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justtwotired · 3 days ago

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Hi!

How are you??

This is like random but I've had this thought on my mind for like a really long time about a oneshot where basically Lloyd x fem reader where they are like lovers to enemies then back to lovers and I was wondering if you could do a oneshot about it with a happy ending if

Ahhhh omg, yes. Love it!!! The moment I read this I immediately started brainstorming and writing ideas and I rarely do that lmao, I love this one a lot, I hope you enjoy!!!

Also, I am so, so, so sorry this took so incredibly long, I’ve been super busy and I hoped to write a lot this summer but my mom is really sick and me and my brother have to take care of her, I made this one shot extra long to make it up to you<3

“Sensei, we have to do something, he’s in pain,” Nya followed after Wu who just left the med bay. Lloyd had come back from a sticky mission where he had been injected with a poison.

The team had no idea what kind of poison it was so they couldn’t find a cure either. Lloyd was in terrible pain and was currently passed out while Zane tried to tend to the physical injuries.

“I’m going to call someone who can help us,” Wu said calmly and Nya frowned, almost running to keep up with her sensei, who, despite his old age, moved rather fast.

“Who are you going to call?” The moment she asked the question, the answer landed, “you’re going to call, (name)- no! She and Lloyd hate each other,” her eyebrows furrowed yet her eyes were wide in panic.

Sensei Wu didn’t answer and kept on walking, making Nya grumble in frustraiton and turn back to the medbay.

——

I was lazily scrolling trough TikTok when my phone started ringing. I hesitated as I saw who it was but picked up anyway.

“Wu?” I said a bit confused.

“(Name), we need you to come to the monastery, it’s Lloyd,” he said and I rolled my eyes, sitting back against the couch, ignoring the fact that he sounded troubled and in a hurry.

“What’s with Lloyd?” I asked, not that I cared, I just wondered why he thought I could be of any help. Not like Lloyd would want me there anyway.

“He’s injured and poisoned, we do not have an antidote and we aren’t sure if he’ll make it trough the night at this point,” Wu explained qucikly, not wasting any time and my stomach sank.

“What? What happened?” I shot up off the couch. “What kind of poison?” I already started walking towards the hallway to grab a jacket, ready to leave.

“Like I said, we aren’t sure, we sent him on a mission and he just came back completely beaten and collapsed, we need you here straight away,” he said and I nodded, quickly stepping into my heels which where the easiest to put on at the moment.

“Yes, alright, I’ll be there in ten,” I promised and hung up. I opened the door an once outside I summoned my elemental dragon.

I held the element of healing, which is probably why Wu called me. I met Lloyd at the tournament of elements and even though I was out rather soon, we became quick friends. I hung out with the team a lot and after the events with Morro, we fell in love.

I think that him asking me to be his girlfriend had been the best day of my life, I had been crushing on him for a long time at that point.

We were together for a long time… until Harumi came around. I found out she was a traitor soon enough, yet when I voiced this to Lloyd, he didn’t believe me.

I remember it quite well.

“Lloyd, I’m telling you, something about her is just off,” I followed him as he wandered onto the deck, a frustrated look on his face.

“You’re being paranoid, Rumi has nothing to do with this whole thing, how could she even?” Lloyd turned around making me stop in my tracks.

“Oh please, Lloyd, it’s so obvious, she’s putting up this whole innocent princess facade and all of you are just falling for it!” I pointed an accusing finger at him. “She’s evil, I can feel it. Besides, I overheard her make a weird phone call earlier today and soon after Zane’s cover mysteriously fell, that cannot be a coincidence!”

“(Name) stop! You’re being unfair! How dare you call her evil accuse her of such things?” He raised his voice making me do a shocked step back. “Rumi has been trough enough and does not need you to be badmouthing her. That phone call could have been anything- god, her home was burned down and her parents died, of course she’s going to be having phone calls, she obviously wants updates!” He threw his hands in the air.

“How can’t you see what’s right in front of you! How fucking gullible are you, Lloyd? She’s manipulating every single one of you!” I yelled and his eyes were filled with rage.

“What is wrong with you!? I don’t even recognise you anymore, a few days ago you where still my happy, excited and kind (name), and now you’re cold, mean and unfair!” His eyes flooded with red and he took a step closer making me take a small step back. “You’re being vile and cruel, god I don’t even recognise you anymore!” My jaw clenched as he yelled at me and my eyes darkened.

“Well maybe I’m not to person you thought I was,” I looked away from him, “and maybe you aren’t the person I thought you where, because the Lloyd I thought I knew would’ve believed me in a heartbeat!” I accused and he let out a humourless, disbelieving laugh.

“Yeah, maybe I’m not who you thought I was,” as he said it, he took another step closer, his eyes dangerously narrowed and his hand went up to point and accusing finger at me.

My body reacted on instinct, flinching and taking a few steps back, I bit my lip to stop it from trembling as I looked at him with tears and fear in my eyes.

He faltered at my reaction, his eyes wide with shock, “love, I-” He started but I cut him off.

“Don’t call me that,” my voice broke, and I softly shook my head. “It’s over Lloyd, we’re done,” I turned around and headed back inside to pack my bags and leave.

He didn’t stop me.

I swallowed away my tears as I landed at the monastery, my dragon disappeared and I hurried inside, immediately heading to the medbay. When I opened the door, I was crashed into a hug by Jay.

“Oh, (Name)! It’s been ages,” he hugged me tightly and I chuckled hugging him back.

“It’s good to see you too Jay,” I patted his hair before we made our way over to the others who where all discussing and send me quick hello’s.

Kai and Cole where arguing over what to do, Zane tried his best to tend to Lloyd, Nya pitched in rather annoyed with Kai and Cole saying they needed to stop arguing and get to a point. Jay was really trying to help but in reality he was just in the way making Zane irritated.

“Alright, everyone except Zane out!” I yelled and silence fell as they looked at me. “You heard me, Zane will explain to me in short and then I can get to work in peace, everyone out now,” I pointed at the door and one by one they started to leave.

I’ve known them for ages, they knew better than to go against me.

“Zane, do you have any idea about the poison in his body and how long it’s been in there?” I turned to the nindroid and we exchanged theories.

I examined Lloyd’s cuts and bruises which had already been tended to pretty good, while Zane explained.

I thanked him and then he aswel left the room. When he was gone, I put my hand on Lloyd’s forehead and it started to glow a faint purple. I closed my eyes and concentrated.

——

An hour later, I had finally found an antidote, injected it and I had taken care of some other bodily injuries.

When I opened the door to find the others, I found them all waiting outside.

“He’s fine,” their faces lit up, “he’ll need assistance for a few days so someone needs to look after him, also I suggest I stay here for a while to make sure we aren’t caught by a surprise, I’ll be gone before he wakes up,” I avoided eye contact at the last part and the tension was high.

“Uhm, (name),” Cole spoke up and I met his brown, kind eyes. I had missed him, he was such a gentle giant, but the moment me and Lloyd broke up, I decided it was best to not contact the others. “We do not really, uh… have the time to take care of Lloyd the coming days,” he broke our eye contact to look at the ground.

“Yeah,” Kai piped up, “we’ve already been busy enough, now that Lloyd can’t do anything for a few days, it’s even worse,” he awkwardly said and my face fell.

“Are you suggesting..?” I trailed off and looked behind me at Lloyd who was now peacefully asleep instead of murmuring, tossing and turning in pain. The sight had broke my heart.

“It would help us out a lot,” Nya said sheepishly and I sighed.

“Fine, I’ll take care of him,” I crossed my arms before stepping out of the doorway. “Now go and see him, he won’t wake up for a few hours so I suggest the lot of you get some sleep soon,” I said before leaving to make myself a cup of tea.

——

Another hour later, I was sat next to Lloyd’s bed in the medbay. Cole had suggested carrying him to his own bed, but I advised against it, I had my tools here in case things went south, it was better if he stayed here for another day or two, depend on how he would be doing.

Besides, I didn’t want him moving to much incase any stitches ripped.

My eyes traced the features of his face, he had come to look a bit older in the year that I hadn’t spoken to him. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t been keeping up with him on the news though. Always watching to see if he was doing alright.

Sometimes I missed us, sometimes I regretted saying all those things that day, even if some of them were true. And god was I petty, the day after our fight I was fantasising about how we would get back together, I had ruined it all with one simple text.

I told you so.

I had unblocked him and blocked him again just to send it after I saw Harumi went to jail. I ruined my dreams where he’d come knocking on my door to apologies that day.

I snapped out of my thoughts and looked at Lloyd again, he was just as handsome as I remembered. The small scar behind his ear that I had traced with my finger so many times was still there, he still looked as peaceful as he did back then when he slept.

I had the sudden urge to hold his hand. To hold his hand and pretend like nothing ever happened, like we hadn’t broke up a year ago, like he still loved me.

It didn’t matter how much I tried to convince myself I lost feelings for him. I went on dates with other people, tried to erase him out of my mind, I acted as if he wasn’t the best boyfriend I had ever had.

And yet then I looked at him and all the memories came flooding back, the memories of how he talked to me as if I was the most important thing in the world, the memories of how he’d always needed to be touching me in some way because it made him happy, the memories of how I loved him.

Suddenly he stirred and I froze, my eyes locked onto his which were slowly opening. Looking outside I guessed it was almost 2 AM? The others had already gone to sleep per my orders.

Slowly his eyes opened and he groaned, bringing his hands up to rub the sleep away. He tried sitting up but I quickly stopped him.

“Don’t sit up yet, you’ll pass out again,” I warned and rested a hand on his shoulder to lay him back down, he froze at the sound of my voice.

“(Name)?” The sleepy look in his eyes suddenly disappeared as he realised who I was, his eyes filled with something familiar, something I had missed so much. “What are you doing here?” The adoration in his eyes was gone and he narrowed them.

“You were poisoned,” I whispered, “your uncle called, I came as fast as I could,” I explained, avoiding his eyes.

There was a beat of silence as he took in my words.

“And you actually came?” He sounded surprised making me bite the inside of my lip. “Why?”

“He said you weren’t going to make the night,” I tried so hard to keep my voice from breaking but it still did. “I wouldn’t know what I’d do with myself if I found out you died and I could’ve changed that,” I blinked the tears in my eyes away and finally got the courage to look at him.

The adoration was back and I swallowed thickly. “How are you feeling?” I asked quietly and his eyes tracked back to the ceiling, letting out a sigh.

“Tired,” he answered. “Sore,” he added and looked at me, “what did you do?” He asked and I shrugged.

“The first I did was try to take out most of the poison, even though I was late and it already started spreading,” I avoided looking at him, looking out of the window instead. “Then I used the tiny bit I managed to get out to find out what the poison was to be able to find and antidote, lucky for you it was here,” I explained.

“Thank you,” he mumbled and I swallowed thickly.

“Not a problem,” my voice cracked and I mentally cursed myself. He did not need to see me this weak.

“Hey,” I looked up when his hand found mine. “I’m serious, thank you,” he smiled softly and I smiled back, trying to blink away the tears, hoping he didn’t see them.

“You should get some sleep,” I stood up, making him let go of my hand. “I’ll be here for the coming days, seeing that the others are to busy to take care of you,” I headed for the door but stopped at the sound of his voice.

“Can I go to my own room?” He asked and I turned back around.

“No, not today, maybe tomorrow,” I said and he frowned slightly, making me sigh. “In case of anything going wrong, I need you here, where my tools are. Not only that, but you are weak and unable to make it to your bed, you stay here for the night,” I explained and he scrunched up his nose.

“Are you calling me weak?” He looked offended and I rolled my eyes.

“Yes, now sleep,” I left the room without another word, ignoring his offended shout.

———

I took a deep breath as I stood in front of the door before I opened it, letting myself in. “Goodmorning,” I greeted Lloyd who was already sitting up. I put a glass of water on the table next to him. “Did you sleep well?” I asked.

She shook his head and looked at me. “Nope,” he popped the p as he said it. “Sleeping after being poisoned isn’t to comfortable for your information,” he said sassily and I rolled my eyes.

“I can just go now, if you keep that up,” I threatened with a glare and he huffed and looked the other way.

I bit my lip and sighed. “How do you feel?” I questioned.

“Fine I guess, maybe a little ill and my wound hurts a little,” he still avoided looking at me, but I just decided to ignore it.

“I see,” I nodded and contemplated for a moment. “Well, I’ll be back in the afternoon to check up on you then, do you need anything right now?” I asked him and he opened his mouth to say something, but the words seemed to get stuck in his throat. “Well?” I asked a bit impatient.

He hesitated a bit before speaking. “I guess some company would be nice,” he admitted and my throat ran dry.

“The others are out for missions and your uncle is meditating at the moment, I’ll ask them when they are free,” I quickly said and moved to walk away but he grabbed my wrist.

“You know what I mean, (name).” He looked me in my eyes and I swallowed before taking place on the chair.

“Fine,” I stated, “how do you wanna pass time?” I asked him and he just shrugged meekly.

“Tell me what you’ve been up to,” he looked at me and I bit my lip slightly before I started.

“Nothing much, I continued my job at the cafe and I went back to my tiny apartment, I’m glad I didn’t sell it,” I started.

Before I met Lloyd and the team, my life was just normal, I worked in a cafe in the city and lived in appartement not far from it. When I did meet Lloyd and the others, I quickly found a home at the monastery and barely went back to my apartment anymore. At one point I thought to sell it, but it was the only place to fall back on after the fight, so it’s good I didn’t.

Lloyd nodded and gave me a look that told me to go on. “I uh, I started to study medicine, hoping to still be able to pursue being some sort of doctor,” I revealed making his eyebrows raise.

He knew it’d always been something I wanted to do, I talked about it a lot, yet never really did anything with it, but it turned out that leaving Lloyd and the others gave me a lot of time I didn’t know how to spent.

“Best of your class I suppose?” He asked with a cheeky grin, making me chuckle and nod.

“I am,” I admitted, “but I’ve already got lots of experience after being woken in the middle of the night to patch up some wounds at least once a week for a few years straight,” I gave him a pointed look making him chuckle.

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” he joked and I shook my head with he smile. “How’s Frankie?” He asked me then, causing my smile to grow.

“Yeah, yeah Frankie’s good,” I happily answered before remembering something. “Having some great times though,” I scowled and elaborated at his confused look. “He’s got the neighbours cat pregnant,” I told him with a scoff.

“Of course he did,” Lloyd huffed a laugh, “I’ve seen him eye Meowtra, the little hornbag he is,” he gave me a look as if to go against the statement and I just lightly glared at him.

“Stop,” I warned, but grinned non the less.

Silence fell again, besides what I told my life wasn’t to eventful, and I definitely wasn’t about to tell Lloyd about the dates I went on.

“And you?” I asked eventually. “How have you been?” I of course knew what’s been happening to some extent, I’ve been keeping up with the media.

“A rollercoaster of emotions really,” he answered. “A lot happened when you left, but I assume you know,” he gave me a look causing me to avert my eyes.

We both knew what he was talking about and I knew that with his comment, he was walking about the text I’d send him.

“Things have been good at the monastery though,” he said. “There was some tension in the beginning but it’s almost back to being normal. As good as all sons of Garmadon have been caught, so we aren’t worrying about that anymore, mostly just missions like they where before Sensei went missing,” he explained and I nodded before halting.

“Almost back to being normal?” I asked a bit confused, tilting my head a bit to the side as I looked at him.

He awkwardly averted his gaze and looked the other way as he talked. “Yeah,” he said. “Things are still different with you gone,” he admitted making me freeze as I felt a lot create in my stomach. “Everyone misses you,” he told me and I lightly frowned.

“Everyone?” I asked, he knew what I meant and then looked me right into my eyes.

“Everyone,”

I bit my lip, looking down at the ground, because fuck, of course I missed him too.

“I should visit sometime then,” I still didn’t look at him and pulled my legs up onto the chair, hugging them to my body.

“I think the team would like that,” he smiled and I met his gaze.

There were some beats of silence and I wasn’t sure what to say any further, so I just decided to change the topic.

“Wanna see if we can get you to your room?” I asked and he nodded eagerly.

I left the chair behind as he started to get out of the hospital bed. I was quickly at his side as he tried standing up. He wobbled a bit and put a hand on my shoulder out of reflex.

He gave me an apologetic smile and I light heartedly smiled back.

“C’mon,” I said and put his entire arm around my shoulder to help him walk.

Together we stumbled out of the medbay and I walked him to his room, not even having to wonder where it was, because one year ago, that was my room aswel.

I opened the door and walked him to his bed where he finally got to sit down and rest for a bit.

“Fuck, that poison is nasty stuff,” he said and I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah no shit, it almost killed you,” I pointed out and he gave me a sheepish smile.

I looked around the room to see that nothing had really changed, all the pictures in his room where the same, except for a few, I noticed. Some of them were taken down… the ones I was in.

Only one remained, it was a picture of me and him, both with huge smiles and ice cream cones as we sat in the park.

For the remaining, everything stood in the same place, his desk was a mess as always and the posters were all still hanging in place, even the Sleep Token poster I had added.

While I looked around the room, Lloyd had laid down, legs now under the covers. I had to physically stop myself from automatically joining him in the bed like I had done thousands of times before.

“How are you feeling?” I asked him, glancing over. He turned his head to me from where it rested on his pillow.

“Fine I guess,” he said. “But- I do have a stinging pain on my back,” he admitted. I sighed and walked over.

“Alright, c’mon, sit up,” I gestured to him and he did as told, turning his back to me and sitting with his legs crossed on his bed as he did. “Okay, can you take the shirt off so I can have a look?” I asked while grabbing my phone in case I needed better light.

“Oh?” He said suggestively, causing my cheeks to flush and quickly look over at him.

“Lloyd!” I scolded and he just chuckled before pulling his shirt over his head. He always did that stupid flirting whenever he was injured and I needed to have a look, causing me to ask him to remove clothing. It always made me flustered. And sometimes a little horny.

When I saw his bare back, I saw I did not need a flashlight. A big part of his back was blue, almost purple, while there were some grazes that seemed to have draw light blood.

“Shit, where you slammed against a wall or something?” I asked, trailing the wound with my hand, causing him to shiver.

“Might be, I don’t remember,” he admitted and I shook my head.

“You stay here, I’ll grab you some salve,” I said before leaving the room without any further comment.

