#look yes i know i took some liberties with the descriptions but i

[bvnga-aprikot]

Attempt at Athy’s Novel-Accurate Debutante Gown (+extra Jetty)

Due to my own boredom and inability to focus on my schoolwork, i decided to detour from that and sketch what i imagine a novel-accurate debutante gown for Athy would look like with the description given for it in chapter 54.

i try to stick to what was described and took heavy references from pinterest, especially with details such as the bow, bracelet, skirt, etc.. also, my first time drawing Athy with her platinum blonde hair as described in the novel! obviously in the manhwa Athy’s hair already looks more like Diana than Claude’s with it being lighter, but it definitely was on the subtler side (which i honestly think works with scenes where Athy emulates Claude). i also try to keep it fairy-like in terms of vibes and added sparkles to her bow and hair. overall, not too bad for a first attempt though i think it’s still a little far off. this design is basically one that i try to take the least liberties with since i’m aware of how many people want to see art of Athy’s novel dress and i’m one of them so i feel quite happy with this. though is it technically a sketch…

and as if sketching Athy’s dress from the novel description wasn’t enough, i decided to take my brain rot further and sketch out how i think Jennette’s debutante dress would look like. courtesy to it not being described and my brain going haywire at this point lmao.

i’m exposing my inner ASM stan again because this is the second time i used an iconic ASM lady’s hair (or, hairbow to be exact) as an inspiration for a WMMAP fan design. this time instead of Shuri i decided to reference Ohara because honestly that hairstyle is to die for. Jennette’s dress on the other hand heavily referenced from a dress that assume is from the regency era? i just think the vibes suit her. yes i did also give her a fan for some details (referenced a drawing of a character named Audrey Hall from Lord Of The Mysteries, never read it but i heard it’s great) and i know it doesn’t match her vibe in the slightest but like, she deserves some fun in this sketch.

so, yeah. that’s my attempt at sketching out what i would imagine Athanasia’s debutante gown would look like as described in the novel, with a bonus Jennette to boot. let me know if there’s anything in these designs i improve on as i would love to hear some feedback. see ya <3 ;3

[silverhart-makes-art]

Pretty sure I have a good guess as to this week's Bestiary Posting animal, so I'm just gonna go totally off the rails for this one.

My thought process was as follows: Three rows of teeth means it must be a shark. And it would be fun to draw a fish, since I haven't done one for this challenge yet. But oh no, it has 'powerful feet'. Fish don't have feet. You know what does have powerful feet though? Mollusks. Mollusks have feet. It's described as having eyes though. What mollusks have eyes? That's right. Cephalopods!

Hence, the Mlekragg is a cephalopod.

Yes, it is a stretch, but sometimes with this challenge I like to imagine I'm an alien illustrator with no concept of what animals humans would regularly encounter. While most humans would probably assume this is a terrestrial mammal, there's no reason an alien would. In fact, considering how many more invertebrates there are then vertebrates, it makes sense for an outside observer to assume any animals described by humans is an inveterate, unless it says otherwise. It's all very sound alien logic, and not just me making wild leaps because I want my imaginary bestiary to have some more variety beyond my favorite birds and mammals. I'm really trying to use this challenge to be more imaginative and crazy with creature designs, and think outside the box when I can.

Anywho, the cuttlefish and nautilus were my main points of reference, though I did look at some reconstructions of prehistoric cephalopods for inspiration. Then I simply took all the elements of the Mlekragg and slapped it onto that body form. The triple row of teeth can't be seen in my drawing, but it is located where a cephalopod's beak would typically be. The 'face of a man' is actually a pattern on it's hood it uses to fool predators. Behind the hood flares out a 'lion's mane', which it uses for display and also to disorient it's prey when it snatches it up. It has a pointed "tail" with a stinger. It doesn't look much like a scorpion's tail - took a bit of artistic liberty and decided it just stings like a scorpion's tail, rather then looks like it. I've decided to interpret 'powerful feet' and 'good jumper' as two different traits. So it's 'powerful feet' are it's tentacles, but it uses it's stinger to leap. Why does a sea creature need to leap? Well, I imagine they live near coasts and occasionally get stranded in tide pools or on land and use their stingers to propel themselves back into the water. It kind of works like a springtail's little 'tail'. Much like the description says, no obstacle can keep the Mlekragg in!

On the bottom right I've drawn a picture of one using it's stinger to leap, and on the left I've drawn a cartoon version of it that accentuates the lion shape/human face idea. With it's tentacles and mane laid back and it's fins hanging down it does look like a little leaping lion. I also gave it a little grin in keeping with the cartoon tradition of putting cephalopod mouths on the mantle, which we know is incorrect. It does make him look like a very personable little gentleman though.

I feel if I were a bit more confident in drawing cephalpods and knew more about mollusk anatomy I could've maybe taken this in an even wilder direction. Maybe I'll revisit it in the future.

[helveticathestitcher]

OLD GLORY

Singh Sisters Wheel Service & Heavy Industry Ltd. - Deltoid Custom

Sovereign Immunity Use Mobile Suite

This one was kind of a struggle but over all I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Art, in his own words, made S.I. to never get in a mech so the details on what the Old Glory looked like were very loose and I took some serious liberties with it. I leaned into the idea of it being a Converted Construction unit and used some of the other descriptions of Con.Con.s for inspiration. I would say the hardest part was finding a kit that would let me build a hover tank (yes, that is just the butt of the Zeong), but the thing that took me the longest was designing an emblem for The Sheppard's Crook. I applied it with a sheet of masking tape and then went over the top with distressing to get the burned off negative effect and I think that turned out pretty well although I wish I had access to a laser cutter to get sharper edges on the mask then what I was able to do by hand. Check bellow the cut to see the mock up I did in illustrator.

You can find other Friends at the Table kit-bashes I've built here:

M3 - 001 / PANTHER | STRAY DOG <VER. LACRIMOSA> | <HEADS UP>

With the Rapid Evening complete, it's probably time for me to look into some S.B.B.R mechs. Anyone know a good gorilla mech kit?

[amandacanwrite]

The Violet Thread of Fate ||

Reluctant Mentor Gale x Unskilled Wizard F!Tav

Length || About 4,000 Words

POV || Dual Narration, Third Person

Warnings || Descriptions of viscera, age gap (about ten years, both adults)

Summary || After waking up on the craggy shoreline of the sword coast, Elinna and Gale reunite with a new common ground.

A/n || I am feeling sort of on the fence about Gale's eagerness in his attraction to Elinna, but I also feel like it's still at least somewhat in character for him--after all in any playthrough you can wind up being blindsided by his feelings for you since he is usually so subtle about his affections. I also just think it's so fun to get the internal narration of Gale's attraction. He always seems so put together, polite and proper. I just love to see a man precariously balancing his carnal desires with his conscience and desire to be a good man. I hope you like it, I know things feel a little slow right now, but I'm planning on taking some creative liberties in the next couple parts. Please also lemme know what you think if you read it! I am absolutely tinkerbell and need the dopamine to live

Chapter Two: A Nightmare, An Awakening

Read Part One Here • Join Tag List Here

A Nightmare

Elinna thought she had died; thought the disintegration of her bodily form was the end of her short, unremarkable life. Much to her surprise, though when her vision once again returned to her she realized she had merely been spirited away somehow.

It took a few moments for her eyes to properly focus. When they finally did, she almost wished that the contact with the tentacle had killed her. It would have been far preferable to where she had wound up.

She found herself locked in a great chitinous pod, looking through smeared membranous glass at what she could only suppose was the nautiloid she had tried to escape from. 

Yes…death would have been a far preferable fate to becoming a mindless thrall on a mindflayer ship. As she squinted through the clear panel in front of her and saw what appeared to be a brain walking on four spindly limbs, she realized that her fate could be even worse than regular enthrallment. 

The minutes she spent entrapped in the pod felt like hours. A miserable limbo of wondering what would be coming next for her. What if she was already marked for turning into an intellect devourer? What if the enthrallment had already been put in place and she could simply be ordered to do something whenever a mindflayer so wished it?

She couldn’t just stay here. She had to move.

She tried, in vain, to wrench her arms free of the fleshy brindings within the pod. The sinuous tendrils only tightened more and more, leaving her fingertips throbbing and tingling from the blood flow being cut off. She tried to move her feet next and her boots sloshed in some sort of viscera at the base of the pod. She did her best not to vomit as the viscera eked some ichorous fluid into the fibers of her clothing and through the porous leather of her soft-soled shoes. 

The last thing she needed in addition to all of this was to be covered in the contents of her own stomach–empty as it was.

The shock of panic cinched tight around her ribcage, making it hard to breathe. And as she struggled to get her lungs to fill, she also struggled to think. 

“Calm down, Elinna,” she told herself. “Think about what you’ve read. Think about what you know.”

What did she know about Illithids? They were hivemind organisms. They required high-moisture, high-humidity environments to protect the mucosal membranes of their skin. They primarily fed on the brains of their prey and used psionic energy not only to fight but to control their biomechanical machinery. 

She craned her head forward to look for some sort of control panel–something that could get her out of this cocoon of horror. 

As she did, a valve-like door opened on the far side of the room, revealing a dizzying network of corridors. And…and one of them. A mind flayer. 

Elinna went dizzy as her heart thumped in her temples. She watched in horror and sickly anticipation as it levitated toward something in the center of the room; a cistern of sorts from what she could see. It waved a four-fingered hand and the vessel opened, revealing a golden, glowing brine pool that may have been beautiful if Elinna didn’t know precisely what it was. 

The mindflayer coaxed one of those disgusting tadpoles out of the amber liquid and levitated over to Elinna’s pod. She recoiled away from it as the pod opened, turning her face away from the creature and squeezing her eyes shut. She knew exactly how mindflayers reproduced, and she was not interested in getting a first hand experience with ceremorphosis. 

She didn’t have much of a choice, though. Even without the parasite, the illithid was able to compel her to stillness. 

It was an atrocious violation of her agency; surreal and nightmarish in the worst ways. Her mind was fully intact as the creature made her muscles release the tension they held and coerced her eyes to open. Her body was still and calm, but her heart was racing like a trapped rabbit’s. She watched uselessly as the tiny creature floated closer to her. She cried to cry out as it latched onto the orb of her eye and started to wriggle and squirm until it could find purchase beneath her eyelid. 

She was silent. Infuriatingly, horribly silent as the creature continued to burrow its way into her skull. 

Her pulse hammered in her ears as she screamed inside her own body, begging herself to fight, to tear her own eye out rather than let the process of ceremorphosis take place. 

But her body was still as the tiny parasite worked its way into her eye socket and back into her brain. 

Elinna lost consciousness as she felt the unsettling pressure of her brain matter being displaced to accommodate her unwelcome guest. 

When she awoke next, she didn’t immediately know where she was. She only knew that it was loud and it was cold. The sound of air ripping past her pointed ears is what brought her back into full consciousness, and though her eyes were open, she wasn’t actually seeing at first. 

There was a vast expanse of stars above her, the smell of salty air, the lingering cling of something far more acrid–like the smell of burnt sulfur woven into her clothes. 

She tried to parse what was going on, it felt like she was sinking into the ocean–but if that were the case, shouldn’t she not be able to breathe? 

Then she saw the burning wreckage of the Nautiloid and everything came back to her. 

The travel to Waterdeep, the encounter with Mr. Dekarios, the parasite and…

And she was falling through the sky! 

“Not again!” she cried as she stared at the ground rising to meet her with startling velocity. “No, no, no! I will not–This is not how I die!”

It didn’t go very well the last time, but it wasn’t as if she had any other ideas of what to do. She scoped out the approaching shoreline, selecting one spot and earmarking it. After choosing a point on a craggy cliffside, she shut her eyes and tried to gulp in a breath before it was whipped out of her mouth. 

“Inveniam Viam!” she shouted. 

That strange, surreal feeling of not moving, yet being in a different place came again, only this time it was followed very quickly by the feeling smashing into the ground beneath her, square onto her back. It wasn’t a far drop, perhaps only a few feet, but it was enough to hurt her. She blinked up at the sky above her, the glow of the stars somewhat dampened by the flaming wreckage of the nautiloid as it loudly crashed into the earth just a few moments after her.

She ached as she stood and looked out over the cliffside she’d misty stepped to, seeing the vast expanse of an unfamiliar coast crawling with intellect devourers and the blazing with fires choking out great plumes of black smoke. She dropped to her knees, feeling utterly defeated. 

She had no idea where she was. She had no money. No food. Not even a change of clothes with her. She didn’t even know where she was–and she knew she was more than a little directionally challenged. 

Her keepers at The Scribes Nest had told her not to leave; had warned her that there were dangers in the world. That she couldn’t hope to survive on the knowledge she’d amassed from books alone. That the lives of wizards often ended in folly. 

She knew this, of course. She’d read extensively about every wizard she could find and more than half of them were done in by their own curiosity. 

But the ones who hadn’t been rendered themselves undone…they were amazing. Elminster and Blackstaff. Lorroikan and Sammaster. Karsus and Dekarios.

Wait….

Gale Dekarios–he’d been touched by the tentacles, too!

And if she hadn’t died, then that meant he probably hadn’t either. If she could find him, if she could just appeal to him for one favor…maybe he could help her get back to Waterdeep. Maybe she would have an opportunity to prove to him that she could be a good apprentice; that she was worth the trouble of taking on as a student. Maybe he would know how to get rid of the tadpole squirming in her brain. 

But none of that would happen if she just sat there on her knees and despaired. 

She would need to get back up and put one bloody boot in front of the other. 

She would have to be brave and she would have to trust that Mystra would guide her to what came next. 

An Awakening

Hells…it just had to be a pocket dimension that saved him, didn’t it?

They were tricky little things–a slice of wild magic that functioned like an oubliette; a place to put things to be forgotten, or to be summoned at a different point in time. He’d used a few in his time, but never for more than storage during travel or to hide the occasional failed potion. He’d thought once that he might use one when it was clear that the orb would no longer be sated by the magic artifacts he consumed; discussed the idea with Tara before she requested not to speak of it until necessary. 

“I don’t like think of that eventuality, Mr. Dekarios,” Tara had said to him. “I know I tend to be pragmatic…but it makes me far too sad.”

“Focus,” he scolded himself as he looked around the darkened pocket. He needed to find an opening–or at least find a way to make one, failing that. 

It was a mistake that he’d even ended up in one in the first place. A mistake that stemmed from the first mistake when he’d tried to help that girl. 

If he’d had any sense, he would have let her run and gone straight to help his mother and make sure Tara would be okay. He could only hope that they were still safely nestled at his childhood home in Waterdeep. At least he’d not seen either of them during his wanderings about the ship. 

But then the spelljammer had lurched and started falling out of the sky, and he’d grabbed onto the strongest strand of weave he could find and followed it here. The unfortunate side of that, of course, was that the strength of that thread is precisely what made this particular pocket realm exceedingly hard to get out of. And the parasite so rudely deposited into his brain was not doing wonders for his ability to concentrate. 

He held his hands up and closed his eyes, attempting to feel out the strands of weave in this darkened place. Wherever he’d been transported to, it felt very far away from Mystra indeed. Like whatever reality he’d blipped into was one almost entirely devoid of magic at all. 

He focused a bit harder, the tadpole in his head wriggling with the effort. He continued to focus, trying not to think too hard about the unnerving sensation. Finally, with some challenge, he managed to pool some magic together. It felt similar to trying to collect enough morning dew on a leaf to drink.

There came a crackle, then a tear. Not nearly large enough to fit himself entirely through, but enough that he could get an arm out. 

Perhaps with at least one hand in Faerun, he could channel whatever remaining weave he needed to fully escape this dark corner of nothing. 

A sheen of perspiration shone on his brow as he felt around outside of the oubliette. He could feel the familiar moisture of coastal air and it sent a wave of relief through him. He wasn’t far from Waterdeep at all, then. Or at least he’d hoped as much. 

Perhaps he could just appear on the main road and hurry straight to his mother to make sure that she and Tara were alright. 

He was trying to grasp onto the weave when he suddenly felt the soft, almost tentative brush of fingertips on the palm of his hand. 

A person! Perfect! There was no better way to anchor a teleportation spell than to another living soul. It would be a little complex to explain that, though, and he was sure a mysterious arm poking out of wherever he could reach was more than a little unnerving so he settled for simplicity instead. 

“Hello?!” He called through the tear in the fabric of space and time. “Is anyone there? A hand? Please?”

He felt the hand withdraw for a moment, then it returned with what he assumed was the person’s other hand. One closed tightly around his fingers, the other grasped a bit higher, accompanied by the sensation of fingertips curling into the fabric of his sleeve. Small, gentle hands. Not small enough to be a child–but perhaps a woman. 

