#comfort before the hurt
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clever-fox-studios · 9 months ago
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New chapter excerpt
Have another tidbit of the next chapter of "Free Runner", a short flashback to the first moment Sun and Moon came online. God knows we need some fluff before the pain:
A lot of life was dark. Or it felt that way so far to the pair who stood patiently in the atrium, only their eyes alight in the dimness. ‘Keep your radials down’ the Sunrise had been told, as they would draw too much attention otherwise and ruin the surprise. The inner flurry of codes and systems inside him buzzed excitedly to finally be allowed to fulfill his purpose after the long journey from the facility; he so wanted to reach out through the dark and take hold of the other unit standing nearby, to remind himself he wasn’t alone in this chamber, but he couldn’t.
Wait.
The yellow glint in the dark was enough for now, he told himself. The other unit–Moondrop, his Tidally Locked partner–was there with him, just as quiet and, if his inner hum meant anything, just as eager. They were never far from each other, not in the short time they’d been active, so there was no reason to believe now was any different. It was even dark, like the first time they became aware of each other.
Coming online for the first time was a slow process; awareness of one’s limbs always came before any sense of space or outside assessment. File after file opened and ran in quick succession, demanding fingers and toes be moved, passive processes being read for anomalies, systems cycled through checkmark after checkmark to ensure they cooperated properly. Somewhere between this initial calibration and opening his eyes, something else rippled through like an echo.
Sunrise.
That was him! A sunrise. A star.
Happiness flashed in his system at knowing himself. Then a tickle followed his elation, a quiet repetition of his joy that felt just a bit different. Feeling that extra nudge of emotion took his attention from his waking process for just a moment, drawing him deeper into himself. What was it? He wanted to know! Mustering the sensation as best he could, Sunrise pressed his emotional code to run again; the echo answered faintly, urging another wave of happiness that it mirrored. Each pass made Sunrise want to skip and laugh! To stay in this place with the little echo of his own happiness forever!
“Hello?”
Startled by the feeling of his own voice, Sunrise waited for the echo to respond. For a long moment, there was nothing. Fretting he’d scared it off, the robot tried to summon his joy again, to share it into the void and see if that brought an answer–but he couldn’t. Afraid his echo had vanished left him empty, too much to be able to express that fleeting feeling of light and positivity.
Then it answered.
“It’s alright.”
The echo sounded nothing like him, to his surprise. While his own voice was high and light, with clear notes that felt like they could reach deep into the darkness and find the corners easily, this one was lower, soft but creaky as if someone had just woken up.
“I’m here.”
Sunrise peered around, unsure where ‘here’ was. “Where?”
“Next to you.”
There was no one, though. Pulling himself from the deep depths of himself, Sunrise reeled as his systems continued their processes around him–breathing, cycling, flexing–but he found what he felt he needed by clinging to his dex-system. Just enough to move his fingers. Turn his hand.
A cool sensation flickered through his system check, his hand coming into contact with something outside of himself that was not part of the flurry of self-diagnostics he was dealing with. The feeling grew as the thing also moved, his fingers being laced into something firm and, inexplicably, familiar.
“Is that you?” Sunrise wondered, not fully expecting an answer.
One still came though, more of an impression than true words. “Yes.”
Joy washed through him again. He wanted these checks to finish so he could wake up! “I’m Sunrise!” he cheered, squeezing the cool thing between his fingers.
The pressure matched his as his hand was squeezed back. While the feelings weren’t as intensely directed as his, Sunrise still knew this echo was as pleased as he felt. “I’m Moondrop,” they replied. “I’m your brother.”
Since then, they hadn’t been apart, even when the lights went off and they were told to conduct a sleep cycle. Moondrop was there, only an arm’s length away.
But this time, they’d been told not to cling to each other, to stand presentably and behave.
Sunrise trusted in the familiar, yellow eyes of his brother that he was there, within reach in the dark, and he would still be there when the light returned and they finally got to meet their mistress. Finally, they could dance. Bring her joy. Sate this nagging urge to be with a human, at their side to make their life more colorful!
He was so excited he could hardly contain himself!
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ciderjacks · 4 months ago
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Party infighting
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sleepwalkersqueen · 4 months ago
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how everyone coping?
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originalartblog · 1 year ago
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Question, is there tiny soukoku corruption??????
With big Chuuya around I don't think Tiny would ever need to use Corruption. His tiny gravity manipulation isn't as strong.
But you got it in my head so let's picture it: there is this 3cm-tall dude that faintly glows red and throws deadly baseballs around. He's fast, dangerous, and, again, 3cm tall. Good luck catching, or even spotting him.
It's Chuuya who ends up having to catch him and throw him at Dazai like a ping pong ball so Dazai can nullify him. Or maybe throw Tinyzai at him. Your pick.
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and then Tiny rolls over and starts snoring the hurt away because he's Chuuya and he's just built different.
tiny snore
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chuluoyi · 3 months ago
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womp womp~ who is ready for another angst joyride with zayne?😗
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ashthewaterghoul · 2 months ago
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Syrens can’t speak on land.
Rain gets summoned and isn’t used to not being able to talk. He’s a deep-sea Ghoul, rarely breaking the surface of the water so he’s only ever gone short periods of times not being able to speak.
Water Ghouls have their own type of sign language so they can commune above water and even under the water if they’re hunting.
When Rain is summoned he is not only silenced due to the amount of time he has to spend above water, but because none of the other Ghouls know sign, and the sign the humans have is different and makes no sense to Rain.
Rain also can’t write been as water, paper and ink don’t exactly mix so he never learned.
He just resigns to nodding and shaking his head and trying to mime as best as he can.
That’s until one day when the Fire Ghoul that has a Water’s name sneaks into his room and raises his hands, making the familiar shapes of infernal sign.
“I’ll be your voice. The voice I never had when I was summoned.”
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teabagboy · 1 year ago
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I'd make some joke about s5 spoilers but i think ill just smash my head into the wall instead
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silverthelovebug · 4 months ago
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Yasammy Week ~ Day 1: Hurt/Comfort
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No matter how bad the nightmare, Sammy would always be there to work her through it. Yaz didn’t like talking about them. Sammy knew they had only gotten worse after Brooklyn’s death. As long as she held her through the night, and whispered sweet nothings into her ear, maybe things would be okay.
@yasammyweek
I hate doing perspective pieces, if you see anything off no you don’t.
Also tiny little details !!! There’s the group photo of the Nublar Six, Sammy’s phone stickers, and a bottle of Klonopin. Yaz’s shirt also reads “Forget glass slippers, this princess wears track and field spikes” :3
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deoidesign · 2 months ago
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My comic is so pretty...
The hiatus is letting me take a little extra time on these episodes, and I'm definitely putting it to good use!!!
