#but. sniffs. i can go with something else. its fine. bites lip

[bonestrouslingbones]

hm. realizing now that the fluffy hood thing on. fluff. is definitely his defining feature. but the thing is i love a good fur trim so i'm gonna have like at least 3 other characters with the same idea and he's not unique at all. god dammit

[lizzieislife94x]

50 Shades Of Maximoff (w.m)

Requested <3

WandaG!Px Fem Reader

Hope it turns out OK for yall I make these up as I go

Y/ns POV:

I groan loudly trying to get my girlfriends attention she's had her nose stuck in books the last few days and it's frustrating all I want is attention I want cuddles "wanda can you come cuddle all you've done recently is read" she doesn't look up from her book "y/n baby we can cuddle soon ill be done in like 15 minutes I'm almost done this book which you would like" she smirks as I throw myself onto the bed in a huff with my arms crossed

after 20 minutes she puts the book down making me look up at her with an annoyed look "finally your done with that thing" I roll my eyes and turn my back not seeing the smirk on her face "did you just roll your eyes at me" I gulp at her tone wow where did that come from "and what of it you've not gave me attention in days" I say with attention as she pulls me up wrapping me in a cuddle making me smile a little "so the book I was reading it's called 50 shades of grey and its um basically porn and I was wondering if you wanted to try some of it out it was extremely sexy, basically Anna meets Mr grey a young rich man and he's into bandage and stuff it gets freaky but I think it would be fun to try" I look up at her with wide eyes "umm you want me to be your submissive" I state raising my eyebrows as she sits up "not all the time just to try it I think trying it could be fun just this once and if we like it you never know " I sit up and laugh rolling my eyes again "ok fine but if I don't like it we stop" she jumps up and strips down to her boxers "of course baby 1000% percent you say stop we stop but first things first I need to punish you that's twice you've rolled your eyes at me in a short space of time" I bite my lip slightly as I stand and get naked "ok what's my punishment miss maximoff " i say with a huge smirk she pulls me over her knees and rubs my ass "I want you to count each slap" I nod as she slaps my ass hard making let out a yelp as a tear slips out of my eye "awch, one" this continues to ten my ass is stinging and my eyes also as I look at her crying slightly and sniffing "I didn't like that" I say as the tears run down my face she pulls me into a hug rubbing my back " I'm so sorry baby you should have told me to stop " o can tell shes genuinely sorry by the tone of her voice, I sniff and look down at her crotch "you seemed to be enjoying it so I wanted to keep going for you" she holds me tighter as we lay down and cuddle as wanda apologies over and over "it's OK wanda really it hurt but I'm OK I could have stopped it but I didn't it's not your fault" I say reassuring my panicked girlfriend as I sit up rubbing my girlfriends arm "what else is there in the book to try that doesn't leave me with a stingy ass" I giggle as the pain has went away "do you trust me to tie you to the bed and blindfold you?" I climb ontop of her sitting on her crotch "I trust you Babygirl"

she smiles and pushes me off gently as I lay in the middle of the bed she gets up to get some ribbon ties before I know it my hands and legs are tied to the bed and my eyes covered by a blindfold "fucky/n you look so fucking sexy" I bite my lip and nod taking her word for it "wanda, wanda wandaaa" I yell as everything got quite after a minute she came running back in " I'm here baby I just had to grab something" I sigh hearing her voice thankful she didn't leave me "ok so what are..." I'm cut off by something extremely cold and wet running down the valley of my breasts "fuckk...wanda what I mean what's going on" she leans into my ear and whispers "shhh trust me baby" I nod letting out a moan as what I think is ice cubes are being gently rubbed around my nipples making them extremely hard and pointy "mmmh fuck" is all I get out as I hear wanda smirking and giggling "look at those nipples so hard and all from a little bit of ice" she teases, I moan as I feel the ice getting lower running over my stomach then down the top of my thighs getting closer to my pussy "wanda" I moan as she gently rubs the ice cube over my swollen clit earning a gasp as I tug at the ties trying to free my arms "cold oh god" I cry out as she runs the ice through my dripping folds before I know it she's pushing the ice inside my pussy as I arch my back up off the bed "holyyyyy shit fuckk wanda" I continue to moan trying to anticipate the next move but fail after a few minutes she leans down and sucks on my clit as I pull at the ties holding my arms "yessss" I moan out as she runs her tounge down to my entrance and starts to tounge fuck my dripping core making me scream "so uhhh fuck so close wanda"

I feel her smirk against my cunt as she slides her tongue in and out of my pussy faster working me up as I explode all over her face and mouth i try to speak but nothing comes out "such a good girl y/n" she almost moans "doing so well for me" I feel her climb between my legs as I let out a loud gasp feeling her cock tease my sensitive cunt "fuck to sensitive wanda I cant" she leans down to my ear and bites gently "I know you have more baby you can do it" I bite my lip and nod giving her the ok to go inside I let out a feral moan as she bottoms out inside me staying still to let me adjust "why does it feel different wanda do you have a condom on" she grunts and starts to thrust slowly "no I wanted to properly feel you y/n we can get something sorted later or tomorrow "she moans the idea of her fucking me raw turning me on more "fuck me wanda dont stop ahhh fuck you feel so good without the condom " i moan out as I lay there helpless as wanda pounds into my cunt causing me to moan and scream I swear I'm going to black out due to the amount of pleasure running through my body "so fuckin tight" wanda grunts thrusting harder and faster I can feel her twitch inside me as I feel my own orgasm building fast "fill me with your cum baby" I moan loud causing wanda to slam deep inside me holding herself as she shoots her seed inside me I instantly start to cum as soon as I feel her coat my walls only milking her cum more the both of us laying in pools of sweat trying to gain our composure I feel wanda untie me as she takes my blindfold off and smiles down at me "my perfect baby" she whispers kissing my lips gently, she climbs off the bed as I try to get the feeling in my arms back and comes back with a damp cloth to clean us both up once we're clean we cuddle as we draw imaginary lines on eachothers skin taking for hours.

AN: hope this is OK I don't even know if it makes sense I hope it does lmao word count is 1.3k

[elizabethmaximoff89]

Dinners and Doubts - Florence Pugh

Warnings: nothing smutty, little angsty but defo fluffy, reader feels insecure and burnt out, flo straight up being the sweetest and most supportive gf

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You were having a very stressful time at work. You had a lot of reports due and a lot of other deadlines and meetings with important clients. You were wearing yourself too thin, running yourself to the ground, and you had been for too long. Now you truly felt suffocated. As if everything was piling up on top of you and you weren't sure how to dig yourself out of it - if you even could at this point.

When you arrived home, you were instantly hit with the smell of various spices and flavourings and you heard music from the far side of the house so you figured Flo mights be filming her Instagram stories again. You dropped your belongings in the hall and tossed your car keys into the dish beside the door and made your way through to her. Your suspicions were confirmed when you walked closer and heard her talking about tending to and marinating something-or-other.

"Hey" you whispered as you gave her a small wave, trying hard not to interrupt her recording. She sends you a subtle smile and quickly rounds up her next video. As you grab a drink from the fridge, she makes a beeline for you before you could leave the room.

"Hello my gorgeous girl, are you okay?" She asks sweetly as she presses her lips to your cheek.

"What? Yeah, I'm fine" you lie. She can tell something is bothering you, seeing straight through your faux smile.

"Hmmm...Y/n? Are you sure you're okay?"

"Uh, yeah - all's good! How long is this going to be?"

"Aboutttt????... 30 minutes, why?"

"I'm going to jump in the shower real quick, I'll be down before it's ready" you promise before kissing her gently on the nose.

"Oh, okay"

You return to the kitchen with loose tousled hair, wearing one of Florence's old hoodies and perch yourself at the island counter. You sat and scrolled through your phone as you waited for her to finish up her stories and smiled to yourself when she reached across the counter to hold your hand.

"Um so guys that is it for today's Cooking With Flo! Come back next week where I'm going to show you how to make an avocado bean salsa AND something else that is very very scrummy!" She laughs goofily as she raises her eyebrows in a suggestive manner. "Love you guys, byeeeeee!!"

She turns off her phone and places it on the counter as quickly as she could before bringing your plate over to you.

"Wow... Flo this looks- and smells- delicious"

"Thank you baby, but right now I want to talk about yo-"

"Mmm" you cut her off with a moan as you take a big bite of the meal. You girlfriend rolled her eyes. She knew you were doing this on purpose, trying to distract her. And you knew that she knew. "No seriously try this! oh my godddd!! you're an amazing cook, this is so good"

"Y/n. Listen." She spoke sternly, demand echoed in her voice. You turned your body to her but kept your gaze low on your fidgeting hands "Please," she spoke, softer this time. "Look at me."

You eyes slowly drift up to hers and you feel nervous all of a sudden.

"What's up with you?"

"Nothing, why'd you ask?"

"Because you seem... off. You look exhausted and I'm worried about you."

"Just had a long day at work"

"No, not just- I'm not talking about today. I'm talking about in general. You've been like this for weeks now"

"Like what?"

"Like a zombie y/n! All you're doing in working and working and working and you never give yourself time to stop. Even when you're not at work you're always doing something for it like... like if you stop its going to disappear. You're so distant lately. We haven't spent time together in ages. And- I don't whether it's something I've done but... I miss you. I miss the woman I love. I just..." she sighs defeatedly and holds her head in her hands over the counter. She stayed there, still for a moment before a small sniff bought her attention back to you.

Your eyes, red and puffy, sadly fixate on the blonde. "I'm sorry" your voice breaks through quivering lips.

"Y/n-"

"I'm sorry. I- i don't know what's happened to me. I've just been getting so in my head lately - about stuff, work and- and myself. I'm so sorry, you don't deserve to be treated like this, you deserve better than me, I know you do"

"Shut up" she whispers

"If you want to break up with me that's fine I understand I'm sorry I hurt you I didn't mean to I really didn't I'm just falling apart, I'm broken and I don't know what to do to fix it"

"Y/n?" She looks down at you "I don't want to break up. That's the absolute worst idea ever. I want to be with you. I love you. You're not broken. You're human. You're just overworking yourself. You need time off baby. You need to reset, to clear your mind, to see the bigger picture."

You nod your head against her chest as she holds you close "so you're not gonna leave me?"

"Never."

"Even if I'm all broken and shattered and falling apart?"

"Even if you're all broken and shattered and falling apart."

"I love you."

"You know I love you more, right?"

[live-the-fangirl-life]

At Leaf You’re Cute

Aelin Galathynius x Rowan Whitethorn - Raking Leaves

“I was trying to rake leaves in the front yard but your dog just ran through all my piles and I want to be mad but you're both really cute.”

Masterlist | Read on Ao3 | Halloween Collection

1583 words

*******

“Fleetfoot, no!” A woman’s panicked voice shouted. “Stop!”

That was all the warning Rowan got before a small creature barreled through one of the large piles of leaves he’d just spent the last hour raking.

The sloping tower collapsed as leaves went flying in all directions. Rowan barely blinked, his vision clouded by the explosion of dried, maroon leaves before the fluffy, four-legged beast was dashing into the second pile.

“Fleetfoot! Come here!”

Rowan snapped out of his momentary shock and watched in horror as the happy puppy let out a bright woof as it escaped the ruins of the second pile and made a beeline for the third. He flung his rake to the side as he tried to catch up to the dog before it ruined yet another hour’s worth of work. Yet, even his long stride was no match for a determined, energetic puppy.

Rowan gaped as he slowly surveyed the damage. He had spent the morning enjoying the crisp, fall breeze as he raked the large expanse of his yard. It wasn’t his favorite task, but it needed to be done, so he grabbed his ear buds, turned on some music, and worked for the last three hours to rake up every stray leaf he could see.

And now it was as if he’d never even picked up his rake. The light breeze was spinning some of the leaves that had been tossed in the air by the force of the dog’s collision, and the yard that he’d gotten to look like a fresh, clean slate was now once again a blanket of red.

A figure rushed past him, straight for the dog who was still yipping and jumping around and trying to catch the leaves that were falling.

Rowan closed his eyes and took a long, steadying breath, trying his best to get his fraying temper under control. He could still hear the woman muttering something to her pet and the distinct sound of metal on metal, presumably her clipping the puppy’s leash on.

Her voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it. And that name—Fleetfoot—why did he recognize that name?

His eyes flew open, and Rowan finally took a moment to look at who exactly was responsible for the destructive hellion.

The woman stood from her crouched position and dragged an agitated hand through her long golden hair. Double checking that the leash was secure, she turned toward Rowan with a face full of apology. Her bright blue eyes, now wide with remorse, glinted in the light that illuminated a faint ring of gold around her pupils that he hadn’t noticed before.

She opened her mouth, most likely to apologize, but Rowan spoke before she could.

“Aelin, right?” he asked, as if he hadn’t memorized her name that first time she’d introduced herself.

She had moved in down the block only a month ago. At first, he was annoyed at how she kept bossing the movers around, not that he had any right to an opinion, but it seemed too excessive and reeking of entitlement. But then he realized, through his definitely-not-creepy staring, that the movers were friends of hers, and her queen-like commands were being taken with eye rolls and requests for compensation in the form of pizza.

Two days later, she introduced herself when she caught him checking his mail. In one hand she’d had her dog’s leash and in the other she had been carrying bags filled with Halloween decorations and candy, claiming it was never too early in the season to get in the Halloween spirit.

That was when he’d gotten her name. Aelin. And Fleetfoot’s, of course.

Now, she nodded as her lips twitched upwards even as her eyes still looked worried. Somehow, she managed to get her puppy to stay by her side, but rather than sit attentively, it was wiggling on its back and pawing at the air excitedly.

“Yeah.” She confirmed. “And you’re Rowan.” it wasn’t a question.

He nodded and Aelin kept a firm grip on Fleetfoot’s leash as she glanced around at his yard and winced.

“I am so sorry,” Aelin told him with wide eyes before looking down at the oblivious puppy with a long-suffering sigh. “I just took her to the park, but she apparently has an endless supply of energy, and when I got back she jumped out of the car before I could get her leash on, and, well,” she looked at Rowan and winced again, “there’s no match for a puppy on a mission.”

Despite the mess around him, Rowan couldn’t help but chuckle as he watched the small, golden animal squirm in the leaves under her back until she was laying on her belly, looking up at Aelin with big eyes.

As much as he wanted to be upset, he couldn’t bring himself to feel angry. If it was anyone else, He probably would’ve yelled or cursed them out, or at the very least scowled menacingly and demand they get off his property. But as he looked at Aelin who looked genuinely sorry, standing in front of him with her hair blowing in the wind and a rich, red scarf wrapped around her, he didn’t want to tell her to get off his lawn—he wanted to find a reason to keep talking to her.

Her gaze turned questioning as he dragged a hand through his hair. “Look,” she said, taking a step closer, “give me a few minutes to go put this little beast inside and I can come back and rake up the leaves.”

The little beast was huffing through her nose and watching as the leaves in front of her fluttered in the air.

“It’s the least I could do.” Aelin went on, tugging her black jacket tighter around her.

Rowan found himself shaking his head. “You don’t have to do that.”

Aelin raised a brow. “Really? My dog comes flying into your yard, destroying what I can only imagine was a couple of hours’ worth of work and you’re telling me that I shouldn’t offer to clean it up?”

He huffed a laugh. “Okay, yeah, when you put it that way.”

Rowan crouched down and held out his hand near Fleetfoot’s nose, giving her a chance to sniff it. She immediately popped up and began licking his hand before launching herself at his chest. Rowan had to brace one hand behind him so he wouldn’t topple over from the sudden fuzzy attack. He could hear Aelin snort and try to hold in a laugh as Fleetfoot pawed at his chest and licked excitedly at his face.

When Fleetfoot finally ceased her slobbery attack, Rowan wiped a hand down his face and held the dog as she settled into his lap, gently petting her soft fur as he looked up at Aelin who watched the pair with a fond but amused expression.

“She likes you.” Aelin told him, smiling.

Rowan carefully set the dog down and matched Aelin’s smile as the puppy wove in between her feet.

“She’s probably just trying to use her cuteness to make me forget she destroyed my yard.” He teased, making sure there wasn’t much bite in the words.

Aelin smirked. “Maybe.” She dropped her eyes to roll over him from head to toe. “But I trust her judgement.”

Rowan told himself that the way he rolled his shoulders back and stood to his full height had nothing to do with the appreciative perusal she made of him.

She grinned. “I’ll be back in a few minutes to clean this up.”

She took all of one step before he reached out and gently touched her elbow, halting her. “Wait. No, I’m not going to sit inside and watch as you rake my yard.”

Aelin raised a single brow and smirked. “You were planning to watch?”

“No, that’s not,” he knew his cheeks were heating as he rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean watch you, I meant—”

His embarrassed stammering was cut off as she laughed, and he couldn’t help but grin back.

“I know that’s not what you meant,” her smile was wicked. “But it was fun seeing you so flustered.”

He rolled his eyes but took another step closer. Aelin didn’t step back, simply raised her chin higher to keep looking him in the eye.

“How about this,” he suggested, enjoying the way a slight flush raised on her cheeks as he leaned in closer. “You help me rake the leaves.”

He could’ve sworn her eyes twinkled as she pretended to think bout it. “I suppose that would be fine.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

They stood there for another moment, seemingly unaware of the wind whistling through the branches or the crisp echo of leaves crunching. It almost felt like they couldn’t look away, or wouldn’t, until a high-pitched woof sounded from beside their feet.

It jolted them from whatever moment they were having and Aelin sighed as she leaned down to pick up the smiling puppy.

“You, little miss, are not getting any treats tonight.” She scolded, but quickly got pulled in by Fleetfoot’s adorable gaze. “Oh fine. But just one.”

Aelin began walking back towards her house but paused to look over her shoulder at him and smiled. “I’ll be back in a minute, Rowan.”

He grinned at hearing his name roll off her tongue. “I’ll be waiting, Aelin.”

Rowan smiled as he heard Fleetfoot’s light barking all the way back to Aelin’s house.