He closed his eyes once more and took a deep breath, allowing himself to feel the energy of the stranger on the other side of the opening. He tapped into it, smelling the faint, sweetly lactic scent of peaches; tasting on the tip of his tongue the light flavor of…honeyscotch candy. If Mystra’s energy was violet in color…this energy was the color of the sky during sunrise…a gradient of lilac, rose and cerulean.

Pretty… he thought to himself before slamming the heel of his hand to his brow. 

Focus you touch-starved buffoon.

“Whatever you’re doing is working wonders!” he said encouragingly. “I think if you just give me a good pull, I should come right out!”

The stranger pulled and he joined that effort by pushing himself through from the other side with what remained of that pooled bit of magic he’d gathered together. 

Finally, he flew out of the pocket realm like a cork from a bottle, regrettably landing right on top of the poor woman who had helped him. 

He was quick to shift his weight so he didn’t put the entirety of his considerable heft on the poor thing. Yet, his creaky knees slowed him down when it came to properly getting up. Then again…he couldn’t deny a certain reluctance to rise. He hated to admit it, and if anyone ever asked him he would deny it to the grave…but it was pleasant to feel the soft curves of a woman against him. A year was such a long time to be without it, and to feel warmth beneath him again…

It was a lascivious thought not becoming of a gentleman, he remembered, but one that occurred almost automatically much to his chagrin. 

“Hells,” he said. “Forgive me miss. I’m usually much better at this–and usually not so long sedentary that my limbs can’t keep up with my manners. Allow me to–”

He lifted himself up onto his elbows and finally laid eyes on his savior. 

It was the girl from before. What was the name? Elinna Inklynn. 

She stared up at him with wide eyes and a face flushed with exertion. How hard had she needed to work to pull him out of that portal? Seeing her so close now, he picked up on some of the qualities he’d missed in the dim light of the Waterdhavian evening. 

A constellation of mauve-tinged freckles dusted across her flushed nose and cheeks. In the daylight, her skin was almost pale pink. The soft swell of her lips sat slightly parted with a look of surprise. And her eyes…my those eyes were something to behold. Verdant as a sprig of mint and flecked with gold as if she had a vein of ore curling through the irises of her eyes. 

“A-allow me to help you up,” he finally stammered. “You’re not hurt are you?”

“Not by you,” she said somewhat breathlessly. 

He grunted slightly as he got back onto his feet, now allowing himself to think of the way her soft curves shifted beneath him. He reached a hand down and helped her back up to her feet as well, dusting off her theadbare apron and her slightly puffed sleeves. She was still flushed–perhaps dehydration or fever…or…

“You haven’t happened to have been on the receiving end of a rather unwelcome insertion in the ocular region, have you?” he asked. 

The flush could be a sign of the beginning stages of ceremorphosis. 

“I couldn’t have phrased it more repellently myself,” Elinna replied. 

“No use sugarcoating it, is there?” he asked with a smirk. “I don’t suppose you know what these little passengers will cause if left to their own devices?”

“Ceremorphosis,” she answered without missing a beat. “At least–if we don’t get it handled in a few days…”

Well, color him surprised. 

It wasn’t very often that ceremorphosis was talked about among the common man–it was even hard to find books detailing the finer details of the process. The girl may have been a poor magician, but she was clearly learned.

“Suffice to say, it is a process that should be avoided,” he said. 

“Agreed,” she said. 

It occurred to him that she was behaving…a bit stiff; almost aloof. The young woman he’d encountered in front of his tower had a bit more fire to her than this one did. Then again, they’d just gone through quite the harrowing experience. Both of them were covered in mysterious viscera, they’d been taken hostage on a mindflayer ship and well–the poor girl did just have a strange older man on top of her. 

The girl bit down on her lower lip and he found his eyes unconscionably glued to her mouth. She released her lower lip and he watched as the pale pink color returned to it, wondering idly what it would feel like to–

“Are we just—are we just going to pretend that I didn’t beg you to take me on as an apprentice and that you quite sumerilly told me to bugger off?” she asked. “Are we just going to be compatriots now?”

He blinked down at her, his mind catching up with her words. 

Good gods, he really was behaving like a lech. He didn’t know where this was coming from. Perhaps it was an undocumented symptom of ceremorphosis–this…uncommon desire he was feeling. 

Or maybe he was just, well, desperate. 

“Well, I take umbrage with that analysis. I don’t believe I told you to bugger off…At least not verbatim. I do try to not be a miserable ass,” Gale said a bit sheepishly. “But I hasten to point out that we do have a shared problem now–some common ground we didn’t have before. It seems wasteful to part ways at a juncture such as this, don’t you think?”

He looked around in the early morning daylight and frowned realizing that he didn’t recognize anything. “I certainly don’t know the area after all, and judging by the history you disclosed with me, you likely don’t either.”

“Well…no, I don’t. Aside from Waterdeep I’ve not been anywhere other than the Moonshae Islands.” she said. 

“And you seem to not have a very strong sense of location judging by our time in the alleyways,” he pointed out. 

“That’s true…so then… does that mean you’ll do it?” she asked. “You’ll take me on as your student?”

He grimmaced.

“No,” he said with not a moment’s hesitation. “Not a student–an ally. An equal. It’s best that we tackle this issue together, don’t you think? It makes no sense to travel separately when our searching will likely lead us to the same places. And besides that…”

Besides that, if he started to change into a mindflayer, he wanted to be sure he had someone nearby who could…put him out of his misery and get his body somewhere safe before it leveled a city. 

“But I could be more helpful if you teach me,” she pleaded. “I’d just be a liability without your help.”

“I have seen your magic,” Gale said with a bit of a teasing gaze. “And I don’t know if there is much I can do for someone who casts Misty Step with their eyes closed. It seems you’d be more of a liability with the magic than without.”

She blinked up at him like he’d grown a second head. 

“Oh, please,” he said. “You must know that it’s a spell that requires a clear line of sight.”

She shrank a bit. “I…didn’t know. No,” she said. 

“How could you not know such a thing? You must have read a scroll to learn the incantation,” he said. 

“I mean this with the utmost respect, but when is the last time you’ve read a scroll, Mr. Dekarios?”

He inhaled, lifting an index finger. Then he closed his mouth and looked off to the side. 

When was the last time? It must have been ages. 

“Well,” she said without waiting for his answer. “Most spell scrolls assume a certain basis of classical training, or at minimum an innate understanding of how to channel the weave.”

“I see,” he said. “I’m to assume you’re not a sorceress then?”

“Not to my knowledge,” she said with a sigh.

He clenched his jaw as he looked down at the younger woman. Gods, she really did need a teacher. Maybe he could at least talk to her about theory–or give her a few simple exercises for manipulating the–

No. No. 

He had more than enough on his plate without adding a poorly self-taught mage to it.

“Elinna,” he said. “Tell you what. I have a deal to offer–a concession if your like. If we make it through this and…make it out of wherever we are and back to Waterdeep, I promise I will introduce you to some colleagues that will help you get your start as a novice wizard. How does that sound? Fair?”

To his great surprise, she still looked disappointed by that answer. The girl really was an ambitious thing–coming right to his tower to seek his tutelage and no one else's? The poor girl had no idea what she was trying to sign herself up for; a depressed, anti-social, explosive wizard. A depressed, anti-social, explosive and impatient wizard. As far as teachers went, he was not the best candidate for the job.  

“Alright,” she finally said. “Let’s see if we can go find a healer together…or maybe some other survivors…of a bath.”

“Oh, to find a bath,” Gale agreed. “Ah, but–before you think you’re journeying with most ill mannered a man–”

Gale gave the young woman a slight bow. “Thank you for pulling me out of that stone.”

When he stood up to his full height again, the young woman was smiling at him, her pretty viridian eyes crinkling at the edges. She tucked a pale copper strand of hair behind one of her delicately pointed ears and looked a bit sheepishly down the craggy shore. 

“Ah–it’s almost a dead end over here–I think there might be more ground to cover if we cross through the wreckage…but I didn’t want to do that on my own,” she said. 

“A wise choice, I think,” Gale said. “No telling what you would have run into. Not to imply that you can’t hold your own, of course–”

“No, you’re right,” she said, looking away from him a little timidly. “I’ll feel better with you there–it’s nice to have a friend.”

He huffed a soft breath and found himself smiling at how willing she was to call him her friend.  Even after all the ways he had been a bit of an oaf to her, he felt in her he had found a bit of a kindred spirit. Someone else who sought camaraderie in perhaps…unworthy places.

 She looked up at him and bit the swell of her lower lip again. “Shall we go then?” she asked him. 

He gestured to the road ahead. “After you,” he said with a magnanimous smile. “Consider me your ever faithful guard dog, ready at the first sign of trouble.”

She snorted a little laugh and shook her head. 

And as he followed after her, for the first time in the last year, he hoped the pang in his chest was because of the orb.

Taglist || @auroraesmeraldarose @thoughts-of-bear @cherifrog @puckprimrose @drabblesandimagines

[theweeklydiscourse]

I decided to ruminate on Elain’s character a bit, I was hoping you’d join me.

I recognized right away during acotar one her character suffers from the same problems Nesta’s does where they were both not important, their purpose being only to push Feyre’s sob story along, the difference is that for whatever reason sjm chose to expand on Nesta upon Feyre’s return hence the whole part where she was able to see through Tamlins glamour, revealed she followed Feyre, asked her to teach her paint, encouraged her to go back while Elain still sort of took a back seat. All of this is not to say sjm didn’t give her character traits, she’s social and happy almost bubbly but in the first book she’s more just— there. More so than Nesta who originally was in the same cutout position. Keep in mind this was all in the same book.

Come book 2 I still get the sense she’s almost just there to serve as a contrast to Nesta’s actions, Nesta refusing to aide Feyre/ Elain acknowledges Feyre’s sacrificing to change her mind, Nesta puts herself in front of Elain when they meet Cassian, Azriel, and Rhys/ she is so terrified Feyre claims it’s a surprise she hasn’t fainted. It develops her character sure but she’s still almost just there. Seriously when she said ‘they can go to hell’ about the queens it would be such a blah, whatever, line if it came from Feyre or Nesta because at this point she’s still in a cut out position of just the cute, nice sister so a line as small as that one is so outstanding. The whole Cauldron scene Elain still felt just there the most remarkable thing (in the sense it’s an action that belonged solely to Elain, not to accentuate her character in contrast with another) is her warning Feyre of the knife being thrown at her because even the mate declaration scene was more of a Lucien moment. Nesta even gets the whole revenge point thing, labeled as Made differently than Elain, Uber powerful upon spilling out.

I think all this should be taken with a grain of salt because these are just my observations. There is some development in book 3 singular to her which I’d argue is small even in itself— her trauma reaction, the description of what Feyre sees when she looks into her mind, the heartbreak at the Made/Graysen situation. Although even in her biggest role yet, the killing of the King of Hybern, it wasn’t singular to her because it’s directly tied to Nesta’s ferocity. It’s a teamwork event that still doesn’t make it solely something Elain did. I think she takes off more so in acofas, but by then we’re several books in and she’s still not developed enough in comparison to other characters (Nesta) that had taken a counter part position along with her (cruel sisters), but by now Nesta has way more page time and narrative importance. That’s not to say she isn’t important, she’s definitely there but still just— not as present.

Now, I know some readers that resonated with her might argue that that is the point, that she’s just sort of in the background and now she will have to learn to speak up, take charge, stand up, which— yes I can see that’s what’s going on— but I still think this was more of an easy way out for sjm to have readers enjoy a character that in actuality is wildly underdeveloped. Which explains why said readers claim others lack understanding of her character “development” and then proceed to do the work for sjm of creating a character by filling in the blanks only to label misogyny when this *soft girl* aesthetic is not “understood”.

All this to say I’m pointing out how sjm truly hasn’t developed her at all yet sjm cleverly (arguably) makes the reader believe this is purposeful because according to the Elain she wrote “nobody really looks” so it feels like the reader is now given the liberty to do the “looking” and fill in the blanks to what is actually a very poorly constructed character 4 books in. What are your thoughts?

Always glad to ruminate, and I think your observations are accurate!

With Elain, we come back to the concept of the readers taking it upon themselves to fill in the narrative gaps left by Maas’s poor writing. Readers do this intuitively because on some level, they want the story to make sense even if that requires them to take some leaps to get there. Some gaps are smaller than others, with certain characters and plot points being gaping chasms that swallow the reader’s (and the fandom’s) attention. Some would like to believe that these gaps are purposeful as you said, but that belief makes me roll my eyes.

Elain is peripheral even in the sob story that Maas constructs early in ACOTAR. Feyre’s specific leniency towards Elain’s incompetence and failure to pull her weight is curiously overlooked even though she resents Nesta for the same reasons. This effectively dismisses Elain’s relevance to the negative beginnings of Feyre’s story and places her in a position of diminished importance compared to Nesta. I’ve tended to view Elain as little more than a lamp in the background of a scene because of how underdeveloped she is. Even Rhysand dismisses Elain when he chooses to assign more blame to Nesta for neglecting Feyre and brushes off Elain with: “Elain is Elain”. Oh I’m sure! As if that statement actually means something and isn’t Rhysand feigning insight into Elain’s character.

As you mentioned with the slaying of Hybern, few things can ever be accomplished by Elain alone. It’s very similar to the way the text removes her culpability from the supposedly grave sin of letting her younger sister hunt in the woods. Blame and ire is directed at Nesta, but at the same time, Nesta is receiving far more development and attention from the overall narrative. This in turn makes her more interesting, which leads to even more attention being paid to her and not Elain. Elain isn’t strong enough of a character to claim the glory of slaying the big bad, so that accomplishment has to be shared to give the moment its full impact. It makes me wonder how she’s going to carry an Elain-centric novel with such weak characterization.

On your note about Elain’s “soft girl” aesthetic, I completely agree. It’s not misogynistic to point out that Elain is an extremely underdeveloped character given the length of the series. Thousands of pages and yet we’ve hardly gotten a sense of who Elain truly is. Readers claim that this wait is intentional, but I call bullshit. If Nesta can receive development and have sustained relevance (positive or negative) why can’t Elain? The “softness” of her character is exactly what leads to her irrelevance as a character and keeps her as a pretty lamp in the background of any given scene. As much as I enjoy the creativity of the fandom, at a certain point, one must acknowledge the fact that Elain has a number of gaps in her characterization.

[comfortlesshurt]

2024 Fic Masterpost - Voltron

Realizing I used to have a nice clean Tumblr page for this, but I figured I should have SOMETHING to put all my recent fics together somewhere!

In case this breaches containment, I write hurt/comfort pretty exclusively, and most of my works have minor TWs. I'm a Keith stan at heart, but I've been trying to branch out on how much I involve other characters.

Short Chapter Fics:

5 Times Lance Doesn't Matter +1 Time He Finally Does

15k - complete

Lance-centric with a strong focus on Keith later

mid-canon to post-canon timeline & canon plausible

gen platonic paladins & Lance; implied pre-Klance

TW for short-term alcohol abuse & emeto

14k for the main story, +1k at the end as an optional bonus chapter (how I was originally going to write the fic before it turned into a 5+1)

Smiling 'cause you're used to it (a house that's always haunted)

12k - complete

Keith-centric

pre-Kerberos & canon plausible

Broganes

lots of TWs! emeto, implied child abuse, implied off-screen alcohol abuse by an OC, description of injury, implied bullying, implied self-harm, implied eating disorder

chapter 4 has art!

Chemicals, chemicals in my brain (where'd you go, where'd you go anyway?)

7k - reads as complete, but may get one more chapter

Keith-centric

early canon & canon plausible-ish

Broganes & implied pre-Klance

TW for forced drug use & emeto

5 Times Keith Relies on the Blade +1 Time...

10k - 5/6 chapters published

Keith-centric

mid-canon, during Keith's time as a Blade

mostly Keith & Blades, some Keith & paladins

TW for injury, but it's not super detailed

intended to follow On it, yes, indeed (on it, watch me bleed) but like... I'm not gonna stop you from reading it on its own

Oneshots:

On it, yes, indeed (on it, watch me bleed)

2.5k - complete

Keith-centric

mid-canon, just before Keith joins the BOM full-time & canon-plausible

gen with some implied Kuron fuckery

TW for injury, not very detailed

it has art at the ao3 link, you should go look!

With talk of love (as I make-pretend)

10k - complete

POV Lance, Klance-centric, canon divergent

early-ish canon, before the lion switch

baby's first ship fic, actually!

