#ebe talent

[wastedpurity]

raven baxter is my straight crush

raven-symoné is my gay crush

[gyummigon]

☆ my days with you (they are always happy)

beomgyu x gn!reader

୨୧ genre: fluff/comfort ୨୧ word count: 4.4k ୨୧ summary: after having a crush on your best friend for months, you have a silly, very silly, confession of feelings. ୨୧ a/n: truth be told, this is a little silly, and cheesy, but I wanted needed to write something that felt easy and refreshing. it's a little longer than i originally thought it would be, but it was fun. hope you like it, have a nice day:))

You liked Beomgyu. You liked him because of the way his eyes sparkled when he hummed his favorite song while doing the dishes, when he collapsed on the bed after an endless list of complaints about how tired he was, or when he spoke with overflowing emotion about the things he liked. You liked him because you found in him a kind of gentleness that you didn't find in the rest of the world, that you didn't think you could get from a man. And the amazing thing is that he was a man, but when you were with him, it was as if you saw the world through the eyes of a child. Eyes that saw happiness and didn't twist it, but made it bigger, spread it out and expanded it until those eyes - brown and deep and enchantingly beautiful - were the last thing left.

Perhaps you were in love with one of your closest friends. Or maybe you were just in the right place.

This thought was even harder to resolve when you arrived at your parents' house that Sunday afternoon, having checked off every single item on your mother's shopping list. You had only been out shopping for an hour, but it was as if you were returning home for the first time after the days out of town you had left behind. You didn't even know when you'd left the bags of groceries at the front door, or when you'd turned back to the garden to see that beaming smile with the wrinkles in the cheeks, let alone when your voice, shaky and too anxious for your taste, uttered an embarrassed "hey".

Beomgyu, who until then had been laughing at a ridiculous joke he had shared with your father, turned to look at you with an enchanting calm that could only be found on a beach at sunset, when the moon was doing its thing and the tide was ebbing in deep, sentimental sighs. The boy seemed to see something you couldn't define on your face, for his smile shrank to a soft, almost shy line.

You didn't take your attention off your face as he approached, hands hidden behind his back, and stopped in front of you. Despite your father's loud voice, the mischievous laughter of your younger siblings, and your mother's scolding of the dog to keep it away from the meat ready for roasting, the only thing you found yourself paying attention to was the disturbingly fast beating of your heart.

"Hey," you repeated, no less awkwardly. "What is this, I travel for a few weeks and suddenly my family has already adopted you?"

Beomgyu kept his shy smile and leaned against one of the wooden boards of the porch for a moment. His checkered shirt billowed slightly in the soft summer breeze.

"I think it's your father who decided to adopt me. He says I'm the exact representation of his youth: charming, talented, and outrageously beautiful."

"I think he says that to every young person he meets."

"Are you saying I shouldn't believe him?"

You didn't know when you started smiling, but your cheeks were sure to hurt if you didn't relax the muscles in your face soon.

"No, I'm just saying my father talks too much."

"A sincere and open man, I like him."

"As sincere as a politician in an election debate."

Beomgyu laughed and looked out into the garden, where your father was still sitting in a folding chair with a scowl on his face, trying to light the wood-burning barbecue. In a measured, polite voice that you didn't know he could have and that almost made you want to mock him, Beomgyu offered to help; but when your father looked up and - in the most millennial, bland way possible - gave him a thumbs-up before shouting a friendly "I've got it under control, son," for some stupid, irrational, and probably childish reason, you blushed. You blushed badly.

What the hell, since when did your father call Beomgyu "son"? And since when did your family normally invite one of your friends to join them on Burger Sunday? Was that your mother putting another plate on the table? Was that what Beomgyu did while you were away? Eat your burger in your place?

Beomgyu seemed to read the thoughts embodied in your expression very well, because he laughed softly and lifted a shoulder with an unseemly shyness. Surely, that's how you had captivated them all.

You little harpy.

And yet, to see him as vibrant and jovial as when you left was like a Band-Aid that lightened the burden of stress you'd endured these past few days. When you arrived in town last Thursday night, the first thing you thought of was to look for him, but the idiot had gotten sick from drinking bad milk and had begged you not to visit him until his diarrhea was over. He hadn't texted you since the night before, and you were beginning to think he'd dropped his phone in the toilet during one of his diarrhea attacks, but what you didn't expect was to find him at your house on your way home from the supermarket, nor did you expect to feel the way you felt: nervous, with words thought but never spoken, with desires intensified but more terrifying than ever.

"So... how was the convention that starved you for almost a month?"

You looked up as your younger brother ran past you, the dog not far behind. Before reaching the short stairs that led into the house, Beomgyu scooped your brother up in his arms and spun him around in the air before setting him down and encouraging him back to where your parents were. Your brother ran off with the dog behind him.

You blinked.

"It was a month of physical pain. I didn't know what an international accounting convention would be like until I went to one. I thought it would be like the boring lectures we had in high school and college, but apparently businessmen have fun with taxes and returns."

Beomgyu snorted in amusement and shoved his hands into his pants pockets as he turned to lean against the railing, looking you in the eye with that sweet smile of his.

"I missed you."

"Oh, did you?" you asked, keeping a neutral expression on your face as you raised an eyebrow. Despite your coolness, it wasn't hard to notice a slight blush spreading across your cheeks. It wasn't that you had been away from him for a long time, you had been apart for months at other times, but there was something different about his words this time that made you wonder if he really missed you or if he missed you the way you felt.

"Is that why you snuck into my house as an undercover usurper?"

"See, I've been taking over your family members one by one," he said with mock seriousness as he gave you an exaggerated look. But then the mischievous smile returned to his face, and he took a step closer. "What's the matter with you, aren't you going to confess that you missed me, that you were writhing in agony without my presence?"

"You've been texting me almost every day for the past three weeks, Beomgyu. I don't know how I could have missed you."

Her lips curled into a pout of indignation as she frowned. You noticed that one of his hands was on the railing, inches from yours. "That's really cruel. He was really unhappy."

"Right, how's your diarrhea?"

"Uhmm," he hummed, and from a distance you could tell he was trying to maintain a disinterested expression as he looked away. "I'm a feisty guy, you know? A diet based on soda crackers and oral electrolytes and puf, good as new. Why, are you going to make fun of me? Because let me tell you, you won't make me suffer as much as Yeonjun and Soobin already have."

"Diarrhea teasing is not my strong point."

Beomgyu let out a gasping, feigned sigh and placed his right hand over his heart, his eyes dramatically wide. "Is this empathy real, is it possible you'll come back a little softer?"

You snorted and shook your head. You couldn't remember when last summer had been like this: quiet conversations, laughter, and a silence that seemed somehow comfortable even when tension was building between you. You had forgotten the ease that had always existed between the two of you. You used to hate these months of excessive heat and aimless days, but ever since you met Beomgyu, you begged for every chance to laugh together, no matter the season.

"I'm not going to laugh," you said, lowering your eyes to your hands. You were about to say something else, but the words died in your mouth as he moved even closer, sliding his hand over yours on the railing.

You nearly choked on your own saliva. God, why did you get so nervous, didn't you just talk about diarrhea a few seconds ago?

You said nothing, and neither did he, but you watched his cautious, anxious expression before looking down again at your joined hands with his hand: yours flattened against the light wood, covered by his slender fingers and the soft, delicate pads of his thumbs, almost always rough and calloused from constant use of his guitar. His hand was warm, and you felt your heart flutter as he ran his thumb over the knuckles of your hand. It was a gentle, casual, maybe even innocent gesture, but it felt like a million fireworks on the skin of your hand.

"I... I thought about you while I was away."

He didn't answer, he just turned to look at you, and you couldn't help but feel your heart beat faster when you saw the look on his face. His smile was still there, but it had changed, it had become softer, and you felt like it was the only thing you could hold onto to keep from blurting out the pile of words that had begun to form on the tip of your tongue.

"It's stupid, isn't it?" you added, trying not to notice the butterflies fluttering in your stomach as his fingers brushed harder against yours, as if encouraging you to speak, to spit out the words before they bloated your stomach and turned you into a useless ball of desire and... God, weren't those lips so beautiful? "I've missed you. I've missed you all week."

"All month?" He corrected quietly, and you just rolled your eyes as you tilted your head toward the floor and kicked an invisible rock.

"I guess I miss you every day since I met you."

Even though you saw his smile widen out of the corner of your eye, he didn't respond right away, and that made the knot of apprehension in your chest grow. However, the wave of fear dissipated as soon as it came. His thumb was right on your pulse, probably sensing the way it had quickened for him. His touch was tender, nothing more than the gentle pressure of his thumb against your skin, but you were so mesmerized by the soft gesture that you barely noticed when he took a step closer, his body so close to yours that it was as if you were enveloped in the soft scent of his cologne. It felt like a secret moment, the way that even with your whole family gathered around the grill preparing dinner and the two of you, separated by the noise, just a few feet away, you didn't seem to notice anything but each other's presence.

"Tell me more about it." His voice was lower, softer, sending shivers down your spine.

"You want me to talk about how I missed you?"

He bit his lip as he gave you a mischievous, perhaps very silly smile and... No, it definitely wasn't the smile of someone who wanted to grab your heart and run away, was it? Because, hell, it felt like that.

You forced yourself to look away from his lips. Nothing could make you stupider. Nothing could make you freak out more. You had to avoid them, avoid the madness. But it was in vain, a deluded attempt to escape the traps of your heart, because just as you looked into his eyes, he dropped his gaze to your mouth for a moment, and you were convinced he could feel your pulse fluttering under his thumb. He took another step. Now he was close enough to push your back against the railing, his hand fully clenched over yours, and his eyes lost on your lips, begging you to speak up and do something stupid.

And so you did.

"I... I can tell you how I think of you when I see something funny. Or something frighteningly beautiful. Like those pink sunrises we barely see if we're not lazy and stay in bed till noon. Or two cats curled up on the sidewalk. Not that I want to cuddle with you, mind you... Well, it's not that I don't want to. The point is, cats are cute. Like you."

With a grimace, you paused to take it in and then forced yourself to pretend you hadn't said that. But you were strong, and you didn't let yourself stop, because you had already screwed up, and you knew that if you didn't say those words right then, you could never say them again.

"Today I was surprised to see you with my father, laughing and joking, when my father doesn't laugh with any boy who is related to me. Then I was even more surprised that it felt so intimate, so familiar, so close. I don't know if it was like one of those equations that I know at first glance will make me lose my mind and want to give up life at the slightest attempt to solve it, or one of those formulas that, even unsolved, look like one of the most beautiful in the mathematical world. Yes, I... I just made a metaphor using the words "beautiful" and "mathematical" in the same sentence. Okay, okay, stop laughing. It's just... You laughing with my father, what a disaster. What a disaster to realize that every aspect of my life likes you and what a disaster that every aspect of my life clings to you so much. I think that's why I miss you even when we're close. I don't want there to be any distance between us.

There it was, you said it. Done. Now you could breathe. Now your heart could relax a little, take a blanket and wait for the rainbow or the misfortune. It could go get a bunch of duct tape and Band-Aids or get naked and pole dance around an artery. It could get a funeral box or start believing that it's immortal. And it all depended on the guy in front of you.

Beomgyu's gaze was soft, as soft and gentle as the scenarios that automatically began to form in your head when you saw the mixture of surprise and tenderness that ran through his expression when you finished speaking. He looked down at his hands clasped against yours and exhaled a laugh that came out a little shaky. Then he returned to your gaze and stood there, silently studying you.

"I want to answer you," he whispered, "but I want to make sure I find the right words.

Idiot.

You tried very hard to keep a serene expression on your face, as if your world wasn't hanging by a thread. Then he did something you'd never seen before: he swallowed spit, his gaze sliding down to linger on your lips for a moment before returning to your eyes and swallowing again. "Wait a minute," he said hoarsely.

Without warning, he turned and walked away, leaving you standing against the railing as you struggled to catch your breath.What the hell had that been? You watched as he walked over to the garden table, grabbed a soda, then walked back over to you and leaned against the railing next to you.

He cleared his throat, took a sip, then looked back at you.

"Are you kidding me?" there was a mix of emotions in your voice, amusement, confusion, embarrassment, insecurity, indignation..., the urge to grab the soda can from him and bash his head with it.

Beomgyu blinked, seemingly surprised by your statement, then laughed, his mouth twisting into a smile that felt like a prize.

"What?" he asked, his eyes flashing. You tightened your mouth and he laughed even harder. "I can't believe you just said that!"

"What an asshole," you muttered, nudging his side.

He laughed, but his arms shot out to hold you, just as your nudge knocked him off balance for a moment. His hands wrapped around your arms and he straightened up, but he didn't let go of you or wipe that goofy grin off his face. You struggled to keep up the gesture of annoyance, though it didn't work very well when he pulled you to him.

"I... I'm actually pretty nervous."

His gaze had dropped to your mouth again, and when it came back up to meet your eyes, he bit his lip. His gaze was intense, as if he was struggling to find the right words to say whatever it was he was thinking. He let go of your arms to lean against the railing next to you, keeping his distance so close that your shoulder was trapped between his right arm and his side.

"I want to kiss you, but your dad is right behind me and I'm afraid he'll leave me without a burger," he joked, but his laugh came out too quickly and you realized he was really nervous. His gaze landed on your mouth again and he held it there for what seemed like an eternity before he let out a loud breath and closed his eyes. You were still processing the fact that the words "I want to kiss you" had just come out of his mouth.

"I'm sure you can live without a hamburger, Beomgyu."

His gaze returned to your mouth and your heart skipped a beat as he came even closer. Now he was so close you could feel his breath caressing your lips as he brought his hand to your waist to pull you even closer, and his lips - so soft, so tantalizing, and so agonizingly close to yours - parted and they were about to say something when suddenly your father's voice boomed across the yard.

"Hey, guys," he said in a hoarse voice. "Dinner's almost ready."

The sound of his voice made you jump, and you were surprised at how quickly Beomgyu turned away, taking several steps back and moving as far away from you as possible. His face was red and he held his arms carefully at his sides as your father looked up at the two of you.

"Is everything okay here? You two looked very... lovey-dovey," your father joked, his eyes narrowing as he watched both of your reddened faces and Beomgyu desperately trying to act normal.

"Eh-" Beomgyu opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. He opened and closed his mouth as if he was struggling to come up with an excuse. Your father, who was now smiling broadly, looked from Beomgyu to you and back to Beomgyu, who was still struggling. "Sir, I am in love with your daughter."

His unplanned statement came out in a rush, and your face quickly turned to him, mouth agape. He was also surprised by his own words, his eyes widened even more and he now looked at you in disbelief, his lips parted slightly as he processed what he had said. My goodness...

Your father had dropped the lid of the grill, your mother had stopped making the salad, and your brothers had stopped torturing the dog to look at you and Beomgyu. There was silence; no one moved or said anything. For a moment there was only the humming of the grill and the whisper of an occasional breeze. You were sure that Beomgyu could hear your heart beating in your chest and you were sure that you could hear it when he swallowed spit. He was so red, so shocked, that you thought he would faint right there, or run out first and then pass out in front of your house.

"Gee, well." After a long silence, your father nodded and added, "I'm sure dinner will be a long one."

You wondered if the seriousness in his tone was real.

Beomgyu shivered like a tired old oak leaf. Your mother shook her head, struggling to keep a smile from peeking out of her lips. Your siblings, like you, just stared at him, eyes wide.

Your father broke the second silence by clearing his throat and tapping the lid of the grill.

"I think the burgers are ready."

Before you could find the stability to move towards your family, Beomgyu's hand wrapped around your arm and his eyes, now wide and ridiculously expressive, shouted the words you had been waiting for.

"Listen."

"Yes?"

"I... I... It slipped out of my mouth."

"I know." Oh, God. No. You didn't know. You didn't know anything. You weren't thinking clearly. Your heart had eloped to a party and your brain had followed.

"Your dad likes me, look, it doesn't look like he's going to let me go without a burger."

"Beomgyu, I..."

"Listen," he repeated, and you would have told him to lower his voice if you hadn't seen his determination. "If your father banishes me from your house and I don't survive the heartbreak to tell you, I want you to know that I've been thinking about you all this time, every day, at all hours; especially in the morning, which is why every day starts out well now and is all happy and pretty and cheesy and all that. You're so... so fucking cute and distracting, which is why you saw me with my shirt on backwards the other day, which also explains the toothpaste stain on my sweater; oh! And the different colored socks. I didn't know that... This, that... you know, yeah... Love made people so clumsy and clueless, but now I know that if I get hit by a tricycle going three miles an hour, it will be because I was thinking of you”.

