#erm this is all i could conjure up

[shhwsper]

i gave up after drawing JD (if it wasn’t obvious)

[yan-randomfandom]

yandere viktor with an innocent and naive reader but with magical abilities, where the reader knows how to use simple magic like conjuring plants or controlling water... ((the reader only knows the basics of magic, since no one taught it and this magic would be the only one so far who knows how to do it, and the reader was a little scared of being in a rush or being studied like a lab rat because she has magic, but she confided her secret to Viktor...)) Why do you do that?

Y!Viktor x GN!Mage!Reader

a/n: posting this before act 2 omg, i think i need a rewatch — btw this one only has very light yandere undertones,, ..erm

🫧 ;

"Psst. Hey, want to know a secret?"

Viktor blinked. His eyes followed the moving reflection on the iridescent river. Your figure was mirrored in the water, an unreadable expression on your face.

... He looked up, alarmed. Were you talking to him? Viktor didn't even know you.

You met his amber eyes. For whatever reason, on the edge of the cliff just above the water, you folded your legs against your chest and buried half your face in your arms.

"Well?" you pushed, voice muffled.

His mouth opened, then closed. Viktor nodded wordlessly instead.

" ... Promise me you won't tell anyone."

Without a moment's hesitation, the young boy nodded again.

He watched as you stood up and jumped steadily into the river, splashing him and his mechanical boat. A low, frustrated groan escaped him as water seeped into his clothes.

"Oh, sorry," you said as he tried to wipe the water from his face. "Let me get that for you."

Suddenly, Viktor felt his weight gradually become less unpleasant��almost refreshing, even, as if the water slid across and away from his skin and clothes.

That's when he saw it.

A small blob of water, floating in the air. It moved carefully like it was fragile.

Then came another, and another. Small specks came together until it formed one single bubble.

Abruptly, it dropped in the river. Like nothing ever happened. Viktor's eyes widened in disbelief.

"Cool, right?" you grinned. He looked at you with furrowed eyebrows, his jaw gaping. One of your hands was lifted, fingers poised in a manner of delicacy.

"You," Viktor finally spoke, stammering, his breathing ragged. "You did that? Was that... magic?"

You chuckled, settling yourself beside him. He turned to you, scooting over to make room, and met your steady gaze. “I think so. But I was serious when I said never, ever tell anyone.”

He shook his head, utterly appalled. "Is this some sort of trick?"

"I wish—"

“This is not funny,” he snarled, his demeanor shifting completely, catching you off guard. “If you’re just here to get a reaction out of me, I’d advise you and your friends to leave. Please.”

You frowned, standing up with your fists clenched. “No, you’ve got it all wrong. I’m so sorry! And I don’t… even have friends.”

Viktor searched your face.

There's nothing to suggest a lie. He's observant, and he quietly prides himself over it, but this is one of the few cases where he genuinely starts to doubt his judgment.

"But," you sighed, turning away. "I'll leave if that's what you want. Apologies."

...

"... Wait."

— 🌱

The leaves of the seedling barely moved.

"Aw," you chuckled, dropping your arm to your side. Who knew conjuring plant powers could be so draining? "Well, I tried. Let's take a break!"

He let out a choked noise, pausing his writing. "We barely started! How is it that whenever you get to try something new and amazing, you avoid it?”

...

You didn't respond immediately.

Viktor put down his notebook, looking back at you, who was blankly staring at him.

"I guess I'm... scared?" you said, tilting your head. To his surprise, you gently grabbed his hand, running your thumb across his palm.

His face warmed. He physically couldn't say or do anything.

"You're the only one who knows about this, Vik," you muttered, your eyes fixed on his rough skin. "I sprung this on you when we were kids, which is kind of hilarious, by the way, but I had a reason. In my mind, you were the only one who would understand."

He thought so, too.

Viktor couldn’t stop himself from slipping his fingers between yours. It was a good thing you weren’t looking at him—otherwise, you might’ve seen how red his face had become.

"And you told me no one will believe me," he said, and while the memory was of you giving him a serious warning, his tone was filled with nothing but endearment.

"I still stand by that," you laughed, pulling your hand away from his, much to his disappointment. You still hadn't glance at his face. He mentally scolded himself for almost hoping you would see his expression. "Especially with our age now. They'll just think you're crazy."

"I understand," he chuckled, turning away. "About that break... you want to go to our usual?"

A smile curled your lips. "Yes, please!"

— 💌

Viktor said he has a surprise for you.

Admittedly, you're feeling extremely anxious. He grew up to become a researcher, an inventor—facts that don’t surprise you.

As his best friend, a person able to do magic, while absolutely shitty at it, you know he sees you as someone with massive potential. Literally. No one else in Piltover or Zaun is known to do this. Maybe in a hundred years—who knows? You didn't even have a proper education.

...

Viktor cleared his throat. "I've been offered a position in the University of Piltover."

You froze. The letter in his fingers bore the university’s wax seal in the center, bold and unmistakable.

“Holy shit,” you blurted, your eyes darting between him and the letter. “Holy shit!”

Jumping over to Viktor, you wrapped your arms around him in a tight embrace. The biggest, most triumphant smile tugged at your lips. He staggered a little, but you were too wrapped up in your happiness to notice.

"Language," he laughed, hugging you back.

You snickered. "I'm so proud of you! Words can't even begin to express how happy I am for you!"

Pulling back, your hands still rested on his shoulders. Your smile relaxed ever so slightly as your eyes gazed into his softer ones.

"I knew you could do it," you exhaled.

A small pause.

Viktor had a look. Oh, shit. What’s that smirk for?

"...You're not done," you accused, raising an eyebrow.

He lifted the letter in his hand. "I have not accepted yet."

Now, your brows knitted together in utter confusion.

"... Why not—?"

"I said I won't be going unless they let me bring a plus one."

You smile faltered, denial crossing your face. He noticed it. Did he just say what you thought you heard him say?

"Are you saying...?" Your expression shifted into worry; you didn't quite understand his point.

"I want you to come with me," Viktor said, grabbing your hand and placing the letter in your palm. "To Piltover."

Oh, no. You didn't mean to.

You panicked, pulling away, the letter slipping from your hand.

Viktor's brows furrowed. He thought you'd be happier about the news.

Then, he looked around.

It had rained just before he decided to share the news. Some raindrops were still fresh, glistening from the downpour.

And around your figure, small droplets rose into the air. The air is thick with tension.

"Viktor. You're not giving me to them, are you...?"

Defeated. That's how your voice sounded.

"Of course not," he hushed, pushing you onto a chair. "Never. Please calm down. Let me explain."

You obliged, sitting down. He sat beside you.

"I'm sorry," you spoke first, meeting his eyes. "It's not that I don't trust you. Heck, I trust you more than anyone. The thought of going up there... it just makes me anxious."

"I understand," Viktor nodded. He turned his head. "However, I promise you, I won’t let them take you away from me. You’ll be solely under my care. But I do know someone who’s willing to help us."

Viktor. So compassionate and filled with empathy. You admired him for those very reasons, not just for his brilliance. His presence feels like a whole other world to you—someone who could help you understand your abilities. Perhaps the only chance you have to truly learn who, or what you are.

"I'll be a burden."

"No. Of course not. I want you by my side."

You hesitated. Despite your family being clueless about your ability, they were still the people you cared for. You still had a life in the undercity.

"And if I refuse...?"

Viktor took a moment to respond. The thought of leaving you hurt his heart.

"You... I believe you don't have much of a choice."

You couldn't explain why, but you found it in yourself to wholeheartedly believe him.

— 💜

zamn

critique is welcome btw

[empress-simps]

Missed Hints

Pairing: Remus Lupin x Fem! Reader CW: Language Genre: Fluff Summary: Remus Lupin wanted to make his feelings known; he is trying numerous ways to tell you, but you are simply quite oblivious to the poor boy’s advances.

Note: Am I a bit too obsessed with Rems? Probably. This one's a bit shorter than the rest. Enjoy reading! Pictures used are from Pinterest, credits to the owners!

Sometimes, all Remus wanted to do was run into a wall to knock himself out.

Maybe it’ll help formulate a reason why you couldn’t pick up his signals and actions that he wants to be more than friends. Please cut this poor boy some slack; he’s literally done everything he could to hint that he likes you.

The problem is that you are quite oblivious- being as dense as the castle walls in Hogwarts. Although this hasn’t stopped Remus from pursuing you after several pitiful (also quite funny) attempts, if anything, it made him work even harder to let you know he fancies you.

“Y/n, wait up!” Remus calls out to you, leaving his mates, who were whispering words of encouragement and ‘good luck’ to him. Hearing your name made you turn around, a book in your hand, as you smiled at the taller boy. “Remus, hi!” He smiled, walking beside you and settling in at the same pace as you. Suddenly, a friend of yours piped up, “Y/n, we have to go get something in the dorms; stay with Remus, yeah?” before you could even reply, they were rushing to leave. Remus could only blush as your friends shot him a thumbs up before escaping the scene, trying to stop the giggles escaping their mouths.

It was all up to him now.

“Erm, so how were the holidays?” he asked, trying to act casually as he placed his hands in his pockets. The question made you hum, your eyes lit up. "Oh, it was wonderful! We spent the holidays in Canada, lots of snow, I made a snow man and visited some parks.” She nods, holding her book closer to her chest, seemingly lost in thought. “It was also freezing.” Remus hums in agreement. “Is that so? I’m glad you had fun.” He smiles, and you both walk towards the great hall to have dinner.

You looked up at him with a bright smile and said, “Tell me about yours, Rems! I’m sure it was also fun.” Remus blushed, hearing his nickname roll off your tongue so casually. Even after all the years you’ve known each other, simply calling him by his nickname that you specially made for him has an effect that never faded away. “Well, it was just simple, really. I just stayed at James’ and had fun.” He shrugged his shoulders, smiling at you. He could care less about his holiday shenanigans, preferring you just talk his ear off about every little thing you did, he will absorb what you say word by word, like a sponge.

 "Well, James is quite an interesting person.” She hummed in agreement, Remus felt his eyebrow twitch, a small twinge similar to jealousy creeping up into him. What about him? Do you think he’s interesting too? Was Remus someone who could be worthy of your time?

 “Yeah, that bloke was conjuring up some pranks to pull this year.”

You let out a small giggle and oh merlin please take the poor boy to Madame Pomfrey because he thinks his poor heart can’t handle all the feelings he has towards you. Remus Lupin is such a simp.

He clears his throat, trying to muster up some courage as he asks you the million-galleon question. “So, are you free tomorrow? It’s Hogsmeade day.” Remus smiles, thankfully, his clammy hands are kept under his pockets, making his nervousness almost unnoticeable. Your eyes lit up “Oh! I forgot, but yes, I am free tomorrow.” Remus saw his chance and took it. “Great, how about we hang out in Three Broomsticks?”

For Merlin’s sake, please make this turn into Lupin’s favor. He’s done too many ways to confess to your clueless self.

“That would be fantastic! I can bring my friends along, and you can bring James, Sirius, and Peter too!” you clapped your hands excitedly, not noticing how the werewolf visibly deflated as you exclaimed. Right, might as well reject him right now on the spot to end his misery.

He could probably shout “I love you” and stare at you directly- but you’ll just think he’s talking to someone behind you. Remus had also tried to pass you a note containing his feelings for you back then. Grabbing it without much of a thought, you passed it to your friend, thinking he wants you to give it to her, who shakes her head and sighs, looking at Remus.

The rest of the Marauders and your friends think Remus’s plans of confessing to you were a lost cause.

“Our poor Moony…” Peter frowns, as James shakes his head. “At this point, Moony should just kiss her.” Sirius sighed, feeling pity for his friend. “She would probably think it was a friendly kiss.” Peter snorts, trying to control his laughter, James glared at Sirius jokingly before pushing him. “Bugger off Pads, Y/N’s just… super innocent? I guess.” They resumed watching the two from a distance, a look of anticipation evident in their faces.

“I was kind of hoping it’ll be just us?” Remus grins nervously, sitting beside you as you reach the Gryffindor table. You took a bite out of the apple pie from your plate before replying, “Sure, it’ll still be fun. You’re a great company, Rems.” She smiles, before resuming on eating the remaining apple pie slice. Little do you know the simple compliment you made had a tremendous effect on Remus.

“Moony, your smile hasn’t left your face ever since Y/n agreed. Stop it, I’m getting scared.” Sirius states, Remus turns to look, a hint of a small dopey smile on his face. “Hm?”

“Oh merlin, Y/n broke him.” Peter blanches. They were smacked upside their heads lightly by James. “Come on now, don’t rain on his parade. Moon’s just… well- over the moon.” James laughs lightly, Sirius snorts while Peter tries to hide his smile. Remus rolled his eyes playfully, opening his trunk to pick out the clothes he’s going to wear tomorrow. “Whatever, now help me decide what to wear, you sods.”

“Rems! Over here!” You exclaimed, standing on your tiptoes, arms up and waving in his directions. Remus smiles, maneuvering through the line of students waiting to get out of Hogwarts and to Hogsmeade. “Y/n! you look… pretty.” He blushes, drinking in the sight of you. Remus could swear on his life that he saw a light shade of pink dust your cheek as you tucked a stray hair behind your ear.

“Thank you, I like your sweater. It suits you.” You said, eyes going over his body and one of Remus’s signature sweaters. You can’t deny it; you like what you see, you were pulled from your thoughts when someone spoke.

“Oi! Get a move on you half-blood and goody-two-shoes! Holding up the bloody line is what you’re doing!” Evan Rosier, a Slytherin student complained a few feet away from you and Remus, Mulciber and Dolohov backs their fellow Slytherin and friend up. He snarls, those blokes, looks like they’ll have a new target for one of their nasty pranks.

“If I were you, I would shut my mouth.” Remus warns, standing in front of you, blocking your frame from their view.

Evan raised one eyebrow, amusement swimming in his eyes. “What are you going to do? Pesky little Gryffindor like you are always running around trying to be brave.” He taunts, moving closer to their direction.

“Rems, I’m fine. Let’s go, yeah?” She gently tugs the sleeve of his sweater, he looks down at you, his expression softening. “Alright then.” He threw one last warning look at Rosier over his shoulder; that punk needs to just wait and see what’s going to come and bite his ass.

The two of you are sitting in the Three Broomsticks, talking about basically anything under the sun. Well, you mostly talked while Remus just listens, humming and sometimes sharing his two cents on the topic you are on.

“Rems, thank you.”

Remus’ eyebrows shot up in confusion, “Thank you? What for?”

“Earlier, Evan Rosier.”

“Ah, that prick. It was nothing, y/n.” He offers a gentle smile; he wants to touch your hand that was directly across his from the table but ultimately deciding against it, the last thing he wants to do is make you feel uncomfortable.

