#might lean into that heavier if i ever draw her again

[dropitdoeeyes]

About time for some TTBT(v2) content, here’s Arachne from Twisted Threads :)

[ID. A digital drawing of Arachne from The Mechanisms. She stands on a grey background, shifted to one side. One of her hands is raised as if explaining something, and her other hand rests at her side, tightly clutching a newspaper. Arachne has a slightly stern expression, looking off to the side.

Arachne is a very thin woman with medium brown skin and long legs. Her braided hair is dark brown, though most of it is bleached blonde. Her hair is in a large bun, save for eight braids that flow behind her like spider’s legs. Arachne wears thin oval glasses, a white shirt with a pointy collar, medium blue blazer detailed with spiderwebs, dark blue slacks, and black shoes. She’s wearing a few pieces of jewelry, four thin bracelets and two necklaces, all in the same color. end id.]

[toast-tales]

What’s the cast’s official physical appearance? I want to draw fanart so bad~

**New Height Reference Chart with human measurements**

First of all, I'm absolutely flattered you want to make fanart <3

Second, if it's not stated outright in the story, most of the cast's appearance is up for personal interpretation! I don't have a reference for every character, but I'll try and do a quick sum-up of how I personally perceive the characters (but again, if you have your own headcanon? That's fine too!)

I’ve linked some Picrews, (and fanart for Danny and Nathan and Sam because it’s much better than any picrew I could ever find, lol - plus my own art for Christopher) but they are NOT official physical descriptions, more like...pointing in the direction of what the character might look like. Picrew has its limitations, so they might not have all the right details. I’d LOVE to commission art for all of my characters at some point, tbh. If it’s not described below, you can probably just take creative freedom with the appearances. 

Christopher: long black hair to just past his shoulders, usually half-up in a bun. Dark eyes, sharp features, aquiline nose. Olive-toned skin. He’s pretty tall (think like 6′3" ish in human terms), but not very muscular. Kind of a beanpole tbh.

Danny: Red hair, usually worn down. Blue-green eyes, thicker eyebrows. In human terms she’d be about average height (like 5′6-8″), but if we’re talking relative to giants, her normal height is about 4″ (though under the growth serum, she’s more like 11″). She’s generally barefoot and physically, pretty lanky as well. 

Nathan: Brown, messy hair, curls just a bit and is pretty short. Brown eyes, soft features, freckles, a little bit of facial hair along his chin. Kind of short (5′7ish), a bit of a heavier build, but he’s actually pretty physically fit, considering he does farm work often. 

Sam: They’ve definitely got that slightly curly “more on top” haircut with the sides shaved, dark hair, pale skin. Hazel eyes. Average height, about 5′9″ or so. They’re kind of lanky like Christopher, but they actually work out, and have a good bit of lean muscle, especially in their arms. They have several piercings in each ear - specifically, they wear small black gauges, two helix piercings around the middle/upper edge of their right ear, and a flat piercing in each ear. Their tattoos are up to personal interpretation, they've changed in the fanart a lot which I find fun. But I do like the floral design on their left arm and a snake design around their right arm, along with lots of smaller, random tattoos along their arms and legs. They usually wear a flat-billed cap from their collection. They’re AFAB so they generally bind their chest and dress androgynously (they’re nonbinary but use they/he pronouns). 

Sybil: Very tall, even for a giant (think closer to 6′8″ - like, she's definitely able to look down on even someone like Christopher). Strong features, a bit older than the rest of the cast (in human terms, in her 40s/50s). Dark skin, golden eyes, black hair - usually braided and tied up. She wears loose, white linen clothing most of the time. She is definitely very strong, and has a rather imposing physical presence. Sometimes wears golden, half-rim glasses for reading or looking at human-sized details, but not usually.

Cyrus: Very large, portly man, maybe about 5′11″-6′. He’s got a rough sort of face with a short, greyish beard, mostly balding. Probably in his 40s/50s, just like Sybil. 

Max: Very pale, almost to an unhealthy degree - messy dirt-brown hair, gray eyes, and rough stubble. Older, in about his late 30s but he looks much older due to...a stressful work environment.

Ryan: Blond hair, in a style kind of similar to Nathan’s - a bit unkempt but otherwise short. Pale, generally has bags under his eyes and somewhat gaunt features - very skinny. Dark greenish eyes. In his early 20s.

Maria: Brown skin, long, curly dark brown hair that’s thick and generally tied back (if possible). Similar to Ryan - very skinny/frail and has a sickly pallor to her skin. Warm, brown eyes. In her late 20s.

Alice: Pale blue eyes and long, light brown hair, generally worn up in a bun and tied back with a headscarf (if possible). Kind, motherly, but slightly worn features - in her early 30s.

Stan: Tanned skin and dark gray hair with bits of white poking through. Has a thick mustache and well-trimmed beard (when possible). Stern features, has a slightly haggard face with a few scars. In his late 30s, but like Max, looks a bit older. 

John: Graying hair, long enough to pull back into a short ponytail. Pale skin, kind, green eyes, wears thin-rimmed glasses. About Sybil’s age, maybe closer to his 50s. Generally dresses pretty well, wears a button up shirt, slacks, and loafers most of the time. 

Nora: Blonde hair in a chin-length bob with bangs, wears several piercings in each ear. Generally dresses very nice (similar to John). Very pale skin, light blue eyes. Slightly older than Danny, in her late 20s.

That’s honestly about all I’ve got. If you have any specific questions about any characters, I’ll do my best to answer them! 

[wearywinchester]

Back To You

Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: When putting yourself in danger for the sake of saving Dean leaves you lost in the woods, Dean is less than thrilled until he finally finds you again.

Word Count: 2.9k

Warnings: angst, injury, mentions of blood, swearing, comfort, fluff

Dean was livid in that moment, and rightfully so. Any and every hunt has the potential to be dangerous no matter what it is, no matter how many times you’ve hunted that very same kind of monster. Each and every hunt is different and someone is always bound to get hurt, whether it be the hunter or the person you’re there to save.

That idea was something he could handle, something he could prepare himself for. But he was never ready when that person was you.

You’d gone and done it this time. You went and spiked his worry, his fear, sent it sky high all for the sake of saving him. To him, nothing was worth losing you, especially not himself. The fact that he was worth enough to someone to risk their own life just to keep him safe was laughable to him, especially when it was you who held him in such a high regard.

Of course you did. He didn’t give himself enough credit, he didn’t give himself any credit at all. There was no one who hated Dean Winchester more than he did himself, and that very feeling was something that boiled over that hunt.

Two werewolves. Three hunters against two werewolves seemed like something you could handle. Take that and add it to the fact that you’re in the woods in late fall and it becomes more difficult. Somehow, some way they got the upper hand on the three of you, targeting Dean. Maybe they knew he was a sweet spot to the two of you, maybe it was just dumb luck, but their efforts seemed to work out for them.

There was no way you’d let them do anything to Dean, not if you were there to do something about it and that’s exactly what you did. Against Dean’s wishes you shoved him out of the way before they could, the swipe of her claws grazing across your cheek instead of his. It wasn’t as deep as it probably would have been, but it stung nevertheless. But that was only the very start of Dean’s nightmare, because you’d gone and lured her away before he could stop you.

He knew you. He knew you were strong and he knew you could hold your own, but this isn’t some run of the mill vampire or a phony spirit. It was a werewolf with more than enough of an appetite and twice the strength.

Now here you were, stranded in the woods all by yourself with a dull and bloodied silver blade and a limp in your stride, your ankle strained from tripping in the midst of your fight with fangs and claws. You held your own, you took care of her yourself with more than enough of a struggle on her end. But you had no idea where you were and which direction was the right one, no clue at all just how far you were from Sam and Dean. You didn’t know if that other werewolf got away and came to finish you off.

All you had was yourself and a dead phone, and your own two fists.

It was getting darker out, the cold fall day turning colder now that nightfall was just around the corner. The drizzling rain didn’t help your cause, muddying the path you tried to follow as you navigated through tall trees and fallen leaves. They crunched every time you took a step, the sound near deafening in contrast to the quiet of the woods.

You were too afraid to call out for Dean, didn’t want to draw attention to yourself should it still be lurking. You were an easy target at this point—you were tired and you were weak.

Of all the hunts you’d been on, you can’t remember feeling quite so bad as this one. The scratches on your face burned and ached, the dirt that was surely smeared across it doing nothing to help as you tried your hardest not to touch your cheek. Your ankle throbbed with every step, the pressure placed upon it nearly pushing you to tears as you walked along as quickly as you could, hoping more than anything that you weren’t leading yourself further away from them, further away from Dean.

You knew he’d be mad, you knew he’d be absolutely livid when he finds you. If he finds you. That very thought weighed heavy on your mind and made your stomach twist in knots and swirl with nausea. There was a very real possibility that they wouldn’t, your battery was dead and it was getting all the more dark outside and you knew what your chances were but you tried not to think about it. You tried but it stayed in the back of your mind and tried desperately to push to the front of it.

He’d be pissed, he would and you knew it because putting your own life on the line for the sake of saving his was never something he’d want you of all people to do. You wouldn’t be surprised if he asked you to stop hunting with them, and the thought alone made a pang run through your heart.

You shook your head to rid yourself of the thought, brows furrowed as you took a deep breath. You’d hunted a myriad of different monsters, more than you can count and certainly a terrifying array of them. They were deadly and they were scary, they were dangerous and they were cruel but you couldn’t help the fear that settled within you now the sky was nearly completely dark. The lack of moonlight had worked against you, nearly impossible to see more than a few feet ahead of you amongst dozens and dozens of trees. Every gust of wind, every noise, everything.

You were scared.

You didn’t dare use your flashlight, too scared to cast attention upon yourself and you found it impossible for anything out there to not be able to spot you. You felt like you stuck out like a sore thumb with the way you heard your heartbeat in your ears louder than ever. Or the way your breaths were shaky and labored and unable to be controlled.

The rain that drizzled a little heavier over you was beginning to seep through your clothes, chilling any exposed skin and wetting your hair almost completely by this point. You were sure it’d be worse if there weren’t any trees, but then again you didn’t get so lucky.

You couldn’t help but remind yourself how utterly on your own you were, body stiff as you walked along in the mud. The mere sound of a stick snapping in the near distance had you on edge, tears welling in your eyes as you weighed over the options of your fate in your mind in a taunting loop of negativity and fear.

Your lip quivered and your hands shook, clutching tight to your bag as you looked all around you. Tears mixed with rain to the point where you couldn’t even tell if you’d been crying real tears if it weren’t for the pressure behind your eyes and the ache you felt from trying to suppress them. You weren’t going to bother trying to act tough in that moment, there was no need when it was just you.

It wasn’t until then that you heard that voice, the gruffness of that ever familiar voice in an echo of your name. Your heart flipped in your chest and at first you thought you might have just imagined it, might have just thought you heard it amongst the rain, but it sounds again.

“Dean?” You said softly, disbelief in your voice before you raised it. “Dean!”

You picked up your pace in his direction, glancing over your shoulder cautiously. The tears rolled faster and your heart rate spiked, that fear in your mind lessening a fraction at the sound of his voice even if it was still not as close as you’d like.

You overlooked the pain in your ankle no matter how much it hurt, too distracted with finding your way back to Sam and Dean. The sooner you found them the sooner you could get out of those woods, and the sooner you could get cleaned up in a place much kinder on the eyes than tree after tree in a rain-dampened and dark area.

It felt like something straight out of a movie and you were waiting for the antagonist to pop out in front of you, waiting to be preyed upon by some big scary monster and you knew that wasn’t so far out of the question for you. Not with the life you had.

The distinct sound of sticks snapping and leaves crunching behind you was unmissable, unmistakable as you tensed. You swallowed thickly at the slosh of the footfalls behind you, heart hammering nearly too loud to hear anything else. It wasn’t until you felt a hand grab your elbow that you screamed once more, expecting to hear Dean call out from farther away at the sound of it. You screamed and you turned around, eyes wide with fear.