He was still talking, the words coming out of him as fast as the stream of water coming out of the hose one of your brothers was using to wash a sausage he had dropped on the floor. You just stood there, mouth agape, struggling to take in and process all those words.

"And just a moment ago I was so excited, so high, such an idiot for what you said to me, I can't believe I almost left without telling you, because I've been wanting to tell you forever. I don't know if it was those beautiful cheeks that I want to cradle and pull and pinch and bite all the time, or if it was the way your lashes whispered romantic tales and happy endings to me. I... I don't know how you did it, or what seductive trick you used to trap me, but you can take as much from me as you want; I don't know how much I have, only that I was empty until you came”.

Beomgyu finished, paused for a moment, and then smiled and shrugged, such an adorable and nervous and yet ridiculous and funny gesture. "Well, that... that's it."

There was no air in your lungs. Your heart, which had come back drunk, racing and out of breath, was beating so fast that you couldn't think of anything but the deafening sound it was making in your chest. One, two, three minutes passed and you still hadn't regained your mobility. Beomgyu inhaled sharply, shrugged again, and gestured to the table where the rest of your family was already sitting, looking at you, trying to pretend they weren't listening.

"I think they're all waiting for us to eat."

Fortunately, he made the decision for you and took your hand to lead you to the table. You still had your eyes fixed on him and your mouth hanging open as he led you to your seat. You sat down and your trembling legs were grateful, but your hand felt empty, sweaty and scared when it came away from his.

Beomgyu cleared his throat, blushed at the sight of you and murmured, "I'll be back in a minute, okay?" Then he left, mumbling something about going to the bathroom.

Your father looked at you as if he expected you to say something, but he must have seen the embarrassment and confusion on your face, because he then turned to your mother. "Did you understand him? I didn't understand him."

Your mother laughed. "I love that boy, but God, he talks fast."

"He wants to bite her cheeks," said one of your siblings.

"And pinch them." Said the other.

Your father nearly choked on his soda, and you nearly fell out of your chair.

"What? What is he talking about?"

"He wants to bite her!" your younger brother nearly howled with laughter. "He's always talking about biting her cheeks."

"And pinching them."

You covered your face with your hands and grinned like a fool. You didn't mind the dozens of questions your father asked and the teasing of your siblings; you looked at your mother's smile, full of peace, hope, promised laughter and dreams to be fulfilled, and you admitted to yourself that the days with Beomgyu would always carry a load of happiness that was capable of subtracting the importance of everything else.

At the same time, Beomgyu was leaning against the wall and facing the closed bathroom door, trying to sort out his thoughts. As he stood in front of you, the words came out of him so fast that he didn't even have time to realize how hasty and awkward his statement was. He felt exposed, vulnerable, he needed a moment or two or many to recover, but he was undeniably happy.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, thinking of you and laughing for no reason.

"Oh my God..." he murmured. "I'm so fucked up."

୨୧ txt - masterlist ୨୧ © gyummigon | all rights reserved. copying or adaptation prohibited.

[targaryenrealnessdarling]

A Duet of Fire and Fate

Part Two | Series Masterlist

Summary: the monotonous days of practice are starting to grate, but made more complicated by the pianist's lingering words | Word Count: 4.3k~ | Warnings: sexual tension 😘

“Aemond, darling, please…” Alicent pleaded behind the closed door of his bedroom, her worried, motherly voice muffled through the thick frame, “it's not the end of the world, love, okay?”

He'd been in the exact same spot for several hours, his knee bouncing irritably and impatiently. He closed his eyes, as if trying to put on the image of being completely calm. But his hands were clasped painfully, fingertips sore from practice, and he could barely hear his mother through the door anyway, with the large headphones pressed to his ears, with the uncomfortable sting of the cello raking into his brain.

His heart was racing with stress, playing the same bit of ‘Cello Concerto' over and over again, trying to find the part where Otto had incessantly pressured him to perfect it. Wrong timing. Wrong tune. Incorrect finger placement.

Each time he stumbled over the same tricky passage, his frustration mounted. The melody was supposed to soar, but all he could feel was the grinding pressure to not mess up, to not let Otto down, to not disappoint his mother who believed so fervently in his talent.

Where in others, he witnessed nurture in the form of pride, loving gestures and unconditional support. He could see no merit in it. Love to Aemond was tight and oppressive, and weighty on his shoulders.

The door to his room creaked open slightly, and his mother’s voice, muffled and distant through the noise-canceling headphones, attempted to break through the barrier of sound. "Aemond, dinner," she called, her tone gentle yet persistent.

He barely glanced up, giving a slight shake of his head. The outside world, even the simple call to dinner, felt like an unwelcome intrusion.

"Aemond, please," she tried again, her voice firmer now. A choice of tone usually reserved solely for Aegon. "You need to eat. You’ve been at this for hours.”

Aemond cradled his cello gently between his knees, the hum of the ensemble drifted in the air, each musician fine-tuned to perfection with scales and snippets of melodies to practice. But despite this, Aemond found his thoughts elsewhere, his memories blurring into his current reality, where a new challenge in the form of the pianist had emerged.

With every draw of his bow across the strings as if he were an artist gliding a paint-slick brush over canvas, Aemond found his concentration fragmenting. His thoughts were pulled back to the pianist’s effortless expression, her ability to blend technical mastery with palpable emotion. A stark contrast to his own methodical, disciplined approach.

She irked him. She intrigued him. Two feelings which should not hold hands in Aemond's black and white reality. Every single thing his musical education had deemed secondary, she challenged. In the brief moments where he could witness her artistry himself, her performances always lingered, whereas his own, for all its precision, rarely achieved.

“Focus, Aemond.”

Otto's chide was soft and yet audible to everyone. It echoed a long and tired reminder of years past. And he found himself unable to pull back the glare that his own grandfather shot first down the bridge of his nose.

Practice ended how it often had, disappointed and dejected. He could no longer think of her or the words she'd said in their last encounter without feeling the frustration thud in his heart. After all, could the skills she so easily spoke about even be learned?

He longed to see what she saw, how she felt when she played.

The route back to Aemond's apartment was mentally tiring, and the frustration that usually ebbed away with every step, somehow lingered, and permeated throughout his body. For some time, playing the cello had not been met with accomplishment, now more often than not, met with a long and exhausting sense that he could be better.

That is what Alys had said as well, a few weeks ago, when she'd packed up the rest of her things, still pink in the face from Aemond's lips and tongue having pleasured her between her thighs to completion. The difference between her attitude and her parting words almost gave him emotional whiplash.

“I can't be the one to distract you. Not when you need to focus. Not when you have the opportunity to be great.”

Her voice was firm. And there was no room for argument or rebuttal. When Alys said something had to be how it was, that was it. Aemond had watched silently, scrubbing a hand over his face at the closed door of his apartment. He wanted to argue that if Alys had in fact cared that she'd be distracting him, her lack of presence would be just that.

How often now had he been sinking between her thighs, just to think of something else?

He never thought himself a sex addict, and yet the idea of going so long without it, with the show yet months away, made him angry to think how affected he was by it. This was hypocrisy the likes of his brother, Aegon, would love to shove in his face, he just knew it.

The stone square that choked the Grand Sept was speckled with light through the trees, rustling in a manner some would have found comforting. Couples kissed near the fountain, artists drew for money, set up with a view of the Sept while onlookers watched with joy, and children tripped and squabbled through the various nooks that had once marked the spot of a great dynasty.

This was where he waited, taking in the view and the gentle, somewhat melancholic lull of people's lives go past him without a blink. It was an hour before he'd have to traverse back the way he came for his personal booking, to practice the pieces he so desperately wanted to perfect. 

During the day, his phone was off. Nothing was more important than what he deemed his life's work.

With a soft sigh, he sat on the wall, watching the square empty as afternoons drew in, his seeing eye following longingly at a brother and sister, who must have had the same age gap he and Aegon had, chasing one another on the cobbled path. Their squeals of glee and bright, happy faces stirred something heavy in his chest.

Had he ever felt as carefree as that. Had he ever felt like a child. Or had he been a grown man for so long.

His thoughts drifted to his own childhood. He would stand stiff and rigid at recitals, looking out to the expectant gaze of his mother, her burning pride gazing into him. There, there was no room for carefree joy akin to the brother sister chasing each other through the square. His childhood, if it could be called that, was dominated by routine and scales, not play and abandon.

He glances at the golden ticking hands of his watch and with a heaved sigh, lifts his cello case to trudge back along the cobblestones to the music school, feeling the familiar pull of responsibilities. Yet, something about the moment nagged at him, a sense of loss for experiences never had, for a childhood spent in service to a future that demanded everything.

With a heaved sigh and another trudge through the now darkened halls of his music college, Aemond pushed open the door, expecting a deep, sullen and wooden silence. Only to be greeted, or rather, whatever the negative version to being ‘greeted’ is, by the sound of the delicate, light twinkle of piano keys. 

He watched at first with a sense of both unease and interest as she played, her face partly hidden by the locks of hair that had fallen between her concentrated brows. He couldn’t even really see her playing, but could feel the sensitivity of her fingers on the black and white keys, the piece melancholic. 

Aemond willed the crease between his brows, attempting to feign disappointment between his awe. 

“You’re in the room I booked.”

Her eyes pierced the darkness between the opening of the grand piano, searing a memory into his mind through her vibrant gaze. At first, she seemed surprised at not being alone, and then her features settled, and he saw the wrinkles at the corner of one of them that made it clear that she smirked at seeing his annoyance.

She stood and closed the lid with a soft thud, pulling her bag over her shoulder, “yeah well unless you want to try moving a grand piano?” she smirks, raising one eyebrow as if daring him to reply.

Aemond exhaled sharply through his nose, setting his cello case against a nearby chair, conceding the point without words.

 “Didn’t think so,” she replied in a jokey manner, smiling down as she organised her sheet music into a neat satchel bag at her side.

While she wasn't looking, he found himself watching her, for no particular reason. There was something about the way she moved, the confidence she exuded even in the simplest of actions, that intrigued him. It wasn’t just curiosity about her attire or a superficial interest, he found himself wondering about the depth of her character, about the source of her fearless demeanour. If his stolen looks were not to see what she was wearing today, then perhaps to see if he could glimpse into her soul for just a moment, to see where she got her fucking audacity from. 

He sat to prepare his cello, running his middle finger over the bow strings, the density of them feeling somewhat satisfying against his calloused tips.

“You’re not going to lecture me about how I need to… ‘make love to my music’, or some shit like that?”

She chuckled softly, a sound that seemed to resonate a little too deeply within him. “What you do with your cello in your alone time is none of my business,” she quipped without looking up, her voice light yet laden with a hint of mischief.

“Hmm.”

The air between them was charged with an unspoken tension, a dance of mutual curiosity and veiled interest. As she packed up her things, Aemond found himself unwilling to break the moment, his usual reserve shaken by her presence. There was something about her, a boldness, an unapologetic embrace of her own talent and identity, that challenged him, that made him question his own guarded nature.

As she slung her bag over her shoulder, ready to leave, she paused, glancing back at Aemond who was methodically preparing his cello. A thought seemed to strike her, and her eyes lingered on him, curious and considering.

"Actually, do you mind if I stay a bit longer to listen?" she asked, her tone casual but with an underlying sincerity that caught Aemond off guard.

Aemond felt a mixture of apprehension and pride swell within him. He was used to accolades and audiences, but her request felt different, more personal, more significant. His initial instinct was to guard his practice, a time he usually kept private, a sacred space where he perfected his art away from prying eyes. Yet, something about her frank interest, devoid of any apparent ulterior motive, piqued his own curiosity about how she might perceive his music.

He was so taken off guard, as he was so often by her, that he forgot to say anything and simply nodded. He positioned his cello, settling it between his knees, his back straightening as he prepared to play. The invitation was extended on his terms, yet internally, he acknowledged a desire to impress her, to validate his approach and perhaps, to challenge her own musical opinions.

Her posture was relaxed, but attentive, as if she at least wanted to offer him the respect of knowing she was listening wholeheartedly. As Aemond drew the bow across the strings, the first notes resonated through the room, rich and precise. He chose a piece that showcased his technical prowess, a complex Bach suite that required meticulous control and deep concentration.

As he played, he found himself increasingly aware of her presence in the room. Each note was not just played for the sake of practice but as a demonstration of his skill and dedication to his craft. He watched her reaction out of the corner of his eye, her expressions subtle yet revealing. She seemed genuinely absorbed in the music, her earlier playful demeanour replaced by a focused seriousness that matched his own when he played.

The last draw of his bow brought those guarded walls back up again, the same ones that usually came tumbling down when he felt that in the throes of playing, feeling as if he was alone, were so easily crumbled. When the last note vibrated into silence, Aemond allowed himself a moment to gauge her reaction fully. She had leaned forward in her chair, as if she wanted to see his technique closer.

“You play with such precision,” she almost whispered, so quietly he strained to hear them. As if the words hadn’t been for him at all. 

He wasn’t certain how to place her review, negative or positive. And it aggravated him that even in her criticism, she was aggressively neutral. 

"Precision is crucial," he responded, his voice steady but his mind racing. He ached to say more, but alongside fearing he would appear defensive, he was unsure whether he wanted to invite criticism from her.

She paused, considering his question, her eyes locking with his. "Precision is your strength, no doubt," she began, her voice gaining confidence as she spoke. "But music, at least to me, also needs to breathe, to have a life of its own beyond the notes on the page. Your playing is impeccable, but it feels tightly controlled, almost constrained."

He quashed the rising irritation, or at least as much as he could, forcing himself to consider her words from a place of growth rather than confrontation. "So, you're suggesting I let go a little?" he asked, watching as she smiled at his confusion. 

“Maybe,” she said lightly, “allow it the freedom to surprise you. Control you. You might find you like it.”

He couldn’t help but dissect the slight flirtatiousness in her voice. And yet it was almost gentle, a stark contrast to the sharpness he was accustomed to in such discussions.

She broke the silence that seemed to bulge between them, “do you like it?”

His mother watched him eat, her gaze laden with a mix of pride and concern. The clink of cutlery filled the brief silences as she finally found the words.

"Do you enjoy it, Aemond?" she asked, her voice soft yet carrying weight. "The cello, I mean. Do you actually enjoy playing?"

Aemond paused, his fork suspended in mid-air. It was a question that had lingered at the edge of his consciousness, unvoiced and unanswered. Did he enjoy it, truly? Or had it become merely a vehicle for his ambition, a pathway that he had been set upon rather than one he had chosen?

"It sometimes feels like the only thing I know how to do," he admitted, and for someone so often so sure, his voice wavered. 

His mother’s hand reached across the table, her touch warm against his. "Music should be a source of joy, not just a pursuit of perfection," she reminded him gently. "It’s a gift, Aemond, meant to be cherished as much as honed."

Aemond paused, the question catching him off-guard. "Do I like what?" he asked, unsure if she was referring to her suggestion or something more implicit.

She bit back a small smile, and yet it still wormed its way onto her face, “losing control.”

Her question, laced with a hint of playfulness, hung in the air, and Aemond found himself momentarily lost for words. He was unaccustomed to such directness wrapped in…flirtation?

“Losing control?” he repeated, his mouth feeling a little dry. 

“Mmhm,” she hummed, “you hold the reins so tightly. Might be liberating to loosen…or even let go, once in a while?”

The atmosphere between them seemed to thicken, the words ‘losing control’ echoing not just through the room but through Aemond’s thoughts, disrupting his usual composure.

Aemond shifted slightly, the concept of loosening his grip, both metaphorically on his music and literally in his life, seemed to resonate deeper than he anticipated. "And you think that's something I need?" he asked, his voice lower, the hint of a challenge lacing his words.

She didn’t move an inch, but her presence seemed more pronounced. The subtle scent of her perfume mixed with the mustiness of the old practice room created a contrast that was oddly intoxicating. "Isn't it?" she countered softly, her gaze steady on his.

The air between them was palpable now, her every word pulling at something he usually kept well guarded. His heart beat a rhythm almost too pronounced, mirroring the tension that seemed to pulse through the space.

Clasping her bag closed, she stood, "Music is about feeling, about passion. It’s not just the notes, but the spaces between them, the breaths, the moments of surrender.”

Aemond’s response was caught in his throat as he absorbed her words, her proximity, the undeniable tension that seemed to dance around them like the very music she spoke of. How the hell did she do that?

She allowed herself a cheeky smile, one that reached her eyes so quickly that with those alone he would know she was amused, “maybe you should surrender to it sometimes.”

