#getting through without casualties

[grimmweepers]

— ☆ contents: sfw, dad!sukuna handling the morning routine with your girls while you're away, fem!reader, vague hair descriptors for your babies (mention of messy hair and braids), maybe a little ooc, 0.8k wc | masterlist

"Please do our hair, Papa!"

And just like that, their adorable cheeks and flashy grins worked their magic, turning the rare morning without you into a delightful little circus.

It was honestly a travesty, a cosmic joke of the highest order that Sukuna—a man of men, built like he was meant to father sons upon sons—had been blessed with two daughters. And not just any daughters but two miniature versions of you.

You used to get so stressed leaving him alone with them but as they grew into their little personalities, you realised it wasn’t the girls you needed to worry about—it was him.

Sukuna stood in front of the mirror, holding a comb in his hand like it was a foreign weapon, and your youngest, who was perched on a stool in front of him, frowned when she saw that after all his awkward attempts, her hair was still a wild mess.

"Mama doesn't do it like this," she said matter-of-factly. All of four years old but already an expert in hair etiquette, apparently.

He sighed, glancing at her in the mirror with a look of defeat. “Well, guess what? Mama’s not here,” he gruffed, although his mouth twitched upward in amusement, "So you’ve gotta deal with me.”

She pouted as she crossed her little arms, scrunching her nose while giving him the tiniest glare. Sukuna chuckled at the sight. She looked just like you.

“But Mama doesn’t hurt me,” accusatory eyes pierced into her father as if the tugs at her scalp were intentional.

He stopped, deadpan, like he was facing the toughest opponent of his life. “You think I’m trying to hurt you on purpose?” He pointed at the comb, “This thing’s got a mind of its own.”

Your eldest daughter, who had been lounging on the futon and flipping through a picture book, piped up with a smirk, “Mama says you need to be gentle, Papa.”

“Gentle?” he muttered under his breath. She heard him regardless and nodded back at him.

Another dramatic exhale left his lips. He started again, much slower this time, painstakingly working the brush through his daughter’s hair. “Alright, princess, by the time I’m done, you’ll look so pretty, Mama's gonna be jealous. She might even eat you.”

The youngest giggled at that, wiggling in her stool as Sukuna brushed through the last tangle without any major casualties. As he tied off the braid with a ribbon, he stepped back, standing tall with his hands on his hips, impressed with his own work. “There,” he said with more confidence than he probably should, “Nailed it.”

She gave him a sidelong glance, still skeptical but he could see the admiration she was trying to hide, “It’s… okay,” she declared her final verdict. She was acting like it wasn’t the best job though her tone said otherwise.

Meanwhile, your eldest, still on the futon, didn’t miss a beat. “Mama would’ve done it faster.”

Of course, they adore you. Everyone did. But when you weren't around, Sukuna—who could wipe out an entire army with a single swipe and set whole villages aflame—found himself outmatched by a hair comb and two pint-sized versions of the love of his life. It’s no wonder you were able to tame the girls.

But he caught your eldest sliding a thumbs up from behind her book, her way of saying—It looks good, Papa.

And he thinks maybe he’s doing alright. Although, if you were here you would’ve probably swooped in and rescued him long ago whilst being heavily amused by his struggle. Of the two of you, it wasn't difficult to figure out who was more gentle and patient. He swore you could do motherhood in your sleep and he already knew you would tease him later about this.

“You’re thinking about Mama, aren’t you?” Your eldest asked with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, catching him off guard.

“What makes you say that?” He blinked at her. That slyness? Maybe she took after him more than he'd realised.

She shrugged with all the wisdom of a seven year old who’s already figured out her father. “You always get that look on your face when you’re missing her.”

Sukuna shook his head, “Well, your Mama makes this look easy.” He went back to inspecting his youngest’s head knowing deep down it was far from the flawless work you would’ve done, “Okay, princess. You’re good to go.” She beamed at him and hopped off the stool, happily oblivious to the way the ribbon had already started slipping.

As soon as she scampered off to grab her stuffed bear, he turned his attention to his eldest again, who was quirking her eyebrow and looking every bit like you.

“Listen, kid. Don’t think you’re getting out of this,” he pointed at the stool while giving her a playful glare, “Your turn.”

a/n: holding all of your hands during these trying times. this has been sitting in my draft since august so im glad it's finally out huehue

© 2024 grimmweepers — do not repost, copy, translate, modify my work on any platform

dividers by @/adornedwithlight

[webism]

You make a spur-of-the-moment detour to your exes house on his birthday.

ex!Toji Fushiguro x afab reader. 4.2k. read on ao3

cw: a little bit o' angst, some drinking, oral (reader receiving), unprotected sex, toji doesnt wash his sheets i know it.

One dark night cursed with rain is all it takes to bring you back to Toji’s front door. Knuckles rapping on wood despite your own mind— it’s the warmest night of the week, humidity seeps into your bones. 

Toji opens his door and greets you with silence. You stand, a vision of something desperate. The man who had once loved you so tenderly watches you with stale eyes. You feel sick for remembering it’s his birthday. You also feel sick knowing he’s spent it in this damn house.

Not a word is shared, sweet nor acidic. Oh your Toji, stoic and silent. Not a thing has changed. 

He steps to the side, offering you refuge from the dreary weather. His eyes are on his driveway, left empty: you walked here. It’s apparent in the way your hair shines wet with rain. 

He used to lecture you for having wet hair in late hours like this, even when it’s warm. His mother used to tell him, hand gentle on the side of his face, ‘Toji, you’ll get a cold.’ 

He’s silent still as you walk past him, and cross the threshold into the house you used to waste away in. You don’t bother to take your shoes off: maybe in an attempt to convince yourself not to stay long. Though you do feel hauntingly warm trapped within such cold walls. 

The door clicks shut. Twelve seconds of silence ensue— you count. 

His first word, “Wine?” 

You ponder the butterfly effect. What total disaster will occur as a result of playing into this fever you’ve been having? How many casualties will you be accountable for? Will blood stain your hands? An ugly pit settles in your stomach. 

You nod regardless, there’s nothing in this house that can’t be nursed with a drink. Toji nods and god have you missed those eyes that soften just a little at the corners when he looks at you.

He only has the cheap stuff, and he has to shuffle through a few empty bottles to find it. Red. It pours smooth, Toji’s hands tight on the neck of the bottle as he bleeds it for you. The rain outside gets heavier: you think of it as a sign you left at the right time. Though, if you hadn’t left at all you’d still be dry. 

It’s been months since your last drink. You down the glass in two sips, you hate the taste but accept when Toji offers you another. What’s a night like this without relapse?

A step forward. 

“This place hasn’t changed,” you note, watching as Toji walks from kitchen to living room, steps heavy and haunting. He stands a few feet from you, back pressed against the wall. “You should move into something more comfortable.”

“A townhouse?” He teases you.

Yes. A townhouse like you. Yours, maybe— or the one across the road that’s just gone up for sale. It has a privacy screen you know he’d love and no broken tiles and no bad memories. You could walk the hot pavement to ask for some sugar when you’re out, and he could tell you he doesn’t have any, because why would he have sugar? And when you would go home deflated, he would run out to buy a bag of sugar, two— one white and one brown because you never specified— and leave them at your front door. Yes. A townhouse. 

“No,” you look down. “You’re not a townhouse type of man.”

Toji exhales. He asks you, in a tone laced with something dark, what type of man he is. 

You gesture around you, the wallpaper is beginning to peel. He’s this type of man.

Toji looks at you, and he asks ‘why are you here? it’s been a year and your life is finally stable again,’ but he asks with his eyes, because those words would never leave his lips. You hate that you can still read him. You wonder if you’ll speak his language forever. 

“Happy birthday,” you say. “I didn’t get you anything.”

Silence, and then– “good.”

You could have emptied your wallet for him with ease. You know he needs things: new socks, a watch that isn't broken, a new beginning. Toji has never taken anything from you though, not gifts or favours or cuddles after sex. You hate that about him: always a provider, never being cared for. Such a shell of a happy man, you count yourself special for having seen him smile. Such gifts have always been your favourite.

“How's…” he trails off, a frail attempt at not suffocating you in the silence he knows you hate. The words don't meet his lips, though: how's your new life? Finally on a comfortable wage? And how are the neighbours? Are they noisy like mine are? Do you stay up laughing at their awkward sex noises like we did? Do you fuck a warm body to drown them out just like us? Do you live trying to recreate domestic life with me? Do you miss the filth? The broken sleep? Were you ever happy? Why are you here?

Toji  bites his tongue. “More wine?”

“No, thanks.”

The rain continues. Despite the roof over your head, you feel heavy with water: something uneasy settles inside of you, and Toji steps closer. He’s wearing black, as usual, and his sleeves are short so you're able to notice he’s added onto his tattoos. Your initial still sits untouched just by his elbow, he’s held onto at least some of you.

Maybe words don’t need to be shared. You step forward. He follows suit.

Before you can stop yourself, you are standing toe-to-toe with Toji Fushiguro. You can watch his shoulders raise with each deep breath he takes, and as you lift your gaze, you look death in the eyes. Sorcerer killer. As beautiful as ever. 

You feel small and powerless, without purpose or justification. Must you always think for yourself? You’re tired of wrestling with that mind of yours. In the cold house you once shared with him, you suddenly forget how to make good decisions. You raise your hands, and touch his lip with your fingertips. He has a new scar, one that runs from the corner of his mouth downwards. You want to kiss it away. You wonder if he pays it much attention in the mirror, is the memory of getting it as bad as the memory of you?

“You shouldn't be here,” Toji slips his large hands to your waist. You feel at home. “Left for a better life.”

“Yeah.”

“I can walk you home.”

“Shut up, Toji. It’s your birthday.”

Relapse: god it tastes good. Toji kisses you like it’s his first and last taste of you. It's deep and yearning and laced with lust and anger and an awful fear of loss. But at the same time, he kisses you like it’s a tuesday evening, and he's just now home from work and you’ve been busy all day with the house, which is quaint and clean and not run-down like his. Maybe a townhouse.

His tongue slips into your mouth, and he kisses you like he had once planned to on your wedding night: your back hits the wall, but his hand is behind your head to cushion it. A tear slips down your face, overwhelmed by the presence of who has haunted so many of your dreams. You want more of him, you want to indulge yourself on the forbidden: what a taboo his touch has become.

“Please,” you speak against his lips. 

“On the bed.”

Toji steps away from you, and nods down the hall. You know your way, you know this house like it's built from your own bones. Memories flash through your mind with each step you take towards his bedroom, the one that used to be yours, too. You let yourself smile, remembering being carried to bed after a drink too many, or spending hours curled up under the sheets waiting for your love to return home. Eating breakfast in bed together, the sex that would follow.

His footsteps are heavy against the wood behind you, he shadows you as you walk into his room, once yours too. The bed has moved, it’s pushed against the wall now— you suppose there isn’t need for someone else to have room to get in on the other side. You wonder how many people he’s fucked to forget about you in the sheets that used to smell like you. 

You can only worry so much, jealousy doesn’t do one well when it’s barely justified. You sit on the edge of the mattress, running your fingers along the soft covers and try not to think of all the times you've been here before. You used to sit and watch him get dressed, the troublesome time it would take to get his clothes on worth the sight of his bare skin covered to remain for your eyes alone. You’d daydream sometimes of watching him dress for different circumstances; maybe in another life you’d sit in the master bedroom of a townhouse and watch your Toji dress for the picket-fence desk job dream rather than for murder.

And yet, the bed seems to swallow you whole. This room, even after you left, remains half yours. A cursory glance to the wardrobe shows it still half empty, dust laden over the dresser your perfumes once sat atop. The curtains covering his window are the same ones you had picked out on sale in the spirit of making a house a home. You still linger. 

Toji leans against the wall by the window, his toned arms crossed over his chest as he watches you look around. His lips part slowly, but he closes his mouth and clears his throat when you lean back on your elbows. You stare ahead at nothing in particular, thinking of all those nights where you laid awake, watching him in his sleep, worrying about whether he’d come home in a box the following week. You never stopped worrying, really.

With every passing second you feel more and more guilty. Selfish for imposing on Toji's life without you, estranged for leaving a townhouse nine blocks over to return to the home you had left so long ago.

“I miss you,” you say softly.

Toji doesn’t move, doesn’t speak— you can hear the rain worsen outside. You think you’ve fucked things up—ruined the relapse—when Toji pushes himself off the wall and reaches you in two long steps. He looks down at you, large frame towering over your body in a way that makes you feel both small and seen at the same time. You sit in his shadow, under his punitive gaze, looking up at the man you had once promised a forever to. 

Toji leans down, meets you in height and kisses you once again. This time, the kiss is slow, languid and gentle in a way you remember once hating. You’d always yearn for the rough, mean side of Toji that could make you see stars in seconds. You used to want the Zenin to come out and settle your hunger. But now, with the gentle way in which Toji takes your lips between his, you couldn’t imagine wanting anyone but him.

He kisses you like a man home from war which, in a way, he always will be. When his hands come to rest on your waist, you’re confronted by the memories of his touch: soft on your skin, tender and caring despite the roughness of his very being. When he draws your thighs apart and kneels between them, you hate yourself for ever leaving. How cruel you were. 

Toji sets his fingers under the waistband of your pants and pulls them down, panties too, in one swift movement aided only by the raising of your hips. He looks at you, bare and desperate, and his throat goes dry. He tries desperately to clear his mind of all the memories that start like this, with you spread out and laid back in wait of him. He pressed a gentle his to your thigh, then sinks his teeth into your flesh—anything to leave a mark on you again.

“Ow,” you whine, buck your hips up a little in hopes of pleasure to chase the pain. Toji doesn’t relent, he bites your thigh again, this time a little higher. “Toji.”

“Don’t say my name like that,” he growls, catches your skin between his teeth and moves upwards. “Like you’re still used to this. Like we’re fucking for the third time this week. That’s gone.”

You take a breath in and close your eyes. You can feel yourself deflate a little, his words are sharp and poking but his lips are gentle as they kiss over the indentations left by his teeth. Another kiss, even higher, and he’s soon pressing his lips to your clit in something you can only describe as reunion.

It can’t all be gone, because he darts his tongue out to circle around your clit in a way he’s done so much before it’s now muscle memory. As is the way your hips buck upwards just to be caught and pinned by his strong hands. You’re held down and ravaged by your Toji, who dips his tongue down through your folds before latching onto your clit like he’s trying to find comfort in your taste. Maybe he finds it, because he lets out a sigh and presses his forehead to your pelvis as he takes a breath.

“You taste the same,” he mumbles, dipping forward again to practically make out with your cunt. He’s always been messy—hungry. You can feel his scar against you, it’s new and not something you attach to him just yet, but maybe that's a good thing. Your fingers curl into the silk sheets you brought on sale two years ago. 

“Your tongues the same, always fucking teasing.”

“Deal with it.”

You try again to buck your hips up in protest, but his grip on your waist is too wrought. He’s mean, holding you down and denying you the chance to chase pleasure, but he’s always been this way—Toji will do anything to hold control. He returns his attention to your needy clit and eats you out at a pace you can only call familiar: too fucking slow. You want to protest, to whine and beg for more in the hopes his ego will take the buff and make you cum on his tongue, but before you can even part your lips to speak, he’s mumbling against your pussy.

“Just let me savour this.”

Oh and who are you to deny him after so long, after the withdrawals of losing his tongue you’re eager to end it so soon? No, you’re driven by lust and not giving your heart a moment to voice whims. You tighten your grip on the sheets, feel the slow coil in your stomach pull further, and let out a breath. You feel him wholly, each flick of his tongue over your sensitive achey clit, the dig of his thick fingers into your waist, his breath against your skin as he moans into his ministries. 

You’re close before you can start entirely savouring it. “Toji,” you try—but he knows you, he feels it already.

“I know, ma, you can take some more. Know you can, always been a fuckin’ slut for my mouth”

You can’t—you both know it. Toji wants to feel you unravel against his lips and give himself reason to punish you for it. He pushes two fingers into your fluttering cunt and curls them upwards just to torture you further. You’d chide him if you weren’t choking on your moans already, practically begging him with your sweet noises for that oh-so-wanted relief.

And he obliges, of course, because your orgasm is a rarity he used to taste daily. Something he missed, the taste of your relief, the way you’d shake under his touch and let him kiss you better afterwards. He doesn’t deserve you, but he’s been good enough of a man to deserve this, at least once more. 

Your orgasm wracks through you like a wave would a desolate beach in a storm. Emotional. Restorative in a way. Sobering. You half expect your eyes to open and find yourself back at home in the comforts of your new bed with your hand down your pants and your fingers soaked at the thought of your Toji, as so many nights go. But no: he’s here and lapping up your release like a starving man would. 

He stills by your pussy for a few moments, and you know he’s trying to will his erection down even just a little bit. His pants are strained and even friction against the mattress doesn’t do much for him—still, he doesn’t know if you want to take all of him again. He’d be okay with just your taste, but every second that passes without him being inside of you feels somewhat torturous–debilitating. You pick up on his struggles and tug at the strands of black hair you used to shampoo each evening.

“Toji,” you hum. “Want you inside of me. Need to feel it again.”

Your ex lover, though calling him such leaves a horrid taste in your mouth, climbs over you and takes both of your wrists to pin the above your head with one hand. He looks down at you with something in his gaze that you can’t quite pinpoint: anger? Hurt? Heat?

Regardless, he used his free hand to line up with your sopping entrance and push forward. Catching your lips between his in a kiss as he does so, Toji moans into the gasp you let out as he stretches you open. This is hauntingly familiar, the burn of his first thrust—so big that you can’t  completely get used to him no matter how often he’s working you open on his cock. You love it, you’d call yourself an addict if it were appropriate. 

He bottoms out, buries himself to the hilt inside of you and rests his forehead against yours. You half expect him to be mean. He used to fuck you rough when you were together and he was particularly stressed: he’s wrap a strong hand around your throat or push your face into the pillows and fuck you so hard he had to carry you to the shower to clean off. 

But Toji isn’t rough, even with his cock splitting you open and the anger of your leaving, he isn’t rough. He lets your wrists go and moves his hand to cup your face and just stare for a moment. You know the look in his eyes too well, something overwhelming washes over him, and you swear you can see a slight tremble to his lips. He’s beyond beautiful, eyes darting all over your face in hopes of memorising your every feature—as if you’re not already burnt into his mind. Like you’re not what he sees whenever he closes his eyes. 

“Too much?” you ask, feeling the tremor in his hands. 

Toji looks down at you and, with a dry mouth, manages a small “yeah.”

Your hand finds his face, thumb tracing over the scar on his lip in gentle strokes. Something soothing, you hope, for a man far from finding comfort. “You wanna stop?”

“God no,” Toji shakes his head. “Do you want to, uh—”

“Flip us over, Fushiguro.”

With his length still hidden inside of you, Toji swiftly flips the both of you over so that his back hits the mattress and you’re sat on his cock and staring down at him for once. His hands find your hips, still with a slight tremor to his grip but a little more comfort than before. Gravity helps you take Toji a little deeper than you had, so you lean forward a little and rest your hands on his chest. His heart thrums beneath your touch, not quite pounding but fast enough to make you smile.

“Let me take care of you,” you roll your hips a little. “It’s your birthday, after all.”

Toji looks almost like he’s going to protest, but ultimately takes his bottom lip between his teeth and nods; letting you slide up on his cock just to drop yourself back down. “Fuck, I–” 

He trails off, eyes screwed chut, and you lean forward to kiss the subtle curve of his nose. “You what?”

“I missed you,” his eyes are glossed when he opens them again to meet yours. You only get a glimpse of them before you’re pressing your lips to his in lieu of a million things you want to say to him. “Fucking missed you.”

