#i always feel obligated to say that i dont mean the relationship one as in shipping given the site so. yeah. bbv not ship. vkaz is though

[ashenberry]

Surely Venom for the ask game. pretty please 🥺

[ask game]

First impression

Impression now

sigh. i dont know how it happened. but im terrible for that man im so sorry to anyone who follows me.

Favorite moment

the end of shining lights. obviously. i wont scatter your ashes to the heartless sea. youre all diamonds. after this under the dd patch is a tiny diamond. im not immune to a man who eats dirt in front of everyone at a funeral ok??

Idea for a story

metal gear 1 remake where. venom exists for eel 👍 also mgrec but i cant keep pitching that in everything and mgrec is basically partially mg1 but what if venom exists for eel so

Unpopular opinion

i hate this question i dont know popular opinions. i know some redditors dont like him. i like him. im eepy. post ur venom hot takes in the comments below and ill fight all of you idk -w- !

Favorite relationship

bb. pov your willing to give up ur life for this guy and then you all blow up and 9 years later your that guy and you have to deal with his blond bitch squad. pros your now the worlds specialist boy and you get the final say in everything cons: the unrelenting guilt. idk i really like the concept of the phantom -w-. epic shout out to vkaz one of my favorites divorces of all time. i like one sided vkaz post divorce. kazi come home & all of that

Favorite headcanon

HMM. i def have venom headcanons everything just leaves me when im asked this question. yknow what this isnt a headcanon i hold but i think its the funniest thing ever. yknow the theory that every cassete you see that isnt handed to venom on screen is a hallucination bc the paz ones are? the implication that venom hallucinated kaz embezzling funds for his fast food burger joint is SO. SO SO SO. funny to me

[milksnake-tea]

━━ die with a smile .

In every zombie apocalypse, there's always one who is immune to the infection. And Blade, it seems, is the unlucky one who has to carry that burden.

blade x gn!reader (kinda. relationship is ambiguous)

contains: gorey language (rotting flesh, wounds), zombie apocalypse au, horror(???? I GUESS????? I DONT EVEN KNOW BRO), reader dies lol, blade got major issues

wc: 2.4k

a/n: lord i am NOT good with horror BUT !!! might as well give this a try. if you can call this horror. I DONT EVEN KNOW I DONT WRITE OR READ HORROR IM JUST A GIRL anyways. this is for @stellaronhvnters's event that's happening rn! the prompt i ended up choosing was zombie, and i hope i brought it to life! i am actually so sad i wasn't allowed to write for sunday. can you believe this. SIGHS

taglist: @sh0jun , @themoderatelyawesomeninja , @xphantasmagoriax , @rainswept , @lucensei , @akutasoda , @naraven , @scribs-dibs , @apathicace , @flurrina , @tragedy-of-commons , @cakechase , @kiiyoooo

Immune.

It is a word that Blade has heard time and time over again, and a word he has grown to hate.

Immune. Immortal.

A blessing, it is, to any other soul, especially in an apocalypse such as this. In a world where survival itself is a luxury, and comfort even moreso, what sane person wouldn’t wish for eternal life - or better yet, a life without fear of death?

They say he is lucky, the others. They say that he is blessed, and that whatever cruel deity overlooked this world must’ve found a sliver of fondness towards him.

They say that he is not human, the others. They say that he is something entirely else - not someone, no, something that cannot possibly fathom the pains of humanity, of a mortal life.

And so they say, why not let him bear the weight of a savior? After all, blessings must be used, and they cannot allow Blade to be selfish.

A pity, truly. They seemed to have forgotten, the others, that no matter how blessed he may seem, the deity is still cruel, and will not stand for shortcuts.

And so, Blade has long forgotten the meaning of the word “companion”.

Days pass like seconds in his constant weariness, and his body has become something akin to that of a clock; going through the motions, surviving but not living. His eyes bear witness to the downfall of his home, and yet he cannot see it - he cannot see anything; not the once-vivid colors of nature nor the once-bright streams of light that dare to warm his barely living skin.

He knows not where he is right now. All he knows is that he is injured, a gash on his arm that streams with useless blood. It will heal in due time, which is why…

“This is unnecessary,” he rasps.

If you had a name, he doesn’t remember it. Your face is blurred as everything else in this world is. You’re one of many, hundreds, that he has traveled with - why, he doesn’t know. Perhaps he feels some sort of obligation, like the ones the others have said long ago, to protect those who aren’t favored like he is.

But that isn’t Blade’s main concern. What is, is the bandages binding his wound, bleeding bandages that are wasted on someone of his constitution.

“I will heal,” he continues, his voice a repetitive drawl. “Save it for your own skin.”

And yet the bandages do not fall - in fact, they may have tightened.

“Your blessing allows you to recover from injuries and pain,” you reply, weariness wearing down your own voice, and yet there is a spark of indignation beneath the exhaustion. “It does not excuse you of pain.”

Blade scoffs. “I am not so weak as to kneel from such an insignificant wound.”

“But it hurts, doesn’t it?”

He blinks. Seizing his stunned silence, you continue.

“While your body takes the time to heal, it becomes prey to infections, parasites, all of which are painful and annoying to deal with, as I’m sure you know. It isn’t wise to rely on your blessings all the time.”

But it’ll only take a second. Gods work quick, after all, and their blessings quicker. He has no need for your bandages nor for your ointment.

He sighs.

“Do what you want.”

He doesn’t have the energy to argue much further. If this futile attempt at aiding him is what will calm you, then he will bear with it.

Blade rears his head slightly so that he can catch a glimpse of the wasteland that lies outside the broken-down shack you’ve temporarily taken refuge in. The streets are quiet - for now. But evidence of past destruction stains the road in warning: do not stay, do not yield. Do not think you are safe, for even a moment, because that is when they will strike.

And they will come, the victims and the assailants, with their rotting flesh and grey skin, and you will have but two options: survive and remember, or join them in their pack.

Both you and Blade are well aware of this fact, evident by the fact that you are still human. No one survives long in a world like this without some sort of wits on them, which makes your insistence on treating him all the more befuddling.

He inhales, and the stench of decay fills his nostrils.

They will be here soon.

He stands up abruptly, interrupting your work and leaving the bandage untied. With a grunt, he finishes the binding himself, cutting off the excess with his namesake.

“We can’t afford to dally,” he says gruffly as he pulls on his black coat once more, hiding the bandages and shielding his scars from past battles. “Come.”

He doesn’t wait for your answer. If you have any brains in there, you’ll follow.

It’s eerie, the way fog curls and billows like smoke as he wretches open the door. He cannot feel the wind, but he sees it well enough in the way it drags the fallen clouds across the deserted earth and tickles what little life is left in the leaves of wilted trees.

He hears your footsteps behind him, along with a little sigh, and he resumes his march.

Dried leaves crack under his boots. The air is quiet, as if he were in a vacuum chamber, too quiet. He wonders how long ago it had been since these dirtied streets were clean and covered not by leaves and dried flesh, but by the pit-pats of dozens of people, all on their next chapter of life.

The silence is deafening. His brows furrow slightly.

With a glance back at you, he confirms his suspicions. Your hackles are raised, and the grip on your weapon has switched from idle to offensive. You peer into the fog’s depths, scanning the premises for anything, live or dead, that might be hiding.

Neither of you dare to speak. Talking only sets them off.

But then again, if they are really here, there is little you can do to deter them.

They come in packs - at least, most of them do. Like the humans they used to be, they can be quite fickle. Most prefer each other’s company - if they can call it company, but there are always one or two or five who go on their own, and those either die quickly or become stronger than what is manageable.

His breath mists from his slightly parted lips.

He breathes in through his nose.

The air is sour.

He stops.

He listens.

And then he hears it - the crack of a leaf, crushed under a foot that is neither his nor yours.

Instinct seizes him and he whirls and grabs you and throws you out of the way. Steel meets flesh, carving it with the precision of a butcher and the life he used to have. He faintly registers cold blood as it coats his face in a splatter, its iron taste on the tip of his tongue as he shouts at you,

“Go!”

They come in packs, the creatures. As they swarm him like an infestation of houseflies, Blade begins to miss the eerie silence.

He plunges into a familiar, red-tinted haze. He slashes and slices and cuts through corpses of those who should’ve been put to rest. Rotted teeth bite into his arms (he briefly remembers your insistence on infection) and he kicks them off and his namesake soon follows.

Undying, the two of them are. They are more similar than the others like to admit, but truth is, they are both cursed by the deity. Never will they live, never will they die. Forever, they must exist in this world, until all that’s left of them is a memory.

For how much longer must he endure this? For how much longer must he fight?

He’s tired.

He wants to sleep.

But rest doesn’t come easy.

In the corner of his eye, another one of them lunges at him, falling teeth bared and eyes lolling from their sockets. He tugs his sword, but it is hindered - only slightly, embedded in the flesh of another. It’s a second he’ll lose, and a second that decides it all.

For a moment, he’s half tempted to let it bite.

But then comes a BANG! and then the distinctive smell of gunpowder and then his face is coated in body bits once more.

“What’re you doing?!” Now it’s your turn to grab his arm and pull him away. “There’s too many of them. Let’s get out of here!”

He clicks his tongue in annoyance. You’re loud, but you’ve got a point.

You shove him behind you and unclip one of the many grenades that hang from your belt. He knows this move well enough now, and therefore knows to avert his gaze once he hears the pin pulled and the bomb sails into the crowd of them.

BOOM!

The explosion is only just enough to startle their attackers and create enough of a divy in their ranks that you can push through. Blade leads the retreat, catching any stranglers with his sword while you keep your gun aimed behind you to ward away any pursuers.

He runs, as he always does. He scales hills with a speed that should’ve left his legs stiff and burning, leaps over canals that are flooded with pollution, and turns corners so fast that his neck might’ve broken. Only once or twice does he glance back to see if you are following. 

You are, although, you are slower. Something is weighing you down.

He runs, until he can no longer hear the groans of the deceased and the sourness fades away into crisp nothingness. The smoke-fog lolls back, and he thinks he finds peace, but then-

A weight crashes into his back, making him stumble. With a growl he doesn’t feel, he leers at you.

“What now-?”

He stills as he sees your state.

“Sorry, I just-” Your breath is ragged as you pant. You try to push yourself off, but your legs give out and you crash back into him. But that’s not what catches Blade off-guard.

You are like a second sun, with the heat searing through your skin and burning him through his clothes. His eyes widen as he fully takes you in.

Sweat drips off of you in raindrops. Your skin shivers in small, terrifying tremors. Your breath is short and rasp and choked and hollow, as if every inhale takes all of your energy. Your eyes are barely peeking open as you try to stay conscious.

Words die on the tip of his tongue.

You inhale again, gasping as you try to speak. You want to move, but your body fails you.

“S-”

“Quiet.” He turns you against his chest to assess the danger. Your chest heaves, and- there.

He’s seen it far too many times.

No. Not again.

How- When? When had it- no.

His brows furrow and his teeth grit.

There, tearing through your jacket and into your shoulder, ripped clothes and frayed threads, a bite, black, purple, bruised and bloody and slobbery. And in between, the beginnings of greying skin.

An infection.

His mind begins to race for the first time in years. Fear erupts in him like a sealed volcano as he fights himself on what to do with you.

He should kill you. Get it over with, make it quick before you suffer. There’s no coming back from a bite - you’re as good as dead now, so it wouldn’t be wrong, right? It wouldn’t be the first time he’s had to kill a fallen companion (if you could even call them that).

Yes, he should - he needs to do it. Now, while you’re still weak and vulnerable, while you still hold your humanity within your grasp.

In one hand, is you, a person whom he has only known for a month or so. In the other hand is the sword that has never left his side.

The choice is obvious.

Yet why can’t he make it?

“Bl…Blade,” you rasp. His glare pierces you. “I…”

“Don’t waste your energy,” he says quietly, almost gently. He doesn’t recognize his own voice.

“...this-” you cough suddenly, hacking phlegm for a few horrid seconds before you’re able to speak again. “This is- like a really bad time to say this, but… you smell really, really good. Like… like… like meat.”

He freezes.

Now. Do it, as you always have. Don’t think of it any longer.

Yet his feet are rooted and his hands are stone. Like a moth to a flame, his eyes can’t tear away from your face as you stagger, dirtied hands clutching at his dirtied coat. Your lidded eyes are hazy.

His namesake is heavy like a weight in his hand. Bandaged, calloused fingers grip and shift and relax and then tighten again around the handle as he struggles with a decision.

He takes too long.

You lunge at him with abrupt strength and tackle him to the ground. Blade chokes as gravel digs into his shoulders. Still-warm hands seize onto his broad shoulders with a grip so tight they might shatter. And above him, the sun halos your silhouette, basking you in shadow.

The grip on his shoulders trembles.

“Sor….” your language begins to slur, deteriorating into the common groan of them. “Hung….”

Blade doesn’t reply, too caught up in his mind and in witnessing your last moments as a human. Your mouth hangs open, breath and saliva dripping from it as the grey climbs up your skin in patches of mold.

“Hurs…” you mutter. “Hurs… so…”

Your hands leave his shoulders in favor of pulling down his collar in a manner that is hauntingly gentle. You pull, layers and layers of cloth down and away until his throat is fully exposed, Adam’s apple bobbing.

Fingers trace his throat, thumbs rubbing against it. Animalistic hunger overtakes your pupils, which have always smiled so kindly and tiredly at him, blurring all sentient thoughts away.

Blade squeezes his eyes shut. He breathes, feeling the air pool in his lungs.

And then, at last, he decides.

You scarcely resist as he switches your positions. He slams you to the concrete and raises his namesake, pointed tip situated just above your heart.

And then he sees you, as he always has.

And despite your clouded eyes, your dog-like breaths, and the mold growing on your skin, you smile softly.

But why?

Out of relief?

Out of gratitude?

Or… out of forgiveness?

Blade doesn’t know, nor does he ever find out, as he takes one last look at your life, soaking in all that remains of you and burning it into his memory.

And then he plunges, and the deity laughs once more.

And again, he loses the meaning of companion.

reblogs w comments are appreciated !!

[beautiful-is-boring]

Initiate

pure fluff with satoru gojo (intentional lower case) (idk wtf i just wrote maybe he is ooc here)

reader is fem coded and very shy (self indulgent), nicknames like pretty girl used, NOT PROOFREAD

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

"hey, satoru? i wanted to try something with you."

over the course of your new romantic relationship with your boyfriend satoru, you realized that he was the one always initiating kisses and pulling you into hugs. you never pushed him away, rather you loved it. every single time he cradled your face like a fragile piece of glass and leaned in to place a sweet and soft kiss upon your lips, you loved it. you were so, so in love with his bubbly nature.

slowly and steadily, your shyness dissipated and you started pulling him into hugs and he was overjoyed. yet, you felt something gnawing at you from within. your satoru was so handsome, so beautiful, so hot, so kind and so lovely. you wanted to kiss him sooo bad, it made your chest ache. you realized it was always him asking for kisses and you wanted to change that. you wanted to initiate a kiss with him but everytime you looked into those angelic ocean eyes of his and breathtaking bright ass smile you could feel your heart skip a beat, your fingers twitch and blood rushing to your cheeks.

satoru found it adorable, ofcourse

you decided that today, enough is enough.

you sat him down on the couch asking to try something and he enthusiastically agreed.

looking straight into his eyes, you told him,

"i want to kiss you toru."

his eyes widened for a second and he let out a small chuckle.

