#i can't believe how long this is

[pluckyredhead]

What the heck is going on in Batman/Gotham War?

I know a lot of people in fandom are confused and/or upset about what's been going on in Gotham War - why is Bruce acting like this, what is Selina doing, why are the Batkids taking sides. So I figured I would fill you all in on what's been happening in Batman and Catwoman since Chip Zdarsky took over with Batman #125, because it has been BONKERS and I have been enjoying the hell out of it.

Below, the quickest summary I can manage while still being comprehensive:

[Content warning: mental illness, abuse, suicide (...ish), LOTS of violence.]

The first arc, "Failsafe," starts with Batman and Robin (Tim, in this case) in pursuit of the Penguin, who is on a killing spree. In the very first issue, Tim gets shot in the neck. Bruce has to take him to the hospital, but first he has to strip him out of his costume and put him in civilian clothes to preserve their secret identities, triggering memories of when he had to do the same to Jason's dead body. There is LITERALLY NO PURPOSE TO ANY OF THIS EXCEPT WHUMP (Tim is back in action with a fucking BAND-AID on his neck very quickly), which is how I knew this was going to be good. Beat Tim up! Make Bruce cry about Jason! I want these men to suffer! (There is also SO much to be said about Tim's own Poor Mental Health Decisions throughout the entirety of Zdarsky's run so far, but that's for a separate meta post.)

Anyway. Bruce leaves Tim in the hospital and goes to confront Penguin, who turns out to be dying of mercury poisoning. He kills himself and makes it look like Batman did it, forcing Bruce to flee. (Penguin actually faked his death and is alive elsewhere under an alias, but that's not important right now.)

In the Batcave, a massive robot called Failsafe emerges. Failsafe attacks Bruce, who usually eats killer robots for breakfast, but he can't seem to get the upper hand on this one. Duke, Cass, Steph, and Dick show up to help, but Failsafe beats them all too, while Tim gets an injured Bruce away and to the Batcave.

In the Batcave, Bruce puts on a weird purple and red Batman costume and a new personality takes over: the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh. Now, Zur has a very complicated history going back to 1958, but for the purposes of this story, all you need to know is that when he was younger, Bruce decided it would be good to hang out in a sensory deprivation chamber until his mind created a secondary personality, Zur, who is essentially Batman without Bruce. Zur is pure efficiency who does not care about anything but the mission. He created Failsafe, for one purpose: to kill Bruce if Bruce ever crossed the line and killed someone. And right now, Failsafe believes that Bruce killed Penguin.

Failsafe nearly kills Tim, which Zur is okay with writing off as an expendable soldier's death, but this causes Bruce to take control of the body back because "Tim isn't my soldier...HE'S MY SON!" (Tim Nation, why are you not ALL OVER this story? It's catnip.)

Babs calls in the JLA (SuperBat fans, you will also want to read Bruce's adoring description of Clark when he shows up), but of course Failsafe has kryptonite, which it stabs Clark with. The League dumps Clark and Bruce into the JLA jet and distracts Failsafe while Tim flies Clark and Bruce to the Fortress of Solitude. Bruce tells Tim he's a good boy and jumps out of the jet and into the ocean so that Tim and Clark will be safe from Failsafe. He's rescued by Arthur, who takes him to Atlantis to heal. THIS HAS ALL ONLY BEEN FOUR ISSUES SO FAR.

Two weeks later, Bruce wakes up to discover that Failsafe has taken over Gotham. He teleports up to the JLA Watchtower on the moon to lure Failsafe there, then blows the Watchtower up, hoping to catch a ride on one of the Javelins. But Failsafe has already destroyed them, so Bruce RIDES A BOOSTER ROCKET BACK TO EARTH, OXYGEN MASK CLAPPED OVER HIS FACE. The whole thing has some powerful Scooty-Puff Jr energy.

The only tricky part is reentry, when Bruce starts to burn up - his costume is fireproof, of course, but his chin is exposed. SO HE TAKES OFF HIS LITTLE BAT-PANTIES AND PUTS THEM OVER HIS HEAD. I swear to god this happened in a real comic book and the entire "Bruce falls off the moon and survives" sequence is utterly delectable goofy nonsense and I truly cannot recall a time I've had more fun reading a comic book.

Anyway, Bruce lands directly outside of the Fortress, BECAUSE OF COURSE HE DOES, and runs inside to find Clark and Tim. While Clark keeps Failsafe distracted, Bruce and Tim program nanobots to inject compassion into Failsafe. I SWEAR TO GOD. They zap him with the nanobots, but Failsafe pulls a high tech space gun out of the Fortress and shoots Bruce with it anyway, apparently disintegrating him. Tim falls to his knees in the snow, weeping. TIM NATION, WAKE UP, THIS RUN IS CANDY FOR YOU.

But of course Bruce isn't dead! That wasn't a killing gun, it was a "zap you into another dimension" gun!!! THAT was the compassion!

So Bruce finds himself in a dystopian alternate Gotham, and I'll be honest, I didn't love this arc ("The Bat-Man of Gotham") as much as I loved "Failsafe," but it has its moments. In this Gotham, Bruce Wayne is dead, so Regular Bruce is like "Oh boy, time to Batman this place up." Also he's plagued by hallucinations of a skeleton version of Jim Gordon who is still wearing a trench coat AND A MUSTACHE. Like I said, it has its moments.

This Gotham is controlled by Arkham, and anyone who is diagnosed as "crazy" is locked up. A new villain, Red Mask, is in charge, and Selina and a Venomed-up Harvey Dent work for him. Bruce teams up with an orphan kid (of course) named Jewel and goes after Red Mask, who turns out to be some guy named Darwin Halliday and ALSO...the Joker. Well, he's the Joker who hasn't been Jokerized yet. But one time he breathed in some chemicals that let him see into the main reality of the DCU (???) and glimpsed Regular Joker and now he wants to build an interdimensional machine to mentally connect with Regular Joker across universes which he assumes will make him insane, NATURALLY.

Bruce attacks Red Mask, who sics a Venomed-up Ghost Maker on him. Ghost Maker cuts off Bruce's right hand. Bruce cauterizes it with an electroshock machine and ties some spikes on it (SERIOUSLY) and goes after Red Mask again. Meanwhile Red Mask mentally connects with an alternate dimensional Joker...but instead of it driving Red Mask insane, he's what drives the Joker insane. Desperate to become the Joker somehow, anyhow, he jumps into the interdimensional portal, and Morally Dubious Alternate Universe Selina kicks Bruce in after him.

Meanwhile, Tim is in full "I KNOW I SAW HIM DIE BUT HE'S NOT DEAD" mode, which: bless. So he teams up with Jon Kent, which...gosh, what an astonishingly boring duo. I love Jon, I love Tim, they're perfectly nice and normal around each other, I'm falling asleep. Anyway Tim fights Toyman for a while and then makes a VERY stupid costume where the entire torso is a giant light-up R, because "I want him to see that Robin is coming to save him." GET A THERAPY, TIM.

Bruce finds himself first in the Michael Keaton Batman universe, then the Red Rain universe, BTAS, Batman Beyond (yes I know they're the same universe but I guess he goes there twice), Silver Age, Kingdom Come, Gotham by Gaslight, and more. Adam West gives him a utility belt. The Dark Knight Returns Bruce builds him a robot hand.

Finally Bruce and Red Mask reach the end of the multiverse, which is a Gotham asteroid floating in space, surrounded by giant Jokerized sharks. LUCKILY BRUCE HAS BAT-SHARK REPELLANT IN HIS ADAM WEST UTILITY BELT!!! Honestly this whole arc was worth it for that moment.

Bruce knocks Red Mask out, but now he's stuck. He has a device from Batman Beyond Bruce to get home, but it's only good for one person, and he can't leave Red Mask there to die. Of course, that's when Tim shows up in his stupid giant glowing R costume and they hug it out, thereby fulfilling but also compounding all of Tim's issues since 1989.

Anyway things are fine now, right? Sure, Bruce is hallucinating that his family is on fire, and the Zur personality is not going neatly back into the box where it's been all these years, and he still has a robot hand (Damian, hilariously, immediately announces that he wants one too), but he's FINE. He is a little bit mad at Selina, because she broke out of jail (she was in jail because she killed her fuckbuddy because he was trying to kill Bruce), and also because she didn't tell him Penguin was alive and that would have stopped Failsafe, and also because Other Selina kicked into another universe. Selina, very fairly, is like "Well I'm not responsible for Other Selinas and also maybe don't build robots to kill yourself with and not tell anyone about them???"

