along with another fake name for her. This is unbearably stupid. She's lucky she picked an alias that actually works for this sort of thing, one he's used in this situation before. He's lucky she didn't just try his actual fucking name.

Their tickets scan without preamble. He's shocked when the security asks for photo ID and Reymas manages to procure one that is startlingly authentic-looking, and has the same name as her ticket does.

The inside opens to a massive, dimly lit foyer with candles as the main light source. It's comfortably warm inside, which is probably on account of the bodies milling about. All old. All very rich. There's some new money floating around, too, but it's very clear what sort of society they've entered here. He casts a worried glance at Reymas, because he can't picture her knowing how to act around these people.

Not that they're dangerous insofar as someone slipping up when it comes to manners or social niceties, and even if they were, Reymas isn't really in danger from any normal human people. Ren just happens to know the sort of people that swim in these lakes because he deals with them every day. People don't come cheap. It shouldn't be a surprise that the only ones wealthy enough to make invididual, high-tier purchases within the human trafficking world are the same assholes in front of him drinking champagne.

It's got him on edge. Even if he were to be recognized, nobody would ever in a thousand years say anything about it. He's usually careful - they've never seen his full face, the only name they have to go by is Fox. People like this don't usually have a vested interest in fucking with the hornets nest, so he's never had any trouble in terms of being tracked down, but this may be seen as him doing just that.

It would be like if a normal corporate Joe's plug showed up at his office on a Monday morning at nine o'clock. Nobody is going to take kindly to figuring out the man who auctioned them off a sex slave last month is now attending the same gala as them.

"Well," Ren starts, taking her elbow and guiding her towards the refreshments table, "what now, genius?"

She side-eyes him and picks up a glass of bubbly rosè. He knows she can't drink anything that isn't blood without it tasting like ash on her tongue, but to her merit she takes a sip without making a face.

"Now, we act normal for a little while until you spot the guy," she hands him her phone subtly, and he takes a look down to see the name of someone very familiar.

"Jeez," he says, voice dripping with venom, "you should have told me you were planning on cutting my flow of income off at the knees. I would have jumped for joy at the chance to aid and abet-"

"We talked about this," Reymas hisses, showing two pointed canines, "you have more than enough to live comfortably, there is no reason to continue selling-"

He can't slap a hand over her mouth here, so he silences her with a particularly urgent look. "Not here," he stresses, voice stern, "Fuck. Anywhere but here."

He lets her finish the rosè, and beckons her to follow him before she can argue. Act normal, she says? Fine. He can act normal.

He brings them out to the middle of the dance floor, where people- mostly elderly- are twirling around in relatively synchronized movements. Can she dance? He has no idea.

He holds his hand out to her, and she has the good graces to look slightly abashed. "What-"

"We're dancing, Reymas," he says innocently, with a not-so-innocent smile, showing his own teeth, "isn't that what people usually do at a these things?"

She takes his hand, and she can't appear very icy about it, either, otherwise it would draw looks. He steps closer, and keeps eye contact as he brings her hand to his mouth, skin ghastly cold against his, and presses a kiss to the back of her hand.

The look of devastation in her eyes is enough to keep him going all night, regardless of the impending bloodshed.

[guillotinna]

Neighbor! Soap would be like:

Met you as he was walking up to his unit with a box in his arms and quite literally, dropped everything to shake your hand

Has a dog named Ardbeg (famous Scotch brand) who he takes everywhere

Makes sure the light outside your unit is always working

"Lass, if you don't keep that light on at night, a boogeyman might find you, you know"

Platonically, you fell first but he fell harder

How could you not be enthralled by a boisterous scottsman with a cute little (actually quite large and intimidating) sheephound ??

Halloween isn't typically as big of a deal in Europe as it is in America and John was always deployed in the holiday, so when it comes around, you make sure he's invited to your party

When he asks for costume ideas, you say: "John, if you wear Jamie's outfit from Outlander, I know at least 4 girls off the top of my head that will fuck you on sight"....."So outlander it is. Got it"

Weekly movie nights of course become common place

Yall eventually transition from watching the movies to criticizing them to just watching trash TV

He sees you come back from a Date oddly quick with a pathetic pout so of course he asks what's wrong

"Y/n, back so soon? What happened?" "They stood me up. Real piece of shit" "aw Bonnie, don't worry. We'll have a good time, just us"

Takes you out so you don't waste a good outfit

Always has a good time but never let's his guard down for your sake

Creepy guy a few seats down watching you? Soap sees him. Bartender look at you too long? Soap saw that. Someone cross the street to walk behind yall? Soap was already putting his arm around your shoulders

Became protective very fast

When you're gone for a weekend, expect a lot of texts with frowny faces :((

"Bonnie, come backkkkk. Ardbeg misses you :(((" "are you sure it's ardy that misses me🤨" "......yes"

Yall love to share recipes from your hometowns with each other

You draw the line at haggis while he draws the line at (insert questionable dish here)

Shockingly, a very clean and quiet tenant

Will come over and kill bugs for you

A practice that started after he nearly broke your door down when you screamed bloody murder over what turned out to be a centipede

You find yourself restless and on-edge whenever he gets deployed

You've become the first person he sees when he returns and the last one to see him leave

He catches himself missing you while hes gone...odd

You start to wonder why people coming in and out of his apartment at all hours of the day bothers you so much

Ofc, johnny Rushed to the bar you're at when your friend calls him from your phone explaing that you got sloshed during a night out and need help getting home

While he carried you on his back to your unit, he realizes how good you smell and how soft your skin his and how perfect you'd be under him

Even though you're neighbors, you catch yourselves leaving things at each other's places since you're there so often

[slothquisitor]

Invisible String: Chapter Seven

A Baldur’s Gate III Modern AU.

Chapter Summary: Astarion answers the call of an old friend.

Read from the beginning.

Read on AO3.

_____________________________________________________________

The clinic in Heapside smells the same as it did the last time Astarion was here. The air has a distinctly astringent flavor to it, as though he can taste the yellowing paint of the walls. The smell wrenches him back in time two whole years, when he had been starving, empty, hollow. He was suddenly free, but also exhausted and scared and unsure of what came next.  

But it had been okay because Wyll was there. Wyll who had come in behind the team of Flaming Fists who had cleared the club and arrested Cazador. Who had insisted that Astarion and the other spawn received medical attention before they were questioned, who had sat in on the questioning, quietly insisting that they didn’t have to answer the more invasive questions. Astarion hadn’t known or hadn’t cared enough to pay attention to Wyll’s role and title, but he later learned that he was a social worker, coming in behind the blundering and smashing of law enforcement to pick up the pieces. And the people left behind. 

It had taken shockingly little to expose Cazador, to get the Fist to pay attention, to raid the place and arrest him. Just one woman who had been to the club who had seen it for what it was, seen Astarion for everything he wasn’t. He’d tried and failed to seduce Karlach, and she’d reported the whole thing to her friend Wyll and contacts in the Fist and his whole world had been changed. 

Astarion still wonders what made Wyll stay after the interrogation was over, after he was declared free to go. But he had stayed, and they had talked. And as the sun set over the city, Wyll had taken him home and told him to stay as long as he needed. He almost didn’t go with him, but then, he had nowhere else he could go. It had been the kindest and most generous thing anyone had ever done for him, so naturally it made it really hard to see Wyll ever again. 

The good news was that Wyll no longer worked for the Fist, instead, he spent his time traveling, taking short-term contracts wherever along the Sword Coast the need for him was greatest. It meant he was rarely in the city. Except tonight, apparently. He’d called, and Astarion had answered. He owes Wyll his life, so it’s really the least he could do. 

It’s just as well anyway, he’d desperately needed to escape the mess he’d just made with Liv. It had been a mistake to kiss her. And judging by the way she’d all but leaped from the couch when his phone rang, she knows it. So he’s not thinking about it. At all. 

“Astarion!” Wyll’s voice is full of warmth, of genuine happiness. “It’s so good to see you.”  He walks out of a nearby room, shutting the door behind him. He’s dressed simply, a threadbare flannel thrown on over a simple t-shirt and jeans. His smile is a promise that he only sees the best parts of a person, and Astarion is never sure how to meet it. 

“I’m sure it is, but you didn’t call me all the way down here for a social call,” Astarion replies somewhat waspishly. Seeing Wyll is…complicated. He likes Wyll, but he hates being reminded of who he was before Wyll intervened. Besides, he’s not sure he’s going to be happy to do whatever Wyll has called him down here for. 

Wyll’s eyebrows rise, but his smile doesn’t falter. “How are you? What’s new in your life?” Wyll won’t be rushed, he’ll make Astarion observe the social niceties before he tells him a damn thing. 

“I’m doing very well. I no longer have to work at the Elfsong at all as I’ve got a roommate,” he replies. A roommate that he absolutely definitely wasn’t making out with when Wyll called.

Wyll laughs. “A roommate. Gods, I’d like to see that. I hope they’ve got their own closet, you get rather churlish when you have to share.”

Astarion glares at him. “What about you? What brings you to the city? How’s dear old dad?”

Astarion knows he’s actually won this round because even though Wyll doesn’t stop smiling, he does change the subject. “You know that Cazador’s coven wasn’t the only one in the city, right? Several of the clubs got a little nervous with his arrest, got more secretive, but were still operating.”

So there’s another vampire here? Did Wyll bring him in to give them a little pep talk? Show them that life is worth living? How utterly ridiculous. “Did you find another vampire to rescue, darling? I’m hurt.”

Wyll shrugs. “I actually thought you’d be the one doing the saving this time.”

“What?”

“I’ve got a contract at a critical access hospital that starts in two days, so I can’t take him. He needs more support than he got last time. You can show him how to live. Besides, you know Petras-”

“Petras!” Astarion exclaims. “No. Absolutely not.” He turns to walk out the door. His brother had been an absolute thorn in his side for decades. He wants nothing to do with him. 

“Astarion,” Wyll calls out calmly. “Remember what you told me the day you moved out of my place?”

Astarion freezes; of course, he remembers. “Not this.”

Wyll’s hand hangs in the air as though summoning the words. “You promised that you’d do anything you could to pay back the kindness you received.”

