#he’s spent so much of his life just truly and bitterly hating himself to the core

[zehl0w]

Zenitsu agatsuma has got to be the biggest egg I have ever seen in my entire life

[ace-and-the-rpg-horrors]

it is so important to me that within the very last scene Monty appears, he is spoken to with kindness. and by Charles, of all people.

because the only person that Monty seems to have regularly known is Esther, and she treats him with anything but kindness. it's very safe to assume that Monty has presumably spent the vast majority of his life being berated, attacked and neglected by her. there has never been a moment that showed Monty receiving any sort of gentleness or tenderness from her. when Esther does compliment him, it's only to do with how good-looking she made him as a human. and that's her own handiwork. Monty himself is never praised, never acknowledged, never seen for any of his own efforts to assist her. yet, she was quick to both see and act the second he messed up, and not even through fault of his own.

it's so incredibly touching that Monty is finally praised for his own actions when we part ways with him. and by the very person he dislikes so much. Monty bitterly resents Charles. he's not shy about it. Charles is not unaware of it. he isn't all that fond of Monty himself. and yet, Charles is the one to end things on a positive note. it should be ironic, but it isn't at all. it makes complete sense.

of course it's Charles that Monty shares this final moment of his with. Charles is not an idiot, so i'm certain he could somewhat tell that Monty is a victim of abuse. the victim of an abusive parent-like figure, no less. just like him. Charles is rightly furious at what Monty has done, but how could he truly hate him? when he knows full well what it's like to be so scared of the person who's meant to look after you? when he knows full well that horrible feeling of being trapped without any escape in sight? Charles has also experienced being treat in a disgusting, violent manner for no reason at all. he may not have been serving an impossible-to-please witch like Monty is, but no matter how athletic, hard-working or friendly he was, Charles could never escape his father's terrifying anger, all efforts of his rendered futile.

it's interesting that Charles doesn't seem all that shocked in this moment, to see Monty act against Esther. he's glad, but i don't reckon his expression is one of surprise? it's almost as if Charles already had some sort of faith in Monty, even though the crow has given him absolutely no reason to trust him, quite the opposite. but maybe that's not so strange. Monty is like Charles. Charles is the person who outright said that he's desperate for people like him to be right, to be good. we saw how devastated he was when Brad and Hunter were not.

so, these words from Charles must have mattered to Monty greatly. people who are abused, especially by those who are meant to look after them, such as their parents, can often be led to believe that their abuser's actions are somehow "justified," even if it's not a thought they're fully conscious of. Monty isn't entirely naïve, at least outwardly. he clearly isn't under the impression that Esther actually cares for him, considering how bitterly he speaks to her. but deep down, there must be a reason he still stays with Esther, because he isn't restrained physically. Monty's cage is unlocked, he's "free" to fly around as he pleases, even shown to go outside at one point. he doesn't fly away from her, though. and that may be because he unconsciously feels that he owes Esther his complete loyalty.

but this moment could have changed that. if Charles, who Monty doesn't like and isn't liked by in return, who Monty was impolite and passive-aggressive to can speak to him kindly - what right does Esther, who Monty tries to be helpful to, have to treat him with such cruelty? what right does she have to scream at him, to grab him, to mutilate him? when he's done nothing but be her loyal familiar, having only committed the sin of feeling too much for her liking, human feelings that she forced upon him?

this scene is towards the end of the show for us. but for Monty, maybe it's a turning point in his life.

[celestialbruise]

Can you give Taxian-jun and Chu-Fei a happy ending in their timeline? ❤️🙏

let me just say I LOVE YOU for this!! this truly feels like fate, because the morning I received this beautiful prompt the first thing I thought of when I woke up was 0.5 ranwan and I spent the entirety of my morning routine thinking about a canon divergent fic where taxian-jun and chu fei get their happy ending then I logged onto Tumblr and found this ask in my inbox :’)

I’ve had this idea in my head for awhile and some day I would love to turn it into a fully-realized fic, but the basic premise is a month before Mo Ran lays siege to Taxue palace and Chu Wanning dies, he has a dream detailing the event, every last gory detail. it disturbs Mo Ran so much that he temporarily calls off the plan, and while he’s busy thinking of a way to destroy Xue Meng that won’t have Chu Wanning sacrificing himself, Chu Wanning manages to save him in the interim. 

spoilers past erha volume six ahead!

to be completely honest I don’t know entirely how the flower works (I know about its existence but not much else) but in my head canon, aka for my own personal sanity, I do believe that there is a way for it to be removed, and in this AU Chu Wanning removes it, and though it would take time, and healing, in the 0.5 timeline, they would find their way back to each other, and they would never again part.  

I hope I was able to do your prompt justice, as I truly had such a wonderful time writing this<3

-

In the lonely dark, deep into the night, Taxian-jun woke with a scream trapped in his throat, desperately grasping a body that was no longer in his arms. 

He was alone in his bed. No longer was he laying siege to Taxue Palace, kneeling in the blood-spattered snow, holding a deathly cold, winter-pale Chu Wanning who had whispered….

Who had asked him with his dying breath-

“Mo Ran…forgive yourself.”

Mo Ran tore out of Wushan Palace like hell’s hounds were nipping at his heels, ignoring how the winter wind bitterly nipped at his cheeks, at the wetness staining his face, intensifying the chill and its painful bite. 

He couldn’t be gone. He just couldn’t be. 

He couldn’t leave Taxian-jun. Chu Wanning couldn’t leave Mo Ran.

If Chu Wanning left-

If he was dead, then-

What would Mo Ran have left? Who would he even be?

What would be the point of living in a world devoid of Chu Wanning?

Mo Ran ripped open the doors of the Red Lotus Pavilion, his feet automatically carrying him to Chu Wanning’s room, where he found Chu Wanning, lying in his bed, wrapped tightly in blood-red sheets, curled into a tiny ball, just as he always was. The sight both eased and aggravated something that seethed deep within Taxian-jun’s chest. He wasn’t able to breathe. Not yet.

In his haste he stumbled, almost fell, hurrying over the Chu Wanning’s side and without preamble or finesse, yanked one of his arms free from the blankets to clutch desperately as his wrist, searching for a pulse. Mo Ran only needed a single heartbeat to discern that, while softened by slumber, life did indeed still live inside Chu Wanning’s body. And then another heartbeat later, phoenix eyes fluttered open, moonlight catching on long, dark lashes that lifted to reveal hazy amber eyes.

“What-” Chu Wanning started, voice slurring with sleep, eyes only beginning to sharpen with that familiar hate when, without hesitation, Mo Ran pulled Chu Wanning into his arms.

“Wanning!” Taxian-jun gasped, wet, against the side of Chu Wanning’s neck. “You’re here. You’re okay,” Taxian-jun said this as if he couldn’t quite believe it. As if he daren’t hope.

“Mo Ran!” Chu Wanning thrashed inside his arms, hitting his shoulders, but Mo Ran bore it. He wouldn’t risk loosening his grip even a fraction. If he did, if he was careless, if he allowed Chu Wanning to slip away from him, a ghost once more…..Mo Ran hugged him tighter, tight enough to break him. Tight enough to break them both. Soon, Chu Wanning’s struggle ceased. He stilled, stiff and awkward in the cage of Mo Ran’s embrace. When he spoke next, his voice was quieter, a question Mo Ran had no idea how to answer, unable to grasp what the question even truly was.

“Mo Ran?”

Mo Ran shuddered, pulling away, looking into Chu Wanning’s sharp phoenix eyes, eyes that glimmered with light, with life. Eyes that had gone openly, nakedly wide.

“You aren’t allowed to leave this Venerable One,” Taxian-jun hissed vehemently, his heart a painful beat inside of his chest as his hands cupped Chu Wanning’s face, forcing him to meet the fire raging in Taxian-jun’s eyes, the flames that threatened to swallow them both. “Do you understand? This Venerable One forbids it! I forbid you from - who do you think you are……”

“Mo Ran,” Chu Wanning gripped his wrists, pulling Mo Ran’s hands away from his face. A face, Mo Ran realized with a start, that was shadowed, filled with too many lines to ignore. “Calm down. You’re shaking.”

Was he? Impossible. But as Mo Ran glanced down to where Chu Wanning’s pale hands tightly gripped his wrist, he noticed his fingers flexing, curling around nothing, wracked with unceasing tremors. 

It was cold outside. He’d run straight out of his bedroom, dressed in only his inner robe….of course, he was shaking. He was furious - Taxian-jun was livid, filled with fiery anger that would not abate, that roiled through his veins like fire. It was maddening. It had nowhere to go. Taxian-jun couldn’t understand it, couldn’t make sense of it, why it felt like he was being torn apart from the inside out. All he knew was that he had held Chu Wanning’s cold, lifeless body inside of his arms, and it had felt real, in the way nothing had in a long, long time. Chu Wanning had left him. Chu Wanning had left him behind, and he wasn’t supposed to leave Taxian-jun, not until Taxian-jun allowed it, which he never would, because Chu Wanning was his, dammit. Despite his hatred, or because of it, Chu Wanning was Taxian-jun��s, and Taxian-jun was-

A cough crawled up his throat, and another, and another, until soon his chest was heaving, his ribs shuddering, his lungs bereft of all breath. Distantly, Taxian-jun registered the taste of blood filling his mouth, cloying and astringent. Taxian-jun felt like laughing. Mo Ran felt like crying.

But when Mo Ran saw Chu Wanning lift a hand towards his wound, a flare of panic ripped through his heart, an icy-cold, paralytic horror he hadn’t felt in years. Mo Ran caught Chu Wanning’s wrist, squeezing, needing the reassurance of a pulse.  

“Don’t. Don’t do it,” Mo Ran rasped, hating how his voice broke. “If you heal this wound….I’ll never forgive you. You can’t.”

Chu Wanning looked at him, brows furrowed, mouth set in a soft frown. Taxian-jun hated it. Hated how Chu Wanning would take this pathetic display as weakness. He was probably judging Mo Ran right now, sneering at him inside his heart, thinking him such a fool-

Taxian-jun almost flinched when the back of a soft, cool hand came to rest against his forehead. He felt his lips part, but no words came to rush out. No insults, no curses, no words of pure, unadulterated hate.

Foolishly, for a moment, Mo Ran wanted to call a name that he hadn’t in years, “....Shizun?”

“Mo Ran,” Chu Wanning whispered, a cold hand cupping his cheek, a gentle thumb drying a stray tear he hadn’t realized had fallen. “You must wake up.”

Taxian-jun stared at him, dazed. “Wake up?” He muttered, shaking his head, voice shrinking as he breathed, hesitantly. “This is….just a dream?”

The delicate jut of Chu Wanning’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, “Mn,” and then, with featherlight fingers, ever-so-carefully, he tucked a loose strand of hair behind Taxian-jun’s ear. For a second, Mo Ran found himself leaning into the touch. “It’s just a dream.”

“I didn’t know,” Mo Ran told him, hushed like a secret. “It felt so real. This Venerable One….is confused. I’ve just been so confused, lately. It’s Xue Meng’s fault. This fucking wound - it hurts, all of the time. My chest won’t stop hurting. It’s driving me insane.” 

Mo Ran bit his tongue before he could reveal more. Even in a dream, it felt far too vulnerable, far too stupid to reveal such a fear. Mo Ran had ears and he heard all the rumors the people whispered below his throne. He was a tyrant. He was bloodthirsty, cruel, worse than a beast. He was losing himself. 

He was going mad. 

“Wanning, how do I….how do I know what is real?” Mo Ran muttered, burying his face inside his hands to hide his burning eyes. He was just-

Mo Ran was tired. So, so very tired. He ached, down to his very bones. 

“Lie down,” Chu Wanning murmured, guiding Mo Ran to the bed. “You’ll feel better after you’ve slept.”

Something in Mo Ran protested this gentleness - surely it was only a prelude to more cruelty? But exhaustion was a heavy, pressing force. Inescapable. Like a limp puppet, all strings cut, Taxian-jun allowed himself to be arranged supine, and though every fiber of his being shied away from the almost gentle way the blankets were tucked in around his body, for some reason he couldn’t muster up the strength to bat Chu Wanning away, like he normally would have. In fact, Mo Ran couldn’t seem to tear his eyes, lucifugous and hot, away from Chu Wanning at all. And when Chu Wanning stood it was entirely involuntary, the way Mo Ran’s hand shot out to grab his wrist.

“Will you be here, when this Venerable One wakes?” Taxian-jun asked, and maybe he meant it as a threat, but it came out as a desperate plea. Still, the derision and contempt he had come to expect from Chu Wanning was nowhere to be seen on his visage which looked in the shadows, simply put, haunted. Conflicted. 

Lovelorn. 

“Mn,” Chu Wanning sat down beside him, and didn’t try to free himself from Mo Ran’s grip. “I’ll be here.”

“You won’t leave?”

“I won’t leave.”

“Promise?”

“....I promise.”

Taxian-jun nodded, and though he began to drift, caught in-between veils of the living world and the insensate realm of black, his grip around Chu Wanning did not loosen, and he still found himself whispering a question, one he somehow knew only Chu Wanning held the answer to. 

“Do you think dreams have any meaning?”

Just before unconsciousness could claim him once more, a whisper rang through his ears, soft-spoken yet achingly clear. 

“Sometimes.”

Then….Mo Ran just wouldn’t go. Chu Wanning couldn’t do anything foolish so long as Mo Ran stayed to make sure he behaved. Right? He couldn’t let Xue Meng live, or that damn Mei Hanxue - but he could think up another plan. He had time.  

-

Chu Wanning didn’t know how long it had been since Mo Ran had cried in front of him. Certainly, not since he was a boy

That meant he was still in there, somewhere. A heart still beat within the blackened, thorny brambles wrapped around Mo Ran’s chest.

There was still hope. 

There was still a way back from hell. 

Chu Wanning’s breath shuddered as it left his lungs. 

He wouldn’t leave his disciple. He wouldn’t stand back and watch as Mo Ran lost any more of himself than he already had. 

“It will be okay, Mo Ran,” Chu Wanning murmured, watching how the moonlight flickered across Mo Ran’s sleeping face, and how the knot of tension in between his brows only smoothed out when Chu Wanning squeezed his hand, tight, tight enough to leave his mark. “This master promises. I won’t leave you behind.”

[lovebykai]

Satisfied

Pairing: Alpha!Oikawa x Omega!Reader

Warning(s): Suggestive. Angst.

Omegaverse.

Authors Note: Reposted.

Courting an alpha like Oikawa was stupid. He was popular, so every omega in the vicinity had the exact same idea; he was so focused on his volleyball career it was almost like he didn't even see when someone was legitimately interested in him. It had been that way since the two of you were kids.

And yet.

You pressed your face deeper into his jacket, ignoring the sympathetic look Iwaizumi gave you from the court as the rotten scent of jealousy flooded the air. Oikawa didn't even realize -- or maybe he did and just didn't care -- how much drama his existence in your life stirred up around you. It didn't matter, though.

You'd put up with just about anything as long as he'd stay.

* * *

You’d been friends since you were kids. Maybe that was why he never saw you the way you saw him. After all, he’d been around since the two of you were in diapers; by the time Iwaizumi was added to the mix, the two of you were hitting that weird age when girls were gross and guys were bullies and, honestly, it was shocking the friendship held up at all.

Because Oikawa was mean.

You’d seen the dead-eyed looks he gave to the girls who pushed just a little too hard; heard the snarky comments he’d learned to keep to himself over the years. He’d left a trail of heartbreak and longing through your childhood, so it was almost a relief when he managed to pull on that obnoxious mask of his. Even if it did mean that the tactics for getting close to him had taken on another form.

“Hey, Y/N!” You paused, turning to the grinning girl from -- your math class, you believed -- and tried not to look as confused as you felt. The two of you had been in the same classes since your first year of middle school, and she’d never shown an ounce of interest in talking to you before.

“Wanna walk home together?” Oh, right. You guys were neighbors. Hesitantly, you nodded, and it was the start of a beautiful friendship. One of the few that you’d managed outside of Iwaizumi and Oikawa, and that was its own form of comfort.

For a while, anyway.

Slowly, the friendship began to wilt as her fixation with your childhood friend became clear; by the time the two of them started dating, you’d realized -- albeit a bit bitterly -- that you’d been a stepping stone to getting what she’d really wanted. You weren’t the only one, though; when you presented as an omega later that year, and she a beta, you’d taken some satisfaction in the fact that she was intimidated by what that would mean for her relationship. Y’know, since Oikawa was an alpha.

* * *

“She really doesn’t like you.” Iwaizumi commented softly, a bit amused as the two of you settled in to eat lunch; you smirked a bit to yourself, shrugging.

“She should’ve been focusing on Oikawas fanclub instead of me; not my fault she thought I was in the running to be his mate.” They’d made it a year before she’d gotten sick of his attention to volleyball, and when they broke up and he promptly began humoring the advances of her little friends, she’d been very open with her seething.

“Aren’t you?” Iwaizumi asked curiously and you fumbled with your spoon, wincing when it clattered onto your desk.

“Of course not.” The mutter wasn’t very convincing, but he didn’t push again that day.

* * *

You were never the jealous type. Oikawa had spent your entire life trying to find the person who would stay -- trying to find someone who would be content to wait for his love and attention. Someone who would put up with his late practices, and the way he snapped at them when he was hurting from overdoing it.

