#he would sleep to death if it were up to him

[aquaticmercy]

My Own Soul’s Warning

Summary : You, an immortal being, falls in love with the very mortal Bucky Barnes. You would do anything for him, even if it meant you had to strike a deal with Death herself.

Pairing : Bucky Barnes x reader (she/her) 

Warnings/tags : Violence, death, trauma, mentions of sex (not graphic), cursing. Rio Vidal makes an appearance. Angst with a happy ending. Fluff!!!!

Word count : 6.3k

Note : This fic was inspired by Agatha and Rio, though this has a much happier ending. Reader is the Spirit of Suffering, an immortal entity who shows herself to people in extreme physical and emotional suffering to help ease the pain. The title is inspired by the Killers song of the same name. The fic started in the 1940s and ends after FATWS. Enjoy!

The first time Bucky saw you, it was 1942. He was in the trenches, under the dim moonlight of Germany.

He was supposed to be Sergeant James Barnes, fighting to defend his country. But then? He was only selfishly fighting for his own life. 

The air was thick with the stench of mud, sweat, and blood. The world around him felt like a prison of haze and darkness— machine guns firing in the distance, the rumble of explosions shaking the ground underneath him. 

He knew it only took one mistake, one slip up, and this is how he would die.

He was tired beyond anything he’d ever felt before, his body crumbling after days without sleep. His body ached from wounds he hadn’t couldn’t treat— the infirmary was crowded, too crowded to even see the ‘small’ gushing cut on his forearm that didn’t feel so small right now. 

But he could take the physical pain. It was the gnawing fear that was the hardest to bear, creeping over him, curling around his ribs like a rope, tightening until it hurt to breathe.

Then, through the smoke and shadows, he saw you. 

You were just a figure at first, standing a few yards away. You were cloaked in the same darkness that had swallowed up his world. As his eyes adjusted, he noticed that you didn’t quite belong.

You were almost radiant, the flickering light from the fire catching on something otherworldly in your gaze. Bullets flew past you, going through your being as if you were only made of smoke.

You were watching him, silent and still. Your expression was carefully neutral, a warmth in your eyes that cut through the cold surrounding him.

He blinked, half-believing you were just a figment of his exhaustion.

When he opened his eyes again, you were still there, a steady presence in the middle of the chaos. Bucky felt a strange sense of peace swallow him, like the world had gone silent in the space between his heartbeat and your gaze. 

You didn’t say a word, but you didn’t need to. Just being there, in a place where everything was twisted and brutal and so fucking wrong, you felt like a sliver of peace in this nightmare that was wartime. 

Something deep in his gut told him that he wasn’t meant to understand who, or rather what, you were. And yet, he felt safer at the mere presence of you. Before he could reach out to test if you were real, you were gone— slipping away into the dark like a ghost.

—

The next time he saw you was when he was half-dead, bleeding out in the snow after the fall from the train. The pain was more than unbearable, raw and sharp and insufferable. His nerves burned, radiating from every shattered bone, every freezing inch of his numb skin. 

His vision blurred, the sky above flickering in and out of view as his mind faded in and out of consciousness. He wondered if this was going to be his death, a slow and dramatic fade to black he only ever saw in the movies Steve dragged him to.

Then he saw you again, standing in the snow.

The sight of you jolted him back to consciousness, just enough to cling to the edge of the living world. This time, there was no mistaking the look on your face— a look of concern. 

For a moment, he thought you must be an angel coming to collect him. 

You must be. 

There you were, silently watching him with that same expression of warmth he’d seen in the trenches.

He struggled to sit up to get a better look at you, every little movement sent pain shooting through him. Finally, he slumped back to the snow in defeat, breathing hard. 

“What are you doing here?” His voice was hoarse, nearly swallowed up by the howling wind.

The cold, harsh winter wasn’t a place for someone who looked as fragile as you, he thought.

You carefully took a step closer, as if unwilling to disturb him. There was a slight curve to your lips, something that could have been a smile but wasn’t quite, as you looked down at him. “I’m looking out for someone.”

He swallowed a strange lump in his throat, the sharp tang of fear and curiosity contrasting the cold bite of the freezing air. “Who?” His voice cracked, barely audible.

“You,” you said, your voice as quiet as a prayer.

It was such a simple answer, but it hit him like a wave. In the midst of all the pain, he suddenly felt relief. 

The hurt eased, the cold stung a little less.

He didn’t know if you were a dream, a ghost, or something beyond his understanding. But at that moment, he didn’t care. All that mattered was that you were there, that you had come for him. That he wasn’t alone. 

As his vision started to fade again and the darkness crept back, he realised you didn't leave any footprints in the snow. 

—

Bucky didn’t know why you kept showing up. 

Over the years, he felt your presence like his own shadow, drifting through the Hydra bases, the laboratories, the dark corners of the cell they kept him in between missions. The world around him was cold and sterile, a cage of steel where hope had no place, no right to exist.

Still, he saw you, quiet and watchful, a silhouette in the dim light. 

He would catch glimpses of you while the scientists strapped him to machines, the hum of needles piercing his flesh. You were there, watching over him, as they shocked cold electricity through his veins. Each time, his eyes would land on you, and you’d watch him from the far corner of the room, with that same calm, steady gaze.

Everytime his eyes locked on yours, the pain eased, even if only a little.

It became easier to take the torture.

It became easier to find rest.

Over time, Hydra erased his memories. 

Soon, he forgot his life. He forgot the people who used to love him, who grieved for him when he was lost. 

But he had never forgotten you. 

Maybe it was the first sign that you weren’t quite human.

One night, after a particularly brutal round of reprogramming, he saw you again, this time closer than ever before. 

You stood by his bedside, where he lay in the dark, barely clinging to sanity. He blinked, pain searing in his throat. He tried to reach for you, fingers trembling, and felt nothing.

“Where did you come from?” he whispered, his voice rough and broken, as he felt that comfort once again. 

The comfort he only had with you.

A soft smile touched your lips, something gentle and knowing. You were a light in the darkness of his fractured mind. “Far, far away from here.”

He closed his eyes, trying to etch your face to his memory, certain that if he did, he could take some small fragment of comfort back into the waking nightmare that was his brutal reality.

You knew, by the way his life was going, that you were going to see Bucky more and more.

It was the nature of your job, to look out for people like him.

After the next couple of visits, he started talking to you more and more— whenever he was left alone with his thoughts, whenever the pain or the hollow emptiness crept too close, he would search for you. 

And you’d be there, listening to the murmured secrets he’d never told another soul. 

He told himself you weren’t real, that he was just losing his grip on sanity, conjuring a kind face to stave off the horror. But that didn’t stop him from craving your presence.

—

Years later, he’d managed to break free of Hydra’s grip. He had carved out a life hiding in the far reaches of the world when he saw you again, as if you’d followed him through every corner of hell he’d tried to escape.

Romania was quiet, the kind of place where he could keep to himself. He had a run down studio apartment where the days blurred by and the silence was almost peaceful. 

Yet in that solitude, you appeared again, lingering in the shadow of an alleyway, or standing just beyond his view on quiet, empty streets. He’d catch your gaze through crowds when he was most alone, and he’d feel an overwhelming sense of calm, an unexplainable rush he could only have with you. 

It was on one of those quiet evenings, when he was washing dishes, that he saw you again, watching him from across the room. He stared, wiping his hands absently on the dish towel, still unsure if he was simply dreaming.

He called out in that soft voice of his, almost a whisper.

“Thank you for being here.” It was a simple admission, but it was true.

You tilted your head, that familiar gentleness in your eyes. “Always.” He replied.

The suffering he had recently was different— it wasnt physical as it usually was. It was an isolated sense of longing that broke the deepest parts of his heart, one that he couldn't quite heal himself.

Your warm and steady voice anchored him to the present. For the first time, he didn’t try to tell himself that you were a figment of his imagination. For just a moment, he let himself believe that you were standing there, real and alive, not just an invention of his lonely mind. 

And even as you disappeared, slipping away into the shadows, the feeling of your presence lingered, filling the emptiness around him.

—

The last rays of Wakanda’s sun slipped over the treetops, bathing everything in a warm, honeyed light that somehow reached even into the white-walled lab where Bucky was preparing himself for a long, cold sleep. 

He looked around, his gaze fixing on the distant horizon, the soft sounds of Shuri and the lab assistants moving in the background. 

He could feel his heart pounding. He was terrified, the horror clawing into him, even though he knew that this was the right decision. He knew that it was the safest thing for him to do— to go back in the ice until his trigger words could be removed.

It didn't stop the instinctive dread of being shut away again, though.

And then he saw you, standing behind a desk. He didn’t know how you’d gotten there, or if anyone else could even see you.

But there you were, just as you’d been so many times before, giving him a piece of calm he didn't quite understand.

For a long moment, he said nothing. He only looked at you. 

Somehow, you looked more real in this light, more human than he’d ever seen you before. Still, you had that hint of almost supernatural haze. He took a deep breath, feeling safer by the second, now that you were here.

“Will you be here when I wake up?” he asked, the words coming out like a whispered plea. He didn’t expect you to answer, not really.

His heart beat quicker as he waited, hoping you wouldn’t vanish as quickly this time.

You just smiled, that same soft, knowing smile you’d given him in the darkest hours of his life.

You nodded, “Only if you need me.”

The warmth of your words lingered in his mind as he took one last look at you. He felt the tension in his chest loosen, just enough to let him breathe again. He laid down, a feeling of peace settling over him. 

He closed his eyes, holding the memory of you close, feeling the faint impression of your smile stay with him as he drifted into the dark.

—

The next time he saw you, it was in the middle of another waking nightmare—the battlefield of Wakanda, chaos erupting in every direction as the forces of Thanos closed in. Bucky was fighting on pure instinct, his body moving with an instinct he’d learned in war. He drew on more and more on his Hydra training and sheer luck. 

After Thanos snapped, he saw you again. You were standing behind Steve, amongst the trees.

For the first time, your expression was not calm. You looked terrified. Your eyes, usually so steady, were wide, your face pale as you looked at him with a horror he’d never seen from you before.

Something inside him understood. He knew, even before the feeling swept over him—a strange tingling, a disintegration at the frayed edges of his body—that he was about to be turned to dust.

He tried to reach out, to touch you, to ask if he’d see you on the other side, but before he could say a word, he felt himself fade, slipping into nothingness, his best friend’s name the last thing he uttered.

—

When he returned—when the world pieced itself back together after five long years—he felt the dread of loneliness again. 

You came, though it felt like you carried a deeper sadness in your gaze than before. It was as if you had… missed him.

When Steve left, when Bucky watched his best friend walk away, disappearing into a life they’d both only dreamed of, he felt the emptiness he had left in his wake.

He stood there, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, feeling a hollow emptiness settle inside him, knowing he’d lost something irreplaceable, something that could never be returned when Steve decided to live a life he always wanted.

Then he saw you again, just a few steps next to him. He almost didn’t dare to look, afraid that you’d vanish if he did. When he finally turned, there you were, as calm as you’d always been, watching him with that familiar warmth and understanding.

“You’re not alone,” you murmured, your voice so gentle it felt like a medicine to the sickness of his soul.

He swallowed hard, nodding as he looked down. He tried to keep his composure, though he failed. 

He couldn’t bring himself to ask you who you truly were, if you truly knew the depth of what he’d lost, if you understood the kind of grief that was now carved so deeply inside him.

And you did. Grief was a human suffering, after all.

You stayed there, silent, a quiet witness to his pain as you offered a supernatural solace. 

—

Over the years that followed, you'd show up when the loneliness clawed too deep, when the nightmares took hold or when the silence of his apartment was too much to bear on his own. 

He started talking to you more than ever before.

When the silence weighed heavy on him, he’d glance into the shadows, almost expecting you to appear. And, as if by some unspoken agreement, you’d arrive just in time.

Yet, you never came too close. You stayed at a distance, as if you were made of something too fragile for this world. Bucky never minded, though. He had learned early on that pressing you for answers, for explanations, only ended with your departure. So he stopped asking them. He started accepting your presence as a gift he wasn’t meant to understand.

You were simply…there, steady and unchanging, offering comfort and warmth in a way no one else could. 

He’d tell you things he wouldn’t dare tell anyone else—confessions that clawed up from the darkest corners of his mind, memories from the days he wished he could erase. You would listen, without judgement, without a flicker of fear or revulsion. Your presence only ever brought you peace.

In those quiet, lonely moments, he came to rely on you, to look for you in the shadows. You were a silent companion in his darkest hours. And though he never stopped wondering who you truly were, he let himself believe, if only a little, that he had someone, that you were real enough to him.

—

One night, after a long silence had fallen between you, he confessed something.

“You know,” he said, his voice thick with sorrow and exhaustion, “I don’t… I don’t think you’re real.” He tried to smile, but it was faint. It was hollow. “I think to you’re just… my mind is playing tricks on me. I think I needed someone so badly that I made you up.”

He was laying himself bare. Raw. Vulnerable.

He was almost afraid to look at you, afraid that if he did, you would disappear, proving his confession true. Then, he forced himself to meet your eyes, searching for any sign of reaction.

You didn’t flinch, didn’t deny it. 

You only looked back at him with that same soft understanding.

“You’re just…” he murmured, trailing off. “You’re the most beautiful person I could imagine, someone I must have conjured to… to keep me from losing my mind.” He laughed bitterly, rubbing a hand over his face, not quite meeting your gaze. “Because no one like you would actually be here. Would actually want to be with someone as broken as me.”

He waited, his heart beating harshly. Part of him hoping you’d break the illusion, that you’d tell him he was wrong, that you were real. 

Faint sadness flickered in your eyes. “Suffering has never broken you before,” you said, “It will not break you now.” 

You didn’t confirm his fears, but you didn’t deny them either. 

That quiet, ambiguous acceptance soothed him more than any promise could have.

He let the questions go, even though they lingered in the back of his mind. 

He came to understand that perhaps it didn’t matter if you were real or not. He only needed you.

—

It was the dead of night, and Bucky was trembling.

He had woken up in cold sweat, the remnants of his nightmare gripping him like icy chains. He sat up, pressing his hands to his face, trying to push away the memories that refused to fade, the fractured images of a past that haunted him even in sleep. He swallowed, his voice rough, almost a whisper, as he murmured into the dark.

“Where are you?” he rasped, his voice thick with desperation. “Please, come back.” His heart pounded, his words barely a breath as he called for you, “Come back to me.”

He let his head fall into his hands, feeling so fucking foolish. 

He should've known.

He should’ve known that after all this time, he was still calling for a ghost, for a figment of his imagination, for someone he’d conjured out of pure, pathetic loneliness. 

As his breathing slowed, he felt something shift in the quiet corners of his room. A familiar warmth settled over him, gentle and comforting. He raised his head, and there you were, standing just a few feet away.

For a long moment, he simply stared, disbelief and wonder filling his stare. You looked more solid than he’d ever seen you before, as if reality had woven itself around you.

Light no longer passed through you. Your footsteps made thudding sounds on the ground. You tripped over a couple of the steps, as if learning how to walk with legs for the first time.

You moved closer towards him.

Seeing him so shaken, so desperately calling for you, had drawn you out in a way that felt irreversible. His cry was a pull too strong to resist. 

Gently, you reached out, your fingertips brushing his cheeks, tracing the faint stubble along his jaw, the warmth of his skin grounding you in this physical form. 

It was wrong for an immortal entity as ancient as you to take human form— you felt weaker, and your grasp on the unknown faltered. You knew, when you inevitably had to return to your ethereal form, that you would be exhausted. That it would hurt.

But after nearly a century of watching over James Buchanan Barnes, you had to know what his skin felt like.

His breath hitched at your touch. Slowly, his hands rose, trembling, to cover yours, pressing your palms to his face as if he was afraid you might disappear.

He blinked, eyes wide, searching your face. “You’re… real,” he breathed, his voice barely a whisper, an astonished relief flooding his eyes. “I can feel you.”

You nodded, letting your hands cradle his face, your thumbs softly brushing over his cheekbones. For a while, you stayed like that, letting his mind settle on the reality of you. 

“Who… who are you?” His voice was filled with awe. His gaze locked onto yours, desperate for answers.

You took a steady breath— and it felt off, like you had to learn it. 

You had never needed to breathe before. But now, you needed it as much as you needed him. 

You knew that him knowing what you were wouldn’t hurt anyone.

“I am the Spirit of Suffering,” you said quietly, your voice as soft as the night around you. “I ease the pain of those who suffer, showing myself to those who need me most. For eons, I’ve been drawn to pain, to sorrow. But… I’ve never been drawn to someone like you.”

His brow furrowed, confusion mingling with a sense of awe as he processed your words. He searched your face, as if trying to reconcile the warmth of your touch with the truth.

“You’ve been watching over me?” he murmured, struggling to fully grasp the revelation. 

You nodded, the truth spinning between you like a fragile thread. “Yes,” you admitted, your voice gentle, almost a whisper. “Every time you were in pain, it was my job to be there. The natural forces would not let me stop what happened to you, James, but I could keep you company, share the weight of your sorrow.”

He closed his eyes, his hands still covering yours. His grip on you tightened, trying to anchor himself to this moment. “So all those times I thought I was imagining you…”

“You weren’t,” you said softly, your gaze unwavering. 

He took a shaky breath.

You sat on the bed next to him, feeling the softness of bedsheets for the first time in your eternal existence.

“I’ve never met anyone like you, James.” Your hand drifted down to cover his heart, feeling its steady beat beneath your palm. “In all the lifetimes I’ve witnessed, through all the suffering I’ve felt, I’ve seen people become monsters, lose themselves to pain and suffering. But you… you never let it consume you. No matter how much they took from you, no matter how much you suffered, there’s still kindness in you.” You smiled, a flicker of admiration in your gaze. “You were the first person to show me that suffering doesn’t have to destroy.”

Bucky’s throat tightened. He reached up, his fingers brushing a strand of your hair behind your ear.

His touch was fleeting, as if he still couldn’t believe you were real. He searched your face, seeing the depth of who you truly  were. He saw your boundless compassion, the centuries, maybe millenia, of understanding that lingered in your gaze. 

You had been more than a dream, more than a figment of his imagination.

“Thank you,” he whispered, his voice filled with a sincere gratitude, “for helping.” 

As you looked at him, you realised just how much he needed you. And perhaps just how much you needed him.

