#i did care for it regularly and tried to keep its hearts at at least 2 for both hunger and happiness even tho it wasnt very disciplined...

[starrysharks]

checked in on my tama after leaving it for only 2-ish hours and i got the spaceship ending wtfff😭😭😭😭 it was only like 3 years old too i'm so upset

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

food likes and dislikes + why

Consider this part of the Twisted Wonderland food lore series, I guess? Part 1 and part 2 focus on compiling food culture and related world lore; I will keep adding to them as new information is released. This part expands on the reasons for why each character likes and dislikes the food that they do. Please note: THIS DOES NOT COVER ALL CHARACTERS, only the characters we have official profiles for! The staff do not have least favorite foods listed + other characters like Neige and Che'nya lack profiles, so they are not addressed here.

Additionally, the reasoning behind some likes/dislikes are speculation or implied rather than outright stated as canon. I will indicate when these instances crop up.

Riddle

Favorite: strawberry tarts

Riddle has been fascinated with strawberry tarts since he was a child, as he would see them in the window of the local cake shop. He lovingly describes the bright-red fruit on them as "[shining] at [him] like forbidden jewels", as his mother would liken the sugar content in sweets and pastries to poison.

He tastes his first strawberry tart after meeting Trey and Che'nya. Trey is the one who offers him a slice from his family's bakery. Riddle is entranced by its look and taste. "A bright-red strawberry tart on a white plate. To me, it shined more brightly than any gem could. That first bite was so sweet. It tasted like nothing I'd ever eaten before. With each bite, I became more entranced..."

SPECULATION: The implication, as I read it, is that strawberry tarts fulfill a desire he has long since had but has seldom acknowledged. They are also tied to the positive experience of the intimacy and the first friends Riddle ever made, as well as a symbol of his own agency.

He seems to regularly offer and eat cakes and other sweets at unbirthday parties, as they are a must-have at these events. Other foods he intakes typically adhere to the rules of the Queen of Hearts, even if he has different preferences (such as preferring honey to sugar cubes for his tea, and preferring milk tea over lemon tea).

Riddle thinks that food must be nutritious. He calculates what he eats and ensures that he makes up for any deficits at the NRC cafeteria's buffet.

SPECULATION: His idea that food must be nutritious may come from seeing food as fuel for the brain. It's something he may have picked up from his mother, who is seen giving him food that will (according to her) help his developing cognitive functions.

Least Favorite: junk food

SPECULATION: While we aren't given an explicit reason for Riddle's stance on junk food, it's implied that his mother ingrained in him a sense of which foods and amounts are "right" and 'wrong" to have. He likely still takes her teachings to heart.

Riddle tried fast food for the first time at age 17 and declared that he doesn’t like it and won’t have it again. This supports the idea that he has avoided this kind of food for a long time—again, something instilled in him by his mother.

He tends to get the daily special at the NRC cafeteria not because he likes them but because it’s easier him to calorie count that way.

Trey

Favorite: candied violets

Trey started eating candied violets before he started elementary school. He was so impressed by the concept of edible flowers that he went around trying to eat flowers and weeds he found in the wild.

Trey states that he loves how the flower's aroma overtakes his senses and makes him feel as though he's lying in a bed of violets. He cites this as being the "real appeal" to him.

Trey also says that he gets bad cravings for candied violets and would even snack on his parents' stash (which they prepared for their bakery's cakes). This however did not stop Trey, so it led to his parents setting aside some candied violets specifically for him. In fact, they still send care packages to NRC which contain candied violets. Trey snacks on them on study breaks.

He suggests using candied violets as a sugar substitute. It changes the color of the milk, and he finds that interesting.

Trey also enjoys the NRC cafeteria’s hamburger steaks. He says they’re so good he could eat them every day. He also eats many sweets made with pie dough.

Trey thinks it is important to have foods that require chewing. This is because chewing is important to maintain the health of one's jaw and teeth.

Least Favorite: mustard

Che’nya and Trey played Russian Roulette with six cream puffs. Five had regular cream filling and one had mustard.

Trey had bad luck and ended up biting into the one cream puff with mustard inside. There was no water to wash down the flavor, and Che’nya was of no help because he was laughing too hard at his friend’s demise. Trey reports that he “seriously almost cried”. It is this bad experience that bred his dislike of mustard.

Cater

Favorite: spicy ramen

Cater says that a "capsaicin kick" from spicy food "lights a fire under [him] when [he's] feeling out of it" or feeling down in the dumps.

Additionally, ramen pics are "GREAT for [social media] engagement". He usually places a lot of importance on a dish's appearance when judging it.

SPECULATION: Our body interprets spiciness not as a flavor, but as a pain reaction. Knowing that Cater is secretly very gloomy and sad, he may eat spicy food as a way to just “feel something”.

Least Favorite: anything sweet

When Cater was 10 years old, his mother and two older sisters were into making sweets. Back then, Cater was actually excited for extra desserts. However, they continued to make more sweets every single day. It got to a point where Cater started to have a hard time eating them.

According to Cater, his sisters in particular made things worse. They would pile more sweets onto his plate and tell him there's plenty more where that came from. If Cater said he didn't want any, his sisters would give him puppy dog eyes and he would relent. This would ruin Cater's taste for anything even remotely sweet.

He loves visiting cafes, but the most photogenic items tend to be desserts. Cater has the dilemma where he will order something cute but then can't eat it because of his aversion to sweetness. (The problem is solved if he invites someone to come with to be his human garbage disposal.)

Trey is, so far, the only person who has been able to immediately sus out that Cater doesn't like sweets. Cater usually has to dance around this fact about himself and find roundabout ways to avoid eating sweets (such as suggesting to Trey that he show us UM to the first years so Cater can avoid tasting a sweet chestnut tart).

Ace

Favorite: cherry pie

Ace says cherries are his favorite fruit. There is no further explanation given for why cherry pies in particular are his favorite.

He prefers fresh fruit in his pies as opposed to the “canned stuff”. Ace finds the flavor to be a lot more robust in the former. He also likes his cherries "nice and tart".

SPECULATION: The meta reason for Ace's favorite food may be because the Drink Me potion from Alice in Wonderland is said to taste like "cherry tart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast". The "tart" was probably changed to "pie" to help differentiate Ace's favorite food from Riddle's favorite food (which also involves a red fruit in a crust).

Least Favorite: raw oysters

When he was a kid, Ace read a book that involved oysters. He can't stand raw oysters because they remind him of that story.

SPECULATION: This is likely a reference to the story of "The Walrus and the Carpenter", which involves a walrus tricking and eating sentient baby oysters in Disney's Alice in Wonderland. It probably traumatized kid!Ace xnsbdkwbiwcnks

Deuce

Favorite: anything with eggs

Deuce comes from a single parent household, so their budget is usually tight. Eggs, being a cheap staple food, was something his mom often prepared for him. They are also simple and versatile enough for even his mom and himself to learn how to cook a variety of ways.

Deuce remarks that he likes his omelets "extra fluffy". It's how he always orders it at the NRC cafeteria.

Least Favorite: pepper (ie the more bitter green ones; JP)/bell peppers (ie red/yellow ones EN)

No matter how small they're chopped, Deuce has never been able to eat (bell) peppers. He says the flavor and the smell are too overpowering for him.

SPECULATION: Pepper is a commonly disliked food among young children in Japan. It’s similar to how broccoli is disliked by children in the west. The implication may be that Deuce is still immature like a little kid that hates peppers.

Leona

Favorite: meat

The only reason Leona provides is pretty vague; he says he needs the protein so he can perform to the best of his abilities in magical shift/spelldrive.

Least Favorite: vegetables

He claims that if a carnivore is eating greens, then it's sick. Therefore, there is "no reason" for him to eat any. He's perfectly healthy!

SPECULATION: Given that Leona also refers to others as "herbivore" in a derogatory sense, it's possible that he views those who eat plants as weaker than him. He, with the DNA of a carnivore, is technically "above" them in the food chain and doesn't deign to "lower" himself to their status by eating vegetables. This implies that a lot of his tastes essentially boil down to "I'm a lion, lions don't eat vegetables (heavy sarcasm)."

Ruggie

Favorite: donuts

Ruggie's family struggled to put food on the table, so they couldn't afford birthday cakes. Instead, Granny Bucchi would make simple donuts for him. He loves the warm and fluffy insides and crispy outsides.

Once Ruggie started earning income through various part-time jobs, they could afford ingredients to make fancier donuts with different toppings such as chocolate dip and almonds. Even though Ruggie can now afford to get himself a birthday cake, he still craves his grandma's homemade donuts.

Least Favorite: anything rotten

When Ruggie was younger, he got a nasty stomachache from eating old bone-in steak. He learned from that experience that if food rots, it's ruined and he can't shouldn't eat it for his health and safety.

He will basically eat anything as long as it isn't rotten though. This includes bones, as hyenas have strong jaws and are able to munch on them.

Jack

Favorite: pear compote

The pear is Jack's preferred fruit. He specifically likes compote because it is sweet. Jack says that a good compote will help melt exhaustion and restore lost carbohydrates after a workout.

Least Favorite: green onions

While Jack does not comment on green onions in particular, it is implied that he does not care for them because they are smelly. He comments that the cafeteria's soup has too many onions in it and that it messes with his sense of smell. Being a wolf beastman, his senses are heightened, so he is sensitive to smells.

Azul

Favorite: fried chicken (EN)/kaarage (JP)

No special reason is given in-game. Azul enjoys fried chicken but does not allow himself to eat it often as he is aware of how unhealthy it is.

He has tried many recipe substitutions to make his favorite food healthier for his consumption, but the flavor and texture always fall short of the real thing. Some methods he has already tried include using cooking methods other than deep-frying and using soy beans instead of meat.

SPECULATION: It can be inferred that fried chicken is a favorite of Azul's since childhood, and something that his mother served him in high amounts during celebrations. This may be led to his overweightness as a child, something which he holds a lot of lingering insecurities about.

Least Favorite: healthy foods (EN)/nutritionally balanced meals (JP)

Azul recalls a period of his life when he would eat mostly health food since it is an easy way to count calories. After a while, he began to dislike health food for this very reason.

Jade

Favorite: octopus carpaccio

No special reason is given in-game.

SPECULATION: The meta reason for this being Jade's favorite food is likely because moray eels (which the twins are) eat octopus. Carpaccio is a dish that is served raw, just like how real moral eats consume octopus.

Jade also enjoys tea; he brews his own blends using plants he collects while on hikes. He tends to do with same with mushrooms.

Least Favorite: conger eel

Jade says that he dislikes conger (saltwater) eels because "the texture simply does not live up to [his] tastes".

Floyd

Favorite: takoyaki

Floyd likes to put unusual stuff inside takoyaki instead of the typical octopus filling. It keeps him from getting bored. Fillings he has tried before include cheese, shrimp, sausage, oysters, tomato, broccoli, strawberries, whipped cream, chocolate, anchovies, potato salad, and konjac.

He gets a real kick out of seeing who can make the worst tasting takoyaki. No matter how bad the odd fillings taste, Floyd eats every last one. He doesn't want to get told off by Azul for wasting food.

He has plenty of practice flipping takoyaki in the pan, so it isn't difficult for him.

Floyd likes candies, though his tastes change depending on the day. He enjoys peppermint candies, a week ago, it was melon soda-flavored gummies. Yesterday, it was almond biscotti. He says he tends to go for textures over flavors, but unusual candy flavors are cool too.

Floyd says he likes "stuff you can only eat on land."

Least Favorite: shiitake mushrooms

Jade puts shiitake mushrooms in "pretty much anything". Because of this, just seeing a shiitake mushroom pisses Floyd off.

Kalim

Favorite: coconut juice

There is no clear in-game reason provided. However, Kalim likes coconut juice to the point where it's not unusual for him to order 100 coconuts from a fruit vendor in Silk City.

SPECULATION: Aside from being a refreshing beverage, coconut juice has historically been used to reverse the effects of poisons and drug overdoses in both India and Africa. We know that Kalim has had multiple attempts on his life, including intentional poisoning of his food, so this may be why Kalim has acquired a taste for coconut juice.

Least Favorite: curry

Kalim's dislike of curry originates from an incident in which Jamil, his dedicated food tester, fell into a two week-long coma after tasting poisoned curry intended for Kalim. He has not been able to stomach curry since.

Jamil

Favorite: curry

Despite going through a traumatic experience with curry, it remains Jamil's favorite food. It hasn't really deterred him.

He usually cooks his own food rather than eating in the cafeteria. It’s just easier for him since he is already typically cooking food for Kalim anyway.

SPECULATION: Jamil expresses interest in sampling curries from all over Twisted Wonderland, as it is different in every country. Therefore, curry may be a dish that Jamil sees as "international" and sates his yet-to-be-achieved desire of being free to travel and see the world.

He doesn't care how food looks (except when people criticize how plain and brown his own cooking is); he states that what is most important is flavor.

Least Favorite: dates

Jamil used to love eating dates as a child. One day, the dates he had bought from a fruit stall had a bug on them. He freaked out and set off a spell, setting the fruit stall on fire. Jamil has not been able to eat dates since finding that bug on them.

Vil

Favorite: homemade smoothies

Vil likes the customizability of homemade smoothies, especially seeing as he is a model and actor who has to watch his figure. Green smoothies are particularly appealing since they can be chock-full of nutritious fruits and vegetables. It's also easy to alter the flavor to your liking.

Least Favorite: mayonnaise

Vil used to have mayonnaise on his salad when he was younger. This was done almost on a daily basis. He got three pimples from this diet, which were painful and not photogenic for a child star. Vil eventually learned that mayonnaise "doesn't agree with [his] skin". Now he usually takes his salads with salt, olive oil, or vinegar.

He doesn't mind the flavor or the texture of mayonnaise. If he is given mayo in a meal, he won't let it go to waste. He just does not enjoy eating it because of the pimple trauma.

Rook

Favorite: liver pâté

Rook describes it as "a delicacy" that is "both rustic AND refined at the same time". He says he was first captivated by its smooth and creamy texture that melts on your tongue. Rook attributes the appeal of the dish as being dependent on its freshness, so he enjoys it only on rare occasions.

Least Favorite: garlic

He calls his dislike of garlic a "professional aversion". Garlic is smelly and tends to linger after consumption, so Rook worries that the aroma will alert others (whether wild animals or other people) to his presence. He wants to be able to blend in with his surroundings!

Epel

Favorite: yakiniku (JP)/grilled meats (EN), macarons

Epel loves grilled meats because he has fond memories of it from Harveston. His family and neighbors would arrange gatherings where they take big hunks of meat and grill them on a charcoal fire. He admits that it's not fancy, but it makes for a "mighty fine meal". Epel also loves the fresh veggies that you eat with the meat; they have a natural sweetness to them. The veggies can be eaten straight off the grill without sauce and still be perfectly tasty.

Epel says he likes macarons "more" than even grilled meats, but this information is pretty dubious since we learn in his Ceremonial Robes vignettes that Vil seems to have instructed him to make this claim. It's sliiightly confusing because Azul seems to believe Epel does like macarons and questions if his sources were wrong when Epel looks surprised that he knows that (which seems to contradict the idea that Vil told him to lie about his tastes).

When asked why he likes macarons, Epel responds with, "They're... cute. And sweet! And they come in lots of different flavors. They're not very filling, but still." He makes a similar comment about macarons not being very filling in Glorious Masquerade.

Least Favorite: nashi pear (JP)/apple pear (EN)

Epel says that while the flavor of nashi pears is not bad, he dislikes them because "they're jist pretendin' ta look like apples"! Indeed, if you google "nashi pear", you'll see that they visually resemble apples.

In Port Fest, he and Jack get into an argument over what would be a better topping: apples or pears?

Idia

Favorite: sweets (ie candies; JP)/snacks (EN)

Idia says that he likes snack foods and candies because they're easy to eat while gaming. He particularly likes brightly colored candies like gummy worms.

He also says that he loves DIY candy kits, where you can make your own cute little sweet treats using water and powder packets. "It turns snack time into a game! It's easy to get totally absorbed, too." Idia likes the idea of being able to change the color and shape of the snacks himself. He insists (unprompted) that these DIY candy kits are NOT just for kids.

Idia mainly eats junk food in general, as well as "efficient" foods like jellies, powders you dissolve in water, commercial snacks, and instant noodles. This causes his peers to worry about his health.

SPECULATION: This is just a funny thought I had while reading Idia's dialogue, but I wonder if he would also pull out the L (Death Note) style explanation of "I'm a genius, so I use a lot of brain power! So the logic follows that I should eat a lot of carbohydrates/sugar to refuel."

Least Favorite: raw fish

Idia dislikes raw fish because "it stinks, it's lukewarm, it's all slimy and clingy and sticky..."

Another large part of why Idia dislikes dish is because "real" food like that requires proper tableware to eat. He thinks this just adds "pointless busywork" to meals (and has a similar attitude when it comes to cooking). "Who cares how you get nutrients, as long as you get them? Just eat an energy bar with vitamins and minerals! Bam, EZ."

Idia has also indicated that he is averse to rich foods (juicy meat, thick sauce, large portion sizes) like hamburger steaks, saying that thinking about it gives him indigestion.

Ortho

Favorite: nothing

Least Favorite: nothing

Ortho does not require nutrients to live, being that he is a technomantic humanoid. He is, however, capable of taking pictures of food and analyzing ingredient makeup.

Idia has made an Oral-Energy-Intake Gear, which allows Ortho to eat food like everyone else. It's not clear what happens to the food Ortho eats though.

Malleus

Favorite: ice-cream

Malleus likes frozen desserts! When he breathes fire, the inside of his mouth gets very hot. Eating something cold like ice-cream helps to cool the temperature of his mouth--and this temperature contrast helps to enhance the flavor of the ice-cream.

Malleus shares an instance when he had frozen a castle and some servants in a tantrum; Lilia was able to salvage the situation by using his magearm and flavored syrups to make shaved ice, which he shared with everyone. He then used this opportunity to teach Malleus to use his powers wisely. This isn’t ice-cream, but it’s still another positive memory Malleus has related to cold desserts.

He likes to try different varieties of frozen treats and compare their flavors and appearances. Malleus doesn't seem to understand all the different nuances though. For example, he has a popsicle stick that declared that he had won something, but didn't know he was supposed to claim a prize. He does, however, understand that it is highly valuable and has it stored somewhere. He plans on bringing it home to Briar Valley when he graduated.

Least Favorite: whole/full-sized cakes

He doesn't have anything against sweets, but rather directs his ire at excess. Malleus never has people to share cakes with, so he ends up trying to eat the whole thing by himself on special occasions. He never finishes them in a single sitting and says they give him heartburn.

Malleus says he may see whole cakes in a better light once he has company to split them with.

Lilia

Favorite: tomato juice

There's not a lot in the way of the tomato juice lore. The best we've got is Lilia remarking that he has recently been into drinking and comparing different tomato juices. He claims the tastes and textures can be very different.

Lilia is also fond of berry juice, which he says is a specialty of Briar Valley. He encourages the guests at his farewell party to indulge in it.

SPECULATION: Some fans headcanon that Lilia likes drinking tomato juice because it resembles blood, and Lilia behaves in very bat-like ways. This could be the specialized traits of his species of fae.

My personal speculation is maybe the reasoning is similar to what is typically given for Jamil's love of curry; Lilia is someone who is worldly and well-traveled, so maybe he just likes tasting the local produce in an easy-to-go-down way.

Least Favorite: marshmallows

Lilia does not like the taste. Additionally, he thinks it's boring that, despite how bulky they are, they disappear as soon as you put them into your mouth. He feels like he's eating air!

Silver

Favorite: mushroom risotto

Silver says that risotto was the first dish he ever cooked himself. He likes the simplicity of it.

SPECULATION: Silver may have a preference for mushroom risotto because it includes an ingredient that is easily foraged in the forest (well, granted you can tell which are edible). Recall that he spent most of his days there and had to take care of himself for unspecified stretches of time when Lilia was off on his travels. Simplicity and ease of access was a big deciding factor in what Silver prepared for himself.

Least Favorite: Lilia’s cooking

… Does this even NEED an explanation? We all know how bad Lilia’s cooking is, and poor Silver somehow grew up on it 😭

What is sort of sweet is that Silver tries to convince himself to get over the poor quality of Lilia’s food by saying that what matters the most is sharing that time with loved ones.

Sebek

Favorite: salmon carpaccio

Sebek has a memory of going fishing at the lake by his grandfather's house with his older brother and sister. His siblings helped Sebek pull a large salmon out and then prepared carpaccio from it to serve for dinner. He loved seeing how delighted his parents and grandpa were to see it at the table. His grandpa even smiled, an occurrence which Sebek notes is rare. Now when he has salmon carpaccio, it reminds him of home.

Sebek says he could have salmon carpaccio for three meals a day and still never get tired of it. Keep in mind that Sebek also has a large appetite (claiming that eating three helpings for one meal is eating light), so that's a LOT of salmon carpaccio.

He denounces the cafeteria bread, deeming it not filling enough. He does the same of nuts and berries, although he admits they are nutrient dense. Sebek would prefer to have meat.

Least Favorite: black coffee

He cannot so much as tolerate a mouthful of "that muck" because of its bitterness. Indeed, we see how poorly he takes down black coffee when he mixes his order and Malleus's up in Glorious Masquerade.

Sebek is resentful that Silver can drink many cups of black coffee (to keep awake) and that his fellow knight shares a freshly brewed pot with their liege. "IT REALLY GRINDS. MY GEARS."

People have advised Sebek to sweeten his coffee with cream or sugar. He adamantly refuses to do this, since he believes that's something only children would do. "It's mortifying!" Furthermore, Sebek hates the thought of being the "odd one out" taking his coffee differently. "I refuse to let Silver outshine me in a matter so trivial!"

Sebek has been working tirelessly to train himself to tolerate coffee, since he wants to be able to share the same experience with Malleus. Now he is able to take one splash of coffee in his milk.

It should also be noted that Sebek used to dislike vegetables that were very bitter, so it seems that he has an aversion to bitterness in general. He has conquered bitter vegetables and is smug about surpassing that challenge.

He is able to stomach food that tastes bad if he is told it is good for him/training. For example, Lilia has suggested eating red meat, fermented beans, and yogurt as a workout meal, which Sebek happily consumes.

SPECULATION: ... This gives the vibes of a child who is still immature so they hate taking down bitter things. I guess it suits Sebek's "I wanna grow up fast!" behavior.

Grim

Favorite: canned tuna

... Look at him. Is he not peak cat? 🤡

SPECULATION: I'd imagine that Grim developed a taste for canned tuna in part because that's most of what he eats on Ramshackle's measly budget. They likely cannot afford fresh fish or other extravagant meals.

Least Favorite: nothing

LISTEN. Grim literally eats ROCKS. Plus, he literally snatches others' food and is eager to try foods and started his own club that revolves around food!! I don't think there's anything he won't consider shoving into his mouth.

Crowley

Favorite: wild game

Crowley describes himself as an avid connoisseur of meat and will eat any meat: beef, pork, chicken, and wild game (also called gibier). He encourages the other staff members to sample new meats when they can.

He claims to "prefer treats with subtler flavors rather than overpowering ones."

Crowley also appears to like mangos. He was excited to try the mango juice of the southern country that he vacationed to in book 4. Crowley also brought back mango souvenirs for the staff, including a sweet and sour mango tea for Trein. He reminisces about the sweet mangos he enjoyed and the sunny beach he was on back then. Crowley likes black tea as well!

SPECULATION: Crowley probably likes wild game because he is twisted from a crow or a raven of some kind. Those birds are known to scavenge the meat of various dead animals (carrion).

Least Favorite: unknown

While we don’t have a confirmation for what Crowley’s least favorite food is, he doesn’t seem to like spicy foods—or, at least, he does not tolerate spice well. He complains about the tomato stew at the cafeteria causing him to sweat and cry at the same time. Crowley is also hesitant to sample Scarabian cuisine since he has heard that their food is liberally spiced.

Crewel

Favorite: raisin butter

Crewel says that raisin butter pairs well with adult beverages. He finds the aftertaste of raisin butter excellent and enjoys its appearance too--its spotted look reminds him of dalmatians.

SPECULATION: It’s notable that raisins, which are in Crewel’s favorite food, are deadly to dogs. This is ironic, because we know that Crewel is an avid lover of canines—but the character he is twisted from, Cruella de Vil, loathes dogs and is rumored to skin them for fur coats.

Crewel indicates that he enjoys tea; he brews his own blends and frequents a specialty coffee stall in the Foothill Town for its tea. He has known the owner since he was a student and pals around with him.

He also says he likes meat pies, but tries to keep portion control in mind.

Least Favorite: unknown

Sam

Favorite: chicken gumbo

SPECULATION: As far as I'm aware (and believe me, I looked everywhere I could), there's no given in-game explanation for why this is Sam's favorite. The best I've got is that chicken gumbo is a regional dish from New Orleans, the region from which The Princess and the Frog is inspired by.

Least Favorite: unknown

Trein

Favorite: vichyssoise

Trein finds the texture of the vichyssoise served by the NRC cafeteria smooth and pleasant. The students don't have the same appreciation for it; Trein says that he is the only one that ever orders the dish.

SPECULATION: Like Sam, Trein is not provided with a clear reason why he favors vichyssoise. But!! If we think about the composition of the dish, it's made with very cheap and accessible ingredients--even a peasant could afford them. Vichyssoise, then, could be representative of the story of Cinderella, where a kind-hearted girl's beauty was able to shine even when she was covered in cinders. The beauty of even simple vegetables is able to shine in vichyssoise!

He tries to go for foods and portions that won't weigh his stomach down.

