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novahreign · 26 days ago

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Terry Richmond x black fem

Summary: Charlie is at her wits end running her household by herself. She just needs one thing and that’s her husband. (Hoping to get better at summaries)

Angst, Fluff.

I hope you enjoy!

Charlie was at her wits end. She swallowed the hard jump in her throat as she stirred the tomato sauce for the spaghetti. She tapped the spoon on the edge of the pan, then it set it on a napkin. She checked her phone, it read 5:20 p.m, her husband Terry would be home soon. He had gone to pick up one of their twin sons, Terry Jr “Tj” from baseball camp. The other twin was currently staring her down, concerned etched in his face.

“You okay, mama?” He was just like his father-observant and empathetic.

“Im okay Tye, thank you.” She managed to give him a small smile, hoping that would keep him from asking any further questions.

“Alright.”

He turned his attention back to building his Lego battleship. Charlie turned the fire down, letting the sauce simmer.After, popping some garlic knots in the oven, she went to check on her other set of twins-girls.

“Callie, Truth? What are you girls doing?”

Callie was propped up on a bean bag pillow, intently watching Bluey, while Truth sang “Girl on Fire” at the top of her lungs, repeating the same line over and over.

“What are you girls doing?” She asked again, her eyes scanned the playroom-it was a mess. Dress up clothes, magnets, pretend food and foam blocks were scattered all over the floor. “Girls!” She huffed, “what did we talk about? You’re not suppose to pull all of the toys out, like this.”

“Truth did it.”

“Nuh uh, Callie did!” She frowned, “You did that Callie, stop lying!”

Charlie had to keep from rolling her eyes. The last thing she needed was breaking up a fight between her toddler twins “It’s both of y’all’s toys, so you two, need to work together.” She clapped her hands “get to it.”

“Hey bubba boy.” She cooed, kneeling down peppering kisses on his cheeks “Ooo, Carter Jay, you stink.” She got him out of the walker, grabbed a diaper and the pack of wipes. She laid him on the couch to change him.

Their living room looked like a nursery. She had just finished cleaning it that morning, and it was almost right back to how it was before. She sighed deeply, feeling the lump starting to form again and the tension build even more in her body. She had just threw away Carter’s diaper when she caught a glance at the camera, neither Truth or Callie were doing what they were told.

“Girls!” She yelled, causing Carter to jump. “I’m sorry bubba.” She chuckled. Her poor baby boy was looking at her like she was crazy.

She placed Carter back into the walker, who immediately stared crying. “You’re okay baby, you’re okay.” She moved to cut the stove off and took the bread of the oven. “Tye, could you watch him for a minute please, while I go check on your sisters?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Don’t take him out though, please.”

“I got you mama”.

Back upstairs, After correcting them, she helped the girls picked up their toys, placing them in their designated spots, with a warning to not pull all the toys out again. She grabbed the remote, turning off the television. She scooped up Callie, placing her on her hip.

“Bluey!” Callie whined

“We aren’t watching Bluey anymore. You’re going to eat dinner, take a bath and go to bed.”

She slid down Charlie’s body, melting to the floor. Callie was their dramatic child. Carter spotted his mama and started up crying again.

“Great, now I have two kids crying,” she thought to herself as she took Carter back out of his walker.

“Yall go wash your hands for Dinner, you to Tye.”

“Aw man, but I’m not done yet mama.” She shot him a look.

“Yes ma’am” he hopped down from the stool. “Don’t touch my stuff Truth.”

“I’m not going to touch it, bubby, I’m just looking at it.” Her green eyes peeking over the counter.

“You better not.”

The garage door opened and Terry and his Jr, walked in. Truth immediately ran to him with her arms outstretched “Daddy!” He happily picked her up, planting kisses and telling her how much he missed and loves her.”

“Hey mama,” Tj wrapped his arms around her waist

“Hey sweetie, how was camp?”

“It was good, and fun! I hit a dinger and got three home runs.”

“That’s my guy.” They high-fived

He had a big smile on his face, showing his two missing front teeth ”Yeah, everybody can just call me Benny “the jet” Rodriguez now.” He hit the griddy dance.

Charlie laughed, pressing a kiss to his forehead “Okay, Benny. How about you, griddy yourself to bathroom and wash up, you’re so sweaty, ugh.” He tickled Carter’s feet, causing the baby to laugh. “I’m gonna get those legs Carter boy.”

Charlie rushed him along “Go baby, quick, quick, quick.”

Terry leaned against the counter, taking in their encounter. Charlie turned toward him and sticking Carter out for him “Here you go, Say, Hi Daddy.”

Terry nibbled on his chunky boy. “Hey baby.” He leaned down, kissing her lips.

“Hi, honey.” She was just about to lean into him, when Callie started up her wailing. Charlie let out a frustrating huff.

“What’s up with her “he nodded towards Callie.

Charlie just looked at him.

“Oh.”

“Exactly.”

Understanding how their child operated from time to time. Callie was no longer crying because of Bluey, but because no one wanted to play with her, although no one was playing but sitting at the table, ready to eat.

He looked at Callie, his sweet little baby twin. Tears streaming down her red cheeks. Out of all his kids, she was most like him as a child, not only that, she looked the most like him, from the skin complexion, to the eyes, even down to the big ears. He looked from his daughter to his wife. She wore a weary expression.

“Baby.” He called out to her

“Hum.” She answered as she put the plates of food on the table for the kids.

He stopped her from making another plate, “How was your day beautiful?” As she looked at him, there, he saw the unshed tears. He pulled her into him.

“I need your words baby.” He said as he ran a hand up and down her back. He adjusted Carter who stopped playing with his ear to look at his mommy. “Talk to me baby.”

She patted his chest. “Not good, but I’ll be fine.”

He’s known this woman for twelve years, and knew that she was no where near fine. He understood that this wasn’t exactly the right time, so he let it go-for now.

He hooked his arm around Tye, who was passing him by. “What’s up son.”

“What’s up dad!” He dapped his father up.

“You ain’t been giving your mama, a hard time, have you?”

“No, Sir.”

“That’s what I love to hear, holding it down while your daddy’s gone.” he kissed his forehead. “Your legos looking good. I’m going it have to check it out after dinner.”

Tye smiled, he was happy that his daddy was home. “I love you dad.”

“I love you too.”

They sat at the table as a family, well all except for Callie, who was still pouting.

“Callie, are you gonna eat your food?” Tye asked his little sister.

“Yeah, Callie. You gonna be hungry.”

She grunted at her twin, “Leave me alone Truth.”

Truth rolled her eyes and waved her off “whatever.”

Terry and Charlie pressed their lips together to keep from laughing. Charlie shook her head as she broke up Carter’s noodles, then turned back to look at Callie

“Callie, when Daddy starts washing dishes. Dinner will be over and you’re not going to be able to eat,so, if you’re hungry, you need to come eat.”

Callie didn’t say anything, just looked at Charlie.

“Did you hear your mother?” Terry’s calm but firm voice broke Callie’s gaze away from her mother’s. She nodded her head.

“I needs your words Callie Marie.”

“Yes sir.” She pouted.

“Alright, then. Come eat your food.”

She started crawling on the tile for “Stand up and walk.” She did what her daddy told her and sat down next to her mother. She looked at Charlie for sympathy “I’m glad that you decided to join us. Eat your food please.” She cast a quick glance at her father and did what her mama asked of her.

Once dinner was over and the kitchen was cleaned, Terry helped the boys with their legos. The girls were coloring and Charlie was playing with Carter on the couch.

“Uh oh, ooooo, mommy!” Callie jumped on the arm of the couch and tapped her repeatedly. “Mommy, Truth colored on the wall.”

“What?!” Charlie got up and sure enough, Truth had taken crayons to her newly painted walls, “Did you do this?”

Truth slowly shook her head .

”No ma’am! You know better than that Truth!” She grabbed a soapy rag and tried to scrub it off

“Callie did it too.” She said throwing her sister under the bus.

“Nuh huh!” Callie yelled from the couch

Callie wasn’t being honest. Charlie made out her name on the wall. Where she was practicing.

“Callie, you did, because you tried writing your name. Why would yall do that? Put the crayons on the counter.” She kept scrubbing “How the Fu-it’s not even coming off!” She stood up. “Yall are done for the night! We’re going upstairs,taking baths and going to bed.”

The girls started crying. “No, I don’t want to hear it.” She lead the girls upstairs “Yall knew better. Boys! Yall have thirty minutes with the legos and then it’s showers and bed, you hear me?”

“Yes ma’am.” They looked at eachother, glad that they weren’t on the receiving end of their mother’s frustration.

She got the girls bathed and in their PJs.

“I’m sorry for coloring in the wall

Mommy, I love you.” Truth hugged her.

“I’m sorry too, mommy.”

She sighed.”Tomorrow is a new day, we’ll make better choices.”

They asked for a bedtime story, she declined and they knew better than to start whining, she kissed them good night and left the room. When she made it back downstairs, she noticed the boys were missing and downstairs was damn near spotless.

“Where are the boys?”

“Upstairs, showering and getting ready for bed.” Carter was sleeping peacefully in his daddy’s arms. Terry placed him the portable crib.

“Come here beautiful “ she walked into his outstretched arms

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“I’ve ran you a bath, go and take all the time you need.”

“All the time, I need. That’s sounds wonderful. Thanks baby.” She kissed him before going into their bedroom. She stripped out of her clothes and sank into the water “oh my goodness, this feels amazing.” The water was just the right temperature- it soothed her aches. She relaxed in the water, resting her head on the back of the tub. She needed this.

Life away from their family was hard. After leaving the Marines, Terry got into the oil and gas industry, which uprooted their family to a city on the outskirts of Houston, Tx. He made good money working in that industry and with her income as a Dentist, they lived comfortably for a family of seven, but this job required Terry to work turnarounds every now and then and when he did, he rarely saw his family. Again? The money was great, but with him being absent and them having five kids, the load fell solely on Charlie. She loved her kids but it could be a lot. That’s the only down side of not having your family near. She did receive help every other weekend from Olivia, a part time preschool teacher but that was bi-weekends. She was thankful for her but nothing compared to doing all of this with Terry and she was glad that he finished his last week of a thirteen week turnaround today.

Charlie finished her night routine and entered the bedroom, hoping to find Terry, who wasn’t in there. She grabbed her Dahlia lotion from bath and body works and rubbed it all over her body and sprayed a vanilla scented perfume named “Skylar” on her neck, wrist and behind her knees. She was feeling like herself again. She dressed in an oversized Whitney Houston t-shirt and a pair of boys shorts before exiting the room to find her husband.

“Baby?” She whispered just in case he still had Carter. She noticed the living room lights were dim. She stepped out further, confused “oh my gosh, Terry!”

Her husband stood there with a bouquet of roses in his hands and a huge bag from her favorite jewelry store-James Avery. She truly was becoming a Texan girlie. The room was lit with some candles, that smelled amazing. It gave the room a nice ambiance. He had a nice little spread of mini pizzas, fruit and champagne on the living room floor. Charlie laughed as tears came down her face. She held her hands clasped under her chin as she looked at her husband, she slowly moved toward him.

“I love you so much, baby.” She kissed his lips multiple times “thank you for this.”

“Anything for you Char. I love you baby.”

Terry handed her the roses.

“Awww,honey, They’re beautiful. I don’t think we have a vase big enough for these.”

“It’s cool, I got one.”

“Look at you thinking of everything and thinking of me.”

He kissed her hand “I’m always thinking of you Charlie.” She caressed his face.

“Ahhh!!! My husband is amazing. Thank you Jesus!!!” She whispered yelled walking into the kitchen.

Terry laughed as she went to put the flowers in the vase.

The night was filled with some much laughter and teasing one another. They were enjoying this much needed time together. She leaned against Terry and held her arm out. “Baby, I’m loving this charm bracelet, it’s so me.” She admired the charms. All the things she loved. He knew her so well.

“I meant to ask, Did Carter go down good?”

“He put up a fight, but I had him.”

“He’s just used to mommy’s boobies.”

“Well he ain’t have much of choice tonight, with his spoiled ass.”

“Leave my little chocolate baby alone. He does no wrong. However, Callie, that sweet baby twin of yours, sis, is on another level. I love her but my goodness. She’s literally all you. Had me ready to pull all my hair out.

“My baby does no wrong.”

“What do you call that Picasso art work, miss ma’am did on my wall.”

“Wasn’t that Truth?”

She snickered “here you go…honestly that surprised me. I wouldn’t have thought, she would do that. Truth is usually in her own world, miss independent. “Sometimes, I feel like a terrible mom.I hate having to get onto them, in that way, it wasn’t fair, I was already frustrated and then those damn crayons and my wall.”

Terry let her vent, he didn’t say anything until he was sure that she was done.

“I know that we’re still adjusting to life here in Texas and with our family and a lot has fallen on you. I’m thankful for all that you do for me and our kids. You hold us down, like no other. I know we don’t have the support we had in North Carolina, but you have made this transition smooth. I love you and appreciate you so much Charlie. I want you to know that I see you. You’re an amazing wife to me and amazing mother to those kids, they adore you! The way the boys were gushing about you, they have such great respect and love for you, baby! You’re the best mother to my kids. Never doubt your ability to mother them. And I don’t ever want you to feel like you’re a terrible mother or hear that out of your mouth, because you’re not and never will be. Im here for you baby and whatever I need to do, to ease this parenting burden for you, I will do it. I know our time has been few and far between but I promise to make it up to you. Because it’s me and you Charlie. We’re in this together. I got you forever, Charlie. Thank you for holding me down.”

Charlie wiped her tears “thank you for always making me feel seen and heard. Just you listening to understand to me, warms my heart Terry. I swear God handcrafted you for me.”

“I pray that I always show up for you and make you feel safe to be vulnerable.”

She turned in her husband arms and kissed him with everything in her. “I needed you so bad, thank you for being here.”

He kissed her equally as hard. “Let me take care of you.”

She climbed on him, wrapping her legs around his waist. “I know, I tell you all the time but I also really appreciate everything you for us. You’re such a man of honor and I couldn’t imagine anyone else loving me and my babies the way that you do. She licked his lips “the best husband award goes to you….now I want you to make love to me. Show me how much you missed me.”