And he found her.

She was patient, and kind, and her smiles were like sunshine. You’d never felt truly afraid of his flings until she’d looked at you -- so genuine and smelling like flowers -- and smiled. When she said she wanted to be your friend, she meant it; you tried hard not to hate her for being perfect. You knew immediately she was the one; you couldn’t help but look at Oikawa to gauge his reaction -- did he see it too?

The little omega fit into your friend group easily; since he usually dated betas, you weren’t used to having someone around that could take your place. When she became the team manager, you’d gone home and screamed into your pillow; unaccustomed to the agony of realizing you were being left behind in favor of someone just a little softer. A little kinder. More open about how she felt.

Silently, your resentment grew until it was unbearable. Every touch, and laugh, and gift-- you’d never wanted so badly to see Oikawa break someone's heart, and that was wrong. If anyone had noticed your spiraling, they didn’t comment; by the time she finally worked up to asking Oikawa to be her boyfriend, you’d started trying to put as much distance between yourself and the alpha as possible.

* * *

“Y/N!” Oikawas voice garnered your attention and you rolled your eyes heavenward, already plotting your escape. When you turned to him, his fingers were laced with hers, and you willed yourself not to start pumping out disapproving pheromones.

“What’s up?” You tried to sound casual, despite knowing you were going to deny whatever request he had. It had been months since the two of you had hung out, and you didn’t plan to stop now. You just had to last another year or so and then you’d be off to university; you could make up some kind of excuse to dodge their wedding.

“Wanna grab dinner with us?” She was the one to ask and it took you by surprise.

“I’m alright, but thanks for thinking of me.” Her smile was understanding and you wondered if she knew how badly you wanted her alpha.

Maybe it was some kind of cosmic justice for being so smug about your position in Oikawas life; every time you’d smirked to yourself when he dumped another one of his little beta girlfriends. Before anything else could be said, you were already walking away, and telling yourself not to read too much into his disappointed expression.

* * *

“So you’re really going to let her have him, huh?” Matsukawa asked as you inhaled and you managed to choke on smoke.

“The fuck are you even talking about?” You wheezed as he snickered, plucking the joint from your fingers.

“Oikawa. We always thought you’d work up the nerve to confess if we just left it alone, but we’re third years, now, and you’re still pretending that you haven't been pining for him since you guys were kids.” Iwaizumi hummed his agreement from the couch, giving you a look and you could feel yourself warming uncomfortably.

“I’m not a homewrecker, guys; if he was interested in me, he would have said something by now.”

“Maybe he’s been thinking the same way.” Hanamaki shot back as you waved off their prodding, and you rolled your eyes.

“I’m the omega, here, I’m not supposed to do the chasing!” You whined playfully and they howled with laughter; the subject was dropped, and you passed out on the floor a little bit later.

* * *

“She… she broke up with him?” You asked, tentatively, and Iwaizumi nodded. “Why?”

“Because he’s an idiot--” He grunted when you smacked his chest. “Why do you think? He spends all his time on the court; she got sick of waiting around for him.”

“How stupid.” You immediately huffed, internally seething because you’d been so sure she was going to be his omega for the rest of his damn life. The two of you hadn’t spoken in… well, you honestly couldn’t remember how long; you’d been so starved to even lay eyes on him that when he’d come in late to the Karasuno practice match you’d almost melted.

“Shouldn’t you be happy?” Iwaizumi teased, and you gave him a glare.

“For what? He’s probably hurting over it, and I’ve been dodging him for months--” You let out a groan, pressing your hands to your face and feeling awful for your behavior.

“He’s practicing late today.” The words were tossed out casually as the other alpha headed home, smirking when you immediately headed towards the gym.

* * *

“...’Ru?” You called softly, slipping inside with a wince as his serve bounced off the wall.

The smell of distressed alpha was almost overwhelming; he clearly hadn’t been expecting to be interrupted. For a moment, you felt stupid for even coming -- what were you supposed to say, even? -- and when his icy gaze landed on you, there was a moment where you just knew he was going to bite out something caustic.

“What, Y/N?” It wasn’t said with any warmth, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as you thought, so you risked heading his direction. Everything in you was clawing at you to soothe him, and it was almost physically painful when you came within arms reach of him.

“I’m sorry.” The smell seemed to dissipate slightly as he ran his fingers through his hair, letting out a long sigh.

“Don’t be. It’s not like you did anything wrong.” There was a long silence where the two of you just stared at one another, uncertain as to what should be said after such an awkward situation.

“I missed you.” After working up the nerve, you managed to spit it out on a whisper, hands curling into fists at your sides.

Believe it or not, Oikawa gave the best hugs.

* * *

The next one didn’t like you.

She was pretty, and popular, and very open about it. You tried not to take it personally when he kept dating her. They made it a month, and only broke up because she caused a scene about you showing up to one of his games -- never mind that you were friends with all the other third years, as well -- and it had embarrassed him.

She hadn’t known that, because she couldn’t smell the fluctuating scents in the air like alphas and omegas could, so naturally it was your fault as far as she was concerned; she made it her personal goal to make you miserable.

Honestly, she was doing a pretty shit job of it until she started spouting off about how you were the reason they broke up. Because you were in love with him, and needy, and clingy-- and it hit just a little bit too close to home, making you fumble over your denials; even long after she got over it, the rumors were there, whispered among your classmates.

It had always been something that was thought but never said, and once the words were out in the world they couldn’t be taken back.

* * *

“Your heats coming on, huh?” Hanamaki snickered, ruffling your hair as you tried to align the edge of your notebook with the edge of your desk.

“Gonna ask Oikawa to help you out this time?”

“Shut up, Makki.” You hissed, baring your teeth at the cooing alpha. He just laughed off your attitude, and you were so fixated on organizing your space that you didn’t even realize that the man in question was standing just in earshot, turning a pretty shade of pink at the idea.

* * *

“For the love of--” You let out a distressed whine as you tore down your nest for the nth time, just about in tears because it wouldn’t do what you wanted it to. The blankets weren’t right, and everything smelled off and--

“I’m coming in!” The call made you tense, already preparing to chew out whoever was interrupting you, until the distinct smell of alpha washed over you. Your alpha. Except he wasn’t -- not really -- and it wasn’t like you could just--

“How’re you feeling?” Oikawa’s pretty voice seemed to completely overtake your senses; you resisted the urge to whine for him.

“How do you think?” You huffed, wiping at your eyes furiously and throwing the pillow you’d been fighting with onto the floor. The alpha snickered when you spun around to glare through misty eyes, just about ready to throw in the towel and settle for your bed instead of a proper nest.

“Hey, whoa, don’t cry!” He cooed, dropping his duffel bag beside your bedroom door as he let himself in; kicking the door shut behind him. Long arms looped around you and you couldn’t resist whimpering into his chest, nuzzling into the embrace for comfort. His purr made your legs tremble; the smell of your want would have been humiliating at any other point in time.

“Tooru--” You keened as your thoughts began to grow foggy, and he ran his fingers through your hair, shushing you.

“I’ve got you, ‘mega,” Soft and sweet and self-assured-- his tone alone had you purring for him.

“Want help with your nest?” You nodded eagerly and he chuckled, squeezing you a bit tighter for a minute before stepping back far enough that you could look him in the eye.

The brown of his eyes was almost completely shrouded by his blown pupils and it gave you goosebumps; neither of you acknowledged the weird tension, though, and he started gathering your mess of nesting supplies.

* * *

School the next week was embarrassing. Your whole room stunk of Oikawa for the entirety of your heat, and the scent was clinging to you even after it was over. Even though he didn’t do anything.

Helped you make your nest, and scented some stuff for you. He was there until you’d started stripping -- shamelessly -- and then he’d made a hasty retreat and part of you was absolutely humiliated. The rejection had made your heat particularly painful, even though you knew he hadn’t meant anything by it.

He never did.

“Feelin’ better?” Hanamaki teased, and you flinched, picking at the loose strings of your sweater.

“Uh. Yeah.” The dry response had all of the third years stiffening in alarm; you could see Iwaizumi glaring at Oikawa from the corner of your eye. Looking to save your friend from his teammates, you forced a grin and batted your eyes a bit.

"Just taking a while to bounce back, I guess! Don't worry, I'm good."

* * *

But of course they worried.

"Talk to her!" Iwaizumi was hissing somewhere behind you, and you rolled your eyes at the drama of it all. Your emotions were so raw, still; you were really hoping you weren't gonna snap at them for just trying to fix the situation. Thus, you tried your best to speed walk away from them, despite their long-ass strides.

"Y/N!" Oikawas voice gave you goosebumps, and you tried to shake off the urge to wait for him. Pretending you hadn't heard, you picked up your pace, now just about jogging to escape the incoming conversation.

"I know where you live, you dumby!" He called as you scampered to turn down a nearby alley, trying to recall the shortcut you'd only used a handful of times. Regardless, you finally came to a stop, realizing you could have this uncomfortable conversation in front of your parents, or in a dimly lit alley with some semblance of real privacy.

"What, Oikawa?" You demanded, pouting as he came to a halt across from you.

"Ouch, no "Tooru" or "Ru"?" He tried to tease you, and you rolled your eyes, crossing your arms across your chest. He rubbed the back of his neck, giving you a weak smile.

"Look, about last week--"

"I cannot express to you how much I don’t want to talk about this." You interrupted softly, already feeling anxious about whatever it was he was going to say.

"Well, we need to." He sighed, and you grew even more tense, if that was even possible.

"Fine." You grit your teeth, already preparing yourself for his rejection; you tried to contain the emotional outburst you could feel coming on.

"I'm sorry I left you like that, I just didn't want to… make things weird, y'know? We've been friends for so long, and--"

"Yes, 'Ru, yes, I get it. We're just friends, can I go now?" His pretty brown eyes widened as you bit out the words, and you could see the gears slowly turning in his head.

"... why are you upset?" Oikawa asked, voice soothing as he inched closer; you took a step back to keep some distance between the two of you.

"I'm not. I just don't need to get the "we're just friends" speech when I've been giving it to myself for fucking years, okay? I didn't expect anything from you, and there's no hard feelings. Goodnight." You tried not to spit it with all the pent up frustration you had, turning on your heel and leaving him there.

* * *

Courting an alpha like Oikawa was stupid.

You reiterated it to yourself over and over and over to yourself throughout the years. Even though you wanted to, like every other dumb omega and beta girl who'd laid eyes on him. You’d stepped aside for every girlfriend; kept your mouth shut with every confession. Never pressured him for anything more than he was willing to give you.

And yet.

School was so fucking awkward. You dodged the entire volleyball club for most of the week  before Iwaizumi got sick of it and cornered you in the hallway.

"I don't know how I could make it any clearer without just telling him I'm in love with him, alright? And I don't care if it makes me a coward, I just… I can't, okay?" You sighed, and he sighed, and then you went on dodging all your friends for another day before deciding to just stay home for a while.

Perks of being an omega.

* * *

Your bedroom door rattled the walls when it was flung open, and you let out a low whine of disapproval. Buried beneath the remains of your nest -- that still smelled deliciously of Oikawa -- you didn't even realize who it was who'd come into your space. Not until long limbs shuffled beneath your fortress of blankets and pillows, anyway.

"Y/N." Oikawas voice set your teeth on edge, making you flinch away as he laid beside you.

"Tooru." You murmured back, meeting his gaze beneath the blankets. His touch was almost reverent as he cupped your cheek, thumb tracing patterns just beneath your eye.

"Can I kiss you?" The question was almost inaudible over the sound of your own heartbeat.

"Only if it means something." The corner of his lips curled as he leaned forward and sealed his lips to yours.

* * *

"Alpha!" You whined, squirming as Oikawa pressed your hands to the mattress, fingers laced through yours as he chuckled against your neck.

"Shh, baby, I've got you." His hips ground against yours and you let out a keening moan. His teeth teased the tender scent glands on your neck and you came undone, earning yourself the rare growl from your boyfriend. Your alpha. Yours.

“Mine.” He sounded feral, barely managing to form words between his own growls and huffs; then, to your shock, he drew blood, biting down on your neck-- marking you-- and you whimpered, bowing into him.

“Yours.”

[jesslockwood]

SOUR | T. Holland

Word Count: 1.7k

Pairing(s): Tom Holland x Actress!Reader

Warnings: angsty af, swearing

Summary: y/n and tom broke up, and when tom comes around with his new girl 2 weeks later, y/n is sour. 

A/n: I was hesitant to post this due to everything going on with tom lmao but yk, fuck it lol. anyways lmk if you want a part two cause I this was pretty short and I have ideas! also I didn’t edit this much lol so sorry for the mistakes!

His brown guilty eyes were enough to know that he moved on, in two weeks to be exact, after you broke it off. He was spotted recently with a girl he said he was just friends with, what a damn lie. 

You try to not let the tears out as you see them making their way on the red carpet of the movie premiere. He looked you straight in the fucking eyes, yet couldn’t even give you a heads up he was bringing a date tonight. You worked together for six months yet he didn’t have the decency.  

He betrayed you. He didn’t cheat but he betrayed you. 

You had even mentioned her by name before, yet he said you were paranoid and had nothing to worry about. What bullshit. 

She was just a new trophy for him, one that he’d put on the shelf later, or smash like it like you were broken. 

 It started out so sweet and innocent. You had met working together and had started dating under the radar, and you fell in love with him so quickly, even at his worst, but it didn’t matter. He moved on with you still in the picture and that’s what hurt the most. But he would never see or care about how much you hurt. He wasn’t sorry. 

Isn’t it funny how someone you thought could love you the way you loved them, was a damn traitor? 

He played all these twisted games with your mind, thinking that he felt the same way about you, or at least cared. 

God, you wanted to scream, she was sleeping in the bed you lied in and made with him. But she couldn’t care less, she got the prize, a shitty one at that. 

You didn’t get it, he couldn’t have fallen in love with someone that quickly, not after what you had. 

All you had done for Tom, it didn’t apparently matter to him, cause he’s dating her. He gave you his fucking word, that you were the one who meant something to him, you guessed he just used you.

She was gorgeous too, and she made you feel so small, unimportant and the paparazzi all turned to them, and barely any was paying any mind to you, the star of the movie. It sounded selfish but you put the blood sweat and tears into this movie, and all she had to do was walk with the man you put blood sweat and tears into, and she had all the attention.

He just had to bring her and was showing her off like a new trophy. God, you hated him. You hated him for hurting you like this. And yet, if he asked for you back, you would probably jump at the chance. 

He seemed so genuine and true when you had first met him. Brown doe-eyed, attentive and listening to every word you said like it was the most important thing in the world, then things got ugly. He would play all these twisted games with you, making you feel like nothing one moment, and then his everything the next. 

He even gave you his fucking word and a promise ring that he would always love you, But Isn’t it funny? He’ll never feel sorry for breaking you. 

Suddenly one of your friends, well tom’s brother, wraps his arm around your waist, whispering to you, asking if your okay, before the paps get a few snaps in of the moment. Harry starts leading you away from the commotion before you cried. No one had asked you that until today. Which kind of shell shocked you, because you weren’t and he was the first person who seemed to care.

Harry at the moment couldn’t care less about the out-of-character way his brother was acting, especially towards you. Yes, he loved his brother but hated how he was acting. He couldn’t see how he could treat someone as lovely as you like that. 

Tom didn’t even notice the way you were destroyed. He let you go, Harry couldn’t understand why because tom seemed so happy with you, until nearing the end of the relationship. 

“Thank you, Harry.” you sniffle, once reaching the inside of the building. 

“You shouldn’t be thanking me. I should be apologizing for my brother.”

You smile weakly at him. He wipes the tears from your eyes, before suggesting,

“After they have you up on stage for the thank you’s and stuff, we should just ditch this and go back to my hotel and get room service and raid my candy stash, if you’re up for it.”

“I’ll think about it,” you say with a more genuine yet sad smile.

“Let’s get in there, shall we?” he puts his arm out for you and you link yours in his. 

What you didn’t realize is that tom saw harry wiping your tears while doing an interview, and saw you link your arms together when he got inside. To say he was fuming doesn’t even cover how enraged he was. 

Once getting in, you realized you and tom would be sitting next to one another, something you truly wished you could get out of. 

“You’d better wish me luck.” You point to the seats. 

Harry got the bright idea to just take his brother’s spot. He wouldn’t care anyway, he had his new girl Zabrina. 

You and Harry had a small conversation about what both of you had been up to after he was Tom’s assistant for filming. You saw him almost every day when you and tom would hang out, harry being the third wheel. You had spent a decent chunk of time with him and definitely preferred the company over being alone, or with your ex.

“I can’t believe you dropped your SD card down the drain! Photos are your life, so you should have paid attention!” you laugh with him.

“Harry, You’re in my seat.” Tom interrupts, with a scowl on his face. 

“Can’t you just move down one? Y/n and I are talking here.”

“Tommy I can’t see from that seat!” Zabrina pouts like a child. 

“If she can’t see why do I have to sit there? I actually worked behind the scenes on this movie!” 

“Harry, don’t make me-”

“You know what! Harry and I were leaving after we thank everyone. So you two lovebirds can have the whole row!” you say venom seething from your mouth. 