A fool. He had been a fool to say anything of the sort. “Not him. Not right now. Besides, I have a roommate who doesn’t know anything about what I am.”

Wyll gestures at the door he’d shut. “What a good opportunity for honesty. Petras needs your help. He was freed when you were, but without a coven, without means…he found another. It was…he’s out now. But he’ll need help.”

“No.”

“If he doesn’t have somewhere to go, he will end up dead or simply back with another coven,” Wyll says. 

“I don’t see how his inability to be self-sufficient is my problem,” Astarion replies with a huff. 

“It’s not,” Wyll shrugs. “That’s what makes it a good thing to do. You made me a promise, and I’m asking you to make good on it.”

Ugh. He hates that Wyll is calling him out like this. And he really can’t say no, not to Wyll. “How long?” 

“A week, two at most. I’ve got some friends in an outreach program that will get him a place to live, but he needs a job first. Help him get healthy, acclimated. Show him there’s a life outside those damn clubs. He just needs a bridge to the next good thing.”

No part of him wants to do this. He sighs. “Fine, but he better be out of my apartment  in two weeks.”

He wishes he could smack Wyll in the face, and wipe the proud look out of his eyes. “I knew I could count on you. Should we give him the good news together?”

Astarion pauses. “Does he know I’m here? There wasn’t exactly any love lost between the two of us.”

Wyll nods understandingly. “Actually, after I mentioned I knew you, he was the one who asked for you.”

Oh goodie. “Well, I guess we better get this over with.” 

Wyll stands to the side, allowing Astarion to be the one who takes the next step. He goes to the door, and he definitely doesn’t hesitate at the door before going inside. Not at all. But he does open it, and there sits Petras, exactly the same as he’s always known him. Except…well, he looks like shit, thin, paler than is typical even for vampires. There are bags beneath his eyes, deep as bruises. He looks tired, wrung out. He’s in a hospital bed, but he’s not hooked up to any machines or IVs. They wouldn’t be able to do much for him anyway. There’s an empty blood bag beside him. 

“Hello, brother,” Petras says. There’s no venom in his voice, just an exhaustion that Astarion hates that he understands. 

“Petras,” Astarion says, unable to keep from hissing his name. He’s not sure he knows another way to say it. 

“Does this mean I can get out of here?” Petras asks Wyll. “I hate this place.” 

Well, at least he and Petras can agree on that. This isn’t the same room Astarion was in two years ago, but it might as well be. It feels the same. 

Wyll nods. “Yes, but the Fist will likely be following up, you must be on your best behavior. Astarion will be watching.”

Oh. Yes, that sounds just delightful . “Come along then.”

Petras stands, a little stiffly as though he’s nursing some injury Astarion can’t see. He doesn’t have a coat or a bag or anything of his own at all. Wyll seems to notice Astarion’s realization. “I brought him straight here.”

So it was just as bad as Cazador. He sighs. “I thought you wanted to leave, come on then.”

Wyll stops Petras on his way out, and they have a quietly murmured conversation. Astarion doesn’t catch much beyond Wyll’s promise to call, and a note of gratitude in Petras’ voice. 

Wyll slowly places his hand on Astarion’s shoulder, the movement exaggerated to give him an out if he wants it. He tolerates the contact, and Wyll gently squeezes his shoulder. “Thank you. I’ll touch base in a day or two.”

And then like two small children being ushered out to school for the first time on their own, Astarion and Petras find themselves back out on the streets of Baldur’s Gate. Astarion feels rather abandoned now that they’ve left the clinic, but he can’t let Petras see that. He starts leading them to the train station, realizing that neither of them seems interested in being the first one to speak. That’s fine until the silence drags on long enough to make Astarion’s hands twitch, so he breaks down first as they exit the train and walk up the steps to street level. 

“So, you got free of Cazador only to join another coven?”

Petras' gaze doesn’t even stray his way. “Yep.”

This is the thing Astarion can’t fathom. “Why?”

Petras shrugs. “I was hungry. Not a lot of options for people like us.”

“Was it better or worse than Cazador’s?”

“Better in some ways. Worse in others.” 

It makes him a terrible person for taking some comfort in that. It’s at least somewhat comforting to know that his experience with Cazador wasn’t entirely singular…that it comes with the territory of being a vampire rather than being evidence of bad luck isolated only to him. 

“Have I heard of them?” he asks. He doesn’t need to clarify. The only person that ever matters in a coven is the true vampire, whether they’d sired all the spawn there or not. 

“Probably not. Not sad to know Alkham will rot in prison just like Cazador. Wyll says there are other ways though, that I don’t have to…that it doesn’t have to be like that.”

Whatever is left of Astarion’s heart clenches a little at that. If it hadn’t been for Wyll and his patience and support, Astarion is sure he’d have ended up rather like Petras. If he was a better person, he might tell Petras that life can be better, that there’s a whole world of freedom just waiting for him. But he doesn’t. “There are some ground rules for living with me.”

Petras glances at him as Astarion puts in the keycode to enter his apartment building. “And what are those?”

“Well, first of all, I have a roommate.”

Petras grins hungrily. “Oh, is that how it works? You feed on them in exchange for them living with you?”

Astarion’s stomach sinks. This is a terrible idea. “It isn’t like that at all. She doesn’t know.”

Petras freezes and then he throws his head back and laughs. It’s a mirthless, joyless thing. “You’re kidding, right?”

Astarion steps into the elevator, leaning petulantly against the wall. “I’m not kidding. She doesn’t know, and that doesn’t change just because you’re here.”

Petras’ answering smile is a sharp thing. “Any other rules?”

“We’re not brothers. We’re….” Astarion searches for something that will be believable. If Petras had been half-elven instead of human, cousins might have been plausible. “Old work colleagues.”

Petras rolls his eyes. “Fine, but that seems even less believable. Why would you have an old work colleague live with you?”

“That’s another thing. You don’t live here. You’re a guest here. A temporary guest.”

Petras raises his hands in surrender. “Whatever you say.”

Astarion had expected more of a fight. “I’m going to go talk to her first,” Astarion says, pausing at the door to the apartment. “Stay here.” 

Petras settles himself against the wall as though bored. “Not like I have anywhere else to be.”

This is going to be an unmitigated disaster. Perhaps he should just see if Liv wants a hotel room for the next two weeks. “Just…stay here. I’ll be back.”

***

Sleep is elusive. Liv finds herself replaying the kiss, and everything that happened after, looking for some answer, some explanation. Why had he kissed her only to disappear? Why did he look so relieved at being interrupted? And there was that scar on his neck…it almost looked like…like a bite mark. 

Oh. Oh . 

The signs are all there, aren’t they? His nocturnal habits, the way he never seems to eat, and when he does it seems to be without any real joy or interest. The fucking curtains in the living room. He’d pushed off going to the festival with her until after the sun had set. He’s been just as opaque about his past as she has, and she hadn’t pressed, but maybe she should have. No wonder his social media had no pictures of him, even the personal ones, it’s not that he doesn’t want pictures of himself…it’s that he can’t. Well, shit. 

Astarion is a vampire. 

Her roommate is a fucking vampire. Because of course, he is! And that’s fine! She’s not exactly bothered by it, except that she is bothered that he didn’t tell her. And why not? Did he think that she’d think differently of him or that she’d not want to live with him? Why didn’t he trust her with this? 

Everything she’s ever read about vampires is that they don’t often live outside covens, tending to stick together. When the preferred diet is humanoid blood, it doesn’t exactly inspire trust in people, no matter how law-abiding the coven is. There had been a time when they had operated in secret, in shadows, but with technology, it’s harder and harder to keep secret dens of vampires off the radar. So, most covens had leaned into it, inviting mortals into night clubs and lounges: pay with a little blood and have a great time. She’s sure it’s more complicated than that but it still doesn’t explain Astarion’s secrecy. 

She’s out of bed by now, pacing her room, trying to figure out what she does with this information. She should just ask him about it, but some part of her just…she just wants him to tell her. She wants to earn that trust from him, not pressure it out of him. So she just needs to play it cool…but…they definitely need to talk about that kiss. Because it absolutely cannot happen again. Especially now when she realizes that there’s a fundamental piece of who he is that he doesn’t feel comfortable sharing with her. Because despite the binge-watching and the bonding and the friendship, he still doesn’t trust her. Not really. 

And there’s some disappointment in that, something that stings a bit over the same cuts and bruises left by her family. But that’s not necessarily his fault. 

She jumps at the sound of the knock on her bedroom door. She’d been so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t even realized Astarion was home. Okay, so she’s doing this now. This is fine. She’ll just tell him that they need to forget about the kiss because she doesn’t want to nuke her living situation. Which is true. And that’s…that ought to be awkward as hell, but it’s fine. It’ll be fine.  

When she opens her door, Astarion has already retreated to the kitchen. He stands, still in his coat, hands braced against the counter. He looks tired, and she scans his neck for the scar she’d noticed earlier. She catches only the tiniest hint of it peeking up over the high neck of his sweater. At the sight of him, her traitorous heart speeds up. 

“We need to talk,” he says. 

Well, at least they’re on the same page about something here. “Yeah, um…I’ve been thinking about that. I think we should just forget it happened?”

“What?” he looks at her, face scrunched in confusion. The confusion seems less unsure why she’d want to forget about it, and more a question of what in the hells is she talking about. Which…wow. 

“The…uh….the kiss?” She reminds him, and then promptly wishes that the floor would open up and swallow her whole. 

His expression is difficult to read, and she expects some quip or joke. “We can forget about it.” 

“Okay.” It comes out so small, so defeated. She’d expected a little bit more fight. More…something? This is what she wanted, so why does that hurt so much? “That isn’t what you wanted to talk about, is it?”

He sighs. “No. Is it alright with you if we have a guest for the next week or so?”

“A guest?” She’s not sure what it was she expected him to want to talk about that is somehow so much more important than the fact he had fucking kissed her, but it’s not this. She’s aware that he has at least two friends, who he sees somewhat regularly, but has certainly never seemed like he was interested in introducing her to them. So a guest is more than a little surprising. Perhaps it’s the Wyll from his phone earlier. 

Astarion rolls his eyes. “He’s someone I used to work with, and he needs my help…and a place to stay for the time being. He has nowhere else to go. I can get you a hotel if you’re not comfortable with it. He’ll be sleeping on the couch, using my bathroom, and has general instructions to stay the fuck out of your way.”

