#for those of you keeping track in the past three years I've been:

[ellieluvr420]

Friends? Never. Pt.1 (Ellie Williams x reader)

SYNOPSIS: You and Ellie had been bitter enemies for years now but before that you were best friends. You had always planned to be roommates one day but when that becomes a reality the situation isn't exactly how you both imagined it.

New fic alert? Can you tell I've got a thing for the enemies to lovers trope? Sorryyyyyy. I have loads of ideas for so many stories but this one made me too excited :D I can’t tell if the writing in this is ass but i’m just setting things up hold out hope for me people…

"You've got to be fucking kidding me." Ellie opens the door of her new home only to see you, her least favourite person in Jackson, standing at her door with your suitcase in hand.

"No no no no no no no." You say as you immediately start walking away from her. You keep walking until you see Maria walking towards you.

"Don't even start-" She already knows what you're going to say.

"I am not fucking living with her Maria."

"Didn't I tell you not to start? You're wasting your breath anyway, this is the only way we can accommodate all the new arrivals."

"Why do you hate me?" You groan and she spins you around immediately marching you back to your new home.

"I don't, but you and Ellie are a pain in my ass, maybe make the most of it and try and get along hm?" She keeps you held firmly at the front door as she knocks three times.

"Back for more alrea-" Ellie pauses as she sees Maria standing there with a stern look on her face, she pushes you through the door and smiles.

"Enjoy setting up!" She calls over her shoulder and you're sure you hear her laugh.

"Fuck my life." You push past Ellie, bumping her hard enough that she stumbles slightly. You storm off upstairs to find your room huffing at your new reality.

You're unpacking all your belongings when you notice her standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe. "Are you just gonna keep staring at me like a creep?"

"Are you gay?"

"Pardon?" You scoff at her bluntness but your heart was beating a mile a minute, you knew it wasn't a big deal, she's a lesbian herself, but for some reason you still found coming out to people so difficult. Your parents hadn't taken it well which is how you found yourself living on your own... well, with Ellie. You breathe in and regain your composure, turning to her and flashing a coy smirk. "Why do you want to know Williams? Got a little crush on me?"

"Ha! You wish. Just wondered seeing as you're nineteen and have never once even held a guys hand."

"Didn't realise you paid so much attention to me, should I be worried I have a stalker?" She rolls her eyes at you obviously avoiding her question. "Why does it matter?"

"It doesn't, just trying to figure out if I should be worried about you getting a crush on me and going all crazy."

You walk over to her until there's only inches between you. "You're so arrogant." You bump her in the shoulder and she stumbles as you walk past her towards the kitchen. "You're also not my type... at all." You call over her shoulder missing the look of bewilderment on her face.

"Wait... so you are?" Ellie calls as she follows you to the kitchen. She's close behind you as you march away until you stop dead in your tracks causing her to bump into you.

"If you must know Ellie, yes I am."

"Oh." Ellie felt her heart clench a little for you as she knows how unaccepting your parents are, that's why you stopped being friends all those years ago after all.

You had met Ellie on the first day she arrived in Jackson, she looked tired and a little gaunt but you still felt butterflies in your stomach when you laid eyes on her for the first time. You remember seeing her walk in and hand a gun she kept in the back of her jeans to Maria, you were gobsmacked because she looked the same age as you and you couldn't imagine holding, let alone using, a gun. You had been born in Jackson, only ever leaving to go on patrol in the last couple years so 14 year old you found the girl all the more intriguing. You had watched her from a distance as Joel spoke to your dad, you still remember the feeling of your stomach dropping when she looked up to see you spying on her. You hadn't spoken to her until later that evening when Joel and her had come to yours for dinner. It was awkward at first but when she saw your record player and limited vinyl collection, the ice thawed quickly, you became inseparable until your parents started taking an issue with your friendship with her, you never understood why they stopped you seeing her and stopped seeing Joel until two years ago when you told them you were a lesbian. Ellie had always known that they were homophobic but it still hurt when they stopped you seeing her, she saw red any time she was near you because she was so hurt that you could cut her out of your life just like that and within a couple months you were bitter rivals that couldn't share a nice word with the other. Her hatred for you was so overwhelming that it forced her to stop being so awkward around people because she was so focused on throwing as many insults your way as possible that her nerves when speaking to others dissipated.

Now, as you stand in the kitchen staring at her leaning on the doorframe you felt a pang of guilt for how you had treated her although it quickly disappeared the second she opened her beautiful mouth.

"Well er... you're not my type either so don't get any ideas." You laugh at the awkwardness of her statement knowing why she suddenly lost confidence in herself.

"Thanks for the clarification." You roll your eyes before busying yourself getting a glass of water, it was the middle of summer so all the moving and unpacking was making you feel severely dehydrated. Ellie watched as you gulped down the water, noting how a couple drops fall down onto your white tank top. She dragged her eyes away from you and cleared her throat.

"Well now we've established the feelings mutual we can go back to never speaking again. Or are you going to bother me constantly with small talk?"

"Oh believe me you have nothing to worry about on my end." You refill the glass again and walk over to her. "And if I'm remembering correctly you're the one that came and spoke to me, so I could ask you the same thing, no?" You jab a finger into her chest as you speak emphasising your point. "Now if you'll excuse me I need to go wash this finger of your germs and finish unpacking." You push past her once again and she scoffs as you walk away back upstairs without looking back at her.

You continue unpacking methodically until everything is put away neatly and your decorations are in their new designated homes. As you collapse onto the bed picking up the book you were reading at the moment from your bedside table you breathe a sigh of relief at the breeze making its way through your open window. Your shared cabin was right on the outskirts of Jackson so your view was the beautiful woods that lined the north west section of the wall, as you looked at the greenery that was reflecting glittering spots of sunlight you reminisced on the times you and Ellie had spent in the woods when you were friends. You're interrupted from your thoughts by the growling of your stomach that prompts you to sneak back to the kitchen.

"Fuck's sake." You mutter under your breath as you walk into the kitchen only to be greeted by Ellie leaning on the counter savaging a bowl of cereal.

"You know you're spilling more of that down your shirt than you're getting in your mouth right?" Ellie looks down at her t-shirt only to see that you were correct when you said she was spilling milk down herself, she huffs and continues eating, this time being more careful as she brings the bowl right to her mouth.

"I thought I made it clear I didn't want to talk to you and yet... here you are talking to me." She mumbles through a mouthful of cereal. You roll your eyes and open the fridge only to see the leftovers you had put in there earlier were gone. You take a deep breath before spinning to give Ellie the dirtiest of looks.

"Are you fucking kidding me? That's the only food I had until I go out tomorrow. Why would you eat it?"

"Oh was that yours? My bad I got hungry earlier, it was really good though you gotta make me some more of that sometime." She smiles sweetly and your face twists into a scowl as you feel the rage boiling inside of you.

"Only we live here Ellie, if you're going to steal my food you could at least own it." You walk away and just before you leave the kitchen empty handed you turn back slightly. "Pussy." You go to walk away until you feel a hand enclose around your arm yanking you backwards. She pushes you up against the wall and leans her body weight on you so you can't move, relishing in your struggle.

"Say that again bitch, I dare you." Her eyes are dark and cold only mirroring yours, a devilish grin appears on your face as you lean in closer to her.

"You're a pussy Williams... and you don't scare me." You push her off with all your strength and rush away from her before slamming your door so hard you're shocked it doesn't come off the hinges. You pace around your room muttering and cursing Ellie before you stop, realising you actually have to live with her for the foreseeable future, every time you looked at her all you could think of is the screaming matches you endured with your parents when they banned you from seeing her and the look of defeat on her face as you ignored her for the first time when she came over to you while you were out with your parents, the nausea you were feeling only grew as the memory of when you came out to your parents flashes through your mind as it does multiple times throughout the day. You grab your book and begin reading once again trying to rid yourself of all these memories that Ellie was bringing up. As you finally feel the nausea calming there are three forceful knocks on your door that you ignore reflexively.

"You gonna open the door or what?" Ellie's voice is muffled but clear enough to make out what she's saying.

"No. Fuck off Ellie!" Ellie rolls her eyes before knocking harder this time and she doesn't stop, she continuously bangs on your door until you throw your book down in frustration to storm over to the source of your irritation. As you yank the door open you're greeted by a smirking Ellie. "WHAT? What could you possibly want? You eat my food, you piss me off, you pin me against a fucking wall, what do you want now Ellie?"

Ellie is taken aback by your harsh tone, typically it had a hint of playfulness to it but now you just sounded angry. She gulped before regaining her standoffish demeanour. "Calm down sweetie."

You scoff and go to slam the door in her face but her hand stops you and pushes the door back so hard you stumble backwards with it, you huff and walk away dropping down onto your bed once again.

"Can I come in?"

"Sure whatever. You're gonna do what you want anyway." She stuffs her hands into her front pockets and walks in as she looks at all the decorations in your room before plopping down on your bed sitting directly on your feet. You snatch them away with a huff as you grit your teeth and curl up to put as much distance between you two.

"What... do you want Williams?"

"Nothing really. Just wanted to see your room. It's very... you."

"Mm and I'm sure yours looks like a squatters pit." You smile smugly at her as she rolls her eyes, your face drops as she turns and eyes the book on your bedside table with a smirk.

"You read romance?" She stifles a laugh poorly.

"Yes and what? Can you even read?" She chuckles and you mumble under your breath "idiot"

"Wow you really are a virgin aren't you?" You eyes flash up at her as your eyebrows knit together and your face turns to a grimace.

"Why do you assume I'm a virgin because I read romance? Maybe I just enjoy it."

"Ha! Right. I'm assuming you're a virgin because only virgins read romance books." You kick at her and she grabs your sock-covered foot stopping you in your tracks.

"Oh my god Ellie can you go away!"

"No no, not just yet. My curiosity is piqued about this book now." Before you can stop her she's reaching for the book and standing up while flicking through some pages.

"Wait, No Ellie don't." She holds it above your head as you stand, you try and snatch it from her once but it's too far out of your reach, panic takes over as she opens it above her head and begins reading aloud. "Ellie fucking stop!"

"Why? It's just a romance book right? Nothing too... inappropriate." Your cheeks heat and the familiar rage comes back in full force, you look down at her feet and stomp on the left one as hard as you can, she yelps and drops her arms which allows you to grab the book from her grasp and you immediately rush out of your room and into the bathroom, locking the door behind you with a triumphant smile.

"Ow you bitch!" You hear Ellie call after you. As you eye the bathtub you decide now is the perfect time to relax in the tub so you can escape Ellie for awhile and read your book in peace.

You stay in the bath until the sun has completely set and the room is bathed in a silvery glow from the moonlight, you guess you were in there for at least an hour but as you start to shiver from the cooling water you decide to finally leave your refuge. As you climb out of the bath you're horrified when you realise your towel is still in your room.

"Fuck fuck fuck." You had to walk past Ellie's room to get to yours but ultimately you decide you'd have to risk it, you unlock the door and peak out into the hallway to see its empty, you edge the door open and begin quickly creeping to your room, you're almost there but as you go to walk past Ellie's room she walks out at the exact same time walking straight into your naked form.

"AGH OH MY GOD!" Your hands immediately attempt to cover your dignity but its an almost failed attempt as you notice her looking you up and down. "DON'T FUCKING LOOK!" You scream as you run past her to your room so quickly your feet slip a little. You hear her cackling in the hallway as you lean with your back against the door in utter disbelief. "No no noooo that did not just happen." You mumble to yourself as you run a hand over your face.

You try to put the embarrassment past you as you settle into bed before passing out from the sheer exhaustion of the day.

[ddejavvu]

this idea came to me when I wanted to go to bed so imagine bradley at the hard deck wearing his usual hawaiian shirts and he bumps into a girl in a dress with the exact same design as his shirt like it's fate😭 and then after they start dating they always match🥹

THIS IS SO CUTE ??

--

The material that Bradley's hand brushes against is soft, but he doesn't pay much attention to it until he can see it. He stops in his tracks, offering you a sincere, "Sorry," when he's jostled from his left and rams into you on his right. You turn to glance at him over your shoulder, and you register each others' outfits at the same time, all owlish blinks and hitched breaths.

Bradley speaks first, a murmured, 'Oh-' but you're hot on his trail, an incredulous laugh escaping your lips.

You're wearing the same thing.

Bradley's sporting a faded old Hawaiian shirt, but it's unmistakably the same patterned fabric that your dress is made from. The green on his shirt was a lot brighter when he'd plucked it out of his dad's closet almost ten years ago, but yours is more vibrant, reminding him of a photo of him and his dad that lays in the drawer of his nightstand.

"I like your shirt," You grin at him, and he wonders if the glimmer in your eyes is always there, or only when you've got a drink in hand. It's pretty, he thinks, he hopes it's not temporary.

"I like your dress," He teases, swallowing what he doesn't want to admit is the beginnings of a lump in his throat, "Where'd you get it?"

"I found it at a thrift shop," You admit, reaching out to tug at the open panel of his shirt, "What about you?"

"It was my dad's," He grins, taking one step closer to you so that you're not so much reaching out for him as you are reaching up, "If he'd known there was a matching dress, he would have bought one for my mom."

"That's sweet!" You gush, and he notices whether you want him to or not, that you haven't let go of his shirt yet, "I like it when husbands match with their wives, I think it makes a good man."

--

"-And that's- that's why he's got that dumbass tie on," Fanboy concludes, words coming out slurred with laughter, "'Cause- cause three years ago she said it'd make him a good man."

"It's not dumb," Bob pipes up with a kind smile, eyeing Bradley's tie and your matching hair tie, a scrunchie made from the same fabric. You'd had to sacrifice your dress to fashion your accessories, but you're wearing maternity clothing now, and you likely won't be able to fit into it afterwards, anyways. It's a thing of the past, but you'd thought it unbearable not to incorporate the reason you'd gotten together with Bradley in the first place into your wedding.

"I don't care if he thinks it's dumb," Bradley drawls, his hand growing clammy from where it's been clutching yours beneath the table for almost an hour now, though he makes no move to break the embrace, "He thinks deodorant is dumb, too, and I can smell him from here."

"I'd watch what you say, Fanboy," Phoenix warns, "They made a onesie for the baby out of that dress, too, and if you keep running your mouth they might not let you hold her."

"He's not gettin' a chance to hold her anyways," Jake vows, "Kid's gonna love me so much she won't want me to put her down."

"You usually have the opposite effect on women," Bradley reminds him, "But the only ones I'll trust to hold her are Phoenix and Bob."

"No fair! I've got nieces and nephews," Jake protests, slightly more invested than normal thanks to the wine he's been nursing, his cheeks growing rosy with each sip, "I'm great with 'em."

"You throw those kids around like they're basketballs," Bradley scoffs, "And I'm not letting you give my baby brain damage, Hangman. I've gotta make sure she's smarter than you."

[eowynstwin]

There has been more than enough drama about this whole situation so I will be as direct and concise as I can. This will be my last post about the matter regarding Myka/codslut. This will likely be my last post on this blog period.

This fandom community has crucified me over a story that has fallen apart over what I can only describe as the lightest scrutiny. FOIA requests, when expedited, have a ten day window to be granted, not a twelve hour window, and normally take months to even years to grant. Americans do not call small towns villages. Crisis workers do not have unfettered, immediate access to clients' personal information, let alone that of complete strangers on the internet.

I am not exaggerating when I say I have feared for my safety for the past week. The three people who have lead the charge against me have slandered, harassed, and outright stalked me—keeping track of posts I've made and deleted, changes I've made to my directory, and even the time between posts I have made. I have genuinely feared that the next step these people were going to take would be to search both of my blogs (because I have not, in the past, been very concerned about hiding my main) for my personal information in order to dox me.

I believe this campaign has been racist ("gaz erasure my ass") and ableist in nature. I believe my being autistic—and my trouble communicating in a way that could satisfy the aforementioned people this entire week—has played a part in the way this fandom has victimized me.

I believe in particular that sheheal has a personal vendetta against me, although I do not know why. I believe that their claim that they must leave their blog up as "evidence" is false—I believe they are keeping it active in order that it should always be digitally connected to me, and thus risk my safety and peace in whatever online space I choose to be in next. I am entertaining the belief that she even intends for it to follow me in real life, although that may be more paranoia than possibility.

I am aware of the mistakes I have made. I regret them. I am sorry for them. If what has happened to me is representative of what happened to Myka, I have nothing but empathy for her. Even before this happened, I would not wish this on anyone. I do not believe that dogpiling is justice, and have fought against it when I have seen it happening in this fandom in the past. I did not and do not want this to happen to anyone, ever, no matter their sins.

I want to extend a gratitude I find difficult to express the depth of to everyone who reached out to check on me. I especially want to thank Early for being the first person to stick their neck out for me, and for everything after. I hope to be friends with you all for a long time. You mean more to me than you know. You have made a lonely and difficult week feel less lonely and difficult.

I do not want to be a part of this fandom anymore. I have poured over a year and a half of work and creative energy into this community and it has meant nothing. I have loved this community and it has meant nothing. I have fought for this community and it has meant nothing.

If fandom was ever a safe space, it is not anymore. It is not safe for those affected by racism and it is not safe for those affected by disability. It is not safe for anyone who makes mistakes. It is not safe for me, and reader, it is not safe for you. I did not think this would happen to me. Do not make the mistake of thinking this won't happen to you.

[randomshyperson]

R U Mine? - Heart Shaped Series

Chapter Summary: A game of cat and mouse begins between an Avenger and a criminal. But perhaps there are no winners, as they both fall.

Warnings: mentions of typical canon violence, hints of abusive past and unhealthy work dynamics, some superhero routine lore, more shapeshifter power mentions, mutual pining, forbidden relationship, some teasing, (first) kiss and then a lot of kisses and steamy make out, some fluff and comedy. | Words: 6.965K

A/N-> How many references to Killing Eve can one put in a story. And also, references to the Witch's Road comics. This here is the extra chapter about their first kiss, enjoy reading.

General Masterlist | AO3 | Series Masterlist

-&-

Before.

"I know what you're doing."

Three weeks prior, Natasha's sentence would have made her jump with fright. Perhaps she would have tried to hide all those files and lie and lie again, until she could convince herself the whole thing was about the job.

But today? Wanda was tired. She had spent the last few hours stumbling into dead ends, no progress on whatever she was trying to do with all that vague information Shield had on you.

So she lifted her face to the redhead who appeared in her room late at night, two cups of coffee in hand, and chuckled weakly at the statement. It was obvious that the drink was an invitation - perhaps even a sign of 'hey, I'm not trying to start a fight. I want to help,' and Wanda accepted without hesitation.