—

Every night that he called for you, you’d be there for him, sacrificing your eternal strength just for a moment.

Just before the dawn’s first light, you’d pull away from Bucky’s life and disappear, dissolving back into the unknown.

You always lingered as long as you could, your human heart aching at the thought of leaving him alone again. But still, you slipped away, returning to your role as the silent companion of suffering, never able to stay beyond a few hours.

But Bucky kept calling for you.

Sometimes he’d wake from a nightmare, his voice rough with sleep and fear, calling you like a prayer, like you were the only thing anchoring him to this world. Sometimes he’d simply whisper into the dark, reaching out with an open hand, searching for your touch.

And each time, you answered. Despite the strain it placed on you, the unnatural weight of becoming flesh and blood for him, you would come back. You took on human form again and again, letting him feel the warmth of your hands. You told yourself that you could bear it, that his comfort was worth any mortal pain that your immortal spirit had to carry.

One night, in a moment of weakness, as you sat together on the edge of his bed, he looked at you with an intensity that made you feel as if your duties had disappeared. 

The silence stretched, and you could see what his eyes carried. The tenderness, the gratitude, the fierce need for you. He lifted a hand, gently brushing his fingers along your cheek. The softness of his touch reverberated through your flesh and blood. You were suddenly made aware that you had a beating heart as it was pounding against your fragile ribcage.

Before you could process the feeling, he leaned in and kissed you.

It was gentle, soft as a whisper, but it set something inside you alight, a sensation you’d never known before. 

You had seen humanity’s love from a distance, had watched the joy and heartbreak it could bring, but this… this was something beyond mere understanding. His lips were warm and real against yours, the taste of him grounding you in this fleeting human form in a way that felt both exhilarating and terrifying.

For a moment, you were frozen, feeling his heartbeat under your fingertips, the rhythm steady, grounding. And then, almost instinctively, you kissed him back. You leaned into him, feeling the depth of his sorrow and his hope in that single, shared breath. 

Every inch of you felt alive, pulled into his gravity, the intensity of this moment overwhelming every human sense you didn't think you’d ever experience.

When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours. “I’ve waited so long to feel this,” he murmured, his voice barely a whisper. “To feel you like this.”

You felt a swell of emotion like a lightning strike— something so unfamiliar and impossible to ignore. You were a spirit who had known only of pain and how to relieve it, who had wandered the world in search of suffering to ease, yet this—this was something else entirely. This was desire, love—all foreign feelings that made you want to stay, to linger in his arms a little longer.

But dawn was coming, as it always did. Despite the ache in your chest, you knew you had to go. The world was waiting; and others needed you, too. 

With one last touch, your fingers brushing along his cheek, memorising the feeling of his skin.

You slipped away, dissolving back into the unseen, feeling his absence as if it were a physical wound.

—

It became a brutal cycle.

Every morning you would go, and every other night, when he called, you returned. Each time, the kiss lingered in your memory, the softness of his lips, the rush of your pulse, the racing of a heart that should not be yours to feel. It left you longing, yearning, pulling you back to him over and over, until every time you left felt like you were tearing yourself apart.

And though you slipped away at dawn, leaving Bucky alone with the shadows, you knew that a part of you stayed, lingering there beside him, just waiting for night to fall again so you could return to him.

One night, Bucky reached for you. His touch was gentle and filled with a hunger that was new to you. 

Tonight, he had a human desire for you that you had only observed in passing. His fingers entwined with yours, rough and warm, pulling you closer with a care that sent a strange warmth rushing through you. You sensed a gravity between you, one that seemed to draw every part of your physical form into his orbit, a sensation you never could have understood in your ethereal form.

As he guided you towards his bed, his gaze stayed on yours, searching and vulnerable, as though asking for permission. You felt a flicker of understanding in his silence, a human fragility and need that made your heart—this temporary, fragile, human heart—beat a little faster. 

You nodded.

When he leaned in to kiss you, the sensation was breathtaking, as it always was. 

That night, he showed you the depths of human pleasure, the way mortal love could break open walls so high so intensely that the shockwave that came after felt endless. Every caress of his hands, every whisper against your skin, seared into you like a brand.

Bucky gave you something new, grounding you in sensations you didn’t know were possible. In his arms, your physical senses were overwhelmed by the beauty and ache of human desire.

With each touch, each shared breath, he showed you parts of himself he had never shown anyone in a long, long time.

And as he moved with you, every boundary between the known and unknown seemed to dissolve, leaving only the two of you, bound in a shared, silent understanding that felt more ethereal than anything you’ve ever encountered.

When it was over, he held you close, his fingers tracing soft, slow patterns across your skin.

“I love you,” he murmured, his voice filled with wonder— it was the truth. His eyes met yours, laying his heart bare for you to do whatever you pleased with it. To cherish or to break, he really didn’t care, as long as you were the one holding onto it. “I don’t know how it’s possible, but I do.”

In those words, you finally understood humanity’s deepest, truest suffering—the need to love and be loved.

For eons, you had only known suffering, solitude. The burden of easing pain without truly being seen, without knowing love in its purest form. But with Bucky, it was different.

“I love you too, James,” you whispered. It was a confession, as much a promise as it was a revelation. And you meant it. You felt a love that was boundless, stretching far beyond what this temporary human form of yours could contain.

Days passed, and each night, he would pull you close, his touch tender, his words gentle. His love was a constant that anchored you in this fragile, borrowed form. But each morning, as the first light crept over the horizon, you would pull yourself away, fading back into the shadows. 

Every time you left, you saw the ache in his eyes, a silent plea that grew more desperate with each parting.

—

One night, after holding you in silence, you felt Bucky suffered more than he ever did before.

You felt the sorrow, and even you couldn't calm him down from this desperate longing that had fragmented his heart into a million pieces— it was knowledge that you couldn’t truly be his and that he couldn’t truly be yours that had caused this pain. It was knowing that, as long as you were immortal, you couldn’t possibly belong to a mortal man.

“Please stay,” he whispered, his hands shaking as they held you. “Don’t go. I can’t… I can’t keep saying goodbye. I don’t want to only see you in fragments of stolen time.” He squeezed you. His eyes were filled with a raw, desperate longing. “I want you here— with me. Always.”

You reached out, placing a hand on his cheek. You wanted to say yes, to let yourself stay, to finally surrender to this love and the peace it offered. But you knew better than anyone of your nature. You were bound to the suffering of others, woven into the fabric of pain that had defined you for a long, long time.

“I can’t,” you whispered, your voice barely audible, the words breaking as you forced them out. “I want to, more than anything. But I… I’m not meant to stay. There are others who need me.”

A flash of pain crossed his face, and he closed his eyes, trying to swallow the heartache that threatened to bury him. He nodded, though you could see struggle that lingered in the lines on his face.

“Just stay a little longer tonight,” he murmured, his voice tight, a bittersweet smile forming on his lips.

And so you held him a little longer, feeling the fragility of this human connection, the knowing that you would have to let him go. You stayed with him until the stars faded from the sky, until the dawn began to creep over the horizon. And as you finally pulled away, slipping back into the shadows, you felt a piece of yourself break, a piece that would always belong to him, no matter how far you wandered.

—

One day, as Bucky’s heart prepared to stop beating, you stood by him, devastated.

You were there as a phantom, feeling his soul slip through your fingers as he lay on the concrete after a mission gone wrong. He was unconscious, his life hanging by a thread as he fought to come back from the edge. In all the centuries of comforting humanity, you had never felt such fear, such desperation. 

While you watched him, fragile and fading away, you felt something shatter deep within you.

His breath was shallow— his fate uncertain. He would only have minutes to live. 

But you couldn’t lose him. 

So you made a choice that you had once thought impossible. 

With a heavy heart, you turned and sought out the one being who held the power to intervene: Rio Vidal, Death herself.

Death came to you quietly when you summoned her to the darkness neither of you occupied. She moved with an eternal calm, her presence as vast and ancient as the stars. She looked at you, her dark eyes filled with the weight of ages that rivalled your own. Her stare was neither evil nor kind. 

You knew that she'd already understood why you called for her. 

“Don’t take him,” you whispered, your voice breaking. “Not now.” You were pathetic, desperation rising in frantically— a desperation that followed you into your ethereal form, an ache that you hadn’t known could exist in your immortal heart. “For the first time, I’ve found someone… someone I love. I can’t lose him.”

Rio regarded you quietly, her expression unreadable. She had seen countless souls come and go. She had met lovers, warriors, and spirits alike, each bargaining for one more breath, one more chance. But she had also never seen you — Suffering herself— here, pleading for a life. You, who had roamed the earth for centuries without attachment, a solitary being who moved through suffering like water, soothing but never bound. 

To see you now, so deeply connected, intrigued her.

Perhaps, she gave you a chance because she once felt this way, too.

“What would you give?” she asked softly, sheathing back her blade.

The answer rose in you, going again your own soul’s warning. 

“I’d give my immortality,” you replied without a second thought. “One day, you can take my soul, too. Just let me live beside him for as long as he has. Let me trade eternity for a single lifetime with him.”

Rio was silent for a long time, her gaze thoughtful, searching. 

“Do you understand what you’re offering?” she asked, her voice a blend of curiosity and pity. “To become mortal is to surrender everything you have known—the ability to exist beyond pain and beyond time itself. You would feel suffering as they do, you would face the limitations of flesh as they do.”

"I’m sure.” you nodded with nothing but conviction, “I would rather face an end, rather give up everything, than live without him for a single moment."

Rio studied you one last time, her stare as vast as the void between stars. Then, slowly, she inclined her head, a flicker of respect in her eyes. 

"When he is gone, I will come for you, too." Her voice softened just a little. "Cherish this life. It is not easily won."

When she vanished, you felt the world shift around you, felt your soul ground itself in ways it never had before. Your body solidified, your senses sharpened, and you felt, for the first time, the steady permanent rhythm of a heartbeat pulsing within your chest. 

You were no longer the Spirit of Suffering, bound to pain and sorrow. You, now permanently, were flesh and blood– human in every sense. 

And for the first time in forever, you felt real— mortal, permanently.

—

Bucky was recovering, weak but alive.

When you knocked on his door, he opened it, his eyes widening in surprise as he saw you standing there, no longer a fleeting vision that appeared in his room.

You walked all the way here, your barefoot aching from the harshness of the concrete.

You were solid, as real as he was, standing on his doorstep with tears in your eyes.

He had never seen you cry before. He wasn't even sure if you could.

"You're… you’re here," he whispered, reaching out as if to touch you, to be certain that you were truly there. His fingers brushed your cheek, feeling the warmth of your skin, and his hand lingered there, his thumb tracing along your cheekbone as if committing this moment to memory. “You feel different,” he murmured, awe in his voice. 

“I’m here to stay,” you said, voice brimming with love you could barely contain, your own hand lifting to cover his. 

He let out a shaky breath, and his eyes searched yours, filling with a warmth and disbelief so deep that it mirrored your own. He pulled you into his arms, holding you as though afraid you might vanish again.

But you didn’t. 

You were here, bathed in sunlight, and real.

You melted into his embrace, feeling the thrumming of his veins against yours, knowing that, finally, your heart would beat alongside his for as long as time allowed.

-end 

I would love to explore this further! Maybe Bucky helps you find a name, maybe even pulls some strings to give you a fake birth certificate and ID. Maybe he realises that time is fleeting and has a courthouse wedding with you ASAP.

Maybe Bucky introduces you to Sam as his wife, and he realises that he’s seen you before, when Riley got shot out of the sky.

Maybe Bucky introduces you to the Thunderbolts* as his wife, and they all would have seen you before, at some point in their life:

Yelena would have seen you when she stood over Nat’s memorial.

Alexei would have seen you when he got separated from his girls for the first time.

John would’ve seen you when he killed that flag smasher with Cap’s shield, grieving Lemar.

Ava would have seen you when she was a kid, phasing out in and out uncontrollably in extreme pain.

Antonia would’ve seen you when the bomb blew on her face.

Or maybe I could explore more of how it affects you. How you now have human guilt to live with, knowing there’s no one out there anymore easing human suffering. Now, you also have to deal with your own human suffering.

Maybe people keep recognising you, keep pointing you out as if they’ve seen a ghost because you once came to them in a time of need.

Maybe you keep your powers? Maybe I should explore how those powers would manifest in a human body?

Anyway, let me know if you’re interested in any of these ideas and I might write them!

[ppssession]

Brain Transplant Project

Adam and Dean are a gay couple who have been living together for 10 years, since they graduated from high school.

Sadly, Dean's death from a terminal illness was a huge blow to Adam, but luckily Adam and Dean were involved in a secret project to transplant a brain into a new body by extracting the brain seeds from the deceased's body. Now, Adam has Dean's brain seeds.

While Adam is trying to find a new body for Dean, he has to help out at a commercial shoot when he finds the body that suits Dean the most: Dew's body.

Dew is a famous actor. Whenever Dew is the presenter for any advertisement, it will definitely be successful.

Adam saw that this was the perfect body for his boyfriend, so he helped arrange a poolside photoshoot. Luckily, the ad was for a supplement that looked exactly like Brain Seeds.

When the opportunity arose, Adam switched supplements with brain seeds. If you don't look closely, brain seeds are very much like supplements.

A lot of the early part of the commercial was the shooting of Dew's body. It made Adam feel really good knowing that this would become his Boyfriend body.

In the last part of the shoot, Dew was eating breakfast and taking supplements. When Dew slowly finished eating, the image of Dew eating brain seeds instead of supplements made Adam smile and smile happily until he couldn't hide it. But Adam had to stay calm. He had to wait until the brain seeds grew and took over Dew's body first.

Several weeks later at Dew's luxurious home, he had a severe stomachache. He thought it was the food he had eaten a few days ago. He chose to rest at home. After taking a nap for a while, Dew felt a strange pain. When he opened his eyes, he found something inside his body, on his chest.

When it went up to his neck, Dew tried to block it with his hands, but he couldn't control his arms as if someone else was controlling it for him.

As something moved up his neck, it moved up to his face. Eventually, his head seemed to fight Dew's brain. Dew's body convulsed and his muscles tensed up. In no time, Dew's body slowly vomited out his brain and he lost consciousness for about five hours. Not long after, Dew's body slowly stood up and used his hands to rub different parts of his body to check it before Dew picked up his phone to call someone.

Adam got a call from Dew to come to his house. He arrived and met Dew at the pool. Hello, my love, Dew said.

Dean, is that you? Adam said with gratitude. Yes, dear, look at me. How handsome is my new body? Dean, who had already taken over Dew's body, said proudly.

The two slowly kissed passionately, their lips meeting each other lustfully.

Dean carried Adam onto the bed in the bedroom before pulling down his pants to reveal his large, erect penis. Dean pulled down Adam's pants as well and placed the tip of his cock at Adam's asshole. Let me try out my new cock, I want to see if it can make my little husband happy.

No sooner had Adam spoken than Dean's thick rod entered Adam's hole, thrusting in and out of Adam's hole without stopping, causing him to gasp for air. Their moans filled the house.

Shit, it still feels good. Dew's voice came out of her throat. Thank you for the new body, my love, before thrusting into her one last time.

Fuck, when Dean groaned for the last time, the semen flowed out of his penis. Dean slowly weakened, looking at Adam's face, who took every drop of him until he fell asleep.

Dean lets Adam sleep and he sleeps too.

When Adam woke up, he went down to the pool and met Dean. Dean turned to him and thanked him again for giving me a new body, my love.

Adam, no need to thank me, Dean. No, I should call you Dew because you're my handsome actor now.

They kissed again. Okay, let's do it again before I have to go film the movie. The schedule saved on my phone told me I had several more hours.

Sure, dear, take as much as you want, Adam agreed before kissing Dean passionately. Make good use of your new body, my love.

Finally, I must confess that I finished writing it a few hours ago, but accidentally deleted it, so I had to rewrite it. Luckily, I still remember most of the content, but I forgot some words, so I had to edit it. It's okay, if you want to change it, it's okay. Haha, I hope you like it. See you in the next story. Bye bye.

[mistreatedangel]

the stars between, theodore nott.

SUMMARY — you were his world, and he was your galaxy.

WARNINGS — nothing but fluff, short and sweet.

AUTHOR NOTE — i did write this off half an hour of sleep. so don’t kill me! written while listening to this song here.

WORD COUNT — 579.

it was more chillier then you thought it would be tonight. shivering in your loose ill—fitting sweater, that was more then two folds bigger then you. the fabric swallowing up your frame casting a blanket over your shoulders.

take a deep inhale, sucking in the air around you. drinking in the sweet scent of woody, a musk like scent with a hint of cigarette smoke.

he was here.

he always was. this was like his second home, a safe space he inclined himself to share, no grace your presence with. his own little paradise. a heaven in the hell you, and half of the students were doomed to live.

the with threat of death, and destruction.

you wouldn't pass up a chance to live a little on the edge, even if you had to share it with an snake. you didn't need that it was him out of all of them.

he was once of the nicer ones, on the eyes and in personality. theodore nott, was a man with a heart of gold. doomed to follow his family foot steps.

"i see your darling friends let you go." he voiced dragging out word darling in a mocking tone, rolling his eyes. flicking the ash from his cigarette on to the railing before him, inhaling the smoke filled air around him. as it burned his lungs in a familiar sensation.

a gentle, almost comforting taste of freedom.

ignoring his word of distain for your friend. closing up on the older male (only by a few months, which he had no problem rubbing in your face ever chance he got.) snatching the cigarette from his frail, skinny hands. taking a few puffs before flicking it to the ground, trapping it beneath your heel, twisting your foot on it. snuffing out the flames.

"rude." he mumbled with half lipped eyes, turning his body towards you. pushing his back against the railing, looking you up and down.

"whatever teddy," you giggled rolling your eyes. pushing his shoulder back. pushing his further into the railing of the astronomy tower.

raising up his eyebrow, in curiosity. "oh so i'm teddy now. what happened to theodore amore mio’? i thought i was in time out." he teased tapping his lips with his index finger, admiring your facial expression.

". . . you know what. yeah— theodore!"

snickering his teeth, waving his index finger back and forth in a taunting gesture. "no it's teddy tesoro'."

pulling your body closer to him, soaking up all your body warmth. he could be like this for days. just laid up in your arms. pushing away the inevitable doom, that seems to be knocking on the doorsteps of the castle.

moving your body around, snaking your arms around the older males torso. digging your nails deep into the Theo's side. which for sure would leave crescent moon marks on his back. a reminder, a claim, a mark that his was yours. and only yours.