#almost done with my 8th episode... which will give me. two weeks. of buffer...#id really like at LEAST a month... but to be more comfortable id like two#which means 2-6 more episodes before I come back!#I've got about 7 weeks so its possible. but i do still have to finish book 4#so much to do ..........#I decided for my next comic im doing 3 updates a month.#having 10 days instead of 7 to make an episode is such a huge huge huge difference...#difference in quality and in my health!#anyways the comic is really pretty im really happy with the work im doing rn#the environments especially. im getting to spend a nice amount of time on them and theyre turning out so nicely#its nice to be able to write with a lot of different environments and not have to redo panels when I get to them cause of time#cause every time theres a wild angle? you need a new background...#so sometimes. often actually. there just isnt the time to make the backgrounds for those and i have to make them more flat...#which is fine. it doesnt really affect anything narratively. but. idk. it's kinda sad right?#anyways yeah! 10 days will be much better.#36 episodes a year is about what ive been uploading with my hiatuses on the weekly schedule anyways!#so might as well cut out that super stressful middleman and just commit to that#52 a year is just such a huge difference and i have to accept its not possible to me#i will hurt myself trying to do that. and i want to make comics my whole life!#so i cant push myself that hard now and sacrifice my future. we're gonna go slower after this...#anyways yeah cant wait to come back but also time. if I could get an extra week like a secret one just for me#where theres no chores no nothin just me and my work#thatd be great! so go ahead and do what you gotta do to give me a little pocket dimension#me: ugh i want to return right now...#the more logical me: NO we need the time to finish everything!!!!!! NOT right now!!!!#time and time again#ttawebcomic#comic panels#hiatus stuff#adam and steve
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gardenofnoah · 11 months ago
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cw: implied sexual trauma, panic attack, intimacy struggles
You don’t notice it happening until it’s buzzing under your skin. Loud and unavoidable, the only thing you can pay attention to is the irregular flutter of your heart and the way it seems that all the air has been vacuumed from the room—
“Hey.”
You blink, and Katsuki is no longer above you. He’s not touching you at all—you turn your head to find him next to you, propped up on an elbow and only worried.
“Too much?”
The panic flares at the question, because what if this is the last time? What if he’s tired of this?
Your exhale is shaky—your laugh is forced and sounds out of place. “No, it was fine, I just—“
“Oi—“ he says, gently, “tell me the truth.”
The truth burns your eyes and keeps them on the ceiling, away from his. You nod, helpless and resigned to whatever comes next.
“What’s goin’ on in your head?”
You feel the tears spill over before you can catch them. You swipe them away with the back of your wrist. It’s still numb. “I’m just sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin it.”
He grunts a little in acknowledgment—a displeased, ugly sound—and then there’s movement that finally draws your eyes to him. You watch him cover himself with your duvet—all the way up to his chin.
“S’it okay if I hold you?”
He reaches for you and you let him pull you in. His hands stay above your shoulders and pointedly avoid your neck—cradling your head, letting you hide in the curve of his throat. His pulse is steady and constant against your forehead—or you imagine it would be, if it wasn’t muted by the fabric.
“Nothin’ is ruined,” he murmurs against your hairline, “s’my job to keep you safe.”
Your chest shudders against the cushion of the blanket and you feel a little guilty about crying all over it but Katsuki keeps you there, tethered to him. The ringing in your ears subsides, just a little. Just enough to hear the panic in your own voice.
“I promise I want it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I’m sorry—“
“Hey, hey,” he shushes you, careful not to tighten his arms around your shoulders. “Nothin’ to be sorry for. S’too much today—that’s all.”
It’s quiet, then, save for your sniffling. He keeps his mouth pressed to your hair, and his arms wrapped around you. There is a noticeable absence of his fingertips tracing along your skin—you don’t feel them there at all, and it’s on purpose. He’s considerate and it makes you anxious.
“Can hear you thinkin’.”
“I just—“ you inhale, trying to be brave, “I don’t want you to leave. I know I can’t—give you this—“
“Oi,” he gruffs, a little sharply, “I don’t give a shit about that. M’not a barbarian.”
You feel the expansion of his lungs as he draws in a slow exhale, and lets it out against the crown of your head. “Don’t think so little of me,” he murmurs, tone laced with hurt.
“You’re right,” you whisper, because he is, “I love you.”
“Love you.” He kisses it into your skin, soft and barely there. “Always will.”
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strandedtoodeep · 24 days ago
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alternative explanation to why Wade want to sacrifice himself in the Time Ripper scene:
Wade: That’s why it’s gotta be me. Logan: What, no- Wade: Yes. Yes it is. I need to do this by myself. Logan: Why? Wade: Because if i die now... i'll not have to watch them die later. Because in the end, i'll outlive them. All of them, Logan.
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jjyo--01 · 5 months ago
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you’re edwin payne. you’re a british schoolboy in the 1910s and you keep to yourself, mostly. you find your penny novels more interesting than people. there’s one boy who seems to like you but you’re too afraid to talk to him lest you make a fool of yourself. you fall asleep one night, unaware that anything might be amiss. you’re violently wrested from your slumber and dragged away scared and confused. your kidnappers are your classmates and they gag you and pin you down. one familiar boy starts chanting and—oh god, what are they calling you? you struggle against them but their grips are just too tight and before you know it the room is silent. you glimpse something crawling in a dark corner. so do they. now it’s your captors’ turn to be scared. in an instant, they’re gone, combusted into flames at a single touch. a demon reveals itself to you and you beg for mercy, for your life. it’s the only thing you can do. but the demon isn’t interested in sparing you, and he drags you down to hell.
at least he said he was sorry.
now you’re in hell. you think you’re dead, but you’re not. the demon is there too, and now he owns you. you think you’re dreaming—no, not dreaming. this is a nightmare you’ll wake up from at any moment. but the more time passes, the less faith you have that this is true. the demon says he doesn’t want you, he has no use for a living human. and so you find yourself alone, tethered in darkness while the demon searches for a trader. he finds one, and you’re brought out to meet him. this demon is different from the one who brought you here, you can feel it. more evil, more sinister. nevertheless, you attempt to take it in stride. you extend a hand and introduce yourself. the demon takes your hand with a hungry grin and you are transported in the blink of an eye. you find yourself in a poorly lit, dingy room with hallways of equal quality stretching and connecting with each other as far as you can see.
it’s eerily quiet and you instinctively know something is wrong. you stand and survey your surroundings. there’s no one here except you. but there is something. a massive lump sits in a dark corner, covered in shadows. you can’t get a proper look at it, but you don’t dare draw any closer. it shifts it’s position and you hear the clanging of a thousand pieces of glass. now you’re confused, but you’re not curious enough to investigate. you need to find a way out of here as quickly as possible, so you make a break for it. you ignore the thing and duck through the nearest hallway as fast as your slippers will take you. then you trip and fall, not quite stifling a sharp cry. you’ve scraped your knees and your palms are bleeding. but it’s no matter, you’ll force your way through the pain.
you realize you’re lost so you turn back, but you freeze before taking your first step. the thing that you couldn’t get a good look at is standing in the doorway, blotting out what little light shone through. it starts crawling toward you—slowly at first, but it picks up speed. the clanging rings in your ears and fear strikes through your heart. you run, but it’s faster than you. god, it’s faster than you. then your leg snags and a shooting pain runs up your body. you look down and see dozens of tiny limbs clawing at your skin, ripping it apart. you hear yourself scream, a bone-chilling, bloodcurdling scream with which you didn’t know your lungs were capable. it’s tearing into your body now. your arms, your torso, your chest. blood fills your throat and then you can’t scream anymore. you feel like you’re on fire. the last thing you see is a head made of a dozen glass faces.
and then you die.
and then you wake.
you see the same dark room as before. you clutch your stomach, the one that had just been ripped out, though the skin is now unmarred. your chest is similarly intact, as is your throat. there is no evidence that you’ve been mauled to shreds, but you feel it in your soul. your body remembers it too. just as you’re coming back to your senses, you hear the creature clambering back through the hall closer to you. you make yourself as small as possible, but it’s dragging something along with it. you squint, and see the most gruesome sight imaginable. it’s you. it’s your body, mangled and broken, covered in blood, hardly recognizable. your gut twists and you feel dizzy. that’s you. it was you. but now you’re here, and your body is there. so what does that make you? you don’t have time to think before your let out an involuntary sob. something squeezes around your heart as you realize your grave mistake. the creature turns its focus onto you. you know what’s about to happen and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
you’re edwin payne. yesterday, you were reading your favorite book instead of listening to a lecture. now you’re in hell, and this is your unspeakable reality for the next 73 years.
