#i turned this into a not life or death thing for some reason idk hi

[quarryhag]

@h-a-unted sent: you have to get out of there right now. (For Dylan from Emma!)

"Wh-" He began to question her, but as he turned, he saw. It wouldn't very well be much of a surprise party if he was caught gathering supplies. "Shit." He muttered, getting out of dodge just in time. Thankfully, he had all he needed and as he approached her his arms were full. "I don't think she saw me." He murmured.

[writingforatwistedworld]

Self-aware au

Written before the English release!

I do not take any responsibility for you reading this no matter which age group you are from!

WARNINGS: Yandere themes, Jp-version spoiler(!!!), death, description of war, unhealthy mindset, religion, obsessive themes, unhealthy family dynamics

General! Lilia Vanrouge/(Platonic) Maleanor Draconia/(Platonic) Knight of Dawn-Yandere headcanons

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce? Lilia Vanrouge 1.0. The more cold, hard and ready to behead the next human version of the usual Lilia (also known as the Lilia Vanrouge 2.0 model)

Lilia back then was “rough” and I am being nice calling him that

Back then, Lilia was surrounded by loss and a lot of Faes getting everything they ever owned ripped away from them

Of course this impacts him (I mean he is strolling through battlefield after battlefield so of course it does)

Lilia wasn't always such a devoted follower

Yes, he did believe in the Overseer, aka you, but only after witnessing the brutality that came with him being a general did he turn into a follower with such drastic views

After all, if there was no higher meaning to all this violence, to all this loss and despair, what was even the point of it all?

You became his moral, mental and also a bit of a physical crutch for him

Whenever he felt like he was this close to just giving up, he thought about you and that this was part of your greater plan (totally not part of some valley church propaganda)

After witnessing that human hiding behind the Knight of Dawn in all his haughtiness and cruelty, he finally set out on his quest not only to make the humans leave his beloved home but also to make them into loyal believers of the Overseer

But sadly, everything was for nought and Lilia had to go into hiding

The only thing keeping him going was his believe in you having a greater plan

A few hundred years later and Lilia finally found out what that supposed plan of yours was

Laying in that cold, lonely crib was the child of his old, now deceased enemy

Taking the child, now called Silver, in he learned the joy of a family, the boy giving him more joy than anything ever before in his life

Finally, he had found peace. Of course he did. This was your plan all along, right? You must have ordered those three fairies to make his beloved son survive until now, right?

You were, after all, a kind deity. There was no way this was all just a war happening because of greed. Because if this truly was just events happening after events then...

Lilia never finished that thought

The great ruler of the night fae, mighty and powerful sorceress who could fell an entire nation in one swoop if she wanted to was despite her cruel and aloof outside appearance a pretty devoted follower since the beginning

Despite being a Fae, she was feared just like her unborn son due to her powers (and being more or less being on the same level as a nuclear bomb but hey, I doubt that anyone of us would stand next to one of those, right?)

So it is no surprise that she turned to something, someone, to feel less alone

Especially after her husband disappeared did she wish for some sort of sign that she was not alone

And oh boy, did religious propaganda from the high church take that loneliness away

When her beloved son, although in an egg, was born, she visited your altar daily, thanking you for her child being healthy

(This could also be the reason why Malleus is the way he is but I am just a writer and not some all-knowing God so idk, just a theory)

She definitely has "taken care" *cough*totallynotproblematicforarulertobeinfluencedbyreligion*cough* of Fae that were non-believers

How dare their sinful ways dirty your holy image?

See? Totally not problematic

At first she only tried to protect her subjects after the humans attacked and took over parts of her kingdom

But after a while she started to have another goal

What if she shared your splendor with those little useless invaders?

Humans were most definitely vile but you were able to unite so many different kinds of Fae in your name under the Draconia name

So why not also unite those humans in your name in a peace treaty?

Such a kind God you were! Allowing for peace in your name!

And, well, if violence and destruction was needed to make those beings understand and surrender, then that shall be what they get

Besides, she was only honoring her husbands wish to get closer to the humans so who was she to selfishly aim for another goal?

The Knight of Dawn (long name, I know) did not always believe in you

Heck, the poor guy probably never heard of you until he fought the Fae

But if the humans from back then didn't really know about you, then how did he find out about and why did he start to see you as his God?

On this part, I would say, he and Lilia were eerily similair

Both were pushed into a war neither liked, so of course he was also in a very unstable situation which made him, like Lilia, search for something to hold on to

The three Fairies had mentioned before when he was still training to become as strong as he was now, mentioning a kind deity who accepted all, who loved unconditionally

Back then he only thought of you as one of the many deities that were prayed to back then

But once the war started and he saw your churches and cathedrals for the first time, his opinion slowly started to shift until he saw you as the highest being possible

I mean, all of us would if we lost all stability over night, having only destroyed buildings and a half-standing church in front of us

He hated the plundering of your sacred placed even before he became a believer, having the opinion that it was just a cultural difference between the two kinds

This led to him kneeling at the cracked altars of many of your churches, asking for forgiveness, hoping that you would understand that he didn't have another choice

What he would do to witness one of your sermons…

And when he was lonely enough, he imagined you watching down on him from up above

Just like a... a parent

You see where I am going with this?

So when he was facing the Queen he only hoped for your forgiveness, hoping that his loving family member would forgive his gravest sin, him killing a mother

And he found salvation, in letting that child and the retainer escape

Perhaps you could forgive him now

[illubean]

hey ! can you write for the main four of hxh, where the reader is like immortal but the 4 don’t know and think they “died” but just comes back after like a couple lonngggg seconds? idk if this is weird but thanks!

Main 4 (HXH) w/ an Immortal!Reader

Characters: Gon Freecs, Killua Zoldyck, Kurapika Kurta, Leorio Paladaknight Type: Headcanons, Gn!Reader

not telling them beforehand is EVIL

Warnings: mentions of death

Gon Freecs

alright so for some reason you're fighting someone/thing

and right as you land the final blow they also manage to get a lethal hit in and you "die"

he is literally sobbing while laying on your chest as you take your sweet time to revive...

he is literally bawling his eyes out and feels so guilty because he couldn't help you :((

and then when he feels a hand on his head and hears "now what are you crying about?"

he literally shoots up in surprise

"You're alive!?" "Yeah, I'm literally immortal."

he's too distressed to even question you further and just opts to hug you tightly

he might ask you about it later, but for now he just needs the comfort of your embrace

Killua Zoldyck

this poor kid :(

he's literally already traumatized by everything his family has done to him now THIS?

he's another one who cries because he couldn't protect you

little does he know he doesn't have to

and when you come back like "heyyyy :p" he jumps like 50 feet from you

"What the hell!?" "My bad, took a little longer to come back this time than I thought." "WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS TIME????"

and you explain you're immortal and hes like HAAHH!?

he angrily wipes all of his tears away before beating you over the top of your head

he plays things off as him just being mad you didn't tell him about your ability

but really he's glad that you didn't actually kick the bucket

Kurapika Kurta

he literally lost his entire clan when he was like 12

so you "dying" to who or whatever just piles on top of the darkness in his heart

cue the red eyes ooohhh

he will quickly finish off whoever "killed" you and during that time boom you're back

"Look's like you took care of things here. Thanks Kurapika :D"

he gives himself whiplash with how fast he turns around

at first he is very wary because what if the enemy has some sort of ability to reanimate your body

but then you tell him you're immortal

and he's like oh...

bye bye red eyes

"You should've told me that earlier"

he just sighs and brings you somewhere else to make sure that you're really okay

Leorio Paladaknight

Leorio has a big heart and values his relationships

so when you "die" in front of him he is in arguably more distress than anyone else on the list

he doesn't just accept the fact that you're "dead"

he is literally crying screaming about to throw up

he's like NOOOO WHYYY WHYYYYYYYY YOU CANT BE DEAD NOOOOOOOOOOO

and you come back like just kidding :p not deaddd

he's literally screaming at you and shaking you back and forth by your shoulders

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!? NOT FUNNY, THATS NOT FUNNY AT ALL!"

after that he pauses then starts screaming at you even louder to explain how you came back to life

"ARE YOU A ZOMBIE!?!!?!?"

and when you tell him his frantic yelling does not stop...

good luck shutting him up

[vatelixx]

The visionary, the willing executor,

Spencer Reid x afab!UNSUB!reader (written with mid!seasons Spencer Reid in mind)

SMUT!! copious amounts of angst (there’s traces of fluff in there as well if u get out ur magnifying glass)

BASED ON THIS SONG (it got so stuck in my head that I had to write something that correlated):

──── autistic spencer (it’s not explored that much, but it’s always gonna be present in my oneshots), evil evil reader (im not being dramatic this time. she’s literally a serial killer. like her ‘body count’ is copious. but idk, she’s kinda sweet. if u squint and ignore the bodies). They were in love ur honour !!! they’re still in love ur honour !!!! She pays him a visit two years after he found out about her homicidal tendencies (they miss each other, Spencer might also hate her a little but it’s okay, don’t worry about that).

Warnings: sub spencer (aaaaaaalways), maybe perhaps some vague, very faint mentions of switch!spencer but idk i blacked out writing this, choking, mentions of death and general behaviour that would get you a life sentence, praise more than degradation surprisingly, coming untouched, crying (you’d think that was a kink or something?), she fucks the good out of him, hopeful ending (eh, kinda), mentions of dante’s inferno, copious amounts of religious imagery, greek mythology references, this isn’t dead dove at all i promise.

w.c: 5k

a/n: everything i write has been so angsty recently. i’m working on something softer for my next upload i swear (alongside the requests, I promise, they’re being written im just a die-hard perfectionist). aaaaanyway, happy (belated) halloween!! It’s Spencer’s favourite season so i thought i’d write him getting destroyed by a serial killer (god when is it my turn????)

────────────

Spencer would consider himself a good person, by default. It’s reasonable: a renowned member of the BAU, with intellect he’s weaponized for morality. The blood etched onto his hands is justified. Necessary evil for greater cause. He’s willing to blemish his skin for the virtue, for the lives of others.

He remembers naivety. He remembers being so fragile he could easily crack into fragmented pieces of wasted innocence. Maybe that’s been stolen from him now, maybe the ruins of his sacrifices are too sharp to touch upon still, but he’s good. He knows he will always be good.

And yet, there’s a bruise. Something ugly and distorted that stains his skin. Something that has the ability to crawl deep into his bones and leave behind a mess of pain. Something bad. Festering and tainted, it haunts him with every breath.

You.

You, who came into his life as an abundance of sunlight. Helios personified. Pretty and warm, and everything he needed. He wanted to kiss you: the moment he stumbled into the coffee shop, tousled hair, overworked and raw from a burdening case. When you took his order, marking constellations onto the styrofoam cup. Andromeda, Ursa Major, Cassiopeia. Later, much later, then when you became an indomitable presence to his apartment.

But for all the good he’s preserved, Spencer knows he’s not allowed to receive it.

“You shouldn’t be here,” is the first thing he says when he finds you waiting for him. He always knew you would come back; you’re bound to follow him indefinitely. Like his shadow, his guilty consciousness, his cracked past of addiction and pre-pubescent torment.

He let you go. When the act was over, the curtain drawn, when he saw you. Homicidal, the perpetrator of the case he was working on, malevolence packed into the frame of perfection, oh even still, he let you go. Free to continue the cycle of death, he was left to scramble in the mess of his own misguided heart.

There’s risk in reward, and reward in risk. You’re meticulous, hedonistic to the last detail. But Spencer? Well, he will always be the one loose end you could never quite force yourself to clean up. The thread that kept untangling, even as time passed. Cut it off, you should be rational, wash every bleeding trace of him from your skin.

But there’s irrationality in love.

Blood adorns your features; there’s no need to touch up your appearance, to return to the domesticated facade you once used on him. No, he’s been exposed to the ugly now. There can be no do overs, no back-tracking, game over try again doesn’t exist in real time.

“What are you going to do about it?” you ask, and god, hes just as beautiful as the day you left him. So perfectly real, with dragging exhaustion and pretty brown eyes to ease the sting of his tight-faced, troubled expression.

You didn’t cut the phone lines, nor move the gun he keeps stashed in his cabinet drawer. Down the hall, to the left. You know he won’t make any abrupt actions. Know, in an intuitive way, telepathic communication between past lovers.

“It was a gamble coming here, aren’t you pleased to see me pretty boy?”

Spencer has to fight every urge he has, every moral he believes in to not lunge at you; to not strangle your slender neck, crack you in half, destroy you the way you’ve destroyed his sanity.

Two years, 8 months, 11 days since you cataclysmically uprooted his routined life. He fell in love with softness, not the jagged edge of a blade.

“I let you go. Wasn’t that enough?” it feels too natural, fighting in his apartment, some sort of twisted lovers quarrel. There’s a definite list of everything he should do in this moment, and despite all logic, he just blanks at the sight of you.

“You had to come back. Rub salt in the wound. Do you get off on this?” a sigh falls from his pretty lips, “Actually, don’t— don’t answer that. We both know the answer.”

“I get off on you,” you correct.

It’s true. If he was to analyse you, profile your warped brain like his other unsubs, he’d find nothing but unyielding loyalty to him. For all the damage you’ve done, there’s always been one anomaly to your detachment.

He stands right before you.

And, sure, maybe you’ve got a leg up in this situation. Perhaps the distorted memory of you holds him back: lazy nights and tangled sheets, his body pressed up against yours. The way he’d talk, quantum physics, philosophy, rambles that dissolved into open admissions of feelings. There’s a lot that was fake, but to be a good liar, you have to add subsidiary details of truth.

God, he wishes the world would be cruel—a cosmic alignment of karmic righteousness that would grant him relief: some kind of justification for what he must do. But the universe is indifferent, nothing but a distant star, a fleeting speck of dust in the grand scheme of life. There’s no such thing as good or bad, only consequences.

Consequences. Consequences for his actions. Butterfly effect. He can comprehend it. But, there were many things he adored about you, while the illusion of love was tangible. The way your hair would curl just above your shoulders, your skin in the morning light. The way you’d laugh at one of his obscure Star Trek references, better yet his criticism on modern, inaccurate horror. He could stare at you for eons, as though he was trying to make out the secrets of the universe in the constellation lines of your scars.

The illusion of love, as it was. He sees you now with the clarity of reality, the same way a mirage fades away as you approach; a distortion of perception.

“And you get off on me. Even now. Don’t you?” you say, shifting forward to close gravitational space.

There’s no way to disregard this morbid connection. No psychological justification he can exploit to demean your feelings. You’re not a psychopath, nor anything that relates to a lack of empathy. You feel— you feel empathy for all of your victims, the line of bodies that mark your path. But it goes deeper than that. There was reasoning for your actions, just as there was for his.

“Say it,” you goad. And there’s satisfaction here, sure. Something mean and condescending. But there’s also hurt, because he was supposed to be a means to an end, and now, he might very well be your end.

“Say you miss me. C’mon boy genius, a few little words and i’ll have enough content to satisfy me for years. Don’t be mean— you know I hate being edged.”

He does miss you, every day that he wakes up, his bones too hollow and cold to leave his bed. The ache in his chest where his heart was supposed to be, too empty to function. No amount of caffeine can fill the void in his skull where thoughts of you used to reside. The longing, the desire for the past to rewrite itself.

“You’re sick,” he tries. But he’s not good at this. Not when the love remained after the inevitable fall out, not when the darkest parts of him still clung to want, even after he realised the truth.

“You’re sick, and..” he tries again, “and I hate how much I miss you. There? Is that enough? Are you happy? Got what you wanted?”

You let out an exasperated sigh, “No. If I ‘got what I wanted’, I would still have you.”

Spencer dies. Metaphorically, literally, what does it even matter? He dies, respawns, and then kisses the admittance from your lips.

Instinctively, just like the past, your hands tangle through his hair, and perhaps there’s a sense of ownership to the gesture. The knowledge that he will always be yours. Scarred from your touch, returning to your lips like a dog with a bird. There’s a mindless attempt at anger on his part, biting lips and rough teeth, but just like always, he quickly melts.

He melts, and you catch him. Because for all it’s worth, lies and deceit aside, you’ve always loved him.

There’s something powerful to the gesture; knowing you have someone wrapped around your finger. Even after you’ve bared the worst of you, the ugliness of man-kind. There’s someone out there that will wipe the blood from your cheek, and kiss you through it.

“Oh, even better,” you mutter against his lips, “Much, much better. C’mon Spence, show me just how much you’ve missed me.”

Two years, 8 months, 11 days since he felt like he could breathe.

It hurts, it hurts so much, because there’s a sense of coming home to the kiss, and he just wants you to stay. To ruin him forever. To leave behind a deformed version of him, something unrecognisable and equally scarring.

You’re too loyal and he’s too susceptible to any form of attention. Because you want him, and it’s easy to fall into a cyclical cycle of self-destruction when you’re the catalyst.

“I did miss you.” he admits again. “You— crazy, homicidal excuse of a person.”

Spencer’s hand comes up to touch your cheek, the rough texture of skin meeting something soft. His thumb traces down the curvature of your jawline, a silent hello that doesn’t linger long, too soon to be replaced with his lips.

You push him back against the wall, a painful groan escaping your lips when you feel his hips canting forward, searching aimlessly for a friction you’ve both been denied. Two years. His body still aches for you. It’s primal, something perverted and tainted and so very good.

You knew this would happen. There was not a doubt in your clouded mind that he would deny you. What you do to me, I do to you.

“There’s my boy.” you mutter when you grip said hips, fingers finding their natural, fated position against divine bone. When he begins to find a stable pace, bucking up to meet you with every kiss that you press to his lips.

He whimpers when you touch him, soft sounds of need slipping past his parted lips into the confines of his empty apartment. He’s trying so hard to maintain composure, but he can’t find it in him to fight the inevitable. The ache of separation between himself and you. So he lets it happen, like he always does.

My boy, the possession goes straight to his head. One simple phrase and he’s untangling, breaking to pieces because yes, he is yours. And yes, he will forever want to be reminded.

“Mhm, mhm. Oh— oh, fuck.” he’s so hard, clothed cock pushing up against you with every movement. He could get off on less of you. He has. Every night.

And yes, it certainly feels like home. It’s only the thing your body has been aimlessly yearning for, day in and day out. It’s not fair, not fair to you, that you’ve allowed your resolve to crumble, your strategic, one-track mind, for the fleeting body of a past lover.

But then again, demeaning him to a past lover doesn’t even begin to articulate this.

You’re fairly certain he was put on this earth, just to torment you.

And you’re fairly certain you’ll always let him.

“God, you’re such a slut for me.” you say, drawing back from the friction just to prove your point. The disintegrating whimpers that bleed out of his mouth in response are enough alone to confirm.

His head falls back against the wall, baring that lovely length of his neck and its pretty bruises. He wants you to kiss him there, to leave one last mark before he says ‘I won’t see you again’ and means it this time.

“Don’t— don’t stop—” even as he speaks, a mess of jumbled words and breathless sentences, you’re still teasing him. He hates how much it works, how much he’d rather fall into the pleasure of your hands.

“Fine. Whatever. Yes. What do you want to hear? That it’s whorish the way I want you. That you’re able to just… corrupt me with all these dirty words, even though I have an extensive vocabulary. Even though i’m supposed to be—“

He’s not even sure what he’s supposed to be anymore.

“You know the extent of my devotion.” he concedes.

There will always be sadistic pleasure in reducing him to such an ignominious version of himself. You’ve seen it before, back when you were trapped in an artificial, yet domesticated, haze of bliss. But to hear it now? Even after everything has been said and done?

That’s a new type of pleasure.

You know he still holds onto the facade of you, aimlessly reaching for something intangible, something that never truly existed. “You want me to be good for you, huh? Just pack up my shit, leave it all behind, get better? Think about it. White picket fence. Coffee every morning. God— it would be insufferable. Coming home to feed the dogs, talking every night over the phone, begging you to be safe on a case, or or—“

Spencer breaks. Silencing your words with a pained whimper.

Usually, he doesn’t allow himself to think about that fantastical hypothetic. He can’t afford to. Months after he let you go, when the truth had been exposed to his naive eyes, he’d spend hours in a mess of aching limbs, dreaming up alternative realities where your hands weren’t stained from blood, and the most despicable thing you could do was make his coffee bitter.

So when you force him to open old wounds, to rehash past hopes, he falls apart. A whine escapes his lips, hips bucking, once, twice and then he’s coming untouched. Making a mess out of himself— and it’s sick, so very sick to get off on the thought of you permanent, the epitome of good.

Something he could hold onto without slicing open skin.

It’s not a good orgasm, it never is without your direct help, but at least it’s some form of release. In the aftermath, he blinks away tears, vaguely aware of the cum staining his boxers, creating damp spots through fabric.

There’s something painful, cutting to your gaze when you look at him. At the debauched sight, corrupted from just a few words.

Give it all up? For what? Him?

All things considered, it’s tempting.

“Spencer,” you mutter in the serrated moments between. When he’s still nebulous, caught in the aftershocks of abrupt pleasure. When he’s just gotten off, untouched, on the notion of a domesticated life with you.

He’s struggling to breathe. He’s spent nights gasping for you, reduced to the most debasing version of himself. So out of touch, you drove a blade through his back, catching his heart on the way.