"It's not like I'm doing a good job of keeping it a secret." She retorts to Nat, who smiles before taking the empty space on the bed. Practically all the Shield files - now labeled Avengers - about you are scattered on the mattress. It's a mess, and to Nat, it makes sense that Wanda hasn't made much progress.

"To be fair, for a first-time Investigation, I think you're doing all right." Says the widow after a sip of her coffee. "You covered your tracks and even used an official justification for researching her. Your mistake was involving Vision."

Wanda sighs. "Let me guess, he talks under pressure?"

Nat chuckles, nodding. Wanda rubs a tension point on her forehead. Taking advantage of this, Natasha gestures to one of the files. "I'm not going to tell you what you can and can't do, Maximoff. But this doesn't seem very healthy."

Wanda gives a sad smile, and Nat expects her to defend herself. But instead, the smaller girl sighs. "I know." She murmurs sincerely, forcing a faint smile at the widow. "But I need this, Nat. It's the first time in months that I've managed to think about anything other than Pietro. And I know it doesn't look healthy, but it's all I've got. I'm an Avenger now. Maybe it's just time to get to work, and arrest villains or something."

Natasha frowned at her, absorbing the confession for a moment before rebutting: "Is that what you want to do with Y/N, though? Lock her up?"

Wanda swallows dryly, looking down. "Of course, Nat."

"You're a terrible liar."

The brunette sighs. "I mean it!"

"And I don't believe you." Nat insists in a good mood despite everything. "Look at all this, Wanda. You've been at it for days. Studying her. Did you even remember to eat anything in the last few hours?" Wanda snorts, gesturing to the breakfast leftovers on the dresser in the corner of the room which makes Natasha let out an incredulous laugh. "Wow, a nutritious example you are."

The witch tosses her hair back. "If you've come here to try to babysit me, please leave."

Natasha rolled her eyes and ignored the other woman's stubbornness. She put her coffee down between her crossed legs and started organizing the files.

"You're naturally perceptive and clever, Maximoff. But you lack experience and practice. You need to put together a timeline and find the gaps." The widow began, and masterfully, all the security camera photos, reports from shield agents, and unexplained crimes related to thieves with no identifiable faces began to connect and make sense. "But I must warn you, I did all this years ago. When I started at Shield, your little friend was already some sort of the goose that laid the golden eggs, or stole the gold for the saying to work."

"She's not my friend." Wanda murmured, her gaze fixed on the files so Natasha wouldn't see her blush. The widow ignored the comment and continued talking.

"My point is that I didn't get very far." Nat says with a sigh. "To be honest, it was an insult to my ego. She was just a kid back there. And she managed to flee much more experienced agents. She had endless, untraceable disguises. She doesn't need to impersonate, you know? She can create faces. It makes her almost impossible to monitor. When we met for the first time, it was she who found me." Nat says, swallowing dryly at her own memories. Wanda's eyes widen softly, listening carefully. "I never told this to anyone, but when Clint first met me, he told me that he felt something. As if he knew I wanted to escape. And when I saw Y/N, I had the same feeling."

"What did you do?" Wanda asked and Nat sighed.

"I couldn't do what Clitn did for me, Wanda, I'm sorry." Said the widow sincerely. "She attacked first. And I had to defend myself. It wasn't just protocol, it was all I'd learned to do."

Wanda frowns. "Why are you telling me all this, Nat?"

The redhead sighs. "Because it's important. It means that she doesn't trust easily, and attacks when she feels threatened. She reminds me of both of us, to be honest." Nat comments, getting a small smile from the witch. "Besides, I want you to be really careful if you do dig into this."

"I will."

"I'm serious, Wanda." Insists the redhead. "Careful not to miss a gun hidden in her dress." She remembers the last official report Wanda made, regarding her first mission, the night she simply couldn't stop thinking about, especially after your secret vision to the compound, and the witch swallows dryly. Nat doesn't mind her hesitation. "Careful in a way that you'll use your powers if necessary."

Without looking the widow in the eye, Wanda retorts between her teeth: "I get it, Nat."

"You're not going to carry this on until you look me in the eye, Maximoff. And swear it."

Wanda's stubbornness falters, and she returns her attention to the widow, looking at her seriously. Nat gives her a small smile as she adds, "It's not just Clint who cares about your safety. We all do. I'm not going to allow you to throw yourself headlong into something dangerous just to escape your grief, Wanda. Swear that you'll be very careful, and you'll walk away if it gets too dangerous."

Wanda is surprised by the tenderness, and a little embarrassed. It takes a moment but she finally nods. "I swear." She says before adding. "I want to help Y/N. Like Clint helped you. Not lock her up, like I said before."

Natasha chuckles. "I know, kid. I know."

With the Black Widow’s blessing, she kept digging those files. And Nat didn't lie, you're untraceable. Every time you meet, it's clear that you've let yourself be found. Even with handcuffs on your wrist, you keep smiling as if it was all part of the plan. Judging by the way you always escape from prisons, later going public that some confidential information for the police was stolen, this is easily confirmed.

The Avengers are getting used to the strange persecution, very much because each of them has their secrets. And just like his protégé, Steve Rogers had side missions to pursue Bucky. It would be hypocritical of him to hold anything against Wanda for being after you.

And Wanda couldn't stop. Even after hundreds of dead ends and ridiculous escapes. She had to meet you, and have less than five minutes in your presence with another twelve agents and the whole Avengers present every fortnight when they manage to track you only for you to escape again. She didn't know why, but she had the impression that you looked forward to these moments as much as she did.

Like a little private game of mouse and cat, only you and her were part of.

-&-

There are a hundred things to do in the Capital of Crime.

The most complete list of gambling games imaginable, right down to a mural of targets to be captured.

All these things are at your disposal, and all you can think about is the new addition to the Avengers team.

Wanda Maximoff was born in the country that fell from the sky around the same time that Baron Strucker was playing Pinky and the Brain with your cells in a secret laboratory of the now-destroyed Hydra. A Stark bomb made her an orphan, and after bouncing from orphanage to orphanage, often expelled for getting into trouble with her twin brother, Wanda embarked on protest groups in search of civil rights until she was finally recruited into a human experimentation program that turned her into an enhanced version of herself. She was the only reason for the first time in your life that you wished you hadn't split with Strucker so soon - If you'd still been his puppy instead of the clients he got, you would have met her. You may have become friends.

"She's doing it again." Xu Xialing whispered to Layla, the two engaged in a game of Beat the Hero - a competition of colored cards that contained electronic figures detailing the abilities of real-life superheroes. It was, in a way, training for possible battles in real life, where they learned about their enemies by playing. The two of them were sitting in opposite armchairs, while you were practically lying on the sofa, drinking with a lost look on your face. According to them, fantasizing for the tenth time in a row about the Avenger you met in Italia weeks ago.

Layla giggled when she saw your expression before turning her face to Xu Xialing again. "You know, they say Maximoff has psychic powers. Maybe Y/N is under a spell."

"A love spell, that is." Mocks the Chinese woman, getting a laugh from the other.

You only came out of your trance of thoughts about Wanda with the bell from the private room you were in. Your face changed before the curtain opened, and Xu Xialing was the first to look at the security guard entering, somewhat annoyed at having her private time playing games with friends interrupted.

"Forgive me for intruding, madam. The Countess is here and requests the Sage to join her." The man said, and Xialing nodded in understanding. She turned to you, but there was no need. With a soft leap from the sofa, you got to your feet and took one of Layla's cards from her pile - you threw it on the board and helped her win the game, taking the opportunity to leave the room while the two of them discussed whether the assisted victory had been fair or not.

The Golden Daggers Club was as packed and vibrant as ever. The next round of betting for the fights was due to start soon, and there were a lot of people shouting their bets to the judges, and joining the fight cages, so you had to make some effort to follow the venue's security guard into the special area of the place - where federal agents were given even more privacy to be around.

Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine was waiting for you alone, but behind a door with six security guards guarding her. Each of them gave you a look of contempt, but you walked past them without any reaction until you were with Valentina in a room with no windows, every inch of which was covered in priceless works of art, many of them stolen throughout history, which you and Layla recovered together in the service of the Ten Rings.

"You wanted to see me, Countess?" was your greeting, softly snarky. You weren't in the best of moods, especially since Valentina had interrupted your rest.

The woman gave you a false smile from the armchair where she was sitting waiting for you. A closed file and a glass of wine lay on the corner table.

"Oh, what a surprise, after your last defeat, I thought you'd given up on Sage." She comments with a certain venom on your disguise, the same one you wore two weeks ago when you went on what she called a streak of bad luck in the Club's fighting competitions, but which Xu Xialing called a distracted lovesick puppy. You try to disguise your clumsiness by clearing your throat.

Checking that the door is closed, you return to your real appearance and Valentina gives you a small but genuine smile.

"What do you want?" you insist, and in response, she pats the file resting on the table. You sigh. "What's this?"

"Last month has been very busy, but I've finally had time to review some of your late missions reports." She begins and you hide your nervousness, knowing full well where this conversation could end. "I apologize for taking so long to check them, darling. I hope you don’t think I’m jeopardizing your learning progress."

"Stop stalling, Valentina, just tell me what the problem is." You retort grumpily but she chuckles, her fingers tracing the paper before she grabs the file.

“Normally, I trust your experience, but I've heard that you've been particularly... antsy in your last few operations. Of course, you've successfully made it out of all of them, after all, we're having this conversation, but for a master of disguise, the increased number of encounters with the Avengers attracted my curiosity. I thought I'd take a closer look at your original encounters with them, and found an interesting passage in your report on Italy two months ago."

The page is already marked and in the next moment, she begins to read;

"My exit was interrupted by the presence of a new Avenger. A woman, perhaps the same age as me. The new, improved one from Sokovia. Average height, brown hair. Green eyes. Intense. Hypnotizing."

You swallow dryly, looking down at your feet. You're grateful to have control over your own body, or Valentina would be able to watch your cheeks blush.

She continues reading. "We faced each other briefly. The girl doesn't have complete control of her abilities, it was a quick fight. I immobilized her and departed in the getaway vehicle. No disguise was compromised, no other witnesses." Valentina narrates, finally raising her eyes from the file to you. "You know what's funny, sweetheart? The Avengers submitted their own report on Sapienza, and Wanda Maximoff describes the encounter with a Shapeshifter in detail. My question is, why are you lying for someone who didn't hesitate to use her special abilities to show her team your real appearance?"

You're caught off guard. A conflict of emotions rises in your chest, from anger to disappointment. It hurts. It's confusing and suffocating, and you feel the urge to start crying. But none of these emotions floats over your expression, your nails digging into your palm are enough to keep everything well buried.

With a soft sigh, you look Valentina in the eye.

"I don't trust the CIA."

Your boss chuckles, closing the file and crossing her legs. It's not exactly her best lie, but it seems to work on her.

"If this is about the Hydra clean-up in the public sector, I can assure you that we're safe." Valentina says. "Besides, your job is to trust me, Y/N. Not the CIA, or the Ten Rings, or any of your contractors. Only me, dear child, must you trust."

You bite your tongue hard, tears almost escaping this time. 

"I just..." You try, not knowing exactly what to say. "There was a conflict, and the girl, she beat me. Effortlessly. That energy she possesses revealed my disguise immediately, I had no chance to try another one. So I made a choice, and I omitted the part that I thought would do me any harm. Isn't that what you taught me to do?"

Right answer. Valentina grins, before sighing and standing up. You don't want her to touch you, but she puts her hands on your arms and you resist the urge to pull away.

"I'm proud of you, you're getting cleverer every day. I want you to be this way, Y/N. Strong-willed, resourceful." She compliments you, her hands moving up to your cheeks. You try to smile, but Valentina squeezes your skin tighter. "That doesn't mean you will lie to me. Understand?" She asks but doesn't expect a vocal response. Your nod is more than enough for her to give you a fake smile and loosen her grip. "You're my most valuable employee. I don't want you to put yourself in vulnerable situations without a reason."

Valentina steps away, and you decide to take a chance.

"She's like me." It's more hesitant than you'd like, but it's enough to make your boss raise an eyebrow at you. Swallowing dryly, you continue. "Wanda and her brother were also Strucker's experiments. We are the same. I thought I could-"

Valentina interrupts with a spiteful chuckle that makes you cringe like a frightened child. "The same? Is that what you think?" She retorts in a mocking tone that makes you feel too ashamed to even broach the subject. Leaning her waist on the table, she looks at you. "I know you've been digging through my files on her, Y/N. I don't blame you for being curious, but by now, I imagine you know very well the conditions of the experiments Miss Maximoff was part of. How she volunteered for all that. How can you say you're the same?"

You hesitate uneasily. "I don't mind that she volunteered. War called for desperate measures. I just... I've never met any other of us. Another who survived the Baron. I've been thinking if I could just see her-"

Valentina bursts into laughter, and you fall silent, concentrating so that she can't see your red ears. "See her? Now what's that, huh? Romeo and Juliet of the supers? What an absurd idea, child!" Refutes your boss, still chuckling as she walks away to the table. She finishes her glass of wine in one long gulp, and to your surprise, throws the file in your direction. You catch the item flat against your chest. "The notes the Avengers made about you are on page 24. Read what she said about you, and draw your own conclusions about who you call an equal. I came here to confirm your mental state, and this conversation was enlightening. I'll arrange an assessment."

"Val-"

"It’s not open for discussions Y/N." She cuts you off, a car key already in hand that makes you groan to yourself impatiently. "You're not going back to work until you talk to Doctor Grand."

She leaves without saying another word and you're left alone with the file in your hands. Without hurrying, you flip to the page mentioned earlier and sigh when you find a photograph of Wanda wearing a uniform with the Avengers crest embroidered on it. Below is her statement about the mission.

You trace your fingers over the passage "An extraordinary and dangerous skill from an equally impressive fighter" but hesitate when you read the passages about how she felt scared and unsafe. About how she thought you were aiming at her. About how she felt she failed by not bringing a high-risk criminal into custody.

Your tears finally fall, staining the page before you quickly wipe them away, closing the file tightly after ripping Wanda's photo out.

It was time to wrap up loose ends and get back to your perfect record.

-&-

In the fake drawer hidden on the floor under your bed - safeguards for someone whose apartment is frequently visited by a two-faced countess - you kept some personal things. Hydra's last record of you, small souvenirs from missions, and a photograph of Wanda Maximoff.

And this morning - and any other morning really - you were supposed to ignore that drawer, leave any weapons at home, put on a presentable outfit, and meet Valentina in the lobby promptly at 10 o'clock. She would take you by car to Dr. Grant's office who would do a standard assessment of your mental state that would tell whether or not you were fit to return to work.

But instead, you took the photo of Wanda out of its hiding place and put it in your pocket. You stood up, walked through your closet, and chose the least flashy backpack you owned. Then you armed yourself with three different types of knives and two pistols in a chest holster, very similar to that of American detectives. And speaking of the police, your drawer of false documentation provided by Valentina was studied without haste until you had in your pockets the identity of a Shield agent who never existed but was meant to be a little tribute to the job you were performing today.

With your disguise ready, you left the apartment two hours before your scheduled meeting with Valentina, and you had barely boarded the ferry when she called you.

"Our appointments aren't something to be skipped, young lady." Stated the woman seriously, but you gave her a weary sigh.

"I don't wish to see Doctor Grant."

Valentina chuckled, as you handed your ticket to the clerk passing in the corridors. On the other end of the line, she then spoke;

"You're not getting away with this, Y/N. I'm not authorizing your return to work until Roland confirms to me that your mental state is stable for you to continue."

You prop your feet up on the seat, switching your cell phone to another ear. "Val, I'm not running away, I promise. I just needed a break. Give me a few days, okay? Reschedule the visit, I'll be there. I'll even be there early."

She pauses thoughtfully, you can hear her breathing. And then she sighs in defeat and you smile. "Okay. If it's any encouragement, your next service is already being prepared. It's something you've never stolen before, and I'd like it to be yours. Of course, if you prove suitable."

A few weeks ago, the temptation would have been too much and you would have turned around and gone to the appointment just to win Grant's approval and be cleared for the job. To prove not only to Valentina, but to the world, and to any other colleague, that you could complete that mission. 

But now you let out a short laugh, and that surprises Valentina enough for her to keep quiet. "Reschedule for the end of the week. I guarantee that I'll have Dr. Grant's approval and you'll have your order in no time."

The promise seems to be enough for her, and after another sigh, Valentina hangs up. You put your cell phone away and return your attention to the now-stamped train ticket to New York.

The trip didn't take long, and within a few hours, you were in the bustling city. Especially today, at the inaugural Heroes of Earth celebration event, Manhattan was almost chaotic.

With fans and journalists from all over the world filling the streets that had been closed off for a sort of open-air Comic Con, you had no trouble at all going unnoticed in the crowd. You wore a disguise, of course, but you didn't have to. A few minutes into the fair, you really did look like a tourist, with your Avengers sweatshirt, cap, and colorful glasses.

The knives in your backpack were well hidden under the amount of superhero souvenirs you got.

You were trying to choose between an Incredible Hulk smash-burger or a portion of Thor's worthy chicken when the bell announcing the photo session with the Avengers was about to start.

Your appetite disappeared, anxiety taking over your whole body at once.

It was time to move.

The queue was huge, as was to be expected. At least, most of them were there for the best-known Avengers. Thor wasn't even on Earth, which meant that the other five originals were competing with each other over who got the most autographs. The new members, like Wanda, the Falcon, or Vision, were given presentation stands but had much more free time at the event.

You tried to ignore the pang of pride when you saw that among the new members, the queue of people to see Wanda was the longest. A considerable number of children were very excited to ask her to do magic tricks.

Your strawberry milkshake - Black Widow's Special - almost fell out of your hand when you finally saw Wanda leave the curtains dividing the dressing rooms and join the autograph table.

She wasn't wearing the soft hoodie with the Avengers symbol from the photograph you sneak a peek at almost every night, nor was she wearing the pathetic disguise she wore the first time you saw her. No, somehow, she managed to look prettier. Like all her teammates, she was wearing an outfit similar to the official fighting uniform, probably designed just for the event. With a black tactical outfit covered by a red jacket, the gloves that didn't cover her fingers were probably your favorite part.

Despite her relatively unfriendly uniform, Wanda offered such lovely smiles to the people who came to greet her that you thought the milkshake made you sick, judging by the way your stomach and heart were unsettled.

When the Meet & Greets began, you had to go to the ticket booth and buy a single ticket in cash; to meet Wanda, of course.

It would take place back in the fair's improvised dressing rooms, and after waiting for almost forty minutes, you were finally guided inside. Your backpack wasn't searched, perhaps because your weapons were hidden by Ten Rings technology, a gift from Xu Xialing on your last assignment, and when it went through the X-ray at the entrance, all they detected were the countless fair toys you had acquired. And the knives hidden in your body, well, it's obvious to say that when it comes to changing aspects of your anatomy for any situation, passing a security search was quite easy.

