#its almost 2k words whoops

[grollow]

Grimm put up a good fight😌for the prompt asks I would like to see him and Hollow with something from a series of "firsts". IE, first kiss, first hand hold, first time accidentally setting one of the Dirtmouth houses on fire, ect ect. Just one of those things will do, anything ya want! I like fluffy "first" prompts 💖💕

I'm not back from my mini hiatus but I wrote this in record time and I don't know if you see my Ao3 updates or not so I wanted you to see it. <3

b u r n || AO3

If there is anything that I have learned, in all of my years, throughout lifetime after lifetime after lifetime, it is that nothing ever truly stays buried.

Not truths. Not lies. 

And most certainly not a hurt so deep that I find myself impressed it hasn’t a smell. 

It is a tangible thing, the way that it clings to its every motion. It is a myriad of shadows and regret and it drips off it. I am reminded, continuously, of the great sheets of water carried by the devastating storms that blow in parts of the wastelands beyond. 

Those are places it has never seen; that few, if any, in this kingdom have. 

I would invite it to come with me, if I thought it would accept. It will not. 

Its place is here, in this dying kingdom that moulded it from the fathomless void below. An artisan, that Wyrm – I cannot deny that part of me is jealous at the sheer marvel of creation his vessels are.

I have a favourite one, though, and it is not my summoner.

It is instead the creature that my summoner rescued, when it scaled the Godseeker’s mountainous challenge in order to blot the sun from the sky.

I should be more bitter, perhaps. My Ritual remains incomplete. I do not know if it will return and that is a problem for me. The child remains dormant in the charm, left in my tents, awaiting its return – and I am distracted instead by its birth-cursed sibling, pock-marked with scars and peppered with burns that Soul should long have healed.

I do not think it can channel anymore.

This is, perhaps, the source of its predicament: it is standing in front of its old prison and assaulting my senses all over again with a depth of feeling that makes me question the merit in the Wyrm’s so-called foresight. If my eyes can see the cloak of regret that it wears, surely his could have as well if he’d but known to look.

Ah, but perhaps that is unkind of me: we are ever slaves to sentiment and it is not uncommon for someone to see what they wish to see. I am no stranger to such concepts. I see what I want to with it as well. I see a creature with potential to be so much more. I see pain that can find closure, if guided by deft hands. I see a strength unmatched by any that I have ever beheld, and I am at once enamoured and intimidated. I do not spook easily but it seared and burnt without breaking.

It is impressive.

It is also trying with abject futility to do something with sticks that I can only guess the purpose for. 

“Hello, my friend,” I greet it  softly and I stay out of its reach.

Sneaking up on someone who has hurt for so long and with no relief is not wise. Sneaking up on someone with a particular grievance with those who have an affinity for dreams is even less so. I give it the space it requires.

It turns back to me. I can make no emotion out in its mask and that is by design. Its siblings are both the same, although the spider’s tones when she speaks have plenty of inflection - more than enough to deliver intent. 

I wonder what it thinks of me. What it beholds when it looks upon another… vessel of a fashion. We are not entirely different in that regard, but the origin and motivations between our natures are worlds apart.

It watches me with an intensity that I find at once daunting and incredibly fascinating.

This is not our first meeting. The spider dragged it out of the Black Egg and to my tents. I am more qualified to help deal with injuries wrought in dream than any other and, as loathe as she was to admit it, I was the best option that she had for help. We bandaged it together and she never let her eyes leave mine. She introduced the two of us and when the deed was done, she took it away. I assume to a house in Dirtmouth. I did not ask.

I am not exactly welcome by the locals.

I saw it descend into the well when I was talking to the steeds. I will not lie: I followed out of curiosity for its purpose.

This place must bring back a lot of memories for it. It has, after all, known very little else and every other place that it spent time is long gone.

I let my gaze go up to the Temple. It is carved in the husk of a great void beast and enchanted with seals that, even in their darkened state, are impressive. There are tangled veins of withered, dead infection: brown and mottled instead of the sickly orange-gold that I know was once here. The pustules yet remain, hanging off the building as a macabre reminder of the prisoner’s previous state.

I think that it should not be here. 

My opinion, however, is not one that it has any obligation to listen to.

“What are you doing?” I ask, and I close the distance once I am sure that I have not startled it. I have practice dealing with people who have been badly traumatised. My Troupe is often alluring to individuals of that nature. It is no different in that regard. 

It holds up a stick for me to see and then looks down again. I cannot shake the feeling that the motion is one born of shame. It was supposed to not think or feel, I recall – to be truly empty, to be the perfect shell its sire needed. It is none of those things, and it is embarrassed by that. Hence the weight worn over it, a mantle to be crushed beneath.

I do not understand its meaning. Perhaps I am not meant to.

“Does your sister know that you are here?”

It does not answer. Not in a nod or a headshake, though I am fully aware it is capable of both. It stares instead at the stick in its hand. 

There are rocks beneath its hand on the ground, and they have clearly been moved there from their previous positions.

I know what I am looking at.

“Are you attempting to make a fire?” I ask, my hands lacing together under my cape. When I stand this way, I appear smaller. It is much bigger than I am, but both hunched and crouched, I practically tower over it and there is something in its demeanour that suggests it would rather itself disappear as well. 

A broken thing, the Hollow Knight. 

I am given an answer in the form of a nod and I allow myself to chuckle.

“To burn the Temple?”

Another nod. 

I hold my hand out, then; it is an invitation. 

“How big of a fire would you like?” 

It cocks its head to the side. It does not know if it can trust me. In fact, it probably thinks that it should not. After everything it has been through, I cannot fault it. It does take my hand and let me help it stand and I consider that to be a victory.

Its head inclines toward the building. I cannot see where it is looking, not really, beyond the structure, but my feeling is that it probably…

… wants quite a large one.

Or at least, I would want a very large pyre indeed, if I were confronted with a place that housed my worst memories.

“Stand back, if you please,” I request, and it is obedient: it complies by taking enough steps back that I wonder if it is running. It is not. It watches me.

What kind of performer would I be, if I did not give it a worthy show?

I held my hand above my head and offered it a very satisfying snap. The fire on the building ignited in the same moment: crackling flames, dancing freely up the sides in a scarlet that put my eyes to shame. 

I drop my hand to my side and look back over my shoulder. It creeps closer, until it is at my side, but it is spellbound. I do not need to see its eyes to know that they are trained on the dancing light consuming the shell. Burn. Burn.

“Bigger?” I ask and I smile. It nods without looking my way and I curve my wrist; I pull my fingers closer and the roar of the flames becomes louder yet still.

The shell is strong. It is not particularly vulnerable to heat and yet with enough effort –

I heard it crack. I heard the top of the shell – the de facto roof, really – cave in and embers fell into the middle chambers. From there, it was only a matter of time until the inferno took hold.

“There is catharsis in saying goodbye to the things that have caused us pain,” I tell it and it does not look at me. I move over to the side, so that I am close enough to touch, and then lean my head over to rest against its side. “I would be your friend, if you would allow me.”

It does not look at me. I did not expect it to.

I also did not expect its hand to snake down and lace its fingers with mine, but it does: it curls them into the spaces where mine are.

I smile wider. With my free hand, I coax the flames to dance ever higher for it to watch. They crackle and offer a very satisfying pop.

It will not take long to burn it to ash.

I will stay with it until then. I have ever loved having a rapt audience. 

[chaithetics]

Sticky Notes and Explorations

Pairing: Nathan Bateman x fem (afab) reader (reader has vaginismus) Word count: 4.8K Dividers by @saradika-graphics Warning: 18+ MDNI, smut, Nathan being Nathan-ish lol? Reader has vaginismus some paragraphs about that and mentions of dilators and pelvic physio. There are no other physical descriptions of reader other than afab body parts. Run on sentences, sorry! A/N: This is my first time writing Nathan so bear with me and be kind please, he's making me unwell 😭 brain fog is still bad post-surgery so if it's extra bad I'm sorry! Most of this wasn't proof read... Sorry! Really started to hate it after 2K words and almost deleted it whoops. Thank you to @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction for letting me talk about the Nathan thoughts Comments and reblogs are appreciated and encouraged 🫶 Please validate me.

Nathan’s brow furrowed and his face shifted into a scowl as he noticed a pale orange sticky note on an empty section of the wall, it was excluded from his mural of notes. It caught his attention,

disgustingly so, just as you knew it would. Physio, back in the afternoon :) was scrawled out in bright pink ink in your handwriting, it was a nauseating combination, he already felt a headache coming on and it had nothing to do with the beer he’d drunk last night. He’d still start another detox today, may as well he thought. 

It perplexed him why you’d gone in the first place and not because he didn’t take your health seriously, he did of course, just in his own unique Nathan way. It was more that Nathan just couldn’t understand why you’d want to leave the compound, he could have any medical practitioner, the best of the best, flown out to his estate to treat you. No waiting rooms with randos or sick people, wait times, bad radio music and ads to uncomfortably sit through. He could have any practitioner flown out and starting treatment or an examination at the snap of his fingers. 

You’d told Nathan several times now that despite how much he loved staying in the isolated compound, it was nice to leave sometimes and well… see people. It wasn’t something he could see the appeal in and it would be another conversation you’d have when you come back. 

Nathan wouldn’t say it but he also felt moodier as you’d elusively left bed without him knowing and he didn’t get a kiss. Well, he did, technically. After seeing your note he sat at his desk and watched the security footage, you’d kissed his forehead before he left which sure, might’ve been a sweet thought but he didn’t count it as you hadn’t woken him up, a real goodbye would’ve been thoughtful he mutters to himself. But you both know, he would’ve grumbled into the pillow if you’d woken him up but he still liked those moments, Nathan was just a brat who liked to act moody no matter what. 

It’s sprawling acres of luscious greenery below on the helicopter flight back, it always is but it still never ceases to amaze you when you see it. Nathan’s estate was large, the compound was isolated into its own bubble which was annoying at times you couldn’t fault him for choosing somewhere so rich in greens and tall trees to hide away in. 

It’s quiet when you finally go inside, minus the usual programmed notes that fill the air. The glass maze of the compound is filled with natural light, it makes the space feel warmer. When you could imagine it would easily feel unwelcoming and cold to anyone else who could walk these floors. 

Nathan tilts his head as he rounds a corner to stand in front of you as you walk in. 

“How did you sleep?” You take your shoes off as you ask. 

“Fine enough.” He then pinches the bridge of her nose. “You didn’t wake me.” 

It’s a statement but it almost feels like a question, you look away from your shoes to look at him and see his big brown eyes that make you smile and almost a pout on his lips. You offer him a small smile and nod as you walk more into the scientific home. 

 “You know, I can get someone to come here and do the appointments right?” 

“Yes, I know.” You smile softly and let out a small sigh, it’s a conversation you have each week, his lack of awareness is borderline amusing. “But I like her, she’s great.” 

“I don’t know if you realise this…” He tilts his head and waves his hands sarcastically as if he’s going to reveal something life changing. “But I can pay her to come out here, there’s a functioning helicopter, you’re familiar with it.” 

“I don’t know if you realise this,” you chuckle at the bluntness of his words and try to speak with the exact same sarcastic tone as his. “But sometimes, it can be nice to leave the compound…” You bite your lip playfully as you take your coat off. 

“Well, now I know you’re sick, really sick and obviously misdiagnosed. You’re seeing the wrong experts.” There’s a tone of slight disgust in his voice, he speaks as if the idea of leaving his scientific oasis shrouded by greenery and water is the most insane and upsetting thing he’s ever heard. You roll your eyes and sit down on the sofa, putting your bag down. 

“What is that?” He points his finger and waves it as he looks at the box peeking out of your bag.  

“They’re uh, dilators.” You say as you look up at him while he stands by you. 

“Why did you buy them? I could’ve made them, let me look.” 

“Not you or anyone in your team is a pelvic physiotherapist or gynaecologist.” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, but they also don’t know your vagina like I do.” Nathan rolls his eyes and scoffs, he almost seems insulted, which shouldn’t surprise you but it does.

A dry chuckle escapes you at his words, they’re so crude and blunt. Your eyebrows raise as you look up at him, comfortably sinking more into the soft sofa as his large hands pick up your bag and pull out the box with the dilators in them. 

It was your third time having one of those appointments, but it was something you’d struggled with for many years. You didn’t even realise it was a ‘problem’ for so long. It was somewhat normalised to not even look at a tampon for a few years after your first period, so it wasn’t really something you immediately discovered. Your periods weren’t fun but who had fun periods, right? Only people in pad commercials. 

It took a few years, you were happy to ignore tampons during the first few menstruating years. But after that you opened that first box of tampons, studying the instructions and small educational illustrations on the folded up paper, you’d had no luck. It made you feel weird and gave you a sense of shame you couldn’t speak about so you didn’t. You spent years quietly using pads and almost feeling like you were missing out on something. 

In college, a period had come early and you asked your roommate if she had anything on her, she’d casually given you a tampon and you felt your abdomen become uncomfortable and your pelvic floor apprehensively tighten. You’d moved into that awkward position over the toilet that was supposed to relax you and make it easier but not to your surprise, you’d had no luck. It hurt and felt awful, your body had tensed up more and the more deep breaths you took, the more you seemed to clamp up. 

It wasn’t an issue with the tampon, something you’d tried to tell yourself for years. You felt ashamed and embarrassed in this, the first thought that entered your head was no, it’s something wrong with you. One that persisted for longer than you’d like to admit. 

“This silicone isn’t good enough,” Nathan’s words bring you back to the present and your eyebrows twitch at his words, his eyes are squinted as he reads the box and holds a dilator in his hand, of course he went for the biggest one. 

“But it’s the one with the physio recommended, it was the ‘higher-end’ option-” You say feeling confused and almost frustrated at what was either Nathan being Nathan or another failure of women’s healthcare. 

“Yeah, but your vagina deserves better than silicone that you buy from a doctor’s office-” 

“Physio-” “You just proved my point even more.” His voice drips with arrogance and you sigh leaning into the sofa even more, it might just swallow you in a minute which wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience. 

“You’re so romantic,” you tease and he nods. “Yeah, yeah I am.” He sits down on the sofa next to you, 

It all kind of surprises you honestly, it still does but he really surprised you at the start. Dating has always made you extremely anxious because vaginismus threw a big spanner in the works. When you were diagnosed after years of silent struggling and worrying, it wasn’t quite the relief you’d imagine a diagnosis would be. It made dating feel more stressful, that something needed to be disclosed and there wasn’t a large time window of appropriate timing. 

Even as an adult, it still felt like something that was difficult to talk about and with each date it had been a scary thing as it felt like it would be a dealbreaker for most people. You had assumed Nathan Bateman would be in that boat, the first impression he left definitely wasn’t a “That’s cool, we’ll take it slow!” vibe. He’d surprised you though, the stigma you’d felt about it for as long as you started to think of it was a problem just didn’t exist with him. 

When you didn’t believe his surprising response he’d reassured you it was an opportunity to explore other things if you wanted and he’d said he could look at a list of options for healthcare you’d never even heard of. Surprisingly there wasn’t any pressure, but you’d eventually made the choice to start with pelvic physiotherapy. That was still scary but it seemed like a good practical first step. A much better and realer step than taking deep breaths or drinking wine like you’d been told by some doctors before. 

Nathan tilts his head, you pinch his nose as you watch his face, like clockwork his nose screws up, scrunching his face. 

“That’s not as cute as you think it is.” He says tilting his head away. 

“Sure.” 

“I’m serious, I’m honestly surprised you haven’t stabbed me in the back thinking you’d get away with it because of your cute privilege.” He teases you, feigning complete seriousness. 

You chuckle and shake your head slightly. Nathan moves closer to press a soft kiss to your forehead. 

“I’m going to do some work, don’t conspire against me. I’m not in the mood for AI or Caesar and Brutus role playing today, it’s not what my hardware’s going for today.” He says as he gets up, he gives your hand a slight squeeze, he rubs his forehead and leaves the room, casually exiting with “I’ll be good, I promise.” 

It’s later in the afternoon now, some sunlight is trickling through the gaps in the leaves and branches of the trees outside and it comes through with the open nature of the compound’s design. You’re sitting down listening to an audiobook with your headphones on tapping away at your keyboard as your eyes focus on the screen in front of you, missing Nathan’s entrance. 

He walks in, tapping your shoulder behind you, it startles you and you jump on the couch. You whip your head around to look over your shoulder and give him a glare before taking a deep breath and trying to lower your heart rate. 

The headphones are quickly pulled off of you and he places them down on the coffee table as he makes his way around the sofa to then stand in front of you. He’s holding something in his hand, it’s almost a pale blue, you have no idea what it is. 

“Ready for something cool?” He asks softly with a small smile. “Mmm?” You hum out, looking up at him as you close your laptop screen. 

“This,” he holds the blue thing in his hands in front of you, it has some loose straps at the bottom and it looks to have different ridges and textures on it. “What is it?” 

“Well the perverts call it a grinder, honey,” he says softly but his eyes are burning smugly as he starts to quirk his mouth up into a shit eating grin. 

You feel your eyes widen as you look up from the grinder to Nathan and your cheeks start to heat up. “You’re a pervert…” 

“Tomato, Tomato.” He shrugs. “But sure. I was thinking and looking over some stuff-”

“Yeah, but no matter what you say I still feel like you get your information from medical papers AND Reddit.” You interrupt. 

“Don’t put me down like that, especially when you’re interrupting me.” He pouts mockingly. “But look at it, no penetration, isn’t that fucking perfect?” 

You look at it and feel your cheeks heat up the longer you do. 

“When they say ‘he loved her to the point of invention’, I don’t think this is what they mean…” You shy;y whisper as you look at it, intentionally not meeting his eyes. It’s an odd shape and has different textures and ridges all over it. 

“I like that, that’s very… well, poetic.” He says almost thoughtfully as his beautiful brown eyes focus on you.  

“I didn’t say-” “I know it’s a quote from elsewhere.” He cuts you off smugly and sighs dramatically. He’s still proud of his intelligence and capabilities. He’s a god amongst men after all. 

“Let’s give it a go my little test bunny,” he tilts his head and teases. “That’s not funny.” You say as you finally look up at him and meet his eyes, they quickly become a little bit kinder and less smug. 

Nathan chuckles and sits down, he starts to tug at and adjust his sweatpants as he sits down. He carefully straps the grinder onto his thigh and then turns his attention to you. He smirks and raises his dark eyebrows. 

“Come on, saddle up cowgirl, your uh sexual chariot awaits.” He says smugly and pats his thigh. 

“What?” Your cheeks burn up even more at his words, if someone touched them now they’d think you have a fever. You physically feel your eyes widen in both shock and a feeling of embarrassment at his words. 

You’d grinded on him before, his strong thighs sure. It was something Nathan had no problem with, he loved it when you’d use his body like that for your pleasure. It was something he didn’t just love but also encouraged. It had also always been something much more comfortable and less painful than penetration. 

“It vibrates and we’ve had several conversations about vibrations helping to desensitise and I read-” 

“Did you read it on reddit?” You ask. 

“Don’t deflect.” He sighs and shakes his head. “Only I’m allowed that tactic here.” 

Nathan puts his thumb and index finger on your chin and tilts your face so you’re looking into his pretty puppy dog eyes. He can be annoying at times but they turn you into mush. “We don’t have to.” He whispers and rubs your chin gently. “And if we do… We can go as slow as you want, we can stop whenever you want, stop if it ever gets close to almost hurting or feeling uncomfortable. You’ll uh dictate, call the shots like a sexy little compound dictator.”

“You were saying something so unusually sweet and then that happened.” You chuckle softly. He still has his fingers on your chin, he tilts your head more and then brings his face closer and kisses you. 

Nathan’s lips are soft and pillowy, they perfectly meld against yours in a soft kiss that he slowly deepens. You place your hands on his shoulders as his tongue gently presses into your mouth, heat courses through his body as you open your mouth for him and he feels your tongue. 

His hand moves to the back of your neck, it’s warm and firm. He moans into your mouth and your cheeks heat up, you smile against his lips as you two continue to kiss. You feel Nathan's hands move to the waist of your dress, his fingers run over the soft fabric before they travel further down. 

