#even if the books were this dry (which I doubt) they don't have to follow the source material word for word

[babygreenxox]

Chances-- Part 1

There wasn't a moment in your life that you would change for this very moment. You can't help but stare at the human in front of you looking at you with confusion. Probably cause you're just standing in front of him, not making any movements or letting out any sounds. He's still holding out his abnormally large hand, it's looks so strong. You will yourself to move, lightly grasping his hand, gasping at the feeling of your hand brushing against his.

"Hey, what's your name sweetheart?" You swear you want to swoon.

"It's Y/N" He looks lost for a minute, gathering his thoughts, oh how you wish to be able to read his thoughts.

"Beautiful" he whispers before coughing, clearing his throat. "Your uh name is beautiful" he quickly lets out, staring right into his bright blue eyes; clouded over a bit, no doubt from a blunt. You smile and blush unable to control the facial expressions. "Thank you, Colson" you freeze "I meant Kelly" you force out. He looks back at you, his eyes somehow darker than they were a minute ago. "No, it's okay, you can call me Colson or anything you want sweetheart. Continuing to stare into each others eyes; completely forgetting that there's a line behind you also waiting to talk to Colson and sign stuff.

Looking up at him "Can you just sign this?" you say while placing your note book and poster of him on the table. "Of course baby girl" he takes a minute or two before he hands back your stuff. "Here you go, it was nice meeting you" he smirks "You too" he replies with a wink before he moves his attention to the next fan.

You get back to your car before you take a look at the autograph you just got. You glance down to your poster which was signed with his signature and initials, you then look to your notebook. There's more writing then the autograph on your poster. 'It was nice meeting you, I don't know why but I want to know more about you. If you feel comfortable, here's my address ****************** stop by around 7 tonight. If not, I completely understand, take care sweetheart' -Colson Baker

Your eyes are the size of saucers, heart thumping loud and fast against your rib cage. He did not, how uh-why. Excited you already know your mind is made up; you are definitely going to his house. Now just got to find something to wear; you speed home so you can tear apart your closet, trying to find something to wear that makes you feel confidence and sexy. Groaning you look at the time already 5:30 you settle on skin tight high waisted jeans and basic black crop top, remembering to match your underwear. You know just in case it's really just to make me feel more confident. Yeah keep telling yourself that. Shaking your head you head into the shower so you can get dressed, dry your hair, and do your make-up.

After the next hour of getting ready; feeling satisficed with your appearance, you decide you need to get on the road to Colson's house. Hoping for the best to come out of this encounter.

You nervously pull up to a mansion, not even surprised by the size. You wouldn't expect anything else from. You drive to the big white gates, after giving only your name you are beeped in and start driving up to the house. As you park the car you get goosebumps, anxious, not sure what to expect when you finally knock on the front door. You knock loudly three times, the door opens not even a minute later. "Hello, Miss, are you here for Mr. Baker?" an older gentleman asks, you assume he's the care taker and nod gently. He gestures for you to follow him; which you do timidly. Scared to even speak cause you're afraid no sound will come out if you even tried.

You are brought to what seems go be a living room or chill room. You spot three people sitting down smoking blunts and having some drinks. There's Pete, Slim, and finally Colson. As you near them they all snap their heads up immediately; frozen, shocked you shake your head and greet all of them with a soft smile. Pete is the first to get up and shake your hand giving you a hug as well. "Hey honey, I'm Pete" smiling "I know" you meekly reply. Slim stands and gives you a bear hug like he has known you for your whole life. "Hey girl, wassup" you start laughing "can't complain" you shrug. "True" he sits back down puffing on a blunt. Colson hasn't moved since he locked eyes with you, frozen, can't breathe, and pulse racing.

You see Pete smack his knee and say something to him you can't make out. Colson finally stands and walks to you with blunt in hand. "Sweetheart, I'm so glad you decided to come tonight" he smiles. "I admit I'm completely curious" you say carefully. "Oh, sweetheart so am I" he smirks and offers you some of the blunt "You don't have to" he gets out but your already taking a big puff and blowing it out. He chuckles and brings you over to where he was sitting. "Beer, Cola or something stronger?" "Cola, more of a smoker than a drinker" he raises his eyebrows "Gotchu" he brings you back a can of cola, in the background you can hear one of his songs playing as well as Slim and Pete talking.

"Sweetheart, tell me more about you" Colsons eyes sparkle you swear you just seen a twinkle in his eyes. You sigh, "Well, I work a community center running programs for youth and families. I have one older brother who lives on the other side of the country. I just turned 26 last month and basically spend most of my free time reading, listening to music, and sketching. Not very interesting" you finish and realize that three sets of eyes are staring at you. "What did I say?" not sure why no one responds. "Shit sorry sweetheart but you sound like an angel" Colson smiles wide. "Agreed" both Pete and Slim chime.

"We're going to head out Kells, and nice meeting you" Pete says. Slim repeats the same action. You look at Colson realizing he closer to you than before. Your pulse speeds up, unsure on what is happening.

"Sweetheart, tell me to stop and I will" without another word he crashes his lips into yours causing you to gasp. He slips his tongue in where you fight with him for control. He groans into your mouth as you straddle his lap, throwing your arms behind his neck; hands going straight into his hair and tugs lightly. He moans gripping your ass harshly grinding into you. "You okay with this sweetheart?" he whispers with that twinkle in his eyes again. You nod and he furrows his eyebrows "Words babygirl" he demands huskily. "Yes please" you almost beg. He groans, picking you up like you weigh nothing and continues kiss you as it gets more heated he rushes to his room and tosses you on the bed. You giggle in return. He climbs on top of you quickly after discarding his shirt, kissing down your neck leaving hickies where ever he can get. Getting more frustrated he pulls at your top and you sit up for him to slide it off along with your bra. Grasping your breasts you moan, he starts to lick and kiss your nipple before switching to the next paying both attention. Feeling like you died and went to heaven right then.

He starts to tweak your already hard nipples, drawing a loud moan out of you. He starts to kiss down your stomach leaving trails of wet kisses down until he reaches the top of your pants. Starting to pull at your pants silently asking for permission, nodding frantically, he chuckles "Eager are we sweetheart?" you start to pout at his comment tugging on him. He chuckles again before pulling your pants down to your ankles before slipping them off rest of the way.

After stripping them off of you he yanks down your panties so hard they almost rip. "Hey be careful" you tell him, he only chuckles in response. Groaning at the sight of your glistening pussy, he wastes no time diving in between your legs. He pauses to look at you "So sweet just like I thought you'd be" before running his tongue through your soaked slit making his way up to your clit. He puts more pressure on the slick bud, sucking on it gently. Your a moaning mess underneath him. He slowly builds the pressure in your belly, drawing loud mewls out of you. He sinks two digits into your core. Pumping at a steady pace.

"Colson! Don't stop" you shout and he continues his assault on your pussy. You pull his hair signaling how close you were.

"God that's it lose it for me sweetheart" he grunts as he eats you out like it's his last meal, almost feral causing you to lose it. Cumming hard on his tongue. Legs still from the mind blowing orgasm you just had.

"That was nothing compared to what I'm about to do to you" he smirks with a glint of something in his blue eyes. Almost challenging you, like you can't handle it.

"Bring it on Baker" you challenge back.

This is going to be a long night.

[mrs-sharp]

The Eyes of Graphorns

Chapter 4 of my Aesop Sharp x Professor mc fanfiction.

Read part 1-3 here

tw: angst, mention of pain and death

(but also a little fluff towards the end - I guess)

Summary: MC tells Sharp she has uncovered a black market for goblin artefacts in Scarborough. And there's another secret she reveals to him.

Chapter 4 - The Renegades

The next day, Aesop Sharp stood outside the office in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. After climbing the last step, he raised his hand and paused. Should he really be here? Was it appropriate to visit his former student so late on her first day? He had a good reason, yes, but now that he was standing in front of her door, doubts crept in. But then he shook his head vigorously and decided to knock. On the other side of the wooden door, Elaine looked up from her desk. The sun had already set, and she had lost track of time while preparing for the lessons for the next few days. She ignited a fire in the fireplace with her wand and called out, "Yes?"

The door opened, and suddenly Aesop Sharp was in her office. It was strange to see him in a different office than his own.

"Good evening," he greeted her politely, looking around. The room looked different from Dinah Hecat's time. Shelves lined the walls filled with books, potions, and ingredients. Some shelves were stacked with loose papers, inkwells, and feathers from birds he didn't recognize. Between the shelves, strings were stretched, hanging herbs and roots for drying. Everywhere he looked, he discovered items and objects he had never seen before, some apparently from distant lands, including masks, maps, amulets, clay vessels, and other curiosities he couldn't name.

"Professor Sharp, what can I do for you?" she asked, although she knew the reason for his late visit. Elaine stood up to greet him.

"Well, I wanted to ask how your first day of school went."

"Oh, well, it went quite well, I think. Today I discussed Boggarts with the third years."

There was a moment of silence in the room.

"Well, the reason I'm actually here-"

"Why don't you sit down?" Elaine offered, conjuring a second chair to her desk with a flick of her wand, on which a candle holder illuminated a stack of books and parchments.

"Thank you. We didn't talk about it yesterday, as we were so abruptly interrupted, but you mentioned that you were in Scarborough?"

Elaine noticed him shudder at the name of the place where he had carried out his last assignment for the Ministry. She had also noticed yesterday that the name caused him discomfort. She wanted to address it, but at that moment, Professor Black had inexplicably appeared and stated that he could not tolerate his teachers still being in the corridors at such a late hour, with classes scheduled for the next day.

Elaine nodded and decided to get straight to the point. "I uncovered a secret black market for Goblin artefacts."

Elaine paused briefly before continuing, "We found a hidden storage room in Scarborough full of Goblin artefacts and an empty repository, similar to the one under Hogwarts. The artefacts were partially enchanted with dark magic. They are mainly used as weapons, as Ranrok did. The storage room must have been in use for some time. I..." Elaine paused briefly before hesitantly reaching into her coat pocket. She placed an Auror badge on her desk and slid it over to Sharp. He recognized it immediately. It was the badge of his deceased partner.

"I found this in their hideout..."

"But, what? That can't be. You mean... the smugglers in Scarborough?"

Elaine nodded.

"They didn't just smuggle shrunken heads. That was just what the Ministry was supposed to believe. I persuaded the Ministry to reopen the case. Ranrok had already gathered followers long before he pursued me. The smugglers from Scarborough worked with Goblins, who had turned away from Ranrok. They are an organized group and call themselves 'The Renegades.' They abducted or killed Ranrok's followers to obtain the artefacts and then sell them. They also smuggled metal from the mines to make their own repository. After Ranrok was defeated, they continued until today. And now they are after me again. They believe that through me, they can obtain more dark magic to fill the new repository and produce new artifacts. That's why the Ministry wanted me to go into hiding. Then, this summer, I happened to meet Professor Hecat, and when she told me that she wanted to resign from her position... I took the opportunity."

Aesop Sharp was lost in thought for a while.

"But how? Why do the Renegades believe that they can obtain dark magic through you? Just because you can see traces of ancient magic doesn't mean you practice dark magic."

Elaine ran a hand through her short hair and thought.

"Come. I think I need to show you something."

She got up, walked past Sharp, and stepped into a corner of the room behind him. It was only now that Sharp noticed a Pensieve standing there. He followed her and watched as she drew a silvery thread from her temple with her wand and let it slide into the basin. Her appearance had something graceful and dignified, momentarily causing Sharp to forget why he was here. The melancholy in her gaze, the scars on her face, the short hair, all gave her a unique beauty that overwhelmed him.

"Please," Elaine said, gesturing towards the Pensieve. Sharp approached it and lowered his head into the cool liquid.

-

Sharp saw Fig and Elaine standing in Fig's office, talking.

"Rookwood is working with Ranrok," he heard Elaine say, "and they want... me."

"Then they want what we found in Gringotts," Fig replied.

Then he saw Elaine and Fig standing in front of the four large picture frames he had seen below Hogwarts when he entered the underground caves with Elaine, but this time they were not empty. In one of the portraits, an older wizard was visible.

"You must pass four trials…"

The scene changed, and he could see Elaine and Fig observing Ranrok and Rookwood.

"Bring me the child…"

Then back to the room with the portraits, this time with more frames filled. Elaine asks, "What did Isidora extract from her father's chest?"

"Pain…"

The last scene seemed to be the day of the Battle of Hogwarts.

"Did Isidora absorb the pain? I don't understand, how could she derive power from it?"

"I wonder that you ask about your power?“

“There is a powerful Goblin who wants to use this power for himself…"

Finally, Sharp hears the woman's voice again: "Just because you can dispel the darkness doesn't mean you should always do it..."

-

Sharp was brought back to the present and looked at Elaine.

"I don't quite understand, what does this mean? Who is Isidora?" Sharp asked puzzled. He couldn't believe what he had just seen.

"Isidora Morgenach. She was a professor at Hogwarts. She could also see and use traces of ancient magic like me. She had the repositories built and filled with ancient, dark magic. That's why the Renegades want to find me. They believe they can force me to produce this dark magic for them so they can create new weapons."

Elaine pressed her lips together briefly. After a short pause, which Sharp also noticed, she continued, "I don't know exactly how they make these artefacts and what powers the dark magic has, but... whoever survives their attack must live with a curse forever. And... with the chronic pain it causes."

She looked at Sharp's leg and avoided his gaze. Elaine swallowed. She felt Sharp's thoughts racing as he looked at her. Gathering all her courage, she looked up at him: He had an equally sharp and alert as well as hopeless look in his eyes.

"You... You mean to tell me that you knew all along what kind of magic cursed me and you didn’t say anything?" Sharp seemed tense. It was as if something in him was breaking that he didn't know was there. As if a connection between Elaine and him has been destroyed that had never existed. Elaine remained silent. She had feared this moment since she knew she would return to Hogwarts.

"So you do possess ancient magic, like Isidora. You share her abilities... If she could extract pain, then..." he began hopefully. Elaine looked at her trembling hands. The right time to tell him the truth had long passed, but she had to do it eventually – preferably before she got too used to his presence, in case he decided to turn away from her permanently.

"I know what you're getting at. I won't do it," she interrupted him curtly but firmly. Sharp jumped up and slammed his fist on the table. Elaine didn't flinch. She had already anticipated what would happen. Sharp was about to lose control. Elaine couldn't bear to look at him anymore. She ran her fingers over the notches in the wooden table they were sitting at. The pendulum of the grandfather clock ticked heavily through the silence.

"You don't know what it's like," he retorted, his voice trembling, "to wake up every day and realise what happened in the past is still paralysing you. Not knowing what you're worth to the wizarding world and then the pain..."

What was he talking about? She had been back at Hogwarts for a day, and he behaved like a whiny, bitter man dependent on the pity of others. He had never talked to anyone about it in his entire career, and now he was making a fool of himself. Elaine looked away so he wouldn't see the tears in her eyes.

"Look at me!" he suddenly shouted. He couldn't hold himself together anymore, not after what Elaine triggered in him. "You knew all along, you know the cure, and you said nothing? Do you even care at all what I have to endure day after day?" Now Elaine was slowly losing patience.

"Do you really think that I don’t know what you're going through?" she snapped at him. Sharp fell silent. In the three years he had taught her, he had never witnessed her losing control. With her left hand, she unbuttoned her shirt sleeve, pushing up the fabric and revealing her right arm – it was covered with burnt skin, forming a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt, shimmering reddishly. Sharp recognized it immediately. He has carried the same scar on his leg for years. So that was the reason why she had changed so much. On her first day, he had already noticed that something couldn't be right, that she was in pain, and that she avoided his gaze. He fell silent, his face taking on a sad expression as Elaine's words poured out. She no longer bothered to hide her tears:

"Do you really think I wouldn't know what it feels like? I've been travelling the world to find a cure for you! Because I couldn't bear to see you suffer even back then. I didn't want to return to Hogwarts until I had found at least something. That's why I didn't write to you. That's why I was afraid to come back. After a year, when I still hadn't found anything, I became an auror, to at least bring down your attacker, and I would have succeeded if there hadn't been a spy who betrayed us. That's why I didn't want you to know about my return. I came back with the same pain you suffer everyday and with the knowledge of having failed."