Terry spent the rest of the night, doing just that.

#aaron pierre #aaron pierre x black reader #terry richmond x black reader #rebel ridge #black love #black family

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wowcatboys · 3 months ago

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trinkets for a magpie.

♡ Lucanis/AFAB Crow Rook ♡

♡TW's: Lucanis's PTSD, implied violence/torture, Lucanis is a little bit of a nasty freak ahhh, Masturbation♡

♡NSFW♡

♡Divider by @cafekitsune ♡

It begins with something small, and almost entirely innocent.

Lucanis awakes to find that Spite has packed them tightly into a previously-unmaterialized closet of the Lighthouse. He’s surrounded by ordinary things—a broom, a large wooden bucket, a fat-bottomed coffee mug stuffed full of paintbrushes. The air tingles with tin and dust. Spite, angry at having control snatched away, snarls in his ear. Give. it. Back! A headache prickles at his temples and the back of his eyes.

Damn this demon. How long has he been out?

Lucanis scrapes his palm against the Lighthouse’s rough walls, grounding himself. Not in the Ossuary. Not in a cell. Back in control. And then he begins to filter through the mental checklist he keeps for when he comes to, in the middle of Spite’s ‘outings’.

He scans the fronts and backs of his arms, feels for broken ribs, gingerly puts all his weight on one foot and then the other. No new scrapes, sprains, or—Maker forbid—tattoos. (Spite had asked a lot of questions after they’d passed by an abysmally drunk pirate in the Hall of Fortune, getting a beetle inked into the fold of their asscheeks. The implication there fills Lucanis with cold dread.)

When he wiggles his toes in his boots, Lucanis realizes he’s missing his left sock. But before he can ask Spite about it, his attention pulls away. There’s a small weight in his breast pocket that wasn’t there before. It’s round and light, and it presses into him gently but insistently.

He fishes it out. It’s cool, fragile. When he opens his hand he sees it’s a dainty glass bottle, no bigger than one of his fingers. It catches the light and bends it softly, shining like spilled lamp oil. A crystal stopper plugs the top. In the bottom, a few drops of clear liquid make a shallow pond. Lucanis recognizes the bottle. He knows immediately where it’s from.

He knows the merchant that sells this. He bought shaving cream from her once, and he remembers the dry soft leather of her hands as she carefully pressed his change into his palm. One of the last kind touches he felt, before he was dragged into the Ossuary and almost forgot such a thing existed.

It’s why he remembers the encounter so well. For a time, before Spite, he unspooled that memory through his brain to soothe himself. To remind himself there really was a world above, beyond the pain and screaming and all that dark, dark water.

The perfume. He blocks his thoughts from revisiting the Ossuary, and focuses on the perfume. He knows it costs thirty four gold pieces and is supposed to smell like sea breeze.

Gingerly, Lucanis twists the glass stopper and holds the bottle to his nose. He inhales.

Sure, there is a bit of sea foam there. But also, underneath, something else. Some kind of spice? Lucanis’s eyes flutter closed. His mind fills as he takes another deep sniff. A hint of patchouli. Post-combat sweat. A kind smile. The color of her hair…

Rook.

Of course it’s Rook’s. Who else would have Antivan perfume?

Panic squeezes his chest as he realizes Spite must’ve stolen it from her. His eyes fly open, and he sends the demon an accusing look.

“You cannot take peoples’ things, Spite,” he rebukes. “Where did you get this? Why did you take it?”

Spite mirrors Lucanis, scowling. His lips curl back from his teeth, and he snarls his response.

“She. Threw it out—we did not. STEAL. It!”

Lucanis hmm’s, at that. The anger on his face softens. The bottle is almost empty, and Spite, for all his terribly annoying and vexingly mischievous tendencies, is not usually a thief. He sniffs the perfume again, considering. If she’s done with it anyway, would it really be so bad to just…keep it?

His secret. Nobody needs to know he has this.

Lucanis remembers that once, when they weren’t quite boys anymore but certainly weren’t men yet, Illario stumbled across a gloriously detailed picture of a naked woman in a book. He remembers how Illario sliced the page free from the book’s spine with assassin’s precision. For months, his cousin kept the paper tightly rolled up and hidden in an empty dagger sheath. He would quietly unfurl it when he was alone in his bedroom, and if he was feeling generous, he would let Lucanis look over his shoulder, too.

He wonders if Illario ever felt this rush of —what was this, tingling down his spine and spreading through his fingertips? Nerves? Adrenaline? Something else entirely?—when he held that picture in his hands, when he rubbed his thumbs reverently over a pair of sketched tits. Did his secret ever feel this precious?

Lucanis feels a twinge guilty. Perhaps even slightly desperate. But as he rewards himself with one last, deep, mouthwatering sniff, one thing is certain—he doesn’t feel regret.

Lucanis empties a small leather sheath and, with careful hands, stows the bottle within. He doubts that Rook will poke inside his weapons stash. But if she ever finds it— he will pretend he hasn’t held it up to his nose every night for months, and blame it on the wisps.

The ring, at least, makes sense. When Lucanis comes back to himself in the middle of a screaming migraine, he understands why Spite took it.

He sits up on his cot, groaning, and reaches to grab it off the shelf his klepto-demon left it on. It’s a thick band, gold flecked throughout with something that looks like little bits of charcoal. The pantry candles flicker lazily in its reflection. As Lucanis holds it between his fingers, he realizes it’s still warm. Like someone left it sitting in the sun.

A shiver races down his back. Did Rook just take this off? Lucanis imagines it. His mind paints her meditation room, and he sees her sink wearily down onto that gem-green settee. He thinks that she would rip her boots off first, maybe, and then flex her toes and groan while she works at the fastenings of her armor.

He forces himself not to think of those strings, those straps, those buckles coming undone under her fingers. Of the skin that swims underneath it all. He has not studied her armor before, while walking behind her in Arlathan Forest and Dock Town and Treviso, he has not mapped it all out in his mind and thought about what he’d need to loosen and unlatch to make it come off. And there is not a rush of heat that comes to his cheeks while he does not think of these things, and it absolutely does not settle low and darkly in his guts.

Lucanis shakes his head. His mind refocuses, and he blames its wandering on Spite. He knows she sets her jewelry on that bookshelf behind the settee, next to Varric’s mirror—he’s seen it piled there, before. She must’ve gotten back from a mission, shucked her combat gear, and fallen immediately into a dead-sleep. Spite, in his wanderings, could have slipped into her room and stolen the ring then. Still warm from use. Still warm from her.

Or…it could be the enchantments, woven through the metal. It makes sense. The ring’s meant to augment fire spells. Of course it would be warm. The latent magic thrumming through the band would make it so.

It isn’t from the gentle heat of her naked hand. It isn’t, it isn’t, it isn’t—it’s magic, just magic. And that’s why Spite took it. Because that little bit of the Fade, bound to the ring, called to something in him. It makes sense, and it’s very simple, and there is nothing more to it.

But this isn’t a discarded perfume bottle. It’s combat gear. It will need to be returned. The realization makes Lucanis’s throat prickle.

Giving it back proves easy enough, though. One doesn’t become a Crow without learning how to lie.

He waits until the next morning, while Rook and Davrin equip their gear. (Lucanis is finished dressing first, as per usual. Even though his armor is the most complex, he’s got the quickest hands.) Lucanis hums Rook’s name behind her as she’s fastening her bootlaces, gently prodding at her attention.

“Rook?” He asks, and when she turns around with a lifted brow, he simply holds up the prize. “I believe you may have left this at the dinner table? I found it in the kitchen.” It’s a convenient lie, easy to spin, even easier to believe. She got stuck with dish duty last night, after all.

“Oh,” Rook says, “thank you.” When she holds out her hand, Lucanis’s brain floods. He knows what Illario would do, here, and the image almost makes his back stiffen.

Illario would purr something dripping thick with honeyish double meaning. He would take her soft hand into his, and slide the ring smoothly onto the correct finger. (And Lucanis does know which finger it belongs to. Her left pinky. He’s noticed her trying to fit it on the others, but it’s too small. It won’t go past the second knuckle.) His brain cannot decide how she would react. Would she stare up at him, shocked by his sudden forwardness? Smile shyly, girlishly? Perhaps rub her thumb over his knuckles before taking her hand away, and make his fluttering heart stop dead in his chest?

But really, it doesn’t matter what she’d do. Because he is not Illario, and he isn’t half so charming, and he shouldn’t be flirting with this breathtaking powerhouse of a woman, anyway. Not when there’s traitors in his shadow, and a demon wedged into the crevices of his mind, and gods to kill.

So Lucanis presses the ring tenderly into her outstretched hand. He ignores the pleasant twinge in his gut as her fingers close around it. And with great willpower, he pulls away first.

Spite is angry to see his prize go. He growls and gnashes his teeth and spits that I. took it—for us!

‘Us’. Lucanis doesn’t like that. So for the afternoon he’s a stone wall to the demon. He lets Spite rage and howl and demand to know why Lucanis gave it back, and he ignores every word.

His mind is full, anyway. It is busy convincing him that he didn’t notice how the ring felt in his fingertips, before depositing it in Rook’s open, waiting palm.

By then, it had gone cold to the touch.

Sharing a body with a demon has its quirks. By far the most irritating is Spite’s tendency for escape attempts. Even Lucanis’s coffee pot runs dry sometimes, and the demon lies in wait to take advantage. All he needs is a second—a moment that Lucanis’s tired eyes close too long, that the edges of his mind get too fuzzy. And then Lucanis wakes, confused, usually to one of his companions body-blocking the eluvian.

On rare occasions, though, something else grabs Spite’s attention. Usually something mundane, some sort of mortal custom that fascinated the demon—Lucanis has come back to himself throwing blank papers into Emmrich’s fireplace, punching a pale lump of bread dough, scraping a dry paintbrush against the Lighthouse’s stucco walls. Odd, to be sure, but Lucanis has learned to roll with it and simply be grateful that at least Spite didn’t try to escape again.

Still. Waking up on top of Harding’s greenhouse with a spoon in his mouth is quite the surprise.

Lucanis sits on the edge, legs dangling over the lip of the roof. His boots and socks are missing, and his pants are messily shoved up to his calves. He regains control of his limbs in the middle of Spite carefully swinging his legs, like he doesn’t quite understand why he’s doing it or what it’s supposed to accomplish. Lucanis’s heels thud against the wall. First the right. Bump. Then the left. Bump.

Vaguely, Lucanis remembers seeing a little elf girl in Dock Town, sitting on the edge of a pier and breaking apart clumps of seafoam with her toes. Spite had watched for a moment and then asked why nobody came along and pushed her in. Strange, Lucanis thinks. It’s so curious, the things Spite’s mind hoards up to try later.

Like the spoon. He has no idea where Spite got that idea from. Lucanis pulls it from his mouth and stares at it; his reflection stares back, dull and warped. He turns it over, noting the intricate carvings spread across the utensil. Some sort of vine twists around the handle and erupts into a flower bud at the base.

The Lighthouse boasts an eclectic collection of silverware, as if it reads the minds of those sitting down for dinner and materializes their vision of what a spoon and fork should look like. He recognizes this design, with its delicate leaves and large silver basin. It’s Rook’s. (Because of course it is.)

Lucanis turns to face Spite. He holds the spoon up at him, and raises an eyebrow.

“Why…?”

Spite smirks wickedly.

“Wanted a taste.”

Heat dusts Lucanis’s cheeks. He swallows thickly and looks back down at the spoon, considering. Not long ago, this had been inside of Rook’s mouth. It had known the velvet of her cheeks, felt the caress of her tongue as she cleaned potato soup from it. The flush of heat travels down his face, all through his chest, down into his undergarments. It’s been scrubbed since they ate—very vigorously, considering Bellara did the dishes last—but still…

Lucanis scans the ground below, just in case. And then, when he sees that the courtyard is empty, he slowly lifts the spoon to his mouth. Tenderly, reverently, he slips it past his lips. He drags the cool metal of the basin back across his tongue. Testing. Searching. Yearning.

But whatever he was hoping to find is not there. Lucanis tastes nothing but the faint, sudsy memory of lemon-basil soap. He closes his eyes, sighing through his nose. He’s so disappointed it’s almost painful.

“Her taste!” Spite proclaims proudly.

“No,” Lucanis corrects. “Just dish soap.”

When Spite spits in frustration and pounds a fist against the greenhouse roof, Lucanis doesn’t chide him. He’s holding back from doing the same damn thing, himself.

Lucanis respects the privacy of others. Really, he does (so long as he’s not been hired to kill them). In normal circumstances, he would’ve put the journal down and walked away. But he regained control of his body about ten seconds ago, and his thoughts are scattered around like the light coming through a suncatcher, and it’s just instinct to examine the book gripped tightly in his hands.

The journal is light. About a hundred pages, he guesses, maybe a little more. It’s leather-bound, dyed to a plummish purple-blue-black. There’s a stub of satin poking out. Unthinking, Lucanis slides his index finger in the journal, right next to the makeshift bookmark, and cracks it open.

And twice as quickly, he snaps it shut. His eyes fall across the handwriting, and he knows immediately that fuck, he just looked inside Rook’s journal. Nobody else writes with such a heavy hand, scraping the pen across the paper like they’re punishing it for something.

Obviously it’s Rook’s, Lucanis berates himself as he squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose. If he took a second to think, he would’ve recognized the cover as Crow leather. He would’ve considered the fact that the satin-scrap bookmark looks suspiciously like a shirt Viago wore until it went out of fashion.

He didn’t read anything, not really. Still, it feels like he’s leered through the open curtains of her mind. The thought disturbs him. He thinks of things he was subjected to in the Ossuary. The blood magic leafing through the folds of his brain. Spite raging against the confines of his skull, ransacking his thoughts, tossing them everywhere before the two learned how to uneasily co-exist in one mind and body.