I came back within a few minutes and started slowly spreading the cool salve over his back, trying to ignore how his muscles moved under his skin whenever he shifted.

“I’m done,” I told him and put the tube in my back pocket, he turned to face me. He stared at me for a second before absolutely baffling me.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, causing my eyes to slightly widen.

“I- what?” I knotted my eyebrows together in confusion.

“About.. you know, the fight,” he clarified, causing realisation to hit me.

“Lloyd-” I started but he cut me off before I could continue.

“I just needed to say it, I always wanted to, but I was just too much of a coward to do so,” he admitted, making me lightly bite my lip.

“Okay,” I just nodded, what was I supposed to say to this?

“Okay?” He raised and eyebrow at me, causing anger to boil up.

“Yeah, okay, what do you want me to say otherwise, cause I am not gonna apologise!” I pointed an angry finger at him.

“(Name)-”

“No, you were an absolute dick to me while I was just warning you and I was still right in the end!” I yelled, the anger I had felt all that time ago, the anger that I had still felt the entire year deep down, came running back up.

“Yeah, you made that clear,” he huffed, casing me to shoot him a quick glare.

“Yeah, the text was a bit of an asshole move, but it felt good at the time,” I crossed my arms and looked right at him.

“Oh it felt good?” He raised his eyebrows with wide eyes, looking at me in disbelief.

“Yeah, it felt good,” I repeated. “I sure hope you realise how absolutely devastated I was after everything. I was shattered after leaving not only you but the others! Not only that but it was over a stupid fight about that- that stupid, evil, moron of a princess that had all of you eating out of her hand!” I yelled at him and he was stunned into silence.

I bit my lip hard, trying to get rid of the tears in my eyes but they refused and just started streaming down my face, I hid my face in my hands not wanting him to look at my face right now. He seemed horrified at the sight and quickly stood up.

“Hey- hey I’m sorry,” he said again and put his arms around me while I sobbed. “I’m sorry, for everything, not believing you, yelling at you, making you feel unwanted and fuck- I’m sorry for not chasing after you after everything,” he whispered to me as I sobbed.

“You’re an asshole,” I said trough hiccups and he just chuckled.

“I know,” he answered and hugged me tighter. I pulled my hands away from my face and hugged him back, my sobs slowly dying down.

“God- I missed you so much,” I admitted and I felt him tense a bit after my words, causing me to immediately regret them.

“I missed you too,” he said and I sighed, closing my eyes and burying my face in his chest, tears staining his plain grey shirt. “Do you think we could ever go back to normal?” I pulled away slightly to look at me.

“Normal?” I asked him, locking eyes with him.

“You know what I mean,” he mumbled a bit embarrassed making me lightly smile.

“Maybe if you take me out for ice cream when that poison is completely out of your system,” I lightly grinned at him, causing his eyes to light up.

“I can do that,” he grinned, eyes full of joy, before they quickly darted at my lips and then back up. He acted as if it didn’t happen and I scoffed as he took a step backwards.

“Oh for gods sake Lloyd, just kiss me already,” I exclaimed.

He didn’t need to hear it twice as he stepped closer again and leaned down. I put my arms around his neck while his hands came to restnon my hips.

His lips locked against mine and it felt like a weight finally fell of of my shoulders. It was like I had no worries at all as I kissed him again and I think he felt the same.

He pulled away for a second and we stared each other in the eyes, causing me to giggle giddily. He grinned before dipping down to kiss me again.

Bonus:

It’d been a while since Kai had spitter (Name). He’d decided to head to the medbay to check if she and Lloyd hadn’t killed each other, only to find it empty.

Confused he left to check Lloyd’s bedroom, wondering if maybe he had been fine and she had just left without a word, again.

He opened Lloyd’s bedroom door, only to halt at the sight.

In the bed laid two figures, both sound asleep. Lloyd had his arms around (Name) while she was cuddled into his chest.

Kai grinned before closing the door and rushing off to tell the others about what he just found.

#lloyd garmadon x reader #ninjago x reader #ninjago lloyd #lloyd garmadon #ninjago lloyd x reader #lego ninjago #ninjago

35 notes · View notes

enbysiriusblack · 4 hours ago

Text

rereading snape's worst memory:

severus is writing A LOT more than the other students around him, so like. he probably does try super hard in all his exams, but defence is clearly one of his favourites i think from this. like he's writing super small and still filling out a lot of the parchment, so he's got a lot to say about the subject, plus he's writing like really fast without stopping

if james is only a short distance away from severus and sirius is in the same row as james, does this mean exam tables aren't set up in alphabetical order? people just sit where they want or something? weird

james' hair is described as messy like 5 times by harry. i don't think we focus on that enough.

girl, pay attention to your exam. we get he's hot, but damn

remus, you're good at dada, stop worrying sm about it. u got this mate

peter having exam anxiety is soooo canon i swear. also i'm giggling at him trying to cheat

doodler!james >>>> also harry not clocking his own mum's initals is kinda sad

ooh guys, should i make stebbins (he's a guy who doesn't put down his quill and continues writing after the exam finishes so flitwick calls him out) florence's boyfriend?? should i actually give 'boyfriend' a name???

honestly, other than the weird seating plan, this is so accurate to gsce exams. like turning around just to do a face or hand gesture to your friend a few seats away when the teacher's not looking? someone always writing after they tell you to stop? laughing at the teacher? waiting for your friends to discuss the paper straight away? its so real

these guys are incapable of being serious. they are all so fucking sarcastic. i love it.

why's severus still enthralled in his exam for???? it's over mate, go fucking relax

unrequited prongstail is real (also james' nicking a snitch?? he's such a weirdo)

severus!! harry literally was describing you as super pale and like you never go in the sunlight.. and then you go and sit in the shade?? it's early summer in scotland, it's not gonna be that fucking hot.

poly marauders are canon? (they were just described as being a foursome)

handsome just keeps getting added to any description of sirius. might start doing this in my fics /j

this is making me realise how canonly accurate the personalities of the marauders are in my fic (i'm only cryptic and machiavellian), and i love that for me

yeah unrequited prongstail is def canon omfg.

"sirius was the only person for whom james would stop showing off". james doesn't need to show off for sirius, because he knows sirius will always be there for him and give him attention anyway aww

remus and james both trying to think up solutions as soon as sirius says he's bored?? i'm giggling.

peter must have been sooo dissapointed that sirius and james stopped hexing people as often... his fav entertainment. gone.

okay i swear i've read this like loads of times before but i never actually realised sirius 'barking with laughter' was how he canonly laughs, i always just write that to be funny, i didn't know it was canon

james constantly looking over at the girls by the lake. like mate, she didn't notice or care about you throwing a snitch in the air but i don't think bullying her friend is any better. like yeah it gets her attention but is that really the kind of attention you want?? oh, you'll take any attention you can get from her? okay, right, fine

peter edging... IM SORRY

"i was watching him" OKAY,, snirius enjoyers are eating today

*smugly grinning* i KNEW james' hair fidgeting thing was an anxious/nervous habit I TOLD YOU ALL

lily's hair is dark red!!! just in case anyone forgot!!

i love remus. disagree with your friend's actions? don't worry! u can always just pretend you're so enthralled in your book you don't even notice what they're doing! just look the other way and you're totally absolving yourself and your friends from any guilt!

i feel like james asked lily out only once before this. like in fourth year of maybe just a couple months before this, and like in a proper fairly private, giving her flowers, asking timidly (well as timid as he can be), and she responded in a fairly similar way to here. so james asking here, is like trying to resolve his own feelings of embarassment about the rejection ig?

lily smiling!!!! oh she's such a cunt i love her (ofc james and sirius are bigger cunts ofc!!!) like girl that's your damn friend getting 'pantsed'. although ig like. it was kinda a norm thing to like do it TO your own friends soo hmm. (btw i put 'pantsed' in brackets since it's not pantsing, like. the point is that severus isn't wearing pants, he's wearing robes. it's robesing...)

sirius and james are too wuss to duel lily <333 cause she'd thrash them <333 (they totally duelled her before and got their arses kicked)

oh severus... u suck so bad... just cause she found you getting robesed funny doesn't mean u should go call her slurs wtf man

go off lily okayyy. her insults/jokes hit harder than all of sirius' ngl (ily sirius you're still funny and got good insults i swear!!)

okay personally lily, i don't think someone who shows off and hexes people who annoy him (which is. maybe just in my opinion) majoritively people who are bigoted/do dark magic, and then someone who calls their supposed best friend a slur in front of like half their peers are as bad as each other...

^also james!! omg mate she noticed you showing off with your snitch and messing your hair up!!! (also furthering my proof that he does it as a nervous act cause he's all nervous around her so does it more often and she just thinks he's showing off)

sirius, now is not the time for your brutal honestly. like that's so real of you and i suffer from the same infliction but still..

#marauders era #marauders #not sure what to tag hmm #snape's worst memory #james potter #sirius black #peter pettigrew #remus lupin #lily evans #won't tag snape in case i get hate for this (even tho i kinda ish stuck up for him a bit sometimes. maybe?

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celestiaras · 2 days ago

Note

Ok so, suggestion for something you can write:

Ok so some time ago someone did a post about Noctyx reacting to you being a virgin, and then taking your virginity. How do you think the XSOLEIL boys would react and act during your first time? (My first time sucked so one can indulge a bit in how much better it could have been you know. I bet these boys would be so caring yet so freaky at the same time) I know you technically already did Ver but still-

Love you muah muah

ft. doppio dropscythe, meloco kyoran, hex haywire, kotoka torahime, ver vermillion (separate) x f! reader — xsoleil, nijisanji en

╰₊✧ how xsoleil are when taking your virginity┊0.5k words

contains: smut!! dom xsoleil & sub reader┊loss of virginity, unprotected piv & straps-ons for the girls, written by a virgin

➤ author's note: another short one, i hope to post something longer when my motivation comes back. my depression has kinda hit me again and zapping my energy for anything even though i wanna write sooooo badly (also real life is so busy right now smh)

doppio dropscythe is clumsy. it’s his first time and a bit too excited for his own good, so you’ll need to guide him and be vocal about any possible discomfort. he’ll be the roughest out of the bunch, not intentionally, it’s just in his nature. there will be quite a few bruises and hickeys scattered about your skin, but it’s worth it because, not only is he blessed below the belt and able to fuck you so hard you’ll see stars, but he’s also terrific at aftercare, and will carry you into the bathtub filled with warm water like a princess. he’ll handle you more carefully next time (unless you want him to be just as or even more rough).

meloco kyoran is nervous. it’s probably also her first time too, and her inexperience makes her hesitant because everything she knows was taught by the internet after running away from home. she's asking over and over again if it’s okay, needing assurance that she’s doing a good job and that this is really what you wanted— that you really wanted her. you’ll need to encourage her with your words, help her out by wiggling your hips into hers onto her strap, and pull her down for a kiss when she finally fully sinks into you.

hex haywire is tender. he holds you so close it’s almost suffocating, his arms wrapped around you and his face buried into your shoulder as he presses kisses onto your skin. he’ll wax poetry about how beautiful you look while taking him for the first time, how good you feel clenching around his cock, and how he wishes he’ll be the first and last. you can hardly tell if the heat in your face is from the building pressure in your abdomen or how sexy his deep voice sounds saying all of that, but he’s easily able to tell the effect he has on you.

kotoka torahime is cheeky. she’s all smiles and teases you throughout, making you so flustered you will completely forget about how nervous you were. sometimes it is unintentional like she’ll accidentally say something a little silly and will make you burst out in laughter as she smacks you with threats of not going through with it if you don’t take her seriously (she’s just saying that, of course). both of you are pretty giggly throughout, so drunk in love that the initial penetration isn’t painful in the least bit and skips straight to the pleasure.

ver vermillion is gentle. he puts you first, checking in periodically to make sure you are okay, pausing each time you groan to see if you’re alright, and just being a sweetheart. his kindness is almost to a fault, so much so that you need to beg him to cut to the chase and fuck you already since he’s probably been fingering or eating you out for what feels like forever. he gets carried away in the foreplay because he’s so scared of hurting you, so remind him you aren’t made of glass and will be fine even if he gets a little rough.

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spotaus · 21 hours ago

Text

Okay-

Leaving this one as short as possible so I can write the Killer stuff before you clock out for the night- but!!!

Dude, absolutely canon that Killer had the idea first! He's such a goober and would absolutely be like, 'we gotta get you working on this!' but Killer and Nightmare both know Killer's got some obvious tells once you're around him long enough, and so it's only partially helpful. (killer's the kinda guy to do 2 lies in one round or smth just to throw Night off and give him a challenge). And!! night recognnizing that Ccino is probably the best bet for this sort of thing because of the whole Lied to Nim thing!! If he can parse out Ccino's lies, he can do it to any stranger!

(And yessss, Killer getting s better glimpse at Ccino through this too! And them all guessing with eachother- (Do you think Night participated as well? it's good 'team bonding', even if Ccino probably already knows all of Night's lies and truths lol-) Killer getting excited guessing for Ccino's rounds is so so cute and adorable-

he lil helmet for Error is So cute- And the idea that Night and Dust are just out horse-riding is such a nice idea. Cuz Nightmare would adore that, and Dust would have fun too!

(Good gods I forgot about Dream- But yeah, 3rd child, he can't be doing that again! The twins were already so much! And dang, him and Killer potentially having a kid? oh Ccino would be a wreck on SO many levels. I imagine that if that ever happened he would be a mess for the first time in a long time. Not because he has to raise another kid (though that is a worry) but because. What if something happens to him and Killer? What if what happened to him happens again? What if they die and leave their babybones all alone in the big wide world? Killer never fully recovered from the injury Dream dealt to him, and Ccino couldn't fight to save his life, should he start trying to train- Just this spiral of worry that something would go horribly wrong. I get the feeling if they ever had the conversation this is something Ccino would try to bring up non-chalantly but end up cradled and tucked in Killer's arms because. Well. he buried that childish fear when he was 7. he couldn't afford to really think on it until now, and it's all just crashing down on him- Sorry that got angsty quick- but yeah. i write Ccino as being so composed, but I think it's just because he doesn't ever give himself to really think about it until a long long long time after it happens, and then he goes weak in the knees and needs like 4 days straight of recovery <3)

Night's face was always going to be a big motif in the story! (masks and all) and ur right with Reaper too! Time crunch really puts that trust to the test!!!

Borrowed time.... exactly.... Yeah he had the most caring family in the whole story, (and I LOVE stubborn denial Phantom-) and to not endanger and burden them anymore he left!

Omg omg omg the bits about his final reuniting with them?? I'm gonna sob- Phantom always looking out, hoping for his brother to come back every single storm?? hello??? I'm losing it over here?? And his little look to the sound of horses only forit to be Dust, and Phantom rushes over and sees he's real and really there and??? AND- HELLO?????? Okay. Sorry. I'm normal. BUt yeah, his family is so so so happy to see him again and there are a bunch of tears and hugs and Dust gets smothered by his mom and brother for like a solid 20 minutes. And after a bit, it's the most relaxed Nightmare has EVER seen Dust. Like. Ever. Just chilling, maybe even letting his little (big) bro carry him like old-times while he prepares some lunch, and Nightmare is sitting there in their family room with Dust's parents, lowkey feeling like an intruder. The little soft introduction (Dust is one of his big brothers) and the family greeting him warmly and even pride coming from them for Dust having, like you said, been able to trust himself around people again!! And Night is kinda pulled into the family a bit, as they wind down there's smalltalk and discussions and only when the question comes up for how they met does Dust look to Night for approval to explain. And Night gives it.

And ough. The idea that his parents would ask, 'Well now Dust, where did you find this polite young man?' And Dust looking to Nightmare, getting a go-ahead, before debating how much he wants his parents to have a heart attack. Then he explains that Night actually broke him out of prison, to which Night sputters a quick 'Wait, wait that's not-' before Dust laughs and apologizes, and then explains the whole thing. How he managed his magic, how he ended up working in the market, how that bit of time where he didn't send anything he was in jail because the royal guard caught him during a raid, then how Nightmare was the King and hired him on straight out of prison and helped him turn his life around again and find a place to call his own. How he's a Knight, and an oath to protect Nightmare always. How he lives there and won't be moving home, but he'll visit as often as he can. he's sorry for being away so long. There are mixed responses, ranging from his dad's face going pale, to his Mother gasping, to his Brother joking 'MY lazy brother?' at the more wild parts? But by the end they all agree they're just happy to see him alive and well, and thriving. Dust knows the doors are always open to him (and any of his new brothers if they get the chance). Dust (with an Okay from Night) offers them the same. Come visit the palace anytime. Please, do. More friendly faces would be nice. (Though he fears what would happen if he put Error and Phantom into a room together. or Killer, for that matter. It'd be a chaotic interaction to say the least. Jealous younger sibling moments-)

Yesyesyes you get me. You understand! He thinks his soul is SO weird!!! The first time he saw it he panicked and he hates bringing it out, even when he's on his own! And!!! You picked up what I was putting down with Reaper and Geno, haha! I think it'd take like 15 billion years (exaggeration) for him to finally trust them enough to let them see his soul or even look at theirs, to be so intimate and vulnerable, but I think it'd kill him even more to hear Geno call it beautiful. Like. beautiful, of all things? it's weird and gross and unnatural- and Geno hushes him and says again that he thinks it's beautiful, and lively, and unique, just like Dust. (And Reaper has to call a time-out for them because Dust looks like he's deciding if he's going to murder Geno or make a run for the exit, purely out of embarressment and being overwhelmed by the compliments, and Geno looks like he wants to start making out w/ Dust and that would Not end well lmao-) Okay okay-

On this same topic, when Killer's soul is just. out there? In the open? Like. All the time? Dust is... weirded out. Big time. Because Killer's soul doesn't even look like a monster's, and there's just something about it that's freaking him out (internalized bias from his own soul methinks-) but he gets used to it over time, and in combats he's ironically usually the first to cover Killer if he needs it. Because that soul is just. There. Literally a giant target- He just gets protective-

Yeah!! I think I changed the context for the meeting aorund a bit lol, my apologies- I'm thinking the reuniting with Fresh might be slightly more interesting if it was semi-planned. Like, Error knows it's someone important to meet with (Geno planned it out with Nightmare, even though he's on thin ice) but not Who (Fresh doesn't cross his mind) but Dust being there was a crucial piece because. Well. Dust is magically strong, and he looks out for both Error and Night so of course he's there!