At the last sentence, she turned away from him and wiped her face with her left sleeve. Elaine took her coat from the chair, threw it over her shoulders, and stormed out. Sharp stood frozen in the room, feeling lost. He waited for the second door in the classroom to close, but the sound didn't come. Sharp slowly walked into the room where Defense Against the Dark Arts was taught. Hecat's dragon skeleton still hung from the ceiling and looked even more menacing in the torch-lit room than it already did in the daylight.

He found Elaine at the front of the room. She stood motionless in front of an old wooden cupboard that Sharp had seen before. He knew what was inside. Sharp approached Elaine and stood behind her. She didn't turn around, but he knew she felt his presence. She always did. With a trembling hand, Elaine silently opened the cupboard door. At first, nothing happened. Then Elaine broke the frosty silence. There was an insecurity in her voice that Sharp had never heard before, not even after Fig's death: "I didn't know what form he would take. Back then, I always saw Fig's corpse, but today..."

Elaine stopped herself as a tall figure emerged from the cupboard and staggered towards her. Sharp took a moment to realize that it was himself approaching Elaine. Was he the thing she feared the most? She had mentioned being afraid to write to him, but...

However, upon closer inspection, he noticed that the second Sharp had a strangely absent expression. His lips were twisted into a grotesque smile, and his eyes... They were empty. They weren't sad or desperate; they lacked any emotion, and a white mist in them seemed to stare directly into his soul, trying to extinguish all life from within. Elaine turned to face Sharp, looking at him. Her reddened eyes and the fear in her gaze weighed heavily on Sharp. Elaine now spoke a little calmer, but still sobbing: "Isidora didn't just free people from their pain, but from any emotions. They all turned into soulless shells."

Elaine paused briefly before silently and without turning around, transforming the Boggart into a few colourful streamers and sending it back into the cupboard.

After a moment of silence, she took a step towards Sharp and looked deep into his eyes. The blue of her eyes overwhelmed him, and although he had just been angry with her, he now felt an unusual attraction emanating from the fragile hint of trust in her gaze. They just stood there in silence for a while, and then, Elaine did something he hadn't expected: she touched his hand. Sharp breathed in briefly and barely audibly. Her touch tore him apart internally – it was the most gentle and tender touch he had felt in decades. Yet it felt like a farewell. Elaine continued softly: "I can't take the risk. You mean too much to me."

Then, she turned around, left her classroom, and disappeared into the darkness of the castle.

Chapter 5 - Elaine's Laughter

[huntunderironskies]

Can I ask what 'premillenial dispensationalism' is ?

oh no i have to explain the scofield bible

Side note, I picked a bad time to finish this, I meant to have it done earlier but I've been super busy. Everything here is dead serious, sadly. If I get another follow-up to this, as a warning I will take forever to respond because I try to make these as informative and respectful as possible.

I'm going to put this below a cut. As a content warning, this talks about end-of-the-world stuff and touches on conspiracy theories and antisemitism, so take care if that's a touchy subject for you. It's impossible to talk about this in any depth without it leading into these topics. I'm going to try and keep to the things I know about so I don't make any missteps which is why I'm focusing more on the academic/scholarly aspects.

Alright, so. The idea of the apocalypse most people in America are familiar with is the one that starts with the Rapture. Unless you've been raised in certain groups or God zaps up all the good people to the sky and then there's a bunch of bad stuff that happens and then Jesus shows up to establish a Kingdom of God and after a thousand years of perfect rule and then there's one final battle against Satan and then the world gets destroyed, and everyone either goes to Hell forever or goes to Heaven.

Anyways, that's all about like, three hundred years old, tops AFAIK? More specifically just regarding the Rapture and what comes after it, the eternal misery thing is way older. To be clear, no serious religious scholar would think that this was what anyone who scribed early transcripts that would be compiled into the Bible saw as true, and most serious religious scholars aka people who didn't go to Liberty University or its copycats OHHHHHHHHHHH BURN sorry i'm bitter don't even think that this is close to what apocalypticism was preached by Jesus and those who came soon after him.

Now, I am not stupid enough to argue that apocalypticism isn't a core part of Christian texts (again, Jesus was definitively an apocalyptic preacher, there is zero doubt about that in any serious academic environment) but Revelations was a book added in by the Nicene Council three hundred years after the death of Jesus, and it was one of many apocalyptic texts. It just happens to be the one that made the cut, and it's one of the most metaphorical ones that has lent itself to people making some....very odd interpretations. Its writer also may have been tripping on cave shrooms but, while that does make a very fun story to tell at dinner to make religious studies sound less dry as a field, much like Satre and the mescaline crabs with philosophy, it's not a generally accepted theory.

But Satre really did take a bad hit of mescaline that made him hallucinate crabs for months, that actually happened.

Anyways. Highly metaphorical text. There's a case to be made that this was deliberate, because yelling "I HOPE GOD HITS NERO WITH A LIGHTNING BOLT" in a crowded forum will not end well. For example, you may or may not be familiar with the scholarly theory that the Number of the Beast is supposed to be a numerical cipher for Nero, and a lot of apocalyptic texts were just people saying "no guys, really, everyone who fucked us over is absolutely going to get smoted by God, because God told me so" as a morale boosting exercise. It's just that the Roman Empire happened to be most of the known world at the time, and it's not like even modern people have the best conceptualization of what a global society looks like anyway because our brains are mostly incapable of doing so. This isn't far off flood myths being based on catastrophic river flooding and then things getting embellished over time. Again, that little geographic reason was their world.

Though, I mean, if they were trying to say the fall of Rome would happen, they were right, it's just that the oppressive march of time would've ensured that happened eventually.

The problem is that you end up with morons a thousand and some spare change years down the line who decide to impose entirely different geopolitical standards onto it and that's where the Scofield Reference Bible comes in.

So the Scofield Reference Bible traces its origins to just before World War I, and the sharp among you in the crowd may begin to see where this is going. World War I was a brutal, horrific experience, and it was (probably, I've only taken 200 level history courses) the first global experience. And the Book of Revelation describes plagues (Spanish Flu), horrible afflictions (side effects of chemical warfare), and...well, yeah, war. While the Scofield Bible predates the war, it exploded in popularity because at the time it felt real.

Mister Scofield Reference Bible (Cyrus Scofield) was inspired by the preacher John Nelson Darby, with whom he was roughly contemporaneous with, and don't worry, you will never need to remember those names again because that's the only real contribution they've ever made to theology. Darby wouldn't have called himself a dispensationalist, the term was coined post-publication against his will after he died by someone who didn't like him, but that's the term we landed on.

To break down the name: dispensationalism refers to the idea that you can neatly divide up the history of the world into what amounts to theological epochs defined by a cycle of divine test > failure > judgement ending with the final dispensation, which will be Judgement Day itself. The "millennial" bit does not refer to an actual millennium but rather the Millennial Kingdom, which will be the actual-factual physical Kingdom of God.

This is the one thing that's probably kind of accurate to what pre-Nicene Christians would have believed, most people assumed that the Kingdom of God was just a restored version of Israel before all the invasions happened ruled by a divinely appointed prophet. No heavenly firmament or fluffy clouds or whatever.

The part where it's not accurate is the fluffy clouds Kingdom exists and that's where all the believers go to chill while the apocalypse is happening, though. That's a core concept of things, and that's the Rapture that pretty much any American would be familiar with

The modern version of this also includes some weirdly specific things like? For some reason it's generally accepted that people will go to Heaven naked and leave their clothes behind. I don't think this is in the Scofield Reference Bible, and I honestly don't know where this originated from. Could be as recent as Hal Lindsay for all I know. It was definitely in Left Behind, which was the other thing that caused a massive resurgence despite being probably one of the worst pieces of fiction ever published, theologian/blogger/fellow Gemini (<- most important quality) Slacktivist took like eight years to get through covering the first two books both in terms of how bad the theology is, the characters not acting like actual people, the plot not making sense, and how much the books reveal about the neuroses of both writers.

While that's fairly harmless, it's had some pretty sinister effects. Aside from the obvious, if you keep up with global politics at all, you're aware of the fact that America is extremely interested in keeping Israel in power as a state. I am very stupid except on very specific topics that are not this (and there is so much going on with colonialist interference in the Middle East to cover), not Palestinian or Israeli, and too tired to deal with attracting the bad kind of weirdoes to my blog so I'm going to put it this way. One, apartheid is bad, free Palestine. Two, and more within my wheelhouse so I can speak more in detail about this, the only reason that this is happening is because premillennial dispensationalist Christians think that Israel needs to exist as a geographical and political concept because the battle of Judgment Day is supposed to happen there, at which point the armies of God will defeat Satan and the world ends.

Not before all the surviving Jewish people convert to Christianity, the ~*~true religion~*~, though.

If it wasn't clear, the tildes and asterixes were a sarcasm tag, I just realized if you didn't spend an unfortunate amount of your life on Livejournal that might not be clear.

So, to be blunt, these people do not give a shit about actual Jewish people. Do not mistake this for anything other than a means to an end and they'll let anything happen to make sure that end comes about. Or actively help, for that matter. I said that I would get into conspiracy theories, the bit about needing Israel so the end of the world can happen is not a conspiracy theory. The saturation rate of evangelical dispensationalists in US government is incredibly high. Evangelicals actively drive public policy. When you know what to look for it's blatantly obvious I can get together a reading list at some point or another but it might take a while and this post is already very very long and meandering and sometimes barely on topic.

Anyways. The short of it is: From a sociology of religion perspective, it's accepted that Jesus was a Jewish apocalyptic preacher. Apocalypticism was very in vogue at the time and we can say with reasonable certainty (note: when a religious studies scholar uses the term, they mean "this definitely happened, it's just we can't perform necromancy to 100% confirm it") he was not the only one running around. He's addressed as "rabbi" by his disciples if that wasn't immediately clear. A refusal to acknowledge the realities of the world circa Jesus's life and treating the Bible as an unerring word of God (except when it's convenient to ignore certain bits) instead of a historical source, and all the issues that comes with it, has led to some extremely bad things. Ammon Hennacy was right, we are in Hell.

[raybeanschildrenslit]

A Single Shard - Historical Fiction

A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park (Historical Fiction) Published 2001 by Clarion Books

A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park is a historical fiction piece that puts us in historical Korea during a major moment in art history when ceramics in the country change forever. We follow Tree-ear, a young orphan, who after spying on the local potter for a while before becoming his apprentice in hopes of one day becoming a potter himself. However, he is only tasked with the back-breaking labor of hauling materials like wood and clay for his master while dealing with his terrible temper and ignorance- with some solace in the kindness of the potter’s wife to help push him along. To prove himself and earn his master a royal commission, Tree-ear tirelessly provides and strives for a chance at greatness. 

It isn’t often I find historical fiction that takes place in Korea though I have no doubt there is a good chunk of it out there, but also finding one whose focus is on art like ceramics rather than a cultural/ historical tragedy feels refreshing. Tree-ear’s story focuses on self growth and art rather than a war or genocide which is nice to see in historical fiction while also still being invested in the goings on. Park helps in this by keeping the tempo of the pacing solid and not slowing down with inbetweens but pushing the significant moments that compile Tree-ear’s journey within just under 200 pages. Whether read or listened to, the tale is quite nice and not that laborious for a reader to get through.

I feel that unless fantasy or tragedy is involved, I don't see enough asian or even minority representation as a whole. I know there is quite a bit but there could always be more, especially with the growing diversity of communities and the work presented to publishers. I like the idea of realistic fiction depicting victories of all forms for individuals but especially those who are under-represented to remind readers that look like them that they can’t only be great by winning a battle or doing something other-worldly. This piece could proudly hold a place in Korean representation while celebrating its own heritage or Asian heritage as a whole. I also like the idea of more children/ readers in general reading stories about artistic pursuit in individuals their age. I wonder if someone were to do a unit with this if there could be a ceramics adjacent project to follow- I don’t expect kilns but maybe oven set or air dry. 

-Ray 02/04/2024

Park, L. S. (2003). A single shard. Dell Yearling.

[dangerous-realms]

"I don't know either, like somewhere near six million or something. I just know that he's old as fuck, is a god, and is the sire of the Evoline race by word of mouth of my the eldest of my race, Daiydra, aka my older sister. Though I think she's like 5 635 962 years old, but she's not the oldest of my siblings in total. She's also half of a race that care for destroyer and creator gods, so yeah she fun to try and get a few hits off of."

There has yet to be an Evoline to die of natural causes, and she wasn't aware of any who died in combat either. She just assumed being half god made them harder to defeat, which made sense in her eyes. Hina was naturally amongst the strongest of them due to her liniage, something Azura envied as she didn't know who her mother is.

"I've never doubted that you couldn't, but I guess there is just some ease in seeing it first hand. Anyone can say they can handle themselves, but not everyone can back those words up be it physically or mentally."

She would nod at what he says about her wanting Kefla to wear of Kiyokatas energy, she would be helping Hikotoshi with the food and with how Kefla is she could tell he could keep an eye on the energetic boy. Though she would have a guilty look on her face when he mentions that she sometimes has a thousand things on her mind at once, and when he pointed out that her and her son are similar in that way

"Ah, I think it's a habit I developed as a nestling, I don't really remember my room having much to do so I'd just make things up to keep busy. It helps with mind readers though, gives them migraines and keeps them off what you are really thinking. As for Kiyo? He's young, and he has my desire to explore things, so he has a pretty active imagination."

Though of he said that he sees anything suspicious, Azura would always force Hikotoshi to go check it out while she stayed and protected their child from whatever it was, it was better then just dismissing something that could be detrimental to a young child's mind. Not to mention there has been occasions where Hikotoshi has found what Kiyokata had mentioned and taken care of it.

"You know, it's quite cute to see you and Kiyo interact, even after you gave him such a fright. He's brave for his age, smart too as he's already picked up cooking and a bit of easy training, his flying gotten better since last month too. But I do appreciate you doing such, and your words to take care of him."

After what she says she would notice Hikotoshi start decending, Kiyokata following after his father after a light blue glow surrounded him for a few seconds to correct him.

"Oh, we are here."

She would move away from Kefla so she could spred her wings and angle them for a smooth decent, something that was much better then hurtling down to the planet. There was naturally trees of many colors guarding the sanctuary the god and child inhabited, a nice open space with a few well cared for buildings that are somewhat on stilts. Something that would make sense as there was a nice lake teaming with plenty of fish in front of them.

One of the buildings was clearly a kitchen if the drying herbs and meat outside it were anything to go off of, a little training area off in another clearing. A few room like structures which are lived in, one clearly lived in by Hikotoshi and the other Kiyokata. The sliding walls of Kiyokatas house was clearly built with enrichment in mind as the solid walls were decorated with many things as well painted in a way that worked well in both the day time and the night and had some areas for him to climb around as well as a hammock for him to sleep in. Plenty of had made toys and a good amount of books as well are in his room. Meanwhile Hikotoshis room is closed off, making it clear that he didn't want anyone in it. There is also a few more building and room areas clearly built for guests or storage. All im all there was about seven to eight structures total.

There is also a gardening area full of fresh vegetables, and many herbs and fruits as well outlining the area around the camp.

"Kehehe! Where here mister Kefla! Are you ready to race?"

"I expect him back when the sun starts setting as it gets dark quickly on this planet. Me and Azura will have the food ready when you get back."

He knew of night roaming beasts, and he knew that his son would have nightmares if he encountered them. Something no parent wanted to deal with, but he had to on occasion and would let Kiyokata sleep in his room until the nightmares were gone.

[— I don't know how old your father is, but you said you're a thousand years old, so that does give me a global idea about his age. He is likely the same age as Cybele. In any case, I'm glad to hear that you finally recognize that I can handle myself just fine.]