*****

Taglist:

@acourtofsnakes @allthebooksunderthemoon @astra-ad-mare @becarefuloflove @booklover41802 @charlizeed @cookiemonsterwholovesbooks @danibutterr @doubt-less @emily-gsh @enormousbooklover @foughtconquered @fromthelibraryofemilyj @hakunamatatazz @i-have-but-one-brain-cell @in-love-with-caramel-macchiato @jorjy-jo @lemonade-coolattas @mariamuses @mayhemories @midsizewitch @miserablesmusings @morganofthewildfire @nehemikkele @rowaelinismyotp @rowansfirebringer @sayosdreams @sheharahu @sleeping-and-books @stardelia @story-scribbler @superspiritfestival @themoonthestarsthesuriel @swankii-art-teacher @tomtenadia @westofmoon @whimsicallyreading @moodymelanist @angelic-voice-1997 @realbookloverproblems @gracie-rosee @julemmaes @yesdreamblog @the-regal-warrior @rowanaelinn @thestoriesyoutell @autumnbabylon @sunflowermoonshinewrites @maastrash @annejulianneh111

[engie-ivy]

If searching for non-existent signs that Sirius might fancy him, is all Remus has to do to get Lily to drop her crazy theory, then so be it.

Read Part One here!

Read Part Three here!

Read The Final Part here!

Get What He's Saying: Part Two

Remus drops down on the couch next to Lily holding a cup of tea.

“Potter just left for Quidditch practice in quite a state,” Lily says. “Was he still mad about me going to Hogsmeade with Chase Danes?”

“Hmm? Oh, no. I think he’s over it. He’s actually going with Hestia Jones.”

“Oh.” Lily presses her lips in a tight line. “Well, good for him. What was he getting himself worked up for now, then?”

“I guess that’s my fault,” Remus sighs. “We had this weird conversation, and I think he got upset because I didn’t believe the stuff he was telling me.”

“What did he say?”

“Oh, he was all like ‘Moony, someone told me he fancies you, and it’s serious and you should-’”

Lily lets out a shriek and bolts upright, staring at Remus with a hand covering her mouth. “Merlin’s beard, Remus! Why didn’t you say so immediately? This is huge! Potter confided in you that Black fancies you? I knew it! I just knew it! How can you be so calm about this?”

Remus blinks at her for a moment. “What? Oh. Oh! No, Lily, no. Merlin, no. Why would you even think- Serious, Lily! As in not joking.”

“Oooh.” Lily sags back on the couch. For a moment, she looks disappointed, but then she starts laughing. “I’m sorry! I totally thought you meant it was Sirius! Really, that boy’s name!”

Remus shakes his head at her, while Lily, still laughing, wipes some tears from her eyes. “Remus, Remus, Remus,” she says. “Getting my hopes up for nothing.”

“Its not my fault you’d jump to such a ridiculous conclusion!” Remus says defensively. “How can that be- Wait. Hopes up? How so hopes up? And what the hell did you mean with ‘I knew it’?”

Lily shrugs. “‘I knew it’ is probably too strong a phrase. More like, I suspected it? Or at least I thought about the possibility before.”

Remus, who has never considered it as a possibility, gapes at her. “Why?” Is all he manages to say.

“I’m not sure,” Lily replies, looking at him thoughtfully. “He’s just... different when he’s around you. More grounded, somehow.”

“Well,” Remus mutters. “We’re best friends. Would be strange if he didn’t feel comfortable around me.”

“No,��� Lily says in the same contemplating tone. “It’s different. Different than when he’s with Potter. When you two are together, it’s like... puzzle pieces falling into place.”

Remus can only stare at her. If only. If only he could be Sirius’ missing puzzle piece. But if Sirius’ puzzle is some bright, sunny landscape, Remus is a dreary raincloud that has no business being there.

Lily smiles sheepishly at him. “I’m sorry. I don’t really know how else to phrase it.”

“Phrase it however you like,” Remus says. “I’m not going to let myself believe such fancies. It’ll only lead to disappointment.”

“Oh?” Lily smirks. “So you’d be disappointed if Black would turn out to not fancy you?”

Remus clenches his jaw. “It. Doesn’t. Matter.”

“Anyways,” Lily chuckles. “Good thing you didn’t misunderstand when Potter told you! That would’ve made for an awkward conversation.”

“The thought didn’t even cross my mind,” Remus responds. “I’d never get such an idea in my head. He’s clearly way out of my league.”

Lily opens her mouth to protest, but Remus beats her to it. “No, Lily. Don’t try to boost my confidence. ‘Remus, you’re not in a different league, you could date someone like Sirius’. James already gave me that speech. He even said I could ‘date someone exactly like Sirius’.” Remus rolls his eyes. “Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“Remus...”

“And the conversation was awkward enough without misunderstandings. He kept repeating ‘it’s serious’, while giving me these weird, intense looks. Like, what can I even do with that information if he won’t tell me who it was? But when I asked, instead of answering, he just repeated ‘it’s serious’ again.”

“Remus.”

“And even if James meant it, the person who told him could’ve very well been messing with him. James can tell me this person was serious all he wants, but how can he be sure? I mean-”

“Remus!”

“What?”

“Remus! Bloody hell, Remus!”

“Yes, Lily what?”

“Remus, for Godric’s sake, Remus. You bloody idiot!”

“What, Lily? What am I missing?”

“I’ll tell you what you’re missing, you bloody oaf!” Lily crosses her arms over her chest, giving Remus a firm stare. “You’re missing the whole bloody fact that Potter looked you right in the eyes and told you Black totally fancies you!”

“He... What?” Remus chokes. “What in Merlin’s name are you talking about?”

Lily sniffs. “From what I gather, he wasn’t even very subtle about it.”

“No, Lily. No.” Remus shakes his head. “I really think I would’ve noticed!”

Lily raises an eyebrow. “Do you, Remus? Do you really?”

“You weren’t even there,” Remus mutters.

“Alright, alright.” Lily throws up her hands. “So he didn’t consequently phrase it as ‘it’s serious’ and ‘this person was serious’, and never anything like ‘I’m serious’ or ‘it’s for real’?”

“Well, yeah, he did, but-”

“And wasn’t he throwing you meaningful, emphatic looks every time he said that?”

“He was, but that doesn’t necessarily mean-”

“Come on, Remus! He was sending you a message, you must acknowledge that!”

“Lily, please,” Remus says pleading. “I can’t afford to hope. Hope... is dangerous.”

Lily’s face softens. “Remus, I don’t expect you to run up to him right now and declare your undying love. Although I do think that would be the right course of action,” she adds with a stern look. “But nevertheless, you shouldn’t let fear stop you! Just... try to at least open up to the possibility. Keep your eyes open the upcoming time, for any signs he might actually like you. That’s all I ask.”

Remus sighs. “Fine. I will.”

Lily stares at him for a moment. “Nope,” she then says. “No. Nope. No, you’re not getting away with it that easily. Knowing you, Black could be wearing an ‘I love Remus Lupin’ shirt tomorrow and sit down on you lap at breakfast, and you’d go ‘ah, such an affectionate friend’.”

Remus rolls his eyes, but Lily ignores him and picks up a quill and a piece of parchment. “I’m going to make you a list of specific signs you need to keep an eye out for! Number One,” she says. “Looking at you often.”

“We are best friends,” Remus says dryly. “We do tend to look at each other occasionally.”

“You know what I mean!” Lily says, but still she adds “Looking at you often, while you aren’t talking, or doing anything interesting, so when he has no reason to be looking at you. Let’s see, what else?” She taps the quill against her chin, before bending over the parchment again. “Number Two. Blushing/biting his lip/doing that thing were he tilts his head downwards and looks up at you through his lashes while interacting with you.”

Ah, yes. That thing. Remus definitely knows that thing. Not that he has ever thought Sirius does that around him in particular.

“Number Three,” Lily continues. “Giving you loads of compliments.”

Remus crosses his arms over his chest. “He only says he likes my sweaters to have an excuse to feel how soft they are!”

“Number Four,” Lily says pointedly, while looking at Remus unwaveringly. “Making up excuses to touch you.”

Remus huffs, and looks away.

Lily taps her quill in thought again. “Oh, right! Number Five. Acting extremely jealous when other people flirt with you.”

“How the hell am I supposed to check that?” Remus asks. “It’s not like people flirt with me every day! Or any day for that matter.”

“Well, I could-”

“Oh no, Lily! Don’t you dare! James’ sad deer-eyes are heart-breaking enough without knowing I caused them.”

“I’m sure he won’t mind that much,” Lily mutters.

Remus looks at Lily, then down at the list, and then back up at Lily. “Well, hello kettle. Nice to meet you. My name is pot.”

“I’ll think of something else,” Lily says irritably. “Let’s stick to these five signs for now, starting tomorrow at breakfast. If by the end of the week you haven’t seen any of them, I’ll drop it, but if you do manage to catch a few, you have to start seeing it as a serious option. Or as Potter would say, a Sirius option.”

“Fine,” Remus says, taking the list from Lily. “If that’s what it takes to get you to drop it.”

The next morning, Remus sits down at the breakfast table in his usual seat next to Sirius, across from James and Peter. James is rambling on about some new Quidditch strategy he wants to try out, and Peter is pretending to understand and trying to ask questions that don’t sound too dumb.

As Remus reaches for the porridge, he notices Mary McDonald batting her eyes at him. At first, he frowns at her. Does she have something in her eye, or is she trying to get his attention? Is she sending him a message in Morse code or something? Her finger is twirling in her dark hair so fast, that Remus is worried it might get stuck in there. Then Lily leans over and whispers something in Mary’s ear, and Remus understands. So this is Lily’s ‘thinking of something else’ for the last point om her list.

Remus groans under his breath, but decides that he might as well get started keeping his end of the deal. He turns to Sirius, and startles when he finds Sirius, head resting on his hand, staring right at him.

Sirius, also startled, jerks his head up when he suddenly meets Remus’ gaze. Remus wouldn’t consider blushing as something Sirius Black does, but the colour on his cheeks having been caught staring is definitely red. Sirius bites his lip, and tilts his head downwards, before looking up at Remus through his lashes. “I... Erm, I was just wondering if that’s a new jumper you’re wearing?”

“Eh, no. No, it’s not.”

“Well, in any case, I like it.” Sirius gives him a small smile. “I like how it looks on you. The colour really brings out your eyes.” Sirius chuckles as he reaches out and gently brushes Remus’ hair from his eyes. “If you don’t let that floppy hair of yours cover them completely, as adorable as those curls are.”

While Remus is struggling to form a reply that makes more sense than his first urge to promise Sirius he’ll never wear anything else ever again, another voice demands his attention.

“Rrrrrremus!” Mary makes the R sound like a purr. She has walked up to him and is now standing right behind the bench where he’s sitting, leaning in close over his shoulder so she can directly speak into his ear. Really, if she’s going to lean over like that, she should button up her blouse a bit more. Poor Peter nearly chokes on his toast.

“You’re so good at DADA. I was wondering if you have time after classes for some tutoring? I could really use some practice with my wand work.”

“Eh...” Remus once again struggles to form a reply. If she really needs help it’ll be rude refuse, right? Or is it part of Lily’s scheme? And if it is, would Lily want him to refuse or agree?

Before he can say anything though, Sirius speaks up, his cold gaze intently focused on Mary. “He can’t,” he says in an icy voice. “Remus is already working on his Potions Paper after class, with me.”

Remus doesn’t recall making such plans, but they do have a Potions Paper due, and Remus does desperately need Sirius’ help when it comes to Potions, so he just nods.

“Oh, booo,” Mary pouts prettily. “Better luck next time, I suppose.”

She turns around and walks out of the Great Hall, swaying in such a manner Remus worries she might dislocate a hip. Boys all over the Great Hall hang out of their seats to watch her go, but Remus is pretty sure that Sirius is the only one who’s glaring daggers.

Even though he only started keeping an eye out five minutes ago, Remus goes over the signs on the list in his head.

Well, fuck.

Part One

Part Three

The Final Part

[skrunklybf-archived]

Hi Rory!! I see your requests are open 👀 I would like to ask for "if one day I decided to leave, would you run away with me?" with Levi from this random dialogue prompts!! 💖

- Rei <3 @levi-supreme

hi my baby 🥹💓 i'm so sorry this took a little to get out but i hope you like it hehehe <3 love me some levi

warnings: angst!! mention of blood & canon typical violence

Water drops race down the side of your arm as you raise the cloth to his face. Levi watches you as you work, his expression pulled into one you can't easily read -- he's good at that -- but he can read you like a book. The worry lines at your eyes replace the ones brought on by his favorite smile and it makes his chest hurt just the slightest bit more. Cracked ribs were nothing compared to heartache.

Silence permeates the field infirmary. The thin canvas tent walls keep you just warm enough to stop shivering, but your body shakes on its own as you dab away at the blood and grime sticking to Levi's pale skin.

You should be used to this by now. Training to be a medic isn't for the faint of heart. It isn't the gore that bothers you so deeply now, but the man you're fixing up: Humanity's Strongest, your soft spot for the past handful of years. He sighs when a sniffle escapes your struggling form.

"If you want to say something, say it." Levi's tone is edged when he breaks the blanket of quiet suffocating you. The rag in your hand, dotted with blood, pauses over a cut reaching up into his hairline.

"This was too close," you reply, doing a decent job at keeping your voice steady, "too close, Levi."

He stares at you, his gaze steeled. Years ago the action would've shook you to your core. Now, it scratches inside your brain like a fly buzzing around the room.

"I'm alive, aren't I?" he says flatly, "and so are you."

"How long can you keep this up?"

"As long as I need to."

You drop your hands to your sides, lips curling downward. They twitch at the ends when you open your mouth again. "Cut the shit. Do you want to die? Is that it?"

If Levi had a reaction to the ire seeping out of you, he doesn't show it, his body already rigid against the stiff cot. Despite being the person you look up to the most, Levi has a particular way of grating your nerves like nobody else you've ever met. He turns his head, breaking the heavy eye contact.

"If I wanted to die I'd be dead already." he clenches his jaw. "I'm fine. You can go."

A few seconds pass where you're unable to move, just staring at his battered form as it lay in rapidly dirtying bandages, his hands folded neatly over his bare stomach. Levi is a stone, but he's not unbothered by your words. He furrows his brow when you sniff again, tears clouding your view.

"I can't keep doing this. I don't want to keep doing this."

"Erwin selected you for medical training--"

"I don't give a fuck about the medic program, Levi!" The rag in your hand is tossed aggressively into a hazard bucket at the edge of his cot. Murky water sloshes out the rim from your force. Levi turns his eyes back to you.

"I mean this, all of this! Is this what you really want for the rest of your life? Cracked ribs, broken ankle," your voice breaks, a surge of tears rolling down your cheeks as you speak shakily, "me, cleaning up your blood. Is this it for you? For us?"

Levi pushes himself into a sitting position, gritting his teeth and ignoring your protests. "This is what you signed up for. This is my shitty life. I don't know what you expected, but this is reality." The bite behind his tone is undermined by the quickly softening expression melting over his face. He watches you swipe away at the fat tears, watches you wrap your arms around yourself in a comforting fashion. Levi sighs, wincing just slightly at the pain, and runs his hands through his dark hair. "It's... not ideal. I get that. I'm trying to change that."

"It's not all up to you, Levi."

"It's not? People died today, you saw it. People are going to keep dying unless I do something about it."

"You're so fucking hardheaded. And what if you die? What then?"

Levi swallows. He lays back down slowly, closing his eyes, but no peace falls below the action. "I won't."

You're at a loss. The invisible wall between you two glares at you, nearly taunting with its chilled exterior, and a sigh wracks your weak body. Exhaustion, frustration, grief -- you're sick of it all. The desk propped up a few feet away offers a steady surface to lean on while you steady yourself.

"If I decided to leave..." you begin, tone falling soft, "live a normal life... no titans, no fighting... would you come with me?"

Levi, with his eyes firmly held shut, lets the question float around the room. His throat scratches with every breath. An ache continually washes over his body, head to toe, but the squeezing in his heart feels familiar; he finds himself thinking back to quieter days; days spent walking around tiny villages with you at his side, your face lighting up at market stalls and performers and even front lawn gardens tended to by plump housewives. He thinks about your favorite flowers, and how you smiled from ear to ear when he surprised you with a bouquet of them just because. The quiet, domestic roleplay you two conducted in the privacy of his office never felt more sweet.

"Levi...?" your voice brings him back, his eyes cracking open to view your shuddering form in the low light. His mouth opens, but words die in his throat before they can escape. A heavy haze keeps your breaths irregular.

"I... can't."

"But would you?"

He watches you, lips molding into a tight line. "We can have that. All of that and everything," he remembers holding your hand for the first time, a comforting warmth seeping under his skin, "just let me finish my job first. I promise."

[ocean-in-my-rebel-soul]

“I thought you didn’t want me.” for Meribela?

Thanks for the prompt!...that I'm filling six months later... Welp, better late than never! I don't write these two much, so here's hoping it works!

@dadrunkwriting

Merrill x Isabela

Rated: G

Tags: angst, immediately after the Arishok duel, iffy coping mechanisms

===

Smoke still lingers, heavy and soggy like a wet blanket dragged over Kirkwall's buildings and stairs as Merrill slogs her way back to the alienage. Blood still pools in the streets from the Arishok's assault on the city. Creators, everything in her aches, something bone-deep and exhausted; too many people needed help, and she needed something to pull her mind from the battle at the Viscount's Keep, so she exhausted her healer's kit and her remaining strength stitching up every wound she found.

Bela had come this close to dying; Merrill knows she'll be out of town on the first ship she can find. Hawke had almost died trying to save her, and it's still touch-and-go whether or not they'll survive their wounds. Merrill's mishmash little family is trying to shrink again. Maybe it's the way of her life, that she is to lose everyone she loves. The thought settles like rancid halla milk in her belly and raises her hackles with what promises to be another dry-heave.

She stumbles on the final stair into the alienage. Lancing pain shoots up her legs when Merrill falls to her knees. "Fenedhis—I'll fall and break my neck at this rate." She rubs her knuckles into her eyes for a moment before heaving herself to her feet.

"Careful there, kitten, careful." Warm hands land at Merrill's shoulders when she sways unevenly. "Looks like a stiff breeze could knock you over."