A part of him wanted to dismiss her words, to reinforce the walls he had built around his methods and beliefs. After all, she was the face of his competition, a symbol of the school he had been conditioned to outperform. Yet, the way she spoke about music, with such a raw, inviting passion, made it impossible to ignore the pull he felt towards her ideas, towards her. The rivalry was supposed to be clear-cut, a battle of schools and skills. But with her, it blurred into something messier, charged with an undercurrent of something he couldn’t quite name but felt all too powerfully.

It was a dangerous mix. 

To admit she affected him would mean opening a door he was adamant to firmly keep shut tight. One that could lead to complications. Not even in terms of the competition. But for his prized discipline. She watched his expression to her words closely, her eyes reflecting a glint of knowing. He desperately wanted to hate her for it. To remind her that she was no better than him simply because she wasn’t plagued with the need for perfection like he was. That she, beyond the walls of the music school she seemed to haunt, could leave her instrument within them. Whereas Aemond was forced to carry his cello on his shoulders, to support its heavy toll on him, and that every step he took, it took more. 

It seemed like she was going to say more, as her lips parted. But as quickly as they did, they closed softly again, and that enigmatic smile returned. 

Fuck her. 

When Aegon had been in his early twenties, he’d moaned and groaned on the sofa, his phone slobbed to one side, complaining that the girl he was currently texting was verbally edging him. Aemond had merely grimaced, finding his brother's frustration more amusing than relatable.

But now he felt that aggravation of it. The fact that she knew he was hanging on every word, and still chose not to say anything, to leave thoughts dangling in the charged air between them.

She gave him a final nod, a silent acknowledgment of the unspoken words and tensions that lingered, then turned and walked away. It was only when she was halfway down the hallway that the perfect response sprang to his mind, but by then it was too late. All he could do was watch her retreating form disappear into the dim, wooden corridor. 

In that moment, Aemond felt like a modern-day Eurydice, fading into the shadows, but with a twist, this time, Eurydice longed for Orpheus to look back. Aemond knew that if she turned, if she offered him one last look, it would mean stepping back into a narrative filled with complexities and perhaps inevitable loss. Yet, he craved that backward glance, a sign that their fleeting connection meant as much to her as it did to him, even if it meant returning to the shadows.

Aemond tried to refocus on his practice as he returned to the solitude of the music room. He played mechanically, his usual precision present but the soul of the music notably absent. The strings didn't sing; they just spoke in monotonous tones. With more than half of his allotted practice time remaining, he packed up his cello, and resisted the urge to hurl it across the room.

Driven by a need for something more tangible, more human than the cold wood and strings of his cello, Aemond left the practice room abruptly.

No more than 15 minutes later, he stood at the smirking figure of Alys Rivers, leaning against her door frame, arms crossed and wearing delicate lacy sleepwear, as if she could supernaturally anticipate that he would come to her.

Her eyes gleamed with a mix of amusement and satisfaction, seeing him slightly dishevelled, a rare break in his usually composed demeanour.

“I don't want to fucking hear it.” 

Alys, unfazed by his sharpness, raised an eyebrow and smiled wryly, stepping aside to let him in. Her reaction was more teasing than concerned, her amusement clear in her casual posture. 

"Where?" Aemond's voice was blunt, his usual grace undercut by a barely contained frustration.

"The bed," Alys responded with a flick of her head toward the bedroom, her smirk deepening as she watched him stride ahead.

As he passed her, she couldn't resist adding, "Need some instructions, or do you remember the way?"

Aemond didn't respond, his back to her as he moved into the bedroom. Alys followed at a leisurely pace, her demeanour confident, almost cocky. She leaned against the doorframe, watching as he shed his jacket with quick, jerky movements.

Alys pushed off from the doorframe and walked over to him, her steps deliberate. "Something's happened-," she said, reaching out to smooth the crease between his brows with her thumb, her touch light but insistent.

He caught her wrist, his grip firm. "I said I don't want to fucking hear it," he retorted, his voice low and strained.

Alys met his gaze, her expression partly unreadable. "Okay," she conceded, pulling her hand back gently. She gestured towards the bed. "Show me what you need.”

As Alys led him toward the bed, Aemond followed mechanically. His movements were automatic, driven by habit more than desire. Pulling her hips towards him and slinging her legs over his shoulders was like second nature at this point. Alys was warm beneath him, her body responding in all the familiar ways, her breaths, her touches, her sighs all scripted from past encounters. Yet, as Aemond moved with her, his mind was elsewhere, disengaged from the act. 

The room was silent except for the soft rustle of sheets and the muted sounds of their closeness, but inside Aemond, a storm was brewing. The physical motions were all correct, but the emotional undercurrents were misaligned, leaving him feeling even more isolated as they moved together. Alys seemed not to notice, or if she did, she chose not to address it, caught up perhaps in her own interpretation of their actions.

Afterward, as Alys settled beside him, her breathing even and content, Aemond lay awake, staring at the ceiling. She was close, yet he felt miles away, trapped in a cycle that provided physical release but no real solace.

Sensing his detachment, Alys’ voice broke through the silence, “you okay?”

Aemond didn't answer. Instead, he gently disentangled himself from her and slid off the bed. His movements were smooth but distant, as if he was pulling away from more than just the physical proximity, leaving the bedroom without so much of a backward glance at Alys, barely wounded from his dismissal, naked in bed. Alys watched him go, her expression resigned. She remained silent, making no move to follow him or press him further.

In the living room, Aemond walked straight to the mini-bar and poured himself a drink, his hands mechanically tilting the bottle, the familiar clink of ice soothing his frayed nerves. He took a deep sip, letting the liquid burn down his throat, hoping it would wash away the disquiet clinging to him.

As he turned, his gaze fell on the grand piano sitting under the low light in the corner of the room. It was an elegant piece, one that Alys had long forgotten, now sitting idly and out of tune. The dust gathered in its crevices spoke volumes of its neglect, a stark contrast to the careful maintenance of instruments at his own school.

The piano, much like himself tonight, felt abandoned, left to stand as a mere piece of furniture rather than the vibrant instrument it was intended to be. Compelled by a sudden urge, he approached it, his fingers running along the cool, smooth surface of its keys, each one silent and stiff from disuse. Aemond pressed a key tentatively, listening to the dull thud that echoed back, as if to taunt him. 

For a brief moment, he considered the task of tuning it, of bringing it back to life. It seemed a fitting metaphor for what he needed himself, a realignment, a correction of the discord that had crept into his own life and art.

As Aemond's fingers wandered across the piano keys, his thoughts meandered back to the pianist from the opposing school. She had described music as a living entity, one that breathed and moved, pulsating with the emotions of its player. This concept lingered in his mind as he contemplated the neglected piano before him. He wondered how she would react to such a forlorn instrument. Would she feel compelled to restore it, to draw breath back into its worn frame and let it sing once more? 

Just as he secretly hoped she might rekindle something within him, a spark long subdued under the weight of discipline and expectation.

General Taglist: @aemondsfavouritebastard @bellstwd @blackswxnn @blairfox04 @buckybarnesb-tch

@castellomargot @emmaisafictionwhore @hb8301 @jamespotterismydaddy @justbelljust

@minholy223 @mochi-rose @natty2017 @nenelysian @primonizzutto

@qyburnsghost @randomdragonfires @risefallrise @thelittleswanao3 @theoneeyedprince

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof)—iconic actress with purple eyes and a double row of eyelashes, the real ebony dementia ravenway of old hollywood. known for her stunning tastes when it comes to jewelry and her incredible, incredible advocacy during the AIDS crisis.

Setsuko Hara (Tokyo Story, Late Spring, The Idiot)— "'The only time I saw Susan Sontag cry,' a writer once told me, his voice hushed, 'was at a screening of a Setsuko film.' What Setsuko had wasn’t glamour—she was just too sensible for that—it was glow, one that ebbed away and left you concerned, involved. You got the sense that this glow, like that of dawn, couldn’t be bought. But her smiles were human and held minute-long acts, ones with important intermissions. When she looked away, she absented herself; you felt that she’d dimmed a fire and clapped a lid on something about to spill. Over the last decade, whenever anyone brought up her lips—'Setsuko’s eternal smile,' critics said, that day we learned that she’d died—I thought instead of the thing she made us feel when she let it fall." - Moeko Fujii

This is round 5 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Elizabeth Taylor:

I've been trying to steer clear of the absurdly-big names, but damnit, those violet eyes got me. The *talent*, the *presence*, the string of marriages and (temporally out-of-bounds) work in combating AIDS and pioneering in the concept of the celebrity fragrance line.

Not only did she have gorgeous violet eyes and lashes for days and one of the hottest voices ever, she was also a big supporter of the gay community

Child actress turned starlet, Liz dominated films as one of the greatest screen legends of classic hollywood. If your protagonist has violet eyes, they're imitating hers.

A Legend. She was serving milf rage in Whos Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. A Star in every sense of the word.

She was renowned for the beauty of her eyes; they were a dark blue but could look violet in certain lighting, something that photographers would actually touch up to look even more so in pictures. But even more striking was a genetic mutation that gave her a double row of eyelashes. She was also famed for her string of husbands -- 8 marriages to 7 men. Two-time hubby Richard Burton once said she was “a wildly exciting love-mistress… beautiful beyond the dreams of pornography.”

Her EYES. Early and loud support for gay rights and AIDS victims. Married a bunch of hot dudes, Burton twice!

just look at her. she's gorgeous. there's a video somewhere of her applying her eyeliner in the mirror and I think about it all the time

THE Hollywood actress of all time. Not only was she known for her long dark locks and blue-violet eyes, she also had one of the wildest life stories ever….. She’s Carrie Fisher’s stepmother because her father Eddie Fisher cheated on Debbie Reynolds with Liz. She was knighted as a dame of England. She was married to seven different men, one of them twice. She was also very kindhearted and did a lot of charity activism.

Asides from being an iconic actor, she did a lot of philanthropy and co founded the American Foundation for AIDS research. She’s sometimes considered one of the last great stars of old hollywood

Setsuko Hara:

One of the best Japanese actresses of all time; a symbol of the golden era of Japanese cinema of the 1950s After seeing a Setsuko Hara film, the novelist Shūsaku Endō wrote: "We would sigh or let out a great breath from the depths of our hearts, for what we felt was precisely this: Can it be possible that there is such a woman in this world?"

One of the greatest Japanese actresses of all time!! Best known for acting in many of Yasujiro Ozu's films of the 40s and 50s. Also she has a stunning smile and beautiful charm!

Linked gifset

Linked gifset 2

She's considered by some to be the greatest Japanese actress of all time! In Kurosawa's The Idiot she haunts the screen, and TOTALLY steals the show from Mifune every time she appears.

She's considered by some to be the greatest Japanese actress of all time! In Kurosawa's The Idiot she haunts the screen, and TOTALLY steals the show from Mifune every time she appears.

"No other actor has ever mastered the art of the smile to the same extent as Setsuko Hara (1920–2015), a celebrated star and highly regarded idol who was one of the outstanding actors of 40s and 50s Japanese cinema. Her radiant smile floods whole scenes and at times cautiously undermines the expectations made of her in coy, ironic fashion. Yet her smile's impressive range also encompasses its darker shades: Hara's delicate, dignified, melancholy smile with which she responds to disappointments, papers over the emotions churning under the surface, and flanks life's sobering realizations. Her smiles don't just function as a condensed version of her ever-precise, expressive, yet understated acting ability, they also allow the very essence of the films they appear in to shine through for a brief moment, often studies of the everyday, post-war dramas which revolve around the break-up of family structures or the failure of marriages. Her performances tread a fine line between social expectation and personal desire in post-war Japan, as Hara attempts to lay claim to the autonomy of the female characters she plays – frequently with a smile." [link]

Leading lady of classic Japanese cinema with a million dollar smile

Maybe the most iconic Japanese actress ever? She rose to fame making films with Yasujiro Ozu, becoming one of the most well-known and beloved actresses in Japan, working from the 30s through the 60s in over 100 hundred. She is still considered one of the greatest Japanese actresses ever, and in my opinion, just one of the greatest actresses of all time. And she was HOT! Satoshi Kon's film Millennium Actress was largely based on her life and her career.

[lowtaperfeyd]

Jessica and atreides!reader angst? (Mother and daughter angst then yn slowly turns into evil which jessica slowly realise the pattern was repeating)

Metamorphosis

Lady Jessica x Daughter!reader

(Not beta read, we die like Feyd-Rautha)

author's note: If you guys can't tell I really like writing angst. This is also the longest thing I've written so far :). Also trying a new formatting type.

warnings: mentions of death, mommy issues, mentions of blood, mentions of Paul after drinking the water of life

wc: 1145

Lady Jessica did her job halfway right. To ensure she completed her Bene Gesserit mission, gave birth to twins. A boy named Paul and a girl named (Y/N). While the loophole was clever, the Bene Gesserit could not use the daughter she had given birth to. They said she had tainted her womb while bearing a son. 

Her father, the Duke Leto Atreides, was the only one who actually taught her important things. When she was little she would sit in a stool pulled up near her fathers desk and watch him go through paperwork and meeting notes. While he trained his son to become duke, he trained his daughter what to do in case something happened to Paul. He didn’t brush her off. 

Lady Jessica focused most of her time on Paul. His training, his skills, and his talent. While (Y/N) was taught how to use the Bene Gesserit ways by other members and not her mother. While those tutors did their job well, and she was learning quite a lot, (Y/N) found that her brother, a male, was progressing much faster than her. She was proud of her brother. It wasn’t her brother’s fault, it was her mother’s. 

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

A younger (Y/N) and Paul sat on the damp grass on Caladan on a breezy afternoon. They watched the sun lower into the sky and begin to graze where the horizon met the sea. (Y/N) took small daisies from the ground and started to make a flower crown out of them. 

“You know Paul, if you continue to improve at this rate I wouldn’t be surprised if you were better than our mother.” (Y/N) praised as she continued to pick and tie other flowers together. 

“No, no, no,” her brother replied modestly, “what she is teaching me is all of what she knows. Sooner or later I’ll plateau.” 

“You never know,” (Y/N) chuckled, cheekily, “Maybe one day she’ll go to you for advice.”

When (Y/N) finished the thin crown, she placed it onto Paul's head.

“There,” she said, “I now dubbed thy, Duke Paul Atreides of Caladan. Who will be an excellent and fair ruler.”

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

The only thing that (Y/N) had against Paul, was that her ability to use the voice was much better than his. Paul sounded like a dying horse and (Y/N) could command hundreds of people with her voice. (Y/N) found incredible joy from this. But this fact scared Lady Jessica. 

Lady Jessica was afraid of the power her daughter held. She knew of her hatred against her brother who took most of the time spent learning. Of course this all wouldn’t matter when the Duke died and they lived in the desert with the Fremen. Until Paul had a war forged in his name and (Y/N) had nothing but her brain. 

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

(Y/N) was standing in front of the giant pool of water, watching her reflection rippled and ebbed. As she stood there, she imagined a war that was fought in her name instead of Paul’s. Tons of water, from people who died while waiting for the ‘Lisan Al-Giab’ If this was my war, no one would die. She thought. After a couple of minutes a Fremen woman came by and poured the water of another warrior. If my mother and her witches hadn’t meddled, we wouldn’t have this mess. She stood there for hours, hours past when the sun went down, pondering her existence and her brother’s willingness to say he was the messiah. 

“Are you going to keep looking at your reflection or are you coming to bed?” She heard her mother say. 

“Does it matter if I stay up late? I’ve nothing to do on Arrakis.” (Y/N) responded, sounding completely uninterested in talking to her mother. 

“It does matter, you need sleep in order to thrive.” Lady Jessica declared. 

“Don’t try acting like you care now,” her daughter bit back, coldly, “don’t try acting like a caring mother. Go spread more rumors about Paul.” she sighed out. 

“They aren’t rumors, (Y/N),” She retorted, “It’s what he’s going to do. You and everyone else here realizes who he is and his potential. You need to help Paul.” 

(Y/N) bundled her hands into fists at her sides. Her knuckles popped at how hard she was squeezing them. Your son has changed far beyond what was expected. she thought, you barely recognize him anymore. 

“Would me dying for your cause be sufficient?” (Y/N) uttered under her breath as she continued to look at her reflection, “Should I stand out there and be a martyr? The loving sister of the Kwisatz Haderach…” 

Lady Jessica breathed in sharply and said nothing in return. She took her hands and put them over her stomach where her other child was. 