Sometimes, she was overly protective of him, and it was also a pain to be spoiled by her like he was a child. Anything he asked, she gave him without even thinking about it. It often made him wonder just what exactly could she get her to do, but reminded himself that he was a good person now. Well, as good as someone who murdered, sold, stole in the past could be. Even had a deal with Freeza for as long as he stayed in the seven universe, he couldn't say he regretted it. The little bastard could certainly bring some good things to the table.

[— So, you want to tire him out? He is certainly full of energy, so I can see why you'd want me to do that. I see, he has a hard time focusing on one thing, just like his mother. Children are often said to be full of energy, but I think it's because he has taken more from your side, personality wise. From the time we have spent together, I know you get easily bored and think of thousands of things in a minute. Anyway, I'll make sure to take care of him like he is my child.]

[runawaymun]

Tbh I’ve never asked for my own story before 🙈

I love the ones you write so I’d like a h/c fluff dad Elrond and platonic reader. I have a particular soft spot for dad!Elrond and how good of a healer he is. I don’t have any particular prompt per se but things have been hectic and stressful lately so I’m emotionally drained.

I absolutely adore your work, thank you so much ☺️🥰

Dad!Elrond x Platonic!Reader - Roots

genre: hurt/comfort/fluff warnings: none, except for enough saccharine fluff to give you cavities for: @elf-star reader pronouns: she/her

You're too old for this.

It's an accusation shaped into a club you can beat yourself with. It doesn't manage to shame you out of your tree, though. If anyone asks, you just like the woods. You always have. You get it from your mother. The trees have always been kind to you, after all.

You've picked a good tree for your purpose. The Eastern White Pine has branches low enough to climb. It doesn't shed the way the other firs do. You're able to clamber your way up until the branches just barely support your weight. The needles are dense. You doubt even your brothers would be able to tell which tree you were in if they looked.

That's just what you wanted, considering you're crying.

It isn't even a reasonable sort of crying. It isn't productive. It's stupid. You're just overwhelmed and suddenly everything became too much, and you dropped a book on your foot.

And you were crying.

Because you dropped a book. On. Your. Foot.

It's so stupid.

Of course, it's more than that. But it's big and unwieldy and doesn't fit any boxes you have to stuff it into, and so it's spilling out, wet on your cheeks, acrid, making your nose and throat burn. And there's another weapon: you should have been able to deal with this before it got to this point.

But at least you weren't embarrassing yourself by crying in front of everyone.

You'd managed to get here first. It smells like wet bark and green things and the pine thoughtfully shelters you from prying eyes with its dense needles and branches. You settle onto one and tuck one knee up to your chest, muffling any sound with a fist pressed to your mouth.

It'll subside.

Eventually.

And then you can forget that this happened and go back to helping Erestor with his maps.

You get your wish half an hour later when --with a throbbing head, dry throat, and trembling fingers-- you lower yourself through the branches. Your foot slips exactly once. The old pine tree groans and catches you, and you swear you can almost hear it scolding.

At last your feet find solid earth. You dust yourself off, turn, and nearly jump out of your skin.

Ada is there.

Reclining at the foot of the tree with a book, as if that was where he belonged. The place looked as natural to him as his own study.

You scrub at your grimy, wet face with one wrist. Your face is so hot that you're certain you look as if you're about to burst into flames. It feels like it, anyway.

"It is a very agreeable day to be out in the woods," he says in a tone that's maddeningly conversational.

"Did you follow me?"

He doesn't look up from his book. He turns the page. Still reading. "It seemed like a pleasant tree to sit under. Last I checked it was well within my rights to do so."

That Big Thing inside of you morphs into anger, because anger is a funnel. A focus. And it's something you can name.

"I am fine, Ada. I'm not a child. You don't need to mind me like one."

Those gray, ancient, infuriatingly wise eyes turn up from the pages to give you a longsuffering stare. His mouth purses into a thin line.

"Will you tell me what I have done to make you turn to the woods for comfort?"

You roll your eyes and start back down the path, crunching through pine needles and fallen autumn leaves.

"Stop." The whip-crack command is said in that Voice. The one that can Sing broken bones back together and cut through arguments as precisely as a scalpel cuts through sinew. Your legs still. You sigh.

"That's not fair," you grumble.

"Come back. We are not finished."

Same Voice. You growl in frustration and join him back at the foot of the tree, sinking down near its roots. He sets his book aside at last and reaches over to take your face in his hands, rubbing at the tear-tracks and blotchy skin. You pull back.

"I am fine," you insist.

"Saying it does not make it so," he clucks. "And it is foolish to try. Breathe."

Same Voice. You suck in a long, deep breath. It reaches somewhere deep inside of you as you feel your ribcage expand, like he's making room. You let out a breath and, though your ribcage closes again, that space inside of you is still there. You feel a little less like the sky is falling in.

He doesn't crowd you. He just dries the tear-tracks and offers you his handkerchief which you take, begrudgingly grateful. The two of you are quiet while you blow your nose. The wind rustles through the trees. He produces a metal flask of tea and two metal cups from somewhere in those voluminous velvet sleeves and that has you raising your eyebrow at the absurdity. He mirrors your expression, as if daring you to question it. No doubt he'd answer something like I'm always prepared.

He brushes away the layer of blood-orange maple leaves and half-decayed pine needles until fresh, red earth appears. It's there that he sets the two cups out and pours the tea. The steam plumes and roils in curlicues, white for the cold air.

You take it and drink, and find a suspicious taste that's probably some kind of medicine. You shoot him another exasperated look which he pretends not to notice.

"Have I ever told you why the body sheds tears?"

You frown and mull your tea around in your cup. You're certain that he has, but you can't remember what it was exactly. Elrond studies you and sets his cup down on the ground, unscrews the cap of the flask, and pours tea into his already full cup.

When he feels as if he has made his point, he stops, dumps out some of the tea, and then drinks.

"Is it the cup's fault that it cannot hold more than it is intended to?"

"No," you grumble. Because what else are you supposed to say? The next bit comes out of you before you can stop it: "But some cups are bigger than others."

"Every cup is different," Elrond agrees. "But reaching your limits is not a shameful thing, tithen pen. Every emotion, good or ill, can lead to tears. Joy, sorrow, anger, merriment, frustration, fear-- and even, at times, exhaustion."

He sets his cup aside and reaches for you. You're reluctant, mostly because you're too old. It comes again: insisting upon it as fact. You shouldn't need this. Still, you curl up with him. He enfolds you up in that giant, warm, velvet cloak of his and the two of you lean back against the rough bark of the pine tree and stare up at the pale blue sky. His heartbeat is like a ticking clock. Steady. And now that you've cried yourself dry and he's holding you, you feel just how tired you are.

After a moment, he adjusts so he can run a hand through your hair, scritches over your scalp, then begins a gentle massage. Some of the headache eases.

You feel your ribcage expand again with a deep breath. With it, that space inside of you grows a little more. It doesn't hurt so much, whatever this is. You let out the breath.

"What happened?" he asks, voice soft.

You let out a huff. "I dropped a book on my foot."

When you glance at him, you can see he's biting back a smile. That makes your face heat, but he doesn't seem to be laughing at you.

"It was a great deal more than that, I think," he prods.

And as you sit there with him, his hands carding through your hair, his arms around you-- he coaxes it out of you like he always does. You tell him everything. Once you start, it's hard to stop. Everything you've been bottling up and avoiding, everything you have wished you could ask for help with-- it explodes in a mess right there between you, and he doesn't mind.

He never does.

Which is part of why you hate doing it. He'd let you forever. And somehow that feels unfair.

That thought catches you mid sentence. Your voice dies. His fingers pause in your hair and he tilts his head to study you.

Then he lets out a very long sigh.

"We never outgrow our roots," he whispers at last, resting his chin atop your head. "The glade withstands a storm because all of the trees entwine their roots together. The tree that stands alone falls."

"I am very tired of your metaphors, Ada," you complain. It's fond, though.

"But you haven't outgrown them, I see," he teases.

You grumble something else, but turn a little to nestle your face in the crook of his neck. The headache is gone by now and you're starting to feel too tired to really be mad at yourself for needing this.

He presses a kiss to the top of your head, adjusting so that his grip around you is firm as your body softens and that place inside you expands. You didn't realize quite how tight and cramped it was until now.

"How are you doing that?" you mutter.

You feel him smile. "I am not. You are doing that on your own. I am merely helping-- as I am always happy to do."

The next thing you mumble is a close cousin to shut up but you're far too relaxed and content for it to make much sense. He simply smiles and leans back against the tree, and makes no move to rise.

When you drop off, exhausted but relieved, he doesn't wake you. He just reaches for his book, pours himself another cup of tea, and begins to read.

[leoneliterary]

Once Sarai and Aretas find the ones who tortured MC, what kind of fates would await the ones crazy enough to target MC in the first place?

Oooo a follow up to the torture ask!! Okay, prepare for scary Sarai and Aretas! Again, this involves torture, nothing too crazy but here is the heads up.

Both would carefully separate those that knew who orchestrated the event from those that were just marginally affiliated. Those with little connection or lesser involvement will receive prison sentences or hard labor stents. As for the hands on perpetrators or main conspirators...

Aretas:

"My King, just where did you hear about this?"

"I read in a book that my great grandfather was fond of boating, but also wanted to personally supervise punishments. So he got creative."

Aretas reaches over the platter of delicacies sprawled out before them and pours Isam another round of wine and gives him a self satisfied smile. "I'm just taking a page out of his book."

The boat rocked slightly with the waves and a man's hoarse scream turned into a gurgle.

"Please let me down! I'll—"

Once again a man's voice was drowned out by the sound of churning water.

Aretas throws a disinterested look at the man chained flat to the rocks, before turning back to Isam.

"You see grandfather chained them to the bow of his ship so that they would be dunked, but that would mean that we would have to sail around all day to get the desired effect."

Isam thinks about it for a moment and then nods, snatching some bread from Aretas' plate.

"So you liked the water part, the chaining part, and the boat part, just not all together?"

"Well I have to be a little original!" Aretas takes another drink before refocusing on the man he's tormenting.

He was chained flat to a rock that was no doubt burning hot from the sun. Every time the tide came in, water would wash over him for varying amounts of time with varying amounts of force. The man was wasting away, his body encrusted with dried salt and his skin dry and peeling from both the sun and dehydration.

"I'll tell you everything!" his eyes are vacant as he screams it into the sky, and eventually into the sea as water overtakes him.

Aretas smiles at Isam.

"Well, that's one I can turn over to you for questioning!"

He wistfully smiles and takes a sip of his wine.

"Only a few more to go."

Sarai:

"Lalia, come with me, my garden is looking a little dry."

"Of course, I'll fetch the water."

Lalia comes back with two modest jugs filled with cool water and they head into the sprawling palace gardens. They leisurely stroll along lush paths, the vibrant flowers, towering trees, and greenery were all do to the system of aqueducts that irrigated the garden as well as local farmlands. But as they turned into a certain area of the garden, it appeared as if the earth had been scorched. The ground was cracked and even the air was dry. The area was barren.

Except for four men buried up to their necks in the dirt.

As soon as Sarai and Lalia round the corner the shouting begins.

"Just a drop of water! Please, I'll—"

"Don't beg her!"

Their yelling over laps each other some begging for water, the others berating their counterparts for begging.

Sarai circles them with a feigned sigh. "Lalia, the whippings and death sentences can offer me no comfort when the one I love is still recuperating."

"What can give you comfort at a time like this my Queen?" Lalia's voice is full of concern, but on her face is a knowing smile.

"Why, only my garden! Watering the flowers brings me peace."

With that she walks over to one of the begging men, water sloshing as she does.

"Yes, please! Even just a drop!"

She then begins to pour it right in front of him. The man is so tightly packed into the dirt that he cannot even thrash, instead he can only do what he's done for days, which is scream. It used to be sweat and sob, but his body had long been robbed of any hope of moisture.

He couldn't endure this any longer.

"I'll tell you everything." his eyes are vacant as he says it and another man joins his promise to confess.

Sarai smiles at Lalia.

"Now these are my favorite flowers! Let's water them well!"

She slowly turns to the holdouts, that glare and snarl at her through chapped lips.

"These on the other hand," she gestures at them dismissively, "They seem more like weeds. Lalia dear, bring me a shovel."

[haechanokeh]

I'm Right For You [pt.1 ]

[teaser/ prologue] [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ]

✓ I recommend listen to Die For You by The Weeknd every time reading this story 😌

pairing: popular college! mark x average! reader

genre: romance, smut, angst, series.

warning (this chapter): HIGH SEXUAL TENSION, masturbation and sex dream.

warning (the series): corruption, oral sex (both receiving and giving), cream pie, rough sex, anal sex, mention of religion, rough sex, self-esteem, psychology, public sex, sub! reader, sex toys. possessive mark two-faced mark

word count: 2.3K

I think I'm right for you, babe. You know what I'm thinking, see it in your eyes. You hate that you want me, hate it when you cry. It ain't workin' 'cause you're perfect and I know that you're worth it I can't walk away. (Die for you by The Weeknd)

Mark was the least classmate you want to be pair with, Not because he slacks, not a good student because god knows he’s an excellent student. you just don’t like how different from you, it was unexplainable but you feel so intimidated- you can’t even look straight into his eyes. mark receives a lot of recognition and everyone adores him. he’s very kind.  everyone wants to hang out with him well mark is very friendly, he's really a good influence they say. he doesn't smoke, he drinks but not that much, plus he encourages the class to attend bible study- his father is a pastor. but you never hangout with anyone unless it's school related.

“my house? y/n? are you listening?” he lowered his head to check your face looking down on the textbook the whole time. he grabbed your attention, your eyes quickly shifted anywhere but him. 

“ah... ahm i’m good with library, i don’t want to cause any inconvenience.” you politely rejected his suggestion to where you can do your case study in clinical pharmacy. it’s just it doesn’t look good if a girl is alone with man in a house.

“but we can’t talk properly in the library.” he reasoned, and you knew he has a point.

“ahm, maybe in coffee shops?” no, you heard mark dislike going to coffee shop just to study, he said the key to ace the exams are study at home or library. studying in coffee shop causes inconvenience too for people who truly want to enjoy coffees. 

“okay fine. your house.” you sighed. he showed his infamous smile.

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mark said that they have visitors in their house so both of you decided to go you didn't know that mark lives in a fancy condominium. his house look so expensive, you very conscious to move, afraid that you might break something.

"what are you standing there?" he chuckled and put down his bag on the floor beside the couch. you're standing still on the doorway. "sit here." he patted the long sofa next to the couch.

you quietly walked towards the sofa and sit on it, stiffly which made mark chuckle again.

"do you want water, soda, tea, coffee, or me?" he winked, teasing you. you blushed, and you really despise that feeling every time he's around. you don't like it when he makes you flustered.

"water." you brushed off the intimidation. your tone changed slightly like you're annoyed.

mark could easily read people, he's really good at it. he knew you dislike him but something in your eyes say different. mark has been building this sexual tension between you for so long already but it still amazes him that you always block it. rather giving up, he was motivated and it became an addiction. he wanted tou so badly.

"okay water it is." he just said.

you opened your bag and get your notes in chemistry. you saw mark’s phone light up, and you saw his phone wallpaper. it was just in front of you, his wallpaper is a girl facing down on the table as if she's sleeping but what caught your eyes the most is that her matching bracelets with written bold letters life. then you analyze whether it was you, you have the same hair color and the two rings in the middle finger too. you literally froze, analyzing what's going on.

"y/n, here's your water and a sliced of cake that my brother baked." you almost jumped when he appeared. his brows met in confusion when he caught you so surprised. he put the tray on the table. "something wrong?"

your mouth felt dry.

"n-nothing." you stuttered. mark gave you an unconvinced look but just shrugged. he reach for his phone. you suddenly feel thirsty so you reach for the glass of water and drink it.