You groan against his lips and breath in shakily as his fingers reach the hem of the fabric and his hands start to slowly push the material up to around your waist. Nathan gently manoeuvres you to straddle his thigh. 

“I want you to feel good…” He whispers in a low tone, he opens his eyes and blinks slowly, he looks at you and you feel butterflies squirm in your stomach at the look of his chocolate eyes half-lidded from pleasure and need. 

He slips a hand down between your legs and runs his thumb over your vulva, he watches your face before lightly running it through your folds. You let out a soft moan at that and then a louder one as his digit explores more of you externally. He’s watching your face and body as his fingers feel you become wet, you can’t help but let out a string of more moans as his fingers continue to light you up perfectly. Nathan’s in complete awe of how good you look and watching each microexpression to make sure it’s all pleasure and not a single look of pain. 

Blinking slowly, you nod as you rub your hands gently over his shoulders for a moment and nod, you let him fully manoeuvre you onto his thick thigh as he presses the skirt of the dress up more and lowers you down onto the grinder. 

Your brow furrows a little and your cheeks heat up as you can feel the ridges against your folds, you place your hands on his shoulder and chest to help support yourself against him as you lean to the left a little and start to rub slowly. 

A small gasp escapes as you feel pleasure start to build, it doesn’t hurt with it just being external but there’s something about the slight incline designed there and the ridges that made that feel so good. More good than you would’ve thought. 

“How’s that?” He whispers, watching in awe as you start to slowly move.

You gasp and nod, letting out a small moan. “Mm, yeah… It doesn’t-it doesn’t hurt…” 

“Good…” he nods and moans, he leans back on the sofa slightly and looks up at you as you keep moving slowly, getting used to the new toy and how it makes your whole body feel. 

Nathan places one of his large hands onto your hips, he feels your skin and caresses it softly, letting his hand trail down to your hip where he rubs small circles onto you. You can feel your cheeks heating up at this, it’s a different feeling and new. 

“Do you want to try the vibrator now?” He whispers. 

You bite your lip and nod. “Yes… Yes, I really do Nathan…” You whisper breathlessly, feeling your body flutter in anticipation. Your head falls back and you let out a moan as you feel the vibrations start to buzz against your clitoris and folds. It’s not too much pressure, it’s a great level to start at and you’re appreciative of that because it feels amazing, you can feel yourself becoming wetter and the ball of release waiting to unwind now. 

You rock your hips slowly as it buzzes through, you’re testing the waters and lightly scratching his head as you do so. You take a shaky breath as you feel the different textures, the slight raises, ridges and as the vibrations travel through your body and hit your core. 

Nathan lets out a groan at the feeling of your nails against his scalp and closes his eyes. His hands rub your hips gently, guiding you and you press your head against his shoulder, starting to moan slightly as the sensitive nerves come to life with the heat of pleasure. Your forehead burrows into him more as you feel Nathan adjust it to slightly increase the intensity of the vibrations, you let out a whine at the feeling. It tingles deliciously and you bite your lip. 

He’s watching your expressions, making sure it never gets too much. He’s done this for your enjoyment, he wants you to feel good and for this not to put too much pressure or stress on you and possibly cause a pelvic floor flare up. 

Nathan feels your hot breath tickle against his shoulder as you moan and muffle, the feeling of that, of knowing that he’s responsible for this, for giving you this kind of pleasure and getting to bask in it makes his cock throb as he watches you and listens to your musical moans. 

He puts his hand to your cheek and tilts your head away from his shoulder, he loves feeling your moans as well as hearing them but now he needs to feel your lips. He tilts your head closer to meet his mouth and your lips collide in a messy, frenzy kiss. 

Both of you are consumed with pleasure and passion and it shows in the meeting of your lips, your tongues delve into each other's mouths in a frenzied dance. You moan against his mouth as you keep moving against the grinder and it feels so good, you’ve never felt anything like it before and the combination of that with Nathan’s lips is the hottest thing ever. 

He keeps deepening the kiss, Nathan is head over heels and seeks contact however he can get it, he loves having you like this and feeling your tongue against his, your breath mixing into you both panting as one in each other’s embrace. 

It’s the stuff of dreams. His dreams. His wet dreams. 

You both continue to kiss and then Nathan pulls away slightly. “How does it feel, baby?” He whispers and you feel the breath of his words tickle your kiss swollen lips. 

“Good… So good, Nate…” You whisper between moans as you keep rocking your hips. 

“Does it hurt?” He asks in a low gravelly voice as he blinks slowly while watching you, you shake your head in response. 

“Not at all.” 

Nathan nods. “Good.” 

Nathan keeps one hand on your hip as the other hand then reaches down to free himself. He looks up at you with his big brown eyes and grips his length. It’s already aching, it never takes long for him to get worked up. Nathan gives himself a slow pump, you feel a shiver in your spine as your body tingles in anticipation and you watch with bated breath as he does. 

“Spit.” 

It’s a soft command that you follow, you blink slowly and tilt your head down just over his tip and spit down onto the head of his angry cock. It twitches as you do, he lets out a loud moan, feeling incredibly turned on at both the sight and feeling of that. 

His eyes closed for a moment, his thick, dark lashes fanning against his cheeks as he tilted his head and his groans, squeezing his now lubricated cock with his hand. He starts to pump himself now and you let out a moan watching, you can’t tear your eyes away and it’s an erotic feast for your eyes as you keep grinding against the toy, feeling yourself getting closer and closer to your peak. 

Those charming, big brown eyes open again, they’re half-lidded as he looks at you, watching you. His breathing is slow and heavy as he keeps pumping himself, the sounds coming from you both are filthy and heavy in the air. 

You reach a hand down to lightly tug at his tip just as he likes, Nathan lets out a loud moan at that, bucking his hips a little for more friction with your gentle, soft hands. You moan and bite your lip at his response, you start to pump him as well and he moans watching you, his hand moving to his base and heavy balls as he keeps watching the pretty sight on his lap. 

It doesn’t take long at all for him to get there, his length is throbbing and on the verge of being perfectly milked by your hands and he’s loving the feeling of you on him. On his dick with your hands, on his leg, rubbing yourself to climax. He knows you’re getting close and that’s making him close. 

After a couple of minutes of pumping him, he can’t hold back anymore. He needs release and his cock is already leaking pre come, lubricating him even more by coating all over his length with your spit. He thrusts his hips up and whines out loudly, Nathan pants and cries. “Fuck… baby… Fuck…” He whines as he comes all over your hand and his toned stomach. 

He pants heavily, his face looking flustered and he looks up at you with heavy eyes and you smile, feeling your cheeks burning up. It’s all so hot and his release has just turned you on even more. You know you’re on the verge too and you’re glad because there’s not really any pain so far. 

“I think I’m getting…” You pant out. 

“Close? Not too much?” He asks softly as he has one hand on himself and the other on your hip, gently helping you rock yourself on top of him. 

“Mm, close. It’s good.” You moan and rock your hips more, trying to get a bit more of the ridges near the top to rub against your clitoris, you know that’s what will push you over the edge with these vibrations. 

You keep rocking as the vibrations make you sing with moans and you squeeze his shoulders and look at him with wide eyes before shutting them tightly in pleasure. 

You shake slightly in his lap as your release builds up to the peak and the waves of pleasure crash over you and your body feels hot as you come and release. You cry out and moan as you orgasm on the grinder and his thigh. He stops the vibrations knowing that overstimulation and post-orgasm can make vaginismus hurt more and flare up. You’re still gripping onto his shoulders and you pant, trying to recover your breath. 

He caresses your cheek as you both pant and he presses a gentle kiss to your lips and rubs your back. “Feeling okay? You did so good, you really did baby.” 

You nod and rest your head against his chest as you feel his heart hammer away like a loud drum, you’re not sure who has the higher heart rate as you move off of the grinder and cuddle him. 

**********************

It had been a week since the first grinder experiment on the couch, it was later in the evening. You were just getting into bed, having come from a nice long bath to try and help relax your pelvic floor and soothe some of the discomfort you’d had that day. 

“There.” Nathan throws something onto the bed. 

“Hmm? What is it?” You look over at him, not paying much attention to the objects. 

“It’s the better dilators.” He says matter of factly in the most casual way possible. 

You raise your eyebrows, trying to suppress a chuckle but it comes out within seconds. You look at them curiously with a smile. 

“This is more of what I was expecting for your gynaecological experiments than a grinder, but knowing you, I should’ve expected the grinder first.” You say and pick up one of the new dilators. 

“I think they have to go through some kind of review process technically?” You ask looking over at him. 

“You didn’t have that concern for the grinder.” He responds smugly with a devilish grin and you feel your cheeks heat up. “But don’t worry, that’s why it took so long, all those stupid doctors with ill-judged priorities. I had a physio in New York, Stockholm, and three gynaecologists approved it. Good enough for you?” He tilts his chin down and raises his eyebrows. 

“Four would’ve been ideal, but I’ll take it.” You say with a chuckle but still sigh dramatically as you look at the dilators which just makes him shake his head and sit down on the bed. They’re lighter, the material does feel a bit nicer but there wasn’t really anything wrong with the material of the first ones you’d brought. You do notice that they’re a bit smaller which makes you smile, even the smallest in the other pack still felt quite big and had given you anxiety. This feels more reassuring, something you know would’ve been why Nathan made this design choice. 

“The sizes?” You whisper. 

“Yeah, I thought smaller would be more manageable and easier for easing in.” He says casually and then explains the design and material choices as you nod along, touched by the unique gesture. 

“That’s kind of sweet, thank you, you weirdo.” You smile and kiss his cheek. Nathan unusually so, doesn’t say anything but he smiles enjoying the feeling of your soft lips against his. He wouldn’t freely admit it to anyone but it makes it all worth it to him. 

[attapullman]

INTRODUCTION: Just For Tonight One Night Only // series

A commitmentphobe and a serial dater meet in a bar. Then decide to have a one night stand. A relationship just for tonight.

All the paths they lead / To the single solemn place / Then we'll stay for a weekend / And leave without a trace - JUST FOR TONIGHT ONE NIGHT ONLY

Pairing: Robert "Bob" Floyd x Maggie Brentley (female!OC)

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: 18+ (minors and blank dni), alcohol, yearning, later chapters will have explicit language, smut, anxious attachment style, and angst

A Note From Mo: Hello, I am nervous about posting my first OC fic! This fic has turned so deeply personal while still being so unbelievably fun and goofy, so I can't believe it's finally ready to share with the world. Enjoy!

ONO MASTERLIST

Nothing is permanent.

But how Maggie Brentley wished some things were. Perfume on the skin. The sunset over the ocean. Her dog’s puppy coat. Not anything too substantial, but the little moments that make life special. A smile to be enjoyed at any time without the sorrow when it leaves. 

Her whole life she had looked for something constant. A childhood shipped between military bases, the most consistent part of her upbringing had been the inevitable moving sign on their front lawn. The faces of friends had changed, neighbors had been replaced, and languages had swapped. Maggie just wanted something that was hers. Something that was forever.

And maybe holding onto a dream is how reality happens, sitting at this weathered Navy bar no better than the ones her dad and his colleagues hung out in, wearing her tightest jeans and too much mascara. Living this close to North Island almost felt comforting, all these men in uniform and the smell of engine fuel mixing with the sea air. It was a scent she’d happily enjoy for a lifetime.

Maggie chewed on her bottom lip as she surveyed the crowd. Close-cropped hair, biceps for days, not a scruff in sight. Exactly what she had come for. It wasn’t really a matter of if one of the uniformed men took her home, but which one. But for the love of all that is holy, could one of them please commit to happily ever after?

Her nails tap on the screen of her phone, the godforsaken app open to their messages all week. Some aviator hot shot who promised he could rock her world and show her the sky. His profile said he was looking for a long-term relationship and that was enough for her. When the bar is in the sand, find a guy who flies a plane. Worst case scenario he would buy her a well whiskey and soda and never talk again.

There’s a hand on the back of her barstool and suddenly a thick chest pushes into her line of sight as a man puts his tanned forearms on the bar. “Oh, Penny, my dear!” 

He could do. No ring, strong arms, the slick smile of a man who gets what he wants. Maggie’s hands fidget to straighten her top, make herself more open and alluring. The man casually looks to his left, unknowingly taking in the way she sips her sweating drink through its tiny straw and batted her lashes. But his sea glass eyes instantly drop away, uninterested. 

The man grabs his beers and heads back to the pool table, his group of khaki uniforms whooping and hollering loud enough to be heard through the bar. Maggie holds back the sigh she desperately wants to let out - a sound of defeat - and focuses again on waiting for her hot shot to text her back. Silence since last night, but her mother had always said she admired Maggie’s optimism. 

Any second now.

But when her first whiskey soda turned into two and a small clump of mascara collected under her eye, it was clear that hot shot had found another way to spend his evening. The evil part of her brain hoped it was in the infirmary with a full body cast. Or shipped out to a November in Oymyakon.

The ice in her glass melts a bit more - a sad excuse for a drink at this point - and Maggie knows she’s was avoiding the bartender’s questioning glance. Did she want to stay for a third? Between Hot Shot and the man with the sea glass eyes, any hopes of a self-confidence comeback were slim. Might as well pack it in and go home where at least her couch and dog would love her.

But despite the change Maggie disliked, everything happens for a reason. And that was how when she raised her hand to pay her tab, she accidentally smacked a cup of peanuts right out of some poor, unsuspecting man’s hand right onto the sandy, beer-covered floor.

“I am so sorry!” Her face floods with color as she leaps from her barstool. The man stands dumbstruck. Peanuts in his hand, gone the next. Without a second thought she’s crouching in jeans meant for standing, brushing nuts into the cup and hiding her embarrassment.

Most of the peanuts are swept up when Maggie sees khaki slacks kneel beside her, a large hand outstretched at the mess. “It’s okay, please don’t pick those up. I don’t even like peanuts that much.”

And when she looks up to apologize again - her cheeks hot and blooming with color - the freshest ocean blue washes over her. She didn’t know they made eyes that beautiful. Clear and honest, with a sliver of sapphire at the edges. The crafted frames resting on his nose only highlight their organic beauty. 

Words are lost on her lips, the last handful of peanuts falling back to the ground. Of all the Navy men in the world, she just had to hit the one with the prettiest eyes.

Before she’s even fully standing up Maggie’s waving down the bartender. Her elbow comes way too close to his face, another accident narrowly avoided. “Let me buy you another cup, that was full.” This whole situation is a disaster. He shakes his head, promising it’s fine. “Really, I insist.”

Her parents had always said she was too stubborn, too focused on having things how she thought they should be than accepting the world for how it was. Maggie would roll her eyes and say she just believed in fairness. If you destroy a guy’s cup of peanuts, you buy him another. Who cares if he doesn’t want one?

With a hesitant smile, the stranger takes the barstool next to hers. He falls into it, all limbs. She uses the support to hop up into the seat. Her original plans for the night might be dashed, but renewed optimism fills her senses at her new company. His face is warm and genuine. He looks like he steps out of the way for lady bugs. When it came to bed companions, he was looking promising.

“I’m Maggie,” she croaks, her hand shooting into the space between mechanically. Raised by a Navy General, she had a firm handshake before the third grade. Warm, calloused fingers slip around hers, palm zinging at the first touch. 

“Bob. Nice to meet you.”

Nothing is permanent.

It was a mantra Bob Floyd lived by every day. Every time he got up into that jet, it could be the last time. 

The temporary nature of it all was why he didn’t do relationships. The deployments, the constant moves. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been home for two holidays in a row. It was not only his own heart, but the hearts of others he was protecting when he said goodbye after a night between the sheets.

Attachments were messy. He was the best of the best, and any self-respecting WSO kept a tidy backseat. 

Plenty of squadrons had seen him deploy this method of dating - a girl never seen twice - and joked more than once that his call sign should be “One Night Only”. But he took their jesting in stride and continued to bade his goodbyes in the wee hours of the morning. When nothing was serious, no one got hurt.

So when he made his way back to the pool table and his cup of peanuts was assaulted, there was no harm in a little flirting. She had a too big smile and eyes that begged for conversation. But it was the mischievous grin when she slammed her card down to pay that kept him in his barstool, that familiar itch of want crawling up his spine.

Fresh peanuts in front of him and a full drink in front of her, Bob doesn’t realize he’s completely ditched his group until he hits the bottom of his cup. They’ve talked about different Naval bases they’ve lived on, whether pepperoni or sausage is better on pizza, and for the past few minutes she’s been guessing where his accent is from. She got it right on the first guess, but he’s enjoying watching her forehead crinkle as she goes through all the twangy states in her head. 

His mother had always told him he was too set in his ways, that sometimes a little hiccup or break in the routine actually benefitted in the long run. Bob had always rolled his eyes, there was a reason they were called routines. You could have a good time with just about anyone, his years of deployments were proof. Whatever this flirty bar conversation was, he enjoyed the moment for the temporary joy it brought, especially with Maggie’s outraged expression when he revealed where he grew up.

“That was my first guess!” Her hand shoots out and smacks the shoulder of his khaki uniform. The skin is hot where she touched him, a shot of warmth shoots down his arm fueled by flirty tension and whatever peppy retro track is blaring from the jukebox. Just as quickly, she tucks her palm back at her side with an almost guilty grin.

He can’t remember the last time he felt at ease in a crowded room.

Since initially sitting, Bob’s shoulders loosened and he’s practically on top of her with how far he’s leaned over during their conversation. Bright hazel eyes twinkle in the warm light, that mischievous sparkle beckoning him in.

“You want to get out of here?”

While Bob remained composed and lightly put his palm to the small of her back as he led them out, adrenaline rushed his system. The excitement of a new adventure ahead, of the unknown. The same energy as every time his front seater starts the engine. 

He heads toward a particularly thick throng of people in front of the entrance and his hand drops to let her go first. Maggie tugs his hand back, linking them together again - a zing of electricity! - and his fingers stray too close to the rounded seam of her impossibly tight jeans. The blood rushing to his lower extremities pleads to find out what those jeans look like on the floor. 

It’s an unseasonably warm night, the lightest breeze brushing the surrounding palms and loose sand. The absence of music and bodies and lights out here in the parking lot has Bob nervous. His eyes meet hers and a moment passes between the two amorous strangers. As if waiting for the other to come to their senses. 

It’s only one night. I’ll never see you again.

Bob motions to his truck, a small hopeful smile playing on his lips. “I’ll follow you?”

That obnoxiously wide grin splits open and lights up the dark lot. For the next twenty minutes his focus is solely on the taillights in front of him as North Island fills his rearview, her little sedan forking left onto Harbor Drive. His fingers drum against the steering wheel, the combination of road sounds and the staticky radio not enough to drown out his thumping heart. 

Blood rushes in his ears when they finally reach Maggie’s stucco-and-terracotta apartment a few blocks from the beach, the red paint on her door peeling. His hand makes its way to her hip - a comforting gesture -  as she unlocks the door and lets it slowly creak open. His sapphire eyes meet her hazel in the dim lamplight. 

Nothing is permanent, so let’s make the most of tonight. 

Now that you've met our players, who's ready for more? Our commitmentphobe and serial dater are almost here with their first chapter (which I promise is longer, there's a reason I made this a prologue)!

Since this is my first OC fic, I'm skipping a taglist and letting this find who wants it. But of course need to tag my babes who have been so supportive with this fic and the journey: @sorchathered @bobfloydsbabe @baezen @roosterforme

[goodlucktai]

i’ve got my eye on you

tmnt 2k12 pairing: don & mikey word count: 2k title borrowed from say yes to heaven by lana del ray

read on ao3

x

“Mikey?” Donnie says, hovering in the doorway uncertainly. “Can I talk to you?”

Mikey looks up from the dough he’s kneading with round eyes, more bewildered than anything. No one ever asks if they can talk to Mikey. His presence in his family’s lives is like sunlight falling on the planet, warm and touching everything and taken for granted. They can always talk to Mikey.

So Don’s question is a weird one, but Mikey doesn’t mention it.

