#cat wound spray

[weratebeanz]

[ #WeRate ] Nutri-Vet Antimicrobial Wound Spray for Cats: A Must-Have for Your Pet First Aid Kit

As responsible pet owners, we all know that accidents happen. Whether it's a minor scratch from roughhousing, a small cut from an outdoor adventure, or a bit of irritation from an allergy, having a reliable solution on hand is super beneficial.

That’s where the Nutri-Vet Antimicrobial Wound Spray for Cats comes in—it's a fantastic addition to your pet first aid kit, providing soothing relief and promoting healing for those everyday feline mishaps.

This post contains affiliate links, and we only recommend products we have either used, are using, or would use and share with our family and friends. Click here to read our Affiliate Disclaimer.

What It Is

The Nutri-Vet Antimicrobial Wound Spray is a specially formulated treatment designed to soothe your cat’s skin with the healing properties of aloe and Vitamin E. This 4 oz spray is perfect for addressing minor wounds, helping to reduce pain and promote faster healing.

Why We Love It

With multiple cats in our household, it’s essential to have a go-to solution that’s easy to apply and effective. The Nutri-Vet Antimicrobial Wound Spray fits the bill perfectly.

It’s gentle on their skin, and the added aloe and Vitamin E work wonders in calming irritation while aiding in the healing process.

One thing to note: the sound of the spray can sometimes freak out our cats. To avoid this, we’ve found that spraying the liquid onto a clean cloth or our gloved hands before gently applying it to the wound works best.

While our cats may feel a slight tingling sensation (indicated by a little bucking after application), they don’t scream or cry, so it doesn’t seem to cause any further discomfort. Within a minute, they’re calm and appear more relaxed.

A Natural Alternative

We’ve also tried natural alternatives like coconut oil, but they can be messy. Coconut oil tends to be greasy, drippy, and can spread when licked, leaving our cats looking like greased goobers and getting grease all over anything they touch.

In contrast, Nutri-Vet Antimicrobial Wound Spray is easy to apply, absorbs well, and doesn’t leave a sticky residue behind.

Things to Keep in Mind

While we highly recommend this spray for minor injuries, we don’t suggest using it for major wounds. It’s been incredibly effective for smaller issues like minor scratches, pricks from outdoor adventures, or irritated spots from allergies. However, for more significant injuries, always consult your vet.

Great Value and Peace of Mind

Having the Nutri-Vet Antimicrobial Wound Spray in your pet first aid kit offers peace of mind, knowing that you have a reliable solution on hand for those minor injuries that happen from time to time. It's a small investment that can make a big difference in your cat’s comfort and healing.

Would We Buy It Again?

Rating: ★★★★☆

Absolutely! The Nutri-Vet Antimicrobial Wound Spray is an essential addition to any pet first aid kit.

It’s effective, easy to use, and helps soothe and heal minor wounds without the mess. We highly recommend keeping a bottle on hand for when those inevitable feline mishaps occur.

Disclaimer: We’re not medical professionals—just passionate pet owners sharing what works for us. Always consult your veterinarian for pet-specific issues, and if your pet experiences any adverse reactions, contact them immediately. Every pet is unique, and what works for one may not work for another. Your vet is the best source of advice tailored to your pet’s health needs.

[hachikosg]

Bacterial Spray for Dogs - Hachiko Singapore

Hachiko Singapore's Bacterial Spray for Dogs utilizes advanced probiotic technology to restore your pet's skin microbiome, promoting natural defenses against harmful bacteria. Gentle and non-toxic, it reduces itching, enhances coat shine, and maintains overall skin health. Elevate your pet's grooming routine with Hachiko Singapore's commitment to innovative, safe, and effective pet care solutions.

[lovelivision]

SLEEP OVER PT.1

pairing: fushiguro toji/reader

wc: 2.3k

summary: staying the night at your boyfriends place for the first time is nervewracking, especially when he seems to feel a certain way about you wearing his clothes

a/n; dilf dilf dilf dilf dilf dilf...uhm anyways...i lurv toji a lot and i needed to write something for him, i thought it would fix me but it may have made me worse :D also, i would like to write a part 2 for this maybe :3

warnings: 18+ only, smut, established relationship, tiny bit of possessiveness, (minor) size difference kink, heavy petting, dry humping, afab!reader, no use of pronouns or y/n, nicknames used; doll, ma'am (once in a joking way)

MDNI | SMUT UNDER CUT

Hovering in Toji’s kitchen, you try to make yourself seem more relaxed, you’ve been in his house plenty of times now but this time is different. This is the first time you’re staying the night, alone, in his house, with him.

Besides heavy petting, nothing more has ever happened between the two of you, to say you have expectations is an understatement. It doesn’t have to happen but you’ve been together for a little bit now and there’s only so long you can hold out, you mean, have you seen Toji?

He’s been patient, you were initially the one who said you didn’t want to rush things, you were scared of just being a lay and asked him to wait until you felt ready, which he has respected. He’s respected it…too well, barely making out before he’s parting from you. The sexual frustration you’ve been feeling has you wound so tight that you might literally implode as soon as he touches you.

From across the counter separating you, he teases, “You gonna help me over here? Or did you propose baking together just to watch me do it for you?”

“Well… I am enjoying the view,” you flirt back, playing off the stiffness in your joints.

He raises a brow at you, “How about you flirt with me while whisking that bowl right there,” he nods down to the bowl just off to his side.

“Yessir,” you stand at attention and throw a little salute his way.

When you round the bench to stand next to him, he bumps into your shoulder with his own, “You feeling okay, doll?”

You hum and look up at him, “Yeah, I’m good.”

It’s mostly quiet after that, aside from small talk and teasing remarks made while you finish prepping the ingredients. You told him that sleepovers needed brownies and he went out and bought stuff to make them, it was incredibly sweet and made you almost swoon on the spot when you showed up and he told you what he’d done.

Unluckily for you and your clumsy nature, his sink sprays a bunch of water down your front as you’re washing a dish. You let out an unceremonious squeaking sound at the sudden rush of cold running all the way down your pyjama shirt, to your pants.

The bowl Toji was holding clatters a bit as he drops it to be at your side, “What happened?” He asks before seeing your drenched clothes, an amused smile taking place where his concern was sitting, “You’re not much help in the kitchen, huh?”

“Hey!” you frown at him, “I am perfectly helpful, thank you very much. It’s not my fault your sink hates me.” You feel like a wet cat under his gaze, “What am I meant to do now? These are the only pyjamas I bought with me,” you pout slightly, looking down at your ruined clothes.

“Just wear something of mine,” he shrugs easily.

The idea of wearing his comfortable clothes makes your skin buzz, “Okay… thank you,” you mumble at him.

He scoffs at your sudden coyness, “You want me to pick something out for you or do you got it?”

“No, I got it,” you smile at him before turning to wander through the house to his room.

Shuffling through his drawers, you find a shirt and some sweatpants to wear. They’re large on you, the whole look incredibly baggy, having to pull the drawstrings on his sweats a bit tighter to make sure they stay up. You feel better though, warm, you hope he won’t mind but you had to borrow a pair of his boxers as well…

When you walk back into the kitchen, Toji does a double take on you, his eyes widening slightly, “You comfy?”

“Very,” you walk up to him, “You finish with the brownie mix?”

He stares at you for a moment before replying, “…Yeah, they’re in the oven.”

“Nice, putting the mix in the tray is my least favourite part, it’s always so sticky and messy and I end up getting frustrated because it won’t all go in and then I need another spoon to get the mix off the spatula and then I have to go back and forth…” You trail off, noticing he’s not really paying attention to what you’re saying, he is looking at you though, “Toji, Something wrong?”

He considers you for a moment, “You look cute,” is all he says.

You feel shy under his gaze now, not expecting him to compliment you so sincerely, “So do you?”

He barks a laugh at your clumsy compliment, “Alright, wanna watch something while we wait?” He changes the topic.

“Sure!”

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

He’s not as subtle as he thinks he is, his hand rests on your thigh, rubbing his thumb in circles but just because he’s not subtle doesn’t mean it’s not working. The tv plays some movie in front of the pair of you but you can’t pay attention, you’ve not retained a single plot point, his warm hand on your thigh is all you can feel, all you can register.

You have a feeling you’re going to have to be the one to break this, the weird limbo you’re both in. Turning your head to the side and looking up, you aren’t ready for how he’s already looking down at you, his hand on your thigh reaches for the side of your face, cradling you gently. He moves in slowly, giving you the chance to pull back in protest if you don’t want him to kiss you.

You want it though and lean up the rest of the way, kissing him deeply, wanting to put your lips on him for nearly the whole time you’ve been here. He meets your eagerness, his hand holding you more firmly, his tongue licking into your mouth, wanting to taste you. His body moves into yours more, his other hand grabbing at your hip.

His kisses grow rushed and he ends up trailing them to your neck, kissing and licking along the exposed skin there. The hand on your face angles you to his will, manoeuvring you every which way so he can get his lips on whatever part of you he desires.

Huffed out whine leave you at the way he nips at your skin, he has enough of the odd angle and pulls you onto his lap completely, sitting back as his hands roam your body over his clothes.

“Toji,” you whine out his name.

His eyes look into yours, “Do you need me to stop?”

Shaking your head at him, you say, “No, I need more…”

“You really do look cute in my clothes,” he murmurs, leaning in again and pressing a full kiss to your lips, “You look comfortable… all wrapped up in my clothes.” He reiterates that they are in fact his clothes you’re wearing.

His hands move under the large shirt, groping at your bare skin, delighting in the warmth and plushness of you. Your body breaks out in goose bumps as a noticeable shiver runs down your spine, his touch electrifying to you.

“My, how sensitive you are,” he teases you, a self-satisfied grin making its way onto his face.

“Shut up,” you snark back, “Just… kiss me again?”

His smile grows, “Yes ma’am,” he jokes before kissing you again.

You’re getting lost in it, in the feel of his lips on yours, it’s making you dizzy and needy. Your hips grind down into his on their own accord and Toji moans against you, surprised by the sudden friction. Recovering quickly, his hands grab your hips and encourage you to keep going, your clothed cunt dragging up and down his covered cock has spots in your vision.

Your hands grip the fabric of his shirt tight, your lips disconnecting from his every time you moan, only for him to press them back together. His dick twitches in his pants, painfully erect and sensitive, he has a feeling he could cum like this.

This is the furthest the two of you have gone so far and he’s not wasting this opportunity, he needs to see you cum, he needs to hear it. The grip he has on you is harsh, his hips rut up into yours which results in the most pathetic sound he’s ever heard coming from you… he needs more.  

Pulling back, you whinge, “Toji~ I wan– t more… I want more.”

“Well… I want you to cum while wearing my clothes,” he counters.

You gasp at his blunt words, “I–”

You don’t get the chance to finish your thought, his hips thrusting up, the shock delicious. His dick is leaking profusely in his pants, he’s way too sensitive right now, for his grown age. You’d asked to go slow and he complied but that didn’t mean he didn’t have to furiously jerk himself off after your visits.

Toji’s boxers are uncomfortably wet against your core, slick and stuck to your pussy with how worked up he’s gotten you. All the layers are upsetting you; you just want one less layer, his pants, your pants, you don’t care, you just need more.

“Toji, lemme take off the sweats, please, please, please,” you all but beg at him.

“No. Told you,” he scolds, “I want you cumming in my clothes.”

“Mmm but…” You hesitate.

You’ve caught his interest, quirking a brow at you, he asks, “But what?”

You decide to tell him even though you’re a little embarrassed, “I’m also wearing your boxers.”

He holds you still against him, a sound of objection coming from you at the lack of friction, “You’re wearing my boxers?”

You nod quickly, hoping for this line of questioning to be done soon, “I am.”

“Why?”

You look down, to where you’re sat on top of him, his large cock strained against his pants, you falter slightly in your answer, distracted. Toji’s hand tapping against your thigh brings you back, “Mine were wet from the sink…”

He tugs at the sweats, “Take these off, right now.”

Standing on wobbly legs, you undo the drawstring on his pants and slip them down.

Toji groans at the sight of your bare legs, “Lift up my shirt,” he directs.

Which you do, biting your lip, trying to fight off the urge to run away in embarrassment. Your hands hold his shirt up slightly, exposing to him how you’re wearing his boxers.

His eyes scan your lower half carefully, his heart stuttering in is chest. His light grey boxers dark where your arousal has pooled, “Fuck, come here,” he pats his lap, grabbing you when you’re close enough. “You’re so fucking wet, doll, shit.”

When you’re back on his lap, he wastes no time, his cock rubs between your folds, parting them from under his boxers, the friction different and consuming. This feels so much better than before, it feels almost intense after getting minimal sensation.

“Toji~ I don’t think I’ll last long like this,” you admit, feeling shame from how pathetic you must seem.

“Good,” he groans, his hips thrusting up into yours while his hands drag you back and forth on his cock, “I won’t either.”

To hear he’s just as effected by this as you are makes your cunt pulse around nothing, a whimper leaving you from how pathetically empty you feel, “I still want more,” you pout.

“Later,” he promises.

Your skin buzzes and your stomach clenches, your fingers dig into his shoulders, feeling impossibly close to finishing. Your eyes grow dazed, hot, huffed breaths leaving your parted lips. The sight has Toji’s cock twitching profusely, barely fighting off his orgasm, wanting to see you cum first.

“Come on, doll, I need to see it,” he tugs you quicker, your slick cunt sliding easily against his pants, the wetness seeping through the boxers onto them, “I need to see you cum for me.”

You shudder at his words, “I’m gonna–”

One of his hands leave your hip and slides to your face, his thumb pressing past your lips, you take it and suck on it, tongue licking the pad of it gently. A moan from deep in his chest rumbles under your hands, it’s all too much. Your cunt flutters against him and your eyes roll back, moans muffled around his thumb as your cum gushes from your pussy, coating his boxers even more.

Toji can’t help but watch, he’s watching you so closely, his cock cumming very suddenly. Your orgasm, the dumb look in your eyes, the flutter of your lashes, the shake in your body as you cum in his clothes undoes him. His own cum seeps into his pants, a large, wet stain growing on his sweats as his dick jerks with his orgasm.

He pulls his thumb from your mouth, dragging your lower lip down with it, “Fuck,” he bites out.

He rides out both your highs, lightly grinding his hips up into you as you both come down. Your form collapses into him, curling yourself around him. His arms wrap around you, holding you close as you jolt every now and again, it’s cute, he thinks.

You lay peacefully like this for a moment before you remember, “The brownies,” you try to pull yourself away from him.

“They’re fine, oven went off only a moment ago,” he hums.

“I’ll go grab them then,” you say.

“Alright, shaky, off you go,” he mocks you and your jelly legs.

Pulling back, you frown at him, “I will.”

He just smiles knowingly at you.

Crawling off him carefully, you stand on your shaky legs momentarily before sitting back down on the couch next to him, “Maybe you should go get them.”

“Mhm,” he answers, leaning over he presses a kiss to your cheek, “That’s what I thought.”

You cross your arms over your chest and scowl at him, pretending to be more upset than you actually are.

Toji goes into the kitchen and pulls the brownies out, he calls over to you, “So… I hope you like the corners of your brownies a little crispy.”

You can’t help but laugh at that.

PLAGIARISM NOT CONDONED | REPOSTS NOT AUTHORISED

[hearts4skywalker]

cobra kai dating head canons

masterlist!!

summary: head canons for dating cobra kai characters!!

pairings: you and cobra kai characters (separate)

warnings: no pronouns specified, probs out of character but yk

a/n: new format!!

Miguel Diaz

- biggest golden retriever bf ever ‼️

- he's not SUPER big on pda

- holding pinkies or hugging is the most he'll do in public

- with the occasional kiss on the lips (its a little more than occasionally)

- he's a very private person 🤷‍♀️

- miguel's super big on slumbies

- he's a girls girl

- kisses your knuckles

- your his passenger princess when he gets a car

- hearing "hermosa" 24/7

Robby Keene

- i think he's a black cat a first, but will start to become a golden retriever

- he's a lot more pda than miguel, but not as bad as hawk

- hand holding, hand on your waist, kissing

- you made out in the cobra kai dojo a few times 😔🙏

- he really js uses your name (maybe a little too much...)

- will teach you how to skateboard ‼️

- he's a neat freak. after juvie, everything in his life has to be put together

- you go on family trips 🤭

- you two watched euphoria sunday's together

- denied being in love with you for the longest time until tory said something about it

Samantha LaRusso

- she LOVES playing with your hair

- movie dates are a constant ‼️

- like robby, she also rarely uses pet names

- is VERY quick to defend you

- she needs reassurance. i can picture you and tory being super close and she just needs you to tell her that nothing is going on between you too.

- she makes you those baskets for every occasion (boo, burr, etc.)

