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notjustjavierpena · 9 months ago

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Nerf

Series Masterpost | Main Masterpost | Support a disabled creator

A/N: There’s a little background to this. Sweet @sawymredfox posted a picture in an inbox that I can’t remember who belonged to but the picture was of a Nerf gun with a note asking for a gunfight over dinner. This one's for you, Wym!

Summary: Hubby returns from work to a Nerf gunfight over takeaway privileges. Luckily, he has tactical training and quite the appetite.

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!reader (no y/n)

Tags: Domestic bliss, fluff, pregnant reader, javi loves and worships his wife, pussy eating, fingering, squirting, rough piv sex, multiple orgasms, creampie

Word count: 4.7k

Link to this work on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57685981

Nerf

Javier comes home to his apartment like always on a Friday afternoon, fiddling around with his bundle of keys that he fishes out from his pocket to find the one to the front door all the while carrying his work bag in his other hand. He has planned a date night with you tonight and has been excited about it since Monday morning when you suggested it over breakfast. He cannot wait to see you in your shared home, already grinning from ear to ear at the idea of giving his wife a long kiss as you discuss the movie choices you’ve rented at the local Blockbuster. He doesn’t really care about what you insist on watching, easily distracted by you anyway as you watch your movie with curious eyes. He’s more interested in the food that you are going to eat, hooked on the idea of ordering greasy Chinese food to share with each other.

When he finally gets the door open, the apartment is dead quiet and the noise of Javier throwing his keys on the side table echoes through the hallway.

“Honey?” He calls out but you don’t reply.

He takes one step forward only to hear the sound of cheap plastic scraping across the floorboards. He furrows his brow and looks down, noticing the toy gun with a sticky note attached to it. He sets down his bag by the shoe rack and bends down to pick the gun up.

It’s a Nerf gun, more specifically a poor imitation of an automatic weapon. He checks the magazine and sees that it is full, loads it again, and only then reads the note sticking to it.

Husband,

Welcome home. I’m hiding in the apartment with a Nerf gun. Here is the other one… The winner decides what takeaway we’re having for dinner.

May the odds be ever in your favor,

Your wife

A grin spreads on his face, his senses heightened now that he knows you are watching him from somewhere.

As he pockets the note with as little noise as possible, he smirks with determination and thinks that you have no idea who you are up against. He secures his grip on the toy gun, remembering his tactical training from Colombia, and moves silently through the doorway to the living room.

He scans the space with his heart beating in his ears but where he expects you to jump out from somewhere, maybe behind the couch where you’ll be relaxing later, he finds nothing. He takes silent footsteps across the wooden floorboards, knowing which creak, as he makes his way through the small space, checking behind the curtain by pulling it open with the tip of the rifle. Not there either.

“I’m coming for you, esposa (wife),” he tells you tauntingly when he makes a left into the kitchen. You’re usually more into pizza, stringy with cheese and topped with mushrooms, but he really wants that goddamn chow mein from just around the corner. He tightens his grip, on a mission.

He inches forward to see if you are underneath the breakfast table with a cloth that you bought at a flea market a few months back. He didn’t think it would fit the rest of the furniture in the apartment but you insisted, and you were right. He loves the mismatched chairs surrounding its slightly quirky pattern now, pulling one out to make sure you really aren’t underneath the tablecloth by quickly lifting it and aiming.

The kitchen is completely empty, he decides, unless you are hiding in the refrigerator which he seriously doubts. Despite this, the silence is thick with impending doom and he takes a deep breath to steady himself, not about to lose to a person with no experience in the field. He listens carefully, taking a few steps back and suddenly a Nerf dart flies past his ear.

He whirls around, having noticed the slight movement just in time. And there you are, right in the doorway to the kitchen with a huge, beaming smile on your face, gun pointed at him, and wearing nothing but your white cotton underwear. He fails to concentrate on anything else except your gorgeous body, the only one in this whole world that he has worshiped multiple times and hasn’t lost interest in. He smiles at the sight of your baby bump that has just started to grow round and the way your panties’ elastic band sits across it. However, you play unfairly, a Nerf dart suddenly making its way toward him.

He manages to duck it, hearing it hit the kitchen cabinets behind him with a soft thud before clattering to the floor. He raises his gun and you squeal with delight, turning on your heel, and running through your shared home. He fires a few darts in your direction without hesitation but none of them get you and you’re gone again.

“Nice try, baby!” You laugh triumphantly. He follows the sound of your voice, your padding feet, and your giggles that elevate his heartbeat with indescribable warmth and happiness. They lead him to the bedroom, steadily creeping along the walls until he nudges the door open with his foot, gun at the ready.

He guesses that you’ve stepped into the closet where his shirts hang because you won’t have had time to roll underneath the bed. He makes his way across the floor and swings the door open only to find nothing but his old clothes. He furrows his brow but then tenses up at the thrilling feeling of the tip of your gun poking into his back. He smirks to himself.

“Hah!” You exclaim with glee, “Isn’t this a surprise? I can’t believe I won!”

His smile becomes more mischievous. You haven’t shot him yet, too arrogant to think that you won’t have to because he’ll surrender. Too bad for you that he is a stubborn man who loves you just a little more than anyone else before him. It’s enough to not let you win as you love it the most.

In a flurry of tactical decisions and moves, he manages to whip around and grab the gun to fling it out of your hands. It falls to the floor with a clatter and your eyes widen. It dawns on you that you have noticed his plan too late and you end up with a Nerf dart hitting you square in the chest.

“Gotcha!” Javier celebrates.

You stumble back dramatically, clutching frantically at your chest after impact to earn a genuine laugh from your husband. You end up on the floor and Javier steps forward to stand with a leg on either side of you.

“Do you stand down, soldier?” Javier asks, imitating the sound of reloading. When he aims at your chest again, you hold your hands up in mock surrender.

“Fine, you win take away privileges,” you giggle but still try to reach out for his gun.

Javier drops to his knees, getting comfortable on your thighs while you start to squirm, “You’re not very convincing, wife.”

“I’m being completely genuine, husband,” you reassure and accidentally push up into him, the slightest friction against his jeans making him feel a stir of desire in the length of his cock.

Just when you try to reach for his gun again, he throws it next to the other and thus out of your reach. He leans down over you, hovering over your pouting face, and kisses your lips, “You really thought you could beat me so easily? Chica tonta (silly girl).”

The exhilarating feeling of your little game has left him clouded by thoughts of you. His eyes start to wander down your figure, his yearning for you that’s been building since he left in the morning making him unable to stop them. Your chest rises and falls a little quicker underneath his greedy gaze. Your breasts are more full than usual because of the baby growing inside of you and you look so stunning sprawled out on the floor at his mercy that he can’t help but let his hands wander as well.

You arch up to catch his lips in a tantalizing kiss that leaves him short of breath. Warmth thrums underneath his skin, a result of your heat radiating through him even as his fingertips only ghost down towards your waist and stomach. Your skin is electric, soft to the touch, and glowing just right because you are pregnant.

“Javi,” you breathe softly as your hands come up to tangle in his hair, messing it up after he has had it under control the whole day. He nods but doesn’t keep his mouth on yours, instead lets the tip of his nose trail over your cheek and down your jaw whilst leaving kisses on your trembling neck as he descends.

“I missed you all day,” he whispers, nibbling and kissing your skin until a thin sheen of spit runs down the pulsing vein along your throat. When he reaches your belly, beautiful and pregnant, he presses several kisses all over the growing bump while listening to you sigh with contentment. He smiles into your skin, briefly resting his cheek on you to look up at your face, “How have you both been today?”

“We’ve been good,” you hum and run your hand through his hair, flattening it down again by pushing it back as you caress the top of his head, “We’ve missed you though. They’ve been moving around a bit but I think they’ve gone to sleep now… all that running around.”

“Lots of privacy for us then,” he teases. He shifts positions, scooting backward until he is kneeling between your legs. He pecks your belly repeatedly, “You just sleep, bebito (little baby) while I take care of your pretty mamá.”

“What do you have planned?” You ask, wiggling your hips to try and get comfortable on the hard floor. He smirks at you and crawls forward to yank at the covers on the bed, pulling them far enough off the mattress until the pillows follow. He helps you to lift your pelvis up so he can scoot the soft pillow underneath your hips and then does the same with your head.

“Can I eat this sweet little pussy, mamá?” He asks, finally kneeling in position again and watching you plant your feet on the ground by bending your knees. His own knees are hurting slightly but he ignores it because he knows he’ll forget it once he gets lost in your cunt.

“Please,” you swallow thickly after a hitched breath. You nod eagerly with that little expression on your face that he loves when you’re getting treated for simply being the love of his life; all softened features, mouth slightly open, and pleading eyes watching as he goes down.

Gently, he puts his palms on the back of your warm thighs and pushes your legs towards your chest, enjoying seeing you in the same position that he put that baby inside of you while he still can. You follow his movements without protest, keeping them there while he hooks his fingers under the waistband of your panties.

“You want it?” He asks while dragging the fabric down over your hips as you nod repeatedly, snapping it slightly from how you barely register that you have to cooperate. He laughs as you do, a tiny giggle escaping you as you hold your legs up with your hands under your knees when he slips the underwear off your feet and tosses it to the side.

Your pussy is on display for him like this, your pushed-together thighs and your ass slightly elevated from the pillow making it stick out even more. You squeeze around your calves to hold your position and he can see your dripping slit quiver, inviting him in to squish his head between your thighs.

He flattens his tongue to lick a long, greedy stripe from the cleft of your ass to your clit, feeling you pulse in excitement as he finally touches you with his mouth. He groans at your sweet taste, repeating the move to concentrate on gulping down some of your slick like he hasn’t had a drink all day and Texan summer is peaking. You make him so hard in his jeans that it hurts, the length of his cock straining against the zipper as your sweet scent fills his nostrils. As he eats you out slowly and hears you sigh with pleasure above him, he agrees with himself that he’ll fuck you too. He thought this would be enough but no, you look perfect, swollen and warm below him and he doesn’t want to go through this late afternoon without feeling your heat around his cock.

“Fuck, baby,” you gasp the way you do when your orgasm starts to tug from within you. He stops only using the tip of his tongue to be more forceful in his treatment. He covers your mound with his mouth, hollowing his cheeks as he sucks at your clit to hear you whine a mhmm…

You gush a little wetness when he releases you briefly, a drop of it sliding down between your cheeks so it accidentally wets the pillow you’re writhing on. Javier doesn’t care right now, will just throw everything in the washer later. He kisses your clit a few times before going in again, this time pressing his tongue against you to wiggle it against your clit that’s now hard from how turned on you are.

There’s a climb in your pitch, a little higher moan coming out your mouth as he starts to let small flicks of his tongue rain down on your gorgeous clit. He concentrates on getting you there, heart beating in his ears but still managing to listen to your heaving breaths, notice your palms tighten around your legs as you channel the intensity into whatever you can and feel your hips involuntarily move so he has to grab the widest part of your thighs and hold you in place.

When you start to hold your breath after a particularly long whine, he pulls away to stop your orgasm with the excuse that he has to breathe. You look down at him, releasing your grip around your knees to let your thighs fall out to the sides. You look frustrated, your racing heartbeat evident from the way your pussy pulses in a steady rhythm.

“I hate you,” you say through gritted teeth, hips lifting off the pillow for just a moment as you chase something, anything to no avail.

“No, you don’t, Mamacita, not with what I’m about to do to you,” he grins, eyes glued to your glistening slit, watching the shine of his own spit covering your delicate skin. He grabs your ankles to plant your feet on the floor like you’d done briefly earlier, only to slide his hands upward over your shins, knees, and thighs until they sit on your hips. He gropes your jiggly thighs for a second, watching his movements vibrate all the way up to your bra-covered tits. They jump a little and he knows he has never seen anything so perfect, catching his hungry eyes and attention for a little too long. When he wants to smirk at you, he sees your pouty face and chuckles, “Alright, I’ll hurry up. Gotta give you what you want when dinner isn’t your call.”

You bite your bottom lip as he descends on your cunt again, tensing up the muscle of his tongue to lick a long stripe between your soaked folds. He moans when your hands find his hair, tugging gently on the follicles of his scalp. When he dares glance up at your writhing body, he can only see your tensed-up jaw as you have thrown your head back.

“Fuck, Javi,” you whine, “F-fingers. Make me come on your fingers, please.”

He can definitely do that. He lets his dominant hand slide down between your legs while he holds himself up with the other one on your hip, keeping your pelvis down as he sucks hard on your clit. Two of his fingers enter you and curl toward the front of your walls, seeming to have a direct line to your spine because you arch your back with a groan.

Javier hums with pride, fucking you open on his digits whilst hollowing his cheeks around your clit. He drags the pads of his fingers over your g-spot again and again, hearing how your breathing speeds up once more and feeling your heartbeat as you rhythmically start to clench around his middle- and ring finger. He doesn’t have to look, is simply driven crazy by the mere thought of the finger that he wears his wedding band on disappearing into you over and over.

“I’m coming,” you announce with a cry, barely able to catch your breath at this point. You tug harsher on his hair, pushing your hips up to earn more friction, “I’m gonna come, baby. Fuck, you’re making me come.”

Javier bobs his head slightly as he nips and sucks and licks, moving his fingers inside of you almost frantically to get the reward that he so desperately wants and needs. You squeeze your eyes shut, thighs tensing up and then go completely silent above him for less than a few seconds.

You come with a high-pitched squeal a moment later, pussy going off into rapid spasms that choke his fingers but not enough for him to stop dragging them out while they curl upward. He releases his mouth from your pulsing clit, withdrawing his head from between your thighs so your arms fall to the floor. You gush all over his hand which he doesn’t manage to pull away, twisting your gorgeous body in surprise as you practically wet yourself on the floor. He tightens his grip on you to keep you on your back, hearing you sob with pleasure as he sinks his fingers knuckles-deep into you again and repeats the move.

Another gush soaks the floorboards and you are practically levitating by now, enough for Javier to be sure that he has made up for the fact that his pregnant wife won’t get her takeout craving satisfied. He hears how it sounds in his head, knowing immediately that he should decide on that goddamn pizza if he wants to have it easy.

He snaps out of it to go again at least three times more and when you seem like you can barely handle it anymore, he pulls back but only after a gentle peck on your swollen clit. You squirm in oversensitivity, shaking your head repeatedly while he cannot stop grinning in self-satisfaction. God, how on earth can he of all people have the privilege to make you feel so good?

It takes a moment before your mind isn’t fogged by fireworks going off between your legs anymore and you slump on the floor with a satisfied smile on your face, a giggle bubbling up in your throat which is the most heavenly sound he has ever heard.

“Okay?” He asks with a dazed expression, the taste of you lingering on his tongue. He rubs your thigh up and down, feeling the slight dampness from the sweat and wetness of your body.

You nod in reply, “Mhmm…”

“Made a mess on the floor,” he tells you with a hint of taunting in his voice.

“Mhmm,” you repeat, no shame in your tone which he loves completely, “You’ll clean it up.”

“Oh, will I?” He laughs quietly at the state of you. It’s true though; he will, and as you nod once more, he is already getting up from the floor with an aching hard-on in his jeans.

“Yes because I’ll let you fuck me when you get back,” you grin lazily, letting your thighs fall out to the sides even more to show him your wet cunt. He could skip the step where he gets a towel but you’ll complain about it later tonight if he doesn’t nip it in the bud.

He adjusts his cock in his jeans when he is on his feet and undoes the pants on the way to the bathroom, hands gripping the handle on the bathroom drawer a little too hard when he gets a towel. He slings the towel over his shoulder and pushes the fabric of his pants down over his hips, relieved when his cock is only covered by the softness of his briefs.

When he has patted down the floorboards, just managing to do it before your come has started to soak into the wood, he throws the towel to the side and kneels between your legs again. He looks at you with longing, with a fire in him that feels as if it is getting poured gasoline over it when you look into his eyes with a mischievous grin.

“Can I have it now, baby?” He asks politely as he pushes his briefs down, letting them sit just below his hips because it feels like too much work to undress completely when he so desperately wants to be inside of you. You nod and hold out your hands to signal that he needs to come closer, and he follows through on your silent request but only after taking a last look at the beautiful mess between your legs that he’ll push into soon.

When he crawls over you, you unbutton his shirt to reveal his chest and touch him all over. Your delicate hands roam over the skin of his torso, fingertips sliding through the little but sexy amount of hair there until you grab around the small of his back. You pull him in, he moves closer.

A sharp exhale leaves him as he enters you finally. You on the other hand moan shakily as he fills up every last inch of you, intruding just a little before you relax around him. Your hands slide down and your nails dig into his ass, motioning for him to start moving inside of you.

Your head falls back when he thrusts once then twice, fucking you slowly but harshly into the floor. It’s so ridiculous to think that he only had plans to kiss you when he came home, maybe making love to you in bed after the film you definitely won’t fall asleep to. He braces himself with a hand beside your thrown-back head, leaning down over you to practically latch onto your throat. He kisses along the beautiful arch of your neck, tasting your salty skin and feeling your throat vibrate against his lips with each noise of pleasure you make.

You bend your legs to wrap them around his hips, rocking with him as he fucks into you deeply. Your cunt is so wet and warm around him, echoing each of his groans by choking his dick just as he has come to love it after he started fucking you on the regular three years back. Here he is, happily married to you and he is going to be a father. The thought of what you two have together, what you will achieve together, makes him impossibly hard inside of you, especially when you go and do something as stupidly adorable as a Nerf gunfight. He must have you. Fantastic, sexy, beautiful you.

He rolls his hips to hear you say his name, the floor creaking underneath you as you move together. You tilt your head forward again to kiss him, slotting your mouth over his and tasting your sweat and slick on his tongue. You suck at the tip, hinting at how good you are at going down on him and he groans with how wanton you can come off. You’re not just a sweet girl like everyone says.

“There! Oh fuck, th-there,” you break the kiss to yell out for him as he hits an angle that wasn’t even deliberate, the noise bouncing off the walls. The little old lady who lives downstairs from you will be banging on the door tomorrow, gone before you can answer and having left a cheerful yet unhappy note that starts. It's so nice that you enjoy each other. Javier thinks it’s more than nice.

“Yeah? There, baby?” He does it again to piss off the whole building instead and your fingers dig into his skin with how good it is, “¿Así (like that)?”

“Sí, así (yes, like that),” you sob, your cunt squeezing his dick with how you have another high incoming. He seeks out your lips again but you are busy; your eyes are squeezed shut in concentration on your pleasure and your mouth hangs open as moan after moan leaves it, so he settles for a desperate bite to your jaw.