“Thank you for being my friend. You’re an amazing person who deserves the world.” She smiles, slowly taking his hand onto hers and squeezing it tightly.

He felt a crack in his heart. “Yeah, you are too.” He managed to choke out, offering a wry smile.

Friends. Is that it? Is he just one of the many friends you have in your life? Is he a friend that will slowly drift away after you graduate from Hogwarts? Merlin, he would even count himself lucky if you invited him to be at your wedding, and if he wants to push his luck then he might even be the godfather to one of your future kids.

You furrowed your brows, “Is there something wrong, Rems?” He looks at you, quickly shaking his head. “Nothing’s wrong. Why do you ask?” You hummed, “Well, you have this kind of haunted look on you when you’re bothered about something; you’re doing it right now.”

Remus blinks, even he himself wasn’t aware of that. He closed his eyes and sighed; fuck it. He’ll push his luck to the extremes by confessing his love for you. Doesn’t matter if you see him as just a friend, you deserve to know.

“Y/n, I have to tell you something.”

“Of course. What would that be?”

“Well, I don’t know how to tell you this without being upfront about it…” He starts, you urged him to continue; well, here goes nothing.

“Y/n, I-“

“Two butterbeers, correct?”

Remus wants to pull his hair out of frustration as the server walked towards them and set down the butterbeers they ordered, interrupting his speech. You smiled, thanking them before turning to Remus, who was frowning.

“What was it you were trying to say, Rems?” You asked, sipping your butterbeer.

“I like you, a lot. Ever since we met.” He simply blurts out quickly, as if he’s scared someone is going to interrupt again. You blink slowly, setting your butterbeer down gently.

“I like you too, Remus.”

“No- you don’t understand,” He shakes his head as you furrowed your eyebrows, utterly confused.

“I fancy you, love.” He emphasizes, taking both of your hands into his large ones, looking at you straight in the eyes, completely serious. She widens her eyes ever so slightly, her heart rate speeding up a bit.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve always fancied you too, Rems.”

Remus felt as if the time slowed down, his heartbeat pulsing faster, eyes blinking owlishly, his jaw slack in shock.

Did he hear that right? Please tell him that he heard that right.

“I-I… I gave you hints, love!” He sputtered, “But you’ve just ignored them every single time!” She frowns, “I didn’t notice…” Remus agreed, “Forgive me, but you were quite oblivious.” A small smile was on his face.

“You could’ve just said outright that you fancy me, Rems.” She chuckles, a faint blush on her cheeks.

“If you like me too, then why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to force you.” She said, looking at the beverage in her hand. His eyes softened, “Force me? To what, love?”

She sighs, looking up at him. “I didn’t want you to force yourself to try to love me just because I feel that way for you.”  Before Remus could even speak, she opened her mouth again, “I know you, Remus. You would’ve tried either way, that’s just who you are.” She chuckles, sipping butterbeer before continuing.

“You have a heart of gold, Rems. That’s one of the things I love about you.” She rubs her thumb across his scarred knuckles gently. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, the simple and gentle touch made his spine shiver.

If this was some kind of dream, then he would be more than happy to not wake up.

“Can I kiss you?” He breathes out, making you giggle. You stood up from your seat and leaned towards him, you can feel and smell his peppermint toothpaste fanning against your lips, beckoning you closer.

“You don’t even have to ask.” You closed the distance between you and sealed both of your lips with a kiss.

[simplyholl]

The Villain’s Weapon Pt. 1

Summary: When you hit your head and lose your memory, you fall into Loki’s clutches.

Warnings: Eventual smut. Memory loss. Villain Loki. Thanos.

The battle was never ending. You and the other Avengers were never going to defeat Loki. He had taken Clint and Dr. Selvig using them against you as he took the Tesseract. It didn’t help that he would only show up every now and then to taunt the team. Otherwise you couldn’t locate him.

Loki fought against you. “We have to stop meeting like this, little one.” Loki teased. You used your magic, a cloud of blue surrounding you as you fought back. You underestimated the power you put behind it, the aftershock throwing you back against a boulder. You hit your head with a loud thud as your vision went black.

When you came to, a large man towered over you. You studied his face trying to place him. You couldn’t remember where you were or what you were doing outside. You didn’t even know who you are. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you, little one.” Little one. That was familiar. You obviously knew this strangely dressed man. You look down at your own apparel. You were wearing a leather catsuit, so you couldn’t say anything about him.

You hear fighting all around you. You sit up, suddenly scared of your surroundings. What was happening? Pain surges through your head, you place a hand on it. You were bleeding. Your suit was torn like you had been fighting too. You stand up, feeling a little dizzy. You grab the man before you, pulling him in for a hug. You don’t know why, but you trust him.

He said he was looking for you after all. The term of endearment he used rang a bell. If you were fighting, you must be on his side. He looks down at you like you have lost your mind. Maybe you haven’t hugged before and this was out of character for you. You quickly pull away.

“I’m so sorry. I think I must have hit my head too hard. I can’t remember anything. But you seem familiar. You said you were looking for me, so I just assumed.” He looks at you incredulously. “You really don’t remember who you are or what you are doing out here?” You look around again, not recognizing anyone or anything, but him.

“There seems to be a battle. I assume I’m on your side?” You look into his bright blue eyes as a smile appears on his lips. “Yes, that is correct. Those people over there are the Avengers. They are trying to stop me - erm - us. I’ll tell you more about it once we get back to our lair.”

Loki couldn’t believe his luck. He was waiting for you to come to after the nasty fall you had taken when your magic threw you back. You were powerful, but you didn’t have complete control over your power. With his help, you would be unstoppable. And now, you were on his side.

“She’s dangerous.” Thanos told Loki. “Right now, she isn’t. She doesn’t even know she has powers.” Loki argued. “This is perfect. I will train her, we will use her to fight the Avengers.” Thanos shook his head. “What if her memory comes back? It’s too big of a risk.” Loki paces the floor, “Trust me, she won’t. She took a nasty fall. Just let me try this out before we send the Chitauri.” “You have two months.” Thanos stated as he cut communication.

Loki set up a room for you. He conjured clothes for your closet, shoes in your size, everything you might need in order to convince you that you actually lived here. He found you on the bed, looking out the window. “I’ve come to dress your wounds.” You nod, turning toward him. He examined the cut on your head, green flowing from his hands as he healed it. He explained that he could use magic and apparently so could you. He was going to start retraining you tomorrow.

“The other cuts aren’t as severe so I will clean them myself.” He explained. You slid the strap of your tank top down your shoulder to give him better access to the wound. You gasp when the alcohol wipe touches your skin, causing the area to sting. You watch him intently, long pale fingers working diligently to patch every scratch on you.

“Lay back.” He commands, reaching for the hem of your tank top. You had a large cut just under your breasts. You do as your told, he rolls the fabric up just under your nipples. You hold your breath. Your skin prickles, turning into goosebumps everywhere he touches. Your nipples harden as he patches you up.

Loki notices how you are physically reacting to his touch. How your nipples hardened when he placed his hands on your stomach. How your breath hitched when he pulled your shirt up. The worst part was he could feel his pants growing tighter. He wasn’t surprised that you had that kind of reaction toward him. He was a god after all. But he never expected you to have that effect on him. His hands grew shaky as he finished bandaging you. “Good as new.” He murmured, yanking your shirt down to cover you.

“Loki?” He stopped his retreat from your room, freezing in your doorway. “Thank you for everything. I don’t know what I would have done without you.” You get off the bed, walking toward him, pulling him in for another embrace. He reluctantly pulls you closer to him. You can tell he isn’t a hugger. His large hand smooths the back of your hair. “You’re welcome. I’m glad I was there too.” You bury your face into his chest, breathing him in. He looks down at you, expression unreadable. This is going to be a long two months.

Part Two

Tags

@fictive-sl0th @lokisgoodgirl @lokidbadguy @ozymdias @cindylynn @cakesandtom @eleniblue @marygoddessofmischief @coldnique @mochie85 @goblingirlsarah @lokisninerealms @wheredafandomat @peaches1958 @freegardenbanananeck @chantsdemarins @lokidokieokie @l0ki3000 @anukulee @multifandom-worlds @alexakeyloveloki @ladymischief11 @kats72 @mischief2sarawr @lamentis-10 @loz-3 @litaloni @lulubelle814 @iamlokisgloriouspurpose @avengersfan25 @silver-tongue-taken-to-bed @xorpsbane @mybugabomlb @bunny24sstuff @luthien-elvenia-asher @gruftiela @itsybitchylittlewitchy

[poptartkingsworld]

Erm.. haiiiii :3

It's been a while I'm sorry.. T^T

Buttt i do have something that's been brewing for a while~

Professor!Lucifer x gn!reader smut

--

Professor Lucifer needs a day off. A desperate day off. The piles of homework he needs to grade, the hours of lectures back to back, and the nonsense that he has to deal from his brothers. It all makes him irritable and a mess.

He sat at his desk in his classroom, one hand in his hair, his elbow resting on the desk and the other tightly holding a pen that scratched against a completed homework assignment. There was a point where the answer was so ridiculous that he had to put down his pen with a heavy sigh. Professor Lucifer rubbed his eyes in exhaustion, he had to get his energy up. He fears that he would have a heart attack if he went onto his 7th cup of coffee that night. What else could get his heart pumping and give him some adrenaline to keep going through the night?...

You sighed as you held your test that marked a big fat 'F' on the top. Didn't Professor Lucifer know how hard you studied? All those nights playing videos for the study guide to be completed the morning it was due takes alot of effort! The nerve of that man! He might as well be a demon!

You let out another sigh as you continued to walk down the hall. What should you say to your professor? Maybe some pity sob story would let him give you another chance to retake the test. Although Professor Lucifer wasn't the type to have mercy. You reached for the door of his classroom, hoping that he was in after hours. Yet, he must be since there was an...odd noise coming from the room.

You carefully opened the door, peeking in. Before you could call out his name, your mouth hung open at the sight before you. Your professor with the top buttons of his shirt loose, his hair messy and sticking to the sweat on his forehead, and furthermore...his hand pumping his cock. His eyes were closed in bliss as his hand squeezed around his cock. It could almost make you drool,,

He didn't see you yet so you should run away now and pretend you never saw him. And yet...

The sight of his eyes scrunched up in desperation for release, his cheeks tinted in a light pink. Unfortunately the desk covered the sight of how hard and throbbing his cock was. What a shame.

You quickly close the door silently and knock on it, pretending to just arrive. You could hear the man behind the door, scrambling to situate himself before he let out an irritated "Come in."

You open the door again, closing it behind you and see Professor Lucifer still in a disheveled look. "Hi, Professor," you greet with a sly smile. Professor Lucifer's face was still a light pink, "Yes, hello, is there something you needed, y/n?"

"Yeah, this test.." you held out your failed test to him, he glanced over it. He was seriously interrupted for this? "What about it?" He asked, looking up at you with his brows furrowed.

"I don't think I understand the materials, Professor...I was wondering if you could help me?" You said, eyeing him up and down. After seeing him in his previous state, it wouldn't hurt to have some fun. Plus, it wasn't like your professor was ugly. He was absolutely gorgeous.

Professor Lucifer simply handed your test back, "There's a tutoring center in the building, go get help there and leave me be." He muttered. You smile, the perfect 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine' idea popping into your head.

"But Professor," you start, "I'd rather you help me, I'm more comfortable with you." You look at him innocently, "And besides, I can tell you're comfortable in the classroom~"

"What do you mean?"

You smile and lean over the desk, "I saw you." You whisper. Professor Lucifer felt his heart sank. Before he could conjure up an excuse uou waved your hand, "It's okay, I'm not gonna report you or anything. I want to help you," you move around the desk to face him. Professor Lucifer still seated in his chair, his face stoic as ever and yet his eyes wide with intriguing emotion.

You knelt to the ground between his legs, "Oh, Professor...you're still hard.." you tease, cupping his erection through his pants. "I'll fix that~"

-

Professor Lucifer's cute whimpers quickly filled the room. His pants down to his thighs as you licked all around the red tip of his hard cock. It was so much prettier up close, and so much thicker too... and to think he was going to take care of it himself.

You wrap your warm lips around the head of his cock, lowly inching down the length as your drool dripped down to his balls. Professor Lucifer's head was tilted back, the unbearable tingle of arousal lingering in his groin as he held your hair. His thighs shivered as he let out a shuttered breath, "All of it." He breathed out, eagerly pushing your head down until your nose brushed against the black pubic hairs above his cock. You moaned around his cock, his eyes slightly rolling back in pleasure. You started to move your head up and down on his cock, trying your best not to gag around his length. "Sh,,shit...just like that..aah~" your professor moaned, intently watching the way his thick cock disappears down your throat.

After a while, the urge for release was too much for your poor professor. He stood up, cock deep down your throat and he started to thrust his hips forward. You moan in surprise, you struggled to keep your eyes open as you felt the tip of his cock touch the back of your throat repeatedly. Oh how it would feel deep inside you..

Professor Lucifer's thrusts became rough, causing you to reach out for anything to ground yourself; his thighs, the desk, some homework assignments slipping to the floor. Professor Lucifer's eyes rolled back as he held your head down and abruptly stopped his pace, a low groan leaving his throat as he shot warm cum down your throat and in your mouth. His cum was thick too. Once he slipped his soft cock out your mouth, you tried your best to swallow his cum, coughing slightly. Lucifer sat back in his chair, reaching out and using his thumb to wipe remnants of cum off the side of your mouth.

"I think we can come up with something of an alliance, y/n."

--

NDOSJ this was so much longer than I thought it would be but hopefully this is a good apology for the lack of Luci dick from me 🥺

[unyandere]

Yandere wizard x gen Z reader who is a bit too much into zodiac signs

From some ideas I had back in may

Tw: well ya know how it is, yanderish behaviour, magic I guess?, mention of zodiac signs, gen z behaviour, bad English

Master post

He had been using hundreds and hundreds of spells just to spy on you and it had revealed to be useless: all you ever did was look at cards, listen to ten different horoscopes every day, look at shiny (fake) crystals and taking tests on the internet.

It almost looked as if you didn’t have anything better to do.

Still, even while doing nothing you were more beautiful than any painting from the Renessaince.

And, you believing in zodiac signs, would have made it a lot easier for him to convince you to leave your normal life and run away with him.

Maybe, by showing you he was magic, you would instantly fall for him and beg him to take you with him and marry you.

And he wouldn’t even have to kidnap you!

He grinned at this, it would be perfect.

And so one day he just appeared at your door, holding a shiny stone (like the one you liked so much) and hoping you’d open him the door.

He awaited.

And awaited.

Then he remembered he didn’t ring.

Rang.

