#fifteen and nine... my absolute beloveds

[go-to-the-mirror]

Fifteen and Nine are the same kind of creature to me <3

[mchlgayser]

Hey babe. If you takin' requests, please write a long one for jude bellingham where the reader is comforting him after loosing a league or sum like that. Thanks. ❤️

𓂃⭑ᜊ: BAD DAY ft jude bellingham

𓂃⭑ᜊ an: HELLO! Icl but I don't know whether I'm capable on writing long but I'll try my best just for you (๑•́ ₃ •̀๑). I hope you enjoy babes xx

𓂃⭑ᜊ content warning: none

The start of the match was going smoothly, they were leading with 2-0, everyone is beyond happy, you, friends, families, the players. Everyone is on cloud nine, they are winning, it was nearing the end so they are 99% sure they'll win but why? Why is the opposite team catching up with one penalty kick and one corner kick, why are there suddenly catching up and put an absolute end to their euphoria? The match ended with BVB losing by one goal, the other team are catching up in the last fifteen minute with three goals.

You saw it. Jude's crumbling, he's sorrow. This a not what he's expecting, definitely not this. He was beyond prepared for the match so he was certain he could win. But no. He lost.

You watch him, sharing his grief, your eyes welling up with tears, your nose flaring as your chest heaves up and down aggressively. You are sad as it was, you can't imagine how he must be feeling right now, devastated perhaps.

You leave the stadium and marched to the locker room seeing the players coming out from the tunnel, you turn your head all around to find your beloved, he finally comes out, head down in shame.

You were practically running off to him and flew to his side, he was shocked but soon relaxed realizing that it was just you. 'Oh hey,' He huffs in pure disappointment 'Can't believe you came to watch just to saw how bad I fucked up' You attached yourself to him 'Aw come on, you guys did your best, you did your best. I am so proud of you Judy!' You said, palms to his cheeks and rubbing them over your thumbs. He leaned over your touch, and for a moment he forgot about the match 'We should go!' He said, hand in yours before he drags you inside the locker room so he can change.

After he was done, you both exited the place to his car 'I drive okay? You can rest if you want, you needed it anyway.' He was staring at you before he bops 'Alright, thanks.' He made his way to the passenger seat whilst you were in the driver's seat.

The drive home is quiet but not uncomfortably, it was a calming silence, both you nor he exchanged words but the presence is enough.

It was a fifteen minutes ride until you made to your apartment. Jude smile at you and left the car, haven't spoken since. You locked the car seeing him already treading inside. You get inside already hearing the shower running. You place your stuff to the table and walk to where he was.

Knocking on the door, you called out for him 'Jude can I come in?' The shower tap closed, he was silent but so were you. You are not trying to interrupt him but you wanted to help.

'Yes?' He was trying his best to stay calm but his voice betrayed him, it croaks at the end and you are sure he is crying, you twist the knob seeing him inside the tub. His head over your form 'Jude?' The silence in the room made it visible for you to hear his muffle sniffling.

You inched closer to him, crouching near the tub and hand over his shoulder, his body flinches at your cold sudden touch 'Look at me...' You assure, he was having a hard time and you aware.

Alas, he turn over, and you examined his stained-tear face, eyes red and almost protruding, 'Aw love!' You grab his face, one hand on his cheek and the other at the back of his neck caressing it soothingly 'Don't cry, don't feel bad. You gonna make me cry love,' You frown at him, wiping his tears that are welling up again, you take his half-wet frame to you, and head on your chest 'You know what, cry. Cry all you want, let it all out.' You reassured, he drape arms over your midsection, head burying on your stomach 'I was so ready! I wanted to win! I wanted to make you proud and I failed, terribly!' You pat his back multiple times in a comforting manner 'You still make me proud Jude, doesn't matter win or lose, I'm still proud because I know you put your bestest.'

You finally broke off the hug, eyes came into contact with his 'Now come, let's get you a bath!' You helped him put the shampoo and help him bathe though you know he probably didn't even need it. You get the small tower draping over his head and drying it clean 'There!' He looks up at you, hand over your forearm to bring you closer 'Kiss?' He voiced out, you let a small breathy chuckle and went to peck his lip 'I hope you feel better?' He hums getting up and getting a towel 'I'm gonna get your clothes ready right?' He nods watching you leave the bathroom.

You readied him a pair of black cotton shirts and short sweatpants, Jude came out asking for his clothes, you passed them to him and left the room to let him get ready. While he did that, you take the opportunity to prepare some stuff to ease his tension.

You got a facial mask along with the face roller and a few other stuff 'Babe what's the occasion?' He said wiping his eyes with his hand and a yawn following after 'Come, you can rest while I work on your face for you!' He had a confused face written all over him but still walk over you.

He laid down, you place a pillow over your lap and he laid n top of it. 'What are we doing love?' He questioned, eyes up to your face 'Just a facial, it'll help you relax!' You suggested, he hums adjusting his laying body position and closing his eyes, you first do some of the clay mask things, and spread it over his face, it was sandy and green too, you take two slices of cucumber and top it on his eyes 'The mask is making my face uncomfortable!' He admitted, electing a small giggle out of his mouth, you join him in 'You have to deal with it for the next fifteen minutes Judy!' You said it in a singsong technique which makes him snort 'Yeah, a nap doesn't sound so bad innit?' You peck his head massaging his scalp with your hands 'I know you still feel bad about the match, but I won't bother saying 'I understand how you feel' cus I don't. I am not as passionate as you about football but I do get that you've tried hard. You did your best, surpassing your limit with endless practice. I don't want you to feel so depressed about it, you got a long way in front of you. You can get sad when you think about it but I don't want those to cloud your mind all the time, alright?'

His hands that are crossed over his chest are now on both of your forearms, clutched onto it making you whine slightly 'It hurts!' He caressed it and smile through the mask 'Sorry love, just got... Nevermind. Come closer.' You did as he said gladly and smile 'Yes sir Bellingham?' His pearly whites show as he grins out you, he puckers his lip at you to kiss.

It was a while and the facial time finally comes to an end, Jude applied some moisturizer to his face just like you instructed while you watch through the mirror, just done charging your phone.

'It's cooling innit?' You turn around and jump on the bed, head on the pillow, head turning to look at him and smile lazily 'Are we sleeping now?' He bops, applying some more to his face with a satisfied sigh and you laugh 'You might as well pour the whole bottle to your face!' He scoff at your sarcastic remark but put the bottle on the nightstand table.

'Thanks, I guess?' He laid down facing you with one hand propping under his head 'What for?' You mirrored his actions to which he chortled at 'Today. You helped me a bunch, in a way you realize and in a way you don't, so I'm thanking you.' You cup one hand over his cheek, gently stroking it 'You don't have to thank me, it is my part to take care of you and be there for you on your bad days. I'm thankful to you for being the best boyfriend any person could ever ask for!' He scoots closer placing one hand over your hip 'Can I kiss you?' You melted, the way he's still asking for consent even after years of being together 'You know you can!' You joked, he chuckles inching his face closer to yours, capturing your lip for a lovely kiss, a kiss he poured every burden that is standing on his shoulders

A kiss that made him fall in love with you all over again.

[saviltriide]

Hope you don't mind a deluge! LOL

3, 11, 24, ,45, 68, 92 please! 💜💜

Don't mind at all- love to see it!

3. First DW episode you ever saw?

I think it had to be 'Rose' all the way back in the early 2010s. I cannot remember the exact year, but I'd say it was at least ten years ago.

11. Who is your Doctor?

I feel like this is such a generic answer but I have to say 10. When I first saw his seasons way back when, I was absolutely floored by them. I remember his episodes the best and still rewatch them all the time. His regeneration into 11 still makes me super emotional too.

24. Best TARDIS team?

Shout out to my besties Charley and C'rizz fr fr 😤😤 I love those two and Eight so much <3

45. Favorite series opening?

Id have to say it's a tie between series 1-4 (9/10) and 8's from the Big Finish audios. The visuals for the vortex in 9s and 10s seasons was so neat and looked very- I don't have the words for it but it has a good feeling to me. With Eights, there's a kind of darkness to the theme that really fits with who he is as a character. Starts off very whimsical, but then becomes darker and darker as the series continues and you start to see why his theme sounds so dark in the first place. Same kinda thing with Nines and Tens. The music itself feels very dark and... Scary almost. Makes sense since we're coming back from a hiatus that had a war The Doctor is JUST coming back from.

I do also wanna say as an honorable mention that Elevens and Fourteen/Fifteens looks Very Nice too. Love a vortex interpretation thats all cloudy.

68. Do you read the comics/novels or listen to Big Finish?

Comics, not really, though I've read a couple here n there. I have a few books as well (most are just rewritten episodes) but not a ton. Big Finish on the other hand-

I have logged almost two full days worth of audios from the 8th Doctor alone, and have listened to one from both Ten and Four... Big Finish my beloved <3

92. Issue you'd like to see addressed in DW?

I'll be honest, I can't think of one at the moment, and the ones I would say, they brought up pretty recently. I've talked to a friend about disabled companions and how they should do that more/at all. Also I genuinely didn't think we needed to bring up The Doctors gender (or lack thereof), but here we are, and if it gets people mad about it then good. Stay mad. In other words:

[darklydeliciousdesires]

Beyond the Blood Tie - Chapter Thirty Two.

Huge thanks to those of you leaving me your lovely feedback! This is a monster of a chapter, one I did consider splitting into a part one and two, but decided against it. You’ll see why. 

Previous Chapters - One  Two, Part One Part Two  Three  Four  Five  Six  Seven  Eight  Nine  Ten  Eleven  Twelve  Thirteen  Fourteen  Fifteen  Sixteen  Seventeen  Eighteen  Nineteen  Twenty  Twenty One  Twenty Two  Twenty Three  Twenty Four  Twenty Five  Twenty Six  Twenty Seven  Twenty Eight  Twenty Nine  Thirty  Thirty One

Words - 6,715

Tag list - In the comments. Please DM to be added/removed

Warnings - 18+ content throughout. Minors DNI!

Ursula's POV

It isn't him. All this time I've had it pegged on the vampire I'm walking toward the front door with, and it isn't him. I heard what my creator said after I left, and I also felt it in her. I believe her, and I trust her. If she says he's not responsible then I take that as gospel. I'm not even going to mention that I did previously think he was involved right from the start, I do not want to irritate him further than he already has been by being called away from his home so close to dawn, by a Dawn. I now see I need him on my side, and as the Chief of Nevada he has a lot more weight behind any investigating into this. Suddenly, I feel a lot more at ease. Of course, he's going to want to dismantle this, this treachery within his organisation.

"I need to be brought up to speed on everything that's been going on up until now. Arrive at my office at 8pm tomorrow, so we've an hour to discuss this before we begin questioning Dawn. We will unravel her, and if we don't then she will meet her final death. If only she'd become a creator, had an offspring I could have used against her. Oh well. Until Tomorrow, Ursula." Elias nods curtly, heading out to a black Mercedes, which I can tell you must have cost an absolute fortune to import, since the Mercedes-Benz plant hasn't gone global with sales yet after only resuming manufacturing ten years ago. They only have showrooms and dealers across Europe at present. One of the armed guards opens the door, getting in after him. The car moves off swiftly after that, the second car that arrived here containing Dawn following along soon after.

I watch them head off up the street, walking down the path to my front gate and shaking my head slightly. What revelations have been aired tonight, what surprises. Of course, I have not forgotten the first of the evening, with the appearance of the friend of my sons, whom both thought was dead and he them as well. At least that surprise was a welcome one. What a night this has been, what a night indeed. Before I've even felt the need for him properly rise up, I sense my darling Charles behind me, and turn to happily sink into his embrace. My husband, my best friend, my strength, my solace, my all and so much more. Thank goodness I have the support of my beloved family during this time.

"How do you feel about all of this now?" he asks as I rest my head against his chest.

"I feel reassured in a way, knowing that since this isn't coming from Elias. I now have him on my side, and he's a powerful ally. At the same time though I'm conflicted, because now I have no clue at who is behind this. Dawn isn't clever enough to orchestrate something like this by herself, so who the hell else is involved?" I question in bewilderment, hearing someone leaving the house, turning to see my dear Sissy.

"We shall find out, for sure. The end is within our grasp now, now we know the Chief is out of the picture. You know how Elias hates disorder within the organisation, and he has the weight to put a hell of a lot more ears to the ground. Especially since you've been doing all this on the quiet, under his radar," she reassures, while Charles nods in agreement.

"I had chosen very similar words myself, Sissy. Until we see you again, and may I thank you once more for your discovery this evening. I am truly appreciative of your efforts," he thanks her with warmly, while I turn to kiss her cheek. I'm not overly affectionate with my vampire friends, but I love her greatly. She's an exception.

"You're most welcome, both of you. You know where I am if you need me." she replies, to both of us and then just me, squeezing my arm and then leaving at speed. We turn towards the back door, the wolves appearing from around the back through the gate I go and shut before we all enter the house. I find Edie and Angel on their way up to bed, and bid them goodbye before returning to the kitchen, and my creator. My brother of sorts has also retired to his allotted room at the very top of the house, the attic conversion to be precise. He's right over Angel's room, and by the sounds of it is about to be treated to the sound of him and Edie having sex as well. If it wasn't for the healing properties of vampire blood, that poor girl wouldn't be able to stand, let alone walk, with the regularity she has my son on her.

"That offspring of yours, he's got some libido, hasn’t he? Sex just seems to ooze off of him," Constance states, looking at me curiously.

"He's also faithful to the young human girl you did your best to ignore. Her name is Edie, and she is part of this family," I reply cordially. I'd perhaps let any other vampire know that in no uncertain terms, but with my creator I of course use gentle suggestion rather than force. I have the highest respect for her, now. Now I do, but when I was turned and she abandoned me to live as a wild vampire soon after, I definitely didn't respect her. I hated her.  

What she did, it was like the equivalent of a human woman leaving their newborn baby on the side of the road, alone to fend for itself. I depleted the population of Galway because I didn't know when to stop feeding, and drained each person I fed on dry. That was until the people of the village I lived in tried to find me, and I fled the area for a long, long time. I went back with Angel years and years ago, to show him where I’d come from, but it no longer felt like home. I guess too many centuries have gone by for it to have that feeling of nostalgia upon me any longer. My happiness, my family, they're right here with me in Las Vegas. This is home, and it has been for decades now.

"Ahh, I see. I shall put my eyes back in my head, then," she smirks, sitting down at the table and giving me a knowing wink.

"He's a good-looking young vampire, I agree with you there. He's very much attached to the gorgeous creature he's currently fucking a new hole through, though," I explain, this time actually making her laugh. I like to hear that, her laughter. She only does it when she's around a vampire or vampires she's comfortable with.

"I did suspect it could have been her behind this at first, but the way I see her so at ease with you all, I'm no longer suspicious over the girl," she reveals, while I have to internally scoff a little at such an idea. Edie? Hah! Does she not think I could have deduced that for myself, if my dearest Edie were responsible?

"That's almost as ludicrous as suspecting Charles or EZ, but no matter, I know how thorough you are. Still though, I cannot shake the notion that this must be coming from someone I know, and someone I trust," I tell my creator, watching her looking thoughtful.

She straightens, taking a strand of hair and twirling it around her finger. "I do not want to say anything further on the matter until the questioning of that pathetic excuse for a vampire has begun. I think we have dissected and discussed this to death for the evening, Ursula. I'm going to head up to bed. Until the evening, my child." Rising from her seat, she presses her hand to my shoulder, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Eventually I find I am much too irritated by them, though, so switch myself off for a time, not wanting to think about anything and retreating into my state of deadness. My senses rouse me from this just before dawn, and as the shutters are coming down over all of our windows, I trudge up to bed.

"Kids." I mutter to myself with a little smile when I walk past Angel's room, the noises emanating utterly feral. If there was an Olympic event for sex, he'd win the gold every time. They're still going at it and probably will be past the dawn too, just like I did the other morning with Ahmed. I enjoyed him greatly, and I plan on enjoying him again too in the not-so-distant future.  

The only man I want to enjoy right now is feeling my husband next to me, and so after entering my bedroom and stripping off my clothes, that's just what I climb in bed to enjoy. He has other ideas on his mind, and I cannot say I'm unwelcoming to any of them either. Looks like Angel won't be the only one forcing himself to stay awake after the dawn.

When the sun sets in the sky the next evening, I am up out of bed like a shot and into the shower, giving my hair a good washing to remove the build-up of styling products before I go and put them all back in again to help keep the curl in my hair. I use hot tongs to give my naturally poker straight locks a bit more body, spraying each section in a little hairspray before wrapping it around the curling iron barrel. I then put my makeup on and get dressed, all ready to leave for work early.  

I go downstairs to find Charles and kiss him goodbye, and then ask Maggie if she can begin taking down our curtains ready to go to the dry cleaners. Obviously, we can't do all of them at once or the dry-cleaning people would have a fit, but we can start on the ones in the hallway and Charles' sitting room at least. Opening the front door ready to leave my house, I see a very fancy town car waiting outside, a chauffeur I recognise from the AVA standing with it.

"At the request of Chief Weston for your safety, Mrs Ó Cléirigh-Cosgrove," he tells me as he opens the door for me. Wow, Elias is taking this seriously then, even though at my age I am perfectly capable of looking after myself, I still do not snub his offer. When I arrive at work I go straight to Elias's office after dropping my belongings off in mine, and then spend the best part of an hour explaining everything to him, but of course omitting the part where I and other members of my family pointed the finger of blame firmly at him. Instead, I tell him I kept my investigation under the radar for the sake and the good name of the AVA, not wanting to throw any possible bad light upon our organisation that sniffing out a traitor in our midst would have resulted in, had I kicked up a noisy fuss.

"I must begin in confessing that I, just like you, am at a total loss as to know who on earth is behind this debacle. You're respected and well liked, and to be honest I do have a horrible feeling about this. I have a gnawing sense that the vampire who is ultimately behind it is going to be the last one we suspect, so you, your husband and your offspring respectively must all be on your guard. I'm currently awaiting the team who went to do a complete sweep of Dawn's home to arrive back with any possible findings or evidence, so once I have that information and have digested it, we shall proceed to the questioning rooms. She's been brought up out of the cells for the evening and given a feed, but until I know what I'm truly dealing with, she will have to wait," Elias shares, while I nod in understanding.

He tells me I am free to continue my work until that point in time, and I leave his office to go back to mine. Before I do go and seclude myself behind my desk, I head to the donor bar first, where I find my favourite feed Maxine there, ready and waiting. Donor bars as they are called are found in all workplaces with a vampire staff within, and the people provide us with our life source for a very good salary. Maxine is my favourite blood type, and British, which I confess to be very partial to. They have sweet blood, the Brits.  

I then have to get back to work, putting everything relating to Dawn and her impending questioning to the back of my mind as I begin to read over applications for vampires wishing to enter the teaching sector. A further hour passes before I'm called back to Elias's office again, this time with a few other more prominent members of our organisation present too.

"The search of Dawn Cavendish's home is complete, and after such meticulous sweeping of the property, well, I certainly have news. I regret to inform you all that she was an active and affiliated member of the TVM, for how long I do not know. I doubt she infiltrated us from the beginning though, I suspect she was talked into this, targeted by a member outside of our organisation, even though I strongly suspect there are more TVM members secretly lurking within our ranks. We will present her with this information, and make her talk over any other names than the couple we've found so far. Those vampires are being arrested and then detained as suspects as I speak," he announces to us, while I feel my eyes widen slightly. Dawn is an affiliated member of the TVM, not just a little dogsbody? Good grief.  

Each of us share our opinion on the situation, before myself, Elias and Penelope Stroud all head down as a three to the interview room Dawn is waiting in. Penelope is a professional interrogator, she did it as a human and she still continues to do so as a vampire, and she does a magnificent job, too. She could get blood from a stone. Unfortunately though, her techniques do not work at all on Dawn, who remains silent completely for the first four and a half hours. By 2.30am, after Pen (as we call her for short) has exhausted all avenues and approaches, the interrogated vampire finally speaks.

"I would rather die than expose our leader. This is how loyal I am to him, and for the power he has given me within our movement. I am his second in command, and as I say I would rather die than give up his name. So kill me," she spits defiantly.