"ahm... who's on your wallpaper? ah- your phone light up i think someone texted you." you said returned to gulping the water

"you." he casually answered. you chocked and spat out the water from your mouth. the glass slipped from your hand and thank goodness it landed on your thigh safely but you clothes became wet.

mark only watched you while laughing on your cute reaction. you glared at him.

"i'm sorry, you're just too cute." he apologized suppressing his laugh. mark sat beside you and grabbed the glass from your lap and put it back on top of the table. "i still don't get it why you never notice my signals." he said, wiping your face using the sleeves of his sweater.

it sends you shivers, his touch did but his mischievousness no. you were slightly annoyed.

“you don’t like me huh.” he pretend to be hurt.

“stop playing.” you said and look down on your shirt. “my shirt is wet now.” 

mark stare at your silhouette shirt and your flesh and black bra are showing in front of his eyes. 

“i think i should go home.” you were disappointed, both of you haven’t accomplished anything yet.

she’s going home? like that?

“you can barrow my shirt for the mean time.” he stood up.

“really? thanks.” you stood up and follow him.\

i just confessed but i don’t think she get it. she’s really something. a small smile plastered in his face but you weren’t able to see it since his back was facing you. 

he opened his door’s room and he went in with you. you slightly observed his room, nothing special but there’s a lot of book on the shelf and two kinds of guitar. he loves music and ready, you find it amusing though. your eyes followed him getting shirt from his closet. 

we walked towards you.

“here.” he gave you a generous smile. he extended his hand to give you his shirt. you reached for it and once your hand was on it he swiftly hide it behind your back causing you to stumble on the his bed.

“i’m sorry.” you sat up and you froze when he stand in between the first thing you saw was his clothed abdomen. you looked up and the unfamiliar mark was now looking down on you. 

"i just confessed to you y/n, are you aware or just pretending that it didn’t happen, hmm?” he caressed your cheek that gave you goosebumps.” do you hate me? despise me? but why am i seeing in your eyes, you want me and you hate it weren't you?"

the air became thick, your mouth just parted and eyes staring at him. you're still processing what he said, it made you question your hate towards him.

hate was a strong word, you don't hate him but you hate whatever he made you feel, like right now. you're heart is going crazy. you just realize that you really like it and it's hard for you to admit because you know that he will do not good to you. you will just get hurt because he will never like you back, but that's not the case anymore. although you're doubting his confession, you seemed to love the idea of having him.

you gulped, your throat became dry once more. cat got your tongue and your brain stopped working- you can’t even process what’s going on. it was gentle but it feels icy like his voice and eyes. he’s not mark, at least that’s what you think.

“mark... i- what’s-” you have no idea what you want to say. 

he slowly and carefully traced your parted lips. mark felt arouse thinking how good it feels to sucked by these tiny mouth of yours. he lifted your chin using his thumb and middle finger and with no hesitations he captured your lips. you lost your sanity. you melted and so as your surviving rationality. 

he cupped your jaws and he deepened the kiss, tongue inside and he locked your mouths. the sensation went straight to your core. you felt like the world stop revolving around the sun and heat just absorbed mark’s room. the sloppy and wet kisses became louder than the aircon. heat rose from your chest. you were unaware but your hands were on the back of his head playing with his hair. he released a smug smile which you did not noticed.  this is your first kiss, no one ever kissed you... well you never had a boyfriend.  

a wicked idea won in mark’s hand, his hands skimmed down your body until it reached you thigh. he parted and caressed it. but it was a bad idea for him, senses snapped back on you.

you quickly separated your self, pushing him and you stood up. you quickly get up from his bed. 

���I need to use your toilet, excuse me.” your heart was pounding loud and you feel so hot. you walked passed him and walking to his room. 

mark quick on his feet before you even enter his bathroom not a toilet. he turned you. 

“why did we stop?” he groaned eyes glued on your lips.

“if you’re bored and just want to play, please not me Mark.” you begged, lips quivering because you know deep down in you, you’re close to giving in. His eyes masked with darkness, jaws clenched. he stepped forward and you step back. you don’t like it when he’s too close. you hate the feeling of being weak.

“do i look like i’m playing with you?” his voice was deep with a hint of annoyance. it was your first time to see mark like this.

mark who’s always smiling, laughing, friendly, caring,  generous, and everyone adores. was now gone. in your eyes he’s like a tiger targeting its prey. it didn’t help you’re in his den and back against the wall.

“mark, i want to go home." you faintly whispered still looking straight in his eyes. you felt so small, like a prey waiting, ready to be eaten.

"do you hate me that much?" he was reaching for your cheeks but you flinched. mark was offended by your reaction. "i never been bad to you y/n, tell me what did i do to you to make you feel this scared of me." he tucked your hair behind you ear.

"i'm not scared." you almost choke when you said that. mark chuckled at your cuteness. "you're just different to me and i don't know how to act around you." his brow raised.

"i feel uncomfortable mark, can i go home?" it took a lot of courage to say that. you just want to runaway. he smiled sadly, admiring your angelic face. eyes wide open with innocence looking up to him, he felt the unfamiliar urge to dominate those eyes.

"i guess you hate what ever you are feeling towards me, but unlike you I won't runaway." he traced the side of your face, it send shivers down to your core. "because I just simply can't walkaway."

he stepped back and tucked his hands on his pants.

"you can stay, i will not do anything to you. let's finish our case study on the living room." he went back, giving you his familiar smile. the atmosphere changed, the coldness vanished and changed into warmth.

you felt at ease.

"thank you." you said and you're quick on your feet, leaving his room.

mark watch you left from his room, he erased his pretentious smile.

"how long will this last, fuck." he groaned in frustration.

awkward but bot of you at least accomplished and solved the case. he offered you to drive you back home but you insisted that he doesn’t have to but he was so persistent that you have to lie about running errand and meeting your mom.

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sleepiness caught you the moment your body touched the bed.

“mark...” you faintly moaned and covered your mouth as you watch mark thrusting his fingers on your slick producing squelching and sucking your clit. 

"oh my gosh, i'm gonna cum!" you squealed and your legs started to shake. he crawled over you, hovering your naked body.

you finally met his eyes that almost melt your knees.

"i though you hate it? should i stop?"

“NO!” you gasped, and woke up from your strange dream. you sat up and was catching your breath. you felt something sticky between your thighs, shame enters your system and guilt.

"what am i thinking?" you whispered to yourself.

you felt ashamed over your dream doing something dirty with mark, however the other party was thinking of you non stop.

❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖ ❁ ❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁

mark stroking his dick, eyes closed while imagining your mouth wrapped around his cock.

"fuck, right there y/n." he moaned, after few thrust he spurted his white thick liquid.

his chest rose heavily. staring at his hands filled with his cum, there was no disgrace in his soul when he masturbate and thinking of you at the same time.

mark is always contented whatever he has, he's very simple minded but things went wrong when you caught his attention. for the first time, he want something- your body and your attention.

he thought, he wanted to be greedy, he needs to be greedy.

"will not do anything? at least for today huh?" he chuckled bitterly as he remembered what he said awhile ago to you.

"no holding back." he seriously said and wipe his hand on the blanket.

hello, i'm sorry for grammatical errors. i hope you enjoy it there's nothing much in this, just sexual tensions for chapter 1 ♥️

and i hope you like it, here's the chapter 1. @mellowvoidexpertfriend

[ethanharli]

Requested: On Tumblr; May I ask for a Giyuu x male!Reader smut? Perhaps the reader being a little rough with Giyuu please?

Pairing(s): Giyuu Tomioka x Top Male Reader.

Warning(s): NSFW/SMUT, Bottom Tomioka, Energetic reader, Choking, Slight dirty talk and degradation, Hair pulling, ✨ Aftercare. ✨

DNI; if you use she/her pronouns.

A/n- I'm such a slut for this man smh

___________

I couldn't help but smile brightly when I saw Tomioka a little ways away from me, we were assigned a mission a couple of days ago to a quiet town in the east, where a demon has been taking young drunks and since I got here a day or so before him I made sure to look around and get familiar with the area. So I gently tapped my index and middle fingers together as we approached each other, seeing the slightest of smiles tug at his lips once he saw me, "[Y/n], you burned Wisteria incense?" He asked, now looking up at me with his usual stoic expression and all I could do is let out a small 'Mm-hm!' With a quick nod and a wide grin, not being able to speak much due to my damaged vocal cords. So taking a step closer I leaned down besides his ear not noticing the sudden stillness of his body as I spoke, "Should give us a bit more time to search around" My now deep and raspy voice wasn't something I had gotten used to yet, and it didn't help that I couldn't speak any louder then a whisper. However I did catch the small hitch in his breath, causing me to frown a bit as I pulled away and looked at him, his face was flushed and his lips were slightly parted, his gaze was fixated on the ground and I could finally see just how still he was standing.

It was only when I pressed the back of my hand to his forehead that he finally looked back up at me with slightly widened eyes. "You're warm, maybe you're sick?" My throat slowly started to itch again and I had to resist the urge to scratch at the scar along my throat. It was quiet concerning though, Tomioka has been getting warm like this a lot recently, I've tried to ask others about it to but they would just give me a knowing smile and tell me everything's alright, but that didn't stop me from worrying. I'm pretty sure it started around the time I was at the butterfly estate since Shinobu was helping me with my throat and damaged vocal cords. "Maybe you should sit this one out, I don't want you getting hurt" The worry in my tone was clear, but Tomioka simply took my hand in his and leaned up to place a gentle kiss on my cheek before pulling away, "I'm fine [Y/n], now let's go look around."

Stubborn bastard.

I couldn't help but sigh and follow after him, not wanting him to get lost since he's only just arrived. So while it was still light out I showed him all the important places where the demon might be hiding or might target next, taking an occasional look around at all the Wisteria incense I put out to see how much longer we had left and finally talking with some of the residence here, which luckily didn't end to badly since Tomioka had to do most of the talking. Nevertheless we eventually came up with a plan, "So we're going to tail a drunk?" I asked, looking at Tomioka with a slightly disapproving glare, not really wanting to use a towns-person as bait and I could tell that Tomioka new what I was thinking when he rested his hand on my shoulder, looking up at me with those beautiful dark blue eyes that practically own me at this point. "I won't let them get hurt, I promise" Even though he sounded confident I still held my doubts, but with a heavy sigh I traced the back my fingers along his jawline, pulling him in for a sweet but gentle kiss, "You're lucky I love you cause if it were anyone else I'd probably strangle them for even suggesting this idea."

I could practically feel the way my heart fluttered at his sudden chuckle, the sound of it so foreign since he rarely ever shows emotions, and I couldn't help but pull him back for another quick kiss, before heading off to my station, "Stay safe." It was the only thing I could hope for as I stood at the back of the bar, I was thankful that there was only one due to it being a small town but that didn't make the situation any less dangerous. The incense finally wore off as the stars danced across the midnight sky, while I sat myself down on the roof, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious or even just someone leaving and so far everything seemed alright, until a shadow flickered from the corner of my eye.

In one swift movement I drew my blade and slashed it at the demon who managed to jump out of the way just in time, now standing from my seated position I narrowed my eyes at the ugly bastard, "So you're the one that's been eating all these people?" I asked calmly, trying to raise my voice a little higher so I could be heard, and I couldn't help but raise a brow in confusion from the way she suddenly swayed, a deep blush now coating her grayish complexion. "It's a pity your a Demon slayer, with a voice like that I'd love to have you in my bed" I couldn't help but feel slightly uncomfortable about her suggestive tone and lustful gaze, but something in the back of my mind nagged at me. So trying to brush it off I rushed at her, dodging any hit she sent my way while she managed to dodge my attacks as well, "Sorry lady but I already got a lover, and I don't plan on letting you live tonight." Her smirk only seemed to grow at my words, as I closed in on her, hoping she wouldn't notice the way I was backing her into a corner, "Then they must be real slut for you hm? Wanting nothing more than to get off to deep voice of yours-"

Blood splattered onto my cheek and clothes as I cut off her head, "Demon or not, no one talks about my lover that way" I sneered slowly feeling my anger subside as I watched her burn away. Though I couldn't deny the fact that her words got me thinking, and eventually led me to connecting the dots about Tomioka's recent actions. So when the male appeared beside me with worried eyes I couldn't help but smile and nod my head before sheathing my blade, I also convinced him to stay the night with me since we've been away from one another for so long, and maybe for the fact that I wanted to figure something out.

-----

I didn't bother to dry my hair as I walked into our shared room, spotting Tomioka sitting on his futon with a book in hand, gently flipping through the pages as I made my way over to him, "[Y/n]?" Ignoring the call of my name I happily moved myself between his legs while pushing him onto his back so that I could rest my head on his abdomen. "It's been so long.. Since we've last seen each other" I mumbled softly, wrapping my arm around his waist so that I could hold him closer against me, while my other hand slipped under his robe and gently traced small circles along his skin, smiling when I heard a sigh of content slip past his lips. However I couldn't help but trail my hand up higher as I lifted myself onto my knees, looking down into Tomioka's slightly widened eyes with a small smirk tugging at my lips.

"And it's been even longer.. Since I heard those pretty moans of yours" I could feel the way his body shivered under my fingertips and it only caused my smirk to grow as I attached my lips to the base of his neck, dragging my teeth and tongue along his pale skin, not wanting to leave a single place untouched while my hands opened up his robe. Gently tracing my fingers along his toned abdomen and pushing my thumbs against his hardened nipples, as I bit into his shoulder, drinking in the way he moaned my name with a choked gasp. "[Y-Y/n].." The way my name rolled off his tongue nearly caused me to growl as I captured his lips with my own, dragging my tongue along his lower lip before I took it between my teeth, giving it a soft tug. While my hands traveled down to his pants, slowly pressing my fingers under the band as I pushed my tongue past his parted lips, slowly losing myself to the taste of him as he pressed his hips against my own.

"Now now baby, there's no need to rush" I whispered against his lips as I slipped off his pants, noticing the fact he wasn't wearing any undergarments and the way his cock slowly started to leak pre-cum. "Already? I barley even touched you" The teasing tone of my voice forced a whimper past his throat as I wrapped my fingers around his cock, pressing my thumb against the slit and smearing his pre-cum around it before licking it off my fingers. "[Y-Y/n] please" I couldn't help but drag my tongue along my upper lip before leaning down to kiss along his jawline, threading my fingers through his soft black hair. Tightening my grip I yanked his head back, "Ah-!" His sudden moan caused my heart to thump and my core to tighten, reminding me of the uncomfortable erection in my pants while starring into those beautiful dark blue eyes of his.

"Now be a good boy and suck" I growled, pressing my fingers to his slightly parted lips as he wrapped his hands around my wrist and wrapped his tongue around my middle finger, skillfully coating my fingers in his saliva and I couldn't help but press the pad of my finger against the back of his tongue, hearing him gag a bit as he stuck out his tongue and looked up at me with a hazy gaze. "Absolutely stunning" I breathed out, instantly moving my hand so I could capture his lips with my own, feeling our noses slightly bump against each others as I took his lower lip between my teeth and trailed my hand down to his entrance, carefully circling my finger around the rim. "Are you ready?" I asked, looking into his eyes for a brief moment, waiting for his consent, "Yes- Please hurry.." He whimpered out as I nodded, slowly pushing my finger in so I wouldn't hurt him.

His soft moans and gasps caused a slow heat to rise to my face as I pushed in another finger, moving them in a scissoring motion to make sure he's stretched out enough to ensure I wouldn't hurt him, "Hah! F-Fuck, [Y/n] pl-please just fuck me!" I couldn't deny his pleading tone and immediately went to pull off my clothes, throwing them off into some other part of the room as Tomioka wrapped his legs around my hips, causing my cock to rub against his entrance. A low whimper slipped past his lips while I hooked one hand behind his knee, pushing his leg towards his chest as I positioned myself at his entrance, looking into his eyes for a brief moment before slowly pushing it. "Ngh- Hah!" The sound of his moans and the way his walls quickly tightened around me caused a low gutteral goan to rip past my throat, and I couldn't help but bring my hand up to wrap around his throat, as I've done many times before, watching as his pale skin turned a deeper shade of red as he wrapped his hands around my wrist.