You opened the door and got face to face to a guy who looked just a bit older than you, holding a beautiful amethyst.

You took the amethyst from him (thinking he was a postman) and closed the door in front of him.

He knocked on the door.

You opened again.

He looked at you.

You looked at him, he didn’t emanate good vibes… he kinda looked like a Gemini.

And you, obviously, despised Geminis.

They were the worsts, your ex was a Gemini, that was why the relationship had ended between you two… he was just soooo impulsive.

He took a long breath “Y/N, i am here-“

The fact that he knew your name gave you the ick, like totally.

But he made you rethink on your assumptions, maybe he was a Scorpio, Scorpio were sooo toxic.

“So, when were you born?” You asked looking at your nails, in total Aries behaviour.

He looked at you, puzzled.

“Why would that matter?” He asked.

Trust issues, you thought.

He must be a Capricorn.

“Were you born between the last days of December and the first days of January?” You asked taking a notebook out of nowhere.

He shook his head.

So he was not a Capricorn… maybe he was an Aries?

“Between March and April?” You asked again.

He stared at you “look, kiddo, that’s not import-“

You shut him up by putting your index on his mouth and Sssh-ing him.

“It’s a matter of utmost importance! I need to understand if I can trust you!” You yelled at him.

“I can tel-“ he started suggesting.

“Shut up! I need to guess it, duh! Were you born between November and December?” You questioned

He shook his head defeated.

But then a thought popped in his head.

He could show you some magic! That would make you shut up about that zodiac signs rubbish.

And so he conjured some energy in his hands and he created around him a sort of pyrotechnic colourful show so good that some of your neighbours noticed you and the wizard and took out their phones to take a video.

You stared at him.

That was such Gemini behaviour, so unpredictable.

He was surely a Gemini.

“You’re, like, a Gemini aren’t you?” You asked convinced to have gotten it right.

But he shook his head, again, while continuing the show with almost nonchalance, sad that you didn’t seem impressed.

So he stepped up his game, creating bigger, more colourful flames, creating animal shapes and beautiful stories.

That would surely amaze you!

But you were too focused thinking from what sign he could be from.

“YOU ARE A VIRGO!” you shouted.

He shook his head.

“A… Scorpio?” You asked.

He looked at you, puzzled, shook his head.

“TAURUS!” You yelled

He shook his head, almost feeling sad on how you were ignoring all he was doing.

Maybe he should have just kidnapped you, it wouldn’t have hurt his feelings so much.

But nooo… you had to continue asking.

“Erm… Cancer?” You asked, uncertain.

He didn’t look like someone from cancer.

And he shook his head, again.

“Then you must be a libra” you said.

He shook his head again.

“What?! Than… Aquarius?” You questioned, unconvinced.

Today really wasn’t your day.

He shook his head annoyed.

“I’M A LEO!” He shouted, annoyed.

You looked at him.

Disgusted.

“Oh, I see” you said forcing a smile as you closed the door in front of him.

You were incompatible with Leos, or at least, that’s what the horoscope said.

[morelikeravenbore]

Pandora's Book, part one

🔞 Sebastian Sallow x Book | PART ONE

Unhinged!Sebastian, objectophilia, sexual acts with a (sort of) inanimate object, an exploration of grief and acute loneliness. Seventh year, minor changes to canon.

Warning: explicit content. All characters 18+. Minors do not interact. Reader discretion is advised.

Seeking distraction from his interminable apathy, or a temporary relief from his guilt that didn't resort to obliterating his own memory, the girls he took made him feel good, said pretty things that made him believe, for a while, that he wasn't broken and irredeemable. But then, issues of that nature were likely a job for St Mungos rather than some girl's mouth in the back of a disused classroom, and over time, the thrill of mindlessly fucking his pain away began to dull, and he recoiled from their sweet nothings and gentle affections; like everything else in Sebastian's life, even the flames of desire eventually turned cold, and his escapades became less about feeling better and more about feeling anything.

Still, he couldn't say with any measure of truth that he'd felt anything like this from a book before.

A/N: Erm. I'm not even sure how to introduce this one, but I've had this idea in my head for months now and — well, brain rot. I KNOW it sounds like a crackfic — and it kind of is — but it's also an (unhinged and smutty) exploration of grief. This'll be a multipart story, probably three parts. I'll update as quickly as I can but I'm a turtle writer so please be patient with me. Thanks for reading, fellow unhinged bebes, I luv u.

Word count: 3k

[ao3 | wattpad] ✨ [HL fic masterlist]

The gate is opened, and the night

Rushes across the sky with a shout.

The gate is opened, and the evil

Comes pouring out.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ ⁺ . ⁺ ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

'Oh, shut up, would you?' Sebastian muttered as a particularly vocal book wailed directly in his ear.

Darkness surrounds you... your soul is lost, torn between light and dark, ripped to shreds by your own hand... darkness creeps, ever closer... ever closer...

'Yeah, yeah,' he muttered, pausing just long enough to cast a cursory glance at whichever accursed book was taunting him aloud this time. Ah, of course: Secrets of the Darkest Arts. That one had always been especially antagonistic toward him — even before he'd murdered his uncle. 

Rolling his eyes, he gave the offending book a swift two-fingered prod, sliding it deeper into the dark recesses of the shelf it was chained to. It shuddered with indignation — if a book was capable of such a thing — and cursed him so vehemently in Latin he would've been impressed had it not been calling his dead mother a swine.

Unphased, Sebastian scoffed and kept walking, the sound of his footsteps dampened between towering bookshelves as he made his way deeper into the deathly stillness of the library.

To another, perhaps less traumatised sort of person, the idea of inanimate objects giving voice might've been a bit unsettling, but Sebastian was quite used to books shouting at him by now; having spent more time in the Restricted Section than he suspected even the librarian had, their disembodied voices were sometimes the only interaction he got outside of his N.E.W.T classes — that is, if he didn't count Ominis Gaunt, whose insults were often far worse than anything a Dark Arts book could conjure, and who generally addressed him with an equal amount of spite and derision. In fact, Ominis was partly the reason why Sebastian spent so much time alone with a bunch of talking books to begin with: it was one thing for a book to berate you for all your past mistakes, but quite another when it came from your best friend. 

No, when it came to facing resentment, Sebastian would sooner bear the brunt of it from some gruesome edition of Magick Moste Evile than see it written clearly across another's face. In fact, there'd been a time when the incorporeal voices of those awful books had enticed him, called out to him like a siren song, drawn him in with promises of power and glory the likes of which he'd never dreamed of. And he, driven by his desperation to free his twin sister from the grips of a dark curse, had immersed himself in their age-browned pages so thoroughly he'd begun to hear their voices in his dreams.

But that was then. 

Now, those ghostly whispers, once a comfort to a boy who'd had very little of it in his life, were more like the incessant buzzing of insects, harsh and irritating. He was no longer interested in what secrets they had to offer him: Anne was dead, and nothing in any book would ever bring her back — of that, he was certain.

Stretching up to reach a high shelf, Sebastian slid another misplaced book into its correct place, feeling a sense of pride he seldom felt any more. Being voiceless, this particular book couldn't thank him for his tireless commitment to reorganising the forbidden library, but at least it couldn't offend him, either.

Having nowhere else to go after his classes and homework were done, he'd come to frequent this part of the castle so often that he'd appointed himself as an unofficial librarian of sorts. Judging by the general air of neglect about the place, old Scribner never bothered venturing this deep into the forbidden recesses of the library, so rather than tossing and turning in his bed, Sebastian spent his restless nights bringing some semblance of order to the forsaken space, dusting shelves, repairing book spines, and clearing out the infestations of spiders that'd taken up residence in the darkest corners. It didn't matter if every so often some ancient tome insulted his dead parents or taunted him for his lack of an intact soul, if it was incorrectly catalogued, missing a cover, or simply in need of a good clean, he would diligently set it right again and move on. It was a library, after all, albeit a nefarious one, and it deserved respect.

He was just turning a darkened corner, muttering about the lack of proper organisation and general disregard for the correct cataloguing procedures when something — no, someone — distinctly moaned his name.

Well, that was new.

Sebastian stopped dead in his tracks. In all the time he'd haunted these aisles, he'd never once come across another living soul — at least, none who wasn't made of paper and evil.

Calmly depositing his armful of books onto a nearby desk, he withdrew his wand from his pocket. Not much scared him any more — committing murder and raising the dead made one rather fearless in the face of anything less — but it was apprehension, not fear, that had him casting Homenum Revelio under his breath. This was his peaceful hideaway; he neither wanted to share it nor have it taken away by some meddlesome idiot.

But the spell resounded through the empty library, detecting no living presence besides his own. 

He was alone. 

Strange. Either Sebastian was officially going mad, or the books were becoming more sentient — for all their moaning, whining and idle threats of bodily harm, none had ever addressed him by name before.

He paused, held his breath, strained his ears.

There! — There it was again, a distinctly feminine voice calling out for him. 

s e b a s t i a n... i n e e d y o u...

Swearing under his breath, he followed the spectral call as best he could, his fingers trailing over the dusty shelves as he hurried down the aisle, leaving streaks through the grime that might lead him back should be lose his way.

As desensitised as he was to all thinges evile, some distant part of him wondered whether he might be better off ignoring the call of this one — he was surrounded by evil books, after all, and Sebastian wasn't stupid enough to forget that anything gained from cursed pages demanded something of the reader in return: a sacrifice, some sanity, a little piece of the soul. But the desperation in that voice, the pain — the longing...

'Say it again!'

Whimpering moans, a body squirming beneath his; the cute Ravenclaw had been giving him the eyes for weeks before he'd finally gotten her alone. 

'Say it again, or I won't give you what you want.'

Lustful eyes met his — pretty, but he couldn't recall their colour now; they all looked the same after a while. 

'I need you,' she whined, grinding her hips against his. 'Sebastian, I need you.'

He was sweating by the time he found it; tucked away in a small side chamber he hadn't gotten around to cleaning yet, and half-hidden behind piles of long-forgotten junk, the voice called to him from an innocuous-looking cabinet in the corner. Its glass panels were thick with dust, but the door opened easily, unobstructed by lock or magic.

Inside, the books weren't chained to their shelves or bound shut with leather straps, nor made of flesh or covered in suspicious-looking stains. They were just — books; plain old inanimate books.

All but one.

He wasn't exactly sure what first drew him to it. Instinct, he supposed, for it bore no title to pique his interest, and the cover was dull and plain, free of any macabre embellishments that usually made restricted books so alluring. But when his gaze settled upon it, the sudden, terrible ache at his separation made him sure this was the one.

Mine.

He snatched it up, clutched it to his chest — laboured breaths mingled with his; the book was panting as hard as he was, sweet, breathy whimpers against his chest — and when he felt a second heartbeat thumping against his own, knew he'd sooner die than ever let it go again.

s e b a s t i a n...

'Yes,' he growled, squeezing it tighter, his grip possessive.

i n e e d y o u...

'I know.'

w a i t e d s o l o n g...

Striding over to a small table against the far wall, he cleared a space amongst the ancient clutter and gently laid the precious tome atop it, stroking the cover with the adoring touch of a lover, tender and gentle. How supple it felt beneath his calloused palms, and strangely warm.

'I've got you,' he breathed, reverently tracing the hardcover edges with his thumbs, his eyes glazed and heavy.

p l e a s e, s e b a s t i a n...

'Please what?' He leaned down as if to whisper in an ear that wasn't there, his breath ghosting the surprisingly pristine pages.

t o u c h m e...

Loneliness had a way of changing people; extroverts became withdrawn, optimists turned cynical. But when that loneliness was the direct result of one's own failings, it withered anything pure that had ever bloomed in a person's psyche, leaving only a wasted garden in its place, a bed of rotting roots.

Once a boy of friendly disposition and bright curiosity, Sebastian's innate optimism had slowly eroded away after every loss that'd darkened his life: his parents, his sister, his uncle, each death a blow to his happiness from which he never recovered, rendering him withdrawn and bitter, a tree lopped well before its time. — But though he might’ve been emotionally damaged beyond repair, but there was certainly nothing wrong with his body.

Sebastian was tall for his age, handsome and broad-shouldered as his father had been, his muscular physique and toned forearms the result of several years playing as the Slytherin Beater. He wasn't ignorant to the way girls looked at him, nor oblivious to the effect he had on them when he flexed his arms or ruffled his hair. And despite his melancholy (or perhaps because of it, as one Slytherin girl had told him), he attracted intimate partners with surprising ease.

When he'd lost all sense of himself under the crushing weight of grief, it was sex that made him feel alive again.

Ever the resourceful Slytherin, he used this inherent charm to his full advantage, setting his sights on only the prettiest girls in his year level, the most unavailable, or the ones too shy to meet his gaze. He revelled in their blushes and giggles when he brushed his hand against theirs, their darkened pupils and parted lips when he finally had them pushed up against a wall or straddling his lap, and soon, Sebastian found himself addicted to the taste of soft lips against his hungry mouth, the flush of goosebumps beneath his demanding touch, slick thighs and flushed skin.

Seeking distraction from his interminable apathy, or a temporary relief from his guilt that didn't resort to obliterating his own memory, the girls he took made him feel good, said pretty things that made him believe, for a while, that he wasn't broken and irredeemable. But then, issues of that nature were likely a job for St Mungos rather than some girl's mouth in the back of a disused classroom, and over time, the thrill of mindlessly fucking his pain away began to dull, and he recoiled from their sweet nothings and gentle affections; like everything else in Sebastian's life, even the flames of desire eventually turned cold, and his escapades became less about feeling better and more about feeling anything.

Still, he couldn't say with any measure of truth that he'd felt anything like this from a book before.

Maybe he really had lost his mind.

'Touch you?' He swallowed roughly, fingering the notches of the spine. 'Where?'

s p r e a d m e... t o u c h m e...

With his entire body throbbing with need, Sebastian spread the book open to the middle pages. He ran a slow, measured finger down the length of the inner crease, imagining the soft hollow of a collarbone, the sensitive dip of an inner thigh. But to his immense surprise, his finger did not glide over the smooth paper as he was expecting, but sank in, disappearing into the spine as if he'd breached some concealed opening. Instead of meeting a paper barrier, or even the polished wooden table beneath it, he delved into a strangely wet, yet pleasantly warm depth.

He added another. Sebastian's fingers were thick, but the pages yielded easily to accommodate them, stretching and pulsing around him.

Something inside him roared to life.

'Is this what you want?'

Mingled breath, pretty skin. Snow was falling outside but her body burned against his.

'Yes! Yes, Sebastian, please!'