“Why are you— doing this?” he asks, but before you can even answer, provide him with an explanation that will devastate, he’s lunging forward, kissing the lies that cling to your lips. Kissing you because his mouth hurts when it’s not attached to yours.

“One last time.” he says; he’s too intelligent, too intellectually adept, to allow this swallowing cycle of humiliation to continue.

But, underneath it all, he’s also inherently selfish for you. He’s fairly certain you were engrained into his skin, long before he fell into your barbed trap, teeth and penetrative ruin.

“Then you leave. You actually leave, never contact me again. No showing up at my apartment unprovoked. I have a good life without you. Understood?”

You scoff. He presses forward, “Understood?”

You don’t protest when he elucidates his life as good. Even if it’s quite the contrary. Even if he has to bare witness to depravity every single day, scrutinise his way through the minds of the most perverse. Perhaps this is a social experiment to him, perhaps you are the guinea pig, Laika sentenced to space. You know he loved you once, but it’s hard to comprehend the feelings remained unscarred, it’s hard to imagine you’re anything but a test subject now.

You look at him. Look at that pretty face. Your undoing. He could be your achilles heel, hamartia in its rawest form, or maybe you willingly chose to do this. Maybe fate, and divine intervention played no part in your attachment to him. Maybe it’s just chemicals. The logics explanation. Imbalanced, skewed chemicals.

“Don’t worry, boy genius.” you respond, “You won’t get anything, not even a postcard, from me. It’ll be like I never even existed.” no trace. D.C has always been a monotone cesspit of nothing anyway.

It’s cruel. Because if you leave, truly leave. And he never hears from you again, never catches you in his kitchen, drinking coffee with an unadulterated smile, then he will begin to forget.

The curve of your spine, the scars beneath your chest, the way your fingers fit into his own. The way he was able to memorise your body until he could draw it in the dark, when your body was pressed to his, when there was nothing but a false establishment of safety.

He knows he can’t forget. Not technically. But it’ll grow distant, it’ll be replaced with new normals and routines. That, that, he can’t compute.

“Good,” he says, kissing you again, kissing you because this is it.

Spencer wants you. In every sense of the word, he wants you so badly it’s killing him.

His bedroom still holds traces of you. That, itself, is a crime. But he just falls into you. The way lovers do. Your hands against his skin— his hair threaded through your fingers, your lips at the base of his neck. He lets you leave another bruise, a mark, a confirmation of possession, because even if this is the last time, he is, and always will be yours.

“Still the prettiest person i’ve ever seen,” you admit when he’s flushed naked beneath you.

There’s something in those doe-eyes, brown irises blown out of proportion, that hooked you. Even at the worst, it was still soft with him.

Slender frame, slightly arched, you want to bite into his hips, mark every inch of him as yours. It’s greedy, gluttonous, his messy hair, fanning out like a halo, the tangled curls he never bothers to properly care for.

“God, fucking look at you,” you grip his jaw, tilt his head back to bare that blemished neck of his. To have and to own. He’s so inexplicably different to you, so good it runs down to the bone. And maybe you’ve always been insatiable for what you’ve lacked.

He can’t take this. He can’t, not again. The past, the future will have to dissolve with this moment, because there will never be another again.

You will never get this close to him. It’s a terrifying thought, that this’ll be the standard of intimacy, of love - because he knows it isn’t. But he can’t risk the reality he’s faced with, the reality of living without this. Of living without you.

Your words only make it worse. He wants to beg you to stop. To cease the torture.

“Shut up.” He kisses you, as if to remind you that your mouth is made for kissing, for his lips, for a litany of dirty words that he can’t bear to hear. Those words are for someone else. For someone similar. Not him. Never him.

Defying fate. He gets off on being something bad beneath the surface. No one would ever expect it; boyish maladroit Spencer, the youngest of the team, willingly allowing, condoning, a killer to sink into his skin.

“Don’t tell me to shut up,” you respond, muffled against his lips. “If this is the last time, i’m going to enjoy it. Going to enjoy the sight of you, all desperate for me alone.”

“You assume i’ve ever been desperate for anyone else—“ he counters.

“Oh, that’s it. Keep talking dirty to me.”

“It’s not dirty. It’s a factual statement.”

You pull away, a trail of saliva bridging the space between your mouths. If there is higher power at play here, you want to curse, to spite your creator. Because if ‘things’ had been different, if you had been born from the same rib, this could’ve ended differently.

Or for that matter, never ended at all.

“Sit there and watch me.” you say, and Spencer hates the way he obliges. Pushing himself up against the headboard, he stares at you, at the way you position yourself, standing by the foot of the bed.

“Do you even know what you do to me? Do you even understand the gravity your existence has on me?” you continue, unfastening the lace corset that clings to your frame. When it drops to the floor, breasts exposed, you run your hands across them, catching pierced nipples for a vindictive moment of pleasure.

“I— uh,” Spencer is admittedly a little distracted. Sex had always been something ruinous between you two. Something that conflicted his lack of experience, forced him to adapt.

He always wondered how someone so soft, the epitome of light, could be this obscene. Now he understands.

“Lost your words? Come on, pretty boy. I thought you had an ‘extensive vocabulary?’ Hm?”

He wants to touch himself, to ease the pulsing throb that centres in his cock. But he doesn’t, because despite the time that has passed, he still knows your rules. “Don’t use my words against me. I’m being tortured.”

“Tortured, huh?” your hands fumble over buttons until you’re reduced to a pair of panties, soaked throughly, leaving scarce to the imagination.

“So so tortured. Oh my god, who are you? Can I please have my soul back?” he’s joking, but not really.

“Well maybe if you beg for it,” your words fade into a mess of moans, fingers slipping beneath fabric to graze your clit. Spencer’s head spills back against the wall; he looks more affected by the movements than you.

It’s easy to fall back into old habits. Relapse.

“Come here, come here, i’m having an existential crisis.” he says, watching as you slip one finger, then two inside you, struggling to stand now. It’s strange how pleasure can reduce the most antagonising minds to vulnerability.

“Please— oh fuck, please. Please. Don’t make me watch, I can’t. Need you. Need you so bad.”

He thought he found the core of torture in you touching yourself, but he was wrong. Because when you crawl closer, when you slot yourself between his thighs, lips finding skin that only you have ever touched, he sees the root of evil in his brain. The ninth circle of hell.

It’s justified, he supposes. For all the good he’s done, he has betrayed. Himself, his friends, family, existence itself. There is not one thing he wouldn’t ruin, just to feel you. It’s incriminating, so yes, he deserves to freeze in Cocytus. He’ll willingly plead guilty, accept his entrapment in the ring of Caina.

“Poor baby, look at you.” you say, kissing his tip, catching the pre-cum on your tongue. Spencer responds: fisting bedsheets, fighting the restraint to buck forward, to find misplaced solace in the warmth of your mouth. He’s sprawled out across sheets now, lying back in a tangled heap of want. “Shh, it’s okay,” you continue, “I like my men desperate.”

“Desperate? Ah—,” he fights the urge to shut his eyes, too aware that this is the last memory he will ever retain of you.

You, painted into his mind. The final evidence left in the fire: mouth sinking down his length, taking him to the hilt, watery eyes and leaking mascara.

“This isn’t even desperation. You’re killing me. Just, oh oh— please, don’t. ‘M gonna cum. Gonna cum—“

Is it sick that he doesn’t want to? If only to prolong this transitory moment of destruction? Like the lotus eaters, he will always be mindless in the pursuit of more, more, more of you.

You draw back from his cock, only to press a soft kiss against the tip. The gesture alone has him reeling, has him begging to be saved, to atone for every sin he found in the comfort of your divinely crafted lips.

“Gonna let me sit on that pretty cock of yours, hm? Let me use you one last time? Promise i’ll be good,” a lie, “So so good.”

“God, yes. Yes, please. That would—“ You take him deep, deep enough that everything aches. He only feels alive when you’re wrapped around him, when there’s not an ounce of distance between your bodies, when he can touch the insides of you. Pry open the raw, unfiltered version of you.

He only feels alive when he’s sunk inside the harbinger of death. He’d laugh if it didn’t hurt.

You’ve got one hand tangled in your hair, the other pressed flat against his waist, supporting you through each bump of movement. Eyes like marbles, Spencer looks up, and wonders why this will never be enough for you.

You look back, meet his gaze, as if you’re Orpheus, predestined to turn around, to always return. Even if it’s just for one last second. Even if the fall-out is so much worse than pushing forward blindly.

Oh, hes certain you’re carving a hole inside him, something that will only grow and expand, imploring to be filled by it’s inventor. It’ll hurt, for the rest of time, he supposes.

When he finds your hand around his neck, he isn’t startled. Neither, when your thumb presses against his throat, applying pressure until the world cracks and fades, distorting his refined mind to the here and now. He floats, feeling transient in the curse of your touch.

“That’s it. Just let go. I’ve got you.”

He is a sacrificial lamb. The priests favourite. He will take the knife every time, and thank you for it after.

You release the tension, hand taking his instead. For all the cruelty you possess, you’d never think to harm him. Not physically at least. The emotional damage, however, finds you both. There can be no happiness in either of your worlds, not when the memory of each other festers. “Good boy— taking it so well. God, no one is ever gonna compare.”

He cries at the words. Pretty tears streaming down his face, because the reciprocation to his undying piety will forever trigger the warped chemicals in his brain. Will forever reduce him to something saccharine.

“Love you. Love you so much. Don’t go. Please,” he fractures, “please don’t go.” he begs, besmirched words he’ll regret in the wake of his pleasure. They don’t count, and yet, he knows, in the most depraved sections of his mind, they’re true.

You ride him harder. Back curved, finding god in the washed-out body of someone fatally destroyed. “Not going anywhere— fuck, fuckfuckfuck. That feels so good. You’re so good,” maybe it’s a kink to ruin something so perfectly spotless.

Maybe it’s a kink that he wants it.

“Say it. God, just say it. This once.” for old times sake, he almost adds. But that wouldn’t be objectively correct. For all the intimacy you shared, you never once articulated those three words. Perhaps it was to save your dignity, to hold pieces of yourself in the lies you beautifully crafted.

His thumb runs over your clit, and in the tangle of your orgasm, he almost thinks you forget about his demand. But after, when you’re still taking him, when you’re still clenching, unclenching, clenching around his cock, when you know you own every part of him, you answer.

“I love you.”

He falls apart. Hips canting, body squirming, whimper after whimper escaping his bruised lips as he releases inside of you. Pushed deep, defiled to the limit. For a moment, everything is okay, everything will be alright, because there’s pleasure, and it’s you. It’s always you.

How can he justify falling in love with you again? How can he, when he still clings onto the artificial love of the past? He’s not sure his heart can handle one set of feelings, nevermind two.

He takes you again, well… mostly you take him again. In ways that have him polluted with the remnants of your teeth. Canine marks, etched deep enough to bleed. He hopes the swelling leaves behind perennial scars, anything to remind him. Anything to hold onto when you’re gone and it’s cold.

After, when you lie together, he presses his forehead against yours and wishes he was in any other universe. One where you’re happy. Where everything is pure and simple, clean from sin.

There was always truth in what we shared before, you admit. Lazy nights spent draped over the couch, kissing him to silence convoluted rambles. Your presence in the morning, bathed in holy glow, sunlight bleeding over the pretty sight of you. The first night he touched you and saw god. And then the following night, when he ascended all over again.

He wakes to find no body. He wakes to find nothing. It feels like self-sabotage, the promise that you would leave, even if it’s quite the contrary.

In the absence, abstinence of your presence, he discovers traces of you in everything he sees, all of it, everything consumed, returning to the simple thought of you you you.

When the first postcard comes, Portland, dreary weather— beaches and ports, there’s no anger. No exasperation that you broke your word.

You love him, it’s morbid, but for someone like him, it overrules everything. Sanity, dignity, his own stable existence.

You overrule everything.

[gyuswhore]

Never Shall We Die (2)

«« Nothing is too outlandish when it’s a life of liberty on the line. »» 

PAIRING: kwon soonyoung x reader

PLAYLIST: right here!

pirate lingo glossary (pls refer!)

SYNOPSIS: Deadliest pirate on the high seas or a damn fool? The stupid King and his men have snatched Hoshi's precious pirate ship with their too clean, too soft hands; grounds to question his own vices. Except, when he and his crew land in the quarters of a navy ship, revenge on their roster, they stumble across a princess in its gallows. Hoshi wonders if he's just struck gold, or if you'd become the final tread to his downfall.

GENRES: pirate!au, enemies to lovers, slowburn, angst, fluff, smut [minor dni], some pirates of the carribean vibes but ? idk

WORD COUNT [full fic]: 48.1k

Part 1: 17.07k | Part 2: 15.2k | Part 3 [final] : 15.8k

@highvern's out of context comment box: new fear unlocked: hoshi with explosives, victorian ankle moment, HATE HIM (need him carnally), hoshi covered in soapy water would distract me enough, strip for me pirate mingyu [hes litrally taking off his jacket], your honor hes a bitch, freaks!, mingyu crushes hoshi's head like a grape, WONWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, massive dick, the way i literally gasped like an old scandalized woman

masterlist

WARNINGS: slowburn, plot heavy, happy ending bc no angsty endings in this household, being taken hostage, knives, bombs, and guns, mentions of blood, mentions of SA (does not happen and it is not explicitly mentioned), alcohol, mentions of death (patricide), hoshi is ✨selectively moral✨but kind of moral nonetheless, side character death, [pls lmk if im missing something its alot] smut tags in following parts

[AN]: part 2 !!!! ty for reading pt1, hope you guys will enjoy this too <3 as always, ty to @highvern for beta-ing and sitting through this entire thing lmao <3 happy reading, and remember to tell me what you think !!

THE FOREVER EMPTY DECK, for whatever reason, was occupied when you trudge up the stairs in an attempt to free yourself from the stuffiness of your quarters. 

You make out Seungkwan sitting cross legged on the floors, very carefully pouring himself a bottle of something unmarked into a bowl. Chan is there as well, very meticulously explaining a happening to…Hoshi, who sits by with an interested expression, mouth turned into a frown with his brows furrowed. Chan is using his hands as he continues, unaware of your presence. 

“Oh!” Seungkwan calls you out by name, causing the rest of the clique to turn their heads to you. “Come have a drink!” 

“What’s this?” Hoshi starts. He’s smiling, but his reddened cheeks give away his very obviously intoxicated state. “Has miss princess decided to grace us with her presence?” 

You ignore him, acknowledging Chan when he asks why you were up at this hour as you sit between him and Seungkwan. 

“Just needed some air,” you mumble. 

“Well,” Hoshi is loud when he spills half the drink out of the cup he was pouring it into. “Air pairs well with rum.”

He holds out a cup of the liquid for you, swaying slightly from the effort of holding it far out towards you. 

“I am a lady.” You resist the effort to turn your nose up. 

“Okay lady, bottoms up!” he slurs. 

When you continue to keep your hands folded, he retracts his hand with what you think is a  prominent scowl, but it looks more like a disappointed pout if anything. He takes a dejected sip from the cup. 

“Come on, just one!” Seungkwan tries to convince you. 

“Leave her alone, Kwan, miss princess is too good to be drinking with pirates,” Hoshi chides. 

You aren’t sure if it was meant to be a jab at all, considering the strange switch in behaviour he seems to have adopted as his drunk persona. You watch in silence as he reaches over to plant a big kiss on Seungkwan’s cheek in affection, grabbing his head strongly. He yelps, pushing his captain off with a face. 

But regardless of what he meant, the defiance sparked within you anyway, and you find yourself gripping the neck of the poorly dusted bottle that sat in the middle amidst even more bottles, cups and twine. The motion has all eyes on you, even as you bring the bottle to your lips, preparing yourself for one of the dumber things you’ve done. 

Locking eyes with Hoshi’s sharp ones over the bottle, you chug it of its remnants, ignoring the fiery burn and the trickles of liquid that trail down the corners of your mouth. 

You hear Seungkwan and Chan cheering, Hoshi remaining stoic as he refuses to be the one to look away from above the bottle. 

By the time you’ve slammed the bottle back onto the hardwood, you’re struggling to maintain your vision and you’re forced to tear your eyes away from the man that sits across from you, unwavering. 

Resisting the urge to vomit, you can only smile weakly at Seungkwan and Chan who are overly excited over your endeavour, clinking their own cups as they down another one in your honour. 

It kickstarted your spree in any case as the night commenced, continuing to accept refills as you sip slower than before, savouring the taste that you couldn’t really say you enjoyed. The feeling, however. 

Seungkwan and Chan took longer than you’d expected to pass out, noting the way they continued to clink and drink with no regard. 

Hoshi seemed to need little to be washed away, something you found yourself silently snorting at, even as both boys continued to snore quietly behind you. 

“What’s so funny?” Hoshi asks, taking a sip from his cup. 

You snap your head up, drunk and hot. You consider shaking your head to indicate a null, but you can’t say you have much control over yourself at the moment. 

“You take so little to get tipsy,” you comment with a little giggle. 

“What makes you think I’m drunk?” he asks.

His red face? The uncharacteristic warmth he’d been treating you with all night? Who knows? But right now you ignore his question, zeroed in on something. He’s wearing one of his stupid linen shirts that are always buttoned too low, the ones that make it impossible to keep your eyes on his face. 

Your eyes find the distorted slash of tissue that resides on his chest, right over his left peck, right over his heart. You’ve noticed the scar on multiple occasions. Not that he seems to ever try to hide it. You decide to mention it. 

“How’d you get that?” you whisper. It feels right to talk like that; the deck is silent, the sea is calm in her regard to pushing the ship where it needs to go. Your legs are pulled up to your chest, cheek on your knees. 

He follows your gaze to his scar, coming round to answer you with a drunk, dopey smile on his face. “Got hungry.”

Possible, but you also get the feeling he wasn’t about to give you a straight answer if you pushed anyway. But your gaze remains on his chest, ingraining the ridges of the scar to memory. 

And with every moment that passes, it looks less and less like a scary altercation of someone trying to carve his heart out, and more like he may have fallen off his horse while riding. Accidentally cut himself with a steak knife at the supper table. Took a bad blow during a practice sword fight. 

And with every moment that passes, the backgrounds of your mind’s pictures turn from the rugged sea to the grassy training grounds of the palace, the hay and brown of the stables, the silver glints of the dining hall. The thuds of rusting cups and cheap sailors rum turn into clinks of wine glasses, Hoshi’s hand wrapped around the stems, skin free of every scar and darkened slash. 

And with every moment that passes, you imagine what this deadly, ferocious pirate would look like if his life was a little different. If his life was a little like yours. Would he be able to be a better match against your father, would he have taken every missed opportunity to become a ruler that you only wish you could be? Could he lead a kingdom as well as he leads his beloved band of pirates?

There’s not a thought of what you’re doing in your mind as you find yourself reaching over, not to the bottles that lie empty, but to the pirate captain’s hands, taking his rough calloused palms in your soft, unscarred ones. 

He does little to resist, letting his hand fall limp in yours. 

“What’s this one?” you ask, tracing over the biggest scar that slashed across his knuckles. 

“Piece of wood sticking out of the mast.” 

It’s an older scar, clear with the way his skin has settled into the healed wound like it’s always been that way. 

“This one?” you ask, tracing over another nick. 

“Fell on glass.”

“This one?”

“Punched Mingyu.”

You frown at that, looking up at him and in accusation. 

“I apologised,” he defends. 

Was it strange that a pirate captain would apologise for assaulting his crew? Slightly, yes. But you liked to think you understood Hoshi a little better than you’d first met him, and that he considered his crew more like his family than anything else. 

Never in a million years, in your pirate hating household, would you have thought that the deadliest band of pirates would soon be the ones you’d be sharing drinks with, tracing scars with, feeling somewhat secure being alone with. 

Entrusting to save your future with. 

You turn his hand over to his palms, now staring at a fresher looking gash that seems to still be healing. It looks painful, the redness yet to fade into its darker hues. 

“What about this one?” you ask, being extra careful to not touch the wound. 

Hearing him let out a small laughing exhale, you look up.

“Thought you’d recognize your own work.” 

And then you remember. 

The spray of blood in the air as your dagger made its first ever maim at your hands. 

“Oh,” you breathe out. 

When you look up from your hunched position, you’re closer to Hoshi than you’d initially thought. He went from an arms length away to brushing shoulders with you, his palm remaining cradled in both of yours. 

“Do you regret it?” he asks as he looks at you like he’s gotten lost somewhere in your face. 

His breath hits your face in a delicate fan, the smell of alcohol mixing from your own mouth. 

Glancing down at his scarring wound, you look back up at him with your lips in a tight line. 

“No.”

He smiles, less of disbelief and more of contentment, a pleasant look on his face as he reads your expression. 

You felt like you’d passed some kind of test. 

“Good.”

And then you’re so close you can barely make out the tip of his nose, his warmth infiltrating your own. You can smell him past the rum, a faint woody scent that makes your head spin. You push up to the alcohol. 

Your stomach is on fire as you expect the final push to come, the eager build in your chest becoming near unbearable. 

Just as you’re about to flutter your eyes closed, ready to take whatever he might give you, you find his face disappeared. 

Hoshi turned his face away, your face infiltrated by the cool breeze once more. Your palms are cooling as his warmth retracts from them as well, leaving you cold and confused. 