Pulling away, you lift your hips up, feel the drag of his cock leaving you empty before you drop back down again and make the both of you moan in tandem with each other. Your eyes lock, his start to pool with tears. You can’t tell if he’s overwhelmed or upset or starting to be fucked so dumb he’s gone soft on you—but regardless, it’s a sight that tightens your beating heart.

You quicken your pace, revel in the way he fills you up: how he completes you. Your knees dig into the spring-loaded mattress as you ride his cock like you used to all that time ago. Every squeeze of your cunt around him makes the poor man choke a little on his breath, though you don’t slow down, not even when the tears start to fall. His cheekbones are painted glossy with his tears and, in favour of wiping them away, you dip down and lick a long strip up his cheek to taste the salt of his emotions on his tongue. It’s only fair, your taste still lingers on his. 

“I don’t like seeing you cry,” you whisper, kissing gently at his wet lashline. He grounds himself with his hands on your hips and takes a shaky breath in at the kisses you press across his tear-streaked face. He doesn’t try to hide his vulnerability—he knows there’s no point around you. Not when you’ve seen every broken part of him and still kissed him with a gentleness that stung more than any injury could.

“Can’t help it,” he murmurs as you ride him. “You do this to me.”

You slow your movements just enough to offer a reprieve, the steady roll of your hips becoming languid, deliberate. “I don’t mean to,” you reply softly, your lips brushing against his as you speak. 

Toji huffs out something between a laugh and a sob. “Liar. You always know what you’re doing.”

You let out a small breathy laugh and lean in to kiss the corner of his mouth. You start your pace up again, even faster than before: your thighs burn with the effort, but it’s worth it to see him unravel beneath you.

His head falls back against the pillow, exposing the column of his neck, and a low, desperate moan slips past his lips. He grips your thighs, but there’s no force behind his touch—only a trembling need as he lets you take control.

“You’re so good like this, letting me take care of you.”

His breath hitches, and his hands tighten on your thighs. “I—fuck, I can’t—” He’s rambling now, his words slurring as his breath becomes laboured and his hips start to thrust skywards into you. “Please—don’t stop. Don’t stop.”

“Shh,” you soothe, your hands sliding down to lace your fingers with his, pinning them to the mattress on either side of his head. “I’ve got you. Just let go, Toji.”

Wholly at your mercy, Toji screws his beautiful eyes shut and nods. Each heave from his chest stokes the flames that coil in your stomach  in desperate hopes of a release. He’s first to teeter over the edge of pleasure, with a wild thrust up into you and a very raw moan, or sob, that rips straight from his throat, he cums. He fills you up and, for only a moment, you’re thrown back a year into the past and this is any other night spent together. The heat of him, the sheer force of his climax, pushes you to your own precipice.

You follow him into oblivion soon after, your back arching and your head falling back as your orgasm crashes through you. The muscles of your core tighten around him, drawing out his pleasure even as yours consumes you in wave after wave of white-hot ecstasy. You milk him for all he has, every last drop of release that you’re greedy enough to take within you.

When the storm passes, you collapse onto his chest. The both of you are sheened with sweat and the cum that leaks from your cunt around his cock and it’s messy and sticky and domestic in a way you can’t explain. The rain outside starts to taper off, but you’ll use the weather as an excuse to stay the night regardless. You doubt Toji would let you leave even if you tried. 

“I love you,” he says. 

“I love you.” you reply. 

You don’t know what will happen come morning. The two of you are from two very different worlds now, but Toji’s hand comes up to cradle the back of your head. You can feel his heart beat, you can hear each intake of breath, you’re connected to him physically and, in a way, spiritually as well. 

You’re in his bed, the one that was once also yours. You’re safe, feeling nostalgic, and Toji Fushiguro is warm. Much warmer than any insulated townhouse.

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[natewriteslol]

Delicious In Dungeon Having a Crush on You HC's!

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:

Summary: Just like the title says, how they would act if they had a crush on you including how you find out!

Pt.2 w Kabru, Shuro and Falin!

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆ ☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*°☆.。.:*

Senshi:

-I'm not going to lie it is going to take a fat minute for him to fess up his feelings for you let alone for people to notice because it is the little things that stand out.

-Senshi is really good at keeping secrets and is a really private person and fights for his peace

-So what if he may slip a little bit more food onto your plate, make your favorite dishes only for you if the ingredients for it just so happens to be in his bag, is always the first person to get you out of a dangerous situation? It's all out of convenience and being kind

-But his lack of casualty is also really telling like when giving out compliments he sometimes has a tinge of shyness to his voice, "You look...very nice y-yes"

-The way you find out he has a crush on you is because he eventually comes to a realization that he cannot keep running away from his problems because that has never ended in anything good and confesses his feelings for you

-It happened whilst everyone was asleep and it was just you two alone by the fire, the embers were crackling and you always enjoyed watching it ablaze while talking with Senshi. Eventually he piped up after staying silent for so long and having you take the lead in talking,

"I don't mean to corner you, nor do I expect you to feel the same but...I have feelings for you, genuinely Y/N. And, meeting you in this party means the world to me as in a way you all are unique treasures but you. I couldn't imagine just walking away without letting you know how much you mean to me."

-Honestly, Senshi is one of the least in denial about this predicament with his feelings and will come to you sooner

Marcille:

-A person who completely avoids her feelings for you like the plague and will deny like her life depends on it

-She swears to others that it's just because you're an amazing friend!

-She brings you your favorite sweet treats, offers to cast magic for your slightest inconveniences, she just so happens to bring books that are about the things you mentioned one off or are a specific interest you love

-The contrast of how she treats others vs. You is so jarring and it's really obvious that she has a crush on you. She is really protective and a bit possessive (not in a weird way) over you and she does not really care about the other people in her party like that

-Anytime she's afraid of something, she holds onto you, Marcille is VERY touchy with her crush

-The blonde blushes pretty consistently and is really shy when it comes to you and tries to appear nonchalant but fails miserably

-It's honestly so bad that even Laios caught on after Senshi threw him a clue and one time when it was just him asked her, which resulted in her coming clean and being VERY distressed as if she committed a crime

-The way you find out she has a crush on you is when you're on a mission in a dungeon. She was near a weeping willow exerting mana, rumored to grant wishes to anyone who asks.

-She held a piece of paper and was on her knees, looking up at the grand tree on the soft blades of grass. She began speaking to the tree once you silently walked in through the cave hole to check on her and the half-elf was completely unknowing of your intrusion,

-"Please they're the love of my life, and I'm not asking to force them but maybe...show me a sign if they like me back. They make me feel like no other and I am just so confused and I need guidance, Ancient Willow."

Chilchuck:

-Deny. Deny. Deny. Deny.

-Oh, and did I say deny

-He absolutely hates being the person caught with egg on his face and being in the wrong, so the fact that he himself Mr. 'No Party Romances' violated his own rules?

-He wants to fall into a hole right on the spot

-While he is a grown ass man and doesn't want to be a coward, Chilchuck doesn't want to face this problem head on surprisingly (sarcasm)

-He shows his love for you by trying to keep you the safe the most out of everyone in the party, scolds you HEAVILY when you mess up that could've cost you your life

-Some may say that it's just Chilchuck's explosive nature, Senshi was actually the first to see through it and grow suspicion over his behavior but honestly didn't have enough evidence for his theory and was shot down by Laios and Marcille

-It's not extremely obvious his slight shift in treatment until you had been kidnapped by the Chain Devil to protect Chilchuck from it's clutches

-And multiple times have members of the party have been kidnapped and although shaken he was able to keep his cool...but this time it was heavily different

-He let out a horrified scream that they had never heard from the Half-Foot before. He scrambled to his feet after watching you getting pulled into the darkness, his eyes were glassy and full of panic as he asked the rest on what they should do

-When they get you back, you were too tired to really stand so you laid in the sleeping bag as everyone else slept as well, but the brown haired man never left your side and watched as you slept

-...or so he thought

-You find out about his true feelings as you laid in your sleeping bag. As you were drifting in and out consciousness but felt light weight on the side of your body and Chilchuck began to talk to you, asking if you were awake

-"Good, you're fast asleep...I hope you know that I'm not hard on you because I don't like you that's...not even close to the truth.

I love you, so much and...I get so damn scared for you."

Laios:

-Constant. Monster. Facts.

-One of the things that makes Laios so attracted to you is that you listen and like when he nerds out so please be prepared. You're a safe space to spew out knowledge and it means the world to him

-Consistently gives you small little gifts, but then sometimes gifts to the others so it doesn't look suspicious. Maybe it was something with the light but, the look in his eye as he gave you the bracelet and put it on you was so different.

-Usually doesn't care about other people being in a towels or shirtless, but when it's you he feels like a victorian man seeing an ankle for the first time. When he sees your collar bones and he tries to keep it very lokwey, but is highkey blushing

-Gives you some sketches of your favorite creatures, always "accidentally" makes your favorite dish for dinner nights, pouts a little when you need to be gone without him for a little

-If you're ever feeling insecure he might open his gob a little too much, "I get maybe why you'd feel that way but, if you ask me I think it's pretty hot" he says with a blank, enthusiastic smile on his face not at all understanding how that could come off

-You find out that the knight has a crush on you the first time he gets absolutely hammered with Senshi, Chilchuck as he was convinced by the two to get drunk

-The bar was packed in one of the "safe spaces" in town and you and Marcille were kinda the designated sober people within your party, and whilst the half elf was in the bathroom you decided to get some fresh air and got up from the stool seat

-"Whatcha' doing party is jus' getting started?" Laios asks

-You shot him a look over the shoulder and responded softly, "I need some fresh air hun, I'll be right back."

-And there went his inner dialogue. Out his mouth.

-"Woah, how sexy. Being in love really sucks sometimes since I'd really do tricks like a dog to be with them good god."

-The look you gave dobered him almost completely, and if that wasn't enough Marcille was right behind him and heard every word

-Love is cringe but he is free I guess.

Part Two:Kabru, Shuro and Falin!

[chososcutie]

“Stuffing You Like a Stocking !”

KINKMAS DECEMBER 3RD

synopsis: when an ill-placed bet had made their control you never knew they had been holding, snap!

word count: 2.7k

tags: threesome, anal, unprotected sex, oral (fem!recieving), mention of masturbation, fingering, size difference, etc etc

art creds on pinterest

─── ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ☃︎♡˖ ⊹ ₊ ݁. ❅ ─── ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ☃︎♡˖ ⊹ ₊ ݁.

you, and chuuya, and dazai’s friendship was something no one really understood but you three, bound together by something more blurry and messy than friendship.

it was clear in the way they held you, and their hand placement, that you were theirs, and only theirs, your connection running much deeper than casualty.

they were always so.. touchy with you, a hand absently on your thigh, fingers tracing lazy patterns on your arm, pulling you to straddle their laps, even going so far as squeezing your tits teasingly, when you were distracted.

but all friends do that.

right?

and sometimes, when they would stay the night, all three of you would cuddle, you sandwiched between dazai and chuuya’s warm, bare chests, their soft breathing ghosting over you.

but they had never tried anything with you.

you understood, somewhere in the far recesses of your mind, that this wasn’t a normal friendship, but you refused to believe yourself until much later.

there had been lots of tension, over the last couple weeks, even more so than usual, with chuuya grabbing you any chance he got, and dazai constantly taking opportunities to pin you down, in the form of a wrestling match, or tickling fight, resting his heavy weight atop your body easily, mouth curved up lazily.

you would huff and puff, and tell him get off! and that you couldn’t breathe while squirming desperately, which would always result in dazai’s breathing to increase, a sudden stiffness forming under you, prodding you insistently.

of course, you weren’t stupid. you knew what was going on.

you just chose to ignore the signs until it was too late. much too late.

they had an understanding between them, chuuya and dazai, to not take advantage of you, and to not complexify things by getting sexual, no matter how much they wanted to.

and oh, how they wanted to.

the way your face would light up at the slightest things, your sweet blushing cheeks at their crude remarks, seeing you tip-toe up to brush your rosy soft lips against their cheeks in greeting, your perky breasts pressing against their chests when you hugged them, the warmth of your soft body and chubbed thighs all made them want you more.

and the occasional glimpse they would get of your body, oh if you could only see how feral it made them.

coming fresh out of the shower, smelling like vanilla and sweet things, a towel tightly wrapped around you as you closed the door a crack. they would sneak closer, eager for more, and watch as you dropped the towel, unveiling yourself to them. taking in your bouncy perfect tits, glistening and sheened with water droplets, your smooth supple skin, and your soft tummy leading down to the v between your legs.

practically panting with want like dogs, as they stared at you, feeling ashamed for seeing you in such a state without your knowing, but not enough to stop, creeping closer for more.

and if only you knew, how sometimes on a particularly tempting day, when you had either been wearing sleep shorts that barely covered your perfect, round ass, or wore one of their spare baggy shirts without a bra, your perky, taut nipples visible through the material, practically begging to be fucked stupid, how they would go home and.. help each other.

dazai’s hand wrapped tightly around chuuya’s weeping cock, stroking upward in hard tugs, with chuuya teasing the leaking slit of dazai’s, tracing over sensitive veins, while they both moaned your name helplessly.

no matter how much they thirsted however, they refused to make things complicated.

oblivious to you, however, things had already gotten complicated the moment the brunette and red-haired men had stepped into your life, and claimed you.

for there was only one way for them to truly end this unresolved, stretched taut restraint and call you theirs, and there was only so long until it happened.

.˚₊‧ ─── ˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗ ─── ‧₊˚. ─── ˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗

knock! knock!

running over to open the door, chuuya and dazai await you, leaning against the doorstep, carrying what looks like an early christmas present, a bulging stocking filled with various candies and perfumes you liked, the two ever eager to vy for your attention.

“aww, thank you guys!” you open the door to welcome them in, giving each a hug, dazai clinging to you longer than usual, while chuuya’s hand slides to your hip almost unnoticeably.

as you shut the door, some of the little trinkets they got for you tumble out, the stocking overflowing.

“wow, you guys really stuffed this, huh?”

“bet we could stuff something else..” dazai retorts, mouth curved up while chuuya snickers beside him.

this in particular wasn’t what was different. chuuya and dazai were always making dirty jokes, flirting with you, with each other.

no, it was what you said after that sent them over the edge you had been inching them closer and closer to, for months now.

“not as full, you couldn’t.”

you weren’t really sure what came over you, whether it be that you weren’t really thinking too hard, or that maybe subconsciously, you had been wanting this to happen, testing them to see how far you could go.

chuuya and dazai loved a dare. and you knew that.

which is how you found yourself here.

bent over the nearest counter, chuuya’s palms roughly coming to cup your breasts, with dazai already yanking down the flimsy pair of panties you had been wearing under one of their baggy tees.

“hah.. y’don’t know how long we’ve waited for this, doll.” dazai groans into your ear, fingers sliding easily into your gushing cunt, absolutely coating them in your essence.

“and now that we have you, we’re not letting go.” chuuya growls, squeezing your tits hard for emphasis.

you gasp, arching further, dazai letting out a pleased hum as he tries to encourage you to arch further, lifting you by the hips to press you hard on the counter.

“think she can take us both, ‘chuu?”

you can’t see it, but you can practically hear the smirk in chuuya’s voice as he replies. “ 'course she can. after all, what was it she said about us not being able to stuff her full..?"

dazai chuckles darkly. "guess we just hafta prove her wrong, hm?"

quickly, he pries your legs apart, exposing your twitching clit to the both of them, the feel of cool air on your sensitive bundle of nerves making you whimper and wriggle your hips back into their grasp, desperate for more friction.

dazai's hands start gentle, tricking you into believing he would be soft with you, deft fingers sliding into your pussy to pump in and out leisurely, curling to find your g-spot.

meanwhile, chuuya is mapping out anywhere he can reach, a sense of desperation in him as he skims over your soft, supple skin, occasionally squeezing or slapping lightly.

you mewl, lashes fluttering as dazai's fingers begin to fuck into you ruthlessly, erotic squelching filling the room with every pump, your thighs already quaking with pleasure.

"m-more! more!" you gasp, trying to back yourself up further into him, which he responds to by licking the nape of your neck, husky voice rasping in your ear, "patience baby.. i want to enjoy this s'much as i can."

and then, chuuya's fingers disappear from where they were curled around your waist a second ago, and you're suddenly caught off guard by the feel of something hot and wet laving at you, slurping all your sweet juices from where it oozes out of your salivating cunt.

"chuuyaaa.." dazai whines, having been shoved aside. "i wanted to d'that!"

he laughs against your pussy, a deep rumbling that makes you shiver as it reverberates through you. "too bad.." he taunts, before resuming his small laps, getting a taste for you.

dazai grumbles something about greed, before your mind numbs with pleasure, unable to think about anything other than chuuya as he begins to run his slithery tongue up your folds, and over your pulsating clit, your sweet slick already dribbling down his chin.

you moan, spreading your thighs wider, as his fingers come to your asscheeks, gripping tightly at the fat, expert tongue slurping and sucking.

and then, a frustrated "fuck this.." is all you hear, before you feel rough desperate hands flipping you, gently laying you back before another tongue joins, immediately getting busy between your plush thighs, this one lapping at your syrupy slick with an urgent sort of fervency.

you thrust your hips up further into their faces, grinding sloppily as both men make out with your ravaged cunt, letting off lewd pops! and muffled slurps.

your eyes meet dazai's, and he's already pussydrunk, eyes half-lidded and dazed, with his mouth sloppily tangling with chuuya's as they fight for the sugary slick tucked in between your legs, mouthing over your clit faintly. both of their chins are glistening with your sheen, and as you watch him, he starts lapping faster, chuuya immediately matching the change in pace, as they eagerly devour you whole.

and you can't even warn them- you're cumming, hard.

so hard you think you black out for a second, eyes and ears fuzzy, as you spasm around their hot, invading tongues, relishing you with renewed vigor.

so hard you don't even realize you're squirting until a few seconds later, when dazai gasps in delight, mashing his face into your sloshing cunt, chuuya following suit.

you throb as they continue to lavish your convulsing pussy in sloppy kisses and licks, until you're pushing their heads away, entirely overstimulated.

"ah ah, where ya going, darling?" chuuya smirks, coming up to stand between your legs. "that was just the warm up.."

and the next thing you knew- you were being lifted up and tossed right over one of their shoulders', being carried away, your body still bare and sticky from your orgasm.

before you can even prepare yourself, you're being thrown on the cushiony softness of your bed, mattress creaking and dipping underneath the weight.

chuuya is on you in an instant, with his hips sloppily grinding into you, the rough bulge of his cock apparent as he rubs it over your plush tummy, placing kisses all along your neck, and laving his tongue over the flutter of your pulse.

dazai quickly follows, stripping away his shirt and pants to reveal his long, throbbing cock, leaking pre-cum and thumping with veins, enormously towering before you.

it's slender, but it's long, impressively so. it reaches almost halfway up his stomach, and as he notices you staring, his mouth curves upward lazily, taking it into his hand to pump slowly. "like what y'see?"

you swallow, before nodding shyly, unable to look away as his fist tightens around the base, keeping half-lidded eye contact with you.

"come sit on it, then."

chuuya eases off you, and slowly, you inch forward, crawling over the bed toward him, arousal running down your trembly thighs.

dazai smiles with pleasure, stroking your hair as you come to straddle him. "good girl."

you throb at his words, and suddenly you can't wait a beat longer, aligning yourself as you lift your hips enough to drool your slick onto his pulsating, reddening, blushy tip, beginning to sink down slowly.

you both gasp at the same time, dazai's head falling back to reveal his slender neck, and adam's apple bobbing as he swallows.

"fuck you're.. fuck." his hands come to your hips, and you shudder as you feel his cock pushing in to your cervix, hips trying to grind upward as he eases you down.

"s-so big.." you whimper, your pussy greedily sucking him down for more.