The resulting moan that fell from the book's lips — pages? — ignited a primal, aching need inside him. Musical and clear, and so deliciously lustful it made his knees tremble, it was the single most beautiful sound Sebastian had ever heard in his life: ethereal and otherworldly, pretty and bright — and yet, somehow, achingly familiar. He slid his fingers deeper, the slip of the unmarred pages like silken bliss against his skin, and when the voice whimpered in approval, he thought of the last girl he'd fucked under the Quidditch stands who'd made very similar noises with his fingers inside her. Sebastian smiled, remembering the way he'd had to hold her up when she came all over his hand, her knees buckling and her mouth agape in a silent scream of bliss.

'Oh, so this what you need, is it?'

Sebastian was grunting now, his breath coming in short, ragged bursts as he curled his fingers deeper into the pages' soft, wet void.

The empyreal voice only cried out in reply, but the tight, hot opening fluttered around his fingers in that additive way he knew proceeded a mind-shattering orgasm. He smiled again, half-feral with lust as he pawed at his own crotch, roughly stroking the evidence of his depravity that was straining against his breeches.

'I'm going to finger fuck you until you fall to pieces.' He picked up his pace, the veins in his forearm bulging with the exertion of the efforts, his hair falling over his eyes. 'Is that what you want? To be ruined?'

'Sebastian! Sebas— fuck!'

Frantically rocking hips, fingers slippery with desire.

'Do I make you feel good? Do I? — No, look at me when you come!'

Well past the point of no return, Sebastian watched the rhythmic pumping of this fingers with a singular intensity, marveling at the way they slid so easily into the mysterious depths of the book only to come out coated in slick. This was better than any real girl he'd even been with; this was all-encompassing, mind-numbing bliss, each glistening stroke soothing his burdened mind, mending the roots in his ruined garden.

This was magical.

It was some time before a cramp in his hand had Sebastian reluctantly peeling away from the books' lush center— but the pain of their separation was immediate and unbearable. Whimpering, he went immediately for his breeches, his stiff, slippery fingers struggling with his belt and fastenings until, finally, in a half-blind sort of daze, hot and throbbing, he stroked himself with a raw, gutteral cry. The table groaned under his weight as he leaned over it, mimicking the sounds that fell from his ruined throat.

i n e e d y o u...

His hips bucked.

With one knee propped on the table and a pant leg still tangled around one leg, the angle was awkward, uncomfortable, and if he weren't so utterly fucked out of his mind, he might’ve stopped to reconsider, well... everything.

But he couldn't stop. Now now.

Instead, mumbling stupid, unintelligible praises, he managed to angle himself in just the right way to swipe his weeping tip through the deliciously slick cease.

His mind went blank.

There was no warm body to hold onto, no hips to bruise nor neck to sink his teeth into, just an old splintery tabletop and smooth pages — and yet, if he closed his eyes, he could almost envision a trembling, sweat-slicked body beneath him, as warm and needy as any he'd had before.

If somebody were to walk in on him now, hovering half-naked over a book, painfully hard and inarticulate with lust, they'd be hard pressed to make him stop.

At this point, not even a team of Auror's could pry Sebastian cock away from these pages.

They'd have to crucio him to make him stop.

And even then...

Trembling with the effort of holding himself steady, he gingerly probed the spot his fingers had just been enjoying.

He slid in an inch. Then another.

The book shuddered.

His vision blurred.

i n e e d y o u...

'Sebastian, I need you!'

He fell forward, knees buckling, pleading, whimpering — then a voice, maybe his own, maybe the books', let out a garbled, broken cry as he sank into the sweet, tight abyss.

The world narrowed to the euphoric point of connection, and nothing else.

Pleasure, exquisite.

And nothing else.

And nothing else.

[part two coming soon]

[zeebee3]

Dramione Month Day 5: Undetectable Extension Charm

Draco/Hermione

Implied NSFW

---

The readout glowed orange. 

Granger’s eyes narrowed at it, then flicked to him. 

“It’s saying there’s an Undetectable Extension Charm in the vicinity.”

Shit. Draco contorting his face into something adjacent to mild curiosity rather than guilt. “Oh?”

A huff through her nose announced her displeasure at his lackluster reaction, attention skimming around the room. “Why would there be an Undetectable Extension Charm here? Isn’t this a Muggle hotel?”

“Last I checked,” he muttered. Which had been numerous times from booking to arrival, particularly when realizing that they’d been put in the same room. Wizarding hotels allowed for things like transfiguration and conjuring. In the Muggle world, tampering was strictly banned. 

With her attention elsewhere, he took a covert step backwards toward the — gods — solitary double bed. Perhaps he could Vanish it before she—

“That was rhetorical.” In a swift motion, she turned on her heel, facing him. “Obviously I know this is a…what are you doing?”

He froze mid-step, hands darting away from the zip of his weekender with a speed that only made him look more suspicious. The crease between her brows indicated as much.

“What do you have in your bag?”

He shook his head, feigning innocence. “Hm?”

She stepped closer, peering up at him and then down at his bag. When her wand raised, he grit his teeth and prepared for the inevitable. With the full force of her intention directed at it, the bag lit up like a jack-o-lantern. A flash of amber up at him and then, before he could stop her, she was tearing into it and his secret was exposed. Why had he obeyed that last-minute impulse to pack it, and therefore have it right on top?

“Is this…” She turned it over in her hand, chin tucking back in surprise. “Malfoy?”

“I thought we would have separate accommodations,” he defended, staunchly not looking at it nor her. The drapes were a horrible pattern; he dedicated himself to memorizing it. “Look, just put it away and we’ll forget you ever saw it.”

The tilt of her head was worryingly thoughtful, even in his periphery. “of course, but…why does it have an Undetectable Extension Charm cast on it? Aren’t these, erm, supposed to be snug?”

Snug. Heat flashed through him, as it so often did with her. Fucking detail-oriented, clever little witch.

He thought fast – hopefully faster than her.

“It doesn’t – it’s my bag that has it.” 

She raised a brow, head tilting further to inspect the dark leather bag beside her. “No…no, I don’t think so.” 

He was about to argue that there was no way she’d be able to tell by just looking – given the undetectable part of the charm – when she swished her wand again and recast the scanning charm. 

The toy on top glowed a bright orange.

Well. He carded his hands through his hair helplessly. 

Her eyes went from narrowed to wide. “Oh. I see.”

Salazar spare him, he hoped she didn’t. “You do?”

“Yes. It’s a decoy. Something that, if stumbled upon by someone else, would never be touched let alone inspected.” As if to prove a point, she plucked it up, fingers curled around the narrowed end. 

Granger, touching a sex toy. 

Granger, touching his–

Thinking thoughts was hard enough, let alone verbalizing them. He did his best.

“I’m…not following.”

“It’s a concealed storage place, isn’t it?” The expression on her face was entirely too innocent to be holding something he frequently fucked. When she inspected said fuck-point and pushed an exploratory finger inside, he nearly choked. 

Merlin fuck. 

“Granger, don’t—what are you—”

Her eyes went unfocused, fingers digging around with a determination that was doing unfair things to his trousers, every twist tightening them until he had to shove both hands into his pockets to conceal the effect. 

“Please stop,” he tried weakly, only half meaning it.

“There’s nothing in here,” she said, then finally withdrew her fingers. It took no effort at all to pretend that they were slick with arousal and needing to be sucked clean. 

“No,” he agreed, licking his lips absently. 

“Oh!” Her voice had gone up half a register. “Right. Well. Sorry for…” 

In the middle of gingerly setting it back into the opening of his bag, she paused. 

“But then…but then why does it have an extension charm on it?”

“Erm.” How to explain it as discreetly as possible? “It’s a feature it came with, for those who…need the…extra space. The charm keeps it from being cumbersome to hold or travel with.”

It was immediately clear that she didn’t understand. And fucking Merlin, why must she always understand?

“I don’t fit in the standard size,” he tried. 

Was it possible to die from mortification? Perhaps if he was lucky, he’d pass out from the lack of oxygen being sent to his brain, what with how much blood was currently being routed to his cheeks and…elsewhere.

After a moment, the coin dropped. Her eyes went wide, then snapped to his trousers. “Oh.”

“You asked me,” he reminded her quickly, in case he was about to be hexed for discussing his cock with her. “I never would have mentioned it if you hadn’t asked. I’m not that sort–I don’t go about harassing women with comments about my—” He cut his rambling off and her eyes finally rose.

“Your massive cock?” she finished, voice forcibly light. 

Said cock twitched. Inside his pockets, he made fists to provide further tenting space. “Er, yeah.” 

“Hm.” The sound was abbreviated but carried a note of curiosity. When her eyes slid back to the discarded toy, his stomach dropped. No. Please. Please no.

It looked more at home in her hand the second time, hefted with the confidence of someone intent to discover or destroy. With a quick flick in his direction, she curled her littlest two fingers down and pushed the front two back inside. 

He had to close his eyes. 

But even behind the curtain of his lids, he could hear what she was doing, the unmistakable sound of silicone being explored. Imagination had always been an escape for him but now, it was a self-made weapon. He couldn’t stop himself from filling in a picture to the sounds: fingers wetting and stretching, preparing a wet, snug place for him, then reaching for him; stroking him to unbearable stiffness before slotting him inside; letting him stretch it the rest of the way.

Fucking Merlin and all Four fucking Founders. 

He needed to sit down, but locked his knees and snorted a harsh exhale through his nose at the ceiling instead.

She spoke a moment later, voice mild but not completely unaffected. “It feels quite…large. Do you really need this much space?”

Jaw flexing, he dipped his chin in a curt nod. There was no point lying, not when she could find the answer out by simply stepping forward and gripping him.

Fuck. He tried to banish the image but could practically feel her warm, small palm cupping him, the little sound of pleased confirmation she'd undoubtedly make. Godsdamnit.

Her voice brought him back to the room. “Why have you shut your eyes?”

“Have a guess, Granger,” he deadpanned. 

Another short pause, and then the sound of fingers sliding free. He bit the inside of his cheek, hard.

“Does it bother you that I’m touching it?”

Was she serious?

He huffed an incredulous laugh. “Yes.”

“Oh.” The weight of her gaze was tangible even with eyes closed; his fists flexed in response, feeling her gaze right between them. “Oh, I see. Yes, it seems like it’s bothering you quite a bit.”

This fucking witch. With a sharp inhale, he opened his eyes, tilting his face down to find amber already fixed on his.

“Shocking as this may seem to you, but yes: I find what you’re doing incredibly arousing.” 

It was her turn to wet her lips, something he watched with unconcealed hunger. If she was going to acknowledge how turned on he obviously was, then he saw no reason to keep up the ruse any longer. Slowly, he unfurled his fists, palms resting flat on his thighs and allowing the full extent of his interest to show, testing the tensile strength of his expensive trousers.

For a moment, she didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink. He basked in the silence of her rapture, heart pounding against his ribs. 

And then she flicked her eyes back up to his. 

“May I ask you a personal question?” 

That she was checking with him about that now, after everything she’d already intruded on, made him bark a laugh. Withdrawing a hand from his pocket, he scrubbed roughly over the lower half of his face. 

“Yeah, Granger. By all means.”

“We’re not even going to be here for a full weekend.” Her eyes flicked to his hand and then back. “You couldn’t go two days without…that is, the normal way isn’t…sufficient? You really need this to…?” 

It was moderately comforting that she seemed equally as tongue tied as him, although he had a sense her fluster was less the painfully-aroused-and-mortified sort and closer to the I-just-found-my-coworkers-sex-toy sort.

“No, I don’t need it but I knew that after spending a full day with you, I knew I’d want something more than just my han–” He broke off because what the actual fuck, Draco? 

But she’d heard his confession regardless.

“Because I irritate you that much?” Her eyes were intent on his. 

So this was it. 

This was the moment he’d half dreaded, half yearned for – the moment when he laid it all out on the table for her to pick through and, likely, discard or maybe – just maybe – find something she considered worth taking home.

He sighed, defeated. “Because you drive me crazy. In…just about every possible way. And I knew that I’d need to deal with it.”

She wet her lips, rolling them together as she considered him. “By fucking this?”

His nostrils flared on his inhale, chest expanding with the force of it. Granger, discussing his wanking practices. Looking at him like he was another case study to unpack (and Merlin – he was very willing to be). Granger, interested. Picking things up. 

He took the opening like the starving man he was.

“Yes. By fucking that.” He held her eye. “Or whatever else might be made available.”

The invitation lingered in the air, and then she tossed the toy in the general direction of his bag and his stomach swooped. Two steps and she was right in front of him. One more, and her hands were winding up around his shoulders.

“Luckily for us, the only item left on today’s agenda is ‘go to bed’.” She smiled up at him, amused and intrigued. “So…shall we?”

He pulled her into his chest, awed. “Really?”

“Yes, I’m quite sure. Unless there’s an item I forgot…?”

Clever, wicked, wonderful little witch. 

He dipped down and kissed her.

(Part two here)

[sorceresssundries]

REVIVIFY - CHAPTER 1

Gale/Tav - 2577 words

AO3 LINK

Summary:

“He was right in front of you!” Gale’s breathing is heavy. “You could have killed him easily, and yet you...” He grips your arms and stares you down. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to witness that?” You thought you could hear a slight crack in his voice. “You were reckless and foolish and not the level-headed leader I expected you to be.

You lurch upwards and gasp, choking on the air rushing into your lungs. There is an instant of crushing panic, and then just as quickly, peace. Normality. As your breathing steadies, you look around. Your companions are gathered around where you are now sitting up, but the face you're searching for is not among them. You see a flash of a purple robe disappearing behind a tent flap.

“Erm, he’ll be back, I'm sure!” Karlach is looking at you with relief, though there is still a slight worry in her eyes. “I know Withers is some ancient, crazy deity or something, but I still doubted he would be able to do it!” She looks at him a little sheepishly. “Good job, mate! She still looks a bit pale, though. Did you do it right?”

Withers responds with a stern look and then takes his leave.

“Charming,” she turns her golden eyes back to you. “Are you feeling okay?”

You are still trying to process, to remember what happened. Your head aches, and your lungs are sore from the sudden fullness of air. You settle your hand on your chest as things begin to clear up.

“Battle axe to the chest, darling. Unpleasant way to go.” Astarian is sitting on a tree trunk not far away, looking over a recently looted dagger and not seeming concerned in the slightest. “Such a waste of perfectly good blood. It was quite a spectacle, though. And despite your best intentions of getting us all killed, it didn’t take long after you snuffed it for us to finish the job.”

Shadowheart rolls her eyes at him. “Yes, Astarion, what a hero you are. Nothing to do with Gale going full wizard barbarian.”