Blinking, pushing your chin closer to your chest, you attempt to catch your bearings, catch the notes in the air as you feel him move to his feet quickly. 

“Get some sleep, it’s late,” he announces in a low, gravelly voice before trudging towards the staircase. He seems to have sobered up. 

All that’s left on the deck is your empty palms, the stinging sea spray, and two snoring pirates. 

HOSHI SPENT THE REST of the morning trying to sleep off the imminent feeling of spontaneous combustion. 

The tingle in his right hand refuses to go away, even when he plunges the darn thing into a freezing bucket of water next to his cot, assuming his wound was acting up. 

He sleeps fitfully, the frustration that simmers refuses to let him have a staggering moment of peace. His head is as dense as a whale, throbbing in the seeping light. The sounds of the sea, ones that once brought him calm, were now triggering an irrational reaction from his entire being. 

Swinging to his feet is easy, it’s the aftermath of such a reckless action that has him stumbling like a fawn. Slipping into his boots, he thuds to the lower decks, to the storage area where all of the rations are. 

And where all of the alcohol is. 

He bumps into Minghao on the way down, who’s filling his canteen as he keeps morning watch on deck. 

“Go sleep, I’ve got it,” he says to him, and Minghao does little to refute as he makes a beeline for his beloved hammock. 

It’s too early for anyone to be awake, despite the afternoon sun that lingers. He takes full advantage of it as he hauls the first crate of rum up to the deck. 

There isn’t an inch of hesitation as he lifts the death juice and sends it splashing into the ocean. He stares for a moment as heavy bottles disappear under the water, still full of the very thing he’d shoot his crew for wasting a single drop of. 

Even more determined than before, he goes back down into the brig, this time lugging two more crates of rum, all to be met with the same fate, going down to touch the bottom of the ocean.

With every echoing slam of the wood hitting the water, he feels himself freeing. 

But you plague him anyway. 

Lifting a particularly heavy box, he thinks of how close you had gotten to him on this very deck. How he could breathe in your exhales. How he could feel the tactile of your fingertips tracing over every mauled slash on his hand. How you consumed his mind in ways he couldn’t fathom. 

It was the rum. The rum was doing this to him. 

At least, that’s what he’d chosen to blame. 

Who was he to deny the effect you seemed to have on him?

The answer was that he was a pirate, especially with the way he chalked his muddled brain to not having had a woman around for so, so long. 

He’d considered indulging once they reached Port Ash, slipping away for an hour into one of the beaded doors of women ready to give him what he wanted. The thought seemed like an unwanted remedy. 

Every solution felt fruitless, a balm that only seemed to make the itch worse. Even as he commits a sin as heinous as feeding perfectly good rum to sea foam, he only does it in the hopes that the sea will take it as a sacrifice, to give him the kind of peace his being has begun to crave. 

Hoshi has been moved to insanity. 

Even as he feels the cool cylinder of Jun’s revolver on his temple, he pushes the last crate overboard as his final answer. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” he hears Jun ask. 

When he turns around, the revolver remains stationary as it now points into the smack middle of his forehead. He has an audience, Mingyu’s face has leftover sleep on it, a mildly horrified look on his face. Chan looks like he could slice his own Captain’s throat open. 

“Where’s the rum?” Mingyu asks in an airy voice, disbelief prominent. 

“The rum’s gone.”

“Why is the rum gone?” 

Hoshi doesn’t answer as he moves Jun’s loaded gun out of his face and makes his way back to his cot downstairs, in no mood to squabble with his too sober crew. 

There’s calls of his name that follow him all the way to below the deck, even as he snatches a stray hat on the floor, placing it above his face in the hopes that he was relieved enough to sleep. 

It’s snatched away as Mingyu stands above him like an angel of death, his hat in his equally deathly grip. 

“Did the spirits possess you?” 

“No,” he replies begrudgingly. “But good sense has.”

“Captain,” he hears Chan begin, looking about five seconds away from committing a murder on the seas. “You know I can’t fight sober.”

“Learn.”

“What is this about? Where was the rum at fault?” Jun grits. 

Hoshi swings up once again. If Mingyu was an angel of death then he was the king of hell. 

But he has no threats left to give, his menacing soul left with the rum. There is only a snarl that turns into him dropping his head, sighing a loud, loud sigh. 

He tells his crew a sad affair as he expresses his sorrows like a eulogy. Blaming the rum was stupid, but it was what he had done. And now the fruit of his decisions sit forgotten in the reefs so far below.  

His crew is not happy when they find out, in any case. 

“But what did the rum do?” 

“Kissing beautiful women is part of life’s pleasures!” 

“I have half a mind to make you fish it all back up.” 

Mingyu has simply crumpled onto the floor in his heartbreak, Chan has his face in his hands. Hoshi doesn’t look up to witness Jun’s reaction. 

The crew would get over the lack of alcohol on board, perhaps a morbid brawl or two to help them get by, but what was more concerning was whether it did anything for Hoshi at all. 

At the very least, he knows he won’t go around kissing people sober, but when it comes to the matter of the war inside his chest…

A phantom ache throbs across the scar on his chest. 

Perhaps his heart would finally be the next to go.

PORT ASH WAS A depraved man’s heaven. 

One that could easily become his downfall if he doesn’t play his cards right. 

Too covered was suspicious, too much of the opposite was an open invitation to all the drunk and debauched population of Ash; pirates, criminals and councilmen alike. You were comfortable enough in what you were given to put on, to become the perfect blend in the rowdy, barely lit streets of the brothels and bars. 

Despite everything, Seungkwan assured you that no one would bother a woman flanked by obvious pirates, for whatever reason that may be. If it were up to you, you would’ve remained on the ship, safe and buried in your quarters, but the threat of an ambush on the docks plagued the crew enough to risk bringing you directly into the dragon’s den. 

Jun disappeared quickly, ducking behind an unmarked curtain with a nod to his captain. You could only assume this was where he’d obtain his remaining supplies for the explosives he seemed to be so good at creating. You’ve awoken to multiple median bangs during the night, so you can only assume he knows what he’s doing to a certain extent. 

“Jun said it might take a while, so we might have to wait on him a little bit.” Hoshi stands at the front of the group, addressing his crew. 

“Spread out, do whatever. Don’t linger, don’t drink yourselves to death—” he sends a pointed look at a shifty Chan and Mingyu, “—and meet back at the ship at six bells or we’ll leave without you.”

The announcement doesn’t seem to apply to you. You’re sandwiched between Hoshi and Seungkwan as they lead you into the throng, to wherever it was they were to pass the time till it was time to return.

If Ash was anything, it was alive. Men and women scatter in all states of drunk and sober, arms latched with their partners for the night as they let the oil lamps carry them to their abode for the night. It’s a wilder Hasry, a scarier Hasry. 

The nighttime does nothing to help your nerves, every single face shrouded in the half shadows, seemingly resembling every person you’ve ever met in the Kingdom. 

It makes you feel better that both men are pressed against your sides, as strange as the thought sounds in your head. Safe between two pirates.

“Nobody’s tried to kill you yet, I’d call that a record,” Seungkwan comments, but it’s not directed towards you. 

Hoshi scowls as you shift your gaze from Seungkwan to him. The usually nonchalant pirate captain looks…cautious. His eyes dart around the crowded streets, like he was looking for familiar faces all the same as you. 

Your eyes land on his curled lips and force down a shiver. This was the first time you’d been around him since that drunken night, since you’d promised to never drink again. 

He doesn’t mention it, so neither do you.

“Captain Hoshi Kwon? How wonderful of you to show your face again!” 

A woman’s voice rings shrill amidst the loud buzz and hollers of the streets, emerging like a white ghost from the throng. Dressed to the nines, face painted intricately, fan clenched in her hand that perches on her hip. She’s joined by another gaggle of women that crown behind her, displaying a rainbow of coloured gown and fans, but holding the same disdained look. 

The pirate captain freezes beside you, and you feel Seungkwan’s hand on your back burn. 

He seems shaken at the sight of the new woman initially, but puts on a smile you’ve only seen a few times. One that dazzles with his teeth on display, eyes squinted.

“Delilah!” he exclaims, almost too happy to see this mystery woman. “How’ve you been?”

“Who did that? I’d like to send them flowers,” she refers to the scar above Hoshi’s heart. 

“Jellyfish don’t really like me, learned that the hard way.” 

His answer seems to only annoy her. Delilah has a wicked snarl on her face, threat in her stance. “When was the last time I saw you?”

“Uh,” Hoshi stumbles. 

“The Crowded Inn, was it? When I fell asleep to a promise and woke up to an empty bed?”

“Our dear captain seems to have thrown memory at sea,” one of the girls behind her calls out, followed by a collective giggle. 

Hoshi looks cornered, at a loss for words as he attempts to save face. Regaining his prior easygoing expression, he continues. 

“There’s no promises after I’ve had a drink or two, you know that, Delilah.” It scares you a little how easily he can inject all the sugar and honey in the world directly into his words, flirting his way out of the predicament. 

Except, she doesn’t seem to be buying it, because as soon as the words leave Hoshi’s lips, you hear a loud thwack and a blur of colour. You gasp before you can help it, covering your mouth in shock. 

There’s a reddenning mark on his cheek in the shape of a hand. Hoshi remains face scrunched, coming round, hand slowly coming up to touch his no doubt stinging cheek. 

Your reaction seems to have roused this woman, because she sends you nothing but a look laced with pure venom, completely ignoring Seungkwan who stands aside doing nothing to help his captain. 

“Where’d you pick this one up?” She asks, her fan now shucked open, fanning herself even in the pleasant weather. Her pale face, red lips, dark eyes all remain on your shabby form, a hint of a smirk on her face. “Is she as disappointing of a performer as she looks?” 

That seems to do it, as you watch Hoshi’s facade of a cheeky bed trotter image drop to something with more depth. 

“Delilah,” he says, warning in his voice. 

“Ah! Looks like I’ve struck a nerve.”

You watch Hoshi take a step forward and you’re suddenly hyper aware of the crowd of people that continue to pass and linger, reminding yourself of the repercussions of causing a scene in a place like this. Turning slightly, you attempt to push Seungkwan to do something.

“Captain,” Seungkwan says, a casual but careful voice. A starting attempt at calming things down. 

“That’s enough,” Hoshi says, ignoring Seungkwan’s warning. “Quit pretending you weren’t warming that privateer’s bed right after I left.” 

There was no reason for you to say anything, do anything. But when you find yourself pushing forward, leaving Seungkwan’s hold, you can’t stop. Perhaps he’d have punched Seungkwan, his own crew, if he’d done the same as you were right now, but you’d like to think you know the pirate captain enough to assume he’d react less so with you. 

There’s a shift in the woman’s jaw as she watches you wrap your arm around one of Hoshi’s, trying your absolute best to mimic a bright smile. 

“We should go,” you announce, the stretch of your cheeks unfamiliar even to you. You turn to catch Hoshi’s stare, he’s looking at you like you’ve grown an extra head. “Right, Hosh?”

“Go on then, Captain. Your little princess awaits.” 

You flinch without meaning to. Princess. 

This woman doesn’t know what she’s talking about, at least, that’s what you recite in your head as your trio goes back to pushing walking through the streets. She doesn’t know who you are. 

“She doesn’t know,” you hear Hoshi say under his breath, but you hear it loud as day.

You exhale, “I know.”

“Sorry about her. And him, “ Seungkwan says, before turning to Hoshi. “I told you not to get involved with that one, she’s a menace.”

You’ve let go of Hoshi’s arm at this point, now simply watching him attempt to calm himself down as you walk. He doesn’t reply to Seungkwan’s jab. 

You feel strange, a feeling you can’t exactly pinpoint. You’re too aware of yourself, in a way that’s different than just the fear of being recognized. Shifting your eyes to your attire, your usual linen skirts and corset, an added grey shawl for your own anxious sanity.

The woman’s voice rings in your head. Shabby. 

“You didn’t let her get to you, did you? She’s always been vile, she can’t live without being a bitch about something every five minutes.” 

Seungkwan’s grumbling goes in one ear and out the other as you don’t answer. He seems to read you better than you thought he could. He sighs.

“Congratulations Delilah, you’ve made a princess feel shabby,” he says in a sarcastically chipper voice, one that earns a hiss from his captain for being too loud. 

Before you know it, you��re being led down a flight of stone stairs and you’re informed that it was an underground pub of sorts. Something about his undertone told you it was probably more, but you ignore it as the darkness is let alight beyond the musty curtains of the basement entrance. 

It’s a sizable expanse, a bar on one of the long ends of the hall, busy and overflowing with mugs, jugs and plates. Wooden tables and chairs, almost all of them occupied by patrons of all kinds that do nothing to regulate their volumes. It smells like a rancid mixture of alcohol and people, but you push past as you find yourself seated on one of the wooden seatings in the corner. 

“I’ll go get us drinks,” Seungkwan announces as he walks up to the bar. You watch as he’s greeted by nearly every passing customer, all smiles. 

Hoshi sits beside you like a begrudged toddler, arms crossed and glaring at nothing. 

“Didn’t realise how popular you were around these parts,” you comment, scanning the crowd in excruciating detail, blaming force of habit as you do. 

He clicks his tongue, and you can’t see him, but you can almost visualise his grimace.

A too clean councilman that has his hands on the upper thighs of an outlandishly dressed woman. A man so grimy and dusty who has nothing but an array of empty jugs for company. Another flock of fan yielding, hair towering, gown exploding women that swarm a man you cannot see past the bodies. 

It’s organised chaos, immoral yet is the only thing that seems to work on this island. 

Another entrance is being made from the curtains that block the pub from the outside, you steer your eyes automatically. 

Looks like he could be a pirate, beyond just the dark hair and chiselled face. He has a girl under his arm, a pretty brunette that giggles at his side as he whispers something in her ear. She’s wearing something similar to you, a corset and a linen skirt, and a pirate's hat that’s too big for her that’s perched on her head. 

Subconsciously, you feel better about being so severely underdressed. 

Hoshi sits up next to you and you glance over your shoulder to assess his shift. He’s also staring at the couple that’s just walked in. You briefly wonder if this was going to be another showdown.

The man catches Hoshi’s eye from across the room, and you notice how his smile falls a little. 

“Who’s that?” you ask quietly. 

Your question is answered when the man himself begins to walk towards your table, leaving the girl at his table, a confident strut as he makes his path. 

Hoshi rises next to you before you realise what’s happening, and you have the sudden urge to call out for Seungkwan. 

“Why are you getting up?” you hiss. He doesn’t answer, yet again.

“Captain,” the man greets. 

“Captain,” Hoshi replies. 

Captain. So he was a pirate. 

“Hm. That’s not gonna go away, is it?” The man comments with a smirk, eyes trained on the scar on Hoshi’s chest. 

“Wonder who’s fault that is.” Hoshi’s voice is levelled. 

Oh. Was that scar his doing?

“I hope you won’t mind if I don’t apologise?” The smirk on his face remains as he continues, motioning towards his own cheek, eyes trailed on the side of Hoshi’s face. “Looks like you’ve got enough enemies without me trying to carve your heart out.”

Hoshi doesn’t answer as he grimaces, a frustrated blink and a hand that runs over his sore cheek. 

“Delilah was quite adamant on having your head on a pike after that,” the stranger adds with a chuckle of his own, before trailing his eyes behind Hoshi. Right where you sat watching the two men interact. “Perhaps she does have some consideration left.”

“Delilah cared more about looking like a fool than she ever did me leaving. You’d know all about that wouldn’t you, Wonwoo?” 

There’s a flash of irritation on Wonwoo’s face at the jog of a memory. “Handled it better than you did. At least I wasn’t walking around with a handprint on my face.”

“No, no you weren’t. Just a leash around your neck,” Hoshi’s own eyes darted towards the girl seated at Wonwoo’s table, a silent jab.

Wonwoo’s face morphs into something a little more dangerous than just irritation, his jaw tightening as he takes a step forward. They’re nearly nose to nose. 

To your surprise, Wonwoo smiles. “I guess brothels don’t teach many manners after all. My mistake.”

For the second time that day, you spring from your position in the shadowed table, giving up on praying for Seungkwan’s arrival. The man seems to have disappeared somewhere along the barline, and you curse both the men that stand before you for their horrid temper management skills. 

You don’t have to do much, however, as you find Wonwoo pulling away by himself. At least, you thought so, finding a hand wrapped around his upper arm. The brunette spares neither of you a glance as she simply murmurs furiously under her breath, hand now on her lover's chest as she pushes him to move back from the brewing altercation. 

Hoshi doesn’t seem to be breaking, remaining standing with his eyes shooting daggers at the man that’s reluctant to walk away from a budding fight.  

Being gentle wasn’t going to work right now, and you weren’t feeling so soft anyway. Instead, you reach over to grab his wrist tight, positively yanking him back as hard as you could. 

“Wh—ow!”

He slams into the seat next to you, deadly eye contact with the other captain broken as he winces at the impact. When you glance up, Wonwoo is gone. 

“You said to blend in, how is this blending in?!” 

“I didn’t do anything!”

“You were two seconds away from drawing knives,” you hiss. “We’re in a pub, for goodness’ sake!” 

Despite your irritation, and with the newfound information that rests in the back of your head, it’s difficult to keep your eyes off the scar that stands against the lamplight of the pub. 

Someone did try to carve his heart out. 

Context for an altercation that could lead to something like that remains unknown, and you doubt you’d ever get a straight answer from him if you asked—as always. Besides, you forget they’re pirates. 

Hoshi goes back to simply ignoring you as he festers in his grumbled silence. Choosing to keep his arms folded and staring straight ahead. You make no moves to entertain him. 

“I guess brothels don’t teach many manners after all.”

This mystery captain’s left you with enough ammo to keep you wondering for days. What on earth was that? 

As if Hoshi’s (and yours) mood wasn’t sour enough, your attention is brought to the front of the room where another entrance is being made, quite loudly so. You very quickly recognise the gowns and fans and shrieking giggles of women as Delilah and her posse. 

You note the woman herself is nowhere near. 

“Fucking hell,” you hear Hoshi swear under his breath. He’s sitting up, eyes darting around the room, almost like he was trying to find a hiding spot. You doubt he's too excited over another conversation of similar nature, let alone a matching mark on the other side of his face.

The women hadn't seen him yet, and were approaching far too quickly for him to get up and leave anywhere to hide. A quick scan of the room yourself and you realise there’s only one remaining option. 

They didn’t seem to recognise you for your title before, and you assume the current extent stays within simply being another seductress in the pirate captain’s company. You push the sickening feeling away as you realise you might have to play the part. 

So you do the sensible thing and push Hoshi’s head under the wooden table, forcing him to leave his seat and crouch beside your legs. In a split second, you’ve lifted your linen skirt and draped it over his hunched body. 

This would have to do. 

And it seems to have been the right move because as soon as the man is out of sight, you find the opposite end of the table more occupied than you ever would have been comfortable with. 

“Oh! You’re that Hoshi’s girl aren’t you?” one of the women who's made themselves comfortable asks, fan in front of her mouth and nose as you note her sharp eyes. 

“Uh,” you laugh nervously. 

“Oh, nothing to be embarrassed about,” she assures, a snap in her voice. 

Another woman decked out in a green ensemble speaks in a teasing voice, “We’re all quite accustomed to his…mannerisms.”

The table erupts in a fit of giggles and cackles and you’re forced to laugh weakly along, hyper aware of the man that sits under your skirt right below. You try not to flinch as you feel his clothes brush against the side of your calf. 

“So, tell us,” she says, taking your hands in hers, a contact you really wish you could break free of. If only you weren't quite as terrified of the women seated at your table. “How far along in heaven has this man taken you?”

She spares you an answer as you gape with square shoulders. She fans herself in a whimsy as she looks like she’s reminiscing. “He’s almost as good of a pirate as he is a beast in bed, I don’t think I’ll ever forget that night.”

“Quite generous with the tongue too, if you know what I mean.” 

The pirate captain’s breath hits your bare knees in its own fan, goosebumps almost immediately erupting across the expanse of your skin. You fail to suppress a shudder.

Goodness, this man stays busy.

“Oh look at her, she’s gotten all flustered!” one of them laughs. You take it as an opportunity to slip your hands out of the tight grasps of the bold ladies. “It seems he’s taken to a newer liking. How innocent.”

These women seem to like talking more than they wish to hear a word from you, of course, you couldn’t tell them anything they already didn’t know. Of which, according to their interests, you knew nothing of it anyway. 

“Don’t get too attached now, we’re all mere expendables in this busy pirate’s—”

Slam!

Rum. You smell rum. 

It’s like you’ve been transported back onto the main deck, the smell of rum mixed with….with—

“Ladies!” Seungkwan announces, slamming bottles of alcohol on the table with a force unnecessary. “Funny seeing you again.”

For a moment you may have even thought Hoshi had clambered up to the table to announce himself, and you feel a hand fly down to your skirts. 

He’s still there, head now actively leaning against your knee. You pray the man hasn’t fallen asleep as you attempt to greet Seungkwan. 

“Took you long enough,” you grit through a sickly sweet smile. 

With your hand somewhere on Hoshi’s upper back, you guide him with you as you make space for Seungkwan next to you. 

