#idk it just..... something in me just.... chafes about this

[jamiethebee]

You know what irks me the most about the mha ending. (Sorry I'm still on it.)

Like the early parts of the manga, there were so many grown up hero AUs in fandom (like storylines that took place when they're adults and heroes) and they're fun! A little silly!

And then we had the war arc and cities are being destroyed and everything's torn up and for over a hundred chapters, it's been oh huh I guess every AU like that will just be canon divergence lmao

And then Horikoshi basically wipes the slate clean so I guess all those AUs could technically canon compliant. There's not even much in the way of lasting physical damage! Because it's dealt with???? Immediately???? Within months?????

Which is fine! Nothing wrong with it! The AUs are fun! But, it just irks me that you could throw out half the manga because it didn't matter. Nothing majorly changed. Silly adult hero AUs for everyone I guess because the League may as well have been 2 bit villains for all the effect they had at large was. Idk. Maybe I'm bitter? Maybe my brain still trying to process the ending and the change in how AUs relate to canon? I guess - what was all the constant sprinkling in of "society has let people down" that we see from chapter 1? It meant nothing? I guess????? I mean A WAR HAPPENED. But whatever I guess heehee wasn't that soooooo silly???? That people's take on early story can be the same as post story?????

[thedreamlessnights]

Since requests are open, here's my suggestion: I recently revisited my old mythology book and found one of the myths about aphrodite bathing in a lake and blinds some pervs that sneaked up to watch her. Now, the reader might not have the powers of a goddess but you know what she does have? A dagger-happy vampire boyfriend more than willing to shank unwanted peeping toms (in his defense, he actually asked if he could be there, so no harm done here). Idk, I just like the idea of the reader having scary dog privileges and Astarion not minding looking menacing/scary while doing so

Thank you so, so much for this request, anon. It's an absolutely incredible concept, and it fits Astarion so well! I had such a fun time writing it, and I really hope you enjoy the result!

For Your Eyes Only

Astarion x F!Reader - NSFW

Content warnings: Mentions of brief, non-consensual voyeurism. Somewhat graphic violence, as well as mentions of blood, degrading terms, and the description of an injury and death. Explicit sexual content, including: oral sex (receiving), penetrative sex, fingering, multiple orgasms, blood drinking, and ear play. Tags: Takes place post-Cazador, some point in Act 3. Includes mild spoilers. Established relationship, a bit of emotional hurt/comfort, and tender smut.

Word Count: 5.8k

After the darkness and chill of the Shadowlands, the heat in the city feels suffocating.

You missed the warmth dearly back then, trudging through despair and gloom, thinking of nothing but the inevitable relief of the city. Your bones always ached something awful in that foul place, never warm enough to ward away the icy air. Now, though, it occurs to you that you hadn’t fully appreciated the cold when you had it. 

The sun that streams down from the skies is blistering - scorching, even - and without reprieve or relief. Sweat courses down your neck, soaking the collar of your shirt. Your socks are damp inside your boots, and where the leather meets your calves, they’re chafing. 

Gods, what you wouldn’t give for a bit of that chill again. Even with the achy bones.

What’s worse is the mud, somehow. One would think that Baldur’s Gate would be scarce on its share of the stuff, but it’s everywhere. Tracked up from Rivington, puddling in the streets, clinging to the bottom of boots.

Granted, your boots have seen more than their fair share of mud since the nautiloid: sticky, wet, warm. It’s seeped into socks and splattered across new armor, stained some of your favorite nightwear. Sometimes, when you’ve finally settled down for dinner, you’ve been able to taste it. No amount of scrubbing rids you of the earthy, bitter taste for long. 

The mud in front of you is different, though. By all accounts, the heat should have baked everything at least somewhat dry, but this puddle remains. If it can even be called a puddle, really. The gloppy, wet mess looks more like a pond, and completely blocks the only path ahead. Even the edges of it remain entirely liquid. If you didn’t know better, you’d think it’d just rained.

A quick glance at your map confirms what you’d feared; this is the only nearby route to your destination. You’re on the outskirts of the city. Rock walls line either side of the path, too steep to climb. You know for a fact that Shadowheart had recently used your last Potion of Flying. Either you lose hours of progress to get Gale from camp so you can cross, or you’ll have to proceed through this stupid pond.

Astarion watches you eye the mess with a dramatic flick of his wrist. “Oh, by all means, darling, you go first!” he exclaims, raising a brow. “It won’t be me jumping in that slop.”

Karlach frowns at the mud’s appearance, tapping the toe of her boot against the surface. It ripples at the movement, brown waves gently sloshing against the surface of the nearby stone. “Can’t be that deep, right?”

“I don’t know,” you reply. You’re aching for a stick or loose branch, something to measure it, but there’s nothing around. Just grass and stone, the scalding sun on the back of your neck, and the muddy pond directly in the middle of the path. 

“I say we go back,” Shadowheart urges. “I don’t know about any of you, but I’m not keen on dirtying myself.”

“We’d have to backtrack through hours of traveling,” you point out. “There’s no other way forward. I’ve checked the map.”

“Fine,” she relents, crossing her arms across her chest. “You go first, and we’ll follow behind you. Once we’ve seen it’s safe, that is.”

And, hells, you do not want to step foot in there. Not one bit. Still, do you have much of a choice? Your feet are already aching from the day’s walk. It would be devastating to lose all your progress. So, no - you really don’t have a choice, not if you want to get those Netherstones and stop the Absolute in time. The quakes in the city have only been getting worse.

“Alright,” you finally reply, your voice stronger than you feel. 

You step forward, pressing your right boot against the mud, then apply your weight. Your heel breaks the surface with a terrifying rush of movement, and your leg instantly slides down into the muck - much deeper than you’d thought, deeper than it should be. When your foot hits the bottom, sticky, cold mud splatters up, painting your shirt, neck, and parts of your face. 

Suddenly, the day isn’t quite so warm.

When you finally muster the courage to look down, your right leg is submerged up to the knee, soaking through your trousers. You can practically hear the sick squelch of it making its way into your socks, squishing between your toes.

“Urgh,” you mutter, wrinkling your nose as you attempt to pull your leg up. “Disgusting.” But it won’t budge. In fact, your squirming seems to be making you sink down even further. You try to shift your weight, but your balance is uneven with one leg in and one leg out. You’re dangerously close to losing your footing, and every bit you struggle threatens to tilt you face-first into the makeshift mud pond. In a prime moment of idiocy, you plant your other foot in the mud for support, and find your bottom half completely unable to move.

“What a brilliant idea,” Shadowheart says. “Now you’re stuck.”

“Thank you, Shadowheart,” you grit out, sweat dripping down your neck as you attempt to twist yourself around. “I had no idea!”

Karlach steps behind you, laughing a little. “Come on. Up you go, soldier,” she says, leveraging her arms under yours and giving a quick tug. You’re expecting the mud to release you, but it doesn’t. Your legs don’t budge - not even an inch. 

“What in the…?” she mutters, giving another pull. This one has more force behind it; when she tries to haul you up, white-hot pain sears up through your ribs, ripping an agonized cry from your lips. No matter how hard she yanks, the mud’s grip only tightens around you. It’s beginning to feel like you’re a brittle piece of rope in a vicious game of tug-of-war. 

“Shit! I’m sorry!” she exclaims. “So, so, sorry!”

“What are you doing?” Astarion asks, his voice suddenly sharp. “You’re hurting her! Put her down!”

“So she can get sucked further into the mud?” Shadowheart asks. Her voice is lined with fear now, which is scaring you more than anything else about this miserable situation. “We have to get her out!”

But it quickly becomes clear that no matter how hard Karlach pulls, it’s useless. Every yank is agony, and you only sink further and further. Tears stream down your cheeks from the pain, and your spine feels like it’s gained a good two inches from being stretched, but still nothing. No give at all.

Eventually, Karlach lets you go. Your body plops down in relief, but the mud is somehow deeper than it was before. It’s up to the bottom of your ribs now. 

“Fuck me,” she pants, wiping her forehead. “What should we do?”

“How should I know?” Astarion’s face is drawn, more pallid than usual. His lips are pinched into a line. He should be telling you I told you so, making jokes - and you know he would be, if he were anything but absolutely terrified. Your panic is bad enough with the heaviness of the mud on your chest and lower body, but the look on his face? That tells you it’s even worse than it feels.

 “Step back,” Shadowheart instructs quietly. “I have an idea.” 

Once the two of them are out of the way, she steps forward. Stretching out her hands, she mutters an incantation into the air. In seconds, the slight chill of the mud surrounding you becomes sharp, painful ice that burns against every exposed inch of skin it touches. A very muddy shade of ice, but ice all the same. 

Karlach’s axe crashes through the surface and it shatters, breaking around you. After another hit and a moment of digging, she finally has you out: freezing, still covered in mud, and very sore - but alive.

“Thank you,” you manage, choking out the words between your shivering.

“Never say I didn’t do anything for you,” Shadowheart says, smiling a little. She lets out a breath of relief, the tension bleeding from her shoulders. “Now. Turning around, are we?”

By the time you get back to camp, you’re the most uncomfortable you’ve ever been in your life. You’re wet and cold and exhausted, caked with dried mud that pulls at your skin when you move. It’s in your hair, on your face, and in your shoes, squelching with every step. The feeling makes you want to crawl out of your skin. Your ribs are sore and achy, and - on top of all of that - you’ve lost a good day’s worth of travel. 

The only thing you want is to fall into Astarion’s arms, but he wrinkles his nose when you come near, holding out a finger to stop you. “Oh, no you don't,” he says. “Bath first. Then you can talk to me, darling.”

It seems no amount of persuasion is going to change his mind, so you head back to your tent and grab a number of supplies - soap, sponges, a towel, and a change of clothes. Your trusty knife for protection. The river is bound to be freezing, but it’s better than sponging yourself down and hoping for the best. 

Thank the gods you’d found a decent pair of boots in an abandoned house today, because the ones that are currently plastered to your feet will take days to dry out, even in the hot sun. When you get to the nearby river, you don’t even bother to take them off before you plunge them into icy water, sufficiently drenching them until you can furiously loosen the mud enough to slip them off and toss them onto the riverbank.

The rest of your clothing gets the same treatment: the trousers which slowly pull away from your skin, the shirt that’s splattered with mud and covered in it up to the waist. Your hair will no doubt be a disaster, too. 

You’re still sitting in the soaking-wet clothes when you hear the sound of a twig snapping behind you. Your hand instantly grabs for your knife, ready to throw it at whatever threat might be in the woods as your eyes sweep along the trees. 

Nothing. You find nothing.

“Darling,” comes Astarion’s voice. He slips out from the shadows, immaculately clean, gazing down at the weapon in your hand with a lifted brow. “Planning to render me dead twice-over?”

“You scared the living hells out of me, Astarion!” you snap, sucking in a shaky breath. The blade drops from your loosened fingers, softly thumping against the dirt. “What are you doing out here?” 

He steps closer, taking a seat on a nearby log. “You were taking ages to get clean,” he whines, sprawling out his legs in front of him. “And, unfortunately, our companions haven’t had an argument all night. How else am I meant to entertain myself? So here I am. Trudging through the woods for your company.”

“You could give me a warning next time,” you reply, still a little jarred. “I thought you were someone hoping to catch an eyeful.”

A smirk flickers across his lips. “Oh, but I am,” he says. “Do you mind terribly?”

Against your will, your cheeks heat, and his smile widens. “I don’t mind,” you say. “Not if you behave, that is. Hands to yourself.” 

“I’ll be on my very best behavior,” he promises. Leaning forward, he prods your boots, wrinkling his nose at the sight. “Gods below. Those disgusting things should be burned.”

“I have an extra pair.” You move to tug your shirt off, but it’s clinging to you. “Gods damn that stupid mud pile. I should have asked Gale to use a cleaning spell.”

“Oh, please,” Astarion says. “He’s been sulking in his tent all evening. Apparently, being asked to blow yourself up by an old flame doesn’t do much in the way of socializing.”

The shirt finally pulls free, and it’s clear that your smallclothes have received the same treatment as the rest of your garments. Gods, you really should have asked for that cleaning spell. This mud is going to take ages to get out.

“Hand that here,” Astarion says, motioning for your shirt. You toss it to him, and he inspects it closely before setting aside.

“What?” you ask. “What were you looking for?”

“Oh, darling, nothing,” he says. “That’s my ‘to be burned’ pile. We’ll get you a new one.”

You’d argue, but you aren’t very attached to your current outfit - and besides, after weeks of trekking through wilderness and Shadowlands alike, it’s falling apart even without the mud. 

“Do what you want with it,” you grumble, finally pulling off your smallclothes. “That shirt was barely surviving anyway.”

