#i know it's a tease

[star-named-riddle]

Day 7 - Wildfire

(It's still the 7th somewhere, I swear) This one is hot off the press, and long, and sort of smells like lemon

Bellatrix stood waiting at the door. She did not knock, there was no need. The Dark Lord would recognise her mind at his door.

The lock clicked, and the door became ajar. She pressed her palm against it and pushed it, bowing her head while keeping her eyes up.

Lord Voldemort tossed her the Muggle newspaper the moment she walked inside his study. She caught it, her eyes immediately drawn to the front page.

‘WILDFIRE ROARS ON’

Bellatrix laughed. So this was what the sudden summon was about.

“When I showed you how to control Fiendfyre, you rotten creature, that was not the point of it,” Lord Voldemort said, gesturing towards the newspaper, his voice slow and low but clearly touched by pride. “Read that article for me, Bella, and explain yourself.”

The Dark Lord did not bother to offer her a seat. Instead, he rose from his place at the desk and made his way to the tall windows that overlooked the gardens and the estate beyond them. He stood by them, looking very tall and very still, bathed in the light of the warm summer day.

Bella admired his profile. His thick but greying hair combed back from his face and temples. The scar that now crossed his right eye and paled its colour hidden from sight, yet present in her mind. The skin on the left side of his neck was marred, pulled tight and dented, as if it had been burnt badly.

Lord Voldemort turned his face to her, sharply. His eyes shone red in between blinks, going back to their dark brown colour the moment Bellatrix focused on them.

She was happily married to Rodolphus. She loved her husband, and they fit together seamlessly in all things. And yet… there was something here.

There had always been something, right from the beginning. Something neither her or her master had ever acted upon, except for that one time. He had always used her obvious attraction to him against her when in training. It had been a way to distract her at first, later becoming a way to test her.

“Do I have to tell you again?” His tone alone was a warning, a tug on the unseen leash he kept on her.

Bellatrix jolted out of her reveries, unfolding the newspaper and holding it straight in her hands.

“No, my lord,” she said, lowering her eyes minutely. She cleared her throat and read the title aloud, moving on to the text below it immediately.

‘The freak wildfire that started on July 29th burns on through Swinley Forest. The fire, which started at night three days ago, has consumed over 2000 acres of land. There are three active fronts, the largest being just over 3km. On stage, there are about 100 firefighters, with some 25 fire engines, being aided by two airtankers. The flames show no sign of slowing down, and the wind expected over the next few days will probably aggravate the matter. Canada has offered to reinforce the firefighting crews with two more airtankers, expected tomorrow.

The fire broke out late on the 29th. The first call came in at 9 o’clock in the evening, mentioning a roaring fireball at the heart of the forest. No clues have been found as to what started the fire, which was quickly dubbed a freak accident by locals. Several people claim the fire seemed to move willingly at first, quickly advancing through the forest. A second ball of fire was seen 20 minutes later. The first firefighters on scene described a front of over a mile, unnatural in its shape and expected course. An investigation has been launched.’

Bellatrix meant to flip to page 10, where there would be more information, but was cut short.

“That’s quite enough, Bella. Now, tell me how you did all that, and what, in Merlin’s name, came over you that made Fiendfyre in a forest seem reasonable.”

Bellatrix looked up, fighting a smile. Her master did not sound displeased. He was somewhat amused by it all if his tone was to be believed.

“I was chasing two wizards, my lord. Aurors. I stayed close to the most valuable one, but I could not let the other one escape.”

“Did I send you alone on that mission, Bella?”

“No, my lord. You sent me with my husband,” she answered, gulping at the memory of a delightfully naked evening with Rodolphus being interrupted by the burning of their Dark Marks. “And with my brother-in-law.”

“And you ended up alone?”

“There was a third wizard when we found the Aurors. They split, and so did we. I had Charlotte Corbin, Rodolphus had Caradoc Dearborn, and Rabastan took the third one.”

“Who was he?”

“One of the Prewett brothers, my lord. Gideon, he thinks.”