“You don’t sound like you like him much.”

“I don’t, but the person who asked did me a big favor once, and asked me to do this to pay him back. So…do you need a hotel? There’s a lovely place in Old Town, not far from the university.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” she asks before she can think through the question. 

The question must surprise him because his annoyance fades entirely, revealing a glimpse at the stress and anxiety he’s apparently carrying. “No! Absolutely not…it’s just…well, he’s here. He’s waiting outside. I sort of had to agree without talking with you first, and I didn’t want you to feel trapped into being alright with it.”

That is…shockingly considerate of him. “I appreciate that. I’m alright with it, but it is probably a bit rude to leave him standing outside?”

Astarion sighs loudly, looking at the ceiling like it’s going to grant him strength. “I’m going to bring him in then…and I’m sorry in advance.”

She shifts a little from foot to foot, unsure what exactly to expect. But it’s not the man who enters. He looks sickly, pale, and far too thin. Like he could do to sleep for at least a week and then some. His clothing is thin, looking like it would fit in better at a nightclub than their cozy apartment. His dishwater blonde hair hangs limply about his ears, and he has the same deep red eyes as Astarion. He is a vampire too. She has a million questions she can’t actually ask, so she offers a smile. 

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” the man grins, giving her a once over. She now understands Astarion’s apology. 

“This is Petras,” Astarion says, the words tossed out in annoyance. 

“Nice to meet you. I’m Liv.” 

“Liv…what a beautiful name for a beautiful woman,” Petras offers her a sort of ridiculous bow. 

She and Astarion exchange a pained glance. “Welcome to our home,” Liv replies, moving immediately into hostess mode. “Can I get you anything? Are you hungry? Tired?”

Petras grins. “I’d love something to drink .”

Oh. Oh dear. The implication is blood, isn’t it? Astarion has never been this obvious, right?

“He’s had quite enough,” Astarion interjects. “I’ll help him get a bed made up out here.”

“I’ll grab some extra pillows.” 

They’re not exactly well-equipped for guests, but she does what she can to gather some pillows and blankets and helps make up a bed on their couch. She can’t help but notice that Petras hasn’t arrived with anything beyond the clothes on his back, but she doesn’t dare draw attention to that. Not when she’s not sure what’s really going on here, but she knows she’s not being told all of it. 

“Well, I’m going to go to bed,” she says. “If I can help you with anything let me know.”

Petras looks like he’s about to say something, but Astarion shoves him toward his bedroom. “Come on, let's get you out of whatever it is you’re wearing.” Astarion turns back at his door, looking like he wants to say something, but isn’t quite sure what. Instead, he just meets Liv’s gaze and shrugs. 

Liv mouths ‘good luck’, and retreats into her room. Her second attempt at sleep doesn’t go much better than the first, but she does eventually get some rest.

In the morning, her coffee is already made when she emerges from her room. It tastes like an apology. Petras is fast asleep on the couch, and Astarion sits at the kitchen island like a sentinel. Once again, she has a million questions, but she’s pretty sure she’s going to have to content herself with half-truths for now. 

Perhaps it’s the help he’s giving Petras or the way it seems like he’s watching over the other vampire, but she wonders how bad things had to be for Petras for Astarion to bring him here. 

“Thank you,” she wordlessly mouths, holding up her coffee mug. 

He glances at Petras’ sleeping form and rolls his eyes. She’d like the chance to talk but doesn’t want to wake Petras, so she inclines her head toward her room, the silent question hanging between them. It startles her how much she’s hoping that they get to keep their morning chats, even though Petras is here. 

Astarion nods and stands, following her. He pauses at her threshold. “You’re sure?” His words are barely louder than a whisper.  

“Yeah, come in.” There aren’t a lot of options for seating in her room, and she’s more than aware of that as she pads over to her bed. His hesitation is clear, but then he joins her after closing the door. He sits at the extreme edge of her bed, as much space between them as he can manage. Gods, she’s too tired for whatever game this is. She really really hopes that whatever awkwardness they’ve allowed with that kiss doesn’t stick around for long. 

“So…”

“I assume you have some questions about Petras.”

She nods, sipping her coffee. “I really really do, but I feel like you’re going to just tell me to trust you. And that’s fine, I do.”

He blinks at her in surprise. “You do?” 

Liv shrugs. “You’re not really the type of person to do someone a favor like this unless they really needed it.”

“I’m not sure whether to be offended or flattered.”

“Is he in some sort of trouble?” she asks. 

Astarion considers that, face hard. “He was. Now he just needs some help. It’s…a long story. Perhaps he’ll tell you some of it.”

“It’s nice of you to help him.”

He sighs. “I don’t want to. In fact, I tried very hard to get out of doing so.”

“But you said the person who asked you to do it…that you owed them?”

He looks everywhere but at her. “I was in a similar situation once, and he helped me. Says this is how I pay it forward.”

And there’s the half-truth. But the obfuscation reveals something, he’s ashamed of this, of whatever it is. She wishes he’d just tell her all of it, but she’ll let him have his secrets and his dignity. 

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

He looks rather disgusted. “Skip work so I’m not stuck here all day with Petras?”

“I can’t do that.”

He doesn’t look surprised. “I figured.”

“But hey, maybe I’ll grab us all some takeout on the way home and we can get him addicted to Crown of Shadows tonight?” She makes the suggestion automatically before realizing why that’s an utterly ridiculous idea. 

“Skip the takeout and just hurry home,” Astarion replies before getting up. He pauses at the door. “Your trust is a gift, I won’t forget it.”

She watches him go and wonders what sort of life he must have lived for trust to be in such short supply.

[cleromancy]

HI I WOULD LOVE TO SEE SNIPPETS OF THE EX CHILD STAR AU

thank you anon 🥰 sry it took me a few days to post this lol

cws: references to mental health problems and a previous suicide attempt, and lasting trauma from exploitation. uh, and past drug use.

*

If you had asked Dick twenty-four hours ago about his apartment, he would have said it was fine. Not too modest, not too ostentatious, not so public he has to worry about creeps but not as isolated as the villa. He's so glad they sold the villa. Nicest place he's ever lived, and if he'd stayed there one more day he'd have been peeling off the wallpaper muttering about ex-child stars trapped inside, creeping. Where he lives now is within walking distance from a friendly little corner store where he picks up cereal and almond milk and anything else he doesn't want to wait to get delivered, which is convenient, and a somewhat-longer-but-still-doable hike away from Dick's favorite store in L.A, a tiny little candy shop that only stays afloat out of sheer spite. The owner, a cantankerous old man that Dick loved immediately upon meeting, roasts Dick mercilessly every time Dick comes in, but he also keeps Dick's standing order of the tragically discontinued Triple Xtreme Face Pucker Nuclear Warheads in stock just for him, so Dick wouldn't buy them anywhere else even if he could.

And as long as you have that and a laundry room, you're golden. If Dick had to leave his apartment to wash his socks he'd just lie down and die, or else wear a lot of dirty clothes.

So normally if asked, Dick would conclude that the apartment is, actually, better than fine, maybe even pretty good, and then he would change the subject.

It's just hitting Dick now that he's lived here for seven years now and he doesn't think he's ever actually looked around. They hired somebody to move his stuff into storage while Dick was still in inpatient and somebody else to decorate the apartment so it would be livable right when he got out, before he got around to picking up his stuff (he keeps meaning to do that). Moving in, all Dick cared about was getting a burrito the size of his face and sleeping on sheets that didn't smell faintly of industrial bleach masked poorly by something artificial, vaguely floral, and marketed as *Mountain Breeze.* In the grey haze it hadn't occurred to him to wonder if maybe the decor was itself a little too grey.

"Or whatever color they call this," Dick says to himself, staring down an oversized decorative vase with a few sticks poking out that you'd think would be silk flowers or something, but instead have these fuzzy little puffballs attached for some reason. "Gray-beige? Taupe? Greige? Why do I even have you." He tilts it to one side. It's shockingly heavy. "Why do I have *six of you.*"

Looking down the hallway it's obvious that the interior design team had a vision, and that vision was "innoffensive, featureless neutrality." There are just enough wall hangings to qualify as "minimalist" over "austere," black and white photographs of bland still lifes in featureless frames. Some kind of hanging tapestry except it's solid white with hanging tassels. Grey-toned floor, lighter grey-toned floor runner. The end result sails right past "boring" into "escaped psych ward patient" territory. Which Dick resents. He did his time, thank you very much, and waited until his official discharge like a good boy. That's probably why he didn't notice until now, psych ward home away from psych ward home.

Yeah. Let's blame that. The fact that he spent his first year out of the hospital doing nothing but trying to beat his Tetris high score in his underwear and scouring the internet trying to find the tragically discontinued Triple Xtreme Face Pucker Nuclear Warheads had nothing to do with it.

"He's going to think I'm a serial killer," Dick realizes.

He's most of the way through Tetrising the unwieldy, surpringly heavy vases into the tiny cubicle the guest bathroom calls a shower—and he'd like to know whose idea *that* was when anyone with a lick of sense would have just made it a half-bath—when the buzzer for the lobby goes off.

"Crap," Dick mutters, taking half a step away from the tower, which wobbles ominously. He lunges to steady it. "Crap!"

He casts around for a surface and sets the last two vases on the toilet lid and the sink respectively, the stupid little Q-tip stick things rattling mockingly inside, then dashes out to tell the doorman that no, Roy's not a stalker, yes really, yes Dick wants you to let him up please, yes he is serious, yes he is sure. He has enough time to sprint back to the bathroom and make sure his hair is okay and confirm that at least he doesn't *look* as sweaty and disheveled as he *feels,* but thankfully not enough time to start worrying if he might be due early for another round of fillers or if his hairline might be receding or if the skin under his jaw might be sagging. He looks fine. Everything's fine.

When the doorbell rings, Dick has to pretend he doesn't know who's on the other side to get himself to finally open the door. His breath still catches when he sees him.