THEN we got Knight Terrors, the summer event in which a villain called Nightmare caused everyone to fall asleep and, uh, have nightmares. Bruce, specifically, had a nightmare that he met an eight-year-old version of himself that vomited up a man-sized bat with a gun for a head. I laughed SO HARD. Bruce also had his body borrowed by Deadman for the duration of the event, so while he endured the psychological toll of nightmares like everyone else, he also endured the physical toll of everything Deadman was doing PLUS the mental toll of being aware of what was happening in the waking world even though he couldn't control his body. As soon as the event was over, he lapsed into a coma so that his body could get some damn rest.

Okay. Now we're up to Gotham War.

(I know, I know. But for all of you who are like "How could Bruce do this???" about Gotham War...*points up* THAT'S HOW. HE IS NOT WELL.)

Bruce awakens from his coma and IMMEDIATELY decides to Fight A Crime even though Babs is like "Maybe don't?" But he can't find any crime, which is...weird. His kids confirm that Gotham's been super quiet since he's been out.

Selina hears that Bruce is awake and is like okay, time to pay the piper. She calls all of the Bats to a meeting and explains that she's the reason crime has been down. See, villains like Joker and Two-Face always have goons, right? But what if the goon supply dried up because the goons have better jobs? So Selina has trained All The Goons In Gotham to be...cat burglars. No violence, no stealing from anyone who can't afford it. More importantly, no helping Scarecrow or whoever commit mass murder.

All of the Batkids are like "Hmm...I feel uncertain about this, but it's working...I don't know what to think..." except for Jason, who thinks it's hilarious and is instantly Team Selina, and Damian, who is staunchly Team Bruce. Bruce, meanwhile, is like "No! NO! THIS IS CRIMES, AND CRIMES IS BAD!" and Selina's like "I mean, robbing from the rich is basically a victimless crime" and Bruce screams, I swear to god, "MY PARENTS WERE 'RICH'!" Inexplicable scare quotes and all. I laughed so hard.

Anyway this is the basis for Gotham War and it is endlessly hilarious to me because everyone in the Batfamily is supposed to be a genius and yet not one single character has pointed out that:

There are jobs the goons could be doing that AREN'T illegal. It's not just violent crime vs. nonviolent crime. There are in fact many other jobs! I am POSITIVE Gotham needs construction workers and hospital orderlies. (Yes, I know it's hard for people with records to get jobs. That isn't addressed.)

Being Batman is SUPER ILLEGAL.

They are all so stupid.

Selina's plan doesn't even work, because one of her thieves gets killed by a rich person defending their home, and Bruce is like "See? This is why crime is bad!" and like...pretty much snaps. He's particularly fixated on Jason, even (rhetorically) threatening to kill him, which is when the other kids jump into the fray on Jason's side, all except for Damian, who like I said is firmly Team Bruce. (This makes complete sense to me, Damian has been dealing with severe trauma and isolation pretty much nonstop since 2018 and he and Bruce have finally made a tenuous peace, so I can understand why he wouldn't want to lose that.)

Also, Vandal Savage buys Wayne Manor. It's so random and SO funny.

OKAY BATMAN #138. Bruce has kidnapped Jason and injected him with a variation on fear toxin which will be triggered whenever Jason's adrenaline spikes, the idea being that Jason is no longer capable of killing - but in practice, Jason is no longer capable of even getting up off the floor, he's so terrified. I want to be really, really clear here: Bruce is like 90% Zur here, and the only reason he goes this route and doesn't kill Jason is because the remaining 10% that's still Bruce loves Jason and is trying to help him. He's just incapable of good or humane help because Zur literally can't do feelings.

Dick knows something is up and is sneaking around Bruce's Secret Other House We've Never Heard Of to figure out what it is. Damian attacks him to protect Bruce. Tim attacks Damian so that Dick can do what he needs to do, and handcuffs Damian to a parking meter:

THERE IS SO MUCH TO UNPACK HERE!!! TIM GO TO THERAPY! DAMIAN GO TO THERAPY! EVERYONE GO TO THERAPY!!!!!

Dick figures out what Bruce did to Jason (it's on the computer, for...some reason?) and absolutely loses his shit on Bruce, beating the crap out of him, which tbh is the only thing that felt off to me in this run because frankly I don't think Dick likes Jason that much. BUT WHATEVER.

Tim pulls Dick off of Bruce. Bruce leaves them both tangled in a net and flees as the cops approach. Zur's like "Good, fuck 'em" in Bruce's head, because the cops will expose Dick, Tim, and Damian's secret identities and Bruce will be free of the dead weight of a family, but the little bit of Bruce still in there throws Dick a batarang so he can free them all in time.

Then Bruce leaves. Damian is devastated.

I WILL NEVER RECOVER FROM THIS PAGE. Damian really thought he could have Bruce's love and loyalty if he turned on everyone else! Tim is going to be a therapy dog to a Wayne even if he has to settle for the one he doesn't like! That unresisting, blank hug made me SCREAM when I turned the page. Incredible. (Also the art fucking S L A P S, god bless you Jorge Jimenez.)

ALSO it turns out that Selina's second in command has been Vandal Savage's daughter Scandal Savage the whole time and they are turning Selina's cat burglar army into their own personal army WHOOPS. (This also feels very OOC for Scandal but at this point I trust Zdarsky with my life so let's see where things go.)

SO THAT'S WHAT'S GOING ON IN GOTHAM WAR. TL;DR:

Bruce is unhinged because he nearly died like 19 times in a week and it unlocked the smaller, meaner purple Batman that lives inside him.

Selina is unaware that you can get money legally.

Tim is going to have a nervous breakdown if he can't fix someone, ANYONE.

Damian needs a hug but ideally from someone he actually likes this time.

Jason is so scared.

THE END.

[whatkindofnameisella]

can you believe that we have fanfiction. that we have websites dedicated to fanfiction. that there is a place that you can go and read tens, hundreds, thousands and thousands of pieces of writing that strangers have made. people who are not "writers". people who come home at the end of the day and have feelings and say, i am going to put that into words. i am going to share those words. short, long, sweet, sad, horny, funny, wonderful words. we are all just human and we all love to make and remake and share that with others. can you believe that.

[herbarimoon]

Here with you

+ bonus danganronpa blood version

[petricorah]

scenes i loved from Real Enough to Get Me Through by @marriedzukka <333 [ids in alt]

[babyblueetbaemonster]

"HA HA HA HA HA! I'M LITERATELY AIMING MY FINGERS!!!"

"This kid is going places..."

[sacchiri]

volume 1 sketches part 2

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[theceaselessidiot]

Eloise Bridgerton being an absolute mood:

and Cressida's reaction of 'this girl is so weird, but I'm into it??? Wait am I into this??'':

[baldursgate3tempobsessed]

Astarion & Scratch: Compromising for Tav Affection

This idea is entirely from @nairil-daeris and it's so cute!

~

Despite what some may have believed, Astarion wasn't that against associating with animals. He was actually a fan of a few of them, cats mainly considering their penance for cleanliness and independence. Not to mention they were admittedly adorable. And stood as the one type of beast that Astarion never feasted upon.

So no, he didn't hate animals in principle. He only hated a select few, with reason. Like the type that could rip him apart with their claws and fangs. Or the ones that thought that rolling around in their own filth was a worthwhile pastime. All and all, creatures that Astarion didn't have to deal with on the regular. Or at least not until now.

But here he was, stuck in the middle of fucking nowhere, with his ragtag group of merry weirdos. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate his own acceptance into your little group. He did, immensely. By the look of things out here in this hellscape, he probably would have been murdered ten times over if he had remained alone. Or gods forbid, become a goblin's chew toy.

So while he had no intentions of leaving, he was still frustrated. Especially with the pretty little druid that quickly became their de facto leader. Astarion had been vaguely aware that druids had an intense love for nature and all of its creatures. But that hadn't prepared him for how unreasonable that love could be. It felt as though you would take literally every opportunity you had to speak to any lowly pest on the side of the road.

Not to mention your insistence on taking care of a damned owlbear cub, which was an objectively stupid thing to do. Something that he should have fought you on harder but... he wasn't made of stone. The thing was objectively adorable. Even if it was almost certainly destined to grow up and try to kill you all, Astarion kept his mouth mostly shut.