"but baby, we kiss all the time? i mean if you want more kisses i am happy to oblig-"

"yes- i-i mean no" oh dear, how were you going to accomplish your mission if you kept stammering like this? on top of that, your boyfriend wasn't helping at all! satoru just kept inching closer to your face to see your flustered expression.

"then what is it my pretty girl? hm?"

"well, i-its just that you're the one always initiating things and kissing me, and i want to be the one to kiss you, like- i love it when you do but i want to do it f-first you know what im saying?"

he looked at you for a second and pondered. "hm, i see."

you were shyly looking down at your lap this whole time while speaking, and all of a sudden you felt satoru's fingers right below your chain, raising your head to look at him. "then kiss me y/n."

"i dont know how to start! i have been trying for so long and then i just freeze i dont know why!"

satoru let out another small laugh, "its okay baby, take your time, we have all day."

you thought for a second.

"toru, close your eyes."

"whatever you wish, pretty girl." satoru smiled, leaned back and closed his eyes, paitiently waiting for your lips to kiss him.

you admit, you were still nervous, but seeing his angelic face with his eyes closed put you at ease.

slowly and steadily, you inched forward towards his face. it was easy for you to admire his gorgeous features, the way his eyelashes rested against his cheek, his plump lips, his cute button nose, rosy cheeks, snowy white hair and the way his lips curved into a tiny smile reserved only and only for his beloved - you.

his and yours faces were mere inches apart, and he could feel the soft breaths of yours on his nose. your heart was beating fast, and you finally leaned in.

well, here goes nothing.

your lips locked with his in a blissful exchange and satoru let out a satisfied sigh. his lips moulded against yours perfectly and he pulled you closer to his frame, his arm wrapping around the waist in a way that gave you butterflies. the kiss was perfect, you were worrying for nothing. you pulled away just for a second for air, and satoru chased your lips again.

you giggled, pecked his lips, the tip of his nose, and his lips once more. staring into his baby blue eyes didn't make you feel nervous, but rather calm.

"that was really nice, baby" he said, and wrapped you up in the warmest bear hug. oh, how you loved being in his arms. "guess i was nervous for nothing". satoru, being the affectionate baby he is, continued to place small kisses on your cheek, neck and shoulders and finally pecking your lips.

"i want more :D"

[brekkie-e]

Sometimes I just. Dont like the internet. I can't seem to escape seeing the Astarion's Correct Path to Sexual Healing argument no matter what tags I block.

I don't want to actually wade in to it, but I just want to say that there could stand to be a LOT less hostility being spewed about when the topic is that close to many people's hearts. There doesn't need to be a more "morally" correct version of healing for him. He is in the MIDDLE of recovery. Not at the end of it. That chapter is up to interpretation to each player.

It is incredibly unkind to automatically accuse people of infantalizing him for preferring a more ace route. It does not HAVE to be infantalizing. Astarion continuing to explore his needs and boundaries and discovering that he doesn't need sex and it doesn't give him the emotional intimacy he craves can be an empowering aspect of self acceptance. That can be growth. A sign of his continued journey towards autonomy. He has spent, unironically, a lifetimee having sex. If even at the end of the day, he comes to realize it's simply disinteresting to him- that's a valid route to recovery. That doesn't make him broken. That is without even mentioning the reality some people do not go back to "baseline" as they heal. Sometimes our baseline changes because of our experiences. He may discover as time goes on that no matter how much he tries, it never stops triggering negative feelings in him. I have my own personal experiences with this, and I think there's something very powerful in accepting yourself for who you are now, and not feeling like you have an obligation to "fix yourself" and get back to a version of you that no longer exists.

The flipside?

Astarion learning to love being sexually intimate with his partner does not inherently mean that the player is ignoring his desire to "not be seen sexually." Astarion at multiple points expresses an interest in trying it out. It doesn't always go well, but it's his choice to pursue it and that should be respected. He, just like irl sex abuse survivors, should be supported as they try to create a new relationship with it. He shouldn't be discouraged from having his own desires. Being able to take something that was used to hurt you and create a new and positive relationship with it because you found someone you love and trust that is patient with you is a BEAUTIFUL story. It is narratively satisfying and also a reflection of real growth as well. Telling people that they're somehow mistreating the character for wanting that for them is also unnecessarly hostile.

There is also a secret, third option. His relationship with it might remain fluid and change constantly through out his life. Healing is not linear. His interest in it may fluctuate. His response to it might fluctuate. He may go through periods of not wanting it again. He might one day decide he wants to try it again. It's not set in stone.

All I am saying is that there SHOULD be room in this fandom for all three of these truths to exist. It shouldn't be necessary to shout from the roof tops how much he loves sex to prove a point to people who think differently than you. They may have their own reasons for resonating with him in a different way. Flipside, it is entirely uncalled for to attack people for wanting him to be able to enjoy it again.

I guess what I am trying to say is make space for and be kind to your fellow fan.

Also, Astarion has WAY more trauma than simply his relationship to sex. So like. Maybe it's time we moved past this topic collectively and discuss the many other ways his life has been affected by Cazador.

[idolomantises]

Hello! I wanted to say that you made me feel very validated when you posted your mixed feelings about Hazbin/Helluva, I'm right there with ya. I'm very closed off when wanting to share my opinions, especially negative ones and especially on the internet.

Has your relationship/way you deal with the internet changed a lot over time or has it stayed pretty much the same?

I absolutely adore your art, thank you for sharing your thoughts and being open to asks!

oh no problem, i'm always of the opinion that its okay and good to be critical of things and i'm genuinely kind of baffled by people who aggressively oppose it. there's not a single piece of media i can think of that i both love and haven't said anything negative about it. acknowledging flaws is a good thing!

not that its something you have to do, like i dont approve of the notion that people who like a problematic piece of media or a media riddled with flaws, should be obligated to list off their issues before going back to consuming it. but that these sort of negative critiques should have healthy engagement.

i joke about being a hater a lot but i also just think there's nothing wrong with just being vocal about your issues with a piece of media. its fun to be critical actually.

like christ, the fact that you could not criticize helluva/hazbin hotel without fans crying and calling you homophobic, an abuse apologist and/or incapable of comprehending complex characters will always be silly to me. you can't defend your show by saying "these characters are in hell" and then call people some kind of "-ism" because they have an issue with something you like.

anyways with regards to the internet, i think the biggest change for me was being more mindful about what i say. in the sense that i had an issue with dumping a lot of very personal info that should be kept to myself + i've reached a point in popularity where people start taking my words as gospel, and no matter what i do i cannot control how people behave. you may notice on twitter, i dont really qrt takes anymore, because that's giving 300k+ pairs of eyes to someone who may have just made a pretty embarrassing take i could just ignore. you'd really have to push me to a certain point to make me feel compelled to respond that way.

i think something people dont get about me if they're only familiar with my art is that they think because i make cutesy content, i must be a "wholesome uwu" person as well, and then they're surprised to learn i can be very cynical, overly blunt and even abrasive at points. i like my personality the way it is but i do recognize that it can lead into behavior that comes across as flat out mean-spirited rather than light ribbing. and yeah i know, internet bad, everyone's a jerk online behind the screen, but i do try to be more mindful of how i engage with people.

or ya know, i can tell them "shut the fuck up" and block them. depends on my mood really

[doomed-era]

hm. thoughts on mipha? maybe how she thought about the calamity + how she’d think of the other champions (if. you havent answered this already!)

ohoho well :) if you insist

haha as far as the calamity goes she has got. the Dread and she has got it bad. even though some of the other champions' outlook on defeating calamity ganon is optimistic (even gaffen thinks everything is going to be fine), mipha is really...not super confident in the whole thing. she keeps this to herself most of the time, and really thinks she's overthinking it most of the time, but she still has a looming sense of dread about the whole thing. she talks with vah ruta about it occasionally. daruk has told her that the best thing to do about it is to make plans for the future, so she has done a bit of that! they've talked about meeting up on death mountain once everything is over. she tries to keep herself busy with projects. she really likes weaving and crafting in general god I just imagined her weaving a little turtle somewhere on the zora armor throws up. her favorite animal is turtles.

she's afraid of dying and afraid of living and afraid of giving up but can't see herself winning. you know. the general looming horror of existence. embracing your death because you're lonely and the walls you've built around yourself are too terrible to bring down. idk.

she is terrified by the prospect of having to potentially lose her life fighting the calamity, well. she's always lived for other people and doesn't really take her own health or safety in mind much. really funny because she'll absolutely get on other people's cases for doing the same thing she does. if gaffen and her were closer they'd constantly piss each other off bc of this and i think its hilarious

ultimately the only thing that really stays in her mind as a reason to look forward to things is living for people she thinks can be genuine. she loves her little brother because she thinks he can show his feelings where she just. can't. because that would mean not being a fuckin doormat and she thinks she's morally obligated to be one for her people's sake lmao. this is part of the reason shes so obsessed with gaffen because she thought he was a genuine person when he was little and now he's not so she's like. maybe we could learn how to be real people together. or maybe just with ourselves. its more of a subconscious thing she doesnt actively think this but shes such an i can fix him girl. stop

sorry for going on a tangent about mipha I dont even generally like quiet passive characters whose canon personality boils down to love interest I just decided she was a people pleaser and everyone around turned her into a saint when she wasnt and she was never truly known um throws myself into a pit of flames. heaven forbid i read too much into implications. i love women!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

now where was I. oh yeah the champions.

i've already partially explained her relationship with revali long story short she doesn't like him. example of a guy who needs to shut up Immediately. which isnt to say she wouldnt like to get along with him he seems like a person who has good qualities she just wishes he would shut up, so she gets passive aggressive around him

daruk!! ok they actually do really like each other because how could you not like daruk cmon. he's seen through her polite facade a few times and seen how scared she is so he's tried to help her out a bit and she appreciates it a lot :] (yea I know gaffen and mipha both like him its that magnetic extrovert guy charm and I really like introvert-extrovert dynamics)

daruk and urbosa are actually good friends lmao so daruk has passed some of what he knows onto her. so yea mipha also likes her. appreciates her advice quite a bit they train together sometimes!! shes really interested in gerudo jewelry as well she has a few pieces urbosa has given her as a gift and she's given urbosa some zora pieces

so yeah

[ill-say-this-fast]

hey! since the poll ended a while ago, i would like to give my two cents in-

If the general public or the twin's social circle found out about their relationship, how badly would everyone react? Would it be like a pre-HOM situation where everyone is tryna persecute the maximoffs? how would the kids (Billy, Tommy, & Luna) play a role in all this? (and yes, let us all finally acknowledge that these three kids are (long-lost) siblings) #sc*arletv*s*on fans feel free to rage hehehe

Thanks for the ask :) theres a lot to say

In their close social circle I dont know how many people are actually shocked. But suspecting something youd never say outloud and being publically told it are different. It would be a negative reaction generally. I feel like superheros have got better things to do than actually attack them for it, exclude, sure, make nasty comments about, some people probably, but no ones gonna try and arrest them I dont think (definitely not pre-HOM 'maybe we should kill them' ideas). As Toby's said, Wanda's friends might be worried about her, especially those of them that dont like Pietro. But none of them are likely to accept it comfortably if she tells them she's happy. She might get quietly pushed out.

Now its different if the general public find out (who have less reason to already think it). That'll cause a lot of outrage, and the angry crowd will always be louder than the crowd that don't care. That demands a PR response and some of the other heroes would be obliged to either publicly denounce them, argue that its fine and there should be no legal consequences (unlikely), or argue that the evidence is fake.

Frankly Wanda and Pietro should probably be arguing that the evidence is fake. I imagine Wanda would just pretend nothings happened and try and go about her life. A lot of her social circle who were already doing the same about their suspicions might continue to. I can see a lot of the avengers doing that, especially if she's still working with them cuz she's a big asset as well as a friend. But the xmen and that lot, the periphery social circle, who like her less, are much more likely to take the opportunity to attack her.

Pietro doesnt have a lot of friends to lose. Or a lot of good public rep. I do think he'd tailor his general response to fit with Wanda's even if he wanted to tell everyone to go fuck themselves. I see Wanda wanting to keep out of the spotlight (this isnt a wrong of hers to earnestly take accountability for and make right, it's one of the most important things to her heart that people want to insult), and Pietro taking the spotlight for them if she thinks either of them should make a public statement. He'd get in a lot of scuffles about it, especially if people are saying unkind or crude things about Wanda to him to goad him about it. Magneto is more likely to be his problem, either gonna deny it or blame pietro but almost certainly deny especially publicly. Maybe hed try and set Wanda up with other people he approves of more like in ultimates lol.

Wanda wouldnt want to stop doing her helping people job even if the people were horrible. I cant see her running off with Pietro to live away from any hate really, even if he might prefer that. She'd rather negotiate (or magically influence) her way out of a prison sentence if anyone actually managed to bring a legal case against her and keep working even if that means alone now. Maybe move her official domicile to new jersey or rhode island or wherever cuz it wouldnt be a legal crime there even if everyone still hated it. She'd be sadder and lonelier but people leave her that way a lot and she keeps going.

The only thing that might get her really set against other people is if they start bullying her kids. They still have the shield of being magically created even though everyone's gonna be theorising they're Pietro's. (I can see Vision taking the opportunity to blame her and the kids being someone elses for their marriage problems which would add fuel to the fire.)

Billy would hold onto the magically created thing both as a public defence and internally cuz he would not want to think of himself as an incest baby, he might step away from Wanda for a bit to collect himself but he does idolise her. It would be good for him to get over that idolising and appreciate her more as a real person with human flaws and struggles and not his favourite celebrity, and maybe this situation would be a way for that to happen. Or maybe he'd get over the incest first and things would stay the same. Or maybe he'd so not get over it that he starts to feel negatively about her instead. I don't like that but it's possible for him. Especially if he's recieving negative attention, he doesnt handle that well, but also he's a baby god how many people want to test him.

Tommy would definitely fight people bad mouthing him mom in public. He's not worried about protecting his own reputation, he doesnt have a particularly good one and he sets himself against other people easily so what they think is worthless to him. I don't see him being bothered about Wanda and Pietro's relationship. Its more likely to drive him closer to his mom (and dad) because he's setting himself against the people who are against them. People giving him a hard time is nothing new, and he's gonna give worse back because he's vengeful like that, and he can blow things up. (Tbh I'd like Billy and Tommy to argue about it, that would be fun.)

Luna would be far less affected because she isnt their kid, just Pietro's. And she's more than used to people saying bad things about her dad. In-marriage doesn't seem to be taboo for Inhumans so thats not gonna bother her. Maybe the other kids at her school try and bully her about it, but she's more than capable of spilling all their secrets which might keep them in line, and as I said, it's not about her like it is her half-brothers. At the least though, it's another nail in the coffin for Pietro not getting custody if he tries to again.