And yeah, The parasite learning its lesson and Quick is smth I think could be cool. Because it was such a random occurance at just the right time to fix the problem. Like. It's a moment where narratively such a big burden having such a quick fix is more fun and interesting, because then it lets the characters understand how to deal with it in the future, and lament that it didn't happen way sooner.

Fresh and Error are both so so ready for this hug. Error, despite being mad at Fresh, is much more willing to forgive him after Geno explained his end of the story. That Fresh didn't know he'd be getting back early. That Fresh tried desperately to hunt him down. That he tried to fix his mistake, so Geno didn't know until long after Error was already fully missing? He knows Fresh, and having any hope that Fresh was even half as torn up as Geno was enough for him to give that second chance. (Also I'm very wishy-washy on what activates Error's touch/magic pains so I apologize, but basically it's that when he's younger it's really bad. When he's older he makes himself compression gear to wear over his bones so the touch of another monster's magic resonates less, but he doesn't always wear it, so sometimes (like here) it still tries to act up and make him 'glitch' basically!)

Ehehehe--- I love these sillies- OKAY off to write about Killer! We'll see how long it ends up being!

New Age AU (Error's Wacky Wild Plan)

Hi guys. So. Crazy Story. The crisis that stopped me from working on my banner art actually catapulted me into writing this drabble finally! (Also the wonderful @ancha-aus was also a life-saver and helped me hammer out a few plot points for this installment <3)

Currently my only context for this drabble is that Error is tiny, and ran away from home because Geno moved to Reaper's kingdom to make money to send back home, and Fresh spent too long away on his trip. Error was expelled from his magic academy and came home to an empty house, so he left! Now he's been on the road for about a month? Nightmare has been ruling for about 6-ish years now, almost 7.

(Hello @mutzelputz and @papiliovolens hi guys!!!)

The town was bustling.

Error had been through a lot of towns since he’d left. Big ones, small ones, ones he was convinced weren’t even towns at all, just a few barns in a general closeness to one another who decided they needed to call themselves something besides the outskirts. Those people had been particularly hostile to his passing through.

And, lately, they’d been really weird. People staring at him when he’d walk on the streets, or pass by shops. When they saw he had money from a different kingdom (he didn’t even realize he’d left his own, but he figured it meant he was on the right path) they’d squeeze their faces like they bit a lemon and hastily take his coin. Like it was cursed, or something. They were lucky it wasn’t cursed, honestly. He could probably figure out how to do that.

This town, though, was filled so full with people that he imagined they couldn’t look at him weird if they wanted to.

People were riding horses, chatting in the streets, all sorts of stalls and merchants were peddling goods, and he was almost positive he could hear music lifting down the street over the general drone. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d run into a place so busy. He’d always been told to stick to the side, out of the way, out of danger.

He didn’t have to listen to that anymore. Though, he did skirt the crowds. The mass of people seemed all too willing to bump shoulders or elbows with each other in the early morning sun, and the last thing he wanted was to have his magic act up in a crowd. He’d done well so far.

Every booth, every merchant, every passerby seemed jubilant, ebbing and flowing. It was like some sort of party.

That was, until, Error spotted it.

A big building, something that Error recognized only vaguely.

It was an amphitheatre.

Geno had taken him to see one once. Or, at least, the ruin of one. It hadn’t been too far from their home, and it was pretty abandoned and lonely. Plants had crawled up its walls, stones had fallen off in chunks, animals seemed to have deemed its high windows a perfect spot to build nests. It had been breathtaking, and ancient.

This one? Seemed perfectly in-use.

The walls were all in-tact, stones, an easy to look at grey, smooth and covered in little intricate carvings. Spells, he had to imagine, in some language he didn’t know. Curtains hung over the huge arched entrances, and heavy gates seemed to be lifted, the spikes at the base loomed over the heads of every passerby.

He couldn’t help but marvel. Was this a restoration, or maybe it was new. Some sort of imitation. Regardless, he found that his feet carried him to one of the entrances, which stood largely empty aside from some folks who looked strikingly like guards.

Two of them stood, long spears in-hand. They both stood stock still as Error approached, and didn’t move a muscle as he passed them. They were strange, definitely different. Not at all the town guard he was familiar with.

The inside of the theatre was even more impressive. Rows and rows of stands seemed to line up either side. Huge tapestry hung from the high arches past those seats, and down the runways of the bleachers, all a bright teal and dark navy blue. They seemed fancy, and much newer than the curtains which had hung in the entrance.

Beyond the walkway where he stood, was a set of stairs which led down a level or so, before it leveled out into an open space. Sandy, and very flat. It seemed like there were people there, too. A much smaller crowd, but still a crowd nonetheless.

Error was almost amazed he’d not been stopped by someone yet. Whatever was going on seemed important, and so far in his experience, people did not like him sticking his nose into important business.

With that in mind, he decided he’d stick to the entryway for now. He leaned his bag up against the wall and watched from a position where the sun still shadowed his form. He was often grateful for his miscolored bones. It made hiding in the dark a whole lot easier.

It took a bit for him to really process what he was watching in the morning light.

There were four people sat on a sort of raised box toward the front of a stage. A huge stage, raised up off the sand with wood slats. They had a long-table before them, and quills and ink jars in-hand. Well, three were sitting. One was standing. But the point is, they were all watching the stage very attentively.

On-stage there was… basically nothing. Only a simple backdrop Error had to imagine was there at all times, because it looked like it was coated in sand, even from the distance where he stood.

A person would enter the stage, the people sat on the box would speak to them, and then there was a flare of magic. Another. Another. And then they were dismissed.

It wasn’t until he really bothered to think about what magic was being cast that he realized those were extremely simple spells being used. Levitate, Create Water, Mimicry. Or Flame, Gust, Light. All just three easy spells, and then they were off-stage. That was taught magic. It gave him memories of his entrance exam to his school. He’d been way overqualified to get in, Geno taught him after all…

But, no, this didn’t feel the same. There were plenty of people who seemed to stumble at spells they didn’t recognize, or who couldn’t muster a simple breeze. Then others who were very old and obviously skilled. Obviously they found the three spells to be child’s play. Like Error would. This was no entrance exam, so what-

“Hey, pipsqueak, what are you doing there in the dark?” A voice startled him, and it took all of his willpower to avoid jumping away from its origin.

Error twisted rapidly, just in time to avoid the thrust of an elbow in his direction.

There was a monster there. Three, actually. Two lizards, both bright green and tropical, and one who looked more like a dragon. The green one closer to him must have spoken, because he laughed at Error’s flinch.

“Why are you bothering me?” Error shot back haughtily.

The lizard seemed to grin at the response.

“Oh, so we’ve got a feisty little small fry here? Thinks he’s scoping out the competition?” The dragonish one hissed, voice deep.

The other green one tittered a giggle, “So cute! I can’t believe the King really decided to let just anyone try out for Royal Mage.”

Oh…

The lizard before him seemed to take this silence as a weakness, and reached out quicker than Error could react. A flick to the middle of his forehead.

Error winced and pulled away, back and into the arena. He grit his teeth and clutched his skull, where at the same moment the lizard jumped back and shook their hand in the air a bit. His magic had reacted poorly again, and while it was better than it used to be, it still stung like 5 wasps touching down and stinging the same point all at once.

“Little freak.” Was all the monster hissed, before he fled. His two friends moving on behind him in confusion. Approaching the line to the stage.

Error stood there in the sun for a moment, rubbing at his forehead until the pain was more of a numb static.

If anything, he appreciated the little run-in with those wanna-bes. Now he knew exactly what this was, and why it had felt so familiar to him.

The Mage Trials.

Geno had to go through them, and he’s been very thorough about his every single detail while doing it. Even though he was the best mage Error had ever known, he’d still stressed and wrote page after page of plans and spells and had placed them into a folder that felt thicker than an encyclopedia. Geno had always been the only one of them who bothered studying. Fresh couldn’t go to school anymore, and Error… Well, Error didn’t need to.

Thinking about it, Geno had been very quiet about it, but Error had looked into his folder a few times. Just out of curiosity. It’d been split into three rounds, something Geno had said was standardized. The first was a test of someone’s basic magic skills, the second were more complex spells which the mage has practice in, and the third, the one that had given Geno the most grief, was the personal spell round. In the last one, there were no restrictions to what someone could do, so long as they had done the work themselves, and that it mostly used magic.

If he was right, and he usually was, then this was the first round. Eliminating those with nothing but a hope and a prayer in their pocket before they got embarrassed before the one looking for the Mage in the first place. In this case, whoever this kingdom’s king even was.

In just a few moments, Error had decided.

This was how he’d prove himself.

The line was already starting to get longer, and he didn’t want to be here until nightfall in a queue. He dusted off his scarf, his shoes, his bag, and set off into the bright sun to secure his place in this contest. No prep. No warning. Just with his raw skill and what he’d learned so far. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Finally.

Error felt like it had been hours in the warm sun before he was finally up next.

He’d been watching, of course. Watching as the people before him were passed or failed. It was just as he’d expected, and he couldn’t help but be a bit giddy as the two green lizard who’d bothered him earlier both failed. Though their dragonish friend had passed, it was still enough of a victory for him.

Along with that, he noticed that the three people sat were all in robes of nobles. Something the wealthy and lofty would think to wear in a blazing hot arena all day. The one standing, though, was wearing all black. A hood was over his head, but Error thought he might be some sort of cat-monster. Very stone faced, very still. The only time Error had seen him move was seemingly to veto whatever choice the other three were making. He thought it was interesting.

That didn’t matter, though.

Based on what he’d seen, these people wouldn’t have any qualms with his magic. He was much better than half the people who’d already been passed, and knew he could keep him calm up on the stage. It’d be just like his entrance exam.

He watched as the monster who’d gone before him, a skeleton who was twice his height and twice as animal-ish, bowed gratefully to the people on the boxes, the evaluators, and exited. She’d passed fairly easily, Error thought. Though, her focus seemed elsewhere based on how shaky the hold on her last flame had been.

“Next!”

The call was shrill, and Error had heard it over a hundred times already today, but this time it bounced in his ears as he lifted himself up the steps and strode onstage.

If he’d thought about it, he would’ve tried to find a place to stache his bag, but it was too late for that, and frankly he didn’t trust it not to get stolen once it was out of his sight. Not with how busy the city seemed.

When he was stood in the center of the stage, he looked out across the way to the evaluators. They seemed closer up here than they did when he was on the ground. Interesting.

“First spell,” The person on the far left called, though Error could tell now that it was a voice projection spell. So they didn’t strain their vocal chords, “ Levitate.”

That was simple. One of the first spells he’d been taught as a kid.

His eyes skimmed briefly, there had been a few props on stage that he only noticed once he was closer that were meant to be used with this sort of spell, but Error wasn’t for that. Instead, he muttered the words under his breath, outstretched a hand, and felt his magic reach out around him. Beyond the stage.

There… There was a barrier of some sorts, pushing back against his magic, between himself and the evaluators. He furrowed his brow and urged his magic forward. He didn’t have to break through it. He just. Had to- His magic felt like it was looping and wriggling like a worm through the dirt, but when it broke through on the other end, it felt so much more clear. He could feel a potent magic there, something raw and wet, like the air before a storm.

That didn’t matter, though. None of it did, because he was on a mission. His magic finally found its target, the stacks of ink bottles which the middle evaluator had just before their parchment. The magic latched on, and Error finally allowed himself a grin as he tugged his hand upwards. They floated calmly into the air, three of them, and did a quick spinning motion, before settling back down just where he’d found them.

He didn’t catch the looks on the threes faces, but he had to imagine they were priceless. He was more focused on letting the spell dissipate and preparing for the next.

It took a moment, before, “Second Spell,” They said, “Create Water.”

Another easy one.

Error held his hand out again, though this time his palm faced the sky rather than the ground. At the mutter of his words, he could feel the water manifesting. Tiny droplets leaking from his fingers and into the air above his open palm, where he let it gather into a nice, easy sphere.

It hovered, and for this one he could see the nods from the three evaluators. The fourth, the cat monster, didn’t move an inch. A good sign.

Error, after a breath, moved the orb of water and simply set it on the stage floor. If he had to release it, he didn’t exactly want to get his clothes wet. That orb tended to shoot outwards when he released it, and the water would go everywhere.

“Third spell,” They must’ve been contented with his simply setting down the water, for they continued, “Flame.”

Ah, one of his favorites. He was never very good at it, of course, but it was certainly very fun. If nothing else it’d be a taste of his raw power.

He rolled up his hanging sleeves, quickly using strands of string to wrap them in place, before he picked back up the water orb in one hand. With the other, he faced his palm toward the side of it, and spoke the words for the flame spell.

The heat gathered in his wrist, and all at once shot out of his palm, like a cannon blast. The heat was intense, and Error laughed quietly to himself in pure elation as the fire did exactly what he was hoping. All at once, his glasses fogged, and a burst of steam blew past his face, off to the exiting side of the stage. He’d evaporated his orb, no longer needing to risk someone seeing him fumble with it and soak himself.

He let the fire die after a few second, and quickly grabbed the hem of his scarf to wipe down his glasses from the fog left behind on their surface.

The moment the red rims were back on the bridge of his nose, the voice spoke up again.

“Name?”

Error cleared his throat, before calling back his name in response. Just the first one, the last one didn’t matter anymore.

There was another few breaths of quiet, before,

“Age?”

Error hadn’t heard them ask anyone else for their age, but he figured they’d noticed. How strong and talented he was at such a young age.

He puffed up his chest when he announced, “Twelve!” to the arena.

There were a few muffled murmurs from the line, but Error was too busy grinning across the way at the evaluators as they seemed to talk amongst themselves.

He was ready to hear the word that would mark him to continue. The next part was tomorrow, after this round was concluded and the king arrived. He’d heard about it in the line while he was waiting.

One of the evaluators lifted their gaze back to him. Opened their mouth.

“Disqualified.”

That.

Huh?

Error must’ve visibly glitched at the response, because one of the evaluators seemed to flinch. Ever so slightly.

“How come?!” Error called back, reservations immediately fleeing his mind.

How could they disqualify him? He hadn’t heard them do that to literally anyone else so far today.

The evaluator on the far right spoke up, “Too young. Now please move off the-”

Error might’ve let his mouth speak before his mind, if he hadn’t seen the way the mysterious cat monster seemed to slink forward. A simple tap to the evaluator’s side and they stopped mid-sentence, attention drawing to the person.

He waited with balled fists. Hoping, against it all, that this person was using his mighty veto powers to get him his passing review.

“The Knight wishes to speak to you further.” They said, when the person, the Knight, took a step back. “Exit the stage.”

Mm.

This was his chance. This was his moment. He was being allowed to move on, he was sure of it. It had to be.

He practically scrambled off the stage and down the steps, and found that the Knight had closed the distance very quickly. He gestured silently for Error to follow him off to the side of the arena, seemingly outside of the voice spell’s range, as the noise of magic and calling for the next viewer seemed all muffled and contained.

Something Error noticed about the guy, now that he was right beside him walking along, was also that he wasn’t a cat monster. No, he had some sort of mask shaped like a cat. Black spots painted on black fur, with piercing white eyelights hidden in the darkness cast by his black hood. A cloth mask covered the lower half of his face, so Error would’ve had no idea what kind of monster he was, if he hadn’t left his hands uncovered. They were grey and grimy, but they were most certainly bones.

The other thing he noticed, was the magic. That damp, airy magic was no-doubt from this guy. It practically enveloped the both of them until they were stood in the shade of the wall separating bleachers from arena floor.

“You said you’re twelve?” He finally asked, shifting on his feet to look at Error.

The last thing he noticed, which only happened once he was able to look past the aura, was that. Well. He was a bit taller than this guy. Not by much, but there was certainly something stark about having to look a bit downwards to meet his eyelights.

“Yes, I am.” He claimed proudly, still convinced this was to be his ride to the top.

The knight seemed to skim him with his eyes. Surely taking in Error’s clothes, his bag, his glasses, the weird bones. Though, it didn’t feel pervasive.

“Impressively strong for a kid,” He praised loosely, “And probably talented in spells if the nerds were any indication.”

His voice was quiet and raspy, but Error had no problem listening to it. This strong and very cool guy who was called a ‘knight’ was praising him. This was much better than getting yelled at by his professors. Much.

“Does that mean I passed?” He asked impatiently.

He needed this. He needed this.

The guy’s eyelights lingered on his face a bit, and it was then that Error finally noticed how virtually unreadable this guy was. Impossibly quiet, posture unmoving, all facial features shrouded in shadow and covered by masks?

“I’m not sure what kingdom you’re from, but you’ve got to understand that the folks up there didn’t say no because you’re bad. They said no because the king made a new decree. “No soul under the age of 16 shall be put to work under the crown.” They’ve gotta take it seriously, just like everyone else has to follow the new rules about their own shops and businesses.” He said evenly, eyelights never leaving Error’s face. “You’re a couple years too early is all.”

It felt like he’d been shoved into a ditch, and he could already feel his right hand starting to tremble with the beginnings of a glitch. He was furious! How could they possibly say no to him because of some stupid rule about his age?

“No!” He exclaimed, trying to bite back the distortion on his voice, “I’m not going to just walk away. If I could just move on to the next round, they’d see I’m different! I’m not some weak little baby!”

He clenched his fists, driving his jittering one forcefully into his pocket.

The knight didn’t even flinch at his declaration.

“They’ve already seen that.” He said easily. “Listen to me. Error, right?”

Error hesitantly nodded.

“Error, ‘m sure that if my Lord saw you in action, he too would agree that you are very strong and resourceful.” The knight said, and Error hated that it sounded earnest. “But, he set that law into place for very good reason. If by any means those folks back there were to let you through, to pass you, and you made it before the king next round? They’d have committed treason, and I’d have their souls on the end of my bone in three seconds flat.”

His voice was hard and serious, and Error held strong as a loud crack echoed out beside the knight. A bone raised from the ground, sharp and jagged on the end, absolutely radiating magic.

“Do you really want their blood on your conscience, just so that you get sent away by the King anyways?” The knight offered.

Error hunched his shoulders a bit, and he felt his static worsen as he let his eyes linger on the bone. Yes. He muttered inside his head. He wanted to scream it at the man before him. Tell him that this was his one golden chance to prove himself.