"Do you honestly think now you've confessed your status within the TVM to us that I'm actually going to let you off that easily? As second in command to a renegade, peace disturbing and socialisation opposing organisation, you're being put on trial, as will the rest of your sorry assed band when I find them, too. I do not take kindly to traitors, and until you tell me who is at the head of this operation, I shall have liquid silver dripped into your prised open eyes in two-minute intervals until you talk," Elias informs her, looking at her with steely hatred. The thought alone makes both Pen and I exchange an uneasy glance before we continue to stare at Dawn, who still looks confident in the face of all this.

"Such unpleasantness's to have to deal with, and what a turn out this is, the very people trying to accuse you of being TVM affiliated are all members themselves. I think this is just the start of what poses to be a much bigger plot against the AVA on the whole. I suspect a takeover bid here, trying to get our eldest out of the organisation since she's the biggest threat," Elias explains to me and Pen as we walk out of the interview room and back up from the bowels of the AVA building to the offices.

"I think you're correct in that assumption, Chief Weston." Pen replies before heading off to another interview room, where apparently someone whose name was found in amongst the rest of the evidence collected from Dawn's home is being held.

"Well, it is your time to leave for the evening, Ursula. I shall have Jake Sims bring a town car around to take you home at once," Elias tells me before excusing himself to answer his ringing cell and walking off back to his office, while I head to mine, collect my belongings and then leave. I duck in to see if Charles is ready to leave, and find he's left for home already. When I arrive downstairs, I see the car waiting for me, and hop in once Jake opens the door for me. He then speeds me away from the building towards home, yet home is not the first place I will get to before the night is out.  

As we're driving out of the main drag of Vegas, suddenly and without warning I feel Angel's temper and then fear rise so sharply, I actually gasp. Opening the electric window, I fly out of it without warning, heading to where I can feel him and his distress burning brightly. That place is the tattoo shop, where I stop outside of to see a van pulling away at speed, and Edie in hysterical tears on the sidewalk outside. Even though I know that van contains my son, I can feel he's in no immediate danger, and I cannot leave this young woman alone crying her eyes out. I can catch up with the van.

"Edie?" Seeing her quivers, I immediately embrace her.  

"They, they took him! AVA guards, they told him he was being arrested for TVM involvement, that his name had been found within the evidence gathered from Dawn Cavendish's home and then just hauled him out of here, and one of the guards elbowed me in the cheek when I refused to let him go and I think it's broken, but I don't care! I just want my boyfriend back! He hasn't done anything wrong!" she wails hysterically, all her usual cool composure melting by the second. My worry over where he's gone is stilled a little now I know he's been arrested by the AVA and will be going straight to a detaining cell, but my rage rises. How dare Elias do this without telling me, how dare he! This, well this could be a revenge plan by Dawn. She could have deliberately written down Angel's name to still discredit and exert revenge upon me.

"Then I will have him released again by the time the sun rises, we both know he's not involved in this and I will make Elias see that. Now, drink this to heal your cheek, and then let me drink from you. I want to form a blood tie with you, just in case you should ever be in danger in all of this. I feel it wise I know where you are and so I can pick up on your moods too. I shall then take you home and head out once more to challenge Elias on his capturing of my son," I tell her urgently and quickly, biting my wrist and letting her take some of my blood to heal her cheek (which is broken, I can tell) and then quickly drinking from her before picking her up and flying with her until we're home.

"Look after her. I'm going back to work. Fucking Elias has had Angel arrested!" I state with rage in my voice to Charles as soon as I arrive home. He opens his arms to a still extremely distressed Edie, the poor girl running to him for comfort immediately.

"He's done what? Upon what grounds has he been arrested?" he rages, folding his arms around Edie and stroking her head as she cries against his chest.

"TVM involvement, apparently his name was found amongst the evidence raised from the sweep of Dawn's home. Of course, that's a deliberate trick on her part, but Elias doesn't know that yet. Still, I'm furious at him, he had that list of names while I was there this evening, he damned well should have told me my own son was a suspect!" I fume, actually feeling my eyes brimming with tears.

"Hurry, go bring him home while I calm Edie." Charles urges me, kissing my head before I nod and leave at warp speed. I arrive back at the AVA headquarters within five minutes, and literally storm the office of Elias Weston.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me you were about to arrest Angel as a suspect? How dare you, Elias! How dare you let me go home thinking nothing was wrong only to haul him in, and have one of your guards break the cheekbone of his girlfriend too! This is the most unprofessional move you could have ever made! You could have consulted me on what was found, because his name was planted in the evidence collected from Dawn's home deliberately!" I vent at him, pressing both of my palms into his desk as I lean over it, screaming my words about three inches from his face.

In the wake of my yelling, he only looks confused. "Ursula, I am at a loss as to know what you are talking about. Your offspring's name was not found amongst the evidence, and I most certainly haven't had him arrested. You may go and check the cells yourself, he isn't here," he reveals, taking my outburst in his stride completely as something clicks in my head, my eyes widening in fear.

"Fuck!" I scream, before flying out of the building at speed and trying with everything I have in me to pick up on where my boy is. The AVA hasn't taken him, but I wouldn't put it past the TVM to have done this. This, I guess, is their last stand against me and my organisation, taking Angel from me. They'll use him for some sort of bargaining deal, no doubt, to make me surrender to them. I think Elias is right, I think they're trying to take us over. Well, they won't use my son for this. I will find him, and when I do my god, I'll rip the vampires who took him limb from limb and burn what is left of their remains.

Flying through the streets I try hard to pick up on his essence, feel and smell out his blood. I feel myself growing closer to him as I head right onto the fringes of Las Vegas, until suddenly I feel our connection slipping, the sparkle that is his life essence fading, and fading fast. No, no, no! I know what's happening to him, in the last few flickers of feeling his light within me starting to go out, I know what they're doing. I feel his pain and fear burning through him, him willing me to find him, calling out to me as they inject silver directly into his brain. This is the only way to knock out a vampire and make them untraceable to anyone with a blood tie to them, the silver effectively burning their brain so badly they pass out, unable to keep awake.

Stopping in the centre of the street as I feel his light now just a tiny spark, I scream my lungs out in despair as my tears fall from my eyes. They have him, they're hurting him, and I can't find him. As it turns out I'm not the only one who can feel it too, of course. When I return home reluctantly, I see a heart wrenching scene before me, EZ with his arms locked around a screaming, hysterical Edie, preventing her from leaving the house while he tries to calm her down. He'd have never have done that, cared enough about a human before to try and comfort them as he's trying to with Edie, who is absolutely frantic.

"I can't feel him, I can't feel him anymore! Ursula is... is he dead? Will I know if he's died?" she sobs, EZ letting her go so she can run to me. I wrap her in my arms immediately, her stress burning through me of course now we share a blood tie.

"No, he is still with us, my darling one. Shhhh, it's okay, I will find him, somehow I will return him home to us, where he belongs." I tell her, trying to keep her calm but failing. I'm failing because at this point in time, I myself am in a place that is far from calm, too.

Edie's POV

"What have they done to him, to make it so we can't feel him?" I ask Ursula as we sit in the kitchen and she pours me drink after drink to keep me calm. I only managed to work my way down from total hysteria ten minutes ago, and am still sitting here sniffing and sobbing. It was horrible, just horrible when they took him. He was closing up the tattoo shop, about to take me for a drink before we headed home, when the AVA descended upon us and arrested him as a TVM suspect. 'He hasn't done anything wrong, you can't take him!' I wailed as I clung onto his arm, only to be elbowed straight in the face and then have my boyfriend dragged away from me and cuffed in silver before they hauled him into a van.

"They will have done the vampire equivalent of knocking him out, which is to inject silver into his brain and cut out the blood ties he has with both of us. They've done this so it is impossible for me to find him through our tie alone, but I will find him. He will come home, Edie. I promise you. Also, I must tell you right now this wasn't the AVA, Elias knew nothing of the arrest and told me Angel's name was not found in the evidence. It is the TVM who have him," she reveals bitterly, reaching for my hands when she sees the panic in my face.

"They've done this to make you surrender to them, haven't they?" I ask, hating the fear I can hear in my own voice. I'm not ashamed to admit though, that I am frightened out of my mind. I just want my honey back by my side, and to be safe from harm and right now he is neither of those things. He is being harmed, and he is away from my side for the foreseeable.

"Yes, they have. If it comes to it, I will exchange my life for his. I've been on this planet for much longer, he is still a baby in vampire terms, and has many years ahead of him yet. I will make that sacrifice, I stand on my word that I would happily die for Angel," she states emphatically, gripping my hand tightly while I do the same thing. I don't want to lose either of them, and hope with my very soul that we can all get through this unscathed. I hope that's what will happen, that Angel will be found before it's either too late, or Ursula has to forsake herself for him.

"How are you going to find him, when you can't feel your way to him?" I then ask, not really wanting to comment on what she just told me. I don't even want to think of that, of her dying to save him, or the fallout of that which will no doubt be the AVA crumbling, since they're targeting the strongest vampire within their ranks.

She shakes her head, gulping hard. God, I’ve never seen her struggle for composure like this before, and it hits me in waves, the severity of it. "I must be honest with you, dear child, and confess that I do not know. I can only hope that the names connected to the TVM in the evidence gathered so far will shed some light on it, where he has been taken. Either that or wait for the TVM to make their demands known to me," she replies while pouring me another bourbon. "No, you stay in here." Gripping my forearm gently when I stand up with my cigarettes to go to the kitchen door for a smoke, she then gets up and fetches a saucer for me to use as a makeshift ashtray. We then share silence for a time, neither of us offering anything at all further to the conversation. I don't think there's anything else to be said, personally.

When the shutters come down over the windows a very tired looking Ursula heads to bed, leaving me with my Jim Beam in the kitchen, telling me it would be best if I rested, but that she understands if I cannot sleep. She's right; I couldn't sleep even if I tried. I sit at the kitchen table in a coma of sadness until 7am, just smoking and drinking until my slightly drunk self hauls ass upstairs and into bed. Just being able to smell Angel on the sheets though, it makes the tears start falling again. I hope I can cry myself to sleep, but it just doesn't work. I've had my love snatched from me, and there's nothing I can do about it. What I feel within me, our blood tie, it is but a flicker. I can't even tell if he's come round from being knocked out and is just sleeping or not. It's hard to concentrate now I have Ursula's blood within me too, even though I feel she’s asleep.

I make the firm resolution with myself to be strong, and not to descend into a blubbering mess. He'd want me to be strong for him, wherever he is and whoever is keeping him hostage. He'd be proud at my strength, so that is what I must be. I must be strong, and I must have the faith that he will return to me, to where he belongs. It's very much easier said than done, though. At somewhere around 11am I guess, I actually manage to fall asleep, but only until 3pm when my eyes fly open and for a minute, I think Angel's weight is denting the mattress. It's only Icarus, jumping up to curl up next to me and lick my arm. He looks right into my eyes, and then across to Angel's side of the bed before looking back at me with a whine.

"I don't know where he is, beautiful. I wish I did though." I tell him, watching him put his head down on my lap, that little soft whine continuing. I knew exactly what he was trying to convey to me. He wants to know where daddy is. Knowing that I should probably get up and run a few errands before work, like sorting my electricity bill for the quarter and wrapping up the last of my Christmas gifts for people, I try to find the energy to get out of bed, but fail. Instead, I just lie here and worry myself sick about Angel, where he is, what's happening to him, and how we're going to get him back.  

My heart keeps racing anxiously whenever I close my eyes, and see his gorgeous face there in my mind. Eventually though, I know I do have to get up, and at 5pm I finally rise and take a shower, getting myself ready quickly and dressing, heading downstairs with the wolves. I open the back door for them and they both sprint out off on their hunt for the night, yet just as I'm turning to head back inside after watching them for a few moments I'm joined by Icarus once more. He then proceeds to follow me at my heels when I go through to Ursula's sitting room to find her.

"She's locked in discussion with Constance, so we've been sent out. How are you feeling today?" EZ asks me when he opens the sitting room door and he and Coco both exit.

"Ahh, okay. I'll talk to her later when I'm back from work, unless she'd rather I stay at my house with all of this going on," I say in reply, watching EZ shaking his head.

"You're coming back here from work straight away, because none of us are naive enough to think you’re safe on your own. The TVM could well target you too, so until this mess is sorted, I shall be escorting you to and from work, and you'll remain here with us as well when you aren't there. Sorry to boss you around, but that's the way it has to be," he tells me, while I have to stop a lump from rising in my throat. EZ wouldn't do this if some small part of him didn't like me. He isn't bound by any duty, even if I am his brother's girlfriend. EZ works on his own terms, and I know for fact that these terms have come directly from his mind and mouth, and he hasn't been instructed to say this by either his creator or Ursula. It also seems that another member of the family is not keen on leaving my side either, since when we leave the house Icarus follows us, walking at my side.

"Thank you, for doing this for me," I tell EZ as we walk down the road.

"You still haven't answered my question about how you're feeling today," he replies, ignoring my thanks. I knew he would, he doesn't take compliments and thanks very easily. He's very, very stoic, is EZ.

"I feel lost without him, and very scared. I have to remain strong though, I won't crumble and I won't give up hope that he can be found without Ursula having to surrender herself," I sigh. Suddenly, my way is blocked by the massive vampire, and when he opens his mouth, I am shocked at the words that come from it.

"Ursula will get him back, somehow. But, just in case that doesn't happen and things do take a turn for the worse, I want you to know that I will always protect you. If Angel never returns, it will be my last pledge to him to ensure the woman he loved so much remains safe throughout the rest of her life. That is my solemn promise to you, Edie," he vouches. I reach forward to give him a hug, but he pulls away immediately. He then nods just once before we continue to walk. Ezekiel Reyes; he's a vampire who you never quite know where you are with and one who is very hard to predict.

Setting my mind to my errands, I get about starting them when we return to my house, doing some laundry and cleaning while EZ and Icarus sit in the back yard, Icarus playing tug with a large fallen branch from the big tree to the side of the fence. I then hop online and quickly pay my energy provider the money I owe them, free of all other duties until I have to go to work. Stepping into my bathroom and witnessing the state I left it in, though, I immediately revise that notion. Taking my rubber gloves and a scrubbing brush, I set to work. I can't say the distraction isn't welcome when my cell begins to ring about twenty minutes in, though.

"Hey love, finally you pick up!" Sasha says immediately upon my answer.

"Hi honey, I know and I'm so sorry for not picking up all last night," I begin in apology, since I had a few missed calls from her I was too distressed to take.

"Having too much fun and wild sex with your vampire, huh?" she comments cheerfully. Immediately at the very mention of him, I feel a massive lump rise in my throat.

"No, no sadly it's nothing like that at all. There's some vampire related trouble at my end, things I cannot go into, but because of those things Angel is currently missing, so if you're with Eric now you might want to tell him that," I explain. I then hear a noise that sounds like the phone being passed, the next voice I hear the vampire himself.

"Edie babe, what's happening? Angel has filled me in on it all, and I won't tell anyone what you tell me, not even Abes if you don’t want me to," he promises. That's his pet name for Sasha, since her surname is Abram. They got together properly a few weeks ago, and they're so in love. It's nice to see Sasha happily settled with a guy for once instead of flitting from man to man. I then bring Eric up to speed and tell him about everything going on, hearing him excusing himself to Sasha before he obviously leaves the room to talk to me more privately. It feels weird, telling all this to my best friend's boyfriend when I can't even tell her.

"Sal and I will keep our ears close to the ground, in fact I'll stop by on my way to work later and talk with Ursula, see if there's anything I can do for her. You hang on in there honey, Angel will be fine. Ursula won't give up on him without the fight of her life, and you know that. Let me put you back on with Sasha, and if you need me, you know where to find me," he tells me before handing the phone to my friend. I hear her voice speaking to me again, yet my answer doesn't come immediately as suddenly, I feel Angel within my blood, and I feel him strongly for just a few moments before suddenly, that little swell deflates completely, and then just keeps on deflating while I stand here feeling like something is being drained from me.

"Edie, sweetie, are you still there? Edie?" I hear Sasha calling, yet as I take deep breaths through my nose I cannot lift the phone to my ear again, feeling that tiny little bit of Angel's energy flickering out to nothing at all as I drop my cell on the bathroom floor and begin to run to the back yard, my very soul within me burning with pain.

"Get me to Ursula now, please EZ!" I beg him urgently, watching him look concerned immediately. He gets up and gives me a swift nod before picking me up and transporting me back to the house where en route I feel a huge wave of distress run through me. It isn't Angel's though, it's his mother's. I have what I dread confirmed to me when EZ swings open the front door, and there on her knees in the hallway is Ursula, screaming her lungs out in despair.

"Ursula is he... he, has he?" I stammer, not able to say the last word as I crouch by her side, tears slipping down my face. This can’t be real, it can’t, it can’t!

"He's gone, he's dead. They... they've killed him! No, no, no, no!" she wails, bloodied tears streaming her face before another distraught scream exits her mouth. This cannot be, it cannot be at all, but it is. My love is gone, I will never see him, or feel his energy rise within me; never hear him tell me he loves me again. It is at this point I cannot even formulate any further words, and stand up only to faint and fall backwards into EZ's arms, the distress and complete heartbreak at knowing my boyfriend has died too much for me to bear.

A/N - Please don’t hate me too much!! :(

[expectiations]

No. Please keep the "The Doctor, specifically Eleven—especially Eleven—never told River 'I love you'" statements far, far away from me. 😔 (Side-eyeing THORS yet again.)

He told her those words over and over, with such glee. I will die on this hill.

At first, he’d say it hesitantly—a mumble, barely able to meet her gaze. But then… oh, then. He saw how her eyes would light up (Eleven: "I think you mean 'go sparky,' human 🙄😒😑") every single time he said those three simple words. So, of course, he got curious—scientific about it, even. Tried to be sneaky. Tried to gauge her reactions each time he slipped those words into different moments. Charts and graphs may or may not have been involved. Considering he keeps an entire diary just for the two of them, I’d say it’s not entirely out of the question.

By the time we get to Let’s Kill Hitler, he’s comfortable—finally comfortable enough—with telling her those three special words. He knows who she is. (She’s a Pond! My beloved Ponds! 🥹✨) He told her, his burgeoning River, that he loved her. No hesitation, no stammering. He knew. He knew how to reach through all the conditioning the Silence had instilled in her. He knew that love—their love—was the driving force between them.

Just as it was River’s unwavering love that saved Ten a lifetime ago, it was Eleven’s boundless love that saved River in return. His love gave her the strength to break free, to defy the Silence, and to choose her own path forward—on her terms.

Nine gave up the hard-fought intimacy they shared for the future they would one day have. (And yes, he read her diary—studied it—to understand her better!) Thirteen, feeling a bit rusty after all this time, tells River "I love you" with that sappy grin of hers, blushing redder than a tomato. Naturally, River teases her for it—because who else could roast and love the Doctor in equal measure quite like River Song?

We've seen how Twelve's guard immediately dropped upon seeing River, becoming all goofy and silly. He would still be wrapped in his usual gruffness, but when he'd finally say it, the weight of his words would leave no room for doubt. "River... I love you," he’d say quietly, almost as if it hurt to admit it. Yet, his eyes would soften, and the vulnerability in his voice would speak volumes. It wouldn’t be a frequent declaration, but when it came, it would carry the full depth of his devotion—a love that transcends lifetimes, expressed in the quiet moments they shared between adventures.

Fourteen would tear up every time he said it, his voice thick with gratitude for the second chance to tell her, again and again. And Fifteen? Oh, he’d say it with that trademark irreverence: “My consort, love of my lives, I love you.” Seemingly flippant, perhaps, but his eyes would betray the depth of his emotion—a profound, soul-deep love. Another lifetime with River Song. Another chance to choose her, always.

Eight would say it softly, with the gentlest sincerity, his voice trembling just slightly. “I love you, River,” he’d murmur, as if the words were too precious to speak aloud. His love would shine through in the way he looked at her, in every touch, in the poetry he might whisper when no one else was listening. With Eight, love feels like something tangible—intimate and all-consuming.

Seven would be cryptic, saying it almost in passing, perhaps while tinkering with one of his intricate schemes. “Did you hear me, River? I said I love you—keep up now, there’s a universe to save!” It might seem like nonsense to anyone else, but River would know better. His love would manifest in the way he always ensured her safety, playing the long game to keep her in his orbit.

Ever the gentleman, Six would declare his love with dramatic flair, a hand over his hearts. “River Song, you are a marvel, a revelation, the absolute love of my lives.” He’d back up his words with grand gestures—eloquent speeches, flowers from a distant galaxy, and endless acts of chivalry. His love would be bold, unashamed, and utterly heartfelt.