"ow— i know you like it rough. but hell woman." Theo hissed slapping at your hands playful. grinning like a mad man. oh how much he loved, no loves you. you were the stars in his bleak skies. the light the shined bright even when the most damn tried to dim your light. there you stood, headstrong. his very own star, a gift from the gods above.

his very own star, you were his world. and he was your solar system.

two pieces made for each—other, destined to fall.

[ivymarquis]

Say You Won’t Let Go

Shower Shenanigans

Pairing| John Price x F!Single Mom!Reader Rating| E Word Count| 2.7k Kinks/Content/Warnings| Zombie!AU, sexual tension, masturbation

First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

It’s still dark out. You feel heavy, limbs weighted down in a way that has nothing to do with your pregnancy and everything to do with the furnace beside you in bed and the heady sensation of comfort rolling over you in waves.

The cold nipping at you has been such a constant you barely notice it until now with its distinct absence.

You’ve never been one to fret over waking in the middle of the night. You know at some point you’ll fall back asleep so blessedly avoid the oh god why can’t I sleep why am I awake cycle that inevitably keeps people up at night.

Despite being separate when you drifted off to sleep, at some point in the night the chill of incoming winter chased the pair of you together under the covers.

You’re on your left side, John behind you with his arm draped across your belly and something at your lower back.

Hello.

Turns out his overall stature and general demeanor isn’t the only thing about him that’s imposing.

There’s a flicker of interest, a small flame that you try to tamper down immediately out of shame and embarrassment.

You’re pregnant, for God’s sake and he’s asleep. Nothing about this is intentional on his end.

You’re just a hormonal cocktail going through dick withdrawals. He’s not interested. This is the kind of bullshit that got you pregnant in the first place.

David- the man who got you into this mess because you most assuredly did not impregnate yourself- had rapidly lost interest once you started to show, and you’ve been focusing on the whole not dying thing so your libido has taken a backseat for the last while.

Hard to worry about rubbing one out with death looming overhead at every turn.

But now?

You’re safe and fed and warm and tucked up against a man who absolutely would turn your head in another life.

You’re being fucking delusional. He’s doing the right thing- the kind thing by trying to take you back with him. Nothing more. Soldiers are supposed to protect civilians, that’s their whole job (you also may or may not be delusional about the moral soundness of someone paid to follow orders and kill on command, but hey, you’re not exactly spoiled for choice here).

He’s just doing his job.

If you were alone in your own bed, perhaps you’d give into the urge to run your fingers across your thigh and reach between your legs- with some effort and wriggling.

Then again, if you were in your own bed you wouldn’t have John’s morning wood pressing against your lower back, so it’s entirely plausible your libido wouldn’t have been reignited.

You try to shift a bit towards the edge of the bed- give yourself some breathing room so you can clear your head and stop being silly.

It doesn’t go well at all.

John seems to be a clingy sleeper. The moment you gain any real space between you his reaction is immediate. The arm draped across your belly locks against you immediately, his other arm looping under and around your neck loosely to pull you back against him.

Surely he must be awake- there’s no way he can react this strongly in his sleep.

He gives absolutely no indication. There’s a short, irate huff as his nose presses against the nape of your neck and reaffirms his hold on you, and then he’s back to snoring lightly in your ear. And little John is right back to pressing against the small of your back.

Well shit. So much for that plan.

You have little option other than to deal with it (or wake him up- you don’t exactly want to go down that particular rabbit hole, however), squirming with the realization that you are wet and trapped and unable to do anything about either.

Despite being clung to and held hostage, you manage to do the only thing that you can in this situation and fall back asleep.

When you wake up John is gone.

It is still warm under the blankets but you have very limited patience to see if he just slipped away for a moment and is coming back soon- Especially with your kid sitting on your bladder.

You can hear him moving around downstairs, so it appears that this part of your routine will not be changing. He leaves you to sort yourself out in the morning in your own time, and waits to bring you down the stairs after you've finished in the bathroom.

Before things went to shit, you were a big fan of hot showers. Nowadays you’re just grateful to have access to running water and you don’t mind the cold near as much as you thought you would. But gone are the days of lingering under the spray and enjoying the heat while you dissociate about work. Now showers are what they always were supposed to be- a measure to get yourself clean. Get in, get done, get out.

You really must be a hormonal cocktail going through withdrawals, however, based on the mess between your legs as you clean yourself up.

Maybe if you just handle it yourself you’ll calm down and stop feeling like a cat in heat.

As your hand moves between your legs, you try to keep an ear out for John.

That somehow he’ll just know that you’re doing something you shouldn’t be, and come to investigate it.

You’re grateful for the water muffling you- the way your breath hitches before a shaky exhale as soon as you touch yourself. Provides some sort of insulation incase John comes to check on you, although you don’t plan on being particularly loud.

It’s been so long since anyone has touched you, including yourself.

There’s a fair bit of maneuvering on your end, trying to find the pose that will best let you get between your legs while standing under the cold spray.

You get it figured out, need and practice having you working yourself up in no time at all.

Back before things went tits up, you had the comfort of your bedroom, a variety of toys, and whatever erotica or porn suited your fancy at the time.

Now, you don’t have more than your imagination but find it to be perfectly up for the task.

At first you’re not thinking much about anything- just enjoying the sensations as you circle your clit. Your other hand reaches to grasp and tease one of your nipples.

Despite the cold water your body is flush and warm between your legs. All the bloodflow heading south.

You can feel the coil tightening in your belly as you work yourself up.

It’s like you hit a plateau though, or a proverbial wall. The pleasure doesn’t fizzle out or taper off but it just won’t quite go where you want it to. Just the physical stimulation isn’t enough to get you off.

You’re numb to the cold, mind wandering as you mentally tab through recollections of your prior go-to fodder, or previous encounters with partners who’d known what they were doing and had done their jobs properly.

That helps, but still isn’t quite enough.

Christ, this is taking too long now. John knows how long you shower for. He’s going to notice if you don’t hurry up.

The thought of John catching you sends a jolt of electricity straight to your pussy.

You absolutely do not want him walking in on you. But the thought of his voice purring low in your ear as he praises you, big hands roaming the expanse of your body as he guides you exactly how he wants you- gruff and taciturn with his orders-

That does the trick, grabbing you by the back of the neck and hurdling you across the finish line.

And God help you, you’re not sure if it’s simply because of how long it had been since you last had any sexual gratification, or if the captain really just has that much of your attention- but the orgasm that rips through you is enough to make your knees buckle.

You’re no stranger to handling your own pleasure but it’s not often you literally make your own legs shake.

You are struck rather quickly with the realization that if you do not sit down, you are going to fall down.

It’s far from graceful, but you manage to land as gently as you can, given the situation.

You’re dazed, completely unrelated to the fall. Good God you’ve been in dire need of relief to have this strong of a reaction to getting yourself off.

Reality comes knocking at the door amid your post masturbatory bliss. The cotton pulls away from between your ears, and the cold settles on you about the same time.

If you don’t hurry up and get yourself dried and dressed, there’s no way John isn’t going to come looking for you.

You reach forward and fiddle with the taps to turn off the water. What you can’t quite do is bring yourself to stand just yet.

You’ll sit for a second and then try to get up. The cold biting at you proves to be an excellent motivator to try soon, as well as the porcelain of the tub. It’s not exactly comfortable so you have no intention of staying here all day.

Just as you take a breath to psych yourself to get your legs back underneath you, the sound of John’s knuckles rapping against the door breaks the silence.

“You plan on coming out sometime today, Love?”

“I’ll be out in a minute!” You hope your voice doesn’t sound too pitched like a child who definitely just got caught with your hand in the cookie jar.

“In your own time, then,” he huffs from the other side of the door and you can just see the pinched expression on his face through the wood. Thankfully though you hear the floorboards creaking as he steps away from the bathroom.

Pleased with yourself that you’ve successfully managed to deter him, you decide now you’re ready to tackle the hurdle of getting back up.

A very pregnant woman on her ass and a wet bathroom does not make for a very good situation, unfortunately.

You’re not very far out of a sitting position when one of your feet slips. It’s a stretch to call it a fall, really. You’re fine.

But when your foot slips, on reflex you move your arm to catch yourself and bang your elbow. The immediate tingling and accompanying unpleasantness is just the old it’s not very funny when you hit your funny bone, but you can’t stifle the reflexive “God fucking damnit” from escaping you unprompted.

There’s no telling which of those was the first to catch his attention, but you hear the floorboards protest his return to the door. “What was that?”

Ah, shit.

“Nothing!” You know your tone isn’t very convincing now, stress pitching it up an octave.

There’s a silence that stretches just long enough that you think maybe- just maybe- that John is going to leave you be.

That thought is dashed immediately when he simply states, “I don’t believe you. I’m coming in.”

“John, no!” You immediately protest. “I’m-” the door opens, his focus on the air space your head would be occupying if you weren’t currently on your ass. “-fine,” you finish lamely as his gaze drops to yours.

The look of are you fucking kidding me is scrawling across his face so plainly it might as well be written in sharpie.

“What the hell happened?” He demands, taking the two strides required to get to you.

“I’m fine!” You protest again (from the ground). “I got dizzy and sat down so I wouldn’t fall.” Not entirely untrue, and mollifies John enough that now his expression is just one of being disgruntled.

While he’s probably just deciding what to do with you, you’re keenly aware of the fact that you are wet and naked and on the floor with him towering over you. It doesn’t do you any good in the slightest but try to draw your limbs up in an attempt for some form of modesty.

“Right,” he seems to have come to a conclusion for how he wants to proceed, “let’s get you back on your feet and dried off before you catch your death.”

Only way out is through, you suppose.

You really, really, really wish he would just turn around and leave so you can salvage your dignity in solitude, but you can also just tell that that isn’t going to be an option. He’s not going to leave you until he’s satisfied you haven’t busted your ass too severely (you didn’t, but you also know it’s a lost cause to try to convince him).

He really does have quite the imposing figure, even as he kneels down to your level to better get a hold of you.

You almost ask for a towel- something for some sort of modesty, some sort of barrier between your wet, naked, vulnerable body and the very man you were thinking about that got you in this scenario to begin with.

Pragmatically you realize it’s not a great idea. It won’t wrap fully around you to cover everything anyway, and your attention should be on getting back on your feet and not worrying about what the towel is doing. It will probably just fall in the impending shuffle anyway.

His hands are gentle with you, despite the various scars suggesting that he is often not a gentle man. Firm enough to get hold of you and make sure you don’t slip away from him without being overbearing.

Much like last night, you can’t bring yourself to look him in the eyes right now. Which is fine, because you can bury your face in the crook of his neck and look past his shoulder like this, avoiding his gaze entirely.

Your arms are around his neck as he positions you how he likes, readjusting his hold on you.

“Feel like you’ve got your legs under you?” He asks, and you huff. “I told you, I’m fine.”

“So she claims despite being on her arse in the bath,” John huffs right back at you before starting to count.

Context clues tell you that “One, two, three,” is your cue to make a go of it.

John’s grip lingers for a moment- “You don’t feel dizzy do you?”- assessing how you feel now that you’re standing. You can’t, in all fairness, begrudge him that as that’s your story for how you ended up on the ground anyway.

“No,” you feel like a broken record insisting you’re fine and decide against continuing to protest against his involvement. “Can I have my towel, please?”

As he releases you to do as you ask, the instability you feel isn’t so much a physical one as one that’s much less tangible.

You’re quick to take the towel from him when he hands it over, eager to have something between you. You feel somewhat less exposed this way, even though it’s not really doing you any good.

It’s like something out of your silly little paperback bodice rippers when he tilts your chin up to look at him. You’re still avoiding eye contact which is likely what prompts him to do this.

The movement gets him the desired result as you instinctively follow his cue to look at him, clinging to the towel like a lifeline.

He’s assessing you, you realize. Sorting out for himself if he believes that you’re actually fine despite your numerous protests.

At a certain point he’s clearly decided that he’ll accept that you’re unharmed.

He clears his throat, satisfied momentarily but still seemingly content with being overbearing.

“I promise I’m fine. I need to get dressed,” its an assurance and a request wrapped together- please leave. You just want to dry off and get your clothes on, and forget that this happened.

The end of the world hasn’t totally knocked away your sense of modesty, and given your recent revelations of how your emotions are just one hormone cocktail regarding John, you can’t quite decide how you feel at the moment.

The caveman grunts, giving you a final once over before turning and leaving, the door clicking shut behind him.

You’re alone now, which is what you want, and naked and cold.

[ot8xbangchansgirlsblog]

𝕃𝕦𝕟𝕒 | ℙ𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕠𝕟𝕖 | ℙ𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕥𝕨𝕠 | ℙ𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕣𝕖𝕖 | ℙ𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕗𝕠𝕦𝕣

Warning: Angst/mention of death/Blood/MPreg/MxM

A/B/O dynamics:

Omega (Han, Felix, Y/n)

Beta (Hyunjin, Seungmin, I.N)

Alpha (Chan, Changbin, Leeknow)

The series might traumatize you. I really hope you guys like it and enjoy it.

Summary - Request; I've just been reading your A/B/O series and it's so so so good. I was wondering if you would accept an ot8 request where their omega gets in trouble with another pack and Straykids are really worried?

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

"Would you like to see Han and Felix?" Hyunjin asked softly, his voice gentle as she rested against his chest. She had just gone through an intense session of cleaning her wounds, and the exhaustion was evident on her face. Her omega side, still unsettled, wasn’t allowing her to heal as quickly as she would have liked.

"C-can I see Han? I’m not sure about Felix," she murmured, glancing up at him, her eyes a little tired and distant. Hyunjin’s hands were slowly running through her hair, his touch tender and soothing.

"Why not Felix?" he asked, his brow furrowing in confusion as he studied her face. The uncertainty in her voice had him puzzled.

"I’m not ready to see him... just know that," she said quietly, avoiding his gaze. Her voice held a firmness, but it was clear there was more to the situation that she wasn’t ready to share.

Hyunjin felt a small shift in her scent—although it still carried that faint offness, it grew even more sour, tinged with something he couldn’t quite place.

"Alright, we don’t have to talk about it," he said softly, understanding that pressing her wasn’t going to help. He leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, the warmth of his lips offering a small comfort. He definitely knew the reason behind her reluctance—it was the pregnancy. He could piece it together now, the signs, the subtle shifts in her behavior. She was still processing it all, and he knew it wasn’t something she wanted to discuss just yet.

He kissed her forehead again, then slid his hand down to her lower back, rubbing soothing circles against her skin. His movements were slow and calming, trying to ease the tension in her body as she lay against him. He could feel her drifting, her body growing heavier with sleep.

"Rest now," he whispered softly. "I’ll be here when you wake up." And with that, he continued to gently caress her back, waiting patiently for her to fall into a peaceful slumber.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

"How is she doing?"

"She's gone back to sleep, Hyung," Hyunjin replied, his voice quiet as he closed Y/N's bedroom door behind him. The soft click of the door echoed in the stillness, but it did little to ease the heavy tension hanging in the air.

"Has she asked for anyone?" Leeknow’s voice trembled slightly, his posture stiff as he glanced anxiously at Hyunjin. His eyes were still a dull gray, and his concern was written all over his face. He hadn’t even tried to calm his own alpha down, knowing it would be pointless. The stress was too much, even for him.

"No, she asked for Han," Hyunjin sighed, rubbing his temples as they walked down the corridor, hand in hand. "Her wounds are taking a long time to heal. That's my worry," he continued, his tone weary and filled with concern.

"Do we need to bring one of the Umma's from the village?" Leeknow asked, looking up at the beta with desperation in his eyes. While Hyunjin was known as the best healer in the pack, the village grandmothers had been the ones tending to their kind for generations—long before Chan had taken over. They were old now, retired from their duties, but Leeknow would do whatever it took. If it meant tracking them down, he'd do it without hesitation.

"No, it’s okay, love," Hyunjin answered, giving Leeknow a soft look. "I can handle it. I just need to go through the ancestral scrolls and find something stronger." He knew that his own abilities had limits, but he was determined to make it work.

"This is serious, Hyunjin," Leeknow’s voice softened, his expression solemn. "Werewolves don't lose pups. If you need help..." He trailed off, his eyes searching Hyunjin's face, trying to gauge the weight of the situation.

For centuries, werewolves were known to have the strongest blood. Miscarriages and abortions were unheard of—something they all took for granted. This was a new, terrifying reality for Hyunjin. He’d never faced something like this before.

"Leeknow, I said it’s okay," Hyunjin snapped, his voice suddenly sharp. "Don’t question my abilities." He growled, stepping back from his alpha, frustration and fear bubbling beneath the surface.

"Hey, watch it," Leeknow’s voice darkened, a quiet warning. No one in the pack—especially not a beta—ever stepped up to him like that. Hyunjin's lip quivered at the reprimand, and finally, he broke.

"I’m sorry, Hyung," Hyunjin whispered, his shoulders sagging. "This is just so messed up. She's broken, completely... and she's slowly rejecting our bond. If she completely rejects us... we could—"

"No," Leeknow interrupted sharply, pulling Hyunjin into a hug. His arms wrapped tightly around him, trying to offer comfort. They sank down onto the bed together, Leeknow gently massaging Hyunjin’s scalp as they sat in silence. "Don't say that," he whispered, his voice cracking with fear. "We just need to find a way to get Chan in there without her... without her freaking out."

"She won’t allow it, she doesn't even want to see Felix because of the pup," Hyunjin said, his voice heavy with defeat. "Her omega is already convinced we did nothing to protect her. Don’t you feel it, babe?" He looked up at Leeknow, his eyes filled with sorrow. The burn in their marks was unmistakable—the sign that one of them was suffering deeply. In this case, it was Y/N.

"I know," Leeknow replied, his voice calm but tinged with sadness. "We’ll be okay, Hyunjin. We just need to figure out a way to keep Felix away for now." He wiped a stray tear from his cheek, trying to stay strong for both of them.

Hyunjin nodded, his hand absentmindedly rubbing the new tattoo on his arm—a symbol of the new life entering their pack. "I don’t know how she’ll handle seeing him. And he can’t seem to stop begging to see her," he said quietly. "I’m second in command, but right now, it feels like I’m failing," Leeknow sighed.