Roy, casual as ever, pushing a pair of Ray-Bans he told Dick he shoplifted as a teenager up his forehead. His crow's feet, because he stopped getting fillers at twenty-five, except *his* are laugh lines, not stress wrinkles, less those *Where Are They Now?* specials they used to do on VH1, more Paul Newman aging like fine wine. His crooked smile, and he doesn't whiten his teeth anymore either, teased Dick when he drove him for his root canal that he was destroying his enamel and then held his hand when they put him under. His scuffed bomber jacket, older than either of them, which sparked half a dozen anecdotes about an Uncle Hal when Dick brushed his fingers against a faded patch on the sleeve. His henley with three buttons undone, straining over the curve of his chest. His jeans tight around the thighs, a little threadbare in places after over a decade of wear. The whole of him, broad and easy in the doorway, unapologetically imperfect, smiling.

Dick just wants this to go well so *badly.* "Hi."

"Hi yourself," Roy says, shifting a little. "Can I come in?"

"Please."

Roy closes the door behind him, bending to unlace his boots. Dick's eyes catch for a second on the strain of his thighs against denim, and the nervous inane smalltalk on its way out of Dick's mouth dies on his lips.

Roy kicks the second boot off and straightens up, dusting his palms off on his thighs, which probably shouldn't make Dick's mouth fill with saliva the way it does. He's looking around the entryway, curious. "Nice place."

*Don't mention the vases.* "You think so? I keep meaning to update a little."

"Yeah, man, it's nice," Roy says easily, and he's lying but Dick can barely tell, which is kind of him. "You want to show me around?"

No, Dick does not want to show him around. No, he does not want to discover alongside Roy what other modern minimalist nightmares the interior design team saw fit to install in case Dick got too overstimulated by non-neutral colors and tried to kill himself again.

"I want to show you the media room," Dick says, which at least has the benefit of actually being true.

*

The "whoa" Roy lets out when they enter the media room is gratifying. It's most people's reaction when they see it. It's always gratifying.

"Is that a pinball machine?" Roy asks.

Dick grins. "You wanna play?"

"Hell yeah, just. Later. You have so much cool shit here, show me all of it—"

Maybe the other reason Dick barely knows what the rest of his apartment looks like is because this is where he spends most of his time. Freshly discharged from the hospital, Dick had scarfed down his face-sized burrito, faceplanted on the bed, slept like a log for about two days straight and woken up not entirely sure what year it was or why. He looked around the room, remembered it was his, flicked on the lamp on his bedside table and didn't like it any better in the light. It was the smooth plasticine decor that Dick's belatedly come to realize populated the entire apartment, featureless, meaningless, trying desperately to be mature by being entirely devoid of interest. *My bedroom pays taxes,* Dick remembers thinking. *My bedroom has a 401k.* He grabbed his meds from his bedside table and stuffed them in his sweatpants pocket before wrapping himself in the big gray down comforter and dragging it to what he supposed was the den, flopping on the couch and sleeping for another six hours, eventually waking with the cap of PRAZOSIN - 10MG - GRAYSON, RICHARD J digging into his hip.

Time was sort of soupy a lot of the time back before he got his ADHD diagnosis, because of the brain fog. For the longest time his psychiatrists kept adjusting his Wellbutrin dose pretending they thought that had a chance in hell of working while Dick sat listlessly in their offices, missing meth. It wasn't until later when Jason Todd of all people dragged him to a specialist (because "if I have it, you definitely have it" successfully nettled Dick into going just to prove him wrong, except of course it turned out the bastard was right) and Dick found a new psychiatrist who was halfway competent and put him on Adderall that he really felt at all present again. The psychiatrist he has now, who is from hell and who doesn't let him get away with lying and who is incredibly good at her job, was the one who told him how much meth and ADHD stimulants have in common chemically.

Dick sat very still. Then he pointed to the throw cushion on the couch. "Can I borrow that for just a sec?"

"Take as long as you need."

Dick grabbed the pillow, buried his face in it, and screamed at the top of his lungs.

But for a while, yeah. Time was soup Dick was mostly afloat in. He spent it floating here.

Now that Dick is looking for it, he notices the gray in the floor and the walls, the aggressive featurelessness of even the window frames, but he likes the rest of the room enough not to mind. At one point he'd been irrationally angry at the pile of mail he'd put off opening for over a month, and he'd been going through a minor fixation with auction websites at the time, and there was an old, probably busted Ms Pac Man arcade machine up for sale and for some reason Dick latched onto it. For some reason winning the auction of the stupid Ms Pac Man machine was very briefly the most important thing in the world. And he did win the auction, because nobody else wanted the janky old thing, and to Dick's shock and delight it actually *worked*, and suddenly he had a project.

At first he bought and fixed up old arcade fixtures, classic games and pinball machines mostly but he dabbled in anything; he'd even gotten his hands on an air hockey table once. Then he'd get bored or run out of space, sell a bunch of things or even give them away if he was too sick of looking at them, and before terribly long he drifted away from arcades specifically. That part he credits to a film projector he ran into at a flea market and fell in love with, which prompted him to spend possibly obscene amounts of money on the sound system and improving the acoustics. He fell in love with a lot of objects, those days, maybe because he wasn't talking to *people* much. Not people who knew him well, anyway. He was on first name terms with his favorite antique dealers, one of whom inexplicably set aside an old Gibson electric guitar he found, a gorgeous machine in a charmingly 60s shade of Robin's egg blue, because he said it reminded him of Dick. Either because he somehow knew Dick would love it, or else because he knew Dick was a sucker with way too much money.

It didn't matter. Dick *did* love it, and he *is* a sucker with way too much money, and he *did* go straight home to almost give himself tinnitus playing every three-chord classic he knew at a truly unwise volume.

(Dick even replaced the original couch in this room because he kept falling asleep on it and his physical therapist threatened to quit over the havoc he was wreaking on his back. He's still not thrilled that he doesn't really sleep in bed ever, but the new couch isn't threatening to do permanent damage to his spine. Win/win in Dick's book.)

So. Not a home arcade, not a home theater, not a home studio. Scavenged bits and salvaged pieces, nostalgia probably in excess, anchors in time. Whatever magic they put in the air at antique stores and estate sales and really good museum exhibits, Dick managed to bottle a breath of it and take it home with him. When he finally started letting people into his life again, the unabashed delight often on their faces, walking into this room full of outdated obsolete frivolous things, sharing it with them… it's good. It feels good.

"Does that ancient popcorn machine actually work?" Roy asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet, grinning.

Dick matches it. "Yeah, and it's gonna knock your socks off."

*

So Dick gets the popcorn going and shows Roy around and silently laments that there was no way he could get his hands on film reels of The Muppet Show. Roy was almost as much of a geek about some of these machines as Dick was, and Dick had made it his whole personality for a while.

"It's just that there are some antique collectors that really don't mess around," Dick explained to Donna the week before, twisting and untwisting his napkin in his hands. "And I'm a competitive guy but some of the markets are totally cutthroat, and film people and puppet people are both intense. So this was better."

"Yeah, *and* it'd be insane to drop that kind of money on a first date," said Jason through a mouthful of bacon cheeseburger, Mister *we're not brothers we just played them on TV.* Dick had invited Donna to lunch, Jason had loudly said he was too busy to come, Dick said he wasn't invited, and Jason's schedule suddenly cleared up, *viola,* miracles do happen.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Dick told him.

"Die," Jason suggested pleasantly.

'Just played it on TV.' Sure.

"And it's not a date," Dick added belatedly, stomach swooping.

Jason had opened his mouth to probably say something horrible, as is his way, and instead let out a hilarious squeak, turning to Donna next to him in the booth with massive betrayed Bambi eyes.

She ignored him, continuing to pour Sweet-N-Low packets into her half-empty coffee as if she didn't just stomp on his foot under the table. She didn't really like coffee until it got to the consistency of artificially sweetened sludge. When they were young Donna was always on top of what was *in*, considering it part of her full-time job to appear effortlessly sophisticated; she skipped the teen-preteen fashion beat and shot straight to the big leagues by fifteen. They were putting the equivalent of a *sophomore in high school* on best dressed lists alongside grown-ass women. It should never have happened. No one should have *let* it happen. One time even before all that, Dick and Jason stole a box of Krispy Kreme donuts from catering and absconded to her trailer to share and she had a panic attack. Years later she described her youth as being in a room full of invisible mirrors at all times. Those days she wouldn't be caught dead with anything less chic than an espresso from whatever new *it* cafe just opened. And there she was, two decades later, blithely desecrating two-dollar-fifty diner coffee with enough aspartame to kill a cart horse in front of god and everyone. She was probably Dick's favorite person in the entire world, and he went into a little trance for a moment, watching her graceful hands with horrified fascination.

Finally satisfied, she took a sip of her monstrosity and hummed, satisfied with that which she hath wrought. "Wait and see," she suggested. "If it goes well, it can be a date."

"And everyone says *I'm* the crazy one," Jason griped, rubbing the prison stick-n-poke tattoo on one thumb with the other.

"Well, if everyone says it, it must be true," Donna said warmly, knocking her shoulder against Jason's.

[dracoqueen22]

For @jeegoo : RE8: Village, Lady Dimitrescu/Ethan Winters okay so her mutation involves growth and that can mean bottom growth right? so she fucks Ethan with her massive girlcock and Ethan is less screaming/dying and more moaning/squirming and shockingly durable for a filthy manwhore uwu femdom, noncon plz

The manthing is more durable than Alcina expected. 

Certainly he’s more durable than any other manthing that has snuck into her castle. Those greedy creatures with their lustful glances at her daughters, eager to stick their meat into unwilling flesh. All men are pigs, she thinks, but especially human men. 

They are quite delicious once Alcina’s had her fun. Once she’s used them to bits, divided their fleshy parts for the beasts, and left the sweet blood nectar for her daughters. It’s their only redeeming quality, she believes. Entertainment and food. 

But this one. 

This Ethan Winters is nothing like the others. She thinks she’ll use him quickly, and leave him as food for her daughters, but he doesn’t whimper and cry for mercy like the others. His face is a rictus of agony, tears from his eyes, his body is mottled with bruises, but spend spatters his belly, and his cock is yet full again, eager for more pleasure. 

Eager for what she gives him. 

Ethan won’t come if she calls for him. He won’t undress without the use of force, until Alcina stopped allowing him clothes altogether. She’s had a collar fashioned for him, courtesy of that imbecile Heisenberg, if only because Ethan’s more entertaining alive than dead. 

