#his name is Beni

[owlsdrawinglair]

Finally finished up this little guy! It took me 30000 years but I've finally finished my lil nautolan boy based on the ochre starfish!

This drawing was inspired by wonderful drawings by Deer-Head-Xiris on Twitter (I think?). Go show them some love too they're truly amazing!

[ji-shifu]

[moonsbijou]

~bubbles 🫧🩵 moodboard~

from a young age she could do powerful things other people just couldn’t from a siren like supersonic scream, super strength and agility, to learning languages outside of English like she was born speaking it but to be honest she just wants to be a normal college kid, pick up skateboarding from her crush and win the spot of prima ballerina in the next production. she and the other girls are superheroes but is that all they’ll ever be?

[latenitewaffles]

So my Persona OCs mascot character, design wise, is kinda what happens when you fuse Aigis, an iDog, and my favorite stuffed animal

He's so cute I can't wait to show him off eventually

[yikessbuddy]

Whoever adopts him is gonna have the time of their lives ❤️

[sluttywoozi]

Somewhere In The Middle | ljh x f!reader

Somewhere in the middle, I think I lied a little I said if we took it there I wasn't gonna change, But that went out the window

You and Jihoon started as roommates and naturally became best friends. After a breakup and a little too much wine, you become best friends who kiss, but there's no danger there... right?

Rating: M (18+) | WC: ~9.7k | Pairing: ljh x f!reader

Genre: romance, smut, best friends/idiots to fwb to lovers, hurt/comfort

Warnings: mention of a breakup, alcohol use, besties to besties with benies to lovers, jealous/possessive jihoon, depiction of a nightmare (lots of water involved but no drowning), appetite issues/food eating, hurt/comfort

Smut Warnings: dom!jihoon, dirty talk, manhandling, strength kink, dumbification, breast/nipple play, oral r. rec., fingerfucking, biting, multiple orgasms, piv sex, creampie, pet names (princess, good girl), allusions to f. masturbation, reader goes into subspace a lil

Reader Notes: sub, taller than Jihoon, has breasts and a vagina, gets carried by jihoon, on some form of birth control, crybaby, she’s smart i swear being around jihoon just makes her dumb 

You and Jihoon have been roommates for three years and best friends for two and a half when It happens. 

It’s nearing midnight and most of the lights are off, the glare of the TV illuminating the room though it’s been muted for the past hour. You’re drunk on the couch and for once, Jihoon is drunk with you, helping you lament the shitty boyfriend you finally ditched. 

Well, the shitty boyfriend who ditched you. 

It stings that he was the one to end things, prickles to admit that maybe you had some hand in the crashing and burning of the relationship, but you still feel valid enough in his faults to complain to Jihoon about it on this dreary Friday night. 

“We hadn’t even kissed in like… weeks. And sex? I counted myself lucky he didn’t seem interested, he was that disappointing,” you bemoan, dropping your head on his shoulder and hugging his arm to your chest. Jihoon doesn’t love physical contact, but you’ve worn him down and now, you’re the only person he allows free reign. 

You think he even likes it at this point, especially when he presses his cheek to your head and sighs, “Men are the worst.”

“You’re a man, Jihoon,” you remind him, tilting your head up to glance at him, dislodging his cheek and making him look down at you. 

“Yeah, but I don’t count, do I?” He says sardonically, knocking his forehead against yours.

“I don’t know anymore,” you mumble. “I just miss kissing, and being touched, and-,” you hiccup, though whether it’s due to tears or to drink, you don’t know. “And I miss someone loving me.” 

Your eyes are misty now, Jihoon’s face blurry even though it’s inches from yours. 

“You know I love you, right?” He asks softly, and you try to smile through the tears, appreciative of him for attempting to make you feel better. 

“Yeah, but not like that,” you remind him, your eyes fluttering shut and your lips pouting. 

“But I could kiss you like I do.” 

You peek one eye open, blinking away the saltwater in your eyes, not even flinching when he brings a hand up to wipe it away from your cheek. 

“You could?” 

“I could,” he nods, his brows drawn together and his mouth tight. “I don’t want you to suffer like this if I can fix it.” 

You think it through for a split second, consider the fact that Jihoon is your roommate, your best friend, and decide that you don’t care. 

“Okay,” you whisper, fragility clear in your voice and in the fingers suddenly clutching at his shirt. 

“Just… promise me nothing will change, that we’ll still be us after,” he murmurs, leaning closer to you until his lips are a breath from yours. 

“I promise,” you tell him, though in the back of your mind, a voice whispers that something already has changed.

Then he kisses you, and your brain goes perfectly silent. 

All you can feel is him, his palm on your face, his fingers in your hair, his soft lips sipping at yours much like the wine you downed together just an hour ago. 

The room is quiet, filled only with your breathing and his, and every sensation is heightened by the peace surrounding you. 

His hand tilts your face, changing the angle as he glides his tongue along your bottom lip, and when you gasp, it darts inside, learning, exploring. 

Jihoon is lazy, you both know this, but apparently he’s the very opposite when it comes to kissing you because before long, he’s devouring you with vigor, panting into your mouth like he can’t catch his breath, searching like you’ve stolen it. 

You’re not faring much better, your grip tight on his shirt and your cheek hot under his hand, forgetting to even breathe as he kisses you stupid. Literally, you feel dumb with it, empty headed, no thoughts occupying your mind except for Jihoon, Jihoon, Jihoon. 

You suck in air when he rips his mouth away from yours, his fingers in your hair holding you back so you can’t follow him as his chest rises and falls erratically, a blush creeping up his neck and along his ears. 

“You should get to bed,” he whispers, his eyes hooded and his voice rough. 

“Yeah, I suppose I should,” you agree, even though you want to kiss him more, want him to take you apart, if you’re being honest. But something tells you not to push him this first night, not to ask for too much. 

So you tease him instead, murmuring, “Tuck me in?” only to gape at him when he slides off the couch and takes hold of your hand, tugging you up off the sofa and to your room. 

He waits on your bed as you half ass your skincare, handing you pajamas when you ask for them and getting up when you emerge from the bathroom. You climb under the duvet, think for just a second about asking him to join you, and whisper, “Goodnight, Jihoon.” 

“Goodnight,” he whispers back, before leaning in close and pressing his lips to yours one last time, mumbling into your mouth, “One for the road.”

After he leaves, you fall into sleep slowly, and when you do, it’s deep, dotted with dreams that taste like him. 

True to your word, nothing really changes. 

Except for the fact that you just… kiss now. 

When you’re tired, when you’re stressed, when you’re sad, when you’re needy. 

All it takes is a look and a little pout and Jihoon is shaking his head and pressing his mouth to yours, his hand firm on your cheek and his tongue dancing over your bottom lip. You find yourself craving him when you’re at work or around friends or sometimes in your sleep, your dreams full of flashes of your body under his and his arms around you. 

Your kisses haven’t progressed to that yet, though you’re hoping they will soon. He usually keeps them chaste but there are times you can tell he wants to take it further, by the way he holds your chin and angles your head so he can kiss you deeper, dirtier. 

Just two weeks after that night, he’s become a habit you can’t quit. 

It’s gotten to the point where he greets you with a smooch when you come home from work, a peck when you finish making dinner together, a soft kiss before you go to sleep in separate rooms. 

Most of the time, you wish you could follow him into his bedroom, climb into his sheets and his arms and his ribcage, squish right in next to his big, juicy heart. But you promised nothing would change, that you and Jihoon would still be you and Jihoon, and you know that if you delete the spaces between you, it would change everything. 

So you content yourself with his kisses, with the little touches you steal as often as you can, with the knowledge that at the end of the day, you do have someone who loves you, even if he doesn’t love you like that. 

You’re laying on the couch with Jihoon, your legs resting on top of his thighs and his big hand warm on your ankle, when he asks you if anything interesting happened at work. 

Normally, you would have nothing to share, but today, something exciting did happen. 

“Oh! Yeah, actually, Jun from Accounting asked me out on a date,” you gush, your legs bouncing until his hand tightens into a near painful grip. 

“I didn’t know you were looking to date again,” he says pensively, his eyes suddenly on the TV and away from yours. 

“I mean, I’m not really, but he’s cute and sweet and I miss sex,” you sigh wistfully, letting your cheek rest on the back of the couch as you watch his jaw clench and unclench. 

“What did I say when I told you I could kiss you like I love you?” He asks, his gaze on you again and so much heavier than before, so much weightier and darker. You can almost feel it like a physical touch, the way it roves over you, assessing. 

“I don’t remember,” you respond honestly, your main memory of that night being the kiss. 

“I said, ‘I don’t want you to suffer like this if I can fix it,’” Jihoon reminds you, before continuing, “You don’t know if this Jun guy will be any good, and I don’t want him to disappoint you.”

Your breath stalls in your chest at what you think he’s implying, but you need him to clarify before you jump to your own conclusions, fueled by delusion and desire as they might be. 

“So… what are you saying?” You ask slowly, pushing down the hope and heat rising within you. 

“I’m saying that I’ll take care of you. You miss being touched? You miss being fucked? Let me be the one, not some rando who might not even be able to make you cum.”

Fuck. He’s so- You don’t even know what he is at this point. 

You sort of feel the need to leap to Jun’s defense, but by the fire in Jihoon’s eyes, you think that would be the wrong move to make right now. You also don’t know if you can speak, with your tongue tied by lust as it is. 

He’s still staring at you, his face unreadable but his hand hot, tight on your ankle, like if you tried to get away, he wouldn’t let you. 

That won’t be happening, not when all you want to do is crawl closer, into his lap maybe so you can feel his chest against yours and his heat between your legs, so he can pull you into him and show you just how well he can take care of you. 

“Okay,” you breathe out, because you need to respond sooner or later, and that’s the only word you can summon at this moment in time. 

“Tell Jun you won’t be going out with him,” Jihoon commands, and you bristle at his domineering tone but you also feel yourself clench, just a little. You acquiesce all the same. 

hey Jun! i have to say no to your offer, i just don’t really like to mix business with romance, I’m sorry ☹️

“Done?” He asks, waiting for your nod to swipe your phone out of your hands, put it on Do Not Disturb, and slide it between the couch cushions before yanking you toward him by the grip he has on your ankle. 

“Hey!” You exclaim, out of breath and full of indignation. “Don’t be rude.” 

“We’ve been best friends for two and a half years, you think I don’t know what you like by now?” He asks rhetorically. “You like getting manhandled, like being talked down to, and then you like being treated like the pretty little princess you are. Am I wrong?” 

God, he’s so hot. You hate him. 

“No,” you answer petulantly. “You’re not wrong,” you continue when he raises an eyebrow and loosens his touch. 

You barely even recognize Jihoon right now, he’s being so cocky and mean and sexy. The smirk he sends you makes you shiver, or maybe it’s the fingers swiftly smoothing up your leg. Curse your little pajama shorts and curse his big, warm hands. 

He’s just about to reach your panties when you whisper, “Wait!” 

“What’s wrong?” His eyes are sharp on yours, his hand frozen as he evaluates you for misgivings and anxieties. 

“Just-,” you sigh and wriggle a little bit in shyness. “Not here, I can get… messy.” 

His smirk is back and bigger than ever as he shoves your legs off his lap, stands, and leans down to haul you over his shoulder, making you gasp and cling to him for dear life. 

“Jihoon, I’m too-“

“I squat 450, babe, you’re fine,” his palm cracks down on your ass as he speaks, both his words and his touch making you whimper. 

You assume he’ll take you to your bed but he takes you to his instead, and when he roughly deposits you on his comforter and pushes your hands to rest above your head, all you can do is stare as he yanks his shirt off and tosses it to the side. 

You see him topless often enough, but in this context, it’s different. You actually get to look this time, and you let your eyes travel slowly over every inch of pale skin and muscle, feeling your center start to throb when he palms his growing cock and slides his own little pajama shorts down. 

He leaves on his boxer briefs and sets a knee on the bed, slowly climbing over you until he’s got his hands bracketing your head and his knees spreading your thighs. You’re surrounded by him, his scent overpowering in the best way now that you’re in his bed and under his body. 

This is exactly where you’ve wanted to be for weeks, but now that you’re here, you find you’re feeling a little nervous. Jihoon, obviously, can read you like a book and asks in a low voice, “Would it help if I told you what I’m going to do?” 

“Um, yes,” you answer, because of course it’ll help, in more ways than one. “You already know?” 

“I have the makings of a plan. First, I think I’ll kiss you until your head is too empty for nerves. After that, I’ll play with your tits until you’re crying for me. Then, I’ll eat you out until you cum, and fuck you with my fingers until you cum again,” his voice is low, seductive enough that you’re nodding without even realizing it, close to begging before he’s even gotten started. 

“And then you’ll fuck me?” You ask weakly, feeling small under him even though you’re taller than him in actuality. 

“Maybe. If I feel like you’ve earned it,” he teases, or at least you hope he’s teasing, because if he doesn’t give you his dick tonight, you think you might go crazy. 