“I love you,” he says as clearly as he can muster, his own orgasm creeping up on him as he spears you again and again. He moves a little to go harder and faster, his pace slowly increasing until you need to hold onto him to not go upwards on the floor with the strength behind his hips. You slide your hands up his back, nails scratching in their wake until you pull him into your arms. God, he feels so good and safe when you do that. You are both sweaty, chests sticking slightly to each other from how much effort you are putting into being together like this.

“I love you too, esposo (husband),” you whimper feebly and tighten your legs around him to keep him where you want him the most. He can hear you are close in the way your breaths fall from your lips.

“Come for me,” he whispers with a hot breath against your ear that has you shivering on top of everything else, “Por favor, mi amor. Quiero sentirte (Please, my love. I wanna feel you).”

His words send you there, your sounds send him there. You come with a pained noise and then a string of moans, your brows furrowed as your cunt goes off into spasms that he relishes in. They pull his own high from him, his muscles tightening before pleasure washes over him as he fills you up with his spill. It is accompanied by a guttural groan that makes you clench around him just when he thought it was over. He cannot control his hips as he feels it. His pace, albeit slowing down, gets uneven until it comes to a complete halt.

Eventually, he rolls off of you. The both of you groan as he pulls out, and he immediately reaches for the towel which you place between your legs. He turns his head towards you when you do and as you gain eye contact, the both of you laugh in post-orgasmic bliss.

You scoot closer by wiggling your entire body. You also decide to share the pillow under your head with him, pulling into the space between you.

When you rest a hand on your baby bump, he reaches to hold it. Your breaths fall in sync with no need to say anything until you have the energy.

When that time comes, you look at him out of the corner of your eye, “So.”

“So?” He asks and pulls up his underwear.

“What did I lose to?” You elaborate while he buttons and zips his jeans.

“Chinese,” he replies and tries to suppress his excitement in case you start pouting. Instead, you laugh out loud.

“What? Why’s that funny?” He probably looks confused.

“I wanted Chinese,” you clarify with continuous giggles.

“Oh,” he joins in and chuckles, “You never want Chinese.”

“The baby wants Chinese,” you pat your belly with your other hand.

“Must be my kid,” he smirks and rolls onto his side. He pecks your cheek repeatedly.

“Must be,” you turn your head to kiss him but it doesn’t quite feel enough. So he kisses you again, squeezing the hand on your pregnant belly as he does it and when you giggle against his mouth, it seems like the whole reason he was put on Earth is to do all of this and what’s to come with you.

If you would like to follow my writing then go follow @notjustjavierpena-fics and turn on notifications 💖❤️

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anonymous-dee · 2 months ago

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My Top 5 Scum Villain Ships

5.CumPlane

There’s just something so silly about them. I love the way they bicker and banter, and you can’t deny the obvious shitpost potential of them both coming from the real world.

I fucking love the memes where they’re speaking in brainrot to each other and all the other peak lords are like 🤨❓

4. MoShang

They make me so mad fr. I stand with SQH as a child of divorce so yk, I can’t be too upset with him. BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD THEIR ABANDONMENT TRAUMAS LOVE TO CLASH CONSTANTLY AND IT’S SO DJFJDJF 🍽️ I hate it so much *desperately filling my plate with fics and fan art and headcanons and—*

3. JiuYuan / ScumCum

Another ship w the sillies. One of my favorite dynamics with JiuYuan is Shen Yuan being like “ugh” but then realizing how broken Shen Jiu is and then going “sigh, I can fix him…” and then he DOES fix him and it’s sweet and cute and perfect.

And yk, I think it’s so important for Shen Jiu to experience kindness and gentle touch and actual love, and it’s like YEAH I love the drama of QiJiu and LiuJiu, but with QiJiu it doesn’t hit the same because in order for it to work in a /gen way, Yue Qingyuan has to have his redemption arc and regain Shen Jiu’s broken trust.

I still do ship LiuJiu ans QiJiu, but ScumCum is just more wholesome in my eyes.

With Shen Yuan, there was no original betrayal, he just comes out of the transmigration oven with warm hands and healing vibes. For the most part.

I like that they are both also similar in a hater way too. If you think about it, they’re both 100% capable of going on the BEST RANTS and being a hater and I just KNOW they have the BEST debriefs after seeing the others do questionable things in public. Yk, they give each other the 👀 “are u seeing this shit” look knowing fully well they are both gonna have a 2 hour mutual ted talk about the absolute audacity.

You also gotta love the dynamic of Tsundere (soft) and Tsundere (will kill a bitch). Because on one hand Shen Yuan has to have his gay awakening so he’s in denial for a hot minute. And then you have Shen Jiu who’s ALSO in denial—probably also in the closet bc he has to overcome his mental block of fearing/despising all men before he can become open to the idea of allowing one man.

#not all men #actually yes, all men #just not that one in particular #yeah him, the fucking twink in the back

And then you can easily end up with a dynamic where both of them realize their feelings and it turns into

SJ: god shen yuan is so fucking annoying (wasn’t allowed to kill someone)

NPC: yeah I hate that guy

SJ: what the FUCK did you just fucking say

I love them thanks.

2. BingLiuShen

**CREDIT BOTH OF THESE BEAUTIFUL ART PIECES TO SAIRUSB AND CHECK OUT THEIR PAGE THEIR ART IS AMAZING**

Slot number 2 goes to BingLiuShen. Everyone repeat after me: SHEN QINGQIU HAS TWO HANDS!

I think the most interesting part about any Poly ship is the multitude of dynamics; it’s more than just SQQ x LQG x LBH. It’s also BingQiu. It’s also LiuShen. It’s also…uh, BingLiu(?) for the life of me I cannot remember if that’s their ship name, BUT ANYWAY.

Each of these individual dynamics has its own individual charm that gets explored once you start overlapping them together. You have the base with some delicious seasoning if you will.

Not gonna lie, it was a 100% tag team effort between SairusB and Celardor that initially sold me on BingLiuShen.

I love Luo Binghe being a menace, Shen Qingqiu being ‘:3’, and Liu Qingge being shy and not used to romance at all. Not that any of them really are, but I love how many ways you can play around with this specific concept, which I will elaborate on more in the next part of the post.

(Anyone who knows me, you know who I’m putting in the number 1 slot)

Everyone please read Sharing is Caring / Love in Another Shape by Celardor on ao3 that fic literaly altered by brain chemistry and it’s so fucking good please believe me PLEASE

1. LiuShen

**CREDIT THIS BEAUTIFUL ARTWORK TO VELINXI, THE ARTIST FOR THE ENGLISH VERSION OF SVSSS**

My beloveds. My silly little guys. My pretty scrimblos. My mipys. Ft. the art that got me to See The Vision™️ for the first time.

Love that we get LiuShen art in the official artstyle btw, I will never shut up about it bc Velinxi’s art is so gorgeous and I cherish everything she draws so so so dearly.

LiuShen is so special to me. I’ve talked about it several times before on my blog but I just love their dynamic so much. Somehow despite both being tsunderes (well, idk if I count SQQ as a FULL tsundere, but still) they end up being so soft with one another it’s so fucking wholesome.

As much as I do enjoy BingQiu, I say as it did not make the top 5 list LMFAO I absolutely love how many ways there are to write LiuShen. Given that SQQ is ship silly putty already, it really does provide the opportunity for endless fun.

There are fics where both of them are self aware of how they feel, there are fics where neither of them are. There are fics where one of them realzies they like the other and have no shame about it. And BOTH are equally as entertaining. I love ‘:3 Liu shidi is pretty I wanna touch him’ fics just as much as I love ‘>:( I’m gonna bring Shen Yuan courting gifts and challenge him to a fight to express my devotion’ ones.

And then you have the fics where one of them is oblivious and accidentally ends up married to the other—I’ve seen it go both ways and it’s perfect every time I swear to god.

Props to Celardor AGAIN because I think they perfectly balance the tsundere and soft vibes between the two. The fic “Sharing is Caring” goes beyond just the silly wife plot it starts out as. It deadass goes from “teehee silly wife plot” to “let’s actually explore the dynamic and the world and the plot beyond just this silly adventure”

Celardor said “I think I see potential here” and both parts of the fic series amount to 254,349 words AND COUNTING BC PART 2 ISN’T DONE YET.

Okay this isn’t a fic review this is a SHIP review so setting Celardor’s fic hesitantly aside, it’s sort of hard for me to explain how much they make me happy but I just love the blushy x blushy dynamic so much LET THEM BE SHY AND SOFT TO EACH OTHER AAAAH

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

What is your favorite SVSSS ship?

#mxtx #mxtx svsss #luo binghe #shen qingqiu #shen yuan #svsss #bingqiu #liu qingge #liushen #scumcum #jiuyuan #moshang #mobei jun #shang qinghua #cumplane #bingliushen #danmei

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dijayeah · 1 month ago

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Ma Meilleure Ennemie //

sylus x fem!reader // [AO3] // wc: 15k // NSFW MDNI 🔞 // ♡ / ↻ — appreciated!

♡ Summary:

You didn't want to but you shot him. His Aether Core reacted. A moment of resonance, a tear in reality—and just like that, Sylus was somewhere else. A world where he had everything he never let himself want. A version of you who loved him without hesitation, who remembered. And for the first time, he was happy despite the guilt. But he was never meant to stay. And returning home means losing you all over again.

♡ A/N notes:

Before diving in, please make sure to check the tags—they exist for a reason. This fic was heavily inspired by Arcane (specifically, the themes surrounding Ekko & Jinx in S2) and the song Ma Meilleure Ennemie, which perfectly captures the mood I wanted to weave into this story. If you really want to elevate the experience, I’ve also attached a playlist that sets the atmosphere—because, let’s be honest, this fic is best consumed with the right music in the background. Playlist link: Ma Meilleure Ennemie playlist

♡ Content:

★ NSFW, soulmates across timelines, memory loss, emotional sex that cuts deep. Reincarnation angst, time distortion, and a love that refuses to die. Established but messy—he remembers, you don’t. Creampie, fingering, aftercare, soft smut laced with heartbreak. Mutual pining in every universe. Parallel worlds, same ache. No beta, just tears and orgasms.

The air between you was thick with the scent of smoke and blood, heavy enough to choke on. The gun in your hand trembled, its metal burning against your palm, but your grip was weak—just as he wanted.

Sylus sat beneath you, reclined in that oversized chair like a man who had already won something unbeknownst to you. His silver hair fell over his forehead in loose soft strands, his crimson-hued eyes locked on yours, gleaming with something unreadable. He could feel your pulse hammering beneath his long fingers, where his hand tightly curled around your wrist, forcing the gun to stay steady. Not yours. His. His heart, his body, his rules. Even now.

“Go on,” he murmured, voice dark, teasing in a way that didn’t feel like it. “You’ve wanted this for so long. Wasn’t it your objective? To shoot the big bad guy of the N109 zone, Miss Hunter?” He scoffed, because even if his life was quite literally in your hands, he was aware that you viewed him as the top dog of the no man’s land, someone who threatened all that you stood for.

Your breath came too fast, too shallow. He could see it—how you hesitated, how your knuckles went white against the grip, how the weight of what you were about to do sat heavy in your ribs, because for one, you have never killed a person, never actually went after someone who wasn’t a wanderer.

Perhaps, in your perspective, it should have been easy. Hell, it was supposed to be easy. He was a criminal, a mass one at that, someone with a goddamn bounty on his head that was worth millions if not billions amounts of money.

His grip was stronger than yours, guiding your hand, forcing your lithe fingers to curl around the trigger as it left your wrist for a moment. His other hand found your wrist once more, calloused thumb brushing slow, deliberate circles over your pulse, feeling it spike under his fingertips like some sort of heightened frequency. Still, for you, it was a mere reminder—of control, of patience, of power.

“Don’t look away,” he said, tilting his head. “I want you to remember.”

And he meant it. If you were going to kill him, he wanted to be the last thing you saw.

Your stomach twisted. He saw it in your eyes. That hesitation. That doubt. He would have laughed, if not for the part of him that wanted you to do it. That wanted to see just how much you could take. What it would make you.

A slow, steady pull. The trigger clicked. The gun roared.

Heat seared through his chest. The recoil of the gun didn’t hurt the way you thought it would. Not at first. It wasn’t the bullet that burned.

It was you.

His head lolled back against the chair, his body slumping from the force of the shot, but his lips still curled at the edges, breath leaving in something almost like a laugh. The protocore in his eye flared at the edges of his vision. He felt it, the way his core should have helped his evol to pull him back together, the way it should have already been stitching flesh and sealing the deep wound.

But something was wrong.

The air rippled, thick with something electric. Your Aether Core pulsed. His flickered in response, as if whispering back in an ancient language neither of you could understand. His fingers clenched around your wrist, breath hitching. His eyes locked onto yours, wide, startled—not with pain, but recognition.

He felt it before he understood it.

The collision was violent. Raw, unchecked energy surged between you, wrapping around his ribs, curling deep inside his lungs like fire and static, and something ancient waking up inside his bones. The edges of the room blurred, the world folding in on itself, dragging him down, down, down…

There was no floor beneath him, no walls, no sense of gravity. Just weightlessness, as if he had been yanked from existence itself. The nothingness stretched infinitely, void pressing in from all sides, and for a moment, he swore he could still feel the ghost of your hand against his chest, your heartbeat overlapping his own.

His mind clawed for something tangible, something real. But the only thing that existed was absence. No air, no sound—just silence so deep it rattled inside his, perhaps now nonexistent, skull. Was this death? Or something far worse? Perhaps, for someone like him, it was the right way to go out, all things considered.

He was still aware though, aware of the last thing he heard being your voice. Calling him back.

After that? There was nothing.

It could have been seconds. Minutes. Hours. Days. He had no way of knowing. Time did not move here. It had no form, no direction, no flow. He was lost within it, floating, grasping at something unseen lost in his own thoughts for what felt like a millennium.

He wondered what it would be like… if at the end of the day, things had turned out the other way and you would’ve remembered. He pondered the possibility for a while, and then just shut off, seeing no point in it anymore.

It wasn’t until Sylus felt pressure. A pull, slow at first, then all at once. He was dragged back down, breath stolen from his lungs as sensation crashed over him like a tidal wave. Heavy limbs, breath coming too light, too thin, like he’d been holding it for longer than he should have. His body wasn’t where he left it. It was somewhere else—

Soft sheets under his naked back. The scent of something warm, something sweet curling into his lungs. Reality was unsteady, blurred at the edges like ink bleeding into still water. The sensation of weightlessness made his stomach lurch, like stepping off a ledge only to find solid ground where there should have been a fall.

Then—pressure. A touch, gentle and familiar, pressing against his chest. His mind clawed at the sensation, trying to place it, trying to understand before the world clicked into focus all at once.

A manicured hand on his chest.

“Morning, my dragon.”

His eyes snapped open. His lungs locked tight as he lightly flinched at the words.

The bed dipped beside him as you shifted, pressing closer, and it was you. But not quite. Not the way he remembered. Not the way he had left you.

Your hair was a shade warmer than before, a hue that caught the morning light in a way that unsettled him. The soft curve of your face was familiar but wrong, the placement of a mole near your temple off by just a fraction. Your skin looked healthier, as though you had never known sleepless nights spent chasing ghosts, never worn the sharp edges of grief, thanks to losing your loved ones, in the set of your jaw.

Your pretty lips curved in a lazy smile, soft with sleep, with something warmer, something easy. Your hand trailed down his chest, fingertips feather-light, as if this was second nature to you. Your voice hummed with the weight of a thousand mornings just like this.

But it was wrong. All of it.

His body had always been primed for danger, his mind trained to recognize even the smallest inconsistencies. And this—this was a trap he didn’t know how to navigate. Every detail, every shift in reality, was so seamlessly woven into what should have been real. But he knew better.

His breath was uneven, muscles tensed as if expecting a strike that would never come. You weren’t looking at him with suspicion, with fear, with disgust. You weren’t recoiling from him. You weren’t her.

And that was the worst part.

Because the last thing he remembered was you putting a bullet in his heart.

His fingers twitched against the sheets, breath coming too shallow, too sharp. The words shouldn’t have meant anything to this world’s Sylus. But they did—to him. To his real self.

A slow blink, a measured exhale. He forced his body to relax, to settle back into the warmth pressing against his side, but the coil of unease in his chest refused to loosen. He needed to play this off, to find his footing before you noticed—

But you already had.

"Bad dream?" your voice was gentle, teasing, as you brushed stray silver strands from his forehead, fingers trailing down to rest against his jaw. "You looked like you saw a ghost."

He let out a breathy chuckle, low, strained. "Yeah. Something like that."

Your gaze lingered, just a fraction too long. Not in suspicion—at least, not yet. But something about his reaction had given you pause. The way your fingers absently traced over his collarbone felt almost reflexive, as if you were grounding yourself, making sense of something that didn’t quite fit. Your Sylus wouldn’t have reacted. Your Sylus knew exactly what that name meant to you.

This one—he flinched.

He didn't think twice about it. Not because he was careless—no, he was never careless—but because he never had to. You weren’t the type to notice, not in the way that mattered. Or at least, not the you he knew.

This one? This one had been watching him for a long time.

You weren’t staring at him the way someone would look at a lover acting strangely. You weren’t confused, or concerned. You were reading him. The way he breathed, the way he moved, the way his pulse had jumped when you called him that name.

The Sylus in this world—your Sylus—must have never reacted like this before. Maybe that was why your head tilted just slightly, the beginnings of a thought forming, only to be brushed away before it could settle. A flicker of curiosity, not alarm.

The realization curled in his stomach like a vice. He had spent years perfecting the art of deception, of control. And yet, in a single second, he had given himself away to someone who had spent just as long studying him.

He needed to fix it. Needed to cover his tracks before you could follow them too far. He shifted, turning onto his side, propping himself up on an elbow as his lips brushed the curve of your shoulder.

"Maybe you wore me out last night, sweetheart," he murmured, voice slipping into something smoother, something easy. "Guess even I have my limits."

You huffed a laugh, shaking your head, but the tension in your fingers remained. You were still watching him. But not in a way that suggested you had figured him out—just in that quiet, assessing way of someone who had learned to pick up on even the smallest shifts in behavior. And for now, you seemed content to let it go.

"I'm sorry, Sy, I will be less demanding on you next time then." You purred out, amusement lacing your tone as you placed a soft kiss under his jaw.

He needed to tread carefully. Because whatever this was, however he had ended up here—he wasn’t the only one beginning to notice the fractures in the illusion.

He let out a slow exhale, willing his muscles to stay loose, to let himself sink into the warmth of this world—this lie. And yet, it didn’t feel foreign. That was the part that gnawed at him. The way his body knew how to fit into this space, the way his arms instinctively curled around you, the way he could slide into this role without even thinking.