You glance over your shoulder and find him observing with a raised brow, slowly taking the sight of you in. You must look like a mess, but you’d never know it from the glint in the eye, or the complacent smile that plays upon his lips. Heat stirs low in your belly, simmering under your skin. Later, you tell yourself. When you aren’t covered in filth.

You lather up the soap on your sponge, scrubbing away the mud the best you can, but the damned stuff takes ages to get off. By the time you’re finally clean, the silvery moon is high in the sky, and your skin is beginning to prune.

Astarion makes a small comment or two, but mostly seems content to watch you in silence. His gaze burns over every inch of exposed skin, leaving phantom heat wherever it stalls. All you want is to get out of this damned river and touch him, but you’re determined to get every bit of the mud off before you do, and it’s taking much longer than you’d hoped.

When you’re finally presentable, you start on cleaning your filthy smallclothes. The soap is slippery, making it difficult to do much scrubbing, and the water alone is doing hardly anything. 

Astarion watches you struggling, huffing as you nearly drop the soap bar in the river. After a moment, he lets out an exasperated sigh. “Dearest, you do realize that it would be much easier if you-”

But his words suddenly cut off. His head snaps toward the woods, and every nerve in your body burns with fear. In the span of seconds, he’s lunged forward, grabbed your knife, and darted after the sound. 

Not a moment later, there’s a loud crash - some form of impact as he tackles whatever it was that he heard. You instantly push yourself out of the water without thinking, numb, your heart pounding in your chest as you stumble into the forest after him. It only takes a few steps in before you see it: a man on the ground, Astarion’s knife to his throat.

Your stomach churns, and your skin prickles in the air’s chill. How much had he seen? How long had he been standing there?

Astarion is shouting something at him, and the stranger is struggling against his hold, but it’s useless. He’s a scrawny, weak little thing, no match for Astarion’s lithe, nimble strength. No amount of twisting or fighting dislodges Astarion’s grip. After a moment, he finally gives up, cackling like an old hag as his head plops down against the dirt.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you here and now,” Astarion hisses, anger contorting his features.

In response, the man spits in his face. “She’s your bitch, is she?” he croaks. “You can take a turn after I’m done with her.”

Astarion snarls in response, gripping the man’s collar and pressing the blade deeper into the skin until it draws blood. 

“Wait,” you call, stepping closer. “Don’t.”

Astarion blinks in disbelief, sitting up, careful to keep his weight on the stranger underneath. “My love, you can’t be serious,” he says. “You want to spare this-”

“Spare?” you echo, cutting off his words. “Who said anything about sparing him?” 

Something glints in his gaze as he takes in your words. “Darling,” he drawls, his tone admirational. “By all means.”

He hands you the knife, and you kneel down next to him. It’s heavy in your hand, cold and smooth as you run your finger over the flat edge of the blade. You stare at the shimmer of it for a moment, entranced, somehow calm in the midst of this chaos. Then you slam the bottom of the hilt into the man’s nose.

There’s a sickening crunch before he screams, blood streaming over his mouth and spilling down his chin. Even after last night’s feeding, Astarion tenses up at the smell of it, but the curl of his lip tells you that he won’t be drinking from this piece of absolute refuse.

When the stranger reaches over and grabs at your arm, you almost don’t even realize - you’re so caught up in your own mind, in the weight of the knife in your hand. Then his nails dig into your skin, and everything hits you at once.

The freezing night air. The stinging, throbbing pain that flares through your skin as he claws at you, unable to do much more. The feel of Astarion’s hand, gentle but firm, prying the knife from your grip. It happens before you can even react - a swift slice of the blade, slitting the man’s throat. Dark blood, gushing from the wound and onto the dirt below.

For a moment, there is nothing but the sound of your breathing. Sharp but shallow, straining in your chest. Jagged air that flows in and out, but it does nothing to stop the increasing amount of black in your vision. 

You’ve fought and killed more people than you can count so… why does this feel different? Why here, why now? You’ve nearly died before, so why does the scrape on your arm feel like it’s much more than that?

Then Astarion’s hands envelop your cheeks, blissfully cool, and the panic and pain seep out all at once.

“Darling,” he’s saying, half-breathless, “are you alright?”

You manage to nod, and some of the concern leaves his eyes. He runs his fingers over the scrape on your arm, and you wince. “We need to get you patched up,” he murmurs, his brows pinching together.

“Don’t take me to Shadowheart,” you choke out. She’s already done you enough favors, and you won’t be able to stand her disapproving gaze if you disturb her rest after today’s fiasco.

He huffs. “Stubborn little thing,” he mutters, but he doesn’t argue. 

Instead, he heads back to your supplies by the river. When he returns, he wraps a towel over your shoulders, and it’s only then that you realize you’re naked. Completely, utterly naked. It had been bold of you to break that bastard’s nose in the nude, but… well, it hadn’t been your intention.

He’s dead now, though. He’ll never look at you again.

Astarion sweeps you up into his arms and carries you out of the woods along with your clean change of clothes, holding you tight against his chest and leaving your soiled clothing behind. 

You can’t find it in you to care at the moment. You’ve scrounged up plenty of clothing along the journey; those torn, stained things won’t be missed. Not to mention, if you ever need more, Astarion will gladly steal you some new ones.

He takes you to your tent, and you’re grateful to see that everyone else has turned in for the night. Anyone awake to see you would inevitably have questions, and this only affirms your decision to avoid Shadowheart - if you woke her up to heal a minor scrape on your arm, she’d be seething. 

And though she’d undoubtedly be sympathetic after hearing the cause, you don’t think you can muster up the words to tell her what’d happened.

After he’s carefully set you down on your bedroll, Astarion yanks the flap of your tent closed and reaches for your pack, digging through the contents until he’s found some bandages. His grip is gentle as he takes your arm and swipes some remnants of a healing potion over it. You’ve been through this dozens of times, but you can never seem to shake the urge to wince as it sets in - the potion stings just a bit before it soothes, a sharp tingling that fades into a sweet, balming relief. 

You’ve calmed down some, warming up in your tent with him, but Astarion’s hands are shaking as he wraps the wound. His brows are pinched together, his swallows are thick and strained, and he can’t seem to meet your eyes, even when he’s done bandaging you up.

“Astarion,” you murmur. “He’s dead.”

He stills in place, jaw clenching as he inhales sharply, still not meeting your gaze. Instead, he glowers down at the tent’s floor, his hands balling into fists. “He deserved so much worse than that,” he snaps. 

You don’t argue with him. Instead, you let him fuss over you, taking the time to smooth through your wet hair, plucking out remaining leaves and twigs from the woods. He gets you into a warm, fluffy robe - only the gods know where he’d managed to find something like that - then pulls you close, his thumb stroking over your cheek. You rest your head against his chest and close your eyes, listening to the soft sounds of his body working under his skin. No heartbeat, of course, just the quiet churn of his movements, the rise and fall of his ribs that’s become habit to him. 

After a moment, he takes your face in his hands, just as he had in the woods - but when you meet his gaze, there’s a sharp intensity in his eyes rather than fear. He takes you in little by little, tilting your head up to brush his fingers over the fading marks on your neck. 

Then he leans in, and you catch the smell of him you know so well, lingering on his skin like soap. Bergamot, rosemary, brandy. It’s what you associate most with him, that sweet, sharp scent that bathes over you. When his lips finally meet yours, the kiss is rough and desperate, heated and aching. His fangs scrape over your lip, grazing the delicate skin but not breaking it. His tongue slides into your mouth, and his hand returns to the back of your neck, tightening his grip.

One of your hands fix into his shirt as you lean into him, nipping at his lip. You shift your free hand up into his hair, tousling through the soft, silky curls before gently tugging. He groans and pulls you closer, and - gods, it’s incredible. Warmth drags down your spine like a hot coal, searing and addictive. You squirm a little in his grasp, shifting until you’re straddling his hips, and he pulls away to kiss down your jaw, murmuring soft words into the skin.

When he gets to your chest, you let him untie the robe and spread his hands underneath, peeling the fabric off your shoulders, fingers slowly warming as they trail down your back. His hands settle on your waist as he kisses you again, mouth soft against yours.

Gods, you need him. You’re already soaked, and he’s barely even touched you.

You can feel him hardening underneath you, his movements growing desperate, his breathing labored. You grind your hips against him and he lets out a strained noise against your lips, shuddering. He pulls away, examining your expression as he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. 

The movement is tender and incredibly sweet, but you’re hardly patient. You’ve been wanting him ever since he sat on that log in the forest, gaze roaming over every inch of you. You let out a soft whine, attempting to tug off his shirt. He does absolutely nothing to help you.

“Astarion,” you breathe. “Please.”

“Hm? Did you want something, darling?” he asks, the desire in his voice betraying his otherwise casual tone.

“I want you,” you tell him, rolling your hips again in search of the friction you so desperately need. “Please. I want you.”

“Easy, love. You have me,” he replies, brushing his thumb against your lips. Your heart swells with a fondness that would threaten to make you cry if you weren’t so ridiculously needy.

And finally, thank the gods, he takes off his godsdamned shirt.

You run a hand up his shoulder, then into his hair. You’d once thought that he was using a special shampoo - his hair was so soft, it seemed the only explanation. Then you’d seen him with the same shampoo you were using, and you’d practically wept with envy over his ridiculously perfect genes. Even now, as you run your hands through the silk-soft curls, you don’t understand it. 

Then you trace up the line of his ear, and he shudders, leaning into your touch. When you gently massage the tip of his helix, he lets out a soft, seeking noise and his eyes flutter shut. Hells, you swear that you can feel him growing even harder beneath you. Another roll of your hips and his eyes slowly open again, half-lidded and glazed with desire. His hands firmly grip your waist, and there’s the briefest sensation of falling as he rolls you back onto your bedroll, tucking the pillow under your head.

He kisses along your clavicle, nosing down your ribs, humming against your skin. Feather-light brushes of his lips meet your ribs, then your breast, pausing to swipe his tongue over your nipple before he proceeds downward. When he arrives at your navel, your legs automatically spread open for him, and he lets out a hum of approval. He takes a leg in his hand and kisses up the thigh, warm, sharp kisses that trail up to the place you want him most.

He starts off slowly - a long lick over your clit, a quick swipe of his tongue before he settles between your legs, propping your thigh over his shoulder and starting a maddening rhythm. After all this time, you really should know how much pleasure to expect - but after everything, after his confession in the Shadowlands and the fear with Cazador, this still feels… new.

And Astarion is very, very good at what he does. He seems to know exactly what you want before you do, before your mind can put it into tangible thought, and before your body can even search for it. He works a finger into you, then two, and you’re left gasping and squirming as he sets an agonizingly slow pace. After a moment, he speeds up, just where you want him, perfect, perfect-

And then he pulls away, and the look on his face practically shouts that he knows exactly what he’s doing to you. Of course he does. He’s always been a tease. His fingers continue their work, languidly dragging in and out of you as he speaks.

“You know,” he says, pressing a kiss to your thigh, “back at the river, this was all I could think about. Getting my mouth on you. Watching you come apart piece by piece.”

Gods, he’s been direct before, but never that direct. Frankly, you’re surprised you don’t come then and there. Instead, you clench hard around his fingers and whimper, rolling your hips in time with his movements.

“Astarion,” you pant, unable to coax your mind into forming a coherent reply. “Gods, Astarion.”

He hums in response, flashing you a wicked grin. “That’s it, darling,” he encourages, shifting his fingers until they’re brushing against a spot that makes your vision black out. “Say my name. Let everyone hear you.”

You manage a laugh that quickly fades into a soft moan. “The entire camp will kill me if I wake them up.”

He nips at your thigh. “Let them try,” he muses. “They’ll have to get through me.”

He lowers his mouth between your legs again, and your head falls back against the pillow. It’s an embarrassingly short time before your muscles start to tense up, wiring you with pleasure from head to toe. One of your hands fixes in his hair, pulling tightly as white-hot pleasure sparks through your abdomen, and oh, gods, you’re coming-

Your vision cuts out again. Your mind fuzzes over, drunk with pleasure, leaving you shuddering, clenching around his fingers, moaning into your free hand. 

You know he’d prefer to hear you, but if you actually disturb any of the others, you’ll die of embarrassment. One day, the two of you will have your own house with a real bed, and you’ll be as loud as you want. For now, you muffle your cries into your fingers and tremble through your climax.

Your body floats weightlessly for a moment in what must be Elysium, until you finally rejoin yourself and find your limbs heavy and uncoordinated. Astarion huffs, placing a final kiss on you until he crawls upward, kissing up your chest again. 

He’s still holding himself back - you can see it in the way he moves, in the tension of his muscles and the coil of his shoulders. There’s a fire in his eyes, a hunger that you recognize so well. When he reaches your neck, you instinctively tilt your head, allowing him access to his usual spot. 