“I feel better, I think,” you whisper faintly, and you actually do, now that you know how he’s going to take care of you, what he’s going to do to you. 

“Good, that’s the goal here.” 

He almost smiles, you can see his lips twitching, but he doesn’t let them stretch in a grin. Instead, he slowly lowers his body to lay over yours, dropping to his elbows and letting his legs relax so he’s pressed up against you, weighing you down to the bed. You feel safe, secure like this, and you can’t help but sigh into Jihoon’s mouth when his lips meet yours, a soft, relieved sigh born from knowing you’re in good hands. 

Good, large, warm hands, one petting your head and the other cupping your jaw to pull you into his kiss, as if you need any encouragement. He’s gentle until he’s not, his teeth nipping at your bottom lip and his mouth sucking at the sting, his tongue pushing between your lips when they open on a gasp. 

You feel more than hear his groan when you shyly glide your tongue against his, the sound rumbling through your mouth and straight down to your core. You’re already throbbing, just from this, and you can’t believe you’ll have to endure his evil, delicious mouth on your tits when he’s finally deemed you brainless enough to move on. 

It won’t be long before that happens, you already know, because your thoughts are starting to sift through your fingers like sand, too hazy to pin down and not important enough to try. A voice in the back of your mind whispers this will ruin you, but then he does something with his tongue that makes your breath catch and your pussy clench, and the voice goes silent. 

In fact, every racing thought in your mind is gone, eroded by Jihoon’s whirlwind, and you actually whine when he pulls away, your kiss-swollen lips open and attempting to chase him for more. He doesn’t let you, shifting back to sit on his knees and pulling you up with him so he can wrench off your tank top and flimsy bralette. 

He lets out a shaky sigh, his eyes caught on the rise and fall of your tits as you try to regulate your breathing, before pushing you back down with a firm hand on your shoulder. He keeps the other on your waist, preventing you from just collapsing back on the bed, and follows you with his body, his gaze heady and his lips parted. 

He doesn’t waste any time, immediately leaning down to suck a nipple into his mouth and bringing his fingers up to pluck and squeeze at the other, both of them pebbling under his attention. They’re extra sensitive today for some reason, but that might just be because it’s Jihoon touching them, wrapping his lips around them, warming them with the heat of his mouth and fingers. 

Time slips away as he works you over, his tongue plush and soft and fever hot on your tits, his fingers unrelenting, just on the right side of mean as he twists and pinches whichever nipple isn’t in his mouth. He alternates every so often, never leaving a side neglected, and eventually gets into a rhythm that has you whimpering and arching into him, begging him with your body to keep going. 

You can’t feel how wet you are with your legs spread by his body like this, but you have to be soaking by now with the way your cunt is fluttering, your walls squeezing down on nothing as he sucks and bites and worries at your breasts with his lips, his tongue, his teeth. You already want him to make you cum so bad, and you distantly remember what he said just a little bit ago. 

Until you’re crying for me. 

Well, you can certainly do that. The tears are already rising to your eyes, already burning in your throat, making your breath hitch and your chest stutter beneath him. You don’t know when you closed your eyes but they’re bleary when you open them, your lashes lined with saltwater as you look down at him. 

He’s looking at you, probably has been this whole time, and when he sees the first tear fall, he pops off your nipple and presses his smirk into your breast, his hand still firm on the other. 

“Jihoon, please,” you whisper thickly, and for a moment, you’re scared he’ll make you outline what you’re asking for. He doesn’t, thankfully, just shifts back up on his knees to admire his handiwork. You can only imagine the picture you must make, your chest covered in his teeth marks and your nipples swollen and spit-slick, your eyes half-lidded with desire and need, not a single critical thought behind them. 

He visibly collects himself, taking in a deep breath and letting it flow out as he tucks his fingertips in the waistband of your shorts and panties. You don’t have enough brain power to think of lifting your hips to help him so he pulls them up with one hand and wrenches your pajamas down with the other, dropping you back down to the bed when they’ve cleared your ass and he can tug them the rest of the way off. 

Your legs have bent in the process, your feet resting on his knees, and he takes hold of your ankles, straightening your legs out before dragging his hands up and setting them on your thighs. You expect him to push them apart, to move you like he has been, but instead he says, “Show me.”

You’re past being shy but you still feel a little vulnerable, so it takes you a few breaths to slowly spread your legs. The air clings to your arousal, cool compared to your heat, and the longer he stares, the faster your heart beats. His hands press to your inner thighs, keeping them apart so he can memorize every inch of you. 

“Fuck,” he exhales laboriously. “You weren’t kidding.”

“About what?” You ask tremulously, with not even a bit of a clue as to what he’s talking about. 

“About getting messy. You’re so fucking wet, I think I could slide in right now,” he sounds far away, like he’s imagining it, picturing himself sinking his cock into you, filling you up to the brim. 

Now you’re picturing it too, and your thighs try to squeeze together to soothe the ache between your legs but he’s still holding them open, and he’s too strong for you to even bother fighting his grip. 

“Maybe you should,” you moan enticingly, one hand leaving its place above your head to drift over your body and down to your pussy. It doesn’t get that far, not when he levels a stern, warning look at you, one that makes your clit pulse and your heart race. 

Adequately discouraged, you bring your hand back up and lace your fingers together, leaving you spread out and powerless beneath him. 

“Good girl,” he murmurs, and you can’t hide the way the words light you up inside, make you want to be even more compliant for him, make you want to be so good you become his best girl. 

He smirks at your response, a look in his eye like he’s filing every little reaction away for the future, making hope bloom in your chest that maybe there will be a future. You can admit that you don’t want this to be the only time, your first and last with him. 

(What you can’t admit yet is that this is already more than sex for you.)

Fuck, your thoughts are coming back, no longer so nebulous and murky, now too solid for you to swim through like before. You know Jihoon can see it in your gaze, and he moves so quickly, you can hardly make sense of it. 

Before you take another breath, he’s on his belly between your legs, your thighs still pushed apart by his hands as he all but dives into your dripping pussy. You don’t know what you expected but it definitely wasn’t this, his tongue pushing inside of you, reaching as far as it can go and licking your walls on its way out, his nose grazing your clit with every jerk of his chin into you. It feels like absolute heaven, his tongue so lithe and agile and smooth as it fucks in and out of you, sparks zipping through your veins with every drag of his nose over your clit. 

He refocuses his attention, his mouth shifting to suck gently at the bundle of nerves, lulling you into a dreamy state driven by soft pressure and the vibrations of his little groans around you. Your head is finally, blissfully empty again, and Jihoon seems to be able to sense the switch, because he starts sucking harder, flicking his tongue back and forth over the bud until it has its own heartbeat.

You lift your head up, tucking your chin into your chest so you can watch him, his dark hair against your thighs, his face between your legs, that smart mouth wrapped around you. 

You’ve never cum from just oral before, but you’ve also never had someone eat you out with so much dedication, so much fervor, and everything is made better by the fact that it’s not just someone, it’s Jihoon. 

Jihoon, your best friend who you sometimes miss even when he’s sitting right next to you, his thigh pressed against yours and his arm around your shoulders. 

Jihoon, your roommate who you occasionally stare at for just a bit too long when he stumbles into the kitchen wearing only his little shorts and a serious case of bedhead. 

Jihoon, your Jihoon. 

Suddenly, the wave is building, sucking you into its undertow, and you can’t keep your head up or your eyes open as pleasure grows and grows and grows until finally, the wave crests. It might have been your thoughts, it might have been the heady groan that reverberated around your clit, it might have been both. Either way, you’re lost under the surface in a sea of bliss, and when Jihoon breaks away and gets his knees under him, you assume it’s to offer you a hand, to help pull you out. 

And then you feel that hand petting over your sensitive pussy, feel the drag of his fingertips over your clit, and you realize he’s not going to pull you out, he’s going to drown you further. 

One finger slides inside of you, longer and thicker than your own, giving you something to clench down on as your walls continue to spasm with aftershocks of your orgasm. He bites out a swear, and internally you preen at his reaction to feeling you for the first time. Externally, you can only buck your hips into his touch and whine something that sounds like his name as he pulls his finger out and returns with two. 

The fullness makes you sigh, the feeling of warm flesh and bone decadent after months of silicone, and when he crooks those fingers inside of you and starts searching, you know you’re done for. 

You can’t ever find your g-spot on your own, your fingers are too short and your toys aren’t shaped right, and the second he locks in, you know he won’t stop. He’s the same when he’s writing a song - once he finds his flow, he could be lost to you for hours, days, weeks. The thought of him devoting that same focus to you sends a flash of electricity down your spine, one that ends with a squeeze of your cunt around him. 

You can feel his eyes on you and blink your own open to meet his gaze, the eye contact hypnotizing, consuming. The next curl of his fingers brushes something inside of you that makes your face crumple, makes you forget how to breathe, and his stare grows determined as he taps his fingertips in the same spot. Instantly, you feel yourself get wetter, feel it seep out around his fingers and drip down your ass to his bed, and his face grows darker somehow, his stare penetrating and possessive. 

He leaves the sensitive patch alone for a little bit, sliding his fingers in and out, getting you used to the rhythm and the sensation of being fucked with them, and then he starts grinding into it with every thrust, the muscles of his arm flexing as his pace rockets up. It sounds fucking obscene, the squelch of your soaking cunt around his fingers, especially paired with your breathy, high pitched noises, your whines and whimpers and gasps. 

You’re already getting close again, but you don’t want to cum so soon, don’t want this to be over if he decides you haven’t earned his cock. 

“Jihoon!” You squeak, squirming beneath him in pained pleasure, though you can’t get anywhere with his hand pressing your thigh down and his fingers filling you up. 

“Be a good girl and take it for me, hm?” His voice is so low and rough, you almost don’t recognize it, but you listen anyway, trying your best to be still under his siege because all you want is to be good for him, for only him. 

“There we go, that’s my girl,” he murmurs under his breath, his words like a live wire snaking around your throat, stealing your voice and leaving you to shudder beneath him as he works a third finger in and sets his thumb on your clit. 

You wonder if he’s stretching you out to fuck you, or if he just remembers you tipsily spilling to him that you prefer to cum on three instead of two. You don’t want to get your hopes up so you stop thinking, just lay there and take it, exactly like he said. His knuckles pound against the lips of your cunt as he fucks you hard with his fingers, the tips hooking into your g-spot on every stroke in and scissoring on every stroke out. 

You can feel heat spreading throughout your body, the fire starting in your lower belly and traveling through your veins to scald every limb, to raze every cell. You’re on the precipice of something great, something that will destroy you, but you need just a little more, though you don’t know what it is that you need. 

Jihoon does, of course Jihoon does, and as soon as he demands, “Cum for me, now,” you feel the dam break and the euphoria flood you, the icy bite of release sharp and cutting, dousing all of the embers burning within you, leaving you to tremble and try to breathe through every last curl of his fingers. He’s still fucking you with them, but he’s slowed down, gentled his touch, eventually leaving them inside of you with his fingertips pressed right into that sensitive spongy spot. 

You feel like you’re floating, adrift, lost, until he releases your thigh and leans down over you, pressing his lips to yours in a kiss that feels starkly different from the rest. This one has purpose, it has meaning, it has heart, and the sheer longing you feel for him has tears welling up and bubbling out of the corners of your eyes, dripping down the sides of your face into your hair. 

When he pulls away, you can’t stop them, and soon enough, you’re bawling like a baby. Usually, Jihoon seems uncomfortable with your crying, but now, he just pulls his fingers out of you with a slick pop and wipes them off on the comforter, laying down next to you and pulling you into his arms. 

He lets you cry on his chest for who knows how long, one hand rubbing comforting circles on your back and the other cupping the cheek not pressed to his pec, his thumb brushing over your cheekbone in a soothing pattern. 

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” he whispers into the air when your sobs start to taper off, replaced by soft breaths in and out as you slowly drop into sleep. 

You know you’re in a nightmare. 

You’re sprinting through the night, pouring rain pounding the street and covering the sounds of your footsteps. There’s a car ahead of you and somehow you know Jihoon is driving, and that’s what tips you off because Jihoon can’t drive. 

You’re running as fast as you can, but not fast enough, even though the car seems to be slowing down, the distance decreasing between it and you until you can maybe, maybe reach out and latch onto the bumper. You throw a hand out and your fingertips graze the fender, and then it speeds up and disappears from sight, leaving you alone in the darkness of the storm, water steadily rising until it covers your knees, your hips, your waist. You try to float but something is weighing you down, and just as the water surges above your head, you wake up. 

You blink rapidly in the dark, unfamiliar room, your heart thumping so hard in your chest that you can feel it, though you start to calm down when you take in a deep breath and all you can smell is Jihoon. You pat around the bed for him but find you’re alone in the room, dread pooling in your stomach as you start to wonder where he is. 

You won’t be able to sleep again until you see him, until you know he won’t leave you behind like he did in the nightmare, so you clumsily roll out of bed, your limbs shaky and your thighs and pussy a bit tender from the way he handled you just a few hours ago. You stumble through the door, following the sound of soft snores to the living room where Jihoon is spread out on the couch, barely covered in a blanket. 

