#i think he knows Blitz will catch him

[backpackingspace]

Hey can we talk about how freaking strong blitz is? Like he regularly picks up other characters all the time.

[moonstruckme]

Okay I’ve been thinking of request ideas for Thawing Out all day while I was at work 😂 What about if something happened with her on the way to practice (nothing serious but maybe it shook her up a bit) and she was late and clearly acting off? Obviously her boys are going to notice…

Love you as always, hope you’re doing amazing! 💖💖💖

Thank you Amber my love!!! Hope you like it <3

collab with @ellecdc

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10 | part 11 | part 12 | part 13 | part 14 | part 15 | part 16

cw: modern au, chronic pain, mention of harassment

poly!wolfstar x fem!reader ♡ 1.6k words

You come into the rink with quick, determined steps, blitzing past every door in your path until you get to the bleachers. Sirius is already on the ice, Remus leaned against the boards while he watches. Both boys turn when you sit down. 

“Hello,” Sirius calls, clearly chuffed to have you here as a buffer between him and your bristly coach. “Where’s my latte?”

“No time today,” you say back. You jam your foot into a skate. 

Remus gives you a scrutinous look. “You alright?”

“Fine. Sorry I’m late.” 

You get your skates on in record time, laced up tight enough to hurt. Sirius is ready for you in your starting position, his hands firm on your shoulders. He gives a little squeeze, meant to coax a smile out of you, but you’re in no mood. 

“I was just fucking with you about the latte,” he says lowly. “I don’t need it to get through practice, though he has been especially insufferable this morning.” 

You glance at Remus. He looks the same as always, half relaxed and half watchful. He and Sirius have fallen into a routine of petty spats that you suspect don’t exactly make him look forward to practice every morning, and yet he seems to be getting used to the both of you. He’s less curt than he had been during your first few days together. 

“You only say that because you were here alone with him,” you say. 

“It didn’t help. Without you here he’s in his most unfiltered, fogey form.” 

Your skating is as near to flawless as it’s been in weeks. You throw yourself into each jump with everything you have, using the hot emotions simmering beneath your skin to your advantage. And it works. Remus looks caught offguard but directs several nods of approval your way, whereas Sirius is all untempered joy. His grin widens with each flawless landing, and when you finish your most difficult move in the routine he actually whoops. You think you see Remus’ lips twitch at that. 

“There she is!” Sirius grips your hand, squeezing tight as you go into a synchronized arabesque. His hair is pulled back into a bun, but a couple of loose pieces flutter around his face as he skates backwards. He looks so happy for you, and some of that tight feeling you’ve been carrying around all morning dissipates. You smile back at him. 

You both go into a lutz. It’s a jump you’ve done half a million times. It should be a given, perfect every time. And yet you catch your mistake in midair. 

You land on your hands and knees. 

You pant a couple of times, and your next breath scrapes on the way in. Tears press at your eyes horrifyingly fast, like they’ve only been waiting for their chance. You press your nose to the ice. 

Skates hiss until they’re next to you, Sirius’ hand on your back. 

“What’s wrong? What happened?” 

You shake your head, humiliated by your fall and even more so by this fracturing, how easily it came on. You feel pathetic. 

“Where is it?” Sirius’ voice climbs, growing shrill with panic. “Let me see. How bad is it?” 

He’s trying to sit you up, hands cold and gentle and frantic, but his touch stills when a warmer one meets your shoulder. 

“Are you hurt?” Remus asks. 

“No.” You finally find your voice, but it’s pitchy and awful. “I’m sorry.” 

“Fuck. Fucking hell.” In the next second you’re smushed against Sirius, who hugs you tight as soon as he knows he doesn’t have to be delicate with you. “You scared the shit out of me.” 

“I’m sorry.” Your face feels hotter than hot in the cold rink. You push into your eyes with your fingertips. “God, what the fuck! I thought I fixed it. I don’t understand why this is still happening.” 

You’re sobbing now, tiny explosions that start in your chest and ricochet all the way through you, but fuming all the same. 

“You were both right, I’m holding myself back. I thought I could stop, but it just keeps happening, and I can’t do this. I’m so incompetent I can’t even do a fucking lutz. We need to find Sirius a new partner. I can’t hold us back anymore, I—” 

“Hey.” 

Remus’ voice is harsh, but not as harsh as Sirius’ grip on you turns at the sound of it. Your partner’s face goes sharp and cruel in an instant, an animal bearing its teeth. 

Remus pays him no mind. He keeps his eyes on yours, firm and unrelenting. “Don’t speak about yourself that way,” he says. 

You feel Sirius’ hold slacken in surprise. 

Another tear trudges down your face, and Remus’ expression gentles. “Everyone falls,” he tells you. “You have been improving, faster than I thought was possible, but you can’t expect it to happen all at once. You’re still going to fall sometimes. It’s alright. We’re working on it, yeah?” 

You sniff, wiping underneath your eyes. “Yeah,” you squeak out. “Sorry.” 

“You don’t need to be sorry. Just give yourself some grace, yeah?” His lips press together in a little grimace that’s likely meant to be a smile. “It’s my job to be hard on you, not yours. You’re allowed to fuck up. It doesn’t make you incompetent, or unworthy of competing with Sirius. You are the best person to be his partner. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be here, understand?” 

“Yeah.” You take a deep breath in. “Thank you.” It stutters a bit on the way out, catching on another tiny sob you can’t help. This one comes from a place of relief, but Sirius’ cold fingers dig into your arm anyway and Remus’ brows twitch slightly as though it hurts him, too. 

“No problem,” he says softly. “Are you sure you haven’t hurt yourself?” 

You nod, closing your eyes to will yourself calmer. 

“Good. Do you want to leave off early today?” 

You swallow and start to stand. “No. I’m okay.” 

“No.” Sirius’ voice is bemused enough to sound like a question. He rises beside you, looking at you like he’s trying to puzzle you out. “No, something’s up with you today. We should stop.” 

Remus seems to go along with him, starting back towards the opening in the boards, and you think wryly that if one good thing comes from all this it might be those two finally starting to get along. You also realize for the first time that Remus is out here with you on the ice. It’s the first time you’ve seen him so much as think about coming off of the bleachers, even if he is only in regular shoes and leaning heavily on his good hip as he makes his way back towards them. 

“I’m okay,” you repeat to Sirius. 

He shakes his head. “You’ve been weird since you got here. What happened?”

“Nothing happened.” 

“Something did.” 

You push out a frustrated breath. “Nothing relevant.” 

“But something did happen.” 

He’s steering you towards the exit now. It feels petulant to rip away and stay on the ice even if no one else will, though that’s what you’d really like to do. 

“Are you actively trying to piss me off?” you ask him. 

Sirius shrugs, stepping onto the floor. “If that’s what’s going to work. I only want to know what got you so upset.” 

“Nothing.” 

“Here we are again. Back to ‘nothing.’” 

Remus is watching you both like you’re a show his TV has randomly flipped to. Tentative of where he stands, but definitely entertained. 

You hate that this has become such a big thing. “It’s really nothing,” you say, planting yourself on the bench with a force that perhaps belies your claim. “It was just some git on the way here this morning.” 

Sirius’ eyebrows go up while Remus’ come down. 

“And what did this git have to say to you?” Sirius asks. 

You sigh, starting to unlace your skates since apparently practice is over. “It’s not what he said. He only asked me out, which is fine, but then he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He, like, grabbed onto my arm and wouldn’t let go for a bit.” 

Sirius’ expression goes stormy. It’s almost as bad as the look he’d given Remus earlier, only without a target to be directed at. “Are you fucking joking?” 

“It was fine,” you say. “I made it here, didn’t I? It just freaked me out a little. And pissed me off.” 

“Yeah, you should be pissed!” Sirius starts pacing, mindless of the indents his blades are putting into the rubber flooring. “Who does that? Did he think—what, you were just going to have to go out with him if he took you captive?” 

“I don’t know.” You give him a dead-eyed stare. “I didn’t ask him.” 

“God, you should be able to walk to fucking practice in the morning without being accosted by—by some—”

“Do you need someone to walk with you in the mornings?” Remus seems uninterested in waiting to hear what creative insult Sirius comes up with for the git. He looks at you steadily, his jaw tight but ready to accept whatever answer you give him. 

“No,” you say. “Like I said, it was really nothing.” 

“It upset you,” he says matter-of-factly. “That’s not nothing.” 

“I can walk you.” Sirius plonks down beside you on the bench, seeming to have come to a decision. “Just wait for me inside tomorrow morning, and I’ll come pick you up.” 

You can’t help but smile at that. “If I leave it to you, we’ll never get here. There’ll never be another morning practice again.” Remus’ tongue pokes into his cheek like he’s repressing a grin. 

“Wha—so little faith!” Sirius sputters, straightening before he’s so much as touched his laces. “I’ll be there, okay? We will be needing to pick up my coffee on the way here, though.” 

You give him a skeptical look. “You realize I wake up a half hour earlier to have time to get those?” 

“Fucking hell! Do you really?”

[demon-country]

Man, no wonder Stolas got literal heart eyes after Blitz did this. This was his "Harriet! Don't get on that train!" moment, the big gesture he so desperately wanted just so he'd know that Blitz really did care about him enough to want him to stay. He had been so sure that that was going to be the last time he ever saw Blitz, that the last thing he ever did would be saving Blitz's life, and Blitz's response was to fight against the chains dragging him away just so he could run to Stolas with a desperate, heart-wrenching plea not to sacrifice himself.

Blitz had thought for sure that he'd never be able to give Stolas the kind of dramatic romcom moment Stolas longed for, but the joke's on him and us, because even though we all knew he would inevitably end up giving Stolas one and were eagerly awaiting it, no one expected it to be like that. And yet, the writers pulled through for us once again, because there really could not have been a more meaningful and moving way for him to have done so.

Anything where Blitz actually said something along the lines of "don't get on that train", could have been misconstrued by both Stolas and irl media illiterate viewers as Blitz just saying what Stolas wanted to hear without actually meaning it (assuming Stolas even remembers that conversation). But there was nothing contrived about this, there was no time for him to have possibly thought about any potential romcom moments at all; he just saw that he was about to lose Stolas for good and fought as hard and as frantically as he could, just to beg Stolas not to take the fall for him. To not love him so much that he'd think Blitz was worth protecting with his very life.

And I don't even think he realizes just how much that meant to Stolas, to know that the man he loves would fight for him with such fervor, despite knowing that it was a fruitless effort. Blitz, without knowing it and without even realizing just how much raw, earnest, desperate love he was displaying, gave Stolas exactly the kind of overt and undeniable proof that he was loved and wanted that he had always needed.

Except that, as Stolas has already found out, that's not enough. He made his big gesture to Blitz and Blitz made one to him, and that's a great start, but love's not just shown through grand gestures and they're not what'll help you pick up the pieces when your world falls apart.

The smaller, softer, quieter gestures of love are what Stolas will need most going forward, but for someone who has received as little love in his life as Stolas has, who has suffered from depression for ages, and who has just lost almost everything (including his antidepressants!), it might end up being hard for him to tell the difference between what is done out of love and what is done out of mere obligation to repay a debt. Not to worry, though, because he'll learn how to spot it soon enough.

He'll see that sometimes love is shown by taking care of someone when they don't have the strength to do it themselves

And by taking them by the hand and giving them a place to rest when it all becomes too much for them to bear

And by catching them when they fall, even when you're upset with each other

And by being so comforting that they feel safe falling asleep and leaving themselves vulnerable next to you without any hesitation.

Perhaps the greatest injustice the world has dealt to Blitz is by convincing him that he ruins lives, when the truth is that the person behind his walls has a way of loving people that is so incredibly healing. Simply by being his real, honest self, he manages to give the people he cares about the kind of love they need the most, without even trying. Without even noticing how much his words and actions have affected them for the better.

And now that those walls have started to drop, his loved ones have been able to start showing how much they love and want to support him as well. I have faith that once Stolas has cottoned on to the little ways Blitz has been showing him that he cares, that he'll start reciprocating those gestures. The man is such a romantic and in the song Just Look My Way he even says "I can give you everything you need" as well as "and no matter what in this world I could give, it's not enough"; there's no way he won't eventually try to provide for and take care of Blitz once he's well enough to. He just needs some time to heal, and until then Blitz will be there, giving him the love and care that he needs to keep his head above water.

Tl;dr: all the people who said that Blitz would never be able to give Stolas what he needs in a partner have just been proven dead wrong on all counts, and will continue to be proven so.

[fatesundress]

⭑ for the love that used to be here. tom riddle x reader

summary. you and tom are the only muggle-borns in slytherin, until one day he isn’t.

tags. angst, afab reader who is referred to as a witch a few times and rooms with girls but i don't think i ever use she/her pronouns or say the word girl/woman, biggest warning is that this is SO long (idk what compelled me to write a year 1 – post-hogwarts fic but here we are twenty thousand damn words later), blood purity and bigotry, dumbledore is greatly offended by the bonding of two orphans until he can capitalise on it, frequent wwii mentions (specifically the blitz), book clerk tom, MURDERER TOM… ministry reader, kissing, smut once they’re 21/22 May all the minors in the room exit at once, more angst, sad ending kinda, me spreading a very personal and very nefarious tom riddle agenda that is canon to ME but probably only like two other people

note. i need a shower and an exorcism after writing this shit. i'm exhausted. i don't even remember half of it. but i'm also SO stoked, this is my little (very large, frankly) 100 followers celebration! i've only been on here for about a month and the love has been so crazy so thank you mwah mwah mwah ♡

word count. 21.8k (i know... i KNOW)

You learn quickly that your shade of green is not the same as theirs. The rest of them are emeralds, even at that age — they glitter with their parent’s polish. You are flotsam, sea-sick, envy green; the putrid boiling stuff that brews in your cauldron when you look away for a second too long, and, really, it’s more of a stain than a colour at all. There is a fraction of a second where you find something powerful in that. You are not an easy thing to remove. And then it’s gone, because they want to so badly.

You learn, with a bit less tact, that you doesn’t actually mean just you; that it’s you and him whether you like it or not.

He evidently does not.

“It has to be completely fine,” Tom says to you in Potions, his voice small then but just as practised.

You narrow your eyes. “‘Scuse me?”

“I said the powder has to be completely fine.”

“I heard you completely fine. I know how to read.”

He stares blankly at you before returning to his own station, and that’s that.

It isn’t unheard of for muggle-borns to be sorted into Slytherin, so you’ve been told, but one glance around your common room and you can see it’s pretty damn rare.

There’s Tom Riddle, there’s you, and there’s a seventh-year girl whose knuckles are always white like she’s spent so long with her hands balled into fists that they don’t know how to do anything else. Tom Riddle is a prat, the girl is too old and unapproachable even if she wasn’t, and you are very good at being alone.

That decides it. Flotsam still floats.

Everything is — fine. It’s fine for months; you have no one and need no one and sometimes you catch a jinx in the back of Charms that zips your mouth shut or bends a foot the wrong way (a cruel reminder of how much more these people know than you) and your broom occasionally pivots so sharply the Flying professor has to stop you from careening into a wall and breaking enough bones for a week’s worth of Skele-Gro, but it’s fine. 

…It’s just that he’s insufferable.

The boy is eleven years old and he speaks like he’s stealing glances at an invisible lexicon between every word, more refined than any of the orphans you grew up with which makes you wonder which sort he’s surrounded by, and you take it upon yourself to theorise in passing if you could ever scare him badly enough his real voice would slip and he might just appear human for once.

Only it becomes clear when you’re stirring awake in the Hospital Wing after a mysterious bout of dragon pox (conveniently, all the pureblood children developed an immunity after catching it young) has rendered you bed-ridden and pockmarked, that you don’t think anything can scare Tom Riddle. He’s suffering just as well in the bed beside yours to keep the contagion to the two of you, and he’s all cold, eddied rage under sallow skin and beetling bones. 

“They’re going to kill you,” he says after three days of silence, when the room is dusted in moonlight so thin it’s like squinting through cinema noise or mohair fluff to try to see him.

You blink at the vague shape of him. “What?”

“If you don’t hurt them back, eventually, they’ll just kill you.”

In hindsight, it’s an assumption so hastily bleak only a scared child could make it.

I want to hurt them, you try to say, but for what follows you cannot: I want to hurt them but I’m not good enough to do it.

You roll over and pretend to sleep, and in the morning, you hurt them anyway.

It’s Avery who’s unlucky enough to be the first to test you when you’re three assignments behind in Transfiguration, still a bit groggy from your last dose of Gorsemoor Elixir, and actually, physically green. He tugs your hair and stings your cheek with the promise of “bringing a bit of colour back to your face” and it’s sort of funny how banal it is compared to the other transgressions you’ve been dealt — that this is the thing that makes you bare your teeth, grip your wand in a hand that still can’t hold half of it, and send Avery flying across the room with a Knockback Jinx.

Tom sits with you in the Great Hall for dinner that night, and he never really stops.

You practise spells by the Black Lake between classes and he’s anything but kind about the ordeal, but you teach each other. You end your days with singe prints and sore wrists and you often take more damage than he does, but sometimes, as spring settles in with warm tones (apple and jade and moss — all the greens you’d never imagined), you leave with less bruises than he does. It hardly feels like friendship. It feels much more like purpose.

When summer comes you don’t write to him, and you don’t expect he will either. You don’t suppose you’ve actually written a letter in your life. Instead you try new wand movements under your quilt every night and wait for August’s departure on a big red train.

You sit together when the day does come. He asks you if you’ve been practising. You frown and tell him you’re not allowed to use magic outside of school.

Second year is nothing but monotonous, antiquated theoretics. Most everyone complains. You don’t see why they should — they’re already aeons ahead of you — but that means you finally have a chance to catch up in your less-than-school-sanctioned meetings with Tom while the rest remain practically stationary. 

Deputy Headmaster and Transfiguration professor Albus Dumbledore is imperceptibly less soft with you than he was last year when you make the apparently poor decision to sit beside Tom on the first day, and you file the subtle shift in demeanour into some mental cabinet to review later.

You find workarounds with the librarian, Madam Palles, inclined to sympathy for the poor, orphaned muggle-borns to grant relatively unfettered daytime access to the Restricted Section so long as you keep it tidy and none of the books leave the library. That’s where things get a bit more interesting.

For a month you remain innocuous as can be. You browse through rare historical tomes and foreign biographies that would charge more galleons than you can conceptualise, and you never leave so much as a tea stain on the parchment. You smile at the Madam when you return the key each night, and walk back to the dungeons with your hands behind your back. It is, of course, totally unrelated that a month is what it takes for Tom to master the third-year curriculum’s Doubling Charm. An entirely separate affair when you meet him in the most secluded alcove of the library, slip him the key, and stifle your grin as he duplicates it perfectly. 

You discover Christmas break is your favourite time of the year. Nearly all the purebloods go home. The Slytherin dormitories are effectively halved.

It’s two weeks of earnest, uninterrupted work and sleep without fear of waking up with jelly legs or whiskers.

Madam Palles, most nights, makes a slight, drowsy effort of searching the library for leftover students before she casts the lights out and closes the door. Then, it belongs to you and Tom.

You’re splayed rather ridiculously over one of the big reading chairs on Christmas Eve, Lore of Godelot in hand, enthralled by a chapter detailing his controlled use of Fiendfyre through the power of the Elder Wand.

Tom is cross-legged and sat straight, his brows furrowed in concentration.

“What’ve you got?” you ask, leaning over to answer your own question.

Tom as good as rolls his eyes, holding up the book to give you an easier look.

“Magick Moste Evile?” You scrunch your nose. “Bit much, don’t you think?”

“It’s the stuff they’ll never teach us.”

“I wonder why.”

He steals a glance at your own book and smiles in that smug way that makes you want to slap him.

“What, Tom?”

He shrugs. “You might want to know you’re reading stories about the author.”

You look down. Lore of — Godelot wrote Magick Moste Evile? 

It shouldn’t really be surprising. Three chapters ago your book was recounting his months in Yugoslavia grave-robbing magical burial sites.

“Whatever,” you mumble, “It’s just a biography. Least I’m not reading the words out of his mouth.”

“Well, they’d be out of his quill.”

“Oh my God, Tom, shut up.”

All good things must come to an end. Term resumes and your hackles are back up. 

Abraxas Malfoy, Antonin Dolohov, Walburga Black and the best of the worst of your house have returned, sleek-haired and insatiable and deranged, truly, in such a manner that you don’t think you can be blamed for the instinct you feel every time you pass them to lunge like a wild predator or run like wild prey. All Tom does, though (and so you follow, because he’s standing with you and who has ever done that?) is meet their gazes with equal assuredness. He never seems bothered. He never seems animal. You are still all hammering heart and heavy lungs, and you are learning not to see the world through the eyes of someone who’s only ever had their fists to fight. You have magic, you remember. You’re good at it. You could hurt them, if you really wanted.

Not much is different that summer than the last. The war is hard. The food is hard to chew. You chip a tooth. You’re too afraid to fix it with the Trace on you, but you still smile because you will, and everyone seems put off by that. What is there to smile about? 

You suppose, for them, it’s a question with few answers. 

For you — you’re back on a big red train musing about the functions of muggle warfare with Tom Riddle, chucking a useless card from a chocolate frog out the window and moaning about how you wasted the sickle you found under your seat.

He’s gotten very good at ignoring your theatrics and going right back to whatever it was he was talking about. And you note, unrelatedly, he almost looks like he’s learned how to open the windows at Wool’s. (You dare not suggest he’s doing something so ludicrous as sitting in the sun too, but this is a start.)

Dippet, or the Minister, or whoever it is that’s in charge of the practicality of the curriculum, has become fractionally less stupid in the last three months.

You don’t have to rely on nights in the Restricted Section or weekends at the Black Lake to actually learn something anymore. Of course, without the assistance of those illicit extracurriculars, you wouldn’t be able to match up to your peers the way you are this year, but it’s nice to duel with dummies instead of motioning your wand vaguely over a desk, and you and Tom still climb the notice boards in rapid succession. 

They hate you for it. One of your roommates makes a pointed effort each night to glare at you from her bed like those jelly legs are back on the table, Orion Black (two years younger but just as nasty as his cousin) nearly trips you on your way to Divination, Abraxas Malfoy develops what you think borders on obsession with Tom, and for once it feels almost offhand to not care about any of it.