Memories are starting to pool back into your recently revived mind. You were at the Goblin Camp. You had one more leader to take out, Dror Ragzlin. Weak and spent from your fight with Minthara, you remember having enough energy to conjure one more spell. The hulking Goblin was in front of you; one blast of flame hands and he would be down. But something caught your eye. Gale. He was battling two goblins, firing off magic missiles but not seeing the one rushing behind him. It wasn’t even a decision really; you don’t remember even thinking. You sacrificed the killing blow and fired protective energy at Gale. It was enough; he shimmered gold and had enough protection to withstand the approaching Goblin. You remember a brief hum of relief and then excruciating pain. Then nothing.

“It was quite hot, actually,” Astarion hops down off the tree stump. “I didn’t think our wizard had it in him, but seeing him lose his temper makes me reconsider my thoughts of him being a big old bore.” He looks pensive for a moment. “Do you think he’d let me bite him?”

“Astarion!” Shadowheart chides. “Now is not the time. I think Gale would probably have a stake at the ready if you went anywhere near him right now.” She draws her focus back to you. “After you fell, Gale pretty much finished off the Goblins single-handedly. He sent a bolt of lightning straight through Ragzlin’s skull.”

You feel shame redden your face. Planning this attack had been your responsibility. You should have insisted everyone took time to rest properly before the final battle. You were impatient and reckless and wanted it over. The ghost of the axe wound rips at your chest. You know it isn’t real, but the pain has split you apart. It aches.

“Where is Lae’zel?” You look around for your Githyanki comrade, surprised she hasn’t chided you yet for your failure in battle.

“Hunting, I think. She helped us carry you back. Be warned, she’s said she’s going to go through intensive battle training with you to ‘improve your incompetence,’ her words not mine.” Shadowheart holds her hands up defensively.

Karlach shifts a little uncomfortably. “And, erm, Gale is just in his tent. Resting probably. I’d go check in on him if I were you.”

You stand shakily and look at your friends with gratitude. “I’m sorry. We’ll plan things out better next time.”

“Well, I'd hope so, darling.” Astarion chides. “All this heroic nonsense is bad enough as it is, without the shame of getting our arses kicked by a bunch of goblins.” He puts his hand on your shoulder as he walks past, and the others look at you sheepishly as they go back about their business. They busy themselves sorting out loot from the Goblin Camp and preparing things for dinner.

“Gale?” Your voice sounds small as you stand outside his tent. You hear the sound of a book being closed, but he does not respond. “Please, can I talk with you? I owe you an apology and some thanks.”

The flap opens, and he stands in front of you, grabbing your arm roughly and pulling you into his tent. The air is heated with fury. “I don’t want thanks or an apology.” His usual soft brown eyes appear darker than usual. “What I would like is a companion who isn’t going to get themselves cleaved in half with a battle axe due to pure stupidity.”

You never cope very well with being told off, and the shame and smallness you feel start to subside in reaction to being reprimanded by this arrogant wizard. “He was right in front of you!” Gale’s breathing is heavy. “You could have killed him easily, and yet you...” He grips your arms and stares you down. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to witness that?” You thought you could hear a slight crack in his voice. “You were reckless and foolish and not the level-headed leader I expected you to be”

You pull out of his grasp and glare at him. “I didn’t ask for leadership. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for the responsibility and exhaustion and burden.” You feel yourself blazing to match his heat. “Maybe if you’d paid more attention to what was around you, I wouldn’t have had to spend the last of my energy protecting you.”

“Why were you protecting me?” His voice is raised now, and surely the whole camp can hear their arguing. “You were right next to him! Why were you focused on what I was doing? I thought after everything that’s happened so far, you’d have a little more faith in my preternatural abilities. You behaved like a reckless martyr.”

“And you’re behaving like an ARSE,” you snap before turning on your heels and storming out of the tent. It’s frustrating that you don’t have Gale’s cutting use of vocabulary, but you feel as though you made your point.

You stride straight past your campmates, all who look a bit awkward, apart from Astarion who seems positively gleeful. “What a lovely bit of drama we’re all witnessing. It really does get the blood racing, so to speak.”

You hear a thud and an “Ow!” as you leave them behind, and imagine Karlach has probably given him a well-deserved thump. Good.

You approach the edge of the water and sit down. Thoughts are racing and blood is pumping. How dare he! Talking to you like a child. As though you had wanted to get your chest split open. The memory makes you shudder again, and the imaginary wound burns, taking your breath away. You need to calm and ground yourself. You are back, you are alive, you are fine.

You draw a circle in the earth and rough sketches of sacred runes around the outside. You take off your armour and kneel in the centre of the circle in your undershirt, head bowed and palms placed upon the earth.

When Gale had taught you magic and pulled upon the weave, he had conjured it out of the air, as though some celestial force was moving around you and drawing you together. The magic was ethereal, divine. Your druidic magic was different. You drew the feeling of peace and harmony from the earth, grounding yourself and connecting with the cool soil beneath you. If you focused hard enough, you could hear the world breathe around you, as though it was a living soul with a heartbeat beneath your fingertips. You were connected to all living things. Your breaths flow with the wind sweeping across your face, and as you focus on your peace, small white flowers begin to bloom around the edge of your circle. You feel them caress your fingertips as you meditate.

You’re unsure of how long you stay there, drawing upon the earth for comfort and guidance, but when you open your eyes, dusk has set in and the air has grown cool around you, causing your skin to tingle. You give your thanks and pick up your armour, admiring the flowers which have bloomed around you. You decide to walk barefoot back to your tent in your shirt; druids do not care so much about ‘appropriate dress.’ You just want to enjoy the feeling of the soil beneath your feet as you make your journey to bed. Feeling much more relaxed and grounded than earlier. You have been brought back to the earth, and you will be much more careful in the future not to be pulled from it again.

As you slip into your tent, you think of Gale. His tent is not far from yours, which you are now beginning to regret. You remember the evening you spent with him as he summoned the weave and shared a moment of magic with you, how the thought of kissing him caused him to blush and stumble over his words. The contrast between his softness then, and his harshness earlier is dizzying. Your heart sinks at the thought of your connection fading. Slipping away into the night. It had been a shared moment of rapture, and the ghost wound in your chest blazes at the thought it may have been the only one you would ever share.

As you sleep, darkness creeps into your cluttered mind. The void you had been pulled into by the goblin leader swirls its way into your thoughts, inciting nightmarish visions while you sleep. The axe. The pain. The nothingness. The cold steel wrenched you apart, splitting your ribs and cascading your blood on the ground. Gale had watched it happen. Gale. You remember the relief and warmth as you saw him protected, and your dreams start to taunt you. What if you hadn’t seen him? What if your positions had been reversed? Next time you could be the one watching him, his body breaking in front of you, life slipping from his eyes. “No,” you plead to the darkness in your head. “No, I won’t let that happen. Not to Gale.” There is a mocking laugh, and an inevitability pressing against you. He’ll get hurt one day. From a spell, or an axe, or the devastating orb that resides within him. You feel sick, and then you’re awake.

“Tav” Once again, you are pulled out of darkness. This time from the horrors in your subconscious, and not the peaceful calm of death. You’re sweaty and breathless, and you can’t tell if the moisture on your face is from sweat or tears. You have an awful feeling it’s both. You feel a cooling touch on your forehead. Gale. He’s hovering over you, concern etched across his gentle face. You feel fresh tears spill. “It’s okay, you’re safe, I’m here.” He pulls you against him, wrapping his arms around you. You stay like this for a little while until your breathing slows to mimic his, his hand gently stroking your head. You feel him press a light kiss against your hair, and you pull back to look at him.

“I had a nightmare,” you say, as though it wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world.

“I know,” he sits back, taking you in. “You were so distressed.” You can hear the worry in his voice, the sentiment is echoed in the warm softness of his eyes.

“I’m okay now,” you say, not sure which one of you you’re trying to convince. Your hand goes to your chest, pressing the area where the axe struck you. Gale watches intently.

“I’m so sorry, Tav. I was angry. I watched you… I saw…” His breath hitches as he tries to speak. It’s not like him to struggle to string a sentence together.

You take one of his hands and place it on your chest, over your heartbeat. “I’m here. I’m okay. I’m alive and safe. I’m here with you.”

“You said my name, in your sleep. You were crying and you said my name. Was it because of the way I spoke to you, because of what I said?” His hand moved from your chest to cup your face. His thumb stroked your cheek, and you felt your heart race.

“No. I just...” You struggle with what to say next. How do you say it? How do you tell him that the thought of losing him is more terrifying than being struck down with an axe? “I was reliving what happened. You were there. I was scared, that’s all.” You don’t look him in the eyes as you keep the truth close to your chest. “I don’t think I have anything to worry about really; from the sounds of it, you can take on hordes of enemies by yourself from now on.” You flick your eyes up to meet his, and he blushes a little.

“Ah, yes, well, I must admit I did let my emotions get the better of me.” He moves his hand from your face and back into his lap, folding himself so he’s now sat cross-legged in front of you. “I don’t need to tell you how powerful and uncontrollable magic can be, and if I'm out of harmony with the weave, it can lead to disastrous torrents of magic. We were lucky, I think, that it was channelled into the destruction of those foul creatures. But care must be taken, even in the most… emotional… of circumstances. I could have put our little team in terrible danger.” His hand subconsciously moved to his own chest, touching the swirling orb branded into his beautiful skin.

“Well, on the plus side, I think it turned Astarion on,” you laugh lightly at the thought. “You may have found yourself a new admirer. Be careful though; he bites.”

Gale laughs, and the sound soothes you like a balm. “Not really my type, but I'll be aware of any effect I may have on him from now on.” He smirks at you, and you feel relief wash over you. Gale was easy, comforting company. You’re glad he came to help. The thought of him leaving you to the darkness again makes you uneasy.

“Gale,” you shift a little awkwardly, and he takes you in, tilting his head slightly. “Would you mind bunking with me tonight? I think I could use a bit of company.” You feel embarrassed at the request, but he grins at you.

“Of course, anything I can do for you, consider it most enthusiastically done. Let me just go and get my bedroll.”

You sleep soundly for the rest of the night; any worry of losing your connection with Gale drifts into the ether. Your hands are entwined together across the floor, and your dreams are much, much sweeter.

[greyias]

[ CUP ]: bringing both hands up to cup the receiver’s face, the sender draws them in closer to them in order to get a better look at their face.

Pairing: Gale x Tav Words: ~4700 Rating: T, despite any indications to the contrary Notes: I have no excuse for this, other than it made me laugh. I’m very sorry. Set late in Act 2, after the infamous spider meat scene. I should probably add a warning for the arachnophobic: SPIDERS

The walls of the tent seemed to loom around him. Normally a tight fit for Gale to stand up, now even more crowded as he finished his preparations for the evening. He couldn’t help but glare at the confines closing in on him, not exactly claustrophobic but also not a location he would normally choose to stage a grand, romantic gesture. He briefly contemplated the merits of conjuring the elaborate illusion of his tower back in Waterdeep again — but no, his concentration was already centered on a spell vital for his plans to try and make up for his outburst earlier in the day.

And even if it weren’t an issue, his Waterdeep illusion required more from him than he had after the day’s battles and puzzle solving within the depths of the Gauntlet of Shar. Which in itself was hardly the most romantic location to woo one’s paramour. Unless one happened to be a cleric of Shar, but even then, Gale doubted Shadowheart would find their current environs particularly stimulating in that way. And it wasn’t like he was trying to woo her.

And perhaps he wasn’t exactly trying to woo his beloved—just more… apologize? His normally boisterous paladin paramour had been unusually distant and quiet with him the entire afternoon and evening, and the timing between that and his less-than-accepting reaction to the reveal of her, erm, unusual proclivities could hardly be a coincidence. So, logic dictated that he make a romantic gesture to show that he accepted her, unexpected predilections and all.

His scowl deepened as he fussed with the stack of tomes that normally lay in a pile next to his bedroll, trying to make for the illusion of more space in the already crowded tent. This corner had seemed like the perfect place to get them out of the way, but every inch really was at a premium right now, wasn’t it? Hardly worthy of the grand, arduous gesture he was trying to pull off. If only he had some vestige of civilization, a romantic suite at an inn that wasn’t one sliver of concentration from disaster. Although he’d readily trade for even half the space of a thin-walled room at even the Last Light Inn at this point.

Although, considering one of the harpers had specifically warned them away from sleeping in any of the actual beds because of a lice infestation in the mattresses, that would probably also put a damper on the romantic atmosphere. Although really, after a century long of the inn suffering from a shadow curse, how were those vermin supposed to have survived? Barring the arrival on the head of an unsuspecting Elturian refugee, Harper, or Flaming Fist, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. The buggers would need regular blood meals to survive any length of time, much less a century—unless they were undead shadow-cursed lice?

Hrm, best not take the chance. The living version of the buggers were bad enough, and toss in an undead, necromantic curse on top would just be an additional nightmare to deal with. Perhaps it was best to make due with the limits of his current environs rather than—

“Gale? Are you in here?”

Musings on the merits of undead lice were quickly derailed by the call.Wait, no—it was too soon for the guest of honor to arrive. “Uh—yes, just a moment!”

Before he could reach the entrance to intercept her, Ari peeled back the tent flap and stepped inside, a gentle expression of concern writ across her features. “You’ve been cooped up in here since dinner. You even missed Raphael, he says ‘hi’ by the way, and you wouldn’t believe what those scars on Astarion’s back—”

She froze, statement ending in a lurch as her gaze whipped over to the shadowed, far corner of the tent. Her eyes narrowed, then widened alarm before she flung herself fully into the space, maneuvering her unarmored body between Gale and the perceived threat. An appreciated, romantic gesture in normal times, but not at all the way he’d been picturing this going. As her bare fists balled up, arm reeling back for a punch he found himself grabbing her wrist in an attempt to keep the evening from derailing completely.

“Wait—no! It’s okay!”

“It’s not okay, there’s a giant spider in your tent!”

“That’s just Llarry—he’s a friend!”

Said giant spider, who had been settled back in the far corner, was sitting as comfortably as an enormous arachnid could in such a cramped space, legs crossed as if settling in for tea. One spindly, furry appendage waved as if in greeting. Although perhaps the gesture perhaps came across a little more intimidating to the uninitiated as Gale had to redouble his grip on Ari’s arm to keep her from punching in one of the creature’s eight eyes.

“See, see, friendly.”

Her protective scowl gave way to a deeply confused frown as she hesitantly lowered her fists. “I’m sorry—Llarry?”

“Well, technically his full name is Llarraggathssinssrigg, but really, he only uses that in more formal settings. He much prefers to go by Llarry.”

“You named the giant spider infesting your tent?”

Llarry reared back, front legs now waving irritably as a soft whisper of discontent escaped his mandibles. Ari’s balled fists started to raise back up at the action and Gale forcefully lowered them back down.

“No, no, of course not,” Gale corrected before they could get off on even more of the wrong foot… leg… tarsus… claw… whatever. The correct terminology wasn’t important at this particular juncture. “You know he doesn’t really appreciate the insinuation that he didn’t have a name before this, and also, it’s not very polite to refer to his presence as an infestation—”

“I can understand him perfectly fine, Gale!”