(Y/N) turned around to look at her mother, “You agree don’t you?’ she assumed.

Still, the Lady said nothing and just looked at her daughter. She met her daughter's eyes. The blue within blue encased her small pupils and her skin looking paler and deeper set than when they had left Arrakis. 

“Why aren’t you speaking?” Her daughter whispered, “Tell me what you think!”

“I think you as a martyr would do as much damage as if you were alive,” She voiced, “your death would be mourned. But, it would not change anything.” 

The sudden use of the voice surprised and startled Lady Jessica, “You imbecile, you using the Voice on your own mother.” 

“You didn’t seem to mind when Paul used it on your old reverend mother,” (Y/N) stated, “Paul and I did the same thing, use the Voice on a reverend mother.”

“You used it on your mother. Paul seized the moment so he could speak.”

“You were never a mother.” (Y/N) asserted, “you were a housemate, an incubator 

at best.” 

This stunned the reverend mother. She had never heard her daughter speak so unrighteously and sternly. It was almost like she had never really known her. The (Y/N) she knew, the sweet girl who collected wildflowers that had grown on the cliff sides, had died when they landed on Arrakis and was replaced by someone cold and quiet. 

“I’ll help my brother.” (Y/N) expressed as she moved closer to her mother, “I’ll do as he says. No matter how much you go against it. It doesn’t matter if he asks me to burn temples or castles, or even destroy planets. As long as I don’t have to follow you.” 

As she concluded her announcement, she turned to hastily walk out of the dark, humid cavern. 

Leaving Lady Jessica on her own; to see what had become of her daughter who would burn down the world if given the chance and her son who slipped unnecessary blood in the name of war. 

[zwolfgames]

|Mistakes|Platonic Yandere Alastor x fem!reader

Requested: /

Warnings: Alastor, condescending behavior, off putting interactions.

Parts: Part 1, Part 2 (You are here), Part 3

The two of you sat peacefully on the kitchen floor for quite a while. Alastor asked you about songs and he showed you his favourite's in return.

It was quite a sweet moment, considering the situation. Listening music during an extermination. Who would have tought?

Alastor hums along to a song he put on. You have to admit, he has a soothing voice. Indeed perfect for a radio host.

A violent scream of pain from outside shook you out of the calmness.

You had almost forgotten about the death outside...

Alastor eyes you curiously.

You may not know it, but he finds you calming to look at. No sharp edges... that big jellyfish cap. You look.. lets say, squishable.

Tough he knows better then to touch now.

"You aren't scared, are you?" Alastor hums in a sing song manner. Teasing smile on his lips as usual.

"There's no need to be scared when I'm here to protect you." He further widens his grin. You just nod meekly, opting to agree with anything he may say to spare your life.

"Y/N, dear. Don't you think you'd look better with a smile?" Alastor tilts his head so he can look right at you, trough the veil of stinging tendrils.

"No... not really? I don't have a lot to smile about." You blink up at him blankly. You see him tilt his head to the side in either curioustity or annoyance.

"How about you smile for me?" Alastor seems to smile even wider at his own ideas.

You attempt a little smile as to not get murdered on the spot.

Alastor seems content and had to stop himself from tilting your chin up to see better. Tough the only thing really stopping him were your tendrils.

"Y/N, is there perhaps a way for you to not sting?" Alastor asks.. way too obviously.

"No." You answer without hesitation. And even if there was, you wouldn't ever turn them off. Hell is dangerous and this guy is especially dangerous.

"I see. A shame, you look soft to touch." He admits casually. You almost cringe and resist the urge to back off. Why does he pull out the creepy shit after you two had a nice music moment?

A moment of silence passes, its awkard to you but the radio demon seems nothing but pleased.

"Say, my dear. What else do you presume we do while waiting out the extermination?" Alastor asks as if this is some playdate.

And truly, to him it was.

"Um... I have papers somewhere, we can.. draw?" You offer awkardly, you only have a destroyed kitchen to work with here. But you don't think he'd have appreciated playing minecraft anyways.

"Drawing, are you capable of that?" Alastor asks in amusment. You almost feel insulted at the way he asked that.

You just nod and take some papers from a cabinet. Finding pencils was a bit harder but you managed.

And Alastor defenitly noticed that you gave him the better pencil.... How sweet and considerate of you.

He doesn't know a lot of sinners who would do that...

Second mistake: A show of Kindness.

Well, atleast drawing time went on peacefully. Alastor was humming a tune with that radio effect enhancing his voice, it was quite calming and your stress ebbed away from you slowly as you just focussed on your drawing.

You aren't sure how much time passed before Alastor stopped humming but he snapped you out of your creative trance.

"What do you think ,dear?" Alastor smiles a bit more genuinly.

He holds up his pencil drawing of... you. Just You. With your little smile.

You blush faintly in a rather shy manner and try not to look away from his drawing.

You didn't know he had a talent in drawing. You also didn't know you were drawing eachother. Yours was just todays made up OC.

"Thats.. very pretty... I'm flattered." You mutter out in embarrasment. Alastors grin widens.

"I just wanted to capture you, as I carry no camera's on me." Alastor boasts as if that's the coolest thing ever.

"Thats neat." You stick a thumb up, it therefore comes out under your stinging veil.

You notice your mistake quite quickly as your hand is taken in the Radio demons.

"I knew it, soft. You're quite untouched, aren't you? Well, that would be obvious, seeing your ability." Alastor smirks. It's as if his main goal this whole time had been to grab a hold of you.

He's quite cold, pointy fingers. Kinda eery.

"Oh look at your little startled face. You're adorable." Alastor teases with slightly lidded eyes.

You attempt to pull back out of embarrasment but he holds on.

"Are you scared?" 

Alastor asked in a more serious voice.

"Not really, you're just cold." You answer simply, hoping thats a decent enough answer.

"Is that so?" Alastor hums, a twitch in his smile as he lets go.

He stands up and summons his cane.

You refrain a flinch as you fear the worst but he instead just summons a couch and a bunch of books.

"Come, sit. We still have some hours to pass."

_____☆_____

Cool

Tag list: @ceramic-raven , @oo0lady-mad0oo

[wolken-himmel]

In which Sebek discovers (Y/n)'s passion for writing poems and decides to be supportive — perhaps aggressively so.

He just wants to see that smile again.

Request by anon.

"Human, have you already finished exercise four? Do you still require my help?"

"Yeah, that would be nice. I've been stuck here for quite a while now."

Sebek and you had chosen to occupy a table at the far end corner of the hall. Studying together had always been something that both of you looked forward to eagerly, although none of you dared to voice your excitement. Instead, you continued to sit there in silence, each busy with your own identical sheet of exercises.

The sheepish smile you shot him drew an exasperated gasp from him. Without wasting any time, he scooted his chair over to you. "You could have told me, idiot," he grumbled under his breath, although a playful look flashed across his face. "But fret not, for I am willing to help."

You couldn't help but chuckle at the boisterous and proud look on his face — the sight brought you amusement somehow. So, with your gaze trained at your sheet, you uncapped your pen again. "Thanks, Sebek. Thanks," you murmured with a silly smile on your lips.

"If angel berries and aspen leaves react with one another, what does the reaction produce without a bother?"

A gasp escaped your lips, and you couldn't help but suppress the giddy feeling in the depths of your stomach. "That rhymed!" Your eyes shimmered brightly as they bore into his.

He didn't reciprocate your enthusiasm, however, due to the confusion that inhabited his eyes. His eyes eyed you up and down carefully. "What...? No, the reaction between angel berries and aspen leaves doesn't rhyme, stupid. They produce a viscous and purple fluid," he muttered and slapped his forehead in frustration.

"That rhymed again!" you cried out with even more excitement lacing your voice.

Finally, Sebek threw his hands into the air and let out an annoyed growl. "I still don't get what you mean!" he yelled before gritting his teeth.

The volume of his voice immediately caused an annoyed head to peek out from behind the tall shelves. "Please keep your voices low..." the student muttered and rolled his eyes. "We are in a library after all."

"Oh right, I apologise!" With his pale cheeks tinted a slight pink, Sebek lowered himself into his chair beside yours again.

You, however, seemed to have forgotten your alchemy homework altogether. Your mind whirred with such excitement that you dared to grab his hands and squeeze them tightly. "Sebek, you never told me that you had such a talent for poetry. It's like you were born to write poems," you exclaimed enthusiastically. "You rhyme without a second thought. You're amazing!"

"You..." Sebek stuttered out, "...think I'm amazing?"

A series of chuckles escaped your lips once you noticed the bashful yet proud expression on his face. You would have never dared to say it out loud, but he was awfully adorable like this. "Yes, I do. And you should think so, too," you joked and shot him a wink.

He finally snapped out of his stupor, and his face returned to the usual stoic and constantly annoyed scowl. "Oh, stop it... Flattery will get you nowhere. Nice words, about those I don't care." His shaking voice betrayed his strict words, and you couldn't help but begin laughing. Although he sheepishly waved you off, he couldn't hide the blush on his face. "So you like poems, human?"

His question prompted you to nod eagerly. "I adore poems!" you began, your eyes vivid and bright — so full with life like he had never seen before. Your shyness was gone. "Poetry is such a beautiful way to express your feelings... Every poem can be meaningful in one way or another and that is what makes poetry great without being repetitive—"

Sebek listened and watched you with great interest, observing all the small details of your face and voice. His surprise of your sudden outburst — you used to be rather reserved, after all — ebbed away after a while. He found himself comforted by your voice, so soft and excited at the same time. And at first, he thought he would grow blind due to the brightness of your smile as you talked. He never averted his gaze though, even when you eventually stopped.

A sheepish chuckle escaped your lips. "Oh, but I'm rambling again... I'm so sorry..."

After he had snapped out of his trance, he shot up and waved his arms around in protest. His voice was loud and echoed through library. For a moment, you feared the student from earlier would return to complain. But, you somehow didn't have the heart to stop Sebek when he was this worked up. "No, (Y/n), continue speaking! I can clearly see that you're passionate... it reminds me of myself, in a way. Also," he muttered quietly, "it's endearing when you just talk away."

"People are usually bored whenever I start talking about poems... They think it's a strange interest to have." You rubbed your neck sheepishly. "I'm surprised you'd like to know more."

His lips curled upwards into a proud grin. "I'm full of surprises, human."

°

°

°

Later that day, Sebek found himself bursting with the need to tell someone about the incident at the library. The usual tension in his muscles replaced by a fleeting swiftness, the first-year pranced around the hallways of Diasomnia in search for a certain fae that he always consulted when he needed advice. And lucky him, he found exactly the person he was looking for busy in the kitchen.

"Lilia! Lilia!"

The fae in question began grinning once he saw the happiness that the first-year exuded. "Yes, Sebek? What's gotten into you?" Lilia teased while holding back chuckles. "You're... smiling. That's a nice sight."

"(Y/n) said I was amazing," Sebek announced between wistful sighs.

The third-year's lips curled up into an amused grin. "You have hearts in your eyes~" His loud laughter soon ceased to be, and he wiped the last tear of amusement from his eye. "But," Lilia continued in satisfaction, "I'm very glad to see you get along so well with another first-year. I worried about your... erm..."

Silver chimed in, "...obsession with Malleus."

A pout appeared on Sebek's face, and he crossed his arms with a sigh. "You two are always teasing me..." he grumbled under his breath. Yet, when he turned on his heel and prepared himself to leave the kitchen, his grumpiness turned into excitement again. "Anyway, I shall be off! I've got all sorts of poems to read— and to write. After all, I need to support (Y/n) with all my might!"

"That's cute..." The smile on Lilia's face couldn't be wiped off, so it seemed. He watched in satisfaction as the half-fae pranced out of the kitchen with feathery steps.

"I'm happy Sebek finally found a friend," Silver said between yawns.

"Perhaps," Lilia drawled mischievously, "more than a friend, even."

[my-midlife-crisis]

Things I would change about Netflix’s Wednesday

1. The monster/students - I’d rather see spoiled rich brats than descendants of monsters. It would add to the fish out of water storyline.

2. Wednesday’s powers - Instead of visions I’d rather her being very intelligent and observant... like a certain famous detective.

3. Visual gags and puns - I’d love to see Wednesday playing the cello so hard it begins to smoke. Uncle Fester seemed to be the only one using puns to describe himself. The whole family should have been that way.

4. Gomez should always be a murder suspect. Wednesday should know and understand her father is a murder suspect. Hell, the whole family should be murder suspects.

5. Gomez would never have a hard time beating someone in a fight. Gomez is a jack of all trades. He’s good at everything. Gomez should never bleed.

6. Wednesday takes after her father. She would never be beaten in a fencing contest. Losing the fencing match would have given the Bianca character more reason to hate Wednesday other than jealousy.

7. Wednesday should have been part of a talent contest. She’d dance ballet with two swords flashing around. High speed.

8. The school should be a on a hill famous for Witch burnings and hangings. The school should have ghosts.

9. There should be no hate between Wednesday and Morticia.

10. Gomez should always start his kisses at Morticia’s hand before traveling up her arm and he should always have a full sized cigar in his hand. The cigar should be lit right when he pulls it from his pocket. No matches or lighter.

11. John Astin (the first Gomez) and Lisa Loring (the first Wednesday) should have at least one cameo each. If Astin cannot make it... a great large painting of the man should eb a part of the school.

12. Pugsley should be a little older than Wednesday. He should also be hard to bully. When Wednesday opens the locker the local bully should run out of the locker crying instead of a tied up Pugsley.

13.Pugsley could play pranks while the family visits Wednesday at school. Wednesday could open a door and find Pugsley hanging, pretending he committed suicide. Maybe Pugsley will be seen in the school pool pretending to have drowned. Wednesday doesn’t seem to care or take notice.

14. Morticia should be very honest but very caring. 

15. Wednesday and Pugsley should be partners in crime.

16. Charles Addams, the creator of the Addams Family should have a painting somewhere in the school.

I did enjoy the show but if only they could have made it an Addams Family Mystery and less The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina or Harry Potter... I’d have been way happier.

[jaypea00101010]

A single design problem I have for each D&D 5e class

Made this a thread over on bluesky and figured might as well bring it over here. Not really big problems in most cases, but just, small things that I feel WotC should tweak in all current 5e classes.

Artificer: No clear weakness.

A single class that can make great a great support character, DPS character, tank, single target attacker, stealth character, etc

Obviously needs to be built spesifically for each of these, but every other class has at least one thing they can't do.

Barbarian: No force resistance

Slightly cheating because it's not inherently a problem with Barbarian, but recently more monsters have been using Force damage instead of B/P/S, and barbarians should absolutely gain resistance to it while raging at higher levels.

Bard: Full-casting

Bards are designed to be a jack of all trades, it's right there at 2nd level, but they seem to have missed the 'master of none' bit.

Full spellcasting up to 9th level, a pretty solid spell list, and spells they don't have they can take with Magical Secrets anyway, even 9th level ones.

Cleric: Turn Undead

A holdover from older editions, turn undead in my opinion just doesn't make for a good universal option on clerics.

I'd much prefer something like spirit guardians or spiritual weapon be reworked into their universal channel divinity.

Druid: Universal Wildshape

Probably controversial, but I have similar problems with wildshape that I do turn undead, it's good, but a weird universal option.

If I'm a druid getting my powers from stones, plants, or the stars, why can I also turn into a ferret? There should be a few options to pick from instead.

Fighter: Action Surge at Level 2

Action surge is such a good feature, usually it's just some extra attacks, but the fact you have the chioce is great....

That said, I think it coming online so early incentivises unintentionally incentivises multiclassing, casters dipping for 2 spells a turn mostly. They've somewhat fixed it by limiting what actions you can use it for in OneD&D, but I personally just feel it should be later level rather than limiting it.

Monk: Ki Dependancy

This doesnt' need explaining, everything for monks costs ki and it really doesn't need to, they should get resource free disengage and dash, or have ki recover faster.

I had an idea for a ki recharge of 1 min, but less points overall, so you have all points for every fight

Paladin: Oaths at 3rd level

You get your power as a paladin from a sacred oath you swear, so why do you only choose that oath at 3rd level?

That's like a warlock only deciding their patron at 3rd, or a cleric only deciding their god at 3rd (Yes 1D&D does this and I hate it).

Ranger: Spells Known

Why do rangers, the class that's meant to be about being the best prepared for the wilderness and natural areas not have prepared spells?

It just seems so obvious to me, and I've got no idea why it's not done like that already?!

Rogue: Is Pretty Good

If anything I'd say that I'm not a fan of skill floors like reliable talent, and expertise not letting you use it on other tools is a bit strange, maybe the large subclass level gap?