You’re beginning to think even at its best, Hogwarts is remarkably insufficient. This leads you to books mercifully unrestricted so you can read about a few of the other magical schools for comparison. Beauxbatons is renowned for providing most of the worlds alchemical developments, Uagadou’s early propensity for wandless magic makes it unfathomably more practical than Hogwarts, Durmstrang (though you scoff at their violent anti-muggle sentiment) teaches the Dark Arts as something beneficial rather than unforgivable, and — what do you learn here? Even with the hair’s-breadth of magical leniency you’ve been allowed this year, it’s no surprise so few recognizable names in wizarding history are Hogwarts alumni.

“Let me have a look at that,” you say to Tom one evening, when he’s peering once more over the pages of Magick Moste Evile. He’s a purveyor of knowledge in all forms, but he always seems to come back to Godelot in the end.

He raises a brow, handing it to you like your intrigue doubles his. “No more reservations?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I’m only curious.”

“Curiosity—”

“Killed the damn cat, I know.” You glare at him through the pages. “I think that’s you, in this case though, since you’re the one in love with the bloody thing.”

He shakes his head as he reclines in the low light of the Restricted Section, muttering something that sounds like “ridiculous,” or “querulous,” or something else unimaginably fucking annoying.

You might be wrong. Retract your last quip and expunge it. If Tom’s in love with any book, it’s the behemoth dictionary he’s been spitting stupid adjectives out of since he was eleven.

But Godelot’s musings on the Dark Arts are fascinating enough that you can understand the appeal. He’s no wordsmith, and you appreciate that in a way you’re sure Tom deems regrettable, but his points are straightforward but thoughtful in such a way you can read in them how he was guided by the Elder Wand through everything he did. There’s a stream-of-consciousness to them. Something doctrinal you’re surprised to enjoy for all the obligatory English creed they washed your mouth with at the orphanage.

“Find what you’re looking for?” Tom asks, combing with little interest through the tomb you’d put down in favour of his.

“I’m not looking for anything. I’m just…” You sigh. It’s almost painful to say. “I think you were right, and — oh, shut up, don’t look at me like that — I don’t think we’re learning anything here. Not really; not as much as they do at other schools.”

“Of course,” he says blankly. “Hence this.”

This — restricted books and furtive duels — should not be necessary. 

“You know that’s not gonna be enough. For the rest of them, maybe, but not us.”

He tenses how he always does at the reminder of his difference. And you get it. Sometimes in moments like these you forget the reason you’re here in the first place. It isn’t just the rebellious divertissement of two academically eager students, it’s… survival. What future do you have as a penniless orphan in wartorn London? What future do you have as a muggle-born Slytherin who’s apt with a wand when there are a thousand more your age, just as skilled and twice as pure? 

It isn’t enough to be as good as them. You have to best them, and you have to do it forever.

The night stumbles into an exhaustive silence because you both know it’s true and it’s a bit too heavy right now. The answer isn’t in this room. Just you. Just him. So you sit in the dark and you stare through that muffled nighttime noise playing tricks on your eyes. The worst of the world can wait until morning. 

The worst of the world has impeccable timing.

A fault of both sides of the coin; the muggle world is a travesty and the wizarding world is just a bit fucking late, really.

So there’s the newspaper. It’s October first and the date reads September tenth. School owls are a joke and you can’t afford anything better.

And it’s a dirty, ashen grey. It smudges your green if you ever had it at all. You were born to this and you will return to it always.

BOMB’S HAVOC IN CROWDED PUBLIC SHELTER

MOTHERS AND CHILDREN AMONG THE CASUALTIES

DAMAGE CONSIDERABLE, BUT SPIRITS UNBROKEN

All you can hope to do is pass the paper to Tom and wonder without words what you’ll go home to.

The answer is very little when the summer clouds your vision with dust and you stand dumbly with your suitcase in front of nothing at all. You’d tried your best until your departure to keep up with muggle news, but it had remained, routinely, a month behind with the owls. By the time June arrived you were still holding your breath through May. Tom had attempted to reason with Dippet for summer lodgings at the school but you were both denied in light of the exquisite mercy — the bombs have stopped! The Blitz has ended! Go back to the aftermath and make do with the craters.

It’s a bit ironic that Tom’s orphanage survived and yours didn’t. At least you can finally see what all the fuss is about.

In truth, it’s more strange than anything. You feel unreasonably like you’re impeding on a part of him that has never belonged to you (if any of him does); that place where you intersect but never draw attention to. You remind yourself you had no choice in the matter. The system puts you where it wants to, and these days the options are slim. But it’s — the walls are amber-black tile and plaster, lined with sanitary-smelling hospital beds and a cupboard per room. Per room, you think; you’ve got one of those now, and with only one girl to share it with. 

You figure the reason for the extra space is probably not one you want to know.

Anyway, you don’t actually see Tom for two days. The caretakers bring you a tray of dinner that’s vaguely warm and a bit too salty and you sleep off the debris you think you breathed in that morning, half-sated and sun-tired.

But then you do see him, and he’s in these funny uniform shorts and a thick blazer and your greeting is an offhand joke about the scandal of his knees that he doesn’t seem to appreciate. He eyes your muggle clothes while you wait for your own set and you know you really don’t have any room to judge. 

He doesn’t, or at least doesn’t say he minds your relocation.

You spend half the summer waking up in the middle of the night to acquaint yourselves with the London tube stations, and the other half in whatever crevices of the orphanage you aren’t harangued by Mrs Cole every five seconds, which are far and few between. She seems to have decided fourteen is old enough an age to worry about your intentions unchaperoned, like it’s the bloody 1800’s, and admonishes you and Tom relentlessly despite only ever finding you quietly buried in useless books. 

You begin to miss Madam Palles and her invaluable pity. Everyone’s an orphan here. No one’s sorry.

“What’s his deal?” you ask one stuffy afternoon, reclining in your creaking seat to prop your legs on the desk.

Tom knocks them off (he’s so well-mannered that you sometimes push these little gestures of impropriety just to bother him) and glances at the target of your question. Some broad, blond boy who skitters down the corridor a shade paler than he arrived. You’ve yet to properly introduce yourself to anyone you don’t have to, so names are muddy when you try to apply them to faces.

He shrugs, but there’s a flash of something in his expression you’re fascinated to realise is unfamiliar. “He’s an imbecile.”

“...Riiiiight, but that isn’t a proper answer.”

You smile. Legs return to table. Timeworn Oxfords muddy the surface. Tom scowls. 

“There was an altercation last year,” he says tersely, “he’s rather fixated on the matter.”

“An altercation.”

“Very good, that is what I said.”

You narrow your eyes and he sweeps your legs off the desk again, gaze catching the unmistakable ribbon of an old bullied scar on your shin. 

“And I suppose you’re above such incidents,” he muses.

You cross your arms and huff. He always wins games like these.

You’re grateful when you return to Hogwarts in one piece after your final night of summer is spent underground, and the certainty of knowing where you’ll rest your head for the next ten months cannot be understated. 

But the worst thing has happened, and you blame it on the flicker of a moment where you missed Madam Palles like it was some jubilant, accidental curse to ever miss anyone. A foreign thing you remind yourself never to do again. 

She’s only gone and jinxed the locks to the Restricted Section so they cry like newborn Mandrakes when Tom’s replica key clicks in place.

For a second you both stand there looking stupidly at each other. Getting caught was a fear two years ago; you’d almost forgotten it was still possible.

Tom is quicker to collect himself. He grabs you by the arm and casts a Disillusionment Charm, and you don’t burst running out of the library like two blurry suncatchers reflecting the candlelight as your instinct heeds; you cling to the shelves and you slither silently to the door. (You’ll make a joke about it when you can breathe.)

Madam Palles the Traitor comes heaving into the library in her nightgown, a blinding blue light baubled at the end of her wand, and it’s really just theatrical at this point to use Lumos bloody Maxima when the basic spell would do the job just fine.

��Has she suspected us the whole time?” you say on gasp once you’ve made it to the dungeons.

“Perhaps someone else has,” Tom suggests.

“What? Malfoy?”

You think it’s a good first guess. It could have been any of the Slytherins, upon consideration, but Malfoy seemed most fixated on Tom last year and it wouldn’t surprise you to learn he’d been observant enough to follow you to the library and notice you don’t leave with the other students.

But Tom quashes the idea. “I’m doubtful. Malfoy is attentive, but Madam Palles is hardly partial to him.” (He had, in second year, set one of her books on fire while studying offensive spells.) “I suspect it was someone with more influence.”

Only no one has more influence than Abraxas Malfoy. The rest of the Slytherins follow him like lost pups. But then Tom might mean —

“A professor?”

“It may be.” He says it like he’s already decided his suspect.

He is, as always, and ever-infuriatingly, correct.

It’s that file you tucked away for later, reoccurring when you return to Transfiguration in the morning like a second epiphany: Dumbledore.

He assigns the term’s seating arrangements, which he’s never done before, and there’s something in his tone when he pairs you with Rosier that feels intentionally like not pairing you with Tom. You don’t think it’s paranoia clouding your better judgement, and by the way Tom’s gaze hardens as he takes his seat beside Malfoy, neither does he.

Dumbledore is suspicious for a number of reasons. He disappears for weeks at a time. The Prophet writes articles on his sightings in Austria and France like he’s an endling beast. He’s being sighted in Austria and France — two notable countries in Grindelwald’s ongoing war. Perhaps ancillary, you’ve decided the charmed glass repositories he uses to hold his old artefacts are the same ones encasing the least permissible books in the Restricted Section. And if that isn’t paranoia (which, you’re willing to admit, it may be) then you assume he has them so proudly on display because he wants you to know.

You consider it a warning.

Tom does not.

“Just give it up,” you hiss over a game of wizard’s chess, “I bet we’ve read every book in there twice already anyway.”

His jaw ticks as the sole indicator of his annoyance, and he takes your rook. You scowl.

“Tom, that man thinks you’re devil-spawn. You know he’s just waiting for an opportunity to catch you doing something wrong.”

“So?”

It sounds so petulant you think he’s been possessed by his eleven-year-old self. Then you think he was a lot wiser at eleven.

“So?” You make an aggressive move with your knight. “So don’t give him one!”

He stares at the board and his breath is just a trace sharper and you hate that you know him like this and no one else. You wonder if he knows you like that too, but resolve with ease that he does not. You’re hard frowns and lewd jokes and trousers torn at the knee to bare scars with stories you wish you could forget. There’s no mystery there. Tom is nothing but — gordian knots and fixed expressions and little patterns to learn like the rules of this stupid game between you. You must know Tom Riddle by every atom or not at all. And that isn’t a choice, really. You’ve never known anyone else.

“Are you stupid, Tom?”

You glance at the board. He’s got Check. A terrible, true answer.

“No,” you finish. “Then don’t act like it.”

Your king glances at you and you nod. He falls. The game is resigned.

Tom acts stupid.

Dumbledore knows.

It all happens very fast.

You strike Tom harder in the arm with Confringo than is likely necessary that night, and he returns the favour with a Knockback Jinx that thrusts you into the shallows of the Black Lake.

You gasp. The cold water feels like it’s swallowing you whole when it strikes, an envelope sealed around you and licked shut for good measure. Everything holds to you, and it’s fucking November. Your senses are so overwhelmed that you forget to murder Tom the instant you sink in. You forget to do much of anything.

You wade trembling out of the lake when sense returns and Tom huffs, peeling off his robe to treat the burn on his arm.

“You—idi—iot,” you mutter, trying to find the incantation for a warming charm but the words get stuck between your chattering teeth. “You stole a re… stricted book.”

Tom glares daggers at you between his poor healing job and you scowl, mincing through the grass and grabbing his arm. “Fucking imbec-cile…”

You’ve done enough damage that if he were anyone else you’d be proud of yourself, and somehow, simultaneously, if he were anyone else you’d be able to manage a pinch of guilt. But he’s Tom, and you know him by every atom, so you cannot be proud, and he’s Tom — he retaliated by tossing you in freezing water and now your clothes are clinging sodden and heavy to every inch of you, so you certainly can’t be guilty either.

“I borrowed it,” he says tightly. As if that means anything at all. And then he takes his robe and drapes it spiritlessly over your shoulders. “You could attempt communication before curses.”

“I could attempt communication,” you scoff, uttering a charm to partially close the gash on Tom’s arm, “Fucking h-hypocrite. I did communicate. You lied.”

“I —”

“Omitted information? Withheld the truth? Watch your mouth or I’ll steal your fucking dictionary, Riddle.”

You swear a great deal when you’re cold and mad, apparently.

“I won’t be caught.” His calm is infuriating. “It would hardly earn expulsion regardless.”

“It doesn’t matter! He knows it’s you! He was staring at you all class!”

“So nothing novel then.”

“D’you want me to blast you again?”

His lips form a flat line. No. That’s what you thought.

You sigh, clutching his robes in your fists to quell your trembling. “What’d you take, anyway? We never touch the encased stuff.”

That is, you assume, why Dumbledore was vexed enough about the whole thing to mention it in class today. A highly valuable book has gone missing, from a repository you dare conclude belongs to him, and he has to pretend all the while not to know it’s Tom who took it. You are out of the question. Theirs is some delicate vendetta you can’t begin to unfurl.

“Nothing anyone should miss,” Tom says, a complete non-answer as he stops to murmur a warming charm you could probably manage yourself by now.

“Tom.”

“It was an encyclopaedia. It’s entirely in Runes. I suspect it will take months for me to decipher.”

“God’s sake,” you groan. He really is exhausting. “I think Dumbledore’l take his chances and loot your dorm before that happens.”

Tom wipes a stray droplet of water from your cheek. His fingers are soft. “We should return. You look half-drowned.”

“I am half-drowned, dickhead.”

And you accost him in hushed tones the whole walk back. Runes, Tom, really? Threw me in the damn lake over a Runic Encyclopaedia? He accosts you just the same; You burned me first.

It does, in fact, take Tom months to decipher the Runes, and he’s quite secretive about it. He won’t let you see the book, won’t tell you what it’s about, won’t indulge your queries on how far he’s gotten or if it’s worth the way Dumbledore bores his eyes into the pair of you in the Great Hall with nothing but the glass of his spectacles to soften his censure. You consider — well — you consider taking your chances and looting his dormitory.

The day everything changes starts the same as any. 

You muse over breakfast about muggle news and how the way Tom holds his wand when he casts defensive spells is too sharp when it should be circular. He argues. You soften the criticism by telling him his offensive magic is stellar but you’ll always beat him in defence if he doesn’t swallow his damn pride and listen to you for once. (So, really, you soften it very little.) He doesn’t take Divination so you don’t see him until Herbology that afternoon and he’s silent enough during the hour you share with your wormwood plant that you know he’s done it sometime between breakfast and now. 

Tom has cracked the book.

It’s late spring and the night takes longer to settle than it did in the winter. Errant sunbeams still sparkle on the water when you meet him by the lake, and it’s warm enough to forgo a coat.

“Are you going to tell me what it’s about now?” you ask without preamble, arms crossed over your chest as he approaches.

He hands you the book like it’s worth something to you without his explanation, but you’re intelligent enough to gather something from the illustrations of two twined snakes embroidering the cover.

“I should have suspected it sooner,” Tom says before you can comment. “By the way Dumbledore acted when I told him… I should have known he would have wanted to keep it from me.”

“Tom, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s an Encyclopaedia on Parseltongue and its known speakers.”

You flip through the pages and none of it means anything. “Parseltongue?”

“The language of serpents,” Tom supplies, and the two of you walk along the edge of the forest. “It’s almost exclusively hereditary.”

“Okay, so, what — you’re trying to learn it anyway?”

“I have no need.”

You frown. “You… you already know it.”

“I always have,” he says, and there’s something almost unrestrained in his voice. He’s proud in a new light, and it takes you a moment to understand and you’re not sure why exactly it makes your heart sink, but —

“You’re not muggle-born.”

“No, I’m not. And Dumbledore knows.”

“So, he —” You try not to sound crushed because why should you be? Why should it matter that he isn’t some exact reflection of you? He’s at your side, he’s still there, he’ll always be there — “How does he know?”

“When he came to Wool’s to inform me I'd been accepted at Hogwarts. I hadn’t known anything, certainly not that speaking to snakes is emphatically rare, so I asked him. He said it was ‘not a peculiar gift.’ Perhaps to keep my interest at a minimum.”

“Why would he lie?”

“Because it isn’t just that I’m of magical blood. I’m a descendant of Salazar Slytherin.”

You can’t be faulted for laughing. It’s not often Tom makes jokes, let alone funny ones.

“That’s good, Tom. Morgana used to have tea with my great-great-hundredth-great-grandmother, so that works out nice.”

He sighs, taking your hand and leading you further into the woods.

“Are you trying to murder me?”

“I might.”

“You’d be the first suspect.”

“No, I wouldn’t. You’ve far too many enemies.”

Not by choice, you start to scold, and then he stops, not so far into the Forbidden Forest that you’re afraid, but far enough you understand this is not something he’d chance showing you in the open.

He closes his eyes and whispers, and it’s — decidedly not English. And you know the sound of a few other languages, at least; this doesn’t sound like words at all. His consonants are pointed, his S’s stretched, the syllables repetitive but separated by a difference in cadence someone less perceptive might not notice. 

It shouldn’t be surprising; it’s exactly what he told you, but it startles you how much it reminds you of a snake.

“Tom?” you murmur, unsure at the prospect of speaking some ancient, unknown language into the air of the Forbidden Forest, and, underneath that, still reeling with the knowledge that this is real at all.  You’ve pinched yourself a few times to make sure.

There’s a low susurration in the grass, wet with dew that catches the moonlight, and you gasp, clinging to Tom’s arm when you see the blades part in helices for the space of an adder.

“It’s all right,” Tom says softly, almost elsewhere, his eyes zeroed in on the snake. “It won’t hurt you.”

You’re still by the balance of his arm and some petrifying awe as he extends a hand to the grass and the adder coils around it, weaving upward to his shoulder.

“Oh my God. Oh my God, Tom.”

The adder points its beady gaze at you, and Tom whispers something else in that strange language before it retreats in agreement or compliance or whatever could come close to expression on the face of a fucking snake, and maybe you’re dreaming this despite your pinching. Maybe you’ve lost your mind.

“Hope you didn’t just tell it to bite me,” you try, and it comes out half-choked.

He smiles. It’s partly for you and partly for this venomous little thing on his shoulder, and that’s a bit startling. Tom Riddle smiles for adders and you and not much else. 

“Should I?”

And all you manage, for whatever reason, is, “Don’t be like them now that you’re not like me.”

It’s out before you can stop it, welling from a small, scared place that embarrasses you to return to. A hospital bed when you were eleven. The walls of a bedroom ravaged by bombs.

Tom’s smile fades. “We’re nothing like them.”

The thing is, neither of you know that’s the day that changes everything.

You celebrate your fifteenth birthday in the Deathday ballroom with Tom, a stolen dinner pastry, a green candle, and a few sad ghosts. You try to learn how to dance. Tom thinks it’s silly. You tell him that’s only because he’s upset he keeps stepping on your toes.

Summer blisters when it comes.

Some of the children take jobs as mail-sorters and steelworkers and you clasp for whatever you’re (one) allowed and (two) capable of, which isn’t much. You’re both old enough at the end of the day to explore London on your own, opting to spend as much time away from the orphanage as Mrs Cole allots, but you only have knuts and pennies and you warn Tom it would be unwise to swindle muggles and risk a letter from the Ministry. So you work where you’re needed and you eat the rationed nonsense you always do and you miss Hogwarts terribly. It’s much the same: you’re together, you’re hungry, and you’re nothing like them. 

And then it’s different: Tom makes Slytherin Prefect, is suddenly tall, and you wonder in fleeting moments if his face has always suited him this well.

A stupid remark. You fervently ignore it.

Fifth year begins and you have almost the same number of electives as you do core classes, Tom has duties in his new role that take much of his spare time, and despite popular belief, you and him are not a mitotic entity, so this splits you up more often than it had in previous years. Which is fine. You still have plenty of things to talk about during meals and between duels, and you reckon you’ll share DADA until you graduate.

But in his absence, your attentions are forced elsewhere, and you should be grateful they land on something potentially promising.

It’s like Transfiguration just clicks for you this year. You’ve never been the greatest at Transformation (importantly though, you’ve also remained far from the worst), but fifth year launches you into Vanishment and something about that feels like a perfect equation. There are no complicated half-numerals and objects stuck between inanimacy and being — just unmaking the made. Nothing or not. You’re fucking excellent at it. You glean the theoretics fast and then the practise comes like breathing. Even the purebloods struggle as you Vanish Dumbledore’s Conjured garden snakes in brilliant tendrils of light. You exult unabashedly when you brush past them on the way out of class — who was it that didn’t belong in Slytherin?

You say the same to Tom and he rolls his eyes, but the amusement is there.

“Think you can talk to my snakes for me?” you tease, nudging him on the path to Hogsmeade.

“If they’re yours, I doubt they have anything worth discussing.”

And Dumbledore is… a hue nearer to the man you remember from first year. He praises your improvement and smiles when you can’t hide your giddiness as if equally impressed.

He doesn’t shelve people the way Slughorn does (you’re dismayed to find Tom has been invited to join the Slug Club and you have not) but you think if he did you’d be rapidly climbing your way to the top. Maybe get put in one of those neat little repositories he keeps all his best treasures in.

Dumbledore does, however, offer additional assignments for those who are interested, and tasks you with a few if you’re up to the challenge.

You always are.

The Tom-Dumbledore-Encyclopaedia debacle is apparently either resolved, or your part in it forgotten. 

Tom humours you when you’re both singed at the fingers from duelling, yours dipped in the lake while he buries his in the cold moss, about how Abraxas takes the seat beside him at every Slug Club dinner. He tells you he pretends to be very interested in the Malfoy’s business affairs and their stock in the Bulgarian Quidditch team’s win this coming spring. He tells you he finds it amusing to let Abraxas think he can make Tom his pet. Tom says he considers searching for Salazar Slytherin’s fabled Chamber of Secrets and showing Abraxas what a real pet looks like. You smack him in the arm.

He’s had an ego forever. He just has a few too many reasons for it now.

And maybe that’s why you push harder in Transfiguration, dedicate the majority of your studies to it, spend your Saturday nights scrutinising advanced techniques while Tom makes nice with Potions experts and politics with people who don’t even know what he is but like him anyway. It’s patronising, of course — borderline fetishistic; not a real like — but it scares you. Tom Riddle would not allow himself to be anyone’s pretty mudblood show pony if he didn’t have an ulterior motive.