“Sweetheart, it’s me. It’s Dean,” he rushed, voice calmer than you expected.

It took you a moment for you to realize, for your eyes to bounce over his face and for the fear to settle and your frown was inevitable as you fought your tears.

In a matter of seconds you wrapped your arms around him, face hidden against his chest and you didn’t care how much it hurt the scratches adorning your cheek. That tension you held loosened considerably in his embrace, and it’s something he didn’t fail to notice. You missed the way his brows furrowed as his chin rested atop your head or the purse in his lips, the way he squeezed his eyes shut or the look of relief he gave Sam with traces of worry and anger within it.

He found you now, and you were safe.

You were quiet as you stood at the small bathroom counter, leaned over the edge a little as you cleaned around the scratches on your cheek. You were proving to do an awful job and you could see it by the look on Dean’s face when he walked in the bathroom. He could see the way you winced even from where he stood by the bed of the motel room, he saw it and he knew you hated doing it.

“C’mon,” he said, patting the counter a couple times.

“I got it, Dean,” you say softly, the sharp gasp you take in immediately after doing nothing to help you.

You sigh as you drop the dampened cotton ball in his palm, hopping up on the counter. You saw the dimples by the corners of his mouth and you saw the crease between his brows, telling of just how discontent he truly was and it had you biting the inside of your other cheek.

He was quick to clean it up with a light hand, careful not to hurt you as his other hand settled on your cheek to hold you still. You could feel the tension in the small room, could cut it with a knife, and it wasn’t going to go away any time soon so long as none of you said anything.

You tried to think about the way his breath fanned over your face instead, soft and warm in the pattern of his breathing as he cleaned you up with all the gentleness in the world. Gentle and tender despite the frustration simmering in the pit of his stomach, threatening to spill.

Actually, it did.

“We gonna talk about what happened today?” He asked, voice quiet and tone angry as his brow raised a fraction.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” you mumble, averting your gaze as you turned your head, only for him to redirect it back as he finished what he was doing.

“‘Course not,” he said, breathing out a huff through his nose.

You roll your eyes and hop down from the counter, hearing his sigh as he tossed the dirtied cotton ball in the trash along with the others you’d gone through, his lips pressing together momentarily as he followed behind you into the room.

You still weren’t over it, you were still shaken despite this being your own fault. It was your fault and you knew that, you were the one playing hero and while you didn’t regret it for a second, you were still on the verge of tears. You were still cold and upset and still reaping the consequences of your decision by the pain on your face and in your ankle.

“Yeah, ‘course not,” you say, tightening his flannel around your shoulders before digging around in your duffel bag.

It didn’t last very long as he grabbed your hand and spun you around to face him, his displeasure more than evident.

“Please don’t try and save me, sweetheart, I’m not—”

“What, you’re not worth it?” You say, watching his lips purse deeper. “You might think that about yourself but I never will, and you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

“You nearly died, Y/n. Do you understand that?” He says, voice a little louder now. “You almost died out there all by yourself. How the hell am I supposed to live with that? How easy do you think it’d be for me to go on every damn day knowing you died just to save my ass?”

You were quiet for a moment as you looked up at him, brows knitted together. “Well, I’m not dead, Dean. So I guess you don’t have to.”

He scoffed as he threw his hands up, letting one fall back to his side as the other pinches the bridge of his freckled nose for a moment or two. He hates how you’re brushing this off, hates how you don’t know just how much of a wreck he was. Sam had never seen his brother so distraught, had never seen him so turned upside down the moment you were lost. It tore him to shreds, tore him apart from the inside out until he found you and that feeling still won’t stop. It won’t stop because he knows this won’t be the last time you do it.

“I’m not worth it, alright? I’m not worth layin’ six feet under, sweetheart. And not by the hands of some freakin’ werewolf either,” he says, frustrated as ever.

Your brows furrow deeper, frown tugs down deeper as you look at him.

“You think you’re the only one that gets to protect people? You think you’re the only one that gets to save someone? Is that what you think, Dean?”

“Y/n—”

“You might not give a damn about yourself, in fact, I know you don’t give a crap,” you say, your finger poking into his chest. “But I do. I care.”

You hated the way your voice faltered and the way your lip wobbled under the pressure of your tears, hated the way those very tears glossed over your eyes, ready to fall with a mere blink. He saw it, he saw it all and he pulled you close before you could crumble completely.

His hand ran over your head, hair still rain dampened and he could feel just how cold you still were. He could feel the way you shook, no matter how faint it was. You could act tough all you want, but he knew you were hurting and he knew when to shut up. You were stronger than he’d ever be, that’s how he always saw you and always will. But you fall apart sometimes and he’ll pick up the pieces without hesitation every single time. Every time.

“I’m here, sweetheart. I’m still here,” he murmured, words soft against your skin as he kissed your forehead.

You nod against him then, sniffling softly. You take a little while for your tears to die down, a little while of the soft sways of his embrace and it’s one that’s near bone crushing, of the way his thumb brushed back and forth against your shoulder blade, or the way his stubble felt brushing against your forehead.

It took a little while until you pulled back a bit, looking up at him with that look that turns his heart to mush every single time you give it. He sees those scratches on your face and he’s biting his tongue, fighting the anger that’s beginning to bubble up once more. Not at you, but at that werewolf that was two seconds from tearing his sweetheart to shreds. The thought made him furious but he pushed it down for your sake.

You lean on your toes and kiss him softly, one that lingered as his hand settled on your cheek. He kissed you once, twice, three times more as his nose bumps against your own, foreheads pressed against one another as your hand presses lightly around the back of his neck, your thumb brushing along his jaw. It set him at ease, you know it did.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere either,” you murmur, feeling his nod against you, felt his hum against your lips before he kisses you again. You knew he wouldn’t let it go that easily, knew it for a fact, but he’d bring it up some other day.

He’d always find you, you could count on it—he’d always find his way back to you.

—

Tags: @flamencodiva @stixnstripesworld @elegantbutedgy @humanmistakes @campingmonkey @agalliasi @deandaydreaming @lanea-1 @akshi8278 @kidd3ath @taikawho

[unwantedtomost]

it had been months — sebastian stan

sebastian stan x fem!reader

word count: 4,401 words

summery: it had been nine months since you and your first real long term boyfriend broke up. but as they say, time makes the heart grow fonder ... and it also made the lust build up.

warnings: angst, smut, thigh riding, cheating, kind of a breeding kink at the end, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it)

a/n: i have never actually posted a whole thing on here before, so i hope this goes well. i know my writing can improve, but it’s pretty good i would say. enjoy!

It had been months since you had broken up with your long-term boyfriend. Your first long-term boyfriend you had since you arrived to the Hollywood scene. Nine months, to be exact. The same amount of time it would have been to carry a child. A hypothetical child. The same hypothetical child that ruined your relationship in the first place.

“You don’t want kids?” Sebastian questioned as soon as you entered the shared apartment. The topic of children came up at dinner with your shared friends. You, offhandedly said: “God, no,” with a laugh, not giving it a second thought. Not till now.

“Not really,” you said as you unzipped your heeled boots. “I never really have, not since I was younger.”

“Never?” He asked, heart starting to beat heavier.

You looked up to him, concerned when you saw his face. It was the same face he had on every time you guys got in a face, mixed with disappointment, maybe even hurt. You smiled, trying to lighten the situation.

“Maybe not never,” you said, putting your shoes away. “But not at least for ten years, maybe even longer. I mean, I am only twenty-two. I would like a good life without children before bringing them into the mix.”

Your warm smile and calm demeanor did nothing to elevate the tension, something inside you saying it did the exact opposite. He looked serious and upset, a combination you never saw much.

“In ten years I’ll be almost fifty,” Sebastian states.

“So? Guys never really stop shooting out good rounds. All my parts will still be intact by that time too.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is it?” You were confused. Why was he acting like this?

“I shouldn’t be old enough to be the kid’s grandfather.”

Anger started to bubble up as well. This tone that he had made you pissed off. He was talking like you were stupid like you didn’t get what he was saying. The brassiness you had in general not helping your temper.

“Maybe you should have thought about that before you started dating someone sixteen years younger than you,” you shot back.

Then the yelling started. Something that could have been a deep, meaningful conversation (one that frankly should have been had way before this point) turned into a full-blown fight. You both started going in at each other, picking at old scabs that you knew would hurt. That was the point, after all, you just wanted to hurt each other. Because you were mad and upset, you guessed, but by the end of it, you weren’t even sure.

The fighting ended two hours later, you sat, slumped on the couch, huffing. You tried to catch your breath from all the yelling. Your throat was hoarse, your cheeks sticky from dried tears.

“It seems like we’re not gonna work out then,” you said, numb.

“Seems so.”

And you left that night, grabbing nothing but your phone before making your way to your closest friend’s house.

After that, you cried for two months straight. You really thought that Sebastian was endgame. That you would be together forever. That you would be happy. Ever since you caught sight of him at your first audition, you felt that he was the one. Then the universe laughed maniacally as it showed you just how fucking wrong you were.

In the past nine months, you had seen him approximately sixteen times, most being in passing, a few being at parties, and one time being at a coffee shop that you both loved. You started to frequent it less after the breakup, too scared to bump into him. Little did you know, he was doing the same thing. The day you two saw each other was both of your first times in three months.

It was all stupid small talk until it wavered, forced laughs and fake smiles fading as the reality of the situation simmered in.

“Look, y/n—”

“Don’t,” you interrupted. You knew what he was going to say, and you didn’t want to hear it. You simply couldn’t. “It was nice seeing you again, Sebastian. I hope you have a good life.” You took a few steps before turning back around for a moment. He looked at you like he was expecting you to run into his arms and make everything go back to normal. “And I really hope you meet a girl that can give you what you need.”

He tried to reach out to you, but you wouldn’t let him. You simply walked away and left him, alone. That was the last time you had spoken to him.

It was five months after the breakup until you let your friends talk you into going out again. And that night you had run into none other than the Timothee Chalamet. Numbers were exchanged then the next thing you knew, you were naked in his hotel room. After that, you went through a bit of a “hoe stage.” Every two weeks you were on a cover of TMZ, E!, or any other celebrity gossip magazine that existed with a “possible new thing.” The people ranged from Tom Holland to Madison Beer, and no one knew what was true or not. After the first few batches came out, you stopped giving a shit. You were allowed to rebound with whomever or however you wanted to, and you were taking full advantage of that.

You were so busy juggling so many people that you hadn’t even thought about Sebastian. Not till right now. Your eyes catch his from across the ballroom that you’re currently in. Your pulse quickens rapidly, you feel like you might even faint. If it wasn’t for Timothee’s hand on your waist, you were sure you would have collapsed on the spot. You watched as Sebastian’s jaw clenched just like it did whenever you did something he disapproved of. Just like it did every time he gave into himself and read one of those stupid gossip sights and saw you all over whatever arm candy you had chosen for the week.

“I’ll be right back, okay babe?” Timothee said, kissing you on the cheek. He waited for you to nod before making his way to one of his friends.

You don’t know what to do and those beautiful blue eyes you fell in love with all that time ago refuse to leave yours. You feel like you want to cry, or scream, or throw up, but you know that you shouldn’t actually do any of those things. You’d draw attention and you don’t want any more people talking about you.

Luckily, one of your best friends, Elizabeth, pulls you into a tight hug and brings you back to earth. Her body feels warm and it makes you feel safe, the smell of her strawberry shampoo bringing you comfort.

“I know,” she said before you spoke. “I saw. Are you okay? I’ll leave with you right now if you want to.”

It takes you a minute to process everything, and even though you’re running everything through your mind, nothing really sinks in.