It should’ve felt unnatural. But it didn’t.

A flicker of something old stirred at the back of his mind. He had been here before—not here, not in this lifetime, but in something close to it. The pieces slotted together too easily, the familiarity too deep to be mere coincidence. He had been with you before. In one lifetime, in one story, in one myth.

The Abysm Sovereign as one would’ve called him. The last of the dragons. The one who had hoarded something too precious, too fragile, only to lose himself to it.

Was that what this was? Another return to something inevitable? Another step in a cycle he was too entangled in to escape?

His fingers twitched against the sheets, his breath slow and controlled, but his mind ran circles around the truth.

Maybe this was why it was so easy to fall back into you.

Maybe it had never been a matter of if—only when. Your lips lingered against his skin, soft, familiar in a way that sent something cold slithering down his spine.

"You say that, but I know you," he murmured, forcing a smirk, running his fingers up the curve of your spine. "You’ll have me right where you want me again by sundown."

You laughed against his throat, your breath warm, real, and yet every second of it felt like something closing in around him, something he couldn’t escape. Because the moment he stopped playing along, the moment he let the weight of what had happened settle—

What then?

His fingers curled into the sheets behind your back, grounding himself. He needed to understand how this had happened, why this had happened. His core still hummed faintly beneath his skin, pulsing with something unsettled, something wrong.

And you? You were too at ease, too at home in a life that had never belonged to him. You weren’t looking at him with suspicion anymore, not yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time.

He had to move carefully.

He had to get ahead of this before you started looking too closely.

A week passed, and the edges of reality blurred further, slipping past his fingertips like water.

The leader of Onychinus hadn’t meant to fall into it so easily. He had intended to keep his distance from you and this entire place, to play the part without slipping deeper. But the longer he stayed, the more the weight of this world settled into him like second nature. The way his hands reached for things before his mind could catch up. The way he answered your questions not with lies, but with truths that didn’t belong to him.

Everything was wrong.

N109 wasn’t the place he had built—not the ruthless, lawless battleground where only the strongest survived. It was something else, something structured. There were systems here, stability where there should have been chaos. And he could see the mark of your hand in all of it.

You had helped him build this.

Or rather, you had helped him—the version of Sylus that belonged to this world. The one who had let you in, who had trusted you enough to do this with you instead of fighting against it. The one who, by all accounts, loved you openly—without the guarded words, without the veiled threats laced with something too sharp to be mistaken for tenderness.

Sylus had never been that man. He had never been happy.

The realization crawled under his skin, digging deep. He moved through the city, and people didn’t look at him with fear. They acknowledged him, some even greeted him, as though he was someone worth trusting. As though he was someone good.

But he wasn’t. He never had been. He was always seen as a monster.

Yet this world had rewritten him into something else, something he couldn’t recognize. And worse? His body remembered things he hadn’t lived.

The first time it happened, it was small. A flicker of familiarity when he reached for a glass in the penthouse, his hand moving before he even thought about it. He had never lived here. Never walked these halls before. But his feet knew where to go. His hands knew what to reach for. The weight of a life that wasn’t his settled on him like muscle memory, instincts burned into his body without his consent.

Then the memories started creeping in. Not all at once, not enough to overwhelm, but slow, steady, like a trickle of water, like something waking up inside him, filling in the gaps of who this Sylus was supposed to be.

Your laughter against his skin. The press of your hand over his as you guided it to something he had once refused to hold and he scoffed at your audacity in a way that wasn’t malicious. A quiet moment in the dark, where your breath had mingled with his, your fingers tracing his jaw like you were memorizing him, your chests pressed together.

He wasn’t supposed to have these memories. But he did.

And you—you noticed.

Not in suspicion. Not yet. You watched him in the quiet moments, like you were waiting for something. Like you saw the way he hesitated before answering, how his gaze lingered too long, and instead of questioning it, you let yourself hope for the first time in years.

Because you knew what it was like to remember when no one else did.

You had lived that life already—spent years waiting, never pushing. Because in your world, you had been in his place. The one who held the memories, the one who had to swallow down the ache of being the only one who remembered what it meant. And the version of Sylus you had known—the one who belonged to you—had never remembered you.

However, these days… a thought of such scale didn’t seem to be just that—just a theory.

Because for once, he was the one acting differently. He was answering in ways that weren’t expected, slipping just enough to make you wonder. And that meant maybe—just maybe—your dragon had finally found his way back to you.

And Sylus? He couldn’t afford to let you believe that. Because he wasn’t your Sylus. He wasn’t yours at all.

But he couldn’t bring himself to say it either. Was it selfish of him to bask in your affection? To feel happy to be in your presence? He felt like an imposter, and hell, he was.

And yet, he couldn’t help but want to stay, to bask in your warmth and affection like the starved man that he was.

It started in the small moments. The way you curled up next to him without hesitation, your body fitting against his like it had always belonged there. The way your laughter filled the space between you, warm and unburdened, untainted by the kind of guardedness he had come to expect from you—from the version of you he had left behind.

You reached for him often, and he let you. But his touch was different—hesitant, restrained. He knew you noticed. Knew you could tell that when his fingers skimmed over your wrist, when his palm rested against the small of your back, it wasn’t with the same familiarity as before. It was careful, measured, as if he were trying not to take too much. As if he was still convincing himself he had no right to.

And you—you never said anything about it. Never called him out on the distance that shouldn’t have been there. Maybe you thought he was relearning, trying to remember you in the way you hoped he would. Or maybe, deep down, you didn’t want to risk shattering whatever fragile balance had settled between you.

Maybe that’s what made it worse.

It was in the way his hand would linger at the small of your back just a moment too long when guiding you through a crowded space in the city. The way his gaze would flicker to your glossed lips when you spoke, as if some part of him was already familiar with the way they’d feel against his own. The way his breathing would shift in the middle of the night when you curled closer in sleep, as if his body, not his mind, was the one remembering what it meant to hold you.

And yet, for some reason, your dragon still held back.

One evening, you sat across from him at the kitchen table, the hum of the city outside muffled by the walls of the penthouse. You slid a cup of tea toward him, fingers brushing against his, and he almost pulled away—almost. Instead, he let the warmth of your skin linger against his own, just for a second longer than he should have.

“Long day?” you asked, voice softer than usual.

He let out a quiet chuckle, running a hand through his hair. “Something like that.”

You hummed, watching him over the rim of your own cup. "You know, you don’t always have to act like you’re carrying the weight of the world. You can let me carry some of it too."

Something tightened in his chest. That was the difference, wasn’t it? This you—you didn’t fight him. You didn’t push against him, claw your way in through force and fear. You were already there, waiting, patient, understanding, everything he could’ve asked for, really.

His gaze flickered over you, cataloging every detail—the warmth in your expression, the easy tilt of your head, the way your fingers wrapped around your cup like it was the only thing anchoring you in the moment. It was such a simple thing, an evening routine that felt natural. Comfortable.

He had spent a lifetime keeping people at arm’s length, yet here you were, fitting into his space like you had always belonged in it. And maybe—maybe he wanted to let you.

His fingers ghosted over the ceramic of his own cup before reaching for it fully, brushing against the spot yours had just been. The residual heat lingered against his skin, sinking into him, grounding him in a way he hadn’t expected.

“That so?” he murmured, voice just a touch lower, something dangerous curling at the edges. Something he couldn’t quite hold back anymore.

You smiled, slow and knowing, like you had already decided the answer. Like you weren’t waiting for him to give it—you had always known it was inevitable.

And for the first time, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to fight it. Because for the first time in his life, staying didn’t feel like a trap. It felt like home.

You tapped your fingers against the side of your cup, watching him carefully, studying him in the way you always did when something unsettled you. "You're different," you said finally, the words light, like an observation rather than an accusation. "You've been spending a lot of time in your lab lately. More than usual."

He didn’t react immediately, instead swirling the tea in his cup, staring into the liquid as if it might hold answers he hadn’t yet found. "Just keeping busy."

You exhaled softly, leaning back into your chair. "Busy with what?" The question was easy, and unassuming. But it hung between you like a thread waiting to be unravelled. When Sylus hesitated to answer, you spoke out before he could, again. "Something tells me you’re not going to find it that easily." You rested your elbow against the table, propping your chin on your hand, eyes flicking over him like you were trying to fit mismatched pieces together. "I get it, you know. When you’re searching for something that’s missing, it feels like nothing else fits until you find the exact piece."

His fingers tightened around the cup, tension settling into his shoulders before he brushed it with a soft scoff. "And what is it you think I’m looking for?"

You didn’t answer right away. Instead, you let the silence stretch, heavy with meaning. "I don’t know," you admitted, voice softer now, thoughtful. "But I know it’s important to you."

A muscle in his sharp jaw ticked, but his expression remained unreadable. "And if I was?"

Your lips twitched, something faint and unreadable in your gaze. "Then maybe you’re looking in the wrong place."

For a moment, he wasn’t sure if you were speaking about the research or something else entirely. But then your hand brushed against his again—deliberate this time. A quiet, wordless reminder that he didn’t have to look so hard for something that was already here.

And for the first time, he wondered if you were right, but the thought went away just as fast as it came.

“Sweetie, I think you are overthinking, in fact, I am just busy tinkering with Mephisto, seems like he’s been malfunctioning a lot these days,” He sighed wearily before continuing, “Maybe Luke and Kieran pulled a prank on him again after the last mission, some parts are a bit hard to come by.” That was what he told you in the end, his tone held a tint of finality to it. It was all lies, you knew, he knew, an attempt to deter you. You didn’t question him directly after that.

That was why, hours later, when the silver-haired man was out, you found yourself in your shared room, standing before the small, unassuming pouch tucked away deep in the drawer of your closet. You hesitated before reaching for it, fingers grazing the worn fabric, your breath coming slower, more measured.

You hadn’t touched it in years.

The protocores inside—shining fragments of something more dangerous than they appeared—were the last thing you ever wanted to see again. But now, after watching Sylus over the past few week, after seeing the way he moved through the city like he was searching for something invisible, you couldn’t ignore the creeping suspicion that perhaps this was what he was looking for.

You pulled the pouch open, the familiar hum of the cores vibrating against your palm. A chill crawled down your spine.

Your grandmother, no, the woman who had adopted you, Josephine, had given them to you. A legacy, she had called it. A curse, you had always believed. Because you knew what they could do. What they had done to your body and not only that.

Caleb.

You swallowed hard, pushing down the sick feeling curling in your stomach. Your childhood had been built on the wreckage of experiments thanks to Ever, of pain, of things no child should have known. Caleb had paid the price for that knowledge. And now, you had kept these, untouched, avoided them like they might reach out and pull you back into that nightmare.

But Sylus—your Sylus—had never cared for protocores. He had never needed them, never even mentioned them. And yet, the way he had been disappearing into his lab, the way his eyes darkened when he thought you weren’t looking…

What if he was looking for these?

What if he already knew they existed?

A new kind of dread settled deep in your chest, anxiety slowly creeping in. If he had been searching for something that shouldn’t be here, then maybe—just maybe—he wasn’t supposed to be here either.

The city stretched out below them, neon bleeding into the skyline, turning the air electric. But here—just outside the N109 Zone, where the roads weren’t quite as suffocating, where the world wasn’t watching—it was quiet.

The leader of Onychinus leaned against his bike, fingers drumming idly against the handlebars. The wind carried the scent of the sea, crisp and laced with salt, and for the first time in days, maybe weeks, he wasn’t thinking about what he had lost. What he was trying to return to.

Instead, he was here, with you, hoping that the place he was taking you to still existed even in this world.

"Didn’t think you’d actually take me up on this," he mused, tilting his head as he watched you swing a leg over the bike beside him.

You huffed, rolling your eyes but settling in behind him anyway, the heat of your body pressing into his back. "Well, I didn’t think you did joyrides."

His lips curled, half amusement, half something softer. "You underestimate me, sweetheart."

You couldn’t see his expression, but you could hear it in his voice—the edge of something warm, something almost teasing. And that was what made it strange, wasn’t it? Because this wasn’t the Sylus you had known before. He was different in a way you couldn’t quite grasp yet. There was something looser about him, like he had stepped outside of his own skin for just a moment, letting himself be without the weight of expectation pressing down on him.

His fingers curled around your hands as you settled them against his waist, steadying you against him. The touch was easy, natural. Like he had done this a thousand times before.

Maybe, in a way, he had.

The memory had come to him unbidden earlier that night—the sight of another road. Not here, but somewhere else, far, far away. Somewhere that didn’t exist in this world. You had been there, too. A different you, and yet… still you, laying on the grass bed of crimson datura flowers, splayed out like a goddess before a heartless monster like him.

He shook the though off with a squint of his eyes as he focused on other things at hand.

"Figured you deserved a break," he murmured, turning the engine over, the rumble of it cutting through the silence. "Could use one myself."

You raised a brow, shifting against him as the bike eased forward. "So what, you’re taking me out on a date now?"

A chuckle, dark and amused. "If I was, you’d know."

But maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly what this was.

The city faded behind them as he pushed the throttle forward, the roar of the engine filling the empty space between words. The wind bit at your skin, but you barely felt it, pressed close to him, feeling the steady rhythm of his breath beneath your cheek under the helmet. He rode like it was instinct, like the machine beneath him was just an extension of himself, weaving effortlessly through the empty roads, taking you somewhere only he knew.

It wasn’t until he slowed, rolling to a stop just off the side of the road, that you realized where he had brought you.

A cliffside view, the city lights flickering in the distance, the dark sea stretching endlessly before you both, its waves crashing against the wet stone. It was breathtaking. Quiet. Isolated in a way that made it feel like the rest of the world had melted away.

You exhaled, pulling off your helmet, staring out over the water. "You used to come here a lot, didn’t you?"

Sylus didn’t answer right away. He was still for a moment, gaze distant, unreadable. Then, finally, after a moment that stretched for far too long: "Yeah." There were no lies to his words.

You studied him, the way the neon glow caught the silver strands of his hair, how the tension in his broad shoulders had eased ever so slightly. "What for?"

He let out a soft breath, the kind that wasn’t quite a sigh. "Thinking."

You hummed, rocking on your heels slightly. "Dangerous habit."

That pulled a smirk from him, small but genuine. "Tell me about it."

The quiet stretched between you, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was easy, the way the silence settled, the way the wind played with your hair, the way his presence beside you didn’t feel overwhelming, just… solid. Something you could lean into without fearing it would crumble beneath you.

The red-eyed man shifted slightly, and then—before you could react—he shrugged off his leather jacket and draped it over your shoulders.

Your brows lifted. "Chivalry? From you? I must be dreaming."

He scoffed, rolling his eyes. "You’re shaking."

"Am not."

His lips curled, like he wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t argue. He just stepped closer, close enough that you could feel the warmth of him, even with the space between you. Close enough that if you reached out, you could...

You swallowed hard, looking away first.

"Thanks," you murmured. Were you allowed to kiss him? At this point in time, you didn't know.

He didn’t respond, but his gaze lingered, steady and knowing. And then, softly: "Resonate with me." The sound of his deep voice was nearly swallowed by the waves beneath the two of you, because if he was any further away from you, you wouldn’t have heard what he said.

The words sent a slow ripple of shock through you. Your fingers tightened around the jacket he had draped over your shoulders, your breath catching in your throat. Of all things, you hadn’t expected that.

"What?" Your voice was quieter, more than you meant for it to be, but the moment felt fragile, like one wrong move would send it slipping through your fingers.

His gaze didn’t waver. "Resonate with me," he repeated, voice smooth but deliberate. "You offered before, didn’t you?" He knew he was tapping too much into the memories of the person who had lived with her before he ever came here, yet he couldn’t help himself.

It was truth though, you had offered. But not like this. Not with this kind of weight behind it.

Because it had been him—the other him—who had never pushed for it before. And now, here he was, making the request instead, but for reasons you weren’t quite so sure you understood yet.

Your heartbeat hammered in your ears. If you resonated, if you let yourself open up to him—if he let you in—there would be no going back. If there was even a sliver of a difference, if something didn’t match, you would know. You would know for certain whether the man standing in front of you was truly the one you had always loved… or something else entirely.

But the look in his eyes was unreadable, and for the first time, you weren’t sure if he wanted you to say yes, or if he was afraid you might.

But you nodded, slowly, lifting your hands between you. Sylus watched, his expression carefully neutral, but you caught the faint twitch of his fingers at his sides, the way his breath came just a fraction too slow. He was anticipating something—bracing for it.

You exhaled and reached for him. “Palms up.”

He didn’t question the request.

The moment your palms pressed against his, something inside you clicked, as if a long-buried mechanism had finally been set in motion. A warmth—not just from your Evol, but something deeper, something old—coursed through your veins, latching onto him, pulling him closer without touch. You could feel him, the real him, beneath the layers of fractured memories and misplaced identity and confusion. For a split second, you swore you were looking into the eyes of the man you had loved before—before timelines fractured, before everything twisted beyond recognition.

And Sylus—this Sylus—felt it too.

His long fingers clenched around yours, breath hitching, as something shifted in his expression, his lips parting like he wanted to speak but couldn’t quite find the words. His energy tangled with yours, hesitant but hungry, threading through the connection like a hesitant echo, unsure if it was supposed to be there at all.

Your chest tightened. He didn’t pull away.

He should have. He always pulled away.

But this time, he didn’t, didn’t want to.

You didn’t speak. Neither of you did. You let the resonance settle between you, the familiarity of it both exhilarating and terrifying. You could feel his presence weaving through yours, wrapping around your bones, filling spaces that had been left empty for too long. And in that moment, you knew.

This wasn’t your Sylus.

But he carried your Sylus’s memories. He was being rewritten, piece by piece, attuning to you like he had been yours all along. And he didn’t even realize it in the way you did just now.

You swallowed hard and forced a smile, careful not to let your fingers tighten around his. He couldn’t know what you had just learned.

So you let the moment pass, let the resonance fade, and when he finally exhaled, something in his dark carmine gaze flickering uncertainly, you only tilted your head and offered a quiet, "See? Not so bad."

His lips twitched at that, something unreadable in his gaze as he tried to process his own emotions and yours too, to a degree. "You always this smug?"

You let yourself laugh, even as something inside you twisted with the weight of what you now knew. "You tell me."

And just like that, the moment was gone. But you wouldn’t forget. You couldn’t.

“You are unpredictable, at times.” His eyes were soft, crinkling at you, red hue chasing the warmth of your gaze.

“I suppose, you never complained though.” You scoffed playfully when all you wanted to do was push him into a hug, tell him you understood, understood him to the core, yet, you couldn’t.

“Perhaps I never did.” He murmured back, his eyes fleeting away from your face and over to the neon-painted horizon.