Everything changes but the observable truth that he is still insufferable.

You’re lucky to see him twice a week if it isn’t in class, and the way it starts is so slow you don’t even fully understand what’s happening until Christmas break when Abraxas stays a few extra days and leaves by Dippet’s Floo instead of the train.

You don’t dare ask where Tom has vanished to in that time or why the hell Abraxas Malfoy would willingly subject himself to unnecessarily extended time at school with all his lackeys gone, and it isn’t because you don’t want to. It’s because he won’t tell you himself. It’s because you’re terrified the answer will feel like a broken promise, and you’ve come to realise (it’s been there for so long; such an obvious, tiny thing that you’ve never stopped to really dissect it) that it’s quite difficult to know someone at every atom and not love them a little bit.

You’re suddenly aware of the risk of it: you love him like an inextricable piece of yourself, and, well, you’ve seen war. You know what amputation looks like. You’ve seen the remains of structures designed to stand forever, and you’re strong like them — casts and gauze in all the weak spots because you remember the pain of breaking them — but those were blows dealt without the complication of loving the bombs behind them.

Tom is the green on your robes, the dragon pox tinge you sometimes think never truly faded when you look in the mirror too long, and all the shades you never imagined. Apple, jade, moss. The beginnings of emerald. (No, he couldn’t be that.) 

You wonder what the world would look like if he stole those colours back, and it’s much worse than some brutal decimation; it would leave you with too much. You would just be you without him.

So you love him into June like you always do, and you pluck his Prefect badge off on the last day of school and tell him it makes you jealous like a joke when it’s half-true. 

It’s raining when you walk to the train together, miserable for what should be summer but not at all remarkable in Scotland. Tom wipes it from your cheek. Your wrists are sore from vanishing bits and bobbles all night while you still can, never truly prepared for three months without magic, and you curl into your seat as soon as you’re in it. Tom wakes you up when you arrive back in London, startling you to find that you fell asleep at all.

It rains a lot that summer. There’s nothing much to see in the city and you can’t get anywhere else (you note: the Trace cares little about broomsticks but you can’t afford one of your own and flying might be the only thing Tom is bad at) so you’re stuck to the library again with a noseful of old paper and a certain prose that magical literature cannot replicate. You theorise a lifetime of reckoning with the mundane forces one to be more creative.

Perhaps it’s the cold that makes you sick. Perhaps it’s the state of your meals. Either way, your final weeks before sixth year are hell. Biblical, blazing hell.

The nurses aren’t sure what it is — another influenza epidemic you’re the first in the orphanage to catch — but they isolate you immediately and there’s not much care they can offer. 

You hear Tom arguing with one of them outside your door but can’t make out the words. Everything is dizzy, sweaty, halfway to unconsciousness but without its relief. You’d take dragon pox over this.

Some days later (though you can’t be sure because it feels like bloody centuries), he’s at your bedside, and you think even if you were lucid enough to ask what horrible thing he’d done to change the nurses’ minds, you wouldn’t. 

But you know he’s not beyond breaking wizarding law, because he’s muttering healing spells with a hand to your damp forehead, and you hazily find yourself reaching for him, trying to shake your head no.

“Not allowed,” you mumble. Your throat is sore and your nose is stuffy. You sound terrible and you probably look worse.

Tom is slightly blurry but you think he’s staring at you. You know if he is it’s with the utmost incredulity.

“Not allowed,” he repeats slowly. It’s very easy to picture him clenching his jaw. “I wonder, if the Trace is so exact that it can detect all forms of magic, it can’t also detect malady. You’re burning — and I’m to consider whether saving your life might be illegal?”

He’s angry. He’s angrier than you’ve seen in a long time; and you can actually see it now. His magic courses through you and your vision clears, bit by bit, until your depth perception steadies and you realise he’s closer than you thought. His jaw is, in fact, clenched.

You move to catch his wrist and manage it this time. “Tom.”

“Don’t argue,” he says thinly.

“You’ll get sick.”

His face is far too neutral for the way his fingers stroke your damp cheek. “Hm. Then it’s a good thing you’d break the law for me too.”

Of course he’s right — you love him. Which makes it a good thing he doesn’t get sick.

Some of the younger children do. The fever comes overnight for a girl who wasn’t in the orphanage last year, and it takes her by the next.

When you get back on the train to Hogwarts, the virus is circulating Britain and you’re livid. 

What Tom said is true; you consider the Trace’s precision and the details of the laws on underage magic — how one of the technicalities is that a young witch or wizard may be absolved of the consequences if the circumstances are life-threatening. You think about how it supposedly doesn’t care about broom-riding or Portkeys or Floo travel, and if the Trace is that complex, surely it understands sickness.

You only wonder if the Ministry would understand it. There haven’t been any epidemics in the wizarding world since Gorsemoor cured dragon pox in the sixteenth century, and when there isn’t healing magic there are antidotes and Pepper-Ups and herbs that muggles simply don’t have. The fatality of a fever of all things is not something you imagine could be comprehended by the sort of people who sent you and Tom back to London in the wake of the Blitz.

Of course, the Ministry hasn't written to you, you haven’t been forced in front of a representative from the Improper Use office, and you have no real reason to be upset.

You are regardless. 

It shouldn’t even be a thought: you immolating into oblivion protesting rescue because one of you might get in trouble for it.

A world you’ve never much cared for is blanketed in ash and its people are dying and you can’t help them. A girl is dead. You’ll return next summer and there will certainly be more.

Life is for the magical, you find. The muggles can burn.

It’s what makes you start to panic this year, knowing you’ve only got one more after it. You have no idea what you’re going to do after school, and it doesn’t help that Tom doesn’t appear to share the sentiment. He’s got Head Boy in the bag and when he isn’t with you he’s with Abraxas, who can surely provide him connections if whatever game Tom is playing at works (and you have no doubt it will), but it’s like you said in third year: that isn’t enough for you.

You remember with a small ache that you no longer means you and him.

And then — it makes sense. You feel incredibly stupid.

“You told him, didn’t you?” you ask Tom the first opportunity you can get him alone, in the glum blue light of the Deathday ballroom on your way back from supper.

He sighs like it’s a conversation he’d hoped to put off for longer. “You’re referring to Abraxas, I presume?”

“You’re referring to — yes, you prick, I’m referring to Abraxas. Of course I’m referring to Abraxas, or are there others? Dolohov and Nott seem unusually enthralled by you, now that I think about it.”

“And for a reason I’m supposed to be aware of, this is an error on my part. Should I be apologising?”

“Why did you tell him, Tom?!”

“Why?” he deadpans.

You throw your hands up. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“Shall I provide you with my itinerary as well? Would you accompany me as I tour the third-years around Hogsmeade? Or can you do me the favour of trusting me to make my own decisions with the nature of my ancestry?”

“You’re keeping something from me and there’s a reason,” you say, stepping closer to him, “and forgive me if I want to know what it is when you were willing to tell me you’re the Heir of Slytherin and you can talk to snakes. What — what could possibly be bigger than that?”

Tom returns your approach with one of his own. His eyes are steady, dark, thick with lashes and you can’t reminisce on the details of the rest of him because that would be strange for a friend to do. Stranger to do it now, when you’re angry with him and there’s two sleeping ghosts in the corner and he’s framed by deep indigoes like the ripples in the Black Lake and — you’re doing it anyway.

To be short, he’s close, he’s very beautiful, and sometimes you despise him.

“Trust me,” he says again, without the derision of the last time. “This will change things for us.”

You frown, but it’s a weak upset in contrast to the explosion you came in here willing to make. There were at least twenty questions you meant to ask and you only managed one.

You are not his keeper. You know that. 

“Change them for the better, Tom,” you say on a sigh.

He blinks, and you think he’ll respond with a nod or a slightly offended ‘of course’ but he does not. He blinks and he just keeps looking at you. It’s disarming. It probably resembles the way you often look at him. There’s a rationale somewhere; you never see each other anymore, life is so incredibly busy, maybe he’s forgotten what you look like.

And he does nod, finally, but he does it with his thumb brushing the corner of your lip.

What? Sorry. What’s going on?

He pulls it away like he’s heard you. “You had something.”

You’re almost positive you did not.

Transfiguration this year brings Conjuration, which is an advanced and welcome distraction, and even more exciting when you consider no longer having to Vanish things you have no idea how to bring back. Dumbledore’s is one of three N.E.W.T classes you’re taking — Defence Against the Dark Arts and Alchemy besides. It’s easily your favourite.

You share it with eleven other Slytherins and twelve Ravenclaws. Four of them are muggle-born, and it’s hard to describe the ease you feel among them because you don’t think you’ve ever had anything resembling ease with anyone but Tom.

Your schedule is more crammed than it’s ever been, but it’s good. Two of the Ravenclaw girls invite you to Hogsmeade every other weekend, you share butterbeers when you can afford one, you study until you collapse, you take Dumbledore’s extra assignments and consider trying out for Chaser on one of your more restless evenings before waking up in the morning and resolving there is such as thing as too much of a good thing. Best not to get ahead of yourself.

Your contentment is remedied quickly.

Someone is found unresponsive in the dungeons. Dippet makes an announcement at breakfast that the boy isn’t dead, rather, petrified. No one is quite sure the cause, but the Headmaster warns a few minor precautions, suggests a buddy system, and says that after dinner studying should remain in everyone’s respective common rooms rather than the courtyards or library.

You know next to nothing about petrification, but the victim is muggle-born, and you suspect it was the result of a poorly performed statue curse by one of the many blood zealots in your house. The whole thing makes you hold onto your wand a smidge tighter, but you’re adamant not to let it drive you to paranoia like it would have a few years ago.

Tom nods at your theory when you manage to escape to the Black Lake together in November.

“That isn’t unreasonable,” he says. High praise.

You sink into the moss, sighing. “Do you think there’ll be more?”

He looks out onto the lake, the lapping waves, the crystalline beads that furrow them, midnight algae and flotsam you don’t think you belong to anymore.

You peer up at his silhouette in the dark. “Do you think whoever did it will do it again, I mean?”

“I don’t know,” he says finally, and after another pause: “but I don’t think it would be you.”

“How’s that?”

“No one would be senseless enough to try.”

And he sinks beside you with that, breath shaping the cold in steady, rhythmic clouds while yours are scattered. His robes brush yours and you take his arm with a sleepy hum, tracing patterns in the stars until your eyes feel heavy and he insists on taking you back to your dormitories.

One of the Ravenclaw girls, Marigold Wright, distracts you with a spare blue scarf and an invitation to her next Quidditch match. You watch from the stands and cheer as she catches the snitch to beat Gryffindor.

It’s a bit strange — having a distraction — having a friend. Mari is kind, smart, a good study partner who’s as keen on stepping into the advanced theoretics of Human Transfiguration a year early as you are. She’s funny in a vulgar way, introduces you to all her friends, shows you the best way to sneak into the kitchens, and you sometimes wonder if she was sorted wrong, but — her methods are creative, and she’s definitely intelligent. She’s also definitely not Tom.

You see less and less of him and more of her, Dumbledore, the Ravenclaw common room and the pages of progressive Transfiguration methodologies. He sees less of you and more of Abraxas, Dolohov and Nott and all the other purebloods, Slughorn’s soirées and Prefect meetings that cut into meals.

It happens again.

Second floor lavatory. A girl called Myrtle Warren. She isn’t petrified.

There’s a vigil the following week and her parents are there, two muggles whose sobs wrack the Great Hall even as the students clear out. Flowers descend from the charmed ceiling, little bluebells and white chrysanthemums.

You cry that night. You can’t remember the last time you cried.

This time, you don’t have to seek Tom out. He catches you on your way back from Alchemy and brings you to the Deathday ballroom with a melancholy glance in your direction that you don't hesitate to follow. You realise it’s an odd place to continue to end up in, but no one else goes there and you suppose that makes it yours.

You’ve seen Tom skinny and sickly and olive green, but today his eyes are circled with veined violets and the lack of summer sun this year has whittled him grey once more. He’s still beautiful. He’ll always be beautiful. But he’s tired and — sad — and for the six years you’ve known him you aren’t quite sure what to do with that.

You don’t spend too long pondering it. You just hug him with the dawning newness of a thing like that; a thing you’ve never done, and never really thought to do. (You ask yourself in bewilderment how you’ve never thought to do it before.)

He’s warm. He’s uncertain. He doesn’t reciprocate immediately. 

And then he does, and you understand without caveats or concerns that you stopped having a choice in your destruction the moment you chose him. He’s home, and that’s going to ruin you one day.

Your arms tighten around him and his around you, the rhythm of his breath holding you to earth when you begin to float away. Nothing makes sense in this moment but the mercy that in all the death you’ve seen, you swear to God you’ll never see his. As long as you’re alive, he must be too.

And there’s something to be said about the innate self-slaughter of loving a person (of loving Tom Riddle, especially): that it’ll cleave you in two, that you’ll say feeble things in his embrace that you should be above saying, like ‘I’m scared’, that his hand will find the back of your head and he'll tell you he knows, that that should not feel like enough but it will be. You’ll clasp your hands under black robes and hold this singular embrace together by the faulty adhesive of your fingers. Maybe you’ll cry again, like your body can suddenly comprehend its capacity for it and is making up for lost time.

The first sign that something is wrong, more than the obvious grievance of the death itself, is the Ministry’s happy acceptance of Rubeus Hagrid as the culprit.

The boy is maybe fourteen years old, half-blood — half human, mind — and no one has a bad word to say about him other than he likes to keep eccentric pets. Which leads you to wonder what pet he possessed with the ability to petrify one student and kill another and what cause he’d have for it in the first place besides two terrible, miraculous accidents.

That question draws an even stranger path. Mari says over butterbeers (on her, bless her soul) that she read somewhere years ago that Gorgons can induce petrification, but that she doesn’t remember much else.

One of the boys in DADA says that his father’s an auror, and heard from him that Hagrid’s pet was some sort of arachnid. Tom deducts five points from his house after class with a scowl on his pale face, muttering about conspiracy.

The second sign that something is wrong is that only one of those things would need to be true for the entire case on Hagrid to be called into question. If Mari’s memory serves right, how the hell did Hagrid come into ownership of a Gorgon? (Could Gorgons even be owned?) If the auror’s son is worth your credence, then what species of arachnid is capable of petrification?

You take to the library.

Unsure of where to begin and hesitant to draw attention, your research lingers into Christmas break and stalls some of your extracurriculars in Transfiguration. Tom is busy enough not to notice the new step in your routine, and you’re grateful not to have him breathing down your back, telling you you’re looking in the wrong places or you shouldn’t be looking at all.

The third sign is the end. 

You wish to retract it all. There are time-turners and memory charms and potions that could dizzy you enough to manipulate the truth; there is anything but this. You’d suffer the consequences for the bliss of loving him with one more day before the ruin — you’d write it down to remember through the fog: look at him, duel him without wanting to hurt him, kiss him to know that you did it at least once, have him, be had. You never will again.

He’d shown you the adder. He’d joked about the Chamber of Secrets. He’d spent months disappearing with Abraxas, earning the trust of the sons of the Sacred Twenty Eight. 

And he’d killed Myrtle Warren.

So it’s statue curses and Gorgons and Tom — speaking to serpents when no one else can, buttressed by pureblood boys who want people like you dead.

Don’t become like them now that you’re not like me.

He’s something else entirely.

What do you do in a moment like this? Panting into an empty library at a revelation you wish you could unknow, fingers digging into the hickory of your desk — another memory carved among the initials and hearts; how do you stand from your chair and leave like the world outside this room is the same as it was when you entered? There’s nothing to orbit. You are cosmic debris, tea dregs in a barren cup, flotsam.

You stand; and you tell no one. Not even Tom.

His presence in your life is so infrequent that you don’t even have to come up with excuses for your distance until three weeks after your discovery when you’re paired together in DADA to practise stretching jinxes. 

You almost laugh. He’s standing beside you, tall (lanky like he was when he was a boy if you look long enough) and serious, and you love him without knowing who he is anymore. You’ve skirted corners to avoid him and sat with Mari during lunch and breakfast like he’s some scorned lover to escape confrontation from and not someone who held you through a grief inflicted by his hand. 

“You look tired,” he says, inspecting the daisy you’d been tasked to elongate.

You glance at him. You are tired. It’s exhaustive, bone-deep, aching like nothing you’ve ever known, and maybe that’s why you can look at him and smile sadly instead of thrashing against his chest screaming for what he did. You suppose it happens enough in your head to satisfy. When you can sleep, you sleep to the thought of it. The waking moments are just blank.

“Mhm,” you hum, transfiguring the daisy stem back to its regular length.

Tom observes it with curious eyes. “You’re getting good at that.”

“I’ve been good at it.”

His lips turn, a small frown before he puts it away. You make the observation that he’s tired too; there are still bags under his eyes and his hands tremble ever-so-slightly with his wand when he loosens his grip on it.

His own doing and still you flicker with some relentless hope that he's drowning in regret.

“Sorry,” you say. A ridiculous thing. Do you intend to slowly push him from your life with weak disinterest and diverging academic avenues? As if he were something extricable. He’d never let you.

You’ll have to confront him, and that’s a revelation that holds its weight on your chest until you think you'll suffocate under it.

You’re in the blue light of the Deathday ballroom with a face you've never worn before when it happens, deep into spring, and you know then that you were wrong all those years ago.

He sees all of you.

Takes you in in the flash of a second and maybe it’s your quivering jaw that reveals you or the flint of betrayal in your eyes waiting to be struck and lit. Yes, you were wrong — Tom Riddle knows you at every atom too.

“Are you going to let me explain?" he asks before any hello. His jaw is tight but there’s nothing else to go on to judge his disposition. He's settling into impassivity like an animal drawing its shell. You will not be allowed in if you're going to make it hurt, and you might be the only one who can.

“Explain," you copy with a hard exhale, “Just tell me it wasn’t you. That’s all there is to say."

He stares at you. There’s nothing there.

“Tell me, Tom.”

Your breath catches on an automatic please but you don’t want to offer him that.

“I cannot.”

Then make me forget, you want to scream. Let it be summer. Let us work for pennies and breadcrumbs and be no one together.

It’s late winter and it’s too cold.

“You killed her,” you say quietly.

“If I told you I did not wish for it, would you even believe me?”

“What are you… so it was an accident?”

“There was — an opportunity presented itself that may never have come again; that does not mean I don’t find the nature of it regrettable.”

“Regrettable.” You’re laughing or crying or both, and you must look unwell. Halfway out of your mind.

He’s so composed in the face of it that it only makes you more incensed.

“You told me to change things —”

“You killed someone! Can you understand that?”

“You nearly died,” he hisses, “and if I am to apologise for recognizing it only as the first of many times, I will not. If I am to apologise for doing whatever is necessary to prevent it, I will not. The hand we were dealt will not be the hand we die to — so yes, I understand it. And one day so will you.”

“Don't," you spit, and your anger must look pathetic under your welling tears. “Don't you dare tell me that this was for me.”

“Do you want me to lie?”

“What could her death possibly bring me, Tom?”

“Her death is the first step to —”

“God, stop dancing around the fucking question!” Both hands have wound their way to your head, clutching at your skull like the brain matter might spill through one of the cracks he’s wearing down. “Just… tell me.”

“You recall Godelot's work," he says stiffly. The question of it takes you by surprise, peels the moment back like the rim of a fruit and you're left uncertain.

All you can do is nod, arms falling to cross over your chest.

“There was one form of magic he refused quite concisely to impart. I searched the Restricted Section for days, and under Dumbledore's watch that was not an easy thing to do."

You stole from him, you're urged to remind him, but it's something you'd say with a nudge of annoyance and a roll of your eyes. Such admonishment is small and far away.

“I found it at last in one of the repositories," he goes on, “Secrets of the Darkest Art."

“...What?"

“It's called a Horcrux,” he says. “Murder, by nature, splits the soul. The Horcrux simply makes use of the act; puts the soul fragment into something imperishable so that it is protected, rather than abandoned. In turn, your life cannot be taken. By malady, by magic, by sword — the vessel is destroyed but the soul lives on.”

You blink, feeling dizzy. “Myrtle was the sacrifice.”

“Myrtle was there,” Tom remedies.

“How lucky for you.”

“The circumstances could be ameliorated if one were to be made for you. I would have preferred it be someone who deserves it.”

“For — you’d do it again? Again, Tom?”

His brows crease, and even his upset seems contrived. There’s this barricade he’s placed that you, in all your infallible knowing of him, cannot puncture. It’s agony to begin to question what he could possibly be keeping from you in a confession like this.

“You killed someone, Tom. You — I would never ask you to do that. I would never live at the cost of someone else."

“No, you would not,” he agrees, though he shakes his head like it’s incredulous of you. “Do you think, even if I knew it were certain,  a summons from the Ministry would have stopped me from saving you this summer? Do you suppose the threat of punishment would cause me to waver at that moment? I know it would not hinder you. So, you have your lines and I have mine — you never needed to ask.”

And now it hurts. The emptiness clears and you can't stand yourself for crying, but you do. It comes out in ragged, breathless sobs, clasped behind your palm as you turn away from him. 

You've loved him since you were eleven. It's always been you two — it was always supposed to be you two. What is there to say to him? He's blurring in your periphery like in the midst of your sickness, and there's nothing he can do to heal you this time. Your vision will clear and Myrtle Warren will still be dead. He'll still be a stranger in the face of the boy you love. 

“Why," you whine, a wet, hollow stain in your voice you've never cried enough to hear before. “Myrtle was — wasn't — uh —" You swallow, hysterics severing your words. You can't really think right now. Your body wobbles and your head feels puffy and hot. This might be shock. 

Tom scowls like it irritates him to watch you push yourself, like this is just the unfortunate effect of you depleting your energy in a duel, not eating correctly, treating yourself carelessly. 

Of course you can't stand or talk or think. You're you, contemplating a life without him.

“Sit," he says in frustration. You smack his hand away when he reaches for you, but the world has turned a shade darker and you're slipping into it. 

He tugs a chair towards you with a silent charge and a reprimand, and your body doesn’t possess the wherewithal not to collapse into it the second it’s under you.

After a moment you can speak again, shaking hands steadied by your knees. “Did you… did you think I wouldn't find out? You know, the only thing that can petrify someone besides a serpent is a Gorgon. And — where would Rubeus Hagrid have found one of those?"

“I thought I would have time.”