- like a good amount of pda, she'll hold your hand, kiss your cheek but thats about it

- my sweet girl thinks the bare minimum is love 😔

- she definitely sends you encouraging messages everyday

- chick flic queen 🙌

Hawk (Eli) Moskowitz

- PDA ‼️‼️

- hand on your waist (sometimes ur ass 👀) kissing you at all times

- he had a crush on you before he even became hawk

- got a tattoo for you

- he loves buying you stuff, it's his love language

- skips half of his classes just to see you 😭

- if you date long enough, he'll trust you enough to dye his hair

- going with that, you're the only person who has seen the hawk down and not covered in hair spray

- his closet is your closet (hear me out bc he has some cute clothes guys ‼️)

- he uses babe and baby, but thats about it yk?

Demetri Alexopoulos

- like sam, he also needs to be reassured 24/7

- he genuinely thought you were messing with him when you said yes to dating

- you guys have star wars / lord of the rings marathons once a month

- offers to do your homework for you

- if you have a hobby or sport besides karate, he makes it a point to be there for every practice and comp

- not surprisingly, he's like hawk. he'll make out with you anywhere, hold your hand, kiss you on the lips. i mean bro gives no fucks ‼️

- the first person he told when you two started dating was actually sam

- i think demetri is super considerate of your needs. like if you have a bad day, he just lays down and runs his fingers through your hair

- he's probably the best to date out of the whole show

- i think he just uses a nickname for you. he doesn't really like "baby" or "babe" or just any pet name

Tory Nichols

- black cat gf ‼️

- she's super big on communication

- dislikes pet names with a passion

- she also thinks the bare minimum is love (my poor girls ☹️)

- holds your hand and will kiss your cheek

- her brother absolutely loves you

- YOU ALSO WATCHED EUPHORIA SUNDAYS.

- bandaging any wounds she gets during training or in fights

- if you dated while her and sam were fighting 24/7, you've had to deescalate fights before

- kim da-eun and you have mad beef.

Anthony LaRusso

- not so secret secret nerd

- you two were bio partners and he had a crush on you the second you were nice to him

- you play with his hair while he plays video games

- he holds your hand and will MAYBE kiss you

- he needs that reassurance (maybe its a larusso thing)

- you are constantly arguing with daniel over how he treats ant

- you two watch movies 24/7

- always partnering up for everything (karate sparing, bio projects)

- anthony, you, and robby are an ICONIC trio

- you defend him and he defends you ‼️

- youre the only one who knows how much his dad upsets him

- over all just such a sweet boy who's gone through it

[dilatorywriting]

Monster Mayhem: Siren's Song [Part 2]

Gender Neutral Reader x Vil Schoenheit Word Count: 4.6k

Summary: Fish are friends (?). You are not food.

[PART 1] [PART 1.5] [PART 2] [PART 3] [PART 4] [PART 5]

The Siren wasn’t leaving.

Which a part of you had been expecting. Because surely if there had been a snowball’s chance in Hell of him making it out into the open ocean alive before you’d cut through the ropes, he would have taken it and left you stranded without a second thought. And his odds weren’t that much better now—his fins were still a mangled mess and the wounds all along his scales and dainty featherings were still raw and oozing. It only made sense that he’d take at least a few days to try and recover.

But… But still.

Did he have to make it so obvious that he was sticking around?

The glint of the light off his tail was a constant distraction—always bright and eye-catching even at the cloudiest points of the day. Always flashing just out of the corner of your eye as a perpetual reminder that there was something in the water that would very happily gobble you up if you bothered making a swim for safety.

He’d also taken to sunning himself. Like some kind of overgrown mer-cat. Stretched out languidly on a flat rock with the tips of his violet fins hanging over the edge—just enough for the gauzy edges to play along the surf and avoid drying out entirely. His pale hair splayed out in a halo around him as he snoozed softly in the heat of the afternoon.

Which! No fair! This wasn’t a vacation! This was a stranding! An SOS! A Rose Queen Procedural Rule Four-Hundred-and-Four! And him taking up the whole of the cove to, I don’t know, tan, felt like another intentional slap in the face. The sun rose over the bay, which meant this stretch of shore was facing East. Which was the direction your vessel had been coming from. Which meant that this was the place on the little islet where you needed to be. Subsection Three of Procedural Four-O’-Four. ‘In the case of Crew Overboard, we will always travel the same route as planned. In order to give the Strandee a chance to map out a reconnection point.’ Riddle always had been so smart about these kinds of things.

‘It’s just until he’s better,’ you reassured yourself for the umpteenth time that morning. ‘Then he’ll leave and I can get rescued or die here alone and in peace.’

A fin flicked up from the shallows to spray you with saltwater splatters and you spluttered indignantly when it ran down into your eyes. You glared at the Siren’s retreating back, musing bitterly about how you’d never thought it was possible for someone to make the tuck of their shoulders look smug.

‘Alone and in peace,’ you repeated hopefully. And it sounded like such far off dream.

.

.

On the second day post-rope-removal, the Siren waved you down with a sharp flick of his wrist.

You approached the waterline hesitantly, still mostly waiting for him to turn on you and make toothpicks out of your bones. But instead of murdering you and getting crafty with your corpse, he just pointed to some scribbles in the sand. You squinted at the loop-de-loops suspiciously. It almost looked like an illustration of dancing bubbles—the lot of them curling and popping along the ground in a line like a limerick. 

“Uhm, very nice,” you tried, and the fins flattened pissilly all along the side of his head.

He jabbed his claw towards the mess again. Then firmly at your eyes (hopefully not as a threat that he’d be happy to take them right out of your head if you continued to be obtuse). And then back again. He made a point to move the tip of his sharp nail from one swirl to the next in a little hop-hop-hop. It reminded you a bit deliriously of Riddle trying to teach some of the more socially bereft members of the crew their letters, and—

“You want me to read that?” you gaped, staring at the elegant curls of nonsense in the sand.

The Siren crossed his arms across his lean chest with a scoff that puffed past his lips hard enough to fluff out some of the paler, purple-tipped, hair hanging by his chin. He rolled his eyes at you and muttered something thin and spicy under his breath that you just knew had to be some sort of insult.

“I can read!” you defended, because it felt like it needed defending.

He leveled you with an entirely unimpressed ‘Oh, I’m sure you can’ sneer and you dropped to your knees, incensed. You dug your fingers into the sand and started sculpting out your own very cheery message into the muck.

When you were done, you waved a hand towards your proclamation and watched his brows pull together at the center into a teeny, pinched sort of expression. He let himself roll forward with the seafoam to lay more fully on the shore, and stared down at the mess you’d made like it was some strange code. Even reaching out to poke softly at the straight edge of a ‘T’ with one of his knife-sharp talons.

After a long moment of contemplation, he looked back up at you with an arched brow that was so unintentionally poised and not full of spite that it almost took your breath away. Who knew how pretty an already stunning face could become when it wasn’t twisted up in absolute vitriol? You shook away that absolutely damning thought in horror. That’s exactly what he’d want you to think. Siren, and all. Using his hotness to lure people onto his dinner table. Not you, baby. Because you were smart. And so gross from being stranded under island sunshine for a week that surely you’d taste like some absolutely rancid jerky at this point.

“Oh no,” you droned, and immediately that subtle curiosity of his ticked right back into irritation. “Two creatures from entirely different species and ecosystems have somehow managed to develop unique alphabets. What a completely unpredictable complication.”

The Siren puffed up like an angry lionfish and turned with a snarl to dive back into the shallows—making sure to whip his tail in your face and slam into the water with a huge splash as he went. The salt spray pelted down like rain and you snickered as it sloughed off your cheeks in rivulets, content to sit merrily in the wet sand beside your hastily scribbled: ‘Mermen Are Vicious Bitches. Hit Me if You Agree :)’

.

.

The next morning, there were more fish on the shoreline. Though these ones looked a bit less like they’d been dragged up by their souls and left to writhe in the wake of Siren-Screaming-Agony and more just like the unfortunate victims of a pair of too sharp claws.

You frowned down at a brown, sad-looking flounder that had clearly found itself at the very wrong end of a certain merman still swanning about in the bay not fifty feet away. It was mostly intact, and pleasantly plump for a flat, pancake-looking blob of muck. Your stomach gurgled and the thought of a nice, coal-charred, fillet really seemed quite nice. You chanced another peek at your resident Asshole, debating if it was worth swiping his snack. Another ominous rumble from your abdomen and you reached down to steal your prize and scuttle off deeper inland like a troll returning to its layer.

It didn’t take very long to get a small fire going, and within the hour you’d been fed and were more than ready for a cozy, full-bellied nap in the soft sand.

By the time you began to make your way back to the cove, the sun was high in the sky and you were already dreading sitting beneath its weighted rays for another afternoon. So you slowed your pace to a near snail crawl, dragging your feet as you went.

The little octopus from earlier was still swaying contentedly around the tide pool you’d shoved it into. It probably needed to be carried back out to the bay at some point so that it could swim back into the depths of the ocean, but the poor thing was just so small and round. Surely it’d get devoured by the first sharp-toothed thing that caught sight of it. Especially with your merman apparently being out for the blood of whatever other scaly things were swimming about in his temporary home. So for now you slipped it some small bits of leftover fish instead. You sat, crouched at the pool’s edge, and watched raptly as it grabbed the shredded bits of pale meat with its chubby tentacles to shove towards an eager beak.

“You’re the only friend I have left in the whole world,” you told the octopus miserably, wiping the greasy remnants of your lunch off your chin with a sigh.

The traitor hurriedly moved to snatch up the treat you’d offered it and hide itself away between some rocky crevices. You sighed louder. Rejected. What a time to be alive. 

.

.

The next morning, the Siren was singing again.

That familiar prickle danced its way up your arms, leaving pinpricks of goosebumps in its wake. Some pirates told tales of storms leaving their mark in such a way—that seasoned sailors could feel the tickle of thunder against their skin long before they could spot dark clouds on the horizon. You’d have to amend that little legend whenever you found your way back to The Rose Queen. Siren Sense was a lot cooler, anyways. Any idiot with arthritis could tell you when rain was due.

But either way, Mister Merman was back to idly circling the bay and calling into the distance. At least it wasn’t as miserable as it had been the other day—more of a leisurely pacing than the frantic, near-feral caterwauling that had soured your gut so terribly.

There was another fat fish on the shore. A bright, red snapper so brilliantly crimson that it was almost impossible to make out the garish wounds in its side. Almost. And even if it hadn’t been, the drooping, rust colored, rivulets dug into the sand would have been enough of a clue.

Why the Siren was bothering to leave his clawed-up kills at your feet like some overgrown cat dragging in mice, you had no idea. Maybe he was poisoning them, and subsequently you. Maybe he was bored and it was some sort of fishy enrichment. Maybe he just didn’t want to bother leaving dead things around to contaminate his favorite sunning spots, and tossing his leftovers in your vicinity was as close to a reliable dumpster as he could find on a remote island. Who’s to say.

Either way, you dutifully ignored the magical tingles racing up your shoulders and brought the newest fish back to your makeshift firepit. You grilled the snapper in silence, debating. Then you fed your octopus friend and returned to the beach, cooked fillets in tow.

You waited in awkward silence for a few moments, fish burning your palms, before raising your fingers to your lips and whistling loud enough to make your teeth ache. The mystical static faded from the air and you watched in pleasant (?) surprise as the Siren made his way back to where you’d set up camp. He rolled in with the tide, cresting on a gentle bit of surf and coming to rest neatly in the shallows—fins splayed out beneath him like a lord lying amidst his many silken robes. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked at you with an arched brow and slanted frown.

You awkwardly extended a hand—roasted snapper still resting in your open palm and burning the absolute fuck out of your fingers.

“Uhm,” you said, feeling a bit too much like the local idiot trying to feed one of the rabid, wandering, strays around town. “Food?”

He scoffed and rolled his eyes at you.

“Do you want food?” you tried.

The other brow joined the first, nearly rising all the way into his hairline. It wasn’t a pleasant sort of surprise.

“It’s better cooked?” you coaxed in the face of his outright constipated scowl. Be fed and full, you thought hopefully. Maybe then you won’t fucking look at me like I’m a boxed lunch.

He jabbed a sharpened, black talon in your direction, and then pointedly again angled up towards your mouth. Then back to the fish still roasting your poor cuticles straight off your fingers.

You blinked, a bit thrown.

“What? It’s supposed to be for me?”

He nodded, throwing in another one of those bombastically snarky eyerolls for good measure. ‘Obviously,’ that sneer said.

“Well,” you huffed, plopping down to sit cross-legged in the sand and offering up one of the fillets. “There’s plenty for both of us.” When he stared at you like you were attempting to serve him up a choice pile of literal dog shit, you wiggled your hand and entreated, “Please just take it before my skin melts off.”

The Siren huffed and reached out, plucking up the fish with the tips of his claws. He observed your meager meal as one might a particularly unappealing cockroach, and after a long moment, his nose scrunched (cute, you thought absently before immediately suffocating every wayward braincell that would dare call your murderous shore-neighbor anything of the sort) and he leaned forward to nip at a crisped, pink corner with the barest edge of one canine.

When your culinary creation didn’t immediately strike him dead on the spot, he took another, equally dainty bite. And then another. The tight pucker of his mouth eased as he chewed, and you watched as the harsh cut of his purple irises warmed with that same intrigue as they had when you’d first scribbled your foreign letters into the sand.

He readjusted his grip on the fish between his claws to get a better angle and took a proper bite, chewing thoughtfully. Before you knew it, you were watching him nip at the pads of his fingers, his gaze going a bit round and shocked when he realized that he’d devoured the entirety of it.

“See?” you hummed, tucking into your own portion with gusto. “Not all things humans come up with are terrible.” He harumphed and turned to glare back out over the bay, slouching into the surf with an expression that was most certainly not a pout. “But maybe you’d know that if you bothered to do anything other than murder and devour us on sight,” you chirped.

To which you were immediately doused with an armful of water for your troubles. The Siren glowered petulantly from where he’d just wave-bombed you, and then dove back into the deeper waters of the sandbar. He immediately started up his stupid singing all over again—pointedly keeping his chin high above the surface and splashing brine into your face anytime he looped close enough to shore.

“I don’t know why I bother,” you huffed, and ate your sopping snapper in grumpy silence.

.

.

There was a ship wrecked off the coast.

Nothing overly cool, and definitely only a small chunk of what had probably at one point been a rather impressive vessel. But it was something. The first change in pace you’d had in days and oozing with possibilities.

The only problem was that the great, rotting, hull of the thing was dug up into a jagged skerry about a hundred yards off the shore—wedged into the pointed rocks with no chance of any wave or breeze sending it adrift. You could swim perfectly well. I mean, living your life on a ship surrounded by tumultuous, depthless, ocean would have been a hugely stupid career move otherwise. The issue, naturally, was the thing currently making its home in these waters. Sharks and barracudas, blablabla. They were just animals, no matter how many teeth they had. The Siren had a grudge. And just as many teeth.

Right now, said spiky pain in your ass was lounging in the shallows like the froth was an elegant daybed made just for him—shredded fins swaying in the soft tides and his hair floating about him that same, white-gold halo that made him look far too peaceful for anyone’s good sense. He wasn’t singing today, which was great for the local wildlife population but terrible for your Siren Sense. Once you waded into the waves, you’d have no real way to keep track of him. Hope, maybe, that he didn’t think fucking with you was worth messing up whatever tan-line he had going on. But nothing concrete that you’d be willing to bet the safety of your limbs on.

You wiggled your toes in the sand and stared longingly out at the stupid, wrecked ship that was so stupidly close. If you swam your fastest you could probably make it there in under two minutes—less than that, even. But that was still more than enough time for the Siren to rake those dark claws of his across your throat and drag you down into the depths to drown.

Riddle’s angry, red face swam through your thoughts, and you could practically see him shoving that beloved law tome of his under your nose for the umpteenth time.

‘Rule 32, never make dangerous bets that you’re certain you won’t win, particularly if you are betting against a Blue Nosed Beetle.’

‘Rule 15, do not needlessly sacrifice your life in the name of curiosity, excluding—of course—if you hail from Cheshire or are a Cat.’

‘It’s only a dumb shipwreck,’ you thought miserably, if rationally. ‘It’s probably not even that cool.’

Your captain would be so proud.

.

.

The next morning you were rolling up the cuffs on your pants and wading into the cool shallows, silently lighting a candle in your heart for your beloved, steam-faced leader and promising that you would at the very least cover the costs of your own funeral so as not to inconvenience him further.

The waves lapped against your ankles and the waters themselves were shockingly clear and blue. You could practically see each grain of sand beneath your heels—make out each pointy rock and the little, red crabs that scuttled away from your tromping like civilians fleeing from the shadow of a leviathan. The Siren was back to singing today. Perhaps his poor, overworked throat simply needed a break every now and again. But either way, your Merman Magic Missive was working in full force. The hairs on your arms stood at full attention and you liked to imagine you could see them twitching in circles to follow his long, looping arcs through the bay.  