But then came the dog. That god-damned dog. How a singular mutt could make his life so damn difficult, Astarion wasn't sure. But he did know that he was trying to enact a well-thought out plan. Seduce you, foster a protective affection that was strong enough for you to always want him alive, perhaps use you to defeat Cazador if the parasites proved strong enough, and then effectively abandon you for a new life of freedom.

It was all very simple, and he had gotten a great head start. You had spent the last few weeks flirting with each other, always staying close. You gravitated towards each other, a fact that felt more natural than Astarion would have liked. But... he had found himself enjoying his time with you, genuinely. Not that it mattered, but it was definitely a plus for his plan. Being with you was far from unbearable. You were attractive, sweet, a little angel just begging to be corrupted. A job that Astarion was growing excited to start.

He had been so, so close to fully propositioning you, completely confident that you would agree. And then Scratch happened. He hadn't thought much of it when you came across the little mutt. Maybe it would stay with the corpse of its owner or it would be another hanger-on like the owl bear. He hadn't had a horse in the race either way.

But then he did show up to the camp, looking so sad and dejected that even Astarion couldn't be bothered that his arrival completely interrupted his first attempt at asking you to bed. He had watched you pet and whisper to him for the rest of the night, providing a comfort that only a druid could.

Which was fine. Or at least it had been for that one night. That one night that kept repeating. Because suddenly, that damned dog was everywhere. The quiet nights the two of you had together by the fire, talking about anything and everything with your thighs pressed together now included Scratch squeezing himself into the middle.

The orchestrated moves he would do to make you blush, like removing a non-existent speck from your cheek with his thumb or leaning in close to remove a leaf from your hair, were getting harder and harder to pull off. The damned mongrel was always there, and any attempts Astarion took to get close to you Scratch used as an invitation to jump all over him. If he had it to wash his face of dog slobber one more time from the crime of trying to hold your hand, he was going to go ballistic.

And there was zero reprieve. The thing went with you everywhere, even in the most perilous of situations. Worst of all, it actually proved to be useful. Astarion had no idea where the thing was trained, but it was incredibly smart. Smart enough to serve as a perfect distraction when needed, while being clever and fast enough to never get himself killed. He could even function as a spy, considering how you could make sense of all of his whining and barking. And worst of all, the little beast was amazing at thievery, with nothing more than his mouth. No one suspected the adorable dog to be the one stealing your coin purse right off of your belt. He was completely inconspicuous, perhaps even more so than Astarion. A fact that... was not sitting well.

How on earth was he being outclassed by a fucking dog? One that he had no valid arguments to leave behind at camp.

And to top it all off, you even slept with it. You slept with both animals, usually huddled up in a pile beneath the stars. How you managed to not stink of dog breath and owlbear saliva in the morning, Astarion would never know.

How was he supposed to make you fall for him like this? In the past two weeks since you'd attached yourself completely to the thing, doting on him constantly. He had only managed to sleep with you once. The night of the celebration over the goblin slaughter, and what a lovely night it had been. But that was only because Scratch and the cub had been sufficiently distracted by all of the enamored tiefling children. The next night it was back to the same.

And Astarion was not willing to let the night you had together go as a one night stand. Maybe it wasn't necessary. It had become clear that you cared for him, you cared for all of them. Enough to put yourself in danger for every party member's protection. A strong friendship would probably do him just as good as a romance. But... that didn't feel like enough. He didn't want it to be enough. For reasons that he was not going to start examining now.

No, for now he was just focused on getting past your slobbery bodyguard. But he knew better than to bring it up to you directly. You were far too infatuated with the pup to see his side of things.

Gale had made a singular comment on a slight frustration over having to wait around for Scratch to sniff nearly everything he came into contact with, and that had ended in you giving him a half-hour lecture on the importance of understanding one's surroundings. Shadowheart had mentioned, once, just once, that perhaps it was time to start looking for a more appropriate family for the dog, and that had led to you giving her the cold shoulder for days.

No, if he was going to get more time alone with you Astarion would have to try other means. Which had led him here, swinging back a Potion of Animal Speaking with a grimace. It tasted oddly grassy, like he had just swallowed blended up lawn shavings. But he didn't have time to grouse over the taste, not when you were thoroughly distracted with talking about druid mythology with Halsin, Scratch left conveniently alone to dig holes in the back of camp.

And that was where Astarion was going. Because if he couldn't reason with you, perhaps he could reason with the mutt itself.

Part of him could not quite believe that he had to resort to speaking with a dog to further this relationship, but here he was.

Astarion stopped in front of him, swallowing back a grimace at how the thing was digging dirt directly on his shoes. Instead, he smiled down at it, his voice only slightly strained when he asked, "Can you understand me?"

Scratch stopped his digging, opting to sit and stare up at him, an oddly humanoid voice answering, "Yes."

Huh, so that's how this spell worked. It was a little disconcerting to hear a human voice from a dog's mouth, but he would make do. Astarion cautiously sat next to him, perching on a nearby log as he tried to keep a pleasant smile on his face, "Good. How are you?"

Scratch stared at him, his head cocked, "The dirt tastes good here. I like that."

That was... Astarion didn't know. It was his own fault for trying to make small talk with an animal. He cut straight to the point, "That's great to hear. Now, would you mind doing me a favor tonight?"

Astarion had never had a dog narrow its eyes at him before, but that's exactly what Scratch did, "What is it?"

"Nothing serious," Astarion tried to reassure, "I was just hoping that perhaps you and the cub could sneak off for a night so Tav and I could spend some time together-"

"No," Scratch interrupted circling the ground three times before laying down, his eyes still on Astarion.

"Excuse me?" Astarion shot back, his true annoyance shining straight through his voice, "It's not exactly much to ask for! It's one night-"

"I don't trust you around them," The dog said simply, "I think you're going to hurt them."

Well that was just offensive. Ever since this little brat's arrival Astarion had barely had a chance to drink from you. And the times he did he was perfectly in control. Not including the first time of course.

"I'll have you know that not every vampire is some hellish demon with no self-control," Astarion bit out, only the slightest bit amused at himself for being reduced to defending his own disgusting kind, "And why pray tell, would I hurt one of the only reasons I'm still alive."

Scratch shook his head, one eye closed like this conversation was boring him, "Not that kind of hurt. The inside kind, that makes people cry. I don't want them to cry."

That was-Astarion didn't-how in the hells could a dog see through him that easily?

"I have no intention of hurting them," Astarion lied. Or at least he thought it was a lie. It felt... uncomfortably true when spoken allowed, "I just want to have a little fun, that's all. Don't you think they've earned that?"

"Not with you. You don't like them enough," Scratch sighed, "I like Gale more. Or Wyll. Karlach too. They can have fun with them instead."

That was it. Astarion was going to wring this little shit's neck. But before he could give into his more violent impulses, he could hear your voice, calling out to the current root of all of his problems.

Scratch bounded up, his tail already wagging as he started to trot over. But before he fully did he turned around, giving Astarion a once over, "If you can prove you like them, then I'll consider it."

And just like that he was off, running to your side while leaving a stunned Astarion in his wake. Did... did he just get verbally annihilated by a damn dog? How was he supposed to go on after this? Not to mention he was actually thinking about what the creature said. It sounded like a challenge, one that Astarion was suddenly pissed enough to take up.

If the little shithead wanted sincerity, then he would get it. And that's how Astarion found himself willingly opening up more. Even if it had to be in front of the damn dog. He told you more about Cazador, the horrors and tribulations he had endured through centuries. He told you of his regrets, the things he missed the most about being a mortal. He even told you the truth about that first night that you let him drink from your neck. That... that you were the first. How good it had felt to have what he had been denied for so long. And he was rewarded with his honesty. He got to learn more and more about you in turn. Your family, your home, where you incessant love for nature derived from. He was starting to slowly become a Tav-expert, suddenly hungry for every bit of information that he could procure.

They were long conversations, long enough to last well into the night. And for Astarion to be exhausted enough to just... fall asleep in the first available location. Which just so happened to always be in the pile of creatures you liked to sleep with. Though, Astarion had to admit after experiencing it himself, it was oddly pleasant to be surrounded by the warm, furry little headaches.

As for the two of you, things were slowly progressing in regards to his plan. A plan that he continually kept conveniently forgetting about. You were together now at the least, even if Scratch hardly ever let you have a night alone. But you cuddled and kissed, called each other pet names and the like. And... it was nice. Perhaps even too nice. Because Astarion was starting to... feel things that he'd prefer to not.