“There you go, Tommy. Have a nice night you two!” Harry follows up, really sick of the attitude his brother was having.

Tom’s face turned red under the makeup he had on. He was enraged. His brother was betraying him. 

“Have a nice time, fucking around” he said, seeing red. he saw your face soften, from anger to confusion, to sadness. You didn’t think he thought so low of you.

“What the fuck tom! We aren’t-”

“It’s not worth it Harry, he’s not worth it,” you say sadly. Standing up, Turning to go towards the stage. 

That hit tom with a pang in his chest. He was just trying to get over you, to move forward. But maybe that was the problem. He just left you in the dust (peter parker is that you?) to navigate the way you felt over losing one of the best things you ever had. God, you wished you didn’t fall in love with him before he betrayed you. You wished he just would have thought it through before he ruined you. 

Your director motioned over to you and Tom to go up on the stage. 

“I’ll meet you outside, Y/n/n.” 

That was tom’s nickname for you. He came up with it and he was the only one who could call you that. You were his and he was yours. But yet he knew that long-distance was so fucking hard. He couldn’t put you or himself, so he found someone who was fine with the distance. Zabrina barely paid attention to him unless he wanted attention for herself, but he didn’t realize how he broke much more of you than the surface showed. 

“She’s really pretty, I hope she makes you happy,” you mention bitterly, hoping in a terrible way,  he’d never be as happy as he was with you. 

Before Tom, you scream out no one would make him happy as you did. Your director cut tom off.

After your director said thanks to everyone and the film started you grab your bag from your assistant, before heading to the exit, tom hurriedly tried to follow you, being caught by Zabrina, asking Tom to take a selfie with her, so she could commemorate her ‘prize’ when truly, Tom was using her as a rebound. 

“Zabrina, I need to talk to harry!” he whispers yells.

“Why? He literally is taking to your wretched ex?” she says with venom in her voice. 

Tom jogs around her, trying to get to you and Harry, While Zabrina dramatically calls after him.

He was too late, though, he saw you from the doors, you were already getting in your getaway car, with Harry. He ruined everything.

Harry and you were sitting in the limousine that was rented for you, before harry states, “He’ll be the one who crying, I promise you.”

“I always knew this is how He’d leave me. He found someone more exciting, and better than me. I was used a discarded like nothing.” you laugh through the tears.

“You’ll find someone who finds you exciting Y/n, and you’ll be their whole world.” he comforts you.

“Good for him I guess, but it’s like we never happened. Like what the fuck is that?” you ask.

“He’s acting like a damn sociopath.” harry shrugs.

You laugh at that one. 

“So what do you want to watch Y/n?”

“Would you hate me if I said legally blonde?”

“Not if we can watch fight club after.” 

“You have a deal, Sir!”

Tom however was stuck, watching you and him on screen. Reminiscing of how he fucked up. 

It was getting close to an intimate scene, probably his favorite one he’s ever done. All he could think about was someone else getting to touch you, and be with you, he wanted that but at the same time, he couldn’t deal with all the shit of being with you. The relationship was too good, so much that Tom thought sometimes he didn’t deserve someone like you. It was probably crazy of him for thinking like that, but he couldn’t bring you down with him, not when he was so fucked up. He wished he could be the one but he couldn’t so he just hoped you were okay.  

Tags:

@spideyspeaches

@greenorangevioletgrass

@queenofthepouges

@minejungwoo

@keithseabrook27

@lolooo22

@webmeupspiderdaddy

@harryhollandsgirlfriend

[fandomlovingfreak]

Glacial Passion (2/?)

Regulus Black/Reader

Rating: Suggestive Content, but no lemon

Word Count: 1809

MasterList Link I AO3 Link I Wattpad Link

Summary: Glacial, cold, icy… all words that described Regulus Black’s grey eyes. Was there truly no emotion behind those eyes, or did a caring man exist beneath? Could she defrost those glacial eyes?

Disclaimer: Regulus Black (Walburga Black, Orion Black, and Sirius Black) is a character from Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling. Reader or y/n is not owned by Rowling. This work has not been created for profit or financial compensation, and is a transformative fair use work in accordance with Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act.

Notes: So I am a liar, and this will be longer than 3 chapters probably:) I kept writing chapter 2 and it ended up being more like 6000 words, so I’m splitting it up baby

Enjoy

Pulled from sleep abruptly, I sit up, disoriented in the unfamiliar bedroom. Glancing around as the memories of last night come flooding in. This bed, now empty , belongs to my husband. Noticing said husband's absence, I rest my hand where I last saw him, noting that the sheets are cool to the touch. I glance towards the two doors leading to the closet and bathroom. Something deep inside me hopes that Regulus would pop out of either of the doors. 

Maybe he went to get something--

No. It's absurd to let myself believe that Regulus simply stepped out of the room for a moment. My foolish heart wants to believe he didn't, but I'm all too aware that Regulus abandoned me in our bed the morning after our wedding.

Why I assumed having sex with him would magically make him love me, I don't know. It was ridiculous, a miscalculation , an expectation that I had been holding onto consciously or not.

I laugh bitterly to myself. How stupid can I be? 

How stupid.

***

I assume running into me in the library of the house was an unpleasant accident on his part, partly from the stuttering pause when he walked through the doors and partly from the icy look he gave me.

How someone can look at another with such-- coldness , especially someone you could at best call a stranger, is unfathomable to me. I look back down at the book that I've spent my day entertaining myself with to shield myself from his frigid eyes.

It's helped pass the time to an extent, the time I should have been with him doing whatever newlyweds do on their first day of marriage.

At first, I had wandered the halls aimlessly debating with myself if breakfast with his parents, alone, would be too unbearable. It was a perfectly tragic breakfast, with Walburga asking me an array of pointless questions that had little to do with getting to know her new daughter-in-law.

Worst of all, she had been relentless in her demanding way about the importance of an heir, as if I were supposed to pop one out after one night. I had to admit, the idea of exposing her son and his use of contraceptive charms had been a delicious idea at the moment. In the end, though, I chose civility with my charming husband, even as the spite I felt for him in the current time had nearly pushed me towards the edge in these conversations.

I had wandered into the library after escaping my in-laws, and I hadn't left since then. The novel chosen to occupy my time had been working to make me forget that I was beyond annoyed with Regulus and my situation... but then he walked in and ruined what little sanity I had collected in the past hours.

Regulus still stands in the door frame, looking as if he may turn around and walk away before engaging me in any conversation or even a simple hello. If this son-of-a-bitch turns around and pretends he didn't see me, I swear I will make myself a widow.

"(y/n)."

My shoulders tense, "Regulus."

He doesn't respond for a second before asking, "Have you had a nice day?"

Un-fucking-believable , "No."

Not even married a full twenty-four hours, and he left me alone to fend for myself in this creaky, horrible old house with only his parents and a house-elf for company, and he dares to ask me if I've had a nice day?

If I hadn't just had one of the most soul-draining days of my life, I would've laughed at the look on his face. He doesn't quite know what to do with my firm 'no'. Naturally, I am not happy, and I will not hide my unhappiness from my dear husband.

"What is the matter? Did you--"

"You ran off to Merlin-knows-where, leaving me alone in this house. I did not have a good day, thank you for asking." I go back to the book I was reading. I had been enjoying this moment of reprieve from the anger I was feeling, but now that he's returned, I can barely focus on the little black words.

"Mother and father were here--"

"I don't find their company appealing," I spit back. How dare he not even explain himself. And suggest such a-- repulsive alternative . His parents? He really wanted me to spend my first day as his wife with his parents?

"I assumed you would want to get to know your family."

"You didn't suppose I would want to get to know my husband?" I can't help but bite back. His calm tone further aggravates me.

"You should know your family." 

"They are not my family."

I peek over my book to see his face. Confusion and a tinge of annoyance lace his features.

"They are your family."

" No , they are not."

He lets a frown crease his forehead for a moment before he goes back to his mask of passivity. "You are my wife." 

"That is true." My jaw clenches uncomfortably. What was his point?

"Then you are family, which makes my family yours ."

I shake my head, "no, it does not. "

Regulus looks frustrated, "When we have children. Then you will consider my family as yours?"

"No."

"No? How can you say no to a fact? A child of ours will be related to my family as well as yours and bear the Black name."

"That is all true, but it does not make us family."

Regulus has the decency to look shocked at my words, "I am your husband. Of course, we are family. With a child, that's even more so."

"Our marriage is a glorified contract at best. You do not love me, and I do not love you. You don't even try to love me. You made it fairly clear today that you don't intend on trying. Yes, any child born between us would be my family, but that does not make us family. Family implies some bond of familial familiarity. I don't know you, and at this rate, I don't see myself ever knowing you." I keep eye contact as I lay out our situation to my husband. Husband didn't even feel like it should apply to him. The warmth the word could have brought to me has been extinguished by Regulus's lack of emotion. Lack of-- everything.

Regulus stares back.

"I can't love you."

His words pierce any anger I felt. I knew that this morning. Knew it as the hours passed by today, and I still heard nothing from him. I feel the lump of sorrow firm in my throat, and before I can stop myself, I whisper, "but why?" The weakness I let seep into the words disgusts me. I can't afford to be weak in this marriage.

His icy eyes stare into my watery ones. Stupid tears. 

"It's not who I am."

Rage fills where the sorrow sat a moment ago. "I have been damned to an eternity of misfortune. I don't understand what I did to deserve this."

Refusing to show this vulnerability, I practically run from the room.

I walk past the doors to the other bedrooms of Grimmauld place, finding mine— ours . Collapsing on the bed, I let myself tear up completely. 

I hate it here, and I can't think of any way to get out of it. Nothing can fix this— this mistake of a marriage.

Wiping the tears from my eyes, I look up at the heavy canopy. I don't know how I'll survive this marriage; at least my sanity won't survive. How anyone can live in this dreary home is beyond me.

***

Regulus paces the room, not expecting an argument from her. (y/n) had been so... docile the entire night they spent together. Nothing could've prepared for him to hear her frustrated words or her claim that she possibly wanted anything from him.

And her quiet "but why"... he nearly lost his cool at the broken sound of (y/n)'s voice. He hadn't expected her to be so… emotional.

Despite their marriage being arranged, his wife clearly came in with the hope she could grow to love him. And she seemed to hope that he could love her as well.

If he had any idea how to be in love, he would try for her. But… it's complicated. Even with the bonding spell between couples like them, he doubts he can act as she wishes.

Maybe he could act it , but that's not fair to (y/n). 

Regulus knew that it would be much crueler to pretend to love her when he truly did not.

***

(y/n) doesn't accompany him to dinner. Walburga and Orion don't comment, but he can tell that they are curious to know why their daughter-in-law wasn't present. 

When he makes his way to their room, he isn't surprised that she doesn't turn around to greet him.

For a moment, he watches her as she sits at her vanity. She is a rather pretty girl, he muses. He supposes he should be appreciative to have such a beautiful wife. But, unfortunately, not many men in these marriages could say they were attracted to their wives.

He's about to approach her when she speaks.

"I want a child." 

Regulus's mouth goes dry, " You do ?" 

(Y/n) turns around in her vanity chair, "I do."

"Where-- did this come from?"

"Is this not why we married?"

Regulus crosses his arms across his chest, "that's beside the point."

"It's not! This is why marriages like ours take place!" She gets up close and personal to him, "that's why your parents chose me for you. So I would have your children and continue your line ."

He doesn't argue with her because she isn't wrong.

"We don't need a child now."

She laughs bitterly, "You'll deny me this as well?" 

"I'm not— denying you anything."

"You have no right to say no to me, Regulus Black."

"We've been married for less than a week."

"The sooner, the better." She echoes his own words.

Regulus sighs, running a hand through his hair. This is the last conversation he wants to have at 10 P.M.

"We are not having a child right now. That's final."

She gets back up in his face, "We will see about that." (y/n) moves around him towards the door.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm sleeping elsewhere." He almost snorts at the irony of her leaving the room when she's all but declared she could seduce him into giving her the child she wants.

Instead, he grabs her arm before she can leave, "you stay here. I'll leave."

"I am perfectly capable of sleeping in a different room."

"Stay here," he gives her a serious look.

(Y/n) looks away from him, pulling her arm free, "fine."

[flowercrown-bard]

You must have some review for me (1/ 2)

 pairing: Geraskier

word count: ~2k

read on AO3

part 2

summary: Geralt gives Jaskier three-word reviews and Jaskier is not very happy with them. Until he is.

---

"Fuck off, bard."

"How very dare you!" Jaskier clutched one hand above his heart, pointing the other accusatorily at Geralt. "I asked for a review, not for an impudence. At least the first review I ever got from you was constructive criticism, but you've only gotten worse since then."

Geralt shrugged and hid his shit-eating grin unsuccessfully behind a tankard. "You wanted three words and that's what you got."

Jaskier huffed and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "That's it. I'll never ask you for your opinion again."

They both were very well aware that that was a lie. Still, Geralt said, "Thank fuck for that."

Jaskier narrowed his eyes. Oh, if this was how Geralt was going to be then Jaskier would not hold back either. He would pester Geralt for reviews until Geralt admitted that Jaskier was good. -

Jaskier knew Geralt hated the song. He had complained often enough about the length, subject matter and utter obnoxiousness of it.

So naturally, Jaskier kept adding more and more verses to The Fishmonger’s Daughter. Sometimes it was just too much fun riling Geralt up.

For now, the drunks in the tavern were eating it up, cheering for the song to continue. Jaskier beamed at them and happily obliged. Truly, he was having the time of his life.

Contrary to him, Geralt seemed to very much despise every second of this. He kept glaring at Jaskier, only interrupting his brooding by taking occasional swigs of his ale. He probably contemplated throwing the drink at Jaskier. Or maybe he just thought his performance was better when Geralt himself was drunk. Either way, Geralt’s thoughts were surely full of impertinence.

As provocatively as humanly possible, Jaskier danced past the table Geralt sat at and stared daggers at Jaskier.

In between lines, Jaskier stopped playing and stole a sip of Geralt’s drink.

“How do you like the performance, darling?” He asked, putting his hands back on the lute and playing a little flourish to distract from the fact that he had stopped singing for now.

“Jaskier,” Geralt growled in warning.

“Ah, that’s not a review, I’m afraid.” Jaskier winked at him and began making his way back to the centre of the tavern. “Give me a review and I might consider stopping. Three words or less.”

Geralt glowered. “Stop singing already.”

Jaskier’s grin widened. He continued playing.

-

“It was a forktail, not a dragon.”

Jaskier huffed and put his lute down. He should have known better than to ask Geralt for constructive criticism while he composed what might just be his most important song this year.

“Really, Geralt? That’s what you focus on?”

Geralt shrugged and leaned back on the bed of the inn they were currently staying at. “I don’t know what you want from me. All of your songs are inaccurate.”

“It’s not about accuracy. It’s about making the audience feel things. I need them to weep and to laugh and to fall in love with adventures as if they had experienced them themselves. So, what does the song make you feel?”

“Mainly annoyance.”

“Marvellous,” Jaskier said bitterly and flopped down on the bed, burying his head in his hands. He knew Geralt didn’t mean it, and any other day Jaskier would have laughed and teased him back, but Jaskier was stressed and stuck and he could really use some support right now. “I guess I’ll just try to annoy the judges of the most important bardic competition of the year into giving me points.” He groaned. “This is terrible.”

The mattress dipped when Geralt shifted, scooting a little closer. He radiated awkwardness and if he had been anyone else he might have started fiddling with his fingers in nervousness. As it was, Geralt just stayed quiet for an uncomfortably long moment, before looking at Jaskier from the side and putting a hand on his shoulder.

“It��s not terrible.”

Jaskier let out a quiet laugh. “Well, you’re terrible at giving compliments.”

“Wasn’t supposed to be a compliment. I’m just saying your song can’t be worse than Valdo Marx’”

Ever so slowly, Jaskier could feel a smile stretch his lips. Geralt could pretend not to care all he wanted, but remembering a name Jaskier had dropped only a handful of times when he had been talking about music in order to cheer him up, was something that proved his claims of disinterest lies.

“Of course I’m better than Marx,” Jaskier said and bumped his shoulder into Geralt’s. “And just you wait. When the judges declare me the winner, you’re going to regret having called my song only ‘not terrible’.”

Geralt grunted in disagreement, but he didn’t try to hide his almost proud smile.

That alone was better than any review Jaskier was likely to get from Geralt any time soon. He found that that was good enough. For now.

-

After Jaskier finished his last song of the day - this one not so much about any gruesome fight or danger but about the good parts of the Path, like the stars that shone brighter over the open fields than they did above any city - Jaskier didn't even have to ask for his three words.

As soon as he came back to the table Geralt was sitting at and snatched the ale out of Geralt's hand, as had become his habit, Geralt quietly said, "It was good."

The shock of the almost shy admission was enough to make Jaskier choke on the ale.

"Excuse me?” he rasped out between coughs. “Geralt are you alright? Do you feel sick?"

He reached out to put a hand on Geralt’s forehead in mock-concern. Geralt let out a grunt and turned away. If Jaskier hadn't known any better he have almost thought that the tips of Geralt's ears were tinged with a lovely shade of red.

A grin spread over Jaskier's face and he let his hand wander to Geralt’s chin, turning it so he could see his face again.