"you can take it." he gives you a lopsided smile, one that quickly breaks into a guttural moan as he finally bottoms out inside you, you sinking down on him to the hilt.

and as you both breathe heavily, he starts to bounce you slowly on his cock, eyes locked with chuuya as he groans from across the room.

"you shitheads are leaving me ouut!"

dazai's voice is a breathy moan, as he gestures him closer. "if you're so.. ah.. jealous, get in here."

and as you turn your head to look, making eye-contact with the absolute monster between his legs, cock full and swollen, you can't do anything but gape.

he was much more thick-set than dazai, length heavy and thrumming, fully on display for you to ogle at, red and angry-looking.

he comes closer, creeping behind you to grip your ass tightly, smirk plastered on his lips. "oh, sweetheart, you shoulda never made that.. hah.. bet."

and as he starts to lather his cock up in your gushing slick, making the first movements to push into you, you know then that it's not going to fit.

"hah... 'chu! s'too much! t-too much!" you squeal, pussy clamping tightly around dazai, causing his eyes to roll back, hands coming to your hips to still you.

"baby, don't do that, m'gonna cum!" he whines, hips jerking into you unsteadily.

chuuya huffs over you, trying to rock into you more, but as you feel his thick girth stretching you out to mold his shape, you just can't fit him. there's no room, especially with dazai occupying almost all of it.

"ya gotta loosen up f'me doll, c'mon.." he grunts, prying your legs further apart, a hand coming to smooth over the curve of your ass.

and then, dazai reaches for you, rubbing your puffy, throbbing clit gently to loosen you up, kissing your jaw tenderly. "c'mon, you can do it.."

after rubbing your sensitive nub and making you whine and squeal, chuuya finally manages to ease in a couple more inches, walls clamping tightly around him in welcome.

and what a sight you are.

dazai's hand lazily circling your clit, pussy stretched obscenely around both their cocks.

“m’ so.. hah.. full!”

“told ya, sweets.” chuuya grunted above you. “shoulda listened when you had the chance..”

“now, you gotta take it. take it alll, c’mon..” dazai’s trying to ease you up enough to slide chuuya's remaining inches in, but you’re struggling to breathe, barely able to hold yourself upright.

chuuya pinches and rolls your nipples from behind, while dazai toys with your clit, and with one final squelch, he manages to sheathe himself fully inside you. and when he does, the reaction is instantaneous.

unable to stop themselves after wanting and yearning for you for so long, the rough sound of skin against skin begins to echo as your body ping-pongs between them.

chuuya pulls your hips back into him, while dazai grips them from the front, both of your holes being used and filled like a fuck toy, for their own pleasure and amusement.

“mmh, what a slutty little pussy you have..” dazai teases, watching as more sheeny, dewy slick bubbles from you, your mouth open to let out heaving gasps and moans.

“did ya save it just for us?” he flutters his lashes at you, before pushing his hips up brutally, your insides practically getting rearranged by his thrusting length.

you whimper, eyes rolling back as sweat sticks your thighs to his lap, the filthy wet slapping of your skin sticking together extra noisy.

“you better hope ya did..” chuuya growls from behind. “because if we find out another man touched you like this, we’ll kill him.”

and for some reason, their blatant possessiveness only serves to turn you on more, tightening impossibly around their invading shafts as your breathing increases, head spinning with every mind-numbing thrust.

and when dazai's cock manages to hit that one spongey spot, you swear you're seeing stars as your body slumps back against them, tongue lolling out dumbly.

"look at her, 'chuu. such a cute little fucked-out expression she has." dazai giggles, pounding into you harder as chuuya slams you from behind, grunting in agreement.

chuuya pushes you down into dazai, arching your ass into him higher, as his thrusts turn sloppy and uncalculated, dazai bouncing you rapidly.

“andddd what a pretty ass.. too bad it’s all mine.” chuuya rasps.

"hah.. m'gonna.." is all you manage to get out, before it crashes over you like a tidal wave, head spinning with the force of your second orgasm of the night, practically just gushing all over their fat, weepy cocks.

"mmm.." dazai's head tilts back, hips lifting as he releases spurt after spurt of hot, white seed into your walls, so much of it that it begins to seep out in little rivulets down your thighs.

chuuya is close to follow, hot sticky ropes pulsing into you steadily, as they both moan, grunting into you about how good, how perfect you are, and how long they’ve waited for this.

and as you all come down from your highs, tangling yourselves into the blankets together, dazai tilts his head, resting it on chuuya's chest, studying you.

"you do know, you're ours right?"

tagslist (ask to be tagged!): @urlocalfemcel-xx @ghostedwriting @amanoava @fluffyfrog1619 @newnlovesjennie @b0n3s-is-gay @noblogname-exe @iams0up @t3chn0chan @childesdog69

[brainmuncher]

A mis-text-derstanding

After a long night of patrolling around Amity, Danny damn near collapsed onto his bed. His back ached from a stray ectoblast and his eyes felt heavier than a mountain. Technus had done something to the technology around the town. At random a piece of technology would suddenly go rogue with a virus the ghost implemented. The virus would make the item try to capture anyone in the vicinity using any means necessary. So Danny had been doing regular patrols around town to catch anyone who needed help.

That also means that his sleeping time had been radically reduced. Without even the energy to lift his head, Danny patted around for his phone. Once he finally found the device he hefted himself on his side with a groan. It was a new phone since he was the first casualty in Technus’ plan. Thankfully, Sam had given him another so his parents wouldn’t try to make him one. (Who knows what kind of ‘anti-ghost’ protection they would’ve put on it.)

Tucker had promised that he was working on fixing the virus going around. Hopefully, he had some kind of good news to share. As soon as Danny went to message him he realized he hadn’t downloaded their chat app to the new phone. With a sigh he knew that he would just have to use normal texting but with careful codewords.

Putting in Tucker's number with a yawn, Danny sent the first message.

‘It’s your undead bro. The night out tonight was killer. Any news on the techie progress?’

Danny smashed his face into his bed with a sigh after hitting send. Knowing Tucker he was probably face first in his laptop and won’t notice the message for a bit. He could probably just close his eyes and…

Before he could even consider taking a nap there was a generic jingle from the phone. He should really get to fixing that. Tuck deserves a much better ringtone than some bells.

‘Nothing noteworthy yet. It's harder to crack than normal but nothing I can't handle. Do you need me to take over for tomorrow?’

‘Also why aren't you using our chat?’

Danny squinted at the screen with a slight frown. It had been a while since Sam or Tucker tried to go out in his place. They learned pretty quickly that it made Danny way too anxious to have them out there without him. Something about not being there to protect them if they got over their heads made Danny’s chest ache. 

And of course, Tucker noticed that he wasn’t using the app he made. It was a bit glitchy at times, but what tech wasn’t when it came to Danny? Not only was it secure, but it became an easier way for them to establish a timeline for filing. Jazz had been the one who realized that they didn’t have steady information on not just the rouges but the events of the fights. It became a staple to write out what happened and what went wrong after hearing her lecture about it.

‘Don’t have it on this phone yet. And you know how I feel about you being out there.’

Danny watched the screen for a bit, waiting to see if Tucker would reply immediately again. His mom probably caught him on his computer all day and was forcing him to separate himself from it for a while. It wasn’t an uncommon thing for Ms. Foley to do.

‘Yeah yeah, Mr. Possessive. Do you need me to walk you through how to get it again?’

Snorting at the pun, Danny easily replied. If Tucker was feeling sassy enough to joke about that, then he would push some buttons back. It was a simple banter that they sometimes fell into.

‘You know how I get with technology. I’m more likely to break something. Especially since this phone is so new. Whatever happened to flip phones?’

Danny snickered to himself at the message. Tucker had an ongoing war between new and old technology. While he loved his PDA he also admired some of the top-of-the-line devices. It was like the past and the future mixed in his friend's room. He would gush about the new devices but also gush about the older ones that still had functions that the newer ones lost. But flip phones? That was the only technology he knew that Tucker hated. It was the worst of both worlds for him. He’d been so excited when Danny’s flip phone was bricked by Technus’ virus.

‘I’m going to ignore that you said that.’

‘Also there’s going to be trouble in the park near you tomorrow. I’m already planning on going. Do you want in?’

Scooting up from his lounged position, Danny started to write back his reply.

‘Of course, I’ll be there. Don’t need you to go in alone and join the dead. Unusual for him to leave his plans there though. That’ll be fun to write in the report.’

The image of Jazz reading about that brought a smile to Danny’s face. She always found it interesting when one of the ghosts would change a long-time behavior. The fact that Technus was able to keep this rather on the down low would guarantee her interest. He was always one to blatantly announce his plans to the world to hear. Even though it’s a bit of a pain that he’s learning to keep things to himself it would peak Jazz’s curiosity, which made it bearable.

‘It is weird. And don’t remind me about the report. I still have the one from last week to write and I don’t want to do it.’

That made Danny laugh to himself a little. Last week the lunch lady tried to embrace the Ultra-Recyclo Vegetarian life. In the overflow of food, Tucker had gotten trapped in veggies. He was visibly green from having to eat some to escape. Sam had been excited about it at first before she saw how much food was being wasted. She ended up getting attacked for trying to explain the damage overconsumption and food waste could bring.

‘You looked like you wanted to vomit afterward. Well, at least we are prepared this time. We don’t always get that chance.’

Danny stretched out his stubborn limbs, feeling himself try to sink into the darkness. He’d have to end the conversation sooner rather than later. At this rate, he wouldn’t have a choice on whether he was taking a nap or not. At the familiar sound of bells, he looked back down at the conversation.

‘Unfortunately. Well, I’ll be finished by the time we meet at the park. I know you usually like to sleep after a long night.’

The reply made Danny’s core feel fuzzy with happiness. Tucker always knows him so well. He doesn’t know what he did to get such a fantastic best friend. It was at times like these that Danny knew he was so glad that they were in this together. With two of his best friends at his side, it made being a vigilante so much easier to bear. 

‘Thanks. Remember that not just the dead get to sleep. Don’t push yourself. Goodnight.’

With that, Danny felt comfortable with setting his phone down to get changed into pajamas. It ached on his back to take off his shirt, but Jazz would be disappointed in the morning if he didn’t. She always got that pinched look on her face when he didn’t take care of himself to her standards. Her standards weren’t exactly high up either so it made him feel extra upset when he missed the mark.

Being careful to not lie on his back, Danny got back into his bed. He curled himself into the blankets with a small smile. One last chime of bells rang out in the room, probably from Tucker saying goodnight back. Picking up his phone, he opened up the lock screen and looked at his messages.

Instead of a goodnight, his stomach dropped as he realized a different number messaged him. A very familiar number.

‘Hey dude! I know you had to get a new phone so this is me. Not only did I figure out how it’s spreading, I think I finally found a way to get rid of the virus.’

Practically throwing himself off the bed, Danny got to his feet. Both his back and his mind screamed at him as he looked over the message. He tapped back to the one he’d just been replying to, finding his heart stopping at the string of numbers. One of the area code numbers was a six instead of a nine. He’d been messaging a stranger this entire time.

Looking back at the messages he convinced himself that it was fine. He was vague enough to not be recognized. It wasn’t like this person was from Amity. They won’t recognize the correlation between him and Phantom. Surely the other person wouldn’t take his words at face value. 

Worst comes to worst he can have Tucker take over his phone for a bit and make sure the other person can’t find out who he is. He hadn’t bought the phone or had it under his name in any way, so they could only find out from the conversation alone.

Breathing out a breath of air he kissed his night of sleep goodbye.

‘I’ll be over in a sec Tuck. I think I just made a mistake.’

[sunnie-angel]

week 3 (oct. 18) | period sex

✮⋆˙bon appétit (2.2k)

jason's a vampire, you're on your period, and, well a man's gotta eat

tags: f!reader, vamp jason, established relationship, period sex, cunnilingus, vaginal fingering, blood drinking, blood as lube, slight size kink, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, creampie

a/n: for @luvrodite my darling, this would not exist without your encouragement

⊘ this is an 18+ fic. minors do not interact, you will be blocked

Jason Todd is on you the second you walk through the door, pharmacy bag dropping from your hands in surprise. The door’s barely shut behind you before he’s crowding you up against it, cold night air still lingering on your skin, his nose buried in your neck. His lips part along your collarbone and you roll your eyes at the pinprick of fangs already descending from his gums.

“I smell blood,” he rumbles. “Are you hurt?”

With a sigh you dig your now empty hand into the thick mess of his hair and pull him off of your throat. His pupils have already started to narrow into slits, catlike.

“No, and if you’d stop thinking with your fangs for a hot second you’d realize it’s because of my period.” Reaching down for the bag you’d just let go of, you gasp as another cramp spikes through your lower belly and claws up your back. “Right, you can get the bag because you made me drop it. I’m going to find my heat pack in the kitchen.”

Jason’s already waiting for you by the time you hobble into the kitchen, slow and regrettably human. Under your breath you curse his unnatural speed but he hears you anyway and grins. He’s already put your heat pack in the microwave so there’s nothing to do but gratefully take the painkillers he’s fished out of the bag for you and wait. His stomach grumbles.

“Nope,” you declare. “Not happening tonight. I’m losing enough blood as it is, you aren’t getting your hands on any more.”

“Please, baby? ‘M starving over here,” Jason pouts. He’s suddenly behind you, arms around your midriff. He lets out a huff of air right over your jugular, goosebumps rising across your skin. Usually, that would be enough to have you caving, knees weak and and panties wet, begging for his bite. Tonight, you push his face away with annoyance.

“Go get some synth blood from you maker or something. Isn’t she always offering to hook you up with a supply? I’m off the menu tonight, so put those–” you tap at his upper lip, right over where his fangs have descended “–away.”

The microwave beeps, giving you an excuse to slip from his grasp. You moan at the warmth as you shove it down the front of your clothing, the heat already making the cramps reside a little.

“Talia’s out of town and you know nothin’ tastes anywhere near as good as you do,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. You want to scream at his perfect dumb face with its stupid puppy eyes.

“Jason. I’ve got a waterfall of blood in my underwear – which is stained by the way because none of the PATH toilets had any pads in any of their dispensers – my back hurts, my stomach hurts, my boobs are pain central, and my ankles are sore for some ungodly reason. I’m not adding “mauled by a hungry vampire” to the list of reasons why I’m destroying my liver with painkillers.”

You know you’re probably being bitchier about it than you normally would be to turn him down, but you’ve just had the day from hell. First your period had started on your morning commute to work. Then the pad you had been counting on to be in your purse hadn’t been there, a casualty of Tamara two desks over last week. There’d only been a single pill left in the bottle of painkillers you kept at your desk, and you’d been so run off your feet with work that you hadn’t had a chance to run out for more. You’re tired and sore, absolutely ready to face plant into bed.

“I don’t gotta bite, you know,” Jason says slowly.

“What,” you retort flatly, already done with this conversation.

“Well if you’re already bleeding. I don’t hafta bite you.” He smirks at you like he’s solved all of your problems. Slowly, your face starts to heat up as you put together what he’s implying.

“You don’t– what. You wanna...” you splutter, unable to string the thought together.

“C’mon sweetheart,” he prowls towards you, predatory glint in his eye “let me put my mouth to good use. I promise I won’t bite.” He’s got you backed against the countertop, balancing on your tip toes. The faux marble is firm beneath your scrabbling fingertips as you let out a squeak. He traces the apple of your cheek with a deceptively gentle finger. “Besides, you always feel so nice and relaxed after you come. Might make those cramps better.”

Cotton mouthed, you swallow down your desire but you can tell from the lopsided grin that Jason can already smell it on you.

“Ye-ah, okay.” You nod and bite your lip. “But if you make my cramps worse, I reserve the right to knee you in the head.”

Jason’s got you undressed and flat on your back on the bed in under 15 seconds in what has to be a new personal record. He’d even managed to put a towel down and reposition the heating pack right over your womb between breaths. Somewhere in the trip between the kitchen and the bedroom Jason had lost his shirt and you’re reminded again of just how badly he can make your mouth water, staring at the broad expanse of muscle covered in a thin layer of fat. He looks down at your bare, bleeding cunt and you swear you see a hint of something cold and predatory tinge his desire.

You reach out to him feeling oddly vulnerable, the rabbit kicking in the jaws of the wolf. He smiles at you, and despite the narrowed slit of his pupils you feel the warmth leech back into the room. Gently, he lowers himself down to cover your body with his. Kisses and laps at your open mouth, careful not to nick you with his fangs. Jason smooths a broad palm along the side of your ribcage until it settles on the plush curve of your hip. Slowly, he starts to kiss at your jaw and throat, purposefully avoiding the lush temptation of your carotid.

When Jason takes your aching breast into the wet heat of his mouth for the first time that night, you gasp and arch your back. Your hips strain with nowhere to go against the rock solid weight of his body. He’s gentler than he usually is, keeps his promise not to bite by laving at the bud of your nipple with the flat of his tongue. Kisses and sucks at the aching flesh until you are mewling from oversensitivity, now wet with more than just blood. He barely reacts to you clawing at his back, nails leaving raw red lines that heal over in an instant.

“Too much too muchtoomuchtoomuch,” you babble, body leaden with a different type of ache.

He pulls off your breast with an audible pop, a thin line of spit connecting his lips to the wet mess he’s made of your tits. Jason smiles as he peppers kisses down your belly, still careful not to jostle the heat pack from it’s place. He licks and kisses at each thigh before placing them onto his shoulders, sucking hard enough to leave bruises in your wake. You start to roll your eyes at him for his obsession with getting as close to your blood as possible when the scrape of teeth across the thin skin has you trying to strangle him with your thighs.

“No biting,” you gasp out, the curve of your spine pushing your breasts into the air.

“No biting,” he says, humouring you.

Jason hands close around your hips and drags you down to meet him. He licks a broad stripe right across your dripping cunt, obliterating any indignant thoughts in your head. Sucks a kiss to your clit that has you grabbing for his hair, desperate to keep his face right there. Your hips struggle to move but the coiled strength in his palms traps you right where he wants you. He’s enjoying this, you can tell from the way he’s playing you like a finely tuned instrument. Alternates long slow licks with taps and flicks of his tongue just to watch you dissolving into a whining and desperate creature.

You’re wet, so wet you can feel it dripping down to the cleft of your ass. Jason slurps – slurps! – up the mixture of your blood and arousal, traces it straight back to the source until he’s sucking right over your entrance. The tip of his tongue traces your cunt before plunging in and you moan, body tensing up at the intrusion. Trying to arch up into him, Jason slams your hips back down onto the mattress, the heating pad sliding somewhere off to the side of your hip.

“C’mon baby, gotta stay still so I can finish my dinner,” he purrs, not even bothering to look up from the blood drooling between your legs.

Arousal and embarrassment flare through you, lighting you up and burning through your cheeks as he goes back to eating you out. The spread of his fangs pinning your hole wide open as he thrusts the slick muscle of his tongue back into you. Uses it to curl into you wickedly until you moan high and reedy in your throat, aching for more. A thick finger prods at your entrance, alternates thrusting in with his tongue, forcing you to clench down around the intrusion. You can do nothing but lay there and take it, as he fucks you on his fingers and tongue. There’s no  escape from him and his questing mouth, pinned down as you are.

Your thighs start to shake when he curls a second finger into you, scissors his fingers wide to make it easier to drink you down. Spreads you open and fucks back in as deep as his hand will go. Hooks those fingers into the soft spongy part of your gut that has you seeing stars and pushes as he sucks on your clit again.

“Right there, Jay,” you whine, fighting for breath as your tummy screws up tight. “Please.”

Jason keeps hitting that spot with his fingers with unerring accuracy, hammering away as he laves over your clit. It’s the barest hint of teeth dragging across it that sends you burning over the edge, vision whiting out at the corners when you come. Chest heaving as you try to breath through it, body turning to jelly, your cramps are long forgotten in the flood of endorphins.