[tojisun]

hihi, im a mootie (i think i am???? idk even what that word truly means but we talk!) and im too worried to message u this normally, so im sending it anonymously. this way, u dont have to feel obligated to respond at all. and if ud rather i not be personal/emotional/vent like this, lmk and ill stop!!

but i hate it here so much. i matched w this dude on hinge, and he asked me if one of my friends in a group photo i had was single. and like dude i initiated it too, like i liked his profile first, so im never doing that again. i always felt like the uglier friend in the group, so honestly this experience just confirmed that. this worsened my already crappy self-perception and -esteem.

but whatever! i have to force myself to realize that i have low chances of ever experiencing someone attracted to me and in love w me

ok bye i'm so sorry !!!

hi my love!! im so sorry for just seeing this now :((

nono, im open and super ok talking to u guys like this! im glad and thankful that u trust me w this, its just that im.. not as equipped to talk about this without rambling bc this is smthn i carry around too

im the fat friend. ive always been the fat friend. if its not my weight, just the fact that one of my exes even used me as a rebound bc he cant get w my friend just sucks yk?

and it took soooo much effort to learn to love myself—im not even done learning it tbh. i still dont have the self-esteem to feel like im treated right. but along the way, i just gave up thinking about how others perceive me as long as im doing things for myself

i wore clothes i enjoy, decided to try different makeup styles, cut my hair as short as i want even if my mom said itd make my face look bigger bc i always wanted short hair. and somehow just doing things for myself made me feel pretty. and i carried this elation, letting it triumph over ppl’s perception

but thats also bc im not looking for relationship. it was a different battle when i was. i felt like i was always coming short of the beauty standard, and some men in datings apps would really make you compete with ur friends

this thing that u experienced? happened to me too—me and my friend even matched w him at the same time by accident. when my friend wont reply to him asap, he came to me and asked abt her. i unmatched right away and even deleted my profile LMAO

but uhm. ig what i want to just say to u (like what i told myself) is: dont let HIM make you feel that you’re ugly, or even the uglier friend. he just sucks, i promise you this.

there are probably other men im sure who are swiping for u. but dont let their attention dictate how u feel about urself too bc everything, i think, should come from urself. as long as YOU feel right in your own skin, with your own clothes, then yea you are beautiful

im so sorry u felt this way and i hope no one ever feels this way bc god we are all beautiful. not for any other reasons, just that we are

[autisticempathydaemon]

Hiiii!!! this is for the match up thingy :3

im fixated on um. oh god. weight in gold - gallant, literally every hozier song ever and if im being honest - dodie. i really like the backing music and lyrics of all these songs and obviously i cant just choose one :3

ok i have no idea what this means but from highest? to lowest it’s apparently 6, 4, 3, 2, 8, 1, 5, 9 and 7

I ABSOLUTELY DO. i love learning so much,, i dont have a favourite but video games or historic events or horror are my favourite genre :3

i dont remember my childhood friends much but i conjured them up because everyone else had one and i felt left out. purely out of spite. but i loved them lots :3

ok. i sleep on my side with my leg out and switch between that and just on my stomach, suffocating in my pillow. and i never sleep in the silence. like i always have headphones on with music or asmr playing

i changed my name!!! i hated my birthname and the one i chose is much better. it also is the name of my sibling which i knew nothing about so i am basically a psychic

oh god. i reallt like gavins recent studying one annnnd ashers cookies one. and the damn bowling one. im gonna stop before i name 100 of them but i love them because they are so comforting and make me overflow in happiness :3 i love them

sam. sorry.. his videos r so boring to me BUT they make good sleep aids :3

princess and the frog, criminal minds and community. its a problem.

HUXLEY!!! oh my god i need to be his best friend and make him pottery SO bad. need to protect him with my life. oh my god. my beloved.

i talk a LOT about space and dinosaurs and the sea :3 i fucking love learning so i have a lot of lil facts from reading encyclopaedias and watching documentaries :3

oh god it changes every fucking time im in there but recently any flavoured milk and red doritos

amazing world of gumball. and uhh any other kids animation shows. reliving my childhood multiple years later smileyfaceemoji

other important stuff is probably my love language? main one is quality time and also gift giving in the sense that i WILL spend 17 hours straight on something if you merely mention it once. do not tempt me. i am the middle child of 5 but the eldest daughter and basically raised my younger siblings haha somoene help. um my MBTI is ISFP, ihave autism and adhd and have horribly high standards for myself!!! haha c: idk what else to say. i quite literallt am always chewing something and its either something that is definitely not edible and needs to be removed or strawberry gum. i also love fruit. so much. and lovingly bullying people is my love language. AND i apparently exude ‘ginger cat’ energy according to literally everyone i have the pleasure of knowing. so loved.

thank u so much for doing this, this was a mountain of an ask omgim sos sorry bff

You are such a dear- there was so much fun information in your ask for me to work with. Everything you gave me just makes me so sure and brings me such delight to talk about how perfect you would be with David!

One, ginger cat energy combined with big German shepherd energy? Cute as fuck, a match made in heaven. Two, an eldest daughter pairs perfectly with him and his only child/eldest brother in the pack vibes. It’s a lot of responsibility and obligation, I know from personal experience, and being able to chill out with that and just rely on him would be just what you need. Three, David is totally autistic, and we love an A4A couple.

Y’all would generally be just so cute and be exactly what you need in each other’s lives. Type Sixes are characterized as wanting security and support in their lives and relationships, and he heads a security companyyy (/j). Meanwhile you’d bring a joie de vivre and nurturing energy to his home and the pack that would be so appreciated. He’s not the only one who’d love to be around you; it’d be all the Shaws.

Song:

Feeling alive all over again/ As deep as the sky that's under my skin/ "Like being in love, " she says, "For the first time"/ Well, maybe I'm wrong, I'm feeling right/ Where I belong with you tonight/ Like being in love, to feel for the first time

My favorite David headcanon is that a lot of his music taste comes from rock/grunge music Gabe and Juliet (my hc name for his mom) used to play. That is exactly how I know this song, so I think it’s perfect for him. Plus, David seems like the type of guy where that first love is it. He imprints like a duck, mates for life like a penguin; he has you for his first and only love.

Runner-ups:

Vincent would be a cute runner up because he also has ginger cat energy once he dropped that flirty, Lestat-esque facade, so you’d make a fun, chaotic pair. Elliott, I like because I think you’d like a lot of the same things. He strikes me as the type of guy who would love a good Criminal Minds binge.

note: you’ve got great taste in movies and tv Community is one of my favorite shows 💕 also, thank you for being my fiftieth matchup 💌

Read this post and send me an ask if you’d like a match-up of your own! 💌

[basilhopewhumps]

hi i exist and have just made this lovely whump blog!!!!

what's up friends???? i have just decided to make a whump blog because i have been so into whump in the past few years while i've been on tumblr on another account and today i decided, fuck it, i wanna be part of the whump community on tumblr! it looks lovely! so here i thought i'd make an intro/master post with everything y'all need to know about me so i can find some friends!!! and i will add to this as needed so yall have information about me that is real and true lol

and i'm new here so please if you're an established member of the whump community and could point me to blogs you like to follow, thatd be swell!

basics:

my name is Basil! it is not my real name lol!

I use he/they pronouns though sometimes i think xe/xem/xyr would be cool so i wouldnt mind that either :]

i'm 18 years old!

i have a main blog so i'm familiar with tumblr but i'm not going to share that because i don't want this to have anything to do with that life! i will say though that i write fanfiction for a small fandom and that's how i got into whump because i write a lot of hurt/comfort :D know that the characters from that fandom are always a little bit in my head when i'm reading or writing whump <3333

whump likes/dislikes:

i like:

soft caretaking! soft! caretaking! so many like, hardcore whump things are fun for me as long as there's soft caretaking at the end. that's my endgame really. it's all about that hurt/comfort!! woo!!!!!!

sickfic!

touch starved whumpees. i live and die for that shit

panic attacks/anxiety attacks/general anxiety! as someone who suffers from anxiety myself i really enjoy reading about characters having anxiety and getting taken care of and soothed

sleep deprivation/insomnia/sleepy whumpees getting taken care of. i am known in my fandom life for writing sleepy fics all the time haha

nightmares

crying at all, really. i just. i like it when characters cry man

did i mention soft caretakers? thats important

i tend to pretty much write whumpee x caretaker romantically (in my fandom hurt/comfort fics it is usually one character in a ship hurt and the other comforting them) but i am also cool with platonic whumpee + caretaker relationships!

i could have a good time with pet whump i think???? i just, again, i want them to escape at the end and be taken care of by a caretaker who helps them ease into being their own person again

i don't like:

whump with no comfort/no caretaker/no happy ending/etc. all respect to it but it just makes me feel bad so- yeah i prob won't interact much with blogs who only post stuff like that!

any kinky whump. it just makes me feel super icky, please dont send me anything related to that. i don't mean i won't read/write/talk about anything nsfw in whump- i think the general rule is if whump is supposed to turn you, the reader, on then please count me out!! this is generally a sfw blog!

marvel whump or superheroes in general or hero/villain. anything of that sort

what i'm gonna do here:

if people send me requests for prompts/scenarios that i like i will happily oblige them!!!!!

may also just generally write some whumpy things

and mostly just reblogging whump posts that i like and seeing what's going on in this community! it's gonna be great guys i'm excited to be here :D

please send me any asks about anything at all times, or message me, whatever, always down to chat and befriend people <3333

[sanstropfremir]

more of a rant than a specific question but i saw a video i agree with on how 4th gen keep getting more specialised idols (who already have backgrounds in ballet, modelling, child acting, even former groups like izone and ioi) and less yknow,, actual well rounded idols who arent good in just one highly specific area and i know idols have almost always been middle class/rich kids (parents need so much money to send their kids for training like omfg) and now i feel like by the time 5gen officially rolls in, all idols will just be rich kids who dont even care about music (you can see it starting with 4gen, 1/2/3gen had a few but not on these scales) and i just feel like kpop is going to... break down tremendously, like there will still be loyal fans thanks to parasocial relationships but all the good work 3rd gens are doing by spreading kpop internationally is going to break when ppl see theres not a single bit of passion left and its going to be ridiculed the way it was back in 1/2gen...... theres literally no hope left now for 6gen groups to do well outside of korea and parasocial relationships

i mean, the system is already breaking down if this boys planet debacle is any indication, but i don't think its going to be that extreme. i know this is going to sound like a defense of rich people and it's not bc fuck them but there ARE people who are wealthy that care about and make art. that's literally how the art industry has worked via patronage for the last i dunno. several hundred years. possibly thousands depending on how you want to categorize patronage. yes we will see, especially in the larger companies, some people who make bad art and don't actually care, but that does not mean that the whole industry is going to the dogs. i wrote up that entire post about fifth gen specifically to say that you SHOULD be paying attention to the smaller groups!! that's where the people are that care about making interesting work are!!! my nugu recommendations post is my most popular one for a reason!!! also, maybe this is a hot take but. who cares if kpop gets big globally. literally who cares. they're korean artists, they should care about their domestic market. you absolutely would not say that a pop group from canada should be trying to break into the japanese market?????? so why are you expecting kpop groups to go the extra mile for people who don't speak their language?? is the work that groups do for their international fans appreciated? yes absolutely, i love how much more accessible everything is now, but by NO means are they obliged to do it. obviously i also like to see my faves successful, but it it's at the cost of their artistic integrity like it's been with some groups, or if it just doesn't work, then that's perfectly fine! if i could listen to shinee ripped shinee cds and illegally watch kdramas in 244p in 2008 then i can do it again. and honestly? kpop is not for everyone. the people who are interested in music and performance and who are down to be genuine or even just casual fans will find it, just like they have been for the last 15 years. the industry doesn't need to blow up and go global, it just needs to be successful and supported enough that everyone can get by. companies don't agree with that assessment bc capitalism, but you know that the upper level corporatism of the popular groups doesn't always filter down right? no matter how big the gap between the groups with money and the groups that don't gets, there will ALWAYS be people putting blood and sweat into making work because they want to, not for money. it just won't be 'popular culture' and that's fine.

[ikemenomegas]

jesus christ i just saw your latest jjk post and i am devastated <33 i feel like the alpha bursting into manic laughter rather than bursting into tears is a much more powerful imagery imo. Combined with your nightmare explanation, the combination of the alpha feeling bitter about the whole thing and then in the latest thing you posted, mentioned cliffs and why sorcerers dying young gives off such a raw feeling of hopelessness, despair and bitterness. The scene where the alpha starts laughing manically was giving when gojo confronted toji after toji thought he died. And that desperate moment where the alpha wants gojo to tell him if there was any hope left at all. I like that moment because its like the alpha wishing desperately for some assurance that things would be okay in the end even when its clearly looking that it wont. I wouldn't be surprised if the alpha starts slowly descending into madness like geto bc when the alpha got his bondmark removed, i got the vibe of the resentment starting to boil over. resentment towards whom? i dont think its all necessarily directed at gojo but rather at the situation. and the moment gojo steps out of that box, id imagine that his mate wasnt the same person he remembered, especially recalling the last lines in your nightmare post:

But what he doesn’t see, behind the mask Satoru wears and Shoko’s distance and Suguru’s death and your silence is that you all became monsters. Maybe Gojo Satoru chose to keep you close because for a while you were the only one left.

If the kids don’t come back, you think it might just be enough.

Gojo Satoru isn’t the only nightmare in the world after all.

The alpha's response to everything was always silence and the thought of them finally going apeshit and releasing all their pent up anger and feelings is something ill def think about everyday.

Thank you so much!! I cannot believe you put so much thought into this and that you actually went back and put in the quote! I really appreciate you saying that this stuff sticks with you. It sticks with me unless I get it on paper so now we all suffer together haha.

I'm really glad that what I was trying to put off came through. You're absolutely right that this alpha has spent a lot of time telling themselves that somehow "things are okay". They are starting to teeter over into that place that Geto ended up - where all of your sacrifices, all your pain, once meant something and now it doesn't mean anything. Sorcerer's aren't supposed to have "ideals" or lofty principles which they fight for.

If you've seen the "sorcerer rules" that gege wrote, it mostly boils down to: fight curses, don't tell normal humans that you're doing it, and listen to the jujutsu elders. We've seen before how the ones who do find a less selfish goal end up dying in ways that are terrible, often some way avoidable, and also directly related to their goal (the jujutsu code does not ask for lethal self sacrifice or suicide, but based on cultural context, would not be considered dishonorable. ie nanami could have turned around and gone for healing/help but he didn't and saved the students by sacrificing himself).

This oc has a lot more empathy than Satoru or Suguru - they can see why people make bad decisions, understand and even forgive them for it. They have the maturity to deal with people regardless if a bad decision is going to threaten the lives of the people they love or are obligated to protect. But apart from being more emotionally tuned in, they are very much like Suguru - including the part where they keep their silence until it just becomes too much, it doesn't mean anything anymore.