Of course looking inside Rook’s journal is a tame invasion. It’s free of violence. It’s free of blood. But it feels, in some sense, just as perverse, just as horrid, just as deplorable. He’s taken something from her. Broken into the safety and privacy of her room, and searched through pieces and parts of her life. Does it really matter that it was Spite? It was still his hands that turned her doorknob, his feet that carried him into her bedroom, his eyes that stumbled clumsily across her unspoken thoughts. If he’d been more vigilant, if he’d drank another pot of coffee, if he’d told Spite to stop taking Rook’s Maker-cursed things…

A sudden guilt sits solidly inside him like the pit of a stone fruit. He needs to bring this back. Immediately.

And he needs to stop thinking about the one word he actually read and noticed, the one string of letters that his brain snatched up before he snapped the journal closed. Written in a gentle hand with curling, sloping letters, almost as if Rook eased up on her poor, weary pen, as if she were whispering it into the pages of her journal—

Lucanis.

When Lucanis regains himself, his hands are trembling. His chest is sticky with panic, the muscles through his back tight and tense as piano strings. The hair on his arms—the hair everywhere—stands at attention. There’s an aftertaste of tin draped over his tongue. And all along his body, his skin feels the faint but unmistakable streeeeetch of being somehow pushed and pulled at the same time.

Mierda. Shit, shit, fucking shit. Spite went through the eluvian.

Lucanis is back, hunched on his cot in the pantry, but wherever Spite took them—whatever he did—it cannot be good. Lucanis grits his teeth, pushes back rising nausea, and hisses at the demon looking down at him.

“Spite. What. did. you. do?”

The demon licks his tongue over the sharp, canid lines of his top teeth. When he speaks, his voice simmers.

“Stop. Fussing. Just followed—we followed. Her.”

In a better mindstate, Lucanis would’ve wrinkled his nose at being told not to fuss by a demon. But his brain is still stumbling, scrambling. He digs his teeth into his bottom lip, feels his brow knit together sharply, bunches up the pebble-gray fabric in his fists—and only then realizes he’s even holding something.

He loosens his fists and unwads the fabric in quick, jerky motions. When he holds it up to the light, Spite’s chest puffs out. A show of pride. But Lucanis? His heart drops. All the way to his fucking feet.

It’s underwear. Smalls, specifically. Still deliciously warm from being sandwiched in between skin and layers of clothing and armor. Soft, well-worn, starting to pull loose at those delicate threads that connect the sides. Lucanis’s jaw clenches so tightly his teeth squeak.

He doesn’t need to ask whose they are. He recognizes the slate gray fabric. An arrow snagged Rook’s pants one time, ripping them across her right hipbone. He touched himself to that shade of gray for three nights in a row and felt pathetic as a teenager. Like some horny boy, pawing and panting in the dark over a flash of underwear and the barest hint of skin. Maker, how she undoes him.

Lucanis’s mind races to answers before he can even ask Spite the questions out loud. They share a body, after all—he knows this demon. He guesses that Spite noticed Rook stumble sleepily towards the eluvian with a towel folded up in her arms. Where she bathes, he doesn’t know, but he’s seen her emerge from the eluvian with wet hair before.

Lucanis breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth. He does this three times. Then he carefully sets the underwear down over his knee, and shifts on the cot so that his trousers don’t feel so Maker-forsaken tight.

“Spite,” Lucanis asks cautiously. “Tell me she didn’t see you take this.”

Spite sneers, nose curling like the very thought offends him.

“No! Of course, not!”

“You’re sure?”

“Was cautious. Watched her. Waited. ‘Til she put her hair underneath.”

And ah. Qué pena—that’s too much. The knowledge that Rook was naked. That he saw her naked, that she was close enough and undressed enough for him to map out constellations in her freckles and witness her scars, places where she’d been stabbed but was too strong and too stubborn to die. All that, in his eyes, but not for him. For Spite. He saw her, but the memory isn’t his to keep.

Lucanis hates masturbating. With Spite lurking, the act is colored with shame. But right now, he can’t stop himself. His skin is burning hotter than Andraste, his mind is all sharp edges, his underwear constricts his cock like a snake that wants to kill. He thinks, he knows, if he doesn’t relieve himself, he’ll surely die or go mad with lust.

He looks down at the smallclothes on his lap. With a reverent hand, he traces the seam running horizontally across the crotch. Then he sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, and opens his pants with a quiet, slow ziiiiiip.

“Tell me…what she looked like,” he asks, and his voice has never been so gentle or soft to Spite before, never so pleading. He almost says please. (Almost. He lies to himself as he shimmies his pants down past his hips, and pretends that he still has some dignity left. At least enough that he won’t beg from a demon.)

Spite’s lips curl up in malevolent glee. Whether he’s pleased from replaying the sight of Rook’s body, or he’s just happy to have the upper hand for once, Lucanis isn’t sure. As he spits on his palm, he cannot bring himself to care. The cool air of the pantry smooths over his thighs, whispers over the ultra-sensitive tip of his penis. There’s already a glistening drop, leaking out from the slit. Lucanis thinks he should feel shame.

He does not.

“Like a statue,” Spite starts, and Lucanis firmly wraps his hand around the base of his shaft. Not much to go off of, but he doesn’t need much. Lucanis has memorized the cello-curves of her body, the smell of her. He rubs the seam of her smalls and groans. Up, down. He wants to go slow but he burns, and he can’t.

“Squeaked in the stream. Cold water. She shivered. Made her chest. Jiggle. Like jam. On a spoon!”

Lucanis, Maker help him, can see it. He hears her voice squeal high and girlish, in a way she never lets the others hear. He sees how the cold water beads up on her skin and how her hair drinks up the stream, then falls in limp wet ropes over her shoulders. He sees the chill curl into her nipples—he sees them pebble, and he swallows thickly. He squeezes his cock tighter, pumps faster. A groan erupts from deep in his chest. It’s not enough. He needs to smell her.

With his free hand, Lucanis grips Rook’s slate gray underwear and brings it to his face. And he inhales like he’s a man drowning. He just reached the surface—these smallclothes are the air he needs to survive for even a single moment longer. He moans, and it comes out quiet, muffled by the fabric. Mostly he smells sweat, but it’s good because it’s her. But underneath there’s a whiff of her perfume, and deeper still he can detect the salt-cream musk of pussy.

She’s divine. What did he ever do, to earn the right to even breathe in her presence?

Lucanis’s mind flirts with putting that fucking seam in his mouth, and for a moment, he balks at the desperation. But he’s alone. Who would Spite tell? He’s in the depths of his shame and need already. He pumps, hard and fast, and his muscles coil from his toes all the way up into his neck. Everything everywhere is too tight, too hot, he needs her, fuck it—

Lucanis growls and takes the smalls into his mouth, feels the seam line pressing into his tongue. He bites down with violence and moans around it. Rook’s taste—mierda. There’s no words to describe it. Not in any language he knows.

He can only think in feelings, in images. How velvety and warm her pussy would be against his tongue; how it would taste just like this. Tang, sweetness, salt, paradise. He would lick and lick and lick until she dripped down his chin like the first bite of summer fruit, ripe and leaking and staining his beard with juice. Her thighs pressing against his head, muffling her whimpering, drowning out the wet suck of his mouth on her clitoris. He would make her cum and cum again. His imagination keeps shifting between giving her pubic hair or shaving it clean; between feeling those course, perfect threads in his mouth or feeling his tongue glide against folds smoother than glass—

Lucanis’s thumbnail brushes the underside of his tip just so, and he imagines it’s Rook’s nail instead, and that’s all it takes. He whimpers into her undergarments, biting down. His body shakes and trembles like he’s just been blasted close-range with an electricity spell—his toes curl so hard, he thinks he feels scraping inside his boots. Warm cum jets from him, splatters his pants and coats his still-pumping hand. He’s on fire, yes, but it’s so fucking satisfying. Lucanis rides the last sweet shocks of his orgasm to their very edge, and he imagines Rook sweeping up a thin stream of white and sucking it off her finger.

Dios mio. He dares not imagine that she could ever be as obsessed with him as he is with her. Even in post-orgasm bliss, with his fingers around his softening cock and his head pleasantly fuzzy with relief, he won’t let himself think that her fingers might, on some lonely nights, sneak past her waistband with similar thoughts. He won’t let himself consider that she might sneak into the pantry while he makes dinner, might bury her face into the stiff bulge of his pillow, and silently breathe him in. Surely, she does not put her lips to his coffee cups, searching for his taste there in the dark roast.

She’s beautiful, she’s a goddess, she’s a godkiller. What is he to her, other than an adoring weapon, waiting in her shadow to be used?

But in the afterglow of such an intense orgasm, Lucanis finds it impossible to think of anything too challenging. Feelings, desires. What’s deserved and what isn’t. He allows himself to wallow in the pleasant buzz—not quite happy, but for once, content. The flames lick the candles downwards, and Spite remains thankfully, blissfully quiet. Lucanis stays like that for a long moment. It’s been so long since he’s felt so comfortable in his body. So safe. He dares not dwell on all the implications of that.

When Lucanis finally stirs, it is only because his neck has started to seize at an impossible angle. After wiping himself clean, he turns to Rook’s smallclothes. He cannot imagine how he’s supposed to sneak these back into her wardrobe without her noticing. And what could he even say if she caught him red handed, trying to slip her sex-smelling underclothes into a pile of her dirty laundry? Or even worse, if one of the other companions found him. Emmrich? Davrin? Maker’s breath, Taash? Better not to risk it.

And perhaps that is an excuse. But it is an excuse that settles comfortably in his stomach, and one that soothes his mind as he pulls the dagger sheath from its hiding place. Lucanis picks Rook’s smallclothes up from his cot with admiring hands. He rubs his thumb affectionately over the smalls’ waistband. Then he folds it up, carefully and tender-fingered as if he were handling a love letter. He slips the roll of fabric into the sheath, fitting it next to her perfume. His prizes, his little trinkets.

He will never admit it. But Lucanis thinks that maybe, just maybe, these tokens are payment enough to kill any god Rook asks.

#lucanis dellamorte #lucanis x rook #dragon age lucanis #da4 #da4 lucanis #dragon age #dragon age the veilguard #dragon age veilguard

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mylovesstuffs · 24 days ago

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Courting The Court - Boo Seungkwan

Genre: Non idol au, romance, slight comedy and sports

Pairing: Seungkwan × fem!reader

Content: Best friends-to-lovers, college basketball, banter, kiss, teasing, excitement, competitive sports, transition to romance, tenderness, college au, mutual pining.

Word count: 2165 words

A/N: Ahhh, basketball player Seungkwan truly has my whole heart. I’d probably combust if I ever saw him on the court in real life. Honestly, this didn’t turn out exactly how I pictured it, so who knows? Maybe I’ll give basketball player!Seungkwan another shot in the future! Fingers crossed you enjoyed it anyway. Wishing the happiest, most sunshine-filled birthday to our adorable Boo 🍊🎉💛

There’s something about college basketball games that gets everyone buzzing. The squeak of sneakers on polished wood, the sharp whistle of referees, the roar of the crowd when a basket is made—it’s electrifying. Today is no exception. The indoor court is packed, and you’re in the middle of it all, clutching a foam finger that your best friend forced into your hand five minutes ago.

But let’s get one thing straight: you’re not here for the game. Oh, no. You’re here for him.

Boo Seungkwan.

The star of the team, the golden boy of your college, and the bane of your existence or at least that’s what you tell yourself. Because liking your best friend is bad enough. Liking your best friend when he’s out there looking like a god in a jersey? Downright humiliating.

“Y/N, you’re staring again,” your other friend nudges you, snickering.

“I’m observing,” you snap, eyes glued to the court as Seungkwan takes his position.

And oh, what a position it is. He’s crouched slightly, knees bent, his hands hovering in front of him like he’s ready to pounce. His expression is focused, serious—a contrast to the Seungkwan you know, who once tripped over his own shoelaces while trying to pick up a pen.

“Okay, let’s be real,” you mutter under your breath. “Does he have to look this good?”

The referee’s whistle blows, and the game starts. Seungkwan’s team has the ball first, and he’s off like a shot.

Let’s pause here for a second because you need to understand something: Seungkwan is good. Like, really good. He moves with the kind of grace that makes you forget he’s tall…174 centimeters to be exact and built like he could bench-press you. He dribbles down the court, weaving between defenders like it’s nothing.

That piece of shit isn’t flinching. Like, at all.

The ball passes between his hands and those of his teammates, a blur of movement so fast you can barely keep track. And then, just as the opposing team tries to block him, Seungkwan fakes left, spins right, and—bam! A perfect three-pointer.

The crowd goes wild. You? You might’ve forgotten how to breathe.

“Y/N, you’re gripping the foam finger like it owes you money,” your friend points.

You let go of it immediately, crossing your arms as if that will stop the embarrassing thrum of your heart.

The game continues, and Seungkwan is everywhere. He’s blocking shots, stealing the ball, setting up plays. It’s like watching a movie where he’s the star and everyone else is just there to make him look good. At one point, he dives for the ball, landing hard on the court but popping back up like it’s no big deal.

By the time the final quarter rolls around, the score is too close. Seungkwan’s team is up by one point, but the other team has possession. The tension in the room is palpable, every pair of eyes fixed on the court.

You’re gripping the edge of your seat now, your heart in your throat as the clock ticks down. Ten seconds. Nine. Eight.

The opposing team makes a desperate shot, but Seungkwan leaps up, his hand smacking the ball away just in time. He grabs it, sprinting down the court like his life depends on it. Three seconds left. Two.

And then, in one fluid motion, he jumps, shoots, and—swish.

Game over.

The room erupts into cheers as Seungkwan’s team floods the court. He’s grinning now, that big, stupid grin that makes your chest ache.

“Go talk to him,” your friend nudges you.

“What? No! Why?”

“Y/N.”

Before you can argue, Seungkwan spots you from across the room. His eyes light up, and he starts making his way toward you, sweat-soaked jersey and all.

“Hey,” he says, his voice slightly hoarse but still annoyingly attractive.

“Hey,” you manage, your mouth suddenly dry.

“You stayed,” he says, his grin softening into diabetes.

“Of course I stayed,” you say, trying to sound casual. “It’s not every day I get to see you humiliate the other team.”

He laughs, and the sound is warm, like sunlight on your skin. “I couldn’t have done it without you cheering me on.”