TW for brief description of injury

Ficlets:

Nowhere to call home (so I'll pack and run away)

5k - complete ficlet collection (though it's the basis for a longer fic I'm working on, so you'll see more in the future if you want to)

Keith-centric

pre-canon, post-Kerberos launch, up to you whether you consider it canon plausible because I took some liberties (but it converges back to canon episode 1 by the end)

gen (it's Keith alone in the desert; kind of hard to explore relationships in isolation)

the most TWs I've ever put into one work, so don't feel like you HAVE to read this fic! it's not for everyone; it's mainly for me actually. recreational drug use, vehicular accident, basic description of injuries, my personal experiences with poverty (which may not match up with yours and that's okay), starvation, emeto, mentioned animal death, slight suicidal ideation

it has a playlist linked in the first author's note!

What are you wondering? (What do you know?)

<1k - complete ficlet

Shiro-centric

pre-canon, post Galra capture, & canon plausible

gen

TW for body horror and human experimentation maybe? it's not super detailed

[elvendara]

AU-gust day 12

12 Aug 23 Book Store

“Why don’t you just ask him out already!” MC rolled her eyes at her co-worker Yoosung. The blond barely did any meaningful work when the red-head was in the book store.

“That would be unprofessional.” Yoosung tsked. He unboxed books and set them on the cart, but his amethyst eyes hardly left the other man as he made his way around the stacks.

Saeran was about the same height as Yoosung, red hair, gorgeous mint green eyes, and apparently a voracious reader. Some days he would spend hours searching for books and sitting in the in-store café reading and sipping tea. The man had a store card and Yoosung always made a point to try and be his cashier, making small talk.

He came in so often that just about every employee knew him. It was unthinkable that he could read so fast, but they had all been spellbound at how fast he turned the pages on whatever book he was reading. The subject matter was impressive as well. Anything from romance, the classics, mathematics, science, language, and manga. It didn’t seem to matter as long as he found it interesting.

The man was pulling books from the Fantasy section today, but so far he didn’t seem to have found anything worth reading.

“Why don’t you make a recommendation?” MC suggested.

“Huh?” Yoosung raised his eyebrows.

“Go on, I’ll finish this.” She took the stack of books from Yoosung and gave him a gentle push. He hesitated, then walked towards the red-head, smoothing his yellow hair.

“Uh, hey, can’t find anything you like?” he squeaked out. Clearing his throat he looked away, embarrassed.

“Seems like the same plot over and over.” Saeran shrugged, setting another book back on the shelf.

“Do you like a lot of action?” Yoosung asked, eyes lighting up.

“Yeah, dialogue too, not so much into an overabundance of scene descriptions.” He answered.

“Oh! Then you might like this new collection, it’s based off the video game LOLOL. I don’t know if you’ve played it but it’s pretty accurate to the lore. They use a lot of the same magic system. Of course they take a lot of liberty with the weapon mechanics but that’s to be expected.” He walked towards the section the books were in, turning his head to make sure the man was following. He tried to shut up, but word vomit just spewed out of him.

“Characterization is insane! I mean, there are a lot of recognizable NPC’s and they use some of the same dialogue as in the game, but, if you don’t play you still enjoy the interaction, I think it’s more for the players to find some nifty Easter eggs.” He laughed.

Saeran followed silently. Making Yoosung try and fill the silence. He felt like an idiot with his flapping tongue. Was he boring the man? Was he just being polite but wanting him to shut up already?

“Anyway, here it is.” He pulled the first book in the series and handed it to Saeran. On the cover was a wizard with his hand out, a fireball in his palm and holding an ornate staff in his other hand. The other man turned it and read the back quickly, then turned to the first page and began to read. Yoosung stood awkwardly, not sure what to do. Should he walk away?

After a very long minute Saeran looked up and smiled.

“Thank you, I think I will like this. Do you play this game?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m kind of addicted.” He laughed.

“Maybe I’ll try it.”

“You should! It’s totally fun, and even more fun with friends.” Yoosung gushed.

“Really? Hmm, maybe you could come over and help me.” Saeran said.

Yoosung’s tongue went dry. Did he really just ask that? His eyes went wide and suddenly he couldn’t speak.

“Sorry, I guess I overstepped, nevermind.” Saeran blushed and turned to grab volume two of the series.

“No! I…I mean…” Yoosung stammered, “I can totally do that! It’ll be fun.”

“Yeah?” Saeran turned back and beamed at him. “Can I get your number? I’ll call you when I get the game and I’m ready to set it up, is that OK?”

“Absolutely!” Yoosung took his phone out and opened it up as Saeran did the same, they exchanged numbers and an awkward goodbye.

Was it a date? Yoosung hoped so.

[thebreakfastgenie]

Oh shit I forgot to send an ask for the wip game so if you're still doing it elaborate on "seeing ghosts" please?

Hell yes! Ironically, this one doesn't have any actual ghosts, or even any actual deaths... It's called seeing ghosts as a placeholder because in the opening, Trapper feels like he's seeing ghosts from his past. I'm usually not totally wild about the "Trapper thought Hawkeye was dead" trope, but this is my spin on it.

Trapper went home and started working as a general surgeon at Boston Mercy Hospital. Shortly after, he learns that Hawkeye is dead; this will most likely use the device of Trapper trying to write and having his letter sent back during The Late Captain Pierce, though that involves some creative liberties as mail would have been forwarded to the next of kin. If I can think of something succinct, I may use a different device; maybe Trapper had a chance encounter with someone who just got back from Korea who told him about the death certificate but didn't know it was false. Maybe he tried to use an official army channel for some reason and was informed Hawkeye was deceased. I don't know. Why he thought Hawkeye was dead isn't important, it just has to be believable.

Trapper is good enough to be chief of general surgery, but he doesn't have any interest in pursuing it. He's sort of keeping his head down, doing good work, and focusing on his girls. He's still married to Louise. He's a little depressed and because of the circumstances he hasn't really dealt with his grief over Hawkeye's supposed death. He's friendly with his coworkers and good friends with one of them. He very rarely talks about Korea, but mostly because none of them were there and they don't understand. Two years later, he's forced to attend a reception for the newly hired chief of thoracic surgery. He has no interest in the pomp and circumstance of it, and he's on edge because he's thinking about how it should be Hawkeye starting a job like this. And then his friend tells him the new chief of thoracic surgery served in Korea. This snippet is a rough draft, but it gives you the general idea: “He’s a Beacon Hill Winchester,” Pete replied, and this time there was no question that he intended it as an insult. “Blue blood. Sounds like a total drag to me. You might get along with him better,” he added thoughtfully.  Trapper frowned. Pete’s description didn’t sound like someone he would get along with. He sounded like someone whose shoes he would fill with paint while he was in the OR, if the thought of it didn’t make him miss Hawkeye terribly.  “Why?” “He served in Korea.” Pete said. He lowered his voice. “Actually, I heard he only got this job because one of his army buddies called in a favor with Bob Harwell.”  “Figures,” Trapper muttered. “Who’d you hear it from?” “Tony Maxwell. He said the board was all set to go in a different direction, then Bob gets a call from a Major Houlian.”  Trapper nearly spat out his drink.  “Hot Lips Houlihan?” he blurted out before he could stop himself.  “When I knew her, she went by the name Margaret,” said a new voice.  Trapper and Pete both turned, finding themselves face-to-face with the guest of honor. It was clear from his face that he’d heard everything, but he seemed unbothered. He extended a hand.  “Gentlemen. Charles Emerson Winchester III.”  Trapper couldn’t respond, still trying to process the shock of this man knowing Margaret Houlihan.  Pete shot him a lock.  “Indeed,” Charles said, smirking.  Pete shook the offered hand.  “Pete Dillinger. I’m the head of general surgery.”  He dropped Winchester’s hand, and shot Trapper another look. Trapper knew a warning when he saw one. He took the hand Pete had dropped.  “John McIntyre,” he tried to keep his voice even, but his eagerness betrayed him. “How do you know Major Houlihan?”  Trapper knew this didn’t have to mean anything—Margaret could have been transferred after he left—but that didn’t stop his heart from pounding in his chest.  “We served together in a putrid corner of hell,” Winchester said dryly.  “The 4077th!” Trapper exclaimed before he could stop himself.  “Yes,” Winchester said, surprised.  “I was there for a year!” Trapper explained excitedly. “Right at the beginning. I guess we missed each other.” 

Charles doesn't connect John McIntyre with Trapper until much later, because even though Hawkeye did talk about Trapper occasionally, Charles didn't really care. What follows is a series of misunderstandings and Trapper and Charles having two very different conversations. Trapper assumes since they had the same specialty, Charles replaced Hawkeye. Trapper says his closest friend at the 4077th died and Charles, having not been there for The Late Captain Pierce but knowing the previous CO was killed, assumes he's talking about Henry. Charles mentions his annoying bunk mates and Trapper assumes he means whoever replaced him (BJ) and Frank. This continues until Charles finally says the name Pierce:

"Benjamin Franklin Pierce?" "His friends called him Hawkeye. I did not."

At which point Trapper is like I have to go to Maine right now immediately. He gets reasoned down to going home, telling his wife what's going on, and packing a bag first. It probably ends with Hawkeye opening the door and seeing Trapper.

The main conversation is just really, really hard to write. All the dialogue has to have a passable double meaning.

[richs-japan-tabi]

May 17 - Odaiba

We began our excursion today by visiting the Fuji Television Museum. While traveling on the train there, the beautiful skyline of Tokyo as well as the infamous Rainbow Bridge could be seen. I will elaborate more about the significance of this bridge in the academic reflection, but it was incredible. This "museum" had a gift shop and an observatory tower that had a pretty amazing view. Unfortunately, I wasn't a fan of any of their shows, so I didn't like the merchandise. Also, while the view was amazing, I had just recently seen the view from Tokyo Skytree's Observatory, making this one seem less impressive. More observant readers may notice that I put "museum" in quotes. This is because at some point they had removed the actual museum. Thus, the beginning of the day was a bit disappointing.

While the museum visit may have been unexciting, the same could not be said about lunch. Today we had an included Japanese BBQ lunch. Situated on the rooftop of one of Odaiba's many tall buildings was an all-you-can-eat buffet of meat with all-you-can-drink soda to wash it down. Not only was it a fun experience grilling our food, but the view from the rooftop was, once again, breathtaking.

Once my stomach felt like it was about to explode, we made our way to a guided tour of Odaiba. We visited the Statue of Liberty (yes you read that right) and a one-to-one scale Gundham. The Statue of Liberty made me feel like I was back in New York, which was strange considering how different Tokyo is as a city. The one-to-one scale Gundham, on the other hand, made me feel like a little kid again. Its scale was like nothing I had ever seen before and I got to take some great pictures of it!

Finally, the last and favorite part of today's excursion was TeamLab Planets. TeamLab Planets is a digital art museum that uses projections, creative lighting, water, and interesting gardens to offer a unique sensory experience. However, those words alone are not enough to describe the feeling of this place. Even the pictures I took will give a bad representation of the exhibits. However, I can not recommend the experience enough to those who are even somewhat interested based on my description.

Academic Reflection

The first reading's main topic of discussion centered around post-industrial leisure centers. In the 1980s, Japan had an economic boom and was at its pinnacle of economic growth. For this reason, architectural projects were often taken with little consideration of failure. During this bubble, office space became an increasingly expensive asset as businesses continued to expand. For this reason, many looked to reclaim the land that was originally used to garrison Edo's coastlines during the 1800's. As this was shown to be ineffective, its purpose shifted to being a series of waste islands. In the 1980s, investors wanted to use this land for more office space, but as the economic bubble collapsed in the 1990s, investors' focus shifted. The idea was to create a large-scale entertainment and leisure area, similar to a theme park.

With this knowledge in mind, many of Odaiba's unique features and attractions can be easily explained. For example, the Statue of Liberty was originally purchased from the French for two years. However, it became such a beloved icon of the city that a replica was created and put in its place. The idea to attract domestic and international tourism explains the Statue of Liberty, giant-scale robots, and the abundance of massive shopping plazas. Even knowing all of this before going, I couldn't help but feel the wonder, similar to Disney, that city planners tried to create.

The other reading discussed Fuji TV as a media conglomeration. Contrary to popular belief, Fuji TV is a massive media conglomeration that doesn't solely rely on films and series. Rather, it relied on TV actors and advertising to diversify its content. The CEO of Fuji TV himself envisioned the company as a digital media factory. The company's success can be attributed to this mindset of production.

[twohundredgeckosinatrenchcoat]

I’m an atheist too, and I’ve been through the same thought process as you evilsoup. I know you’re presenting an earnest solution in good faith (lol that term at this time), and I want to honor that.

Firstly, I do want to point out that the term genocide was specifically coined for this erasure of culture. I know the current UN definition includes only mass killing, but that was not the intent. In 1945, Raphael Lemkin wrote,

It is for this reason that I took the liberty of inventing the word, genocide. The term is from the Greek word genes meaning tribe or race and the Latin cide meaning killing. Genocide tragically enough must take its place in the dictionary of the future beside other tragic words like homicide and infanticide. As Von Rundstedt has suggested the term does not necessarily signify mass killings although it may mean that.

More often it [Genocide] refers to a coordinated plan aimed at destruction of the essential foundations of the life of national groups so that these groups wither and die like plants that have suffered a blight. The end may be accomplished by the forced disintegration of political and social institutions, of the culture of the people, of their language, their national feelings and their religion. It may be accomplished by wiping out all basis of personal security, liberty, health and dignity. When these means fail the machine gun can always be utilized as a last resort. Genocide is directed against a national group as an entity and the attack on individuals is only secondary to the annihilation of the national group to which they belong.

Secondly, there’s a large body of work already done on what you’re proposing. If you haven’t already, look into various cultures’ applications of Pax Imperia — peace through imperialism. Obviously the term is based on the Pax Romana era (Nero and all that), where Rome decided to enforce peace by eradicating individual cultures and enforcing sameness throughout the empire.

I’d also suggest reading The Sacred Depths of Nature by Ursula Goodenough. She presents the development of individual theism and cultural identity as part of human evolution. Her biological descriptions helped refine my thinking on this very complex matter.

Finally, I’d challenge you to play with rewording some of the thoughts you’ve expressed. See how they feel if you consider that individual cultures aren’t a result of oppression. For example, you called antisemitism “a form of oppression that creates the need for a separate Jewish culture.” Perhaps it could be more accurate as, “antisemitism is a form of oppression that arose in response to Jewish identity and culture.”

Another exercise would be to switch the dominant culture in your statements. Does it sound as useful if Jewish atheism was the ultimate goal worldwide? How difficult would it be for you to adapt to living culturally as a Jew? Or more secular: could you adapt easily to a universal French culture, or a universal Australian culture?

The outlook I’ve reached so far is complicated. Yes, I’d love to see a universal peace and abundance. I’d love to reduce suffering in the world. But life on Earth would have literally needed to evolve differently for that to happen. It’s valuable and noble to aspire to ideals, but it’s useless if I don’t consider the truth of how things are right now. That includes the inherent value of individuals and cultures. Does that make sense?

Once again begging anti-theists to realize that to get to a world without religion you’d have to commit cultural genocide. So maybe you shouldn’t push for that

[oceanssapart]

⚓ Captain Gian Harlowe & Rosarian IV, The Merrow Queen, Thirty-Fifth Queen of Inys

‘Captain,’ Ead said, and Harlowe grunted, ‘at the Inysh court, there are rumours about you, spoken deep in the shadows. Rumours that you courted Queen Rosarian.’ She watched his brow darken. ‘They say you meant to take her to the Milk Lagoon.’

‘The Milk Lagoon is a fable,’ he said curtly. ‘A tale whispered to children and lovers without hope.’

‘A wise young woman told me once that all legends grow from a seed of truth.’‘Is it you or the Queen of Inys who desires the truth?’

Ead waited, watching his face. Those eyes were in a distant past.

‘She was never much like Rose.’ His voice softened. ‘She was night-born, you know. They say that makes a child grave . . . but Rose came into the world at the lark’s calling.’

🍊 The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (@sshannonauthor)

[shiningstarr15]

Guys I came across something today and it had me almost throwing a fit in public

So I went to Walmart with my folks for our weekly grocery haul and, as per usual, I snuck off to listen to my tunes, pace around, and look for any marvel stuff I could find 😂

Well I found myself in the children’s books section where I know they always have those little 5minute stories to read to kids and I came across this beauty

First of all, the art is BEAUTIFUL. Some of the characters are the comic versions, but some ALSO have traits of their cinematic counterparts (ex being Natasha’s green eyes)

So of course seeing Black Widow on the cover I had to take a peak and see what her story was.