Least Favorite: unknown

Vargas

Favorite: raw eggs

Vargas reports eating large amounts of raw eggs (roughly 60 for a single meal). He was told by the cafeteria ghosts that it would be troublesome if he ate so many of their eggs every time he dines there, so he has since started to bring his own eggs.

Sam tries to avoid stocking perishables, but the one exception is eggs. That's because Vargas always buys his entire stock.

SPECULATION: A meta reason for why Vargas eats an absurd amount of raw eggs is that this is a clear reference to Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. In his villain song, Gaston says he eats 5 dozen eggs, which is exactly 60--the same amount that Vargas eats. He needs a lot of protein to maintain his muscles!

Least Favorite: unknown

Rollo

Favorite: grapes

Rollo eats the same lunch 365 days a year, and prefers to take it in an area away from others. (Presumably, he does the same with his other meals.) This lunch consists of 2 croissants, a cup of café au lait (coffee with milk), and exactly 16 grapes.

He says that, with a strict routine like this, he can forgo unnecessary desires. Rollo finds it refreshing and recommends that others try it. The exception seems to be special occasions; he says he has an extra croissant on those days.

SPECULATION: No canon reason is given for why Rollo loves grapes (many fans actually thought croissants were his favorite before his SSR came out). What I believe is that Rollo likes grapes because they're easy to count and limit one's consumption of (because of how small they are). It fits perfectly into his stringent life.

Least Favorite: savarin

SPECULATION: Again, no canon reason is given. If I had to speculate based on what I know of him and how he takes his meals, then... I'd wager he doesn't like savarin because of how overly indulgent it is. It's a ring-shaped cake soaked in flavored syrup and then topped with cream and various fruits. For someone who regularly has bread and one type of fruit (grapes) for his meals, savarin is basically a sin.

Fellow

Favorite: apples

SPECULATION: This may be a reference to his character inspiration, Honest John. In the scene where he meets Pinocchio, he steals the apple Pinocchio is carrying and eats it. Notably, Playful Land also offers apple-flavored items.

Least Favorite: potatoes

SPECULATION: Potatoes are a very starchy (and thus filling) and easy to raise staple crop. I believe the implication here is that Fellow had to eat so many potatoes when he was low on other foods that he eventually became sick of them.

[irkimatsu]

God damn it, that art of Husk literally drowning in whiskey... my fucking heart...

I started talking about Husk's alcoholism and my hopes for its future portrayal and it got long and a little personal, whoops

I would like more focus in canon about his alcoholism, more than quirky "ha ha it's eight in the morning and he's already putting whiskey in his coffee, the silly old drunk". My feelings and history when it comes to alcohol are complicated. I've seen how it destroys people who are in denial about whether they have a problem. Middle schoolers should not have to take care of their wasted relatives whenever the family party has gone to shit again, and don't even get me started on my mother's drunken temper. (She's bad enough when she's sober.) I grew up thinking that sort of thing was normal, that I'd have to avoid alcohol entirely to not end up like my family, and that even then I'd be looked at as a failure of an adult if I didn't get plastered and pass out behind a Walmart somewhere at least once in my life.

So normalization of alcohol in general already tends to get me a little weird, even if I've gotten better about it in the past decade. Still not a fan of quirky "tee hee, I can't deal with my dumpster fire of a life without wine" Facebook mom memes, but I know responsible alcohol consumption is possible, which is more progress than I had as a teenager.

But even then, Husk is not responsible. He has a problem. He's traumatized, I do not blame him for that, and like Angel, he's seeking comfort in substance abuse because he has no easy way out of the main source of his stress. They have made some allusion to it being a problem and him knowing it - "You're not going to find answers at the bottom of a bottle, I've been looking for a long time" - but I want more focus on it. Call attention to the fact that making an alcoholic spend all day behind a bar is an awful idea, and possibly intentional on Alastor's part to keep him too drunk to fight back. (Between the alcohol and winning his soul in gambling, preying on Husk's vices really does seem to be Alastor's Thing.) Make note of the fact that unlike Angel's drug addictions, alcohol use is so normalized that Husk couldn't quit if he tried - how is he supposed to, with everyone else in the hotel drinking regularly? Charlie and Vaggie can drink as much as they want, but Husk takes one shot and suddenly he's the bad guy? I can see that not sounding fair in his mind, because he's ignoring the fact that everyone else knows when to quit for the night...

And what if he did try to quit? How is he going to deal with it? The stress he can no longer drown, the withdrawal symptoms? Like with Angel, if you take away the unhealthy coping mechanism but don't do anything to help him with what he's unhealthily coping with, you're just going to make his mental state worse... I get the feeling he's been drunk for so long he barely remembers who he was when sober, he doesn't know how to be sober anymore, it might freak him out to adjust to being what feels like a different person, his whole mind working differently than it has in decades when it's no longer clouded by drink...

Alastor might not like his tamed little pet going sober, either. If he's thinking clearly, he might have silly thoughts about things like how to save himself. That won't do. Drink some whiskey, Husker, it makes you much easier to handle.

...this got longer and more rambly than I intended. I just want to see more of Husk's mental state, more than "ha ha quirky drunk". Really get into his mind, his trauma, what it would take to save him, to convince him it's worth trying to save himself.

And maybe I just like seeing him suffer a little.

[pvrkacciosan]

The Heart of the Lioness: ☽⋆33⋆☾

Empire from the Shadows

The Heart of the Lioness Masterlist

Previous Part

The two spies hiked along the pathway. Stones and twigs digging into the worn undersole of their boots. The path which had led them on for miles as they travelled only seemed to stretch further then the eye could see. Each twist and turn growing heavier on their motivations.

Regan pulled the strap across her chest, securing the broad sword to her back. Along with her pack it was the heaviest thing she owns. A cold weight against her spine. Growing up, her father taught her to wield a blade, It was a shame she had to kill him. 

It had taken her years to master the art of using her own body proportion to wield such a weighted weapon. The blade was almost as long as she. The pommel moulded into the shape of the family snake crest.

It sat proudly there, a symbol of her family ranking. Only obtained through the death of its previous owner. 

After travelling for a few months to meet with Theron, then continuing on to Wendlyn, her body was being ravaged by dull aches. Her knees were weak from the near constant hard surfaces they transverse over, following roads too overgrown to be walked regularly.

The path they were on now was no different, Theron leading the way in the form of a huge midnight black cat, the road stretches on, and with each step Regan had to compose herself in order to keep going.

They must be closer now, this walking shit was not for her. Too use to the warmth and terrain of the dry Red Desert, these wide stretches of woodland paths were putting her on edge. Her sensed blocked by the towering trees. Even with her demi- Fae senses she was struggling.

Theron, seemingly unbothered continued in his four legged form for most of their journey together. There was an edge to him, a sharpness Regan couldn't place, a nervousness that made the shifter restless.

When they sat for shelter at night, she had to bit her tongue to keep from asking, Not that she particularly cared. Out of the Pride members, the wandering spies were seen the least. Theron and his mate moving place to place with ease. It was no wonder why he showed no signs of struggle now with these long distances.

Taking a quick swig from her water pouch, she shook her shoulders, adjusting the straps hold on her body. The leather had begun to grow uncomfortable, ignoring the blisters were becoming more of an issue. Theron had offered to carry it for her one night whilst he watched her tend to the small stinging wounds.

She had outright refused then. No one got their hands on her sword, no one. Perhaps that had been stupid of her. Pride winning over all else.

Glancing down to her feet, she tried to avoiding bigger stones that awaited to dig into the soles of her feet, had been so focused with the task she hadn't noticed when Theron slowed before her.

Stopping behind the pony sized feline, Regan tried to tune her senses in as Theron shifted back to his preferred two legged form. His shoulder length dark hair shifting as he shook his head.

"What is it?" She whispered, the sound of her own voice was strange. She knew from previous meetings with him that Theron preferred to stay in the body of the big cat, something to do with being trapped in that from for ten years whilst magic was bound in Erilea. She allowed him the solace, but it left her alone to her thoughts beyond the small noises he would occasionally make to communicate.

"I think we're here."

She tried to reduce her relief, happy to finally finish walking. It became apparent of their new duties sure to await them.

Theron glanced sidelong at her, Regan had been so in her thoughts she hadn't given herself a second to glance ahead of them. Only when Theron gesture with a gentle nod from his head, in the direction the pathway led did she finally look up.

Before them was a remnants of a ruin, the stone paths and old building foundations were worn and weathered more on the outsides of the area then what she could see Some of the building towards the centre were still standing. 

Theron twitched beside her, watching from the corner of her eye Regan could note as that nervousness returned to him, a unusual uneasiness displayed by any Pride member. 

"Why wait?" She moved as she spoke, not looking back to check he was following. Theron took a second to collect himself before moving after her.

The path they had been on continued on into the ruins, the trees around them seemed to wither out the closer it got to the epicentre of the ruins. The sky above them becoming visible, even from the path Regan could see vast expanses of grass lands surrounding the other edges of the city.

As they met the first building formations they slowed, taking in the sights of the crumbling structures. The tightly packed cobblestone pathways underfoot, warped from years of use were layered with dust. Too recently laid to show proof of any inhabitants living here in a long time.

Regan slowed to be closer to the male as the hairs on the back of her neck began to rise, Theron was glancing down ever street he could or what remained of them. There wasn't any wooden structure left, she had walked over charcoal on some of the paths, A clear indications that any wood that had been here was burned to cinders. 

There was a sound on their left, rocks falling away from the rubble of a collapsed building. The two spies spun as one, going almost back to back on instinct, protecting one another's blind spots, As their commander had taught them — A Pride held their strength in their numbers.

Regan had ripped the broad sword from its place on her back, gripping it with both hands she felt every rippling muscle in Theron's back as he tensed.

He was the first to move, shuffling forward towards the sound, but froze when a female appeared. A swirl of a shadow covered her face as she initially hide behind the half crumbled stack of a wall.

Regan spotted the females contrast in appearance, her dark skin and star light white hair. The light blue of her eyes blinking at them. Theron broke away first.

"Bronwyn."

The female stepped out from the building. Was rushing to them in an instant, leaving behind the cover of the shadows as she took wide strides their way.

Bronwyn, The Songstress, the most secretive member of the Pride. It was the one secret Brielle forbid them all for revealing. Threatened to take their tongues if they so much as whispered the females name to anyone who wasn't one of them. For one reason only. It was the reason Theron travelled with her, and was probably why he had been so on edge now that she thought on it.

Bronwyn hugged into the males chest before releasing him and turning to Regan, despite her standing on physical touch, Regan welcomed the embrace from her friend. So hidden away from the outside world that only a few of the Pride members every saw her beyond their initiation into the Pride.

Bronwyn always seemed to smell slightly of sea salt, despite probably hiding so far away from it. It was unknown to anyone beyond Brielle and Bronwyn's mate where she was at any one time. And for good reasons.

There was an excited shout and the patter of little feet, Bronwyn pulled herself from her hug with Regan, giving both females just enough time to watch Theron drop to one knee and outstretch both of his arms as a small body collided into his embrace.

Theron and Vera's son giggled softly as he hugged himself into his fathers chest. Bronwyn pulled away, folding her arms across her chest as she smiled at the sight. 

"Lonan, what did we say about waiting until I gave the signal." 

The boy turned to display a cheeky grin that reminded them far too much of the male shifter, Theron matching smirk held firm as he lifted his son from the ground, holding him to his side. That nervous edge seemed to ease a little from his shoulders. But it was noticeable how tightly he held Lonan to him now.

It was as though Bronwyn noticed it too, "I'm sorry to hear about Vera." 

Vera's capture had been a subject Regan had tried to avoid, and for good reason, as Theron flinched at the mention of his mate. He rubbed a hand into small circles against his sons back, 

"And I'm sorry for Isaiah."

That was a subject they were all avoiding with vigor. Bronwyn's mate, Isaiah now dubbed betrayer to the Pride. It was a point that made them all nervous, he was the most loyal of them and had betrayed Brielle's trust when he helped turn her into Maeve, thus aiding in Vera's capture.

Regan gripped tighter to her sword at the thought, had Isaiah held Brielle down as they tortured her? How many of their secrets had he already revealed to Maeve?

Darkness had pooled around them as their conversation shifted, Bronwyn choosing to ignore the acknowledgement of her mates betrayal, no matter how much it hurt. Her own loyalty to Brielle making the balance act near impossible. But her presence here said volumes about her own alliances despite her mates choices.

Little was known to them about Bronwyn's past. All Regan had been told was that she had once been a prisoner to Maeve. Brielle had gotten her out and help hide her every since. Like many of the Pride members, they owed Brielle life debts, all willing to their last dying breath to fulfil them. 

It was clear Bronwyn was no different to them all.

The female cleared her throat, "Come on" 

Regan swung the great-sword onto it place rested at the spine, following Theron as he took after Bronwyn. She led them through the ruins, this pathway was significantly less dusted then the others, but many of the passages they took through the rocks were shrouded in dim lighting. So anyone passing through wouldn't be able to notice the difference.

As they approach what looks like a small shelter built into the rock, hidden by fractured broken materials. Bronwyn finally turned to them, her face stricken as she pulls something from her pocket. Theron lowers his son to the ground, rubbing a hand into his dark hair a mirror to his parents. 

"Buddy go inside for now okay?" Lonan glanced from his father to Bronwyn, Regan saw the flicker of doubt on Theron's face.

She couldn't have imagined how difficult it must have been, She knew the wandering spies saw their son as often as they could, But it was safer to leave him under the safety Bronwyn provided. It was evident now as Lonan glances to Bronwyn for comfort.

"I think Athan is inside. Might have some chocolate left if you hurry" Bronwyn whispered excitedly to the boy. Mentioning her own son, knowing full well her other children were safely inside the cover of their little alcove shelter.

Lonan smiles at his father quickly before rushing inside. Theron held his breath watching his son leave. Shaking the emotion from his expression as he tunes back to Bronwyn.

"I received letters early this morning." She separates them, holding the letters out to each of them. Regan takes it tentatively, eyeing up the parchment as Bronwyn continued, "From Enola."

Both spies froze. It wasn't often they heard from Enola or her brother, But Enola especially. Bound to follow Maeve and give intel to Brielle from inside the true lions den.

Nerves were burning at the information inside, Regan was going to question whether Bronwyn also received one, but the female had already pulled a third one from inside her pocket. So it was more than likely the rest of the Pride were soon to be recipients to similar letters. 

It either entails the news of the death of their leader. Or commands from her. Regan couldn't stop her hands from shaking, even if she gripped the letter tighter.

"I do hope everyone else is okay." Theron was picking at the edge of his own letter, hesitant to open it, Regan knew they all thought the same.

"We have no time to worry about that." Bronwyn sighed unfolding her letter, she had already broken the wax seal with the Lionesses paw print on it, She probably already knew what they had been tasked with. She would have told them already if Brielle was dead.

"For some reason..." Both of the other glance at Regan, she lets a small breathless laugh leave her, "I know Alexi is alive.. and probably thriving in whatever environment he is in."

Theron pulled an expression that might show his inclination to agree with her, but Bronwyn's face had dropped as she lifted her letter solemnly. "We do have work to do."

Something about the way she said it. Regan knew that whatever Brielle wanted them to do, it was not going to come easy. It was a good thing they were always up for a challenge.

☽ -  Across the sea somewhere in Erilea - ☾

Alexi flicks small shavings of the wooden stick towards the fire. Carving it into a point, Sat out on his roll mat. He tried to ignore the presence of the Wyverns behind him, the closest one being Eryx. Vale's Wyvern, the female aerial beast was sleeping soundlessly nearby, but still close enough for Alexi to feel the warmth of her hot breath and still flinched every time she moved in her sleep.

"Why so tense?" Dorian smirked at him from over the flickering flames of the fire between them, it was astounding to Alexi that Dorian was seemingly unfazed by the Wyverns. In fact he was sure he saw the royal even pet one of them, belonging to one of the Thirteenth, as though they were some sort of fucking pet. He shuddered at the thoughts.

Pointing his half carved stick at the King, "You know why" he cast a long glance to the sleeping Eryx behind him, 

Dorian tucked a hand behind him, quipping a brow up towards his hairline, "You know other royals might take offence to being threatened with a pointy stick."

Alexi squinted, waving his pointy stick around the space in front of him, " Royals need a crown and castle..." He deadpanned, dropping the stick and his hand into his lap, "Last I checked.. You blew up your own castle and the Witches overrun your city. Poof! No more crown." 

Dorian was struggling to hide his laughter as Alexi ranted, this wasn't the first time he was throwing this insult around, Dorian had begun to find amusement in it. Throwing a vulgar gesture at the spy, Alexi gasped dramatically slapping a hand to his chest in faux offence. "And royals certainly do use such foul gestures!"

His loud outburst had awoken the sleeping creature behind him, as Eryx rose flaring out the expanses of her wings, Alexi froze, stiffening where he sat. Dorian laughed harder at the sight.

"This  isn't  funny." Alexi got out, words fighting from him, 

Dorian nodded wholeheartedly watching as Eryx stretches behind Alexi, the spy squealing as he felt Eryx sniffs the top of his head in interest.

Alexi next words were nothing beyond a nervous whispers, and nothing farther from amusing, "She's going to eat me."

"Don't be so dramatic" Vale was inspecting her signature Ironteeth nails as she approached, blowing Eryx a kiss as she lowered herself to rest on a fallen over tree. The rumble of sound that emitted from the Wyverns chest vibrated through Alexi's bones. He flinched, rolling down onto his stomach, flattening out to appear smaller.

The conversation carried on around him, he kept himself pressed to the ground until Eryx settled once more. Regrasping the courage to sit up, Alexi could finally take notice of the near persistent chatter of the Crochan witches within the camp surrounding them.

Manon, and her second Asterin approached slowly, their paces steady as they moved through a small group of Crochans. Alexi couldn't help but note the hints of distrust in their stares when they watched the Ironteeth pass.

It was growing to be more challenging then they all thought, to win the Crochans over to fighting alongside some Ironteeth such as Vale and the Thirteen, but for the sake of Aelin's cause they had to keep trying.

"What are they all so excited about anyway?" Alexi muttered moving back to focus on carving his stick.

"I thought spies were supposed to know those sort of things?" Dorian sniped playfully across from him,  Alexi narrowed his eyes before turning to curl away from Manon and Asterin when they sat down.

"There is supposed to be another Crochan Coven joining them tonight." Asterin answered, attention fixating to the dagger and stick in his grasp.

Alexi tried not to meet Vale's eye, she ignored him altogether with ease of course. Scanning at the small pouch of snacks she was picking through in her lap.

"It would be interesting to see how many have survived over the years" Vale muses, causing Manon and her second to glance at her. Val doesn't look up, but Alexi could see the smirk she hide from her fellow Ironteeth.

"Supposed all we can is wait then" Dorian chimed in, putting his word into the conversation. As Alexi laughed softly, 

"As long they aren't as scary, I'll be happy for the extra company."

All three of the present Ironteeth Witches glance his way. He pouts, dropping both of his hands from their activity, "What you females would rip me in two," Their smirks and glances to one another are answer enough.

It was un-clear how long they sat around their small fire, basking in the silence and rest. When a horn was blown across the camp, signal for an approaching fleet of Crochans their red cloaks shown blowing in the wind, a floating cloud of red. As they came into land at the edges of the camp the crowds began to form for their arrival.

Alexi rose with the others moving to group in the crowd at the centre point of the gathering. A welcoming of sorts. Vale was beside him as they approached, despite his instincts he leaned towards her, "You think she actually came out of hiding?"

Vale flashed him a wicked grin, "I'm here." she stated, matter-of-a-fact, "Of course she came."

As the crowd parted slightly, Alexi was able to get the full view of the new arrivals, the leader divided her group as she moved, her brown hair and red cloaking blowing around her. Walking to the front, the two scars running down the right side of her face visible. Even from where they are standing. In a show to greet the Coven Leader, Glennis she slows her pace, perhaps allowing everyone to take in the sight of the new coven.

Alexi and Vale stand preternaturally still, watching the fellow spy amongst the group with an eagles attention. Eyeing her with excitement, waiting for her to step out of that line. The whole camp is silenced as the new Coven leader approached Glennis. She pauses, then turns straight towards the group of Ironteeth gathered, separated between the groups of Crochans.

Witches began muttered quickly as the leader walks straight for Vale, The Thirteen watch trying to hide their confusion as they move aside allowing this new Crochan leader full access to reach the two Pride members, she finally stops, pausing as the camp falls quiet waiting with baited breath. She smiles wide before enveloping the Ironteeth in a tight embrace. There is a flurry of chatter as Alexi throw himself at the two witches, 

The three Pride members, embracing, blocking out the insignificant gossip surrounding them.

Alexi could briefly hear Dorian as he muttered to Manon, perhaps asking her if she knew of this small Alliance between an Ironteeth and Crochan, the royals quieted down at Manon's lack of response, watching as Vale only seemed to wrap her arms tighter around her friend.

"I hate to break this moment" Alexi muttered into the space currently being occupied by their three way embrace, "But...everyone  is staring right now." He wasn't understating, as the Thirteen and the whole camp of Crochans gaped at the sight of the tight circle between the three, between a Crochan and Ironteeth. Gaped at the trust and warmth they held for one another.

Kamari was the first to pull away, Vale held a hand to the back of her neck, pressing their forehead together, two friends. Two sisters. Separated by their kind and bloody history not related but found through Brielle and the Pride.

Kamari finally stepped back, a beaming smile of genuine happiness on her face even as she turns to Alexi, she scrunches her nose, "You stink." Alexi laughed lightly, they hadn't seen one another in a couple years and that was the first thing she said to him.

He straightened as he noticed Glennis begin to approach. Kamari as if sensing her, turns making sure to keep the smile on her face.

"I apologise for not greeting you first." She turned to smile at Alexi and Vale, "I just needed to see my friends"

The muttering from the crowds of Crochan females began to swarm, Glennis squinted her eyes, flicking her stare between them. "How convenient the timing"

Alexi took the second to watch the expression on some of the females around them, the initial disdain and distrust was slowly disappearing as they watched one of their own so warmly great one of the 'enemy'.

"I have some explaining to do.." Kamari nodded to Vale once before moving after Glennis into one of the tents, Vale turns to the thirteen who all watched her now with expectant looks. Manon had folded her arms, waiting for some semblance of an explanation from the Blueblood.

So that is what Vale gave them, staying where they stood, she projected her voice just aloud enough for some of the surrounding Crochans to conveniently overhear. 

Explaining how she had met Kamari all those years ago. Telling the story of how sparing Kamari's life one day had branded her a traitor to her clan and Alexi stood back watching as Vale made a show of displaying the three vertical scars running parallel up her throat, left by an Ironteeth matron after they found out she spared Kamari. 

After being found by Brielle, Vale had vowed herself over to the Pride, working with Kamari for years warning the Crochans of patrolling Ironteeth and leaving wayward incorrect leads for Ironteeth clans to follow.

There was a resounding silence all across the camp, it became apparent how many of them might not be standing here today if Vale hadn't turned her own kind off their trail. Covering their tracks at the risk of her own life. 

The expressions on the faces of the Thirteen only seemed to solidify the mindset for some of the Crochans that overheard the story. Alexi tried to hid his amusement, it was working...

By the time Kamari had remerged from the tent with Glennis, it was clear she had been retelling the same story.  Silence encompassed the camp, Until Glennis slowly rounded her gaze to settle it on the two Pride members, surrounded by the Thirteen.

Pointing a slender finger, Vale lifted her chin higher. Alexi stilled waiting like everyone else as Glennis finally announced to the camp of Crochans. The words full and true, "She is our source."

Alexi watches Vale from the corner of his vision, whether she had been expecting the recognition or not. She hide it well, did well to hide it as Crochans watched her from every corner of the camp.Those no close enough to see or hear were hovering overhead on their brooms.  Acknowledging that their years of successful hiding could be credited to someone who once would have been the one hunting them. The realisation rattled through everyone in the camp, a wonderous feeling that courses and pulses with the hundreds of heartbeats now gathered here. Alive now because of the act undertaken by Kamari and Vale from their choice to work with one another.

Dorian shuffled just enough to catch Alexi attention, glancing over the spy met the royal's stare. Dorian titled his head in question, curiosity pulling fascination into his eyes, Alexi answered the unspoken question with a knowing smirk.

Glennis had been right. It had been convenient timing, as stated in the letter they received from Enola a day ago. They could always trust their Commander. Trust that she knew what she was doing by requesting Kamari reunite with her fellow Pride members.

The letter sat heavy, folded up in his pocket. By it was a reminder that she was alive. Brielle was still alive, and it had become clear now for what her true intent was.

Her years of planning, gathering some of the most influential and powerful being in the world. Building one of the biggest Empires in the darkness of the shadows, it was time for them to come back into the light.

They hadn't a name to them when Terrasen fell ten years ago. But now...

The world was being stunned into silence, as one by one ever member of the Pride began to appear across each continent their reach spreading far and wide, an Empire emerging from the Shadows. Built with eighteen souls and the courage to help those who couldn't help themselves.

An Empire that was finally ready to shake the worlds.

☽ - Doranelle- ☾

This time when Brielle trained her group of warriors she left behind the mare, choosing to run with them. Welcoming the burn of her muscles, the ache masking the pains in her chest.

The breathlessness and overwhelming sensations from running were drowning out the thoughts of Connall. She needed the distraction, even if the group had questioned his absence.

She hadn't hidden it from them, but hadn't entertained the conversation. Cutting it off with a simple, 'Maeve had him killed' 

It had been difficult to ignore the expressions of confusion and surprise on their faces. She had gotten them straight into their run moments after, shutting down any attempt they made to reignite the topic of conversation.