"I'm just asking," he said in a teasing tone, "because for a second there I thought I had heard a compliment coming from you. Not even one wrapped in an insult!"

"Fuck off," Geralt said in a strangely raspy voice, lacking any heat. "I take it back."

A laugh bubbled up in Jaskier's throat and he put his hand on Geralt's arm for balance as he threw his head back when the laugh finally escaped him. "Ah there you are. Still the same Geralt that I know and love."

He could feel Geralt's muscles clench under his touch, but Geralt didn't pull away.

"You're insufferable."

"I know," Jaskier said with mirth dancing in his eyes. "But you love it."

He took another swig of the ale, mostly so that he wouldn't have to see Geralt's reaction to his words.

As he sat the tankard down, a strange disappointment overcame Jaskier. He had gotten what he wanted, hadn’t he? Geralt had finally given him the praise he deserved. And yet Jaskier didn't want to end their little game. He wanted to keep asking Geralt for his opinion and he wanted Geralt to keep teasing him with impertinent replies or give him this soft look as he told him his song was good.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt if Jaskier continued to play this game a little longer. - "You are good," Geralt said without looking at Jaskier. If Jaskier hadn't known any better, he'd have said that Geralt way avoiding his eyes.

"How unoriginal.” He rolled his eyes with a smirk. “You already said that last time."

Not that it mattered. He would gladly listen to Geralt tell him he was good over and over again.

"No I didn't." Geralt's eyes flickered up to Jaskier's for a second before darting away again. "Last time I said it was good. The song."

"Is there a difference?"

Geralt stared into the fire for a long time. His jaw was working as if he couldn't decide whether he should explain himself or not. Eventually he settled on a simple "Yes."

Jaskier raised his eyebrows, waiting for Geralt to elaborate, but no more words left Geralt's mouth. Jaskier kept searching his face with the sinking feeling that he was missing something crucial. -

Geralt didn’t talk. Normally, that wouldn’t have bothered Jaskier too much. Over the time he had spent with Geralt, he had gotten used to his silence and to cheerfully filling it with his own words.

Except today it felt wrong to try and do so. Geralt was different. His silence was different. The way he had refused to look at Jaskier even once since returning from the hunt was different.

Geralt hadn’t told him what exactly had happened – what had gone wrong – but he didn’t need to. Jaskier had spent enough time with him to realise that the scratches on his face were caused by fingernails and not claws. He knew that the bruises blossoming on his skin were caused by stones rather than a monster’s body slamming into him. He knew that no fear caused by a monster could get Geralt into this unresponsive state. Only words of hatred and terror flung at Geralt, claiming that Geralt himself was the monster, could do such a thing.

Jaskier wanted to touch Geralt, to reassure him. To hold him close and tell him that he was better than anything he was told, anything that he thought himself. He wanted to whisper words of kindness into Geralt’s hair until he believed them. But Geralt’s back was turned to him and he was tense, ready to flee if Jaskier so much as took a step in his direction.

Jaskier fingers moved on their own accord. There were not words to this song. Geralt didn’t need words right now. He wouldn’t have believed them.

But as Jaskier’s fingers plucked away on his lute, pouring his understanding, his comfort, his love into it, the tension slowly eased out of Geralt.

Softly, Jaskier began to hum the tune, trying to tell with the melody what Geralt would reject with words. He could do nothing but hope it helped. He doubted it did.

Geralt turned, not with his full body, but just enough that he could watch Jaskier as he played.

When Jaskier eyes met his and found them full of some emotion he couldn’t name – something soft and vulnerable and achingly beautiful – his fingers faltered and his throat grew tight, choking his voice.

Something flickered in Geralt’s eyes and suddenly he looked strangely young and afraid. “Keep playing, please?” His voice was so small.

Jaskier’s heart broke for him. Slowly, as if not to spook a frightened animal, Jaskier came closer to Geralt until their shoulders touched.  

He kept playing and he could almost imagine that the faint rumble in Geralt’s chest was him humming in tune.

He didn’t imagine the way Geralt leaned into him and pressed his head into Jaskier’s shoulder as if being close to Jaskier was the only comfort he could imagine.

-

This song was terrible. It was objectively the worst and if Jaskier had had any audience other than Geralt, he would have been ashamed to even think about playing such a thing.

But like this, with only Roach judging him and Geralt looking at him almost fondly, Jaskier warbled away to his heart’s content.

“Roach, the mighty steed

Does many valiant deeds

So she deserves all the treats

Yes, on that, we can all be agreed!”

A toddler could have come up with better rhymes and the metre Jaskier used could not have been worse.

But he was laughing and enjoying himself as he sang this little ditty. There was something freeing about not having to worry about being good for once, in being allowed to sing as badly as he wanted to just for the fun of it.

Geralt didn’t laugh at him, didn’t even roll his eyes. Instead he had this look in his eyes that Jaskier had seen more and more often lately and that could only be described as fond. One of the rare smiles that only Jaskier ever got to see tugged the corner of his lips up.

Jaskier ended his performance with an overly dramatic flourish and gave an exaggerated bow to Geralt and Roach.

When he righted himself, he knew that his face was flushed; from the exertion of dancing, from the excitement of having carefree fun and from the wave of emotion brought forth by the soft look on Geralt’s face.

“Where’s my review?” Jaskier teased, his heart pounding in his chest.

Geralt rolled his eyes in fond exasperation. “You’re really never going to stop asking, are you?”

“Not until you tell me what I want to hear.” Jaskier cocked his head to the side and grinned. “Don’t be shy, you can admit it. That right there was a masterpiece. A song so great it shall never be surpassed.”

Geralt huffed, but his smile grew wider. He kept his mouth shut, almost as if he wanted to see how much longer Jaskier would go on with this ridiculousness.

Jaskier narrowed his eyes at Geralt playfully. “Come on, just say it. You know you love it.”

He jabbed Geralt in the chest, more to see his reaction than anything else.

Geralt caught his hand and held it right there against his chest. His smile grew impossibly softer.

“I don’t love the song. You want three words or less? Fine.” He brought Jaskier’s hand up to his lips and pressed a soft kiss against his knuckles. “I love you.”

[kuroos-moon]

≫ Incomplete

pairing: miya atsumu x reader

tags: lovers to exes, fluff to angst 

warning/s: cheating, angst

wc: 1.8k

part two: complete

You were always a pair, Atsumu and you; not in the way he and Osamu are, but in the sense wherein the weather didn’t decide for him whether his day would be gloomy or not, for the vibrance of his day solely depended on you.   

The sun could shine into every dark nook around him, and yet brightness is only blinding to him if you’re nowhere to be seen in the light. On the other hand, even if heavy rain decided to soak his shoes and clothes, the sky a single color which is a boring gray, the world through his eyes—is nothing but warm, glowing, and euphoric. 

And as he stares back at your lit-up eyes through the thick shower of rain, hearing your hearty laughter above the weather’s unforgiving noise, he realized that you are his world after all. 

Years later and you’re rooted even deeper from wherever he stood, in fact, you had easily become his home. It mattered none that you still don’t live together, it mattered even less that your relationship was kept secret all for the sake of your privacy. What truly mattered to you both, was the unbreakable trust you had in each other, the very trust that made your love grow and last this long.

“I’ll miss ‘ya, don’t forget to eat on time, okay?” Though hooded, strands of his disarray blonde hair still stuck out cutely, and you busy yourself by pushing back his hair as if it were important right now. 

“Y/n,” he sighs, taking both your small, shaky hands in his warm, big ones. This is hard for him too. 

He scans your face, having memorized how your brows would furrow above your teary eyes, how your lips would quiver and your hands would shake before you cried—he knew that this parting would involve much of your tears yet again. 

“I’m fine, I- I’m not gonna cr- 

You couldn’t even finish your sentence, sobs already erupting from your throat as he pulls you into his chest, an arm tight around your waist while his other hand rests behind your head, securing you to himself. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he softly mumbles, head dipped down beside your ear as he rocks you gently along with him, he always hated having to leave you after such little time spent together.

The bus ride to the hotel four towns away from where you lived was excruciating. You weren’t overdramatic when you cried earlier, he never thought that of you; it’s just that your time for each other had greatly been narrowed down to phone calls and irritatingly short meet ups, he understood why you were so sad. 

And whose fault is that? His subconscious asks almost instantly.

Come to think of it, it’s always you who had to alter your life around his. Of course, he didn’t just think of it now, but only right then did it hit him that your relationship had gone too imbalanced for he doesn’t know how long—it made him sick to think that he could ever do that to you.

You were both givers in your relationship, but lately all he’d done was take. 

Resting his chin on his palm as he stares out the window, flashbacks of your years together played beautifully in his mind, his eyes closed and a small smile on his lips. Today was a Wednesday.

He’ll be home by Friday if he’d be lucky enough to ditch their manager and the celebratory party he couldn’t really care less for, not compared to you. If not, he’ll see you Saturday morning. 

Either way, he knows he has to purchase the ring on Thursday night.

He goes over his plan, excitement rushing through him as he visualizes how happy he’ll make you; and he’ll give all of himself to make up for the tears he caused you when he was too busy to make you feel like you weren’t alone. 

For starters, announcing your engagement on Sunday morning after proposing on a Saturday date night, and just to flaunt, he’ll post his favorite picture of you both in his socials. Well that’s assuming you don’t refuse, it’s highly unlikely anyway.

Next, he’ll offer you his undivided attention. No more passing out in bed right after practice and missing the chance to see you, no more relying on the fact that you’ll wake up whatever time he calls or comes over, insensitively disrupting your sleep or plans for the day. 

Lastly... moving in has been long overdue. With your engagement out to public, there’s no reason to have separate houses anymore. Just the thought of cradling you whenever he wants to, no longer needing to travel and be cautious, has him almost bouncing on his seat.

He’ll be the best husband, and he knows you’ll be an awesome wife—did I say wife? He’s getting too far ahead of himself. His teammates only look at him weirdly as he covers his face with both hands, an inexplicable muffled scream of fluster leaving his lips.

Plans were beautiful, especially when he meant to fulfill them with all of his heart and with all of his being. Small things lead to big changes though, for better or worse, he just wishes he went home right away that night.

You awoke at dawn on a Saturday to a car pulling up outside your house. Still clueless of the world as you’re fresh from sleep, mindlessly looking through your window, immediately brought to your senses when you see their manager’s car. 

Racing down the stairs and past the door, you could almost scream in happiness when you see him get off the car. But something’s weird, he looked out of it from where you stood on your doorstep, and he had an arm around Hinata’s shoulders as the latter supported your boyfriend who couldn’t even walk straight. 

“Hey, what happened?” You’re quick to wrap an arm around him as you took Hinata’s place in guiding him to your home. 

“Shoyo?” He too, seemed out of it. He looks at you with sad eyes, almost as if he came bearing bad news when in fact you’re so grateful he brought Atsumu to you.

“Something happened, y/n.” 

That was all the orange left you with but it didn’t really matter much to you, you’re far too preoccupied with taking care of Atsumu. 

“Why did you even drink a lot,” you scoldingly say under your breath, hands cupping both his cheeks so he would finally look at you. “What’s wrong, ‘Tsum?” 

“Don’t touch me,” he snaps, swatting your hands away before he stands up and walks past you, shakingly running his hands through his blonde locks in frustration.

“What is it?” You ask, hurt by his rejection and his tone. He wasn’t always the nicest person, but to you, he’d never as much as raise his voice or snap at you like that ever since he matured after highschool. 

“I’m sorry,” he turns around, and you only look at him in confusion.

“I- I kissed someone else,” he softly says without warning, as if it were something casual and painless.  

“What?” 

You never thought that he would be capable of doing that to you, in fact, you understood that he was kissed without him wanting to be kissed—the problem is that he kissed back. He could’ve easily hidden it from you, yet you both knew he couldn’t live with it. 

On his knees before you as you sat on the bed, he cries on your lap as you lightly run your fingers through his hair. The world for you both came crashing down, he could already feel you slip through his fingers at every apology he sobbed out, his chest aching so much as he forces himself to wake up from this nightmare. 

He never woke up though, because it bitterly wasn’t a dream. Glancing up to look at you through his tears, he knew he had shattered you beyond repair—a single night was all it took—when all of more than five years together, he had spent nurturing you with so much care and affection. 

What agonized him the most was the void look in your eyes, he had destroyed what you both had, and deep down he knew that it will take eons if not forever for you to love someone else. If only he could take away your hurt, if only he hadn’t done what he did, if only he went straight home to you. 

“What now, ‘Tsum?” You ask him, lost and almost dead inside, but you still had the heart to hold him against you because truth is, this would be your last night together. 

“Be happy and go on with your life,” he lowly says. Contrary to how his words held meaning of parting, he hugs you even tighter to himself. 

“Without you?” 

He almost chokes at the lump on his throat, but he had managed to be firm with his resolve—it’s the least he could do for you. 

“Yes. Without me,” he says the words he never wanted to say, kissing your temple when you cry once more into his chest.

You were always a pair, Atsumu and you; not in the way he and Osamu are, but in the sense wherein one could never be without the other. 

So what becomes of a torn-apart pair? 

What you had was something you both would call shatterproof to an extend beyond bounds, but what you didn’t know was that when shatterproof things do what they aren’t ever expected to do—when they do break, tear, and shatter—everything else crumbles as severely as how strong the ‘unbreakable’ was supposed to be. 

You’re just two souls who had become one, now separated and agonizingly partial and incomplete.

You still read two zodiac signs and leave space for him in bed, taking into account years of him suddenly sneaking in your room to sleep beside you and getting up before you even woke. You’re stuck in a cycle of always thinking for two and not only yourself, in every decision you make or thoughts you thought over, at the back of your mind, you’d wonder what he would think about it or what he’d tell you if he were still with you. 

And as he stares back at your lit-up eyes through the thick shower of rain, hearing your hearty laughter above the weather’s unforgiving noise, he realized that you are his world after all. 

To Atsumu since your parting, his rainy days were just that—rainy. Even in nice weather he could only lock himself alone in his room, praying that you were enjoying the sun unlike him; for every little detail of his life revolted back to the thought of you, like how he’d stare longer at his hand, almost imagining a translucent image of your fingers slipping through the gaps of his. 

The ring he had bought? He kept it hidden in his shelf, and for as long as he’s alive he’ll keep it as a painful but much deserved reminder of a life with you that could’ve been. 

General Taglist [Open]: @noyasbitchh @dinablossom @haru-the-secret @strayczennies @lalisbitch @tinymidgetsstuff @animebs @astrealia @kittykitkatstrawberry @hajimesbbygrl @kellesvt @24hr7dysdizzy @arnxldss @elianetsantana @vicassa @floraraine @beanst0ck @leinnah @kageyamasgirl @deafeningart @minibobabottle   @franko-pop @moonlightaangel @throughtheinterstices @micasaessakusa @dixonsbugaboo @thevillagehiddenintheinternet @ultzuko @yappychan @dipsydoo542 @devilgirlcrybabiey​ @bakugohoex​

[toujourspur13]

The Black family / Walburga Black / canon.

As I said before I do not care that much about canon/fanon/headcanon because transformative works by definition include a wide variety of different interpretations. However, I am forever perplexed when I see uncompromising opinions on the Black family - particularly the unwavering certainty that Sirius Black’s parents were psychotic abusers. All personal opinions aside - why is this so popular?

I mean - it’s absolutely ok to headcanon this version and to play with it - but saying 'don’t you dare say they did not physically and emotionally abuse Sirius' is a little strong, isn’t it?

This is a mystery to me. So…let’s discuss my favourite subject…Again.

Let’s stick to the facts. The frequently cited things proving the abuse in the Black family are as follows:

Sirius said his parents were awful maniacs (pureblood ideology)

he ran away from home

he was severely depressed in OoTP

Kreacher

Portrait

So…when you say that Sirius’s parents were abusive…you mean exactly what? These people got cold feet when they saw the real nature of Voldemort - I guess it somehow implies that they did not share his methods…that they were against violence as a tool to get purebloods in charge.

But then it usually goes this way: ‘well at least he was verbally and emotionally abused by his family’ - but is it so? Is this based on the portrait of Sirius's mother? She insulted strangers who took over her house and her runaway son - how does this prove anything about how Sirius and Regulus were raised and treated when they were kids? I agree it’s rather impolite - jkr did a good job showing how purebloods perceived others ( those below them) -but in all honesty, this has very little to do with Sirius and his childhood.

Why to make Sirius a victim at all? - c’mon he was tougher than this, he spent 12 years in Azkaban; are you actually saying that a portrait throwing insults at everyone is worse? I doubt that. And is it such a surprise that a mother who lost her son (that said son actually ran away and abandoned his duty) would be that furious at him when seeing him again...even if it’s only a portrait...I believe it to be a rather unpleasant experience for a parent when a child runs away.

We already talked about the portrait a lot - I don’t even want to mention it here- - I feel we should rather pay more attention to the fact that Sirius himself was not an angel.