Merrill glares at the ground. "Thanks," she says, clipped, and shakes herself from Bela's grip. Merrill crosses her arms over her balled fists and stalks off toward her little cottage.

"Kitten, wait."

Merrill speeds up into a half-jog across the broken cobblestones. Bela swears and her jewelry chimes together discordantly as she follows. The cottage is a scant hundred feet away, and Merrill breaks into a run. Her heart bolts rabbit-fast in her ears.

"I just want to talk!"

Merrill flings herself at the door. There hadn't been enough time to lock it earlier in the afternoon when the Qunari had attacked, and in Mythal's mercy, it is in remarkable shape. The door groans as Merrill barrels inside, torn askew on its hinges in the assault, and it sticks in the frame when she slams it shut behind her.

Bela pounds on the other side a second after Merrill throws the latch and locks the door. "Merrill, come on—let me in!"

"I don't want to talk to you!" she yells back. Tears sting her eyes, and Merrill roughly wipes them away on her knuckles. Her nails bite half-moons into the heels of her palms. "Go away!"

A thud hits the door, followed by a long slide. Bela sighs. "I know I messed up, Merrill," she says. "And I—I've thought about it. A lot. You and Hawke must have... must have rubbed off on me or something. So I came back."

Another thump on the door, lower now—Bela slumps against the door and bangs her head lightly on the wood. She's staying, for now.

It hits Merrill dully, from a distance. Her own legs shake and she catches herself on the door. Sliding to the dusty floor, she lands hard, legs splaying before her.

"You made me feel like you didn't want me."

The tears come down in earnest. Merrill tips her head back and lets them drip down her cheeks. "You—you left that night. You've talked about returning to the sea and taking me with you, and you left me here." Her voice warbles and she wipes angrily at her face again. "I said I loved you, Bela, and I woke up alone."

Long fingers inch into the gap under the too-short door. They quest and find Merrill's hip, pet awkwardly at the hem of her shirt. "I know. I spent a long time ignoring it. And then a long time thinking about it."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"No, I—" Bela knocks her head against the door again and curses a low streak. She sniffs roughly. "Merrill—oh Maker's taint, I'm not crying, for fuck's sake," she mutters to herself, so quiet that Merrill only just catches it. "Get it together."

Bela sighs. "I couldn't stop thinking about it, you know, once I started. Feelings are dumb, kitten, and here I am, having them. You know, this morning I wasn't sure what would be worse: having to face the Qunari and return the stupid tome, damn the consequences, or having to do all that and then face you," she says with an incredulous snort.

"People died because of them," Merrill mutters. Because of you, she doesn't say, because Bela knows that already and it's not helpful to bring it up right now. Bela can talk about that with someone else. Merrill is too tired to do it. She wipes her eyes and draws her knees to her chest, bends down enough to rest her head on them. "What do you really want, Bela?"

Silence meets her question. Merrill gnashes her teeth. "At least do me the kindness of answering me," she calls through the door.

"Believe me, kitten, I'm trying," Bela grunts. The door thumps again. "What—" She cuts off on a cough, clears her throat, and tries again. "Do I still... Is this still safe harbor?"

"Safe harbor," Merrill murmured. Her hand found Bela's and she laced their fingers together. Bela blinked, almost like she was surprised, but surely she knew, right? Merrill had said it in all the ways she knew how—murmured against her skin in the night, woven in the living shield Merrill casts in battle to protect her back, hammered into the fine edge of the dagger she'd saved for over most of a year to have commissioned for Bela's last birthday. Tonight she whispered it into Bela's heart, skin sweat-slick and chest heaving, feverish. "Ar lath ma, Bela, ma vhenan. You always have a home with me."

Bela smiled. "C'mere, kitten," she said, and she pulled Merrill into a bruising kiss, her trembling hand wandering down Merrill's ribs and over her belly with a singular purpose.

And then Merrill woke up alone.

"I want to come home, Merrill. If you'll let me." A beat. "If you'll have me."

"Bela—"

"I know I'm bad at this, kitten. I know. And I want to try anyway. For you. For our misfit family."

Merrill knocks her forehead on her knees and squeezes her eyes shut. "And I'm just—I—Creators, Bela! What am I supposed to do?"

"Let me in so I can apologize properly, I hope. It's dark and fucking cold." She falls silent. "I really am sorry, Merrill, and I want to make it better."

Something twists in Merrill's gut, wounded and hurting and full of aching rage. She drags in a shaking breath. "You'll have to talk to the others," Merrill says. "You'll have to, you'll have to apologize, and explain, and all that. And you'll have to ask them for forgiveness, too, especially Hawke, and maybe they'll all be nice and give it to you. Then maybe..." Merrill sniffs and wipes her face on her trousers. "Then maybe you can ask me for forgiveness, too. Later."

"...that's fair," Bela sighs. She thumps her head on the door again. "Really screwed everyone over, didn't I?"

Merrill unfolds herself and stands up with a groan, wobbles against the door. She scrapes her nails down the wood. "You'll need to talk about that with all of them. I'm—I'm going to bed."

She gets a step away before she turns back, some needy thing scraping at the inside of her ribcage, and yanks open the door. Bela scrambles to her feet; she barely has time to protest before Merrill's got her hand wrapped around Bela's wrist and pulls her, hard, into the cottage. Merrill kicks the door shut behind them and leans back against it, tugging Bela to follow until her arms bracket Merrill in.

There's no doubt as to what this is. Surely Bela knows. Surely Bela understands. Merrill can't say it any plainer, not again.

"I thought you said you're going to bed."

"I am. We are. If you want."

Bela searches her face. "It's not this easy," she whispers, her brows pinching lightly in confusion.

"No," Merrill says. She reaches up to cup Bela's cheek, rubs her thumb along the edge of her bottom lip. "But it has been a long, terrifying day, and I'm tired, and I—" her voice warbles again "—I've missed you so very much."

Relieved warmth pools in Bela's gaze when it flicks to Merrill's lips. "I've missed you, too, kitten." She dips her head and gently, more than Merrill expects, presses their mouths together.

She sighs into it and lets her hands fall to the neckline of Bela's tunic, curling into the fabric and anchoring her pirate queen to her. "If you stay, we're going to have to talk about all of this in the morning," Merrill murmurs.

Another wave of tears threatens to fall. If.

She shakes her head against the thought and winds her arms around Bela's neck. Her heart hammers in her chest, breaking it open; Merrill has to hold it together, smother everything down against the lean lines of Bela's body to keep her heart from pelting into Bela's hands again.

"I know."

It's not fair that Bela could just leave like that, before. That Merrill wants her anyway, now. Bela trails kisses along the edge of her jaw, nudges her into tipping back enough that she can trail her lips down the sensitive skin just below her ear. Her laughter ghosts over Merrill's skin when she can't help the shudder that trembles through her.

It's not fair. Bela was gone for months, and Merrill loves her just as much now as then, even though it burns.

She closes her eyes at the frisson of selfish want that bolts through her. I know, Bela says, and Merrill desperately wants to believe.

But Bela always told her she's too trusting, too open-hearted, and where has that gotten Merrill so far? Empty-handed, empty-hearted, and lonely.

Merrill drags in a shuddering breath. The morning will come soon enough, and she can't waste any more time worrying about the inevitability of Bela's coming departure.

"Take me to bed," she whispers, and she lets herself be hauled off, curled tight into Bela's embrace, unable to let her go for even a moment.

She’s survived the dawn of every morning before. She will survive it again.

[sparetimeimagines]

Patience

Tsukishima Kei x Reader

Part 2 of Habits

Tags; soft core, smut, fluff, Soft Tsuki

Masterlist

“Go home, Tsukishima.”

It had been weeks since you’ve seen him.

No text messages.

No phone calls.

Nothing.

You felt yourself being played.

He finally got what he wanted, for you to confess to him once again that he was right.

Condescending asshole.

Why does this keep happening to me? You thought as though this time around things were supposed to change.

However, this time it felt different. This time, you felt him picking at the stitches he swore he wasn’t going to play with.

And now you feel stupid.

You feel stupid for driving all the way up there at two in the morning.

You feel stupid for believing he meant what he said and falling for every word of it.

“I broke my phone. I swear. I swear I wasn’t blowing you off. I had exams and my phone was broken. I didn’t have time to come down and see you. I promise you I wasn’t going to fuck this up again. God, you have to believe me.”

“Go home, Tsukishima.”

“No. Not until you let me explain.”

He shows up with flowers and you slam the door in his face.

“Baby, please.” You hear him through the door. “Open up.”

“No fuck you, Tsukishima.”

“Don’t be like that, Y/n.”

He had to manipulate you. You thought as long as you cut off everyone else, everything would work out right.

Some fool you are.

He can’t stay out there for long. Eventually he’ll have to go away, go home and leave you alone.

You open the door hours later to walk your dog; the same one he bought you for your birthday a year ago.

“I figured you’d still be here.” Unamused, you stare at the blond who waits with his elbows resting on his knees.

“Just let me explain.”

You sigh, letting him tag along.

“You can walk with us. She needs to go out.”

“What about the flowers?”

“Hold them. Toss them. I don’t care.”

He holds them the entire walk, them wilting in the process.

“She’s gotten big.”

“Yep.”

“I can’t believe you still have her.” He watches the fluffy black dog sniff around a tree.

“Her dad fucked up. Not her.”

“I know.” He frowns pushing his glasses up by the bridge. “I’m doing that a lot lately.”

You pay attention to him from the corner of your eye with nothing to counter him with, so you remain silent.

“You should have called.” Ten minutes have passed and he’s like a kid waiting to be lectured; quiet and focusing on anything to keep his attention. In this case, it’s the rocks he kicks from under his shoe.

“How could I have called if I didn’t know your number?”

“Find a way!” Your outburst catches you by surprise as you turn to him. “You could have found a way.” You turn away from him hiding your face. You didn’t mean to get emotional. It was supposed be quiet.

“Y/n.” He sighs, the tips of his ears growing red. “I had no way of getting to you. It was finals. What was I supposed to do?”

You had no intentions of letting him know how badly he hurt you.

You thought better of him.

You thought he knew that.

“I don’t know. You could have tried.” You sniffle trying to hold back tears, looking at the sky.

Are you crying because you’re sensitive? Are your feelings hurt? Are you upset with him? Why now? Why not earlier when he was locked outside of your apartment.

“I did try.”

“How?”

You turn to him with a stray falling from your eye. “I trusted you, Kei. You made me feel safe. Then you tarnished that.”

You focus on his face, red like yours.

“Do you know how that made me feel, Tsuki? Of course not. Because you only think about yourself.”

You point your finger at him, he remaining silent. Simultaneously, the four legged creature decided to run after a squirrel. The leash splits from your hand and instantly Kei starts chasing her.

You follow after them, he much faster than you. Following the duo on unstable ground, you step in a dip rolling your ankle.

Beside you, you welcome the bouquet of flowers Tsuki dropped chasing after your dog.

Minutes later he comes back with your dog on the leash and you sitting on the ground with an ankle starting to bruise.

“You’ve always been clumsy.” He chuckles looking over your ankle. “Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t walk on it. Here let me help you.” He extends his hand to you but you whisk it away instead.

“I got it, Tsuki.”

You attempt to collect your ground, instantly failing when it came to applying any pressure to your ankle.

“See. Bad liar.” He scoffs.

“Shut up, Tsuki.”

He extends his hand once more, those long fingers wrapping around your wrist. “Just let me help you.”

“Fine. Fine.” You give up. “Don’t you dare drop me.”

He hands you the dog leash, scooping you into his arms.

“You’re making it really hard not to.”

Inside the home, he lays you on the couch letting the dog free.

“I try to make things right and you end up hurting yourself.” He groans giving you the side eye.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Well it’s your fault.”

“Whatever Tsuki. You’re so full of shit.” You roll your eyes throwing an arm over your face.

“Aww she’s sorry.”

You look out from your arm seeing Kei laughing at your pup dropping toys on your stomach.

“Yeah acts just like her dad.” You throw the ball with slight frustration while he watches amused.

He loves her. Always had. She always listened better to him too.

The pup brings her toy to Tsuki this time, begging for someone to play with her. He leaves out of your sight and returns with something frozen wrapped in a towel. He lifts your leg with ease and sets it in his lap.

“Now. Since there was so much to talk about. You know, from you ghosting me after I confessed to you, again, to how you rejected me, again. Explain yourself. And it better be good because I’m hurting really bad right now.”

He presses the cold compress hard against your skin making you jump, hissing in reaction.

“Tsukiiii.... shit.” You hiss throwing your head back.

“Mmm that’s not the first time I heard that.” He smirks watching you. “Besides woman, how many times do I need to explain this to you. I. BROKE. MY. PHONE.” He glares running his hand along your leg. “Take it or leave it. That’s my story.”

You return his glare and sigh.

“I hate you, Tsukishima Kei.” You groan with your eyes sealing shut.

“That’s not what you said last time.” His deadpan eyes were audible.

“Well, I take it back.” You allow your ears to guide you, his touch secondary to your hearing.

“You can’t just that it back.”

“Watch me.” You fold your arms across your chest, not bothering to look at him. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be in this position right now.”

“So it’s my fault.” He scoffs as you feel his eyes watching you.

“Yes, its your fault.” You sigh scooting closer to him.

“So I see.” He says. “How’s your ankle feeling?”

“I’m hurting so bad right now.”

He lifts the ice pack exposing your purple ankle.

“It’s going to hurt a lot more when you have my kids.”

That caught you off guard. Not that you haven’t mentioned having a family more than once in the time you dated...

“Your kids?” You sit up on your elbows watching him watch you.

It’s just been awhile.

“I’m six feet tall. Did you think they were going to be bite size like you?”

“There’s a chance. Besides, who said I’m still having your kids? Maybe I want someone else’s.”

Tsukishima bursts out laughing. “There’s no one in this world who’s going to put up with you. You’re whiney.”

“And you’re an ass.”

“And yet you sound surprised.”

“I’d kick you right now.” You roll your hips further in the couch, simultaneously closer to Tsuki. “You’re a jerk and I hate you.”

“Again with the catch phrase. News flash. You don’t mean it.” He sighs running a hand over your foot.

“Does that hurt?”

“Yes.”

“How about here?”

“Yes.”

He’s trying to massage your ankle, kisses on it, working up to your core.

“Here?”

“No. Tsuki, what are you doing?”

“Good. I think I should inspect this area a little longer.” He completely ignores your question. “You know, just to be on the safe side.”

His long fingers brush against the edge of your shorts, him receiving a moan as his lips touch your skin.

“Tsuki no, I’m hurting.” You moan, your mouth disagreeing with your body.

“I’ll be gentle.” His voice, soft and reassuring, matches the look in his eyes, those caramel irises rolling to you in a daze. He takes his glasses off placing them on the coffee table nearby. His fingers trace up your leg, delicate gestures along the curve of your body, feeling the tension building from the inside.

Those eyes reconnect with yours, he crawling on top of you with a leg on each side, straddling your waist but it’s obvious he’s holding back. His fingers trace along your jawline, guiding your lips into his.

This toxic, mesmerizing affect he has on you leaves you obedient and purring.

“Will you forgive me?” He hums into your neck leaving soft kisses in trail to your breast where he takes your shirt off.

“I’ve always loved your body.” He runs the back of his hand across your skin. “You’re so beautiful.”

His lips pepper you to your nipples, one hand caressing your skin in circles, the other massaging the free breast.

“Maybe this will distract you some. You know. From the pain.” He moans between the light bites.

The separate hand travels south to your navel, the backside painfully slow until he meets your shorts.

“Is this ok? I’m not hurting you right?” He stops, eyeing you as you exhale with a long relaxed moan. “I just want to make you feel good.”

You nod generously, your eyes closing ready to relax.

He slides your shorts off your hips.

“I never get tired of seeing this.” He moans leaving open mouth kisses on your hip bones. “You’re beautiful.”

His cold fingers trace along the exterior of your lips watching how you react. His hot breath teases your heat as he slides down into his stomach, wrapping an arm around your thigh pulling you closer.

“Mmm Kei.”

“Yeah? Baby girl you like this?”

“You said you were going to be nice.”

“No, no I said gentle. Purr for me.” He smirks exposing his teeth in glee.

“Tsukiii.” You pout arching your hips into him.

“Patience Baby.” He runs his index along your slit. “We have no where to be.”

“Kei, you know I’m impatient.”

“Yes, Baby Girl.” He slides the finger along the outside. “But I also know you’ve been neglected, and I need to fix that.” He spreads your lips. “And I am truly sorry.”

He slides his tongue over your clit, watching your eyes roll back in your head. Your body trembles preparing for him.

He brings the same finger from earlier to your entrance slowly stretching your needy hole.

“Fuck Tsuki.”

“Shhh Shh. Baby Girl.” He counters your long exaggerated moan. “I just want you to feel good.” Kei releases his finger from your core, watching your eyes open in distaste.

“Relax. I’m just tasting you.” Sliding his finger in his mouth, he keeps your eyes locked, sliding it back inside your ravishing flower. “You taste so good.” He moans feeling himself grow hard. “So damn good.”

Pumping your core, he slides a second finger into you adding more tension.

“I love you so much.” He mumbles, his insecurities exposing him.

You smile running your fingers through his curls as he lean in closer, licking your folds.

His left hand finally releases your breast, sliding to your adjacent thigh, barricade himself into your core.

He laps your slit too many times to count, the ecstasy overwhelming you as you buck your hips against his hold.

“Tsuki.” You moan while he pins your hips down.

“Patience Baby. This is all for you.”

“I need you. You have this control over me. And I hate it.” You pant with needy eyes. He stops what he’s doing, pulling out of your lubed heat, leaning over your body.

Chest to chest, nose to nose.

You grab his neck pulling him into you. Your taste on his lips, your tongue attacking his with needy lust.

Your fingers trace his face, cupping a cheek and you moan into his mouth.

“You drive me crazy.”

You break, turning to his neck licking the sweat from his skin.

“Can I have you?” You shutter, your words caught in your throat.

“Baby Girl, you can have whatever you want.” He hums kissing your lips tenderly.

“I want to feel you inside me.”

“Baby... you’re hurt.”