Yeah overall I'm a fan of rogues though, they're just solidly made.

Sorcerer: Spells Known

They tried to fix this in Tasha's with subclass spell lists, and I think that's good idea generally, but letting them swap them for (admittedly limited) options from 3 different spell lists is also weird

Just give them subclass spells they can't swap, or maybe can swap fron one list and you're good.

Warlock: EB is a Cantrip

Eldritch Blast is a good spell. Too good to be honest with multiclassing at least, it's one of the reasons PalLock is such a good combo.

EB should scale with Warlock level so be a feature not a cantrip, or cantrip scaling with warlock level like it was in that One D&D UA that they then reverted.

Wizard: Subclass Theming

Tying wizard subclasses to schools was a bad idea, and what we've gotten outside the PHB seems to be an attempt to go back on that.

It also means they don't have room to explore all of each school, I'd love a teleport or summon focused wizard but school of conjuration smashes them together weirdly

[chiharuhashibira]

The Taylor Swift hype is eating me up soooooo here is an Obanai fic with one of her songs 🥹

𝓜𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽

𝑳𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑯𝒂𝒛𝒆

𝐎𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐢 𝐈𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐨 𝐗 𝐃𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐒𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Content Warning: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Curse Words

You never intended to know in a hard way that Obanai Iguro's history is a sensitive topic for him. But still, after all, he told you to meet him at midnight.

You were patrolling the town with him when you suddenly shot the question. And you swear that if his mouth wasn't covered up, you would have seen how his jaw dropped.

"Iguro-san, you already know everything about me, but I haven't heard anything about your past. I'm curious about you."

"Don't."

"But it's—"

"If you really want to be my tsugoku, you would halt yourself from asking those."

"It's just that I wonder why you wouldn't show me your face... I'm sorry if I've offended you, Iguro-san."

"You won't want to see this face."

"I doubt it."

"Meet me at midnight."

After saying that, the Snake Hashira disappeared, leaving you in a daze.

But timeskip later, it seems like curiosity really kills the cat. This meeting is supposed to be him telling you what happened, or showing you his face, not this. He isn't supposed to pin you against the wall with your faces almost touching, right?

You gulped as you watched the Snake Hashira's eyes trail over your vulnerable state like a powerful predator. It seems like all your strength has been ebbed as you start to feel drunk just by his image in front of you.

But before anything else, how did this curiosity started?

You were just a typical girl living in a relatively calm town south of the Yoshiwara District when demons began to infiltrate the area. And there, Obanai came to your rescue, and that moment made you promise yourself that you wouldn't be weak anymore and you will meet him again.

Something about his enigma has kept you interested in him all these years.

And you became a Demon Slayer, planning to meet the Snake Hashira once again to show you how much you've changed over time. And yes, you succeeded in this plan. Even if you hadn't become his tsugoku yet, you still caught his eye—for the second time.

But then, you didn't become close. He's just fascinated by you to the point where he'll ask you to spar with him. Or come with him on his missions. And yes, you did.

Your mere curiosity grew to be an unrequited attraction. Even if it is complicated, it seems like you were caught in a lavender haze without him wanting you back.

But then sadly, the mere presence of Mitsuri, the Love Hashira, appears to be enough to put an end to his fascination with you. How can you fight with her charisma? Mitsuri is pretty and talented. You're just some Demon Slayer like the others who try their best to climb the ranks.

So then, you tried to just focus on yourself and do your job until this mission came, and the Snake Hashira apparently requested that you go with him. Of course, the "desperate-for-his-attention" you would immediately say yes on this request.

"Why would you want to bring up my history, Y/N? If you're thinking of getting something off my chest, this isn't the right way to do so."

"I'm sorry... I didn't mean to pry Iguro-san."

He took a step back, his eyes still staring at you intensely. Kaburamaru's eyes were also fixated on you as it slithered around Obanai's neck.

"Curiosity kills the cat, Y/N."

You gulped and looked down, feeling guilty for prying into his past. Perhaps you have overstepped boundaries with your actions, and now you feel bad.

"I won't blame you if you won't take me as your tsugoku anymore, Iguro-san."

"Who told you that I wouldn't? Your curiosity and your mouth's lack of filter amaze me. Even that look on your face now fascinates me."

You were astounded by what he said but also relieved. The tension on your shoulders lessened, and you managed to stand straight in front of the Snake Hashira. The intensity of his stare is still present, but it isn't to scrutinise you. A reflection of your wonder replaced it.

You blushed, and to hide it, you tried to walk away from him, but then Obanai caught your hand. His hands were as cold as ice, but why? Emotions aren't present in his face, but his body says so much. Is he... as nervous as you?

"Iguro-san."

"You won't tell a soul about what happens tonight. Right?"

You didn't understand why he told you that, but then you just nodded. "Close your eyes then, Y/N."

A part of you didn't want to close your eyes, but you still did.

One...

Two...

Three...

Seconds passed like hours, but it was all halted when you felt warmth against your lips and body. Shivers ran up your spine as the sound of the wind and even Kaburamaru's slithering halted your senses. Your world stopped completely.

With that, you opened your eyes and were met with Obanai's closed eyes. Tingles crept up your body like fireworks slowly erupting inside you.

The Snake Hashira is kissing you. But why?

And why won't you push him away?

After a few more moments, he finally pulled out and what you saw shocked you.

Your eyes suddenly landed on a slit so big that it crossed across the lower part of his face, by his mouth. What happened?

You weren't able to stop your hands from touching his old scar, which made Obanai's facade collapse. He suddenly looked so vulnerable under your touch that it definitely melted your heart.

"Iguro-san, what happened?"

Suddenly, he caught your hand once again and looked into your eyes, walls collapsing in the windows to his soul. "You won't tell anyone about this."

"I won't. I swear."

"Good."

With that, the man suddenly put back the bandages that hid his flaws from the world. And yes, that action left you dumbfounded. What just happened?

Iguro was about to leave you when you suddenly blocked his way. "Why are you leaving after kissing me?"

"Don't ask anymore."

"But Iguro-san—"

"Shut the fuck up and stop pestering me. Don't bring up my history anymore."

Such anger filled his eyes, which made you almost faint. You didn't expect him to react that way after doing such a thing.

Fucking mixed signals. Fucking confusion that he suddenly brought in you.

You felt yourself suddenly shaking. And so, to hide the tears in your eyes, you looked down and just let him leave. And he did.

Obanai left you in the midst of nowhere, not caring about your sobs after he just shut you out like that.

Seconds later, you heard different kinds of slithering behind you, and when you turned to look, bright yellow eyes met you. Before you could pull out your sword, a sharp pain had already engulfed you.

"Y/N! Get behind me!"

You opened your eyes and were met with the image of Obanai easily slashing the demon right in front of him in two. But despite that agility and strength, the demon managed to regrow his body and slash through the bandage that was wrapped around the half of his face, revealing his scar once again.

You felt your breath hitch, so then you stood up. Before you lost consciousness earlier, the demon apparently scratched your side, and you did your best to ignore the pain now that you needed to fight.

Gathering all your strength, you jumped beside Obanai and had the chance to slash the claws of the slithering demon in front of you before it could hit the Snake Hashira once again. And with that opening, Obanai leaped and finally cut his neck with his nichirin blade.

And as the demon turned to ashes in front of you, you lost your final strength and almost fell to the floor. However, before hitting the ground, Obanai managed to catch you and pull you near him.

It seems like he didn't care anymore if his scars were shown in front of you as you watched his green and yellow eyes trail on you with such concern that you never expected to see from him. He held your cheek and bit his lower lip as he stopped himself from saying anything.

Such gentleness... You wanted it. But you never knew that he could only give you that this time when you felt like dying.

"Don't fucking die on me. Y/N, breathe. I'll carry you to the Wisteria Mansion to get treated, so hold on."

"Iguro-san. Thank you."

"Don't fucking tell me that! You can't die. Okay? Stay with me. I... I want to... I want you here, with me. Okay?"

"Iguro—"

"I'll kiss you again if you won't stop talking."

You wanted to tease him, as you really wanted that kiss. His enigmatic facade was gone and in front of you now is a vulnerable Obanai who doesn't want to lose you. And so... you stayed silent and everything went dark.

"Wake up. Wake up, please."

You heard a faint, familiar voice repeating the same phrases. And finally, that made your eyes open.

It felt like the world had thrown you down a cliff with all the pain in your body, especially on your side and on your head. Everything is throbbing, and your eyesight is so blurry that you can't see for a few more seconds.

What just... oh, I almost died.

The realisation also hit you so hard that it made you want to shoot up and look around to see if you were still really alive or not. But then a movement beside you made you stop moving. Slowly, you turned to look, and there, your eyes met with his green and yellow ones, instantly making you forget every pain that you are feeling right now.

A look of relief was painted on Obanai's eyes as he took your hands between his. Perhaps without the bandages, you would see his smile. You blushed as the Snake Hashira pressed the back of your hand over his covered lips.

"You didn't die. Thank you."

"Iguro-san..."

"I'm an idiot for leaving you there. I'm so sorry. I was caught up in my emotions and forgot that I am a Hashira and I should be the one protecting you. But I endangered you, Y/N. Sorry."

You frowned at his words. It wasn't his fault; it was no one's fault, as it was a demon. You wanted to hug Iguro, but you're just too weak to do so. So, you smiled at him and slowly spoke up.

"I'm glad we're okay. Thank you for saving me."

"I'll always save you, even if it means going through hell."

His words perplexed you so much that they made you ask him once again.

"Why?"

Obanai sighed and caressed your cheek. "Long story."

"I have all night, or day, to listen."

"No one has cared for me this deeply, Y/N. As you continue to gaze at me with such awe, I am dying to know the reason behind your actions. Why are you so curious? And then you wanted to be my tsugoku, even if I denied you tonnes of times. You're always here. I can't get rid of you."

"Iguro-san, you would never see how my world brightened when you came."

"I only cause chaos. My family even wanted to sacrifice me to a snake demon when I was younger. Look at me. This scar came from them slashing... my mouth..."

You can't believe what you are hearing right now. Why would someone want to kill an innocent little Obanai? He didn't do anything wrong. Being a man isn't a curse... He's not a curse or a sacrifice.

"You don't deserve that."

"What do I deserve then? Condemnation?"

You found the strength to sit, and there, you embraced Obanai, not caring if he was a Hashira or what. Surprise blanketed his expression at first, but eventually, you felt his hand snake on your body, careful not to hurt you in the process.

"Obanai. You're so much better than you think. You saved my life a lot of times. You always save other people. You deserve to be loved. I... I want to love you."

Obanai pulled out of the hug, and his perplexed look met yours. You looked at him with such gentleness in your eyes, even making the cicadas stop chirping and Kaburamaru stay silent.

"I love you. Always had." You repeated, making him gulp.

"You can't—"

"Why? Why not?"

"I'm not worth it."

"Shut up."

"I'm flawed—"

"Shut up."

"Scarred—"

"Shut up, or I'll kiss you."

"I'm—"

Cutting off his words, you ripped off his bandage and pressed your longing lips into his. The world stopped, and for a while, you wanted it like that. Your breathing synced with each other, and you swear that you can even hear the same beating from your heartbeats.

Obanai slowly wrapped his hands around you once again, and you did it too. And when he pulled out, all you could feel was the lavender haze. He smiled at you and rested his forehead against yours.

"Y/N... Let me love you too."

"Does it hurt?"

"No..."

"Are you sure I'm not hurting you?"

To shut down his incessant questions, you pulled him into another passionate kiss, letting him focus on his movements in and out of you. Your souls and bodies entwined, and in a blink of an eye, everything turned blissful; everything was beautiful.

"Obanai... ahh..."

The dizzyness crept into your body as pleasure did, and there, the final gush of passion slithered into your body as Obanai's movements slowed down.

"I... that was... great." He said as he collapsed over you, losing the strength that he has after making love. "I love you." The man whispered in your ear, which made you feel the tingles.

Interwining your limbs together, you rested your head on Obanai's chest, listening to the unsteady but fast beating of his heart.

"I love you too, Obanai. Always."

And there, his history is just history. What matters now is you and him. And your life together in the near future.

Or at least before the war with Muzan.

𝑰 𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝑶𝒃𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒊 𝒊𝒔 𝒎𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒊𝒑𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 100~

Yes, me too UwU I fell in love with the man!

But so sorry if I needed to put Muzan at the end 👀 Cause this is supposed to be canon. Right? Right?! 🥹

But I hope you still enjoyed it.

This was supposed to be out last Friday but something came HAHAH so yeah!

Thank you so much for reading! Feel free to reblog, comment, and request!

Love you all!

~𝓒𝓱𝓲𝓱𝓪𝓻𝓾-𝓬𝓱𝓪𝓷🌸

[2aceofspades]

*slides into dms with fanfic*

It is two in the morning as of writing this but I am only capable of writing around this time (just as a warning; mistakes maybe inbound [':<)

Hope you like it!

-----

"AAAAAAAAAAHH!!!"

Screams were a normal occurence in the apocalypse, but never had Mikey heard a cry so raw and gutteral. What was more concerning was the source of that scream, one that shook him to his very core because of how familiar yet foreign the voice was.

Even as a little brother, he was still a brother.

Bounding off the walls with restless energy, Mikey dashed into the infirmary. There were snippets of conversation that he could barely register his panic, but he threw the doors open. The wind knocked silence into the room, his hair and cape fluttering in the air as Mikey called out for his brother.

There, Cassandra and Leo were sitting in front of each other, bearing different levels of stunned silence at Mikey's entrace. It didn't matter though.

Cassandra pulled away, and Leo held onto the bandage... where his arm was.

"Mikey..."

"I- I h-heard screaming."

Mikey approached Leo, seeing his older brother so unsure of himself and in such rough shape only made his heart shatter more. He did his best to piece himself back together. Mikey wasn't the oldest, but he still had to be a brother.

A brother of four... Now in the apocalypse, where they all had bigger things to worry about than themselves. Age roles don't matter now.

"The effects must have worn off by now..." Mikey mentioned matter-of-factly, more to distract himself than Leo. He reached his hand out to rest a hand on his head. "Hold still for a second."

Leo looked away, hiding... He was always hiding. Spitefully, he let himself simmer for not being at the nexus of Leo's cry for help--where his brother was always putting on a face for everyone and reserving such agony for those who were closest to him. Though nowadays, even around his family, Leo seldom ever let the facade drop.

But no point in dwelling now--there were other matters to tend to.

"It might feel a little funny..." Mikey let a smattering of Doctor Feelings come out; just enough to convince Leo to calm down, "Just relax, okay?"

Mystic magic coursed through his veins, ninpo ebbing at his form and warping out of his hands to Leo's form. The latter struggled, winced, hurt. Hell, his powers were beginning to take a toll on his body. Healing that used to come easy to him caused him to struggle, his vision going blurry and focus becoming difficult to maintain.

Even worse were the flood of emotions he felt coursing through his body, the give and take of ninpo with Leo--letting Mikey feel the snippets of regret and injustice his brother felt.

A wince.

"I know..."

A hiss.

"I know..."

A quiet plead.

"I'm almost done."

Leo was moving--his energy began to wane and his concentration began to falter.

"Leo, please..."

His connection to his power felt like gathering water with his bare hands. He couldn't balance Leo completely anymore. Or rather, Leo wasn't trying to sit upright anymore.

"Just..."

Just as the last remnants of mystic magic left him, he felt it. The agony, the pain, the burden. All of it for a split second came rushing through Mikey's body.

"Hold..."

His vision and bearings returned to him, and then he felt a weight on his shoulder. A desperate hand clung to his cape, a familiar dampness slowly staining the fabric.

"O-on..."

He was paralysed; unable to comfort him, but unable to leave. Mikey was just a brother, and his brother needed him.

Bro-

H-hooOow?!??

This is like...scary accurate oh my STARS 😭😭

I am...beyond words like...this is beautiful I feel so honored and undeserving like haawwuhhgh-

Thank you so much seriously I can't thank you enough I am in awe of your talents 🙌✨!!! I love it I love it I love it!!! GAH!

[nobedofroses]

December 9th

pairing: Javier Peña x fem!reader

warnings: fluff, alcohol consumption, smut (unprotected p-in-v sex)

words: 821

a/n: little continuation of the last Javi blurb bc fireplace! photo prompt from @toomanystoriessolittletime's winter writing challenge ❄️

more Javi, Full List

🌨️🌨️🌨️

The first time Javi had lit the fire in the fireplace, first time ever since it was your first year living in the house, you had been ridiculously proud and happy. You’d said it called for a champagne toast, but all you had was wine and you were nearly as happy with that. So happy, you ended up having two glasses in about thirty minutes and started doing what you did when you got tipsy: loving on Javi. 