Five's love would be earnest and boyish, almost desperate in its intensity. “River, travel with me. Please. I don’t think I could bear the stars without you.” He’d write her heartfelt letters, leave her small tokens of his affection, and look at her like she hung the constellations herself. For Five, loving River would feel like falling—beautiful, dizzying, and completely overwhelming.

Four's love would be quirky and effusive, expressed through warm smiles and tight hugs. “My dear River, have I mentioned today how much I adore you?” He’d tell her in the middle of an adventure, while sharing jelly babies, or as they watched the sunrise on some distant world. For Four, love is simple and constant—always present, like the scarf around his neck.

Three would be gallant and composed, expressing his love in the most refined and gentlemanly manner. “My dear River, I trust you know how deeply I care for you. I always will.” His love would come through in his unwavering loyalty, his protective nature, and the way he’d prioritize her well-being, even while trying to maintain his trademark dignity. It might seem reserved at times, but his actions would speak volumes.

Two’s love would be playful and mischievous, often disguised behind clever banter. “Oh, River, I suppose it’s only fair to tell you—I do love you, you know. But don’t let it go to your head!” He’d twirl her around mid-adventure, a twinkle in his eye, his affection bubbling over in spontaneous acts of joy. His love would be vibrant and full of life, as unpredictable as he is.

With his gruff exterior, the First Doctor might struggle to articulate his feelings, but when he does, it’s with profound sincerity. “River… you are quite extraordinary. I suppose I might even say that I love you.” It would be a rare moment of vulnerability, his voice soft but steady. His love would be shown in the way he watches over her, in the grudging respect he holds for her brilliance, and in the quiet, unspoken bond they share.

Anyways, Eleven is known for being physically affectionate with her. He wrote poems for her. He broke the rules of time for her. He is always on time for her despite being the regeneration infamously known for being tardy. There is no universe—no timeline—where you could convince me he never told her those three special words. Because no matter what, they always chose each other. That’s what makes them work so beautifully: despite their flaws, their mistakes, their unhealthy coping mechanisms—they. choose. each. other.

Why else would even their enemies declare, “This woman is the known consort of the Doctor”? That “she is the perfect bait”? That “when this woman is in danger, the Doctor will always come”? Whatever my issues with The Husbands of River Song and its Eleven-bashing undertones, as always with Moffat, the truth is in the details. Flemming’s words hint at countless unseen moments where the Doctor—cough Eleven cough—becomes everything his enemies fear: the Oncoming Storm, the Beast of Trenzalore, the Madman in a Box, the Time Lord Victorious, the Destroyer of Worlds, the Bringer of Darkness, the Shadow of the Valeyard. In those moments, he unleashes his full fury on anyone who dares to harm the woman he loves.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: River Song is the exception. She is always the exception.

River: Three words. Say them and I'm yours.

The Doctor: Three words.

River:

[tearsof-scarlet]

One Way or Another (yandere!Dabi x f!Reader)

Pairing: Yandere!Dabi x f!Reader, Hawks x f!Reader

Synopsis: Being a doctor at the hero hospital is stressful enough. However, what happens when your beloved friend Hawks begins to take a liking to you? And what if he isn’t the only one who has his eye on you? An evil Dabi starts to fall for you immensely after one dark night. Nothing can hold him back from his urge to have you.

Part 1 / ?

Words: 3.5k

Warning: This story will eventually have mentions of stalking, violence, gore, language, and hard smut. Viewer’s discretion is advised.

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The sounds of birds tweeting filled your ears. Today your bed seemed just that more comfortable as the sunlight dripped though your curtains. The sound of the traffic in your city was at a minimum as you sighed into your pillow. Finally, a day off from work. This week had kicked your ass hard. Your job at the Hero hospital was a privilege and a burden. While you were one of a very small group who could treat and aid the top heroes, it was a very stressful job. The hours weren’t exactly nine to five and some nights you were heading home with your head low in complete exhaustion. However, you still loved your job. You had a great sense of pride knowing that you could give back to the heroes who protected you and everyone around you. 

But today is your day off.  You knew how to separate your job and your personal life.  You lay in bed thinking of what you planned to do with your free time.  Your kitchen could do with a cleaning, but the idea of sitting on the couch watching bad reality television sounded more appeasing to you. You smiled into your pillow, finally a day to relax and do absolutely nothing.

Then your phone buzzed.

You opened one eye to see your boss’ caller ID on your screen. You grabbed the phone from your nightstand and reluctantly answered. Before you could even say hello, the sound of your boss yelling over the phone broke the silence in your room.

"_______ get in here now we need you!"

 With your shoelaces undone and a piece of toast in your mouth, you dashed outside of your apartment with your work bag tossed on your back. Your boss informed you of a villain attack in the city centre which caused some heroes to be injured. Fire injuries were your specialty, so you were called immediately. Your legs were running to the train station, hoping not to miss the train to the hospital and having to wait another ten minutes for the next train.

While you were fixing your tie around your neck, your eyes caught sight of a small red object flying across in front of you. After a small moment of confusion, you heard the sound of wings flapping behind you and immediately knew who it was.

"Hey hey hey, didn’t know you were into running these days ______?"

You scoffed, swallowing the last bit of your toast as you dodged hitting into a random person in the street.

"Not now Hawks" You yelled up at him. "I’m running late."

Hawks. Number 2 Hero. You both met each other when he had only just graduated from this hero training. He survived a nasty attack from a villain, resulting in his feathers being pretty damaged. You were the one who took care of him and patched him up.  He was in the hospital for two days straight and most of that time was spent with you monitoring his health. His determination to become a top hero and his snarky charisma allow you two to immediately have a connection. After he was discharged, he still kept in contact with you and now he could consider you one of his closest friends. Till this day, he is forever grateful for you helping him, but these days teasing you seems more fun to him.

The man was now gliding alongside you, clearly mocking your lack of speed.

"Why am I not surprised?" He chuckled, eyeing you.

You sent him a stern glare. Unfortunately, you could not argue with him and run at the same time without losing your breath.

"You know, sweetheart, the train is about to leave in a minute, and unless you just gained a speed quirk, chances are you're not going to make it," he teased.

You held your tongue at his words. When you first told him you didn’t have a quirk, he thought you were joking and laughed in your face. Needless to say, you weren’t too happy about that. So whenever he sees the chance, he always enjoys pointing it out.

Hawks continued to fly beside you, now sighing and crossing his arms behind his head.

"Only if you knew someone who could get you to the hospital in time." He groaned.

He raised his eyebrow at you. You knew what he was trying to imply. Your stomach immediately started to do flips at the thought of it. You hated heights and Hawks knew this about you. But he also knows about how much your work matters to you.

You eyed your watch on your wrist, already you were ten minutes late. You glanced down to see Hawks’ red feathers tying your shoelaces. You finally stopped running and stood trying to catch your breath.  You ignored the rational thoughts in your head and returned back to glare at Hawks.

"I swear Hawks if you do anything funny." You sneered at him.

His face immediately lit up with glee and a smirk spread across his face.

"Trust me _____. It will be like floating on a cloud. " He reassured you by putting his hand on his heart.

"Just don’t throw up on me again." He hushed quickly. 

Before you even had time to swear at him, he whooshed behind you and lifted you up in his arms. You immediately let out a squeak in fear, earning a laugh from Hawks. Your hands gripped his neck and your body tensed up as you both started to rise to the sky. You both were now above the skyscrapers and the whole city seemed so small. It was truly breath taking and you wondered if Hawks ever just spent his days looking down at the city.  

You cast a quick glance down at the people who had turned into ants. Your stomach dropped and you turned your face into hawks’ chest for the rest of the journey to avoid throwing up.

"You can look up now doll."

You cranked your head to see if Hawks was telling the truth. You were relieved to see that his feet were touching the ground. He had landed on the hospital roof, a perfect spot.

"Nice landing" you jerked at him.

"You’re welcome Miss." He said, rolling his eyes.

You hopped out of his arms and stood attempting to fix yourself up before you entered the hospital. You could tell the wind messed up your hair quite a bit.

"You look fine ____."

Now you were the one to roll your eyes. Last time he said that you walked into your meeting with your lipstick smeared across your face.

"Shouldn’t you have been helping save your colleagues from that villain attack?"

"Had to make sure my _____ was safe first." Hawks was always skilled at avoiding questions he didn’t want to answer. You chalked it up to his media training.

You made your way to the door leading down to the hospital as soon as you felt you had put yourself together decently. Hawks' mouth dropped at your actions. He flew to block the door to prevent you from leaving.

"Nothing else you want to say?" He pestered at you. "No thank you, hawks or hawks; you are my hero; you are incredible?"

He really made a poor impression of you.

"Thank you, Hawks. Now shove it. " You snapped thinking of the time you are wasting with him up here. Your words, however, did not convince the young hero.

"How about takeaway and a movie at your place?" He questioned.

"Did you just invite yourself over to my place?" You sneered at him; your arms now crossed.

"Is it a deal?" He spoke. You were beginning to realise that there was no way hawks was going to let you though unless you said yes. You both haven’t done anything together in a while, you thought to yourself.

"Deal." You nodded.

Hawks’ feathers fluttered and he busted into a sing-song voice.

"Perfect! I’ll buy the food and you can pick the movie. Bye _____! " He yelled, tossing himself over the building as he flew away into the clouds.

Your mouth dropped at how he was able to make you agree to invite him over to your house within a minute. You sighed, rolling your eyes as you pushed the door open to enter the hospital.

As you entered your unit of the hospital, your boss was stood there waiting for you and your co-workers busily hurrying around.

"Look who finally decided to turn up."

You did your best not to glare at him.  You apologised profusely about being late to him and how it wouldn’t happen again.

"I heard she was seen with her boyfriend Hawks" A staff member piped up with a sneer.

You cringed at her words and her attempt to cause drama in front of your boss. Hawks is many things, but your boyfriend is definitely not one of them. 

"He is not my boyfriend. He was helping me to work. " You defended yourself. 

"I don’t want to hear anymore of the bird boy. Get working now _____. " Your boss yelled. 

You gave a low nod and immediately jumped into work, making your way over to your first patient.

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When you actually finished with the last patient, you had no idea what time it was. You gathered your belongings and exited the building, only to find the city engulfed in darkness. You sighed, your shoulders heavy from fatigue. The thought of a relaxing bath and a comfortable bed appealed to you. You checked your phone to find that the train station had closed long ago. Your eyes darted across the street for a taxi, but you had no luck. Walking it was, you thought.

You tried your best to stick to bright lit areas of the city. It was one of the disadvantages of being quirkless, you were practically defenceless. If a villain wanted to kill you, they would have no problem with doing it. That is why you prefer to work behind the scenes helping the heroes rather than being at the front of the violence.

Your walking stopped as you reached an alleyway. You debated or not if you should enter it. If you stuck to the bright areas, you wouldn’t reach your apartment for another fifteen minutes. However, if you went down this dark alleyway it would only take you five minutes. You stood listening for any noise to indicate if there was anyone down the dark path. After standing in silence, you made the decision to chance it. You took a breath and made your way down the narrow street.

All was well and you finally started to calm down as you walked. You thought of what leftovers you had in your fridge to eat when you heard the noise of glass breaking behind you. Your blood turned to ice as your body froze into place. When you looked to the source of the racket, a single drop of sweat ran down your brow.

A man with his head hanging low sat beside one of the big trash bins. You quickly realised the man wasn't all there when he didn't acknowledge you as you walked by. Your brain was screaming at you to keep walking. Your heart and morals, on the other hand, told you to check on the man's safety. You bit your lower lip, carefully weighing your options. Your morals came out on top.

"Sir?" you asked.

You were met with silence since the man did not respond. As you got closer, it became clear that the man was in pain. When you were within arm’s reach, you cautiously put your hand on the individual's neck to check for a pulse. Fortunately, it was at a consistent rate. You now knelt beside him. You tapped his shoulder lightly. Finally, the man let out a groan. You breathed a sigh of relief.

You gently pushed his head back, allowing you to see his face in the moonlight. You immediately noticed the faulty stitching and staples all around his face and body. The damaged deep purpled skin contrasted sharply with his pale skin. His eyelids hung low, but the brightness of the moon resulted in the stranger opening his eyes halfway. You were almost in shock at his bright blue eyes as they stared into yours.

"Am I dreaming?" He mumbled painfully.

You shook your head as you examined his body.

"What is the problem sir?" You questioned.

He sent a sly grin at you. Your concern was able to amuse the man. His finger weakly pointed at his opposite arm. One of the stitches on his arm had obviously ripped open and blood was steadily pouring out and onto the dirty ground.

You stared at the wound for a moment and considered if he needed to be taken to the hospital.

Almost as if he were reading your mind, he said, "No hospitals."

You chose not to question him and began to act on your feet. You removed your bag from your back and pulled out your first aid kit and some tools you used at work. You began to place a thread into your incision needle and prepared the medical stapler for use.

You could sense his apprehensiveness as he eyed your needle.

"Trust me sir, I’m a doctor." You explained to him.

"You'd better cut the sir crap; you're making me feel like an old man." He laughed lightly,

Feeling like you were getting somewhere with him, you continued the conversation. 

"Do you have a name?" You asked, hoping to distract him from the pain about to happen.

The man had a slight hesitation as his name fell from his mouth.

"Dabi."

You placed some hydrogen peroxide onto a cotton ball as you continued to talk to him.

"You have a lovely name, Dabi."

"I bet you say that to all your patients."

You smiled at his words and you placed the cotton on his wound. He immediately tensed up and hissed in pain as the alcohol did its job.

"I can promise you I don’t, Dabi." His name fell off your lips with such ease.

After you felt the wound was disinfected, you grabbed the needle and began to stitch his skin together. Dabi was now sat up straight admiring your concentration with the needle. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had cared for him like this.

"Did you get caught up in that villain attack this morning? “You asked him.

Dabi's mouth turned into a smirk, "I guess you can say I was."

"I bet it was scary," you said.

Dabi raised his eyebrow at you. "Do I look like the sort of person who gets scared?"

You took your attention from his wound and looked at his unamused face. You giggled slightly at his expression.

"You can tell me. I promise I won’t tell anyone. " You teased him.

He chuckled at your humour. You really did do a good job at distracting him from the pain.

"Those villains are pieces of shit, aren’t they?" He said, hoping for your opinion.

As you took the stapler in your hand, you moved on to the staples of the wound.

"Hmm, I don’t know if I would say that." You mentioned focusing on placing the stapler in the right position on his skin.

"What? You side with the League of Villains? " Dabi pried at you, staring at you with interest.

"Not exactly." You explained, "I believe a lot of the villains didn’t exactly have a choice of which side they wanted to be on. Also, working with Heroes, you begin to see that quirks determine what society thinks of you. If you don’t have a quirk, then you must be useless. If you have a dangerous quirk, then you are destined to be a villain. I find it all very frustrating if I am honest. "

Dabi listened intently to your rambling. It was nice to see someone agree with some of his opinions. You were obviously very intelligent. As you continued to work on his arm, he made note of your face and its beauty.

As you had just finished the last staple, you asked him, "Did you patch your skin up yourself?"

"Yeah, I did. I prefer to do it my own way because the majority of my skin is brunt to a crisp.” He explained.

"You have a fire quirk?"

He nodded as your eyes moved across his body to look at his skin. Your eyes finally meet his face. Without even thinking, you reached your hand out to cup in check and brushed your thumb along the staples in his face.

Dabi let out a small gasp. It had been a while since someone had touched him. You finally realised what you did and immediately yanked your hand away from him and stood up, hoping he wouldn’t see you blush in embarrassment.

"I’m really sorry Dabi" you said, putting your face in your hand, "I’ve just never seen anyone with a fire quirk like this."

He smiled at your embarrassment.

"Don’t worry. There is no need to be sorry. I didn’t mind it. " He reassured you.

You sighed and reached a hand out to help him up off the ground.

As he towered over your frame, you suddenly realised how tall he was in comparison to you. As soon as you realised your work was done, you let his hand out of yours.

"Well Dabi" you said, "I guess I better be heading home."

"Thank you" was all he said.

While your arms hugged you around your stomach, his deep blue gaze on you made you feel even more insecure.

"Are you going to be okay?" You asked him.

A small smile was on his face.

"Don’t worry about me."

You nodded to let him know you understood.

"Then I better go." You said, turning away from him.

Before Dabi could open his mouth to say anything to you, a black car drove into the alleyway with a large honk of its horn.  The tinted window rolled down the slightest bit and a voice called out Dabi’s name.

"That’s my ride," Dabi explained.

He didn't want to abandon you in the dark, but he also knew that you getting into the car would be impossible.

"Well take care Dabi", You said your last words and turned the corner away from him and the car.

You knew that it wouldn’t have been a good idea if you stayed any longer. You did your duty and left without anything else occurring. You had visions of the man’s blue eyes and face. You could tell from his body and face he was probably conventionally attractive before his burn scars. You ignored the flutters you had in your stomach as you took the stairs up to your apartment floor.

After entering the code to your apartment, you quickly tossed your bag to the floor and threw your jacket off. You sighed with relief to finally be home alone. Peace and quiet was the thing you needed after your long day.

"Finally home sweetheart?"

When you saw the man behind you holding a plate of takeaway sushi, you shrieked and nearly fell to the floor in shock.

"Hawks you little-!"

________________________________________________________________

Dabi threw up his hands in frustration as he approached the LOV's hideout. He completely forgot to ask for your name. After you had taken care of his injuries, the very least he could do was ask for your name.

He sighed and sat on the grimy couch. His thoughts returned to the events of your and his meeting. He was still bewildered that you chose to help a random stranger in the dark. Dabi knew that if it hadn't been for you, he would have bled out until he passed out and died. His fingertips traced the stitching on his arm that you had done. It was noticeably better done than his own work.

"What are you smiling about?" Toga spoke up, breaking Dabi of his thoughts.

His face immediately dropped, and he muttered a nothing. Toga shrugged off his reply and reached for the TV remote. The sound of the TV made Dabi’s head throb, so he stood up and headed out of the room to find somewhere more peaceful to rest for the night.

"What was the situation like in the hospital tonight Doctor?" the interviewer asked.

"Well, I would personally like to thank the heroes who were able to transport the citizens and other heroes who were harmed in the attack to the hospital so quickly."

The sound of your voice echoing throughout the room made Dabi freeze in place. He turned around to face the TV and ordered Toga to turn up the volume.

Dabi barely heard your voice as he continued to stare in a trance at your lovely face.

"We would like to thank you and your unit for all your help today. We are all grateful. " The interview told you.

You nodded and smiled at the camera as you wished everyone well.

Your name suddenly appeared at the bottom of the screen.

"Doctor _____ ______"

Dabi's face lit up with a big grin, and he couldn't help but laugh. He figured it wouldn't be that difficult to find you after all.

[oneweekoneband]

her Nebraska (1982)

In July I flew to Massachusetts with a plague on, and I felt that it was wrong, but my mother had begged and I’d been out of work for months. Mornings there I ran in long, uneven ovals on the same roads I’d memorized in high school. There’s no sidewalks, but the few feet of dirt between the craggy pavement and the open mouths of the fields serve all right for a single body in motion. When a truck comes up close from behind, the ground shakes, and I step away bouncingly from the street toward thigh-high yellow weeds and grass, and keep going. I was slowly picking my way back in that dirt, sweat-slick from only a plodding couple of miles in peak summer heat, and sucking the wet cotton of my mask in between my teeth on every inhale, when Taylor Swift announced she was releasing a surprise album produced by the guy from The National. Not the guy from The National, like, the voice, but the guy from The National whose photo was circulated on Twitter earlier this year as some kind of antifa super soldier, which isn’t the case, but would’ve been rad. First, I stopped dead to send some outraged, misspelled text messages, and then I ran home faster than I’d moved in years.