“I just want to feel you. Tsuki please. I want this.” He sighs and sits up.

“Somewhere else. I don’t have enough room on this couch. I’ll hurt you.” He eyes your bedroom door and back to you.

“Please, Kei.” You moan rolling your hips against his clothed bottoms.

He relocates you to the bedroom taking off his shirt. You stop to admire his chiseled body from volleyball, releasing a painful moan, sliding your fingers over your clit.

“Fuck... baby girl that’s my job.” He dives down in between your legs clasping his hands over yours, pinning them to the side, continuing laps from before.

“You feel so good Tsuki.” You moan as he sits up.

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

“You’re saying this like it’s my first time.” You smirk with a giggle.

“Look, Baby Girl. I really don’t want to hurt you. I can get... distracted.”

“I’m fine Kei. I promise you I’ll let you know if it’s too much, ok?”

He leans over your body, kissing your lips, your breast, your core and sits up, losing his bottoms.

“Promise?”

“I promise Kei.” You smile feeling him line up with you.

It was different this time. The lust was different. His touch is sensitive. He runs his hand along your thigh as he presses into you.

“Oh, Baby Girl.” He moans with his head thrown back. “You’re perfect.” You feel your breath hitch inside you with the new found pressure. He leans forward, slowly rolling his hips into yours again. His runs his fingers in your hair as he begins thrusting slowly.

Open mouth kisses, he hears your breath getting caught in your throat.

“Are you ok? Is this fine?” He asks and you nod.

“You’re just big. Give me time.” You adjust your hips and he slows his pace. “No... Kei. Keep going.”

He bottoms inside you scraping your cervix and causing you to gasp.

“Oh my.” You catch yourself and he pulls himself out halfway.

“Are you ok?” He watches your eyes and you nod with an embarrassed giggle.

“Oh my goodness, Kei. Just go. I’m fine.” You laugh frustrated while he smirks.

“Ok ok.” He kisses you and sets a steady tempo.

Are you ready to trust him again? Your heart races in your ears as thousands of things run through your head.

He’s feels amazing.

I want to trust him again.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

But can you trust him?

He leans into your neck leaving kisses too many to count.

“I’ve missed you.” His groan, so low you could have ignored it, sends chills down your spine. Your core tightens and he notices.

The cocky blond leans down and places his lips to yours. His thrusts are clean and he pulls you in. “I don’t ever want to be without you again.” He’s breathy and his body gives under pressure, collapsing as he finishes inside you.

His broad shoulders cover your body while he leaves kisses across your skin to your lips.

“Then don’t leave, Kei.” You bury your head into his chest as he kisses your forehead.

“I’m not going anywhere, Baby Girl.”

Tag List:

@kellyisalone

@girlyluke

Hopefully it’s something you will enjoy ☺️

[musecharm-writes]

Keep Your Nose Clean (Platonic Reader X Hopper)

ANONYMOUS: hey, i love how you wrote hopper! can we get a dad hopper insert �

Summary: It just happens that you have a harder time keeping your anger in check than most people do. That doesn’t mean you’re bad.

You’re getting pretty tired of people telling you that you are.

(**Note: Reader’s mother says and does some subtle things that could potentially trigger people who have dealt with manipulative or emotionally abusive parents. It isn’t extreme, but I still wanted to include a warning just in case.)

You aren’t a bad person.

All right, you’ll admit it: you have a bit of a short fuse, and sometimes you don’t have the best judgment because of it. But who doesn’t lose their temper every once in a while?

It just happens that you have a harder time keeping your anger in check than most people do, that’s all. That doesn’t mean you’re bad.

So you’re getting pretty tired of people telling you that you are.

“God, I just can’t believe you,” your mom says, pulling at her hair in frustration. “Every other week, you’re getting into a fight, or skipping class, or keying Mrs Dombrovsky’s car!”

“She kicked me out of class for ‘being disruptive’ even though literally everyone talks in her class! She hates me, Mom!”

“So that gives you the right to key her car?” Your mom shakes her head and sighs. She looks defeated. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

You cross your arms and look away stubbornly, setting your jaw.

Your mom stands there in silence for a moment, trying to ice you out you guess, before she gives up.

“I have to get to the diner. I’ll be home late, so you’ll have to find something to eat.” She waits for you to say something, and when you don’t, she takes a step closer and puts a hand on your shoulder. “Honey, I just want what’s best for you. I don’t understand why you don’t see that.”

You jerk your shoulder out of her grip. “Maybe because you never listen to me,” you fire back.

She looks hurt, just like she always does when you tell her the truth. You regret it immediately.

She sniffs and lifts her chin. “I’m leaving now. I hope you have a better attitude by the time I get home.”

She turns and leaves, grabbing her keys from the dish on the hall table without stopping. When she closes the door, the sound seems to echo through the house.

You stay there, standing in the middle of the living room, listening to the wall clock tick, for several long seconds. Then you sit down on the rug and cry.

--

When you get to the cabin, you knock on the door and wait -- you don’t try to go in because you know the door is locked.

When the door opens, revealing a girl with curly brown hair in baggy jeans and a flannel shirt, you say, “Is he here?”

She nods. “Yes.”

“Can I see him?”

“Yes,” she says again, stepping aside so you can enter the cabin.

The creaking of the old wood floors alone is enough to ease some of the tension in your shoulders. You breathe in the smell of wood and old furniture, and when you breathe out, the anger and the sadness isn’t gone, but it doesn’t seem so crushing anymore.

Hopper is in his recliner with his feet up, a half-finished beer on the side table. He looks over at you and seems surprised, but not unpleasantly so.

“Hey, kid,” he says. Then, because he’s always understood you better than anyone, he adds, “Bad day?”

You nod.

He nods back. He reaches down and throws the lever on his recliner back into its original position, and then stands with a grunt, leaning backwards a little to pop his back. Without saying a word, he heads for the porch, and you follow.

The two of you sit on creaky old deck chairs, looking out over the lake. Hopper takes a carton of cigarettes and a lighter out of his breast pocket, sticking a cigarette in his mouth. You hold out a hand and he raises an eyebrow.

“When’d you start smoking?”

You shrug. “Few months ago.” You keep your hand extended.

He eyes you for a moment before sighing and putting a cigarette in your hand. “Just this once, though. I want you to quit; ‘s a bad habit.”

“Really?” You say, putting your own cigarette in your mouth. He lights his and then hands you his lighter so that you can do the same. “I don’t think you get to lecture me about this , Hop,” you say, eyeing the lit cig between his fingers.

He chuckles and takes a drag. “I’ve been smoking since I was younger than you. I think I have every right to lecture you about it.”

You consider this for a moment, and then you shrug and nod. He does have a point.

“So, what brings you here on this lovely, overcast night,” Hopper drawls, turning to stare out at the horizon. You do the same, taking a long drag from your cigarette.

“My mom,” you say simply.

“Ah,” Hopper says. “Givin’ you grief again?”

You sigh. “Yeah. She’s pissed off because I got caught keying Mrs Dombrovsky’s car.”

Hopper whistles. “That’s somethin’. What’d Dombrovsky do?”

“She kicked me out of class for talking and wrote me up for being disruptive. Which is utter bullshit because everybody talks in that class, but I’m the only one who gets in trouble? Like, whatever, bitch, I know you hate me, I don’t care,” you roll your eyes and lift the cigarette to your lips again.

“She didn’t do anything else?”

You exhale smoke through your nostrils. “...Why do you ask?”

“Because that’s not the kinda thing that really grinds your gears, kid. The shit that really gets to you is more personal than that. You don’t key somebody’s car because they kicked you outta pre-calc.”

You hesitate. “She… She called me a burnout.”

Hopper nods, grimacing. “That sounds like Dombrovsky, all right. That woman had it in for me, too.” He looks over at you. “That all she said?”

You bite your lip and shake your head. “She said I was nothing but a burnout and a delinquent, and she didn’t want to see me in her class for the rest of the day if all I was going to do was distract the other students,” you say. The words are practically burned into your memory. Just thinking about it makes you so mad you want to punch something. “All I did was ask somebody to move so I could see what she was writing on the board.”

Hopper shakes his head. “I’m sorry, kid,” he says, and he sounds it, too. You know there’s nothing he can do about it, though; Hopper’s not your dad, and it’s not like he can arrest Dombrovsky for being a heinous bitch to you. At least he can be there for you, though.

The two of you are silent for a while, just listening to the cicadas and the gentle lapping of the waves on the lakeshore.

Then, Hopper says, “How’re your grades?”

You shrug. “Okay, I guess.”

He raises a brow. “‘Okay?’ What’s ‘okay’ mean?”

You pick at a loose thread on your shirt with your free hand and smoke to buy yourself time. “I have a C in English.”

“Uh huh.”

“...And a D in Spanish…”

“How come? And why do you have a C in English, I thought you liked English?”

You sigh in frustration. “I didn’t wanna do this stupid oral presentation in Spanish so I skipped class that day. And the book we’re reading in English is really boring, I can’t focus on it when we have to read at home.”

Hopper shakes his head, frowning. “Kid, c’mon, we’ve talked about you skipping school. You’re gonna get into trouble if you don’t stop ditching.”

You look down at your lap, feeling guilty, like you’ve let him down. “I know. ...Sorry.”

He sighs and takes a drag from his cigarette. “It’s fine,” he says, smoke trailing from his mouth and nose. “Just try a little harder, okay? I know school sucks and it’s boring, but you have to stick it out until you graduate. Don’t be like me that way, all right?”

You nod.

“You know, when I was your age, I was dealing with a lot of the same… issues you are. Shitty teachers, boring classes, parents who either aren’t there or aren’t listening to you. I was angry. Hell,” he laughs shortly, bitterly, and you know more than ever this man recognises something in you most other people never will. “Sometimes, it felt like I’d never stop being angry. But I want you to know it will get better. And if you ever start to feel like you’re all alone in the world… If that anger and hurt ever starts to feel too big…” He looks you dead in the eye. “I want you to come talk to me. Okay?”

You swallow thickly and nod. “Okay, Hop.” You feel wetness on your cheeks, and you swipe at them with your palm, sniffling.

Hopper notices and stands, wordlessly opening his arms to you. You accept gratefully, and he lets you cry into his chest for as long as you need before you pull away slowly, sniffing and wiping your eyes.

“Thanks, Hop.”

“Anytime, kid.”

[mintjamsblog]

Does Alfie ever demand that Tommy calls him Sir?

Okay, this is so late, (I'm sorry, I have sat on this answer for literally weeks). It also answers another ask I seem to have lost/deleted, which simply said 'sub-drop?' So, here you go, it turned into 1600 words of smut, I'm afraid. (Set in my Mistakes AU, but can be read without that background).

Subdrop

"How many fingers Tommy?"

Tommy lifts his head but it drops back immediately.

"Tommy, love, how many fingers am I holding up?"

"Ten," Tommy says, without even looking. "Everyone has ten."

"Alright, love, up we come."

It's no wonder, really, Alfie has toyed with him mercilessly for — he checks his watch — fuck, well over two hours, has brought him to the brink of orgasm over and over again, watched his face flush and his thighs tremble and his stomach contract in anticipation of the release he's repeatedly been denied.

Tommy's so fucking pretty when he lets himself go (when he's made to let go) and Alfie, well, he's always been a sucker for pretty things, ain't he? Beautiful things.

Tommy finds it so hard to relax that once Alfie gets him loose, persuades him into handcuffs or a spreader-bar or, immobilises him somehow, his inclination is to make the most of the situation, to wring him out like a wet towel, count every last drop of resistance as it splashes onto the floor — a puddle to be licked up and savoured (metaphorically speaking, of course, there's no way Tommy's licking anything off any floors with his arms and legs fastened securely to the straps of a leather sling).

The silly boy still approaches these scenes as if they're a test of his fortitude rather than a willing exchange of power and trust. And that's fine, mostly. A click of his fingers or a safeword could end it all, but Tommy'd far rather grit his teeth and pretend he don't want this at all. Alfie can allow that for a while, can give him something to bite down on until he's too far gone to care about giving a voice to his plight.

Usually it takes some impact to get Tommy to give up his sounds. He needs to be pushed past some physical threshold. A firm hand, a paddle, a whip — they each make him sing different notes, eventually, but always the same fuckin' undertone. Anger. Whether Tommy's angry at Alfie (likely) or at himself for needing this (even more likely) is neither here nor there. Tommy has plenty to be angry at; the world ain't always been kind to him and he's even less kind to himself.

But anger, well, it's corrosive innit? Useful when controlled, maybe, when mastered effectively and released into the world in small bursts that serve a purpose; to warn or threaten or reinforce the hierarchy. But not when it seethes in your blood, pumps through your heart and into each artery like slow-acting poison that seeps through veins and capillaries, reaches the tip of every extremity, hides beneath every thought. That sort of anger, the sort Tommy lives with, that anger needs to be let. Like blood.

Not that Alfie's some antiquated physician restoring balance to the humors. Nah, he fancies his particular form of therapy's far more effective, even if his tools are barely less crude than the old-timers' scalpels and leeches. Alfie prefers to mix things up, to intersperse the blows of a bullwhip with the soft, wet heat of his tongue; to lash Tommy with a folded belt, then hold his cock like a delicate creature he's trying to stroke back to life. He'll pinch and tease and whip and probe until Tommy rails and rages, fists balled, teeth bared, every muscle pulled taut as tension wire. Eventually he'll scream at Alfie, at himself, at the universe, then let the breath shudder out in increasingly shaky increments, like he's tumbling down the stairs.

The journey to that point is best travelled slow. Given time, Tommy's tight grunts and growls always soften into something looser, gentler, pain still evident in the pitch of his voice, but threaded through with desire and resignation and something else entirely ... an underlying need to give up or give in. To please, Alfie flatters himself.

That medley of sounds, the unwinding trajectory of 'em, awakens some possessive creature in Alfie. He can feel it uncoiling inside him, muscles sliding and flexing as he drives Tommy towards an apex neither of 'em can see — a pinnacle of endurance or restraint beyond which Tommy simply is. Or maybe isn't. Beyond which he is merely a consciousness, untethered from any worldly woes and oblivious to the sensations of his own flesh. Or perhaps oblivious to anything but the sensations of his own flesh. Either way, Alfie knows to watch when the sounds turn animalistic, when the groans are so low and feral that they peter out into breaths. Into nothing. Into rolled-back eyes and gaping mouth and climaxes so molten they look more like pain than pleasure.

"Come on love, that's it, down we come."

It's a struggle getting Tommy out of the sling, he's too exhausted to cooperate, to untangle his own limbs from the leather, so Alfie releases the two lower straps and pours him out like water. Like water he slips through Alfie's waiting arms and pools at his feet on the floor.

"Up you get," Alfie says, hoisting him under the arms, and up Tommy comes, unsteady but obedient in his altered state of mind.  Alfie braces him for a moment, waits for Tommy's body to harden, for a flicker of conceit to return to those down-cast eyes. Now is when Tommy should swipe a hand down his face, curse under his breath and huff an almost laugh, a poor disguise for self-consciousness, but a sign he's aware at least.

But Tommy offers no such reassurance, regains none of the control that usually washes back as soon as he's up on his feet. He's deep, Alfie realises. Deeper than usual.

He whispers into Tommy's ear, small praises that have no place in any moment other than one such as this. His fingers run down Tommy's back, tracing small paths through sweat that's turned cold, an attempt to distract and reassure, but already he knows it's too late. He's left it too late. He can feel the distant vibrations and knows they'll soon take Tommy's legs.

By the time Alfie gets him onto the bed, onto his side, the trembling has tipped into shivering, a violent reflex that even the finest goose-down duvet fails to subdue. Alfie curses himself for missing the cues, for pushing Tommy too hard. "S'okay," he whispers, "you were beautiful."

But Tommy is straining against the hold, against Alfie's leg wrapped over his own. "I need ... I'm gonna be sick," he says, and throws himself into a sitting position with a violent retching sound. The purge that follows isn't from his stomach, it pours down his face in scalding tears that drench Alfie's waiting hands. Tommy throws his arm up and buries his eyes in the crook of his elbow, taking frightening gasps after every few breaths.

"Come on, now," Alfie says, entirely at a loss. Sure, he pushed Tommy hard tonight, but it seemed like what they both wanted. Needed. "Please, don't," he whispers, hands searching beneath Tommy's forearm to thumb away some of the tears. He wants to tell Tommy he doesn't mind, he can cry as much as he likes. Alfie don't see this as victory; Alfie's not him. But he says nothing, afraid of dredging up ghosts as he coaxes Tommy back down to the mattress, runs fingers through his hair, holds him tight against his chest and lets him cry himself out till the tap runs mercifully dry.

"Why?" Tommy says, eventually.

Fucks sake, why what? Why anything? Why do they do what they do to each other? Why does Tommy allow it? Allow Alfie to pull the meat from his preverbial bones? Alfie's asked himself the same question often enough. Not why does he do this, exactly, he's well past shame over that, but why did he get this lucky? Why does he get to do this with Tommy? To see what no one else sees?  Why did he push him so hard tonight? Why did he think Tommy could take it?

"Why did you spend so long ... you know ..." Tommy sniffs, "when there's nothing in it for you?"

Alfie pulls Tommy out from his chest enough to look him in the eye. "Nothing in it for me? Are you fucking kidding me, Tommy?"

"You didn't even come," Tommy says.

At that, Alfie grabs Tommy's arm, fumbling to open the top button of his jeans and force Tommy's hand inside. "There," he says, in his sternest voice. "Nothing in it for me, hmm?"

"Oh!" Tommy says in surprise.

"Yeah, oh, you blithering idiot. Twice. No fuckin' hands."

He watches Tommy swallow, feels fingers flex through the undeniable evidence soaked right through Alfie's boxers.

"Why?" Tommy asks again.

"Why what Tommy? Why does God allow famine and pestilence? Why do good people die? Why didn't I meet you ten years ago, hmm?"

"Why did you fucking come?"

"Because you’re sexy as all burning hell, aren't you? Turn me on like a switch."

Tommy curls into him tighter, buries his face again, and it dawns on Alfie that he really and truly doesn't get it, does he?