I am not saying the colourful vocabulary of Walburga Black should be used…but Sirius himself upon seeing Snape  immediately  recognised his weakness and went for it without any hesitation …we are talking about Sirius who in fact was quite a renowned bully ( I mean - we know for a fact that from time to time Sirius and James got carried away)…

And it was Sirius who sent Snape to meet and chat with a real werewolf (yes, I agree - he was not thinking this through - he probably was just vexed and fed up with Snape and thought he wouldn’t go there, would get cold feet or idk run away…But it actually changes nothing. If a drunken driver hits someone it will be 100% his fault whether he means it or not. Whether he is in a fragile mental state or not - such situations are definite. It’s the same with Sirius - even if he did not mean anything bad he should have understood the cost of his mistake - all teenagers make silly things but not all of them send their classmate to meet a werewolf - James thought it not a very good idea as I recall… -

So we see that Sirius was not an angel from the start and I can hardly believe he was a victim by nature. His behaviour loudly manifested that he used to get what he wanted with no thought of the consequences.

And all those pictures of bikini-clad girls on the walls in his room prove that he was quite a spoiled boy who had nothing to fear from mum and dad. Harry himself noticed «Sirius seemed to have gone out of his way to annoy his parents». All this shows that Sirius was not afraid of his parents at all. What kind of masochist would suffer for motorbike posters? That would be ridiculous.

Let’s move to Kreacher: If Sirius’s mother had been a monster why even mention her heart?  JKR wrote this for a purpose and this heavily implies that Sirius's situation was never meant to be ‘the abusive heartless parents vs the poor helpless victim’.  

The fact that Sirius ran away and hence broke his mother’s heart says against the popular idea that he was not loved by his family, that he was always the second one, that they abused him. I’m 100% certain that Kreacher told the truth in that scene. Why would he say something like this if it were not the truth - something like…that his beloved mistress having been so upset over Sirius running away that it broke her heart. Just tell me one reason that would have justified such a lie - why to say this at all?

Then this: “Leave?” Sirius smiled bitterly and ran a hand through his long, unkempt hair. “Because I hated the whole lot of them: my parents, with their pure-blood mania, convinced that to be a Black made you practically royal … my idiot brother, soft enough to believe them … that’s him.”…. “He was younger than me,” said Sirius, “and a much better son, as I was constantly reminded.”

I’ve already said it before - this ‘better son than me’ is exactly what insecure 14-year old kids like to say. Well...he’s a bit older but it’s not as if he had a life and a chance to mature. Moreover, I don’t know if it comes as a great shock but a lot of teenagers like to badmouth their parents…usually, it involves something like ‘those bloody uptight retrogrades know nothing of the real world’ (it fades away when they get closer to thirty).

To be serious, I find that it’s just another example of similarities between Sirius and his mother. They clearly did not know what it means to be composed, polite, and respectful. Yeah…I think that, on the whole, parents are owed their children’s respect (unless they are completely inadequate - somehow I don’t believe this was the case). Someone should teach both of them what mutual respect means. Anyway, there is nothing in this quote that says that Sirius was subjected to any forms of abuse - it’s about how Sirius justified his running away,  how he saw the situation.

There’s also the fact that Sirius was incredibly unhappy because he was back at his childhood home and having to spend time around anything that reminded him of his family: “Hasn’t anyone told you? This was my parents’ house,” said Sirius. “But I’m the last Black left, so it’s mine now. I offered it to Dumbledore for headquarters — about the only useful thing I’ve been able to do.” Harry, who had expected a better welcome, noted how hard and bitter Sirius’s voice sounded”.

Here it comes…the severe depression that makes people question the severity of his abuse… I have thought a lot about this because it is the reason why some consider ‘the abusive blacks' canon while others believe it was more of a tragedy of the family rather than the banal brutality.

Of course, Sirius was upset in that house - but I don’t think he suffered the memories of his unhappy childhood - I think he suffered from the strong feeling of guilt. Being in that house meant an everyday reminder that he was a failure. And it’s not even a lie. If you look at his whole life you’ll see that he literally failed everyone in his life: he failed James and Lily - they were dead and he unwillingly became the reason. It was his plan that turned everything into a tragedy.

And, to some extent, he failed Harry- he was not around him like James and Lily would have wanted. Sirius did not give him the real family - he only promised they'd be the one «when it’s all over».

And finally - he failed his parents, his brother, his own family.

Is it possible to live with so much guilt in your heart?

I don't think that Sirius completely forgot who he was born to be. If the family keeps traditions and can trace its existence back in centuries you can't shake it off even if you want. I doubt Sirius switched it off just because he had griffindor friends. He was the last Black - it is tragically poetic that he was once the hope of his family and then this family died with him. If Sirius had heart (and I truly believe he had a heart) he knew exactly what it meant to be trapped in the house that represented the death of his family. A constant reminder  that he was the last one.  

“The others’ hushed voices were giving Harry an odd feeling of foreboding; it was as though they had just entered the house of a dying person”. 

I think that the scene when he threw his father's ring away - he threw it away because it was all over for his family. It was the end of the dynasty - and for him it was all over long before he met Bellatrix for the last time.

Well, I admit Sirius' situation is open for wide interpretation but I don’t think the abusive black household is a canon thing - of course, it’s fanon. It makes Sirius a hero who broke the chains when in fact he ended up being a victim of his own life.

You know, it always seems strange to me that fandom when discussing Walburga usually overlooks the simple truth of life - that even if you are clever enough and mean good for your loved ones it is still possible to end up on the losing side, on the dark side.  However, mistakes don't automatically turn humans into monsters.

To some extent Sirius’s story represents the consequences of war.  No-one is protected; the whole families could be wiped off the face of the earth. It’s a simple yet profound idea. It correlates with the main idea of hp books far better than the ‘abusive psychopaths’ (there are already Voldemort and Bellatrix - there is no-one who can beat them in this department).

All I say - it’s okay to imagine them bad if you want- your right - but don’t write everywhere that it’s canon because it is not.There is no need for such inflexibility especially when it comes to the fandom - a place where everyone should be welcomed and their views on the books be respected.

[quillify-tries-to-talk]

Yet Another Rewrite (Part 2)

For the thomstair appreciation week by @youngreckless ik it's over. Sorry I'm late :(

You can read part 1 here then come back and read this one.

Thomas and Alastair working things out part 2. Enjoy!

Tw: mentions of racism, bullying, abuse, colonialism

"Even our angels have mercy, Thomas." His voice was hollow now. 

Despair threatened to pull him under. It wasn't worth it. Anything. He would always be like this. It was a miracle even Cordelia was able to look him in the eye without hate. He did deserve this, he thought, settling back on his bed, all the fight drained. He deserved every blow and every bruise he'd inflicted on others.

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa 

Funny that he now remembered his Latin lessons.

The bed dipped under Thomas's heavier weight, and he felt a flash of warmth when hesitant fingers crept over his skin. Too close. He was too close. 

Let go, he wanted to say, but lies seemed to evade him whenever Thomas Lightwood was present. His eyes looked dark brown in the dim lighting. There were  dents on his bottom lip where he must have bitten it. It took everything in him to not let his hands rise and trace the lines of his jaw.

"I remember Paris."

Alastair's eyes widened. He sat frozen, and Thomas took that as his cue to continue. "You were kind to me when I was very alone, and I am grateful." He looked up, face a bit red. "It was the first time I realized you could be kind.”

He tried not to let the last comment needle him. “It is my favorite memory of Paris as well.”

“You don’t have to say that. I know you were there with Charles.”

His jaw went tight. Not that. Anything but that. "Charles Fairchild? What about him?”

Thomas cocked his head to the side, his expression innocent. “Wouldn’t that be your best memory of Paris?”

“Exactly what are you suggesting?”

“I’m not suggesting anything." His tone indicated the exact opposite though. Cheeky little–

"I’ve seen the way you look at Charles, the way he looks at you. I’m not an idiot, Alastair, and I’m asking …” Thomas shook his head, sighing. 

He was going to say it. Right here. Angel help him.

“I suppose I’m asking if you’re like me.”

There it was. 

Perhaps he could salvage this conversation. He gathered his thoughts, straightened out of his slouching position.

“Thomas Lightwood,” he said. “I am nothing like you."

Thomas stared as if he'd been clubbed on the head, eyes dazed in shock again. He was shuffling from side to side, probably preparing to launch himself far, far away from him.

A bit more effort, dâdâsh, Layla said in his head, amused and exasperated.

Right. “I am nothing like you, Thomas." His breathing was faltering again, throat closing up, fighting against the vulnerability he was exposing. “Because you are one of the better people I have ever known. You have a kind nature and a heart like some knight out of legend. Brave and proud and true and strong. All of it.” 

He smiled bitterly. “And all the time you have known me, I have been a terrible person. So, you see. We are nothing at all alike.”

His head snapped up, surprise etched on his features. His eyes started twinkling again. What was he doing to him? Even looking at him made Alastair want to smile. 

He hadn't wanted to smile in a long, long time.

"I'm not—" Thomas broke off. "That's not what I meant."

Don't I know that, eshgham? "I know what you meant." His voice had softened. The words hung in the air for a moment. But he needed some answers of his own now. "How did you know about Charles?"

“You wouldn’t tell me what you were doing in Paris,” Thomas replied. Alastair thought he heard a note of hurt in his voice, but promptly dismissed the notion. “But you mentioned Charles, over and over again, like you got pleasure out of just saying his name. And when you came to London this summer, I saw the way you looked at him. I know what it is to have to hide the—the signs of affection.”

“Then I imagine you may have noticed I don’t look at Charles that way anymore.”

What did you just say, Carstairs? Admitting to your own failures now? Couldn't even hold on to first love?

His jaw tightened again. Get out of my head, baba. Charles. Get out, both of you.

“I suppose I did,” Thomas said. “Though for the past four months, I’ve been trying not to look at you. I told myself I hated you. But I could never really make myself. When Elias died, all I could think about was you. What you must be feeling.”

His father's name reopened the gashes on his heart. Heat sparked behind his eyelids. “I insulted your father and blackened his name. You were under no obligation to care about mine.”

“I know, but sometimes I think that it is much harder to lose someone who we are on bad terms with than it is to lose someone with whom all is well.”

“Bloody hell, Thomas. You should hate me, not be thinking about what I must be feeling—” Alastair passed a hand over his face. It came back wet with tears. He didn’t even know when that happened. He’d never had an audience for his crying before. 

"But I do," said Thomas softly. His fingers ghosted higher along Alastair's wrist, making his heart skip a beat. Once, twice, three times.

Bewildered, he marvelled at the sensation such a small touch could cause. 

"I'm sorry." Thomas's voice was soft, filled with guilt. His head bowed as if in prayer. "I—what you said. What happened at school." His gaze trailed over Alastair's features, and he shook his head. "I always found you beautiful. Then and now. I didn't know people hated how you looked. You're like a poem, but in human form."

"Poem," Alastair repeated numbly. If his brain had short-circuited before, it was blown to bits now. No one had ever called him that.

Charles had called him a beautiful secret. His safe haven. His comfort and best friend.

Never a poem.

"Yes." Thomas's cheeks were slowly flushing rose. Another nice contrast with his skin and hair. "Graceful. Elegant. Confident. You were always so poised and sharp. Like one of Jamie's knives. You were smart, managed to turn people over. They listened to you. Look what you did just now. I didn't know what to do. If I wanted you. Or if I wanted to be you. Remember when I followed you around school?"

Alastair's rusty throat muscles regained a bit of their ability. He wanted me? It wasn’t the best, but it was okay. Charles had wanted him. It hadn’t been too bad. Until the end. Until the horror of his actions had dawned on him. Until he realized that all his time spent with Charles had been wasted in tending to his needs, not Alastair’s. He hadn’t even known a relationship required his own needs to be taken care of. That it was a necessity. 

"I remember,” he managed. “Then I met you in Paris and you’d grown up and turned into Michelangelo’s David. I thought you were beautiful. But I was still caught up with Charles—” He broke off, regret weighting his stomach. “Just another thing I’ve wasted. Your regard for me. I wasted my time and my affection on Charles. I wasted my chance with you.”

Thomas blinked. And blinked. And blinked. A pulse had started in the base of his neck, thudding against the delicate skin. Alastair raised his eyes only to find him already staring. 

"Thomas?" His name tasted strange on his tongue.

"You said angels too have mercy," he said in answer. "I—I must apologize. I'll admit I didn't know how people treated your family. I have been sheltered in that regard."

"You must know where those indigo-dyed silks came from," said Alastair softly. They were from India. Ariadne had mentioned it during their little dance, the news that had trickled in. The brown-skinned, hollow-eyed servants brought in for labour by mundanes and Shadowhunters alike. "Or why England never has a shortage of adamas, but my country does." 

That one was still going on. Britain liked guising their nefarious schemes behind offers of trade. 

He released a sigh, shaking his head in despondence. "They never tell you. Layla and I knew because we saw it happen; we know our histories ever since we could walk and talk. And it still happens. It's more than demons and humans for us. It’s always been that way." He held one brown hand up to the light, and Thomas’s eyes followed. “This isn’t apparently how we were supposed to look. I tried changing that, and it did work for sometime but.. I hated myself even then. I hated my family and my culture and my books. Do you flinch from your own face, Thomas? I always did. Still do, sometimes. 

“I hate that my skin isn’t like yours. If it was, perhaps people wouldn’t have said so many things. Perhaps I wouldn’t have as many bruises.” He leaned his head back against the wall, ignoring the tightness in his chest. “In another life, perhaps we would’ve had our chance, you and I.”

His words ended with a plaintive note; the bone-deep weariness that there was nothing he could do, aside from ripping off his own skin or trying to be like his father. In appearance, at least. They remained silent for a long while, but it was the thoughtful sort. Alastair didn't know how many hours he passed by just counting the cracks in the walls when Thomas's voice pierced the quiet.

"Teach me."

He jerked awake. "What?"

"You said there are things I don't know about you. About where you come from and what you and Cordelia have to face. And… perhaps I'd like to know. I'd like to understand how the world works." A small smile ticked up the corners of his mouth, and Alastair found himself besotted by the expression.

By the Angel. Definitely not coming out in one piece.

"You'd like to… umm…" Words had fled when he'd needed them most. Damn you, Thomas. 

Thomas’s fingers enclosed over his wrists. The warmth was steadying, comforting. His expression was hesitant, at odds with the way his body commandeered space. “I want help. Really, truly. I found myself fascinated in Spain by the difference in language and culture. And then Paris. One-time travel gave me a different perspective, so imagine what more knowledge would do.” He was practically shaking with excitement at the prospect of learning of his ancestor’s atrocities. “You’ll be teaching me, so it won’t feel like a debt to you.”

“Are you sure you want to know, Thomas? People have done some terrible things.”

“I need to know what I’m redeeming myself for before I ask for forgiveness.” His hazel eyes were clear, expression determined. Like a knight readied for battle. A scholar rewriting history on pages. 

Alastair felt his throat tighten at his excitement. He wasn’t used to any of this. Apologies. Forgiveness. Love. Hope. His story was supposed to have died after all his attempts to apologize to The Merry Thieves. He’d failed then to ask for friends, so why would someone give him another chance?

“And maybe you’re wrong,” Thomas added in what was supposed to be a nonchalant tone, but Alastair detected a slight tremor in it. “About me.”

“Speak sense, Lightwood.” His tone sharpened, a defense against his wrecked emotional state. “What do you mean?”

“I mean this.” In answer, Thomas hooked his hands around Alastair’s shoulders, and the sudden onslaught of warmth and gentleness made his body sway with the sheer impossibility of the situation. No glass. No manipulation. Nothing but warmth and truth and compromise. The good sort. 

This had to be a dream. He would wake up any time now, but he couldn’t stop staring at him. Couldn't stop admiring his smile, the brightness of his eyes, the shape of his mouth, that damned pulse at his throat. And more. His strength. His passion for learning. His bravery in venturing after a killer alone. The openness of his heart.

I’m not worth it, Alastair wanted to say, but by then his head had fallen on his shoulder, nestled in the crook of Thomas’s neck. He felt lighter than air. For the first time, his head felt empty of anything: trouble, grief, responsibilities, duties. It was just them. Thomas with his arms around him, holding him in the storm of his life. His heartbeat was a steady clock that Alastair could time his breaths to. 

With Charles it had been all heat and desire, and the furious pounding of his heart in the thrill of being wanted by someone. This felt like coming home, sitting down for a cup of tea with his favourite book. Warm and right and natural. Tears slipped down his cheeks, freed after years and years of being locked away for the sake of his family. 

Thomas set his lips to Alastair’s brow. 

His body seized up at the soft pressure. It felt like someone had poured sunlight into his veins. Another tear slipped down his cheek. Impossible. Wake up, now. Happiness wasn’t a part of your life. But he was still here, feeling Thomas lean his cheek against his hair. Through the swirl of emotions, he heard his voice again.

“We’ll get past this together. I will relearn you, Alastair.” The sound of his name on Thomas’s lips sent his heart careening again. “Negaran nabash.”

Don't worry. Even with the different cadence, it would’ve been hard to miss. Thomas had just spoken in Persian. 

Lifting his head, he raised an eyebrow. “Where did you learn that?”

“Oh. Umm. Just something…” That adorable smile surfaced again. “A little hobby? Like Kit and his test tubes?”

Shaking his head, Alastair allowed himself a little smile. Perhaps, it had been worth it to risk his neck. For this. Only for this.