“The—oh!” Seungkwan is quick to notice the breathing lump under your skirt as he sits himself next to you, but manages to compose himself with a cough. “Long line. What were you ladies talking about?”

One of them smiles big as ever, slowly lifting themselves from their seats, “We were just…leaving. Wonderful speaking with you!” 

And with that, you can finally feel your breath coming back to you, the table significantly lighter with the lack of colours, perfume and humans. 

Releasing a long exhale, you let your shoulders drop and lean backwards. 

“Are you going to explain why the captain is hidden under your skirts?”

With a jolt, you're forced to consider his presence under the table, scanning the room to find the women gone from the pub altogether. 

Hoshi emerges from under the fabric, and shuffles over to the other side of the table to sit down, bringing an instinctive hand towards the fresh bottles on the table. Halting, he instead reaches for the jug of water on the edge and pours himself a helping.  

You refuse to look at him. Refuse to acknowledge the red in his face. Refuse to acknowledge the sudden cold under your skirt. 

Seungkwan’s stare is burning holes into the side of your head, even as he uncorks one of the bottles as an offer. You also refuse; both to look him in the eye and the drink itself.

Bottle to his lips, he moves his glare to his captain, who sits nursing his water like it was something stronger. 

“I haven’t gotten an answer yet,” he finally breaks. 

Instinct has your eyes lifting to meet Seungkwan’s inquisitive one’s, answers frozen in your throat. 

“Why are you asking like you don’t know who they were?” Hoshi snaps. 

“I can understand not wanting a matching handprint on your other cheek!” he refutes. “But how do you decide the solution is to dive into yet another woman’s skirts?”

Your only solace to the heat that prickles your body is the way Hoshi himself flushes. 

Seungkwan sighs as he takes another sip of his drink, eyeing Hoshi’s still red cheek. “I’m starting to think you deserved it.” 

Hoshi makes a motion like he’s about to send his half full cup flying into Seungkwan’s face but stops short. Perhaps he’s realising he’s become the problem child for today. 

You contemplate telling Seungkwan about Wonwoo and the near pub brawl you would’ve had to deal with, but decide it to be a story for another time. Besides, you weren’t about to risk mentioning his name while it was still fresh. 

You realise just how unstable this island can turn a person; not just the pirate captain.

Because as you look at Hoshi on the other side of the table, you find how difficult it is to look away.

“YOU NEED TROUSERS.”

“What?”

“Oh don’t look so scandalised, you’ve been prancing around with pirates for goodness’ sake.”

Seungkwan haggles with the stall owner over the price of padded coats, blankets and an array of other things the crew would need. The journey was only going to take the ship further North, and it was only going to get colder as you neared the icy water of the Green Islands. 

Seungkwan’s suggestion to buy you trousers came out of the blue, but it seems you couldn’t refuse when you find both Hoshi and Chan (who joined you after he was tired of the others) agreeing. 

“You can’t possibly stay warm in linen,” Chan argues. “Trousers are the only way you won’t freeze your limbs off.”

“Too much airflow in a skirt,” Seungkwan agrees, eyes closed, head shaking solemnly. “Captain would know.”

“Hm?” Chan looks at him confused. 

“Fine!” You snatch the folded brown lump in Seungkwan’s hands. You keep talking in a louder than necessary voice in the hopes that Chan won’t ask any more questions. “I’ll wear them.”

“Perfect! Now we need to get you boots.”

“I have boots!” 

“Warm boots!” 

“But—”

It was difficult to argue with Seungkwan once he’s got his mind set on something. But that paired with the loud noises of the Ash port market was sending pulsing throbs across the sides of your head. You simply surrender as Seungkwan leaves Hoshi to pay the vendor before pushing you across the street to where a stall held boots and slippers for sale. 

In the midst of his bargaining, Chan had disappeared into the throng, returning with a steaming plate of something that smelled doughy and delicious. 

“What is that?” you ask as Chan shoves the tray in front of you. 

“Whatever they are, they’re delicious. Try one.”

He was right, one bite of the warm, soft goodness covered in syrup had you taking a moment to ponder. It melts in your mouth, barely registering the rest of the group scarfing down the tray like it was their last.

“God, you can never get them this good on the mainland,” Seungkwan cries. “We’ll get another tray before we leave.”

Speaking of leaving, you turn to ask about the time. 

“How many bells has it been?” you ask Seungkwan whose cheeks bulge with the amount of dough balls he’s stuffed in. He looks like a child caught stealing when you ask. 

“Oh—”

“Five,” Hoshi answers instead, eyes remaining on the pile of goods that he’s gathered to remain in his line of sight. You suppose there was no delivery system here like in Hasry, and you doubt how secure it is to be walking around with a pile of supplies on this island in particular. 

“You need to hurry, I told the rest of them to meet at six bells.”

Seungkwan’s quick to wrap up, but not before shooing Chan away for another tray of those sweet dough balls for the journey. You manage to whisper to him to bring extra. 

By the time Seungkwan’s done with the last vendor, dropping the giant coil of rope onto the already large pile of supplies, you begin to wonder how you were supposed to get all of this to the ship. 

“Shove those in a bag and carry some of this,” Hoshi says to Chan who has returned, brandishing another steaming tray of the sweet treat. He grumbles as he complies, complaining about how the sticky sweet syrup was going to ruin the inside of the pack. 

You look a little lost as you attempt to help, all three men grabbing their share of the load. 

“Let me hold something,” you attempt, reaching for a wrapped pile. 

You watch as Hoshi snatches it before you can grab it for yourself. “Keep an eye out instead.”

“But—”

“Here.” Chan drops the pack with the now rolling dough balls inside. “Snacks for the walk too, how lucky.”

There’s a light push from behind you as Seungkwan urges you to move forward, face slightly obstructed with the tower he’s holding in his arms. “Go on, straight and then left. We’re close to the port anyway.”

You’re left feeling slightly useless as you remain caged with Chan in front while Seungkwan and Hoshi follow you from behind. The walk is short, but crowded nonetheless. 

It’s only later in the night, which means the crowds in the bustling streets and alleys of Ash only multiply, clear with the case you’re pushed into right now. You pause in front of a particularly busy patch, needing to take a breath before following Chan’s fearless footsteps. 

It’s immediate suffocation, bodies on all sides as you try your best to not lose Chan in the midst of the crowds. Perhaps they were right to keep your hands mostly unoccupied—it would’ve been impossible for you to not completely lose yourself here. 

Gaining a rhythm of walking with the crowd before moving slightly against to near your exit, you’ve almost made your way out. 

Just as you find the bend leading to the open air of the port, you hear a distinct rip sound from behind you. 

If your skirt was airy before, it was a windstorm now. 

Craning your neck at an impossible angle, you find the bottom of your skirt ripped so high up the back of your knees are out for the population of Ash to see. 

Gasping loudly, you halt in your tracks. A horrible mistake, because you’re only being bumped and shoved by the evermoving bodies. 

“Why are you stopping?” Seungkwan hisses, before realising what’s just happened. “Uh oh.”

“I…”

Both Seungkwan and Hoshi push past the throng making their way out of the crowd, leaving you there frazzled and practically naked 

You barely consider that they’ve just left you there as you scramble to cover your calves with what overlapping fabric you had left, registering the threats and curses being sent your way for being the idiot that stops in what is essentially a fast paced parade. 

The rational part of your brain checks out, refusing to consider that perhaps the back of your knees were the least scandalous thing this island has seen, especially after the conversations you’ve had in your short time here. But alas, a few months of the pirate life wasn’t enough to push the princess out of you, and you stand like a paralysed fool about to get stampeded. 

Just as you’re convinced you’d die here, embarrassed and utterly panicked, you feel a body press up from behind you. 

It was too close to be a bystander pushing past, which was saying something since most of these patrons were practically climbing over your form. 

You whip your head back to look at the person who’s invading your space more than usual, hands tight around your upper arms in an effort to push you forward. 

Hoshi stands behind you as his body covers the ripped damage of your skirt, eyes trained in front to survey the crowd.

“Come on, I’ve got you,” he grunts, pushing to get you to move your legs. You stumble in the beginning, still not registering anything.

He was helping, but with the way you can feel every dip and shallow of his chest and abdomen pressing into you, you can’t help but think he’s only made matters for your already speeding heart worse. 

Your legs move automatically, letting him steer you wherever. Trying not to think about how his entire front is pressed onto your back like a mould. He’s so close you can even smell him despite the crowd.

Like your head isn’t spinning enough.

By the time you’ve exited the main rush of people, you’ve begun counting your minutes. 

Emerging to the bend that leads straight to the docks, you find the rest of the crew already there, running sprints to get all the new supplies to the ship that remained a few yards away. 

Despite having left the crowd behind, your exposure remained, which meant you’d have to be tailed all the way to the ship. You curse your luck as you watch Jun quirk an inquisitive brow at the both of you stuck like you’ve been glued. 

You pray you never have to show your face here again, because the looks don’t seem to stop until you’ve reached the ship. Perhaps the crowd where nobody was paying attention was better.

In any case, you respond to Minghao’s questioning noise with half shut eyes and a joint sprint towards the stairs leading to the lower decks. 

Hoshi keeps behind until you’ve gotten to the heavenly doors of your quarters, springing inside before Hoshi could register looking lower. 

It’s silent for a few sparing moments as you breathe tightly, convincing yourself that you were alone and uncompromised. You're pressed up against the door, almost like you’re afraid the entirety of Ash would barge through to witness your calves. 

“I’ll handle the boys, don’t worry about that,” you hear Hoshi speak from the other side of the door. 

There’s nothing you could do other than slide down the door in a beyond dramatic fashion, head in your hands as you grip the strands like you were moments away from ripping them off. Every instance of your upbringing flashes before your eyes, every crack of your mentor’s canes on your thighs and calves, every waking pain in your back from the impossible postures, every bruise and nick on your feet from being stepped on and trodden over. 

Despite the ridiculous nature of the situation, you feel your eyes grow heavy with tears. 

Was this panic? 

Taking in the circumference of your cramped quarters; the unmade bed, the strewn clothes, the thrown covers. 

It was nothing. Yet, at the same time, it was everything. 

Amidst the pile, there’s a glint of metal where your knife lies on your nightstand, the tiniest smear of uncleaned blood on the blade. From your position on the floor, you find the half broken lamp discarded under your bed, shunned from your sight. The desk in the corner is empty, save for the staggering mountain of letters from your father. 

The only suggestion of normalcy, yet the one you itch to be rid of the most. 

The letter opener necklace that was exchanged for the ring on your finger sits warm against the valley of your breasts, a reminder of the first weapon you plucked from this very room. The weapon that began it all. 

The smell of gunpowder fills your nose, the forever echoing bang of Jun’s revolver as you took that child sailor’s life with your own two hands. 

You lay like that, on the cold floors of your quarters. Refusing to touch the court appointed comfort of your bed, for fear of reigniting the guilt with a fire stoked. 

You aren’t sure if you sleep, but you do dream.

LIDS OPEN, EYES WIDE, but nothing to perceive.

It’s a pit of obsidian, unrelenting and unproposing in its press against your lungs. 

The familiar ball of prickling embers makes itself known in the pit of your stomach, rising and penetrating your senses in ways worse than even the darkness. It's alarm, dread and swivet; the concoction sticking to the walls of your lungs, throat and mouth. 

And then there’s pressure. 

Something envelopes you from behind, an unidentified lump that pulls you into something warm and sturdy. There’s another pressure at your stomach, another pull keeps you grounded between a wall built just for you. 

The air is perfumed, something beyond a flower or an incense. You know what it is.

And then you're falling, slipping into nothingness and landing between sheets warm enough to suggest you never left. 

The scent remains, and this time, Hoshi towers over your frame in something that might have been domineering. But with the distinct feeling of a wet mouth over your collarbone, a small whisper of words unintelligible, you melt like frost in front of a fireplace. 

“What?” you question his muttering, hands hovering just above the expanse of his covered back, barely touching. 

He rears his head like a gentle beast, wet lipped and zeroed in on your face. His response comes in the form of his lips enclosing your own. 

He tastes like rum.

OPENING THE DOOR TO an expectant Seungkwan, you only wave off his reference to you looking like you have one foot in death’s mouth, grabbing the stack of clothes and boots he delivers. 

He leaves you alone, something you cannot decide is a blessing or a curse as you take in the unchanged state of your quarters. 

Sleep gives you nothing but more troubling images to keep your mind utterly occupied, so you take what you can control in consciousness. 

You drop the clothes on a cleaner corner, yanking one of the thinner pairs of dark brown trousers to change into from your still torn and tattered skirt.

Moving inside the room, you pick the littered papers, ropes and rags on the floor, swerving and crouching with more vigour than necessary.

Hoshi’s scent sticks to you. 

Grabbing the pile of letters on your desk, you shove them in a sack and throw them under the bed. 

Hoshi holds you like he might die if he doesn’t.

Ripping the covers off the bed, you fold them into a giant ball of fabric, hoisting it into your arms as you strut to the door.

Hoshi’s lips have left a bruise on your chest.

The late morning sun combats the chill in the air, the salt sticking to your hair. 

Hoshi’s mouth is hot and wet on yours. 

Hoshi stands before you, manning the wheel on the deck. 

You halt in your tracks. 

He turns to register you with your arms full and shielding most of your body. 

Clearing his throat, he states, “You’re up.”

Eyes darting, you respond. “I’m up.”

Somehow, his presence makes you forget the audacity of your own brain to stew the play it did. Depositing the sheets on the floor of the deck, you attempt to look for a reasonably long coil of rope. 

In your pointed distraction, you miss how distracted the pirate captain has also become. 

His elbows, initially perched on the wheel, slip in a comical manner, unintentionally pushing the wheel to the right. 

You don’t expect the minor lurch of the ship, landing on your bum with a yelp when you lose your footing all of a sudden. Your elbows take a worse hit, spiking pain across your upper limbs at the hard contact. 

His hands are pulling you to your feet before you can register what’s happened, coming round as you open your eyes to an open mouthed captain.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” you grunt, dusting off your brand new pants as you move past him, refusing to make eye contact. 

Picking up a coil of rope, you bring one of the ends to a mast on the end of the ship, stepping on a crate to tie it around the pole. By the time you’re stepping off the crate to tie the other end to the opposite mast, you find it already done, the pirate captain tightening the knot from across the ship. 

He meets your eyes for a moment, before you step in the direction of your piled sheets, breathing in a heavy inhale.

Untangling the mess, you pull them over to the suspended rope, throwing the sheets over with a grunt. You’d only ever seen the palace maids do this when they’d beat the carpets to oblivion, dusting the ages of dirt. 

“I just…”

When you turn around, the pirate captain is closer than you anticipated, hands encased around a smaller slab of wood. He trails off when you turn to face him, like he hoped he could speak to the back of your head instead. 

You take an instinctive step back, putting space between the both of you. You bring your expectant eyes up to him.

“I just wanted to tell you to ignore what happened at Ash.”

You flush, stuttering, embarrassed at your previous predicament all over again. “Oh, um—”

“Wait no!” he drops the wood onto the floor, hands flying as he waves them all over, seemingly as flushed as you are. “I meant—what Delilah and the others said. I just– they’re horrendous gossips—”

“What are you trying to say Hoshi?”

He falters. 

“I’m trying….” he exhales. “There’s nothing on my roster. Nobody. You aren’t expendable or disposable or whatever it was she said, you aren’t a used rag—”

“What am I then?” 

The question is tumbling out of your mouth before you can help it, stoned jaw and tight fist. 

“What?”

“What am I then? If I’m not expendable or disposable, what am I then?”

“You’re…” 

Taking a step forward, you move back to your initial spot, closer to him, chests almost touching.

“I’m?”

“You’re a princess and I’m a pirate!” he blurts, his previously apprehensive face morphing into something intense. 

You huff a short breath, an incredulous stretch to your lips. Of course. 

“What is that supposed to mean?” you ask in a low voice. 

“Like what it is,” he heaves, chest inflating and deflating like he’d run the course of the deck about thrice. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

If your ears weren’t deceiving you, it sounded more like he was trying to convince no one but himself. 

You take a step closer as he takes a step back.

His face is scrunched ever so slightly, eyes blinking quicker than normal. The sunlight blurs the edges of his features; his usually sharp, stinging stare is hazy, the slant of his nose curvier, the ridges of his lips blending into your muddled perception of his face. 

The only thing dividing you is the silence, the bore of your stare and the war in your mind. You cannot speak for him, but you also aren’t a fool. 

“Everything they say about you is wrong.” 

“What?” he asks again. 

“You don’t have a deadly bone in your body. You’re a coward that hides behind his knife and his big bad pirate ship that you can’t even defend.”

For once, he remains speechless while you persist.

“To think we spent all these years trying to subdue you, push you to the edge,” you can feel the anger seep into the hottest centre of your bones. “All for you to be some scared sailor all along.”

“Your father ruined my life,” he says. It’s a strange voice he uses, one that’s somewhere between disbelief and a warning.

“And mine with it.” 

He laughs, blinking rapidly, backing away even further, running a hand through his hair. Coming around, he looks over his shoulder. He looks like the man you met the day your life fell apart, a strut in his step that runs your blood cold. 

“Are you sure this has nothing to do with you simply wishing to spite the man?” He walks back over. “Prance around with the filthy pirate he hates just for the fun of it?” 

“Oh and you haven’t just been itching to ruin the kingdom’s beloved princess.”

Your mouth seemed to have a mind of its own, spewing the accusation with a vigour you never realised you possessed. Lies. Lies. Lies.

This was your own deteriorating mind’s doing. You were the debauched princess painting lewd pictures of a pirate in your mind. It was your heart that couldn’t stand being near the man for longer than necessary. It was you that had the scripture somewhere in your chest, the tiniest speck of a daydream, that perhaps this inner turmoil didn’t end with just you. 

Did you want to be another woman he doesn’t have to remember? 

You don’t know. All your mind registers is the unbearable twist in your chest, and how it feels like you can’t do nothing about it.

You’re used to getting your way, and you hate that your mind seems to have drifted away from you.

Hoshi’s expression is nowhere in your mind, too preoccupied with sucking in inhales and trying not to begin spiralling right on the main deck. 

“You’re projecting.” 

Eyes snapping up like he’s proposed to sink the ship itself, you feel yourself hit a mental wall. And a physical one as you feel the brush of the suspended sheets against your hair, having taken an unconscious step back. 

He’s cornered you. Yet again. 

“Everything about you screams vulnerable,” he says, moving closer. “Not very sharp to show in front of a pirate.”

“Hoshi.” A warning. A sharp, hurtling sting of fear. 

“What? Big bad pirate too emotionally removed? Beloved princess trapped and defenceless on unfamiliar lands?” 

He’s moving closer, too close.

“I take it back,” he says. “Perhaps drunken Ash does speak the truth—”

Not a familiar plane on his face, like the pirate king had absolved a long held mask. His eyes mortified you, his stance was a walking threat. 

Despite the morning sun, the cave of the hung sheets, the shadows of the high masts and the towering gloom of the pirate captain creates enough darkness to throw a shadow in your mind. 

It’s like the day his crew dropped on the deck for the very first time. The emotions you wished you’d never have to feel again. 

“Stop.” A whisper. 

“Itching to ruin the kingdom’s beloved princess—”

“Do not move any closer!” you shout, eyes squeezed shut, hands fisting the suspended sheets so hard you can feel your fingernails dig into your palms. Scarring.

The world halts, and you feel the darkness beyond your eyelids, lighten. The air is forgiving, cool and blowing.

When you open your eyes, you’re alone.

THE WAR ROOM LOOKS the same, but everything has changed.

For one thing, you were significantly more bundled up with coats and lined boots. The cold of the green islands wasn’t the creeping frost you’d anticipated. You simply woke up one day without feeling in your fingers and toes, fog in the air as you breathed. 

The coat wasn’t nearly as thick as it needed to be, but you doubt you would’ve found anything better even at the ports. The green islands weren’t meant for life.

“You need to get into the hold unnoticed, and as quickly as possible,” Minghao says. “We don’t know what’s gonna happen after the exchange is made but we know we can’t help you once you’re on that ship.”

Clenching your jaw, you nod tersely. It was high stakes, you couldn’t hurt any of the soldiers to keep it clean; planting a bomb where a King resides was difficult—princess or not.

“Getting you out of the wreckage is our job,” Hoshi says, and you pointedly refuse to look at him. You weren’t quite convinced. “We’ll be on Tigress by the time the bomb goes off. Leave nothing of importance on this thing, we’ll be blowing it up too.”

“You need to get in the water as soon as that bomb goes off,” Jun says. “Their priority is gonna be you and your father. You need to make sure they can’t find you when they realise the ship’s sinking.”

The ship the King should be transported in was the same as the very naval vessel you sat in right now. 

“They might be on one of the smaller ships,” you say.

“Why?”

“You know what the ships that hold royals look like, they aren’t risking you having that advantage.”

If your father was bringing out all the guns of deception to take down these pirates once and for all—which you don’t doubt he was—every move you were about to make was based on assumptions. Assumptions that might as well cost this entire crew’s heads.

“Do you know what those ships look like?” Minghao asks.

“I’ve only been on them a few times, but never in the hold,” you say. “I think I’ll figure it out well enough, they’re all the same more or less.”