Tall, blonde, patrician pop star Taylor Swift is to me something like a cross-between a wife and a boogeyman. Bound we’ve been since we were really children. Time and its changes haven’t rid me of her, and what’s worse is I have never quite been able to wish they would, though I claim as much all the time. Countless hours of my one wild and precious life have been spent on endlessly analyzing the minutiae of Taylor Swift’s music, the mind that made it, the real world events which influenced it. And though all the while I have known she is only a person, and that people, while each strange and lovely in their own ways, are, in the end, mostly dull, needful in just the regular manner, the fantasy is better, the sick dream of a megalomaniac songstress, curious, thrilling, probably evil, and I choose that. I don’t know Taylor Alison Swift, born to this world in, I presume, the usual way. But my Taylor Swift? I’m a renowned expert. I’ve always eaten up stories—movies, music, celebrity news, the one my grandfather tells about falling off his bike once in Ireland as a boy and his face “cracking open like an egg”—like a starved dog. I’m obsessive about my interests, but not inclined to intense fandom, and certainly not fandom in the mode of the stan. For one, I’m too self-absorbed. But caring intensely for a famous person is falling in love with a ghost, and that’s all right—I mean, what the hell? We’re here together just dying... Let’s enjoy—but is an affair best undertaken with the knowledge that everyone alive has their own complex interiority, as unruly as your own, and that you, a stranger, are not in any real way connected to the lawless, blurry middle of that celebrity, and will never be. It’s freeing and fun to know this. I mean, these people are basically in your employ. Glamorous dollhouse dwellers. Acknowledging that uncrossable distance allows for a different, healthier closeness of pure imagination. My feelings, then, can comfortably be at once both fiercely intense and entirely silly. I am a foremost scholar in the art of the Taylor Swift who exists in my head. The real person raised in Pennsylvania I don’t know at all. I have some conjectures on the matter, and, as with all my conjectures, every hackneyed theory, each picky little opinion, I’m sure they’re perfect, brilliant, just absolutely right, but that’s still all they are. Taylor Swift, figure of the cultural imagination, is the Jodie Comer to my Sandra Oh in Killing Eve, annoying and pretty in frills, taunting me endlessly and holding us trapped together in a dance of most enchanting death. But the real Taylor Swift has favorite bed sheets and a social security number and a British boyfriend, none of which I have any desire to know about, and if I saw her at a restaurant I’d politely avert my eyes before, yes, dive-bombing the group text. There’s nobody on Earth I’d stand in line to speak to, but then I’ve been speaking to a certain figment of Taylor Swift for nearly half my life.

I went to a Taylor Swift concert the night before I moved into college in 2009. My father’s work friend, firefighter by day, near professional gambler by night, got comped tickets to the Fearless Tour stop taking place at the nearby casino, and he let me have them as a reward, mainly, for happening to be seventeen. Live in-person and performed acoustically, “Fifteen” made me cry. A few years after that, in the thick, sticky part of my first post-college summer, I wrote approximately twenty-three million words about her in these very pages.  (”Pages”) At that point, Taylor’s most recent release was 2012’s Red, and the work I produced that long ago July about Taylor and her career, writing I was fairly pleased with at the time, feels now, besides just being extremely clearly written by a twenty-one year old, strange to me for the way it favors the sweet over the sour almost uniformly. There is a wholesome kind of ardor in that writing which maybe I’ve outgrown the ability to hold. Or maybe Taylor just proceeded to spend the next half a decade plus releasing one bad single after another, and it was taste—and trespasses against taste—and not some shift in my nature which altered the tenor of our bond. I have real love for my particular image, gleaned from public statements and published art, of smart, bizarre famous woman Taylor Swift, and I admire the bulk of her output very much. I’m just no longer so inclined to fawn. This is not to say I am here to offer a Taylor Swift hate screed. I couldn’t swing it, and, anyway, I’m not a pop feminist-for-hire circa 2010. But we’re older now. Things are different. At twenty-eight, twenty-nine this month—Taylor will, also this December, turn thirty-one—I regard Taylor Swift warily, like an ex with whom you have a tentative friendship, perpetually on the brink of falling one way or the other into hatred or delight, only to wobble back the opposite direction again at the slightest provocation, but still, despite best efforts, even, I regard her all the time. 

folklore was released at midnight on July 24th 2020, but I was at a cabin in rural Vermont without Internet or cell service. I drank Bud Light seltzers with my mother while watching the eerie pandemic return of Major League Baseball, and when I got into a strange bed there I stewed, knowing there were people out in the world all over who were hearing Taylor Swift songs I never had, and that this was a fundamental wrong, a disruption in the balance of the universe. I listened to it the next morning in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot. 

And folklore is great. That’s the terrible thing. Slightly less great, maybe, than some people have insisted, tricked, I think, by just the pronounced shift in sound. But it’s great. A little gift I asked for a thousand times and was still surprised to get, like a wife who didn’t expect her henpecked husband to ever follow through and buy the paraffin wax hand bath as-see-on-TV. For years, I’ve been halfheartedly insisting that Taylor had a great album in her. I’d say it even, perhaps especially, while she stubbornly fed me gruel. Or worse, gruel with the occasional whiff of something better. With a ripe, little raspberry dropped into the slop. The bright, villainous thrill of “Getaway Car” made me believe Taylor, my Taylor, was in there somewhere under the lacquer of sequins and synth, which, while not objectionable by default, seemed a costume, and an ill-fitting one. The lived-in world of “Cornelia Street” made those old scars sting. That gay “Delicate” video. When she did “Call It What You Want” on SNL and played guitar while wearing an ugly sweater. If the abominable “ME!”, lead single off Lover, was the stick, 1989’s “Clean” was the carrot. I was Charlie Brown, and Taylor my Lucy, yanking the football back again and again. Over drinks I still yelled that Taylor Swift’s next album would be, “her Nebraska”, referring to my favorite Bruce Springsteen record, and learned to live with that egg on my face for good. I suppose I even came to like it. There was something inherently funny in taking up, like, “blind faith in the as of yet untapped greater artistic potential of massively wealthy and popular singer Taylor Swift” as my totally inane personal cause du jour, and eventually it was a bit, a gag I performed to be obstinate and didactic, but way down somewhere awful near my kidneys I meant it the whole while. And then she did it. A pandemic befell the world and amid a sea of human suffering Taylor Swift remembered she can write. She wrote, and with a massive, crucial assist from Aaron Dessner, whose music on this record is sometimes so beautiful it actually angers me, as the last thing I needed in already perilous times was to be made to try and marry my uniquely perverse emotional responses to beloved divorced dad band The National and fucking Taylor Swift,  she made an album which, if not her Nebraska, per se (I’ve come to realize that a major part of believing Taylor Swift will one day make an album I find as quietly devastating and gorgeous as Nebraska is knowing that no album will ever actually be Her Nebraska... That each will, rather, to me, be more and more evidence that it’s coming still, more proof that the limit is untouched, on and on ad infinitum, or at least until the seas take us into a place of salty peace.) is a shocking credit to all my hard-fought and deluded confidence. folklore is great. This fact has made me feel almost equally as disoriented from my understanding of the world as the time-melting COVID-19 lockdowns have, and it turned my Spotify year in review annual collective AI humiliation kink thing into a glaring indictment of my mental state, but still, I mean... It’s great.

In talking about folklore a bit this week, there are a number of specific topics I intend to cover—what a thrill it is to hear Taylor say “fuck”; Taylor’s terrifying birth chart; the astoundingly perfect bridge of “the last great american dynasty”; “because my ass is located at the back of my body”; the bit in last year’s “Lover” where deranged WASP Taylor Swift implies that to “leave the Christmas lights up til January” is some signifier of being a love-struck bohemian, when actually everyone who doesn’t employ domestic staff to take their lights down does this; how reputation is the best of the Taylor Swift records released in the latter half of the 2010s, actually, and the people who can’t see that are cowards—but intend mostly to let the muse move me where she will. Against the advice of my better angels, she—that tie-in marketing eldritch terror—always does.

[softluci]

omg, hey, how r u, hi, so nice to see u; welcome to my 3AM (now 6AM bc miss hellsite deleted everything) ramblings (which i will try to make as close to the original as possible); this one’s gonna be a Doozy

now that ap testing is over and i have more time to care about literally everything else, i realize that i . i am So Bad at taking care of myself. like, so bad. and i actually realized this months ago but i didn't have this account months ago and i didn't think of this months ago so—

((i was debating whether or not to limit this to gen z but i know it isn't just us who do this; or maybe that’s wishful thinking and it Is just us, but idk, man,, i feel like millennials be doing this too))

sometimes, a lot of the time i just . don't eat . and i don't have a bad or difficult relationship to food or an eating disorder or anything like that, i just Don't Do It because i either legitimately forgot or i didn't feel hungry even if i hadn't eaten for a significant period of time (6-18hrs, we'll say, because i do lose track). like,, when quarantine started, i was in my room, door Locked, for 15 to 19 hours a day + i wouldn't leave unless i had to use the bathroom or shower. i only started eating and leaving my room more because my mom had to ask me to. oh, and this should be obvious, but i don't sit and eat dinner with my family either.

additionally, and this is Much More Frequent, i don't sleep. i know i don't sleep because i slept for nine hours today and woke up dazed and confused. when we had school, i would either sleep for 1-6 hours or just not at all. and then i'd go to school and not pack anything to eat :p. i actually think the longest i've gone without sleep is a full day. and i don’t have insomnia or anything like that, i just be Staying Up

so, with those things in mind, i've been wondering, like,, like how the boys would react to an m/c like that, you know?

like, okay, first of all,, there's No Way mammon is gonna let mc sit alone in their room all day. his emotional support human?? alone without him??? unacceptable. it just isn't happening. he would Literally break mc's door down if they tried to keep him out, unless they, for some reason, really, really, really needed to be alone, and even then it is a Tossup. and then not sleeping or eating? hello, what do you think this is? he would accommodate them for a little while by bringing them food and making sure they slept but after a while he would literally drag them out of their room because there is no way. there is No Way he’s letting them turn into levi. not on his watch 

an mc like this would give luci an ulcer. a literal ulcer. why are you a human and playing with the limits of your body?? who are you, do you think you’re made of metal? do you realize you have classes to attend and that you’re surrounded by demons literally All The Time? you cannot be caught lacking (i.e. feeling faint or fatigued because you haven’t eaten in seventeen hours or slept in a day). he would bring food to your room so he could make sure you ate, but when it came to sleeping? get ready to literally be dragged/carried out of your room and into his because he has work to do and he needs to keep an eye on you because Clearly you cannot be trusted to take care of yourself. he would probably go as far as to stop doing work and go to bed so you have nothing to hold against him. can’t sleep at a regular time because of your nonexistent sleep schedule? that’s okay because, beloved, He Is Putting You To Sleep. how he does so is up to you; and if you try to play like you’re Fine?? 

“mc, it’s seven pm, when was the last time you ate?” “five.” “am or pm?” “...” “well, when was the last time you slept?” “i haven’t.” “MC.” 

you haven’t slept in just over a day? baby, levi’s record is three. he would be absolutely terrible for an m/c like this; he would enable them So Hard. maybe he would bring them food (and that’s Snacks, not actual food), and Maybe he would tell them to go to sleep once or twice, but Other Than That? he can’t take care of himself for Shit either, sorry you had to hear it from me, leviastans <3

asmo,, you are worrying this man Sick. you haven’t eaten in fifteen hours? are you on a diet? no? you Forgot To Eat? how many hours of sleep have you gotten? one? you Think? oh, Maybe it was two? ah, yes, mc, because that is So Much Better. seriously, though, if you won’t eat, fine, but if there’s one thing you’re doing, it’s sleeping. you can’t sleep at a decent time because you have no concept of a sleeping schedule? sweetie. beloved. he is putting you to sleep, be it through relaxing self care or something else, darling, you are knocking out. and when you wake up, he’ll have a full course meal ready and he will literally feed it to you himself.

what’s that? you haven’t eaten since Yesterday and it’s three in the afternoon? oh,, you sweet summer child, beel is heartbroken. keep insisting that you aren’t hungry while you can barely stand and his eyes will fill with tears. you don’t wanna leave your room? fine, but that is the only thing keeping him from throwing you over his shoulder and going to the kitchen. he would literally bring you as much food as he could carry and only eat a little bit on the way back to your room. can’t sleep? not a problem, wait there while he gets belphie to charm your pillow. do Not worry, teddy bear beel always has your back MUAH

speaking of belphie,, tell that man you haven’t slept in a day and he’s stopping what he’s doing, dragging you to the nearest cushioned surface, and laying down with you; you’ll be out in No Time. and once you’re up?? he’s dragging you to the kitchen and you’re eating any and everything he puts in front of you, and he’s not leaving you alone until you’re functioning like a human and not a gremlin, or so help him, you’ll die a second time. 

you’re like, op,, y did u put satan last?? i couldn’t think of anything for him until now, i Swear i love him, okay, Anyway, you haven’t eaten in almost a day? do all humans do that? no?? why can you Barely Stand??? do you need to be carried to the kitchen? he is so confused as to why you just Haven’t Eaten when that is a basic function that humans need to complete or else they literally die; now wait in your room while he brings you something to eat. you can’t sleep?? do Not worry, that man will curl up with you and read to you until you’re Knocked Out, which won’t take long because he has a calming presence and a soothing voice, sweetheart, u r in good hands

ok it’s 7AM and i’m contemplating doing the undateables,, should i do the undateables? i’m gonna do the undateables. 

oh my god,, if luke finds out that you haven’t eaten in, eighteen hours and you haven’t slept in like twenty,, the way you’re gonna have to put in Work to convince him that you did those things of your own volition and the demons you live with aren’t starving or overworking you and No they aren’t forcing you to lie about anything. after you’ve done that, he is seeing to it that you eat something right away; it does not matter where you are, you are a human and you’re feeling Faint around literal demons, are you Dumb? are you Dumb of Ass?? come with him immediately before you hurt yourself or get hurt, he is feeding you and then you’re sleeping in his room and he’s Not taking no for an answer; don’t even think about telling him no, he’ll cry at you. 

you cannot tell me simeon is not the doting/fussing type, okay, and he is appalled. Appalled. what did you just say. the reason why you don’t look so good is because you’ve been up since Yesterday and you haven’t eaten since then either? why? what do you mean you forgot to eat; what kind of human Forgets To Eat? oh, you didn’t forget? you just didn’t feel like getting up? you’re gonna give him an ulcer. if he doesn’t do anything else, he is getting you something to eat, you literally just activated every older sibling/parental instinct he has from luke being an angel. he will literally take you to the closest place with food, sit you down, and buy you whatever you want, and if you say you don’t want anything, he’ll buy you one of everything and give the leftovers to beel, do Not test him. and when you’re done eating, you’re taking a nap. where? anywhere. no one will disturb you so long as he’s there, you’ll sleep perfectly fine <33

dia is half horrified and half intrigued. you haven’t slept in how long? are humans supposed to do that?? NO??? like,, part of him wants to see how long you can last without sleep or food just to see the limits of the average human and part of him wants to feed you and make sure you sleep immediately. he would have to fight every urge to do the former, but once he did, you are eating everything he finds and you are sleeping for however long his Humans 101 manual says you should sleep for. 

i am so thoroughly convinced that solomon literally would not care at all you have No Idea- 

like,,, i just feel like he’d ask you if you were alright because you looked a little off and you’d tell him you hadn’t slept or eaten in a while and he’d first look at you like you were literally out of your mind and then depending on where you were, Maybe keep you company (read: make sure nothing happens to you) while you take a nap, or Maybe buy you food, or take you to the house or purgatory hall (whichever’s closer) because he wouldn’t leave you alone,, surrounded by demons, ever; let alone in your current state. ok wow maybe he does care what a sweetie

barbatos would literally. he would keep his ^_^ cool facade, but on the inside he would be Screaming. full throttle internal screaming that has been going on for centuries just got several notches louder because you can’t take care of yourself, i hope ure happy. you haven’t slept since yesterday? one notch. you didn’t eat breakfast or lunch? another notch. you feel faint? oH WOW REALLY??? I FUCKING WONDER WHY another notch. come with him. please come with him before he blows a fuse for the first time in 400 years because you think you’re an exception to the rules of being a human. he’s feeding you and putting you to sleep whether you think you’re fine or not; don’t argue with him, he already takes care of his immortal boss who is the equivalent of an excited child on most days or a troublesome teenager on others and he Does Not Lose Arguments. 

ok it’s almost 11am goodnight now <3

[fanficflaneuse]

Life in Black - The Pilot

Index 

Episode 1: The Pilot 

A/N: GIF is not mine, I found it on Giphy. I hope you like this experiment. It is a mixture of narration and scriptwriting. 

Words: 2341 

Summary: Bellatrix decides she wants to live with her younger sister and her brother-in-law. 

Opening Sequence 

Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy sat in front of each other. Just like every morning, they took breakfast in the porch, overlooking the gardens. Narcissa insisted it reminded her of her homeland and Lucius knew better than to challenge her. He indulged her instead. He read The Daily Prophet as she drank her tea.

Narcissa was in the middle of a story about the preparations for the Paris Wizarding Fashion Week, when they were shaken by a loud bang from the house. The couple ran inside, wands out and faces full of concern. The elves ran frantically to the living room. As they approached, Narcissa relaxed and Lucius tensed even more.

“Bella!” said Narcissa, approaching her eldest sister and giving her a hug. Lucius took a deep breath, bracing himself up for whatever was coming; Bellatrix and him were barely on speaking terms.

“About time you came to greet me, sister” she answered.

“We weren’t expecting you,” mentioned Lucius.

“Do you hear something, Cissy?” said Bellatrix, pretending her brother-in-law wasn’t in the room.

Narcissa rolled her eyes. “What are you doing here, Bella? I thought you and Rodolphus had moved back to Paris?”

“Don’t even mention him to me. We’re getting a divorce,” she said casually, not a hint of sorrow or melancholy in her voice.

Both Lucius and Narcissa eyed her warily. “I am so sorry, sister,” said Narcissa after a moment of awkward silence.

“Oh, don’t be. It was doomed from the beginning.”

“That’s what happens when you marry for convenience,” Narcissa said, shaking her head at the memory of Bellatrix’s rushed, loveless marriage.

“If the other option was to end with a slob like your husband, then no thank you.”

“Excuse you?” he said, outraged.

(NARCISSA MALFOY) TALKING HEAD.

(Narcissa sits on a very elegant armchair. The room is full of paintings and photographs staring at her. In the back of the room, above a marble chimney, there’s a very big portrait in which Lucius and Narcissa stand on either side of a teenager. He resembles Lucius and smiles awkwardly.)

“My sister...she’s truly something. I can’t really put it into words,” she says, politely smiling at the camera.  

(Lucius comes into focus. He’s sitting on another armchair).

“She’s crazy,” he adds, deadly serious. Narcissa frowned at him.

(Bellatrix comes into focus, half sitting on Narcissa’s chair arm).

“Excuse you?” she exclaims, mimicking his previous outburst.

[Back to scene]

Lucius and Bella bickered for a while. Even the elves stuffed their ears with cotton balls so they didn’t have to hear them. Narcissa grew bored a few minutes into their petty drama; it was always the same with them. This time, though, the fact that Bellatrix had decided to move in with them without even asking made their usual passive aggressiveness less passive and more aggressive.

After Lucius stormed off and Bellatrix chose to establish herself in the closest room to theirs, Narcissa decided to call the big guns (also known as her sister Andromeda). She knew her sisters didn’t have a good relationship, but she was also sure she couldn’t deal Bella full time on her own.

(BELLATRIX LESTRANGE) TALKING HEAD.

(Bellatrix sits cross-legged on a champagne coloured divan. It’s placed in front of a big window that oversees the Malfoy gardens. As she talks, a flock of albino peacocks runs in the background).

“My relationship with Andromeda? Oh, it’s nonexistence. Since she married that mudbl- oh right, everyone’s offended by everything nowadays. So, the pc term is muggleborn, right? Well, ever since she married that muggleborn and had a half blood spawn of the devil I decided I just have one sister. She also married an absolute tosser, but at least he brought a pure last name to the table.”

[Back to scene]

Andromeda appeared a few hours later, ready to see her sister for the first time since she got engaged. The two estranged sisters bared a very close resemblance. They were both tall women with curly hair, big, blue eyes, long eyelashes, thin lips and sharp jaw. Anyhow, as they sat by either side of Narcissa, she thought there couldn’t be in the world two more different people. Andromeda’s soft, brown curls in a fancy updo complemented her face and made her look younger. Her eyes were full of kindness and patience. Their older sister, on the other hand, had a thick, raven hair, which looked as though she had hardly combed it. It made her come across as a patient of St. Mungo’s fourth floor.

The sisters sipped tea stiffly and avoided eye contact. Narcissa decided that the feud needed to end, for her own mental wellbeing.

“Andy, Bella is now living with us here,” she said.