There are a lot of aspects of their relationship with Gojo that are just not tenable. They give him a lot of leeway because their relationship is built on contract, and because they do understand him somewhat. There are things they can't talk about, can't deal with, even though they have deep affection for one another, because of their job. And you're right, that's not Gojo's fault, but it also kind of is. The alpha doesn't want to pressure or rely on him like the rest of the world, but if you can't rely or lean on the other person in the relationship, then even if there's mutual understanding and even love, what does that mean when one of the people is left alone? The alpha may feel like they weren't relying on Gojo, but the truth is even his presence is stabilizing - in a mated pair, that bond is there even when you can't feel the other half and now it's gone. The alpha would love some honest reassurance or at least someone to tell them which way the world is going to tilt, because you're right they know they can survive without Gojo, but without the kids (and loving your kids is a very different relationship than loving your spouse) they don't know which way the world is tilting. I also never though gege would kill Tsumiki, but that's another raw wound there because she was never supposed to be involved in any of this. The panels imply that Gojo and Megumi canonically kept this from her and if she were herself she'd be mad about it (which I sort of break because alpha has a less obvious technique and has done things for Tsumiki before that technically show their powers).

To quote you: "Sorcerers dying young gives off such a raw feeling of hopelessness, despair and bitterness" precisely. I don't think anyone can look at a situation where children and teenagers and young adults experience more trauma and grief than most people encounter in their entire lifetimes and are not bitter that the people they love who experience this don't get to experience an equal amount of joy or love or appreciation or happiness before they perish.

This OC has a lot of tolerance. Their technique (like how most techniques relate to theme and personality) is partially centered around that. How much can you take before you break? For this oc, the answer is a lot more than most. I haven't written this part yet but they were injured in the Toji fight as well. They just weren't broken by it they way Gojo and Getou were. Riko's death hurt, sure, but they had failed before and knew what the sorcerer system did to show you that failure was possible way more intimately than the other two did. In this way, the OC and Shoko mirror one another.

This is the arm breaking moment, this is the week they start to crack, and the way their technique works is either they break or something else has to, because all that pain and pummeling has to go somewhere.

The fun part about this OC is they're Gojo's age-ish, so I get to do something shonen anime doesn't often get to, and show that adults still have growth and power-ups! If negative feelings are related to cursed energy etc and unlocking your own mental blocks in order to use it, well... depending on how things go in the manga there's some potential directions for oc to get some payback.

[eggs-can-draw]

komaeda anon: OKAY BEAR WITH ME ON THIS its gonna be a long one bc i just have. So Many thoughts of this but it might go all over the place

tw for the general topics relating to kork, incest, child abuse, hallucinations

for one. for one. None of the Tulpa shit. none of that, it's too closely tied or related to DID that we don't want the representation, not like this. instead, it really is a hallucination of a man whose only meaningful relationship and crutch got taken from and broke so he just started believing his sister is with him

TWO. 👏 Korekiyo 👏 was 👏 fucking 👏 manipulated 👏

his backstory just SCREAMS of isolation, being guilt tripped into sticking close out of filial obligation, that spiraled into something disgusting.

his sister right? hospitalized? no friends? idk what her deal is really, idc but she kept kork close, made him a uniform tailored to him (dressing him up the way she likes) and kork is therefore feeling indebted to his older sister for all that she's done for him, even supporting him in his passion for anthropology

he was most likely gaslit, in denial over what's happening, because that's his sister and kork was probably avoided too for his mannerisms so he himself didnt have someone he can trust to tell him something was wrong.

its those kinds of they care for each other but even then, sometimes even if you care about them, that doesn't mean they're good for you, sort of way?

THREE. i dont think kork became a serial killer out of choice but more of, the seed was planted into his head. his sister probably talked about wanting to be with other pretty girls, wishing so much for it, probably even mentioning violence considering it was clear she's staying there long term

kork, whose getting into anthropology, shared it with his sister and somehow, they ended up reaching the topic of diff culture's afterlife, just a few flippant comics of, "ah, if there was an afterlife, maybe ill have friends there."

and it just. bloomed, along with the hallucination that kork forms because he's alone now, traveling alone, always staying too short to make any deep connections that he inevitably breaks because of lack of support system.

FOUR. the incest thing, yeah i scrapped that whole thing, kork loved his sister but not in that way, i like to think he meant he loved his sister as in to the point where he'd kill for her, something society wouldn't agree with but not bc their relationship was like that OTL i dont know, it just felt like, an added point to make it more horrifying? it doesn't add much to the story so i won't be putting it in mine

Thanks dude, you really fixed just about everything they did wrong while still keeping the parts that dont make me want to throw my laptop into the ocean (as for my au, I'm just saying that all of the sister and incest stuff was fabricated memories added to keep the game more interesting)

[seanleannan]

Some thoughts I had yesterday while seventeen women from my extended family were at my house for tea

For context, apart from my immediate family (parents and three siblings), only three of my cousins and one aunt know that I'm a lesbian, only my three siblings know I'm asexual, and only two of my siblings know that I don't fully identify as a woman anymore.

For the first time in my life, I am fully and completely okay with a) not being in a relationship and b) knowing that I don't need to have a romantic connection with someone to feel fulfillment in my life (this is a very nice feeling). Since I figured out my asexuality (largely in part to reading AFTG at the start of this year), I had brief feelings of grief and loss over the life I had always assumed I would grow up to have (the life I was conditioned to have I suppose), like the white-picket-fence-husband-and-kids kind of thing. And I had a lot of internalised homophobia (shout out to Catholic guilt) that I spent a really long time working through only to then be faced with being asexual. My attitudes to sex before realising I was asexual was sort of "I guess I'll have sex eventually and I probably won't like it, the idea of it scares me but everyone does it so I'll just do it at some point and get it over with" (not a healthy perspective). Also, so many of my peers were having sex and talking about it constantly to the point where I really internalised that having a romantic connection with someone meant you HAD to have sex with them (sex just became equal to love in a way), so I began to dread any time I would try dating because I had this existential fear that at some point, I was going to have to have sex. And then I had the realisation that, oh wait, I actually DONT. And that was fucking amazing lol, my asexuality wasn't hard for me to accept, but I didn't tell many people because I think the majority of people don't really understand it. Plus, I'm still in the process of figuring out what it actually means for me.

Anyway, I was talking to my cousin about relationships and I mentioned that I'm no longer dead-set on finding a romantic relationship because I've found enough fulfillment with the love I have for my family and friends (if it happens, it happens, but I'm just nof actively looking for it). Then I mentioned that I don't want to have kids anymore, and she was so shocked, mainly because growing up, I'd always said I wanted to be a mum. But anyway, other people joined the conversation, and it all boiled down to the fact that everyone assumes I'm going to change my mind again and decide I want kids. Which is so frustrating because there's so much more to it than me just saying I don't want kids, but I didn't want to out myself in front of everyone so I just had to laugh it off. All of the arguments were "Oh, but you love kids, you're so good with kids," which, yes. I love kids, and I am good with kids, but that doesn't mean I'm automatically obligated to procreate. Also, the thought of being pregnant is incredibly dysphoric, and I hate the idea of my body being inhabited and relied upon by something that isn't me.

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that making choices regarding relationships, marriage and children that aren't considered conventional wherever you live is such a difficult and exhausting thing to do, but at the end of the day, I'd much rather regret NOT having kids than having kids.

[prime-adeptus]

initially I was gonna send this in an ask bc I didn’t want you to feel pressured to reply but. I ….ran out of space….so here I am AFHJSJFHDS

AGAIN You’re not obligated to reply, I just want to give praise where it’s due!!! THIS IS JUST ME LIVE REACTING ….. I HAVE MUCH 2 SAY

TLDR I REALLY LIKED IT I THINK THIS IS A AMAZING START AND I’M EXCITED TO SEE WHAT ELSE YOU’LL DO

ok so I'm not really an Aventurine girlie so I went into your fic completely blind (Half. I did read the warnings bc I care!!!!) I also do not know a damn thing about omegaverse so I’m in a permanent state of the confused math lady gif BUT WE BALL!!!!

Right out the gate you’ve already set the tone for the story to be one that is for sure going to be emotional, heavy on the heart, but as I’m reading II think the way you write is so beautiful, it’s so immersive. The relationship between Aventurine and MC tugs at my heartstrings and when I think how the past they share is also what binds them together I feel like I shld be telling my psychiatrist ur name (/j)

There’s a lot I don’t understand, a lot I’ve missed from the lore (bc yk. I Forgor) and I know you always say how much you love Aventurine, and that is increasingly clear with how you write him. You write Aventurine like he’s your muse, the star in your universe, and it brings forth a rush in me when I see how much love you have for him and how much love you put into the fic

I can see Aventurine in perspectives I haven’t seen before, think of him in a different light when I see how you pick him apart and put him back together

(also I was mad frustrated on MC’s behalf at the scene where they’re talking abt the IPC & its suicide mission and how Aventurine is deflecting HSJFSDFD it’s like;; it makes me want to yell at him, but at the same time I understand him, I understand this barrier he’s put up for himself, so I’m just watching from the sidelines w my fist in my mouth bc I’m in shambles

and ok oh boy here comes the heat. I am Clueless Overlord I dont know what happens during a heat and idk what it is but Aventurine letting his guard down for a split second then immediately feeling the need to withdraw from the world, like it’s by instinct, is actually really relatable and it makes me want to punch drywall (/pos) bc I know how frustrating it is when you try to love someone but they just won’t let you

Docking points off of u for inflicting an ungodly amount of emotional damage but also I mean that in a complimentary way. You understand him so intimately and how you write sentiment and vulnerability leaves me awestruck (I was gonna say at a loss for words but I’m literally writing you a whole essay) it’s just. Idk how to describe it

I liked how you handle the heavier topics, I understand those aren’t always easy to write and think about for a long time so I hope u are taking care of urself (and ur mental) bc if not I’m afraid I’m gonna send Yanqing to ruin all your 50/50s

I just really loved it, even without general understanding of the AU it’s a really good story. I’m telling my psychiatrist about you. AND AVENTURINE. BOTH OF U. i’ll cover the bills but she WILL know you by name!!!!

NIGHT FLOWER: part i

Your place in the world was one of a tool. This was true of every slave: you were all things to be used. Kakavasha understood this about you, and he understood this about himself. It was how he survived all those years ago, and it’s how he survives now. And so, when Aventurine goes into his first heat in years and decides to suffer it alone, you can only think of one way to get him to accept your help: You offer to let him use you.

written for @/lorelune's spring fever collab & @ficsforgaza

13.5k words of omegaverse, mutual pining, hurt/comfort, angst with an eventual happy ending. gn alpha reader + omega aventurine (they each have both amab and afab genitalia). explicit piv sex, reader bottoms, the sex is consensual but emotionally complicated and deeply sad. cw slavery, racism, gendered violence, including very brief and non-graphic (but direct) references to sexual abuse during slavery. the sa and slavery are not eroticized. dead dove do not eat, mdni.

thank you to @acerathia, @minnaci, @owlespresso for all your help with beta reading and to @kosmiccarma for brainstorming omega aventurine hcs!

“I’ve alw███ l█ved ███, Ka██v█s███”

You knew it from the moment you met him.

Gaunt, pallid, weighed down by heavy chains. Irises that glowed like the auroras back in your world. Delicate features that made every passerby in the market stop to read the description on the placard. (Sigonian, it said, although you couldn’t read at the time. Avgin. Male. Omega. Sixteen years old. Sixty Tanba, no tax.) He had an all-consuming scent that was impossible to ignore—one that possessed you, made your heels dig into the dirt, every atom in your body resisting the impatient jerk of the chains at your wrist. Even through your muzzle, through the perpetual stench of carbon-steel and blood, you could smell it: honey and wildflowers. A fragrance that settled deep within you, flooded you with a warmth that felt like home.

Aventurine is not a spiritual person. He once told you this, his smile cold in the glow of an artificial moon. He'd been deeply religious as a child, but hasn’t since cared for fairy tales about fortune and fate, three-eyed goddesses or merciful rainfalls. Hasn't thought about anything like a destined love. He thinks the idea of a true mate is laughable, that no such bond could ever be forged between an omega and an alpha. That nothing so unconditional could ever exist.

You know differently, of course. You've known it from the moment you met him, from the second you laid eyes on him and thought, I need to help you, and I need to protect you, and I need you to be safe, and you’d never once heard the word ‘love’ in your life—slaves are never loved by their masters, after all, and you'd always been nothing but a slave—but every atom of your being knew that you loved him, that you'd always love him.

And when your master cradled your face that night and crooned that he owned you, that you'd always be his obedient, alpha pet—for the first time in your life, you knew that he was wrong.

You didn't belong to your slaver.

You belonged to him.

To Kakavasha.

These days, Aventurine does not smell like honey, and your jaw is not restrained.

Your muzzle was one of the first things that Aventurine threw away when he bought your freedom. According to the Amber Era system, it had been several months since the murder of your shared master. Ninety-five Star Calendar days after the Interastral Peace Corps had arrested Kakavasha. An entire rotation around the black hole at the centre of your wretched galaxy, all of which had been spent in the captivity of some new mistress. She picked you out because she liked your calming scent and the look of your face, but mostly she used you for the fighting pits just like your old master.

Aventurine had been sitting in the audience of your final match, then bought you out right after you won. “I’m in need of a fighter,” he’d said, smiling in his thick furs and jewels. He played the part of a slavemaster perfectly, his gloved hands wandering the span of your aching shoulders, touching the bloodied maw of your mask. “And I’d be willing to pay top credit for yours.”

She protested. You were her most prized possession, one of her greatest investments. Slaves from your planet were hard enough to come by—alphas capable of reproduction, nearly impossible. And you were so well-behaved, so poised, so endearing in a way that was rare for alphas. She was fond of you. Her omega slaves were fond of you too. They would be distraught if you left, and that would complicate her household affairs—and surely Aventurine, as a respectable owner of human capital like herself, could understand how inconvenient that would be?

Aventurine bared his teeth in a gracious smile. (You’d never seen Kakavasha make such an expression before—so disarming, so cunning, a crescent moon beneath snake eyes. He’d never smelt like this either, like an expensive cologne layered with bleach, and it left you feeling nauseous, wondering if he was ill.) He flirted his way into her good graces, made her an offer she couldn’t refuse, and then he brought you into the first-class ship on which he’d arrived. You were so stunned by its luxury—the handwoven carpets, the crushed velvet seats, the imported tea from several galaxies away and the custom-ordered outfit he had bought for you—that you nearly missed the tremble in his hands as he punched numbers into the remote control lock for your chains.

He had regained his composure by the time he pulled away your muzzle, though. He threw it carelessly to the ground—your titanium chains, too. Then kicked both away with his shined leather shoes.

“There,” Aventurine said, smiling cheerfully. “Much better, don’t you think?”

“Vasha—” you started, voice thick with wasted grief, and all you wanted to was reach for him, to double check that he was real, but he placed a finger to your lips and stopped you. You stiffened at the satin touch, but he seemed unbothered.

“‘Aventurine’,” he corrected.

You stared blankly. “What?”

“‘Aventurine’. Like the gemstone. That’s my name now.”

“You—” Your voice caught in your throat. You realized that you’d been holding your breath. You always had the habit of holding your breath in the luxurious, private rooms of very rich men, because you never liked what happened in them. Forcing yourself to breathe, you asked, “You gave yourself a new name?”

“No. The IPC gave me a new name. They gave me a job, too.”