He was getting too attached, too close. The idea of sex didn't even seem to matter anymore, let alone the idiocy of trying to convince a dog to help him in that department. He was knowing too much of you, and the fact that he seemed to adore everything he saw only made it worse. And then the two of you managed to kill that demon, getting more and more information about Cazador. You risked so much for him, and were willing to risk so much more. He couldn't take it anymore.

He had told you the next night, everything. His plan, his past, how easy it was to revert back into new tricks. But he didn't want that with you. Maybe he never did. He wanted something real, and by the gods above you wanted the same thing. He had half expected you to dump him completely after that little speech. But... you didn't. Instead you hugged him, comforted him for trying and failing to betray your trust. It was a kindness he didn't deserve, but one that he would gladly accept.

Everything felt easier after that. Yes there were still countless horrors hanging over your heads but... he had you. And with you he was starting to think he could get through anything.

Even Halsin's insistent flirting. He was watching you both now as you helped him nurse a dying sapling to health, his eyes tracking Halsin's every move as he pretended to read. While he trusted you more than anything, fully aware that you would never stray, it didn't stop the paranoia. Just one other aspect of being in a real relationship that he hadn't seen coming. Turns out, it involved being terrified of losing it all. Especially to handsome, bulky elf druids.

But before he could fret over it any longer, he felt a tugging on his pant leg. He glanced down, his brow furrowing when he saw Scratch there, his tail wagging and his tongue lolling out.

"What the hell do you want?" Astarion asked, his words completely unmatching his actions as he scratched him behind the ears. Don't get him wrong, he still at least semi-loathed the creature but... he's also not quite sure he would have gotten to this point without his intervention. So a reluctant appreciation for his existence it was.

Scratch continued to paw at his leg, a low whine in his throat as he cocked his head to the right. Astarion followed the motion, only getting more confused when he realized he was trying to point to another potion.

Astarion sighed as he picked it up, “What? You want me to understand a new dressing down speech?”

Scratch continued to wag his tail, letting out a happy bark as a confirmation. As much as Astarion would prefer to not spend an evening getting lectured by a dog, he was more than a little curious to see what he had to say. 

He swallowed it down, grimacing at the taste as he wiped his mouth, “Okay, out with it. What do you want?”

"I like you now," Scratch said excitedly, prancing back and forth in front of him, "And they like you too. Do you like them?"

In moments like this, Astarion really did wish he had the heart of stone that he pretended to carry. Because the unexpected approval from a random pup was suddenly making him feel almost teary eyed. Or it was the bitter taste of the potion, but either way the innocent words were making his heart ache pleasantly. 

Astarion swallowed, smiling down at him, “I like them very much. More than anyone before. And I’m starting to think you might not be so bad either.”

Scratch sat in front of him, resting his head in his lap as his tail wagged, a goofy smile on his adorable face, “It’s because I’m a good boy. They tell me so all the time. Are we friends now? We are right?”

“Yeah,” Astarion smiled as he ran a hand through his white coat, his eyes drifting over to you. You were watching them, grinning ear to ear with a hand over your heart, nearly moments away from swooning. He looked back down at the dog, his smile only widening, “We’re going to be great friends.”

[eggplantgifs]

Alysa Liu: Promise » 2024 Skate Canada

[seventh-district]

Making Incorrect H:SR Quotes Until I Run Out of (hopefully) Original Ideas - Pt. 3 - Random Screenshot Edition

[Pt. 1] [Pt. 2] [Pt. 4] [Pt. 5] [Pt. 6]

[erros429]

rewatching atla and i just fucking ,, adore how katara asks for a table for two. like yes!!! momo, the dignified little gentleman of the momo dynasty, his momoness, absolutely deserves a seat for himself too!!!!

[walnutmistjamie]

@giftober 2024 Day 2: In bed

Bonus: In Bed

[lazylittledragon]

about to start my yearly critrole campaign 2 rewatch so prepare for me to be absolutely insufferable

[blindmagdalena]

Don't Fret Precious (I'm Here)

Summary: 18+ 8.1k homelander x reader, f!reader, mild sublander, immoral reader, off-screen murder, blood, attempted assault (not by HL), cunnilingus, lite comeplay, penetrative sex, fingering, dirty talk, breeding kink, marking, mild pain play.

During one of his evening patrols, Homelander overhears the beginnings of an assault. By intervening, he not only becomes your personal hero, but falls into a whirlwind of infatuation and obsession with you, and the supposedly ordinary life you led before he happened across you.

thank you @mari-thesimp, whose prompt inspired this monster of a fic! 🖤 AO3 Link.

To this day, Homelander doesn’t know why you were alone in that alleyway that night: he never thought to ask, and by now, it’s an irrelevant detail. He just knows that it was in a shady side of the city, nowhere near your work or your home.

That was where he first heard you. You were screaming in this shrill, throaty way that reminded him of how women in the movies screamed. You were the perfect little Hollywood damsel, trapped down a dark side street by a man twice your size with a brutish smile and clear intentions. It was almost too perfect of a stage, and Homelander found he couldn’t resist intervening. 

Sure, there weren’t any cameras, but maybe you’d give a couple interviews and boost his ratings.

“S’aright by me, I like it when they scream,” the goon told you, pulling at you with dirty, meaty hands. Homelander could smell his rotten breath from a distance. It must have been like chopped onions in your face, stinging your pretty eyes.

“What a coincidence,” Homelander said from behind the man, voice full and confident. He placed his hands on the man’s shoulders. “So do I.”

He tightened his grip until tendons popped and bones groaned under his strength. The man screamed twice as loudly as you had, relinquishing his hold on you. Clearly not comprehending the sheer danger he was in, the man tried to retaliate, lashing out with swinging arms and legs until Homelander finally let him turn around, at which point the severity of the situation dawned clearly in the man's eyes.

“Homelander,” He realized, tongue thick in his mouth, words heavy with sudden fear. “It’s not what you think,” he said. He was taller and broader than Homelander, but it hardly mattered. He was shaking like a leaf in his hold. “We were just playin’,” he said, sweat prickling along his hairline. Homelander twisted the brute down onto his knees, and angled him to the side, focusing on you now. You, who were staring at him with wide, watery doe eyes. It’s no wonder you were hunted down by a predator. You looked… delicious.

“Is that true, miss?” He asked you in his best discerning hero voice. “Do you know this man?”

The question was followed by a tense beat of silence. He held your gaze, only for his to drop and watch your lips form the simple word, “No.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” he said with a chuckle. Before the man could protest, Homelander made a fist, and struck the back of the man’s head with the bottom of it just hard enough to knock him out cold. The thug crumpled to the ground, and Homelander stepped over him to make his way towards you. He gave you a cursory check for broken or fractured bones, but aside from being disheveled, you looked unharmed, slumped back against the brick wall.

One interesting thing he took note of, however, was the small gun tucked into your purse. Why hadn’t you been reaching for it? Panic, he supposed. Perhaps, though you had thought preemptively to protect yourself, your pretty little head had emptied the moment there was any sort of tangible threat.

You were like a little rabbit. Born to be hunted.

“You alright, miss?” He asked, offering you his hand. You took it, eyes as wide as saucers, lips tilted in an awestruck little smile. It wasn’t anything he wasn’t accustomed to, but it was sweet nonetheless. You were sweet, as soft in his hands as ripe fruit. Just the same, it would take so very little to bruise such a delicate thing.

“I am now,” you answered breathlessly, taking a step closer to him, your hand lingering in his long after he’d helped you up. “That… You were incredible. More amazing than I ever imagined.”

Homelander’s brows lifted curiously. “You imagine something like this often?”

“Yes,” you admitted readily, surprising him. “I’ve had a lot of fantasies about you.”

He laughed breathlessly at that, throat clicking on a dry swallow. You were standing just a few inches from him, but your only point of contact remained your hands. One by one, you began to loosely intertwine your fingers with his, drawing his gaze down. He had met hundreds upon hundreds of fans during his career, but rarely were they brave enough to be so direct with him. “Wow, you are, ah… forward,” he said, feeling heat prickle along his collar.

“Is that a bad thing?” You asked. He felt hyper aware of the slow way you squeezed his gloved hand, the gesture strangely enticing. 

“No, no,” he said, licking his lips. “Always good to feel wanted.”

You smiled at him. “Good.” With a gentle pull, you eased him down. He felt certain you were going to kiss him at that moment, but instead, you bypassed his lips and brought yours to his ear. “Because I want you. Very, very much.”