But to who? He would ask, and Error wouldn’t be able to say it. It’d be a wasted sentiment and wasted time and wasted lives just for his temper tantrum.

“...No.” He bit out meekly.

He stood there, feeling a familiar shame creep up his spine. The knight made no move to leave, though he did let his bone disappear. The ground looked untouched from where it had split out of. Just more sand. Sand that was getting into Error’s bones. That he’d have to clean out later. Swinging in his hammock, lonely and moping.

“Heh,” The chuckle was almost inaudible, and Error was almost ready to let his distress turn back into rage, but, “Better kid than I was.” The Knight mused into the open air.

He seemed to shift his stance again, and Error took a half step back.

“You’ve got your life ahead of you, kid. Don’t let this keep you down. Take the road less traveled by or whatever.” He said then, waving a hand loosely before him.

Error stared at him, trying to even his breath, before he had an idea.

“The other two rounds will be here, right?” He asked, voice still harshly stuttering and screeching. The Knight seemed unbothered.

“Yeah. Planning on sticking around to watch?” The knight questioned, though it felt more like a warning.

Error nodded in agreement without hesitation. “If these geezers can get the job, I need to see what kind of tricks they have up their sleeves.” He agreed.

That earned another little chuckle, before the knight looked back to the stage.

Up in the center was a new mage, a human who seemed to be making a pretty wild wind that was whipping the sand around, bothering the people in line behind him. Error heard the knight make a scoffing noise, before turning back towards the stage.

“Go hang around somewhere else for a while, why don’t you? I have to go make sure those nerds don’t pass that guy.”

Error didn’t even get to say a farewell before the Knight was off.

It seemed like every stride he teleported a bit further, building speed until he stopped cleanly up on the pedestal. Just in time for the sandstorm to die down.

Error didn’t want to walk away from this, he didn’t, but staying would only waste his time. It only took a few more seconds, to watch the knight nudge the evaluator and hear the muffled call of ‘fail’ ring out across the arena before he was turning tail and moving out of the sandy paradise, back into the bustle of the living city.

It was impossible to miss it. The sounds of celebration as the monarch entered the town.

Error could see the royal carriage from his perch, an old temple tower that had at some point lost its bell. It seemed untouched, birds nests and cobwebs, so he’d set up a hammock and a little makeshift shelter inside using his strings just before night fell.

He’d snatched some food from the town as dusk was setting in, and he’d been comfortably whittling away the dark hours, working hard on his plan.

With the King officially in town, that meant the second round would be starting up shortly, taking the numbers of who would be in the third round down by hundreds. He hoped the king was stingy about it. He hoped that dragonish monster would stumble on his spell and turn someone into a frog.

The thought humored him, and he cackled quietly to himself from his makeshift room.

The sun was high again, and he was only a part of the way through. His spells required a lot of his magic to be woven into them, and while it was much much faster than what he’d heard was the usual, it was still difficult to make.

Weaving the blue strings from his sockets, to his fingers, around his fingertips, and into the shapes he needed. It was monotonous, and boring by all accounts, but with every strand there was a new flow of power. A new pump of adrenaline into Error’s soul as he recognized his creation becoming more potent. Intent, intent, intent, every loop and knot was filled to the brim with it. His frustration sat at the core. Much more volatile and destructive than his usual intent, but it would serve him well if he wanted this plan to go well. Around it was his determination. The strings woven in with a sense of stubbornness which refused to let go, like a snake swallowing its prey whole. This would compress the first layer into a proper state. Let it coil and coil and coil until it burst. It’d be big, and loud, and send out that message he so desperately needed to be heard by the king.

Skipping the second round would probably hurt him in the long run, but… That knight had said he’d have to kill those people if he showed his face in round two. So, he’d just appear in round three instead, and make up for missing the second one. A final act, of sorts.

He’d have to be at this all day to make the time crunch. The orb was hardly as big as his palm, not nearly big enough. Though, he had wasted time making the shelter and finding food. He’d just have to skip a couple meals to make up for it. He didn’t really need to eat that much anyways, he’d known that for years. He just tried to make an effort when he smelled something tasty.

He knew he could manage.

It was late in the night when Error finally started on the outer layers. Those which would be filled with his patience, so that the potent insides would not be sensed as he moved with it among the many magic users.

The town had begun to line the streets with torches and party as the stars arrived. No doubt celebrating those who would be at the third and final round tomorrow. The ones who would be competing to become the new Royal Mage.

To Error? Every single moment down there was dedicated to him. They just didn’t know it yet.

The morning came, and Error only had a few more layers.

By the time the sun was almost in the center of the sky above, he had finished it, and carefully tucked it into his backpack. He unraveled the strings and carefully wrapped them, shaping them, changing them into a thin net with long ends. This was shoved into his jacket sleeve, the ends clutched tight in his hand.

It took him hardly any time at all to get to the arena, and he was early.

Good.

He settled himself up in the stands, as close to the stage as he could get. Many people seemed to be staying outside the arena, sticking to the streets, but there was still enough of a crowd in the bleachers that Error had to be careful as he worked his way along the edges. He needed to be closer. Closer…

There.

He stood at the railing behind the stage.

From here, he could see the line to the left, and he could see the people who had finished lingering on the other side. None of them spoke to each other, only standing about, icily, waiting for the rest to finish so they’d know which of them was chosen, and who was not. Error had to imagine that these folks were just as lame and boring as the seniors from his old academy. No fun at all.

He waited, so, so patiently, for the next few people. The last few.

Though he couldn’t see the spells themselves, he could certainly feel the pressure coming off of them. The control that they’d need to balance it. How much it might’ve drained their energy to do it just once. He was attuned to that sort of thing, he had to be.

His assessment was that all of these last few folks weren’t bad, but they were no match for Error’s raw talent.

Each spell cast seemed to tick away at Error’s patience, until it finally happened. The last mage went on-stage. It seemed there had been 15 of them.

He’d have to make 16, then.

It felt like a blur as he jumped the rails and let his strings carry him across the open space, much to the shock of the few who had been watching the competitors from around him. The blue lines snatched at the wooden supports of the stage, and he swung right over top, landing a bit messily in the center of the stage.

He didn’t have time to look at everything. All he knew was the crowd was much larger than last time, that there was a shout of ‘Hey!’’ from somewhere to his left, and that the box across from the stage now held only three people. Monsters. One Error recognized, the knight in shadows who’d spoken to him. The other two he didn’t know, but he had to assume the one in the middle, tall and imposing, and dark, with an eyelight the same colors as the tapestries, was the King he was looking to impress. That was all he needed to know.

“M’lord, my name is Error!” He called out across the sand, and in one motion he shrugged the bag off his shoulders and used his strings to tug the orb out of its canvas body. “I want to prove that I’m more capable than any of the adults who just went before me! I could be your mage!” He would be the mage.

The orb sat cradled in Error’s hand for only the briefest moment, before it was inside the little net he’d made. He swung it in circles. Again. Again. Again.

He had to be fast. He had to do this quick.

Error spent one last moment, extending his reach through his strings, muttering words and igniting an intangible spark.

For a brief moment, he watched as the King seemed to ease forward. A hand now raised, seemingly calling off his knights, who had been almost in motion.

He released the orb directly upwards, momentum carrying it up.

Up.

Into the blue sky. Practically into the sun.

Error watched it rise above him.

Only.

“Shit.”

His calculations must’ve been off. He must’ve added a layer too many, or maybe he released it a swing too soon. But he could tell that it wouldn’t clear the top of the arena.

Maybe if he had a few more seconds he could’ve used strings to boost it. He could’ve sent a magic gust to lift it further.

Not the case.

He watched as the orb detonated, just like it was supposed to.

The wave moved horizontally through the air, and swept across the air above the arena so quickly that it sucked the sand from the top layer and threw it against the tall walls. Error’s footing slipped, and he stumbled to his knees on the stage as the wind whipped and tugged the heavy curtains into the air current as well.

It was an almost invisible force, Error had to imagine anyone without a solid grasp of magic would entirely miss it as it spread out.

He winced as it finally reached the edges of the arena, where he had just barely managed to fall short of clearing.

As the magic passed over the stone and mortar, he saw as it fell. Not in chunks, but crumbled like dust into fine particles. The upper half of every arch at the top of the grand amphitheatre, turned pitch black, then wasted away.

He hadn’t meant for it to come in contact with anything. It wasn’t supposed to do anything but harmlessly wave over everyone’s heads. As a show of his strength. That was all.

Error could only think back to when this had happened before. When he’d accidentally exploded Geno’s favorite mug while metering the strength of his strings. When he’d broken the wheel of a carriage passing through the woods with a wayward slingshot blast. When he’d broken all ten of the large windows in the lecture hall of the academy when he failed to complete a spell the way it was written. When he’d done it too well.

As he rose to his feet, he half expected the nagging voice of his older brother to be there, chastising him for not being more careful, before taking him home and making him dinner.

It wasn’t that, though.

He watched out across the sand. The king had his head tilted only slightly, looking up at Error’s lofty mistake. At the clean cut where stone now met unbothered air. His knight, the one in all black, was leaned ever so slightly towards him. They must’ve been speaking. Or, at least, the knight was.

About Error, he had no doubt.

He stayed in place, watching, swaying a bit with the residual force of his own spell lingering in his fingertips. Every instinct which told him to run and to hide were smothered and stamped out by the ligering fact that he had nowhere to go. Without his brothers, there was no one to help him. He knew it.

Even in front of this crowd. These mages. This King and his knights. He couldn’t bring himself to move offstage. Some part of him, deep down, childishly wanted the King to announce that he was impressed. To parade him offstage and let him experience what Geno had. Let him know why Geno left.

The King’s single eyelight swam back over to look at Error in the silence.

Error felt like the world had stopped.

It hadn’t.

There was a clattering of armor and rustling of fabric, suddenly loud in his ears, and he had no time to react as everything came rushing in all at once.

Hands. Heavy, gloved hands. Two sets, two hands each wrapped one of his upper arms, and immediately lifted him off the ground. Into the air.

Pain flooded into his bones from his soul, like twin lightning strikes, trying to singe the bone and the magic in its core. The pressure wasn’t much, his mind knew that, but his body usually didn’t listen to him. He tried desperately to hold it in. The rampant part of his magic that had been hurting him since he could remember. That made it hard to touch anyone. To shake hands. To hug his brothers.

“Let go!” He pleaded, though he wasn’t sure if his voice made any sense. Fresh always told him they couldn’t tell what he was saying when his voice got too bad.

More pain. He kicked his legs at the open air, and tried to muster control over his strings, just for a moment, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t focus.

And all at once it stopped.

Error’s feet were on the ground again, though that promptly became his knees again as he swayed and wavered in the sudden aftermath of his active magic dying down. Receding back into his soul. Because it didn’t need to ‘protect’ him anymore.

He spotted then, as his vision returned to something aside from the gloves or the sky, that the King was no longer in his throne. In fact, there was a heavy, encompassing, magical weight behind him now. Somewhere very, very close-by.

He took a deep breath, grounding himself.

“We are taking a recess.” Announced a booming voice. Very nearby. It was deep, and felt almost the same as the projection spell from two days prior. Then, more quietly, “You will leave the boy to me. Go ensure no one was injured, then manage the crowd. I’ll make my choice tomorrow at sunrise.”

The second bit felt quieter, an edge to the tone that Error didn’t quite like. Considering he must be the boy in question.

It was a moment, a few muddled ‘Yes, my king’ s, before Error found a pair of boots stepping before him. His head swam as he looked upwards.

The King, he figured that had to be him, was dark. Very dark. Like a living, dripping, shadow. Magic seemed to be all he was made of, an aura radiating from him. Dripping off his back into long slimy worms, twitching as they sat near the ground. He wore a fancy cape, too. One with huge gold clasps on his shoulders, one was shaped like the moon.

Error looked to his face last. In hindsight, something that could’ve been very, very bad. He was met with a dripping face. Skeletal. The place where his right socket should’ve sat was covered in that dark substance. The other hollow, with that bright cyan orb staring right back at him.

“Can you stand?” His voice came easily, and Error braced himself.

Could he?

He had to, he didn’t want to be touched again.

Error took another breath, and managed to rise silently to his feet.

“Good,” the King said once he was standing, “Follow me.”

�� It was an order he didn’t dare refuse.

Error found himself in an odd position.

He’d been given time to sit and recover from his magic’s outlash, and now he was sat in a room beneath the bleachers of the arena alongside the King and that knight he’d met before. The other one was guarding the door, he thought.

It’d been silent for a while, and it was almost expected when the silence was finally broken.

“You said your name is Error, correct?” The King asked, and Error gave a nod of yes. He forced himself to meet the King’s gaze.

“Dust says that you’re only 12, and our people disqualified you in the first round. Is that right?”

Error nodded again.

“And Dust even explained to you why you were disqualified?”

Another nod. It seemed he’d at least made an impression on the knight. Dust.

The King tilted his head ever so slightly to the side, eyelight holding Error’s tightly.

“Then, I’ll ask, what brought you to think this was a good choice? To try and become Royal Mage above any cost it might bring?” The king asked, and Error was surprised to find it was a shockingly gentle tone. “Your home, your family, your life. You are so young, why put it all on the line like this?”

Oh.

It was almost funny. Was this whole thing because the king was some sort of charitycase? So disillusioned by his perfect life that he couldn’t even think of the hardships any random kid could go through? He almost grinned at that, barely keeping his mouth from twitching in a mix of frustration and humor.

“I wanted to prove myself,” He muttered, “And besides, becoming the Royal Mage would be great.”

He waited, waited for the King to inhale, to say something, before,

“I’m an orphan.” He spat, finally. “Family abandoned me, house is left behind, expelled from school. I don’t want to keep wandering.”

It was basically the truth. This was his big break. His one last chance before he became a hated little vagabond. Maybe even a criminal. Maybe he’d have to go on the run for the rest of his life, live as a nomad. Join a caravan. Those people got stopped a lot though, kingdoms didn’t like them. He’d probably explode some city’s bakery by mistake and get put in jail for-

“Wait!” Error suddenly exclaimed, breaking free of his thoughts, “Am I in trouble? Am I going to jail??” He asked then.

His worries slammed to a grinding halt and he stared wide-eyed at the two before him. Geno had always told him not to go making his big stuff near town, because if the guard caught him he wouldn’t be able to bail him out. He’d end up in jail. Of course, it’d never happened back then because he was always fast enough. Always smart enough to get out of dodge when he broke something or made poor decisions. Here? Here he hadn’t run when he had the chance.

The King stared at him, his one eyelight nearly mirroring Error’s in surprise at the question.

“I mean,” he started, “You’re young. If I wont let you work for me, I wouldn’t dare put you in prison either.” The King stated, “Though, you did do quite a bit of damage to the theatre.”

Error watched him break eye contact finally and look over his shoulder to the Knight stood there. He’d been silently watching Error too.

When he had no insight, The king seemed to heave a sigh, and the shadowy extra limbs which draped around him twitched.

“You’re sure you have no family? No home?” the King asked him again, and Error nodded.

The king muttered something under his breath, and shot the Knight another look. The knight shrugged.

“I… Will not employ you. Though, I do see talent in you, Error.” the King said carefully, a bit slower in his words than he had been up until now. Almost… unsure. “I will, however, extend to you the title so that you may conduct…” He waved a hand before himself, as though searching for a word, “ You may conduct independent research. If you accept, of course.”

“You would be free to resend your acceptance at any moment, no strings attached, and may take any work you complete along with you, and any pay you receive would be given to you after your 16th birthday, if you stay that long.” He added, “I’ll have to rewrite the contract, but-”

“I accept!”

Error couldn’t help himself. He was so excited he could puke. The last thing he’d expected was to pull this off. This shitshow of a scheme actually got him the job? He could scream. He could jump up and down for joy. He didn’t, he sat eagerly and tense in his seat instead, but he could’ve.

The King seemed to hesitate, for a few breaths, before relaxing. He stood, and offered a hand out slowly to Error.

Error stood too, grinning. He could manage this one. He could do it.

It was brief, but he grasped the King’s hand and shook it firmly.

“Dust, will you help Error locate his belongings, and escort him to wherever he is staying tonight? I’ll send Cross to swap with you a bit later. We’ll reconvene in the morning just before sunrise.”

#new age au #yipppeee!!!! (to ur prev tags)#I'm glad you like it because I think I'd explode trying to keep this inside #hehe!#glad to have a pal to be insane with as always!!!

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formula-fun · 22 days ago

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there's been lots of plagiarism happening in lestappen fandom lately so can you please provide evidence you wrote your fics?

Hi! i was waiting to get this since it seems like all my friends have been getting it in the last 2 minutes as well!

i recently found out that someone i thought was a fellow writer and a personal friend is in fact just a plagiarist and was lying to my face for a few weeks, so believe me when I know this issue is extremely common right now and hurts everyone, especially writers. That being said, as a writer it's pretty hurtful to just throw accusations around, and especially to mass-send them to writers' inboxes the way that you're doing. We're the ones who are the most hurt by plagiarism in communities that we trust with our work, so it's a bit ridiculous to decide we're all guilty until proven innocent, don't you think?

I would love for you to look through my fics and find anything that would suggest they've been copied from somewhere else. Given the time I put into researching irl events to include them into fics, the energy I spend on interpreting these people's personalities into fictional characterizations, and the attention to detail of settings and timelines, I think it would be pretty difficult to copy anything from another fandom. The same goes for the sole fic I've written that's a true au, and even that has enough connection to the canon (real life) that I think it's pretty obvious it wasn't copied.

That being said, you're welcome to use a plagiarism checker if you're still concerned. Believe me, I use them all the time on my own fics to make sure nobody is plagiarizing me. So far I haven't found any cases of that, but if you decide to check them and find that they've been copied to somewhere else I'll be more than happy to prove that I was the original author. It will help you, you know, actually catch a plagiarist, too, rather than just throwing accusations around left and right.

Thanks!