"Miss Maximoff will be here in a minute. She had a little problem with her costume, the children who came in before you caused a little milkshake accident."

One of the organizers informed you, and you gave her a kind smile, commenting that the Black Widow special was essential, even if it might cause minor accidents. The employee chuckled before going to answer a call on her communicator that could have been your intentional flooding of one of the toilets to occupy as many of the staff as possible.

Wanda's dressing room was the most intimate environment of hers you've ever been in. It didn't have many things, of course, but for someone who only had access to government documents, it was paradise.

Curious fingers traced all the belongings you could reach, from more comfortable pieces of clothing for her to change into during the event, to different types of tea and books, until you found a music device. 

The password protection on a Stark Industries MP3 player made you laugh to yourself. "What a distrustful little witch." You murmured affectionately, stowing the item in your jacket pocket and moving over to the schedule board.

You had already read the row that marked the start of the Meets, probably described there and in all the other dressing rooms, when your gaze caught a small notebook forgotten in one of the armchairs.

You got the chance to take it in hand and smile at the sketches on the first few pages before the item was suddenly lifted and pulled out of your hand.

"Sorry, but this is private." Wanda grabbed the item out of the air, but you stood there, static like a frightened animal, unable to breathe properly under her gaze. She seemed to realize that she had been too harsh and huffed out a laugh, the notebook clutched tightly against her chest. The sound made you swallow. "I shouldn't have kept you waiting, I guess you got bored. Sorry about that. Let me put this away, and we can, um, get started."

She didn't use magic to return the book to a safe place, you didn't know that yet, but Wanda was still learning to trust her powers. And if she could help it, she usually didn't use them.

She approached you, to put the book away in a bag that you didn't have a chance to peek into, and the sudden movement made your body react in alarm. Your back hit the schedule board, and Wanda frowned, stopping in her tracks with an almost hurt look on her face.

"You don't have to be scared. I'm not going to hurt you, you know." She murmured with the tips of her ears red. "I'm just going to put my notebook away, you see." The backpack floated towards her with a tug, and Wanda hardly met your gaze after that. She tossed the bag into a corner of the room and fiddled uncomfortably with the edge of her blouse.

She was no longer wearing the outfit she'd worn before, she was wearing a comfortable set, too soft and domestic for you to be calm-minded about anything.

You forced your brain to work because you thought the whole thing was getting ridiculous.

"I'm not scared." Your voice comes out very hoarse, so you clear your throat. Wanda raises her eyes, finally, and the green irises make your cheeks warm. You don't hide it from her. "As a matter of fact, I'm not the one who usually gets scared when we meet, am I, Maximoff?"

Taking the time she needed to understand, you removed your colored glasses and cap, your face changing back to its original appearance. Wanda sighed shakily as soon as she recognized you.

"Hi, Y/N." She greeted, too sweet for you to do anything but smile shyly, forgetting for a moment exactly what you had come for. 

"Hello, Wanda." You tried to sound just as gentle, but you must have done a poor job, to blame it on your body that doesn't seem to be working properly. Wanda swallows dryly, her hands moving slowly in the air. You watch the unhurried gesture - the way her fingers draw the air, and how the items of disguise float away to the armchair, and in your hands appear handcuffs that don't prevent you from moving them, and don't hurt either. The most you feel is a tickle.

"I've come all this way, just for you to put me in chains, little witch." You try to tease her, and you think it's a victory the way Wanda tries to hide a smile, approaching with her head down until she's close enough to touch you.

Her hands should be gripping the magical handcuffs, but instead, they hold yours. Wanda sighs. 

"You can't be here." She whispers, meeting your eyes, and you think it's ridiculous that you made any plans at all. You could never do anything to harm Wanda, and that was just the truth. "Then why are you?"

Unlike her, you don't hide your smile. You shrug as if your heart wasn't thumping in your chest, and revel in playing with Wanda's buttons.

"I was in the neighborhood. Wanted to say hi." Your casual reply makes her snort impatiently.

Her hands release yours, and you raise an eyebrow at Wanda's audacity to start searching you. 

"Wow, take me on a date first, love." You joke, but despite the new color her cheeks acquire due to the joke, the fond nickname, Wanda doesn't stop. She gropes in your pockets, reaches into your jacket, and grimaces with disapproval at every illegal item she finds. The false documents, the Shield badge, the guns. The MP3 is in the front pocket and Wanda gets a little closer to reach it, enough so that you have to lick your lips trying to control the instinct to break the distance. She just looks so kissable and smells so good.

She offers you an incredulous look at the stolen item, which floats back to the table as she gropes for the other pocket. Finding the train ticket, she lets out a short laugh.

"Six hours of travel is not being in the neighborhood." She comments, raising her eyes to you. 

"What do you want me to say?" You retort with a little smile, discourteously glancing between her eyes and her lips. "That I couldn't help myself and had to get on the first train to see you again? That I can't even go back to work because I can't stop thinking about you?"

There's this thing that Wanda's eyes do. The pupils get huge, and the green darkens. And she looks at you as if you were something to be devoured in every detail as if you were worth admiring. As if you were worth any of her time.

She speaks again, so low and hoarse that you wouldn't be able to hear her if you weren't close.

"Your thoughts are loud. Are you always so hard on yourself?" 

You swallow dry, caught off guard. Your hesitation makes Wanda sigh. She looks ready to apologize when you nod.

"It doesn't matter, every time we bump into each other, you make me feel different. Better. You look at me as if you can see more. What do you see, Wanda?"

She sighs deeply, and her hands move to touch your face. It's too gentle, and affectionate in a real and true way that you never experience. Your body goes rigid, not knowing how to handle the tenderness, but Wanda doesn't catch any request for her to stop touching, so her hands continue to hold your cheeks.

"I can see your anger, just as I can see your fear. I see the thief, and the murderer, but I can also see only you. No disguises, no lies. The person you are underneath it all." She says, swallowing dryly as she lets her gaze fall to your lips. "This is the person I let get away. And the person I'd like to meet, if you'll let me."

Your chest is heavy with confusing feelings. Your traumas beep in unison, your defenses beg you to push Wanda away and flee before the rest of the Avengers decide to show up. 

But instead, you return watery eyes to Wanda and gasp softly; "Why? Why do you care?"

And Wanda tries to lie. "I think you could use a friend."

You chuckle dryly, pulling away from the touch. "Hard pass." You mutter, but Wanda doesn't let you move away entirely. She decides to risk everything.

She grabs your chin and tilts your face towards her. It's a miscalculated kiss, you both flinch and gasp at the first contact of your lips and being taken by surprise makes you lose your balance in the middle of the movement to get away from her.

You fall into the armchair, and Wanda should apologize, but she doesn't even bother. She pushes your tense shoulders and straddles your lap, this time, when her mouth meets yours, it's much hungrier and more determined.

The handcuffs disappear into thin air with the first gasp that leaves her lips, and you waste no time in grabbing her waist, roughly pulling her down and holding her tight against you as your mouths move together. It's a passionate kiss full of urgency, charged with all the tension you've built up.

Your tongue slides into her mouth without warning, more experienced than Wanda, you manage to get a whimper out in no time. She wants to shrink away from the sound, but your hands slide down to grab her ass and pin her down onto your front, and suddenly all she can do is moan.

It seems absurd that you've gone a lifetime without kissing Wanda Maximoff when you both seem molded to do this with perfection.

You don't even move apart to breathe, a battle of restless hands and hungry mouths panting against each other. Wanda begins to grind herself into your lap in search of friction and you let out a sound you didn't know you could make.

Everything is suddenly so hot that Wanda doesn't hear her surroundings. She doesn't hear the curtain or the footsteps. But she definitely hears the machine man's surprised exclamation.

"Oh, forgive me, Wanda." Vision's back is turned the second he catches a glimpse of what's happening in that armchair.

Wanda jumps away as if she's received a jolt, and you groan in displeasure at the interruption. Despite the way every cell in your body seems to be vibrating with euphoria, you manage subtle changes in your face that prevent the Synthesized from recognizing you if he decides to turn around. "I didn't mean to interrupt-"

"Vis, please leave." She demands with ragged breathing, her face bright red. Wanda looks neither at you nor at Vision.

The man clears his throat, stuttering. "Of course, Wanda, I'm so sorry." He says, but although he mentions leaving, he doesn't. Stopping just before the curtain, he risks a glance over his shoulder. "There was a forced distraction with criminal indications in the western sector, the fair has already been interrupted. The captain has asked everyone to gather for a patrol check, in case there's an attempted attack. I just wanted to warn you. It would be appropriate to send your... friend away." explains the machine, exchanging a quick glance with Wanda before leaving the dressing room.

You'd like to kiss her again, but Wanda sniffles at Vision's departure and you frown in a mixture of concern and confusion.

"That's why you're here, isn't it?" She deduces annoyed. "To try a bloody attack on a children's fair? God, I’m so stupid. You’re obviously using me to distract your partners-”

But you stood up with an impatient sigh for the anxious and nervous conclusions of an avenger who has been caught in the act.

You grab Wanda again and kiss her hard enough for her to lose her balance, and she ends up pressed against the schedule board, and then the coffee table, each kiss more desperate and heated than the last.

Your thigh presses between hers, and Wanda practically meows at the friction. You love how responsive she is to your touch, and you try to push a little further under her clothes, quickly addicted to attracting more sounds.

And you're almost to the edge of her bra when you're interrupted again.

"Jesus, Maximoff, what the hell is going on here?" Unlike Vision, Natasha Romanoff is much more serious and determined to put an end to the whole thing. And she cares little about what was happening against the table. You hide the change in your features on Wanda's shoulder, while also trying to control your own breathing, somehow much more aroused than before. "We're working, Maximoff. There may be terrorists on the perimeter and you're here, well, I'm not judging, I'm just saying there's an appropriate time for everything. I'm sure your friend will survive if you let go of her mouth for a few hours. Who knows, maybe next time you can meet in a more appropriate place?" 

When you finally look at Nat, you can see that she's hiding a teasing little smile. You're glad that Wanda is making friends.

And unlike you, who doesn't mind having been caught not once but twice by the Avengers, Wanda looks like an embarrassed tomato who nods quickly while her magic does the work of adjusting your half-open clothes and leaving the objects you bump into in order again. 

"Of course, Natasha, I'll send her away. I'm sorry." Wanda practically pushes you out, dragging you to a more secluded area at the back of the dressing rooms.

She tries unwillingly to resist your eager hands or the quick but intense kisses you steal from her on the way.

"You have to go." She struggles to gasp, her hands pushing your shoulders to stop the whole thing or she wouldn't be able to think.

Wanda with her hair disheveled after a proper make-out session, her face flushed and her lips swollen is too much for you.

"Fuck." You gasp and she swallows.

"What?" 

You don't know what to say, nothing seems enough. She's awakened something in you that you didn't know existed. Suddenly, the idea of staying away from her seems an impossibility.

"When will I see you again?"

She frowns at the question, laughing nervously. "We shouldn't have seen each other even today."

But your hands pull her by the waist. "Nonsense. We should definitely do this again.” Your lips trail down her jaw, to the sensitive points on her neck that you're trying to memorize. She sighs, and struggles to keep her eyes open, but only for a moment before she pushes you away again, laughing shyly.

"Please, darling, I need to get back, my job-"

"There's no attempt attack, I flooded a toilet so I'd have time to see you." You clarify quickly and Wanda has to shake her head and laugh incredulously.

"You're nuts."

"Honestly? Yes. I think I've figured out what was wrong with me over the last weeks. You’re driving me nuts, Wanda Maximoff. I can't stop thinking about you." You retort quickly, not caring about the irregular beating of your pulse, nor the way she blushes heavily. "I need to know when I'm going to see you again."

She looks back into the dressing rooms and can see that Natasha is coming out through the curtain. She approaches you at once to give you one last intense kiss and whispers goodbye on your lips as you part.

With every inch of skin that Wanda touched vibrating and your heart pounding in your chest, you only remember to regulate your powers and return to a disguise a good few minutes after she has disappeared from sight, and hope that no security cameras saw you there.

[ohmyeyesmyeyes]

IT'S NEVER OVER - PROLOGUE (sept. 2005)

summary: if anyone asked sid, he wouldn't say that he liked pittsburgh more after meeting nat. no, that would be absurd.

warnings: short and sweet! (none)

a/n: hi, hello! am i posting this without having finished it? yes. i don't know how long it's going to be but i'm slowly chipping away at it and i'm pretty excited about it. it might even be my favourite series thing i've done so far, and weirdly my first one? i've had the entire thing outlined for months but i've been too busy to even think about posting it, so...here you go! i can't promise posts for this will be regular because the chapters are so long, but i'll try my best to keep you posted! hope you enjoy (a series mastrlist will be out soon too so you can get the gist of where i'm at in the entire process) xo

sneak peak | pinterest board

(It started with music, but Nat didn’t know that.) 

It was a total accident, a random encounter that Sidney couldn’t possibly have predicted – one that, without exaggerating, changed his life to an extent. On a whim, he’d decided to go into that coffee shop he’d walked past everyday for the past three weeks, and it was also on a whim he actually made it to the counter to order an uncharacteristic coffee – he was newly eighteen, being pulled in all sorts of sports-diet directions, the confinement of which kind of irked him, so to him, buying that coffee was a subtle rebellion.

It was also a complete accident that he’d wandered off to the right after taking his coffee from the counter, instead of left, or forwards, or even backwards.

Sidney wasn’t one to believe in fate or destiny: he believed those terms were too magical – they alluded to some other worldly forces coming into play, and he liked to stick to facts. Coincidences. Accidents. Nevertheless, he did find it almost inexplicable, the way that his life hurtled into a completely different route after a mere forty minutes inside a coffee shop that he’d just spontaneously decided to make a trip of. He couldn’t quite get his head around it all.

To him, it was a coincidence that he’d walked past her table. A coincidence that she happened to be blaring the only song he’d been able to listen to for the last four days. He’d barely made it three steps past her before he froze. 

She was wearing those over-the-ear headphones, the ones with orange sponges from the 80s, plugged into the iPod that had come out a few years back. He recognised it because everyone that had one in his high school before he left never shut up about it. Sidney admittedly did own one at the time, but he never really felt the need to show it off  – it was much easier than lugging around a cassette or CD player with songs burnt in.

The song still had him halting in his tracks and turning around, his body much further ahead than his brain because he had to steady his mug of coffee; his sharp actions had the liquid almost sloshing over the edge, but he managed to catch it just in time.

He wouldn’t have done either of those things: stop and turn, if it had been any other song he’d heard. He was just so taken aback by it – the exact, precise song. 

The girl at the table didn’t pay him a single dime of attention when he froze, despite the fact that his hip was practically nudging her table. She wasn’t even looking in his direction, her eyes gazing out of the window on her right, skipping over empty faces as people walked past. It was clear she was supposed to be doing work of some sorts: there were textbooks, novels, and flashcards scattered across the entire table, a pencil case half emptied with pens strewn all over. She had a pen clutched in the fist she was resting her chin on, not caring for the study cards at all – entirely enamoured by the view. 

Sidney followed her eyes. There wasn’t much to look at, just a street, and her chair was directly facing the side of a retail store, clothes and mannequins displayed in the window. 

In hindsight, Sidney didn’t really know what compelled him to do what he did next.

He couldn’t tell if she was bored and just looking out, not paying attention to the music flowing into her ears, or if she was just so absorbed in what she was hearing that she couldn’t physically bring herself to think about her work – that she’d tuned out the outside world entirely.

What caught his attention the most was the crease between her brows. It drew him to look straight at her; an alluring combination of chestnut hair and pale eyes – though not too pale that they made him uneasy. She was also probably the only person in the establishment that was around his age.

She had impeccable music taste, if he did say so himself.

Yet, he couldn’t shake the inkling that this girl was wholly feeling the brilliance and soul-crushing heartache of Jeff Buckley’s genius – and he found himself hoping she was.

That was why he cleared his throat and took a small step to the other side of the table. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder, noting that the cafe was pretty busy, so he knew he could at least try to get away with what he was about to do.

He made sure to tilt his head up, because the hat covering his face would be nothing short of slightly suspicious in a public setting, and it wasn’t until he purposefully knocked into the chair that she flicked her eyes to look at him.

He held his breath, a moment when all they did was look at each other, until the crease in her brows disappeared and she reached to pause her music on her iPod, slowly sliding her earphones off so they rested around her neck. 

“Hi.” 

His assumptions had been correct. She was around his age – her voice was deeper than he’d originally anticipated – and when he found himself slightly closer than before, he was able to make out that she was studying for her SATs. 

It was September.

“Hi.” He replied, forcing a smile that he hoped would convey the apology he felt for intruding on her personal time and in her personal space. Her clutter was all over the table, and he knew that if she was hopefully as kind to strangers as he hoped she’d to be, that it would be somewhat of a hassle to shove some of it away, “I’m really sorry, but there aren’t any other tables free. Would I be able to–”

“Oh, sure.” She interrupted, immediately going to reach to sweep a space clear for him over the other side of the table. Sidney watched with a mildly amused gaze; she didn’t seem to care for the way her flashcards seemed to mix themselves up, or the way her textbooks snapped shut and she lost her page.

She flashed him a welcoming, slightly embarrassed smile as she piled the books on top of each other, and before Sidney knew it, he was sitting in the chair opposite, accidentally knocking their knees together in the process, and sipping from his coffee mug. He fought to maintain the thankful smile on his face, despite the utterly bitter taste of the coffee that seemed to fester on his tongue.

No wonder he’d never tried coffee before, it tasted like dirt.

The girl broke a small chunk of a muffin off, a smile breaking out on her face as she fought a small laugh.

Sidney blushed, “I’m not a big coffee-fan.” He reasoned, shrugging.

“I can tell.” She pressed her lips together momentarily, looking down at the plate before turning her attention back to him. Sidney felt stunned at the colour of her eyes. He’d never seen grey eyes before, but hers seemed to balance more on the green side – only when the sun struck the side of her face, they turned a watery, clear blue. There was also a tinge of brown thrown in there.

What was that called? Heterochromia?

He felt his mouth dry, and before he could stop himself, he was taking another sip of his coffee, this time managing to control the urge to wince, “Thanks for letting me sit here.”

She shrugged, gathering the flashcards and lining them up, “It’s no problem. Sorry for the mess.”

He let his eyes wander over the books once more, the green ‘SATs’ letters jumping out at him, “You got an important date?”

The girl swallowed, not entirely understanding what he meant. That crease formed between her brows again, and she opened her mouth to question him, but Sidney beat her to it, a finger pointing at her stack of books. 