He never parts his legs willingly. He never begs her for release. His cock is too small to offer Alcina any pleasure, though his mouth works well enough with the proper incentive. He chokes and coughs and makes vague noises of protest, but when the fight's gone out, oh, his mouth is useful indeed. 

But it’s the way he writhes on her cock that Alcina enjoys the most. 

Alcina doesn’t often bother to grow out her flesh into this shape. Her cunt and her clit are far more pleasurable, and she has no envy for manthings and their dangly bits. However, there are times a manthing needs to be taught certain lessons, and so she indulges. Briefly. For entertainment before she distributes their remains to whomever would enjoy it most. 

Ethan, however. 

It had been curiosity. She’d grown tired of smothering him beneath her cunt, had been bored by the lackluster efforts of his tongue as he grew less energetic. It’s an odd thing, how he survives though she doesn’t feed or water him. Some inner fire keeps him burning, and Alcina is absolutely fascinated by it. How long will he last, she wonders after he’s collapsed post-use, an unconscious heap of beating-heart and raspy breathing, who wakes the next day with renewed demands for freedom and his daughter and blah-blah-blah. 

The muzzle was a particularly wonderful investment, but she sometimes has use of Ethan’s mouth, so she usually removes it when it’s time to play. 

He’s an irritating, disobedient mess when she’s trying to make use of his mouth. Often not worth the effort. She had every intention of draining his blood and throwing his flesh to the wolves. Let Heisenberg’s mangy things have a treat for once. 

On a whim, Alcina threw Ethan on his belly and speared him with her cock. At least then she wouldn’t have to look at his face. 

But oh! The way he goes limp, the way he shakes all over, the way he squirms – all thoughts of killing Ethan flew away. He’s so deliciously hot and tight around her cock. He makes beautifully pathetic noises, and his pleasure is of the helpless kind. Begging her to stop while his cock spurts and his hole tightens and he pants, smelling deeply of pained lust. 

It’s exquisite. 

“Be still,” Alcina tells him, but Ethan helplessly cannot. Whether she takes him on his belly or on his back, whether she sits him astride her and pulls him onto her cock, he writhes and chokes and gasps. She doesn’t even need to touch his flesh for him to spill. 

He’s quite contrary about cleaning up after himself, the useless manthing. It takes some convincing to get his mouth to work and clean her of his mess. As if she wants his sticky semen to dry tacky on her skin. Ugh. 

Manthings make so much mess. She doesn’t know how Mother Miranda tolerates them, she truly doesn’t. They have so little use. Even Ethan, who should be exhausted and limp most of the time, still tries to escape, still tries to fight back. 

It’s a curious willpower. 

Alcina breaks him and bruises him and fucks him, and yet he claws back to himself every time. A most durable toy. 

Even now, Alcina has him speared on her cock, pushed as deep as she can, until there’s a little bulge in his belly. He’s pale and shaky, but his little cock is flush and heavy. His thighs stretch wide over hers, trembling from the effort. He would sag backward, if not for her grip on the leash, tethering his throat to her fingers. 

“Move your hips,” she tells him, leaning one elbow on the arm of her chair as she watches through slitted eyes. One finger drags up and down his leg, drawing little curls of blood to sweeten the air. “You’re boring me.” 

“Fuck you,” Ethan rasps, chin dipping, head hanging. His eyes are ringed with exhaustion. This is their third session today. 

He’s most delightful when he doesn’t have the energy to speak or move, when he lolls about like a little rag doll for her to use.

“My,” Alcina purrs, “Such obscene language. You manthings truly have no manners.” 

Ethan growls at her, his hands pulling into useless fists where they lay bound above his abdomen. “I’m going to kill you slowly.” 

Alcina draws another droplet of blood and touches her fingernail to her tongue, tasting the rich fluid once more. “Empty threats,” she purrs and reels him a little closer with the leash. 

Ethan chokes, shifting and tightening on her cock, and a shock of pleasure radiates up her spine. His cock dribbles, his hips moving into tight circles, his protests at odds with the wants of his body. 

Oh, yes. Ethan Winters is a delightful toy indeed. 

Alcina can’t wait to see how much he’ll endure. 

***

[hannahssimblr]

Chapter Fourteen

The storm rages on until Friday and is so bad that it takes six trees down in Fitzwilliam Square. One of them collapses the iron railings around the outside, and when I wake up to calm sunshine on Saturday morning the first thing I hear is workmen repairing it. The news says that a woman was killed inside her car when another tree went down on her out west, and a river in the south east burst its banks and flooded the ground floor of the buildings that face it. 

It’s hard to imagine the chaos that roared through the country mere hours before as I peer through the gossamer curtains in my bedroom, and the sun streams down from a sky so cloudless and blue that it looks like stretched silk. I push the window open, still with beads of rain clinging to the PVC and breathe in the shockingly fresh air, the petrichor smell of the roads, and the hint of sweet spring blossoms just about to burst from the trees along the street. Birds chirp and a bicycle bell rings as a woman with flowers in her wicker basket passes an elderly couple taking a morning stroll along the edge of the park. It’s like nothing ever happened.

I shower and dress quickly, and then, as planned, I head out to get a bus to Clontarf. I don’t usually get up before nine on weekends, but Jude told me, in one of his hasty texts, that he intended to be back in the hospital with Jen by eleven, so an early morning breakfast conversation to iron things out between us will have to do.

I’m nervous to see him, that much is not new, but this time it feels different. And worse. Usually, I feel nervous in the way that a thirteen-year-old girl feels about seeing the boy she fancies after school, but this, this feeling inside me feels less like butterflies and more like plain nausea, seeing as the last time we spoke he refused to look me in the face. Still, today will be different, and I’m certain that we can work out a way to get things back to the way they were before Berlin. Normal. Safe. Easy, without any of our complicated and unresolved feelings getting in the way of our friendship. It’s not too late to go back to the way it used to be, I’m certain of it, and all I’ll have to do is shove down this enormous part of me that begs me to be brave, to take a chance, and get on with whatever conversation we’re about to have.

It takes the bus so long to get across town with all of the fallen branches and obstructions, that by the time my feet touch the pavement again it’s already half past nine. I think to myself that surely an hour is enough for such a conversation as I turn up Vernon Avenue and through the gates of the Turner’s Georgian home. I knock on the door. 

“Yes?” It’s Ivy. She’s tall and gangly now, with limbs that look too long for her and features that look too big in that endearing, awkward teenage way. She was always nine in my head. How is she suddenly this big? How has time just slipped by like that?

“Is your brother in?”

“Yeah.” She says. “He’s in his room you can go on up.”

I head up the stairs, trying to ignore the weird, retroactive feelings I get at the memory of the last time I came thundering down this same staircase with tears in my eyes, and I knock gingerly on the first door on the left. 

“What?” He says from within. I hesitate. “Um. It’s Evie.”

He opens the door. “Evie? What are you doing here?”

“You wanted to meet for breakfast.”

“Yeah, but I messaged you to cancel.”

“You did?”

“On facebook.”

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry, our internet went out in the storm, I haven’t been able to check any of my socials. I shouldn’t have come.”

“It’s alright.” He stands aside and allows me into his room, his childhood room, for the very first time. And it’s plain and barren, and I’m just beginning to wonder why it’s so void of all personality before I realise that he must have taken almost everything he owns with him to Berlin. This is just a blue-painted box with a bed, wardrobe and desk. He has unpacked suitcases open on the floor, one spilling over with t-shirts, which brings me a sense of camaraderie and comfort. He’s messy. 

I perch on the edge of his unmade bed. “Is everything alright? How come you cancelled?”

“There was flooding in Wexford. My dad wants me to go down and check that everything is alright with the house.”

“The beach house?”

“Yeah. Just in case something got damaged in the storm.” He’s moving around jerkily, agitated, grabbing keys and wallet and phone. Rifling through the wardrobe for a waterproof jacket. “I planned to visit Jen this morning, but I suppose this can’t really wait, but I suppose if I make it a quick enough journey I might be back before visiting hours end. Sorry that you came all the way over only for me to be on the way out.”

“Me too, but it’s alright, really. Maybe I can go and get breakfast on my own…?”

“Yeah. Pigeon House is good.” He’s doing his best to avoid looking at me.

“Still, I was really hoping that you and I could talk, you know? I don’t really feel good about putting it off.”

“Okay well if you want to talk about it now I can spare about four minutes before I have to hit the road.”

I chew on my lip. He leans back against his desk with his arms folded, eyebrows raised, waiting for me to say something. He’s so mad at me. Discomfort prickles a path down my spine. “Well we might need more than four minutes, Jude.”

“Another day then.”

I start picking the hangnail on my thumb. “Well, maybe, you know, if you’re not going to be too long at the beach, I could come along and we can talk then?”

“You want to come to the beach. With me.”

“Yeah, I think that I do.”

His sigh is hassled and resigned, and he wrestles his arms into his jacket. “Fine, yeah. If you want to then come. I’m leaving now though.”

I start seriously questioning whether this is a normal thing to want to do. To be trapped for hours with someone who is actively furious with me, hanging around on the beach where we first met, but perhaps it’s the very best place for us to talk, perhaps it’s worth revisiting this place that holds so much cosmic energy again, if not to re-experience some of the magic of it, then at least to sever my connection to it, and put all of those old memories and feelings to bed once and for all. It’ll be like visiting a museum dedicated to the final weeks of my childhood. 

“Okay, I’m ready if you are,” I say.

Beginning // Prev // Next

[whatwewrotepodcast]

Summer Kisses

               I can feel the warmth of the fading summer sun sinking into my bones from the heated metal beneath my back. The bonnet of your ragged, worn Navara seems to hold me as I lie here in the last moments of the sunset. It does not cradle me the way your arms used to, and it does not smell of your musky sweat but instead of musty upholstery.

The air is still balmy, hanging around me in languid curtains, caressing my skin with almost tangible fingers. My eyes loll closed as the soft sounds of the landscape whisper in my ears. Cicadas with their frantic voices rising and falling, the chirrup of crickets in the long, dry grass. The rustle, faint and almost inaudible, of a gentle breeze through the leaves hanging limp from the branches above. The occasional pop of the tin roof of the shed as the metal cools.