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hitlikehammers · 3 days ago
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ignis obscura (dragon-sacrifice!Steve falls for random-man-in-the-woods(?)!Eddie before Steve goes to get eaten) (???)
feat. lots of love-at-first-sight, soul-deep devotion sorta shit
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When a dragon arrives within telling-distance, the town nearest the lair it claims must send the sacrifice; their most valued possession. Everyone knows this.
It was just that no one in Hawkins had ever imagined—never really believed—that of all the villages, a dragon would come to them.
Steve had imagined it, though. As a boy, he’d thought it an adventure. As a teenager, he’d fancied it something of an escape.
Now, when it happens? As a young man, Steve Harrington mostly just thinks of course it goes like this.
Because he’s the disappointing-but-only son of the mayor, in a town where mayoral wealth rivals the coffers of the crown, and if the dragon wants value? Steve’s the gateway to whatever riches have been hoarded, whatever small power may be marshaled to command more, to rule, to gather up virgins if Steve himself proved insufficient to that fabled task—though he was renowned as the most comely of his people, having just dipped his toe into his prime while keeping the rosy flush to his cheeks alongside the strength in his arms: perfect timing, really. It helped pad the argument for him as the tribute.
As if maybe the dragon had waited, had watched. Had known what it wanted, and swooped in with intent.
Steve couldn’t give two rats’ asses what the dragon did or didn’t do, as he made his way through the woods and up the mountain. The stories of sacrifice always paired with the same end: no matter how you pleased the dragon, the tribute did not live to descend to their home again.
So really, at this point, it was merely a question of how Steve would meet his end. At the dragon’s mercy, of course, but: more like details.
Steve distracts himself with arguments for whether it’s wiser, or more efficient, to carve human flesh with claws or teeth, and it’s a job done so well that he not only finds himself wholly turned around on this trek, far too close to nightfall, and not nearly as near to the cave he’s aiming for as he need be, but more than that:
He fails to notice he’s no longer alone.
“Are you lost?”
There is a honey-smooth quality to the voice that rings out but…deeper. Darker even, though it doesn’t strike warning between Steve’s lungs. It’s…caramelized, and slow slip of thick…almost comfort. Steve fights to keep a clear head: not all dangers are apparent. Enchantment and faerie mischief, even, could have found him in his mindless wandering.
“Lost?” Steve tries to scoff at the right tone of haughty; “I’ve lived here my entire life—“
“In these deserted woods?” the voice, and now there’s a figure that draws nearer, closer in the growing claim of the moon for light but still more silhouette than anything as it—he, the voice is male, Steve is near-certain—turns and assesses their immediate surroundings before tutting thrice:
“Strange choice of domicile.”
And it’s mocking, of course it is: but the honey-caramel of the voice is a molten thing. It warms Steve deep and he cannot even be cross.
“I,” he starts, but sees not point to finishing before he sighs and admits, to himself as much as to the stranger:
“Yes, I am lost.”
“But you’ve lived here your whole life!” the stranger slaps a palm to his own cheek, mouth dropped in faux-horror but he looks so…earnest. And maybe adorable with it, so much so that Steve can’t help but chuckle a little helplessly for it all.
“Hush,” he chides, half-heartedly at best. “I was supposed to get to the caves by nightfall.”
“Ooo,” the stranger leans in, as if to prepare for a secret; Steve didn’t realize he was so close; “scintillating dinner date?”
Steve can’t help it but to snort.
“By a measure,” Steve deadpans, before clearing his throat; “I need to present myself to the dragon.” When the strange man stares at him unblinking Steve deflates a little.
“You know, hot, fire,” he gestures broadly; everyone knows what comes at the end of a sacrifice: “dinner…”
“Why are you looking for a dragon?” the other man asks, his lips pulling down a bit in just-shy-of-a-frown. Steve doesn’t like the look on him, so he tries to put on a bit of a show, match the stranger’s teasing energy from before as best he can in the given circumstances:
“I just so happen to be the village sacrifice,” Steve announces, chest puffed a bit, but he fails to do anything but deepen the frown he’d been aiming to wipe clean from the other man’s face; now Steve’s frowning, too, as he deflates a little, but hardens a little too, crossing his arms and leaning back where the other man’s not even bothered to stop leaning in, despite his apparently displeasure.
“What?” Steve challenges, but it’s brittle, he knows it. “It’s a,” he vacillates, unsure how exactly to describe the…ritual of it. The way it’s cast as a, as a…
“It is a high,” Steve’s voice wavers a bit, like finally saying it aloud makes it all the less believable: “honor.”
The other man eyes him silently until Steve feels it in his very skin, before finally he speaks:
“Hmm,” he tips his head, considering just a little before he seems less to come to a conclusion, and more to a conclusion on how to best voice the things he wanted to say already, at that:
“Well, I know these woods very well, better than any hailing from the village I suspect you’re speaking of,” his gaze flicks Steve top to toes, something warm in it, no, something hot in it, that simmers through Steve’s veins: “and so I can get you to the caves, at the very least for shelter before moonrise-full,” he glances skyward, seeming to doublecheck his words before he nods decisively and reaches out a hand:
“Think you can trust someone you only just stumbled upon in the forest to steer you straight?”
And Steve doesn’t know for sure what he’d have done, what his answer and actions may have been if death-by-some-draconic-means weren’t imminent. But it is, and so he takes the hand offered, and grasps more than shakes, holds more than strikes accord and lets himself notice and relish how smooth and warm it feels against his skin:
“Lead the way.”
He doesn’t know what he’d do in lesser circumstances.
But for the grin on the man’s face, the way it shines brighter than moonlight, than sunrays even, he suspects: for the way it makes of the man a star on his own somehow?
Steve wants very much to believe he’d trust the man anyway, regardless of sense, just for the breadth of that smile.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Looks like the dragon’s out for the night.”
Steve makes an extra survey of the den nestled a good bit into the cave when his mysterious guide comments on the undeniable silence of their surroundings, the telling echo of their footsteps in the empty space.
“Curses,” Steve huffs, both frustrated and dismayed because: “I’ll have angered him, what if he doesn’t think I’m enough for—“
“One,” Steve’s beguiling guide ticks the point off with a finger raised on a strangely elegant hand; “you think dragons to be too irritable.” Steve rolls his eyes to himself—this Man who knows so much of the temperaments of dragons, the ego to presume—
“They can be quite pleasant so long as they have sufficient treasure. And they’re long-lived, so they’re patient,” the man continues on, which: it seems his ego’s well-reasoned out at the very least, Steve supposes.
“Which brings us to point number two,” and of course there’s a number two, a pair of fingers now waving almost accusingly to the side of Steve’s face:
“You’re more than enough to be worth waiting for.”
Steve blushes furiously and thanks the sparse cracks of nearly enchanted—quite possibly enchanted, actually—light for very little chance to be seen for it.
His companion grins with a glimmer of that sparse glow catching his eyes, glittering in it like enchantment themselves, and Steve thinks both that yes, he’s likely been seen and caught so that likewise yes, he needs to move out of the shaft of light that betrays him and with haste, because to think such a thing about this strange and beguiling man—beguiling, good gods—says far to much about what Steve feels about him, and far too soon, even by his standards.