Just like any day of the week, the city stretched endlessly below, a sea of neon and shadow, humming with a life that neither of you could quite touch from up here. The penthouse balcony felt like another world entirely—isolated, removed, too quiet despite the distant hum of traffic and the occasional siren wailing through the depths of the N109 zone.

The leader of Onychinus stood near the railing, hands braced against the cool metal, shoulders tense beneath the weight of his thoughts. Another night, another failure. The protocores didn’t exist here, not in the way he needed them to. Another dead end as his experiment at creating one failed spectacularly. He needed something, anything to resonate with, to try and recreate the feeling he had felt back then when a version of you shot him back in his old reality.

He was tired of thinking, unsure of why he even wanted to go back—however, he felt like he was stealing someone else's life, their moments, their memories. His imposter syndrome was getting worse by the day, he just got better at stuffing it down and pretending to ignore it until late into the night when you slept soundly next to him and his eyes stayed wide open.

// You're the best thing to ever happen to me

But also the worst thing to ever happen to me

On that day when I met you, maybe I would rather

That it never happened to me (To me)

The worst of all blessings

The best of all cursеs //

You stepped up beside him, close enough to feel the frustration rolling off him in waves, but you didn’t say anything at first. You just reached for the bottle he had set down on the ledge, taking a slow sip before setting it back down between you.

He scoffed, but it wasn’t sharp. More like a breath of amusement he hadn’t meant to let slip as he looked over his shoulder. "Didn’t take you for a whiskey thief."

"Didn’t take you for someone who’d let a bad mood ruin a perfectly good night," you shot back, bumping your hip lightly against his as you shrugged in a way that was far too casual.

He exhaled, shaking his head, but didn’t pull away. His grip tightened against the railing, tension coiled tight beneath his skin. "It’s not a bad mood. Just—"

"Frustration? Exhaustion? Stubbornness?" You listed off each word with a teasing lilt, watching the faint flicker of something softer pass through his expression. "You really think brooding’s going to get you any closer to what you’re looking for?" Here it was again, your subtle questioning that he wasn’t sure he was ready to begin dealing with.

"And you think dancing will?" His voice was flat, unimpressed, but the flicker of a smirk gave him away. You saw it even in the dim glow of the city lights reflecting off his pale skin.

You grinned, stepping back toward the open space of the large balcony, arms outstretched as you swayed slightly. "It might not get you answers, but it might remind you why you’re still here." Your words sounded almost cryptic to him, but at this point, he was too tired to keep track of every word you spoke. This version of you seemed like both a prophet and a walking riddle, unfortunately to him.

His carmine gaze followed you, something unreadable in the way he looked at you then. Cautious, hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure he was allowed to step into whatever this was. But when you reached for his hand, palm up, waiting... he took it, automatically.

The first step was slow, uncertain, like he had forgotten how to move without a purpose despite being a great dancer. But for the first time ever, it was you who led, guiding him effortlessly, the rhythm slow, the tension melting from his body as the weight of everything else faded into the background. The air between you was warm, charged, something unspoken weaving between each movement as your fingers stayed entwined with his, his other hand settling at your waist like it had always belonged there, the warmth of his palm seeping into your shirt.

You laughed, attempting to spin him around as he gave you an effortless smirk back and a shake of his head before he turned the tables on you and had your body inches away from the floor, your faces close together. You looked beautiful, a flushed mess, strands of hair sticking to your face, and hell, he knew it was an image he’d remember for a long time, because this was an expression, and experience you gave to him voluntarily like it was charity.

The music was distant—something playing from inside the penthouse, soft and melancholic, a tune that felt both familiar and foreign all at once. You swayed together, the city watching from below, his breath warm against your temple when he exhaled slowly, finally giving in to the moment.

"You’re ridiculous," he muttered, voice lower now, something closer to fondness threading through the exasperation.

"And you’re a liar," you murmured back, tilting your head slightly, your nose barely brushing against his jaw as you moved. "You like this." You murmured.

His fingers flexed against your back. He didn’t deny it.

// I should stray away from you

But as the saying goes

"Bettеr than alone, is to be in bad company" //

The movements slowed, a lingering pause between each step, until there was no rhythm left—only the quiet press of your bodies against each other, the weight of his palm against your spine as you both swayed gently back and forth. His breath came slow, measured, as if he was waiting for something. As if he was waiting for you.

Your fingers trailed up, brushing along his jaw before settling at the back of his neck, your thumb tracing small, absentminded circles against his skin. His red eyes flickered down, gaze lingering on your soft lips for just a second too long, before he let out a breath—one that almost sounded like surrender.

And then he kissed you.

It wasn’t rushed, wasn’t desperate, but it held something deeper, something that had been simmering beneath the surface for far too long, for the last few months he had spent here, really. He kissed you like he was grounding himself in you, like you were the only real thing left in a world full of uncertainty. His fingers tightened against you, pulling you closer, as if he wasn’t ready to let go just yet.

And maybe, just for tonight, neither of you had to.

But it wasn’t enough, for a greedy dragon like him, nothing was ever enough, and yet you knew, encouraged it even, because he was your dragon, no matter the timeline, no matter what came between the two of you.

Sylus’s hands moved before he could stop them, tracing up your spine, anchoring you closer as his lips deepened against yours, his tongue brushing softly against your bottom lip in a silent plea for more. The weight of his past, of his guilt, of the knowledge that you weren’t his but still knew him, pressed down on him like a vice. He needed this—needed you. Because for once, Sylus felt understood, accepted to his core and you didn’t even have to make it verbal.

// You know what they say

Stay close to your dearest friends

But also

Even closer to your adversaries //

This version of you was all he ever wanted, and it felt unfair, unfair that he ended up here this way and you weren’t his from the very beginning. No, instead you moaned, allowing his tongue into your mouth like it always belonged there, your tiny hand pulling on his hair to have him lean more into you, his weight pressing you against the railing.

He broke the kiss only to pull in a breath, his forehead resting against yours, his voice barely above a whisper. "Please, tell me to stop, y/n." The lights of the city flickered in his sharp yet soft eyes and you shook your head, as if disapproving of such request to begin with.

You didn’t. Instead, your fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, tugging him forward until the tall man stumbled slightly, his grip tightening on your waist. The warmth of you burned against him, grounding him in ways he couldn’t explain. He was unraveling, and you were pulling him apart thread by thread, but he didn’t want you to stop, he was hypnotized, no, bewitched by you.

Your lips found his again, slow and deliberate, and something in him cracked. He let himself have this. Just this.

You gasped softly when he shifted, hands sliding beneath your thighs, slightly under your shorts as he lifted you effortlessly. A quiet laugh left you as your back hit the doorframe of the sliding door, his large hot body pressing flush against yours, his mouth finding the pulse at your throat, lingering there like he could memorize the rhythm.

The world outside didn’t matter. His search for the protocores, the fractures between realities, the inevitable moment when he’d have to leave you behind—none of it mattered when you both started bleeding into one, making good use of the curse you’d put on him once upon a time.

Not when you were here, warm and willing, whispering his name like he was something worth holding onto.

Perhaps from the very beginning, you were both his key back and his demise all wrapped up in one. It was like you were a tiny, dangerous package, waiting to be unraveled by his own calloused and tired hands. For now, he was still far away from unraveling the entire truth, but you both knew it was inevitable. All it took was a kiss for your mind to come to a conclusion, that regardless of the result, you would help him, help him go back if he wished to do so. Still, you couldn’t help but think it was bittersweet, you were finally getting what you wanted but the cost was far too much, and you refused to think how long it would later take you to recover from this bond that you both gave into. His gaze was set on you, soft, deep, and all yours, you almost couldn’t bear it.

// But my best enemy is you

Flee from me, the worst is you and I

But if you keep searching for my voice

Forget me, the worst is you and I //

He carried you inside, into the dim light of your shared room, the door sliding shut behind him as your hands tangled in his snowy-white hair, pulling him closer like you were afraid he’d let go.

And for the first time in a long, long time, Sylus let himself believe that he belonged somewhere, that perhaps even a monster like him was worthy of his beloved’s touch.

His hands mapped the curves of your body with reverence, but there was nothing chaste about the way he touched you. He was greedy—fuck, he was always greedy when it came to you. His lips never strayed far from yours, dragging slow, wet kisses down your throat, nipping at your skin just to hear you gasp. He wanted to ruin you, wanted you to come apart under his hands, but fuck, he needed to take his time, too.

You whispered his name, breathless, and he groaned in response, grinding against you with a quiet, desperate noise that only came from years of suppresing one's self desires. He wanted this to be slow, to be soft, but he wanted you more. His fingers curled into the fabric at your hips, gripping tight, like he was barely holding himself together.

The bed dipped beneath you as he laid you down, hovering above you as if he were afraid you’d disappear if he blinked. His lips traced the edge of your soft jaw, your deep collarbone, but it wasn’t enough. He needed more.

"You're mine," he muttered, but it wasn’t a claim—it was a fucking plea. A confession. A desperate, broken thing that he offered you in hopes of acceptance he didn’t need to fight for in the first place.

You pulled him down, fingers tangling at the nape of his neck, guiding him back to your lips. "I always have been." It was a fact, a statement to calm him down, and perhaps yourself too.

And when he kissed you again, it was deeper, hungrier, like he was trying to drown in you.

// I had told you, not to keep looking behind

Your past will follow you and wage war on you //

His mouth left a trail of warmth down your skin, kissing, sucking, marking. As much as he hated himself and perhaps even this entire situation of him ending up here, he wanted to fucking brand himself into you, make sure you’d never forget this, never forget him. His hands slid lower, fingertips teasing at your thighs before parting them, spreading you open for him, eyes dark and wild with need. He slid your shorts down with ease, your soaked panties coming into view.

"Sweetie, look at you," he muttered, voice wrecked as he dragged his knuckles up the inside of your thigh, feeling the way you trembled for him. "So pretty. So fucking perfect."

Your breath hitched, hips arching instinctively when his fingers finally dipped between your legs, long fingers pushing the flimsy fabric aside. He groaned at the wetness he found there, jaw tightening as he slid his fingers through your slit slow, teasing, drawing soft, shuddering gasps from your lips.

"Let me," he whispered, but he wasn’t really asking. His fingers pressed deeper, curling just right, and you moaned, your hands flying to his muscled arms, nails digging into the solid warmth of him. He felt you, squeezing around him, already so sensitive, so eager, and it was fucking perfect.

Your hands moved instinctively, reaching for him, sliding over the hard planes of his back, feeling every muscle tense beneath your fingertips. You traced his spine, his shoulders, memorizing the way he shuddered when your lips found his throat, tasting the salt of his skin, sucking bruises into him because you needed to mark your dragon too, just the way he marked and bit you all those years ago.

He was unraveling, piece by piece, and yet he didn’t want to stop. Didn’t want to pull away from the warmth of your body, the soft sounds you made just for him, the way your fingers clutched at him like he was something worth keeping.

"Sylus," you gasped, his name falling from your lips like a prayer in ways that had nothing to do with religion, and that’s when he fucking lost it. His fingers tightened against you, two long digits fucking into you with aching reverence, his forehead pressing against yours as he watched you come undone, as he felt you lose yourself against his hand when his palm brushed your clit.

"That’s it, love," he whispered, his voice wrecked, full of nothing but you. "That’s my good girl. Come for me, show me your face when you do, please," He rasped in a plea, looking like he needed this more than you.

And when you shattered against him, trembling, moaning, desperate—he caught you, held you through it, whispering your name against your lips like a vow he would never break.

Like a man who had finally found home.

But you weren’t done.

Your fingers traced down his chest, slow, deliberate, feeling the way his muscles tensed beneath your touch as you unbuttoned his shirt properly. His breathing was uneven, ragged, his body still wound tight with restraint. He wanted you—fuck, he needed you—but he hadn’t let himself take yet. Hadn’t let himself have.

"Let me touch you," you whispered, pressing soft kisses against his jaw, down the column of his throat, feeling the way he shuddered under your lips. "Let me make you feel good too."

His hands twitched at his sides, fighting against the instinct to take control, to flip you beneath him, to make you his in the way he so desperately wanted. But your fingers, soft yet firm, trailed lower, undoing his belt with an ease and familiarity that sent heat flooding through his veins.

"Y/n," he warned, voice hoarse, but you only smiled, pressing your palm against him through his clothes, feeling how fucking hard he was for you.

"No buts, no ifs," you murmured, your fingers slipping beneath the waistband, wrapping around him, hot and heavy in your grasp. "I want this too. I want you too."

His head tipped back against the pillow, a guttural groan ripping from his throat as you stroked him, slow, teasing, savoring the way he twitched in your hand. His breath stuttered, fingers gripping at the sheets, trying—failing—to keep himself together as you touched him with the same aching reverence he had given you.

"Fuck," he hissed through clenched teeth, his hips jerking slightly as you tightened your grip, finding a rhythm that had him near unraveling, breaking apart beneath you.

And as his desperate moans filled the space between you, you knew—you’d never let him forget how much you wanted him too.

And hell, you weren’t finished yet.

Your fingers left his cock only long enough to pull your flimsy top over your head, baring yourself to him, watching the way his eyes darkened, the way his lips parted in something close to awe as your naked chest came into view. You reached for his shirt next, pushing it down his shoulders, revealing more of the hard, scarred planes of his body beneath your touch.

His breath hitched as you climbed onto his lap, straddling him, pressing your bare skin flush against his. His hands found your waist, gripping tight, as if grounding himself, as if this was something he needed to commit to memory.

"You drive me fucking insane," he murmured, voice rough, strained, his fingers flexing against your hips as you rocked against him, teasing, deliberate, slit dipping into the form of his cock like a mould.

You leaned in, lips brushing against his ear, your breath warm against his skin. "Then let me ruin you, properly."

A shudder ran through him, his grip tightening as if he needed to anchor himself to reality—to you. His lips found your chest, slow, reverent, tracing open-mouthed kisses down the curve of your collarbone, lower, lower, until his tongue flicked against the peak of your soft breast. You gasped, your fingers sinking into his hair, holding him there as he worshipped you with his mouth, his hands, murmuring words against your skin that you could barely make out—something about how perfect you were, how he would never get enough of you.

You arched into his touch, desperate for more, for everything, your fingers trailing down his abdomen, tracing the tense muscles there before reaching between you, finding him, hard and leaking against your palm.

"Please," you whispered, breathless, need curling through your voice, arousal thickening the tone, deep, carnal, animalistic. "I need you inside me."

A strangled noise escaped him as he pulled back just enough to look at you, his pupils blown wide, his breathing uneven. "You sure?" But the way he said it, the way he swallowed hard, like he was holding himself back, you knew he needed it just as much—if not more. Yet, he was guilty, guilty of asking for more than he already had received.

You nodded, guiding him to where you needed him most, the anticipation sending a sharp thrill up your spine. His hands trembled against your waist, and when he finally pushed inside, slow, careful, savoring the stretch, a moan tore from both of you, breath tangling as you held onto each other like this was the only thing keeping you tethered to this plane of existence.

He cursed under his breath, gripping your hips like he wasn’t sure if he could control himself, pulling you flush against him as he set a slow, deep rhythm, dragging pleasure through every inch of you as he moved from below. Every thrust sent heat curling in your gut, the friction perfect, devastating. You gasped, nails digging into his biceps, feeling the muscles tense beneath your touch, his breath ragged against your lips as he fought to keep it together.

But it wasn’t just about the pleasure. It was about this—the way he looked at you like you were the only thing grounding him, like he needed you more than air itself. It was about the way he whispered your name like a prayer, the way he kissed you between gasps, desperate and searching.

"You feel so good," he groaned, voice rough, reverent, like he wanted to worship every part of you. "So fucking perfect, I love you—" the words slipped out before he could even stop them, the emotions between the two of you proving too much.

You whimpered in response, meeting his thrusts, chasing the sensation building between you, chasing him. The way his body slotted against yours, the way he shuddered when you clenched around him—it was intoxicating, overwhelming. “Love you too, my dragon.”

His forehead pressed against yours, sweat slick on both your skin, messy strands of snowy hair in his face, his movements turning erratic as he felt you tightening, trembling beneath him. His grip on you tightened, his pace faltering as he gasped your name like a plea. "I can’t—fuck, I’m gonna—"

"M-me too," you breathed, gripping his face, kissing him hard, letting yourself fall apart with him.

The pleasure crested in a wave so intense it stole your breath, your entire body trembling as you clenched around him, pulling him over the edge with you, white noise ringing in your ears. He groaned against your mouth, burying himself deep, hips stuttering as he spilled inside you, hands shaking as he held you close like he never wanted to let go.

Silence filled the space between you, save for the soft, uneven breaths you shared. His arms tightened around you, his lips pressing against your forehead, your cheek, anywhere he could reach.

"You okay?" His voice was hoarse, but his touch was impossibly soft, fingertips tracing idle patterns along your skin.

You leaned down, smiling against his shoulder, pressing a lazy kiss to his jaw. "More than okay."

He let out a breathy laugh, rolling onto his side and pulling you with him, keeping you tangled in his arms like he wasn’t ready to lose the warmth of you just yet. He kissed your temple, your shoulder, his touch slow, absentminded, like he was memorizing every inch of you all over again.

Neither of you spoke for a long moment, content in the quiet, in the soft hum of each other’s presence. His fingers brushed through your hair, massaging your scalp, grounding himself in the weight of you pressed against him.

"I needed this," he admitted, voice barely above a whisper, almost like he wasn’t sure he had the right to say it.

You curled closer, pressing a soft kiss over his heart. "I know."

A beat of silence stretched between you, but it wasn’t heavy. It was warm, something unspoken settling in the space where words should have been. Your fingers traced idle shapes against his skin, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your palm.

"I don’t care where you came from," you murmured eventually, your voice barely above a whisper. "I don’t care if you’re not exactly him—because you are. You carry his memories, his feelings, his burdens. You’re my dragon, no matter what."

Sylus stiffened slightly, his breath catching, but he didn’t pull away. If anything, his grip on you tightened, his fingers pressing into your back like he needed to hold onto you, needed to be sure you were real.

"You knew," he breathed, something unreadable in his voice. It wasn’t a question. It was realization, settling into him like an inevitability.

You nodded against his chest. "I had my suspicions, and resonating confirmed them. The way you looked at me, the way you reacted when I called you that name… and then your search… for protocores, I assume? I don’t really know what they do, not exactly, but I know they must be important. And you aren’t looking for something impossible, are you? You are looking for a way back."

His breath hitched slightly, his fingers pausing in their slow movements against your back. You could feel the weight of it, the hesitation, the way he was still balancing between trusting you and protecting you from the truth.

"Tell me," you murmured, tracing your fingers gently along his jawline. "What really happened? How did you end up here?"