Your cheeks heat. “I wasn’t cheering.”

“Liar,” he teases, stepping closer. “I saw you.”

“You were supposed to be watching the ball,” you mutter, refusing to meet his gaze.

“Hard to focus on that when you’re in the crowd.”

Your stomach flips not understanding what he's saying, so you look up at him, startled. He’s closer than you realized, his eyes searching yours like he’s trying to figure something out.

“Kwan…”

“Can I say something?” he asks, his tone uncharacteristically hesitant.

You nod, your throat too tight to speak.

“I think… I think I like you,” he says, his words tumbling out in a rush. “I mean, I know I like you. I’ve liked you for a while now, and I just—”

You don’t let him finish.

Instead, you reach up, your hands trembling slightly as you cup his face, pulling him down gently until his lips are hovering just inches from yours. His breath is warm against your skin, his eyes locked onto yours with surprise. Without a second thought, you close the distance, pressing your lips to his in a soft, lingering kiss. The moment is everything you’ve dreamed of—sweet, tender, and full of promises. It’s like time slows down, and the world around you fades away. When you finally pull back, your breath shallow and your heart pounding in your chest, you find him staring at you, wide-eyed and breathless, as though he can’t quite believe what just happened. His lips are parted, his gaze intense, but there’s a soft smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, and you swear it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.

“Did that answer your question?” you ask, your voice shaky but sure.

The whole gym seems to freeze for a second. The crowd, who moments ago was cheering for Seungkwan's game-winning shot, now seems utterly distracted by the sudden, unexpected turn of events. Some are frozen, staring in disbelief at the two of you, while others can’t help but whisper in each other’s ears. A few students nudge one another, grinning at the obvious change in the air.

“Wait—did they just kiss?” someone murmurs from the bleachers.

“Is this real?” another voice calls out, clearly excited.

Seungkwan’s teammates, who are still catching their breath from the game, look from one another to the scene unfolding, half-smiling and half-giggling. “Man, I did not see that coming,” one says, but his tone is light, almost impressed. A few more laughs ripple through the hallway, and you catch someone making a, ‘pick me’ gesture under their breath. The competitive spirit of the game, however, has already shifted into something lighter, something personal, now that this has become a spectacle for the entire room.

In the corner, a teacher who had been discreetly observing the game now watches the scene unfold, slightly confused but trying to remain composed. The teacher shakes their head, as if wondering if this is the moment to intervene or simply let the students enjoy their youthful drama. “I thought this was just a basketball game,” they mutter under their breath. As for the referee, still catching his breath from calling the game, he watches the two of you with a raised brow. He shakes his head, smiling to himself.

Your friend, standing nearby, has her mouth hanging open. “FINALLY!” she whispers loudly enough for the person standing next to her to hear. She crosses her arms smugly, clearly gloating about being right all along.

Meanwhile, Seungkwan still seems as shocked as you feel, but he smiles like he’s won a gold medal. As the noise continues, it’s almost as though the entire room has taken a collective pause to watch the two of you, waiting for the next moment. But Seungkwan’s grin grows wider with every second that passes.

“Yeah,” Seungkwan says, his grin lighting up the whole room, like it’s a celebration of its own. He places his hands on your waist, steadying you as if you might float away in the middle of the storm of emotions buzzing around you both. “Yeah, it did.”

The buzz of the game has barely settled when Seungkwan pulls you away from the chaos of the court, towards the quieter hallway leading to the locker rooms. His hand is warm against the small of your back, guiding you through the crowd of teammates in the hallway who are still buzzing with excitement.

You’re trying your best to act casual, to pretend that you’re not absolutely floating on air, but let’s be real here, you’re so far from casual. Every time Seungkwan’s eyes flicker over to you, your heart does that ridiculous thing where it skips a beat and you feel like you might just float off into the atmosphere. It’s like your chest is too small to hold all of the emotions swirling around in there. You’re not sure if it’s because of the game, the kiss, or the fact that you’ve just entered a whole new chapter in your life. But whatever it is, it feels like you’ve won something, something much more important than a basketball game.

Seungkwan opens the locker room door for you with a grin. “Stay for a bit, yeah?” He doesn’t even wait for your response, already ushering you inside.

The smell of sweat and the loud blurry voices of his teammates from the hallway fill the room, but all you can focus on is him, the way his messy hair is falling over his forehead, the way his eyes keep darting to you, checking for your reaction like he’s afraid he did something wrong.

You give him a light shove as you walk past him. "You did good out there, superstar."

He snorts, following you to the small bench by the wall. “Stop it. You’re going to make me blush.” He sits down, but not before adjusting his jersey, the fabric clinging to his skin, accentuating his shoulders and chest. Your mind quickly wanders to how he looked on the court—sweat glistening on his skin, focused yet relaxed, like he could do this all day.

"You're allowed to blush, you know," you say, sitting next to him, trying to keep your voice casual, despite the way your heart is racing. “It’s cute.”

“Not around you,” he replies, his voice instantly low, playful.

A beat of silence hangs in the air, your heart pounding in your chest, and it’s clear that both of you are trying to adjust to this new... thing between you. The whole best friends-to-lovers transition is tricky enough, but now that it’s out in the open, it feels like the ground is shifting beneath you.

“So,” he begins again, his tone a little softer this time, like he’s searching for the right words. “I was thinking... Maybe we could grab dinner tonight? Just us.”

You feel your cheeks warm at the thought of being alone with him, but the smile you give him is genuine. “Sounds perfect.”

His face lights up, and he reaches over, ruffling your hair with his now-free hand. “Perfect. I’m serious, though—this was a long time coming. I can’t believe it took me this long to get you alone.”

You roll your eyes, leaning back against the locker with a sigh. "Oh, yeah, I’m sure it was so hard to get me alone.”

“Oh, it was!” Seungkwan laughs, the sound filling the small space between you, and you can’t help but chuckle too. “Always surrounded by people, always too busy with your own stuff.”

You’re surprised by how much you like hearing him talk about you this way. That little tug in your chest, the warmth spreading through your stomach—it’s all so much more than you ever expected. “Well, maybe I wasn’t exactly waiting around for you, you know.”

He tilts his head, raising an eyebrow. “Really?”

You grin, leaning closer to him, just enough to make his breath hitch slightly. “Maybe,” you murmur, “I wanted you to work for it a little.”

Seungkwan’s eyes sparkle with amusement and something deeper. “Oh, trust me, I’ve been working for it..”

Before you can reply, one of his teammates bursts in, clapping him on the back. “Boo! That last shot was insane! You’re a legend!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Seungkwan teases, brushing it off with a grin. But his hand brushes against yours.

The teammate notices and raises an eyebrow at both of you, his grin growing wider as he crosses his arms. “Oooo, you’re here too?” His tone teasing, dripping with mock curiosity as he now looks at you.

“Shut up!” Seungkwan says, shoving him playfully. His cheeks flush a deep pink, and he looks at you, embarrassed yet proud. You laugh, nudging him gently.

Boo Seungkwan isn’t just the star of the team. He’s the star of your heart, too.

⌦ 🍊 © mylovelyfics | est. 2024. thank you for reading—your reblog means everything. until we meet again, stay cozy and keep dreaming! ◜ᴗ◝

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sourbites · 4 months ago

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Cottonmouth

People are starting to catch those early-autumn colds. A sneeze here, a cough there. It makes yours and Kirk's sniffling less conspicuous. It wasn't that long of a walk to your shared hotel: probably a block or three. Neither of you were really paying any attention. The air smelled tartly crisp when you were out, saccharine-sweet from the leaves changing from green to browns and oranges and yellows. Some people were even getting out their carved pumpkins to dress up their doorsteps for the mid-October evenings that always seem to come earlier and earlier each year.

The heavy pack of beer is swooshed on the floor as soon as you make it into the hotel room. Stepping through the threshold, you realise just how bitterly cold it's getting. Your nose is chilled, your fingertips numbing, and your coat is suddenly making things a little too warm. You shake it off, ignoring the rattle of loose coins and other amenities, and hang it up above the radiator, hopefully so the rising heat will dry it, curing the rain-dampened material.

"It's still a good night," Kirk hums to you, interlacing his fingers with yours to hook you into his chest. You glide the heels of your palms under his too-big leather jacket. You bite back a cheesy grin. You can't tell if it's him making your heart flutter — or the few lines of coke making your veins glow with heat.

"Which means what? You want to keep going?" You test, looking up at him through your thick eyelashes. His big hand splays on the small of your back, knuckles prodding against you through your thick turtleneck.

⸻

Bodies are lowered sluggishly into the mattress. The daze of a coke-fuelled evening makes everything slow down and speed up at the same time. Kirk’s knees dig into the bed as he kneels, crouched down over you like you’re a psalm he’s going to take shelter under. His plump lips capture yours, sloppy and wet kisses making your mouth tingle, migrating down your chin, teeth clashing as you swallow each other’s doped-up laughs.

You have to part after a few moments; your throats choked up with sand and cotton. You manage to find salvation in the neck of a beer bottle. It foams up in your mouth, bubbling molasses-soaked promises down your throat. This intermission is easy, and it’s familiar. Wordlessly, you press the cool glass into Kirk’s waiting palm.

He mumbles a low thanks before he polishes the rest of the bottle off. Tenderly, so gingerly that it melts you, Kirk’s hands cup your face, sweeps his thumbs along the apples of your cheeks, and presses a tingling, wetted kiss to the tip of your nose. His brown eyes look like pools of nothingness; his pupils too dilated to let the honey-browns or impish reds shine through. His gaze is piercing through you, and reaching down deep to your soul.

"Comfy for you?" Kirk grins. His hand on your sides, your shirt compressed and bunched up around your fluttering ribs, slow tenderness to soothe you and that cocaine daze of excited restlessness. You're not sure where he learnt it from — being soft.

"Uh-huh," You nod, too busy helping him ease your shirt off to give a more profound answer. He rucks your bra beneath your chest, hot lips and tongue mouthing at your bared skin.

"S' a good fit here." You manage to add, shuffling down against the fort of pillows.

Kirk agrees, "Yeah." His eyes drink you in appreciatively, the way your eyelashes flutter against your browbones when you look up at him, his gaze tracing over the flushness in your skin.

"Good fit." He echoes lowly, latching onto your nipple, wetting it with his tongue, rasping his teeth against it until it pebbles.

Your hands trace over his spine, curling your fingers around the hem of his sweater as you drag up and up — until you break his mouth's union with your chest, guiding his sweater off his warmed, goldenly shining skin. The heels of your palms slide easily along his bare skin. Beneath your touch, Kirk shudders, his lower lip caught between his teeth. Skin sweeps along skin; the pads of your fingertips gingerly trace the plane of muscles along his back and neck.

Kirk's hands take hold of your hips and ease your jeans off your form. You're glad he does so. Everything is warm, too warm, and you can feel your coke-addled blood simmering and foaming in your body, like a neglected pot that threatens to spill over. Sinking further into the mattress, you sigh, your legs rasping against the bedsheets. Above you, Kirk guides your thighs to bracket his head, his flushed cheeks smooshing into your inner thighs. The heat blooms between you.

"What you doing?" You slip a hand into his black curls, sweetly sweeping along his clammy forehead. He tilts his head up for a moment, keening into your touch. His long eyelashes kiss the swells of his cheeks as he dimples, grinning, his eyes closed. This is what trust looks like.

He swoops down and kisses your slit over your panties. "Gonna eat you," He mutters tenderly. You can feel his smirk against you. He mouths at you like he would bite into an apple: hungry. Two index fingers hook onto the sides of your panties and slip them down.

He kisses your pelvis - your hips. Each morsel of you, he savours. Kirk uses the flat of his tongue to gather your growing slick, smearing it between his tongue and your warm, drooling cunt. Cocaine-dazed, you squeal, your socked heels scattering all over his back. He uses the pads of his thumbs to find purchase on both sides of your wetted slit and spreads you open, displaying you all for himself. Your hips cant against his face — you can't sit still for a moment. The moon is tugging at your hair, the cocaine is swaying within you. Kirk nuzzles against the softness of your belly, his burning hot cheek smooshed into your skin.

"Greedy," You laugh breathlessly, tipping your head against the pillows with a barely audible thump. Maybe if your heart wasn't pounding in your chest, you could've heard it better.

Kirk's hot mouth engulfs your cunt, suckling you as if he plans to actually swallow you whole. He relents to talk, making a wet pop once his mouth releases its hold on you. "Only f'you," He raises his brows once, playfully. He noses into the sponginess of your pelvis, right above your mound. He fits his mouth on you, bodies slipping together puzzle perfectly. You're not sure how it works. Maybe you were just made for each other. Maybe you've just got coke-tinted glasses on.

You can't get Kirk out of your system. Your heart stutters, your breath trembles. Your vision blurs, until you simply give up and squeeze your eyes shut. You melt into him. His filthy mouth shapes you as God's hand caresses the clay that was once humanity. Kirk downs your arousal like a shot glass of God’s flood, and he, the Ark. The wispy ends of his curly bangs brush into your skin, all fluttery and soft, practically kissing the promises that hymns bring up the apex of your hipbones. The way his hands cup your hips, sides, thighs — it's greedy, so shamelessly uncouth. He'll bite off more than he can chew at this rate.

All the while, you're rendered boneless, laying on the bed with him nestled comfortably between your legs like your limbs are jelly. He's got you pinned as he slurps noisily on your cunt as if you're the juiciest fruit he'll ever eat. Like you're a fig to fill his mouth. Your abdomen clenches, and the cage of heat that rests between your hips begins to ache. Your back arches off the bed, and you cannot swallow your gasps anymore. You're so full up with coke and terrible booze and heat that there's no room left for anything else.

Ambitiously, you try to encourage him. All you manage, thanks to his brain-melting efforts and the drugs that feel like cotton in your brain, is a whining, "Fuuuck— Kirk, I...I... God, yesyesyes—!"