"We’re in this together," Hyunjin reassured him softly. "We just need to distract him—take him down to the streams or the village to play with the kids, or get him to do some charity work. Anything to keep him occupied."

"Yeah," Leeknow agreed, his voice low. "Right now, he's out shopping for the baby with I.N." He let out a small sigh. "At least he’s not here making things worse."

A heavy silence fell between them, thick with unspoken fears. They were still going to be dads, even though they had just lost one of their pups. The harsh reality was settling in—life had to move on, whether they were ready or not.

"Are Chan and Changbin Hyung back?" Hyunjin asked, trying to focus on something else, anything else.

"No," Leeknow replied. "They went with the hyungs to track and hunt the rogues. They told me to stay and watch over everything." So that was where Chan and Changbin had disappeared to—off with the elders, tracking rogues in the forest.

"Alright," Hyunjin said, standing up and stretching. "I’m going to go check on her again. If you find Han, tell him to come, but only if he's strong enough." Hyunjin let go of Leeknow's hand slowly, his fingers lingering for a moment.

"Okay," Leeknow said, his voice firm, though still quiet. "Be strong for me, okay? I’m just down the stairs if you need me." He gave Hyunjin a final look, his aura shifting to something darker, more protective.

"Okay, Hyung. I love you."

"I love you too," Leeknow replied, his voice soft but steady.

When Leeknow finally found Han, he was in the kitchen with Seungmin, both of them busy preparing food for their mates. The smell of freshly cooked dishes filled the room, but Leeknow wasn’t focused on that. He had something important to say.

"Hey, Hannie?" Leeknow called out, his voice soft but urgent.

Han immediately looked up, his large eyes filled with hope and concern.

"Yes, Hyung, is she okay? Does she need anything? Do you need anything?" Han stopped what he was doing, his full attention now on Leeknow, worry evident in his voice.

Leeknow paused for a moment before responding, his own heart heavy with the weight of what needed to be done.

"Babe, I think it's time for you to go try talking to her," Leeknow informed him gently but firmly.

Han's eyes widened, and he took a step back, shaking his head slightly as panic started to creep in. "Are you sure? Is it not too early? What if she panics? What if I make it worse?" His hands were shaking, his chest pounding with nerves, and he felt the pull of his omega instincts—loud and demanding.

Go. Go. Omega needs us. Mate needs us. Now.

Han's eyes flickered gold, his omega taking control, the familiar surge of instinct filling his veins.

"She needs you, Han. She needs an omega by her side," Leeknow said, his voice calm but filled with quiet conviction. "I believe in you."

Han didn’t hesitate any longer. His omega instincts were too strong, and his heart ached knowing Y/N needed him. He quickly gathered his thoughts and began to pack away the food, giving Seungmin a quick kiss on the cheek before leaving for upstairs.

The walk to her door felt like an eternity. His mind raced, unsure of what to say or do. He grabbed anything he could find—clothes from different rooms—knowing he needed to build a nest for her. He was determined to make her feel safe, to make her feel loved.

When Han finally reached the door, the room was dark, the only light coming from a dimly lit lamp on the nightstand. Y/N was in the center of the bed, Hyunjin holding her close, his hand gently stroking her hair. Han stood there for a moment, gathering his thoughts, before Hyunjin looked up at him and nodded, signaling for him to come closer.

Y/N stirred as she felt a new presence in the room. Her senses were sharp, and as soon as she caught the new scent—one that was familiar and comforting—her heart skipped. She didn’t know what to expect. The fear of rejection still clung to her. She was certain that they might hate her now, that they might blame her.

When her golden eyes met Han’s, all her worries seemed to collapse. Without thinking, she bolted upright, her hands reaching out toward him. The moment their eyes met, her tears began to fall freely, her body shaking with the weight of her emotions.

"Hannie," she sobbed, her voice breaking as she reached for him. "Please... I don’t know if you’re angry at me... Please don’t hate me."

Han’s heart shattered at the sight of her, her vulnerability hitting him harder than he expected. He wasted no time. Without a second thought, he crawled into the bed beside her, throwing the clothes he had gathered into Hyunjin’s hands. He wrapped his arms around her, scenting her gently but urgently. He wanted to erase any trace of the pain and trauma still clinging to her scent, to make her feel safe and loved again.

"I’m sorry," she whispered, her voice hoarse as she clung to him, desperately needing his presence, his comfort.

"Shhh," Han murmured, his voice thick with emotion. "There’s no reason for you to apologize. This is not your fault." He cupped her face gently, staring deep into her eyes, his own eyes filled with sorrow. "I’m so sorry this happened to you," he whispered, placing a tender kiss on her forearm. All she could do was cry. She had missed him so much.

"I love you," she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper, but the weight of the words was clear.

"I love you too," Han replied, his voice firm and full of resolve. "Forever, okay? I’m never letting you out of my sight. Whoever did this to you... I hope Chan Hyung rips their head off and keeps it as a trophy."

Y/N couldn’t help but let out a shaky breath, her scent slightly souring as she pulled him closer. "I’m okay now, Han. I promise," she whispered, trying to convince herself as much as him. "As long as I’m back home, that’s all that matters now."

Han’s heart twisted with guilt. She wasn’t angry at them, wasn’t holding any of this against them. She was trying so hard to stay strong, even though it was clear that she was breaking inside. He just couldn’t understand why she wasn’t angry with them for not protecting her, for not doing more. But right now, none of that mattered. He just wanted to hold her. He just wanted her to feel safe.

He pulled her closer, burying his face in her hair, allowing himself to just feel her. "I’m not going anywhere, Y/N," he whispered.

"I'm sitting right in the corner if you need me," Hyunjin said softly, his voice laced with concern as he sat quietly by the door.

Y/N sniffled, her eyes swollen from the tears she had cried. She looked up at him, her face twisted with a mixture of exhaustion and vulnerability. "Hyunjinnie, go get some real rest," she urged, her voice gentle but firm. "Eat something, take a hot shower, and nap. I promise, I’m right here with Han."

Hyunjin shook his head, his eyes soft but unwavering. "Y/N, I told you I wouldn’t leave."

She sighed, her gaze softening as she reached for his hand, giving it a comforting squeeze. "You’re not leaving," she assured him, her voice growing steadier. "I’m right here with Han. You’ve been working nonstop, looking after everyone. Please, take care of yourself; I promise nothing will happen."

Hyunjin stood still for a moment, taken aback by how calm and composed she sounded now. It gave him a flicker of hope, but the worry still gnawed at him. He felt the weight of everything, the endless worry and exhaustion, but hearing Y/N speak so firmly made him feel a bit more confident in leaving her alone for a while. Still, he hesitated.

"Okay... I’ll be back in a bit," Hyunjin finally said, his voice a bit strained. "Han, if anything happens, call me." His eyes lingered on Y/N one last time before he leaned down to kiss both of them on the forehead.

"I will, trust me, Hyung," Han reassured, his voice calm but filled with an undercurrent of concern. Hyunjin gave one last glance to the pair, the tension in his chest easing slightly. As he exited the room, he felt a small sense of relief knowing Y/N was opening up to Han. That was a step in the right direction.

Once the door clicked shut behind him, Han let out a slow breath, turning back to Y/N. His voice softened, almost a whisper, as he gazed down at her. "Baby," he murmured, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. "How come I can't feel you in the bond anymore?" The question had been haunting him for hours, and now it was out in the open.

Y/N’s eyes flickered, her breath hitching as she looked up at him. The bond between them had been a silent connection, one that had always been there, pulsing with warmth and reassurance. But now... it was nothing but a cold, distant feeling.

"I don't want you to feel my pain," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Felix is pregnant... That would put a strain on him, and I just can't handle the alphas right now. I don't want to deal with all of it." She closed her eyes, trying to keep herself composed, but the ache in her chest was impossible to ignore.

Han’s heart ached as he gently ran his fingers through her hair, his touch soft and soothing. "Oh, but you know that Chan and the alphas never meant to hurt you," he said quietly. "They’ve been beating themselves up over it, not forgiving themselves for what happened. They’ve been looking for you nonstop, Y/N."

"I don’t want to talk about it," she whispered, shaking her head, her body tense against him. "Haven’t I been through enough?" Her voice trembled as she nuzzled her face into his collarbone, seeking solace in his scent.

Han paused, the weight of her words sinking in. "Yes, you have," he said softly, his voice filled with guilt. "I’m sorry." He held her close, his heart heavy with the knowledge that she was still carrying the weight of everything that had happened. "But you’ll have to face Felix eventually," he said, his tone gentle but firm. "He’s been really worried about you."

Y/N stiffened at the mention of Felix, her hands instinctively moving to her stomach. The emptiness that had settled in her chest the moment they lost their pup seemed to fill her again, like an overwhelming wave of grief. "I’m just not ready," she whispered, her voice breaking. "I can’t bear to see him carrying our pup."

Han’s heart clenched painfully at her words. "Our pup," he corrected softly, as though trying to remind her, to ground her in the reality that they still had a future, that they still had each other. "Don’t forget... you’re still the mother of that baby." The words felt heavy, but they needed to be said.

Y/N shuddered, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks as she turned her face away from him. "Han, please... enough," she pleaded, her voice trembling with the weight of it all. "I can’t take it."

"Shhh," Han whispered, pulling her closer into his embrace. His heart was breaking at the sight of her distress, and guilt gnawed at him for bringing it all up. "It’s okay, get some rest." He gently rubbed her back, trying to comfort her. "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I know I’ve made it worse."

The guilt in his chest was suffocating, and his omega instincts were furious at him for making her cry, for causing her even more pain.

"Please... be patient with me," she murmured, her voice barely audible now as she drifted into a fitful sleep, the exhaustion from everything weighing her down.

Han stayed still, watching her with pained eyes, his hand resting gently on her back. As she slowly drifted off, he kissed her forehead softly, his heart breaking in his chest. "I’m so sorry," he whispered to her, his voice full of love and regret. "I’ll be here. Always."

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

"Where's Han?" was the first question I.N asked when they all sat down for dinner. His eyes quickly scanned the room, but the empty seat beside him didn’t go unnoticed.

"He's upstairs with Y/n," Hyunjin answered, clearing his throat, trying to keep his tone casual.

"He's with Y/n?" Felix perked up immediately, his eyes widening in surprise. "How come? Did she ask for me?" His voice was hopeful, almost eager, but it was clear he didn’t fully understand the situation.

Hyunjin glanced over at Lee Know, seeking some help in explaining the situation. Lee Know, sensing the tension, stepped in.

"S-she… uh, right now we just don’t want to overwhelm her, so we sent Han in to check on her," Hyunjin said, his voice faltering slightly. He couldn’t help but feel a sharp pang of guilt in his chest for lying, even if it was to keep things calm.

"Oh..." Felix frowned, his shoulders slumping. "Can I go in next?" he asked, his voice filled with concern, his food now completely forgotten. The worry in his tone was impossible to ignore.

"How about we finish dinner first?" Lee Know interjected smoothly, "Then we’ll see if she’s awake."

Felix nodded reluctantly, but let out a sigh of frustration. "Okay, that's fine. I just really hope she’s okay," he muttered, looking down at his untouched plate.

"How was shopping?" Hyunjin asked, eager to change the subject and distract everyone from the tension surrounding Y/n.

"It was okay," Felix replied, though he seemed distracted. "I just wish you guys could’ve come. I wonder when Chan and Changbin-hyung will be back," he pouted, poking at his food absentmindedly.

"Eat, babe, you haven’t been eating," I.N scolded softly, noticing how little Felix had touched his meal. Felix let out a tiny whimper, not expecting to be called out.

"I’m not hungry…" Felix mumbled, his gaze shifting from his food to his mates.

"Eat," Seungmin teased, his voice light but firm. "I worked hard on this."

Felix couldn’t help but smile, the teasing tone breaking through his mood. "Okay, for you, I will," he replied, taking a small bite of his food, though his mind was clearly still elsewhere.

The room went silent again as everyone fell into their own thoughts, the tension still lingering like an unspoken weight.

Suddenly, Lee Know’s posture stiffened, and his chopsticks clattered to the table as he stood up abruptly. His instincts were on high alert as he felt the bond feel heavy. His alpha was urging him to go outside.

Someone was on their territory.

"They’re home," he said, his voice sharp with urgency.

Without waiting for anyone else, he bolted for the door, his footsteps echoing through the house.

"Hyung wait up!" Hyunjin was right behind him, and the rest of the group slowly stood up, following in a mix of confusion and concern.

When Lee Know reached the driveway, his eyes went wide. He saw Chan and Changbin coming down the path, both of them covered in blood, their faces exhausted and drained. Their clothes were torn, and it was clear they had just been through something rough.

"What the hell?" Lee Know gasped, rushing to support Chan, while Hyunjin quickly stepped in to help Changbin.

"What happened?" Hyunjin asked, his voice tight with worry, his hand resting on Changbin's shoulder to steady him.

Chan gave a weary glance at his mates, blood dripping from a cut on his arm, but his lips remained pressed into a thin line as if he wasn’t sure whether to explain or keep quiet. The silence between them only deepened the worry growing in the others.

Lee Know glanced at Hyunjin, his expression grim. "We need to get them inside," he muttered, helping Chan to steady himself as they slowly made their way inside. The rest of the group followed behind, trying to make sense of the situation but knowing it would have to wait until later.

"we killed them."

well...fuck.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

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[painted-flag]

OF FLOWERS AND DEATH - aemond targaryen

Chapter 16: Every Little Thing

☾⋆⁺₊✧ dark elf!Aemond Targaryen x f!human!reader series. ✧₊⁺⋆☾ series masterlist. ☾⋆⁺₊✧ word count: 4.3k ✧₊⁺⋆☾ series warnings: 18+ depictions of violence/gore, eventual smut, warfare, sickness/disease, some moments of misogyny, and mentions of alcohol consumption. ☾⋆⁺₊✧ Death's hand extends towards the unwilling.

You carefully put on an intricate gown made for you. As you were back at the capital, you had worn their elvish clothes for the first time since you left on the trip. The journey to Lake Rosemange was spent in your more modest human clothes. You had thought it was a welcome feeling, but it did not hold a candle to the feeling you had wearing the soft and luxurious elvish fabrics. Amara had chosen the gown as you broke your fast with them in your room. It had been a while since you could speak to them and was refreshing. 

“Imagine her surprise when he returned with another’s undergarment in his pocket!” Liriel had spoken. The two had been catching you up on courtly gossip. As much as you wanted to not partake in such gossip to maintain a more elevated persona, you could not help but revel in it. The scandals all lured you in. It was far more entertaining than any town square shows put on where you had lived. 

As Amara tied the laces on the back of your dress, your gaze swept up to your bed. Within the pillowcases lay the scouting record and book found in Cole’s room. Thinking of it made your throat close and muscles tighten. When Amara stepped back and went to join her wife on the settee, you sucked in a breath. 

“I think I’ll choose my jewellery for the day.” The underlying meaning behind your words was not lost on the two elves. You wished for a moment of solitary peace. They got up from their seats and bid you a quick goodbye. 

When they had left, you made your way to the vanity. While scanning over your options, your eyes kept moving toward where the scouting log and Cole’s book were kept. Your fingers brushed over the cool metal of a necklace you found particularly pleasing and knew it would compliment the expanse of the bare neck that was exposed from the dress. You put it on and then walked to your bed. 

The items were calling to you. You shakily pulled them both out from under the pillows and laid them on the plush blanket of your bed. You dragged your finger across the black cover and ruminated on the information Aegon had gathered. The whole night was spent drifting in and out of sleep. You were reeling from the information. Cole was one being you knew was not trustworthy. He was slimy and vile, but was there really enough hate in him to be a purveyor of the dark arts? 

You were caught between multiple points. You wished to mourn; for your father, Lyra, and everyone else who had perished from the taint. Yet your body was pulled towards your duty as a healer and passion as a researcher to find a cure no matter the cost, regardless of your health and sanity. Then, more recently, another point had driven itself into your chest. It was a matter of a single blue eye that threatened to swallow you each time you gazed into it. The point, driven like an anchor, pushed you overboard and into murky waters; pulling you down from all those other cares to think of nothing but him alone. 

The gods had been cruel, exceptionally so, to test your patience by sending such a siren call in the form of Aemond.

You once again scanned the items in front of you. There was something there. There is some underlying meaning behind the discovery of this information. It was a trickery. The scout's log showed Cole’s presence in the area and the book was damning that he was capable of some kind of evil – or at the very least an untrustworthy interest in darker things. The main cause of your distress was Aemond’s possible part to play in all of it. He and Cole were nearly inseparable, always talking to one another. There was a strong bond, one which would naturally lead to sharing information between one another. 

During your thinking, a knock on the door jolted you out of it. While you normally would have made haste to hide the items, your brain had been working overtime as of late. It led to you not caring much at all anymore. You looked over your shoulder to see Aemond walking into your room. You turned your head to the bed, keeping your back facing him. You could not look at him. 

Cole likely played a part in hurting – nay killing – your father; to which Aemond could have known about it.

It would suit Aemond not to tell you. The taint was a burden on both kingdoms. He could use you for your talents, recognizing that they may have made a mistake in killing your father before he could find a solution. He planned to have you make the cure, or at least get close, and then dispense you. Your kingdom would be none the wiser of such misdeeds and a conflict would be avoided. The elf kingdom could use the cure on themselves only and sit back as your people died out. 

That was the ultimate goal of the Great War so many centuries ago – at least what had been taught to you. 

You steeled yourself and crossed your arms to soften your emotions, “What can I do for you, your grace?” You wanted him to leave before you broke down – before you confessed all that you discovered and demanded an answer. Though you knew, it was far too late to go back. His presence alone weakened you. You were beholden to Aemond and thus unable to keep anything from him.

“I was coming to check on how you were settling back in,” Aemond answered. You wanted to scoff at his possible fake care, but at the same time fall into his arms. The supposed dichotomy between the two mocked you with similarity. 

“Everything is good, my things have been unpacked.” You responded as you looked out the large windows of your room and towards the garden. 

“I did not mean your things,” His footsteps sounded closer as he walked further into your room, “I meant, how are you handling everything? With Lyra…” 

You sucked in a breath and held back the tears that threatened to spill. Your lungs shuddered, but you remained steadfast in your bubbling malcontent. You could sense him standing at the bottom of the three steps that led up to the loft area of your room where your bed and personal study were. 