Going the full length and entire perimeter of the camp, her running with the group didn't go unnoticed by the other warriors who trained with their captains overlooking their exercises wrapped up in warm clothing with refreshments in hand. Some had looked longingly as her group joked and chatted with each other whilst they ran. Brielle leading the front of their unit.

Now collapsed into the grass with them, Brielle panted hand rested against her stomach, they had decided on a faster pace for the final few hundred meters on their run. Now all of them laid about panting for their breaths to return.

The camp around them was in another world, they ignored the lingering glances of the other warriors, Brielle did not. Savouring the longing expressions on some of their faces, envious of the joyous and playfulness her group harnessed. Enjoying their time training with one another, 

She knew they had excelled in their other aspects of training, a unit built into a family, leaning on one another for strength and coming out much stronger because of it. They had grown to be better fighters, sparring with Brielle and gaining in confidence each time she got them in the rings.

Emmie smiles at her, "Good run today Commander." Her beaming smile did bring a little more light into Brielle's bubble of darkness, Returning the smile with a soft nod, Brielle pulled herself to sit up.

"I am proud of you all" the whole group stopped their chatter to give her their attention now, the respect they had offered her had grown over time. They seemed to have taken well to her joining them today, 

Brielle was about to give them their next task when a warmth smacked into them all. It wasn't an unpleasant heat, not like a rush of hot air. But a heat that crept into your skin. A wave of power that centered from the Castle at the middle of the city.

Brielle sat herself upright, head whipping in the direction of the stone castle. It walls towering over the height of all other buildings. Aelin, That power had come from Aelin.

As quickly as it had swarmed them, the heat travelled on, passing through the rest of the camp that fell silent.

"What the hell was that?" one the males in the group chimes in, sitting up on his knees. The group were looking to Brielle for answers. Looking to her for what to do next.

"Get some sparring done in the pits. Then clean up for the day" Brielle was rising, already moving to the path that would lead her back into the centre of Doranelle.

There was no protest from the group as she fled the camp. Aiming for the heart of the city, it didn't take her long. Moving on long strides, despite the protest in her leg muscles. 

Pushing into the castles' main entrance, Brielle waited for some big commotion or sound. She only met silence, panic hammered itself home in her chest, moving for the passage that would lead to the cells where Aelin was Brielle collided into a body as she rounded the corner at speed.

Isaiah gaped at her for a second as she stepped a few paces back, His expression mildly panicked as he took a second to look over her. To the commander he had followed so blindly for decades.

"Bri-"

There was a resounding off footsteps behind him, growing louder as they approached. Isaiah's eyes widened in panic, whatever had happened down in the cells had left Cairn pissed, Brielle could sense the anger rolling from him even at this end of the passageway.

"He is so pissed he will  kill something." His hushed tone, words a warning as Cairn appeared behind him. His words made her pause... He could kill something. A plan had began to bubble to the surface.

Cairn was storming in, a small empty vile of gloriella clutched tightly in his balled fist, it was a surprise he hadn't shattered the glass. He will kill something. The word were a broken loop in her thoughts.

"So you need  poison to contain us now?" Brielle snide, watching as he stormed past her, not seeming to take notice of her presence until she spoke. The insinuation of his inability to keep captives would grate his nerves. Brielle just had to keep plucking that nerve.

She felt Isaiah hold his breath, Edging a step closer as Cairn turns slowly.

"Wouldn't think with all those skills, anyone would want to disobey you." Cairn stills, She can faintly hear the sound of the glass vile cracking under the pressure, "Thought you were threatening enough to not be disobeyed." Sighing and rolling back onto her heels, Brielle ignored Isaiah as he tries to subtly shake his head at her. Cairn had begun to shake with anger.

Isaiah was pleading for her to not goat Cairn, She holds up and began counting on one hand, "That will make two of us now. It only took a second for me to have you flat on your ass."

Cairn erupted, the glass shattering as he lunged for her throat. Brielle flinched but shock replaced her as Isaiah grabbed Cairn. The enraged male swung back with his fist.

Isaiah fell back slightly, a gash begun bleeding along his cheek from the shard of glass Cairn held. Isaiah fought to straighten under Cairn's stare, holding a hand to his face.

Brielle stopped breathing, watching as her oldest friend cowers, avoiding her gaze as he tried to keep Cairn attention on him. 

"You can't kill her. Maeve needs her alive."

Her heart was hammering harder against her ribs, almost painfully, 

Cairn glared at her before leaning in to invade the space before Isaiah, who drops his hand and tilts his head back, 

"Maybe, I might just kill you next." Cairn said nothing more, throwing the shards to the ground he began moving for the door. Probably going out to his tent in the surrounding camp, to torture someone or fuck some female who had no idea what was coming for her.

Brielle waits all of one second before moving after him, Isaiah grabs for her arm and Brielle rips it free from his grasp. 

"Don't follow him." his words were sincere. Worried almost. She had no use for his concern anymore. She stared at the cut along his face, a streak of blood sliding over the bone in his cheek, already reaching the curve of his jaw, nodding to it, "Should get that cleaned up."

It was all she offered as she turned and followed after Cairn. Fighting the instinct to glance back to Isaiah. He stayed standing in the open foyer long after she was gone.

Brielle had made it back to the camp in record time, just to catch her group of warriors still standing at the fighting pits. Mingling with other warriors as they watched one another fight, it was obvious how the other units now watched those she trained, marvelling at the difference in everything even down to the positioning of their feet.

Brielle walked straight towards Emmie. Grasping her by the elbow, she pulled her aside, 

"I'm going to call in an opponents for you." Emmie paused, quizzically glancing at Brielle in silence.

"Stay on your feet. And cause a commotion. Put on a show for me." Emmie didn't seem to argue even if the expression on her face warranted an explanation. Longed for one, but she chose not to question Brielle then as she moved towards the ring. Her friends watching as Brielle moved through the crowd to search for the opponents she sought.

Even if she had only met him twice, Brielle would never forget the faces of the two males who had chased Emmie a few weeks ago. The ones who's unit Brielle had taught a lesson to, downing them all as they celebrated the victory of making Emmie run with her tail between her legs.

Spotting them now she walked straight for the group of them, those in his unit who took the beating with him stiffened as she approached, she smiles as she grabs him by the scruff of his collar and begins dragging him towards the ring without a word. He kicks out as she does so, but holding firm she rounds closer to the pits.

She saw the worry on her unit, could sense Emmie's alarm as she approached. The male had double the size and weight against her, but it wasn't a hidden fact to Brielle that Emmie was quick on her feet, her smaller size would give her the biggest of advantages. She just hadn't realised it yet.

She threw him towards the ring, he fell forward into the sand catching himself with his hands before his face landed in the grains. Disturbed and rattled from the humiliation of being dragged by Brielle he rose quickly to his feet. Eyeing up the commander, 

Brielle ignored him, gaze on the closed over flaps of Cairn's tent. He was inside, she just needed his attention. The male inside the ring was still glowering at the commander standing at the edges of the ring. Brielle still refusing to acknowledge him met Emmie's stare around his shoulder, giving a subtle nod to the female Brielle stepped back when Emmie ran for the male.

Using her whole weight, Emmie managed to topple him over, driving her raised knee into his back. She was quick to her feet, just as Brielle had advised. The male spun on her now, springing to stand towering above the female opponent.

Emmie dodged his first few blows, her smaller size giving her all of the right advantage as she easily ducked under and avoided his attacks. There was an uproar from the gathering group as Emmie trips him up, his chest was the first to hit the sand, chin and face being coated in the substance.

He only seemed to anger the more the crowd encouraged her on. Wiping the floor with him, not just metaphorically.  Brielle watched carefully circling the fighting pit on the outside of the sandbags, watching the male as he threw himself up from the floor with one swift movement.

Emmie had been about to duck out the way when the male grabbed her by the throat, Emmie's eyes widen in panic and the gathered group of fae warriors start to yell out as he began choking her. Brielle held an arm out to stop her unit from invading the ring, signally for them to wait as the male lifted Emmie off the ground by her throat. 

Her legs were kicking out, hands scratching at his fists. She met Brielle's gaze, The Commander narrowed her eyes slightly before nodding. He had played unfair first. That nod was all the confirmation Emmie needed.

Ripping her arm free she lifted one hand, relaxing she stopped struggling in his hold. Calming her heart to not panic. Her fist clenched and the male swayed where he stood. Before releasing his grip and dropping her to the ground. 

Brielle knew it was the right choice choosing this unit to train. Having a Whitethorn with the power to manipulate the wind was always a bonus in a group. Emmie was one of the smallest in the group, seemingly unsuspecting of any attention. Until she  wanted it.

She landed hard into the sand, momentarily stunned she let lose her grip of the oxygen in her opponent's chest. It only took the male a second before he was recomposing himself, 

Emmie crawled her way towards the sandbags, Her unit awaiting to help her stand. Brielle glances towards Cairn's tent. Still nothing. There was a commotion before her, turning back around she startled as the male rose and gave chase outside of the fighting pit. 

He went after Emmie, the small female rounded to face him when her unit finally jumped in, there wasn't anything Brielle could find herself to do as the unit fought to defend one of their own. The other unit joined in, matching her own fighter to fighter.

There was an uproar of sound, warriors yelling and jumping out of the way as captains rushed in to try and break up the fighting. The fighting was growing dirty, her unit using each other, fighting back to back, Brielle tried to stifle her laughter as one of the female from her unit ripped a males ear clean off the side of his head... with her teeth. His scream was pained filled and chill inducing. Brielle snapped her gaze to the tent.

The flaps of Cairn's doors finally flung open, he stormed closer and Brielle began moving. Aiming to pull back all of those in her unit.

"The fuck is going on here!" Much of the fighting quieted down as Cairn yelled, one person however did not stop. Emmie's opponent lunged to throw one more punch, an action which he surely regretted.

Cairn grabbed the male by the back of his neck, throwing him to the ground, Brielle moved to Emmie pulling the female to her and making a show of tucking the warrior safely behind her back.

Cairn stood over the male and his anger got the better of his as he threw punch after punch at the downed figure, who tried to shield his head from each blow. His anger induced haze was driven on as warriors stood stunned watching Cairn as he brutalised their fellow soldier.

The yelling only seemed to make it worse as the Captains slowly gather to watch. The ones Brielle had met in that meeting the week before stilled as she turned her attention to them, remembering her earlier threats, they stood on and did nothing to stop Cairn.

The surrounding warriors watched on in horror as those supposed to represent and fight for  them watched as Cairn carried out his beating.The Captains doing absolutely nothing to stop it.

He will kill something. 

Brielle was counting on it. Rightly so as Isaiah had predicted, Cairn roared out a yell of anger, hands wrapping around the males head, The males scream of pain and plead ripples around the crowd as Cairn tore the warriors head straight from off his shoulders.

One of the males from Brielle's unit was standing nearby Cairn, when his stare flickered up Brielle ran.

The surrounding warriors silent as they watched Brielle put herself in Cairn's path, stopping his approach and intent to kill. Watched as she put herself in harms way to save her warriors when no one else had stepped in to save their own.

Cairn pulled his lip back in a snarl, Brielle refused to move, could hear the shuffling of her warrior behind her but still refuses to move. Cairn couldn't kill her. Maeve needed her. Perhaps she had been overshooting her confidence and Cairn's threshold for patience. Her stomach was hollowing out in fear, but Carin rose standing a whole head above her.

Brielle lifted her chin in defiance, his nostrils flared at the insinuation with no words needing to be exchanged. She knew he wouldn't humiliate himself in front of a whole camp of warriors. 

So he backed down, retreating past the dead warrior to his tent. The groups of soldiers moved out of his way, in fear, the horror on their faces as he passed caught Brielle by surprise. She hadn't expected this to work so well.

Her attention moved to the captains standing stunned as they stared out at their own units. Watched as they saw the distrust she had instilled in them, through one simple display. For she understood the true weight behind trust and having a leader worth following. How could they trust their captains now if they allowed Cairn to kill them simply when he got mad?

By the way they all fled back to their own tents now, it was clear the Captains had just realised the same thing.

~

Emmie sat in the bar with her unit surrounding her. They had sat chatting for hours. Cold packs covering some of their bruises and already stitched up some of their cuts to aid the speed of the healing process.

Even after Brielle had stayed behind to help heal them with her powers. Some warriors had noticed her presence, tending to her unit long after the death occurred in the camp and the body had been removed.

They all sat nursing glasses of drink. Some wine others with an ale. They laughed and were simply enjoying each others company when another unit approached them.

The male at the front of that group slowed, hesitantly pausing as they all fell silent.

"Today..." his words failed him.

Emmie sat forwards, resting a hand against the table. "We never intended it to get that bad."

He shook his head, "It's not that."  His brow furrowed as he looked for the words.

"The Commander... She." The group around him waited patiently, "She was the only one to defend you guys. Our captain didn't do that." He wrung his hands together, Emmie gestured to the spare chairs at the table beside their own.

The other unit took the hint and sat down gratefully. "We just don't know what to trust anymore. We're not the only ones who feel this way."

Emmie smiles softly,  giving  glances of encouragement to those sitting around her, 

"Commander Brielle told us to trust in what we feel is right. Maeve knowns what best. I'm sure she was aware what she was doing when she swore Cairn into her Cadre." Even at her words, the enthusiasms she struggled to forged into them.

Emmie knew today had been a turning point, even if Commander Brielle hadn't told her as such. Something had shifted in the camp and Emmie had a feeling, the Lioness had fully intended for it to happen.

and as the two units sat and talked for hours into the night, Emmie couldn't help but wonder.

 Just what was the Lioness planning.

. . .

Taglist: @dreamiezpsycho @lunaralaraspace @mis-lil-red @mali22 @the-fae-are-taking-over

Next Part

[writing-oof]

what am i if not a dog - El (6)

(or: the E.G.G.s have superpowers. this, surprisingly, is only the beginning of El's problems.)(or: or: El Quackity gets rehabilitated like a rabid dog, Quackity yoinks his evil little brother, and A1 is safe and sound at the end of things)

TW: dehumanization, implied/referenced torture, loyalty, passing out

El hates this part of fucking up.

He shivers, his knees curled to his chest as he huddles around himself for warmth.

It doesn't help much. The room would be uncomfortably chilly even if he wasn't drenched, his hair plastered to the sides of his face and the back of his neck, and the clothes that hadn't been torn off him suctioned to his skin.

He shakes, a fine tremble to his hands. Goosebumps grow on every inch of his exposed, too-pale skin. The muscles in his back twist and clench, spasms so deep he has to bite his knuckles to keep from crying out.

He can still feel the electricity arching into his skin.

He takes deep, careful breaths as he tries to keep his heart under control. He curls up tighter, trying to preserve warmth as much as he can.

He knows what hypothermia looks like, what it feels like, and he isn't keen to relieve it any time soon. He'd shed layers if he thought he could get away with it, but there's no chance he'd be able to put them on convincingly enough by the time his supervisors return.

Chains rattle and, after a bit of delay he elects to blame on the possible brain damage, El startles at the noise. His head jerks up, his heart resuming its favorite game of how fast can we go until El passes out. He eyes the cell attached to the room warily.

Quackity shifts again, moving closer to the bars separating the stone floor of his cell and the tiles of El's office.

El's heart is beating fast because he's cold; his body's trying to warm him up. He isn't afraid, and definitely not of his...his--whatever Quackity is.

"You look like shit."

The islander meets his gaze nonchalantly. Blood crusts along the side of his face and, when he looks, there are bloodied bandages wrapped around his middle.

In a building that probably has an entire room devoted to health pots, they've both drawn the short end of the stick.

El takes a breath. It shakes and warps as it leaves his lungs, and his next inhale is loud enough that Quackity's eyes narrow.

The man leans back a bit, every inch of him invested in his false casualness even though El can see where the position twists his bandages painfully. El doesn't know why he does this, what it gives him. He isn't going to do anything to El, and for whatever reason he wants him to know it, to see it.

"They really did a number on you, man," Quackity says like he isn't regularly left with more of his insides on the outside just for fun. Or, science, probably. That sort of thing's above El's clearance.

"'m fine," El grits out, his tongue a lead weight in his mouth. He slurs more than snaps, "Worry about yourself."

"I am," Quackity says, his mouth curling up in a lazy smirk.

El wants to punch him in his stupid face.

He takes a breath instead and reminds himself that he's getting out of this mess much sooner than Quackity is. He takes another breath for good measure and feels like he should be able to see it with how cold the room has gotten.

He can't curl up any tighter so he just shivers, his teeth clicking a bit inside his skull. At least the cramps in his back have finally died down to only a faint twitching in the muscle.

"Why do you let them do that to you?"

El scoffs. He's not surprised Quackity sounds curious. "Someone like you wouldn't understand the first thing about loyalty."

Quackity sighs, a soft sound that El can barely hear.

"Alright, man," he says, settling back for the silence they both know is coming, "Whatever you say."

---

El stumbles forward.

His limbs weigh heavy, his fingers dragging to the earth like a magnet and his feet sticking to the ground like mud sucks at his boots.

His shivering feels more like seizing, a tremor that wracks every part of his body. His muscles would probably ache from the strain, if he could feel them at all.

The air is so cold he can feel it chilling his heart as he stumbles along the blessedly mob-free path. For so early in the morning, he'd been half-expecting to be shot dead the second he left the Federation base.

He's due some luck, he supposes.

Especially after being interrogated for god knows how long over something that definitely wasn't his fault. He doesn't know how those files disappeared or how he came to be on the suspect list, especially since they're way beyond his clearance level.

It could be worse.

If they hadn't decided he wasn't the traitor, if they hadn't believed him when he babbled near-incoherently in between their high-voltage incentives...

El shudders.

It could definitely be worse.

He keeps moving forward and, when he listens, he can make out the faint noises of the island waking up just ahead of him, footsteps and someone talking nervously.

Before he can say anything to let them know he's there--he does not want to deal with another arrow to the shoulder because he was a little too sneaky--El's foot catches on a loose stone and he trips. He just barely manages to catch himself on the trunk of a tree, the bark eating at the skin of his hands.

By the time he reorients himself, he looks up to find a crossbow leveled with his face. His breath stutters in his chest, but his fear is distant and hard to touch. Cold, like him. His heart beats shaky and slow.

He can see the moment they recognize him, the islander's gaze going from furiously murderous to very, slightly less murderous. The man lowers his weapon just a bit.

"Hey, El," Fit greets tensely, Ramón frowning at him from behind the islander's leg, "I don't usually see you out this early."

And it's true. Usually, El keeps inside until the sun has really crested in the sky, night mobs burned away with the daylight or hiding under trees and in ravines.

El shivers, the barest hints of the daylight just starting to peer over the horizon.

'You look like a ghost,' Ramón signs, his nose wrinkling, 'A very wet ghost.'

El doesn't respond, isn't sure what he'd even be expected to say. He just stares at them, a little more blankly than he intends.

"Seriously, though," Fit says, his eyebrows pinching together as he gives El a more thorough once-over, "You look a little pale, man. More than usual, I mean."

Hypothermia will do that to you, El's found.

"I'm fine," he tries to say. It barely sounds like words. "I'm just cold."

"Are you drunk?" Fit asks, amusement curling his lips even as suspicion narrows his eyes.

El starts to shake his head but screws his eyes shut when his brain decides to scream in protest inside his skull. The shivering makes it hard to hold himself up, even with the tree's help.

Ramón makes a curious noise, but when El glances up it's to Fit holding out a hand in front of the E.G.G., blocking his path. It's to be expected, really, but the islander's suspicion stings, especially since El can barely stand.

He half-expects the man to turn away, or take a shot at him anyway.

"You should come inside," Fit says instead, sounding conflicted.

El blinks at him confusedly.

Then, taking more than a second to look around, he realizes just how close to the man's base he really is.

"Inside?" he asks. Or, tries to.

He opens his mouth to ask, to be sure, because he isn't going to give them an excuse so prefect like wandering into one of their bases uninvited, and he feels the world tip sideways before he can say much of anything.

It could be worse, he tries to remind himself before everything dissolves into the darkness of sleep.

It could be worse.

---

Part 6 of ? First Previous Next

[addgg-taylor]

It Was A Good Run, Everybody: An Open Letter to MTG Cardsmith

With the exception of this small segment here, and the occasional bracket making it clear I'm talking about MTG Cardsmith and not Tumblr, this post is, verbatim, a copy of a post I am making on the MTG Cardsmith Forums. I hope there's room for resolution, but I understand that may not happen, so I would like to keep this copy of my statement so that, if it's deleted over on the Forums, what I say can still be heard.

It's been years since MTG Cardsmith has received any significant front-of-house updates. When Grant left, he left a legacy that may not have been perfect, but the Forums crafted a tight-knit community that I eventually grew to call friends. [The] wonderful community has helped me through my hardest times, and despite several hiatuses brought on by personal struggles and writer's bloc, I still tried to hold [the] site close. Even after I stopped using the tools on the main site, I still ran Sagas and engaged regularly on the Forums. Unfortunately, it didn't last forever, and soon, things went silent, eventually leading to a monetization of the site, a change of ownership, and radio silence.

A few years pass. Many of us had moved on; we still kept in touch, but it was nothing most of us couldn't do offsite. It seemed like the main site was as good as dead; we still used the Forums, but we cared about MTGCS less and less, mainly using it to get more attention for our cards. Sagas steadily died, community projects were abandoned, and a lot of us branched out. In my case, I started a Discord server for my sets, starting using mtg.design (then MSE) for card design, and joined multiple other communities outside the site. I even began to contemplate making my own card game as the excitement towards MTGCS (and as a result, MTG itself) began to die, replaced by a feeling like no one was listening. And then, it happened. Suddenly, the site went down for maintenance. Despite nearly derailing the most successful Saga on the forums, the site was back, and changes were being made... but whoever's in charge now isn't here for the community. Despite engaging with them, that engagement has been... less than ideal, to say the least, with a major community member getting scapegoated by them to argue in favor of AI stealing from human artists. To add, my very first attempt to bring this to light resulted in my voice being silenced.

What did I do? I posted this message on the main site, a message from the official Discord mod, as well as a link to more context. Quite frankly, this wasn't even one of the more damning things said, and more just the specific instance where the member in question, Ranshi, was used as an example.

So, it's with a heavy heart that I do something I should have done a while ago. I don't have to be on [the] site to be with the community and express my creativity, and quite frankly as an artist, my talent doesn't belong on a platform where its community will be mistreated and suppressed. It does not belong on a site led by someone that believes reposting art for personal, nonprofit use only and crediting artists is comparable to stealing from thousands to train an AI, profiting off of it, and providing no compensation to the artists. That being said though, I'm not here to talk about if AI belongs in society, as that debate has not true answer; the facts stand, and that's as follows:

The mod in question singled out a member of our community to try and make them look bad, rather than trying to have a mature discussion or just letting things be. (Shown above)

The mod in question does not care about the moral implications of AI stealing from artists.

The mod in question disregarded a vocal majority to implement the new AI generation feature less than 24 hours after its announcement. (7+ people at the time [9+ total] argued against it before it was rolled out, and only 3 came to defend it besides the mod [2 of the people that made arguments for AI were still against it].)

The site is using a variant of Stable Diffusion. Stable Diffusion was shown to have been trained on art without permission, and made money off images generated based on that training.

If you would like to spread this message in case it's deleted, I'm sharing everything (that I can legally share) about this situation on my Tumblr.

Unless the [MTG Cardsmith] site lead releases a formal apology about this incident, makes amends to those impacted, and ceases the operation of AI on the site permanently, I am leaving the site. If I am removed or do leave, I would like all of my cards, images, and discussions from both of my [MTG Cardsmith] accounts (Tommia and AddGG) on both the main site and Forums to be permanently deleted from both the site itself and any local storage related to it. This especially includes anything of mine relating to Artful August or Stitia.

Now, given the nature of this situation, I know people certain people are going to try and pull a "gotcha" on me, to trying and find some fallacy to get me on instead of admitting that facts are facts and having a mature discussion about this. I also know the possibility of that discussion not being an option and this being instantly deleted is also an option. So, in addition, here's some added context.

AI actually isn't the main reason I'm leaving. However, the extreme stance taken on it and the use being for profit is certainly a factor.

Yes, I have used AI before. However, I changed my standing on it after factual evidence proved artists were being stolen from. I have deleted all local AI art on my system, scrubbed the AI art off any cards I've made locally, and avoid using AI when possible, even cancelling my plans to start using Photoshop.

There is a DMCA form on the site for any artist to fill out and have their art stripped from the site. With AI, this process is far harder; if someone discovers their art was used by it without their permission, it can't be dealt with so easily because the art is baked into the AI's training.