A frown pinches his face, his brow tight with stress, and you want to smooth it out with your thumb, want to snuggle into the spaces left unoccupied, but you don’t want to wake him, and more than that, you don’t want to know if he’d push you away. 

You try to tell yourself that he just likes to sleep alone, that you were too warm for him to really rest, that him leaving has nothing to do with what happened.

Deep down, you know it has everything to do with what happened.  

You take in a shaky breath and exhale it quietly, praying he’ll stay asleep as you dig your phone out from between the couch cushions. He does, and you thank him for being such a deep sleeper before darting off to your room and checking your texts. 

There’s one from your bestie, asking for updates about the developing situation between you and Jihoon (you could keep it from anyone but her), and a text from Jun, telling you no worries at all and that he’d see you around, which only makes your heart feel heavier. 

Needing something to do, you strip Jihoon’s bed of the damp comforter and put it in the wash along with your shorts and panties, relying once again on his ability to sleep through anything. 

You numbly carry out your skincare routine before putting yourself to bed, laying awake reliving every moment in his bedroom from beginning to end, ready to admit to yourself that you’ve changed like you promised you wouldn’t.

That he’s not just a best friend to you anymore.

That you no longer want to be you and Jihoon but youandJihoon, with no spaces in between. 

That you might even be in- 

No, you’re not ready for that yet. 

You fall asleep eventually, and there are no more nightmares, but no more dreams either. 

Jihoon is pulling away, and you don’t know what to do. 

He doesn’t kiss you anymore, doesn’t cook with you anymore, doesn’t even watch TV with you anymore, even when you put on the anime you were powering through together. He just stays holed up in his room, keeps the door shut where it used to be open, coming out only to eat or go to the gym. 

You’re trying to shake it off, the grip that night still has on you, but it’s difficult when you have no idea what’s going on with Jihoon.

Does he regret it? Is it that he can’t even stand the sight of you? What if he hates you now? 

Those are the main questions that occupy your frazzled thoughts, though you fear with the way he’s behaving, you’ll never get an answer to them. 

Soon enough, you find you can barely stand to be in the apartment with the ghost of him, the reminder of his absence like a punch to the gut every single time you do something without him.

You start spending more time at your best friend’s place, her boyfriend happy to lend her to you so he can game more, though he steals her back every night before you force yourself to return home. 

When you do, you pass his closed door and tell yourself, you’re not in love with him, you’re not in love with him, you’re not in love with him, like a mantra. 

You don’t think it’s working.

Four weeks pass by in much the same fashion, and you’re on the verge of tearing your hair out and begging him on your knees to come back when he finally shows himself. 

You’re sitting in the kitchen alone, your comfort music playing on the smart speaker as you force yourself to eat even with your appetite all but gone. You hear his door open and freeze, torn between staying where you are to confront him and scurrying off to your room so you don’t have to see him. 

He appears before you can make that choice, his mouth drawn tight and his face shadowed. He hesitates in the doorway like he’s not sure if he’s allowed inside, and you’re mad at him, so fucking mad at him, but more than that, you miss him.

Miss his quiet humor and his cackle of a laugh and his sparkling eyes and his warm body. You miss having his shine on you, miss knowing that you’re his favorite, that he doesn’t treat anyone else the way he treats you, that you’re special. 

And fuck it, fuck everything, because you are in love with him. 

So with a sigh, you offer, “There’s more fried rice on the stove, if you’re hungry.”

It’s not an olive branch but a lifeline, one you frantically toss into the treacherous sea that used to be your friendship, hoping he’ll take it and let you reel him back into your arms, into your life. 

He forces a smile, one that doesn’t meet his eyes or even his cheeks, just barely curling the corners of his mouth as he lumbers over. He walks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders, your very own Atlas, though you’ve never known his strength to falter, not until now. 

He scoops up some rice into the bowl you still habitually leave out for him and joins you at the counter, sitting heavily on the stool across from you and starting to eat. He’s slow about it, as if his appetite is as minuscule as yours. You keep your eyes on your bowl, avoiding looking at the gauntness of his cheeks and the cut of his jawline and trying to work up the courage to ask him what the fuck is going on. 

An hour passes and you’ve finally finished eating, Jihoon taking both your bowl and his to the sink, quickly washing them and the utensils as you pack up the leftovers and store them in the fridge. You finish around the same time, and the chasm between you seems to widen ever further, the ledge you’re trapped on shrinking before your very eyes. 

He takes in a deep breath and clears his throat, and somehow, you just know he’s going to say something that will cleave your fragile heart in two. Something like ‘it was a mistake,’ or ‘we can’t do that again,’ or-

“I don’t think we should live together anymore.” 

Oh.

Well, that’s infinitely worse. 

“Okay,” you say dazedly, for the third time since you started this with him, because once again, you have no other words. Also maybe because you wouldn’t be able to get anything else out with the way you’re swallowing back tears. 

“Okay?” He questions harshly, just a hint of life flowing back into him as his temper ignites. His brow furrows at you, his mouth opening and closing like he doesn’t know where to begin because there’s too much to say. “What do you mean, ‘okay’?” 

“What do you mean, what do I mean? What else do you want me to say?” You can’t help but raise your defenses, attempting to protect all the little fragments of your heart as they lay at his feet. 

“I want you to-,” he blinks rapidly, his face slowly turning red as he sputters, “Don’t you at least want to know why? We’ve lived together for three fucking years, I thought you’d care a little more.” 

“Don’t turn this around on me! Of course I fucking care,” you don’t mean to raise your voice, but you can’t believe his audacity, abandoning you for weeks on end and then expecting you to chase after him. “But I don’t know if I want to know why, because this already fucking hurts! It’s hurt for the past month. I mean, I literally cried myself to sleep on you and then woke up alone. And I’ve been alone every day since. How do you think that’s made me feel?” 

You don’t want to cry in front of him right now, not after what happened last time, but you can’t hold back the tears anymore, not when they’re burning behind your eyes and closing up your throat. 

“I was trying to protect you, I still am,” he claims desperately, softening at your words and the sight of your watering eyes. “I can’t be what you need.” 

“I don’t need you to be anything but my best friend,” you whisper brokenly, lying through your teeth in an effort to keep him here, keep him close. 

“That’s the problem.” 

He sounds like he’s pleading for you to understand, to find the hidden meaning in his words, but you’re too worked up, too on edge and hurt to make sense of anything. 

“How is that a problem? You made me promise nothing would change, that we’d still be us, and now me wanting you to be my best friend is a problem?” 

“Well, I’m sorry but I didn’t think I would fucking fall in love with you!” He all but shouts, his eyes wide and his chest heaving before he sucks in a shuddering breath and takes a step back, running a hand through his messy hair and looking away from you. 

His words ring in your ears, blending together into a jumble of sounds that you can’t parse through, until you’re not sure he even uttered them at all. 

“Say that again?” You request quietly, feeling a bit out of your body, a bit out of your mind. 

“Don’t make me, please, not when you don’t-,” he stops himself like he can’t bear to speak the words. 

So he really did say it. 

“And how do you know I don’t? Did you ever even think to ask before trying to take yourself out of my life?” You whisper with exhaustion and misery, wounded feelings warring with the hope attempting to blossom within you. 

Jihoon seems stunned at your questions, like he really, truly was certain you didn’t love him back. 

“Were you protecting me, or yourself?” You have to ask, if only to make him realize what seems so obvious to you. 

“Maybe… maybe both,” he bites his lips and looks away, crossing his arms over his chest as his shoulders tense with what you assume is regret and perhaps a little embarrassment. That’s not why you asked him those things, and you can’t bear to see him so closed off to you still, not now that you know how he feels. 

“Jihoon, I didn’t expect to fall in love with you either, but I did. Like, after the first kiss, if I’m being honest,” you laugh weakly at yourself, hoping to put him more at ease. 

“You did?” He asks cautiously, waiting for your nod to let some of the tension in his shoulders go. 

You take a step toward him and then another, and another, until you’re close enough to grip both of his arms and unfold them. 

He lets you, his gaze back on your face, something like pained wonderment in his eyes as you tuck his arms around your waist and cup his cheeks. You lean in, your lips just inches from his, and whisper, “Kiss me like you love me?” 

“Should be easy enough,” he whispers back before pressing his mouth to yours gently, reverently, his hands careful on your back as he tugs you closer. This kiss reminds you of the last one you shared, the one that made you sob yourself to sleep, but this time, there’s no longing involved, no sadness, because this time, you know he’s yours. 

He pulls away before you’re ready, but you release his cheeks and let him go, love-tinged surprise bursting in you when he holds you tighter and pulls you into a hug. He buries his face in your neck and you twine your arms around his, one hand sinking into his hair to scratch at his scalp and the other rubbing his back as he breathes you in. 

You’re always the one seeking affection, the one reaching for him, and you feel the cracks in your fractured heart start to seal back up as he whispers into your skin, “I love you, so fucking much.”

“I love you more,” you murmur, laughing freely when he pulls back and says, “Don’t even start, you know I’ll win.” 

“Yeah, because you fight dirty,” you tease, giggling until he promises, “Baby, you have no idea.” 

He claims your lips in a deep, ardent kiss, one that soon makes your knees weak and your thoughts turn to stardust in your head. One of his hands rises to the nape of your neck, holding you to him and controlling the angle so he can kiss you how he wants. The other drops to your hip, pushing you against the counter as he knocks your legs apart with a knee and fills the space in between with his body. 

You gasp into his mouth and he slips his tongue inside of yours, a rumbling groan vibrating into your lips when your fingers clench in his hair. It’s so soft and his body is so hard, the dichotomy of the sensations stealing your breath as he pushes himself against you, grinding his thickening bulge into your thinly covered core. 

You’re wearing those blasted pajama shorts again but of course it’s laundry day so they’re the only layer covering your center, and almost embarrassingly rapidly, you feel them dampening. You don’t know if Jihoon can feel it too but he’ll notice soon enough, and you can already picture the pleased smirk that’ll stretch his lips when he realizes how wet you’ve gotten for him. 

It’s not your fault though, he’s so hot and you love him so much and he still hasn’t fucked you. It’s been four weeks since he touched you, and when you weren’t battling through nightmares, you were stuck in dreams of him touching you more. You still couldn’t conjure the feeling of his cock, or even the look of it, and deep below the raincloud of loneliness that’s been following you, there was a hunger, a yearning, a desperation to finally know him in this way. 

Unable to stand it any longer, you break the kiss and summon your courage to pant, “Please fuck me, Jihoon.”

You expect him to tease you, to draw this out until you’re really begging, but he just releases you and takes your hand, dragging you behind him to his bedroom. When he pulls you through the doorway, you gasp at the sight that greets you, piles of clothes on the floor and sheet music and scrawled lyrics taped to nearly every free inch of the walls. 

He’s normally clean, meticulous, about both his music and his space, and part of you feels sad that he’s been affected this much, but another part of you feels relieved that he’s suffered just like you have. The rest of you feels ravenous, and that’s what you focus on as he rips off his shirt and reaches for yours, his eyes hot on your breasts when they’re revealed to him. 

His hands cover them immediately, cupping to test the weight of them and squeezing to feel the give, his thumbs rubbing circles around your nipples until they pucker for him. A shiver rolls through you as he ducks his head to suck one into his hot, wet mouth, groans vibrating against your skin like he loves the taste of you. He moves over to the other side, nipping at the bud and laving his tongue over it, his fingers pinching and pulling the one that’s still spit-slick. 

When he pops off and brings his eyes back to yours, they’re deep, dark, covetous, and you’re so hypnotized by his stare that you don’t even notice he’s wrapped his arms around your waist until he lifts you and drops you onto his bed. 

You land on your back, your breath exiting your lungs in a whoosh, knocked out by his rough handling, the action only making you feel hotter for him. He doesn’t give you much time to recover, his fingers tucking in the hem of your shorts and starting to pull them down. You have enough wherewithal to lift your hips for him this time, and when he tosses your shorts aside, you don’t even wait for him to tell you what to do, you just rest your hands above your head, spread your legs, and let him see the mess he’s made of you. 

“Fuck,” he gasps out, climbing onto the bed and settling on his stomach between your thighs, his head turning and his teeth latching onto the sensitive skin along the inside. It stings but you love the ache, hope you’ll bear the indentations for days after, though you know he’ll just replace them when they fade away. 

He releases you when he’s satisfied, licking over the dents to soothe the burn before pressing his hands to the backs of your thighs and lifting them onto his shoulders. His eyes meet yours just as he leans forward and drags his tongue from cunt to clit, the fire in them sparking brighter when you buck into his mouth and whine sharply. 

His thumbs come up to spread your pussy apart and then he’s on you, sucking, nibbling, biting, relearning every fold and contour of your cunt with apt attention. His tongue darts inside, tasting you at the source, and the groan that escapes him reverberates through your whole body, making your thighs squeeze around his head. 

He moves his hands, one wrapping tight around your thigh and pulling it to the side to give him more room, the other shifting down to pet at your entrance. He lets you take in a breath before he starts to sink two fingers inside of you, pushing at your walls to make space until his knuckles are flush with your cunt. 