You made it up to your knees and waited, eyes scanning the open water and nose twitching like maybe you could smell the fucker. There was nothing but a familiar prickle along your shoulders and that deep sense of ‘tug tug tug’ with no answer, so you took a deep breath and pushed further, the water sloshing up to your hips, your chest, and finally you were floating—paddling slow and cautious towards the wreckage.

It really was insanely close. Even moving at your most cautious, sneakiest crawl, you’d made it nearly three-quarters of the way there within perhaps five minutes. And no signs of a vengeful, hungry Siren circling the waters beneath you either. More rules that perhaps that you’d have to tell Riddle might need some amending  once you finally made it back home to your crew. ‘Dangerous bets,’ who? ‘Needless sacrifice,’ what? You might as well have outsmarted the whole ocean.

As you moved closer, you could make out a strange coat of arms on the side of the hull that you didn’t recognize. Twining, silver songbirds soaring against the sparkly backdrop of an otherwise plain faced crest, which honestly looked far too delicate to be heading the broken remains of what was no doubt at one point an absolute monster of a vessel. You reached out to brush your fingers against the shining plaque and then you were underwater.

You fought the immediate impulse to gasp in surprise, because expediting the process of your inevitable drowning just seemed stupid even by your standards. There was a clawed hand wrapped around your calf yanking you down, and you squinted through a stream of panicked bubbles to see your terrible, horrible, completely thankless co-strandee snarling up at you with sharp teeth and a sharper flail of his delicate gills. Thankfully the water wasn’t all that deep, so by the time you’d been dragged to the bottom you were maybe only ten feet under. But still. It was the goddamn principle! And besides, you’d heard about enough drunks drowning in puddles to know that this was more than enough Liquid Death to put you in an early grave.

The Siren looped around you in tight circles, and you could feel the brush of his tattered fins against your skin like the ghostly fingers of a reaper trailing down your spine. You’d known he was big—giant, even. Long, and impressive, and built to rule the very depths he’d dragged you into. Large enough to wrestle with sharks and capsize lifeboats. Big enough, no doubt, to eat you whole and still be hungry enough for seconds.

The salt stung your eyes and you blinked hard to keep his vibrant, amethyst tail in focus. Would he strike from the back, where you couldn’t see? Or would he go right for your throat—a direct, full frontal, ‘fuck you, human’ if there ever was one. And honestly, what were you expecting? That a good deed and a few pieces of cooked fish would sway him from devouring you whole? Maybe the island sun had fried whatever remained of your rattled brain.  

He stopped in front of you and hissed—a stream of tight, tiny, bubbles jetting past his canines. You glared in petulant confusion, absolutely refusing to give your would-be murderer whatever reaction he was hoping for. His brow pinched into a tight, angry, v and he snarled again. You snarled back, and with that, the last breath in your lungs swooped out of you in a tight squeak. You choked, and struggled, and kicked at the claws holding you down. The Siren reared back, eyes widening in something that looked insultingly like genuine surprise, and you used his moment of hesitation to propel yourself off the sandbar and back to the choppy surface.

You gasped in a hasty breath, expecting to immediately be dragged back under. But when you weren’t pulled back down to your watery grave, you took in another and another. Gasping, and hacking, and spitting up seafoam. The Siren’s head crested the surface beside you and you flailed away, nearly pushing yourself under all over again. You paddled frantically, trying to keep your nose above the tide, and then suddenly there was something under you. You squawked and kicked it on instinct. The Siren snapped his pointy teeth in your face and you realized with a start that oh. That was him, wasn’t it? The long, winding, scaled muscles of his tail curled beneath your toes in what almost seemed like an attempt to keep you upright.

He stared at you with those unnervingly bright eyes of his—blonde hair curling softly at the edges where it plastered elegantly along his finned ears, and those too-long lashes dripping with small, sparkly, drops of salt water.

“What the hell is this bullshit?” you choked, coughing up more bubbly froth. “You don’t get to look so—so put together after trying to murder me!”  

The Siren huffed out something that the delusional, still half-drowned, part of you wanted to classify as a laugh. And then he organized that bemused expression back into its usual, haughty, iciness and began to carefully make his way back towards the shore—towing you along like a poor, little, lost buoy with nowhere else to go.

You let him drag you up into the sand and only flopped around a little. He flicked his tail at you and your dramatics and you turned on him with a fierce, waterlogged scowl—a bit more confident now that he didn’t have the home field advantage.

“What was that for! I just wanted to look at the ship! I wasn’t even doing anything to you!” you wailed. “I haven’t done anything to you at all! Ever! Why do you keep—" you collapsed back into the sand with a miserable whine that rattled all the teeth in your head, and ground the heels of your palms into your eyes until you saw stars.

After a long moment of nothing, you felt a gentle tap at your shoulder.

You looked back up with a start to see Mister Merman looking nearly sheepish.Or as much of an equivalent that his aloof mask of a face was capable of pulling off. The clawed finger resting at your collarbone dropped to the sand by your hip, and he carefully began to draw more of those squiggles. No, scratch that. Not the dancing, popping, ones from the other day. These actually looked sort of like the silver songbirds from that shipwreck. More jagged, certainly. But similar enough that you felt something a bit too coldly cautious to be confusion seep through your guts.

Once he was finished, he looked up and met your gaze—sharp, pointed. And then he reached back out and smeared the birds into nothing and shook his head, firm. His red lips moved slowly, exaggerated, again and again. And you could make out the vague shape of words you’d had shouted at you a hundred times over.

‘Not safe.’

That same, shivery, nervous feeling bit at your limbs.

“…okay,” you said after a moment. And then leaned forward to dig your own fingers into the sand, dutifully ignoring how your elbows knocked against his own.

‘Not safe,’ you wrote, and watched his eyes trace each letter like a treasure map.

There was another tap at your shoulder. And then he pointed to the words in the muck, then to himself.

You rolled your eyes. “Yes, yes. You’re not safe either.”

He sighed dramatically enough to ruffle the ends of your still soaked hair. And then pointed to the words again, tapping at the ‘N’ with the curved tip of a claw.

“Nnnn?” you mouthed, confused.

He moved to the ‘o’ next and it clicked.

“You want me to teach you how to read my letters?” you asked, flabbergasted. Another sigh, like you’d dropped the weight of all the world on his pale shoulders. Or perhaps that your idiocy was enough to put that hearty mass to shame. You decided that you were still feeling a bit too much like you’d only just barely escaped a brush with death, dismemberment, and dinner plans to push your luck with sassing him back too harshly, and just blinked owlishly in dazed surprise. “But why?”

His purple eyes trailed in the direction of the shipwreck and something cutting and poisonous clouded his expression. He pointed to the words again.

‘Not safe.’

“Alright,” you said, looking out over the water with a strange sort of sinking feeling in your gut. You leaned forward and began to draw the alphabet at your feet. His tail twitched by your fingers and you ignored the soft brush of his still-healing fins. “This one’s an ‘A’, like in ‘Asshole’—"

Whomp went the tail as he cracked it across your knuckles like a school matron with a ruler. And you couldn’t help the startled burst of genuine, tinkling laughter that bubbled past your lips for the first time since you’d been dragged overboard.

.

.

[TAG LIST - CLOSED]

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[girlsdads]

tagged by @annebd for WIP wednesday friday... instead of a WIP snippet have something that i don't really know what else to do with but i didn't hate so :-)

Max’s phone lights up with Daniel’s name while he’s sitting in hospitality the morning of race day. It’s face-up on the arm of the sofa—Max watches as it catches the eye of Lawson next to him. Possessiveness rises like bile in his throat. He snatches the phone as quickly as he can, cradles it to his chest like that would erase the letters of Daniel’s name from Lawson’s memory.

“Whatever, mate,” Lawson quips, rolling his eyes. Like anyone was talking to him, anyway. Like Max gives a fuck if he’s here or not. Like they’re mates, and he’s not someone Max is contractually obligated to be cordial to.

“Clean up your crumbs, when you are finished,” Max says as he stands, sweeping his gaze pointedly over the spray of chocolate chip muffin debris covering Lawson’s lap and the sofa cushion beside him. He doesn’t wait for Lawson’s response before stalking from the room. He thinks about the stacks of keto-friendly protein bars going stale back in his motorhome and hates Lawson that much more.

Max waits until he’s closed the motorhome door behind him to open Daniel’s text.

It’s stupid, he knows, to want to do this in private. Everyone knows he talks to Daniel still, probably no one would think it strange or pathetic for Max to be texting him now. Daniel had said—Max had known he wouldn’t be here, this weekend, or any weekend. Max understands, in his own way, despite how bereft he always feels, during.

But. It is a race day and Daniel is texting him. Daniel hasn’t texted on a race weekend since, well—since. He had facetimed the day after Brazil, relaxed and happy and congratulating Max from New York. They keep a running conversation during off weeks, Daniel sending picture after picture of himself with arms around his friends, some Max knows, some he doesn’t. Max saves the photos to a hidden folder on his phone, crops them all so it’s only Daniel. Sometimes it leaves him missing an arm, or two, but he can’t stand to see Daniel with all these people who aren’t Max. In turn, Max sends him videos of the cats, memes he hopes will make Daniel laugh, updates on the funny-looking bird that has been building a nest on Max’s balcony.

(That’s my—what’s the little animal friend that witches have—my familiar, Maximus! I sent him to watch over you, obviously. Be nice to him.) That message had gone into the secret folder, too.

Race weekends are radio silence. Max has come to terms with that, knows it isn’t personal, that it’s an open wound Daniel is nursing. So for Daniel to reach out, today of all days, Max can’t help the stab of yearning in his belly. It could be an important day, for Max, maybe Daniel decided—maybe he’s said he’s hopped a plane, he’s driving out from LA, he’ll be here before the chequered flag—

Max couldn’t bear it if anyone else were around, if that’s not what Daniel’s message says. Even alone, he feels like a hermit crab that’s outgrown its shell, hope leaving him soft-bellied and vulnerable.

He swipes open his and Daniel’s message chain.

Daniel’s not coming to Vegas. At least, that’s not what he’s texted.

The text is a picture. Max’s eyes are drawn immediately to Daniel, though he’s only in about one quarter of the frame. If he was trying to take a selfie, he did not do such a good job--it's mostly a shot of the dusty-red ground, Daniel's beautiful face peeking in from the top corner. He’s wearing his dirt biking clothes, sweat darkening the pits of his long sleeves where his arm is lifted to make a thumbs-up. His pinky still doesn't quite fold in next to the rest of his fingers. Max wants to kiss the careful bend of his knuckle.

It's a few long moments before Max even registers what's etched into the earth behind Daniel. It is very obvious, then, why Daniel is sending this now. There in the California dirt, Daniel has used a stick or maybe even one of his long, lovely fingers to write 3 + 1 = 4. A wobbly heart is drawn around the whole thing.

Max is infinitely grateful for the lack of prying eyes as he sinks slowly to the floor. He draws his knees up to his chest and cradles the phone in cupped hands, as if the message will be sucked back into the ether if he grips too tightly. He lightly taps to full-screen the image, zooms in on Daniel's face. The soft, almost awkward smile is the same one Max has only ever seen directed at him. He knows this, because he's spent years cataloguing Daniel's interactions with others, longing and longing. Daniel never makes that face at anyone else.

Max's phone buzzes as another text comes through. Daniel's hands reaching through the wire to squeeze Max's heart until it leaks out between his fingers.

Always cheering for you, Max. Give 'em hell for me.

[dark-corner-cunning]

Summoning the Fetch: A Mirror Magick Enchantment

Welcome back, Seekers! In my local coven, we’ve just completed a journey through the mysteries of Spirit, diving into the magick of the Fetch Spirit. Since many of you enjoyed the Spirit House post, I thought it only fitting to share a glimpse into the Fetch Spirit here. This practice was inspired by the wisdom found in "The Crooked Path" book a few years ago. As always, take what resonates with your soul, weave it into your craft, and make it uniquely your own. 🌙✨

What Is The Fetch Spirit?

In the craft of Spirit Work and Traditional Witchery, the fetch spirit is a vital thread in the tapestry of a Witch’s soul. Many paths teach that the soul is a trinity, woven from the higher self, the mid-self, and the lower self. The fetch spirit dwells in the depths of the lower self, tethered to the Underworld and the shadowy realms of the unconscious. It is the raw, instinctual force within us, rooted in primal needs like safety and comfort.

The fetch can be seen as the ID of our being—a wild, emotional current that stirs intuition through gut feelings and instinctual nudges, often acting as our unseen protector. By forging a relationship with the fetch, a Witch may delve into the hidden chambers of emotion, amplify intuitive knowing, and tap the deep well of the unconscious mind.

Skilled Witches often call upon their fetch to walk between worlds or perform workings on their behalf, leaving the Witch present in one realm while their fetch accomplishes tasks in another. This spirit companion may mirror the Witch’s form or manifest as an animal—its connection to our instinctual nature shaping it into the guise of a hare, cat, bird, or other creature. Such shapeshifting recalls the old tales of witches transforming into beasts, yet it is not the Witch’s body that changes but their fetch slipping into an animal guise to carry out the work.

Still, the lore carries warnings: the fetch and the Witch are bound as one. Any harm that befalls the fetch could ripple back to the Witch. Tales of fetches wounded in the Otherworld, with their Witches bearing matching scars, remind us of the sacred balance in working with this primal part of ourselves. Though physical harm may be rare today, the stories caution us to approach this work with reverence, care, and the wisdom of those who have walked the crooked path before us.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summoning the Fetch: A Mirror Magick Enchantment

Purpose: Enlist the power of the Fetch Spirit with this enchanted mirror working, creating a portal between realms. Once the mirror is enchanted it can be placed on or above your altar, allowing the Fetch to reflect your magickal workings across the seen and unseen worlds. Let its gaze weave your intentions through the threads of all realms, amplifying your craft with otherworldly connection and power.

Timing: Dark Moon

Ingredients:

A Mirror - I personally favor antique silver-backed mirrors for this work, as they hold a conductive energy, but truly, any mirror will do. It is the intent and the magick you weave that brings the mirror to life.

Candles: Tealights or Pillars

Crossroads Smoke Blend or Spray

Offering

To begin, create your ritual space by arranging the candles in a circle upon the ground, with the mirror placed at the center—acting as a portal to the unseen, where you can see your reflection. Cleanse the mirror thoroughly before use, using either sacred smoke or a spritz of a Crossroads blend to clear and consecrate its surface. For this, I favor a simple but potent, crafted blend:

✨ Mugwort: For consecration, astral travel, and cleansing magickal mirrors. ✨ Wormwood: To summon and open the veil. ✨ Fumitory: To conjure, commune with chthonic spirits, and weave connection with the shadowed realms.

To craft a crossroads spray, steep your herbs in alcohol (60 to 100 proof works best for potent extraction) for at least one full moon cycle before your ritual work.

Once your sacred space is prepared, pause to ground yourself and step into the magickal circle. Take the crossroads smoke and begin circling your ritual space clockwise, letting the smoke weave its power around the candles. Walk the space as many times as feels right—allow the rhythm to guide you deeper into a trance-like state, where the veil between worlds begins to thin. 

Now, light your candles and summon the crossroads, quarters, corners, or whatever energies resonate with your craft. I have my own way of calling these forces, but follow your instincts, trust your practice, and call forth what speaks to your spirit. Let the magick unfold as it will.

Once the Crossroads has been summoned, step up to the mirror and let your gaze fall upon the mirror. Lock eyes with your reflection, peering into the depths of your soul. Hold your focus unwaveringly, let your thoughts fade and your vision soften. Through your eyes, reach into the mirror, descending into the shadowy realms of the Underworld where your true essence lies hidden. When the connection stirs, speak words of power, such as: 

"I summon my fetch on this dark moon night,

My astral twin, shadowed self, and tethered light. 

I call you forth from the depths below, 

Rise through this mirror, let your presence show."

Feel the energy shift as the boundaries thin, and your fetch begins to stir within the liminal space. Whisper words of kindness and praise to your fetch spirit, calling it forth from the shadows, until it you feel that it has stepped into the mirror’s gaze. Let your words weave a bridge, a thread of connection, until the spirit answers your call.

Once you've forged a connection with your fetch, it’s time to lay down your intentions, terms, and conditions for your pact. In spirit work, clarity is everything—be precise about its purpose, your expectations, and how you’ll nourish and honor this relationship through offerings. Spirit dealings can be unpredictable, so taking care to establish firm boundaries ensures a smoother partnership.