He sighed, the sound heavy, resigned. "It was the shot," he admitted finally. "Our, no hers and mine Aether cores… they reacted. I shouldn’t have survived it, not like that. But instead of dying, I woke up here. And it’s all the same but not. It’s wrong, and it’s—"

"Different," you finished for him, tilting your head to search his gaze. "But not entirely, right? Because I’m still here. And maybe that means I can help."

Sylus studied you for a long moment, something unreadable flickering in his expression. You could see the internal war he was fighting—the instinct to bear the weight alone versus the quiet, desperate longing to let you carry some of it with him.

You reached up, brushing your fingers over his cheek, cupping his face in your palm. "I might not understand everything, but my Evol… it’s tied to resonance, to connection. And those protocores—I’ve had them since I was young. Maybe together, we can figure this out. But only if you let me, allow me in."

His throat bobbed, his arms tightening around you as he traced the fractures of your life with the same aching recognition he had carried in his own. Even in this world, you hadn’t been spared from the weight of what had been done to you. Different choices, different faces, but the same pain, lingering beneath your skin like an old wound that never fully healed. His fingers curled slightly against your back, gripping you like a tether. "You really want to get involved in this mess?"

You gave a small, breathy laugh, nudging your nose against his. "I think I already am."

For the first time, something in his shoulders eased, though not entirely. His lips brushed against your temple, a quiet, unspoken surrender, his breath warm against your skin, his presence grounding. He let himself have this, just for a moment longer than he should. Just until the moment shattered.

"Alright," he murmured. "Then let’s start in the lab. Later, in a few days." The words felt like a delay, an excuse to hold onto this a little longer, because the more time he spent with you, the more he feared what it would mean when he finally had to leave. He was falling—already had fallen—for this version of you completely. A dangerous, selfish thing to do, because one day, one way or another, this was going to end, just like all good things in his life.

"Okay." You breathed the word out, the syllable melting into the warmth of the space between you, skin against skin as you inhaled his presence, his hesitation, his unspoken struggle.

A moment passed, his fingers tracing lazy circles against the plane of your shoulder, his other hand resting low on your waist, as if grounding himself in the quiet of your heartbeat. Then, finally, he spoke, the question slipping out in a voice barely above a whisper. "Was it hard?"

You blinked, tilting your head slightly to look up at him. "What?"

"Knowing that the me from this world didn’t remember you the way you remembered him?" There was something guarded in his voice, a careful attempt at detachment that didn’t quite hold.

You exhaled slowly, letting the weight of the question settle between you. "It was," you admitted. "But I never pushed him to. Because I knew I couldn’t force him to be something he wasn’t, or well, didn’t want to be."

His grip on you tightened slightly. "I went through the same thing. Just… in reverse."

You pulled back just enough to meet his gaze, eyes searching his, soft but steady. "Then you know why I never gave up on him, on you."

His expression shifted—something unreadable flickering behind his eyes. He had spent so much time trying to be the version of himself that you deserved, to fill the space left behind by another man, another life. But here, now, with you pressed against him, with the quiet weight of the past and present tangled between your fingers, he wasn’t sure it mattered anymore.

You had never asked him to be anyone but himself.

And yet, somehow, it still didn’t feel like enough. Not when he carried memories that weren’t truly his, not when he was slipping into another man’s place with terrifying ease. He wasn’t supposed to belong here. And yet, with you looking at him like this, with all the warmth and knowing in your eyes, it was hard to remember why he should leave at all.

He swallowed hard, his fingers brushing over the curve of your cheek, hesitant, like he wasn’t sure he had the right to touch you this way. "You know, if you were also an art piece, then whoever created you must have loved you dearly."

The words came unbidden, slipping past his lips before he could stop them. He realized it too late.

Your breath hitched, your fingers tightening ever so slightly where they rested against his chest. You knew those words. You knew them.

His pulse stuttered beneath your touch, and for a moment, neither of you moved. Your lips parted, but whatever you were about to say faltered before it could form.

Because this wasn’t something the Sylus of this world had ever said to you.

It was something else. Older. Something tangled in the past you had spent lifetimes trying to understand.

A memory wrapped in myth, woven into the very essence of your existence. It was a phrase that had echoed through time, through lifetimes, a truth neither of you had fully grasped until now. Because you were the one who cursed him to always find you.

"Sylus…" Your voice was barely above a whisper, something raw laced into the way you spoke his name.

His throat worked around a swallow, but he didn’t let go. Didn’t move away. Instead, he leaned in, pressing his forehead to yours, letting the silence stretch between you, letting it settle.

He wasn’t supposed to stay.

But you weren’t supposed to recognize him either.

And yet, you did. Because no matter what world you were in, what life you lived, he had always been yours. And now, in the quiet of your shared breaths, you both had to reckon with what that meant.

You ran your fingers through his messy hair, feeling the way he shuddered under your touch, how his breath hitched as you traced along his jaw, memorizing the lines of his face like you had a thousand times before. This version of him, the one who knew too much and yet not enough, the one who carried another’s memories but still looked at you like you were the only thing tethering him to this world—this was your Sylus, too. And you weren’t going to let him forget that.

"Take me again," you murmured, voice softer this time, reverent, like an invocation. "After all, you are my magnum opus, too."

His breath left him in a slow, shaky exhale before he surged forward, kissing you like his life depended on it, like you were the only real thing left in his unraveling world. His lips were urgent, desperate, but beneath it, there was something softer, something aching—a quiet kind of devotion buried beneath the hunger.

Your Evol surged between you, wrapping around him like a second skin, slipping into his body, his bones, his very soul. He groaned at the sensation, his grip tightening, his hands pressing into your skin like he was afraid you’d slip through his fingers if he let go. He wasn’t just touching you—he was feeling you in a way he never had before, deeper, like every thread of your being was merging with his.

His lips trailed down your neck, over your collarbone, pressing kisses that felt like prayers whispered into the moonless night. He breathed your name between them, voice hoarse, full of something raw, something unspoken. "I don’t know how to stop wanting you."

"Then don’t, not until you will have to stop because there will be no other choice," you whispered back, and for once, he listened.

// You told me I would never see you walk away

Said you'd never break my heart

Never leave me in the dark

I guess there's just some promises you shouldn't make

Should've known from the start //

The days passed in a haze of quiet moments and endless work. The lab became a space of flickering lights, glowing protocores, and the hum of equations muttered under breath. Sylus had spent hours testing, recalibrating, adjusting parameters, his mind consumed by the impossibility of what he was trying to achieve. But he wasn’t doing it alone.

You were there, beside him, sleeves rolled up, eyes alight with concentration as you fed your Evol into the protocores, trying to get them to react. You asked questions, challenged his theories, made him consider angles he hadn’t before. And despite the weight of his purpose, despite the growing dread of what success would mean, he found himself happy.

It wasn’t loud, wasn’t a rush of euphoria—it was quieter than that. The kind of happiness that settled into his bones, that made him feel like, for the first time in forever, he wasn’t just clawing toward something impossible. He was here, with you. Creating something together.

He watched you, the way you chewed your lip in concentration, the way your fingers flickered with Evol’s glow, and something inside him ached—not in the way it usually did, not with grief or longing, but with something warmer.

He wanted to leave a mark on you, something more than just marks on your body that would blur back into your skin with time.

Not like this. Not like a memory that would fade the moment he disappeared from this world. No, he wanted something real. Something tangible.

So he worked through the night, after you had fallen asleep curled up in the corner of the lab, exhausted but refusing to leave his side. He pieced it together with careful hands, refining every detail, ensuring it was perfect.

By the time you woke, from what presumably wasn’t a very comfortable nap, blinking blearily against the dim light of the lab, he was waiting for you, something small and glinting in his palm.

"What’s that?" you murmured, voice thick with sleep.

The man smirked, but it was softer than usual, less cocky, more... something else. "A gift."

You sat up slowly, rubbing at your eyes before focusing on the small object in his hand. "For me?"

"Who else?" He rolled it between his fingers, and as the light hit it just right, you could see it—a necklace, the pendant intricate yet simple, shaped like something familiar. A dragon, curled protectively around a small, shimmering core, its tail looping around to form the delicate chain that would rest against your skin.

You stared at it, breath catching in your throat.

"Sylus…"

He didn’t meet your eyes immediately, instead focusing on the way the light caught on the edges of the pendant. At the back of the small dragon’s body, barely noticeable unless you looked closely, was an engraving—your name, alongside a phrase in a language almost lost to time. Magnum opus. The words were carved with meticulous precision, as if each letter had been pressed into existence with intent. "It’s not much," he muttered, voice lower than usual. "But I thought… if I leave, I don’t want you to forget. And I wanted something of mine to stay with you, even if I can’t."

Your fingers brushed over the pendant, tracing its curves, before reaching for his hand instead. "Like I ever could."

For once, he didn’t have a smirk or a teasing remark ready. He just looked at you, something vulnerable flashing behind his eyes before he pressed the pendant into your palm, curling your fingers around it like a silent promise.

// Reach out and show a little loving

Shine a little light on me

Show a little loving

Shine a little light on me //

After a moment, his fingers lingered at the chain. "Let me?" His voice was softer now, almost hesitant.

You nodded, and he shifted closer, taking the necklace from your hands with deliberate care. His fingers brushed against your skin as he gathered your hair, draping the chain around your neck, the metal cool against your collarbone. The clasp clicked into place with a quiet finality, and he let his hands settle lightly on your shoulders, his thumbs skimming the curve where your neck met your shoulder.

His gaze dropped to the pendant resting against your chest, something unreadable in his expression. "Looks good on you," he murmured, almost like he was speaking to himself.

You swallowed, pressing your fingers over the pendant. "It’s beautiful, you know."

Sylus let out a quiet exhale, his hands falling away reluctantly. "You’ll keep it on?"

You met his eyes, something warm and unwavering in your voice. "Always, after all it’s a gift from my dragon."

For a moment, he just looked at you, the weight of something unspoken passing between you. Then, with a slow nod, he leaned back, watching the way the pendant caught the light, like he wanted to commit the sight to memory.

The days bled into weeks, and the lab became their second home inside their home. The protocores you gave lined the tables, some glowing faintly, others scattered in varying states of disassembly. Wires snaked across the metal workstations, and the air smelled of burnt circuits, metal, and the faint energy hum of active Evol. It was methodical, precise work—calculations laid out in notebooks, equations scribbled on glass panels, the sound of quiet murmurs filling the space between them.

"If we adjust the frequency output here—" you gestured toward a set of figures on the screen, brow furrowed in concentration. "It might stabilize long enough to sustain a full transfer when I use my Evol."

Sylus leaned back, exhaling, his gaze flickering between you and the numbers. "Theoretically, sure. But the problem isn’t just maintaining the flow—it’s how the protocores respond to prolonged exposure."

You rolled your eyes, crossing your arms. "That’s the same argument we had two days ago. We already ran the last test at max output, and it held. The issue isn’t the flow. It’s the integration."

He huffed out a quiet laugh, shaking his head as he adjusted a dial on the worktable, watching the way the energy flickered beneath the surface of the half-built device. "You sound like me."

"That’s because I’m right."

He glanced up at you then, something amused—something fond—in his expression before he returned his attention to the mechanism between you. The metal casing was nearly finished, the internal structuring laid out in careful detail. It looked crude, unfinished, but Sylus could see it—the shape of something real, something functional—coming together in front of him.

"We’ll need a power source capable of stabilizing the fluctuations," he muttered, mostly to himself. "Something more stable than raw Evol."

Your fingers tapped against the edge of the table. "Would a secondary protocore work? One embedded into the structure itself?"

He considered that, rubbing a hand over his jaw. "Might. But that’s a risk in itself. If it fractures under pressure—"

"Then we’d both be in trouble," you finished for him, sighing. "I know. But if we can’t sustain the shift long enough for a proper transfer, then what’s the point?"

Sylus went silent, gaze fixed on the unfinished device as his mind ran through every possible failure point, every risk, every outcome. And then, finally, he exhaled, rolling his shoulders back.

"We do it."

You blinked, momentarily thrown by how easily he agreed. "Just like that? You think your consciousness will seperate from the body just like that?"

A ghost of a smirk played at his lips. "You’re the one who said you were right."

You let out a soft laugh, but it didn’t reach your eyes. He saw it—the way you smiled just a little too quickly, the way your hands lingered over the project like you weren’t ready to let go. Like if you just kept working, you wouldn’t have to think about what finishing this meant.

You weren’t the only one pretending.

Neither of you said it. Neither of you acknowledged what came next. Instead, you both turned back to the device, hands moving in tandem, finalizing the last connections, watching as the energy flickered and pulsed in a steady, rhythmic glow.

It was done.

"Will it work?"

A tired breath.

"I don't know, but this seems final."

// My body's on the line now I can't fight this time now I can feel the light shine on my face Did I disappoint you? Will they still let me over If I cross the line? //

The next few days passed in a quiet limbo. Neither of you spoke about what came next. The equations checked out. The device was ready. The chance of failure was small—too small. But you hoped, in some selfish, desperate way, that it wasn’t small enough. That something, somehow, would keep him here.

Sylus didn’t push to activate it right away. He let the days stretch, let the minutes and hours melt into something softer, something that neither of you acknowledged for what it was. An ending.

You spent those days tangled in quiet conversations, in stolen glances, in the way his hands lingered a little longer when he passed you a tool in the lab. In the way he pressed a kiss to your temple when he thought you were half-asleep after sex that left you both yearning. In the weight of his arm slung across your waist as if he could anchor himself to you.

Neither of you rushed.

Neither of you dared to say goodbye.

Because the moment you activated that device, one of you was going to disappear from each other's lives, forever.

// Take a seat But I'd rather you not be here for What could be my final form Stay your pretty eyes on course Keep the memories of who I was before So stay with me because //

The lab was too quiet. The hum of energy from the device filled the space, pressing against your skin, against your ribs, against the unspoken words lingering between you. The Protocore pulsed steadily, waiting.

"You're sure about this?" your voice was steady, but the slight tremor in your fingers as they hovered over the Protocore betrayed you.

Sylus exhaled, his gaze flickering to you before settling back on the mechanism. "No. But we’re out of options."

Your Evol shimmered at your fingertips, stabilizing the energy field surrounding the device. It crackled, resisting at first, but you pushed past the tension, guiding the flow into something controlled, something manageable.

"If I hold the frequency stable, it should buy you enough time to separate cleanly," you murmured, adjusting your stance as a pulse of energy pushed against you.

"Should," Sylus repeated dryly. He glanced at you then, something in his expression unreadable. "You always did have a habit of gambling with the odds."

You swallowed. "I’d rather gamble than have you miserable, if you are inclined to go back, then just do it." Something in you almost snapped, all that tension contained in your small body.

A muscle in his jaw twitched, but he didn’t argue. He only nodded, stepping forward, fingers flexing at his sides, his carmine gaze locked onto the mechanism as though daring it to prove him wrong. A sharp breath. A flicker of hesitation.

Then, he reached for the switch.

Time buckled.

The air around you warped, bending in on itself, light fracturing into something unfamiliar. A deep, guttural hum reverberated through the lab, the walls trembling with the weight of it. Space twisted, folding inward, a tear forming in reality itself.

A strangled gasp tore from Sylus’s throat, his body shuddering as his form split—not in two, but into something neither of you understood. His skin shimmered, his edges blurred, the weight of existence pressing down on him. He looked different—his silver hair shorter at the nape, his carmine eyes clouded with something beyond exhaustion, his entire presence thinner, like he was being stretched too far, pulled in a direction he could never return from.

The sight made your stomach drop.

"Sylus?" Your voice cracked, Evol sparking wildly at your fingertips. The connection between you flickered like a dying star. "No, no, no, hold on!"

His body flickered again. The Protocore pulsed brighter, its hum turning into something shrill, something piercing. He was unraveling before you, a white ringing noise in your ears.

"Don’t—" His, now panicked, voice faltered as his eyes locked onto yours, his hand lifting but never quite reaching you. "You have to let me go."

Your Evol reacted, spiraling out of control as you reached for him as you lost the control over your own emotions, raw energy crackling between your fingertips. You didn’t think—you just acted, instinct overriding logic as you tried to grasp onto something of him, anything, as if sheer will could keep him here.

For a fleeting moment, your hands touched. Just barely. His fingers ghosted over your skin, the sensation featherlight, ephemeral, not enough.

Tears burned in your eyes. "Please—" It wasn’t fair. It was never fair. Yet faced with the consequences of your actions and seflnessnes you couldn’t help but want to be selfish, for once in your life.

His lips parted, something on the edge of his tongue, he mouthed the words at you because he felt like the actual sound wouldn’t reach you.

I love you.

// Honestly I thought I was fully prepared for The threshold in store Stay your pretty eyes on course I guess I never really faced my fears before So stay with me because //

A wrenching sensation tore through the lab. A surge of light, a ripple of pressure that made your ears ring, your body burn with the force of it as the lights went out and some light bulbs tore apart, small glass shards raining over the equipment. The impact of it all sent you staggering back, your vision blurring, a scream tearing from your throat as you felt the world snap back into place.

The Protocore burst into a violent pulse before it shattered, shimmery dust sparkling in the now still air of the lab before silence engulfed you.

A dead, aching silence that pressed against your aching skull like thousands of needles, suffocating, crushing as you fell to your knees, trying to come to terms of what you’ve done just now.

You barely registered the movement on the floor behind you until a sharp, gasping breath broke through the quiet.

Sylus—your Sylus—gasped awake, fingers clawing at the ground as he sucked in deep, ragged breaths. His body jerked, muscles spasming as though something had just ripped him back into existence.

He blinked, unfocused, disoriented. "What—"

But you were still staring at the empty space where he had been, hands trembling, heart hammering wildly as you tried to stop the hiccups. You couldn't remember the last time you had a panic attack this bad, your entire body shaking, as if reaching for something that didn't exist anymore, a comfort that only belonged in your memory.

He was gone.

And this Sylus, your Sylus, didn’t even know why you were crying.

// My body's on the line now Pull the blanket tight now I can feel the light shine on my face Did I disappoint you? Will they still let me over If I cross the line? //

The sensation was a shock to the system—his lungs burned, his body ached, and for a moment, he wasn’t entirely sure he had made it back at all. The shift between two separate timelines had been seamless, cruel, even. One breath, he was watching the tear in time consume him; the next, he was exactly back where he had left, forced to stay almost at the exact second it had all gone wrong.

Memories worth of months trickled into his subconscious all within a few seconds, forcing him to relive all of that, yet making him stay here as if he never left to begin with.