“To come up with a good lie? Something I’d sympathise with?”

He bites his cheek. “Evidently the particulars matter little to you.”

Fuck him. “Fuck you.”

“Very cogent.”

“No, fuck you, Tom. We could have — we only had a year left and then we could — we could've done anything we wanted." You're crying again. You don't have the energy to be embarrassed. “And you chose this."

He’s indignant as he steps closer. “With what money? For what life? We are better than all of them and it’s never mattered. It never will; you know that. You told me that. You’re angry now, but you must know the truth of it. I would not forsake you. I would not lose you.”

You blink up at him, mouth stuck with some cottony feeling and cheeks stiff from crying.

“You have lost me, Tom."

He stills as if suspended. Some maceration must follow but it doesn’t.

You stand on weak legs to look him in the eyes. You wonder if he can see the love in yours. You wonder if he knows you will walk away despite it. (Of course he does. You’ve never lied to him.) 

You think about how his fingers seem to always find their way to your cheek and you put yours to his. The bone there is sharp, but the skin is soft. Boyish. 

There isn't a word for a goodbye like this. It shouldn't exist and so it doesn't. You just leave.

You fail your N.E.W.T courses. Quite spectacularly.

Mari sits beside you on the train with a soothing hand on your shoulder, and doesn’t ask what’s rendered you into a comatose husk since March. There’s no crying. You chew numbly on soft caramels from the trolley and stare out the window onto the hills.

That summer is spent in your bedroom unless you’re forced elsewhere. A new girl with skin so white it’s nearly translucent sleeps in the bed beside yours, taking meals on trays like you did in your first days here, tracing the cracks in the tiles, humming to herself in the dark. She makes you feel less pathetic for doing much the same. 

You’d been right in your assumption that there would be more dead upon your return, and wrong that there would be more empty rooms. There are always more orphans being made.

And then you receive a letter. It isn’t delivered by owl (only for secrecy, you assume, because there are no muggles who’d be writing to you) but it’s stamped with a vaguely familiar crest. Not Hogwarts’ waxen seal, but something undoubtedly magical. A cockroach and a cup, you think, squinting. Transfiguration.

You tear the envelope open and pull the letter out.

It’s from Dumbledore. Some of it melds together, but the key words stand out.

Spoken to Dippet… Exceptional promise… N.E.W.Ts… May be reconsidered… Upon dispensation… Be well.

Be well.

You are not. You are something half-drowned and half-burned, never enough of one to quell the effects of the other. Sunlight is sparse through your side of the orphanage. On the radio, they warn a pattern of one bomb every second hour. The only other warning is the sound when they fly overhead, and if you can’t run fast enough —

You write your answer in a crowded tube station with a spotty ballpoint pen. Tom is there, looking between you, the dust, and your shaking hands as if to say: tell me I was wrong.

Some of your letter melds together but the key words stand out.

Thank you, Sir. Whatever you need.

It’s a shock that you live to seventh year. It’s a shock that you do it without him — though he watches, and in his gaze you feel regressed. You’re alive, yes, but there’s something there… his dead weight, death-grip; his haunting. They always speak of the dead as something heavy. Something that holds onto you even after it’s gone.

You find that to be true.

Dippet’s condition that you remain in Dumbledore’s N.E.W.T class is that you achieve more than the standard requirement. Essentially, your final exam will be much harder than everyone else's: Human Transfiguration, mastery of petty Transformation (through the means of Wizard’s Chess pieces), Conjuration and Vanishment of various delicate objects — all done nonverbally.

Even Dumbledore seems sceptical, but it translates to more rigorous practise rather than resignation, assignments he doesn’t even task to Mari, though she’s just as good, and you can’t begin to understand why he cares so much. 

“I’ll entrust you with these while I’m away,” he says before Christmas break, sliding a sheet of parchment your way with a flick of his wand.

You frown, unfolding it. His instructions are always short now — you’ve learned to decode his meaning well enough without much exposition. 

Teacup to gerbil — to cat, and inverse.

Inanimatus Conjurus spell (cockroach and cup, as instructed) to be Vanished when perfected.

Study Antar’s Doctrine. Miss Wright will act as your partner.

Due February.

It’s far too much to be done in that time. “Sir?”

Dumbledore lugs a messenger bag over his shoulder that appears small, but he carries it in such a way you suspect it’s magically extended. He smiles wistfully, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “You know, I often regret how much this war asks of me. A consequence of my own doing.”

Right — Grindelwald. Sometimes you forget between awaiting the next muggle paper. War is everywhere.

You nod. “I hope… Good luck, Sir.”

Another half-smile as he twists open a jar of Floo Powder, and then he shakes his head with something you almost decipher as amusement. A brittle sort. Tired. “Good luck to you.”

And then he’s gone, in a swath of green flames that do nothing to inspire any desire for Floo travel in you.

Antar’s Doctrine is simultaneously prosaic and grandiose. They read like excerpts of a journal and you yawn into them over your morning tea, stirring amongst the first-years, who are the only people at the Slytherin table you can stand to sit with. Your blood status is apparently nullified by your age, and the worst they do is look at you funny. You aren’t sure what Abraxas’s — Tom’s (the new hierarchy never fails to stagger you) — lackeys would do if you sat with the other seventh-years instead. A part of you longs to know. They certainly don’t bother you in class the way they used to, you aren’t tripped in the corridors, but you wonder how far Tom’s influence can stretch. He is the Heir of Slytherin, and he’s earned them. But you are nothing.

You’d like it if he would let them hurt you. You think the incentive would be enough to hurt him back. And God — God, you want to. You want to hurt him almost as much as you want him.

You practise through the doctrine with Mari, as Dumbledore directed. When you’re able to sever Antar’s egotism from his abilities, you can see why Dumbledore would recommend his book to you. It feels like slipping through a crack in glass without shattering the whole thing. You weave in and back out, and Mari grins when she returns from the shape of a teapot to her body without you needing to utter a word to do it.

In the back of your mind, you’re aware what you’re doing is nearly unprecedented. It’s spring, you’re months away from eighteen, muggle-born, and mastering nonverbal Human Transfiguration like it’s a Softening Charm. Mari tells you you’re the smartest person she’s ever met. It makes your cheeks go hot to hear such open praise, worse when you snap out of the thought that you believe her.

Grindelwald falls. The school celebrates in whispers until the evidence is in front of them — Dumbledore, returned without a scar, a new wand in his hand — and then they’re cheers. The feast that night is a great one, and he toasts to you from the end of the staff table, a discreet tilt of his cup before he takes a sip and returns to converse with Professor Merrythought.

You take from your own, and your eyes land on Tom, spine of his goblet tight in his hand. He’s looking at you like you’ve affronted him somehow. You could laugh — by choosing Dumbledore. Of course. As if it was a choice at all.

But if it bothers him… if it feels anything at all like the betrayal you felt, then — good.

You drink, and don’t look away.

By the time your N.E.W.T.s arrive you have a renewed confidence that you’ll succeed, even with the obstacle of performing each exam wordlessly.

There are only twelve students who came out of your sixth year class, so to divide resources for the tests is no grand task. You’re given a Wizard’s Chess set, a desk with assorted vases and goblets, an intricate epergne (you had to whisper to Mari to learn its name), and a Ministry worker borrowed like some laboratory mouse. You suppose it makes sense, though — you’re all capable enough of Human Transfiguration not to mutilate anyone, and performing on a classmate could obfuscate the results. It’s far easier to Transfigure someone you know than someone you don’t.

You start with the chess set, Dumbledore and the Ministry worker observing you as you turn pawns to knights and rooks to kings, the minutiae of the pieces drawing sweat to your brow. They change, and change, and change, and you don’t mutter an incantation once. The Ministry worker puts the set away and directs you to the glass. You Switch the vases with the goblets, Vanish them, and Conjure them again. The Ministry worker takes notes. Dumbledore nods affirmatively at you and you can exhale. The epergne is the hardest; so kitschy and elaborate you don’t know where to start when you’re tasked to Transform it into an animal. 

An animal — like that isn’t the vaguest instruction you’ve ever received.

You look at it on the desk, mirrors and glass and gold on protracted arms, and you go for the first thing you think of because the Ministry worker is staring at you like you’re inept and you see it in his eyes — this is the muggle-born one, this one can’t do it. 

You’re better than them. You can do it forever.

The epergne spins at the dip of your wand, and emerges more than an animal. A big glass tank appears in its place, round and gold-rimmed, water lapping at the sides. Inside it is a jellyfish. Emerald green, bobbing, tentacles and oral arms coiling against the glass like the limbs of the epergne had spanned its centre.

The Ministry worker swallows. Dumbledore smiles.

“And — and back?” the worker says, like that will be the thing that stops you.

You point again, mouth tight with irritation, and reverse the Transformation. A droplet of water smacks your face and you’re lucky to be so hot you can disguise it as sweat. You suspect even an error that small would cost you a mark.

You wipe it away. A strange thing happens; you imagine Tom brushing the water from your cheek at the Black Lake. You imagine his fingers in the rain.

The Ministry worker steps closer with a shameless frown. He tells you to turn his hair red. You do. He regards himself in the mirror and scribbles something down. He tells you to turn it back. You do. To grow him a beard, to change his clothes, to make him taller, shorter, this and that — all read from a list he does not appear enthused to recite. You do it all.

He shakes Dumbledore’s hand when it’s done, duplicates his notes for him to keep, and follows the other Ministry workers through the fireplace when everyone’s exams are finished.

You find out you’ve passed with an Outstanding on your birthday.

Mari drags you to the Three Broomsticks to celebrate, butterbeers on her. (They always are.)

“Can’t believe we’re about to graduate,” she says into her cup, froth on her upper lip.

You sigh into your own, partially giddy and mostly nervous.

Mari squeezes your face between her thumb and finger so your frown is puckered. “Chin up, genius. You’ll be excellent.”

You push her hand away but can’t help a small smile. “Outstanding,” you correct.

“Outstanding!” She bursts out laughing. “Bloody ego on you now…”

“Well, I am the smartest person you know.”

“I take that back.”

She pushes out of her chair with a slightly inebriated wobble. “Going to the loo. Don’t touch my chips.”

Your hands raise in surrender, and you steal only one when she’s gone.

You aren’t the only ones here to celebrate. (Your birthday and your mutual achievement, yes, but the Three Broomsticks is filled wall-to-wall with seventh years drinking their final nights at school away.) There’s music charmed to reach every corner, even yours at the little alcove hidden from plain sight. It’s nice to watch from here — the stumbling, the kisses meant for mouths that land drunkenly on cheeks and noses, the barkeeps that roll their eyes as soon as they turn away from all the newly adult customers, not yet learned or careless in their drinking manners.

It is not nice to be occluded from plain sight in such a way that you don’t notice Tom Riddle until he’s inches away from your table. It is not nice that no one else notices either.

On instinct you don’t make any impressive exit. He slides into the booth next to you and your brain short circuits for a moment at the warm familiarity of his presence beside you. Then it occurs that it’s been more than a year since this was remotely commonplace — that you cannot forget the reason why.

There’s not much time to decide whether you want to be vicious or indifferent or to debate on past precedent which would bother him more. You haven’t attacked him despite being concealed enough to do it unnoticed, and you haven’t shoved furiously out of the other side of the booth.

Indifferent it is. 

“Can I help you?”

“You’re causing quite the stir,” he says, taking one of Mari’s chips.

You’re allowed. It’s infuriating when he does it.

“Am I?”

“It’s enough to fail a N.E.W.T level class and be expressly petitioned back, but to have a special criteria set for your exams and manage an O on top of it all…” He inclines his head as if to appreciate your face so close after so long. You should not let him. “You are incomprehensible. It terrifies them.”

“They’re afraid of the wrong mudblood, then, aren’t they?”

Indifference effaced. You’re angry.

He seems to have come prepared, and shrugs your scorn off like a scarf you would have forced him to wear winters ago. “Of course, they have no reason to suspect Dumbledore might have ulterior motives.”

Ulterior — you certainly hope he isn’t suggesting this is based on anything but your merit, but then — you couldn’t begin to understand why Dumbledore cared so much, could you? You’d made brief inspections of his disdain for Tom in second year, his waning shades of kindness and the matter of his stolen encyclopaedia, but you hadn’t… you hadn’t thought at all about how his dedication to your progress only begun after you’d stopped sharing a class with Tom, how it had developed as you began to drift from one another in fifth year and accelerated in sixth after the first petrification and Myrtle’s death. How Tom had worn you down with a weighted glare at Dumbledore’s little toast.

It wasn’t because you had chosen Dumbledore, you realise. It was because Dumbledore had chosen you.

“Why don’t you worry about your pets, Riddle?” you snarl, “I’m sure there are bigger problems with your lot than my exam results.”

Something in his face shifts at the name. You swell with distorted pride.

He mends the reaction by looking you over in more detail, his features schooled into something he must know you can’t deduce. You try not to squirm under the intensity of it.

He reaches almost mindlessly for your collar (there is nothing mindless about it, you’re sure) and smooths the fabric gently with his fingers. “I always liked you in this colour.”

You blink. His thumb just barely brushes against the skin of your neck before retreating, and your mouth falls open.

“Don’t do that,” you say. Truly a sad attempt. Your repulsion is more with yourself than him, and that’s not at all right.

Where is Mari?

“Your friend was at the bar, last I saw her.”

You stare at him with wild eyes. How the hell — ?

“You were always easy to read,” he supplies, and leans in so you can follow his line of sight to the tiniest sliver of the bar visible between two columns, where Mari looks deeply engaged in conversation with Leo Ndiaye, one of the Gryffindor Chasers.

You take a sharp, exasperated breath at her antics. She might be more in love with the competition than the boy himself. They’d never last without Quidditch to bind them, but you can’t fault her for wanting a bit of fun.

“Well then —” 

Right. Tom hasn’t actually moved away. You turn and his face is just there.

His eyes dart forthwith to your mouth, and — no. No, he won’t be doing that and neither will you.

“...I’m off to bed.” Stop talking to him like he’s your friend, you think miserably. Stop looking at him like he’s your —

“That would be wise.”

He’s still looking at your lips.

No one else is looking at you at all.

It could exist in just this moment, you deliberate; separate from everything else.

Except nothing about Tom exists in its own moment. He’s all over you all the time, skin and bone and soul. You hope you still have a place in the broken fragments of his.

“So I’ll be going now,” you say again.

“I haven’t protested.”

But he’s leaning in, and he has to know that’s impedance enough.

“But you will.”

His lips touch yours. “Yes, I will.”

You grab him by his shirt and you’re kissing him. You’re kissing each other like either of you know what the hell it means to kiss anyone, but you’ve learned the rest together, haven’t you? Your noses bump and you don’t care. You just need to kiss him, and — God, you make some noise against his mouth and the hand cupping your face spreads to capture more of you, greedy and wayward — he needs to kiss you too. It’s a horrible thing to know. It leads you to pose too many questions.

The need must have begun as want, and when did the want begin? How long has he looked at you and wondered what you’d feel like to kiss, touch, mark? (He’ll never have the latter. You swear that.)

You’re pulling away in intervals. “You don’t have me, you know.”

“I know,” he responds, lips on the corner of yours.

“You still lost me.”

“I know.”

“I hate you.”

He pauses for a moment. “I know.”

You kiss him again. Long and soft, memorising his cupid’s bow and the tip of his tongue, and when one of his hands moves to your waist you part from him like you’ve been burned.

“I —” You resist the urge to touch a finger to your lips, standing abruptly from the table and adjusting your shirt. Your body feels like an evolutionarily faulty vessel, too easy to please, though you can’t imagine it responding to anyone else this way. Or perhaps your mind is the problem. Not wired well enough to resist an evidently bad thing. “Goodnight, Tom.”

You thought there wasn’t a word for your goodbye, but that’s it. So simple it sinks you. Goodnight, Tom. I’ll dream of a morning where I wake up beside you, but you won’t be there.

He grabs your hand before you can go, licking his lips and it haunts you to think he’s savouring you. It stings a place deep in your chest you’d spent all year trying to heal.

“My door is always open,” he says.

He lets you go.

You graduate with Mari’s hand in yours, and you aren’t afraid.

Dumbledore requests that you stay for the summer to help him prepare for the first year’s curriculum in the fall. It’s a ridiculous opportunity for someone your age — free lodgings and a stellar impression on your resume, and — you can only accept it with an ire you haven’t felt since the spread of influenza in muggle Britain.

If he’s offering you lodgings now, he could have done it all along.

It sends you down a horrible train of thought while you move your things from the Slytherin dormitories to a little chamber a few doors down from the staff room; Tom will be removed from Wool’s this year. Will he stay at Malfoy Manor? But Tom is still publicly muggle-born — Abraxas’s parents would never allow it. Will he find a job, a flat? Will he swindle muggles once he turns eighteen and the Trace is no longer an obstruction?

You think of him often. You think of his offer.

My door is always open.

Plenty of doors are open to you now. Why should you want to go back to his?

Still, the Second World War ends in November and you feel like you can breathe at a depth you never could before. The school doesn’t celebrate like it did with Grindelwald. No one but you seems to care at all.

It’s a tempting door.

The year passes in a blur of graded papers and lessons Dumbledore sometimes involves you in and sometimes does not. Most of the first-years care little for you, but there are two Slytherin muggle-borns who look at you like a new sun to orbit. Everything is worth it for that.

You see Mari when you can, and find she’s training with the Italian Quidditch team, who apparently are smart enough to care more about skill than blood. She says she misses the complexities of Transfiguration, but any career in it was always going to be yours. Smartest person she knows, she reiterates. Biggest ego too.

The next summer Dumbledore informs you of a posting at the Ministry. Something small with a smaller wage. He emphasises the weight of his personal recommendation, but that you won’t be respected unless you claw tooth and nail for it. You don’t take long to consider a chance to make an actual income with an actual career doing something muggle-borns simply don’t do before you’re nodding assuredly and asking him what you need.

Better clothes are first, and all you can afford until further notice. You take to Gladrags with intent to purchase for the first time in your five years of wandering in the shop with eyes bigger than your wallet, and the owner looks at you with distrust when you slide her your sickles.

The Ministry job is truly, infinitesimally, insignificant. 

It’s far down in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. You’re a glorified secretary, and you recall the few times you’d worked as a mail-sorter during the war. It’s some sick irony that you’ve landed yourself in a pile of paper once more.

But the money, though offensively scant to someone with better options (and it’s infuriating the options you deserve), is more than you’ve ever had, and within the next year you’re able to leave the castle and take a cheap room at an inn in Hogsmeade. You’re close enough to Dumbledore to aid him when he needs you, but far enough to feel like your school days are departed, and you need not worry about memories lurching unexpectedly at every corridor. 

A sick part of you still reaches for your mouth sometimes to remember what it felt like to be kissed. That part of you wishes for Tom. You could kiss him into oblivion. You could find a way to make it hurt him back.

My door is always open.

Then you’ll slam it bloody closed.

Mari invites you to her first professional game and you cheer for her in the stands, a green, white, and red scarf around your neck in place of her old blue.

She wins and you get drinks in a muggle pub. You kiss a man at the bar. You go home with him. His hair is dark, but not dark enough. His lips are soft, but the shape is wrong. He makes you feel good, but you wonder if in another life, the dream is true; you roll over in the morning to Tom beside you, and he makes you feel better.

When you can find time between the monotonous demands of your job, you’re in the Transfiguration classroom, staying behind to help the Slytherin muggle-borns with their Switching spells.

It’s one stupid accident the next fall that changes things.

A muggle bank has been robbed, and whatever idiotic, panicked witch or wizard was behind it apparently found themselves incapable of getting the deed done with a simple Imperius Curse (you can’t imagine, based on the scene, that they’re above Unforgivables), and somehow ended up leaving the building half-charred and teeming with at least six bank tellers Transformed into birds, two chirping into the floor tiles with broken wings.

“Renauld’s on it, though,” your coworker says when the news finds your department.

“Renauld?”

He’s a year older than you, a pureblood with parents in high places, and endlessly fucking hopeless.

“Well, yeah —”

You push out from your desk, files fluttering behind you. “Renauld will expose the whole damn wizarding world if he touches that building.”

“But McCormack sent him.”

“Where is it?”

“I… McCormack said that —”

“Where is it, Flack?”

“Um. Um, near King William, I think. Moorgate or, um —”

That’s good enough. You toss the Floo Powder into the fireplace and go.

The place is a mess. You don’t even have to look for it. There’s some ward around the street, bouncing muggles away like an invisible end to a map they don’t even register is there. At least that’s handled right.

But you slip through it and curse under your breath at the muggles trapped inside the wards. They’re like fish prodding at the dome of their bowl, and some run up to you demanding explanations when they see you unaffected by it. You brush them off — Obliviation is not your strong-suit — though you do shout at a pair of DMAC wizards uselessly standing guard outside the bank.

“What the hell are you doing?” you ask on approach. “Renauld’s supposed to handle the inside, yeah? You deal with fixing them.”

You point toward the frantic muggles, and the officials just regard you with vague confusion at your presence. “Renauld said —”

“Oh my God! Fix. The muggles.”

You afford nothing else before pushing past them to enter the bank.

It’s quite impressive, actually; Renauld, the result of generations of foolproof breeding, is waving his wand around like he’s just stepped out of Olivanders for the first time.

“Heal their wings,” you say without greeting.

Renauld jumps. “What? What are you doing here?”

“Heal their damn wings. They’re easier than human limbs and healing magic’s the only thing you aren’t completely shit at.”

“Who authorised you?” he hisses.

“I did.”

In hindsight, it should have gone horrifically wrong. Your wand could have been taken and your life might have been over in all ways that matter, flung back into the muggle world where you’ve always been told you belong.

But Renauld vouches for you. You Transform the walls, you fix the burns, you mend the bank to something presentable. A muggle robbery — dangerous, financially tragic, but believable. And your suggestion to heal the injured bank tellers in their animal forms might be the thing that saved them. When Renauld mends their wings and regenerates their blood, you Untransfigure them, and the other DMAC officials alter their memories with haste.

You were completely out of line and utterly right.

It isn’t something people like you are allotted.

Your probation period is dreadful. You hide in your room at the inn most days, Vanishing little stained panes on your window to feel the warm breeze of air before you Conjure them again. You help grade papers, though Dumbledore is displeased with you and the night is a silent one. He assures you curtly that he’s doing his best with the Ministry to amend this.

And… he does.