Consider crafting a unique signal or calling method, such as a specific whistle, gesture, or phrase, to summon your fetch when its aid is required. By setting these foundations, you not only honor the fetch spirit but also weave a bond of trust and power into your craft. Also, consider writing your pact in your own hand, sealing it with your name, and offering it to the flames. As the smoke rises, it carries your intentions into the other realms, weaving them into the unseen. Again, do what calls to you.

When you feel your Fetch working has reached its conclusion and the connection has been made, step even closer to the mirror and bind the connection by kissing your reflection in the mirror, pressing your hand against its surface, or breathing a sacred breath of life toward your Fetch. Then, speak this incantation, or craft your own words of power, to seal the enchantment:

I am you, and you are me, Bound together, tethered free. Two as one, spirit and form, In sacred union, magick born.

Together we weave, together we bind, Power awakened, paths aligned. By will and craft, let it be, My Fetch and I, in harmony.

When the energy feels settled and the rite is complete, extinguish your candles, place the mirror in its sacred resting place, give thanks, and leave an offering in gratitude.

______________________________________________________________

May your magick flow with unwavering strength, ever potent and true. As you work with the Fetch Mirror, may the veil between worlds grow thin, and may the power of your spirit and its reflection guide your path with clarity and purpose. Blessed be. ✨

[izvmimi]

cw: angst. character death. you and izuku are married and have a young son. godparent!katsuki. katsuki has an unnamed wife.

Your son always starts a fuss when you bring him to his grandmother’s house, but for some reason, as you slowly trudge up the steps to your mother-in-law’s modest home (she’d refused to let her son move her out into your large shared home or even a much larger, more roomy domicile of her own), you find that your son is eerily quiet, as though he can sense the turmoil inside of you and is choosing to give you a much needed break. 

By the time he makes it into Inko’s arms, he’s always less fussy, but today he’s quietly looking at you, curiously, as if he’s waiting for you to break down and cry. He’s unnerving that way, gifted with practically the same emotional intuition as your sweet husband, and it doesn’t help that he has practically the same face. Inko is quick to take your behaving not-yet-toddler from you, and gives you a sympathetic look. She is not going to the funeral yet because she plans to watch your son, but she’s spent practically every night this week at Mitsuki’s house, preparing food and helping her through her tears. You’ve helped your best friend, Katsuki’s wife, grieve similarly, but now that the final moment has come to lay him to rest, you feel dread rising in the pit of your stomach. 

You should not show your face. After all, you killed Katsuki Bakugou.

After you repeat this statement again out loud to your mother-in-law, shaky hands folded in your lap as she hands you a glass of water and tries to steady your nerves, she reminds you, as all good mothers would, that it wasn’t your fault.

He’d meant to save you. You hadn’t been the one to force an unclosable hole through his chest, and if it hadn’t been you standing and vulnerable in that particular spot, it would have been someone else he’d have aimed to save. 

Perhaps that last part is true. Or perhaps, because you are one of his closest friends' treasures, he fought a little bit harder, moved a little bit quicker and a little bit more recklessly to ensure that you made it out, that you’d be the one to explain to your best friend why her husband is not coming home to dinner, rather than he have to explain to Izuku why the mother of his child is no longer of this world. It’s a moment that plays in your mind constantly ever since you first heard the sickening crunch of bone and sinew give way, the spray of your child’s godfather’s blood soaking your clean clothes.

You’d just been at the grocery store and run into each other by chance. It’s been over a decade long gag now to pretend you hate each other more than everything while acknowledging that you’ve both intertwined your lives with a person the other holds terribly dear. When you saw Katsuki you crinkled your nose, a joke akin to ‘look what the cat dragged in’ muttered in some variation by you both, before walking side by side and catching up. The four of you had dinner plans that weekend anyway and Katsuki takes the idea of godparent far too seriously for being an only child, and thus was far too interested in what you were putting in your cart.

“I read kids develop their tastes early in life and I don’t think this” - he picks up a six-pack carton of juice that was admittedly laden in sugar from your cart - “is particularly conducive to healthy development.”

“Katsuki, I didn’t ask you,” you hiss, snatching it out of his hands, then sheepishly add, “in fact, that was mine.”

He laughs and shakes his head.

“Figures for all that chaotic energy you have,” he jokes. 

You had more to say to him, and then merely ten minutes later, in a flurry of explosions and debris, screams and scattered people,  you were staring straight through his chest to the other side.

“Fuck.”

Fuck? You thought. Katsuki looking at you, then looking at the gaping wound in his chest, then looking at the incapacitated villain and the destroyed supermarket, then looking back at your hands deep in his wound, pressing down at his chest desperately to stop the bleeding as best you can, tears running down your cheeks. You who so often were joined at the hip with the one he loves, who’s grown to merge their natural smile with Izuku’s over time, whose face is distorted in fear and shock and desperation to keep him alive so you don’t have to tell your best friend that you are the reason he’s no longer here to protect her.

Because he was protecting you. For his friend. For his wife. For the kid you’ve entrusted to him in case something happens to your or Izuku's child, who better not get that goddamn juice box.

“Hey, it’s okay.”

You want to scream, no it’s not, it will never be, how am I supposed to tell her-

“I forgive you. I’m not mad. Just take care of her, okay?”

Katsuki’s voice was the quietest, calmest you had ever heard it be since you’ve met him and you hate that he smiled, and you hate hate hate that Izuku would have done it for him, too. 

The shaking turns into sobs again and Inko holds your hands tightly. Your son is upstairs, too occupied with toys, again far too polite and considerate, and you wonder if he’ll remember how hard you are crying right now. If he’ll remember his father crying and holding you that terrible evening. You wonder what he’ll do when he’s old enough to know why his auntie doesn’t have a husband and why there are four people smiling in that wedding photo that hangs in your home instead of the three he knows, and who bought him nearly half of his books and toys. 

“I can’t go there,” you whisper again. 

Inko tilts her head. 

“But she needs you,” Inko murmurs. You wipe your tears with the back of your hands. Your husband, who isn’t the coward you are, is already at the funeral, working through funeral arrangements. Your throat dries up at how much he must be apologizing again, or perhaps he’s not apologizing at all, keeping his head up high and reminding everyone that Dynamight died saving someone important to him and what he did was not a mistake. 

“Kacchan is a true hero.” Izuku repeated softly into your ear, then to himself, then to you again, then to the world, then to his wife. His wife who should hate you but is too mournful to bother.

“I can’t go there,” you repeat. “I cannot look her in the eyes.”

But your best friend needs you and cried in your arms that very first night.

Inko nods.

“But she’d do it for you,” she says, softly.

She would do it for you, the same way Izuku would have done it for Katsuki. 

…

Moments later, you’re squeezing Dynamight’s widow’s hand as Izuku praises him, and you wish it hadn’t turned out this way but you’re at least fulfilling your promise.

Just take care of her, okay? 

You will, for the rest of your life.

[sanguineterrain]

Hi! I saw your post on Halloween prompts and if your still taking them may I request

Jason was born a werewolf and they're used to their transformations and abilities. They're out on a walk when they find Reader, a human-just-turned-werewolf. Jason decides it's their job to take care of Reader until they're able to use all their powers efficiently, etc. Both didn't expect to catch feelings along the way.

Or

Werewolves are actively hunted down and humans even carry specific silver items and spray to ward them off if they suspect someone of being one. Reader finds Jason, an injured werewolf, hiding in their backyard. They don't have the heart to chase them away, instead opting to heal and hide them away from the hunters after them.

Fem!reader if possible?

Prompts from @promptspa

hi there! thanks for the prompt. i decided to go with the 2nd one, but i tweaked it a little. reader is gender neutral simply because there wasn't any moment to identify gender, but you are free to picture them as female! hope you like :)

werewolf!jason todd x gn!reader | injured jason, tending to wounds, wolf form, reader and jason knew each other when he was robin.

****

"...In other news, reports of animal attacks have skyrocketed, leaving Gotham citizens paranoid. The mayor is enforcing a six o'clock curfew, urging citizens to lock their doors and keep pets inside. Now we have Dan with the weather—"

You mute the TV, stand, and stretch. The wind howls outside, rattling the roof slats. Dan, the weatherman, soundlessly describes how it's only going to get colder this week. That reminds you of Lucy, your Ragdoll. She's been outside for most of the evening.

"Lucy," you call, opening the bag of cat food. Usually, the sound causes her to race into the kitchen, claws clicking on the floor.

But there's no sound. You stop what you're doing and move to the stairs.

"Lucy?"

Nothing.

Animal attacks. Your stomach churns at the thought.

Gotham News often exaggerates that stuff since they're so anti-lycan. Werewolves don't attack animals and haven't done so for centuries unless they're desperate for food. But most citizens don't know that and will happily buy into the scare tactics. You can't afford to, living miles outside of the city.

You head outside when Lucy still doesn't appear. Logically, you know werewolves wouldn't attack your seven pound cat that's seventy percent fur. You know that. But something still feels wrong.

You search around the house first, using your phone as a flashlight. Then you walk toward the shed. That's when you hear meowing.

"Lucy!" you yell. "It's alright, Lucy, come on!"

Lucy makes no motion to move. She meows incessantly, urgent, yowling meows that make you rush over and check her for injuries. She continues to meow, even when you don't find an injury.

"What's wrong, Lucy? What's happened?"

You stroke her back, but nothing calms her. One time, she ran into a skunk, and that had spooked her. It also resulted in three baths to get the smell out.

But the skunk had attacked her then. Here, Lucy is unharmed, but whatever she's seen, it's scared her beyond comforting.

She continues to meow, eyes fixed on the shed. You take a deep breath and go to the shed. Lucy's meows get louder.

"It's alright, Lucy," you say, but now your heart is thumping. The wind rattles the padlock, which is odd, so you shine the light on it.

The lock is broken. You pull open the door, ready to run.

A soft whine comes from inside the shed. You shine your light, and the creature shies away, except it's too big to avoid the light completely. Too big to be a regular animal...

You make out black fur, large ears, and a tail. You gasp. The wolf whines again, curling into the corner like it's trying to make itself small.

There's a trail of blood on the ground. Without getting closer, you can't tell where the blood is from. But if it's enough to make the creature whine, it must be a deep wound.

"I'm not a hunter," you say slowly, and its ears twitch at that. "I'm not here to hurt you. No silver, see?"

You pull out your pockets, unzip your coat, and show your hands. The wolf watches you silently. Its head comes into view, and now you can see that the wolf is male.

And his eyes. His eyes are what confirm your suspicions; they are too intelligent to not be supernatural, glowing an eerie green.

He's an adult wolf, from what you can tell, but still young, his fur dark and thick. His youth doesn't make him any less intimidating, though. He looks much like the pictures of werewolves the antis use to scare people: huge, long body, glowing eyes, claws. He must be double your size, at least.

Lucy has stopped meowing. Now she just stares alongside you, keeping her distance. No wonder she was so distressed.

The wolf suddenly stands, and you take several steps back, heart racing. You hate being scared, hate letting the news report get into your head.

The wolf lies on his back with jerky, uncoordinated movements. He makes a desperate noise and shows his belly.

Knife wounds. Big ones. If he wasn't a wolf, he'd be dead.

"Holy shit," you say. "Oh my God."

This is as vulnerable as any creature can be. But you're just as much a stranger to him as he is to you. Why is he trusting you like this?

You've only known one werewolf in your life. And he's never coming back.

The wolf whimpers again. You nod quickly.

"Okay," you whisper. "It's okay. I'll patch you up."

The wolf sags against the ground, and you run out of the shed, your stomach turning at the thought of another wolf dying.

Lucy follows you, clinging to your ankles, and you try not to trip over her as you gather supplies from the house. She doesn't follow you back outside.

You return to the shed and thread a needle. Then you take a step forward and wait. When he makes no move to attack, you close the distance slowly and crouch by his belly.

His fur is matted and torn in odd places. Carefully, you place a hand on his belly. He doesn't move.

"I'm going to pour the antiseptic now," you say.

The wolf watches as you do. He tenses but doesn't make any more sounds as you clean his wound. Almost like he's used to the feeling.

You feel up his fur for other wounds. That's when you feel a scar that runs from his chest to where his bellybutton would be. It's Y-shaped.

"What—" you say in horror. "What did they do to you?"

The wolf whines again.

"Right, right. Sorry. I'm going to sew you up."

He lets you tend to his wounds without a hitch. He's unusually comfortable with your touch; he doesn't howl or flinch when you touch him, and any warning sounds are gentle.

You finish the stitches and top it with a bandage. He waits patiently, not moving an inch. You haven't done this in years; you never thought your medic training would come in handy again.

Nightingale. That's what the Bats called you. That's who you might've become eons ago, until...

"I won't turn you in," you say when you finish.

The wolf blinks at you.

"But you know that, don't you?"

He protests when you pull a blanket over him. He whines and nudges you away with his nose.

"It's cold here, and I can't carry you inside," you say.

He drags the blanket off with his teeth and throws it onto your lap. You smile and put it back on him.

"I'll be fine. I have blankets inside. Get some sleep."

You start to stand, and his whines become barks. He tries to stand with you, pawing at your knee.

"Whoa, hey! Don't, you'll pull your stitches. What's wrong?"

He barks again, and nods at the forest line outside in the distance. Then he licks at his bandage.

"You're afraid the people who hurt you will get you?" you ask.

He chuffs and licks your hand.

"You're afraid they'll get... me?"

He nudges your shoulder. You touch his head and make a soft noise.

"Okay. I'll stay and keep watch. If I hear anything, I'll wake you, alright?"

The wolf grunts, then finally lays down. He shuffles closer to you, so his body is practically on your legs. He runs hot, and with him so near, you hardly feel the cold.

The wolf falls asleep before you.

****

It has been a long time since you trained with a Bat, and your nocturnal practices have faded since then.

So you wake up in the shed with a backache.

Black fur tickles your hand, and you open your eyes.

But it's not a wolf at your feet; it's a man.

A man wearing a dead boy's face.

He awakens as you do, bare and bandaged beneath the blanket. Those odd green eyes stare at you. They're wrong; all of him is wrong, but his face... you know that face.

"Jason?" you whisper, chest tight.

His sigh is full of grief.

"Hey, Nightingale."

[speedycoffeedelight]

An Animalistic Disaster

Summery:A bloody fight of survival begins between you and the wolves

CH-6: A bloody fight

The wolf bared its fangs at you, creeping closer, inch by inch. Your feet felt like it was made out of bricks as you just stared at it. Finally the wolf jumped at you,with its mouth open wide. But before the wolf could come into contact with your skin, it was shoved away to the ground with a headbutt from Charlie.

You were snapped out of your daze when you heard your ewe shout at you. You quickly reached into your bag to find the pepper spray and knife you packed. The wolf was about to jump onto Charlie, but you were faster.

Holding the pepper spray in one hand and the knife with other, you lunged onto the wolf. Was this absolute stupidity? Maybe. But the ewe just saved your life and no way in hell you were going to let it get eaten now. You quickly sprayed in the wolf's face, making it temporarily blind, before shoving the pocket knife in its throat. Blood sprayed across your cheeks from the impact. The wolf was pushed back and your knife remained stuck inside the wolf. Its neck now bleeding as it was now limping and began to retreat.

While you were fighting, Niffty quickly rushed up to the the wolf closing in on Alastor. They couldn't forget the fear they felt when husk, who was now a cat, told them about the dire situation Alastor was in. It was a miracle that Husk recognised them even in this form. It was probably one of his bartender's specialties he's so proud of. But they were glad that you followed along, cause they didn't know what to do by themselves.

Niffty quickly bit The wolf's leg as it was about to bite alastor. The wolf let out a painted grunt as it looked at its attacker. You were just finished with your own fight at the moment. Huffing, you turned to look at the deer's situation.

Alastor used this moment of distraction of the wolf to pull himself up and swing his antlers through the wolf, piercing it. More blood sprayed the ground as the wolf's now dead body fell to the ground. Exhaustion and pain finally caught up to Alastor as he now laid on the ground with a thud.

You were still breathing heavily. Fear and exhaustion setting in your body as the adrenaline slowly went away. The ewe ran to you nuzzled your hand a little before running to the deer. All of your animals seemed to surround the deer as the deer was observing all of you with its red piercing eyes. Finally all of the animals eyes fell on you, it was like they were pleading you to help the deer.

You slowly got up, almost stumbling and falling down, before slowly reaching up to the deer. It was staring at you quite intensely. You slowly sat beside it and held out your hand towards its body to examine it's injuries. But the deer let out a grunt as its body tensed up, startling you before you could touch it.

'Alastor, she just wants to help! Let her examine your wounds you radio freak!' Vaggie scolded Alastor. She was feeling really pathetic for not being able to help. 'Vaggie, you don't have shout at him, he'll understand...' Charlie said while looking at Alastor with concern. '..Why do you all trust this girl so much..?' Alastor inquired before letting out a painted moan. 'Well she is the one taking care of us now and she's a really nice girl,sir!' Niffty said chipping in.