There’s a blanket of silence, a quiet regard to how utterly unprepared all of you were. Limited information and the most important man’s head at the butt of the target; your bow pulled too taut, too wobbly, your arrow too blunt. 

“Are you sure we can’t risk shooting a couple of ‘em in the head?” Chan asks from across the room, running a tired hand across his face.

Sighing, you ignore the burst of fog erupting from your mouth, answering, “I can convince an entire Kingdom their King drowned, but I don’t know if I stop them from trying to find his body. Imagine their surprise if they find a supposedly drowned man with a bullet in his head.”

“It’s fine,” Hoshi interrupts, eyes downcast and arms folded. He leans against the wall of the war room and you can’t help it when your mind flashes to that stormy night. Your hands finding refuge on his chest, the heat of the moment. 

Nose flaring, you look away, the rage hurtling up your throat like vomit. 

“We’ll just have to figure it out. Stay vigilant, we all know what’s at stake. We all know what we have to do,” he continues, a glance around the inhabitants of the room. 

Something about it almost insinuates an underlying question of trust, a confirmation to sweep an unanswering room.

“The bomb’s done,” Jun says, and heat crawls up your entire being. “I made a couple extras, I’m gonna chuck ‘em out into the water for a test and that’ll be it.”

Somewhere on this ship lies the bomb that would kill your father, and if you didn’t do your job like you were supposed to, it might as well kill you all. 

YOU LEFT YOUR SOUL on your bedside table the moment Seungkwan entered your quarters with a rapt knock, informing you that the ship was nearing the rendezvous point. 

It had only been a few hours since that meeting in the war room, and it felt like only a week since this had all begun. 

Seungkwan invites himself in as he continues to talk. You aren’t sure if he’s doing it to calm you down or not, but you appreciate it regardless. 

“Keep those trousers on and make sure you look good. You have to look like we cared while we kept you prisoner,” he says, and you can’t help but smile just a little. “Take anything important—pocket it, give it to us. We’re not gonna see this ship after we’re done.”

The idea is strange, that your home for so many months would soon be forgotten, resting on the frozen ocean bed for eternity. You think of what you wish to keep, eyeing the stack of letters on the desk. You won’t be able to keep them on you if you were going to be jumping into the ocean at some point. 

Collecting the smaller pile, you hand them to Seungkwan. “You might have to take a dip in the ocean too, but at least you may have a chance to skip that bit if luck’s on your side. Keep these for me?”

Seungkwan smiles as he takes the stack of letters, pressing them to fit inside his coat. “Aren’t these all from your father?”

“Yes, but…” you trail off. “I’d like to remember them in case I forget why I did what I’m about to do.”

Seungkwan stands in front of you, an unreadable expression on his face. “You know this can’t work unless we trust one another. All of us. The entire crew.”

“I trust you,” you say. “Pirates are impatient. If you wanted me gone I wouldn’t be here.”

He sighs, almost like he was dissatisfied with your answer. With a laugh you ask, “Did you want me to say no?”

“No, it’s just,” he starts. “I wasn’t going to bring it up but, since we don’t have time…I don’t know what’s going on with you and Hoshi but…”

You stiffen at the mention of his name.

“I need to make sure you aren’t about to do something rash because of him.”

Your corset lies on the sheets, and you snatch it off, a bite to your movements.Your coat is already off, your linen shirt is the only thing that covers your upper body

“It was my mistake. I misunderstood. I won’t be letting it affect anything tonight.” You push the loosened corset over your head, too frustrated to unlace it and lace it back up. Your fingers are freezing cold, even too much for your palms to bear as they come in inevitable contact. 

Beyond yourself, you continue to grit through your chattering teeth, the pulses of irritation in your brain only encouraging you to spill. Turning around, back now facing Seungkwan, you fiddle with the strings on your corset as you rant.

“I can’t say the same for him, but you can ask.” Your arms are bent at a strange angle, but you attempt to make the loops and knots anyway. Having never had to do this by yourself ever, you’d found a practice after your peculiar situation. You were alright, but the cold was making it near impossible to simply loop the string through the existing holes.

“He seems to have a lack of emotional control, of course, you’d know, but I can’t say I find it too charming,” your grunting front he effort as you speak.

Seungkwan seems to have noticed your struggle because you feel a pair of warmer hands replace yours, unlacing the loop you’d just made only to loop it again, tighter this time. He takes the liberty to tie the final knot, tighter than you’d usually have it but you’re too busy to correct him. 

“I don’t think I need to explain what happened, your captain seems to be content with the way he is,” you scoff slightly before continuing. “I’m not quite sure what else I was expecting. Actually, I do know what I was expecting, but again, that’s just seems to be my fault—”

“I’m sorry.”

It’s like an entire ocean’s worth of ice water has been poured down your back. Perhaps being buried under the glaciers of the Green Islands would be more forgiving. 

Turning around, you find the hands on your waist do not move, Hoshi’s face coming into view instead of Seungkwan’s. 

The room is bare besides the both of you, the door to quarters closed. You don’t know when he came in nor when Seungkwan left, but he stands before you now, hands touching you where you shouldn’t let him. But you do. 

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, his eyes locked in on yours. 

“W-what?” you breathe.

“I’ve been quite stupid.”

“Have you?”

It sounds like he breathes out a laugh, but composes himself. “I didn’t realise I was cornering you on the deck the other day. I’m sorry for making you feel unsafe. I’m sorry for everything I said.”

Every fibre of your being wants him to suffer, to withhold your forgiveness. But then you realise where you are, in the middle of an ocean that’s been designed by the heavens to kill. 

“Thank you for saying that.” You don’t have the courage to look him in the eye. “I’m sorry too. You aren’t…you aren’t what I implied you were. You’re right. I was projecting.”

“I don’t want us to go out there walking on eggshells around each other,” he says as his breath fans your face. Warm. “We have to come out the other side. All of us.”

You nod slowly.

“You have it the hardest out of all of us, I just…” he trails off and you feel his fingers tightening on your waist, even through the material of your corset. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re alone. No matter what you lose, I think it’s safe to say you’ve gained me. All of us.” 

The thought of not making it out alive has you flexing your numb fingers in front of you slightly. You might die. This crew might die. Your crew might die. 

The man that’s begun to mean more than just a saviour might die. 

Not considering your frozen fingertips, or the absurdity, your body moves on its own. 

In a split second, your iced lips are in contact with the pirate captain’s warmer ones. 

You don’t doubt they’re cold as well, but they differ from yours enough for them to feel like the only warmers you need. 

Your hands have grabbed his face, light brushes against his skin as you tiptoe to reach his lips. They’re soft. Softer than you could’ve ever imagined on a pirate, and you find yourself forgetting where you are for a moment as you feel the plush of his mouth against your own. 

Pulling away first, your noses still brushing, you whisper to him through the creaks and groans of the drifting ship. “I had to do that. Just in case.”

“In case?” he whispers back.

“In case… we don’t make it.”

It only takes him a moment to remove his hands from your waist. For a heartbreaking second, you think this is him pulling away from you. Again.

And then both of his arms are looping around your waist, pulling you into his chest hard, your lips slamming into each other even harder. 

He takes the liberty to move his mouth against your own, hot even in the cold air. Moving with a restrained pace, yet appropriately desperate nonetheless. The cold tip of your nose brushes against his cheek and he pulls away to hiss. 

“God, you’re freezing.”

The discovery only seems to urge him to pull you impossibly closer. If your lungs weren’t already occupied, you wouldn’t have been able to breathe. Despite it all, you find your arms coming up around his neck and shoulders, one hand finding refuge in his light hair.  

You might never need a drink of anything ever again, not with the way his mouth alone seems to have you drunk and deranged, begging for time to stop so he’d never stop kissing you, never stop moving his beautiful, glorious mouth against your own. 

There isn’t a thought in your mind as you pull away for wretched air, eyes closed and breathing heavily. 

Hoshi places his forehead flush against your own, both of you exhaling into each other’s faces, still holding you so tight it hurts. It’s warm, his breath seemingly defrosting the formed icicles on your face. 

“Hoshi,” you slip from your mouth instinctively.

“Soonyoung,” he breathes, and it takes you a moment to realise he’s talking. “My name. Soonyoung is the name my mother gave me. I want you to have it.” 

Opening your eyes, you register his face so close to yours. His eyes are screwed shut, he’s still breathing heavily. 

“Soonyoung,” you repeat, hands finding his face again, stroking his cheek with your thumb. “Soonyoung.”

He opens his eyes.

“I like it. It’s very you.”

He smiles and you can’t help but think how beautiful he looks when he does, and when he leans forward to give you another elongated peck, one that has you chasing his lips again. He relents for one more.

“Well, Soonyoung, can I give you something too?”

He looks at you expectantly. 

Reaching up to the back of your neck, you find the knotted bind of the leather cord that hangs from your neck. Undoing it, you bring the charm out from under your shirt, leaning forward to tie it around his neck this time.

He stares at the charm that dangles down his front as you give it a light tug, “A letter opener. So that’s what you were getting from that lady at Hasry.”

“You knew when I left?” you ask, brows furrowed.

“I was more worried about you wandering off than I was about anything else, what made you think I didn’t know exactly where you were?” He has a cheeky smile on his face, one that you’ve never seen without an underlying threat or the usual glint of unhinged in his eyes. 

You can’t help but grin, of course he knew.

“If you wanted a letter opener as a weapon, you should’ve just asked.”

“Aren’t knives just bigger letter openers?” you ask with a soft chuckle.

He responds with a chaste kiss on the tip of your nose before saying, “Since we’re exchanging gifts—”

“You started it.”

“And I’m ending it.”

He emerges from one of his many pockets with what looks like a bracelet in his hands. 

“That’s—”

“From Hasry,” he confirms. “I bought it for no real reason, never even wore it.”

He rolls one of the pink and blue beads between his thumb and forefinger, and you remember it sitting at the stall in Hasry like it was yesterday. 

“Didn’t realise I only bought it because I saw you looking at it.”

The twist in your heart is the worst it’s ever been, even while he holds you closer than anyone ever has, you feel the need to squeeze him beyond measure hoping it’ll fix the turmoil in your chest. 

He attempts to take one of your hands, in an obvious attempt to slip the bracelet on your wrist. 

“Wait.” 

Hoshi stops. 

“Keep it,” you say as you grab his wrist, pushing the beads down his hand so it sits on his wrist instead.

“But—”

You cut him off with a kiss. “A reason for you to come out of this alive.”

There’s a silent understanding between the two of you as you stand in each other's arms. 

“We still have much to talk about. But I think this is alright for now,” you say. 

“We will,” he confirms. “But when we go out there and put everything on the line, remember you aren’t just a princess anymore. You’re a pirate, too. So fight like one.”

THE COLD HAS COATED the deck in a fine layer of ice, one that makes it a hazard to simply walk on. Your boots feel unstable and it takes a conscious effort to plant your feet firmly on the wood to ensure you don’t fall like Chan almost has the last four times and the one time he did. 

It’s less foggy than you’d anticipated, and you can see Mingyu and Minghao working overtime to ensure the giant ship doesn’t hit one of the absurdly large icebergs that float in the freezing water, the crow’s nest occupied by Hoshi himself as he peers through his telescope. It was strange seeing him use it, you’d begun to think he only kept it like an accessory.

He yells something from his place high up; it’s unclear, but you know.

And then you see it, the naval ship with the unmistakable flag that ripples proud in the cold air. Your family crest is barely decipherable, but knowing what lay ahead was enough to have you taking significantly deeper breaths. 

Your father’s—the King’s— ship bobs in the water with a near empty main deck, not a soul on board. 

You hold your breath, and as one of the blocks of ice are swerved, you find a second ship. The indicative jolly roger is nowhere to be seen, but it's obvious what ship that was. 

The Tigress stands proud with her years of darkened wood, the unmistakable figurehead at the prow in the distinct shape of a fanged siren. 

And only a smaller sailboat away, lay a flat of ice. 

Another white flag with the royal crest, lines of uniformed soldiers that stand at attention like protectors of the ice, a pattern of dotted blues. The admiral stands next to your father, who’s donned his own Naval uniform complete with a purple cape pinned at his shoulder. 

The purple cape of a victor that returns home from battle. The purple cape he’s donned before the battle has even ensued. 

The King has noticed your arrival, his face becoming clearer the nearer the ship gets to the block of ice that would act as common ground. 

And then the ship stops, you turn around and realise the rest of the crew has their eyes on you, expectant. 

“We have a message,” Mingyu says, looking at you but handing the thing in his hand to his captain. 

In your fixation, you did not notice the small boat that had floated near the ship, bearing a scroll with the royal seal. 

Hoshi reads it, lips tight shut and jaw clenched. 

In the next few minutes, all seven of you are cramped into a single, tiny wherry to be rowed onto the iced land. None of you speak, none of you acknowledge the other. The canister that Jun had given you presses against the side of your bare hip, your knife strapped inside your boot. 

That was it. That was all you had. 

But there was some confidence in it, the way the entire crew was asked to present themselves at the exchange was enough to tell you there was truth in what you presumed of your father’s plans. 

He had knives of his own up his sleeve, and he intended to provoke his worst enemy while looking him in the eye. 

As the boat reached what was a hardened shore, the crew stepped off the boat one by one. Very carefully, you stepped on the block of ice as the group moved forward, reaching a point where you stood parallel to the other rigid party. 

In a purposeful attempt, you were kept in the middle of a herded circle, shielded by the crew as Hoshi stood front and centre, the crew’s mouthpiece. You can’t help but swallow, the ringing in your head growing louder than ever. 

There’s a loud voice that plagues the sheets of ice, and your stomach flips so violently you lose both your vision and your hearing. You take an unconscious step back before you feel a hand on your back. 

It was Chan, who whispered, “Keep it together. Calm down, it’s okay.”

It was the obvious response from him but you find yourself calming in any case. 

“The crown commands you, Hoshi Kwon, to bring forth Her Royal Highness, the princess,  at once.” Your father’s right hand man, the royal advisor, and his more trusted friend speaks for the throne, his voice recognizable as it rings on behalf of his king.

From standing behind him, you watch as Hoshi simply raises his fist to place at his hips. 

“Captain. Captain Hoshi Kwon,” he corrects, before continuing. “And my hostage will not be brought anywhere till I have my money ship.”

“As proposed by Hoshi Kwon, His Majesty, The King will cooperate in the exchange of Her Royal Highness, the princess for said ship.”

“Give me my ship first.”

“Hoshi Kwon—”

Hoshi groans loudly, loud enough for the other party that stands multiple feet away to hear, before continuing, “This is why I despise dealing with you insufferable lot, why must everything be so formal?”

But you knew what game he was playing at, the deadliest pirate on the seas does not comply with government officials so easily, and he wasn’t about to drop his masquerade now. 

“You know what,” Hoshi starts, and you see him eye the wooden boat you had just reached the island on. “We do it this way.”

There’s a pause. 

“Me and my harmless little crew will sidestep back over, zip our way to our ship and leave you with your precious princess. Is your royal highness majesty in agreement?”

“Hoshi Kwon is commanded once again to bring the princess forward.” There’s less formality in his tone now, and you realise very quickly that there was no other way to separate yourself from the crew.

“Hoshi,” you whisper under your breath, hoping he would understand. Taking the risk, you move forward in the little space you had, hand very gently placed on his back. 

There’s a pause before he speaks, “Fine. Have your princess.”

Turning around, back facing the crowd, he makes eye contact with you before moving to discreetly meet the eyes of his crew. “Let them take you.”

That’s the last thing you hear him say to his crew as you find a larger shadow approach from behind Hoshi.

“Ho—”

Hoshi grabs your arm harsher than he usually would, dragging you forward in his attempt to present you, but you find that Hoshi’s turned back was taken as an opportunity, the dozens of soldiers having already made their way across. 

If you hadn’t heard what he had whispered to the crew, his shocked face would’ve fooled you too. He looks like he wasn’t expecting the way the crew was immediately surrounded by swarms of armed soldiers, guns perched directly at each member of the crew. He looked like he wasn’t expecting to be cornered. 

But you liked to think you knew this man, and he had once told you to never turn your back to an enemy. Too much to be a rookie mistake of his, so you trust him. 

And then you’re being tugged by someone who’s not from the crew, the distinct feeling of softer, more respectful hands that wrap around your elbow, urging you forward. 

You find it within yourself to not look back, sending a prayer to every entity in the world to keep them safe, to keep the trust in your heart that they knew what they were doing. 

Eyes downcast, you know immediately who you’re being led towards, and when you stop, bracing yourself to meet your father’s eye, you find yourself feeling nothing. 

“Are you hurt?” he asks in his strange form of greeting. No embrace, no sign of relief that his daughter and only heir was alive and well. 

“No, sir,” you reply, shifting your eyes back down to your shoes. 

“Go back to the ship with the guards. We leave as soon as I’m done with this lot.”

Your stomach jolts, but you bite your tongue and let yourself be led to one of the smaller boats. The canister burns against your skin. 

Seated in the smaller boat, flanked by guards, you can’t stop your neck from craning to look at the scene behind you. 

Far away, on the other side of the glacier, the pirates are being ordered to strip themselves of their weapons. 

Hoshi’s dagger glints against the sunlight and you spot Jun’s revolvers in the pile. 

Hoshi looks up and catches your eye, face unchanged. 

“You’re safe now, your Highness,” one of your guards assured you, taking your gaze as a fearful look back instead of one laced with something else. 

Please be okay. 

As soon as you're led up to the main deck, your eyes dart. It doesn’t take long for you to figure out that your father had not chosen to take one of the smaller ships as you’d expected of him. Instead, you stand in an exact replica of the ship you had just disembarked, except for the flag that fluttered with your family crest. 

You’re pushed into one of the quarters in the lower decks, hearing the distinct click of something outside as you find yourself in the mostly barren indoors. 

It looks like a colder version of your quarters on the other ship, the same dimensions, the same window that displays the clear waters of the Green Islands. Except it’s only occupied by a single bed that’s pushed into a corner, stripped of its sheets. 

It looks like a prison cell. 

When you turn around to try for the door, you try to wrench it open but it refuses to budge. You can’t help but question how many times you’ve landed yourself in this exact situation.

Why on Earth would they lock you in? Did they suspect you of something? But whatever for?

You give up, turning to untuck your shirt from your trousers, feeling for the bomb against your hip to make sure it hadn’t slipped. After that, you crouch down to check the inside of your boot, despite feeling the dagger this entire time, you couldn’t help but need to check. 

There was nothing you could do, not when you knew nothing of what was happening on the other side of the door. The window gleams, and you find yourself bolting towards it, peering through the glass to check for any bodies that may land in the water, praying your father would keep them alive.

Hang them publicly. Guillotine them and suspend their heads at the gates of the palace. Just keep them alive for tonight. 

The sun is proving a sorry resource of time, especially when you can’t tell how long it’s been since you were shoved in here. The sun seems closer to the seas when you hear the jingle of the lock. 

Nearing the risk of whiplash, you turn to the door to find your father walking into the room. He walks in, his cape gone, immediately turning to lock the door from the inside once again. 

Once he comes around, he stands with his hands clasped in front of him, eyes boring into your soul. 

“It seems the pirates have changed you,” he comments, eyeing your new trousers that you sport. It was strange, a woman in trousers, let alone a princess. 

“Not at all, sir,” you respond. 

“Your newfound friends are strapped into the brigs, finally subdued and ready to stand trial for their crimes.” His voice is rough, and he looks older than when you last saw him months ago. 

He acts in less alarm than you would’ve thought, assuming his definition of ‘friends’ was simply a sick way to prod at you than any indication that he suspected an alliance. But you fight the effort to let out a sigh of relief; they were in the brig, they were fine, they’d stay alive in time for you to get to them. 

“I thought David less than for a fool,” he refers to the Admiral as he talks. “He proved me quite incorrect when he showed up on some shoddy fishing boat with a message from a pirate. Like some messenger boy.”

You don’t answer as you simply stare at the toes of your boots. It was foolish to dare make eye contact with him.

“A stupid proposal from a stupid pirate,” he chortled in a genuine laugh. “That pirate ship was easy bait. If only you hadn’t gotten yourself roped in like a simpleton.”

His sentence ends with a harsher undertone as he blames you for something you couldn’t possibly have controlled. 

“In any case,” he continues, the gruff in his voice clearing out. “What’s a pirate to a King?”

Everything in you screams at you to halt your already moving tongue, yelling about how horrible the idea was. 

“He’s more of a man than you ever could be.” 

The ringing in your ears becomes a sounding blare, your vision going white at the sides. Your hands shake and you don’t know why you keep staring your father in the eye. 

There’s a furrow in his brow, eyes unyielding and face stoic. 

It’s silent for goodness knows how long as you wish you could sink in that very moment. 

“That load of filth’s done more than just put you in trousers, is it?” he grits through his teeth. He’s seething. “Henley had said you were acting strange when he saw you at that port market, it seems he was right.” 

“No matter,” he continues, exhaling loudly. “It only makes my job easier.”

He unclasps his hands, pulling his white gloves at the fingertips. 

“Perhaps we may live in a world where princesses prance around with pirates, but that won’t be the reason I fulfil my duty as King today.”

He slips them off his hands entirely. 

“I tried shaping you into something worthy of the throne for so many years, and I’d begun to realise that perhaps, not everyone is fit to be ruler after all.”