“I’m still mourning,” You then turned to face him and looked down upon his form. Seeing him, the unadulterated care in his eyes and softened face made you question your knowledge. Surely, this could not have been all a ruse? Surely he is not such a good actor as to make you fall for these falsities.  

“Of course, I–” Aemond had begun, but you cut him off. 

“But I’m mourning my father as well,” Aemond gave you a questionable look, as the last conversation with your father ended on the mutual understanding that he could still be alive, “I know he’s dead.” 

“Why would you say such a thing?” Aemond placed one of his feet on the steps as if to walk up to you, but saw you take a step back. Your flinch looked as though it slapped him, for he took his foot off the step and moved his hands behind his back to show he was not a threat. His eye seemed to flit about your room with nervousness. 

“You told me there were no reports of humans in that area in the last century and I was stupid to believe it.” Your voice was just above a whisper and cracked by the end. It was not fair to accuse him of what you were thinking, but in your grief, you made stupid decisions. 

“I told you the truth of it. What would I gain by lying to you?” Aemond responded. 

“A victory. My father murdered by Cole then another human to use for a cure and then dispose of when the time comes. Once done, you can protect the elven kingdom and watch mine burn, as some kind of late victory from the Great War.” It was wrong to throw that at him, so terribly wrong; especially how he had poured his heart out to you on why such a war started. However, your mind was clouded with mismatched pieces of evidence that you struggled to string together coherently. 

A shift was made in Aemond’s continence, “You think this is some plot to destroy your kingdom? You accuse my good friend and ally of murder?”

“That day in the forest, when you saved me, you told me that every little thing is out to kill.” It felt so long since that day, but truly only a month ago. The way his sword was aimed at your neck came back into your mind, vivid and clear. He had only spared you, just slightly, and you were supposed to be thankful for it. Like not killing you was a gift. Perhaps, he should have just done the job and been rid of you. Now, the same look you gave him after such a threat was directed at you; confusion, shock, and a little bit of fear from Aemond. 

“There were plenty of times in which I could have killed you, but I didn’t. Now I know you are angry and confused but…” He paused and backed up, his eye darting around to not look at you, “I revealed parts of myself to you that…” His voice got caught in his throat.

“Words said in heat are often more destructive than battles.” It was a whisper, as if he was recalling it from a deep memory from his past. His hands tightened into fists and he leaned on the balls of his feet, “I have told you the truth as you are my friend. Let us not fight when tensions are high. We shall talk later.” 

You wanted to scream at him, to lug one of the pillows on your bed directly at his head. How could he be so reasonable? Gods, why was he so reasonable? You wanted confrontation. With it, you could get answers. However, all Aemond did was look at you. His face held traces of grief but still had pieces of reverence. It was heavy, the way he gazed upon you with such fondness and an equal amount of intense emotional pain.

Aemond nodded before swiftly turning to exit your room. His hair swerved with him. The sound of the door closing, bordering on a slam, was what broke you. Tears escaped your eyes and you had to hold up your body on the bed from collapsing. 

Clarity instantly washed over you in one giant wave. Aemond had been nothing but forthright with you – especially since he revealed the origin of his scar. He was rude at first, but there was a perfectly clear reason why. Yet, you had taken that and thrown it in his face. The wave of clarity that washed over you swept back into the ocean of your emotions, leaving behind a shell in the sand of your mind. 

The shell shined and held a simple truth within it. The answer to the one burning question that was always piqued when Aemond would look or talk to you. It always bugged you, that you could not find a reason why your heart would beat quicker and heat would wash over your face. 

You were falling in love. 

It was not what you expected. All your life, a simple path had been laid in your mind. Meet someone, gradually come to like them, and then eventually build the foundations of love. It would be calm and come slowly. There would be time to adjust to it. The motions of the ocean would gently lick at your feet as the tide rose over time. 

Yet, Aemond came and built up a storm; water eroding rock and pummeling the sand. While violent, his storm would never harm you, but you had just harmed him. You could not say you were in love, but there was no denying that it had begun to wrap you in its embrace. 

You shoved the items back under your pillow haphazardly and then moved quickly down the steps and toward your door. You needed to get out of that room – to get away from what just happened. You shakily walked down the dark stone hallways of the castle and towards the laboratory.

Here, you could think clearly and devise a plan to apologize to Aemond. 

You walked to the main study desk and rested your hands against the worn wood. You looked out at all of the items and ingredients laid on the surface, including some of the recent samples you collected from Lake Rosemagne. 

While looking at the ingredients that composed all your recent experiments, including the one that successfully halted the taint, all you could think about was what the book found in Cole’s room and the scouting record. Images of the pages moved across your vision when you had flipped through it. The page you had stopped on with the mortua terra flower and a crude sketch of Lake Rosemagne settled in you. 

Your eyes squinted as you took in all the items in front of you. There was a scratching at the back of your brain; an itch that got worse and worse. It was there, like the forgotten phrase on the tip of one’s tongue. There was an answer clawing at you through a murky haze. Your gaze moved from the vials of lakewater that were collected, then moved to the mortua terra flower, and then it drifted towards another table in the laboratory. 

In a small vase was the elf azure flower. It had been your preferred perfume scent when you came to this kingdom. There was always a vase full of them in the lab, you had made sure of it. You had noticed them growing in the forest when you came back from a short trip out to your home with Aemond. His words came to mind when you glanced at the budding flowers. 

Giēñagon syt se gīs.

Cure for the soul.

That was the elf superstition. Yet, wisdom oft comes from superstitious knowledge that had been passed down for longer than earth's memory. Like a shot arrow, an idea hit you like never before in your life. 

Of course.

Of course, it makes so much sense.

You had been correct in assuming that a cure would need two big components that cancel one another out. At first, it was the poison against poison, which only lasted for a few seconds. Then you tried using dark magic against itself, which halted the spread of the taint in both plant and body but was not a definite cure. What if you used another arena to fight in? Instead of using the infected host as a fighting ground for the potion to act against, would it not be worth it to have the fight be in the potion itself? 

The mortua terra plant against the elf azure flower. The mortua terra was a symbol of death, but the elf azure meant light. 

In Cole’s book, you saw a drawing of what looked like the outline of Lake Rosemagne with the mortua terra flower and a myriad of weird symbols and sketches. If you used the lake water as a base – for it is believed to have balancing powers – it would have to make some form of an impact as they were on opposite sides of the magic spectrum.

This was truly a new frontier for you, but you were determined to follow it through. You wasted no time in expertly assembling all of the ingredients you would need. Your hand grabbed a nearby stick to transfer the flame from one of the torches on the wall. You lit up the bottom portion of a holder for one of the empty cauldrons. Then you took a sample of water from Lake Rosemange and brought it to a calm simmer. 

You followed out with the rest of the ingredients that made the complete base for your last experiments that had been tweaked by Daeron to be stronger. The whole time, your hands had been shaking slightly and you had to take a few breaks to calm down. This morning and the day prior had been a whirlwind of emotions. They compounded in you, but you swallowed it all down to do your work. This was not a brew you wanted to mess up. 

The last step was the two flowers. You put on gloves to handle the mortua terra and plucked a few of the petals off of it, which gleaned a light purple in the dull torchlight.

Just as you were going to place them in the brew, the door to the laboratory opened. Your back was to it, but you could tell that this time in the mourning was around when Daeron would start his day and assumed he had come in.

“I’ve just had the biggest epiphany. It was all wrong, well, it was all correct as well. It's hard to explain, but I think using the water from Lake Rosemagne in combination with mortua terra and elf azure has the possibility of making real change,” You received no response, but truly it did not bother you. So much of your attention and energy was going into this. 

When the silence dragged on, you continued, “This just might work, Daeron. Gods, what if it does?” You plopped the dark petals in the water and went to reach for the azure. After, you would need to cut your hand. 

“I did not think you would figure it out so quickly.” It was not Daeron’s voice, but a deeper, more venomous one. You halted in your ministrations and turned around. There Cole stood with a look of wroth in his eyes. In his hands was his tome and a copy of the scouting papers. He had been in your room and you could not help but wonder just how often he had done that before.

He held up the items, “You think I'm stupid enough to not notice these went missing?” 

You swallowed hard and backed against the desk. There was no other means of escape for you except the other door on the other side of the room that led to the sick hall. However, its distance was just far enough that if Cole were to run he would get you before you could even call for help. 

“You said it, not I.” You spoke. There were a million scenarios that came into your head. Ways he would kill you, possibly knock you out to take you away and torture you. There was no happy ending – not even a tame one. His actions confirmed an underlying suspicion of yours. He not only was dabbling in the dark arts but had something to do with the taint. 

“You think you’re funny?” He stepped forward. 

“From time to time, I do have some good quips. What the hell were you doing in my room?” You confronted. On the inside, you were quaking like a leaf, but you could not show it. Cole would not see your fear. 

“I could ask you the same thing. This book was in my room.” Cole responded. You could not out Aegon as your accomplice, you could not stomach putting him at risk any more than he was for helping you. This was your burden, not his. He was only being a good friend. 

“What are you doing with a personal journal on dark magic?” You hit him back with that one. His gaze darkened and he dropped his held-up arm with the items still clutched feverishly. 

“I’ve told you before, humans should stop trifling in matters that do not concern them. Bad things can befall such… unsuspecting souls.” You could not tell what it was, but there was some underlying meaning beneath his words; a sick joke embedded in his malcontent. 

You were in danger. You could feel the imminent dread claw its way through your body. In the corner of your eye, there was a wooden box on the table that held a bunch of loose-leaf pieces of parchment, ink bottles, and quills. You and Daeron shared similar scattered minds and often needed to quickly jot things down and could not wait to find your journals lest the idea slipped from your mind. 

If you could grab that and throw it at him, it may give you enough time to run to the door and get away or at the very least scream for help in an area that may be heard. He seemed to catch on to your wandering eye and clue together what you were thinking.

In a split second, he dropped the items to run to you, but by then you had grabbed the box and thrown it at his face. The ink and flying parchment temporarily blinded him and you made for the door to the sick hall. 

After just a step, searing pain hit your side. You stumbled and stopped running, the air in your lungs having been knocked out by the force. You felt a weird mix of pain and numbness. Looking down, you could see the hilt of a dagger poking out from your side. Your shaking hands reached down to feel the escaping blood. You looked back up to see Cole with a curled sneer as he observed you.

Cole moved forward. You barely stumbled back by the time he used one hand to grip your throat and hold you in place while the other went to grasp the knife’s handle. 

“Your kind lives for so little, yet take so much.” He drove the knife further into you which caused you to cough violently at the intense anguish. Cole released his hold and you dropped to the ground among the strewn-out mess you made. All you could do was sob out, every ability to move your body had stopped.

He kneeled to be in your vision, “You will bleed out, just like your father.” 

Ice washed over you. He not only played a part in the creation of the taint, but he had murdered your father. Likely because he had been near Lake Rosemagne – one of the vital ingredients in the cure. It made you feel sick that he died simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

A genius who strived to make a difference by helping people had been killed by a coward. 

“You fucking bastard,” You coughed out. You made a futile attempt to move towards him, possibly hitting him, but it was difficult to even move. 

“Ah, but at least I’ll live. As an added benefit, it's laced with the taint.” Cole taunted. As if stabbing you was not enough, he had put some of the taint on it to be sure you would die. There was no limit nor measure of hate this elf would not cross. 

Another thought came to you. Aemond had been telling the truth and had no clue about your father's murder. Most of all, he had no inkling to Cole’s misdeeds. The closest member of his council was seeking to kill the world for reasons unknown to you. 

He will never know, you thought. This was it. You were dying. Cole pulled out the knife that had been stopping most of the blood flow. He then stood up and made his way to the exit, giving you no more words. 

The fucking coward could not even see it through before leaving the scene. 

You needed to warn Aemond and everyone else. You needed to pass on the idea for the cure. As much as you wanted to get Cole for what he had done to your father, that held little importance when compared to the rest of the realm. Your hand waved around the floor to find a quill. You scrambled for some parchment and dragged the tip of the quill through a blot of spilled ink. Your hands could not still, but you wrote with a frantic nature as you bled out on the ground. There would be no time to write out a step-by-step guide, but some hints would do. 

Mother’s flower, 

Lake water, 

Every little thing, 

You hoped it would be understood by Aemond. You could not risk outright writing that Cole was a traitor for fear that he would see it and immediately hide the evidence. With this, at least there was a chance. The flower that Aemond’s mother adored, the azure, in combination with the lake water was the key additives to the previous experiment. The final line was more personalized, hinting at the words of advice he had given you – aimed at exposing Cole. Your vision became darker as spots clouded it.

He would piece it together, you knew he would. 

You turned around to lay on your back and stretched out your arms. The parchment you had written in was clutched in your hand. You closed your eyes and waited. This was not how you ever thought you would go out. Like many, you had hoped it would happen at the end of a long and satisfying life in which you went to sleep and never woke up. 

You were too young for this, but alas, Lyra was also young and your father was too kind for the deaths they faced. 

Nothing was ever fair. You took in one last breath; a slow inhale where you could smell the floral scent of the azure flowers that filled the room. Shortly after, you exhaled your last breath. With it, your consciousness fled.

Chapter 17: The Winds of War Preview

Again, that was not unusual. However, when he knocked again with a little more force to make sure he was heard, Aemond was surprised by the slow creaking it made as it opened. It was ajar, which was unusual. His fingers gripped the handle and he pushed it open. His gaze was lowered and noticed the strewn about papers at first. His brow furrowed as he scanned the area further until… 

Gods no… 

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[cheer-nympho]

The older kids all have wills.

Nancy, Robin, Steve and Jonathan, ages 18 to 21, all have wills tucked away in various boxes under beds and behind wardrobes.

Their similarities only extending to the fear felt when writing them, mixed with resigned acceptance. A common feeling of “Man, it sure is sad that my late teenage years are spent contemplating the very real possibility of gruesome early death, I should be at the club.”

But in every other aspect they are completely different.

Nancy’s was written on a cream notepad with dainty flowers surrounding the border. Written from a view of logic and forward planning, a need to protect her family. All of the demands straight to the point, no nonsense.

Warped only by the small tear stains across the bottom.

Robin’s was clearly written in a panic, barely legible handwriting on a ripped off lined sheet.

Written after she read an article about a man whose boyfriend was refused access to him after his death because there was no will.

She refused to leave anyone in the dark like that.

Jonathan’s was the most emotional, surprisingly. But most of that emotion was palpable anger, the word “nothing” pressed so hard into the yellow paper next to Lonnies name it had almost ripped the page.

Even if it was the last thing he did, Jon would keep Lonnie away from them.

Steves was written begrudgingly, more out of a need to prevent his parents from tossing it all. They weren’t around to know about Robin or the kids, wouldn’t know he’d promised Lucas the car or Max his records.

They weren’t evil people, they just didn’t know. This way they would.

They hadn’t spoken about it in advance, hadn’t co-ordinated it or hidden them together like a morbid friendship pact. They had all just at some point come to the realisation that, given their current lives, it may one day be necessary.

Eddie had not had that thought.

Eddie Munson had many thoughts.

He had thoughts on the disease of pop music sweeping the last worthwhile radio station, he had thoughts on the price increases in his favourite gaming store in Indy, he had thoughts on selling enough stock to buy a new trailer gas canister.

What he very rarely had thoughts on was death.

It took a lot for him to say that these days, considering where he’d been not too many years ago. But these days the only thoughts on death he had were more abstract and fleeting, nothing more than the average schmuck.

And even if the thought would have crossed his mind, he would have shrugged it off with a ‘Wayne knows what to do.’

He had no other family and, as far as Eddie was concerned, nothing particularly valuable to single out to anyone. He may need one of the guys to burn the shoebox hidden under his bed, but that could be a more verbal agreement between bros.

So Eddie didn’t have a will.

Didn’t have a plan, didn’t have the worry.

And it’s not until he’s lying on his back, being cradled by a child that frankly should not have to see the insides of Eddies stomach, that he remembers that.

It rushes to him in a panic, the thoughts feeling slow and syrupy but in reality only taking a split second.

He needed to write a will.

He needed Wayne to know that Eddie /wanted/ him to have everything, not just given it by family rights.

He needed to write Dustin in, and Corroded Coffin, maybe even some random shit for all the other nerds.

A donation to Hawkins Church to really confuse them, not that Eddie would be leaving any money behind. Maybe they could have his guitar.

When he got back he would write it up on the finest non-scrunched up paper he could find.

When he got back he would take care of it all.

But that was a job for later Eddie, right now he really needed to sleep.

He could see Dustin crying above him but that was okay, he’d take care of it when he woke up.

When he wakes up he’ll take care of it all.

When he wakes up he’ll write his will.

When he wakes up.

[castiwls]

Chicken noodle soup .ᐟ

Paring; coach!patrick x single mom!reader

Synopsis; flu season is a bitch. Luckily you have two boys who seem pretty keen on helping you.

Notes; I may start a tag list for this if I get enough interest? hm

Masterlist | coach!au masterlist

Flu season.

Last year you’d been lucky, Noah had managed to breeze through unharmed and in turn, so had you. Now though you wished you’d enjoyed those times more than you had. Lying on your couch watching whatever rerun was on you really debated never sending Noah back to school again. 

It had started with a small sniffle a few days after your son had come home from his father's looking like he was knocking on death's door. You knew the moment your ex had called because if there was one thing you knew about him; he never called you.

Less than half an hour later he’d showed up claiming he had to take an emergency shift before all but running down the driveway. Luckily Noah didn’t seem to mind, he’d been determined to stay stuck to your side at all hours of the day and before you knew it your son wasn’t the only one living on chicken noodle soup.

Luckily kids bounce back fast and within four days Noah was rearing and ready to go while you tried to push through the throbbing in your skull. 

Your plan clearly hadn’t worked as for the last 3 days your son's best friend's parents had taken over school runs. Grabbing another tissue you blew your nose for what felt like the hundredth time before groaning and letting your eyes flutter shut.

You had an hour and a half before Noah would be back from tennis - that was long enough for a power nap.

Maybe you'd finally be able to sleep this damn cold off.