I was not expecting nor prepared for what it was..

That..that can literally only mean one thing, right? There’s only ONE other character that holds the title of black widow in the marvel comics. And of course the character they’re showing is BLONDE.

So I had to read it. Yes I stood there in the middle of the Walmart children’s books section and read a marvel kids book. I was too excited at the prospect that maybe just maybe my favorite marvel character was in this book. Which would be the FIRST time I’ve EVER seen her illustrated in a kids book!

But then as I kept reading, and they revealed the blonde character having been “impersonating black widow,” a particular sentence caught my eye.

“She had a strange sense she knew this person”

Now I don’t know EVERYTHING about comic Yelena but I DO know that Natasha’s first encounter with her is the first time she’s seen her. They weren’t even in the red room together at the same time.

So part of me started thinking maybe it wasn’t her. These stories sometimes stray a bit to be more “kid-friendly” and Yelena is such an underused and unpopular character in the comics that they probably wouldn’t put her in one of the marvel books.

So I decided to keep reading and Natasha goes on about how ‘this woman knows all her moves’ ‘maybe she’s finally met her match’ and I’m like “no, it has to be her. That is literally her description in the comics!”

So it finally gets to where she removes the mask and..

When I tell you I gasped out loud

It’s HER!! she’s here in a children’s book!

But guys, it doesn’t end there. Look at how Natasha looks at her with a knowing look, SHE KNOWS HER

So at this point I knew they had to have strayed a bit from the comic. But when I tell you the next page literally had me almost throwing the book…

Because it’s not just a version of comic Yelena..

ITS OUR YELENA!!!!!!!

Obviously the book took a few liberties with their story bc it’s not exactly like the one told in Black Widow. But it’s also not even CLOSE to the comic version. Yes Natasha has a soft spot for Yelena that later on does bring them closer and work together and even have funny banter, in which I have no doubt was the influence behind making them sisters in the movies. But they aren’t ever described as having a sisterly relationship in the comics.

So then this version has to be a version of MCU Yelena! Yes it is slightly different but she’s still the younger sister figure to Natasha 😭😭🥺🥺 that’s mcu exclusive as of right now.

Also, LOOK AT THE WAY SHE’S ILLUSTRATED. The hair has never looked exactly like that in the comics with the pieces and the fly-aways. But the thing that really did it for me was the eyes

THAT IS FLORENCE PUGH’S EYES

You cannot TELL me that’s a coincidence. That eye color is WAY TOO DISTINCT of having that golden green-ish look that is so exclusive to her!

So yea, it’s her.

I am at a literal loss for words at this point. It’s like a version of her that mixes some of the comic origin and the cinematic origin. Especially this page here.

First of all, Natasha saying she wasn’t leaving until she brought Yelena “home” had me almost in TEARS in the middle of Walmart 😭 in this story, Natasha defects and Yelena chooses not to. But she still feels left behind, you can tell by it describing her as having an “almost sad look” in her eyes. And then she quotes the motto, like it’s just been engrained into her. And then the stolen tech “falls out” of the pocket. So it is heavily implied she doesn’t really wanna be doing this but feels like she needs to to prove her loyalty.

It’s sad that it ends with her just escaping and leaving. But she actually does end up showing up in like a foggy mist when Nat and Fury reboard the quinjet. Like she’s just really wanting to go. But she doesn’t.

But it ends like this.

“Perhaps her little sister wasn’t so lost to her after all” SCREAMING CRYING HYPERVENTILATING 😭😭😭

And then “she knew this wasn’t the last she had seen of Yelena Belova” implying the possibility of her returning in later stories 😭😭

And that is the first time I see Yelena illustrated.

Guys… kids are gonna read this. They’re gonna read it and not only know who Yelena is, but associate her with being “black widow’s sister” or “Natasha’s little sister.” The character has forever been changed thanks to the MCU and Florence Pugh. They single-handedly put that character on the map, and marvel kids books are starting to reflect it. I’ve already seen it within the fandom. They only know her as being her sister. This was the most beautiful thing I could’ve ever come across. And I have a feeling the character’s future is so bright and this is only just the beginning for “black widow’s sister” 😭😭😭💞💞💞🥹🥹🥹🥺🥺🥺💖💖💖

And also if I ever see her illustrated in that iconic double ponytail and vest I may actually shit myself…

[chromes-corner]

Dark choco Smut? please

oh dear, sweet anon, i see youre looking for that spice, hmm? well, your wish is my command ;)

hope ya enjoy this one ;))))

---

Idle Hands (NSFW)

Dark Choco/Reader

Notes: nsfw, angst (i cannot help myself)

Content Warning: ONCE AGAIN THIS IS !!NSFW!! CONTENT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DONT IGNORE THIS WARNING AND READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

A/N: the scope was very wide with this request so i took some creative liberties lol ALSO ALSO I feel like I'm usually pretty vague on whether or not the characters are humans or cookies BUT THEY ARE HUMANS HERE!!! OKAY!!!!!!!! GOT DAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The night is black, devoid of its usual cool blue hue that stems from the moon's reflected glow. The darkness is an ebony cloak draped over the sky. There is no moonlight to dapple the world in its cold, white luminescence. There are no stars pricking through the jet fabric of the day's end. There is only pitch that stretches its raven wings over the earth and drowns everything in its dreadful ink.

Dark Choco glances at the window from his study. He smooths a whetstone across his blade. It rings sharply with each stroke, an announcement of its deadly touch becoming more lethal with each refining shear of its alloy. The melody of metal is his meditation; a routine he takes upon himself each night like clockwork. The lullaby of his handiwork is hypnotically in tune with his breathing. While he works, his headspace is occupied only by the blade. He does not dwell on the events of the day. He does not plan for the tasks ahead. There is no room for the follies of fantasy. There is only his work and his weapon and the sound of stone scraping against steel.

Until…

He sees his reflection in the pane of glass, cast back to him by the sable sky. He sees the sunken, dark circles that have imprinted themselves below his eye sockets. The corners of his lips have tilted lower than usual. His skin has an ashen tint and his hair is flat and unkempt. “Lifeless” would be a fitting adjective for his current description.

You need a break.

The words echo in his mind as he studies his wan face, tilting his head and running a hand along his jaw, feeling the rough scratch of stubble. He remembers the troubled lilt in your voice as you said that to him. He had told you that seeing you was his break. You had hardly acknowledged him as you began to berate him with offers of comfort, such as fetching him something to drink or asking if he’d like to nap on your couch. He politely turned you down, then made an excuse to leave shortly after. If he’s being honest, Dark Choco didn’t exactly know how to react to your concern. He did not wish for you to go out of your way to cater to him, so he took his leave.

He sets aside his stone and sword with a sigh, pushing them further up the desk to make room for his arms to rest on the surface. He feels as though your kindness is wasted on him. It's not that he doesn’t want to bask in your glow, it’s just that he doesn’t quite know how to give you that warmth in return. You’re deserving of someone who can reciprocate; someone who can be the moon to your sun and reflect your light. He is not that. Dark Choco is a black hole, he sometimes muses. Light bends and is broken in his engulfing desolation.

He wishes for you to find your moon, yes, but there is another thought that lurks in Dark Choco’s mind. There is something selfish deep down, some remnant of a past life that followed him to the present. Repress it as he may, but it always rears its head when his thoughts happen to land on you.

He does not want you to be with another.

Jealousy is a ghost in Dark Choco’s closet. No matter how many locks he bolts to the door, it always slips out between the cracks. Envy coils around his throat and whispers to him with its serpentine tongue when he thinks of you with someone that’s not him. He is not proud of this feeling. He is not even accommodating of it. He tries to reason with it, but it only squeezes tighter around his windpipe until he’s gasping for air.

You have a life outside of him. This he knows. You trade waves on the city streets, and you seem to know everybody around you, striking up conversations everywhere you go. Still, he cannot help the stone in his throat when some seem more friendly with you than others.

Your enthusiastic grin lingers in his mind. He thinks about the small details about you that he’s encountered. He can practically hear the smile in your voice as you speak. You make exaggerated hand gestures when you’re telling a particularly exciting story. You hum and do a little dance when you think nobody is looking. Your hair falls in a perfect halo when you're on your back.

The last thought hits Dark Choco so abruptly, it nearly makes him dizzy. His nails sink into the soft, aged wood of his desk. He bites his tongue and hesitates, but he already leapt from the cliff. Against his better judgement, he lets the thought continue. Liquid greed drips from the serpent's tongue as it slithers around his head and through his foggy brain.

You are smaller than him. His tall, bulky frame dwarfs you in comparison. You would fit perfectly underneath him.

Not underneath me, he thinks. He tries to imagine you with some faceless lover, but he cannot. Dark Choco’s mental image returns to you at his mercy. Or, would it be him at yours?

Would you caress him and purr gently into his ear? Or would you dig your nails into the scarred flesh of his back hard enough to mark him? Would you whisper sighs and pleas, or would you fill the room with shouts and curses? Would you kiss him? Bite him? Would you roll his name off your tongue? Or would you bark his name in your desperation?

He lets his mind run in every filthy direction it wants, too far gone to stop himself. Dark Choco’s jaw is tight, teeth clenching together and breath uneven. Pressure twists his stomach until it becomes painful, and he grows increasingly aware of how tight his pants have become. He does not give himself release, however. With his mind running rampant, he attempts to garner some control over his own body by stiffly hunching over his desk and pressing his hands into tense fists.

The hot pressure continues to coalesce. Dark Choco sits up and crosses his arms over his chest, trying to even out his erratic breathing. He shifts around uncomfortably in his seat, still thinking of you in his bed and all the situations that could come of that. The pressure grows too strong, however, and he loses what little control over his own animalistic urges he was briefly able to maintain. He reaches down to undo his belt, and the process is agonizingly slow. He wishes for the strength to just rip the restraining garment from his hips. His hand shakes fervently as he finally hears the clinking of the metal buckle. He thinks about you undoing his zipper as he pinches it between his finger and thumb and drags it down himself. He thinks about you palming him through the fabric while you bite your lip and look into his one good eye. He thinks about touching you and how you would react. About pressing his lips against your heavenly skin. About breathing in your scent. About showing you who he once was. About who he could be for you. About giving you the world. About caring for you. About loving you.

Everything falls apart.

The fantasy crumbles before him the moment he wishes to love you. The idea of you being with him is so absurd that Dark Choco can’t even contemplate it in the privacy of his own solitude. He is left staring at the wood grain of his desk, shame crawling under his skin and face burning. Regret gnaws at his stomach as his slackened hand drops into his lap. He can’t have you. He can’t love you. He can’t give you what you need. The thoughts could continue, but he cuts them short. The dawn’s light would leak into the horizon before he could list all the reasons as to why you shouldn’t be with him.

Dark Choco zips his fly and buckles his belt, heart still thumping against his ribs. The pressure in his belly has all but melted away. He resigns himself back to his sword, picking up his whetstone with a still-shaky hand. He swallows the lump in his throat and begins to work. He does not need a break. He does not deserve a break. There is only the task at hand. There is only the cause he has allied himself to. There is only his work. The sound of sharpening steel fills the room, and Dark Choco’s mind once again goes blank.

[icanbeyourjedi-writes]

Dear Frankie Chapter Five

Summary: The next steps in the relationship take form, secrets are revealed, and the ugly green monster shows up at a wedding. Frankie and you have built a solid relationship, you two trust each other but will the past ruin what could have been a future  Words: 5213 Rating: 18+ SMUT please don’t read if you are under 18 Warnings/Triggers for series: Frankie is active duty military, deployment, death, Adult language, themes, and SMUT A/N: So I don’t really know anything…ok I know nothing about Fayetteville, North Carolina.  I am taking my own liberties on what it’s like there.  Names of places may exist, but I have no idea if they are real or not as well as some of the events I have.  But its fan fiction and there are no rules.  While the reader may have some descriptions, I am doing my best to leave out physical characteristics. Just try to have a little imagination while you're reading this. 

This story had come to be from that photo of Pedro in the white suit for the NYC premiere of Massive Talent. It made me think of an Angel, then talking with @tauralmie I kinda came up with this idea of a story where what if one deployment Frankie didn’t come home, and you had been dreaming of him so much, you see him wearing that white suit. That is how this little series was developed.  As always a huge thank you goes out to @heythere-mel for reading before I post. 

**Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story. **

Dear Frankie Masterlist

Once Frankie returned he was quiet again, it was like part of him was missing. The part that had him opening up to you, the part that was letting you know him. He would hold you tighter at night, the kisses lasting a little bit longer each time. He held your hand more; a hand on your thigh when you were at dinner, lower back when he would guide you through a crowd. He didn’t talk about what happened while he was away, and you didn’t ask. Deep down you wanted to know, but you also knew that if and when he was ready to talk to you he would. It took him time before and you were more than willing to wait for that to happen again. 

After reading your journal he had found, the cover doodled with ‘Dear Frankie’ he realized it wasn’t home that he missed…it was you. It wasn’t the ice cream flavors, it was eating them with you. It wasn’t the movies that were released, it was missing it with you. When he got to the part where you wrote to him that he was a romantic even though he didn’t think he was, it nearly broke him. You think so highly of him and he hopes that one day he would be able to truly be the man you deserved. 

It was late June and even in the late evening it was hot. You were laying on his chest like you always do. It was your favorite day, Frankie Friday and you had the evening and weekend to spend with him. 

“Biggest fear?” He asks out of the blue. You hadn't played this game in weeks. His fingers trail up and down your back 

“Roller coasters” it was a no brainer you hated them with a passion. So much so that you are like a child throwing a fit when your friends drag you on to one

“What?!” He’s surprised “you just went on one with my a few days ago”

That was true, you did. The thing is as much as you hated them, you still went on them. Plus it was getting on a roller coaster with Frankie you felt safe with him so matter where you were 

“Yes. Yes I did” you turn your head to look at him “but I’ve seen final destination enough times to know how that story ends” you give an awkward laugh, “I don’t like that once you reach the top and the little pully system lets you go, no one is in control of the ride. One tire slipping off the track, and it’s game over”

“You know it’s a movie right?” He smiles at you trying to get you to smile back 

“They had to have inspiration from something” he chuckles at your dramatic inflections “ok tough guy what’s yours?” 

“Spiders…” he laughs his fingers ticking your sides “too many legs”

“Ayyy, Frankie” you squirm a bit “seriously…” you try to pinch him. His hand catches your wrist just when you reach his side

“Dying alone…” his voice takes a sudden turn no matter how hard he tried to hide it

“Frankie…” you lift your head up to look at him

“Look, there’s a chance I could die alone on the battlefield. I try not to think about it, but there’s always that chance. And after being with you I’ve realized that I am scared of getting shot at or whatever and dying. I’m scared that no one will find my body. If I died out there,” he takes a deep breath “I use to believe that no one would have cared”

You close your eyes at the comment. Of course you knew that was a possibility. That his job meant maybe never coming home. But hearing him say it, it felt different. You know that people would have cared, people would have missed him. Your hand is over his heart and you can feel it racing “people would have cared, I would care” 

He nods and takes a deep breath, “I used to think dying alone in general would be pretty terrible,” he moves his hand to take the one you have placed on his heart. “But now I have you, so dying here wouldn’t be so bad” he smiles while he wraps his fingers around yours, you focus your attention on his eyes “I love you” 

“I…” you blink back a tear that is threatening to fall “I love you too” 

You lean down to kiss him, sweet at first. Frankie wraps his arm around you and rolls you on to your back. Deepening the kiss, his tongue moves against yours in a dominance he has never shown before. You tighten your grip on his loose curls at the base of his neck. His hand lets go of yours; it slides to the hem of your shirt. Grabbing the fabric he begins to move it up slowly. 

He breaks the kiss allowing you to breathe and try to catch up to your racing thoughts. He nips at your jaw before his attack on a sensitive part of your neck. Just below your jawline under your ear. A place he had learned that turns you to putty under his touch. He smiles against your skin when you moan out his name. The shirt rising higher and higher when your finally realizing what it happening

“Fffffrankie,” you breathe “shit…Frannnnnnk”

You can feel him smile against your skin, “mmmm” he hums 

“Wait, jussssst…hold on” he kisses your jaw and lifts his head “please…”

“Is this too fast, do you want me to slow down?” his voice deep, his eyes hooded as he rubs his nose along your cheek 

“Yeah, no…maybe, shit” you close your eyes and he chuckles, going back to sucking on your neck, sure to leave his mark “yes, Frankie. I…we…there’s something you need to know” 

He lifts his head all the way this time. Propped up on his elbow, the other hand still on your ribs holding your shirt. You reach for his wrist trying to hint at him to let go of your shirt which he does. You roll over and off the bed. Standing up and you start to pace his room “Estrelita, baby what’s wrong?” 