Was he about to strip of your inheritance? The crown was why you were born. Despite everything your father had put you through, the throne was your god given right. 

“Unfortunately, I cannot simply renounce your title. Not without reason,” he continues as he takes a step closer to you, dropping the gloves to the floor soundlessly. “And while perhaps the court may not consider inadequacy as enough reason, I’m quite sure an exchange gone wrong would be enough, even for them.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, dear daughter, that our time together has come to an end.”

And then his hands were around your throat.

[AN]: HEHEHEHEHEHEHE rb or send an ask telling me your thots as always, one part left to go!!!!!

[kitixie]

Little Girl Gone

Little Girl Gone / T.S. (pt. 1)

part two: here

Synopsis: Having been several years since you’d last seen your favorite gangster family, you return to Small Heath a changed woman with a stronger attitude than you had when you left. 

information: this will be a multi part story! idk how many parts exactly, but there will be more!

warnings: none for this chapter!

please leave all comments and reccommendations below! thank you for reading!

“Aye, what does a woman have to do to get a whiskey around here?”, you shouted, rapping your hand on the bar counter. 

You were seated at The Garrison, it was your first stop back in town. You had lived in Small Heath most of your early life, but five years ago you were forced to leave due to your fathers death and your mothers general distrust (and dislike) of the Shelby family. Your mother had kicked you out a few days ago, claiming that you were old enough to be married now, and that she wouldn’t stand for you staying in her house if you weren’t going to look for a husband. 

“Calm down Lady, I’ll- Holy Shit! Y/N, what are you doin’ back!”, a man's voice rang out, making you and the rest of the bar look in his direction. 

Arthur Shelby had always been one of your favorite Shelby siblings, and for good reason. He was loud, funny, and typically a gentleman if you caught him on the right day. You leaned over the bar and wrapped your arms around his neck, nearly bruising him in the process. You had hoped your whole journey here that he would be the first Shelby you saw, and luck had worked out for you this time. 

“Arth, I am sure glad to see you! It’s been a long time, aye?”, you spoke, removing your arms from him and sitting back on your barstool. 

“Hell, it’s been about, what, five years? You don’t show your face around these parts for five fuckin’ years and then you just come back?”, he said, staring you in the face, with a somewhat more serious look in his eye than you had expected. 

‘Yeah, had some family troubles, but I’m back for good now,” you swallowed, “how's all the Shelby’s doin’?” 

“Eh, the usual. Tommys about to run himself ragged, Pol acts like she owns us all, I’m workin’ here now, I actually own the place!” he said, spilling out most of that information in one breath. 

You took a quick survey of the bar, noticing how the decor and table setup had changed since you’d seen it last. The floor was still the same sticky, slimy feeling though. 

“Glad to see you doing well, Arth. Now, please get me a whiskey an i’ll be outta your way!” you spoke, glad to have reunited with Arthur, but not glad to have been out in public this long. 

“Ah, ah. If you think I’m letting you get out of here without seein’ Tom, you’re messed in the head!” He joked, but as you watched him move towards the window to the private room, you realized he wasn’t joking. 

You had not come prepared to see Thomas. He was the only one who never got a goodbye, even though the rest of them didn’t know they were goodbyes at the time. When you were being forced to leave, you managed to sneak over to Watery Lane and have one last conversation with all the Shelbys before you left, and you never told them you were leaving that night. Thomas had been on business, but got home a few minutes after you left. You had regretted not speaking to him then, but now that regret had turned into a fear after hearing about the man he had become while you were away. You had heard things about Thomas Shelby, and they were not things any girl would like to hear about her long-time crush.

‘Oy, that Tommy Shelby is a real whore’

‘I heard he gets around Small Heath like its a full time job’

‘He pays them ya know? Every girl he fucks gets paid, even if theyre not workin’ for it!’

Those were all just some of the things you had heard, and those weren’t even the things you had heard that were related to his newfound habit of murdering those who crossed him. You’ve had your eyes on Tommy Shelby ever since you were 16. Now aged 21, it had been a long enough time that you realized what kind of person you needed to settle with, and logically, he wasn’t it. 

While this entire catalog of thoughts was running through your head, your eyes watched as Arthur got closer and closer to that window. You knew you weren’t ready to see him yet, if you ever would be. So acting on those primal prey instincts, you ran. You hopped off the barstool, and started pushing your way through the crowd of bar patrons, finally having the door insight. You wrapped your hand around the handle, and pulled it open. Stepping into the cool air of the night, you took a deep breath and closed your eyes as you closed the bar door behind you. Just as you were stepping away from the door to begin your walk to the apartment you were renting, you bumped into something, or rather, someone. 

“Thought I’d let you run from me a second time, aye?”

Fuck. 

Fuck. 

“I-I-”, you stammered, not having any idea what to say, now that you were staring at the face of one Thomas Shelby. 

“It’s okay, I’d be nervous too if I ran into someone I left in the dust five years ago.”, he laughed, letting a puff of cigarette smoke roll out of his mouth. 

“Tommy, how did you even know I was out here? I watched Arthur and left before he even opened the window, I don’t underst-”

“Shh. I have my ways, ya know I have my ways.” he spoke, that cool, gravelly voice still hadn’t changed, even after all this time. 

You finally looked up at him, releasing the death stare you had on his chest. He was more handsome now, if that was even possible. His dark hair styled perfectly, like he had touched it up before meeting you outside. His hat was missing, which was a rare occurrence, but you were enjoying the unobstructed view of his face. He was lean, only muscle was visible through his white shirt, and his pants hugged his legs perfectly. He was beautiful, especially in the face. You could see more defined freckles in the glow of the street lamp, along with more defined lines carved into his forehead. You continued to study his face, while his studied yours. You had definitely matured in your time away, but not only on your face. Your lips had gotten fuller, cheek bones more pronounced, and hair longer; but you had also grown tits and an ass. You knew you had assets, and fully planned on using them to your advantage, just not on Tommy Shelby. 

“My God, Y/N, I’d say you grew up…”, he trailed off, eyes looking all over your face and body. 

“Yeah, that tends to happen to people as they age, Tom.” you laughed, feeling suddenly insecure as you stood under his microscope. 

“What are ya doin’ back in town? I imagined you ran off and got married or somethin’,” he spoke, “But, I don’t see a ring on that finger so either that can’t be right or you married a poor bastard.” 

“Not married Tom, never was. It’s part of the reason I’m back in town, but-” 

“What are ya doin’ tomorrow evening?”, he cut off, not even letting you finish explaining how you didn’t want to talk about it right now. 

“Nothing I know about, why?”, you asked, having no idea what was about to come out of that pretty mouth of his. 

“Join me for dinner, yeah? I’d love to sit down and have a chat with ya, but I got to go handle some business right now.”, he spoke, suddenly sounding strained. 

“Uh, I guess I’ll get dinner with ya, where at?” 

“My place, I’ll come pick you up tomorrow at 6, Goodnight, Y/N.” Tom spoke, brushing shoulders with you lightly as he passed by, heading back into The Garrison.

[siffrins-therapist]

👾censoredmandibiles Follow

OK time to settle something

EDIT: this post WAY ended up breaking containment. GO CLUTCH YOUR PEARLS ELSEWHERE

🦑tentacleovi Follow

YO FREE BLOCKLIST IN THE NOTES HOLY SHIT

#RIP OP's notifs #i don't go here but i suggest making popcorn before diving into those notes #some of it is puritan bs you'd expect #some of it is discourse i never even knew existed

41.6K Notes

🕷️friendofcharlotte

I think a painting my friend got at a thrift store was painted by Mr. Italy Veneziano? Is there a way to authenticate it? Google isn't helping.

⭐wishonadeadstar Follow

Try here. Turns out my nan's portrait of her farmhouse was originally painted by Mr. Romano when he was living in NY during the 1920's.

🕷️friendofcharlotte

THANK YOU

8 Notes

📽️bisexuallightinggoggles Follow

hey yo so the US rep put like 100 hours into playing that game Spiritfarer just this week... anyone want to go check on the guy??

💿newagepirate Follow

There are literally government workers who's literal job it is to check on him

⛰️lesbianmothernature Follow

how tf do you know he put 100 hours into playing a game anyway????

📽️bisexuallightinggoggles Follow

We're friends on Steam. He adds like everyone who asks.

And for everyone in the notes asking what Spiritfarer is it's one of those cozy simulator games here's the trailer.

#isn't the 'deathiversary' of his friend Davie this week? #i'm definitely not the first person to think of that #okay looking at the notes was a mistake #like i'm not one of those ppl who puts #'DNI if your username makes fun of davies death' but #immortal or not #even if it happend centuries ago #you can still be sad your FUCKING FRIEND DIED

12.3k Notes

🥾hikingawayfrommyfeelings Follow

So if I become a citizen of Ladonia can he just... visit me through my computer?

🦝trashypanda Follow

He gets mad when you summon him :(

🦘callmejoeythewayi Follow

"summon him" Like a fucking demon?

🫒shrekbignaturals Follow

We are NOT rehashing that old discourse.

🎱magic8saveme Follow

Oh god I just revived my blog after escaping x/twitter and last time I saw that disk hoarse, my dash was just post after post of this for DAYS

🪄magictrio-dropout

#was there actual discourse about whether the nation-people were demons? #cuz the discourse i saw on my dash was #whether tales of things like demons vampires and #other immortal or 'came back to life' creatures #were born from when the nation-people resurrecting #or like #doing creepy stuff

IDK about tumblr or the first bit (I've personally never heard that at least not from anyone being serious) but the other stuff has been debated in academia for decades! One of my literature professors is ADAMANT that the vampire myth can be traced to old folklore about the reps and them reviving and possibly the blood-drinking comes from an evolution of the myth when before, old stories talked about blood soaking the earth where vampires rose. If anyone's interested, here's where you can find my professor's paper about it.

🎃warongayxmas

So like. *grabs a bat and slowly approaches a hornet's nest* Then does the Jesus story have the same roots then?

🫒shrekbignaturals Follow

WE 👏 ARE 👏 NOT 👏 RE 👏 HASHING 👏 THAT 👏 DISCOURSE👏

🥾hikingawayfrommyfeelings Follow

Wtf happened to my post???

#so did OP become a Ladonian citizen or what?

187.4k Notes

🐦‍pinchforawish Follow

MY DAD GOT TO SEE MR ENGLAND LIVE BACK WHEN HE WAS IN A PUNK BAND

🐦‍pinchforawish Follow

TUMBLR WTF HOW TF DOES THIS VIOLATE GUIDELINES

🏴dinotonugget-deactivated

Finally. Proof that the site runs so shittily bc Mr. Eyebrows works for staff

🫎moosecrossing Follow

Spoke the truth and got fucking killed for it

67.9 Notes

[gghostwriter]

Poison Me, I’m Fine

Spencer Reid x Songwriter!Fem!Reader

Summary: Your choice of poison was Spencer Reid. Who knew he would kill you and set you free in the process

Warning: angst with no happy ending

A/n: I feel insane for writing this in one sitting and not editing it. There's no part 2 for this, I just wanted to purge myself of this angst plot that took over me. This is probably the closest I could write to a singer-songwriter reader x spencer, granted she just writes for other pop stars (maybe I'll write some popstar!reader next time idk yet.) Also, 'Free Now by Gracie Abrams' and 'The Black Dog by Taylor Swift' was on repeat when I wrote this so you can spot some inspiration from both here. Hope you like it!

Main masterlist

You don’t know why you settled for less. Why you opted to walk on a blurry tight rope, why you chose a crumbling place to land on, and why you chose to enter a situationship that will end in heartbreak. Actually, scratch that, you do know why. Spencer Reid, that was enough reason for you to put yourself on the line. Or it was until your treacherous, greedy heart wanted more. 

Does she follow like an echo? Like your shadow, you can try, but you can't run

It started with hushed whispers. Your mind slowly poisoning itself with what ifs and scenarios where he was fully yours, just like how he unknowingly owned you—mind, body, and soul. Whispers of—wouldn’t it be nice to visit this museum again with Spencer or he’d love this newly opened vintage bookstore around the block or it’d be nice to see the stars with him right now. You tried to cleanse those thoughts away but that’s the thing, poison that has entered your bloodstream is hard to remove. 

It's a pain that I caught you at a bad time It's a shame that I memorized your outline

It morphed to vivid imagery next—hallucinations so life-like that you found yourself believing it half of the time. Portraits of him and you holding hands as you both walked down the streets, phantom outlines of you together swaying close to muted music, and shadows of you and him twisting in bedsheets. All untrue, except for the latter. You attempt to blink them all away with no success. Your heart reluctant to part with the delusion than face the truth—that he had only offered you his body and nothing else.

Every page that I wrote, you were on it Feel you deep in my bones, you're the current

It seeped out of you next—to your writings, to your works as if your body was doing its best to reject the poison away. To save itself from the nearing death that seemed inevitable in the end. Your poetry, your lyrics, and your art all contain entangled webs of metaphors and colors that lead back to him. Purple streaks on your canvas to represent his favorite, his beloved authors mentioned in your verses, and symbolisms of his career scattered all over—cuffs, guns, shot and everything in between. You tried to pour it all out of you, the dark and sticky emotion of despair and longing covering you and all extensions of you. Everyone noticed the change. The dimming of lights in your eyes and the shadows that threaten to swallow you whole. Everyone noticed—your family, friends, colleagues, and even the pop stars that buy your singles. Everyone except for the one that could save you, Spencer. 

It turned into screams next. It was as if your body gathered all its remaining strength to shout for help or to howl in pain, you’re not sure really. All you’re sure of was that the end was near. The end was coming to free you from everything—from him. The trigger was overhearing him discuss you with his friend and male co-worker during a run-in in his apartment where he had no choice but to introduce you. Six months of pseudo dating him and no one knew you existed.

You excused yourself to the bathroom, wanting to escape the tension emitting from the situation and when you came back, that’s when you heard it. The lethal blow to your already dying heart.

“She seems nice,” his friend, Morgan, commented.

Spencer shrugged. “She’s no Maeve—not as deep but she’s—she’s safe.”

You bit your lip, trying to stop it from quivering lest you whimper out loud the pain his words has caused you.

Donning on a fake smile on your face, you watched as Morgan left with a wave goodbye to you and a casual ‘see you again.’ Not like that would ever come true.

Within seconds, you felt your mask cracking as tears slowly trickled down your face.

“I love you.”

They say the truth sets us free but not this truth. All it did was crash, burn, and pulverize your already precarious stacks of sticks that represent you and him. 

Silence.

“You know, when we first started this—whatever this is—I promised to myself that I wouldn’t fall for you. That this was purely physical, sex,” you sardonically laughed. “But you know what I realized, that you were easy to fall in love with. So easy that I found myself ruined even before I could comprehend where and when it happened.”

“We agreed, didn’t we? That we would tell the truth and stop when feelings are starting to get involved. Why didn’t you tell me?” 

You roughly swiped away the tears. “I didn’t know when it happened, Spencer! I thought if I stuck it out long enough, you’d feel something for me too! But that was foolish of me to believe. I see it now.” 

“See what?” 

You walked towards him, invading his personal space. The same way he did with yours. “That you’re not ready. Honestly I’d prefer if my opponent was standing in front of me. At least I could gauge if I had the chance to win. But with her, she’s gone, Spencer—” you jabbed your pointy finger on his chest, where his heart was. “I’m fighting with a ghost who I can’t even land a hit on. A ghost who haunts your every waking and dreaming moment. Tell me, Spencer, how do I compete with that—when I feel there’s little to no space for me. I exist only in between and in your limbo when you’re craving for a physical companion. How do I win, Spencer? Tell me or should I just throw in the towel?” 

“Y/N—”

His eyes contained the answer and although it wasn’t what you were wishing for, it was what you subconsciously knew you needed to free you. 

You nodded your head. “I guess—I guess this is it, huh. End of the line for us.” 

“I guess so.” 

You gathered your coat, haphazardly strewn on the floor—just like the pieces of your shattered heart and as you stepped out of his threshold, you gave yourself one last chance to memorize his outlines.

“Goodbye, Spencer.” 

And finally, the poison had killed you and had set you free. 

If you feel like fallin', catch me on the way down Never been less empty, all I feel is free now

[anundyingfidelity]

WHAT IF...? — Soldier Boy/Ben (2)

Summary: Ben, now as your husband, gives up Vought for good and retires along with you far away from the spotlight and the big cities once you're pregnant with your first child. He knows better than to make the same mistakes his father did.

Pairing: Soldier Boy/Ben x female reader

Word count: 900ish.

Warnings: none, soft Ben, OOC!Ben? idk, this is sweet.

GEN MASTERLIST! — DRABBLES MASTERLIST!

taglist is here!

PART 2

1990

The way back home was tiring to say the least. You and Ben had a weekend shopping schedule. It wasn’t the best idea John had for a funny Saturday, but you could tell he enjoyed being at the mall. He was six already, full of energy, joy, and eager to discover the wonders of the world.

From the passenger seat you moved slightly just to check on your son. He was already snoring in the back seat, drooling and sleeping peacefully as if it was his own bed. The sight of him just made you smile.

“He had a great time, huh?” Ben asked, giving you a side glance. He got better at driving after you gave birth, which you were so thankful for.

“Yeah, I mean, he’d definitely pick a baseball game instead but this is good for him,” you said back. “He’s been at home too much, don’t you think?”

“Hey, it's school break! Do you really love your kid?” Ben teased with a playful smile, you rolled your eyes.

“Shut up. All I mean is that I’d just like him to have friends and talk to other kids, do the normal kindergarten stuff… That’s all.”

Ben nodded more for himself. There have been a couple of weeks already, and he was more than happy to spend time with the little brat, but he got your point. You didn’t want him to be alone and the teacher at kindergarten had told both of you John was having some trouble with making friends and socializing in general. He was shy, but smart and creative, but even the teacher had some issues when talking to him at first. John wasn’t like that at home and it hurted you just a bit.

“Probably we should call Janine and some of the parents that were there in the last parent conference, you still have their numbers. We can do something for our kids to meet outside school,” you suggested.

“I think those moms were hitting on me,” your husband said, taking a last turn on the highway before heading home. He chuckled as low as he could when you patted his arm. You got pretty jealous at the last meeting when those ladies approached him, almost swooning. Even John’s teacher looked like she’d faint anytime. “What? I’m Soldier Boy anyway.”

“You’re an idiot.”

He parked the car outside your house after an hour of driving. There were some cons of living in the outskirts of the city, but as long as his family got the calm and green life around, driving for so long was not a problem.

You took John between your arms, careful of not waking him up. He weighed more and more each year, reminding you he wasn’t a baby anymore. He was taller, a good talker at least with you and Ben, he liked seeing the squirrels in the trees that surrounded the house, and he was very, very smart.

It felt like a day ago you gave birth to him, that he started babbling nonsense, and mere seconds that he started walking little baby steps… Now, his eyes were bright blue, his hair long and blonde, his cheeks sprinkled with freckles just like his dad…

Most of his factions were just like Ben’s mother, and she was beautiful from the old pictures he’d show you before. You were happy John was like an exact copy of her, you knew how much Ben loved her and how much her death hurted for him. John was like a reincarnation of her spirit, now sleeping in your arms.

Ben started to take out the grocery bags and some other stuff you had gotten yourself from the city, most of them puzzles, board games, and teddies John picked back there. As much as you tried to get him to reason to not buy unnecessary things, he would just spoil John a lot. But you understood why he did it. He was nothing like his father, he had time to learn how to be a better man, how to manage his own feelings and slowly, teach John to be a good man, even at his young age. You felt so proud of him, watching him discharge the bags on the kitchen counter with John clinging to you, deep in slumber, his little arms now wrapped around your neck to not let go.

When finished, Ben looked at you with a soft look on his eyes. You, holding his son, was a picture he’d never grown tired of. He would hit himself to confirm it wasn’t just a beautiful dream; it was real. You and John were very real, and he was thankful for giving up the superhero shit already. This could never compare to anything Vought offered to him before; what he built in there with you was everything he ever needed.

“I’m gonna take him to his room,” you mumbled, but before you could walk up the stairs, Ben approached you.

“I’ll do,” he announced in an equally low voice.

“You sure? I don’t want him to wake up-”

“John sleeps like a trunk, trust me,” Ben said, taking the kid softly away from your arms. John immediately wrapped his arms around his dad’s neck, hiding his face on the crook of his neck. He was so exhausted after the trip.

“Right,” you nodded. “Thanks, I love you.”

Ben gave you a charming smile, one that you never could grow tired of. He leaned down to kiss your lips softly, his new and trimmed beard tickling your skin a little.

“I’ll be here in a couple of minutes to help you,” he said.

You watched him disappear on the stairs to the second floor, John deeply sleeping in his strong arms, hugging each other.

Weekend trips like this were monotonous sometimes, but it was okay because you always came back home with your boys after all.

Soldier Boy taglist:

@delaynew @k-slla @thesilmarillionblog @onlyangel-444 @mrsjenniferwinchester

@daisy-the-quake @jackles010378 @mostlymarvelgirl @deans-spinster-witch @drasticemotions

@stoneyggirl2 @sapnaploves

@believeinthefireflies95 @demodemo909

[ryo-kaikura]

Yandere Sebastian Michaelis x Dom(?)male reader

My feelings for him caught on so I'm writing this.