Jason grins from between your thighs, chin red with your blood and sticky with your slick. Leans over to show you the mess you’ve made of his hand, the sticky strings that still cling, connecting it to your twitching cunt. He keeps his eyes locked with yours as he licks it all up, moans at the taste of you and ruts his dick into the bed.

“You taste so good, honey–" you whine at the praise “–just had to have a little taste. And I was good wasn’t I, didn’t even bite to get it, so I think I deserve a little dessert too.”

You nod too fucked out and relaxed to move, body nearly one with the bed as your aching muscles melt. He grins, predatory again, and oh you should have seen this coming. Something about wetting his throat with blood always has Jason desperate to get his dick wet too.

Jason slowly feeds his cock into you, smile still stained red. Moves one of your legs to hook around his waist while he carefully keeps the other one pinned over his shoulder as he folds you in two. He’s big. He’s always big but in this position you can feel every inch of him, can practically taste your hips giving way as he makes space for himself inside of you. Jason sets a pace that has you shaking under him, eyes wide as he steals the air from your lungs with each deep thrust. Filthy, wet squelching noises stream from your cunt as he fucks it sloppy, driven feral by the scent of blood in the air.

He coos at your wide eyes and slack-jawed expression as you clench tighter and tighter around him. Bends his head to mouth at your neglected breasts and smear them bloody. Jason minds his teeth as he laps and suckles at your tits in a crude approximation of what he just did to your clit. All the while his thrusts speed up, jolt you up the bed as he starts to jackhammer. You wail as he comes inside of you, hot spurts of cum painting your quivering walls. Jason works a hand between you and all it takes is the slightest pressure to set off the chain reaction in you again.

Smug, Jason rolls off to lie beside you, head propped on his hand to watch you gasp and twitch like a gutted fish. He reaches down between your thighs and runs a finger through the mess there, causes you to shiver. Jason licks your combined spend off his finger and sighs with satisfaction. Starts to rub the warm mixture of blood, cum and slick into the skin over your womb in idle patterns.

“You know, you tasted good before, but I think I like you best when you taste like me.”

[wandixx]

Danny, the Young Justice member snippet nr 3 GIW made a lot of mistakes and the biggest one was going against Young Justice part 1

As you can see by the title (I need better ideas, you're all welcome to share yours), this is kinda part of "Danny, the Youg Justice member" but as something I have more of actual idea about. So while I encourage people adding their stuff to other snippets, please let this one be. I will be adding to it. It's even partially written :D

unrelated snippet nr 1, unrelated snippet nr 2

"Hey guys" Danny greeted clearly winded, phasing through the wall. Whole Team turned towards him, some giving him a side eye “Sorry I’m late” 

“You’re good, my dude” Wally answered, patting him on the back as soon as halfa landed, turning into his human form. They gave him a moment to catch his breath(just how fast he tried to fly there?) before grabbing their bags. Dick jumped and threw himself over the speedster's and halfa’s shoulders.

“Happy Harbour, we’re coming!” he yelled.

He fixed his grip when he caught Danny’s quick wince under the pressure as they left the headquarters. Judging by look on his face, Kaldur caught it too.

“So what’s on the agenda?”

“There is an amusement park in city, so we’re going to enjoy our free time there” M’gann explained with excited smile “I can’t wait to see it, I heard it’s fun”

Artemis nodded with a grin.

“I bet I can win more plushies than all of you. No powers,” she demanded after a moment, slamming her hand n a random tree for better dramatic effect.

“Stakes?” he asked, competitive like always. While blonde shared her idea of ‘no locker room duties for a month’, Danny explained all the questions M’gann asked about what even bet was and what stakes meant. Dick was sure she knew the answers to all of them but he didn’t say anything. He was trained well enough to catch Conner listening intently, despite his clear effort to hide it.

It turned into a whole Team competition.

It was going to be an aster.

***

M’gann was having a blast. Everyone already had two to four plushies, stomach full of unhealthy food and manageable nausea from the roller coaster. Wally and Danny were throwing popcorn to each other's mouths, Robin challenged Conner and Artemis to the next game. It really was fun just like she was told!

It was much less fun when literal blast shot a few feets away from them. Ground where it hit was burned. Halfa squealed, projecting a strong wave of distress. Without second thought he threw his hood on and changed his posture, frantically looking for a hiding spot.

Few children started crying, their families scrambling to get away before attackers started shooting again and hurt them. Workers, already used to working in less than ideal circumstances, quickly, but without panic warranted by recognised villains or outright invasion, shut down reinforced blinds and probably walked out to inform someone. At least they didn’t have to worry about potential civilian casualties. 

“Do you know who they are?” M’gann asked, quickly establishing the Mindlink.

“Don’t worry about it” he answered, putting on crazy big sunglasses that Wally won some time before.

“My dude, we just got shot at. We have every right to worry”

“Calm down, Wally. I got shot at, you’re just close by. I’ll handle it” With a ruffle of his hair and a piece of popcorn thrown in his mouth,he turned around, just moment after the next blast almost caught his arm. He plastered a smile on his face.

“Hey, I’ve seen guns like these in laser tag! But I’ve never found them cheap enough to get without selling my kidney!” he yelled enthusiastically.

When the rest of them turned around, M’gann saw ten people in sunglasses and pristine white, holding guns straight from the mad scientist’s lab. THey stood still, projecting surprise bordering on shock. She could also feel hunter's happiness underneath it, intense enough that she considered breaking the ‘don’t mess with people’s brains’ rule. As a treat.

“Don’t worry guys, they won’t harm you. Act like you  don’t believe you’re in danger. Like they're a bunch of LARPers or something” It was easier said than done, especially when Danny, who nearly always underestimated the danger, was so terrified. 

“Who are they?!”

“Wally throw me a bit of popcorn, please” Halfa asked, ignoring Artemis almost yelling in their minds. In turn, he was ignored by the speedster. Three of the men turned to check something on weird sort of scanner. Danny's false smile went from cheerful to embarrassed. 

“Dang me and my poor communication skills” he said, loud enough for men to hear but not enough to sound like he was talking to them, before asking louder “I meant to ask, where have you brought it and how much does it cost?”

This seemed to actually shake men out of their shock. They got furious.

“You won't trick us this time, ghost scum” one of the guys with a scanner snarled. Danny pursed his lips in childish gesture of displeasure.

“Rude much” he muttered as if he wasn’t shining with terror like a lighthouse. Robin perked up as if something got him curious.

“Wait, ghost? What do–”

“What are you cosplaying?” Artemis blurted out. Men got visibly angry but Danny smirked.

“Don't antagonize them,” Kaldur commended. 

“If shit goes south I'll get you out of there, half a second flat” Wally offered.

“Thanks dude. Good job Artemis, they hate to be treated like a joke they are” halfa praised but out loud asking:

“Ghostbusters? No, they had different uniforms. But who else got a thing for ghosts?”

“Quit joking around, we caught you Phantom! You ran far from Amity Park but-”

“Who is Phantom?” Robin interrupted rudely (they deserved to be rude to them).

“Where is Amity Park, Utah? Cali?”  Conner asked, adding fuel to the fire of chaos with barely contained glee. He liked messing with anyone even slightly resembling Kadmus staff and these guys marked almost all of the boxes.

“Illinois” provided chubby man who looked and felt like he didn't want to be there almost as much as they teens did. Danny relaxed slightly.

“Agent W you have no clearance to share this information“

“You were in Illinois and didn't tell me, Tommy?” M’gann finally spoke, jokingly punching his arm.

“I wasn't, I swear! I've never set a foot outside of this state in my life!”

“Quit messing around, you freak!!!” the guy, with the biggest ego and probably the leader, screamed.

“Can I please mess their heads up?”  M’gann asked, pushing hope through Mindlink as hard as she could.

“Again, rude. What did I even do to deserve that?”

“Like you–”

“Operative K, I think they really don't know anything “ Agent W, the nicest out of the batch, interrupted “Maybe it left some ectoplasm on this boy to throw us off?”

“They called you it, Danny” Conner seethed, looking like only Kaldur’s hand on his shoulder was stopping him from punching all of them straight to the sun. M’gann was already reaching for their minds.

“We need to run a scan to be sure. Come here boy”

“Now, who are you?!” Robin got defensive, sliding to shield Danny from asiliants. Conner and Artemis joined him, so clearly furious that M’gann almost retreated from Mindlink. She wasn’t any calmer, it just felt overwhelming to be backed up by five other people.

“It’s classified”

Kaldur took a photo with an obnoxiously loud sound effect. Wally appeared right behind Danny, ready to evacuate him. Artemis barely kept herself from tackling the nearest ‘agent’ to the ground.

“What are you doing, boy?” Operative K splurted, absolutely flabbergasted.

“Calling the police”

“Why?”

“Robin, throw some laws, please”

“Oh, that’s easy,” the boy jumped in gleefully “You assaulted our friend and refused to state why you would have credentials to do so or even who are you. You carry modified weaponry openly in public and I doubt you have a permit, carelessly use it  against minors, endangering innocent bystanders while we’re at it. You disturb public peace. I think that’s enough to get you arrested. Wait you know what, call ‘Supervillain emergency hotline’ instead, this is serious attack”

“Right ahead of you, already calling them”

It wasn’t that big of a problem even if someone tried to qualify this as spam. Young Justice Team was first to respond to all threats in Happy Harbour anyway.

Danny let out a low ‘uuuu’ with a smirk. Someone powered up a gun. Wally slightly raised halfa of the ground, ready to bolt.

“It’s okay young man,” the nice agent started, raising his hands in a placating gesture “We’re searching for a dangerous supernatural entity and may have overreacted. In our defense, Phantom is known to be tricky and we wouldn’t be surprised if it used human disguise to hide from us. Your friend gives off the same type of energy like what we use to track it so we assumed they’re the same. We’re sorry”

“Agent W you don’t have clearance to disclose that to-”

“Operative K, after the last few incidents we have to be more throughout before jumping to assumptions. Agent Gamma wouldn’t be pleased if your temper caused the next scandal,” Agent W look at them again, with a forced ‘warm’ smile “We’re really sorry for bothering you. We have reasons to believe Phantom is somewhere around but don’t worry about it, we will be on the lookout. If you see it, please contact us and we will take care of it” M’gann grabbed the ‘WANTED’ poster from man’s outstretched hand. She barely restrained herself from doing something irresponsible, like turning every man in white into a brainless vegetable.

“Later M'gann”

“But Robin…” she whined before sending a small laugh so they knew she wasn’t serious. She knew that Conner and Danny were anxious about this use of her powers.

Agent’s left and everyone relaxed. Wally put Danny back down and leaned back, jokingly rolling back his arms as if he got tired. Halfa stopped with a loud thump to sit on the ground. He was paler than usual.

Artemis shouted, alarmed.

“That was way too close” he started, aiming for a cheerful tone but missing by a mile “I’m fine, just need a moment to cool down. Sorry for that, guys. I thought I lost them over Ohio”

“That’s fine, personally I don’t care, we knew better than to expect a whole day without something going wrong, but who were they?” Wally asked, already back to eating popcorn.

Danny sighed, so deeply M’gann felt it in her bones even though she didn’t try to read him.

“I think this is the talk we should have in the Mountain”

[tarysande]

The best part about coming back to the source material after a looooong time is you sorta get a fresh look at canon in comparison to whatever the dominant strains of fanon have become. Or, in fact, whatever your own dominant strains of headcanon have become.

I mean, yes, Garrus “I’m not a good turian” Vakarian gets infinitely cooler (and more competent!) by pretty much every metric as the storyline progresses. He does. But fresh out of ME1 and into ME2 through his recruitment, I find myself genuinely amused by how thin the veneer of badass is over a pretty dominant core of straight-up nerd sprinkled with idealism mixed with self-doubt.

When you have Garrus in the squad all the time (and thus get all his ambient dialogue and remarks), you really pick up on the number of times he calls out bad behavior, unethical actions, cruelty, and rule-breaking, especially in ME1.

He’s not actually a hothead who can’t abide rules of any kind. In fact, most of the time he’s pretty pro-law-and-order, and he gets amusingly hall-monitorish when people are breaking rules he considers important and worth following.

Fundamentally, Garrus chafes when his sense of what is just is at odds with what the authorities do about that injustice (or what they stop him from doing). And I would hazard a guess that the reason his actions seem so intense or harsh or "of course we should have shot down that ship in the middle of the Citadel" is indicative not of his impatience but of the degree to which he thinks the authorities have failed to uphold that justice. We know he can be patient. He's a sniper. His whole modus operandi on Omega is precision kills without civilian casualty. But when that long fuse finally burns down, he goes from zero to shooting down ships in the middle of the Citadel in what looks (from the outside) like a heartbeat.

And yes, injured pride hastens the burning of that fuse; he doesn’t like losing. Or admitting defeat. Or failing.

Having just replayed his recruitment mission, a few things really stood out to me this time.

The merc bands really hate him--and they also reluctantly admire him (he's described as smart, resourceful, dangerous, idealistic, brave, slippery; they all agree they only way they managed to get this far is by isolating him and employing dirty tactics). I mean, there's literally a station-wide announcement that Omega can return to "business as usual" once Archangel is out of the picture because he was disrupting things so completely.

The way Garrus blames himself for the deaths of his squad is so freaking turian. Failure reflects on the leader who places his people in danger they can't handle, not the individual who fails. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Yes, Sidonis betrayed him, but the person Garrus blames the most? Is himself. For trusting Sidonis in the first place. For raising Sidonis to a position where he had the means and opportunity to harm others--and the weakness of character to turn coat, to save his own hide, instead of dying to protect the others.

Garrus mentions more than once that he was trying to emulate Shepard. And his tone always implies that he knows he failed because Shepard would never have let a Sidonis into the fold. Again, he's blaming himself. Like a good turian. Yes, he wanted to avoid the red tape and bureaucracy of C-Sec, but his code--Archangel's code--certainly aligns with Paragon Shepard's morality (with a Garrus Vakarian twist).

And since it wouldn't be meta without adding a Tara's Headcanon Twist ... I've always wondered why "Archangel" when it's such a ... human concept. But this time, when I noticed how he spoke about Shepard's influence, and how quickly he brushes aside the name when she asks him about it, I wondered if it wasn't actually his way of honoring the mythology of the dead woman whose example he was trying to follow. Not that Shepard is a God he's worshiping, but ... there is something about the way he talks about her. Garrus doesn't make himself over in the image of a God, though; he's the soldier, the right hand, the avenging angel responsible for carrying out divine punishments suited and proportional to the crimes committed, the rules broken, the selfishness or cruelty of the perpetrator.

[gtgbabie0]

-Cregan Stark x Dreamer!Reader

{The war has brought many casualties, those that you’ve already seen begin to unfold before you}

I’ve received many requests for another part so here it is, sorry for the long wait. Enjoy my lovelies!! 💕

//!CW!// spoilers for Rhaenyra’s death//

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺

The sound of men and clanging metal intermingled throughout the camp, overwhelming your senses. It was a sound Cregan promised would soon become a distant noise. He was wrong.

You sit on the bed, palms pressing against your ears with a deep frown. You hated it here, hated the cold and the men and the noise and the way they all looked at you with a strange look in their eyes as if you were some kind of creature from beyond the wall that their nursemaids used to scare them with.

You missed Winterfell, the warm castle and the glass garden that you spent hours in, admiring the winter roses. It had quickly become your home and you were sick with the desire to go back, but Cregan wanted you here he needed you here.

You just wanted to escape from your mind, the murmurs and whispers. The way it screams at you to make the blasted noise all stop.

“Apologies, there was some trouble with the-” his words fall short as he spots you, wrapped up in furs, hunched over and covering your ears as if you were in pain. The sight was an immediate punch to the gut.

He felt awful in truth, he should’ve left you home in warmth where you could be comfortable, but the daunting thought of you going through another episode whilst he was gone, far away from you… it was enough to make his stomach turn with unease.

“Y/n?…” he calls your name softly, sitting down beside you with a small frown. His index finger and thumb cup your chin to tilt your head, making you look up at him.

“I want to go back home.” You tell him, your voice trembling with sadness and from the cold air that was clearly getting to you.

He nods in understanding, working his fingers around your wrists to bring your hands away from your ears and down into his lap. Gods, you weren’t making him feel any better.

“I know my girl, just hang in there.” He whispers the same thing he has told before. His voice was hoarse with exhaustion but loving all the same. His thumb caresses over your knuckles, trying to soothe away your troubles and bring you warmth.

However, his gentleness does very little to quell the sudden pang of frustration that hits your chest.

“It’s cold and noisy and I’m sick of being looked at like some sort of monster!… you’ve dragged me out here for your own sake without a single care about me!” The words come out too quick and too harsh. Regret immediately fills your heart.

He stops for a moment, looking a little taken aback by your sudden anger. his expression softens as he squeezes your hand. “You know that’s not true.” He tells you firmly, his hands still holding your own tightly. He was worried for you, deeply, it showed in smaller ways but it was still fiercely there. “You’re here for your own good… I’m sorry.”

He can tell you are miserable, the way your lips purse together in a pout and how your eyes seem to droop. such an expression didn’t suit you. Silence settles between the pair of you, his thumb rubbing across your soft palm.

“Forgive me for shouting, I do not mean to.” The words leave your lips in a soft whisper, defeat weighing heavily against your shoulders as you slouch.

“Don’t be silly, I’ve dealt with unruly men with tempers far worse than yours for weeks now” He sighs, giving you a small smirk which you return weakly.

“I could be worse if you’d like.” You tease lightly, trying to make light of the situation you are currently stuck in.

“No, you’re alright.” He deadpans, trying to fight the smile that tugs at the corners of his lips as he brings your hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss against your knuckles. “You’ve already got the dragon's temper.” His words are muffled against the back of your hand and for a moment you feel the warmth that you craved.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

The following days were slow, not much happened and the Ravens seemed to be few and far between. You were nowhere near Kings Landing, the snow on the floor could attest to that.

You found peace within your tent- away from prying eyes who judged you without even knowing you- curled up in the furs enjoying how the air carried a twinge of the warmth dragged from the bonfire that was in the centre of the camp. Soon enough sleep would capture you, allowing you a small moment of respite.

Cregan had left you not too long ago, whispering a promise of returning as soon as possible whilst pressing gentle kisses against your forehead in an attempt to coax you to sleep. The sun had set since then, and the camp was now much calmer than it had been as of late, it seems as though the men were getting restless.

Sleep had always been a false sense of security for you, ever since you could remember. Rhaenyra, your mother, had tried every remedy known to the Maester on Dragonstone, she had even resorted to sending ravens to the Citadel but to no avail.

With the history books telling her little to nothing and the Maesters all at a loss she felt as if she had failed you, but then again most dreamers in your lineage were failed. Doomed from the moment they first drew breath.

You were clearly no exception, and your dreamless sleep soon turned violent. The cries, hot dragon fire, a woman burning, the smell of charred flesh. you had seen this one before but not like this, not so real as if you were witnessing it first hand.

It plays on repeat and you can’t seem to wake or move for that matter, paralysed to do nothing but watch. Then you see her, your mother, her purple eyes meet your own as she stands before a golden Dragon. She does not flinch or cry out for the Gods but merely braces herself for the inevitable.

The sight of her burning body sends a searing heat through your spine almost as if you had taken her place. Suddenly you’re jolting upright, screaming until your lungs feel like they might just collapse and kicking the furs off of your body.

“No! no… no, no.” You mumble to yourself, standing up on unsteady feet as you stumble out of the tent and into the freezing cold air. The chill gives you relief then everything goes numb, and the world around you doesn’t feel stable enough like some kind of weary dream.