'Fine..' Alastor really didn't like when other people touched him. But he didn't really have a choice right now. He couldn't let himself die as a deer of all things, not when he has so much planned for the future. Alastor looked at you as you gently guided your hands again towards his wounds, now taking extra precaution to not startle him.

It looked like the deer hadn't suffered that much wounds. But there are some cuts and gashes that'll need to be sewn up. Most of the blood covering it's body was from the wolves. But unless the wounds were sewn up, it might get worse.

You looked at the deer to find it already staring at you. "Looks like you aren't in that much of a bad shape buddy..." You awkwardly said towards the deer. "But we might need to get you patched up..." Your voice trailed off in the end, wondering how the hell you'll be able to sew wounds of a deer. It might run away as soon as it gets it's strength to move.

You decided the best course of action would be to do that before it gained the strength to move then. There was still some time before light would go away. "Stay here, I'll be right back" standing quickly, you dashed towards your cabin. Grabbing your first aid kits and some clean towel, you again rushed back. You knew your legs will probably cry tomorrow but you couldn't care less.

"Hold still okay..?" You said as you prepared to sew the wounds. You were prepared for a lot of thrashing or even the deer to ran away from the pain. But the deer surprisingly let itself be sewn up like a champ. "Now that's my good boy.." you said as you finished sewing. Then you took the towel and wiped as much blood and guts from its body as you could. You could feel your stomach turning at the sight but you held it in.

It was already evening when you were finished. All the animals, including the cat now was just sitting behind you as you worked. 'Ya know, didn't take you for the type to care for Alastor husky. Even if he was dying ' Angel said, resting on Charlie's wool. Husk and Alastor were both told of the whole ordeal by now. 'I fucking don't! But we got lost on earth and I don't know what would have happened to me if he died here!' Husk said with venom. 'Now,now.. don't fight guys..' Charlie awkwardly said.

"Stop following me"

You turned around and told to the deer who was just behind you. After you finished cleaning what you could, the deer stood up. You were happy it could walk so quickly. You smiled and hoped it could go back to its flock quickly and not get targeted by any other wolves in its way. You began to go back to the cabin with your animals. But for some reason the deer wouldn't stop following you.

The deer just stared at you, tilting it's head. You sighed, not knowing what to do. You didn't want to try scaring it away knowing what it did to the wolf. You just kept walking towards you cabin. Hoping it will go away by itself.

It didn't. You were opening the lock of your door while you could feel it breathing down behind your back. Unlocking your door you quickly let the small animals in and got inside yourself. Just as you were about to close the door quickly, the deer stopped it with its hoof. Then it easily pushed the door open with its antlers and let itself inside.

"Wow, okay, I have a deer inside my cabin right now, alright..." You mumbled to yourself as the deer walked into the room beside your own with the bookshelves and plopped itself down on the ground. Seemingly resting.

"God I definitely need a warm bath right now.." you desperately wanted to clean yourself after all that blood and gore. You decided to clean all the bloody footprints of the animals on the floor later and pray that the deer doesn't destroy the cabin when you come back.

After your bath, you came to find the floors squeaky clean. The puppy sat on the now clean floor as it looked up at you and barked happily. You were too tired to question anything at the moment so you just crouched down and pat the puppy

"You did a great job protecting the deer. Now let's get you some food" You said as you stood up and went to kitchen.

As you were putting niffty's food on a bowl, you suddenly heard some meowing coming from around your leg. Being surprised, you looked down to see the grumpy cat from earlier. You didn't even notice that it followed you home. You crouched down to pat it too. It scooted away from your touch at first. But then it looked at the puppy then just let itself be petted?

You patted it a bit then stood up"You must be hungry too, let's get you something to eat as well" the cat's face almost lit up at your words. It made you think it probably let itself be petted cause of food. Now you didn't have any cat food with you but you supposed some fish will have to do.

You grabbed some fish and prepared it for the cat and gave both the puppy and the cat their food. You left some fruits out in case the moth wanted to eat and went to check in on the deer. The deer seemed to be resting closing its eyes. Your sheep and moth seemed to be there too. Your eyes wondered around the bruises of the deer's body. You felt bad for it but also surprised at how sturdy he was. You took a blanket and put it over it's body. You didn't notice the deer staring at you as you exited the room.

You decided to skip dinner and made sure everything was locked before returning to your room. You just plopped onto the bed, ready to call it a day. Suddenly you heard something shuffling into your bed. And then the head of your fluffy ewe came into your view. You smiled and held her closer. "Thank you for saving my life back there buddy" you gave it a small kiss on its forehead. The ewe nuzzled closer to you in response and let out a satisfying sound.

You finally thought back on all the events that took place in one day. 'I have a sheep, a moth, a puppy, a spider, a cat and a DEER of all things in my house. Who would have guessed..'

"What's next? A damn snake?"you mumbled.

You probably shouldn't have said that..

(A.N: So I wanted to give a shout-out to this one Alastor RP account on twitter who said he wouldn't mind if I was the one holding his leash and I-

Sjabhakak- hello????sir????😳😳😳)

Master list

[winxanity-ii]

⌜Know No Evil | Chapter 00 Chapter 00 | Blurb⌟

╰ ⌞🇨‌🇭‌🇦‌🇵‌🇹‌🇪‌🇷‌ 🇮‌🇳‌🇩‌🇪‌🇽‌⌝

❘ prev. chapter ❘༻✦༺❘ next chapter ❘

Aizawa coughed, a wet, bloody sound that echoed in the tense silence. A spray of crimson splattered across your cheek, a stark reminder of his vulnerability. He managed to wheeze out a single word, vice weak and raspy. ❝Villain...❞his gaze hardening despite his weakened state.

❝Always so quick to label,❞ you chuckled, the sound devoid of humor. ❝Perhaps villain isn't the right word. Let's just say... I have a different vision for this world, Aizawa-sensei. And you, with your unwavering sense of justice, would just stand in my way.❞

With narrowed eyes, Aizawa, his face haggard and drawn, rasped out, ❝I knew you'd...*Cough*... become an issue.❞ His haggard figure, his labored breathing—it only fueled your twisted sense of amusement.

Tilting your head, a slow, chilling smile spread across your face. It wasn't quite playful, but held a hint of something predatory, like a cat toying with its prey.

Leaning down even closer, you brushed the tip of your nose along the side of his wounded face, the metallic tang of blood mingling with the adrenaline thrumming in the air. The contrast of your smooth skin against his rough, blood-stained flesh sent a spark of something dark through you.

❝Oh, you haven't seen a real issue yet~❞you purred, your voice dropping to a seductive whisper, the sound sending shivers down his weakened spine.

Slowly, you trailed your nose along the contours of his jawline, stopping just a hair's breadth away from his own. ❝Not by a long shot,❞ you breathed, your voice barely above a murmur. Then, with a final, teasing touch, your nose bumped against his.

With a final smirk, you reached out, your fingers brushing against his temple. Before Aizawa could react, you took control. His eyes, glazed and unfocused, flickered once before glossing over completely. His jaw slackened, his body a puppet on a string.

You had seized the reins.

..... ... ..... ━━━━━━━☆☆━━━━━━━ ..... ... .....

Humans.

Oh, how you despised them.

As the Control Devil, you couldn't help but see them for what they truly were: inferior pests that belong beneath your thumb.

So imagine your surprise that you found yourself dying at the hands of one and waking up in a world where 'Quirks' define one's worth, with no recollection of who you were.

But as whispers of your past life soon began seeping through the cracks of your new reality, you decided that a life without your reverend Pochita wasn't a life worth living.

So the question remains: What's left for you to do? ..... ... ..... ━━━━━━━☆☆━━━━━━━ ..... ... .....

╭─↬ ❗𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆❗ ↫─╮ There will be mentions/descriptive scenes of the following:

╭ ⁞ ❏ Strong Language ┊ ⁞ ❏ Stalker-Like Tendencies ┊ ⁞ ❏ Toxic and Manipulative Behavior ┊ ⁞ ❏ Graphic Gore and Violence ┊ ⁞ ❏ Apathetic/Antisocial Behavior ┊ ⁞ ❏ Minor and Major Character Deaths ┊ ⁞ ❏ Yandere Tendencies

🔺 Reader Discretion Advised.

Lol, I don't know if I got them all, so if you see anything I didn't list, come back and comment right here so I can add them to the list later ➡

Enjoy (•͈˽•͈)

𝐩𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐭, 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: Though this may be a various!bnha fic, MC will most likely be with 1-2 people; may the best yanderes win 😈

[captain-reno]

I watched Castlevania. And I REALLY laugh at how much the local Dracula looks like a CAT. Our Alucard-Dracula from Hellsing is absolutely mad. He allows himself to be riddled with bullets, and then happily bites everyone involved. And okay Alucard, Alucard likes to play with his prey, but I believe that even if Vlad was wounded (Of course, Anderson would do it, who else?), he would be rather pleased. (By the way, I believe that Dracula-Alucard Hellsing has several personalities, although at the core, well. Himself, of course.)

While the Dracula of Castlevania, of course, also does not immediately fight at full strength, but gets very angry when he is wounded and in general attacked and forced to fight. He is like a cat that does not want to be poked. And because of this he hisses, bares his teeth and gets mad. The scene where Sypha conjures a stream of fire right into his face looks more like a cat being sprayed with a spray bottle!

Do not touch the poor cat, he just wanted to destroy humanity, nothing more! And give him back his wife. Then there won't even be a need to destroy people.

In general, I love him too. But in a completely different way than Alucard-Dracula Hellsing.

[melikedraw]

Hi! I was wondering if you could do headcanons on Takayama in a relationship with a very reckless/impulsive partner? They're like a walking hazard magnet. Slips and falls hard on the ground? Falls off balcony while sitting on the railing? Jumping into fights with a little too many people and usually comes out alive but pretty banged up? He's gotta be stressed 24/7 but somehow the dynamic feels cute

Takayama Minoru x reckless! Reader

Readers gender not specified

~~~~~

- oh my god let this man REST /j

- he's already drained from having to deal with that troublesome old katahara and also expends a lot of energy being annoyed at kanoh, so he's very very tired

- you adding to his stress is NOT helping (unfortunately for him he is terribly, whole heartedly in love with you)

- he won't be the type to fret over you if you do something stupid, like climb a tree randomly, no "omg y/n why the hell are you up there?!?!?'

- he'd mostly just sigh and be like "Get down. Now."

- you better not cry easily because he is a very blunt guy and cannot, for the life of him, phrase his words kindly and sugar coat anything

- he can be a bitch at times, but always speaks the truth

- if you're injured, however, he will have a different reaction

- if it's an injury caused by yourself, he'll lecture you while patching you up

- if it was caused by someone else though, ooooh boy, you better pray for them

- he is getting their name out of your mouth whether you like it or not and will search for them, find them then hurt them very badly

- like leaving them disfigured in a puddle of their own blood type badly

- he HATES it when you get into fights when you're not around him

- every single time you pick fights you always end up battered in some way and it gets tiring for him, hunting down these random people who've hurt you

- which is why, he much prefers it when you pick your fights with him around. That way he can either pick you up by the collar like a mama cat and her kitten and drag you away from the scene, or take them out himself, right there and then

- however, if you keep getting hurt in fights and he has to patch you up, he'll probably make it hurt a bit, as a warning for you to stop

- like press on your bruise when he's applying ointment or spray extra antiseptic on your wound for the burning feel

- due to your tendency to wander off and get into trouble, he has one of those leashes for children for you when you two go out together

- he's afraid that, one moment you two will be holding hands walking down the path of a park, and the next, you'll be throwing fisticuffs with the 2 drunk men a few streets over without his knowledge

- he'd probably get quite upset if you get any permanent scars from you fooling around

- you can tell him all you want that it's fine, you're used to it, but nothing will allow you to escape the longest lecture of a lifetime

- he will absolutely scold you, telling you to take care of yourself better and making you swear you won't do it again (you do it again, just saying)

- to him, it's like a constant reminder that he couldn't protect you well enough

- more than that though, he doesn't want you to end up like him, y'know? He hates the way he looks and he doesn't want that to ever happen with you because he wants you to love yourself as much as he loves you

- he does find the little things kind of adorable though

- like when you trip over your feet and he gets to catch you, or when you bump shoulders with him because you can't walk straight

- cannot ever say what he feels, so he'll show it through his actions and you, being the fumbling mess you are, let's him help you all the time (he's an acts of service type guy)

~~~~~

Bro I love him sm whaaat

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Comet Donati [Chapter 5: I Should Have Kissed You]

Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+), drugs, alcohol, smoking, mental health struggles, bodily injury, sloths, public indecency, another important conversation on a balcony, angst!

Selected Chapter Quote: “I’m sorry about what happened tonight.”

Word count: 8k (+1 meme).

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: ​@doingfondue​ @catalina-howard​ @randomdragonfires​ @myspotofcraziness​ @arcielee​ @fan-goddess​ @talesofoldandnew​ @marvelescvpe​ @tinykryptonitewerewolf​ @mariahossain​ @chainsawsangel​ @darkenchantress​ @not-a-glad-gladiator​ @gemini-mama​ @trifoliumviridi​ @herfantasyworldd​ @babyblue711​ @namelesslosers​ @thelittleswanao3​ @daenysx​ @moonlightfoxx​ @libroparaiso​ @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics​ @mizfortuna​ @florent1s​ @heimtathurs​ @bhanclegane​ @poohxlove​ @narwhal-swimmingintheocean​ @heavenly1927​ @mariahossain​ @echos-muses​ @padfooteyes​ @minttea07​ @queenofshinigamis​ @juliavilu1​ @amiraisgoingthruit​ @lauraneedstochill​ @wintrr13​ @r0segard3n​ ​

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There’s turbulence over the Indian Ocean as the jet staggers towards Singapore, pitching and reeling, dark clouds churning beyond the windows like the malevolent brew of a caldron. Each time the plane plummets fifty or a hundred feet, you clutch reflexively at your armrests and try not to think of Cast Away. No one else seems bothered by it; that’s what years spent on international flights will do to people, you suppose. It dulls their instincts, tames them, sands down vestiges of primeval survivalism like a file taken to canine teeth. Cregan is ostensibly napping beneath his sunglasses, Daeron is propelling Mario through a maze of toxic fumes, Luke is watching The Crown on his laptop with Rhaena and Baela, Jace is applying shimmering, gelatinous, golden under-eye masks with great care, Criston is answering emails, Aegon is being forced by the label to click through online substance abuse education modules and sighs dramatically and often. And Aemond…

The jet loses a dozen meters of altitude and your stomach drops. You stifle a yelp with one hand as tears—unwanted and unforeseen—prickle into your eyes. You peek across the aisle to see Aemond watching you with his gaze of two blues: one like a clear cool river, the other an otherworldly maelstrom like the atmosphere on Neptune, beautiful yet barren. His expression is intense and searching, his brow low. You try to ignore him. You try to collect yourself.

“Honeybunch?” Shelby croons. Yes, she calls him honeybunch, freaking honeybunch, and occasionally Honey Bunches of Oats. It’s almost as nauseating as the turbulence. He turns to her after the briefest of hesitations. Shelby is crouched by a table, her project for the past hour: artfully arranged red roses, glass bowls of fruit that she spritzes with a spray bottle of water—like you’d use to discipline a cat—to keep it glistening, and bubbling flutes of pink champagne. When the careening of the jet sends anything sliding precariously towards the edge of the table, she casually pushes it back into place. Shelby is no stranger to flying either. She is an angel, born with wings.

“Yeah?” Aemond says distractedly.

“Can you come over here for a sec?”

The jet shutters; ripples quake through your ginger ale. You swallow down a pathetic mewing like a wounded animal’s, swiping a tear from your cheek. You nestle against the window so no one will notice. “Sure,” Aemond tells Shelby, casting you another glance as he stands. He goes to her—gripping the backs of chairs to keep his balance—and, after looking back at you one last time, swipes one gleaming strawberry from a bowl.

“Don’t!” Shelby whines, knowing that now she’ll have to rearrange things.

If Aemond heard her, he gives no indication. He chucks the strawberry as hard as he can at Aegon; it hits the side of his head with a wet thump. Tiny black seeds pop free. Juice like blood stains his blond hair.

Aegon rips out his earbuds and spins around in his seat. “Okay, what the fuck?”

“Whoops,” Aemond says dully.

“How does someone do that by accident?! How does that even happen?!” Rubbing his head with one hand, Aegon stretches and peers around the jet. His eyes—not a blue like clear water, but a deep murky cobalt, a difference you cannot help but notice again and again like the stinging of a papercut—catch on you. “Aww, Stargirl, what’s up?” He drags himself over, knocked to his knees once by the swerving of the jet, and plops down into the chair beside you. “You okay? Don’t worry. I’m a good swimmer. I’d drag you to shore.”