“What?” Andromeda now looked at her older sister, trying to the decipher the mask of indifference Bellatrix had always worn.

“Go ahead, laugh all you want,” said Bellatrix, a sardonic smile on her face.

Andromeda was left speechless for a few seconds. Narcissa could see her sister’s mind working and tried to amend Bella’s words.

“She meant -”

“Do you really think I’m so heartless, Bellatrix?”

“Well, you did change your beloved family for a dick,” she shot.

(NARCISSA MALFOY) TALKING HEAD

“I really can’t blame Andy.”

She has a knowing smile as she says this.

(Lucius comes into focus).

He smirks and nods.

[Back to scene]

“Well, Bella, at least I was transparent with my intentions. What were yours exactly? Have a pure and most noble last name and a bit on the side? We’ve all heard about that one, even Cissy, even if she pretends not to.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Andromeda.”

“Tom Riddle. Does it ring a bell? Toujours pur and all that crap only to end your marriage for a fling with none other than an ex - convict,” she spat.

“You’ll drown in your self righteousness, dear. How bored you must be with that husband of yours and all our stupid social norms.”

“You’re talking to me about social norms? You burned my face out of the family’s tapestry when I got engaged to Ted.”

“It was just a game and Cissy fixed it.”

“Just a game? For whom? An arsonist?”

“Your insufferable! Always thinking you’re the better sister, the prettier sister, the perfect sister.”

“I am the prettier sister,” said Narcissa flatly; she had already grown bored of Bella bickering with everyone.

“I never said that!”

“You thought about it! I know you did. You think I’m unbalanced. You think I should be in an insane asylum or something, but I’ll tell you what, I’m smarter than you are. Wait till I fix my hair and climb out of the pit of desperation I’m in and I’ll even be prettier than you are.”

“It’s not a competition, Bella,” reminded Narcissa, “although if it was none of you would stand a chance against me.”

As always, the older sisters ignored the youngest one and concentrated on outsmarting one another. A loud bang came from the other end of the room. Narcissa, cigarette in one hand and lighter in the other, turned her head to see her cousin, Sirius and his husband, Remus. She shot them an almost pleading look as they took seats by her side as Andy and Bella had long since discarded their place.

“Cissa, toss me the light,” he said, lying back on the couch.

“No, no, darling. This is bad for your health,” she answered as she put the cigarette between her lips.  

Sirius raised a brow. “You taught me how to smoke,” he remarked.

As she refused again and he was about to give her some new argument, Remus put his hand on his spouse’s thigh. “Remember your new year’s resolutions,” he said in a sing-song voice.

Sirius groaned.

“What brings you two here. It’s been a while,” said Narcissa.

“Andy told us you invited her and we wanted to make sure Bellatrix didn’t rip her head off,” shrugged Remus.

(ANDROMEDA TONKS) TALKING HEAD

(Andromeda sits on a grey, L shaped couch. Her living room is small and cozy. It looks exceptionally clean. She’s surrounded by plants. Behind her, there’s a big shelf full of frayed books).

“Rip my head off? What, because I’m the only one of the Blacks who wouldn’t be diagnosed as a loony then I’d let Bella walk all over me? No, sir. I showed them right then and there I could also roast someone.”

She looks pleased with herself, but her smile falters a few seconds later.

“Is roast a real term? Did I used it correctly?”

[Back to scene]

Lucius had also joined the others in the drawing room. He cheered on Andromeda every time she said something particularly witty to Bellatrix.

“You go, ‘Meda!” he said after she remarked how everyone breathed a little more peacefully after she moved out.

Andromeda looked at him straight in the eye. “I know you’re my brother in law, but we’re not there yet, honey.”

“I hate her,” he said pointing at Bellatrix, “isn’t that enough?”

The three sisters looked at him, eyebrows elegantly raised.

“Whatever you say now will determine your faith, Lucius,” taunted Sirius.

“I’m also married to her,” Lucius continued, this time pointing at Narcissa, “so you should consider yourself lucky she didn’t run off and have a baby with a convicted felon.”

Remus snorted obnoxiously.

(NARCISSA MALFOY) TALKING HEAD

“I couldn’t smoke while I was pregnant with Draco. Hardest nine months of my life,” she says with a grimace, “it was all worth it, though. I’m living the dream. I mean, who doesn’t want to be in charge of a fifteen years old boy who only babbles about one of his classmates?”

She doesn’t look very convinced.

[Back to scene]

Sirius had joined in the roasting now. Bellatrix had mentioned something about her not being invited to his wedding with Remus. He, in turn, spilling the family tea all over the living room’s floor.

“I never really cared that you were a twi-”

“Tais toi!” screeched Narcissa, not wanting her sister to literally taunt their cousin once again for his sexual orientation. Bella knew exactly who else in the family she was mocking and Narcissa was having absolutely none of that.

DISSOLVE TO: the whole family sitting like scolded kids. Narcissa furiously pacing in front of them.

“This ends here!” she announced, “I’m tired of the Blacks being the absolute worst family in the history of families.”

“What is she saying?” Remus whispered to Sirius while Narcissa kept rambling.

“Shhh,” Sirius mumbled back, “I can barely understand. Somehow her accent keeps getting thicker and thicker.”

“Sirius,” she said. Her cousin perked up at the mention of his name. “When was the last time you saw Nymphadora?”

“Uhh, yesterday?”

“What?!” she exclaimed, “so you see each other regularly?”

“We go to work together.”

“You work?” she asked, even more surprised than before.

“I own a bar,” he shrugged, not surprised that his cousin didn’t know of his whereabouts.

“Of course you do,” interjected Bellatrix, “and what does dearest Nymphadora do?”

“She’s an auror,” Andromeda answered, not allowing any biting remark to come from her sister’s malicious lips.

Narcissa looked at Andromeda curiously. She tried her best to be close with both her sisters and yet somehow she didn’t know know Nymphadora was an auror. In her mind, for some reason, her metamorphmagus niece was still in Hogwarts.  

“She sees Lucius at the Ministry all the time. Just last week she told me they chatted on the elevator,” said Sirius.  

Narcissa shot his husband an accusing look.

“I’ve seen her a couple of times, but I never thought she worked there. I just assumed she roamed the building for...reasons.”

Andy facepalmed as Bella cackled.

“Alright, well those days are over.”

“What days?” asked Remus, afraid to know the answer.

“The days of us not knowing what each other are up to. Auntie Walburga died three years ago,” she said. Andromeda patted Sirius’ back when he frowned at the mention of his satirical mother. “She was the last one of our parents’ generation. It is our chance to start anew, to accept each other. So, it’s decided. We’re having dinner tonight.”

The rest of the family joined in a collective whine, but accepted. Everyone knew better than to mess with Narcissa once she was set on something.

A few hours later, the elves placed all sorts of delicacies at the table. Draco was granted permission to apparate from the school back home, arriving as the rest of the family took their sits. He frowned as he sat by his aunt Bella’s side, who only talked about how he looked like his good for nothing father. He sent a pitiful look at his cousin Nymphadora, who smiled amusedly at him as she tried to start a conversation with Regulus. Sirius and Ted were already talking like old friends and Remus and Lucius shared a laugh at Professor Snape’s expense. Andromeda looked satisfied. Narcissa, at the head of the table, eyed her family proudly.

“Levitate the potatoes my way, please Nymphadora?” said Draco. He wasn’t particularly close with his cousin, but he knew she hated the name.

“Don’t. Call. Me. Nymphadora!” she said as she pushed the potatoes a bit too harshly towards him. Her changed from purple to a shade of red.

“I like you already,” said Bella.

“That’s a very bad sign,” muttered Remus.

(LUCIUS MALFOY) TALKING HEAD.

(Lucius sits on the same elegant armchair as before. He has his legs crossed and the attitude of a dandy).

“Life is full of changes. Some big, some small. I learned a long time ago you can fight it or try to make the best of it. And that's all a lot easier if you've got people who love you to help you face whatever life throws at you,” he says, an affectionate smile on his face.

He then frowns worriedly. “I just hope my house doesn’t become the designated place of gathering. My peacocks couldn’t take it.”

Roll Credits 

[kewltie]

Bitesize BKDK #1

One.

"If you want to save our people, you will not settle anything less but the king's heart and Nasue," his mother says. "Gain his favor and this entire continent will kneel before you. Izuku, my child, you may be chained but you're not broken. Become the thing they're afraid of. "

Two.

"Tell me, my lord, did you bring me to foreign land to be your husband or your enemy?" Izuku asks with a steely calmness that doesn't match the erratic pace of his heart. "Because I cannot be both."

Three.

"I know what your people say about me," Izuku says, hands wringing in front of him but his voice is steady. "A moneygrubbing whore from Easterly, but I didn't wed the king to become the Imperial High Consort. I became the High Consort, so I can wed your king and I would do it all over again."

Four.

Midoriya Izuku was born fight a losing war. Omega, quirkless, and markless, the most unfortunate bastard in the world they'd deemed. A captive of his own genetics lottery, Izuku bears his burden like it's a trial by fire and out he steps from the flames, reforged and sharpened.

Five.

"Some battles aren't won on the field but in the bedroom. So seduce him if you must, sleep with him if you desire, and love him if you dare, but the moment you give your heart over to him you have already lost us the war."

Six.

Izuku doesn't love him. Not for his cruelty or the futility of his dream—to unite this shattered continent under one.

"Come with me," Bakugou demands, "and I'll spare your kingdom."

No, Izuku doesn't love him, but he will wed him and bring this unruly man down to his knees.

Seven.

Izuku's head is full of terrible things, but when the collar is snap into place and he falls to his knees before Katsuki it all goes quiet. The fear, doubt, and anxiety are vanquished. He finds his peace, a temporary relief from his restless mind under Katsuki's firm guiding hand.

Eight.

"—your latest hit single, 'the capital of me is you'," the interviewer says. "You said before that you don't do love songs, so care to explain that?"

"It's not a love song," Katsuki grunts out, a little peeve, but he looks at the camera dead on and adds, "It's an apology."

Nine.

Izuku pulled an old sword out of a stone, got declared the Hero, sent off to kill the evil dragon, and then, somehow, got soulbonded to said evil dragon instead.

"Um, do we have to, uh, consummate our marriage?" he squeaks out as Katsuki blows a fume of smoke from his snout.

Ten.

"Even when we're kids, I knew you were special. You were a star burning through the sky, Kacchan, and I'd idolized you but I didn't love you then." He shakes his head. "I had to wait for you to grow into the best version of yourself before I could see that possibility in you."

Eleven.

"Wait for me, beloved," Nine says.

Heavily pregnant and his brats tucked close to him, Izuku smiles coldly at the handcuffed villain—his husband, mate, and the father of his children. "No, this ends here."

In that moment Katsuki's shitty heart skips a beat and he thinks, fuck.

Twelve.

"Ah, is this that your other dad?" Goda-sensei asks curiously.

"Sperm donor," Kasumi corrects.

Without missing a single beat, Bakugou says, "She's the result of my teenage indiscretion."

Suddenly, her teacher adopts a worry expression like she's actually concern for them.

Thirteen.

"Your hand is cold," he whines. "Stop holding it then."

"No." Izuku grins.

Katsuki scowls, then he leans down and demands a kiss as retribution.

Just behind them, they hear someone says, "Doesn't that couple look like Zero and Deku?"

Fourteen.

"Kacchan?" Izuku asks, even though the answer is written all over the older man's scarred face—in his familiar red eyes and blond hair, and the way he looks at Izuku with a longing so deep it’s like an open wound.

He's staring into Katsuki's future right now and it's devastating.

Fifteen.

A series of flowers encircled a dagger in its embrace is decorated on Izuku's inner thigh. It's identical to his own down to hilt of the blade, but it's faded and discolored like someone had tried to scrub it off.

Katsuki stares at him in horror as Izuku smiles crookedly at him.

Sixteen.

"I'd chosen you all from an elite list of candidates for this important mission: Papa's heart. It won't be easy but love is war," Kasumi says, scrutinizing each suitor.

Hiroto oozes nervous energy, Todoroki is serenely calm, and all the while Bakugou looks absolutely murderous.

Seventeen.

"One more," Katsuki demands as their feet slow a stop with the music and he tightens his grip on Izuku's waist.

"It wouldn't be proper," he insists. "You know, I'm—"

A shadow falls over them. "Please let go of my betrothed, Lord Bakugou," Shouto says with steel in his voice.

Eighteen.

His forehead is pressed against the bark of the tree and somber figure hunched over, body shaking with the slightest of tremor.

"Your Highness?" Kouta calls out.

Consort Izuku's back unbends, shoulders straightens, and he turns around — eyes dry and a smile carefully placed.

Nineteen.

They’d tortured his name right out of him. Scrubbed his memories. Remade him into their image. They'd took everything till he had nothing; he is nothing, but when he close his eyes there’s a ghost of a boy with a pair of haunting green eyes and he is his. That they can't take.

Twenty.

"Scare?"

Izuku shakes his head. "You won't kill me."

Katsuki sneers as he lifts the sword to Izuku’s neck. "Yea, pray tell."

“You need me to keep the rest of the Alkene at bay and because," he sucks in a deep breath and smiles through the pain, "—and because you love me."

[ambersky0319]

Sanders Sides Masterpost

Links to all the sanders sides fanfictions that I’ve posted here!

These are in order by ships(although stories with multiple chapters will be at the top)

Also, as a side note, some stories I couldn’t find because I was an idiot who didn’t tag them with my tags, or they’re just not showing up when I try to find them. So! Apologies about that! If you find any that aren’t here, please let me know so I can add them! ^^

Notice: I’m no longer in the Sanders Sides fandom, and I have no intention of ever returning to the fandom. However! I decided to post all my fics on AO3 so if you would rather read there without having to go through a bunch of links (like me when I want to look back at my old work), I’m slowly working my way through all these fics and uploading them. You can access the series with all the fics here! 

Corrupted(On hold/discontinued): Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve | Chapter Thirteen | Chapter Fourteen | Chapter Fifteen | Chapter Sixteen | Chapter Seventeen | Chapter Eighteen | Chapter Nineteen | Chapter Twenty | Chapter Twenty-One | 

You’re Something Else(On hold/discontinued): Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | 

Sinking Fate(On hold/discontinued): Chapter One | Chapter Two | 

-

Prinxiety: Rainy Day | Dearest | Torn | 

Roceit: Wondrous Stars | Snake Charmer | Quality Time | The Prince’s Dance | I Promise | “I Love You...” | I’ll Protect You | Something Beautiful | My Sweet | Starlit Sky | Movie Night | Rough Day | Apologies | 

Intrulogical: Somewhere Only We Know | Secret Love | A Writer’s Pride | You're Absolutely Fascinating | It's You | Out of Hand | Out of Hand pt. 2 | Sea of Love | Hidden Love | Runaway | A Day Worth Remembering | My Galaxy | Looking At You | Cuddles and Crofters | Popping a Question | Void | One Week Left | My Moonstone | “Oblivious” and Obvious | Hold Me Closer | Beloveds and Bears | Bad Things | 

Dukeceit: Stay, please? | Sugar | 

Logicality: The Boy I've Loved for Years | 

Logince: Monochromatic | Overtime | Gift of the Heart | Blush Boy * | Tasty Love | Into the Night | Best Thing They Could Hope For | More Confidence, More Risk | Dreams | 

Analogical: My Star | 

Loceit: In a Daze | Faulty Logic | 

Dukexiety: Fallin’ In Love With My Best Friend | Dear Remus, | Glowing After Midnight | 

Anxceit: A Safe Space - Please be sure to read the warnings! | A Safe Space Part Two | 

Intruloceit: Safe | “The Incident” | Washed Away | Right Term | Stitches | 

Anaroceit: Red Ribbons | 

Loginceit: We’re Never Gonna Be Apart | 

LAMP/DLAMP: Nothing Better | Ladies, Lords, and Nonbinary Royalty | 

Prinxceitmas: Tis the Season | 

Creativitwins: I’m Here | Remember | No Harm In A Little Change | Taking A Tumble | Warning Dismissed | 

Multiship: Doubts and Proposals | It Does Hurt | This Love | Revenge Is Bittersweet | Testing Some Theories | Life and Death | 

No Ships/Platonic Ships: Lost | The Naps | Forgiveness | The One With the Nightmare | Corruption | A Change of Heart | My Little Darklings | Stars Falling | Always There | Veracity | Best Friend | The Cuddle-bug Twins | Birthday Wishes | The Monsters in Our Heads | Priorities | You Have Us | Forgetting One Minor Thing | Six Married Murderers | Trainwreck | Cute and Helpless | Broken Princes | Burnout | 

Asks: Intrulogical | Logicality | Loceit | Dukeceit | Remile | Logince | Analogical | Creativisleep / Rosleep | Logince | Royality | Prinxiety | Logicality | Logince | No ship! | Prinxiety | No ship! | No ship! | LAMP | No ship! | Logince | Platonic Moxiety | Analogical | CreativiSleep | Loceit | Platonic CreativiSleep | Intrulogical | Desleep | Moduke | Loceit | No ship | Logince | Remile | Dukeceit | Moxiety | Prinxiety | Logince | Dukeceit | Intrulogical | Roceit | Dukeceit | Logince | Moduke | Moceit  | Moxiety | Intrulogical | No Ship | No Ship | Logicality | Moduke | No Ship | Loceit | Logicality | Romile/Princani | Intrulogical | Loceit | Platonic Anxceit | Dukexiety | Intrulogical | No Ship | Prinxieceit | Loceit | Rem^2 | Anaroceit | Loceit | Dukeceit | One-Sided Moceit | Prinxiety | Platonic Logince | Desleep/Sleepceit | One-Sided Moceit | Pre-Roceit | Creativitwins? Dukeceit? Maybe?? | Pre-Intrulogical | No Ship? | Remus-Centric Angst | Roceit | Creativisleep | Intrulogical | Intruloceit | Anaroceit | Intruloceit / One-Sided Logince | Intrulogical | Loceit / Pre-Loceit | Intruloceit of some kind | No Ship | Loceit | No Ship | Intruloceit | Dukexiety | Logince | Anaroceit | Anaroceit | No Ship | Intrulogical | Dukeceit | Creativitwins | Dukexiety | No Ship | Ships @ Beginning | Logicality | Intrulogical | Creativitwins | Creativitwins | (this part discontinued, prompts are included in above sections now) |

[thedevilsruby]

Business, Torture and Pleasure (Clierra multi chapter fic)

Sierra is a Team Rocket Leader who has it all: A great job with amazing pay, a nice apartment and the envy of Team Rocket Grunts. The downside? She must submit to her lustful boss Giovanni to keep it all. Will she find love in her coleader Cliff or will it fall apart at Giovanni’s hands?

Warning: This fic will contain sexual abuse, sexual assault, physical abuse and gaslighting. You have been warned.

(Chapter One) (Chapter Two) (Chapter Three) (Chapter Four) (Chapter Five) (Chapter Six) (Chapter Seven: You are here)  (Chapter Eight) (Chapter Nine) (Chapter Ten) (Chapter Eleven) (Chapter Twelve) (Chapter Thirteen) (Chapter Fourteen) (Chapter Fifteen) (Chapter Sixteen)

Chapter Seven: Temporary Freedom

No, she hasn’t talked to Cliff since that day. Don’t ask.

Did it kill her inside? It felt like a white hot knife in her heart.

Was it worth it to protect one of her (former) friends? Absolutely.

And now she had to cut Arlo out of her life too. The poor squirt didn’t do anything wrong, but she needed to keep him safe too. She typed away at her computer, hoping work would help her cope.

“I’m watching you.”

She froze. Even when she was alone, she heard him in her head. “Go away.” She muttered.

“I’m watching you. I’m watching you. I’m watching you.”

“I said go away!” She said a little more loudly and firmly.

“ I’m watching you. I’m watching you. I’m watching you.  I’m watching you. I’m watching you. I’m watching you.”

“I SAID STOP!” She screamed desperately, shoving a binder pull of papers off her desk.

His derisive laugh filled her head. “Pick that up, you clumsy no good whore.”

Sierra took deep breaths as she tried to ignore it. She picked the papers up and put the back as she saw them. She rubbed her temples. “I need a vacation.” She sighed to herself.

But he would never approve it, so long as she ‘serviced’ him, he would need her around.

“I hate him.” She snarled to herself, punching her desk.

She jumped as her phone rang. Her heart dropped as she saw his name at the top. Regardless, she picked it up.

“Yes, boss?”