“You’re so smart and talented, you got the fire going so fast and it’s still going still,” you told him, managing to climb onto his lap from where you had been sitting on the ground next to him without spilling your wine.

“It’s not that hard, sweetheart, I can teach you next time in case you ever want a fire before I get home,” he told you, trying to get the wine glass from you, but you just wrapped your arms around his neck so it was behind him. And so you were very, very close. 

“And you’re so humble and sweet, I’m so lucky you’re my man, all mine and all man,” you dissolved into giggles but before Javi could say anything, you were kissing him. 

You were urgent and your mouth tasted like sweet wine, but Javi knew you were more drunk off of the holiday spirit and getting to fully utilize your new house than you were from the wine. 

It wasn’t long before you had set the wine down of your own volition, Javi had tugged a blanket off of the couch, and he was fucking you on your back with your knees pressed to your chest. 

You had kind of expected fast, hot and heavy, take your breath away sex, but that’s not what you got. This was even more intense, his slow strokes and the way it felt like he just kept going deeper and deeper until he was just a part of you. 

He was kneeling with one hand braced on your breast, leaving the other to relentlessly rub at your clit, with the same slow, smooth pace his cock filled you. It almost didn’t feel like enough until without warning you came. Gasping and moaning his name, pleasure ebbed and flowed through you in never-ending waves until Javi followed and filled you with his hot cum, using his last few thrusts to grind into you. 

A minute later while he was coming down, he used practiced moves to get you on top of him again without pulling out because he knew you’d make a fuss if he did it too soon. 

With the fire, you didn’t even feel the need to grab a blanket, totally relaxed and at peace. Eventually, Javi got up to fetch a washcloth and you dozed while he did, not a care in the world. 

You were nearly fully asleep when Javi came back and he pulled on his pants before sitting back down to help you clean up a little, the washcloth thankfully still warm. 

“You know you’ll have to get up soon, sweetheart,” he told you but you just swiped your hand vaguely towards him. 

“I’m sleepin’,” you told him, settling back again to relax more. 

Except that’s when you heard a strange sound: the deadbolt in the front door unlocking. Eyes widening in panic, Javi stood up, yanked the blanket from under you and threw it over your naked body. 

“Pop!” you heard Javi exclaim from half under the blanket. Then hurried footsteps, Javi hastily guiding him into the kitchen for a beer, and his father questioning why Javier wasn’t wearing a shirt. 

You dressed as quickly as you could while they were out of the room, then made a big show of joining them in the kitchen, making sure to say you had been upstairs folding laundry. 

Whether he believed the two of you, you didn’t know, but he didn’t say anything and that was all that mattered. You were able to muddle through the rest of the interaction, which was actually an invitation to dinner the next night, without any further hiccups and he was on his way before long. 

Once you were back in the living room, sitting on the couch with your wine in hand, you said, “What is he even doing out at this time of night? Shouldn’t he be in bed?” 

“Honey, it’s only just now 8:00pm,” he told you and you gaped. “Guess we were fooled by the sun being down.” 

“Maybe we should just never fuck in the living room again,” you said thoughtfully, because obviously you didn’t want a repeat of the terror that had went through you when that door unlocked. 

“No, I’ll just take the key back,” Javi said quickly and you laughed, knowing that you were in for a long night of negotiations on when and where exactly it was safe for you to fuck.

🌨️🌨️🌨️

[verai-marcel]

Your Hearth Is My Home (BG3 Fanfic, Astarion x Female Reader, Part 24 of 28)

Summary, Notes, Tags, & Part 1 are here.

Act I - Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12

Act II - Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | 

Act III - Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 (18+) | Part 28 (END)

AO3 Link is here, my sweet.

Word Count: 4,380

Act III, Chapter 3 - The Torment

The next morning started off like any other. However, you were surprised when Wyll, Karlach, and Jaheira came back in the late afternoon with a tall, muscular, and bald man with a small rodent on his shoulder. Karlach and Wyll were following the other two with expressions of awe.

I wonder if he’s an associate of Jaheira’s… that would explain why Karlach and Wyll are fawning so hard.

The man saw you and grinned broadly, waving cheerfully at you. Your seal pulsed strongly in return.

Who exactly is this man?

Coming up to the group, you smiled warmly. “Welcome back, everyone. Who’s our new friend?”

“I am Minsc!” Then he held out his hand for the little rodent to hop onto his palm and held him out to you. “And this is Boo, the mighty miniature giant space hamster.”

When the hamster looked at you, your seal pulsed again, sending heat waves through your blood. You looked back up at Minsc, and the power ebbed away.

What. No way. It was the hamster that is the powerful one here?

Boo chittered, and while everyone else was looking at the creature, you noticed that Minsc was listening intently as if he understood every little squeak.

“Oh, yes, of course,” he mumbled. Then he gingerly brought Boo back to his shoulder. “Boo is looking forward to sampling your fine dishes and to hear your singing. Karlach and Wyll have been praising your talents!”

You blinked. “Um, alright, I’ll do my best,” you said, directing your reply to the little hamster. Looking into its eyes, you suspected you saw understanding, and even more, satisfaction.

Welp, that was strange.

You learned from the others that the underground guild in the city and Jaheira had made a deal: she got help finding Minsc, and in exchange, they had chased the Zhentarim out of the city. You breathed a sigh of relief.

So I didn’t need to worry about them after all. Thank the gods. Or rather, thank Jaheira.

Karlach patted your back. “I’m relieved. One crime group is enough for this city, hah!”

You laughed, hiding your nerves. “Yup, good riddance.” And now they’ll never know.

Leading the others to the campfire, you served them some drinks and some snacks and listened to them regaling you with their adventure, which had taken them all across the city, even to the deepest bank vaults. They had even found Mol and a couple other tiefling children in the Guild, running their business, and doing quite well for themselves.

“Oh good, I’d like to go back to the other tiefling children and let them know Mol is safe,” you said.

“I can do it,” Karlach said with a smile. “I’m sure Wyll would want to see them again too.”

Wyll nodded, and you caught his soft look as he watched Karlach.

Oh ho, his love grows.

After their story, you rooted around through the pile of loot for any extra bedrolls or fabric to make a tent for the newcomer. Just as you had managed to find enough rags to weave together, you heard the alarm bells on your belt chime softly.

Turning toward the entrance, the others had arrived looking a bit worn out. As they joined the group at the campfire, Shadowheart relayed what had happened.

“We literally went to hell and back. But now Lae’zel has a way to free Orpheus.”

The githyanki nodded with a slight smirk. Oh, she’s quite pleased.

“And we may have a change of accommodations,” Gale said. “The Elfsong has an upper floor penthouse available if we wish to use it, for a discounted fee.”

“Are there enough beds for everyone?” you asked, sweeping your hand towards everyone, including Shadowheart’s parents, Isobel, and Aylin, who were hanging back, listening in.

“Plenty of beds,” Gale replied.

“And why the discount?” you questioned. Inns don’t give discounts unless…

“There might have been a murder on that floor, and that might be scaring off the guests.”

Everyone looked at Gale.

“Look, just because one person died there doesn’t mean we should stay out in the open for the remainder of our time here.”

After some thought, the group began to mumble agreement.

Wait. Then that means…

“So you won’t be needing me any further,” you quietly said.

All eyes turned to you.

“Well, of course we need you, darling.” Astarion walked up to you and patted your head. “You still have to feed me.” He gestured towards everyone else. “And these fools couldn’t clean worth a damn.”

You glanced at everyone else, who were mostly shrugging sheepishly.

“And who’s going to take care of the giant pile of souvenirs that Karlach and Astarion keep pilfering?” Wyll joked.

“Some of those are from you too!” Karlach shot back, lightly shoving Wyll, who only laughed.

“The point is, you’re part of the team,” Gale said softly. “We need you just as much as anyone else.”

You turned back to Astarion, who nodded and took your hand, holding it gently, his thumb rubbing circles over your knuckles. Leaning closer, he whispered in your ear, “Besides, you promised you would stay with me, didn’t you?”

You nodded.

“Good girl,” he murmured before pulling back. Turning to everyone else, he shot them all a triumphant grin. “So, shall we upgrade our accommodations?”

***

By the time you all had finished packing and moving everyone’s things out of the harbor and to the Elfsong, the sun had just dipped below the horizon. Yet the tavern was already loud and lively, full of music and drinkers. Gale went to the front desk and paid for the new lodgings, holding up a key triumphantly to everyone before leading the group upstairs.

“Probably best if I keep a low profile. They used to know me all too well in here,” Astarion muttered to you as he helped take the packs up the stairs, attempting to blend in with the others. You watched his back as he went up the stairs, walking closely to the floating disc as it hovered behind Gale. Your eyes wandered down the line of Astarion’s body, down his back, his hips, his—

Gods, what am I doing?

You shook your head and re-focused on the back of his head, but he had already caught you staring, as he looked back at you with a knowing smirk.

“Admire all you like, darling.”

You immediately looked away and huffed.

His sly grin stayed on his face throughout the rest of the unpacking.

***

Since you didn’t need to cast warming cantrips any longer, you could spend your time sorting the loot pile and going out to the market to sell whatever you could, and buying fresh groceries. You were actually excited to see what kind of fresh vegetables and herbs you could get, now that you were in a large city.

“You’re sounding happy,” Shadowheart said as she approached, kneeling down next to you while you polished some of the tarnished jewelry with a rag.

You stopped humming and smiled up at her. “Well, I can finally catch up on some inventory management,” you said, pointing at the rather large pile of knick knacks and herbs. “You lot seem to have sticky fingers.”

“It’s how I grew up,” Karlach said as she joined the two of you, sitting cross legged on the other side of you. “Take everything of value and sort it out later for pocket change.”

You nodded. “That’s fair. I just haven’t had much of a chance to go through it all lately, and it seems like everyday you come back with more.”

Gale suddenly came up and tapped Shadowheart’s shoulder. With one look, her eyebrows furrowed and she got up. 

“We’re going to plan our next trip into the Undercity. We’ll probably need to split up if we want to stop the murders and find where Orin is hiding.”

You nodded and watched as everyone gathered around the table in the main sitting room on the upper level. Remaining in the lower area near the fireplace, you continued to sort through everything, catching bits and pieces of their conversation.

“...have to find where the Bhaalspawn…”

“...Orin’s base might be…”

You finished sorting what you could, and pulled together all the random coins you had found. There was a significant amount, so you didn’t feel bad about ordering room service tonight.

“I’m going downstairs to order us a meal to be brought up, are there any requests?”

***

As you came downstairs with a long piece of paper full of meal requests, you ran into a familiar face.

“Lakrissa!” you said with a bright smile.

She called your name excitedly and gave you a hug. “What are you doing here?”

“We got a room upstairs, at a discounted rate.”

“Oh, the murder room. Well, I suppose that wouldn’t bother your group much, would it?”

You laughed. “Nope, not after what they’ve seen. Oh, I need to put their supper order in.”

Lakrissa smiled and took your order for you, telling you to wait by the stairs for her while she gave it to the kitchen. When she returned, she gave you a wide grin.

“Follow me,” she said quietly as she nodded toward the back staircase. 

She snuck you up to the rooftop, where you heard a soft lute and a familiar voice.

You smiled, afraid to stop Alfira’s singing. She was swaying softly to her song, her back to you and Lakrissa, the gibbous moon shining brightly above her head. The two of you enjoyed her song until the end, applauding her just as she turned around.

The bard smiled, pleasantly surprised to see you. You hugged, and the three of you caught up on each other’s lives since the Last Light Inn.

“Would you join me for a song?” Alfira asked. “If you have time, that is.”

You turned to Lakrissa. She nodded. “You’ll have time. With the amount of orders you put in, you could sing out here for a half hour and it wouldn’t be done.”

The two of you figured out a song you both knew, and while she played and sang harmony, you took the lead, letting your voice carry on the rooftop, and letting the tingling feeling on your spine travel through your body, through your lungs, through your throat. You felt almost as if you could layer your voice if you pushed your power through yourself hard enough.

On the last lyric, you let your vibrato go longer and harder than you ever had, leaving just enough breath to end the song on a delicate sigh.

A raucous applause startled you, and you turned to see all of your companions standing behind Lakrissa, who was wearing a sly grin.

“You cheeky woman!” Alfira said to her as Lakrissa came up and placed her hand on the small of her back.

You were distracted from their cute banter by everyone else’s compliments. You shyly bowed.

“Boo says that was a most wonderful performance, rivaling the great opera singers from Waterdeep!”

You flinched involuntarily at the mention of Waterdeep, but you acted as if you didn’t. “You’re too kind,” you said with a smile. 

Lakrissa tapped your shoulder. “I can go check if your food is ready, but would you all want to eat up here? It’s a beautiful moonlit night!”

You turned to everyone else, who seemed to be enjoying themselves, catching up with Alfira and admiring the view.

“That sounds lovely.”

As she went downstairs, you spotted some tables and chairs scattered around the rooftop and had an idea. You took a deep breath and began to hum, walking to the furniture and tapping them lightly. As if they suddenly gained sentience, they hopped and began to follow you, arranging themselves into a nice group formation.

Everyone had gone silent, watching you work. You paid them no mind, singing a song about faerie lights, touching the leaves and vines around the area, making them glow orange and pink and purple. Lost in the sensation of the magic and the music flowing through your body, you spun around and swayed your arms, letting the lights glow brighter as your power pulsed against your skin.

Suddenly Astarion was standing next to you, his hand on the small of your back, pressing on your seal. He kissed your cheek and pulled you close, interrupting your song.

“I couldn’t help myself darling,” he said a bit too loudly as he dragged you away from everyone else. Karlach tried to peek, but Shadowheart shooed her and the other onlookers back to the tables to wait for their food.

Away from the crowd, Astarion whispered into your ear. “Your seal was glowing brightly through your clothes.” His hand pressed harder against your back. “Be careful.”

You looked up at him, surprised at his look of concern. “Oh. Thank you,” you murmured. It didn’t feel like burning this time, though. It felt… powerful. 

He guided you back to the tables just in time for Lakrissa and another worker to bring the trays of food for everyone. Using your party as an excuse, she stayed behind and ate with you, along with Alfira, who entertained you all with music through the rest of dinner.

It was a wonderful evening, and you treasured it.

***

The next morning, the others left, but came back within an hour to talk to Dame Aylin. You overheard something about a tower and a wizard who had put a price on her head, and she immediately charged out the doors. Isobel followed the group out to follow her.

You turned to Shadowheart’s parents. “Erm, well, I was about to go out and get groceries. I should be back soon.”

They nodded and told you that they would let the others know if they came back before you did.

Out in the city, you felt relatively safe, anonymous in the large crowds. You walked over to a jeweler and bartered away some of the found gems and trinkets for a great price, adding to your coin pouch. Heading down to the marketplace, you managed to get an excellent cut of venison from the butcher and some fresh herbs and vegetables. Holding the bag in your arms, you headed back to the Elfsong.

Halfway there, your seal pulsed. You immediately looked around.

A man, with a patch over his eye and a large sword at his side, scratched his arm, his sleeve lifting up to reveal a tattoo of a legless dragon in flight. It was a tattoo you recognized with ease.

A Zhent!

You quickly began to walk away, turning a corner beyond the Elfsong, unwilling to make the mistake of leading someone straight to your home base. Instead, you walked through the graveyard, then past the tombmaker’s shop. Just as you were rounding the corner to make a loop back home, you heard a familiar voice calling your name.

Turning around, you were met with Gale, smiling and waving his hand to you.

“Can you follow me for a moment? I have something to show you,” he said, gesturing for you to follow.

Your seal pulsed with a stinging heat.

“Um, let me put these groceries away first.”

“We haven’t the time,” he insisted, coming closer to you.

Gale would have offered to carry my groceries for me by now. This isn’t him! 

Without another word, you turned to run.

The doppelganger grabbed the collar of your shirt and pulled hard, choking you. Dropping your bag of groceries, you pulled at your collar, trying to get some air, but they were strong. One arm wrapped around your mouth.

“You’ve got wits, but no power. Pity,” a woman’s voice hissed in your ear.

You felt a sharp pain to your temple, and then you felt nothing at all as everything went black.

***

Astarion and the others returned to their room in the Elfsong, ready for a long rest. Upon entering the room, however, he smelled something distinctly… vile.