Which are lightning quick already on a day in which he knows restraint.
“Sparse for a horde,” Steve surprises himself for how steady his voice is, given how obvious his bid to change the subject lands, not matter his tone.
His companion is gracious enough to allow the shift without comment:
“You think mortal eyes can see such things without a dragon’s explicit permission?”
But not gracious enough to abandon that ego.
“How do you know so much of dragons?” Steve finally just asks; subtlety’s never been his strongest characteristic, and in honesty, it’s past time to have asked it.
The other man smirks, scoffs a little.
“This may be your village’s first encounter with them,” and it’s said not quite in censure, and not unkindly, but Steve is cowed a bit nonetheless—the man had never named but has more than once referenced where he thinks Steve’s from, and Steve suspects if his vestments and the crests embroidered to them weren’t enough, his lack of knowledge would be—his people have been blessed in many ways, and live privileged lives on the whole, most especially his family, in comparison to their neighbors.
“But here is the only perch for the span of tens of villages,” the man points out; “and they’ve not been left untouched for so long.”
Right. Of course.
“You’re from a neighboring town?”
“One word for it,” the man shrugs, in such a way now that it shivers through his unruly curls; “and you’re from Hawkins, I gather.”
Right. Unsubtle to the bone it seems, indeed.
“For the whole of my life I can say I know only one thing about your home,” the man takes Steve grimace as the confirmation that it is; “and it’s how they share notoriously little to know.”
Steve chews at his lip, knows the failings his family’s rule has had for the people without and without their borders. Has tried to find ways to help without power of his own in the order of things.
“I always wished to see other lands, even the nearest of them,” Steve finally lands on something to say; “I tried to convince my parents, but—”
“Parents?”
It might be the first time his new…friend? Looks properly halted.
“Son and heir,” Steve points to himself with a weary sort of smirk, the whole thing laughable, really; “the tribute has to be valuable, right? I thought upon seeing so little here, I could offer from our own troves before the end, as appeasement but,” Steve sighs, suddenly drained, only now realizing, now that the option eludes him, just how heavily he was counting on the option of at least trying to bargain with the dragon, appealing to its intellect and far more, its love of treasure.
“But if it’s as you say, I may have much less by way of offering at all.”
There’s an instant sort of chill that fills him as he starts to acclimate to the reality that he’s going to die, and soon, and there truly is not hope for an escape. He—
“Let me assure you,” the man’s hand startles Steve, battles and swiftly overcomes the chill in him as it wraps tight around Steve’s wrist, his voice following Steve’s own almost without break, a cutting finality to it, definitiveness in his tone and his eyes alike once Steve meets them—and once Steve meets them, the not-quite-stranger doesn’t let him look away.
Magnetic.
“Based on what I have seen?” and the words could be casual, but the low rumble they’re spoken with is anything but:
“You could walk here wholly empty handed, and no dragon worth their flame would turn you away as unworthy.”
Steve feels less his cheeks, and more his whole body, inside and out, flush bright and there’s no light to hide from, save from the one shimmering in the gaze locked into his own.
And Steve, for all his postures of pride: this time?
He has no desire to hide the way he flushes, never mind the way he shivers, if it means trying to evade those eyes.
~~~~~~~~~~
Incidentally, it’s too late for the other man to turn back, though he clearly knows these woods so well. Steve insists that he stays.
Not for any ulterior motives, of course.
The man argues, if almost for show alone, but agrees on one condition: they neither of them have bedding. The other man apparently hadn’t planned to be out past the hour for rest, is only stuck because of Steve and Steve—
Steve has a pack but he…he presumed he’d either be dead and his offerings deemed fitting, or the dragon would keep him as the dragon desired, bedding or clothing or neither, until the dragon was satisfied.
And then, again: he’d be dead.
It is unthinkable to take the meager blankets Steve can see in a corner, not without permission; not from a dragon, so. The other man is asking to…lie close.
And Steve is not opposed. The man is almost…surreally exquisite, especially in the passing moonlight. His angles are…particular. Alluring. They steal the breath in Steve’s chest a little, long before they’ve earned the right.
“It feels more than overdue now to ask your name,” Steve whispers, not that it’s necessary. Not that there’s anyone to hear.
“Eddie,” the man whispers back, his voice so warm and almost enveloping, like an embrace in itself and Steve feels less absurd for speaking so soft, so privately.
Nearly intimate.
Good gods, now Steve is being absurd and should feel it to his bones. He deserves to suffer the uncomfortable twist of embarrassment it leaves in stomach, at this rate.
“Steve,” he manages to say low enough that his mortification isn’t audible.
But then:
“That is a beautiful name, sweetheart,” Eddie breathes, and he’s shimmied closer somehow while Steve was stuck in his shame-spiral for being the too quick to show his cards, even to himself in his own head.
“Nothing special to it,” Steve mutters, demurs a little but in a coquettish way, doesn’t even mean to. Just…there’s an energy between them now, and Steve’s primed to match it.
“Isn’t there?” Eddie asks, heated and near in a way that dances up Steve’s spine:
“I would hesitate to be so sure.”
Again, Steve doesn’t mean to, or plan to, when he rolls further into Eddie’s frame where they’re laid together, already so close, now nearly in each other’s arms.
He doesn’t mean to, and yet: his arms are gathered close against the chest of a man he doesn’t know, and yet feels…more comfortable next to than any body he’s pressed against in his life.
And there have been fair few.
“You’re so warm,” Steve mouths more than anything, lips dragging on this half-stranger’s neck by accident, because it could be nothing save an accident that Steve now knows that Eddie’s skin tastes of salt and smoked cinnamon sticks and the air in the forrest at night: elemental, somehow. Necessary.
Only by accident would Steve torture himself this way.
“I’d keep you warm always,” Steve hears as the world blurs soft to black, the phantom sensation of arms curling around him, welcoming him to sleep—the whole of it odd in every way because he hadn’t spoken loud enough to be heard, really, even so close, and to read his words from the drag of his mouth to flesh was of course impossible.
“To the end of the Age and beyond if I could,” the words drift blissful, wistful like an invitation into sleep: “if you’d let me.”
So of course: it must have been a dream.
~~~~~~~~~~
Daybreak finds them entangled.
Steve…freezes, as if he didn’t feel snug and perfectly warm wrapped up so close. He weighs the merits of bolting, and making apologies after the fact, against trying to extricate himself without rousing his companion, versus—
“Good morning, sweetness.”
Steve stills somehow further, feels his face heat yet again and yet this time, despite the dark of the cave, he’s…crushed ever so pleasantly against the bare smooth planes of a chest that…shouldn’t be bare, should it, because they moved together close for heat against the chill and for certain it is past dawn but it is still nowhere near warm enough for—
“Did you sleep well?”
Steve groans, which only leads him to burrowing further into the unavoidably welcoming give of Eddie’s chest, lean but strong, Steve can tell, much like he can feel as much as hear the rumbling laughter that cascades through that chest: so much like an invitation to sink into the chest and the sound alike, to never be singular, to never be cold.
What a ridiculous notion.
But then lips are unmistakably pressed to the crown of Steve’s head, not even in passing, no: they linger. They…feel right.
Steve wants for them to be right until the day he dies—
Well. That might actually be possible, or close enough for what he’s earned in this world.
The irony.
Eddie takes to the hunt—the reason he was in the woods to find Steve in the first place, apparently; he says his bow and knives are just down toward the ravine, which Steve vaguely knows but not well, too close to the borders of other lands.