It could be any evening in the outback summer, the heat shimmer above the parched earth a visible reminder of the day’s brutal toll. It could be the end of any day, surrounded by the heavy scent of eucalypts far from the smoke and smog of the city. It could be any night. But it’s not.

I touch my fingertips to my lips, the summer warmth reminding me of the taste of your mouth on mine, of the brisk final kisses we didn’t know would be our last. So fleeting, that brush of mouth on mouth, to casual, so unconcerned. The morning wasn’t time for lingering kisses, or tender moments. It was a flurry of breakfast eating and tooth brushing and clothes finding. Dogs tangling around legs and voices jangling in concert with the cheery chorus of the birds. Raucous lorikeets and ear-splitting cockatoos greeting a new day as the routine unspools once more. There was never time for tender moments. Cattle to be fed, horses to be watered, jobs to be done. I never thought it to be the last one. Would I have taken longer if I’d known?

A mosquito whines past my ear, a closer, more threatening sound than the hum of other insects emerging from their dens as the blistering heat fades from the air. I don’t bother to swat it away. It’ll be back anyway. The clear sky is unbroken by cloud, untouched by hand of man. The eerie greenish glow above the distant horizon smears into vivid orange and fades into deep blue purple. The crystal gems of a few distant stars glimmer in that expanse. Brave explorers in an empty world. The heartbreaking beauty of the firmament untouched by city lights. The sound of my breath so quiet, so still; so unfamiliar to not hear the sound of a second heartbeat by my ear.

Somewhere distant, a dog barks into the coming night and I can almost feel your hands on my skin, the way you used to run them down the sides of my arms, the callouses on your palms against my soft skin. Your tan dark against my fairer colour, weathered and worn but stronger for that. I wonder if I can just lie here forever, breathing in your last breaths, letting the world pass me by. Trapped like a mosquito in amber, held suspended in this balmy moment, aloft from the ocean of pain that laps at the shores of my mind.

I cannot let my thoughts drift too far from the hard metal beneath me, or the mind-numbing scream of the cicadas, nor the slowly appearing stars far above. If I let myself step away from the current second, the slow in and out of my lungs, I might never return. I might find myself reliving the moment where my phone jangled to life, jarring and shockingly loud. An unfamiliar interruption in a time where a text is more common. A phone call is something unsettling. Concerning. A phone call is an emergency. A phone call is horror.

I might find the beat of my heart accelerating again, as the uncertainty rushed through my veins like a drug. I might remember the moment that the words started to congeal in my brain, followed by a hit of understanding that hurt more than a physical blow. I might once more allow my imagination to supply the sound of crunching metal, of bone crushed, of your tough, leathery body reduced to just flesh. I might remember that you are gone, and I’m alone.

I trail my fingers across the pitted metal of the bonnet, of this car that was as much a part of you as the ragged flannelette shirt or the battered Akubra. Part of the picture of a farmer, an Aussie, a battler. I remember nights spent camping in the tray, huddled in a swag to hide from the mozzies, dingos howling in the Nullabor night. I remember your mouth on mine, leant awkwardly over the gearstick. I remember ropes around the towball, pulling stuck calves out of muddy dams. This rusty ute, this hot, dry country, this red dirt and this blue sky. A lifetime of memories.

I close my eyes against the beauty of the starry sky framed through gum leaves, the raw power of it leaving me breathless. My eyelids squeeze tight, but not tight enough to stop the moisture from escaping from the corner. A single tear shed into the Australian night. A silent farewell to the life we shared. I will miss you, my farmer, my husband, my lover. But life in the outback never stops.

So I peel myself off the hood of the car. I brush the dust from my hands and from the seat of my jeans, and I get ready to start again.  

[quinloki]

Ramble ramble

Just 1000 words of a possible opener to a self-insert isekai Marco/sona story.

I might change the perspective, but I like the idea of an omnipotent 2nd person that’s just mostly focused on the OC’s point of view. (I also don’t want to start writing first person and screw up mid-work on all my reader inserts, so here we are xD )

Their name will be Quill, and their hair is white, because I like that look and so I’mma use it.

I didn’t edit a damn thing, this is just me distracting myself so read at your own peril. Fully safe for work (for now).

Your head hurts and your body’s sore, and none of it makes sense. You shouldn’t feel anything - you died.

You remember dying, spending the last few moments in a hospital bed, the steady beeping of the monitors slowing. Your body gave way to the march of time and that’s all there was to it.

It was a good life, a long one full of people and laughter and good times. Some of it hurt terribly, and some of it you could’ve done without, but against the odds you had lived.

Right up until you had died.

You had.

You were so sure of it.

Soundlessly you opened your eyes and looked around carefully. The room was bright with sunlight, wooden and smelling of disinfectant and salt. The subtle scent of oak or maple tickled the back of your brain and the design of what you could see looked uncomfortably familiar.

You were too disoriented to really hone in on what it was, but your entire thought process snapped to a halt when you realized that you had shifted.

Not because you moved, but because the room had.

The subtle sway took a long moment to happen again and with a terrible sinking feeling you realized you were on a ship.

The salty smell was ocean air.

The boat was wood, you imagined, since the room was, and you turned your head to get a better look.

Despite the crisp clean scent there was no electricity in this room. Aside from that it looked like a well stocked recovery room. Not a place you’d want to have open heart surgery in, but you’d be sure a broken bone could be set at least.

Wincing against the soreness in your limbs you sit up. Nothing hurt in an alarming way, and you weren’t dizzy. Groggy, maybe, you could probably still nap a little longer, but you’d thought your sleep was to be of the eternal variety and now your curiosity was stoked about your situation.

You were in a simple linen shirt and pants. You looked over your body and came to realize you weren’t in your body.

If this was your body, you didn’t have any memory of it. You were short, muscled, missing scars and other marks you knew you had. Your skin was tan, and your hair was almost shockingly white.

You ran the strands between your fingers, marveling at it a little. You were most certainly not in your body. Eighty plus years of life had left its marks deep in your skin and soul, but this body was new.

New bodies healed a lot faster, and you swung your legs off the side of the bed, or the exam table turned bed, and hopped down onto the floor.

You could feel the slow tilt of the ship more now that you were standing but it wasn’t making you queasy. That was a welcome sign. Whatever body you’d been dumped into you weren’t in some poor schmuck that got seasick.

You looked around the room, looking through drawers and opening cabinets. You didn’t move anything or take anything, it seemed wrong to just wander out of the room too, so you did your best to stay put.

Bandages, medicines, syringes, sutures, tools for doing wellness checks. It was a fairly typical setup. If not for the lack of electricity you’d almost think you were on a cruise ship.

You didn’t know, technically, who you were, or where you were. But your current body was intact and you weren’t restrained, nor were you surrounded by blood and bodies and bars, so you felt pretty relaxed. You were on edge a little, wondering when the door was going to open, but you had been left on your own long enough to sate your curiosity and climb back onto the exam bed table thing.

You decided to look out the window and realized you had a decent view of the deck, or the small bit of it that ran down the side of the ship. You couldn’t be more than a storey up from it.

You noticed someone approaching and felt the blood drain from your face. The man was massive, not just 7’ or something but eye level with your window vantage point. He had to be over twelve feet tall easily. It was an impossible height, and despite the obviously kind smile on his face as he noticed you, you fell back into the room and slammed the shutters closed, nearly falling off the makeshift bed in alarm.

Your mind reeled at the possibilities, but you weren’t left to your thoughts for long before there was a knock at the door. You tried to say “come in”, but no sound left your mouth.

The air passed your lips, but you couldn’t make a peep. Panic rose up in your throat, had you ever been able to talk? Was this body mute? Would you be able to communicate in this world? What if you couldn’t write? What if none of this was real and you were dreaming the last few moments before your brain died?

Were you still actually dead? You felt so full of life you didn’t want to die, not again, not yet! This wasn’t a dream it was too detailed, too coherent, it had to be real! It had to be and -.

The door opened and you collapse to the floor heaving in big gulps of air as the rising panic and fear over takes you entirely.

Someone kneels down near you, a calming tone, a soothing timber. You like the sound, something is familiar in it, but you can’t make out the words. He shouts for someone, turned away from you for a moment before you hear that even tone turned toward you again.

Large firm hands grip your shoulders and pull you up. You can’t believe what your eyes are seeing but the extra information is enough. You can’t take anymore and hurl onto one strappy sandaled foot before passing out.

[witchcraftandburialdirt]

☭ x

Send ☭ x for a vs. battle quote to your muse ABEL EDITION BECAUSE ROBIN ISN'T DUMB ENOUGH TO FIGHT EVE

Battle Intro: "This is your last chance to step away, Eve. Or are you curious to see how your own misery tastes? Didn't you experience that enough or are you becoming a masochist?" Abel slides his jacket from his shoulders and rolls his neck, letting his tongue slide along the tip of his fang.

Victory: The heel of his boot pressed on the back of Eve's head, watching her squirm under him as he supressed the urge to crush the bone underfoot. "You're lucky my vessel likes you, Eve." He laughs mockingly before stomping one last rough time to slam her face into the cobble stone before. He takes out a cigar to bring to his teeth as he walks away, leaving her there for any scavengers.

Half HP: "Oh," he coos, blocking one of her next hits and holding onto her wrist to pull her close, "Where did you find this strength~?" His voice is still shockingly light despite the lasher digging into his rib cage, "I know you have more in you, Eve--give it to me."

Low HP: "There we are...good." The purr does not match the ferocity in his gaze as he wipes the blood from his mouth, "You've been playing with humans for far too long, I thought that maybe you left his side of you behind, I'm pleased to know that spark still exists."

Defeat: "I'll be back, don't worry...I can't let you eat away at the boy for too long. He is my meal, after all. Enjoy the taste of victory while you can...I can't wait to see it burn into ash on your tongue."

Assist: Abel seemingly appears out of no where to block a hit for her, grabbing the victim by their throat to shatter their vocal chords, before dropping them loosely onto the ground. "No wonder you haven't been able to fend off the others of your kind."

Taunt: "Oh Eve, I can read you like a book, don't you know you've been feeding me for months? Its like you're addicted to that boy...and that ex-kinkou...good to know."