#i know you're probably hurt and worried about the state of affairs rn #but if you come at me like this again you're getting blocked #ill be happy to address any actual accusation because i know i havent plagiarized anything #but im not gonna spend time proving something obvious to you when you don't even care enough to check yourself #get a fucking grammarly account if you're that worried #put in some fucking legwork. im not doing it for you #anyway to everybody else i hope youre okay and having a great day ily <3 #please try not to let this situation get you down!!! go outside if you need to take a walk etc #writing tag

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starswallowingsea · 11 months ago

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im going to bed in a minute bc i'm sleepy tired but i am trying 2 figure out books i want to read for the next little bit. i'm reading kingdom of sweets right now and taking a break from the ojibwa dance drum bc kingdom of sweets is a very seasonal book and i want to get it read before christmas, and then i'll try and get back to the ojibwa dance drum after that. i want to do ink blood sister scribe i think as one of my first books in january and then at some point in february/march i want to read belleweather but other than that... we'll see what botm does for its boty selections and go from there in terms of doing polls for what to read next

#shay speaks #do any of you care? probably not but i need to put this into writing somewhere #fsr botm thinks my birthday is in december even tho it never asked for my birthday???#so i got two books this month #and bc i have gotten 12 boxes with them i get a free boty finalist book but they wont announce those for at least a week #so we'll see what i want from that list. i wont argue with free #but idk ink blood sister scribe feels like it would be a good winter book and thats gonna be why i want to read it come january #and belleweather i want to read before tourism season starts again so i can critique it from a historical perspective #but everything else... we'll see we'll see #i might go back to doing polls as a mix of botm and other books i own and need to read #and i might try reading 2 books at once one as a poll choice and one my own choice #idk idk we'll see we'll see

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omotelie · 2 months ago

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WHERE’S MY FUKING CAPO

#my post #funny #relatable #guitar #music #bjork #wait you can only have 30 tags the joke is much less funny if i don’t have a fucking wall of the stuff i guess i’ll just make this one reall #and 140 characters per tag this is stifling my creativity meh i was running out of popular tags anyway bjork’s not that popular of a tag tho #tbh i was running out of inspiration after like the 4 tag this joke was not meant to be at least not by my hand and i guess it wasn’t that f #unny either i cooled down real fast on that one you know what i’m pivoting this is no longer popular tags just my train of thought for as lo #ng as i feel like it the first few one might not even make sense when i’m done but who cares not me clearly it is quite annoying how i can’t #use commas tho make’s this harder to read than it needs to any way i lost my capo for like the third time my desk isn’t even that messy but #don’t know where else i would’ve put it it’s not lying on any of my instruments either i probably put it quote somewhere i would remember un #quote but clearly i didn’t i’m usually very good at remembering where i put things put the capo is the zone in between i use this often and #i use this every other year so i never remember where it is stored it is 1 am so i guess i’m going to bed soon anyway but still this is goin #g to annoy me until tomorrow i don’t even need it right i’ve had to remove so many tags the original joke barely makes sense anymore i’m kee #ping bjork tho you can pry her out of my cold dead hands not that i really listen to her music or know her i just like saying her name i’ts #got good mouth feel and it’s fun to spell i didn’t realize how long filling 30 tags would be what’s 140 times 30 let me look it up 4200 this #makes this post my biggest project by like 3000 words the only time i’ve written any meaningful lengths of texts was in college and i’m a dr #opout what 4200 characters not words silly little me makes a lot more sense now that i think about it i’m getting tired of writing so this m #ay end soon i would like to not go to bed at 4 am for a silly little post 2 people are going to read plus i am running out of ideas of thing #s to write i am very much not a writer writing scares me even writing lyrics for songs terrifies me i’ve only manage to write lyrics for one #without getting too self conscious and imploding but i’m better at writing songs with vocals i’ve never had anyone to write music with and w #ithout the ability to sing or write lyrics it’s been difficult the singing has been more or less remedied with synth v but the puter can’t w #rite lyrics for meso until i get a lyricist friend i will have to toughen up you can’t make art without making yourself known to those who c #onsume it but lyrics and poetry has always been 1 step too far for me tbh i’d rather spontaneously combust rather than let people know me i #do not look at my very numerous in stars and time posts and reblogs they are completely unrelated to this don’t think about it oh look behin #d you there’s a distraction oh you’ve missed it i have been writing this for half an hour and i am getting so sick of it i revealed informat #ion about the inner machinations of my mind i have not done this since last time i saw a therapist 5 years ago this is fucked up what a self #impose writing challenge can do to you luckily this is the last tag i’m doing lucky me well this was fun this is going to end suddenly so do

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hecksupremechips · 3 months ago

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Replaying p3 is such a frightening experience because it forces me to remember Ikutski is a real character that exists

#persona #the klock keeps ticking #like. idk what they put in this guy that makes him so forgettable to me but its like #i literally forget he exists every single time i boot up the game #and even when i remember beforehand that hes gonna be there so i need to anticipate him. i still get jumpscared when i see him #i dont think there are enough words in the world to emphasize how much i hate this guy #forget madarame forget teddie THIS GUY this fucking yassified ben franklin bitch? hes the worst persona character #he doesnt even do jack shit its literally all mitsuru like every time he shows up to help he ends up doing absolutely nothing #and mitsuru has to pick up the slack #also like when i complain about the original p3 voice acting im. mostly complaining about him #im sure his VA is very talented has probably voiced characters i know and love but god like #its so bad in this game he sounds so robotic and fuzzy its like theres big red arrows pointing at him #saying THIS GUY IS BORING AND IS JUST HERE TO EXPLAIN PLOT STUFF YOU DIDNT EVEN NEED HIM TO TELL YOU #also my hatred of Ikutski fuels my growing protectiveness towards mitsuru #cuz hes just so incompetent unreliable just creates more work for her but then acts like hes a trustworthy adult #and its so sad cuz all mitsuru needs is like. any positive mentor who can be responsible for her #and all she gets is this shit and while i think its funny how obviously evil Ikutski is its also like #dont blame mitsuru or really any of these characters for a second for not realizing it cuz like. its not like she has any frame of reference #for how a caring responsible adult behaves! and hes with the kirijo group which she has to trust cuz its all shes ever known #and she has to base her entire life around the group and never step out of line or question authority!#its a very interesting dynamic but also unfortunately Ikutski is not a very interesting character #oh boy do i try to make him interesting when i write him but god i just hate him so much lol #running him over with a bus i hate you stupid bitch get out of my head 👺👺👺

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dragonfyre-creations · 6 months ago

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I don't think I've ever poured so many of my physical attributes and so much of my heart and soul into a character design before in such a personal way before so fuck it whenever I finish the final design for Faeng and whatever I come up with I'm making her into my sona (dragonsona? Persona? Idk how this works lmfao)

(long dump in the tags and under the cut)

The last time I was even remotely connected this much to a character was when I designed Jaxsu, but honestly never truly made her my sona/main character, she was just the one I used most often in art pieces. I never really actually liked her lore and backstory enough because she was what I wanted to be instead of what I am/was. Jax isnt perfect either, but her parents love her and otherwise has friends and is loved unconditionally. She has a healthy relationship with everyone and everything. This is where the disconnect happened and where I actually started to dislike her despite her being my otherwise favorite character for awhile. Both Faeng and Jaxsu have ADHD and Autism but Jaxsu was able to put that towards a job and becoming a ship captain and winning a colosseum tournament. She's done all of these great things so even if she didn't have a healthy relationship with her parents they'd still love her because she's done something impressive and useful.

Faeng on the other hand, has to fight for everything. Her parents are important and have important jobs, and place all of these unreachable and unrealistic expectations on her and expect her to reach them with minimal effort and be perfect, but she can't no matter how hard she tries. She needs someone to explain it and break it down for her in steps so she understands what do to and how to do it so she doesn't mess it up. She's both strong and smart but it's not in practical "normal" ways or subjects. It's convoluted, It's not in the ways everyone wants her to be, she has no teachers to help her understand how to channel that strength and intelligence into something "useful" so she puts it towards the things she likes and wants to do, and thus struggles in a world that would otherwise be easy to navigate and conquer if she were "normal". Those that do understand her and try to help her are alienated by other people in an attempt to either punish both of them or force her to adapt to be somewhat passing as normal, if not then at least listen to what she's told to do. She does eventually make acquaintances but find that her twisted speech and weird explanations aren't worth trying to decipher and understand so they leave, they don't put in the effort to meet her halfway even though she's struggling and doing her best to speak in a way they'll understand.

Her parents acknowledge her differences but in a way that frames it as flawed and wrong, something that needs to be corrected, and push her to figure out her problems by herself, tearing down any support network she tries to build. She tries her damned hardest but it's not enough, it never is and never will be for them because she's not the perfect child they wanted. She showed promise in her younger years being a "gifted child" so she knows what love and acceptance lies in wait and what could be if she could just be normal and perfect. Her achievements and promise come and show in waves. She burns and fizzles out in one of the most virulent, painful ways possible after getting hurt trying to prove her worth yet again. She holds nothing but criticism, vitriol and contempt for herself because she can't claw her way back to where she was before, this time something happened and something is terribly, horribly wrong this time but she doesn't know that it is and can't figure it out, nor will anyone tell her. Whatever it is, left a mental and several physical injuries and it does nothing but deepen her self hatred and her parent's waning belief in her. She listens to false promises and praise of other people who do nothing but wish to manipulate and harm her but she stays because any form of praise is deemed good, she hungers for more and does worsening things.

She ignores the people who tell her that what she's doing is dangerous and will only end in disaster, because she doesn't believe them. If the people who are saying they're her friends are telling her that the people she hurts deserve it and that what she's doing is good, then surely she needs to believe them over strangers, right? Everything comes to a breaking point and shatters around her leaving her with quite literally nothing but her own self hatred, newfound rage and overbearing mental issues she needs to navigate once again to find out what hell it is and what's wrong with her now. She's scared of everyone and everything with the added bonus of now being hyper-aware and perceptive of people's mannerisms and behaviors, especially those who want to manipulate or harm her again. She wraps every vulnerable part of herself in metaphorical thorns and teeth to bite and maim whoever pries and digs into what she truly is, even people who want to understand her. She suffers at more than her own hand, forcing herself to deal with everything alone, until she finally meets someone that could be considered a true friend. She slowly opens up and helps them as much as they help her before everything comes crashing back down once again upon the reveal that they've been lying to her the entire time about very serious issues, and she's been used as nothing more than an attack dog once again. She burns every bridge and everyone around her in one final breakdown of rage before shutting down completely. One of the groups of friends she's shoved stay comes back and asks if she's ok. She doesn't understand why they're being kind, why they're concerned it why they care and tries to shove them away again. Every single day they still ask, talking even if there's no response from her, until she finally relents and breaks.

She's finally loved and accepted despite every fault and every flaw she has, and every time she tries to pull away out of fear of being an inconvenience they pull back twice as hard and remind her that she's able to just exist, she doesn't need to constantly be useful and that they care. She finally, finally is comfortable enough to let herself be accepted and then becomes the most clingy little shit, just as they do with her. But yeah, my own life has been very much of the same, especially the last part. Every time I go on another self-hatred spiral and drop off the face of the earth my MonHun bros give me a metaphorical slap to the face and remind me that I don't need to constantly prove my worth to everyone and prove that I'm useful, and that existing every once in awhile is more than enough. If that doesn't work then it's "you need to get your ass back over here because we're failing the Safi siege without the absolutely ridiculous amount of DPS your build Switchaxe does". I was not intending for her to be so much like me but goddamnit she's wormed her way into being my favorite now and I guess Mirage is no longer my impromptu sona

#I've been working the last 3 hours on her design and like just noticed HOW MUCH of myself i put into her design #especially parts of myself im self conscious of and don't like/didn't like growing up. i usually zone out esp during a character design #but i stopped and i looked at it and my first thought was “that's me. that's me on that canvas.” and for some reason felt so happy with it #ik that's probably a selfish thought to have and im nowhere near done with her design but i looked at it and loved it so deeply.#she's imperfect and ugly and flawed but that's ok because she's still beautiful in her own weird way and her friends still love her #this is the weirdest shit I've ever experienced but i honestly feel like I'm finally accepting a part of myself I've hated and shoved down #for so long because of the absolute gnawing feeling of unacceptance I've always been subjected to as “not fitting in” and something she say #is “who gives a shit what other people think about me. i have friends who love and care about me just as much as i do for them.#you dont need to be liked by everyone to be worth something. sometimes just existing is enough for the people who do love you“#the parallels of both my life and her lore are so similar they hurt on a visceral level i cant describe and it was completely unintentional #we both trust too easily whether it's out of naivety or stupidity and not learning from past mistakes and have been hurt so deeply #so many times beyond our own comprehension by the betrayal of other people to the point of shutting down every attempt at friendship #despite knowing just how much being alone aches and burns and put both physical and mental health on the line to get the approval of others #but never letting anyone get close enough to be friends out of fear of being hurt again #and having every vulnerable part of ourselves wrapped in metaphorical knives and glass to hurt anyone attempting to get to know us #but simultaneously and unknowingly hurting ourselves too with that choice. we're both aware of what we're doing but also unable to stop it #out of fear and lack of people willing to understand our pain and frustration and anger over things and it's so so frustrating #we both lash out when angry or hurt and push people that we love and love us back away out of fear that if any “ugly” is exposed to them #they'll leave because we lose our one redeemable quality of “being convenient” in a group #but simultaneously don't them trust fully out of fear. we know we're loved and love back but never fully in case its all a lie.#we both want nothing more than someone to understand and listen to what happened to us and actually stay and be friends rather than leave #like truly actually want to be friends and not just stay out of pity or sorrow over what happened #i think this is just something that comes with the autism tbh #i am she and she is me #rambling #dragon character #character writing #character building #dragon oc

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paganinpurple · 2 years ago

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AO3 Etiquette -UPDATED

Based on both decent and not so decent replies, I have made some changes to my original post below.

It would seem a whole new kind of AO3 reader/writer is emerging and it is becoming clear not everyone quite understands how the website community works. Here is some basic guidance on how most people expect you to go about using AO3 to keep this a fun community archive that funtions correctly:

As well as likes, kudos is for when the story was interesting enough to make you finish reading. If it sucked or was badly written, you probably left. If you finished it, you liked it - so kudos.

If you really liked it, you should try to comment. It can be long and detailed or a literal keysmash. Writers don't care, we just love comments.

No critisism unless the author has specifically asked or agreed to hear it (so use your notes to say if you want some constructive feedback). Even constructive critisism is a no-no unless an author note tells you it's okay. No, posting it online is not an open invitation for that. Many people write as a fun hobby or a way to cope with, among other things, insecurity and just want to share. Don't ruin that for them. I've seen so many authors just stop writing coz they can't handle the negative emotions the critism brings, and it's only meant to be a fun thing shared for free (pointing out tagging errors is not included in this).

Do not comment to ask the author to write/update something else. It's tacky and off-putting and will probably have the opposite effect than the one you want.

There is no algorithm, it's an archive. Use the search and filter function to add/remove the pairings/characters/tropes etc. you want to read about and it will find you the fics that fit the bill.

For this to work, writers must tag and rate stories. This avoids readers finding the wrong things and missing the stuff they want. I don't care how cringy that trope is in your eyes - it gets tagged.

The tag exception is if you don't want to tag a million things or spoil your story, you can rate it as "chose not to use warnings," and maybe tag the bare minimum.

Don't censor tags. How can someone exclude a tag if the word isn't typed out correctly? There are no content bans for terms so don't censor them.

If the tags are mostly content/trigger warnings, especially if they are things considered very fucked up or graphic, you might want to use "dead dove - do not eat" to ensure people know that you're not messing around with tags and what they get is exactly what you've warned them about.

Character A/Character B means a ROMANTIC or SEXUAL relationship of some kind. Character A&Character B is PLATONIC, like friendship or family.

Nothing is banned. This is an rule because banning one thing is a slipperly slope to banning another and another, until nothing is allowed anymore. Do not expect anyone to censor for you. Because of the tags system, you are responsible for your own reading experience.

People can create new chapters and sequels/fic series any time after they "complete" a story. So it's considered perfectly normal to subscribe, even to a finished story. You can even subscribe to the author instead just to cover your bases.

Do not repost stories or change the publishing date without an extremely good reason (like a complete top to bottom rewrite or an exchange youve written for going public). It's an archive, not social media. No one cares what's the most recent, only what fits their tag needs.

Instead of deleting a story you wrote if you hate it - consider making it anonymous or orphaning it so others can still enjoy it, without it being connected to your name anymore. If you still want to delete it, fair enough.

It's come to my attention that metaworks ARE allowed on AO3, which is something I wasn't aware of. So if you do post an essay or theory, please tag it as such so others can choose to search for it or exclude it. Art is also allowed.

The only reason this archive works is because NON ONE PROFITS. Do not link to your ko-fi or patreon or mention monetary gain in any way or you violate the terms and risk having your account removed. If anyone does link, it leaves the archive open to people claiming it's for profit and having the whole thing removed.

I KNOW there's plenty more I missed but I'm trying to cover most of the basics that people seem to be struggling with.

I invite anyone to add to this, but please explain, don't berate.

#ao3 #using ao3 #archive of our own #fanfiction #fanworks

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maikaartwork · 1 year ago

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Artists, let’s talk about Instagram commission scammers

There’s been a huge rise in commission scammers recently, mostly on Instagram. A lot of new artists don’t know what to look out for, so I figured this might help people.

How they begin

Usually the scammer will write to you asking about a commission. Something deceptively cute - mostly I encounter asks about pet portraits, with one or two photos sent. They’ll probably try to sell you a sweet little story, like “It’s for my son’s birthday”. They will insist that they love your artwork and style, even though they don’t follow you or never liked a single piece of your art.

What to look out for:

Their profiles will either be private, empty, or filled with very generic stuff, dating at most a few years back.

Their language will be very simple, rushed or downright bad. They might use weird emojis that nobody ever uses. They will probably send impatient “??” when you don’t answer immediately. They’re in a crunch - lots of people to scam, you know.

They’ll give you absolutely no guidelines. No hints on style, contents aside from (usually) the pet and often a name written on the artwork, no theme. Anything you draw will be perfect. Full artistic freedom. In reality they don’t really care for this part.

They’ll offer you a ridiculous amount of money. Usually 100 or 300 USD (EDIT: I know it might not be a lot for some work. What I mean here - way higher than your asking price, 100 and 300 are standard rates they give). They’ll often put in a phrase like “I am willing to compensate you financially” and “I want the best you can draw”, peppered with vague praise. It will most likely sound way too good to be true. That’s because it is.

Where the scam actually happens

If you agree, they will ask you for a payment method. They’ll try to get to this part as soon as possible.