She sighed, “Not entirely, they’re at the end of the school year, but one of my teachers gave us an assignment to get some study material done early.” 

Sidney couldn’t say he understood her stress – it was something displayed across the planes of her face; evident when she looked rather tiredly at the stack of books, and hesitated at the flashcards, before throwing them to the side. She folded her arms across the table, then switched so that her hands were interlocked in front of her.

She looked as though she didn’t quite know what to do with herself, and Sidney couldn’t tell if it was because of the presence of a stranger, or if she was already feeling some sort of academic guilt for throwing her attention away from her studies for a couple of minutes.

He saw her jaw clench, and at that observation, the thought that maybe he was paying a little bit too much attention to her crossed his mind, so he turned his focus to the cup of coffee. He was beginning to feel its effects; his knee was shaking softly under the table and he could feel an influx of energy spark at his fingertips. Or maybe it wasn’t the coffee at all.

He hadn’t thought about hockey for five minutes.

He saw her turn her face towards him out of the corner of his eye, and he looked up, “What about you? Are you in school, or…?” She trailed off, her eyes skimming over the logo that had flashed itself from the safe and unzipped confines of his hoodie. 

He felt his heart quicken at having been caught, worried that perhaps she’d shout out who he was – if she knew – across the entire cafe. He remained optimistic; she didn’t seem the type.

He cleared his throat, “Not anymore.” For some reason he hesitated. He could play off the logo as merchandise – he could be someone other than Sidney Crosby, the New Rookie of the Pens – or he could be honest. When he looked back at her, there was a challenge in her eyes, and Sidney knew then that she already knew who he was. “I just got drafted to the Pens for my first NHL season.”

She sighed, “Can I tell you something?” 

Sidney furrowed his brows, his mouth tilting down in a smile. He was new to the whole ‘local celebrity’ deal, but this by far, is probably one of the least impressed reactions he’d ever had. She clearly knew he wasn’t in school, but had still taken the kind courtesy to ask him the question, despite the futility of it.

He nodded. 

“I only know one Pens player.” Then she pointed to something out of the window, “That banner has been staring at me every week for the past three months.”

Sidney huffed a laugh, thinking she was joking, but followed her finger anyway. He was immediately faced with a street corner, tens of people walking past each other – he could even make out their voices if he concentrated hard enough, and it took a while to figure out what exactly she was pointing at, until his eyes settled on a billboard at least a block down.

He’d been told that for press reasons, the Pens had come up with the idea of a way of promoting him as a player, and a ‘person of Pittsburgh’, by plastering some action shots of him – still staged – around the city. He’d neglected to look up lately, fearing that if he did, he’d be faced with some images of himself, but he hadn’t escaped that entirely.

The billboard was small, and he wasn’t the only player on there, either, but he saw it nonetheless. 

When he spun back around to look at her once more, the only thing that came out of his mouth was, “There’s two other players, not just me.”

She shrugged, “I was talking about Sergei Gonchar.”

Sidney felt the blush colour from his chest to his cheeks as he slowly put his hands over his face, consumed by humiliation. He felt himself smile into his hands when he heard the girl huff a snicker. He’d had quite a few people as of late kissing up to his ego, and apart from his teammates, she was the first one to really deliver a considerable blow – and he was thankful for that; that at least someone still had the ability to look past who he was and tease him like he was a normal person. He was aware of the irony that lay there.

He gathered himself, unabashedly removing his hands and displaying the creeping blush for her to see, and sticking his hand between them, “Sidney Crosby, rookie center for the Pittsburgh Penguins.”

She rolled her eyes, not commenting on the state of his cheeks, her smile fading slightly but still remaining, “I was joking, I know who you are.” She took his hand in hers, gripping it tightly, “Nat Brooks. Student.”

Sidney swallowed, his blush remaining for other reasons, and pulled his hand away, flexing it under the table, “Is Nat short for anything?”

“Natalia.”

“‘S very pretty.” He mumbled, and she smiled sweetly.

“Sidney’s very pretty, too. It suits you.”

Something clenched in his chest.

[lexcellence]

When I heard Gerry Duggan get asked on Cerebro, white boy to white boy, about the unfortunate optics of announcing and then immediately murdering the least white team of X-Men in years, I knew we'd be in for some shit. Man, did he deliver - after some evasive waffling about how ORCHIS is meant to be fascist, and how the story's point is to put the collective back of mutantkind even more against the wall than it was any of the last six times something like this has happened.

And, honestly? That's fair! This year's Hellfire Gala is ultimately the first part of a larger story, and history shows it's not going to last forever — hell, does anyone remember what the status quo was immediately before HoXPoX? At least this time most of the characters have implicitly just been sucked into Mother Righteous's magical Poké Ball, rather than outright killed; if anything, that's an improvement. I was fully content to just think "hey, not for me," and get back to ignoring everything beyond Immortal and Sabertooth, secure in the knowledge that certain topics are bound to be handled poorly when almost everyone in the room is white, when Duggan said three words that stopped me in my tracks:

"Keep the faith."

See, that struck me, because for a lot of us, this entire era of comics has been about nothing but faith. I've been reading X-Men, and engaging with fans since I was eight, and I've never seen the kind of collective buy-in from other marginalized readers that I have with Krakoa. X-Twitter (or, I suppose, X-X) has been Blacker, queerer, more disabled, less homogeneous than the fandom has ever been, all of us buying in to the implicit promise that this time things would be different. Sure, the line was headed by a presumably straight white guy, but there were other voices in the room for a change, and it really felt like they were going to be listened to. We thought we'd moved past clunky metaphor, past queerbaitimg and awkward racial gaffes. Storm and Kwannon were getting to do stuff, Arakko was full of amazing characters of color, Cyclops and Wolverine were probably fucking, we were hooked, and we turned out.

It's hard to overemphasize just how wild this was to see in real time. X-Men has always been allegory, sure, but it's traditionally allegory by and for the majority. For years, the readers who might really feel that resonance, those of us who have been hated and feared for the unforgivable crime of being who we are, we were afterthoughts, tolerated at best. We got scraps, "representation" from creators who seemed to be offended by the implication that we would ever want something other than being fetishized tokens. We were, as Hickman so succinctly put it, told that we were less when we knew we were more. And then, out of nowhere, Krakoa made us inescapable.

The two biggest X-Men podcasts, X-Plain the X-Men and Cerebro, are hosted by queer people. X of Words has been rocking the Black, queer experience like no one's business, Mutant Watch has been a joy to listen to and to be on. Not just podcasts, either, in everything from criticism to fanart to cosplay, voices have been elevated that were previously silent. I mean, hell, I've gotten paid to talk about comics, that shit never would have happened four years ago.

All of that was based on faith.

Faith that we were being celebrated, for once, instead of just used. Faith that for whatever growing pains there might be, things were going to be better.

And let's not fuck around here, there were growing pains. In the first year alone we dealt with everything from blatant whitewashing, to queerbaiting — any Sunspot fan can go into detail there, assuming you can get one of us to stop crying for long enough. While that was going on, we watched Bryan Edward Hill (the only non-white writer in that initial wave) put out a book that was, let's face it, at worst aggressively mid, only to be excoriated by certain portions of the fandom, and dropped by the office, while significantly worse books managed to hold fast — er, hold on. Not to say that Fallen Angels was without sin, mind you, the book was packed with enough orientalism to make Chris Claremont blush. But, at the same time, Wolverine's first year ended with him doing what he does best: trying so hard to be Japanese that I had to check to make sure he wasn't Marvel's editor in chief.

Through all of that, we kept the faith.

Things didn't really get much better, of course. Arakko was a fascinating concept, and felt like it damn near doubled Marvel's characters of color. And yeah, the ending of X-Factor was one of the most poorly handled racist messes I've seen this side of… well, any given day on Twitter. Sure, the whitewashing has never stopped, to the point where everything from X-Corp to this week's Hellfire Gala has had to be hastily edited between previews and release. Maybe we keep dealing with stuff like butchered AAVE, even more queerbaiting, Kate Pryde's funeral, the genocide of almost all of those Arraki characters, and whatever the hell was going on with Lost in Way of X. Maybe there's a very real argument to be made that there's something insidious about three straight years of voting to determine if characters like Monet (who, by the by, has been retooled from "basically Superman" to "Black woman with anger powers") deserve the honor of being written by a white man who's stayed writing with his foot in his mouth. I mean, hey! All my white friends in the scene say he's nice, just like Williams, or Howard, or any number of other crusty crackers who are still proud of tripping over the bar Claremont left on the floor in the 80's!

And dammit, we kept the faith!

Even before the issue dropped, the Fall of X has had a lot of us wary. After all, all of the promotion leading up to it has been white guys saying the minority allegory has had it too good for too long, which, whatever, press copy. We all know they've gotta sell books — they, in this case, being the almost exclusively white, almost exclusively male creative teams attached to all of the books in the line. Sure, as Duggan said, the 616 has a fascism problem, but it’s hard not to see this as a deliberate step back from the almost double digit number of non-white creators these past few years — almost as if Marvel has realized they can make space for a fourth ongoing by their favorite white boy if they just throw out a Voices special every couple of months as a containment zone for the darkies. And, hey, considering how good ol’ C.B. got his foot in the door, I can’t even fake surprise. At this point, it’s a minor miracle any time a person of color is tapped for anything that’s expected to last beyond one issue.

In this issue, as a reward for keeping the faith, we got to see something astounding, something that'd bring a tear to the eye of even the most cynical reader — a team that was only half white. My god. And sure, their brutal murder in favor of a team with Kate "Hard-Arrr" Pryde and the Kingpin(????) was only a pit-stop between the resurrection of the suddenly ashy Ms. Marvel and Lourdes Chantel being killed off for the sake of a white woman's angst yet afuckinggain, but ain't that the dream that Malcolm Ten or whoever died for?

The Krakoan era, ultimately, has been the same as every other. Empty promises by white men who show us time and again that there was never any point in expecting anything better. Any meaning we've found, everything of worth, has been what we've made for ourselves.

We've spent years keeping the faith, Gerry, while you and yours have continued to let us down. What the hell do we have to show for it?

[vagabond-umlaut]

Mercury x Sulfur

Gojo Satoru x Fem!Reader; Arranged Marriage; Childhood Friendship To Complicated Feelings™️; Fluff, Angst, Explicit Smut [Oral Fem!Receiving; P-In-V; Loss Of Virginity; Praises]; Angst With A Happy Ending; Porn With Plot & Feelings™️; Contains Manga & Anime Spoilers. This is 18+ Content -> Minors & Ageless Blogs Please DNI!!!

Oneshot From Series: One Day, Three Autumns [Can Be Treated As A Stand-Alone]

THE WEDDING NIGHT FIC NO ONE ASKED FOR YET I WROTE FT. PATHETIC GOJO & PATHETIC READER & THEIR BLURRY PATHETIC FEELINGS FOR EACH OTHER... [I'VE NEVER WRITTEN SMUT BEFORE, SO PLEASE BE KIND TO ME 🥹🥹]

Gojo Satoru is much too similar to fire, you suppose— so vivid always, so warm always, so protective always– yet not without the promise of destruction simmering within the sweet blue blaze of his eyes — Very much the reflection yet the contrast to how you resemble the air— so empty, so hollow, so fucking void.

Nice thoughts to think of yourself on your wedding night, aren't they?

Certainly not, you scoff inwardly, toying with the band of sapphire on your left hand. Yet... you cannot, or rather, do not do anything to stop them from sneaking past the defenses you've guarded yourself with– into that twisted, sick, pathetic mess of neurons and darkness you're ashamed to call your mind nowadays.

The noise of the shower tumbles into a sudden hush. An equally quiet sigh escapes you, fingers moving from your jewellery to trace the tiny floral design on the off-white gown– your brain somewhat registering the bathroom door being opened then shut.

"Y'know, mint ice cream might've be— whoa, is that my wife crying?"

Less than one nanosecond elapses before you find your perch on the edge of the bed being crowded by six-feet-three-inches of white hair, chiselled face, toned abs and worry— Oh My Fucking God, the worry swirling in those damned eyes of his— Mustering chuckles and grins, you move to scoot away from him, ready to brush your husband away with some half-baked something, when you feel him draw you closer and place two warm palms on the apples of your cheeks– both gentle and firm in the fashion they cradle your face— they cradle your entire being in this moment.

Cheer trickling away from your countenance, you hear him whisper in an unbelievably contrite tone, "You're mad because you did not get to eat the last piece of cake– because I stole it away, isn't it so? Y'know... we can always visit the bakery we ordered the cake from and I'll order the same flavour we chose for our wedding cake, and you can steal as many bites as you want from my plate— guess, that will make us kind of equals, huh?"

Equals, huh? Equals, huh? Equals. Huh?

"No," you snap, betraying the smile you've been struggling to keep on your lips, "We'll never be equals, Satoru. I mean, yeah— in dumb stuff like these, we might be equals or whatever you believe in. But, in life– do you really think we're going to be equals, huh? Do you think there'll ever be a reality, ever be a world where we might be equals, huh?"

Thumbs stilling over the tear tracks they were oh-so-very insistent on wiping away, he blinks at you. Once. Twice. Thrice— You groan, trying to remove yourself from the man whose mere presence is fermenting your inside. Searing your skin. Twisting and turning your mind into an even greater mess than it's ever been– One you know you cannot find yourself from, if once lost to.

Large fingers curling round your left ankle stop you in your attempts.

"I think so," Satoru offers softly, the unblemished smooth porcelain of his skin streaked with gravitas, you've seldom seen in the many years you've known him yet know becomes him too perfectly– You chuckle, shaking your head.

"This isn't only you and me. This is the world I'm talking about. This is our world I'm talking about. Do you really think they'll ever let a lady— married, that too— stand beside her husband, and not behind him?"

The grasp on your ankle loosens for a beat.

Something cracks and splinters and shatters within yourself.

Something you never knew existed before now— something you wish to ignore, so fucking desperately, now that you know it exists.

Shaky whoosh of pain leaving, you kick your foot free of the hold on it and scoot backwards on the mattress, screwing your eyes shut – as if them being closed will make you blind to the response your query has gathered by not gathering any at all— every iota in your body loathing the way your emotions well over and down your dusted cheeks— way too much, way too quick for your liking—

Large fingers curl round your left knee this time, preventing you from your retreat by pulling you towards their owner yet again — Little that does to dampen your efforts, though.

Or, the scald in that tender part in that tender mess of muscles and blood– pulses and impulses– you've never liked lots, for that matter.

"Let me go," you growl, legs shifting and flexing and extending to free themselves. The soft covers on the bed crinkle and crumple from the fight you put up against the forces reeling you in. "Let me go, Satoru," you snarl one more time, trying your best to keep your desperation in the cloth you've wrapped it in, not letting its pus leak into your words, "Let go of me, now. Satoru. Or, I swear— Gojo!!"

"Sweetness."

Some other reality and you think you might find this enticing. Loving, even, if you're being particularly, delusionally sappy then.

Yet, in this reality, in this moment, as you find yourself on the edge of the bed, legs hanging off it whilst your husband traps the rest of your body beneath him, one good foot between him and your supine form — and he calls you that horrid nickname with that horrid smile– as if you're sweet like those kikufuku mochis he loves eating– and not the most sour, the most salty, the most bitter person he has ever met—

You let the fight seep from yourself into the horrible rose-scented air of the room, wretched wails clawing out instead of growls and snarls.

"I can't do this anymore, Satoru," you sob, chest heaving beneath the bodice of your gown, the pearl necklace snug on your skin stifling, "It is just so difficult— This world. This life. Everything is so fucking very difficult. And confusing. And demanding. And difficult— I cannot do- I cannot live this way with the entire world's eyes trained on me," you cry out; the stinging in your eyes, in your throat, in your soul growing worse with every other word you utter, "I simply cannot live with my–"

"And what if only my eyes are trained on you?" Satoru interrupts you, mouth set into thin lines; though the concern and affection sparkling in his gaze is unmistakeable, you note, peering up through your thick curtain of tears and emotions— being close friends since you were a pair of kids learning to read and write, does have its perks after all —

"Tell me, sweetness," A finger hooks under your chin to lift it up; your suffocating pearl necklace comes off within the next instant– "What if I told you, proved to you: you don't need to worry yourself with any person; anyone, anywhere, anytime in your life; not when they aren't a part of your world—" A sturdy arm hooks under your back this time, lifting you with ease off the bed, until you're in your husband's strong grip: loose to not give you any degree of discomfort yet tight enough for you to be assured he won't be dropping you—

You wrap your arms gingerly round his neck. He asks, dropping his voice to the lowest, to the gravest you've ever heard him, "What if I showed you, your world can consist only of us— only you and me— will you..."

He trails off suddenly, gaze darting to the side before it returns to you again— it's burning. Burning, burning, burning – Stoking a fire in your nerves, in your veins, in the pit of your lower belly, perhaps in the area nether to it too— Your husband's lips curve in the gentlest shape ever seen on him, quite betraying or, maybe, complimenting the hints and clues of that something, evident from the way his fingers flex on your back for the tiniest moment or the way the shadows of the night shift and morph in the brilliance of his gaze—

"You wanna prove to me w-whatever you said right now," you state in what Satoru calls your 'weather-reporter' voice. A brow rises before it returns to its place again– the man addressed nods. Solemn. Certain.

The muscles in your shoulders relax, opposing the muscles tautening elsewhere in your body– not from fear, no. Perhaps from anticipation, you reckon. Or, maybe it is from fear– except it isn't a fear of the man in front of you— The Strongest Sorcerer, capable of turning anything and everything, anyone and everyone, into dust if he so wishes to—

Except he doesn't. Never has. Not without a solid good reason— Oh, this sweet, sweet man— For once in your life, you decide not to stay dwelling on your thoughts, on your twisted, sick, pathetic mind— all for the sake of your husband, him looking at you as if you really are a delectable mochi he wants to devour.

Oh, what a sweet fool your husband is, isn't he?

Moving your hands from where they were resting on his nape to your front, wedging into the little space between Satoru's and your bodies, you inquire, choosing your words soft yet solemn, "And... are you sure you wanna do this tonight? That you won't be regretting—"

"I can do this tonight and every other night," Satoru replies, without letting you complete your query. Then grins, loads like that shy boy, you remember, attempting to befriend you with a pebble– blue and white and blue, years back when you still pronounced 'star' as 'tar'.

You let your palms face away from your chest to rest on his— still, so warm and uncovered from the shower he took— still so, so open and vulnerable to you, in spite of the slashes and gashes dear friends like you, like that damn boy, have only ever given him— He asks, "Do you wanna let me do this?"

A slow yet sure nod is the only thing you manage to offer him in reply.