“Don’t fret, though,” and this time the lips press to the low half of Steve’s cheek, affection that does not press its advantage but makes it desires clear, too close to Steve mouth to be anything less.
Steve…is unsure what to make of that. Because he cannot make what he thinks of first; he cannot possibly follow that thread in his own mind—increasingly in his own chest.
“I’ll find you, if you get lost again.”
As if Steve will wander, would risk missing his dragon captor’s return, to even consider one misstep to unintentionally enrage his looming executioner, to even consider missing a single instant in the meantime with this man—
But the glinting smile that man shoots Steve’s way as he strides out the yawning opening in the rocks, its glinting like stardust and warm radiance that fills Steve’s veins then spills over and seeps into his marrow:
Steve doesn’t think that man actually meant getting lost that way.
And what on earth is he supposed to make of that, save everything that he can’t have; that cannot be?
Though, in fairness: it would be on brand. Steven Harrington of Hawkins.
Falling hard and fast and more real than ever before, mere hours before he leaves the mortal coil.
~~~~~~~~~~
“You’re anxious.”
Steve knows now that his dreams were realty, last night. The words, the arms.
He is awake in them now after they eat what Eddie’s secured for them, cooked over a fire perfectly pitched outside the mouth of the cave, its warmth not insufficient as they’d eaten in pleasant company together.
Not insufficient at all. Just not this chest; these arms.
And now they are both of them bare to the waist, knowingly and happily curled into one another, and Steve feels on one hand boneless, weightless, inexplicably held and kept beyond the physical in the embrace of a man he barely knows and yet feels…close to. Something-he-cannot-bring-himself-to-say-at-first sight, like in the fairy stories.
But that man’s palm is splayed across Steve’s chest; can feel the birds’ wings of his heartbeat at first stroke.
For the first time in Steve’s life, it doesn’t feel like a weakness he’s caught out on; with Eddie nuzzling at his hair, Steve doesn’t hesitate to speak his fear with a heavy sigh:
“You said you’ve dealt with dragons.”
“Time to time,” Eddie hums, presses his lips to Steve’s scalp like reassurance.
“How will it happen?” Steve whispers shakily, but for the first time in his entire life, he shakes into someone who seems to care, against all reason; who holds tighter to him for needing rather than casting him away.
“I mean, I know,” Steve licks his lips; “I know what will happen, just,” and he can’t quite finish, chokes around his words. Eddie moves closer against him, under the weight of Steve’s frame, maneuvers them so that he can tilt his head just so to kiss down Steve’s jaw while still holding him close; ever closer.
“Well,” Eddie pecks against the peak of Steve’s cheekbone before moving down, all the while massaging circles against Steve’s chest; “a town sends their most valued,” and he sucks a little the, against Steve’s jawline; “but some towns have less to pick from,” and then he finds Steve’s pulse point and suckles there with real feeling until Steve may be terrified, but he’s simultaneously soft clay in a beautiful man’s hands, under a beautiful man’s mouth.
“A dragon is not a mindless beast,” Eddie adds after Steve can feel he’s been well and thoroughly bruised.
“I’ve always heard they’re very smart,” Steve breathes, maybe nods, mostly just savors Eddie’s heat, his nearness, how he touches Steve like he has value; like Steve has value to him, and what a thing to feel, to want, to possibly hold, even for these stolen moments; “it’s how they tell if you send them less than they’re owed.”
Because of course Steve knows the stories. Steve can remember countless tales of horrific ends for villages, towns, whole kingdoms even, razed for being so haughty and foolish as to try and swindle a dragon—perhaps embellished to encourage children’s behavior, but. The bones of the narrative fit the oft-smoldering evidence often enough, so far as Steve could tell in the proper histories.
“Not owed,” Eddie corrects, firmly but somehow also gently, his capacity for dynamism an oddly comforting thing, so human and forgiving of overstepping boundaries so freely as to maybe not even draw any to begin with, at complete odds with Steve’s entire life; “not how most people think, at least.”
Eddie flip Steve over gently, firmly again, settles them chest to chest, one atop the other as Steve looks down at him, feels his heartbeat crash against Eddie’s own closer than ought to be felt, like their ribs clear way for the two of them, for whatever they could be, and Steve wonders if part of why his heart is racing so is for the loss of the possibility that rushes through him, that swells between them in every moment—something that grows in every moment, every look and touch and blink, that expands effervescent and filled with so much without any knowledge that there is not space to hold it, that what time they have is borrowed at best.
Steve thinks maybe; his sick heart for it could be railing where the rest of him is fixated on etching every one of those looks and blinks and touches into his bones so that they may be among the last parts of him to leave the earth.
“A dragon, above most things, has a particularly keen sense to know precisely where value lies,” Eddie’s explaining again, his hand now still, pressed against Steve’s heart akin to a shield, or a safe-hold. “And how.”
Steve ponder that for a moment before he meets Eddie’s eyes, having felt them heavy and molten upon him with new fire before taking them in for all that they are: brilliance.
Blinding.
Steve leans as Eddie arches and they meet in between to press their lips together after what feels an eternity and an instant of living in a world where they didn’t taste one another in such a way as to drink their fill. As to breathe each other’s breath.
So as to tease and cherish deep, to tongue against the very heart.
And there Steve makes certain, before he loses himself wholly to sensation:
Looks. Touches. Blinks. Carved into his bones, but first.
First he’ll gild them in every single kiss.
~~~~~~~~~~
They transition fully into lovers in a seamless fashion, insatiable like Steve’s never known it. Eddie never keeps him wanting, gives selflessly and Steve does all that he can to reciprocate and more, because Eddie is everything, of that Steve is certain, and therefore he deserves no less.
He also seems dead set on making sure that they are posed as equals. That to lavish one another with affections as much as to ravish each other endless never unbalances one way or the other. Wherever Steve seeks to give more where Eddie should have it, Eddie turns the tables to takes Steve apart so that all he knows is tingly euphoria. A happiness he’s never felt, didn’t quite believe could exist.
Yet here he is. Here they are.
Steve smiles more than he remembers, playful and ravenous and overflowing with feeling, and Eddie doesn’t rise to meet his enthusiasm: he’s already there, matched with him and ecstatic to entwine. It’s a heady thing, addictive and overwhelming and a gift, Steve thinks: maybe the universe forgive him for doing less to stop harm and deprivation in his home, for wishing to help more and acting where he could even if it wasn’t enough. Maybe he gets this sliver of heaven out of pity for what’s to come.
He will take it with open arms. He will welcome it. He will make himself of it until there is not Steve that exists outside of it.
But it cannot overcome the inevitable, in its impending, suffocating weight.
Come the sixth day like this—the sixth night like this—something in Steve gives way. Existing on the precipice of life and death with no telling of when the hammer with strike finally takes too much of a toll, and his nerves betray him.
“Likely they are hunting, it can take many days, weeks even I’m told,” Eddie tries to console him as he shakes, can’t even sob, like his body can’t coordinate even that much to work properly, too distraught are pieces of him he’s flooded with pleasure but finally could no longer be denied, fed on his wonderment and picked until it cracked enough for his fears to bleed through. “But if you are still so anxious we could, or, I could try and look for some clue as to where it’s gone?” Eddie offers carefully, holding Steve together as he does his utmost to shudder out of his skin. “And you can stay here, in case it returns?”
The only thing Steve can do then is shake his head until it hurts, until he’s dizzy with his own vehement denial: it’s the first things that’s properly matched, body to feeling.