You can feel yourself fluttering around his digits, the fullness blissful and the warmth comforting, and you almost think you have a hope of lasting more than a few minutes until his lips wrap around your clit and his fingers curl. 

How he can pinpoint your g-spot after just one encounter, you don’t know, but all you can do is hold tight to the sheets beneath your hands and try not to scream as he builds up his rhythm. It’s fast, staccato, his fingers tapping into that spongy spot over and over, your arousal so abundant it’s seeping out of you. 

He works in a third finger, and that’s when you know it’s over, the stretch of your inner muscles around him immaculate as he grinds his fingertips into your front wall, playing you like an instrument and drawing the orgasm out of you as if he’s conducting an orchestra. 

His mouth is nowhere near as graceful, the pulse of his lips around your clit erratic and hurried, his mouth opening wider every so often to gather more of your arousal on his tongue and swallow it down. 

The difference in sensations is what sends you careening over the edge, freefalling through the clouds of euphoria until Jihoon rips himself away from you and yanks you back down to earth. 

“Fuck, I have to be inside of you,” he slurs, his face red and his eyes hazy. He lowers your thighs to the bed and sits up on his knees, licking around his glossy lips to chase the taste of you as he pushes his shorts and underwear down enough to free his dick. 

Your eyes fly to it immediately, desperate to get your first look, and when it bobs in the air, a pearl of precum dripping from the head down the shaft, you almost want to cry. 

You didn’t think dicks could be pretty but Jihoon’s is fucking gorgeous; thick and long enough to make you ache tomorrow, lightly pink toned until the head where it’s red and blushed, the entire thing so hard you feel your core throb just at the thought of having it inside of you. 

“Please, please, please,” you whimper, need clear in your voice as you watch him crawl toward you. 

He doesn’t stretch himself out on top of you like you expect, instead laying on his side next to you and sliding the arm closest to you under your back, gathering your legs with his other arm so you’re bundled up against his chest. You can’t help but wrap your own arms around him, holding him to you for both stability and comfort, your eyes caught on his as he looks down at you. 

You love feeling so close to him after so many weeks apart, love being surrounded by him and held by him, love feeling his heart beating and his lungs expanding against you, evidence that he’s alive and he’s here with you. 

“Line me up, baby. I’ll do the rest,” he murmurs low in your ear, and you obey as if you’re under his spell, reaching around your legs to take hold of his perfect cock and align it with your entrance. 

“Good girl,” he whispers, just as he starts to push inside, and you know he said it then so he could feel how your pussy responds to him but you can’t find it in yourself to be embarrassed, not when his face flushes with pleasure, his brows pushing together and his mouth falling open as he carves a path inside of you that’s just for him to tread, just for him to own. He feels like magic inside of you, the way he fills you to the brim and warms you from the inside out, the way you finally feel complete, like he’s the last piece to your puzzle. 

He’s still for a few trembling seconds, and you can’t tell if he’s letting you get used to him or if he’s trying to keep from cumming, but either way, you want to torment him, just a little. 

So you squeeze your inner muscles around him, luxuriating in the tightening of his hands on you and the swear he grits out, his eyes flashing heatedly at you as he draws his hips back and shoves them forward. 

The loss of him makes you whine but the sudden fullness makes you keen, your cheeks heating at the sound of him bottoming out inside of you, the squelch that follows making him smirk. He can’t hold it for long, not when he gives you one testing thrust, then a second, then a third, and you cry out for him every single time. 

You’re responsive in bed, you knew this already, but you never thought you’d be this loud, this wet, this pliant for him. All you want to do is lay here in his arms and let him fuck you how he wants, use you how he wants, take you how he wants, letting him know with your voice and your pussy just how much you love every single second. 

You don’t want to think, or call the shots, or make decisions, not when you know you don’t need to with him, and suddenly you remember him saying, “You like being treated like the pretty little princess you are,” and fuck, he was right. 

Jihoon must see it in your eyes, how the submission has taken over, because he coos and presses his lips to your cheek, still fucking in and out of you as he says, “You are my good girl, aren’t you?” 

You manage to nod and whine, “Wanna be your best girl.” 

His face softens even as his thrusts don’t, his voice gentle as he says, “You already are, baby. You’re my best girl and my only girl, okay? So don’t worry your pretty little head with anything, I’ll take care of you.” 

That’s enough to have you tearing up again, this time in relief and rapture. He doesn’t miss a beat, kisses away the saltwater as it dots your cheeks and continues to sink into you so deeply, it’s like you can feel him in your guts. 

Pleasure starts to spool up inside of you, scorching twine coiling tighter and tighter and tighter, moans and whimpers continuously escaping your parted lips as you feel a rush of molten gold surge through your veins, your pussy fluttering and then clamping down on him. 

He shudders out a groan and fucks you through it, the friction on your rippling walls sublime, elongating your ecstasy until he finally breaks with you, filling you with a burst of warmth as his white hot cum coats the depths of you, starting to gather around your entrance when it has nowhere left to go. 

You pant, trying to catch your breath and gather what little wits remain as he tucks his legs up beneath your thighs, removing the arm bolstering them and bringing his hand up to caress your cheek.

Your tears are starting to dry up as you slowly come back to yourself, and he brushes the remnants away, whispering soothing, affectionate words to you.

He tells you how much he's missed you, how sorry he is for shutting you out, for leaving you alone. He tells you how he hasn't been able to stop thinking about you, how everything he's written for the past month has either been a love song or a breakup song, how all of them made him cry too much to record a guide so sorry, baby, but you can't listen to any yet.

Then he tells you that he loves you, that you never have to worry about being alone again, that he'll be with you for the rest of your life.

So when he carefully reclaims his arms, kisses your temple and slowly pulls out before climbing off the bed, you don’t panic, because you know that he’s not leaving leaving, that he’ll come back to you this time. 

And when he does, a warm, damp washcloth in one hand and your water bottle in the other, you feel a bone-deep love settle into you, one that you know is here to stay. 

AN: shamelessly self indulgent, reader is me i am reader

thank you for reading, i know this was a long one!

pls lmk your thoughts i am desperate to know 😩

this is the longest oneshot i've ever written but i really wanted to have a complete narrative and im so happy with it but also nervous to share it 🥹

inspired by pretty please by dua lipa but became a beast of its own

[halflifebutawesome]

BEHOLD! FOR THE SECOND TIME, THE GBVRAI LINEUP! now with another weird old dude!

waves my hands around vaguely I wanted to make a nicer looking lineup and more coherent post actually explaining the au. I've now made 2 gbvrai lineups but never a plain old hlvrai lineup. Whatever.

There's a complete AU explanation and individual character profiles (?) under the cut! check it out! ASK ME ABOUT IT !!! SMILES!!!!!

The basic gist of this au is that the science team, are a group of ghost hunting paranormal researchers. The Ghostbusters. You mightve heard of them. This isn't a 1 for 1 au where certain characters take the role of others, it's more just. What if the science team existed in the Ghostbusters universe. They're just the Ghostbusters now.

On a particularly odd case, they bust a ghost that seems... off. It's sentient, it's talking back, and it's psychokinetic energy is off the charts.

Thinking nothing of it, they return to the firehouse and prep the trap for containment disposal. Gordon's the new guy, so he's the unlucky dude who's been assigned the job of disposing of the traps. All the while the ghost will NOT shut up. It's weirdly powerful and seems mostly unbothered. It's name is Benry, and he's a little freak.

the ghost containment unit has been unstable for a while, overfilled with ghosts, but they have to dispose of Benry somehow, so they go ahead with it.

In this AU I'm kind of combining the Resonance Cascade with the Manhattan Crossrip (the Manhattan crossrip is the big scary ghost event that happens at the end of GB1). Basically what happens is that Benrys weirdly powerful ghostly energy, combined with an unstable ghost containment unit, tears a big rip in the fabric between the ghost realm and ours, letting all sorts of ghouls and specters free.

Imagine the Resonance Cascade, with all the aliens getting out and ravaging Black Mesa, but it's a bunch of ghosts getting out and ravaging New York. Gordon and the rest of the team have to fight their way through the ghost filled streets of NYC, and close the crossrip.

Heres some closeups and more individual info/thoughts for the gang!!

GORDON FREEMAN! The new guy. Again, this is less a direct 1 for 1 swap au kind of deal, and more just putting these guys in situations. Gordon's HEV suit, tho, I wanna talk about.

In Ghostbusters canon, they DO have a weird fucked up hazard suit. It first appears in the TRGB episode "Xmas Marks The Spot", where Egon uses it to travel into the ghost realm. I know it makes another appearance in the comics, in a way that's more HEV-esque, but I never finished the comics so idk. It's real tho.

I imagine here that the ghost containment unit is more like the reactor in half life, where it's hazardous to be around for too long, probably bcos of like. I don't know. Concentrated psychokinetic energy. Sure. In any case he needs to wear the HEV to use the containment unit.

My design here is taking the chest piece, helmet, gloves and belts and modifying them to look a little more HEV-esque.

Bennyyyy. Benrey benry beny. He's a ghost, as far as they can tell. It would be more appropriate to call him an entity of sorts.

He's not a ghost simply for the fact that he wasn't ever human. He wasn't ever a living person that died. He's some pure, really powerful, concentrate entity/being that leaked through from the ghost realm. He looks like. A guy, for the most part, but he's a mimic. Something pretending to be human. He's been around for a while, and has settled into this form. He's mostly corporeal, but can phase in and out as he pleases (noclipping) Switching from corporeal/incorporeal when it's funny.

He met Tommy when they were both a lot younger, Benry being fresh out of the ghost realm, and have been bestfriends ever since. ☝️ my au my weirdly specific tommybenny dynamic. Dw about it

TOMMY & SUNKIST!!!! Tommy has grown up around ghosts his whole life, and is pretty in-tune with them. This is proven with his bond to Sunkist, who's decidedly not a real dog, and his longtime friendship with Benry.

I gave him the goggles cos. Tommy's my fave and Ray's my fave and I think they're fun. Also cos if it WAS a 1 to 1 swap I would def have Tommy as Ray. Anyway. He's been a part of the Ghostbusters since he was little, like I said he grew up with them and around them. He's really knowledgeable about ghost types and physics. He knows all the ghost rules.

Sunkist isn't like. His dead childhood dog cos that seems. Kind of sad. Instead she's kind of a church Grimm or hell hound. An entity taking the form of a big huge dog that Tommy befriended when he was a kid, and has now kind of bonded to him. She's pretty corporeal as far as ghosts go, and can interact w the physical environment pretty well.

DARNOLD ^^ my friend darnold. Darnolds not usually super involved in the actual ghostbusting, and prefers to stay behind. He's more of the research and tech kind of guy, he studies the readings and takes measurements.

He's interested in psychokinetic energy and ghost residue and all sorts of like. Ghost sciences. Why some people stay behind, why some people just seem to die and disappear, the properties of the ghost realm and the ghosts themselves. Corporeality and degradation of personhood the longer someone's been a ghost.

When the Resonance Crossrip happens, he opts to stay behind and observe the effects of the insane amounts of ghost energy on the corporeal world.

Hes also a transfer over from the ghost engineers! That's a fun thing for me. I love the ghost engineers idc frozen empire gave me everything I wanted

FORZEN. Forzen is... the same thing as Benry. A mimic, something taking the form of a normal ghost to blend in or hide in plain sight.

He came through with the Resonance Crossrip, but obviously like. He knew Benry before (we WERE bestfriends..). He's not as powerful, which is why he wasn't able to sneak through when Benry did. He's also not super corporeal. He can only interact with the physical world if he's exerting a LOT of energy. Prone to flickering in and out of vision.

Upon coming thru the Crossrip, he kind of just. Decided to hang around the firehouse. Didn't wanna go much further, for fear of being ghostbusted and sent back into the containment unit. The source is the last place they'd look for him!

Darnold, who's holed up in the firehouse, is more than delighted to meet a ghost who's sentient and willing to cooperate to do some tests and experimentation to get never before documented results. They bond and they're cutesit. ☝️ DARZEN WIN. hi splash 👋

Dr Coomer and Dr Bubby are two of the three original founders of the Ghostbusters! They've been around for a looooong time. They're also married obviously but that's like a given.

They helped found the Ghostbusters, having met in college while both were studying parapsychology. I imagine their like. Parapsychology -> Ghostbusters pipeline was very in line with how GB1 starts, where they used to work in an academic environment before getting kicked out and founding the GB.

They're also both. Psychic. Because frozen empire has once again given me everything. Coomers got some like. Idk something that lines up with his self awareness in HLVRAI, maybe prophecy? Vauge visions of the future? Bubby has pyrokinesis. Duh.

and... Mr. Coolatta..... Tommy's dad...he was one of the founders along w Coomer and Bubby and at some point he. Died. And is now a reeeally really powerful ghost. maybe from the exposure to ghost energy or smth?