[ftpverse]

SHADITUDE an early DI Shad Mix

for the asshole, the cocky teenager, the guy who thinks he's hot shit

(or, that's what he SAYS, anyway,)

--

-> [ listen ] <-

tracklist + liner notes under the cut

--

dragon rider - tsfh (instrumental)

gives you hell - all-american rejects truth be told, i miss you truth be told, i'm lying (when you see my face, i hope it gives you hell)

bad reputation - joan jett & the blackhearts and i don't give a damn 'bout my reputation never said i wanted to improve my station

i don't care - fall out boy i don't care what you think as long as it's about me / say my name and his in the same breath i dare you to say they taste the same

hello - courtney love shut up i'm about to tell you about the difference you will never make

crushcrushcrush - paramore if you wanna play it like a game well, come on, come on, let's play ('cause i'd rather waste my life pretending than have to forget you for one whole minute)

do you want to fight me - venus hum you're eighty pounds of wreckage in a mason jar you're a bit combustible, don't break

crusher - free refills i'll walk all over you with my leather boots break your heart in two, that's what i wanna do

doopliss theme - ZMiX (instrumental)

confident - demi lovato it's time to get the chains out is your tongue tied up? 'cause this is my ground and i'm dangerous

---

some other misc thoughts:

shoutout to all the ppl on main who gave me song suggestions for this; not knowing what it was for

and also magik for talking me into crushcrushcrush. i got so fuckored by it even tho this is supposed to be the angst-free playlist lol. i THOUGHT about putting misery business in here but while very funny as a concept i couldn't quite abide by the lyrics. i just couldn't... (too romance-focused, not even fitting at all, though very fun to imagine him and kairi singing together in [gesturing] the future or whatever. tho i wonder if kairi shared music with him while they were regularly meeting on the beach. honestly no way she didn't? fun little bonus scene...)

had to put a courtney love song in here after realizing 1) how cornerstone she was in the grunge scene, 2) that shad would love her music

''do you want to fight me'''s quoted liner notes are meant to be shad @ sora. but you can read them however you like :)

i put the demi lovato song in here because 1) it worked 2) shad would unironically listen to it. and think it rules. one of my longest-standing canons about his music taste that is he is a sucker for female vocals. i had to! i simply did!!!

i bitched about the og mix being 8 songs of which 3 were instrumental . and then kept 2 of the 3 instrumentals. look! i couldn't not keep the doopliss theme remix! okay!! first of all its JUST SO!!! ITS SO!!! second of all i needed something to help me transition into confident, which i refused to cut

other than the instrumentals i only preserved 2 other songs from the og mix - tho half a mix is pretty solid, i guess. still felt like i was scrambling for a hot minute tho.

the four i cut were:

1) the third instrumental (which was fine but that's SO MANY instrumentals, and also it was ONLY fine)

2) the only possible interpretation of it was his crush on kairi being Weird - even if i tried to reframe it as about sora it'd still kinda be weird. ITS HONESTLY EXTREMELY PINING. WHICH ISN'T INCORRECT BUT IS LIKE. THE WRONG TIMELINE FOR THIS MIX. BAD NEWS THE LYRICS DID FUCKOR ME THO

3) angst, in the mix i didn't want to have angst ((or at least to not swing away from being mostly uptempo and SOUND confident, even if there's layers of angst underneath))

4) ANGST THAT WASN'T EVEN LIKE ACCURATE TO HIM AS A CHARACTER. I HAD TWO OTHER BETTER-FITTING MCR SONGS I COULD HAVE - AND DID ELSEWHERE!! - USE FOR HIM SO. WHY DID I GO WITH THAT ONE? HELLO???? TO WHAT END???

[chibitantei]

@jesterofinaba sends:

"Happy birthday, pumpkin. How do you get taller every time I see you? Or maybe I'm getting shorter. In my old age, you know."

Adachi smiles, eyes sparkling behind his glasses and long-faded scars, and greets his daughter at her apartment with a strong hug - stronger than anyone would expect from a man walking with a cane, no matter his age. As always, he'd made the trip from Inaba to the city to see his daughter, with the added bulk of the presents he'd gotten her.

"You'd better not be working yourself too hard, Detective Shirogane-Adachi. I can't keep reminding you to get your rest and eat healthy meals all the time when we live in different cities."

They did keep in close contact, though, updating each other on their lives. Cases they'd worked on, mostly, but also updates about anything interesting and possibly persona-related. Adachi had also recently adopted a rabbit, named Laura, and often sent her pictures of her.

The gifts he'd gotten her included a new holster for her service weapon, a small leather kit that included a multitude of tiny screws that he's sure might come in handy with her tinkering hobby, and of course, a helmet for her motorcycle, something he's been trying to get her to wear regularly for years. At least this one was blue, had a retro style, and hopefully wasn't too lame.

"I should have gotten you a pair of scissors, too. I haven't cut your hair since you were eight, but looking at your haircut I might need to start again, looks like." [ oh you know. grown up og family ]

Naoto's Birthday | Open

Detective Shirogane-Adachi had left her humble roots in Inaba and moved to Tokyo again, where she had been before. It was like coming home, except Dad wasn’t there to nag her all the time. She was sure there had been more promotions or opportunities for him to follow, maybe work at the same station he started at, but he never accepted, it seemed. When the day had come, he didn’t ask her to stay, although she had a feeling he wanted to, but there was a speech about birds leaving the nest and Naoto had to shush him before he became misty-eyed again.

In the blink of an eye, her presents went from plushes to something more grown up and practical, and although she didn’t want to admit it, she kind of missed the days when she was a tiny nuisance, unsure of where she stood, but knew that she loved Dad with all her heart. She didn’t want to think about the passage of time, especially seeing Dad’s cane and how he sprouted even more gray hairs.

 “Let’s take a look...”

A holster for her revolver, a real one, but the old modified model was tucked away in her bedroom, despite having finished serving its purpose years ago. She put it on, then pretended to draw an imaginary gun. “I look kind of cool now!”

The next item on the list was a little kit, perfect for the inventing hobby she never grew out of. Her homemade inventions saved her ass from danger and more than once, someone had tried to convince her to try and patent some of them. She still hadn’t decided on that.

The last one was typical, a helmet because Dad was all about safety and he couldn’t have been the Head Detective of Inaba without being a huge safety nut. “I guess I’ll concede in the Great Helmet War.” The helmet went on her head and Naoto moved her head around, making sure it wouldn't fall off. “Bonus points for it not being lame, too,” she said, though it probably sounded muffled on Dad’s end.

She took it off, then smoothed her hair. “Geez, I left it long last time and you didn’t like that either. I thought this haircut would make you happy.” In fact, her hair looked the same as it usually did. Short and a layered mess in the back.

Naoto gave him a hug, careful not to squeeze him too tightly. “I can’t believe we’ve come so far, Dad. You’ve got more gray hairs than last time! I wonder what your university self would think of you now!” She knew her kid self would have bawled because she got to be a family with Mr. Adachi and become a detective like she always wanted.

“Since you made the long trip, why don’t you stay for a bit? We can make dinner together like how we used to. Or we can go get some sashimi, maybe ramen, or maybe sushi.”

She placed a hand on her hip and adjusted the ever present newsboy hat. “But I’m getting ahead of myself. You need to rest a bit and get all your tears out. I know Okuninushi is crying up a storm since the Little Hare has grown another year older.” She gave him another hug. “But you know, thanks for being my dad, Dad. I love you a lot.”

[artanddaddyissues]

*cough*Are you sure that’s me stalking and not my doppelgänge?? / jk

Am doing great, besides the fact i am only going to be here until 3rd of April. WHY AM I IN MY ARCANA PHASE AGAIN AT SUCH A LATE TIME HHH.

Also, I might request some angst headcanons. Maybe someone being dead? Idk shha

Okay 1. ITS OKAY I joined late too, welcome to the club sis 💕

And 2. You. Are. Evil. But I will definitely do some angst for you. I secretly hope you CRY when you read this angst.

What the M6 do, when you die

Heads up: gender neutral pronouns for reader, M/C is yellow, very angsty, read at your own risk, mentions of mental health issues (anxiety, depression, etc…)

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

"not... again..."

absolutely distraught, can no longer sleep, eat, think for himself, walk, breathe... etc.

Half his heart has gone, for good. Many times he contemplates sacrificing himself or other people in exchange for you to come back.

"I can bring them back again, right?"

shop closes for an extended amount of time, the baker starts to worry about him, the others regularly check in on him. He spends most of his days in his gate and the realms in hopes to contact you.

It takes him almost a year to leave the shop and care for himself again.

He curses everything and becomes pretty hostile for a while. Trust issues, anger, depression, everything sky rockets in the worst ways possible, and you aren't there to bring him back to his old self.

Asra needed you all the time. He missed your laugh, your touch, your aura. Living life without your presence made him feel like there was no point to living.

forgets how to function, in the worst way possible.

"Julian, when was the last time you ate?" "I can't remember...”

Walking disaster. He gets drunk more often, there isn’t a moment when he’s sober.

Asra checks in on him at least once a week since he knows how bad Julian can get.

He closes his clinic and tries to stay hidden from the others. He pushes everyone away, in fear of losing someone else.

This isn’t the first time he’s lost someone but, this one hurts the most.

You were the air he breathed. He missed giving you dramatic, romantic speeches and other little things.

He tries to tell Asra to teach him magic, in hopes of contacting you again through the magical realms, “maybe the fools realm.” “The realms are dangerous without-“ “I’ll take any risk to see them again.”

He looks at the collection of love letters, paintings, drawings, photos, anything to keep your face engraved into his mind.

Vesuviua mourns with her. Nadia has been such an incredible leader and so the city mourns when she loses you. I’m a way, the city lost you too, you did a great deal of good for the people of Vesuviua.

“I’ll find you in another lifetime, my dear.”

Like Asra, she knows how the magical realms work. Instead of sleeping each night, she travels to the realms to try and find you. She swears, she's getting close.

Everyone around her is understanding. the entire city saw how incredibly happy you both were together.

She is back to being alone again. Truly alone. Yes she has the others but you... you were there for her every moment of every day. Every breath she took, you were beside her. She had almost forgotten what is was like to be alone, thanks to you.

She dreads waking up and is always in a bad mood after another unsuccessful night of trying to find you.

Has a memorial statue of you in the gardens, facing her private balcony and she cries every time she looks at it.

"I need you back..."

Sobbing for weeks, never leaving his wing, punching holes through his walls, not taking care of himself...

He’s not angry after a few months but sad. He was very angry in the beginning, when he felt like he could have done something, but you can only convince yourself you’re useful so many times.

6 months after your passing, he treks to your home town to hold a proper burial for you.

The people around him in Vesuvia find it hard to see him like this. He could be a threat to anybody but they understand how much you affected him, so they all offer as much support as they can.

You taught him how to be a better person and without you reassuring him each day, he can only hold onto your words and do things he thought was right

he tried his hardest to stay strong in public but it was hard. He wanted to look strong always but the first few weeks were rough.

"Me and Pepi miss you... so much."

She buries you around her cottage, in a secluded corner. She watches every day, the tree you were buried under, grow and prosper. Little white and yellow flowers bloom in the spring and last the whole year.

Nadia gives her as much time off as she needs.

Now, Pfeels completely useless without you though.

The little things hurt the most. Waking up to you changing Pepi's litter, cooking only for one person again, not having any help in the garden, seeing all your clothes in the closet...

"It's okay Pepi..."

Julian visits almost every night for the first few months. He always comes ready to tend to Portia and make her feel as well as she can feel.

"This isn't happening"

he spirals into a long, very angry stage of denial. He can't accept the fact that you're gone when it feels like he just got you.

He makes a vow to himself, to never get attached to another person again in fear of losing them.

he blames himself all the time. "Muriel stop..." "I could have done something.

He can never go back to the person he used to be, because you changed him for the better but now you aren't around to see him anymore. And that kills him inside

Asra is over almost every night.

Inanna has had to pull Muriel out of bed for weeks on end.

He knows you would want him to continue living but its too hard without you there.

He and Asra venture through the realms to try and find you. Muriel is determined.

[angeli-marco-writes]

Sherlock Holmes - Kiss Me, Mr Detective

A/N - Season 1!Sherlock, the cutie. And friends to lovers. Two of my favourite things. I do not own Sherlock Holmes, the character, the universe, the adaptations or anything: this is a work of fiction set on the BBC adaptation of Sherlock. Did I still write 8.2k words (exactly) for it? Yes. I also don’t own the song or the lyrics used within, and if you fancy it, listen to ‘Kiss Me’ by Ed Sheeran while reading.

Warnings - Bad language. Mentions of murder and drug usage. Mild angst. Smut, loss of virginity, masturbation, oral m receiving, penetration, unprotected sex, so 18+.

Summary - After a fight with John leaves Sherlock feeling particularly down, he calls on the one person who is always there to support him. Only tonight, it’s different. Feelings come to a head, exploration ensues, but is this just a one time thing? That depends on whether she stays the night...

TO SHERLOCK, it’s just another normal day, whereas to John? He’d rather not admit how regularly these awful days roll around. Sure, the case didn’t go as well as it could’ve, and Sherlock admittedly could’ve made much more of an effort to comfort John after the apparent ‘heartbreak’ he endured. He just could not understand it. Why the hell was John so emotionally responsive to a case they’d been on for less than twenty four hours which turned out to be a bust anyway? 

“You are absolutely unbelievable!” 

“People die every day, John. You’ve killed people, as have I. It isn’t that great a surprise.” Sherlock deadpans, picking up his teacup, raising it to his lips, drawing a long sip from the warm liquid. 

“Oh, yeah, of course. The proud, the cold untroubled heart of stone, that never mused on sorrow but its own.” John mocks. “Do you not even care that people are still dead despite the fact you solved the case?”

“They’d be dead either way,” he reiterates, “at least we got to them before they completely decomposed. Will me caring about them stop them from being dead? No, Dr Watson, it will not.”

“Sherlock!”

“John!” He mimics. 

John slams his hands down on the desk, shaking the wood and everything resting on it, surely sending the vibrations through the floor and notifying Mrs Hudson of their ‘domestic’ as she so likes to call them. The buffalo even begins to swing. John’s tea is long forgotten, but Sherlock’s is keeping him grounded, calm, as John waggles his fist in Sherlock’s passive, blank face. 

“You-” he pauses, gulping down breath. “You are a fucking machine, I can’t even deal with you right now. How dare you be so cold hearted and untroubled by this. You’re a disgrace.”

As if he hasn’t heard that one before, Sherlock scoffs. 

Placing his teacup back down with a clink, he stands, the darkness of the night, of the room, closing in on them both. Nights like these really are danger nights, any night John leaves him. That’s what's coming next, but there isn’t a thing he knows to say or do to prevent the inevitable. He’ll simply just text Her instead, she’ll keep him grounded. 

“Why? Emotional context? Emotion, whether of ridicule, anger, or sorrow, whether raised at a puppet show, a funeral, or a battle, is your grandest of levellers. The man who would be always superior should be always apathetic.” 

With a huff like a bull, John viciously turns on his heel, blaspheming under his breath, cursing Sherlock out. He reaches for his coat and snatches it off the stand, slamming the door open. 

“MACHINE.” John screams before pulling the door shut with a great slam, seething, the coat stand still rocking in his wake. 

John’s footsteps thunder down the stairs, but before he’s even gone, Sherlock’s phone is withdrawn, and he’s tapping out a message.

Can you come over? Please? SH

It wouldn’t usually bother him as much. The case didn’t phase him, at all, but John’s opinion did. It always does. But today was a particularly long day of being brutish and rude, cold and distant, his usual and true self, but John’s more and more impatient with him now. 

Being called a ‘machine’ is, again, nothing unusual, but this time it stings a little more than usual, especially after his recent arrest, and a fallout with Molly. He only has one person left, right now, who doesn’t hate him. His longest friend, the one he keeps away from it all so as to not tarnish her life with his misdeeds; Y/N, the one he can always rely on.

He knows she’s arrived by the sound of his window crashing open. Crawling up the bricks, skimming the drainpipe, latching onto the ivy; it’s her usual manner of entry. She never uses the door. 

Putting his cups and saucers into the sink, he makes his way through the house, opening his bedroom door to find her already sitting there on the bed, her coat hung up on the hook, her work clothes clinging to her body. 

“Hey there Mr Detective, you okay?” she asks as jovially as she can muster.

The way he ambles across the room, his dressing gown floating behind him, and slumps down onto the bed, instantly tells her he’s not okay at all. She can’t help but to look upon him sympathetically, edging a smidge closer to him, until he’s prompted enough to wrap his arms around her torso, finding his rightful place tangled around her. She knows him well enough - his past, and his current life - to realise she’s the only person he’s ever felt comfortable enough around to do this with, and that brings her a certain swelling pride in her bosom, one that doesn’t go unnoticed by Sherlock as he feels her skin heat up against his cheek. 

It doesn’t take long, either, for his head to follow suit, burying into her chest. He’s always, always had a thing for her boobs, ever since they were in uni together. 

That’s something so special about the two of them, he doesn’t have to say anything for her to know he’s not okay the way he does with everyone else. And naturally, he can read everything about her in a split second.

“I’m here, bud.”

Above all else, he just needs to know someone is there for him in moments like these. The world is cruel to him, and Y/N wishes more than anything that it wasn’t. Upon instinct, her hands stray, one to his back, pressing against the silk of his dressing gown, the other cradling his long neck, fingers knotting in the dark curls there. 

She isn’t sure how long she stays there, simply holding him, feeling every twitch of his muscles, every breath of his against her skin, but she likes it. Of course she does, every time she likes it. Sherlock brings her an inordinate amount of comfort at the best of times, today is no exception, especially with what the day has held. Even when she’s the one comforting him, he doesn’t realise how much he helps her too. 

His flat is so familiar, his bed as comfortable as her own. She knows his sock index, she’s studied his periodic table over his shoulder more times than she’d care to admit, and she even has her own toothbrush in the bathroom in case she has to pop over for an emergency freshen up. Sherlock has, and always will be, her first port of call, and that she remembers as she shifts further onto the quilted bedspread, her phone on his oak bedside locker. 

His head begins to stir against her chest, his curls tickling her collarbones, small hums escaping his lips as he pushes himself up, his elegant yet trembling hands still splayed on her waist.

“I could feel your heart beating weirdly, what’s wrong?” he asks, quirking his eyebrows. 

“Just the usual.” she vaguely replies.

Sherlock isn’t having it, though, and scans her a little more. “You’re still in your work clothes.”

“Great deduction. I was hoping you’d go a little deeper, though.”

“You hate wearing work clothes longer than necessary, which means you had plans straight after work, considering you finished… five hours ago? That’s your usual time for today. Counting overtime, forty five minutes, walk to your car, another ten, but your umbrella wasn’t working, round that up to an hour, leaving at 6. You arrived home, no, not home, at your boyfriend’s house for dinner. However, you’re not comfortable enough with one another yet for you to use his shower, or perhaps you are, but you elected not to, and stay in damp clothes that only had seventeen minutes to dry with the heater on in your car for the journey there. You ate dinner, Mexican, had a glass and a half of five percent wine, realised you couldn’t drive, but you didn’t particularly want to stay. Nonetheless you sat and watched the telly with him for hours, football, I can see the dreariness in your eyes. I know how much you hate it, and frankly, same. You stayed for almost all of the match, seeing as you’re now sober, but something else happened.” She lulls her head to the side, prompting him, her smile not meeting her eyes. “As soon as the match ended, he tried to make a move on you, he pressed his mouth to yours, he tried to push his hand up your skirt;” his throat bobs with a vicious gulp; despising the thought of anyone else laying a finger on her, “you swatted him away, rightfully so.” 

He pauses a minute, his harsh tone of voice and his sharp face softening. He can see the vulnerability in her eyes, her walls about to crumble. This woman he appreciates so much. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

Smiling melancholically up at him, she brings her hand back to his hair, her fingers carding through the soft curls. His face buries back into her chest just as her voice offers a broken whisper, “I broke it off. I was the one who couldn’t commit this time.” 

And as she lays her head on top of his, her breathing more shallow, resounding in her chest, he dwells over those very words. The way she said them, not to mention the words themselves, hold a myriad of meaning. What could she possibly-

Oh.

The subtext, yes, impeccable. She’s always had a way with implications and subtext, always knowing that the likelihood of him actually picking up on it is little to none. But now, now he’s become trained to her, her way of life, her way of thinking, her way of speaking. This is too good an opportunity to miss. If she means what he thinks she means, ever hopeful, then this is completely unfamiliar territory. 

Gathering all of his courage in one deep breath, he begins to pepper kisses on her skin. The faintest brush of his lips on the tops of her breasts, all that’s available to him with her shirt the way it is. He feels her heart flutter, her breathing stutter, but despite the chemical flush of her chest, he still isn’t quite sure she likes it. Not until he feels her grip on his hair increase, and he glances up to see her head thrown back. Her spine delicately arches against his hand, thrusting her chest further into his face. 

His nimble fingers reach for her buttons, undoing the top two, giving him space enough to find the valley between her breasts. Lathering kisses there, licking the swells of her boobs, his tongue pulsates with the increased thrumming of her heart. The sensation is new, so unbridled, and he doesn’t quite know what to do with the stirring in his loins right about now. That unknowing is only further amplified by the sound that rips from her chest when he involuntarily bites down on the supple flesh. It couldn’t be… a moan?

Sure, he understands the chemistry of it, the reactions that occur in the synapses of the brain, the pheromones and hormones released when one is aroused, but this is all new to him. And, from his embarrassingly basic level of theory, surely that doesn’t start until some more stimulation on other parts of the body commence? Nipples, perhaps something lower down… then again, what does Sherlock know?

Of course it’s an intimate moment, the closest he’s been to a woman before, and maybe that’s why he freezes, stops, and she tugs his head up by his hair, her gentle, pleasured smile with her lips softly parted deepening the look of bewilderment painted onto his face. Her eyes are twinkling, alight with an excitement he hasn’t seen for far too long. 

“What are you doing?” she whispers. 

He shrugs his shoulders with a sudden force, his dressing gown falling off a little. “I don’t know. But now I feel like I read your pining words all wrong.” 

She gasps, a wheezing sound, sucking the air from the room. She smacks his arm gently, muffled by his button-down and dressing gown. “I wasn’t pining! I was saying.”

“Hmm, same difference.” 

Everyone must acquiesce when it comes to Sherlock Holmes. “But no, you didn’t read them wrong at all, but I know you don’t see me that way, you don’t feel things that way.” 

He pauses, his beautiful plump lips pursed, fidgeting on the bed. Brushing her hair off her face reveals the pain she expressed. However, her eyes glued on his, sadness is betrayed in every line of his young, clean-shaven face. His entire bone structure is taking a nosedive. 

“For you, I’ve been feeling everything from hate to love to lust, and I guess that’s how I know I want to hold you close.”

“Sherlock...” she whispers, her singular word an inflection of surprise. 

Never tearing his eyes from her, his hand comes up to her cheek, rubbing his thumb over the slightly blushing skin, searching her face, with his big blue eyes, for a shred of reluctance. But, all he sees is her, so he elects to do what his heart is yelling at him to do for once, and kisses her breathless. His full lips holding hers, his one hand on her face, the other still wrapped around her back. Hers fly around his neck, clinging to him for dear life.

It doesn’t take long, their movements steadily heating, for their previously slow, intimate kiss to grow into something more, Y/N pulling herself up from the bed and making herself comfortable on Sherlock’s lap. His breath hitches in his throat, a cute little hiccupping sound escaping his lips in between embraces. 

As much as he loves just this, soft caressing and gentle petting, he just knows she wants more. He does too, that much is evident from the length prodding at Y/N’s inner thigh as she moves gently on his lap. She won’t make a move, though, he’s too inexperienced, and she’s too much of a sweetheart to corrupt him, so she thinks. Ever since he first saw her, she’s been corrupting him slowly. He didn’t realise at first, but over the years, he began to understand, and now he’s in too deep. 

For Y/N? It’s always been him. Every breakup she’s had, she’ll come to Sherlock’s flat, full well knowing the real reason she broke up with them, because she couldn’t commit, because she was too caught up on him. 

Skimming his hands beneath her shirt, he savours the press of his hands on her bare skin, warmth seeping from her body into his, his fingers dancing along her spine. Electricity shocks her in bursts, unlike anything else, from his touch alone. 

“May I take your shirt off?” he asks. 

“Fuck, yes.” she groans. “May I do yours?”

“Be my guest.”

In a tangle of limbs, a few buttons pop off, and eventually, two shirts make it out the other side, tossed from the bed and into the laundry pile. Aka Sherlock’s floor. He’s like that: sock indexes, yet he won’t get a hamper. A walking contrast.

His thumbs press beneath the band of her bra, savouring the pressure of the flesh that falls into his hands, but that’s as far as he gets. 

“Never undone a bra before?”

He shakes his head sheepishly. “I know the theory. Just… you always wear peculiar ones.”

“I wear relatively normal bras, and this one is certainly bog standard. Had I known you’d be undressing me Mr Detective, I’d have worn something nicer.”

“Just do it for me.” He requests, chuckling. 

She unfastens her bra, and allows her breasts to spill from the cups, into Sherlock’s awaiting hands. The gasp that erupts from him sends Y/N’s brain into overdrive. He’s cupped her chest through her shirt before, buried his nose into her cleavage countless times, but never before have they had such skin on skin contact. Her lips press to his neck, shifting her closer to him. Sucking on his pressure point, she receives a similar gasp in response, only this one is more guttural, more a sound of pleasure than surprise. He’s wilting from a single kiss to his neck. 

“Has no one ever given you a hickey?” She husks in his ear, her voice alone sending tremors down his spine. 

“N- fuck, no.”

“I’ll make it worth it. All of this.”

“I know you will.”

She fuses her lips onto his again, savouring the faint hesitations as he grapples with his breath, eager to get some control on his mind with all that’s happening. Never did she ever think Sherlock would be here beneath her, his rough fingertips brushing over her peaked buds, and his palms dancing over her waist. Never did she think she’d hear him whisper his next words, either, not in a million years. 

“More.” he pleads. “Can we do… more? Whatever that entails?”

“That depends what you want to do.”

“Get me out of these damn trousers. They're rather uncomfortable.”

She snorts lightly, a piggy like sound, the one they bonded over all those years ago. “I can feel why.”

“I imagine you want out of your work trousers, too.”

“God, yes; they’re ghastly.”

“I don’t think so.” he hums. “You look nice.”

Her cheeks begin to burn, blood rushing to colour them, betraying her true feelings, but as he tweaks her nose playfully, the little snort escapes again. 

They were in the dining hall, second week of university, almost ten years ago, and Y/N was sitting with her friends, downing enough coffee to sink a ship, eating her hangover away, when her friends decided to make her laugh with tales of last night's drunken events. Unbeknownst to her, one of the greatest minds of the twenty-first century was sitting just a few seats down on the half-empty bench, watching her perceptively in his periphery. That’s when he first heard the sound. The cutest thing, and it startled him into action, beginning his deductions almost instantly. Admittedly, her student ID on the table aided him a little. 