Oh. Right. The spell for speaking with animals had been one of the first things she cast each day in order to properly give Scratch and their resident owlbear cub morning scritches — here he had to settle for a potion to try and arrange tonight’s events. Although technically Llarry would have understood his instructions regardless, but considering the nature of the evening, it seemed only polite to have a proper back and forth about expectations, boundaries, safe words and whatnot.

Llarry made a series of elaborate clicking noises, front legs waving eagerly.

“Yes, of course,” Gale said at the reminder, “how boorish of me. Llarry, this vision of loveliness trying to valiantly punch you is Aravyn, although she does let her friends call her Ari.”

Llarry's multitude of eyes lit up as he trained his hopeful gaze on the half-elf.

“I have known you for all of sixty seconds. I’m not sure we’re to friends status yet.” As Llarry drooped dejectedly, some of Ari's defensiveness melted. “But I suppose since we’re already using nicknames, fine. You can use Ari, I guess.”

A trill of excitement escaped Llarry, far higher in pitch than expected from a beast of his size.

Seeing that indeed they were not about to be wrapped into a cocoon of webbing, Ari's defensive posture relaxed slightly, although she hadn't quite yet moved from her protective positioning shielding Gale. She tilted her head dubiously at the giant arachnid taking up a full third of the limited space. “So, let me see if I understand this correctly.”

“Of course.”

“You found a giant spider in your tent after dinner, and then made such good friends with him, you’re on a nickname basis with him.”

“Ah, not exactly that,” Gale said as he tried to step around her, although in the limited confines of the tent there wasn’t much room to maneuver without manhandling her. “You see, I brought Llarry here.”

“I’m sorry, what? 

“Third level conjuration spell, really handy in a fight if you need some extra allies—but you know. I figured why not be a little creative, spice things up as it were, in a safe, controlled environment.”

“…what?”

“You know…” Gale trailed off, hoping he didn’t have to spell it out.

“No, I really don’t.” Ari glanced between the two of them with an expression caught somewhere between confusion and suspicion. “Explain it to me like I’m five years old.”

“Oh, this is hardly the conversation for a five year old.”

“Gale!”

The hint of irritation in her invocation of his name had him fiddling nervously with his collar. “Well, you see, I realize that things back in the orthon’s lair got a little unpleasant. And maybe I wasn’t as supportive as I should have been in the moment. But I love you, and I wanted to show you that I fully support your… proclivities. No matter how… unconventional they may seem at first.”

“Unconventional proclivities? How does a spider—” Llarry reared back with an affronted hiss at the rude generalization instead of his name, front legs waving irritably. Ari glanced at the display with a cautious frown before amending, “I’m sorry, how does Llarry fit into this?”

“It’s okay.” Gale abandoned fussing with his collar to give her an awkward but hopefully supportive pat on the arm. “It’s a fixation, we can’t help what we find stimulating. What one person may find a strange predilection, another may discover an unexpected fount of amorous adventure.” He ignored her trying to mouth the phrase in befuddlement, and instead offered an encouraging smile. “So as a show of good faith and open-mindedness…”

With his free hand, Gale made an expansive gesture at Llarry, who waved a giant furred appendage in a way that was definitely overeager to get the evening started. Damn it, Llarry, don’t get too thirsty.

Horror slowly dawned on Ari’s face, color draining from her usually rosy, freckled cheeks as she turned from spider to man. “Gale.”

“Yes, dearest?”

“Is this about the spider meat?”

“And there’s zero judgement here. This is a safe space,” he was quick to reassure. “The point is, I brought Llarry here to show that I want to make this work, unexpected kinks and all.”

Gale wasn’t sure what reaction he’d been hoping for was, but her slowly sinking to the ground as if her legs could no longer hold her weight was not it. Instinctively he made to steady her, batting away the giant spider arm that was also trying to do the same thing. Perhaps she was just overwhelmed at the magnanimity of the gesture, the whole-hearted acceptance of—

“I... I need a moment,” she said weakly, swatting both of them away as she hid her face in her knees.

“I… yes, of course. All the time you need. Although, maybe less than an hour? There is a time limit on the conjuration spell, so if you’d like to get started—”

Llarry eagerly extended a leg in her direction, and it was immediately shoved back.

“I said a moment!” she insisted more forcefully.

Gale quickly made a “cut it out” motion at the spider, who folded back in on himself into his cramped corner with a huff. He knelt down next to her, hands hovering uselessly in the air as he tried to understand this reaction.

“I have a feeling I may have made a miscalculation.” The opening statement was spoken at a normal volume, but the next was dropped to a whisper that hopefully only she could hear, and he did his best to not let any dread creep into his tone. “Does it have to be dead? Llarry’s pretty open-minded, but I don’t think he’d be particularly amenable to that arrangement.”

Not to mention that would be beyond the bounds of this particular spell. But baby steps. Unfortunately, his whisper wasn’t quiet enough as Llarry let out a noise that was neither disturbed nor eager. Intrigued? Oh gods, best to not contemplate that.

“Gale,” Ari croaked.

“Yes, yes, I’m here. Unless you don’t want me to be? Do I… need to leave the tent for this? Is this a private affair? I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I—”

She whirled on the spot, uncomfortably twisting as she grabbed him by the collar of the shirt and pulled him close, eyes wide as her voice raised loud enough for the entire camp to hear. “Stop! I’m not sexually attracted to spiders!”

“What—I mean no, not attracted to them, of course. I didn’t think that!” Not entirely. “Attraction and arousal are two different things. For example, some people like me get hot under the collar when they see a beautiful, strong woman tear a bloody swath through cursed shadowed creatures, and when you lick… rotting… spider… meat… you—”

“It was charmed!” Her grip on his collar shifted to his shoulders as she shook him fiercely. “The spider meat was charmed!”

Elocution left him. “What? But you—”

“It was laced with succubus spittle, Gale!” She fixed him with a wide-eyed, mortified gaze. “I wasn’t… I don’t get turned on by licking spider meat.” As Llarry proffered a tentative limb, she released one hand to shove it away. “Or any part of a spider!”

“Oh.” Gale blinked. “Oh. Why in the nine hells would anyone dope spider meat? With an aphrodisiac?”

“There’s no good answers there, Gale! None!”

“Oh gods, you don’t think Yurgir was—not with the displacer beast?”

“I have been unable to think about anything else for the entire day!”

“Okay, not to lose the conversational thread, but I want to be one hundred and ten percent sure on this point. Your titillated reaction was in no way genuine, and you do not have any desire to indulge in any arachnid-related fetish?”

“I do not.” It came out a defeated whisper as she buried her face into shoulder to hide her burning cheeks. 

Llarry slumped and emitted a dejected trill, his evening clearly ruined.

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“A relief?” She raised her head back up from where she was trying to hide from her mortification. “I thought you said you accepted me as I am—even the weird parts!”

“Yes, but that’s not a weird part of you is it?” He shook his head, then replayed back the words that he’d just spoken. “Wait—that came out wrong.”

“So you don’t accept my weirdness?”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant!” Gale held up his hands defensively. “I love your weirdness, your unexpected nature—I just am a little relieved I don’t need to reserve a third level spell slot to summon a fey spirit in the form of a giant spider for you to salivate over if we want to get intimate!”

“What the fuck is going on in that tent?” Astarion’s loud voice drifted their way.

“Dark Lady preserve us, don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to!” Shadowheart chimed in.

Okay, that was unfortunate. Another issue to deal with at another time. 

“You—you didn’t use your sound dampening charm you created?” Ari whispered fiercely. “When you thought we were going to have a wild night of spider licking?”

“Look, Llarry requires a dedicated amount of concentration to keep on this plane of existence—”

“Oh, well if Llarry requires your concentration—”

The spider in question made an elaborate series of gestures with three of his appendages, clearly indicating that this was not a part of the relationship he had agreed to be party to.

“Please, Llarry,” Gale begged first to spider, then turned his attention to his girlfriend, “I’m trying here.”

“Trying what?” An edge of equal desperation tinged her voice. “Why, why, why why—” she caught herself, took a breath, then exhaled before finishing the question, “why did you feel the need to bring a giant spider into… this?”

“I already told you—I thought I hurt your feelings.”

“You did hurt my feelings—because you yelled at me!”

“And I was only yelling out of surprise,” he tried, oh he tried to stop himself from finishing the rest of that thought, but Gale of Waterdeep was nothing if not thorough in the worst of ways, “because you licked a dead spider!”

“I only licked it because it smelled weird and magical and off!”

“Oh yes, a great justification for supping a little essence d’arachnid — not to mention a sure fire way to pick up a food-borne illness.”

“Hey! I needed to investigate!”

“With your tongue? Did you see me putting ancient relics in my mouth?”

“Yes! I gave you several to stabilize your condition!”

“I—I didn’t eat them, I just consumed them, there’s a difference!”

“And that difference is?”

“Well, one involves a dead spider and your tongue—”

“You know for someone who’s claiming this was a safe space, I’m hearing a lot of judgement in your voice.”

“I’m not judging,” Gale insisted. “I’m just…”

Ari quirked a single brow, arms crossed as she awaited his explanation for why this was about his concern, not judgement. And this entire thing was a ridiculous misunderstanding as it was. Llarry let out a long series of very sincere, but chiding clicks.

“You’re not helping,” Gale muttered darkly.

“You have to admit, Llarry has a point.”

“I really don’t have to admit that.” He shot her a look. “And okay, let’s say I concede that inadvisable curiosity had you put your tongue on it the first time. But if you knew it was charmed, why in Faerun did you taste it again?”

Her cheeks flushed a deep, deep red again. “Because you yelled at me!”

“I feel like we covered that point already.” Gale frowned. “Have we reached a circle in this ridiculous argument? Or is it a spiral at this point?”

Llarry made a low inquiring trill, front legs gesturing in a fluid motion toward the tent flaps, as this was definitely not the fun evening he had been promised.

“Not now, Llarry,” both Ari and Gale  sighed in unison.

Gale scrubbed a hand across his eyes, a desperation clawing up and squeezing at his chest as this conversation, if it could even be called that at this point, seemed to spiral completely out of control. Ah, control, what a beautiful, deranged illusion to grasp for.

Words. He needed words. “It was never my intention to upset you.” That was a good start. “When you grew distant, avoiding my gaze… can you really blame me for wanting to fix it?”

She stared at him, long and hard in a way that told him without any words, that yes. Maybe a little blame was being directed his way. He couldn’t help but wilt some at that.

“I can see you’re mad,” he started.

“I’m not mad,” she insisted. 

“But you’re not happy either.” This really wasn’t going well at all. “Look, I may not have the cleanest track record when it comes to correcting mistakes in relationships. Possibly overcorrecting just a tad.”

“Just ‘a tad’? You don’t think this was a little extreme?” She asked softly, the trace of hurt in the question like a twist of the knife. “Instead of… talking to me first?”

“When you put it that way… I suppose going to such elaborate lengths without consulting you first was perhaps a little ill-considered.” The wounded look still lingered in her eyes, and he tried to swallow past that gnawing guilt trying to rise back up in him. “You just seemed upset, and you know how they say actions speak louder than words, and I know I use a lot of words.”

“You do,” she said quietly. “You know, the first time was out of curiosity.”

“I do feel like we’ve firmly established that fact.”

She shot him a look, but the heat in it was quelled by something a little more raw. “The second time wasn’t just because you yelled or the meat was charmed. It was what you said.”

“I don’t follow.”

“You suggested that we’d run our course.”

“I did no such thing,” he insisted, with a heat. “I would never—”

“You literally told me that, and I quote, ‘the time might just have come when you and I should split ways’.” After the verbatim recitation she dropped her gaze, looking anywhere but at him.

“That was a joke,” Gale insisted hotly.

“It certainly didn’t sound like one at the time.”

Again, she wouldn’t quite look at him, just like most of the afternoon that had started this whole sordid affair. Llarry’s eight eyes glanced between Ari, to Gale, and with a world’s worth of recrimination behind the action. Stupid summoned spider—why had he not let the damned thing leave the tent when they had a chance?

Spider voyeur be damned, he moved in, gently cupping her face and tilting it up so he could look her in the eye. He half-expected her to pull away, but she allowed the motion. The shuttered expression on her face cranked that vice around his chest one notch tighter, even as his thumb brushed lightly across her jaw line.

“I told you once that nothing would turn my heart from you,” his voice was naught but a whisper, but with no room between them, it might as well have echoed from the walls, “and that hasn’t changed.”

She swallowed and after a moment managed to summon the semblance of a smile. “Not even my unfortunate habit of sampling things I shouldn’t?”

“Not even that,” he breathed.

She let out a half breath, half-laugh in response, and this time when she closed her eyes it seemed to be in relief. It was a small win, but he’d take it, and the vice loosened enough so he could breathe again.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, leaning into him.

“Whatever for?”

“Overreacting?” she tried. “I probably should have said something too. I just… felt stupid about the whole thing. And you were just so angry when you were yelling at me to stop licking things.”

“I was concerned,” he insisted, and yes, maybe a little irked that he’d been ignored in the moment. “Maybe we can just chalk up this entire sordid affair to misplaced affections and intentions? I mean, I brought Llarry into our lives to prove my love, didn’t I?”

The third wheel cleverly disguised as a giant spider rolled all eight of his eyes.

“Don’t be like that,” he said, “it was a genuine misunderstanding. Anyone could make this mistake?”

“Anyone?” Ari asked.

“Okay, maybe just me,” he amended, “but I think it’s safe to say that you’re off the hook for the evening, my eight-legged friend.”

A woeful, keening sound left the spider, his large, bulbous head dipping low in clear dejection.

“It’s you not you, Llarry,” Gale insisted, “it’s me.”

The mandibles clicked in rapid staccato, intercut with distressed squeaking.

“Yes, yes, but given the new information we’ve all uncovered in this impromptu group therapy session, the parameters of our previous negotiations really don’t apply here.”

Another click, what counted as a huff.

“Come now, let me just release you from your service. You’ve got less than an hour left of existence, my friend, you should make the most of it.”

Llarry turned his octagonal gaze in Ari’s direction. 

“No.”

Now, spiders couldn’t exactly snort, as they lacked the nostrils to do so. However every single spiracle across his large hairy body exhaled their frustration at the same time, and with a decisive shuffle of all eight legs pounding against the rug-lined floor of the tent, Llarry waddled his way past the embracing couple and shoved his way out the tent’s front flap and into the camp beyond.

“Wait, Llarry, don’t be like that—”

Almost immediately, cries of alarm went up from the rest of the party going about their evening, Scratch let out a loud growl as the owlbear cub screeched a warning. The clang of metal against stone indicated that someone had taken a swipe at the vorekink-friendly spider — and missed.