“Pull up some counter, Dee,” he offers instead, patting at the one square foot of the surface that isn’t covered in flour. His fingers leave little clouds behind. “I’m almost done.”

Donnie props his hip against the island and leans there to watch his little brother work. Mikey’s ADHD is textbook in a lot of ways, unpredictable in many others; it’s definitely been a fun learning curve for his family. Don did a lot of research. He’s read that generally people with Mikey’s disorder tend to struggle with tasks like cooking, that it can be an outright Herculean task remembering to eat or even just mustering the energy to feed themselves.

But Mikey loves his kitchen. He gravitates towards it in all his different moods. It gives his pinballing thoughts and restless hands something constructive to focus on with a clear and present reward at the end.

Right now he seems pleased with the dough and gathers it up in a neat little ball before transferring it to a greased mixing bowl and covering it tightly with plastic wrap. When the bowl has been safely stored in the fridge to proof, Donnie joins Mikey in wiping down the counter, mostly for something to do with his hands.

Something’s baking in the oven. Music is playing on Mikey’s phone across the room, acoustic and downbeat and soothing. This room is where everyone in their entire extended family comes to feel safe, even if they don’t know or won’t admit it.

“So listen,” Don finally says. “About earlier. During the race?”

A grin splits Mikey’s face, likely remembering all the fun he had. They’d been looking forward to the ninja race for weeks, ever since Leo first floated the idea.

Leo has come a long way as sensei. It was hard at first, finding his feet, acclimating to this additional burden piled on top of all the ones he already had to carry, but maybe not as hard as it should have been. Leo has always been more of a second parent than a sibling to the rest of them. He’s always been the one they ran to first, even when Splinter was alive; the boy who had to grow up too fast, the one who tried his dad’s oversized jacket on over and over through the years until one day he was surprised to find he had outgrown it.

All this to say—Leo can always tell when his little siblings and pseudo-siblings are due for a break. He poured hours into planning this event, all for his tiny clan of six, and it really showed. The race was part relay, part scavenger hunt, stretching for miles back and forth across Manhattan.

They drew cards out of a bucket to decide pairs, divvying up into three teams of two. When Casey drew the card that matched Mikey’s, he lit up with a manic grin and whipped his head around, a reaction Donnie wasn’t expecting.

“Oh hell yeah!” the human whooped, lifting both hands over his head for a double high-five. “We’re gonna make this night our bitch!”

“Language!” Leo barked, scandalized, like they each hadn’t already heard—and said—a lot worse.

Mikey, for his part, slapped his palms against Casey’s, giggling madly. Donnie looked between the two of them with a frown forming on his face. He had the distinct feeling that he missed something. They all tended to live out of each other’s pockets anymore, trauma-bonding at its worst. Its best? Whatever. If Mikey and Casey were buddies, Donnie would know.

They were both adrenaline junkies, sure. They both liked going fast, living on the edge. As a ninja clan, that was sort of the norm anyway.

But Mikey in particular could outrun anyone in his family any day of the week. Nothing moved fast enough for him. They tried to keep up with him, but sometimes he got too far ahead. He wanted to walk on his hands to feel the grit of asphalt on his palms and the blood rush to his head, or spin in circles in front of the stove while the water boiled, or cartwheel during katas because morning meditation ran too long and his full quota of focus was all used up.

Understimulated, touch-starved, eager for attention, desperate for—something.

Donnie just didn’t realize how desperate until he and Leo crossed paths with Casey and Mikey halfway through the race. From the rooftop, Donnie could see that the token the other boys were gunning for was on the opposite side of the BQE—across five lanes, up on the massive signage structure towering above the expressway. They were on the wrong side when they spotted it.

Smugly, Donnie thought, Tough luck—they’ll have to find a way around. That’s gonna cost them some time.

And then Mikey flew over the guardrail, sprinting straight out into traffic.

Donnie’s heart jumped up into his throat and stayed there.

He was rooted to the spot, like someone watching a train barrel down the tracks toward an inevitable collision. His body forgot how to breathe.

It took his little brother all of fifty seconds to dodge box trucks and SUVs like it was a children’s game, to a chorus of blaring horns from drivers that did not slow down. An eighteen-wheeler missed him by a foot.

Mikey scaled the structure, retrieved the token, and shoved it into the pocket of his over-sized hoodie. Then he waved both arms back at Casey, and pointed down at the guardrail immediately behind him, clearly indicating that they should regroup underneath the overpass. They both disappeared from view on their respective sides of the freeway, off to the next leg of the scavenger hunt.

Don just stood there numbly watching cars go by until Leo doubled back for him.

Raphael and April won the race by all of four minutes—and with it bragging rights to last the next two months, unfortunately for everyone else—but Mikey was in high spirits the whole way home anyway, bouncing with every step. Their brothers must have assumed it was those endorphins from a full night of high-speed play doing their job.

Leo rubbed the top of Mikey’s head with his knuckles fondly, and Raph said something like, “God, you just don’t slow down, do ya?” because they had no idea. They didn’t see it.

Donnie trailed silently at the back of the group, heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat, his eyes, his hands. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Mikey, afraid of what might happen if he let his guard down for even a second, replaying that scene on the expressway over and over and over. It took him hours to muster the courage to finally approach his baby brother in the kitchen.

And now they’re standing here together, and Mikey is humming under his breath, hands beginning to tap restlessly on the countertop. Donnie’s going to lose him in a matter of minutes. Trying to think of a delicate way to say it is getting him nowhere. He takes a page out of Raph’s book and just barrels in.

“I saw you run across the BQE for a token,” he blurts.

Mike tilts his head the way Icky does when she hears something she doesn’t understand. On one hand, he doesn’t deny he did it. On the other, more alarming hand, he also looks blatantly confused about why Donnie thinks it’s worth a discussion.

“We had to get the tokens to win,” Mikey points out, like Don isn’t the one who helped Leo with the rules and regulations.

Clenching his fists, and then folding his arms so Mikey can’t see his fists are clenched, Donnie says, “You wanted to win that bad, Mike?”

He can’t stop seeing the speeding cars; the smear of headlights in the dark; Mikey weaving his way across the lanes, his figure tiny and almost indistinguishable from the rooftop where Don was watching.

Donnie’s remarkable imagination provided the additional details: the way displaced air would have sucked at Mikey’s clothes at each near miss. The sting of the hot asphalt under his feet. The passing lights lighting up his face in fits and bursts, for seconds at a time, and maybe something distracted him—maybe there was a piece of glass or metal on the road and it cut him or he tripped—maybe a reckless driver merged lanes without warning—maybe, maybe, maybe one of a hundred things happened and Mikey was captured or maimed or killed, ripped away from his family because of a stupid, needless risk he took during a game.  

They’ve been dragged through war, outer space, time travel. They’ve all been hurt before, in big ways and small ones. It's just. It’s different this time, because it was a game.

Maybe Donnie should be angry at Casey for enabling this behavior. Casey may not be their brother by blood but he’s their brother by every other known metric science has to offer and he should have dragged Mikey off the expressway by the hood of his stupid pink sweatshirt and lit into him for being so reckless the way Leo, April, Raph and Donnie all would have.

But Casey has his own reasons for doing what he does—a dead mom, an alcoholic father, a little sister CPS took away—and if he were a regular, neurotypical, well-adjusted teenager, he never would have put on his painted mask in the first place. He never would have fallen into Donnie’s family.

Casey would have been the one to run into traffic if Mikey hadn't beaten him to it.

Like recognizes like. That’s why they were thrilled to be on each other’s team. They’re both chasing something. They both have too much going on inside their heads to ever just be still.

And Mikey is always all smiles, always the first to offer his siblings a hug or a shoulder to lean on or a safe place to hide from the rest of the world and something sweet to eat in the meantime. Mikey, who hasn’t cried in front of his brothers once since the night their father died, who hasn’t come into Donnie’s lab after a nightmare in even longer than that. He smiles and plays and supports everyone and gives them reasons to run and shout and vent frustrations and groan in exasperation and laugh until they get sick.

No one has to ask the sun to shine, it just does that. And it will until it runs out of fuel, some five billion years from now. The star death was always going to be inevitable. Constant output, finite resources. Nuclear fusion that will hopefully last for as long as it needs to, but not forever.

The sun will get tired one day, and then it’s not going to shine anymore.

“Dee?” Mikey says loudly, in a tone that makes it sound like he’s been saying it over and over. Donnie blinks and he’s back in the kitchen, and Mikey is in front of him, more than a bit confused, more than a bit worried, but here and safe and whole.

Not even a scratch. If Don hadn’t seen it, he never would have known it happened.

He unfolds his arms and opens them. He doesn’t need to say anything for his little twin to spring forward, their plastrons colliding with a solid knock that would have winded a human person. The counters are clean but Mikey is still covered in flour and so Don is covered in flour now, too, and it’s wafting to the floor in tiny cloudbursts every time they move.

It’s the kind of mess Splinter would have made them stop and clean up. But it’s not hurting anything to let the kitchen be a little messy. And it’s Mikey’s kitchen. It’s the one place in the world where what he says goes.

He winds his smaller arms around Donnie’s shell and squeezes as tight as he can. Smushes his cheek against Don’s shoulder because he isn’t tall enough to hook his chin over it the way he’d probably like to. He’s warm and he smells like butter and baked bread and summer and boy. He’s survived every single thing he’s ever done.

Donnie closes his eyes and tries to replace the lights he can still see on the freeway with the ones here at home.  

“Can I be on your team next time?” he says.

“Hell yeah, let’s do it,” Mikey agrees instantly. His voice is shaped so much like a toothy grin that Don can see it without looking. Mike doesn’t even know why he’s promising it, just that Donnie needs him to. “We’ll do a clean sweep, nobody’ll know what hit ‘em. B Team’s the Best Team, baby!”

He’s everything warm and light and safe about Donnie’s whole world, and he doesn’t seem to understand how dark every day would be without him. He doesn’t know what he would be taking from his family if he took himself away.

Donatello’s other siblings are self-destructive in obvious ways. Michelangelo, who is loud and obnoxious and has never known a secret he could keep for longer than a day, is somehow more subtle about it.

But now Donnie sees it. He knows what to look for.

[fowlfics]

other than my Crocodad DofuWani bullshit (which is now at 22k and yes this is the first im mentioning it here whoops its still only half done. send help) my other brainrot which i have been thinking about today is AceLaw.

More specifically, an AceLaw where they met shortly after Ace entered the Grand Line, started dating, Marineford happened as normal... And then the plot starts. With Luffy and Law and the insurmountable mountain of grief they're both shouldering.

I have something relatively short (2k) to post about it soon, courtesy of exploring exactly how many characters will discord let me cram into a single message (got to -8808 lol) over in MDL

Here's an excerpt bc i ought to make some use of this blog:

Pulling out the leather-bound journal, he set it carefully on Luffy's lap.

"Please don't destroy it. There's only this one copy."

Luffy glanced up at him, baffled. It was better than anger or sadness, at least.

Law motioned towards the book wordlessly and leaned against the desk; No description he could give for the book would be better than Luffy just taking a look himself.

He pulled the cover open gingerly, recoiling slightly at the sight of the first page. It was inked almost fully black, with only three coloured letters right in the middle of it: red A, blue S and yellow L.

Their first Jolly Roger, Ace had told him. The one they flew over the treehouse right up until they abandoned it after their brother's death.

Law supposed it might still hang there, if no one had bothered to take it down.

Luffy whipped his head up, staring at him with wide eyes.

"Keep going," Law encouraged. "He wanted you to see it, eventually."

Looking back down, Luffy turned the page. And then again, and again, and again, moving through the pages fast enough to make it clear he wasn't actually reading any of the words, barely looking at the pictures.

If he was anything like Ace, he likely couldn't read all that well, not even the carefully calligraphed words Ace had bribed Law into writing for him.

That was fine, though. There would be time for reading, later. Luffy already knew most of those stories, anyway. He had been there for them.

The only novelty would be getting to learn Ace's perspective on them; Something that, judging by his words, Luffy could clearly use.

It didn't take him long to reach the end, flipping the pages faster and faster until he reached the end of the filled portion. The few dozen empty pages fell towards the rest easily, opening the journal on the last page, the one Ace had most often returned to.

Luffy's hand carefully traced the edges of the portrait carefully inserted into the back cover.

"This..." he trailed off.

Law gave him a moment. When it became clear he wasn't going to continue, he filled in himself.

"Is Sabo, yes."

Luffy looked up at him again. There was old pain filling them, old tears.

"Ace had been working on it for a long time," Law elaborated. "I have a whole binder of his previous attempts, too. He wasn't happy with how this one turned out, either, but he said it was the closest he could get." And then, because he had been curious for the longest time- "Did he get it right?"

Luffy hunched his shoulder. "...I don't know," he said. "I don't- I didn't remember what Sabo looked like, anymore."

It's been ten years, to be fair. If someone had asked Law to describe Cora-san, he would have had troubles, too. Feathery coat, heart-dingled hat, wide lipstick smile, spikes under his eye, that much he remembered.

But how many spikes? Under which eye? What colour were the eyes themselves?

Time had an unfortunate habit of sanding away the details, taking the sharp edges of memories and tumbling them into blunt, opaque things, like sea glass.

It did the same to grief; That was the price you paid for healing.

[cartwheellou]

Miraculous Fic Rec of Underrated Stories Pt. 1

I read too much fanfiction. In efforts to slow myself down ive decided to start a rec series. These are all the stories ive read that are not my top recs, but definitely underrated. Give them some love!

Jealousy, Jealousy by MyFairKatie

Oneshot, 2k

Adrien takes it upon himself to make Lila as jealous of Marinette as he possibly can—which may or may not lead to him blurting out that they are dating.

Whoops.

Not labeled as crack but definitely crack. Or at least, I take it as such given the liberties taken with the characterization. I think its funny and the lila takedown is refreshingly different amidst the large body of preexisting lila takedown fics.

Emergency Contact by CoffeeBanana

Complete, 18k, 4 chap

When Marinette invites Adrien to live with her temporarily while she recovers from an injury, she thinks the hardest part is going to be hiding her feelings from him. But Adrien's idea of being helpful might go...a little overboard.

Some solid post reveal pre relationship adrienette. I like the emphasis on communication. Theyre adults and have already defeated hawkmoth, so its a chill dynamic.

Imposter Syndrome by highspeedearth

Oneshot, 2k

Impostor Syndrome: when you believe it is only a matter of time before they find out you don't know what you are doing.

Marinette had a bad day, and this time transforming into Ladybug doesn't help.

Chat Noir plucks her off the Eiffel Tower for a pep talk.

Hurt/comfort for sure, but i really like the angle. Written pre season 4, so when it discusses marinette under stress, its not from a guardian angle. It lets the characters really think about how their perceptions of what their bodies are capable of have changed due to holding a miraculous, and the tone of the story is very nice. Almost slice of lifeish? This could be inserted into canon and break nothing, while still being meaningful. Nice read

the wonderful part of the mess that we made by heresie_irisee

Oneshot, 13k

They knew.

They knew, and there would be no magical reset button for the memories they'd made today. She'd have to see him at school every day, and she'd see the Chat in him, as surely as he'd see the Ladybug in her.

They remember the events of oblivio au. I highly enjoy stories where learning each others identities does not lead to a no-discussion lovefest. This is a great marinette pov of her overthinking everything and questioning the validity of her feelings. No salt is thrown in the process and its a nice feelings analysis and resolution.

Missed me, Missed me (Now You Gotta Kiss Me) by orphan_account

Oneshot, 5k

When last minute plans come up, Chat Noir leaves the country for two weeks. Ladybug finds she misses him far more than she thought she would.

One word: ladynoir. Story ignores ladybug falling in love with chat, just jumps straight there. Its just 5k of pining guys. Their interaction is funny, gotta love the ladynoir quips. And the author LEAVES THE STORY AT THE WORST (BEST) PLACE ARKRGOGMGNGKDKSD

Plagg and the Variety Cheese Pack by quicksilversquared

Oneshot, 5k

Plagg can sniff out cheese anytime, anywhere. It's a special talent of his. But it can get him in trouble as well.

When Marinette buys a variety cheese pack for Chat Noir, Plagg sniffs it out and ends up accidentally going home with her. Will he get back to Adrien before the next akuma attack?

(Probably not)

Hijinks and shenanigans, unsurprisingly. Plagg-centric, which is great cause he (and the kwamis in general) deserve more love. I like how adrien circumnavigates plaggs eccentricities and how its funny in the story, while not ragging too hard on plagg for being difficult.

your lips are meant to be kissed by zimtlein

Oneshot, 12k

During a tipsy evening, Adrien kisses Marinette’s forehead.

Understandably enough, Marinette has a complete meltdown.

Explicit story, rated 18 and up. Post reveal. Marinette is hilariously thirsty throughout all of this, and her only barrier is herself. Vibes a bit like a slow burn despite being a oneshot. Despite the tag, i would definitely catagorize this as a pwp.

Lighten up by PurpleRose244

Oneshot, 6k

Take the high road, do not intervene. That was what Adrien said, to his friend and to himself.

Then again, Chat Noir said none of that. And he really didn't like seeing Marinette sad.

Lila takedown story + identity reveal. Set at a fancy christmas party. Hits all the right beats without any salt or out of nowhere identity revelation. I think its pretty in character and trim, albiet ignoring canons problems with identity reveals.

Unwise by GalahadWilder

Incomplete, 4k, 2 chap

Ladybug is exhausted, and Chat convinces her to finally start bringing on the temp wielders permanently.

Unfortunately for Chat's poor kitty brain, she chooses to use that opportunity to set up Multimouse with Aspik.

He is SO SCREWED.

Unlikely to be finished, so just treat it like a oneshot. But its got some lovely ladynoir interaction, ladybug and chat noir actually in an equal partnership, some mouse!marinette, and some bee!adrien, desipte what the summary says. I think that matchup makes way more sense, so its cool to see it. I love vipermouse, its just like adrienette except even sillier and more fabricated complications.

Thats it for now! I may try to link future rec lists together :3 well see how well i can navigate tumblr interface

[averagesadperson]

Back in Town

Cole Brookstone x Gn! Reader

~

Synopsis: You work in a small town bakery and when a man you recognize as your childhood friend stumbles in, you end up spilling some held in feelings.

~

Notes: Uhm, so- I started writing this but then I realized I’m sad today so this got a lot more self indulge-y then I meant it to be. sorry, but also not? but sorry if its a little all over the place. whoops. I tried to make it Gn, please let me know if I made any mistakes!

and uh,, 2k words?? what did I do

~

~

The scent of carrot cake wafted from the oven. Pulling on the bubblegum pink store-branded oven mitts, you pulled the dessert out and set it onto a cooling rack in the fridge that you had set out earlier. Turning off the oven with a ‘beep!’ you took the mitts off, set them into the drawer, and shut it with your hip as you walk past. They were cute, pink with white accents, along with almost everything else in the store. 

Your ‘uniform’ consisted of latex gloves, a frilly apron, a mask, and a bandana covering your hair; all of which were the same shade of pink. The apron had patches of other colours and fabrics from where you’d sewn it when it ripped a few months back.

This was pretty routine for you, having been working in this bakery for years now. Your mother started it originally as a small passion project when you were still in high school, but people loved it so much that she ended up renting an old, homely store and the rest is history. You eventually mastered the skill of baking, learning how to make complex pastries, delicious filling, fluffy bread, moist cake, and more. Trial and error had kicked your ass more than once, but thankfully your customers were kind enough to let it slide.

You sighed, shaking your head as you stepped up to the counter. On it was various decorating tools laid out, along with bowls of white icing and food colouring of black, purple, and blue that still needed to be mixed. An order from one of your oldest customers, a sweet older woman with a plethora of grandchildren who, who woulda guessed, had birthdays. It was a lot of work, but hey, she tipped well.

You pulled your rubber gloves on, but before you could jump into it, the sound of the bell above the front door ringing caught your attention. Tightening your apron and walking out of the kitchen and behind the old wooden counter, you saw a young man with black hair browsing the treats behind the glass. He had a hand up to his mouth and his eyes were narrowed as if he was making the most important decision of his life. He reminded you of a boy you knew as a child, he left town a handful of years back, but when you first saw this guy you swore he looked just like-

“Cole?!” 