"Damn, such a slut for me aren't you?" I smirked, fully pushing myself into him as I dug my fingers into the sides of his neck, making sure not to press against his throat as I began to rock my hips, searching for that one spot that always had him trembling beneath me, "Hah- Ah, [Y/n]!" Ah, there it is. Loosening my grip on his neck I pounded into him, aiming for his prostate as his moans and whimpers echoed throughout the room, my name rolling off his tongue like a prayer, causing my core tighten from the sound and the addicting way his walls tightened around me with each thrust. "Fuck.. You feel so good baby" I practically growled out the words through panted breaths, leaning down to press sloppy open mouth kisses along his shoulder as he desperately tightened his grip on my hips, "I'm, I'm going to-" His body began to tremble under me as he looked up at me with hazy eyes and a silent plead. "Go ahead baby, cum for me" Digging his nails into my wrist he came on his lower stomach as I quickly came after him, heavy pants slipping past both our parted lips as I pressed a gentle kiss against the newly formed bruise on his neck before reaching for the towel I was supposed to use to dry my hair an hour ago.

"Giyuu, are you okay?" I asked while cleaning us both off, noticing the way he was practically half-asleep already. "Yeah, just a bit sore.. But it was worth it" Not wanting to embarrass him I merely nodded my head, pretending I didn't hear that last bit as I laid down beside him, pulling the cover over our bare bodies. However I couldn't help but smile as he snuggled against my chest while I gently traced small circles on his hip.

"I love you.."

"I love you too Giyuu."

[crowtrinkets]

A World Knowing You Aren’t in it

Prompt request from @mouselungs​ 

*forehead kiss* ty for that sweet sweet angst 

I wrote this at 1-2 am after watching a sad movie so uh yea I take my angst v seriously lol

Gender Neutral Pronouns for Apprentice, He/They Pronouns for Asra

Word Count: 2,208

I push my way into my shop, unwrapping my scarf from around my face. I take a deep slow breath of the not-so-fresh air mixed with dust and magical goods long since past their expiration. Wearing face coverings, just to go shopping in the market is necessary but I can't help but miss the days I could breathe in the fresh scents of spices and my favorite pumpkin bread without worry of getting sick.

"Asra? I'm back," I call out. I hear thumping traveling from the second floor and down the steps. A cloud of fluffy white hair pokes out from behind a curtain.

"Welcome home," he gives me a warm smile to which I return with my own.

"They were out of potatoes, something about merchants being scared of trade with Vesuvia," I follow them back up the stairs carrying my basket, sparse with groceries.

"I can't say I blame them," Asra mumbles to themself. I only hum in response, not wanting to push this topic further.

Asra has talked about leaving many times, but we had yet to do so, if we had the means we could but, there's no money in magic that can't heal a plague. Placing my basket on the counter of our kitchenette I pull out the food items I bought. Asra snatches an apple and bites into it but then grimaces.

"This apple is soft, like it's been left out," he goes to throw out the apple but I catch his arm.

"Don’t throw it out, if they're too soft I could make a cobbler or something out of them," taking the apple from Asra's hand I place it in a bowl with the other fruit I purchased.

"Oh, but they were out of sugar… maybe they're sweet enough on their own?" I mumble to myself.

"There's no need to go back out just for sugar, I'm sure we'll manage without it," Asra says with a smile that doesn't reach their eyes. They grab the lettuce I pulled from the basket out of my hand.

"Why don't I put these away while you go take a bath hmm? Wash the city air off of you," I give Asra a short nod and head off to the bathroom to wash up.

Suddenly feeling the weight of my day, running all the possible errands I can at once, so I am exposed less to the outside. I grab a towel from our tiny linen closet and pass by to give Faust chin scratches.

"Have you been bundled up here all day?" I question. She only responds by slithering closer so she can lean into my scratches. Her movement causes a blanket to fall, revealing a pile of books under it. My curiosity is piqued and I pick one up to read its cover. "Nopal Desert" it reads. I pick a map that was underneath it, depicting the better part of Vesuvia and surrounding territories. Nopal circled in ink. I hear Asra humming while he opens and closes the cabinets in the other room. I elect to bring it up after my bath.

The water is hot, almost too hot for my liking, but its burn soothes me in a way. Making me feel something other than the heavy burden that lays on the whole city's shoulders. I let myself sink down until the water cradles my head. Curling up so my whole body is submerged. I stare at the ceiling, watching the steam from the bath slowly rise, allowing condensation to sit on the wooden beams. I didn't bother to open the window so the bathroom could stay dry. I'll do that afterward. The water cups my ears, muffling the already quiet streets outside. My mind travels back to the books and maps I saw earlier. Was Asra trying to get us to leave? I explained in the past that I can't afford to pay rent on my shop and pay rent in a whole new area. Vesuvia is unsafe but the shop is my home, my lively hood. I can't give it up. I lie there, pondering and contemplating until the water has become lukewarm. My body aches after laying in the tub for far too long. After drying off my body and getting dressed I exit the bathroom, not bothering to stop my hair from dripping all over me. 

I walk towards my bed, finding the books and maps, untouched, and staring at me. I let out a frustrated sigh and collect the items.

I walk into the kitchen to find Asra nursing a cup of tea, and gazing out the window. They haven't noticed me yet. His eyes stare longingly out at the night sky. Sad and distant. I quietly approach and gently place the items on the table. Asra looks up at me in surprise. Neither one of us talks for a while. I clear my throat.

"What are these?" I motion to the map with the large black circle around the words that very obviously do not say Vesuvia. Asra places his cup down and fully faces me.

"Well I thought we could… stay there, I've heard the plague isn't present there and we could go, we could be safe and not have to worry about wearing face coverings just to go shopping," Asra's demeanor becomes meek the more he talks. I let out a sigh and collapse into the nearest chair.

"Asra I told you, I can't afford to keep my shop if I'm not here to work in it,"

"I can help you!" Asra says, straightening a little. "I-I've been painting masks to raise money, and we could go to Nopal for a few months, I could sell masks out there and you can have a makeshift shop in the desert," Asra reaches for my hand, taking it and rubbing his thumb across my knuckles. I give him a tired look.

"Asra, it's not that I doubt that you couldn't help me pay, it's just… Vesuvia is my home, our home, and I can't just leave at the drop of a hat like you," Asra winces and pulls away.

"Who knew you thought so little of me," he mumbles. I mentally kick myself for my choice of words.

"I'm sorry that’s not what I meant," I bring my head into my palm and lean my elbow on the table.

"What I'm trying to say is this is my home and I want to protect it so… I've decided I want to study medicine, to help with the plague," I look up to meet Asra's eyes. Their face pales and they sit back in their chair.

"Oh," is all he manages to say. I sit up fully and bring my hands into my lap, wringing them nervously together.

"I could use my magic to help too, and I want to be able to help the people, just like I did when I had people coming by regularly for magical ailments," I try to say something, anything to get Asra to stop looking at me the way he is. Scared, confused, frustrated, maybe even a little mad. He suddenly rises, his chair squeaking along the floor as it's pushed back.

"Asra please," I say barely above a whisper. Asra walks over the kitchenette and paces before turning to me, expression full of pain.

"That… That’s a terrible idea," he says. I suddenly feel taken aback.

"What wanting to help?" I say. Asra's face twists.

"You'll get sick, you'll… You will get hurt, you won't be safe!" he exclaims, starting to pace once again.

"There are people dying Asra I can't just sit around and let it happen! I want to do something, we can do something, we're both magicians!" I rise from my chair so I can fully face Asra as he frantically paces and runs his hands through his hair.

"How are we supposed to survive then, being exposed every day?" Asra looks me in the eye, his expression one of distress.

"Asra we're barely getting by as is," I motion to the bowl of fruit that I was organizing earlier. "The food isn't fresh, we have to go shopping all in one day so we don't risk exposure, and I am barely scraping by with my rent on the shop!" I let out an exasperated huff, folding my arms.

"I told you I would help you, I can sell masks, I can do fortune-telling just not here," Asra enunciates that last word by sharply pointing to the ground to make their point.

"I want to help, Asra… I want to be here," I shift awkwardly in place looking down at my feet. A lump begins to form in my throat, making it hard to breathe. Asra approaches me and places his hands on my forearms in an attempt to soothe me.

"Please, we can't stay here, let's just leave to where it's safe," He pleads, barely above a whisper. I slowly shake my head. Asra leans into me, trying to look into my eyes. His violet eyes, specked with tears in the corners.

"Why don't I help the people here? A-and you can stay home and make money off your painted masks," I say meeting his eyes.

"No, no no no," Asra begins to speak over me. He pulls away and faces his back to me, running his hands across his face.

"Asra I can't force you to stay here but you can't force me to leave," I say making my voice stern, hoping he understands my point. Asra quickly whips around tears falling down his face.

"Then how am I supposed to protect you!" he shouts. My breath hitches and I take a step back, my calves hitting the chair I was previously sitting on. The room grows eerily silent from his out burst.

"You can't protect me from everything, especially not this," I say, my own tears threatening to fall.

"Yes, I can! If you would just listen to me and leave! We could be safe," he approaches me, hands reaching out to me. I put my own hand up, stopping him from getting closer.

"Asra, I've made up my mind about this I'm not going anywhere," my chest aches, I want to leave with him, I want to leave because I'm scared. But I know I can help these people and I can't let my fears stop me.

"Please, you'll die," his voice cracks.

"If it saves the lives of even just a few people, then maybe was worth it,"

"No, you are too important to me!" they plead.

"Asra I have made up my mind! Nothing you can say will change it!" my volume begins to rise. Asra pleads my name and approaches once again gently grabbing my hands.

"Please it will kill you,"

"Asra..." my heart pounds in my chest.

"I can't live in a world knowing you aren't in it!"

"No Asra!" tears form in my eyes and my voice starts to crack.

"You will die-"

"Then death is better than this life we are living!" I shout. I didn't mean to. But I became so overwhelmed my temper flared-up. Asra takes a step back, releasing my hands.

"Is that how you feel," he says. I can't bring myself to answer, the lump in my throat has grown 3 times in size, swallowing my voice. "Very well," Asra turns away from me. Grabbing various clothing items as he goes. He disappears around a corner and I can hear him rummaging. I take in a painful deep breath. Wiping my tears as they fall. Asra comes back in with a bag, shoving items inside angrily, my eyes are too cloudy to fully see what he's doing but I can tell.

He's packing to leave.

"Asra," I croak. "Where are you going?" my voice comes out pathetically, as I try to compose myself. But my heart races in my chest. Asra ignores my question and continues to put items in multiple bags. All his clothes, his trinkets, their books. Anything they can carry.

"Asra please," I drag my feet as I try to follow him, but I can't stop the waterfall of tears escaping me. 

Asra finally stops in the middle of the room, passing me. He has multiple bags on both shoulders. I stand at the hallway entrance and watch him. Faust quickly slithers out from behind me, Asra crouches allowing her to climb up his arm. He takes his hat off the hook and places it on his head. I stumble towards him reaching out.

"Asra I'm… I'm so-" their eyes meet mine, cold, angry, pained. I stop in my tracks

"This is the grave you made yourself, I will not be there to watch you get buried," he says. His voice cracking. Without another word, Asra turns and goes down the stairs and into my shop. 

I can only gawk in silence, in disbelief that he actually left. The wall-shaking slam of the door breaks me from my shock. I grip the fabric of my top, just over my heart. Feeling as though it has broken in two. I sink to the floor and sob, harder than I ever have because a piece of my heart has left me.

[kaito-is-baby]

Devil Town

Shoto Todoroki x Fem!Reader 

Warnings: Spoilers about Dabi's identity? (I don't think this is a spoiler anymore lmao) and a little of gaslighting from the reader if you stretch

Plot: AU where Shoto kills Touya on accident, he and Endeavor run away, they end up on a ghost town and meet the reader, this will be a series and I can promise you I have a very good mystery for the town, also this was totally inspired by devil town by cavetown, it wil have many references to the song so… if you are a fan I think you will like this <3

part 1 (previous) | part 3 (next)

The bright rays of dawn streaming through his curtains woke Shoto up, he took his phone in his hands wondering how soon in the morning would it be to have the sun just rising now

9:00 a.m his phone screen read 

Where in the world did the sun rise so damn late?

Shoto found clean clothes on his little bedside table, the very same clothes he was wearing, the same print on the white t-shirt he was wearing was resting on the white t-shirt on his table, the same blue shirt he was wearing could be found underneath the white t-shirt and the very same denim jeans he was wearing too, they had just one diference, the new ones waiting in his bedside table were not soaked in now dry blood from his brother.

Once dressed in his new clothes he opened the door just to hear his father’s voice calling him from behing 

Deciding to ignore him Shoto hurried up to the stairs, soon finding the hostel hall and, in its reception desk, the recepcionist was waiting, her elbows on the tabble, her chin resting on her hands and a little movement from side to side from her head, he found her just like he had left her the night before, the same white striped dressing gown on her and the same 'everything is just a game' expression on her face

The girl waved at him and that was the only thing Shoto needed to take his decision

He approached the girl, ready to ask her what had kept him awake almost all night when she cut him 

“Were the clothes of your liking?” she smiled 

“Eh... yeah, yes they were” so it had been her who brought them to his room and found them in the first place “How... How did you find clothes so similar to my old ones? And... it was already midnight when we arrived, the day had just started when I woke up and they were already on my room where did you bought them?”

“I... made them?” her eyebrows curved “Look, it’s my job to make sure everyone in this town is comfortable, I gave you father clothes too and he did not complain, take them and stop asking so many questions, will you?”

“But... I have one more question” the girl nodded at him, allowing him to continue “I want to know your name” 

She giggled 

“I want to know your real name too, I guess we can’t have everything we want” 

“At least give me a false name so I can refer to you” 

“You souldn't refer to me, you should go out and meet the town's people, you will lose any interest in me as soon as you do so”

“I heavily doubt it”

“But I am sure of it” she said, focusing her eyes on the book she had on her table

If there was something Shoto was more curious about than the girl it was that book, it looked like the usual book they have on a hotel to know who is staying in each dorm but the misteryous girl and her misteryous hostel had no one else hospeding than him and his father, what else could be filling pages and pages of that book? and why would she look at it and have it with her everytime? 

"Look, you are cute, really cute, but I’m not interested so can you please leave for once?” the girl’s angry voice woke him up

“Yes, sorry, I got distracted by...” she would never tell him what was inside that book, would she ever explain anything? “its nothing. I will leave now”

Already on the door Shoto said something else before leaving the hostel “You are really cute too” It was more a muffle to himself than a sentence directed to her yet she heard it and a silly smile appeared on her face

He was shy and unused to romantic interactions

And something much worse, he was in a weird town with a death in his back, this was not the time to fall for someone, less someone even weirder than the town itself

...

The sun rays blinded Shoto at first, how could it be already so shiny when it had just rised?

It’s true one of Shoto’s eyes was blue, which usually make the eyes more sensitive but he had never really be blinded by the sun before 

“I guess the hostel is way to dark and my eyes were not ready for this” Shoto calmed himself 

The whole town had changed, he knew it, his father's car wasn't at the hostel door anymore and the hostel was again at the top of a slope

But this time, under the slope Shoto found what he expected to find the first time instead of a weird forest, a little town

Much to Shoto’s disgrace it was now the entrance to the town and the road he and his father were following what had disappeared this time alongside the lonely forest 

Not more than ten houses, a clock tower and a cafe 

That was what constitued this “town”

He entered the small cafe, trying to get them to give him some information about the whereabouts of the road 

Inside the counter was a blonde boy with a black highlight, laughing loudly at whatever his co worker -a big muscular man with thick lips and scary eyebrows- had said. The big guy was scary at first but once Shoto saw him baking and joking with the blonde his first impresion changed completely, he seemed like a good person

But then Shoto thought to himself, Didn't he look like a good person too? And he was a murderer and no better than his horrible father 

“I’m Jirou and I have to attend you, is there anything you want?” a purple haired girl in the same uniform as the two boys behind the bar welcomed him and guided him to his table 

“Do you have green tea?” 