His amused chuckle vibrates against you, indescribable heat and wetness drooling and bubbling up between his mouth and your sopping wet, puffy sex. Swallowing around you, Kirk swipes the pad of his thumb along your clit. You're bulldozed with rapt tension that scorches through you. He devours you whole, living off you with animal thirst (or maybe only the type of lust that a beast can muster). The lewd noise of your whines and breaths mingle with your cunt being slurped up. You can feel the crude smirk on Kirk's wanton, plump mouth. He licks you open relentlessly, and there's just so much of you, wetting between your thighs, the bedsheets, and thickly dripping down his chin, coating everything in a murky milk-film.

Starting at your neglected hole, Kirk rakes up through your slit and ends at your swollen clit. His splayed tongue rolls against you, pouring out a groan at your taste. You squirm, restless— aching for him, aching so much that your heart beats heavily in your chest, your pelvis taut with tension. Kirk uses his arms to keep you vulnerably open, effectively flattening you into nothing. You bite down on your lip when he sneaks a finger into your cunt. Liquid heat drips from you. He's the spark of fire that's getting dangerously close to your puddle of gasoline.

"Fuck me, Kirk," You plead shakily, combing through his ebony curls gingerly. "Please... I, I can't— I can't live without you."

"That's the coke talking, baby," He hums against you. Impishly, Kirk looks up at you through his lashes. There's no light in his dark eyes. His pupils are so blown out that they swallow the colour beneath. You probably look the same.

You laugh, breathless. Still toying with his hair. "Maybe a little."

Deciding to be merciful tonight, Kirk leaves your slippery-wet cunt with a kiss. "Beautiful." You hear him say through huffy exhales.

You swear you feel yourself clench on nothing as you hear his belt being unbuckled. Anticipation prickles through you. He kisses around the underside of your chin and your jaw as he gingerly breaches you. He pushes, groans, and tries to wrap you up in bubble wrap with his coos and kisses. Your slick, hot cunt swallows him in greedily. You feel his hard cockhead bump into your cervix before he withdraws — before eagerly shoving himself back in, punching straight through you and into the mattress.

You tremble; a hollowed-out moan rattles through you. Squirming, you hook your legs around his hips, drawing him into you. The bluntness of your nails bite into his biceps, finding purchase along his sweat-tacky skin. Kirk falls into a rhythm, his hipbones smack into yours, his hands squeeze tender bruises into the tops of your thighs, swathed around him as if he'll dissipate into smoke at any second.

Kirk's breath is erratic. It sweeps along your feverishly warm cheeks sweetly. Even if he smells of booze. You angle yourself as best you can to meet his thrusts, too eager to wait for his fat cock to slam into you. Long, flowing streamlets of slick squelches as his dick finds purchase within your welcoming, velvety insides, as your pussy puffs around his thick shaft, tingling distantly within your nerves.

His body and yours entirely blur together, hazing the lines on where he ends and you begin. Marvelling at him, your fingers trace along your cunt, feeling exactly where he splits you in half on his excited cock. Kirk's thumb joins you, first dragging the pad of his thumb along the hard button of your clit, groping the raw nerves, before feeling your sloppy, puffy sex stretching around him, feeling himself disappear inside of you. Only to reappear as a little bulge in the middle of your pelvis.

His pace rolls into something messy; it degrades into something frantic. Honey-tongued, Kirk mumbles, "Thassit, pretty girl. Gonna make you come." His voice is shaky under the weight of pleasure, purring and low, syrupy to your ears.

"Uh-huh," Your mouth parts, trying to babble around your moans. They stutter every time he delivers a filling stroke into the bottom of your eagerly waiting pussy. His hands are worshipping you. He splays a clammy palm under your belly button, feeling the thick swell of his cock buried beneath your flesh. It's all so... so Bacchanalian. You feel like you're going mad. With every vicious squeeze of your laving cunt, Kirk is wound-up tighter, pawing at you, kneeling into you, piledriving his hips into you until you're practically hollowed out. And still, his hips piston into you relentlessly.

You stir your hips down onto him, squealing out his name as if he'll come save you. Your hands slip up his shoulders, cupping his head, steering him to nuzzle into the side of your face. Your cheek smooshes into his hair. You mouth at his earlobe. His moustache scrapes up your hairline, where he mouths lazy kisses. You feel as if you're being atomised with every eager cant of his hips. The soft flesh of your thigh is cupped into the crook of his forearm, and the hand connected sweeps down to circle along your raw, perky clit.

The sterile hotel room is filled with the sound of his cock pounding into your wetness. Your limbs are twisted together like some gory amalgamation of bodies like you've been Frankensteined together. A cold shiver shoots down your spine. Kirk presses a kiss to your mouth, swallowing your moan as he fiercely impales you.

Like a bass kick, the tempo picks up. Gets grittier. Your fingers curl into the ringlets at the base of his neck, your nails brand his shoulder blade with crescent moons, watching as the universe blacks out. He makes you shiver and sob with your whole chest as if you're molecules and you're about to fuse together.

"Fuck, baby," Kirk hisses, his teeth glittering like a predator's, bared and sharp as they clash into your own teeth, and nip at your lower lip.

You choke on a cry, dazed and fucked brainless. Your mind was already like Swiss cheese, thanks to the coke. The air you greedily gulp dries out your tongue. Something within you swells, making the already tight fit even more snug. His bulbous cockhead presses into all of you, sloshing your slick out until it dribbles and bubbles out of the seams of your fucked-open hole, painting his balls and sparse curls shiny with you.

Goosebumps crawl up your arms and legs. Your chest quavers with half-drawn breaths, shaking and clattering in your lungs. Kirk coos at you. His hot palms burn your skin as he releases your thigh and slides up your side, pulling shudder after shudder from you with each tentative swipe of your hip and waist.

"Want more?" His voice is honeyed, so smooth you want to gulp it down. Ease that itch in your dry throat, hoarse with moans. The hot, gorgeously sinful drags of his cock up the channel of your pussy quickens, forcing squelch after squelch to bubble up between your mixed huffs of air.

Your heart hurts. You nod, fucked too effectively to even attempt words. Kirk turns his face a little, lining up his mouth to land onto yours again. He kisses you. He kisses you mad — you see scarlet madness behind your eyes. His tongue dips and strokes along yours, mouths parted and breaths tucked into mouths. There's a cocaine tint to his tongue. Like liquid gold, he takes every ounce of you. You can feel the pull of his cock seeping into you, and then his hips withdraw. Gluttonous, you smack your hips down to meet his. His heavy dick makes you dizzy every single time, fucking you up the fort of pillows until the bedframe creaks in pain with every delicious swing of his pelvis.

You come at each other like this; eternity cannot be broken. With shaking breaths, your palms tremble and scrub frantically into Kirk's shoulders, finding something to keep your soul in your body. He curls his fingers into you, a hand at the side, another in your hair, and beats into you hard — until you're winded, and suddenly, you don't have enough breath in your body for that scream cooking deep within your belly. Your shoulders shake with noiseless, breathless cries and squeals. Kirk's mouth is nasty as it gulps you down, biting into your bottom lip, laving his tongue over every tooth-shaped divot in your flesh.

He's handsy. He hooks his arm around your back, lifting you an inch off the bed and into him. Your chests are flush. His heartbeat is so prominent, so deafening, that you mistake it for your own, as each crescendo of ba-dump smooths away any illusion of space that separates you.

In an overwhelming jolt and flash of some sort of higher dimension, your cunt spasms helplessly around Kirk. His hips stutter against your thighs, smacking into you so overzealously and thoroughly that it's almost mean. He spills molten hot, thick cum into you like a river, and you a stone, where every drop and thrust reshapes you into something smooth-edged. You feel stuffed. Your scream is voiceless. You think you have whiplash. He's filling you up with a heavy load that settles somewhere so deep inside you that you're not sure if you could possibly reach it. A drug-powered, carnally raging load that's so boiling hot that you feel your body temperature climb higher.

Reluctantly, Kirk pulls away from you. His eyes are something tender as he scans you over, carefully lowering your limp body back onto the bed. His gaze falls onto your wrecked, split-in-half cunt, that's oozing your mingled orgasms. He watches, fascinated, as it washes out of you with each pulse of your hole. He uses an index finger to trace it— your slit, and gathers it up with two fingers, easing it back into you as if it belonged there. As if he was tidying up, and your sex was its rightful place.

The sweat-twisted blankets are halfway on the floor. Kirk scoops your legs together and guides you to lay on your side. His breaths are still a little laboured as he lazily presses his warm mouth to your damp temple. The haze of sex still clings onto the room (which you don't envy housekeeping in their cleaning this room tomorrow morning), though it is softened with the easy, gentle moment.

You clear your throat to say something. "Shh, beautiful. Rest." Kirk beats you to it, his voice soothing and gently urging. You bite your lower lip. You can still feel his teeth marks there. You want more coke. You want some terrible beer. Mostly, you want this moment. Forever and ever.

#metallica #kirk hammett #metallica x reader #metallica smut #metallica fanfiction #kirk hammett smut #kirk hammett x you #kirk hammett x reader #metal #kirk hammett imagines #metallica imagines

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ameliathornromance · 7 months ago

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The Manor House: A Vampire x Reader: Prologue

Another nick at the steed's ribs made it gallop faster into the blackness.

Dark, looming trees soared past you.

You leaned over, pressing your head into the horse's loose mane, ducking the never-ending onslaught of branches that reached out to you, trying to pull you into their long spindly grasp and hold you tight.

When the villagers find you, the tree would gladly hand you over to them, where you would then be hung - the tree honoured as ‘the witch catching tree.’

They wouldn’t even use the dunking stool on you. That’s used to prove innocence… But only the guilty run.

Of course, you weren’t a witch. But that hardly mattered now.

The shouting of the villagers grew further and further away, their flaming torches and pitchforks glinting in the night, dim and only emitting embers of their location.

Raising your head, you dared to hope that this was the escape from the nightmare. Away from death, illness. The baseless accusations.

“Over there!”

Your stomach dropped. How did they find you? You had no torch, nothing-

No, don’t focus on that, just get to the bridge. They won’t dare go beyond that point. All sorts of monsters lurk beyond that point.

It was dangerous, yes, but what other choice did you have? At least you would live longer beyond the bridge than in the village.

You dug your knees into the horse's ribs again. “Go! Faster!” But the steed stammered, sputtered.

It shrieked as it backed on its hind legs, its hooves tossing dirt up high into the air. You gripped even tighter onto the reins, the hastily packed bags and satchels sinking toward the back end of the animal.

The horse landed on all fours, steadied, exhaled sharply and trotted on its hooves, shaking its mane as if to cast off anxiety.

Squinting through the darkness, the moon light caught the rushing rapids. Where the bridge should have been.

“No…” You whimpered. “No, no, no!”

Your only escape route, gone.

“There you are!”

The glowing embers of torch light drew closer and closer, the angry and contorted faces of the villagers loomed from the darkness, disembodied.

There was no other option. What were you supposed to do? Let them strap you into that wretched chair?

Leaping off the horse, you smacked its rear end.

The sharp slap of skin earned another shriek from the animal, backing onto its hinds once again, taking off into the darkness, your satchels and other items with it.

You narrowed your eyes at the villagers as they closed in. Every other exit, blocked off by spitting red faces and scorching torch light.

Even though you’re surrounded by flames and heated anger, the air is chilled. Icy.

You thought you knew these people.

Backing to the edge of the bridge, your heels hung just over the edge.

The waters below spat at the hem of your dress, eager to claim a life to its never ending churning.

Your actions caused the villagers to spur onward, what choice did you have, other than to go further?

“Don’t let her-“

But it was too late.

Turning your back on them, you leapt into the waters.

The water splashed as you hit it, consuming you in a curtain of freezing foam bubbles.

Water soaked through your clothes, like it broke through your skin and pierced through the heart with a steel dagger. Your arms flailed, desperate to try and gain some kind of control from the rapids.

Skirts weighed heavily around your lower end, dragging you down under the surface.

You gasped, thrashing even harder. You inhaled earthly water, causing you to splutter and cough.

The water tossed you to each side of the banks, taking you further and further away from the villagers like they were playing a game of catch.

The rapids laughed at your attempt to save your life, enjoying their sick little game.

Realising that their ball was sinking, they tossed you one final time to the right side of the bank.

Your head whipped and slammed into the rocky embankment.

With blood trickling down your nose, past your lips, seeping through your teeth, the water retook you and all was black.

A dull throbbing pain awoke you, splitting down your head right down the middle, worse on the left side.

You scrunched your face, squinting your eyes open ever so slightly. A dull, flickering light seeped through your eyelashes. You had no idea that faint candle light could sting so badly. You shut your eyes again.

Where were you just now?

The familiar, plush softness beneath you gave you all the information you needed to know.

Dreams sure are strange, they really can take you anywhere. Nightmares too.

The body needs sleep because it uses that time you’re resting to heal, the travelling physician had told you. He came first, the one who diagnosed the first few people with the plague.

But… if sleeping was really supposed to heal you, then why did it make you dream of such horrible things? Like drowning?

You tried not to think about water unless it was to drink. The other times water was brought up, was when that wretched, horrible chair was brought out and installed by that man. It sent chills down your spine just to think about it.

Surely there must be a more humane way to cleanse the world of Witches. Even if they weren’t innocent, being strapped to a chair and forced to sit underwater is a fate you wouldn’t wish on anyone… not even the one who installed it.

But the icy water and churning rapids were just a nightmare. Some nonsense made up by your brain. The villagers chasing you must have been part of the nightmare too.

It had been a fear of yours for a while now. Thanks to the Witch Hunter, you’d seen one too many accused women die horrid deaths… even if there was no evidence of their ‘wickedness’ as the Witch Hunter called it.

“Oh, you’re finally awake.”

The voice was not one you recognised, but then again, plenty of new people were coming to the village now - Doctors from all over wanted to come to ground zero of the outbreak, witness the illness first hand and study it while it’s in its early development stages.

It didn’t surprise you that the plague had finally caught up to you. You tended to enough sick people for long enough and knew you, too, would become sick soon enough.

You were only responsible for feeding plague victims, cleaning their bedpans and other bodily fluids, rather than administering any kind of first aid. Ironic, that in trying to take care of them, you were exposed to the most amount of danger.

Nightmares were a symptom of the plague. It wasn’t uncommon for patients to have moments of delirium. A high fever would do that to you.