Idk this just came to mind and this was from four or three years ago

One day, you wake up, your body similar to the body you had. You know you died, you saw that ‘God’ or whatever they called themselves. It looked horrific but mesmerizing but they said something along the lines of “it's a mistake” “Game she likes”. 

After arriving it seems that they were talking about your sister's favorite otome game with black butler, a popular anime after it was released for a while but some of the characters were good looking. You always felt a connection with one of the characters, Sebastian Michaelis. 

After you composed yourself, you realize your character is the soft dom butler in love and sorta obsessed with Sebastian then when the MC came and she made you realize he didn't like you, you become obsessed with the MC then one night a mysterious vampire was hungry and drained you, you died in a very tragic and painful way. 

Well you didn't want that and you realize this was months before the MC came to the manor so when you started to work, you slowly distanced yourself from Sebastian.

One day, Sebastian asked to talk to you. He was asking why you seem colder and will it affect your work performance. You, with a “did you hit your head or something” Look, questioned why he would care cause all the staff barely do they're work right and he could do it all again in a second. He then dismisses you. After that you returned to your job while slowly only asking or answering Sebastian when you needed his help or when he needed your assistance. 

Sebastian, after the conversation, questions himself ‘why did i care if he's cold to me’ ‘it didn't even affect the job?’. Later that night Sebastian asked if you liked him. You answered the truth that you used to but you decided to stop your feelings before it got too far. Little did Sebastian or you know, this little conversation would spark a wildfire. 

After a while Sebastian felt that he needed to have your attention on him again. He felt that without your attention he felt something was amiss so he decided to get your attention but it all failed with either a questioning look or other staff praising him. A month passed, the MC still had a few couple months before she arrives but just to prepare for the vampire you started to workout, guess being a “soft dom” Helped cause your strength and muscle mass increase quite fast and you suddenly was able to rip metal, you had to apologize quite a lot cause of that. (The workout was in the course of the month) 

A week later and it was your turn to go shopping in the town for snacks and delicacies that the servants and young earl Phantomhive wanted. After getting what they wanted and ordering for the rest to be sent and some to be brought later, you go and pick the thing you want and for some reason you decide getting some peroxide would be useful. After getting the rest of the items, it turns out it was already late. 

While walking to your horse you felt like someone was watching you or stalking you. You decided if it was a human you could beat them. So you went into an alley. When you look back you saw a… … … Vampire?????

Why did it arrive now??? Wasn't your death by blood drainage months later???? When the vampire attacked you, you felt nothing. Not fear, not adrenaline, nothing. After being pounced on, you felt your life flash before you eyes, the life of a butler over the course of two months. But feeling like this vampire is weak and testing that theory, you decide to pull him off and bite his neck (like "UNO REVERSE B*TCH" type of thing), after he is stunned, you grab his heart and start to rip it to shreds, somewhere in the middle you feel the heart stop beating. 

(I don't really know the other ways to kill a vampire so i just took a theory that you need to stab they're heart with a stake and make it tha even if it's not inside the body, the vampire could still live and just go off that) 

When you woke up, it was in the same room you woke everyday for the past 2 months, your room, and you didn't feel any pain. When you saw yourself in the mirror you saw a body that went from ‘soft dom’ to ‘daddy dom’ (even I'm having secondhand embarrassment). Your body used to have a layer of fat covering your abs but now you're ripped. After thinking how you got back, a memory flashed. You suddenly remember subconsciously bringing the snacks back and cleaning your clothes of any blood with the peroxide. 

Feeling nothing is wrong you decide to continue working. While working you felt that Sebastian has been acting strange, he acted like you're disgusting but also he's in love with you. You didn't know why until you saw Baldroy accidentally cut his finger and wanting to suck it up, you turned into a vampire. You decide nothing of it until that night you had a dream of the ‘God’. 

They said that it was going off course but this was more entertaining so They would let it be and both you and ‘him’ are entertaining to watch. You woke up at midnight confused. When you tried to sleep again you felt thirsty but you didn't want to drink blood like dracula style. So you decide to go to the kitchen. When you were about to go take a glass you saw on the table a red liquid, you already know what it is just by smell but your body felt like it forced itself to go by instinct and gulped it down your throat. Afterwards you felt like you could go to sleep

The next day, you wake up energized and excited so you were able to finish your job early and decided to rest. A few moments later Sebastian passed by. He decided to ask if you're a vampire and he assured you that he would harm you and you showed signs of knowing he is a demon (i think). 

After telling him, Sebastian seems to reassures himself for some reason and then says, there's a guest that comes from France and he hoped you could help the others from making a mess while he helps the young master. You didn't see why not so you helped the others but it seems before you had arrived they had already made a mess. You decided to clean up while waiting for Sebastian to show up as usually he has a plan for all this. 

Well that ended quite happily with the guest running and falling to his carriage. Though with that experience you realize your senses have quadrupled and you could hear almost half the manor if you were in front of it quite clearly if you tried. But it seems sometimes when you don't deliberately try to hear it just goes 3 meters around you clearly. Suddenly you woke up again at midnight thirsty and you saw the same cup filled with blood on the same spot. You thought nothing of it as your body just swallowed the blood like chugging a beer. 

Two months past and there is only two months left before the MC of this game arrives for a “my uncle house burned so he sent me here because your father was close to my uncle and you father owes us something in return of saving his life” quite cliche but ok. But the most surprising thing is that you have slowly fallen in love with Sebastian Michaelis over this past month for no reason!!!! Sure it could be after you turn into a vampire you stopped distancing yourself but how could your heart beat for that heartless demon TT. 

After a few days, you decide to confess as it's best to get your feeling destroyed now than later 🙃. After asking Sebastian to meet you at the kitchen, you waited for the agreed upon time and a few minutes before you saw Sebastian. When you finally said the words, you were hoping Sebastian would dump you by saying things like “a relationship between servants is not ideal for a healthy environment” Or “I'm not looking for a love life, sorry” But it shocked you, Sebastian said that he has had the same feelings for a WHILE!!!. Oh well, guess we're dating now 😬🤭. 

Though somehow your dom character made Sebastian to a sub in the relationship as you thought impossible (i just like making a canonly dom man to a sub😋😓). So he moved into your room and somehow the bed magically got bigger. 

When the day comes for the MC to arrive. You were right beside Sebastian as your relationship still stands and it's strong with Sebastian's subtle jealousy and possessiveness and young master Ciel's permission😭. When MC arrived she was different. She didn't come with a white lotus facade but she came in strong and asked for a job???? 

Afterwards,I thought she would accuse me of stealing Sebastian or something but she didn't care, all she cared about was books and doing her job. Soon she came to me to talk but she didn't sound like she despised me and somehow I accidentally told her you were reincarnated. Then she said she did as well. When we talked about what and where you’re from it turns out this world is currently a BL book and the main character is you. Though whenever she says something that hasn't happened yet you can't seem to hear or understand her. Her writing looks gibberish her words sounds messed up but she's always warning you about something. 

One day you saw her talk to Sebastian about something she knows he's doing and asking him to stop. And Sebastian laughing and telling you won't believe her and you won't even be able to hear her. You decide to ignore and continue working. Later that evening you decide to rest, the MC named Alice (i forgot to name her) meet you and told you something shocking and you were able to hear her completely

the day after you turned into a Vampire, What you didn't know was that Sebastian knew the moment a vampire got inside the house but didn't know who until you showed up to work. He was confused on how you became a vampire and disgusted by the thought of being a vampire but the moment he knew it was you, he decided not to care. That evening, after the young master was still working, Sebastian decided to read about vampires. 

Suddenly he saw a book, the book felt it was calling him. When he picked it up and read it, he saw a bold text. 

“ A VAMPIRE WILL FALL MADLY IN LOVE WITH A DEMON/DEVIL IF THEY SO MUCH AS A DROP EVERY DAY FOR TWO MONTHS” (works with angels blood too~) 

Sebastian read the rest of the article saying things like “because to a vampire, a demon’s/devil's blood is like a love potion that if the two months pass, they will never truly hate the demon/devil. Angels have weaker effects because blah blah blah blah” Like being struck by lightning Sebastian knew what to do to poor you. (The “blah blah” is just what Sebastian stopped caring about).

After hearing everything, it all clicked in your head. How you suddenly liked him, how suddenly there was a cup of blood after you turned a vampire and also how suddenly you always felt drinking Sebastian's blood made you fall deeper for him but you thought nothing of it because you trusted him.

you decide to confront him but when you meet him,he was smiling, smirking, unbothered and when you saw his eyes you could think of anything else. Why were you angry, why were you enraged, what made you enraged. After a while of staring into his demonic eyes you snapped out of it. You remembered and asked Him the reason why he did this. He answered that it was because you didn't want to like him anymore so he felt something was missing so he decided to take matters into his own hands and take you for himself.

Usually you would feel betrayed but you felt nothing but affection for the person in front of you for unknown reasons. When you thought of what happened  it felt like everything was erased and written back in a way that Sebastian was seen as the perfect man out there, no flaw in his logic, no problem in his love. You felt it was right to be with him.

When you stop thinking, suddenly your body moves, you move in the direction of Sebastian. You feel the need to drink his blood. He then realizes, his blood isn't only a love potion but it's an addiction, where you can't get anywhere else. 

After Sebastian was able to shoo Alice out of the Phantomhive manor, he was delighted with the new found knowledge. He feels the rush of edging you when you disagree with him and rewarding you with his blood when you can't stop trying to drink his blood. 

He would whine and act pitiful to you, pulling your heartstring but you still lead the relationship but the only reason the relationship even last his Sebastian’s blood

After Sebastian eats Ciel’s soul, he makes a contract with you, as you still had your  soul as you didn't die from being bitten by a vampire. And so the both of you stay together with you leading and slowly falling in love with Sebastian and Sebastian getting more and more obsessed with You

___________________________________________

Sorry for not continuing the other story, I had a massive block and can't come up with things to continue the story. I might scratch the one I'm currently writing and re write it for the nth time

[sulumuns-dootah]

Assigning WHB demons plants/flowers based off the vibes: Abyssos

⟡ Masterlist ⟡

A/N: I think I need to start attending some botany classes again bc from the way these post are turning into me rambling about plants i can tell I miss it :D

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Nepenthes rajah

I don't think this plant has a common name, but if it did it would be smth like Rat/Mouse eating pitcher plant

Bc that's exactly what the plant does

It's just big enough for the small rodent to climb into and never see the light of day again

This also probably explains why I picked it for Beel

I mean, he literally eats angels whole

(I find pitcher plants really cool bc they're literally just a pitchers filled with digestive fluid, but they're not necessary carnivorous - some life off of animal droppings or insects)

       ༺☆༻

Venus flytrap - Dionaea muscipula

At first i was gonna include maybe some other pitcher plant or completely different plant...

But then again, Bael is literally catching the King of flies on daily basis

Idk why, but looking at pics of the open leaves is really calming to me

Having them is kinda cool bc sometimes you just walk past and see one of their leaves closed bc it caught a fly and you'll feel kinda proud of your little baby for catching something

From my experience they don't close when you give them dead one, though

They might also be a bit harder to keep alive...

Mine made it few months, but then bloomed and died shortly after I cut the flower off (similar thing also happened to my friend who specialises in succulents and carnivorous plants so I don't think I did anything wrong)

       ༺☆༻

Poison Ivy - Toxicodendron

At first I was thinking I'll give Stolas something bird-named, but I really wantd somethinig that looks harmless, and the moment you mess with, you're in for a lot of pain

And this plant baby delivers

I've never had the misfortune of meeting it, but I haver heard the stories

For those who don't know: Contanct wiht the plant gives you a nasty rash, sometimes with some blisters

Interestingly, looking it up on wikipedia, there's even what would happen if you smoked or eaten it....

As if you'd wanna do that after getting a rash just touching that thing

(You skin is pretty much reacting to the oil on the leaves, so after you come to contact make sure to wash it off or you'll spread it on other things too)

       ༺☆༻

Hypoestes

I can only talk about this moody beauty from experience since there isn't much info online

From what I've found there's about 150 scpecies in this family

Doesn't require much sunlight, but needs water

And oh boy, the amount of water...

The reason why I picked this plant for Amon is how easy it is for the leaves to start drooping

Just like him being constantly tired

But oh boy, the drooping... One minute she looks good and then two minutes later she's on the verge of death

It's not good to have planters just sitting in water bc of the risk of mold, but this one might just need it

       ༺☆༻

Common Ivy - Hedera Helix

Originally I wanted to go again with a plant based off his animal form, but then while writing for Amon, I saw normal Ivy

The ultimate Dark Academia plant that looks so good growing around anything

It's perfect for a demon they sometimes call Class President

I really love Common Ivy bc of how much you can use her for

Amazing use for Ivy is putting her into floral arrangements and the amazing thing is that it'll mostly keep its color as long as it's not left out in the rain or your glue gun set on too high temperature

Fun fact: The leaves of the plant are different on normal branches from the branches with a flower

[mm-lurking]

MAY I REQUEST FOR ANGST POOKS 😘😝 MYBE ABT BRINGING UP THEIR DEAD EX BY ACCIDENT DURING AN ARGUEMENT? THERES RARELY ANY ANGST IM GETTING MAD 👹

I saw your ask at 11 pm and something about the way you wrote your request made me giggle so hard idk why 🤣 Since you demand angst I shall give it to you. You’re my first ask btw so thank you very much! 

I’m not sure which character you wanted me to write for so I’m going to go for Blade and Aventurine. Though feel free to send me specific characters through the ask again!

Warnings: no fluff at all, pure angst, fem! reader and ex, reader has no chill running her mouth, Aventurine’s kinda feels ooc sorry about that WC: 1881

Blade

You were a hair’s breadth away from being gravely injured. If it weren’t for Blade’s interruption you would have been Antimatter Legion dinner tonight. In your eyes you weren’t in that much danger, you knew you could handle it on your own but in Blade’s eyes, it was just another flashback to how he lost her. It felt frustrating to watch him downplay your capabilities, it's not like you were some weak damsel in distress. There was a reason your relations with the Stellaron Hunters had lasted as far as it had; you were good at wielding your weapon and making good use of the enemy’s weaknesses. Sure there were moments when you were in trouble but you never really got to live the thrill of it because Blade would always step in to help you even when you didn’t ask for it. 

You loved him dearly and appreciated his assistance but just for this instance, you wanted to deal with things by yourself. Ultimately your agitation got the best of you and so now here you were with your arms crossed, glaring at Blade after the enemy was taken care of.

“Have you always been this foolish?”

You stare at him with wide eyes and an open mouth, questioning his audacity of insulting you like this.

“Excuse me?”

“You could have gotten hurt.”

He says matter-of-factly and you feel your jaws clench at the way he speaks to you.

“Blade I am fully capable of looking after myself! I need you to stop interrupting my fights!”

“If I didn’t that Antimatter Legion pawn would have sliced your head off your shoulders.”

“And how the hell do you know that was going to happen?! I could have fought it easily if it weren’t for you!”

He turns around and looks at you with cold eyes which make you flinch momentarily.

“You overestimate yourself.”

“I do not! I have worked relentlessly on my skills! I know what I can handle or what I can’t! You just never allow me to prove it!”

“You are a fool. I do not need to see you pushed to your limits to acknowledge your skills.”

“Then why the hell won’t you let me do what I want?!”

You both argue back and forth with neither of you backing down. Blade speaks calmly, just as he always has but with slight frustration whereas you on the other hand are full-on yelling and boiling over to the point of rage. He takes a deep breath and continues.

“I am just looking out for you-”

“I am not weak like Chun. Stop treating me like I am.”

You almost immediately regret it the moment those words leave your mouth. Your words are sharp and bitter, and pierce his heart like a blade slashing through flesh. His eyes are ablaze with fury and pain and the way his jaw clenches is enough to let you know you have overstepped your boundary.

Chun was his first love. She was a good woman with a kind heart, and despite how odd she looked amongst the Stellaron Hunters, they welcomed her as long as it made Blade happy. But in a world full of evil, being kind is a weakness and ultimately she met her end in the hands of an enemy during heated negotiations. For the one whose life was already cursed by immortality, he took her death hard and swore never to love again, for he couldn’t bear to witness yet another loved one depart for the nth time in his long life. His already broken heart took ages to heal and by the time you crossed paths with him, he was still grieving over her. You knew this very well because it was you who assured him that history wouldn’t repeat itself with you. It was you who helped him heal further and gave him the confidence to open his heart up once more to you. You knew what she meant to him because he had been honest with you about his past yet-

“Blade I-”

-here you were driving the very knife you had taken out of him so lovingly back into his heart in full force. He looks at you with so much despise and agony that your heart hurts knowing you are the cause for it. A blade being stabbed over and over into his body hurt, but those wounds always healed after a while. Yet the wound your words had caused was one that no medication could fix. Your throat tightens and you want to reach out to him and hold him but you stay glued to your feet.

“We don’t need to be around each other anymore.”

Despite the torment he feels, he looks straight into your eyes and monotonously speaks. There is not even a single moment spared for you to reply as he walks out of the room and slams the door shut, indicating he is done with you. The door closing was not just the end of the argument you both were having, it was also the end of what you were to each other. You stand there rooted to the ground as tears sting your eyes. Why did you have to be like this?

Aventurine

“Aventurine I swear to god I am not playing your petty games again.”

You angrily huff as you cross your arms and glare at Aventurine with disapproval. The audacity of this man was truly something, especially at a time like this. You both were stuck in an interesting situation, where Aventurine had made a gamble with an enemy territory and he wanted you to be part of it. More precisely, he wanted to turn you into his bargaining chip for a while. There was one tiny problem. He wasn’t asking for your approval, he had already made the deal.

“The table has already been set, friend. You just have to play your role real well.”

Your jaw hangs low when you realise what he has done. 

“Aventurine don’t tell me….”

“They have decided to ask for you in exchange of information. Do not worry, I will find a way to-“

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence as a loud slap resonates across the room. You stare at him in disbelief with tears welling your eyes, unable to process what he has done. A shaky sigh leaves his mouth and he stares at you, bewildered by your behaviour.

“It hasn’t even been a full week since we finished another deal and you want me to jump head-on into another one?!”

“Was there a need to slap me like this? If you’re forgetting, friend, you agreed to help me out on these deals regardless of the risk. Or should I have the doctor examine your memory?”

“Aventurine I agreed to help you out, not be used however you please! You could have at least asked me first before making the deal!”

You rub your temples and rethink the entire situation through. Your relationship with Aventurine was compatible due to one simple fact: you both loved taking risks. The thrill of the gamble and the adrenaline of waiting for the results kept you both alive. It was the drug you both needed in this cruel unjust world.

But this, this was different. This wasn’t just any gamble and it wasn’t a small one either. Being traded off to the enemy territory for a few weeks was no easy task and you have no idea what the hell Aventurine was thinking. In your last deal, you barely made it out alive as the tables turned against your favour. It was a miracle your assets weren’t taken and that you weren’t killed in the process.

“…I promise you will be fine, friend.”

Tears sting your eyes and you try to take a deep breath. 

“How can you be so sure?”

“The gaiaithra triclops blesses me abundantly. We will not lose.”

“Is that what you said to Lilac as well before her demise?”

You hear how his breath hitches in his throat at the mention of Lilac. He coughs a little and then stares at you with a look you cannot decipher.

“Do not bring her up.”

His voice is a mere whisper and you know you’re crossing some lines already. Yet you don’t stop there. You jab your right index finger into his chest with every word you speak.

“I don’t know what’s worse, being a gambling chip on purpose or being a gambling chip unknowingly, like she was.”

He grips the hand you have on his chest tightly. You can’t help but wince a little at how he’s looking at you with red eyes filled with regret and anger. He tries to speak but you cut him off.

“Was losing her not enough to learn your lesson? Or do you turn everyone you love into pawns of your game?”

“You’re crossing the line now.”

He warns and you shake your head.

“You treat everyone like an asset, even the ones who truly love you without any hidden agenda. No wonder you couldn’t save Lilac-“

“Enough!”

Before you can process what is going on Aventurine pulls out a gun from his inner coat pocket and shoots a random vase on the table behind you. The bang of the gun and the loud shattering of the ceramic into pieces makes you jump and shake a little. He then shifts his gaze on you and lets your hand go before issuing his warning.

“…you need to leave. Leave before I accidentally hurt you.”

“I-“

“I said leave!”

He points the gun at you. His hand is shaking in a manner you have never seen before and you can tell he doesn’t want to do this but you’re giving him no choice. You stare at him for a moment and nod your head before scurrying away.

Once you’re out of his sight he plops onto the nearest sofa and drops his gun. It lands with a loud thud as he puts his head into his hands and shakes visibly. Flashbacks of that dreaded day start to play over and over in his head and he clenches his teeth as a tear rolls down his eye.

Lilac was a woman he met during one of his travels as an IPC stoneheart. They got along pretty well and eventually fell in love. A few years ago, Aventurine asked her for help during a deal he made and she agreed only for the other party to target her as leverage against Aventurine. He still remembers the pain in her eyes as she looked at him, confused and hurt from how she became the target. He remembers holding her in his arms apologising over and over for his lack of foresight, unable to figure out where he went wrong.