“A job?” you asked, voice faint. Now that you were breathing again, you were noticing once more just how bizarre he smelled. Sterile and expensive and completely foreign. “You’re free now?”

“Well, I’m a freedman, but I don’t know if I’d call myself free. I’m a bit… indebted to the IPC, let’s say. But that’s fine. I can’t complain. I mean—look around. This beats the fighting pits, doesn’t it?” He gestured lazily at your surroundings, and you nodded.

“It’s nice here,” you replied, feeling absurd but not knowing what else to say. Once Kakavasha got talking, it was impossible to get a word in edgewise.

“You like it here? Good. This room’s yours. Mine is the next one over. You’ll live and work here, with me. I’ll make sure you’re paid well. Full benefits, vacation, salary, and overtime. The standard pay for your role is seventy-thousand credits per month, but I’ll see if I can get you more. HR is pretty strict about their hiring policies, but—”

“You’re hiring me?”

Aventurine went very still, his smile tightly controlled. His eyes remained fixed on you, but they seemed less snake-like, now. They looked more familiar. More afraid.

“I’m offering, yes,” he said neatly. “You’ll be part of my personal security detail. I don’t have the contract for you to review yet, unfortunately. I didn’t arrange one ahead of time because, well”—he laughed, as if this were polite conversation and he were making a joke about the weather—“I didn’t know if I’d find you alive. But things worked out in my favour. They always work out in my favour. I’ll make sure they’ll work out in your favour too, so long as you’re with me. So you’ll consider it, won’t you? Staying with—working for me, I mean.”

Your eyes went soft. Beneath the artificial fragrance, you finally caught a hint of his familiar scent—more wildflower than honey at that moment, the way it always is when he’s scared.

“Kakavasha—”

“Name your price,” he said loudly, “and I’ll match it.”

You sighed. “Vasha,” you said more gently, and his shoulders relaxed at the subvocal shift in your timbre, at the famed alpha Voice that necessitated your muzzle, “I don’t care about the money. Of course I’ll stay here. But—what happened? Why did you kill him yourself? Why didn't you let me do it? That was the plan. It was always supposed to be me.”

It was my job, you thought then, just as you had thought to yourself every night, curled up in your bed and trying to recall the scent of fresh honey, to keep you safe.

He shrugged and said, “It would have been too risky to involve you.”

“You were caught and sentenced to death. The risk was already too high.”

“But the stakes weren’t,” he replied simply, and before you could ask what he meant by that, he continued, “and it worked out, didn’t it? I work for the IPC. You work for me. We’re freedmen now. Whatever I've lost, it doesn't matter. Our gains far outweigh it.”

“And what have you lost, Vasha?”

He smiled at you, charming and distracting. A crescent moon beneath snake eyes. “Nothing of value,” he reassured you, and even though you could feel the calm of an omega’s voice washing over you, even though it released all the tension in your body, all you could smell was cologne and wildflowers, and you knew that he was lying.

Vasha once told you, curled up and quiet on the basement floor, that he despised his eyes. They were supposed to be a sign of blessing from Gaiathra Triclops, but they'd never brought him anything but trouble. They were the first thing that the slavers always noticed about him, the feature that made him such an alluring commodity. Their aurora glow, their strange beauty, their promise of a rare opportunity: a chance at owning a specimen of an exotic, endangered species, possibly the last of its kind. These are all things that you've heard in the parlour of your master’s house as he entertained rich company, the crowd of them gawking at his human curios.

Avgin are said to make the most beautiful slaves, he'd often say. And Avgin omegas are said to be the most beautiful among them. What do you all think? They'd all hum, peering closely at Kakavasha’s features, and inevitably someone would joke, I think I'd like to borrow him sometime, and then they would all laugh while your pulse ticked up and you imagined tearing at their throats. Vasha would search for your gaze in these moments, giving you a long, pointed look: Don't do anything stupid.

He’d always been so blasé about it, the way people fixated on his Avgin blood. You'll never understand how. He didn't react to any of the comments, the groping, the innuendos. He was, however, distinctly unimpressed at the way that your master liked to play him up as a rare and expensive acquisition, as a sign of his own status. It's embarrassing to watch, Kakavasha had remarked. Everyone knows that Sigonian slaves are uncommon but cheap—people always think we’ll bring them more trouble than our worth. This was how Kakavasha had ended up in the market in the first place: because his last master had been robbed, and he'd been wrongly blamed for it.

The blame, to this day, has never stopped. People—powerful people, politicians, businessmen, socialites—look at Aventurine’s eyes and immediately reach for their pockets. You've seen it for yourself, these spineless despots and scammers feeling for their wallets. Sigonian, you know they're thinking. Liar, cheat, thief, whore, worthless, worthless, worthless. Your hands tighten around your blade each time, a loaded gun with a finger on the trigger.

Alphas are said to be violent by nature. Aventurine has often called you the one exception to this rule: the most docile, good-hearted alpha he's ever met. But this is a lie. You do have a predator instinct, and it comes out in full-force whenever you’re around these particular types of men. These types who notice Aventurine’s eyes and see a thief; these monsters who see his irises and imagine what it would be like to bed him. You’d kill them if you could. It would be so easy, especially now that you are an IPC dog. The Company is already such a violent force; what would be one more murder?

But Aventurine has never ordered you to punish anyone. (Don't do anything stupid, he always tells you with a glance, smiling through every humiliation.) Nor has he ever seemed bothered enough by these meetings to try concealing his heritage.

A fellow Asset Liquidation Specialist once asked why he didn't just hide his eye colour—it would likely be better for fostering relationships, negotiating deals—but Aventurine had shrugged it off. I'm a gambler working with the IPC, he'd said. Do you really think a pair of coloured contacts would make anyone trust me? He'd laughed, and his voice had carried a threatening edge, and his coworker had shifted visibly at it. Being an Avgin is the least threatening thing about me, wouldn't you say?

You think that Aventurine likes being seen as a threat. Sometimes you wonder if this is why he doesn't mind wearing his eyes so much, but abhors keeping his scent. He washes his clothes until they're free of his disarming sweetness and then masks himself with an unsettling blend of ambergris, jasmine, and wood. And he is on suppressants all the time—hasn’t had a single heat since the day he killed his master. Hasn't smelled like himself, either.

At the end of the day, it’s manageable being an Avgin in this business, he often comments, spraying half a bottle of masking cologne on himself, but you can't be an Avgin and an omega. Wouldn’t you agree?

You'd know better than me, you reply, noncommittally—and truthfully.

But you're an alpha, he observes. Don't you have an opinion?

You don't pay me to have opinions, you always remind him, stone-faced. You pay me to stand here and look scary. And Aventurine always laughs at this, and he always wires you money and calls it a bonus as he pesters you for an answer, and he always gets distracted and starts scrolling through all his shopping wishlists instead. I saw this thing the other day and thought of you. And this too. Would you like either of them? Would you like them both? I’m a very generous manager, you know. I'll buy you anything you like.

But even though he always gets distracted, Aventurine never forgets. Sooner or later, he inevitably circles back to these questions—these anxieties about his scent, about his eyes, about his blood. He never cares for anyone else’s opinions, but he's always been curious about yours. Even when he was Vasha, he wanted to know what you thought.

He’d been sixteen years old and delirious with heat the first time he asked you, face wrinkling with pain as he spilled his thoughts. It was so incoherent, so sad, you thought it must have been about a fever dream. Mama Fenge, he kept saying. Mama Fenge blessed me, She blessed me, I'm blessed, it rained when I was born—did you know that? My luck, I was lucky. The Katicans, they never caught me. They got everyone else, but not me. I was blessed by Her. I'm going to save my people. I will. I'll save my sister. My eyes are proof. My mistress liked them. Said they're beautiful. Worth sixty whole coppers. A blessing. He pulled you close, pressed his scalding face to your scent gland, and his whole body shuddered with relief. This was the first and only time he'd allowed you to hold him, and it was only out of desperation, out of his mind. Do you like them, alpha? Do you like my eyes? Why? Is it because they're beautiful? Because they're from Gaiathra?

“I like them because they're yours,” you'd replied, and Kakavasha had laughed deliriously.

This is when he told you he hated them: I'd close them forever, if I could.

When you were younger—dumber—you had a habit of squirrelling away every spare coin you came across. You collected them in a little purse that one of the omega slaves had sewn for you—a thank-you for always keeping the other alphas away from her—and you hid it underneath a loose floorboard. By the time that Kakavasha was arrested, you'd saved up twenty-nine Tanba. You’d wanted enough to buy Kakavasha’s freedom and then to set him up for a comfortable life.

It had been a stupid plan. An embarrassing one. If you ever confessed it to Aventurine, he'd laugh at you. Slaves can't buy other slaves, he'd say. Leave the schemes to me next time. You’re too good-hearted for it.

You’d already known that, of course. You knew that you didn't have the status to buy him or mate him or even just provide for him, but you wanted to. God, did you want to—you spent every waking moment thinking about it, every sleeping moment dreaming of it. It wasn't even that you desired him, though he was beautiful and fragrant and more delicate than anything that had ever touched you in your life, which was only your master’s hands and your muzzle and your chains. Aventurine would feel so soft in comparison, you’d always figured. It made your heart ache, thinking about getting to hold something so lovely.

But really—that desire came second. What came first was how mated omegas feel safe around their alphas, and you so desperately wanted him to be safe. Kakavasha had looked so frail, so grim, as your master took his chains and led him home from the market, and you could smell the fear coming off him in waves. And you could do nothing to stop it. You had nothing you could use to stop it—nothing other than your hands that could kill for him and your pheromones that could soothe him and your useless heart that wanted to collect sixty Tanba for him. That was all you had.

So you failed in the end. Of course you did. You didn't have the status to buy him or mate him or even just provide for him. You couldn't even do for him the one thing you could have done—which was to kill. And Kakavasha suffered for your incompetence. He had to dirty his hands with blood and gamble his way into wealth and then suddenly he was freeing you, not the other way around.

And now you are comfortable. You'll lead an easy life from now, Aventurine reassured you when he brought you onto his ship all those years ago, and he's kept that promise. What about you? you'd asked him then. Will you lead an easy life with me, if you're working for the IPC? And he had smiled and lied to you: Yes.

It had been a painfully obvious lie. If you were a smarter person, you'd have never believed it in the first place. Aventurine has no interest in leading an easy life, because an easy life would be less profitable, and less profit would mean less safety. And he is always, always worried about being unsafe. It is indiscernible to everyone but you—an alpha (his alpha, always his, even if he doesn't want you) who has watched over him for so long that you can detect every shift in his scent. No matter how much cologne he drowns himself in and no matter how strong his suppressants are, you know when he is afraid.

And here is the bitter truth, the ultimate proof of your shortcomings:

Aventurine is always afraid.

It is a beautiful day on Agnisahr, and you can tell that Aventurine is about to throw up from worry.

You're sitting in the middle of stunning wealth—Aventurine in his feathers and jewellery, you in your tailored jacket—in a lobby made from marble and pale sandstone, with a view of palm trees and rolling, scarlet sand dunes beyond the window. The waitstaff addresses him as Honoured Guest and they keep his crystal chalice filled constantly with water—one of the most expensive commodities on the planet. Aventurine has been drinking from it religiously, which is strange as he typically has the habit of forgetting to hydrate. A faint wildflower scent is drifting from his slender form. These are the only giveaway to his mood: he's otherwise as pokerfaced as ever, smiling calmly as he discusses his plans to sabotage the local government and acquire the planet for the IPC.

“This is a very dangerous mission,” you state flatly.

“All my missions are dangerous.” He takes a sip, one pinky up. “The IPC pays me well for a reason. As they say—”

“‘High risk, high reward.’ I know.” You try not to sound bitter, though you allow yourself to sound tired. “I still do not think the risk is worth the reward in this case.”

“I think over 5.6 million in credits is a great reward, actually. We could do a lot with that kind of money.”

You raise a brow. “What could an extra 5.6 million get you that you can't already buy?” It is—as Topaz would say—‘chump change’ in comparison to his current wealth, which sums to a number so vast that you can't wrap your head around it.

Aventurine pretends to miss the point. “Tons! We could buy a new spacecraft. Get another mansion. Or—we could take a vacation to Penacony. I hear it's quite nice there.” A playful smile. “I could get us a penthouse unit. With a featherbed.”

You frown. Sometimes Aventurine likes to flirt when you're being stubborn—not out of interest, but as a ploy to distract you. He’d developed the habit after he joined the IPC. It used to fluster you, but now it only makes you cross your arms.

“You could die,” you point out.

“You'll protect me.”

“No, I won't. You always find a way to get rid of me when things are most dangerous.” You give him an accusatory stare. “You never let me do my job.”

He's too shameless to deny it. “And it's worked out fine, hasn't it? I haven't died so far.”

“Yes. Just by dumb luck.”

“I beg to differ. My luck is quite reliable.” He sets down his glass. Glances back outside. A microexpression, brows knotting for the briefest second as he studies the sky. “I'm not worried.”

“You're a shit liar.”

That gets him to look at you, letting a small frown pass over his face. “No, I'm actually a great liar. You're just too good at reading me. It's very inconvenient, you know.”

“I can't help it.” You lean toward him, making a show of it as you sniff. An orchid-like scent—faint but unmistakable—has seeped into artificial ambergris and wood. “It's hard to ignore.”

He hums. He isn't frowning anymore—but doesn't look happy, either. “I should change suppressants.” He taps the side of his empty glass, fidgeting. Aventurine never fidgets: it's an amateur giveaway. “These ones clearly don't work well enough.”

“That won't help. I know you too well.” Your eyes soften. He's looking outside again, the blues of his irises distant. “You're worried, Aventurine. More than usual. Let’s back out of this—let Jade handle it.”

“The mission isn't what's bothering me,” he says patiently. “I just don't like this planet.”

“Because you can tell it's dangerous.”

“No. Well—it is, but nothing I can't handle.” He leans back. “I just dislike the weather here.”

You arch a brow. “...the weather?”

“Yes,” he says neatly, “it's too dry here. I'll break out.”

You open your mouth. Close it. It is possibly the most absurd thing you've ever heard, and certainly the worst lie that's ever come from him. For as long as you've known him, Aventurine has had flawless skin, marble-smooth, and ever since being freed, he’s never really cared much for looking handsome so much as looking rich. But he maintains his serious expression: all-in on the farce. “Did you know that outside the capital, this planet hasn't had any natural rain in a quarter of an Amber Era? And the stellar winds are terrible. I don't know how people live on a planet like this.” His eyes narrow at the cloudless sky. “The IPC is going to need to do a lot of terraforming if they want to make this into a merchant hub.”

“Aventurine.”

“It'll be a pain crossing the desert—the elements will ruin my clothes, you know,” he continues. “It won't be so bad while we're on the ships, but we’ve got to go outside from time to time. Can't make any friends otherwise.”

“Aventurine.”

“And there's nothing to do for fun when we’re not working.” He sighs dramatically. “I can't wait to get our 5.6 billion and leave for someplace else. I'm being serious about Penacony, by the way—”

“Aventurine.”

“—though not about the featherbed. I'll get you your own room, obviously. And I'll buy whatever dream experience you’d like. What kind would you want?”