Usually, they’ll insist on PayPal. And not just any PayPal. They’ll always insist on sending you a transfer immediately. None of that PayPal Invoice stuff (although some do have methods for that, too). They’ll really, REALLY want to get your PayPal email address and name for the transfer - that’s what they’re after. If you insist on any other method, they’ll just circle back to the transfer “for easiest method”. If you do provide them with the info, most likely you’ll soon get a scam email. It most likely be a message with a link that will ultimately lead to bleeding you dry. Never, and I mean NEVER click on any emails or links you get from them. It’s like with any other scam emails you can ever get.

A few things can happen here:

They overpay you and ask for the difference to be wired back. Usually it will go to a different account and you’ll never see that money again.

They’ll overpay you “for shipping costs” and ask you to forward the difference to their shipping company. Just like before, you’ll never see that money again.

The actual owner of the account (yes, they most likely use stolen accounts to wire from) will realize there’s been something sketchy going on and request a refund via official channels. Your account will be charged with fees and/or you get in trouble for fraudulent transactions.

You will transfer the money from your PayPal credit to your bank account and they will make a shitstorm when they want their money back, making your life a living hell. They will call you a scammer, a thief, make wild claims, wearing you down and forcing you into wiring money “back” - aka to their final destination account.

Never, EVER wire money to anyone. This is not how it’s supposed to go. Use PayPal Invoice for secure exchanges where the client needs to provide you with their email, not the other way around.

You can find more info on that method HERE.

What to do when you encounter a scammer:

Ask the right questions: inquire about the style, which artwork of yours they like, as much details as you can. They won’t supply you with any good answers.

Don’t let the rush of the exchange, their praise and the promise of insanely good money to get to you. That’s how they operate, that’s how they make you lose vigilance.

Don’t engage them. As soon as you realize it might be a scam, block them. The sense of urgency they create with their rushed exchange, and pressure they put on you will sooner or later get to you and you might do something that you’ll regret later.

Never wire money to anyone. Never give out your personal data. Never provide your email, name, address or credit card info.

Don’t be deceived by receiving a payment, if you somehow agree to go along with it. Just because it’s there now doesn’t mean it can’t be withdrawn.

Here is a very standard example of such an exchange. I realized it’s a scam pretty fast and went along with it, because I wanted good screenshots for you guys, so I tried going very “by the book” with it.

Please share this post, make it reach as many artists as possible. Let young or inexperienced artists know that this is going on. So many people have no idea that this is a thing. Let’s help each other out. If you think I missed any relevant info, do add it as an rb!

Also, if you know other scam methods that you think should be shared, consider rb-ing this post with them below. Having a master post of scam protection would AWESOME to have in the art community.

#art resources #artist help #artist advice #commission advice #scammers #instagram scam #please share with your fellow artists

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whispers-whump · 3 months ago

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Some writing advice

that I like to use when I write. None of this is meant to be taken as hard and fast rules, they’re just things I like to do/keep in mind when I’m writing and I thought maybe other people would enjoy! <3

Never say what you mean

This is an offshoot of the very common “show don’t tell” advice, which I think can be confusing in application and unhelpful for scenes where telling is actually the right move. Instead, I keep the advice to never say exactly what I mean in stories.

By using a combination of showing and telling to hint at what you really mean, you force your reader to think and figure it out on their own, which makes for a more satisfying reading experience.

You might show a character getting angry and defensive in response to genuine care and concern. You could tell the audience that the character doesn’t see/talk to their parents often. But never outright give the real meaning that the character feels unlovable because of their strained relationship with their parents and as a result they don’t know how to react to being cared for.

Your readers are smart, you don’t need to spoon feed them.

Be sparse with the important things

You know how in a lot of movies there’s that tense scene where a character is hiding from something/someone and you can only just see this person/thing chasing them through a crack in the door? You get a very small glimpse of whatever’s after the character, sometimes only shadows being visible.

Do that in your writing. Obscure the important things in scenes by overdescribing the unimportant and underdescribing the important.

You might describe the smell of a space, the type of wood the floor is made of, the sound of work boots moving slowly across the room, a flashlight in the character’s hand. And there’s a dead body, laying in a pool of blood in the far corner of the room, red soaking into the rug. Then move on, what kind of rug is it? What is the color, patterns, and type of fabric of the rug?

Don’t linger on the details of the body, give your reader’s imagination some room to work while they digest the mundane you give them.

Dialogue is there to tell your story too

There’s a lot of advice out there about how to make dialogue more realistic, which is absolutely great: read aloud to yourself, put breaks where you feel yourself take a breath, reword if you’re stuttering over your written dialogue. But sometimes, in trying to make dialogue sound more realistic, a little bit of its function is lost.

Dialogue is more than just what your characters say, dialogue should serve a purpose. It’s a part of storytelling, and it can even be a bridging part of your narration.

If you have a scene with a lot of internal conflict that is very narration-heavy, breaking it up with some spoken dialogue can be a way to give some variety to those paragraphs without moving onto a new idea yet; people talk to themselves out loud all of the time.

Dialogue is also about what your characters don’t say. This can mean the character literally doesn’t say anything, they give half-truths, give an expected answer rather than the truth (“I’m fine”), omit important information, or outright lie.

Play with syntax and sentence structure

You’ve heard this advice before probably. Short, choppy sentences and a little onomatopoeia work great for fast-paced action scenes, and longer sentences with more description help slow your pacing back down.

That’s solid advice, but what else can you play with? Syntax and sentence structure are more than just the length of a sentence.

Think about things like: repetition of words or ideas, sentence fragments, stream of consciousness writing, breaking syntax conventions, and the like. Done well, breaking some of those rules we were taught about language can be a more compelling way to deliver an emotion, theme, or idea that words just can’t convey.

Would love to hear any other tips and tricks other people like to use, so feel free to share!!!

#tips and tricks #writing #writing advice #writing tips #writing help #writers #writers block #writers on tumblr #writeblr #writing community

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honestsycrets · 1 year ago

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mío | baby-fever!miguel o'hara x wifey!reader

❛ pairing | miguel o'hara x wifey!reader, starved prequel

❛ type | oneshot, explicit

❛ summary | after watching mayday, miguel develops a bad case of baby fever, longing for a family of his own.

❛ tags | explicit, miguel has baby fever, babysitting, talk of family planning and contraception, f!reader, breeding, pregnancy kink, much fluff, some angst, starved!reader, miguel being frustrated and cute, clean that kitchen, one stereotype of latina women, Spanish is not translated, best friend!peter, self edited.

❛ request fulfilled | could you possibly write an imagine in which Miguel and his wife take care of mayday? + multiple requests for more starved reader/miguel.

❛ sy's notes | written to fulfill some requests. i do have another daddy miguel blurb to fulfill, but my future works should be nice and angsty.

Peter has it out for him.

It’s the only logical reason why he’d do this shit to him.

Miguel stood in his dark room in a pair of scratchy jeans, dragging a belt loop to loop when he heard the door to his room draw open. A resonant schwap, schwap, schwap.

“Mi reina?” Miguel cocked his eyebrow up, extending his claws.

“¿Sí?” you called back from the bathroom, the distant scent of his favorite perfume wafting into the air. Miguel threw a look to the bathroom, reaching for the bedroom door. It burst open before he could open it.

“Hi, Miguel! Where’s your wife?”

Peter dragged his feet into the room, whirling around with a sloppily put-together backpack that leaked diapers onto the floor. An exasperated breath left his lips, dripping in the way he looked at Peter.

Unfortunately, his little wife liked Peter a bit too much for his taste.

“I should have known.” Miguel ran his hand through his hair, strands of mocha brown flyaways wisping along his tawny forehead. “Why are you here?”

His normally disheveled appearance was a little more disheveled. It wasn’t his appearance that bothered him but how it reached his eyes. Shocked, confused, tired. Peter pat his deltoid, awkward laughter choking in his throat. It bubbled on the edge of an overwhelmed sob.

“Well, you see, your wife said she’d watch Mayday because I have a date, and I haven’t had a date in a really, really long time. Like, a really long time—”

“Is Peter here?”

His head snapped to your bathroom where you came out, threading a golden hoop earring. You probably already knew the fight that was heading your way-- but for your part, you couldn’t be bothered to care any less.

“Got it, you need this date.” Miguel cut Peter off, standing behind you with his massive arms crossed. “¿Por qué no me dijiste?”

“¡Mi nena! Muévete Miguel,” you giggled, shoving your way past Miguel to Peter’s child carrier, sneaking your hands underneath her little armpits and whirling her around. She cackled, a glittering warmth to her mischievous eyes. You came to a stop, settling Mayday against your chest, nuzzling your foreheads together in some secret pact that the two of you shared.

Oh no, no, no, no. Not this. It hits him at once.

The sight of his wife— beautiful and cuddly with a very young baby in her arms. The only sight more beautiful was at the altar on his wedding day, your shy smile behind a sheer veil. It had been a long time, too long, since he had someone to call him father. He can still picture her glimmering eyes, the way she looked at him in nothing short of admiration, looking past the things that he’d done to see him and only him. Glimpsing at Mayday, remembering Gabriella’s soft, small face, it took him a moment to snap free.

He's so fucked.

“You would have said no, amado mío.”

You’re a natural at this, scooting by both men to set Mayday on the bed. Your tiny fingers spiraled out from her belly to change her diaper. Peter jittered uncomfortably, looking as though he wanted to jump in himself. You cleaned her, replacing the dirty diaper with a clean one. “We’re going to a market with Tío Miguel--”

“Don’t bring me into this.”

“Are you sure it's okay? I’ll be back at five, it's just a few hours, really--”

“¡Vete! A ratty house robe and a dirty spider suit aren’t sexy. Look at mi Miggy,” now you’re just buttering him up. He shifts his weight from one leg to the other, inspecting the ground. “Wear something nice.”

They’re sexy to her, he might have murmured. Not on a date, you bopped him. Mayday’s bright eyes tracked the space between you and Peter before you broke away to wash your hands. Peter’s clammy hands cupped Mayday’s sweet face, littering at least a dozen sickly daddy kisses over her tiny face. But Miguel what if--

“Adiós, Peter!” You returned to force Peter out of your room. Miguel peered at Mayday whose head snapped to the side, cheek against her fiery hair as the door clicked shut. He braced himself for the shrill that would inevitably come with her realization that her daddy was gone. She whined, grabbing her toes and tipping nearly off the side of the bed. Miguel begrudgingly hovered at her feet, blocking her from rolling off the bed. He could do this, he told himself, he could resist those giant baby eyes staring up at him.

He didn't need a baby, he didn't.

He blames Peter for having such a good baby.

She doesn’t ask for much other than requiring chest-to-chest contact with Miguel. It’s not that he doesn’t want to hold her, he finds himself aggravated by how much he likes to be around her. In a market full of things to look at food trinkets such as necklaces, body scrubs, and empanadas, it’s all her. Miguel props her up with an arm just under her bum, her tiny finger peeking curiously into his fangs. He snapped his teeth playfully at her, a nip, nip, nip, missing playfully every time. It rips ping a toothy grin across her face.

“No biting Miguelito,” you called out, sliding your fingers in a teasing ring around his muscled back to chest. You leaned up on your tippy toes, placing a small little kiss on his lips. You ran off to go get her a pineapple whip after her tiny fist yanked your hair over and over again. You relented, staring at what she was cooing at. Sweets-- obviously, sweets. All the little ones loved sweets.

“She likes it.”

“Ya sé,” you said, “But we don’t need anyone noticing you’ve grown fangs.”

“Tch,” he clicks his teeth in protest. She does too, throwing you a mean look for interrupting her fun. You plucked up a bit of the whip on your spoon, cutting through her displeasure through the power of sugar.

"There's a lot of people here, Miggy, let's go to the park." You point toward the park, pointing away from the mounds of fresh produce and locally sourced goods toward a healthy patch of green grass. Miguel is glad-- he’s sick of being stared at for his huge frame. Despite the ring on his finger, people still seem to try their luck. He couldn't be more disinterested.

You lay a picnic blanket as Miguel holds Mayday's treat. Mayday sprawls across his chest, trying to take just one more bite-- then another-- Miguel looks down, chin level, eyebrow raised. She offers a bit on her tiny index finger to Miguel. A peace offering. “She’s not going to wait.”

“Give her to me.” You kicked off your sandals on the edge of the blanket, dropping your things on another corner. You pluck Mayday from Miguel’s arms and set her down on the blanket in a way that is too easy. As though you wouldn’t have much of a learning curve in becoming a mother. No, no— you never mentioned anything about kids. Did you even want kids? He couldn't bring his heart to ask, to hope again.

“I didn’t know you were so experienced with kids.”

“Mami had six,” you noted, plopping down with the whip by Mayday’s side. She sat with a small slant, reaching out toward the sweet treat again with those chunky, adorable hands. You brought her into your lap, at last relenting. “When you’re the oldest, you have to learn a little something to help out. Can you imagine-- being pregnant six times? Ay no.”

“How many times do you want to be pregnant?” he blurts out. Usually timed and precise, the question causes him to pinch his brow as he sits beside you. “Si quieres,”

Your other hand comes on top of his and shifts it away from his face.

“As many as will make you happy.”

Shock. He chews on that response, his eyes glued to Mayday lapping at the last spoon of sweets you are willing to give her. She falls into a fit of complaints, a conniving look at the sweets, just as you lift her onto your shoulder.

"I never thought about it."

"No more, your papa won't forgive me if I bring you home all sugared up," you tsked your tongue at her. You patted along her back in small, tight circles until her angry huffs faded away. He reaches for the baby bag, slipping free a soft yellow blanket with white spiders strewn across the front. Miguel slides the blanket on top of Mayday’s small body, her groggy eyes sliding closed.

The more he watches you with Mayday, holding her so close, swaying as you held her, the deeper this ache burrowed in his chest. You would look beautiful all swollen with his child. Never mind Mayday or Peter, he can nearly see it, feel it under his fingers, the feeling of your taut belly under his skin, or the kick of tiny feet against his palm.

“We’ll see, Miggy.”

We’ll see-- the answer seems too noncommittal, too distant to be a satisfactory answer. With Mayday sound asleep, you settle her between your plush thighs. She expelled bursts of energy that milked her energy dry.

A little old woman passed by, her cane pierced soft grass as she moved closer with a bag of tomatoes and green beans. Her face, aged by time, pulls into a wide smile. He doesn't like her smile.

“You two are doing a great job. How old is she?”

You blink, looking up into the woman’s cool blue eyes, her dark hair peppered with thick grey and white strands. You tuck Mayday in her soft blanket, sparing the woman a kind smile that Miguel doesn’t quite have the patience for.

“Oh, oh. Thank you-- um, a couple of months,” you recount, perhaps thinking of Peter’s anxious pacing or his delighted shouts about becoming a father.

“Adopting is a great option. Back in the day, my husband was a bodybuilder too. Had a low sperm count don’t you know. Steroids shrink things. Oh, but these days you can do all sorts of things like IV--”

A what-- Miguel’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull at the suggestion. Was this old bitch’s suggestion that he couldn’t do it-- couldn’t get you pregnant? He could easily do that. If he wanted you pregnant, you would be shocking pregnant. He’d be damned if some old woman put it in your mind that he couldn’t.

“We’re babysitting for a friend,” he blurts out. “I have--” had, “a daughter.”

“Oh, do you? I’m sorry. I thought-- well, it doesn’t matter what I thought, have a good day."

She’s saying that, but it comes out slanted. You don’t bother correcting Miguel, not on this. Rather, your hand inched toward his, picking up on the energy that was pluming from his body in waves. Irritation-- annoyance-- the little old lady hobbles off. You’re in your mind well enough to bid her goodbye. But you know better than to say anything more, slumping your cheek on Miguel’s firm chest. It makes the ache of Gabriella's memory a little more bearable.

Low sperm count his ass.

It bothers him long after Mayday is gone. Peter, for his part, looks refreshed. He supposes that’s what happens with a full day of opportunity to empty your balls after weeks of no relief. It bothers him long after you come back from the kitchen, his favorite dark red slip plastered to your perfect body. It would look beautiful, full of his children— he just knows it.

“I may have hijacked the kitchen a little bit,” you teased, the waft of warm chicken and brewed spices filled his nose. He had no appetite. “But I made you some pollo guisado.”

“Hm,” he grunts into a pillow. “Later.”

Beside the bed, he has a bowl of brightly colored condoms. With your sensitivity to birth control, it is the best option available. It wasn’t, however, something he was ever happy about. He should be able to feel your body. Not once had he felt your body pure and unadulterated, warm and perfect for him. He was your husband. He wanted that moment— to fill you up just once, watch his cum dribble out of your cunt. It would be perfect. You set the food away, bowl and spoon clinking together.

“Miguel.”

Forget your warm body. This room is too quiet. It is almost stifling in its silence. Mayday’s sweet huffs, the memory of Gabriella’s laughter. A proper home full of a child's giggles. He’s going crazy-- he has to be-- this isn’t normal. This isn’t Miguel.

“Mi vida, don’t pout,” you reach out, rolling your fingers through his long brown hair. Your fingers tease along his scalp, turning around his ear. Your fingers tickle his lobe, your voice cemented in a concern that he wanted nothing more but to fix if it were anything other than this. “Miggy. Miggy, what is wrong? You look sad.”

“I’m not sad,” he says with a whine on his pillow. How silly he must look with his broad arms wound around the body pillow, squeezing its fluff for life. If he said the words well enough, you might believe them.

“I know you are,” you nudge the pillow loose. He takes you instead, the air thickening with the closeness. You fed off the tension, sliding your leg over the sheet that covers his naked hip. “Tell me why.”

He turns his hands over your thighs, traveling past your hips to ghost along your belly.

“Sí, Miggy?”

“I need…” he trailed off, finding the words nearly impossible to admit. They grow into a ball and cement in his throat, present but stubborn. Rather than break the words free, he swallows a bolus of desire and frustration. “It’s nothing. Let it go.”

The issue was— you loved him enough to let it do so.

Miguel doesn’t want to press the issue. He knows you. All you want is Miguel’s happiness. Sometimes, he worries it is at the price of your own. The distance he places between you and him is intolerable. It bothers him every time he finds you babysitting Mayday.

Today, while Peter goes on a small date, you and Mayday make his favorite empanadas. She’s covered in a dusting of flour from head to toe. Peter would have fun with that.