For a moment, he hesitates, his warm breath fanning over the skin as your pulse hammers in your throat. Then he groans, grinding himself into your leg as he bites down, chasing his pleasure against your thigh as your blood spills into his mouth.

You know this routine so very well by now. The sting of the bite, and the numbness that follows. The ebb and flow of your blood, filling his mouth. The slight dizziness that comes before he pulls away, swiping his tongue over the bite for one final taste.

“Gods,” he pants, gripping your shoulder. Then, to your utter disappointment and confusion, he pulls away. “Wait here, my sweet. I need to - I’ll be right back. I promise.”

And before you can protest, he’s scrambling out the tent. For a long, numb moment, you stare at the tent opening, wondering if you’re dreaming. The silence of the tent grates on your ears, echoing the sound of your breathing until you can barely stand it. Then he’s pushing inside again, a scroll in hand as he closes the tent.

“Do I want to know what that is?” you ask.

“A scroll of Silence, darling. I’ve been saving it.” He flashes you a grin, murmuring the incantation as the scroll shimmers in his hand. Pure Weave, confined into parchment. 

You don’t hear the spell take effect, but you feel it. It’s a thickness in the air, a heaviness in your movements. 

Astarion doesn’t waste another second. He pushes up to kiss you, and it’s messy - your tongue against his, the sting of sharp teeth, your hand in his hair and his hand on the nape of your neck. There’s the taste of metal and herbs: your blood mixed with the remnants of a healing potion. He spreads your legs with his knee, then sits back on his heels and reaches down to undo his trousers.

You study him for a moment. The crease of his brow. The alabaster of his skin, sculpted out like a statue from marble. 

If you were an artist, you’d make him your life’s work. You’d chip out his every feature little by little, painstakingly working away at the stone to define the look in his eyes when he tells you he loves you. You’d spend ages carving every wrinkle, every line, every perfect imperfection. The touch of it would be cold, like him, but it could never compare to how he looks as he settles over you, eyes blown dark with desire. 

He inches closer, still on his knees, and takes hold of your thighs, lifting them up to meet his hips before gently easing inside of you. He lets out a sharp exhale as he slowly presses deeper, his grip shifting to your waist.

Nothing could compare to the way it feels as he fills you up inch by inch, murmuring praise, telling you how beautiful you are for him. “Darling,” he bites out, gritting his teeth at the pleasure. “If anyone ever tries anything like that with you again, I’ll tear them to shreds.”

You laugh a little, breathless, delirious in the delicious stretch of him inside you. “I won’t stop you. I just might ask to break their nose first.”

He shakes his head, but a small smile plays on his lips before he straightens and starts his rhythm. Slow, even thrusts that leave you grasping at the blankets beneath you, trying to steady yourself in the waves of sensation. He stares down at you, half-drunk on your blood, lips parted and his cheeks flushed.

“You feel incredible,” he breathes. “Gods. You’re incredible.”

Your eyes don’t quite know where to land. They never do. Now, they flutter over his abdomen, taking in the sight of the muscles that ripple and contract with the rolling of his hips. The droplets of sweat that slowly build on his skin, glimmering like crystals. 

His jaw clenches, and his pace starts to quicken, and the feeling of him inside of your aching cunt is just so godsdamned good. His cock stretches you out like it was made for you, and soon your lungs are hardly filling with air. You can’t think, and you can scarcely breathe. All you know is that you’re not going to last much longer.

You tug at the blankets and shut your eyes, and he lets out another soft, aching noise as he thrusts deeper, faster, filling you up, the slick sound of your arousal echoing through the tent and mixing with the heaving of your breaths. You clench around him and he groans, shifting the angle of your hips, rhythm frantic.

“That’s it,” he pants. “Come for me, darling.”

And you do. Your body clenches around him as you cry out, back arching, pleasure overtaking every thought but one: Astarion. Astarion, Astarion, Astarion. Your breaths scrape shallowly through your chest and ecstasy burns through every inch of you, every nerve - until you feel paralyzed. Content, thoroughly fucked and sated, but paralyzed.

 You’ve just started to come back to your senses when Astarion follows you over the edge, a moan tumbling from his lips that sounds remarkably like your name. His hips thrust a few more times, chasing after his pleasure, clumsy movements that slow to a halt as he shuts his eyes. He shudders, then slackens, carefully pulling out of you before he wraps his hands around your thighs and gently lowers them back to the bedroll.

You can barely move, still lost in the aftershocks of pleasure as he cleans you up, smoothing the hair out of your face as he lays next to you.

“You know,” he says, “I think I’m going to ask Gale to make us another one of those scrolls.”

And, gods, all you can do is laugh.

[winterarmyy]

Kiss It Better

A series of random Bucky Drabbles that I can't let go but don't have the brain to make the whole complete plot of. 

Summary: In which the reader refused to let Bucky go down on her lately because she's embarrassed of the chafing marks on her inner thighs.

Pairing: avenger!bucky x female!reader

Words: 3.2k++

Warnings: 18+ contents, no minors allowed, nsfw, cunnilingus, cum eating, soft fluff, not much of angst but there's sprinkles of feels, body insecurities, bucky is in love and in heat tbh, i think he is particularly unhinged and filthy in this one but hey, you tell me. idk if i need to remind y'all about this but english is not my first language so my grammar are prolly fucked. Anyway--

Inspiration: Guess who felt a little soft and decided to wear a skirt to work? Yup, that would be me. No, because I commute to work (or basically anywhere) and there is quite a distance of walking in between the journey. Note that your girl here walk fast asf (basically running at this point).  And because them inner thighs ain't got no gap between them, so i got myself some blisters/chafing :') then i fell into a self-deprecating despair for the whole day and it hurts whenever i walk, at that time i just want Bucky to kiss it better. Fast forward a few days later, here we are.

Read my other works here: Masterlist

She could feel it. His burning gaze following her every move. Observing, calculating. And she knew that must not show any signs of discomfort; not on her face nor from the slightest jolts of her hips. She must not gave him a reason to question her.

She can't.

So she continue walking around their room, back and forth from the bathroom to the wardrobe, as if every step she took was followed by a burning sensation on her skin. She momentarily stood in front of the row of clothes hanging on the rack, her back facing the bed where Bucky had been sprawling on since she went in for a shower.

Honestly, she was standing there suspiciously 'too long', as if she was choosing an outfit for a date night, when clearly she was just getting ready for bed. When she realized that, she quickly pulled out a clean set of pyjamas and walk back into the bathroom.

Bucky's eagle eyes followed her figure, disappearing behind the locked door. His lips pursed as his cogs of thoughts spins around, trying to find answer a question that his lover keeps avoiding but it was useless.

He can't think straight. Especially when he was undeniably famished. He had not got a taste of her his sweet pussy for about 2 weeks now and he was quite literally about lose his fucking mind. 

When his sweetgirl refuses to go further than kissing and making out, of course he obliged. She has every right to 'no' and he respects her wishes. Then it happened again the next day. And the next. Then again, and again. 

Normally, people would've assumed that maybe she was on her period, and she is not comfortable having any sexual intimacy when menstruating. But, Bucky can tell that, that was not it. Because first of all, it was way too early for that time of the month, he knows her schedule.l very well. Second of all, he would've smell the blood if she was on her period.

Most of his senses are enhanced after all.

So, why was she avoiding it?

Bucky's is completely fine if sex was not something she wanted to do, but not even letting him eat her out? Now that's concerning. At least for him.

Because he needs her. He needs to suck on that needy little clit of hers, make it wet and swollen. He needs to lap on that sweet juices when she cums on his tongue.

Fuck. He's getting all work up now, thinking about it.

He swore that if this keeps going on, one of these days he might just spread his legs and fuck his fist on their bed while she's tied on a chair on the other side of the room. Maybe forcing her; seducing her, to watch his desperate cock become wet and messy would give her a clue of what he is feeling now.

Absolutely needy and deprived of that pretty little cunt of hers.

He was quite distracted with the filfthy thoughts until he heard the clicking sound of the bathroom door unlocked.

As she walked towards the bed, Bucky felt like his lungs stopped providing oxygen through his body, "Pretty." His eyes sparkled affection as the voice in his head echoed his thoughts. It wasn't that he have not seen her in those pyjamas before, he had. Many times in fact. The very same lavender set with tiny little cartoon cats printed all over the fabric.

The same ones that she wore when she came rushing to his side on one of those sleepless night. The time when she hold him close, distracting him away from the nightmare by asking the most random question of "You know, Bucky... These cats supposedly have the same expression, except for one. Do want to try and find it?"

He found it. It was near the hem of her right sleeve. And by that time, his nightmare was no where near his mind, the next thing he knew, he fell right back to sleep with her in his arms. It was his favourite pair of pyjamas that she ever worn.  Nothing compares.

A loving smile unconsciously appeared on his face when his lady threw a sweet smile at him as she walked toward the bed, "My baby's so pretty." He thought.

The grin on his lips lasted, but not for long. Especially when he saw the tiny frown on her face, the faltered steps and when he heard that brief sound of a painful hiss slipped out of her lips.

So the moment she sat down on her side of the bed, Bucky already had his hands on her. Arms instantaneously wrapped around her waist, before effortlessly pulling her back onto his sturdy chest.

She giggled gleefully from his sudden rush of affection  and that surely managed to trigger a chuckle out of Bucky. He hums and proceed to purr in crook of her neck, "What's wrong, baby?"

She could feel his throat rumbling at the back of her neck, "Did he notice it?". Her heart beat ever so slightly picked up its' pace but she planned to act like opposite of it, "Hmm? What do mean 'what's wrong'?" She asked.

Bucky can hear the change tempo coming from within her ribcage, he knew something was wrong, "I just want to know how are you feeling."  He pressed a long and tender kiss on the shoulder.

The warmth of his breath tickled her skin, "Now? Hmm. I feel very loved." She smiled dreamily as she closes her eyes.

Bucky left out a brief laugh at her response, this cheeky little bunny, "That's true, but how are you really feeling, hmm? Like physically?" He urges softly.

She thought about it for awhile; contemplating whether she should just tell him the truth or proceed to act like she okay. Well, she chose the latter, "Hmmm physically. In this position? Very comfy." She wiggled her body back into him, closing the non-existent gap between their bodies and gripping Bucky's arms around her a little tight.

Though her plushy ass was rubbing against his crotch just nicely, but the former winter soldier was not going to let that distract him from his mission. He needs to know what she's hiding behind that sweet smile, "Doll..." his voice was stern and she knew he was not having it.

His calling was only met with silence when she didn't reply verbally. Since she was looking down, Bucky cannot see the frown on face and the wobbling worries in her eyes. But he did picked up on the anxiousness of her heart; beating faster by the second.

"I..." her voice cracked at the first word she said, and Bucky knew he fucked up. He swiftly maneuvered her body to sit on his lap, facing him. His metal hand craddled her soft cheek, and his flesh ones gently caresses her back, "Hey hey hey, doll, what's wrong? Shit. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pressure you." His voice was laced with panic.

When she only had her gaze down, Bucky tenderly coaxed her, "Bunny, look at me." His hand guided her by the chin and when they made eye contact, he apologized again, "I'm sorry. I just want you to feel better. Forgive me." He leaned in a planted a kiss on her forehead. Then, her nose. And her cheeks, all over her face, muttering his words of apology.

She felt bad that Bucky apologized for something that was clearly not his fault. She's the problem in this situation. Her negativity, her insecurity was what drove her away from Bucky for the past 2 weeks. She knew that. And she knew it wasn't fair to him.

Knowing Bucky, he's probably blaming himself for her actions. And she didn't want that. She decided to tell him the truth, "I just..." Anxiety runs through her veins when she thought about it again. Would she be able to handle it if Bucky reacted negatively to her truth? Probably, not. "Just... promise that you won't be disgusted by it... Or get the ick from it."

Bucky frowned in confusion, "I don't even know what 'get the ick' means but I promise." He swore.

She let out a short laugh at his comment, causing him to smile along. Seeing how loving his gaze was, it gave her the strength to confess. She started with explaining how she had been busy at work this month. With launch of the new product, and her being one of th product manager, she was obligated to visit the branches around New York.

Bucky listened to words attentively, at first he thought maybe she was trying to say that she's been stressed lately. But then she started to explained about how she had been wearing skirts to work most of the days, because it was one of the their campaign's rules and Bucky does not think that 'stress' was what this would conclude to.

Nevertheless, he didn't lose his attention.

"But basically what I'm trying to say is..." She took a deep breath before continuing, "It's just... My inner thighs are chafed..." her voice was barely audible at the end of the sentence but Bucky caught it perfectly.

He thought about it for awhile before asking, "So, you mean to say that you got blisters on your inner thighs?" He wanted to confirm that his understanding was accurate.

She looked down in shame as she nodded to his question.