Finally allowed a chance to speak, you say, “One where you retire.”

“Retire? Why would I ever do that?”

“I don't know. Maybe you decide you've made enough money.”

“No such thing.”

“Then you can settle down with someone.”

That makes him smile. It feels mocking. “Me? Settling down? With who?”

“Who knows. Someone who will treat you better than the IPC, I hope.”

“Anyone that nice would run in the other direction. But never mind me. This would be your dream experience. What happens to you in it?”

“I stop chasing after you and get to live out the rest of my days in peace,” you say dryly, and Aventurine blinks. “Please stop deflecting. The IPC gave you a suicide mission. We will both die if we stay here.”

He looks serious now. “I wouldn't let you die.”

“You can't know that.”

“Well, I do. And I've got decent chances at surviving too—at least one in ten.”

You feel like sighing—a deep, aggravated noise is heavy in your throat—but Aventurine doesn't enjoy it when you show anger around him. It's the one omega instinct that he can't ignore, you suppose: unease around an aggressive alpha. Voice tightly controlled, you say, “You’re going to bet your life on one in ten?”

  “Sure. My chances were worse on the last planet, and things worked out great. It'll be the same on Agnisahr.” Aventurine raises a hand, calls for the bill. The conversation is over. You lean back in your seat, watching sourly as he pays tens of thousands of credits just for water.

“You know, they say the royal family is backed by an Aeon,” you can't help but point out, once the waiter is gone. A last-ditch effort. Aventurine smiles at it, amused. Like you're a child.

“So what?” He glances outside, at the desolate landscape beyond the oasis—nothing but red sand, a blue, rainless sky, and two radiant suns shining above it all. “The protection of a god is nothing compared to the schemes of human beings. And gods abandon their people all the time, anyway.”

During your tenth day on Agnisahr, you realise that something is deeply wrong.

It takes you some time to understand what’s happening. At first you think that whatever political danger you’ve intuited is much worse than you thought, and that’s why Aventurine has been so pale, so discomforted, so exhausted. Then his scent starts changing—he switches clothes two, three times a day (because of all this heat during Agnisahran days, he tells his new business associates) and spritzes his nape with his cologne almost religiously—and you wonder if he is sick with something. If the food in this planet has something that disagrees with his Sigonian biology, or if he has picked up one of the local filoviruses, or if someone’s poisoned one of his meals because they’ve correctly identified him as a threat. Aventurine dismisses every single one of these theories when you bring it up, and—as if in denial—only attributes it to the weather. (I’ve never done well in deserts, he tells you, his eyes on his phone screen. I'm not used to them. It is above 300 Kelvin, and you do not see a single bead of sweat on his neck, and his cheeks are not even a little flushed.)

You only figure it out when he is too ill to get out of bed one morning and forbids all the IPC staff from coming near his hotel room. It sets off alarms immediately—Aventurine, no matter how sick, will work and see through meetings as long as he is mentally capable of it—and so you naturally ignore his orders and check on him, using the spare key to his sleeping quarters that you're given as a policy. And as soon as the door cracks open—as soon as you step inside only to be hit with a violent, cloying sweetness—you realise what’s happening and slam the door shut behind you.

“You’re in heat,” you blurt out, and Aventurine—a shivering, panting mess on the bed—groans in response.

“Why are you here?” He turns toward you, still lucid enough to glare at you through the tangled mess of his hair. His voice is weak, but no less self-possessed: “I was very clear—no company today.”

“I am your personal bodyguard,” you remind him mildly. Your voice is calm—both non-threatening and non-condescending. “Those orders don’t apply to me. If things feel suspicious, I look into it. And they felt very suspicious.” Your brow knits as you study his clothes. Mulberry silk clings to his form, soaked through with sweat. Thin, eucalyptus sheets are tangled up around him. There are only two pillows. No water bottles. No knotting toys.

Nothing.

“You didn't know you'd be in heat,” you realise. “What happened to your suppressants?”

“I don't know.” There’s a quiet, frustrated edge to his voice. Vulnerable too. It makes you think of when you were both still slaves, and Aventurine was confined to the basement of the manor—the one that all omega slaves were made to ride out their heats in. Either they would do it alone or were ordered to spend it with some alpha, usually either a friend of the master or an alpha slave he wished to reward. That's when they're most pliable, he'd tell his guests, or sometimes even you. They get so desperate they'll present themselves to anyone. Then amused laughter from the other party—How obscene!—as you looked away, blood hammering in your ears.

You had been your master’s favourite. His most obedient, most profitable pet—striking enough for his guests to admire, deadly enough for his audiences to bet on, docile enough for him to enjoy. Good enough for him to reward, and he often rewarded you with his most beautiful slave: his Avgin omega. Just don't mark him, he’d said, fastening the muzzle around your mouth. It'll ruin his market value. Who knows if someday he'd sell Kakavasha off to some alpha master who wished to claim him, he said. Though I don't think there's anyone in this star system who'd want a Sigonian for a mate, let alone a Sigonian slave. Then he’d paused, eyes scanning over you. As if contemplating. But maybe they'd try to get Avgin whelps out of him, he added, and you felt like throwing up.

You'd never mate him in those moments, your muzzle always prevented you from saying. You didn't even want to think about touching him, and he didn't want to think about it either. Even in the cruel grip of his heats, with nothing but the thin mat beneath him and his slave’s rags around him, Kakavasha hadn't wanted any kind of contact from you, rejecting any chance of solace. Don't, don't—not again, not again, he'd begged. Then as the nights marched on and his mind grew hazier, he’d start whimpering too: It hurts, alpha. It hurts. Help me. It hurts. Don't touch me. Not again. It hurts. It hurts. Stop it, please stop it.

It gutted you.

It went against every instinct, not to touch him. To let him lie there, in scorching, lonely pain, when all you wanted to do was to dispel it. It would be so easy to press yourself against him and let his skin cool against yours, do the one thing that your body was good at other than killing. But not again, not again, I can't anymore, I don't want it, I never wanted it, and all you could do was sit there, unmoving. Watch as the most delicate, precious thing you had in your life shatter.

And standing here now, watching Aventurine shatter before you once more—it is unbearable. He needs a nest, you keep thinking. He needs a nest and some water and some kind of touch, some kind of relief, but not again, not again, and you’re still a slave, still a worthless and stupid slave, and Kakavasha is still crying on a basement floor and you can't do anything for him.

“You need help, Aventurine,” you say, voice soft, and his whole body tenses. His scent dips, and the scent of florals overwhelms you.

“No,” he breathes, “I don't.”

“You do. You're sick.” You bite your lip. Your heart splits as you suggest it, but you say, “I can call a professional.”

“No,” he spits. The facade is gone. The poker face has cracked. The anger and the pain and the fear are all on full display, and his voice sharpens: “No strangers.”

No foreign scents, you realise he's demanding. A new scent would probably make him feel unsafe.

Then let me help you, you think of pleading, but not again, not again, and you're filled with so much shame at the thought that all you can do is look away.

“Then—can I do anything?” He goes still. “Not—not that, but something to make you more comfortable. I can build you a nest, at least—”

“No.” He takes a deep, shaking breath. “No nests. I don't need one—”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don't,” he says. His voice is wavering now, on the verge of crumbling with fever and pain. “I've never—I’ve never needed a nest, I don't—I don't want to—” He presses his face into his pillow. “I need—I need to be alone, fuck—”

He doesn't mean to whine. The cry for distress is instinct, something that all omegas are programmed to do in heat. You’ve heard that they’ve evolved to make this noise as a way of appealing to nearby alphas for help, but you think this must be a lie as you never once saw your alpha master giving mercy to any of his omega slaves. Still, whether it is your biology or not—the noise that Aventurine makes has your heart aching so much you can't help but step forward. But he shakes his head and inches away, shuddering violently, and then his voice echoes again in that cold basement—not again, not again, and don't touch it anymore, don't use it anymore, don't use me anymore, not again, and it's all you can do to back away until your spine is pressed against the door.

“I'm sorry, Vasha,” you say, strained. “I’m sorry. I'll leave you now.”

As the door shuts behind you, you catch a final glimpse him—face pressed into the pillows, shivering.

If you didn't know better, you'd think he was crying.

When you were both slaves, Aventurine hated seeing you during his heats.

Kakavasha was normally calm around you. Most of the time, he was even friendly (he was friendly to everyone whom he thought could be useful), but he was different during his heats. Sometimes he was vicious; mostly he was withdrawn. Nearly always, he wanted to be left alone. In those moments, all he could register was your alpha scent and his memories of what other people had done to him during his heats. And while you'd have hated to leave him, despised the idea of him being offered to another alpha—even more than that, you hated violating this boundary of his. Hated that you were allowed to do whatever you wanted to him. Hated being the reason he felt so unsafe.

Hated being an alpha.

Now that you no longer have the orders of your slavemaster hanging over you, it is the least you can do to respect Aventurine’s wish of being left alone. He has every right to privacy, and you have every obligation to give it to him. But instead you have been standing here, outside his door, for a full system-hour.

Every time you try to leave, your body is wracked with anxiety. The thought of other people—other alphas—coming near him in this state makes you seethe, your hands flexing at your side. The predator instinct comes out, and the people around you notice it. Every person unlucky enough to walk down this hall scurries away under your glare, even the other IPC staff wandering about to look for Aventurine: Must be their mate on the other side, they remark to one another, and then they're gone.

It is a hard thing to hear. You are not his mate. You are not even a heat partner. If you were, then he wouldn't be in so much pain. Not now, and not back then.

Aventurine has never had easy heats. You keep replaying your memories of all his past ones, each one a wound in your heart: the aching sweetness of nectar and honey; his withering body as he clutched his abdomen and curled up; the tears and sweat staining the mat beneath him. And above all: the fear. The scent of it, the sight of it, the sound of it in his voice. Stronger today than any other day.

By instinct, you know that he cannot persist like this. That this time is somehow worse than all those other times, and that he will become seriously ill if left alone.

After nearly an hour and a half, you finally open the door, fearing the worst.

“Aventurine?” you say quietly, but there's no response, and your stomach drops as you see him.

His body is pale, listless. If it weren't for the fragrance washing over you or the sweat on his temple, you'd worry that he was dead.

Tentatively, you reach out. Rest a hand on his forehead, and it scorches you. He stirs at the touch, doesn't open his eyes—but the quiet sigh of relief is unmistakable. His fingers twitch, as if wanting to reach for you.

“Aventurine,” you say gently. “Aventurine, I'm going to take care of you. Is that alright?”

He doesn't respond. You grimace, pulling away to fetch things for him: several spare pillows from the closet, an extra blanket too. From his suitcase, you grab a few of his sweaters, all thick cotton and fleece. He’d had a sense that Agnisahr would be cold at night. Deserts always get cold after sundown, since sand doesn’t retain heat, he'd told you while he was packing. Or I think so, anyway. Don't know why. Must have read it somewhere. Then he’d given you a long, unreadable look before saying, Make sure to bring a jacket. The warmest one you have. The elements on a planet like Agnisahr can kill a person—even a person like you.

I’m sure I’ll be fine, you’d dismissed him. I can survive anything. Any kind of weather, any kind of illness, any kind of pain: these are all things your species is known for being able to endure, the trait that made you such a prized slave in your master’s eyes, such a useful agent at the IPC. You hadn’t given Aventurine’s warning any thought and hardly paid attention to what you’d thrown into your own suitcase.

It surprises you, then, that you find one of your sweaters in his luggage. Made from Sedanian cashmere and heat tech designed by the Intelligentsia Guild. Cloud-soft and warm to the touch. Aventurine had bought it for you before you were deployed to Jarilo-IV to collect intelligence for Topaz. Warmest thing in the known universe, he’d commented. One of a kind, too. Remember to wear it, alright? Don't let my money go to waste, now.

You stare at it, kneading the fleece between your fingers. You hadn’t mentioned wanting to bring this sweater. You’d lost it in your closet some months ago and forgot about it. Aventurine must have remembered and gone looking for it, because—why? You aren't sure. Probably because it’s warmer and softer than anything he owns, you guess. Of course he’d want to wear it.

You throw it into the pile of things you’ve collected for him.

You take it all to his bed, the mattress dipping as you sit next to Aventurine. One by one, you scent each item with your wrist, watching him carefully the whole time. You’re quiet as you lay them out around him, leaving him undisturbed as you build a nest. You order water and electrolyte drinks too, and you’re quick about going to the door when you hear room service knocking—with how feverish he is, he probably badly needs it.

Aventurine is awake when you come back. His breathing is still laboured, pained—but calm.

“I said I didn’t need a nest,” Aventurine says, though he doesn’t sound angry. You wonder if he’s too weak to be. His voice is faint, and his eyes are barely open—focused on the pile of blankets and clothing around him.

“You’re welcome.” You open a bottle of water, hold it out to him. “Drink.”

Aventurine pauses, stares at the offering like it's some kind of foreign object. But he accepts it eventually, sitting up and taking it from you. He winces with the movement, which he tries to hide. He ignores your frown as he drinks, and he doesn't stop until the bottle is empty.

“There are more,” you say, pointing at the several additional bottles on the nightstand. “And some food and some painkillers. I don't know how well they’ll work. This isn't a normal heat. If you're alright with it, I'll call a doctor and—”

“Everything smells like you,” he says quietly, and you stop.

“...yes. Unless they’re mated, nests usually feel most comforting to an omega when they smell like an alpha.” You swallow, looking away. “...you don't have a mate, and you didn't want a professional, so this was the only option I could think of. I'm sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he says. He picks out one of the sweaters that have made its way into the nest, the Sedanian one. “I don't mind it.”

“Oh.” You let out a breath. “Then—can I call a doctor?”

His grip on the sweater tightens. “No.”

You frown. “Aventurine—”

“I’ve never needed a doctor before,” he says. He sounds unbothered, but he's fidgeting with the sweater now. “I don't need one now.”

A lie. He almost certainly needed a doctor in some of his prior heats, but you don't push the matter. “Maybe you don't need one,” you say instead, “but it would help.”

“I don't need help,” he says, and you look at him in disbelief. He catches your expression, and the corner of his mouth lifts. “Not more than you've already done, I mean.”

“I’ve barely—”

“Contact Topaz. Tell her I'm incapacitated. Tell her…” He hums. “Tell her I have food poisoning. The personnel too. It's not time-sensitive, our business on Agnisahr, so it shouldn't matter if I need a few days off.”

“You really need—”

“Give my regrets to our Agnisahran friends. Deliver it in person. They see you as my right hand, so they’ll most appreciate it coming from you. Topaz can help you with the verbiage. And—try to socialise with them a little, won't you? I think that little omega princess of theirs likes you. Some of the courtesans too, and they have surprising influence.”

“I do not want to be around any omega other than you right now,” you say before you can stop yourself, and Aventurine stops, blinking. His expression is blank, if perhaps a little curious—but his scent shifts. You can't identify how. You add quickly, “I’m not leaving you alone when you’re this sick.”

“Ah. Right.” Aventurine looks away. His voice sounds strange, and his heat must be getting to him again, because it carries a hint of pain. “But you have to. The IPC’s goals take priority.”