That slow yet sure nod's also the only thing remaining crystal-clear in your mind— besides, obviously—

Those kisses, so shaky yet so fiery, pressed onto your lips, your chin, the hollow of your neck, the valley between your breasts, down down down, until they reached your thighs— And they grew less of adoring and more of wanting– with muffled moans and withheld whimpers— your lips constantly forming the syllables of your husband's name, as the man himself suckled purple splotches of his desire onto the flesh out there— Besides, obviously—

The sharp gasp of breath your husband made when he tasted you for the first time and you felt shame flood every nook and cranny of your naked body — how the gown or the lingerie were removed from your torso, you've no clue...—before the shame swelled into something far different, far pleasurable, with every lick, every nibble, every hum and every groan muffled into your sensitive tissue and bundle of nerves— steady in the beginning but rapidly growing in intensity, frequency or must you say ferocity, with every moment he spends with his head in between your legs—

And you came. Embarrassed. Ecstatic. Experiencing everything lying on the spectrum between them. Onto his waiting tongue, over his—

"Ah! S-Satoru–"

You're ripped back to the present by the feel of him entering you.

The stretch hurts— as much as you've read in books, as much as you have been told in extremely discreet terms by the older women in the clan— but never once has this feeling been described to you to be- so fucking perfect, so fucking right— as the one flooding your senses in this very instant—

Two blue eyes lift from where they were squeezed close against your forehead, slick with the sheen of sweat, blinking down at you with so much care, you think you may burst from how much of it you note in them hues— the dams holding your tears back sure do, increasing in the degree they allow your emotions gush out, courtesy of the palms mapping your flushed cheeks, caressing your flushed cheeks, almost as if you're some porcelain doll.

"Hey, hey, hey," Satoru croons, pausing himself entirely– despite the toll it takes on him, visible from the way his face scrunches for a tiny moment before wrinkling into lines of worry and apology again– "It's hurting, isn't it?" he asks, then lowers his voice to a whisper, directed more at himself than at you if its rambling quality is anything. "Fuck," he curses, removing his palms from your face, and curling them into tight fists on either side of your face, "This was my first time. And I— I, I know I should have been more careful, still I went and fucked up–"

"Satoru," you say, blinking your tears away, splaying your fingers onto the smooth planes of his cheeks, hoping he'll quieten on noticing the small smile on your lips.

"– caused you pain, oh fucking hell–"

When is he going to shut up?

"Satoru," you try again, tone growing more insistent than the previous time, fingers moving up to scratch the backside of his ears — to trace the shell of his ears.

"– I was so fucking ignorant, selfish–"

Is he ever going to shut up?

"'Toru!" you exclaim with a mild tug on his hair. That seems to be your trick in shutting him up— though you don't miss the way the muscles in his arms flex nor the way his fists grow tighter at your action. Smile widening on your lips, watching him train every bit of his attention on you, and only you; you pull him down for a small kiss— a desperation you've been trying to ignore for a while now– blooming in the motion of your mouth against his, with his—

Perhaps, from the way you hate him blaming himself for doing totally nothing wrong. Perhaps, from the way you detest the lack of friction, his irrational rambling has created down there where you want it, you need it the most— Perhaps, from a mix of both these reasons.

Removing yourself a touch from him, you whine into the plushness of his lips, breathless, dizzy, needy, "Move, Satoru. I think I can take it— Oh, that's it, Satoru," your words taper off into a breathy sigh, "F-fuck—"

In retrospect, you reckon you'll be mortified, probably to death, when you'll let your mind drift back to tonight's events in the future– to how messy you sound with your moans, how messy you possibly look with your makeup smudged from tears and sweat— yet, now— in this very second, you deem you're having the best time of your life.

With Satoru's constant grunts and moans of "Fuck, you're taking me so well, sweetness" and incessant chants of "This– you, you're mine– only mine, as I'm yours"— With him drowning your skin in long, lavish kisses and suckles— With him toying with your hardened nipples and giving your breasts a deliciously painful squeeze—

But, mostly, with the way your husband fits you– so snug, so tight, so warm– every drag of his hip against yours sending a jolt of electricity through your nerves, making your heels dig deeper into his back, and your hold tighter round him, nails raking across his undercut, eliciting a pleased groan from him– though, they're no match for those noises you make when he hits that spot inside, again and again and again, a rapidly growing precision in every next thrust—

"'T-Toru– I'm close- sooo close," you whimper, nuzzling your nose into his neck, breathing in his scent— musky, sweaty, sultry— "Just a little more, sweetness," Satoru begs, keeping an arm beneath your back to pull you even closer to himself— as if that is possible anymore— "You are squeezing me so well— oh fuck."

Your walls clench round him particularly tightly, signalling to you that you're indeed very, very close— despite the haze of pleasure steadily building over your gaze, you wear a fond smile at the half-lidded look he pins on you, his mouth hanging open, whilst his palm presses into your lower back. Subtly trembling, yet so anchoring.

You decide this is your new favourite look of The Six Eyes, the former being the staggered look he gives your smug grin whenever you best him in a fight.

He really is sweet, isn't he?

Another moan permeates into the air, into your thoughts, punctuated by your husband brushing his lips with yours. They are soft— as does every other facet of him feel to you. Movements growing sloppier yet faster, he heaves a husky sigh into your ear, teeth grazing its shell.

"You're really perfect, y'know," he all but whines with a rather dragged out snap of his hips with yours— Eyes fluttering close from the action tightening the coil in your lower belly, you force out a weak chuckle. "I know that I'm per— Oh Sato— mmph!"

Your climax hits you.

Hard, harsh and unforgiving— the wave of euphoria it wreaks through your body is, streaking your vision with nonsensical streaks of colours and cloaking your ears with a deafening ringing— your only tether the soft pair of lips gently coaxing you to dance with it to a melody you've never heard— but hope can hear and learn in the years left in your life— until you're back in the large bed of your hotel room, body sore and and tingling, but in a pretty satisfied and happy way— at least, till you notice your husband scooting away from you to the edge of the bed.

Wha–How–When did he get from being inside you to there—

"Hey, no!" you protest, dragging him down to lie on top of you. Satoru looks at you, shock evident in the way he slowly blinks— You plaster a mighty frown on yourself, asking him, worried, "Where are you going? You haven't fini—"

"But I have finished," your husband answers your incomplete ask with a frown to match yours— before a confused moment passes and you find his frown slowly melt away into a million-watt beam, him asking, "Didn't you feel me come too then, sweetness? Or, did I give you that good an orgasm that you were numb to everything else then, huh?"

Embarrassment flushes through your body at your husband's teasing remark. Ignoring it, you clear your throat to hum back with a smile, "I guess that was the case, yeah. You were really nice tonight— thanks." Then add, watching him open his mouth, the familiar gloom of regret threatening to dim his happiness, "And don't worry about then— I too— This was my first time too, and, um," you wish you could look away for a beat to regain your composure but the sparkles gleaming in the blue eyes gazing at you, are so magnetic— you continue with a laugh, sheepish, staring back at him, "I might have overreacted to the pain."

Whatever chuckle you were expecting never comes; rather, a tender kiss arrives on each of your eyelids, and on the tip of your nose. Your lips part in a content smile, widening on hearing the query sent your way.

"And was I just as great at proving to you what I promised to, huh?"

Your mind races back to then— the dark hollow plaguing you before he arrived. You pull it back to now— the radiance of your husband in every minute portion of your soul, filling it with a cosiness you know only he can impart to you.

"You so were," you're quick to hum back your agreement, paired with a peck to his lips, as he positions himself to lie comfortably atop you. He's quite a bit heavy, what with being so buff and tall– but you think you don't really mind it— not when he's incomparably better than the weighted blankets you've always liked sleeping with.

A hand rises to card through your tangled hairstyle, separating every strand from the other, carefully and gently— you wonder if he knows he does the same to your tangled thoughts too, unknotting them via few select words and few select gestures—

"You've the 'philosopher' face on," your husband's entertained remark interrupts your cloud of thoughts– you drag your eyes from that scar in his throat– one which never fails to throttle whatever sense of safe you might've developed– to the hues before, far more gleaming than the sapphires sitting on your fourth finger can ever be—

Satoru smiles. That annoying, understanding, endearing smile of his, which only serves to show just how much he has been forced by life to be matured. And murmurs.

"We're really equals in this partnership, y'know? You can always share with me whatev—"

"Is it wrong of me to compare you to fire and me to air?"

Your simple question catches The Strongest Sorcerer off-guard- you gather from the way his eyes widen and his heartbeat stutters a little over the bare flushed skin of your chest— you wonder if you must be happy at this silly victory or be worried, you have such a hold on him—

Something tells you, he won't mind either one of them — taking each into stride with a pitiful pout or a cheerful chuckle — the exact same way letting your inquiry settle into him, he responds with a grin in too short a span of time.

"Nope! Not at all!" Satoru exclaims, grin growing and digging dimples into his cheeks. "Obviously I'm fire! Have you seen me? I'm so fucking sizzling hot!" Despite the fondness swelling in your heart, you make a big show of rolling your eyes and moving to scoff — except that scoff remains lodged in your throat and gets swallowed by a gasp of shock as you find yourself being flipped over, so that it's you who is lying on the top now.

Grin growing freer and truer, your husband pulls you impossibly close to himself – so much so that the bounderies separating you from him begin to blur in your eyes; and resumes—

"And you, sweetness, of course, are air– without whose 21% oxygen, the fire cannot even be ignited in the first place."

I do not own the characters or the image used. Divider is by @cafekitsune. Please do not plagiarize or translate or repost this. Hope you enjoyed reading this! 😊

Please interact with This Post to be added to the series taglist! ❤️

Masterlist

SINCE THIS IS AN EXPLICIT FIC, I'M NOT TAGGING MY USUAL TAGLIST. INSTEAD, I WANNA MENTION FEW PPL [TAKING A LEAF OUT OF UR BOOK, SEL]— WHO HV SHOWN AN INTEREST IN THIS FIC WHILE IT WAS BEING WRITTEN, & HAVE ALSO ENCOURAGED AND MOTIVATED ME LOADS!! TYYY SM U AWESOME PPL!!!! 🥰🥰 [AND ALSO TO U, DEAR READER, FOR REACHING THE FOOTNOTES OF THE FIC!!]

TAGLIST: @moniheartz, @shotorus, @sukunassuka, @ancient-vivarium, @saenora, @avatarofstars!!!! ❤️❤️❤️ [THERE ARE MANY OTHERS TOO, WHO HV LIKED MY RAMBLING POSTS– I PROMISE I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN Y'ALL. ILYSM 😭😭😭]

[femslashfeb]

HELLO ALL

TLDR

No reblogging from the blog this year - posting prompts tomorrow the 31st

For the past few years I've very much struggled with reblogging everyone's activity in the tag. So this year I will not be doing so.

(OR maybe I will? I just don't want to commit)

Even if I knew how to make a bot that reblogs - a lot of people still use the unique tag to tag outside challenges. So I've always had to hand submit. However it became too stressful for me and for the past few years I ended up avoiding it until later weeks or even months.

If you noticed I didn't finish reblogging last year so- I've just given up on that.

Honestly I've struggled a lot with depression for the last 7 years or so. It's been harder and harder to find my way back to tumblr. It doesn't help that my phone can barely handle the amount of apps it already has.

My main account @puff-pink hardly ever updates because of my big sad. And I don't know if I'll ever get back on the horse in the same way I did before.

Some of you know me as an artist, and tho I still churn out subpar art for my day-job I've struggled a lot to make art for myself during my depression. Partially because one year I overworked my hand - and still deal in continual wrist aches. Even the weeks I don't pick up a drawing tool.

I intended this challenge for myself and maybe the small fandoms I was in at the time. But it took off among writers and creators of all types across all fandoms.

One year I even tried to tally the most popular fandoms but there were honestly too many to keep track of- and I stopped after the first three pages of submissions.

I don't claim to have invented the concept of FemSlash February. Before I started the prompts I swear I had heard the phrase somewhere. Tho not sure where. Perhaps it had been amongst my friends on Skype. Back when I had online friends and Skype(I'm still not sold on Discord🤷‍♀️).

However that January I thought it would be fun to partake in a challenge of some kind. But scouring tumblr and the general internet. I could only find half hearted efforts on fanfiction sites from years past.

I'm so proud of all my Sapphic creators on here that have partaken every year. Even if I've never shown favoritism or awarded anyone. I do notice those that actually complete the challenge AND those that keep coming back each year(looking at you H20 writer(I don't remember your username but there's a mermaid writer that's a writing machine)). I truly am proud of you especially in my shriveled state of creativity. Thank you for your efforts. For your hype. And for your love of women of all kinds across all the universes.

Each year I'm surprised to find even more categories I never thought to include. From mood boards, to doll photography, to ofc the classic art and writing. May your pencils forever be in union with your sister mediums.

On that note. There is a strict NO AI GENERATED ART or writing this year.

Not that I could physically stop anyone who does use AI. But I do not want that sort of thing associated with this challenge. It's become scarily good in 2023 to the point it can't always be identified. So I simply ask for the honor system when it comes to AI generated creations.

That being said. If you've made it to the end of this post:

Prompts will be posted tomorrow.

I usually prefer to give yall more of a buffer, but I've been busy. Both with Big Sad, rescuing some feral cats, my own life, errands, chores and work.

If you're still here- here is a preview of the first three days.

FEB 1 - black

FEB 2 - spring

FEB 3 - cake

The 14th as usual will be some sort of Valentine romance type theme(haven't decided specifically yet) and as always there will be a Rest Day.

Expect some repeat prompts. In the past I tried to avoid them but idc anymore.

It's also a Leap Year this year so expect one extra prompt to throw off the symmetry of what's normally 28 days.

Thanks for coming back this year. And thank you to those that still check on this blog.

❤️🧡🤍💜🩷

Keep loving girls

-PuffPink

[sindar-princeling]

(I was wondering for a while if I should edit this post to be neater, or erase the things I've already said, but after all I decided to keep it just as it was, because over the past few months I was adding more and more thoughts to it as I edited, and I wanted to keep them that way, unedited and just the way they came to me. so here are some thoughts I had while editing the newsletter)

editing LOTR to go chronologically felt like constantly finding some hidden gems that can only be found when you read that way, and wondering if they were put there intentionally (and knowing jirt, they most probably were). it was a truly, deeply special experience, and a unique way of experiencing LOTR to me

there are so many fragments where jirt says what happens after everything! the ponies were okay, Pippin cried when he heard horns after the battle of Pelennor fields for years to come, even the prologue reveals some information about who survived the War

the long breaks in Rivendell and Lórien were very interesting in this format. some people were remarking how they liked thinking about the fellowship just chilling during those breaks, and I think it created a nice effect of both the characters and us forgetting how close the danger is for them. it let us take those breaks with them!

the only part of the quest that doesn't have a date assigned to it takes part in Lórien, it's the one where Frodo and Sam sing about Gandalf. and it's SUCH a good detail! Tolkien kept track of every event, of dates and even times of day for the entire duration of the quest, but this fragment is just Somewhere There, because in Lórien time seems to stand still, and you can never know when you are

the only other fragments which are confusing time-wise take place during the dark days with no sun, which is of course a great writing choice, but even they are described in Appendix B - the Lórien fragment has no date, no reference point, nothing

it doesn't hit you that much when you read the book, but the battle of Helm's Deep happened literally just one (1) week after the breaking of the Fellowship. Aragorn was out there having the Worst Week Of His Fucking Life

I loved feeling the impact of certain events more while reading chronologically (the three hunters running for days made more impact on me when I was sending yet another entry and they were still running)

before actually going through TTT and ROTK, I was preparing for very long entries for each day. but after the Tower of Cirith Ungol and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields (March 15th), the next ten days before the Ring is destroyed are so... empty in comparison. and it works amazingly well when you read according to dates. we hear just enough from Aragorn and the Host of the West to let the tension grow and grow. we hear just enough from Frodo and Sam to feel the oppressive atmosphere of these entries. but on the other hand, the entries are short enough to set our imaginations to work and make them fill in the rest. to me it's the perfect balance of the horror you read about and the horror you know is still there even after you close the book. this is what I mean by hidden gems, because it works that well only when you read day-by-day - in the book those fragments are just a few pages long, and you can get through those ten days very fast. but when you read according to dates, the torment is spread over so much time

the previous point is why I loved seeing the pacing in LOTR this way. in LOTR, so much can happen in ten days; and yet so little happened between march 15th and 25th besides fear and suffering

there was one part that gave me a headache because I spent so long trying to figure it out I forgot to eat - March 10th-14th in the Frodo and Sam subplot. it was a huge relief when I opened my atlas of Middle-earth and found its author Karen Wynn Fonstad had the same doubts when she'd been researching for the book that I did (and also that she arrived at the same conclusion).

apart from the March 11th-14th fragments, the most challenging day to edit was March 15th because Everything Happened So Much, and many things - simultaneously. it was a choice between chopping certain fragments into really small bits or sacrificing the impact of certain scenes

the only thing I'm sad about losing in this format is the ending, because Frodo getting ill and leaving Middle-Earth in fall, the same season as when he first set out, brackets the plot of LOTR such a beautiful and heartbreaking way and underlines one last time that "there and back again" is never really just that - you always end up somewhere else than where you started

[jacksprostate]

My boss invites me into his office, he's telling me, we've got a problem. It is always, "we." "We" are all in this together. "We" need to put a little more effort in, if "we" want our yearly bonuses. "We" have got to up profits by next quarter, or "we" are going to lose our jobs.

"We" don't all have half a million salaries and a three letter job title, but what can you do.

If you asked my boss, he'd tell you about his. The guy above him. Yeah, "we" are all beholden to him. My boss, he's just regional. Small fry, really.

I'm entering his corner office, big tall windows gaping, stretching the condo construction happening across the street for as far as the eye can see. He sees me looking.

"Perks of the job," he says. A little laugh in his voice. He's not funny.

"We need to talk about your performance last quarter," he says.

We, unto me.

I am Jack's rejuvenated individuality.

My boss had his secretary let me in, so really I've spent the past minute standing awkwardly, insomnia haze locking my gaze some place beyond our broken city horizon. My boss had his secretary let me in because that means he could sit at his desk and pretend to be doing something important. Wave me in, make me wait, give him the opportunity to boast about his jail cell amenities.

You'd think it makes him feel powerful, the way he's clinging to it all. I tongue at the hole in my cheek as I take a seat. Managerial threat displays have lost their effect on me, I think.

It makes him antsier. I can see it, taste it like the blood in my mouth. Oh, iron. Oh, fear.

If Tyler was here, he'd lean on those windows and get them splotched with dirt and worse. Those windows, they're spotless because my boss pays into the building fund with company money to get an old spanish speaking lady to wipe the glass clean before he arrives each morning. I saw her once, at a support group for some combination of cancer and impoverishment. She coughed, introducing herself. Said she couldn't speak well, but wanted company. She has to keep working, but it's making her sick.