Baby your mind replays that word. He’s never called you baby before and it wasn’t that you didn’t like it, it was just strange to hear him say it. He calls your name bringing you back to the moment. He needed to know, you needed to tell him; but you also knew that this was going to change the course of your relationship. You stop, you cross your arms and turn to face him. You close your eyes and take a deep breath “Frankie, I’m a virgin” you shout and your head falls in shame. Your hands covering your face, worried about the words that just came out of your mouth. 

He’s silent, he’s silent for what seems like a lifetime. You are terrified of what you just told him. A set of thick fingers wrap around your slender wrists, gently pulling your hands away from your face. You're still looking at the ground when you feel his fingers tucking under your jaw to bring your eyes to him “so….what?” he asks with a gentle smile and those puppy dog brown eyes looking at you; and you turn to look away afraid to look into those eyes. 

Frankie, 

I don’t know why I was so terrified. You haven’t been anything but kind, gentle and understanding. You have wanted to go slow and now only I can hope that you are still willing to. 

“So what? SO WHAT!?!” you turn to look at him now, tears starting to fall, “it’s pathetic and embarrassing. I’m 23…and… and your…you are so experienced” you back away from him toward the door.

“Amor…what does that have to do with anything?” 

“What does that have to do with anything?” Frankie it has to do with everything! I have no idea what I’m doing…

“Everything…just then when you kissed me…most times…I don’t even know what to do with my hands!?!” You throw your hands in the air 

He laughs at you falaying your hands about. His laugh causes you to give a small smile. “Estrella…” he says as you continue to tell him how you don’t know what to do with things. “Like when I play with the little curls on your head…do you even like that?” he calls your name 

“What?” you hear him chuckling “it’s not funny Frankie” 

“First of all, I like it when you play with my hair. I love when those gentle hands hold my face. I like when you look at me as if I’m the only thing that matters in the world. I also really like when you rub my head when we kiss. More importantly, don’t be embarrassed, you have no reason to be.” He reaches for your hands, which you let him take. He intertwined his fingers with yours “you are anything but pathetic, and if anyone has ever said that to you, they didn’t know you the way I know you” 

Francisco,

How can you be so sweet and understanding? How can I be so lucky to know you and have you make me feel the way you do. I want you to be my first, I trust you but I was to tell you I wasn’t afraid that I wouldn’t be good, that I wouldn’t be as good I’d be lying. 

The two of you made your way back to his bed. Sitting on the edge. Both of your hands resting in your lap. You told him about how you want it to be him, how it wasn’t that you were waiting for religious reasons or anything like that. You just wanted to be in love, you wanted a man to love you back and be there in the morning when you woke up. He nods his head in understandment. He moves one of his hands to cup your face, leaning in to give you a quick kiss 

“Can I tell you something?” he asks, you nod leaning into his touch “this deployment changed me. Shit hit the fan real quick and I realized just how much you meant to me. How much you mean to me. I watched people I care about almost die and it scared the shit out of me knowing you didn’t know how I truly felt about you before I left. Life is short and you need to tell the people you love, you love them before it’s too late. And I love you” you smile at those words “and you waited for me in so many ways, I promise you…we'll take it slow and when you’re ready. I’m ready” 

“I love you too,” you wrap your hand around his neck pulling him into a kiss, pouring your heart of gratitude into it “thank you”

I don’t know why I ever doubted you, you are a gentleman. Sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve someone like you. Life is short, far too short and I shouldn’t be mad at you for something that you have no control over. 

You were meeting him for a quick lunch at a bar. A bar you’ve never been to. As you sat and waited for him your bubbly server brought over another ice tea. He’s fifteen minutes late, Frankie is never late and you begin to worry. The little bell on the door chimes and you look over, you see him finally walking in. A pair of khakis covered in dirt, his green shirt damp and his hair more unruly then he wakes up. You put your hand up and wave at him when he looks in your direction. 

He quickly rushes over to you, a hand on your shoulder and a quick kiss to the lips knowing he’s sweaty and gross. “Hey baby, sorry I’m late” he sits across from you when another ice tea arrives 

“Hi, I’m Claire. What can I get you to drink?” She smiles and looks at Frankie and her eyes get a little brighter 

The rest of the meal you watch as Claire flirts with the man sitting in front of you. Frankie is completely oblivious to the special attention he keeps receiving every time she comes to the table. 

“Someone has a thing for you…” you comment when she drops off the little black book holding the bill

“Hmm?” He asks pushing around the last few veggies on his plate with his fork 

“Call me…Claire, she even dotted the ‘I’ with a heart, isn’t that cute” you look at the bill rolling your eyes. 

“What?” He grabs the little paper from the book 

I shouldn’t be jealous; you were literally sitting across from me. Your legs touching mine, your eyes always on me. A smile only meant for me to see.  You are incredibly handsome Frankie, and I don’t know why but when a girl flirts with you in front of me, I wanted to ring her neck. The way she rolled her eyes when you told her ‘Sorry I’m taken’ and the look of disgust when you leaned in to kiss me. Maybe I am way over my head in this relationship. 

Jealousy is a strange thing. Here you are with Frankie’s fingers laced with yours and all you can think about is how Claire flirted with Frankie right in front of you. She flirted with him as if she had known him, you wonder if she was a past experience and what the odds were of ever running into one of them. 

“Stop moving, I’m gonna burn you with this iron if you don’t stop” she hisses again 

It was Heather’s wedding, you were a brides maid and it was your turn to sit in the chair but all you could think about was seeing Frankie in a suit and how handsome he was going to look.  The only thing you hated more than weddings was being in a wedding. The hair, the makeup, the stupid fancy dress. But the longer you were with Frankie, the more you thought about being the one in white. A few more bobby-pins in your hair and you were finally finished. 

It was Heather’s turn, as you sit and listen to the other girls talk about some new movie they are trying to get their men to go to there was a knock on the door. “I’ll get it…” you stand quickly and shuffle to the door. 

“Tyler hey…what are you doing here? You know it’s bad luck to see the bride before the altar” you push him back a bit and step out of the door closing it behind you 

“I know, I know…but will you give this to her?” He asks handing you a folded piece of paper, you nod taking the small paper “thank you, I’ll uh…I’ll see you out there” 

As he walks away, you turn back towards the door and hear a familiar voice calling your name. The smile that spreads across your face could light up the entire city. “You look incredible” he moves closer to you whispering “la mujer mas linda aqui (the prettiest woman here) he whispers 

“I’m the only girl here” you laugh and turn towards him, his lips quickly finding yours 

His hands hold your waist, he smiles when he feels your fingers brush his cheek. “It will always be true Estrella, you will always be the prettiest woman in my world” he leans back in for a kiss but you turn your head and he kisses your cheek instead 

“Heather is gonna kill you if you ruin my makeup” you turn back to face him, your thumb pressing against his pouty lip

“As long as it’s in your arms, I’ll die a happy man” he smiles, kissing your thumb before moving your hand so he can kiss you again

As you stand at the front with Heather, her and Tyler reading their vows to one another you look at Frankie who hasn’t taken his eyes off of you since you walked down the aisle with one of Tyler’s brothers.  You but your lip as you see him mouth the words I love you and you can not sit down and enjoy the rest of the day with him by your side 

I have to say, I had honestly stopped thinking what this day would be like, then you came along and standing in front of all those people. Watching Heather and Tyler tie the knot I started to think what it might be like if it was you and me. You in your dress uniform, wearing all the medals I know you’ll receive and me in a white dress. I’m not saying you feel the same way about marriage but I also hope that one day that could be us. 

“It is with my great pleasure to pronounce you man and wife…Tyler you may kiss your bride” the Preacher said and a round of applause that snaps you back to the present as you watch Tyler dip Heather and kiss her. “May I present to you for the first time Mr and Mrs Tyler Evans” 

Pictures of the wedding party were complete, dinner was finished, and the DJ slowly started playing music for the guests to make their way to the dance floor. Heather and Tyler making the rounds talking to friends and family. You sit at the table, Frankie’s arm around you and your hand resting on his thigh. Frankie’s thumbs tap on the back of your chair,  waiting for the perfect song to ask you to dance with him. 

“Francisco?” a breathy voice comes from behind him and he turns his head in that direction “I’ve been waiting for over a year for you to call. You look good, How have you been?”

“I’m good?” He replies, the answer sounding more of a question “do I know you?” 

“It’s Britney. We met at a bar a few years ago. You said you’d call and then you went M.I.A” she places a hand on his shoulder 

He says her name a few times as saying her name would recall his memories of her, “Misfits…Friday night, middle of June, three amazing, fantastic, mind blowing orgasmic rounds. You were getting dressed as the sun was slowly coming up over the horizon said you’d call and then you were gone” she explains 

You move your hand from his thigh, crossing your arms, biting your bottom lip to keep yourself from saying what is really on your mind. You watch as she flexes her hand on his shoulder and moves closer to him. A new song starts, an upbeat tempo. Her free hand taking his, “dance with me, maybe I can jog your memory” 

You clear your throat and she looks over at you, “oh hi, and you are?” She asks. 

Sitting up and turning towards her “his girlfriend…” uncrossing your arms, you grab his face and pull him for a kiss. Fingers threading into his hair. After a few moments you finally pull back, Frankie having a goofy smile on his face, you look up at her wiping away the little bit of lipstick on his bottom lip. She drops his hand, tucking a stray hair behind her ear 

“Girlfriend?” She says it, like a challenge “well, may I borrow your boyfriend for a dance?” 

She was pretty, strawberry blonde hair. Just a bit longer than her shoulders. Green eyes, perfectly arched eyebrows. Fair skin complexion, looked like she spent every morning going for a run. Part of you, no…no more like all of you wanted to say no, but  “it’s up to him” is what ended up coming out of your mouth. 

She reaches for his hand again trying to pull him to stand up. He leans in, giving you a quick kiss, “I love you” he tells you before Britney is dragging him onto the dance floor. 

Frankie shoves his hands in his pants pockets, you watch as Britney dances around him. He stands there awkwardly nodding his head to the music and you make your way over to the bar. The music picks up, she turns, her back now facing Frankie and she starts to grind her ass on him. He keeps his hands in his pocket and does what he can’t to keep his eyes up and not on her. 

Heather found you at the bar, seeing Frankie with another girl, “I told him not to invite her, she’s trouble at work just like she’s trouble here” she said. Giving you a hug, telling you to take it easy but you find yourself taking a third shot of Whiskey hoping it would calm your nerves and it’s barely numbing the pain of watching your boyfriend with her. Especially knowing that she has been between the sheets with him. The music ends and Frankie tries to walk away, towards you. But the minute his hands are from his pockets she’s grabbing him and turning him back to her. It’s a slow song, it was some poppy song that you know Heather picked. A Jason Marz song to be exact. She places his hands on her hips and wraps her arms around his neck. You wish you could hear what he was saying, you wish you had the courage to go over and take your man back. And that’s when it happens, she pulls his neck and you watch them kiss. 

“What the fuck?” You shake your head hoping that you're not seeing what you think you are. Sadly when you open your eyes it’s still happening

Reaching behind the bar you grab the closest bottle of liquor and pull it to you “hey…hey! You can’t do that” the bartender shouts 

“Friend of the bride, just bill her…” you say, pushing yourself away. Grabbing your clutch and the bottle of tequila you make your way out of the hall and towards the elevator to your room. 

***********

Her tongue slides across his lip, he grabs her shoulders and quickly pulls back. “What are you doing?” He asks 

“Reminding you of our amazing night” she smiles, fingers finding the back of his head gently tugging the little curls 

His hands grab her wrists and pull them away from him. “I have a girlfriend” he says 

“Is it serious?” Her eyes roam over his 

“Yes” he breaks eye contact looking for you “for the first time in my life I’m happy” 

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

 Frankie, 

I should have realized that someone like you would never be with a girl like me. Especially when I see the women from your past, and how perfect they all are. Your words were exactly that, just words. You are going to leave the minute you get what you want. I’ll just be another a notch in your belt

“Estrella…” he says, opening the door, “baby…” 

“Have fun with Britney?” you put the half empty bottle of tequila to your lips taking another swig. Closing your eyes as the gold liquid slides down your throat leaving a burn in its trail 

“No,” he says flatly “she isn’t you” 

“That didn’t seem to bother you when her tongue was down your throat” you set the bottle down and stand up 

You still have on your heels from the wedding, and have had far too much to drink to hold your balance. You try taking a step and stumble, Frankie catching you before you hit the ground. One arm around your waist, his other arm being clutched by your hands. Leaning against his chest you hear his heartbeat, the soothing that you’ve fallen asleep to so many times. 

“She kissed me, it didn’t mean anything. You should know that” 

“That line is just as bad as ‘she fell and my lips broke her fall’ line guys always use. Just fuck me already so you can leave and save me a worse heart break later when you leave again. Or am I not drunk enough for you?” you lift your head and try to stand a little straighter “leaving before sun up, it’s what you're good at right?” 

“What?” The pain in his eyes is unbearable to look at

You didn’t mean it, you really didn’t. The alcohol was making you self-doubt yourself. And say things you never would have sober. Frankie had always been saying how you could do better, how he wasn’t the one you deserved. But truth be told, you always thought he deserved better. You’ve run into an “experience” and you were a goblin compared to her. The words hurt him more than you intended them too. The next words hurt him just as much as they hurt you “why are you even with me?” 

You think you have your balance and try to step away from Frankie when you stumble. Grabbing the back of the chair to hold you up. Reaching for the bottle of tequila, fingers graze the bottle before he takes it from you. “How much have you had to drink?”

“I asked you first…” you glare at him

Watching him take the bottle to the bathroom and emptying the nearly empty bottle into the sink. You start to walk towards him, the heels getting in your way and you rip them off throwing them across the room “mother fucking heels” you yell

“I like who I am when I am with you. You make me a better person. You made me realize what love is, and how nice it is to have someone worry about you. I didn’t know she was going to do something like that…I don’t know what else to say but I’m sorry” he loosens his tie “Estrella, you are smart, caring, funny, beautiful…now, how much did you drink?” 

Before you can answer, you're shoving past him, hunching over the toilet and throwing up most of the tequila you just drank. Frankie is there behind you, pulling your hair back and a gentle hand on your back. He reaches for a wash cloth before kneeling down next to you “I’m sorry…” you manage to say before hurling again into the toilet “you don’t have to stay” your elbow on the toilet seat and holding your head up 

He hands to the damp washcloth, rubbing your back “do you want me to leave?” 

You shake your head no, you wipe your mouth and fall to the ground. Your burgundy dress getting in the way as you sit in a pile of twill and satin, you try to push it to the side. “Have you had anything to eat?” He asks

“Just the dinner…4 shots of whiskey and that bottle of tequila” you throw your head back against the wall “why are you being so nice to me after what I said?” 

“You're upset, I get it. I should have said no to her…now stay here I’m going to go find you something to eat and get you some water” 

Frankie, 

I was wrong. I was drunk and I know the words hurt you. And I don’t think I would ever be able to say I’m sorry enough. You’ve been nothing but the sweetest, kindest, gentlemanly…is that a word? Sure, you deserve the world Frankie and I never thanked you enough for taking care of me that night

You aren’t sure how long he was gone, the last thing you remember is your arm resting on the edge of the tub and closing your eyes. Wishing you could have said ‘I’m sorry’ better. You wake up to Frankie’s bed side empty and cold, your hair is a mess, and you're sleeping in one of his shirts. You don’t remember changing and you definitely don’t remember moving to the bed. 

Your head hurts and even the slightest movement of the sheets sounds amplified in your ears. You manage to sit up, on the nightstand you see a bottle of water with a little note that says ‘drink me’, next to it a bottle of tylenol and another note in the same handwriting ‘take 2 of me’. You recognize the handwriting is Frankie and you hope that is a good sign that you didn’t piss him off too much. Then you hear his soft, faint snores coming from behind you. You slowly turn your head to see him sleeping on the small loveseat. His back pressed against the back of the couch. One leg up and the other tucked under. His head resting against his bicep on the armrest. The other draped over his stomach. 

Your feet touch the cold wooden floor, standing up you feel a bit wobbly. Taking the two Tylenol and half a glass of water you make your way over to him. Hoping that you can make it up to him, apologize for what you said to him last night. You sit in the small space between Frankie and the edge of the loveseat and lay down. Pressing your back against Frankie and resting your legs on top of his. It’s like it's a basic instinct for him now. The hand that was resting on his stomach curls around you. Pulling you closer to him, his leg falling over yours…a Frankie Blankie, as you called it. 