It’s fitting that way.
“I,” Steve starts, just voice barely a scratch as Eddie reaches, tips his chin upward and cups his face so delicate:
“What, angel?”
Steve blinks at him—takes him in, presses down to pain as he draws it, brands it onto his skeleton to be remembered, all the tangled but powerfulfeelings he has for this man so fast, so strong.
For this man, for all he feels: Steve makes himself speak what’s heavy and true and real in his galloping heart:
“I have no intention of reneging my duties,” he rasps, holds on to Eddie as tightly as he can, as if maybe their bones could brand one’s another and fuse into one.
“But until no choice is left, I,” Steve chokes, and his eyes burn as he holds Eddie’s gaze, lifts Eddie’s hand away from his cheek and over to his lips to press all his hopeless hopes against Eddie’s palms:
“I don’t want to be out of your sight, nor you taken from mine.”
The tear that escapes him then is caught by Eddie’s thumb. Adoringly.
Each that follows is lost between Eddie’s lips; might belong to them both.
Steve thinks he can believe that much—in these fleeting, sacred moment—to be true.
~~~~~~~~~~
The dragon has still not appeared, and Steve has since collected himself for the most part, with Eddie ready to brace him steady when he starts to falter. It’s a wild novel thing, to be supported this way. To be cared for.
With such care, comes perception. For better or worse.
“What troubles you, beloved?” Eddie eyes him knowingly, a level of sight straight through to Steve’s soul that should not be fathomable in a lifetime, let alone a week’s time.
“My own mind,” Steve admits freely, unwilling any longer—if he ever had been—to hide from Eddie, unsure what the point would be even if he desired to: “it is cowardly, and selfish.”
“I doubt that,” Eddie catches Steve’s jawbone with a single finger, playful, endearing: but clear in its pointed redirection of Steve’s gaze, and his disparagement of his own thoughts:
“I would doubt that quite strongly, in fact.”
Steve lets Eddie touch prompt him to a kiss, as if he needs coaxing before he leans into the crook of Eddie’s neck and breathes him in: the best savours of the ground and sky.
“I would not run from my fate, here,” Steve says, not wholly to remind himself but, not without that purpose at hand; “save that it feels like my fate is…”
And he slides his hand to Eddie’s chest, hopes it speaks for him where he doesn’t know words for the depth and breadth and weight of these feelings; Eddie’s hand covers his, automatic, and he knows he’s understood.
“I wish not to be parted from you, now that I’ve found you,” Steve whispers, swallows hard, then looks Eddie in the eyes, speaks straight to the soul in them so that he is not misread, or underestimated in the weight of his own words, now:
“I think that I may be in love with you.”
And he’s never been before. He’s believed it may be love, but: no. No, it was never love before.
If ever it was love: it is this.
“Oh my precious one,” Eddie pets his hair and kisses after his own touch: “I don’t think that I’m in love with you,” and Steve stiffens only for the instant Eddie leaves between those words, and dipping down to Steve’s ear to exhale with feeling:
“I know it.”
How it is possible to die brokenhearted and happier than he’d ever dreamed, Steve doesn’t know.
But he’s about to serve as object lesson, in just days.
Maybe less.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Know that when,” Steve is speaking to the cracks in the rock that peek at the night sky as he speaks, Eddie on his chest like a blanket, save so much better; “when it happens,mwhen it devours me whole or takes me in pieces,” and his voice catches, but he remains resolute; “it will know you in every inch of me,” and he cups Eddie closer to him then, holds him against the thunderous roar of his pulse.
“My heart is full of you, and it will taste only of devotion,” Steve near-hisses for the fervor in him. “You’ll be the last bit of me known to the world.”
“Never.”
The growl that comes from the body that curls around him, protective, possessive, beloved in a way and to a magnitude Steve didn’t know he could feel before now: the venom in it makes it clear that it’s not a refutation of Steve’s declaration for the sentiment.
It’s a refutation to the cosmos itself.
“I would never allow it,” Eddie bites out, pressing closer to Steve, to his heart: “you will not be forfeit to some dragon,” and oh, but this man Steve loves is wild with his passion, foolhardy and yet all the more lovable for it.
“I would fight with all that I am to protect you,” he vows, presses his lips to Steve’s chest and speaks there like he means well and truly to means to tell Steve to the heart of him this sole, unshakeable truth: “and should somehow I lose the battle, it could only be because there is nothing of me left to fight.”
And for the first time, in all his life: Steve clings to something, someone, he’d happily rip his beating heart out to protect.
And that—he realizes in a single world-rewriting instant—he fears the loss of more than any other thing.
Any. Other. Thing.
~~~~~~~~~~
They don’t speak of it, or of a choice to be made when the time does come: Steve thinks maybe that’s the only way they manage at all, really, is to simply hold it between them in those last days. Known. Seen.
Loved.
And feared.
But always together. Always so close, in every way.
Until the stasis breaks.
“Steve,” Eddie breathes into the afternoon, innocuous. Steve’s stopped counting how many days they’ve stolen together.
“I must leave, my darling.”
Steve narrows his eyes, trying to understand him. He watches as Eddie hurries to gather both of Steve’s hands, to bring them to his lips.
“Only for a short while,” he murmurs between Steve’s fingers, kisses at his knuckles with apology, and with heartsickness thick between his breaths: “barely a moment,” and his breath is short, thin, like the thought of leaving hurts.
And Steve…Steve has been in love for the first time, with the perfect match to his very soul. Unthinkable, but undeniable.
But it hasn’t made him wholly blind.
He means to press, to see if the slight little inklings he’s had every so often hold any weight, point in any direction of significance, means to ask just a simple thing, but then Eddie’s expression breaks open, a miasma of emotion spilling forth as his breath catches, monumental on a sob and he takes the hands at his lips and instead uses them to bury his face.
“Oh, my Steve,” he breathes, and all Steve can really see are the heaving lifts of his shoulders, and the way his curls fall a little like a monsoon.
“I am sorry,” Eddie whispers into Steve hands and Steve feels dampness there, and oh. No.
Not from Eddie. Not for whatever this is. Steve can think of nothing, save Eddie leaving for good before the end, that he should be moved to apologize for. And even that Steve would forgive.
Because Steve loves him.
“Why?” Steve asks, incredulous, his own half-formed ideas to seek to know gone at the sight of his beloved in distress. “What reason on earth do you have to be sorry, you said,” and Steve halts, wonders if that’s the catch, and tries not to falter without reason, tries to stand tall: “only a moment,” and that is what Eddie said, he said only a—
“I lied.”
Steve does to falter.
He starts to fracture and fall entirely. Because what, what all was a lie, was it all a lie, he—
He doesn’t know if he can breathe. He’s never lost his heart before. But he imagines that if death is still waiting for him, and he’ll face it alone: it’s what he’d planed for. What he’s prepared for from the start.
He knows how to be alone. It has to hurt less, than losing his heart now.
It will have to hurt less, at the very end, if it comes to him without a heart in his breast.
“It was worth every second, no matter that it must end, in joy or heartbreak,” Steve finds himself saying, and if his tone rings hollow, it’s only because his heart’s already leaking from him, already half-gone: he means it with every bit he has left, nonetheless.
“You are the moon, pulling me close,” he turns his hands so his palms line to Eddie’s; “the sun wrapping me in warmth,” and he folds their fingers together, clutches tight one last time, greedy as anything:
“You have been the greatest gift at the end of all I’ll ever know.” And that is the truth, that is the last words and final rites written on his bones. “Because of you, I will die fulfilled in ways I didn’t realize I was lacking.”