The weight of a body straddled his lap, grounding him in something real, something tangible. The warmth of you, the way your thighs braced against him, the scent of gunpowder thick in the air, your hands hovering over the wound in his chest. A wound that, for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, wasn’t healing immediately. The pain was sharp, electric, but it paled in comparison to the disorientation flooding his senses and the ringing noise in his ears.

Still, he tried his best to keep his expression rooted in calmness and forced his vision to sharpen, on you.

You were still over him, breathing hard, panic tightening every muscle in your frame. The gun you had fired lay discarded somewhere on the ground, its barrel still smoking, the air thick with cordite and something else—something wrong. Your hands trembled where they pressed against him, hovering between regret and survival instinct, torn between saving him and finishing what you had started.

And then, for a split second, the world shifted again. The Aether core flickered at the edges of your heart where it was nestled, reacting to something unseen, something lingering between this world and the one he had just left behind. It pulsed, faint but undeniable, something poking at your skull like a thousand needles.

Your breath hitched deep in your throat. A sharp inhale, eyes widening—not in horror, not in fear, but in recognition.

"Sylus?" you whispered in a voice that did and didn’t belong to you at the same time. The craziest part about this was that this version of you didn’t even know his name properly.

Still your words… they were not a question. Not a demand. A call—the same way you had spoken to him in another world. The same way you had reached for him when time had fractured around you. The voice of the woman who had begged him to stay, the woman who had known him in ways you shouldn’t have, couldn’t have.

It struck him like a blade. The breath he took rattled in his wounded chest. You had remembered—for just a second, you had remembered, and hell, if he only came back here to die, this recognition on your face was more than enough for a man who had a dying wish to begin with.

However, that emotion that flickered within your pretty features, slightly different than what he came to remember, was gone in an instant.

The recognition flickered out of your gaze like a dying ember, slipping from your grasp and consciousness before it could root itself in place. The fear returned just as quickly, swallowing it whole, consuming every other emotion in your expression. You blinked, the moment severed, and your hands pressed harder against the wound, grounding yourself in this reality, the only one you knew. The only one you had ever known.

"Shit—stop bleeding—" Your voice trembled, desperate, your grip firm as if you could physically hold him here, as if you could undo what you had done.

Sylus, bleeding out, could only laugh, breathless, hollow, head falling back against the high-backed throne-like chair he was still sat on. What else was there to do?

Because he had made it back.

And yet, he had lost you all over again.

His fingers stiffly twitched at his side, reaching for something that wasn’t there, something that never would be again. The ache in his chest had nothing to do with the bullet lodged inside him and everything to do with the fact that the person he had spent months knowing—the person who had known him back—was gone.

And you, this version of you, looked at him with the same eyes but didn’t see him at all, didn’t see him past the façade he put on.

A dull, slow warmth started spreading beneath your palms. His Evol was finally kicking in, sluggish but effective, helping his wvol with the wound pulling itself back together, knitting flesh where it had been torn apart. The pain dulled, his breath came a little easier, but none of it felt like a victory.

If anything, it was pathetic. The body would heal, as it always did, but the wound carved into something deeper—something raw and untouchable—would never close. That, he knew with certainty.

His breath hitched again, this time with something like amusement. A smirk ghosted his lips, though it barely held together, more like a cruel mockery of what it should have been.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he rasped, voice hoarse but laced with something eerily close to amusement. "Relax, sweetheart. Just scared you a little."

Your fingers twitched against his chest, hesitation breaking through the frantic worry lining your face, you were so naive in your intentions it was almost laughable.

"Bastard."

He exhaled, shaking his head slightly. "You should do a better job next time, kitten."

The words landed between you like a slap, and he almost laughed again at the way your brows furrowed, your lips parting as if to protest. But you didn’t. You only pressed your hands firmer against him, watching the last traces of blood smear against your skin as the wound fully disappeared beneath your touch.

There was a time he thought home was a place, a kingdom of steel and fire where only the strongest survived. Then, he thought home was a person, soft hands pulling him from the wreckage, a voice saying his name like it was something worth remembering. But now, standing at the edge of a world that had rewritten him, he understood—home was never his to claim. It was borrowed, fleeting, a warmth that slipped through his fingers the moment he held it too tight. What is a home, if given by another? A gift? A curse? A promise he was never meant to keep. And in the cruel, inevitable symmetry of it all, he had always been doomed to lose you, in every world, in every lifetime, over and over again.

There was no fight left in him. And you—this version of you—had no idea what he had just lost.

// If I cross the line

If I cross the line //

a/n: divider by @/cafekitsune // fic by: @dijayeah

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ao3-shenanigans · 4 months ago

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How do I search on ao3? Ive just been putting in the fandom I want and hitting go but I have to scroll through like dozens of pages before I find something in the theme/ vibe (? Word idk? I hope you know what i mean) I want

Hi! Great question! This will be a longer answer, so I’ll include a cut:

Ao3 uses a Tag Filtering system, wherein authors include tags on their work and readers can use the website to sort and filter through them to show what they may or may not want to read.

These are tags on a work:

But how do we get there? If we start with just a generic fandom search, we’ll find a button at the top of the page labeled “Filter”. This guy will be our best friend, click it.

By clicking “Filter” a sidebar pops up titled “Search and Filter” it has two main sections to it with several subheadings. These two sections: Include and Exclude achieve similar results but function slightly different.

By clicking on the drop downs under each, a list of common tags will pop up and you are presented with the option of Including or Excluding them from your search.

Include:

- by selecting a tag under Include, you are telling ao3 that you only want to see fics with that tag on it, every fic shown for this search will have that tag

- this is good for narrowing down a lot of fics very quickly, especially if you have something specific in mind

Exclude:

- by checking a tag under Exclude, no fan works with that tag will be shown in your search results

- this is good if you want to browse a larger selection of fics but want to avoid something you’re not fond of

Selected tags in the Warnings dropdown of the Exclude section look like this:

There is a third section of this sidebar called “More Options” which includes sidebars to set preferences for crossovers, fic completion status, word count, and date updated. It functions much the same as Include and Exclude.

Lastly, make sure to click the “Sort and Filter” button at the bottom of the sidebar so that your selections will be put into effect!

Additional note:

This “Sort and Filter” function can be used when looking at an overall fandom page, or a more specific page like one for a ship paring or an alternate universe!

Hoped this helped and happy fic hunting!

#ao3 #fanfiction #archive of our own #ao3 shenanigans ask #fanfic #fandom #ao3 shenanigans #ao3 tags #ao3 users guide #ao3 psa #how to use ao3 tags

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astarionancuntnin · 10 months ago

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Nothing But A Dream

summary: you've agreed to take things slow with astarion, only partaking in nighttime activities when he specifically desires them, and this morning, he wants you, but he would hate to intrude on your precious beauty sleep.

rating: E

word count: 1.6k

pairing: astarion x you (fem!reader)

cw: 18+. MIND THE TAGS! light fluff, established relationship, somnophilia, cnc/mildly dubious consent, light choking, p in v, creampie, cock soaking. full list on ao3

read on ao3

my masterlist

or keep reading down below~

Ever since defeating the Absolute, you’ve been enjoying your quiet life in the Underdark with Astarion. You agreed to take things slow when it comes to sex; he still wanted to experience this with you, but he needed time to feel truly like himself when being intimate. It wasn’t an issue for you, and you were open to take as much time as needed and indulge him in anything he wanted to try, whenever he wanted to, for as long as he didn’t feel pressured by it. You knew how important this was for him, after the discussion you had following the defeat of Cazador, and the last thing you wanted was to make him uncomfortable.

Even though he wouldn’t admit it out loud yet, you sensed how he enjoyed the proximity you shared without the pressure of sex. It’s in the way he allowed himself to relax when he was with you, as you laid close on the sofa while you were both reading, or how he insisted to wash your hair and style it afterwards – it drives him crazy how little care you give it – when you were taking baths together, so he could look at you like you were his masterpiece, but what he told you he preferred were those lazy mornings cuddling in bed naked. He would lay over your chest, skin to skin, listening to the lulling melody of your soft heartbeat. Finding comfort in your warmth reminded him of the sun’s embrace that he missed dearly. Those were the moments he cherished the most, where he was able to see you being at your most vulnerable, on display, just for him.

You were a heavy sleeper, and with no real responsibilities anymore, you allowed yourself to sleep-in way more often than you used to (you deserved it, after all, who would blame the Saviour of Baldur’s Gate for indulging in a little respite). It’s not something Astarion was able to do, but he had no reason to get up on his own and do anything else. What point would there be of doing anything without you, the very reason he kept on living? This morning was no exception, as you laid bare in the warmth of your bed with Astarion hugging you from behind.

As you slightly move half-awake, you feel his hand ghosting over your hips, and eventually cupping your tender breasts. You happily moan into his touch, loving how his grip held all of you ever so perfectly. It wasn’t necessarily sexual when he did it, rather comforting – as much for him than for you – and you loved how he cradled you as if you were going to slip out from his grasp at any moment, holding on tight to you. There was one thing that felt different today, but in the bliss of your slumber, you weren’t able to quite put your finger on it. You hum, checking in on him as you feel him grab onto you rougher than usual, with his nails digging into the soft skin of your boobs.

“So sorry dear, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he says, his voice deep, as if he himself had just woken up.

“Mh, you okay?” You mumble, still in limbo.

“Everything is just fine darling,” he kisses your shoulder softly. “Go back to sleep.”

Astarion’s honeyed voice in the crook of your neck brings you comfort and you find yourself following his words, nuzzling into your pillow as you back up into him further, seeking for more contact from him. In your dazed state, you think you can hear him growl softly, and you pay it no mind at first, until you feel something poke harder at your back and his hot breath upon your shoulder. This, along with his hand kneading your breast constantly, have you feeling a warmth pool to the bottom of your stomach that was becoming difficult to ignore. You try to shift around in your dazed state only to find Astarion holding you tightly in place, stopping you from moving at all.

“ ‘starion?” You mutter, as you finally awaken.

“Shh, you’re alright, love,” he purrs, his voice but a whisper.

“What are you– ah–!”

His hand leaves your boobs to sneak down between your legs, sliding between your folds to find the dampness that’s been accumulating there.

“Aren’t you the neediest little thing,” he groans, his voice becoming darker as his fingers lazily massage over your clit. “You can relax, dear, I just need you to stay still now.”

The stimulation he’s been providing between your legs finally stirs you completely awake, hazy from his touch. He slides his cock just between your folds and that’s when you realize what the firmness in your back was. Instinctively, you spread your legs apart to help him ease in, wanting him to go further, but he closes your thighs back together, uttering in a raspy voice.

“Tsk tsk, I said relax. You need not do anything.”

“Are you sure about this?” You manage to say through your breathy voice.

“Very much so,” his other hand wraps around your throat pulling you back, only applying a light pressure around your neck and a whimper escapes you. “Now, be good for me, will you, darling?”

You nod, as much as you can with his hand around you, and close your eyes, letting him use you as he sees fit. His hand over your waist holds your legs tightly together, as he slides his length between your legs, getting his cock wet from your folds. His rhythm starts slow as he gets accustomed to the sensation, and the friction it creates has you panting, as your own pleasure builds up.

"Oh doll, are you enjoying me using you in your sleep? How depraved," he growls and you feel yourself getting soaked from the sound of his voice and his shaft sliding over your entrance.

It had been so long since you had been intimately close, you had almost forgotten the surprising size of him. You wanted nothing but for him to slide inside of you and indulge in his carnal desires, to use and defile you as if you were nothing but a toy to him, but you let him completely take the reins on this one, let him reclaim his sexual and bodily autonomy the way he chose to, and this morning, it involved fucking you while you were asleep, without you moving as much as a muscle. He chose to focus on his own needs, and in doing so, you discovered a new form of pleasure.

You hear him grunt as his thrust become more erratic, with his nails digging inside the soft skin of your hips, and the wet sounds of your juices slipping over his cock between your legs, and although this was meant for him to focus on his own pleasure, having him handle you this way after many weeks apart brought you close to your edge just as fast as he did. You find yourself contracting the muscles of your thighs together, squeezing around his shaft tighter and at the same time, providing additional stimulation to your clit

“Gods– ah, you feel too good, dear, I won’t last much longer,” he breathes behind you, his growling turning primal now, making him almost unrecognizable. “Can I slide inside of you? It’ll just be the tip, please, I need to feel you.”

You’re not even sure if he heard the “yes” you barely manage to voice out, when you feel him plunge inside of you in one strong push, your pussy offering little to no resistance in the state it is.

“Fuckkk, I've missed how you feel wrapped around me,” he groans. “So sorry love, I simply can’t resist your cunt when it's drooling for me like that,” he resumes his thrusts into you, nearing the point of his own climax, when he hears you whimpering. “You've been so good for me, I just need you to hold on a bit longer. Can you do that for me, my sweet?”

You’re way past the point of answering, reduced to small cries and gasps as he rams recklessly into your needy cunt. When you hear him whine your name, you clench around him, hit by the waves of your orgasm. As your walls tighten around him, he finally stills inside, pushing your hips flush against his to shoot his seed deep inside your womb. You feel his cock pulsing inside of you as he unloads himself and the sensation sends an additional wave of electricity through your body.

You’re both left as panting messes, bathing in a mix of your combined sweat and come as you come down from your high. He rests with his forehead against your shoulder as he catches his breath.

“Wouldn’t want to make a mess here, it’d be better if I just stayed inside you, don’t you think?” He says between breaths, and you hum, your voice still out for the count, as he smiles behind you. “I thought so. Now, I believe you have a beauty sleep you need to catch up on, you should try to rest a bit more before we face the day.”

Even if you wanted to get up, you wouldn’t have been able to, as this session got you as tired as if you had never slept in the first place. He snuggles back into the position he initially was, with the additional embrace your cunt was providing around him, and leaves a loving kiss over your shoulder, nuzzling into your neck. As you close your eyes, ready to drift back into a deep slumber, he whispers softly:

“Thank you, my love.”

Thank you for reading! Comments, reblogs, and likes are very much appreciated <3

tag list (comment or message me if you want to be added!): @grimistheangerinmystares @silverfangmarks @roguishcat @nyx-knox @anacdoce @jwera @annnagennnie @angeldarkness95 @marlowethebard

#my posts #my writing #astarion smut #astarion x you #astarion x reader #bg3 smut #ao3 #astarion ancunin #bg3 #writers on tumblr #bg3 x reader #bg3 x you #bg3 x tav #astarion x female reader #cnc somno #somno k!nk #cnc k!nk

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ineffable-doll · 3 months ago

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Tips on adding tags to fics

I wrote a guide last year about writing fanfic summaries (check it out here) and thought it might be useful to do a follow-up on tags! (Please note that this is AO3-specific and focuses entirely on the Additional Tags section. And also that all of this is just my opinion.)

I see folks often lament that they don’t know what tags to add to their fics; I think the biggest struggle comes from folks not knowing what purposes tags serve. So, let’s discuss that!

Convey Tone

The first thing tags are used for is to tell the audience what tone to expect from the fic. Is it a lighthearted comedy with some sweet moments? Tag it with Fluff, Humor, and Comedy. Is it a dark, slow, depressing tale that ends poorly? Try Heavy Angst, Sad, Bad Ending.

When looking for a fic to read, people want to know what the vibe is so they can find the fic that matches what they’re in the mood for. The summary is useful for this, too, but the tags are where you can really confirm: Yes, this is a fic with Light Angst, Humor, and Happy Ending.

In short: use tags as tone indicators. Not all fics cleanly fit one tone or the other, so overlap tags accordingly. It’s normal to have some contradiction; that’s the nature of storytelling.

Some common tone indicator tags:

Fluff

Tooth-Rotting Fluff

Domestic Fluff

Romantic Fluff

Light-Hearted

Crack

Crack Taken Seriously

Hurt/Comfort

Emotional Hurt/Comfort

Comfort No Hurt

Hurt No Comfort

Humor

Some Humor

No Plot/Plotless

Light Angst

Angst

Heavy Angst

Angst With a Happy Ending

Eventual Happy Ending

Sad Ending

Bad Ending

Happy Ending

Hopeful Ending

Ambiguous/Open Ending

…and more!

2. Content Warnings

Next, tags are a great place to add content warnings for your fic. Notes can go into more detail or be used for chapter-level warnings, but putting the broad categories of your content warnings in the tags is a good idea so those who wish to avoid certain types of content can do so, and those specifically seeking out heavy content can find what they’re looking for.

AO3 has the Archive Warnings function to help with this, but tags can elaborate on or specify warnings that don’t fit the Archive Warning categories.

Not everyone likes content warnings or sees the point of adding them, or they feel that they ruin the surprise element of storytelling. I won’t make a detailed argument here, but consider content warnings a sign of respect for your audience and their wellbeing. Triggers are very real things rooted in trauma and the least you can do is give someone a heads up that what you wrote could negatively affect them. Plus, as mentioned, sometimes darker content is exactly the thing someone wants, and a warning can actually be another way to attract a reader.

A very very short list of content warning tags to consider (and here’s your own heads up for mentions of upsetting topics in this list):

Death

Grief/Mourning

Violence

Canon-Typical Violence

Torture

Blood

Abuse

Alcohol

Drugs

Rape/Non-con Elements

Mentions of Rape/Non-con

Consent Issues

Mental Health Issues (there are lots of more specific tags for this category)

Panic Attacks

Ableist Language

…and more!

(There is definitely more that could be said regarding content warnings for Explicit fics, but I don’t read or write those, so you’ll need to look elsewhere for that.)

3. Searchable/Fandom-Specific

One of the most useful aspects of tags is being able to search the entire Archive via tags and/or filter content by tags (both to include and exclude – familiarize yourself with AO3’s Filter system if you haven’t already). So, you’ll want to include tags that folks are searching by. Tone indicator tags are used this way, but so are fandom-specific, character-specific, and relationship-specific tags.

If you have no idea where to start, look up the fandom/character/relationship you are writing for and filter AO3 by that. Then, spend some time looking at tags and filtering by different ones. See what comes up. Reading fic is always the best way to learn how to tag them, and that’s especially the case here. Maybe you’ll end up creating a new fandom tag!

While fandom-specific tags are not necessary, they can help make your fic easier to find, especially in large fandoms. Note that fandom-specific tags will usually have the fandom listed in parentheses at the end.

It’s difficult to make a list of tags for this sort of thing, but here’s some common structures I’ve seen over the years:

[Character Name] Needs a Hug

Asexual/Aromantic/Demisexual (etc.) [Character Name]

Oblivious [Character Name]

Dramatic [Character Name]

Sweet [Character Name]

Angry [Character Name]

Disabled [Character Name]

Autistic [Character Name]

Agender/Nonbinary/Trans [Character Name]

[Character Name] Has Anxiety/ADHD/Tourette’s etc.