“I’ll be fine,” you say with conviction, though you don’t know if it’s true at all. “Leaving wouldn’t accomplish anything.” You stop talking for a minute before smiling at Elizabeth. “Now, let’s go give the people what they want and take some pictures together.”

It had been two hours and the event was finally coming to a close. No more than forty-five minutes and the place would be cleared out. With that knowledge, you went to go take advantage of the free bar stocked up with expensive liquor. After schmoozing with people you did not even want to interact with, you deserve it.

“Two shots of tequila and a rum and coke, please,” you say to the rather cute bartender, shoulders slumping.

As soon as the two shot glasses were in front of you, you downed them. It burned like hell and you could only imagine the ungodly face you made. You tried to chase it with the rum and coke, but it didn’t help much. You heard a gruff voice beside you order something, one that was very familiar. When you heard a chuckle, you knew for sure who was right next to you. You froze again, that same dizzy, sick feeling coming back. You turned your head slowly to see those big blue eyes for the second time tonight, your heart surely beating loud enough that anyone in a mile radius could hear it.

“You look beautiful tonight, y/n,” Sebastian said, leaning against the bar, facing you.

“You do too,” you blurt out. Face turning red after you realized that you’re fucking stupid. “I mean, you look—shit. You look very nice, Seb—Sebastian.”

You’re so flustered and red, you want to simply sink into the floor. For a moment, you wonder why he isn’t acting the same way. It could be that he had already had some to drink or maybe he was just better at controlling his emotion. And the thought that makes dread flow through you is that maybe he is just over you.

“Are you going to an after-party?” He asks, sipping from his glass.

“I don’t think so,” you say. You were supposed to go to one with Timothee, where you were finally going to announce that you two had become official, but now you just want to go home. “Are you?”

“Probably not,” he said simply. “I’ll just have a few more of these back home and go to bed.”

“Drinking alone is no fun,” you say, hinting. You know what you are trying to get across but you don’t know why. It’s like your mouth was moving before your brain could understand what you were doing.

“It’s not ideal,” he said. “But I really don’t have a date to drink with, unlike you.” He pointed towards Timothee talking to a director you hastily met.

“He’s not my date,” you shot out. “I mean, he is, but we’re not like, dating.” Why the fuck are you talking!?!?

“It’s none of my business,” Sebastian said. He didn’t sound mean, he sounded like he was trying to comfort you.

“I know … but we’re not … if you were wondering.”

He chuckled, placing a hand on your elbow. “It was nice to see you again, y/n.”

He turned to start walking away but you called after him, making him turn back around. “Wait!” Once he was facing you, you felt like you were in a movie. “I could go for a drink.”

Sebastian smiled but his eyes dismissed you. “What are you doing, sugar?” He warned.

“I don’t know,” you said honestly. “But don’t shut me down.”

With a shared smile, he took your hand and you both left the party. On the car ride back to his apartment (that used to be your apartment), you thought briefly about how you would explain this to Timothee in the morning. Then you turned off your phone so you didn’t have to feel guilty if he decided to text you. Neither of you spoke much on the way. His hand never left its place on your thigh before you were finally there.

When he opened the door, you stumbled lightly into the apartment. Sebastian caught you by wrapping his arm around your waist. He lightly sat you down on the chair by the entrance (the same one you had sat at nine months ago). Once he had closed the door and put his things down, he came back to you to help slip off your heels.

“Are you already drunk?” He chuckled.

“No, just a wee bit tipsy.”

“Your ‘wee bit’ is usually a lotta bit.”

“Not this time, I really mean just a wee wee bit.” You suddenly burst out laughing at the fact you just said wee wee, giving away the fact that you are indeed close to being drunk.

“Maybe you don’t need anymore to drink,” Sebastian said.

“C’mon, Sebby, take that stick out of your ass,” you say, making him laugh. It makes you feel lighter like you weren’t fucking shit up again. Like you weren’t making a mistake you would regret in the morning. 

You watched as he made his way into the kitchen, pouring both of you a glass of red wine. Your favorite and most expensive red wine, the one that you had left at the apartment after the breakup. You wondered if it was the same bottle, or if he had done the same thing he was doing with you with another girl. When he came back, he handed you the glass which you placed down on the coffee table, realizing you were still in a designer white dress that you didn’t own.

“Shit,” you muttered after your realization.

“What is it?”

“This isn’t my dress.”

His eyes wandered down your figure as he thought. “You can take that off and I can hang it up for you. I’m sure there’s something here you can wear.”

You nodded before he was walking towards the bedroom, the one you once shared. You followed after him through the small hall. You looked around the room, noticing how boring it looked now. None of your decorations you had were up anymore, but the small mural you once painted in the middle of the night was still in full view. Did he think about you every time he saw it? If he did, why didn’t he just paint over it? 

Sebastian placed one of his shirts (that was your favorite one to wear) and a pair of shorts you had thought you lost on the bed.

“Well, you can get changed in here,” he stated before going for the door.

“Actually,” you called out, stopping him from leaving. “Can you unzip me please?”

He paused for a moment before nodding, slowly making his way back to you. The room went silent as he softly collected your hair and moved it to one side. Heat started to rise through your body at the close proximity he held. His hands grazed your shoulders momentarily before he steadily unzipped the expensive dress. You caught his eyes in the mirror in front of you, your cheeks immediately burning red. He finished unzipping the dress before helping you slide it off your arms. You had to cover your breasts with your arm since you hadn’t worn a bra. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen your body before, he knew his way around there better than you did, but not covering yourself just felt inappropriate. But, to be fair, the entire situation felt inappropriate. The dress fell to a pool around your feet, leaving you in nothing but a pair of lace black underwear, ones that Sebastian had bought for you one month before you broke up. You stepped out of the dress, eyes never leaving his. He bent down to pick it up, blue orbs never leaving your eyes.

“I’ll go lay this on the guest bed,” Sebastian said plainly before leaving the room and closing the door.

Your heart was beating out of your chest as you let your arm fall. Even though you hadn’t even had a conversation with Sebastian in six months, being in that moment felt more intimate than anytime you had sex with Timothee—or anyone, for that matter. You pulled on the worn-out gray tee shirt that vaguely had ‘Coca-Cola’ printed across it before going out to the living room where you found Sebastian sipping on his wine, now dress in an old tee and grey sweatpants.

The next hour felt like a blur, it was filled with giggles and stupid comments. By the end of it, the wine bottle was empty and you two were officially wine drunk. Now, you were slumped on the couch (the one that you picked out), leaning towards Sebastian, hand dancing along the cushion space between you two.

“Have you realized we never had a goodbye?” You ask, breaking the silence.

“What do you mean?” He asked, not wanting his guess to what you were talking about to be right.

“I mean, we had a fight and I left then we were done. There were no ‘this is for the best’ speeches or attempts at a goodbye kiss. One day there was an us and the next it was … nothing.” You looked up at him, an innocent yet quizzical look on your soft features.

“We don’t have to talk about this,” he said.

Not this shit again. “I know,” you said, “we don’t have to talk about anything. We’re not together anymore. We don’t even need to acknowledge each other’s existence anymore. But tonight, you did, and now we’re on your couch.”

“I don’t—” he started, but you wouldn’t let him finish.

“We don’t have to talk about it then. But, I do have another question. Did you ever fuck anyone here?” The words flowed out before you could think any longer, nothing but courage and alcohol running through your body.

“What?”

“It’s pretty self-explanatory, Sebastian. I just want to know if you ever fucked someone in my—our��this place.”

His eyes bore into yours as he spoke, voice sharp and clear. “No, y/n, I have never fucked anyone in this place. No one but you.”

That answer made you happy. This place, your place, was still pure. No random hookups had tramped through the place where you lived.

“Good,” you accidentally said out loud, making him upset.

“Why does it even matter? It’s not like you weren’t fucking those young things you were all over in public.” He started to get angry at the thought. “Who are you to question me about my sex life after you broke up with me then pranced around tabloid covers for months with different people each week?”

“Because this was our house, I just want to know it wasn’t tainted by blonde bitches with names you didn’t even remember in the fucking morning.”

“Sorry to disappoint, but you’re the only blonde bitch I’ve fucked.”

Suddenly, your hand was moving and your palm was connecting with his face. It shocked both of you, making you both freeze in place. It took ten seconds before Sebastian grabbed the wrist you hit him with, yanking it so you were closer to him. So close you could feel his breath on your face.

“Slap me again and see what fucking happens, I dare you,” he spit out.

Then your heart was in your ass as your stomach erupted with butterflies and your panties soaked with arousal.

It was almost like you lost all control over your body as you smashed your lips against his. Your hands went to the back of his neck, pulling him in closer and tugging at the hair there. The intentional scruff on his face was harsh against your smooth skin, but it only elevated your pleasure. Sebastian’s hands went around the sides of your neck, one kind of cupping your face while the other was closer to the back to pull you closer. You felt like you needed to get closer to him, get as close as possible. You needed every single inch of him over every single part of yourself. Your leg swung, straddling him.

Without thinking, you rutted yourself against his thigh, a guttural moan coming from your lips as you did. It’s not like you hadn’t been touched in a while, you just got fucked a few days ago, but you hadn’t experienced something as hot as this in so long. It was rushed and needed, you felt like you would die if he stopped. Your hips absent-mindedly grinded down against his thigh again.

“Fuck, ride my thigh baby,” he ordered. You listened, slipping into your old ways. You continued to rut against his thigh as you kissed. He knew you were getting close by the moans you were letting out into the kiss. He pulled away from your lips, watching as you were losing yourself. “I want you to cum for me, sugar.”

Your hips slowed as your mind raced a mile a minute. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of making you cum from just his thigh. What would that do to his already inflated ego? It sounded like bullshit to give into him.

“No,” you mumbled out, your hips threatening to halt their movement.

“No?” He repeated.

You sat there for a minute, silent as his eyes frantically studied your face to see what the point was. He wondered if you wanted to stop, he would understand completely, but he knew that wasn’t what it was by the way you keep clenching your thighs together. Sebastian smirked as he realized what was really happening. He grabbed your hips and started to push you down on his thigh. The problem was that you wanted to cum, but you didn’t want to cum for him. Too bad he was determined on it.

You moaned loudly as he started to drag your hips. You were inching so close, the fact that you didn’t want to give in to the feeling made it feel like it was only becoming stronger. Your hands grabbed his old t-shirt as you frantically moved your hips back and forth. Your nose scrunched and your eyes shut tight, your mouth letting out a whisper of “oh fuck”s on a loop.

“That’s it,” you heard Sebastian say even though his voice sounded like it was miles away. “Cum like a good girl.”

Suddenly, all the pressure that was building up deep within your tummy snapped and you were on cloud 9. Your heat pulsed as you road out your orgasm, Sebastian's hands helping you immensely. It took a good minute of pants as you caught your breath before you opened your eyes and came back to reality.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” you muttered to him when you finally made eye contact again.

“I know,” he smirked. “Now be a good girl, sugar, and take off your pants.”

You questioned arguing with him more, but you decided not to. You wanted him, you wanted him so fucking bad. You stood up and pulled down your shorts, doing a little spin so Sebastian could marvel at how wonderful you looked.

“As beautiful as those look on you, darling, they’d look better on the floor.”

You playfully rolled your eyes as you stripped out of the underwear as well, leaving you in nothing but an old grey t-shirt. You went back to your place on Sebastian’s lap, pulling him in for another passionate kiss. You felt like you were melting into him entirely as everything snapped back into place. Your hands roamed lower, palming him through his grey sweats. You smirked to yourself at the realization of how hard he was already and at the fact he wasn’t wearing boxers. He lifted his hips to help you pull down his pants. Just as you were getting ready to place his member in the place you wanted him the most, he halts your movement by grabbing your wrist.

“Shit, I don’t have a condom, y/n,” he warned. You frowned, upset that he had stopped you.

“I don’t care.”

“But you still have that IUD in, right?”