Your words, your voice instantly pooled heat low in his gut. He found himself breathing shallowly, leaning into the faint, sweet fruit smell of you.

When you drew back, your eyes met. You smiled, still squeezing his hand as you did. Your soft little breaths were warm on his lips. After a split second hesitation, Homelander kissed you. He kissed you again, and again, and again. He would kiss you many, many more times after that.

At first you were just a pretty little thing. A secret indulgence with sweet tasting lips, soft skin, and a seemingly endless propensity for adoration. You were removed from the blood and corporate grind of his day to day life. Before him, your life was simple, mundane, and predictable. It seemed like a lonely and bleak thing to him.

Perhaps that’s what made it so easy for him to become your sun, and coax your entire world into revolving around him. He saw his own loneliness mirrored back at him in your glossy eyes. To you, he is salvation. To him, you’re convenient.

Homelander particularly enjoys the way your breath catches with palpable excitement when he drops in on you unexpectedly. It doesn’t matter the time of day, be it midday or in the earliest hours of the morning, you welcome him with open, warm arms. Stepping into your comedically ordinary apartment is like watching The Wizard of Oz in reverse, wherein Dorothy retreats from the vulgar, brightly colored Oz to the quiet sepia of her humble little farmhouse. 

Here, his only care in the world is the gentle coo of your voice in his ear. Your heart is a steady, soothing rhythm. The first night Homelander found himself in your bed, he was surprised you didn’t accept him as a trophy fuck the way so many others liked to. Instead, you had stilled his greedy hands, and settled them around your waist. You slowed him. At the time he assumed you were still shaken from your encounter in the alley, but even then, the choice had seemed calculated.

You have a way of making him wait. Making him crave. You held him through the night, fingertips tracing patterns along his scalp, hands cupping his face, touching him as if you were trying to commit every detail of him to memory.

He was enraptured. He still is.

It’s what brings him back to you night after night after night.

Tonight, you’re awake when he slips in through your sliding glass door. It’s always unlocked for him. He would scold you for it if you didn’t live several storeys off the ground. To this day, he cannot shake the image of you as a vulnerable creature, watery eyed and terrified in that dark alleyway. It feels good to hear the skip of your heartbeat at the sound of your door opening, only for your breaths and pulse to calm at the sight of him.

It soothes his frayed nerves. The rest of the world is full of vicious ingrates who love him when he serves them, but who continuously prove themselves eager to tear him apart at the slightest provocation. Not you. Never you.

“My hero,” you sigh as he sinks into your arms. You never ask him about what’s going on in the news. This place–the warmth of your embrace–is a sanctuary from the noise of it all. “I missed you,” you tell him. You always do. He nuzzles into the crook of your neck, inhaling the familiar smell of you. His hands settle on your hips, neediness spilling through in the way he grips you, twisting the fabric of your clothing in his grasp. Homelander doesn’t respond right away, choosing instead to brush his lips along the bare skin of your neck, following the line up to your ear. You tilt your head, giving him greater access. You’re always giving more and more of yourself. You’ve done nothing to dissuade him of his possessive thoughts, the ones that whisper he is owed every breath and inch of you. If anything, he could swear you stoke his fires knowingly.

“Are you okay?” You ask gently, coaxing him to look at you with your hand on his cheek. He complies, pulling back just enough to meet your stare. You cup either side of his face, stroking his skin with your thumbs. The sound of your thumb pads catching against the faint bit of stubble on his face is soothing, like scratching an itch deep in his ears. “What do you need?”

“You,” he answers at last, leaning closer.

“You have me,” you say. He can feel your smile against his lips when you kiss him. “Forever. And always,” you say, punctuating each sentiment with a kiss. “What else do you need?”

“Nothing,” he says, voice sinking beneath the weight of his building desire, the heat of it radiating through his body in slow waves. “Not a goddamn thing. I don’t… I don’t need anything or anyone but you,” he whispers, clawing more purposefully at your clothing now, resentful of the barrier they create between him and the warmth of your skin. Too many things that have kept him away from what he desires, what he deserves. Your cheap cotton blend clothes won’t be among them. “Me neither,” you breathe, guiding his hands up your sides, helping him to strip away your shirt. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted. All I’ve ever needed.”

Your words drip like sweet nectar. He swears he can taste the heaven of them on your lips as he kisses you. He follows the imaginary drip of it from your lips to the corner of your mouth, your jaw, your neck. He relishes the low moan you give. You push your hands into his hair, wringing a matching note from the back of his throat with the way you grip it. More, he thinks, insatiable. Give me more.

His gloved hands slide down your sides, mapping out the curves of your body as he has a hundred times before. His thumbs hook on your pants, and he pulls those down, too. He smiles at your bare skin beneath, leaning in to press a kiss to your pelvis, just above the thatch of hair there. “No panties?” He rumbles, helping you step out of your pants.

“I was hoping you’d come,” you say through a smile, hooking your leg over his shoulder, hand braced in his hair. He nuzzles in, lips brushing against your already sensitized clit. He gives a tonal sigh, opening his mouth to inhale the musky-sweet smell of you, his tongue snaking out to glide from your velvety, slick cunt to the gently throbbing nub of your clit. He closes his lips around it, opening his eyes halfway to meet your gaze from between your legs. He’s pleased to see you already staring down at him, admiring him openly. You’re flushed with heat, pupils blown wide. He purrs for the way you smooth his hair back with your fingers, his eyes falling shut so he can focus solely on the taste of you. He cups your ass in his hands and lifts you onto his mouth, hitching your other leg up over his shoulder as well.

Homelander holds you up and drinks greedily from you, coaxing your sweet wetness with slides and thrusts of his tongue, panting into the welcoming heat of you. Drool and slick coat his mouth in equal measure, dripping down his chin, wetting him so thoroughly he can almost pretend it’s sweat. As if he could exert himself. As if he were anything less than a god putting the light of heaven into the space between your thighs.

His favorite part is the way your pussy clenches around his tongue every time he pushes it into you, knowing you’re aching for more. For him.

“Nnngh, baby,” you moan, locking your ankles behind his back, rocking your hips. He squeezes your ass, egging you on. He can almost taste your swelling climax. He moans into you, meets the sway of your hips with eager dives of his tongue. “I’m–hahh, ahh, oh, there, there, mm, baby, you feel so good, m’gonna come,” you moan, prompting him faster, deeper, riled up by every aching praise that falls from your lips.

You pull his hair sharply when you come, and his eyes roll back into his skull with it. He revels in the way you smother him, literally and figuratively. Since the beginning, your affection, your attention, has been an endless, all-consuming thing. There was a time that he believed there would be no one who could stomach the depths of his emptiness, and yet here you are. With him, you form an ouroboros. Neverending mutual consumption.

Homelander laps at you until your shivering body goes lax, and you slide down into the strength of his arms. You kiss him, heedless of the mess you’ve made of his mouth, hands clumsily working to open the top of his suit. “Take me to the bed,” you tell him. The authority in your voice sounds effortless, despite the reedy quality your orgasm has given it. “I need you inside me.”

I need you. The words echo in his ears on a loop like a broken record that he never wants mended. He stands with you secure in his arms, licking your own taste into your mouth as he walks. He sets you down gently, but he grabs your hips hard enough to bruise. He wants to see the evidence that you are as changed by him as he is by you. 

He shrugs his top off. Before it even hits the ground, you’re slipping your hands up beneath the hem of his undershirt, purposefully skating his ticklish sides with your fingertips, surprising a giggle out of him. The shirt comes off of his head with a flourish, mussing his hair into a splay of blonde locks. You smile at one another, secretive, as if this intimacy between you is something stolen.

Homelander often behaves as though it is. More times than not, this happiness feels like borrowed time. Like something he is owed, but was never supposed to have. It leaves him feverish for it, clawing at every second of it he can get his hands on.

You help divest him of his pants next, metal belt hitting the ground with a thud. He steps out of his boots, and back tight into your space, grazing his teeth tantalizingly along the line of your neck before he sucks a dark mark just beneath your earlobe.

Your sigh of pleasure is music to his ears. His own breath catches when your hand slips between his legs, grasping his aching cock. You give a couple of leisurely strokes, but the tunnel of your fist is so loose, he knows you’re teasing him. He thrusts needily against you. “Sshhh,” you hush, guiding him to the bed. “Sit.”