Reacting to Taunt: [ Evelynn Taunt -> Abel ] "That skin looks good on you, but it would look better on my bedroom floor." [ Abel -> Evelynn ] "...You're trying to charm me? You don't have to try for that, Eve."

Flee: The demon pauses midstrike before looking around quickly, the human face it wore contorting in concern and he lifted his hand to stop her. "The boy--he's in trouble." Before he knocks her away to go and find his vessel, he can smell trouble in the air.

Reacting to Flee: "Ha! Run off little siren! I'll be waiting here for when you resharpen yor fangs!" He laughs and waves the blood from his hand, amused at this reaction before he stays put, pulling off his gloves to put on a new pair.

Tie: The lasher in his stomach coupled with his hand broken through her ribcage brings them both to a standstill before he begins to laugh. He leans in with a growl, voice low and taunting in her ear, "Best two out of three, belle âme?"

Perfect Victory: Abel crushes her wrist against the wall, catching and crumbling her lasher in his hand as he smiles down at her, red eyes aglow. "Now then," He grips her wrist tighter, enoying the way the bone moves under her skin, "Why exactly are you attacking me? This was too easy, nothing like you...So, what's got you in a tizzy? Something's off, otherwise you would have given me far more than a scratch."

Low HP Victory: The demon reaches down to his stomach, peeling off his vest to remark the wound, and he reaches down to touch the blood before he falls onto his one knee. "S-Shit....there you are, I was thinking you were...holding back," he grunts as a bolt of pain shoots through him, enough damage being done that his threshold for apathy overflowed. Abel catches his own breath, "Why the sudden attack? You owe me that much for getting my gloves and coat dirty."

Finishing Move: With a sharp kick, he grit his teeth and ripped through one of her lashers, cracking it off of her form only to use the other one to pull her back into him, stabbing through her with it. Abel twists it before yanking it back along with whatever it caught inside of her. The animalistic urge from his core snarls at him to keep going, but there is a hesitation as he drops her, stepping back with a short winded laugh. "Being around humans so long has made you soft, Eve."

[seafoamchild]

my bartending job is so mid, but it's fine for the moment i suppose. i have no commute, which is amazing, and i never have to work past 11. i hope the money will be decent. at least i get $10.50/hr base wage compared to the $2.33/hr i was making in milwaukee lol. all this job is supposed to do is keep me afloat until i find something on the path of more fulfillment.

i decided to stop drinking for probably the hundredth time. we'll see how long it lasts. i was honestly drinking a LOT after i got back from colombia. like almost every day. and i'm just sick of the hangovers. i can't handle my booze, especially when i drink with T. i'm sick of his drinking problem too. i know it's from his social anxiety, and he truly believes he needs alcohol to interact with people he doesn't know very well. we've talked about it so many times. and it's so awful to have the conversation with him while he's inebriated, because he gets defensive and repeats the same excuses over and over again and then repeatedly denies how drunk he is, and then ends up in a shame spiral and projects his self-loathing by accusing me of telling him he's a terrible person and stuff like that, when i never in fact said anything of the sort. it's always the same. "i feel fine, i'm not that drunk, i just wanted to make friends, i had a long day at work, i was just trying to have fun, and now you're making me feel like a terrible person". i love him and want to be supportive because i know that this isn't easy and me acting angry about it will only make things worse. but he NEEDS to find a way out of this denial he's stuck in. he's used substances as a crutch for so many years and i know it's hard. but i hate, HATE seeing him when his eyes are half open and his breath stinks of booze and he's slurring his words and walking very carefully down the sidewalk because he's trying to pretend he's not drunk. i won't drink with him anymore, and the next time he does this i think i'm going to make him sleep on the couch for real.

other than that, brooklyn is good. there is so much in walking distance, it's amazing. we are slowly but surely decorating our space. T keeps the place so clean and organized which i'm so grateful for. i go for runs in prospect park, which i love. i made some friends through bumble BFF. i'm so busy that i've only met one of them in person so far, but i like being busy. i like not having a car. i'm trying to remind myself i don't have to do everything all at once. there is time.

it feels like so long ago that we were driving the moving van across the eastern half of the country. in indiana we saw the craziest moonrise, a big orange full moon resting just above the treetops as we barreled down the highway. it smelled like manure and sewage throughout the entire rust belt. we passed through the cuyahoga valley in total darkness. the rivers and gorges were soft and blue and quiet under the starlight, and i could sense how beautiful it would be during the day. we took a 5 hour nap in a shockingly disgusting motel 6 and woke up to frost and autumn leaves. that wasn't even three weeks ago. so i wonder what will come next.

[vipier-a]

don't you know i'm no good for you ?

“ WILL YOU SHUT UP AND STOP FIDGETING SO I CAN FINISH THIS? YOU’RE IMPOSSIBLE. ” despite the twinge in his gut incited by cassian’s words, tristan barely looks up from his work as he speaks — namely, from tending to a particularly nasty blaster burn along @k4ssa’s ribcage that needs a bit more assistance than the others more superficial wounds he’d sustained on whatever his last mission had been. they still hadn’t discussed it, and tristan knows only the location of the trading outpost to which cass had been dispatched. as usual, despite running a smuggling job half a system away, he’d kept his comlink open in case the spymaster had need of his assistance, and as usual, had received no transmission from andor. the surprise was hearing from tinker, who explained that cassian would be on his way back to base soon before very concisely recommending that tris get there first if he could manage. even in his junker ship, it proved a quick trip, leaving him time to pace cass’s quarters anxiously in anticipation and catch a few restless moments of sleep on the cot while waiting. he’d woken to his lover, utterly silent and smelling vaguely of blood and smoke, crawling in beside him to slip his arms around him and hold him close with his face buried in tristan’s shoulder.

tris didn’t have to ask any questions to know it had been bad.

he’s not sure how long they lay there in silence, cassian clutched to him and breathing shakily against him in the dim, tristan wrapping a leg around his hips to pull him closer as he pressed slow kisses along the crown of his head. all tris knew was the distress that seemed to radiate from his lover, an uncommon anguish that alarmed him and sparked something shockingly protective in the depths of him. they probably would have stayed there far longer, had tris not brushed a hand down toward cass’s waist, prompting the other man to flinch and hiss. it took some coaxing — baby, he’d murmured against his rebel’s temple, gentle as anything, come on, baby, it’ll get infected, let me fix it up, I’ll just be a minute — but he finally convinced the captain to move into the chair beside the little desk in the corner and fetched the med kit. a minute turned out to be far too conservative an estimate, but he hadn’t anticipated that he would find some of the fabric of cass’s shirt fused to the burn, forcing him to be far more methodical about treating the wound than he imagined.

for his part, cassian seemed half dazed through most of the procedure, wincing occasionally but mostly simply staring at tristan with some sort of wonder, desperation, a vulnerability that even he sees only rarely, despite what they mean to each other. he’d continued to work under cass’s intense — almost yearning — gaze, even as he felt his cheeks heat beneath it, straddled over his lover’s thighs for the best angle to treat his wound. when the spy finally spoke, it was all tris could do not to stumble over his task, to keep his hands from twitching as he attempted to complete the finishing touches.

even now, moments later, after his initial good-natured and teasing retort, he finds himself distracted by the raw quality of cassian’s question, the pain stretched beneath its surface, the way his accent turned heavier like it always does around tris when he stops pretending. under different circumstances, he might offer a sharper response ; under the worst circumstances, he might agree with the sentiment outright just to see cass hurt. but he does neither this time — wouldn’t be able to even if he tried, with his lover watching him like that, defenses briefly stripped bare — and instead sighs as he spreads the antibacterial cooling gel over the burn and presses a wound dressing firmly down until the edges adhere to cass’s skin.

“ I’m no good for you, either. we’ve never let that stop us before. ” he’s still not sure what awful thing had happened on this mission, what prompted cassian’s aching honesty — or at least what cass clearly thought was honest. to tristan, it’s horseshit. for as twisted as it becomes between them at times, he’s never truly believed he’d be better off without his kassa. frowning, he tests the corner of the dressing, satisfied when it clings to cass’s ribcage despite his ministrations, then lifts his eyes to gaze into the other man’s as he cups a hand against the side of his neck. “ I don’t believe you. anyway, what would I do, hm? unlove you? I couldn’t do that any more than I could stop breathing. and I wouldn’t want to — I want you. you’re stuck with me, good for each other or not. ” from his place still straddling his lover’s lap, he squeezes cass’s thighs briefly with his own as he gazes at him, intent, unable to hide the note of concern. after a moment, he leans forward to kiss him, once, twice, a third time, firm and sweet and utterly yielding, to coax and comfort, to reassure — and simply to taste him, a reminder to tristan himself that he’s returned to him once more. another victory. another chance for them, even as he keeps fearing they’ll run out. when he finally speaks again, it’s in practically a whisper against cassian’s mouth, as though passing a secret between them. “ do you want to tell me about it? ”

[txxfiles]

Mood: L’appel du vide.

Happy March, pal. Hope you’re having a good’un. My March feels transitional, in that infinite, neverending way. It feels like the credit sequence of a warmly familiar and long running soap opera. You know the vibe? The fuzzy pixelated buzz of spatial piano music to play out the end of winter as my shockingly low mental health fades to black. The end. 

Time to wake up to spring.

You get it.

Last month, after a terrible-no-good-very-bad-day I blacked out and bought a puppy. His name is Esteban. No botanical moniker for him because his name is too good and too special to disguise. He has been mine for less than three weeks and he is already the love of my life. I think something fundamentally changes when you paradigm shift your purpose of existence to become the magnetic north of another being’s heart compass. It happens with romantic relationships and I imagine it also happens when you become a parent. I know it’s not the same when we’re talking about a fur baby, but it might be as close as I’ll ever get to knowing what that feels like. He loves me. More than anyone has ever loved me before. It's down to the bone. It’s the sort of love I always wished to receive from a partner, the kind of love they talk about in fantasy novels and epic romances. The kind of love I never thought I truly deserved. Deep, primal, unconditional love. And, I’ve found it in a small black fur cloud that needs me to clean his butt. 