“Mañana, Amor” his voice still raspy with sleep. He leans down to kiss the top of your head 

“Good morning” you manage to turn your body in his arms so you are facing him, you wrap an arm around him and bury your head into his chest “Pescado, I’m really sorry” you mumble against his chest 

He rubs his hand up and down your back, a comforting gesture. How could he be so kind and nice to you after everything you said to him last night? You didn’t mean any of it, you were upset, confused, ‘it’s ok’ you hear him hum. Tears slowly stream down your cheeks, you shake your head against his chest and he hears you sob. His hand moves to tilt your chin up to look at him 

“Kiss?” He questions you his head tilting down to look at you 

You shake your head no again, “I haven’t brushed my teeth, and I’m all snotty and gross…” you thumb stroking against his hip “I’m just, I didn’t mean what I said last night…”

His thumb under chin, he leans in closing the small distance between the two of you kissing the top of your forehead. Before you can say something he kisses your nose, and then places a gentle kiss to your lips. You gasp in response, “It’s ok, I fucked up too, and I am sorry” 

How was it possible he was blaming himself? Frankie really is an amazing man and a man you probably didn’t deserve. You knew he didn’t really have a reason to be sorry, Frankie was being Frankie. A kind soul, and wanting to make people around him happy. Frankie, learned of your insecurities that night, you sharing with him that you thought he was the one that deserved better. He told you, that he would never find anyone better, anyone more trusting and that you were the one for him.

Check out more of my work and other fantastic writers at @littlemisspascal​ and the wonderful library they have created. 

[kohakuarisaka]

Trial By Fire (chapter 2 of 2)

Takami Keigo x (fem!)Reader

[ SUMMARY ] Hawks stopped by your apartment, asking for a patch up, and then asked for so much more.

[ WARNINGS ] R18+ for graphic sexual content and language. Role reversal: Keigo is a villain and Touya is a hero. Liberties were taken with Hawks’ quirk and is non-canon compliant. This fic is not nice to Touya. Reader and Hawks smoke. Reader has a quirk. Reader is a female with descriptive female genitalia. This fic contains graphic sexual content, including penis in vagina sex, oral sex, spanking, dirty talk, biting, degradation, and knotting. Consensual ♥

Keigo’s appearance in this fic was inspired by this lovely art piece!

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2

[ My BNHA Fanfic Masterlist ] ~ [ Also on my AO3 ]

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Todoroki Touya was a prince.

Being born to a top-ranking hero was almost the same as being born to royalty. Everyone recognized his name, his quirk might as well have been trade-marked, and he had lots and lots of daddy's money.

If that wasn't enough, Touya was incredibly handsome, too. He had a full head of stunning, bright red hair and beautiful, shiny blue eyes. His smile was charming and voice was hoarse and suave.

He was a skilled fighter, always topping the rankings at UA, the talk of all 'up and coming' news articles back in his teen years. His quirk was flashy and powerful, nearly unstoppable; but, he was also a dedicated hero that trained day in and day out to hone his combat skills.

The boy with the crimson wings couldn't have the fortune of being nobody. That would have been more preferable to his reality.

His father was a criminal, a thief and a murderer. His childhood home burned to the ground when an attempted arrest went horribly wrong, and resulted in half his body being permanently scarred by burns. But, no one would believe that a hero did that to a small boy, even if it was an accident. No, of course not.

No hero academy was going to accept someone with such a reputation, with a name like Takami, with a history of bloodshed, with the evidence smeared across his skin for all to see. He was in and out of foster homes for years before he could get his own place, funded by petty crimes and gang activity, the only way he could survive.

Touya was a prince-

-and Keigo was a gutter rat.

He wasn't the least bit surprised when you told him that Touya had asked you out, even less surprised when you told him that you said yes.

Of course you couldn't resist Touya. He was everything any girl could possibly want, and he could give you a hell of a lot more than Keigo ever could: fancy dates, lavish gifts, a nice family to go home to, a name with a shining reputation.

Touya could make you happy.

And so, Keigo stopped chasing you. He stopped hoping anything more would amount to your relationship. But, even if his life depended on it, Keigo could never stop wanting you, thinking about you, loving you. No one was like you, not by a long shot. No one understood him like you did.

But, you belonged to Prince Touya.

... ..

... ..

... ..

Hawks woke in a cold sweat, torn from a nightmare. He bolted upright, eyes scanning the room, panting lightly in a daze. His bare chest glistened with the evidence of his agony and his wings flexed out, feathers taut and sharped at the ends, defensive.

He glared at the unfamiliar walls, legs tangled in warm blankets. It took him just a moment to remember where he was.

There was a photo pinned to the wall by your desk: him and you at a spring carnival during your first year of high school. Your hair was longer back then and he had a black eye from a fight with some upper classmen.

The pillows and blankets on your bed were so soft and freshly washed, the scent of the fabric softener still wafting. You had dug out extra pillows and sheets for Hawks when made it clear he was intending to come around a lot more often.

Your apartment, your bedroom, your bed: that's where he was. The only thing missing from the room was you.

Hawks pulled himself out of a bed with a groan and snagged his sweat pants off the floor, where they had been discarded when he arrived. He decided to skip the underwear and just pulled the loose fitting pants on with a tired groan.

He didn't need to search the apartment to know you weren't inside. His feathers weren't picking up any vibrations from footsteps or breathing. It was too still, too quiet.

Confident of where you were, he opened one of the windows in your bedroom, nearest your desk, and shimmied onto the outer ledge, hoisting his torso through first before bringing his legs in until he was hanging outside. He kicked off the side, beat the air once with his wings to gain some momentum and flew up to the roof.

You let out the most undignified yelp when he floated up over the side of the building, bare feet toeing the edge where he landed, giving you an innocent, drowsy look.

"Holy fuck, you scared me," you hissed at him.

It was almost 1 in the morning, and you had slipped on a loose shirt and baggy shorts to head up to the roof for a smoke. Unsurprisingly, you were alone at this hour, able to enjoy the ambiance of the night without one of your neighbors mouth breathing or trying to strike up a conversation. They weren't bad people; but, you didn't want their company.

Even from up this high, you could hear passing cars, the soft squeaking of breaks and the occasional squeal of tires spinning on asphalt. Distant lights were constantly changing: traffic control, cars coming and going, people in and out of their crowded apartments.

"You're not cold?" Hawks asked as he approached you.

"Not really," you answered softly.

Despite that, Hawks flattened against your back. His hands dragged up and down your arms as if to warm them before winding around your waist. You felt more than saw his head droop over your shoulder. As he pressed in close, you felt what was his very shirtless chest fall against your back and the unmistakable outline of his cock against your behind.

"I see you didn't bother dressing," you scolded him, lacking any real malice.

"You like it," he challenged, reaching for your cigarette.

Before he could grab it, you brought it to his lips for him, turning your head to try and face him, despite the awkward angle. You watched him puff the end faintly before huffing out smoke away from you.

"Ohh," he hummed. "You bought the fancy ones this time."

"They're not fancy," you retorted gently.

He flapped his mouth, about to insist you let him buy the next pack. However, he caught himself, remembering how well it went last time. It had resulted in a fight, and you kicked him out, nearly pushing him out the window, not that he couldn't handle that, of course, and it was a funny memory, now that it was over.

Besides, if he was being honest, it was really hot when you yelled at him. Maybe not so much this time since it put him in the doghouse for a week. But, the makeup sex was definitely worth it.

You didn't want his money; 'blood money', you had called it. You adored him, maybe even loved him, wanted him, longed for him; but, you had no desire to take any of his dirty money.

You weren't delusional enough to think that that made you a good person, or somehow morally superior, not to Hawks, or anyone else for that matter. It was a choice that you had made for yourself, to try and get your life on the right track.

Maybe, letting Hawks into your bed was counter productive. He was a wanted villain, after all. Business could follow, even if he worked hard to prevent that. If Touya found out-

You shuddered at the thought, mind racing with the possibilities of what could happen. You didn't want to see Touya ever again, let alone talk to him; but, there was no guarantee that your paths would never cross again. Would he be mad? Would he try to hurt Keigo?

Sharply, you turned your head and kissed at his cheek, lips smearing across the burnt half of his face, as if trying to reassure yourself that that wouldn't happen. Hawks hummed, and you felt the vibration travel along his chest and throat and onto your skin.

"Don't burn your fingertips," he scolded you softly in a hoarse whisper, snatching your cigarette from the burning end.

You had been so lost in thought, you failed to realize the cinders were nearing your fingers, the flame having almost reached the end. You watched Hawks roll it between his fingers, drawing the paper into his palm where he crushed it. The flame died and he opened his hand, letting the wind carry the burnt remains away.

"Kiss me," you breathed, so wrapped up in the moment that you didn't care that you were outside.

He obeyed with a growl, hands grabbing at your waist harshly to spin you around. One hand flattened at the space between your shoulder blades, holding you tightly to his chest while he arched down and captured your mouth.

You heard and felt his wings beat the air, powerful and unyielding: an intentional display of dominance, most likely, that should have made your eyes roll and not your heart flutter. But, you had always been soft for Keigo, and this advancement in your relationship had only made that worse, until you became putty in his hands.

He clearly really liked to play with putty. It was bad enough that he was constantly twisting and turning your body to see what kind of positions he could put you in: something that you, unfortunately, found far more arousing than you should have. He loved to poke and prod, see what kind of noises he could get out of you. He also loved to see how far he could push your limitations.

"Baby," Hawks growled against your mouth, eyes hungry as he took you in.

"Let's be crazy," he suggested, low and hoarse, with a slight edge that made him sound like a stupid teenager again.

He tugged you in close, shamelessly rubbing his erection against your closed abdomen, and making his intentions known.

"Hell no," you retorted, smoothly, sure, but lacking in any real confidence in your rejection.

"Come on," he urged, hands and arms sliding away so he could skirt away from you.

You watched Hawks step towards the edge of the roof with the kind of confidence you would expect from a man that could fly. He casually sat down, rotated to sit longways, one leg spread out for balance while the other rested right at the edge. He leaned back, spreading one wing out along the gravely rooftop, while the other drooped over the side, feathers long and fluttering in the breeze like a crimson, tattered flag.

Hawks crossed his arms behind his head and laid back in full, looking boneless as he stretched out. He peered up at you with a wicked grin, eyes bright as they reflected the distant street lights.

"You're fucking ridiculous," you snapped at him, realizing too late that you were smiling dumbly at the shamelessly display in front of you. Your words lacked any real weight. Rather, you sounded amused or impressed, not angry.

God damn it.

"You love it," Hawks retorted with a soft laugh.

"No," you commanded, crossing your arms over your chest.

"Come on," he urged, rolling your name off his tongue like it was a delicious, sinful delight. "It'll make for a great memory - great story. Tell all your friends you fucked some guy on the edge of the roof. No risk: you know I won't let you fall."

"I wouldn't say 'some guy', even if I had friends to tell," you said to him grumpily, settling a weak glare on the winged villain.

Hawks removed his crossed arms from behind his head, placed one hand on the roof for balance, and leaned up. His cocky expression was gone, replaced with something soft, almost nervous, like he feared he misheard you.

"You'd tell them it was me?" he asked.

"Obviously," you uttered back.

A genuine smile found its way onto Hawks' face. Maybe, he was more deceitful than you gave him credit for. Maybe he knew damn well that you couldn't resist that face, that smile that lit up your heart, those mismatched eyes. Only foolish girls let themselves believe nonsense.

Maybe, you could be foolish sometimes.

You approached Hawks and he leaned back, excitement clawing its way onto his face as he realized he was going to get what he wanted. You smacked his chest and he fell back with a rough laugh.

A slight tug pulled his pants down enough to spring his cock free, already fully hard and leaking against his abdomen. Some distant thought was that you should have been surprised; but, Hawks had proved to be quite the animal, with such a miniscule refractory period and ready to go without much persuading.

You carefully slid on top of him, one leg braced on the roof against his side, while the other dangled over the edge. The weightlessness had you reeling back with a frightened whimper. Hawks grabbed your leg and pressed it tight against his side, keeping you planted on his lap.

"I got you," he whispered soothingly. "I got you, baby. I won't let you fall."

The bastard could fly. He was used to feeling weightless, to feeling nothing beneath his feet. You were not, and the very real risk of slipping over the edge was ever present when you felt the breeze, felt the lack of something beneath your heel.

However, when you planted yourself on Hawks, who was partially dangling over the side, you felt grounded. He felt sturdy and strong beneath you, no fear in his posture, arms and legs firmly planted, wings spread out to balance himself. He wasn't waddling back and forth with uncertainty.

It barely took you a second to relax, to feel safe when his hands gripped your thighs, holding you securely against his weight. Of course he could catch you; but, you doubted he would let you fall in the first place.

Sooner or later, you were going to have to learn to tell him no; but, that didn't have to be today.

"Have you done this before?" you dared to ask.

"Not with a partner," Hawks answered quietly.

You barked out a laugh at his answer, and watched a cheeky grin appear on the villain's face.

"What? Can a guy not jack off on the roof?" he barked.

"You're fucking horrible," you chuckled, slapping at his bare chest.

"I didn't splooge over the edge," he added on.

"You're ruining the mood," you scolded him.

Still, despite those words, and the obviously fact that he had in fact not ruined anything, you reached between your legs and grabbed at the hem of your shorts. They were wide enough that you could just pull them to the side-

Hawks choked on his next breath. You glanced up at his face. His head was angled down so he could steal a look at your sex so effortlessly becoming bare.

"Fuck," he wheezed, as if he hadn't seen you naked dozens of times by now.

Bare of underwear, fabric loose enough to just shift aside, you angled your hips until his cock caught on your folds. Hawks moaned when your wet slit trailed across his length, literally dripping over him.

"-ooohh, you're wet," he hissed softly, sincerely surprised at the discovery.

"You fucked me just a few hours ago, you animal," you retorted smoothly. Your level tone contrasted sharply with the sudden whimper that escaped you when his tip hooked on your entrance.

"Heh. Made you scre-"

Ah, you loved when Hawks gave you perfect opportunities to cut him off. You shifted your hips and sank down, enveloping his length in moist heat, and Hawks' words dissolved into a weak moan. There was no ache, as you were still prepped from earlier, likely still leaking some of him, as well.

Hawks wasted no time laying a hand against your lower abdomen. His thumb dipped between your folds and flicked skillfully at your pearl. The harsh texture of his calloused fingerprint had you whimpering and twitching. His other hand gripped your waist and guided you slowly up and down his length.

"Look down," Hawks instructed, not demanding, not crude, but soft and guiding. His eyes displayed a sort of devotion and hunger that had you helpless to do much other than obey.

Your eyes directed to the ground below, over sweeping floors, dozens of windows and a couple fire escapes. This high up, the ground looked so far away, cars like pill bugs you'd see waddling along the concrete at the community garden. Something electric shot through you, catching your breath in your throat, and Hawks let out a hoarse curse, hips shuddering.

"Fuck, you got tight," he hissed.

His hand let go of your sex and lifted up to cup your face. He turned you to face him, nudging your cheek lovingly with his knuckles. Immediately, you realized, it was his burnt hand.

You turned your head to kiss at his skin, tinged red from thick scar tissue and wrinkly. Slyly, he dipped his thumb into your mouth, the same that had been dipped beneath your folds.

"Don't be scared. I got you, baby," he cooed while you sucked the digit clean.

You smiled and laughed softly, popping his thumb out of your mouth with a lewd, wet noise. "Normal people are scared of heights, pretty bird."

"You're special," he protested, dragging his thumb across your bottom lip.

That praise had your heart fluttering, and you mentally scolded yourself for acting like a school girl.

He pressed down and dipped his thumb back inside, coaxing your tongue out until it lulled over your bottom lip. Normally, you swatted his hand away when he did things like that. But, it was difficult to resist when he was looking at you like that. One gold and one milky eye took you in with a heated gaze while he gently panted through slightly parted lips.

"That's a good girl," he praised, dragging the pad of his thumb over your tongue.

You likely looked ridiculous like this, impaled on his lap with your tongue hanging out. You almost wanted to smack him and tell him to quit; but, Hawks' hand retreated before you could tell him off.

That same thumb returned to your pearl, pressing down with just the right amount of pressure. He lifted his lips a little, encouraging, the corners of his lips threatening to break into a pleased grin. You gently moved along with him, finding harmony in a steady rhythm that had pleasure sparking at your guts.