Lord Voldemort hummed. He had already punished Rabastan for his failure to capture his target. Bellatrix had tended to his wounds the next day, once she was done sorting her husband.

“And how come you ended up alone in Swinley Forest chasing two Aurors?”

“Caradoc injured Rodolphus, badly. He Apparated to the forest right after Corbin and I did. It must have been their plan once they lost us.”

“Corbin didn’t lose you…”

“She tried, my lord. She quickly realised she would not best me in combat, so she tried running. I managed to throw one of my daggers at her, and I followed her Apparition by following it.”

“Hm-mmm. And the Fiendfyre?”

“Caradoc was too dangerous to be allowed to survive. Corbin had filled him in on her case. He knew far too much, and he had to stop him from getting back to the Order with more information. Charlotte was already injured, and we needed more information from her, so I decided to capture her and kill him immediately. I couldn’t risk losing Corbin, not with all she knows.”

“And Fiendfyre was better than a quick Killing Curse.”

“He could have dodge it, my lord. He had before. The Fiendfyre would chase him, and keep him from focusing enough to Apparate somewhere else,” she said, a wicked smile on her lips as she thought back to the terror in the Auror’s eyes as the flames erupted from her wand.

“Show me,” he ordered, approaching her.

Bellatrix went back to the beginning in her memories, and waited as her master joined her in her mind. They both saw everything happen, following along. Lord Voldemort chuckled as the cursed flames jumped and galloped after Caradoc Dearborn while Bellatrix rendered Charlotte Crobin unconscious and Apparated away. She had left the witch locked in a barren room at Castle Lestrange, and then waited in the hall as both Lestrange brothers Apparated home for her to mend.

Lord Voldemort emerged from her memories then, not caring to dwell on the extent of the injuries to her husband and brother-in-law. She let her own memory dissipate, and opened her eyes to find her master looming over her.

She gulped. Her hands held on tighter to the newspaper, which crumpled and crackled beneath her fingers.

He was close, standing tall above her, his eyes inscrutable.

Her mouth had gone dry thinking of that one time he had kissed her before, in the Spring, and all of the things she had thought about ever since that day. She could feel her heart racing, the drum of her pulse silencing all other sounds.

Lord Voldemort looked down, watching his most loyal servant as she tried to control her breathing. He had liked that kiss. He had thought often about that kiss, and kissing her again, and had found himself lost in thoughts of doing other things to her. Things that made him harden and woke him up at night when his dreams went unchecked.

He perused her thoughts again, and what he found there destroyed his resolve to hold himself back. All he wanted was to kiss his Bella.

His brain had all of half a second to consider when he had become so possessive of her. But she was his. His pupil, his servant, his witch. His Bella sounded just fine in his mind, and from what he had seen in hers, she’d have no qualms about it either.

He nearly ripped the newspaper from her hands, tossing it aside. The sheets spread out, drifting apart as they fell to the floor. His right hand moved to cup the back of her head, tilting her mouth further up, and his left hand wrapped itself around her right wrist, making her step forward.

He kissed her, firmly planting his lips on hers. He wrapped his arms around her, possessively, and pulled her closer. Having not been given leave to touch his face, Bellatrix pressed her hands against his chest, wrapping her fingers in his robes, pulling herself up. She hummed into the kiss. And when she gasped for air, his tongue licked her lips, and robbed her of breath the next instant.

Like wildfire, their desire burned through their bodies, spreading, unstoppable.

Also on AO3

[inkskinned]

she's singing in another room and my dog is asleep at my feet. my grandma asked me why i haven't found a man yet and i laughed. oh, you know. i like my house clean.

my girlfriend is also my man is also "my partner" if i'm in a professional setting. yesterday we went to a ren faire and a man mimed at me - you're together? and at my delighted nod, his baffled, you're gay? made me laugh. a woman with rainbow hair said i love the two of you together. you're both so beautiful it's absurd.

my dad introduced my partner as my "..... friend. or whatever" the other day. he knows we're dating. in the same way, i was never able to get my sister's husband to stop saying that's gay like it's 2008. he still uses the word fa***t, and my sister's defense of him has always been well, he's just kidding.