⋆·˚ ༘ *⋆·˚ ༘ *⋆·˚ ༘ *

“Shh. Quiet remember.” One voice whispered before a quiet giggle could be heard. Swallowing you grimaced slightly at the pain and the reminder that you were in fact still sick - much to your distaste. You opened your eyes just enough to see Noah appear in the doorway, and your head throbbed at the light from the window.

“Hi!” He smiled, his voice quieter than normal as he came over.

His little arms wrapped around your neck, his curls brushing your ear as he hugged you. “Hey, Sweetheart.” You murmured, your voice raspy. He hummed trying to climb up onto the couch but a quiet voice halted his movements. 

“I don’t think your Mom’s gonna wanna cuddle right now.” Noah pouted but relented much to your secret relief. He hovered by you for a moment before turning to the other person. Noah shifted. “Do we have to tell her dad didn’t come?”

It took you a moment to register your son’s words through the haze of sickness which seemed to smother your whole body. 

"Dad didn’t come."

Suddenly your eyes shot open and for the first time in the last few days, you felt alert. His dad didn’t come? Who the hell brought him-

Oh.

Ignoring the pounding in your head you turned just enough to look at the figure in the doorway. Patrick smiled sheepishly raising a hand in greeting. “I didn’t wanna call in case you tried to come yourself.” He mumbled stepping closer as you shifted to sit up, the blanket pooling over your lap.

The world spun for a moment as you took a breath. Noah climbed up next to you, keeping a slight distance as he ran a hand over the soft blanket. “Your dad didn’t come?” you asked quietly.

Your son nodded, a look of hurt on his face which made your heart ache. “I waited an hour.” Patrick cut in, crossing his arms as annoyance flashed across his face for a moment. What kind of guy left his kid knowing his Mom was sick?

“He never picked up when I called either, straight to voicemail.” 

You sighed rubbing a hand over your face. You didn’t have the energy for this. You knew your ex was an ass but this, this was a new low.

The minute you could talk without it feeling like you were being stabbed in the throat he was dead. He could be a dick to you all he wanted but your son? That was a completely different ballpark.

“Go get changed.” You said reaching over to smooth down the boy's hair for a moment. “You can get a snack as well.” You knew he was upset yet the mention of an extra snack of his choosing seemed to perk him up as he ran off.

Patrick watched you for a moment, taking in your pale skin and dark circles. “Jesus.” He mumbled. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks.”

He smiled slightly. Even sick you still somehow managed to give him the same dry tone.

“Thank you for this.” Patrick blinked, shocked slightly at the sincerity in your tone. “I…I don’t even wanna think what would have happened if you didn’t stay.” 

“It's fine.” He waved his hand. “Kid's technically my responsibility till his parents come. Just doing my job.” He shrugged.

Looking around he noted the multiple tissues, medicine, and cups scattered by the couch.  It was clear that you'd barely moved and for a moment he wondered how the hell you were taking care of a child while looking like you'd been knocking on death's door.

Sighing he reached down grabbing a few of the cups. “What are you doing?”

He paused looking up to see you watching him with a small frown. “Cleaning up.” He answered simply before grabbing more. He quite impressively managed to get almost all of the cups and tissues before standing.

You watched quietly. A part of you was surprised, your son's tennis coach was cleaning up your mess. He’d just stayed back at practice to bring him home when you both know he didn’t have to do that.

It sent a small pang of warmth through your heart that he'd stayed. H

As much as he annoyed you, you couldn’t lie that he was a decent guy (sometimes). Most of the time he still made you want to rip your hair out.

⋆·˚ ༘ *⋆·˚ ༘ *⋆·˚ ༘ *

Patrick smiled slightly at the way Noah seemed to immediately gravitate towards you. He burrowed into your side, slipping under the blanket draped over your lap. He watched for a moment as your eyes fluttered again your body slumping slightly as you tried to fight off the sleep your body was so badly needing.

The feeling of a cool palm against your forehead made you jump, your eyes shooting open just to come face to face with a pair of concerned green eyes.

Patrick's face was set into a frown, your skin was practically radiating heat as he held his palm there. 

A deep sigh left you as you subconsciously lent into the cool feeling of his palm. If he ever brought this up again you would vehemently deny any of this but in the moment you couldn’t find it in you to care.

You’d been trying to parent and nurse yourself back to health and you were simply exhausted.

“You're burning up." He murmured placing a hand on the arm of the couch to steady himself as he crouched down. Noah watched shifting to lean over your lap. A small frown pulled at his lips. “You'll be okay?” Patrick was quick to nod, soothing the boy's worries. 

“Just a cold bud.” He smiled gently easing him back off you slightly. “A cold I think you gave to her.” He teased. You huffed nodding in agreement. Noah pouted sitting back before a smile pulled at his lips as you poked his side.

“S’your fault.”

He shook his head. “Noooo.” He grinned taking a bite of the chocolate he'd taken as a snack. You hummed sharing a look with Patrick who just grinned back at you. “I don’t know.” He hummed. “I seem to remember someone missing practice last week.” He raised an eyebrow as Noah gasped, yelping when Patrick reached over to ruffle his hair.

The boy broke into a fit of laughter as he tried to shove the man away but he was quickly overpowered and scrambled to the other end of the couch. His eyes were bright as he breathed heavily, a bright smile on his face as Patrick raised an eyebrow, his own smile growing.

He finished off his snack before turning to you. “Can I go play before dinner?”

Nodding you mumbled a small “sure.” A slight pang of dread ran through you at the idea of moving. Taking a breath you prepared to face the dizziness again but before you could a hand pressed over your shoulder.

“Sleep. I got it.” 

“Patrick…you don’t have to.” 

He shook his head. “It’s fine. You have chicken nuggets, right? Kids eat chicken nuggets?” He paused looking to the kitchen with his eyebrows drawn. His cooking abilities were...limited to say the least.

A quiet laugh left you. “Yes, I have chicken nuggets. Third draw in the freezer.”

He nodded watching as you lay back down. “Just rest okay? I’ll handle Noah.” He didn’t expect a reply as you relaxed back into the couch, your breathing evening out as you fell back to sleep.

Standing from his crouched position he groaned, stretching his arms. Grabbing the remote he flicked the tv off before placing it down quietly. 

If only you were this agreeable all the time.

He chuckled quietly to himself, who was he kidding he loved your seeming distaste for him. It made it all that more rewarding that you hadn’t fought him on this.

He knew he was wearing you down. He didn’t plan on leaving anytime soon either. Sure you may think he’d gotten what he wanted.

You’d slept with him a month ago and yet he still found himself wanting to spend time with you and with Noah.

Throwing a look over his shoulder he saw that Noah was nowhere to be seen. Leaning down he moved the blanket up, tucking it around your shoulders before brushing a hand over your forehead.

If you wouldn’t stop to take care of yourself someone had to do it for you.

He didn’t mind being that person.

[heartfullofleeches]

Would Bugman and Aspen be able to take care of a sick darling?

Bugman was scarcely ever sick as a child in the traditional sort of way and "relatives" who had even a cough were kept far away from them, but as human study insects- Bugman does their research on ailments regular humans might deal with so they can care for Darling when they are ill.

The first time around, Bugman is almost robotic with their care by sticking to giving Darling their needed doses of medicine and stay away from them so they can rest. If Darling calls out to it or begs Bug to stay with them, they will not leave Darling's side until they are feeling better. It takes advantage of Darling's bed ridden state to go over all of its favorite insects and the ones that remind them of Darling most.

If Darling's sickness results in them being short of breath, Bugman will watch over them to insure they're breathing properly.... Who am I kidding - they do that regardless.

-

As Darling's loving wife, it'd be silly of Aspen if he couldn't take care of them. In sickness and in health as the saying goes. Unlike Bug, Aspen is hands on at all times and hates leaving Darling alone for any period of time. He'll keep his distance if Darling is that worried about him getting sick as well, but he acts like they're on their death bed as he takes care of other business.

He has remedies from his home country/childhood he'd like to use on Darling, but if Darling were to ever tell him how they were taking care of when sick growing up, Aspen would be sure to keep those in mind as way to blend their separate homes together.

Aspen makes himself a comfortable little lay to lay on the floor if Darling really doesn't want him to lay with him. He'll wear gloves if Darling continues to complain, but he needs to hold onto some part of them to sleep well at night knowing his poor spouse is ill.

[my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction]

Hey babe, i love every Nathan fic that you wrote, and if you’re open to request and feeling fluffy would you do the honor to tell us what happen after Need You? I just want to snuggle up with Nathan so badddfdd, Thank You🥰

Awww <3 <3 <3 Of course!

Thank You

Nathan Bateman x gn!Reader • Rating: PG pals Masterlist• ao3• want to be tagged? | request info • buy me a coffee? • ask-travaganza masterlist •

Summary: Nathan is tired.

Warnings: Fluff, cuddles, Nathan being playfully grumpy, teasing, not beta read, please let me know if I have missed a warning!

Word Count: 630

“Hurry the fuck up.” Nathan says from the doorway. He stares at you a little more intensely than he normally would because his glasses are already off and on the bedside table.

You snort and nearly choke to death swallowing toothpaste. You manage to spit it out into the sink. “I’m brushing my teeth?” 

“You’re taking hours.”

“It’s been two minutes.”

“Far too long,” he uncrosses his arms, “You’ll damage your gums, come on.” He moves towards you and you yelp and giggle, brandishing your toothbrush like a weapon.

He pauses and smiles. 

“Let me wash my mouth, then I’ll come to bed. I’m not having you drag me again.” 

“Why?” He grins, pretending to start to move closer. “You liked it last time.” 

“I did n-” You stop yourself, you’re not even going to try to argue with him when he’s in this kind of mood. No matter what you say he’ll throw something else back, playfully of course. And over the top. And incorrect. It wasn’t worth the energy. 

So you poke your tongue out at him quickly before you turn and rinse your mouth with water.

His hands around your waist make you laugh. “Nathan.” 

“What?” He leans his chest onto your back like a baby koala. “You're comfy.” 

“Oh my god.” You mutter, but there’s humour in your voice. “You big baby,”  you tease as you stand. 

“Yes.” He pauses, meeting your eyes in the bathroom mirror. “Don’t make me do the baby voice again.” 

“Okay! You win.” You grin, turning to hug him and he kisses your cheek. 

“Bedtime.” He whispers and you just about manage to jump out of his grasp before he tries to pull you to bed. “Hey.”

“I’m going to bed!” You laugh as you dance out of the room and get under the covers. 

He smiles, turning off the bedside lamp and quickly joining you. He pulls off his t-shirt as you both get comfortable. He quickly urges you onto your side, so he can hug you, being the big spoon. 

The second your head hits the pillow he’s tugging at your top. “Take this off.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Why do you want it off?” 

“Want to feel your skin.” He grumbles, “Instead all I can feel is this.” He pulls at your top again, snapping it back a little. 

“Ow.”

“Sorry, also that didn’t hurt.” 

“How do you know it didn’t hurt?” 

He shrugs. “Wasn’t that hard.” 

“You don’t know what it felt like to me.” You give him a look over your shoulder and he kisses your cheek. 

“I can tell you real ‘ow’, from that fake ‘ooowww’ any day of the week.” 

You poke your tongue out at him again.

“Very mature.” He grins, “If you don’t stop doing that I’m gonna give you something to put in your mouth.” 

“I thought you were tired.” 

“I am.” He pushes his hands up under the bottom of your shirt. “A goodnight blowjob, that sounds great.”

You shake your head and laugh, but help him to take your top off so that he can snuggle you to your back. “You really want a blowjob?” 

“Always, but I don’t think I’d get it up for a billion dollars at the moment,” he yawns, curling up closer to you. “You can try though.” You know his eyes are already shut and he’s just playing, but you still make a show of pretending to try to turn over and paw at his waistband. 

“Nooo,” he mutters softly, rubbing his face and beard into your back. “Sleepy time.” He kisses your skin and breathes deeply, finally able to relax. 

You chuckle and settle back down to go to sleep. 

“Thank you.” You hear him mumble just before he dozes off. “For coming to bed.” 

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[dronebiscuitbat]

Oil is Thicker Then Blood (Part 100)

The sound of light snoring filled a 16 year old boys bedroom in the wee hours of the dusk, the wall adorned with guitars on racks and band posters displaying men with long hair.

His blankets were a charcoal black, his sheets a dark grey. On his desk lie a machine glowing with RGB, and whirring softly, and his seating options consisted of haphazardly arranged bean bags.

“Nico! ¡Levántate! ¡tienes tu turno en la puerta del búnker hoy!” Came harshly from the living room, and a drone with a mop of black hair grumbled, emerging from his nest of blankets like a member of the undead.

His purple eyeslights flickered on just to display his groggniess- another night of fitful sleep.

“Comin abuela!” He calls out in return, throwing the blankets off him and stumbling into the bathroom where he brushed his shoulder length hair and cleaned his teeth.

The only thing he was wearing was a pair of long black shorts, his hair was a mess, and when he looked at himself in the mirror he looked like a disheveled shelter dog.

“Ugh. Fuck me…”

He sighed as he gathered up clothes to wear for his shift guarding the front door, with everything going on, older students had the choice to volunteer to help with different projects instead.

And he'd take security work over a stuffy classroom any day.

He slid on a grey shirt and green cargo pants before fumbling around in his room to find his brown aviator jacket and matching goggles, then dug in his nightstand to find his service weapon- a 9mm pistol that would do nothing against a threat that wasn't a normal drone.

He strapped it to his hip and opened the the door to the living room where his grandmother was watching some kind of reality TV show, her legs covered in a knitted blanket.

“Morning.” He gave a half grin to her slightly yellowed frame, she smiled back, faded blue eyelights blinking at him.

“Buenos días mijo. Casi pensé que no te levantarías” She hummed, gently taking his hand as she couldn't quite see him even in his close proximity.

“Nada…No me iría de casa indefenso.” He replied before sighing. “Por favor, usa tus gafas abuela…”

She shook her head. “Ah, no. Not like it will help anyway.” She switched to english, probably not even realizing she'd switched at all. “You be safe mijo! Don't be a idiota!”

He chuckled softly. “Done enough of being stupid… no worries. See you when I get back.”

He shut the door behind him, stopping to stand just in front of his door to watch several people walk by- a deadpan expression seeping onto his face.

“Let's get this over with…”

He traipsed down the hall towards the bunker doors. Getting shoulder checked and ignored all the way through; he was decently tall for a worker drone but that didn't stop people from not caring enough to get out of his way.

It was kind of his luck. Hell, his whole families luck it seemed. He should've been named Murphy, because every single bad thing that could happen; did.

His father was murdered outside the bunker before he was even born, and his mother only took care of him for the first four years of his life before dumping him on her mother and bailing. He couldn't parse her out from the crowd even if she was still around.

So it was just him and his dear Abuela, and it had been for most of his life, which he was fine with, she was a lovely woman and had raised him well. Though recently her opticals had begun to fail…

Just another thing added to the list of mundane and shitty aspects of his life.

Why couldn't his problems be more fantastical? At least then he could be miserable and interesting instead of miserable and bored to fucking death.

He reached the front of the bunker on complete autopilot, settling into his post next to the open door, snow blistering around him while he leaned against the frozen concrete.

Despite how lonely it often got, he did find himself enjoying his time out here, one earbud in his audials while he watched the ship that would take them all away from here be built.

He'd actually begun as a welder, and was pretty good at it too- the only problem being that he was too impatient for it, he would get into a flow and then burn his hands because he wasn't paying attention… so now he was put on simple security.

“Hey Nico. Just get here?” His watch partner and now, one of his close friends patting his shoulder as she walked by with a piping hot cup of gasoline for the both of them.

“Hey Nellie. Yeah. Kinda slept in…” He replied, looking into the girls green eyelights and near silvery hair that hung down to the small of her back.

“Boss should be back from the expedition today with the ‘cords. All that's left after that is preparing that monstrosity to go.” She pointed to the ship, now being coated in heat shielding for its cone and underbelly.

“You think it'll actually work? Some of that shits starting to get in our pipes now… it's gonna get impossible to clean out soon.”

She shrugged. “If it don't, I say let's have one last hurrah until we all munched, if the planets gonna take everything; let's not let it take our joy too…”

“And if it does?”

She laughed. “Then I'll kiss you. How about that?”

He blushed at that, looking away sheepishly. “I think I'd take you up on that.”

The air cracked with supersonic pressure, alerting both drones to a yellow blur quickly decending, preparing to land just in front of them and they both braced themselves, snow getting flung everywhere as something big and mechanical landed with a loud thud.

After everything settled, what remined standing before them was tall, formidable, and had a long tail with a stinger. A Murder Drone…

Carrying a small, feisty, visibly pregnant little worker, and both were smiling like idiots.

“You said slow.”

“That was slow!”

“You broke the sound barrier!”

Nico felt his features soften. Good, they were both back in one piece, and it seems to have went well If their playful bickering was anything to go by.

…

There was one more reason he really enjoyed being out here, instead of in there.

“Mama! Papa!” Little Tera was calling from the arms of a drone with blonde hair and white eyelights, reaching out for her parents as N nearly ran to take her out of the workers arms.

“Oh hello my baby bat! Papi missed you yes he did!” He spun her, making a cascade of happy giggles escape her mouth.

Nico smiled at the sight, feeling his heart swell before a pang of deep regret hit him like a truck.

It wasn't supposed to be this way…

That night with Chloe was supposed to be fun, no consequence. She'd told him she was sixteen too, acted like she'd never done anything before right up until she absolutely blew his mind- but he'd chalked it up to it being his first time.

Then; nothing. Radio silence, he didn't see her in his classes, didn't see her in the halls or any other party he'd went to, like she'd been a ghost.

Until she called him five months later to meet her at the nursery.

He thought the meeting place was odd, but at the time didn't seem to care, he was just excited to see her again, being unable to wipe the night from his memory- he'd wanted something more substantial ever since then…

What he arrived to, was her holding a pillbaby put with one hand- which she dropped unceremoniously into his arms before just walking away without explaining a damn thing.

He didn't need one though. He knew the moment the babies eyes opened and he was staring into his own eyelights, when her mouth opened to let out a coo and she weakly rolled into into him.

He held her close, alone aside from Mrs.Rayn in the nursery, having to sit down because his legs threatened to give out underneath him.

At first… he just admired her, she was mostly inert now having been just transferred and having no life experience other then him in that moment. But she was perfect in every way.