The man’s head snapped up at the shrill of your voice, your jaw dropped in astonishment. His eyebrows furrowed and you saw his eyes rack your visible features, trying to remember if he’d met you before. At his confusion you remembered your mask, quickly raising your hands to rip the fabric from your mouth.

“Cole! It’s me, Y/N.” you said with a giddy smile on your lips, subtly leaning over the counter towards him. Cole’s eyes widened and he let out a gasp of shock at seeing you.

“Oh my god! Y/N, it’s so good to see you!” you giddily ran over to the removable countertop, quickly flipping it open and running over to the taller man who you haven't seen in years. He opened his arms and you jumped, wrapping your arms around his neck and resting your head on his shoulder, his arms circling your waist, fingers playing with the bow of your apron strings.

“I haven't seen you in forever, Dummy! I didn't know you were back in town.” the smile refused to fall from your lips. Cole was one of your best friends back in high school, you had a stupid big crush on him too, you two shared classes and would go over to each other houses almost daily, though it was usually him coming over to yours.

He chuckled lightly, shaking his head, making his soft bangs swish side to side. “I wasn't, this is my first day back here.”

“Well then,” you let him go, walking over to the front door, flipping the sign over so it now displayed ‘closed!’. “I guess it's fate you just so happened to come to this bakery then, huh?” you said with a playful smile, ignoring his ‘hey, it's a small town’. 

You grabbed him by the hand and led him over to one of the bigger booths. “Here, come, we need to catch up.”

Once you two sat across from each other he leaned back in his chair and turned to you, “Okay, so what's been up with you? Surely a lot based on the new ‘baker’ status you seem to have.”

You laughed, resting your elbows on the table, leaning in closer. “Well, I'm in college now, nothing too fancy, just a few days a week.”

“Really? That's awesome! I’m glad you got there eventually.” his smile and the genuine look of happiness in his eyes made your insides twist, whether it be in glee or something else, you couldn't tell.

“Yeah, me too. Oh! I talked to your dad a week or so ago.” you giggled at his exaggerated eye roll. “He still thinks you go to MOPPA, you think you're ever gonna tell ‘em?”

He groaned, rubbing a hand at his neck and avoiding your gaze. “I dunno, his whole obsession with his dancing and Royal Blacksmiths is just… y’know..?”

You set a hand on his arm making him look back at you. You met his eyes with a gentle smile and an as understanding look as you could muster. “I get it, Cole, I do. But I still think you need to tell him eventually. He’s your dad and he loves you, don't waste that.” he’s silent for a moment before he speaks again.

“Anyway, you're just now getting into schooling? I thought you wanted to go ‘far, far away’ for college straight out of high school?” you flushed from his recounting of your childish words from one underage drunken night, but went along with it and let him change the subject without a fight.

“Ah, yeah, when I started in mom’s bakery I had to learn all the recipes pretty quick, so that took up the majority of my time. I barely had any time for anything but sugar.” 

“Oh, yeah! I’m surprised your mom changed the style.” your heart sunk. “She really liked that old, rustic vibe she had going.”

The smile slowly slipped from your face but Cole didn't notice, he was busy looking around the decor of the shop. “Yeah, well, times change, I guess.”

“Hm, I guess so. Say, how is your mom doing? I’d love to see her again..” he trailed off when he turned back to you, seeing the look on your face. Cole's stomach dropped, dreading what that look meant and what you were about to tell him.

“Oh, she, uhm. Mom.. passed… a few years ago. It's just been me for a bit.” Cole set a gentle hand on your shoulder, rubbing your arm soothingly as your eyes started to water. Your father had died when you were young, leaving only you and your mother. Not long after Cole left town, your mother got sick and died quickly after. You neglected to mention her sickness to your old friend, knowing of his own mother's fate. Despite them not being the same illness, you knew it would upset him more.

“Your dad was pretty helpful, y’know. Let me stay with him until I got everything sorted.” your voice cracked and you raised a hand to rub at your eyes before any tears could fall.

“Why… why didn't you tell me?” he said in a gentle voice, it was comforting.

“Well, I didn't really know how to find you, Cole.” he winced, opening his mouth to either refute you or apologize, you didn't know but spoke over him. “It's true, you just…left, Cole. As happy as I am to see you now, I… I was really lonely.” you quickly rushed to reassure him, waving your hands in front of you to cover your reddening cheeks.

“Not to say it's your fault or anything! You left for a reason, I know that, and I don't blame you. I covered for you with your dad because I know you must've had a good reason. I just… I missed you, Cole. A lot.” you sniffled, looking at your hands that rested in your lap. You were both silent for a while until you heard fabric shift and felt Cole slide into the booth beside you.

You felt him hesitate to touch you, so you leaned in, laying against him with your head on his shoulder. You could feel him breathing beneath you and he wrapped his arm around you and pulled you in closer.

It felt… nice.

It was a relief to see him again after all those years. The months of crying yourself to sleep after he left, the temptation to send a letter, the guilt of not telling him, you could feel it all melting off your shoulders as you both sat there in silence together.

“I know I could have sent you a letter, but you barely respond to your father. I didn't want to bother you or distract you with something like that. I didn't know what you were doing, still don’t, it could be really important.”

“You’re also important, you know that right?” your breath hitched at his words. 

“That's not what I-”

“Doesn't matter. You’re important to me, Y/N. You were like, my only real friend for years and I would have dropped anything if you said you needed help. You were never, and will never be a bother to me, especially with something like that.” he placed his fingers under your chin and tilted your head to look at him. Your eyes widened when you saw his coal-black ones were watering. Your hand clutched the fabric of his shirt as he brought you into a crushing hug.

“I’m so, so sorry you thought otherwise and I'm sorry I haven't sent letters either. I've been..” he chuckled sadly. “Very preoccupied, but I never forgot about you.”

“I really missed you. I’m glad you're back, Cole.”

“..I missed you too.”

~~~

Eventually, it got dark and, after both your tears had dried, Cole had politely excused himself. You offered him a place to stay with you above the shop for the night, but he said he and his friends already had a hotel and they would get worried if he didn't show up. When you said your goodbyes, you sent him on his way with a bag filled with the best of the best of your sugary treats.

“Oh, before you go, why don't you take a to-go bag?” you stepped behind the counter, sliding open the glass panel and choosing snacks you think he’d like best.

“Well, I won't say no to that.” he stepped up to the counter with a chuckle and you saw him dig around in his pocket before you stop him.

“Hey, no, it's on the house. No complaints.” you filled the paper bag, folding the edge and handing it to him.

“You sure?” you nodded with a smile as you walked him to the door, linking your arm with his. “Well, we’ll be in town for a bit so if you wanted to meet up for a bit tomorrow?”

“Mhm! I do have to finish an order but I’ll probably be free after one or so? Wanna meet at the center fountain?” you pushed open the door, the bell chiming in the background.

He agreed, wrapping his arms around you one last time for the night and you reciprocated, patting his back lightly.

“Bye, Y/N.” he walked out the door and when he turned to wave back at you, you lifted to your tiptoes, resting a hand on his cheek and pulling him down to you.

The setting sun cast a beautiful glow against his skin, making his eyes shimmer. You closed your eyes and pecked his cheek, letting him go soon after.

“See ‘ya, Cole.” You waved at him with pink cheeks, turning back and softly closing the door. You saw him gently touch his cheek with a smile before he turns and walks into the warm summer air. You watched him walk down the street before he eventually turned the corner out of your view.

You sighed, crossing your arms, locking the door, and walking back to the kitchen to pack up. You’d finish your orders in the morning, but tonight you dragged yourself upstairs and into your bed. You wrapped yourself in blankets, tears springing to your eyes. You had dreamed of seeing Cole again countless times before. When you were kids, everything was fine, everything was perfect. But then he left, and things fell apart. 

But now? Cole was back.

Maybe not back in town forever, but back in your life.

[sehnsuchts-trunken]

Take A Bath - Geralt of Rivia

i requested this myself, for myself, and also as an early christmas present for one of my best friends

pairing: Geralt x female!reader

wordcount: 2k words

triggerwarnings: some heavily implied nsfw content, blood, injury, not angst tho!!!!!! 

summary: theres none i was too lazy to write one

flo you’re literally wonderful and ik im a real strange friend and a writer so that makes it worse, but i do hope you appreciate this! i switched pronouns for ya cus i wasnt sure if you liked the self insert shit and tbh its refreshing to go back to the way i usually wrote- anyway i forgot what i wanted to tell you with this so lets just go!

whoops i keep looking at that gif instead of writing... can you blame me tho lol

Geralt was not used to being looked at like that. Not in the slightest, doubtlessly. There were strangers who looked at him with fear, women with desire in their gazes, men with just the same - people whose expression told they would draw their swords, people who saw him as a weapon to use. Never, not in decades, not even long before, had there been anyone, anyone at all, that looked at him remotely close to the way she was looking at him right now. There was an amused twinkle in her eyes as she approached, locked on him and only him as though he were the only one in the room. His expression was utterly calm, never a match to the storm raging inside of him, but somehow fit and at the same time not suited in the slightest in this heartbeat, in which she just looked at him with that love in her eyes, that curiosity, that playfulness he’d always pitied in other ones. 

She studied him carefully as she stopped, and he watched her every muscle tense and loosen in the one second she put a hand on the table next to him and leaned her hip against its edge. He was observant as ever, she knew, but this time his whole focus was on her, her steady breathing, her unbound hair, the rustle of her dress, no matter that the whole tavern was filled to the brim, noisy and cheap and full of drunken bastards. She had nothing to fear, not with him here anyway, not even in that dress that hugged her figure as loose as it may have been, easily slipped on in a matter of heartbeats. 

Her throat bobbed once as she beheld him in that black shirt he always wore, with that necklace he took off not once, and his hair fallen into his face. Her lips tugged upwards. She raised a hand, brushed the strand away with one finger without following it with her eyes as she did usually, too caught up in his this time. He watched the slight smile on her face, let her move his hair out of the way with the fingertips he knew were rough from work, that he’d caressed more than once, aware that his own were not better off. He allowed her hand to rest on his body, in that spot where the neck met shoulder, where she always found herself circling, drawing, writing on air and skin and muscle, where her hands always lay, even when she was deeply asleep and in dreams far away. 

“You’re thinking too hard again”, she eventually said, still intently watching him, an almost predatory gaze, that she had not lifted a single time since they had entered this hellhole of a place they’d stay in. They could have avoided the town altogether, they could have lit a fire in the forest and slept on the ground, the same way they usually did and preferred by far - but there’d been someone asking for him, a monster waiting to be killed, and so they had halted their travels if only for a night and taken their horses here, where the sun had stood high atop the sky and she had waited for him to return, his attire soaked in blood, his hair crusted with it, his face carelessly wiped with one hand. She did not fight with him because he did not want her to, and she understood even if she scoffed every time he went. She could handle monsters and they both knew - she could battle a dozen without him at her side, she could ride into war and would always be the one who walked out of it. There was barely a weapon that she could not wield, not a bow she could not string, not a sword she could not handle, not a knife she could not throw. If she wanted to, she could paint the world red in blood, yet he had not let her see the calmest of monsters he’d been asked to slay, and as long as it was a decision that could be made, it would not change. 

Her fingertips grazed his neck, just above the collar of his shirt, and so slowly they travelled up. It was such a simple, such an innocent gesture, one that could have meant everything and nothing at all. Had it not been for the look in her eyes and the smirk she tried to hide halfheartedly, he would not have known which of them it was, if she played the mindless seducer or if she had indeed lost sense of reality as she did sometimes. He hummed, both agreement and disagreement the same, at her touch or her words, perhaps an answer to either. She chuckled lightly and let her fingers meet his jaw, where her thumb caressed his skin without her as much as gazing at it. His cheek was soft from the washing she’d given it, the scrubbing and the creme she’d applied, after she had stripped him from his bloodstained clothes and forced him to take a bath, running the hot water while she threw his attire into a basket she filled with the same. 

Now she leaned forward, his eyes following her face, and pressed a chaste kiss to his forehead, her lips barely a breath against his skin, leaving the memory of the touch once she drew back and settled her look on him again, mixed this time with an emotion he could have recognised from a mile away, one of utter waggishness and delight, that she only bore when she grasped a thought he would never have. She had dimples when she smiled like that, almost sickly sweet, a toying grin always aimed at him. 

“You should not be”, she said, her voice laced with the charming, mushy tone that she only spoke with on two rare occasions. He raised his eyebrows. It was just as rare that he did. He wasn’t a man of many words, not one of expression and certainly not of joy, but she was all of it, all that he was not and in whatever way all that he was at the same time, and she had not once retreated from him, and somehow he knew that she would not, even if there was a pit within him not wholly wanting to believe it, despite waking up next to her every morning, despite her smiles and her happiness, despite fighting at her side and being able to trust, for once, that she was always with him. 

She tilted her head towards his ear, dropping her voice into a whisper, her grin becoming apparent, and his hand clutched his very own thigh. Mischief, that was what she had in mind, what all of her was. He had met her making trouble, he had carried her giddiness around with him, he had explored every part of her and found nothing that was not devilry in some way. When she battled, she would throw daggers out of her sleeves and just have them brush their opponent when she could have very well put them right through their heart, the underestimating that followed used to her advantage with ease. When she walked, her hips swayed, and she threw her hair over her shoulder and smiled so effortlessly that he had to physically restrain himself from murdering everyone who looked at her the way she only let him look at her. She was diabolical, now that she bent down, letting her fingertips trail down his throat and rest almost at his collarbone. He concealed a growl at her low chuckle. “After our bath, you really should feel less tense.” 

Her lips were curled into an unbridled smirk when she leaned back, about to pull her hand with her as he grabbed her wrist and held it right where it was hovering in the air between them. The grin on her face changed at once into a victorious one, smug and unbearable to look at and so her that he could not have turned away even if he had wanted to. 

He knew that they were being watched. A witcher amongst farmers and blacksmiths was unusual enough, but a witcher in the company of a young woman so inclined on bothering him, so familiar to him, so unbelievably dangerous herself, that was more than just unusual - it was a once in a lifetime, and those with enough sense still in their heads that had not been drowned in cheap ale and bad wine were eyeing them closely, such a strange pair that they could not place. She had been the cause of far more than a single brawl, but that knowledge he kept to himself, and all that she let slip was the vicious attitude she’d strolled in with and the sword obviously sheathed at her hip, though both of them knew that she certainly did not need to make use of it to walk out of a simple bar fight. He hoped that she had no intentions of starting one here, otherwise the room they had paid for in coin would be a sure waste of resources. Not that those were particularly rare, not anymore, not with her glorious hunting skills and the small fortune he earned every time he left her behind to fight. 

“I see”, she laughed, making him loosen his grip, his expression still not revealing a single thought of what was happening in his head, though she could read him very well. She had always been strangely good at it. 

Taking a step towards him, she stroked her other hand from his knee up to his thigh, lingering in her touch all without breaking eye contact with him. When eventually she found his hip, she slid her fingers to his sword, her smile widening ever so slowly as his own grip tightened on her other wrist, the only reaction, the only tense of muscles that he could not conceal, despite his never much revealing expression and his relaxed stature. He could not fool her after all - she picked up even the smallest of things. 

“Then perhaps”, she said quietly, pausing, yanking her arm against his blade and finally taking her eyes off his to behold the cut she’d made just where her radius met the rest of the bones in her wrist. He frowned, but she silently marvelled at the blood that dropped from the wound. He hated when she was injured, and now that she’d done it herself, cut herself with his sword- He released her other arm, wanting to reach for this one to take a better look at the gash, but she’d angled it away before his fingertips could so much as brush her unharmed skin. With one thumb, she wiped over the cut, stared for one second at the red colour that now stained it, and had wiped it all over his temple in a heartbeat. His frown deepened. She chuckled lightly at it, but did the same for the other, close to war paint if one looked at it the wrong way. “-now that you’re dirty all over again, you need to take a second one.”

Her lips curled into another smirk. Then she had grabbed his hand with her injured one and taken a few steps backwards, the light that hit her there making it seem like she glowed, and the way her dimples pierced her skin, he could very well imagine the heat inside of her that led one to think about just why she looked like a living goddess. She pulled him by their intertwined fingers, certainly not able to have moved him had he not followed her anyway. She could not have cared less who was watching them as she strolled out of the horribly stuffed room, up the wooden stairs that brought them to theirs, the promise of a bath forgotten the second the door was closed and her back pinned to it.

i hope you all enjoyed it! you, flo, the most of course~ if anyone has any geralt oneshots that you find readable, please recommend them to me btw! im starved for content that doesnt make me want to drink bleach or drown in holy water

also someone tell me how i managed to use his actual name exactly once in the whole text. immediately at the start and then never again somehow.

[whatgaviiformes]

Fic: The Sky’s Ocean

A one-shot! Based on this rp post here and for the awesomely supportive, @the-original-sineater

Summary: Escape from the sleeplessness, somewhere between the sky and the stars.

Main Characters: Scott, Gordon (what do we call them when it’s not military? SkyFish? CloudFish? FlyingFish?)

Genre: Family - with some heavy themes mentioned. As usual it’s light until it’s not.

Words - 2K

*****

"You know I'm not actually letting you fly One," Scott declared. "Not after the state you brought her back in last time."

"But Scott!" Gordon whined, dragging his name out into progressing elongated pitches. "That was part of the deal. I show you to the cloud sea, and you let me fly One." Scott's unwavering expression told him he had not yet won that battle. "Besides," he added, wringing his hands and widening his expression to emphasize his innocence in this matter, "I got injured right after last time. Haven't I paid for that enough?"

"Never." Scott's grin twitched. "Now up. Get out of my seat. You're navigator." He slapped the back of his chair lightly.

Gordon grumbled as he switched to the co-pilot seat, picking up his water bottle from the cup holder and taking a large sip of energy boosting hydration. Scott slid in, adjusting the seat back to his height with a glare back in Gordon’s direction, and he rested his to-go coffee thermos beside him.

"Return journey then? For flight training?" 

"I'll think about it."

"I'll even let you boss me around."

Go sit.” 

Why Gordon was so intent on flying One all of a sudden was beyond him. Likely just to get a reaction out of Scott, but he wouldn't blame him if there was some honesty behind the light pestering. Scott knew better than anyone how easy it was to become enraptured by her speed, her quickness, the way she listened to the lightest of touches. 

It wasn't his brothers' sea, but the sky held a life all its own up in the clouds. 

In different ways, One took a similar finesse to fly as Four, and aside from the skunk, Gordon had actually done just fine on the trip to London. They weren't cross-trained for nothing. As long as the mountains they were visiting were safe - a scan of the elevation would help - he wouldn't mind showing his brother some tips and tricks. Until he had that assurance and saw the terrain for himself, there was no way in the corners of hell that he was going to let Gordon touch those controls.

And certainly not after the rescue they’d just had when they were all a bit on edge. 

"Strap in." 

"F.A.B.” 

Scott launched and swung her around the island as she gained speed. 

"Do you want to say it?"

Gordon nodded. "Thunderbird Fun is Go!” 

Despite the whoop of excitement, the silence fell heavily over them.

~~~

The planet is their backyard. 

Travel to the states, a whole half world away, was nothing to One's 15,000 miles per hour top speed. The distance to London could be crossed in minutes, instead of hours. But even without a Thunderbird in his hands, Scott had never really known any differently. Technology had taken humanity long past what was thought possible. 

Well, and they'd grown up with privilege. Once Tracy Industries had taken off, their father had had the means to take them wherever they wanted to go. A trip to Italy or Japan was just that. It could be planned or spontaneous but it was never difficult to coordinate, and there were few places across the globe hard to get to.

With the Earth outside the door step, almost home was the Pacific Ocean; New Zealand then the Kermadec arc when approaching from the South, the Marshall Islands then Fiji or Tonga when approaching from the North.

He hadn’t thought twice about it when Gordon shared they were headed to the Philippines; they were their neighbors only 5,000 miles away. International Rescue had attended quite a few rescues there, but he’d never been to visit the dormant volcano peak of Mount Pulag before. 