Smoke was the only thing you could smell, so strong that it chokes you up as you continue to rush through the camp. Muttering about fire and dragons to yourself, completely crazed in the eyes of the men around you.

“Lady Stark?!” The sound of worried voices filters through the ringing in your ears. It’s too much.

Cregan had long abandoned the meeting in one of the tents as soon as your scream echoed through the camp, shouting demands to the men around him whilst rushing to try and get you in a desperate attempt.

Strong hands grasping your elbows causes you to stop in your tracks, it was Cregan, you were safe. You stare up at him all teary-eyed and shallow breaths. Your own hands tremble as you hold his forearms tightly.

“She’s burning… breathing dragon, burning flesh, she's burning.” You tell him frantically, your fingers digging into the leather on his arms. “She’s burning.” The words all come out in harsh gasps.

“Seven hells… you’re going to freeze.” He rasps, taking off his fur cloak to drape it over your shoulders, pulling it around your body to protect you from the chill in the air.

You continue to hold onto him for dear life, muttering a series of “No… no… please no.” Against his chest as he holds you close to him tightly, his hand cradling the back of your head.

“Go on, off with you all!… you’ve got better things to be doing.” He shouts, watching the men disappear back into their own tents, busying themselves with a few odd tasks.

He guides your tense body back over to the warmth of your shared tent, sitting you down on the bed as you continue to murmur incoherent words of protest. Cregan brushes his fingers through your hair, trying to pull you out of his dazed state.

“She’s going to die… she's dying, I don’t want her to die.” You panic, hands grasping his own with a worried look, brows pulled together.

“Who, who will die?” He asks softly, the rough pad of his thumb gently rubs over your knuckles, soothing the tremble in your hands.

“My mother… it was so clear, please, we have to warn her.” The words are a struggle to get out, trying to fight the way your throat closes up.

He watches the helplessness in your eyes intensify, how your fingers tighten around his hands in desperation. There was little either of you could do so far away, your dragon had died a whelp and the ravens would never make it to Kings Landing in time. All he can do is pull you against his chest, wrapping his arms around you.

“I’m sorry, my sweet, I’m sorry…” he murmurs against your hairline, holding you as you cry against his shoulder.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

You never lost hope, for the following days. You waited on bated breath for further news, constantly looking up at the sky for any Ravens… Dragons… anything that would be a sign she was still alive. Nothing had come until the early hours of the next morning.

Two scrolls with the wax seal of House Targaryen. Two deaths that would officially end the ongoing conflict.

“Y/n?…” Cregan calls your name softly, watching you intently as the letters fall from between your fingers and onto the floor.

You shake your head in disbelief, eyes fixed on the ground beneath you. You did not cry, you couldn’t and it destroyed Cregan. He’d rather your tears than this distant look of despair that glazes across your eyes. His hand rests against your own, fingers caressing your palm gently.

“The stranger looms behind me, whispering the fates of my loved ones into my ears and all I can do is stand by and watch… I am useless.” Your whisper, voice so hushed and broken.

Cregan doesn’t know what to say, he’s at a loss and he fears any words that dare leave his lips will just end up coming out as a sob. Instead, he pulls on your hand until you’re collapsing against him, head tucked under his chin.

“Don’t blame yourself… she wouldn’t want that.” He whisper, pressing a kiss to the top of your head as your arms wrap around him, clinging to him like he was your lifeline.

He spoke the truth, he’d already heard plenty about your mother from both you and Jacaerys enough to know that her love for you was beyond what words could ever describe.

Maybe it was the exhaustion… the cold… or the grief that broke the dam in your eyes, making you cry out in choked sobs against his chest as his fingers brush through your hair soothingly.

“I want to go home Cregan…” you beg him through tears, going limp against his sturdy form.

“I’ll get you home sweet girl… I will.” He promises, not daring to let you go just in case you completely crumble before him. He would keep his oath he made to your mother, to protect you even from your own mind. Cregan would soon take you home but not before you witness your youngest brothers crowning.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺

[alchemistc]

"Evan's not here," Tommy says, and Eddie scowls at him as he pushes past Tommy, already aiming for the kitchen as he hitches the six pack he'd brought with him up under his armpit. It'd been a - a thing. A 'my best friend and my new friend are too busy sucking face to spend every spare moment distracting me from my problems' thing, a thing where Eddie sort of finally understood exactly why Buck had hip checked him on the basketball court months ago. He wants his best friend back. He wants the ease of his friendship with Tommy back.

Which is - Christ, he's selfish, is the thing. A month without Chris there to keep him occupied and Eddie has had some startling realizations about himself. ("You're not selfish, Eddie, you're the most selfless person I know." from Buck and "So fix it," from Tommy, a rare night out with the both of them because he'd headed date night off at the pass by asking Tommy to go out for drinks before he and Buck could make plans without him).

"My world doesn't revolve around Buck," Eddie tells him, and screws the cap off a beer to hand it to Tommy. Tommy's doing that judgmental face he gets when he wants to say something bitchy but hasn't put the words in the right order yet. And - Eddie's not lying. Buck is a fixed point, an ever present life-line, but he's not the fucking sun.

Neither is Chris, apparently, which is news to Eddie and he's - spiralling, still. Quietly, calmly, and he's only punched one hole in the wall on a bad night.

"You ever go to Frank?" Eddie asks, like Frank is the only therapist in the greater LA area, and Tommy rolls his eyes, disappears long enough for the muted sound of the television to go quiet.

When he comes back Eddie's reading the label on his beer bottle

"Apparently I resent you," Eddie says, and Tommy chuffs a laugh.

"Apparently?"

"No, I -." The words had been just as hard two hours ago. This little trip was his own design, he'd been told specifically to sit in it for a while but Christ, an hour a week isn't enough time to talk through his issues and it's not like he can tell Buck he resents him for finding something he's happy and stable and solid in. So. Tommy it is. "You and Buck are good together. I'm happy for you both. I am."

Tommy settles against a countertop with his hip digging into the Formica. His kitchen has gained a dutch oven that looks suspiciously like the one Buck has been showing Eddie for like six months that he couldn't justify the cost of because he's not around enough to use it as much as he'd like.

"I'm not usually the one without his shit together," Eddie says.

"No offense, Eddie, but I thought the whole point of therapy was you realizing you rarely have your shit together."

Also true. He's - usually better at hiding it though. Kim was a joker stacked up on a wobbly house of cards and he'd known, somewhere in the back of his mind, that she'd bring the whole thing tumbling to the ground. Mass casualty event. No survivors.

"You make each other better people," Eddie says, which is the wrong thing to say apparently because Tommy scowls.

"If you wanna completely ignore all the work we've both put into ourselves," he snipes, and - yeah. Fair. Buck's been in therapy for years now. Every once in a while he'll pull something out of his ass that makes Eddie's skin itch - something so mystifyingly self-aware that it makes Eddie want to claw into his chest cavity and rip out his fucking heart. And Tommy - well, he doesn't know much but it's not like Tommy's the paragon of perfection. He's worked through some shit. Is still working through shit, if the aftermath of his and Buck's first real fight is any indication.

"I've never been with someone who makes me want to work on myself," Eddie admits, and the lines around Tommy's eyes shift. He sighs.

"Never gonna find that if you don't want it for yourself."

Yeah. Frank's said as much. It's just - Eddie doesn't have a starting point. Tommy had the whole hiding his true self thing, and Buck had the dead-brother-shitty-parents thing, and he's whittling them both down to the sharp edges of themselves in his mind, which isn't entirely fair but it's easier than trying to confront what the fuck his own problem is. Dead wife, his kid in another state, a contentious relationship with his father, a whole backlog of PTSD he's never really confronted head on. Weird feelings cropping up about a religion he thought he'd left in the dust and sand of Afghanistan and a hole he's been trying to fill up with other people since - well, he doesn't even know since when.

Tommy's got his dog tags laying in the bottom of an empty fruit bowl on his kitchen table. Eddie's never seen them before, and some part of him knows Tommy'd brought them out for a conversation with Buck he'll never hear himself, and he aches. He doesn't want them, but he wants what they have, wants to be able to talk about the difficult shit without closing in on himself, wants to have someone to come home to, wants -

"I spent six months imagining my therapist's head exploding every time she made me talk about something uncomfortable," Tommy tells him, and takes a long drag off his beer. For the first time since he'd knocked on Tommy's door, Eddie actually feels a little bad about interrupting his night, but that just leaves him spiralling some more because Eddie usually feels bad about everything, all the time, so why hadn't he felt guilty about this until now? And why does he feel guilty about not feeling guilty?

"I just want him to fix me," Eddie says, and Tommy laughs. Laughs hard and long enough that Eddie's feeling offended. Off kilter and pissed off and -

"You're not a single loose wire, Eddie. Can't just replace a cable and have a clean slate. You gotta change your oil and replace the spark plugs and top up the coolant, over and over again until you die."

It's the sort of metaphor Eddie'd like to lob across the field of engagement just to watch it get shot to pieces. It's apt, though.

"Feels like the whole engines gotta go," Eddie tells him "Transmission's shot and my catalytic converter keeps getting stolen and the mufflers been welded back on so many times that it's half-solder."

"Christ," Tommy says, which. Yeah. Exactly. "Well you can't exactly send yourself to the junk yard for scrap and buy a newer model."

"Buck does," Eddie snaps, and Tommy rolls his eyes. He'd been there the last time Buck brought up his 1.0 days.

"Half the time a system update patches ten bugs and creates twenty more."

"So Buck's buggy, is what you're saying."

He rolls his tongue over his teeth. "You are running off faulty software and you've been refusing to update to the new version because you heard it'd burn the battery faster, is what I'm saying."

Eddie doesn't have a whole lot of charge to begin with. And the metaphors are starting to muddle in his brain, too many different ideas battling around when he's already spent an ornery hour talking to Frank and another trying to convince himself he doesn't resent his best friend for accepting his own fucking flaws and working on them.

Tommy sets the beer bottle down. Eyes Eddie for a moment, and Eddie wonders how often he levels that look on Buck, how Buck feels when Tommy flays him open and digs through his insides. "You wanna go hit something for a bit?" he asks, and Eddie nods so quickly he nearly smacks his nose into the brim of the bottle in his own hand. He's about done feeling his feelings, for the moment. He'll probably end up being annoyed that Tommy makes him wrap his hands before he takes some aggression out on the bag hung up in the corner of Tommy's garage, but maybe when Tommy gets annoyed with him and does that takedown maneuver that knocks the wind out of Eddie's lungs when they're sparring he'll let that go.

Tommy flicks his forehead on the way to grab him something to wear. "That's for calling my boyfriend buggy, jackass," he says, and laughs himself all the way down the hall when Eddie splutters after him.

His bedroom door snicks shut by the time Eddie's recovered enough to remind him that he'd been Eddie's friend first.

[sorcerersandskillusers]

I want to talk about one of the most terrifying and interesting bsd characters who almost no fan remembers.

This character nearly tore down the ADA without ever getting involved herself, yet the entire fandom has ignored her because of her terrible anime adaptation.

Who am I talking about?

Nobuko Sasaki

If you haven't read Dazai Osamu's Entrance Exam, then you probably don't even know who this character is, in the anime she is watered down to the lovesick girlfriend of an actual villain, and you probably dismissed her immediately. But in the light novel, we get to see how dangerous and cunning she really is, to the point she nearly gets the better of Dazai and almost causes the ADA to be shut down. (Fukuzawa says he would have closed the agency if they hadn't caught her)

In terms of intelligence I'd put her on the same level as Mori, just slightly below the super human genius characters i.e. Dazai, Fyodor and Ranpo

The Azure Apostle

For those who don't remember, Sasaki was the Azure Apostle, a mysterious figure who challenged the agency with several horrifying cases, which would all lead to mass casualties if the agency failed to stop them. These were; uncovering an underground organ smuggling operation (which the agency failed to stop and which massively hurt their reputation) stopping a bombing of Yokohama port which could have killed hundreds of people, and preventing a commercial aeroplane from crashing into the city (this was not included in the anime)

Each of the people, who committed these crimes, had no Idea they were being manipulated and thought it was their own idea the whole time. There was no evidence that anyone else had been involved at all, and the agency had no way to connect her to any of the crimes. And she even makes the genius move of framing Dazai, the mysterious new member with suspicious knowledge of the underworld and a hidden past, as the true culprit.

In fact, she only made one mistake, challenging Dazai. If Dazai had been basically anyone else, they would have been cornered and arrested, but since Dazai's mind works on a level even master strategists can't imagine, he was able to turn the tables on her.

But even after Dazai sees through her plans, the ADA still has to act exactly the way she wants them too and stop the plane crash. Even when they know they're being manipulated, they still have to do exactly what she wanted.

Finally, after Dazai and Kunikida confront her and get her to admit to being behind all those crimes, even then they are powerless to stop her.

Even after being involved with so many massive crimes, Sasaki herself hadn't done anything illegal, so within the law the ADA is completely powerless to stop her.

They can't arrest her, and if they try then the agency will be put in even more danger as will many innocent lives. She has completely trapped the ADA, and even Dazai in a choice to follow the law and let her go or take justice into their own hands and prove they will stoop as low as she did.

In the end, there she has them in a perfect deadlock, let her continue her mission, or kill her themselves. Both are bad outcomes for the ADA.

In the end, Dazai has her killed by using a third party (Rokuzo) to shoot her, so the agency can't be blamed for her murder, though this ends her plans it deeply scars Kunikida and shakes his resolve in his ideals.

The trauma from this event still haunts Kunikida to this day, we see that when he is affected by Q's curse, Sasaki is who he sees.

So thats the Azure Apostle, a terrifying master mind who nearly brought down the Armed Detective Agency, but now lets look at the other side of this character.

Nobuko Sasaki Herself

We know several things about Sasaki as a character and her history from the light novel. That she was a brilliant criminal psychologist and was internationally recognised despite being so young

,that she was the ex-lover of the Azure King and the real mastermind behind his plans, and that she had very little motivation of her own.

That's not meant to be an insult to the character, she says herself that she never really had much direction in life, even with her incredible intelligence she never really had anything she wanted to achieve.

But the Azure King was the opposite, he had powerful drive and strong ideals, he wanted to punish criminals who couldn't be touched by the law and when he failed to change the law as a bureaucrat, she offered him an alternative.

A very important thing here is that neither of them were manipulating or forcing the other into this path, as far as we see they genuinely loved each other, each providing something the other couldn't, Sasaki her mind and the Azure King his drive.

When the Azure king died, Sasaki had no path of her own to follow, so she simply kept following his, even though she doesn't seem to have really cared about his cause.

All of this creates a very unique character, you can't say she was driven by revenge, because she wasn't really driven at all. It's more like she was running on momentum, she had chosen a path to follow and could not stop even though there was nothing pushing her down it any more.

She's a perfect antithesis of Kunikida and was the best possible villain a light novel about him could have had.

A man who brings his ideals into reality with his own hands against a woman who uses others to enforce ideals that were never hers to begin with.

Anyway, I made this because Sasaki is criminally underrated in this fandom, If you haven't read "Dazai Osamu's Entrance Exam" I highly recommend it, I've only put a tiny fraction of the amazing story here.

[mya-valentine]

Eclipsed by Fate

Synopsis: As Kinich and his beloved venture into the perilous Night Warden Wars, their bond is tested when a fateful sacrifice leaves him grieving. With the promise of resurrection, Kinich faces two agonizing days without her, haunted by her absence. When the moment of reunion arrives, he embraces her once more, determined never to let go.

The night before the Night Warden Wars had arrived, and Kinich sat quietly beside you, his golden eyes staring off into the flickering flames of the campfire. You both knew what was coming—the battle in the Night Kingdom against the dark forces, an ever-growing threat to Natlan. It was your first time going into such a dangerous fight, and though Kinich was one of the most capable warriors of the Sun, his usual confidence had faltered.

His hand tightened around yours, his voice low and tinged with worry. “I don’t like this… You shouldn’t be coming. It’s not safe.”

You smiled softly, gently placing your hand on his cheek, pulling him out of his trance. “Kinich, I’ll be fine. We’ve trained for this. I’ve trained for this. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

He let out a heavy sigh, his brows furrowing. “It’s different out there. You don’t know what it’s like in the Night Kingdom, the dangers lurking in the shadows.” His grip on your hand tightened even more. “I’m not sure I can focus on the fight if I’m worrying about you the whole time.”

You shifted closer, looking into his eyes with determination. “Then trust me, Kinich. Trust that I’ll fight just as hard as you, that we’ll fight together.”

His gaze softened as he leaned into your touch. “I do trust you. I just—” He paused, eyes flickering with fear. “I can’t lose you.”

You silenced him with a kiss, your lips brushing against his gently. “You won’t,” you whispered against him. “We’ll get through this.”

---

When the time came, the Night Kingdom was a terrifying sight. The landscape was cloaked in darkness, a heavy mist swirling around, concealing the enemy forces. The air was thick with tension as the champions of Natlan prepared for battle.

Kinich stood tall beside you, his armor gleaming despite the night. His weapon was gripped tightly in his hand, his focus unwavering—but you could sense the unease rolling off him in waves.

The battle began with a ferocious cry. Shadowy creatures of the Night Kingdom poured from the darkness, their forms twisted and otherworldly. You fought alongside Kinich, your heart pounding in your chest as you deflected attacks and struck down enemies with precision. The two of you moved in perfect sync, a seamless partnership honed over countless training sessions.

For hours, the fight raged on. Victory seemed within reach, and despite the exhaustion weighing on your muscles, you felt a sense of relief as the enemy forces began to thin. The Natlan warriors had fought valiantly, and there were no major casualties—everything seemed to be going as planned.

But as you and Kinich regrouped with the others, a dark figure emerged from the shadows, moving faster than you could react. An Abyss Herald, towering and powerful, its eyes glowing with malevolent energy. It moved directly toward Kinich, its weapon raised.

Your heart lurched in your chest. Without thinking, you threw yourself at him, pushing him out of the way just as the Abyss Herald struck. The impact of the blow tore through your body, searing pain shooting through you as you collapsed to the ground.

“No!” Kinich’s voice was filled with panic as he scrambled to you, cradling you in his arms. His hands were shaking as they pressed against your wound, desperately trying to stop the bleeding. “Stay with me! Please, stay with me!”

Your vision blurred as you looked up at him, his face contorted in anguish. You reached up, weakly touching his cheek. “I’m sorry… I had to…” you whispered, your voice barely audible.

“Don’t you dare apologize!” Kinich’s voice cracked, his tears spilling onto your skin. “I need you! You can’t leave me!”

Your strength was fading fast, your body growing colder as you slipped into unconsciousness. The last thing you saw was Kinich’s tear-filled eyes, and the last thing you heard was his broken voice calling your name.

When you died in his arms, Kinich’s world shattered. He was barely aware of Chasca’s hand gripping his arm, pulling him away as the others urged him to retreat. Everything was a blur—the sounds of battle fading into the background as his mind screamed for you.

Chasca dragged him back toward the exit, her expression somber but firm. “Kinich, we have to go. We can’t stay here.”

He barely registered her words, his gaze fixed on the spot where your body had lain, his heart in pieces. Everything felt wrong, hollow. How could this have happened? How could he have let this happen?

“They’ll bring her back,” Chasca reminded him as they fled. “Two days, Kinich. The Ode of Resurrection. She’ll be back.”

But two days felt like an eternity.

---

Kinich spent the next two days in a daze. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. Every moment without you felt like agony, his mind replaying the image of your death over and over again. Ajaw, ever the tormentor, took full advantage of Kinich’s despair, mocking him relentlessly.

“Look at you,” Ajaw sneered one day. “Pathetic. So lost without her. How’s it feel, knowing you couldn’t protect her?”