Bucky responded by pulling her closer, and kissed her forehead, "Aww doll. Is this why you've been avoiding me? Because it hurts? Why didn't you tell me earlier? I could've helped you. I mean I could help apply some meds or--"

Horrified at the idea of him seeing marks; the literal reminder of how fat she is caused her to blurt, "No!" She pushed Bucky away, eyes widen in horrid.

"No?" Bucky frowned quizzically at her intense reaction.

Realizing what she just had just done,  she composed herself, and spoke, "It's... it's not a pretty sight. And I don't want to show it to you. Plus, if my thighs are a little thinner than they are now. Then, this wouldn't happen. If only these thighs are not like... fucking fat as they are we wouldn't have to go through this. And you wouldn't need to hear all this. You wouldn't---"

Bucky knew that once she was in the state of insecurity, she self-deprecate herself like she was less worthy than the goddesss that she is. So, instead of arguing with her, he simply intercepted her rambling, "Show me."

She stopped the seemingly endless word-vomit, and titled her head to the side, "Huh? No. Bucky I just said--"

Bucky grabbed her by the waist and effortlessly lifted her off his lap and onto the bed, caging her  below him, "And I said... Show. Me." His tone was more like an order rather than a request.

She didn't dare to defy him, when his gaze was as rigid as they were now, so pulled her pants off; slowly, reluctantly. When the pants was at the last inches before it's completely off, Bucky took control and quite literally ripped it off from her.

The sudden action resulted to her body needing to hide itself from his darken eyes. Her thighs clammed together as a whine slipped from her lips. The friction of her wounds brushing against each other was burning her delicate skin.

Bucky quickly softens when he heard her pained voice,  he pushed himself off from her and kneeled on the bed before her. "Doll, please..." His hands gently squeezes the side of her thighs as he pleads, "...Let me see."

Slowly spreading her thighs apart, Bucky's eyes are now focusing on the red marks on her skin. His thumbs absentmindedly traces the area around the broken skin. He was so concentrated that he didn't say a word. And that only triggered her insecurity that she started to rambled something about how she will start going in a diet and she'll add more intense leg workout in her routine.

But her voice was only a muffled strings of incoherent sounds in Bucky's ears when he finally processed everything that happened from 2 weeks ago until now.

The realization hit him like a high speed train with a broken break system. Did she really turned him down because of this? Did she really starve him out because of this? Bucky let out a growl of disapproval when he abruptly pulled her by her calves, forcing her hips to lift from the bed. She yelped in surprised but she saw the look on his face,  "You..." he rasped.

Bucky placed her legs on his shoulders, letting it daggle on his back as he palmed sides of her thighs. He then, proceed to leave trails of kiss on her inner thigh, avoiding the irritating wounds on her skin, "You deprived me of my sweet little pussy because you think this..." he flattened his tongue and nibble on her softness of her inner thighs, "...would turn me off? That these thick, soft thighs that I love so much would bother me?"

He planted a delicate kiss on the marks before, "Well, guess what bunny?. You're absolute wrong. In fact, it's quite the opposite." His lips travelled upwards until it found her core. Bucky's nose flared at the scent of her arousal, "And oh my sweet babydoll, I'm going to eat your pussy until understand that. Then, I'm gonna do it some more because I am fucking starving." He pressed a firm kiss on her clothed pussy, causing the cotton to soak the juices that leaks from her hole.

"Look at that. Does your needy pussy wants some pampering too, hmm?" She could see the lust dripping down his ocean blues; the same ones that were usually bright but now were now noticeably darker.

Bucky's finger traces the slit of her pussy, rubbing her over the fabric of her panties, making patch of wetness spread even more. "Yeah? Does she want me to kiss it better? Make her feel good?"

She moaned softly to his touch, "Please."

That was all it took for Bucky to rip her panties apart as if it was made out of paper.  "Fuck, there she is. My sweet pussy." He brought his fingers over, widened the folds of her pussy. Even with minimal lighting, it was enough to show him the glistening pink flesh of leaking cunt, twitching and needing his tongue to explore her insides.

He was hungry of course, just simply looking at her pussy had made his mouth water and impossible for him to resist the urge of putting his mouth on the pretty little thing. "Hmm,," a sharp cry escaped from her lips as he blew on her little twitching nub. There was this glint in his eyes as he watched her try to buck up, cunt helplessly clenching around nothing.

Before she could beg for him, Bucky's tongue dipped in between folds. Pointed at first, from the entrance of her pussy up to her clit. The tip of his tongue swirl around the aching nub. A breath caught in her throat when Bucky repeat the same move but this time he flattened his tongue.

And then he does it again and again.

Bucky, is generally the larger man compared to anyone. He is tall and beefy. But he is especially big when he's in between her legs, gently devouring her wet pussy. Slow and long licks were his favorite, it allowed him to savor the taste of her. Always so sweet and he couldn't get enough of it.

With every flick Bucky's tongue assulting to her swollen bud, she couldn’t help but pull on sheets behind her, needy moans leaves her lips every time he explored her, teases her. Her body cannot stay still when the pleasure was taking her higher. But it was not a problem for Bucky to control. Whenever she tries to close her thighs together, he stopped her. He didn't want to irritate her wounds or cause any pain, so he kept pushing her thigh open as he nuzzle his face into her pussy.

"Ahhh fuck ,, that feels so good, Bucky!" She moaned his name as the overwhelming feeling of his wet and soft tongue gliding and rubbing on her core, guiding her to heaven.

And the salacious squelching noises to fill the room as Bucky laps and sucks on her clit. She was so wet that he could just shove his fingers up in her hole but he didn't. He won't. After so many days not tasting her, he want to only use his mouth.

Though the man barely spoke during these times, he’d much rather keep his mouth occupied with drinking up her juices or suckling on her cute little clit. But when he does. Fuck. Does he spill the most unholy things.

Bucky momentarily detached himself from her and rasped, "Gonna cum, babydoll? Come on, give it to me. Let me drink and lick your cum after." His metal fingers quickly finds her clit, swiftly started to deliciously rub it; just the way he knew she liked it. It felt so good that her tongued lolled out her mouth out of pure pleasure.

"Yeah, bunny. You're gonna let me clean you up with tongue so nice, so that you can make the same mess again and again. Cum in mouth, babydoll. Cum for me"

He delved right back where is mouth belongs, licking her clit into his mouth just to wrap his lips around the pretty pink bundle of nerves sucking it harshly.  She whined needily her hips started to move on its own accord, searching for more friction of his tongue, “ahh ahh! hmmmm,, s-so fucking good! ahhh,, So close!” she was seeing stars in her hazy vision from how good and dirty she felt.

Bucky's eyes almost rolled back when let out a groan of satisaction against her spread out cunt; he can feel that she was going to cum and want her to do it with his mouth latched on her.

And cum she did, moments after she couldn’t help but squeal as her back arched from the bed, grinding herself on his tongue. Bucky growled at the streams of cream squirting out of her throbbing cunt right into his mouth, down to his throat.

So sweet and warm and addictive.

While her whole body was still shaking from the aftermath of the mindblowing orgasm, Bucky continued to lick and lap on her leaking pussy, slurping and suckling every bit of cream she had blessed him with.

Yet he was still hungry.

She mewled when Bucky started to suck on her clit again and when she looked over at him, he momentarily pulled away, "oh doll, did you forget? I'm not going to stop any time soon. So just lay there, look pretty for me and let me enjoy this sweet little pussy."

End.

Read my other works here: Masterlist

A/N: Have you ever gotten your inner thighs chafed? Anyway, thanks for spending your time to reading my work! Leave your thoughts behind, I'd love to read them ♡

[xo2dee]

ᴅᴇᴠɪʟ ᴍᴀʏ ᴄʀʏ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ

ʟᴇᴀᴛʜᴇʀꜱ

♱ ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: Vergil x (Fem)Reader

♱ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: MDNI/18+ only. rough sex, vaginal sex, clothed sex, orgasm delay/denial, dirty talking, biting, degradation, breeding kink, creampie

♱ ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 4238

♱ ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: Vergil likes your skirt. You hate his vest.

♱ ᴀ/ɴ: don't even know what to say about this, just i was down horrendous back when i wrote it. and vergil's vest and the way it works is so interesting to me. idk why he dresses like victorian man but i love it

♱ twitter - ao3

Indented nearly in the door behind you with your dignity all but shattered in the actions of the man biting at your neck and scratching onto the wood, you wonder what transpired to lead you to getting your guts rearranged once more by your lover.

You may have thought you were fast with your hands, but Vergil was faster with his hips.

Honestly, you couldn’t remember how you two ended up in that position; the morning started off fine when you woke up to him still in bed with you for once. Granted you two were in one of your weird positions again, his hand on top of your head in a grip and your leg thrown over his abdomen as you both laid on your backs with the covers halfway off the bed. After that it was noon, everything was fine it seemed even if he was following you around on your heels for once and hovering over you like some animal would its food. You chalked it up to him being in one of his weird moods again and ignored it mostly by just sending him questioning looks and receiving absolutely no answer but the same intense stare. It wasn’t until around seven o’clock when Dante left that it happened.

Wait… You remembered exactly how you two got like that.

It was a few moments after Dante left proclaiming he wanted a strawberry sundae from his favorite diner and Vergil oddly staring at the closed doors for it to happen. You gave him another disturbed look when he just was openly staring at the door and his head slowly turned around like an owl to look back at you, his gaze falling to your exposed thighs from the skirt you wore. It didn’t register until later that he was listening to Dante leave and only acting when he knew his younger twin wouldn’t return so soon and not interrupt you two. Though when a silvery burning gaze returned to your face and his eyes met yours, the message was loud and clear.

A horny Vergil was a rather feral one.

(Not that it was a bad thing either.)

That was how you found yourself with your legs locked around his waist against the damn door to the shop and him dick-deep into your guts.

Moments before he shoved himself inside of you, and nearly splintered the wood with how hard his hand smacked onto the door while muttering about your skirt, you voiced your concerns of Dante walking back in but once Dante’s name left your lips Vergil’s lip curled in disgust and his hand covered your mouth, his brows furrowing as he hissed against your neck:

“Don't speak of him when we’re like this.”

Understandable. If you had a twin, you probably want to think about them during sex either, and with that you didn’t mention anything like that again deciding to busy yourself with something else. That something else being how you wanted to take his vest off.

You both were fully clothed mostly, but highly indecent. Your skirt had been pulled up as high as he wanted it and you don’t even know where your panties went – though the lacy fabric hanging from the inside of his one of his coat’s pocket told you exactly where they went – but it was efficient enough for him to finger you three knuckles deep with two fingers until you were wet enough from him to unbuckle his belt and unbutton his pants and press himself inside of you starting off at a harsh speed. You didn’t mind it, all moans and choked pants into his shoulder, but the friction from his vest rubbing against your thighs and beginning to chafe them was annoying you. It was then you decided to just take matters into your hands since he had no intention of removing it that time.

Your hands had been quick to remove his coat, Vergil not even acknowledging it as he nearly drove you into the door, and you were moving to remove his vest when you stopped, pulling away from sucking on his shoulder to look at the intricate piece of clothing. It was like it had two layers to it, the bottom one always zipped up to his damn neck and the top buttoned overtop of it in four ways, and while peering down at it you realized you didn’t really know how to remove it; Vergil almost always removed his own clothing during sex and you never paid attention to how he did so, too preoccupied with the pleasure he gave you. Still, you wanted it off and with him busying himself trying not to break the door and trying to shove his dick deeper into you, you knew asking him was out the question and decided to do it yourself.

You grabbed the first button and pulled –

It didn’t budge. You tried again.

It was still buttoned. You huffed, suddenly feeling rather determined. Were they fucking superglued?

You started aggressively tugging at his vest and that got Vergil to pull away from burying his nose in your hair and pull back far enough to look at you, all flushed cheeks and hair beginning to fall from its position. An eyebrow rose as he spoke, “What are you doing?”

You rolled your hips when he slowed down a pace, leaning back some to pull more at the button, “Trying to unbutton this goddamn contraption you wear. Why do you wear it like this?”

A breath came out of him, and a hand dropped to your thigh as his hips slowed to a deep roll that nearly made your eyes cross, “Why don’t you ask nicely, and I’ll take it off.” You didn’t necessarily like how low his octave got at that, nor how it sent a sharp twinge into your lower abdomen that he caught onto when you clenched around him. Tease.

“I don’t wanna – fuck – hear it, when, when you earlier –” you whined when his thumb pressed down onto your clit and slowly rolled it into circles – “earlier you were almost foaming at the mouth at me in a skirt.” Yeah, you got him that time, especially when you broke off into a moan when he pinched you. Bastard was getting off watching you struggle.