 “You can’t even tell it’s night from in here.” Gordon’s voice came low from behind him.

“Uh, look down?” 

Gordon jumped, not realizing he’d spoken aloud, his face going pale with the suggestion. “No thanks. I’m good. It’s all a blur below our feet anyway.”

“Would you like me to retract the side windows?” Scott didn’t need visuals to fly, as One was all based on telemetry and instrumentation, but he reached for the window controls as he spoke. 

He preferred keeping them closed to avoid prying eyes, but it wouldn’t be a concern with their height. And if it gave Gordon a bit more visibility like he was used to with Four, then no reason not to make him more comfortable in One. “Better?”

“Not really.”

This is why he flew with holograms; his ship flew faster than the human eye could process the shapes. That, and it gave him a comfort knowing John was able to see the same telemetry readings. His brother had often seen a danger on his monitors long before Scott had, allowing his reflexes to kick in before his brain really was able to process whatever it was.

Like his ears had been burning with the thought, John called in, the hologram springing to life with a flurry of multi-tasking movement.

“How’s it going, fellas?” The cadence of his voice quickened, as if through juggling many things, he’d lose his train of thought if he didn’t get it all out quickly. “You should be reaching Saddle camp along the Akiki Trail in T-minus eight minutes.”

“Seven point six-two,” Eos corrected over the radio.

“I’m sending you a landing position. It’ll be 15 minutes to walk to the summit.”

“We should do the whole hike one day!” 

John flicked his gaze over to Gordon sitting behind Scott. 

“That could take you anywhere from six hours to two to three days,” John advised. “This is the best I could do on short notice. Area’s clear.” 

“Thanks, Jay.”

“Don’t mention it,” John responded. “Call me when you get to the top. Mount Pulag is supposed to have one of the best terrestrial views of the Milky Way. You should get there before dawn.”

“Terrestrial, he says.” 

John quirked a tired eyebrow at his brother. “I have the universe outside my window, I’ll have you know.”

“I’m not sure I heard you the first time. Say that again?”

“Go play in traffic,” John scoffed, signing off. 

“Ouch, he wounds me,” Gordon said, dramatically for Scott’s benefit, and Scott couldn’t help but to laugh despite himself. Gordon and John had always been at each other’s throats in many ways; their separate passions being one characteristic Gordon clung to as fodder for his humor. Though John could throw it right back on most days. But where Gordon used his humor to cut the tension of their jobs, John dove into more work. Something different is what he needed. Patterns or data. 

“You’re grating on his patience,” Scott reminded him. “Maybe a little less? That rescue took a lot out of all of us.”

He shouldn’t have mentioned it.

Gordon’s lips thinned, and his eyes darkened with the images they’d had in their heads since arriving at the site and lingering through debrief. It had exhausted all of them, not in the way back-to-back call-outs could, but through their hearts sitting heavy in their chests, their souls burdened by what was less a rescue than it was a retrieval. 

Sleep had eluded them, and Scott and Gordon had both found their way back to the empty lounge, the lights dimmed, their heartbeats hanging in the silence. Gordon had stepped up to the large windows, his hands crossed over his chest, eyes glazing over in the darkness where he knew the waves washed upon the shores of their island. 

“There’s a place where the clouds sway like the ocean,” he’d said, eyes like jasper muted and dulled. “The sea of clouds. Did you know?”

“No,” Scott had admitted, imagining what it could be like. Wondering if the sky had its own version of a riptide, dangers that could rip away foundations and take them out to the ether. Both dangerous. Both awe-inspiring. He’d stepped up beside him, glancing at the nothing outside the lounge, save the little lights in the pool where below he’d only recently parked Thunderbird One. “Let’s go there.”

The world was their neighborhood, and so they went. 

The reminder of the rescue stilled him. Gordon stayed quiet through One’s descent, gaze pinned to the side windows even though the sky left most of the journey to their imagination. And as the ship landed at the campsite John had chosen for them, he exited while Scott was still gathering his backpack for the trek. He spoke little through the hike up the mountain, where the fog was thick around them, though the air was thin. They regulated their breathing through counted cycles, and mist clung to strands of their hair that hung in their faces. Halfway along the trail Gordon had acquired a decently sized stick that could double as a walking stick. He partially used it as intended and the other half of the time brandished it like a sword. It was the playfulness that showed the hike was re-grounding him. 

John’s stars were visible first as the fog cleared, the heavens woven in sparkling thread converging on the large disk across the breadth of the skyline. By the time they made it to the peak, the darkness of the sky had started to lighten on the horizon, casting the shine in expansive yellow fire. 

Below them, the clouds rolled in undulating waves, brushing up against the mountain in arcs and valleys that curled under themselves to return back the way they came. Perhaps not a riptide, Scott thought, but an illusion, enchanting to the eye, but a siren’s call if one were to follow their dance over the empty space of the mountain range. 

While Gordon spun his phone 360 around the landscape to capture the image for John, Scott pulled out his backpack and set it on the ground at the peak, digging through for the picnic blanket he’d brought with him and the jug of fresh coffee kept warm within. Gordon strolled over just as he was refilling his thermos. 

“You should be drinking water,” Gordon nagged, nudging his shoulder as he settled beside him. 

“Got that too.”  He handed him the water jug. “I was a scout, remember. Always come prepared.”

 Gordon hummed as he accepted it. “I think I learned that from you.”

“At least I taught you something.”

Scott leaned back to lay on the blanket, his hands pillowing his head as he looked up above. At his side, Gordon sat curled into his legs and rested his head on his knees as he watched the rhythm of the sky.

“Did you want to talk about it?” Scott asked after a moment.

At first Gordon didn’t answer, combing a hand through his hair as the quiet hung between them. 

“There’s nothing we could’ve done,” he whispered. “So not really.”

Scott prodded him, “You know the dangers of tornadoes.” They’d grown up in an area called Tornado Alley after all. “Their path of destruction takes no prisoners.” Scott closed his eyes, faces filling in his mind. Losses. 

“It’s hard,” Gordon admitted, his voice cracking. And a slight heave of his shoulders had Scott springing back to sit beside him. “The same winds that can do” - his arms flail towards the sea below them - “this, they can just as easily do… what we saw today. Yesterday now I guess.”

“Awe and respect. You remind me of that all time, Gords.” Scott clasped a hand on Gordon’s shoulder, his eyes bright. “Not to get too complacent with the sea, not to let the joys blind me from the perils.” He threaded his hand into Gordon’s hair at the nape of his neck, and shifted him close as Gordon leaned in to him. “It goes both ways. Don’t let despair quiet your hope.”

His breath shuddered, but he laughed lightly. “Virgil tell you that one?”

“No,” Scott responded seriously. “Are you okay? You’ll drive yourself crazy thinking about the whys of the world.” It was advice he told himself often. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be okay.” He grinned at him. “So I can pilot on the way home?”

“Not on your life.”

Safe between the clouds and the stars, now invisible above, the cadence of their breaths fell back into rhythm, with each other, with Scott’s calming combing of Gordon’s hair, with the slow pulse of the waves below them. The warm light brushed against their cheeks as the sun carried them past the dawn into a new day. 

[nincompoopydoo]

Could I request a oneshot with Remus Lupin with the promt "kiss me so i can feel alive again". Also congratulations on 1000 followers 🎉✨💕

ALIVE AND TRUE

PAIRING: Remus Lupin x reader WORD COUNT: 2k (whoops) SUMMARY: Having found a lost friend, living in the countryside of Yorkshire, feelings of once hidden affection start to bloom in the need to be alive and good things to be real. A/N: Thank you for requesting and I’m so sorry for taking so long! This is one of my favorites because it’s so soft and romantic and I adore this request. Please tell me what you think of it xo. WARNINGS: Angst. support my writing through ko-fi💖 MASTERLIST

It’s the house you see from trudging down the walkway that forces you to double take your previous steps. Silent and empty, it seems to twist into the forest from afar. Bent trees adorn the lane with overgrown greenery at its feet and ancient brick walls that run along with it. The fields in Yorkshire are vast and immaculate but right now, you are alone and suddenly the far stretch of land doesn’t seem to have the shine of the countryside. Your eyes shift to the house that sits behind a rusted gate, joints barely holding together from the years of rotting and exposure to the heat and rain. It’s barely a house but more of a cottage. No, it’s not even a cottage. Semi-derelict and tumbledown, it looks more like the ruins of what used to be a home.

You look down to the note in your hand, parchment torn at the edges with the cursive words of your handwriting that make up an address and coordinates. Visually, there’s no indication of where exactly you are but according to the coordinates, you are precisely where you need to be. For the past three years, your investigation into finding your friend has proven to be impossible and almost met with the acceptance that you will never see him again. Yet, after an anonymous tip had been owled to your doorstep, indicating the suspicions of the presence of a werewolf somewhere in Yorkshire as overheard by the locals of a nearby town, gave you a tinge of hope to reconnect with someone you lost.

The sight bears a high chance that he may be hiding here, unfortunately. It makes it hard to believe that someone you saw had so much life in him, is living in this condition.

Anxiety starts to creep onto you as you push the worn-down gate. It creaks with the rustling of the wind, a sign of an imminent storm. The sun doesn’t shine anymore, clouds of grey congregate in the skies above in the chorus of rainfall. You don’t do too well with apparition, thankfully having only lost half of your hair during the war. Hence, if the anonymous tip turns out to be a fake, you would have to make your way out of the countryside in the rain or even worse, take the Knight Bus.

You hate the Knight Bus.

Attempting to conjure up whatever courage you have left, you steadily make your way into the compound, plodding through the overgrown grass. As you grow closer, the cottage looks even worse than it was from afar, climbing plants of dull green embellish the walls of the ruins.

Then, in your periphery, you catch a glimpse of violet—Bluebells. The same flowers that used to grow on the forest floor of the forbidden forest. You remember him telling you about how he had seen a white bluebell, rare to its nature.

Warmth fills your chest, you know he is here.

The door is wooden, climbing plants seem to have made their way to it, branching around its handle.

You knock once. No answer.

You knock twice. There’s footsteps, they’re heavy.

With the swing of the door, you are met with none other than Remus Lupin. He looks older, dark circles below his eyes that have lost their intensity of blue, hair unkempt and shabby, and a beard, tracing along his jawline. He has his wand directed to you in defense. Probably because no one ever visits.

The smile on your face is impossible to suppress. It's bright at the recognition of the familiarity of his face. “Remus,” you breathe, eyes crinkling and gleaming with the bliss from the effort and worth of your investigation to find this very man, who stands just a couple of inches away from you. You swallow, not wanting to blink away the possibility that this may all be a dream. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

He says your name through a whisper like it’s the answer to the millions of prayers recited and uttered from his lips as he drifts off to slumber under the moonshine, beaming through the shattered glass of the windows by his bedside. He dreams of you, often in times when his body is too weak to endure the aftermath of a full moon.

Yet, you're here and very real.

Then, he watches your grin falter and how your eyes move around the curves of his face. The deep cuts are there and visible. Although magic heals, time and energy play a crucial factor in healing wounds. In an instant, his apprehension creeps in, and suddenly, he feels small. The memories of you are forever intertwined with the rest of his friends, memories too painful to endure.

Your hand reaches out for his face but he staggers back in his step.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

He doesn’t mean it. Remus really wants you here. To feel your warmth, your touch, the smell of your hair and to hold you but he sees the way you bring your arm down to your side, shoulders slump in near defeat. In reality, you would never let him go that easily.

“Don’t say that, Remus.”

The crinkle of your eyes is gone, now sharp with the frustration of his tendency of locking himself away from the world out of paranoia. It’s been a minute since you’ve seen his face after three long years and he’s already trying to chase you away.

Typical Remus.

An odd sense of nausea takes over him, knees buckling as his surroundings begin to spin like he is on a sailing boat at sea. His body is frail and with a blow, he will fall. His eyes are trained on you as he feels his feet give way and his body drifting towards the ground. Just then, he feels your touch, arms around him like an embrace. You’re holding him in his weakened stance, stabilizing his balance by moving his arm to hang around your shoulder. He immediately shifts his weight on you, uttering a soft apology.

“You don’t have to apologize for something you can't control.” Your voice is soothing, speaking so close to his ear. Your tone is laced with knowing and care. You both know those words have been articulated from your very lips many times before. And your hands are gentle upon the curve of his waist, against the rough material of a dress shirt but your grasp is strong—the true touch of a healer’s hands, precise and careful. Remus always knew you would turn to become a highly-skilled healer.

With every cautious step, the creaks of the parquet flooring are loud and lasting. It’s as if the house itself cries for its condition, like a child with a wound to their knee after taking a nasty fall. The wailing wind outside doesn’t help with the fact that everything seems to be falling apart.

You guide him to the armchair by the fireplace, pressing him by the shoulders to sit. He plops onto the chair with a heavy sigh and feels a sense of regret sinking in his chest at the sight of the visible scowl of your lips and the turn of your brows.

Your open palm finds his cheek. He hears the drag of your deep exhale. You don’t say anything, only to pull out your wand from your back pocket. Yet, Remus is quick to grab your hand, halting you in your movement. Your frown a little deeper, sharp eyes finding him.

“Just let me heal you. It’s the least I can do.”

It’s a promise, a vow, uttered from your very lips filled with dignity and hope. So, he lets you, just to feel you close to him.

—

The rain is yet to arrive. Thunder booming through rolling clouds above and still not a single drop of rain but there’s a peak of sunlight between the cracks of the storm. Maybe, it’s because you’re here and sunshine always seems to trail your steps, no matter where they lead.

Now, Remus is seated on the toilet seat facing you, who has settled for a shaky stool to perch on as your gentle hands hold the edge of his jaw while the other grips onto a straight razor, gazing along the cheek. He cannot take his eyes off the crease between your brows and the way your eyes slowly shift along with the moving blade.

Magic is meant for convenience in small but necessary tasks like these yet you insisted on doing it in the traditional muggle way—using your fingers. Your hands work wonders, beautifully moving as a paraclete. You hold him like you’re maintaining his strength, to keep from fracturing into pieces. You look at him like he’s your masterpiece, carving every curve and bend of his skin and structure.

You lift the blade away from his face, dabbing it onto a rag cloth hung by the sink. Remus finally finds the time to speak. “You don’t have to do this.” You simply laugh and it comes out like a puff of air. Your eyes are still trained on cleaning off the razor. “Of course, I don’t. But, I also don’t want you competing with Dumbledore’s beard.”

Remus laughs, truly laughs. It’s loud and echoes within the walls of the tiny toilet. “I could never beat him.” You’re laughing too, grin wide as ever. Then, after a beat of silence, your grin suppresses into a small smile, lips pressed together as you place the razor aside. You’re clearly in deep thought.

“Come away with me.”

Remus blinks. “What?”

You turned to him, eyes glinting with expectancy. “Stay with me. I live a few blocks from St Mungos...and you get to see me at work.” You watch how his mouth is now agape, half of his chin still in shaving cream.

“And I’m sure you look magnificent in green but you know I can’t—”

“You can, Remus. You can come here a week before the full moon and then come back to my place. I’ll help you heal, a lot faster and you know that’s true. Maybe, I could get hold of aconite for Wolfsbane at the hospital— ”

You hadn’t realized your rambling until Remus began to shake you by the shoulders, calling out your name with an odd sense of serenity and hint of urgency for you to stop. So, your words immediately halt with a turn of your head to meet his gaze. Your expression is soft. His hand drifts to yours, holding it in his. “You know I can’t because if they find out you are living with someone with lycanthropy, you will lose your job and I don’t want you to lose it for my sake,” he squeezes your hand with assurance. “But, thank you. Thank you for always being so kind to me.”

The candle flickers from behind you, sitting idly on the ceramic shelf above the sink. No sunlight beaming through the room and only the hues of flame, beginning to shrink with the melting of its wax. Your hair presents an illusion of golden threads against the candlelight, face as warm as your hand on his as you shift your fingers to the back of his palm. Gradually, you sigh whilst raising his palm to you and press your lips to the arch of his hand. It’s quick but affectionate.

Your stare is strong and his heart stutters for the millionth time since your arrival.

Remus is drawn to you and the thought of how your lips should be on his. He drifts closer, eyes roaming your face, feeling your breath against his skin.

“Can I kiss you?” your question is soft, a whisper, only for his ears. A secret so sacred that you’re afraid nature would hear the words of your confession that was solely reserved for your mind and the man you are confessing to. He nods, it’s slight but it’s true, feeling like this is all a dream. He doesn’t want you to dream anymore. For you are here, hand tangled in his, thinking about his lips on yours.

Then, he whispers as the candle flickers once more. “Kiss me so I can feel alive again.”

So, you do. You kiss him, gentle and sweet, your hand still in his.

[tennessoui]

You kind of already did 31 but pleaseeeeeeee

these ficlets keep getting longer ffs this is 2k

31. One is a sex worker, the other is a client AU

anakin's had his turn as a sex worker in my writing so it's Obi-Wan this time, paired with Vaderkin and i made it more dark than I thought would happen whoops but. warnings are: probably bordering extremely dubious consent even though no sex happens and this is just the lead up. a brief reference to underage sex work, though absolutely nothing comes of it. and vaderkin being a bit creepy.

There is a saying among the workers at the Establishment: if the imperial palace calls for you, you should hope the person that is displayed next to you is prettier.

Obi-Wan has never bought into prayers of any kind and this saying is only ever said with something akin to a worshipful dread. Still, when Ahsoka drapes a cloak of red around his shoulders and whispers those words to him—“May the others be your betters”—he thinks for a second about the nature of prayer and of hope and the futility of both in this galaxy.

“Don’t worry, little ‘Soka,” he smiles from under the cloak’s hood. “I’m sure it’s just a mistake.” He is, after all, one of the oldest workers here, makes most of his money these days tending bar and running the front desk, called in to serve mostly for virgin customers who want a gentler and more experienced hand to guide them in the art of pleasure. He doesn’t think any of the words could be used to describe the Emperor Vader, can’t see the imposing black-suited man interested in the art of pleasure.

Ahsoka can’t look him in the eye, but she hugs him tightly as he boards the shuttle that will take him to the Palace.

The ride there is quiet. Obi-Wan tries to avoid as many glances from the other people as he gives to them. Most of them are young, human. He seems to be the only male above 40. His chances are good.

Maybe he hadn’t been lying to Ahsoka. Maybe, truly, his name being included on the list had been a mistake

Something inside him hesitates though. He’d been out in the Upper levels a week ago, making his way home after one of his rare appointments with an old client turned friend. A child had fallen into the path of a small parade of speeders. A correctional officer had raised a whip. Obi-Wan had reacted on instinct, catching its lash with his forearm. The child had run off. Obi-Wan had stayed. He’d raised his head just enough, eons later, to see the durasteel outside of the largest speeder pass by his prone form, just enough to see the Imperial crest on its hull. Just for long enough to see a glint of a yellow eye from the window.

Bacta had treated his wounds, but his mind had not allowed him to rest easily, caught up in the memory of that eye--had he imagined the interest? Had he imagined it all?

And so to hear his name called tonight--the first calling since The Incident--had felt like the confirmation of all of his most unfounded fears.

Would tonight be the night he died? He had lived a long life. A rough one. Perhaps it is time.

Still, in the back of his head, a selfish, utterly human part of him whispered, may the others be your betters.

---

Those chosen do, often, come back. Sometimes they do not. Mostly they do. Obi-Wan has never truly decided which of these fates is the worse one. Those who survive don’t say anything for days on end, their eyes blank as they stare forward. Their bruises, if they are there, are easy to heal. But something is always wrong with their minds afterwards. And those who don’t come back...well. It’s hard to say what happens to them, where they go. Far away or down below.

Obi-Wan is forced to his knees in between a moderately aged female Togruta and a fairly young teenager. The boy is shaking. He can’t be more than sixteen.

They’re in the Entrance Hall. Obi-Wan has never been here before, but he supposes it makes sense. There will be one person who ventures further into the Palace. The rest will be dismissed out the doors that just shut. No need to bring the scum further in than they have to.