“Miggy you’re back?” you called as Mayday’s chubby hands shot out, nearly plopping off the counter if not for Miguel’s quick reflexes, setting her back in place.

“Empanadas?” he settles the words in a small kiss to your lips. You glance at him over your shoulder.

“It's... it's Gabi's birthday, isn't it?"

You’re too good for him. Despite the day coming and going, no one else notices his grief today. Not even Peter who came in alongside him, reading the room, and snatching up Mayday off the countertop. He’s babbling something, a thank you, see you later— you kiss Mayday with only the sweetness a mother could know.

“Peter! Mayday made these for you,” you reach out to a box of uncooked empanadas. “Take them home!”

Her first empanadas— the delight is palpable. Peter may have snapped a photo, or ten, of his little flour girl on the way out, empanadas in hand. Then there’s silence. Miguel returns the nearly forgotten bundle of empanada dough and filling to the fridge in the space of unspoken tension. Miguel dips down to your neck, caramelized perfume warm on your neck. His lips trace the warm pulse of your neck.

“Mami,” his voice mesmeric, warm like the filling you used to make him happy when no one else could. Your doting attention, even in the face of real issues like work and babies, was always on him.

"Sí, mi vida?"

His hands coast around your waist, using his strength to gently turn you around. It isn’t important right now. What is important is how he lifts you up onto the floury surface, purring his need into your slight ear. “I want a baby.”

“¿Qué?”

“Una niña,” Miguel leans his fingers along your collarbone.

“Oh, Miggy.” You puff the words. They come out almost wounded. You know him so well, the vulnerability of the words causing him to look down. Your warm palms cradle his cheeks, forcing him to look into your eyes. “You miss being a father, don't you?”

You’re not stupid. Neither is he. He thought he could wait— watch Mayday grow up and not feel this sundering longing. As though he could stomach never feeling a child in his arms again. The ghosts of the past that came with Mayday’s longing haunt him day by day.

You devour his insecurity, winding your legs around his waist and forcing him forward. He stumbles into your embrace, as though he were not a man who could decimate villains and spiders alike. When he was here, in your arms, he barely felt like the weapon of a man that he is.

“Miguel. Speak to me.”

“You’re right,” he can’t lie— can’t hide the longing that comes with the thought of his own child on his chest. Not Mayday, no matter how many times she cuddled up to his chest. At the end of the day, she would never be his. You drew your lip into your mouth, nipping it fat and red, a bob in your head. His heart beats faster, strumming as though it would break free from his chest. Whatever it is you’re thinking he’s not sure. Only that it’s been so long.

“I just want to make you happy, will this make you happy?” you nearly whisper, knowing that there’s no one but him to hear the words. It’s what he wants for you, too. As he stands there, coursing his fingers along your thighs and hiking your dress up your hips, he can’t help but feel the foggy discomfort of forcing you into parenthood before you were ready.

“It will.”

As well as it could. It would never erase Gabriella-- and, in the vulnerability of begging his wife for another child, came the guilt. Not only the guilt of failing to be a proper father or to protect her but moving on without her in his life to a beautiful family she would have loved. The feelings surge in his chest, a well of uncomfortable emotions in his eyes, threatening to fall.

“Miguel,” you’re whispering, your fingers cutting across his sharp cheekbones. You cup his face, drawing your lips together in a commanding kiss. You never liked being ignored or forgotten. He’s not sure how he could now, with your tongue flicking between his lips, begging him to come back with a sugary sweet whine. “Stay with me, Miguel.”

“I am,” he says, gripping either side of the counter by your hips. He feels your eyes on him, soft and careful, pressuring him to meet your gaze. He searches for an inkling of an answer in your gaze. "¿Qué piensas?"

“We can try,” you bite your lip, sliding it free between your teeth. “If you don’t have a low sperm count,” you tease. “Maybe it’ll take.”

“¡Por dios!” He throws a curse to the side as if he believed in such a being, throwing a look back at you. “You don’t actually believe that vieja.”

“Ay Miggy, of course not.” His lips work into a budding smile. You leaned up against his stubbly jaw, setting soft kisses there. Your lipstick stains his neck, dragging down to his prominent adam’s apple. He looks down at you with heady eyes, tracing the way you suckled a mark on his throat. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t like them a little more when others noticed them, little marks of possession. Miguel’s fingers come up to the straps of your dress, easing them over and down your slight shoulders. You pull back, words forming puff against his neck.

“Not right here,” you inhale a soft breath. “Someone could come in.”

Miguel eases his finger over the small bud of your breast, rolling his thumb along the silken skin, His hand comes up, encompassing your neck and shoving you back into the cabinets. It isn’t comfortable, not by far. He works the nub to its peak before turning his attention to the other. His mouth covers your breast, fangs grazing your nub as he suckled and tugged gently. Miggy, you pull him back up, stripped of your touch. Your hand slide across Miguel’s chest, tracing the taut muscles of his chest.

“Who would come in?”

“Peter,” you answer.

It’s always Peter. He supposes that you wouldn’t want your friend to see you here, cunt stuffed with Miguel on the very same counter you earlier made him empanadas on. Miguel snatched the dress that fell along your hips laxly, utilizing it to yank you off the counter. You fell forward into Miguel, a heavy wall of muscle, your lips failing to form anything of use. You looked at him, cheeks flush and eyes doting, he’s the only one you see.

“The balcony, then.”

“Dianche, Miguel! Do you want all of Nueva York to see me?”

“Maybe.”

No, but see Miguel breeding you? Undoubtedly yes.

He couldn’t simply choose the bed, that would be too easy. Miguel set a kiss on your forehead, soft and scratchy with his stubble. You return it by dragging him down for another kiss, a wave of warmth coming over him as you force your hips back onto him, rolling your hips against his, teasing him. Miguel doesn’t appreciate the tease and gently pushes on your hips, motioning you to face the counter.

“Bend over.”

"Can't we go to my room?" you complain but comply all the same. Miguel’s palm ghosts your spine, dragging his fingers smoothly over the middle of your back and past the dress that gathered around your hips, He strips you of the little cover the dress gave, eager to have you bare and rid of the thin clothing that served as a veil from prying eyes. Miguel can cover you from the prying eyes of others if necessary. Not that he cared if others saw him fucking-- he’s all the more eager to have you all to himself, here and now.

“No panties,” he notes, his warm hands on your inner thighs. “It’s almost like you knew.”

“I might have,” you return, spreading your legs obediently for him. He palms your vulva, your hips shifting down over his hand. Sticky and wet, he wonders if his need to breed you has rubbed off on you too. His fingers shift, sliding over your soft hole. “Apúrate Miguel, you’re so slow.”

“Can’t you be be good for once.”

You were always bossy. He likes it, most the time, being led around by what his pretty little wife wants. Today he wants to take his time, curving his broad fingers into your glistening cunt. Your wetness drips over his knuckles, fingers teasing the velvety soft walls he has never felt without a condom. A pleasured cry wracks in your chest, turning your head over your shoulder to watch Miguel’s fingers stretching you out. No matter how much your walls gave under his fingers, you would still ache when he penetrated you. It was the favourite part, the rich pull of his dick into your hole, bottoming out as best he could in your stomach. He soothes your complaints by grazing his other hand against your perky clitoral hood, finding the soft nub there for relief. You settle your arms on the floured surface.

“I never-- ah-- am,” you threw back.

Miguel slipped his fingers free, cupping your cunt with his palm for a teasing slap. You want to be good-- it’s just so hard, your cunt pulsing in the abswnce of his touch. He drags his sodden fingers to your lips, glazing them in taste of your lubricant. You suckle your tongue around his thick digits, savoring your own taste, his soft grunt of approval spurring you on. You feel like such a good girl with his fingers crooked in your mouth.

“Are you ready?” Miguel stands fully upright, dragging your hips to his. He’s hard as the counter you were pathetically clinging onto. His hipbones ground into your plush ass, dick pulsing in his immediate ache to feel your cunt. He backs up, fiddling with something at the waist. You don’t need to ask to know that it was his big cock grinding between your cheeks, smearing fluid over your slit.

“No condom?”

“No condom,” he affirms. You bow your head, nodding gently over the countertop. The head of his cock drove into your wetness, pushing past bundles of nerves. It’s impossibly different without the bag over his dick. It’s been so long. His world blinks out, savoring the feeling like he was an inexperienced teenager again.

“Carajo, you’re so good,” he finds himself cursing, leaning over your back.

“Now he says I’m good."

“Shh,” Miguel clips with a mean nip at your nape, lining it with soft kisses, encouraging you on to take him. Warm and wet, Miguel can only describe the slide into your cunt as untethered delight. Released from the bondage of his usual condom, he’s a mess against your soaked cunt, gripping you for a semblance of stability.

I just want to make you happy. For all your needy complaints and little quips, he knows you do. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here, with your hands cupped on top of his, squeezing for more closeness. Miguel laces your fingers together in a needy weave, drawing back to stroke his cock right back into your wet body. You lead one of his hands between your legs, urging him on to stroke your clit. Your walls clamp down on him, teasing out bursts of pleasure with how deeply he was buried. Miguel’s lips part into a whine of his name, skin slapping against skin. He sets a kiss in the crook of your neck, breath nearly unbearable.

“Mami,” he gasps, the word coming out between his unstable thrusts. Your eyes shut hard, sparks of pleasure winding and building in your core. “Give me a baby.”

“Sí papi,” you heave, “I”m trying to.”

Miguel knows what you like-- and you like him desperate. His voice so low and rich that you gush around his swollen length, falling apart below him. He catches your body from dropping in an instant, his thighs shaking as he works you through the fibers of gentle pleasure. Hot pressure builds low in his stomach.

“Qué bella eres. I’m going to finish, fill you and knock you up,” he whispers, drawing himself free and admiring the hazy space of pleasure and reality. Miguel turns you back to face him. You think you may complain-- you didn’t cum, or something of the sort. He shifts you to sit on the counter, spreading your vulva for inspection. Miguel spat on your cunt, rolling his fingers over the swollen folds to spread you apart. He slipped into the space between your shaking legs. You felt him thrust into your body hard and sharp. Your hands reached out, dragging Miguel’s shoulders forward, clinging onto his body.

It comes all at once, Miguel’s stuttering thrust forward, a deep groan filling the kitchen, his hand clasped onto your thigh so hard you know he’ll bruise it. You catch his moan in a kiss he doesn’t reciprocate, buried so deep in your body that all he can think to do is to force you to take all of it. He shakes himself free of the web of pleasure that he’s enveloped in, looking at you past the thin rivulets of sweat you wiped away with your loving thumbs.

“I think there are better positions for baby making,” you lean in, kissing him gently. He returns the kiss this time, eyes light of the strain and stress of the last few days. “Like… not this.”

Miguel pulls back, his soft cock slipping free from your warm entrance. Miguel watches as his seed dribbles from your hole, grunting in acknowledgement. He swipes your mixed fluids and rolls it between his fingers.

“I’m open to suggestions.”

He loves his wife. More than anything. What he doesn’t love is how Peter seems to know that you’re trying for a baby.

The thing about having a woman from his same cultura was this: you loved to talk with your best friend. Who, just so happened to be Peter. He doesn’t even have to say anything, just staring at him with a quirk on his lip and a terrible glitter in his eye after he’s resolved another meeting.

“Hey, Miguel.”

“Don’t start.”

He’s crowded with work at his desk-- he has no time for Mayday’s curious little eyes to glitter at him, Peter to be doing that shit he did when he wanted to be helpful. He offered his hands up, shrugging.

“I’m just saying! I’m a man, you’re a man,” he mumbles, inching a little closer and closer. “If you want a baby--”

“Let me guess. She told you.”

“Mayday could use a spider buddy,” he held Mayday up, out of her carrier. Miguel glanced down at her wild hair, exhaling air out of his nose with a little huff. “Sooner than later?”

“I’ve done it before,” Miguel throws back. “I know how to knock up my own wife, Peter. I don’t need help.”

Peter is offering help as if Miguel hadn’t tasted the changes in your body when he ate you out. Never mind that he saw you nauseated this morning, too sick to handle a call that Miguel promptly answered. He knew his seed had stuck-- you wouldn’t feel so miserable otherwise. It doesn’t matter, he’d answer them all if it meant another little one in his arms at the end of it all. Just so long as you and the baby were safe.

“Are you sure? I know--”

“I’m damn sure.” Miguel turned around, his head in his hand. “I’ve had enough of you. Why don’t you do something useful? Bring her something for her morning sickness.”

“Oh,” realization fell over Peter like a hammer, looking down to Mayday who looked right back up to her father. For all that Peter knew about his love life, he was shocked that you hadn’t told him how awful the smell of breakfast meat made you feel. His hand fell away, a film of pride slipping from his practiced features when Peter spoke. “But... She’s already pregnant?”

He leers. Peter scuttles away.

Privacy is important to Miguel. You knew the damn rule. No telling Peter about the inner workings of your bedroom. For that, you were going to fucking get it. You likely knew you were going to get it-- even if you were likely already pregnant.

He can’t wait.

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nereidprinc3ss · 1 month ago

Text

do you believe me now? | 8

it's the morning after. spencer reid suspects you’re left with some doubts after losing your virginity to him. he has to figure out why—which is hard when you're keeping secrets.

series masterlist

this series is 18+ warnings/tags: fem!reader, blood related to losing virginity (dramatized for the drama duh), super vague allusions to the BAU being hungover, mild blasphemy if anyone even cares, pondering god bc am I really a fanfic writer if I don’t get a little religious w it, emily AND hotch are here and nobody knows why pls don't pay attention to that bc we are imagining like season 11/12 spencer and I'm inconsistent w who is unit chief in this series apparently, spencer slut lore, spencer emotional wounds lore, Spencer is a traumatic situationship survivor a/n: DADDYS HOMEEEEE (me and dybmn not spencer) anyway missed these little guys and am happy to be writing for them again!! idk what my upload schedule will becoming back to this but pls lmk what u think of this part, I have no idea how you will respond but I'm being brave and ily

Friday morning Spencer comes into the office fifteen minutes late (he tried his best), in yesterday’s suit (everything in his go-bag had been too wrinkled), hair messy (no doubt from your fingers), coffee cold (he’s exhausted) and overall, in an excellent mood.

The rest of the team isn’t faring quite as well—Spencer gathers they stayed at the bar celebrating Derek’s birthday a lot later than he had. It shows through sallow skin and dark circles and the grimaces he receives on the way to his desk that are probably supposed to approximate good morning’s.

Honestly, he doesn’t mind the dull mood—he doesn’t need the teasing and the prying questions that would be sure to come if his co-workers were at peak performance and were able to put together his unusually perky demeanor and disheveled appearance. At least Prentiss doesn’t appear to be paying him any mind. She’s always the one who can read him like an open book and has no shame in doing so aloud. Echoes from years of, ‘so who was the lucky girl, last night, Reid?’ Still ring through his mind and it’s like he can feel her finger prodding at his side.

The Emily of it all makes him smile, though the rest of the memory leaves a metal tang in his mouth. Back in those days, there were sometimes a lot of girls, but even then he was consciously aware he wasn’t necessarily doing something he enjoyed. He spent a lot of time, actually, staring at his bedroom ceiling, psychoanalyzing himself. Repetition compulsion. The insatiable desire to repeat or reenact emotionally painful experiences. Maybe he thought if he could teach himself to subsist off of emotionless hookups, he could in some way heal from his experience with Elle. Though, he’s hesitant to think of it now as healing—it’s not like he didn’t know what he was doing when a few nights after she said I don’t feel the same I’m sorry he opened up his front door for her. It’s not like he didn’t know what he was doing every time after that. So, maybe heal isn’t the right word, when one doesn’t have the right to be injured. Or when the injuries are, in a manner of speaking, self-inflicted. At the very least he could tell himself that this time around, meaningless sex was a choice he was making for himself. Spencer hates when things just happen to him.

But you—you’re different. You were a complete surprise. At first, a cute and unexpected complication. After a few painful and short-lived attempts at real relationships, Spencer decided he was simply not to be trusted with emotional intimacy of any kind, including that which inevitably develops from physical intimacy, and would resign himself to a life of celibacy. He tried not to like you, but you were just so damn likable. Magnetic, to use a trite and perfectly honest turn of phrase. All that to say: he doesn’t regret you at all. There is no filter of putrid shame or anguish over his memories of last night.

Just you. Perfect. Starlit. Glowing softly around the edges like you’re not even real.

I love you I love you I love you. A hymn with no melody. You, always reminding him exactly why he is decidedly not a man of faith. At least, not in the typical sense of the word.

How God became the idol and not Mary is lost on him. That’s why, Spencer supposes, tapping an eraser on his desk, marriage and sex were forbidden for so many ecclesiastics. After all, if they knew what it was to love a woman, specifically to love you, he doubts they’d feel like spending much time in the pulpit. Love. Humans had that long before they had any gods. It’s primeval. It’s the most natural manifestation of devotion and worship. It will always have come first. Isn’t it a better kind of religion when a man realizes he can kneel in front of a woman rather than an altar?

A heavy hand falling on his shoulder jolts him from his theological musings—which are in all practicality useless. What’s that saying about blasphemous thinking on the FBI’s dime? Right. There isn’t one.

“I’m scared to ask,” Morgan says as Spencer jumps slightly in his chair.

“What?” He mumbles, looking up from the document he’d only sort of been reading.

Morgan just looks at him, strong brows furrowed and a ditch between them, angles his head and glances to the side as if Spencer is missing the obvious. He almost follows Derek’s eye-line. When that doesn’t work, Derek just says your name. Like your status is somehow in question.

“Did you two work things out, or not? It looked pretty bad when you guys were leaving last night.”

People often misunderstand an eidetic memory. It’s not like things can’t slip his mind—Spencer can actually be quite forgetful. It’s made worse by the fact that last night at the bar feels like months ago. For a moment, he has no idea what Derek is referring to.

“Oh. Oh! Right, we—right. Yeah, we, uh—we worked it out.” Before Derek has a chance to read his face, no doubt as incriminating as his fumbled speech and an ill-timed throat clearing, he turns back to his paperwork. “Thanks for keeping an eye on her at the bar. I appreciate that.”

It’s quiet for a moment, and Spencer’s lips twist as he can feel the incoming inappropriate comment.

“Is that the same suit you were wearing last night?” Morgan quips, his wide grin audible. Spencer can practically hear the cartoon gleam of his friend’s bleached teeth.