“No, we got out of it just yesterday but we will have the new cargament by tomorrow!”

“Well then I guess a dark coffe will make it too” 

“Alright, tomorrow we will have your green tea ready eh... what’s your name?”

“oh! right!! you are new!!” the blonde exclamed 

“The name’s Dabi” 

“Welcome to Devil town Dabi!” A pink colored skin girl greeted him

Shoto’s cup of coffe was almost empty when a green haired boy filled with freckless all over his faces entered the saloon, standing on a girl of his same height, big eyes and red cheeks

“Denki please, could you give us some ice for Izuku’s ankle? he broke it again”

“Shouldn’t you go to the hospital instead of asking for ice?” Shoto found himself asking

“Are you going to bring them to the hospital?” A deep and angry voice asked him 

“Don't you have one here?”

“Fuck off bastard, you can’t be serious and I really hate people mocking me” The blonde boy whose deep angry voice belonged to treatened him 

“Uraraka will take me to the city tomorrow to get checked” The injured boy, izuku, affirmed

 “In this shitty town there is nothing more than stupid trees” the angry boy spoke again

“And a road in the middle right?” Shoto asked, trying to find it again 

“What are you talking about?” Izuku asked

“There was a road with a sign with the towns name that crossed the whole town”

“The whole town are 10 houses and this cafe, I think you are mistaken, there’s no road here” the girl who attended him, Jirou, clarified 

“No, there was a road and-” Shoto then found a better thing to ask “the hostel! the hostel at the end of this slope, you have seen it right?”

“Yeah, but it’s been abandoned for years now, none of us has seen it working”  The baker answered 

“I don’t think its abandoned, there’s a recepcionist working on there”

“Who?” Denki, the guy who gave the injured boy the ice, asked this time

“I... I dont know her name”

“Look bastard, if you want to make fun of someone go somewhere else I dont want to see your stupid half burned face”

“Bakugo!” the girl with pink skin reprimanded him

...

Shoto left the saloon after that, wondering if he was the one losing his mind and not the people on this town, his biggest hipotesis was that both, he and the villagers were losing their minds

He wanted answers and he wanted answers from that stupidly misterious girl on the hostel 

He headed to the little amount of trees near him, he remebered, alongside the road were plenty of trees, he heard his mother on the woods. He had to walk through plenty of them until he found the hostel and not a single time did he sight the damn town

Shoto walked miles, he walked through the woods for hours and yet he couldn't find the road to get out of the weird town

He heard his mother voice again, calling him, screaming at him like the day he got the scar he had on his face 

“You said something dumb again” Shoto turned to where the voice came from

Sitting on one of the trees branches there she was, the recepcionist again 

“She’s mad” She jumped back to the ground “At least that’s what they say”

The girl was even prettier at the moonlight, it was easy for Shoto to lose himself on her eyes and forget about everything she was saying 

“Who? Who says that?” 

“The trees, obviously, who else would it be?” she laughed 

“oh” Shoto tried to find what she found so logical on her answer but he did just find it irracional, there was no way the trees were speaking, not even if he himself was hearing his mom coming from one of them “who... who is mad?”

“I'd say it’s your mother, she must miss you, all of you.” Was she refering to his older brother too? “I think this is not what she expected when you left” 

Shoto gulpped

He knew well what the misterious recepcionist was talking about, he left on a mision with his father to bring Touya back and now Touya was dead and both him and Endeavor were missing with no explanation

“But we’re fine, no one’s gonna catch you here” She said, speaking from his back again, she had walked through him while he thought about his past 

“What-?” 

When he turned around she was no longer there and so he decided to leave, it was dark at night already and he wanted to wake up soon, he needed to know more 

...

“Can I get an explanation to that last thing you said in the woods?” Shoto exclamed just the moment he entered the hostel, his voice much louder than he had ever expected it to come

“I... I wasn’t on the woods Dabi, I’ve been here all day” 

“You were on the woods, sitting on a branche you said something about being save here because no one would catch us and-”

“Dabi, I think you need to rest” 

“No, you already said something like that yesterday, when you came from- where did you came from when I arrived at this town? I walked trough the whole forest and didn't see you”

“I was here all day, just like every other day, every day is the same here”

“No, no you weren't, when I arrived here this place was lonely like-” Then shoto remembered what the villagers had said about the hostel “-an abandoned place...”

“Well, I’m sorry I can’t have a 5 stars hotel but I’m not even charging you so-”

“You weren’t here when I entered and arrived later, you were out there and I didn’t see you and this place smelled like... The woods sounded like...” Like Touya, like mom was what Shoto tought to himself

“Do you need me to help you get to your room?”

“No... no, I will be fine”

Shoto set his alarm at 5 a.m, the unnamed girl couldn’t be already up at those hours right? He would take a look at that book of hers and finally discover what was going on here. Was this his own personal hell? Because it sure seemed like it 

[the-coffee-story]

Rise of the Forest God

Chapter 17 - Professor Tally Winchester

Winchester Hall was a beautiful, dark Victorian mansion á lá Addams Family that rested proudly upon the tallest hill around. The windows, grey with age and dust were tall and skinny and a rusted iron gate, with weathered carvings now indistinguishable rested half swallowed by dirt and uncut blades of long dry grass. The whole thing blended rather well with the crawling forest behind it.

The team was waiting by the gate, curious and giddy with half-numbed nervousness.

"Well, now I'm definitely interested," Walther commented, peeking through the towering, rusted gate. "This looks like it's haunted by at least three ghosts who died a horrible death. They never found the heads."

October laughed.

"Seriously October, imagine the Addams Family's mansion, now scale it down a little."

He raised an eyebrow. "Can't wait for Morticia to pop out."

"Well, Morticia was definitely not on the phone," Violet noted.

Suddenly, the carved, dark-oak door that rested comfortably in the centre of the home's front opened, and a young man peeked out, adjusting his glasses as he took a moment to assess the situation. After a few moments passed, he noticed the team waiting by the gate, waved to wordlessly grab their attention, and quickly scuttled over.

Tally Winchester was a medium-heighted, slender and bald individual with large, wildly blue eyes behind thick glasses and a countless amount of scattered silver piercings dotted in and around his earlobe. Despite the fact that it was it had just dawned early spring, his skin was sunburnt and tanned, as if he spent most of his days somewhere lost outside. He walked with a noticable limp, and Walther didn't need to wait long for an explanation, when a prosthetic briefly appeared between his worn brown converse sneakers and faded jeans.

"Hi!" He flashed a toothy smiled at the group and opened the gate. "Great to see you, I'm Professor Tally Winchester!" He shook everyone's hands as they trickled past. The sleeves of his petrol flannel were rolled up, revealing a rather out-of-place, faded tattoo of a crawling lizard and a bunch of old scars. "You can call me Tally though."

Violet held out her hand. "Hi, I'm Violet, we talked on the phone."

"Great to meet you all!" He grinned. "Are you coming inside?"

***

"Before anyone asks, I inherited the house," Tally explained while leading them upstairs. "It's rotten and I hate it and the bills are a naked horror but I doubt I can find anything that has more capacities for a library." He opened a door. "Intrate, everyone."

"Remarkable," Doc commented.

Remarkable was indeed an understatemt. The room they'd entered was a library- with a beautiful brick fireplace and huge windows that let in the sparse afternoon sun, bookshelves brushed against the webbed ceiling and sunk into every wall. The floor was carpeted, through incredibly uncomfortable to walk on, and the furniture antique. One wall was plastered with photographs and notes.

"Nice," Walther mumbled, taking the second to once again soak in their surroundings.

Tally grinned, idly brushing aside pages and old notes compromised of incomprehensible scribbles and drawings. His teeth were somewhat crooked. "I didn't replace any of the furniture, but I did sell a chunk of the old books. There was just no space for mine." He closed the door behind them. "So anyway, you wanted to know about the cult?"

"There's been a bunch of murders in Forest Lane that were eerily similar to what it did, so yeah." Thasfield shrugged his broad shoulders. "We suspect the cult might be involved."

"Oh, I heard about that on the news!" Tally sorted the files on the table until he found what he was looking for. Then he looked up. His face was serious now. "At this point I'd like to admit I have a slightly selfish motivation in this."

"What is it?", Violet asked.

"You see..." Tally leaned against the table. "For context, I'm a history professor, but my focus is on cryptids and modern legends. Historical context, potential explanations, yada yada. A few years ago I stumbled across the legend of the Forest God."

Walther's face lit up. "Oh, I remember that story, my parents used to tell it to me when I was a kid! This one guy got lost in the woods, was found dead and after his funeral his reanimated corpse came home and his wife who loved him very, very much-" They side-eyed Violet and Coffee, who in turn glared back. "-couldn't accept that maybe it's not exactly normal that your husband's corpse is vibing around, then after a while he started killing people, then he killed her and then the neighbours buried him in an iron casket in the woods so he would stop randomly murdering people. Right?"

"You summed it up." Tally nodded.

"But who believes in that?!" Violet frowned. "I mean... it's just a legend, right? Somebody finally snapped, had a rough week or something, and people straight up believe his bullshit?"

"He came back from the dead and started murdering people, Violet," Doc commented.

She shrugged dismissively. "We've all been there."

"I don't want to meet you after a bad week," Tally remarked with mild discomfort, absentmindedly flipping through pages of notes and nonsense. "The existence of the man who allegedly became the Forest God is proven. His name was Eustace Wyndham and if you ask me he had rabies and some things were added for drama. But that's not even relevant, because the cult came almost a hundred years later." He slid around the table and opened another scattered file. "1969 they started to worship the Forest God. At first it was nothing special, you know, just the average college student nonsense." He held up an old photograph, subtle wonder in his eyes as he stared into it, before handing it to Walther. "Here, you can take a look at this! That's the entire cult. The guy in purple with the long hair is one of the founders. The other founder left in 1970 after getting a bad feeling about the whole thing. I caught him for an interview five years ago. Lovely guy, sadly died of cancer shortly after. It's a shame. You can pass the photo around! Notice how they're all wearing cow parsley wreaths. That was the flower associated with the Forest God and the flower scattered all over their murder victim's body, or rather what was left of it."

"All the victims had cow parsley in their mouth," Doc realized, dragging a hand up to rest in his soft ginger curls, staring blankly into the distance, thinking.

Tally nodded hastily. "Exactly! And now please look at what I found on my windowsill this morning!"

He limped over to the tallboy, half relying on the nearby furniture for support. Leaning down and throwing open a drawer, after a short while of sifting through papers and photographs, he took out something else. Then he held it up.

It was a wreath of cow parsley.

"That's....not good," Walther murmured after a long moment of stunned silence.

Tally nodded, twirling the flowers between his thumb and forefinger. "You get it. You know..." He leaned heavily against a dusty, worn table and heaved a small sigh. "When Wilhelm called me at first I was very sceptical of it all. I'm not a group project person, if you know what I mean. But this is just the tip of the ice berg and I have a feeling that I might be next, so I decided to work with you." He shrugged his shoulders.

While he'd been talking, Coffee had been furiously typing. He handed Tally his phone and Tally read it out loud.

" 'How about we use you as a bait?' Um... Can you...can you please explain what exactly you mean? That doesn't sound particularly safe-!"

He handed Coffee's phone back to him, paranoid he might accidentally drop it, and the detective started typing an answer, this time with significantly more determination.

Hear me out. So my idea was basically that tonight we let the killer come, but were going to be prepared. In other words, we gather a big group that's going to protect you, and we're going to arrest the murderer once he's here. What do you think?

Tally hesitated for a short moment and chewed his lip, opening his mouth to reply, then closing it again.. "I mean... I guess you have a point, sooner or later he's going to get me either way."

"I mean, let's be real, you can't run forever," Thasfield said, leaning forwards. "Even if you move, it's still going to take a while, and judging by what we know you're being pretty actively stalked, so it's quite possible he'll just follow you and then you'll be killed by a Forest God in a hotel room in Central Graytown. Which probably makes for an interesting plotline in a noir film, but we're talking real life here and I highly doubt you're so keen on landing in the morgue anytime soon. Although the Doctor is an expert at autopsies."

Doc smirked.

".........yeah," Tally admitted. He sat down on the table and scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, that sounds...icky but realistic." He closed his eyes took a deep breath. "Alright. Who's gonna be on this team?"

Doc's phone's rang loudly to shake up their newfound confidence, and he excused himself, stepping back into the dusty hallway to take the call.

"I mean, most of us for starters," Violet said. "But I was also thinking of grabbing Gary Fox and Wilhelm. Strength in number, you know?"

Doc eventually came back to the group. His weathered face was stricken with subtle anxiety. "Bad news."

"What is it?", Walther asked.

"Alice found her mailman by the stables."

Walther frowned. "Okay, and what's so special about that?"

"His left arm was by the stables. The rest of him was scattered across the field."

"Dear God, is he okay?"

"He's okay, but he's dead." Doc turned to Tally, lowering his voice just enough. "Can we settle on tonight?"

Tally nodded. His sunburnt face had notably paled, turning his skin a somewhat pasty yellow. "Sure. What time are y'all coming?"

"Is five o'clock alright with you?"

Tally shrugged his shoulders. "Sure."

[bonk-ity]

The Inbetween and The Otherside

cw// blood, death

The sound of Karl's body landing in the water slowly faded away.

He found himself where he had been many, many times before. The Inbetween's white castle was hard to mistake.

Karl approached the very first book he saw.

Welcome. So much has happened since you last came. We see you have strayed from the path. I must remind you: Do not stray from the path.

Karl's hand shook as he placed the book back on its stand. He made his way up the staircase to the right. In front of him was a tall, tall tree. It must've been alive for ages. Surrounding the tree was a small but deep pool of water.

The sound of wind startled Karl. He blinked. Suddenly, the daylight shining off the water turned into moonlight. It became much more eerie and silent.

Something in the water was calling to him. It told him to jump in.

He took a step into the water, soaking his pants. He took a deep breath and dove down.

The water dragged Karl down, down, down into its depths. It felt like he was going down forever. He spotted a dim light even lower than he already was. He quickly swam through the small opening and into a white room. A door clicked open and closed as he entered.

There were only two things in the dimly lit room. On the wall opposite Karl, there was a wooden ladder. The ladder was slightly damp and crooked; not at all safe. In the middle of the room, a book was thrown on the floor. Karl approached the book.

A wilted rose was used as a bookmark. Karl opened it to the page.

Go up the ladder. There's a surprise waiting for you. :]

Karl dropped the book back on the ground where he found it. He walked toward the unsafe ladder. The ladder shook as he began to climb it. Or maybe it was Karl himself shaking.

He turned as he finished climbing the ladder.

Karl's eyes widened. His breathing became uneven.

Blood covered every surface in that room. Karl's whole body shook as he read the words scrawled on a piece of burnt paper pinned to the wall.

STICK TO THE PATH

:]

'Let me out!' Karl thought, unable to move.

Karl forced his body to move.

'I need to escape!'

Karl clumsily climbed down the ladder, skipping a few steps. He was just trying to get away from that room.

He swam through the water as quickly as possible, gasping for breath once he reached the surface. He tried and failed, to pull himself up on the tree's roots. Once he made it to the surface, he laid on the ground, gasping for breath. He didn't even notice that it wasn't night anymore. The daylight had returned.

He rubbed his eyes, trying to forget that room. It was filled with blood. The question was: whose?

Karls breathing was still heavy and shaky, but he got up and continued toward the front of the small pool of water. There was once again another book.

Karl's hands shook even more as he once again turned to a page marked by a withered rose. Water dripped onto the pages, spreading the ink.