You laugh, pressing a napkin to your eyes. It comes away shriveled and damp. “I’m sorry. We get tornadoes back home sometimes, I can’t stop picturing wreckage.”

“You should have seen this flight we took last year over the Pacific. The jet was practically sideways. Jace threw up like ten times.”

“Three times,” Jace says, peeling off his under-eye masks like little gold jellyfish with his feet kicked up on an ottoman.

“Ten times?” Aegon replies innocently. “Ten, you said?”

“Three, you idiot.”

“Ten?”

“Three.”

“Ten!” Aegon confirms merrily.

Jace holds up an under-eye mask and jiggles it in the air, soft and wiggling and shapeless. “Hey guys! This is what Aegon looks like naked.”

“I don’t want him getting any of the money from my donut merch!” Aegon shouts. “Criston? You hear that? Criston? Hey Criston? Criston?!”

“Do your modules,” Criston replies without looking away from his emails.

“Fine,” Aegon huffs. The jet is gliding over the ocean more smoothly now. Still, he says to you after smacking a single sloppy kiss against your temple: “Follow me. You can help.”

You accompany Aegon back to his seat and laptop, a neon green MacBook Air. Shelby is snapping photos to post on Instagram, recording clips for TikTok: the meticulously arranged table, her long fingernails decorated with palm trees and Merlions and the flag of Singapore, selfies of her and Aemond…always taken to show his good side, of course. Your guts twist with hostility, mistrust, envy, wrath.

As you pass Jace, he holds out his discarded under-eye masks. “Wanna touch?” Jace invites you, leering. You peel one gluey under-eye mask from his open palm and examine it. As you massage the pool of viscous gold, Jace ogles, dangerously close to drooling.

“So soft,” you admire. “So smooth. Not a single wrinkle.” Then you fling it back at Jace. The adhesive side sticks to his forehead. “Just like your brain.”

Everyone howls, even Cregan—not asleep after all—and Criston; he tries to choke it down until his face floods red. Aemond is staring at the floor, but he is beaming. Shelby recaptures his attention and begins posing his hand around a glass of champagne, readjusting fingers like a physical therapist stretching and flexing half-healed limbs. She gets to touch him. She gets to speak to him.

“You’re always so mean,” Jace tells you as he pries the under-eye mask off his skin, unfazed, simpering, flirtatious. “You might have to make it up to me one day.”

“Unlikely.”

“We’ll see.”

“We certainly won’t.”

Aegon shows you the quiz that has popped up in his modules. “Okay, Stargirl. Time to prove yourself. Does coke make someone’s pupils bigger or smaller?”

All you can hear is Shelby’s high, sing-songy voice; all you can picture are her exquisite fingernails skimming their way down the ridge of Aemond’s spine. “I honestly can’t recall at the moment. Go snort some and we’ll find out.”

Aegon grins. “Don’t tempt me.”

Fifty minutes later and under blessedly clear skies, the jet touches down at Changi Airport: 88 degrees Fahrenheit, 80% humidity. Aegon groans as he trots down the airstair, slides on his aviator sunglasses, and wipes away sweat—already beading on his pink forehead and wetting the hair at the nape of his neck—with the back of one hand.

“Jesus Christ, I need a Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino.”

“Do you really?” Jace jabs, and you don’t have to scold him this time. Baela gets there first, hissing something to him that is brief and fearsome. You’re only half paying attention. Once Comet Donati makes it through security, there may be paparazzi waiting for them inside the airport. Everyone knows this; it’s the same in every city and on every continent. And as Shelby strolls across the tarmac with one arm looped through Aemond’s, you cannot help but see—you cannot help but absorb like nicotine through the capillary beds of a lung—that she reaches out with those beautiful yet claw-like fingernails and taps the front pocket of his button-up shirt, black with white lilies, until he pulls out a pair of sunglasses and shields himself from the pitying eyes of the world with them.

And you think with puncturing clarity like a shard of glass through flesh: I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Pan Pacific Orchard Hotel is brand new. You can’t breathe without inhaling fresh paint, glass walls, the bakery, the greenery that climbs steel like a trellis, the roomy emptiness of starting over. You wake up tangled in a nest of white sheets that your body has heated into an inferno. You don’t remember your dream, only that Aemond was there. It was the opening of the door that woke you. Aegon stands in the slanting early-afternoon sunlight, vivid red swim trunks and matching Crocs, his sunglasses knotted in his hair.

You yawn and peer blearily at him. “Aegon? What are you doing?”

“Every day I wake up hoping you’re still here,” he says. And then: “We’re all headed down to the pool. You wanna join?”

You smile; you can smell him in the air, Axe body spray, Tiger Beer, sunscreen that he never seems to apply often enough to stop his skin from burning. You haven’t been with him—not in that way—since that day in Paris. But time never feels quite linear with Aegon. He swings wide and then comes in close again, and when he does it’s like he never left. He’s with you always, and never, and sometimes, and forever. “Yeah. Give me ten minutes.”

“Cool.” He turns and studies himself in the full-length mirror that hangs on your bedroom wall. His eyes wander down to his bare chest and belly. He frowns, pensive, far-away, critical. It is an expression that looks entirely unnatural on him.

“Hey.”

He spins back around, running a hand self-consciously down the front of his torso. “Hm?”

“I think you’re perfect exactly the way you are. I am wildly, helplessly, pathetically attracted to you. I would fight off twenty fangirls with my bare hands for you. I think you’re one of the most ludicrously gorgeous men I’ve ever met in my life. ”

He grins, radiant again. “One of them, huh?” And he winks at you as he clops towards the door in his Crocs. “Maybe it runs in the family.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“So. College applications season will be here in a few months.”

Baela looks at you, started. You’re in a whirlpool with her, Rhaena, Luke, and Aegon, sipping pina coladas and kicking feet idly beneath water misty with bubbles. “Okay?” Baela says. Her swimsuit is an elegant white one-piece that—unintentionally you think, unconsciously, and yet truthfully—closely resembles a ballet leotard.

“Elaborate?” Luke says, then slurps noisily on his pina colada.

Aegon already knows where you’re going. He chuckles into one closed fist; you can see yourself reflected in his sunglasses. In the massive main pool punctuated by an arcing bridge and a miniature island, Cregan is lounging on a float shaped like a pineapple and eating his way through a heaping plate of juicy slivers: papaya, mango, starfruit, banana, lychee, rose apple, dragon fruit. Criston is sitting under an umbrella and reading a New Yorker profile of shipping tycoon Viserys Targaryen—a Greek by birth and a Brit by choice—with narrowed, vexed eyes. Jace and Daeron are attempting to do a TikTok dance for Shelby to post on her account and repeatedly screwing up, laughing hysterically and pushing each other into the pool. She always wears eye-catching patterns, leopard prints and retro geometric shapes and plaids and Swarovski crystals and tassels. Currently, she is dressed in a scarlet bikini and a sheer coverup of tropical flowers. Her blond hair flows down her back and swings like a horse’s tail when she leans in to direct her cast, pointing and waving. You see her like this, not in whole but in pieces: long beachy waves, nimble ankles and wrists, lip gloss, veneers, sugary perfume, tall like Aemond. Shelby has no idea why you’re here. She made a few tentative inquiries—So who introduced you to the band? So how did you and Aegon meet?—before being discouraged by the ensuing stilted silence. Aemond rarely acknowledges you. Presently, he is wading in the pool up to his chest, occasionally talking to Cregan but otherwise content to be left to his own…reverie? Observations? Machinating? Brooding? With his sunglasses on, it’s difficult to tell.

Back in the whirlpool, you ask Baela: “What if you applied to a few ballet programs?”

“What?”

“Just to see what happens. Just to have options.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t do that.” She says this so quickly it’s clear that it’s a reflex: something she does not think about, something she’s trained herself not to.

“Sure you could. You click a few buttons and it’s done.”

“I’d have to send in video clips and stuff.”

“Okay. Rhaena and I will help record you.”

“Absolutely,” Rhaena agrees right away. She drinks her pina colada with large, skittish eyes, watching you like you’re poking a tiger, a viper, and dragon. She’s tried to have this conversation before. She knows how it usually goes.

“I’m really not in shape right now,” Baela protests.

“You still have time to work on that. It’s only July.”

“And who says I want to work on it?” Baela snaps. “Have I ever mentioned ballet school? Have I ever said that I want to go?”

“But you do,” you say simply.

She frowns as she casts her gaze across the pool. Beefy men dressed in black—security guards, some employed by the band, some by Shelby—mill around aimlessly like ants when you lift a rock.

“I think you should apply,” you tell Baela.

“I can’t,” she replies, pained.

“Why not?”

“Because.” She’s flustered, cross. Rhaena and Luke look between the two of you anxiously. Aegon just smiles and gnaws on the hunk of pineapple that came perched on the rim of his pina colada. “Am I supposed to send Rhaena off into the world without me? Nothing against you, Luke, I like you, I trust you, but when you’re on stage or in an interview you can’t watch out for her. What if something happens to Rhaena? Or what if I go back to school and I’m a failure? What if I humiliate myself? What if I’ve lost whatever talent I once had? What if I couldn’t keep up with my classmates? What if I get injured and have to drop out? What if I’m too old, or too out of practice, or what if I don’t even enjoy dancing anymore? What would I do about the band? What would I do about Jace?”

“Those are all valid concerns,” you say. “But they’re also concerns for after you’ve applied to schools. If you get acceptances, that doesn’t mean you have to go. But it does give you options. And options are always good.”

Baela shrugs. She catches handfuls of bubbles in one cupped palm, preoccupied. “It just seems like a waste of time.”

Aegon snickers as he tosses the pineapple rind over his shoulder. One of the security guys snatches it up off the concrete and throws it in a trashcan. “Baela, please babygirl, don’t give up on your dreams for freaking Jace.”

“And who the fuck solicited your life advice, blond Nikki Sixx? If I want to know what Narcan feels like, I’ll ask you.”

Aegon sighs, rubbing one eyebrow. “You are never going to let that go.”

“I bet you’d get in,” Luke tells Baela. “To at least one school. You’re too good not to, even with the time off. Rhaena’s shown me old recital clips. You were fantastic.”

“Were,” Baela mutters. “Past tense. Very distant past tense.”

“If you don’t get in, then you know it’s off the table,” you say. “And you’re in the exact same spot you are now. But if you do get in, you have time to figure out what to do with that information. You have nothing to lose except application fees, and I don’t think those are much of a barrier for you, oh great connoisseur of Gucci and Hermès.”

“I’ll think about it,” Baela replies, and her intent to end the conversation is clear. A few awkward moments creep by like afternoon shadows stretching across pavement. “So, what are we doing for dinner?”

“Something quick, right?” Luke says. “Takeout? We have a meet-and-greet in two hours.”

“Jollibee!” Rhaena exclaims, clapping her hands. “They have coconut pineapple pie!”

“Chicken Up,” Aegon says.

Luke laughs. “What the hell is a Chicken Up?”

“A chicken restaurant.”

“Groundbreaking” Baela quips.

“I’ve been to one in Seoul. Great wings.”

“But…but…Jollibee!” Rhaena pleads. “I need a coconut pineapple pie!”

“You’re literally drinking a coconut pineapple smoothie right now. When am I supposed to get my wings?!”

“Out of loyalty, I will have to vote for Jollibee,” Luke informs Aegon apologetically.

“I saw a Five Guys when we were driving here from the airport,” Baela suggests.

“Oh, I love Five Guys!” you say…and then you realize how it sounds. All of you giggle so loudly that Aemond looks over at the whirlpool, a little intrigued, a little miserable. He sinks down into the transparent blue water, Godzilla retreating from his wreckage.

Baela teases you: “Like, all at the same time, or…?”

“No, definitely one after the other. I don’t want an audience.”

Aegon chuckles, low and devious. He sets his empty pina colada glass on the rim of the whirlpool. Then, unprompted, he takes off his aviator sunglasses and puts them on you instead. Strange.

Rhaena is saying: “Okay, but seriously, I cannot overstate the merits of Jollibee…”

Beneath the water, obscured by riotous bubbles, Aegon settles a hand on your thigh. You glance over at him. He glances back, so subtly that the others don’t notice; they are deeply entrenched in their dinner debate. Now Baela is pitching MOS Burger.

Aegon arches an eyebrow. Okay? he’s asking. In reply—and after a moment’s hesitation—you open your thighs a little wider for him. His lips curl into a furtive smile. His palm skates excruciatingly slowly over your skin, taunting, electrifying, fingerprints dragging lightly. He’s still carrying on a conversation with the others, gesturing with his free hand. You sip your pina colada and try to act just as casual.

“Look,” Aegon is saying. “I’m not gonna eat someplace where they serve spaghetti with hotdogs in the meat sauce. It’s unnatural.”

His fingers slip beneath your swimsuit bottoms. You gasp before you can stop yourself.

“You okay?” Baela asks with concern.

You nod, blood rushing in your cheeks, blood rushing everywhere. “Oh, yeah, sorry. I saw a bug.”

Luke says: “Man, the insects here are insane, some giant buzzing black-and-gold thing flew into my face earlier today and I almost cried.”

“A cicada,” you murmur. You grip the rim of the whirlpool and try to keep still, fixing your gaze on the palm trees that surround the pool, waving lazily in a hot humid breeze. “We have them in Missouri too. But ours are green.”

Rhaena is saying: “Apparently Singapore is famous for some super-rare beetle that’s been around for like 50 million years…”

Aegon’s expert fingers are circling, applying pressure, experimenting with different rhythms. He knows he’s found the right one when you suck in a breath and almost drop your pina colada; his smile is filling up his face, he’s fighting a grin. That feeling—a heat, a glowing, an unfurling like an opened letter—builds until it hits a blissful yet constraining plateau. It’s a ceiling, it’s a landing with no more steps. You stare at the swaying palm trees and try to relax, grateful for Aegon’s aviator sunglasses to hide behind. He’s half-watching you as he chats nonchalantly, wondering what more you need from him.

The conversation that whirls around you has revolved back to dinner: Shake Shack, Yoshinoya, Nene Chicken, Marrybrown, Wingstop.

“We should go somewhere that has vegan options,” you say shakily.

“What? Why?” Rhaena asks; she has forgotten, but you never do.

“For Aemond.”

You steal a glimpse of Aemond over in the main pool and see him taking a piece of starfruit off Cregan’s plate. Aemond bites into it—those pristine, glistening, golden angles—and wipes juice from his lips with the back of one hand. Then he looks over at you: two people pretending they don’t see the other, two pairs of sunglasses meant to render certain things invisible. And immediately, without planning to, you are thinking about Aemond touching you. You are thinking about his lips and his fingers, his shoulders, his throat, his eye devouring parts of you he’s never seen. You are thinking about where you would both be now if Reykjavik had never happened. And as Aegon’s hand works beneath the veil of bubbles, you are close, so close, agonizingly close. You are incapable of following the conversation. It takes everything in you not to moan and reach down into the roiling water to press him even more forcefully against you. His fingers glide through folds that are slick and achingly ravenous. Your pina colada is melting.

Someone makes a restaurant suggestion; you can’t register it. Aegon holds up the index finger on his free hand. “One moment. Allow me to consult my associate.” He leans into you, his hair brushing against your face, smelling like beer and sunscreen and pina coladas and Axe body spray. And he whispers as he pushes two fingers inside you and strokes you insistently with them: “Come for me, pretty girl. Right now.”

And while these words are in Aegon’s voice, for a split second you image them as Aemond’s; and then your climax shudders through you, silent by necessity but mind-numbing, a reset button, a deleted message, an echo chamber of nothing, nothing, nothing. For a moment, there’s no past and no future, no Kansas City, no Rome, no Reykjavik, no Singapore, no shame and no guilt and no desire for anything. And then slowly, like drops of rain, the world begins to fill back in again.

Aegon turns your face towards him so your lips are to his ear. You have to say something. “You’re unbelievable,” you exhale, so softly no one else will hear. “You can’t be real.”

He tells the others: “She says she votes for Chicken Up.”

When Aegon leaves the whirlpool, you follow after him a few minutes later, just long enough of a gap not to arouse any suspicions. You find him alone in the band’s private cabana and talking to someone on his iPhone. You kneel down beside his lounge chair and bend over his neon red swim trunks, palming him through the fabric—almost immediately, he is hard—and untangling the knot of the drawstring.

“Okay. Sounds good. I gotta go. Emma? Hey, Emma? I gotta go now. Yeah. See you soon. Uh huh. Bye.” Aegon hangs up and sets his phone down. Then he hooks a finger beneath your chin and lifts it. “What are you doing?” he asks, amused yet kind.

“Taking care of you.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

Your hands go still; your face is lined with wounded bewilderment. “You don’t want me to?”