It was the first and last deal he ever lost. And now you, his new partner after several hard years of grief, were bringing up old wounds that never healed. Gaps of his heart that nothing would ever fill. Another tear rolls down his eye as he grits his teeth further. Had he known you would bring her up like this, he would have never told you about her. It’s always the closest ones that hurt you the most. ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ ©mm-lurking 2024 do not copy, steal or reuse my work.

[thedevilssinner]

Elven soulmates - Astarion x Elf!Tav - Headcanon

I listened to one song and for some reason it screamed Astarion x Tav at me. This man is really ruining my life 😅

Anyway… the song was ‘IDK you yet’ and I just thought about the two of them being soulmates or something like that and then I found a thread on https://www.enworld.org about elven relationships and someone mentioned soulmates which got me searching and I found this page https://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild/races/elf/leaf.shtml where is mentioned that elves can find someone they call their thiramin which should mean soulmate in elvish language. 

Here’s the part from the https://www.realmshelps.net :

Upon reaching adulthood, elves continue their sexual explorations. Eventually, though, each discovers that his heart has developed a capacity for lasting and exclusive love. Like most other important things in their lives, elves describe this in mystical terms. They believe that a person's spiritual progress is unknowingly intertwined with that of another. This soulmate is called a thiramin. Upon meeting his thiramin, an elf's heart fills with passion and certainty. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the other party is felled by the same feeling of immediate and eternal devotion. (Though rare, an unrequited feeling of thiramin is always disastrous, bringing centuries of wrenching heartbreak. Sufferers often commit suicide or succumb to the temptations of evil.) Elves almost always feel thiramin for people they meet for the first time: In other words, visitors from other communities. Intermarriage between communities strengthens the bonds of communication between settlements, allowing them to quickly band together against the armies of evil that march across the land.

Now… You can imagine what that did to me, when I thought about the idea of Elf Tav knowing Astarion before he was turned into a vampire so… here’s some headcanons. Suffer with me.

Tav and Astarion met in Baldur's gate. Tav being new to the city. Young elf exploring the world outside their home.

Maybe they met in an art gallery or a tavern or some other place… that’s up to you, but when their eyes met, they immediately knew the other one was their thiramin. Heart beating wildly as they smile at each other.

They start dating, of course. Trying to get to know each other and spend as much time together as possible. 

I think that Tav would call Astarion their star… or maybe even ‘my starry night’

Astarion would call them ‘my moon’ (idk, I just love the idea of them using moon and stars as pet names)

Or… inspired by Game of Thrones - Astarion would call Tav ‘my sun and stars' while Tav would call him ‘the moon of my life’

Maybe they dated for a year or two, thinking about buying a house together.

But then Astarion was beaten ‘to death’ by the Gurs.

Tav could immediately tell that something was terribly wrong. The connection they felt with Astarion severing and sharp pain piercing through their heart. Panicked, they tried to find Astarion, going to his home but they already came too late.

Their blood turned into ice when they saw the mercenaries from the Flaming Fist already around his home. Seeing them carrying an awfully pale and beaten body of Astarion. (I don't remember if it was mentioned if Astarion lived in a Lower or Upper city before he was turned, so I chose a Lower city 🤷🏻‍♀️) (Also, not sure how and where exactly were he turned so I hope this is fine)

After a few days, Tav still couldn’t comprehend what truly happened. They felt just… empty. As if every color, every piece of happiness was ripped away from their soul. Not even able to visit Astarion’s grave because of that.

When Tav's family found out, they came to them, taking them to their homeland, because they knew how bad losing your soulmate could end for an elf. Tav fell into a deep grief and depression that lasted almost 100 years, doing some questionable things here and there until they started to function again.

On the other side - Astarion was beaten by Gurs but his final death came from Cazador, the change itself working just like if he truly died. His connection to Tav is severed and the shock of his change into a vampire erases all memory of them from his mind.

And then the 200 years of torture begin. Astarion doing anything he could and needed to do for survival. Flirting and luring victims to Cazador. He was good at it, great even, but something always felt wrong. 

Well, everything he did for Cazador was wrong, but touching another person, sleeping with them, and whispering words of love to them seemed wrong for another reason he couldn't understand. It was as if his subconscious was always trying to tell him something, but he couldn't say what.

There was just always something wrong with the victims. Wrong eye color, wrong tone of voice or even their pet names they sometimes used for him. 

Is he missing something? Someone? Longing for the embrace of a specific person that is unknown to him.

He always blamed his vampirism for this feeling. Thinking that’s just how it is. The feeling of wrongness and emptiness residing in him for the 200 years of his unlife.

Until the Mind Flayers and Nautiloid.

But back to Tav:

After a hundred years of grief, Tav finally started to get better. Diving into learning the profession/class they have chosen. Trying to enjoy life as much as they could, but the emptiness never fully disappeared. As if part of their soul was still gone.

They even tried to date, pressured by their family to at least try, but when their new partner tried to kiss them… they just couldn’t do it, dull pain spreading through their body and guilt flooding their mind. They immediately break up with the person and decide never to find a partner again.

But apart from that, they were relatively happy. Another 100 years slowly drifting away, the memories of Astarion remaining, if a little faded.

Until the Mind Flayers and Nautiloid.

Game plot:

Tav was walking with Shadowheart and Gale when they heard someone call for help.

Of course, they immediately headed for the voice, trying to help all the survivors of the crashed ship.

But when they finally came to the person they heard, the blood ran cold in their veins, the weapon they held falling from their grasp. It was like seeing him for the first time in their life but at the same time not… Astarion.

They notice that he looks different. His eyes are the wrong color and he’s so pale… but it’s him. They know it is because their soul sang when their eyes locked… but how? 

“Hurry, I’ve got one of those bran things…” Astarion's voice trailed off as he fixed his eyes on Tav and gasped as an unfamiliar sensation filled his body. It was as if everything finally clicked and his mind was flooded with memories he didn't know he had.

That's how far I've come with this idea. I'm not sure how it would have gone on, but I imagine it would have taken a while for Tav and Astarion to become partners again. Both mourning the years they could have spent together if it weren't for Cazador. Tav learning to love the new Astarion he has become, because he was different from the elf they knew before and Astarion learning to love again overall.

[satoruxx]

HAUNTING ME TONIGHT.

✧ PAIRING: gojo satoru x reader | 0.6k words

✧ SUMMARY: this is a coping mechanism for today's jjk leaks so...SPOILERS AHEAD, blood, mentions of death, ANGST, gojo centric, vague af, hints at canon manga events, he goes back and forth between his past and present self, overall confusion bc he doesn't understand what really happened to him, it's bittersweet ig, idk man my emotions are all over the place rn

✧ RHEYA'S NOTE: looks like it's a trend for me to write a gojo drabble every time the leaks fuck me up lmao. somehow after weeks of writer's block i managed to spit this out. here's part 1 from back in june when the neck slice happened. this and part 1 don't connect all that much but it's sorta hinted and i wrote this as a continuation. this can be read alone tho. whatever i'm so fucked up rn i'm gonna go back to crying...

satoru thinks there's blood in his mouth. he can taste it, metallic and coppery as it fills his pharynx and seeps into his throat.

he tastes it even when his body is free from scars and sunlight warms his skin.

it’s comforting, he thinks, the feeling of carefree youth he hasn’t been able to experience in almost ten years. the grin that's stretching across his face makes him forget the blood.

he’s choosing to focus on them instead. focusing on the faces he hasn’t seen in so long. he’s not really sure what he’s telling them, but satoru has always been good at rambling about things like death.

for a second he feels like a teacher, preaching about dying alone, but then he remembers that he’s probably still a student. young and stupid and carefree.

but for some reason, the expression on suguru’s face makes him feel oddly nostalgic.

satoru likes this. he thinks he’d like to snapshot nanami’s expression. it's strange, but it feels like he hasn’t seen him in a long time.

but that’s ridiculous because he’s still a student. he’d seen nanami in class the morning prior.

something about that is wrong. he can’t quite put his finger on it.

he’s in the middle of annoying principal yaga when he catches sight of you.

you're making a face, one that he’s never seen before. it’s half angry and half wounded, like you’ve never been so hurt in your life. the expression unsettles him, and somehow he knows it’ll haunt his nightmares from now until the end of time.

your features crumble, and satoru notices you’re going in and out of focus, so he tries to blink you back into clarity. it doesn’t work.

briefly he wonders if you’re even real.

you glare at him, eyes shining with tears and every bit of hurt in the world.

“you promised.” you hiss, shoulders drawn high and taut as your body trembles with something he doesn’t quite understand.

promised what, he wants to ask, but he finds that he can’t open his mouth to speak to you.

the taste of blood comes back again, pooling in the back of his throat. metallic and coppery.

you bite down on your lip, hard, before turning away from him.

satoru doesn’t know how to reach out to you because his body is rooted in place. it feels like his brain isn’t connected to the rest of him, neurons firing but muscles not working in coordination.

he inwardly curses.

when he looks back, haibara is grinning at him in a way that reminds him so much of someone else. he briefly thinks haibara would suit pink hair. when he catches nanami’s tired eyes, something in his impassive expression tells satoru that he agrees.

there’s a fleeting silence, and the sound of a clock ticking quietly scratches at his brain. he looks at suguru, who’s smiling at him knowingly, skin clean of any stitches, and satoru decides he should commit the sight to memory.

there’s a restlessness in his stomach now, and he feels his torso burn.

he turns back to look at you, the taste of blood now extremely strong on his tongue as he watches your figure slowly start to fade from existence.

for a second, he smells smoke, unpleasant but oh so familiar. he remembers the sound of medical textbooks turning and the echo of an annoyed first grader’s voice. a few barks of a dog follow.

through the taste of blood, he can smell bedsheets. he can smell overly sweet coffee in the morning. he can smell the shampoo you use.

he closes his eyes, smiling ruefully to himself.

you’re right.

he did promise you after all.

[cornerstoreclown]

Ugh, now I can’t help but imagine where in that ask about Art and reader being childhood friends, child Art drawing, painting or crafting you this weird super weird thing (not out of materials that would like, decompose or smell rotten after a few years, surprisingly) and then after reuniting with him in adult hood, he’s over at your house exploring while you’re cooking and sees that thing he made for you years ago in your room on display. Idk, I think he’d be so happy to still see you have it

Love this. (:

I think he might have definitely made some really weird shit. I have no doubts your first gifts were something more… temporary. Liable to rot. Perhaps something with bugs and rats. But you INSISTED to him that you wanted something that could last a little longer. Something that wasn’t prone to the throes that came with being part of the life and death cycle. And he copped an attitude about it at first until he relented. Because you basically went the flattery route with him. You WANTED something from him that had longevity because you value him as a person (god rest your soul) and so he yielded for that reason and ONLY that reason alone.

After all. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

In truth it was probably some sort of makeshift weapon he gave you. Which was concerning! Actually quite concerning! And he drew fucked up pictures of hurting people that he gave you, too! It was often of him brutalizing and killing people, and you were also in some of those pictures, but you were never maimed in them. You were just smiling right beside him in those crude childlike drawings, looking like two pals.

Suffice to say when you left Miles County as you got older he wasn’t a happy camper because you both were supposed to be together forever. Like buddies. Then you came back … I dunno, a few years? A decade? Maybe two or so, however old you are, he wasn’t THRILLED that you left him. And he might have even considered literally stabbing you in the back for that shit because that was foul, how DARE you leave him—but then when he’s back at your place and has seen that you kept that makeshift weapon visibly out and displayed like a threat to any guests, or maybe like out on display like it’s a sculpture, he … starts to forgive you. You’re not off the hook yet. He’s still a wee bit salty you left, still hurting that you left in the first place. But a part of him is touched.

And you can see that when you catch him with the book you stored his drawings in, pristine and neatly kept in a drawer holding a variety of things from your childhood. You see him thumbing through it with his bloodied hands after a fresh kill that night. Staining that book and all the pages within it. His eyes far too focused on the contents before him as he relives various memories of you two together all snugly protected between the pages.

All the while you’re just out here cooking dinner for the two of you. Hoping maybe he’ll eat it. And he might. He might not. But if he doesn’t, you know he won’t turn down your dessert you got waiting in the fridge.

That’ll surely continue to help you make up for the time you’ve been away from him.

[oh-no-its-bird]

TMA naruto au time buckle up,

Jon should get to be a half Uchiha bastard who has an infamously hard time controlling his sharingan.

His mangekyo (which he gets very very young when he accidentally leads a bully to their death at the hands of a nukenin with a love of spiders) basically acts as his beholding abilities and can allow him to compel people to sit still and answer anything he asks of them, which gets really messy when you consider a) shinobi society is built on secrets, and b) he has a really hard time turning it off

His visions absoloutley fucked but whatever bloodline his father was from seems to have caused the deterioration of his eyes to stop where it is— and is also the cause of why he has extra difficulty w it's flip switch

Anyways, Inuzuka Daisy or Hatake Daisy, I can't decide. Either way shes wolf coded as fuck and also in a similar boat of being absoloutley shit at controlling her bloodline. She and Jon are so problem child coded, and I think part of the reason she hates him as kids is bc she sees a lot of herself in him but like, at her worst. All of her issues but he just lays down and takes it when she fights tooth and nail against anyone who so much looks at her wrong. They are opposite ends of the spectrum and she's hyper aware of it

I think that when they're older they should get to go on a mission together and basically the whole coffin thing happens but with like an enemy nin w an earth chakra type.

Mmm alternatively tho, sprinkle in hints of the dreaded fears and play w the beasts and yokai of naruto canon, pull some spooky shit.

They get in over their heads, coffin happens, Jon goes back for her then we end with them both just kind of looking at eachother like "there are things in this world we can not comprehend."

Mmm, naruto version of the fears,,, that could be fun. Incorporate the bijuu maybe, idk

Anyways, Daisy hates Jon, coffin time happens and Jon escapes but then goes back for her (if she's a Hatake, this could also play interestingly w parallels to Kakashi) and they come out of the whole thing having Seen Thing(tm) and are irriversably changed and also now very much edging into co-dependant besties territory

Can u tell I'm a big fan of the Daisy and Jon besties agenda bc I so am

Moving on to the others ->

I want to say civilian Martin? I don't have much for him tbh, it'd be cool if he was like distantly related to Haku tho. Give him the cool ice mirror bloodline limit or whatever bc smthn smthn the lonely.

Mmm ok acrually hear me out: civilian Martin who's trying very hard to avoid shinobi things. He's actually a defected Kiri nin who forged a new identity for himself and fled to Konoha to start a new life after the bloodline hunts back in Kiri killed his whole family (except for Haku, but he doesn't know he's still alive) He's trying very hard to fly under the radar, but I doubt he'll succeed for long

I want him to look like all those fun lonely avatar fan arts of him w the sharp teeth, white streaked hair, dulled looking skin and kinda fishy vibes overall actually, but like he uses a seal to keep a permanant henge on him to look normal bc hes very visibly Kiri otherwise

Tim is giving me Yamanaka vibes for some reason. I like that also bc then we could possibly get him and Jon working together in T&I, which like yay parallel to how they used to work together before the archives

Sasha is giving me civilian born shinobi vibes, I think she should get to work in the hokage tower. Paper pusher with big dreams of moving up the latter and really being someone one day. She has her eyes dead set on a position in the Hokage's office

Basira is ,,, somewhere. You really can't have Daisy without her that's just illegal but I'm not too sure where to put her. Civilian born Basira kinda suits her but I'm ngl I'm kinda eyeing Nara Basira. Wait no fuck ok, Nara Basira and she was on a 3 man unit with Tim at one point, now they just need a Akimichi to complete the narashikacho trifecta there

She totally works in T&I now, or maybe with the Uchiha police force? It's like 90% Uchiha but I'm pretty sure some other clans are spotted here in there among them, and if they're not, I mean, I don't actually give a shit so .

I don't know if this is one of those aus where canon is still there but we're just adding tma characters into the mix or if it's just vague naruto setting but tma characters are our focus / replacing the main cast. But I think it's the first. If it was the second tho I'd say Elias as Danzo in a heartbeat

But since it's the first, Nara Elias who got a mysterious eye transplant years ago that seemed to have changed his personality entirley (were totally keeping the body hopping shit, rip the real Nara Elias who's been dead for years)

He's a slimy politician who works closely with Danzo

Ok so main narrative:

I'm thinking the coffin thing happens with Daisy and Jon, and now they're kind of eyes open to the existence of whatever version of the fears exist in this world. Jon is Jon and can't let sleeping dogs lie, and Daisy is Daisy and does her twitchy "there's something dangerous out there I can't control/don't know about" thing so she's really not stopping him, but she is helping him be more smart about it. Sometimes. They're both kind of lose canons tbh holy shit this is gonna be a disaster

So Jon gets kind of obsessed w whatever the FUCK that was, and Elias smells blood in the water and approaches

Idk what's going on with Elias but he's still body hopping bitch boy Jonah here. He's very involved in the fears, and he's had his eyes on Jon for a while. You see, the way that avatars manifest in Naruto world is that sometimes they'll often show their influence through bloodlines— Nara the dark, Yamanaka the beholding, Inuzuka the hunt, it's all there if you look for it.

Those in 'the know' believe that all bloodline limits came from the fears— sometimes their influence shows more than others. And very very rarley, that influence becomes a a bit more... potent, than in others.

Elias believes that Jon is one such instance of this, his strange mangekyo being so painfully and terrifyingly beholding coded, far more than his clansmen who's own mangekyo tend to branch off lightly into territories of different fears.

Jon (and Daisy, but Elias has a clear favorite here) running into such a strong instance of the buried, which is rare on its own, has only made Elias even more interested, taking it as some sort of sign that there really is something especially odd about Jon's unusually strong link to the fears.

Anyways, Elias sponsoring Jon's investigation into the fears, their links to the bijuu, how they interact with chakra and if they might truly be the source of modern bloodline limits.

Konoha secret supernatural task force (not to be confused with ROOT or ANBU) meant to monitor the fears influence in Konoha,,,

(God, of course Elias couldn't help but make his own fucking secret service in opposition to ROOT. He couldn't let Danzo upstage him)

Just like how ANBU has their shoulder seal and ROOT the tongue seal, I'm thinking their seal is a stylized eye on the back of their neck, which ofc Elias is always watching through, rip

Oh fuck, actually give me seal master Elias and his special spy seals he can watch and listen through. It's not a power thing it's just a specialization thing— he has his own eye tattoo that allows him to directly see through all his seals at any time.

Anyways we're calling this organization ARCHIVE bc I am a simple gal. Don't ask what it's supposed to stand for in verse, idk

Idk who else should be in it, or if it should be like ground up and Daisy and Jon are the first. Wait what the fuck am I saying, Gertrude and Gerry obviously. Michael Shelly too, can't forget him

Toss in Mike Crew and Jude Perry also just bc I like them. Maybe Nikola and an Aburame Jane Prentiss? But also idk if I'd want to put them in the position where they're technically working under Elias, I feel like that just doesn't fit. Better to leave them out in the wold to run into instead for conflict. Except Mike Crew, who is my favorite little guy and who should get to be here on loan from Elias' friend and Daimyo's court shinobi, Simon Fairchild

Honestly be funny if Kakashi was in it at one point just bc then he'd have been in all 3 konoha secret services and honestly? Hilarious. Someone give that guy a fucking break oh my god

Obviously Tim, Sasha, Martin and Basira all eventually join in, tho idk how. Maybe Jon is actually asked who would be a good choice for it? Jon says Tim and Daisy says Basira, then they both kinda eye Sasha who's been very fucking vocal ab needing just a chance to get her claws into the hooks of the Konoha power ladder and reccomend her too

Martin is the tricky one, I'm thinking Elias somehow finds out ab his Kiri background and has always wanted to poke more at the lonley's very visible connection to many kiri bloodlines— but Martin's in particular. So he kinda blackmails him into it, but framed in a more friendly "I'll make sure you don't have to hide anymore, I can secure your place in Konoha even with your ancestry :)"

Also maybe he was impressed by Martin's disguise seals, that'd be neat. Seal master Martin but he's Martin so he's like "Ah, I'm really not that good at it :("

(Jon is infuriated by his seemingly natural talent then even more infuriated when it becomes clear he's actual shit at most other shinobi things)

Ok so peddle it back to Mr Jonah eye fuckery Magnus here -> he was once like Jon. A man born into a clan w a link to the beholding, with a light eye themed bloodline limit. But he was born with a stronger tie to their patron than the others, strong enough to recognize they had a patron at all. And by feeding into it (don't ask me how I have no clue) he was able to strengthen that tie, gaining more power, and the ability to body hop through eyes

And he looks at Jon and wonders if he can replicate that in him. Groom him into something closer to their god, then feed him to the beholding to further his own power, which seems to have stagnated in growth.

I think also there's just a good amount of spite for ROOT and hunger for political power that he might get from ARCHIVE, and Jon is a clear fit for it, so like. Add him to the pile !!

I have a couple more vague thoughts for this -> the archive tunnels correlating to ROOT tunnels, the real Elias being childhood friends w Danzo and Hiruzen before Magnus took his body, Madara off in his cave somewhere being influenced by a Zetsu who serves the fears instead of Kaguya, etc.

But I'll leave it here for now, thank u for ur time