He does, dropping onto the edge of the bed with a bounce, lips parted, breathing his excitement in shallow huffs. Initially, you confuse him by turning your back to him, but he catches on quickly when you put your hand on his thigh, and lower yourself slowly into his lap. He takes hold of your waist reflexively, aiding your descent. His grip on you flexes at the first glorious, wet press of your cunt against the throbbing head of his cock.

“Slow,” you remind him, your own excitement turning your voice thin and airy. Homelander grits his teeth, caught somewhere between impatience and dread. He’s not sure he’ll last long, not with the taste of you so fresh on his tongue and the hot, drenched pull of your body sucking him in. He wants to slam in and flee all at once, caught paralyzed in the middle.

Luckily for him, you’re wholly in control. You grip his wrists and sink down slowly, tipping your head back with a moan as you take every inch of him, settling fully in his lap. Homelander keens, pressing his face between your shoulder blades. You’re so tight and wet, it makes his head spin. The throb of your body alone could make him come, he’s certain of it. Your heart beat is a drum in his ear, one he can feel every pulse of in the velvet walls of your cunt. 

“Please,” he moans, adjusting subtly. Even that makes his balls ache.

“I have you,” you assure him, reaching back over your shoulder. You push your hand into his hair, guiding him to rest his chin on your shoulder as you massage his scalp with your fingertips. He wraps his arms around your waist, fighting the desperate urge to slam up into you, to break you apart and spill into the deepest parts of you. There is such violence in every part of him. It would be foolish to think it would not bleed into his love.

Instead, Homelander remains perfectly still, panting into the crook of your neck while you grip his hair, grounding him. “I love you,” you sigh, to which he screws his eyes shut, exhaling a rough little noise. “It’s okay. I want you to feel good. I want you to fill me up. Give me all of you,” you murmur, reaching down between your legs. You cup his balls in your palm, gently massaging them as you begin to lift, but only barely, fucking yourself down on his cock in deep, sharp drops.

“You’ll do that for me, right, baby? Always make me feel so good. Let me feel you come,” you coax, voice too sweet for the wicked way you seduce him. His balls are tight in your grasp, heavy, his cock weeping precome that’s lost amidst the wetness of you.

Still, he holds back. He adjusts himself to take hold of your breasts, massages them until you moan. He kisses the mark he left on your neck, teases your skin with sharp teeth. He almost bites down when you squeeze his balls, making him jerk up into you with a keening moan.

“F-fuck, mm, like that, do that again, baby,” you urge, tightening your grip on his hair while you continue to fondle his balls, eager to feel them unload inside you. In the midst of it all, he’s rapidly coming undone. Your tone breathy and low in his ear, you moan, “My sweet, perfect boy.”

Homelander chokes on his own sharp inhale, baring his teeth as something primal overtakes him. He locks his arms around you and in one, two, three, four sharp thrusts, lets out a guttural moan alongside the sweltering rush of relief and pleasure that erupts throughout his body. You make all kinds of sweet noises alongside him, surprised every time by the sheer force of his release.

The two of you rest like that, your body slumped back against his, his arms encircling you, keeping you pressed tight to his chest.

You’re spent, but he isn’t finished with you. He doubts he ever will be. You and your ordinary little life are unremarkable in every possible way, yet he clings to you now as though it is your strength that keeps him upright. For a long time, Homelander had believed the crux of his divinity was his distance from humanity. Now, he’s not so sure.

Never has he felt more like a god than he does with your words of worship furling sweetly within him, your body enveloping him in the warmth of your reverence. 

Somewhere along the line, though Homelander finds himself unable to pinpoint when or where, your presence in his life shifted from something convenient to something he needed.

It would scare him if he wasn’t so convinced you need him twice as badly. It compels him to ensure you never forget it, to show you that there will never again be anyone or anything in your life that changes it, enhances it the way he has. The more he needs you, the more you must need him.

It’s what drives him to eventually lift you from his lap and lay you on the bed, to nestle between your legs and lick up the mess he’s made of you. Eating his own come out of you tastes like possession, like familiarity, like love. Your moans, even muffled by the press of your inner thighs to his ears, are divine. He slips his fingers into your dripping cunt both for your pleasure and to push the spill of his come back inside, sucking on your clit while you rock against his fingers.

He loses himself to the fantasy playing behind his eyelids, imagining that this time, the seed takes. That it makes a mother of you. His baby growing in your belly, fattening up your breasts and making you glow with the radiance of it. You would carry the child of a god with incomparable grace, heavy with the weight of his legacy. You’d be bound to him beyond pretty words and carnal embraces. A baby would be his gift to you, and you would accept it without question, he assures himself.

Your cunt spasms around his fingers, pulling him back to reality. He fell so deep into his own bliss, he nearly forgot what he was doing. His eyelids flutter open, dazed and utterly at peace between your legs. Your orgasm hits his tongue beautifully, rhythmic thrums that have you clenching your thighs tight on either side of his head, arching up into his mouth. He slows the thrust of his fingers, licking you leisurely through the aftershocks, until you eventually relax and give his hair a gentle tug, prompting him to crawl obediently up the length of your body.

You kiss him with hunger. He leans back slightly just to see if you’ll give chase. He’s pleasantly surprised when you do, following his lips and pulling him greedily back down into your arms, bringing him flush to your chest. You hitch your legs over his hips, arms sliding around him, holding him like you have the strength to keep him there.

Someday, perhaps, he’ll come to terms with the power you have over him.

“I love you,” you whisper. The sentiment unspools around him and ties loose knots around his every muscle, soothing him until his weight rests fully upon your body. He nestles in between your breasts, brushing his lips along the swell of one. “I love you, too,” he murmurs, voice soft. He feels utterly lost to this marriage of sex and intimacy, secure enough to relax, to let go of the impulse to hold you tightly in place. He knows you will not try to leave him, try to reduce sex to a transaction to be completed and disregarded. It feels good to slip his arms loosely around you, and hold you with the knowledge that he need not fight to keep you.

Instead, it is you who holds on tightly. You entangle your fingers in his hair and cross your ankles over his back, locking him in place. It adds a kind of giddiness to his smile to, for once, be the one clung to.

More and more of Homelander’s day begins to revolve around you. When he isn’t with you, he’s thinking of you. He wakes to your text messages. He gets through the flash and pomp of his day to day life for the sake of returning to your arms. He grows increasingly territorial over his time, irritable when his position in the world forces him to be gone from you longer than his typical schedule calls for.

It’s a difficult feeling to describe. He’s never had something to look forward to outside of the validation of being Homelander.

It begins to manifest in frustration. He’s twice as curt with his responsibilities and those who assign them.

“You’re getting sloppy,” Stan Edgar warns him after a particularly messy incident. “I don’t care what you do in your personal time, or who you do it with,” he says. Homelander’s gut clenches. The words are too pointed to be anything other than a threat. “But here, on my time, you will perform as expected. Am I understood?”

“Yes,” Homelander answered through his teeth, hands locked tight behind his back, beneath his cape, where the world couldn’t see the subtle way they shook.

That night, in your creaky bed, he fucks you missionary–simple, intimate, face to face–and begs to hear your approval.

“More,” he pants desperately, one hand gripping the headboard, the other in a tight fist against the bed, above your shoulder. “More, fuck. Please.”

“My hero,” you croon, cupping his face in your hands, breath hitching with every slow, deliberate thrust of his hips. “They don’t deserve you. They don’t know how good they have it. How good you are,” you say, your words a soothing balm against his scorched ego. “Mm, even now, you’re making me feel so good. I love you so much, I wish you were all mine, only mine,” you say, drawing him down into a messy kiss.

“Only yours,” Homelander echoes through a broken moan, fucking into you harder, faster. He doesn’t miss the way you flinch at the pace, but you don’t tell him to stop. Instead, he feels you clench down hard around him, lips parting on a silent gasp.

“Only mine,” you repeat like an encouragement, wrapping your arms around his neck. Your headboard is slamming loudly against the wall now, each beat of it a step closer to the climax building between you. If you give a fuck about your shitty bed or the thin dry wall behind it, you give no indication of it. Instead, your eyes are locked completely on his, oblivious to the world around you.

He wants to lose himself in that stare.

“Fuck, fuck, I’m–”

An out of place bang against the wall abruptly knocks Homelander out of his delirium. He looks up, and hears a voice on the other side of the wall holler, “Some of us are trying to fucking sleep!”