With Renauld’s help and the corroboration of the other DMAC officials, you’re back at work by the start of the school year.

It’s a slow process — almost eight months of meaningless paperwork — before the next incident occurs and you’re hectically ushered to the scene like a belated understudy. And then it happens again. And again. And again.

There’s really no choice but to promote you.

Your heroics are torn from a Gryffindor cloth, so says Flack. You urge him never to say such a thing again.

By your twenty-first birthday, you think about Tom almost exclusively in your sleep. You’re much too busy to think about him anywhere else.

The summer is warm and Hogsmeade is lively. You’ve vacated your room at the inn for a little house on the outskirts of the village, decorating it how you like — discovering what you like. You’d never had a chance to find out before.

Mari visits when she can once you have your fireplace connected to the Floo Network (you yourself prefer Apparating) but her name is slowly working its way from the Italian papers to the British ones, and she has so much to tell you there isn’t possibly enough time in her days to tell it. There’s also the matter of Leo Ndiaye, who has, recently, gotten on one knee and proposed to her. If there had been a bet on them ending up together, you would have been out enough galleons to put you in debt.

After especially gruesome days at work, you and a few colleagues make a habit of getting sherries at the Siren’s Tail, complaining that sometimes the nature of your work is akin to an auror’s but without the notoriety and pay.

“Oh, please,” says Emilia Alves, twirling her straw, “You seen the shite the aurors are up to lately? I’d rather be a bloody Unspeakable.”

“You’d have to be able to keep your mouth shut for that, Alves.”

Emilia punches Renauld in the arm.

“What are the aurors up to?” Flack asks.

“I dunno much. There was a murder all the way in Albania, s’posedly. Reeked of dark magic.”

“Nothing new,” you join, and then frown. “Why’s our Ministry dealing with it though?”

“I dunno. I got word from Hillicker that the Albanians didn’t know what to make of the mess. They’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Hillicker’s not a source,” Renauld scoffs.

“Yeah? How about you ask your daddy for something better?”

“Alves, I’ll have you know —”

You lean in over the counter. “What do you mean they’ve never seen anything like it?”

She grins. “Why? Storming a bank robbery wasn’t exciting enough for you?”

You roll your eyes, taking a drink.

That ought to be the end of it. One extraordinarily lucky incident to push you up the career ladder was rare enough — there is absolutely no way digging around a case that has nothing to do with you or your department could ever end well.

But something about it itches.

You make nice with Hillicker. She’s a year younger than you and far too kind for her own good, and she gushes freely about her husband’s work as an auror (they must be a perfect match for him to gush freely about it with her). It’s a bit manipulative. You have no excellent excuse for it, but… ambition, and all that, you suppose. Flack’s Gryffindor theory is studded with holes.

You are green, through and through.

Emilia’s updates are meaningless when you garner so much information that you’ve already heard everything she has to say over drinks, and at this point her and Hillicker might be a step behind you. Emilia still only knows about Albania; peppery little details of half a story. Hillicker discusses an assortment of murders with no real string between them, and Dumbledore regards you with cool heeding when you bring up the matter with him.

You see him little nowadays but you’ve never been close in any true sense, traces of resentment budding over the years like rainwater collects on glass until the stream finally slips.

You visit Hogwarts mostly for your Slytherins, fourteen or fifteen now, unafraid of the distinction of their blood.

And then there’s one night after you turn twenty-two where drinks take place at yours for a change, Mari and Leo included and happily wed. You have no sherries but your ale is just as well, and it’s only you and Renauld who are sober by the time everyone else is vanishing into the fireplace and going home.

That makes it much worse when you sleep together. 

There’s no excuse of having had a glass too many — so sorry, I’ll be on my way then, and him stumbling over his trousers to get out of your hair. Of course, he does that anyway, scratching the nape of his neck when he reaches your doorway in the morning.

“Thanks for the — well, you have a nice home — I do think I should —”

“Yes.”

“Right.”

“Oh!” He turns around at the last second. “Er — I know you’ve become a tad obsessed with… Hillicker mentioned another, anyway. Hepzibah something. Killed by her own elf, the aurors suspect.”

“Oh,” you echo, sheets pulled up to your shoulders. “Thanks, Renauld.”

“I thought you might like to know. Don’t be daft about it.”

You’re incredibly daft about it.

There’s something reminiscent about Albania in this case that wasn’t there with the others. The tide of dark magic ebbing across the scene, the cherry-picked information released in the Prophet, the claim of an old, dumb House Elf who poisoned her mistress like the Albanian peasant killed in some insoluble accident. 

The itch exacerbates.

You see him in your dreams again. He peers over Runes in a stolen encyclopaedia, he whispers to an adder on his shoulder, he kisses the corner of your mouth and it isn’t enough. He kills you, again and again. You kill him too.

You wake up and he isn’t there.

It’s a new low when you’re invited to the Hillicker’s anniversary dinner and you end up digging through the drawers of their study halfway through the night.

The Albania file offers nearly nothing. There was the charred residue of dark magic imprinted on a hollow tree in the fields of the peasant’s hamlet, but nothing detailing more than a blank imprint of the Killing Curse in his eyes. Still, you tuck the knowledge away for the file of one Hebzibah Smith, whose tea did indeed have traces of poison, but whose den was also ripe with a layer of darkness that didn’t line up with the Ministry’s tale of senile elf.

And then there’s the forgotten matter of her being a purveyor of ancestral artefacts. The file doesn’t recount whether any are missing, since the woman was wise enough not to proclaim all her possessions to the world, but it’s something. A scratch.

You travel to Albania that Christmas. The neighbours in the peasant’s hamlet have skewed memories, so they provide little help, but the man’s house was left almost untouched.

You tear the place apart and Transfigure it back together when you’re done.

All you find, in the end, is a scrap of an old envelope in a suitcase.

R.R

It could be that it’s old. The cursive seems ancient enough. But you swear the letters have the distinct shape of quill ink — too artful for any pen — and maybe that wouldn’t matter if it weren’t for half a wax seal stuck to the torn edge of the envelope. Stained but silver, the barest hint of two ribbons, a crest, and the letter H.

You return to Hogwarts posthaste.

It’s snowing in the courtyards and you waddle with a duotang under one arm to pretend you’re here for something scholarly, an array of excuses prepared in case you run into Dumbledore, but you don’t.

The Grey Lady is as beautiful as she’s rumoured to be. 

You ask her about her mother, and she’s silent, an expression on her face like you’ve struck her.

“Is it found?” she whispers. The snow floats through her.

Your heart hammers as you consider how to approach this. She thinks you know more than you do, which means there’s something to know.

“Yes,” you say. And you dare further with the context you know, “In Albania.”

“Oh,” she hums. “Oh…”

And if she means to say more she doesn’t seem able, washing away through the balusters, then the walls. You think of your house ghost and what he did to her, and you feel sorry for a second.

Madam Palles expels you from the library the moment you find what you’re looking for, and you rush past a throng of staring students to the staff room fireplace. It’s too far a walk to the border of the castle wards to Apparate. You bite back the preemptive sickness, get swallowed by the flames, and go home.

There are blanks to fill in but you do it easily. Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem. Hepzibah Smith and her assortment of unregistered artefacts. The stain of dark magic. Something so rare not even the aurors recognized it.

But you do, because he told you.

You wonder on your search to find him what object he used when he killed Myrtle Warren. Nothing special, you think — maybe even the closest thing he could find. These murders involved more preparation. He got to mark them however he wanted.

It’s almost disappointing to find him here. In a little flat over Knockturn Alley with a view of charmed coalsmoke and the brick wall of another shop. 

It’s as tidy as his room at Wool’s, the only dirt the irremediable age of the building itself. The whole place looks almost slanted, large enough only for the bare necessities; a kitchen, a toilet, a bedroom that looks more like a closet, and a study/dining room/den you can’t imagine he hosts many gatherings in. You rescind the mere thought. Whatever gatherings Tom Riddle is having these days, you’re sure you can’t begin to imagine at all.

You wait, legs crossed on an old loveseat, fiddling with your wand.

The door clicks open when the snow has turned to hail and there’s no light but the few scattered candles you’d lit on the mantelpiece. 

It strikes you only when he’s standing before you that it’s his birthday.

You’re in Tom Riddle’s flat, on his birthday, adorned by the orange glow of half-melted candles, and you know everything.

He eyes you carefully, a hint of surprise at the sight of you after four years that even he needs a second to recover from. And then he's even, inscrutable Riddle again, and you dare to think, come back.

“I placed wards," he says, hanging his bag on a rack by the wall.

“I thought your door was always open.”

You see his posture change from just his silhouette.

“Wards never work in Knockturn,” you offer additionally, “not really. There's too much conflicting magic; one border cuts into another; leaves a little sliver behind if you’re smart enough to find it. You should know that." 

He turns to you. You take in a moment to acknowledge how he's changed. It's hard to see in the curtained moonlight, and it seems unreasonable to imagine he’s grown, but you think he has. An inch taller, perhaps. Two. Maybe the dress shoes. His arms are bigger under his button-down, but not enough to consider him muscular. His black hair isn't as perfect as you remember, and you suspect a long day of work undoes his curls. You always liked him better that way in school, after a night duel at the Black Lake, his robes askew and his hair a mess. Evidence that you were the only one to dishevel him. Now you were — what? Did he even think of you anymore? Yes. You'd always think of each other.

“Duly noted. What are you here for?” He tries your surname like a foreign language.

You cross your arms, and you're acutely aware that he's observing your changes too. You're not the matchstick witch he once knew. Your emotions are cultured now, taut to mirror his. You wear dull, formal grey, and that glowing green tinge that should be gleaming on you is under a thick carapace. That’s for Mari, Flack, Emilia — even Renauld. Not for Tom.

You wonder if he knows it was Dumbledore who put in the word that got you this uniform. You wonder if he resents you for it.

“There’s been talk at the Ministry," you say finally, “A string of murders. Whispers of something — some dark magic they don’t understand. And you know they're careful about things like that after Grindelwald."

“A string of murders... Hm. That might imply you understand a connective thread. Is there some sort of accusation being made?”

“Oh, I'm sure you'd be flattered by accusations. There’s not enough there, as it stands. Just whispers." You sink more comfortably in the seat and the springs make a concerning sound. “But I know you."

His hard, sharp gaze falters for a moment. You watch the flames dance behind him, the firelight playing against the lines of his shoulders, and feel your heart skip a beat. “Who else is speculating?"

“No one." Your fingers brush over the book spines on the coffee table. “I guess their attention hasn't been drawn to a book clerk yet, even if you have taken residency... here." You say it with no shortage of disapproval. 

Knockturn was never where Tom belonged. You'd once imagined a flat together in muggle London, taking the telephone booth to the Ministry together, changing the world together. It's a wish that's a lifetime away now.

“Is this a warning? I assure you, I don’t need the condescension.”

“I'm not warning you," you scoff, “I — I'm seeing you. God knows I'll probably never get the chance to do that again once you get yourself locked up in Azkaban, which you will." 

You sound exasperated. You sound half-pleading. “What are you doing, Tom? Is this — this is really what you want?"

“Yes."

You shake your head. “I don't believe that." And then some of that fiery spit returns to you, and you feel like a child again, stuck in the London tube stations holding his hand at every plane that flew overhead, scowling that you needed his reassurance. Scowling that you were afraid.

“Well, your conjecture is ever-appreciated. Shall I lend you mine? Shall I congratulate you on your revolutionary position at the Ministry? Or is it Dumbledore I should afford my thanks?”

“I earned this,” you hiss.

“You deserve it,” he amends. “But do not lie to yourself and pretend that’s why you have it.”

“Fuck you.”

He smiles. “There you are.”

“I don’t need your congratulations, Riddle. Dumbledore doesn’t need your damn thanks. But,” you say, biting back the snarl that wants out, “you could thank me. After all, I could turn to the Ministry any minute with the truth of your heritage. I could tell them about Myrtle, the Horcrux — Horcruxes.”

The humour dissolves from his face and you despise the immense glee it brings you.

“Oh, did you think I didn’t know? Didn’t understand the connective thread? You are sentimental under all that… fucking posturing, you know. I’m sure it’s all very romantic to you — making Horcruxes out of Hogwarts artefacts. Shame it’s such an insult to your intelligence.”

“Very good,” he says after a long, terse silence. You’re sure he’s thinking just the opposite.

You hum, meddling with your nails. “So what’s your plan?”

“I’d need a Vow for that.”

You laugh. “I’m not that desperate.”

“You’re also not an auror, are you?” He tilts his head appraisingly. “And yet you’ve found your way here.”

“How many do you plan to make? How many people do you plan to kill?”

“A Vow.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Tea, then? Biscuits?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t. I read in the paper the other day about a poor old woman who had her tea poisoned.”

“Hm. Terrible shame.”

Your fist clenches around your wand. “Is it paying off well, Riddle? It must be a good life if you’re willing to split your soul to hell and back to have more of it.”

He smiles at the barb in your words. “You never were good with subtlety.”

“I wasn’t trying to be subtle. This place is horrific.”

“I was referring to your inability to see more than what’s directly in front of you.”

“Oh, really? And what more should I see than a boy who’s very good at getting weak men to bow and do very little else? I’d try to see the bigger picture, but I reckon it wouldn’t fit in here.”

Tom regards you colourlessly. You are slate, Ministry-grey, impermeable like palace portcullis. 

“I suppose I should have killed you.” He says it with the nonchalance of a forgotten chore. He says it like you’re a stain. 

He doesn’t say it like he feels any terrible urgency to remove you; and you think, this time, you’d feel more powerful if he did. You think it’s far more debilitating to sit here and be looked at like he regrets wanting you alive more than he wants you dead.

“Yes,” you concur, “I suppose you should have.” 

You place your wand down on the table and scoot your chair away for good measure. “It’s never too late to rectify your mistakes.”

Tom, for a moment, looks surprised. That makes you feel powerful. You’d take more of that.

“You have wandless magic,” he tries. A weak recovery.

“Scout’s honour, Riddle.”

He doesn’t move for a moment, then fixes his wand in his hand and rises, doused in the same inscrutable calm that always used to drive you mad. Now something in you gleams with the knowledge that he only ever looks like this when he’s trying not to look like anything at all.

He steps closer and it gleams brighter. It trembles inside you and you know, distantly, that this is insane. You’re weighing your life on a childhood trust that was shattered years ago, and you don’t think you’ve ever been that good at faith, but he’s approaching you and that gleam you feel is reflected in his eyes and you just… know. Your spilled blood once crawled with his. There’s no undoing that. Half of you is made of the other.

“I should have killed you,” he repeats.

It’s a murmur. Stilted. Angry, even. Angry that you made him this and there’s no fucking rectifying it — what a joke that is. What an immensely you thing to suggest.

“Yes,” you agree.

It’s a breath. Low. Proud, even. Proud that you’re his only mistake and he’s going to make it again.

Tom kisses you. It’s a murder of its own kind. You kiss him back, and — you were always going to kill each other like this, weren’t you? It’s you and him whether you like it or not.

There should be no love in it. You know that. Love is far behind the both of you, stifled in a gasp at the back of your throat on your eighteenth birthday and the soft, selfish hands of a seventeen year old boy. This is mutual destruction. Spite and teeth and skin that’s cold under your fingers.

He was your first in everything but this.

You push back at him and feel the hunger, the need in him, like a flame as he kisses you deeper and harder, and you find yourself losing yourself to it all over again, like you're back in the dark alcove of a pub where you told him goodbye, pushing to extend the juncture. And then he lets out a hitched, gravelly sound; not a moan but enough to make you shudder.

You pull him onto the sofa and crawl onto his lap.

“How long?” he asks thickly.

You don’t have to ask what he means. You bite against his neck, nails under his shirt as you struggle to pop the buttons open. There must be a violence in all your want for him because if there isn't it's just loss. It's just another thing you'll give him without taking anything back. 

“Sixth year," you pant, “in the Deathday ballroom when we fought for the first time. You — ah — you put your thumb on my mouth. Since then."

You hear a sharp intake of breath, and his hand moves up your back to pull you impossibly closer. His voice is ragged. “Should I tell you how long I’ve wanted you?"

You shudder a breath. “Since —" And it's a bit hard to talk with the way he's rolling your hips — “Since when?"

His lips twitch into a mirthless smile, hands spanning your thighs as you start to rock against him. “When you burned me, and I sent you into the lake." 

You swallow, agonised by the slow pace his grip forces you to keep when all you want to do is go faster. 

“Your uniform was terribly wet,” he says, mouth tracing your jaw. “Did I ever apologise for that?"

“N-no.”

He tuts, the hushed sound warm and deadly on your neck. “Bad manners. I must have been distracted."

Oh. Oh, you think. It seems pointless to flush in the position you're in now, but the knowledge that he wanted you then and you hadn't even known is... all the more devastating. 

But you shiver at the question of how he’d wanted you, in what amount of detail, in what precise way. You almost want to ask. See it for yourself. 

You don't think you'd manage the words. He’s hard underneath you and your head wants to lull toward his shoulder but a big hand holds you from one side of your jaw down the length of your neck, his tongue laving up the other. Instead you’re balanced only by his hands and his mouth, rolling against him because it’s all you can do like this.

He’s marking you, you realise with a gasp, and your fingers bury in his hair to remove his mouth from its descending assault on your collar. Not that. You’d sworn against that.

Your fingers return to his buttons and he copies you by finding yours, pulling at the fabric tucked into your trousers until it’s discarded entirely. You press your hands to the planes of his chest and watch him, your mouth agape as his eyes linger on your chest.

His heart is pounding and he must know you’re about to comment on it because his lips are on yours again and he adjusts his position and your fingers dig into his shoulders at the delicious new feeling of him pressing into your thigh. 

You move for his belt. He moves for your zipper. It’s some sort of race, whatever you’re doing, and you’re at an unfair advantage when you’re still fumbling with his buckle when his hand is already carving a slow path to the band of your underwear. You're scalding under the journey of it, little stars pricking you under every new inch he explores.

He dips in and your eyes wrench shut, grasping frantically for his wrist.

“Shh,” he says softly, caressing your cheek with his spare hand, thumb finding your mouth how it did all those years ago and you want to curse him. The fucker knows exactly what he’s doing.

You shake your head, chest rising with heavy breaths as you return to his belt and scrabble to unbuckle it.

“So tense,” he murmurs. The hand at your cheek draws over your lower lip before it falls to your back to hold you closer. “Rest now.”

And his fingers trace you where you want him most, brushing past your clit as he pulls his face back to watch you.

You sink into the feeling, still swaying on his lap, a half-efforted attempt at finding friction in the hardness between his legs that feels fruitless because it won't be enough until he's inside. Your hand just grips onto the fabric of his unzipped trousers and stays there. It’s a pause. An obstacle on your path to him that you need just a moment to recover from before you’ll make him feel just like this. Better. Worse. It’s hard to tell which is which.

He’s stroking at you now, pleased by the way you lurch against him with every touch.

You have to recover, you have to make it even, you have to… you…

A finger presses inside and you moan.

“You came back to me,” he whispers, close enough to be kissing you but there’s just the stutter of his breath. It's a fucking religious thing to say, the way he does it.

“Doesn’t make me yours,” you breathe.

He shakes his head. “I know. You’ll still take it though, won’t you?”

Oh, fuck.

He makes a sound of approval. “Good.”

Good. Fine. Your hands slip from his zipper to the meat of his thighs, pushing yourself forward so the shape of him is firmer against you, and Tom slips another finger in.

You’ll take it, won’t you? Yes. 

Maybe you don’t need to tear him at the seams (though you want to) to make it even. Maybe this is punishment enough. That he can have you like this and it still won’t make you his, that he’ll give you everything and you’ll lap at it with half the greed he possesses.

You ride his hand, clutching his shoulders, rocking your hips. You take all of it, and it builds something delirious inside you, that it’s him doing this, his perfect fingers, the shape of his lips, the soft dark of his hair when you find your hands in it again. The feeling makes you stutter, and he has to move you by the waist himself to keep the momentum when you can't do it yourself.

He’s painfully stiff, pushing up against you with a degree of self-control that feels like it can only end disastrously for the both of you, and you start smattering kisses down his cheek. You tilt his head back and lick a stripe down his neck. Rest now, you'd say if you could.

But he adds a third finger and your head falls, a cry planted in his collar when you come, and you don't think you say anything.

Tom holds your legs steady, guiding you through it like this is just another one of his studies. You are what he knows better than anything else, and still he wants to learn more.

“Look at you,” he mutters, dipping you back to press his lips down your chest, unclasping your bra while you’re still breaking, the sensation swelling again when he takes a nipple into his mouth.

“Tom,” you try to say. Your mouth is the sticky sort of dry that words refuse to come out of.

“Will you give me more?”

Give, not take. You fuss into a stolen kiss, grappling again with his trousers, pulling them down until you can palm him through his boxers.

He hisses, gripping your wrist like he hadn’t just done the same to you, and then he’s pulling you up and off the couch, trousers discarded with what must be magic because you blink and they’re gone. Greedy boy. (You have no room to judge.) Your back is to the wall an instant before his fingers are on you again, pushing your underwear down your thighs until it falls at your feet like they despised to ever part from you.

You arch to feel him press against your stomach, pushing off the wall so that you can meld to him but he just closes in on you to do it himself.

He goads the heat from you when his fingers push in again, still wet, coiling how you like, where you like —

“Want you,” you protest shakily, hand on his abdomen.

That must kill him a little, because he curses under his breath (a thing he never does) and the immediate absence of his touch is cruel when he goes to free himself from his boxers. You reach for him without thinking as he does, and he pins your hand beside you when your fingers so much as graze the length of him.

You sound frail, but you have to ask. “Is this how you wanted me?”

A cruder version of you would go on. Is this how you pictured it? Taking me against a wall? Have you waited for it all this time?

And you don’t belong to him but you’re so incomprehensibly, contradictorily his. You’ll want him forever. He could do anything, and you’d be his. You could haunt him into his lonely eternity, and he’d be yours. Then, you suppose — haunting him makes him yours by principle.

Maybe you already do.

Tom practically growls into your mouth, pressing against you and — God, it’s skin on skin. He's right there. You could push forward and —

He slides in. You cry out at the feel of him inside you, the angle of it like this.

“I wanted you,” he says lowly, your legs wrapped around him, “everywhere.”

You’re gripping him so tight you think he’ll bleed under your nails and somehow you still feel on the brink of collapse when he thrusts deeper.