The building doesn't pay her enough that she can buy PPE in between their scant offerings, so she's without a mask most of the times I've seen her.

Truthfully, there's been someone else under the building's thumb for a while now.

I found a different group for Thursday nights.

I still think I'll hear Rosa's wheezing when I see her cart by the restrooms.

My prolonged silence, it's unnerving him now, so he's puffing up like a bluffing frog.

I am still with my boss, and I've been staring at a damp spot of drywall behind his head as he yaps at me about how I need to follow dress code. Raise my numbers. Be more engaged.

I should be a precious bouquet of flowers, brightening up the office.

He just wants to help me out. Get me back on track. We used to have amazing figures coming out of Compliance and Liability, my one-man department.

If Tyler was here, he'd be filling the janitor's Windex bottles with 90 proof and blue dye instead, so when my boss comes in early for once in his life and spooks Rosa's replacement, the bottle gets spilled all over my boss and his carpet and his desk and then my workplace smoking habit really would be a fire hazard.

I tune back in, and my boss is informing me that it's with his sincerest regrets that he has to tell me that I won't be getting my bonus this year, oh, maybe something if I shape back up, yeah, he's sure he could fight upper management for me if I showed a good effort. He just wants to help, but I have to help him help me.

Whatever is going on in my life, it's got to be over.

I imagine going to Tyler. Going to fight club. Saying, let's pack it up boys. Fight club's over. I need to sit pretty for my boss so he can feed me a quarter of the salary he always conveniently has to withhold each year, due to all sorts of things impacting the car industry. A typhoon hit mainland China. The US dollar grew too fast with the collapse of the Soviet Union. A sparrow chirped in Belgrade on a Wednesday.

The usual.

Fight club's over. I've got to go be a recall campaign coordinator full time. Working hours, waking hours, what's the difference?

Tyler is always telling me, I could follow my boss home, and when he goes to work on his stupid meaningless hobby in the nice little air conditioned shed at the edge of his two acre two storey home, I could lock him in with nothing but millet. And when he runs out of millet, I could drag his body out and drown him in his pool, laced with armagnac, just like the French do it. And I could pluck and roast the corpse and eat it uncovered, hoping God has no choice but to see me now.

Or I could just give him a poisoned bottle of whiskey.

There's many options, according to Tyler.

The thing is. The truth is, I like my boss.

It's Tyler who wants to come in in the early morning and when my boss pushes open the door to his office, it's Tyler who wants to have a block of concrete in a bucket fall down and crack his skull like a rotten egg, looney tunes style.

It's not me. I gave my boss soap for the mandatory holiday office gift exchange.

I tell my boss, thank you for the concern.

Unfortunately, my grandmother's diagnosis seems dire, and it's unlikely I'll be able to switch gears before the year rolls over in March. Apologies.

He looks at me, and my battered face, at stitches painted across my temple. I can tell, he wants to shake me. Demand from me, why I can't I even pretend to give him a real excuse? Why do I have to make his life so very difficult? Why can't I just keep the broken toddlers from coming out of the woodwork with a smile on my face?

But he doesn't. He says, my condolences. It sounds a lot like get the hell out of my office.

With that in mind, I get up and take a nice, long moment to watch nothing through his huge, sparkling windows. Papers conspicuously rustle. There's the ambient noise of pointless keyboard clicking. I take a sip of my coffee. Behind me, my boss starts to pretend to get a call in hopes it gets me to move on, and I'm watching construction crews like ants. Perks of the job, indeed.

[umgeorge]

george russell ls interviewed during the press conference on media day, monaco - may 23, 2024 (transcript under the cut)

Interviewer: "George, coming to you now, a lot of positive comments coming out of Mercedesa fter the race on Sunday at Imola. Where is the car better after this latest raft of upgrades?" George: "Yeah, the car's definitely more balanced through the lap now. We were struggling a lot, at the start of the year, balancing the high to low speed corners, and I think we have made progress. When you look at the gap to Red Bull, when you look at the gap to the rest of the midfield, we have moved forward, but I do think it's fair to say Ferrari and McLaren have moved forward at the same rate, so we need to keep on working, bringing those upgrades to the car, and the whole team are working flat-out right now to bring those upgrades as quick as possible." Interviewer: "You've finished fifth here for the last two years. Do you have the performance to finish higher than that on merit?" George: "As the guys have been saying, Monaco's so challenging. There's so many disruptions throughout the whole weekend, and you just need to find that sweet spot. The track's evolving so much, it's getting faster and faster; often up to three seconds quicker in qualifying than it is in a practice one, two. Even if you have a good Friday, you need to be ready to adapt moving into Saturday, and we saw today… I was in the engineering meeting and there was bright blue sunshine, and then I came out andit was pouring down with rain, so that could add some spice to things." Interviewer: "Do you think the low speed performance of the car will help you?" George: "I think we've known all season that we struggle to balance high to low speed. We can either get it quite competitive in the low speed and we struggle in high speed, or vice versa, so we are hoping that with relatively consistent corner speeds at this circuit that we should be slightly more competitive."

[time jump] NOT SHOWN: Journalist: "Albert Fabrega, ESPN Latam. Do you think that deleting the quickest lap time of a driver causing a yellow or red flag during qualifying, it could be a good system for a particular track like this one, for example?" NOT SHOWN: Esteban Ocon: "I think, if I'm correct, that's being looked at by the FIA. I think recently we've discussed that in some drivers' meetings, that a situation where a driver would cause a red flag would be monitored. So I think that should be something sensible to be doing, because we've seen in the past drivers causing issues and the others not being able to do a lap. Yeah, that should be something that the FIA monitors, I think." George: "Yeah, I agree with Esteban. We obviously have laps deleted all the time in qualifying for track limits. I think if you were to cause a yellow flag or red flag, you should probably have your best lap deleted. Yeah, nothing more to say there."

[time jump] Journalist: "Roldan Rodriguez from DAZN, Spain. A question to George: Last race your teammate said that he would prefer Kimi Antonelli in Mercedes in next year. I would like to know your opinion, who is in pole next year for Mercedes?" George: "Yeah, I think Kimi's a fantastic driver. Obviously racing in Formula 2 this year, but he's no doubt gonna be a Formula 1 driver in the future. And he's a fellow junior driver, as well, coming through the ranks as I did with the team, so I think it makes for a great opportunity for Mercedes, building into the future. But, as I said before, I'd welcome anybody as my teammate. I feel like I've got a pretty good teammate right now, as it is, so yeah, welcome anybody."

[this-sapphic-paradise]

Modern AU with show!Rhaenyra and book!Alicent, where Rhaenyra lost her mother when she was 14. She’s 15 when her father marries 24-year-old Alicent, who was his personal assistant before they got married.

This was some of the back story I was thinking of, but you can ignore it if you wanted to do something else:

Alicent had admired Viserys since she became his PA, for being much more kind and considerate of the people around him than she’d expected from the CEO of a multibillion dollar company. When she learned that his beloved wife had past she felt for him, remembering the grief of losing her mother not too long ago. So she comforted him, stayed late and talked with him, made sure he ate and went home early enough to get some rest. After about six months he kissed her. She was shocked and a bit uncomfortable, but she made herself go along with it because she knew him to be a good man and if she had to be in a relationship with a man anyway then she could certainly do worse. Plus this would surely please her hard-to-please father.

Viserys married Alicent because she was good to him and he believed she’d be a good stepmother to Rhaenyra. His relationship with his daughter had been somewhat distant even before Aemma passed, but since then it had only gotten worse. He didn’t know what to do with a teenage daughter, so he hoped having another woman in the house would make things easier.

Rhaenyra used to like her father’s personal assistant (maybe even had a tiny crush on her). That all changed when Viserys married her. Rhaenyra assumed her stepmother was just a gold digger who’d preyed on her father while he was grieving and vulnerable. Then, after a few years of college/university and staying away during the summers, her father forces her to come home and intern at his company before her senior year or she’ll be cut off. That’s when Rhaenyra‘s mind started to change about Alicent. She wasn’t sure if it was a more recent development in the marriage or if it was something that had always been there and she was only now able to see it after spending time away from home, but Alicent was miserable.

Not sure if any of the kids exist here.

Part 1 - First encounter

"Sir, your three o'clock has canc--- Oh. I'm sorry." Alicent cut herself off, stopping dead on her tracks when she finally noticed that her boss wasn't in his office, and that instead there was a teenager sitting on his chair. "I thought---"

"My father is out on the balcony on a phone call." The girl interrupted, eyeing Alicent from head to toe.

"You must be Rhaenyra, then." Alicent said, smiling charmingly as she closed the distance between them and offered her hand in greeting. "I'm---"

"Alicent Hightower." Rhaenyra cut her off again, accepting the offered hand before continuing, "My father's young, and, dare I say, very beautiful personal assistant."

If Alicent was taken aback by the brazen words, she did not show it. Keeping her polite smile, she simply said, "I hope those aren't the only things I'm known for."

Rhaenyra grinned and let go of Alicent’s hand. "Please," she motioned to the chair across from her, "My father won't take long."

Accepting the offer, Alicent sat and asked so no awkward silence could settle between them, "How old are you?"

"Fourteen. You?"

"Twenty-three. And what brings you here today? I've been your father's PA for over a year and I had never seen you at the office before."

Rhaenyra shrugged. "Got suspended from school and this is my punishment."

Alicent raised a brow. "What happened??"

Smirking, Rhaenyra leaned over the desk on her elbows and replied, "Wouldn't you like to know..."

The girl was a flirt and coupled with her unique beauty, Alicent was sure Rhaenyra was used to getting everything she wanted.

Crossing her legs to show them off, Alicent met Rhaenyra with a smirk of her own and said, "If I didn't, I wouldn't have asked, would I?"

As soon as Alicent had crossed her legs, Rhaenyra couldn't help but let her eyes trail over them. It was only when Alicent spoke that she was brought back to reality.

"Hm..." The girl cleared her throat and met Alicent’s eyes again. "I punched a guy and broke his nose."

"What did he do to deserve that?"

"He didn't take no for an answer after I turned down going out with him for the thousandth time."

Alicent leaned closer to Rhaenyra and whispered to her just as Viserys was re-entering the room, "Then it was well deserved." Alicent winked, making Rhaenyra smile brightly.

[steamberrystudio]

27/08/2023

So now that Gilded Shadows is wrapping up, I am promoting When Stars Collide from "Spare time project" to "Part time project"

What is the difference? Well, when I work on something in my spare time, that means it is late at night or the weekend. Literally when I am not doing anything else and just feel like tinkering with it. 

As a part time project, this means that I will be spending an hour or two each day during the work week to do things for this project. It will start making more steady progress even if I'm not focusing on it full time.

This is basically taking it from me spending 0 - 4 hours on it a week to 8-10 hours on it a week. 

My goal is to have the draft complete before the end of the year (by 'draft', I mean 'rough draft'). But more on that below.

Summary

Finished all scenes for the new chapter three

Finished Yren chapter 6 scenes

Started catching Kav's route up to the others

Edited Asher's CG to account for the new conference room BG

Small adjustments to Wil's first CG

Ramble

This week my big focus for WSC has been on writing. As I mentioned, I really want to get the rough draft completed by the end of the year. Currently the draft is nearly 70% complete (for those following updates in multiple places, when you see different percentages....it's because I've written more since then. Rofl).

Now, the draft was nearly 70% in the past as well but I added another route since then, so I lost some progress due to the increase in target word count. I'm also calculating things more precisely now as I created a newer and fancier writing spreadsheet to track my progress and keep myself on track.

I went back and wrote in the new chapter 3, reorganising all the existing chapters and scenes to accommodate it. 

I finished Yren chapter 6 (which catches him up to Noel and Raif). 

And now I'm working on catching Kav, the new character, up to Yren, Noel, and Raif. (Remember, Daaz and Asher's routes are already fully drafted).

I have written about 15000 words since my last update here. I don't expect to write that much every week and my goal is actually a fair bit more modest than that. Gilded Shadows is not 100% complete yet. I still have multiple KS related things to finish and, of course, I will be making corrections and focusing on its beta testing once testers have had a bit more time with it. 

WSC is still a part time project. This was just a particularly good week for it.

I have also worked on a few other things for WSC - mostly UI related and some art related things.

I received a new BG since my last update, and realised that...I have to revamp all the existing CGs. Or at least update them to change the background elements. I've only edited one so far but I don't think it'll be too much effort to fix the others.

And I continue to streamline and adjust the UI to make it look nicer and be more efficient.

So...

Kav. The new character. Kav'isari Tiaine, a Ka'mérian crew member who works in the space labs most of the time and specialises in identifying alien technology (what species it belongs to and what it does).

To explain where Kav came from, he actually popped into my head months ago. And every so often, I would contemplate whether or not I wanted to add him. I would say I first had the idea in January or February of this year. I would repeatedly think about it and dismiss it.

I then mentioned it to a friend sort of off-handedly back at the very beginning of June. A month and a half later, I mentioned him on a voice call on my server knowing full well that if I really talked about him and had a conversation about him, I would probably end up doing enough character brainstorming that he would become "real." And I talked about him anyway.

And that's exactly how he became an actual character. I think I had his sprite sketched out by the end of that day.

But he had existed as a concept long before that. The main reason I was willing to add him instead of ruthlessly telling myself no is just that I felt there was a gap in the cast for a gadfly style character who has a little mystery to him. And I just knew I could manage another route based on the length of Asher and Daaz's routes.

So...yeah. That is how Kav came into being. His introduction into the story has caused a few minor changes to standing lore or things in the prologue (just mentions of him, etc). But the changes to the currently public content of the game are pretty minor.

Kav won't actually appear in the game until Chapter 3. He gets mentioned a few times up to that point. There are some logistical considerations to his route but I have talked about those more on Patreon.

Speaking of Patreon, now that WSC is moved into "part time" status, I will be starting to slowly release some Patreon-exclusive lore posts for this game there. Like most games monetised through Patreon content, the lore posts will not be critical to having a full and complete game experience. Rather, it is going to be comprised of additional and extra lore content.

Some of the lore content released on Patreon will be in the game (such as character back stories) but Patrons will get to see it early and will get it presented in a different format.

Much of the content can be considered "extras" rather than necessary.

I will also be updating on the development progress weekly there (available to all patrons) rather than bi-weekly, and my updates there (going forward) will tend to be more detailed than the ones here.

Once episode releases start, Patrons will be able to access them before they the public releases. But backing on Patreon is not necessary to be able to play the game and get a full and complete game experience. It's just how this particular game will be monetised as I'm looking for more sustainable release styles so I can continue to make games.

That is all for this update. I will see you in a couple of weeks to talk about WSC again!

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR DECEMBER:

//Hey all.

//As we all know, it's coming to the end of the year, and we're approaching December time, which is usually the time of year where I start dishing out a bunch of special stuff for the followers.

//Regrettably, I still cannot give a guarantee when I'll be able to return to making the story, but I am trying my hardest to get my affairs in order so that we can come to that.

//One way or another, the story isn't over, regardless of how long it takes for us to get back to it. And the good news is that for December, I have a few really cool goodies for you. Both related to the blog, and otherwise, as well as a few announcements:

//Okay so for my first announcement, I kind of want to get the "bad news" out of the way first. And I use quotations, because hopefully, no one will mind too much.

//As some of you might have noticed, I kind of stopped uploading the birthday card posts for the characters, and in case it hasn't been clear, I've decided that I'm not going to be posting the birthday cards anymore.

//There are actually more than one reason for this. The primary one is it takes a lot out of me, more than you know, to keep track of everyone's birthdays, especially since we have 100+ characters, and I'm prone to uploading/reblogging the posts late, way after the birthday celebrations have happened. It's much easier for me to just stop posting the cards altogether, and getting stressed out about it.

//But another one is that up until now, I've always found a way to balance the dates out with the story, mainly through a lot of mcguffin bullshit that, not only would I much prefer not to do any more...I physically can't.

//Phase 3 has three arcs that happen at the exact same time as eachother, told from three different perspectives of three characters who will each take the limelight. I will not say who, but suffice to say it would not make a lot of sense for the birthdays to be spaced like months apart, when in-universe, these events are happening over the course of the same days.

//Let's say the arcs take me like...5 months to finish. During the time that I'm writing that arc, it would be Kyoko's birthday (October 6th), but by the time I'm finished, it's Hiyoko's birthday (March 9th). In universe, no time has passed at all, because these events are taking place within the same week.

//Yeah, not happening.

//And the last reason is because ultimately, I started doing the birthday cards to celebrate the characters and how far the series has come, but honestly? I think we can all agree that they add basically nothing to the story, and are just there to make the blog's page look prettier.

//With that being said, I hope all of you guys can wish my sister a happy birthday, because she turned 17 yesterday.

//Okay, with that out of the way, I want to reveal four big projects that I'm going to be working on around Christmas/New Years time that, hopefully, will tickle your fancy:

1 - NAEGIRI WEEK 2024

//A couple of you may remember that two years ago, I participated in Naegiri Week, which, like a lot of these ship weeks, is an event dedicated to a specific Danganronpa couple (Makoto and Kyoko in this case) where people will create art media for spaced over a week.

//In the past, I've participated in three of these events before, which were Naegiri Week, Momoharu Week, and Kazukoi Week (which was hosted by Mod Freezethunder) and those sprites are all available on @creepercraftsprites.

//I've always wanted to take part in Saimatsu Week, but I keep missing my chance to, and I didn't participate in Naegiri Week of last year, because I had a lot going on at the time, but I'm happy to say that I will be making a grand return to the event, and participating in 2024's Naegiri Week, which begins on December 23rd.

//And some of my stories even take place within the universes of my fanfics and content, including Survivor and Phantom Thieves of Hope. So stay tuned for when that drops, and you'll get to see me and a bunch of my fellow artists showing off what we've got to people for the sake of this adorable lucky student and his gorgeous detective wife.

//Speaking of which:

2 - PHANTOM THIEVES OF HOPE: CHRISTMAS CAPER

//Yeah, Phantom Thieves of Hope is getting a Christmas Special.

//Why?

//I felt like it. Fuck off and let me do my thing, lol.

//In all seriousness, my thought process behind this was that for a long time, I had considered maybe making spinoff chapters/fics for Phantom Thieves of Hope. But unlike Survivor where I usually have an excuse to do that, PToH's story is mostly consistently paced, and I don't really want to break that normally.

//But I've been thinking about what ideas I could explore in a potential crossover fic like PToH, and the kinds of interactions the characters could have.