Stay :] It seems that your mind may be playing tricks on you. It seems you have strayed from the path. Let's make sure that doesn't happen again.

Karl put the book back where he found it, his hand still shaking.

Karl made his way back to the foyer of the castle. The room where it all began. It was nearly empty, just like most of the other rooms. The only thing in this room was a small white table with a book on it.

Karl approached it slowly. The sounds of dripping and his footsteps following him close behind. He already knew what it was going to say.

A withered rose marked the page he was supposed to read. He picked up the dead rose, holding it tightly against his chest. He read the lines of the first page.

This is where you first joined us here in the Inbetween. So many things have changed since you've last been here. It seems you are starting to doubt yourself. How silly. :]

Karl hesitantly turned the page, dripping water on both pages.

You haven't been yourself lately. It's almost as if you've been losing trust in the Inbetween. Do not worry, the Inbetween is a place to feel at ease, not to provoke harm.

Do not trust your mind. Simply trust the path. The path knows what's best. Remember, stick to the path.

Karl put the book back down and made his way up the front staircase. He spotted a book on the windowsill. There was no black rose shoved between the pages, which he found strange. He walked quickly to the book, expecting it to disappear right before his eyes.

He grabbed the book and turned it to its first page.

THE INBETWEEN IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS TO BE. MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE PORTAL. PLEASE.

Karl's face fell. He blinked as the sound of gushing wind filled his ears. Suddenly, he was back in the front foyer, his clothes now completely dry.

He walked forward, toward the book. The withered rose was clumsily shoved in between two of the pages.

Stop straying from the path, Karl. I know what is right. The path knows your destiny. Don't trust your delusions. The Inbetween is safe.

Karl put down the book and continued up the stairs once again. The book that he had found was no longer there when he looked at the windowsill.

Karl heard footsteps to his right and frantically turned to face the person who was there.

The person ran away, just before Karl could see their face. The person was wearing the same outfit as Karl.

Karl ran in the direction the person had left. The person was running from him, leading him in a specific direction.

The person turned the corner, and Karl followed. Karl froze for a second as the sound of another gust of wind flooded his ears. Suddenly, it was pitch dark. The only light coming from a few lanterns around the area.

More people were there. They all looked like the person Karl had been chasing. They all looked like him.

'Who am I, then?'

Karl's breath shook. He turned his head to the tree in the middle of the no-roof room. There, he spotted yet another book that was not marked with a dead rose. He made his way to the book, dragging his feet on the ground.

These versions of yourself are no longer people. They have spent too much time in the Inbetween. They have lost themselves.

These are not visions. These are reality.

Go to the portal.

Karl's breathing became even more uneven. He just wanted to get out of this place.

Karl heard yet another gust of wind in his ear. This time more intense, more violent.

He was once again sent back to the room where it all began. The room was now pitch black, with only two torches lighting the room.

Karl once again made his way toward the book, hesitating. The withered rose was sloppily placed in between the pages, barely staying in. He opened the book, which seemed to have been damaged since the last time he'd seen it.

Do not go to the portal. You will regret it. I will make sure of it.

This is no longer a warning. Do not stray from the path.

Karl's entire body shook with fear. He didn't even close the book as he threw it down onto the ground.

Karl ran back outside, where the grand tree was. His heart was beating so loud he couldn't hear himself think.

A voice spoke in his head.

F̷̨̡̢̡͔͇̙̲͙͚́͂̒̂ŏ̸̹͈̇̉̉̓̎͂̃̈ľ̸͈̰͇́̓̏̈́̒l̷̲͙̃̋͗́̈̆͆͝o̵̦͖̻̻̓̓͑̾̆͊̕w̷͕̤͈̭͍̬͚̋̌̏͐̚̕ ̶̧̨̨͉̱̦͖̦͛̆͌͛͌́͠͝ṱ̴̭̯̖̬͜͠ẖ̷̡̣̠̰̼͙̈̎̎̚͜e̵̩̜͇͚̯̜͚̠͊́́̄͛̇͜ ̴̧̢̣̞̭̻̝̏̄̇̏̔̆̈́ͅt̷̪͈͇͔͈̫͎̺̓̽̈̋̕͜ő̸̢̭̞̘͍͈̰̰̜̯r̴̝͂͜c̸̘̦͉̳̪̬̤̗̿͗h̴̯̤̲̰̳̝̆̑̕e̵̱̙͇͎̋͆̂̚͜ş̶̪̩̖̠͚̜̬͂ (follow the torches)

[thesurielships]

"I love you." "No you don't." + "You deserve so much better." for Cruel Intentions, maybe? i'm scared of what i'm asking for lmao

ivy (feysand)

note: hey! thank you for the prompt. i don’t see it fitting into cruel intentions, and it somehow worked itself into this one. i hope you don’t mind :))

also this is a whopping 3.5k, which is massive for me, and it’s a bitch to edit. but i will not say anything negative. i hope you enjoy!

evermore | masterlist | ao3

in from the snow, your touch brought forth an incandescent glow

Winter was a dreadful season in Springtime, which Feyre always found quite ironic. However, it was a fact she had grown to treasure as she watched her mother and Tamlin go to the stone every day, keeping her father better company than he’d ever had when he was alive.

Feyre smirked as flurries of snow hit the glass windows of the library. The howling wind was like music to her ears, a heady promise of the suffering of her two least favorite people in the world.

Ah, it really is the little things.

Suddenly, a rock slammed against the window, jolting her out of her content musings. Her hand flew to her heart, reigning in the sudden panic. Another rock hit the glass, then another, and Feyre jerked the window open before a fourth could effectively break it and ruin her only refuge in Springtime.

She scowled down at the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this isn’t a door, sir.”

His answering grin was cocky, self-assured and way too attractive for a stranger drenched in snow and shooting rocks at unsuspecting windows.

“But you answered all the same.”

Her fists clenched, longing to make contact with his perfect face, but she remembered he was out in the snow and she was inside, near a blazing fire. Instead, she shot him a saccharine smile. “May I ask who you are?”

“I am freezing.”

A dry laugh escaped her, surprising her. It had been a while since she had laughed at all. “That does not answer my question.”

He shrugged impossibly wide shoulders, and Feyre was momentarily side tracked by the way his riding clothes hugged his powerful figure.

“Where is your horse?” she belatedly asked, after she had meticulously perused him.

He tilted his head, a knowing smile curving his lips. “In the stables.”

“Are you ever going to give me a straight answer?”

“Only if you let me in.”

She rolled her eyes, and was about to shoo him away when the wind picked up and snow blasted inside the room. She trembled in her thin gown, and dared a glance at the handsome stranger. His teeth were chattering.

Her hesitation must have shown on her face, because he was soon jumping up, offering her his hands. She didn’t let herself think about it before she grabbed them and pulled.

He was heavy and his hands were indeed freezing, but between her wheezing efforts and the way he gracefully scaled the wall, they managed to get him up and through the window before they both fell into a heaving heap on the floor.

“So?” Feyre inquired, still panting.

He sat up and crossed his legs. “I am Rhysand.”

He offered no title, no last name, yet she knew exactly who he was.

Tamlin’s long sworn enemy and diplomatic friend.

Surprise and delight glimmered in his eyes. Eyes she could now see were a lovely shade of violet. “You know who I am.”

“Who doesn’t?” she shot back defiantly as she stood up, straightening her dress.

“Ah,” his eyes followed her as she closed the window and checked on the fire. “My reputation precedes me.”

“Indeed.”

“So does yours, Miss Feyre Archeron.”

She raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Indeed.”

He chuckled. “A woman of few words, I see.”

“And a man who insists on sitting on the ground when a lady is standing next to him.”

“Forgive me,” he said unapologetically as he rose to his full height, towering over her and suddenly closer than she had expected. Her breath caught. “I tend to forget my manners.”

 my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand, taking mine, but it's been promised to another

The next time Feyre saw Rhysand, he strode in through the doors of the library. He was staying at Springtime manor as Tamlin’s guest, awaiting the upcoming house party. She was surprised to find him here as he had all but pretended she didn’t exist the past few days.

“Is this what you call character growth?” she asked from her perch near the fire, closing her book around her finger to mark the page she was reading.

His steps were languid but assured as he prowled towards her, and Feyre’s heart rate picked up. Anticipation pooled like hot liquid in her gut, and she reflexively licked her lips. His eyes tracked the motion, irises darkening. His steps stuttered for a brief second before his insufferably irreverent smirk was back on lips that had felt sinfully soft on the back of her hand. Customary greeting kisses were dreadfully brief.

“Character growth,” he repeated, “is what is going to hit you, Feyre darling.”

Her heart skipped a beat at the unexpected endearment. Heat rushed to her face and she scowled at the cause of the troubles of her bodily functions.

“I am not leaving this spot.”

“Not even for an adventure?” he asked, gesturing to the book in her lap. The adventures of Tom Sawyer.

There was no stopping her curiosity, so she didn’t even try. “What adventure?”

His only answer was a mysterious grin, and soon Feyre was riding astride a magnificent horse, her hair whipping around her and her shouts of glee resonating in the forest surrounding the manor.

She had always wanted to explore it, but Tamlin was always too busy or it was too cold, or her mother needed to visit her father’s grave, again. The Cauldron only knew there was no love lost between her parents, and Feyre wondered what the real reason behind these daily visits was. She didn’t care enough to find out, and refused to join them even when they asked.

Why would she, when it was the perfect opportunity for sneaking off?

“Where are we going?”

“To the top of the world.”

She snorted at his cheesy reply, but soon enough, they stopped at the edge of a cliff overlooking sprawling woods of snow covered pines. Feyre’s eyes went wide, drinking in the details she hoped she could one day get right on canvas.

“Doesn’t this beat books?” came Rhysand’s cocky question.

She gave him a smirk. “Barely.”

He kept quiet as she marveled at the beauty unfurling in front of her. From her vantage point, she could see kilometers upon kilometers of dense woods. Snow gilded the majestic pine trees in glittering silver, and the occasional bird squawked in delight as it flew overhead.

Her shoulders loosened and a wide smile broke free. She really felt like she was on top of the world.

That must be why she was intrigued and all too willing to follow Rhysand as he guided her to their next destination, though she doubted anything could surpass this.

“It has just occurred to me that I am a very easy target right now,” Feyre remarked as he signaled for her to slow her horse.

“Target for what, darling?”

“Murder,” she supplied helpfully. “Or maybe something more romantic. Like the ravishing of a maiden,” she mused aloud, her gaze carefully trained on his face.

He rolled his eyes, the smallest smile pulling one side of his lips upward. “You seem to be the one with ulterior motives.”

She shrugged.

“Hardly. You –” The words died on her tongue as her eyes fell on a pocket of swirling starlight, tucked right there into the icy muddy ground.

“What’s that?” she breathed quietly, afraid to shatter the illusion.

“A pond.”

She whipped her head towards a smirking Rhysand. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Are you by any chance… Fae?”

He blinked, then threw his head back and roared. Feyre couldn’t stop her smile as he laughed himself to tears.

“What kind of books have you been reading, darling?”

She raised her chin. “Good ones.”

He shook his head, his smile tainted with surprise and disbelief. He jumped off his horse and tied it to a nearby tree. Feyre peered at the ground uneasily. She could mount a horse just fine, but she always had trouble getting down.

Rhysand offered her a hand silently, without teasing.

She accepted it, with no comment on his freezing hands.

Incandescent warmth spread out from their twined hands and seeped through her ribs to pour into her chest. Rhysand was staring at her in wonder, and she pulled away before she did something reckless.

Like ravishing him.

As if he was privy to her depraved thoughts, he barely turned around before he started to undress. His shirt, then his breeches fell to the ground, and the warmth veered south as she beheld his muscled back.

“It’s so warm,” he purred as he stepped into the water. “Legend has it Hell is just under here.”

Feyre gave his back an unimpressed look.

“Or maybe it’s my magic.” He peeked over his shoulder just as her eyes caught on the drops of water racing down his neck. “Are you just going to stand and stare?”

Her spine straightened at the challenge in his voice. She undressed slowly, putting on a show, but he averted his eyes, suddenly a gentleman.

Feyre’s dress joined his clothes on the muddy ground, and she joined him in the hot waters.

In a rare moment of clarity, she realized this was no feat of magic, and no work of Hell.

The water was boiling from the fire blazing under her skin.

he's in the room, your opal eyes are all I wish to see

If she had to accept another stranger’s congratulations on her proposal, Feyre was going to lose her sanity.

It hadn’t been three months since her father’s death, yet her mother thought a ball would be a good idea. What better way to announce her engagement to Lord Tamlin, duke of Springtime, and bore extraordinaire?

The ton didn’t comment on the rushed festivities. Just like they didn’t comment on their living together or his lingering touches when they still weren’t married. They were willing to overlook anything for their favorite, after all.

They had even managed to forget that Feyre had rejected him for only a thousand times before her father’s death. Before her mother accepted for her, hoping her last unmarried daughter would ensnare a rich, titled husband to fund her extravagant widow lifestyle.

Feyre breathed through her nose, clenching her teeth so hard she was surprised people bought her sorry excuse of a smile. Tamlin’s hand was a heavy weight on her shoulder as he paraded her from guest to guest, showing off his win.

Little did he know, he had won nothing at all.

Even in the crowded room, even with him by her side, her eyes were drawn to Rhysand like a moth to a flame. He was leaning against a corner, looking all dark and broody as he drank her future husband’s brandy.

“She is also an excellent pianist,” Tamlin’s remark registered in her dazed mind and Feyre smiled at the old lady he was talking to.

“I only believe what I witness,” the old lady’s smile was cunning.

Dread fell like heavy bricks in Feyre’s gut.

“It would be my pleasure,” she curtsied before making her way confidently to the piano. She sat with her back straight and her fingers primly poised on the white keys.

Rhysand tilted his head imperceptibly, and she shot him a secret smile before she started the melody.

The ton oohed and aahed, her betrothed preened, and she felt a savage kind of delight as she played the song Rhys had taught her on one of their late night escapades.

Fingers brushing and violet eyes twinkling were all she could see as the music seemed to take a life of its own, racing towards its roaring crescendo.

Then sudden silence. And loud applause.

In the glory of the moment, she didn’t notice Rhysand approach her until he was bowing over her hand and asking for a dance she pretended to reluctantly accept.

That night, the ton had to overlook the scandal of a betrothed woman waltzing with another man five times in a row.

oh, I can't stop you putting roots in my dreamland

“You didn’t mention you’re a painter.”

Feyre jumped, deflecting her paintbrush just in time before paint sprayed on her morning’s work.

“You know, Rhysand, when someone tells you to make yourself at home, they seldom mean it literally.”

He smiled that mischievous smile that set her heart racing and her core aflame.

“I knew you liked the scenery,” he said, gesturing to her rendition of the pool of starlight.

She shrugged. “It’s a wonder I remember what it looked like. I wasn’t looking.”

He opened his mouth, outraged, but then he caught the coy look she sent him from under her eyelashes. He swallowed audibly.

She put her brush down and stood slowly. She took one step towards him. He mirrored her movement, and soon they met in the middle.

“Were you thinking of your book?” he whispered.

She shook her head. “I was... distracted.”

Her gaze snagged on his mouth. Blood rushed in her ears, her breathing growing labored as all her focus honed in on his tongue licking his lips.

“I… You… I should…” his voice was flustered. The smooth and suave Rhysand of Nightsky turned into a blushing mess before her eyes. “My cousin is calling me. I will see you at dinner, Miss.”

As Rhysand all but ran away from her, Feyre let her imagination run free. For the first time since her father’s death, she let herself dream of a happy future. Of a future that was wholly and thoroughly hers.

 spring breaks loose, but so does fear

When Feyre found a note hidden in the pages of the book she was currently reading, she wasn’t the least bit surprised.

‘Meet me where the spirit meets the bones.’

Stars were her only guide as she sneaked out of the mansion, her heavy cloak unnecessary in the warm night.