“Come to my office, I have news.”

~

“You’re going on a month long business trip?” Sierra asked in disbelief as she watched Giovanni pack his briefcase.

“That’s right, something urgent came up and they require me to be there in person. You’re in charge while I’m gone.”

Sierra bit her lip. No being tortured for a month? No secret ‘meetings’ for a month? She could talk to anyone she desired while he was gone? 

Her heart and mind went giddy at the prospect, though she hid it well.

“I’ll...do my best.” She hesitated.

“I know it’s a huge responsibility but I believe in you. Don’t let me down.”

“Yes sir.”

With a nod for his beloved Persian to follow him, he left. Once she saw him go down the elevator and into the limo, she let out the hugest grin and the most uncharacteristic squeal of delight.

“It’s only for awhile, but I’m finally free!” she giggled almost like a maniac. But she didn’t care, he was gone! He couldn’t force her to do those disgusting things!  No more being spied on! No more tingles up her back when she knew his eyes were on her!

She could talk to the Grunts, she could talk to Cassidy and whathisname, Botch? Biffy? Whatever, she could talk to them as she pleased! 

She could even talk to-

Cliff and Arlo.

Cliff.

Her laughter slowly went down as she bit her lip. How could she ever face him again after throwing his apology back in his face? 

Did he hate her?

“Only one way to find out.” She muttered, deciding to talk to him when she could. Even if it scared her to death.

[darklydeliciousdesires]

Not One of Many - Chapter Eighteen.

I am thrilled by the response to this story and thank each and every one of you for your commitment to reading it :) you are all beautiful people!

Previous chapters - Prologue  One  Two  Three  Four  Five  Six  Seven  Eight  Nine  Ten  Eleven  Twelve  Thirteen  Fourteen  Fifteen  Sixteen  Seventeen

Tag list - In the comments

Words - 3,119

Warnings - 18+ content, adult audience only. Minors DNI!

“I lived in the suburb of Millsborough in Kingston until I was ten, which was when my mother and father relocated to the UK, my father garnering a coveted spot at chambers not far from where I am currently resided.”

Beth was knee deep in getting to know you chit chat with Marcus and Steve, the former detailing of his rise through the world of investment, a businessman like Alfie, except Marcus bought up companies on the brink of bankruptcy for a steal, and turned them back into multi-million-pound corporations. She also learned that it was just another part of Alfie’s lucrative investment portfolio, that he owned a considerable wedge in shares for a good number of them.  

As she sipped her drink, it was now Steve who was explaining his own roots to her, his life always immersed in the legal system, naturally since both of his parents came from such a background.  

“And what do you specialise in?” She asked with curiosity.

“As a seasoned barrister, I like to think I can turn my hand to most areas of law, but I specialise in criminal defence and immigration law.”

“Have you fought any cases I might have heard within the media?” Steve loved her inquisitiveness, the very ethos of a talented journalist one might say, but he knew Beth was asking for her own curiousness in wanting to get to know Alfie’s friends better.  

The only other of his girlfriends whom he’d met who even had a flicker of interest over what he did had been dear, sweet little Mimi, albeit most of his explanations sailing over straight over her head. Her grasp of mathematics had impressed him hugely, though. He’d never seen anyone work through a Sudoku puzzle at such a speed, and she’d never made a miscalculation either. One whom he hadn’t cared for at all was still propping up the bar, her cackle audible over just about anything else. He detested when women tried too hard, especially those who were beginning to become sloppily drunk, as Talia was. All in an effort to show a man who couldn’t care less how well she was doing without him.  

“It is very likely, yes, Beth. I recently successfully fought for twenty people who became embroiled in the fallout of the Windrush scandal to remain in the UK. A hard slog, four years of back and forth and moments where I thought I would not succeed, but my effort prevailed, them and their families being granted the right to remain.”

“Oh, that’s absolutely fantastic! Yes, I do remember now, well, the broader of the entire Windrush debacle, I do. My pal Kinga covered a lot of it,” she revealed, Steve’s eyes widening.

“Kinga Clarke?”

“Yes, don’t tell me that you know her?”

He clapped his hands together, laughing with mirth. “Oh, Kinga and I go way back! We were at the same boarding school, albeit her three years below me. We meet up whenever our schedules allow. She’s a bloody good egg, that girl. We must meet up again and you bring her along, I haven’t seen her in about eight months, it’d be splendid to catch up!”  

She agreed such was a fantastic idea, Alfie too.  

“Yeah, I wanna make a point to get to know your friends, darlin’. Set something up and we’ll do it soon. I’m looking forward to seeing them all tomorrow though, it has to be said.” He referred there to the ELLE magazine party, Magda managing to squeeze him onto the guestlist as well. Fashion parties weren’t really his scene, but he’d go anywhere Beth required him to. Anything to spend time with his beloved.  

It was while the lady herself was enthralling his friends with the same wit and charisma that had hooked him in the first place that he glanced in the direction of the bar, seeing his ex-girlfriend continuing in the pursuit of making a fool of herself. Screaming with laughter, hanging off men’s necks, having them buy her drinks and showing off to her friends. God, she’d become so messy. Their breakup had sent her into a tailspin, it seemed, the usually elegant woman who respected herself much more than the behaviour he was witnessing gone from her entirely.  

“It’s sad, isn’t it? But don’t let her get to you. She’s vying for your attention, but I have no idea who on earth she thinks she’s fooling with the grandiose ‘I’m having such a good time without you’ routine. It smacks of desperation,” Beth spoke, leaning close to him, Steve and Marcus discussing something the latter was displaying on his phone.  

He was about to reply, Talia catching his eye and lifting both her middle fingers in his direction, Alfie feeling his temper shoot up sharply, his forehead creasing.  

“Hey, hey,” Beth began, turning his face to hers. “Don’t let her wind you up.”

“She’s fuckin’ disrespecting me in my own fuckin’ bar though, baby.”

She stroked his arm, trying to de-escalate his rising ire. “I know, I know, but she’s looking for a reaction. Show her none and you have the upper hand, don’t you? Come on, gorgeous. No more of these, no more of the Solomons crinkles.”

He paused, raising an eyebrow. “The what?”

“When you frown and your forehead crinkles. Those are the Solomons crinkles!”

“I’ll be giving you the Drake smacked arse if I have any more like that out of you, young lady!”  

“Why? I love them! Except for now, because some silly twat is pissing you off.”

“You’re inferring I need botox in me ‘ead!”

She gasped, smacking his arm. “I inferred no such thing!”

His frown deepened, Beth moving to kiss his forehead. “Don’t you try and sweeten me now, treacle, oh no! Damage has been done!”

“Shhh.” She kissed him into silence, poking his frown lines. “Solomons crinkles.” She then added in a voice so cute, he couldn’t help but smile at her.  

“That cuteness gets around me every bloody time. You women, you wield so many weapons.”

She beamed; her grin huge. “I quite agree! Now, give me kisses.” He obliged, his hand stroking her thigh while the other clasped her hand. She knew how to bring him back down from anger in an instant, which was no easy feat. She knew him better after only a few months and just shy of one month actually in a relationship than Talia had for the entire year he’d been with her. Then again, she paid attention to him and the person he was beyond his body and his bank balance, as Alfie was slowly coming to realise. If he scrutinised it, no matter how uncomfortable it made him feel, those were at the top of Talia’s list for her where dating him had been concerned.  

“Good bloody heavens! That’s the third man she’s welded herself to at the mouth! Reminds me of one of those little algae eating fish that people who keep tanks have to suck all the algae from the glass!” Steve exclaimed, turning back to the table, shaking his head as he re-tied his long, thick dreadlocks, Alfie and Marcus in hysterics. Beth would have been, except her eyes were on Talia, watching as she suddenly came steaming through the crowd, hurling herself at the roped off section, the glass she held launched, missing Beth’s leg by a fraction.  

“You fucking cunt! You stole my boyfriend!” she screamed, Alfie out of his seat in second, the two nearby bouncers hanging back but remaining alert for further instruction from their boss.  

“You don’t throw anything at her, you hear me? You don’t ever fuckin’ come near her, yeah?” he spoke sternly, Talia crinkling her nose in disgust.  

“He finished with me, for that devious little slag over there, you know! I mean, he let this go, for that!” she then shouted at a group of people at a table within the VIP, gesturing to herself and then Beth, everyone witnessing it thinking the same thing. They didn’t blame him at all if her claims had been the case. “I want to talk to you, Alfie.”

“You’ve got fuck all I wanna hear, Talia.”

“Then I want to talk to your bitch girlfriend!”  

He nodded at Paul and Rhonda, the pair moving forward to take her arms and behind towing her in the direction of the door.  

“You don’t ever fuckin’ come near her.” he repeated sternly. “Make sure she don’t come back in. Not now or ever. She’s barred. Permanently.” His doormen nodded, Talia thrashing so wildly that Rhonda was given no choice but to fully body hug her to get her out of there, Paul clearing patrons out of the way, Talia still screaming. “Right, now she’s dealt with, another round?” he asked, arriving back at the table, his friends and Beth looking stunned.  

“I feel like going to stick my head directly under the optics after witnessing that,” Marcus exclaimed, his eyes wide as he drained the last of his Courvoisier, Alfie beckoning one of the bar staff over to take the orders.  

“You alright, duchess?” he asked, taking a seat again, his hand smoothing down her thigh.  

“I’m fine, the glass didn’t hit me and her words failed to hit the mark as well. It takes more than a silly, drunken mess to dent me. How about you?”

He frowned, his eyebrows then fluttering up, sipping his drink. “I’m sitting here kicking myself that I spent a year with that mess.”

“In your defence, she wasn’t a mess when you were with her, though,” Beth reasoned, her eye caught by the sight outside, the doorwoman repeatedly having to push Talia away from attempting to gain entrance again, before unsurprisingly, she turned to vomit all over the pavement.  

“Whatever she was, she still ain’t a patch on you, baby beast.” He kissed her softly, nuzzling her cheek.

“Baby beast?” Marcus asked, pointing at Beth. “Why?”

Alfie grinned, undoing a couple of the buttons of his white shirt, revealing a fraction of the portrait Beth had painted with her lust upon his chest. “That’s why.”  

“Bloody hell!” his friends both chorused at once, wincing, giving Beth looks of disbelief.

She shrugged, nonchalant. “He likes it.”  

“Oh, love, we know what he’s like. When we were twenty-two, we went to Ibiza for a fortnight. First night there, some bird came over with a bullwhip and cracked him straight over the back with it. His response was to shoulder lift her out of the club, take her back to his hotel room and shag the hell out of her for the rest of the night. His back looked like the road map of Great Britain after she was finished with him!” Marcus revealed, sending Beth into hysterics, glad she’d paused from taking a sip of her cocktail.  

Their night was fantastic from there on in, arriving back at Alfie’s at just gone 2am, but not falling asleep until 4am. The following morning, he got up to let Cyril out, ordering them breakfast to be delivered from the best kosher deli nearby, salmon and cream cheese toasted bagels and two portions of matzo brei on their way, brewing some coffee and taking it back upstairs.  

“You stay right there, let’s have a lie in,” he spoke as Beth sat up, reaching for her cappuccino.

“What time is it?”

“Only half eight.”

“Are you just getting back up here from a workout?”  

“Nah, love. I did my cardio in the early hours.” He certainly had, too. “I’m giving myself a day off for anything that doesn’t involve spending time with you.”  

That surprised her, that he was content to just relax. She had nothing on all day and had planned to just chill out there regardless of his plans, rather than heading back to her flat, so having his presence was nice. He worked much too hard and needed to take more time for himself. “Oh, I ordered brekkie too, so we’re all sorted to sit here and do fuck all.”  

That suited her down to the ground. A rare Saturday of doing absolutely nothing at all other than moving location to the cinema room to continue watching documentaries together while they ate, shower fresh and dressed in comfy clothes, Beth buried in a pair of his loaned sweatpants. He’d had her in hysterics already by saying they looked like MC Hammer trousers on her.  

In the end, the fact they’d only slept for four and a half hours took its toll, both cuddling up with one another for a nap, Beth lying against his chest, pondering for a few moments before she fell asleep. It was so easy with him, how comfortable she was already, unguarded and totally relaxed around him. Usually in a new relationship, she wouldn’t let herself slip in ways like letting him see her without makeup on, or having a wee in front of him, silly little things like that. That morning she’d run into the bathroom to go to the toilet and not batted an eyelid when Alfie had come in to brush his teeth while she was mid-tinkle.

He was so easy going, their vibe together meshed perfectly. The only thing about him that irritated her slightly was his refusal to let her pay for anything, but she knew if it became more of an issue, she could approach such with him through discussion. It wasn’t something that came easily to him, not being a provider, generous as he was with his earnings.  

Kissing his chest, she closed her eyes, her impending slumber only disturbed by Cyril jumping up to position himself within the gap in their entanglement of legs, resting his head on her leg, Beth scratching his shoulder with her foot before falling asleep. Once they had awoken again, the leisurely pace of their day was put on the back burner a little, Alfie decreeing that he needed a workout, feeling odd for not hitting the gym, while Beth sat out in the shade of the garden, finishing off one of her three articles she was currently working on.

“And look at that, big C. I’m all done. Would you like to go for a walk?” At hearing the W word, the bullmastiff lifted his head, his ears pricked. “Shall we go find your dad, hmm? Where’s dad?” The dog heaved himself up, trotting into the house, following Alfie’s scent until he found him, gulping back a protein shake in the kitchen, wrapped in a towel. “Someone wants to go for a w-a-l-k.”  

“Yeah, you wanna go the park, lad?” Alfie questioned, Cyril jumping around and barking. “I think that’s a yes. Let me just go get me gear on and I’ll be back.”

“How was your workout?” she asked, just as he was about to leave the kitchen.

“Fuckin’ painful, treacle. Worth it, though. Look at them!” Flexing his biceps, he grinned, Beth virtually swooning. The muscles on him. He was so thick and sexy. Dressed in just a towel and he made her pulse flip, but suited Alfie was where it was at for her. That night, he chose a dark olive-green suit and waistcoat, with a black shirt, the buttons undone a little casually, complimenting her dress beautifully. She'd decided to go with her favourite Matthew Williamson maxi dress, the earthy hues and abstract pattern perfect, dressing it up with a few pieces of nice jewellery, pinning her hair up save a few wispy strands here and there.

They arrived at the rooftop location of the party an hour later, fabulous people everywhere, a few acquaintances stopping to say hello to Beth, until she spied one of her own fabulous people and made a beeline across the party for her.  

“Babe, you look a bloody treat. Come here, give us a little smooch!” Magda welcomed her with, air kissing her cheek to avoid her trademark bright red, Chanel painted lips printing Beth’s cheek. “Alfie, you look like sex on legs as usual.” Magda’s attest made him laugh, kissing her cheek, being swiftly introduced to Dennis.  

“So, I hear you’re in the classic car business?” That was it, their men were lost to conversation over all things automotive, Beth taking a champagne flute from the passing tray, Magda smiling warmly.  

“Now, what’s all this I hear about a very lucky young lady getting her first Birkin, then?”

Confused, Beth wondered what she’d missed there, knowing she’d yet to reveal such to her bestie. “How did you know?”

Magda jerked her head in Alfie’s direction. “Your fella here phoned me at work and asked which one it was that you wanted. Ain’t he lush, ay? He’d said he was looking to get you the red one, but I said to him, ‘no, no, sunshine! Dark blue, that’s the one she’s in love with!’ and now there you go, you have it, and I’m only a tiny bit envious!” That revelation touched Beth deeply, that he’d been so concerned in getting the correct one she’d wanted, he’d called her best friend for advice.  

They chatted for a while longer as a two, having a little schmooze with other guests here and there before they were joined then by Kinga and Oliver after an hour, the latter with his mouth full of canapes, wiping away crumbs before he gave Beth a kiss, Kinga moving in for a little air smooch as well.  

“I met someone last night who knows you!” she exclaimed, Kinga’s eyes widening. “Steve Barklay.”

“Barkie! Oh my lord, how is he?” she cried, clapping her hands together with mirth.

“He’s really well, spoke nothing but very highly of you and suggested we all go out as a group soon.” Kinga nodded vigorously at the prospect, Beth then detailing the events of the rest of the evening to them, Talia and her drunken, glass throwing, abuse hurling antics.  

“Jesus bloody wept! What a flippin’ state!” Magda exclaimed, shocked. “I would have thrown a pissin’ table at her, had I seen her launch anything in your direction.”

Beth cooed at her bestie’s fiery protective streak, giving her a little one-armed hug, Kinga and Oliver exchanging sudden curious glances with each other. “Darling, this Talia girl. I don’t suppose she’s a redhead with a, I’m unsure what it is fully, but has a tattoo containing leaves on her back?” the latter questioned, Beth feeling her heart somersault.

“Yes, that’s her. Why’d you ask?”

“Because she was trying to gain entry to the party just as we were arriving.”

Hearing that Alfie's ex-girlfriend had moved on from glass throwing and abuse hurling to following them was news Beth didn’t particularly relish in learning that evening.  

[alkhale]

Nascent A/B/O AU (Ko-fi request)

hi i’d love an a/b/o au for nascent i’m absolutely in love with these characters and would love to see them in this universe pls pls pls

Once, Damian Wayne had cared about the topic of second genders.

Back when he did not just consider himself simply a son of his father. Back when being heir apparent and young emperor of the League of Shadows was his title, his life, and his purpose. Back when Damian was proud to have the blood of al Ghul running through his veins, when he was groomed from birth to grave to be the greatest assassin, the greatest leader, and eventual conqueror of this world and the next over. Back when the scent of blood was comfort and the easy grip of metal between his fingertips was the same as holding a fork, raising a gun to someone’s temple or slicing through bone and flesh like cutting weeds.

The idea of second genders was just a small addition to that grand scheme.

His mother was an alpha. His father was an alpha. His grandfather as well. Strong blood ran through their veins, dominant blood that was groomed and inherently bred to conquer and control. Alphas stood at the top of the hierarchy and living up to inherit this gene seemed only second nature on his quest toward the top. His mother had taught it to him, simple.

“Omegas are at the bottom,” Talia said. “They are weak and must be protected by nature. They are of little threat to you aside from the power their own instincts may have over you. You will train to combat this. To be above your natural instincts so as not to fall prey to an omega’s whims. Their best purpose is for breeding, but you must not cast them aside. Any threat is available in any shadow,  no matter how weak.”

Betas were the general population. The normal. Insignificant. Betas could try and fight but odds were they would never hold a candle to danger in his life. Other alphas, however, were his greatest concern. People genetically on level with his own status, but not level with his skill, his grit, his everything. He would make sure of that.

Damian attended his lessons, understood the properties, trained to hone in his own pheromones and senses, remained rigorous against the omegas his mother would bring into the temple to train him how to combat their own advances, remain calm and lucid even under the most powerful scents.

Damian presented young—at nine compared to the usual ten to twelve. His mother did not praise him, simply nodded, satisfied. Being born an alpha was the least he should be able to do. She’d kill him otherwise.

Second genders were simply a small addition to his life, they were nothing in the bigger picture, just as always.

And then his life changed.

“Justice, not vengeance.”

His life with his father changed him. His life with them changed him. These long, age-old beliefs of second genders were not...erased, but Damian learned to adapt and tweak the small bits his mother had instilled into him with an iron grip. Betas were still subpar, he still stood at the top of the food chain, and omegas were minute concerns.

Grayson was the only exception. Drake lived up perfectly to the beta ideal of not enough compared to his own skills. Grayson, however, had come across to him as nothing but pure alpha material and had still revealed himself to be nothing more than a humble beta. He was the anomaly, and he made Damian rethink his own earlier thoughts on what it meant to be a beta, to be anything in this world.

“Why weren’t you born an alpha?”

Grayson smiled, bright blue eyes shining.

“Does it matter?”

Todd was the only one of his predecessors to have presented as an alpha, but he was a dark, complicated stain and unwinding thread in the history of Robins that still brought a quiet look to his father’s face, and Damian usually preferred not to have much to do with him. Given the nature of that half-dead idiot, Alfred had said he was never one to care much about being an alpha or otherwise.

En route to becoming a hero, not quite washing the blood from his hands, never anything as easy as that, but on his way to trying to never have blood on his hands again—Damian was confronted with a force far more dangerous than anything he had ever faced before.

“Hiya! You’ve got pretty eyes—wanna play the piano with me?”