You grimaced because no, you did not. Your five years had run out two months ago and you hadn’t gotten around to making an appointment for a new one. You shook your head slowly side to side before he sighed. He went to pull you off of him but you stopped him by holding onto his shoulders

“I don’t care,” you repeated.

“Y/n, you know why can’t.”

“Why not?”

He looked at you in disbelief. “Besides the fact you could get pregnant?”

“I don’t care,” you said one more time. “I want you.”

He looked into your eyes, trying his best to decipher your intentions.

“Y/n …”

“Get me pregnant, Sebby,” you said, meaning it too. “I want you, I want your kids. Fuck, I want us back. I don’t care if that means kids and a white picket fence. I just want you.”

“Are you sure?”

In response, you slowly leaned down and your lips touched. It was nothing like the kisses you had shared preferably, it was slow and soft. He pulled you closer, finally letting you lower yourself down on him. You both let out loud moans as you sink down on his member.

It was like you had forgotten what making love felt like, probably because you did. In the past nine months since you had split, you hadn’t made love with anyone once. It was all just meaningless sex or hot fucking, but there was no love behind it. You didn’t love Timothee, you hadn’t loved any of your flings. Maybe it was because you never stopped loving Sebastian—you were almost sure it was because of that.

You moved up and down whilst Sebastian thrust up into you. The room was filled with moans, grunts, and praises from both ends. He started to kiss your neck as his thumb started to rub your clit. The multiple amounts of stimulation only brought you closer to your climax.

“I’m gonna, fuck—I’m close.”

“I know, babygirl,” he cooed. “Look at me.” You looked into his blue orbs, feeling your climax inching ever so closer. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” you whined out as your hips moved faster. “Cum inside me, Sebastian. Get me—fuck, god—put a fucking baby in me.”

With your confirmation, he flipped you on your back, thrusting harder. The hand that wasn’t toying with your clit interlaced with yours. Your grip on each other squeezed harder as you neared your finishes. You wrapped your legs around him as his hips started to stutter.

“Cum with me, baby,” Sebastian groaned.

You finally let the coil that built inside of you snap with his permission. Moments later, he busted inside of you, making you both yell out. He collapsed on top of you, trying his best not to crush you under his weight. You both panted for minutes before you finally spoke up.

“I love you,” you said. He lifted his head, looking into his eyes. “I never stopped.

“Neither did I,” Sebastian said. “Did you mean it, you want to have kids?”

“I want to do anything if it means I can be with you. Anything.”

[forcefullyawake]

Hello! This is for @ketslketslketsl claws and creampies collab.

Summary: It’s not every day a pretty girl gives you her number, or pursues you so much. Sure, it looks like Mikasa is hiding something, but how bad could it be?

Pairings: Mikasa x Reader, Monster! Eren x Reader

Warnings: non human sex, noncon, violence, tentacles, gaslighting

WC: 4.8k

You look like an idiot.

There’s really no way around it. The dress your friend had all but forced you into is a little too tight, the straps on it digging into your plump flesh a little too much. The color on your lips is a little too red, the makeup on your eyes a little heavier than you’d ever done before. All of this to stand out, to show to the party at large that not only were you available but you were looking- something you hadn’t gone out of your way to advertise before. Your friends say that you look hot before you leave, but you think you look like you’re trying to hard.

It’s especially obvious when you’re handed a red solo cup as soon as you walk into the door, and immediately find a place on the wall to people watch. Nobody gives you a second glance (well, maybe a couple do, but at the resting frown on your face nobody gives you a third or tries to strike up a conversation). All of the makeup in the world can’t overcome the fact that you just don’t like talking to new people. Hell, even the friends you came with tonight basically adopted you into their friend group your first week of college, instead of you engaging them.

People filter through the home all around you, some dancing where there’s open space, grinding on each other to a low thumping beat that reverberates through your chest. You have to shift on the uncomfortable heels you’re wearing, trying to subtly grind your thighs together. It’s not like you don’t want that- it’s not like you don’t want to throw caution to the wind and disappear upstairs with some pretty boy or gorgeous girl. It’s just that you don’t know how- it’s like you missed that lesson in school, too wrapped up in a book to learn to relate to people who didn’t exist on a page.

Your mother says it’s not too late to get out there and learn about these things, but it feels that way sometimes. In times like these, it’s hard to gather up the courage to strike up a conversation, even when you’re on your second drink. At least you think it’s your second drink- whatever is in your cup is red and fruity, and it doesn’t taste like there’s much alcohol in it, which even in your limited experience you know is a sure sign there’s probably a whole bottle or two of something in it. It makes your head swim a little, it’s nice in a way but it mostly makes you sleepy.

Maybe you can call an Uber. You can find one of your friends to let them know you’re leaving, call an Uber and go to sleep at an almost decent hour. Let them have all the fun, and the hangovers, while you get a solid eight hours of sleep. At least it’s the weekend, and you have two days of freedom before your job takes up your time again. Your eyes start slowly scanning the crowd, looking for anybody you know- Annie, maybe, she’s tall and her blonde hair sticks out. Or Reiner, the lone male in your group, but knowing him he’s snuck off with Bertolt the first chance they got. Lucky bastard.

“You look lonely,” Someone says to your right, and when you look over there’s a girl standing there. She’s a couple inches taller than you, slender but the sleeves on her shirt are short enough you can see her muscles too. Black hair, pulled back into a ponytail, a dainty gold chain resting on the pale skin of her neck with a little ‘M’ on it. Startling grey eyes that are doing their level best to bore into your skin. Definitely not the type to talk to you.

“Just trying to find my friends,” You say, but it mostly comes out as a whisper. She leans forward a little more, so you repeat yourself, a little louder. There’s a slight edge to her smile when she realizes you’re alone, you think, something about it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. It must be a trick of the light, though, because the next moment it’s gone.

“It might be easier to find them if you’re in the crowd,” She says, murmuring right next to your ear, her breath dancing over your skin, “They could be upstairs, even. I could help you.”

You mean to say no, thanks but no thanks, you’ll be on your way. Your parents talked to you about stranger danger, and you’re on the wrong side of tipsy but what comes out of your mouth is, “Yes, please.” She smiles, victorious and promising.

“I’m Mikasa,” She tells you, putting her hand low on your back as you move away from the wall. The way the dress is designed, all wrapping layers, means there’s a gap in the fabric on your lower back, just enough that you can feel her hand on your skin, cool against you despite how warm it is in the room. You give her your name, watching as she repeats it to make sure she has it correct, eyes rapt on the way her lips move around it.

She doesn’t guide you upstairs, but closer into the makeshift dance floor. It feels like a scene out of one of the romance novels you have tucked away on your bookshelf at home. People seem to part around you, time stands still, all the cliche’s come to life. Her hands are on your hips as she moves behind you, steady and squeezing into you just enough to make your heart race. Mikasa isn’t especially broad but you feel remarkably safe with her right behind you.

“See anybody you know?” She has to lean down to speak in your ear, and between the alcohol and how close she is, you’re not sure you would even recognize your own face. You can feel her moving in time with the music, your own hips starting to sway with hers. Your eyes drift shut, letting her hands wander over your sides, skimming up to right under your breasts before the make a trail like fire back down to your hips. Maybe this isn’t so bad, you think, as you let yourself turn in her arms, her thigh moving between yours.

You’d think it’s a dream, that you did go home when you thought to, and your mind was wandering but the pleasure that courses through your when her jeans rub against your clothed cunt feels too good to be a dream.

“You do this often?” She asks, drawing you back to earth. All you can do is shake your head, arms coming up to wrap around her neck. She laughs at that, mouth forming words you can’t quite make out when you hear your name being called.

“I think your friends have found you,” Mikasa smiles, taking a step back as she eyes someone over your shoulder. Your hands drift back to yourself, helpless in the air before she catches one, grabbing a pen out of her back pocket to scribble something on the back of your hand. She presses a kiss on it when she’s done, giving you a warm smile.

“Call me,” She says, before being swallowed into the bodies behind her. On your hand there’s a phone number. You hold your hand close to your chest as your friends surround you.

“There you are!” Annie hisses at you, wrapping a protective arm around you, “What were you doing with her?”

“Mikasa?” You ask, glancing behind you like you would still be able to see her, “She was helping me look for you. You left me.”

“She looked like she wanted to eat you alive,” Reiner huffs, Bertolt nodding in agreement. You roll your eyes at them.

“Maybe you’re just seeing things,” You suggest, pulling away from them, “Either way I think I’m going to head out. You know this isn’t my scene.”

“I’ll drive you,” Annie says, looking over your shoulder, “Armin is ready to go too.”

“Thanks,” You walk with Annie and her boyfriend to her hatchback, stretching out your legs in the backseat. You ignore their hand holding and longing looks. Clearly, when Annie said Armin was ready to go, she didn’t just mean home. At least the drive home is short. You say your goodbyes and make your way into your apartment, locking the door behind you before getting ready for bed.

Normally you would be tired, but there’s a thrumming in your veins, an undercurrent of excitement at the number written on your skin. You enter it into your phone, debating on sending Mikasa a text, but you hold off, not wanting to seem overeager. Still, you toss and turn, your skin feeling overly sensitive, each brush of your sheets feeling like the brush of fingers.

With a sigh you give up on sleep, rolling onto your back, one hand trailing down your neck while the other pushes up your sleep shirt, fingers skimming up, cupping one breast. You let your eyes close, imaging someone else touching you, Mikasa’s fingers being the ones to curl around your neck, her fingers tweaking at your nipples until they’ve pebbled. You picture her lips, her tongue, when you spread your lips, fingers making tight circles around your clit. It’s not you touching yourself, but her, playing your body like a fiddle until you cum, quicker than you can remember in recent memory, hard and fast, one hand smothering down your moans from your neighbors.

Maybe it should concern you though- no matter how hard you concentrate on Mikasa, picturing her above you, or between your legs, you can seem to recall the color of her eyes.

They only look red in your memory.

Dawn rises bright and early, pulling you from your sleep. You wake up with your heart racing, pounding in your chest. You don’t remember much of your nightmare, only that something was chasing you, nipping at your heels as you ran for your life. With a shudder you roll out of bed, thoughtlessly grabbing your phone to take it with you to the bathroom.

You gather courage as you brush last night out of your teeth, compose a text while washing your face, and hit send right before you step into the shower. It’s nothing special, a quick text that lets Mikasa know it’s you. Your phone balances precariously too close to your shower, music playing steadily out of it when the sound cuts off- your ringtone starts to play. You’re getting a call.

Grabbing your towel from where it rests you dry your hand, half your body out of the shower as you take the call without checking who it is. Nobody calls anymore, you assume it’s an emergency.

“Hello?” You try not to sound too panicked. The voice on the other end laughs, low and throaty.

“I thought I said to call me?” Mikasa teases you, can you feel your skin heating up for a reason that has nothing to do with the shower. There’s no way to turn the water off from where you are now, not without getting your phone soaked, and you’re sure she can hear exactly where you are. “Though, maybe I should give you a call back.”

“Give me ten seconds, don’t hang up,” You say, not listening for her reply as you place the phone back onto the counter. Reaching over to twist the shower off, ignoring the soap left on your body to grab your towel and wrap it around you properly. It’s not enough but it’ll have to do.

“Still there?” You ask as you make yourself comfortable on the bed. Your sheets are gonna get wet but it’s worth it. Your skin is cold where the air hits it, but you don’t wanna hang up, not yet.

“Of course,” Mikasa breathes, and butterflies erupt in your stomach. “I know it’s a bit old fashioned to call people now, but I find it’s a much better way of communicating with people, don’t you?”

No, you don’t. You get flustered and stutter over your words, so you much prefer texting where you can make sure you say what you want to, but you certainly can’t tell Mikasa that and so- “Yeah, I think so too. It’s hard to read tone over text.”