This new voice had to be a Doctor taking care of you.

Not wanting to be rude any longer, you slowly squinted your eyes open even further.

The first thing you noticed were the thick, heavy maroon drapes that hung from the ceiling. Upon your vision clearing, you realised that they came down from the dark four poster bed that you laid in. Its varnished wood gleamed in the flickering candle light.

At the foot of the bed, sat a dressing table hosting a mirror, reflecting back your dishevelled appearance. A thick white bandage had been wrapped around your skull, blood blooming like a poppy on the left side of your head.

Your bedsheets matched the velvet drapes, pressing down on your aching muscles.

The majority of the candle light guided you to the left side of the room, where you finally laid eyes on the owner of the voice.

The figure sat up straight, his shoulders slanted downward. Hair tumbled down to his shoulders, dark, so long it blended into his black blazer. The only indication that his hair had an end, were the two strands that framed his face and curled just below his chin.

Compared to the rest of his figure, his face stuck out like the moon against a black night sky, pasty and pale. His eyes stared, unblinking and glazed with dusky spheres for iris’. Thin lipped, the man spoke again, “how do you feel?”

You furrowed your brows, “where… Am I?”

“My manor.” The man said, simply. “It’s a good thing you’re talking. It means there’s no serious damage. That works out well for me.”

“Works out well?” You asked, stupidly.

Blinking a few more times, your mind cleared further. The memories rush back to you as if the rapids were sweeping you away once again.

You sat up, stomach tensing. Trying to remain strong, you force the words out of you. “Who are you?”

It comes out shaky, weak.

If the man noticed, he didn’t give any indication of it. Instead, he answered, his tone strong and unwavering. “My name is Lord Baal. I am the owner of this Manor and your saviour.”

You snorted, “‘saviour’?” The superiority of his ending statement was so high and mighty. Like that made him some kind of omnipotent being.

“I found you at the river embankment at the back of my garden.” He continued, eyebrows knitting together. “And so I rescued you. How did you even end up there, anyway?”

So, that wasn’t a dream. The others really did chase you out of your home… How did they even know that you were going to try and leave? Ever since… him you’d been packing to leave as soon as possible. You had told no one - not that anyone would have listened anyway - of your plans and left at night.

“Well?”

“I fell off my horse and into the river.” Sure, it was bending the truth. But you wouldn’t give him any ammunition to manipulate you. Lords don’t just take in commoner women. Especially random ones they find washed up on river banks.

“Why did you save me?” You narrowed your eyes at him.

“Did you not want to be saved?” The Lord raised an eyebrow at your ludicrous question.

“I never said that,” you defended quickly. “There’s a plague going around. It doesn’t make any sense for you to bring me here.”

At that, the Lord let out an airy laugh. He raised his hand, spidery and pasty pale to cover his thin mouth, like there was a joke you weren’t in on. “Any illness was probably washed away by the river. On top of that, I used medicine to ease the pain and kill off anything else unsavoury. If there were any obvious signs of plague, I wouldn’t have hesitated to have left you to die on the bank of the river.”

“You don’t know me.” You countered. “I could be anyone.”

“Are you anyone?” The Lord’s snickering continued as if you were some kind of circus amusement, a monkey crashing symbols in an attempt to make pleasant music.

Heat pooled just below your eyes. “W-Well, no,” you faltered. “But still-”

“I ask you again then,” the Lord lowered his hand slightly, exposing a grimace, lips stretched across his teeth. “Did you not want to be saved? What’s that expression… ‘don’t question a good thing?’” He asked, to no one in particular.

You glared at him in defiance. What more could you say?

Once his mocking laughter died out, he leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair. “Now that we have that out of the way,” he wiped a tear from his lower lashes. “Let’s get down to business: You washed up on my river bank.”

“Your river bank?” You scowled. His airy smugness itched at you like a mosquito bite. “I didn’t know someone could own a river bank.”

“It’s part of my garden, thus my river bank.” He replied, looking down his straight pasty nose at you. “You also used up my medical supplies and have slept in my bed.”

“So?” You asked, shortly.

“My hospitality, does not come for free.” The Lord gestured to you.

“Say what you mean.” Enough of this toying, out with it.

“At the risk of my own person, for bringing you in, letting you sleep in my home, using my own medicine on you to treat your wounds and warm you, you are now obligated to pay me back.”

You stared at him. “Sorry?” You deadpanned. “I didn’t ask you to help me!”

Lord Baal’s face fell, and returned your narrowed glare from earlier. “Oh, so you would have rather died on the bank then?”

“No but-”

“So then, it shouldn’t be too much to ask for something in return, should it?”

One moment, he was stood by the chair and with a blink of an eye, he was inches away from your face.

How did he get there so fast?

Your heart leapt into your throat as the Lord hissed at you.“Remember, there is a plague out there. There’s nothing to stop me from just tossing you out of my front door.”

His breath reeked of familiar iron, it banged on your tender temples.

Your eyes locked with his. Staring each other down, like it was some kind of childish staring contest.

He’s right, there is a plague out there… and you’re already injured. Your susceptibility increases drastically because of that… And he’s still out there.

Sucking in a deep breath, you looked away, conceding. “Fine.” Crossing your arms, you fell back onto the plush pillows behind you. “What do you want in return?”

There wasn’t much you could offer. Before the plague hit, you’d been at home with your parents, helping them around the house. Even before the plague hit, they were fragile people.

Lord Baal returned to his full height. Tucking his hands into his pockets, he looked you up and down, as if he was sizing you up. “I will decide that, when you are well. As of now, you’re no use to me.”

You could have screamed with frustration - he demands that you work in return for his ‘hospitality’ and he doesn’t even have an idea of what you might do?

Hair flying behind him, he turned his back on you. Stalking to the door of the room - dark and varnished, to match the bed frame - the Lord opened the door and looked over his shoulder at you. He stared for a moment. Then, “To start, a name would be helpful. I must know what I should call you when you start to return the favour.”

“I’m (Y/n).”

“(Y/n).” The Lord repeated. He stood for a moment, looking at you.

“I will come by tomorrow to make sure that your injury is healing smoothly.”

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#monster lover #monster romance #monster x reader #monster x you #monster x female #monster x human #vampire boyfriend #vampire x reader #vampire x human #vampire x you #vampire romance #patreon

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tigergirltail · 10 months ago

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TIGER HRT CHAPTER 3 - MONTH 0 - BIOCHEMISTRY

First - Prev - Next

It finally arrived today!!

I'm shaking with excitement as I arrive home and start opening the large package. My partner is there too, watching closely. They had expressed interest in therian HRT when I brought it up, but were a bit more hesitant about committing to it, at least until I do it first.

Besides, it's a bit of an expensive process. Not just arranging the visit to the clinic in the first place, but also getting the actual meds. Something about import costs for a potentially hazardous substance? Whatever it was, insurance wouldn't cover it, and I had to pay through the nose for it.

Inside the package is a cardboard box marked all over with "FRAGILE" labels. Inside THAT is a solid block of foam. Not like packing peanuts, but the sort of shaped styrofoam that computer monitors come packed in. Lifting out the top half of the foam, I see it. A glass bottle with a black rubber stopper, containing a blurry white fluid. Lifting up the bottle and swirling it around, the liquid inside seems slightly viscous, like maple syrup.

"What kind of RPG-ass potion bottle is this?", I wonder aloud. Noticing some labels on the opposite side, I turn the bottle around…

And immediately get the spook of my life as I recognize the biohazard trefoil.

"What in the…" Did I get sent the wrong package??

I take a look at the second label below it.

PANTHERA TIGRIS

MUTAGENIC HORMONES

TAKE 1 T▮P PER WEEK WITH FOOD

DO NOT EXCEED

There's a bit of a smudge on the dosing information, some spilled ink maybe. I'm pretty sure I can make out what it's supposed to say, though.

My partner leans in and spots the biohazard symbol as well.

"Are you still sure you want to do this, love?"

I lean my head towards them. "Not as sure as I was five minutes ago…" I take a steadying breath. "But yeah… I think I am."

Into the kitchen. Get out a measuring spoon. Eat some snack food so I'm not on an empty stomach. Get some water ready to wash it down.

I turn to look at my partner. I know the meds take months to work, but it feels like this is the last time they'll get to see me as a full human.

They silently walk up to me and pull me into a tight hug. It's enough to give me that final bit of courage.

Carefully, I pour some of the biohazardous liquid into the measuring spoon, and then it's down the hatch.

"How's it taste?", my partner asks.

"It's…" It's weird. It tastes weird. It's like if the smell of dust after rain, petrichor I think is the word, it's like if that was combined with the sound of wind rushing through grass, and the result was a taste.

"…It tastes like running free."

#tiger hrt #therian hrt #animal hrt #furry hrt #trans #transgender #my art

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jasontoddsdarling · 1 year ago

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snow angels

— casts: jason todd x reader, aurora todd (my kid oc)

— words: 1,515

— tags: fluff, winter, family fic, family fluff, kid fic

— summary: It's Aurora Todd first winter and you two decide she should experience the ultimate first time under the snow: building some snowmen and one or two castles. And apparently also snow angels along the way.

Heavy snowfall from yesterday—that kept everyone inside the house all day long—resulted in a thick layer of snow in the backyard. You, Jason, and your fourteen months old daughter, Aurora, included. You two even built her a blanket fortress from the pile of her soft baby blankets. She was very fond of it.

Today, Jason and you decide to bring her outside.

It's her first winter, thus the first time she will experience the snowfall that blanketed the city like icing sugar dusted on a beignet.

Earlier, Jason had shoveled the snow that piled up in front of the front and back door. Thankfully, it wasn't blocking the doors that bad or else you'd feel bad about not helping him—even though he had insisted on doing it himself because she was cranky waking up and you'd have to feed her.

Now, though, your daughter is so awake and definitely not cranky anymore.

Jason has put his shovel back to the garage and changed his clothes to newer one—he had managed to sweat and drenched his sweater, and he's currently sporting a new sweater that matches the ones that you and your daughter wear.

“Papa.”

You put Aurora on her colorful foam puzzle mat. Jason, who is just getting out of your bedroom, smiling when he spots her.

“Who's going to play with snow today?”

Jason sits down on the edge of the mat and he beckons his daughter to his lap.

Aurora enthusiastically walks toward him—with her brand new baby boots that you just put on her, a big smile with her four small teeth showing.

“Nou.”

She perches her little legs on one of his thighs. You gasp and cannot help but grin. Did she just say a new word just now? Nou. Snow.

Jason beams. You can see his eyes shine with proudness.

“Yeah, snow. Snow! You, Mama, and Papa will go outside and we can build some snow castles and snowmen. Now, you need to wear these warm mittens first, okay?”

You observe the two loves of your life while packing a little thermos of jasmine tea to drink outside. These two always without fail put a smile on your face.

And oh, Jason is wearing gloves with the same color theme too because, of course, he would not want to be excluded in the matching outfits shenanigans of you and your daughter. We've to match as a cute little family, Jason had said so almost a year ago—after for the third time you and Aurora had matching outfits and he was being excluded; which in your defense, most husbands don't really care about matching outfits with their baby daughter, but you learnt it wasn't the case with Jason.

Jason tugs Aurora's mittens to make sure it's right before holding her in his arms and standing up, walking towards you who stands beside the dining table.

“Come on, Mama.” He squishes his cheek on Aurora's, whispering to pretend as if it's your daughter who’s saying that.

Aurora giggles. “Mama, mama.”

You bend down a little to kiss her rosy cheeks—and Jason steals a kiss from you when you stand straight after that—and the three of you are ready to mess with snow.

Jason has finished building one snow castle just now. It's a cool snow castle, in your opinion—considering he's only using some plastic snow toys for kids that you got for Aurora.

The kid in question sits on your lap, and is currently playing with the scallop shell plastic mold and making her nth crooked shell shaped snows with so much interest, completely oblivious to what her dad has been doing.

“Rora, look!” You pat her tiny leg gently. “Look. Papa has built you a little snow castle!”

You point your finger at the 1 meter tall snow figure. When Aurora looks up from her stuff, her eyes brighten and she moves her arms and legs excitedly, wiggling and trying to stand up from your lap.

You help her stand on her own little feet, her tiny boots scrunch the snow.

“Papa. Nou.”

Jason—who just put a twig on the center of the castle as a fake flag—grins. He waved his hands, beckoning her to walk towards him and the snow castle.

“Papa, papa.”

Aurora walks giddily.

You walk at a snail's pace to ensure that she steps safely, because you know sometimes babies and toddlers can be quite clumsy, and your daughter is no exception.

Aurora is two meters before landing herself in his dad's arm when, instead, she's landing backwards on a pile of fluffy snow with a very dull thud.

“Rora!”

Jason and you immediately shout at the same time and in less than two seconds both of you are in front of her.

Aurora is silent for a second, that you are almost panicking, but then she bursts into a fit of giggles. She moves her arms and legs in ups and downs motion, unknowingly making herself a snow angel.

“Mama, Papa.”

Aurora waves her mittens clad tiny hands. She wants you two to do what she's doing.

“Well, I guess we're making snow angels too.”

“I know. I am just glad she isn't crying.”

You release your breath you know you were holding.

You lie down beside your daughter on one side and Jason on her other side and you two proceed to make your own snow angels.

After it is quite deep, Jason gets up from where he's lying down and takes some photos of you and Aurora with his phone and instant camera he hides inside his deep coat pockets.

“One, two, three. Smile!”

And so, the next ten minutes, Jason takes a lot of photos of you and Aurora in front of the snow castle.

“These are so cute.”

It's 8:30 pm. You and Jason just put Aurora to sleep in her room, you're lying on bed with your head propped on a pillow and Jason's shoulder.

You scroll on Jason's gallery, currently landing on the selfie of you, Jason, and little Aurora in front of the snow castle and the two snowmen on each side of the castle—snowmen that later the three of you built after snow angels' antics. The snowmen are guards, Jason had said.

Jason's shuffling and looking at the printed photos he (and you) took with the instant camera, while occasionally brushing your raven black hair that fans the pillow.

“Lovely snow angels.” Jason mutters.