You didn’t take but a few seconds to start back up again tugging at the first button again when he didn’t answer, causing Vergil’s sigh as he pulled you closer and ultimately moved away from the door and plopped you down onto the couch on your back. You yelped at the sudden loss of him but didn’t have much time to worry too much about it when he was saddling onto the couch and canting his hips between your thighs again, the tip of him sitting right at your opening. You blinked when he took your hands and rested it on the button of his vest, eyes taking in the new smirk on his lips.

“Take it off and I’ll give you what you want.”

You rolled your eyes, "Don't be like that, I know just how bad you wanna –"

"No. Either do it or beg me."

You could feel your cheeks erupt in warmth at his declaration, eyelashes fluttering at how bad it turned you on as well. So, he was in that mood and wanted you to beg for it? Well, he could forget it, you were going to rip that vest off of him and make him eat his words.

Shooting him a glare and watching his eyes only seem to light up at it, you pulled at it, fingers digging into the fabric to increase the force. You fought back the needy little gasp when Vergil’s hands tightened around your wrists, and he caught himself on your opening. You knew what he was doing, trying to push you over the edge and make you beg for him to fuck your brains out. He was damn good at it too, you hated to admit.

His head tilted as he watched you struggle, “What is it? Are you too weak?” he pushed his hips forward and sat his length on your clit, rubbing it and relishing in when your hands began to tremble, and face scrunched up from the sense of it.

You were unconsciously rocking your hips, “Who’s weak? Weren’t you the one who couldn’t handle seeing me in a skirt?” Part of you was egging him on to see if he’d surrender his little game and just fuck you into the couch, but when Vergil set his mind to something, he committed.

Vergil rolled his neck and hummed when it cracked, eyes lidded as he stared down at you, “We can stay like this all night, doesn’t matter to me. Watching you suffer like this at my hands is…” his nostrils flared as he trailed off, his hips moving faster to rub against you.

You couldn’t help the gasp then, toes curling into his pant leg and hips lifting slightly as the presence of an orgasm near made itself known. Your thumb was rubbing against the button then, nearly forgotten as your brain began to focus more on your own pleasure and the approaching release you could feel spiraling in your cunt. Your chest began to heave as he picked up a speed, your fluids beginning to drip downwards into the couch cushions as your mind only focused on one thing. Vergil, Vergil, Vergil.

You back arched as it was on the cusp, your lower abdomen twisting as a moan was beginning to break out and ready to throw your head back while you cried out for him, and it was close, close, close –

He stopped.

You made an indignant noise as he pulled away and let his cock sit on your inner thigh, his mouth fully lifting at one side and giving view to one of his adorable dimples. “You –”

“Me? I told you what you have to do, and you haven’t done it. You can’t put the blame on anyone but yourself,” Vergil released your wrists and ran a hand through his hair, the sweat on his forehead glistening as he tilted his head back in the action. "The other offer still stands if you're truly that desperate for me."

You were gonna kill him.

You tugged viciously on the button then to force your mind away from the beg that was sitting heavy on your tongue, pissed he was winning his game over you. God, did he have a demon magic instilled in them? Was that why the damn things never once unbuttoned, or his zipper never slid down to show a sliver of his skin? Vergil moved again as another husky sigh fell from him, and he moved himself back to your sopping opening and you tugged harder –

The top two buttons came undone and his reply to that was instantaneous.

He pushed himself halfway inside you then and you choked at the sudden intrusion, back arching and body jolting. Without thinking you tightened around the part of him inside of you while scrambling your hands up to reach for his zipper, only being stopped when he snatched both of your hands again with one of his own and steadied the other one on your hip. A tsk came from him at your reaction as he shallowly began to push in and out of you.

“That’s the first two, can you do the last two or are you ready to cave and beg me like the whimpering whore you are?” his words came out into a hiss at the end and if you were in your right mind, you would’ve noticed the near inaudible groan he let out as finished his sentence. It would’ve clued you in that he was less composed than he was letting off.

“Ass,” you grunted out and drew off into an actual whimper when his thumb returned to press onto your clit hard. You pressed your cheek into your shoulder and looked up at him, nearly shying away from how he was analyzing your every facial expression and every move your body made. His eyes were heavy on your own and you wiggled your hands in his grip to signify you were ready to try again.

The half-demon hummed and obliged your request, moving to set them on the third button before dropping his other hand and palm your breast through your shirt. Your eyes fluttered again when he circled your breast in the same motion as he was your clit, your hands beginning to shake again when he picked up the speed and your orgasm was right back on its track again.

Your mouth was moving before you could stop it, “Don’t tease me.”

“Hmm?” he leaned closer, angling his head so your mouth was closer to his ear, “Are you begging?”

You blew air into his ear and watched the hair stand up on the back of his neck, “Hardly.”

You absolutely did not like the look he got in eyes when you answered with that, stopping his hips from moving altogether and his rubbing on your sensitive parts and you curled your toes into his pant leg harder until you felt the pinch of his skin. “What’s wrong?” You hated how smug he sounded, wanting nothing more to wipe off the shitty, handsome ass smirk he was giving you. If he could tease you, you could tease him.

You got an idea then, pulling at his buttons again as you clamped down around him, your warm and wet walls encasing the inches of him that were inside of you in retaliation to his edging. You nearly wanted to laugh when Vergil’s eye twitched and a small movement of his nostrils flaring being the only thing that told you that it affected him. Feeling spiteful and knowing that perhaps you’d regret it, you released him and rolled your hips, tightening down on him again in the process and repeating it in intervals as his grip on your body released and his eyes moved down to watch you move. You had him.

It didn’t last long though, on a time around you leaned back and sighed as you could feel your release building back up again, Vergil’s hands were fast to grip your hips in a bruising hold and stop your movement, his face leaning back down with expression back in that near pout he generally had and lips losing the smirk they once held. “Unbutton them.”

Vergil’s voice no longer held that teasing tone it had taken earlier, rougher and how he normally sounded when he spoke when he was feeling agitated. If you weren’t nearly about to combust you would’ve laughed at him for being so worked up, but you yourself had been point five away from begging him to rearrange your insides and you wanted so badly to cum you couldn’t stand it.

You listened to him then, fingers dipping into the dark fabric and pulling –

The last two came unbuttoned together as well and one hand of his shot up to unzip the underlayer of his vest, shrugging it off when he got it completely down and throwing it into the floor in a manner, he typically would have turned up his nose at. Meanwhile you were doing quick thinking; both times they came off he had sighed or made some sort of indication he was getting fed up… and what were the chances you unbuttoned them both… and how they unbuttoned finally after he told you to do it again…

That bastard.

You voiced that, “You plotting ass, you were the reason they wouldn’t come unbuttoned, what the Hell were you doing? Holding them together with demon magIC AH –” you didn’t get a chance to finish your rant when he pulled out what he had inside of you and harshly pushed himself back in all inches bottoming out like that. Your hands found purchase onto his newly bare back, and you dug your nails into his skin while your back arched as one arm of his curled around to hold you closer to him, his other hand slithering around to hold the nape of your neck while he mouthed at your neck in kisses of all teeth and tongue. A loud moan you let out in his ear had him biting into the skin of your neck and fingers digging into your back at the scale of it.

Vergil’s hips were moving faster than they had been earlier when you two were up against the door, his dick really feeling like he was deep into your guts then and had you gasping for breath each time the tip of him pressed against the restriction inside of you. Your thighs were the ones quivering then as your orgasm began to coil up inside of you once more and you had no doubt that he’d let you achieve it that time if the fast and harsh breaths coming loudly coming from his nostrils were telling you anything. Your hipbones were knocking together in a fervent hurry, and you doubled down onto him in a squeeze as he released your neck leaving behind a bruise of red and saliva on your skin to opt for sucking on your mouth and groaning into it when you scratched your nails down his back.

You mumbled into his mouth, “Vergil, please, harder.” He bit your lip.

Your noses knocked together and he nearly had you imprinted into the couch with how rough he began to kiss and fuck into you while the hand at your nape moved to grab a thigh and pull it higher to sit under his armpit as he experimentally rolled his hips around until you squeaked when he finally found the weak spot inside of you. You were moaning and babbling into his mouth then as he got tough with his dick kissing that point in you that had you tangling a hand into his hair and the other settling on his defined abdomen that began to grow slick with sweat. His hand gripped your thigh harder as he felt your insides begin to flutter around him, a warning that you weren’t going to last much longer.

And neither was he, given his arm unwinding from your back and the other moving away from your thigh to grip the couch arm above your head and all fingers digging grooves into the leather in an attempt to hold himself together.

You locked your legs around his waist in a last effort before your impending relief and pressed your mouth closer to his ear, “Are you gonna cum in me?”

Your lover’s face scrunched up. “Don’t.”

“You’re going to, aren’t you?”

His eyes peered down at you under knitted brows, “You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

“As much as I know you do... C'mon Vergil, cum in me and make me yours.”

It was a fleeting little bite on your part, the both of you already knowing you were his, but it got you the reaction you wanted. 

His jaw clenched and you could almost see the vein rise from his temple as he stopped his movements and anchored his hands deeper in the couch, his upper body slightly raising as he pulled out –

Only to slam back in inside of you in his own spiteful rebuttal against you trying to set him off with just your words. You threw your head back in a silent moan as he repeated the action, and your toes curled from the rough treatment and sensation while your hands found new placement on his shoulders. You weren’t winning that round and a drawn-out moan of his name let him know that. He picked up the pace and your eyes screwed shut when he began grunting louder and the noises went straight to your throbbing cunt. You squeezed around him one last time –

Your cunt trembled around him and then your much-wanted orgasm was flushing through you, a tremor of extreme pleasure prickling you from the base of your spine down into the tips of your toes. You were squirming and gasping into ear by then as you tightened your hold around his waist in near death-grip, with Vergil’s hands tearing into the couch as the stuffing finally pulled through. You rolled your head to the side feeling the gush around him and the noise your bodies made finally entering your senses, chest heaving, and mind riddled with endorphins as you waited for his own end.

It didn’t take much longer when Vergil let out a near snarling groan and bit into the junction between your neck and shoulder, arms flexing as he full-on tore the arm of the couch cushion apart. You whined at the treatment but wiggled again when you felt the all-telling warmth of his release coating the inside of your cunt, his hips stuttering as he released it all inside of you and ran off the high of the feeling for a few moments. Once his hips stopped and he remained still inside of you, his mouth latched off of your skin to let him breathe against it in huffs instead. The cushion above you creaked as he released the harsh hold on it, arms moving to wrap around your waist as you both caught your breath and basked in the aftermath of it all.

It was silent besides your breathing and when your legs finally unlocked and dropped spread open, he pulled out of you, and you wrinkled your nose a bit when you felt some of his cum seep out of you. Normally you didn’t care, loving the feeling of practically being stuffed, but if it got on the couch…

You wrapped your arms his torso and pushed him upwards, somehow managing to get him to sit up, and as you both came to sit up you shot him a look, “I don’t want to stain the couch.”

Vergil leaned back and rested his head on the back of his couch, looking quite relaxed while closing his eyes in the process. Well, he looked satisfied, a far cry from how he looked earlier that day waddling around behind you like a vulture looking for its prey. He didn’t answer so you continued, “Also, how are you gonna explain the couch?”

He peered at you then, moving his eyes to settle on the couch arm behind you as you expectantly looked at him, pulling your skirt back down to appear decent, “We’ll sort it out.”

“’We’?”

“Yes, it was a team effort.”

“How… it was your hands.”

“I can’t focus with you sounding like a wanton temptress in my ears.”

“Okay ‘unbutton my vest and I’ll give it to you good’.”

Vergil sneered at you then, fixing his pants and tucking himself back in before a hand shot out and wrapped around your wrist and he fell back, dragging you to lie on top of him with a hand on the back of your head and the other resting on your lower back. You pouted against his chest with your cheek squished against him but ended up smiling into it at his behavior. It wasn’t often he cuddled but when he did it was nothing short of blissful. Listening to his heartbeat and being lulled by his rising and falling chest, you nearly fell asleep if it weren’t you suddenly remembering his vest.

You rose your head and glared at him, watching him peek at you with one eye from the action, “Are you gonna explain why your vest was so hard to unbutton? Or why it magically did it whenever you wanted it to?”

He closed his eye, “No.”

“Vergil.”

“…”

“It was demon magic, wasn’t it?”

“…You ask far too many questions.”

“It’s not like I didn’t like it.”

Both of his eyes opened then, and you knew you caught him, “Mmm.”

“Yeah, maybe next time do it to your belt cause I know you like it when I beg,” you hid the grin in his chest again as his eyes flitted to the ceiling, a calculating glint in them and you realized he truly was thinking of a scenario like that. He then lowered them and shot you a withering glare, aware you caught him.

“Minx.” You laughed and settled back down into his pectoral closing your eyes as his fingers rubbed a pattern into your lower back, and eventually lulling back to sleep from his petting.