He shocked her from her haze, too, as soon as he spoke her name. 

“Y/N, eighteen, jurisprudence first year, freshers week over with. You left a boyfriend back home, but you’re more sad about leaving your dog, as I would be. You don’t particularly care about law but know it’s a good undergraduate to receive anyway. Dyed hair, extrovert, killer hangover, and apparently there’s a little piggy living inside your nose. Sherlock Holmes, would you like some aspirin?”

“That’s weird; what are you, some kind of detective?” She asked, sans malice, a playful bounce to her words. 

“Chemistry, going for a masters. But I do like the mystery, yes.”

“So you’re… bright. Nice to meet you, Sherlock, and it seems you know almost everything you need to know about me. But yes, I will take that aspirin, if you don’t mind. How was your weekend?”

He smiled at her, the first true smile he’d given in a long time. “It was nice, thank you.”

And thus a friendship was born, all because he heard her little piggy snort. 

Her slender fingers work wonders with the fastener and zip of his suit trousers, and even manage hers too, all within the space of a few seconds, but Sherlock is reluctant to let her go, even just to get her trousers off. 

“I need to sit up, just for a minute.”

“No.” Sherlock commands, insistent. “We can make this work.”

“Sure we can, but it won’t be very comfortable. Come on.”

She’s barely peeled away from him and wrestled hers off before he’s drawing her back in for a kiss, his trousers settled just above his knees. 

“Sherlock,” she protests, mumbling against his lips, her hands on his heavenly, broad, muscular shoulders. “Sher!”

Her squeal at his sudden tug on her panties disappears, captured by his eager mouth. And in fact, her panties seem to disappear along with it, thanks to Sherlock’s swift movements and nimble hands. Maybe he’s had some experience to be so good at this…

“You sure you wanna go this far?”

“More sure than I’ve ever been. I need you.” 

He takes a deep inhale, dropping his forehead against hers, his breathing coming out in bursts as he tries to get a grasp on the situation. “Kiss me.”

She doesn’t need to be told twice, instantly getting to work on the waistband of his boxers as his tongue lavishes her own. His hips rise briefly, just long enough for her to tug the elasticated material from around him, slipping past her, and then he kicks it into their growing pile of clothes. His length falls into her awaiting palm, and-

“Wow.” She exhales in amazement. “If I’d known you were packing this much, I’d have jumped you long ago.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

“Absolutely not, until tonight I thought you’d just laugh at me.”

He pecks her lips affectionately, “Never. You’re bloody beautiful, I’ll let you do anything to me.”

“Hmm, anything, you say?”

Stifling a chuckle against her neck, he recommences, “Maybe not anything.”

Yeah, that's definitely the right call. Still, she finds herself all but clawing at him, her breath hovering teasingly just over his lips, their noses touching, her hands clamped to his cheeks, feeling the building heat there. She must be making such a mess of his bed right about now, but for one night? It can’t matter.

This is a one time thing, it has to be. Sherlock just needs to release some tension, she just so happens to be there. Still, she can’t prevent the little glimmer of hope shining through at the possibility of this being a more-than-one-time thing. The moral compunctions of their friendship after this don’t matter anymore, because he’s leaving a fire in his wake, his delicious fingertips digging bruisingly into her bum before trailing lightly up her spine, skimming her shoulder, brushing her neck - arched for him to reach where he wants, able to mark her as his own - and finally slipping over her lips, taken obediently by her awaiting mouth. Christ, if there’s one thing she hopes for tonight, it’s that his actions never relent.

Whether it’s what he intends to happen or not, his fingers in her mouth give her an idea, one she prays he goes along with at least a little, so she pulls away. The dirty, telling smile on her face hints at what she’s about to do, lending Sherlock to shift a little more up the bed, his eyes following her every move. Hands splayed on his thighs, her small fingers gripping onto the fine hairs there, she begins to take his tip into her mouth, never once breaking eye contact with him. Yeah, this is what’ll drive him insane. 

Inch by inch, she takes him into the welcoming heat of her mouth, pulling off slowly, only to go down again. She adds her tongue into the mix at some point, too, and her hand, on what she can’t reach, tickling his balls, but further than that, his mind is blank. Hot white, washed with pleasure. The sounds he emits are other worldly, so much that he has to muffle himself with his own hand; what would Mrs Hudson say? He’s always had such control over his mind and body, but this… he’s slowly losing all semblance of control, and he’s not even mad about it. What he does know is that there’s a building heat in his abdomen, a coil about to spring, and his cock is beginning to twitch. If she keeps going this incredible way, her teeth grazing him ever so gently, adding another new sensation into the mix, he’s inexorably going to finish before he can help it.

“As much as I adore your torturous ministrations, I think I need to be inside you…” He husks, his voice deep.

A smirk gracing her lips, she looks up at him through half-lidded eyes, mischief glinting in her pretty little mesmerising eyes for a second, before she hollows her cheeks and takes him wholly, allowing his length to slip partially down her throat. Her moan reverberates around him, and Sherlock begins to thrash above her, scrunching the duvet in his hands, not caring if it creases. If there’s one thing Sherlock hates, it’s creases. And being called a machine by his best friend. Right now, though, it seems as though every misstep in his day has led him here, into the welcoming heat of Y/N’s mouth, taking him so eagerly, her tongue lapping at the vein on the underside of his dick, a string of saliva remaining as she pulls away. 

“I think you’ve got a couple of rounds in you, Mr Detective. Can you do that for me?”

“Y-yes.” He stammers, his head tossed back in pure ecstasy a moment later as she begins to work on the head with kitten licks. “But… can I s- fuck me, say something?”

“I plan on it.” she chuckles, “anything.”

She goes back to peppering kisses all over his member, tip to base, brushing his balls, working her way back up. 

“Touch yourself f- for me.”

“What? Why?” 

Her tone is more inquisitive than anything else, but upon that playfully rueful look in his lust-darkened baby blue eyes, she knows he’s going to get her back for this little display, and he’s just worked out how. It works both ways, she can prepare herself for what’s to come next while pleasuring him. And he gets to watch. It’s a win-win for him. Maybe he likes this sex thing a little more than he’s letting on. 

“Are you sure you want me to? I’ll just make a mess on your sheets, Sher.”

She swallows him again, bobbing her head up and down on his length a few times while he grapples with literal reality. He’s teetering on the edge. One more move, and he’s a goner. His head is already against the wall, lolled there. 

“I don’t care about the sheets, darling, I need you ready for me.”

She gulps, nods, and reaches one hand around her, skimming over her stomach, until it nestles between her thighs. She rubs her thumb over his tip, collecting the pre-come beading there, while she rubs over her throbbing pearl, pressing softly. Then, as she inches down on his cock, taking him in her mouth, she also collects the slick from between her thighs, and uses it as a lube to push a finger inside herself. Of all the times she’s touched herself, she never imagined, even in her wild Sherlock fantasies, that she’d be doing it with his dick down her throat. With every bob of her head, she scissors herself more, sinking back onto her fingers. 

“I think I’m-” Sherlock begins to say, his words cut off by an utterly obscene moan splitting the air. 

She hastily abandons her one post, and wraps both of her hands around his girth, working on what she can’t fit into her mouth with her increased speed, licking and suckling his head as he begins to fall apart, coming, with a scream, down her throat, his one hand clamped over his mouth, biting down harshly to silence his cries; the other buried in her hair. 

His whole body falls lax, completely spent, meanwhile, Y/N savours every drop she’s been able to draw from him. He softens in her mouth, allowing her change to slip away from him, grasping a tissue from the bedside to wipe away any excess. That’s certainly something she never thought would happen… 

He’s calm, though, smiling lazily through hooded eyes, his breathing regulated once more, making beckoning motions to her with his big hands. He’s placated, though, and sliding her hands into his, she’s allowed time enough to get into place, smiling softly at him, raking her fingers over his scalp in a comforting way. Even as she sits herself on his lap, she can feel him hardening beneath her ass, slowly but surely. She was right about him, he’s definitely got another round in him. 

“Do you have a condom?” he asks. 

“No, sweetheart, they’re in my other bag. I didn’t plan on getting any for a while… do you?”

“Not in here, that I’m aware of. John may have stashed some in my less favoured dressing gowns or socks, and he definitely has some upstairs, but I’m unawares.”

“I’m gonna sound crazy here, but do we need one?” She says hesitantly. His eyes widen, he cocks his head to the side. “I was tested after my last partner, I’m clean, and on birth control. You’re a virgin. There’s no point, is there?”

“You have a considerably good point.”

With that, energy rejuvenated a little, he wraps an arm around her body, flipping them over so he’s on top, shadowing her, looming over her, gazing down at every inch of her naked beauty.

“Take your time. I’ll be your safety.”

“I know.” he whispers, a tearful smile making its way onto her face. “Thank you.”

He needn’t say more, because she already knows why she’s being thanked. For her kindness, for making him so comfortable, for accepting the fact he’s still a virgin in his late twenties and, if he’s being honest, has no damn clue what the practicality and reality of sex is. Sure, he’s seen porn. He’s also looked at John’s laptop. But that doesn’t prepare one for when the moment comes. It’s like all of that goes out the window, and he simply remembers the first time he opened a biology textbook at secondary school, pictures of flushed organs staring back at him, desperately waiting to be relieved. That’s what his own coock is like right now, already hard again, virtually pulsating with hunger in his palm. He strokes himself a couple of times, glancing down at Y/N’s wide eyes.

“Are you okay? Can I…”

“Yes, Sherlock,” she chuckles, “whenever you’re ready.”

Now, he thinks. He rubs two digits through her folds, gathering her wetness, enamoured with the way it glistens on his fingertips. Tentatively, he brings his fingers up to his mouth, swirling his tongue around them to get a taste. Eyes rolling into the back of his head, he moans. She’s better than any cup of tea he’s ever had. 

His cock slaps against his lower stomach pleadingly, so he grasps it in his hand, and begins to enter her, pushing gently, feeling every flutter of her walls. Her arms fly out, hands grasping his shoulders, nails leaving crescent moons in their wake at the delicious stretch. It’s nothing like they’ve ever felt before. 

“Can I move?” He asks, balls deep inside her, their pelvises flush against one another. 

“Please.” She all but begs. 

Before doing anything else, Sherlock hooks one strong arm around her body, malleable in his hands, and holds her chest against his. Her breasts push into his skin, her nipples gaining friction from the dusting of hair there. Her one hand cups his slender neck, the other, his sharp cheek. Their eyes meet in a fierce gaze of burning intensity, and he begins to move. Slow, calculated, sharp thrusts punctuate her core. With every heavenly stroke, he can feel the ridges in her velvet walls, squeezing around him unwittingly.

“Jesus,” she cries, her clutch increasing. 

“Hmm, not quite.”

The smirk in his words is quite literally audible. He’s so cocky, so full of himself, and fuck if she can’t feel another gush of arousal coursing through her, drenching his cock. How does he manage to be so attractive when he’s so dishevelled?

“Is that good?” He asks, unsure.

“So good.”

She brings her legs up, skimming the clenched backs of his thighs, until they wrap around him, drawing his hips into her at a new and improved angle. Heels digging into the base of his spine, he begins to move with a new purpose, his thrusts more passionate as his breath is drained from him by her kisses, his eyes alight with a new flame. 

“Oh my God, Sherlock.” She pants, pulling him in for a kiss he greedily returns. 

He drives his hips deeper, squeezing his fingertips into her supple waist bruisingly. It’ll be a mark that she belonged to him once, even just for one night. That’s when he reaches that special spongy spot that makes her entire body buckle. She all but screams, pressing into him wholly. 

The coil is building, ready to break. He seems to be nearing the edge, too, his member twitching inside her when he buries himself particularly deep. She’s oh so fucking close… She licks into his mouth filthily, desperately clashing her teeth with his, eager for his kisses to tide her over. Silence her. Shifting his supporting hand, he trails one dextrous finger around to circle her clit, adding the faintest pressure for a moment. She mewls as he groans into her hot skin, clawing at him, entirely at his whim. Now he knows where to press, he settled his grip back around her, and draws her in close. This time around, he bends his knees a little more to measure his movements more carefully, ensuring that he ruts up and brushes her sensitive bud with his pelvis, helped by the extra friction of his neatly trimmed pubic hair on every thrust within her, his tip just scraping her g-spot.

“I- Sherlock, please tell me you’re- oh sweet mercy- close.”

He grunts softly in her ear. “So close.”

Their lips meet tenderly, passionately, in what they acknowledge to be a final kiss, moans mixing between them, savoured by the other. 

His thighs clench, her legs tighten around his waist, and finally, her sweet walls flutter, squeezing him as she reaches her climax, his not following long after, spilling inside her, painting her soft walls white, marking her. 

“Y/N,” he cries in ecstasy as his orgasm reaches him. “Sher…” she repeats, her saving grace as pleasure washes over her entirely. 

Their whole bodies wind up pressed together, bound together as one, skin on skin completely, becoming one another. 

He lets her down gently, unravelling his grip, unsurprised when their sweaty skin sticks together. Her long legs unfurl, splaying in a butterfly. Sherlock tumbles ungracefully away, somehow landing with a certain gangly elegance on the space of mattress beside her, his arm instinctively flying over to place on her stomach, the skin hot and flushed red. Her chest moves hastily up and down with the thrumming of her heart, while his barely shifts despite his shallow breaths, his white skin glistening in the moonlight. 

“Are you okay?” He huffs, turning on his side. “You look pretty fucked out.”

His baby blue eyes train instantly on her nipples, hard in the open air. This is the first notifier, the first inkling she has to feel self conscious, so she draws the sheet up around her as best as she can. Sherlock’s not having any of it, taking a stronghold on her arms, and pulling her until she’s lying on him, naught to separate them. 

“I’ve never been this close to anyone physically and y'know.” He hums tiredly. She’s never heard him sound tired before… 

She smiles up at him as best she can, “Are you glad?” 

He begins to hold her ever closer, squeezing her tighter, feeling every ridge of her body. 

“I’m so glad that you were my first, in so many ways.” 

Praise from Sherlock is a rarity, and she’ll take it as and when she can, savouring every moment, this time by holding him like a koala, her grip not wavering. 

“I’m glad too, Mr Detective.”

He brushes a kiss to her cheek, “As much as I like this, we need to get you cleaned up.” 

A supporting arm beneath her bum, he picks her up, and unsteadily ambles into the bathroom. 

“I don’t know much about this, but I know you should probably use the toilet, should you want to avoid a UTI, so if you’d like me to leave…”

He sets her down on the loo seat, cupping his hands over his nether regions, and he hurries to grasp for things, until she puts her hand on his arm, squeezing in a conciliatory manner. 

“You do remember the camping trip, don’t you? You really don’t have to leave just because I have to pee, you never did before. In fact, you frequently annoyed me with it if you had a particular point to make, steadfastly refusing to leave the bathroom after following me in there when I went to pee. Why does this change anything?”

He shrugs, dropping whatever was in his arms, “It just doesn’t feel the same now, though.”

“Ooo, and now Mr Detective feels things.” She jokes, poking at his ribs. 

He recoils, chuckling with her, “Only for you.”

As Y/N washes her hand, Sherlock begins to wrangle with a floorboard, clattering about until he eventually pulls out a small lock box, from which he withdraws a packet of brand new marks-and-spencer's ladies briefs. 

“Why the fuck do you have these? Anything you wanna tell me?” she asks, eyes wide.

“John’s idea. He has plenty of girls over here who frequently stay the night, simply a precautionary error.” He takes a beat, gargling with some mouthwash, “they’re clean, new, I just don’t like the idea of you in dirty underwear, and I know how reluctant you are to go without them whenever you’re not in your own bed. I stayed with you enough nights in university to know that.”

Those nights were awfully painful. She’d take the floor, he’d take the bed, and every time she’d have to wash the sheets. He’d sweat and vomit, shake and cry, plead for the pain to be over. He wouldn’t go to hospital, he wouldn’t call his brother, he’d just turn up on her doorstep, high as a kite, almost in tears, knowing he’d gone a little too far. And each time, it was a little farther. 

“Thank you, Sherlock.” 

She takes them from him, and begins to shimmy them up her legs, only prevented by Sherlock moving to grab a handful of her arse. 

“Hmm, I like this. Fancy another round?” He smirks. 

“I’m too tired, babe. Give me a bit.” 

He can see the lazy smile on her face, the tiredness in her pretty eyes, so he wets a flannel, and begins to clean her up with gentle movements between tender kisses.

“How do you know how to do all of this?” She asks, inquisitive more than anything. 

“Instinct, I suppose. I never read or learned about it, seeing as I never thought it would happen.” 

She snaps the waistband before moving her hands to his waist, leaning up onto her toes to reach him, kissing her softly. 

“Look at you now.”

After brushing their teeth in an amicable silence, their pinky fingers overlapping on the porcelain of the sink, he aids her back to the bedroom, settling her on the bed. She has things here: deodorant, toothbrush, moisturiser, and yet somehow she doesn’t have underwear, even after all these years. Perhaps that's one too many things to explain… 

With superfluous extravagance, he throws her his shirt, offering her a wry wink. She finds a blush clawing its way onto her cheeks, dumbfounded. It smells like him, just like a forest glade if it was rained on by tea and cigarettes. Maybe he’ll let her keep it as a memory.

In such a short amount of time, she’s learnt that he has a very sensitive neck. Very. A single kiss there has him biting back a moan. A low one at that, considering his deep voice also drops almost an octave when he’s aroused. His nipples are almost as sensitive as his neck, and he rather likes it when she tugs on them unwittingly. 

His first orgasm comes quickly, but his refractory period is astonishing, and it takes longer to achieve a second high, long enough to make her come more than once, she assumes, though her first orgasm was mind blowing enough for two. Perhaps that’s just because it’s his first time, but it’s impressive nonetheless.

What’s the point in learning all of this if, once he comes around from his post-orgasmic haze, he’ll pretend like it never happened, in typical Sherlock style?

The shirt, though a small gesture, means a lot, and her vision begins to cloud as she looks down at the black cotton. 

“You mean you want me to stay?” She croaks.

Sherlock turns to her from his set of drawers, his face full of apparent obviousness, brows furrowed in that cute bewildered way. 

“Of course I want you to stay.” He states, like it’s the plainest thing in the world, like it’s stupid for her to even ask. But she’s silent, and when she says nothing in response, he launches into a long winded explanation: don’t show sentiment. “I- I just mean, i-it’s midnight, I’m not having you out in London alone. You stay with me. Only if you want to as well...” 

She nods eagerly, “Yes. Yeah, course I want to stay.”

He all but leaps access the room, jumping onto the bed, before planting a proper smooch on her lips, grinning down at her. He slips into his usual side of the bed, and she takes hers, rolling to look at him.

“Don’t get cold.” He warns, tucking the duvet up around her shoulders. She giggles like a child, that small snort sounding again, prompting Sherlock to press his thumb to her nose like a button. “How are you… feeling?”

“I’m fine bub, really. That bloke doesn’t matter to me at all. Bit of a scumbag if I’m honest. You’re the one I’m with, the one I wanna talk about. How are you feeling? Must’ve been a pretty big blow up with John for you to call me and be so... teary.”

He sighs, crestfallen, “He called me a machine.”

Her gasp pierces the air, her hand flying to his hair, stroking in consolation, cooing senseless reassurances to him. She’s done this innumerable times, but now it feels different, like there’s no barrier. 

“He’s done it so many times that it needn’t bother me anymore, but the way he looked at me, like I was this abhorrent monster, especially after the day and the disappointing case we had, it got to me. I hate having feelings.”

“You don’t have to hide them with me, though.”

He hums gently, burying into her chest. “I know. That’s why I treasure you so dearly.”

“That means you also have to trust me, and you’re not going to like what I have to say.” His chest heaves, shifting her whole body. That’s his way of giving in. “Please just talk to John. You know that whenever he leaves, he’ll come back, and try to pretend it never happened. He needs to know you’re human and that he upset you, but also that the case upset you as well. No one’s superhuman, and once you let John in on the fact that you’re not a machine, things between you will be so much easier, because you might agree for once.”

“I suppose you’re right.” He grumbles. 

He pulls her into his warmth, hooking her leg around his as he snakes his arms around her back, breathing deeply from the crook of her shoulder. She begins to pepper kisses on his salty skin, savouring the taste with every small swipe of her tongue.

“Your heart’s against my chest, your lips pressed to my neck,” he breaks off with a faint whimper when she sucks a little harder, “I’m falling for your eyes, but they don’t know me yet.”

“Of course they do,” she whispers brokenly, hoarsely, “they’ve always known you.” She swallows thickly, “Does that mean it’s a feeling you’ll forget?”

“No, I don’t think I ever can.”

The silent words that pass between them both are so special, too special to be spoken aloud. ‘Think I’m in love now.’

“Kiss me like you wanna be loved.” He begs. 

And really, who is Y/N to deny him? They just stay that way a little while, revelling in their lazy kisses, until she begins to fall asleep. It isn’t the first time she’s fallen asleep in his bed, not by any means, but it’s the first time she’s fallen asleep in his arms. She isn’t mad about it.

“Settle down with me, cover me up, cuddle me in. You were made to keep my body warm.” She smiles into her words, and embeds herself into him, entirely covered by the duvet, spattered in his kisses, safe in his arms. Sherlock feels safe with her legs around him, her fingers in his curls, holding himself against her. Amicable silence is how they drift off, Peaceful.

John re-enters 221B at a respectable hour. He got a fair amount of sleep on Greg’s sofa, having no girlfriend in the picture right now, but not enough to deal with Sherlock just yet. Not before his coffee. He expects to see Sherlock sitting in the exact same spot as when he left, perhaps just with a refill of tea, his fingers still steepled beneath his chin, eyes closed yet wide awake. Instead, he arrives at a seemingly empty, considerably clean flat, with no Sherlock in sight. Perhaps the unsleeping man must actually be asleep, he thinks, so he quietens down, and toes off his shoes before wandering farther into the flat. Even if the man does piss him off extraordinary amounts, perhaps he should just check he’s okay…

He gives the bedroom door a quiet rap, listening in momentarily before pushing it open. Frankly, he’d rather have found Sherlock with a cigarette in hand and the whole flat torn to shreds for the level of surprise he gets upon reaching the bed. His first idea is to scream bloody murder, but that might annoy Mrs Hudson, and upon stepping closer, even in the sliver of daylight through the curtains, he sees the duvet riding down a little. The last thing in the world he ever thought he’d see: Sherlock in naught but boxers pressed against a half naked woman, his palm splayed on her bare thigh. Sherlock? Spooning? It seems so, his entire body pressed to this woman. John feels himself go rigid, his feet glued to the floor, his gaze unmoving from shock. 

It takes his phone to buzz in his pocket to get him moving, and when he does, all he tries to do is balance precariously on his tip toes in a wry attempt to get a birds-eye view of the whole thing. He’s not disappointed, or disturbed, once he does, though, his army agility proving useful. Sherlock’s hand is holding her, fingers entwined, just next to her chest. He wonders how comfortable it is, but if they’re staying this way, it can’t be too bad. Maybe all Sherlock needed to loosen up was a good shag. 

She’s wearing his shirt, too; Sherlock’s black dress shirt from the previous day. And Sherlock? He never seeps in anything less than a full set of pyjamas, he’s weird like that . 

This girl begins to stir, her lips parting gently, small hums escaping. Next, her eyelids flutter, and her hair shifts on the pillow. He didn’t make any noise, did he? John was specifically careful not to, just in case. He doesn’t fancy Sherlock’s wrath just yet. 

One eye opens, and she whispers, almost incoherently, “Hi John.”

How she knows his name and who he is, he’s not at all sure, because he doesn’t think he’s ever seen this face in his life. The hair is familiar, and maybe, if she were more awake, he’d recognise her smile, but he’s never seen a woman in Sherlock’s company beside Molly Hooper. Speaking of… 

Before he can even say anything, though, before he can ask who she is or if she wants tea or if she date-raped his roommate, she’s mumbling, and detaching her hand from Sherlock’s, rolling over. Dumbfounded, John just stands there and watches her cuddle into Sherlock’s chest, her arms wrapping around his torso like second nature. Even in his sleep, not consciously thinking about his actions, he grips her back - one hand resting just above her bum, and buries his nose into her neck.

John can’t help but smile to himself. Maybe their fight was for the best if Sherlock now has a girlfriend, someone he turned to for solace. So, he grasps for the top of the duvet and pulls it up over both of their figures, reaching their shoulders, and leaves, staring wistfully for a brief moment at the seemingly happy couple. 

The weight of the duvet of what startles Sherlock, though, stirring him a little, inviting him to him against Y/N’s skin, smiling with eyes barely open. This is really nice, he thinks to himself, not waking up alone. 

She smiles back blearily, and in her morning voice, whispers to him, “Kiss me Mr Detective.”

[i-cant-sing]

Yandere Rei hurting reader Pt 3

I couldn't write anything for Valentines, but I hope you like this. Enjoy!

Pt 1 here.

Pt 2 here.

Check out my MASTERLIST for more!

Enji wasn’t surprised at your funeral.

He wasn't surprised when Rei had begged him to have you frozen, keep your body encased in a glass box at home.

He wasn't surprised when the kids held her, letting him make proper funeral arrangements.

He wasn't surprised when Rei had a breakdown, punching his chest and thrashing around in Shotou's and Dabi's arms.

Enji wasnt surprised when the divorce papers came. He knew the kids were making her do this, but he didn't care. He signed them without hesitation.