Taglist: @cherilyn-rose @youngreckless @eugeniaslongsword @nott-the-best (2nd part eeeeeeee🥳🥳🥳) @cant-think-of-anything @livingformyself

[mymegumi]

cœur fidèle

pairing: ushijima wakatoshi x fem!reader

genre: fluff, minor angst, childhood bestfriends au, royalty au, and friends to lovers

word count: 2.1k words

warnings: mainly ushijima’s thoughts, not a lot of dialogue/actions. fluff & sad ideals about unrequited love.

summary: he wants to make a life with you, and yet you’re meant to build a life as someone else’s lover.

notes: i’m almost positive this isn’t coherent bc i’m just rambling <3 also the end was rushed as fuck so sorreh bout that <3

dedicated: to thalia, may you continue making me and everyone else around you smile. ( @wak4tosh1 )

Royalty, by definition, are those of royal blood or status. A league above normal people, and meant for wealth and luxuries that people would only dream of even seeing with their own eyes. It’s a life of luxury, of people to work at your beck and call, and of never truly worrying unless you had to.

Why does Ushijima feel so empty then?

A prince in his early twenties, he’s in the prime of his life—a father that loves him unconditionally, friends by his side that love and value him for things other than his title and wealth, and even a hobby he can do when things feel so suffocating he can’t come up for air.

He’s grateful for everything he has, don’t get him wrong, but it’s always felt a bit… lonely somehow.

Ushijima, as the heir to a king’s throne, knows the weight his decisions will make on the kingdom his father’s built up, and yet he can’t help but wonder about what kind of life he could have had if he’d just been born from a peasant woman. Would his life be so much more insignificant than it was now?

He thinks the first time he really truly wondered about a life without a crown, a life without power and influence, was when he met you for the first time.

A princex from a neighboring kingdom, you were everything that Ushijima wasn’t.

Where he was more reserved, tending to keep his thoughts and opinions to himself, it seemed as if you were always willing to give yours. You were bright and beautiful in all the ways that Ushijima tried to keep himself in the shadows, the brightest star on a black sky.

When he first saw you, he thought you were otherworldly. An ethereal being at the ripe age of fourteen and his cheeks dappled with heat, but he thinks that this is what ladies in the court meant when they talked about love.

Ushijima is only fourteen, and yet when you pull on his hand to tug him into the gardens, laughter on the wind and sunshine beating down on your backs, he thinks about the love beginning to blossom in his chest without knowing the word for it.

It’s warmth on a summer day, and the way you smile at him when he says something snarky about the other royals.

“Ushijima!” you called to him, hand curled around your mouth in an attempt to amplify your voice, trying to get it to carry throughout the courtyard, “I know you can hear me, stop hiding from me!”

“We’re playing hide and seek,” he called back, hands behind his back as he peeks his head out from behind the tree he’d chosen as his hiding spot, “You’re ruining the point of the game, you’re supposed to seek, and I was supposed to hide.”

Your bottom lip jutted out, arms crossed across your chest as you walked towards him, “Okay, but I didn’t think I’d have to walk around by myself, this is only my first time being here. I don’t even know any of the good hiding spots!”

“Do you want me to show you for the next time you come?” He hadn’t hit his growth spurt at the time of first meeting you, so he’s not yet looking down at you from his height above you. “The best ones are in the kitchen because sometimes the chefs will give me snacks.”

“Snacks?” Your eyes lit up, and Ushijima remembers feeling something in his chest tighten a bit, the smile you gave him was one of the first, and yet he remembers it like it was the most recent, “Okay, let’s go then!”

You grabbed his hand, then, and it was warm, and Ushijima was sure he could do that for the rest of his life.

He asked his father about you, later in the month when you went home, and he just smiled at him. His father put a hand on Ushijima’s head and ruffled his hair. Ushijima didn’t know it back then, but his father was sad, most likely knowing his son lost his heart.

Perhaps it was when he was first learning about marriage and the concept of having a ruler by his side that he realized that feeling he got whenever he was with you meant he was in love with you.

“Are you here for very long?” You tilt your head to the side as you contemplate Ushijima’s father’s question, “We haven’t seen you in a few months, and I’m not sure if Ushijima did, but I certainly missed you, princex.”

Ushijima always misses you when you aren’t around, he decides in his mind.

“I probably have to leave soon,” you respond, hands curled delicately around a porcelain cup that his father had made shortly after he turned eighteen. His country’s colors look good on you, he thinks, “Forgive me for not sending any letters, I’ve found it hard to write lately since my life has been so busy.”

“Yes,” his father smiles, and his face is all Ushijima can concentrate on, because he knows what conversation topic is coming up, “how are the wedding preparations coming along?”

He forgets sometimes. He forgets when you smile at him like he’s the only thing in the room, eyes focused on him and only him. He forgets when you call his name, light with laughter and filled with sunshine. He forgets when you pull at his hands, begging him to dance with you to music that only you can hear, but he always pulls you in, savors the feeling of you pressed against him as you sway together.

He’s always reminded again when he sees the foreign country’s pin claiming you as theirs.

Sometimes he wishes his father had introduced you earlier. That he met you before you were promised to someone else, and yet, he fantasizes about a life where he met you before.

Before what? He laughs to himself bitterly, fork pushing his dinner around the plate as he listens to you talk to his father about your wedding—sometime in the next few months, with blush pink roses and carnations the color of strawberries, even if he knows you hate carnations.

Before you were someone else’s, before you were going to be leaving him, before he could tell you he had loved you for what he thinks is his entire life.

His father told him thinking about ‘what ifs’ only hurts you in the end, and he’s starting to think he was right. In a life filled with expectations in return for nothing, Ushijima supposes he could just settle down with anyone. He won’t be an unloving husband, he’d hate to be what his mother was to his father, and yet, he’s sure he won’t ever be able to give his heart away as willingly.

“Wakatoshi,” god, he hates when you use his first name, and yet it’s worse when you use his last name, because yours will never be the same, “want to walk in the gardens? Your father told me about the renovations he’d done a few months back, I’d love to see them.”

He places his fork and knife over the plate easily, quiet and refined since utensils were one of the first lessons he’d learned, and looks at you, face as neutral as he can make it, “Of course.”

You push back from the table, and fold your hands behind your back, ever the polite guest. Ushijima stands and pushes in the both of your chairs before holding an arm out for you, a polite gesture disguising his desire to hold you as close as he can.

Perhaps most of his life had been spent selfishly hoping for you. In a way that someone in love would, he’s kept his distance from you before, but you’d just barged back in like you were a storm and he was a loosely latched window. He held you at an arm's length away, and you always managed to press as close to him as you could, fighting against his every instinct to turn you away.

He doesn’t mean to monopolize you, not really. Sometimes he just wishes to keep your smile to himself, but he knows you, and when you smile at him the way you do, with a little sparkle in your eye and a tease on your lips, he knows you’re only smiling for him.

He wonders if your betrothed has ever made you smile like he has.

“The roses always look so lovely this time of year,” you muse, both of your shoes clicking in time with his as you make your way to the gardens. A window overlooks the winding green plants, and the cut glass showcases the evening sunset, rainbows splaying across the concrete walls of his father’s castle, “It’s a shame this genus won’t be in bloom when my… wedding is to occur. I’d love to see some Shiratorizawan roses in my bouquet.”

Maybe he’s imagining it, but you sound sad—perhaps it’s only because you won’t have his country’s national flower as a set of your wedding piece, but a man can hope.

“Perhaps we could arrange for a bouquet of dried roses to be set aside for you,” he murmurs, holding the door open for you as you settle into the courtyard, “The scent will be immaculate, and they’ll stay for a good few years.”

Your smile is sweet, but your eyes are sad, he notes.

“Mm,” you pull away from his arm to cradle a wilting rose bloom in your hands, thumbs pressing feather-light against the wilted edges, “I wonder what it would be like to see such gorgeous roses every morning from my balcony. You’re lucky, Wakatoshi.”

“You could,” he says without thinking. A fumble in his normally stoic nature, he tries to cover it with a cough, but you have always been more perceptive of him than he’d like.

He can’t see your face, but he can see the way you release some sort of tension from your shoulders. Dropping the flower, you turn back to him and press a hand to the outside of his arm, “You mean it?”

“Maybe not from a balcony,” he murmurs, hand setting at your waist, his head begins to tip towards you without him even realizing it, “from a kitchen window, perhaps?”

“Overlooking a flower garden, and a vegetable garden?” Your hum is inquisitive, and Ushijima smiles at you, grateful you’re playing along at his fantasy, “Let’s do it, then.”

Oh. Maybe not a fantasy, then.

“Run away with me, ‘Toshi,” your hands reach up, cupping Ushijima’s cheeks as he blinks at you, “I don’t want to get married to anyone that isn’t you.”

“But, my father… I can’t just leave my family like this,” he pulls you into a hug when you sigh against him, thumbs brushing along the highs of his cheeks, “My sister’s not yet ready to take the throne, I can’t just abandon them. What if something happens to father?”

“Your sister’s always wanted to take the throne,” you whisper back, voice tight with desperation, he wants to go with you more than you know, and yet there’s something holding him back, “Let’s go somewhere where we can live like normal people. No crowns, no kingdoms to rule, just you and me.”

“What about your husband?”

You laugh, arms winding around his neck as you press closer to him, “Toshi, darling, don’t think. You’ve always thought too much, just. Let’s just go.”

You rocketed into Ushijima’s life like a shooting star, streaking across his sky without a single thought for the effects you’d leave behind. Yet he can’t help but watch you go.

“Of course.”

The lavender plant that grows along the edges of Ushijima’s house has always offset the harsh pinks of the roses he’d planted underneath the windows. It’s convenient, of course, that his father had left a baby rose bush on his desk the night he left.

“Toshi! The ladies in the town are asking after you again, they want you to come fix the gutters again.”

“I just fixed them last month,” he calls back, back of his hand wiping away the sweat forming on his brow as he looks up. He has to block the sun from his eyes, and your figure is shrouded in shadows instead.

“Mm, perhaps they’re looking for an excuse to see you work again, darling,” you call back, basket in hands as you smile at him. He really will never get tired of your smile, he thinks, “But, while they were distracted talking about you, I managed to sell everything for a little higher price than normal.”

By now, Ushijima has gotten up from the ground and is in front of you, his shadow over your face to block the sun, “My little swindler.”

Your smile loses its intense edge, and instead softens, “Do you ever regret it?”

“Regret what?” He mumbles, leaning down to press a kiss to your cheek, “Being with the love of my life?”

“Mm,” you nod, eyes dreamy as he smiles.

“Not even for a second.”

[robininthelabyrinth]

noncon-anon🔪🔪🔪...2!: Regardless of how much jealousy he holds toward his half brother, Meng Yao never expected or wanted to have Jin Zixuan on his knees before him. Certainly not like this, at least (his half-brother wrapped in chains, in the middle of the Sun Palace’s main hall, with Wen Ruohan and who knows how many other people watching) but he hadn’t been expecting Jin Zixuan to get captured either, and if this is what he has to do to remain in the Chief Cultivator’s favor, then so be it; may the gods forgive him for this violation of his kin (...and maybe if he puts on a good enough show, Wen Ruohan will let him keep his half-brother alive).

ao3

warning for adult content (full warnings on ao3)

Meng Yao had spent years not thinking of Jin Zixuan as anything other than an obstacle in the way of his ultimate goal – his father’s recognition, himself as the heir and eventual master of Lanling Jin – and he bitterly resented Wen Ruohan for trashing all that effort.

It was impossible to keep the image of Jin Zixuan that he’d had in his mind before: the spoiled, arrogant princeling in the same make as Wen Chao, less a human being than a statute of gilded gold, all fancy clothing and flawless appearance.

There was nothing of that now.

There was nothing arrogant about the frightened young man on his knees in front of him, chains carved with suppression arrays wrapped around his body – they’d been designed for a much stronger cultivator than he, Wen Ruohan’s mind lingering too often on his chief-most enemy in the war, Nie Mingjue, and Jin Zixuan was as helpless beneath them as a lamb, shivering in blind terror at being taken away from all he knew dear. His retainers had all been taken off to the Fire Palace or killed where they knelt, their corpses dragged off leaving smears of blood on the ground, and only he remained.

Meng Yao’s envy.

His brother.

His mother had always wanted to give him a brother, he abruptly recalled, and hated Wen Ruohan all the more for making him remember it. Her womb had closed after him, such that she couldn’t try for another even if she’d wanted to, but she’d day-dreamed about him making friends with the legitimate sons her sect leader – that was how she always called him, her sect leader – would undoubtedly have, pointlessly giving him advice on how to make friends with them, impress them, make them like him.

Not – this.

Never anything like this.

“Look at the gift I got for you, Meng Yao,” Wen Ruohan said, smiling. “A twin from another womb, born on the same day as you, but unlike you planted in the legitimate belly and so hoarded like a treasure – I would wager that you wish you could peeling his skin off and wrap yourself in it, wear it back to Lanling Jin.”

Meng Yao smiled. “Sect Leader Wen does me too much honor. This lowly one does not deserve such a gift.”

We may be born on the same day, but I’m three years older than him, and my mother isn’t a disgusting vicious old hag like Madame Jin. How dare you compared them.

“And yet I have chosen to give it,” Wen Ruohan said, brooking no disagreement as always. “You do such fine work in my Fire Palace, Meng Yao, with strangers who have never looked at you twice – I cannot wait to see what marvels you will accomplish with a target that you actually abhor. Which of your fine instruments will we try on him first? Should we break his spirit by removing his sword hand, or cut off Jin Guangshan’s hopes along with his balls?”

He laughed, endlessly amused by himself.

Meng Yao smiled along – mother wanted me to be his friend – and mentally ran through his options as fast as he could. He couldn’t risk angering Wen Ruohan, not when the other man held the entirety of the Nightless City in the palm of his hand, not when the only thing keeping Meng Yao himself out of the Fire Palace and strung up on his own instruments of torture was the quality of his service.

“I will of course not disappoint the Sect Leader,” he says smoothly, and pretended to ignore the way Jin Zixuan flinched, with his face so similar to his own, to the face his mother had loved so foolishly. “Only…”

“Only?”

Meng Yao ducked his head bashfully. “Sect Leader is too generous to me, it makes me go beyond myself; I start to think of things I should not. When I was young…ah, but it does not matter.”

“Don’t equivocate,” Wen Ruohan ordered, but his attention was caught, as Meng Yao had intended. “What were you going to say?”

“It’s only that when I was young, my mother would tell me stores of Lanling Jin,” Meng Yao said, and hated, hated, hated Wen Ruohan for making him have to share such things. “Her hope was that my father would accept me as his recognized son, but failing that, she had always assumed he would take me at least as – as a servant for the one he already had.”

He didn’t need more than that: Wen Ruohan got it right away. “And so once you were rejected you dreamed of the opposite, is that it?”

“It would satisfy this lowly one’s most fervent dream, Sect Leader.”

Wen Ruohan smiled, but it was not a pleasant smile – it was full of hidden dangers. “Ah, Meng Yao, you dare to dream so high! There’s only one problem with your suggestion that I see. This well-born child, this treasure of Lanling, what possible servant could he make? His hands are so clean and soft, he would not be able to do manual labor nor even sweep your floor. What possible use could you make of him?”

The answer came to Meng Yao at once, and he hated himself this time even as he responded with a pleasant smile: “Well, Sect Leader, in the absence of any other use, I could always have him serve me in bed.”

Wen Ruohan burst out laughing, caught by surprise.

He loved the idea, of course, as Meng Yao knew he would. Wen Ruohan was a man with esoteric tastes; he enjoyed torturing and humiliating his enemies, and the prouder the man the more he longed to ruin them. Even within the time Meng Yao had worked in his Fire Palace, he had seen Wen Ruohan offer a brother his family’s freedom if only he would forcefully take his sister’s purity, which the unfortunate man had done, weeping piteously all the while.

Yes, Wen Ruohan loved the idea, and because of that, Meng Yao had a chance of saving Jin Zixuan’s miserable life that he’d only need to later end, if he was to truly achieve all of his desires.

He would, too. He wouldn’t hesitate to end Jin Zixuan’s life if it served his ends.

Just not - like this.

My mother wanted us to be friends.

“Very well,” Wen Ruohan said, waving his hand. “You may have him as your bedwarmer.” Meng Yao had not even begun to salute in thanks when he added, “But before you accept such a gift, you should try it out.”

Meng Yao was not so foolish as to let his smile freeze. “Here, Sect Leader?”

“Why not here? It may as well be witnessed.”

Like a marriage, he meant, and Meng Yao hated him.

“Of course, Sect Leader,” Meng Yao said, and this time he completed the salute, bowing deeply, and made his way over to his hapless younger brother who was shaking like a leaf, just as unable to flee.

Meng Yao knelt before him and began to open his clothing, taking a moment to lean forward and hiss in his ear, “Keep your mouth shut. Play along and you will live; resist and you will die.”

It was neither threat nor reassurance but merely fact, but Jin Zixuan clearly needed the words – needed to think that there was someone here on his side, however illusionary the sensation was.

Whatever he was thinking, it worked.

Jin Zixuan stopped trying to fight and submitted as best as he could, even if he couldn’t help but flinch any time a new piece of flesh was exposed.

He was quivering like a quail, and Meng Yao sighed and reached for his half-brother’s cock, making him squeak in an undignified fashion as he started stroking it.