my lover and i dance to old music in a tiny kitchen. we judge new music together and take food critique very seriously. we watch love is blind before we fall asleep and agree that if they had a queer season, it would be bloody but also make for excellent tv. of fucking course queer people would know someone for only 2 weeks and agree to get married. what are you saying.

at a bar with friends, a man puts his hand on my wrist. got a boyfriend? and yes, i do have a boyfriend, she's amazing. i am texting her while i wander around a gas station named after geese. i am visiting a swing state for a wedding. in the candy aisle i overhear: she's actually like a lesbian it's disgusting. two teenage girls with packaged sandwiches in their hands, giggling. no literally, like. i'm not, like. okay with her being there while we're all, like, naked and changing.

my girlfriend and i tailgate, drink gin and cider out of cups. from the frat group beside us, a man corrects himself with one of his friends: bro, i mean, nonbinary entity, and it makes everyone around him laugh, myself included. he razzes his friend the same way i would have killed for at 19 years old - like nothing happened, he continues: you apply sunscreen like an alien. he does a little sassy (and fairly accurate) dance interpretation of the motion. his friend is laughing so hard they're crying.

i am lucky, i live in a safe neighborhood in a safe state. my masc passenger princess comes up from DC. i drive her for an hour to where all the leaves are a violent arrangement of color. we walk along the trails, letting autumn into our blood. in this part of the state, there's a lot of pickup trucks and trump signs. when we chastely kiss before getting into the car, i accidentally make eye contact with a woman holding her child's wrist. she looks disgusted. she looks fucking pissed.

two hours later my girl and i are eating dinner on a patio, soaking in the last warmth of new england sun before the chill of winter sets in. we are giggling and trying to talk through plastic vampire teeth. at another table, i see a young woman sit up straighter. i watch her watch us. she blushes and takes her partner's hand from across the table. shy, like the taste of evening has just become something deeper.

it's worth it for this moment, i think. my lover is still humming the same song she's been singing for four days straight and i don't want to kill her for it. her guitar is beside my bed. her toothbrush is in my bathroom. in a few moments i will make us lunch. we are lucky enough to have found each other. it is lucky enough to be in love.

[starcurtain]

Please someone redraw this with Dr. Ratio and Aventurine because this is the exact vibe they have in my head post-Penacony.

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF puppet and Michael Afton got beef,,

[klanced]

can we start placing bets about the live action voltron movie. everyone download draftkings right now

[finnitesimal]

When the unerringly loyal right-hand men are referred to as dogs in the canon text

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Archery Nemesis.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[cyb3r-mutt]

Sometimes I think oh I could totally brat but then I remember that I fold like a cheap tent at the slightest hint of possibly being praised

[bittsandpieces]

I don't have a caption for this one tbh

[bertoyana]

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (2011) dir. MATTHEW VAUGHN

+bonus. erik looking up and down at charles and charles looking smug as hell. which could mean nothing.

[sad-scarred-sassy]

You are so gorgeous, it makes me so mad

For @elucienweekofficial Day 7: Tension/Healing

I wanted to illustrate a bit of what I think their banter will look like. I think Lucien’s rakish charm will drive Elain mad (in the best way).

Enjoy the little comic of Elain trying to stay mad at Lucien but getting a bit distracted by his lips🫦

[rayveneyed]

bakugou katsuki proclaims, quite often, that he doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body. he snarls it — cheeks flushed an angry red — when you teasingly ask him for homemade chocolates, or to change your name in his phone to something cheesy. you’ve had him down as pumpkin from the moment you started dating, after all, and he’s long grown used to hearing baby and sweetheart and darling in place of his given name, even though he swears he hates it. you often tug at his wrist and point to bouquets of red roses, whining why don’t you ever get me those? just annoying enough to have him pulling your head under his elbow and roughly ruffling your hair, cursing the way he’s spoiled you.