//Phantom Thieves of Hope has always tried to prioritize the human aspects of the Danganronpa characters beyond the wacky cartoonish setting that they're placed in. Despite the horrors around them, many of them rarely get a chance to show a real down-to-earth moment as a person instead of a crazy character, and that's a lot of what PToH is about, beyond the kickass Phantom Thief fighting.

//So to sum it up, Christmas Caper is a three-part bonus story for my crossover fic, revolving around the Phantom Thieves having some Christmas fun together, and I will be posting those during the buildup to Christmas; so from December 21st to December 23rd, the same day Naegiri Week starts.

//I know that PToH and Survivor are different series, but I have realized I have an overlapping audience with both fanbases, so I figured if I'm going to announce it, I'm going to announce it here.

//I will also be announcing it this Friday for my AO3 audience when I release the next chapter.

//Now we actually get into the juicy stuff.

3 - DANGAN-CEMBER

//This is something that I'm hoping to do for the foreseeable future, and it's probably the biggest announcement that I have for this holiday season.

//To keep things brief, this is directly inspired by Team Four Star's DBCember series. For those who don't know what that is, from 2014 until 2021, KaiserNeko, Lanipator, and Takahata101 performed a yearly series called DBcember each December. In this segment, they discuss the DragonBall series in Advent Calendar mode for the first twenty-four days of December.

//With me loving my rankings, I wanted to try doing something similar this year related to the blog, to give me more of a reason to. And honestly, I have some ideas that aren't even related to Danganronpa, just to me in general.

//Earlier this year, I posted my ranking of all the Danganronpa titles featured on the blog, which would have had enough to go on, but I only came up with the idea after that, which kind of wasted it.

//So for this event, Dangan-cember will take place between the 1st of December to the 24th where I will upload one post every day as part of a top 24 ranking of some kind, going in depth on its placement, why I like/dislike it, or whatever the hell else the list entails. Christmas Day will reveal my Number 1.

//I debated it for a while, and eventually, I decided that for this year, my ranking would be...

TOP 24 DANGANRONPA CLASS TRIALS.

//Back in the day while I was still on Reddit, I did this ranking then, but my not only have my opinions changed a bit, but for this ranking, I will be including the Class trials from the Another series as well (DRA1 and SDRA2).

//And while I have already done the ranking itself in advance, this turned out to not be as easy as it feels, and I feel like talking about it might be harder.

//Unlike the rest of my rankings, I will be dedicating one post each to all of these placements, which should hopefully give me a chance to talk about them in as much detail as possible. I don't intend to do this for all my rankings; just my end of year ones like this.

//So hopefully that'll be exciting. Funny how I'm more than happy to write written essays about Danganronpa unlike anything else I need to write essays for.

//But with that all said, we have one more:

4 - DECK THE HALLS FOR A BIRTHDAY PARTY ARC

//And of course, the last thing to announce for the end of the year is our traditional "Christmas Arc."

//If you've been around the blog for a while now, you'll know that once a year, for the 12 Days of Christmas ranging from December 24th to January 5th, we have special bonus arcs for the story, mainly revolving around the characters interacting and having moments of emotional bonding and depth, centered around the end of the year and Christmas time.

//Or, alternatively, just some community events we do for fun.

//The arcs in question for these last few years have been:

The 12 Days of Christmas

The 12 Nights of Christmas

Canzanilla Cafe

Warriors of Other Worlds (Danganronpa Survivor X Death Battle)

//And yes, before anyone says it, I know that that WoOW didn't actually happen during Christmas, but that was largely because of delays on my part, and had I stuck to a consistent schedule, it would have done. The point is we do these fun little event arcs every year, if we can help it.

//And for this year, we actually have something a little different. The arc will retain its typical character interactions and enjoyment that the previous Christmas arcs had, but unlike them, this arc, titled "Deck the Halls for a Birthday Party," will have a consistent storyline throughout it.

//Canzanilla Cafe kind of had a story with Kuripa helping Maya set up shop, but it was still very much them interacting with a random strew of characters and being good baristas and bartenders. But for this one, there's a certain group of characters it revolves around, and a plot that takes shape throughout the sequence.

//What is that plot? Well, I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you.

//This arc is the first Christmas that the Future Foundation have been able to gather for following the Factory incident, and the defeat of Organization Zetsubou. But more importantly for Class 78, this is the perfect chance to celebrate the triumphant return of Mukuro Ikusaba, who they thought was lost to them.

//Reinforced when they remember that December 24th, Christmas Day, is also her birthday.

//To reaffirm their friendship, show appreciation for what she has done for them, and to officially welcome her back to the family, the class, led primarily by Makoto and Sayaka, work with their peers and classmates to throw Mukuro a huge Birthday/Christmas surprise party, while doing whatever they can to prevent Mukuro from catching wind of it.

//Hilarity ensues.

//In summary, it is just one of those everything-has-to-be-perfect party stories where the DR1 class get to show off their bond and how much they all mean to each other. Something that, ironically, they don't do as much as the DR2 and V3 cast do. Not just in Survivor, but in the main series and in general. They have strong chemistry, but it's never really explored.

//This arc is also mainly about Mukuro, now having completed her character arcs from Phase 1 and 2, where she now realizes that she has a place in the world free from Junko's influence, and a lot of this story is about her exploring it and trying to find her place within it.

//Featuring a lot of fun little cameo appearances to boot.

//That should be about everything, so in conclusion, here is my December timeline:

December 1st - December 24th: Dangancember December 21st - December 23rd: PToH: Christmas Caper December 23rd - December 30th: Naegiri Week 2024 December 24th - January 5th: Deck the Halls for a Birthday Party Arc

//And that's all folks.

-Mod

[a-dragons-journal]

does your religion have any major festivals, holy days, or celebrations?

>< It does! I've been trying to put together a calendar, but it's been... frustrating. There's so much I don't remember.

My vague inklings of when holy days are:

Summer solstice, the height of the sun's power

Winter solstice, celebrating the return of the sun after the longest night

Maybe autumn equinox, when night begins to overtake day, and spring equinox, when day overtakes night, but I'm not sure of those. Autumn equinox would also likely be one of:

At least two, maybe three harvest festivals - Mithraics love feasting, and one of Mithras's domains is the pastures, which covers harvests. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if the exact timing of these festivals varies based on the timing of the harvests of various local crops, but they may also be standardized in the modern nights, I'm not sure

Probably some sort of spring rite blessing fields and animals?

I have fairly detailed knowledge of one specific annual celebration, the Feast of the Bull - the ritual reenactment of one of the most important Mithras myths (the hunting, riding, and slaying of a wild bull, in short), followed up by maybe the largest feast of the year (in my mithraeum it was kind of a potluck deal; a few traditional dishes, plus whatever people brought - gumbo, cornbread, grits, barbecue, you name it). It's usually an all-night affair. It also involves magic in many temples - there's a ritual associated with it that grants all participants certain benefits for a while after it's completed, and also enables the vampires to eat at least one specific part of the feast, the sacred beef, which we normally wouldn't be able to on account of, well, vampire - but even in temples that don't have someone who can perform the magical portion of the ritual, it's still performed as a religious rite.

But I don't know when in the year it's performed. It might be associated with one of the harvest festivals? Or it might be its own thing. Like I said, Mithraics love feasting (ironic, considering the vampires can't even eat, but we still get in on the community aspect, break out the bloodwine, and sometimes sip from the ghouls throughout the night (though you do have to be careful to not accidentally overdo it on any one ghoul doing that, especially in big communities where it's harder to keep track)), so it wouldn't surprise me if at some point in the past it got made a separate thing as an excuse to have another big feast in the year, LOL.

Outside of that... I don't know. There should be more. I'm not sure what they are. Or maybe I'm just overthinking it, because that does seem like a decent number throughout the year. But I feel like I'm missing something, at least one holy day that's important. Hrm.

Well, that's what I've got, anyway!

--Roshan (fae/faer)

[lyssaterald]

Take Flight, Lesson 7-12: It's Evil to Pretend You're Never Evil

Put on the spot and pulled aside from the tour, things take a spicy turn. Until they aren't. Until things go astray and come back to bite us.

A/N: Uhhh...so this ran off on me. I REGRET NOTHING!!! Just a note, this became a little lore heavy from my own created universe. I think I made it succinct enough for people to understand and enjoy. I've edited this thing several times, so let me know if anything is too confusing and I will take another look.

Content Warning: General spoilers for the main story. Minors and ageless accounts do not interact! Named character, and MORE THAN slight mentions of character’s past and history which ARE expanded on as they ARE important to this chapter. Weirdly, I switch between past and present tense. Sorry, not sorry. Unbeta read.

NO SMUT!

Some references are made to previous chapters. See the Masterlist.

------

We continued through the underground tour of the Demon King's palace, the Little D chattering animatedly to anyone who was still listening to it. Mammon's eye was roving over certain items even as Beel kept trying to gnaw on him, which he would stop doing when I gave him the different snacks I had brought for him. Levi was actively engaged in his phone and I was using guiding him as a distraction from how close Diavolo kept coming. Simeon, Luke, and Solomon were discussing the merits of the Devildom's history as compared to that of the Celestial Realm's own version of those events. Asmo had fallen back a little to admire himself in the reflection of a cursed shield. Lucifer, though, seemed more interested in Diavolo and I than the tour itself.

Diavolo's touch to my shoulder had me looking back at him. He curled a finger at me and I allowed the others to draw ahead of me, Levi included even as he tripped over an uneven part of the pathway. Mammon and Lucifer both looked at us, but kept moving. Belatedly, I tightened the pact-bonds and sealed them before allowing them to fade from my attention.

Easier not to have my pact-mates' emotions distracting me while I was being bothered by my own and Diavolo's scent.

"Are you enjoying the tour?" Diavolo asked me and, for a second, I was distracted by the way his lips moved.

Stop it. It was easier said than done.

"I find it-" I hesitated over the polite lie. He could tell truth from lies and, anyways, there was no reason for me to spare his feelings. "It's interesting, if a little dull sometimes," I settled on.

He grinned at me and I had to look away to the others in order to keep moving. Was he teasing me? Probably not...hopefully.

It might have been several weeks since I had been summoned to the Devildom and I might have gained three pact-mates in that time, but I still didn't fully trust any of them-except maybe Mammon, but this was a different matter.

I hadn't thought I would be affected by the Rut, which only came about every twenty years. It would have been the first to affect me in my life since I had been too young for the last to have an impact on me. And of course it had to happen in the Devildom, away from the safety of other dragons.

Diavolo caught my elbow as the others passed around a corner. Reluctantly, I stopped and looked at Diavolo, whose expression was somewhat bemused. "I asked if you were alright, Lys. You seem distracted," he said.

I am distracted.

"You know you ask me anything, right?"

Not about this, nope. Not right now.

He must have read something in my expression because he pulled me just a step closer so my hip brushed his. His breath was hot on my ear when he dipped his head and breathed, "You smell much sweeter today than usual. Did one of the brothers gift you with a perfume? I might have to track it down."

I shivered and only watched him, my eyes tracing over his features and then his lips again.

"Lys?"

"I'm...not really fine," I admitted with a nervous swallow. "Its just personal stuff." And it was.

He pulled me around just a little and stepped closer, bringing me that much closer to him. I could feel the heat of his body through the layers of his uniform and when I tried to step back he followed me, neither crowding nor pushing until I felt the railing pressing into my back and his chest flush to mine. His knee brushed the inside of mine and my legs opened to him.

He pushed closer to me and dropped his head to the juncture of my shoulder and neck, inhaling deeply. "You smell a little like a demon in Rut."

Demons have Ruts?

"We do, yes."

Oh, I said that out loud.

"You did. Why do you smell like you're in Rut, Lys?"

I didn't want to answer him. Sweat was sliding down my back and he smelled good. Fight or fuck. That was how dragons usually got through their Ruts. My temper had been closer to the surface these last few days, but I was leaning closer to fuck than fighting right then.

"Were you given something to eat that put you in this state?" Diavolo asked, pulling away from me.

Hopping up on the railing, I balanced there on my hands and grinned to see Diavolo's eyes widen just a fraction. He steadied me with a hand on my back. Falling would be easy enough if he were interrogating me. Wings generally made safe for dragons what was dangerous for a number of other species. A number of demons had wings in their Other form and I was fairly sure Diavolo had wings, too, but the next level wasn't too far away and at least a couple below that within a few wing-lengths.

Still, I didn't feel much like leaving his warmth.

"Were you given something to eat that made you give off this scent?" he asked again.

"No, I wasn't." Likely, he had seen glimpses of my claws and fangs over the weeks and had put something together along with our conversations. They were the ones that had decided I was entirely human.

"You haven't lied when you said you were human," he stated, looking a little puzzled.

"I am human." Just not as human as they thought.

"Do you come from a family of witches and sorcerers?"

It was rather fun giving him half-answers and watching him try to figure things out. He wasn't stupid, just a little dense sometimes or else he pretended to be. Like when Lucifer and I directed sarcasm in his direction.

"Magic runs thick in my bloodlines," I said.

Frustration flashed across his face and he ran a hand through his hair. I touched a thumb to one of his cheekbones, testing what he was comfortable with. And maybe his actual intentions.

He stepped into me until he was leaning against the railing and my legs were opened to him. I hooked my arms around his neck and pulled him as close as possible. His head tilted to the side as he considered me, his golden eyes glittering.

"Am I reading you correctly?" he asked. "Or is this a human thing?"

"Humans don't have Ruts."

"But you are human."

"Yes."

He lowered his head until our lips almost touched, his breath feathering across my skin. I wanted to initiate the kiss, but I waited. Diavolo was the stronger one here and thus I had to be patient. "You aren't fully human."

"No."

He pulled back and I growled lowly, loosening my grip on him. If he was just interrogating me, his scent wouldn't have been as heavy as it was, sharper than usual and headier. "Were you sent by the Council of Lords?"

My head cocked to the side and I frowned at him. Dame had her own council of advisors, but the way he said it, it sounded like it was more like an organization. "The Council of what? Is that an assembly of your nobles?"

"Council of Lords. And yes, they are...of a sort."

I studied him for a long moment. "I wasn't sent by anyone, princeling. Demon lords, nobles, humans, or otherwise." My blood was cooling and my temper was rising again. "In fact, I didn't even know demons existed except in stories until the day you snatched me from my family." From their seat and heart of power, as it were. "If you've nothing else to discuss with me, I would ask that you stand back and allow my leave. As I've said before, you are not my ruler and there is no reason for me to yield to you."

It was hard to bite my tongue with the Rut washing through me, but I wouldn't betray those dear to me just to satisfy that itch. Diavolo was watching me.

"You've been telling the truth this whole time." No fucking shit, asshole.

My lips curled up in a snarl and when I yanked him down to me, it was more of a violent clash of teeth and tongue than anything. His hand on my waist tightened almost painfully, enough that I gasped. He took the chance to take control and slide his tongue alongside mine, deepening the kiss and tasting me.

His lips muffled my groan as I fumbled at his blazer and tugged the buttons apart until his hands caught mine, pressing my fingers into his abdomen and stopping my frustrated tugging. He pulled back and I did snarl at him. He shouldn't have pulled me back from the others if he was only going to be frustrating. But I wasn't so lost in the Rut, and it's influence wasn't so strong, that I couldn't stop my own actions and accept rejection.

I yanked my hand from his and pushed at his chest, but he didn't step back. "You'll fall," he said, a little breathless.

The laugh he ripped from my throat was sharp and harsh. "I'm not afraid of heights, princeling. These heights are nothing to the mountains of my home." My frustration was growing such that I wasn't even sure anymore if I wanted to fight or fuck.

Finally, he stepped back enough to allow me down from the railing, but he didn't move back any further. He kept me trapped between his body and the air at my back. "You are frustrating, Diavolo. What are you even doing? I've answered all the questions I am willing to right now."

"Just...will you answer one more?"

I pressed the palm of my hand into my forehead and tried to will my rapid pulse to slow down, not that it worked. "You can ask, but I might not answer."

"Is this just the Rut, or...is there someone else that you want?"

Did I want him or would I have jumped anyone that had pulled me aside? was his actual question and I tamped down the desire to jam my palm into his face. One, rude. Two, stupid in more ways that one.

Slowly, I drew in a deep breath and answered, "Rut aside, you and Lucifer are the only two individuals that I find physically attractive enough to want to fuck." My glare was only a little reproachful. He was also trying to be considerate, which was more than I could say for a few of my past partners.

Violence or sex didn't have to be the answer to my Rut. There was...one...other way to handle it, especially if it felt like the situation could take a turn for the worse. But it was uncomfortable and embarrassing, usually for both parties involved. In fact, it was starting to look like the more appealing option. I started to coax my family-bonds to the forefront of my consciousness, the less mature Twins being left as they were.

"I think...this would be better moved elsewhere, Lys," Diavolo said, placing a kiss to my forehead and then stepping back.

I blinked at him, caught on the family-bond of my dame. Her bond was starting to awaken at my attention, its seals starting to loosen. That was shut down like slamming a door on someone's face.

Diavolo was offering me his hand, a bemused look on his face. He was right. This wasn't the place to even be engaging in this conversation. Probably, he hadn't meant for the turn this conversation had taken, but I'd been caught up by my own blood.

And then the ruler's bond woke on Dame's side and, of course, this was the one that I had no control over. It was like being thrown into the middle of the Arctic ocean as her annoyance and worry washed through me. It was still a strained thing, complicated with the distance, realms, and different surrounding magics. Words were almost impossible, but I caught enough flickers of images from her side to understand she was in a meeting with her own council of advisors.

She only did a quick assessment of my emotions and then she was draining the magic that the Rut had awakened with. And, just as quickly, she shut the bond down. It wouldn't be a permanent solution, but she had bought me time and embarrassment. I could only cover my face with my hands to try and hide the embarrassed flush creeping up my neck.

"Lys?" Diavolo's voice was concerned as he stroked his fingers across my own. "Your scent has changed again."

"I know."

"Can I ask what happened?"

"No."

"Oh."

A tense silence hung between us for a long moment. "Lys," Diavolo began. "Are you...embarrassed?"

Feeling humiliated, but, "Yes. And it has nothing to do with this situation."

Another moment of silence and he leaned into me, pressing my hips to the railing again. "Lie," he stated.

Well, fucking FUCK.

"It has nothing to do with you, princeling."

Trying to use that nickname to draw a line between us backfired. His fingers slipped beneath mine and, gently, he cupped my face until I was looking at him. His eyes were almost amused as he smiled at me. "That's not quite a lie, but it isn't fully the truth either."

At that point, I could only sigh and fight down the emotions I was almost choking with. "I'm not even remotely related to a demon as far as I know."

"Alright."

"And there's a way to put off the effects of the Rut."

"Really?" His tone was more than a little interested. He must have read the confusion in my expression, because he continued, "Demons haven't figured out a way to do such a thing. That kind of information could be useful, later."