Kinich’s hands clenched into fists, but he didn’t have the energy to argue. He just wanted the two days to be over. He just wanted you back.

---

The ceremony at the Ode of Resurrection was a solemn affair, the air thick with magic as the flames roared to life. Kinich stood at the front, his heart pounding in his chest as the flames danced higher, swirling with power.

And then, from the flames, you emerged.

Kinich didn’t wait. The moment he saw you, he rushed forward, tackling you into a hug, holding you as tightly as he could as if he were afraid you’d disappear again.

“You’re back,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. “You’re really back.”

Ajaw’s voice chimed in from the side, his tone laced with mockery. “Oh, you should’ve seen him while you were gone. So pathetic. Depressed. Couldn’t do anything without you.”

Kinich didn’t even acknowledge him. His focus was solely on you, his hands cupping your face as he gazed at you with tears in his eyes. “I missed you so much,” he whispered, his lips trembling. “I thought I lost you.”

You smiled softly, your hands resting on his as you leaned into his touch. “I’m here now, Kinich.”

Without another word, he pulled you into a deep, passionate kiss, pouring every ounce of his love and relief into it. The world around you faded away, and for that moment, it was just the two of you—together again.

And this time, he wasn’t letting go.

.

.

.

Masterlist

[no1deepspacehater]

You Get Into A Car Accident (Non Fatal)

Xavier

When he texted and you didn’t reply. He wasn’t worried.

When he went to your apartment, and you didn’t answer the door. He was mildly concerned.

When he saw on the news that a hunter was injured in a car crash. He grew worried.

And when he logged into the news feed of the UNICORN’s association, which shows direct information on all hunters, without proper pass, to see your status, he was frantic.

Nearly got into a car crash himself getting to the hospital, and when they wouldn’t let him in to see you, he flashed his high ranking badge, which got the message through.

You were unconscious when he got there, which suddenly reminded him how tired he was.

He prevailed through after checking with the nurses that you were okay, and with that, he pulled up a chair and blanket and fell asleep next to you.

You had to wake him up yourself after you had your breakfast (Saving some for him).

He rubbed his eyes tiredly as he blinked awake.

“You sure do know how to keep someone occupied (MC)… Try not to put yourself out of commission so often, or I’m going to have to find a new partner.” He mumbled absent mindedly as he consumed the rest of your fruit.

Zayne

If you’re not being taken care of at his hospital, he’s going to whichever one you’re at and taking over immediately. He’s THE Dr. Zayne so of course, he’s going to have his way.

For plots sake you’re at Akso Hospital for now.

If he’s in his office, whatever he’s doing is stopped immediately as his main priority is you.

If he’s dealing with another patient, or in a surgery, he’s still going to remain with his current patient, but his nerves are at an all-time high, which somehow makes him work better.

Says absolutely NOTHING as he tends to your wounds. You can’t tell if he’s seething with rage at you getting hurt or deeply disappointed that you got yourself hurt.

When you finally get the courage to say something, all you can say is his name.

“Doctor Zayne…”

He says nothing as he finishes applying a bandage. Afraid to say anything else, you wait until he’s done.

He takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose, letting out a sigh. He looks in your eyes, his own reflecting a type of tiredness you’ve only seen a couple other times you’ve been injured, but with battles instead.

To him, although you put your life in danger being a hunter every day, he’s reminded that the casualties of life are another thing he has to worry about with you.

He caresses your face and just whispers. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Rafayel

He’d called and texted, and you didn’t reply. Almost didn’t answer you when you called him the next morning.

When he saw you in the hospital bed, he got SO MAD.

Immediately hung up. You thought he was being a brat until he showed up to your hospital room exactly 10 minutes later.

“Some bodyguard you are…” He huffed, faux annoyed, as he pulled out fruit, water, a stuffed animal and balloons from his bag. How did he even get all this stuff in 10 minutes!?

Visits every day until you’re out. Argues with the nurses every time visiting hours come to a close. You have to tell him to shut up and go and apologize for him every time before they officially ban him from the hospital.

He brings his sketchbook in tow and draws scenes of you, you in the hospital, and car accidents tinged with red and dark blue. Even though they’re sketches, they still portray his feelings of anxious despair and sorrow of what could’ve been for the one he most cared about.

“Seriously, stop trying to get yourself killed all the time! … I don’t know what I’d do without you…”

[knightofthenewrepublic]

The Battle of Manhattan didn’t go the way the Fandom thinks it did; we need to address the “massacre” of the Titan Army!

The Battle of Manhattan is the most pivotal event of the first series. And we see the entire thing exclusively from Percy’s point of view. He takes us through the thickest of the fight from one end of Manhattan Island to the next, and shows us a desperate fight of good against evil.

But we have another point of view for the battle, one that comes from the demigods of the Titan army, and one that informs us of a far different, darker side to the conflict. One where an entire army of children is massacred by the victorious Olympians, without a thought or even a care. It’s a shocking, confronting side of the struggle that most fans don’t seem to be aware of. 

But it’s also completely inaccurate. 

Now I love Alabaster; he’s one of my favorite characters, and I want nothing but the best for him. But he’s a demonstrably unreliable narrator. I don’t even mean that he’s intentionally dishonest; but he’s very badly misinformed about what actually happened. And that gives the fandom three major misconceptions that need to be cleared up. 

Alabaster gets the casualty ratio for the battle wrong (the Olympians had more than he thinks).

The Titan army has far fewer demigods than most fans think (not much more than 50 at the most).

Alabaster does say that there was a “massacre” at the end of the battle, but most of the TA demigods had deserted before that!

Part 1) The Olympians Have High Casualties

“It was a massacre. If I remember right, my mother told me that Camp Half-Blood and its allies had sixteen casualties total. We had hundreds.” (pg 219)

This is the only time we get a specific number for Olympian casualties, but it just doesn’t match up with what actually happens in the books. Looking back at all the deaths we do see:

Charlie Beckendorf -1

one [Hellhound] got hold of an Apollo camper and dragged him away. I didn’t see what happened to him next. I didn’t want to know. (pg 182) -1

Michael Yew -1

A young dragon had appeared in Harlem, and a dozen wood nymphs died before the monster was finally defeated. (pg 203) -12

“We lost twenty satyrs against some giants at Fort Washington,” [Grover] said, his voice trembling. (pg 203) -20 Giants smashed through trees, and naiads faded as their life sources were destroyed. (pg 243) -1< Enemy archers returned fire, and a Hunter fell from a high branch. (pg 244) -1  Too many of our friends lay wounded in the streets. Too many were missing. (pg 257) -1< The flagpoles were hung with horrible trophies –helmets and armor pieces from defeated campers. (pg 282) -1< The Drakon lashed out, swallowing three californian centaurs in one gulp before I could even get close. (pg 288) -3 Poison spewed everywhere, melting centaurs into dust along with quite a few monsters, (pg 288) -1< The Drakon snapped up one Ares camper in a gulp. (pg 291) -1

Silena Beauregard -1

Leneus -1

a body covered in the golden burial shroud of Apollo’s cabin. I didn’t know who was underneath. I don't want to find out. (pg 303) -1

Oddly enough, we actually miss the moment that was probably the worst for the Olympians, the final push by Kronos that breaks through their line. After Clarisse slays the drakon and the monsters are driven back again, Percy and co. take the opportunity to go up to Olympus. Percy gives Pandora’s Pithos to Hestia, and then contacts Poseidon via his throne. It’s just as he finishes that Thalia comes up and tells them that Kronos is coming again, but they miss the fighting.

By the time we got to the street, it was too late. Campers and Hunters lay wounded on the ground. Clarisse must have lost a fight with a Hyperborean giant, because she and her chariot were frozen in a block of ice. The centaurs were nowhere to be seen. Either they’d panicked and ran, or they’d been disintegrated. (pg 312) -<500

And finally, Kronos does kill some people on Olympus itself.

A few minor gods and nature spirits had tried to stop Kronos. What remained of them was strewn about the road: shattered armor, ripped clothing, swords and spears broken in half. (pg 322) -1<

The specific deaths we have mentioned during the battle amount to 48 at the very least; and that is an extremely conservative estimate that only includes the deaths Percy has the time and presence of mind to witness in all the carnage. Considering how many others must have happened, factoring the sudden disappearance of the 500 centaurs in particular, it was likely in the hundreds. And most of the centaurs probably ran at the end, but even that would have involved heavy casualties.

It’s true that actual demigods were a smaller fraction of Olympian forces, and so would have made up just a fraction of losses. The number 16 might actually make sense if it were just the number of campers lost, but that’s not what Hecate said, she said total.

It might be significant that Hecate is the actual source of this misinformation. Would she have reason to lie to her own son, or might she herself be out of the loop. Right now, we just can’t know. 

And she might be underestimating Titan Army losses too. Considering how many times a wave of several hundred monsters tear into Manhattan, and get thrown back by the Olympians only to return later with no discernable drop in numbers, until the army is finally routed entirely, it wouldn’t surprise me if the TA actually took a thousand or more casualties. But those would be overwhelmingly monsters, because:

Part 2) Less Than Fifty Demigods Were Even In The Titan Army

To prove that there could not possibly have been hundreds of TA demigods killed at Manhattan, we need look no farther than Alabaster's own account.

“There was a war between the gods and titans last summer and most half-bloods–demigods like me–fought for the Olympians.” (pg 218)

So the TA could not have had more demigods than the Olympians; and they had about a hundred. There are forty campers to start with, who are quickly joined by the Hunters, who now have thirty members. Then, in the last hours of the fight, they are finally joined by the Ares cabin, which brings another thirty (jeez Ares, you animal!). So Olympus has an even hundred demigods. (The Hunters aren’t necessarily all demigods by birth, but I don’t think Alabaster would make a distinction based on that.)

So the TA has less than a hundred demigods, significantly less. I would argue they probably had no more than fifty because that lines up with the only solid numbers we ever get for them. And every time the TA is described, demigods are a clear minority. First, look at the foes Percy encounters when he infiltrates the Princess Andromeda:

I saw monsters patrolling the upper decks of the ship–dracaenae snake-women, hellhounds, giants, and the humanoid seal-demons known as telkhines . . . . . “I don’t care what your nose says!” snarled a half-human half-dog voice—a telkhine. “The last time you smelled half-blood, it turned out to be a meatloaf sandwich!” “Meatloaf sandwiches are good!” a second voice snarled . . . . . a telkhine was hunched over a console . . . . . a half dozen telkhines were tromping down the stairs . . . . . past another telkhine . . . . . And in the fountain squatted a giant crab . . . . . a couple of dracaenae slithered across my path . . . . . As I was running up the stairwell, a kid charged down . . . . . Laistrygonian giants filed in on either side of the swimming pool . . . . . demigod archers appeared on the roof . . . . . two hellhounds leapt down . . . . . The crowed of monsters parted . . . . . Giants jeered. Dracaenae hissed with laughter . . . . . throwing monsters off their feet . . . . .I knew him, of course: Ethan Nakamura . . . . . two giants lumbered forward . . . . . Panicked monsters surged backward . . . . . one of the dracaenae hissed . . . . . I pushed through a crowd of monsters . . . . . Monsters yelled at me from  above.

That was a quick summary of all the enemies Percy and Charlie encounter on the Princess Andromeda, I’m not crazy enough to try and write the whole chapter. But it’s pretty clear there are only a few demigods amid dozens of monsters. We hear the same thing from Poseidon later, that “there were only a few demigod warriors aboard that ship”; we might question whether or not Poseidon is a trustworthy source, but the evidence does back him up.

When we finally get to the battle, the disparity of demigod numbers in the TA is again evident:

The bronze image showed Long Island Sound near La Guardia. A fleet of a dozen speed boats raced through the dark water toward Manhattan. Each boat was packed with demigods in full Greek armor. At the back of the lead boat, a purple banner emblazoned with a black scythe flapped in the night wind. I’d never seen that design before, but it wasn’t hard to figure out: the battle flag of Kronos. “Scan the perimeter of the island,” I said. “Quick.” Annabeth shifted the scene south to the harbor. A Staten Island Ferry was plowing through the waves near Ellis Island. The deck was crowded with dracaenae and a whole pack of hellhounds. Swimming in front of the ship was a pod of marine mammals. At first I thought they were dolphins. Then I saw their doglike faces and swords strapped to their waists, and I realized they were telkhines—sea demons. The scene shifted again: the Jersey shore, right at the entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel. A hundred assorted monsters were marching past the lanes of stopped traffic: giants with clubs, rogue Cyclopes, a few fire-spitting dragons, and just to rub it in, a World War II-era Sherman tank, pushing cars out of the way as it rumbled into the tunnel. (pg 167)

Here we see the first wave of the Titan Army as a three pronged attack (which Percy says on the next page collectively numbered at least 300) and only one of the units has demigods. It’s the one that Kronos leads, so it’s probably meant to be a more elite unit, at least at first. 

We don’t know for sure how many there are. Speedboats are usually made to carry 4-6 people so a dozen would be possible 48 to 72. Considering Alabaster says there were significantly less demigods in the TA than the Olympians, I would guess it’s on the lower end; and that does match another number we see in a moment.

This fleet never reaches Manhattan, since Percy bribes the East River to swamp their boats. Those who say many TA demigods were killed in the battle might point to this as Percy causing a bunch of kids to drown; but Alabaster never mentions a mass drowning in his narrative of the battle, and he would have been on one of those boats, so it’s safe to say they just went for a swim.

(And Kronos was with them, which means that a very angry titan lord was suddenly pitched into the river and had to swim with the rest of them. That’s not really relevant, I just want everyone to know that.)

Percy is then immediately told that “Another army is marching over the Williamsburg bridge.” This fourth prong of the attack, led by the Minotaur, also has no demigods in it.

An entire phalanx of dracaenae marched in the lead . . . About a hundred more monsters marched behind them. (pg 182) More monsters surged forward —snakes and giants and telkines—but the Minotaur roared at them, and they backed off. (pg 186)

But more monsters keep advancing because by the time Percy kills the minotaur and the demigods charge and rout the whole group, it had grown to 200

Finally, the monsters turned and fled—about twenty left alive out of two hundred. (pg 188)

So the grand total for the first TA attack was 500 soldiers or more, with only 40-70 of them demigods. And after the monsters on the Williamsburg bridge retreat, those demigods show back up.

Then I saw the crowd at the base of the bridge. The retreating monsters were running straight toward their reinforcements. It was a small group, maybe thirty or forty demigods in battle armor, mounted on skeletal horses. One of them held a purple banner with the black scythe design.  The lead horseman trotted forward. He took off his helm, and I recognized Kronos himself, his eyes like molten gold. (pg1 188)

This is the only time we get anywhere close to a specific number when TA demigods are concerned. It would have been the same group that was sunk in the East River, who then had to swim for Brooklynn; which is where they are now trying to take the Williamsburg bridge. This reinforces the idea that the number of demigods in the boats was only a little more than forty, since they would not have suffered more than a few injuries in the sinkings.

I’m going to come back to this moment later to demonstrate how Percy refrains from killing other demigods, even in his Achilles state, but the other important thing to note is that this is the last time Kronos organizes his demigods into a unit that he leads personally. After they fail to break through here, Kronos just has them take on a secondary role, and puts his faith in bigger and bigger monsters to lead the charge instead.

The Titan Army units on Long Island then spend the evening marching the long way around Manhattan (for some reason) because they make camp for the night in New Jersey, at Medusa’s old lair. Percy again describes demigods as the small minority.

Hundreds of tents and fires surrounded the property. Mostly I saw monsters, but there were some human mercenaries in combat fatigues and demigods in armor too. A purple-and-black banner hung outside the emporium, guarded by two huge blue Hyperboreans.

And this is only part of the Titan army, because there are more troops north of Manhattan. 

“Tell my brother Hyperion to move our main force south into Central Park. The halfbloods will be in such disarray they will not be able to defend themselves.” (pg 237)

The army that marches into central park is bigger than the one camped in New Jersey. And it is made up exclusively of monsters. 

At the north end of the reservoir, the enemy vanguard broke through the woods—a warrior in golden armor leading a battalion of Laistrygonian giants with huge bronze axes. Hundreds of other monsters poured out behind them. (pg 243)

There is not a single mention of a demigod. However they’re already joining the fight in other places. 

When it flew above the rooftops, I could see fires here and there around the city. It looked like my friends were having a rough time. Kronos was attacking on several fronts. (pg 251)  

After Percy kills the Clazmonian Sow, the momentum of the battle shifts. With his main force failing to deliver a knockout punch, Kronos has his remaining armies spread out to put equal pressure on the entire defensive line, and catch it in a massive envelopment.

Midtown was a war zone. We flew over little skirmishes everywhere. A giant was ripping up trees in Bryant Park while dryads pelted him with nuts. Outside the Waldorf Astoria, a bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin was whacking a hellhound with a rolled-up newspaper. A trio of Hephaestus campers fought a squad of dracaenae in the middle of Rockefeller Center . . . . . The hunters had set up a defensive line on 37th, just three blocks north of Olympus. To the east on Park Avenue, Jake Mason and some other Hephaestus campers were leading an army of statues against the enemy. To the west, the Demeter cabin and Grover’s nature spirits had turned Sixth Avenue into a jungle that was hampering a  squadron of Kronos’s demigods . . . . . I spotted a familiar silver owl banner in the southeast corner of the fight, 33rd at the Park Avenue tunnel. Annabeth and two of her siblings were holding back a Hyperborean giant . . . . . The next hour was a blur. I fought like I’d never fought before—wading into legions of dracaenae, taking out dozens of telkines with every strike, destroying empousai and knocking out enemy demigods . . . . . At one point Grover was next to me, bonking snake women over the head with his cudgel. Then he disappeared in the crowd, and it was Thalia at my side, driving monsters back with the power of her magic shield. Mrs. O’Leary bounded out of nowhere, picked up a Laistrygonian giant in her mouth and flung him like a Frisbee. Annabeth used her invisibility cap to sneak behind enemy lines. Whenever a monster disintegrated for no apparent reason with a surprised look on his face, I knew Annabeth had been there . . . . . Kronos was riding towards us on a golden chariot. A dozen Laistrygonian giants bore torches before him. Two Hyperboreans carried his black-and-purple banners . . .

“THEN THE WINGED HUSSAARSSS AARRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVVVVVVED” SABATON BLASTS ON ELECTRIC GUITAR

 Sorry, sorry, I mean then Chiron and the 500 centaurs arrived!

Kronos’s forces looked as confused as we were. Giants lowered their clubs. Dracaenae hissed. Even Kronos’s honor guard looked uneasy. Then, to our left, a hundred monsters cried out at once. Kronos’s entire northern flank surged forward. I thought we were doomed, but they didn’t attack. They ran straight past us and crashed into their southern allies . . . a shower of arrows arced over our heads and slammed into the enemy, vaporizing hundreds of demons. (pg 258)

This is how the second phase of the battle ends. And during the entire night, out of a sea of monsters (hehe) we only see one unit of TA demigods. And it’s the last time we get any reference to them participating in the battle.

After being driven south, the TA apparently did another long march, because they make camp northeast of Manhattan.

The Titan army had set up camp all around the U.N. complex. The flagpoles were hung with horrible trophies—helmets and armor from defeated campers. All along First Avenue, giants sharpened their axes. Telkines repaired armor at makeshift forges. (pg 282)

Ethan is the only demigod mentioned this time. And he doesn’t appear to take part in the next attack, aside from releasing the drakon. We get less of a description of the enemy army this time, but it’s all monsters.

The rest of the battle wasn’t going well. The centaurs had panicked under the onslaught of giants and demons. An occasional orange camp T-shirt appeared in the sea of fighting, but quickly disappeared.  (pg 289)

Of course the Ares cabin arrives, the drakon kills Silena, and Clarisse kills it. It’s another rout for the TA.