That part isn’t a lie, at least. Mikasa’s laugh is like honey in your ears. “You don’t have to lie, I can put you out of your misery now, if you’d like. Send some texts with the letter u as you.” Her teasing doesn’t sting you, not even a little bit.

“Or we could just meet up?” You suggest, breath catching in your throat as you wait for her reply. It could be that you’ve completely misread the situation, maybe she’s just being nice, maybe she doesn’t like girls, maybe-

“Give me an address and I’ll pick you up tonight at 7,” Mikasa replies, so smooth and confident it makes your head swim a little. You rattle off your address and she tells you to dress casual before hanging up. You have all day to get ready but you start immediately, drying your hair and styling it before picking out what you hope is a casual enough outfit- a soft white sweater over a sundress patterned with strawberries. A few swipes of pink makeup later and you’re set.

Now all you have to do is wait.

It feels like the hours manage to double themselves, or even triple themselves. A whole lifetime of waiting in one day until you manage to lose track of time and doze off on the couch. Three sharp knocks on your door startle you awake, sending you flying towards the door.

“I’m awake!” You practically shout, throwing the door open. “I mean. Hello. Hi. Can we do that again?”

“No, it was cute,” Mikasa says, smiling at you. You can feel heat rush to your cheeks, trying to ignore it. You’re not sure if you should invite her in but she solves that problem for you. “Are you ready? The place I’m taking you isn’t that far away.”

“Just let me get my shoes on,” You say, quickly turning to slide your feet into the first pair of sandals you see, strappy ones that make you trip if you’re not careful. But it’s fine. You know you’ll be careful tonight.

Mikasa leads you to her car, a silver hatchback. The interior looks spotless, and there’s an almost overwhelming smell of cleaner permeating through the car. You buckle yourself in before looking at her.

“Got it detailed just for me?” You think your voice is teasing but Mikasa stiffens, inhaling sharply as she looks at you. Her reaction takes you aback. “Whoa. Sorry. Teasing!” Mikasa relaxes almost imperceptibly at that, but you can see her shoulders sag down a little.

“Sorry, normally nobody notices how clean a car is,” She says, “Took me off guard. You’re very perceptive.”

“A lifetime of being a wallflower,” You reply without thinking, “You get good at people watching, all that jazz.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” She teases you back now, bringing a smile to your face. She’s right, the place she takes you isn’t that far away and the drive passes smoothly as she pulls into the parking lot of your towns oldest diner. You sit up straighter in your seat- you haven’t been here since you were a kid.

“It’s a little old fashioned, I know,” Mikasa says as she gets out, and you must be distracted because the next thing you know she’s opening your door for you, and there’s no way she moved that fast. “But the ice cream floats here are to die for.”

“Oh no, this is great!” You exclaim, walking next to her into the diner. She asks for a booth in the corner, something you didn’t know people did outside of your romance novels.

“Order whatever you want,” Mikasa says, barely giving the menu a glance. “It’s my treat.” Your mother didn’t raise you to take advantage of someone’s generosity even on a date so you order a small combination meal- though you do opt to upgrade your drink to an ice cream float at Mikasa’s insistence you try one.

“What do you do for work?” You ask, trying not to cringe at your attempt at small talk while you wait for your food to come out.

“I’m.. uh,” Mikasa hesitates now, looking anywhere but your face. It takes her a fraction of a second too long to answer, just enough time to make you frown when she continues, “I’m a caregiver.” Even to you it sounds like a half truth, but you let it slide, not wanting to be too pushy on a first date.

“Oh?” You say, shifting in your seat, “How did you get started in that?”

“It just kind of.. picked me, I suppose.” Mikasa still isn’t meeting your eyes and you figure it’s time for a change of subject.

“How do you know Historia?” There, that should be a safe question. She was at Historia’s party last night, after all.

“We were friends way back in elementary school,” Mikasa explains, clearly relieved to have moved to something different. “I live one neighborhood over from her, so we’ve already just hung out together.” That makes sense to you- Annie has known Historia since high school, and Annie seemed to know of Mikasa.

“Got any embarrassing stories?” You know you probably shouldn’t ask but you can’t resist. The Historia you know is almost regal in nature, prim and perfect at all times. You can’t even imagine her as a child.

“Oh, do I ever,” Mikasa says, voice a little lower as she leans towards you, launching into a story from her childhood. You hardly notice your food appearing, and then barely taste it as you eat, hanging on Mikasa’s every word. She’s funny and engaging, and it’s not until you hear the pointed cough of the man behind the register that you realize it’s closing time for them.

“Yeah, Zeke, we’re going,” Mikasa says with a roll of her eyes as she pays him. He huffs at her a little bit but soon enough the two of you are sitting inside of her car, an awkward silence growing. What do you say now? You don’t want this date to end but would it be to forward to invite her over? Or will she invite you over? You don’t get too far into your thoughts when the car starts moving.

“Do you wanna come over?” She asks, the car sitting long at a stop sign. She’s looking dead ahead, fingers gripping the wheel so hard it turns white. She’s just as nervous as you are, you realize.

“Yes, please,” You manage to breathe out before continuing on, not wanting to sound rude, “If you want me to, that is.”

“Trust me, I want you to,” Mikasa replies, something laced in her voice but she doesn’t relax at all on the drive to her place. The drive is quiet, tense in a way you don’t understand, but there’s still an electric current in your veins as her house comes into view. It’s one neighborhood over from where you were last night, just like she said, a small place that looks like a two bedroom.

“I got it from my parents,” She explains as she leads you inside, locking the door behind you. “When they passed.” You’re not sure what to say at that but the moment passes. Mikasa leads you to the couch.

Now what?

“So,” You start, barely getting the word out before her lips are pressed against yours, pushing you back onto the couch. Her mouth is firm on yours, insistent. Her hands are on you, sliding down your sides, teasing your thighs under the hem of your dress. Her mouth moves to your neck, biting and kissing and sucking her way down.

It’s a lot, almost too much. You want to tell her to stop, to slow down a little but Mikasa presses forward, your dress sliding up as she slides down between your legs. The shadows on the wall dance in a weird way, that doesn’t seem to move with the way the lights are. You can’t voice anything as Mikasa’s mouth covers your pussy, mouthing at it over your underwear. Her spit wets the fabric, her tongue dragging over your clit, making your eyes roll back. Your fingers curl into fists at your side, legs spreading wider to accommodate her shoulders- which you realize seem too wide now.

You’re so close when your eyes finally open and you look down.

Mikasa isn’t between your legs.

Whatever’s taken her place isn’t human, the face looks human enough but his body (and he’s definitely a him- you think you almost recognize him) blends in with the shadow, tentacles sliding up behind him, reaching out for you.

“Hello,” The monster says, ignoring the way you scream. You manage to twist free, catching him by surprise as your hand shoots out to scratch right at his eyes. You’re on your feet, running as you hear two voices call out your name.

But your shoes, your stupid strappy sandals- your ankle rolls in them and then something grabs you before you fall completely, your head slamming against the front door as everything does dark.

“Wake up,” A harsh voice commands you. It’s a growl, in human and it seems to be inside of your head. You ignore it, trying to roll over, thinking you’re dreaming but you can’t move. That makes your eyes shoot open.

“You’re up!” The monster is looming over you, using it’s many tentacles to hold you down. Your clothes are gone, the cold air biting at your skin. You’re not even sure how it’s this cold inside of a bedroom, one that looks to be incredibly decorated as well. There’s a chair in the corner, a plush blanket under you. It almost looks like a hotel room.

“Mikasa brought you just for me,” It tells you , leaning in close, his tongue coming out to lick at your throat. “You’re so sweet, I can’t wait to play with you, can’t wait to eat you right up!”

“Let- let go of me!” You shout, trying to make your voice as loud as possible. Maybe a neighbor will hear you. Maybe the monster doesn’t like loud noises. “Mikasa!”

“You can scream all you want, nobody is coming to save you,” The monster seems to delight in the way his cruel words make you cry. “It’s just me and you.” It pauses. “Maybe I’ll let Mikasa play with you a little too, before I kill you. She really liked you, she almost didn’t want to give you to me.”

He leans closer, speaking into your ear, rancid breath sweeping over you, “But I insisted. And she won’t ever deny me.”

“Eren,” Mikasa’s voice comes from the door way, “There’s no need to be cruel.” She’s not looking at you at all, looking rapturously at the monster on top of you. She looks in awe, in love even.

And not even slightly afraid of him.

“You know they taste better when they’re afraid, Mikasa, how many times do I have to tell you that?” The monster, Eren, snaps at her, hardly giving her a second glance. A tentacle creeps up your leg, twisting around it, the tip grazing over your cunt. A shudder of revulsion runs through you when it taps your clit, sending a spark of pleasure through you. “It’s better when they fight it. It always is.”

“Whatever you say, Eren,” Mikasa gives a sigh, taking up the seat you saw before. She’s wearing sweat pants now, a sports bra, looking like she’s just came in from working out. There’s a light sweat on her skin.

“Going to watch this time?” Eren asks, shifting so he’s to your side now, his tentacles holding you open, putting you on display. You try to close your legs but he’s too strong, his grip too tight. “Normally you don’t. Is this one special?”

“You know as well as I do that she’s just like the rest of them,” Mikasa says, and that, more than anything is what breaks you. A sob tears from your throat, as reality comes crashing in. You’re nothing more than a mark- she was never really into you at all.

Of course, you think, why would anybody like her be into someone like you?

More of his tentacles come up, holding your pussy open to their gazes. Despite her harsh words Mikasa has a hard time looking away from it. Eren’s tentacles are softer than they look as one circles your clit, drawing wetness from you no matter how much you tell yourself you don’t want this.

The tip of the tentacle is insistent though, circling your clit with more pressure until your hips jump up, chasing after it when Eren moves it back. He laughs, mocking and mean, before returning to his ministrations. He’s not soft in the way he touches you, one tentacle coming up to start to slowly push it’s way inside of you. It’s bigger than anything you’ve ever taken before and it hurts.

“Stop,” You whine, hips twisting away from him as much as you can, “It hurts, please, stop!”

“I’ll stop when I’ve had my fill,” Eren replies, his voice mockingly sweet as the tentacle rams into you, splitting you open. The one circling your clit has left, leaving you reeling as your mind focuses in on the pain. The pace he sets is brutal, and his tentacle doesn’t feel like a cock or any of your toys. It squirms inside of you, pushing upwards along your front wall until-

“Fuck!” You wail now, thrashing on the bed. Eren smiles, and Mikasa gives a little whimper. You manage to look at her only to see her sat low in the chair, her own legs spread, with one of her hands down the front of her sweats, clearly touching herself while the other works at one of her nipples. “Please!”

“I knew you would beg,” Eren sounds delighted, “They always beg!” Your words seem to be what he was waiting for- the tentacle returns to your clit while the other attacks that spongy spot inside of you. You’re crying outright now, absolutely sobbing with- with everything, really. Your cries are of pleasure, of pain, of fear, of ecstasy. You cum harder than you ever have in your entire life.

But Eren doesn’t stop.

He keeps going, now moving to to lap up your juices with his tongue, cleaning you as one orgasm trips into the next, and then another. You can’t tell if you ever really come down from one. It’s too much, it hurts again, and you don’t want this- you know you don’t want this, you want him to stop and-

You pass out, somewhere after what you think is an hour, if not more. Your mind blissfully goes blank, locking you away behind a door, away from your fractured reality.

People are talking above you, in quiet, hushed tones.

“We can’t keep her.”

“You said you just wanted a snack tonight, Eren. Not.. not that.”

“She’ll go to the police.”

“They won’t believe her, you know that. They didn’t believe Historia.”

“Historia was a child.”

“I’ll convince her she fell asleep or something, you know I can.”

“Fine. But Mikasa?”

“Yes?”

“Next time she’s mine.”