“I thought mostly of your mouth,” he rasps. “It felt depraved to imagine it wrapped around me, but then I thought of you splayed out before me instead. That maybe you’d like it if it was my mouth on you.”

You whimper.

“Would you like that?” he asks, hands spanning your hips to snap them into his, like you are a piece removed from him he seeks to reattach.

If you wanted to answer you couldn’t. You’re clinging to him and the rising surge inside you, carved between your legs like something sweltering and unfixable. It rushes in and he pulls out of you. He pushes in and you cry for the release of it, the moment the wave lurches over the edge, but he won’t let you have it.

“But,” he says, and your eyes want to roll back at how heavy his restraint is, callous in the tone of his voice, some leash at his neck he must tug himself lest you take it from him — “If I knew how well you’d take me like this, I would have thought of it much more.”

Taking him, again — you don’t feel at all like that’s what’s happening. You feel possessed. You are buoyant in his arms: his and his and his.

“You can — uh — you can — ”

"Hm?" He brushes down the slope of your brow, your cheek, back to the edge of your mouth, wiping a trail of saliva from your chin. “Poor thing.”

And he slams into you again, drawing a mewl from you that slices your unfinished thought.

You clench around him, flames wild and fluttering at every contact of his skin on yours, and there are too many to count. Too many points where they intersect, just some blend of bodies connected at every curve.

“You’re going to give me more,” he says, like it’s an epiphany when you already told him you would.

You remember then. What you meant to say. “You can take me too.”

You feel him twitch inside you, his pace stilling for a moment, and the thumb on your lip slips into your mouth. Your lips close around him and he curses again.

He fucks you with a finger in your mouth and his teeth clamped over your shoulder, soothing the sting with his tongue. His pace is too slow when he drags his free hand between your legs, but you understand its purpose well enough that the mere recognition almost destroys you. 

He’s patient in bringing you to the edge because there's time here. A slow agony that severs you from the rest of the world until it splits you down the middle. And he may not ever have it again.

You have to promise yourself he’ll never have it again.

But the movement of his fingers against the same spot he’s hitting inside you is too much at once, and you won’t last. You drool around his thumb. You let him mark you. You can see on his neck you’ve marked him too. And you hope impossibly there’s a scar. You hope the little death you coax from him claims him as yours for eternity, keeps him even when you're gone. You tighten, lurch for the edge, and make him mortal once more.

Tom holds you there, your cries reverberating as he sinks another finger in your mouth, and then he’s gasping at your neck, peeling back to look you in the eyes when he spills into you. Your eyes screw together and he releases the sounds you make by holding you by the jaw instead.

“Look at me,” he says, and for the strained need in it you do.

You come down to earth and you kiss him, wetness dripping down your thighs as he pins you to this moment. You love him. You’ll always love him.

He brings you to his bed after and you let him, legs surrendering their grip on his waist as you pull apart. You pant into the cold linen of his pillow. Everything smells like him. There’s something empty now; the reason you came today; the reason you left four years ago.

You love him and it isn’t enough. Not even to look at him, the sleepy hint of the boy you knew in his eyes, and know that he loves you too.

“Goodnight, Tom,” you say, finding home in the warmth of his chest.

You’ll dream of a morning where you wake up beside him, but you won’t be there.

[itsabouttimex2]

What do you think would make Odysseus a yandere?

I think it would happen right after he drops Scamandrius from the walls of Troy.

That little baby, already so loved that he had inspired a nickname from his father, his people- “Astyanax”, detailing what he; as the firstborn son of Troy’s heir apparent, was set to become- king, ruler, overlord.

And Odysseus kills him.

Not because he wants to, but because he is, at the end of the day, just a man. A selfish man who loves himself and his soldiers and his home, but not nearly as much as he loves his son and his wife.

The only thing that breaks him from the harrowing thought that a like-minded man might be doing the same thing to his own son miles away is a broken wail cutting through somber silence.

Odysseus turns, feet heavier than his heart, hesitant to see not what, but who he already knows is behind him.

Andromache running towards him. He sees her, wrapped in loose white robes, arms held close to her chest, tears running down her face, closer and closer to him- barefoot and broken.

And realizes that she’s not coming at him, not coming for revenge or catharsis or some measure of score-settling, but instead she’s headed for the rim of the stone wall that her son was dropped from, intending to plunge the same misty heights and fade into the swallowing vale below.

She leaps in a blitz of white silk, looking so much like an angel descending that Odysseus nearly misses his chance to reach for her in a sort of awe- though her enthralling beauty pales in comparison to his Penelope, it spurs him to try and catch the grieving wife, mother, queen.

The Itchacan king reaches for her hands and snags a bundle of white instead, accidentally tearing it from her grasp and leaving her to plummet without whatever had been so dear that she would take it to the grave held against her heart.

And after the shock has worn off, after his soldiers have moved from wide-eyed gasping and into solemnly shaking their heads at the waste of good life, after Polites calls for him to please come down and come back to the ship, Odysseus takes a moment to unwrap that little bundle with a heavy heart.

Another child, even younger than the first, blissfully asleep in spite of the carnage and ruin around them.

This time, there’s no god or soothsayer or prophet to chime in his ear an order or command, leaving Odysseus on the edge of a very welcoming ledge, contemplating his decisions as the soldiers below grow anxious at the grief in their captain’s eyes.

Polites coaxes him down again, this time even more gently, so the king wraps you back up and heads for the stairs.

His second-in-command waits for him at the beach, having paid last respects to both Andromache and her beloved son, both wrapped in a tattered sail and covered in rocks to keep all but the most determined of predators away- he and his brothers-in-arms did what they could, and even now spill wine in the sand around them.

It’s not much, but they did their best. That’s all any man can do in this situation.

Eurylochus doesn’t like the haunted look in his captain’s eyes, how his fingers twitch around the bundle of cloth, how he can’t bear to look at the impromptu grave of two innocent souls.

Nobody does.

But the deed is done, the blood is spilled, and dawn breaks soon. There’s no time for questions, no time for further delays. Home is waiting.

Six hundred families are waiting for six hundred tired soldiers, hoping to welcome them with open arms and settle for boring times.

So there’s no hesitating or comprehending or deciding. The bundle doesn’t protest, and neither do his men. No one questions the impromptu addition to the crew.

A living reminder of all the children they orphaned, even if indirectly. Bringing you along is a form of penance that none confess to wanting.

Odysseus holds the infant close as he returns to the ship, wood creaking under the boots of soldiers boarding in lockstep, heavy as his conscience and heart.

…he’ll need to think of a name for you.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Jack Howl: Fluffy is Justice

Me, expecting Jack to be in a tank top and sweat pants:

Twst: HAH, you thought 😩

He looks so cozy! Apparently the patterns featured are inspired by Nordic ones. This makes sense since Jack is from a snowy region in the Shaftlands.

Rise and Shine!

Early to bed, early to rise.

Jack followed his regiment rigidly. He tucked into bed at 10 pm sharp every evening and rose at 6 am every morning. A protein-packed breakfast and a morning stretch, job, and weight-lifting session with Vil later, then he was off to classes. (Ace sometimes poked fun at him and declared he may as well be an honorary member of Heartslabyl.)

But sometimes life didn’t seem to want to cooperate with him.

Peering into a washroom mirror, Jack scowled at his reflection.

He must have been tossing and turning in his sleep—his hair stood on end. It looked as though he had plugged his tail into an electrical outlet, frying his fur.

The teeth of his comb wove through his mane. As soon as the comb retreated, the hair sprang back up again, as if deliberately defying him.

Jack gritted his teeth, letting loose a low growl.

Frustrated.

He checked his phone and nearly jumped out of his cardigan. He had spent longer than he had intended tackling his hairdo. If he didn't hurry it along, he would be late.

Can’t have that, Jack sighed. Guess I’ll have to skip fixing the hair today.

He laid down his comb and turned on the facet. Cold water spilled out and onto his hands.

SPLOOSH!

Jack ran his wet fingers through his hair, matting it with the weight of the water. Tamed, at least for the time being.

He blitzed through the rest of his routine, peeling off his pajamas and shimmying into his P.E. uniform. Grabbing a protein bar and his duffel bag--crammed full of his school supplies and his track and field uniform--Jack rushed out. No tardies on his permanent record, not today.

He was fast. A wolf sprinting, unrestrained, out of the Chamber of Mirrors and thundering down Main Street.

"Like the wind," Coach Vargas would remark.

"I have to catch up," Deuce, his fellow club member, would say.

"Way too eager," Ruggie would snicker.

"Jack!"

He came to a half at his name, his ears perking. There, standing by the statue of the King of Beasts, was a familiar face. You waved at him as he approached, a hand fiddling with the strap of his bag. It snapped against his beefy shoulder.

"... Hey. You're up early," he remarked gruffly.

"I wanted to catch you before you met up with Vil-senpai for your usual workout," you grinned. "Glad I did--I have something for you."

Reaching into your backpack, you produced a water bottle and a small container. Inside were sandwiches sliced into triangles: leftover canned tuna (courtesy of Grim), ham and cheese, and vegetables.

Surprise sparked in his amber eyes. His tail jutted up, wagging excitedly. "You made this for me?"

"I figured you'd need to keep your energy up since you've got a whole day of lectures afterwards," you said bashfully. "Sorry, did I overstep?"

"No, I... I don't think so at all." Jack cleared his throat. "Really. I appreciate this. I didn't pack any real food today. The timing couldn't be better."

Relief washed over your face. You offered the water and the sandwiches to Jack, who stiffened slightly when he felt the warmth of you grazing his fingers. He quickly pulled away, avoiding your gaze, and busied himself with shoving the snacks into his bag.

"Oh....!" you suddenly gasped.

"What's wrong?"

"Your hair, it's..." You gestured to your own.

"Yeah, I know it's a mess," he mumbled, his ears flattening in shame. "Didn't have the time to style it right earlier. I had to compromise."

You shook your head.

"It looks different than usual, but that's not bad. In fact, it's kind of cute."

"What? Cute...?" He scratched his chin. "Not sure if I'm getting it."

"Yes! It looks super fluffy, like a cloud. Or whipped cream on top of ice-cream or cake," you suggested. "And cuz it's sticking up so much, it's like it's inviting someone to come along and pat your head to smooth it down."

"Pat my head?!" His hands flew there, as if to protect him from the terror that was an aggressive head pat.

"You don't like the idea?"

"I-It's embarrassing!" he snapped. "Only my family goes and does stuff like that. I'm getting too old for head pats, anyway."

"That's a shame then. Fluffy things should be cuddled more! Fluffy is justice, after all." You linked your fingers together and chuckled. "Fluffy means plushies, blankets, and coats. All the things that make us feel warm and protected. It fills our hearts with happiness. You're the same, Jack. So... I don't think it's anything to be embarrassed by."

He stared at you, bewildered.

The sun warmed his cheeks--or were they warmed from within? And there it was again, the telltale way his tail moved, back and forth and back and forth, like a metronome.

"I... I guess so," Jack managed to say. “A-Anyway, I need to get going. I can’t keep Vil-senpai waiting.”

“Alright, I won’t keep you for any longer.” You gave another wave and a smile brighter than the sun. “Good luck!”

He nodded before surging off.

His face aflame.

Maybe being fluffy wasn't so bad after all.

[hazbinshusk]

blitzø x gn!reader. during a slow week at the imp office,blitzø convinces you that there are better ways to spend your time waiting for a new client to call on. and honestly, it doesn't really take all that much to convince you, especially when he figures out a kink you've been keeping close to the chest. requested by the wonderful @blitzsicedcoffee. 2.75k

featuring: collar kink, light pup play, dom!blitzø, oral sex (blitzø receiving), blitzø using his tail as a leash, light degradation, penetrative sex. blitzø uses terms like 'pet' and 'pup', reader has non-specific genitalia, and a prehensile tail (so could be read as an imp or an incubus/succubus).

Flipping idly through an outdated Weapons of Wrath catalogue, you’re curled up on the sofa in the I.M.P. office, leaning against the arm of it comfortably. It’s been a slow enough couple of weeks that Blitzø had decided to start having you all work in shifts, and with him holed up in his office, you had the main room to yourself, waiting pointlessly for a new client to call in.

And holy fuck, you were bored.

Even thinking that thought seems to be enough to summon your boss from his office, and you jerk upright as the door slams against the opposite wall when he kicks it open.

“Satan’s fucking taint, how does no one in this shit-slinging ring want to have somebody murdered?” he complains, tossing an empty coffee cup towards the trashcan and missing completely. It bounces off the wall behind it and the lid pops off, spilling the remains of a couple of ice cubes onto the carpet. “This is still Hell, isn’t it?”

“Last I checked,” you reply dryly, returning your attention back to your magazine, thumbing a page over idly.

He arches an eyebrow at you, irritated by your lack of similar dramatics. “Since when do I pay you to just fuckin’ sit there?”

You turn another page with practised nonchalance. You know it’s only going to piss him off further, but, well… you’re petty. “Depends. Did you have something else that needs doing?”

Blitzø groans, throwing his head back dramatically. He sighs, straightening his posture and setting his eyes on you again. He considers you for a moment, an eyebrow raised, before he says, “So… you wanna fuck?”

If you’d been drinking something, you would have choked on it.

“What?”

He grins, shrugging. “There’s no point in soundin’ so damn scandalised. It ain’t like we haven’t done it before.”

You feel your face flush. “A couple of drunk hookups does not mean I’m going to fuck you in the office, Blitz.”

“Why not?” he asks, closing more of the distance between you. You clutch the catalogue tighter against your lap as though it’s some kind of ward against bad decisions. And this would definitely be one. Right? “Ya think M&M don’t get their fuck on on the conference table every chance they get?”

“Christ, Blitz, that is so not the po—”

“This is jus’ fuckin’ adorable, by the way,” Blitzø tells you lasciviously, hooking a claw up under the choker around your neck. You’d worn it on a whim, and you curse yourself for the way your breath catches despite yourself. Your cheeks warm even more as you feel the band tighten slightly around your throat. There’s a second where you hope he doesn’t notice, but Blitzø’s eyes widen then narrow, a downright villainous smirk blooming on his lips. “Ohhh… I get it. Lil’ pup likes to play.”

You swallow, finding your voice. “Blitz…”

“That’s it, ain’t it?” he continues as though you hadn’t spoken, although his smile twitches wider at the hitch in your voice. “You like bein’ collared, don’t ya?”

You hesitate a moment even as excitement floods through you. Heat pools low in your belly at the suggestion in his voice, as the way his claws graze the column on your throat as he hooks two more in the front of the choker. You swallow again, wetting your lips with the tip of your tongue as it tightens the choker around your throat. He tugs on it, urging you to stand in front of him, and you do it without thinking, the catalogue slipping from your lap to the floor. Blitzø is standing only inches from you, his tail switching back and forth behind him slowly.

His breath fans across your face, warm and tickling. “Don’t you?”

You nod.

Blitzø grins. “Good pet.”

Fuck.

You can’t help the soft whimper that escapes you when he pulls you closer again, his nose skimming against yours. He’s watching your every reaction with hooded eyes, and you feel his other hand ghost down over your waist. It makes you shiver, and his smirk widens when you lean forward slightly to kiss him. Blitzø pulls back the moment your lips should meet, and he bites his lip with a cocky grin.

“On your knees for me, pup.”

Blitzø is half-hard as he palms himself through his jeans, and a soft growl rumbles through him as you tongue slides across your bottom lip. He runs a hand through your hair almost sweetly before he suddenly grabs a fistful of it, jerking your head back to meet his eye.

“What’re you waitin’ for, exactly?”

The pain only adds to the heat blooming low in your belly, and you reach up with eager fingers to unbuckle his belt. You lean forward to nuzzle against the bulge in his jeans, planting open-mouthed kisses over it until the fabric is damp with your saliva and his cock is straining against the zipper.

“Oh, puppy wants to play,” Blitzø croons, releasing a breathless laugh as you wrap your fingers around the base of his cock. You press a kiss to the underside of the head before parting your lips, curling your tongue around it as you take him into your mouth. His head falls back as the wet warmth of your mouth engulfs him. “Fuck…”

Blitzø keeps one hand in your hair as you suck him, the other lifting his shirt so he can watch the way you gag around him when he hits the back of your throat. You whine around him when you feel the spade of his tail slip under your choker, winding around it to pull it tight against your throat. He smirks when your eyes roll back.

“You’re a good little bitch, aren’t you?” he coos, voice husky sweet as you clutch at his thighs, hollowing out your cheeks as you pull back. He moans as you roll your tongue around the head of his cock and suck, his hand tightening possessively in your hair as you take him all the way in again. Blitzø holds your head in place, thrusting his hips forward to feel the way your throat flutters around his cock. “Fuck, you’ve got a nice mouth…”

You moan around him and the vibrations of your throat makes his eyes roll back. He presses his hips forward until you choke in earnest, releasing your hair as you pull back with a cough. Drool hangs from your chin as you catch your breath, and Blitzø reaches down to smear it across your lip with his thumb. You suck it into your mouth, biting down on it lightly, and he hisses through a sharp-toothed grin.

“Shiiiit…” he wraps a hand around his cock, pumping it against your spit-slick bottom lip. “You want me to fuck you, don’t you, pet?”

Your voice comes rough, your swollen lips brushing against the tip of his cock as you murmur, “Yes, Blitz.”

The imp’s smirk widens, his eyes dark and hungry with lust. You part your lips obediently, and he thrusts it back into your eager mouth with a grunt. His tail tugs on the choker again, and you’d be embarrassed at the way your tail wags behind you, but all you can focus on is the way Blitzø’s eyelids flutter as he presses his cock deep into your throat. You gag around him again before he pulls back, instead fucking himself languidly into your mouth. You curl your tongue to cradle the length of him with each slide of it past your lips, the taste of his precum downright addictive. “Then I’m gonna need to hear it, slut.”

You suck firmly at his cock until his breath hitches and he pulls back, gripping the base of his cock. He snickers deliriously, the choker around your throat so tight your eyes roll back as you blink. “Fuck me, Blitz.”

“Not good enough,” he grins wickedly, stroking himself slowly. He leans down, his other hand closing around your jaw as he brings his face down to yours. He forces your chin up, his lips a breath from yours as he growls, “I wanna hear you beg, baby.”

Dear Satan, you wanted to kiss him.

“Please,” you whimper, shifting on your knees in a vain attempt to meet his lips with yours. Blitzø pulls back just enough to leave you wanting, infuriating amusement playing at the edge of his smirk. “Please, fuck me, Blitz.”

“Hmm?” he raises a brow tauntingly, his tail tugging at the choker warningly.

“Sir,” you correct yourself, an edge of desperation colouring your broken voice. “Please, fuck me, sir.”

Blitzø grins. “That’s my good pup.”

He straightens up, stepping to the side and waving a hand towards Loona’s desk.

“Bend over it for me, pup.”

You make move to stand, and his tail tugs you back down again.

“Did I say you could walk?”

Fuck, he looks so pleased with himself. Still, you can’t help the little whine that escapes you at his tone, and you crawl across the scratchy carpet until you reach the desk. He nods and you stand slowly on shaky legs. Blitz unwinds his tail from your choker as he does, trailing the spade of it down your spine and smirking when you shudder.

“Strip.”

You feel a surge of nerves settle in the pit of your stomach even as you tug your shirt obediently over your head. Yeah, you’d fucked before, but those had been drunk and hurried and in the dark. This was stark and carefully paced, and somehow so much more exciting, and your fingers shake as you push your jeans down your thighs. You stiffen as you feel Blitzø press himself up against your back, his fingers expertly unclipping your bra as his lips find the nape of your neck.

A soft moan escapes you as he trails his lips to the side of your throat, sucking a mark into the sensitive flesh as his hands take hold of your hips, pressing his naked erection up against your ass. He shifts his hips to slide it between your thighs, and you whine, head falling forward.

“Bend over, baby,” he mutters, breath hot against your ear, and he squeezes a handful of your ass as you do as you’re told, pressing yourself further back against his cock as you brace your hands on the desk in front of you. Blitzø groans as you do, claws tearing your underwear away greedily. “That’s it…”

You hear him spit, excitement burning through you as you feel him stroke his cock against your ass, mixing his saliva with yours. Your eyes widen and you moan, a long, drawn out, throaty sound as he presses the head of his cock into you.

“Christ on a stick… always so fuckin’ tight,” he groans, withdrawing only to thrust into you again. With each slow push of his hips, he slides another inch into your warmth, stretching and filling you in a way that makes your eyes roll back. You bite your lip in a vain attempt to stifle your moans, claws digging into the edge of the desk hard enough to gouge marks into the wood. “Fuck, I’ve missed this…”

You don’t even want to think about why those words thrill you so much. You push your hips back to meet him with each thrust, and Blitzø snarls, hands clutching at the flesh of your hips hard enough to hurt. He lets you fuck yourself back on his cock, reaching up to hook his claws in the back of the choker and pull it taut against your windpipe. It makes you whine, your head forced back with the way he pulls at it.

“Bli—” you choke on his name, and Blitzø snickers headily at the eager way you ride his cock. “Fuck…”

“Such a good fuckin’ pup,” he growls, gripping at a handful of your ass. His tail winds around yours, the spade of it teasing against your thigh. He begins to fuck you again, punctuating each word with an unforgiving thrust. “So. Fuckin’. Good…”

You jump as the phone suddenly rings beside you, and Blitz curses as you flex around him.

“Go ahead, pet…” he grinds out, fucking into you hard. “Answer it.”

“Blitz—”

He tugs on the choker when you try to protest, and you moan. “Did I fuckin’ stutter, pup? Answer it.”

You whimper, reaching for the phone with an unsteady hand. You knock the receiver off its cradle, the phone clattering obnoxiously against the desk before you pick it up and shove it against your ear.

“I.M…P. Imm—ediate Murder Profession… Professionals.” you say, trying desperately to control your breathing even as Blitzø takes the opportunity to smack you hard on the ass. “How can I—hnnn – help you?”

Blitzø laughs at your tone, his voice tight with his own need, and you bump your forehead repeatedly against the desk as the guy on the other end of the line rumbles into your ear.

“I’m sorry, can I--  uhn… can I call you back?” you stumble over the words, teeth gritted together in an effort to keep your voice steady. You’re so fucking close, your whole body hot and tingling with sensation. “Blitz is… he’s a little busy at the—fuck. Look, I’ll call you back, alright?”