"The first time, right, you wouldn't lay back." He keeps his voice low, strokes Tommy's perfect little ear. "I'd fingered you till you were leaking all over your stomach, all over the marks I'd left with the flogger. You should've been way past defiance by then, but you just kept trying to sit up ... your mouth hanging open, like you were trying to fuckin' kiss me." Tommy burrows further still. "So I slapped you," Alfie continues. Maybe that was a bit cruel. "And you only tried even harder. Lay your sinful tongue on your lower lip and strained up out of the sling." Alfie's hardening again at the recollection, at the way he'd thought Tommy was acting, playing the little minx, struggling to reach forward with his wrists and ankles bound to the straps above him. Only Tommy'd never appear so needy, not in his rightful mind, wouldn't chase Alfie's mouth like a newborn pup seeking out its mother's teet. And he'd gazed at Alfie through half-lidded eyes, in that way he had no right to do, like Alfie was the only face he knew in the entire unholy world, like Alfie could fuckin' save him, reach inside his body and take all the pain away, maybe, or make it ten times worse. Like whichever option Alfie chose Tommy'd fucking let 'im.

"And?" Tommy says, when Alfie falls silent. God, he really doesn’t remember, does he?

"And I leant down and kissed you, you silly boy. And I came in my pants, like a teenager."

Tommy makes a wet sound that could be a huff, or could just as easily be more tears.

"Weren't my fault," Alfie adds, defensively. "Your mouth was so fuckin' soft, despite what I'd done to you. And you. You mewled like a Siamese kitten..."

Tommy squeezes him, through his pants, seemingly soothed by the hard line he's holding, proof, perhaps, that Alfie is part of this.

"And the second time ... the second time ... fucking hell. Right at the very end. The last time you came. You looked so fucking fucked-out, love," Alfie's hands are roaming now, sliding over the marks he's left all over Tommy's skin. He seeks out the curve of Tommy's throat, presses kisses there. "All the fight gone out of you. Covered in sweat and welts and come, so exhausted you were trembling ... and please, you kept saying please." He cups the back of Tommy’s head, pulls him closer still. "And I didn't know what for. And I kept asking you, please, what, Tom? but you wouldn't answer. Couldn't, maybe. Too far gone to know." He bites gently on Tommy's ear, at the little crease where it joins his jaw, the tiniest sign of age on his otherwise youthful face.

Tommy's hand is working now, struggling to find its way beneath the fabric of Alfie's underwear. "Then what?" he breathes into Alfie's ear.

"And then you said please, Sir."

Tommy's hand stops dead at that.

"I ... I didn't--"

"S'alright, love, you were under, weren’t you? Too fuckin' deep to know." And there might be a tiny part of Alfie that wishes that weren't the case, that would like to hear that word on Tommy's lips again, but not at the risk of a drop. Hurts too much to see Tommy so upset.

He removes Tommy's hand from his trousers and laces their fingers together, pulls them up high enough he can kiss every sticky knuckle.

"You want me to clean you up, love? Tommy barely shakes his head; his fingers clench around Alfie's hip. "Okay, in a little while then."

Ain't right to feel so tender about being stuck to someone with come. To like the smell of their sweat so much you don't wanna wash it off. Hell, he'd sleep like this all night, in jeans and boots an'all, if it gives Tommy the reassurance he'll so surely claim he don't need.

[pynkhues]

Prompt 47!

Sorry this one is so late! I hope you like it!

47. Cuddling under blankets

It takes her two days to cave.

Two days to feel the frost in her joints, her perspiration crystalise, her breaths escape in clouds of bitten mist, and god, Beth thinks, staring up at the roof of the cabin, half expecting stalactites. This is not what she had in mind when Rio said safe house.

Not that she was entirely sure what she did have in mind before - - well. Just before. Had never spent all that much time thinking about where it was Rio went when everything had gone south, but if – gun to her head – she’d had to guess, she’d have thought: luxury apartments, sundrenched holiday houses, riverside lodges.

A place his G Wagon would look at home in the driveway, the parking lot, pulled up on the curb.

Somewhere he’d look at home.

The thought makes her wet her chapped lips, sink deeper into the threadbare blankets on top of her still-trembling body, and her gaze dart sideways to where Rio crouches stoking the last flickering embers of the fire.

It’s raining. or rather, it’s sleeting. Shards of ice colliding with the thick glass windows, escaping down the chimney to make the flames spit and smoke below, and when it had first started, Beth had watched Rio cuss. Watched him prod balls of tattered newspaper and sticks she’d collected and tried to dry yesterday, but it hadn’t done much good. The rain had gotten heavier and the fire smaller and she’d seen the chill find him. Pink his nose, ears, stiffen his fingers, and she’d though good, she’d thought he deserves it, but she’d still left him the last of the hot water in the flask even as her own fingers were turning blue.

Now, she holds them close to her mouth, exhales, but her breath is barely warm, and she can’t stop trembling, so she shoves them between her legs instead, and looks at him across the tiny, dim cabin, and says what she’s been saying for the last half hour:

“It’s going to go out.”

He’d ignored her the last time, and scoffed the first time, but now at least it’s enough to make him spin around and look at her, bundled upright on the only bed in the place, the look on his face like he’d forgotten she was even there, and Beth huffs, tilting her chin towards the fire.

“Poking at it isn’t going to miraculously fix the chimney leak,” she adds this time, a shiver rolling up her spine as Rio stares back at her, the erratic glow from the dying flames licking across his features – his plush lips and sharp nose and swollen eye, but god, it’s not that. It’s just - - it’s the cold. That’s all, and when his nostrils flare a little, it’s too easy to add: “Well, it’s not,” because she’s right.

Across the room, Rio finally drops the fire poker back to the tray and stalks his way towards the tiny sofa where he slept last night, tucking his arms high up into his armpits as he drops onto it, leaving his back to her as he hunches forwards, making himself as small as possible in the frigid space of the cabin.

And she doesn’t feel bad.

She doesn’t.

This entire situation is his fault.

It was him who showed up three weeks ago with a new plate, telling her to print two million dollars cash. It was him who’d had that spring to his step while he told her about a new client, and it was him who had her show up at a hotel bar with a suitcase full of fake cash to meet a guy who turned out to be an old-partner-turned-bitter-rival of Nick’s.

She still doesn’t really know what happened, just suddenly it was a few days later and Rio was back at her place with a black eye and a limp and an order.

Bring the plates.

He’d driven them through the night.

Now, across the cabin, he drops a hand to rub at his bad leg, and Beth’s frown deepens as she wriggles back into the dusty mattress, her gaze holding on the narrow line of him, and here’s the thing.

It’s not like she hasn’t thought about it.

Last night had been bad enough, but tonight with the rain and the sleet, without any real insulation and no fire, they’re practically case studies for hypothermia. For the bone chill and the frost bite and the slurred speech and the shuttered eyes and the slip towards a forever sort of unconsciousness.

And like, she knows that the best ways to avoid hypothermia are warm drinks, food, blankets, getting off the ground, and body heat, and just - -

Look.

They finished the cocoa hours ago.

Beth sniffs, rolls her eyes to the ceiling, feels a jittery tension in her body as she blinks hard and finally just says it:

“Come here.”

Rio twists his neck back instantly at that, his eyebrow arched, but he doesn’t make any indication that he’s likely to move, and right, Beth huffs. Why should this be any easier than literally anything else? Her head’s already starting to feel heavy, her thoughts tangled, and she figures the best way forwards is to - - well.

Be the danger.

With a trembling hand, Beth slowly unwraps the blanket from around herself, revealing her stiff jeans and loose sweater, the cold washing through the thin fabric like a rinse, and her teeth are already chattering when she says:

“Body heat.”

His other eyebrow raises to join the first, gaze dropping to her chest where she knows her nipples are peaked in cold, and Beth scowls.

“Not like that. Just - - we’re both freezing right and now, and this - - look. It works.”

“Yeah? You learn that at Journey Scouts?”

“Got the badge and everything,” she bites, and she’s sure she’s visibly trembling now, can feel it, and she sees Rio stare at her, shake his head, start to tell her to bundle up before she kills herself or something, and she adds: “You either come over here and get in the blanket with me or we’re both going to freeze to death right now, and what are your gang buddies gonna think of that, huh?”

Outside, the wind howls and the sleet is starting to get heavier, thicker, careen into hail, and god, it’s cold, and Beth can barely feel her anything anymore, and Rio’s still staring at her, his eyes (or, well, the one she can see below the swelling) dark, and she’s halfway to giving up and flinging herself back on the dusty mattress and trying to shiver her way to any sort of warmth, when Rio suddenly pushes up off the couch and beelines towards the bed.

Which - - right, Beth thinks. This is good, this is what she wanted. In her head, there are vague flashes of real warmth, his body pressed into hers, a memory of heat and desire twisted up and around and over and over, and something drops through her like a lick of flame, and she swallows only to suddenly find herself being gripped around the waist and pushed sideways. Within moments, Rio’s slipped his body beside hers and laid them both down, the mattress frigid beneath them, as Beth desperately tries to adjust the thin blankets back across them both.

She inhales sharply when she feels Rio’s leg press sideways against her own.

His arm against hers.

Both of them suddenly pushed like fish fingers against each other on their backs.

Or like corpses.

The thought makes her swallow.

Makes her gaze flick up to see his swollen face, his pink nose, his unusually pale features.

God, it’s cold.

Beth sniffs, looks down as she wriggles further beneath the blankets, curling her socked-toes to try and hold the blanket to them.

“So,” she tries. “How long are we going to be here?”

“I dunno,” he answers instantly, voice light, like he’d been waiting for her to ask. “How much holiday leave you got?”

Beth scowls, twisting to look at him, and then away, and then back, fixing on the way he hasn’t taken his gaze off the ceiling. It leaves her with little to look at but his swollen eye, the skin darkened with bruises around his temple, and she can’t quite keep the edge out of her voice when she asks:

“Did your brother give you that?”

“Cousin.”

He sniffs as he says it, nose wrinkling, and if she didn’t know any better, she’d swear he winced too at the motion of it. Pressed against her own, his arm feels tight, stiff, his leg cold against hers, and fine, if that’s the way he wants to play it.

“Oh, sorry. Did your cousin give you that?” Beth asks, correcting herself, and at least now, Rio does twist his neck to look at her, his eyes wide in the dark, the whites of them near luminous, and god he is - - he is too close. So close she can feel the cool of his breath against her cheek.

He doesn’t reply, and Beth swallows, something in her gut twisting, fingers trembling as the silence pulses between them, and she doesn’t know if it means yes, or if Rio’s insulted she’d even think that (Nick had just seemed - - and Rio - - something. There was something, that’s all), and it makes her look away. Makes her stare up at the ceiling like he’d been doing, like she had earlier too, watching the timber roofing tremble and listening to the shatter of sleet.

She thinks her toes are going numb.

She thinks her lips are.

She thinks the cold is starting to wrap its fingers around her ankles and pull her into its clutches, starting to leave her tired, and suddenly she’s grasping at anything to distract herself. Anything to keep her head above the threat of frigid oblivion, and she’s halfway through the chorus of Do You Wanna Build a Snowman? before she even realizes what she’s humming.

It’s not until Rio snorts beside her that it means anything to her slow turning head.

Beth’s gaze fixes back on him, and it’s sudden then – the memory of Jane and Marcus singing it to each other through the laundry room door while they played, back when Rhea still came around, back when Beth thought - -

After - -

Beth blinks.

A shiver wracking her chest as she clutches the blankets a little tighter.

“Does Marcus like Frozen?” she asks, like she doesn’t know, and from the way Rio makes a low noise of affirmation, she knows that he doesn’t.

Something in Beth loosens, tightens, loosens again.

“He really likes that snowman,” Rio says, sniffing again. “Olaf.”

His lip twitches – something between a smile and a grimace, and Beth can’t help but grin in reply, her own gaze holding now on the twist of his mouth.

“Jane had a stuffed one that sang the song from the movie. The Summer one. I took out the sound box and stitched it back up.”

Rio barks on a laugh, even as Beth cringes at the memory. It probably wasn’t her finest parenting moment, but after hearing the same song for the thirtieth time in a day, she was about to start tearing at the wallpaper.

“I told her he just wasn’t feeling well,” she adds. “But secretly I’m hoping she forgets he ever sang.”

It’s weird, the voice in her head that tells her it’s not a secret anymore.

Not now that she’s told him.

She doesn’t know why that leaves her pressing her arm to his a little tighter.

“Damn, you’re doin’ better than me,” Rio tells her, his voice low, a little slurred, hoarse with cold. She thinks that’s one of the symptoms of hypothermia, isn’t it? God, she can’t remember. “I gave Marcus’ to one of his cousins.”

Beth laughs.

Looks at him.

Vaguely, something in her head tells her to listen to his chest. Check for a rattle. Is that for hypothermia? No. Pneumonia, she thinks. Tries to summon up her badge training. God, she feels drunk suddenly. Woozy. She lifts her head and places it on his chest anyway, and if he’s surprised, he doesn’t act it. Instead, his arm circles around her shoulders, pulling her into him, which is silly, she doesn’t need the rest of her to hear the ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-dum of his heart beneath her ear. Doesn’t need to drop his mouth to the crown of her head, doesn’t need to inhale either, but she shivers at the warmth of his exhale there when he does that and when his freezing hand finds her shoulder, it’s too easy to reach back.

To pull it around her arm and under, squeezing his fingers into her armpit to warm them, and when his fingers creep forward to squeeze her breast, she doesn’t move them, couldn’t, she doesn’t think, not with his heartbeat so close, and his chest isn’t rattling but it might, she thinks, and god, it’s so much warmer like this, so she shouldn’t move her head just yet.

Just to be sure.

Just to warm them up a little.

Just for now.

[ldouble]

You Smell Good | Harry Styles X Reader

summary: You and Harry prepare for the Met Gala. The only thing you fixate on...other than everything...is the way you smell. Harry on the other hand, can’t get enough of it.

if we like this enough...should it be a senses series?

----------

this gif is not mine credit to harryisart omg i love this

You can’t help but tug at your sleeves. Someone’s hand shoos it away which you let. That is until your collar seems off. When you’re bugged away from that part of your clothing you find another to busy yourself with. Then its your hair. Your makeup. Your nails.

You’re above to dive into your skin (it looks wayyyyyy too orange) when the hands finally have a voice.

“Stop it.”

You roll your neck dramatically, flopping your chin down to glare at Harry. Sitting in a director’s chair, getting his hair done. It was a ridiculous thought when he was first placed there, his holding a fourth of what you have attached to yours but it now makes sense considering he’s been there for about double the amount of times yours took.

At the thought of it, your fingers move up unconsciously to pick at your styled mane. But, having discovered his speech is much stronger than his hands, Harry tag teams the two.

“You look fine.”

“Says you.” You shoot back, going to pick at the skin around your fingers.

Suddenly all movement is paused as your hands are clasped tight in Harry’s, his eyes finding yours. His smile is gentle which makes his next words the most surprising.

“Says what about me?”

Your head tips back at his humorous suffering. It’s when he’s halfway through a monologue about the time and money and oh so painful hours of planning that went into his look, you’re clutching your stomach and begging him to stop.

“Now I’m really going to mess something up.”

Harry sighs, tilting his head away from the stylist to get a good look at you. “You could never.”

You suck in a breathe. The hotel room has been hot for hours. The people in and out, the steamers and blow dryers and the shots that Harry has been sending since lunch has made the whole space...staticy.

One more intense look or loving statement from your friend and you’re sure to stain the black dress you wear.

Said to be impossible but nothing is, not when you’re about to walk down the Met Gala pink carpet with your best friend since diapers.

Especially since you’re not wearing diapers.

You’re wearing clothes more expensive than what God himself wears in a suite straight out the montages of movies and the water you’ve been drinking is so heavy it makes you think you’re drinking liquid gold.

Or maybe that’s just the nerves bunching in your stomach that’s causing everything you send down to feel like its all going to come back up.

You put a hand to your mouth, close your eyes and try to count to ten.

But its the thing that touches you gently on the cheek that relaxes you.

It’s not six hundred dollar hair brush or a touch up from a celebrity stylist. The complimentary moisturizer of the hotel (which only exists in places like these) doesn’t skim your skin.

Its a priceless hand that grazes you, sending every worry and knot away just like room service was cleared earlier.

You can’t help but lean into his touch, take a deep breath of hair product and the horrible smelling perfume someone sprayed on you.

Your eyes open when you sense him leaning in, making you all but freeze. What could he be thinking?

“You smell terrible.”

Of course that’s what he’s thinking.

“You, Mr. Co Chair, put so much thought and effort and money into this thing,” You say, moving to look in the mirror he facing. The sight of you both so done up and put together (a real change from the sweatshirts you live in when back in London when watching all of the events like the one you’re about to be in) makes you stumble. Harry begins to turn his head, forcing you to grab him and face it back to your reflection. “And the one thing you fumble on in my perfume.”

“Trust me every choice was mine,” Harry defends as I stand to rumble through my suitcase. The duffel, a Year 10 gym bag you still use, had been useless all night. Until now of course. “Except that.”

You shrug, wandering back over to him, your own personal balm in hand. “Hey, I’m not the one who has to whisper in my ear and tell me how pretty I am all night and ingest a whiff of what smells like dog poop.”

Harry’s head tips back with a laugh as you uncap the bottle, handing it to him. “I thought I could whisper in your hear and tell you how awful you smell. Think of the faces you’d make for the cameras.”

“Don’t even.” You turn, holding your ponytail up (much to the dismay of the stylist packing up across the room. “Spritz a tad on my neck will you.”

“Interesting spot.” Harry mumbles, doing as told.

“I’m expecting a kiss from some celebrity there tonight.” You flip back once the cool mist hits you. Harry’s eyes are stuck on your exposed collarbone but you pretend not to notice as you reach for the bottle. “Can’t have him knowing I smell.”

“Right.” Harry squints.

You spritz your wrists, rub them together and then bend down to the slit in the back of your dress. “If you fan my dress out I can’t have you bunching up your nose.”

Harry takes the nose tap, grabbing your hand afterwards. He then dips down to sniff your wrists, a content smile on his lips as he looks up. “Much better.”