The monsters retreated toward 35th Street. (pg 298) There was no answer from the enemy. Slowly, they began to fall back behind a dracaenae shield wall, while Clarisse drove in circles around Fifth Avenue, daring anyone to cross her path. (pg 299)

After that we have the final phase of the battle, when the Titan Army finally breaks through the Olympian lines. But once again, we have no reference to demigods other than Ethan.

The Titan Army ringed the building, standing maybe twenty feet from the doors. Kronos’s vanguard was in the lead: Ethan Nakamura, the dracaenae queen in her green armor, and two Hyperboreans. I didn’t see Prometheus. (pg 312) “ROWWF!” Mrs. O’Leary bounded toward me, ignoring the growling monsters on either side. (pg 315) There were thousands of [skeletan soldiers], and as they emerged, the titan’s monsters got jumpy and started to back up. (pg 315)     The armies of the dead clashed with the Titan’s monsters. Fifth Avenue exploded into absolute chaos. Mortals screamed and ran for cover. Demeter waved her hand and an entire column of giants turned into a wheat field. Persephone changed the dracaenae spears into sunflowers. Nico slashed and hacked his way through the enemy, trying to protect pedestrians as best as he could. My parents ran toward me , dodging monsters and zombies, but there was nothing I could do to help them. (pg 318).

The fight continues like this, until Typhon is destroyed, and the defenders are joined by the gods, and Poseidon’s army of cyclopes. It’s then that the Titan army is “massacred.” Most of the fandom thinks that the demigods were killed too, but that’s not the case.

PART 3: The TA Demigods Deserted Before The Final Battle

As Alabaster remembers it:

the war didn’t go our way. I fought on the battlefield against the enemy, but most of our allies ran. Kronos himself marched on Olympus, only to be killed by a son of Poseidon. After Kronos’s death, the Olympian gods smashed any remaining resistance. It was a massacre. “We weren’t all destroyed,” Alabaster said. “Most of the remaining half-bloods fled or were captured. They were so demoralized they joined the enemy. (pg 219)

When you look at this narrative, and compare it to The Last Olympian, it’s actually more complicated than the TA demigods simply getting massacred.

Al says that while he was fighting, most of his allies ran. That’s odd, because we don’t see the relative numbers of monsters go down at any point. What we do see, is the number of demigods go down.

As I illustrated in Part 2, the Battle of Manhattan has four distinct phases. Phase one, that ends when the Williamsburg Bridge is destroyed. The second phase, that starts when Hyperion attacks Central Park, and ends when the Party Ponies arrive. The third phase, which is all about the attack of the drakon. And the final phase, when Kronos breaks through.

We only see TA demigods in the first two phases; they attack the Williamsburg Bridge in the first phase as part of the Kronos’s main force, then in the second phase they’re relegated to a supporting role by hitting the defenders western flank. And that’s the last we see of them. After that, Etahn is the only demigod left standing in the TA. Alabaster must be somewhere in the background, as a retcon, but there’s no one beyond the two of them.

You might think that they’ve just already been killed by this point. After all, Percy blows up the Princess Andromeda, then goes into an Achilles Curse fueled berserker mode several times in the first two phases of the battle. Surely he must have killed hundreds of kids, right?

No, not even close.

Maybe not any at all.

On the Princess Andromeda Percy finds lots of monsters, but the number of demigods he finds could be counted on one hand. And the first one he meets; Percy spares him and tells him to get his friends and evacuate. We can’t prove whether or not any demigods were killed in the blast; we just know that the two we can confirm were still on board, Ethan and Alabaster, both survived. And when Alabaster recounts it, he doesn’t mention any bad losses at this point.

As for the Curse of Achilles, it doesn’t send Percy into anything like the berserker state some people think of it as. It might seem like that when Percy lets loose on the Williamsburg Bridge:

You’re going to ask how the whole “invincible” thing worked: if I magically dodged every weapon, or if the weapon hit me and just didn’t harm me. Honestly, I don’t remember. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to let these monsters invade my hometown. I sliced through armor like it was made of paper. Snake women exploded. Hellhounds melted to shadow. I slashed and stabbed and whirled, and I might have even laughed once or twice—a crazy laugh that scared me as much as it did my enemies. (pg 188)

But when push comes to shove, Percy can control the Curse, and what he does during it. That last moment was when he was fighting nothing but monsters. But when the TA demigods arrived, Percy pulled his punches like he always does.

I tried to wound his men, not kill. That slowed me down, but these weren’t monsters. They were demigods who’d fallen under Kronos’s spell. I couldn’t see faces under their helmets, but some of them had probably been my friends. I slashed the legs off their horses and made the skeletal mounts disintegrate. After the first few demigods took a spill, the rest figured out they’d better dismount and fight me on foot. (pg 189)

Percy is still in complete control of what he’s doing; even when the worst happens.

“Annabeth!” I turned in time to see her fall, clutching her arm. A demigod with a bloody knife stood over her . . . . . I locked eyes with the enemy demigod. He wore an eye patch under his helmet: Ethan Nakamura, the son of Nemesis. Somehow he’d survived the explosion on the Princess Andromeda. I slammed him in the face with my sword hilt so hard I dented his helm. (pg 190)

Percy really has all the reason to hate Ethan at this point; after Percy spared his life in Antaeus’ arena, Ethan still joined the side that had been ready to write off his death, and deliberately helped Kronos achieve his physical resurrection. Because of that Percy’s friends and even-Riordan-doesn’t-know how many mortals are going to die in the next few days; and on top of all that, Ethan just stabbed the love of his life.

And all Percy does is knock him out, maybe a little harder than necessary. He makes no effort to kill him. Those aren’t the actions of a berserker with no control.

In fact, the knife turns out to be poisonsed. And Ethan now has an idea where Percy’s Achilles Spot is, and might tell Kronos. And even after all of that, Percy doesn’t seriously think about killing him as an option.

“I’ll bonk him on the head harder next time.” (pg 241)

But more on topic, there is no reason to think the TA demigods have particularly high casualties in this phase of the battle, though they have a few:

Our archers shot a volley, bringing down several of the enemy, but they just kept riding. (pg 189)

Though it’s vague if they are hitting the riders or the horses. In fact, it might actually be Kronos who’s responsible for more of their losses.

[Kronos] struck the bridge with the butt of his scythe, and a wave of pure force blasted me backward. Cars went careening. Demigods—even Luke’s own men—were blown off the edge of the bridge. (pg 192)

I will die on the hill that between this, Ethan, and other implied moments, Kronos killed more of his own demigods than Percy did.

In the second phase of the battle, when we see the TA demigods attack again, they’re in a very different situation.

To the west, the Demeter cabin and Grover’s nature spirits had turned Sixth Avenue into a jungle that was hampering a  squadron of Kronos’s demigods. (pg 255)

This is the only thing we see the TA demigods do as a group in this phase; and they’re fighting people who are using very defensive tactics, more hampering than harmful. They’re not likely to lose many fighters. A few of them do cross Percy’s path in the chaos, but even at his most Achilles fueled chaos he never loses control.

The next hour was a blur. I fought like I’d never fought before—wading into legions of dracaenae, taking out dozens of telkines with every strike, destroying empousai and knocking out enemy demigods. (pg 257)

He talks about killing monsters, but always “knocking out” demigods. Finally, that phase of the battle ends when the centaurs show up. Did the centaurs kill any demigods? After all, Percy said they “trampled everything in their path.”

Well the only report we get on the TA demigods puts them to the west. When the centaurs attack, they come out of the north east and drive the enemy south, and start off a wave of panic that ripples down the enemy lines ahead of them. The demigods were probably running before any centaur reached them, and might have had better chances of being trampled by their own monsters.

So if the TA demigods aren’t taking many losses, where do they all go in the third and fourth phases, when we don’t see any except Ethan?

They desert. 

Alabaster: “I fought on the battlefield against the enemy, but most of our allies ran.”

I think the demigods of the TA signed up with no real idea of what would happen when they fought the Olympians. They thought they were going to have a sure victory. 

Chris Rodriguez said it in SOM:

“I hear they got two more [drakon] coming,” [Chris] said. “They keep arriving at this rate, oh, man—no contest!” (pg 122)

Alabaster C. Torrington said it in SOM:

“Kronos wasn’t supposed to lose! You said the odds of winning were in the Titan’s favor! You told me Camp Half-Blood would be destroyed!” (pg 196)

And they probably weren’t well prepared for the war either. At one point Luke says they will fight well because he has been training the army. But most of them join because they are the children of minor gods who swear for Kronos, and that doesn’t happen until the end of BOTL, after Luke has been possessed. Most of the TA demigods never got training from him; including their two highest ranking members, Ethan and Alabaster. It’s no wonder most of them weren’t prepared.

As I was running up the stairwell, a kid charged down. He looked like he had just woken up from a nap. His armor was half on. He drew his sword and yelled, “Kronos!” but he sounded more scared than angry . . . . No way was I going to hurt him. I didn’t need a weapon for this. I stepped inside his strike and grabbed his wrist, slamming it against the wall. His sword clattered out of his hand. (pg 18)

And the demigods might not hold much loyalty to Kronos, a violent and temperamental eldritch horror!

Ethan moistened his lips. “He’s still fighting you, isn’t he? Luke—” “Nonesense,” Kronos spat. “Repeat that lie, and I will cut out your tongue. The boy’s soul has been crushed.” (pg 236) “But, my lord,” Ethan said. “Your regeneration.” Kronos pointed at Ethan, and the demigod froze. “Does it seem,” Kronos hissed. “that I need to regenerate?” Ethan didn’t respond. Kind of hard to do when you’re immobilized in time. Kronos snapped his fingers and Ethan collapsed. (pg 284)

And the demigods might have witnessed a darker side to his army that we didn’t.

Back on my first visit to the Princess Andromeda, my old enemy Luke had kept dazed tourists on board for show, shrouded in Mist so they didn’t realize they were on a monster infested ship. Now i didn’t see any sign of tourists. I hated to think what had happened to them, but I kind of doubted they’d been allowed to go home with their bingo winnings. (pg 15)

So, the demigods deserted. After the second phase of the battle we don’t see any at the Titan camp at the U.N., or taking any part in the last phases of the battle. They had been fed false promises, were treated badly, and were being sent against enemies out of their league.

“Most of the remaining half-bloods fled or were captured. They were so demoralized they joined the enemy.”

All except two, Alabaster and Ethan. The son of Nemesis, who has already given so much and is so desperate to see something good and fair come out of it; and the son of Hecate, who was promised victory, and is desperate to avenge the death of his siblings. Ironically, the two demigods who stayed loyal to Kronos the longest, did so because they had faith in their godly parents.

So if there was no “massacre” of TA demigods at the end of the Battle of Manhattan, why is Alabaster so insistent that there was one? 

“Yes,” Alabaster said bitterly. “Camp Half-Blood decided that they would accept any children of the minor gods. They would build us cabins at camp and pretend that they didn’t just blindly massacre us for resisting. (pg 220) “But I’ll never bow to the Olympian gods after the atrocities they committed. Their followers are blind. I’d never set foot in their camp, and if I did, it would only be to give that son of Poseidon what he deserves.” (pg 221)

Well, it’s because the children of Hecate suffered the most in the war. She didn’t have as many children as other gods, and Alabaster was the only one to fight in it and survive. He claims he convinced “most” of his siblings to join; but if Hecate does not have many children, and he is the only survivor of the battle, how are there still enough of his siblings to decently fill a cabin, it’s likely “most” was only slightly more than half. The sad irony is that the fact that the smaller group of demigods had more casualties than the larger ones (and it sounds like not just more proportionately, but more in actual numbers), also kind of disproves that there could have been a large massacre that affected them all.

Alabaster was a scared, frustrated, exhausted kid; who convinced his siblings to fight in a destructive war, and was the only one of them to survive. To him, that is probably always going to feel like a brutal massacre.

[spookyrea]

You Can Wrap Me 'Round Your Finger...

You’re having a crisis trying to pick the perfect moment to tell Loki you love him. Loki is having a crisis, too, except his is decidedly way more embarrassing. Also, your pillows keep disappearing.

(aka - frost giant biology is weird and Loki has to suffer the consequences.)

a companion to Love at First Sight (or should I walk by again?) - can be read on its own!

Chapter 1 / 2 -- read it on AO3 here

Word count: ~5k

Warnings: fem reader; Loki is CLINGY

You could just make out the rosy hue of a late-season snowfall from your vantage point behind the cockpit; it blanketed the city, turning the streets a pale orange where streetlamp light reflected off of a crisp, white coat. For a city that never slept it was strangely quiet; at just past three o’clock in the morning, not even the snow plows were out yet.

Your team was returning from a four day long deployment to San Francisco – a retrieval mission where you were tasked with tracking down and seizing off-world cargo. It had gone over surprisingly well - zero casualties, a handful of actual combat incidents, and a scant few million dollars worth of petty property damage. It did require a proper cargo plane, though, which meant that the team had to rely on a local airplane hangar to get back home. 

(Despite his truly unparalleled complaining, Tony’s choice to put the Avengers tower in the centre of a busy New York metropolitan block meant that there were certain restrictions - namely, the laws of physics - that limited the size of plane they could have on-site).

An unfortunate consequence of it all was that you were freezing. You made a face and folded your arms over your chest; you were dressed for a late February chill, in tac-pants and a knit sweater, not a snowstorm. As romantic as the snow looked, the cold was settling over you like an ache and, coupled with the early-hour and a tender bruise on your left side, your mood was only souring. You cast your eyes to the ceiling and prayed that a car was already waiting for you on the tarmac.

The quin-jet touched down a little roughly; you felt Wanda’s wince without looking at her, but Tony immediately came to her defense. “No, that was because of the snow. Poor visibility. Out of your control. Definitely. I’m passing you with flying colours - hey, get it?”

The loading ramp slid open with a pop and a hiss; your ears felt funny now that you were on solid ground, like they were full of cotton. Natasha tugged on her earlobes, then reached over and tugged on Steve’s too to be a pest. He swatted her away with a scowl. 

Moments later, attendants began to climb the loading ramp in groups of two. You scowled. They were at least dressed for the weather.

You pulled your hands from between your thighs, trying to focus on anything other than the way your core muscles were tensed against the chill, and thanked whatever powers-that-be that you could finally go home. You were half way through unbuckling your seatbelt when an automated voice warned you from overhead not to leave your seats.

“Sorry, everyone,” Tony called. “Safety or whatever. All cargo has to be removed before we can get up. Just a few minutes. You’ll be warm and in bed in no time.”

You sank low in your seat, arms crossed, and focused very hard on glaring a hole in the quid-jet floor. Who knows -- maybe you could spontaneously develop heat-vision. It would look good on your resume.

“I was beginning to think I’d have to go collect you myself.”

Crossing the jet in long strides, tall enough to peer over most attendants' heads, was Loki. Your boyfriend.  

Dressed in civilian clothing, Loki was something resplendent. His pale skin, warmed by the cool twilight haze outside, was a stark relief against his mop of riotous dark curls, and his green eyes caught the light in a mysterious way. A pair of neatly-polished shoes rattled the grated floor as he approached, weaving in between attendants, until he came to a stop at your side. With a wave of his hand, Loki manifested a fine wool cloak to drape over your shoulders. His long fingers drew the golden hook at the collar through its eye and smoothed it flat against your sternum.

“Can’t have you freezing to death,” he murmured.

You thumbed the stitching along the hem of the cloak; the thread was such a dark green that it almost blended in with the black fabric. “I would have been fine.”

“Well, if you’re too warm, I can certainly help cool you down.” Loki slid into the seat next to you and blew an icy breath across your neck, making you shriek. The grin he shot you was lecherous - truly vile , you mumbled - and sent a hot thrill from your nape to the pit of your belly.

“You are evil.”

“You should have me locked up.”

You pulled the collar of his cloak up to your face, pressing the velvety edge to your mouth. “I’m putting in a request immediately.”

Loki offered you his wrists, that sticky grin growing even wider. “Why wait?”

A flash of green seidr crackled suggestively, implying where a set of handcuffs might bind him. Your eyes snapped to the whirlwind of snow outside, cheeks hot. 

Tony gagged obnoxiously from the pilot’s seat. The comms system crackled to life overhead. “Get a room, you two.”

Loki scoffed, mock affront dripping from his lazy posture, and poured himself over your shoulders, even though the armrest was in the way and was without a doubt digging into his side. He plucked your hand from your lap, lacing his fingers through yours and drawing it up to his mouth. His lips idly traced the edge of his signet ring on your thumb while you watched the cargo roll by, box by painstaking box. 

You had only been dating for a few months, having finally confessed your mutual attraction after a tumultuous, alcohol-fueled evening together. It turned out that the entire time that you had been harbouring a monumental crush on Loki, he’d been just as gone on you - a fact you hadn’t known, since his idea of showing interest was to give you shiny rocks and hand feed you foods, and yours was whatever Tinder had going on.

Once the two of you had gotten over your - admittedly pretty embarrassing - communication barrier, you fell into a nice routine. You found that you were more confident without the weight of an unrequited crush looming over you, and Loki was eons more likely to finish his paperwork as long as you were there to play footsie with him under the table and let him ramble every fifteen minutes. He still flirted with everything that moved, but you recognized the nuances of his affection now. He never touched anyone, but he hung off of you like a limpet; he might smile and schmooze at parties, all lecherous grins and innuendo, but his eyes always sought your approval out after every punchline; and he only ever called you pet.

(And on one occasion, master. But that was a different story.)

Once the attendants had unloaded the last crate into a van, Tony gave everyone the OK to exit the plane without worrying about being trampled. Steve was the first out, blinking sleep out of his eyes. Natasha, Bruce and Tony were quick to follow, all stumbling into the first car they saw, while Wanda stayed and fiddled with a few switches from the co-pilot’s seat. Under Natasha’s suggestion, she was trying to get a proper license to fly - mostly for paperwork-related reasons, because the insurance company charged a fortune every time an Avenger ‘borrowed’ a vehicle without permission.

Before you could protest, Loki scooped up the duffle bag at your feet and started down the loading ramp into the storm, leaving you and Wanda as the last on the plane. You rapped your knuckles against the ceiling and sent her a questioning look. Decked out in her oversized headset and a fuzzy quarter-zip sweater Tony had commissioned for the team, she looked right at home behind the quinjet control panel. She shot you a thumbs up, gesturing for you to go on ahead. You blew her a quick kiss and then hurried after Loki, fighting to keep the cloak shut against the blustering wind. 

Wet snow crept under your pant legs, clinging unpleasantly to the strip of skin left exposed by your socks. Loki had already packed your belongings away in the farthest van and was waiting by the back door, held open for you. You jogged - as best you could given the weather - the last couple of feet and slid into the backseat.

Loki hauled himself through the other door a moment later. The driver - a bored looking man with a dark beard and greying temples - pushed the stick shift into gear and turned off the runway. 

You shivered, brushing clumps of snow off your ankles. Dark stains were climbing up your shins where the it bled through. Loki leaned across the seat to help you, running a shimmering hand over your shoulders to dry you off. 

Mostly satisfied, you sank back and watched the city roll by, the empty streets cast in shades of neon as the snow reflected billboards and store displays. It was a beautiful sight, the kind of morning you would normally want to commit to memory for the postcard-ness of it all – except you were exhausted and a little cranky, so you turned your eyes to stare at your boyfriend instead. 

(You made it a full three minutes without looking at him - a new personal record.)

You admired him the way an owner might creep up on a beloved pet in a sunbeam; you didn’t want him to know you were looking, in case he spooked and moved, so you kept your cheek turned and watched from the corner of your eye. He was deep in thought, luckily, which gave you some leeway to admire his profile. There was something decidedly boyish about him when he was relaxed, a softness you so rarely got to see; it made you want to kiss every inch of him just for the sake of kissing.