You woke up around midnight back into your bed with your lover by your side and both of you back into your sleeping clothes and in another odd cuddling position. You didn’t question it as you were too groggy and fell back asleep and slept into the well hours of the morning with a sore lower body and a contented smile on your lips. However once up for the day and walking around, Dante had approached you both to ask about the couch. In both of your geniuses combined you answered him at the same time:

“A demon attacked.”

“Her nails got stuck in it.”

…

Dante sighed and rubbed a hand down his face. He didn’t believe either of you, but he still smacked his brother’s back in a display of pride for ‘having it in him’.

You both still had to fix the couch though.

[butchhamlet]

are there any shakespeare retellings you recommend? i really enjoy retellings but it's also difficult to find ones that like. actually understand the source material... i've read your novella duodecimal and really liked it btw! excellent take on twelfth night :-)

THANK YOU SO MUCH WAH... yes, i can recommend some retellings! i keep intending to make a big post with my recs, actually, but there are so many out there that i haven't read yet... so for now here's an incomplete list:

a thousand acres by jane smiley: the first one that came to my mind seeing this ask. it's a retelling of lear set on an american farmstead, and the adaptation is done beautifully and smoothly--it's just distinct enough from OG Lear that you can judge it as a book on its own but also as a lear retelling. and it's sooooo good. it starts a little slow, but the character work is so excellent and it almost made me cry (i will note that there's a pretty hefty cw on this one but... saying what it is is technically spoilers? but feel free to send another ask or message if you want to know up-front)

the last true poets of the sea by julia drake: books that made me have to turn my camera off in zoom class so i could bawl properly. books written for me specifically. this is a loose YA retelling of twelfth night (looser than some of the other retellings on this list) and it's like. perfect. the teenage dialogue actually sounds like teenagers. every emotional beat clubbed me over the head. the love triangle is present--and done really well; it's not present for drama but because sometimes being a teenager is confusing--but more than that this is a book about the relationship between violet and her sibling, and about mental health, and god it makes me CRAZY. also girls kiss in this one

rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead by tom stoppard: i mean. i think most people into shakespeare know r&gad. but in case you haven't read it yet, it's an absurdist play from the point of view of rosencrantz and guildenstern and it's absolutely fucking brilliant. not sure what else to say about this; you've really just gotta read it

teenage dick by mike lew: another play, this one on the modern side--a retelling of richard iii set in a high school, focusing explicitly on disability issues. kind of more a reimagining than a retelling, honestly, but i really like the exploration of r3's themes and also it's fucking hysterical. although i will say there's a kind of jarring tonal shift in this one near the end, so don't go to it for something 100% comedic

american moor by keith hamilton cobb: okay this isn't exactly a retelling but if you've ever read othello you have to read it. you just have to. please god if you've ever read a shakespeare PLEASE. it's a monologue from the perspective of a black man trying out for the role of othello, half-resigned to being pigeonholed into playing that specific role in a very specific way as directed by a white director, but also half-chafing against that resignation, and also exploring the complexities of loving shakespeare as a black man, and it's soooooo so good

exit, pursued by a bear by e.k. johnston: this one is kind of cheating because it's not really a retelling, in that it has next to nothing to do with the winter's tale except that there is a hermione character and a leontes character and a paulina character. i still think it's a very very well-done YA book, though, and one of the only ones i've read that deals head-on with abortion

foul is fair by hannah capin: okay, i will admit i read this one some years ago when i was more into YA, so i'm not sure i would still go crazy over it now, but the plot of this book is that the modern lady macbeth character gets assaulted by a guy at a party and decides to kill everyone who let that happen. and then she does. and idk i read it in two days it felt like being on crack

the wednesday wars by gary schmidt: this one is DEFINITELY cheating, because this isn't a retelling of anything. but if you like shakespeare and you're open to reading historical fiction about a kid in the 60s using shakespeare as a lens through which to understand the chaos of his life (from the vietnam war to his school crush)... it's so good. it made me nearly sob. beautiful book

i'm also a fan of ryan north's shakespeare choose-your-own-adventure books, but those aren't exactly retellings and also the humor will probably not work for everyone. but i like em <3

and finally, i would be remiss not to shout out the fact that @suits-of-woe wrote an INCREDIBLE retelling of the two gentlemen of verona that, like, redeemed the fact that that play exists. if you've read that play and you thought, "wow, i wish this were explicitly homoerotic, or not a rape apologia, or good in any way," you will LOVE macy's book. unfortunately it isn't fucking published yet but WITH YOUR HELP--

[nerves-nebula]

How did Donnie Evolve from being tortured to being the torturer?

Idk if Donnie has ever been explicitly tortured so much as constantly abused and emotionally neglected/exploited/manipulated throughout his entire life. So I guess the same way I evolved into being um. The way I am now.

Around the time stuff went down with shredder Donnie stopped being… idk how to explain it. It’s not that he stopped being nice. Not even that he stopped doing kind things it’s just like, he’s less, idk… hopeful? I mean he’s still desperate for connection but you can only break your heart so many times.

His takeaway from realizing Shredder was lying to him wasn’t super healthy because he basically accepted that no one but his brothers would ever be his family or care about him. and he never felt that he was really a priority for them in the first place because they have their own shit going on.

Donnie doesn’t enjoy being alive, it annoys him, living and eating and breathing chafes him. The enormity of pain in the world chafes him. His constant disappointment and dissatisfaction chafes him. You already start to see it by the time he’s a teenager from the way he interacts with little leo in the memory comic. He’s tired, he’s blunt, he cares about people but lashes out because he doesn’t really believe they care about him- cuz in his opinion they just don’t. They don’t fit the criteria.

People- April, his brothers- they don’t give him what he needs. Everyone always has something better or more important going on. And he can’t even really blame them, because he doesn’t really believe he’s fun to be around anyway. But he hates how they keep insisting they love him because they don’t make him feel loved. it burns to be told you’re loved and should feel loved and that you’re ungrateful if you don’t because clearly everyone here cares a lot about you. Just being told that over and over and never once feeling it is maddening.

So it’s nice, to be the one in charge. To be the one who abuses and abandons and face no consequences for it. It’s nice to know the only people who could or would stop him (his brothers) probably wouldn’t hurt him to do so. It’s fun to be in charge when you’ve felt powerless, weak, and worthless your entire life. It’s fun to be mean after trying your best to be nice got you nothing but abuse.

Plus, it’s even better if you can justify to yourself that the person you’re torturing deserves it- or at least deserves it more than anyone else- which is easy enough to do when your target is krang.

I’ve always admitted to pouring a lot of myself into my Donnie but writing this out is like. Huh he just like me fr.

[veliseraptor]

So that latest Zelkam art of the core transfer has been sucking my brain out of my head all night. And now I can't stop thinking of how much JC's inherited that he never wanted or knew: Zidian (mother), the core (brother), Jin Ling (sister), Suibian (brother x2). I'd include the Jiang name and clan if I wanted to include his father. And it hurts me. He's left with so many remnants of his loved ones and yet how hollow does he feel? How unloved? Answers surely depend on post/canon timeline but idk. I'm just wrecked. *dies quietly*

I have a lot of Feelings about the ways in which Jiang Cheng really does just keep getting handed inheritances he doesn't want to have. People keep giving him things (in a material and metaphorical sense), but it doesn't seem like the give him things as an uncomplicated gift but as this enormous, weighty thing that comes with an immense price. "Here, take my life," people keep saying to Jiang Cheng, "take this and my death with it." And the hideous irony of the core transfer is that that's true even when Jiang Cheng himself tries to give his own life for the people he loves, only with the result that Wei Wuxian turns right around and gives up his own to "fix" it.

But yeah! His mother bequeaths him Zidian in the process of sending him away while she dies. Wei Wuxian dies and leaves him with a flute and a sword he doesn't want. Jin Ling...it's not that he doesn't want Jin Ling, he always would have wanted to be in his life, but not like this. oh I know I'm going to do the thing I do and quote my own fic

You, me, and a-Cheng, said a-jie’s voice in his ear. We must stay together, and never separate.

He’d never learned how to let go, but he’d been the one left behind anyway.

for someone who is in a lot of ways defined by the way that he holds on to the past, for better or worse (and I don't think it's all bad! his success rebuilding Jiang Sect is I think owed in part to his drive to never let what happened to it before to happen again), he does keep end up being the one left, and left holding mementos and reminders that are just a constant chafing reminder of what he lost.

it really adds something fun and spicy too to the bit during the second siege of the Burial Mounds, both in the novel and in CQL:

Jin Ling had never seen so many fierce corpses before, much less at such a close distance. He could feel his scalp tingle, and clenched Suihua's hilt. Yet, suddenly, his fist was peeled open, and a cold object was stuffed inside. He looked down in surprise. "Jiujiu?"

Jiang Cheng propped himself up with Sandu, which had lost its spiritual energy. His figure wavered slightly. "Try losing Zidian, just see what happens!"

[...] When Jin Ling saw that all of the people his age had rushed over, he couldn't hold himself back either. When Jiang Cheng was distracted, he stuffed Zidian back into his hand and sprinted toward the front... (Chapter 80, trans. Exiled Rebels)

The way it's acted here in particular it feels very much like Jin Ling at least has a sense of how loaded this gesture is, whatever Jiang Cheng says about giving it back. Here he is! Continuing the chain of just passing down things as a legacy that in no way substitute for the person they stand for.

just to set those screenshots alongside this:

there's something I think to Jiang Cheng that's not just incredibly painful in all the obvious ways about the core transfer, but specifically in the way that it's related to a sacrifice he very deliberately made - and now he finds out that not only was that sacrifice ultimately utterly pointless, or worse than pointless, the person he originally made it for made it so. It's this "oh, you can sacrifice yourself for me but I can't do the same for you?" that's so bitter to feel, both because I do think there's some amount of "why do you always, always get to come out of things the hero" but more than that, "why did you do this when I made my decisions specifically to protect you; does my desire to protect you not matter? doesn't it mean anything?"

Jiang Cheng standing with his hands full of memorials going "I don't want these," because what he actually wanted was his family, but the world kept taking them away, and apparently in at least one case his family actively didn't get the memo.

[starsnores]

Ok so. I wanted to share a wip of what I was working on for the prisoner au fic. I do really wanna write more for it, I’m just. Very stuck. Writing things and then deleting them, really chasing my own tail. Writers block? I feel like I’m very bad at stringing the little scenes or ideas I have together into something bigger. But I do like how this next part was coming out and idk. Part of me hopes that talking about it more will encourage me to work on it. Bc I liked talking about my aus and stuff and I haven’t in a while. This is supposed to be a very, very rough start to the next chapter.

Rough fabric chafed his chitin. The clothes he’d been given were almost as threadbare as the old tshirt now lying on the floor at his feet. He had scrambled away from the clown, locking himself in the ablution chamber. He didn’t know how long he’d been standing there. Rummaging through the drawers and cabinets hadn’t turned up anything useful, would have no way to hide it if he had, didn’t even have underwear to tuck something into. Karkat wondered if they still had his things or if it had all been incinerated already. He could hear gamzee on the other side of the door, moving with slow heavy steps, evidently not worried about him, at all. How long could he stay in here, avoiding the inevitable. He couldn’t stop the clown from dragging him out if he wanted.

The door hissed as it slid open, and the first thing he saw was Gamzee perched on the back of the couch. In the time that Karkat had locked himself in the abultion chamber he had changed, dressed in an initiate subjugglator uniform, boldly patterned but far less ostentatious then other branches of the cult. It made the sharp angles of his body appear that much more dangerous.

Gamzes eyes flicked toward him, and the fine hairs on his neck stood on end.

"You done, motherfucker?"

Karkat crossed his arms over his chest, still feeling naked, "Yeah. You’re r leaving?”

"We got shit to do. C'mere."

"What do you mean ‘we’?”

Gamzee was already stalking forward something in his hand. Karkat flinched back but Gamzee moved faster, dropping onto a knee and grabbing his foot, throwing him off balance. Karkat reached to steady himself on the first thing his hands could find, tangling his fingers in Gamzee’s wild hair.

He was gently laced into a pair of sandals, and he tried not to shiver at the feeling if cold calloused hands cupping his ankle.

"Never knew they made fuckers as tiny as you."

Karkat thought about ripping the curls from his head.

When he finished he herded Karkat out of the front door. The door clicked as it slid shut behind them. “That’s it? You’re not going to put me on a leash or something?”

The clown shrugged. “Ain’t really got to. You can wander off if you’d like, just don’t think most juggalos would take to kindly to a mutant poking around where he shouldn’t be.” He turned down the corridor and, after a moment, Karkat followed.

The further Gamzee took him out of the hab blocks the more crowded it became. He had never seen so many of the cult in one place, had avoided seeing this many at all costs. Most didn’t seem to notice him. Something less than not caring, their eyes bouncing off of him as he trailed behind gamzee. A few, though, stared openly. Like they were trying to peel back his skin.