Distantly, like a funeral drum, Obi-Wan can hear the sound of feet falling, making their way closer. Just a single pair. He wants to look up, to watch the Emperor--because it has to be the Emperor--approach, but there’s a Guard behind him, holding his head down.

The footsteps are close now. There’s only ten of them--sometimes, Obi-Wan has heard that there can be as many as twenty or thirty--so the line is short. Vader paces quietly from the first to the last person, before stopping in the middle. Obi-Wan can just see the black of his boots if he flicks his eyes as far as they can go to the left. The boy next to him lets out a muffled sob. Obi-Wan wishes he could offer the kid some sort of comfort, some sort of reassurance that the Emperor will choose one of the other workers, a body more desirable than either of theirs, but there are no words to describe the guilty relief of a suffering passed onto someone else.

On some sort of invisible signal, the Guard behind Obi-Wan wrenches his head back by the hold he has on both the silken hood and his own hair. It’s far from comfortable, tilted so far back. The message is obvious. Submission is not optional. Respect will be shown through any means necessary.

Obi-Wan tries to keep the hulking form of Vader in his eyesight, even though to see ahead of him he has to close his eyes almost completely because of the angle. It’s impossible to see anything from the chest up, but he can still hear. Loud, mechanical breathing fills the halls. Vader stops at each person for no longer than five seconds before he continues down the line. Obi-Wan holds his breath, waiting for his turn. Does he turn his head as much as he can, to try and accentuate the gray at his temples? Does he lower his eyes?

He doesn’t, in the end, do either. Vader is wearing a mask, completely covering his face. He doesn’t even look human, except for the way he cocks his head slightly as he stares down at Obi-Wan. He feels flayed, just under the single look, but he can’t turn away either. He glowers up at him. Five seconds pass. Vader should be moving on by now. The fact that he hasn’t fills Obi-Wan with the sort of fear he’s only felt a handful of times in his life.

“This one,” Vader says through a voice modulator. Obi-Wan closes his eyes in defeat, thinks of Little Ahsoka back at the Establishment, thinks of what she’ll think if he doesn’t make it home.

But the boy next to him bursts into sobs and Obi-Wan opens his eyes to see that Vader’s hand isn’t pointing to him at all, but instead just to his right.

But Vader’s face is still pointed directly at Obi-Wan though, head still cocked. The question is as clear as if he actually spoke the words aloud. What will you do about this?

What will he do? What can he do? It’s the street from a week ago all over. A child is in danger. How can Obi-Wan ever live with himself if he doesn’t at least try to throw himself on the blade?

“No!” he says before he can think it through. The Guard behind him jerks his hair back roughly in punishment, but the monster in front of him runs two gloved fingers down his cheek, the pantomime of a lover’s caress. “Me instead. Choose me.”

“Quiet,” the Guard hisses to him, making him wince with the ferocity of the yank he gives his hair. Obi-Wan pants open-mouthed as he tries to think of an argument, of a single reason why the Emperor should not get what he wants, should settle for a washed up whore instead of a younger model. All he can think of is the moral justifications of it, and he’s not sure Vader would care for that line of reasoning.

“I’m asking,” he blurts out. The fingers pause from where they’ve been absent-mindedly touching his beard. “When has anyone ever asked?”

The Emperor takes a step back and seems to consider Obi-Wan, what he has to offer. He tries to preen, to throw his shoulders back and sit back on his heels to show off his body, but it’s hard when the Guard hasn’t let up on his hair. In fact the grip gets even tighter as the man behind him snorts a common insult.

A second later, the hand and the pressure disappear. Obi-Wan falls forward automatically at his sudden release. He scrambles away instinctively, even if that means closer to Vader. Vader who has his hand raised out in front of him clenching his gloved fist tight. Obi-Wan looks behind him at the guard who had held him. The man is scrabbling at his throat. Obi-Wan knows already it will be a futile effort. With Vader distracted by his execution, he turns to check on the boy. He’s looking down, refusing to make eye contact.

Probably for the better.

The Guard falls to the floor. The other nine Guards don’t move at all. Obi-Wan supposes there’s no room for loyalty in a galaxy like this.

“Come,” Vader says, running a hand through his hair. It’s a surprisingly gentle touch, seeing as that hand just took someone else’s life.

Slowly, Obi-Wan rises to his feet and follows behind him, through the twisting halls of the Imperial Palace. He thinks anyone could get lonely here if they have no one to keep them company. It’s so big. Obi-Wan shares his room with three other people, and he frets if one of them is still gone by the time he falls asleep.

This much space would drive anyone mad for another’s touch.

He blinks at himself, incredulous. Is he actually trying to feel compassion for the Emperor? Is it actually working?

The Emperor flings open a pair of elaborate doors without touching them, and suddenly Obi-Wan’s in the bedchambers of the most powerful man on the planet. And to think, he’s wearing mismatched and terribly darned socks.

He resolves to not ask Vader for permission to do anything with his own body for the entire night. He sits on the edge of the bed and watches as Vader takes off his cape and his gloves.

“Would you like to know my prices before or after?” He asks as cooly as possible.

“Your price is that it’s you here and not the boy.”

“Would you have wanted the boy?” Obi-Wan can’t hide the disgust in his tone.

“No,” the Emperor says succinctly. “But I did want to know what you would do. If you really were the same man as the one in the street.”

Obi-Wan’s breath catches in his throat. “Why would you want to know that?”

“There’s so little good left in the galaxy. It’s fascinating that so much is concentrated in you.” Vader reaches up to unlatch his mask. A cascade of golden curls falls out.

He huffs. The Emperor of the Galactic Empire thinks there’s not enough good in the galaxy. It’s at the very least ironic. “It’s a greedy galaxy, your Imperial Majesty--”

The Emperor turns around to face him, helmet still held in his hands. Obi-Wan is surprised to learn he’s just a man. An attractive man, certainly, young and almost pretty with a perfect arch to his lips and a roguish scar cutting through a thick eyebrow. If he had been one of Obi-Wan’s workers, he’d have taken him under his wing, tried to protect him from the clients who would have paid extra to rough up that face.

He was saying something. Obi-Wan had meant to say something else. Oh. Right. “Good cannot be bought.”

The man in front of him--was it really Vader?--smiles, but it doesn’t reach his yellow eyes. “No,” he purrs, discarding his helmet and stalking forward. “But you can.”

[eirikaanemo]

Trust Fall

Warnings: Description of a panic attack

Venti x GN!Reader

2k Words

Venti helps you get over your fear of heights.

Things started out alright. You were at Angel’s Share with some friends, relaxing after a long day of work. “Jean works us to the bone. And I can’t even be mad at her! She does so much too,” you groan. Kaeya and Amber nod in agreement.

“I know how you feel,” Amber sighs. “Sometimes I really wish I could be mad about it but we’re so short on hands that she just can’t help it.”

“I’d almost blame Grand Master Varka, but he’s just too likable,” Kaeya commiserates. You all simultaneously take a good, long sip of your drinks.

“Wow, you guys look awful,” someone behind you comments. Amber glances over her shoulder.

“Oh, hi Venti,” she replies. “Sorry, we didn’t see you there.” You turn in your seat to see your boyfriend, Venti standing there. It looks like he’d just finished performing for other patrons and was ready to get some drinks himself.

He slid into the seat next to you and waved to Diluc, who was managing the bar himself tonight. “Dandelion wine, please,” he called out excitedly. Diluc rolled his eyes but slid a drink over to him and walked to the other end of the bar to serve other customers. Venti hummed in delight as he took a swig of his wine.

“You sure like dandelion wine a lot, huh Venti,” Amber remarked.

“Of course I do, it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he proclaimed with a smile.

“And here I thought your partner here was the best thing that ever happened to you,” Kaeya mused loudly.

“Them too,” Venti agreed. “Both of them have a special place in my heart. I love them a whooooole lot!” You hid your face in your hands and groaned, hoping no one noticed your ears turning red.

“You know, if you’re doing that much maybe you should take some time later to relax and have fun,” Venti observed.

“Maybe we could go gliding together or something.” Amber considered it, but then noted, “That wouldn’t really work, with your partner being afraid of heights and all.” You pulled your head out of your hands to glare at her.

Thankfully Kaeya seemed to be too busy flirting with someone to have heard what Amber had said. Convincing him to keep it a secret would have been much harder. Glancing at Venti you noticed him looking at you, thoughtful and concerned. He’d definitely heard and you were definitely not ready to deal with that right now.

“Amber, I thought we agreed not to talk about that,” you whispered not-so-quietly.

“Oops,” Amber said sheepishly. “I forgot you were keeping that a secret.”

“It’s fine,” you sighed. “They know now so there’s nothing we can do about it. Just keep your mouth shut about it from now on please.”

She nodded vigorously. “I promise,” she assured you.

Kaeya seemed to have completely forgotten about you, chatting with yet another group, this time half-way across the bar. With your friends gone you took another sip of your drink and turned your attention back to Venti. He still looked contemplative, and it was starting to make you nervous.

Amber finished off her drink with a gulp. “Well, I’d best be heading home now,” she admitted. “I have to get up bright and early tomorrow.”

“Alright, sleep well then,” you wished her. “And get home safe.” She responded with a big smile and a ‘thank you’, and headed home.

“What’s on your mind, Venti?” You asked nervously.

“Are you really afraid of heights?” He asked.

“Well, kind of,” you confessed. “It’s honestly more like a fear of falling, to be honest. I’ve noticed that I rather enjoy the view when I’m confident I won’t fall.” He nods in understanding.

“And I guess gliders don’t really look all that trustworthy,” he ponders out loud. You nod sheepishly.

You consider your options, but keep coming back to how he seemed to have a longing look in his eye when he mentioned wanting to go gliding with you. He really did want to go. And he’d done a lot of things for you that he hadn’t really wanted to do. Maybe you could give this a try. Just for him.

“Well, do you think you could trust me?” He asks. You send him a funny look.

“Of course I trust you, you’re my boyfriend.” You explain exasperatedly.

“No, no,” he said, shaking his head, “that’s not what I meant. I meant to ask if you would trust me to not let you fall.”

“Why do you ask?” You inquire nervously.

“Well, I would like to go gliding together sometime and I was thinking maybe I could help you feel better about doing it. Y’know, since I have an anemo vision and all. I could help keep you from falling."

---

“Alright,” you sighed. “I’ll give it a try.” The smile he gave you in response was almost enough to make it worth it all on its own.

“Thank you,” he exclaimed as he reached over to drag you into a hug. “I promise you won’t regret it!”

You regretted this already. Venti chattered excitedly as the two of you made your way up to the place he’d decided to glide from. Apparently it wasn’t as high up as some other places, according to him, and you were really grateful for how considerate he was being, but you still felt really, really nervous.

There weren’t just butterflies in your stomach, there were all sorts of other creepy crawlies that sent a shiver down your spine as you thought about what was going to happen soon. Taking a deep breath to calm your nerves, you continued to follow Venti up the slope. Your heartbeat pounded in your ears as you tried to not look over the edge to your left.

You made it to the spot much too soon in your humble opinion. Daring a glance over the ledge, you could feel yourself pale as you saw how small the trees looked. Without realizing it you started to breathe faster, slipping into hyperventilation with panic seeping into your bones and suddenly you couldn’t breathe. Visions of every way this could possibly go wrong flashed through your mind.

A hand on your shoulder brought you back to reality. Venti had maneuvered you into a seated position and was gently humming a tune that you recognized to be one of your favorites. “Hey, come here, it’s alright,” he murmured softly. Shuttering, you tucked yourself closer to his side and closed your eyes. Focusing on your breathing you started to calm down. In, one two three. Out, one two three. In, one two three. Out, one two three.

When you had finally calmed down you chanced a glance at Venti, ashamed of your sudden reaction. Would he be angry? Maybe frustrated? Upset that you weren’t trying hard enough to do something he wanted to do? But when you actually met his eyes you saw nothing other than pure concern and worry.

“Are you okay if I hug you?” He cautiously asked. “I really want to help in any way I can but I know that sometimes people don't want to be hugged and need space and I don’t want to make things worse for you-” You cut him off by pulling him into a hug yourself. He carefully, slowly wrapped his arms around you and gently held you- not so tight as to make you feel trapped but not as loose as to make you think he didn’t want to hug you.

Pulling away quickly, you wiped the tears from your eyes. “No, no,” you exclaimed, “if you want to do this then I want to do this. Besides, I’ll have to face my fear sometime. And what better time to do it than when I have someone I trust there to catch me if something goes wrong.” A watery smile makes its way onto your face, your tears not quite ready to leave yet.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered to him. “I know you really wanted to do this and I’ve messed it all up.” Your eyes were moist. You blinked. And you could feel tears start to roll down your cheeks.

“Shhh,” he whispered, “there’s nothing to apologize for. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, I love you and want you to be happy. And if that means we don’t go gliding together, that’s okay.”

“How, uh, how exactly do I hold this again?” You inquire sheepishly. Venti quietly laughs a little, stands up, and walks over to you. He gently adjusts your hold and explains how to use the glider for what’s probably the twentieth time. Holding tightly to the glider you walk a little closer to the edge.

“Are you sure? You really, really don’t have to,” he said as he wiped some tears from your eyes.

“I’m sure,” you stated, determined to give this a try. For him.

“Alright,” he said softly, “just let me know when you’re ready.” You nod, take a deep breath, and stand up. Picking up your glider you turn it over in your hands.

Backing up some first, you started running and, closing your eyes first, you jump off the edge. “Open your eyes if you can,” Venti called to you. “The view is half the fun!” Then you heard him whoop as he jumped off the ledge to follow you, his glider already out and ready to catch him. You cautiously open one eye, then the other, as you choose to trust Venti and admire the view.

“Alright,” you start a little shakily. “How is this going to work?”

“Well, first you run to the edge and jump off the edge,” Venti describes. “Then you hold onto the glider until you reach the ground. I’ll make sure the wind doesn’t bother you.” You nod, determined to do this.

Just like Venti promised, no winds blew you off course. With his help and your trust in him, you somehow felt safe knowing that he could and would catch you if you fell. Because of this you were able to actually enjoy the view. He was right, it was beautiful and a lot of fun to see it grow as you gently glided towards it.

Eventually, and much too soon for your liking, you touched down to the ground. You fell to your knees and thanked Barbatos for your safety and for your amazing boyfriend. Even though you had been able to trust Venti, you felt yourself shaking from both remaining fear and the adrenaline running through your veins. You could feel more than hear Venti touching down behind you and jogging over to you.

“Are you okay? What did you think?” He asked carefully. You looked up at him and smiled.

“I think,” you said slowly, “that we’ll have a lot more gliding dates in the future.” He beamed and pulled you into a hug, pressing a kiss to your temple.

“I’m glad,” he whispered, “I’m really glad that you trusted me enough to give this a try. And I’m glad that you enjoyed it too.”

You grin and pull away again, this time completely. You laugh as he pouts at you, before picking up your glider and running back towards the slope. “Ready to go again? I bet I can make it back up first!” You tease him. His pout turns into a grin as he grabs his glider and chases after you. And that’s how the two of you spend the rest of the day.

You smile and pull back a bit to kiss him on the cheek and smile up at him. “Thank you for helping me overcome my fear, Venti. You’re the best partner ever.”

He blushes, pulls you back into the hug, and whispers in your ear, “No, thank you. You’re truly the best thing that’s ever happened to me, dandelion wine doesn’t hold a candle to all you mean to me. Thank you so much for being my partner.”

[amjustagirl]

Chapters: one. ~ two. ~ three. ~ four. ~ five. ~ six. ~ seven. ~ eight.

Wordcount: 2k

Summary: Being with Miya Atsumu is like chasing a storm - equal parts exhilaration and danger. After all, it’s impossible to tame a storm

Masterlist here 

AO3 link here

Author’s Note: And we’re at the penultimate chapter! Am rly excited to hear what you guys think - so please, drop me an ask, a note, a comment, anything!!! Thank you for following this fic with me <3

He stays away from her over the next two weeks. He still picks Shino up from childcare - he’s never leaving his little girl again - but takes Osamu’s advice to duck into the kitchen the minute he hears the bell chime to mark her entrance into the shop. 

‘Is everything alright with Atsumu?’ he hears her ask Osamu after a week of radio silence from him. 

He imagines Osamu just shrugs, because his twin later gives him a look of askance that he ignores. 

‘Meet me on Sunday afternoon? Was hoping to have a quick chat and pass something over to you since my arm is out of its sling.Osamu agreed to take Shino for a couple of hours, so don’t worry about her’, he texts her. 

‘Fine’, she texts back. ‘Works for me’. 

‘Hey’, he greets her as she opens the door, fighting the impulse to scruff his shoes into the ground like a nervous schoolboy on his first date. 

‘Hey yourself’, she responds without heat, slipping on her shoes. ‘Shall we?’ 

He nods, turning on his heel and she follows suit, their footfalls matching in pace, though they angle their bodies to avoid each other’s gaze in the lift. They do not exchange a single word until they reach the car park, and he leads her past all the cars to a dim corner, lit by a single flickering electric bulb.  

‘Atsumu - what’s this?’ she says, staring uncomprehendingly at the motorbike parked in front of her, the exact replica of the bike she sold when she got pregnant with Shino, albeit updated with a shining coat of new paint and the latest modifications, top of the line. 

‘Surprise?’ he tells her, unable to hide a grin when she runs a hand reverently over the seat of the bike. 

‘I can’t accept this, ‘Tsumu. It’s too much’, she demurs but he knows she’s fallen in love when she’s unable to tear her eyes away from the bike.

‘Sure ya can! I registered it under yer name, and paid for the parking fees for the year, and look! It even comes with a helmet!’, he assures her, crossing his fingers behind his back. ‘Ya can ride it whenever ya have time to yerself - I’ll make sure I or ‘Samu will take Shino-chan for a couple hours every weekend so ya can go break some speed limits on the bike!’ 

‘This isn’t a bribe, right? Or some attempt to trick me into agreeing into something I don’t want to do?’ she asks him suspiciously. 

‘No - no tricks, I swear on my life. Look - I’ve signed the divorce papers, they’re in my bag. I just wanted to give ya the bike as a partin' gift’, he says, keeping his voice deliberately light. 

She stares at him, searching his face for any sign of duplicity, but he holds her gaze until she turns away, satisfied. 

‘You never do anything by halves, do you ‘Tsumu? But thank you anyway’, she laughs breathily and his heart lurches to a start when he sees her slowly start to glow whilst fussing over the bike, exclaiming to herself as she admires the paint job and the extra compartments he’d gotten the mechanic to install. 

Watching her brings back memories of their adventures together before Shino came along. She’d pick him up for a ride to the outskirts of Osaka on their rare days off, in search for a spot to lay their picnic mat down and shoot the breeze. They’d never found that perfect picnic spot, but that just meant that there were more places to explore, more roads to traverse, more adventures for them to go on. That’d all stopped once Shino came along, and he wonders if they wouldn’t be in such a state if he’d put in more effort to carve out more time for them.   

And even before that - there was the time she’d surprised him by turning up in Kobe for one of his matches, sweeping him away from his confused teammates right after the match to celebrate over egg mayo sandwiches at 7-11. He suspects that was the day he’d fallen in love with her, half realising that she was probably the only person crazy enough to burn hours on the road on the back her rusty old bike right after an exam, just to stay up all night sitting cross-legged in a dim combini with mayo in her hair, listening to him ramble about his volleyball match. 

Wow. 'Samu's right. Even the reason he fell in love with her was fucking selfish. 

‘Hey ‘Tsumu’, he hears her say after a while and he looks up. ‘Wanna go for a ride?’ she asks brightly, twirling the keys around her finger. 

‘Huh?’ he responds, genuinely perplexed. 

‘A ride, you idiot. Don’t you want to find out how the bike feels on the road, especially since you’re the one who paid for it?’ 

‘Sure’, he says, a little lost - but then again she’s always found ways to keep him on his toes. ‘But there’s only one helmet’. 

‘I still have my old one upstairs. Give me a second so I can get it!’ she rushes off, a spring in her step he’s sorely missed seeing and despite the ache in his heart, he smiles. 