You don’t hear anything after that.

“Hey,” Mikasa is by your side. You’re back on her couch, clothes in place. You jerk up, away from her, looking for signs of what happened but there’s nothing. You don’t see any bruising. You feel sore between your legs, but nothing that would match what you went through. “You fell asleep. After we fucked.”

That’s not true, you know it isn’t true but the only other explanation doesn’t make sense. Monsters aren’t real. You weren’t… assaulted by one. Mikasa has to be right.

“Oh,” You struggle to sit up, feeling sluggish. “I’m sorry. I’m normally not like that.” The smile on Mikasa’s face is warm, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I think I need to go home. I don’t feel so good. Can you take me?”

“Sure, of course,” Mikasa sounds relieved. That’s good, you think, she’s not mad at you. It must have been awkward for her when you fell asleep, had that nightmare. It felt so real. She helps you gather up your things. One of the straps on your sandal is broken. You’re not sure how but it’s a short walk to her car, you can go barefoot.

She starts it up, already talking to you about meeting up again, maybe next week if you want? You tell her it sounds nice, that you had a really good time tonight. You can’t tell how she’s lying through her teeth.

You give her home one last look as she pulls the car away.

If you didn’t know any better, you would think the shadow in the window had a face, that it waved at you.

But you know better.

Monsters aren’t real.

[chudleycanonficfest]

Stars in the Night Sky

Day 3, Story #2 is by @adenei

Title: Stars in the Night Sky

Author: adenei

Pairing: Jily (James Potter x Lily Evans)

Prompt: Stargazing

Rating: PG

TW: None :)

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

The castle is peaceful as it nears midnight, a calm surrender to the usual bustling halls during the day. Rounds ended over an hour ago, but the quick pair of footsteps was not rushing through a late shift, they were on their way to the Astronomy Tower to meet their partner and begin Professor Sinistra’s constellation project. 

Allocation of the work was all in the luck of the draw. Where one half of the class drew a name, and the other pulled the astronomical phenomenon they were to study. Lily Evans had pulled the piece of parchment on stars and constellations, and according to the project’s outline, she and her partner would be tracking Orion, Cassiopeia, Gemini, and Canis Major for the next two weeks.

The project left Lily questioning why she chose to pursue the subject after passing her O.W.L.s. Maybe it was because she has always been fascinated by the subject, or maybe it’s for the sole fact that Astronomy is one of the subjects she can discuss with her family since it relates closely to muggle sciences. Regardless, she’s not sure it’s worth the lack of sleep she’s about to endure over the next few weeks.

As Lily climbs the steps of the Astronomy Tower, her heart thunders in her chest with anticipation about who her partner will be. The class is small, with only ten students, but she didn’t bother to hang around and discuss ‘who had who’ at the end of class. She had a meeting with Professor McGonagall about her Head Girl duties and couldn’t be bothered to worry about who her partner was. 

But now, after finding out through Mary that she’s been paired with Remus and Sirius pulled Benjy Fenwick’s name, Lily is nervous. Rumblings at dinner also confirmed that Calliope Forsythe of Hufflepuff was disappointed that she chose Bridgette Marls’s name instead of James’s, leaving Lily sweating the remaining possible outcomes. She doesn’t want to jinx it by getting her hopes up that James may have pulled her name out of the cauldron, and she’s mad at herself for wanting it so desperately.

We already spend enough time together with our Head duties. Plus, we’re friends now, so we can hang out whenever we like...just not alone.

Her last thought is only a partial lie, considering they’re ‘alone’ when creating schedules for rounds, but it never fails that some fifth or sixth-year students are always barging in to use the Prefect’s lounge to study, ruining any potential chance for either to make a move. Even when they’re on rounds, their conversation is constantly interrupted by catching a couple in a broom closet or empty classroom. 

Lily lets out a huff of frustration as she recalls the last time, when she was sure he was about to ask her to Hogsmeade, but then there was a loud clatter from a room up ahead, breaking the moment. So really, it’d be ideal if James were her partner for this project. She’s sick of the song and dance they’ve been playing since the start of term and wants nothing more than to find out whether he still fancies her or not. After all, it’s only a matter of time that some other girl will swoop in, causing his devilishly handsome smile to be trained on them instead.

As Lily approaches the foot of the stairs leading up to the observation room, she checks her watch. 11:59. Right on time. She holds her breath during the entire stair climb, and only when she rounds the corner to the dimly lit area with one singular candle on the table to take notes, does she see him. He’s leaning over the table, the light illuminating his messy black hair as his glasses slip down his nose. The sleeves on the white shirt of his uniform are rolled up to his elbows, exposing the sinewy muscles of his forearm as Lily stands there, getting lost in a daydream that finds those arms wrapped around her body.

The hoot of an owl in the distance snaps her out of her thoughts as she takes a few steps closer.

“I hope you haven’t started without me.” 

Lily’s light chiding gets James’s attention as a wide smirk dons his face. Her insides tremble as her heart pounds faster in her chest.

“How can I get started if I don’t know what we’re supposed to be looking at,” he remarks, eliciting a nervous laugh from her chest.

“Yeah, sorry for not sticking around after class. I had another appointment.”

“Well, I hope my reveal isn’t too much of a shock.”

“Better you than Mulciber or Avery,” she teases. “Why didn’t you ask Professor Sinistra what topic I pulled after you gave your information and got our timetable?”

James walks around the table to join her as she pulls out the project guidelines. She assumes he would have known what they were studying, considering everyone had to check-in and get their schedules from Professor Sinistra. Depending on what the group has chosen, their research times varied.

“Because I thought we were going for the surprise factor,” his cheeky grin matches the lightness in his voice. “Besides, I figured it’d be another excuse to pore over the parchment in close proximity.”

Lily searches the space next to her to see just how close James is before meeting his gaze. She becomes dizzy from the scent of his cologne, with hints of cinnamon and sandalwood invading her sense of smell. If she gives in to temptation now, they won’t accomplish anything on their first night.

Work first, play later.

Strengthening her resolve, Lily makes a swift turn and heads for the telescope. “We’re responsible for tracking the four constellations that are listed on the first page. I’ll see which one I can find first and we’ll go from there. We can take turns tracing, and observing if that’s alright with you.”

“Sure, I’ll get the parchment set up,” James agrees.

Lily’s not sure, but she thinks she may have heard a hint of disappointment in his tone. She pushes the thoughts aside and peers into the massive telescope that’s bolted down in the center of the room. It doesn’t take long to find Jupiter, and from there, she’s able to see a handful of the stars that make up Orion. The belt is the most prevalent as she takes mental notes to transfer on the paper.

Settling into a steady hum of working together, the pair take turns between the telescope and table, making light work of the night’s observations. When Lily checks her watch again, she realizes they’ve finished with time to spare. She wanders over to the railing, and even though she’s spent the better part of the last ninety minutes studying the stars, she finds herself looking up to the sky once more. Only this time, she’s stargazing with only the naked eye. 

She feels James approaching before he arrives at her side, gazing up at the twinkling stars among the backdrop of black and midnight blue.

“We make a pretty good team.” Her voice is soft as it carries through the air between them.

Lily’s exhaustion is prevalent as her eyelids become heavier, but she can’t be bothered to move away from James’s side. Not yet, anyways.

“You haven’t gathered that from our flawless round schedules and seamless Prefect meetings we’ve run so far as Heads?”

Lily can’t help the smile that creeps across her lips. He’s playing into her words in the exact way she was hoping for. “Of course, I’ve noticed. I was just thinking out loud…” she trails off, hoping she’s got him hooked and wanting to know what else she’s about to say.

“About what?” Barely a second passes before the question leaves his mouth.

She drags her teeth over her bottom lip as she looks up at him. Here goes nothing.

“Just about how our teamwork might work in other respects, too.”

His lips part as she hears a sharp intake of breath. “Evans,” he warns as he inches ever closer to her face.

“Potter,” she challenges right back.

They are mere centimeters away from each other now, and it’d be so easy to close the gap between them. James seems to have frozen in front of her as she finds herself leaning up on her tiptoes to press a feather-light kiss to his lips. She pulls away, not wanting to push her luck.

When he doesn’t move after she pulls away, her heart sinks. Lily grabs her bag and turns to head back to the common room. Clearly, I was mistaken.

“Sorry, I just thought—” but she never finished her apology.

Her foot grazes the top step of the staircase before a warm, strong hand wraps around her wrist and pulls her back, where she hits a wall of muscle. Her lips are on his again, and this time he’s kissing her back as her arms snake around his shoulders and her foot lifts off the ground of its own accord. 

James Potter is kissing me!

The moment only lasts a few moments before they pull apart, their breathing heavy under the starry night.

James breaks the silence after a minute. “So, er, Hogsmeade this weekend?”

Lily grins as she backs away slightly, leaving him standing there as she heads toward the stairs for the second time. She flashes a ‘come and get me’ look. 

“I thought you’d never ask.”

[mmvalentine]

Just Fantasy pt 2 | Feysand

Read part 1. This part is literally just smut I already wrote plot in part 1 so I don't gotta do anymore... right?

It takes a hot second for Feyre’s lust-addled brain to click into gear.

Rhys stands behind her in the doorway, words dying out and throat working soundlessly. Feyre’s eyes go wide and she scrambles upright, mortified and trying make sure the blanket is fully covering her. But Rhys drops to his knees beside her, and grabs a hold of her wrists to still her.

“Wait,” he blurts out, and now that his hands are on her she stops moving. Rhys just looks at her, while Feyre struggles and fails to come up with an explanation that isn’t horrifying.

“You...” Rhys starts, and then stops. He licks his lips, and the movement is not at all lost on her. When Rhys speaks again, his voice is so low she almost misses it.

“Do you want me, Feyre?” he asks her. Feyre can’t speak, even now doesn’t want to admit the truth. But her body thinks differently, and her head is nodding ‘yes.’ Rhys’s gaze slips down to her legs, and he says, “what were you doing there?”

But he doesn’t wait for Feyre to answer before his hand is sliding slowly beneath her thin blanket, and his skin is so warm on her leg. He gives her time to pull away, and when she doesn’t, his fingers reach between her thighs.

“Like this?” he asks huskily. “Is this how you like it?” And then he circles over her clit where she was touching herself moments ago, and as worked up as she is already, a moan escapes her lips before she realises what she’s doing.

“Mmm,” Rhys mutters his approval. “Fuck Feyre, is this how wet you get when you’re thinking of me?” He’s working his fingers up and down now, and in the slickness it’s too easy for him to slide right inside her. She gasps and bucks her hips into his hand, and when she is finally able to look at him it’s not what she expects.

The slow, deliberate movements of his hand that knows exactly what it’s doing matches the self-assurance she’d imagined him to have. But she isn’t expecting the way his pupils are blows wide now. Isn’t expecting the rawness of the growl that crawls from his throat as she moves on his fingers.

"This is what you think about, huh?" Rhys asks her. He's watching his hand and not her face. "All these nights, just across the hall this is what you're up to." He adds his thumb over her clit and it makes her whimper. "You're going to be the absolute death of me, you know that?"

And then he leans up and kisses her, hot and hungry. Feyre grabs a hold of his face and kisses him back while his fingers pump inside her. She moans into his mouth and his hand gets faster, the blanket falling to the floor where Rhys is kneeling.

"Is this what you needed?" he whispers between kisses. "I wish you would have gotten me sooner." His other hand is coming up to cradle her jaw now, and Feyre's knees are falling further apart as she goes liquid beneath his touch. She is just wondering whether this is in fact just a part of her fantasy still when Rhys’s hand stops moving and he murmurs, “Do you wanna go to bed?”

Feyre’s arms curl around Rhys’s neck as she tells him “yes” like a confession. He slides his hands under her shoulders and knees and lifts her against his chest, standing and carrying her from the couch to his bedroom. He kisses her again as he walks, and Feyre has never felt so weightless as she does in Rhys’s arms.