He wasn't surprised when he heard the kids had sent Rei to an asylum. She kept escaping the house to run to the graveyard; she wanted to dig your body up. He understood why the kids sent her back.

He wasn't surprised when he heard Rei had killed herself in that place, 6 months after you had died.

He wasn't surprised when his kids didn't inform him of her death or funeral. If he was being honest, he wasn't even sure if he would've gone to pay his respects.

Enji poured himself another glass of vodka, taking the bottle with him as he sat on his recliner, almost tripping on a few empty bottles.

He wasn't an alcoholic, he was just trying to numb his pain. Its the only thing that helps him fall asleep.

Enji pulled out a cigarette and pushed it between his lips. He snapped his fingers to light it, closing his eyes as he inhaled the carcinogen.

"Again, dad?"

Enji didn't have to open his eyes to know its you.

"You know these things are not good for you."

Enji smiled. You were always so caring.

"Ah, so you do smile? I didn't think you were capable of doing that."

Enji opened his eyes. You were standing in front of him, a grin on your face.

"I smiled a lot more when you were around." Enji said.

You chuckled. "Me too." You sat next to him, before putting your head in his lap. "But you weren't around often."

Enji felt tears prick his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"I know."

Enji woke up the next morning with a massive headache. He went to his kitchen to get himself some coffee. He checked the calendar as he sipped the hot drink.

Friday.

He finished his coffee quickly, before wearing a large coat. He grabbed his car keys and drove away from his house.

When he reached the graveyard, he made sure to wear his sunglasses and a baseball cap, before grabbing the bouquet of white lillies.

Your grave was a little away from the rest, he wanted you to have space, and his family to have privacy when they visited.

He stood in front of your grave. It was clean and the bed of grass of fresh as ever. He had paid the caretaker good money to regularly clean up your resting place.

Enji stared at your tombstone for some time.

Y/n Todoroki.

Heaven's brightest angel

A loving daughter

Now resting safe and at peace

Tears fell free from Enji's eyes at that. "Safe and at peace". Safe and at peace. Two things he failed to give you.

The image of your bloody face flashed in his mind for a moment. Blood coated your teeth and mouth, your gut was also bleeding heavily. Your face was contorted in pain, confusion and betra-

Enji needs to stop thinking.

He sat down beside your grave and pulled out the flask from his coat pocket. He knows he has to drive back. He knows he shouldn't drink, not in front of you at least, but he can't help it. "I'm sorry." Enji whispers before he started drinking. It didn't take long for him to finish the entire flask. It was getting dark and he knew he had to leave before the caretaker came.

Enji pressed a kiss to your tombstone before he turned on his heel to leave.

"Endeavour?"

Enji was stunned to hear his hero name; nobody had called him that in a long time. God, he wished it wasn't the paparazzi. They had no respect for anyone, not even for the grieving or the dead.

But he looked up to see an old face.

"Keigo?"

Hawks smiled. "How are you?"

"Fine. What are you doing here?"

He scratched the back of his head nervously. "I've been meaning to talk to you." Hawks sighed. "I tried contacting you several times but you're impossible to track."

Enji knew that. He disappeared from the public eye after your death. He left his agency to Hawks, and got himself a home hidden in the woods. People assumed that he was just distraught over his wife's death or something. They didn't know about you. Nobody did. He paid off the hospital staff to keep their mouth shut because he didn't want his kids to suffer anymore because of his mistakes.

"What do you want?" Enji asked, gruffly.

"I just wanted to talk to you. Check up on you, y'know?"

"I'm doing great." Enji replied, stepping around him, about to walk away, but Hawks put a hand on his shoulder.

"Enji, its not your fault-"

"Shut up." Enji walked past him and made his way towards his car.

"Enji, listen to me-"

"I said. Shut. Up." He growled out. He didn't need anyone's pity. He reached his car with Hawks running up to him.

Enji tried to open his door but he suddenly felt lightheaded as he fell down.

"Enji! Are you okay?" Hawks kneeled beside him.

"I'm f-fine. Leave me alone." Enji was slurring.

Hawks grimaced when he smelled his breath. "God, you reek of alcohol. You weren't planning on driving in this state?"

Enji pushed him away. "I said I'm fine." Enji stood up before stumbling towards his car again, fumbling with the keys, his vision blurring the more he strained himself.

"Let me take you home, Enji." Enji felt his hands on his shoulder, but just as he tried to tell Hawks to fuck off, his vision faded to black.

Enji opens his eyes and finds himself in his house again. His old house. He's laying in bed when he hears laughter from outside. He gets out of bed and walks towards the source.

The kitchen.

He walks in and sees his family, the sun rays flooding the room, and the golden orange hues illuminating their faces. Rei is mixing something in a large bowl, Fuyumi is greasing up some pans. Natsuo and Touya are eating the chocolate chips from the bag, and Shotou is telling them to save some for the cake. And you. You're there too. Sitting beside Shotou, laughing as Touya sneakily gives you some chocolate chips too. Suddenly, they all turn towards him. Rei motions for him to come in. "Enji! Come in. We're making a cake!" Enji walks towards her, wrapping his arms around her. Rei kisses him, making his kids cringe and tell them to stop. They all laugh. Rei pours the batter into the pans, before raising the spoon. "Okay, who wants to lick the spoon?" And suddenly Touya, Natsuo and you yell "me!" before trying to reach for the spoon. Shotou freezes Natsuo's foot to the floor, while Enji pulls Touya back. Fuyumi grabs the spoon from her mom, and gives it to you, making you smile as you eagerly lick the spatula clean, while Touya and Natsuo whine how its not fair. Everyone laughs as Rei cleans up the batter smeared on your nose with a tissue. Its a heart warming scene. Its all he ever wanted.

But its not the reality he was given now, was it?

As Enji closes his eyes, basking in the warmth of his family, he suddenly hears someone crying. He snaps his eyes open, but the kitchen is empty and dark. He hears the crying again. He gets out of the kitchen quickly, trying to find the source. Its coming from Fuyumi's room. He bursts through the door, looking for Fuyumi, but finds you there instead. You're on the floor whimpering as you're trying to rub your arm with a towel. He kneels next to you. "What's wrong?" You cry when you remove the towel to reveal the huge ice burn on your arm. There were ice crystals littering all over the skin. Enji begins to heat up his palms as he melts the ice downs, slowly allowing the sensation in your arm to return. "What happened?" You sniffled. "F-fuyumi came to my room and said that she wants to go shopping with me, I told her I had to study for my test." You hiccuped. "She didn't like that, she- she said I'm ignoring her, blowing her off- I'm not!" You cried. Enji focused on your arm, heating it up slowly. "I know, you didn't do it on purpose. But maybe you could take some time off school? Think of it as a little break. You could spend more time with Fuyumi, with us." You looked at him in confusion. "B-but she hurt me-" "no, she was just a bit frustrated. You know she didn't mean it, right? She's your big sister, she loves you." You hesitantly nodded. "If you say so..." Enji smiled. "See, its all better now. Let me heat up the towel and wrap it around your arm." He turned to get the towel, but when he turned back, the room was empty.

He heard quiet sobs coming from your room. He made his way to your room and opened door and found you lying on the bed. "What happened?" He asked, taking a seat on your bed. "I saw him, I saw Natsuo put crushed pills- sleeping pills in my food! That's why I've been feeling so sleepy lately. When I confronted him, he told me its for my own good. B-but I know its because he doesn't want me to go out with my friends! He forcefully fed me the food, and then he took my phone away too! He said its because its not good to sleep with your phone but I know he took it because he wants to go through my stuff!" Enji hushed you. "Can you talk to him? Tell him to stop or something." Enji raised an eyebrow. "Natsuo is your big brother. He's just looking out for you. And he's not wrong about going through your phone either. Do you have something to hide?" You shook your head no. "But-!" "Natsuo wouldn't do anything to cause you pain, okay?" You closed your eyes. "Okay." You whispered. Enji closed the door as he left your room. But as soon as he did, he heard banging coming from the basement. He rushed down the stairs and found the door locked. Bursting through the door, he was suddenly engulfed by a small body. It was you again. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please, help me!" Enji pulled you away from him. "Hey, shh. Its okay. I'm here. What happened?" You sobbed into his chest. "I just went to the grocery store- just for 20 minutes!" Enji already knew what went wrong. "You didn't go with Shotou, did you? You didn't even inform him, right?" You shook your head no. "It slipped my mind. I promise I wasn't running away!" Enji sighed, petting your hair. "How long have you been down here?" You sniffled. "I dont know. It was Wednesday when Shotou pushed me in here." Three days. "Its okay. You've learnt your lesson, right?" You nodded. "Please, I don't want to be down here anymore." Enji led you out of the basement. "Just don't forget to tell Shotou next time, or tell us what you need. We'll bring whatever you want." Enji closed the basement door, but suddenly someone whimpered from inside. He opened the door again, but he found himself in the main bathroom. You were standing in front of the sink, putting some ointment on your shoulder. Enji looked closer and found burn marks on your skin. "Did Touya-" You turned around towards him. "Yes." Enji couldn't take his eyes off the red, burnt skin. "Why?" You shrugged your shoulders. "Does it matter?" You slammed the door shut in his face.

Enji didn't even realise he had begun walking away from the door and towards another one. He instinctively opened the door and found Rei and you. Rei had her arms raised, a sharp knife in her hand. "Rei- what are you doing? Put the knife down!" Suddenly, the rest of his kids appeared in the room. They stood between Rei and him, like a barrier. "Honey, its okay! We know whats best for her!" Rei spoke. Shotou nodded. "Yes. You said so yourself." Fuyumi spoke this time. "We're her family! We wouldn't hurt her!" Touya walked towards Enji. "Besides, if something happens, you promised you would save her, won't you?" Enji nodded. "Of course." "Then trust us. Like you always have." Natsuo said. Enji's eyes moved towards you. You opened your mouth to say something but all of a sudden, Enji was pushed out of the room and the door slammed closed. Enji jumped to the door when he heard your painful, gut wrenching screams. "DAD! STOP THEM! HELP ME! DAD!" Enji kept on banging his fists on the door but the door wouldn't budge.

Then it was silent. All too quiet. The door creaked open a bit. Enji didn't know if he wanted to see whats behind there anymore, but he still pushed the door open. How he wish he hadn't.

Lying on the floor, blood spilled from your mouth and your gut. Your body bore burns and scorch marks, the smell of burnt flesh wafting through the air. Enji fell to his knees. Its too late. "D-daddy? It- hurts."your voice was so quiet, so soft, he almost didn't hear you. "Save me?"you coughed out more blood, with each word. Enji started crying. "I-I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I-I can't." Your eyes dimmed when he said that, your chest finally stopped moving.

Enji finally woke up from his recurrent nightmare. He had been haunted by them ever since your death. Sad thing is, they didn't stray that far from reality. You had come to him many times, begging for help, but he turned you away, assuring you that they're just messing around, that it was an accident, or it was just a one time thing.

It wasn't.

Enji couldn't count how many times you had told him how his family had been hurting you, before you stopped asking all together when you realised he would always take their side.

It took a few minutes for Enji to register that he wasn't lying in his bed, or was in his home for that matter.

Enji groans as he sits up, rubbing his head. He remembers he was at the graveyard and then Hawks was there too. Hawks must've brought him to his home.

Stupid bird. He should just mind his own business.

Enji got up and left the room, leaning against the wall for support as he made his way around the house. Where was Keigo anyways?

He was passing by a garden when he saw someone move there. Enji focused his eyes and saw...you. He sighed. Enji sat down on the porch that opened into the garden. He realised he must've had drank a lot yesterday. Clearly, the effects of intoxication were still there.

You were sitting next to some bushes, trimming up their rough edges, your face turned away from him. You were humming to yourself as you worked.

You always did like plants, flowers especially. That's why he made sure you were buried where there was enough space for some flowers and grass to grow.

"I see you've found her." Hawks handed Enji a cup of coffee. He didn't even realise when he had walked-

Wait.

"You can see her?" Enji asked. Was he still dreaming?

Hawks chuckled. "Of course. She's right there- Enji, did you drink again?"

Enji looked at you, then at Hawks, then back to you. "What?" There's no way. There's no way. Hawks looked at Enji weirdly before he called for you.

"Y/n! Sweetie, come here!" You whipped your head around at Hawks voice.

And Enji sees you.

He wasn't hallucinating. You're real.

You skipped towards them, smiling. And Enji didn't even realise it until you were right in front of them. You had eyes. They were different than your real ones. These new ones, they were the same colour as his. Sharp, turquoise blue.

Were you a doppelganger? Is this some kind of sick joke? He couldn't help but wonder, but some part of him knew that wasn't the case.

Enji stood up when you reached them, the cup falling from his hand.

"Hey, dad."

In a second, Enji had his arms wrapped around you. You're really there. You weren't dead. You're still alive. "Y/n? Is it really you?" Enji asked, tears falling from his eyes as he held you tighter, still in disbelief.

You hugged him back. "Yes. Who else would it be?" You chuckled.

He pulled you away from him, his eyes scanned your face. There was still some charring and faded scars around your eyes, but they were mostly healed. It really is you.

"B-but how?"

You smiled. "Hawks-"

It was like something snapped in him at the hero's name.

Enji suddenly pushed you behind him, taking a protective stance. "What the fuck did you do?!" He growled at Keigo.

Hawks held his arms up in surrender, trying to pacify the man in front of him. "Nothing. I just helped her." Enji pounced at Hawks, pushing him to the ground. He was going to murder Hawks if he even looked at you the wrong way. "Oh yeah? And what the fuck did you want in return, you sick bastard?!" Enji raised his hand to punch him, but he stopped when he felt your tiny hands pull on his arm. "Dad! Please, stop! He saved me! Please!" He could hear the fear in your voice. He got off Hawks and yanked you back to him. "Tell me. Did he threaten you? Harm you? Touch you?" Although Enji's eyes held concern for you, he was scaring you with his grip on your wrist turning painfully tight. "No! Please, stop." You replied, struggling as you tried to free your wrist.

"Enji, calm the fuck down! You're hurting her!" Hawks finally managed to pull his hand off of your wrist. As soon as he did, Enji saw his handprint around your wrist.

Fuck.

You moved behind Hawks, peeking at Enji from between his wings, your eyes pooling with unshed tears. Enji's heart sank.

Looking at your scared form, Enji couldn't help but recall how different it used to be before. How you used to run to him for help, seek his protection.

And now, you need to be saved from him.

"I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Y/n. I didn't mean to." He reached his hand out for yours. When you moved further behind Hawks, his heart broke. You were scared of him. Your eyes holding the same fear as they once held for the rest of his family.

"Y/n, darling, why don't you go tend to the bushes. I need to talk to your father." You scurried away as soon as Hawks said that.

"She's scared of me." Enji's voice held guilt.

Hawks patted his back. "Don't worry. She'll come around soon."

Hawks sat on the porch step, motioning Enji to sit beside him as well. He sat but kept his eyes towards your form. "What happened, Keigo?"

"Well, when you had called me, informing me how Rei had stabbed Y/n, I came as quickly as possible. I remember you were holding Rei back, stopping her from entering the hospital room. Once your kids had arrived and taken their mother away, you told me to keep guard while you sorted out some hospital forms." Hawks took a sip of his coffee before continuing. "Y/n had woken up a few minutes after you had left. And she started crying as soon as she was conscious. I tried calming her down, but she was- hysterical. She kept on saying how they were going to torture her again. I told her that Enji would make sure they wouldn't. She kept on insisting that you were going to take Rei's side." Hawks looked at Enji. "And you and I both know know, you would've." Enji held his head shamefully, because he was right. He would've taken his family's side yet again.

"She asked me to kill her, Enji."

Enji's eyes widened at that, turning his head to Hawks. "What?" Hawks nodded, his eyes stone cold. "She said she'd rather be dead than return to your house." Enji felt like someone had drove a spear through his chest. Oh god, how long had you been feeling like that? "Thats when I decided to take her."

"But how? We buried her." Hawks rolled his eyes.

"It isn't hard to find a body. You know that."

Enji nodded. Right. "And her eyes?"

"Got a quirk doctor to replace them."

Enji's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "But Natsuo said that they were irreplaceable-"

"Natsuo lied, Enji. All of your kids did. They were going to side with their mother, no matter what. And Rei wanted her to remain blind, so everyone made sure she did." He took another sip of his coffee. "You have a fucked up family."

Enji clenched his jaw at that, but it was the truth. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

Hawks raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "You're hard to track. You went into hiding and I had to run your agency, clean up your mess so that the public doesn't find out and I had a daughter at home to look after too. I guess you could say, I was a bit occupied."

"Oh. I'm sorry." Enji looked towards where you were, happily tending to your garden, completely oblivious to your surroundings. You looked so lively, so content. "Is...is she happy?" Hawks smiled at that. He still adores you. "Yes. She stays at home mostly, tending to the garden, but she occasionally goes out as well."

Enji looked at Hawks. "Alone? What if she runs away? What if something happens to her?"

Hawks shook his head. "She won't. Where's she going to go? She knows that your kids are still out there, and if they ever saw her, God knows what they'll do to her." Hawks crossed his arms against his chest. "Besides, I gave her a special bracelet. It has a tracking device in it and if she ever runs into trouble, all she needs to do is tap it and I'll be there!"

Hawks really had it all figured it out. Everything was under control, so why was he there? "Why did you bring me?"

"To save you." Enji stared at him in confusion. "You can't live without her, Enji. The past few months are evidence that you can't. You almost drank yourself to death." Hawks ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. "Look at yourself. Your eyes are bloodshot, you drink, you smoke, you're depressed as fuck. Is this the kind of hero you imagined yourself becoming? Is this the kind of father you want to be?"

"Keigo I-"

"You know, she never spoke ill of you once. Never. If anything, she told me that her good memories with your family, were mostly with you. Almost like she misses you."

"What do you want me to do, Keigo?" He asked helplessly, because Enji truly didn't know.

"I want you to stay here." He began. "Be the hero she needs; the father she needs."

"Keep your promise to her." Hawks eyes were full with fierce emotion as he reminded Enji of his promise.

I'll keep you safe. I promise.

Those word had been echoing in his mind forever, always accompanied by gore filled images of you.

"Raise the family you always dreamt of."

As if something had finally clicked, Enji nodded before he slowly made his way towards you. Hawks watched as Enji sat down beside you and talked to you. You smiled slowly before handing him a pair of gardening gloves as you taught him how to plant some flowers.

It was a good thing that Hawks cared about both of you deeply.

He was happy he was going to save his hero, Endeavour.

He was happy that he was going to start anew with you guys.

He was happy as he saw the love of his life and his goddaughter, now daughter, playing in the mud.

He was beyond ecstatic when he had slit Rei's throat in the asylum.

"What?" Hawks asks you, the person reading this story. He leans towards you, face mere inches away from yours, and smirks.

"That bitch had it coming."

So...

How was it?

Oh and yes, I will be taking asks for this (and answering some previous ones as well)

[gotnofucks]

Lover’s Quarrel

Pairing: Steve x Reader

Summary: You have the powers to resurrect if you’ve been murdered, and a jealous Steve Rogers indulges heavily in your abilities. He would not let you steal his best friend, that was for sure. So what, if your rivalry regularly caused fire and harm to public property? You just couldn’t let the other win. 

Words: 4.3k

Warnings: Smut, enemies to lovers, violence, killings and murders (but reader cannot die, it’s weird. She has some sorta powers that help her revive when she’s been murdered), language, 18+ ONLY

A/N: Is this crack fic? Idk. Maybe?

The sixth time Steve killed you, you decided he needed to be dealt with in a similar way. It doesn’t matter that he cannot come back from the dead like you. He just needed to go. You were tired of him offing you every time he felt threatened by your existence. But this was the last straw. He had pushed you off the Quinjet while flying home from a mission and you’d fallen into the lake and drowned. You would NOT recommend dying that way.

Bucky had dragged out your dead body and watched over you as the blessing of the necromancer worked its magic over you and brought you back to the world of the living. The first words out of your mouth as you spewed out water were, “I am going to kill your best friend and you can’t be mad at me for that.”

Bucky, far too happy to have you back – poor guy still mourned every time you died – ignored your comment and pulled you into a hug. He’d never quiet gotten used to seeing you die. You patted his back, muttering a few there-there’s until he was calm enough to press quivering kisses on your head and temple.

“You need to stop dying.” He said into your hair, holding you close.

“I would not be dying if your best friend didn’t murder me every time! He is a menace, Buck!” You cried in exasperation. The said best friend was watching you from a few yards away, and he rolled his eyes as your words reached him. He scoffed loud enough for you to hear and you sharply turned your head to glare at him.

“You!” You shouted, quickly standing up and marching over to him. “You rascal!” And then you pried out your wet shoe from your feet and threw it at his stunned face. Unfortunately, it didn’t hit his face but smacked against his chest, leaving the wet print of your soles against his far too tight t-shirt. He gaped at you open mouthed before baring his teeth in warning.

“Oh god, every time you come alive again, you’re even more awful than before!” Steve shouted, and then just because he is fucking drama queen, he threw out his hands. You sneered before turning to look at Bucky meaningfully, the most obvious ‘see what a dick he is’ look on your face.

Bucky shuffled uneasily, caught between your quarrel once again. He came behind you and gave you his jacket to wear to shield you from the cold. And just like that, your anger melted a little. Somehow, with his steel blue eyes, Bucky Barnes could sooth every wound you’d ever had. Even those given to you by Steve Rogers.

“I am so sorry. I should have seen what he was about to do. I wouldn’t have ever let you fall had I known.” He apologized and you swore your heart physically quivered. You pulled Bucky into a hug, hiding your face in his chest, savoring his arms coming around you to hold you tighter. You could have stayed in his embrace forever, but it was an annoyed groan that ripped you both apart.

“Is there any way you can stay dead a little longer?” Steve asked, breaking your moment. “I mean, I’ve tired a bullet and knife and water and poison. What can I do that you’d be gone for just a little longer?”

He was worked up, a red flush creeping on his face and neck. Pacing, he was muttering, and you wondered for the millionth time how Bucky could be friends with him. He was just so extra! You wanted to tell him to shove a stick up his ass, along with the one already there when he turned swiftly like the wind and threw a dagger at you. A metal hand caught it before it could hit you and you were pulled into the warmth of Bucky’s body quickly.

“Steve! Cut it out.” Bucky yelled, glaring at Steve. “You will not kill her again. I don’t care if she can come back alive again. You won’t hurt her.”

With that, he dropped the dagger on the ground and walked away with you. Unable to resist, you looked over you shoulder and flipped Steve off. Fucker could kill you a hundred times and yet he would not be able to do anything. As far as you were concerned, Bucky was as much your best friend as his. And if Steve Rogers couldn’t control his jealousy without trying to behead you every time he felt you were stealing Bucky from him, you would just have to make his death look like an accident.

“I don’t think I need to tell you that you can’t kill him either?” Bucky said teasingly, his eyes soft and fond. “I need you both to survive.”

You groaned, bumping your shoulder in his and snuggling into him as a cold breeze hit your wet clothes. He could read you like an open book.

“You are no fun Barnes.”

There was rubble and fires and shrieks. Natasha was yelling in Russian as she ran about with a fire extinguisher and Clint crawled out of his vents to help Bruce out who was turning a dangerous shade of green. Tony was sitting in the ruins of his kitchen, his mouth half open as he spied on the ensuing battle in the middle of it.

Sam was using his shield to push Steve away who was shouting curses that had probably not been invented yet. Bucky was holding you back by your middle, yelling in your ear to calm the fuck down but all you could think of to do was smacking Steve’s face with that chair that was currently on fire. You suppose once everyone was calm, you’d feel guilty about your part in destroying the Avengers kitchen but right now that wasn’t important.

What was important was that Steve had tried to kill you. Again. He had actually thrown a fucking grenade at you. You barely had the time to kick it away where it exploded in the kitchen and then Steve was on you, calling you a bitch in all the 9 languages he knew.

“Calm the hell down, Steve!” Sam yelled, struggling to keep Steve at bay from you. You were glad to see that Steve’s nose was busted. That will teach the bastard to ‘look down his nose’ on you now.

“She pierced my ears! The fucking bitch pierced my goddamn ears!” Steve yelled. Even you had to admit, the golden hoops looked amazing dangling from his ears. Just perfect.

“You are lucky I didn’t stick a knitting needle in your eye Rogers!” You sassily replied, “The only reason you’re still in one piece is because I promised my best friend that I wouldn’t hurt you.”

The muscles in Steve’s arms tensed and Sam groaned, barely keeping his own footing. A dark shadow seemed to have crawled over Steve’s face, turning the blues of his eyes an angry shade and had you been a weaker person, you would have trembled. This was the face of someone who had stood against armies alone and came out victorious. But for all you cared, he could kiss your ass.

“He is MY best friend. Mine. Not yours, not anyone else’s. Bucky Barnes is mine and I will kill you a thousand times until it sinks in your thick skull!” Steve growled. You scowled, a scathy remark bubbling on the tip of your tongue when you suddenly stopped. Why say when you can show? So, looking Steve directly in the eyes, you went limp in Bucky’s arms, turned around and cupped his face. And then you kissed his cheek.

Steve let out a strangled cry behind you, but you focused on Bucky who was blinking in disbelief at your audacity. And so, just for the heck of it, you kissed his other cheek. And then his forehead.

“Bucky Barnes, you are my best friend and always will be!” You said, hugging the life out of him. You heard Steve break away from Sam, heard Bucky yell out a curse and holding you protectively as his jealous pal came rushing to claim him. And all through that and the chaos that ensued later, you just smiled broadly.