“Well obviously I want you to,” Aegon says. “But only if you’re really into it. Not just because you see it as a debt to be paid. This isn’t about reimbursement. This isn’t an ATM transaction. And, you know…” He shrugs, rueful. “I can tell you’re kinda going through it. And you’re the one who needs to be taken care of right now. That’s cool. That’s not a problem.”

You sit back on your ankles, feeling guilty but undeniably relieved. “It seems unfair to you.”

“Stargirl, I don’t mean this in a braggy way, but at all times I have a line out the door of women begging to take care of me. I think I’ll survive.”

“Okay.” You smile up at him. “Okay, Aegon. I get it. Thank you.”

His sunburned brow crinkles. He is confused. “For what?”

~~~~~~~~~~

Comet Donati is scheduled to play three nights at the National Stadium. On the afternoon of the second show, Luke and Rhaena go to Fort Canning Park to explore the archaeological excavation site, Jace and Baela depart to procure his tattoo to commemorate Singapore (a Merlion on his left pec), and you, Aegon, Cregan, Criston, Daeron, Aemond, and Shelby receive a private tour of the Mandai Wildlife Reserve to promote the conservation of endangered Southeast Asian species. There are conversations with the staff and generous gift baskets and photo ops—which each time you quietly step out of the frame for, while Shelby steps in—but what snags in your mind, what you will remember forever about this day is Aemond. Because when he holds the animals, he lights up like you haven’t seen since those YouTube videos of Comet performances before the accident in Tokyo; he becomes at peace, he becomes whole again. He lets a blue tarantula creep across his palm and forearm, he feeds pumpkin slices to Asian elephants rescued from circuses, he walks around with Bunny the sloth draped over his chest like a napping toddler. And he smiles wistfully the whole ride back to the hotel…even when Aegon makes Criston stop the Escalade at Starbucks so he can get a venti-sized Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino.

Shelby likes to be in the front row with you, Baela, and Rhaena, but she spends less time dancing and cheering than she does taking selfies and recording video clips. During your now least-favorite song, A Girl Named After A Car, you spend a few minutes covertly scrolling through Shelby’s latest Instagram posts. She’s been sharing Stories relentlessly, but her last photo is from the private jet: her beaming smile, Aemond’s more reticent one (and only his good side, his smooth cheek and clear river-blue eye), a meticulously-arranged bouquet of flowers clutched to her chest like a gift. The comments are a waterfall of praise worthy of a saint. I was praying you two would get back together! You have such a kind and selfless heart, Shelby! You are so good for him! You are so brave! Thank you for showing the world that beauty is only skin-deep! Like she’s goddamn Mother Teresa. Like she deserves an Olympic medal for finding the strength to love him.

And you think once again, not for the first time and not the last: I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.

After the concert is a ritual, like drawing a pentagram or burning sage. People converge in Jace’s suite to mingle and drink and smoke and find someone to fuck if that vacancy isn’t already filled. You loiter by the bar even after you are handed your Bramble, a drink that should be poisoned by the fact that Aemond introduced it to you; but you can’t stop craving it. Criston is pacing and trying to make a call out on the balcony; from the look of his expression, the person isn’t answering. Cregan is in a velvet lounge chair with three models on his lap; they are taking turns feeding him the dripping cherries that bob in their cocktails. The rest of the band is sitting nearby and discussing their plans for next year once the tour has ended. You overhear Rhaena saying that she wants to visit the Mammoth Site in South Dakota. Luke wants to finish writing a new album. Aemond is conspicuously quiet.

Security guys float through the room between currents of musicians, label executives, friends, acquaintances, assistants. Shelby has her own detail that follows her everywhere; approximately every eight hours they switch out and new faces show up. Sometimes you recognize them from a prior shift, sometimes not. They look through you like you don’t exist at all.

A seat is waiting for you between Aegon and Baela, but you are in no hurry to sit opposite of Shelby and be forced to bask in the radiance of her flowing zebra-print dress, red-lipped, California-sun perfection. As you procrastinate with your Bramble, you listen to Daeron ask her about the Met Gala next May.

“Yeah, I finally made it onto the planning committee!” she gushes.

“Yay!” Baela trills, palpably sarcastic.

“Make it donut themed,” Aegon slurs. He has had a lot of Tiger Beers.

“I was thinking a masquerade ball, actually,” Shelby says, then looks at Aemond and settles a hand on his thigh. “We can go together, honeybunch! The timing never worked out before, but I’ve always wanted to attend with you.”

Luke asks: “And what’s the inspiration for the masquerade ball…?”

“Well, you know.” Shelby gestures vaguely. “Aemond won’t have to feel bad.”

Because everyone will be wearing masks. There is a long lull as people piece together what she means. Jaws drop open. Eyes grow large and then blink at her, incredulous, appalled.

Finally, Jace chuckles awkwardly. “Oh fuck, did you really just say that?” He looks around at everyone else. “Did she really just say that?! I mean, I wouldn’t even have said that!”

“It’s fine,” Aemond says, getting up off the couch.

Shelby reaches for him. “Honeybunch, wait, you know I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine,” he repeats roughly. He takes his Bramble with him as he escapes to the balcony. Criston returns inside just as Aemond goes out.

“What’s his problem?” Criston inquires. Nobody answers.

Shelby sighs and—as furious blood swirls hot in your veins—approaches the bar. “Can I get a gin and tonic?” She takes out her phone, scrolls for a while, sighs again. You are glaring murderously at her. Shelby doesn’t even notice. The bartender slides her a tall glass full of clear carbonated liquid, ice, cucumber slices. She takes a picture of it before she plucks out the straw, lays it on the counter, and swallows a single, ladylike sip straight from the glass. She says to the bartender: “Drinking out of straws gives you wrinkles, you know.”

You say to her suddenly: “What is wrong with you?”

Shelby turns to you, startled. “Excuse me?”

You take a step closer, your pinkish Bramble still clasped in your hand. “I’ll ask again: what the fuck is wrong with you?”

She’s backing away, jumpy, clicking in her black heels. “What are you talking about?!”

“How dare you say something like that about him. In front of him.”

“Oh, so now I’m a bitch?” Shelby snaps. “Because I want him to have a good time at the Met Gala? Because I don’t want him to be humiliated?”

“No, because you think there’s anything humiliating about him at all, that’s what makes you a bitch—”

She shoves you backwards, only a few steps. You throw your Bramble in her face. She screams like you’ve stabbed her; it’s a scream that says I don’t know what it’s like to be hurt. And instantaneously, one of her security guards has his monstrous hand around your wrist.

You hear the pop before you feel it: bubbles bursting, tethers snapping. Then the pain explodes into your consciousness like a flashbang grenade. You’re shrieking, and suddenly there are voices all around you and people tugging in every direction. The security guy still has a grip on your wrist; each time he moves, he yanks you along with him, igniting fresh flairs of agony, impossibly red Morse code.

“No no no no no!” Aegon is shouting, pawing at the security guy. “She’s with us, she’s with us—!”

“Let her go!” Criston booms. Rhaena is crying. Baela is punching the security guy in the kidneys. Comet’s security guards clash with Shelby’s security guards, a miniature civil war. Within seconds the misunderstanding is resolved and you are freed. You are engulfed by Aegon and Criston, who try to examine your wrist; you are holding it gingerly to your chest, not even aware that you are sobbing. Baela is berating the rogue security guard. Rhaena, Luke, Jace, Daeron, Cregan, and Cregan’s soon-to-be one night stands are gaping at the scene. Shelby is being comforted by several fellow influencers; they coo sympathetically and give her napkins to mop the Bramble from her face.

Aegon, drunk but not far-gone, coaxes your wounded arm from your chest. “Shh, shh, you’re okay, let me see it…”

“Broken,” Criston pronounces. “Or dislocated. Time to go.”

“I can’t go home,” you say, petrified. Your thoughts are muddled by shock and pain.

Criston shakes his head. “No, not home. To the hospital.”

“I can take her,” Aegon volunteers, lurching as he grabs a barstool to keep his balance.

“No!” you, Baela, Rhaena, Luke, Jace, Daeron, and Cregan burst out simultaneously.

“I’ll take her,” Criston says. “But you can come along, if you behave yourself and don’t try to steal morphine or anything. Bartender, I need ice…”

There is a commotion as Aemond bolts in from the balcony, moments too late. He looks at your swelling wrist, Shelby dripping with a Bramble, Baela taking a cloth full of ice cubes from the bartender and passing it to Criston. “What happened?!”

Aegon seethes as he pushes him aside: “Ask your fucking girlfriend.”

And Aemond watches, thunderstruck and horrified, as Criston escorts you out of the suite with Aegon and Baela following like shadows. When you glance back at him, he is growing smaller and smaller, like an object fading away in the reflection of a rearview mirror.

Under bright white lights, a gentle and mild-mannered Singaporean doctor maneuvers your bones back into place. It feels like you’re dying; Aegon tries to distract you with stories of shenanigans from tours long past, Baela finally begins to talk about ballet schools, which programs she likes and which she doesn’t and what exactly she’ll have to show in her audition tapes. The doctor informs you that you have a mild dislocation, no surgery needed, no cast, only a splint. He tells you to rest it and try to keep it elevated. He gives you pain medication that doesn’t do enough.

“That is an interesting saying,” the doctor says when he glimpses your tattoo, black ink between the straps of your pale pink dress, like the color of a healthy lung or brain: I’ll come back for you if it kills me, Comets clip by again after eons and so can I. You try not to think about these words. You don’t know what to make of them anymore. “Is it from a poem? Or a movie?”

“From a song,” you reply, studying the tiles of the floor. “One I used to love.”

Criston goes to pay the bill. Baela goes to get you a soda from the vending machine. “I’m sorry,” Aegon says miserably when the two of you are alone in the hospital room. Beer and remorse sweats out of his pores. “I’m sorry I fucked everything up in Reykjavik.”

“I know, Aegon. I’m not mad at you.”

“I shouldn’t have said it. I had way too much Icelandic beer, that was my bad. But it was supposed to be a compliment.”

“It was kinda sweet. In an unhinged, debaucherous sort of way. An Aegon way.”

And he burrows his head against your chest, and you comb your fingers through his messy blond hair with your uninjured hand, and you wish you understood why the coincidences of the world had brought you together if it was only a blip, an error, a momentary crossing of orbits before you returned to your designated places on opposite ends of the universe.

In the elevator, as the four of you zoom up to the top floor where the band’s suites are, you check your phone to discover that in addition to well-wishes from Luke, Rhaena, Daeron, and Cregan, Jace has sent you a WhatsApp message: A meme to make you feel better…

“Ugh,” you groan, and toss your phone back into your purse. You try to ignore the fact that there is nothing from Aemond, not a single word, not a missed call, nothing.

“You good?” Aegon asks.

“Yeah. The drugs the hospital gave me aren’t quite cutting it.” That’s very true, although that’s not the whole problem.

“You want some Vicodin?”

“No thank you, Aegon.”

“Oxy? Percocet? Klonopin? Codeine? Demerol? Coke? Speedball? Valium? Weed gummies?”

You blink at him as Criston and Baela stare at the elevator walls, trying not to listen in. “I think I’ll just go to sleep now.”

“Okay, Stargirl. Sure. Whatever you want.” He grabs your face, lands a kiss on your forehead, staggers off to his suite when the elevator doors ding and open. You walk in the opposite direction to yours after thanking Criston and Baela. As you pass Aemond’s suite, you can hear people arguing inside, heavy footsteps and sharp words.

“You need to get better control over your people,” Aemond is saying.

“Who even is she?! I know she’s not Aegon’s girlfriend. Aegon doesn’t have girlfriends.”

There is a gap of silence, and you wonder what Aemond will tell Shelby. She’s a fan, she’s an employee, she’s a groupie, she’s a slut. At last he says, drained: “She’s a therapist.”

“Oh, for you?”

And you can hear Aemond sigh through the door, perpetually a broken thing now, forever someone in need of being stitched back together; they got the flesh back in December, but the soul is still unmended.

You go to your suite, wash the night off of you, and pull on your Cookie Monster pajama pants and an oversized One Direction t-shirt. You can’t sleep yet; the pain in your wrist is too bad, the chaos in your mind is too loud. You take another pill from the bottle the doctor gave you and go out onto your balcony and sit in the sounds of Singapore past midnight: sparce traffic, buzzing cicadas, the ocean, the wind rocking the palm trees. When you hear the sliding glass door open, you aren’t sure who to expect: Aegon, Baela, Criston, Cregan, Jace. It is none of these people. It is Aemond. He stands there rigidly, like he hadn’t planned to get this far. He is in black—as usual—but he wears no sunglasses.

“Criston really needs to start keeping a closer eye on those extra room keys,” you say.

“I’m sorry about what happened tonight.”

“You don’t need to pretend to be worried about me. It’s fine, just leave.”

“I feel responsible.”

“I’m not someone you consider worthy of concern,” you say. “You want me to be honest with you? You want to keep a running list of my sins in your little black-paged notebook? Alright, sure. I’ve been hooking up with Aegon. Only after Reykjavik, and not…like…all the time or exclusively or anything. But occasionally. And I know exactly what you think of me and how I’ve chosen to live my life. So don’t come out here acting like you care when you clearly don’t.”

“I know what you told Shelby. I don’t…” He stares at you, a little mystified, a little grateful. “I don’t understand why you keep defending me after what I said.”

Because I believe you deserve better. And I care about you. And I can’t stop. And honestly it fucking sucks and so if you could just leave, that would be great. “That’s just what I do.”

You expect Aemond to go. Instead, he sits down in the other chair, lights one of his Benson & Hedges cigarettes, takes a drag and exhales smoke in a long, slow breath like a hushed confession. “I once asked what made you want to be a therapist.”

“And I didn’t tell you.”

“No.”

Your eyes list to him like a ship in a storm, groggy, clawing for purchase. “Do you still want to know?”

“I do.”

The night sounds like wind in clattering wet leaves, car horns and rolling tires, ocean waves, indistinct echoes of laughter like a memory. Aemond waits for you, patient, eternal, or at least so long-lived it’s practically the same thing. You wonder what he sees when he looks at you like this. You wonder why you can’t outrun what you feel for him, a curse or a spell or both tangled up together like veins beneath skin. “I had a boyfriend when I was in high school,” you say. “And I took pictures for him. Because he asked me to, yes, but also because I wanted to, because it made me feel desirable, and powerful, and like I was choosing to share something special with him. No one talked me into it, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. And when we broke up, he sent those pictures to his friends. And they sent them to their friends, and they sent them to their friends, and I’m sure you can do the math from there.”

Aemond doesn’t look disgusted or horrified or pitying. He looks furious, and not at you. “That’s illegal, right?”

“In some places, sure. In Missouri? Ten years ago?” You smirk cynically, shaking your head. “The only person anyone was condemning was me. And it wasn’t just the students. They said things, obviously. They wrote notes and they whispered. But it was the teachers too, and the parents, and the administrators. It was everyone. Staring at me. Talking about me like they understood who I was.” You meet Aemond’s eye. “And you called me a slut.”

He voice is hoarse. “I didn’t know.”

“But you still said it.”

“What I said…” he sighs shakily, rubbing his face with one hand. He crushes the end of his cigarette beneath his Adidas sneakers and then lights another. “What I said wasn’t a reflection on you or what you did with Aegon. That’s not what it was about. It was about me, it was about how I interpreted things, and…I mean, you get that, right? You know that. You’re a professional. I took what Aegon told everyone and I bounced it off a few mirrors and ran it through my filter of how I’ve been taught to believe the world operates, and that’s why I said what I did in Reykjavik. It wasn’t about you. It wasn’t true. And I could never express to you how sorry I am.”

Tell me the whole story, you think, you plead, watching him like parched earth looks for rain. That you were afraid my feelings for you weren’t real. That you wanted me then and you still want me now. That you’ve never wanted anything the way you want me. But that’s not what Aemond says.

“What happened next?” he asks gently.

“What do you think? I had to be homeschooled. I lost every friend I’d ever had. I was terrified to leave the farm and go anywhere…to Walmart, to McDonald’s, to 7-Eleven, anywhere. And my parents…they’re Southern Baptists, okay? They tried to be supportive. They really did. They didn’t shame me, and that alone was a huge leap for them, and I’m very grateful. But they had no idea how to talk to me about what had happened. What they did do was find someone else for me to talk to. She was a therapist, and she saved my life. And when I got into UChicago, I decided that the only thing I wanted to do was help people in the same way.”

“Why didn’t you stay in Chicago?” Aemond says, bewildered. “I mean, why would you go back to Kansas City after the way people treated you there? So fucking closed-minded and hypocritical and…and…and evil? You were a kid. You were a goddamn kid and they tried to destroy you. Why would you go back there? You could have gone anywhere else. You still can.”

“I considered it,” you admit. “But my family has lived in Missouri for almost 200 years. It was once a place of opportunity, somewhere for people who had nothing to carve out a piece of the world and make it their own. Why should I let anyone banish me without my permission? And besides, I think Missouri could use more people like me. I can make a difference there. Someone like me in Chicago or London or Los Angeles or New York or Miami? I’m a dime a dozen. In Missouri, I’m part of the change. In Missouri, I can save people like I was once saved.”