Then he… thought about how he'd have to adjust, he'd have to drop out of school, move out- but… he couldn't move out, abuela couldn't see very well and without him she could hurt herself…

Okay… so he couldn't move out, that's fine. So it was drop out, keep taking care of his grandmother and the new addition, and get a job so he could make sure she'd have toys and extra bottles and all the oil she needed.

But… taking care of the both of them would be a full time job- he couldn't be out all day and expect his grandmother to help raise yet another baby.

He started to tremble when he made that revelation. How absolutely upset his grandmother was going to be at him, how utterly impossible it would be to try and juggle everything this little baby would need at the age of 16.

And he started to cry uncontrollably, hugging her tightly as his heart unraveled out onto the floor. Ugly sobs wracking through his body as he went through the last… and most viable option. To leave her here.

Yet he still stayed for another hour, basking in his daughter's presence, memorizing it to the best of his ability.

He'd given her a name- even knowing it would never be used.

Mariposa, his little butterfly.

And then, he went to the front desk, legs feeling like lead and with shaky breaths, and handed her to Mrs. Rayn.

She didn't even have time to ask a question before he was gone, not being able to bear being there a second longer without breaking down into more tears.

When he got back to his room, he collapsed in a heap of despair. Sitting on the edge of his bed just staring into space, the weight of what he'd done threatening to crush him.

After an hour of that. He called Chloe, she didn't pick up but he didn't exactly need her to. He just needed to fucking scream.

So he did.

He left a thirty minute long expletive filled rant as a message before throwing his phone in fit of absolute rage and then collapsing as tears ran down the inside of his visor again.

He had a daughter, a pillbaby with his code and the circumstances of her birth and his life had made it impossible for him to be there for her in the way he wanted to be.

He knew, realistically, this was the best choice for both of them, he wouldn't have to uproot everything and she would have a much higher quality of life, she'd have two parents who'd love her instead of just him, a 16 year old boy who barely knew how to take care of himself.

The next morning, and the day after that, and the day after that he went to visit her secretly, giving her tickles or admiring her before he went to school. His heart hurting knowing that there was going to be a day soon where she'd be gone.

And then the day came.

And she was gone.

He was brought back to the moment by a happy laugh, Tera pulling her mother's beanie off as she climbed her head, looking overjoyed to be with her parents.

She was so happy now, so energetic, so wild and carefree, he felt cemented in his choice, that it was the right one. But sometimes he was simply just jealous of her new parents; despite the fact they seemed wonderful.

They got to experience her first words, first steps, spoil her rotten. All the things he wanted to do, to be the dad he never got to have.

“Papi! Happy! Mama!” She yelped out a short string of words, beaming happily as the family went inside. Resting on her mother's shoulder- they made eye contact.

She recognized him, not as her dad but… as someone she knew. Her mouth tilted upwards and she gave him a happy wave, kicking her feet.

He gave a small, bittersweet wave in return.

[tremordusk]

Rio Vidal Headcanons

So of my personal ones I think about when writing Rio in my agathario fics ✨

Rio’s first emotion she ever expressed was wonder and curiosity.

Rio experience pain before pleasure when she reaped her first soul. She was devastated to see a life come to an end and cried about it.

She takes on the appearance of how that person perceives death. For example a cultures form of how they view death from Anubis and Osiris (from ancient Egypt), Aitūa (from Māori culture), Hel (Norse god of death), Mictlantecuhtil (Aztec god of death, Shinigami, Ah Puch (Mayan god of death) and so on.

She did try to intervene in certain instances such as Pompeii. Çatalhöyük, The Mayans, Easter Island, Anasazi, and Cahokia were also attempts. ^When she tried to intervene again and again civilizations became lost.

She gave up helping after Atlantis (and the city became legend)— basically lost civilizations are a result of Rio trying to prevent total destruction of their people— OOP.

Rio used to be a more sensitive soul and had high empathy. She used to cry each time she reaped a soul until she grew numb to it and stopped doing that. Millennium turned her into what she is today with her current way of being. She used to have a lot of empathy for humanity but after tragic events like the Salem Witch Trials— her empathy became more exclusive to women who have been misunderstood and murdered for it.

Rio has ADHD and stims a lot

Rio craves physical touch

Drumming requires sustained attention and concentration. Rio picked up drumming as a way to help with that.

Rio’s favorite season was summer when she was just starting out— but after centuries upon millennia of watching death— she became twisted and her favorite season became winter. Her favorite season is Autumn because that was when she met Agatha for the first time and her son was born during that season. (Made this one up for the agathario fic I wrote) Autumn being her favorite would represent the change of heart and impact Agatha has as her scar ;3

Rio would sometimes sneak into Nicholas’ room when he was a baby and sleep near him.

Rio is one of many agents of death — each world in the multiverse has its own “death”

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 致命游戏 / The Spirealm.

The Spirealm is a 2024 drama about two young men who fall in love while basically playing a whole bunch of horror-themed escape rooms that can for-real kill you.

This show/book combo has gripped my entire ass. The second I knew I wanted to watch this, almost immediately after it started airing, I muted the tag. I was so right to do this, because this is worth not spoiling yourself about. If you are a Guardian fan in particular, you owe it to yourself to watch this for reasons I think will become clear as you go about watching it.

So! If all you need to know is that I think you need this show in your life, great! You don't even need to scroll down to the end of the post for the links; go to Viki and press play. In case you need more convincing than that, though, I'm going to give you here five reasons to watch it that are as spoilerless as I can make them.

Before we start, though, I'm going to take a moment to note that I had to torrent the video files so I could make screenshots of my own, and if I hadn't, this would have been a much uglier rec post than the others I've done. Not only were there not many promotional materials or official stills released, the show itself barely stayed up two hours on iQiyi, and that's because this drama is a...

1. (Barely) Censored Adaptation Of Same-sex Original Work

Ah, you know that MyDramaList tag well, don't you? Yeah, the original novel, Kaleidoscope of Death (which has a rec post of its own!), is supernatural story about grief and loss built on the love story between the two male leads. Now of course you know already that a mainstream Chinese television adaptation of something like that is going to straighten up everything and turn the horror romance into the sci-fi platonic love of besties.

...But damn, folks, it's still real gay.

Ling Jiushi, the sweet-faced newbie, is a canonical virgin and loving cat dad who plays the mysterious video game once, then finds himself suddenly able to enter the game worlds bodily -- and of course, if you die in the game, you die in real life. He's pretty much doomed, until he meets...

Ruan Lanzhu, the cool-as-a-cucumber veteran of the door worlds, who falls pretty much immediately for the completely oblivious Ling Jiushi, then has to spend the rest of the series consumed with lust while trying to keep him and a couple other dipshits alive.

The show preserves so many overtly gay beats and declarations of affection from the novel, to the point where it's just this side of suggesting that the romance is actually, textually happening just offscreen, every time the camera cuts away. I am forever grateful that working with Zhu Yilong on Reunion seems to have perfected sweet baby Junjie's ability to look at a man with nothing but love in his eyes.

I adore so much the dynamic they have, one where a man who has never told the truth a day in his life encounters a man so sincere and naive that you cannot seduce him with anything but absolute honesty or he's never going to get it.

There are three (3) separate door worlds where they share a bed, and in every one of them, they both sleep with their shoes on. Like the absolute freaks they both are.

2. It's puzzle solvin' time!

So if you've read some of my rec posts before, you know that I am critical of stories that center around cases that are unfollowable, uninteresting, or both (e.g., Mysterious Lotus Casebook and White Cat Legend). I am therefore thrilled to tell you that the door worlds are actually (largely) thoughtful mysteries with reasonable solutions, where you care about what's happening and why.

The way each door world is set up is that you have to solve the puzzle to find a key and unlock the door that will let you leave. One of the challenges is each world's door ghost, who has the key and does not want to give it up. The other challenge is the world-specific set of taboo conditions, where violating them means the door ghost can kill you -- and you are not always told what those taboo conditions are. That means that solving a door involves 1) figuring out what will insta-kill you, 2) not doing that, 3) finding where the hell the exit door is, 4) placating and/or scamming the door ghost long enough to snatch the key from them, and 5) running like hell to the exit door with that key before the door ghost fucks you up about it.

As the show goes on, you get introduced to the concept of door-passing shepherds, which are experienced door-finishers who take through lower-level players, building them up in the process. A lot of these shepherds work for organizations, such as the one Ruan Lanzhu runs. And a lot of them are ready to reach the exit by climbing over everyone else's corpses.

That's part of the fun of the setup: You're not just thrown in alone. You show up with a random number of other players, some with very different levels of experience. At least one of you will make it out; not everyone will. So you can add a step 6) to the list above, which is: surviving all the other players who will gleefully stab you in the back in order to be the first player out the door.

The door worlds are also lovely. They all feel like sets -- and I know that's a weird thing to say about places that are literal sets, but they manage it feel it even on film. In fact, even the show's uses of clunky-ass greenscreen feel appropriate, because of how unreal everything is supposed to be. Everything looks like a dream, which is only amplified by how beautifully everything's shot.

(What's that you say? You say the guy who directed this was the editor on Infernal Affairs? No kidding.)

From a fandom perspective, what's great here is that even though there are technically just twelve doors, there are canonically way more than twelve door worlds out there. That means that whatever worlds you want to create are valid. The best pieces of fanfic I've read are the ones that dream up their own door worlds, complete with taboo conditions, key puzzles, and world-specific perks that lead to gay sex, because come on.

3. A good middle ground of horror

So at this point you are perhaps wondering: How scary is it?

And the answer is, kind of as scary as you're willing to let your mind go with it. Everything has been science-fictioned real hard, including the video game premise that "explains" what's happening with these doors. It relies on dread way more than jumpscares. The blood/gore/gross content is extremely low, again on account of Chinese content censorship. Most icky things are done with offscreen sounds and shadows. I'm pretty squeamish about pain and injury, and I can't recall a time I had to look too long away from the screen.

However, that means the show works some real conceptual horror. That picture up there is of a man forcing three young girls to hold raw eggs unbroken in their mouths. There's nothing about that image that's not technically G-rated, and it's awful in context.

The best bits are when the monsters don't need a lick of CG to become horrors. They cast a contortionist in the Waverly Hills door world, and she absolutely earned her keep.

I have a lot of critiques about how the show handles things, especially in terms of defanging the horror elements (which it does), but one thing I think it absolutely gets right is that it understands that ghost stories are first and foremost tragedies. That's a thing I've always liked about Asian horror in particular, how often you wind up siding with the ghost. Yes, sure, she tried to strangle you with her hair, but have you ever considered she's the real victim here? There's always a bit of a calculus: Can you negotiate with the door ghost, or do you just need to stab them and run? The Spirealm prefers negotiation, and frankly, so do I.

So yeah, it's about as scary as you let it be. If your horror tolerance is low, watch it in a well-lit room and focus on the unreality of it, and you'll be okay. If you're looking for something genuinely spooky, spend some time thinking about the existential dread of the entire situation, and that'll be good for a couple good spine tingles.

4. The Obsidian Family (& Friends!)

In a show where death is always an option, you have to have characters where you actually care if they live or die. Fortunately, all your allies are charming and loveable enough that you are going to be real upset every time they get put in danger!

Obsidian is one of the organizations I mentioned earlier. It's run by Ruan Lanzhu, and it includes a cool and collected doctor, a mom friend who cooks for everybody, a guy who's maybe not having the best mental health day of his life, and two identical twins who could not be more different if they tried. They all live in the same amazing big fancy house, which is where Ling Jiushi too goes to live when he joins the group. They have big family meals, they look after one another, they hang out together -- I mean, if this is the kind of setup you love, then you will love this setup.

There are also plenty of allies who aren't technically part of Obsidian, but who are our friends nonetheless, and who come over to hang out in the Obsidian house from time to time. Some of them are rivals turned friends, some of them are clients turned friends, and some of them were just friends all along! Surely nothing bad will happen to any of them, and they'll all live happily ever after, right? ...Right?

5. Toast and Chestnut!

Of course, the true heroes of the show are Toast the Corgi and Chestnut the Kitty.

Animals are so good.

Truly, I love that one of Ling Jiushi's defining characteristics is that he is a Cat Dad. He is a simple man with simple needs, and one of those needs is to pet his kitty or he'll explode.

caveat: Some thoroughly bad adaptation choices

Yeah, so I keep talking about the novel (and talk even more about the novel in its own rec post), but I assure you, you don't need to have read the novel to feel the degree to which this is an adaptation -- and one that's had its rough, nasty, spooky, gay edges all sanded off in the desperate hope of ever seeing daylight.

Now, sometimes I consider batshit nonsense janky creative decisions to be a selling point for a show (see: Mysterious Lotus Casebook, Legend of Fei, Sand Sea)! In this case, however, I'm going to have to take points off for how incoherently bad they are here. We're talking Psych-Hunter levels of Why Would You Do That-- and the answer, as always, comes down to how you write around what censorship won't allow on television.

The novel says the doors are supernatural. The show says they're a virtual-reality computer game. Now, on the surface, this move sort of makes sense -- you can't have ghosts, but you can have computer games that make digital ghosts, which, sure, okay. But then the problem quickly becomes that the plot of the novel is not remotely built to support a sci-fi premise, so a lot of things have to be grafted awkwardly on. Like, say, a bad guy who stole his corporate logo from Even Worse Twitter. Or a game-designing bestie whose face is never seen. Or [late-stage spoilers about a major character].

The eventual explanation is that this whole setup is a righteous and good game that has somehow been corrupted by evil game-designing capitalists from the West, and that's why it can abduct you in broad daylight and kill you if you fail it. There are good people who want to purify (???) the game, and evil people who want to make money off the game. And I don't mind spoiling you for that part, because it's garbage nonsense. You will be deeply unsatisfied with the show's half-assed attempt at resolving it all. (You may, however, have that disappointment tempered with the amazing concurrent display of heterosexuality that is apologizing to your best bro by coding his perfect man for him. The Spirealm is a land of contrasts.)

Look, I consider myself a mild to moderate socialist, and even I was yawning and making jerk-off motions every time someone started to wax halfheartedly poetic about how evil American capitalism is. Like, yeah, but not because some college student made a vile and wretched video game that eats people! This show is a critique of capitalism like a five-year-old crying because he doesn't get ice cream before bed is a critique of authoritarianism.

And even this, I can't be too mad at it about, you know? I just assume that this was some absolute Hail Mary attempt at getting past censorship -- you know, maybe if we make all the right "grr, USA bad!" noises, they'll let our gay ghost story slip by? And it worked! I mean, just barely, but it did.

So yeah, fair warning that the Spirealm is a show that, if you love it (and I do), you will have to love despite some glaring flaws that haunt it all the way through and hit especially hard during what should otherwise have been an amazing endgame. But hey, we're c-drama fans! We're good at loving janky things, right?

Want to enter the World of Doors?

As I said at the start of the post, Viki's got it -- and only Viki. I'm not sure what circumstances got it up on Viki after iQiyi pulled it, but I'm glad. Watch it quick, before Viki changes its mind!

Hug him! Hug that boy!

[inukag-archive]

Hi! I was wondering if you could recommend your favorite InuKag works. It can be about anything. ☺️

Hello, @heynikkiyousofine, long time no answer! When we received your ask, we'd had an few mod favourites grace the blog, so we put it on the back burner for a time. The time is now so we can introduce @kstewdeux; our newest member of the Fic Finder Team!

To answer this, we set ourselves a goal: pick 3 fics that have never been recommended. Each mod has listed theirs below, and we've included our previous lists at the end! Happy reading ♥

Important Note: Some of these fics are incomplete, despite being marked as such, and have not been updated in a very long time. We've marked incomplete fics with an asterisk (*) before the title for those who wish to avoid them.

KStew

Flat Line by Salvatore Shan SW (T)

When Inuyasha collapses in front of Kagome's house, its a race to find out what's wrong with him. As a hanyou, Kagome didn't think he could even get sick but is he enjoying being ill? Up until he's rushed to hospital, at least.

Gone Swimming by Quickening (X)

A peaceful woodland on the hottest day of the year. A shallow river flowing through the woods. A naked hanyou sleeping peacefully on the bank. An equally naked Kagome discovering him there. 'Nuf said.

Live and Let Die by doggieearlover (X)

InuYasha has been missing for five days. Kagome wants to search for him, but the others wish to sit and wait for his return. In desperation Kagome strikes off alone, in the middle of the night, in the attempt to find the hanyou. Will she be able to find him on her own, before it is too late?

Anisa

Kiss Me at Twilight by BlueMoon Goddess (M)

They were best friends since high school. But after the kiss they shared on New Year's Eve, feelings and desires he's never felt before come rushing in. Can he convince her that what they're feeling is real, that their meant to be more than just friends?

*Fade and Flare by Pinku (X)

Kagome, Japan's number one pop star, has fame, money, and a superstar boyfriend. All she wants is to be happy. All her overprotective manager Inuyasha wants, though, is her… How long can they last like this?

*Zero G by Torenza (M)

Kagome unwittingly falls into a deadly game as the victim of a conspiracy. The players are ruthless, and Kagome is way out of her depth, especially when the stakes are life and death.

Lost

*To Catch a Demon by Alaviles (M)

Kagome and Inuyasha were able to live in marital bliss. At least, that's what she thought. But Inuyasha has been feeling rather restless about his life. While yearning for an experience of a time now gone, chaos ensues, and he must learn to accept a reality he would never have dreamed up for himself. One he will never wish to give up again. (Ongoing)

In Our Pocket of the World (Series) by Emmyyasha (G-E)

Inuyasha and Kagome may be stuck together in Quarantine, but they don't need to leave their apartment to have an adventure together.

The Darkest of Nights by kiichandesu (T)

He isn't afraid of the dark, but the night of the new moon always finds him terrified. Until it doesn't.

Pixie

*Not How it's Done by @dyaz-stories (K+)

After a one-night stand, Kagome finds out she's pregnant. She chooses to keep the baby but discovers, nine months later, that the kid is a half-demon. When she runs into the father by chance, it feels important to them both to do their best to raise the kid together.

The Fae and the Contract by @cstorm86 (E)

Kagome's mother is very sick. After having lost her father years ago to illness, she is terrified of losing her mother too. There are tales of a fae in the great forest who can make deals and save others. Can the fae save her mother? She has to at least try.