And then there’s just one thing, because Steve, Steve needs to say this part, he doesn’t think he’s said this part yet:
“Thank you.”
He means it.
But Eddie only holds onto him harder, painfully but it’s perfection; only shakes his head over and over before he finally rasps, barely audible:
“You misunderstand.”
Steve leans closer to hear him, to feel him, to know his warmth in the lat moments that might be left. He wants to understand. He doesn’t want the end to be anything but clear.
Even if it hurts.
“I have lied,” Eddie swallows hard; “but you misunderstand for what.”
Steve…still misunderstands.
“You have been my moon,” Eddie nearly moans, his head nuzzling into Steve’s hands, his hold, with nothing short of desperation:“you have been the sun since the first revelation when I was taught as barely a hatchling that my kind were born of suns, made from fire.”
And that. It’s been those small things: some dragon. Not owed. No dragon would find him unworthy.
The ego to presume.
This is no longer a small thing, spoken now.
“You stole my heart straight away, and I gave it freely but,” Eddie hiccups the slightest bit; “I only grow in relishing that of all the souls in all the worlds, yours has welcomed mine,” and he sniffles, by every god and power in all the worlds—
“You are a privilege.”
And oh, oh, but by every god and power: Steve loves him.
“And you have a dragon’s heart now, no matter how you choose to use it, to keep or reject it,” foolish words Eddie speaks so messy, so rushed and ragged, so ripped out from him visceral and slick with feeling: “and your end will be my end,” and his lips brush Steve’s hands, kiss the pulse on both his wrists:
“And either that will be unmeasurable ages hence,” and his breath catches, and Steve only wants for him to look up, just look up, because he’s said it without saying now, hasn’t he, muddled and frantic and so human, to say he’s anything but as he admits to the thing he thinks he needs to offer apology for.
“Or,” he trips over the next words, but they’re so sodden with candor, the blood in his veins:
“Or my heart may turn ash if you leave but,” and he brings the heels of both Steve’s hands to his mouth and kisses, speaks into them worshipfully:
“Your life will go on as a mortal’s, once I’ve—”
“You’ve given your heart?”
Because Steve had suspicions. Of why Eddie said certain things, certain ways. How warm he was. How strong and even and…ancient the beating of his heart resonated beneath Steve’s ear, his touch, like it radiated heat as a sun in itself.
“Of course,” Eddie’s head snaps up, like he’s offended at any suggestion to the contrary; “almost immediately.”
He blinks; he forgets himself. There’s a lid to his starburst eyes that closes unlike Steve’s, the opposite direction, almost invisible.
But Steve’s watching. Steve doesn’t blink once, cannot miss this.
Cannot pause what he writes into his bones because even if he plans for nothing less than ages unmeasurable, now, he wants this written on the bones that come in the end.
Whenever the end stretches out to.
“And if it’s ill received,” Steve asks slowly, his brows pinching as he picks through the implications of this part: “you—”
“Wither, slowly,” Eddie says, far too matter-of-fact for Steve’s liking, or willingness to stand: “but the end comes, yes.”
“Eddie,” Steve scolds, and Eddie flinches, thinks he’s been caught, been known and revealed now and in so being is anything but wanted with all of Steve’s being.
There is a tiny part of Steve that’s grateful for his foolishness: it makes Steve feel less alone, to be swept so by a love this vast.
“You are the dearest treasure I’ve ever known,” Eddie whispers, but it’s a pleading thing, something even Steve can tell doesn’t feel as if it had a hope to grasp; “if you let me keep you I would hold you closer than all things. To give a dragon’s heart means to place whatever holds it closer than the heart itself ever learned to rest on its own,” and Eddie gathers Steve’s hands again to his chest, stacks them, presses so very hard.
The life in him is a sobering thing. The idea that Steve holds this power somehow in his hands, literally and otherwise, is…staggering.
No less then amazing.
“You are my single desire, but more,” Eddie breathes; “you are my single care, my sole concern,” “my only.”
“Why do you leave, then?”
And Eddie stills. Pulls back only so much as to weigh what he sees in Steve’s face, Steve’s eyes—what Steve sees in his is clear: Eddie didn’t think he’d get to this part. He thought Steve would balk at learning his lover was something more than mere human.
Specifics aside, Steve could have told anyone that from the night that they met.
And so Eddie, bowled over by the shock of the fact that Steve still holds to him, does not waver, seems to speak unvarnished when he answers:
“The things you have shared,” and Steve knows without expansion what Eddie means: tales of home, of his family, of his parents, of how he came to be here, pledged as sacrifice for the good of his town, whispered in the dark as they watched the stars move slow; “I can bear it no longer, my darling.”
And Eddie straightens further then, and Steve sees what he dismissed as the play of the light: the glow in Eddie’s eyes unmistakable as something other, something from within.
“I demand the most valued,” Eddie’s words come out in a hiss, shape even as he hesitates, leaves every moment for Steve to pull away should his touch be unwanted as he reaches to brush Steve’s hair from his face.
“You are that and more to me and yet,” and he shakes his head, and it’s so strange still to be marveled at this way: unbridled and unashamed.
“You said it yourself, valuable,” Eddie nearly spits the word, like a poison he seeks to eke out; “and yet I believe that I said something different.”
Steve frowns, tries to put together the pieces but then his face is framed in long fingers that span the whole of him, fittingly so, as Eddie looks deed in his eyes and says with force and feeling:
“Valued,” he emphasizes with a kiss; “beloved,” and another, and Steve cannot help but smile into it just the slightest bit, his heart soaring as the other pieces—borrowed time and impending ends and forevers in view all at once rearranging into what he thinks might be an always with this man who’s more than a man when he speaks against Steve’s mouth:
“Precious beyond all else and others.”
He pulls back, and marvels more, then narrows his eyes in a way Steve’s never seen, pupils contracting inward from the sides into slits.
“You are mine,” Eddie growls; “but the demands we make are not idle, and they did not value you as you deserved,” Eddie scowls, and Steve sees it now, where he’s going, what he’s doing:
“And they thought it acceptable to send you to me as their most valued, believing they sent you to your death?” Eddie seethes:
“It cannot go unpunished.”
Steve…sees it. Understands, now.
It does not hurt, the idea of losing people who were family only in name, especially not to the man before him, who is all that family should mean, could mean, will mean.
Always, now.
“The villagers are innocents, please,” Steve whispers, and Eddie cups his cheek, so lovingly it aches.
“Fret not,” he says with that warmth that Steve’s melted in from the very start; “I know who deserves my ire.” His expression sours, hardens:
“And they will know their hard-earned consequences.”
Eddie kisses Steve with a kind of devotion bigger than the sky somehow, and it’s only because Steve’s reeling to get his footing back that he trails behind Eddie and not at his side as he makes to depart.
“Please do not follow me, beloved,” he calls over his shoulder, not breaking his pace; “I do not wish you to see-“
“I will stay,” Steve answers, like the words were waiting on this tongue of this very moment: “if.”
Eddie stills; turns.
“If?”
“You promise to return with all haste,” Steve reaches him quick and is the one who kisses with all that he knows, all that he can imagine, all that he holds inside of himself and shares already with Eddie uninhibited; “I will be cold without you.”
And that makes Eddie soften; smile as he promises:
“Done.”
“And,” Steve adds, pulling away from Eddie’s lips to look him straight on as Eddie’s brow quirks in question:
“And?”
“Change for me.”