kirishima got mina a heartbeat bracelet, you say pointedly, tucked under his arm on the couch and peering up at him with those eyes — those eyes that say you’re looking to push his buttons a little. (internally, he scoffs — as if he didn’t know. as if he wasn’t the one that gave shitty hair the idea in the first place. it’s just — it’s different, isn’t it, when he’s getting it for himself? for you?) shouldn’t we get something like that, baby ?

he grunts something unintelligible — something about how they’re gimmicky, how they probably don’t work, how it’d distract him when he’s kicking ass, how it’d probably melt with the use of a single howitzer impact, blah blah blah. you shrug. it’s not that big of a deal, anyway. you mostly brought it up to pull his leg a little — you know he’s not one for grand gestures like that, preferring his acts of service above all else — but for all the fight he’d put up, two heartbeat bracelets arrive at your apartment not even a week later. amazon prime expedited shipping, no less. 

he ignores you when you bring it up — lets you fasten it onto his wrist with little fanfare, the tips of his ears turning red, muttering something about he’d probably never use it, anyway, and he only got it so that you’d shut up about it all — never say i don’t do shit for you, woman!

but when he’s halfway across the world, tangled up in schemes larger than you have the capacity to think about — when you’re watching the news with teary eyes and bated breath, hands clutched to your chest, it always comes without fail: a small buzz on your wrist, gentle and thudding and rhythmic. ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump.

[cuppajj]

i had a vision

[hysterotic]

Please make more of those twitter threads of the Toman characters 😭 my ass was HOLLERING at all of them ☠️

meowww here’s how it feels to have tkrv guys in ur tl

[justaz]

lol arthur realizes with the other knights after watching merlin flirt and being hit with a wave of deja vu: holy shit you asked me out

merlin and the rest of the knights around a campfire after leaving a village bc lancelot and leon somehow started a brawl in the tavern: ???

arthur points at merlin: after valiant! you asked me to buy you a drink! you were asking me out!

merlin is busy cooking dinner and confused out of his fucking mind: what???…..valiant….oh the knight with the snakes.

gwaine who was slightly tipsy now stone cold sober and sitting up straight against a tree: wait. explain. what do you mean merlin asked you out??

arthur snaps his fingers as he recalls the memory: i apologized for sacking you and you said that if i bought you a drink we’d be even.

merlin now remembering how he had stumbled into camelot, picked a fight with a pigheaded bully which quickly turned homoerotic and flirtatious, and continued their teasing-flirting for days before merlin shot his shot and asked the prince out only to be rejected: oh yeah, i forgot i did that…..wait, you mean you didnt realize what i was asking?

arthur: no?? we argued everyday, how was i supposed to realize you were asking me out??

merlin now abandoning the dinner and staring across the camp at arthur while the rest of the knights watch their back and forth like a game of tennis: to you we were arguing, to me that was very much flirting. i thought you were flirting back so i decided to ask you. then you rejected me

arthur, mentally beating his past self up for fucking up their chance: i didn’t reject you!!! i just didn’t realize what you were asking me. how was i meant to? we fought every chance we got

leon, nudging elyan, glee and excitement riling through him: its happening!!! its finally happening!!! seven long, grueling years is finally paying off!!!

merlin, realizing the misunderstanding and acknowledging the fact that he wasn’t rejected, his flirtations just weren’t noticed - realizing he still has a chance: oh…oh i see. arthur, my dear, our fights were extremely flirtatious. need i remind you of what you said? “do you know how to walk on your knees? would you like me to teach you?” or “i could take you apart with one blow”

arthur, mental capabilities at an all time low: m…my dear….?????????

merlin grinning devilishly as he realizes that his flirtatious persona he had hidden away after falling head over heels for arthur can make a come back: that is what i called you. should i call you something else? say…mine?

percival gags in elyan’s ear: cheesy

elyan hides a laugh: at least they’re finally getting somewhere. better than the hopeless pining

arthur, flushed from head to toe: ah uh no um im uh

merlin thoroughly enjoying himself: oh come now, your majesty. use your words.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji Goes To Lotus Pier AU: Part 5: Flip Slip.

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 4.5)