You slam the phone down and it bounces off the cradle, the receiving falling off the desk to dangle over the side. You moan in earnest and Blitzø groans, his hips meeting yours in a desperate, disjointed rhythm as the two of you approach the peak.

“Fuck, Blitz…” you curse as his tail tightens around yours, his claws pulling so tight on your choker you’re sure it might snap. Your eyes roll back at the feeling of it, your jaw hanging slack. Every time his hips meet yours, you let out a high-pitched ‘uhn!’, and Blitzø snaps his hips forward so hard the desk begins to slide against the carpet. “Fuck…!”

“You wanna cum, puppy?” he snarls breathlessly. “You gotta ask nice.”

“Please, sir…” you whimper, so close that your thighs tense painfully, toes curling against the carpet. “Please. Please, make me cum. I need to cum, sir, please…”

“That’s a good, fuckin’ pet.” Blitzø growls and he thrusts hard, wrapping his hand around the back of your neck. The feeling of his large, strong hand closing around your throat is enough to make you keen, and you all but collapse onto the desk as you finally cum, your body shaking with the feeling of it. “Satan’s fuckin’— FUCK!”

Blitzø cums deep inside you, clutching blindly at your hips as he shudders through it. You whimper with every touch he gives you as the two of you cum down, your eyes closing as you feel Blitzø bend down to press a kiss to your spine.

“Christ on a stick,” he moans quietly into your skin, smoothing his hands up along your waist and back down again. “Fuuuuck…”

You laugh quietly, breathless, pressing your forehead against the cool wood of the desk. “Pretty sure we fucked it up with that client.”

“Fuck it,” he mutters, his lips brushing against your shoulder blade. “They really want someone dead; they’ll call back after they’ve finished yankin’ it to that hot little whimper-y thing you do.”

“Shut up,” you retort even as you feel your cheeks warm.

When he pulls out you shudder at the feeling of it, patting you on the ass as you push yourself up. When you turn around he smirks at you, self-satisfied, and he hooks a claw in the choker and tugs you in to – finally – kiss you. He does it languidly, smiling as his tongue slides into your mouth. Leaning back against the edge of the desk for support, you wrap an arm around his neck, the other bunching in the fabric of his shirt. Blitzø braces himself on a hand beside your hip, pulling away only when your lungs begin to burn for a proper breath.

“Y’know, I’m preeeetty sure I’ve got an actual collar and leash set in the sex trunk in there,” he says suggestively, nodding towards his office.

You have to hope he doesn’t notice the way that suggestion, even after what you just did, makes you flush. “It’s still so messed up that you keep that shit here.”

Blitzø cocks a brow at you challengingly. “Does that mean you’re not interested in round two?”

“… I hate it when you’re cocky like this.”

“You fuckin’ love it, horndog.”

[jjkamochoso]

Helooo sorry to barge in!

I was hoping maybe you do a creation of one of Kaiju no 9 of making humans but he left her thinking she's a waste of creation.

The JAKDF found her though she was dead (inside a pod that contains some water and oxygen mask for humans to breathe)

Then the container suddenly opens and Hoshina out of reflex catches fem reader.

These might be time consuming so sorry about that but you can take your time of wanting to do this but even if you ignore it I don't mind. Ok! Thankyouuu for your time!!🤝🏻✨✨✨

Hello and welcome to my blog!! Thanks so much for this request, this is such a cool idea!! I’m sorry it took so long but I very much appreciate your patience😁🫶 I hope you love this!!

Too Cute to Be a Kaiju

Angst, Fluff

Soshiro Hoshina x f! reader

Warnings: description of medical paraphernalia (oxygen masks, tubing attached to body, etc.)

You felt… incredible. Invincible, even. Of course, that was after the excruciating pain that had been inflicted upon you for the past who knows how long. You couldn’t remember the last time you felt sunshine on your skin or what a breath of fresh air tasted like, but you also couldn’t remember what it was like to feel so powerful.

And then everything went black.

Kaiju No. 9 had been quiet for the past month.

Too quiet.

Soshiro Hoshina frowned at the news, or lack thereof, being reported to him about No. 9’s whereabouts by a soldier tasked with the unfortunate job of being at the brunt of the JAKDF’s finest’s frustrations.

“…and there was nothing to report there either. Our operations team did report a sudden spike in fortitude levels near an abandoned cave, but the excavation team didn’t make note of any evidence of No. 9 having been there-”

“Hold on. Where was that?” Soshiro interrupted, his bored expression turned immediately interested.

“Where was what, sir?” the solider replied, the shake of nerves overtaking her voice.

“The spike in fortitude levels. Where was that at?”

“At… at a cave, sir,” she swallowed thickly.

Soshiro fought the urge to grab her by the collar and shake the answer out of her, instead choosing to grin sarcastically.

“I got that part. Any idea which one?”

“Um…” She flipped through the pages of reports in her hands with fervor. “Here, sir.”

He took the paper from her outstretched hand. A singular red dot stood out on the black and white map, its location just outside Third Division’s city boundaries.

Thanking her, he handed it back. “Did anyone follow up on this irregularity?”

She shook her head no and Soshiro’s eyebrows furrowed.

“That’s all. Thank you.”

“But the report, sir, I’m not done-”

“Are there any sightings of 9 in there?”

“No sir.”

He shrugged. “Then I’m good. I’m releasing you from report reading duty to go do something more worthwhile.”

The soldier, albeit confused, saluted him and walked out of his office. Rubbing his face with his hands, Soshiro took in a breath.

Looks like I’m going spelunking.

A few days, tons of arguing with higher ups, and plenty of paperwork later, the vice captain of the Third Division found himself facing the depths of a cave on the coast outside Tokyo. He was allotted two soldiers to go with him in case something went awry, both of which were currently arguing over who had to enter the suspicious looking cave first. While they were occupied with each other, Soshiro pulled out his tablet and began to measure fortitude levels in the surrounding area. For several minutes, the reading stayed at zero, signaling that nothing of concern was residing there.

Maybe it was a fluke.

Without warning, the fortitude level readings pulsed with numbers fluctuating between 1.4 and 7.6. Soshiro’s eyes blitzed away from the screen and began to scan for an immediate threat, yet he found none. As quick as it began, the levels went back down to zero.

“Have you two stopped bickering and figured out which one of you is heading in there first?” Soshiro addressed the squabbling soldiers.

“Since you’re in charge, sir, we think you should,” one of them said after a moment’s pause, causing the other to nod along eagerly. Soshiro sighed and entered into the depths, his fingers itching for the safety of his blades.

The cave was like a labyrinth; it would be a feat for Soshiro’s small team to be able to retrace their steps to the entrance when they were done exploring. Keeping an eye on the fortitude readings, there was no change while walking the first few miles of the underground tunnel. All of a sudden, like before, the tablet alerted Soshiro to readings ranging from 3.3 to 8.5. He pressed on, his soldiers cowering behind their vice captain like scared children. The pathway of the cave started to narrow and Soshiro felt his heart pound with unease. Before long, he was struggling to fit through the tunnel. With the little light he had emanating from his flashlight, he saw that the tunnel has been damaged by some sort of explosion, leading the walls to cave in on themselves.

As if someone—or something—had been trying to hide what they were up to.

There’s something here. I know it.

With one final squeeze over fallen rocks, Soshiro and his team were rewarded with a change of view. They had come upon a wide open space, with stalagmites gracing the surrounding areas. Sticky air permeated this part of the cave and Soshiro’s lungs struggled to work in the thick atmosphere.

“What is this place?” piped up a squeaky voice.

“We’re here to find that out,” murmured Soshiro, his flashlight lighting up the walls to gain a sense of his surroundings. “Take a look around and report back if you find something.”

“I found something!” yelped the other solider, his flashlight quivering, casting moving shadows on the…

The…

What exactly was that?

Soshiro inched closer, wanting to investigate. There was no way that was what he thought it was. As he moved in and realized what he saw, his eyes widened in shock. Standing tall in the middle of the cave was a giant tube filled with some sort of liquid. Floating inside the tube was a woman, a thin white gown covering her body and an oxygen mask covering her mouth. There were various small tubes and cords running off of her, but nothing seemed to be in working order.

She couldn’t be the source of the wavering fortitude levels…

Could she?

Against better judgement, Soshiro approached the tube. This discovery, no matter what it was, was going to be extremely important. It didn’t matter if this was a breakthrough for the JAKDF or just the local police force.

He was going to get her out of here.

“Is she a Kaiju, sir?” asked the soldier who found the woman first.

“I don’t see how she could be,” replied Soshiro, circling the tube, “but this is very strange.”

“She’s too cute to be a Kaiju,” remarked the other soldier and Soshiro glared at him, the soldier now averting his eyes in embarrassment.

Soshiro studied the woman for a good while, his hand clasped under his chin in thought. She must be dead since there was no way she could’ve survived down there with no food or water, suspended in water like that.

“What happened to you, hm? Were you experimented on by some sort of freak?” Soshiro wondered aloud. His tablet alerted him to a change in fortitude levels but he had no time to check it.

The pod burst opened.

Without even having to think about it, Soshiro caught the woman’s body with ease as she was flung out of the now opened pod door, water pouring out and soaking the both of them. Soshiro was thoroughly confused by what brought that on, but he had barely a moment to think before the woman’s eyes fluttered open and his tablet recorded no more instances of rising fortitude levels.

“Are you alright?” he asked, still holding her close to his chest.

“I… don’t know,” you croaked out, your voice rusty from disuse.

“Shh, don’t hurt yourself. I’ve got you, okay?” Soshiro reassured you, his firm grip a comfort on your aching arms. You didn’t seem like a Kaiju, going off of your looks, but there was no way you were 100% human. Your skin was much too cold for you to not be shivering, nor was it pruny from being suspended in water for who knows how long.

“Hey, dumb and dumber. Disconnect her from the tube, would ya?”

The soldiers, frozen in surprise at the alive woman in front of them, broke out of their stupor and pulled at the cords, unplugging you from your container.

“What’s your name, darling?” asked Soshiro, trying his best to keep a calm demeanor to get you to talk.

“I… I don’t…”

Your head felt like it was splitting in two. All of your memories were hazy. You couldn’t remember your real name, where you were from, or how you got down there in the first place. The only thing that was clear in your mind were the experiments done on you and a sinister voice calling you disobedient and a waste of creation. You didn’t want to think about your past anymore—you wanted to focus on the present, with the soft touch of a handsome man quelling your worries like you never had them to begin with. This man, who was holding you with such fondness, too much for a stranger like you, you thought, was making your chest pound like your heart would burst through at any time.

“Hey, it’s alright. Don’t stress over it. We’ll get you out of here and cleaned up, okay?”

The man gestured at who you assumed were his team. You didn’t care to look at them; you couldn’t take your eyes off the man with the bowl cut.

He looked very familiar.

“You… I know you…” you declared, staring into his bright purple irises, trying to place where you knew him from.

“Do you? I’m on the news a lot, you know.”

He flashed you a smile, his fangs barely peeking over his lips, but it was enough for the memory to come rushing in faster than the water rushed out of your pod. You flung yourself out of his grasp like his skin had burnt your own, putting a fair amount of distance between the two of you.

“Vice Captain Hoshina,” you called out, your breathing heavy as you grappled between restraining yourself and giving into your monstrous urges, “I was going to be sent to kill you.”

Soshiro only raised his eyebrows at your words, seemingly not worried about anything of what you just told him. He sauntered over to you without a care in the world, his goofy grin still plastered on his face.

That’s too bad. She really is cute.

Taglist: @kana-daydreams

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

At First Sight 1

Warnings: dark elements, noncon, age gap, other dark elements. Proceed with caution. (Plus!short!reader)

Note: Please let me know what you think as it helps me a lot with ideas and I love interacting with you all.

Part of The Club AU

You are so drunk. Not just tipsy, you are loaded. The lights glare fuzzily around you as bass thumps in the floor and into your body. As you sway and rock to the music, you barely remember where you, hardly recognise the faces of your own friends.

Rhonda is entwined with a guy, so close they may as well kiss, and Starla is just as shameless with the pretty redhead she pulled from across the floor. As usual, you're the odd one out, but you don't mind. You're having a blast. You're so blitzed, you can't be anything close to lonely.

You throw your arms up as your favourite Beyonce song blares on. Rhonda entangles herself with her boy toy completely, tongues desperately mashing together, and Starla has her arm over the redhead's shoulders as she points to the bar, walking in that direction. As you turn to watch her go, your back collides with another body.

Before you can apologise, two hips curl around your hips. You squirm, unused to touch. Insecure as even the large paws that have accosted you can't make you feel waifish like your gorgeous friends.

"Hey," the grizzly voice undercuts the music, "how ya doin', honeybee?"

You blink, clueless as to what to do. You look at Rhonda but she's consumed by her partner and Starla's still off getting a refill. You touch the man's wrist but quickly recoil. How do you do this?

"Honeybee?" You force your voice put to compete with the music.

"Mmm, yeah, you look sweet," he growls as he squeezes your hips tighter, pulling you back against him, "sorry, not mucha a dancer."

"Oh, um," you look up, trying to see him over your shoulder, "uh, me either."

"Look good to me," he counters as his hot breath seeps into your scalp and he inhales, as if catching your scent, "you smell sweet too, honeybee."

Your body is both alight with flames and stringent with ice. You try to sway but he's planted firmly. You gently touch his hand again, and manage to turn yourself to face him. His grip hovers on your hips.

"Should we start with names?" You smile shyly as you get a look at him. You're nervous as he peers back. You hope he's not disappointed.

"Mm, I like ya just as much from the front," he winks, "name's Sy."

"Sy," you repeat before you give your own name.

He's not bad on the eyes, tall, broad, and bright blue eyes. His beard's a bit thick for your liking but you’re not picky. You can't really be.

"You want another drink?" He offers as his hands run up to your waist and your catch them, squiriming.

"Sure," you accept, hoping to get at least a little space so you can get your head straight.

"Alright, honeybee," he purrs and draws his touch away, only to turn and put his hand on the small of your back, "you like the sweet drinks?"

"Uh, yeah, I don't mind cocktails," you agree, cringing at your own awkwardness.

"You're cute," he says as he urges you through the crowd, "I like that."

You stagger drunkenly but don't fall. You try to play off your little stumble and he slips his hand across your back to grip your waist and pull you closer.

As you near the bar, Starla detaches herself with a fresh drink of her own. She notices Sy and raises her brows before sticking out her tongue. Her other hand is around the redhead's as she tug her back toward the dancefloor.

The man easily bulls his way through the crowd around the bar and signals at the bartender. As she nears, he turns back to you.

"What d'ya want?" He asks.

"Rum and coke is fine," you answer with your default. Usually you just get whatever the others get.

He turns back and issues his order to the bartender. He waits, tapping his fingers on the leather trim until the drinks appear. He pays and says some unheard words to the bartender. He takes the glasses and turns, offering you the dark rum and coke.

Your stomach gurgles as you accept it. You only really get a free drink out of pity. One of Rhonda or Starla's hookups feel like they have to me nice to the 'other one'. More than the anxiety, the unreadiness, it's the alcohol already swishing around in your gut.

He sidles you along the bar to an empty space. He sips from a pint of amber bear, the foam sticking in his beard around his mouth. He wipes it away with the back of his hand.

"You from around here, honeybee?"

"Um, lived here a few years, yeah."

"Whatcha doin' in a place like this?"

You sip, more nervous than thirsty. Ugh, it's strong. He wouldn't order a double.

"We're just about to graduate," you chime brightly, happy to have something to talk about. "Yeah, fourth years over, exams are all done..."

"Smart girl," he remarks, eyes sparkling. “Bet ya can guess I'm a bit past all that.”

He brushes his hand over his beard, a few grays catching the lights as the change hues. He doesn't look that old. And you don't have to do anything more than talk to him. You're not the type to go home with a stranger. Not that you ever had the chance.

“I didn't– well, what do you do?” You ask evasively. You take another gulp.

“Military,” he answers bluntly, “can't say much more than that, ya know. Confidential stuff.”

“Oh,” you can't help your surprise. You feel even more out of your depth. “That's interesting.”

“Nah, sweet thing like you don't care about war stuff. Ugly business,” he dismisses, “how your drink then, honeybee?”

“Um,” you look down. It even smells strong. “It's good. Thank you.”

[cloudyskydreams]

sans/pap AUs with a S/O who smokes pot??

Like they hear them coughing up a lung from the other room and when they go to check it out they find that their S/O has hotboxed the room:D

(not sure how u feel about weed, so if this makes u uncomfortable, just ignore meee<3333)

p.s. I love how u portray them sm!! none of that US sans infantilization crap<3

Ahh ive actually been waiting for this to be requested!! I myself am a stoner(smoking while writing this lol) and I hc that our lovely Stretch is one as well even though I am aware it's not canon.

Hope you guys enjoy these as much as I did imagining them

★・・★・・★・・★・・★・・★・・★・・★

Undertale:

Sans:

He was coming to see what you wanted to get for takeout for dinner and when he opened the door the smell of weed blasts him in his non-existent nose and he's surrounded by smoke. Takes one look at you and sighs affectionately as he opens the windows to let the smoke out. "could've gone outside." He teases he knows what a hotbox is and that that's what you were doing. Snuggles up close to you and brings up the prospect of food as he brushes his distills through your hair. He might take a hit or two if you offer, he's not a big stoner but it's not like he's never smoked before. Doesn't really bother him that you smoke does prefer if you do it outside so the place doesn't reek but if you keep it to one room that also works.

Papyrus:

You had been in the bathroom for awhile and Papyrus was getting worried. When he knocked on. the door he heard some clatter behind it and waited patiently as he called out. "MY DEAR ARE YOU OKAY?" The utter shock on his face when he's absolutely violated by that dank ass smell and hit with a puff of smoke when you open the door with the widest grin and red eyes. I feel like Papyrus absolutely owns a D.A.R.E shirt so you can imagine he's a little disappointed but he knows now is not a good time to talk about it. Gets you a nice cup of cold water to drink and turns on a documentary that he'll listen to as you watch. He's gonna be taking care of chores but checking up on you every 15 minutes or so. Will absolutely nag at you when you sober up but he's not gonna force you to stop just…take it outside next time.

Underfell:

Red:

Was finding you for some cuddles and found you blitzed out of your mind puffing on a joint as the room is filled with smoke. He chuckles and gives you a affectionate grin as he looks over your intoxicated state. "looks like yer havin some fun doll". Gets you something to drink and something to munch on before cuddling up next to you and turning on a movie as he gently prys the joint from your grip. He will absolutely smoke with you and will probably ask to join if he finds you already smoking. He's more of a drinker than a stoner but he'll start smoking a bit more if you do.

Edge:

The utter disgust thats expressed on his face when he smells weed. He's immediately nagging you. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" He glares at you through narrowed sockets and then remembers all the times he tried to talk to Stretch or Red when they were smoking together and sighs. He knows nows not the time and shelves his disappointment and anger and leads you to the couch. Gets you some water and watches over you as he gently rubs your head occasionally glancing at whatever you turned on. He's very passive aggressive at first when you sober up and then comes the nag fest. Does not like the smell and doesn't want it in the house so your designated smoke spot is now outside. He knows he can't make you stop and honestly it's legalized and he doesn't really care since you're not breaking any laws, he was really just upset you had it inside his nice clean house. Had like 17 scented candles lit the night you hotboxed that room and was glaring at you while he lit them.

Underswap:

Blue:

Has a here we go again moment when he's hit full force with the smell of weed and your dopey grin. Memories of his first time catching a young stretch smoking flits through his mind. He doesn't chastise you and instead grins and gives you a quick peck. "HELLO LOVELY ARE YOU ENJOYING YOURSELF?" He's gonna make sure you have a good high he knows people have their own reasons for smoking and assumes you have yours like his brother has is and doesn't really question it. I'm in between on if he'd smoke or not I feel like he'd try it after being curious for a bit but I don't think he'd be a stoner. Would plan that shit out and makes what he gets from dispensaries last MONTHS because he simply doesn't smoke like that.

Stretch:

Now stretch DOES smoke like that. Not even fazed when he opens the door to your hotbox. "awh honey you didn't invite me?" Grabs his own stuff so he can contribute to the sesh and you guys smoke together. Lazy high cuddles and silly questions that turn into philosophical conversations. Absolutely loves smoking with you having a SO who's a stoner isn't a must but it's a huge bonus. Actually starts to plan dates like edibles and the aquarium or walks through the woods with joints, a picnic where he gifts you flower instead of of flowers and such.

Horrortale:

Axe:

Confused when he opens the door to the smell of weed and smoke. Poor baby at first thinks there's a fire and is looking around for it until he sees what you have in your hands. He relaxes slightly upon seeing the bong and heads over your way. "…had me scared lamb" he mutters as he curls up around you and starts to purr. Always carries snacks on him so your munchies are good. Will get you anything you ask for water, food, blankets ect. Now I feel like since he already has memory problems we shouldn't be giving axe weed… but he absolutely got into your edibles one time and destroyed the entire batch. When you told him what they were he just starts laughing. Would not leave your side once the high kicked in and start carrying you everywhere like a doll. Ended up going for a walk in the woods for like 4 hours because he kept getting distracted by literally everything. Don't even get me started on his munchies. So no Axe isn't a stoner but I feel like an edible every now and then he would absolutely do.

Willow:

Not as disappointed as Papyrus surprisingly. A little disappointed still when he comes face to face with your hot box and opens the windows to clear the room as he shakes his head. Makes you something to eat real quick and gets you something to drink. Has you in his lap as you guys watch a documentary. He's pretty much down for any wacky adventure you might want to go on in this state and he will absolutely be joining you worried about your safety. Willow could be convinced to try edibles especially since it would help with his chronic pain and it doesn't really bother him that you smoke as long as you're doing it in moderation. (he will step in if he thinks you're getting dependant on the substance(all of them would))

[yanderes-galore]

oooh love to see yandere tag team between Blitzo and Moxie both trying to court imp darling please

hcs if possible and maybe reader can be female (or gn if that makes it easier for u UWU)

I'll try my best! I'll use GN because I've found it easier recently.

Yandere! Blitzø + Moxxie with Imp! Darling

(FT. Enabler! Millie)

Pairing: Romantic - Sharing

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Stalking, Manipulation, Possessive behavior, Polygamy (Moxxie, Millie, Reader, Probably Blitz), Violence, Mature themes, Murder, Kidnapping, Isolation, Dubious relationship(s).

I feel this pairing gets more complicated than I first thought.