Your eyes wandered, taking in his aroused expression, exploring the plains of his muscular chest, across the burnt skin on one half of his body, to the red feathered wings that jutted out from behind him. You didn't look over the edge again; but, the sounds of the city were ever present, reminding you of where you were.

"Someone could see," Hawks suggested darkly.

You shuddered, head lulling back, and let out a weak moan. You didn't consider yourself much of a voyeurist; but, that was oddly exciting. You were covered up well enough. They wouldn't see much of you, but the act couldn't be mistaken for anything but what it was.

Hawks shifted his hand away from your pearl and grabbed at your hip, long fingers curling around the thickest part for purchase. You didn't have a chance to consider the lack of stimulation before one of his feathers replaced his thumb, twirling and flicking insistently at your nub.

You moaned again, and let yourself go partially limp, somewhat held up by your hands braced against his chest, but more so by his stronger hands holding your center. You couldn't keep up with him, letting his hands guide you up and down to his length to his liking.

"-know how good it feels," he continued, some strain in his voice as pleasure spewed in his core.

He lost balance a little and the wing drooped over the edge flapped once. It wasn't particularly strong; but, it was enough to startle a jolt and soft yelp out of you.

Your hands slipped, and you were suddenly chest to chest. Hawks bent one leg to lift you higher on his lap, shifting the angle enough to bring him deeper and amplify the pleasure. His cheek slid against your neck and his lips met your jawline.

"You want them to know what a slut you are?" he snarled, less of a question and more of a suggestion.

The sensible side of you wanted to deny it. What good could possibly come of that? The feral side of you, that Hawks so expertly brought out, disagreed. You weren't ashamed of him. You were the happiest you had been in years. He made you laugh, he made you smile, and he made you come harder than you ever thought possible.

He kissed and bit a burning hot path across your jaw, drawing some loose skin between his molars beneath your ear, before wandering across your throat. He mouthed at your pulse, and the reality that he was a wanted murderer rang loudly in your ears.

You didn't recoil of fear or disgust. You moaned, loudly, arching your back and exposing one of yourself to him. He had to resist the urge to lift your shirt and bite at your breasts. If not for your modesty, than because your poor nipples had already been quite thoroughly assaulted not too many hours ago.

His dominant hand slid up your thigh, long, thick fingers effortlessly venturing up the leg of your shorts. He curled his hand around the back and dragged the pad of his finger along your union, gathering slick and remnants of his earlier venture.

Your cloudy thoughts didn't consider what he was doing, until that finger, now wet and slippery, was suddenly circling your other hole. That had you letting out a confused gasp. He didn't press in, just traced the tight ring of muscle curiously, and took your noise positively.

Hawks knew well enough, but the mischievous glimmer in his eyes gave it away.

"Aww. Did Touya never touch you here?" he teased.

He pressed in slightly, being answered by your muscles flinching tightly, if your lewd expression didn't tell him enough. You looked confused, maybe even a little annoyed, but the arousal was still present, thick behind the glare you tried to give him.

As inviting as the heat was, he didn't venture beyond the pad of his finger, which felt like a lot more than it actually was. It didn't hurt, but it didn't feel good, either. You didn't know what to make of it, but found yourself arching into the touch, and downright mewling when he slipped out and returned to circling the ring of puckered muscle, which surprisingly did feel good.

"O-obviously, that's not-" you hissed at him.

Still, through all his teasing and adventuring touches, his hips never ceased, forcing his cock into your sopping wet cunt again and again. The wet, fleshy sounds was loud enough to drown out the bustling city beneath you.

"No more than this," Hawks promised in a hoarse whisper, hot breath fanning out over your throat.

His fingertip eased back in, met with blistering tight heat, and you let out a strange noise, confused and perhaps a little discomforted. No, that was definitely not a place you were used to being touched. But, he wandered that territory carefully, ever akin to your desires. As new as it was, there was no denying the way that touch made your skin prickle.

"You like it," he observed slyly. "Dirty girl."

It probably would have sounded more teasing if he didn't already sound so debauched, thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to touch you as much as you enjoyed being touched. He had you wrapped around his finger. That much was certain. But, you weren't oblivious to the power you held over him.

"Keigo," his name slipped past your lips, breathless and dripping with lust. It wasn't really forced; but, you were intent on getting a rise out of him. "Keigo," and again. "Oh, Keigo," and again.

His teasing finger stopped and his hand shifted to grab at your meaty behind with an almost bruising grip. His pace was suddenly punishing, bouncing you in his lap almost ferociously while his hips pivoted to chase the sensation. He had you wheezing out breathless moans while he grunted and snarled beneath you.

"Close," he suddenly grunted, the word little more than a rumble in his throat.

"Yes," you agreed, deliriously high on the pleasure he pummeled into you.

It was impossible to know how he managed to hold off long enough to get you there first, or if it was specifically the tightening of your walls that got him there. You were mewling and twitching long before he howled out, and the heat of his seed burst inside you.

He was making a mess. You could feel it dripping down your thighs, sputtering out from his thrusting and leaking over his abdomen. Hawks didn't care, obviously, turning his head to kiss greedily at your mouth while his hips kept moving.

When he pulled back, you found yourself disappointed at the realization that he hadn't knotted. However, there was no way you were going to say that out loud. His ego was swollen enough already.

Careless to the mess, he lifted you off his length and helped you to your feet before adjusting his wet pants to at least clothe himself. Your combined fluids had made a mess all over the crotch of his pants, no doubt worse now that he tucked himself away. Your shorts were no better, and you could feel his seed leaking down your inner thigh.

The high wasn't quite over and Hawks was sporting an attractive red tint along his shoulders and chest, blonde locks an absolute mess. Still, at this moment, your focus was solely on getting back inside and cleaning up.

"You're the worst," you scolded him, sounding incredibly fond despite your insult. You took his arm instead of his hand and guided him back into the building.

Hawks swallowed a laugh and, together, you stomped noisily down the stairs. No one passed you by. If anyone spotted you, it went unnoticed. You hardly needed to drag Hawks, who was right on your tail. As soon as the door was opened, he pushed you inside, one arm wound possessively over your waist.

"Keigo!" you whined, flinching when his head ducked into your neck and gnawed at your skin.

"You got me riled up," he growled, pressing into you so you could feel how hard he still was. The sticky mess of his wet pants felt gross; but, you couldn't be bothered to care.

You wanted to tell him off; after all, you had done nothing, and he had done that to himself. But, you felt a tinge of discomfort at your core, aching and eager to be filled again. Your clit throbbed between your thighs, eager for more contact.

Hawks manhandled you onto the nearby wall, taking you by the elbows to plant your hands on the smooth surface. You didn't hesitate to make your consent known, arching your back and propping up on your toes as he roughly dragged your shorts down.

The fabric pooled at your feet, leaving your oozing sex presented to him. Your felt and heard his wings flap, so widely that they smacked against the walls in the small space. Knowing full well what he was doing, the sudden intrusion wasn't quite as surprising; but, still, he managed to force a startled moan out of you.

"Fuck," he snarled, forehead falling against your upper back.

His dominant hand reached around, circling your pearl as he found a steady rhythm. His seed from earlier oozed out, and it was equally disgusting as it was amazing. His free hand gripped your hips, holding you still so he could use you to his liking.

It felt amazing, and each shift of his hips punched a broken moan out of you. It didn't take long for you to feel it, the swell at the base of his cock, catching on your entrance, slowly working you open to take his growing knot.

"You want that, don't you?" he uttered harshly, tilting his head up to breathe the words into the space right above your ear.

Even though it was unnecessary, he made his point clear by shoving it all in, as deep as he could, and grinding, rolling his hips to let you feel the swell at the base.

You removed one hand from the wall, curved your arm back and reached blindly, skillfully finding his hair. Your fingers grabbed a fistful, rough but not enough to hurt him. Hawks snarled when you tugged him in, nails gently biting into his skull.

"You better," you whispered, demanding and hoarse, and apparently delicious enough that he had to stop his thrusts and tilt his head in for a kiss.

Suddenly, the closeness was everywhere, back to chest, thigh to thigh. You tilted your head back to make it easier to reach, and let Hawks kiss his way into your mouth possessively, first with soft lips before his tongue edged the soft skin apart. He dragged along your teeth before trailing your palate like he was tasting something divine.

Eventually, he was satisfied, parting from your lips with a loud pop, licking his own lips as if he had just enjoyed a delicious meal. He carefully peeled back, cock slipping free from your heat, hands letting go when he was confident you wouldn't fall.

An open palm collided with your behind, and the sound echoed around the apartment, drowning out your surprised squick.

"Get on the fucking bed," he all but snarled, the words clawing out through gritted teeth.

Your legs, steadier than you expected, carried you to the bedroom. Hawks, however, tackled you onto the mattress before you could make it, forcing you onto your back with his weight.

He chuckled into your skin and you squealed with laughter. Despite the impact, he was surprisingly gentle, mindful of his strength. Crimson wings flapped, nearly smacking into the ceiling. You briefly feared that he would get hurt on the ceiling fan, but immediately determined that he would be more likely to break it than be injured by it.

He peeled your shirt off, leaving you nude beneath him.

"I've made you such a slut for knots, hm?" he observed, leaning up on his knees to hover over you, and give you quite the view.

His cock was an angry shade of red, thick and heavy where it hung between his legs, almost tinted purple on the tip with the need for release. He had just a moment ago, and it made you wonder if the lack of knotting left him unsatisfied.

The beginning swells of his knot was an enticing girth right at the base, stretching the velvety skin of his shaft, and also tinted a dark shade of red. He was glistening all over, the tip oozing pre as if he hadn't come just a moment ago.

"-and I've made you a slut for me," you teased back, carefully placing your legs on either side of his waist.

He skillfully slipped into you with a pleased snarl, body slotting over yours carefully. He might not have been a giant, but Hawks was still bigger than you, enough to shadow you and leave you feeling small. He rolled his hips slowly, giving you a taste of that swelling before he began a steady rhythm.

Noises punched out of you, whimpers and moans and broken sounds that were almost his name. He balanced on his forearms, one on either side of your head to cage you in, while his legs planted on the bed and his tense abs did most of the work.

"So fucking good. Gnhnn - I don't deserve you," he babbled, uttering the words harshly into the space above your ear, tickling at your hair. "Beautiful and f-fucking perfect."

Hawks was a talker with almost no exception; but, still, despite having heard it all many times, he still managed to get a rise out of you, sweet nothings that made your heart flutter and skin prickle.

"Say you're mine," he demanded, tilting his head down to gnaw gently at your throat.

You swallowed, managing to catch your breath long enough to utter weakly, "'m yours, Keigo."

He lifted his head and dragged his forehead along your temple, huffing out dramatic breaths with each thrust of his hips. A bit more experienced now, you knew when he was close, when the catch became almost too much, the fullness dizzying and almost frightening. Your eyes fluttered open long enough to see his lustful stare, admiring the beauty of pleasure etched across your face.

You dragged your nails down his back, crying in ecstasy when the sparks ignited and pleasure soared through your core. Hawks' dominant hand roughly grabbed a fistful of the sheets, a frustrated grunt bursting from his throat before he roared, likely loud enough for the neighbors to hear.

His thrusting ceased, less he timed it incorrectly and missed this. You made a very distinct noise at the intrusion, the same sound every single time, and it echoed so loudly in his mind. He felt overwhelmed with pride, that he could make you make a sound like that, so utterly debauched and in beautiful ecstasy.

Hawks' own moans, that came out of him like a chuffing tiger, were drowned out by your delicious whimpering. If the fullness wasn't enough, his cock jerked and spurted thick, hot streams of his seed. You could feel each twitch, until he shifted forward, as deep as he possibly could go, and finally stopped.

The muscles of his knot tightened as they finished expanding, locking your cores together. Hawks' head dropped and smacked onto the sheets by your ear. You tilted your head back, nose pointed towards the ceiling as you panted, and felt his rough, staggered breath as it burned your throat.

You felt more than heard the rumbling of his chest where it pressed down on yours. It was unmistakable: the sounds of a satiated beast. The thought had you stuttering out a breathless laugh.

Hawks' nose nudged your cheek and he hummed questioningly.

"You're purring," you answered softly.

"Oh," he answered bluntly.

Luckily, he didn't try to stop it; or, he was consciously unaware of it. Either way, you hoped he wouldn't stop. You loved the sensation of being trapped with him, impossibly close and stuffed like a used sex toy. Just as much, you loved knowing that he was pleased. Shameful as it all was, he had a way of making you feel shameless.

"Baby," he cooed, voice soft and breathless, a little hoarse, like a dying engine. "Are you okay?"

Your arms and legs were still around him, clinging tight like you didn't want to let go. You were strung out and limp, sinking into the sheets, head lulled back and clearly, very pleased. Still, Hawks kissed at your jaw like he was uncertain.

"Are you okay, pretty bird?" you repeated back to him, turning your head to meet his lips with your own.

He kissed you back as opposed to answering, the soft rumbling continuing until you felt it in your own throat. One of his hands tangled in your hair, kneading gently at your skull. Eventually, he peeled back and stared down at you, mismatched eyes unwavering, like you were a specter that would disappear if he glanced away.

He was the one who would be gone in the morning, leaving only an ache in your tummy to remind you that he was here.

But, you knew he would come back.

[watermelonlipstick]

Stabbed

This was written following an anon request that read as follows:

Hello sweetie, can I please request a dean x reader one shot in which she gets stabbed during a rough hunt and it's a race against time to save her (maybe Sam is the one driving and dean gets in the backseat with her?) And dean is scared of losing her and he has a panic attack after she wakes up but she manages to calm him down?

Obviously everyone’s experiences with panic attacks are different, but I tend to think if Dean had one it might manifest more externally as a violent outburst; I think he would subconsciously feel like it’s a more acceptable way to express ~freaking the fuck out~. This fic is sort of loosely set during early season 3, partly because that contextualization made sense to me with what you were describing and partly because I feel like that tenderhearted, slightly-less-jaded Dean would be more likely to allow himself to be perceived as vulnerable in such a fraught moment. 

I’ve also taken a couple liberties with the medical situation described for literary purposes. 😋 Don’t @ me, I know this isn’t exactly how hypovolemic shock plays out.

Title: Stabbed

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 4206

Summary: Dean’s anxiety gets the best of him when the reader appears fatally injured on a hunt, and is soothed only after the danger is gone. 

Warnings: canon-appropriate violence, description of panic attack, swearing

           Sam slammed the door once Dean had hauled you into the backseat, propping you up like a mannequin next to him on the bench. Your vision was starting to fade in and out, but the sense memory of the muscles in Dean’s side and the leather seat underneath you were comforting anyway. It seemed like the car started flying before Sam had even closed the driver’s side door and you tried hard to focus on Dean’s babbling.

           “You’ll be able to give me shit about this one forever, right, kid? Should’ve listened to you, you said they would’ve left the barn by the time we got there. Always so smart, when am I going to learn?” He was trying to chuckle but it came out breathy and wrong, Dean never quite able to actually hit the casual affect he wanted in moments like this. Honestly, it made you more nervous, knowing that for injuries he wasn’t worried about he wanted to look over you with clinical precision, chastise you for being careless. He only did this pretend calm when he was trying to keep it together—you used to think it was only for you or Sam but after a few years and more than a few bad scares you started to understand it for the defense mechanism it truly was. Not that you needed extra evidence that this was bad; you could feel the life leeching out of you like a water balloon with a pinprick leak.

           “Hey, come on—open your eyes for me, lemme see those stunners,” he said, guiding your chin up where you had begun to slump onto his shoulder. “Perfect, yeah, just like that. Hey, stay with me—”

           You mustered up everything you had to swim to the surface of the sleep-darkness your body so desperately wanted and straightened your spine to take a deep breath. Bad idea, the wounds in your side feeling like they were splitting you clean in half even through the haze. At least it woke you up for a moment to catch Dean’s eyes, fiery with panic even as he tried to smile.

           “Dean, I—” you started, feeling like your throat was full of broken glass.

           “Babe, don’t try to talk, it’s okay, you can tell me whatever it is when we get to a hospital.”

           Sam turned his head away from the rural highway the Impala was absolutely sailing down to look back at his older brother. “We’re hours away from a hospital, we’ve gotta go back to the motel,” he said, low and serious.

           “If we’re hours away from a hospital then I guess we’re driving for a couple hours, aren’t we, Sammy?” Dean was getting worse and worse at covering the hard edge of fear-driven anger in his voice as the seconds ticked by.

           “Dean, we—she’s—we don’t have a couple hours.”

           Dean closed his eyes tight and set his jaw firm. “We’re going to a fucking hospital.”