Homelander bares his teeth, and without a thought, his eyes flare crimson. Two high intensity laser beams cut straight through your wall and into the adjoining apartment. Deafening silence follows. Homelander blinks the light away, staring for a long few seconds at the two holes before he looks down at you, uncertain of what he expects to see. Shock at best, horror at worst.

While your eyes are wide, it’s neither of those he sees.

“Don’t stop,” you tell him breathlessly, thrusting up against him. You look wild with it, heart pounding with adrenaline and arousal in equal measure. Not an ounce of fear. “Don’t you dare stop.”

He obeys immediately, driving into you so sharply it knocks the wind from you. He doubts you’ll ever hear from that neighbor again.

Homelander comes harder than he ever has before. He leaves you tender to the touch from the force of his thrusts, fucked raw. He offers apologies, but you don’t accept them as they’re spoken. Instead, you guide him down to kiss the marks his passion has left on you. Even then, he recognizes that it is not reconciliation you seek. You’re showing him his work, appreciating the canvas he has made of your body.

“Never apologize for this,” you tell him. “For leaving me with so much. It keeps you with me even when you’re away from me.”

For that alone, he would fuck you a dozen more times. It makes him want to sink his teeth into you, leave you with something more permanent. It makes him ache, wishing you could do the same. He never desired the capacity to be wounded until you taught him the beauty of bleeding for love. He finds himself viciously envious of the bruises blossoming on your skin in the shape of his touch. He imagines you idly pressing on them through the day, remembering with that dull ache how thoroughly he had fucked you.

“I wish you could do this to me,” he admits feverishly, tracing the pattern of his hand bruised onto your hip.

You’re quiet for a moment. “Maybe I can,” you say, causing him to pick up curiously. He watches you cover his hand with your own, and bring it to his forearm. His brows furrow slightly. He looks to you for an explanation, but you’re focused intently on wrapping his own hand around his arm, your fingers lined up with his. “Squeeze,” you tell him.

Understanding dawns. Licking his lips, Homelander flexes his grip on his forearm. At the same time, you kiss him, squeezing your hand tight over top of his. “Harder,” you say. He obliges, squeezing until pressure builds into a more alien sensation: pain. His instinct is to stop, to shy away from it, but before he can he feels you cup your hand between his legs, grasping his barely-hard cock. He gives a startled little moan into your mouth, and his hand retightens on his arm. 

“Good boy,” you say wickedly, stroking his cock in slow, firm pulls. “Nice and tight. I want you to remember me, too.”

“I will,” he rasps, folding in against you. “I will, I will, fuck, hhahhh…” he moans, taken apart not only by your touch, but the ease and eagerness with which you fulfill his every wicked thought. Is there any part of him you will shy away from?

He makes a sound somewhere between pain and pleasure, his skin discoloring around the press of his fingers, swelling up between them. At the same time, his cock fills out steadily with your every stroke. The pressure of it is not unlike the grip on his arm, a gradually building sensation that he wants to shy away from as much as he wants to dive into head first. The contrast, the contradiction of it, is intoxicating.

“So good for me. You’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you?” You ask, smiling fondly. He nods fervently, refusing to relinquish his grip while you’re still squeezing his fingers down tight. He never could have fathomed that pain might feel like love.

“Yes, yes, anything,” he grits out, the tips of his fingers beginning to tingle. He lets out a rough breath when you begin to pump him faster, firmer, before he comes hard into the narrow tunnel of your fist, hips jerking while he dutifully maintains the painful, vice-like grip on his arm. You stroke him through it, milking him so thoroughly of his orgasm that he nearly misses when you loosen your fingers over his hand, and prompt him to release his hold. 

Once the skin settles, what Homelander is left with is a throbbing ache, and the unmistakable outline of his grasp imprinted in the burst vessels of his arm. He stares down at it, dumbstruck for a long moment. He has known pain, he’s even known injury, but never like this. He’s still coming down from the euphoria of his release, unable to process what he’s looking at, when your hand slips over top of the bruise, settling nicely into the shadow of it. You press it gently, and though it doesn’t hurt per se, it is different. Strange. It makes his stomach flip unfamiliarly.

“How does it feel?” You ask, tipping his chin up to kiss him.

“Weird,” he answers, distractedly reciprocating.

“How do you feel?” You continue, helping to settle you both down into bed, pulling the covers over your naked bodies.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly.

“That’s okay,” you say, voice dripping over him like honey, warm and sweet. You lift his arm and turn it, kissing each sprawling line of the bruise he inflicted on himself. The mark he has given himself in your stead. No one has ever… “Do you like it?” He asks, hating how small his own voice sounds.

“Yes,” you sigh, looking at him, your cheek pressed lightly to the palm of the bruise. “Very much.”

Slowly, he smiles. “Kinda fucked up.”

You smile, too. “Good.”

The bruise lingers for several days. For as indestructible as he is, once the damage is done, his body heals at an uncomfortably human rate. It would set his teeth on edge if not for the fact that this mark reminded him that he is yours. He finds himself touching it absently during his day to day, thumb pressing into the fabric of his suit while he zones in and out at various meetings and interviews.

Every day he has it, it reminds him of where he’d rather be.

That same territorial irritation that got him in trouble with Stan Edgar returns tenfold. Every job and press conference feels more arduous an endeavor than the last. The flash of the cameras sting his eyes more than ever, their questions like endless needles pricking his eardrums. Their mindless adoration feels so shallow, it barely registers anymore.

He just wants to be done with it all.

It’s this headspace that leads Homelander to fucking up the worst he has since he was a goddamn teenager.

The flight back to your apartment feels longer than it ever has. Most of the blood and viscera either dries down or flakes away, but every inch of his exposed skin feels tight and itchy with it. He can feel it caked in his hair, too. 

He should return to the tower. There will be press. There will be speeches. There will be a cleanup job that sees him at the center stage.

He should return to the tower he tells himself again and again.

But he wants you.

Your balcony door welcomes him, unlocked as always. He hesitates briefly, staring at his glove. The color of it would mask the blood if not for how dark it has turned. His stomach churns as he steps inside. He wishes the bruise had not faded, that he could press on it now and feel the dull, aching assurance of your love.

He has kept this animal inside him far from you. It’s time to see whether or not you’ll withstand the blood-soaked bite of it. Whether or not you meant it when you said give me all of you.

Homelander steps inside. It’s late, nearly 11:00, but he knows you’re awake. He can hear tinny music playing from your phone, reverberating off the bathroom wall. He can smell the lavender of your bubble bath even over the copper tang of blood in his nostrils.

His stride through your hallway is uncharacteristically slow, footfalls heavy. He hears the water of your bath slosh, and then the music goes silent. “Homelander?” You call, trepidation in your voice. It churns his gut to hear, even if he knows it’s the unusual cadence of his steps you’re reacting to. He knows he sounds like a stranger. Part of him feels like one. He should have showered, washed away the filth until he was your hero again, shining brightly and walking as if the weight of the world did not sit upon him. He still doesn’t know why he couldn’t bring himself to do that.

An awful, warped part of him wants you to see the bloody mess hiding underneath. His throat is tight, twisted up in sickly anticipation. He does not answer your call. He wonders if you’ll scream when you see him. Another slosh of water, followed by the slap of your bare feet against your bathroom floor. He makes his way to your bedroom, listening to the quicken of your heart.

Answer her, he tells himself. You’re scaring her.

Good, answers another thought. It’s time to know, once and for all, what she’s truly made of. To know whether or not all good things come to an end. She should be scared.

Homelander listens to you move from your bathroom to the soft carpeting of your bedroom, hears the hushed, quick way you begin to rummage about. He stands in front of your bedroom door, one blood crusted hand resting on the doorknob. He hesitates for a second, in which everything goes quiet, save for the shallow sounds of your breath, and the quick, rain-drop pattering of your heart.

He opens the door. He barely registers the gun in your hands–or the sharp, focused look in your eyes–before you fire. The sound of it rings almost painfully loud in his ears after he had been listening so intently to the race of your pulse. He blinks several times, glancing down at the bullet wedged between the carved musculature of his suit.

“Homelander,” you gasp, lowering the gun. Since the first day he met you, he knew you owned it. He just didn’t expect you to be any good with it, not after the way you failed to defend yourself with it. Had you been practicing? He can’t remember ever smelling gunpowder on your hands. He plucks the bullet from the chest of his suit, examining it. That shot would have killed a man. You didn’t hesitate long enough to even recognize who stood before you. You knew precisely what you were doing.