His smile vanishes the moment she kicks the bike full throttle and hurtles through weekend Osaka traffic at breakneck speed, making such sharp turns he almost falls off the bike if he weren’t already clutching her waist for dear life. ‘Oi! Look out!’ he yelps, as she weaves her way through narrow gaps between cars, seemingly deaf to the horns of outraged drivers behind her - and fuck he wants to puke but can’t because there’s no way that doesn’t end badly for him. 

‘Slow down, you fuckin' maniac’, he manages to shout when his stomach gives itself up for dead, but the wind swallows his words and she only whoops in response. The neon city lights blur into a mess of colours and he runs through his repertoire of curse words. He swears she’s evil - it’s not enough that she’s killed him once by divorcing him, her insane riding is going to make sure he’s doubly dead.

They burst onto the highway in a squeal of tires, the city skyline fading into a sea of lights, and they’re both so focused on the road ahead of them, well – she is, at least, he’s trying his level best to stay on his seat - that neither of them notice the dark clouds gathering above until the first splatter of raindrops on the road. 

The sky is threatening enough to make her swerve off the highway into a quiet neighbourhood, screeching to a halt at the nearest park with an empty shelter large enough to fit both of them. They jump off the bike, helmets dangling over their arm, and she catches hold of his hand as they splash their way through muddy puddles in a bid to escape the incoming storm. 

‘That was amazing!’ she laughs when they reach shelter, twirling on the tips of her feet, cheeks flushed pink with excitement, looking so happy and bright and alive -  like a bird spreading its wings to fly high in the sky, the way she used to be before their marriage broke her wings and shackled her to the ground. 

If only he hadn’t been blinded by the false allure of his dreams to appreciate what was right in front of him - a woman bold enough to whisk him away from the clutches of deranged fans on the back of a motorbike, fierce enough for Osamu to assign her to deal with his bullshit - and most of all, crazy enough to marry and have a child with him. And he knows she isn’t his, not anymore, but he's a greedy, selfish man, and he wants her one last time, so he throws his jacket over her shoulders as a pretext for drawing her close to him, slanting his mouth gently over hers. 

She stills for a second, and he’s about to pull away when she melts into him, tilting her chin up to grant him greater access to her lips. An unexpected heat coils in his stomach when she tangles her fingers in his hair, scraping her nails against his scalp, a thrill running down his spine as he loses himself in her familiar softness and warmth and groans.

She gasps, jerking away from him, tracing her bruised lips with her fingers, looking up at him with wide eyes.

‘Tsumu’, she begins to say, but he cuts her off, frantic with worry that he’s scared her off before he’s had the chance to say his piece. 

‘I’m sorry - I know I shouldn’t have but I just...can I just say what I meant to say to ya before this?’ he asks, banking on the fact that she hasn’t slapped him yet, and to his relief, she nods. 

‘I’ve thought about what ya said, and yer right -  I’ve taken so much from ya I don’t deserve to ask ya for anything else, not when I should be the one making it up to ya for the rest of my life,’ he says, his heart cracking beneath his ribs (so it’s true, a heart can actually break) – because he knows now she’s lost to him, has been the second he'd forsaken his vows and stormed out of her life, but he gulps a breath to calm his pulse, forcing himself to continue on. 

‘All I want is for ya to be happy and free - and if signing these papers is the price I have to pay, I’ll do it for ya’. Then he draws the brown envelope from his bag, holding it out to her with shaking hands. 

She makes no move to take it from him. 

‘Do you even love me, ‘Tsumu?’ she asks, her voice feather light, a wisp in the wind. ‘Be honest with me, you don’t have to lie’.

There’s a searing pain in his chest and he closes his eyes, losing himself to the undercurrent of regret pulsing in his mind. 

‘I do’, he manages to choke out, peeling aside the rotting layers of vanity and greed and selfishness and pride to flay his chest open to present his heart to her, in all its bleeding, broken glory. 

‘Yer everythin’ I could’ve ever asked for, and it’s killin’ me to watch you walk away - but I deserve it cos I’m a fuckin’ idiot for not realisin’ that sooner, and ya have no idea how fuckin’ sorry I am for hurting ya so badly and making you think that I don’t love ya - because I do, gods, I do, I love ya so goddamned much.’

‘Does our marriage mean that much to you?’ she stares at him, her eyes clouded with an emotion he can’t make out. 

‘Yes’, he says simply, his response both a confession and a prayer. He makes no move to touch her, fearful that any misstep might tip them both over the edge, the storm of emotions swirling within him already threatening to swallow him whole. 

‘Then ask me again, ‘Tsumu’ she whispers, her fists clenched, trembling by her side.    

He blinks at her, but his confusion morphs into elated disbelief when she takes the brown envelope from him and rips it cleanly in half. 

Oh. 

‘Ask me again, ‘Tsumu’, she repeats, the clouds in her eyes clearing into pools of light. He wonders if it mirrors the rush of warmth and love and most of all - hope, overflowing in his heart. 

‘Wanna try jumping off a cliff again?’ he asks, voice shaking, echoing the request he made of her years ago.

She steps forward into his waiting arms, her smile like golden sunlight spilling through grey rain.  

‘Only if you promise to jump with me’, she says softly against his chest. 

He catches her forgiveness desperately in his hands, and seals his promise with his lips. 

[sedated-love]

Dabi x Reader smut

Third post of October!! 

Okay, I’ll admit that I got a little carried away with this one ^^’ 

It is over 2k words of pure piercer au Dabi smut...whoops 

Hope you guys enjoy! If you like it, please take the time to reblog <3 It helps a ton! Also if you have any suggestions for what I write in the future, please feel free to leave them in my ask box! I’ll be writing every day of October so I need the suggestions XD 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Stick your tongue out.”

You did as you were told, pushing your tongue out of your mouth before looking up at the hot male who was going to be giving you your first ever piercing. The piercer had quite a few of them himself which made you feel a little better about the whole process. Someone who had multiple must know what they are doing, right?

“You said this is your first piercing, huh? Starting out with the tongue is pretty ballsy for someone so small~”

He seemed to be teasing you for your height as he easily had 6 inches on you. When you had first walked into the parlor, he immediately caught your eye. Not just because of his height but because the man was practically dripping with sexual appeal. Even with what looked to be burns all over his body, there was still something about him that just screamed ‘I’ll fuck you right here over this counter if you look at me for a second too long’.

You made a soft sound of acknowledgement, not able to offer much more considering your tongue was still hanging out of your mouth. He took his sweet ass time prepping the equipment as you watched him take a new needle out of a plastic package as well as some sanitizing wipes. Did you really have to hold your tongue out during this entire process?

You could feel the saliva start to build up and your tongue was twitching from trying to hold it still for so long. It wasn’t the most comfortable experience, but you had been wanting a tongue piercing for so long that you didn’t mind a little bit of discomfort. However, you could already feel the anxiety churning in your stomach from the thought of the pain you were about to experience.

You really didn’t know what to expect. You hadn’t even gotten your ears pierced before so you had absolutely nothing to compare the pain to.

“Anxious?”

The piercer…Dabi, you were pretty sure he said was his name, asked you in such a soothing tone. It was almost soothing enough to calm your nerves as all you wanted to do was close your eyes and listen to him talk all day but to not appear psychotic, you simply nodded your head with your tongue still sticking out between your lips.

“Don’t be, I’m going to take very good care of you~”

You could have sworn he purred as he said that and every word of it went straight down your body, making your clench your thighs together shyly. Shit! Were you really getting turned on right here in the middle of getting a fucking tongue piercing? From a guy who probably was just trying to do his job no less.

You let out a soft weak whine as he suddenly grabbed your tongue out of nowhere, forcibly dragging you from your thoughts. He raised an eyebrow in response as he held your tongue between his two fingers, watching as your saliva which had been building up slid down his fingers as he held you in place. Your whole face turned red in shock and embarrassment at the noise you just made. Not to mention the fact you were practically drooling all over his fingers like some over salivating dog at the sight of food.

It was…a bit lewder looking than you would like to admit and it was absolutely traumatizing.  You were partly wishing he would stick the needle through your tongue so you could leave and never come back. The idea of curling in an embarrassed mess in your bed and never leaving sounded awful thrilling right now.

“Does this excite you~?”

The question took you by surprise as he rubbed the top of your tongue with the pad of his thumb, leaning down so close that you could feel his breath on your nose. “You made an awfully cute whine there~” He smirked, giving another soft tug on your tongue which gave him a similar response.

You silently cursed your body, wondering why you were making such lewd noises at something so dumb. Yet you couldn’t deny the heat in between your legs that seemed to just be getting stronger the longer this went on. The worst part about it was that you couldn’t even speak to deny it as he had your tongue firmly placed in between his fingers as if it belonged to him.

“I’ll tell you a little secret~”

He grabbed the needled and the pliers with his other hand, holding your tongue still as he positioned the pliers on your tongue which took the place of his fingers.

“It excites me too~”

He didn’t give you any other warning before shoving the needle through your tongue which just pulled a loud mewl from the back of your throat. He smirked, pulling the pliers off as he quickly went to work replacing the needle with the piercing you had picked out prior. “Is someone into pain~?”

He gently took a tissue and dabbed away the extra blood on your tongue, humming in delight over the prettiest of moans he had just been gifted simply by shoving a needle through your body. He grabbed a mirror when he was done, holding it up so you could see the new piece of jewelry that now showed proud in the middle of your tongue.

“Sadly, I would wait at least a month before making out or giving head…you wouldn’t want this to get infected, now would you~?” He ran his fingers along the length of your tongue much more gingerly now as you felt it pulsing underneath thanks to the after math of the pain. You could tell this was going to be sore for a while.

“However…if you get that wet over my piercings, I wouldn’t mind giving you some…others~”

His hand made its way down, shoving itself in between your thighs as he palmed you through your pants. “I noticed how much you were squirming for me~” He didn’t hesitate to slide his hand under your pants and underwear, sliding his fingers through the wet heat that was painfully present.

“Imagine how good I could make you feel~”

He was right, just from the few simple touches you were mewling and moaning for him loudly, your body feeling like it was being lit ablaze from the pleasure. “W-Wait~” You looked towards the door in a futile attempt to keep your privacy. Though it didn’t do much when his fingers slid inside of you, making your legs tremble and your back arch as you keened.

“Don’t worry, I locked the door~”

You didn’t need much else to find yourself melting into his touches. You wrapped your arms around his neck as he scissored you with his fingers, kissing down your neck as he opened you up for him. “You want this, baby, don’t you~? You want me to fill you up~? I saw the way you were looking at me~ Practically drooling over me~”

You blushed as your moans seemed to echo in the small room. You were pretty sure the walls weren’t soundproof, but you couldn’t help your voice when he was thrusting his fingers in you in just the right way to have you arching and gasping underneath him.

“Answer me, baby~ Do you want this~?”

“Y-Yes~”

Your voice came out breathy as you pushed yourself down on his fingers needily, finding yourself to be completely entrapped by him as you wanted nothing more than to feel him inside of you. Even the soft throb of your newly pierced tongue seemed to only add to the pleasure as that soft confirmation was all that he needed.

He pulled his fingers out of you just to yank off your pants and your underwear as they were in his way. He pressed his clothed hard on against your wet heat, a soft groan leaving his lips as he looked over your body in approval. “I already know all the places I’m going to pierce you up~” He purred as his hands trailed over your body, stopping in certain areas as if he was already imagining the placement of you future piercings.

“Fuck, baby~ you really know how to get me going~”

He started placing sloppy kisses all along your body, pushing down his pants and boxers just enough for his cock to pop free from its restrains. He gave it a few short pumps, to get it fully hard before pressing it against your entrance. You felt your stomach swell up with need as your entrance twitched with need at the feeling of his hard cock pressed against it.

You found yourself squirming underneath him, giving soft whines when he didn’t give you what you needed. “Dabi, I swear to fuck, if you don’t shove your dick in me right this instant, I’m going to lose my mind!”

Embarrassment be damned! You were horny as fuck and it felt like your head was going to explode if you had to wait one more second for him to give you what you wanted. He chucked in response, shoving cupping his hand around your throat and applying a gentle pressure as he pushed inside of you with one hard thrust.

“Someone’s eager~”

He started didn’t give you time to adjust before he was pulling out and thrusting back into you, starting a steady rough pace as your moans filled the room. You probably should have been more embarrassed but instead you were lost in the pleasure as you leaned back in the piercing chair, your legs propped up on either side of the arm handles as your body arched and jerked off the soft leather and into his touches.

“F-Fuck~”

You could feel his length dragging out of you every time he pulled out and shoving right against your soft spot with every thrust in. He had you gasping and mewling every time as he pinned you down by your neck, not completely choking you but keeping his hand there to remind you that he is in complete control and could any time he wanted.

“D-Daddy~”

The words left your mouth before you meant for them to and once you realized what you had said, you tensed slightly, your whole face turning red as embarrassment swelled in your gut. As if it wasn’t bad enough you were fucking some guy you literally just met but now you were calling him daddy?

He didn’t seem to mind though. In fact he paused for a second, staring down at you with an unreadable expression before his grip on your neck tightened and his thrusts became more frantic. He pounded his entire length insides of you, filling you to the brim and rubbing along your sensitive walls with every rough thrust.

“Say it again~!”

His voice came out as a snarl as he slammed his hips into yours, filling you with all of him whether you could handle it or not. “N-Ngh~ Daddy~!” The word rolled off your tongue as if it were meant there as you gasped softly for air from where he was applying pressure on your throat. It wasn’t enough to completely cut off your air supply but it was enough to stop some of the blood flow and make your brain turn into nothing but complete mush as you felt a familiar heat starting to boil up in you gut.

Dabi grunted above you as his thrusts became sloppier. He kept his one hand firmly around your neck while his other had a bruising hold on your waist as he pushed himself into you. It didn’t take long before you were screaming his name for everyone in the shop to hear, your body clenching down on him and milking him as you reached your orgasm.

Pleasure surged through you and your vision went hazy as you went limp in the chair below him. However, he didn’t slow down for a second. His hips kept snapping forward roughly as his hand went down, messing with your clit as he over stimulated you. “Come on baby~ give daddy another one~”

He purred as he continued to thrust while roughly playing with your clit, working you up all over again. You tried to cling to his arm, your thighs shaking violently as your eyes rolled back from the pleasure. “W-Wai..t..~!” You moaned loudly, your hips bucking every so weakly as you felt yourself rapidly approaching a second orgasm.

He didn’t slow down, completely ignoring your whimpers as he felt himself quickly reaching his own climax. He continued to mess with your clit as his other hand slipped from around your neck to grope and mess with your nipples as he jerked his hips roughly.

“D-Dabi!”

You couldn’t last with him messing with you so roughly. Not to mention after you had already cummed once which just made you overly sensitive. You squealed as you clung to him, tightening down on him as you came a second time. He only lasted a few more thrusts with your walls practically milking him like that before he was cumming deep inside of you, filling you to the brim with his seed as he groaned loudly.

You both panted softly, your bodies sweaty and exhausted. Your brain was still clouded from your orgasms as he slowly pulled out of you, quickly grabbing some towels to help clean you up as he placed soft kisses all over you as if worshipping your body as he did so.

“So…you’re gonna come back and get more piercings right?~”

“Definitely~”

[soulwillower]

be quiet • bill denbrough

(step brother bill denbrough x reader smut)

requested: bill smut?? perhaps in which they’re step siblings or if you don’t like that just good old neighbours  +   uhh, i would kill for stepbrother bill denbrough if you’re up for it  + More jealous bill smut pleaseee 😩

warnings: swearing, smut, dirty talking, use of the word slut i think, choking, richie x reader a bit, they just kiss, jealous step brother bill, shitty writing, unedited, sorry i was a lil higher than i thought when i wrote this

[bill + reader are 18+ in this]

2k words

♡

"y/n?" you hear a voice yelling from downstairs. you sigh lightly, getting off the bed and opening the door to lean over the balcony. "what do you want, bill?" you call, your eyes landing on your step brother. his back is to you, down in the kitchen where he looks like he's getting out snacks. "e-everyone's coming over, okay? d-don't tell my mom or y-your dad and you can hang out w-with us."

"will richie be here?" you call. he turns around, glaring at your face before his eyes trail up and down your body. you shiver, glad you're high enough up on the bannister of the stairs that he probably can't see you blush. "can you go ch-change?" he sneers, changing the subject and your jaw drops. "what?! you can't tell me how to dress." you spit, rolling your eyes. "you can't tell anyone how to dress." you add. "wh-whatever, y/n." he says as he shakes his head, turning back around. you scowl. who does he think he is?

a few hours later, you'd all shared a few beers and you'd had a nice buzz going when mike suggested truth or dare. it wasn't a terribly bad idea, but you'd thought it was lame to be playing at your age. nonetheless, you were all gathered in a circle, giggling and rolling your eyes as you played. "alright, rich." mike starts. "truth or dare?"

richie shrugs, smirking at mike. "truth." you all laugh, shocked that the boy didn't choose dare as he always did. "alright trashmouth, who here would be the best kisser?"mike asks with a sly grin. richie chuckles, shrugging.  

he hums. "y/n, probably." he says proudly, sending you a wink. you laugh, feeling your face heat up as everyone's whooping and laughing with you. your eyes glance to bill to see his glare set dead at richie. you conceal your smirk as a flirty glance at richie. "bill, calm down. your step sis is just really hot." richie teases, grinning at bill.  

bill scowls, crossing his arms and glaring at the wall. you chuckle to yourself. you think its fun to flirt with richie - after the two of you drunkenly realized that you think it's funny when you flirt because bill gets so mad, you’ve always done small stuff to make him angry.

"watch it, tozier." bill growls. you press your thighs together, eyes leaving bill before you pounce on him in front of everyone. bev laughs at bill's actions, turning to you. "y/n, truth or dare?” she asks.

“dare.” you say, feeling bold. bev smirks immediately, “i dare you to kiss rich.”

"f-fuck off, bev!" bill barks, but you're already sliding into richie's space and lifting a brow at bill. richie’s hands fall around your hips and you grin at him, the two of you softly kissing. he's a good kisser, and for a moment you imagine it's bill. when you pull back, bill gets up muttering about getting some air.

x

he doesn't talk to you at all until the others fall asleep, piled in your living room at around 1 in the morning.

when you’re about to turn into your room, a hand yanks you back and you stumble, running into him. “whats up, buttercup?” you ask lightly, smirking. bill gapes at you. “are you kidding me, y/n?” he says. you hear someone rolling around downstairs and bill’s hand is shoving you inside your room, kicking the door shut behind him. “can you stay away from my f-fucking friends?” he asks hotly, arms crossing. he’s never looked hotter.

“i don’t know what you’re talking about.” you say with a smirk. “what, like you weren’t hanging off richie all night? you kissed him just c-cause you felt like it?” you’ve never felt such energy from him before as he steps towards you angrily.

“oh, i get it. you're jealous." you smirk, lifting a brow. bill scowls at you and you swear you could melt right there. his brows are furrowed, eyes narrowed and fierce, his jaw clenched and chest heaving.

christ.

"you f-fucking wish." he says with a scoff, his arms crossing over his chest. you narrow your eyes at him, feeling hot with his gaze on you. "as if. never in a million years, asshole." you retort. he shakes his head, laughing lowly. "i can hear you through the walls, you know. at night." he says slyly, his smirk growing larger by the moment. your heart drops and your stomach freezes. "wh-what are you saying?" you say accusingly, wishing that he wouldn't notice your red cheeks.

"oh, y-you want me to say it, huh?" he spits, walking closer to you, up until your legs are hitting the back of his bed. "i've heard you touch yourself while th-thinking of me." he says, his eyes dark and a smirk on his face. "i can hear you through the walls." he whispers into your ear, making you shiver.

fuck.