You laugh. You immediately scroll towards one picture of the three of you as snow angels. “Yeah, that one was cute too. It's fortunate that you brought your tripod outside so we could take a photo with the three of us as snow angels.”

“I meant this.”

Jason shows you one printed photo from the instant camera.

“Oh.”

It is a photo of you and Aurora as snow angels, the sunlight reflecting on the snow and bouncing a very faint light on your smiling faces.

“That’s…” You almost can't say a thing. “So beautiful.”

“I know.”

“You're very talented, Jason.” You look up and give him a soft smile.

“It's not as much talent as what's the subject of the photography.”

“Hey.” You can't help but chide him.

“It's true.”

“It's not.”

“It is.” Jason says with a finality. He puts all—the photos except the one on your hand—on the nightstand beside him.

“Both of you are just the loveliest snow angels. My literal angels.”

“Oh, Jason…”

“My only angels. You and Aurora.”

That's it.

You drag his face towards you with one of your hands behind his neck. You kiss him deeply and slowly. You can feel his pulse beneath your fingers and run your hand up and down his nape.

Jason shudders and he kisses you deeper, if it's possible, and you let out a small moan.

At last, you separate your faces from each other to inhale some air.

“Jason, I love you so much.” You caress his jawline, looking at his perfect shade of viridian eyes.

“I love you more.” He looks at you as fondly. Sometimes it's hard to breathe everytime he does that.

“I love you more and more.”

“I love you–”

And that's where you two hear a cry from Aurora's room. She's awake.

“I think trying to tell us she's agreed that I love you more.” Jason snickers.

You huff, moving your body to get up from the bed. “She's trying to tell us she wants to co-sleep with us again tonight.”

“That's fair too. Still, I love you more and more and more, though.”

“It’s me, actually, but I will let you win.”

You almost land your feet on the floor when Jason immediately stands up.

“Let me get her or I love you more and more and more.”

You can't believe your husband's antics but you smile ear to ear nonetheless.

“Fair. Go get her, Papabear.”

“On it, Mamabear.”

Jason shouts I love you more and more and more when he's in another room with Aurora's “Papa” accompanying it.

mariea's note: guess who decide to go all in and repost the fic from my ao3 here? anyway here's the og appearance of my jason todd's kid oc aurora "rora" todd 🤍

#jason todd x reader #jason todd x you #jason todd x fem!reader #dad jason todd x mom reader #jason todd fanfiction #jason todd's kid oc #kid oc #kid ocs #aurora todd #dad!jason todd #mom!reader #jason todd fluff #mariea's fics #mariea's works #mariea's writing

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msnogood · 10 months ago

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The Making of Strange Flower

Somehow I never showed my process of strange flower's creation. Below are the materials and steps.

Materials I used:

Yellow wool (mine was yellow yarn that I carded myself with a carding brush / pet brush)

Cheaper white core wool (mine was recycled fluffs from poly batting of my pandemic-era grocery delivery packing liners)

Glass pins for eyes

Air dry clay (mine was green paper clay and wood pulp clay but you can color air dry clay with some acrylic paint)

Wood glue (for water resistance), or PVA glue (if you don’t care for water resistence)

A good stick. I got mine from an old messed up artificial flower.

Felting needles

Felting base foam (I used recycled polyurethane packing foam blocks from my online orders)

To make a strange flower:

Start by felting the base of your flower’s face. You can speed up this process by wet-felting with soapy water mid way. It should end up looking like a concave cookie.

Then start to layer some yellow wool on top of your core wool cookie. Cover all the whites.

Then start to add details like cheeks, chin, and lips. You can test-place your flower’s eyes to better figure out the placement of your flower’s cheeks.

Then cut your glass pins short, bend the pin slightly downward (so it’s long enough to hold its position but won’t stick out the back of your flower’s head), and insert the beady eyes.

Start molding the desired flower petal shapes of your choice. I wanted mine to be plump. So I made it plump. Let it dry a bit. Then I added a water-down layer of wood glue and smooth out my clay petal. Poke a hole at the center of the petal about the size of the artificial stem.

Tip: If you’re also using an artificial flower stem, try to mold the base of your flower petal to fit into the stem head’s shape. Mine was a bit flat and ended up having a big gap and I had to use more glue to fill the void and it took ages to dry. Save any artificial petals you can salvage. Incorporate the ones that work with your strange flower. The rest can be materials for another project someday.

Once completely dry, pin your petals onto your artificial flower stem with some wood glue or PVA glue at its base.

Once the clay petal is dried and secured on the artificial flower stem, carefully poke your flower head on top.

And a strange flower is born! 🌷

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mattressmachinery · 5 months ago

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Foam Block Compression Machine

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bomberqueen17 · 2 months ago

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doings

so. I'm home from the farm and now i have to yet again rearrange a bunch of my house. cut for wittering about personal stuff.

Dude's company laid off most of his team a while back, and as a result, decided it was a bit silly to keep renting office space for now just him and one other guy to come into some of the time. Dude genuinely did go in four days a week, but he had to agree it was really pretty dumb to rent an entire office suite for him to sit in sometimes.

the company didn't want any of the furnishings. they wanted some of the networking equipment, but-- the previous company, before it was acquired, had bought most of the office furniture. this company didn't care about it. so they sent dude one of those big foam-padded locking hard-sided cases to load the networking equipment into, and told him to leave behind whatever he didn't want in that office, and they'd negotiate with the landlord about disposing of it. (This is normal; when they moved into that suite, under the previous company, the previous tenants had abandoned it full of furniture and garbage, and dude's folks had just picked out what of the garbage they felt they could use-- mostly, chairs-- and the landlord cleared out the rest.)

Dude of course asked his former coworkers if any of them wanted their desks or chairs. One of them is kind of a hoarder, so he actually rented a Uhaul to get the desks out-- they were super nice work tables actually, very large and heavy, and there were eight. I wanted one, and he was perfectly happy to drop one of them off in our garage, and didn't even want us to reimburse him for part of the Uhaul. He has a use for two more, and the other five are just... in a storage unit somewhere.... if you need a really nice workbench lmk i know a guy who has some. LOL.

(No they're SUCH a pain in the ass to move.)

So anyway yesterday was the day Dude had agreed with the landlord he'd be clearing out the space and turning over the keys. he was going to do it by himself, but I was like.... how are you gonna turn in the parking pass and then get your car out of the garage it's in? well he'd have to pay for parking someplace. hmmm no. and like.... some of that shit is heavy. no.

so I went in with him. I cleaned the fridge really thoroughly, went through the kitchen cabinets and threw out garbage etc., while he took down all the networking equipment and wrapped it all in bubble wrap and put it in the giant hard case.

there wasn't enough packing material. here my years of expertise working in the shipping department of a camera store came into play. We wound up using whole clean rolls of paper towels to fill in around the sides of the case, and then could close it and know everything in it was held firmly and would not rattle.

He inventoried the chairs. Two were still the original expensive Steelcase chairs the first company had bought them, so we took those. There was a really sturdy folding table with adjustable heights that I insisted we take. And then there were the rest of the rolls of (brand-name!!) paper towels, and assorted other things that I thought we'd use. We put all the garbage into a pile near the door for the custodial staff, making sure to put anything that was *not* garbage far away so it wasn't ambiguous. There were a number of large monitors and things around that we had no use for, so we left them. I threw out empty packaging where i found it, and broken power adapters, but left a box of assorted power cords and other cables. We left the whiteboards, markers, and erasers. Left the dish soap, left the clean dishes and wire rack that held them. I threw out most of the huge pile of takeout utensils that had been accumulated, but left a small curated selection including a set of metal utensils someone had obviously brought in from home and abandoned.

It was pouring rain, but we wheeled everything out balanced on the office chairs all down the block in the rain, and went out for pho on the way home. And now we have several nice office chairs and I'm going to throw out my two worst antique-salvage ones that don't roll, once I decide which are my worst two.

And that folding table is going to hold a sewing machine, because I had been using the desk in our home office on the days when Dude was going in to the office, and I obviously can't do that anymore.

I'm also trying like heck to clear out one sorta quadrant of the basement to fit the work table (it was really never ideal as a desk, adjustable-height to Not Quite Low Enough, and it's 30" deep but also 96" long which is ridiculous). I want it as a counter-height workspace for cutting fabric, although I'd prefer something 36" wide.... but it'll do... but that means I need to clear out a bunch of stuff and make room and....

well I seem somewhere to have lost my ability to sort things. I was never great at it, and by now it's just. Gone. Idon't know how to determine what items go together. I'm great at organizing a work kit-- my purse for example, every single item in it has a designated spot and that's fantastic and i am always prepared with the things I need in my purse. My car, I made a seat-back organizer and it works fantastically well and holds every thing I need in it and I have now several times saved the day because i knew right where The THing was.

But that's notably not sorting. I can organize, but i can't sort. I need to distinguish among all these things and put them into large storage containers so that I can later retrieve individual items from larger containers. I don't know what category the items are. All the helpful advice people give me about how to organize things, how to tidy a space, involve doing some kind of sorting. I can't sort things. Poeple are like "just pick one thing you know needs to go X and do it!" and i'm like. That's sorting! That is sorting. I don't know how to sort. I can't categorize items. i can only interact with them individually. "This is a thing I will need. This is a thing I will not." That's sorting. I can make like, one decision like that in a day, and even that I will question. Making piles of objects by category means I have a one-object-deep layer over my entire work surface within a short period of time, and then I take everything I took out of the box to sort, shrug, sweep it back into the box, and give up, having achieved literally nothing except for having wasted the entire time I spent working on it. So all the "can't you just" advice people give me is Not Helpful and unfortunately I am all out of the grace to appreciate the sentiment behind it, which is nobody's fault but is also the incontrovertible truth.

So if you have advice, maybe don't, unless you have a good way to like, reconceptualize the entire exercise, which I have not thought of, and which is NOT "throw it all out", thanks, I don't need that one either and I won't be nice about it. FYI.

I have attempted to recognize things that are actual garbage, and discard them, but that's about as clever as I can manage to be. SO it's a work in progress and it's going slower than I want and mostly, it's just me taking piles and moving them to a different area of the basement, thereby rendering that part of the basement unusable. Blergh.

But if i can get this table into position, then I will have a work surface, and incidentally will have rendered that whole area of the basement, which is lined with huge wire shelves I purchased intending to organize myself with and then never managed to do so and instead filled with unsorted junk, accessible, and so if I ever find either medication that helps me, or a friend to help me, or a new brain lying around somewhere that I can co-opt and use, I will be able to (in fantasy cuckoo-land) organize some of this junk onto those shelves. I can hope. And then it would be a usable workspace. With a nice work table. Isn't that a compelling fantasy???

I've covered the card tables I was using to cut fabric on with boxes in the meantime, meaning I can't work on any sewing projects, but the card tables were at a height such that I could spend about seven to eight minutes cutting fabric on them and then be crippled with crunchy lower back pain for twelve hours, so let's be real here I was not getting a whole lot done with that setup anyway.

Anyway the other new challenge is that both dude and i need to come up with some kind of schedule for our days because we're both cooped up fairly unstructured in this house and it's got to be something or we'll both lose our minds.

#about the author #home life #wfh blues #organizing #adhd or whatever

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mags-writes · 1 year ago

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Sunlight || Part VI

Summary: frank gets his worldview changed

Series Warnings: canon typical violence, canon typical swearing, first time writing x reader, no use of y/n, no beta readers we die like ray nadeem

Pairing: frank castle x fem!reader

Authors Note: a bit longer for the girlies. just a heads up as well, you might not hear from me for a while after I finish this series (apart from a oneshot that was requested idk) because I'm technically supposed to be writing an actual legit novel and I got writers block for that and just started doing this to get my creativity out of my head. so thank you to everyone who didn't send me nasty anons and for sticking it out this far. I'm honestly so surprised at the reaction especially considering that this is the first time writing in second perspective. enjoy!!

PROLOGUE/MASTERLIST || PART I || PART II || PART III || PART IV || PART V || PART VI || PART VII

"So," You face Matt who had been looking like he wanted to say something to you since you started spouting Hebrew. "What's your part in all this?"

"If you helped your Daredevil," He took tentative steps to you. "Then I think you know the answer."

You sighed, stepping away from Frank's embrace and instead going into Matt's.

"I'm sorry." You mumbled into his chest, squeezing him tighter when he laid his head on top of yours. "I didn't know for sure until yesterday morning."

"No, don't be." He said, soothing a hand up and down on your back. "Even if you didn't know I should've told you from the start."

"It happened the same way, you know?" He pulled back and frowned at you. "I showed up at his apartment one morning, he was beaten to hell and back, and he tried to tell me he fell down the stairs."

"I'm going to assume you didn't take it well?" He said with a smile.

"I yelled at him so loudly his neighbour three floors up came over to ask us to shut up." You smiled at his chuckle, letting it stay before it fell slightly. "Everything that followed... I don't regret becoming his girl in the chair, helping him every night but... Matt, I was one of six kids." Matt felt his heart shatter. "And I know you heard everything yesterday, that I don't want to go back and I want you to know that, in a heartbeat, I would-"

"I know where you're going with this." Of course he did. Of course he knew. "No. If being part of Daredevil's life put you through god knows how many kidnappings, beatings, crucifixions, and dead brothers, then no. You're not doing it again for me."

"Okay," You shook your head. "Believe it or not, getting crucified was the least traumatic thing to happen that week. So, we're good on that base."

"Stop it." He was being serious and you couldn't help but smile. "Stop doing that."

"Doing what?" You challenged.

"You're trying to change my mind."

"No, I know what I'm going to do." You shrugged your shoulders. "Whether you like it or not, tonight, I'm the girl in the chair."

"With what setup?" He challenged.

You pointed to where Dinah, Amy, and Frank were still standing, listening in, and where your stuff still was. "What do ya think the suitcase is for?"

You walked over to your suitcase, wheeling it over to the table in the middle of the room, and laying it on the ground. Amy came to stand next to you as you squatted down to unzip the thing and then carefully pry it open.

"Ho-ly shit." Amy laughed, leaning down to get a better look.