Rhys’s room smells like him. Since her eyes are closed that’s the first things she notices, and then she’s being laid on cool sheets and his body is on hers. His muscles are heavier than she had expected, and the weight of him presses the air out of her. His lips are back on hers though, and she exhales into his lungs.

A second later Rhys pulls back a little so she no longer has his full weight. She can breathe better now, but still mewls in protest. Rhys chuckles, and pulls his t-shirt over his head. Complaints die in Feyre’s throat and her hands come up to touch his chest in ways she has spent countless afternoons in front of her laptop daydreaming about. Rhys shivers as she does it, and again Feyre is surprised by the little ways she affects him.

Rhys bumps his hips forward and Feyre loses her train of thought. The hardness of him between her legs brings a sense of urgency roaring back, and then her fingers are pulling at the button of his jeans and he’s kissing her with his teeth in her bottom lip.

“Since when?” Rhys asks her. His hands push at her tank top and are rough against her rib cage. He squeezes her breast and her nipple rolls against his palm.

“Since you came in here in a wet t-shirt,” Feyre replies, realising what he’s asking. Rhys laughs softly against her neck.

“For me, it was the day you walked through the front door.”

Feyre shakes her head, even as Rhys is tugging her flannel pyjama bottoms off, and they’re now grinding in their underwear.

“I don’t believe you,” she says, and the press of Rhys against the thin cotton of her panties is so hard it almost hurts.

“It’s true,” Rhys told her. “I’ve never been so speechless as the day you came for the inspection. I didn’t know whether to try convince you to stay or turn you away immediately for the sake of my own sanity...” Rhys trails off as his hips move, and Feyre knows she’s soaking through her underwear. She slides her fingers under his waistband and it’s all the encouragement he needs. He’s got them both naked in the next moment, and then he’s sitting back on his heels and ripping a foil packet with his teeth.

“Is that why you’ve been torturing me all summer, walking around like you don’t own a damn shirt,” Feyre says when he’s settled back over her.

“Torturing you?” Rhys repeats, and something wicked lights in his eyes. He rolls his hips and his cock slides up the wetness of her. “Would I do that?” He repeats the motion, and now that her pussy is bare to him the sensation is unbearable. Feyre’s eyes roll back in her head and her nails scratch at his chest. She tries to tilt to get him where she needs him, but he keeps teasing her.

“Maybe it’s revenge,” he says, “for the way you never wear a bra after 6pm and I’m trying to get work done.”

“Rhys please,” she breathes. Rhys’s eyes go black, and he stops moving.

“What did you just say?”

“Please,” Feyre repeats. “Rhys I need you.”

“Now I know I’m dreaming,” Rhys murmurs, and then pushes inside her.

Rhys is bigger than Feyre had expected and they have to stop several times for her to adjust. Rhys is breathing in short pants like when he lifts weights, and it has Feyre growing ever wetter for him. When he is finally seated all the way in, he looks at her with a kind of desperation that shocks her.

“Feyre,” is all he says, and then he’s moving and Feyre is losing her mind.

Feyre's legs wrap around Rhys’s waist and her heels pull him in further. Rhys laces his fingers through hers and slides their hands above her head. It’s a slow, viscous, molten thing between them and his tongue against her throat has her drowning.

“When you’re thinking about us,” Rhys says between strokes, “how do you have me?”

Feyre is not coherent enough to be embarrassed by the implication.

“In my fantasy,” she tells him, “you want me as much as I want you.”

A strange looks comes over Rhys’s face. “But I do,” he says, his hips speeding up. “You have no idea how much.”

“Show me,” Feyre says, and puts her mouth on his. He groans against her lips and then sets a pace so savage Feyre’s head falls back against the bed and she’s struggling to draw breath. The pleasure is paralysing and soon, she begins to feel dizzy. She thinks it’s the lack of oxygen but then quickly realises in fact it’s the spiral of her orgasm and she might have told Rhys she was going to come if she had the time. As it stands, she does not.

"Rhys I-" is as far as she gets before she’s shattering under him. And he’s not slowing down either, keeps up this ludicrous pace and it’s almost too much to bear with Feyre feeling so over oversensitized, and then she’s coming again and when she bites a bit too hard on his lip Rhys follows her over the edge.

Rhys collapses against her once it’s over and they lie for minutes in the dark before anyone speaks.

“I’m really glad your room got trashed,” Rhys says finally, and Feyre’s hand darts out to punch him in the arm but Rhys catches it and rolls on top of her again and this time he laughs as he kisses her, and it tastes so sweet Feyre's head spins again.

****

MASTERLIST

TAGLIST: @ghostlyrose2 @highladysith @stardelia @feysand-loml @tillyrubes10 @ratabrasileira @live-the-fangirl-life @maybekindasortaace @annejulianneh111 @thebonecarver @rowaelinismyotp @loosingdreams @whythefuckdoiexist @inejsarrow @swankii-art-teacher @sjmships @courtofjurdan @teddytdr @positivewitch @thalia-2-rose @darling-archeron @rapunzel1523 @fairchildjace @philosophorumaurum02 @story-scribbler @allthecolorsneverseen @asteria-of-mars

[troubatrain]

the times with an injury...

two blurbs following want you to want me

read the rest here!

Are you fucking kidding me?

Matthew was pressed, his hands up in the air that no one had gotten a call while you were face down on the field and not getting up. It had to be your ACL, Matthew knew by the way you weren’t getting up that meant it was bad. His face was red with anger, his own parents surprised by the way he was taking this one.

“Dude, she’ll be fine-” Brady tried to reason with him, genuinely worried about how close Matthew was getting ringing the ref’s neck himself.

“Do you see her? She’s not fucking getting up,” Matthew yells, his voice cracking and successfully shutting up the rest of his family who’d come out just to see you play. There was an ache in chest, the pain of watching someone he loved more than anything in this world down like that. There was guilt, one that made Matthew feel bad if he’d ever made you feel the same pain in your chest, and he was sure he had. It was too much, watching you clench your fist and lay there while your trainers inspected your leg the best they could from the field before they got you up, “What if she’s-”

Matthew couldn’t finish his thought, the idea of you not getting up was too much for him to handle and he knew if he went there - he’d start to spiral. You were finally up, arms around your trainers and limping off the field and Matthew knew you were holding back tears from the pain in your leg. He hopped up, telling his parents he’d call them later and running down to sit outside of your locker room just like you’d done a million times for him.

“Your boyfriend’s in a panic,” it was the first thing your trainer had told you once you finally had a chance to sit down. You weren’t surprised, hearing Matthew’s protests about no one getting called for taking you out like that from the field, “He’s been pacing in the hallway for almost fifteen minutes.”

“Can you send him home?” You ask, laying back and closing your eyes, “Or at least tell him to take his parents home too?”

“I don’t think he’s going to leave Y/N,” Your trainer sighs, knowing just how much of a nuisance Matthew could be if you weren’t feeling your best. He’d called your athletic trainers, and even his own, almost twice a day the last time you’d sprained your ankle. It was endearing, the way he’d do anything to see you get healthy despite how annoying it made him to others, “He can just stay with you…”

Matthew practically busted through the door, a sigh of relief leaving his body when he saw you smile at him like you weren’t waiting to hear back on whether or not you had a season ending surgery on the horizon, “Hey drama queen…”

“I’m dramatic? You know you just scared the shit out of me right,” Matthew sighs, grabbing a chair and sitting next to you. He laced his fingers with yours immediately, pressing a kiss to your interlocked hands, “I didn’t think you were getting up…”

“Now you know how I feel when you pull your I’m not fighting back to draw a penalty bullshit,” You quip back, raising your eyebrows at Matthew like you knew you were right. Matthew let himself be a punching bag from time to time, an attempt to play smarter than his opposition but you couldn’t stand it one bit.

“I won’t ever do it again I promise,” Matthew blurts out, his brows furrowed like this was something that was sincerely bothering him, “I’m sorry I’ve ever made you feel like that-”

“I’m okay, it’s okay,” You sat up, running a finger through his hair and curling a piece, watching the way his curls bounced back into place, “You have nothing to apologize for Matty…”

“I hated every single second of watching you lay on the ground like that,” Matthew whispers, letting you scratch at his scalp, “I love you, and I just don’t think I’d be whole again without you.”

“Me either,” You breath out, pressing a kiss to Matthew’s cheek, “Thanks for worrying about me.”

“Thanks for worrying about me,” Matthew grins back, leaning forward to press a kiss to your lips. A kiss that would have been sweet if he hadn’t been pressing all of his body weight directly onto your knee. He flew back when you winced in pain, “Shit, sorry baby.”

You shook your head, letting out a giggle at the daggers your athletic trainer was sending Matthew for making it worse. You pressed your lips to his softly, leaning back and letting your hand rest in his. It was a weird peaceful feeling, like if the news about your leg was as bad as you thought it would be, it’d still be okay because Matthew was there. He’d taken care of you dozens of times before, not always the best nurse in the world but he tried his hardest.

“Think you can come to Calgary for surgery, I know a few guys there…”

“I actually know this rat there, he might be able to help me out.”

***

Y/N….

Brady’s hand tapped your leg, trying to break you out of your trance. It happened too fast, the way Matthew’s head flew back and his body hit the ice and then time seemed to stop. The Saddledome was silent, hushed whispers about what happened to the Flames resident rat. Your hand gripped the seat, ignoring the sympathetic glaces from Matthew’s parents and family next to you. The playoffs were rough, and you knew with each passing round things would just get nastier but this wasn’t what you wanted to see.

“He’s up,” Brady whispered, disbelief in his voice that worried you even more. If Brady sounded that shocked Matthew wasn’t wheeled off the ice then that hit was worse than you realized.

You waited in that hallway for hours. The rest of the third period went by and you still didn’t have an update. The team had their media time and you’d heard the outrage over that hit but not one update about the condition of your boyfriend. You watched every member of that team leave the locker room, a few offers for a ride home or for someone to stay so you didn’t have to. You needed to stay, it’s what he would’ve done for you and it wouldn’t be fair for you not to be there for him.

Matthew emerged a few hours later, under a concussion protocol and mentally drained. He couldn’t help but let out a breathy laugh, looking at the way you were sleeping against the wall by the Flames locker room. His smile turned into a frown when he saw the dried tear stains on your cheeks, “Pretty girl…”

“Matty?” You mumble, rubbing your eyes while he comes into view. He looked like shit and you meant that in the most loving way you could, “What’s the verdict?”

“Concussion,” Matthew nods, reaffirming what you’d been afraid was true, “You should’ve gone home with my parents.”

“You’d stay for me,” You remind him of the time you’d barely sprained your ankle in a game and Matthew waited around for it to get checked out for hours. Not to mention the way he insisted on caring for you like your leg had fallen off. You wrap your arms around his waist, pressing your face into his chest, “That was scary.”

“I know and I’m sorry,” Matthew nods, a pain in his chest he couldn’t quite explain. Matthew knew he loved you, he’d always been sure of that, but the pull in chest knowing that you cried because of him? That shit was heartbreaking. It was all he could think about, a split second decision that could leave him in a position to not be able to come home to you. It solidified things for Matthew, the weight of the ring in his bedside table a bit heavier, “I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize for things you can’t control,” You hum, leaning up to press your lips to his, “I was just-”

“Scared? I know the feeling,” Matthew teases, there had been a time or two since the time you started dating you really gave him a good scare on the field. Matthew played the tough guy act, but the second he got you alone he confessed how awful it felt to see you like that, “I’m fine babe, really, let’s get home okay? I could use some good old fashioned loving from my girl.”

“Pretty sure blowies aren’t included in concussion protocol Matthew-”

“I meant I just wanted to hold you, get your mind out of the gutter.”