And Eddie, for once, is wholly dumbfounded. Speechless.
It’s quite a feat to behold.
“You,” he stammers; “you wish to see,” he shakes his head, disbelieving; “beloved, it is not, I am,” and oh, oh: Steve did not expect this part: “we are cast as fearsome creatures for good reason.”
He is wary. He is cautious. He thinks himself the monster. He wants to hide this part from Steve.
But Steve will have nothing hidden between them, least of all this: the whole of who his love is.
“I do not fear you, I could not,” Steve pledges in truth; “and any creature with your heart, who has captured my soul,” Steve grabs Eddie’s shoulders and draws him in, bows those foreheads into one another:
“You could never be anything short of exquisite. Breathtakingly so.”
Eddies breathing is hitched, stuttering. Steve wants to cry for the way he is surprised. Wants to mourn for whatever hurt him to make him this cautious, this stunned by Steve’s love: unconditional.
Undying, now that it’s possible to give as such, and in truth.
And Steve waits, watches him, stares patient until Eddie sighs deeply, steps back far and then closes his eyes and…becomes.
Larger, of course. The wings are a feat. The talons are less a surprise from his spindly fingers.
He’s, he is…
“You are,” Steve reaches, waits until Eddie comes to him, welcomes his touch this way and to feel him, smooth scale not so unlike the chest bare against him in the night—warmth and safety and all that is right:
“Magnificent. And I would know you,” Steve tells him, seeks his gaze as he speaks from the very core of his being: “even if I hadn’t seen it for myself.”
He steps closer, waits for Eddie to be curious enough to bow his head low so Steve can mimic how they’d stood, forehead pressed just moments before.
“These unfathomable eyes,” he whispers between them, and smiles at how those eyes fall closed in something like relief, like comfort after laying down a heavy burden as Steve reaches for the soft underbelly in lighter scales against the charcoal of the rest of his beloved’s form:
“The might of this heart,” and he presses, and yes, exactly as he knew he’d find: thunderous. Could part seas, reshape the globe, stir the stars.
And it’s Steve’s. So he doesn’t hesitate to press his lips above the breathing and breathe out:
“Unmistakable, my darling.”
When he pulls back those eyes truly are just the same: they wonder. They marvel.
At Steve. Just Steve.
It’s intoxicating.
“Do what must be done,” Steve nuzzles at the side of Eddie’s face, pulls his snout to his shoulder so he can kiss at what he supposes is something of a cheek, and then he pulls back, lets go.
But only their bodies. Nothing more. Never anything more. Not ever again.
“Then come home to me.”
Steve could be wrong, or just wishful, but he thinks Eddie glows from within through the whole of himself, and not just his eyes, as he takes flight and shoots like the star Steve always saw inside him, up into the night.
~~~~~~~~~~
It’s not long. It’s just as Eddie promised.
After everything, Steve hadn’t worried at all that it would be anything else.
“It was painless,” is what Eddie says as he walks back into the cave, a man again; “and it was for the sake of justice overdue,” as if he must explain. Or seek forgiveness.
Steve pulls him in and kisses him until he’s breathless as an answer for both concerns.
“What now?” he can’t help but ask. He is still more in love than he can breathe through. Will live and die exactly that way for time innumerable.
“You wish to be here, with me?” Eddie asks, almost hesitant; seeking.“You do not feel indebted, or, or coerced? Or tricked or held by force or—”
Steve grins at the babbling, the nervous rambles. To think they’re because of him.
It might just give him an absolutely unbearable ego of his own if it’s to be the norm forevermore.
“Love,” Steve presses a single raised finger to the missile of Eddie’s lips, watches as he adorable crosses his eyes to follow its trajectory.
“You are all that I have imagined and never thought to find.” And it really is as simple and as unthinkable as that, in the end. Or the beginning. “The only way I would be anywhere but your side is to be torn from it, or sent away.”
Eddie growls at the first suggestion, and huffs in pure offense at the suggestion of the second as he reaches and pulls Steve flush to his body: warm, warm, warm.
Steve’s heart flutters against him, reminding him that he owns it wholly.
Eddie’s drums in protective answer, welcoming as much as seeking to leap into Steve’s chest on the same promise, the same pledge as he murmurs into Steve’s lips:
“You still misestimate what it means to be loved by a dragon,” and drags his mouth against Steve’s bottom lips, a little wanton even as his words carry the weight of the universe entire:
“This,” and he clutches Steve’s closer still, so as to not be mistaken; “is for as much of eternity as is for us to grasp.”
It is not sacrifice at all to kiss the man, to love the dragon, in front of him, now.
And for the rest of time ahead.
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For @a-little-unsteddie, who requested the quote 'Magic' at my HOBBIT-STYLE BIRTHDAY MONTH PROMPT FEST
✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @nerdyglassescheeseychick @swimmingbirdrunningrock @goodolefashionedloverboi @sanctumdemunson @theheadlessphilosopher
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mmmairon · 1 year ago
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Hi mairon! I love the self insert comfort you did it was so cute! Would you be able to make some more? Possibly diluc taking care of someone like the girl you did in the last one — maybe putting them to bed because I’m suffering w my insomnia right now 😅 if you can’t dw!
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oh, to be tucked snugly into bed by Diluc Ragnvindr
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heleizition · 6 months ago
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this is my naruto oc age 12 and age like 15 lmao she goes through it
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chuluoyi · 8 months ago
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ive got an idea where theres like a school dance and you and satoru go together and you two are slow dancing together until pregnancy nausea gets to you and you get extremely dizzy and almost pass out cause you didnt wanna ruin the moment. AND SATORUS SO WORRIED AAHAHDH i love this idea
it’s during a gala in honor of students’ graduation. you don’t want to miss it because you want to congratulate hakari and kirara in person, so you didn’t tell your husband that you have thrown up 3x prior going together to the venue.
and you really shouldn’t have because halfway through the event, you don’t feel too well anymore.
“you look pale,” satoru whispers in your ear worriedly as you slow dance together. “do you want to rest a bit?”
“no,” you insist. “i’m fine—”
but the second you said that, your vision blurs and you miss a step. and you would really fall if not for satoru’s arms holding you tightly.
“hey—” he looks down at you, discovers your labored breathing and clicks his tongue. “you’re not.”
no one probably notices it, as satoru somehow turns it into a part of the dance step before he sweeps you off your feet. everyone who sees immediately claps their hands and whistles, and he flashes them all a thin smile before whisking you to the infirmary.
“why didn’t you tell me?” he asks as soon as he lay you on the bed, his piercing blue eyes assessing you. “queasy? have you taken your anti-sickness pill?”
oh. you shake your head, feeling guilty for forgetting it. but you’re surprised when he procures it from his pocket, realizing it. he brings your medication around in case it’s necessary.
he gets you a glass of water and ushers you to down the pill. afterwards, you lay back on the bed and close your eyes, willing the vertigo away.
“you big dummy… you should’ve told me.” satoru strokes your head with a frown. “you can’t wait until you pass out. do you like making me worry?”
“no… i don’t mean to…”
“there are two of you now.” he places an hand on your belly. your bump isn’t visible yet, but it’s really there and he can feel it. he can feel his worry rising again. “what if something happens to you if you don’t tell me anything? how do you think it’ll make me feel?”
you reach out for his hand and squeeze it. “sorry…”
satoru’s heart melts seeing you so vulnerable like this. and he decides you have gotten his point now, so he sighs and presses a kiss on your forehead.
“hmph. forgiven. let’s go back home now. i’ll take care of my two babies.”
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