You frown. “Your life is more important than the IPC,” you say, and he laughs. Loudly.

“What? This is just a heat. I’m not going to die.”

“You don’t know that without seeing a doctor.”

“I do. I’m willing to bet money that I won’t die.” He cuts you off before you can reply: yes, you're always willing to bet on your life. “And even if I do, that would still be less important than Agnisahr. Do you know how many resources are on this lifeless rock?” His mouth slants. “If we mess up here, I’m dead anyway.”

“I wouldn’t let them touch you.”

“Yes, you would—because they would kill you too.” Aventurine sighs. His eyes close, and his brow creases—a sign that whatever reprieve he was lucky enough to get is about to end. “Go do what I asked. Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll… see a doctor if you do.”

You stand immediately. “Alright. I’ll be back to check on you.”

“I know.”

You stop at the door, giving him a long look. Seeing him like this—lying on a proper bed, cradled in a warm nest, with water and food and medicine nearby—you feel a little better. This is leagues beyond what he’d been afforded in his days as a slave, at the very least. Even if he isn’t free, at least he isn’t trapped.

But it still doesn’t feel good, having to step away. The last thing you want to do is talk to other people, pretend to have interest in other omegas. There are an astonishing number of them who are interested in you on this planet—that princess, and some baron’s son, and one of the prince’s favourite paramours—but you can’t bring yourself to care even for business purposes when Aventurine is like this. You can't act as if you are enjoying yourself when you know he is in pain.

You wonder about telling Topaz the truth. You wonder if she’d be worried enough about Aventurine to let you neglect this mission and cover for you instead, without letting Jade or Diamond or anyone else dangerous know. Not that you think that anyone at the Company particularly cares about Kakavasha—it’s only that he’s valuable. Aventurine of Stratagems is valuable. How many worlds have fallen because of him?

But he seemed unwilling to bet on his worth to them. Which is startling, given how often he's bet on it in the past.

“What’s so important about this planet,” you can’t help but ask, “that the IPC would rather you die than lose it?”

He’s silent for a long moment. His eyes are closed—hidden—but you can see his knuckles whiten as he clutches the Sedanian sweater.

“Copper,” he says. “They want it for the copper.”

When Kakavasha first suggested a friendship to you, it had felt like something in between a proposition and a threat:

Go ahead, he'd said. Use me as you wish. You can even stab me in the back if you want. Just be mindful of this: I don't make deals that don't pay off.

It might have been a strange way of making friends in any other circumstance, but in a house of slaves, it was a natural one. You had not been a clever person—still aren't—but you understood that your place in the world was one of a tool. This was the place of all slaves: you were all things to be used. Your body was a thing to be used. It was valuable for its strength, for its hardiness, for its threat in the arena and for its convenience in your master’s bed (or in a dark basement, or within a heat house, or inside whichever omega your mistress ordered you to calm down). It did not surprise you that Kakavasha wanted to use it as well. It did not surprise you that Kakavasha expected you to use him in return.

You never would have, of course. Kakavasha was not a thing to be used—he had always been a mate. Though you were happy to let him use you, because all you were was a tool anyway, so it was really all you could offer him: to be used.

None of this has changed for you. You don't think any of this has changed for Aventurine, either. With each new friendship he makes, he repeats those familiar words: Use me as you wish. And with each person who accepts, this is exactly what they do: they use him, and they use him, and they use him until suddenly they notice he's tricked them and they've got the losing hand.

You damned gambler, they always spit. You Sigonian wretch. All you know is how to manipulate people. Thief, liar, cheat, whore. Despite all these insults, Aventurine always smiles at them. Cry as they might, he’s won his bet and has their world in his palms.

Winner takes all, he sometimes gloats.

Winning and losing. Using and being used. Exploitation and treachery. This is all Aventurine knows; these are his great guiding principles in life. (He's told you this point blank, stacking up chips in his favourite gambling dens with a self-satisfied grin.) You often find yourself coming back to these conversations, particularly when you need to convince him of something.

And right now, you very badly need to convince him of something.

Aventurine is ignoring his doctor’s advice. His suppressants are unstable in extreme temperatures, he's been told. During travel on Agnisahr, they'd degraded, and now he’s experiencing his first heat in several years. Of course it's going to be painful, his doctor had said. I can prescribe you some medication to ease the symptoms, but really—nothing will work better than a heat partner. It doesn't need to be a mate. Any alpha will do.

The doctor had been an alpha. You had asked for a beta or omega, but alphas tend to dominate in Interastral Medical Schools, so they're in short supply. Aventurine had been still the whole time, face unreadable, but you could tell he wanted to throw up at the stench of an unfamiliar alpha. You had stepped between the two of them, not bothering to hide the animosity in your voice. We’ll take the medication, you had said, and the doctor had sniffed the air and nodded at you in approval.

Probably won't need it. An alpha like you could sort him out with just a few rounds, he told you, and both of you stayed quiet as he left.

You still aren't talking, or even looking at each other. Aventurine has lay down in his nest again, closing his eyes, while you stand as far away as physically possible—at the door where you'd just shown the doctor out. With the room shut off again, windows closed and door locked, Aventurine’s scent is starting to flood your senses once more. Out of the corner of your eye, you catch him shivering.

“What do you want to do?” you ask.

“Nothing.” He swallows. “I'll be fine.”

He's afraid. You can tell he's afraid. And you can tell he’ll be more afraid if you take even a single step closer to him, so you nod and say, “I'll go pick up your medication, then,” and Aventurine doesn't stop you. You can see him curling up in his nest, face pressed into the cashmere sweater.

But he still doesn't stop you.

After a few more days, Aventurine finally breaks.

There is a rare sag to his shoulders when he calls you to the room, along with a taste of dread in the air. You haven't seen him so vulnerable in years. Aventurine is not an open person, so cunning and self-possessed in his wealth—but Kakavasha was more brittle, more powerless, flayed raw and open even though he didn't often get the whip. (It would ruin his value if he ever scarred—his looks were his greatest selling point, your master said.) He was especially defeated when forced to spend his heats with an alpha he didn't want. You wonder, a vice grip of pain around your heart, whether this entire situation is simply an extension of that. Whether he is calling you here against his will, this time compelled by his pain, rather than his master. Whether this luxury suite feels like that wretched basement to him.

He doesn't look at you when he talks, nor does he sit up. He remains curled in his nest, nearly clinging onto the blankets and clothes.

“That stupid medication,” he pants out, sharp even in his heat, “isn't working.”

“I can tell.” Your brow knots. He’s in so much pain, it is palpable. “I”—you hesitate, voice dropping. “Can I help you?”

He goes quiet. As both Aventurine and Kakavasha, he has always been disinclined to accept help from other people. There is no such thing as unconditional help in his mind—only leverage and weakness. He hates it when people have leverage over him, and he hates being weak. Both are things that can be exploited, and Aventurine always needs to be the one doing the exploiting. He always needs to be in control.

Even like this, the last threads of his sanity about to snap, with every circuit of his omega biology trying to drag him into insensible lust, he fights viciously to be in control.

Winning and losing. Using and being used. Exploitation and treachery. Control and being controlled. This is how he's always lived. This is how he's always survived.

This is the only way to let him maintain control when he is most afraid of losing it.

“I don't mind,” you say quietly, “if you use me.”

Even through the haze of heat, Aventurine’s eyes sharpen. “What?”

“I don't mind if you use me,” you repeat, voice neutral. Unfeeling. The proposal might sound cruel to someone else, but not you. After all—your place in the world is one of a tool, and this is what you've always done as an alpha and a slave: sleeping with people to take care of their needs, or sometimes just their desires. It did always make you feel strangely hollow, but you think it will feel just fine with Aventurine. All you've ever wanted to do is keep him safe, and surely, this will do that, but—

“I'll only help if you want. I don't want to force it.” You lower your eyes. “But if you do want it, I'll be careful with you. You can lead. I promise.”

“...I know.” Aventurine’s voice is weak, cracks with pain, but you can tell he's speaking with clarity. “I know you will be.”

You look up. “Then you'll let me help?”

Aventurine looks away—a sign that he cannot adopt his usual smile. He’s clutching that sweater again, pressed close to his chest.

“Just your wrist,” he says quietly.

You listen carefully. “What?”

“I just—I just want your wrist.” He looks away. “Your—your scent gland. Only that.”

“Okay.”

You get up, then falter. When it was your job to comfort your mistress’ omega slaves, you were told to enter their nests—no permission needed from them, no permission needed from you, because only her permission ever mattered for anything. The omegas were usually too delirious to care, often had even begged for it with the state of mind that they were in. But Aventurine is different. He's not like you, and he's not like them. He's never bent to any of his masters’ wills. And even if he did, you wouldn't want to have him bend to yours.

Instead of climbing into his nest, you ask, “Can I sit on the bed?” He doesn't answer. “Just the edge of it,” you add, and you hear him exhale.

“Fine,” he says, breathing measured.

“Thank you,” you say, and he gives you a confused look. But then you're reaching out with a hand, offering it, and he is quickly distracted.

Aventurine drops the sweater, grabs your hand almost immediately. He turns over your palms, fingers tracing your heartlines—as if testing you, as if mapping out territory. He runs his thumbs along the veins of your wrists, too, right over your scent gland, and you have to force yourself not to shudder at the feeling. You only stay still, letting him explore the contours of your hands, letting him acclimate to the feeling of your skin. He laces his fingers with your own, a latticework trap, and he finally drags his wrist along yours.

Both of you inhale sharply.

You can't react. You know it'll scare him if you do, but it's hard to keep still. The way his scent blossoms, the way it mingles with yours, the way it all washes over you—what you're doing can hardly be called touching, but you feel like you're going mad. Especially when he flushes like that, his vibrant eyes fluttering shut. Especially when the sweetness of honey overtakes your senses. Especially when you can smell the way his body is reacting, all that wetness and heat and slick dripping between his legs. You don't miss the way his thighs rub together, nor the hard outline of his cock straining against his pants.

Aventurine shudders. He brings your hand up to his face, rests his cheek in your palm. His skin is flushed and burning with fever, and it's no wonder that he's sighing with relief at your touch. You try not to stare at the way his mouth falls open. He looks at you for a moment, his gaze a hazy violet and blue—before he closes his eyes again and presses his lips into your wrist.

Fuck.

“Aventurine—” You have to stop, voice strangled, when you feel the full softness of his lips working against your skin. He’s panting now, laboured breaths sweeping over your veins. Then you feel his teeth catch, a gentle nip on your flesh, and when he groans into your racing pulse—deep, relieved, desperate, a noise that makes your gut flare with heat—you realise you can't do this.

You pull back your hand, and Aventurine startles.

“Aventurine,” you say, voice strained. Maybe we should stop, you want to say, but he cuts you off.

“I need”—a shaky breath—“I need more.”

You watch Aventurine carefully. His pupils are dilated, blue irises nearly eclipsed. His cheeks are rosy, and he can't stop panting. You can fully smell his arousal now, even through his silk clothes. He's desperate, needing to be filled.

But he also looks torn. His brows are knotted, and you can taste a faint hint of fear in the air now. His knuckles clutch at the sheets, almost white, and he stares at them. He can't look up. He can't look at you. His whole body is tense, like he wants to bolt—and if he weren't so weak, you think he might actually.

“Are you sure?” you ask.

He doesn't nod. He also doesn't shake his head. His arms clutch at his midsection as he winces. He doesn't look like Aventurine. He looks like Kakavasha. It makes your heart ache as you watch him give into his body’s demands, wearing the same expression he did on the day your master bought him.

“...don't use your Voice on me,” Aventurine—Kakavasha—says quietly.

It takes you a moment to realise what he's asking. “I won't.”

“And”—his eyes somehow grow even more evasive, hidden by his long lashes— “don’t touch my commodity code.”

His commodity code. His commodity code that is seared into his scent gland. His code that, if you kiss, will ease his agony instantly. His code that, if you bite—will chain him to you irreversibly.

“Of course I won't,” you say instantly.

He closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath.

“And—” Aventurine looks away, jaw tight. His voice is quiet but wrought with tension: “—I don't like when people put things inside me.”

Something claws the walls of your heart.

“That's fine too,” you reply. “I don't mind doing it the other way.”

Aventurine’s sigh is nearly inaudible, but unmistakable. His scent shifts a little bit, the wildflower fragrance fading ever so slightly. But he doesn't come to you. He merely sits there—waiting. Expecting. Maybe dreading. Even in the senseless daze of heat, he’s too anxious to move.

You approach slowly. Though you're overwhelmed by the bouquet of his scent, though you feel a curl of heat in your belly in response to it—you are slow. Alphas are supposedly victims of insatiable lust whenever around an omega in heat, absolved of every action they take, but you are convinced this is a lie. You have never once wanted to handle Aventurine with such cruelty. You think that inflicting violence on him, more than anything else, would go against your biology. Every molecule in your body would reject putting him in such pain or inciting such fear. So you are careful when you approach him, slow as you inch up to him—but you do not think it helps.

Aventurine lies down, his face turned away from yours. His eyes squeeze shut, like he's expecting this to hurt. Uncertainty gnaws at your gut as you lean over him, draping your body over his—the only position you've ever taken an omega in, other than mounting them from behind.

(You do not want to mount Aventurine. You never have. It is an impersonal position, a position that omega biology supposedly would force him to enjoy, a position that alphas have likely dictated him to enjoy. You think there is nothing you would hate more. In your weakest, most selfish moments, in your worst ruts, when you’ve allowed yourself to fantasise about mating Kakavasha—you are always facing each other, and he is always looking at you with his eyes you've always loved, and it always feels intimate. Never impersonal. Never dictated. Never forced.)

Aventurine is so honeysweet beneath you. More fragrant than any omega you’ve ever been with. You glance at his commodity code, trying to ignore the scent of his branded skin, then lean down to press your face against the other side of his neck, where a faint scar mars the otherwise flawless slope of his nape. Like every other omega slave you've ever slept with, the scent gland there has been excised: a precautionary measure to reduce the risk of an unwanted mating bite.

(Not unwanted by them—the wants of a slave never matter—but unwanted by their owners. A mating bite would ruin the code seared into their neck, claim an omega more deeply and permanently than any titanium collar or carbon steel chain. It would hurt their resale value. Only owners are allowed to claim slaves in such a permanent way—and the wants of a slave have no relevance there, either.)

It's a funny thing, this surgical scar. Even with their gland missing, you've noticed that most omegas like having their neck scented by you anyway, probably from some vestigial instinct. You guess that Aventurine won't be any different, that maybe it will comfort him. But when your lips skim the scar left on him by his owner, his entire body stiffens beneath you. His fragrance cuts into your lungs, sharp.

You recoil, as if burned by the touch of him.

“Sorry,” Aventurine is quick to say. He tries to glance at you, but his diamond pupils quickly avoid you again. “Don’t worry about me. Just do whatever you need to do.”

“But you're scared,” you point out, and you see his brow twitch. “You’re scared when I touch you.”

“Not scared,” he lies. “Just…”

When his eyes finally look at you—land on your lips—you understand.

A bite would claim an omega more deeply and permanently than any titanium collar or carbon steel chain. If you lost your mind—give into the insatiable lust of an alpha whenever around an omega in heat—you might bite him, and then you would own Aventurine.