Mostly because I feel Moxxie is rather loyal to Millie romantically.

However, one way I can see it working is if Millie encourages it.

Like maybe Millie sees how Moxxie looks at you and suggests making you their third... which enables Moxxie.

That would explain how Moxxie's obsession works.

Then Blitzø is self explanatory... He chases after you because he fears not being loved.

I feel these two would both fight over you... yet later work on helping each other courting you.

You're no doubt a new hire to I.M.P, yet another skilled assassin hired by Blitzø to make jobs more efficient.

Although... Soon your job ends up more complicated than you thought.

You took the job expecting to just be an assassin.

Instead, it seems you're getting pulled into relationship drama involving you.

Blitzø is naturally a mess, especially after Stolas.

When you join, he no doubt finds you attractive.

Which usually ends up with Blitzø flirting crude comments around you, even during missions.

He isn't the romantic type... unlike Moxxie and Millie.

Blitzø is used to intimacy being how you showed love.

He's used to being physical, as that's how his previous relationships went.

Moxxie is different while courting...

With Millie's permission, he tries to plan things out more.

He isn't trying to seduce you.

He wants to give you warm feelings, the fuzzy kind you get from poetic words and songs.

Moxxie likes planning dates and hang outs when not on missions.

He's more romantic and less intense compared to Blitzø.

Not only that, but Millie encourages him and reassures you.

If they want anyone to be their third... It would probably be you.

This originally causes conflict.

Blitzø is upset because Moxxie already has a partner.

Meanwhile, Moxxie accuses Blitzø of just trying to sleep with you.

Although, eventually they come to a deal.

You'll be shared.

Being part of imp polygamy was not what you joined the job for, honestly.

For the most part you avoid it, the feelings your coworkers have for you being one-sided in nature.

Blitzø still tries to be seductive, secretly craving some sort of attention due to no longer being with Stolas.

You often turn him down, which frustrates your boss.

Moxxie and Millie would no doubt try making songs for you or inviting you on outings.

Yet you no doubt can tell it's a subtle way of inviting you on a date.

You often decline, trying to be friends but be firm that you aren't interested in confusing relationships at work.

Of course... That isn't enough for your fellow imps....

Blitzø and Moxxie are the main ones who court you.

Millie lets them and mostly just helps plan things.

Poor you is just trying to do your job...

Only to catch your two coworkers stalking your every move.

They both remember nearly everything about you.

Things such as your coffee order, preferred place to hang out, preferred weapon...

Oh yeah, they keep track.

You have a feeling you know how...

But you never want to press the issue.

Both imps can be quite clingy, too.

Moxxie is naturally affectionate and Blitzø is... well, I think you know why....

Both imps are violent, it's natural since you're all assassins.

I can even see them trying to impress you during jobs.

For example... Who can get rid of the target the fastest?

They try so hard to court you... even to the point of agreeing to share you.

Yet you always decline.

Unfortunately, both of them are quite persistent.

I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually just wear you down.

You may be coerced into a 'beneficial' pairing with them just to keep them happy.

You just have a little fun... it's not really a proper relationship.

But both imps seem to treat it that way... or at least Moxxie does.

You may play along for a little while.

Although, what happens when you cut things off?

Maybe you find someone else to be your partner?

It wouldn't end well.

To them, the little affection and intimacy you gave them meant a lot.

So if you left to pursue something with another demon, both imps are going to follow.

Truth is, while they can share with each other...

They'd never share you with anyone outside of I.M.P.

You should've known better, honestly...

One day, when you least expect it, both imps are going to get rid of your lover.

They don't mind teaming up to get rid of someone they feel is stealing you.

By the time you realize what happened... You already have a sack over your head.

Both of them probably kidnap you and keep you somewhere they can both have access to you.

Once you come to, you're being scolded by them.

Scolded for cheating and being disloyal.

Now the two have decided they're going to keep you away from everyone else, you'll have just them.

Blitzø is the one most irritated about it... while Moxxie is more forgiving despite being hurt.

The two are tired of their love fleeing and avoiding them.

It seems they need to be more strict... This was never a casual fling...

You're going to be theirs, forever, and you aren't leaving until you understand that.

[demon-country]

I'm kind of surprised that this isn't a more common opinion, but I really do think that Blitz started coming over way more often than just the full moon for sex and also that he started staying the whole night as time went on. Like, even if you want to claim that Stolas doesn't love Blitz, he only loves the idea of being loved - which I highly disagree with - Blitz ain't that kinda person. He doesn't catch feelings after only like, what, 12-ish days spent having marathon long sex, and a couple of times spent being vaguely together in public? Ain't no way, Blitz is too guarded for that, and even though BDSM breeds a lot of trust just by virtue of it being about trust more than it is about sex, there's no way those things alone would make Blitz start to fall in love enough that he lists Stolas among the people he doesn't want to live without and die alone, or enough to do literally all of The Full Moon and Apology Tour.

On Stolas' phone there is also a picture of a horse that Blitz drew, laid on Stolas' bed, showing that Blitz felt comfortable enough at Stolas' palace and in Stolas' company that he was willing to draw Stolas a horse. That speaks of intimacy, that speaks of familiarity, and that speaks of trust that Blitz would share something he loves doing with Stolas. It also speaks of them having the time to do things other than sex when he comes over.

Now, to be fair, Blitz himself says that Stolas liked to do things like call him a lot to ask about his day and whatnot, and liked his sinstagram posts all the time. And while their now-defunct official Instagram posts aren't strictly canon, Viv did say that the stuff there was true to what the characters might do. So if we take what Blitz said in Oops and applied it to something Blitz posted on his sinstagram account, then Blitz used to book out an entire hour on his daily schedule just to talk on the phone with Stolas. Spending an hour or even half an hour almost every single work day for around a year and regularly talking on sinstagram is definitely significant and would also foster familiarity and plant the seed that Stolas does care for him, even if Blitz's self-hatred and Stolas' more unfortunate comments prevented him from truly believing it.

But I don't think it'd stop with that. Sex is the only way Blitz feels he can really spend time together with Stolas, and it's the only thing he knows for certain that Stolas wants from him and is always down for. If he was catching feelings - and Ozzie's, The Full Moon, and Apology Tour all show that he most definitely was -, he'd start desiring to be around Stolas more often, which would almost definitely lead to him making excuses to come over and have sex.

Of course, he couldn't just admit that even to himself, so he probably would have excused it to himself as something like being too busy to find someone else to sleep with. Oh you know he's just so busy with work and taking care of Loona, and going out to find a fling when he has a perfectly willing booty call he can go see basically whenever he wants is just way less convenient. Why put in the extra work finding someone he's interested in when Stolas is a smoking hot great lay who's down to do pretty much anything and everything? Not that it means anything though! He could totally go get someone else if he wanted to, he just... doesn't. Because he's too busy for that, of course.

And why go to some rando's place if he's just gonna have to get up and leave right after? With Stolas he can stay the night in a giant ass, comfy as fuck bed (with a super soft, super snuggly bird. Uh, not that he cares about that though! It's certainly not like he's touch starved or anything, haha no of course not that'd be crazy! >_>), and in the morning if he sticks around long enough he can either get another round in or some fancy brand coffee.

Like, that's all just an example of how he might explain it to himself, but however he actually did, I'm of the opinion that he used to not stay the night, but most of the time by the end of it he did. Blitz doesn't fall quickly, but once he does he falls hard, and given how desperately he clings to Stolas in The Full Moon and Apology Tour, I'm not sure if he'd be able to stop himself from spending whatever time he could make excuses for with Stolas. The only reason he doesn't post-Ozzie's is because of Stolas' supposed rejection and, after Western Energy, because he feels unworthy of it and is scared of what his perceived failure to protect Stolas might have changed.

That's how I see it, anyway. But I guess it's a pretty unpopular opinion? This got way longer than I thought it would...

[qu0rky]

I love Stolitz, i love that we’ll get to see them finally be healthy and possibly fluffy with each other. However i can’t help but feel awful for Stolas, because not only can’t he ever catch a break, but he also can’t ever have 2 good things at once.

He had his precious daughter whom he loves and wants to protect, but he had to live in a loveless marriage with an abusive asshole in order to have that. And the man is irrevocably lonely. He takes antidepressants and cries like every other day. The only knowledge of romance he has is from rom-coms. He has never been on a real date before.

And when the guy he loves is starting to get his shit together so they can finally figure it out, he loses his daughter’s custody in the process.

Meanwhile Blitz is loved by his daughter, his coworkers, his childhood friend, shit he even reconciled with his ex, and still gets to go on knowing he’s so fucking loved by Stolas, because the man was literally willing to die for him, and has made it incredibly clear just how much he cares.

Stolas does not have this reassurance still. As an audience, we know Blitz loves him, but Stolas is still coming to terms with the fact that he lost is daughter, and i’m sure he thinks that Blitz is just pitying him and that’s why he’s taking care of him and letting him stay at his place. Fuck me give my bird a second to breathe i beg.

[djljpanda]

Can we please have some poly asmo and fizzarolli with a reader who's blitz's younger brother ( by one year)who gets kidnapped by striker in revenge of fizz and blitz.

Take your time to make it (if you want to) <3

Taken

Ozzie X Fizz X M!Reader (Blitzo Younger Brother)

Striker would be so pissed that the two got away and more upset that Blitzo got away again

So to his surprise when he heard of the latest rumors about the prince of Lust have two boyfriends but what really got him was that one looked exactly like Blitzo

After some investigation Striker was ready to get his revenge

You were on your way to go catch up with your older brother cause after what you heard he did for Fizz and wanting to know if he knows anything about Barbie you wanted to catch up with him

But all you remember was pain on the back of your head than darkness

Fizz was the first to get the message, he thought it was some meme or a thrust trap of you but it was tied up and beaten which worried Fizz and he immediately went to get Ozzie

I don't know how but I think Blitzo and Fizz would be the ones to go get you as Asmodeus is on standby if anything goes wrong

After lots of fighting and a near death experience they got you out

After a heart to heat with your brother you were taken back home

Ozzie and Fizz would be so clingy as they were really worried for you

They would help bandage you up and would tell you some kind words with some dirty talk mixed in

But yeah for awhile they will not let you go anywhere without the other present and if not Ozzie would get you a bodyguard

These two just love you and are happy to have you back still alive

Either that night ends with some cuddles or messy sheets

[kamisama1kiss]

Hiii!! I’m back idk if it’s too early for me to request again, 😭 I was thinking maybe you can do a headcanons for the ninja when their lover Y/n calls them a cute name in middle of battle and for Lloyd it could be “Green Bean” but for Kai “Hotshot” (used by skylor) but I can’t think of the other ninja, maybe you can think of ones for them. The ninja would act like they don’t like the nickname but secretly love it, I really wanna hear your thoughts on this 😭🙏

Honestly, this is a very cutie idea!! 😝🤭 Have been thinking about how to write this one for at least a few days since I got it! It's not the best as I did get stuck on some of the characters more than others 😭🙏

~~~

How they'd react to cute nicknames in probably one of the most unconvinent timings? {Ninjago's Ninjas}

~ Lloyd Garmadon ~ {Green Bean}

He halted in his movements after he heard you call out to him, "Grean Bean, watch your left!" You shouted this being the first time calling him this nickname, "What?" Nonetheless of being confused, he would continue the battle. Whilest he concealed a smile throughout it and would never confess nor agree that he did such.

Would approach you after about how it was most definitely irresponsible with the timing. Let's just say that you did recove maybe a kiss or more than usually after.

Even with how much he denied his like for it he did secretly wish for it to be used on a more casual term rather then open in battle, knowing the enemy would most likely laugh at him and not be able to take him seriously.

~ Kai Smith~ {HotShot}

Having you right behind him as his rock to hold him from bring hurt, "I've got your back HotShot." It's hard to believe he could be irritated, upset, or angry about it, especially as his lover. Feeding his ego as which also pushed him to work even better, confidence rushing through him.

His arm does often rest around your shoulders, even more now. When he knows you're capable of giving out nicknames, your shoulders will meet rest once again.

Wouldn't bring it out up right away, but he would use it against you if you tried anything in the near future.

~ Cole Brookstone ~ {Pebble}

Didn't even think twice about it and just accepted it at the time being, being too busy to worry about nicknames. Even if he'd get a few butterflies in his stomach from you every time.

"Need help, Pebble?" You had asked oh so sweetly, yet he acted as if he didn't wish to hear it. Crossing his arms with a neutral expression acting as if he didnt like it, but deep down, we all know he is just a softie who enjoys giving and receiving nicknames.

~ Zane Julian ~ {Sherbet}

He fully stopped coding and looked over at you. The only word to explain how he looked was confused. "Have you named me after an ice cream sort?" But decided to jump back to what he had to finish either way.

"I turned off the cameras on the first floor, Sherbet." Only informing him about the updates yet being confronted with a more suspicious reaction then intended.

~ Jay Walker ~ {Blitz}

"Catch Blitz!" Was the only words he heard before he was hit on the shoulder by the the nunchucks someone kicked out of his grip. His heart raced alongside his cheeks, heating up but luckily hidden under his mask.

He truly did appreciate and adore nicknames from the one and only you! He was embarrassed that it was in front of others, so he would "complain" about how he didn't like it even when he thought it was adorable. Flared his nose and shook his head when it came to this topic of liking the nickname.

~ Nya Smith~ {Lily Pads}

"Use the water, Lily Pads!" Her eyes widened, but shook it off quickly to continue her main gaol at this moment. She was confused at first but did find it cute, so she decided not to comment until a better time, at least until there wasn't someone trying to kill them was there.

Ended up never even mentioning it, but she looked unpleased about it. Having gotten used to you spitting out cute names here and there didn't bother her too much after a while.

A scowl on her lips about it, knowing it's best to show you that it wasn't okay for the nicknames to be spat out in important timings.

[hazbinshusk]

blitzø x afab!reader. when blitzø sees you stressing over your workload for a certain demanding overlord, the imp decides to help you unwind by fucking the problems out of your "pretty little head".

for the incredibly patient 🎀 anon. 1.8k

featuring: unprotected sex, dom!blitzø, a totally sandwiched-in reference to hazbin hotel, and overstimulation because they're both petty as shit.

“I ever tell you how fucking boring your job is?” Blitzø asks as he flings himself down on the couch beside you, half-finished iced coffee in hand. He kicks his feet out over the arm of the couch, dropping his head onto the cushion beside your thigh. “Woulda thought you gettin’ a paycheck from the biggest pimp in Hell would be at least a little fuckin’ exciting.”

You sigh, rolling your eyes as you rescue one of your folders from under his shoulder. “For the hundredth time, B. I don’t work for Valentino. I work for Vox.”

“Riiiiight…” he nods mockingly. “And he’s….?”

“The Media Overlord.”

“The one with a flat screen for a head, right?”

You don’t bother looking up from your work as you sort through them in search of a memo you were sure you’d just had in your hand. Paper wasn’t as convenient as a tablet, but working old school meant there was no possibility of your boss taking control of it at any given moment because he couldn’t be bothered to email. “That’s the one.”

“Gross.” Blitzø comments idly, swirling his coffee above him so that he can watch the ice cubes rattle together. “D’ya think he has to Windex his face after eating pussy?”

“For the love of God, Blitz!” you complain, and he cackles beside you. You can’t help but snort a laugh after a moment, and his grin widens triumphantly.

Setting his coffee on the table – thankfully missing the pile of papers you have strewn across the surface – he sits up, planting a hand on your thigh and leaning towards you in a way you know he means to be seductive. “Speakin’ of pussy…”

You sigh again, rolling your eyes towards the ceiling for a moment before turning and pressing a quick kiss to his nose. He wrinkles it in response, leans in again in an attempt to catch your lips with his. He frowns when you lean back slightly. “Hey. Get your stupid ass face back over here.”

You smile apologetically. “Honey. As much as I love the ham-fisted attempts at turning me on, I’ve got a tonne of work to do. Vox just announced some bullshit anti-Angel tech we don’t have for the next extermination and now we’ve got to somehow invent it before everyone finds out he’s full of shit.”

Blitzø gives you an exaggerated, mocking pout in response, leaning closer to you once again and lowering his voice to a more intimate, husky cadence. “Want some help?”

You raise a brow, heat flushing your cheeks and blooming low in your stomach as he presses his lips teasingly against the side of your throat. “You got some insight on how to take out exorcists I should… know about?”

Blitzø grins against your throat, and you hiss an inhale as his fangs graze against your pulse point. His hand wanders up over your thigh, and you catch hold of it before he can dip it between your thighs. His palm is burningly warm through the thin fabric of your yoga pants. “Maybe. Wanna fuck me to find out?”

You scoff a laugh, cut off when Blitzø crushes his lips against yours. He pushes his tongue into your mouth, pushing you back against the arm of the couch. You find yourself kissing him back for a few moments before you pull away, pushing him back with a hand on his chest. “I’ve got work, Blitz.”

“And I’m gonna help,” he coos, his hand sliding up between your thighs again. You whine as his cups your cunt briefly through your clothes before tugging the drawstring undone.

“How exactly?”

“By fucking those thoughts right outta ya pretty little head,” Blitzø coos mockingly. “Now take your fuckin’ pants off.”

You cough out a laugh, the sound turning to a yelp of surprise as he rolls you onto your knees. He takes a firm, possessive hold of your hips and forces you up against the arm of the sofa. You brace yourself against it, thrilling when he presses his hips up against your ass. You can feel how hard he is, and he grinds his hips up against you and groans, grabbing a handful of your ass and squeezing.

“Blitz, I have to wo—”

“Shut the fuck up and just accept you’re gonna cum first,” he eye-rolls, and your retort comes as a soft, throaty moan as he slides his hand up between your thighs. He practically growls the next words, leaning over your back to press a kiss to your shoulder. “That’s my good girl.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Blitzø corkscrews his hips into yours in a mockingly slow, even pace, groaning as he bottoms out inside you. His claws are digging possessively into your hips, his tail curled around your thigh. You reach back with one hand to cover one of his, your fingers digging into the back of his hand each time he thrusts into you.

“Blitz…” you moan, a crease between your brows. You can feel sweat against your brow, on the small of your back, your body, your nipples tingling now they’ve been bared to the room. You press your forehead against the arm of the couch, eyes screwed shut. “Fuck…”

“You know what ya gotta do, princess.” You can hear the smirk in Blitzø’s voice even as it breaks with his own need. He presses his forehead against your spine, cradling it between your shoulder blades, and you shiver as you feel the sharp points of his teeth graze against your back. He’s been fucking you like this – slow and deep – for too long; you need it harder. When you make move to touch your clit, he grabs hold of your hand, pinning it against your quivering thigh. “No way, bitch. Say it for me… fuck, you’re like a wet fuckin’ silk…”

His cock brushes up against that sensitive spot inside you and your eyes roll back, and when his hair winds through your hair to tug your head back, you keen. “Fu—please, Blitz, please…”

“Fuckin’ finally,” Blitzø sighs, snickering as he finally increases the rhythm of his hips. He fucks himself into you hard, the sound of flesh meeting flesh joining the breathless little ‘ahh’s’ you let out each time he fucks himself into you, He releases your hand and it immediately goes to your clit, and you shudder at the first touch. “Satan’s dick, you needy slut… fuuuck, you’re tight… so fuckin’ wet…”

“S-sit back,” you say, urging his hands away from your hips. Blitzø’s pace slows, and you raise your voice, swallowing back some of the breathlessness. “Sit back.”

You can’t help but whimper as Blitzø pulls out of you, jumping as the imp smacks your ass before he does as you ask. You’re straddling his lap as soon as he’s settled, and he smirks cockily up at you, his eyes rolling back slightly as you lower yourself back onto his cock.

Blitzø clutches at your hips as you bring your mouth to his, and he moans into it as you slip your tongue past his lips. The imp’s tail entangles with yours, claws digging deep into your tender flesh as you fuck yourself over his lap. Grinding with each drop of your hips, you whine against his lips as your clit grazes against the line of his hips.

“Ho-ly shit,” he grunts, pressing his hips up into yours with each rolling thrust. Your head tips back as he leaves biting, teasing kisses against your throat and chest. “Fuuuuck…”

Blitzø’s hands wander to your waist, then your ass, grasping so hard at the soft flesh that you’re certain he’s leaving marks. The idea thrills you, and you dig your nails into his shoulders until he hisses, dusting kisses over the top of his head and the base of his horns before bringing your mouth back down to his.

The two of you are playing at the edge of orgasm together, each desperate, claiming touch bringing the two of you closer to release, gasping and cursing. When you cum, it’s with his fingers quick against your clit and his cock buried deep inside your throbbing pussy. You shudder against him, pressing your body flush against his as you choke out his name. Blitzø uses the hand still clutching at your hip to urge you into continued movement, bouncing you on his cock despite the way your moans are becoming almost pained with the amount of stimulation coursing through you.

His fingers don’t ease up on your clit at all, and Blitzø groans strings of curse words as your cunt milks his cock. He buries his teeth in your shoulder as he cums too, and your breath catches in your throat as the pain sends you back over that edge. “Fuck, Blitz!”

You collapse against his chest, rolling your hips disjointedly over his as shivers rock through you. The imp groans behind gritted teeth, head falling back, as he struggles to steady himself. Your cunt tightening around him makes him whine, his exhale coming in a breathless, shaking laugh.

“Okay, okay… shit, I get it!” He finally stops teasing your clit, grabbing hold of your waist and forcing you to stop rocking over his lap. There are tears burning in your eyes, and you shudder into his chest as you try to catch your breath. “I get it, tits… Fuck, you keep goin’ and it’s gonna fall off.”

You giggle breathlessly into the side of his neck, and Blitzø drops a kiss to your temple. “Thank fuck.”

He snickers, cursing again as he lifts you off of his cock. “Feel better?”

You let yourself fall back so you’re stretched out on the cushions in front of him, knees bent as you push your thighs together. “Dunno. Still got a tonne of work to do.”

Blitzø huffs a dramatic sigh, making a show of rolling his eyes.

“Never fuckin’ satisfied, are ya?” He knocks your knees to the side with the back of his head, flopping down on top of you. You laugh painfully as it knocks the air out of you, and he grins almost fondly down at you, folding his arms over your chest and resting his chin on top of them. “Round two?”

You snort a laugh. “Oh, fuck you.”

He leans up to kiss you, letting it linger for a moment, his tail tapping against your ankle as it twitches back and forth. “That’s the idea, yeah.”