“Is that entirely necessary?” Wen Ruohan asked, sounding bored.

“I intend to get plenty of use out of him, Sect Leader,” Meng Yao replied, his tone equally bored as if this were merely a chore even as Jin Zixuan’s cock unwillingly started swelling up beneath his palm. “If I tear him up the first time I bed him, I’d have to stitch him up and wait for him to heal before I can take him again, lest I want to risk his death. And there’s only one legitimate heir, isn’t there?”

Wen Ruohan chuckled. “I suppose so.”

“Besides,” Meng Yao continued, because he knew he had to keep Wen Ruohan’s interest. “There’s some fun in this as well: look how responsive he is, getting hard for me already. He’s tied up in chains and bared for half the world to see, and all he cares about is his dick.”

“Reasonable, for a son of a pleasure-lover like Jin Guangshan,” Wen Ruohan agreed, and he sounded much less bored now. “Your shared father.”

“Our shared father,” Meng Yao agreed, and reached down with his free hand to open his own robes, pulling out his own cock. “Would you like to see how similar we are?”

He lined himself up next to Jin Zixuan – they really were similar, in both look and size, and Wen Ruohan laughed as Meng Yao shifted over to pleasuring them both at the same time. Jin Zixuan had his lips pressed tightly together, but he couldn’t help the little whimpers and mewls that broke free now and again, nor the way his hips bucked up under Meng Yao’s skillful work. He wasn’t the first man Meng Yao had pleasured like this, and, if anything, he seemed almost unexpectedly inexperienced.

Meng Yao would have assumed that Jin Zixuan, as Jin Guangshan’s son, would have had his fill of brothels by this age, have fucked every hole in every way that whores offered for sale and then some, but perhaps his jealous bitch of a mother wouldn’t let him.

Certainly it didn’t take very long before he was coming helplessly in Meng Yao’s hands.

“Did you like that, brother?” Meng Yao asked him, and Jin Zixuan looked at him in betrayal. “You came so quickly – you liked having your brother’s hands on you, didn’t you? The same blood as yours. They say mine is less pure on account of your mother being born in a palace and mine in a brothel, but in the end it seems that you’re the one that turned out the whore.”

Jin Zixuan’s face was red and flushed, but he didn’t say a word, didn’t resist as Meng Yao pushed him down and spread his legs, merely grunted when Meng Yao slid fingers slicked up with his own come into him one a time.

“You’re tight here, which is to be expected,” Meng Yao continued, aware of their audience – the one on the throne being the only one that mattered, although there were plenty of guards watching avidly as well. “I doubt anyone’s ever made use of you before, unless our shared father has even more interesting tastes than I thought…”

Jin Zixuan flushed even redder and shook his head furiously.

“No? Then let your older brother be the first.” Jin Zixuan’s body was involuntarily relaxed after his orgasm, and Meng Yao was in a hurry, knowing that he couldn’t draw this out too long lest Wen Ruohan grow bored – he stretched him roughly, making as much space as best as he could, then put his cock at his entrance. Before he did anything more, he reached over and grabbed Jin Zixuan by the hair, forcing him to bend forward so that he could see Meng Yao’s cock about to breach him. “At the brothel, they say a woman always remembers her first man. They say it’s because her body shapes itself to him, molding the inside to accommodate him, never to be the way it was before – making her the perfect fit for his cock and no one else’s, no matter how many others she might one day take. I’ve heard the same is true for men. What do you think, little brother? Are you ready to take me into you? Are you ready to watch as I turn you into something fit only for me?”

Jin Zixuan couldn’t tear his tear-filled eyes away.

Meng Yao pushed in, and Jin Zixuan whined, high and loud, pathetic. It didn’t stop Meng Yao at all, pushing in inexorably – Jin Zixuan was hot and tight, about what he’d thought he’d be, same as anyone else. There wasn’t any magic to incest, no matter how much it got Wen Ruohan off.

(It got Meng Yao off, too. But he’d be a very poor whore’s son indeed if he didn’t know how to separate business and pleasure - and this was a performance. Would he say such ridiculous words, words that no one would believe if their dicks weren’t hard, otherwise?)

“Fuck, you’re tight,” he said, because he knew Wen Ruohan liked to hear it, and maybe also because he liked the way it made Jin Zixuan have to turn his face away in shame. “You really were a virgin, weren’t you? Look at you, giving yourself to me like a bride on her wedding night, taking me all inside of you. What a good little bedwarmer you’re going to be.”

He settled in all the way, hips pressed against warm flesh, and enjoyed the sensation of Jin Zixuan futilely clenching around him in an attempt to get him out.

“I’ll teach you all the tricks to please me,” he said, starting to rock back and forth, moving in and out. “Every morning you’ll present yourself to me to use; every evening too, and if I get bored during the middle of the day I’ll use your mouth. Once I’ve gotten you properly broken in, I’ll rent you out to anyone who asks – I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Make you the good little whore and me the master, make you earn on your back that gold you’ve always worn as if you deserved it.”

He was thrusting in earnest now, Jin Zixuan’s legs around his waist, and to his amusement it looked like Jin Zixuan was getting hard again. It wasn’t really a surprise, a natural reaction to the strange and confusing sensations he was enduring, none of which said anything as to whether or not he was enjoying himself at all, but Meng Yao dropped his hand onto Jin Zixuan’s cock yet again.

“See, you’re halfway to a whore already,” he mocked. “Getting hard on big brother’s cock like a good boy. Good and obedient – you’re going to come with my cock inside of you, and belong to me forever.”

Jin Zixuan was whimpering, tears streaming down his face, but it still didn’t take long for him to come.

Meng Yao finished shortly after.

He allowed himself a few moments to enjoy the sensation, and then pulled out, pulling Jin Zixuan’s leg up so that Wen Ruohan could see the come dripping out of his abused hole.

“Well done,” Wen Ruohan said, clapping. His eyes were avid. “Well done indeed. As always, Meng Yao, your craftsmanship is exquisite. You may keep him – although perhaps another show might be in order, soon enough.”

“Of course, Sect Leader,” Meng Yao said, and snapped his fingers for a guard to take Jin Zixuan to his room. Sad and miserable and pathetic, but still alive – just as he’d promised.

Naturally, the situation of keeping Jin Zixuan as his personal pet wasn’t tenable in the long run, and so it was only a few days later when Meng Yao kneeled in front of Wen Ruohan and said, “Sect Leader, I have an idea for something we can do with Jin Zixuan.”

“I’m listening,” Wen Ruohan said lazily. “What do you have in mind?”

“I have left him alone and isolated in my bedchamber these past few days, growing increasingly nervous and paranoid,” Meng Yao said. “I propose to allow him to ‘escape’ with some information to deliver to Sect Leader Lan, who will believe his peer well above he might believe some anonymous sender of notes. And he, in turn, will pass the information along to Sect Leader Nie…”

Wen Ruohan’s eyes lit up in immediate interest, as Meng Yao had expected. He was always keen to hear any word about Nie Mingjue.

“I believe this mechanism will allow us to lure Sect Leader Nie into a trap,” Meng Yao said. “And then…”

He let his eyes drift over to the chains that had so recently housed Jin Zixuan.

“Do as you suggest,” Wen Ruohan ordered at once. What did one little Jin Zixuan matter to him, next to the possibility of gaining a Nie Mingjue?

Meng Yao saluted and left. It was settled, then – Jin Zixuan would be let go and make his way back to the Great Sect’s side of the war, they would both put this unfortunate incident out of their heads, and life would carry on as if nothing had happened.

(Years later, when Jiang Yanli coaxed Jin Guangyao into a bedroom where Jin Zixuan waited, shivering in a completely different way, it finally occurred to him that he hadn’t told Jin Zixuan that that was the plan, and also perhaps that the other man lacked his own talent for compartmentalization – but in the end it all turned out all right anyway, even if it did mean he’d need to revamp his plans for conquering the Jin sect to find a way to keep his new pet alive in the long run.

Damn Wen Ruohan. It was all his fault!)

[kueble]

So this is the first thing I wrote in The Witcher fandom.  I wrote it back in June but never posted it anywhere.  It’s the post-mountain fix-it fic that every writer is required to write.  It’s a fandom rule.  I promise. Thanks to @geraskier-trashh for convincing me to post it tonight.

1100 words. Rated T.

---

It’s been two months.  Two agonizingly slow and lonely months since Geralt lashed out at him on that stupid fucking mountain that they should never have been on.  He’s been mostly alright, going through the motions of life even if he lacks his usual spark.  Thankfully - for his coin purse and his reputation both - he finds it easy to continue with the part he plays.  After all, no one really cares to look too hard at the evening’s entertainment, right?  So long as he can carry a tune he can carry a room, and that’s how he’s been surviving.

So of course that bastard picks tonight to walk into the same tavern he’s been prancing around all night.

Their eyes meet across the room, and Geralt actually looks scared.  It’s not a look Jaskier is used to seeing, and he trips over his next few words, but the crowd is thankfully too full of ale to catch on.  Geralt watches him, seemingly unsure of what to do, and Jaskier is far too nice so he just nods sharply and starts wrapping up his song.  He bows, scoops up the generous coins at his feet, and bids his audience good night.

“I have a room. Best to talk in private, I suppose,” he says by way of greeting.  Geralt just nods numbly at him, and it’s possibly the first time since they’d met that Jaskier isn’t sure how to read him.  He seems terrified - which is good because he should be feeling something - but it tugs at Jaskier’s heartstrings in a way that he hates.  He’s supposed to be over this by now.  He sighs and walks towards the stairs, sure Geralt will follow him.

Once they reach the room, it seems like Geralt just stalls.  He stands there, leaning against the door, and stares at Jaskier.  Jaskier rocks on his feet and gives him a few moments to collect himself before gesturing with his hand to get on with it.  

“I…” Geralt starts, pausing to lick his lips and look away for a second, “I should not have said what I did.”

“Agreed,” Jaskier tells him with a roll of his eyes.  “Though not meaning to say it and not meaning it are completely different things.”

“I was angry and you were there.  None of it was true,” Geralt says quickly.  He runs a hand over his face and sighs.  “I’m not good with words.”

“Well aware of that, my witcher,” Jaskier says with a snort.  The word my seems to give Geralt some hope and he stands straighter and uncrosses his arms.

“I truly am sorry,” he adds.

“I’m sure you are,” Jaskier agrees softly.  “But I need more than that.  I’ve spent half my life following you around only to be pushed aside when you couldn’t handle your feelings.  Where do we go from here?  How can I be sure you won’t hurt me again?  Because Geralt...that really cut me deep.  Your words were sharper than your swords will ever be.  I...I cannot do that again.” He trails off and watches the emotions play across Geralt’s face.  He truly looks sorry, but Jaskier needs this, needs to be told things will be better.

“What do you want from me?” Geralt asks, almost whining as he frowns at Jaskier.

“How about you tell me how you really feel about me?” Jaskier prompts him, not expecting the man to actually agree.

“I can do that,” Geralt says, stepping away from the door.  He paces for a few moments, seemingly gathering his thoughts, before pausing and turning to face Jaskier again.  “You’re different.  I was taught not to feel, not to care, not to put myself in a position where someone had so much power over me.  Yet here we are,” he says bitterly.  “Your opinion matters to me.  I try to make myself better when you are near.  When you aren’t, I ask myself what you would think of my actions.  Just having you near me calms me down.  I get terrified that you’ll show up at the wrong time, on the wrong hunt, and get hurt.  I don’t think I could handle losing you forever.  I wonder if your hair is as soft as it looks.  I think about how your hand might fit in mine, if my hands would be too rough for yours.  I often think about how it might feel to kiss you, and sometimes I think you might let me if I tried.  I...I miss you.”

Jaskier just blinks at him.  That’s more words than Jaskier has heard the other man utter in an entire week, perhaps a month.

“I should go,” Geralt says, starting for the door.  He looks broken, and it snaps Jaskier into gear.

“No!  I would!  I mean, I would let you!” Jaskier says quickly, stepping to block the door.  “I think about it too.  Every single thing you said.  I just...I never thought you might too.”

“I’m really bad at this,” Geralt mumbles, waving a hand between them.

“You’re fucking awful at it,” Jaskier says with a laugh.  But then he steps forward and cups Geralt’s face, pulling him into a kiss.  When their lips meet, it’s like all the air is sucked out of the room.  He’s pretty sure he’s crying into the kiss, but it doesn’t even matter.  Geralt wraps an arm around him and tugs him closer, sighing into the kiss as their bodies slot together perfectly.

By the time they pull apart, Jaskier’s gasping for air and Geralt looks wild.  Jaskier can’t help laughing as he leans in and pecks him quickly again.  Just because apparently he can now.

“We should have done that years ago,” he tells Geralt, grinning like a loon.

“Fucking idiots.  Both of us,” Geralt agrees with a smirk.

“So if it’s not quite clear, I’ll be rejoining you,” Jaskier says softly.

“My path is your path,” Geralt says, nodding.

“We can figure out the rest as we go,” Jaskier says before running a hand down Geralt’s arm and lacing their fingers together.  He brings their clasped hands up to his mouth and places a gentle kiss on Geralt’s fingers.  “Not too rough,” he tells him.

“Can’t promise I won’t be too rough sometimes,” Geralt says softly.  Jaskier just laughs at him and starts to push him backwards towards the bed.

“How about I let you know if you get too rough for me, hmm?” he asks as he shoves the witcher back onto the bed.  Geralt laughs along with him, and then they’re too lost in each other to talk for the rest of the night.

---

Tags list: @honeysuckletook, @halerune @eya-trying-to-function

If you’d like to be removed/added, please let me know. I should probably post these on fics I post as answers to prompts, huh? Oopsie. 

[jaskiersvalley]

I'm absolutely in love with your writing and your fics! Also I ship Eskel/Lambert now so thank you for that. Might I ask for some h/c with my new favourite wolves? Hope you're staying safe and well! 💜💜💜

Yes! Welcome to the Eskel/Lambert ship! It is perfectly set up for some hurt/comfort. This one is emotional rather than physical but I’ve been dying to explore this idea for a while and you’ve given me the perfect excuse, thank you!

CW: Suicidal thoughts, mentions of child abuse (aka Lambert’s shitty childhood)

Beautiful Ghosts

It was well known that Lambert was bitter and angry at everything. Destiny, Witchers, the world at large. He was grouchy, held a grudge and never seemed to have anything nice to say. It was just the way Lambert was and everyone around him grew to accept it. However, some days he was harder to deal with than others. There were times he lashed out at anyone and everyone, heedless of whether they had earned his ire or not. Usually, Eskel could ignore it, could accept that Lambert had difficult days. During those times he spent the afternoon with Geralt instead or made himself scarce. In the evenings Lambert would appear in his doorway, mouth curled down into an unhappy pout and he’d stare, almost like a dog expecting to get beaten. Instead, Eskel would hold up his blanket in invitation and he’d wait for Lambert to crawl in, curling up against his chest. His silence was the only apology and Eskel could live with that.

Time was something they lost track of easily. One year bled into the next, it didn’t matter how many passed them by, the important thing was they’d survived another season out on the Path and they were back together. A few months locked together in Kaer Morhen to weather the worst of the winter before it was a rinse and repeat of the previous year. The cycle was never ending but that was the life of a Witcher.

Snow had settled on the mountain, winter was well and truly in full swing and Lambert was unbearable. He had snapped at Vesemir, thrown Geralt’s gwent deck in his face when he won a round and even spat vitriol at Eskel. Not ever the usual gruff and highly strung “fuck off”. This time he went for below the belt.

“Don’t expect me to come to your bed tonight. I don’t want a pity fuck and especially not from you.”

That had hurt. Eskel didn’t give Lambert the chance to change his mind. He took a blanket and curled up by the fire in Geralt’s room, knowing Lambert wouldn’t ever approach him there. If only that had been the end of it. Alas, Lambert continued to be foul.

“I see you’ve already found another bed warmer. Tell me, does his bulk and ability to truly pin you down make you actually come?” Lambert sneered. “No more forcing yourself to come, screwing your eyes shut and imagining it’s anyone but me ploughing you, right?”

Slamming his slice of half eat bread down, Eskel stalked out of the room, unable to hear Lambert talk like that. At the edge of his hearing Geralt and Vesemir’s less than friendly chiding echoed in his ears but it didn’t mean much. Not when Lambert didn’t sound the least bit sorry.

It didn’t get easier. Training had Lambert hissing and spitting curses, goading Eskel and Geralt until something snapped. Eskel had had enough. He threw his sword to the side and bodily charged and Lambert, scooping him up and pinning him against the nearest wall.

“What the fuck has gotten into you?”

“Wouldn’t you just love to snap my neck and be done with it all?” Lambert laughed bitterly. “Just do it. Put us both out of our misery.

”As though burned, Eskel stepped away and Lambert turned, face scrunched up in anger and misery “Why won’t you just do it already?” he screamed.

Thankfully, Geralt and Vesemir had the good grace to walk away and give the two the illusion of privacy. It left Eskel facing Lambert who looked like he was only standing up out of sheer spite when everything about him screamed hurting and wanting to curl up in a ball.

“Why?” Eskel’s voice broke over the simple question.

“Why not? It’s not like any other death will be better. At least you’ll make it quick.”