Now hes got gman powers and just kinda hangs around. Pretty corporeal and solid and. Present. For lack of a better word. But he IS a dead guy. Used to be human.

This is why Tommy kind of grew up around ghosts and knows alot about them :) Mr Coolatta is pretty benevolent, and mostly just kind of spooky and fucked up.

And that's. About it? I believe?? PLEAAASE ASK ME QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS I have so many thoughts. I've been working on this for like 2 months now. Lol.

[shaisuki]

📌 day twelve: breeding kink + benimaru shinmon

being married young, benimaru now the captain of the seventh wasn't really keen on procreating only the process he finds it fine. pleasurable even cause it was his wife, the one he loves and he understand where his adoptive father is coming from since the old man had only loved his wife and he's on the same line minus the want for you to bear a child. you and him were still young.

but sometimes when you're both intimate he finds himself wanting of it. of impregnating you with his child that even without s drop of sake in his tongue, he's beyond insatiable from how he takes you and staying longer after copulating and then he's back to being your husband and captain of the people in the seventh.

“something in your mind?” your thumb gliding over the planes of his face. despite the tenderness in your touch, benimaru retains his usual unabashed look in his face. his gaze intense looking at his wife. “it's nothing.” he muttered and you nod. deciding not to press the matter to him, cause your husband will come to tell you about it.

for the meantime he still kept his hold on you. his hand resting on the small of your back. keeping you close while he made you sit on his lap. slowly, his skilled fingers slowly and skillfully unties the obi of your kimono and then followed by the sleeves falling on to your soft, rounded shoulders.

his breath is hot against your skin. benimaru looks at you, his gaze unchanging while he kiss the skin of your shoulder. muttering something incoherent like he didn't know. “i want to do all the things with you.” he murmurs, a slight edge to his voice and then his lips are sucking the supple skin, acting like suction and then leaving a mark on it.

“then show me, beni. show me.” cradling his face with your hands and then a lazy grin surfaces in his lips.

one of your chunky leg is pressed against your chest while he's inside you. his cock, thick, warm and heavy resting inside your heat. he didn't move upon the initial contact. savoring the snugness of your hole wrapped against his cock and then, beni smiles. a feat that can only be achieved when he's intoxicated and your pussy is as good as the sake he consumes.

there's a glint in his eyes. the x and o's were like neon lights from the way he stares at you. the initial movement of his thick member made you gasp and the second leaves you calling his name and then his pace was relentless.

every bit of his self-restraint slowly dissipates the more he's inside you. with every moan and gasp and the way you call his name like a siren song, hypnotizes him. lulling him with the intent of his desire of breeding you.

benimaru sees all of you. bare since the day you were born and you two were one. his sight lowers at your round belly, he wants it rounder and swollen with his child. the thought of him filling you up with his seed, encourages him to move in his most brutish way that his cock is already nudging at your cervix making you whimper and beads of tears are from falling from your eyes since he can't control himself and he expected you to call him out for his behavior but instead he was encouraged to do it more.

“more, beni!” you cried out and that spurs him more to thrust his hips fast. slapping his skin to your skin. his cock throb at the sound of your voice begging him to go faster. he might not say it but benimaru's action told you what he really wants and he's been at it for days. you lost count or how many times he filled your womb with his thick cum.

a low growl sound comes from him when he's nearing over the edge. his balls are tight and his cock is throbbing inside you and then a few more and the a harsh thrust he spilled inside of you. buried to the hilt to make sure you're filled to the brim with his cum. the texture smooth and sticky, clinging to the walls of your womb to ensure fertility, he hopes so.

groaning, spurts after spurts of his semen is being deposited inside you but even the amount he was releasing it still made his cock twitch.

the night is still young and he can still go with the intent of knocking you up and looking at you, he knows you feel the same, your legs are still locked around his waist.

[manias-wordcount]

Playing with Fire (Benimaru Shinmon)

Kinktober 2023 Day Twenty-Eight: Bath

𝙒𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙖�� 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚? ⇒ 𝙈𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩

𝙟𝙤𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙮 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙧?

𝙗𝙪𝙮 𝙢𝙚 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙚?

You love nights like these.

  Nights where you can sit back with a sigh and enjoy being silent. Being alone. Nights where you can tilt your head back and look up at the star-filled night sky as you in soak in the warm, warm waters of the outdoor onsen for hours upon hours. Nights where you can clear your mind or think very quietly. Plan out what you want to do before bed. Think about what errands you need to run tomorrow. And just exist.

  So of course, when the onsen doors open, you don’t bother checking what woman decided to come in and join you. But you do raise some eyebrows at the rough way the door slides open. And as heavy footsteps start sounding afterward, you figure it wouldn’t hurt chancing a peak at whoever just came wandering it- just a little one at least. Though instead of a grumpy old lady or an overly excited young girl walking towards you- you’re met with a far, far, far different sight.

  A perfect view of your husband approaching you as he drops the towel around his waist and exposes his body to the cool, outdoor air.

  “Beni!” You’re practically shouting the man’s name as you turn around quickly and fully with a wild splash. One look at his face tells you that he’s not surprised by your reaction. Or that he necessarily cares about it. No, he just continues to step on with confidence. Standing at his full height. Straight-faced. Fully naked. As if he owns the place. As he belongs here. But you know the truth. And you’re almost certain he knows too given the fact that the two of you have been here many times before. And the big sign on the door leading to this particular bath. “Beni, get out! This is the girl’s side, you can’t be in here!”

  At your words, he falters. Right now, he’s standing at the edge of the bath. Ready to step in and join you. But for a second, he turns and looks at you. With a tilt of his head, he studies your expression carefully. Eyes dragging along your face and looking a little further downwards. At your neck. At your shoulders. At the instinctive way your arms have come up to cross against your chest and block your boobs from his sight (despite the fact that he’s seen them plenty of times before). At your torso, and the water surrounding it- blocking the rest of your body from being seen. And then he turns his head back up and looks straight back at you. The small hint of a devious smile, playing at his face.

  “Who said?”

  “The rules, Beni!” You exclaim back in response, but your words come far too late. Because before you can even finish your sentence, he’s already stepping into the water with you and shuddering at the change in temperature before relaxing completely. Your eyes widened as you took in your boyfriend’s complete and sudden disregard for the rules of the onsen. For a second, you glance at the onsen entrance, hoping and praying that no one was thinking about coming in until you managed to get him out of there.

  But then there’s the sound of more splashing. Waves rippling and water swishing around the bath. You turn around to look at your husband only to find that he’s closer than before. Much closer than before. In fact, when did he have time to sneak up on you? When did he have time to walk this far into the part of the bath that you’re lounging in? 

  When did he have time to get so close that you’re just barely a breath away.

  You suppose in a way, you should have expected it. In everything he does, Benimaru always marches to the beat of his own drum. It just so happens that this drum was a little quiet today. Maybe that’s why he came into the girl’s side of the bath and marched in like he owned the place without another word. Maybe that’s why he was able to sneak up on you- creeping closer and closer until suddenly he’s all but touching you. Standing face to face. Eye to eye. Breathe to breathe. 

  Maybe that’s why you’re a little too eager to let his hands reach out and touch you- even though you know in this moment just how much you both shouldn’t. How you just couldn’t. And yet…

  You don’t say anything as large hand places itself on your arms, and gently helps you uncross them- giving him a full view of your chest covered in water droplets and being lit by the stars. You don’t say anything as another hand reaches out and grabs onto the curve of your hips. His fingers spread out, almost possessively as they try to get as much of your ass as they can grab at this angle. It allows him to tug you a little closer than ever before. Hold you a little tighter. Have your chest press into his so you can feel the warmth spread from feverish his skin with every rise and fall of each breath. 

  You hum at his actions, the heat making your mind a little looser. Your judgment a little less clear. Any desire to follow the rules sounds a little like a fever dream now. Because the water you’re standing in? It makes you feel nice. It makes you feel relaxed. But him? He makes you feel so warm. He makes you feel so hot. And that hard thing pressing up against your lower stomach just below the surface of the water?

  It makes you feel even hotter.

  “What were you saying about rules?” Benimaru asks you, an eyebrow raised as the corner of his lip tilts upwards- almost sharing with you a smile. But you don’t pay his words any mind. Not while you’re busy letting one hand reach up and wrap around his shoulder as your hands reach up to play with his hair. Not while you’re busy leaning into his touch impossibly more- to steal some more of that warmth- some more of that fire- that only your husband can bring to you. And certainly not while your other hand is reaching down, down, down, and wrapping around a very, very dangerous thing. One that will surely result with you bent over the side of the bath and screaming his name if you’re not careful.

  But that’s fine with you. When you married Benimaru, you knew you were playing with fire.

  And he knew just how much you loved to get burned. 

[mypimpademia]

— Hair

Benimaru x black! Fem! Reader, Shinra x black! Fem! Reader

Synopsis: Which hairstyles they like on you the most

TW: None

Note: pictures aren’t mine, all are from Pinterest!

— BENIMARU

⇶ Benimaru is a very simple man when it comes to the things that please him

⇶ So while he thinks you’re gorgeous no matter what, he swears you’re the only person in the world when you have Fulani braids, regular box braids, or French curl braids

⇶ Fulani braids are his absolute favorite, and he takes no action in hiding that

⇶ Compliments you a lot already, but when you come home from a day out with Fulani braids, the affection from him seems uncharacteristically endless

⇶ Loves them with wooden beads especially, and if you have his name spelled out that in the beads, he might lose all his composure

⇶ Can’t stop staring at them, and will just walk up to you and position them to where he can see his name in them

⇶ Especially when when he’s a little tipsy off sake, he’ll ask you over and over to show him while you’re sat on his lap and he has a dopey grin while kissing up the side of your face and neck

⇶ For box braids, he just loves how simple yet versatile they are

⇶ Always comes up behind you while you’re doing your hair and just watches you with adoration in his eyes

⇶ When you get done and ask him what he thinks, he always says “beautiful, as always, my love” and gives you a peck on the lips

⇶ While some may argue that French curl braids aren’t exactly simple, Beni just loves how the ends are so beautifully curled, and thinks you look so enamoring and elegant with them

⇶ Loves to fix your curls if they get tangled or one is out of place

⇶ And when you’re cuddling, he always gently pulls on the curls just to watch them bounce back up

⇶ Beni doesn’t care if your hair is long or short, but for styling he likes anything with claw clips, and half up half down. For colors he loves plain black, brown, or ginger

⇶ And for bolder colors, he likes dark blue or red (to match his eyes)

⇶ Beni is honestly a sucker for anything you do, but less really is more to him x

— SHINRA

⇶ Shinra LOVES locs

⇶ Natural or faux, it doesn’t matter to him

⇶ Just thinks locs are so beautiful on you, especially if they’re bright and colorful

⇶ For faux locs, he likes butterfly and distressed the most

⇶ Doesn’t matter if they’re long or short either, he loves it all

⇶ For natural locs, he helps you maintain them, with your guidance of course

⇶ Does your detox and wash for you, but he can’t help past that as much as he’d like to

⇶ He’s tried to watch retwist tutorials, and you’ve let him practice on you, but he just can’t get it

⇶ It makes him a little sad honestly, because he does wanna help but he just can’t do it

⇶ He’ll be able to with a bit more practice, but until then he just adds the clips onto your hair while you retwist

⇶ On top of his love for locs, he loves your natural hair

⇶ And again, especially if it’s dyed

⇶ Short, mid length, long, he doesn’t care!!!

⇶ Shinra loves when you have it out in an afro, but puffs, claw clips, and finger waves are all close rivals

⇶ He’s actually fully capable of helping you on wash days, so you can relax while he gets to work

⇶ He’s also oddly fast when he washes it for you? Much faster than you are or anyone else when they wash your hair, you don’t know how but you don’t question it either

⇶ He can even blow your hair out for you, and when it comes to protecting it before bed, he’s pretty decent at braiding and twisting!

⇶ But don’t bother asking for flat twists or cornrows, he will try his best, but your hair will be left in a tangled mess

⇶ Shinra loves putting on your bonnet for you too

⇶ If it’s been a long wash day, or you started late in the day just to finish late at night, he always runs to get your bonnet for you and gently slips it on your head before kissing your cheek

⇶ Really though, he’s just in love with your hair. And if your hair is as bold as he is, he’ll love it even more

—

Taglist: @megurulvr @miirene @planetlunaa @kazuminari

Send in a ask or DM me to be added to all taglists, or fill out my form to be added to select ones.

—

Thank you for reading, comments and reblogs are appreciated!

[love-and-hisses]

Former foster update! We fostered Carson back in May after he showed up on our doorstep. He was set to go to Petsmart but before that happened Sam saw him on Facebook and fell in love. Carson has a big brother named Chet (they look like twins!) Sam says: "Update on the cat formerly known as Carson, now known as Beni (pronounced like Benny). He is a sweet kitty who loves being close to his brother (even though his brother can be a grumpy old man sometimes). He still loves food and finally understands that the food isn’t going anywhere, so he eats at a fairly normal pace. He’s very energetic and loves to play, but he also loves to sleep when he’s tired. He loves to look out the window all day and watch the squirrels and birds. And his belly is still a trap! We’re so grateful to have him in our lives." Thank you Sam!