“Welcome back,” said the creature posing as his hearth witch. Though she looked like her, she definitely didn’t sound like her. The soothing warm tone of her voice could not be replicated by any other.

“You’re not her.” Astarion glared at the shapeshifter, disgusted that she would take the form of his beloved.

Orin pouted. “How could you tell so quickly?”

“I could smell your stench a mile away.”

Everyone looked on in horror as a crazed, maniacal grin grew on their hearth witch’s face. And when she twisted back to her usual form, everyone felt a fear and anger that they could not swallow down.

“If you want your precious friend, then kill Gortash for me and bring me his netherstone.” She disappeared in a burst of pink petals, her insane laughter bleeding away.

Astarion could barely contain his rage. “We don’t have time, we have to find her now,” he snarled.

The others agreed. 

“Don’t worry Astarion, we’ll find her,” Wyll said, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Orin won’t get away with this.”

He nodded as he tried to keep a level head. But it was so, so hard.

If Orin touches her… she’ll feel her madness. She’ll feel everything.

***

You woke up to a world of pain, your entire body feeling as if it was on fire. You shifted and gasped in agony.

Then your memories of the last 24 hours returned, and you nearly vomited. You had so, so many cuts across your body. Your clothes had been sliced to shreds, and your skin along with it.

The crazed cackle of your captor drew your attention. Orin licked her knife with glee. “Your blood is the sweetest,” she murmured. 

And then she wrapped her hand around your neck. You let out a hoarse cry of agony as her madness seeped into you. No amount of mental guarding could keep out the intensity of her insanity.

c̵̝̽u̵̩͌t̵͇͛ ̷̗̕c̵͉͌ṵ̵͝t̴̝̓ ̵̫͋m̸͙̚a̶̧̾i̴͈͋m̴̱̀ ̷̳̔m̸͇͛a̸̢͝i̸̗͗m̴͎͝ ̴̡̒m̷͍̈́ṵ̶͗r̵̝̾d̷̜̄e̸̤͋r̵̹͝ ̷̮̓m̸̳̊ủ̵͚r̸̖͑d̷͈̿e̴̞̐r̸̻͋k̶̜̋i̷̪͊l̶̝̔l̸͚̀k̴̫̃i̶͈̓l̴͇̀ĺ̶͙K̴͉̍Ȋ̶͜L̸͈͛L̵̫͌ ̴̢̀K̸̯̈I̸͍̿L̸̘̍Ľ̶̪ ̶̘̈K̴͇͘I̴̬͐L̶͚̀L̶̤̓—̸̟̀ ̵͉̏

You squeezed your eyes shut to drown out the voices in your head.

“Who knew you would be so sensitive to just my mere touch! Such a delight to torture.”

You could barely hear her words beyond the pounding of blood in your ears. Is this what she constantly felt? Wave after wave of darkness, followed by an alternating current of rage, a frenzied, frenetic need to hurt, to kill. 

It was so dissonant from your usual emotions that you were having a physical reaction. Your blood pumped harder, spilling more from your wounds. You were weakening, your limbs feeling heavier with each passing moment.

“Let go of me!” you cried, your hands wet with your blood as you tugged weakly at Orin's arm. 

She only laughed. “Why should I? Your agony is the sweetest candy on my tongue.” Grabbing your wrist and twisting it painfully, she brought the inside of your arm to her mouth. While she stared at you with her crazed glare, she licked your blood, savoring it, smearing it all over her lips. 

“No!” You shrieked, trying to jerk your arm away. It was a useless endeavor; she was far stronger than you could ever be. “That blood is not for you!” 

You tugged harder, the blood making your skin slippery. Her grip tightened until you felt your bones begin to yield, the pain making you keen. 

“You make the most lovely sounds when in pain,” she murmured, letting go of your wrist and your throat. Placing the tip of her knife at your collarbone, she grinned maniacally. The sharp tip pierced your skin, the slow, burning sting making you whimper in pain. 

“Let me hear you sing in agony once more—“

“My lady!” 

Orin immediately grabbed the servant by the throat. “How. Dare. You. Interrupt me!” 

“There…. are… intruders…” the servant gurgled.

You looked up, grateful for any distraction that kept Orin’s knife away from your collarbone. In the distance, you could see your companions as they charged down the stairs. A sense of relief flooded you. 

Your friends. They were here. Thank the gods. 

All of the stress and the injuries suddenly overwhelmed you, and your vision blurred. Did Orin just transform into a beastly creature? The party threw themselves into the fray, fighting off the other cultists while Karlach and Lae'zel focused on Orin. 

The last thing you saw was Astarion rushing past the beast towards you, calling out your name. 

***

It had been a hell of a battle, and Astarion barely remembered it. Once he had secured his beloved in a safe corner, he had lashed out, stabbing Orin until she screamed in agony. Then he sprinted back, picked up his little hearth witch in his arms and brought her to Shadowheart, who immediately healed her wounds. Her clothes were shredded to tatters, and even after her wounds had closed, she was still out cold.

“She may be mentally overwhelmed,” Shadowheart said.

He only nodded before setting off at a hurried pace to get back to the Elfsong, cradling her closely.

After they got out of the Undercity, she finally spoke to him again. “I'm surprised by how far you've come, Astarion. I didn't think you'd ever care so deeply about anyone.”

“I didn’t think so either,” he replied carefully. “But she managed to weasel her way in.”

“It's funny how the little things do so much. A warm meal, a soft touch, a gentle smile. She's brought us all out of our shells, made us feel safe.”

“Yes…” He looked down at his love. “She feels like home.”

Shadowheart didn’t miss the softness in his eyes as he spoke, gazing at his witch.

***

“Seems strange, doesn't it?” Shadowheart mused while she sat with the other around the communal table, snacking on some cheese. 

“Well, they're lovers now, right? I wouldn't let anyone touch you either.”

Shadowheart frowned, even though she felt a bit tickled by Gale's protective comment. “That's fair. But he barely let me finish healing her before snatching her away.”

Gale shrugged. “Some people go a little crazy when they fall in love. I certainly don't blame him for acting this way. She's been kidnapped twice now, right under our noses.”

Nodding, Shadowheart grew quiet for a moment. “What do you think he meant when he said her skin was sensitive?”

Karlach suddenly lifted her head. “I asked her about why she wore gloves all the time and she said it was a secret. Maybe she just has super sensitive skin!” 

The others just accepted that conclusion and moved on to other topics, but Shadowheart kept chewing on the thought.

What if…?

***

You regained consciousness as Astarion was lifting you in his arms. You felt his worry for you through your bare skin before you realized that he had taken his shirt off, and you were fully naked.

“What’s going on?” you mumbled.

“We rescued you,” he answered, his voice soft. “And now I’m giving you a bath. You’re covered in blood.”

“Oh.”

Astarion slowly lowered you into the tub, the water immediately turning red as the dried blood on your skin was washed away. The warmth was soothing against your freshly healed body and you started to relax. But the moment Astarion let go of you, the pain from before came rolling back. When Orin had held you down, her madness had borne down on you, unrelenting, and it returned now in ripples of mania.

You struggled to stay alert, but you could feel your mind slowly dissociating. Your consciousness faded as you battled the memories. 

b̸̫̅͆ͅl̴̛̼̳̎ǒ̶̭́͜o̵̢̔ḋ̵̘̈́ ̷̢̬͌͘b̸̮͖̔l̸̙̬͘o̷͕̩̿̊o̸̬̐d̶̛͉ ̷̙̰̔c̷̢̩̈́ų̵̰͝t̶̖̲͆̿ ̷̭̬͝c̴̬̙̃u̴̱͋́t̶͆̆ͅ

“Darling?” 

s̷̖̍l̵͕͋i̵̗͒̾c̴̻̫̔̀ē̶̝ ̴͉͝͝s̵̝̋̅l̸̠̏́i̴̳̚c̷͚̎̒e̸̜̜̒ ̵̹͂̎ͅh̵̤̋̐ư̶̥͌r̵̖͚̆t̶̡̬̋ ̸̤͓̌h̵̗͑̓ų̵̙̾͊r̸͖̍̀t̶̼̎͘ ̸̙̐̍m̷͈͝a̷̘͎͗̊i̵̩̦̊̌m̷̳̗̿̈ ̵̞̂m̶͚͍͒͠a̵̠͚̚i̴̭͋̏m̶̹͖͊̓

Suddenly your mind went blank as Astarion pulled you out of the tub and into his embrace. You wanted to chide him about getting his pants dirty with the bloody water, that you were naked, that this was wholly inappropriate… 

But when you felt the overwhelming feeling of love and protection around you, it silenced everything else. The echoes of Orin's insanity, the screams of your own mental state, everything. 

All you felt was Astarion's love for you, and it brought you back to the present. 

And you cried. 

“I've got you, my sweet. I've got you,” he murmured as you shook uncontrollably.

“I hate this!” you cried. “I…I'm weak. I'm helpless. I didn't… I didn't want to be a burden!”

Astarion hushed you gently, nuzzling your cheek with the tip of his nose. “What's that irritating thing that Gale always says about burdens?”

It took you a moment to remember. “A burden shared is a burden halved?” 

“Yes. That.” He guided your chin up to look at him. “We both have our share of burdens. I accept yours, just as you accepted mine.”

“So you can say nice things,” you teased through your tears. “You won't abandon me?” you asked quietly. 

“You're the heart I thought I had lost,” he quietly confessed. “So don't even think for a moment that I'd ever let you go.” He held you tighter. “You're mine, burdens and all.”

He coaxed you back into the tub, and kept at least one hand on your skin as he helped you get clean. While you knew you were healed, you sometimes saw the cuts that Orin had inflicted as an afterimage on your skin. You had to shake your head and force the vision away from your mind.

While you were fighting the demons in your head, Astarion bathed you, dried you off, and took you to bed, wrapping you up in his arms, against his bare chest. 

“Will you be alright?” he asked softly, his gaze full of concern.

You took a deep breath. Would you? Orin did a hell of a number on you. It was unlike anything you had ever experienced, and you had seen some strange things in Waterdeep. Hells, you had faced a vampire lord and survived.

And yet…

“I’ll be alright,” you finally said.

He raised an eyebrow.

“I really will,” you insisted. “It may take some time, but you’ll be here to help, won’t you?”

His eyes softened. “Of course, darling.”

It wasn’t until you were mostly asleep that you realized that you were still naked, skin against skin with Astarion.

And yet, it was the most comfortable you had ever been with him, his arms wrapped protectively around you.

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

Act III, Chapter 3 End notes: Sorry for the lateness, had to work double digit hours every day this week at work, but finally got some time to edit and post this chapter! I’m really leaning into that hurt/comfort trope here and I regret nothing. But I think this will be about as much as I can write in terms of injuries, because honestly, our dear little witch needs to catch a break.

Also a bit of behind the scenes here: I absolutely killed that Zhentarim plotline, because it wasn’t working for me and it does get conveniently taken care of by Jaheira in the game. And I was thinking that HW was being a bit paranoid; she hasn’t seen a Zhent in years since the last time she was in the Gate. Also, the masked lord has basically forgotten about her, but she doesn’t know that.

Please leave me a comment and let me know what you thought of this chapter!

Tags List: @numblytemporary @xalphafox @avitute @stormyjane7 @kmoon21

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … March 8

Radcliffe-Hall & Lady Troubridge

1887 – The British sculptor and translator Una Vincenzo, aka Lady Troubridge was born on this date (d. 1963). Born Margot Elena Gertrude Taylor, she is best known as the long-time partner (28 years) of Marguerite "John" Radclyffe-Hall, the author of The Well of Loneliness. She married Admiral Ernest Thomas Troubridge in 1908 and gained her title when Admiral Troubridge was knighted in 1919.

Troubridge was an educated woman who had many achievements in her own right. Most notably she was a successful translator and introduced the French writer Colette to English readers. Her talent as a sculptor prompted Nijinsky to sit for her several times. Troubridge met Hall in 1915 as Troubridge was the cousin of singer Mabel Batten who was Hall's lover at the time. Mabel died in 1916, and Hall and Troubridge moved in together the following year. Troubridge wrote about the intensity of their relationship in her diary: "I could not, having come to know her, imagine life without her."

Both Troubridge and Hall identified as 'inverts', a term used by sexologists such as Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis usually to connote what we now think of as homosexuality. Hall and Troubridge raised and showed dachshunds and griffons. The dachshunds shown in the Romaine Brooks portrait of Troubridge (above) were a prize winning pair given to her by Hall.

1900 – Otto Peltzer (d.1970) was a German middle distance runner who set world records in the 1920s. Over the 800m Peltzer improved Ted Meredith's long-standing record by 0.3 seconds to 1:51.6 min in London in July 1926. Over the 1000m he set a world record of 2:25.8 in Paris in July 1927, and over 1500 m Peltzer broke Paavo Nurmi's world record (3:52.6) and set a new one at 3:51.0 in Berlin in September 1926. Peltzer was the only athlete to have held the 800m and the 1500m world records simultaneously, until Sebastian Coe matched the feat over fifty years later.

Born in Ellernbrook-Drage in Holstein, Peltzer overcame childhood ill-health to become a successful athlete, winning his first German championship at age twenty-two. He started university in Munich in 1918, joining the TSV 1860 club, where he was nicknamed "Otto der Seltsame" (Otto the Strange). He continued in Munich, receiving his doctorate in 1925. In 1926 he was one of a group of German athletes invited to the AAA Championships at Stamford Bridge stadium in London, where he won the 800m, beating Britain's Douglas Lowe, who had won the event at the 1924 Olympic Games which, along with the 1920 Games, Germany had been barred from entering. In 1926, a specially arranged 1500m race between Peltzer, Paavo Nurmi of Finland, Edvin Wide of Sweden and Herbert Bocher of Germany took place in Berlin which was won by Peltzer in a new world record time.

Shortly before the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, to which German athletes were again allowed to enter with Peltzer elected as team leader, Peltzer was injured in an accident while playing handball. Although he recovered enough to take part in the 800m heats, he failed to qualify for the final. In 1932 he was team captain, but poor arrangements left the German team trying to run with spiked shoes on the hard Olympic track. Peltzer made the final, but did not finish.

Peltzer was often persecuted for his homosexuality.In 1933 he joined the Nazi Party and the SS. However, in June 1935 he was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for 'homosexual offences with youths'. He was released early on condition that he would end his involvement in sport, but was rearrested in 1937. After spending time in Denmark, Finland (where he slept rough and contracted bronchitis) and Sweden, he returned to Germany in 1941 having been assured that the charges against him would be dropped. However, he was arrested and sent to KZ Mauthausen, where he remained until the camp was liberated on 5 May 1945.

With homosexuality remaining a criminal offence in 1950s Germany, and Peltzer in conflict with the German Athletic Association (DLV), Peltzer's opportunities to coach athletics were limited in Germany. He obtained a commission from a German newspaper to report on the Melbourne Olympics, and after the Games tried unsuccessfully to get work with various national athletics organisations. He eventually came to India, coaching in the national athletics stadium in New Delhi, and founded the Olympic Youth Delhi club, later renamed the Otto Peltzer Memorial Athletic Club in his honour.

Following a heart attack in 1967, Peltzer was persuaded to return to Germany, and was treated in hospital in Holstein. After attending an athletics meeting in Eutin, Schleswig-Holstein, Peltzer collapsed and was found dead on a path towards the car park.

1929 – American poet, publisher, essayist and photographer Jonathan Williams was born (d. 2008). Williams was the author of more than a hundred books and booklets of gay poetry that merges flesh and spirit with a sense of history.

Williams was born in Asheville, North Carolina, and educated at St. Alban's School in Washington and at Princeton University. His real education, however, began at Black Mountain College (1951-1956), where he met Charles Olson and, in company with another gay poet, Robert Duncan, took on Ezra Pound's lesson of compact speech and William Carlos Williams' maxim "no ideas but in things."

Jonathan Williams has been described as a cross "between Richard Pryor and the Roman poet Martial." Indeed, his poetic reception has suffered from his refusal to keep the flesh and the spirit separate.

Either he is criticized by the traditional straight world for lowering poetic tone or ignored by the gay world, both for seeing the raunchiness of our world in classical terms and for having a sense of history. For him Zeus is a randy old-goat tourist snatching up the local Ganymede trade, and Catullus is familiar with jock straps.