           His brother swerved deftly around a giant pothole, somehow able to turn the wheel so slightly that the car’s path barely changed. “Listen to me. She can’t bleed like that for long enough to get to a hospital. We have to try to handle this one ourselves or there’s no chance—”

           The whole conversation felt like it was happening to someone else, your senses starting to detach from your body, and you couldn’t hold onto those trains of thought for long enough to process them. You were forced to expend all the energy you had on what you needed to say, and reached for Dean’s hand with a weak grip.

           “Dean, look at me.”

           He sounded like a hurt puppy when he said, “please,” and you knew he was asking you not to make him listen but you were worried you were out of options, out of time. That frantic smile looked almost crazed as it started to quiver on his face, eyelashes clumping with moisture.

           “Sam, can you hear me too?” you asked, frustrated in an abstract way at how frail your voice sounded.

           He gave one tight nod in the rearview mirror with a jaw set firm as iron, and when he said “Yes—yeah,” it was choked.

           “I love you idiots so much. These last—ow, Jesus—however many years have been some of the most fun I’ve ever had. I wouldn’t take it back for anything. Sam, I—you’re the best friend I’ve ever had and I—fuck,” you winced, something about the breath you took to keep from crying sending an electric jolt of pain through you and doubling you over.

           “It’s okay, I know,” Sam said up into the rearview mirror, and you couldn’t tell if the way the headlights were falling on the trees impossibly fast was something about your sight being distorted, because if it wasn’t then you were surprised the Impala hadn’t broken some kind of land speed record. You made a mental note to tell Dean to start drag racing before remembering you might not tell him anything ever again. What you were nearly positive you weren’t imagining were the break in Sam’s voice or the reflection of tears on his cheek as he locked eyes with you in the mirror.

           By the grace of whatever higher power the Winchesters were on the good side of at the time, you connected with him in the reflection, were able to absorb some fraction of the bone-crushing, pick-you-up-off-your-feet hug you wanted so badly from Sam in that moment. You tried to be thankful for what you got and drifted back to Dean’s gaze.

           “And Dean, baby,” you continued, some bizarre flutter of second wind giving you enough force to clench your hand tightly around his and remember to keep your breaths shallow, keep talking even if your eyes couldn’t quite focus. “This was not your fault, you gotta—promise—me you know it wasn’t.”

           “I, ah—” he faltered, throat vibrating as he tried to keep the inevitable tears down.

           You gripped his hand tighter, felt your fingers going numb, and tried to smile hoping it didn’t look too grotesque on a face almost certainly drained of lifelike color. “C’mon, gotta obey a last wish, right?” The grief-stricken chuckle of surprise that dark joke punched out of Dean opened the floodgates, and tears burst forward to stream down his face. He gave an almost imperceptible nod.

           You’d thought of some goofy punchline to try to give, some ‘no sleeping with random girls for at least a year, want you guys to pour one out for me every day’ bullshit but seeing the love and pain in Dean’s eyes as your vision came in and out zapped it away. “I love you baby. I just—thank you for—everything—and—”

           It was getting too hard to take even those shallow breaths, your hearing gone fuzzy around the edges, and the last thing you remembered was seeing a streetlight on the edge of town as Dean took your face in his hands, “I know, kid, I know, come on—please,” fading out like he was being zipped away through a long tunnel.

           You were completely motionless in Dean’s arms, pulse gone thready enough that Dean was having a hard time finding it through the rumble of the car.

           “Fuck, Sam, FUCK!” Dean screamed, one hand wrapped up in the hair at the back of your neck as he fought desperately to keep you upright.

           Sam muscled through the lump in his throat and tried to stay focused. “When we get there you need to be ready to go, okay, Dean? HEY, listen to me. Don’t quit on me like this,” he barked, trying to catch his brother’s eyes in the rearview mirror without taking his focus off the road, terrified at the speed of the Impala and the potential of repeating what had happened the last time he’d had someone he loved bleeding out in the backseat.

           The car skittered around two corners and Sam prayed as hard as he had ever prayed for anything that there weren’t any Keystone cops looking to meet their month’s ticket quota by hanging around dark parking lots with radar guns, willed Dean to stop punching the window of the car with the hand that wasn’t clutching your head to his chest. He couldn’t decide if he thought it would’ve been better to have Dean drive, if he would’ve been able to hold it together any better than Dean was right now, if Dean could’ve focused if he was driving and not feeling you drift in his arms. There wasn’t time to figure it out and it ultimately didn’t matter, his brother turning into a bomb in the backseat and Sam needed to figure out a way to funnel Dean’s sheer panic back into the denial that would fuel him to keep moving, do anything to keep you alive, regardless of whether there was any hope left.

           “It’s not over, you’ve gotta keep it together. She needs you. See, we’re right around—"

           But he didn’t get to finish through the flurry of action as he pulled into the motel. He careened the Impala straight up to the door of the room, more than half of the car parked over a strip of grass intended to make the nondescript building feel more homey. By the time he’d torn the keys from the ignition Dean was practically leaping out of the backseat, carrying you into the room a quarter step after Sam half-busted the door open, laying you on a bed and tearing your t-shirt off with his bare hands like a cheap wrestling gimmick.

           Sam didn’t bother closing the motel door, moving too fast to care as he ripped a cork out of whiskey bottle with his teeth and poured it all over your now-exposed side, grimacing with nausea at the way it didn’t make you draw back in pain even a little. Dean tried his best to thread a needle with floss and remember whether it was better or worse that the blood was still flowing fast and bright red out of those stab wounds rather than slowing or oxidizing—this is bush league shit Dad pounded in years ago why can’t I remember fucking any of it? His hands shook with too much adrenaline to get the floss through the needle but Sam was already working on patching the biggest wound, tying knots with the rapid precision of a surgeon.

           It was only when he started getting in Sam’s way that the younger Winchester said anything more, encouraged that Dean was at least trying to pull himself together. He began talking through the stitches, muttering when he had to pull one tight with his teeth.

           “We—Dean, look at me.” Sam drilled into him with those brackish eyes, struggling to maintain the appearance of being in control that his brother needed of him when he could feel you going cold underneath his fingertips. “We’re going to need to give her a lot of fluids when she wakes up; all we have is beer. Go get some stuff for her to drink—electrolytes, she’ll need electrolytes.”

           “I’m not going to fucking leave, asshole!” Dean was strung out and not even pretending to hide it anymore, voice taking on that juvenile squeak Sam had only heard a handful of times since Dean was a teenager.

           He took a deep breath in an effort to soothe himself before speaking as clearly and firmly to Dean as possible, no room for negotiation. “Dean. This is not helping. The best thing you can do for her is to go get some fluids. Gatorade, OJ, bananas too, if they have them. She’ll need iron but we can deal with other food once she wakes up.”

           “What if she doesn’t—” Dean half-moaned, sounding like he’d been struck by something that was sucking all the oxygen from his lungs, looking like he was on the last ten feet of a hundred-mile race.

           “She’s going to wake up.”

           And Sam’s stubbornness actually did help Dean a bit in that moment, knowing that even if his life was about to change radically, that never would. “Go get some fucking Gatorade.”

           By the time Dean came back—arms filled with so many bags of sports drinks that it would be comical in any other context—his brother had stitched up every wound, cleaned off most of the blood, and put all your limbs atop high stacks of pillows in an attempt to get as much blood to your vital organs as possible. Dean was near catatonic with the singular focus of a task, which was Sam’s intention. One thing at a time.

           After about five minutes of sitting alongside Sam watching you, thick, viscous panic bubbled back up to the surface.

           At first, he was muttering like he was talking to himself. “She told me, she fucking told me they wouldn’t be in the barn anymore, I didn’t listen. I should’ve been right behind her, Sam, what the fuck was I thinking—she was—she—she was alone, they wouldn’t have—” and then the way his voice built to a fever pitch matched his body, Dean perched on the mattress like a sailboat in a tempest, slammed against invisible waves of panic.

           “It wasn’t your fault, Dean. You couldn’t have known—”

           “She was alone against five of them, Sam, do you get that? I left her fucking ALONE!” Dean wailed, springing forward from the bed with eruptive energy and bashing the nightstand lamp hard enough that its base shattered against the opposite wall, coming clean out of the socket as easily as if it hadn’t been plugged in. Sam flinched but didn’t get up, instead taking a quick visual inspection that no shards of ceramic somehow bounced back to cut your still body. By the time he glanced up again he only had a millisecond to react as Dean threw a chair from the kitchenette against the wall, exploding the mirror there into shimmering beads of glass and ricocheting back, forcing Sam block it with a forearm lest it hit him or you.

           “DEAN, enough!” he yelled, crossing over to his brother with a few powerful strides and grappling with him, battling to keep Dean still as the older of the Winchester brothers fought to destroy the room to match the chaos in his mind. Sam knew exactly what was going on, the way Dean’s brain converted fear to rage, but hated when his brother got like this, not only because it cut so deep to see him in pain but because the explosiveness was so similar to the knock-down drag-outs they’d grown up with, made it impossible to try to fix the root of the problem.

           Sam tackling Dean to the ground was the first thing you saw when you opened your eyes.

           “Do I pull this shit when you guys are sleeping?” you croaked from the mattress, trying to sit up and immediately abandoning that plan, stilling yourself and holding your breath until the pain settled a fraction.

           Sam and Dean scrambled to get to their feet and ran over to you, hovering over the bed looking like their backs had a light dusting of glitter rather than a million tiny shards of glass.

           “What’re—are you okay? What do you remember?” Sam blurted out, grabbing a bottle of Gatorade out of a plastic bag and cracking it open for you. He snatched a pillow and helped you sit up slowly, jamming it under your head so you could drink.

           “Well, I’ve definitely felt better,” you tried to chuckle, but the tension it caused in your abdominal muscles made you wince. “I’m really sorry, you guys, I shouldn’t have—” you began, immediately stopped by the way Sam and Dean shook their heads, sucked on their teeth.

           “I’m—ah,” Sam started, smiling self-deprecatingly through the shake in his voice and looking down at the ground for a beat with his tongue in his cheek. It was like his body knew that the worst of the crisis had passed and refused to let him hide his emotions for one second further. After a second he met your eyes again, faintest hint of tears in his eyes. “I’m really glad you’re up.”

           Behind him, Dean collapsed into himself, his expression simultaneously complete relief and like he’d seen a ghost. You peered around Sam to meet his gaze. “Hey, dork,” you breathed, unable to come up with anything to match the weight of the moment.

           He opened his mouth a few times and couldn’t find anything either, wincing and biting his lip hard as he rubbed the back of his head nervously. “I’m so sorry,” he finally choked out.

           As always, Sam knew what Dean needed and snatched the car keys off the table as his brother tried in vain to keep his restless limbs still. He gazed at you with such naked thankfulness it made you smile involuntarily. “I’m going to see how much red meat I can find you, I’ll be right back, okay? Drink as many of these as you can and don’t stand up alone.” You nodded gratefully to him as he backed out the door.

           When Sam left, Dean still shifted uncomfortably on his feet, clenching and unclenching his hands until he ultimately jammed them deep into the pockets of his coat with enough force that it shook loose almost all of the glass, sending it floating to the ground around him as if he was a mirage. You could see, even as he stood a few paces away from the bed, that his breathing was quickened from the rapid, shallow movements of his chest and neck. “I’m—ah, I didn’t think—I shouldn’t have—” he stammered against a jaw locked shut tensely enough to make the muscles bulge out of his cheeks, and the lack of the self-assuredness that was normally so Dean to you made him seem unbelievably young, made you want to leap across the room and wrap him up in your arms. As it was, you beckoned him over with a shaky hand.

           He walked over to you hesitantly, only sitting down on the side opposite your injuries when you patted the sheets next to you. Awkwardly trying to move your torso as little as possible, you tossed the pillows on that side to the floor and motioned for him to lay down.

           “I don’t want to hurt—”

           “I’ll be fine. Please?”

           Reluctantly taking off his coat and dropping it unceremoniously to the ground, he gingerly tucked himself under your arm and laid his head on your chest. You faintly dragged your fingertips down his back, waiting for his heartbeat and uneven, shallow breathing to slow down. When they didn’t and all you felt was a spreading wetness on the remaining upper half of t-shirt you still had, you twisted laboriously to see Dean’s face.

           Tears streamed down onto you, Dean biting his lip so hard to keep quiet you were shocked you couldn’t see blood, the whites of his teeth almost matching the pressure-blanched skin.

           “Oh, Dean,” you hummed, pulling him close to you with your one arm. “Babe, I’m here, I’m right here. Everything’s okay; I’m okay, you get to treat me like a princess for a few days and I’ll learn for the hundredth time that I shouldn’t go off by myself.”

           “I—I thought you were gone,” Dean whispered between stunted sobs breaking the words off in short staccato, still fighting to speak as though he wasn’t crying even as his tears soaked you.

           You craned your neck slowly to kiss the top of his head. “Not gone, right here. Always going to be right here.”

           “You were bleeding so mu—just like Sam, it was just like when Sam—” he faltered, speaking slowly to try to grab the reins of his voice as it shook.

           “Not just like Sam, baby, I’m still here. Everyone’s okay. And Sam’s okay too, right?” You waited for him to confirm what you knew was true and emphasize your point, drawing back to meet his gaze when he didn’t. “Right?”

           Reluctantly, Dean nodded. The redness around his eyes made his irises seem almost unreal in electric green contrast and you couldn’t believe you were so close to never seeing them again. His lashes were even darker than normal, spiky black frames formed with salty tears like cartoonish mascara. You waited a beat then let him settle back into your chest before continuing, feeling the choke-hiccupping of his breath stop even if it stayed rapid. “Everyone’s okay. You’re okay,” you hummed into his hair. “You’re okay, baby.”

           The two of you stayed like that until Dean’s breathing finally steadied, waiting past the clearly forced long held breaths and through to the point that he genuinely seemed like he’d hit the smooth rhythm you knew so well. “How are you feeling?” you murmured.

           “Like a bitch,” he grumbled softly against your chest, and you couldn’t help but smile, thankful beyond anything for the glint of humor back in Dean, that shimmer of normalcy returning.

           “Sorry for scaring you.”

           “I’m never fucking letting you out of my sight again,” he said, words still sticky with swirling emotion and muffled by his cheek pressed against you. You knew he was only partly joking but also that now was not the time to push back, just kissing his hair in response.

           There was no way it took Sam an hour to get you a diner burger but you were thankful for his intuition nonetheless, because by the time he got back Dean was calm enough to get up and had even helped you to put on a new t-shirt—one of his black ones; he said it was because it was looser but you suspected it was some kind of metaphor, covering you with part of himself—and shimmy into a pair of mesh athletic shorts. Standing up for a shower was still too ambitious, but the fresh clothes made you feel a little less gross. He was trying his best to clean up as much broken glass as possible when his brother opened the door and tossed him a paper bag with a bubbly illustrated hamburger on it.

           Walking into the room without taking his jacket off, Sam set your food on the nightstand and grabbed a motel binder of local attractions (minimal) as a makeshift tray for you to eat off of before carefully helping you to sit up a little more. “Double cheeseburger—eat it before the fries, you need the iron. Oh, and I almost forgot—couple of these too.” He reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved two bottles in one big hand that appeared to be acetaminophen and an iron supplement.

           “You’re the best, Sam.” It was nice to hear your voice sound more normal, lubricated with two bottles of Gatorade already, and you tried not to imagine how awkward or painful it was going to be to try to get up and go to the bathroom later.

           The Winchesters sat on the other bed, still in their boots because of the rug of broken glass no one wanted to acknowledge, and Sam turned on whatever dumb comedy he could find first. For a fleeting moment it felt like any normal night on the road, nursing an injury and eating greasy food in a room you’d never see again past tomorrow morning, and you almost forgot that (minutes? hours? you still didn’t know how long you’d been out) earlier you thought you were saying goodbye to the two people you loved most, who’d moved heaven and earth and miles of rural highway to bring you back, whose superhero resilience you’d seen start to crack at the thought of losing you. A searing jolt of pain when you reached for another Gatorade reminded you all too much, and when you hissed both Sam and Dean leapt off the bed with faces contorted in concern.

           “Just stretched too far, I’m okay.”

           Watching them take twin deep breaths could’ve been funny and you hoped it would be in a few days—hoped in a few days laughing wouldn’t feel like being impaled. For now, you tried to drink in this little moment of peace and made a promise to yourself that you wouldn’t take another one for granted ever again.

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And as always, if you want to be on my taglist, were on the taglist and changed your handle, or I lost track of it, please let me know!