“See, if you had known you had an opinion on how I smelled, you would’ve thought of this earlier.” You shake the perfume bottle at him, straightening out your dress as he stands up, going as far to help you get situated.

“Like I would’ve been able to capture it.”

“Capture what?” You smile, accepting your purse form one of the thousand of people in the room. You do it absently mindly having not noticed them in a while. With Harry it always feels like just you two.

You assume he thinks the same, especially the way he ignores final touch ups and looks at you like you really are the only other breathing thing in the vicinity. “Harry.”

He purses his lips as you egg him on. You seem him bite the inside of his cheek and it amkes you want to out a hand on it. But the way the room got so hot when he did that to you. And now with everyone moving around and the nerves building as someone shouts out something about arrival approaching...you couldn’t take it.

You never could.

Why were you doing this? How did you ever say yes to going out there with him in front of everyone? This was the freaking Met Gala. You hadn’t so much as gone on stage with him. Being with Harry was great. Being with Harry with the whole world was horrible.

At least you thought.

You saw how other best friends were treated. Talked about. Lied about. Made up about.

He was your best friend.

You couldn’t take it.

“Capture all you are to me in some dinky little bottle.” He finished, bending down to grab your focus.

It works. He could take it. Your eyes. And he did.

He takes more than that though. Again the nerves fly away and the knots undo and you’re left just being you.

It’s good you smell like you too.

You shrug again, making your way to the door with his hand in yours. You’ve always had to pull him along. Never before had you thought you would do this at the Met Gala but the usual finds its self in the unusual.

“You’re just lucky. You might not have a supermodel date but you’ve got a girl who smells just like-”

“You.”

You look back at him, your purse falling to the ground at the sight of his eyes all hazy and his smile so sweet.

His words are stunning. God damn soulful.

Dressed in his Gucci sheer ensemble, it’s like he’s singing at the fanciest of events to the girl of his dreams.

But it’s just you. A girl wearing 10 dollar perfume from the corner store.

It’s his turn to pull you. You switch spots as you’re frozen in yours and he leads you into the hallway, grabbing your bag on the way.

“You smell like you and hair spray and the onion ring you just ate.”

Your hand flies to your mouth for a breath check when he pulls you close in the elevator.

“You smell great.”

You look up at him, a smile on your lips.

“And you,” Your hands can’t help but play with the ribbons on his collar. “Have smelled better nearly every other time.”

He chuckles, his top teeth hugging his bottom lip. The ding of the elevator sounds before the car stops with a thud. People are moving. There’s talking. There’s so much going on but all you can smell is....

Carpet cleaner.

And windex for the mirror walls.

And Harry.

You can’t wait to see what else you sense along the way.

[contemplativepancakes]

abs of steel

the 2.5k story of how Geralt came to have his season 2 armor, with some help from Jaskier, of course. read on ao3 here!

Jaskier putters around the room, with one of Geralt’s dozens of tiny bottles in his hand and a rag in the other. He gives it a half hearted shine before setting it back down and looking at Geralt. 

Jaskier’s not sure how Geralt ever survived without him, honestly, because it seems like finding Geralt in varying states of unconsciousness is becoming a much too common occurrence. He supposes Geralt’s amount of passing out probably hasn’t changed, just the amount of times someone has coming looking for him. Jaskier’s heart does not ache at the thought. 

Geralt’s chest moves shallowly under the blanket, and Jaskier goes to stoke the fire. He had sweetalked the innkeeper into giving them a better room when it had become apparent that their stay was going to be...extended, and he’s glad for it. The room has its own bath tub, and a fire place, and there’s even a soft rug by the bed where Jaskier can sit and compose without worrying about jostling Geralt’s injuries. 

Jaskier casts a longing glance to his notebook, wishing that he could write and make the voices in his head stop whirling, but lyrics have been evading him ever since he found Geralt unconscious and even paler than usual. 

Geralt had just been going after a lesser vampire, had reassured Jaskier that it wasn’t going to be a big deal, and to not wait up, but Jaskier’s glad he did. 

Frankly, he doesn’t know why Geralt tells him not to do things when they both know he’s not going to listen. 

He supposes it makes Geralt feel better. He doesn’t pretend to understand what happens in Geralt’s brain. He imagines it’s a lot of grunting and internal hmm-ing. 

Geralt stirs under the covers, and Jaskier rushes across the room to stand by his side. Geralt blinks up at him, and Jaskier lets himself drift a hand over Geralt’s concerningly warm brow. He’s hot, but he’s not sweating, and Jaskier bites his lip. He gives Geralt what he hopes is a reassuring smile, but he thinks it might be more of a grimace. 

Geralt slips a hand out from under the covers, and Jaskier takes the liberty of reaching out his own. Geralt could have died; he can’t be held responsible for his actions. “What happened?” Geralt groans, his voice scratchy and deep from disuse.

“Good question,” Jaskier says, glaring at him. Now that it doesn’t seem like Geralt is any imminent danger of never waking up again, it’s a little easier to be mad instead of just wracked with worry. 

“It was...a pack of them,” Geralt remembers haltingly. 

Jaskier hums, brushing a hand through Geralt’s hair. He wonders if Geralt would let him get away with brushing it. Maybe he’ll ask when Geralt doesn’t seem so groggy. 

“It’s okay,” Jaskier soothes. “You need to rest.”

“I’m fine,” Geralt automatically protests, going to sit up. 

“Geralt, you are not, your rib is broken and the healer said one of your intestines might be punctured. You could get sepsis.”

“Witchers don’t get infections. I’m fine,” Geralt says again, but it’s even less convincing this time. 

“Just...stay in bed. Can you do that? I know it goes against everything in you to not do your utmost to aggravate me, but listen just this once.”

Geralt lays back against the pillow, his hair spreading out in a halo around his head. “Fine.”

“Don’t look so pleased about it, love.”

If looks could kill, Jaskier would be haunting one very grumpy witcher. “I’m sure you’ll survive,” Jaskier says breezily. “I know, it’s the epitome of cruelty to make you rest. Someone let witcher protective services know.”

“My swords?” Geralt asks gruffly, changing the topic. 

Jaskier rolls his eyes and huffs. Like he would forget Geralt’s swords. “Oiled and put away.”

“Hmm.”

“Don’t be grumpy just because you don’t have an excuse to get out of bed.”

“What about my armor?”

Jaskier casts a nervous glance to the corner. “I’m afraid that’s beyond my talents. They’re a little shredded.”

Geralt follows his line of sight to where his leather armor is in a pile on the ground, blood streaked and torn. 

“Well, I need to get new, then,” Geralt says, attempting to sit up again. 

He stops with a look from Jaskier, and Jaskier gives a hum of satisfaction. “I can get it for you.”

“Jaskier, you don’t even know what to look for.”

Jaskier glares at him. “How long have I been travelling with you for? And you don’t even think I know what you look for in your armor?”

Geralt harumphs. “Fine.”

“Fine?” Jaskier asks in delight. He wasn’t actually expecting to win that battle. Maybe he can get Geralt out of something black, for a change. 

“Here,” Geralt says, leaning over the bed to rustle through his pack. Give the armorer this.”

Jaskier takes the drawing and instructions, and he’s ready to skip to the armorer’s, but Geralt’s expression pinches as he settles back into his spot on the bed, so he hurries back to his side. “What hurts?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Hmm,” Jaskier says, taking a page out of Geralt’s book. 

Jaskier crosses his arms and stares at him for a solid minute before Geralt relents. “My ribs.”

“That wasn’t so hard now, was it? Now just let me see.”

He peels back the covers, wincing at the mess that is Geralt’s chest. By the time Jaskier had dragged him back to town, most of his wounds had started to clot, so the healer thought it was best to let them breathe, but now Jaskier has to look at them. 

He carefully drifts his fingers over the torn tissue and mottled purple of what’s still intact, watching Geralt’s reaction carefully. 

Eventually, he draws back. “I don’t think there’s anything else I can do,” he admits. “Let me get you something for the pain.”

Geralt grunts in annoyance, no doubt meaning something about witchers being nothing but vessels for pain or some other horrible thing that they ingrained in him during his nightmare of an upbringing. He goes over to Geralt’s bag, looking for the right roots and herbs to concoct his mixture. He pulls out Geralt’s mortar and pestle, grinding the ingredients together until he has a lumpy paste. He carefully scoops it out of the mortar and into a glass filled with water on the bedside table. He mixes it together vigorously and sets it back on the table for a moment while he helps Geralt sit up. 

Geralt tries to wave him off, but Jaskier insists. Once there’s three pillows propping him up, Jaskier hands him the glass. Geralt sniffs at it doubtfully. “I think you might be trying to get ready of me,” he says. 

Jaskier hides his laugh behind his hand. “I wouldn’t go through all this trouble if I was, now would I?”

“I suppose not,” Geralt sighs, grimacing as he knocks the whole thing back in one drag. 

“That wasn’t so bad now, was it?”

Geralt smacks his lips together, gesturing for Jaskier to get him some more water. “Terrible. Possibly life threatening.”

Jaskier rolls his eyes. “You’re welcome. Can I trust you to behave while I’m gone?”

Geralt chooses not to dignify that with an answer. “I’ll take that as a no, then,” Jaskier says. “The innkeeper has children, don’t make me make them come up here to watch after you.”

“I’ll behave,” Geralt says dryly. 

“Good. You better be in that exact spot when I come back.”

“Hmm,” Geralt says, and Jaskier knows that means that Geralt is the one who’s going to be ignoring him, for a change. 

Jaskier just hopes that Geralt won’t jostle himself too much as he steps out of the door and into the hallway. 

He makes his way down the steps and out onto the dusty main road of the village, peeking at the other wares being sold, particularly eyeing a doublet with stunning embroidery that he can’t believe is being sold in this dank little town, of all places. He makes a mental note to come back after getting Geralt’s armor. Jaskier investigates the baked goods, inhaling the scent of bread and surveying the hand pies, looking at their delightfully golden exteriors longingly. 

Jaskier makes it to the armorer without incident, a brass bell ringing overhead as he steps inside. The armorer crosses her arms as she regards Jaskier thoughtfully. “You lost?” she asks. 

Jaskier flashes her a winning smile. “Not at all. I’m here for a friend.”

The armorer stares back at him, unimpressed. “You know, it’s important that I’m able to measure someone to give them the best fit. I don’t want someone getting killed and blaming it on my armor. No, if someone dies, it’s going to be because of their own ineptitude.”

“I’m certain that won’t be a problem,” Jaskier says. “Have you ever made armor for a witcher before?”

Her eyes light up. “Your friend is a witcher? To tell the truth, things have been a little slow around here since the war ended.”

“I’ll pay you well, don’t worry,” Jaskier says, producing the paper Geralt had given him from his cloak with a flourish. 

She practically snatches the scroll out of Jaskier’s hands, her eyes roving over the paper. She mutters something to herself before turning back to look at Jaskier. 

“I still need the measurements,” she says. “It’s even more crucial for such an important client.”

“Of course. Don’t worry, I have them right here.” Jaskier fishes his notebook from his satchel, flipping through until he finds the page with Geralt’s sizes on it. Jaskier swears that Geralt purposely ruins all of his fine clothing between banquets he drags him to, because Jaskier always has to buy Geralt new clothes. 

Actually, come to think of it, he’s never seen the evidence of them being damaged, and it’s not like Geralt just wears them around. Jaskier shakes his head as he realizes Geralt probably just sells them. Jaskier supposes Geralt does always swear that will be the last banquet he ever attends after each one, just for Jaskier to talk him into one more, but that’s no excuse. 

Jaskier tilts his head for a moment as he contemplates how to get his revenge, smirking when the idea dawns upon him. Jaskier sketches a quick picture and pushes it towards the armorer. “How much extra would this cost?” 

She looks down at the page dubiously. 

Jaskier gives her his most charming smile. 

-

It’s been three days, and Geralt is sick of lying in bed. No matter how much he swears to Jaskier that he’s better, that his rib has knit itself back together, he doesn’t believe him.. It’s just a bruised rib at this point, but Jaskier doesn’t take pity on him, just offers a distraction for Geralt in the form of being better at gwent than he has any right to be. 

Geralt sighs heavily, looking at Jaskier out of the corner of his eye. 

“Don’t think that will make me take pity on you, Geralt,” Jaskier says, not even looking up from his composing notebook. “Besides, we have to wait for your armor anyway.”

“What’s taking so long?” Geralt complains. 

“Perfection takes time. Besides, the armorer’s never seen any of your witcher-y things, so you have to give her time to figure it out.”

Geralt groans and sits up, swinging his legs out of the bed. “I can’t take it anymore.”

Jaskier rushes to him, but Geralt brushes him off. “I’m fine,” he growls. 

Jaskier raises his hands and backs away. “Fine, fine. Don’t be so grumpy when all I’ve been doing is taking care of you.”

Geralt glares at him, and Jaskier strokes a hand through his soft hair. “You do deserve it, you know,” Jaskier says. 

Geralt looks down, a bothersome flush creeping up his neck. 

“I think I’ll go check on the armor, since you’re in such a rush.” Jaskier rolls his eyes. “She said it would be done sometime today.”

Geralt rummages through his pack, hardly looking up at Jaskier. “Good. Then we can finally move on. I was talking to the innkeeper about a wyvern a day’s ride away.”

“Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, here, hmm?”

Geralt grumbles as Jaskier leaves, finding himself excited to see the new armor against his will. He so rarely gets anything that doesn’t already have a crust of dirt on it that anytime he has a sword or armor made, he finds himself looking forward to it. 

Geralt goes to the mirror in the corner of the room and lifts up his shirt, noting how the mottled purple has become large splotches of greenish brown. Everything’s looking good, so he sorts his satchel, shaking his head fondly as he reorganizes his elixirs. Whenever Jaskier gets his hands on them, he always sorts them by color, but that’s not what Geralt likes. He could just tell Jaskier to leave his things alone, but he doesn’t have the heart for it. 

Geralt putters around the room, making the bed and hoping that if he’s ready to go by the time Jaskier gets back, he can convince him to move on. He can smell Jaskier’s anxious energy, anyway; he knows Jaskier is just staying here for his benefit. 

Geralt finishes putting the last of his things into his pack and is just contemplating going down to the stables to see Roach when Jaskier bursts through the door, armor in hand. 

Jaskier hands it off to him with a self satisfied flourish, and Geralt freezes as he looks at it. “You can’t be serious.”

“The armorer and I thought it would make you like quite fetching.”

“Jaskier.”

“What, don’t you like it? It’s a gift, Geralt, I’m offended.”

Geralt rubs his fingers over the indents in the chest plate. He has so many questions. 

“It’s the new fashion,” Jaskier assures him. 

“I’m a witcher, not a model.”

“Why not both?” Jaskier asks airily. He looks around the room. “So, are you ready to go then?”

Jaskier steps forward to help him buckle the new armor in place, Geralt eyeing it dubiously. Besides from the obvious issue of the chest piece, it’s not even black; it’s a dark green that catches and shimmers in the light. Geralt resists the urge to bury his face in his hands. No one is going to take him seriously now. 

He huffs a sigh, trying to communicate his displeasure with Jaskier, but as ever, Jaskier seems immune to his glares. Geralt slings his satchel over his shoulder and steels himself. 

As they walk down the street, it’s not as terrible as Geralt was expecting. Sure, the sun is glinting off of his abs and blinding him a little, but Geralt doesn’t hear anyone snickering at him. Everyone just walks by, looks at him, and quickly glances at their feet, which is par for the course for the life of a witcher. 

Geralt tilts his chin a little higher, thinking maybe this won’t be so bad after all. He has a new spring in his step when he hears someone calling his name behind him. Geralt turns around, thinking it sounds an awful lot like his brother, and he’s proven right when Lambert skids to a stop in front of him. 

“Hey, I’m glad I ran into you; I heard there’s a nest of wyverns a few towns over—” Lambert’s mouth flaps for a second. “What the fuck are you wearing?”

Geralt turns to glare at Jaskier, and he smiles innocently. 

[handy-dandy-monster-candy]

Primrose, part One

Rating: SFW Length: 1929 Pairing: Male Reader x Male Orc (both cis)

Just a bit of fluff during these trying times.

xxx

I see him one bright summer morning in my grandmother's garden, near the edge of her property where the forest kisses the grass. I find him sleeping between the rosemary and the hydrangeas, curled up in the shade of a willow tree, barefoot and smelling of sweet wine. The morning sun has yet to reach him and so the dew still clings to him yet, making him almost seem to shimmer like a daydream in the dappled light.

He's big even for an orc, though I admit I haven't met many. His skin is the colour of cherry blossoms except where it seems to be lacking pigment, like a sliver which looks like a widow's peak that disappears into his vivid pink hair, and a splotch that spreads like a butterfly across his sharp cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. His hair is a rich pink colour, long and thick and braided loosely, the ribbon almost lost to the clover and lemongrass he’s lying on. I take a moment to study him among the birdsong and the stirring of the cicadas in the forest, watching the rise and fall of his broad, hairy chest where it's exposed by buttons either undone or lost to the night's festivities.

He's the most handsome man I've ever seen, and I almost feel remorse when I upend a bucket of water over his head.

He snorts and gasps, splutters and coughs, looking about him wildly as he flails and struggles to right himself from his lazy sprawl. "What in the hell?" he exclaims, breathless and agog, and when he turns his baby blue eyes up to meet mine, they go wide as dinner plates.

"You're crushing the lemongrass," I tell him, keeping my face and tone neutral while I smother my amusement.

"Did you just soak me?" he asks, something like awe stealing across his face.

"You're crushing the lemongrass," I say again, propping my dripping bucket against my hip through the overalls I'm wearing. "My lemongrass. Get out of my garden, you drunk."

It seems he can contain himself no longer; he throws his head back and roars with laughter until tears gather in his eyes. "And here I heard no one but a canny old crone lived in this cottage!"

"My grandmother," I supply, feeling my lips curve up despite myself. "I'm just a canny young bastard."

"And what happened to the crone?" asks the orc, getting up and pulling his shirt over his head to wring it out over the hydrangeas.

I can't help but notice that his torso is thick and muscled, and that the dense curls on his chest go all the way down his soft belly. Here, they turn white along with his skin in a broad swathe, and I find myself wondering where else his skin changes colour beneath his clothes.