She hadn’t made it past the gilded gates when strong hands plucked her away from the dirt trail and pulled her against a deliciously warm chest. Feyre melted instantly.

“The graveyard, Rhys?”

His chuckle tickled the skin of her neck. “I was curious what all the fuss was about.”

“Knowing my mother – and Tamlin, too – they probably found some treasure hidden in a tomb somewhere, and they’re trying to sneakily bring it back.”

Rhys’ smile was fond as he twirled her around in his arms and settled his hands on the small of her back, beneath her cloak.

She yelped. “Your hands are freezing!”

He raised an eyebrow as if to say, exactly.

She scowled at him but nuzzled closer, inhaling his scent deeply.

The trees around the graveyard were rumored to be hollow. Indeed, the wind blowing through them played a melody that others may have found eerie, but that they gently swayed to.

“Spring is near,” Feyre addressed his chest, her voice soft.

“It is.”

A beat of silence.

“Why won’t you ask me to run?”

No answer came.

Feyre lifted her head so she could meet his eyes. “My wedding approaches, Rhysand.”

His throat bobbed. “I know.”

“Are you just going to watch me marry him? Bear him children?”

He closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath.

She jerked away from him as if he had burned her. “Oh my Gods, you are.”

Realization was swift and cruel and it cut her heart into a million little pieces. Everything clicked in her head, and she was such a fool.

“Was this just a game to you?” she asked, horrified. “Did it give you some sort of sick satisfaction to make your enemy’s bride fall in love with you?”

His eyes went wide at her hysterical confession.

“I should have known,” she muttered to herself as she turned away from him. She was such an idiot, and she couldn’t bear to look at his smug face.

His hand wrapped around her forearm and she paused.

“You deserve better, Feyre.”

She whirled on him. “Seriously? That’s your excuse?” He flinched. “You think I am not aware of my own value? I chose you over Tamlin for a reason, you prick!” she poked his chest hard and his eyes flared.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What?” she screeched. She could not believe her own ears. That Rhysand would turn out to be so condescending… she must be a worse judge of character than she thought. “Then enlighten me. What’s this fatal flaw that makes you so utterly unloveable?”

His jaw clenched. Unclenched. Clenched again, and just when she thought he would not speak, he said in a voice so soft she thought she misheard him, “I am a bastard.”

“What?”

“My mother’s.”

Feyre could only stare.

“My father kept me to avoid scandal,” he continued, his tone flat and oddly detached. “And he wrote me out of his will the day I was born.”

She gaped at him.

“That is why I could never dare to proposition you, Feyre. Even before you were engaged.”

Feyre was pretty sure her brain was about one shock away from shutting down. “You knew me before?”

A small smile curved his lips. “Naturally.”

She sputtered. “What – How – ”

“I am penniless, and soon to be title less. There is nothing I can offer you but my heart.”

“You love me?” she breathed. It was the only important thing among all the nonsense he was spewing.

“I do,” he confirmed even as he let her go and stepped back, resignation clear in his face.

Feyre’s anger blazed anew. “You don’t love me, Rhysand,” she spat his name as if it was an insult. “If you did, you would fight for me.”

This time, he didn’t stop her as she left, every step heavier than the last.

 it's the goddamn fight of my life, and you started it

Rhysand really had a bad habit of taking things too literally. Feyre would have found this quirk endearing, if she wasn’t running barefoot through a clover field to reach him before he threw himself to his death.

Her mother had woken her up an hour before dawn, overjoyed at the prospect of a duke and a future earl dueling for her daughter’s hand.

Sure enough, three figures appeared on the horizon, just on the edge of the woods encircling the Springtime domain. Each was walking towards a different direction.

No, no, no, the duel had already started.

She picked up speed even though her feet bled and her lungs burned. She was almost there, only a few yards away when the shots rang out, bullets blazing in the dark.

Feyre reached Rhysand as he fell to the ground and she clutched him in her arms, blood seeping into her dress. Horror held her heart in an iron fist, and she struggled to breathe -

“Feyre, darling.”

Her eyes snapped to his face. The prick had the audacity to smile at her.

“You’re bleeding,” she hissed.

A wet laugh rasped out of his chest. “I know.”

She was wild with panic as she pushed at his clothes, trying to find the wound so she could do something, anything to stop the blood flow.

“Leave the loving exploration for our wedding night, darling.”

She shot him an incredulous look before resuming her exploration. His chest and stomach were clear. Her eyes dropped to his thighs. His pants were torn and blood dribbled from the shallowest bullet wound she had ever seen.

Relief slammed into her and she fell to the ground.

“What were you thinking?” she breathed, her voice thick with tears.

His eyes were swirling with so much love and adoration they took the breath right out of her lungs.

“That I was an idiot. That you are more than capable of making your own decisions, and if you decide to be with me, then it is an honor that I will fight for. If you will have me, Feyre, I’ll try every day to be worthy of you.”

Tears ran down her cheeks, and she turned on her side, reaching for his hand and entwining their fingers.

“You are an idiot,” she said, staring at his thumb as it brushed soothing strokes into the back of her hand. “You’re already worthy. And if you ever put yourself in harm’s way for me again, I will shoot you in the groin.”

“Duly noted.”

Distance sobs reached her. Far out on the field, her mother was hunched over a limp and bloody Tamlin.

“Well, that’ll give her another reason to go to the stone.”

Rhysand barked out a laugh. “Maybe that’s a habit we should start too, darling. Maybe we can find our own treasure, too.”

Feyre leaned over and brushed her lips against his. “I already found mine.”

note: the original plan was for Rhys to die in the duel. but thank God for my fluffy, hopelessly romantic heart.

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[mimzy-writing-online]

I am writing a book that takes inspiration from Gaelic/Celtic medieval periods. I have a character who lost her sight due to fire/smoke damage when she was younger. However, even before then she could see magical auras. Now, at the time the story is taking place, I would like her to still have that ability, but I don't know if that would be a bad idea or not. I want to make her a really good representation, but don't want to create more stereotypes.

Also, what would be the likely hood of guide dogs in that type of setting?

Anon Continued: “Oh, also a follow up to the previous ask about the Celtic based book, she also is not the only character with sight based abilities. They're rather common in this world.”

So I would like to warn that based off some research, most vision issues caused by smoke exposure are usually mild enough not to cause severe vision loss and rather temporary.

Usual complications are medically dry eyes which cause some interference with vision, and the usual treatment of which is artificial tears. That isn’t something your character would have access to however, so the symptoms would be prolonged and possibly unable to heal on their own.

Small particles from wild fires can get in the eyes and damage the cornea, affecting the way it bends light to your retina and causing blurred vision. I think on top of smoke damage, it’s likely your character could have experienced a severe eye infection that caused further loss of vision. Which means you can have more wiggle room into how much vision loss there is: how poor her acuity is (as in how blurry everything is), if there is light and shadow perception, if she sees movement, and if she sees even a little color still.

As for her aura, I think an interesting solution would be if she had either learned or her magic had innately adapted to let her perceive auras in a way sighted people do not. Perhaps auras have a vibrational sound similar to tinnitus or maybe a certain kind of melody to it.

Which conforms much better to the blindness experience of using your remaining senses to perceive things you used to focus on with sight (such as watching TV in modern times, or watching a play back then, and focusing on the dialogue and the emotions you hear in the actor’s voices to replace what their body language and facial expressions might tell a sighted person)

Or, if not using sound as a replacement to perceive auras, then the colors correspond with a specific smell or a blend of smells. Or perhaps that standing close to them gives emotional or touch-based impressions.

And in the beginning she would have noticed this first with her loved ones and tried to figure out how this new sensory experience related to what she remembers their aura looking like. And then possibly working with someone who also sees auras the sighted way and asking what they see to compare to what she experiences.

As for guide dogs, while I don’t doubt that in history some dogs were trained to help with tasks for the blind or with other disabilities, their quality of training would not be as good as it is today because it wouldn’t be standardized. More likely would be her using a cane and/or sighted guides. However a dog living with her that knows some commands that help her (like retrieving certain objects, or trying to push her away from obstacles) could still be possible.

[owlsbride]

Icha Icha and prejudice:the Book Club

Chapter VI: The Plot Thikens

Sakura entered her apartment still trembling. It had been just a few silly words, but they had let her dizzy, flustered and, trembling. She recalled the words for herself once and again with her back against the door. "Have a good night you too, Lizzie." She was so naive, so childish. In an instant, she forgot their little fight about suitable marriages, and how Kakashi had shown on his behalf, that being a Hokage was much more than being a polite, pretty face to shown around towns or councils. That if something was suitable for the village, he will just go for it no matter what, without thinking twice. Meanwhile, her, the sweet and lovingly Sakura, only sees marriages as the union of two people celebrating their love, that only death could tear apart. She was helpless. Hopelessly devoted to love.

And maybe the reason why she was absolutely alone.

'That was not a fight Sakura.' Sakura rolled her eyes, stepping away from the door.

'I've been in fights, and trust me Sakura, that was not a fight.' She pondered for a moment the words of Inner Sakura. If that hasn't been a fight, what other thing would have been?

"If that was not a fight according to you. then what was it?" Sakura asked herself while making a coffee, messing everything in her kitchen more than necessary.

'It was just a talk' Inner Sakura began knowingly 'He was just stating how good the union between Shikamaru and Temari was going to be for both villages.'

"Yes, I know that" The real she was expecting something else, something more revealing. Maybe Inner Sakura understood Kakashi better than her. '

What else do you want to find, Sakura?' that know-it-all voice.

Sakura was silence contemplating her mug with the brown steamy liquid inside.

'Look, you wanted him to tell you how happy he was about the future possible wedding, how he hopped for the babies to come fast, and how much he wishes someday he would feel the same.'

"Well..." Sakura opened her mouth "Yes, I guess I was expecting something more heartedly" she finished dropping her shoulders. She never noted she was so tensed.

'Sakura are you kidding me, or you for that matter?' Inner Sakura was outraged 'You've been dating 2 years Sasuke, and now you expect his mentor to be an emotional sweet man, capable of lay all his feelings on the table just like that.'

"Maybe yes, maybe I thought Kakashi was different" Sakura was at the verge of tears "maybe I thought that he still has feelings, even if he is so broken."

'Listen to me and listen closely, cause I'm not going to repeat something that we both already know.' The voice in Sakura's head for the first time was tender, sweet, friendly 'He is broken, yes. He is as cool as a cucumber, and an aloof, but he would never hurt any of you. He told you himself that. He is a tough guy, a killer if it needed, so how can you pretend from him to just pour his heart out in a restaurant table.'

"You are right but..." Sakura was ready to protest once more.

'Sakura, you are too immersed in that book you gave him. Idealizing love and relationships, hoping that from one day to the next Kakashi transforms into Darcy' Sakura was starting to feel tired of this conversation.

"It's not like..."

'Sakura, do whatever you want, but stop expecting things from others that are not willing to give. Instead, why don't you focus on Icha Icha?'

"Yeah, like if that could help me in something." Sakura concluded.

'You never know.' Inner Sakura slowly walked away from Sakura's primary thoughts, leaving the hard work to be made by her own. Sakura went straight to the shower, hoping that it would help her to think clearly.

Maybe she was expecting too much about all these things around the books. Perhaps she expected him to notice her into another light, where they could both share life together, even if they already share one. Maybe with Pride and Prejudice, he would note some things about its characters that could be related to them. Maybe if Kakashi read some of her own thoughts there... Nah, she was being too rational and deluded and foolish at the same time. Probably Kakashi was taking the book as it was: a teasing game between them. Two idiotic friends and co-workers, who like flirting (a lot) with each other.

But, cause there is always a but, Sakura found herself asking why Kakashi has addressed her, not once but twice, as Lizzie. Of course, Elizabeth was the main character of the story, but why her? He could have called her Jane. Yes, Jane, always looking for the right husband, the real love, a suitable one but a man splendid as the sun, a true gentleman, honoured and lucky. Or he could have called her Mary, the intellectual Mary, the one who is always felling apart. Mary, who doesn't relate with Jane and Lizzie, and neither with Lydia and Kitty, because she was exactly in the middle. The outcast girl that someday will be ready to explode all her professional habilities and became the most notorious nin doctor of Konoha.

'My God, Sakura, I can't leave you alone for five minutes, and you are already ruining an excellent shower?'

"Why? Why did he call me Lizzie."

'Because is the main character's name?'

"Yes, but there has to be something else. Kakashi is no that simple."

'Sakura...'

"What if he is reading underlines? What if he is cryptically answering my question about Darcy or Wickam?"

'So which one is he then?'

"Oh..." Sakura blushed her self "I think I can't know that. At least not for sure."

'What do you mean' Inner Sakura asked already knowing the answer

"The thing is that I know Kakashi" Sakura started drying herself comfortably in her heavy and comfortable towel "He's obviously a Mr Darcy: dominant, gentleman, sure of himself, proud, well-positioned. He usually sticks to his principles and above all things he consciously considers absolutely all situations. He's rather lonely, so yes, he's a Mr Darcy."

'So... where are your doubts then?'

"I don't know nothing about Kakashi's love life," Sakura said simple aplaying some hydrating oil for the skin, she liked the one that smelled of pears.

'Does he have one?' Even if Inner Sakura was right.

"Come on, you're not going to think he is a virgin right? you are too bold to think something like that" Sakura reply thinking that for once she had won her Inner self

'Of course not, idiot! I'm not talking about sex. I'm referring to relationships, but coming from that man, I wouldn't be surprised if he is actually a virgin' Inner Sakura pondered, and Sakura herself darted her thoughts to unknown places.

'You are terrible after all, Sakura' Inner Sakura was laughing, 'You are already thinking in all the things you could do to him just to teach him.'

"Oh, come on! Not even Ino would dare to say something like that" Sakura defended herself. '

Call her and check for yourself. And Sakura?'

"What?"

'There is no need to keep on playing with that oil. You are already moisturized.'

Sakura left the bathroom in a flash of fury and went straight to her room. She jumped over her big comfy bed just wrapped in her not so much dry towel. Inner Sakura, was nowhere to be found in her head so she could rest a bit. She knew that she had to change into her PJs, but somehow she didn't feel like. Sakura was feeling comfortable and a little bit rebel? Yeah, almost a punk. If someone were to enter her house or room, they would find her barely covered by a large towel slightly dropped from one side and nothing more. The situation was tempting but pointless and disappointing: Nobody was going to visit her tonight, or the next one for that matter. So, pushed by this new femininity and sensuality found almost like chance, Sakura took Icha Icha in her hands, and began to read. If Kakashi could handle Pride and Prejudice, she would do it with the little orange book full of secrets.

"He found her underneath a leafy tree. The rays of the sun filtered through the spaces between the leaves, drawing on her skin magical patterns that he longed to travel with his hands, his lips, his tongue. She would leave for a few moments and then push it away, as she always did, it would slip through her fingers like flower petals in the wind. The fire awakened in his body would be unbearable. She knew that he would follow her to the end of the world, to the flames of hell that were nothing compared to the fire of passion that awoke every time they were together, within reach of his curious hands—a sigh of difference."

Oh boy... This was going to be a long night.

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

Notes:

Hello Everyone!!!!!! How you've been? I want to apologize for not updating before, in journalism, we say that we don't publish the excuses. I think I Kind of feel like I ow it to you. The thing is that I'm starting to quit smoking, and you have no idea (or maybe you do) how hard it is. Even more, if one of your greatest pleasures is writing while drinking coffee or something stronger and a cigarette!! That's what took my time. Try to write only with a sad cup of tea. But I guess I'm starting to improve in that area. I will end like L, full of candies, sweets, and coffee around me! If you are interested in following my process as a hilarious journal, I can leave you my Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/owlsbride

Now with the story, What is going on with Sakura and these new sensations she is living? What do you think? A virgin Kakashi? I don't think it fits him, as I don't think that womanizer thing fits him either.

Well, I'll be waiting your comments and kudos and follows and love, which is very much appreciated it right now.

Well Next chapter in a few days, we are going to see what happens in Suna,