Ambiguous [Character Name] and [Character Name] Relationship

Queerplatonic [Character Name] / [Character Name]

They/Them Pronouns for [Character Name]

Teacher/Superhero/Artist/other profession [Character Name]

[Character Name]-centric

Touch-Starved [Character Name]

[Character Name] is Bad at Feelings

[Character Name] Has Self-Esteem Issues

…and more!

Another category is tags for specific scenes, missing scenes, story arcs, episodes/chapters/parts, and so on, such as:

The Night at Crowley’s Flat (Good Omens)

Cloud Recesses Study Arc (Modao Zushi)

Post-Mogami Arc (Mob Psycho 100)

And there are plenty more that are so fandom-specific that they don’t fit an exact category:

Alternate Universe – No System (Scum Villain)

Heaven is Terrible (Good Omens)

Xianle Trio (Tian Guan Ci Fu)

4. BONUS Topic – Canon Divergence and Alternate Universes

One of the most fun parts of fanfic is toying with canon, so here’s a list of tags that can convey your fic’s relationship to the canon story. These are for fics that maintain a strong relationship with or resemblance to canon.

Pre-Canon

During Canon

Post-Canon

Canon Compliant

Not Canon Compliant

Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence

Alternate Canon

Fix-It

Not a Fix-It

Fix-It of Sorts

Some fandoms have specific tags regarding canon compliance with only parts of the given media – usually the case for franchises or works with big gaps between installments.

Not Canon Compliant With [Media Name] [Season/Episode Number]

Next are Alternate Universes (AUs), which are so divergent from canon to the point of not even being in the same world. There are more types of AU than I could dare list here, and several are also fandom-specific, but here’s some generic sorts that come to mind:

Modern Setting

Human

High School

College/University

Roommates/Housemates

Soulmates

Superheroes/Superpowers

Fairy Tale

Urban Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Meet-Cute (can also be Alternative Universe – Different First Meeting)

Meet-Ugly

…and more!

5. BONUS BONUS Topic – Romance

Lots of fics on AO3 are written for romantic ships, and there are a LOT of tags to categorize different types and stages of these ships. These tags are useful to establish reader expectations (and again, for filtering). Some common examples:

Pre-Slash

Pre-Relationship

Developing Relationship

Established Relationship

Love Confessions

Love Realization

Drunken Confessions

Mutual Pining

Not Actually Unrequited Love

Getting Together

Getting Back Together

Moving In Together

Falling in Love

Marriage

[Friends/Enemies/Strangers/Rivals/etc.] to Lovers (can also have three stages, such as Strangers to Friends to Lovers or Lovers to Enemies to Friends)

Flirting

Slow Burn

Denial of Feelings

…and more!

There are also tags to specify what physical affection the characters engage in:

Holding Hands

Cuddling & Snuggling

Hugs

Kissing

Making Out

Almost Kiss

First Kiss

Second Kiss

Literal Sleeping Together

Non-Sexual Intimacy

No Smut

Explicit Sexual Content

Implied/Referenced Sex

…and more!

Aaaand a few non-romantic ones to toss around, for fun:

Best Friends

Platonic Relationships

Friendship

No Romantic Relationships (goes under the Relationships section, not Additional Tags)

Found Family

Friendship/Love

Ambiguous Relationships

Queerplatonic Relationships

Family

Parenthood

Love

Siblings

Developing Friendships

Parent/Child Relationship

…and more!

This guide got out of hand, and I still didn’t cover everything I could have, but I hope this was a helpful overview and makes tagging a little easier for you going forward! Here’s AO3’s tagging page for more info. Feel free to drop your own tips in a reblog/comment or ask questions if there’s something you want me to elaborate on. <3

#ao3 #ao3 fanfic #ao3 writer #fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic writing #fic writing #writing #writing advice #ao3 tags #archive of our own

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dcufans4palestine · 10 months ago

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DCU Commissions for Palestine

Important Dates:

Creator sign-ups: July 1-17

Commissions open: July 20-August 10 (OPEN NOW)

Important Links:

Check out all of the commission offerings in our creator masterlist!

Want to get involved? Join our discord!

Want more information? Check out our carrd for FAQs, donation options, and more!

Learn more about the raffles we are hosting for all creators and donors!

Donor guide!

Submit proof of donation in our donor form!

Use our tag guide for finding creators!

Commission sheet guide!

How It Works - Creators

Creators can sign up now through July 15. All DCU creators welcome. Any parts of the DCU fandom are welcome (including crossovers). ALL types of fan works are welcome, including digital art and fanfiction (if you wish to donate a physical item, such as physical art or merch, please reach out to us).

Creators will have complete control over what they offer. Before July 20, creators will be expected to create commission sheets. Here is a guide on making a commission sheet. We will share all of these commission sheets on the tumblr page and in a masterpost.

Creators can begin posting their creations on August 17. This is NOT a deadline, but the whole week will be a celebration of everyone’s hard work. We will be sharing everyone’s completed works, the total amount raised, and more! We will continue to share completed commissions after this week. There are no specific deadlines, but we ask that creators be upfront with donors about their timeline. Creations should be posted on tumblr and there will also be an ao3 collection for fics.

How It Works - Donors

Commissions will be open July 20-August 10. Donors will be able to commission fanworks in exchange for donations to Palestinian causes. Donors get to pick which creator they would like to commission to get the DCU fan work of their dreams! Try out our tag guide to find the perfect commission for you or join our discord to get connected with creators. Plus, all donors will automatically be entered into our raffle! Read through our donor guide for more information.

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midnight-mourning · 15 days ago

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🐟Midnight's DCA MerMay🐟

It's that time again, but now it's for May! So let's just jump right into it;

Requests

I will have 16 slots available for requests. Length will be the same as previous events with 1000-2000 words allocated to each

Requests can be anything (again)! Just ask that they relate to mermaids/mermay in some way, be that directly or indirectly and of course DCA-related.

As most know I am an X reader writer, but as long as my general request rules are followed, I don't mind writing for ocs, canon, etc.

fair warning though for the above, I am not familar at all with TSAMS and if you DO have a specific au, I will do my BEST to be accurate but cannot guarentee beyond that

For those who don't know my rules, no nsfw (suggestive is fine!), and if you want something specific, be specific. Besides that, it's fair game, request what you want!

Potential Issues & Schedule

If there is overlap between request ideas, they will be combined in some manner of speaking (if possible). If needed, I will reach out to you about adjusting ideas or the likes, though I don't forsee this happening. This would occur if for example, someone wants gift shopping with Sun with their oc, and someone else wants the same thing with a reader-insert. Whoever requested second would be who I reach out to.

Requests will be posted starting on May 1st & ending on the 31st! I will likely post every other day, with the fic I'm writing suplementing in between ^^

I will be starting writing as soon as I get the first request, as I have a busy month or so prior to May SO, requests will be open from today (April 13th) until next week April 20th, or until I get 16 unique requests.

To keep things organized, please request in the comments of this post. This also helps to potentially keep from overlap in requests, as you'll be able to see what else has already been requested. If you request in my ask box or such it'll make things a bit more difficult, so please avoid that.

HOWEVER, there is one exception to the above, which is if you wish to request anonymously, which is completely fine to do! But please only request in my ask box if you want to be anonymous. If overlap happens in that case, then y'all may just get two responses with similar vibes on the same day (essentially a bonus lol)

Sharing & More

Please feel free to share this post around, and request if you want to! Once I hit 16 unique ones I'll reblog this post with the announcement that requests are closed, so make sure to double check they aren't closed already prior to requesting!

I'll also post updates every couple of days regarding the status of total requests as well ^_^

Everything related to this will be under the tag #MM dca MerMay

These should be uploaded to ao3 when posted here, so you'll be able to read there if you prefer!

Shout out to the artists and beta-readers helping out with this event! It's a big help and adds to the fun so very excited to get to cooking with these and see what y'all get up to with them ^^ (if you're interested in joining in on this here's a final call to reach out and I'll invite you to the discord server :D)

General update things from me

As I said in my update post I am, very busy, things have picked up in my research so I'm in crunch mode to get done asap so i can graduate

I've been writing tho! Several things I'm waiting to share until I clean them up a bit but once mermay gets started i don't forsee another dry spell for a bit at least

Been working on a bit of everything, CS and HS both sit at the back of my mind but I just haven't had the time to really sit down and write for them both given theyre more in-depth with plot and such, will be getting back to them once im able to though I promiseee

I'm down a thumb rn due to a run in with a mandolin (the cutting tool not the instrument) but I will survive! not being able to draw sucks tho >_<

Excited to see the requests, bye for now!

Tags for those who enjoy my writing (if you'd like added, just let me know!)

@scarletcowboy @beemyhuneybee @fishm0ther @deviouscrackers @elsajoyagent8 @luckyyyduckyyy @zenkaiankoku @jogimote @local-shrub @milosmantis @robinette-green @everlightreader @sinister-sincerely @starredeclipse @dangerva @juukai @crystalmagpie447 @mothgutz236 @lizyxml @divinit3a @amarynthian-chronicles @crystalfay @that-one-unknown-artist @rosescarletful @buzzy-bee @hazelthebat @nightriverart

#dca fandom #fnaf dca #fnaf sun #fnaf moon #dca fic #fnaf daycare attendant #sundrop #moondrop #MM dca mermay #writing requests #i forgot to post this yesterday like i said i would oops #to be fair #busy saturday #BUT it's here now #the story is coming along nicely #big things there #will make a formal post for it over the next couple of weeks and such probably

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joelmillers-wife · 9 days ago

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take my hand (joel miller x f!reader) chapter three

18+, MDNI series masterlist: here | please check this for complete series warnings and tags pairing: joel miller x f!reader chapter summary: your patrol with joel takes a detour to find the next edition of Savage Starlight wc: 6.3k rating: this story is 18+ (minors, do not interact), there will be eventual smut in later chapters chapter warnings and tags: moderate amount of violence, cursing and tlou lore accurate outbreak content below, TW: alludes to suicidal ideation (please feel free to message me or send me an ask about specifics if you want clarification before reading), angst, reader has no description besides she has hair, jackson!joel, age difference: reader is in her 30s and joel is in his 50s, sloooow burn, enemies to friends to lovers type-beat ao3 | follow @writtenbynic and turn on notifications for chapters! dividers made by: @saradika-graphics , check them out!

previous chapter | next chapter

III. ANOTHER LOVE

And if somebody hurts you, I wanna fight But my hand's been broken one too many times So I'll use my voice, I'll be so fucking rude Words, they always win, but I know I'll lose

Your patrol shifts ended up being every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with you on standby as extra help for Fridays–each day changing what time you were scheduled as well as the location. After your first patrol, you had anticipated a new partner, only to return the Wednesday after to see Joel still listed next to your name. Not just on that day, but almost every shift after.

It shocked you at first. In your eyes, this was either because Tommy was forcing his brother to be your partner, or maybe Maria wanted to punish Joel.

“Ya know what it took me to convince Maria to let you stay in this damn town? What with her knowin’ everythin’ you’re capable of?”

You recall the conversation you had overheard between Tommy and Joel that morning. The way Tommy had scolded him for his lack of involvement with other people. How Joel dragged him away for another talk after you both had arrived back to Jackson, you assumed Joel yelled at Tommy to change partners. Considering your designated patrol partner for the near future, you settled on the idea that you were being forced to work with Joel as some form of punishment towards him.

But your confusion grew as time went on, because Joel wasn’t always your partner. If it wasn’t Joel, if he wasn’t available on a certain day for whatever reason, then it was Tommy—only ever Tommy and Joel. It felt odd, considering everyone else in town took turns rotating on who their partners were. It was common that the same groups would be together most of the time, but they all still had some changes every now and then. Not you, though—no. It only made things worse when people picked up on your pairings, and you learned that prior to you, Joel only ever went on patrols with his brother.

The question of how trusted you really were began to plague you. Maybe, on that first patrol, Joel saw something in you he didn’t like–something that he didn’t trust and had confided in his brother to keep an eye on you.

That theory didn’t hold much proof to you, though. You had grown closer with Tommy, and Maria with him. Your occasional shifts with Tommy always went well—the two of you bonding over similar interests such as music, or Tommy talking about being a father and how Benjamin was like. You were invited for dinners every now and then at their house, were asked about your opinions on things going on in town or advice on what would best help the community. They made you feel valued. Were you really a liability if they were allowing you into their space so willingly?

It was almost a year of you being in Jackson with your second autumn here coming to end. You had grown somewhat used to the way things were around here and things felt like they had evolved for the better the more time you spent here. The only thing that never changed was Joel.

The two of you never engaged in small talk—all the information you knew about him was limited, and given to you by either Ellie or his brother. You’d see him around town, whether in the mess hall or at the shops, but all he ever offered was a brief glance in your direction with no greeting. Patrols were nothing out of the ordinary as you never encountered anything more than a few stray infected scattered around on their own, far away from Jackson. Your moments with Joel were the same—quiet. The most you ever got out of him was that he transitioned from grunting and scowling at everything you said to giving you nods, still accompanied by his usual frown.

Progress.

You spent most of your time with Ellie as she still would go to you for quality time. The difference is that she stopped being shy about coming up with excuses to hang out, and instead would just show up to places you were and begin conversing with you. You also noticed Joel began expecting her to be where you were—looking for her in the stables or knocking on your door to check her whereabouts. For some reason, it meant something to you. The fact that you had become someone he was comfortable having his “kid” around. A part of you maybe wished he would find your presence somewhat… comfortable? Just enough to make moments like these a bit less awkward.

The morning weather today felt colder than recent, making you believe winter was approaching a bit faster than anticipated. The good news with the cold is that the infected were less likely to be out soon enough. Not because they feel anything, but because everyone else stays as sheltered and secluded as they can to stay safe, giving the infected no reason to wander off.

Today’s shift has been a typical routine that you and Joel have fallen into. Each time you still offer small comments to him with no response, but you stopped paying his reactions any mind.

The two of you had just cleared the outdoor shopping center, finding nothing more than two clickers in one of the stores when Joel spoke up.

“Area’s cleared,” he says before looking behind him to a small road that leads further into another town. Nodding his head in that direction, he says, “Let’s head into the next town over. Tommy told me he saw a comic book store up ‘ere. Wanna try and find the next volume in the series Ellie’s readin’.”

The idea warms your heart before you show slight hesitation. “Are you sure? That part’s way past anything we’re usually allowed to reach… I mean, Maria is in charge, and she is your sister-in-law so I figure they probably don’t mind you–”

Joel cuts you off firmly. “That’s right. They don’t mind. Now c’mon.”

Knowing there is no use in arguing with him, you silently follow his lead.

It takes you about half an hour to reach the town. Upon arriving, you are a bit surprised to see how much bigger the area is than you expected. The layout resembles a square with an empty park and courtyard in the center. Separated from the middle by roads, you see pet stores, abandoned restaurants, a tattoo shop, and more buildings along the perimeter.

A quick glance around showed you that there was no immediate threat, but a part of you still felt anxious. While the land was wide, the arrangement of the shops made it so you felt you were trapped in a box–opening yourself up to anyone, or anything, that could be looking in.

Seemingly unbothered, Joel kept walking along the road before he found a tall and wide building–the comic book store. It looked to be about two floors tall based on what you could see through the molded windows, the dirt and destruction making it hard for you both to get a good view of what lies inside.

“Son of a–fuckin’...” You hear Joel saying. Bringing your attention to him, you see him frustratingly yanking on both of the door handles to the store. Getting no result, he slams his hand on the glass. “God damn fuckin’ doors jammed,” he says with a scowl on his face.

“Oh, um…” You trail off as you try to look around for another way in. You walk over to the neighboring store, a coffee shop, and take a look through the windows for any immediate danger. Finding no signs of infected, you look further back to notice that towards the back of the coffee shop, a door was slightly ajar–a door that was against the wall being shared with the comic book store.

You hear Joel huff back at the doors of the comic book store. “Whatever,” he mumbles to himself while looking at his feet. “Fuckin’ dumb idea anyways.”

You were stunned to see a tinge of sadness from him, and your heart hurt because you knew what was going on. It wasn’t so obvious that everyone in town knew, but if you spent enough time with Ellie you could tell that something was… off between the two of them. She found more excuses to be out with friends at school, and you’d assume Joel would become stricter because of it. The stereotype of a rebellious teenager being scolded by the overprotective father.

Yet he was always very lax when it came to it–letting her hang out as much as she wanted, being more lenient on curfews while also trying to make sure she stays safe. You could tell he was trying, and whatever it was that was happening between them, whatever had caused this very slight tension, he was trying to fix it. Realizing he potentially wanted to get her something to make her happy, you decide you want to help.

Not for him, though. For Ellie of course.

“Hey,” you call out to grab his attention. “I see a door in the back of this place… It’s open and looks like it may lead into the comic book store,” you suggest while pointing towards the back side.

He comes up beside you and ducks down, looking into the window and following his eyes to where your finger was pointing. Your body shudders as his figure hovers over your shoulder. You take note that he’s closer than he’s ever been to you, his breath on your neck and his body heat making you feel warm all of a sudden. You clear your throat before standing up straight and taking a step away from him.

“We could try and see if we can make it through there?” You offer.

Joel straightens up, looking down at you for a moment until his lips settle into a firm line and he gives you a nod in agreement.

The two of you are able to get the coffee shop door pulled open with a little bit of effort. The moment you step in, Joel pushes past you to reach the back door before you can. He holds up his gun before looking at you. Having done this routine with him before, you knowingly nod before mimicking his movements to position your own gun properly.

His hand reaches for the doorknob and twists it slowly, only for the both of you to be surprised at the fact it opened easily. Joel steps a foot across the doorway to enter into the comic book store, but the both of you simultaneously freeze when you hear it.

Clicking. Much more clicking than you recall having experienced together.

Joel turns his head to look back at you with a brief look of worry in his eyes before putting a finger to his lips. You give a nod of understanding and tense up as you wait for him to fully open the rest of the door.

The building is a lot bigger than you anticipated. It feels more akin to one of those large grocery stores you had run into, except with two stories. The place was very open with wide aisles that were lined with rows and rows of not just comic books, but what seemed to be posters, DVDs, and vinyls. The center of the store had a very large circular area that you chalked up to be the check out area. The back of the store held a small stage with chairs thrown across it, as if this place held some kind of game night or community events at one point. In front of the stage were long tables with books scattered across–chairs surrounding the tables in an unorganized manner. A quick look upstairs showcased even more aisles of books and other items from what you could see.

Scattered amongst the store was infected—potentially thirty of them, but you couldn’t make out all of them with the boarded windows blocking the sunlight creeping in. They looked to be a group mixed with runners and clickers. The runners were bent over, curled into themselves twitching. The unnerving sounds of them groaning made your skin crawl–it was almost as if they were in pain.