“Oh no,” Ari murmured, starting to move towards the tent flap to try and save their weird relationship counselor, “Llarry!”

“He’s up in the rafters already!” That seemed to be Lae’zel, presumably the one that had tried to cut the poor dejected spider in two. “Damn it elf, can’t you aim your longbow better?”

“It’s not my fault he’s faster than a Quickling on a sugar high!” Astarion snapped back.

“Okay, am I going crazy,” Karlach asked loudly, “or was that spider crying?”

“Leave that poor spider alone,” Wyll, ever the voice of reason, tried to bring peace and order back into their lives. Bless him. He tried.

“Yes. It’s clearly had a rough evening,” Halsin rumbled.

“I guess he’s fine?” Ari winced, turning back to Gale.

“He always did have a penchant for drama,” Gale sighed.

“You’ve known him for less than an hour.”

“But it seems like a lifetime, doesn’t it?”

“Gods yes.” She buried her face into his shoulder again. “Do you think we have any chance of convincing everyone they didn’t hear any of this?”

“I’m afraid I’m tapped out of that particular magic for this evening.”

“Is there no justice in the world?”

“Modifying our friends memory? Probably not justice—I would say it’s morally dubious at best.”

Ari tried to sink her head further into the retreat of Gale’s night shirt. Unfortunately it was not nearly as voluminous as the folds of the robes he wore in the daytime, so there was not much solace to be found there. The muffled groan was the best she could muster. At that point, the tent flap shifted again and Karlach looked in, an eyebrow raised as she took in the sight before her.

“Soooo,” she managed to draw out the two-letter word out into multiple syllables, “you’re both alive I can see. Well, I mean we already kind of knew you were alive. Because of all the yelling.”

“Remarkable observation as always, Karlach,” Gale’s reply was dry, one hand busy smoothing the top of his mortified girlfriend’s head. “Can we help you?”

“Ah, it’s fine. It’s fine.”

“Is it?”

“Look, the gang—” At Gale’s quirked eyebrow, she amended, “—okay, mostly Astarion because he’s nosey as fuck, sent me in to ask what the hells is going on in here? I told him if the spider tent’s a-rocking, don’t come a-knocking, but he insisted…”

“Just a little… mutual misunderstanding is all.”

“Uh huh. You know, if you want to keep it spicy, there’s a lot easier ways than the five million fucked up scenarios I imagined listening to all that.”

Another pitiful moan left Ari, but it was mostly muffled by Gale’s shoulder. He gave her head a consoling pet.

“She okay?”

“No,” Ari’s words were muted by her insistence of slowly smothering herself in her boyfriend’s shoulder, “just let ceremorphosis take me now. I don’t think even my soul wants to remember any of this.”

“Oh, come on, it’s not that bad,” Karlach insisted.

“Astarion will never shut up about this,” is what Gale was pretty sure she said, but it was mostly just indistinct mumblings at this point.

“Hey, first wise crack from Fangs, and I’ll cave his skull in. Then we can have Withers bring him back. No harm, no foul.”

“Except for Astarion’s skull,” Gale pointed out.

“You’d do that for me?” Ari mumbled.

“For you, soldier? Anything.“ She gave Gale a lurid wink. “Well, I’m just going to leave you two lovebirds to go ahead and smooth out any remaining ‘misunderstandings’ you might have. Maybe just put up that fancy sound dampening charm before you really get going, ‘ey?”

With that, she ducked back out, a chuckle in her wake. Finally alone, Ari emerged from her refuge in Gale’s shoulder, a red crease marking where she’d pressed her face particularly hard against his clavicle. “You’re really smart, right? What’s the chance of a rogue portal appearing and swallowing us up before we have to face the others tomorrow?”

“Alas, a statistical improbability.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

Gale tucked back an errant honey-blonde strand, attempting to smooth her now disheveled hair. “I think we might have to resign ourselves to being the talk of the camp, at least until the next insanity is thrown our way.”

She dramatically hid her face back in his shoulder, as if he’d pronounced the world was ending. “I am never leaving this tent again.”

[pomeg-glitch]

“You can see strings.”

Tim stares at them, brown eyes owlbear-wide and words intoned with accusation and fascination alike. If nothing else, he’s at least waited until Martin was out of earshot, though he had to find some nook in the stacks to shove Jon into to do so. For that, at least, Jon gives him credit. They surely would have passed away otherwise, flagged down some fire giant or phoenix to please, please turn them into a pile of ash and put them out of their misery. The smell of soot would be preferable to the present moment, which is permeated with the stale scent of old books and their own mortification.

Jon would love nothing more than to go back in time and not warn Tim he was about to trip over threads no one else could see — he’s been able to do this for years, he should know better to spot the subtle difference in perceived depth. But he’s no mage, not really, and so the best he can do is glare up at him, moving his pointed finger off his chest, and spit, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Jon.” Tim crowds in a little closer, the brim of his hat blocking the light. His eyes light up like scrying crystals. “You have magic, boss. Real magic! Like, dragon-whispering, light-conjuring, glittery unicorn snot magic.”

“I have the ability to see a world that looks like it’s been taken over by dire tarantulas.”

“And that’s really cool!” Tim says, throwing out his arms in emphasis. At Jon’s grimace, he amends, “It is to me, at least. And don’t try to pull the ‘boo hoo, I don’t believe in magic, I hate fun’ sceptic bit on me again, you’re cuter when you’re not lying to yourself. And to me, of course.” He claps a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “So, which poor sod’s strings was I about to trample on? I wouldn’t want to rip out anyone’s heart trying to get to lunch.”

Lowering the brim of their hat to maybe, just maybe hide their burning blush and stammering lack of words, Jon mutters, “Um. It was actually… erm. Good lord, this is embarrassing…”

“I mean, I was only joking, heh, it’s not actually my business, boss—”

“No, no, I’ve never — uh, I’ve just never really discussed it with anyone. It was… yours. A-And Martin’s. I know you two have, er, fancied each other awhile—”

“He likes me back?”

Jon blinks. Going by all the touchy-feely flirting they’ve been doing for months now — holding hands in the stacks, talking movies and pets over lunch, rescuing that nest of cinnamon birds in the atrium — he was frankly convinced they were living together. “Yes? I… thought you knew?”

“Jon. Boss. Just because you can see that with your fancy spook-o-vision doesn’t mean we all can.”

“My sincerest apologies that you can’t see what’s right in front of your eyes,” they snark. Jon’s already had this sort of conversation with Martin, excluding mention of their… unique ability, of course. He’s more Tim’s friend than Jon’s, they think, but they’ve nonetheless listened to his anxious rambling and, in hindsight, perhaps inadvertently played a wingman sort of role. The two evidently like each other. Jon’s hardly forcing or creating anything that isn’t already very much there. Their chemistry is thick and tangible whenever they’re in a room together — it’s already cavity inducing. They’re becoming a risk for attracting pixies.

Tim gets a mischievous gleam in his eye, smirking in that way reserved usually for Martin, or for any patron at the front desk he’s trying to please, and Jon’s heart swoops even as it sinks, like a piece of parchment fluttering whilst it falls to the floor. “Well, I guess you’ll have to see it for us.”

“…I beg your pardon?”

“Y’know. With your spook-o-vision.”

“Do not call it that.”

Hello!! This is my valentine gift for @gayformlessblob for the @seasons-in-the-archives​ Valentine’s event, featuring a martim/jonmartim focused fantasy/soulmate AU!

Marked by a childhood incident, Jon can see the thin strings woven between his fellow researcher Tim and the librarian Martin as the two grow closer, but he tries to keep this ability under wraps to focus on his work at the Magnus Institute, one of the largest repositories of magical artifacts and writing in the land — after all, he’s never seen any strings tied to himself. As his secret comes out, however, and he works in cahoots with both Tim and Martin to help their developing relationship, he winds up a bit more tied up with the two than he intended :)c I hope you like it!!

(IDs are in the alt text!)

[tar-thelien]

@ox24g it is here!!

Fic based on my new favorite drawing by @/ox24g here, of our two AUs, but as a crossover :) here

Summary:

Knitting Sauron meets Wolf Sauron, someone please come get Celebrimbor and Eönwë to supervise them!

Words: 785

“Can I pet that dog!” Celebrimbor heard a shrill voice cry out loud, and as quickly as he could, he ran around the corner of one of the many buildings in Aule’s halls from which the voice emanated - Aule didn’t keep dogs, did he? 

Why had he ever allowed Annatar to accompany him! Actually, he hadn’t; however, it appeared that he had not thoroughly examined his bags. Cursed Úmaia! 

“No,” a clear voice rang through the air, and Celebrimbor stopped abruptly, taking in the bizarre sight before him.

There, standing with an air of authority, was a Maia, Manwë’s herald to be more precise, holding - of all things - an orc? Not just any orc, mind you, but one with a shock of vibrant orange hair, adorned in a sweater??

Before them was Annatar, his behavior utterly carefree as he gnawed on a ball of red yarn, seemingly oblivious to the gravity of the situation, and the danger he had walked right into. It was as though he had discovered the greatest treasure of Eä, a whimsical delight that eclipsed any of the grand designs they had ever conjured, and decided it was worth more than his and Celebrimbor´s safety. Now that he thought it over, it wasn´t really that surprising. Annatar had a thing with obsessing in the most unhealthy way possible. Well, maybe a bit better than Heru, but that was not the point here!

As he pranced about, tail wagging enthusiastically, he rolled on the ground with delighted grunts and playful wuffs, eliciting laughter from the orc who kept trying to reach his arms out as if to pet the mass murdering Úmaia while the Maia held it back.

He sure hoped the Maia wasn´t here for his Annatar, after all the Valar had unofficially let him keep Annatar by not interfering! Right!? And it looked like the Maia was in charge of… the orc, and not the recapture of the weakest Úmaia that might just exist.

“I want to pet that dog!!” 

“No, no,” the Maia laughed at the orc as Celebrimbor walked closer, “look, the dog’s friend is here to pick him up, yeah?” 

Slowly, while keeping the Maia and the squealing orc in sight, Celebrimbor walked over to Annatar, who quickly stood up and walked a bit to the side with his yarn before continuing to roll around and gnaw at it with unrestrained glee. 

“Anna,” he whispered, as he walked closer and knelt beside the Úmaia, “we have to go home now—” 

“I want to pet your dog!” the orc exclaimed loudly, and Celebrimbor, startled by the outburst, quickly captured Annatar, who was now growling, hopefully playfully, in his arms as he abruptly stood up. 

“Erm… I-I—” was he seeing right, or was the orc holding two other yarn balls? 

“Is it your yarn…?” he finally dared to ask, and when the orc nodded, a beaming smile illuminating his rugged features, Celebrimbor hurriedly wrenched the red yarn from Annatar’s eager jaw as he slowly stepped closer to the smiling Maia - did he look nervous? No… But for what? 

“And here,” he offered the now very wet and somewhat disgusting yarn clump over to the orc, who took it with eager hands, his eyes sparkling with delight as he again asked if he could pet Annatar while reaching his hand out. 

“Erm… he bites…” Celebrimbor informed him, wrestling his sleeve out of Annatar’s mouth. It was important to note that Annatar never truly bit him to inflict harm; his playful nips were simply a testament to his exuberant spirit. After all, he always listened and obeyed when Celebrimbor told him to do something. However, when Atto, Elrond, and Finrod voiced their concerns, they often forgot that they had been the hostile ones to start, and Annatar was merely trying to protect himself if he felt like he couldn´t retreat. 

“I want to pet him,” the orc stated matter of factly, “what’s his name?” 

“Anna… what’s… what’s yours?” Celebrimbor asked, his brow furrowing slightly as he regarded the orc’s face. 

At the question, the orc looked up to the Maia, his face uncertain. 

“Urundil,” the Maia answered with a shrug, casting a somewhat apologetic glance in the orc’s direction, as if to make amends for… for something. 

“Ah… I see,” Celebrimbor replied, his voice softening as he held Annatar, still clinging to him, out for a quick head pat before the orc, to be rewarded with a joyful laugh, after the… after Urundil had touched Annatar´s soft fur.

Not a week after, a sweater, wolf sized, arrived at Haru’s manor, accompanied by a letter from Manwë’s herald, which spoke of a peculiar proposal about… a playdate? 

[memethebum]

Got a very late new Valentine’s Day fic out :)

————————————————————————

“Should we do it this Wednesday?” Maka questioned as she set her book onto the edge of the sofa, only to receive a muffled “mmmm” from Soul as he slightly shifted his head on her lap and continued to scroll past an array of crotchet patterns he’d looked up on his phone.

“Wait…isn’t Valentine’s Day this Wednesday?” the Deathscythe then added before gazing up at Maka and allowing her to see the slight dusting of pink that’d settled across his cheeks.

“It sure is…” the young woman sang while trying not to roll her eyes at how her partner had no problem pushing their chests close together during their makeout sessions but seemed to become a bashful schoolgirl at the thought of moving their annual baking date to the one day of the year where stores could shove expensive junk down society’s collective throat.

“Why, does the Last Deathscythe need to spend the day mapping ways to avoid his fangirls?” Maka then finished, earning her a snort from Soul.

“I was just askin’. It’s kinda funny how I can’t even remember the exact year we started doin’ that,” her partner added before Maka slowly began to conjure up the memory of gifting Soul a gray heart-shaped cake right before Valentine’s Day.

The young woman couldn’t help but giggle as her memory began to deviate towards how she had to explain that the color gray was a symbol of friendship while the color black was a symbol of love in Death City to Soul once noticing the cheerful yet disturbed way he’d been eyeing the cake.

They’d baked each other a cake each year after that, causing Maka’s recollection to also become muddled about when exactly they’d started that specific tradition.

It’s hard to remember stuff like that when I’m finally trying to move us up a step the young woman then thought as Soul tipped his head upwards in order for their eyes to meet.

“Sure, why not? Baking a cake for ya’ sounds a lot more fun than trainin’ any day,” the Deathscythe mumbled, probing Maka to raise her lips into a smile and then lean downwards to plant a kiss onto his forehead.

“Sounds like I might’ve stolen someone’s heart?” Maka retorted with a sarcastic lilt to her voice, all while secretly hoping that a bottle of black food coloring would be all she needed to answer that question.

——————————————————————

“Maka,” a voice whispered from behind the young woman, causing her to set down the textbook she was holding and turn her head around to meet Tsubaki’s fervent gaze.

“Here’s the book cover you wanted. I’m hoping it turned out alright, since I didn’t have much time to add in the finishing touches after Black*Star and Angela set the stove on fire,” Tsubaki exclaimed while holding out a velvet book cover that had a set of small black music notes embroidered onto it.