“You didn’t answer me,” you say. Gone is that keen killer stare. Your eyes are wide, mortified. He watches you register the state of him, taking in his expression, the blood. You haven’t moved an inch. Why haven’t you come to him yet? He drops the bullet to the ground, and extends his hand out to you.

“C’mere,” he says, voice low.

You look at his hand, but you hesitate. The surge of anger it ignites within him is white hot, making his gut churn violently. “Come here!” He snaps. Your eyes shoot back up to meet his gaze. He can’t read the expression on your face, which only adds kindling to the flames of frustration and anxiety burning him up from the inside out.

He wants to grind himself deep into the marrow of your bones, find sanctuary in the hollow of them. Your body, your mind, your soul, which you have emptied into a haven made for him alone, has become the greatest solace he has ever known. The notion that you might deny him now–might deny him ever–is more horrifying a thought than he can bear.

The handful of seconds it takes before you begin walking feel like hours. Your steps are tentative, like a deer navigating the underbrush silently so as not to disturb the wolves. You look so much like you did that very first night: like you were made to feel the sharp teeth of a predator.

You slip your lavender fresh hand into his bloody one. He closes his gloved fingers around it, gentle with you despite the thrumming tension in his body. He can feel the corners of his mouth twitching with it, his breaths shallow. For once, it’s his own heart thundering in his ears.

“Sshhh,” you hush softly, barely a breath. His brows furrow, dried blood cracking apart on his skin. You lift your free hand to his face, palm lightly ghosting along his jaw. He cups your hand in his and turns his head to push fully into it, lips pressed to your palm, eyes falling shut. He can’t stomach that unfamiliar look on your face.

“I didn’t… they weren’t supposed to be there,” he begins to explain, readying a contingency plan. An explanation you’ll believe. Something to say that will make your face recognizable to him again. However, before he can continue, the press of your thumb to his lips quiets him. 

“It’s okay,” you say, coaxing him from his downward spiral. “I don’t care.” “What?” He doesn’t like the sound of that. 

“I don’t care what you did,” you clarify, squeezing his hand in yours. Slowly, you begin to pull him down, towards you. “I don’t care whose blood this is.” Just as you had that very first night, you bring your lips to his ear. “You are all I have ever cared about.” Goosebumps erupt across every inch of his skin. He lets go of your hand and wraps his arms around you, sinking down against you in sheer relief for the way you slip your arms around his neck, fingers carding up into his hair, matted as it is with blood. He exhales roughly, squeezing you too tight. He can hear it in the strain of your breath, your chest compressed to his, but you don’t fight him. You endure him.

That alone is more than anyone else has managed.

Over your shoulder, Homelander stares at the gun resting atop your bedside table. For the first time, he wonders who truly ensnared who.

Drawing back, he takes hold of your jaw in both hands and kisses you desperately. If you mind the taste of blood, you give no indication of it, opening for his tongue and meeting him readily with yours. “I thought you would–I thought you were–” Fuck, even as his pulse steadies, he can’t get the words straight, can’t get them off of his tongue.

“I’m here, I’m here. I wasn’t,” you manage to say between the fervent presses of his lips, sounding as relieved as he feels. It’s as if you’ve heard his thoughts. “I love you. I love you.” 

A treacherous little whimper crawls up the back of his throat, but he chases it with a groan. He takes his hands from your face to your arms, itching to feel every inch of you, to remind himself that it’s all real. That you’re real. 

“Come with me,” you say. I will. Anywhere, he thinks. You step backwards, and he follows. At some point, the towel slipped from your body. Your damp skin has become a canvas of bloodied impressions ranging from his hands to the texture of his suit. Piece by piece, you begin peeling away the soiled suit from his body. He lets you work, though he cannot keep his hands from you, particularly once you remove his gloves. He pushes his hands into your wet hair while you unbuckle his pants, kisses you hungrily while he steps out of his boots. 

It is a maddening thing, to be loved when you are at your most unloveable.

The bathwater sloshes over the edges as you both sink down into it, all tangled limbs and devouring kisses. The blood stains the soapy lavender pink while your hands leave messy crimson handprints on the ceramic tub. You straddle his lap, and with wet hands, begin working his blood crusted hair wet and loose. Leaning in, Homelander settles his hands on your ribs and kisses a trail down the valley between your breasts, turning his head to lap and suck at your right nipple.

You encourage him with a low moan, nails dragging along his scalp. You cradle his head to your chest, retaliating by rocking your hips slowly down against his, pinning his stiffening cock between your bodies. “Listen to me. There is nothing you could do that would drive me away,” you tell him, punctuating your words with sinuous slides of your hips, wringing tight, needy little moans from him. Your own voice is breathy, the pitch of it gradually climbing. You reach down between your bodies, and take a firm hold of his cock, steadying it until you can sit astride it, and slowly sink back down.

With your mouth at his ear, panting noisy little breaths, you whisper, “I would kill a dozen, a hundred more men if it made you mine.”

What do you mean more?

The thought doesn’t linger long. It’s impossible to focus on anything other than the molten hot clench of your cunt seizing all around him, swallowing him up like it was made to. Homelander slides his hands to your hips and takes a tight hold, meeting the roll of your body with sharp thrusts up. “Nnngh, aah, fuck, I love you–I’m–fuck, I love you, you’re so–so fucking perfect,” he growls through his teeth, dull nails biting crescent marks into your skin while he holds you, pulling you down into every jagged, desperate snap of his hips. Each deep thrust knocks a noise from you, has you gripping his hair tight. Without leverage, all you can do is take it, your moans growing louder and louder, your pussy squeezing him tighter as he fucks you with inhuman precision. Homelander picks up his pace, dying to feel you come for him when he’s like this, messy with the worst parts of himself and wholly at your mercy, whether you know it or not.

“C’mon,” he grits out, though where he means to have authority in his voice, it comes out like a plea. “Come for me. Wanna feel you come on my cock. F-fuck, please, let me–let me feel you,” he says, trailing off into a moan before he buries his face between your breasts, flexing fresh bruises into your skin while you prettily pant and whimper in his ear from the sheer force he fucks you with.

“I will, I–I–” That’s as far as you get before you come, before you double over against him and scream his name loud enough for your entire apartment complex to hear. It tips him right over the edge with you, has him crying out as he arches his back, flooding his release deep into your tight, quivering pussy, thrusting weakly through the aftershocks.

By the time the two of you settle down against one another, your breaths calmed, the majority of the bathwater is outside of the tub. The night air is cool on your naked bodies, but you’ve never been cold in Homelander’s arms. He traces absent patterns on your skin while you recover, your thighs still shaking.

“We should shower,” you say eventually, a slight slur to your tone. It makes Homelander smile. He loves feeling, seeing, and hearing all the ways in which he has ruined you. “Let me finish washing you.”

“Can you stand?” He asks. It’s an earnest question. “Carry me there,” you say.

He stares at you warmly, the corners of his eyes crinkled with the width of his smile. “ ‘Kay.“

The shower is slow, less frenzied. You lather shampoo into his hair, washing away the remnants of what had come before this. You work body wash into his skin until he smells like coconuts instead of blood and viscera. He nuzzles into your touches, kisses you whenever the impulse strikes. There is no way to describe the unparalleled feeling of sharing space with a body that not only welcomes your touch, but also houses a heart that loves you. Once the two of you are sufficiently towel dried, the two of you settle into your familiar creaky bed. You draw the covers up over your bodies, and he draws you into his embrace, kissing the top of your head. He intertwines his fingers with yours, absently rubbing your skin with his thumb, his mind drifting.

“Say,” he begins eventually, stirring you from your near slumber. “The night we met… What were you doing on that side of town, down that alley?” His voice is low, curious.

There’s a pause. He can’t see your face like this, while you’re nestled into the crook of his neck, but he can hear your heart clear as day.

“I was looking for you,” you answer eventually, pulse as steady as a metronome.

At that, he smiles. “I love you,” he whispers, squeezing your hand.

“I love you, too,” you answer, your own smile audible in your sleepy voice. “And I always will.”

Don't fret precious I'm here Step away from the window Go back to sleep Lay your head down child I won't let the boogeyman come Counting bodies like sheep To the rhythm of the war drums Pay no mind to the rabble Pay no mind to the rabble Head down, go to sleep To the rhythm of the war drums

[vash-in-the-void]

guys i got to see this amazing cosplay by @lesoldatmort and @artofalassa and now i'm making everyone else look at it

literally exploding

i love them

:DD