The reason you hadn't been able to afford your own place and move out of Matt's was because of this. Three large monitors were carefully packed into one-half of the suitcase, each with their own stands and cables wrapped under them. The other half had a mouse, two keyboards, and a touchscreen tablet sitting in their own black, protective foam. You took all of this out, running a couple of cables to turn everything on with Amy's help, and left it to turn on.

Next, you moved to the backpack. Now that... the contents of that had everyone gaping if they weren't already before. Two handguns with their own holsters, a bowie knife with a sheath and thigh straps, and then lastly, a separate sack that clunked around when it hit the table.

"Uh, do you know how to use those?" Foggy asked concerned, frowning at the handguns.

"Yeah." You said like it was obvious. "Pull the trigger."

Amy's head snapped to Frank with a gaping smile, trying to stop herself from bursting out laughing at his expression. He was shocked, to say the least, and he was trying to stop himself from slowly moving the weapons out of reach of you.

You stood up, opening the sack, and tipping it upside down to reveal a partly disassembled assault rifle. Your hands moved faster than your mind, easily flipping around the parts before twisting or shoving them into place. Frank thought you looked angelic. A small frown of concentration creased in between your eyebrows and your lips pulled into a delicate pout. Time slowed. He felt like he was having an out-of-body experience and was only pulled back in when you slapped the bottom of the mag into place and pulled back the bolt carrier handle.

"I was the only girl out of six kids," You explained, flipping the safety on and putting it down with the rest of the weapons. "My oldest brother liked to wear heels out in public, the next one was chess champion every year he was in school and the one after that was six foot three and seventy pounds wet. If I wasn't out there beating the shit out of their bullies then no one would be. Now my younger brothers," You tilted your head with a smile. "Bless 'em. Their dumbasses got themselves into the military. No offense Frankie."

"None taken, darlin'." He replied, hanging off every word you spoke. You never spoke about your family and figured you had a rough relationship with them. He didn't realise it was this kind of rough.

"They came home and taught me how to handle firearms when I ended up in the hospital after a kidnapping. So, I can defend myself. Let's settle that." You gave every one of them except Frank a pointed look to make sure they understood. "My oldest brother was murdered by Kingpin for writing an exposing story about him for the newspaper, the chess champ was murdered by Bullseye for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and the next one went out in a hit-and-run courtesy of Bloody Mary."

"Jesus Christ." Karen mumbled.

"Brother after me, a week into active duty stepped on a landmine and took out three other people." Frank felt his heart break at the shakey breath you took in after saying that. You were clearly trying to come off as indifferent like you'd worked through it and it didn't affect you anymore but he saw your hands start to shake again. "My baby brother... while I was nailed to a cross, John Pilgrim hunted him down into an alleyway and beat him to death with a sledgehammer. Dad hung himself and Mom didn't leave the psych ward alive." You paused, looking out to nothing for a second before taking in another shaky breath. "The type of radio I use specifically for long-distance communications can be hacked and tracked, that's the price I pay for clear and crisp long-distance. When you leave and I'm left here to be the girl in the chair... If that happens... I am using these weapons. And I am not holding back. Do you understand me?"

You finally looked at Frank. Fear, defiance, and grief swirling in your eyes and he realised that while you directed the question to all of them, you were asking him. You were telling him that you were going to kill people tonight.

Other Matt never let you seek justice for your brothers. He held you while you cried and stood next to you during their funerals, every single one of them, but he always held you back when you got angry. Always the one holding back saying that if you crossed that line then there was no going back. Then someone tracked your signal one night, crawling through the window and holding a gun to your head. You don't even remember killing him, going into a blind rage and just letting loose.

Elektra found you. Cleaned you up, got rid of the body but left the mess. When other Matt came back after enough radio silence and saw what was left behind, Elektra took the blame. She had kept a close eye on you since.

Frank was the first to speak up. "Sounds good to me."

You nodded to him then looked directly at Matt.

"I don't like it." He said reluctantly.

"I'll go to church." You bartered.

"I'm fine with it." He folded immediately, giving a little shrug.

"What do we call you?" Amy asks, making everyone to turn her now instead. "They can't very well go through the streets calling you by your name. Or into earpieces that can be hacked. That's stupid. Frank's got Punisher. Murdock's got Daredevil. What about you?"

There's a pause where you smile at her.

"Call me Cypher." You answered, looking at Frank again and slyly winking. "I'll be your best-kept secret."

You soon found yourself in a chair that was bordering uncomfortable and listening in to Matt, John, Frank, and Dinah all communicating with one another as they made their way through New York in a van. Karen, Foggy, Amy, and Curtis, however, were staying with you. Curtis stayed back for extra protection with a gun and Amy was sitting next to you with her eyes glued to your screens.

The one to the left showed detailed city blueprint layouts that you had gathered when you got the setup, and it was synced with the middle screen that showed the most recent satellite images of the city. They moved and adjusted with the four dots that were the earpieces you gave to the group. The one on the right was for hacking security cameras around the city but for the life of you, you couldn't get it to sync up and stay with the other screens. Which is why you had to constantly keep up with it.

After some digging and hacking, you found out that John's sons were being held captive in a warehouse by a local gang. A stupid location but they chose it nonetheless. John told you that there was someone higher up paying them off to do this and that was why Dinah was involved so you know to be prepared in case they hacked your radio signal.

Curtis was sitting in front of you, behind your screens, watching the touchscreen tablet with rapt attention. Karen and Foggy were pacing nervously, like wild animals caught in a cage and you couldn't help but feel bad for them. You were in the middle of showing Amy how to manually keep the surveillance in sync with the other two screens when a notification from one of your programs popped up. You specifically made it to pick up when your earpieces were being tracked.

"What's that for?" Amy asked, pointing to it and turning to you.

"Uh..." You stutter for a second, making everyone look to you.

Quick as you can, you start getting up surveillance for around the building you were all in and you zero in on a van coming to a stop. Curtis stands up, going over to where he put his gun down and triple-checking that it was loaded.

"Cypher?" Amy grabs your arm, a stab of fear going through you both as you see armed men leaving the van.

"You three," You got Amy on her feet and pointed to Karen and Foggy to get their attention. "In the back room now."

When Amy ran off to grab the door you felt around your body for the weapons that Frank was insistent on helping strap to your body. One handgun at your hip, the bowie knife at the other, the other handgun under your arm, and the assault rifle on the table. When they were all behind the door and the lock clicked over, you gave Curtis a look and picked up the rifle, aiming it at the door.

"What's going on?" Frank's gruff voice sounded through your earpiece.

"We've got a problem here." Curtis said into the walkie-talkie you had to give him due to not having enough earpieces.

"We should be fine." You say confidently, turning the safety off. "I looked ahead and there's hardly anyone there. You're good to go in and get the boys."

"There's probably no one there because they sent them here!" Curtis hissed at you.

"What do you mean? How many are there?" Matt asked, sounding like he had stopped moving.

"Get the boys Matt." You ordered. "I'm going off coms, you don't need to hear this."

That was the last thing they heard from your earpiece before there was a beep signaling to all of them that it had been turned off. Frank cast a look at Dinah, allowing his worry to spill out into his expression just as they came up to the warehouse.

"She'll be fine Castle." She reassures him sternly, taking out her gun and turning off the safety. "She sounds like she's looking forward to it."

The whole time they were going through the warehouse to where they were keeping John's sons, Frank couldn't stop worrying. It affected him so much that Dinah saved his ass all of three times when his back was turned, making her huff and silently count each time on her fingers in his face. When they got the boys out and into Madani's van he tried to call you.

Eighteen times.

And you didn't pick up once.

When they made it back Frank put a hand to Matt's chest to stop him from coming with them.

"You should hang back." Frank said calmly like his own heart wasn't racing.

"I'm not too good with kids, Frank." He replied agitated and shifting from one foot to another.

"You're not too good with death either, Red." Frank retorted gruffly. "Hang back."

There was suddenly loud shouting that everyone immediately knew was coming from you, making Frank and Dinah start sprinting to the entrance. You sounded like a wild animal, yelling and growling echoing through the halls. They came up to the room that you and the rest of them were in, dead bodies lying on one another at the door and bullet holes in the walls. You were growling lowly now like you were putting in a tremendous amount of effort into something.

Dinah went around the corner first, going low onto one knee and her gun aimed at anything that moved while Frank stayed standing above her doing the same. Curtis was sitting on the ground panting with blood splatters on his face staring at you.

You were hunched over, straddling the chest of an armoured man and pressing down on his throat with all your might. You were covered in blood, your face streaked so badly it was a miracle that they could see your hard expression with a cut that went from your forehead, across your temple, and into your hairline. You were frowning angrily, teeth bared and breathing heavily, bloody hands shaking with the strength it took to choke the man. When he stopped moving, you pressed down just a little harder before releasing him and letting out a short yell from strain.

You lean back on your hunches, tilting your head back and revealing a traumatised Amy curled up watching with wide eyes. Your hands sit on your thighs, palms facing up and Frank realises that the reason they're so bloody is that they look like they've gone through the garbage disposal.

"Amy," You say, snapping Frank's attention back to your face, which was now looking at Amy. "Sweetie? Look at me."

"He-he-" Amy stuttered, trying to shake herself out of it.

"Look at me, baby, okay? Look at me." You crawl towards her, your own voice starting to crack and it breaks Frank out of his shock. He starts towards Curtis but he waves Frank off before he gets too close. "You're okay, baby, you're okay. He's not getting up. Yeah?" Frank freezes at the comforting words, shocked at how well you're handling Amy. "He's not going to hurt you, okay?"

"Mhm." Amy nods her head vigorously, silent tears streaming down her face. "Yeah, yeah. Okay."

No one saw one of the men get up from behind your computers.

"Yeah? Okay." You nod at her like you're agreeing with what she's saying as if you didn't say it first. "Can you do something for me, baby?"

"Yeah! Yeah." Amy nods quickly again, ready and willing to do anything you ask.

"I need you to go and check on Karen and Foggy for me. Can you do that?" You ask, and Frank knows it's so that Karen will see how traumatised Amy is and give her the physical comfort you couldn't give her right now. "You need to make sure that they're okay."

"I can-I can do that." Amy goes to get up when you give her the warmest smile under all the blood.

"Thank you. Can you do something else for me?" You ask again, looking up at her now that she's standing. "Can you help me up?"

"Oh god! Yeah." Amy goes down into a squat, grabbing a hold of your biceps and helping you up onto shakey legs. You made sure to keep your palms facing you to not get any more blood on her.

"Thanks." You said, knocking your head with hers lightly before Amy turned and stumbled to where Karen and Foggy were.

You turned to Frank and Dinah, and both of them put their guns away to watch the interaction. You start to stand up straight, loud cracking through your back going off and you groan as you stretch out slightly at all the popping. You heavily sigh, still slightly panting as you look at Frank.

"Was I right?" You ask. "There was hardly anyone there, right?"

"You need to sit down." Dinah said, watching you carefully as you went to go to your computers again.

"I was right though." Then you round the corner and there was the crouching man. "Shit!"

He jumps out at you, going for a hit to the stomach but you bring your leg up to block. Your fighting stance was impeccable, hands up protecting your face and light on your feet. Frank realises that you've been trained, so, he hangs back, watching you work. When he goes to strike again you grab onto his arm and spin, turning your back to him, and then run him into the table. Dinah had taken out her gun, aiming it at the man and yelling for you to get out of the way so she could get a clear shot. When he hits it with a grunt, you bring your arm above his and start smashing your elbow into his face repeatedly, grunting for each hit. The man pulls out a knife and swipes, slashing at your hip making you get off him but not without grabbing at another bowie knife he had strapped on his back. You both circled one another like predators, him with his boisterous and self-assured steps and you slinking like a wild cat ready to strike.

He strikes out first and you dodge, moving out of the way and kicking him in the gut with a loud yell making him hunch over. A few more blows were landed from both of you before you had him backed up on the table again. This time you were so worked up and ready to finish this that the first chance you got you brought the blade down on his flat palm with another yell. It went straight through his hand and into the table, making him scream out from the pain.

In a split second, you saw him pull back his other hand with the knife in it ready to slash at you again. You sounded wild again, a mix of growling and yelling leaving you as you grabbed the back of the man's head, yanked the knife from the table, and brought him in close. You kicked his knees out, using the leg to hold him in place below you as you sunk the knife into his neck. More growling and yelling leaving you in heaves as the man struggled under you, truly like you were a wild animal holding a kill in her jaws as it died.

"One Mississippi." You grit out, closing your eyes and panting loudly, grunting here and there when the man still twitched. "Two Mississippi." You said just a touch calmer and your pants slowed down, slowly, slowly getting calmer and Frank slowly started to walk over to you. "Three Mississippi."

You brought your leg down and yanked the knife from his throat making a spray of blood hit Frank's boots. You stood there for a second, head craned up as you took in a few more breaths still holding the knife in a tight grip. You bring your head down and look at the knife, shakily bringing it away from you before hastily dropping it like it was searing hot. Frank knew it was from the cuts on the palms of your hands, that holding anything in that grip was bound to make the wounds worse. You sat down heavily, sighing deeply again and laying your palms upright on your thighs as they continued to bleed.

"Medic should be here soon." Dinah said and Frank realised he was so enraptured with you that he didn't even hear her on the phone.

"That's good." You say softly, still panting. "Curtis really needs it."

"Get fucked, Cypher." Curtis laughs, shaking his head.

Frank goes to be beside you, squatting down and putting his hand on your forearm to see the damage.

"You been holdin' out on me, sweetheart." He said.

You let out a breathy chuckle. "Well, you know what some men are like." You say, giving him a half-lidded stare that was half flirty and half tired. "Didn't wanna scare ya off. I'm a screamer."

Frank chuckles and watches as your eyes close softly at the sound.

"Hey, hey," He leans down and kisses your wrist before coming back up and cupping your cheek. "None of that, doll. Eyes open for me, yeah?"

"I bet you say that to all the girls." Your eyes flutter open and you give him the best smile you can muster.

#frank castle x reader #frank castle fic #frank castle fanfic #the punisher x reader #the punisher fic #the punisher fanfic #marvel fic #marvel fanfic

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