“Oh, no it looks great! I seriously can’t thank you enough Tsubaki,” Maka replied before eagerly taking the item from her friend’s outstretched hands and rubbing a finger over the slick notes that danced to a melody only she and Soul knew about.

“Of course! Anything to make you two finally confess and let others know you’re taken, not that there’s-erm anything wrong with making out before that,” Tsubaki then exclaimed, causing Maka’s heart to skip a beat at the newfound knowledge she’d gained from her friend’s explanation.

Maybe we shouldn’t have kept eating lunch alone this past month Maka thought as she watched Soul give Kilik and Black*Star a shark-toothed grin and then begin to walk in her direction.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you in class,” Tsubaki then hummed before picking up her bag and regarding Maka with a reassuring smile in farewell.

“What’s the matter?” Soul questioned as he continued to walk towards Maka, forcing her to quickly toss the book cover into her bag and turn to the side in order to face him.

“Oh nothing, me and Tsubaki were just talking about…homework. You ready to go?” the young woman responded while slinging her backpack onto her shoulders and then proceeding to lace their fingers together.

“Yea, I just gotta take care of somethin’ real quick. You should go on ahead though, especially since you’re always complainin’ about not having enough time to eat,” Soul added, eliciting a huff out of Maka.

I wonder whose fault that is the young woman thought before feeling her eyes begin to slowly trail towards Soul’s upturned lips.

“F-fine. Don’t make me wait too long though,” Maka added, probing her partner to let out a low giggle in response. He then raised their hands in front of him, placed a quick peck onto her knuckles, and began to jog past the row of seats as the young woman felt her face flush at the unanticipated form of affection.

——————————————————————-

Maka let out a low sigh as she fished a mint out of her backpack pocket and began to slowly tear apart its wrapping.

She then tapped on her phone screen and felt a sense disappointment begin to bubble within her after realizing that 20 minutes had passed since lunch began, which left Soul and her 15 minutes to engage in some quality time together.

Anything to make you two finally confess and let others know you’re taken played through Maka’s mind, causing her to wonder if Tsubaki’s words held any merit besides the high she and Soul got from swapping spit.

What if Soul doesn’t really want to be with me? I guess I couldn’t blame him…since I’ve always been a bit pushy about the way Mama and Papa ended up. But, he also isn’t the type to be all touchy with a girl just to calm his hormones down… Maka pondered while leaning her head onto the brick wall she was sitting against.

The young woman then flitted her eyes close for a few minutes before hearing a set of footsteps rustle against the grass that covered the training grounds around her.

“Seorry I’m-uh lawate,” Soul spoke over the silence, probing Maka to look up and find him devouring the last few bits of the sandwich he’d packed for lunch.

“I finished my lunch 10 minutes ago! Where were you even at?” Maka rebutted as she plucked another mint from her backpack pocket and tossed it upwards for Soul to catch.

“Oh-uh I had to go explain to Sid that me n’ Star weren’t tryin’ to skip last week but had to uhhhh-help Marie move some desks around in another class,” the Deathscythe then stammered out while taking a seat in front of Maka and then plopping the mint into his mouth.

“Why didn’t you tell me that was the reason you skipped class last week?” Maka questioned before watching Soul’s scarlet pupils immediately dilate from the question.

“I didn’t think it was that big of a deal,” the Deathscythe replied with a quick shrug, leaving Maka to mull over each of the tell-tale signs of when he was trying to get away with a lie.

Why would he need to hide that from me? Does he not want to be with me anymore and just trying to let me down slowly? Or is it…the young woman internally questioned while trying to suppress the memories of her papa coming home disheveled and reeking of alcohol and cheap floral perfume.

“Hey, you alright?” Soul then mumbled, probing Maka to flinch in surprise as he gently pushed a few strands of her wispy hair behind her ear.

“Yea-yea I just…”

No, he’s not Papa. He’s Soul, the most loyal, sweet, and eh…attractive partner I could’ve ever ended up with Maka noted while snaking her arms around the Deathscythe’s spine and pushing him closer towards her.

“I’m just a little mad about you making me wait so long,” the young woman mumbled before feeling her nerves shoot out from her chest as Soul giggled against her.

“I think I know a good way to make up for that,” her partner added, causing Maka to let out a snort and then slant her lips against the grin he’d plastered onto his own face.

The young woman then released a low sigh as she felt Soul gently palm one of his hands against the back of her neck, forcing her mind to immerse itself in nothing but their erratic connection.

—————————————————————-

“REMEMBER WHAT I TOLD YOU ABOUT THE CRUMB COAT!” Kid shouted while Maka began to stroll out the Death Room.

“GOT IT!” the young woman shouted in the reaper’s direction before shutting the heavy doors behind her.

Alright, I’ll bake the cake today and let it chill overnight. That’ll leave me enough time to get the scrapbook finished Maka noted while flipping through a thick stack of polaroid pictures and turning the corridor leading towards the school’s front entrance.

Ugh, right I have to think up a good excuse for not baking the cakes together…the young woman attempted to solve, only to stop dead in her tracks when she saw Soul standing with a girl ontop the school’s large stairway.

She was too far to discern what they were talking about, although the other girl’s stiff posture caused her heart to race.

Maka’s eyes then shifted towards her partner, who maintained his usual calm demeanor before suddenly blushing at something the other student had said.

No no, that can’t be it?! Maka thought as she noticed her partner and the girl exchange small notes of paper before the girl began to descend the stairway.

She watched Soul slowly run his fingers through his misshapen locks of hair and then walk back into the school, causing her to bolt towards the nearest bathroom.

It probably isn’t like that. I was probably imagining all that blushing and…Maka thought while shutting the bathroom door behind her and slumping her back onto it in defeat.

I-I’ll just have to step up my game a little. Yea, I’ll just doll myself up a bit…just so he knows what he’ll be missing out on if he leaves the young woman decided before tightening her clutch on the pictures she’d been holding and then turning around to face her partner once more.

[idya-shroud]

(Hiiii, so I really like the vibe of this blog from the other asks so, I thought I'd send in an ask as my Yuu aka Yuka Yamamoto. They are nonbinary so they/them, they are 17. I think this is my first time acting as a different character in an rp ask. This doesn't have to turn into an rp, I just wanted to see them interact with Idia ya know?)

A person who had dark brown hair, with faded pink dyed ends walked cautiously up to the introverted Shroud brother, looking a tad nervous like if they made one wrong move they'd scare him off. However if they were more anxious, they hid it well..probably because their bangs covered half of their face.

Upon slightly closer inspection, they looked to be holding something in one of their hands. A bright, small blue bag.

"Hiya ..Idia Senpai, I um..I went to Sam's store recently and I saw this candy while I was there and erm- I remember last time I talked to you, you said that you liked this candy in particular. So I- got you some."  Yuka's voice was quiet and calm as usual alebit with a bit of stutter thanks to nerves. they were probably one of the easier people in the school for Idia to talk to because of this.

"I'm sorry if this is weird I just thought you might like this ya know?"

They sat the bag on table near Idia, knowing he'd probably prefer to not have to grab it from their hand.

"Hope you have a good or better day, Idia Senpai."

They then started to take their leave, likely to go stop Grim from getting in another scuffle with Luscious or the Adeuce combo.

A familiar yet sudden voice from behind the male had startled him out of his train of thought. Whipping his head around to see that it was in fact Yuka who had approached him, his eyes traveling to the tiny blue bag within their hands once mentioned.

'They got my favorite top tiered candy from Sam's shop? Oh no, they're probs gonna ask me a favor...'

Yuka was right; he wasn't ready to take the gift from their hands—not yet, not without knowing their true motives behind their gift. "U-um, t-thanks, I guess... Uh, l-look, if you're expecting some—"

Before Idia could stutter up a quiet response, it seemed Yuka already knew he was going to question it.

His eyes fluttered with bewilderment at Yuka's sincerity, and he watched them place the present on the table before making their departure politely.

He wasn't able to conjure up another word before they left, as if the surprise was keeping his tongue chained up. After all, no one outside of his family circle ever gives him a present or even bothers to remember what he likes.

Idia picked up the tiny blue bag that was left for him and peeked inside. Indeed, his favourite candy was in here. A warm feeling burst from his chest; he could feel the sensation bleeding to his cheeks and hair, which stained them with a vibrant pink color.

"O-ok Idia, don't be cringe. Pull yourself together. T-this is totally not a scene out of an anime rn. Nope, no way, I-I'm still daydreaming." He mumbled into the palm of his hand while profoundly blushing.

// Hi, and thank you <3 I'm happy you like the vibes as I haven't been on this acc for awhile now or interacted much. So thanks to you and everyone else on here for making me feel welcome. I really appreciate it <3//

[emeraldvsociety]

//Dumb Personal Rant

I’ve fallen out of love with Star Wars.

This has happened at least five times in the past, so I wouldn’t worry. It was my first ever brain rot, and it will likely be my last.

My private story has been named “Lux Bonteri’s Divorce Trial” for over a year now, and I just changed it. I had purchased tattoo rights for a Cal Kestis tattoo, and now I will not be getting it. I just peeled every Bo-Katan sticker off my laptop. I might liquify the savings I was making for celebration.

I’m just sad honestly. I remember in May 2022 being so excited that I literally watched the celebration live stream all the way through. I probably bought 30+ Star Wars books. I stayed up so many nights to watch the shows premiering at 2am. I got to see ROTJ in theaters.

So, why? I feel like that’s a complicated question with so many answers. I think the main one can be answered by going to YouTube and looking for what YourMovieSucksDotorg posted on April 24, 2022. (Great video essay btw).

ANYWAY! I am informing y’all of this because if for some reason if I never fall back in love with Star Wars, I have a plethora of Obitine, erm, content that I haven’t posted that I wrote quite literally at the start of my brainrot. Is it very good? No lmfao. I actually didn’t post it because my ex-situationship thought it was bad (he goes to an Ivy League school so I trusted his judgement but idk maybe he’s wrong). So, yeah, if I never return to SW feel free to yell at me to post it.

Man on the Moon readers: This post does not apply to y’all. I will never stop writing Man on the Moon. I could get hit by a BUS, break all of my limbs, only be able to type with one hand, and I would STILL keep writing MotM. I will go write MotM after I post THIS. Shoutout to whoever conjured up the Foxiyo fandom y’all survived my breakup with Star Wars.

[fantimati]

No forgiveness in waters of Fontaine- preview

Lyney and Lynette have trouble with a trick the need for a mission.

Warnings: Fontaine spoilers. Completely self indulgent

"Lyney, this trick isn't going to work." Lynette spoke matter of factly. Sweat glistened from her face from hours of doing the same trick over and over again. Lyney sighed out of frustration.

They had been working on this trick for months now. But the mechanism behind it was just too loud.

"You're right Lynette. The audience would be able to hear everything." He dramatically plopped on his back. "But we worked so hard on it! It'd be a shame to have all that work go to waste..."

"I know what you're trying to do and it's not going to work." She sat down next to him. "It's not like we can make gears silent." Lynette conjured a tea cup.

"Dearest sister, you of all people should know that anything is possible on stage." He winked. She sighed.

"True. But like I said, the way it is now, won't work unless we find a way to mask the noise."

"Masking the noise..." She could physically see the cogs turning in head. "Oh! Lynette would you mind us inviting Florian-"

"Say something that's possible." Lyney watched her tail puffed up.

"Come on! Florian is a musician! He can play music over the noise."

"It's not about that. You know he won't come to Fontaine, even if we gave him a million mora." To Lynette, "impossible" was the only word to describe him. Impossible to convince and impossible to stand.

"I know we've butted heads with him a few times,but he's still Fontainian." Her tail puffed up more. 'butted heads' and 'few times' was an understatement.

"Florian? I don't think I've met him before..." Freminet, who had been silently watching thus far, spoke.

"That's because he doesn't hang around the other Fontainian orphans much." As a child, Lynette always saw him either alone playing his saxophone, or with those ballet dancers. She could understand wanting to be alone.

"What is he like?"

"Erm... He's unique-"

"Uniquely Annoying." Lyney looked at her with a face that said 'Please I'm trying to be nice.' but she didn't care.

"Oh! Um... Was he mean to Lynette."

"Nothing like that! We just had a difference in opinion that's all." Freminet tilted his head in confusion. But he did not ask more, to the twins' relief.

"We do need to at least invite him over. Or else our *private performance* can't go through." The performance that was a cover for a mission. That currently hinged in this mechanism to work.

"Does it have to be him? There has to be another way." At Lyney's pleading face she relented. "Fine. I'll go pack. I think he's in Mondstadt right now."

------

"You came all the way here to ask me that? What are you? Stupid?" Florian didn't even bother to look at them as he cleaned the inside of his saxophone. "You know I wouldn't go to Fontaine, even if you gave me 20 million mora." Lynette glanced at Lyney with as much disrespect as she could muster.

Florian's shiny black shook with his head. His umber skin was dyed black at the finger tips. Most likely from cleaning his too old saxophone.

Florian was a popular traveling musician. At least on the surface. He was a amazing spy and theif as well. Able enchant with his instruments and beauty while wringing you for all your worth.

"Please Florian. Just this once! You can't tell me you don't miss the sights-"

"The only sights I remember are the sewers." He held up the mouth peaice to the light.

"Uh- well. You could prove your music is superior to Fontainian music-"

"I can do that anywhere else."

Lyney rarely got so flustered. Always being in control of a conversation like a slight of hand trick, that was his specialty. But with this guy, it was impossible.

"Please Florian- we need you. Just this once, as a fellow member of the hearth." He pleaded.

Florian slammed the mouth piece down."This isn't about being a member of the hearth. This is about that rotten nation." He looked directly at Lynette. "You of all people should know that."

That night. That man. That basement.

Lynette would describe Florian as 'impossibe' to understand. He acted like he was from Fontaine. He greeted people in the traditional Fontaine way. He spoke like he was from Fontaine.

But the way he spoke of Fontaine was...not favorable. One thing not impossible to to understand was that he did not join Fontaine missions. Ever.

"Brother. This is a lost cause." She put her hand on his shoulder.

"Fine. But at least read the mission report." He pulled out the report from his hat and handed it to Florian. He relented and began to read it.

Lynette didn't expect anything to come of it. The same thing happens every time. They beg, he refuses, Lyney asks him to read the report, he humors them and refuses. But she watch as his faced changed from a bored expression to an intense one.

"...Émile Martel!" He whispered. The twins looked at each other in surprise.

"Do you know him?" Lyney asked.

"More than know him unfortunately." He forwned. They waited for him to elaborate but he didn't."... having a chance to get back at him is worth more than 20 million mora."

"So you'll do it?" Lyney asked cautiously.

"Count me in." Lyney cheered and Lynette stood in shock.