[versegm]

Various fgo servant fun facts

Saber Astolfo is the version of Astolfo who has their reason back

Beni-Enma has no tongue. She speaks through her bird hat thing.

Saber Gilles de Rais has madness enhancement, because one would have to be insane to believe he can still be a hero after everything he has done

Napoleon is explicitly not The Dude Napoleon but rather the Cult Of Personality Of Napoleon

Benkei is not actually Benkei, he's a guy who had actually fleed Benkei's battle and is using his name as a servant. That's why Ushiwakamaru is constantly fucking with him.

St Georgios has a knack for photography. St Martha has a knack for bondage.

Medb is a rider because she rides men

Red Hare thinks that he is Lu Bu. It is a recurring joke in events that Lu Bu acts as a horse.

Carmilla is an older version of Liz, which is why they each think the other is massively cringe

Fuuma Kotarou is part oni

Beowulf is a berserker because he doesn't fit in any other classes, which is why his madness enhancement is so low

Berserker Lancelot has no face

Tamamo Cat essentially lobotomized herself via madness enhancement to ensure she would never be a monster again

[onestepbackwards]

something i came up for the self aware!pla au. so, you know how the game shows us the ancestors of current day pokemon characters (kamado > rowan and all that)? so, what if the characters ingame knew about that, and went to you to figure out just who and what their descendant will be like. decided to drop a few dribbles for that:

cyllene:

cyllene was the first person to ask you about what will become of her legacy, and who will be the next person to carry the torch. the whole idea that someone will be there after her fascinates her, but unfortunately for you and her.. you played pokemon platinum before. you know you gotta tell her. after a long explanation about who cyrus is, his motivation and what will he do to sinnoh scares her, to say the least. truly, how one like HIM gets to carry the family name is a disgrace, but.. she feels sorry for him, in a way. judging by the way he grew up, it's no wonder he turned out the way he did. maybe cyllene won't be able to do much now, but she will try her hardest to prevent that mistake from happening again.

kamado:

while you always had a bone to pick with the guy, you were quite surprised to see him ask you about just WHO his future great-great-great-great-great grandson is gonna be. will he stay honorable? will he learn from kamado's mistakes and stay off the path he carved to himself? maybe. surprisingly enough, he was more than delighted to hear that his grandson was gonna be a pokemon professor. beats being a war monger, at least.. and who knows, maybe he'll even be like laventon! wouldn't hurt to have a brilliant mind in the bloodline.

volo & cogita:

another curious pair who heard about the ancestry thing. with both of them already recognizing you for your "true, godly powers", they figured out you could give them the answers. you ARE all-knowing, after all. of course, they bicker with each other before you can finally give them the answer. volo wishes that HIS descendant got HIS smarts and didn't cogita's attitude, while cogita wishes that HER descendant got HER manners, and not volo's ego. luckily, you tell them that their descendant, cynthia, got the best of both worlds and none of the worst. you continue telling them about her, and you can't help but see cogita perk up when she hears the word "champion". oh, what a grandiose title! truly, only one of her bloodline can afford one as such! but volo finds more excitement when you tell him that cynthia is just as interested in history and ruins as he is, while sharing a team thats ALMOST identical to his. a garchomp AND a spiritomb? yeah, she's his descendant, no word about it.

It would be such a funny experience fksjfj

“Oh great god, what are my descendants like? Do you know?”

And your face varies over who asks.

Cyllene asks and you just 😬

“Um… I respect you too much to lie but… he kinda tries to commit universal genocide and attempts to become a god of a new universe??”

Cyllene is deathly still.

“He what.”

You are frantically moving you hands.

“No worries! The hero stopped them in their time too!”

Cyllene slumps back in her chair.

“Is… that why they always seemed so nervous around me at first?”

“If it’s any consultation, someone here tried to do the same thing, when ironically his descendant helped the hero stop your descendant??”

She rubs her temples, clearly getting a migraine.

“Please, could you elaborate?”

“On what?”

“Everything.”

You could probably tell others too about their descendants with various reactions.

“Oh yeah, Beni’s descendant almost became champion. Dude became a powerful trainer in the future, rivaled by the eventual champion themself.”

“…”

“Was the real underdog. Sweet kid too.”

You could also do this to fuck with random people, should you desire it.

“Oh yeah! Your descendants do great thing! Until the accident.”

“The what.”

“I have to go.”

I love these ideas though 💕💕 especially telling Volo or Cogita about Cynthia, explaining she is one of the strongest, most ruthless champions across the world.

They would have an ego about it.

And I feel Komado would find some peace with his descendant being a professor. When you tell him about how the hero even knows him, he feels a bit worse though.

No wonder the hero trusted him so easily, if they knew his descendant. His act of banishing them probably hurt even more now that he knows that.

He probably now has caused his descendant strife if the hero eve returns to their time. He knows he caused damage, he just silently hopes and prays his descendant is spared from the hero’s pain.

[mynamesaplant]

Day Trip

This one took a lot to get out of my head. Thanks to Mons for their endless inspiration and for urging me forward. --------------------------------------------------------------------

Summary: Dawn spends the day with Mai, and Gaeric is pissed about it.

Don't like to read on Tumblr? Find it here on AO3.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Diamond Clan wasn’t too far offshore, the village nestled in the deep channels of a mighty river delta that flowed through the whole of Hisui. The waters were considerably warmer than that of the northern shore and, although Dawn’s mer body was well adapted to that kind of water, it was a welcome change. She would be cold when she got out of the water, but she wouldn’t be at risk of hypothermia when she clambered out from the sea…

Dawn was caught mid-thought, Adaman sweeping his arms this way and that around the settlement while she lagged behind. Where did her clothes go when she transformed? Did her clothes turn into her pearly coat? Her hair was usually soaked when she exited the water, it was why she started bringing a towel down with her, but her clothes only got wet when she was out of the water and her sopping wet hair dripped on her warm clothes.

Magic could be so weird.

“Dawn,” Adaman calling her name pulled her out of her contemplation and she worked to catch up to the clan leader, his young face pinched with annoyance. “Mustn’t waste any time, Mai is waiting for you.”

This was news to Dawn. In fact, this whole situation was a little odd to her.

The Diamond clan was not unfriendly, far from it, it was just that the Pearl clan tended to gather her up rather protectively and whisk her away to the cold waters of their territory. Adaman had specifically intercepted Ingo and Dawn on their way to the settlement. The man’s scales glittered in the late morning sun as he circled around them in a hypnotic sort of dance. It was relaxed, especially for someone like Adaman who Dawn was sure was unable to relax given his impeccable sense of time.

Although Adaman could be deceptively fast with a few quick swishes of his tail, it didn’t seem like he wanted to attack or to lull them into a false sense of security, but he was acting decidedly un-Adaman-like with his small talk. Ingo chatted with him politely but was bristling with each interruption as the Diamond clan leader managed to insert himself between them and their intended destination.

It took Dawn a few passes to realize, but Adaman seemed to be herding them back to Diamond clan territory with his ever-tightening circles. He knew that infringing on Ingo’s space would make the warden want to put more distance between himself and Adaman, the blue haired mer was taking advantage of that.

“Lord Adaman,” Ingo’s voice finally cut through the conversation like a spear launched through the water. “I’m terribly sorry, but I must get Dawn to the settlement posthaste. Mistress Calaba has a lesson for her today about the practical uses of seaweed for dressing wounds.”

Unbeknownst to Ingo, Dawn made a face of revulsion. Seaweed was not amongst her favorite things. Seaweed was both slimy and rubbery to her adolescent taste buds and smelled of rotten dead fish to her, from the kombu that Beni used to make his seafood-based broths to the seaweed salads she distantly remembered her mother trying to feed her when she was young. When Dawn swam in the sea, she was the only one to screech in panic as pieces of seaweed clung to her bare legs, her brain conjuring images of sea monsters that would drag her to the deep to drown her.

She would rather die than learn more about the disgusting vegetation that the sea had to offer.

“Ingo!” She hissed, loud enough for both of them to hear, but low enough to clue into both of them men of the conspiratorial nature of her beckoning hand. Ingo excused himself and leaned down, his ear close to Dawn as she whispered to him, “Maybe I should go with him. We don’t want to offend Adaman by rejecting him, y’know?”

The warden paused to consider this. It wasn’t that he didn’t take it under advisement, he just wanted to keep an eye on Dawn, and he would not be permitted to tag along to Diamond clan territory with them. His concerns lie with her… chatty disposition. Dawn was a friendly girl, it was nearly impossible not to like her, but she often spoke first and thought later.

“Is there a specific purpose for Dawn’s departure to your station?”

He was trying to stall without being perceived as rude. Adaman waved his hand, mentioning something about Mai needing some help with some items Dawn would find of interest. Ingo was not listening.

He would not be there to help her recover if she said something suspicious. He would not be able to protect her if Diamond clan saw through, at times, tissue thin lies that she had to spin on the fly. If they tried to hurt her – No, Ingo didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t want to think about how small and delicate she was compared to every other mer. He didn’t want to think about how Melli and Iscan were already suspicious of her.

All he had to do was say no, then it would be the end of that discussion. Adaman would have to accept his choice.

“Ingo,” she must have seen something in his dour expression change minutely, she poked his cheek with a pout on her face. “Trust me. I promise not to say a word.”

He truly wanted to believe that.

“Exhibit caution around Melli and Iscan if they are there. Understood?” Dawn gave him a thumbs up and a bright smile. This was a fun, new adventure for her. “Please do not take this lightly. If anyone were to find out-”

“I’ll be careful!”

She insisted, big black eyes pleading to let her go. His ear twitched and his eyes softened at the expression, nodding in Adaman’s direction in a wordless acknowledgement. Ingo knew Diamond clan was just as protective of pups as Pearl clan was, she would be safe with them.

“I believe Calaba will understand… I will expect you back here promptly before sunset, so that I might escort Dawn back to the settlement unscathed.”

Adaman nodded, offering his reassurances as Dawn joined him at his side. The warden tried to ignore the uneasy churning in his stomach as he watched them go.

After Adaman’s little tour of the settlement, he and Dawn joined Mai at the outskirts. The warden was chatting with some of the other clan members when she noticed their approach and broke off the conversation to greet them. Dawn liked Mai, she was the second mer she ever met, and she had been nothing but kind to her. She was one of the few who didn’t outwardly said anything about Dawn being unusual for a mer. Not even weird looks. Mai was easy-going and took every Dawn said in stride with a serene, unbothered expression.

“Ready to go on a little adventure, kiddo?”

Mai asked after her initial greeting, smile widening when Dawn nodded emphatically. Ushering the teen away, the warden explained that she needed Dawn’s help searching the insides of a wreckage from one of the rifts.

Dawn encountered many rift distortions on land and in the sea, they came in the form of dark bubbles that blotted out the light around it. They would only last for a few minutes, but strange things would appear in them that seemed familiar to Dawn. She explored them, hiding from the animals that were going berserk – like being inside the rifts was driving them into a state of madness. Captain Cyllene, Professor Laventon, and Ingo all warned her to stay out of them, Laventon saying half heartedly because he was also so excited to see what things appeared inside those mysterious distortions.

“What fell through the distortion this time?

“Not sure if I’m being honest.” Mai hummed, allowing Dawn to race ahead and play in the water in her excitement. “They’re big, almost as big as me, so I can’t get inside to investigate.”

“Why not ask Arezu or Sabi?”

Mai was silent for a moment, long enough for Dawn to swivel her head to look at the warden.

“Sabi gets distracted to easily, and Arezu is… indisposed.”

Although the moment was stilted, Dawn shrugged it off and allowed herself to drift back to fall alongside her. She knew why Mai and Adaman had wanted her help as soon as the water grew colder and colder. Gaeric wouldn’t attack Mai for entering their territory with Dawn in tow. It sucked to be a chess piece, but if it got Dawn out and about in the ocean then she supposed she didn’t mind.

------

Ingo returned empty handed and prayed that he ran into Calaba first. He knew one person who would not be thrilled that his ward was not accompanying him. Although Gaeric was only slightly smaller than him, his fellow warden had mastered a level of stealth that would have been envied by the likes of octopi and flatfish. Despite his best efforts, Gaeric had found him, and he was watching Ingo’s impassive face closely. They hadn’t known each other long, but Gaeric was inexplicably good at catching the minute details that his closed off expression had to offer.

“You look more mopey than usual. What’s the problem?”

Before Ingo could get a word in edgewise, he noticed Gaeric’s nostrils flair and his eyes moved around the cavern, not seeing Dawn and instantly becoming suspicious.

“I assure you I am not moping.”

“Uh-huh,” Gaeric hummed, clearly not listening, and leaned in closer to peer around him. Dawn was nervous around him thanks to past interactions, so she took to hiding behind the large mer. “Where’s your pup? You smell like her, but I don’t see her.”

Ingo was not the lying sort, especially not with his clan mates, and, despite knowing Gaeric would not like the answer, he told his fellow warden the truth.