"See something you like?"

My eyes snap back up to the orc's face, and where I'm expecting a smug, lascivious smirk, there is instead a bemused, almost shy smile. I know that I don't blush when I'm embarrassed, but I'm surprised to see that he does, two spots of red blooming across his cheeks like roses.

"She fell and broke her hip three weeks ago," I tell him, and I make a point to look only at his face while he puts his shirt back on. "She left me in charge of the house. What's it to you?"

The orc holds up his hands, and I see that one palm is white as cream. "Only curious," he assures me, turning his gaze to the cottage behind me. "Nice place."

I give him a very flat look. "Try to rob me and you'll regret it."

Once again he laughs, gesturing with his hands as if to fend me off. "Easy, easy! Are you always so hostile?"

"Only to strangers who pass out drunk in my herb garden."

He smiles, then, and I curse him internally; of course he'd have dimples. "Well, what if we weren't strangers? I'm Primrose, but most just call me Prim. You are?"

I feel my eyes narrow as I weigh my options, absently drumming my fingers against the side of my bucket. I debate telling him my name, but his disarming smile pries it out of my mouth before I can think better of it.

Primrose’s eyes light up. “What a pretty name. It suits you. Not like mine.”

“Oh?” I call over my shoulder as I turn to head back to the house, pretending to be bored of the stranger who tromps through the herbs behind me in his haste to follow. “I’m sure I don’t care why.”

“Oh, come on,” the big orc snorts. “‘Primrose’? For a man? ‘Prim’ is my only saving grace!”

“Don’t you fancy hearing ‘Rosie’?” I ask knowing that I’m being prickly, putting aside the bucket and reaching for the garden hose.

Primrose stops short, mouth opening and closing soundlessly before he can grumble, “Only my mother calls me that.”

“It’s a good name,” I say, turning to face him with the hose head in my hand. “It suits you. Unlike mine.”

Primrose laughs awkwardly, eyeing the hose like a snake about to bite. “Is that for me?”

I lift a brow. “Do you want breakfast, or not?”

His belly answers before his mouth can, rumbling loudly between us and causing him to splutter and cover it with his hands as if to silence it. “I suppose I do,” he sheepishly replies.

“Then I’ll hose the mud off your feet and you’ll go straight to the bath. I’ll wash your clothes while you soak the booze out of your system, feed you, and then you can get the hell off of my property.”

“Bossy,” Primrose says with a laugh, startling only a little when I turn the cold water of the hose on his feet. “I don’t have the foggiest where I might have lost them.”

“Your marbles?” I drawl, and I thrill at the quick grin it earns me from the orc.

“My boots.”

“Hm. Come in, then. Mind the door.” I warn him just in time to save him a nasty knot on his forehead, leading him into my grandmother’s cottage to the big claw-foot tub that I begin to fill with steaming water. I add bath salts and rose oil for his muscles and for my own amusement, which he doesn’t seem to miss despite how straight-faced I keep.

“Very funny,” he rumbles, pulling the ribbon from his hair and shaking it out of its plait. It falls all the way down to his backside, and in that moment, I want nothing more than to put my fingers in it and play with it until I’ve figured out just how many shades of pink there are to find. I control my urges and rein in my impulses as I’ve always done, leaving briefly under the context of getting the washing machine ready and returning only once I’m sure he’s in the tub. It’s not hard to gauge when he enters; the cottage is quiet except for birdsong, and his groan is low and long.

I bustle in to gather his clothing and wrinkle my nose at the tattered hair ribbon; the silk was fine to begin with, but it’s been torn and tattered in small but noticeable ways along the ends, and the mud is in so deep that it may never come out. “You’ve ruined this ribbon,” I inform Primrose, pinning him with a scrutinising look that he wriggles under the weight of like an errant schoolboy.

“I don’t remember how or when,” he says. “Last night is… a blur, at best.”

“Hm,” I sniff, looking away from him to head for the door. “Maybe this will teach you not to drink so much in future. A ribbon can be replaced, but if you’d fallen asleep facedown in a ditch somewhere, the night’s rain would have drowned you. Is that how you want to go out? Drunk and drowning in a puddle somewhere?”

I almost feel sorry for the way I make him squirm, big as he is. He’s all muscle, barrel-chested and with hard, shapely legs that he draws up to his chest in the tub. “No,” he all but meeps, meek as a kitten. “My mother would bring me back just to kill me. I won’t drink so much again.”

“See that you don’t,” I reply, sweeping out of the room to get the laundry going. Halfway without thinking, I stash the ruined ribbon in my pocket and go upstairs to my room to fetch him another. I, too, have long hair that requires being tied back from time to time, so I grab one of my ribbons and place it on top of the pile when his clothing has been washed and dried. I set these just inside the bathroom door and inform him that breakfast will be ready within the hour, and so I hear him reluctantly begin the drawn-out process of unwillingly leaving a warm bath.

Breakfast is simple, but hearty. Eggs, potatoes, sausages—all locally sourced from the farmers in the countryside. I’m chewing on a mouthful of eggs when I remember I have a delivery to make to my grandmother’s egg supplier: a watermelon she had traded for that was a little overripe to eat, but perfect for the chickens as a treat. I inform Primrose of this and we both spend a moment looking at his feet, contemplating his predicament. In the end, I pick up the receiver in my grandmother’s kitchen and call a carriage for him, waving away his words of thanks.

“I mean it,” he insists. “If this house had been empty, I’d have had to walk all the way back to town barefoot.”

“It would have taught you a lesson, at least,” I say, and this time I can’t help the little smirk that steals across my face.

Primrose laughs, loud and joyful. “You’re a viper! Can nothing I say earn me any sweetness?”

“You want sweetness?” I ask, and I can feel myself smiling now. “Don’t pass out in my garden next time.”

Primrose leans in across the porch where we’re awaiting his carriage. “‘Next time’?”

“Oh, don’t read into it,” I huff, shaking my head and leaning against the railing. “You want sweetness, you need a better impression than what you’ve given. There’s Mr. Higgens now.” I gesture with my glass of lemonade, and Primrose’s expression falls.

“Ah.” We’re silent as the carriage pulls up the dirt road to the front door, and I wave to the driver and exchange pleasantries as Primrose reluctantly heads down the front porch steps. He looks back up at me when his feet hit the dirt, and I almost laugh at the way his big blue eyes look almost childishly hopeful. “Would you soak me if I visited again?”

“I might,” I say nonchalantly, tilting my head this way and that. “I might not.”

Primrose grins, and all at once all the wind is under his sails again. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says, waving exuberantly from the carriage after he’s boarded it. I wave back, bemused by the morning’s events, and watch the carriage until it disappears around a woody bend and completely out of view. I go back inside and wash the breakfast crockery, shaking my head at myself and my foolishness when I find the ruined ribbon in my pocket when I’m wiping my hands on my jeans.

What was I doing? I had a watermelon to deliver.

[lloydskywalkers]

heirloom

first things first, this is entirely the product of the lovely @ninjawhoa‘s artwork, which you can find here (if you haven’t seen it already please give go give them love it’s sO good!!) so full credit to that piece for the inspiration :’D

second things i have a lot of feeling about lloyd. as always. happy birthday green boy i promise this is not entirely angst T-T

Forgotten

Lloyd is six years old and a child, and he cries more than all the other boys at Darkley’s put together.

He cries the first time he skins his knee, the first time he breaks his wrist, the first time the older boys crush the little frogs that live in the pond, the first time someone tells him he’s been forgotten by his family and every time after.

And that’d be okay, maybe. Like Brad putting fire ants in his bed the first night, it was only that first time. Lloyd learned to expect pranks after that and everything was fine. He learned how to act like a Darkley’s boy and eventually everyone forgot about it. It’s lame that Lloyd cried the first time, but at least it’s just the first time. If he learns to stop after that, then eventually, everyone will forget about it.

But Lloyd, six years old and brimming with his own ocean, doesn’t stop.

“What’s wrong, Garmadon? Gonna cry again?”

Lloyd stares at the frog, its eyes bulging just where its head sticks out from beneath Finn’s shoe. His lip stings, too-sharp teeth biting too tight. Lloyd hates his teeth. They always hurt, like all the times everyone tells him he’s nothing like his father.

“You should’a killed it slower,” another boy chimes in. “He always cries when they start croaking.”

Lloyd’s nails bite into his palms. He likes the frogs’ croaking, usually. It’s why he ended up over by the pond today, ‘cause they’re small and green and he likes how soft they are when they climb all over his hands.

His eyes burn, and one of Lloyd’s sharper teeth breaks through the skin of his lip. He shouldn’t’ve gone to see the frogs today. He shouldn’t’ve ever gone in the first place. If he hadn’t, the other boys wouldn’t’ve come over, and the poor frog wouldn’t be under Finn’s shoe right now. All Lloyd ever does to nice things like frogs is get them killed.

“Huh,” Finn squints at Lloyd, flinty eyes narrowing. “Maybe if I…”

His shoe comes down hard, squashing the frog flat with an ugly squelching sound. There’s a horrible echo of silence, and Lloyd hiccups.

“There we go,” Finn grins. He doesn’t have sharp teeth like Lloyd, but they always look so much crueler than his own ever have when he smiles like that. “Crybaby Garmadon. Can’t believe you’re still at school with us, all you ever do is blubber. What kinda villain are you, anyways?”

Lloyd wants to snap back. There’s not just tears in him, there’s fire too, and he’s the son of the Dark Lord. His blood boils, and for a second he thinks of vengeance—

Then it’s gone, lost in Lloyd’s overflowing ocean, and hot tears streak down his cheeks.

And that’s how it always goes. It’s awful, because Lloyd doesn’t even like crying. It doesn’t make him feel better, and it certainly doesn’t help anything. All it does is get him made fun of — son of the Dark Lord and grandson of the First Spinjitzu Master, and the best Lloyd can be is an embarrassment, crybaby Garmadon with no real friends.

He tries, of course. He tries, he tries so hard, but Lloyd can’t learn to stop. He bruises and breaks inside and out, bleeding but never scarring over. The scrapes on his knees heal up faster than any other boy’s, but inside Lloyd never toughens. He learns to spit fire and venom and pull up a mask, but his skin heals soft and Lloyd’s heart never gets any harder.

Even after he’s left the gates of Darkley’s, anger burning in his gut like a disease, he never stops welling up and running over, spilling out like an unending fountain of misery.

Chosen One

It’s the first time in Lloyd’s life he can remember wearing a color other than black, and he should be happy. He should be excited, ‘cause green’s always been one of his favorite colors and now he gets to wear it all the time, and ninja gi’s are so much more comfy than the stuffy Darkley’s uniforms.

Instead, he just wants to cry.

And he’d though the weapons lighting up were pretty, at first.

The first thing Lloyd does, once the others are distracted enough and there aren’t anymore eyes on him, is bolt. It takes longer than he’d thought, and his eyes nearly burst from pressure, but he probably should’ve expected that. He’s the Green Ninja now, after all.

Lloyd sinks his teeth into his lip, trying desperately not to let the burn in his eyes overflow. He can’t cry now. He’s the Green Ninja, he’s got a destiny, and people with destinies like that don’t cry. The ninja have been talking about the Green Ninja for weeks, Lloyd knows what they expect. They expect a hero, a savior, and now they’re stuck with Lloyd. It’s the least he can do not to cry.

Well, not in front of them, at least.

Lloyd squeezes himself between the pipes in the engine room, crawling into one of the corners as he sniffs thickly. If no one knows he’s crying, then it doesn’t really count, right? If none of the ninja, or Nya, or Uncle Wu, or his dad — if they don’t see him cry, then it doesn’t count. They never have to know. Lloyd will just — he’ll just make sure to be extra quiet, and no one will have to know that the Green Ninja’s a stupid crybaby.

Something hot trickles down his right cheek, and Lloyd bites his lip furiously. He goes to wipe angrily at it, then freezes. The sleeves of the gi he’s wearing are a deep green, soft but sturdy and nicer than anything Lloyd’s ever owned in his whole life. He’s immediately horrified with himself. This is the green gi, everything everybody’s ever wanted, apparently, and Lloyd’s gonna go wiping his tears all over it?

Stupid, stupid, stupid, Lloyd scolds himself, sniffing wetly again. He’s only been the Green Ninja for a day and he’s already ruining it.

The pipes creak loudly as someone’s footsteps echo from above, and Lloyd sucks in a breath, drawing his knees up to his chest. He feels a little sick to his stomach, and his heart feels like it decided to start running laps in his chest.

Green Ninja. He’s supposed to save Ninjago. Lloyd can’t even save one tiny frog. How in the world is he supposed to save everyone from his own dad?

The sick feeling grows worse, and Lloyd’s eyes grow blurry. He squeezes his eyes shut tightly, refusing to let them well over. Don’t cry. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t—

“Hey, Lloyd, you in here?”

Lloyd’s eyes snap open, and gasps out a sharp breath of surprise. He immediately claps a hand over his mouth, cursing himself, but it’s too late. Kai’s already tracked him down, squinting at him through the mess of pipes.

“Seriously, you pick here to hide?” Kai frowns. “I could’ve sworn you were claustrophobic.”

Lloyd has no idea what that means, but he wasn’t planning on saying anything back anyways. He buries his face in his arms instead, before Kai gets any ideas about what Lloyd’s doing down here.

“Hey, you uh — you wanna come out, so we can talk about it?”

Lloyd pulls his arms around his head tighter, and doesn’t look up.

Kai groans, sounding defeated. “Fine, I’ll do it your way. Just — gimme a sec.”

Despite himself, Lloyd peeks over his arms, watching as Kai gingerly squeezes himself around the pipes.

“How did you — ow — even get yourself in here — ow, son of — in the first place?”

Lloyd stares with wide eyes as Kai wrenches himself through the last of the pipes, scowling as he brushes his hair back into place. He shakes his head, then sits next to Lloyd with a huff, clearly uncomfortable in the cramped space.

“So, um. You want to. You want to, uh, talk about it? The whole ninja thing?”

Kai winces the moment he finishes speaking, but Lloyd’s too busy biting his lip to care much. Why did Kai have to come now? He’s just starting to think Kai might like having him around, and now he’s gonna see Lloyd crying, and he’s gonna — he’s gonna—

Kai’s eyes widen as he meets Lloyd’s own. “Or, uh, you don’t have to talk. We can just sit here, if you want, but—” He blows his breath out, messing with his hair again. “You’re not alone, okay? And it’s okay to be scared, but you’ve got us, so…maybe you can be…a little less scared.”

Oh. Kai looks pained as he trails off into silence. Lloyd swallows. He can feel the familiar slip of tears down his cheek, but he doesn’t sob. He doesn’t buckle over, or hiccup, he just gives a shuddery little breath and blinks away the blurriness. Kai’s eyes go even wider, and Lloyd watches him scramble for his pockets.

“Aw, kid — um, hold on, I think I’ve got a — wait, no, Zane’s the only one who ever has tissues, um—”

Clearly at a war with himself, Kai finally tugs the edge of his gi sleeve over his hand, and gingerly dabs at Lloyd’s cheek. Lloyd sits frozen, eyes still wet. Despite the awkward way Kai cringes, he’s still gentle as he wipes the tears away. He doesn’t laugh at Lloyd, or call him crybaby, or an embarrassment. He doesn’t even mention the Green Ninja.

Lloyd’s eyes still overflow, but he can’t help but think that maybe — maybe Kai is the kind of person he’d trust with the little frogs. He seems like the kind of person who could get it, maybe.

Leader

Lloyd’s been figuring he’d learn how to stop crying when he gets older. He hadn’t been figuring it’d be so soon.

He grows up, just…much quicker than he thought he would. He also gets taller, and his voice gets deeper, and his legs are too long and his arms are too strong and everyone treats him like he’s the most grown-up kid in the whole entire world.

Well, except for the times the guys and Nya treat him like he’s five, but — those are getting less irritating, the further he gets. But Lloyd’s undeniably older, and he could be alright with that. He’s the Green Ninja, and he is alright with that.

He just wishes he’d gotten used to being the Green Ninja a little longer, before the Golden Ninja got added on top of everything else too.

“You’ve inherited the power of your grandfather,” Uncle Wu — Sensei, when in training, and around important people — tells him, his eyes shining. “It’s an incredible gift, Lloyd. The power of the Ultimate Spinjitzu Master — few have even dreamed of possessing such a thing.”

Well Lloyd’s definitely not one of those few. He’d known about the First Spinjitzu Master, but everything he knows about the Ultimate Spinjitzu Master is a lot more…hand-wavy.

“Hand-wavy is hardly the way to talk about it,” his mother scolds, even as she frowns at his ankle. Things had finally calmed down enough for the others to drag him off to a doctor for it, even though Lloyd had argued it was fine. And it should’ve been — the golden power’s gotta be good for something, and if it can’t even fix the ankle you snapped fighting to get it in the first place then what’s the point?

His mother finishes tying the wrapping off, and Lloyd flinches as his ankle throbs, the thick bandages pulling tight. The reminder of how it had first cracked on the Dark Island still makes him nauseous, but it’s not nearly as bad now. He swallows it back easily, just like he did back when he first woke up with it. This is nothing, compared to climbing the tower. And even then, he barely noticed.

At least broken bones are easier when you’re older, he thinks, dully listening to his uncle and mom argue about the golden power again. He slips out of the room as quietly as he can, hurrying back to where he last saw the others. It’s not like he’s ever really involved in the conversation, anyways. Lloyd gets the golden power whether Lloyd likes the golden power or not, end of discussion. It might’ve been nice to be part of the discussion, but he’s…he’s okay with it. Most of the time.

Lloyd swallows, then shakes his head, trying to smile instead. It’s not that he’s ungrateful, and he doesn’t understand how he’s still so selfish — he’s got a family now, more than he’d ever dreamed of having. It’s everything he’s ever wanted, and a few more titles should be easy price to pay.

They just — they feel so heavy, sometimes, all piling on top of each other. Lloyd’s barely began figuring out how he’s supposed to be the Green Ninja, and now he’s got all these other titles to figure out, too?