Tony was giving a lecture, and he sucked. He gesticulated too much for your liking, and you really didn’t like how he kept emphasizing things by looking pointedly at you. It wasn’t even that much of a big deal, and even if it was, it was not your fault. Like every other time, the only person who could be held responsible was the blond super soldier sitting beside you, wearing the same shade of annoyance on his face as yours.

“I repeat” said Tony, his hair askew, “we do not use Friday to settle idiotic, absolutely ridiculous personal vendettas!”

“You have Friday tell you how pretty you look every day!” You countered and Tony slammed his hand on the table.

“Because I am!” He huffed. “You, on the other hand, stopped a mission in the middle to ask Friday who had a higher score! I mean, what the actual fuck? And what score?”

Steve had the decency to look at least a little sheepish. You however didn’t put up with any of that nonsense. It was his idea anyway, and you wouldn’t take the fall for him. Not when Tony looked murderous like this.

“Rogers bet me he’d take down more enemies than me. We only asked Friday to keep a count. I had literally nothing to do with it.”

Tony turned the ire of his glare at Steve who was too busy giving you a dirty look. He was just pissed you won, and that Bucky had spent the entire ride back tending to your wounds rather than Steve’s. It wasn’t your fault his jealous ass always threw a fit whenever he saw you and Bucky together.

“You said the team could use Friday as we saw fit.” Steve said, though he did look a little guilty. It wasn’t like him to lose command and control. Even when he’d been Captain America, he had never let anything rattle him. Not until you had come prancing in his life and stealing his best friend.

“I said the team could use Friday, not stop everything in the middle of a high risk mission to see who has a bigger dick.” Tony said, and then he just collapsed in his chair. Poor guy had been working too hard to carry the team forward, and in that moment, even you felt guilty. Your rivalry with Steve shouldn’t have to affect everyone else, not when they had been so welcoming and loving to you ever since you joined.

You walked over to Tony and dropped a kiss on his head, caressing his hair. “I am sorry Tones. You won’t have more trouble from me.”

Tony looked at you as if seeing an angel. He looked at you as if you were the solution to all his troubles. Despite every furniture of his you’d broken and set fire to, he was so grateful to have one sane voice between them. Cupping your hands, he looked imploringly at you and asked, “Really? You’re gonna stop fighting with Steve?”

At that, you solemnly nodded and patted his hand gently. Poor him and the poor team going through hell because you and Steve couldn’t settle your differences. It was obvious what had to be done.

“Of course I will” You said magnanimously, because of course you were the better of the two. “Steve just needs to find another best friend and there won’t be any reason to fight anymore.”

If any of them had been drinking water, they would have spit it out. Since they didn’t, they just kind of choked on their saliva and sputtered at you in absolute disbelief. Tony actually looked betrayed and Steve seemed to have licked a lemon, if the look on his face was anything to go by.

“She” He said, voice thick with contempt, “needs to go away. We can launch her in outer space or somewhere from where she can never return. You know why? Because Bucky is my best friend. Since we were yay high!” And he raised his arms a foot off the ground to show just how high.

And just like that, the moment was gone. Rogers opened his mouth and any goodwill you had had went poof. So, you did the only reasonable thing any sane person would do right now and that was to flip him off and call him a pig. You knew he was inching to strangle you; you could see his fingers twitch. A part of you was anticipating it, for Bucky would never forgive him for killing you again. Just as he would have lunged at you, push Tony out of the way and did you away for good, Bucky burst into the room with the expression of a cantankerous 100 year old grandpa who had had enough with the world.

“For fucks sake! Just shut up you both!” He yelled and paced the room. His eyes were bloodshot and hair disheveled, a clear sign that your rivalry was taking a heavy toll on him. Steve opened his mouth to say something when Bucky raised a finger to shush him. “No no no! You listen to me you oblivious, utter moronic fucklets!”

Your mouth dropped open. Bucky never cursed at you. He had never called you a fucklet before.

“You two need to stop. You hear me? You need to STOP!” He raked a hand through his hair before kicking the ground in frustration. “I can’t eat. I can’t sleep! I can’t fucking breathe without you both arguing over who is a better friend to me. So, here’s an idea. Instead of fucking me over in the middle of your sexual tension, why don’t you find a room and fuck each other? Because I tell you now, I cannot fucking take it!”

Silence sat pregnant in the room. You blinked at Bucky. Steve blinked at Bucky. Tony blinked at Bucky. And Bucky didn’t blink at all.

“That – uh – what?” You said, eloquent as ever. “That is so stupid.” And you laughed awkwardly.

Steve glanced at you and then stammered, “What? That – I haven’t – that has nothing to do with it. She and I – what?”

You both found each other’s eye, quickly looked away and just became silent. The tension in the air was suffocating you, and a terrible heat was settling in your stomach. Without another word, you walked out of the room, muttering about how ridiculous the whole idea was. The three men watched your exit, and a moment later, Steve left too, still very much in disbelief.

Tony and Bucky sighed, sitting across from each other and just taking in the fact that the elephant in the room had finally been address. A moment later, Tony began drumming on the desk, looking up at the ceiling.

“I couldn’t have put it any better myself.”

You felt antsy, as if staying one more moment in your room would drive you mad. You kept jerking your legs and arms, a weird restlessness in every action of yours. What the hell was Bucky saying? The sheer nerve to imply that you…you and Steve had some sort of feelings for each other. You hadn’t heard that kinda crap since you nursed your nephew who’d had diarrhea.

The only reason you and Steve fought was because you wanted Bucky. He was supposed to be your best friend, and clearly it was his inability to decide who he preferred more that had led you here. And to pretend, on top of that, that it was you who was at fault was just ridiculous. As if you’d touch Steve Rogers with a ten foot pole.

But…would you? You suppose he couldn’t be that bad to touch. He did have gorgeous eyes that got all dark and dilated when he fought with you. And his breath hitched when you got him mad and he bit his lip to stop from cursing you and he flushed a very becoming shade of red that started from his cheeks and disappeared down the neckline on his tight shirts that –

Holy fuck!

The realization rocked your world. What the hell? When you thought about it again, it seemed as if you’d just described Steve being aroused. Did you really fight him and got him mad to stimulate yourself? Oh god. Bucky was right. You wanted to fuck Steve.

This wouldn’t do. This wouldn’t do at all. You quickly changed into your work out gear and rushed to the gym, intent on sweating out whatever feelings you might have for Steve. After all, nothing says fuck you like imagining someone’s face on a punching bag and just going to town on it. Thankfully, when you arrived the gym was empty.

You’d been working on your stretches for only a few minutes when your worst nightmare entered the gym. He probably had the same idea as you and froze the moment your eyes met. His blue eyes narrowed at you and you stood up straight. You hated Bucky for putting the thought in your head. Now all you could think of was tackling Steve to the ground and fucking him senseless. You still wanted to beat him, but in a very different way.

As Steve entered, his eyes fixed to your form, you decided it was time to leave. After that fiasco in front of Tony, you didn’t think yourself capable of talking to Steve. Staying alone with him was something you didn’t trust yourself with. So you picked up your bag and started for the door when his voice stopped you.

“Running away? Am I to believe that there is something that finally scares you?”

Anger, red hot anger simmered under your veins when you turned to face him again. He had a mocking smirk on his face that made you grit your teeth. His eyes, dark and challenging beckoned you to him, but they didn’t hold resentment there either. Something between you had changed today. The very air around you was different, thick with tension and apprehension that had your nerves tingling.

“Scared?” You scoffed, dropping your bag on the matted floor and walking until you stood right before him. He towered over you in height, but he’d never been able to actually look down at you. “Me, scared of you? You wish Rogers.”

One corner of his lips lifted up, and he put his hands on you. One hand hooked around your waist and pulled you closer, the other trailing a finger down the side of your face to your neck, following the path down your arm until his fingers intertwined with yours.

“Oh, I so do wish” He whispered and his lips met yours. You rose up on your toes, mashing your body against his and mapping the planes of his body with your palms. The smell of his sweat and soap surrounded you, your arms coming to hold him around the shoulders as he hitched you up so you could wrap your legs around him.

Like everything in your relationship, the kiss was explosive. You didn’t melt against each other like people do in books; you collided like two warring armies intent on conquering the other. You collided like night and day, basking your surroundings in the dawn and dusk of your lust. Steve took your bottom lip between his teeth and bit down, smiling as you shamelessly moaned.

“What do you say?” He asked, pushing you against the wall, his hardness digging between the heated center of your legs.

You pulled him closer, letting your lips trail over his jaw and neck before you branded him with a quick bite. “You’ve always been so aggressive Steve, let’s see you let loose some other way. I sure do hope you fuck better than you fight though, or I’ll just be disappointed.”

Steve growled, kissing you again as he ground his cock against you, trapping you between the wall and his hard body that prevented any escape. Your hands slipped under his t-shirt, meeting the firm muscles on his abdomen that rippled under you. He pulled back just enough to allow you to remove your clothes, his own being flung sideways without any care.

Even before, you’d never thought of Steve as anything but beautiful, but now, seeing him in all his glory, you could only look him up and down in appreciation. He was trembling slightly, as if holding himself back with effort, his eyes not leaving you for a second. You both looked at each other, naked and unashamed before frantically coming together. His hands were everywhere, squeezing your ass and thighs as his lips pulled at your breast.

Your fingers rolled his nipples softly until he moaned, and then you pinched them. He jerked under your touch, kicking the back of your knees so you collapsed down, and he covered your body with his. Anger, arousal, lust and longing, all emotions built together in a storm of incoherent desire that had you both rolling over each other, fighting for dominance and power. Steve pinned you down with effort, holding your wrists in one hand over your head as he gave a smug smile to you.

“Will you finally surrender today?” He asked, positioning his cock at your entrance that was drenched. You would have loved to taste him, to have him taste you, but as of now, all you wanted was for him to slide inside you. You hungered for him, burnt for his touch. For years you’d been left wanting, and now with the prize so near, you weren’t about to wait any longer.

“The only surrender today will be yours.” You whispered sweetly before slamming your head against his. Steve jerked hard in surprise, allowing you the opportunity to free your hands and roll over him. You sat on his pelvis proudly, his throbbing member right underneath you and as he blinked at you, stunned, you rose up over his tip and slowly sunk down.

Steve groaned as your wet channel fell like velvet heat along his shaft. You had never been so full before. He stretched your limits, as he had always done, and you decided you very much preferred rendering him speechless like this under you than your usual punches and throws. His hands dug into your waist, helping you bounce on his cock and you threw your head back at the feeling.

It was a beautiful ache, one that took your breath away. As you rolled your hips and clenched down there, Steve’s voice rose in appreciation and you grinned. You finally had the golden boy at your mercy. You fucked him, changing your pace to punish him, never letting him up. For every time he killed you, you bit on his lips and neck, marking him. It was punishment and cherishing, a culmination of feelings you didn’t understand.

“Touch me.” You brokenly said, and his fingers found your nub. The slapping of skin, the sounds of debauchery and the smell of sin filled the air. You leaned over him to meet his lips, the heat in your gut bubbling until you snapped and came atop him, falling blissfully. It was one moment of weakness and the world titled, Steve having finally pushing you on your back.

“You’ve always been strong, because I’d hate to break you when the fun has only just begun.” He said and thrust into you hard and fast. He was an animal in heat, a man possessed, and you didn’t mind one bit. You met his every thrust with a raise of your hips, you clawed at his back until he bled, your lips tasting of the salt of sweat and tears and desire. He brought you impossibly closer, looking right into your eyes as he took you.

For the life of you, you couldn’t look away. You couldn’t get enough of his grunts and moans, of the breathy whispers of your name that slipped between curses, of the way his lashes would flutter over the dark blues that kept your eyes captive. He had you completely in that moment, mind and body; and for some reason, his gaze felt infinitely more intimate than his cock that was currently spearing you open. You keened in pleasure, whimpering as he touched your overly sensitive clit and had you coming again.

A minute later, he twitched inside you, his warmth flooding your core and you sighed. You laid entangled and sweaty, both of you spent and tired and yet completely overtaken by the urge to be closer still. To think this is what you’d both missed for all these years.

“So, what do you say, still feeling aggressive?” Steve asked and you looked at him with a grin that you couldn’t have suppressed had you wanted to. Oh yes, some battles were never meant to end, but they sure could be altered to meet new demands.

“With you? Always.” You replied, kissing him deep until he couldn’t think of anything but you. “Just remember one thing.”

“Oh yeah, what?”

“I am still a better best friend to Bucky. I did fuck you to keep him happy after all.”

Steve frowned darkly and before you could blink, he was over you, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“I think this time I’d fuck some manners into you.”

“I think this time you should actually put your back into it. I did all the work before.” You taunted and he dived at you.

Meanwhile, in Tony Stark’s office

“Friday, what’s the score?” He asked smugly, offering Bucky the packet of blueberries. Bucky was sitting with his feet on the desk, a small smile on his face.

“I am afraid I am not at a liberty to say Boss.” Friday replied. If the AI could blush, she would.

“Seems like they are at an impasse.” Tony suggested, and Bucky shrugged, licking his lips.

“Well, some things never change.”

[hereforhalstead]

Tell me that when you’re sober

*Gif not mine, credits to the owner*

• Pairing: Jay Halstead x Reader 18+

• Requested: Yes:

“I fucking love you”

“Hang up and tell me when you’re sober”

• Warnings: Swearing - PURE FLUFF

• Summary: Jay isn’t happy with you bringing work home but leads to a confession he’s wanted to tell you for a long time.

• Words: 4215

• A/N :I slightly adapted this to fit it better and intended for this to be a short fluff but 4000 words later.. here we are😅Thanks so much for your request and hope you enjoy!

**

You groan and throw your pen down onto the table, this case was really getting the best of you and frustrating you to no end. You look up at the time to see ‘10.30’ flashing in the green light back at you. You run your fingers through your hair which was now borderline greasy with how much you had been absentmindedly running your hands through it as you’re deep in thought. Eyes burning from how much you had been straining them and a slight blister on your finger with how hard you’d been holding the pen as you cross examine the notes intently.

You didn’t realise how quiet the apartment was, the faintest noise from your neighbours TV and the cars rushing past on the street below was all you could make out. This wasn’t like you, you basked in the liveliness and thrived in busy environments, the ones where you barely have time to think so therefore don’t spend much time on the outcome. You picked the pen back up to click it on the papers that were spread out in a manic like fashion in front of you, it made sense to you but if someone else was to see they’d think you’d just picked up the lot and thrown them down in a huff.

You scan over the CCTV stills and traffic cam screenshots, as if you hadn’t been staring at them for god knows how many hours and by a much needed miracle something was going to jump out at you and you’d have your lightbulb moment. Instead, you’re greeted with the same dead end paths and pointless thoughts you’d been fighting relentlessly.

You hear the keys turn in the lock and normally you’d be out of your seat and over to him in a heartbeat, your feet hitting the floor as if you were a kid at Christmas on your way to see what Santa left under the tree but today wasn’t that kind of day. You tried to tell yourself it was just because you were tired and it wasn’t that you didn’t want to admit you’d had another night of little success after being warned about bringing the work home by Jay several times. He always loved to prove a point and you weren’t about to let him get another one over on you, you couldn’t handle those eyes boring down on you as he stands behind you to examine you work, even if it meant lying to him.

You jolt in your seat as you feel him rest his hands on your shoulders before dropping a kiss to the top of your head “why are you still working? How many times have I told you..” he trails off but you’re quick to cut him off with your best ‘I’m fine’ smile “Jay, I’m finally getting somewhere” you falsely admit and feel the pit of guilt instantly form in your stomach as his eyes light up, he probes his thumbs into your skin in a light massage “proud of you” he softly confesses as he continues kneeding your skin.

If you weren’t so determined to get this case tied up this easily would’ve lead somewhere else but you had your focused mind at work and nothing was going to change that. He remains standing over you as you scribble pointless notes onto your notepad, highlighting the odd name and photo as you go as if to convey you had some trail of thought but really you were just buying yourself time until he left your side.

A few minutes go by but to you it feels like hours, you hate what you’ve become in that you find yourself dreading seeing Jay when you bring your work home. Knowing he was right in what he says and that he only says it because he cares but you always wanted to prove yourself and especially to him. He managed to get you into Voight’s good books after pissing him off one too many times, you had a back bone and even though most of the time this was an admiral quality it sometimes backfired.

You and Voight disagreed regularly but you had now learnt how and when to bite your tongue for the best result in cases but there were times you just couldn’t. After coming to blows and being sent to ‘get some air and cool off’ Jay was quick to plead with Voight for your job back and luckily it worked and you were back in the department the next morning. This lead to you now feeling this internal debt had to be paid to your boyfriend to prove you deserved your place and it was worth him sticking his neck on the line.

The pair of you became increasingly serious, starting as partners with the occasional flirty comment or glance soon lead to the regular sting of jealousy or worry which was now the feeling of emptiness when you weren’t together. Some may say you moved on fast, having only been together just under a year and already basically living together. However, due to the uncertainty of your job you decided to not hesitate and wait for when everyone else said it was right and do what felt right for the pair of you. Even if this did mean earning raised brows from Jay when he comes home from a late night to see you hunched over a stack of paperwork that you’d bought home, god knows how many times you’d seen him do it but for some reason it was a different ball game when it came to you.

It pulled at your heart how caring he was, always keeping an eye out for you and sometimes even more for you than himself. As much as there’s endless amounts of perks for dating your partner it sure did come with its consequences and you learnt them faster than you were expecting. Jay throwing himself into danger because it meant protecting you, you leading on suspects on undercover missions to try and get them to confess to which Jay hated and heated debates on the best way to handle a case were just a handful to name a few.

But, despite all of those you truly wouldn’t have it any other way, as you see it as spending as much time with him as possible and being grateful to have him beside you and always in your corner no matter how he feels, he will always back and argue for you.

After Jay strolls into the bedroom to change into some comfier clothes you start to fold some of the papers to create a bit more space, the thought of waking up to this mess wasn’t the ideal situation as you’d find yourself working on them at the crack of dawn and hardly in the right frame of mind to work. That was Jay’s one rule that he never budged on ‘put it all away before you go to bed’, he had hammered this into your head hundreds of times that it became natural for you at this point.

Neatly shuffling the papers to stack them in a pile on the side, helped you to resist the temptation to take a peak at the late or early hours when you should be asleep. He caught you one time glancing at an open file at the dead of night and he was not happy to say the least so knew he had to put his foot down. He knew you were like him and would work until a case was done but unlike him, you rarely knew when to stop.

He would know when his vision starts to loose focus from staring at a screen for too long or he gets a headache from the scrunch between his brows as he examines some notes that it was time to call it a day whereas you, would pop a few painkillers and carry on.

You hear Jay’s phone ring from the other room, not really taking much notice as you continue to fold the papers and shuffle them in a pile but can’t ignore when he comes bounding out of the room over to you “Baby, Adam and Kim are down at Molly’s. You wanna go?” He asks and normally you struggle to turn down such an invite but tonight you just weren’t feeling it and it’s as if you not replying instantly already told Jay you didn’t want to go as his face falls “let me call you back” he mumbles into the phone before shoving it into his back pocket.

He continues in his strides over to you and crouches down in front of you, taking your hand in his as he places a light kiss to your palm “please don’t tell me you’re going to sit here and work and make me go to Molly’s alone?” He pleads, eyes in puppy dog form as by now he knows the best way to get to you.

You run your hand over his disheveled hair as he leans into your touch “I think I’m just gonna have a shower and head to bed” you lie through your teeth, knowing full well the second he steps out the door you’ll be back knee deep in your files with the added extra of knowing you won’t be interrupted by your concerned boyfriend.

He scans your face with a concerned look on his own, lightly running his thumb over your knuckles as he sighs “you promise me you’re not going to carry on working and that you’ll give yourself an early night?” He rightfully asks, you nod in response thinking to yourself that you can’t verbally promise as you were one to never break promises and especially when it came to Jay.

He reaches up to plant his lips on yours, lingering them for a few seconds before standing tall in front of you “give me a call if you want me come home”. He reaches to tuck a piece of hair behind your ear and you instantly regret not allowing yourself for be bundled into his arms as you crawl into his lap for the night but you knew you weren’t nearly as done with the case as you’d like and the only way you could continue was if he wasn’t there.

He heads into the kitchen to grab the coat he left on the counter but is back at your side within seconds, placing a glass of water on the table in alongside another kiss being left on the top of your head “make sure you drink that please baby” his voice slightly elevates in concern and you can’t contain the smile that spreads on your face at his worry for you.

“have a good time” you call out to him as he heads for the door “text me when you’re in bed and I want proof!” He yells over his shoulder and without looking you can see the smirk engraved onto his face “get out Halstead” you tease, earning a wink from your boyfriend as he exits the apartment to leave you again in total silence.

You pick up the glass of water he left and take a sip, struggling to think of the last time you hydrated yourself and thankful he knows when to think of these things for you. You lean back in your chair and cross your legs beneath you, slight hunch in your back from the pain of being in the chair for so long and now wishing you were still receiving the massage from Jay that you desperately craved. You shake your head to clear the the thoughts and pour yourself back into the notes. Re reading the interview script over and over again, eventually reaching for your phone to find the recording you’d sent yourself before you left the district to be able to listen back at home.

You chew the inside of your cheek at the sight of your lock screen, a photo you’d taken of Jay on vacation just after the pair of you became an item. His back was towards you and he didn’t even realise you snapped the photo of him looking out from the balcony window at the gorgeous beach front below, reminding yourself that everything you do is for him. As cringy as it sounds, you longed for his approval and praise as he was always so vocal about it, wrapping you in his arms after you finish a case report, sitting you between his legs as you work late on a report with the occasional kiss to your shoulder to remind you her was there or the way he just knows how’s to give you that look that says ‘you’ve got this’ was what kept you going.

You click play on the recording and sink back into your chair as it plays, leaning your notepad on your legs as you listen along. Laughing to yourself when Jay looses his temper or Voight makes a snarky comment to which they both laugh to made the listening all that much easier as it seemed to drag on for hours.

You checked the length of the audio on your phone and the combined clips had only been playing for just over an hour. With the faffing around when Jay came home and the breaks you took to replay certain parts, the time had soon passed. The clock now beaming down on you with the time flashing ‘12.45am’ made you toss your head back in frustration. You’d been round and round in circles, still getting no where and conscious of the fact Jay would be home soon.

You certainly didn’t want him to find you like this as you’d never hear the end of it, you have a stern word with yourself and play back Jay’s warning of packing everything away as you finally close the files you’d been staring at for far too long. You push them to one side and prop your head on your elbows on the the table, you finish the glass of water that had been sat at your side that was truly collecting dust at this point due to you forgetting about it. You glance down at your phone to see a text from Jay flash up on the screen

‘You in bed yet baby? Not seen any proof..’

You roll your eyes as you just know he’s been impatiently sat there waiting to hear from you ever since he left just a few hours earlier. You stare at the screen to debate whether it’s best to ignore it and pretend you’re already asleep or to lie to him again for the second time that night. You’re soon interrupted as his name lights up the screen, his toothy grin staring back at you from the contact photo he had set for himself after a night out reminding you how ‘you always make me smile so you deserve to see it when I call you’.

You hesitate to pick up but know he won’t stop until you answer, after having a few drinks the last thing you want is for him to bound home to you in a mood about how you didn’t answer his call. You sigh and slide the button to answer the call and can barely contain your laughter as you hear his drunken slurs on the other end of the line

‘You haven’t answered me you know?’ he moans, annoyance in his tone but also sounding like a child who hasn’t got their own way at the same time. You laugh to yourself but careful to not let him hear as this wouldn’t go down well “ was asleep” you hang your head in shame as you yet again lie.

‘Why are you lying to me? You were working weren’t you?’ He accuses and you’re stumped on how to reply, even without being with you he knows you better than anyone to which you always seem to forget. He huffs on the other end of the line after he doesn’t get a response, knowing he has you cornered. ‘Y/N please, just get to bed and I’ll be home shortly’.

“I’m just packing it away Jay, I only had a few more bits I wanted to do. I promise” you nibble on your fingertips in slight nervousness as he continues to groan down the phone.

‘What, like how you promised me you were gonna give yourself an early night you mean?’ He questions but you’re quick to reply “well actually, I never promised I just nodded” you chuckle to yourself, feeling clever with your response but Jay isn’t happy.

“Y/N I’m just looking out for you, I care about you too much to see you draining yourself over these things” he begins and before you can get a breath in he carries on his drunken rambles “I love you too fucking much to watch you not look after yourself, as much as I love to be the one who takes care of you I can’t be there all the time so I need to know you can put yourself first baby” you’re silent after his admission, unsure if he’s even aware of what he’s just spilled out

“Do you know what you just said?” You tease, trying to lighten the subject but the sigh on the other end tells you he was still in a mood.

“Yes Y/N, I said I love you too fucking much to watch you destroy yourself” he expresses in outrage but you were in too much of a shock to think of a clever reply “hang up and tell me that when you’re sober Jay”.

“I’ll be home soon” he cuts the conversation short before ending the call, you take a moment before placing your phone back on the table and you try to comprehend what just happened. He said I love you.

Fair enough it wasn’t in the way you had envisioned, him confessing his love for you as you lay wrapped within his arms or him accidentally spilling his admiration during a teasing session you often had but he still said it. Whether he meant or it was just a drunk slip up was another question. You couldn’t let yourself say it back in case he woke up tomorrow and didn’t remember, it would pain you to let the last piece of your guard down for him to take it all back the next morning and the whole thing becomes a distant memory.

You finish tidying away the papers, patting yourself on the back for the great job you’d done of making it look like you hadn’t spent hours on end sat at that table, it now gleaming the exact way it did this morning. You place the glass back onto the kitchen counter and trudge into the bedroom, thudding down onto the bed as you lay staring at the ceiling. Wrapping yourself in the comforter and attempting to close your eyes but nothing was enough to push down that anxious feeling in your stomach. This isn’t how you should be feeling after your boyfriend says I love you for the first time and even though you’d both wanted to say it for a while it still didn’t seem real. You didn’t deserve him, all the things he does for you and the way he takes care of you didn’t seem feasible in your mind that it would happen to someone like you.