Pandora Jayes, stupid, strange, bright-eyed and horribly… cheerful, ten-years old, sweet smelling (he figured it was the nature of her home, a bakery) always… smiling, that strange, strange girl, and currently unpresented.

Pandora Jayes, after trial and error, after time, time, and time, after being with him, slipping her tiny fingers into cracks no one else should have fit into, politely leaving her shoes outside his chest before slipping into his heart—Pandora Jayes, his precious, precious friend.

In all their time together, she never asked what his second gender was. 

Soft blue eyes, like frost, thin slabs of rounded ice that always looked so warm. They blinked at him, curious. A warm sweater hugged her shoulders, mottled brown hair pulled away from her face into a small braid that curled over her neck. Her beaming smile, even when he wasn’t doing a damn thing.

“Well, that stuff’s not even important,” Pandora sniffed the air experimentally. “You’re a big strong alpha, sure. But who cares about that?”

Her stupid grin.

“You’re Dam.”

Not Damian, conqueror of worlds. Not Wayne. Not Robin. Not alpha. Not anyone else.

Just him.

Throughout their years together, Pandora’s unpresented state worked as a strange sort of time bomb for his nerves. Yes, with Pandora, Damian had begun to wrap his head around a different notion of second genders, one he’d never quite considered before—a lack of thinking about them. And yes, he did not care about what Pandora would present as, he would find… favorable thoughts of her regardless. He was Dam, she was Pandora.

Mine. A quiet, rippling growl in the far, far, abyss of his chest. It pressed against his throat sometimes, threatening to intoxicate the air. My Pandora. My beloved.

Damian Wayne had been trained in his youth to be able to press and control his pheromones better than anything else. He knew how to use his scent, heavy and powerful to his advantage and he knew when to tamper it down onto a tight lid.

...sure, on the occasion, the rare occasion, when sweet-smelling, soft, warm Pandora beside him… happened to spur a scenting or two, then by all means. Pandora did not mind, so there was no problem if he was rolling his fingers against the barely noticeable scent glands on her wrists. Pandora didn’t seem to mind or notice otherwise unless that stupid Mary happened to complain about how Pandora reeked of him. That was perfectly fine, in his opinion. Pandora was his. She should smell like him.

Pandora’s scent didn’t stick long. He could barely catch it on his clothes or against his skin, sniffing in vain and ignoring a faintly bemused Alfred. Because she hadn’t presented, it had little power or effect.

 Damian would often find himself pressing his face into the crook of her neck, waiting there, wondering as Pandora babbled on and on beside him.

At fifteen years old, Pandora had yet to present.

It wasn’t particularly uncommon, but it wasn’t normal either. Most presented by twelve, but the latest account of presenting occurred somewhere at eighteen. He could not quite imagine what it would be like to wait three more years to know the turn Pandora’s scent would take, the way her body might shift, the small turn of those eyes and the way—

Lucy Jayes was a beta. He did not know what Pandora’s father was but she said she thought alpha. Odds were Pandora herself would present as a beta. It only made sense.

And yet…

There was something to Pandora’s scent that always tugged at his senses, pressed hard at his throat and flooded his chest. A promise in her scent. A promise he wanted to see fulfilled. Damian Wayne was a man with many secrets and while he bared many openly to Pandora the same way she bared her heart so kindly to him—so good, so good, just the way it should be, that’s it—there were some… occasional musings Damian found himself considering.

Yes, he would love Pandora no matter what. Yes, no matter how she presented, she would remain by his side, that would never ever change. Never. Never. Never. A fiercer voice growled, snarling and fangs bared to the world.

But there were moments. Slim, small moment where Damian allowed himself to wonder, eyes drifting to the smooth skin of Pandora’s neck. About a Pandora with a certain scent. A Pandora with the ability to meet his own a way only two bodies could. A Pandora whose neck would allow his fangs to sink in, to forge and uphold the promise he wanted to exist. A Pandora who—

Was an omega.

Damian Wayne no longer believed omegas were to be protected. They were not spineless, crawling beings. They were people, one in the same, he was wrong to have ever thought otherwise. And while he knew better than to live into stereotypes and prejudice, he couldn’t help but imagine, that soft Pandora, a Pandora as an omega would fit so… so right.

“I’ll just be a beta,” Pandora said, licking her lips as they shared another cone of ice cream. He watched the action in slow fascination. “No biggie. Presenting as an omega isn’t bad, but it’s too much work.”

No. A quiet, low growl in his chest. You’ll be perfect.

“Whatever you are,” Damian said, raising his voice above the growl. “You will be perfect.”

Pandora flushed, looking stupidly pleased with herself as she mumbled incoherencies at him. Damian took the moment to scent her again. She spoiled him and he refused to let her stop.

He meant it, he really did. No matter what, nothing would change the way he felt. He just… could dream, couldn’t he?

Pandora suddenly stiffened beside him. Damian paused, catching the shift in her language in a second. He raised his head from her neck, watching her face, pulling away to guage her expression. What had happened? Did she see something? “Pandora?”

“I just,” Pandora stopped. She touched her forehead, touched her neck. Sweat was beginning to gather along her brow and something was starting to stir, slow and heavy in the pit of Damian’s stomach. He gripped the bench tighter, inhaled the air, something sharp and sweet. His eyes went wide. “Yikes. I don’t feel so hot, Dam. I think—”

“Presenting?” Damian said, cutting quick.

Pandora froze, looking at him with wide eyes. “Is… you think so?”

I know so. His heart thrummed to life, steady against his chest. Damian quickly stood, dumping the cone into the trash and grabbing his coat. Pandora’s scent was growing thicker, heavier, sweeter. That low voice in his chest was beginning to growl, harder, louder.

Pandora’s eyes were round with disbelief. She was panting now, soft, quick little breaths. She kept smelling the air, rubbing her wrists, looking uncertainly at him. She rubbed her jaw. She’s not comfortable. It’s happening too fast.

I don’t want anyone else to see.

The park was practically empty. A couple sat a few benches away. Damian’s inner voice barked out a rough order.

No one else but me.

“Quickly,” Damian swallowed, hard. Calm yourself. Calm. She needs you more than anyone else right now. Get her home. Move from there. Think later, plan later. Now is just for her. Damian reached for Pandora’s wrist. “You shouldn’t be out and about—”

Slap!

For a brief second, Damian’s world came to a screeching, abrupt halt.

Pandora’s hand trembled in the air for a second, fingers shaking before they curled quickly into a tight fist. Her eyes were wide, staring at him in disbelief, one of her hands now cupped over her mouth, over her nose. Her eyes watered and—

Damian blinked, unable to process his hand hovering in the air, slapped aside and—

The scent hit him, heavy and—

Damian slapped a hand over his own nose on reflex. It came, raw and sharp, like fresh cut ginger and pure vanilla extract. But it cut into the air, sweet and forceful. There was power to it, pulsing and stinging his nose in a way he was only familiar with—

“Oh,” Pandora gasped, both her hands over her mouth, hiding what must be her now prominent fangs. “Oh. Oh, my… damn.”

It was uncharacteristic of Pandora to curse in such a manner.

What on earth?

Tentatively, unable to mistake the smell, Damian sniffed the air. He looked at Pandora as though she’d decked him across the face and told him she was running off to the League of Shadows.

Two raw, wild balls of energy pressed hard into each other. Their scents battled in a way only two similar scents could do. The low, threatening growl in his chest and the way Pandora had nearly lashed out at him.

Pandora gaped, jaw dropping and Damian almost, almost did the same.

Pandora Jayes, fifteen, his beloved, precious friend—

Had presented as an alpha.

“Scheisse,” Damian said.

- scheisse means shit in german, damian just defaulted to any random language because he’s .-. rn and pandora is :0

(I HAD A LOT OF FUN WITH THIS, THIS WAS THE TWIST I ALWAYS WANTED TO TAKE I HOPE THAT’S OKAY)

[mass-dreams]

i wrote a thing?? it’s uhhhh almost three thousand words so you can read it on AO3 if you want. this is my first time properly sharing my writing, so i’m nervous, and i know i have a ton of room to improve. constructive criticism is always appreciated, but please don’t be rude!! in the very relatable words of our beloved alistair theirin, “i bruise easily.” (metaphorically so, this time)

_______________________________________________________

Thalia was used to feeling unwanted.  

The moment the fire had left her fingertips, the life she had always known shattered. She had expected that, really. But she hadn’t expected the disgust in her father’s eyes when her magic became known. She hadn’t expected her mother to cower in fear of her nine-year-old daughter. 

Even as her younger brother’s arms wrapped around her waist, the ache in her chest only became more painful. The lump in her throat grew. The tears in her eyes spilled over.

Her family was safe. Her little brother was safe. That should be all that mattered. 

Yet she knew they didn’t feel safe. Not anymore. Not with her. 

Her own family didn’t want her. 

She was cast aside, struck from the Trevelyan records as much as public knowledge would allow. 

“We can’t have a mage, of all things, tainting our house’s reputation,” Bann Trevelyan had said. 

When the Templars arrived, Thalia felt almost relieved to finally leave her home.

Although, it wasn’t really her home anymore, was it? 

With each step taken away from the Trevelyan estate, she could feel the invisible cord connecting her to the place become tighter and tighter until it was pulled taut. Until it snapped. 

It felt like the broken pieces of the life she had just destroyed were cutting into her- nothing but sharp edges, draining everything. 

Life in the Ostwick Circle felt almost like a dream to Thalia. Then, she was too young to know the horrors mages often faced. She only knew that she was finally learning how to properly control her magic. That there was a library filled with books waiting for her. 

She was homesick for a while. There were many nights she fell asleep with tears soaking her pillow, mourning the life she had once had. The brothers she had had to leave behind. The parents whose love she had thought unconditional until she found the exception. Until she realized she was the exception. 

Thalia paid little attention to the other apprentices, though not maliciously, or even intentionally. She was so wrapped up in learning everything she possibly could, that making friends was far from her mind.

The others misinterpreted her distance.

In their minds, she was being snobbish, and conceited, and thought she was better than them because she was nobility. 

For years, Thalia was an outcast without even knowing it.

It wasn’t until her teenage years that she realized just how anti-social she had been. She was always polite and kind in the interactions she had with her peers, even though they were few and far between. 

She made a point to actually attempt to make a friend.

That was when she finally noticed the whispers, and the pointing, and the laughs. When she tried to start a conversation with one of her fellow mages, they would sneer, and hastily end the exchange.

Thalia knew when she was unwanted. 

Years later, everything had changed. The Circles were no more. There was a giant hole in the sky. And the key to the world’s salvation was on Thalia’s left hand, glowing a bright, sickly green. 

The mage walked out of the Chantry, inhaling a deep breath of the fresh, crisp air she had been deprived of for fifteen years. She strolled leisurely towards the gates of Haven, taking in the sights of people bustling about in the snow.

She stepped outside of the village, her attention quickly drawn to golden hair and a deep scowl. 

Maker, Thalia would never understand how the commander managed to look endearing while literally glaring at reports. 

She was aware of the fact that he used to be a Templar, and she was also much more knowledgeable of what many mages unfairly faced throughout Thedas. Cullen had seemed wary of her at first. The man had seemed to warm up to her, though, after she had aided the refugees in the Hinterlands and used her healing abilities to help the soldiers. 

Ever since she had first met Cullen on the battlefield, he had invaded her thoughts, taking up much more space in her mind than was appropriate. Foolish, she knows, to think of a man she met only a short time ago so often. 

He was the commander though, and her the Herald of Andraste (or so many believed). She ought to get to know him better, considering the amount of time the two would be spending together for Maker-only-knows how long. At least until they sorted out this whole “end of the world” business. 

However, as Thalia gathered up the courage to speak to the man (and rehearsed the entire conversation in her head), the stares and whispers caught her attention. 

“The ‘Herald of Andraste’- a mage! Can you believe it?”

“I heard she’s supposed to be nobility, but was kicked out of her own damn family!”

“Does she even speak? I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say a word.” 

“That’s probably because no one wants to get close enough to hold a conversation!” 

Thalia turned on her heel and hastily retreated back into the village, back into her cabin.

Perhaps not everything had changed. 

Skyhold felt like a new beginning. 

It seemed as though Thalia had proven herself when she risked her life during the destruction of Haven.

In all honesty, she had been absolutely terrified. Like, shit-your-pants terrified. 

She never, in a million years, would have thought that she would have to face down an ancient dark magister and his pet archdemon. 

She was familiar with the prospect of risking herself to save others, though. She had experience in that area. The lives of those hundreds of villagers was worth far more than her own. If it took her death for them to live another day, then so be it. 

The whispers and stares had lost their malice. Now it was mostly wonder, and even worship that filled the expressions of those she passed by. 

It also felt like the beginning of something with her commander.

In the courtyard, he had promised to never let anything like Haven happen again. The poor man took the deaths of those lost as his own personal failure.

He had also said that he was glad she made it out. Specifically her. While the words themselves could be chalked up to his unwillingness to lose the Anchor or just another life in general, the expression on his face, and his awkwardness after the words left his mouth made Thalia think differently. 

Then came his struggle with lyrium. 

Thalia’s heart hurt to think of Cullen in pain- to think of everything he had had to experience in his past and the effect it had on him. 

His strength through everything, and his ability to persevere only made her affection and respect for him grow stronger.

She had assured him that he was doing the right thing. That he could make it through. 

Afterwards, when she had found him on the battlements, she couldn’t help but watch as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath in.

He seemed… at peace, if only for a moment. As if he had been able to lay down a burden he had been carrying on his shoulders for so long. 

Each time Thalia thought she couldn’t possibly feel anymore for this man than she already did, he managed to prove her wrong.

Their chess game in Skyhold’s gardens only reinforced the small inkling in Thalia’s head of what if…? 

What if her feelings weren’t unrequited? What if Cullen reciprocated? 

“We should spend more time together,” Thalia risked saying.

“I would like that,” Cullen replied, his face seeming to light up at the idea.

Unable to form any other words, Thalia simply said, “Me too.”

His eyes were gentle, and a small smile graced his lips as the words left his mouth, “You said that.” 

Thalia’s face burnt as he brought their attention back to chess. Her embarrassment was worth it to see him smile, though. Maker, what she would do to make him smile. 

Not soon after that, the two began to have near nightly chess games, even going as far to have supper in Cullen’s office while they played.

It evolved into a routine for them. Eventually the chess board would lay forgotten- the pair too wrapped up in conversation and each other to pay attention to it. 

The illusion Thalia had built for herself crumbled sooner than she had expected. 

Of course, it was on a night when she was feeling particularly brave- particularly reckless. 

At the war table meeting that morning, she had caught the commander staring at her. While Josephine was rambling about a very important noble visitor (Thalia couldn’t even remember who it was, now), she had glanced at the man (which she absolutely did not do every twenty seconds, thank you very much) and found his eyes already on her. 

He quickly looked away, a blush coloring his cheeks. 

She turned back to Josie, with a large smile that she couldn’t seem to hide, and attempted to force herself to pay attention to the words coming out of the woman’s mouth, but ultimately failed.

Later that day, the two had even found time to have lunch together.

Or, well, Thalia had arrived at his office with a report that could absolutely not be handled by anyone else (it may have had something to do with trebuchets, though Thalia didn’t know for sure, as she had barely glanced at it before snatching it from the messenger while they were distracted delivering the inquisitor's own reports), and demanded Cullen eat something after he had denied having breakfast, and initially refused to eat lunch, as well. 

Although, he had given in rather easily to Thalia after she had offered to stay and eat with him. 

Ultimately, these events motivated the inquisitor to do something she never would have expected from herself- confess. 

That night, she had resolved to return to Cullen’s office after they had supper, when most of Skyhold’s inhabitants would be either asleep or shit-faced drunk at the Herald’s Rest. 

She donned her favorite outfit- a long, flowy dress with transparent sleeves that lacked a shoulder, colored a light blue which Josie had said matched her eyes, and Thalia couldn’t remember the last time she had worn a dress. Not robes, but an actual dress. She pulled her long black hair over her shoulders, and took a deep breath as she descended the stairs into the main hall.

With each step the butterflies in her stomach became more intense, but at that moment Thalia had no doubt in her actions or what the result of them would be.

As she pushed open the door leading onto the walkway to Cullen’s office, she couldn’t help but smile. 

To think that all it would take to move their relationship forward- to something they both wanted, she was sure- was just a little bit of courage.

She almost laughed. She probably would have, if her eyes hadn’t caught the figure leaving Cullen’s office through the door facing the tavern. 

It was an elven woman, dressed in the inquisition’s scout armor- Thalia could tell by the shape of the silhouette. 

The woman seemed to be… readjusting her clothes, and fixing her hair. 

But why would she be delivering something to the commander so late at night? And why would she be so disheveled just from-

Oh.

Oh.

The smile dropped from the inquisitor’s face as the realization hit her. 

Of course Cullen didn’t actually want me, she thought. It was ridiculous to even entertain the idea. He probably only dealt with you because you’re basically his boss.

The thought made her heart ache, and her eyes fill with tears.

Throughout her entire life, no one had wanted her.

Why would this be any different?

Why would he be any different?

How could she have believed that this strong, kind, selfless man could possibly have feelings for her- a mage disowned by her own family, with nothing but herself to offer him? 

Foolish, really. 

The ache in her chest only grew stronger as she made her way back to her quarters.

Thalia knew when she was unwanted. 

She was used to it by now. 

Thalia allowed herself only that night to mourn what she thought had been. Only one night to let the tears fall freely. There was still a world to save, after all. 

Attempts to avoid the commander entirely were futile, considering their positions. 

Though she had stopped her evening visits to his office, entirely convinced their friendship had been one-sided and in her head because why would he want to spend time with her that he could be spending with his lover? 

When she caught him watching her, she chalked it up to be him double-checking her- making sure she was doing everything right because obviously, as the Herald of Andraste, she couldn’t make a single mistake. His small, almost shy smiles that always made her melt, were never meant to affect her in the way they did. When he went to check on her in her quarters after she was buried underneath a mountain of paperwork, making sure she ate, it was concern for their leader, not for her. 

She had mistaken his tolerance for acceptance- for desire, even for the possibility of what could eventually be love. 

But of course he would be with someone else. Of course, Thalia wouldn’t be enough because she had never even been kissed, for fuck’s sake. If no one else had wanted her in that way, why would he?

Soon, though, Cullen seemed… different. The circles under his eyes became darker as the days went by. His hand went to his temple- an attempt to ease a headache, Thalia knew- more often than ever before. The candle illuminating his office windows seemed to burn even longer into the night. 

Eventually, concern for the man overpowered Thalia’s own shattered heart. If he didn’t want her there, then he could tell her so. 

She went to his office at an ungodly hour in the morning, when she couldn’t sleep, and neither could he, it seemed.

Thalia knocked softly on Cullen’s door, and stepped into his office after hearing his quiet, gruff, “Come in.”

“Inquisitor!” he startled, abruptly standing up from behind his desk. “I thought… I thought you stopped coming.” His voice seemed small, and weak when the words left his mouth. 

“Yes, well… I saw you had found someone else to spend your time with. I didn’t wish to impose,” Thalia replied, though with no malice, and not accusatory- she was just stating an observation. She ignored the confused furrow in his brow as she attempted to barrel on and get to the point- his well being, which was much more important. He didn’t allow her to do that, though, and stopped her before she could say anything else.

“Who… ? What are you talking about? I assure you, no one has taken your place. My eyes are only on you,” Cullen said, as if it was the most casual thing in the world, as if it wouldn’t make Thalia’s heart beat a thousand times faster because does he mean what I think he means? 

His words seemed to catch up to him, as his signature, adorable blush appeared on his cheeks and his hand came up to rub the back of his neck. “Maker’s breath. That is… I mean…”

“What about the scout I saw leave your office? It was really late, and she seemed… a bit disheveled,” Thalia replied, deciding to put him out of his misery, and seek the answer she really needed if he truly did mean what he said.

The furrow between the commander’s brows reappeared, his lips set into a small pout as he tried to recall the scout she was asking about. 

“Are you talking about… Maker, I didn’t know it looked like that. She had ran all the way here from the stables with an urgent message from the Hinterlands, then promptly tripped when she walked through my doorway.” 

Thalia almost giggled, but didn’t when she realized it sounded like something that she, herself, would do, and that this meant her commander had no lover and might actually feel the same way about her. 

However, “Oh…” was all that managed to leave her mouth.