He kicks dully at the ground. He thought things were supposed to make sense, when you got older.

They don’t, though, and it drives him crazy because they never do. He’s the Golden Ninja then he’s not the Golden Ninja, he’s the Green Ninja but also the elemental master of what’s-it-called, and now Uncle Wu’s calling him leader during training, and Lloyd nearly breaks his neck tripping over his own feet.

It’s not a pretty look, judging by the concerned expressions the others are wearing. Lloyd passes it off as exhaustion, and begs off training for the day instead. There might be a look of concern that passes across Uncle — Sensei Wu’s face, but Lloyd misses it if there is. He’s too busy reeling, spiraling in a dizzying loop as his footsteps take him aimlessly away from the training grounds.

It’s okay, he tells himself. He’s come this far. He’s got so many titles already, what’s one more? And really, compared to Golden Ninja, leader is—

Lloyd’s stomachs turns, and he bites his lip. Well, maybe he’s more frightened than he’d like to admit.

He sucks a breath in, steadying himself. Leader. It can’t be such a scary word forever, right? He can make it work. This is Kai, and Cole, and Jay, and Zane. They’re his family. If he can’t lead them, he may as well hang up the green gi now.

And that’s obviously not an option.

Lloyd takes another steadying breath, and blinks. His eyes sting, but it’s not with any kind of tears. It’s an odd, tinging kind of sting, like the kind that pulses through his fingertips, that sings through his veins. He’d say it’s strength, but it feels more complex than that. Either way, he takes strength from it. Lloyd blinks again, looking back up to the monastery, and his eyes are dry.

He’s older now. He doesn’t cry anymore. His heart might refuse to harden, and he doesn’t doubt it’ll ever stop breaking, but Lloyd’s ocean, overflowing and bleeding over, has finally run out.

Or that’s what he likes to think, at least.

Hero

At this point, Lloyd doesn’t think he’ll be surprised by anything. There’s a benefit in growing his hair and having his voice finally change, other than the obvious — it’s a lot easier to just despair internally now, and hopefully still look like he’s cool and composed.

Not that anything about what Harumi and his father’s done to him is cool, but…Lloyd is better at resigning himself to these things. At least he’s old enough to start the conversations himself, now.

Lloyd still doesn’t know how old he is. He supposes it doesn’t matter as much, now that he knows what’s running through his blood. The days he used to fear it was venom are long-gone and laughable — is the blood of an Oni worse? The blood of a dragon, surely, has to mean something good, but Lloyd is made up of so many pieces he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be now.

He could be bitter, maybe, that he’s gone his whole life not knowing what he is, but bitterness is something that’s never rested long in Lloyd’s heart. Even before the city’s stopped burning and his father’s locked away, it’s hard to hold onto it. He’s never quite been able to shake that. He’s got more scars than he can count now, but his heart still heals soft. Anger isn’t something he can hold onto for very long, and resentment doesn’t work that well when you’re the one that ends up feeling bad.

He doesn’t cry anymore, though. Not after the sky tram. Not when his bones break, not when his father spits in his face, not when Zane freezes the better part of him with hateful eyes. Harumi and her downfall may have scarred him, but part of Lloyd can’t help but be grateful that she’s finally done what Darkley’s never could.

Lloyd’s scarred over, his skin finally toughened.

And yet—

Lloyd hurries away from the streets, sparing the car that’s honked at him a dirty look before tucking his hands against his rain jacket, sheltering his cupped palms from the misting rain. It’s not a bad storm, but it’s enough to turn the sky a silvery gray as he climbs the steps to the monastery, his pace quicker than usual as he cuts a path to the ponds.

He skids a few feet on the wet grass as he goes, biting back a curse as his shoes slip wildly before he catches his balance again, hands still held close to his chest. He breathes a quick sigh of relief, before picking his way over to the nearest of the small ponds that dot the monastery gardens.

“Here you go, little guy,” he murmurs, finally pulling his hands from his jacket, revealing the tiny frog cradled gently in his palms. The poor thing trembles in his hold, still shaking from the near-miss when Lloyd fished him from the worst of Ninjago City’s rush hour traffic. He might’ve missed it himself, had it not been for the slight flash of green along the worn grey pavement.

He lowers himself carefully near the pond, dipping his hands in the shallows of the water. The frog doesn’t move at first, it’s eyes wide and buggy as it shelters in Lloyd’s palms.

“It’s alright,” Lloyd assures it quietly. “It’s safe, here. Promise.”

The frog considers the pond before it, big eyes blinking. Then, in two short hops, it splashes into the water, swimming a few feet before nestling at the edge of a water lily. It lets out a single, happy croak.

Lloyd watches it for a moment longer, his hands still half in the water, raindrops splattering over his jacket sleeves. Finally satisfied that the frog is content, he stands, shaking the water from his hands before remembering he’s soaked from the rain anyways. Sighing, he spares the frog one last glance, his lips curving into a smile as he turns away, wiping rainwater from where it drips down into his eyes.

Lloyd is older than he’d thought he’d get to be and still a child, and he doesn’t cry at all.

Then again, he’s gotten better at finding the bright sides, these days.

[duskamethyst]

not a bad thing.

a/n: we often see fics involving cats turning into a human hybrid but i wanted to switch it up. i wasn’t sure if i wanted to make him full on quadrupedal or just half human-cat. spoiler: i chose the latter.

word count: 2.8k

genre: fluff

warnings: n/a

pairing: catboy!shinsou x gn!reader

summary: shinsou is infested by a quirk that turns him into a cat. how is he going to turn back?

you and shinsou are on patrol before suddenly alerted that there is a robbery from the jewelry shop nearby. the both of you quickly get into offensive mode and spot the running criminal, one that you’ve never seen or known of– probably making their debut tonight. they have the physique of a human but the head of a cat. none of you have any idea of what their quirk is but judging from their figure, you probably have the gist of it.

“okay, they’re running into an alley!” you inform shinsou who’s running right behind you. “i’ll try to get them from the back while you try to distract them.” 

“hey, wait–” he calls but you already left him when you turn to the other side of the building to execute your plan. 

you stalk the criminal behind the wall who’s running towards your direction before jumping in front of them and startling them. your quirk allows the ground to turn into clay and objects to molt into shapes you desire with a touch. the ground between you melted once you activated your quirk, but the offender is quick to stop and turn around and face shinsou instead. 

“we got you cornered. please don’t resist.” shinsou says, activating his quirk at the same time. realizing that they have no other options, they sprint forwards into shinsou’s direction to make a break for it. shinsou swiftly uses his scarf to grab a hold on them but unfortunately, they’re so much quicker and are able to smoothly avoid the restraints– thanks to their feline capabilities and senses. 

“shinsou!” the culprit is closing in and before shinsou can defend himself, he’s met with nothing but a soft peck on his lips. the both of you are surprised and they easily take the opportunity to escape and disappear from your sights. 

“are you–” concerned, you run up to him who is still baffled and wiping his lips with his sleeve. 

“fine,” he grunts. “but they got away. hopefully the police are notified by now.”

“i’m sorry, it’s my fault. i didn’t think it through.” you sigh defeatedly. “but hey, at least someone got a kiss!” you joke, eliciting an eye roll from the male. 

“shut up, it’s not funny. what am i gonna write in our report? ‘got kissed by a villain’? goddamn it.”

you laugh, “it sounds romantic, though.”

a loud banging on your door suddenly interrupts you from your sleep. you glance sleepily at the clock from your bedside table– 2:24 a.m. maybe turning on sleep mode wasn’t a good idea.

you look through the peephole and open the door to a very distressed shinsou in his hoodie. 

“what’s going on?” you move to the side to let him stomp in before closing the door behind you. it has only been a few hours since the incident earlier. he stays silent as he stands in the middle of the room and it kind of starts to make you feel worried. “shinsou?”

he turns around with a glare and he sighs to recollect himself, “promise me you won’t laugh.”

you blink at him once, twice. “i was in the middle of my sleep, i don’t think i’m in the mood for a joke right now.”

“promise me.”

“okay, okay. i promise!” 

once he gets your word on it, he slowly pulls the hoodie down from his head– and you can’t believe what you’re seeing; shinsou now has cat ears!

“what– what’s that?!” your hand finds its way to your mouth as you try to hold in your laughter. is this a joke? was he forced to do this?

“you promised–” he pulls back the hoodie on his head to hide his new ears that hold the same shade as his hair.

“i know! but– but it’s a good look on you! you look so cute!” you start giggling and walk up to him. “oh my god, can i touch it?”

“what?! no!” shinsou steps back, protecting his new ears with his hands. 

“oh, come on! you trust me with this, right? i bet i’m the first person you looked for!” 

“y-yeah, but–” he stammers, “but that’s only because you were with me! i bet it was their quirk that made me like this!” 

you manage to corner him to a wall and you quickly take off his hoodie to reveal his ears again that are pushing backwards as some sort of sign of defense. 

“i promise i’ll be gentle.” you coax, hands already reaching up to his ears before he could answer. you scratch behind his ears like you normally do with cats and he slowly relaxes to your touch. 

before he feels like he’s about to purr and humiliate himself, shinsou smacks your hand away, “cut it out.”

“why? i thought cats like that?” 

“and i’m not a cat.” he looks away to hide his face, feeling like his cheeks are turning warm. “anyways, i don’t know what else it’s gonna do nor how long.”

“but we gotta tell the hero’s commission about this. i don’t know if you wanna stay over or something but i really wanna see what’ll happen tomorrow.” 

“so you can laugh at me even more? when my tail shows up?” he snorts. 

“pshh, no.” shinsou squints at you for a moment before you groan defeatedly, “okay, maybe?” 

he rolls his eyes, “don’t mind me then.”

if your sleep last night was disturbed by knockings from the door, this morning you’re woken up by a frantic shout of your name from the living room. you quickly get out of bed to check out what’s happening.

“shinsou– oh my god!” you squeal both in amusement and shock as you notice a fluffy indigo tail coming from shinsou’s back. shinsou, however, looks beyond unamused. 

“ït’s getting worse.” 

“aw, shinsou.” your lips feign a pout. “you look ador– ack!” he throws a pillow at you. “fine, i’ll report this to the commission.”

“could you, maybe...” he mutters before you turn back to your room. “leave out the details? i feel embarrassed.”

you tilt your head questioningly, “but isn’t that the most important part? to find out how to undo their quirk?”

shinsou just remains quiet, his eyes staring down onto the ground. feeling as if you don’t want to make his day any worse, you comply. maybe you can find something out by the end of the day or maybe he can only hope that the quirk won’t last much longer anymore, that there should be a time limit for it like most quirks do.

you leave the room to take a quick shower and write in your report. a couple of hours pass by and you think about cooking for your guest today. shinsou is still laying on your sofa, looking very much in despair while his fluffy tail wags up and down, making you feel nothing more than mesmerized by it. 

failing to fight the urge, you quietly sneak behind him and tug on his tail. the startled male turns to you annoyingly.

“at this point i just wish claws would come out so i can put a scar on you.”

“and i will throw a bucket of water in your face.” you tease. “anyways, i’m gonna cook for both of us now. you can do whatever you like. you’re a cat anyways, i can’t really tell you what to do.” he glares at you while you stride off towards the kitchen laughing. 

you call out to eat once you’ve finished cooking. nothing too special, just fried rice and stirred veggies that are enough to fill your empty stomach. you’re not going to take any complaints and you’re not the best cook either but it’s the most you could do right now. 

“ack!” shinsou coughs after taking the first bite of his meal and quickly gulps down some water.

you look at him dejectedly, “hey, i know my cooking isn’t that good. don’t need to rub it in my face!”

he shakes his head, “no, it’s just– i think my taste buds aren’t working well.”

“you’re just trying to make me feel better.” you scowl playfully but shinsou only chugs his drink each time he tries to put food inside his mouth. “don’t tell me you only want to eat fish now?” 

“i hope i don’t. but– meow?” realizing what slips out from his mouth so casually, he puts his hand over his mouth in shock.

“meow?” you repeat. 

“shit, i– meow.”

“shinsou, are you okay?” you look at him curiously. 

he shakes his head again, his cat ears pushed back. when you stand up from your seat to check on him, he quickly dashes to the corner of the room and faces the wall. you carefully walk closer to him but as you are about to put your hand on his shoulder, shinsou turns around and hisses at you– his tail slightly fluffed up. 

you take a step back in wary, “oh, um, okay? i’ll get you a fish? is that what you want?”

shinsou only growls lowly, his irises narrow and tail wagging in annoyance as he watches you walk back into the kitchen to get food for him. 

oh boy, this is bad. he lost his speech abilities. 

thankfully, you have some raw salmon in your fridge. while you wait for it to defrost, shinsou only curls up in the corner defensively. each time you try to get closer to him, he’ll either growls or hisses at you. as much as you want to be offended (he’s close to you after all), you can’t help but think it’s rather adorable to see him like this– behaving like a cat though you can see that he still has his attitude.

you then try to sway him with the fish, gently placing down the plate in front of him before he sniffs his food and crouches down to eat it without using his hands. 

“that looks... so inhumane.” you sigh. “maybe i should feed you?”

you take a slice of salmon from the plate and bring it in front of his mouth in an attempt to feed him. he looks at you warily for a brief second before sniffing it again and opening his mouth to nibble on his food. 

“that’s a good boy!” you giggle, reaching to pat his head but he shies away as he chews his meal. okay, he probably needs some time. 

you patiently feed him until the plate is empty and give him some water to drink. you then finish up your brunch and do the dishes while shinsou lazes around on your sofa. to your surprise, shinsou is quick to warm up to you when he sits up and scoots from his seat, giving you room to sit next to him. even more surprising when he lays his head on your lap right after that. it makes your heart throb and embarrassed at the same time.

“uh...” he looks content but you’re unsure if he’d allow you to touch him. however, you decide to try your luck and begin to gently caress his hair.  

shinsou flutters his eyes open at the touch and doesn’t fight back but instead his eyes slowly shuts again as he leans into your hold. his head nuzzles against your hand as you continue to stroke his hair. you take it as a sign that he has finally loosen up and you waste no time to scratch him behind the ears. over time, you can almost hear him purring on your lap. your heart squeezes in glee at the thought that shinsou finds comfort and warmth from you. 

“you’re not hard to please, huh?” you chuckle as you watch the male endearingly; maybe he should just stay like this so you won’t have to put up with his smart mouth so much. you’ve heard about how cats are able to provide humans oxytocin but currently you’re not sure if it’s because he is partially a cat or because it’s shinsou himself. 

the both of you stay in the position for quite a time as you idly flip through channels on the tv screen. truth be told, shinsou is the only one that feels comfortable right now. you want to move because your legs are starting to feel numb but you feel bad if you wake or move him. fortunately, you are saved by the bell when there’s a knock on the door. 

shinsou’s ears perk up as his attention is drawn towards the door.

“hold on, i think i got a package.” you stand up from the sofa and head towards the door to greet the delivery man. 

shinsou watches you as you stand there and engage in little unnecessary chats while you sign on the paper. the man gets excited when he recognizes you as one of the pro heroes and somehow it drags into a long conversation before he realizes that he’s running out of time and needs to deliver his packages to the other customers. with a brief handshake, he finally leaves your doorstep and you turn towards a vigilant (half) man from your sofa.

his indigo eyes narrow down at you as you walk up to him, gaze piercing through you as you find your seat next to him again.

“what?” you look at him in unease. he shifts closer to you and scrunches his nose as he takes a sniff from you and a low growl rips from his throat as if something unpleasant just flared through his nostrils. and to shinsou, it is– the scent is still you but it’s somehow tainted now and he doesn’t appreciate it.

“hey, i already took a–” 

shinsou suddenly jumps on you, his hands pushing you roughly by the shoulders as his bigger and muscular build hovers over you. your heartbeat is running a mile once your eyes are locked with his. you hung around him a lot before and there were some unintentional brush of the hands here and there, but this is probably the closest you two have been and you’re starting to feel nervous. 

“shinsou? c-cut it out.” you whimper but the male doesn’t budge at all and instead his lazy eyes just continue to bore into yours.

if only you have a water quirk, you probably would spray his face by now.

once shinsou’s grip softens, you try to wriggle away. however, he leans down closer to you and stops an inch away from your face. you want to brace yourself for what’s to come but you have no idea what to expect either, but there’s an unshakeable feeling inside you that wishes to feel his soft lips on yours. you blush at the thought– you probably shouldn’t feel such way towards your colleague and especially when this is the work of the criminal’s quirk, you should keep this professional and not let your personal feelings be involved. 

however, your little wish is granted. 

your eyes almost go out of their sockets when shinsou gently presses his lips onto yours so tenderly. you can see that the absurd fury he had has subsided and he turns rather calm as a soft sigh escapes from him. slowly, your own eyes close as you give in to the kiss. 

it feels all too quick before he pulls away and gazes at you with those half-lidded eyes. it’s a dreamy sight and you just want to pull him back but you notice that his ears are slowly disappearing. 

he blinks a few times before letting reality finally hit him and realizing the compromising position the both of you are in. a tinge of pink creeps on his cheeks and he quickly pushes himself off of you. 

“your ears and tail are gone!” you squeal, voice masking the dread inside you that he’s back to normal but you’re also glad that the quirk has worn off. 

“thank god.” he sighs. he tries to remember the details of how he even got on top of you but nothing pops in his mind. he might have the slightest idea but he doesn’t want to believe it. the thought of it makes his ears and cheeks burn hotter. even if he did kiss you, he doesn’t want it to be like that– not when he’s under a damn quirk. 

“do you remember what happened?”

“the last thing i remember is when we’re having brunch.” he murmurs, still trying to put one and one together.

“oh, boy. you should’ve seen yourself! you suddenly started acting like a–”

“listen. you are to forget what just happened.” he cuts you off immediately. 

he’s so used to putting up a stoic attitude around people. he always deliberately tried to look cool especially around you and made sarcastic remarks to annoy you but that was one of his confusing ways to express his liking to you. and now the fact that he might have looked so vulnerable in front of you, it’s just too humiliating. 

“but–”

maybe this time, shinsou thinks it’s okay to finally use his quirk on you.

duskamethyst © 2020 • do not modify, translate or repost anywhere.