Oh. Except, "I can't tell you how it was done, only that it put off the effects of my own Rut for a while." Revealing that dragons could form bonds between each other and that a ruler's bond gave that individual absolute control of the other party wasn't something that was lightly shared outside of our own species.

And telling the Ruler of another species that I was the daughter of our own Ruler wasn't something I would willingly share. Besides, I wasn't even remotely an Heir, so that information would gain them nothing even if it was known to him.

One of his thumbs stroked across my cheekbone before he released me and stepped back. His public mask was slipping into place again when he next smiled. "That's alright, Lyssa," he said. "It's probably something species specific, so it likely wouldn't do me any good to know."

And that was the line he was drawing. Somehow, being on the other side of someone else drawing a line, I felt insulted. It didn't help that the heady scent of our arousal was still lingering between us, musky and somehow sweet.

Without thinking, I grabbed his wrist when he took another step back. Rather than looking at him, I looked down at my fingers and the grip he was allowing me. "It's just...a sensitive topic, Diavolo." Humiliating and sensitive. "I can't talk about it without the permission of my own ruler and she's a long way away." It was the truth and yet more complicated.

A finger under my chin lifted my eyes up to his and then he was kissing me in a chaste manner, just a there and gone brush. I didn't follow him when he pulled away but I kept eye contact with him and he let my hand slip into his.

"I...shouldn't have pushed you so hard for answers," he admitted and I smiled wryly.

"You look after an entire realm, Diavolo. I understand some of the duties that come first when it comes to your people." Dame had to put the majority of dragons before even her own children, sometimes. "It's not like you can set those duties aside for anything." Dame has us and her own siblings, but did he have anyone?

It suddenly clicked for me why he was so tactless with the Brothers and I sometimes. Diavolo didn't have anyone else but Barbatos, the Brothers, and, by extension, me. In his own way, like the Brothers among themselves, he was trying to connect with us, but he was also a Ruler and therefore not used to being told "No." Even Lucifer had a hard time turning him down and, more often than not, appeared to give into him. Diavolo might consider Lucifer his best friend and right hand, but there was only so far a relationship like theirs could tilt before it became a power imbalance unless Diavolo could accept the "No" that someone gave him.

"You can still ask me for help with anything, Lys," he said quietly and brushed his lips across my knuckles.

"I'll keep that in mind, and maybe even take you up on that," I answered with a heated blush.

With our hands still linked, I tugged him in the direction that the others had vanished to and assumed he knew where everything and everyone would be, like my dame would have. That was my mistake, but it also gave us time for me to calm down and the scent of arousal to fade from us.

-------

We were lost and I couldn't stop giggling at his confused expression. There was no fear of danger here, not with the master of the castle at my side. Our fingers had become linked at some point and I was having too much fun with our situation. It was also cute that he didn't entirely know his way around his own home. Oh, he recognized everything and could even recount memories of the the last time he had come through the area, just not which direction led where. Or he was pretending to do so. Either way, I didn't really mind and there was no reason for me to call attention to either fact.

Until enough time had passed that concern from Mammon, Beel, and Levi was evident from their pact-bonds, even under seal. "I can track their general direction," I offered to Diavolo and he looked at me curiously again. Why hadn't he asked me to do that already?

"Alright," was all he said.

Allowing the seals to ease open so they didn't overwhelm me took most of my attention from Diavolo. Following the pull of the general direction also took most of my attention because I was trying to manage all three pact-bonds at the same time, and he didn't say anything to distract me, so overlooking his curiosity in that instance didn't even register as anything important.

There was a tentative pull back from Mammon and his worry turned to relief. Probably he could feel that I was looking for him with our pact-bond. The worry that Levi and Beel were feeling was becoming a distraction so I allowed those two to fade from my attention, just becoming something that I was peripherally aware of-like my family bonds.

For a while, we just walked in silence with our hands still linked. There were times that I had to walk back and forth while looking at the stone ceiling, and then turn back and take a different turn than what we had originally taken, but his grip on my hand was a gentle constant that kept me aware of him.

And then I was standing in the middle of a corridor and staring at the ceiling above us, feeling Mammon's pact-bond tighten and pull, loosen, tighten and pull. To my senses it seemed like he was doing the same as I had been for a while. The pact-bond was almost like a taut string being pulled tight between us until it was a straight up and down.

Pointing at the spot where I could feel the pact-bond pulling me, I said, "Mammon is right above us, probably everyone else, too. Unless he separated off the main group to look for us."

"Can you tell how many individuals are with him?"

I coaxed my other two pact-bonds to the surface and pulled on them. It resulted in the same general location, just slightly differing from Mammon's. "Unless there are multiple rooms above us, then definitely Levi and Beel. Otherwise, no, that's not something I can tell with pacts." Images and words wouldn't pass through them no matter which way that I pulled or pushed. They just didn't seem to work like my family bonds, which was why I kept thinking of them as pact-bonds.

"With just pacts, right? Do you have another way to track individuals?"

"Yeah."

"Is it with a spell or anything?"

I was focused on the three pact-bonds moving in the small circles above us, almost like they were confused about my location. "Not a spell," I replied absently when Mammon pulled out pact-bond tightly again.

"How many pacts do you carry?"

"Three."

"What else do you use to track location, if not with pacts or spells?"

Bonds, I almost told him. Except the words lodged in my throat and refused to cross my lips. I snapped my attention to him on that question and the restriction it had evoked with my ruler's bond.

His expression wasn't that of a friend or a potential lover. The only one I had seen where that mask before was my dame when she was dealing with us as a ruler and not as a parent. It was the cold calculation and differentiation that she had to make with us, her own children, and what Diavolo was looking at me with right then.

A cold chill slithered down my spine, but I didn't release his hand, couldn't even if I had wanted to. His grip was stronger, just shy of painful. I released my pact-bonds and buried them again, not that it would help.

"I can't tell you that," I told him flatly.

The ruler's bond was pulling tighter around my throat, awakening with it's master's attention and a Ruler's weight behind it. This wouldn't be my dame checking on me as she had done earlier...if we kept on this topic.

"Can't or won't?"

"Can't," I snapped back and then the ruler's bond had entirely awakened and was pulling at my memories-something that was difficult and slow and painful this time, because she was pulling the full memory of his questions and my answers across realms. "Stop asking!"

And then I doubled in on myself, keening, wings closing around my body. Pain and worry and fear consumed me. Would she break me? Could she survive breaking me? Our thoughts were meshing and we couldn't stop this, even trying, pushing, pulling. Don't break! I'm sorry.

Lyssa.

Screaming and holding the wave from my bonds and pact-bonds was all I could do.

------

Mammon was off and running right before the high screams reached them. They already knew who it was. Levi and Beel both went pale in that moment, Levi doubling up clutching his head while Beel caught his brother before the fall and crouched over him. Then the screams pitched higher and Luke and Simeon weren't far behind as they looked for a stairway to the next level.

Lucifer was the one to go over the railings to the next level down. He was the first to reach Diavolo, who was kneeling helplessly over a writhing form.

-----

She was finally unconscious. Solomon was kneeling next to the couch that they had placed her on for examination, his own powers pulsing around her. Red was flickering in and out of sight wherever his power tried to push at her skin. He was frowning and it was driving Mammon into a pacing frenzy. Beel and Levi watched him from across the room where they could also see Diavolo and Lucifer quietly discussing something.

After the initial flash of agony, the pain had subsided into a minor headache for Levi. Mammon and Beel hadn't received any of the backlash across their own pacts with her, but they had known something was up.

"It's a magic tied deep in her blood or soul, maybe both," Solomon finally said. "There's nothing to suggest she's being affected by demonic magic, so I doubt its an attack by one of your nobles, Diavolo. As far as I can tell, it's her own magic, but not. Lyssa is being both attacked and protected by that same magic. Her own efforts were divided into shielding her pacts and herself."

"Lys was sheildin' us?" Mammon asked, stopping in his tracks and staring at the rug he was pacing on. "If she hadn't done that, would she be ok now?"

"Doubtful. That magic wasn't looking for the pacts and seems to be just sliding over them. Like I said, this magic is independent of her's. What was happening just before the attack set in?"

Lucifer and Diavolo paused their conversation when all eyes in the room turned to them, Solomon's gaze especially interested. "I was questioning her about some of the inconsistencies we've seen with her these last few weeks," Diavolo told him.

"And what are those?" Solomon asked, his gaze sharper.

Diavolo detailed out the things he had seen and been told about with claws, fangs, and then wings that day. "I've looked into the different nobles that would have an interest in the exchange program failing, but none of them have been very active in the last few years," Lucifer said, his voice suddenly tight. "I cannot find anything to suggest she is anything but human."

"Lyssa is, I believe, mostly human. What else her other species is, it isn't demon and she was speaking the truth when she said that she didn't know we were real until a few weeks ago." She groaned and all attention turned onto her right then, but she remained unconscious. Continuing, Diavolo said, "Solomon, you have extensive knowledge of the human world. Do you know of any kind of non-human species that live alongside them?"

"There are...a few," Solomon said carefully. Whatever else, his first priority was the continued protection of the human realm. "For example, there are werewolves that can just as easily pass as humans, except for the few days in a month they get furry. Mostly, though, that transformation can be managed through potions and the purchase of a sorcerer's skills."

"Anything else? It doesn't seem that the characteristics she has been showing are in any way furry," Diavolo pressed.

Solomon pursed his lips and studied the demons present. The lot of them had been slowly falling into Lyssa's orbit as she worked to get along with the Hell Lords and ensure a peaceful home environment. She obviously knew a bit of magic and the knowledge and vocabulary she had been showing signs of meant that she was an educated woman, not separated from the human realm. Giving the demons knowledge of species such as elves, sirens, and vampires didn't seem like a good idea. The werewolves were an open secret and easily discovered in dealing with the Sorcerer's Society. Still, there was one possibility, even if it was a remote one. They could, after all, look after themselves.

"About a hundred years ago, I spent a decade or so as a...guest...of a species that looked human most days, but they could also transform into dragons," Solomon said. "As much as their majority despised humans, and attempted to kill me on a daily basis, their ruler seemed intent on bringing human blood into their species, to help with something that was twisted within their own. That, however, was something of a failure at the time since the children they kept having had to be killed for one reason or another. Deformities and such."

"What about claws, fangs, and wings in a human form?"

"They did have those, though they seemed to be able to control which they were displaying. Wings seemed to be a rarer feature than the others."

Diavolo stared at Solomon for a moment, considering the sorcerer's words. Then, he nodded. "That seems to fit enough facts that we can assume Lyssa is at least part dragon. When she first got here, it appeared that they had tried to summon her back, but I was able to thwart it. Now, it's an attack on her? Should I assume they are hostile to her now?"

Of course, Diavolo was assuming that demons would naturally overpower a mortal species that resembled humans. Not that he was wrong.

"I don't know. As far as I know, they are a long lived species and their ruler had been in place for a long while. He wasn't fond of humans, per se, but the fact remains that Lyssa retains mostly human blood if you don't think she was somehow tricking you."

"No, she wasn't. I assumed she was entirely human when we brought her here and she went along with that. If this is the result of a few questions, I can't fault her for not telling us she was also something else." He was looking at the woman in question now, his arms still crossed over his blazer.

"She's probably one of the results of the earlier experiments that I mentioned, maybe even a generation later," Solomon decided on.

"Hybrids," Lyssa croaked, her voice likely hoarse from screaming earlier. "We're called hybrids by the courts. I'm a second generation product, unable to fully transform even though I retain our secondary features." She looked like she was waiting for something and then sighed in relief when nothing happened. "Our ruler doesn't need to be assumed to be hostile to me or demons, in general, Diavolo. The attack was an accident. Normally, they would try and protect me, but its hard across realms. Our magic is thinned and I'm on my own here."

Every word she gave them was the truth.

"Courts? Are there more than one?"

Solomon looked to Lyssa and she shook her head at him. "We only have one ruler at this time for the entirety of our species."

"Solomon?"

The sorcerer shrugged and stood from his spot, dusting his outfit at the knees. "I was a guest so my information and interaction was rather limited. There could have been more than one court, but I'm not sure."

Lyssa was watching the other human before her blue-silver gaze slid across Mammon, Beel, and Levi. The relief on her face was so apparent that it made Diavolo relax. Whatever else, Lyssa really didn't mean them harm. If anything, she was walking a fine line between loyalty to her own kind and participating in an exchange program with them. The pacts she was collecting were likely a means of ensuring her own safety. She tentatively pushed herself up and placed a hand on her temple.

"The ruler you were with, Solomon," Lyssa began and paused again, like she was waiting for something. "The ruler you were with was likely Mathis. He probably had you brought in because of your knowledge of magic and your human blood. A hundred years ago was probably about the right time to bring in the humans he did. Did he place you with any females during the time that you were with them?"

Her gaze flickered up to the other human. Solomon was frowning at her as they studied each other. "Let me guess, he rotated you with several female guards on a weekly basis and you seduced one or more in an attempt to escape."

There was no judgement or sympathy in her voice or body when she stated that fact and Solomon's eyebrows went up in surprise. "That's...fairly accurate. I got away because one of them fell in love with me."

She hissed and pressed the heel of her palm harder to her temple. "Then you might just have a child or two running among the dragons. Mathis only released the humans that were no longer useful to him since he didn't want too many from the same bloodlines to cross with the...dragons, let's just say dragons...with the dragons that he ruled."

Solomon actually seemed to freeze up at that news. Apparently, he hadn't been expecting that. "He was fairly brutal. Some of the humans he brought in were killed in the worst ways."

"They probably pissed him off or his orders weren't strict enough with those dragons." It was an absent remark, like those were just facts to her.

"Are you in danger from this...Mathis?" Diavolo asked, frowning.

"No."

Truth. Then...

"He's no longer your ruler, then, or at least not your current one."

She was studying him with a guarded look when she dropped her hand into her lap. "If you're actually serious about bringing peace to the three realms, the mortal one especially, you'll likely run into some hybrids that have been placed within the human leadership around their world. Our current ruler wants as little conflict with them as possible. The humans that were still with us when the ruler took their role were given the choice of going back into the mortal realm or remaining under our protection." The information was almost offered as a distraction, except that it was actually important.

She's a long way away. Lyssa had given him that information in the heat of a moment and now she was protecting the information on the gender of her ruler. He didn't bring it up or correct her, but the information was interesting. Just another piece to fit into the puzzle that she was and where she fit into the worlds at large.

Lyssa was quiet for a long minute as she continued to hold Diavolo's golden gaze. Beel, Levi, and Mammon were almost holding their breaths as they waited for a decision to be made. Lucifer was observing the other human and waiting for something to happen.

"Where does your family sit within the hierarchy of the dragon courts?"

She almost seemed to freeze with the question and a low growl was emanating from her throat. "I'm not going to tell you that."

"Even under threat of torture?" He wasn't going to, but it was interesting that she smiled and the three Avatars she had pacts with tensed up.

"Even under threat of torture," she confirmed.

"You're used to threats of violence being held against you," Diavolo observed.

Her smile widened just a little and then she pulled the shirt she was wearing over her head so that she was showing off the skin of her stomach, shoulders, and arms. It wasn't how he had wanted her to get undressed and certainly not in the presence of others, but...

She was slender, fit, and there were a number of scars that crossed over her shoulders and stretched out of sight onto her back. Just above the waistline of her jeans, there were three jagged mark from what looked like a claw across her hip. Across her stomach, there was another set of four lines that crossed over her skin. Some of those scars were almost faint against her skin, but others were still the knotted ugliness of wounds just barely healed. Diavolo's stomach twisted at the sight as he studied her skin. Even Solomon didn't have so many scars and he had to be thousands of years older than her.

"Violence isn't anything new to me, Diavolo," she admitted. "Fights are common among dragons and the species at large, but hybrids are threatened all the more due to our human blood. There aren't a lot of us and fewer every year unless they are outside of the location we live."

Truth. She lived among the bulk of that species and it was a willing existence, at that. For once, Diavolo didn't know what to say. In the silence that followed, she put the long-sleeve shirt back on and pulled her golden hair from the collar.

She was still holding his gaze, so calm it was as if she were already sure of the decision he would make. "Well?" she asked.

"Well what?"

"What are you going to do with me?"

His thoughts flashed to something very not related to their situation at hand and he had to take a second to redirect those thoughts. Her expression drained of emotion as she continued to hold his gaze. Fearless.

And then she glanced at Mammon, Levi, and Beel and there was the fear he had expected. The scent of it was sweet, almost cloying, not unlike when she had been giving off those Rut pheromones, but it was also somehow sickening.

"If I am to be killed, will it hurt them? Or is there someway to sever the pacts beforehand?"

Mammon lurched towards her, but stopped under his brother's glare and the weight of Diavolo's continued silence. She was afraid of hurting those she had taken pacts with.

"Are you a threat to my realm?"

"No."

Truth, again.

"Is your family a threat?"

Her silence was a heavy one when she turned her eyes back to his and considered that question. "I don't know. They're likely angry that I was snatched away from them, but I don't know that their strength would even come close to that of your Hell Lords."

She was giving the truth as she understood it and still she was calm for all that she had and had not revealed. Likely there was a secret there she would take to the grave and those she would protect with it.

"And Diaval?"

Her head tilted even as she grimaced. "You should find a way to communicate with him if he was truly sent in my place and you intend for the exchange program to be a success with him. I can't say for sure he could blend in with the normal dragons."

So, she thought an individual demon wasn't a threat, even one from among his own nobles. There had also been reports of her being involved in scraps with some of the lesser demons and putting them in their places. Her fear had been real when Levi had threatened her just before their pact had been made and when Lucifer had threatened her and Luke. But maybe that had been fear that she wouldn't be able to protect Luke. And she hadn't brought any of her pacts to bear against Lucifer even during that threat.

"You didn't summon Beel, Mammon, or Levi when Lucifer threatened you."

Lyssa frowned at that, her expression twisting in confusion. "Mammon was there. He would have tried to protect Luke and I don't believe Lucifer would have turned on his own family." She really hadn't thought of using the Brothers against each other.

She was used to fighting for herself and protecting her own.

"Then, I don't see why we can't continue as before," he said and she startled at the words. "You still meet the requirements that were set for the exchange program and I see no reason to lose the progress you've made here over this." He smiled and she looked suspicious. "Besides, this could be an interesting development with your...family." Her face twisted in a snarl at the insinuation he was making and he had to work to keep his laughter to himself. She was cute when she got defensive.

After that, Diavolo and Lucifer took their leave to discuss things further in private and left her alone with Solomon, Beel, Levi, and Mammon. There was a crash, a yelp, and then laughter; and he wasn't jealous at all.