Hiding his blood color was habit, but he hadn’t felt this conscious of it in perigrees. Too much time spent alone, maybe.

He tried to keep pace with Gamzee, his long strides carried him far even at his leisurely pace, and karkat was still fatigued by his injuries. He felt like he was chasing after his lusus again. He hated it.

[thestobingirlie]

future st characters’ jobs (and why)

kids:

dustin — middle school science teacher. i think he’d want to take after mr. clarke, and he’s the one that parrots his phrases more than the other kids, so i just feel like it fits. i think he’d enjoy teaching others.

lucas — nasa scientist. he has pictures of astronauts in his room, and that’s my excuse, because he just has the vibes, okay? he rides his bike to work, and he has a little “go green” sticker on the family car.

max — guidance counsellor/child therapist/social worker. something along those lines. i think she’d want to help kids that come from her kind of situation. she knows what it’s like, and she knows how they can isolate themselves, and i think she’d want to help.

mike — i think he’d go to college, get a degree, and then get a job that has nothing to do with lol. i see people having mike as a writer a lot, but i guess i just don’t see it. idk. some people are just gonna end up working in an office, and that’s okay lmao

will — artist will seems popular, and i can kinda see him as a comic book artist or something. but i also could see art as maybe something that’s more of a hobby, and it’s not his, like, career. i think about will the least of all the kids, sadly, so. i got nothing lol.

el — i think she works a lot of odd jobs. she wants to explore, and she wants to learn about the world. she dedicates herself to making jam, and she has chickens. there’s still a lot she doesn’t know, and i just don’t know if she’d settle down in one single career. actually i could kinda see her working at a museum for a bit. like a museum tour guide. she gets to have fun and learn! being cut off from the world for so long, i’d think she’d enjoy being surrounded by it.

erica — politician. she likes lying to people and commanding rooms lmao. i don’t think she’d be, like, president, but more just a small town mayor or something.

teens:

nancy — private investigator. i know that people think she’ll stick with journalist for the rest of her life, but i think she’d start to chafe against the control, and she’d want to do her own work and help people. she’s going through her murray era. but she’s less of a freak lmao

steve — stay at home dad <3 no but seriously, there’s a lot i could see with steve, but little league coach steve is very special to me. he gets to do something sporty, and work with kids

robin — i think she (and steve) work a lot of different jobs, and really jump around and have fun with it, and explore what they want to do. in the end, i think robin would enjoy a job where she can travel, and put all her language skills to good use.

jonathan — photographer. it’s the obvious one, but i think he’d enjoy freelance photography. he’d get to travel a little, and have some space from his family lmao.

argyle — i want to include argyle. but we really know nothing about him 💔 maybe a botanist or something lmao

vickie — i know she’s only a side character, but i don’t care <3 i’ll always be in love with truck girl vickie, so her as a mechanic is fun to me.

[bullagit]

it's just. it's just

if your take on aziraphale at the end of the day is that he is, ultimately, a wholly selfish person. that his relationship to crowley is him taking and accepting and asking for more from a partner who, lovesick and waiflike and unable to draw a line, continues to carve off of himself to supplicate, while aziraphale does not "for once" contribute back.

then honestly i think you missed a step somewhere. and i'll preface by saying no shade on that front because it would be a boring thing if everyone everywhere had the same idea about every character, but this particular read on aziraphale chafes me.

because coming at things from his angle i think the larger issue is that he's selfless.

not in a cutesy job interview "my only flaw is i care too much :)" way, not in the sort of way that negates selfishness entirely (because like ALL of the characters in good omens, he IS still selfish!).

but i think aziraphale is selfless in a terrible and passive sort of way. i think he does not love himself and he does not think that he's someone who is easy to love, and i think that like crowley, aziraphale believes that when it comes to himself, love is conditional. it must be. when he receives it straightforwardly, seemingly unconditionally, he balks, because to his mind he's never done anything to deserve it.

i think he's been taught that, when he's himself, he's somehow wrong. i think if he's the only one on the line, he wouldn't choose his own happiness over something he feels he has to do. and if he feels that something is right, truly fully right, and that it needs doing, and that he can do it, he'll always ultimately throw himself onto that proverbial sword.

he'll run higher and higher up the celestial ladder trying to save earth (and crowley) and when that gets him nowhere, he'll decry the entire war and throw himself down to earth to try to stop it anyway. he'll stand at the edge of the end with actual satan bearing down upon them and pick up his old sword and say we can't give up now. he'll hand the most important person in the universe their destruction in a tartan thermos and feel like the most wretched miserable creature in existence for doing it.

he'll love someone in a way he's never loved anything and make himself be the one who keeps the rehearsed distance, the walls of plausible deniability and loopholes and convenient coincidences, because the distance is the most concrete way to keep that person safe. (because that was always one of the first points he'd hit with crowley: if hell finds out, they'll destroy you.) i think he operates out of fear before nearly anything else.

i think that for all that aziraphale indulges in his material pleasures-- the books and souvenirs and drinks and food-- he's starved and repressed and made himself very carefully wall off the pieces of his heart that want only to love wholly and to be loved in return. especially where crowley is concerned.

and honestly i'm not even going to get into their relationship dynamics bc that's so much to get into that's like a separate issue separate post. except to say that just because aziraphale doesn't do the exact same things for crowley that crowley has for him, it doesn't mean that this relationship is not reciprocal. (my wording struggles here because in general the point is not to gain returns, crowley doesn't do things for aziraphale because he expects to get something out of it. he does things because he loves him and he's big acts of service energy)

and tbh i feel like if crowley saw or caught wind of any of this "aziraphale should sacrifice for crowley ~for once~ protect crowley ~for once~" rhetoric he'd be pretty fucking offended

if any of that even makes sense idk

[balkanradfem]

Hello, I have an issue and I don't really have anyone to talk to about that specific thing. I stopped waxing my body hair two years ago when I stumbled across radical feminism on tumblr, and it's been amazing! My confidence is through the roof and I stopped caring about men. Except. For the body hair. I mean, I still don't shave or anything. But I have very thick body hair due to hormonal issues and repeated waxing/shaving since I was 12. Especially on my chin where I have very thick duvet. I caved and allowed my mother to pay for laser hair removal. But it makes me crazy because I want to do it all over now. I used to swim regularly but I lost my only swimsuit where my "luscious" pubic hair was not visible (kind of... it basically goes halfway down my thigh) and they are really rare and expensive, most swimsuits are basically pubic hair out. And even while I had that one, I was very uncomfortable with my armpit hair which is literally longer than my hair. I have my hair until my ears but still, that's really long. Do you have advice, or I don't know really, stuff to make me change my mind about pubic/armpit hair and laser hair removal? I know it's not good for skin, causes skin cancer I think? But I feel so alone and idk, like a hairy beast. It gets lonely.

Ah I can relate to being scrutinized and judged in public for your body hair, even if I don't have the extra hormonal, but I remember struggling to feel normal and always feeling like I'm being watched.

I can only offer a part of what helped me: there's actually no law stating that you have to wear a woman's swimming suit on the beach or anywhere else. I wear swimming trunks and a whole t-shirt when I'm swimming and nobody has said one word to me, and I've felt super comfortable in those! It's not very eye-drawing and it's great for a transition before you are able to feel comfortable - or in some cases, if there's males around, I understand never being able to feel comfortable because they will objectify you, but that has nothing to do with your body hair, that's just the way they are.

But you don't have to wear swimming clothing that's been designed for male fantasies and fetishes, you can absolutely make or get something that makes you comfortable and un-selfconscious.

It does take years and years to become comfortable with body hair, even the normal amount. I remember at one point realizing that what I'm having, the full body hair, is normal, and being completely shaved and bare is weird, mimicking children's immature bodies, and also making your body vulnerable to infections and diseases, as well as causing discomfort. Most of body hair we have is so that our skin wouldn't chafe together, to make our movement more comfortable! So seeing women shaved naked makes me uncomfortable, I know they're undergoing discomfort, itching, bleeding, chafing, prickling and all other stuff that comes with shaving. Seeing a woman with full body hair just makes me relax and I feel so happy that she's comfortable too. Being completely shaved to me is a sign of oppression.

And later when I became even more comfortable, the thought of being a bit more repulsive and unpalatable to males made me happy. It's slightly harder to objectify a woman who is fully comfortable and unwilling to mimic a child's body with her own. So I'm displaying full freedom from their desires in front of them and don't have to care. I am however, still sad for all the women who can't do it, and are undergoing discomfort only to be slightly more palatable to their oppressors.

I don't know if my opinions can help you see it in a different way at all, it was a long journey for me, and the best I can say is, take your time. It's okay if it takes a decade to feel fully comfortable, I believe that you'll get there! There's nothing but comfort and joy waiting for you at the end of it.

[aingeal98]

Having Bruce and Cass and the Robins thoughts and they're a bit messy and jumbled so bear with me.

Idk how to explain why the Bruce and Cass messed up but loving dynamic is so much more appealing to me than his toxic relationship with his other kids but I guess it's because the entirety of Batgirl 2000 understands that Bruce is not a perfect parent. His flaws and virtues are both deliberately and carefully written and his relationship with Cass is so layered and it makes it so that I can both laugh and cringe, appreciate the sweet moments and rage at some of his more shitty moves. It's not perfect but overall the writing is just GOOD, and there's enough material to form a solid core of understanding even when their dynamic grows past Cass's solo run. This is Cass and Bruce and this is how they tick and no writer has been able to thoroughly screw that up no matter how hard some of them were pushed to by editorial.

Compare that to how he's written with his other kids, where every writer has their own version and some have him be a perfect dad and others have him be shitty and frame it as "He's got this darkness in him" while another group of writers have him absolutely brutalise his kids or neglect them or gaslight them for angst all while knowing the kids will never receive any sort of narrative justice for this because he's Batman and he's the big flagship hero. There is no single run you can point to and say yes this here showcases the heart of the dynamic between him and Tim or him and Damian, no single run so good that all other comics about their dynamic use it as their basis for this bond between father and child. There is no consistency and no communication or understanding between writers or even an attempt to pick up what the other puts down. Batman comics will have him be a good parent or a bad parent but either way it will be all about Him. Batfamily comics tend to have him just be absolutely awful and then a few months later they have to pretend it never happened because the main bat books want to make him a good parent again.

It's all shock value that rarely lasts past the arc and writer. When Tom Taylor has Dick hug Bruce and call him dad I'm remembering that time Bruce beat him into a bloody pulp or backhanded him across the face and Dick never got to call him out on it. But we're not meant to be thinking about that in Taylor's run because this is a Good Dad Bruce comic. Taylor's Bruce and Dick dynamic is completely different to the New 52 dynamic the same way that dynamic is different to Wolfman's which is different to the original Batman and Robin. And that variety can be a great thing when it comes to comics but the downside here is that you can pick Bruce's "good dad" comics or you can pick his abusive asshole comics but you cannot find the middle ground that Batgirl 2000 hit because (controversial opinion I guess) it doesn't exist for the batboys and no writer has successfully managed to pull all the different comics together and create one.

Fans have tried. Fans have pieced together a decent narrative from the mess of inconsistencies, taking the moments of almost cartoonish abuse and the moments where Bruce is shown to care, and forming the image of a complicated and nuanced abusive parent from it all. But the great thing about Batgirl 2000 is you don't have to do all that effort of trying to make the happy fluffy hero batman and the edgy punches his sons Batman fit into one character. The writing does it and does it in a more realistic fashion too, which is saying something considering the big Bruce and Cass emotional fight is solved by Bruce letting them both get drugged and fight bloodlusted. I do think there are moments when it hypes Bruce's bad parenting up a tiny bit but compared to the absolute mess that is the writing of say, Bruce and Jason? It's just so much easier to actually engage with. Being on the same page as a narrative instead of chafing against it is just a much better way for me to read comics.

That's not to say there isn't any kind of narrative and canon dynamic for Bruce and the Robins. Tim's Robin run, Dick's various runs, UTRH, Batman and Robin etc. Just that for me none of them hit that balance Cass and Bruce's dynamic succeeded in hitting during Batgirl 2000. And to be fair it's harder to hit that balance when you're working with characters who have been through the hands of so many different authors before landing on your doorstop. UTRH probably comes closest but unfortunately everything that came after that did manage to shake the emotional foundation utrh set up to the point you can look back on it and wonder if Bruce cared about Jason much at all, despite the writer clearly not wanting it to be seen that way.

Not sure how much sense this makes but to me it's the difference between a bad parent Bruce I am actually interested in engaging with and a bad parent Bruce where I just want the kids to team up and knock his teeth out.

[andypantsx3]

andie can u give us some book recs?<33

Yes!! Although normally I think recs are best given in the context of your other tastes, because I find literary preferences to be a highly-individualized thing!! So without knowing what other books you love, idk how my recs will hold up.