Eskel couldn’t breathe as he listened. In the silence he could hear both their breathing, ragged and shallow. As he continued not to say anything Lambert shifted around. He had never been good at the whole silence thing, not when there were things to be said.

“It’s just not fair.” While it didn’t yet make much sense, it was a start.

Stepping closer, Eskel reached for him. After a moment of quivering hesitation, Lambert allowed himself to be pulled in for a hug. It wasn’t quite the usual hug where Lambert held Eskel as much as he was held. Instead, Lambert all but slumped into Eskel, letting the other hold him up. As gently as he could, Eskel lowered them to the ground and pulled Lambert closer to his chest.

“Everywhere I look, it’s misery.” The words were mumbled into his gambeson but Eskel could just about decipher them. “Not a single happy memory anywhere.”

“None at all?”

Lambert shook his head and burrowed closer. “You have Geralt. Shared memories, pranks, games you played.” For a moment Lambert broke off and sniffled. “I don’t have anyone. Childhood here was punishment and bullying. Nobody wanted to be friends with the runt who was always getting the shit kicked out of him in training and then the instructors caned him for being stupid.”

Heart sinking, Eskel closed his eyes. He knew Lambert hadn’t had the easiest of lives but, when put like that, it sounded harsher than he’d dared imagine.

“What about life before training?” Because Eskel knew very little about Lambert’s life beyond what they’ve shared. The scoff and bitter laugh suggested his heart was about to break further.

“Dad was a drunk. Took it out on me and mum. He was so glad to get rid of me when Vesemir claimed Law of Surprise.” It made Eskel wince but Lambert didn’t see it and so continued. “Shit life before being dragged here, shit life while here and then punted out into a shitty world with shitty prospects. I know things are just as shit for you on the Path. But you’ve got memories, these beautiful ghosts to haunt you. Your bumblebee on a string and all that. I’ve got nothing but screaming poltergeists to haunt my every waking and sleeping moment.”

Eskel wrapped himself around Lambert more firmly. “What about more recent memories?”

“The only good ones I have are of you. But we both know that can’t last. One of us will fuck up. Won’t return one winter. Selfishly, I really hope it’s me.”

It was getting cold now that they weren’t moving around. Eskel knew how much Lambert hated the cold. With as much care as he could, he scooped Lambert up and walked them back to the keep, up the old stone stairs until they were in his bedroom. Gently, he stripped Lambert and himself before clambering into bed to curl around Lambert yet again, pulling the covers above their heads. In the warm darkness he finally allowed all the pain to show on his face.

“I’m sorry. I wish I could make you promises but we both know they’ll be broken.” There was no happy ending for Witchers. They took what little scraps of happiness and comfort they could. Until that moment Eskel had never considered himself a rich man but, in comparison to Lambert, he had so much more. “I wish I could share those happy memories with you. But all I can offer is trying to make new ones from now on.”

Maybe it would be enough to help Lambert keep coming back to him. It was a hope he had to cling to. Because all Eskel wanted was to finally be enough for someone else.

[vaire-gwir]

I’ve run out of my words

Post-mountain incident, Jaskier is a heart broken mess. The last thing he needs is an unexpected visit from Geralt. 

I have accepted that it’s never going to be the same amount of words as I Find you all Unwoven, cause I re-wrote this three times and it just doesn’t happen.

Again, I was sad, that’s my excuse. English is not my first language, hope it doesn’t terribly suck! 

***

It hurt a great deal when Jaskier sold his lute. He was attached to it for more than just sentimental reasons. Sometimes he felt like his life truly started the day he got that lute.

He was used to pain by now though, pain was just another thing creeping under the surface, it came and went in waves like the ocean, sometimes threatening to overwhelm him with memories and sometimes resting among the broken pieces of his heart, hissing like a snake waiting to strike.

It was always there, he just perceived it in different ways: some days it was like being on the edge of an empty abyss of nothingness, about to fall but never really tipping over, just going through the motion. Other times, there were the long nights when sleep refused to visit him and he'd get this urge under his skin, to move, to do something, anything to not feel trapped in his own flesh, caged by his own mind.

He tried to fight insomnia with the ink, but he proved a terrible fighter. He couldn't write anything anymore. When he tried to play, his fingers seemed to have a mind of their own, and he'd get even the simplest of melody wrong, resulting in endless frustration that kept him up until dawn.

As much as he tried to outrun his ghost, he always ended up running right into it, and if he managed to keep his waking hours relatively Geralt-free, the dreams were always there. His journals paid the price of waking up for the hundredth time, after a nightmare that leaves him choking and incapable to stop the tears from falling down his cheeks.

He thought he'd feel relieved after watching it crackle and burn to ashes, as if destroying the evidence of his time with the Witcher could also destroy the heartache that came with it, but it doesn't work like that. Nothing he ever does stops him from being hollow.

Jaskier walks around the Academy like a shadow, trying to keep himself busy between lessons or at least trying to keep Geralt out of his thoughts. This simple task proved to be more complicated than he anticipated. He doesn't want to be here, he's not made for teaching and his students get on his nerves all the time. To be fair, most things get on his nerves since the mountain incident, but he doesn't have many options.

Sure, he could go home to his family, beg their forgiveness and implore his father to allow him back into court. That sounded as promising as jumping off a bridge.

Compared to that, even the room Madame M. offered him at the brothel looked like a golden palace. At least he had some talent for sex, he managed to convince even a Witcher to sleep with him, that hadn't been easy.

Jaskier stirs his mind in a safer direction, cause thinking about those nights will not do him any good. He still blames and curses himself for coming up with that stupid arrangement, cause why not Geralt, I'm here all the time, and I'm obviously very willing, besides you don't have to pay me, looks like a win-win situation to me. Looks like you're a special kind of idiot, Jaskier, that's what you are. Why did Geralt even accept anyway?

Jaskier blinks the memories away and focuses on trying to have lunch, cause that's what sane, normal people do. He's still struggling with normal though.

His plan flew out of the window when someone started to sing. Jaskier froze in his spot when he recognized the song. He wrote that. He should be pleased to hear it, but it's not pride he feels when he glances in the direction of the curly-haired boy in green velvet.

He will never play or sing another song again, and people will forget him sooner than Geralt did. The folks in this tavern don't know him, they don't know he wrote those lyrics to distract himself the first night Geralt didn't come back from a hunt and he feared for him every second of that dreadful night.

He spent hours cursing the Gods for making him so useless and prayed to them in the same breath, begging for their mercy. He felt stupid later, when Geralt showed up at dawn saying it took him longer than expected to break a curse. Jaskier told the Witcher how scared he had been and Geralt dismissed him as the fool he was.

He's scared of being forgotten, of being meaningless and unimportant. No one is going to remember Jaskier, the bard that traveled the continent with the White Wolf and shared his adventures.

He left Jaskier on top of that mountain, he's just Julian now, just a teacher, just another idiot that got his heart broken. Geralt left him like everyone else. That's what people do, they just leave and move on with their lives. So why couldn't he move on too?

There's a small shift in the air, and while he tries to regain control of his thoughts, for some unknown reason, destiny, the universe, life or the Gods, make him turn his head toward the entrance.

There is no mistaking the white hair he sees, or the dark armour. Jaskier knows he has to leave before Geralt sees him. The sole idea of Geralt being here is enough to leave him shaking.

What are the chances of meeting the Witcher outside Oxenfurt? There were no contracts in town, why was fate trying his best to mess with his life today, was the song not enough? He feels like his head is swimming and he knows he doesn't have time to panic cause his heart beats so loudly he fears Geralt will spot it in a second.

He puts some coins in the maid's hand and stumbles out of the place.  

He can't face him. Not today. Probably not ever, cause he can't imagine he'll ever be ready to face the one that broke his heart without holding any anger or resentment towards him. Why must he feel like this, Geralt never cared for him, so why is he still drowning in his feelings for the idiot?

Jaskier is a poet, he should know a thing or two about heartache. He should also know that he's out of luck today.

"Why did you follow me, Witcher?" Jaskier feels his presence a few paces behind him, still so painfully familiar to him even after all these months.

"How did you know..." There's a puzzled expression on Geralt's face. Jaskier knows he's not prepared for this.

It takes him a second to realize that no matter how angry he is at the Witcher, how deep his sorrow runs and how broken his heart is, a small part of him is almost glad to see him. It's the same small part that decided to talk to a stranger and follow him on a dangerous journey, the one that figured out first that what he was feeling was more than a crush, and that accepted every scrap of affection Geralt showed him like he was being handed the world on a silver plate.

Geralt is exactly how he remembers him, and his betrayer heart jumps in his chest when their eyes meet.

"I saw you at the tavern. I spent so long searching for your face in every crowd I started to think I was seeing things, but apparently I was right this time." I love you, I'd recognize your steps everywhere, the cracking of the leather in your gloves and the click of the metal of that buckle in your armor you always forget to fix after a hunt, I know them as if they were my own. I love you, and you broke my heart. That's what he wants to say, but the words get stuck in his throat, they're no use now.

"I... You were not singing." Jaskier knows it's not surprise he sees on Geralt's face when he answers "I don't do that anymore." but he can't figure out what it is.

It hurt when he realized he couldn't bring himself to sing or play anymore, it left him feeling even emptier than before, cause he always thought he'd have his music to console him, to defend him from the things life was throwing at him, to build a wall around himself and protect whatever was left of him. How wrong he was.

"Why not?" Jaskier wishes he could explain that when they parted on top of the mountain, when he forced himself to say "See you around Geralt" knowing he'll never see him again, when he tried to process those heavy words that rolled off the Witcher's tongue, his love for music, for poetry, for life, rolled off too and hid somewhere he couldn't reach anymore. But Geralt never cared for his music.

"Don't act like you care. I'm not the same person I was ten months ago. Besides, you hate my singing, you can barely stand my voice, what difference does it make to you?" Keeping his tone even and preventing his voice from breaking is hard, harder than any performance he ever had to do. Ten months ago feel like a lifetime away now, it doesn't even seem real. The ache in his chest is always there to remind him that it is.

"That's not true." Jaskier sees how he clenches his hands as if those words meant a great effort for him. The Gods know how many times he looked into Geralt's eyes after singing, desperately seeking his approval and finding only a mild annoyance, like this was just another thing he had to endure.

"It's like ordering a pie and finding it has no filling. There's a word for that, in case you didn't know, and it's called disappointment. Now, why did you follow me out here? I don't think it was to tell me you suddenly like my voice cause we both know you don't and honestly, bit late for that, don't you think?" Jaskier wants to be annoyed, he should be furious for what Geralt did to him, for leaving him like he meant nothing, but these days being mad is a lot of effort. He doesn't have it in him anymore, it's easier to let go of the anger. It doesn't make him feel less empty or less broken anyway.

"I just thought...we could maybe....talk?" Jaskier laughs bitterly.

"Really Geralt? That's rich coming from you. Now you want to talk? You know what, no. No, you don't get to come here and tell me you want to talk after I spent ten gods forsaken months trying to forget you. Don't you fucking dare. Not like this. Now if there's something I can help you with, do say so. If not, spare us both this conversation, I'm not sure I'm in the mood to have my heart broken again." Jaskier is not even sure there is something left to break.

He'll never admit it but deep down he knows there's no forgetting Geralt. And he curses that small part of him that wants to listen to him, to let him talk and explain, cause he knows that he'd go back to traveling with the Witcher right this second if he so much as says he'd take him back. Stupid, stupid Jaskier. A Witcher apologizing, as if.

"I'll leave you to your things then. Goodbye, Jaskier."  Saying goodbye, even knowing that it's for the best, doesn't make it any less painful.

"You were right." Geralt looks at him in a way he has never seen before, for a second he thinks it's hurt that he sees flickering in those golden eyes, but it lasts a second. He should know Geralt doesn't care about him enough to be hurt by something he says or does.

"You spent so much time trying to convince me to leave you alone and stop following you around and I never fucking listened. I realized you were right. Cause you, you got what you wanted, life, destiny, whatever, you had your sorceress and I'm finally off your hands. But what about me? That is why I wish...I wish I would have listened to you. Left. Before it was too late. Before having my heart broken."

His voice breaks at the end, he feels the tears stinging his eyes and he turns to walk away before Geralt notices it. Pain comes in waves, and today he's drowning.

[demivampirew]

Do I mean anything to you?

Soft and fluffy August x reader - one shot (This was inspired by a dream I had - yay! My first August dream! *heart eyes, motherf*cker*

Triggers: Talking about sex (mild smut); arguing; use of curse words; stalking (a bit)

You can find more of my writings in the Masterlist

Tag list: @lunedelorient​​ @henrythickcavill​ @wolvesandhoundshowltogether​ @mary-ann84​ @desperate-and-broken​ @peakygroupie​ @summersong69​ @ivvitm1109​ @madbaddic7ed​ @iloveyouyen​ @the-soot-sprite @hell1129-blog​

- Hey, come back!- August shouted after you stormed out of the room. You were wearing a very sensual lingerie set with stockings and high heel shoes. - Fuck you!- you replied angrily. - Come on, don't be mad, you're killing the mood.-he tried to joke. - You must be insane if you think that I'll have sex with you now.-you exclaimed. - Oh, Jesus.- he said, rolling his eyes- you're so melodramatic. - You're kidding, right?- you asked annoyed- No, of course, you're not. You are an asshole. -Hey, be nice.-he warned you. - Or what? - you defied him. - Or daddy's going to punish you for being a bad girl.- he answered playfully as he approached you and tried to kiss you unsuccessfully since you moved quickly before he reached you. - You're not my daddy. That little fun play is over, get out!- you ordered him but he didn't move.- Get out!- you repeated yourself, screaming out loud. Again, he stood there with no intention to leave. Tears started to fall from your eyes but were from rage rather than pain, or at least that's what you thought. - I'm sorry.-he apologized, defeated.- I don't know what else to say to make you forgive me. - How about I'm sorry that I made you believe that I have any intentions of getting real with you when in reality you were just a pussy I can fuck whenever I want without giving a shit about your feelings.- you told him bitterly. He sighed. - Alright. Let's have the fucking date if that's going to make you happy.- he offered. - You're unbelievable!- now you were the one rolling your eyes. - Wasn't that the reason you got mad at me? Because you asked me to go out next week and I told you I don't want to go out, I prefer to meet like we were doing all the past few months.-he questioned you. - I'm mad because from the beginning you told me that you were on board on the idea of getting together and having a relationship, but so far you only seem interested on me when you need a hole to put it on.- you reproached him. You weren't so sure anymore that the tears were from anger. He sighed and walk to you, grabbing your face to force you to look him in the eyes. - Honestly, at first, I said the things I said because I just wanted to have sex and I assumed I'd never see you again, so who cares?- he confessed and quickly continued after seeing that you got even angrier- but then the sex was so good I wanted more and more and then I realized that I truly enjoyed your company.- he said firmly. - If that's the case, why you keep avoiding me, huh? Why you don't want to date me? Do you think you're too good for me? That I'm a whore no worthy of a man like you?- you asked frustrated. - I don't give a fuck about that. So no, is not that.- he paused and took a deep breath and then continued- I have a job, a serious one. I cannot publicly talk about my job and is better for you not to know. It keeps me busy but is also dangerous. Usually, believe it or not, I spent most of my free time with you. - Are you in some kind of gang?- you questioned worriedly. - No, let's say that is on the other side of that line.- he explained. - You're a cop? - Something like that. The less you know, the better it is.- August said. - That sounds like such a bullshit.- you pointed out, raising an eyebrow. He sighed and took his wallet from his pant's pocket and showed you his CIA identification. You looked at it and then at him. - Happy? - he questioned you. After a moment he put it back on its place. Then, he starred at you and then lifted your chin with his finger.- Are you willing to accept that there are things about my life that need to be a secret, for your best interest, and that often I'll have to leave the country out of the blue and that I might spend weeks apart? - he wanted to know and you nodded.- Would you like to be my girlfriend then? - he requested. - Yes.- you agreed, pouting a bit because you were still upset from the fight. He kissed you and all those feeling went away. That was the reason you forgot about how much it hurt him neglecting you: his hisses that made you feel as if you on the top of the world. How amazing it felt his hands, tongue and lips explore your body; the burning sensation from your groins every time he fucked you. He wasn't much of a talker, but he was a great listener. You didn't know much about his life, but for sure he knew yours almost completely. Even when you had rough sex, he would reciprocate every kiss and tenderly touch your body with his lips. He never said not to after sex snuggling. He was cold but sweet. But now, with this huge revelation, you understood better why he was how it was and you felt much better. He carried you back to the bed and let him fuck you until almost the breaking down.

August was fucked up and he knew it. With all the things happening, having a girlfriend was no the greatest idea. If word about his relationship came into the wrong ears, you could be in danger and he'd hate himself for that. He didn't lie to you. At first, you was just a pretty woman who he wanted to have a little of fun with, but then he wanted more of what you had to offer and then sex became just one of the reason he went to visit you: you were the happy side of his life, he loved to hear you talk about things you loved and complain about your family or co-workers. He protected you all that time without you finding out. He installed a camera in every access to your house in which he could access from an app on his phone and his computer. He needed to know that no enemy knew about you and hurt you to get to him. But now that wasn't enough. He'd do the unimaginable to protect his lady.