That’s something you had learned from the shitty government teachings the quarantine zones would give people at the start of the outbreak. To their understanding, the beginning stages of the Cordyceps infection, the runners, were alive. Their minds overtaken by the fungus, driving them mad with a desire to continue growing the fungus. Humans trapped with poisoned minds and unable to control themselves.

Sometimes that’s why you think they make the sounds they do—it’s as if they’re crying out in pain.

The sounds from runners don’t fill you with the same sense of fear as the clickers do. The third stage of the infection has caused their brains to split open as the fungus grows outside of their body–making them blind and reliant on sound. The eerie clicking noises they make being their only source to know what is going on around them through echolocation.

You’ve dealt with this many infected before. You’ve seen, handled, and killed more than your fair share of clickers. You’ve done this before. You’ve done this on your own. You can do it with Joel.

The two of you quietly step through the door, standing next to each other and watching for any signs that your presence has been made known. Seemingly in the clear, Joel looks to you before pointing to one side of the store. He then points to himself while gesturing to the other side of the store–the two of you in understanding of how to go about this.

You both silently pull out your individual knives, crouching and walking as quietly as possible over to your respective areas. The first infected you come up to is a runner with its position making it so that you walk up on its left side. With a silent swiftness, you lunge up and grab it by its throat with your left arm, holding it in a headlock. Before it’s able to screech out in warning, you bring the knife up to its right temple, sinking your weapon into it as you hear a sickening squelching sound. As you feel its struggling stop, you slowly lower its body onto the floor so as to not make a loud sound that alerts the others.

Reaching the end of that aisle, you take a moment to look over to Joel’s side to check on him and find his eyes already on your figure. He holds a firm and cold look in his eyes, but you see something else in him that you aren’t given the chance to figure out. The two of you give each other a quick once-over, and you share a nod before continuing the same routine throughout the store.

After a good amount of time, the two of you were able to clear the entire store quietly and without causing chaos. Joel walks up to you and whispers, “You alright?”

Your voice matching his, you reassure him that you are. A flash of relief passes over his face before he looks around. “Think we got ‘em all. Don’t see or hear anythin’ else… I checked upstairs too,” he says out of breath.

Speaking at a more normal volume, you say, “Guess we gotta go find that comic book now.”

He looks at you and huffs out what sounds like it could be a laugh. “Yeah… Let’s get on that.”

After he shares the name of the book he is looking for, you part ways to silently search different areas of the store to find the book. You recognize the title, Savage Starlight. You’ve been hearing recaps of it from Ellie after she finished each one she had found.

You search your section of the first floor with no luck and climb up the broken escalator to the top floor. You scan through about five more aisles before you feel as though this store won’t have what it is you are looking for. Off to one side of the upper floor you spot signs for some restrooms in a corner, in front of it lies giant broken wooden beams that are stacked on top of each other. You take a quick glance up to see a piece of the ceiling has fallen and covers a section of aisles you had not checked out yet.

Walking up to it, you struggle to read what is held on the row as so much dust and debris covers the space–your body twisting as you try to peek through the pieces of wood to look at the shelves. You decide to pull out your flashlight from your backpack and try to shine light through whatever pieces of the row that were not covered. When you hit the third row, you smile.

No fucking way.

Your smile growing, you lean over the railing on the second floor. “Hey, Joel, guess what I found?”

He hurries up the escalator and makes his way over to stand beside you as you shine your flashlight through the cracks of the beams. His eyes spot what you found when the light settles on the words Savage Starlight.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he says. For the first time since you’ve been to Jackson, he smiles. A real, full smile. The only person who’s smile was contagious to you has been Ellie–yet you’ve never felt the way you do right now seeing Joel smile.

“Looks like this part of the building fell and the beams covered it. I just need your help moving them in order to reach the books if that’s alright,” you share, scanning your gaze up to the ceiling as you look over the beams. You see Joel nod in your peripheral and turn to see him looking at you, still smiling, but it’s a more distracted smile. You stare back at him for a moment, your heart stuttering from the intensity of his gaze before starting to move the wooden beams out of the way.

Joel quickly takes over by moving some of the larger pieces of wood out of the way first. “I got it. Been doin’ shit like this for years before the outbreak. Used to be a contractor,” he says. That was something you had known about him already as Tommy had told you stories about that part of their lives before the outbreak. But it’s the first bit of information that you’ve heard about Joel, directly from Joel.

Another thing you learned about Joel was something that you had noticed when you first saw him. It was that scar on the right side of his temple. You hadn’t paid it any mind until Ellie had talked about it one day when ranting on how he never listens to her.

“He got shot, they missed, and now he has that scar. He says that’s the reason why he can’t hear me that well sometimes, but really I think that’s just him covering up for getting old.”

The little bit of information made moments with Joel make a little more sense. You’d notice that he’d always ride his horse with you on his left side, leaving his good ear to hear anything important from you. Or when you would point out a noise, he’d always angle his head so that he was able to catch the sound a bit more clearly on his left ear. Knowing that about him just helped you understand his habits a bit more.

Which is why you understand how he doesn’t hear it.

He’s crouched over moving a particularly large wooden beam out of the way when he bangs it loudly against the other beams, an echo following the sound as the pieces clang together. The restroom doors you saw earlier were a few feet to his right, leaving his body angled so that his back is to the doors. With his right ear facing the bathroom, his left ear was only picking up the sounds of the wood moving and the building creaking.

As you went to lay a piece of wood against the wall, you heard a clatter from the restroom. You almost didn’t catch it with the sound being so slight. You squint in the direction, not hearing any other noise for a moment. Suddenly, the bathroom door bangs open and you watch as a clicker screeches and rushes out heading straight towards the noise it heard–straight towards Joel.

You don’t have a chance to think before you yell out Joel’s name, trying to run over to him to reach him before it can. You briefly see him turn around, catching that his movements become quicker after his right ear wasn’t the one facing the bathroom. You push him out of the way, towards one of the reading tables lined across the railing of the second floor.

All you could hear is that clicking noise that never fails to make you nauseous before you realize you succeeded in moving Joel out of the way. Instead, the clicker lunges at you, forcing you and it to topple to the ground with it landing on top of you. It makes a particularly loud screech and rapid clicking before its head rears back for a moment before diving towards you. Just in time, you take a stronger grip on the small piece of wood you were about to throw to the side before, and shove the wood in front of your neck.

Too scared to look, you close your eyes and hold your breath until you hear the crunch of wood as it bites down rabidly into the beam. There’s suddenly the sound of scrambling to your left and the sound of a gun being drawn before you hear a loud bang, the clicking noise twisting into garbled cries. You simultaneously feel something warm and sticky spray across your face, followed by the collapsing pressure of a body onto your chest before being pushed off.

You finally open your eyes to see the clicker’s corpse laying on your right side before looking at the wooden beam you were holding in your hand where you noticed teeth marks sunk deep into it. A loud ringing in your ears engulfs your senses.

No fucking wonder Joel went mostly deaf in his right ear.

You drop your head back against the floor with a deep exhale of breath as your muscles sag with relief. You’re alive. You’re not bit.

The moment of relief ends sharply as you feel your body being roughly pulled up–your eyes slightly glazed over as you try to focus on the cause of the sudden movement you endured. You quickly blink away the fog from your eyes in an effort to focus on the outlined figure standing before you.

Joel. Joel is in front of you. His face is so close to yours that if you moved an inch, your noses would touch. His brown eyes are wide, brows furrowed as always but it was different. It wasn’t out of anger or annoyance… It almost looked like fear. Pure fear.

Your eyes continue to move across his face before you realize his lips were moving. How long has he been talking?

His lips seem to be forming the same word over and over again. Oh… He’s saying your name. You hear it now.

Slowly, the ringing subsides and your brain begins to process what is happening.

“Thought you said to always call out before you take a shot so close to someone’s face.”

He doesn’t seem to find your comment funny, or maybe he just didn’t register it. More of your senses are coming back when you begin to feel pain and look down to see Joel harshly gripping both of your arms whilst shaking you to get your attention. Slowly looking back up to his face, you notice his lips moving again.

Fuck. He was still talking.

“Are you okay?” Joel frantically asks. He repeats your name before demanding, “Are you okay?”

You finally nod but he doesn’t seem satisfied. His eyes look over your body as he begins frantically pushing your sleeves up before reaching to pull the collar of your jacket away from your neck. “Are you bit? Did it bite ya? Are you okay?”

You brush off his hands before bending down to hold up the wooden beam. God, who knew he could be so touchy. “Threw this in front of me just in time. It bit this, not me. I’m fine, I’m not bit.”

His wide eyes look between the piece of wood and you–back and forth, back and forth with that same bit of fear in his eyes that you feel like you’ve seen a lot of today.

“Don’t worry,” you try to reassure.

What you intended to be soothing words seem to have the opposite effect on him. Upon hearing what you say, you see his eyes freeze on yours and watch that fear dissipate and turn into anger. It wasn’t just the usual anger you’ve experienced from him–that typical annoyed anger. No… this was something you hadn’t seen before.

This anger… It’s not like you think he would hurt you. No part of you thinks that. But you’re realizing that he is capable of something much darker than what he lets on around most—something that Maria seemed to already be hesitant about.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

What?

“What?” You ask. His voice isn’t that loud in volume but it still makes you flinch. He speaks with a tone that only comes out of people when they are so angry they can’t see straight.

“The fuck were you thinkin’?! Jumpin’ in front of me like that… Pushin’ me over. You could’ve gotten yourself fuckin’ killed.”

You take a second to process his words. He’s right, you could’ve died… But you didn’t. And if you hadn’t acted as quickly as you did, he would have died.

And Ellie would be alone.

“I heard and saw it before you did, Joel. Your back was to it… You wouldn’t have reacted in time. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t–”

Joel cuts you off. “That ain’t your fuckin’ job now is it? You can’t be actin’ so goddamn reckless and throwin’ yourself in front of danger so often. It’s stupid.”

His voice shocks you. His words shock you—how much venom he holds in them. You’re realizing just now how much he really hates you.

So you fight back.

“What the hell was I thinking…? I told you I’m fine. I wasn’t bit so who cares?” You say, your voice increasing in volume.

Joel seems taken aback for a split second before something dark flashes in his eyes. “I care. So why the fuck don’t you?”

You aren’t given a chance to react as you watch his face twist up in even more anger before shifting into some sort of sick humor. Except he doesn’t yell this time. He laughs to himself. “God… I was fuckin’ right about you.”

You feel your heart drop to your stomach, but he’s not done talking.

“All this damn time you've just been breezin’ through life, huh? Come into town, fit right in, make god damn fuckin’ cookies with your neighbors, make friends with all the people in town, and probably hold your little fuckin’ book clubs every Sunday. And Tommy, my idiot little brother, sticks you with me to make me babysit ya on patrol when you haven’t encountered any real threats. You just get to go out, see the fuckin’ scenery, come home and sleep in your nice warm bed without a fuckin’ worry in the world. And here, today, you’re faced with one single real world problem, and you just act completely fuckin’ reckless.”

You stand there, taking in his words as you silently seethe in anger while his chest moves up and down rapidly as he finishes his rant. You don’t respond right away, blinking a few times and looking around before you finally speak.

“Is that what you think of me?” You softly say at first. He doesn’t show any reaction or sign that he has an answer, besides his mouth settling into a firm line. “You think I’m just some kid don’t you–”

“Oh, believe me, I know you ain’t a kid–”

“Really? Then why the fuck do you keep treating me like one?!” You snap.

You notice the anger on his face flicker as his furrowed brows twitch briefly.

Your voice grows louder as you continue. “All you’ve done since I fucking got here is treat me like a child. The way you look at me, the way you treat me, the patronizing, fucking tone you use when you’re forced to actually talk to me…” You trail off as your chest rises and falls harshly to catch your breath as the words rush out of you.

Your face screws up in anger. “I heard you, you know? Talking to Tommy before our first patrol.”

Joel’s frown deepens in confusion before realization settles over his face causing his scowl to relax a bit. “Yeah,” you bitterly say. “I heard you. I wasn’t gonna get in between a conversation with you and your brother back then, but for fuck’s sake Joel… If you hated me that much, then why didn’t you try to further convince him to get you off patrol with me? When we got back I know you talked to him about getting me off the schedule with you.”

At that, Joel’s face turns back to confusion as if what you said is wrong. You don’t take a break to focus on that though as you continue with your own argument.

“Do you just have this idea that you are the only person who has ever experienced horror in this world? To even think it was possible for me to get as far as I did without a single scratch on me? Seriously? That’s realistic to you?” You huff out angrily, waving your hands around in fury.

“You say that you know I’m not a fucking kid, right? You know that means the outbreak happened after I was born. Meaning my whole world and fucking family fell apart the same way it did for you,” your voice breaks. “I lived through the past two decades in this hell. I fucking lost people and saw horrifying things. I have fought countless of those fucking things every damn day before I stepped foot into Jackson. I was alone for months, surviving on my own. Fighting on my own. Doing everything on my own to keep myself alive until I came here.”

You feel tears well in your eyes and furiously brush them away, frustrated with yourself for letting yourself cry in front of him. Recalling the anxieties you felt when you first arrived in Jackson last year, you say, “Ya know… The first thing I felt when stepping foot into Jackson wasn’t comfort–it was fear. Fear of how normal everything seemed. Fear of being too loud in the streets… Wondering how the hell people could do it without worrying about infected hearing and running in. I mean, god… I haven’t had a full night’s sleep for the year that I’ve been here, despite how much it may seem like I’ve acclimated. I can’t even rest without having one eye constantly open, looking at the door and jumping at every noise I hear in my own home.”

“I did it all on my own, because I don’t have anyone. There’s no one back home that would care if I returned dead or alive. There hasn’t been someone for years. But you? You have people, Joel. So, I’m sorry if my reaction seemed reckless to you, okay? Maybe… Maybe I unconsciously did it because I haven’t really cared about surviving an infected encounter or not for the past decade.”

Joel takes a sharp inhale hearing that. Hearing the crack in your voice as you speak, his face flinching as he stands there with his usual frown.

“The difference between you and me is you have people that care. Your brother? Ellie? Fucking… God, Joel… that little girl depends on you for everything and talks about you like you hung the fucking moon. You can’t leave that. So, I’m sorry that you just see me as some dumb kid, but no one depends on me back home. The least I could do is fucking make sure that the people who depend on you can see you again.”

You notice your body's reaction to your words when you finally stop speaking–how your throat hurts from yelling, how your body is shaking from anger, how your chest is rapidly moving in an effort to catch your breath.

Done talking, you take the moment to properly look at Joel—he doesn’t look completely angry anymore. In fact, you can’t tell what expression he has. His brows are pushed together in a frown, but raised ever so slightly in what looks like it could be surprise. His eyes are dark, but not cold. You don’t know if you’d call that a warm look, but it’s different from the cold ones you’re so used to seeing–the ones you saw after you told him to not worry.

His mouth goes between being held in a firm line to opening every few seconds as if he wants to say something but can’t. Looking down, you see his fists opening and closing tightly like he’s trying to calm himself down.

The two of you stare at each other for a moment longer before you become fed up. He doesn’t care about what you say, you realize. He probably didn’t even listen–still thinking about how to scold you even more for your actions from a few minutes ago.

Scoffing, you reach over to move the last wooden beam and grab the novel that you two had come here for. You shove it into his chest. “Here’s your fucking comic. I’m going home.”

In your peripheral, you see Joel standing there holding the comic to his chest and watching you walk away. You can’t find it in you to care to wait on him.

You make your way down the escalator and back out the way you guys had entered, marching straight to your horse after leaving the building. Without hesitation, you hop on and head back for Jackson, leaving Joel behind.

A few minutes into the journey, you hear the sounds of Joel behind you somewhere along the way as he finally catches up to you, but you don’t pay him any mind. He stays a few feet behind you, silently letting you lead the way.

Hours later, you reach Jackson and wait for the guards to open the gates for you both. The moment you ride in, you notice Tommy at the gates walking towards you both. He seems to take in your current state as you see concern wash over him.

“Are you okay? Did you guys have a tough run in?”

Joel looks to you before opening his mouth to respond to Tommy, but you cut him off before he had the chance. “We’re fine. Couple stragglers but we had it handled,” you say. Tommy looks between you and Joel with an uneasy look on his face. “Seriously, we’re good.”

“Well… Alright then. You let me know if you need anythin’, okay?” Tommy offers.

You nod and begin to walk your horse back to the stables. Tying her up, you check to see that Joel has gone before you walk over to Tommy.

“I can’t go on patrols with Joel anymore.”

Tommy’s face flinches with surprise. “What? The hell happened out there? You sure you’re okay?”

“I already said I’m fine,” you respond firmly. “I’m sorry to ask you to change things so suddenly, I just… I can’t go on patrols with Joel anymore. Please, Tommy.”

Tommy hesitates briefly and looks as if he considers pushing on the subject. Having heard the pleading in your voice, he seems to decide against it and gives you a nod. “Alright. I’ll get it changed. I’m gonna give you the rest of the week off, though. Let you take care of yourself for a bit and give us time to rearrange things. Does that sound good?”

You nod without a word before walking back home. The moment you reach your block, you see Joel standing outside his front yard with Ellie who is jumping up and down. Trying to remain unseen, you book it to your place and get about halfway up the walkway before you hear your name being called.

Turning around, you see Ellie making a run for you before she collides with you in a hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She yells.

You force out a tight smile before pulling her away. “What are you thanking me for?”

She looks back to Joel and pulls up the comic book in her hand. “Joel said you helped him get this for me!”

You look up to see Joel standing there watching you with a shy expression. It feels odd, seeing the normally stoic and cold man you’ve come to know appear so disarmed and uncomfortable.

Looking back down at Ellie, you say, “It’s no worries. Honestly, it was all him. I’m just glad you get to have another in the series.”

Ellie looks as though she wants to continue talking, so you cut her off. “I need to go inside, get washed up. I’ll see you around maybe,” you tell her before walking straight into your house. You wince to yourself as you ignore the look of confusion and disappointment on her face. You just need to get away from them, from him, as soon as possible.

God, what the fuck is wrong with you?

reblogs and comments are appreciated! i hope you all enjoy <3 a/n: hope you guys enjoy :) next chapter will be out saturday april 26th! i also was asked by a few people to be tagged, so here you go! if anyone else wants to be tagged then please let me know! @dendulinka6 @suzysface @koshkaj-blog @orcasoul @emmasveinyahhdih @thatoneperson38747

#joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller x reader #the last of us #joel miller angst #joel miller fluff #joel miller smut #tmh series

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