He drew an aimless pattern with his thumb across your upper thigh. His pinky finger was stretched comically far from the rest of his fingers, as if willing your hand to reach out and intertwine but too stubborn to ask. For a silly, love-sick moment you were overwhelmed by the need to tell him you loved him - and then your brain caught up with your heart and bludgeoned it into submission.

The knowledge that you were in love with him and the nebulous un-knowledge of how he felt about you was starting to wear on your nerves. You understood logically that he liked you - enough to court you, under different circumstances - but what you felt when you looked at him was a hurricane of emotions, a self-sustaining cycle of hot air up and cold air down, whipping the sea so hard that it formed storm clouds unbidden by the laws of nature. You knew that he felt things differently, had lived a dozen of your lifetimes no doubt filled with pretty things. Would this change your relationship? Would you breaking that last barrier make yourself less desirable somehow?

You wanted to tell him. To share the inherent joy of being in love.

It just scared you to death, was all. No big deal.

His mouth twitched; his eyes caught yours in the window’s reflection as the car entered the dark parking garage. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“Nothing,” you squeaked. “Just tired. Sorry.”

The car dropped you off in the underground parking of the Avengers’ tower. Yours was the last of the convoy, so you and Loki slipped out of the car into an empty lot where only a few strangler attendants were unloading and taking inventory. You held one corner of the cloak in your hand, worried it would drag through the slush puddles tracked in by the cars. Loki’s hand came to rest on the small of your back while he hoisted your bag over his shoulder.

“After you, pet.”

You led him to the elevators, where you leaned against the railing and let your eyes slip shut. Loki selected a floor and then joined you, draping one arm around your shoulders to draw you into his chest.

You leaned your cheek against him. Now that you were home, the full weight of your exhaustion was bearing down on you. The pattern of knots Loki was drawing across the back of your neck wasn’t helping. You were suddenly grateful for the support of Loki’s body under you, solid and steady; you slid your hands under his jacket to hug him… then paused.

Something was… off.

You pulled back and gave him a once-over. Nothing outwardly betrayed him as different. He wore a pair of simple, straight-leg tac-pants and a white t-shirt under a brown vintage-style bomber he’d no doubt swiped from Bucky or Steve; the cut of each item flattered his narrow build exceedingly, a fact you knew he was aware of by the way he kept glancing at you during your drive home. His hair was wild and unstyled in a hopelessly endearing way - a look he’d taken to wearing often after you made a passing comment about liking it that way.

The jacket though… 

He filled it out well. Too well.

“You’re bigger,” you blurted out.

Loki raised one eyebrow in a perfect, mocking arch. “Excuse me?”

“You’re,” you waved your hand up and down his body, “bigger. Like, broader. Have you been working out more?”

Loki glanced down at his chest. “No?”

You pushed the jacket off his shoulders to get a better look at him. The white cotton of his t-shirt puckered across his chest, wrinkling under the strain of an extra inch or so of muscle, and the side seams were pulled so taut that you could see the thread. You poked him right over his heart, admiring a new, plush firmness.

The tips of Loki’s fingers wormed under your shirt. His smile took on a wicked edge as he soaked in the sight of you in front of him. When you shot him a look, he screwed his face up into something resembling innocence. “If you’re going to ogle me like a piece of meat, I think it’s only fair that I get to admire you, too.”

You hummed and slipped his jacket back into place, smoothing your palms down his chest to rest just above his waistband. Loki’s evilness washed away to something sticky sweet; he slid his hand up between your shoulder blades, his fingers splayed wide to admire the shift of your muscles under your skin. His other hand twined with yours to lift your knuckles to his mouth.

The doors slid open on his floor. With a flourish and a fleeting kiss, Loki stooped to collect your bag. His free hand trailed behind him, outstretched for you to take, but you lingered with a smile and a shake of your head.

He came to an abrupt stop under the threshold, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion. He wiggled his fingers, as if you were refusing because you’d missed his offer to hold your hand. “What are you doing?”

You pressed the button for your floor. “I’m going back to my room.”

“No,” Loki whined, his hand still outstretched. “Please, darling.”

You rolled your eyes and attempted to pull your bag from his hands. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Loki.”

“But you’ll miss out on my new, broader body. Your bed will seem extra empty now in comparison. You should just skip the trouble.”

“Loki, I’m tired. And all my stuff is in my apartment.”

“You can wear something of mine.” Loki, exasperated, threw your duffle down in front of the elevator door and cornered you against the railing.

“Just for the night, Loki.” You pressed a chaste kiss to his mouth, one he didn’t return… and then seemed to regret, because only a heartbeat after you pulled away he was on you, cupping your face between both his hands and swiping his tongue across your bottom lip. You huffed out a sigh and pushed on his stomach; he managed to get two more kisses in before you finally won and put some distance between the two of you.

In a perfectly Loki-fashion, Loki sulked. He stomped out of the elevator and then turned to you, his hands firmly on his hips. “You vex me. Understand that I will be taking you out for breakfast tomorrow, no exceptions.”

You hooked a finger through your bag strap, dragging it back into the elevator. “Make it a late lunch. If you wake me before noon there will be punishments.”

Loki’s eyes twitched with the briefest hint of a smirk. His voice dropped an octave. “Promise?”

The elevator doors slid shut on his leering expression. You spent the rest of the ride valiantly trying not to fall asleep. The low hum of its engine was terribly soothing.

When the elevator opened to your floor, you weren’t surprised to find PAL - Tony’s Paperwork Assistant Lite robot, who usually helped organize and retrieve files in the office downstairs - waiting by your door. Measuring just under two feet tall, PAL could navigate the halls and elevator just fine as long as FRIDAY was willing to unlock the doors for him, but your manual lock-and-key front door was an insurmountable obstacle for him.

“How long have you been here, buddy?”

As soon as he recognized you, PAL trilled with delight. His metal chassis vibrated with the effort of waiting by the door. He rounded your feet while you dug through your pants pockets for your keys, narrating the week to you in his language of whistles and beeps, and raised his tiny paper tray, straining to try and take over the weight of your duffle bag. You huffed out a laugh, leaning ever-so-slightly to the side to set it on him but not to smother; the LED display on his face narrowed, as if he was concentrating very hard on not dropping your belongings.

As soon as you were through the door, you threw your bag by your shoe rack and toed off your sneakers, leaving them in a pile on the floor. PAL set to straightening them, sweeping them to the wall with his tray ahead like a snowplow. He tried to do the same to your bag, but his treads could only pinwheel against the weight. 

You stood in the living room for a moment and folded Loki’s cloak over the back of your couch, contemplating skipping your whole routine and going straight to bed. You settled on missing a shower but washing your face - everything else could be dealt with in the morning. You made your way to your bedroom in search of clean pyjamas, then continued to the bathroom to brush your teeth, PAL close on your heels.

You had just exited the bathroom when someone knocked on your door. You tossed your washcloth into a bin on top of your washing machine and rounded the hallway to answer it.

Loki stood on the other side, dressed in a pair of black sweatpants and an oversized AVENGERS TACTICAL UNIT t-shirt. “Please, darling.”

“You have your own bed.”

“It’s too big without you.”

“You’re even bigger now. You’ll fill it out just fine.”

Loki stepped into your personal space; he hadn’t even bothered putting on shoes, wearing only a pair of grey wool socks. His hands curled around your hips as if to steady himself. “I’m afraid of the dark?”

“Try again.”

“My room was taken over by starving wolves while you were away and I only narrowly escaped.”

You sighed. You had to admit that it felt nice to have him in your arms like this, even if you knew giving in would only encourage him to lord over more of your time. “Absolutely no funny business, Loki.”

An incandescent grin split his face in two. He swooped in to kiss your cheek, then sauntered off toward your bedroom. You locked the door, made sure PAL was settled into his charging dock for the night, and then followed after your boyfriend.

You found him curled up on the side of your bed closest to the door, facing you, and holding one of your pillows hostage. He buried his nose in the fabric, a pleased sound rumbling through his chest, and watched you approach.

You swatted at him, not even bothering to round the bed, opting to crawl over his body to reach your side. Loki unfolded, abandoning the pillow to gather you up instead; his arms circled your waist and tugged you into his chest in an awkward collision of limbs, legs tangling in the comforter. You squirmed while he maneuvered you to his liking, tucking the length of his body around you tightly and nosing at the junction of your throat and jaw.

“Loki,” you chided. “I said no funny business.”

“This is a perfectly serious matter.” Loki untangled himself from you just long enough to pull the comforter over your body before sliding in beside you. One hand returned to your neck, tipping your chin back so he could press a loud kiss to your pulse point. “You don’t have enough blankets.

You stifled a yawn and pushed him to lie on his back, draping one leg over his. “Why’s that?”

Loki continued to rearrange the sheets with a scowl. “You’ll freeze to death under this thing.”

Already, your eyelids were heavy with exhaustion. You hummed. “I feel like I had more pillows than this. Maybe I’ve finally lost it.”

A small voice in the back of your mind whispered that you loved him, you loved him, you loved- 

You settled with tracing a heart over his collarbone, over and over until you fell asleep.

You woke to the sound of FRIDAY’s voice through the PA system. “Mr. Laufeyson, your presence is being requested on the thirty-first floor. Mission briefing in fifteen minutes.”

You peeled your eyes open. You could tell by the slant of the sun through the curtains that it was past noon - a small victory, really. Behind you, Loki burrowed deeper into the fabric of your t-shirt, nosing along the ladder of your spine while groaning his displeasure. He drew the comforter around you tightly, trapping you under one muscular arm with a vengeance.

His voice, still deep and rasping with the last threads of sleep, rumbled through his chest. “Good morning, dear heart.”

Lovesickness bloomed like a bruise in your chest. “Morning,” you said, instead of I love you. 

You half-turned and pecked the side of his mouth before sitting up. Loki made an affronted sound and reeled you back in by a fistful of your t-shirt, sending you sprawling halfway across his chest. He kissed you soundly, licking into your mouth with a low groan.

You blinked up at him once he pulled back. “Um. Good morning?”

“I was a perfect gentleman all night and you reward me with a peck. ” A scowl twisted his pretty face, petulance dripping off him in droves. His hands slid over your ass possessively, kneading the soft flesh with purpose. “I should have you flogged for that. Put over my knee.”

“Patience is a virtue,” you mumbled.

“Wrong faith, pet. Now- wait, where are you going?”

You paused, halfway through peeling yourself out of his arms (again), and pointed at the ceiling where FRIDAY’s voice reminded him that he was needed in thirteen minutes, Mr. Laufeyson . ”You have a debrief and I have a date with my coffee pot.”

“Not after you so callously rejected me. Come down here and make it up to me.”

You rolled your eyes and leaned in to kiss him again, slowly but deeply. Loki chased your mouth when you pulled away, frustration evident in the heavy way he sighed. Lifting you by the hips, Loki deposited you in his lap and held you there, digging his thumbs into the plush of your sides. Using the resulting sigh to his advantage, Loki cradled the back of your head and bullied your lips apart, pulling a sticky kind of want from your chest, leaving you dizzy and aching all at once.

When FRIDAY gave him a five minute warning, blinking the emergency strobe in the corner of your bedroom for good measure, Loki finally drew himself away and let you catch your breath. His head tipped back against the pillow, his throat on display in a long submissive line, and his shiny mouth parted in a groan. He mumbled something in his mother tongue, your name nestled right between lilting consonants.

“What was that?”

“Nothing important.” 

“One day you’ll teach me what you’re saying,” you grumbled. “And then I’ll know all your secrets.”

Loki lazily arched one brow, smothered behind a curtain of riotous curls. “Is that so? All of them?”

“Mhm. All of it. Every last one.”

You traced a finger down the line of his nose. If ever there was a moment to tell him you loved him, now was probably it. Here, on the laziest of saccharine mornings, while the city outside was muted by a thick wall of snow and you were both ignoring responsibility to enjoy the other. And yet– doubt wove its way through your ribs, tying knots in the hollow spaces in your chest; you rolled off of him and sat up, pulling the hem of your shirt down where it had ridden up. “FRIDAY is going to bring the appliances to life if you don’t leave soon.”

Loki poised himself on the edge of your bed and snagged your wrist when you rounded it. There was nothing to the gesture – no comment, no complaint to make. He held onto you for the simple joy of owning a second of your time.

As if one cue, PAL rolled through your bedroom door, his little paper tray aloft. He chirped in greeting, then ran head-long into one of the bed frame’s legs. 

You tamped down a lingering disappointment. Later. You would tell him later.

“Pest.” Loki swatted at PAL, who had taken to repeatedly bumping into Loki’s shins to convince him to get dressed. You gasped scoldingly when Loki shot a warning green spark in the robot’s direction; PAL, undeterred, narrowed the LED display on his face and wound up, knocking the god extra hard for good measure.

“PAL, go sit in the living room. You can pick something on Netflix for us to watch. And you,” you pointed a finger at Loki. “No threatening the robot.”

You left him to dig through your closet for something to wear; the far corner was steadily developing a growth of black, Loki-sized clothing. While you busied yourself with the coffee machine, PAL chirped at the TV and then parked himself in front of your window with his face pressed against the glass. Once your coffee was poured, you left out the gaudiest mug you owned – chipped, declaring you were Thor’s Number One Fan!, which Loki hated with a burning passion – and a spoon for when he joined you.

PAL beeped distractedly when you joined him by the window; there was a tender tilt to his little head as he gazed out, studying a pair of birds who had built their nest just below. His body shuddered, as if sighing, and his LED display blinked one long, slow blink.

It started as a tiny bundle of twigs a few weeks ago, trembling in the wind but shielded from the elements in the nook between a metal support beam and the windowsill. Then a few pieces of long grass were woven in, and a handful of fresh green branches, still flexible in their newness. They must have finished their home while you were away; two mates were deep under the spell of a snowy Sunday morning, bundled up under a layer of down and straw.

A solid pair of arms wound around your waist, drawing you backwards into an equally solid chest. Loki’s hair was damp where he’d run wet fingers through it, no doubt trying to contain the curling mess of bed head he woke up with every morning. It clung to your cheek a bit, the crown of his head pressed up to your face while he nosed at your shoulder. “Oh, hi– hello.” 

“I don’t want to go,” Loki whined. He rocked you gently from side to side, resting his cheek against yours. “We should feign illness. It’s dreadfully contagious. And then we can—” a kiss, just under your ear, “stay in bed all day. To recuperate, of course.”

“As lovely as that sounds, you really do have to go. You know how Steve gets when you’re late.”

“As soon as I can I’m coming right back up here to ravish you. That’s a promise.”

PAL cooed, excited by some small movement from the birds. One of them had woken to preen the other, sweetly running its beak through its feathers.

“Look at their little nest. How cozy,” you said quietly. “Maybe that’s where my pillows went.”

The longer Loki considered the birds, the deeper the furrow between his brows grew. He seemed to be having a revelation of some kind. “I… have to speak with my brother about something.”

“Something wrong?”

“No. Just a thought. Don’t worry.”

PAL rolled backwards into Loki’s shins with purpose. He chirped sternly, as if chiding Loki in his machine-speak, who, in return, toed PAL’s chassis very gently in warning. 

You laughed. “He’s coming, buddy.”

“Actually,” Loki muttered darkly. “On the contrary. My problem is that I’m not-”. You suspected the next words out of his mouth would have been incredibly inappropriate, had PAL not rolled pointedly over Loki’s foot.

You exited the elevator on the 31st floor a few hours later. A far cry from Tony’s party, the room was empty and mostly tucked away; chairs were stacked on tables and the bar was cleared of bottles; bright, unfiltered sunlight poured through the enormous lofted windows, allowing you an unobstructed view of the skyline and the meandering streets below. A couple of interns were having lunch on one of the couches in the corner. They must have been part of the newest wave of college recruits, because their eyes lingered in a starstruck kind of way that made you feel a little embarrassed. 

You shot them a playful salute. Both startled, turning away in a rush.

Oh well. You couldn’t look Steve in the eyes for your first week on the team– you got it.

You found Loki in the farthest conference room, sat at the end of a long, round table between Steve and Bucky. You watched their fingers walk across its surface, handing a piece of folded paper between the three of them. Steve wrote something while the speaker was turned, then slipped his hand surreptitiously under the desk. Bucky coughed; from your vantage point, you saw his and Loki’s fingers unravel the note so they could read it discreetly.

Some executive droned at the other end, gesturing to a dreadfully laid out powerpoint. Matching manilla folders were spread open in front of the agents; you had a sneaking suspicion that whatever the speaker was saying was also written down and could have been read in half the time this meeting took.

You tried to catch Loki’s eye through the window but his attention was aimless, lost in some faraway place. A thought came to you; you rearranged your belongings to clasp your hands in front of you. Squeezing your eyes shut, you prayed - albeit poorly - to the god sitting a few dozen feet from you.

You peeked through one eye to see if it had worked; through the glass, Loki shot you a private smile, so sweet that it was practically a kiss. You waved him over, jerking your head toward the conference room door.

You watched him interrupt the speaker, his lazy posture rolling forward until he was sitting straight. Steve and Bucky nodded sagely, immediately following whatever story Loki had spun. Bucky pointed exaggeratedly to his metal arm, rubbing it as if it was tense.

The door opened and Loki slipped out into the hallway to meet you. Your grin bordered on becoming painful. Both your hands were folded behind your back. “You didn’t have breakfast this morning.”

“Observant.” He plucked a loose thread from the collar of your shirt and flicked it aside before leaning in for a quick kiss. You decided, even if you couldn’t say you love him, to treat him no less lovingly; you chased him when he pulled away, pressing your lips to his jaw. His grin was dazed, like you’d turned him dumb with the simple act of wanting him. “You’re even lovelier than the last time I saw you.

“I brought you something. Pick a hand.”

Loki walked his fingers down your left arm and pulled; you let him have it, your palm open – and empty. “Oh, that’s too bad.”

“Hmm. Terrible luck.” His knuckles dragged down the length of your other arm. In that hand was a take-out container from your favourite coffee shop, defaced with a smiley-face and cute message from the barista, Yvonne. It was his usual order, nothing special, but when his eyes tipped up to meet yours, there was something uncharacteristically open about his expression, a shy edge to the tilt of his smile. He leaned in and kissed you, soft and sweet like honey. “Do you think they’ll notice if I’m gone much longer?”

“Absolutely.”

Loki groaned, tipping your hips until they were flush to his. He kissed you hard enough to bend you backwards.

“I’ll come by your apartment tonight and we can get dinner?”

His fingers stilled where they were kneading your sides. “Yes, about that. Let’s… Let’s stay at yours tonight. The wolves that chased me out last night haven’t been evicted yet.”

Loki's answer confused you – he’d spent the entire night complaining that you wouldn’t go back to his room, then insulting your blanket choices, and now he wanted to stay at yours? “Ok. That works. Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” he said quickly. “Perfectly fine. You’re so tired though. Easier to stay where your belongings are. I won’t– won’t make you commute.”

You eyed him suspiciously. “Behave today.”

Another groan, this one pitched low; Loki traced your cheek with his nose. “I love it when you order me around.”

“Loki! Be-have.”

“Just one more, nymph. To tide me over.”

You sent him off with three more kisses. You were starting to wonder if you were too lenient with him; he delighted in taking advantage of your weakness to weasel more affection out of you. He returned to the conference room with his little box, opened in his lap under the table. When Bucky made to swipe a grape, Loki flicked his hand away with a glare.

When you returned to your room that evening, with Loki hot on your heels and his hands already halfway up your shirt, you were baffled to find your bed down one more pillow.

“PAL, did you do this?”

He shook his little head, LED screen blinking wide doe eyes up at you. It was the strangest thing, but when he thought you weren’t looking, you could have sworn that he shot Loki a pointed look.