"oh, are you sure your pervy imagination didn't just dream that up after you got tired of hearing me moan your best friend's name through the walls?" you counter, then doing an imitation of a exaggerated moan, "richie!"

your thighs clench immediately when his hand shoots out and grips your throat, leaning towards your face. you moan quietly as he squeezes lightly, "s-shut the fuck up." he spits at you. you’re shocked and one of your hands shoots up to hold his arm. “is billy jealous?” you say sarcastically with pouty lips. you see anger flash brightly in bill’s eyes and suddenly he’s surging forward, clashing his mouth onto yours.

you moan into the fiery kiss with pleasure, stumbling against the bed and almost falling, bill’s hand that isn’t around your throat coming to catch you by your waist.

you pull away and bite his lip as you break the kiss. “so you are, hm?” you say as you pull away. he rolls his eyes, "shut up." and then you’re kissing harshly again, his hand squeezing down your waist and sneaking around to your ass, making you suck in a breath through your nose.

bill smirks mockingly, “it’s so pathetic how desperate you are.” he says, his hand sliding up from your ass and rubbing the seat of your underwear. “you’re s-soaking. is this all for me?” he asks lowly. you’re gasping, your mouth open as you stare up at him.

he pushes you gently away to let you fall onto his mattress. “well?” he asks, looking expectantly. you blink up for him, gasping now that your throat isn’t constricted by his fingers. you’re aching for him but you want to push it further. just to see how far he’d go.  

“you couldn’t pleasure me if you tried your hardest, denbrough.” you say with a breezy laugh. he glares at you, pulling your legs so you slide to the edge of his bed. you look up at him, his face stern and sexy as he flips you over so your ass is in the air.

as you try to look over your shoulder you’re suddenly jolted with a sharp pleasure and you yelp, your ass stinging. “what was that, princess? y-you think i can’t make you feel good?” he asks tauntingly.

you moan into the pillow below you as he pulls down your shorts. his rough, large palms rub up and down on your ass before he smacks you again in the same spot and you squeal, aching for him. “look at this lace. did you w-wear this hoping i’d see it?” he asks and you moan, weakly nodding your head. you hum out a gasping "yes" and he laughs again as you distantly hear his shirt fall on the floor. “yeah?” he asks, his fingers ghosting over the wet patch on your panties, starting to lightly rub at your clit. “take off your shirt.” he says sternly and something about it makes you sit up quickly, his thumb still stoking you, and you lift the shirt off your torso.

you moan when you feel him kiss up your back, his own bare shoulders pressing into yours. “look at you, d-doing exactly what i say. so ready for your step brother's cock.” he whispers in your ear. you gasp, completely shocked that something so dirty would come out of bill’s mouth.

and then he’s slipping two fingers into your entrance, his other hand pressing on your back to force your body into the mattress. you let out a half-moan, half-sob, squealing as he starts thrusting his fingers. his thumb comes back to rub harshly at your clit and you buck your hips.

his fingers move expertly in you, curling and making you moan his name loudly. he tuts suddenly, the noise is so sexy that you groan.  

“you have to be quiet. w-wouldn’t want anyone to hear us, would we?” he says from behind you, his fingers pulling out of you. you nod and he leans up, pressing a hot kiss to your list. it’s fierce and your teeth clash as you hear him pull his pants off, pushing his boxers down his legs.

“please fuck me bill.” you beg, looking at him and feeling the most desperate you ever have.

“th-that’s right. you’re mine.” he hisses as he slowly sinks into you. you gasp and moan into the mattress, your hands pressing in below you.

as he fills you up you whimper - he’s so much bigger than anyone you've ever had. his hands grip your hips as he starts thrusting, groaning quietly. “fuck.” you whimper, moving your hips in time with him as he picks up pace. one hand holds his body up, leaning over your back and sucking harshly on your neck. his other hand slaps your ass again and you moan his name. his hand slaps over your mouth and you almost want to scream at how hot it is when he leans into your ear, thrusting deep, “shut. up.” he commands.

his hips are snapping into you and hitting spots in you that make your toes curl. his hand leaves your mouth, instead tugging your hair so your head tilts back and he kisses into your mouth.

your body feels like it’s on fire as his cock fills you up and makes you clench around him. “fuck.” he mutters as he quickly pulls out of you, tugging you around so you’re face to face. “r-richie could never fuck you as well as i can.” he says, guiding himself right back to your entrance and teasing your entrance. "nobody can." he mutters and you groan, chanting out small pleads.

you gasp, eyes wide and eyebrows drawn together as he thrusts into you and you throw your head back, “oh my god, bill.” you whimper. his hand grips your throat again and you moan instantly. he chuckles as he fucks you into the mattress. “god, you’re so wrecked for me. look at you.” he tuts, smirking as he squeezes his hands slightly.

you moan raggedly, taking in his muscular frame hovering above you as he thrusts into you. “i’m.. i’m gonna cum.” you whimper, you’re eyes screwed shut. he laughs in a mocking way, his hand cupping your tits and thrusting into you in harder. “then cum.” he grunts.

after a few more thrusts you’re cumming around him, whimpering and breathing raggedly. he’s smirking and still thrusting into you. your nails are dragging down his back because of how sensitive you are and then he's groaning, biting your neck as he cums in you.

your breaths are mixing together as you lay there in shock and bliss. he sighs before he pulls out, pulling up your panties and patting on top of the cloth. you’re both breathing heavily as he smirks at you.

“if i didn't know a-any better, i'd say you were waiting a l-long time for that to happen.” he says lowly with a smirk, leaving his shirt in your room as he leaves.

[wavesmp3]

directors cut: oasis

[doing this entirely for myself, out of pure self indulgence lol] [this will be very messy/poorly organized and there will be spoilers]

okay so where to even begin omg..... we will start with the origins of oasis:

its actually, techinically a spin off of the world from this drabble with dino from svt. which the world in this drabble is what the world from oasis would look like very far in the future. but i changed a lot between writing that drabble and creating oasis. but there should be a scene in the drabble that is very similar to a part in oasis (hint: the first vision they got from saskila was not just a random vision with no meaning.......hehe)

but that drabble (its titled dreamscapes) was inspired by a mix of this post on tumblr about how nuclear waste warning signs sounded very cool and the book that i was reading called the children of blood and bone by tomi adeyemi

and then after i had made that drabble i saw dee’s (@/atbzkingdom’s) post about the time capsule collab, and i had a couple ideas of what i could do for it but i ultimately decided on what would eventually become oasis !! so i guess we really have dee and that collab to thank for this piece lol

now for the timeline of me writing:

so i started outlining this piece in the first couple days of january, and normally outlines take me a while to come up with just because i struggle in coming up with plot, but i knew that my spring semester of classes would be starting soon and that I didn’t have a lot of time so i just sort of grinded an outline out as well several paragraphs of pure worldbuilding. 

and then i started writing

and wow i was Really writing!! at my peak productivity i was easily getting down like 2k a day which for me is insane (for reference, i wrote 1k a day for tsiytt and i struggled my way through that) 

but then life happens classes had begun and my writing for oasis slowly become nothing... 

i really only found the time to work on the piece every other weekend, so i was really nervous that i wouldn’t finish in time (which technically i didn’t cause it was supposed to come out march 1st) but luckily i did

and at some point in february, i had lost so much of my momentum and motivation for this piece that i almost gave up on it. (at this point i was writing the scenes after they find the seat of wisdom destroyed) but again luckily i did not, but i personally can definitely see a decline in the quality of my writing towards the end (i mean maybe its in my head, but its sort of like i can see the loss of love for the wip in my writing at the end of it)

but don’t misunderstand, i still love oasis!! and in all honesty, i’m already considering starting a second draft to it, which is way sooner than i thought i would lol

also when i started writing this piece, i began writing it in the order that it would be read, but then halfway i switched to writing chronologically

anyways, something i learned while writing this piece, is that writing is a marathon. whereas, even with my longer pieces, i always viewed writing as a sprint. so as i start venturing into original works and more lengthy pieces of writing, i think this was a very valuable lesson for me to have learned.

okay now to the good stuff lol: [the first word of the bullet about the next chapter (?) is bolded for some crumbs of an organized commentary]

so this is jumping to the first past bit... but when i first wrote farah i had a very different plan for her character than who she ended up being. i had imagined that she’d be a lot more cold and a tough love sort of person. so that’s who i was writing when she’s first introduced in the flashback, but she very quickly become a much kinder full of love sort of person. but anyways i mention this because whenever i read that first part and the introduction of her character, i’m always a bit taken aback by how like mean here character is to crown then lol

also zoar !!!! its a terrible place, but i love that underground city

i also wrote the first flashback after i had written the scene where crown and chanhee are talking at his place in andhor, so the whole “fearless” connection was done very purposefully here since i knew how it’d be referenced in the next scene. someone mentioned this small connection in their reblog but i cant remember who 

also rashi is my favorite character xD

i personally think how crown and chanhee became friends (the running thing) is so cute 

this first bit of conversation between crown and chanhee when it switches back to the present and chanhee is giving them a tour of andhor is actually quite important to me, in the sense that its the first glimpse of how their actual relationship works and how they act together and just like their dynamic despite the fact that they havent seen each other in so long 

and yeah i think kyu mentioned this and a few others, but i love how awkward it is when chanhee and crown are in his home in andhor, cause one: they havent seen each other in years! but also: anyone else find going to someone’s place for the first time oddly intimate, like wow you’re opening up your home to me and now suddenly idk how to sit or stand or what to do with my arms... maybe just me LMAO

DUDE i struggled so hard with making it so that chanhee knew how impossible this whole mission was going to be without actually revealing that he knows about the mirror. it was so hard for me, hopefully it came out alright though. if anyone is reading this, did the twist(s) come as a shock to you? did you see it coming? or did it feel like it came out of absolutely no where and not in a good way?

yes i did name the desert after the department store kohls .....

i was so excited to explain all the mage types, i had so much fun writing this whole chapter 

fun fact: there was originally another sub group of psyche mages called dream mages who had like powers with dreams and stuff, but it ended up being irrelevant and really underdeveloped so it took it out

if anyone else was raised catholic or is catholic then i’d hope you recognize the names of all the relics.... i stole them from a prayer in the rosary whoops

it took me very long time to figure out exactly how the whole soul for the relic business would work, and idk if im a 100% satisfied with what it is/how it works/how it plays into rashi giving chanhee the locket

the note new gives crown.... the first slice of their friendship blooming, bro i eat that shit up 

this part where crown and rashi are talking after the lesson is actually one of my favorites. (like i said i love rashi, but i just really love her interreacting with crown, i think they have such an interesting dynamic and one that i’ve seen irl a lot between students and teachers, where the student adores the teacher... i’ll get more into this later) but moving on, i like it for a number of reasons. one: it’s the first time we as readers get to see rashi talk outside of her role as lesson master. two: i love crown getting this validation from rashi. it’s not really expanded on a lot, but crown’s magic is definitely a bit of an insecurity for them, in the way that they don’t feel like it belongs to them. but here rashi comes, this person that crown looks up to so much, and telling crown that they’re a bit similar when it comes to having magic. and surprising crown by comforting them. and... idk i just really love this moment for crown.

okay this line: “You call your mom Rashi?” is a lowkey reference to game plan,, if anyone knows what i’m talking about then please come clown me for nearly having the entire movie memorized 

oh, i also find the capital really cool. in my head the capital was always one huge building that contains an entire city but i realized while editing that i never really explained that, so idk if i successfully described the capital as cool as it is to me 

also the five friends part.....CUTE

when chanhee says “i know. i remember.” !!! girl i felt that line with my entire chest. idk why

okay wait this part: “But that knowledge seems to fall flat right now. Because despite everything, curiosity won the war.” i love it so much, its that tiny of sliver of hope that gets me personally

i think this part where crown’s pride is so hurt by no one telling them about chanhee’s healing magic is quite important because its a glimpse of how stubborn and prideful and headstrong of a character they can be 

also this : “ ‘and do you believe everything rashi says’ / without hesitation, you answer, ‘yes, of course’ “ this is another example of how highly crown thinks of rashi while growing up, almost to a fault. to the point where crown thought rashi could do no wrong. which i think is so interesting to think about when contrasted with the fight crown and chanhee have in the jungle where crown is the one discussing how rashi was wrong. i just like how much growth crown has had between all these years. and their opinion / perspective on rashi is one of the largest indicators of that growth. 

I also just really like that paragraph where shadow vs healing is explained... I think chanhee’s magic is so sick

oh also the names thing.... I can’t remember where I got the idea to do that from but im so glad I did. its one of my favorite aspects to this world, and it looks like a lot of other people enjoyed it as well. but apart from the intimacy of it, i love how the use of names affects one’s magic. and that paragraph where they go through all that a mage could do with a name. it gives me chills. just cause.... the possibilities

so many people have mentioned this line.... but I must too, so this part: “magic always comes with a price. this is new’s” ..... crazy

saskila scares me omg

again the first vision they see is not a random scene.... the easter eggs I planted with that mwahaha

yeah that scene where they’re outside the tent discussing who should give their name to saskila..... I love that scene chanhee’s “I don’t have anyone but you” and crown deflecting all that tension with the pinky promise and the saskila calling them lovers.... mwah

this random scene about the hot summer and laying with Farah and new in the gardens is another one of my favorite, it’s just so sweet

but this next scene makes me so sad

like I know what happens and I know that everything turns out okay but I get so scared for crown

yeah just that entire part after Rashi gets to them and when they’re going to the infirmary and before crown passes out... I love that whole part. i think i did an effective job of writing the gravity of that whole moment. cause it makes me a little stunned every time I read it. and I was pretty nervous about not being able to do that scene and that moment justice so I’m glad it turned out like it did

and again this line: magic always comes with a price, and in your case, it comes with several.

okay this part after they jump out of the ship and crown is talking to Chanhee but that other dude is talking too... I hope it’s not too confusing. I really wanted to show through the writing that this was all happening at the same time, but idk it came out well. like in my mind I have such a clear picture of this scene, but I have no clue if I did effective job of showing you guys what I’m seeing through the writing

oh yeah, crowns thing about dual wielding and engulfing the blades in flames.... I find that so cool. they’re so sick for that

yeah also the part where crowns hurt and they give Chanhee their name and they use it.... great moment, but I feel like my writing is a bit lacking here. i just know it could be better.

I think at this point of writing my classes had started, and again the disparity in writing quality is so obvious to me 

but the line where chanhee is describing how it all feels, and it says “chanhee feels golden” was inspired by daylight by taylor swift, theres a line in that song that goes “i used to think love would be burning red, but its golden” and like hello the parallels between that and crown’s fire magic.... something to think about 

so this next part where it’s back to the past and crown is getting in trouble (as crown does) but the part where crown is like asking but not directly asking for rashi’s name.... that part is so crazy to me cause it’s feels so out of place. but it was purposeful. i was trying to show that crown’s growing and that they’re at this weird age where they feel invincible. and also i wanted to put more emphasis on how being royal and the heir to the throne kind of effects the relationships crown has

and the last line of this part when rashi says “never abuse it” it gives me chills whew

the next part ... another part that i had high hopes for in the outlining stages of writing, but when it came to actually writing, this scene totally flopped, i’m gonna try not to dwell on this part too much cause i just know most of my comments will be about how much i don’t like it. but just overall, this scene could have been SO MUCH BETTER !

omg this little interaction: ““Look!” Chanhee deadpans, shooting you a glare. “The match is about to begin.” / “Wish me luck.” /  “I hope you lose.”” i think its so funny and cute

“ Your eyes immediately got to Rashi “ another example of how highly crown regards rashi 

“In Wurltan.” hmmmmmm sus.... *laughs in i love mentioning things that won’t make sense to reader until later*

okay this: “Yes, but not just any mage. I…” your voice trails off, pulling at your fingers and looking anywhere but at him. “I wanted you to know.” i cannot stand these two omg 

okay this part: “Chanhee thinks and overthinks the words spoken between you both. His mind drifts off to last night as well, that moment in the tent where you shared your warmth. He doesn’t even realize he’s staring at you until you give him a funny look. He quickly looks away and wonders if you’re overthinking everything as relentlessly as he is.” this part makes me think about what ina said about how chanhee shows his love by keeping you in his thoughts and YEAH chanhee’s love language in this piece is thinking about you and staring LOL

i hate this next part, not cause i don’t like it or anything it just makes me sad 

but this line: “Like if someone shoved you from behind right now, you wouldn’t push back; you’d let yourself fall straight to the ground.” i actually love that line

also this next entire bit i see SO clearly in mind, i hope i wrote it well enough so that you all saw it clearly too

when chanhee wipes the dirt.... girl i’m wiping my tears 

this line : “We’ll lean on each other.” mini love declaration sighhhhhh

yeah that whole part i love so much 

the seat of wisdom :(((( no!!!!!

so about this line: “He stares at his palms, at all the lies buried under each nail and at all the secrets shoved in every crack. He watches as they all blow up in front of his face.” >> i had like ten different versions of it before i settled on this one lol

okay so the first part of the last past flashback with crown realizing their true feelings... so soft 

news gone, rashis’s dead, :((( it makes me so sad

gosh okay this paragraph..... “I’ve always wondered why the gods blessed me and you the way that they have. They entrusted you with such great power. The only person to be both a healing and shadow mage in centuries. And then,” a tear falls from her eye, “they entrusted you to me.” Chanhee thinks this might be the first time he’s seen Rashi cry. “But now I have reason to believe that this was no accident. I’m beginning to think that the gods have always known it would come to this. And I’m starting,” she falters there, “I’m starting to spite them for it.”  it hurts so bad im sorry 

the first confrontation with harlan took me so long to write, and i’m still not sure if i actually like it, so again i will refrain from commenting lol

but the part where crown screams : “YOU LOST THE MIRROR OF JUSTICE!”  I think i told kyu this but this line makes me laugh because in my head its said the same way bella says: “you nicknamed my daughter after the lochness monster” whenever i see that line i smile lol

honestly this argument scene..... one of my absolute faves,,, everything lina said about it in that reblog just yes!yes!yes!! i can’t even comment about a particular part because all of it i love so much. its another part that leaves me slightly speechless.

but my favorite part of it might be how it ends hehe

these next couple parts were a bit diffucult to write because obviously the air between crown and chanhee is not very light right now so it was just hard to navigate their dynamic at these moments until they apologize but hopefully it turned out alright

i really like this line: “But this moment—with the scent of Harlan’s wine under his nose and the chill of Harlan’s blade against his neck—this moment feels nothing like those. It feels empty.” 

“ Chanhee just stares at you.“ -- staring as a love language exhibit b 

this whole part... chills bro 

“Chanhee exhales because for the first time since this afternoon he looks at your face and sees you.” -- exhibit c ....

okay wait another one of my favorite parts here: the spilled glass metaphor!! again please reference lina’s rb on this because everything said there... could not have said better myself. inspired by this writing advice by ocean vuong and yeah i just think the metaphor speaks for itself, one of my favorite lines (well paragraph) from the entire piece, actually from ALL of my works 

it was so hard to think up all of yumi’s different names, i was struggling

them talking about how farah will be happy to see chanhee...... how do i break it to you crown.....she’s dead...... awkward

red streak q! yesss. also i’m so sorry for killing off farah 

also kyunyu bestiessss

tbh this whole paragraph: “I get this overwhelming burst of honesty. As if what you both speak of is more than just a simple truth, as if it’s a commandant you blindly follow. What’s even odder is that I only feel that burst when you speak of each other.” Q stops walking and turns so that he faces Chanhee directly. “You speak of Crown constantly. And last night, when I met Crown, your title never left from the tip of their tongue. Humans are so simple really. We mention what we love.” Q pauses for a moment, bringing a hand under his chin. “Do you love Crown?” --i wrote it for myself no regrets

oh wait this bit too : “Quietly, Chanhee says, “I know.” / “Have you been watching?” / “I’ve been waiting.” / “For what?” / He meets your eyes. “For you.”” -- sometimes i do things that live rent free in my own mind

okay im so sorry for just quoting myself but this too : “ He sits back slightly. Shocked. Not by his love for you, but rather by how easily love walked into his heart and settled between his lungs “

lol the part where they try fooling q... why are crown and chanhee like this

the running !!!

yeah also every part after that... tears okay

yumi’s magic !!! its so cool to me, i love it so much 

i surprisingly don’t have much to say about the end... i mean i like it, but i just don’t have any comments. the last line tho... good one shawna

okay im done for you sake i hope no one read this lmao