*Nextlahualtin by @procrastinatorrexii & @moonkissedart (M)

Once, Kagome had believed her grandfather was just an eccentric. A priest who, after long days of ritual and spellwork and dealing with politics and problems and the complexities of the Great City, liked to amuse himself by telling outlandish stories about the gods. Once he is killed, in a brutal and baffling way, she is left with no choice but to hope that at least one of his wild tales was actually true.

Could there really be a god dwelling among them? And, if there is, what else might be out there, waiting in the shadows?

Mama

Inextricably Knotted by ssukidesu (M)

Kagome Higurashi was orphaned as a baby and raised by her cruel aunt until the age of ten, after which she went to school and learned the art of service and self-suppression. Now eighteen, Kagome takes a job as the governess of Shippo, the young ward of the great and mysterious Lord Inuyasha Taisho. But as Kagome gets to know her bemusing master, a ghost seems to haunt his estate, hinting that there is a long-lost secret hiding on the third floor.

your flesh is so nice, let me take a bite - by @doginabirdcage (E)

Kagome's taken a new job with the prolific Taisho law firm in Osaka to advance her budding career. Everything's going rather well until Toga's youngest son shows up for work.

Necessities by Bee_Tawon (M)

Inuyasha and Kagome have a chance encounter with some rogue bandits. Kagome learns what it means to survive in Sengoku Jidai.

Rudd

Slave to the Heart by LovingmyKitsune (M)

She never once imagined to find herself unhappy. However, a sudden upset throws this young at heart girl into a whirlpool of emotion and conflict. Complexities and truths are discovered and all she can do is hold on tight, hoping for a miracle. InuKag

It's Written in the Stars by ElmOak1991 (M)

Kagome paled when she realized they were gone. Days ago she had told Inuyasha that she was going home to stay. She couldn’t do it anymore. She couldn’t pretend to be okay with being second best in his heart. It hurt too much to know he loved Kikyo more. Now that her jewel shards were gone, she found herself falling to the floor with tears in her eyes. He didn’t even say goodbye before taking away her choice of returning. Her heart broke as she thought about all she had lost. The people who had become her family. Five years have passed since that day, and the memory still stung. She would never forgive him for taking her choice away. Never. However, moving on from her past is proving harder than she would have thought.

I'll Find a Way by Gabrielle015 (M)

Everyone he ever knew and loved thinks he's dead. Being an agent was never an easy feat, but being separated from his friends and the love of his life has taken a toll on him. Three long years after his 'death' Inuyasha is completing several missions in hopes to defeat Naraku and go home. Would Kagome still be waiting for him, or had she found someone else?

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[soft-cristobalite]

Watched arcane season 2 act 1, thought abt it, so here are some of my thoughts in no particular order. Obvious spoilers.

Also, i watched in dub. Important to know when i am quoting charaters + when i am talking about their tone.

Starting of with something that is directly affected by dub — ukrainian Jayce is my Jayce. Ppl said he sounded condesending while talking to Ekko — not. at. alllll. true for my Jayce. My Jayce sounded tired, emotionaly burn out. "You drink tea, Ekko?" said with no though to it, in a context of continues talking of "Haha do i live here? Hahah....... Do you guys want tea? Want some tea? I'll make tea. Do you drink tea, Ekko?". But d-dub is supposed to stay true to the original— I DONT CAREEE. I love my blorbo almost-himbo Jayce, never changing his characterisation in my mind.

And i will hold Jayce's hand when i say this — you were. Just so gay for like... Essentialy going "Are you okay? Good, good" to lady Mel Medarda HERSELF and then seeing Victor and losing your mind. Sprinting with him in your hands to your lab. LIVING in your lab to monitor him. I just... I get it, you don't have many friends. But like...... Really dude. Reaally.

Give Mel and Ekko thirty minutes. I promise you they would work it out. Eternal piece would be achieved.

I know there are a lot of different opinions regarding Caitlyn. I will not be explaining in-depts what i think about her acr, because a) who cares and b) i like to see her go cray-cray. But like — why isnt anybody exept for Vi attempting to stop her??? Like why is Jayce mourning Victor's twink death instead of, yk, stopping his childhood-best-friend-kinda-younger-sister from killing ppl of Zaun, the last thing Victor wants btw? She and Vi are twenty-ish — WHYYYY are they going through it by themselves??? Why doesnt baby yoda guy with German name that i dont dare to write trying to stop the daughtrer of his ex-collegue? He is 600 or something, im sure he could've come up with advice.

Cait pointing her gun at a child is terrifying, it opens up the possibilities of her going even more blinded with anger, doing even more horrific things, and Vi is right to try and stop her. However... I know damn right i would've believe her when she said she will not miss 😭 Every single time she fired her gun she was very precise. Even in that scene she aimed at the gun the girl was holding like two seconds ago and got a perfect. fucking. score. Like i dont remember her missing at all, actually.

"Ohhhhh you're gonnnaaa haaaaaattteeee Maddie after act two—" says who? On that note, i hope both Cait AND Vi will sleep with a few random people. Good for them. Let them try to forget about each other only to realise just how down bad they are for one another. Let the scenes of Cait and Maddie hooking up intertwine with Vi's one night stand.

"Maddie is just gonna be a victim of comander Cait :(((" and i do not have any thing to say to that — we dont yet KNOW what will happen — but I dont think Cait will try to manipulate her into this. I think Maddie will flirt a bit, Cait will try and seek salvage and vulnerability in someone, especially since she is now constantly in public's eye and needs to project hope™ and stoicism™. It will be a genuine attempt to move on — not anybody's fault she can't.

But oh god, oh goooddd i cant wait for Maddie to loose the spark in her eyes due to lesbian situationship.

[ot8xbangchansgirlsblog]

𝕃𝕦𝕟𝕒 | ℙ𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕠𝕟𝕖 | ℙ𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕥𝕨𝕠 | ℙ𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕣𝕖𝕖 | ℙ𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕗𝕠𝕦𝕣

Warning: Angst/mention of death/Blood/MPreg/MxM

A/B/O dynamics:

Omega (Han, Felix, Y/n)

Beta (Hyunjin, Seungmin, I.N)

Alpha (Chan, Changbin, Leeknow)

The series might traumatize you. I really hope you guys like it and enjoy it.

Summary - Request; I've just been reading your A/B/O series and it's so so so good. I was wondering if you would accept an ot8 request where their omega gets in trouble with another pack and Straykids are really worried?

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

"Is Y/N okay? Please tell me she’s okay?" Chan’s voice was laced with panic as they finally stepped into the house. His eyes were bloodshot, and so were Changbin’s—both of them were fully in alpha mode.

His body ached, but he could already feel his powers working, healing him rapidly. One thing about alphas: they always heal in hours, no matter the damage.

"Can we at least get you settled before you start panicking?" Leeknow scoffed, his tone exasperated. "You’re acting like you’re not bleeding right now."

"Oh, hyung!" Felix gasped, hands covering his mouth in shock. He looked terrified. "What happened to you guys?" His omega was whimpering anxiously, and Felix’s hands shook as he tried to move closer, but Seungmin held him back.

"We’re fine, Lix. Just a little damage control," Changbin teased, waving it off.

"You guys can't keep doing this to me. I’m too pregnant to be stressed out every time you walk through that door!" Felix huffed, pouting in frustration.

"Come here, sweetie," Chan said softly, holding out his uninjured hand. Seungmin released his hold on Felix’s waist, and Felix waddled towards his pack alpha, the tension in his shoulders slowly melting away.

"You must have been so worried, hm?" Chan kissed the younger boy gently and began to scent him, his fingers gently brushing through Felix’s hair as Felix clung to him tightly, unwilling to let go.

"Yes, I was... I can’t lose you guys too," Felix sniffled, his voice trembling.

"I'm fine," Chan assured him, his voice steady. "I’m right here, and so is Changbin. We’re not going anywhere anytime soon." He kissed Felix’s forehead. "Go ahead and finish your dinner with I.N and Seungmin. We’ll be there soon, okay?" Chan noticed the food still on the table, realizing they had been in the middle of dinner.

"Are you sure you’re okay?" Felix asked again, his concern still clear.

"Positive," Chan replied with a reassuring smile. "You know me. I’ll heal in a few hours, and then I’ll tell you about my little adventure. I’ll come cuddle you tonight."

"Really?" Felix’s eyes widened, and his voice held a spark of excitement. Chan hadn’t been able to sleep with him the past week because of all the stress, so this meant a lot to Felix.

"Yeah, I promise," Chan said, his smile softening. "Now, go eat. We’ll join you soon."

Felix nodded, giving Chan a quick kiss on the cheek before waddling back to the dining room, rejoining the rest of the pack.

Leeknow sighed as he shifted his weight to help Chan, once again supporting him. "Let’s get you both cleaned up," he muttered.

"Binnie-hyung?" I.N’s voice called from across the room, his tone shy and hesitant.

"Yeah, I.N?" Changbin, who had been lounging on the couch, looked up at the younger boy. I.N was standing awkwardly, his cheeks flushed in embarrassment.

"Can you sleep with me tonight?" I.N asked quietly, his face turning even redder. He fidgeted, clearly embarrassed by his own request.

"Of course, love," Changbin replied with a warm smile. "You can always sleep with me."

I.N's face lit up with a huge grin, and he giggled, practically skipping off to the dining room, clearly thrilled.

"I swear, those boys love you more than they love us sometimes," Hyunjin grumbled, rolling his eyes as he helped Changbin off the couch.

"Pack alpha always wins," Chan said with a teasing smirk, his eyes glowing faintly red, clearly enjoying the banter. The other boys groaned in unison and rolled their eyes.

When Leeknow got Chan into his room, he couldn’t resist flicking the older alpha lightly on the forehead, earning a small grunt from him.

"Ow!"

"You idiot," Leeknow scolded as he carefully helped Chan sit down on the bed. "No way you went and killed them without the rest of us. I thought you guys were just going to hunt."

"Leeknow, they saw us coming. Mark and the others were already in position. They wanted to finish it quickly, and I didn’t have a chance to react," Chan sighed but winced as Leeknow gently removed his clothes.

"Are the others injured, or was it just you?" Leeknow asked, his voice a mix of concern and frustration. He was trying to stay calm, but it was clear he was upset about Chan's reckless decision.

"No, everyone else is fine," Chan reassured him. "They’re coming over tomorrow for dinner to celebrate."

Leeknow sighed, nodding. "Well, I’ll need to go hunting for some meat then," he said, focusing on wrapping Chan's wounds.

"H-how’s Y/N?" Chan asked, his face twisted in pain as he winced again. His thoughts were clearly on his luna, and Leeknow could see it in his eyes.

"She’s doing okay," Leeknow replied, his expression softening. "She let Han in today, but..." he hesitated. "She’s still not letting anyone into the bond. She’s rejecting even Hyunjin."

Chan’s expression dropped. "Yeah, I figured. My bite mark still feels like it’s burning," he said with a defeated sigh.

"She’ll come around, Hyung," Leeknow said gently, pausing to adjust the bandage on Chan's arm. "Time will heal things. You did what you needed to. Now we just need to give her space to heal, too."

"What am I supposed to do, Leeknow?" Chan asked, looking up at him, his eyes filled with frustration and self-doubt. "I handled the rogues, but I can’t fix what they did to her. I can’t make it right. It feels like she’s still hurting, and I don’t know how to help her. I thought I’d feel better, but it’s like I’m suffocating… and I can’t fix it..." His voice trailed off, heavy with the weight of his words.

Leeknow paused, seeing the pain in Chan's eyes. Without saying a word, he leaned in and placed a firm, comforting kiss to his forehead.

"Hyung, you really need to stop blaming yourself, actually...we all need to stop blaming ourselves," Leeknow said, his voice full of quiet conviction. "You’ve done what you needed to. Time will heal everything, but you can’t do it all. You took care of the rogues, but now we need to give her the space to heal. We can’t keep dwelling on the past. Felix needs you, and so does she."

Chan let out a long breath, feeling the tension slowly drain from his body, but his worry for Y/N was still there. "I’m trying to be there for them both," he murmured. "Everyone expects me to hold it together, and I just don’t know how."

"Chan," Leeknow sighed, rolling his eyes at the older alpha’s stubbornness. "You’ve got a thick head, don’t you?" He chuckled softly. "You can’t fix everything right now. Time will take care of things. Let’s focus on the positives. Y/N is back home, Felix is healthy. We have that."

"Yeah," Chan agreed, finally giving in to Leeknow’s words. "You’re right."

"I know I am," Leeknow said with a grin. "Now, go take a shower, you’re a mess. And while you’re at it, tell me everything about your little killing hunt later."

Chan couldn’t help but smile at Leeknow’s playful tone, feeling a bit lighter. "Alright, alright," he chuckled. "I’ll go clean up, but you better not skip dinner, go eat."

"oh please! how can i eat with you rascals running around." chan stuck his tongue out as he slowly limped into the bathroom.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

When Hyunjin finally helped Changbin get dressed in pajamas after a shower (the alpha didn’t really need help, he just wanted Hyunjin’s attention), they both made their way downstairs into the dining hall, where everyone was already sitting, including Minho and Chan.

"What took you guys so long?" Seungmin asked, raising an eyebrow.

"SOMEONE," Hyunjin rolled his eyes and pointed at Changbin, "Wanted me to help him shower and get dressed," he huffed as he took his seat.

"Okay, first of all," Changbin gasped dramatically, holding his chest, "I just got back from a killing hunt. Can’t I ask for a little love and attention from my wife?" He playfully nuzzled his nose into Hyunjin’s neck, earning a surprised moan from him.

"Hyung!" Hyunjin smacked his chest lightly before rubbing his sensitive gland, his face flushed.

"Oh, you two definitely fucked," Seungmin snickered, and the room erupted into laughter.

"We did not!" Hyunjin screeched in embarrassment, his face turning bright red.

"We did too!" Changbin teased, poking Hyunjin’s stomach.

"Ugh, why are you always so...horny?" Hyunjin rolled his eyes, clearly exasperated, though a small smile tugged at his lips. The room was now thick with alpha scent, mixing with the betas' as the tension shifted.

"I'm the one who's horny?" Changbin shot back, but before they could continue, a small voice interrupted.

"Hyung? You’re back?" Han’s voice was soft, his nervousness clear as he stood in the doorway. Chan’s eyes flickered red as he recognized the familiar sweet scent of mangoes and peaches. His omega had arrived.

"Hey, baby," Chan stood immediately, his concern clear as he walked toward Han, who looked hesitant to enter the room.

"Yes, I’m back, my love. Are you okay?" Chan pulled Han into a gentle hug, sensing the exhaustion and sadness hanging around him. Han’s posture was tense, and Chan could feel the weight of the day on him.

"I’m... fine," Han whispered, though his voice trembled slightly. "Just tired."

"Hyunjin..." Han glanced over at him. "Can you—"

"Of course," Hyunjin said, standing up to make a plate of food for Y/N. "I’ll bring it up, don’t worry."

Han gave him a soft smile of gratitude as Hyunjin left the room, carefully carrying the food upstairs.

"She’s asleep, so she’ll be up in a bit for her medicine," Han sighed. He felt Chan's eyes studying him, the weight of his gaze making him uneasy. He couldn’t bring himself to meet Chan’s eyes.

"Do you want to talk, my love?" Chan’s voice was tender, but there was concern behind it.

"Not right now, hyung," Han answered softly. "I just need to eat. I’m tired, and I don’t want to talk."

"Did something happen?" Chan pressed, his voice thick with worry. He couldn’t ignore the way Han had been blocking everyone out, even from the bond.

"No, Chan, it’s just..." Han’s voice broke, his lip trembling. "It’s just... being in that room with her. She’s not getting any better."

"Don’t say that," Felix said, his voice tight as he stood up. "Maybe if I go see her, it’ll help. Maybe I can do something."

"No, Felix," Leeknow’s voice was firm, his tone shifting to something serious.

"Why can’t I go see her?" Felix’s voice was laced with confusion. "Why are you all keeping something from me? Does she not want me there?" His eyebrows furrowed in suspicion.

Leeknow sighed, his gaze shifting away as he answered through the bond talking to only chan so no one else could hear. She doesn’t want him there because of... his situation. Don’t tell him, Chan.

Chan’s expression hardened, but he nodded in understanding. I won’t.

Felix’s frustration was building. "I can see you guys talking through the bond! Why are you hiding something from me? Does she not want to see me?" His voice cracked with hurt.

"I already said no, Felix," Leeknow said, his tone sharper now.

Felix’s eyes watered as he stood there, looking between them. "What are you not telling me, hyung? I can feel you lying through the bond. Just tell me the truth!"

Leeknow exhaled sharply, frustration evident. He stormed out of the room without another word.

"Leeknow, wait!" Felix called, immediately getting up to follow. As he passed Chan and Han, Han reached out and grabbed his hand.

"Just... let him cool off," Han said quietly. "I’ll explain everything. But i need to eat first."

Felix’s eyes softened as he looked at Han. "She doesn’t want to see me, does she?" His voice was breaking now, tears welling up in his eyes. "I knew it."

Before Han could answer, Felix yanked his hand away and quickly turned toward the door.

"Felix, wait!" Chan cursed under his breath before running after the omega.

Seungmin, who had been watching the entire exchange, sighed dramatically. "Well, screw this," he muttered, getting up and heading to the fridge. "I need a drink to deal with all of this."

"Pour me one too," Changbin added, slumping down in his chair. "I can’t keep up with this pack anymore."

Han let out a long sigh, sitting down at the table and serving himself some food. "Tell me about it," he muttered before pouring himself a glass of soju.

"I heard she’s talking again," I.N asked, also helping himself to a drink. "At least that’s a good sign, right?"

"Yeah, we’ve had some conversations," Han replied, his voice tinged with exhaustion. "But mostly... she just cried. About... everything."

"The pup?" I.N asked softly, glancing at Han with concern.

"Yeah," Han said, looking away. "It’s so draining, I thought I could handle it, but being in that room... it’s like I’m sinking."

Seungmin nodded sympathetically. "I get it. When they brought her in, I could barely look at her. I thought I was going to break down too."

"At least she’ll talk to you guys," Changbin said with a groan, his shoulders slumping. "She won’t even let us near her. I can’t wait for all of this to be over."

"Same," I.N, Seungmin, and Han all agreed in unison.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

A/N: can these guys actually stop stressing felix tf out

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