“Ah, she is spending the day with Diamond clan to get better acquainted with them.”

“SHE WHAT?”

------

The long metal tube that Mai eventually led her to looked as though it had been here for a while. There was no crater that would have telegraphed the momentum of such a large object crashing into the ocean floor. The sand had settled around the outside of the tube, like it had been here for a while.

“There shouldn’t be anything in there that can hurt you, but I’ll be right here if you need me, alright?”

Mai pried opened the double doors, a flurry of bubbles escaping the tube just before Dawn poked her head inside. The warden didn’t let the door close. She wanted to leave an easy exit for Dawn just in case something was in there.

Dawn prodded around. The tube was pretty barren, a few blown out glass windows and what seemed to be structural polls, and colorful bench seats. Whatever had been in the tube had most likely drifted away by this point or was scavenged by the local sea life.

Limp safety posters had turned mostly transparent from the salt water dotted the walls, the symbols seeming somewhat familiar to the teen as she swished before them, squinting at the assemblage that offered a warning. She remembered that big red text often indicated something important or dangerous to the reader.

“Is there anything specific I should be looking for?”

She asked Mai, tearing her eyes from the posters that seemed to only grow blurrier the longer she looked at them.

“No, nothing in particular.” The warden admitted, peering into the car with a massive eye. “I know you take an interest in this stuff.”

“Oh! Thanks Mai.”

“Sure thing, kiddo.”

Huh, how funny, Gaeric referred to her by the same little nickname. Actually, she and Gaeric bore a lot of similarities.

Dawn didn’t spend nearly as much time with Diamond clan as she did with Pearl clan, especially since many of their number were more suspicious of her, but she did know Mai was the eldest warden and everyone seemed to look up to her like everyone did with Gaeric.

Somehow, what they felt resonated with Dawn. She felt like a lot of people looked up to her for guidance wherever she was from. That was when she felt a mild buzzing blooming at the back of her head, uncomfortable and hot when she lifted her hand to run the spot tenderly. This always happened when she tried to remember something from before she dropped into Hisui. Did she maybe have siblings or people close enough to call siblings? She felt like she knew the pressure of having all eyes on you and she could sympathize with Mai and Gaeric.

“I don’t think there’s anything in here, Mai.”

“That’s unfortunate. Some of the things you find are real treasures.” That made Dawn blush, a sheepish smile coming to her face as she exited the tube. Mai was always taking interest in what the pups did and said, listening with an idle fascination, a soft smile, and infinite patience. “There are a few more of these closer to the drop off, let’s go take a peek. Stay close to me.”

------

Ingo expected the roar of indignation, it rattled the very foundations of the icy space. He attempted to be calm, but knew it was fruitless, nothing was going to keep Gaeric calm at this point.

“The situation is temporary. She was quite insistent that she go to maintain the piece between the clans.”

The interrogation that followed wasn’t unexpected, but his fellow warden’s explosive reaction was not entirely expected at the mention of Mai.

“Mai? MAI? Ingo, we have to go get her right now!”

Ingo looked at him, utterly perplexed as Gaeric’s whiskers twitched with a barely contained frustration. Mai was the least of his concerns among the Diamond clan. She was kind to Dawn, she knew how to be gentle, but also knew when and how to treat her like the teenager she was. This was something, Ingo noted, that Gaeric failed to understand. He wasn’t sure if it was because he harbored suspicions of Dawn, if he didn’t quite know how to deal with a runty teenager, or a combination of the two. Gaeric was an excellent mentor to the pups, and they all seemed to adore him in return – perhaps Dawn’s distrust of Gaeric made their already tentative relationship more strained.

“I fail to see the issue.”

“Mai’s going to corrupt her!”

“Pardon?”

Gaeric grit his teeth to stifle a growl, hands resting on his shoulders and claws digging into the black fabric as if for emphasis.

“Mai is going to corrupt Dawn. She’s going to twist her mind so that she might be more receptive to the ideologies of their false god.”

Ingo stared at him blankly. Although he practiced the teachings of Pearl clan, Ingo didn’t really understand the nature of the schism and the lingering animosity that arose from it. He was looking at it as an outsider and understood they had differing truths and ideals, but much of what he was able to glean from listening to Melli harp on and on about the topic, much of Diamond clan’s ideology matched up with Pearl clans.

“I understand your concerns, however I think it would be unwise to barrel into a station at full steam.”

 His fellow warden closed his eyes slowly, his jaw clenched and a tight smile on his face when he reopened them. Ingo knew Gaeric did this whenever he started to get frustrated with Ingo and didn’t know how to tell him that politely.

“We’re going to go get her.”

“I don’t-”

“Now.”

------

“You don’t like any fish?” She shook her head. “What does Pearl Clan feed you?”

“I eat cooked fish.”

Dawn said, rummaging through the detritus at the bottom of the overturned tube. Some of the things she recognized. Bottles. Little colorful wrappers for sweets. A little hard case that reminded her of a clamshell with a pair of spectacles inside. Glasses case. Dawn lifted the glasses to her eyes and looked toward Mai with a grin. The warden was extremely blurry through the lenses of the glasses.

“How do I look?”

Mai exhaled sharply, less startled and more amused.

“A little silly, but I think you could pull it off.”

Dawn giggled and removed the glasses, finding the shift between her own eyesight and the lenses disorientating.

“I think I might keep these. If you focus the light with something like these, you can start fires pretty quickly.”

“Really?” Mai said mildly, watching her as she tucked the glasses and their case into her little bag. “Who taught you that?”

Dawn was about to answer when she suddenly was met with a wall of white. Not literally, but mentally. Whatever had just been on the tip of her tongue was gone just as quickly.

“I… Don’t know. Not Pearl Clan.”

Not Galaxy Team either. They used a little flint and steel to create sparks for flames.

No, this was knowledge that preceded her time in Hisui. The realization made her heartache with a familiar emotion for a home that she no longer remembered with extreme clarity. A fog that clouded her mind and misted her eyes when something almost seemed familiar. The sensation was hollow when she knew it should ache. Surely, she left people behind – people who missed her… right?

“Dawn?”

Mai’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts. She didn’t reply but resumed her sweep through the tube with little to show for her searching. A slip of paper with faded colors and letter that seemed familiar. Greens and reds that were nearly opaque from the salt water, but it reminded her of something… She used a slip like this for a boat – a ferry – to take to an island. This tube wasn’t a boat as far as she could tell. Not unless it was a weird underwater boat (which wasn’t even remotely possible to build, how would it be airtight?). In any case, she stashed the slip into her bag. Maybe if she kept it, it would spark something more in her head.

“How many more of these are there?”

“Just one more. The swim is a little longer so, if you get tired, grab my hood and I’ll tow you.”

Dawn insisted she could swim but found it hard to keep up. With each stroke of Mai’s tail, Dawn had to do five to keep pace adequately. She held onto Mai’s hood.

“Mai?” When she hummed in reply, Dawn asked, “Did you ask me to come so you wouldn’t get in trouble with Gaeric if he came across you looking for these tubes?”

The warden snorted, her eyes crinkling at the sides in amusement.

“I’m not worried about that ball of blubber. I could beat Gaeric with one fin tied behind my back… But you’re not wrong.” Mai paused for a moment, seeming to consider what she said next, before admitting to her, “It would be a bad look for Diamond clan if I were to just poke around in Pearl clan’s territory. I might not be causing any problems, but I don’t want Gaeric to fly into a tizzy about this. You being here might at least give him pause.”

In all honesty, Dawn had expected Mai to say something more akin to a reassuring lie. She knew Ingo and the other members of Pearl clan did that, but the Diamond clan warden said each word with sincerity.

Mai didn’t treat her like a baby.

Dawn appreciated that.

------

“Don’t you think you’re worries are a bit… premature?”

Gaeric deliberately ignored him. Nothing he said was going to derail him – Gaeric would march right over to Diamond clan, reclaim Dawn, spit a half threat-half warning, and return to the settlement to scold her. Ingo didn’t think he would let his fellow warden get that far.

Dawn didn’t deserve a scolding for a pragmatic decision.

“Where was the last you saw them?”

Ingo heaved a great sigh and told him where, following in Gaeric’s wake to avoid an incident between him and Mai. Of all the Diamond Clan wardens, Ingo liked Mai best. Not that he disliked the others! No, he just found himself relating to her more. Much in the same way that he related to Gaeric. It made him wonder if, at one point, if he had younger siblings he looked after.

Ingo felt like he must have, that or he had people who looked up to him as if he were an older brother figure.

The orca mer shook the thought from his head and focused on catching up to Gaeric. His expression was dark with annoyance. It did not improve when Ingo asked him his next question.

“Is there a particular reason why Warden Mai in particular makes you concerned?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Gaeric asked, jerking his whole body around to reply. He was puffed up with an indignation that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to ingo. Any time that Mai was mentioned, there seemed to be a near instant irritation from Gaeric. Ingo blinked, slowing to a stop, and waiting until Gaeric’s brow twitched and he exhaled sharply, shoulders slumping.

“I was not trying imply anything, Gaeric.”

“I know… Mai’s a lot more conniving than she looks. She’s a Diamond, she shouldn’t be trusted.”

“Do you have reason to believe she would harm Dawn?”

Gaeric hesitated and then shook his head. The next words looked as though they physically pained him to admit aloud.

“No, I trust her to keep Dawn safe. I just don’t like the idea of them spending too much time together.”

Ingo offered a nod.

“We will go retrieve her, but I must insist to calm yourself before we get back on track.”

------

The last tube looms in the distance, the whole thing sticking up vertically in the sand and creaking with their approach. Dawn edged closer to Mai, not liking the look of this one even a little. The sounds, the lack of other sea life, and the precarious way it jutted from the ground made her stomach queasy.

“You’re sure it’s safe, Mai?”

The older mer tilted her head, dark eyes sweeping over it.

“You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to. I have a feeling that this one might have more little trinkets that you might like just because of how isolated and undisturbed it is, but you can say no and we can head back to the settlement right now.”

Mai gave her an indifferent shrug and a neutral smile, allowing Dawn to make the decision by making her own thorough examination of the tube. This one seemed to be a lot more intact than the others as Mai suggested. This one had what looked like wheels on one side and it dawned on Dawn that the tubes were a vehicle. The word “bus” flashed in her head, but that didn’t sit right with her. It was some form of transportation, but that was the only thing that seemed clear to Dawn. She didn’t voice any of this, of course.

Swimming to the top of the transport, Dawn peered through the cracked glass and saw a few things dangling from the ceiling and a few colorful posters on the opposite end. Those were obscured by dark and sand, but Dawn immediately saw something that jumped out at her.

There was a symbol that stood out as clear as day on the right poster.

“I’ll go in. I’ll be extra careful.”

Dawn insisted, tugging on the doors but unable to open them. She waited, holding back the quiver in her hands when Mai pried the doors apart. She made a beeline for the poster and stared at the shattered glass covering, the same symbol that was on Ingo’s hat was on the poster, albeit almost as faded as the badge.

It was surrounded by symbols that had no meaning to her, but she recognized it as some sort of advertisement. There were… Silhouettes? Gray figures that were all lumped up. Nothing really distinguishable. Gingerly, Dawn pressed her fingers to the glass, absently wondering if there was a way for her to take this out of here to show to Ingo. It truly didn’t even occur to her just how odd that this symbol was here, in this transport that was clearly too small for the massive orca. Her discovery simply excited her for the rationale to cross her mind.

Eyes drifted around, trying to mentally map the space as she thought of other potential problems with this half-cocked plan. The paper would be super fragile, virtually untouchable without disintegrating, in all honestly, but Dawn was unwilling to admit that because she wanted so desperately wanted to show this to Ingo. Could she maybe pry the poster off the wall in its frame? It seemed to be bolted down tight.

Maybe if she had enough leverage…

Dawn’s eyes fell onto the other poster on the other side of the door, and she froze.

She recognized a word on that poster! In fact-

Dawn moved closer to that poster, the uncomfortable prickling in her head growing into a stabbing pain as she forced herself to look.

Sinnoh

That… That was Mount Coronet. But how was that possible?

Something was boiling in the back of her head. The burble of a voice that sounded familiar. It reminded her of Volo for some reason.

… There is a statue of an ancient ... Have you seen it already? According to myth, it was an extremely powerful ... Who knows? You may encounter something like it while you're traveling …

Dawn gasped sharply, her mind and body putting distance between the memories and the poster that were causing her such pain. The water around her face suddenly felt so warm.

------

Finding Dawn and Mai wasn’t too much of an issue. Gaeric had a sixth sense for Diamond clan members, probably from having to deal with sneaky little Sabi, and Ingo had his own sort of sixth sense to Dawn. Her habit of getting into her own sort of mischief made him hyperaware of where she was at all times. To both their surprise, Dawn and Mai were in Pearl clan territory – dangerously close to the drop off.

Why they were there was unimportant, it was imperative that they get them out of there. The drop off was absolutely not a place for pups. Not even a good place for adult mers because of all the strange things that lived in the drop off.