He’s not with me at work today and can’t believe how much I miss him. I can smell his baby fur on the collar of my tshirt. Imagine him snuffling in his bed under my desk. I’m dying for the weight of his little body on my chest to help chase off the anxiety that pounds, closed-fist, at the portcullis of my sanity. I really miss him. And I can’t wait to get home. 

This all seems suuuuuuuper typical of me. Very “Maple” energy. Get a dog to finally feel the love I’ve always craved. Get a dog to have someone to go home to. Well, fuck it. I’ve done it now and it’s so, so much better than I ever dreamed. 

…It is scary, though. 

Like. 

Terrifying.

Like staring into the void. Hearing it call to me. L’appel du vide. The dichotomy of loving him. This profound love that comes with a living thing that also needs you. Really needs you to survive. To wake up every day and live. It’s scary, because I don’t think I’ve ever felt that for myself. Not really. I’ve felt obligated to stay, obligated to wake up, obligated to go to work. But not need. The gentle tilt in the axis of my soul has flubbed the laws of my existence forever. It makes me wonder why I’d never been able to feel these things for myself. And, even still, it makes me wonder if one day the newness will wear off and the feelings will lessen.. or worse… stop entirely. Thing is, I know these thoughts are just regurgitated and bastardised versions of all my inner demons talking shit and I really should stop listening to them. French kissing them. Letting them fuck me. What have they ever done for me in return? Eat my ass just one time please, Inner Demons. 

Anyways, all this worrying and wondering and what I really should be doing is just enjoying this newfound lease of life with my sweet and exceptionally hairy son that I acquired after a bad day. Turns out bad days are essential to a very good and sexy life. Thank you Esteban. 

Your Mum finally, actually wants to live. 

Good boy. 

Love Maple.

Ps. Whoever’s reading this, you’re wonderful.

[moonytoonsy]

[this time written on a piece of paper that looks like it had been ripped from a journal. Hand writing is still messy, but easily legible, and any words scratched from the paper this time were scratched out due to a rewording not a misspelling. A smell still lingers on the paper, but this time it’s the smell of a flowery perfume, not rancid alcohol.]

Dear Dekarios,

I do not remember sending you a letter.

Now, I don’t doubt I did. As amusing the idea of you creating a fake letter just to send me a correspondence back is, that seems out of your character, I would never expect you to be nearly so… desperate? And unfortunately, writing and sending a letter to a man I haven’t talked to in years while in too inebriated of a state to remember it does not seem out of him.

I hope whatever was in that damned letter of mine was nothing too horrible, though considering your post script, your talk of hatred, and your need to question whether or not I ever mucked up tampered with your portal… I get the idea impression I may have admitted to a few things I am no longer so proud of.

In any case, I am glad to have your correspondence. And I am happy to hear to you didn’t hate me. Trust me, though, you had no reason to envy me. A few spells casted with ease is nothing compared to a large ever growing vast collection of spells casted with little difficulty. You are were Mystra’s chosen after all, you had no reason to envy a simple sorceress, even if I’m still of the belief I have more magic in one horn than an average wizard does in his body. But you are no average wizard.

At least your magic doesn’t come with the ever present risk of turning into a cat though that is rather nice sometimes, or a potted plant, or summoning a mephit, or shrinking, or teleporting into a wall, or blowing yourself up.

You get the general idea.

I’m glad surprised to hear you missed me. If I knew Gale Dekarios, great mage of Waterdeep previous pain in my ass missed my company I may have written sooner, even if only to wonder why. You mentioned yourself in the beginning of your letter that I wasn’t exactly doing the greatest, something I’m not surprised but half ashamed you were able to deduce so easily. You were right. I am not great, but I’m fine. A bit more worse for wear since the last time we’ve met that’s for sure, but fine. Nothing extraordinary, good or bad. The idea you’ve missed my company seems laughable. The fact I’ve somewhat missed yours seems imaginary.

Here is the part I would normally try to defend that I wasn’t drunk when writing you, but quite honestly I doubt I’d fool either of us, so instead I will simply write it is a bold claim of you to assume I’ll ever be sober.

On a more serious note, your offer is kind. I’ll think about it, but more than likely I doubt I’ll ever manage the trip to Waterdeep. I’m not sure if even want you to see me as I am now. The trip to Waterdeep is a long one, and one I doubted I’d have the time nor ability to undergo. As ridiculous as the notion sounds, I have responsibility here. A sister, friends, shockingly a steady enough job I’d prefer not to repeat here.

But who knows, perhaps some day I’ll make the trip simply to see what in the gods’ names I wrote in that initial letter to you.

No matter if I ever make the trip or not, I’d like to keep in touch. You’re right, it’s been too long, but even if we can’t speak, I would like to keep writing you. Assuming my handwriting is more legible this time, of course. And perhaps one day we will get the chance to speak, if you’re ever in Baldur’s Gate, I’m sure you’ll be able to find me lurking around somewhere.

Hopefully not making a fool of myself, but beggars can’t be choosers.

I hope to hear from you, or read from you, again.

With love, a fool

-Irisa

Ps. I’m sorry to say I did tamper with your portal home. A bit. I suppose even if my younger, hormone riddled brain couldn’t figure out if I could tolerate you or not, it knew I didn’t want you to leave.

{written on pub stationary, stained with aclohol. The hand writing is messy, obviously written in a less than sober state. The paper is creased and crumpled, as though it’s original destination was to be the trash bin. Multiple words are misspelled or crudely scribbled out.}

~

Dear Dekarriose Dekarios,

I guess youre actual title now is the Wizard of Waterdeep, it may be inappropriate to still simply call you ‘Dekarios’ or ‘Gale’. I still will, change all you want, detest me all you want for it, I cannot change that image I still have of you from our youths.

A cocky bastard smug young man who probably had a good reason for being smug. A learned young wizard who, despite his inherent talents, buried his nose in a million books a second to learn more. I hated you for it back then. I think I hate you for it now.

I don’t know. I’ve never understood it. I never figured out how you could be more with so much inherent magical talent, but not enough to make you a sorcerer. I never understood how you could be more in control of your magic than a sorcerer. I never understood how we could be the same age, and yet when I first started my academic career at Blackstaff you were already finishing yours. I admired you for it, I hated you for it.

I thought you hated me too.

Not hate, that’s not right. I thought you abdhorred disliked me. I thought in some way, it was okay, we were rivals. We had our fun, I cursed you a few times (if you never knew that was me doing it. Sorry.), you explained every spell you knew in such detail I assumed you were being condescending on purpose. I casted spells with ease without trying but I could never learn a new spell. You learned a million new spells but took great effort in casting them. I hated you for your succeeding where I failed. I thought you felt the same.

I question that recently. I have people who hate me now. It’s not the same. If you did hate me, I guess I liked the way you hated me, it was more fun than how I’m hated now. But did you hate me? Were you being condescending, or did you just like to talk about things you found interesting? Do you even remember a word I’m writing down? Do you remember me? I can’t bame blame you if you don’t. It’s been so many years, even I only remember once I’ve reached the bottom of a bottle, but I remember a lot.

I’m reaching the end of the page. I feel I’ve written a lot about nothing, so I guess it’s time I cut to the chase. I do miss our rivalry, our misadventures, our friendship, whatever you’d call it. I miss Gale Dekarios, the smug little bastard that once tried to tutor me. I miss you.

I wish you the best,

Irisa

-~•~-

{set before the events of the game, written by my tiefling Tav, Irisa, a wild magic sorceress who briefly did not know she was a sorceress, thus she briefly tried to learn Wizardry at Blackstaff. It did not go well. In her time there she had a rivalrous relationship with Gale, because the two of them were young and immature, and eventually she was expelled from the academy. Years down the line her life is not great, she’s drunk a lot, misses petty arguments with our favorite wizard, reflects on their time together, and wrote this letter and sent it out when drunk and probably forgot all about it come morning.}

Dearest Irisa,

Your letter, though quite barely decipherable, comes as a bit of a shock for me. I did not expect to receive word from you after so many years, and though I can tell you’re not doing exactly the greatest at the time of writing, I hope you’re well otherwise.

It may shock you to know that, despite how many years it’s been, I do remember you. For all it’s worth, I remember the rivalry between us. Who puts a Wizard and a Sorcerer in the same fold? I’ll never understand how that came to be, but it was an enjoyable few years with you there.

I do get that a lot, the admiration and the hatred all mixed in one. It may do well to understand that I am, or, rather, was one of Mystra’s chosen. Though my abilities as a child were to be challenged, it was all because of her. It’s not every day you have an eight-year-old human practicing magic, and Mystra knew that of me. She’s the only reason why I had such control and understanding, though it helped being quite studious.

Despite it all, I can say I never did hate you. You pushed me to countless new limits, helped me see my oddities and how to work through them, and showed me the intensity of magic on a grander scale than reading books ever could. You brought out the best in me, regardless of our differences.

While I didn’t hate you, I can confidently say I did envy your ease in casting spells. If only I could whisk a spell together that easily! Concentration gets the best of me nowadays, perhaps I should have practiced more of that while at the Academy.

I do sincerely apologize for any condescension you may have felt. I tend to do that at times apparently! It was a genuine interest on my part to have someone who shared a similar understanding with me, and I wanted to tell you of all the worlds we could both accomplish. My mother has quipped it as “Galesplaining”, whatever she intends that to mean.

I remember you completely. All the glory, the joy, the hurt, the failure. It’s ingrained in my mind and I doubt I can ever sand it away. I wouldn’t want to, either. You made my time at the Academy more enjoyable than it had been for years. You changed me, in some of the best ways imaginable.

I can’t deny finding myself at the bottom of a bottle stirring over the past, much like yourself, wondering what I could have changed or done differently. Maybe we could’ve stayed friends, that’s a nice alternate reality to think of.

I miss you, too, Irisa, even if you were the cause of all my misdemeanors and failures when my day started on the wrong foot. I have to know, were you the one who caused my portal home to get so out of shape?

When you’re sober, I implore you to visit my tower in Waterdeep. I’d like to catch up with you, it’s been far too long since we’ve spoken.

From the desk of,

𝑮𝒂𝒍𝒆 𝑫𝒆𝒌𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒔

And, for reference, I sort of liked the way you hated me, too.

text reads: gale dekarios