"I haven't seen the territory yet that can't be sexualized or examined for its poetic cuisine, or its birds, or for its dialects," Williams wrote. In one of his collections, Quantulumcumque (1991) (the word means "as much as can be said in a small space"), is an epigram of a modern hustler that reappropriates classical epigram form:

Donnie pocket full of green bottom full of cum

But he was also concerned with feeling--with getting beyond what he called the verbal and imaginative penury of "hardcornponeography." What he imagined best was the hard-on longing for it of country boys wild for passion.

He also wrote a fine sequence based on the fears and failings of the men interviewed by Havelock Ellis and a beautiful love poem ("Lexington Nocturne"), in which he lets his hand hang for a moment in the hair of his as-yet-unseduced bedmate and concludes "let that be all / for then."

Williams was a pathologist of the ordinary, listening to the quirks and privacies of speech as they reveal character. Many of his poems sound like (and were) overheards:

i hear you do not care greatly for the fair sex the fair sex he snapped back which is that

Along with his lover, the accomplished poet, Tom Meyer, Williams kept busy running Jargon Press, which has been responsible for publishing a number of gay poets—James Broughton, Robert Duncan, Harold Norse, and Paul Metcalf among them.

Some of his essays and reviews have been collected in The Magpie's Bagpipe (1982), but much of his liveliest work still remains uncollected in the annual collections of squibs and ripostes that he sent out to friends.

If he had failings, they were the result of his being too large, of embracing multitudes, as Whitman would put it. His bibliography extends to more than a hundred books and booklets as well as many other publications. It would be hard to think of any one person who did more for poetry, gay and straight, in America.

Williams died on March 16, 2008 in Highlands, North Carolina. He was survived by Meyer, his companion for more than 40 years.

1963 – Jim Nelson was editor-in-chief of the magazine GQ.

Nelson began his journalism career in television, first working as a producer and writer at CNN and later moving to Hollywood where he worked briefly as a writer's assistant on television sitcoms.

He made the shift to magazines at age thirty, starting with an internship at Harper's Magazine, From 1994 to 1997 Nelson was an editor at Harper’s Magazine under Lewis Lapham, where he was responsible for the magazine’s Readings section. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Gourmet, and Food & Wine.

Nelson had been editor-in-chief of GQ since March 2003. He retired from that post at the end of 2018. Nelson joined the magazine as a senior editor in 1997, editing the work of such writers as Andrew Corsello, Elizabeth Gilbert, Charles Bowden, and Michael Paterniti. After working under Art Cooper as an executive editor, Nelson was appointed by Condé Nast to replace him as editor-in-chief in 2003.

Under his direction, the magazine has been nominated for sixty-two National Magazine Awards and has won for feature writing, reporting, design, photography, and general excellence, the highest honor in the industry. His own writing for GQ was cited in The Best American Sports Writing 2001.

Also during Nelson’s time at GQ, the magazine has been nominated for forty-one James Beard Awards and has won for restaurant reviews and critiques, distinguished food writing, writing on wine spirits or beer, and humor. In 2016 The Daily Front Row’s fourth annual Fashion and Media Awards honored Jim Nelson with the Magazine of the Year award for GQ.

Most recently Nelson launched ‘The Closer with Keith Olbermann,’ a twice-weekly web series offering political commentary on the 2016 election and other timely news topics. After garnering more than 75 million views[14] for ‘The Closer,’ Olbermann returned with a post-election series on GQ.com called ‘The Resistance’ where he continues the conversation about the President elect.Additionally, during Nelson’s time at the magazine, a number of GQ stories have become both small and large-scale film productions and TV series, including Concussion starring Will Smith, the Netflix series Last Chance U and the forthcoming film Granite Mountain.

He resides in Brooklyn with his partner, John Mario Sevilla, a dancer and choreographer.

1963 – Bruce Hayes is an American former competition swimmer best known for anchoring the U.S. men's 4x200-meter freestyle relay team that won the gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

A native of Sarasota, Florida, Hayes' success as a Texas age group and high school swimmer earned him a full scholarship to University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He was the highest scoring freshman at the 1982 NCAA Men's Swimming and Diving Championships, helping the UCLA Bruins win the national team championship.

Hayes represented the United States in several international swimming meets. His first national and international titles came in 1983. He won seven medals at the 1983 World University Games in Edmonton - the most by any American swimmer - and his win in the 200-meter freestyle was the only U.S. gold. A few weeks later, he won the 200-meter freestyle at the 1983 summer United States Swimming Championships.

At the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas, Venezuela, Hayes won three gold medals in the 200-meter and 400-meter freestyle races and in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay. He also collected three gold medals at the 1983 Descente International Invitational Swim Meet in Tokyo in the same three events.

Hayes won the 400-meter freestyle race at the 1984 winter United States Swimming Championships for his second national title. He finished third in the 200-meter freestyle at the 1984 United States Olympic Swimming Trials, qualifying him for a place on the 4x200-meter freestyle relay team in Los Angeles.

Hayes captured one more national title before retiring when he won the 200-meter freestyle at the 1984 summer United States Swimming Championships, held after the Olympics. He subsequently earned a Masters degree in journalism at Northwestern University in Chicago and then moved to New York City to begin a professional career in public relations. He joined Team New York Aquatics in 1990 and began competing again, this time in Masters swimming events.

He became the first Olympic gold medalist to compete at the Gay Games when he swam at Gay Games III in Vancouver in August 1990.

In 1992, Hayes became the first American Olympic gold medalist to declare his homosexuality publicly when he was profiled by Dick Schaap for ABC's World News Tonight regarding the challenges of being gay in the sports community. He became a spokesperson for the Gay Games IV in New York City in 1994.

At Gay Games IV, his swimming success continued - he set five 25-meter short course Masters world records in the 30-34 age group, including becoming the first Masters swimmer to break 4:00 in the 400-meter freestyle. He was included in Out magazine's 1994 list of the 100 most influential gays and lesbians in America.

Hayes worked for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games as the Assistant Competition Manager for Swimming at the 1996 Summer Olympics. During his time in Atlanta, he co-founded the Atlanta Rainbow Trout Masters swimming team.

He resumed his public relations career at Edelman in New York following the Atlanta Olympics and later worked for two years in Edelman's Madrid office. In 2002, Hayes became a charter member of the Gay Games Ambassadors. He attended the Gay Games' 25th anniversary celebration in San Francisco in 2007 and presented the Federation of Gay Games' inaugural Media Award.

Hayes swam again at the 2010 Gay Games VIII in Cologne, Germany, winning a bronze in the 1,500-meter freestyle (age 45-49) behind Aaron Murphy (Great Britain) and Jonathan Haines (Australia).

1965 – Robert Sabuda is a leading children's pop-up book artist and paper engineer. His recent books, such as those describing the stories of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, have been well received and critically acclaimed.

Sabuda was born in Wyandotte, Michigan and raised in Pinckney, Michigan. He was skilled as an artist from a very young age, and attended the Pratt Institute in New York City. His specific interest in 3-D paper engineering (i.e., pop-up books) was sparked by a book he received that was illustrated by Vojtěch Kubašta. His interest in children's book illustration began with an internship at Dial Books for Young Readers while attending the Pratt Institute. Initially working as a package designer, he illustrated his first children's book series, of "Bulky Board Books", in 1987. Wide recognition only came his way after he started designing pop-up books for children in 1994.

Robert Sabuda kicked off the pop-up renaissance in 1996 with Christmas Alphabet, a series of elegantly constructed pop-up images that scaled the New York Times bestseller list, despite its then-staggering price tag of $19.99.

Matthew Reinhart began working alongside him and creating his own work when the two became a couple, in 1997. Now, working from their Tribeca studio with four assistants, Robert and Matthew start from scratch with each new book, crafting elaborate, intricately colored structures that leap from the pages, then sending the books off to be hand-assembled overseas.

Robert and Matthew discuss their art

1970 – In the early morning hours, New York City police raid a gay bar called the Snake Pit for not having a license for dancing and selling alcohol, arresting 167 patrons. At the police station, one of the arrestees, an Argentine national named Diego Vinales so feared the possibility of deportation that he leapt from a second-story window of the police station, impaling himself on the spikes of an iron fence. He survived, though firemen were forced to cut out a section of the fence with Vinales still skewered on it, in order to move him to the hospital.

One journalist remarked, “It is no crime to be 'in' a place that is serving liquor illegally, the only crime is to run such a place. There were no grounds for hauling the customers away.”

Though charges against other patrons were dropped, Vinales was rebooked for "resisting arrest" and officers were stationed outside his hospital room to prevent another escape. The community organized a protest march.

1987 – Devon Graye Fleming, known professionally as Devon Graye, is an American actor and filmmaker. He is best known for portraying teenage Dexter in the TV series Dexter, as well as the second Trickster in The Flash. In 2019, he wrote the thriller film I See You.

Graye was born in Mountain View, California. He studied acting at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Although Graye is American, he lived in the United Kingdom for all four years of high school.

Graye wrote a thriller screenplay titled Allison Adams, which was featured on the 2016 Black List for most popular unproduced screenplays.

He has been dating Canadian actor Jordan Gavaris since September 2013.

[sarahscribbles]

Don't Move, Darling

[DRABBLE}

Prompt: "Move an inch and you won’t be coming tonight.”

Genre: Smut

Loki x f!reader

Word count: 1169

Loki Masterlist

You were teetering, dangling so wonderfully close to a euphoric free fall into pleasure. The cool cotton sheets of your bed were balled up tightly in one fist, threatening to pull free from the mattress under your vice like grip; in the other, a firm handful of Loki’s inky black curls. Release was so close, so tantalisingly close. 

“Loki…” you breathed out a warning. All it would take was another few expert swipes of his talented tongue. He didn’t slow down in pace or pressure and you steeled yourself against the bed, your entire body tensing in anticipation of the shattering orgasm he was moments away from giving you. 

Like a firework about to light up a rainbow in the night sky the pressure of your building orgasm began to sizzle through you. You arched your back off the bed, rolling your hips to meet every flick and flattening of Loki’s tongue. You were almost there…almost there…just one more beautiful swirl of pleasure…

Instead, the warm wetness of his mouth left your dripping folds, leaving a close to unbearable ache in its absence. A ringing whine of frustration echoed around the room while you deflated against the mattress, all the waves of pleasure that had been washing over you ebbing away to a maddening nothing. 

“Magnificent, my darling,” Loki purred, lifting his head from between your legs. “Though I fear that your hand now holds more of my hair than my own head.” 

You relaxed your hand and let it fall limply against the tangle of sheets beneath you. “Then maybe…you should have…finished what you started,” you panted, your racing heartbeat still thundering in your ears. 

He rose to kneel between your legs, his muscular arms now caging you to the bed while he leaned down to kiss you deeply. His hard cock brushed teasingly against your inner thigh, causing your throbbing cunt to clench violently around nothing. How desperately you wanted, needed him to have his way with you…

“Delayed gratification, pet,” he murmured against your lips. “I’m not finished playing with you.” With another quick peck to your lips he reached across the bed to soundlessly pull open the drawer of your bedside cabinet, finding with ease the small pink vibrator that was hidden within. 

You practically squirmed with excitement beneath him, fresh arousal pooling between your already soaked core at the mere thought of what he had planned for you. As Loki settled back between your thighs, your hips rolled almost of their own accord, desperately seeking the intense waves of pleasure the little toy in his hand could grant you, and if he coupled that with his own delicious length…

You shivered violently. 

Hovering over you, Loki grinned wickedly, causing your heartbeat to immediately pick up. “Oh, I do love your reaction to seeing this,” he said, an unmistakable note of mischief beginning to creep into his voice. 

When he clicked the little button that brought the vibrator audibly to life, you licked your lips, breathing already heavy in anticipation of the first beautiful press against your tortured clit. “No restriants?” you challenged huskily, cocking an eyebrow at him. Usually, the vibrator and Loki’s sik restraints went hand in hand as he loved watching you yank relentlessly against them in pursuit of your pleasure. 

Tonight, though, you lay free on the bed, but the wicked smirk he was wearing told you that, even unrestrained, your release wasn’t going to be granted to you easily.

“Not tonight, pet,” he said, his voice like velvet. “Tonight I thought we could try something a little different.” He placed the tip of the vibrator lightly against your swollen clit, enough for you to faintly feel how intense the vibrations were, to imagine the blinding pleasure that was so close yet so far out of your grip. Instantly, you were bucking your hips in a vain attempt to budge the little piece of plastic closer to where you needed it, and just as instantly Loki pulled his hand away. “Move an inch and you won’t be coming tonight.” 

Your eyes flew to his, lips quickly parting in quiet disbelief. “What?” you asked stupidly, sure that you had misheard him. Did he honestly expect you not to move when he had your vibe on its highest setting? 

He placed the vibrator teasingly on your mound, knowing you were getting absolutely nothing from it. “You heard me, pet. You aren’t allowed to move.” 

“Loki!’ you whined pitifully. “That’s not fair!”

He traced the vibrator slowly down until it was a frustraing milimetre away from your clit. “I never said it would be,” he replied easily. “Everytime you move, no matter how close you are, I pull this little toy of yours away. Do you understand?” He asked. Fighting the near overwhelming urge to roll your hips, you nodded. “Good girl,” he said softly, reaching his free hand up to gently run his thumb across your cheek. 

Before you could ready yourself he placed the vibrator snugly against your clit, the sudden intense vibrations after over an hour of ceaseless edging causing you to cry out and jerk your hips wildly. True to his word Loki pulled the vibe away, eliciting a strangled whimper from the depths of your throat.

“What did I say?” he taunted. 

“Don’t move,” you replied, beginning to realise how totally, completely fucked you were. 

“Are you ready to try again?”

You nodded quickly, eager for the glorious vibrations once more. “Yes, Loki.” 

He returned the vibe to your clit and you mustered every ounce of inner strength to keep still. Your hands lying rigid by your side balled into fists, and you prepared to feel the vibrations once again come to a stop, but the toy remained tightly against you, sending wave after wave of budding pleasure crashing through you as you crept slowly to the edge. Your hands, at least, were permitted to move as they wished. 

Loki began to move small, quick circles around your aching clit, each skillful rotation of his hand pushing you closer and closer and preparing to drown you in a tsunami of pleasure. You felt your heart begin to beat frantically, your limbs begin to feel boneless, saw stars begin to creep into the edges of your vision. 

Three more circles.

Two more circles.

Lost to the pursuit of your orgasm your body betrayed you, your back arching traitorously off the bed mere seconds before you freefalled into a dazzling climax. As promised, Loki’s hand left your soaked folds, pulling an outraged groan from deep within your chest. 

“You fucking asshole!” you spat through gritted teeth, twisting and writhing within the tangle of sheets. 

He only laughed at your cursing, sweeping some stray hairs of your face. “Oh, my pet,” he said, leaning down for another blistering kiss. “I do hope you’re well rested. It looks like you have a long night ahead of you,” he taunted. 

He placed the vibrator back between your thighs. 

Your hips instantly snapped up to meet his hand.

Tags: @cake-writes @sineads-art @maevetriesart @lovelysizzlingbluebird @drdaddystrange @thedistractedagglomeration @joyful-enchantress @amethyst-dow @sailorholly @hyperfixating-on-loki @woahitslucyylu @trickster-maiden @high-functioning-lokipath @mochie85

[bigfootsmom]

fuck it friday

I was tagged by the lovely and talented @honestlydarkprincess, @ebdaydreamer, @heartbeatdiaz, @alyxmastershipper, @devirnis, @bucktalias, @try-set-me-on-fire <3 <3 <3

it has been.....a hot second, but i think i'm back! maybe, hopefully. Here's some more from post lightning strike buddie (now all the snippets can be found under "electric boogaloo")

It feels like his heart is trying to beat out of his chest like it’s trying to get even closer to Buck. Eddie wonders if Buck’s heart is doing the same — he can feel it pounding under his hand when he slots his fingers over Buck’s ribs to hold him even closer. The heat from their bodies, their breath, their pulses — they all mingle until they’re indistinguishable. It’s impossible to tell where Eddie stops and Buck’s begins.  Their bodies move together like the rolling of the waves — their breaths ebbing and flowing like the tide. Eddie’s exhale swelling into Buck’s inhale, the air between them hot and humid.  “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie—” Buck chants between desperate kisses pressed to Eddie’s jaw, his throat, the corner of his lips.  “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.” Eddie returns his kisses like they’re a promise.  Buck kisses him again, getting his hands on either side of Eddie’s face so their lips can meet properly. His lips are soft and warm and so, so alive. Deepening the kiss, Eddie tries to chase the taste of life like he’ll somehow be able to burrow inside of Buck and find the source — curl around it and keep it safe.

It's late so I'm tagging everyone who is up and wants to post something!