The pair stood there in awkward silence, until-

“Did you really mean-”

“I really meant-”

They spoke at the same time, then met each other’s eyes as their faces burnt red, and smiles graced their lips.

“I did,” Cullen said softly, as he stepped out from behind his desk and stopped right in front of Thalia. “Do you…?”

“I do.” The words were breathy- she practically whispered them- but how was she supposed to form a coherent thought when he was so close and his eyes kept looking at her lips and Maker, he’s going to kiss me.

Their lips met, with one of Cullen’s hands on her cheek and his other on her waist. It was clumsy, and Thalia knew she was doing it wrong, but Maker, this is perfect. 

When he made to pull away, Thalia pouted and reached up to pull him back to her. 

He smiled against her mouth and let her. 

Thalia already knew she would never be able to get enough of the man. 

She knew, now, that she was wanted. 

[notchesandbullets]

Halloween Special: Caramel Apples and Tricksters [Oneshot] Modern AU (Part 1/2)

Part 1

Words: 4k

(OC from my fanfic: “The Varied Path”)

They had finally fully settled into their new home, and the girls went a little crazy with the decorating, as Halloween was just around the corner. Hand-painted jack-o-lanterns stood guard at the front door, and colorful lights were hung at the front of their mansion.

Inside, every single surface was draped in marigold tablecloths and cinnamon candles burned brightly, the spice wafting through every inch of the house. Garlands were draped over the railings in an artful arrangement of autumn leaves and cranberries. The usual white towels in the bathrooms and the kitchen were replaced with seasonal ones and Zeno added a bit of spooky touches all over the place.

Plastic bats hanging from the ceiling upstairs, a ghost at the foot of the basement stairs, and several well-placed traps so that whenever someone opened up a cupboard, they got a face full of goo launched at their head.

But in a house full of trained agents and spies, it was more fun than anything else to try and dodge the sticky substance.

The leaves had changed shades, indicating the much beloved season transformation by the one and only Calista.

She loved how the forest green gradually transformed into ruby reds and lavish golds, leaves spiraling gently to the ground as the autumn breeze whispered by. It was the season of pumpkin spice, fresh air, apple pie, and warmth that came from sitting by the fireplace with a mug of hot cocoa and homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Hak and Jae-ha had undertaken some projects for the new house when they first moved in during the summer, installing top of the line appliances for the giant kitchen. A huge fridge for Yoon to stock with all sorts of food to feed the hungry bunch of eight, and a state of the art oven complete with a industry standard stovetop.

They had also turned the unfinished, extremely creepy basement into an automated training space. They all used it for shooting practice, hand to hand combat and wrestling.

Kija had repainted nearly all of the rooms in the house, with a little help from Yona and Zeno. While they were doing that, Shin-ah and Calista were busy helping the movers bring all of their stuff inside under the direction of a pretty boy genius barking out commands at the front door.

"You!! Bring that into the kitchen, but watch out for the paint and the tools lying around."

"Don't forget to grab the rugs, those need to go in first before we can put any of this away."

"No— No!! I need this first before you bring in that!!"

"BE CAREFUL WITH THAT, IT'S GLASS YOU IDIOT!!!!!"

Calista chuckled to herself as she carefully maneuvered around the sharp corner from the hallway that led from the foyer. Panting with exertion, she helped Shin-ah move the plush sofa into the living room. They set it down heavily, but luckily Yoon was too far away and too consumed with drilling the movers to hear that they may have scratched his hardwood floors.

Wiping the sweat off of her forehead with the back of her hand, she grinned at the blue-haired man who was scanning around for any boxes that needed unloading in their vicinity. She pushed herself up onto her feet, punching his shoulder good-naturedly when she passed him.

"C'mon, I'll race ya!!"

She broke into a sprint, and he chased after her. Their friends, in various places of the house cracked smiles and shared jokes as they heard the laughter coming from downstairs, knowing that the two must be up to their shenanigans again.

It had been months since then, and everyone had pretty much settled into a rhythm comfortable enough for Calista to hit the stores with Yona long enough without the boys destroying the place.

Hopefully.

The girls picked out just about anything that caught their interest, bringing along Tae-yeon and Hani last minute with Mundok's and Gi-gan's permission. They were the children's respective guardians but it wasn't much of an issue seeing as how they were all family.

Calista had been in the store less than a minute before there was a loud commotion behind her.

Internally wincing, she turned around to see what trouble the children had gotten themselves into this time. But her eyes widened in surprise as she saw five familiar figures, Hani frozen from where she faceplanted into Nier's legs. Tae-yeon was staring up at Tae-jun with big, innocent eyes and Yona smiled sheepishly at Heuk-chi, apologizing to both of them for the collision while the children righted themselves.

The guardian brushed it off, his unofficial bodyguard going along with him. If she didn't know any better, Calista would say that the tall man was blushing badly in the presence of the sweet redhead. But she chose not to comment on it as Hani and Tae-yeon ran back to her, wanting to spare her friend any embarrassment.

"We weren't expecting to see you guys until later tonight." Calista pitched in, ruffling the children's hair as she directed her attention past the triplets. "We're getting some stuff for later on, want to come with?"

With an eager, mutual agreement to join forces, the huge and rambunctious group of nine browsed the aisles of the store, buying way more than they should have with the children throwing things in the cart more than would've been allowed if any real adults were present.

Tae-jun didn't count, he caved every time Opal turned his watery eyes on him and Calista cursed her spinelessness, giving in just as bad when it came to her youngest brother and the golden-haired, little girl.

Squeals echoed off of the shelves and she whipped around as the triplets and the younger two pulled a huge cake out from the bakery section.

"Oh no, absolutely not." Calista held up her hand, averting her gaze from their puppy eyes. "Yoon will throw a fit if he sees this."

"But Notch~" Opal whined. "Please!!"

His brothers chorused their persuasion and while she had to admit it was sort of endearing seeing the fifteen-year-old boys beg for permission to buy a ridiculously humongous treat, she redirected their efforts towards a panicking Tae-jun beside her.

There wasn't any way she would be able to hold up against all five of them if they continued, she barely had enough strength to resist Hani's puppy dog eyes.

But once she turned her gaze on her youngest brother and saw how Tae-yeon's lower lip trembled dangerously, she sped to his side, dropping down on her knees, ignoring how harshly she landed on them in her haste.

"Tae-yeon," Her soft voice broke as desperation seeped through, gripping his shoulders gently in an effort to convey how bad of an idea this was. "Gramps is gonna kill me."

He beamed up at her, tears suddenly vanishing. "No, he loves you, remember?"

Calista's eyes rounded pathetically at that and she coughed to cover it up.

"Alright, fine." She finally surrendered, throwing up her hands.

Their shrieks of excitement and victory shattered any semblance of silence in the marketplace and she winced at their volume, shaking her head in amusement as they rushed to shove it in the already crammed shopping cart.

Yona drifted over to her side, clasping her hands behind her back playfully.

"You caved~" The redhead sang, giggling.

A fond smile made its way onto the older girl's face, gazing after them as they disappeared around the corner with a worried Tae-jun hot on their tail to make sure they didn't get lost. Or end up causing chaos that couldn't be contained by the mere mention of his title.

Chuckling, Calista began pushing the cart to follow after them. "I always do..."

After numerous attempts to convince their temporary guardians to buy them all the snacks they wanted, five failed chances taken to sneak electronics into the cart and two feeble efforts to buy candy bars at the checkout lane, Calista, Yona, and all the others finally left the supermarket.

Though they were armed to the teeth with food and amenities for later that night.

They hopped into their separate cars, but Tae-jun followed them back to the house so the triplets could spend some more time with Calista.

Kicking open the door with one foot, the raven-haired girl yelled out that they were back as the three troublemakers along with Tae-yeon and Hani shot past her, vanishing from her view within seconds.

She had just set down the groceries and supplies on the floor when she heard two loud crashes come from upstairs and the kitchen at the same time an outraged cry reached her ears.

"Are you all alright?!" Calista shouted out as she untied her shoes and gathered up the food that needed to be refrigerated.

A chorus of reassurances were screamed back and she chuckled to herself, nudging the door with her foot to close it. She had a feeling Yoon would take care of whatever that was all about. Jae-ha appeared at the base of the stairs in a flash, paint in his hair.

She stifled a laugh that bubbled up, opting for a wild gesture that could have been interpreted as anything. But judging by the chuckle and the hand that was raised to wipe the excess away for the time being, he knew what she was getting at.

"Do I want to know?" She teased the eldest, handing him two of the larger bags.

Jae-ha's violet eyes crinkled at her ask, a smirk curling at the edge of his mouth. "Maybe not, my dear."

The pair made their way into the kitchen, both lifting an eyebrow at the pristine state. They glanced at each other and then shrugged. Yoon must have cleaned up whatever was spilled already, he couldn't stand the messes.

Zeno and Hak were sitting in the family room, crowded around some sort of card game, roping Heuk-chi into it the moment he passed by. A movie was playing in the background, but no one was paying attention to it. Some sort of Disney film that Calista knew Hak had put on for the kids after he was alerted of their impromptu meeting at the store.

Good thing she had sent him that text.

She had asked him to clean up the house and rid it of any exposed weapons when they ran into Tae-jun and the triplets in the store, having a suspicion that they were going to tag along all the way back to the house.

The night before, she was cleaning her knives and reassembling her sniper rifle. She hadn't gotten a chance to put it away, believing she had enough time before they were set to come over. Knowing her brother though, he had tossed them all on her bed without a second thought. It didn't matter, just as long as the children didn't see them.

It wasn't like they weren't aware of it, but in their line of work, they were better protected the less they were exposed to their lifestyle.

In tandem, the green-haired man and the raven-haired girl began to put away the various food items, Jae-ha automatically taking over the fridge and Calista the pantry. However, she dropped what she was doing the instant she heard a small cough.

Clicking her tongue in worry, she hurriedly filled a cup with water, handing it to Tae-yeon, who had just sprinted into the vicinity with Hani right behind him.

He coughed again as he tried to drink it too fast and she hushed him.

"Smaller sips, Tae-yeon. There you go..." Calista encouraged him quietly, masking her concern so that she didn't accidentally scare him.

Eventually, his breathing steadied and she was less panicked than before.

Patting him on the head gently, she asked, "Did you need your medicine? Are you sure you're alright?"

He nodded cutely, raising the cup above his head in an attempt to put it in the sink but he was struggling. His older sister watched him for a moment, letting him try for himself. But he couldn't do it and after another minute of struggling, he reluctantly asked her if she could do it for him.

Hani hopped up and down on her little feet, golden hair bouncing with her as Calista set it down in the sink. "Yeonie, Yeonie, Yeonie, come and meet my pet ladybug!! She's outside!!"

His eyes lit up and Calista was left alone as the kids shot off.

"Wait!!" She called after them worriedly, starting after them as they slid open the glass door leading to the backyard. "Both of you be careful please!!"

"Relax, Calista dear, they'll be fine." Jae-ha reassured her as he put the milk and the giant cake away in the fridge.

Hak was weird, he only ate bakery if it was cold and Yona made sure to call him out on it more than once.

Calista snorted, hesitating for a beat before giving in, knowing he was right. "Only if someone's watching them to make sure they don't accidentally get in trouble like last time."

Jae-ha shook his head slightly, eyes filled with light humor. "They're on our property. What could possibly happen?"

Once, Kija had mistakenly left the two children alone with the triplets, and somehow the five of them managed to land themselves in a police station within the hour. Something about escaped shelter animals and a raid on a corner store with a stereo. She couldn't even make sense of the police report when they had given it to her, and now she just knew better than to ask.

"Hak—"

"I'm on it." He interrupted his sister, already halfway out the door that led to the acres of open land naturally fenced by several hundred-year-old trees. Zeno skipped cheerily after him, closing the door behind him to conserve the heat inside.

Following his younger brother in order to make sure his allergies didn't act up due to his weak lungs, Hak grabbed a spare rake from the shed in the back. He might as well do this now so that he didn't have to do it tomorrow, plus it would make the lawn easier to mow later on. Zeno took the smaller one to help after he played games with Tae-yeon while Hani went to look for her tiny friend.

They raked all the fallen leaves into a huge pile.

But the second Hak turned his back, he heard a yell of, "Cannonball!!", and in came the pitter-patter of small feet shaking the earth.

He let out a shout at the wave of dead leaves that he had just collected showered over him. Spitting out the ones that landed in his mouth, he glared in mock annoyance at his sheepish brother and the delighted golden-haired girl beside him. Zeno threw up his hands, having dived in with the children and sent another torrent of leaves up in the air, beaming widely.

"Mister!! Come on in!!"

Hak shrugged, tossing aside the rake as he sprinted towards them. Work would have to wait.

Hani and Tae-yeon shrieked as he leaped and clumsily scattered about, thoroughly diminishing all of his hard work. But he couldn't bring himself to care as he began to chase them around in a spontaneous game of tag.

Zeno sat on the ground with his legs crossed in front of him, scarf bundled up to his nose as a chilly wind blew by. "Zeno wants the little miss to win!!"

"But what about me?" Tae-yeon whined with big eyes, doubling over in a fit of giggles as Hak scooped him up, tickling his stomach. "Hak— hehe!! Stop!!"

His big brother didn't let up until Hani tackled him with a warrior cry, latching her tiny arms around his neck to get him off of her friend. Hak stood up with a loud but playful roar, chasing the two around the empty field until all of them collapsed in a fit of ringing laughter.

Hours passed before the four reentered into the house, teeth chattering with the need for a hot beverage.

Jae-ha had disappeared back upstairs. Something about a project with Kija and Yona that he had yet to complete. But Calista was still in the kitchen, and now so was Yoon.

Calista told the freezing bunch to go change into something warmer so that they didn't catch a cold and instructed her brother to sift through her closet to find spare jackets for the little ones. While he was busy doing that, she gathered what she needed to make them something hot so that they could warm up on the inside.

Coffee for Hak, and hot chocolate for the kids and Zeno.

Helping the small children onto the kitchen stools on the opposite side of the island where Yoon was at so that they didn't accidentally get in his way, Calista made sure they weren't going to fall off but guiding them to first blow on their hot chocolate before taking a small sip. Things wouldn't go well for the rest of the evening if they burned their tongues while attempting to chug the drink.

Hani swung her feet playfully, emerald eyes eager as she reached for the liquid chocolate.

Pulling back her hand that held the steaming, small mug, Calista stared at her intently. "Drink it slowly, okay, little one?"

She nodded enthusiastically, making grabby hands for it. The older girl finally handed it over, watching her carefully for a minute to make sure she was being careful. The little girl had a history of being too hurried that had unfortunate consequences.

Three sets of footsteps could be heard from the second floor as the triplets ran down the stairs, skidding to a halt once they reached the kitchen, resembling dominoes as Nier crashed into Opal and Yue crashed into his brothers. They fell into a heap on the carpeted floor, with a very winded Tae-jun trailing after them.

Stifling a giggle as the energetic boys sprang back up, she clapped a hand over her mouth as the sound escaped nonetheless and she was faced with three playful brooding looks.

"I didn't do anything." Calista claimed, shrieking and then breaking into a run the second she saw the look in their eyes.

"Get her!!!" Opal screamed, chasing her through the house with his brothers hot on his tail.

"Wait what?! Why me?!?!" She yelled over her shoulder, weaving in and out of the corridors at a breaknecking speed.

Dodging the sharp corner that separated the living room and the foyer, she twisted and turned throughout the extensive first floor of the house. Her memorization of every nook and cranny came in handy. They stumbled after her, not quite as fluent in the layout as she was, eventually giving up and declaring her victory.

"Marshy!!" Calista yelled, completely out of breath, resting her hands on her knees. "When's Gramps coming over?"

Hak checked his watch, keeping Yona at bay with the other hand as he held her out at arms length. They were playing a game of charades with Opal and Yue since Nier declined to have anything to do with lifting a finger after that exhausting chase through the house.

"In an hour." He answered her leisurely, a smirk of amusement stretching across his features as the redhead puffed out her cheeks in frustration. "Yoon, what's for dinner?"

"Hold your horses, you rare beasts!!" Yoon shouted over his shoulder, bustling around the massive kitchen, doing a hundred things at once.

Peering over the kitchen island, Calista tapped on his shoulder when she saw a pause in his purposeful stride.

"Anything I can do to help?" She offered.

She was a complete klutz in the kitchen, but she still wanted to be there for him so that he wasn't so stressed. Still, she wasn't sure if she brought anything to the table. What could a genius pretty boy possibly need from a clumsy girl like her?

Calista could barely keep track of Tae-yeon and Hani as they skipped around, their tiny heads bobbing into view every time one of them got too excited and started jumping up and down.

Yoon never got a chance to answer her as he saw her speed towards the door the second she heard it ring.

Throwing it open, Calista was surprised to find Gi-gan standing on the other side instead of Mundok. Nevertheless, she quickly invited her inside so that the elder woman was out of the cold.

"Would you like some tea?" She offered, taking her coat off and hanging it up for her on the antique coat rack Yona got from a thrift shop. "Is it that time already?"

Gi-gan rubbed her hands together in an effort to get the blood flowing again, sending the raven-haired girl a rare warm smile. "No, no, not yet. The little ones are going trick-or-treating later, yes? Tea sounds wonderful, girl. Thank you."

Flashing her a grin, she led her into the family room filled with laughter and all sorts of shenanigans.

Jae-ha stood up immediately, greeting his old guardian with a trademark, suggestive remark that had the elder smacking him upside the head for his language.

"I didn't teach you that, you brat." Gi-gan fired at him mercilessly.

Simply smiling, Jae-ha dodged the second blow aimed at his head, green ponytail streaming behind him as he escaped her. "Now, Captain, you wouldn't want to scratch a face this beautiful, would you?"

"You overestimate your beauty."

The offended gasp at the flat retort had everyone dying of laughter.

As Calista caught her breath, she boiled some water, gaze drifting to a mop of golden hair that came bounding up to her hopefully. Steering Hani away from the stove so that she didn't accidentally burn herself like last time she got too close, she crouched down to the little girl's level, who now was avoiding her gaze.

"Hey... what's the matter, little one?"

Hani pouted slightly, emerald orbs rounding as she exclaimed, "Can we make caramel apples?"

Chuckling, Calista pushed herself up and held out her hand. The golden-haired girl eagerly took it, pulling out the apples from the fridge as the older one fetched the caramel dip from the pantry.

"Guys!!" She shouted over the noise of their heated game of monopoly. "We're making caramel apples if you want to join!!"

"Not now, Bat-Ears!!" Hak fired back. "I'm just about to win!!"

Rolling her eyes, a crafty smile played upon her lips. "He's cheating."

"I KNEW IT!!!!!" Kija yelled, bolting up.

"Zeno wanted to join!!"

Jae-ha smoothly got to his feet as the two went head to head, whisking Tae-yeon away from the chaotic scene while the two of them bickered over who was right, the triplets egging on the grown men without any hesitation.

Tae-jun was lounging on the couch with Heuk-chi, flipping through the channels on the TV, trying to ignore the massive headache he had coming on.

Swiftly turning off the fire as the kettle began to whistle, Calista placed some jasmine tea leaves in a porcelain cup, leaving it alone to steep for a couple of minutes. Jae-ha and Yona had been the ones to convince Hak they needed nice silverware and fine china. Her idiot-of-a-brother was going to buy plastic utensils and plates from the dollar tree for crying out loud!

She set it down silently on the end table next to Gi-gan, trying not to disturb her.

Yona and Gi-gan were engaged in a casual conversation while the rest of them dipped fuji apples in smooth caramel, placing the finished but messy treats on a parchment paper lined tray so that the taffy treat could set.

The children eagerly waited by the countertop, much too hyper to eat one to even think about sitting down.

Calista gave up trying to pry them away from the island, leaving them to do whatever they wanted now that Yoon was finished making dinner and the kitchen was no longer that hazardous. Collapsing on a velvet chair, she sprawled herself out lazily, done moving for the rest of the day.

Her eyebrows drew together in confusion as she heard the doorbell ring, but sat up with a groan and ran to answer it when no one else got up.

It wasn't even five yet and people were already trick-or-treating?! Unbelievable.

Flinging open the door to give whoever was on the other side a piece of her mind, all words died on her tongue when cropped, blue hair flashed into view. She clapped a hand over her mouth in shock, taking in the signature red marks decorating his cheekbones and those piercing, golden eyes.

Calista choked on air, tears pricking at the back of her eyes.

"Shin-ah?"