Moments pass and you hear the front door shut, his attempts to be quiet made you laugh into the pillow as you hear him lightly walk across the hardwood floor. Bumping into the doorframe as he enters, grateful the comforter covering your face to avoid him seeing your amusement of his drunken self trying to be quiet and navigate his way to the bed. You stay laying on your side, hand tucked under the pillow beneath your head and the other resting on your stomach. You hear his belt unbuckle and watch hit the beside table as he gets himself undressed, tempted to turn over and help him but knowing he would still moan at you for being awake no matter what state he was in.

You force your eyes closed, keeping your head slightly buried into the pillow as you feel the bed dip beside you. Within seconds you feel the all too familiar comfort of his arm latching around you, pulling you into him in one swift motion as he tucks his head into the nape of your neck. Your heart flutters as you feel him place a kiss to your back before further pulling you into him, any chance of a gap between the pair of you was well and truly diminished.

You stay facing away from him, now far too comfortable to move and knowing he will be asleep within seconds, as long as he was by your side and you were wrapped tightly within the safety of his grasp he would sleep anywhere. You soon feel the light puffs of air to your skin as he falls into a sleep, the occasional nudge into your back as he gets himself comfortable but after a while he lays still to signal he was finally asleep.

You lay there trying to ignore your thoughts, cursing yourself for being such an over thinker as the one who had sent you into this spiral now laid passed out beside you, unbeknownst to the panic he set off inside you as he falls deeper into his slumber. You run your hand up and down his arm to sooth yourself to sleep, thinking to yourself of how you’re going to forget what happened and tomorrow will be a new day.

***

You awake to the sunlight peering through the window, annoyed at yourself for not closing the blinds before you went to bed as the rays shine in your eyes. You turn in Jay’s grasp and jolt in his arms as you’re met with him softly smiling back at you “morning” he groans, his normal groggy morning voice now made more intense with the slight hangover he would soon be facing. You drop your head to lay on his chest, pressing your lips to his skin as he runs his fingertips up and down your spine and resting his head on top of yours as you lay in a comfortable silence. “Good night?” You break the air, knowing he certainly wasn’t in the mood to be talkative but if you didn’t have some form of interaction from him you’d go insane.

“Wasn’t the same without my girl” he tightens his grip on your waist, a soft pinch of your skin as he teases “but she was at home working when she promised me she wouldn’t, clearly choosing work over her boyfriend” he huffs into the top of your head as you bury yourself further into his chest.

“don’t go there” you warn as he chuckles in response “choosing to look at old case notes than spending time with your boyfriend, that’s a tough one” he continues to ramble, you detach yourself from him and turn to face him with stern look “I said don’t go there”you warn but he pouts his bottom lip at you as he raises his brow. You narrow your eyes at him and he cracks his serious exterior, bringing his hand to the back of your head as he brings it to him to connect his lips to your temple “It’s a good job I love you” he mumbles into your skin, pressing his lips onto yours for a brief second before allowing himself to pull back and admire your expression of shock.

“You remembered?” You question, still nervous he wouldn’t have a clue what you were talking about. “Of course I remember, you think I’d forget when I first tell my girlfriend I love her?” He tilts his head as he asks, you lean your head down onto him as he clears his throat “would help me if you said it back though, bit embarrassing if I’m the only one to say it” he jokes, grin encompassing his morning glow as he gloats “I love you too idiot” you roll your eyes at him, bringing your lips onto his for a chaste kiss. He brings his hand up your back and tousles it into your hair, keeping you in place as your lips intertwine before pulling back and running his eyes over the happiness beaming from your face “you have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say that”.

**

inbox and requests open🥰

[hxuse-xf-black]

Lupin literally coached Neville about the whole boggart-Snape (it could have easily been his grandmother, but I'm not sure how reliant that statement is seeing as I can't remember a source so take it with a grain of salt) And as a counterargument-why isn't Harry's boggart Voldemort then? After all that should have been his biggest fear ever considering he's not only orphaned but so far the past two years at school Voldemort's attempted to kill him, so you can't even use the excuse of "Well he was a baby he wouldn't remember him" because that exact line can be said for Neville. We don't know what age he lost his parents but we know he was young when it happened. That part annoys me a lot. You can hate Snape, nobody is saying you can't but its a little frustrating when nobody wants to take canon into account (again like how you bring up on how Snape only cares about Lily and not James, but then you backpeddle with "well I can understand why tho" you forget that James horrifically bullied Snape and exposed/stripped him in front of others. That's sexual assault by all means, its not any less traumatizing just because Snape is a dude) and secumsempra?? That was ONE dark spell that was genuinely harmful, and if you were regularly being ganged up 2-on-1 you'd want a defensive spell that goes "Hey FUCK OFF" and we even see Snape use it on James in Snape's Worst Memory, and James didn't go down dying of blood loss, Harry was a dumbass who fucked around with a spell FROM HIS PERSONAL BOOK that I'm sure Snape never intended to get out of his possession in the first place.

Speaking as someone who was severely bullied (because god forbid disabled gays be allowed to exist) I don't blame Snape at ALL for inventing that spell. When the people who are attacking you fight dirty, there's no honor in fighting back nicely, especially when they intend to physically harm you as much as they can (as noted when Sirius literally tried to murder/severely him at sixteen and no, James did not save him out of the goodness of his heart, he saved him to prevent Sirius and Lupin from getting in serious trouble as noted when James still continued to harass Snape well into seventh year, as noted as Lupin "it was a..special case". If you're going to try and blame Snape by saying that he shouldn't have been out of bed, neither were the other Marauders, and already being bullied and hoping to catch your bullies up to no good doesn't deserve death/being turned into a werewolf.) yes, Snape did bad things, nobody is denying that, but my issue is when you're not taking canon into account and exaggerating certain key points to make him worse than he is and its annoying when you've decided to place this in the Severus Snape tag instead of just keeping the tags to anti-Snape, we KNOW already. Another thing that is a big head shake is the racist bit. A more appropriate comparison would be classism, not everything is centered around an American view, you know, and given Snape's own blood status it wouldn't even make sense regardless.

I adjusted the racist bit as well as the general tag. It now only says anti severus snape.

And I can sympathize with getting bullied, really, I can. I recently came out as bi and let me tell you, the gay propaganda laws only make things 200 times worse then they would be elsewhere. But Snape shouldn't have created the spell, because even if he wasn't going to show anyone, he wouldn't have created it without at least subconscious intent to use it. Besides, wasn't he the only one that knew the counter curse? If he used it on someone they would died from blood loss.

And Harry and Neville are different. At that point Harry's already given up on having a semi normal life, and with Voldemort at the center of it, he can't exactly fear him if he's given up. Neville still has a normal life. At Hogwarts at least. Also, about Lupin coaching Neville through it, he only chose Neville to go first because Snape told Remus, in front of the class, that Neville wasn't very capable at magic. It may have been true, but he could've said it behind closed doors.

Also, I'm not even American (why did you assume I was? I'm honestly offended). I've been to America three times and one of those times I was a baby so I don't know if that even counts. I'm Russian.

And yeah, James and Sirius were way out of line, I'm not excusing what they did to them and I'll always harbor a little hatred for what they did (especially the whole tricking Snape into facing a werewolf on the full moon bit). But from what I've gathered (this is just what I, personally, have seen in canon (books, not movies)), Snape was harassing them almost as much as they did him.

Besides, Snape created levicorpus so how would they even know the spell if he hadn't used it on them or someone else? Doesn't excuse to borderline sexual harassment, I know.

I'm not excusing anyone's actions. I'm just saying why I don't like Snape. That's all.

[nateezfics]

I’ve been watching the anime Vampire Knight again and my mind is going insane. Like...I am absolutely crazy for spending so much time on this. Below the cut is me brainstorming and running away with an idea.

Imagine going to a private university where the student body is split in two parts. The day class and the night class. These two classes never cross as it is forbidden. The day class knows nothing more than that there is a night class, but the rest is a mystery. Not a single student of the light has seen a night time student. The daytime students do not know the the school’s dark secret. They do not know that the night class is full of vampires, vampires who wish to turn away from their evil natures. Though they are learning to keep their inner monsters at bay, they are still a potential danger to the day students, hence the separation.

You are the president of the women’s dormitories, and also part of the night watch. One night, after reprimanding two wandering students and sending them back to their dorm, you are confronted by two dashingly beautiful men. They wear uniforms with the school’s emblem, but you’ve never seen them before. It dawns on you that these must be students from the enigmatic night class. Their otherworldly beauty, their sharp fangs, their glowing eyes....everything about them seems...inhuman. Before you can blink, they close in on you, and then everything turns black.

When you awake, you realize much to your horror and confusion that you are not in your dorm. You’re in an unknown place. Soon you’re surrounded by a group of men, all who share the quality of dazzling beauty. As they gaze upon you with illuminated eyes, you realize that the night class is more than a class of students...it is a coven of vampires. You wonder what in the world you’ve been dragged into.

The Night Class

Hongjoong; Night class student president; president of the men’s dormitory (night class); level A/pure blood vampire

Hongjoong was the first student in Cross Academy’s night class

Befriended the Headmaster many years ago and the two shared a common interest: to see humans and vampires living harmoniously

Hongjoong originally fed on humans, but after meeting the Headmaster, decided to change his ways and fight against his own nature

Hongjoong helped give way to Headmaster’s dream of using Cross Academy as a way for vampires to better themselves

Hongjoong is several centuries old

He is a pure blood within level A, the top tier of the vampire class system, making him one of the most powerful and feared vampires around

The Kim family is one of the few remaining pure blood families

Saved the reader many years ago when she was only a small child from being killed by a vampire

Cared for her through the night and brought her to the Headmaster’s doorstep

Hongjoong follows the university’s strict rule of keeping himself and the night class hidden, despite wanting to check up on the reader who does not remember him

He is a kind vampire, but has a stained past which he tries to overcome

Is respected amongst both the school’s night class students and the vampire realm

Though he does get flack from the Vampire Council for trying to resist his vampire nature and being so friendly with humans

Seonghwa; Night class student secretary; right hand to the night class president; level A/pure blood vampire

Seonghwa is an old friend to Hongjoong, the two of them knowing each other for centuries

He is older than Hongjoong

Did not agree with Hongjoong’s theology at first, but eventually decided to join him at the academy

Seonghwa often acts as Hongjoong’s voice of reason, mostly because he helps keep the rest of the night class in check

If Hongjoong is away, Seonghwa acts as temporary president

Is a bit less ruthless than Hongjoong in terms of discipline, and he often gets called the “mother of the night class” due to his nurturing nature

He is a pure blooded vampire from the Park family, another powerful vampire line

He is not too fond of humans per se, but tries to follow along with Hongjoong, and tries to understand that their lives are precious

Him and Hongjoong both rely the least on blood pills (pills that act as a placebo to quench a vampire’s desire for actual blood from humans) due to having been in the academy the longest

Yunho; Day watcher/enforcer for the night class; hunter; level B/aristocratic vampire

Unlike the former two vampires, Yunho is not a pure blood

Meaning somewhere in his ancestry there are humans who’d been turned

Comes from a wealthy family, earning him the status of level B vampire

Has always been kind to humans somewhat, never preying on the innocent but instead preying on the evil, wrong doing humans like criminals

Befriends the Headmaster and joins the academy by his request

It doesn’t take long for Yunho to fall in line with the hope of one day living along side humans

Yunho watches over the night class section of campus and its dorms during the day to make sure no day students wander too close.

Carries out punishments to night class students at Hongjoong’s judgement

Often aids the Vampire Council in hunting and eliminating rogue level D vampires

Will also follow Hongjoong along side his missions to recruit more vampires into the academy

Is slowly trying to become less reliant on blood pills

Yeosang; Night class’ top student; scholar; level B/aristocratic vampire

Yeosang was recruited by Hongjoong to join, but at first was unwilling to join

He only decided to go to Cross Academy because of his ages old friend, Wooyoung

He’s an extremely picky eater

Always preyed on humans with a certain blood type and humans that came from high society families

After coming to the academy, Yeosang struggled with denying his bloodlust

His dislike for the blood pills didn’t help

Learned to keep it under control when he decided to just hunt for animals around the university’s campus

Is indifferent about wanting to be harmonious with humans

Despite this, he is the top student of the night class, having shown the most growth and progress

He’s a man of knowledge, loves to spend time in the library

He’s very sharp tongued, and often makes condescending quips about the other night class vampires, especially San

Does not use blood pills, rather he just feeds straight from animals

San; Night class transporter/gatekeeper; level C/common vampire

He’s in charge of leading the night class from their dorms to the main building

He makes sure all the day students are out of the building and classrooms

Usually has to wait for an all clear from the Headmaster

San was the first commoner, level C vampire to enroll at Cross Academy

Commoner vampires are normal, every day people, usually they are the vampires that walk amongst humans the most

San is incredibly powerful for a level C, and this is why Hongjoong recruited him

Isn’t quite sure how he feels about denying his vampire nature, but his respect for Hongjoong and his close lineage to humans compels him to try

Wooyoung is his companion, whether romantically or platonically is something the night class is always trying to find out

The two are inseparable

San came before Wooyoung, and when the latter first started at the academy, the two vampires quickly bonded over both being level C’s

San requires many blood pills a day

Being a level C means there is a lot of humanity in his lineage which also makes him most likely to go berserk and turn into a level D vampire, a mindless feral being

Mingi; Night class bookkeeper; scribe; level A/pure blood vampire

Mingi is somewhat of a right hand to the right hand

He often aids Seonghwa in managing the more tedious side parts of the night class, like paperwork

Mingi keeps record of all complaints, new students, dorm inspections, punishments, and schedules for each day

He also tends to the library as well as the music/recreation hall

Yunho is responsible for his presence at the academy

Mingi quickly earns respect from Hongjoong, and becomes Hongjoong’s left hand man with Seonghwa as his right

Mingi is tender hearted, and always struggled with his vampire nature

Feeding on humans was something he never enjoyed, a strange trait for a being with not a single ounce of humanity in his bloodline

Mingi often acts the source of cheer amongst the night class

He likes to compose, and sometimes he will play for the other vampires to allow everyone to unwind

The Song family was always close with the Jeong family, and because of this Yunho and Mingi have known each for a very long time

Does not rely on blood pills all that much, but takes them as soon as he feels any amount thirst for blood because he does not like the feeling of bloodlust and the way it reminds him of how evil his kind is

Wooyoung; Class socialite; level C/common vampire

Wooyoung is a common vampire like San, but this does not keep him from befriending vampires of all classes

He is very extroverted, and Hongjoong believes his love for socializing will one day help bring humans and vampires together

Wooyoung has no official role within the night class, but helps where he can

He maintains an upbeat atmosphere within the class along with Mingi

He often gets on the other vampires’ nerves, especially Seonghwa

He loves to cause mischief and naturally Seonghwa is the victim more often than not

Yeosang is a common target as well, but he remains aloof to his friend’s shenanigans

Wooyoung learned very quickly on to never pull anything on Hongjoong, he was scolded by the elder vampire so bad that he refused to leave his dorm room for a week

He’s always with San, and secretly loves it when Yeosang makes jests about them being a “couple”

Wooyoung often attempts to sneak around the day class dorms, just to take a peek, but Jongho always catches him

He takes blood pills regularly

Jongho; Day watcher/enforcer for the night class; hunter; level B/aristocratic vampire

Jongho has a reputation amongst the vampire realm of being a champion hunter

His strength knows very few rivals despite him being a fairly young vampire

Was commissioned by the Council centuries ago to be a hunter

Jongho mainly hunts level D vampires now, especially after enrolling at the university

But he used to hunt vampire hunters - humans who specialize in eliminating vampires of all levels

Jongho’s strength is normally enough of a deterrent to keep night class students from pulling anything stupid

Though Wooyoung often pushes his luck

With Yunho, the night class section of the campus is secure

Isn’t exactly onboard with Hongjoong and Headmaster’s ideals

He sees humans as lesser than

But Hongjoong is working with him, and slowly Jongho is beginning to reform

He may be the youngest, but everyone (even Hongjoong) is somewhat intimidated by him

The Day Class

Reader; Night watcher/enforcer for the day class; president of the women’s dormitory; human

When you were young, you were out with your family one evening

You were attacked by a strange man

He killed your parents right before your eyes

Before he could harm you, someone rescued you

Your savior had the same glowing eyes as the man who killed your parents, but for some reason, you trusted him

He was so kind to you, and even brought you to someone who could take care of you

You don’t remember him in the years to come, save for his glowing eyes

But as the years pass, you dream of his eyes, wondering if you’ll ever find him one day

The academy’s Headmaster raises you as his own, and naturally when it came time for you to attend university, you chose to attend Cross Academy

You take your role as dorm president seriously

And you never miss a shift as night watcher

With all your responsibilities, you don’t have much free time

But late at night while you rest, you ponder about the night class

Your father never tells you anything when you ask

Something tells you there’s more to it all, more to the story

Fortunately, or maybe not so fortunately, you find out the mystery soon enough

[yandere-sins]

hiya! i see that requests are open :] i was wondering.. if you haven’t written this already, can you write what would shigaraki’s reaction would be to his darling willingly giving him affection? maybe it was completely out of the blue or he got injured and his darling was worried, etc!!

thank you!! 🥰🤍💕

Thanks for requesting!

»»———————— ♡ ————————««    

In no one plans does it ever say to get beaten up.

But no matter how disgusting the blood on his tongue tasted, no matter how little he could see through the bruised eye, there were days like these where plans didn’t work out the way anyone wanted them to. No one said anything as the League of Villains retreated to their hideout, some limping, some holding their heads in pain. A few of them sighed as they passed their leader. Others clicked their tongues in disapproval, moral lower than any of them ever felt before - that meant rock bottom.

Everything had been going so well for so long, Shigaraki foolishly had already forgotten the feeling of losing. He was strong, resistant, and in good company, and yet, maybe his concentration had been off, his perception slow, or maybe it simply was a bad day. Still, no matter how he tried to justify the bitterness of failing, in the end, he could only bite his chapped lip in frustration.

It took him longer to unlock all the locks and bolts on the door to his room on that day. Everything ached when he lifted a finger and using both hands almost felt like tearing himself apart. It definitely had been too long that he experienced a real beating like this, making him painfully aware of every muscle and every bone in his body again. But even more so, knowing that this was a setback in his plans was even more bothersome than all the pains combined.

Still, Shigaraki decided he’d deal with the consequences and further planning the next day. There was no nerve left in his brain to keep grinding the loss over and over again, analyzing it, and plan out improvements. Nothing good could come out of his frustration, he realized, as he almost disintegrated the costly, sturdy locks of the door. But catching himself at the last second, Shigaraki reminded himself of their trustworthy duty of keeping what was behind the entrance exactly where it was and that it would be a waste to lose them too.

Even though you must have heard the door open and fall into its lock again behind him, you weren’t immediately apparent in the dark room. Shigaraki grumbled a sullen, “... back,” looking around once more, trying to make you out as he set aside the few hands spared from the fight. But heaving a deep sigh, he realized you must have been hiding or locked yourself in the bathroom, shying away from his presence as always. If t wasn’t him dragging you out for his own sick pleasure of being with you, you were the last person he thought to be willing to come to him.

And for once, he didn’t have the strength to pull you out of whatever orifice you had crawled into.

Letting himself flop onto the couch he had brought in just for you, Shigaraki let out a long groan. The cold leather felt good on the bruises on his face, even though it told him you hadn’t used the couch in a while. He didn’t like that even though he tried to make it homely for you after all your complaints, you didn’t take advantage of the amenities he provided, but Shigaraki felt too exhausted to get upset.

Minutes passed in silence as he tried to get his mind off replaying the lost battle over and over. It was so unfair, so cruel that the brilliant plan failed to retrieve the items he wanted. Still, even if he calculated disturbances because of heroes, he didn’t think they’d sent an army of them to stand against him. It was just so freaking frustrating, his body immediately started to itch everywhere.

Shigaraki wouldn’t have assumed for you to make a move, but he could clearly hear how uncomfortable you were as you contemplated moving out of your hiding spot. The shuffling of your clothes was louder now that there were no games on, and neither of you were talking, so he noticed you trying to get up a few times before sinking to the ground again hesitantly. He only sighed in exhaustion, wondering what he could do to make his face stop itching.

You had long ceased to be a threat to him, even if he didn’t have a brilliant achievement to boost that day either. It wasn’t like you two had come to any kind of understanding, a middle ground even. Still, he at least seemed to have earned enough respect or fear from you so you wouldn’t try anything funny when he was asleep. Perhaps he was too trusting, but it wasn’t like you weren’t scared enough of him and his quirk.

“Shigaraki...?” you whispered, testing with a tiny voice if he was sleeping already. He could hear your fingers curl into the leather, causing it to let out air loudly, which made both of you flinch - him from the headache, you from fear. Grumbling quietly about the disturbance, Shigaraki propped himself up on his forearms, looking up at where he assumed your position from beneath his unkempt hair.

“What?!” The words came out much harsher than he intended, but truth be told, he wasn’t in his right mind ever since he returned, so there wasn’t even any mercy left for you. You made a step back, the floorboards creaking under the sudden pressure, and you let go of the couch, too afraid he might snap.

“A-Are you...” you stuttered, annoyingly so. Shigaraki just wanted the world to be quiet that night. To have some peace after all the trouble. “Are you okay?”

Sighing, he plopped down into the couch again, letting his arm hang from the cushions. Of course. The only time you were actually worried about him, he was actually not okay, and he told you as much. “Not really,” he confessed, and silence fell over you two again before he heard you round the couch to stand by his side. It would have been so easy to grab you and pull you to him now, and maybe on any other day he would have, but even that seemed too exhausting to him.

“Do you need some water? Or should I go ask someone for bandages?”

With your questions so innocent, it made him snort loudly. “So you can run away?” was his counter-question. If not for the darkness in the room, he would have seen you tense up, read your body language to determine if you had planned something or if you genuinely were just worried, but Shigaraki couldn’t be bothered with the necessary actions if either of that was true.

“I was just asking,” you whispered, discouraged as he thought he heard in your voice. Your presence shifted away as you went and hid again, and it actually gave his heart a slight, additional sting when you seemed to settle somewhere. Ultimately, the silence was what he had wanted, but now that he had refused your presence for the first time ever since he took you for himself, he realized that it helped neither of you.

“If you really want to help...” he mumbled, taking a deep breath as he thought his words over, realizing they were foolish. “Come and scratch my face.”

There was nothing in response to this, only more silence, and now he truly felt stupid for even bringing it up. He could scratch himself just fine and probably better than a second person could, but really... it would have been nice if you were the one doing it. It must have only been seconds, but it felt like whole minutes passed before he heard another stir, and the warmth of your presence returned to him, slowly sitting down next to the couch. He turned to his side, waiting expectantly for you to act, hoping it would be soon as the itch grew stronger.

“It’s not good to scratch it,” you mumbled, and Shigaraki couldn’t help but click his tongue at you lecturing him. “I didn’t ask for your opinion, just scratch it!”

Until the last moment, he honestly didn’t expect you’d do as he said, and it was almost amusing that when you did reach out, you still would resist his instructions, doing as you pleased. Instead, you seemed to want to smother him between your palms, laying them over the extensive areas of his face like cheeks and forehead, constantly alternating between them. It didn’t help, the itch still remained, but he would be a liar to say he didn’t actually like it.

Your touch was much gentler than what he expected you’d use when you finally touched him. Much less pressure and more tenderness than what he was used to from being touched. It was actually, truly, really nice.

“More,” he mumbled, and you gasped loudly as he reached out his hands to grab your wrists, tugging away his pinky as to not hurt you. No matter how nice it was to feel your touch, Shigaraki couldn’t help but grow needy even after all that happened that day. Perhaps because of what happened that day, he couldn’t help but want more and more of the comfort of your touch, ultimately pressing your hands so tightly against his skin, the bruises began to ache. But it didn’t matter. It all didn’t matter because it was your touch, and even if you tensed up, you didn’t pull away. You were so warm, and your so skin soft, so even if it hurt, it hurt good; just right. It made him feel alive even.

It was exactly what he needed after this long day.

“Do this more often,” he mumbled, dragging your hands from the top of his head down to his lips and start again. “Touch me more...”

You could have scratched him right then and there, plucked out his eyes for all he cared, and ripped off his skin, but your touch, combined with the warm, jittery pulse he felt in your wrists, gave him an unknown satisfaction, one he’d have liked to experience regularly.

“Don’t stop...”

His voice was shaky - needy and greedy at the same time. He rubbed his own face with your hands over and over, which felt almost as good as scratching but hurt like hell at the same time. Yet, he wished these feelings would never stop, so he could enjoy them infinitely. Screw plans and the future if only he could have your touch all over him until the end of time. So even if it didn’t resemble the way you touched him before, Shigaraki couldn’t get enough of your hands, only ever wanting more.

Was it truly too much to ask for? Shigaraki wondered as his grip loosened on you. You yelped as he accidentally lost control over his pinky while drifting off to sleep, giving you a second of stinging pain before you tore yourself from him trying to deal with coming into contact with his quirk. Only a satisfied smile was able to cross his lips before he was overtaken by exhaustion, hoping that this was reminder enough to not try anything funny while he slept. But honestly, as happy as he was now, he would have even enjoyed having your hands around his throat. It didn’t matter where, as long as you never stopped making him happy with your touch.

And god, was he happy he fucked up his plan that day.