Ingo couldn’t help but shudder at the memory of his first and last hunt over the drop off because he was surprisingly awful at hunting and because he became Lady Sneasler’s warden. However, a hazier recollection was percolating just beneath the surface when they came upon Dawn and Mai. His limbs froze up, stopping all together as Gaeric pressed forward, completely unaware of Ingo’s sudden distress.

A burning pressure in his lungs as if he were holding his breath underwater too long, his thoughts molten from the lack of oxygen before he blissfully passed out. His next memory was of Palina’s dark eyes about six inches from his nose, the pain coursing through his body immense as… what was that thing? Ingo didn’t know, but it was crushing his tail.

The structure - That thing….

“Gaeric-”

Ingo began to say, but the mer was surging forward toward Mai with an intimidating growl. She looked their way, and her expression didn’t change much, indifferent if a little amused by their appearance.

“Warden Ingo. Warden Gaeric.”

It was polite for Ingo and a little frosty for Gaeric. It wasn’t hard to tell they had a history. If Ingo wasn’t acutely aware of minute changes in body language, facial expressions, and the tone and pitch of voices, he wouldn’t have realized. He almost didn’t realize now as a sudden and uncomfortable sensation crawled the length of his considerably long spine.

The structure…

“What is the matter with you? What would possess you to take a pup anywhere near the drop off?”

“I like to give the pups I watch over the benefit of confidence. They get a little more independent when I let them explore and do the things they want to do. I offered Dawn the chance to explore these… things, and now she is, and she loves it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

This structure… why?

“We can’t afford to waste time and coddle our pups into adulthood.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, but the space around us is a little less hospitable than your filthy river.”

They said there were no more. Just the one they found him in.

“As precious as you are about your space, at least we were more strategic about picking a location to settle than a damn glacier.”

“What do you know? What do you know about what we’ve gone through when we-”

“Gaeric.”

Ingo’s voice was sharp and cold like an icicle shattering into fragments on the ground. The other Pearl clan warden flinched. His bitterness and agitation in Mai’s presence evaporated when he heard that tone. He had rarely heard Ingo use it and it was petrifying when he did. Even Mai when still and quiet, a breath stuck in her chest as she waited in fearful anticipation. She had never seen Ingo mad – but she wasn’t sure she could call this mad.

“Ingo-”

Gaeric was not permitted to finish.

“You said there weren’t more. You explicitly said there weren’t more. I may have a faulty cab, but I know this is not the same one.”

Ingo did not understand the structures, but they triggered something in his head. Something familiar. He wanted to know so badly what it was. He was found being crushed by one, but nobody really had an explanation for it. Ingo had explored that one top to bottom once he had recovered, trying to find any clues or remnants of information that might clue him into the significance of these things.

Irida had told him after a long search that there were no more. He tried to ask for permission to look for himself and Gaeric jumped in to shoot the idea down. Ingo barely knew the area, he had said, and they had already checked all over – there was nothing left.

Gaeric had lied.

His fellow warden had a flash of something (was it fear?) cross his face before he recomposed and began defending himself.

“What difference would it have made if you had known about this? You couldn’t get in there even if you wanted to. It would have been a wild goose chase.”

“Wow, didn’t realize how much disarray the Pearl clan was.”

Mai smirked, folding her arms and leaning back to watch the show. Now that she knew the anger wasn’t directed at her, she could afford to watch Gaeric get verbally berated. She doubted Ingo had it in him to hurt Gaeric, he was remarkably gentle for a mer of his size, but Ingo could talk circles around people.

“Shut up, Mai.” Gaeric hissed before cutting his eyes back to Ingo. “Listen, I didn’t really know you back when Irida had us fan out to look for your pod. We came across a few of these, but they seem less related to you and more to the rifts that kept popping open. I’m sure they have nothing to do with-”

“You’ve known about this for that long?”

The tone was verging on disappointment, but it was hurt in a way that felt sharp going in and jagged coming out. Gaeric unconsciously crossed his arms and rubbed his biceps, growing more defensive with each passing second and he emitted an incoherent snarl of frustration. Yes, he recognized that he was making excuses. It would be no good to anyone to have Ingo distractedly swimming all over kingdom come.

“What difference does it make?”

There was a flash of wickedly sharp teeth and a deep growl that seemed to make the water vibrate. Behind him, Mai tutted disapprovingly, but Gaeric made no attempt to round on her – his attention was on his clan mate.

“All that time wasted, what a shame.”

“How long?”

The words were ground out with a note of impatience, like Ingo was moments away from lunging forward to shake some sense into him until Gaeric spat out the answer.

“We knew about a month after you arrived.”

“Hm, how peculiar that your Sinnoh did not deem you worthy enough to know of these things in your space sooner.”

A warning growl from Gaeric, but Mai ignored it. It was amusing to watch someone other than herself give Gaeric a hard time. This was easy pickings, but Mai allowed herself to be petty this once. A smile curved her lips, displaying rows of sharp teeth for only a millisecond before it disappeared.

“You kept this knowledge from me? There could have been remnants of my pod there – and now they’re most likely scoured by scavengers and wiped clean by time. This…” He seemed to be at a loss for words, casting his gray eyes around as if seeking out the right string to really emphasis how painful this felt for him. “Your actions are disgraceful.”

“Disgraceful? You think my actions are disgraceful?”

Gaeric bristled with rage, leaning closer to Ingo who remained unmoving and glowering. He opened his mouth, gnashing his teeth like he was between tearing Ingo’s throat out with them or just to intimidate the orca, when something white streaked across his vision. Ingo flinched and Gaeric immediately drew back, Dawn was shoving Ingo’s cheek as if to push him away.

“Stop! Stop! Let’s just go! Come on Ingo, let’s just go. Please? I want to go back to the settlement.”

Fright laced her words, pushing him with all her might until Ingo relented, moving in the direction of the settlement without so much as a backward glance. Crisis narrowly averted for now.

“Ah well.”

Mai sighed, stretching and eyeing Gaeric’s back, his shoulders still tense. She didn’t get to see them tussle.

“Mai?” He hadn’t turned to look at her, Gaeric was still watching the duo retreat into the gloom. “Do you think there’s something off about Dawn?”

It should have been something she laughed off. Gaeric? Asking her something like that? How ludicrous. However, Mai heard something in his voice, something that resonated with her all too well, and it made her pause and really consider what he was asking. He was asking as someone concerned for his people and, even if it felt a little preposterous that Gaeric would be worried about a pup like Dawn, she gave him the benefit of the doubt, just this once.

“I… think I know what you mean? But I just can’t put my finger on it.”

“Neither can I.”

Gaeric admitted. He didn’t ask anything else. He wasn’t even really sure why he brought it up, unsure of what prompted the thought in the first place, but it was out there now. Mai slipped away without further comment and Gaeric returned to the settlement, remaining under the radar until the necessary space would give him and Ingo time to reflect on their words.

[nkogneatho]

PASSSIIIII I’m here for fire force brain rot!!!! Can we talk about Konro’s voyueristic Cuck tendencies. He gets off to watching Benimaru fuck you and you tell him how good he feels and how you think it’s his phat dick…just cuz Konro is our chronic pain babe.

Haha yess. You know the best part, he likes to secretly watch instead of sitting right in front of you two. Konro is a loyal subordinate to Benimaru but not so loyal when he jerks off watching you and Benimaru fuck. He just loves watching you two do it, as he loosens the bottom and fists his cock so hard. There are days where he'll be the one to plan a date night for you two, candles and roses everywhere in the room. The futon is already prepared in a corner. When you both are done with dinner, he hides outside the door, slightly opening it, watching as Beni's fat cock stretches you out. The futon's been putting to good use. Konro makes eye contact with you but you don't look away. Instead you moan both his and Beni's name, which results in him just spraying all his cum on the sliding door, maybe a few on the wooden floor.

[jo-harrington]

Corroded Coffin Fest - Day 22 - Alternate Universe

Summary: It's a dark and stormy night, and a certain musician is looking to get out of the rain.

Word Count: 993

Rating: T

Warnings/Themes: DnD References, DnD AU, Fantasy/Adventure AU, Origin Story

Check Out the Main Post for @corrodedcoffinfest here! Even if you didn’t start on Day 1, you can still join!

Tagging: @the-unforgivenn at her request.

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

Adventures always started in taverns, didn't they?

That was the thought that crossed Geoff's mind as he escaped the downpour and ducked into the Tinkering Toad.

Of course, adventure should be the last thing on his mind; all he truly desired was a feather bed, a tankard of mead, and some warm food if there was any to be had. If he didn't have enough funds for the three, surely he could rely on his trusty mandolin to help him earn the rest.

But the tavern was full of weary travelers who'd sought refuge from the storm, and the hulking, bald barkeep seemed too busy to be bothered at the moment to be questioned.

Geoff instead looked around for place to sit at the very least, and was lucky as he spotted a small table by the roaring hearth with only two of the four chairs occupied.

He crossed the distance and sheepishly bothered the two souls who were chattering and rolling dice.

"Excuse me, do you mind if I join you?" he asked. "Seems busy tonight."

He was taken aback by the hunched half-orc who snarled, "over my dead body," and then went back to his dice.

His table-mate--a halfling male with fluffy brown curls and a rather...overwhelming war hammer propped beside him--admonished him and then welcomed Geoff to the table.

"The more the merrier," he greeted and gestured to one of the empty chairs. "Dav's just sour because he's losing. Terribly, if I might add."

Dav then cheered as his next roll proved favorable and he grabbed for one of the carved wooden markers from the halfling's pile.

"I believe my luck is about to change, Garrett. Prepare to lose."

Dav's mood improved the more he won, and even more still when Beni the Barkeep strode over with ale and bowls of stew for the two, and then offered the same to the newcomer.

Geoff counted out his coins for the meal and then inquired about a room, happily offering to play for the crowd and raise their spirits if he would have a place to rest his head for the night. Beni agreed and welcomed him to begin whenever he finished his meal.

"I'm no bard," Garrett mentioned through mouthful of stew, "but I'm not a bad musician. I can carry a beat, if you need accompaniment."

"I was about to say, I'd never heard of a singing barbarian before," Geoff laughed heartily. "But I won't say no to any stomps or claps."

Once their meals were finished, he performed and the tavern-goers roused slightly, spirits lifted. They ordered drinks and one couple even danced, and Geoff earned enough coins for a small room upstairs. Relieved knowing he had a place to rest, he got a round for his tablemates.

They shared stories of their journeys over their drinks.

Dav, a ranger, had rescued Garrett from a traveling freakshow. He'd been kept against his will as their resident strongman, and Dav had sworn an oath to see him back to the shire he called home.

"Not hard to pick the little guy up and shove him into a bag as long as he doesn't have that hammer in his hands," Dav teased, earning a pout and clenched fists from Garrett.

Meanwhile Geoff was heading to the capitol to audition for the King and make a name for himself as the greatest performer in the land.

They realized that they'd all be traveling along the Kingsroad for quite some time and although they were relative strangers to one another, they agreed there would be safety in numbers and that traveling together would be the safest.

The company on such a long journey wouldn't be unwelcome either.

"Excuse me," a dulcet, purring voice sounded from the table beside them. The three of them turned to find a hooded figure hunched over his own bowl of stew. A pipe rested beside him on the table, remnants of smoke still emanating from the bowl.

"I couldn't help but overhear," the stranger continued, "that you're planning to travel the Kingsroad. I'd have to warn you, there are many thieves and ne'er-do-wells on the road."

"We'll be safe enough," Garrett dismissed, but the stranger let out a sly chuckle that had Geoff shiver with worry.

"Will you?" the stranger questioned and then turned to glance over his shoulder, revealing a tuft of dark hair and the tip of a pink nose. "Will you really?"

"You speak as though you have some experience sir," Geoff offered. "Do you plan to rob us on the kingsroad?"

The stranger turned fully now, hood of his cloak pushing back to reveal twitching, pointed ears, whiskers, a sly smile with sharp teeth, and golden-brown eyes with pupils so narrow they were just slits.

"Perhaps I am," the tabaxi purred condescendingly. "Or perhaps I'm simply trying to offer...hmmm...you might say guidance or maybe protection...to keep you aware of the more obvious traps and possible ambushes along the road."

Dav grumbled and made to lunge for the stranger to get him to scram and leave them alone, but the tabaxi was too quick, standing toe to toe with him, a sharp knife pressed into Dav's ribs.

"I might also be looking to head toward the Capitol myself," he glanced to Geoff. "Offer my services to the king as well. Maybe pay some...outstanding debts to the Thieve's Guild."

"And what services could you offer to the king?" Garrett snarked. "Rat catcher?"

"Spymaster would be ideal." He let up on the pressure of his knife and then sheathed it faster than any of their eyes could detect.

He turned to Geoff now and offered gloved paw.

"The name is Eddy," he introduced. "And I'm at your service, if you'll have me."

Geoff looked at his other companions.

What a strange group they'd make...maybe adventures did start in taverns after all...

He clapped his hand into Eddy's.

"Welcome to the party."