And Aventurine would rather die than be owned by anyone again.

He doesn't need to finish his sentence. You already know what you need to do.

“It's okay,” you say gently, and his brow knots. “I have an idea.”

Aventurine is always afraid.

This is a fact that has haunted you since the day you met him. You've wondered about how to fix it—the bare minimum as his mate (always his, even if he doesn't want you)—and you’ve never quite pinned down how. Because when someone has spent their life in perpetual fear, how do you make them feel safe? When their life is constantly at risk, how do you ever make them feel calm?

You still aren't sure of the answer. But after seeing Kakavasha become Aventurine, you now have a good guess.

It is clear from his scent that Aventurine does not feel remotely safe right now. Not when you leave to fetch something from your own room, and not when you return. The anxiety thickens when he sees, in your hands, a very familiar muzzle.

Aventurine stares. He is not smiling, but he also does not reveal his discomfort on his face, even as beads of sweat line his temple. But his voice is too controlled, too calm, when he asks, “You kept the mask.”

You nod.

“I told you to throw it out,” he points out, “when I freed you.”

“I know. Sorry. I don't know why I kept it.” You remember how tightly you clutched it before the incinerator, thinking about how strange it would feel, discarding something that you'd worn everyday since you presented—but you don't tell him this. Instead, you say, “But it’s convenient.”

Before Aventurine can say anything, you toss him the remote.

“You’re afraid of my bite and my Voice, but you don't have to be with this,” you explain. Your tone is gentle, soothing. Probably disarming coming from an alpha, with how he is in heat. Perhaps that's why he’s studying the remote rather than chucking it away. “You'll be in full control if I wear this.”

Control. Mere seconds after you say it, you can smell his fragrance change again, mellowing. It's only a brief moment of calm that fades when you latch the mask onto your face, but he doesn't smell as nearly as stressed before.

Aventurine watches you carefully as the carbon steel swallows your maw, its old and familiar edges biting into you. For the first time in years, you cannot tell what he is thinking—truly poker-faced even to you.

“You aren't bothered by wearing that thing while we do this,” he says—asks?—and you shake your head. The muzzle was part of you for years. You were wearing it when you killed someone for the first time. You were wearing it when you went into rut for the first time. You were wearing it when your master had sex with you for the first time. It doesn't bother you that you’ll wear it when you have sex with Aventurine.

If you could speak, you would ask him, Why do you think it would bother me? But all you do is gesture for him to sit up. To switch places with you. You lie down—something you've never done with an omega—and wait for him to get on top.

Aventurine stares at you for a long, quiet moment. It's followed by a sigh of relief. Disarmed, he—for the first time in any heat you've witnessed—finally relaxes. His scent wafts over you as he climbs between your legs, and you can feel the heat radiating from his hands as he parts your thighs, almost scalding.

He doesn't bother getting you ready, too needy to think rationally, but he doesn't have to anyway. You've been wet ever since you felt his mouth touch your wrist, hard ever since you heard him groan into it. You're equally desperate to get some relief as you feel his cockhead sliding against your opening, leaking all over your entrance as his slick drips onto your thighs. His breath shakes as he enters you, and he can't hear it with how you're muzzled—but you groan just as deeply as him at the tight stretch.

You hear him swear when you clench around him, watch him lean over you. His arms shake as he supports himself, refusing to succumb to his heat even as he chases his relief. You seek out his gaze (just as in your dreams, facing each other, intimate), and his neon eyes catch on your eyes for a brief, breathtaking second—

—before he looks away.

There's a flash of—you don't know what, maybe pain? Or fear?—in his irises as he does. A twitch of the brow, a tell he'd normally rather die than let slip. You have the realisation, as Aventurine moves inside you, that even while you're muzzled, even while he has complete control over you—he still can't stand having sex with you. Probably because he can't stand being in heat in general, you tell yourself. Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't use it anymore, don't use me anymore. He'd have this reaction to anyone.

Still—you didn't expect him to have this reaction to you.

Your hands twitch, possessed by an old instinct to cover your eyes. But you'd probably scare Aventurine if you moved your arms, so all you do is dig your fingers into the sheets and squeeze them shut. You tell yourself again and again that he'd hate having sex with anyone in these circumstances—not just you. And then you tell yourself, as a desperate, broken moan leaves his branded throat, that he would also come inside anyone in these circumstances, caught within the cruel grip of his heat.

Aventurine stills inside you as he finishes. He pants, sweat dripping down his temple as he shudders in his ecstasy, his spend hot and thick inside you. You can feel his fever break as he comes down from his high, the heat coming off his body easing into a manageable warmth.

Do you feel better, you try to say, but you can't move your mouth while your mask is on. So you wait patiently for Aventurine to come back to himself, watching him carefully as he pulls out and rolls onto the mattress beside you. He finally glances at you then. His eyes narrow once they land on you, confusion flicking through them. Then displeasure. He reaches for the remote.

To your surprise, he immediately punches in the code to unlock your muzzle. Aventurine has apparently remembered the numbers after all these years, as if the moment he freed you has been since seared into his memory.

“Are you okay?” is the first thing you say, and Aventurine gives you a confused look. He’s still panting, dazed, so you ask, “Can I check your temperature?” And when he nods, you confirm your suspicion: he's still much too warm.

There is an ache between your legs and a strange hollow in your gut (because you aren't very experienced with receiving, you think—your body likely just isn't used to the feeling of it), but you quickly forget them. All you can think of is Aventurine, and how he’s still unwell, and how you need to comfort him. The instinct is so strong that you don't even say anything as you get up, straightening out your clothes.

“Are you leaving?” Aventurine asks. His voice is neutral, completely unbothered, but the thought is so horrific to you that you turn back to him with wide eyes.

“Of course not. I'm going to get you water and medicine.” A beat. You stare at Aventurine’s eyes, then think about how he hid them from you during sex. The hollow feeling comes back, but it's mostly eclipsed by your anxiety at the next thought: “...do you want me to leave?”

“Do you want to?”

“I—” I'd rather die, you think. Being forced to leave him right now would feel like tearing out a piece of yourself. You don't know if there's an alpha in this world who could leave their mate in the middle of a heat. And even if he is unmarked, unattached to you—you still think of yourself as his mate. (His, always his, even if he doesn't want you.) “I would prefer not to. I am your heat partner. I'm supposed to take care of you.”

You hear a quiet breath. “Right. Of course. You're always so conscientious.” Aventurine nods, as if convincing himself of something. “Try not to take too long.”

“I’ll come back soon,” you promise, and the air sweetens. Encouraged, you add, voice gentle: “I’ll bring that medication, and then we can have sex as many times as you need after I come back. I'll make sure you're not in any pain anymore.” You pause, studying him. “Is there anything else you need to feel better?”

His fragrance changes once more, this time in a way you don't totally recognize. “No.” His voice sounds strange. His scent is still foreign, fluctuating, possibly hinting at some kind of pain. The heat must be getting to him again—and of course it wasn't enough, what you just did, what you can provide. He likely needs to be filled to get any kind of lasting relief, but you left him empty. “No, that's all I want.”

You nod, forcing yourself to look calm. Ignoring the emptiness in your gut. It didn't feel bad, but you hope it'll feel better next time you have sex. You think it will. Alphas are supposed to be filled with an insatiable lust near omegas in heat, after all. And even though you’ve never felt that before—never felt anything sleeping with all those omegas in your mistress’ house—you are sure you'll eventually feel it around Aventurine.

But the feeling never comes. Even though you can tell that his heat has returned by the time you're back—sweat beading his temples, laboured breaths at his lips, his bottoms now discarded, with full evidence of arousal between his legs—you don't feel much of anything as you reach for your mask again.

“Don't,” Aventurine says, before it can clasp around your face. You give him a curious look. He explains, “Don't. I don't want to have sex again. Not yet.”

You stare at him, shifting. Uncomfortable. Uncertain. Not knowing how he wants to use you. “What can I do?”

He gives you a long look. “Come here. I… I want your scent gland.”

It's a sensible request. If there's a way to seek relief without fucking someone—without fucking you, which he clearly hated doing—you're sure Aventurine would prefer it. So you climb into his nest, holding your wrist out for him, and—

“No.” His voice is quiet. “I want the one on your neck.”

“...oh.”

You stand there, not sure where to move. If he wants you in his nest again, or if he’d rather do this standing. You’re relieved when he demands, “Lie down.”

You expect him to get on top of you when you do. Assume that he wants complete control—but he instead lies down beside you. Presses his body into yours, and then his face into your neck. His nose and lips brush against your scent gland, a full-body shudder running through him, and—

—and now you know for a fact that it is a lie that alphas want nothing other than to fuck an omega when they're in heat. Because even like this, with his lips sweet on your neck, with the sheets soaked with his slick, with his spend leaking out of you—you do not want to have sex with Aventurine. You only want to hold him. You only want him to keep scenting you. You only want to scent him back.

You only want him to feel safe.

You breathe in deeply, lungs flooded by honey. You think of what it felt like to hold him in that cold basement, when he was delirious with fever and pain, and you think about how different his scent is now. How much sweeter it is. How much calmer he feels.

“Do you feel better?” you ask, and he doesn't respond, but you know the answer. His hands come up to dig into your shirt, and he presses into you like you're a sweater in his nest. Silence blankets over you both, calm and warm. His laboured breath starts to improve.

He does eventually speak.

“Has anyone ever told you,” he says, “what you smell like?”

You stare at him. Your master used to say that you smelled good, but he'd never elaborated, and you hadn't wanted him to. “No.”

Aventurine breathes in.

“You smell like—” A little sigh, shaking and feverish, leaves him. “You smell like rain.”

Your eyebrows tick up. “Rain?”

“Yes. Or not just rain, but”—he pauses, next words quiet—“more Iike after it rains. You smell like the desert after a rainfall.”

“Oh.” You don't know what to say to that. Feeling distinctly like it's a silly question, you ask, “Is that a good scent?”

“Some would think so. Especially to people from the desert. You probably smell like a blessing to them. Although…”

Aventurine goes quiet again. You stare at the chandelier above you, all crystal and white gold, and wait.

“Although?” you prompt.

“...although I wouldn't really know,” he says. “It’s just a hunch. I bet it's why so many omegas on this planet like you.”

You couldn't care less about those other omegas. All you care about is Aventurine. “And?” you say. “Do you like my scent?”

His reply never comes. He just breathes deeply again, seeking relief from your neck—not intimacy. Any alpha’s scent would work; that doctor told you so. Any alpha’s touch would work, too. There are no special feelings involved here. Your place in the world is one of a tool, and tools are never especially liked nor disliked. Their value exists only in how they can be used.

You don't know why you even bothered to ask the question.

But then something strange happens: Aventurine curls against you, pressing even further into you. His lashes flutter against your pulse again; it ticks up in response, beating fast against his lips.

“I do,” he says quietly. “I do like it.”

You swallow. “But I guess that's because you're in heat. Any alpha would smell good to you, wouldn’t they?”

“No.” His fingers dig into the fabric of your shirt. “No, I like it because it's yours.”

You know better than to read too much into his response. Aventurine had already said it earlier: No foreign scents. He's only tolerating this whole arrangement because you don't smell unfamiliar to him. Only able to use you because you are the least threatening option.

But the words break something in you—break the thing that made you unable to throw out that little pouch of copper coins that you were saving up for Kakavasha’s freedom, the part of you that made you wear that carbon-steel mask for him. It is this part of you that has your eyes squeezing shut and your arms wrapping around him. You know he’ll recoil, reject you, but just this once—you need to try.

Aventurine doesn't push you away.

He melts into you instead, inhaling deeply. Your scent gland tingles with the warmth of his breath, the feeling of his lips. He seems—comfortable.

You can't fathom why he’s staying in your arms. Perhaps he's simply desperate for some kind of relief from his heat, just like when you held him in the basement while he was delirious from pain. But Aventurine had spoken to you with clarity just now, and his skin doesn't feel scalding so much as warm, and his scent is so different than from that moment. So sweet and so gentle, without a trace of fear. It makes your heart squeeze. As much as you've always wanted Aventurine to feel safe, you'd never imagined that his scent would be so beautiful when he is.

It makes your heart ache. You've never held anything so lovely before, and you’ve never felt so warm before, and it all makes up for how badly it hurt to let Aventurine inside you. How hollow it made you feel to let him use you. How none of that matters as long as you can keep him safe like this, because you belong to Kakavasha. You'll always belong to Kakavasha, in a fate that was chosen for you on the day you met him.

You're his, always his—even if he’ll never want you.

end part i

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additional end notes

[giftedeath]

just rewatched lifeserial and it had me thinking so hard abt how much buffy has to go through that season gahh like its one of those episodes that is very fun while also being very sad. i mean its fun to me bc we get spuffy antics that episode and i love their lil antics so much <3 kitten poker <3 her going to spike bc he loves the brawl and she loves the brawl but being disappointed in how brawl-less it ends up being. but anyway thats just my spike and buffy brain talking what is really tragic and upsetting in this episode is everything that happens w giles. him coming through for her with the money and she's like 'knowing ur always going to be here makes me feel safe' they joke in the episode how giles doesn't wanna be her mom or her dad cant he just be her rakish uncle! but at this point her actual father is tht shiftless absentee dad, and i think about this all the time bc its probably just the writers decision not to include him for screentime purposes or w/e less abt plot but in doing that they're saying 'buffy's dad is so far gone that he did not go to his ex-wife's funeral, probably didn't even go to his own daughter's funeral and he sure isn't there for the fifteen year old that is now without any family! oh and now that my eldest is magically alive i still do not give one fuck.' which is crazy, but its established very early on that giles is something of a father figure to her, and probably the reason the writers didnt have her Real Dad around. like at first yeah maybe he was just her uptight, preachy, watcher but by season six he's so much more than that and so yeah in that moment in this ep when she admits to him that its like her mom is back, that she's not alone, that a weight had been lifted bc for one moment she didn't have all these responsibilities and obligations that normal twenty - one year olds don't typically have so early on. that is the culmination of seasons of giles always being there, and supporting her, and loving her like she's his child. and it makes me think all the way back to surprise/innocence when joyce finds out buffy loses her virginity to angel and so does giles, and giles feels a sense of responsibility in a season early as 2, to have that knowledge of what buffy's going through, when the only other adult in her life who knows is joyce. its giles and joyce and when its not joyce its giles! and then what happens when its not giles? and its only buffy? i dont know its just such a tragic spin to the narrative to have giles leave, and for their relationship to deteriorate the way it does, and not even really ever recover. bc i would say it gets significantly worse in season 7 actually. maybe if we had more seasons we could have seen them properly reconcile but giles leaving accomplishes exactly what he sets out to do. he leaves bc he believes that she relies on him and that him being her father figure has gone too far/he wants her to stand on her own, which she does i think. but that doesn't mean buffy's going to not be bitter about it? i actually would argue and say it feels like probably the biggest betrayal she has ever experienced at this point. which is why in my head, them being so tense in s7 makes sense. i do think w time buffy would forgive him but its one of those things where i just think the bitterness would stick for at least a few years! given the context.