“No.”

“You dog.” Derek is still smiling as he claps Spencer’s shoulder again. “What did you say to her that worked so well?”

Spencer clears his throat again and tries to look extremely involved in logging onto his computer, speaking quickly as if he’s beyond disinterested and can’t wait for the exchange to be over.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m actually trying to work so if you wouldn’t mind going back to your desk that would be great.”

“Uh-huh. I’ll let you work. But I see you, pretty boy.”

Spencer tries not to blush like a teenager as he refuses to look up.

Naturally the rest of the day is a slow descent into dread and madness as all those good feelings with which Spencer had started his morning begin to harden into something much worse, chilled by your lack of response to the text he sent you earlier. Which was essentially a rehashing of the note he left on your bedside table.

Maybe it was too much. It should’ve been one or the other, but not both. He’s overwhelmed you.

Okay, so maybe this is what religion is for. A last ditch effort when you can’t talk to your girlfriend so you have to try talking to God.

But Spencer knows you, and he knows something is wrong. You wouldn’t just ice him out so blatantly if everything was okay. He catches himself glancing up toward Hotch’s window to see if the blinds are drawn, and considers faking an illness to get out of work early and go check on you. But he powers through the remaining hour and a half that he is obligated to stay at work, he bounces a pencil between his fingers, drums at his desk, and gets nothing else done. As soon as 4:59 rolls around, he’s out.

Spencer can hear shuffling on the other side of your door as he stands in the hallway. A pot clatters. The walls hum with the rush of water through the pipes to your sink. He knocks, relieved that you’re okay and at the same time struggling with that weight on his chest—something cold that leans over his shoulders and whispers into his ear—so she just didn’t want to talk to you.

Suddenly all sound from inside your unit ceases. For a few long seconds, Spencer’s confusion only grows exponentially.

“Who is it?” You finally call, voice wavering. Also odd. Usually you just open the door.

“Um… Spencer?”

“As in my boyfriend Spencer?”

He frowns, bottom lip jutting out ever so slightly as he tries to decipher your sudden paranoia. “I hope so?”

The click and jingle of several locks precipitates your much-anticipated reveal.

“Come in,” you say breathlessly, more harried than usual and not giving him the tender greeting he’s selfishly become accustomed to—barely even giving him a second to look at you. But he steps inside, watching on in concern as you do up every single lock—the one on the knob, the deadbolt, even the chain. Is this really all because of his little comment last night about anyone being able to get in? He certainly hopes not. He didn’t mean to terrify you.

When you finally turn, he takes stock of your appearance. Big hoodie, pajama pants patterned in little hearts. Hair pulled back hastily. Your skin is sort of dull where you normally glow. But you’re beautiful, like always. It always aches just a little bit to look at you. Spencer’s always been like that. Going breathless at a particularly good piece of art or pretty girl. Like yourself. Mostly you.

You quickly turn to hurry back into the kitchen. “I was trying to make dinner, I—”

“Hold on,” he interrupts, stopping you with a hand on your stomach that is so non-demanding it’s really mostly a suggestion. He tries to clear his head, though you make it hard. “You didn’t talk to me all day. Not that you have to, but… I was worried.”

You glance at the floor and mumble, “I lost my phone,” with so much embarrassment he believes you’re telling the truth. “Did you, um—did you text me?”

Insecurity. Spencer knows well what it looks like on you. He softens. You weren’t ignoring him—but you’d been left in a vulnerable state without any ability to contact him or anyone. That couldn’t have been comfortable.

“Of course I did.” He pauses to observe you. Still anxious. Still prepared to run at any second. Something, and he’s not sure what, did a number on you today. Maybe it’s sheer exhaustion, maybe it was the anxiety of not having your phone. But he has to figure out what it is so he can undo it. “What? What’s wrong?”

He watches your breathing pause—watches your eyes gloss over with tears and a frown contort your features. Oh, god. He’s done something terribly wrong. It’s been thirty seconds and he’s done something wrong.

“Can we sit down? I don’t feel very good.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we can. Whatever you need.”

You cast a baleful look at him and now he has to wonder what that means. Spencer sets his bag on a pulled out dining chair and follows you to the couch where you settle on opposite sides—you’re curled up in the far corner, hugging a pillow to your chest with your legs folded in front of you. Spencer’s heart is beating fast. He doesn’t know what’s going on with you and he can’t figure it out just by looking and you don’t seem eager to tell him.

He’s exhausted all his typical ways of collecting information, and now he’s at a loss.

Eventually, the anxiety comes bubbling up.

“Please talk to me,” he pleads. And you do. Almost instantly, like he stepped on some sort of landmine.

“I know it’s my own fault for not having my phone on me and not being able to see your texts, but it really sucks that I had to find out from my creepy neighbor that you snuck out in the middle of the night without saying goodbye.”

The whiplash is so strong it’s almost a broken neck. Spencer reels, frowning deeply as he tries to process your impromptu speech, the sudden confrontation. What creepy neighbor?

“I… didn’t. I went to grab my stuff from the car around one, but I came right back. I left at 7:30. You don’t remember me saying goodbye?”

Your brow furrows, and your eyes dart over the design on the rug like you’re watching memories go by. He sees it in your eyes when you recall some hazy image of him holding your face, kissing your cheek more times than was necessary and whispering sweet things against your lips before he had to go. You shrink into the couch, clearly struggling under the combined weight of relief and embarrassment.

“I forgot. I thought… he said…”

A moment passes and it’s clear you’ve abandoned the sentence. Spencer is concerned about this shadowy male figure who put malicious untruths into your head. He slides his hand under yours and twines your fingers together. Finally, finally you meet his gaze.

“Someone made you believe I left without saying goodbye.”

And he almost wishes you weren’t looking at him as more tears pool before falling down your cheeks. You nod, and don’t make a sound.

“No, honey. I didn’t do that. I’m sorry that’s what you’ve been thinking all day.”

“I was worried that you… or that I wasn’t…”

His chest aches. You’d woken up alone, no recollection of his goodbye, and without the comfort of even a text.

“You didn’t see my note?”

The way you look at him then is heartbreaking. Eyes wide and wet and sad, lip trembling.

“You left a note?”

Murphy’s Law. Anything that can go wrong, will.

It must’ve fallen off the bedside table, or maybe he just hadn’t positioned it obviously enough.

A lost phone, a missed note, and not even a memory of his departure. While none of these things are verifiably Spencer’s fault, he feels so, so guilty.

“I did,” Spencer says gently, scooting closer and pulling you into him, head pressed to his shoulder as you try not to cry, and he rubs your back slowly.

Your sulky words are muffled by his shirt. “I didn’t see it. What did it say?”

“A lot of very nice things about you,” he whispers. Spencer thought maybe he could get away with giving you all the sincere compliments you can’t accept face to face through a note you could read while he wasn’t around. That way you couldn’t refute them or stop him. It was a good plan.

He feels the sigh of relief leaving your body against his neck.

“I didn’t know.”

“I know. I’m sorry. That’s not… I should’ve just stayed. This is my fault.”

You keep your cheek pressed to his shoulder as you speak.

“It’s not. You have a job. A really important job. You can’t just call out whenever I want you around.”

Logically he knows you’re right, but he doesn’t always think logically around you.

“I could’ve made it work. I could’ve come in late, or the team could’ve called me if there was a case, which there wasn’t—”

“Spencer, it’s okay. It’s not your fault. Don’t worry about it.”

He pulls back slightly, frowning at your tone. You do look relieved, much less plagued than you’d been when he arrived minutes ago, but something heavy still weighs you down. The burden of it darkens your eyes and dulls your expression. When he cups your cheek, you glance up at him, and then away once more.

He speaks softly. “Is that all you wanted to tell me?”

Again he earns a moment of your eye contact, but it’s fleeting. He watches the words spin around your head as you try to figure out what to do with them—and then choose to remain silent.

There is in fact something you’re keeping from him.

Spencer hates to use work tactics on you, but he doesn’t speak either, hoping that you’ll feel compelled to fill the silence with the truth. Knowing how you’re not entirely comfortable with quiet.

And you try, lips parting and the sound delayed as you wrestle with something you clearly don’t know how to talk about.

“I… my neighbor,” you say, frowning like you don’t quite know why you’re speaking. “The one who told me he saw you leaving in the middle of the night. He also—he said…”

Spencer brushes hair away from your cheek with a thumb, stroking the high point in gentle passes as your words taper off. Now that he’s thinking about it, he did encounter a man in a dumpy robe standing in the courtyard and smoking a cigarette when he left you tangled in sheets and dozing contentedly to get his bag from the car. In fact, they rode back up to your floor in the elevator in mostly awkward silence. Spencer was sure his outfit told a story—shirt untucked and hastily buttoned only partway, no belt, shoes barely tied, duffel slung over his shoulder—he wasn’t really expecting to run into anyone at such an hour, to be honest, but he hadn’t particularly cared what this man thought of him, so it didn’t cross his mind again.

Now he remembers.

Long night, huh? I remember those days.

It was an inappropriate comment, but given his job he’s used to ignoring those. Mostly his mind had been preoccupied with the idea of returning to you, who gave him such a warm and sleepy welcome when he climbed carefully back into your arms several minutes later that it was like he’d never known anyone else at all.

Now he resents that he hadn’t said anything, he hates the idea that you spoke to this man and he said something to upset you and Spencer wasn’t there. Usually he tries not a judge a book by its cover (metaphorically, of course) but he’s been around enough bad men to know when he’s looking at one. Last night he hadn’t even been cognizant enough to realize they got off on the same floor.

“What did he say, angel?” Spencer whispers, incapable of being anything but soft with you at the moment. Even though he senses something a lot like a tide of preemptive anger rising in his chest, painted over with layers of anxiety and guilt. He should’ve found a way to stay with you this morning.

You sniffle and let your head fall again, forehead resting against his collar. Instinctively his hand slides to the back of your neck and even at the awkward angle he finds a way to press his lips to yours hair. “Can we talk about it later? I don’t feel good.”

If it’s making you this uncomfortable, Spencer really wants to know what passed between you and this neighbor. In fact, he’d be willing to bet a lot of your strange behavior this evening stems from something that occurred which you don’t feel comfortable telling him yet. But he manages to bite back anymore questions. He doesn’t want to make you feel interrogated.

“Yeah, you mentioned that,” he says eventually, kindly, hand tracing down the length of your back and up again. “Why don’t you feel good?”

He doesn’t miss the way you reach up to discreetly wipe your cheek. But he won’t make you talk about anything you don’t want to talk about until you’re ready, and it seems like you’re already having a rough day. Which is not what he wanted. This is so far from what he wanted for you. He’s cursing himself for how he handled this whole situation.

“Um, I just… I don’t know. I feel… bad. I’m sorry I’m being so weird.”

“You’re not being weird, honey. You had a hard day. You’re having a normal reaction to an abnormal set of circumstances.”

You sit up, sniffing and wiping your tears like you can just make the whole thing go away.

“No, I am. I am. It’s all okay now, right? So I don’t know why I feel like this. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

He watches helplessly. “Nothing is wrong with you. We’ve… it’s been a big couple of days. Mostly good, but I think you’re probably really tired. Emotionally and physically.”

You bury your face in your hands and nod silently. He still feels like he’s shooting in the dark, but you’re not entirely comforted yet, and it’s killing him.

“Whatever you’re feeling is okay. If this is… about last night, or this morning, or something entirely different—regardless of what it’s about, you’re not going to be… in trouble with me if you’re having complicated feelings. And you can talk to me. But it doesn’t have to be right now. We don’t have to figure it out all at once, okay?”

You press the heels of your palms into your eyes, and for a moment, his words sink into silence. When you do raise your head, nodding, the evidence of your discomfort is all over your face—reddened eyes, cheeks polished with wiped tears. But you take a deep breath and try to project whatever it is you think he wants to see.

The back of your hand is soft under his thumb as he sweeps it, as if he could draw forth more information that way. People speak when they’re ready.

“Is there anything I can do?” He tries, all ramped brow and soft spoken.

You’re looking at where he’s tracing swirls on your hand as you swallow and blink the last of your tears away.

“Um… you can say no, but—do you think it would be okay for you to maybe stay again tonight?”

Spencer sucks in a breath, painfully aware that he’s about to let you down.

“I… I haven’t been home in a week. I’ve been wearing this suit for two days straight and I don’t think I would want to share a bed with me again until I shower.” He watches you wilt and lifts a hand to stroke your hair. “But I do want to spend time with you… do you maybe want to come stay with me instead? No pressure—”

“Okay. Yes. Is that okay?”

Spencer’s brow knits. You seem even more enthused about the idea of going to his apartment, like now that the opportunity has presented itself you can’t wait to get out. Maybe you have some sort of black mold problem.

“Of course. Do you wanna grab a few things and then we can go?”

“Um—I also haven’t showered today. Do you mind waiting?”

“Sure. Or you could use mine. With supervision, this time.”

Spencer is attempting to make a joke about your unplanned (and unmoderated) stay at his apartment last week after he left—but looking at your face now he’s wondering if he touched a nerve.

“Like… one at a time? Or…”

He thought maybe you’d be more comfortable around him after last night—and it’s not like he hadn’t seen you naked before then, either.

“Do you wanna do it one at a time?” He asks gently.

There’s this sparkly sort of longing in your eyes that he’s seen before, but you tamp it down like always. You’re so cautious. About everything. Even the things you’re curious about. It’s sweet and a little sad.

“I’ve never… showered with anyone.”

The corner of Spencer’s mouth twitches as he pushes hair over your shoulder. “I know. You don’t have to. We could save like 100 gallons of water depending on how long your showers typically last, but—”

“Spencer—”

“Sorry, sorry—I didn’t—I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not trying to pressure you. You absolutely can take your own shower. You can go first so you get the hot water.”

“No,” you laugh, and it’s like a sparkling cloud of gold has settled around you, fractals bouncing off the shine of your cheeks and eyes—the sound of your laughter, the look of it, is such beautiful relief he can’t believe how good it feels, but it fades from you quickly. “It sounds… I think I want to, I just… I don’t wanna, like… do… anything.”

For a split second your veiled language mystifies him and then he realizes what you’re trying to say without saying. Something has changed since yesterday, when you brazenly referred to it as fucking, and today, when you can’t even say sex. He’s gotten as far as it being something your creepy neighbor said. Maybe. He needs to know what.

But that’s not the topic at hand.

“We don’t have to. I didn’t mean to imply that we would do anything like that. I don’t expect anything from you.”

You swallow.

“Okay. I wasn’t sure.”

About what?

He says your name. No response.

“Can you look at me, please?”

It takes you a moment, and your head raises like you might need some oil in your hinges, but eventually you manage. Spencer hopes the way he’s rubbing your leg is comforting.

“You know I’m never, ever going to make you do anything you don’t want to do, right?”

To his horror, your answer isn’t an immediate and resounding yes. Instead you look back down and cover his hand with your own, fiddling nervously with his fingers.

Eventually, you reply, “Yeah… I know. I just thought… I’m not sure. Maybe it’s supposed to be different now.”

“It doesn’t have to be. Nothing has to be different. We’re still doing everything on your schedule, okay? And as for the next few days, at least—I think it might be a good idea to take sex off the table altogether.”

Your eyes narrow and you hesitate. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want you worrying about it. And I don’t think it would feel good for you right now. I think there are things we need to talk about, but… we’ve probably tried enough for a while, hm?”

You give him a shy nod and hum your agreement. For a moment he lets his hand linger on your leg and then pulls it back.

“Okay. Do you want my help packing a bag, or should I wait out here?”

“You can wait. It should only take a minute.” You pause, halfway up to look pensive. “Um, Spencer—do you think it would be okay if maybe I… if I stayed tonight and tomorrow? I just—I wanna get out of here, for a bit.”

He frowns but doesn’t hesitate. “Of course. Can I ask why?”

“It’s just… suffocating sometimes,” you call as you turn and hurry down the hallway to the bedroom. “Feels like my neighbors are on top of me, like they’re… breathing down my neck, half the time.”

Sure, bigger apartments exist—but it’s not like you’re in a studio. And you’ve never mentioned feeling that way before. That bad feeling is starting to come back—like you’re not telling him something he needs to know. But is it worse to let you deal with it yourself until you’re ready to talk or to force it from you?

A few minutes later you return, a duffel of your own over your shoulder and full to bursting.

“So I’m an idiot. My phone was literally in the pocket of my jeans on the floor.” You drop the bag as you bend down by the door to pull on your favorite slippers. “Oh—I think I forgot my charger, can you grab it? It’s by my bed.”

Spencer of course obliges, and is secretly pleased to be in your room again, in the light this time, so he can see better. It’s sweet. The pictures on the walls, the plants and the knickknacks and the sticky notes scrawled with messy reminders on every surface and the sweater hanging over the back of a chair—the one you’d been wearing at the cafe all those months ago—it all feels so you. He wonders why the two of you don’t spend more time here.

He lets himself linger for only a minute before remembering his task, but as he reaches down to unplug your charger, whatever dopey smile he’d been wearing evaporates. The sheets have been stripped from your bed, and he can see why—there’s a striking stain of dried blood, and several surrounding dots, soaked into the mattress. Not much, but enough to make him feel horrendously guilty. He cringes, imagining what it must’ve been like to wake up all alone to nothing but your own blood. Poor girl. Of course he’d noticed some, last night when he was doing his best at cleaning you up, but it had been dark, and he was exhausted, and he hadn’t done enough.

“Where’d your sheets go, baby?” He asks once back by the front door with his own bag on his shoulder, setting a gentle hand on your lower back and holding out your charger for you. You jump slightly, and he makes circles on your back, wishing there was something he could do to settle you.

“Oh! They—they got ruined. I threw them out. It’s fine. I have others.”

So you didn’t have enough energy this morning to walk a few feet to your shower, but stripping your bed, getting dressed, and walking down to the trash chute at the end of the hall had been top of your priority list.

You swallow as he undoes the locks and holds the door open for you, and pretend like you’re not doing surveillance to either side as you stand in the hallway, locking your door again like you can’t get out of here fast enough.

Spencer casts a sidelong glance at you and wonders if you’re intentionally avoiding eye contact. He tries not to think like a profiler. He tries not to assign meaning to your actions, but he can’t help it. He can’t not notice.

He can’t not worry.

And he can’t not wonder what you’re not telling him.

part nine

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