“Hmm,” Aemond says. And then he smiles at you, kind and tender. “Pretentious.”

“Oh shut up,” you laugh, shoving him with your uninjured hand: his deep, warm, rolling chuckle, his broad shoulders that barely give beneath your palm.

His eye flicks down to your One Direction t-shirt. “And a traitor.”

Want me to take it off? you almost say. Instead: “As if you don’t idolize them. As if you wouldn’t deign to have a favorite One Direction song.”

“I couldn’t divulge information as sensitive as that.”

“Aegon tells me you spend a lot of time brooding to The Script.”

Aemond groans, but good-naturedly. You got me, his face says, surrendering. “True.”

“What’s your go-to crying on the floor song? Breakeven? Nothing?”

“The Man Who Can’t Be Moved. But now you have to give me one in return.”

“If You Ever Come Back. A certified tragic bop.”

He nods, thoughtful. He slides his phone out of his pocket to check it.

“Sexts from Shelby?” you ask with undisguisable vitriol.

“No. Favorite Coldplay song?”

You remember that night with him in Rome: the concert, the motorcycle, the lingering in the hotel room doorway as you waited for him to ask to stay. “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall. What’s yours? You strike me as a The Scientist stan.”

“Viva La Vida,” he counters.

Of course. “I used to rule the world,” you quote.

“Now the old king is dead, long live the king.” He looks out into the city, streetlights and ocean and wind, sounds of the planet you call home. Again, you think of Rome. “I should have kissed you,” he says softly.

Your heart stops like a car against a brick wall, glorious euphoric shattering. “What?”

“My favorite One Direction song. I Should Have Kissed You.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah, that’s great.”

“Yours?”

You have to think about this. At last you decide: “Through The Dark.”

“Ah. A deep cut.” Aemond checks his phone again. “Look up,” he tells you.

“Why…?”

“Right now. At the sky. Look up.”

You go to the balcony railing and peer up into the sea of darkness and moon and stars. And at first you don’t see anything extraordinary…but then you do. There’s a thin flash like white ink on black paper, tracing its way along the arc of the Earth. There’s a visitor, there’s a time traveler. “What is it?” you ask Aemond, entranced.

He gets up to stand alongside you. “The Perseids. A meteor shower that happens every summer. They’re difficult to spot from a city. Too bright, too much light pollution. There are hundreds, but here we’re lucky to glimpse one or two.”

“But they’re always there,” you muse, remembering what he told you in Rome about the comet that gave the band its name. “Whether we see them or not.”

Aemond points up at the faint silvery glimmer in the indigo night. “The Perseids are from a comet too. They’re debris left by Swift-Tuttle.”

“Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like Donati, does it? And no potential for cute donut merch.”

Aemond smiles. “Comet Swift-Tuttle is the largest object to cross Earth’s orbit so closely. Very, very closely. Luckly, it only swings by us every 133 years. It’s been called the single most dangerous object known to humanity.”

“I thought that was Jace.”

He bursts out laughing, gazing over at you with a face that in this moment he is unashamed of. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

“I’m a universe away from Shelby, that’s for sure.”

Aemond’s smile dies. He clears his throat and puts out his cigarette. “I guess I should get going.”

“Yeah, I need to go to sleep.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

He hesitates, he acts like he’s going to say more, he leaves you on the balcony as he retreats back to his own suite, his own life, his own past and future and secrets.

And before you crawl into your empty bed, you look up at the Perseids one last time as they hurtle through space and time and gravity, through a landscape of constellations that Aemond could tell you the names of, through the dark.

[heartinhyacinth]

Please read fully if possible.

For a brief moment, I was unsure about sharing this here. Then I remember the scene from TGCF between Xie Lian and a farmer from Yushi Huang’s kingdom.

“If I am causing trouble for the rain master, I will not pester any further.”

However, the farmer said, “why won’t you pester? Because it’s shameful? This is about the survival of your {kingdom}—shouldn’t you pester us to death? Is it so hard to lower yourself and ask?”

Then I remember Hua Cheng. To watch your beloved in pain with your own eyes and be unable to do anything—that’s the worst suffering in the world.

The doctors, as well as I, strongly suspect cancer. Amputation was recommended as pretty much the only option to reduce pain, but there lies the risk that the cancer has metastasized to her chest or throughout other areas of her body. We cannot afford to do both. If we take more X-rays and find out it hasn’t spread, we cannot afford to amputate her paw before it does. If we do not check if it has spread, we may go into debt and put her through more suffering only for it to be too late for amputation to help much anyway. We would not be able to afford any more treatment after that.

If you had asked me before what the worst pain of my life was, I’d have said something along the lines of suspected gastroparesis or the time I had to get surgery for a badly infected ingrown toenail when I was thirteen—nitroglycerin was sprayed on my toe as a numbing agent before a needle as thick as spaghetti was inserted into it and a quarter of my nail was removed nearly all the way up to the joint.

However, If you’d ask me today what the worst pain of my life was, it would be this. If you’d ask me a week from now, it would be this. If you’d ask me in a year, though perhaps as soon as even a month, I fear it would be something far worse.

She is in pain and action needs to be taken as soon as possible. This world thrives on insisting upon every chance imaginable that money and independence should live as the core themes of humanity. So far, it is getting its way about the ‘money’ part. I ask that it does not about the ‘alone’ part.

Her name is Lily. She is the friendliest cat you will ever meet in your entire life. She does not care if you are a human, a dog, a cat, or even a rock—she will love you. She sleeps in my jacket when it’s cold. She lays on my face. She sits on wrapping paper like the gift that she is. She loves bread and tortillas and cheese. She sticks her head in my water glass when I’m not looking. She bosses around her best friend—a cat twice her size that everyone else is scared of. She cuddles with her and sleeps with her head tucked in the crook of her neck. She sticks her whiskers up my nose when I’m sad and makes me laugh and licks my tears away. She sits on my shoulder like a bird. She sleeps between my arms with her head on my pillow next to mine. She walks on the piano and plays music. She loves kisses more than air itself and perks up when she knows they’re coming. She cuddles up so close to me I always say it’s like she’s trying to crawl inside my mouth. She purrs more than she doesn’t. She is sassy and will bite your nose or your toes if you put them by her. She looks at me like I’m her entire world and she is mine. She’s my bright-eyed girl who was happy from the moment she arrived.

She is my child. She is my best friend. She is in pain.

This world says her life is not worth it if I cannot pay. This world will not compromise.

This world says If I cannot do it, I am alone. I am asking you to be the compromise. I am asking you to say this is not our world. I can’t do this alone.

Anything at all is appreciated more than you can ever know. Even if all you’re able to do right now is share this ❤️

[lena-hills]

New fic is up! Short fluffy hurt/comfort, because Kanan deserves getting some comfort too!

On Ao3 at A Touch of Home

Star Wars: Rebels, Kanan/Hera

Rated G, 2k words.

Summary: When Kanan tries to shrug off a crate to the head, Hera realizes her stubborn crew member needs a little extra care and tenderness.

“Stop struggling and let me touch you!”

Not words Hera would have pictured herself saying to Kanan before today, but the ridiculous man had the instincts of a feral tooka cat when injured.

“You don't have to worry about me, I’m fine,” her clearly wrong crewmate insisted. “It’s just a couple scratches. I’ll jump in the shower and kriff!” Kanan shouted with a jump as his hand grazed the apparently tender wound in an attempt to straighten his hair.

At Hera’s sternly raised eye towards the dark red mess now on his fingertips, he finally deflated and dropped onto the faded acceleration couch with a defeated sigh.

The crate he’d been lifting had been a practically ancient storage container, the structural integrity finally giving way to gravity as the brittle plasteel shattered over Kanan’s head and rained down to the floor.

“I know it stings going on, but I can use the numbing spray if you're worried?” Hera offered as she sanitized her hands and began pulling supplies out from the med kit.

“Nah, I’m fine. Nothing I haven't dealt with before.”

She scooted closer beside him and reached out to angle his head towards the light for a better view. Combing back some of the hairs that had come loose from his usual nerftail, her eyes were drawn to a dark shadow deeper into his hairline. It wasn't a piece of plasteel, but a jagged, raised scar. “I can see that,” she said, running a quick finger over the line to check that no shards had found their way into the still faintly puckered line of skin. “I might not be a medic, but I promise I’m better than whoever treated this one.”

A wry chuckle from Kanan made his head wriggle in her hands. “Yeah, whiskey and dura-tape aren't the best choices for medical supplies. But you work with what you've got.”

At her look of concern he added, “Street kids don't get bacta patches. I learned to improvise.” The casual shrug that accompanied the words was too overdone to be natural, a move clearly crafted to soothe away her worries over him. “It's fine. I'm just more used to patching myself up when something like this happens.”

A bleak picture formed in her mind as she worked to remove the scattered slivers - the sweet young boy she'd sometimes catch glimpses of in Kanan’s eyes in quiet moments, suddenly abandoned and forced to survive entirely alone. He always jumped to do whatever job she needed, quick to volunteer for washing dishes or scrambling under the engine for repairs. She’d assumed he just liked to stay busy, but the tension in his shoulders and words at her insistence to help him for once were hinting towards something different.

“There,” she said, carefully laying the small bacta patch over the now-cleaned wound. “That should stop the bleeding, and the worst of the shards are out.”

Kanan quickly sat up. “Thanks. I’ll go start cleaning up the mess in the cargo bay.”

“No you will not,” Hera ordered, grabbing his sleeve and tugging him back down. “I said the worst of it. Those little pieces are sharp and get everywhere, I still need to check nothing else is buried in that fur of yours.”

That got her a small smile at least.

“On humans it's called hair.”

Hera shook her head. “I’ve seen you shirtless, it's definitely fur. Long fur and short fur maybe, but fur.”

“You shouldn't have to worry about me,” he tried next, not pulling further away but not settling back into the couch either. “I can take care of myself, I swear.”

“Just because you can doesn't mean you have to. We look out for each other now.” She released his sleeve but let her hand slip down to catch his, trying to give back a measure of the support and care he was always so eager to give to her. “And I’m the one who took on questionable cargo. If there had been something sharper or dangerous inside-”

Kanan interrupted her worried rant with a soft, “Hey.” The solid hand she held gave her a reassuring squeeze. “Being here with you is the longest I’ve gone without getting into a bar brawl in years. I was overdue for a mild stabbing or black eye, keeps me on my toes.”

Of course he would try to turn this around to make her smile when he was the one who was injured.

But not today. It was Kanan’s turn to be taken care of for once. He wasn't alone anymore, she just needed to make him see it.

“I need to check the rest of your hairy-fur for more pieces so you don't bleed on my ship,” she said firmly, guiding him to lean back against her as she knelt beside him on the couch. The look he gave over his broad shoulder was still somewhat wary, but he followed her lead.

Hera slowly worked her fingers through the soft strands, peering close for any remaining slivers of plasteel while also trying to mimic the soothing touches Kanan had given her when she was sick. Lifting the long hairs as she worked, she realized they had something of a mind of their own, not unlike lekku. “It only wants to go straight back? Why doesn't it stay where I put it?” she asked, watching the chunks of hair move and twist as she attempted to part and section.

“It's what it's used to,” he explained. “If you always have it one way, that's how it’s going to try to stay.”

“Maybe it's good to try something different once in a while,” Hera said gently. She wondered if he understood her meaning as her fingers cautiously combed through the surprisingly long lengths, soft as synthsilk as they drifted over her skin and smelling faintly of her fruit-scented soap she'd offered to share. “It looks nice down.”

“Thanks.” The word was quiet, but the slight softening of the tension where his hand lay over his knee made Hera smile.

Mostly certain her patient was now cleared of potential danger, she began to slowly draw her fingernails over his scalp in a gentle massage. What had seemed a solid color of rich brown when tied back now reflected the light with a beautiful mix of honey golds and deep reds as she stroked his head. The visuals were so distracting she nearly missed the warning signs of a serious medical complication.

“Kanan, do you have any allergies? Like, to bacta or something?” she asked, trying not to sound panicked. The med kit had basic antihistamines, but the sudden flush of hives down both of his forearms was rapidly becoming terrifying.

“No, why?”

At her horrified pointing to his bumpy skin, Kanan merely waved her off with, “It's just goosebumps,” as if that was a helpful explanation.

“Where did you catch a disease from a goose?”

The laugh he gave was warm and far more relaxed than Hera considered appropriate for the situation. “Not a disease,” he explained. “It's a thing human skin does to our hair, see?” He took her hand and ran her finger slowly over his skin, letting her feel the little tiny hairs sticking up on the bumps. “Perfectly normal. Happens when we get cold and stuff.

Hera bent down to examine more closely. “Should I get you a blanket or turn up the heat? Do humans need a warmer temperature when injured?”

Kanan flushed slightly and looked down. “No, it, uh,” he stammered. “What you were doing, it just felt nice.”

“Oh.”

It seemed her plan was working better than she'd thought.

Not that Hera was finished yet.

“Sit tight a moment,” she said, giving his shoulder a quick squeeze as she got up from the couch. “I need to grab something.”

The confusion on his face when she returned a few minutes later was absolutely worth the effort. “You can cook?” he asked, looking mystified but touched at the two steaming mugs of soup gripped in her hand as she placed them on the table.

“My secret recipe; spicy instant noodles with an egg dropped in,” she declared, pulling two spoons from her pocket and putting them in each mug with a flourish. “More expensive than ration packs, definitely less healthy, but perfect for when you're sick.”

“I had a crate land on my head,” he said, his lips curling up in a soft smile that made her chest tighten. “That's not sick.”

Hera bent forward to gently place the cold-pack she had grabbed from the food-saver on the dark bruise slowly growing at the corner of his hairline. “Close enough.”

“Thanks, for all of this,” Kanan murmured in his rich, warm voice just as Chopper rolled in to join them.

The mammal is still alive? her droid beeped, sending his optical sensors examining Kanan’s proximity to her with clear displeasure. This unit can rectify that!

“C1-10P,” she reprimanded, “we do not speak like that to family.”

Since when does the monkey count as family? Chopper warbled with dismay.

“Since I said so,” Hera said firmly. “This is Kanan’s home too. Be nice.”

The sounds her astromech made as he spun away were about as far from nice as mechanically possible, but they didn't seem to upset Kanan.

“Family?” he asked, the word a whisper as he stared at her with hope and wonder in his gentle eyes.

“Yes,” she said with a firm nod. Whatever happened to them, wherever her mission against the Empire led, she could at least make sure Kanan learned he deserved to be cared for too. “Family.”

While the Ghost would always be home, Hera did miss the automated dishwasher from their house on Lothal. Especially when her usual ship’s ‘dishwasher’ was out of commission.

Kanan lay curled up on one half of the acceleration couch with Jacen on the other, both wrapped in blankets and passed out again. Twi’leks were fortunately immune to Corellian flu, but it seemed human-Twi’lek hybrids were not, with both father and son running the usual gamut of aches, mild fevers, and exhaustion.

Despite all of that, somehow Kanan still was alert enough to hear the clinking of their mugs from supper being placed in the drying rack.

“I’ll get dishes,” he mumbled groggily, one hand stretched out to try to find the table as a guide.

“You will stay right where you are, mister,” Hera said in the tone that, even while feverish, her husband should recognize meant no arguing. “General’s orders.”

Making her way back from the kitchen, she was pleased to note that he still had sense enough to listen. Two furry heads, one rich browns with faint streaks of silver that caught the light and one bright green, lay quietly on the faded orange cushions.

When Hera slipped back into her seat between them, both quickly snuggled up against her, Jacen’s head pressed into her leg while Kanan instinctively shifted up into his favorite spot in her lap. Her hands fell into comfortable old patterns, tenderly running through her boys’ soft hair with quiet, soothing pets. Jacen merely made a soft, sleepy hmmm sound at the touches and curled deeper into his blanket, while his father’s head turned back and forth and pressed into her hand like Sabine’s Loth-cath when it demanded scritches, all while making a low, contented groan.

What a difference fifteen years together could make.

“Wake me up if you need anything,” Kanan said, words slightly muffled against her thigh.

Well, perhaps not entirely different.

“You're the sick one, love, Try the other way around,” she said with a gentle laugh.

His hands abandoned the blanket, one stretching over her lap to lay on Jacen’s shoulder while the other wrapped possessively around her knee. “I have everything I could ever need, right here.”

Hera resumed the slow tracing of her fingernails over his scalp in the way that always made him relax for her. “I know, love. Me too.”