But I will give you some of my personal recent faves!!

I have already talked at length about my favorite book of all time The Goblin Emperor, and I think I've already also recommended the Pink Carnation series to my fun silly regency romance lovers, so I will not go into depth on them here but those are easily my all time faves.

I forget if I have also already talked about Winter's Orbit so forgive me if this is repeat info for you!! But I absolutely loved this book.

SUMMARY: While the Iskat Empire has long dominated the system through treaties and political alliances, several planets, including Thea, have begun to chafe under Iskat's rule. When tragedy befalls Imperial Prince Taam, his Thean widower, Jainan, is rushed into an arranged marriage with Taam's cousin, the disreputable Kiem, in a bid to keep the rising hostilities between the two worlds under control. But when it comes to light that Prince Taam's death may not have been an accident, and that Jainan himself may be a suspect, the unlikely pair must overcome their misgivings and learn to trust one another as they navigate the perils of the Iskat court, try to solve a murder, and prevent an interplanetary war... all while dealing with their growing feelings for each other.

I really like the way Kiem's & Jainan's pictures of one another shift over the course of the narrative, and as you read them through one another's eyes you understand their unreliability in self-narration due to their own personal insecurities. And what I love is that they both strive to emulate the traits they grow to respect in one another and that becomes the key to defeating the forces working against them!! It's so masterfully done, very gentle and thoughtful, and I hope someday to write a book just like this.

As an aside the author also got their start on ao3 and has a tumblr account and you can really feel the love & respect for some of the fannish conventions in their work. Cannot recommend enough.

This is also so basic of me but I would be remiss if I did not also recommend Howl's Moving Castle which I recently reread. If you have seen the movie but not read the book, you are absolutely missing out because it's very much its own unique experience with several divergences from the plot of the movie. Sophie's perspective is hilarious, it's such a fond send up of men in general, and I love the extra argumentative element to Howl & Sophie's relationship we get to see here; I feel it adds way more depth to their characters and relationship and you will totally eat it up.

I also read The House Witch recently and would definitely recommend to fantasy fans who are in the mood for something wholesome and cozy!!

SUMMARY: When Finlay Ashowan joins the staff of the King and Queen of Daxaria, he’s an enigma. No one knows where he comes from or how he came to be where he is, which suits Fin just fine. He’s satisfied simply serving as the royal cook, keeping nosy passersby out of his kitchen, and concocting some truly uncanny meals. But Fin’s secret identity doesn’t stay hidden for long. After all, it’s not every day a house witch and his kitten familiar, Kraken, take to meddling in imperial affairs. As his powers are gradually discovered by the court, Fin finds himself involved in a slew of intrigues: going head-to-head with knights with less-than-chivalrous intentions, helping to protect the pregnant queen, fending off the ire of the royal mage, and uncovering a spy in the castle. And that’s only the beginning—because Fin’s past is catching up with him just as his love life is getting complicated . . .

It is not the most tightly-buttoned narrative, I think because there are several more books in the series that I haven't read yet, so there are lingering threads of an overarching plot I've not seen sewn together yet. But it's an extremely easy and accessible read and I again really loved the respect and admiration the characters grow for each other, even as they resist their feelings for one another.

This rec in particular though I can see people disagreeing with me on, as some of the humor is like kind of immature and you can tell the author is inexperienced and/or the editing team did not quite do their jobs as some of the ending felt forced or cobbled together. But overall I really did like this book, I thought the gems of a really compelling story shone through the little dirt there was lol.

I also cannot recommend most of Naomi Novik's work enough either. In particular I would recommend Spinning Silver (Uprooted too but that's wildly more popular and you might have already read it!!).

SUMMARY: Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father's inability to collect his debts has left his family on the edge of poverty--until Miryem takes matters into her own hands. Hardening her heart, the young woman sets out to claim what is owed and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold. When an ill-advised boast draws the attention of the king of the Staryk--grim fey creatures who seem more ice than flesh--Miryem's fate, and that of two kingdoms, will be forever altered. Set an impossible challenge by the nameless king, Miryem unwittingly spins a web that draws in a peasant girl, Wanda, and the unhappy daughter of a local lord who plots to wed his child to the dashing young tsar. But Tsar Mirnatius is not what he seems. And the secret he hides threatens to consume the lands of humans and Staryk alike. Torn between deadly choices, Miryem and her two unlikely allies embark on a desperate quest that will take them to the limits of sacrifice, power, and love. Channeling the vibrant heart of myth and fairy tale, Spinning Silver weaves a multilayered, magical tapestry that readers will want to return to again and again.

Her prose is always immaculate, vividly descriptive but succinct enough to keep the story going at a driving pace. She always writes like the most compelling female POV characters, to me; driven and complex without falling into the trap of being ~so special uwu~ or ~angry murder girlie >:(~ which I feel so many authors end up flattening their FPOV characters into!! She is absolutely masterful at taking common ideas/tropes and turning them on their heads/fleshing them out in unique and interesting ways.

Lastly, I have also been reading through a bunch of MXTX's danmei series LOL. I haven't finished Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation so I can't quite give a coherent account yet but I have been enjoying it so far. What I can say is I like how conversational and silly her style is even while tackling gruesome and fairly problematic concepts, and I very much love the sweeping and single-minded focus the love interests always have on one another. She also is very good at writing unreliable narrators whose perspectives you don't really understand are unreliable until the end of the narrative, and it makes you fonder of them for all their self-doubt and strength in the face of hardships they try to downplay.

[lamortwrites]

SAREVOK TAMOKO DURGE AND GORT PARALLELS!!!!!!!!!! durge and xvim!!!! I can’t

OKAY I HAVE TO PREFACE THIS BY SAYING. I am on team cleric of Xvim Tamoko I have not been active in any bg1 spaces probably since I was a teenager I do not know what the fandom consensus of her deity was but I DO remember that it was never actually confirmed in game (do I think the plan was for her to become Sarevok's Chosen? Maybe. Maybe the original plan after Sarevok's apotheosis was to help Tamoko push someone else off of the throne she wanted. You know, much like a popular durgetash theory ;))

ANYWAY the point is. Tamoko was a cleric of Iyachtu Xvim to me. So imagine being me running around as an amnesiac Bhaalspawn and finding out I USED TO HAVE FEELINGS FOR A BANITE? Already. AlREADY the wheels are turning. Already I am going HMM. THIS FEELS FAMILIAR.

And like...obv this is all up to interpretation and kinda depends on your choices in your own playthroughs but. Gort being so happy for you if you shake off Bhaal's influence? Vs him jumping straight to pragmatism and well guess you have to die for me if you won't be my ally? And then later w the brain, the theory that he knew the stones weren't working and chose to try and take the hit for you even though you don't remember him or any of what you had, maybe even showed up w a new lover? Compared to Tamoko being so willing to die for Sarevok just bc he told her to, even though he'd strayed so far from the man she loved? Did Gort know durge planned to betray him in the end? Would he have been willing to die for them?

And YEAH the durge/Xvim parallels are...SO tasty. Durge being born before Bhaal was even resurrected? Were they supposed to be his ticket back to godhood like how Bane did it? The fact that durge is technically a cambion too... Like, did pre tadpole durge chafe against their leash? WERE they planning on patricide? Was that the real reason for the lobotomy?

There's just. Idk there's something really poetic to me about Sarevok changing so much that he is unmoved by Tamoko's death vs durge having the potential to change so much that they are unmoved by Gortash's...

Also. I would save the man within the beast he wishes to be. You know. Which couple am I talking about here.

[littlemourningstarr]

Kyle thought it was an euphemism when Roy suggested they go camping together. But no. Roy actually takes him camping. Kyle hates it. He has mosquito bites where no mosquito bites should be.

Jason could also be there idk. He doesn't like camping either (he CAN rough it but why would he) but he DOES like watching Kyle suffer

Gods forgive me for probably mutilating Kyle's chatacter. First time writing him I think!

Kyle grimaced as he nearly twisted his ankle, tripping on a large root. He cursed the fucking thing, reaching up to swipe his hair back.

This was not how his weekend was supposed to go. When Roy had asked him to go camping he'd assumed it was a poorly disguised excuse to share a sleeping bag for a few nights, get a little cozy.

Had taken the fucker long enough to make a move. Kyle had been damn near at his limit dropping hints.

So imagine his surprise when he'd been dragged not to a quint little camp site but the middle of ever loving fuck nowhere- and they didn't even get to share a tent!

"You gonna make it Rayner?" Kyle glanced behind him, saw Jason was sneering at him, bemusement speckled all over his face.

To top off what was quickly becoming the worst weekend of his life- he wasn't even alone with Roy.

"You could use that pretty ring and just float on up the trail." Jason walked up to him, thick thighs straining in his hiking shorts- and oh Kyle hadn't brought the right clothes for this either. His thighs were chafing from how short his shorts were.

And the bug bites.

"Shut up," Kyle mumbled, not even wanting to look at Jason. The bastard could've tipped him off that Roy meant to actually camp, to rough it. He could've been a decent friend-

Jason shrugged him off, moving past him to catch up to Roy, slinging his arm over the redheads shoulders. Kyle could see the sweat glistening on Roy's neck, his hair tied up in a messy knot. It was dampening his tank top, between his shoulderblades.

Kyle could imagine licking it right off him.

He grunted, trying to push the thought aside. Last thing he needed was to have to finish the hike in too tight denim shorts and a fucking hard cock. As if he wasn't being punished enough.

He hurried to catch up, and Roy positively grinned at him, that charming smile that could stop hearts and spread legs. Maybe if Kyle played his cards right, he could turn this trip around. If he just got him at the right time...

Kyle felt a prick on his arm and smacked at a mosquito. "Little fucker."

"Careful, they'll eat you alive." Roy kept that grin as he spoke, but something about those eyes flashed for a moment- And oh, Kyle wouldn't mind if Roy would just eat him alive.

[halfamask]

Ok more mokuba serenity friendship stuff! No one asked but me but that’s who this blog is for!

Mokuba and serenity kinda happy that their brothers know about their friendship bc it’s not like they were keeping it secret but they weren’t exactly telling seto/Joey whom they were hanging out with either. Also bc it leads to great moments like “seto if you don’t go help fight yugi’s world domination set villain of the month I’ll tell serenity to tell Joey that you have a blue eyes plushie” and “Joey if you don’t help me clean this goddamn apartment so help me god I will tell mokuba to tell seto about the time you slipped and fell face first into your dinner plate”

Mokuba and serenity going to the mall together and serenity giving him fashion advice bc she’s a well dressed queen and his main fashion inspiration is unfortunately seto and business casual capes don’t really fit the high schooler aesthetic.

But serenity is used to being dirt poor and still has that mindset when she shops but plays it off super well she is the window shopping queen of “omg this is so cute I would commit unspeakable crimes to have this” *puts it back* She doesn’t necessarily resent having to do that but Mokuba “grew up taught that money and power are better than love” Kaiba adds particularly nice things to his mental “potentially buy as a birthday present and lie about the price tag” list.

Serenity is more well adjusted among normal society and kids than Mokuba so she’s definitely the one pretending to not notice that he’s alone in the classroom and no she totally just happened to pop in because she forgot something and “omg Mokuba you left your pencil case too? Anyway we’re going out for karaoke/shopping/boba/food hurry up and find it or you’ll be late!”

Much to Joey and Seto’s chagrin Yugi knew about this friendship wayyyy before they did. He’s seen them out before at malls/cafes/whatever and he’s always been friendly with them so he’ll stop by to say hi and he doesn’t mention it to Joey/kaiba bc he’s #not a narc, plus they actually seem like pretty good friends. Once instead of Yugi it’s atem that shows up and Mokuba’s head is spinning bc there’s something different about him right now and This is the guy that his brother totally does not have a crush on (found out about seto x atem yesterday leaning all the way into it)

Even though their sweet tooth is just the initial way they bond they totally research the cafes with the best cakes and will go to whole different cities just to try one dessert. Seto’s actually really glad mokuba has someone to do this with (bc he’s fs a “can’t eat sweets I need a protein shake” bro) and he can admit it’s nice to see his brother out of his shell. And Joey will never admit it under the pain of torture but he relaxes a bit knowing his baby sister is safe under kaibacorp bodyguards when she goes out bc he’s overprotective and so is seto but with more funds

Idk Joey and Seto not coming to love each other by any means but understanding each other better through their more well adjusted siblings. Never acknowledging it but bonding slightly over the fact that they succeeded, all their struggle so that their siblings could be carefree and laugh and be slightly normal worked and their friendship does in fact prove it. Also both being so overprotective that their siblings chafe against it and serenity-mokuba fs complain about their big bros together and Joey-seto don’t exactly share a commiserating grin but their long suffering eye roll at each other will do.