[delldarling]

diving stars | hior

male bog mummy x male reader 3754 words citrus | mild description of death, minor mention of blood, mild description of mummy having stitches (though not getting them), kissing, implied future relationship test match-up: Waaaayyyy back when, I decided I should try my hand at some match-ups. I wanted a unique experience for those coming to me for commissions, and so went through several versions of a 'choose your own adventure' kind of personality questionnaire. Matt, or @severedreamerbeard, was one of the people lovely enough to let me test out my match-up process! Thank you a whole gosh darn bunch Matt, for letting me do so in the first place, and I'm going to heap on extra thanks because I've been such a snail about it! <3

————-　🌠　————-

Much of the bog is a terrible endless black, with nothing to reflect but the cloud covered nighttime sky. Scrubby, dried grass circles the edges of the water, the torchlight making their flickering shadows look like creeping, growing thorns across the opaque surface, ready to snag the unwary and drag them down into the depths. There’ll be no coming back out of that dark water, Hior knows, not once he’s been pushed in.

I’ll close my eyes before I go under, he silently promises, though either way he supposes it shouldn’t matter much. The last thing his body sees will only ever be darkness. He swallows, tucks auburn hair behind his ears, calloused fingers catching at his skin, and pastes on a grim smile, turning to face the gathered people. He can’t linger any longer, no matter how much he would like to, not if he wants the rest of the village to make it through this. Not many of them have gathered, either. Just enough to see the ritual through to the end. Honestly, it’s better this way. If his brother had been allowed to leave the defenses, then Hagan would have interrupted Mother Gree, ritual or not. He would have tried to stop her, tried to stop Hior, even if it meant the loss of the village.

Hagan will be angry.

Hior sweeps his eyes over the surrounding villagers, their frightened faces and trembling hands, their teary eyes reflecting the torches in the misty dark. Hagan will be angry, but the fact of the matter is that he will still be alive to hold onto that anger. Hior can’t find it within himself to regret that.

There’s no time for being maudlin, Hior tells himself, and his smile becomes a bit too wide, stretching painfully at the corners.

This will be the last he ever sees of the village if the Gods deem his offering worthy, but that’s alright. Really. As long as he knows the village will be protected, as long as he knows that his people will do their best to endure, he's willing to fight his way through the Beyond and stay there.

Mother Gree begins to speak in a rough, ragged voice, worn through by years of pipe smoke and leaning over heavily herbed fires. Her words—the spell, the prayer—drape themselves around Hior’s shoulders like a heavy blanket, sweeping away the tension of his worries and the fear of the crowded villagers. Hior’s smile softens.

Mother Gree’s only warning is the icy grasp of her fingers, twisting sharply into the hair at the nape of Hior’s neck. The blade pinches. Wet heat spills down his throat and over his chest, soaking his clothes as he begins to fall backward.

Overhead, the clouds part, and a fierce rumbling fills the air, punctuated by sharp screams. A star, smaller than a pebble, but more brilliant by far than any flickering fire, falls out of the sky. It dives after Hior’s falling body, following him down into the depths of the bog.

The last thing Hior sees is light.

————-　🌠　————-

It’s midday, or just after, and there are odd shapes in the clouds, like reaching hands backlit by the sunshine. The shifting shades of them make it look like they’re trying very hard to break through the atmosphere, a primordial being grabbing for mortals like marbles. The wind picks up, and the flicker of pale warmth and the cloud hands are blown swiftly away, hidden by a tumult of grey and violet. It shouldn’t rain for hours yet, it’s not supposed to, but you’re starting to doubt the truth of the weather forecast. The sky is very clearly telling all watchers that a storm is on the way.

And here you are: distractedly doing your best to carefully skirt the edges of dreary, muddied water, hunting for a folktale. There are weak spots throughout the area, and one wrong step will have the ground turning to mush underfoot. Which, while fitting with the tales, is the last thing you’d ever want. Risk of drowning aside, all the local stories claim that it's your soul you really need to worry about, or you'll be trapped for eternity as 'a ghost given solid form'.

In other words, from what you’ve pieced together, that might mean something like a zombie?

Water sloshes, lapping strangely at the grassy shore and pulling you clean away from your thoughts. You know you shouldn't linger with the storm on the way, but something about the water keeps you from getting more than a few paces past. The noise, rising steadily, almost bubbling, draws you closer even as tension weighs down your steps. Whatever might be down there, you doubt it's anything pleasant, and you’ve had stories of zombies running through your head all afternoon. You edge closer anyway.

The shore grows terribly soft underfoot the closer you get, and it looks like something is struggling just under the surface, wriggling, a bit like—the water fountains. It soaks your shoe and the hem of your pant leg, while icy droplets speckle over your shirt and face. For a moment, a breath, your eyes fall closed as you attempt to wipe the water away. Something smooth and cold grabs hold of your ankle, yanking your foot forward so you slam back into the ground, a quick burst of pain flares in the back of your skull. Fingernails dig into your skin. You can’t remember shouting, can’t remember a loud noise, but your ears are ringing, adrenaline rocketing through your veins as the hand—the literal hand—heaves with all it’s might, pulling you towards the water. You scrabble backwards, you kick, trying to get free, but the arm tenses, fingers curling tighter around your ankle, heavier than iron. You haven’t gotten loose, but you’re starting to pull whatever is in the water out as you struggle.

The water burbles and the haze of panic begins to clear. This isn’t a story. Someone has just grabbed hold of you. They’re not trying to pull you in, they just want you to pull them out. Because they’re trapped. You suck down air, scrabbling at the hand wrapped around your ankle, trying to get them to grab hold of your wrist instead. Their skin is strange under your touch, hard and smooth and fragile, like flowers dipped in paraffin.

A head finally crests the water, a choking, wheezing noise filling the air as liquid cascades off of his body. His breath sounds wrong though, and his cheeks are hollowed, hair and skin stained with peat. He releases the death grip he has on your ankle, bony, wet fingers smacking against your arm so you can grab hold and pull. His other hand twists into the scrubby grass, ripping handfuls of it free as he does his best to work with your desperate bid to get him out of the bog. And then a few startling things happen all at once.

Your eyes drop to his throat and the wide, old injury spanning the entirety of his throat, stitched shut with a pale cord. His eyes snap open. An eerie light gleams in his eye sockets and you do shout this time, words tripping over themselves as you give up on holding him to try and yank yourself out of his grasp. Lightning quick flashes of the zombie stories and a variety of undead flicker through your mind. He’s too strong for you, you can't push him off, even with the wasted-looking muscles of his arms. He holds on terribly tight, knees and calves and feet splashing in the water and sliding through the slick scrub grass. You continue to try to get his hands off of you, breath coming far too fast, but he lets go as soon as he’s clear of the water. His hands fall away, clutching at your thigh for balance before he finally removes his hands from you entirely. He drops to the grass, retching, and then grabs at his own throat. The tie keeping his hair back crumbles, falling away like drying clay, and though most of his hair is still slick and dark with peat, it looks like it’s normally a bright coppery red underneath the muck.

He wheezes again, hands hovering over the injury, fingers feather soft over the strangely clean stitches. After a moment, he lifts his chin, spotlight eyes roving over your face with awe.

"..you..you answered?" He asks, voice warped by withered musculature. His stained cheeks stretch, a painfully tight smile exposing teeth that don't look altogether human. They're even, and clean, but they gleam with a deep blue patina, as if they’re actually polished stones. “I—I must conf-fess,” he rasps, hands falling to his knees, nails digging into the tattered trousers barely clinging to his body, “I doubted. I..” He leans forward, gasping once more as he stares at the ground. “He answered,” he whispers, and his eyelashes flutter, the light of his eyes flickering. Despite his apparent frailness, despite his inattention, you can't bring yourself to run away now. You’re caught, the desire for knowledge outweighing the potential danger. “What would you ask of me?” He breathes, and your heart twists painfully in your chest. He sounds wretched, reverent and fearful, both, anxiously waiting for you to strike out.

"What would I ask?" You struggle to murmur, tongue thick and too-dry in your mouth. Slowly, you get up, rubbing awkwardly at your wrist and forearm. His grip had been a shade past 'uncomfortably tight', but you don’t think you’ll get anything more than faint bruising.

"In exchange," the man says, clutching tighter to his knees. He doesn't notice when you flinch, not with his head still bowed.

Your heartbeat nearly drowns out the distant thunder, adrenaline chasing the wariness out of your veins. "For what?" You demand, pleased when his head jerks up. He's acting like you're going to kick him back into the bog with a boot to his chest. "For saving you? Why would I want anything? I was just-" Your mouth snaps shut, brain desperately clamoring for you to acknowledge that there's a mummified man currently speaking to you. He’s talking, not groaning, not calling out for brains or blood or violence. He may as well be straight from the local legends and he’s… Fully conscious of his actions, nothing like the eerie embellishments all the tales carry.

"I was being decent. Helping. I didn't do it so you would owe me." Any further words slip your mind as soon as your eyes catch on the stitches in his neck again. The rest of him is withered and warped by the peat in the bog, permanently stained—but the stitches are still silvery pale. What on earth happened to make him this way?

Hesitant, he raises his head, the inhuman brightness of his eyes more than enough to make you wince. Your gaze darts to the soft glint of metal in his earlobes, trying to keep from squinting.

"For… For saving my village," he finally clarifies. "You accepted my sacrifice and allowed me the chance to speak, but surely I must complete some task to prove my faith? To win a boon and guarantee their survival?"

Thunder rattles your bones and the mummy tenses, looking past you to the sky. Nerves or not, you can’t stay out here in this, not if you want to escape the weather… Or the panic that will spread like wildfire if anyone happens to catch sight of him. You offer him your hand.

"You'll help me?" He asks, hand lifting from his knee, but not yet reaching for yours. Mist dots his cheeks, rain trying desperately to break free of the heavy cloud cover.

"Help? Yes. In the way you’re asking me to?” You can’t stop yourself from cringing, but that doesn’t seem to have deterred the bog mummy still kneeling in front of you. He’s still staring with rapt attention, caught on every word you speak. “I—I don't know if I have any answer you want, but I do know we shouldn’t stay out here in the rain." You take a single step closer, fingers splaying as you reach for him. He slips his hand into yours and the rain falls heavy upon your heads.

————-　🌠　————-

From what you’ve gathered from Hior on the trip back here, he has for all intents and purposes, traveled through time, via his death. You freeze in the doorway of the kitchen, mind whirling as you attempt to puzzle out whether he can eat or drink anything. He hasn’t needed to, not while he’s been in his enchanted… sleep down in the bog. But he’s actually dead, isn’t he? You hadn’t felt a pulse when he’d taken your hand, but you hadn’t been searching for one either, keen as you were on getting him out of the torrential rain and out of sight. He hasn’t asked for any food or drink, but your brain has seized onto hospitality like a lifeline. No matter what age Hior is from, sharing what you have is always appreciated.

Decision made, you fetch the glass, ears straining for any noise, for any hint of where he is in the house. He’s done nothing but stare at modernized gadgetry since you brought him in, taking the towel you’d offered as if he were in a dream, but he’s bound to get curious eventually. You move a little faster, though when you find him back in the living room, sitting straight backed on the edge of the couch, dampened towel around his shoulders, you feel rather silly. He just crawled out of a bog, knowing that he’d given his life for his village. Maybe he’s frightened? This can’t be like any afterlife he’d expected. “Would you like some water?” You ask, still unsure as to whether he can actually drink it or not. He’d been gasping for air when he’d broken free of the bog, but that might only be reflex, seeing as he is very much mummified.

Hior clambers to his feet, lamplight eyes skittering over your face and then down to the floor before he kneels, towel flaring out like a cloak. You pause where you are, fingers tightening around the glass in your hand, but your brain doesn’t catch up to what he’s trying to do until he speaks. “I must thank you for your hospitality. Truly. To be welcomed into the home of a God-”

You nearly spill the water, breath caught fast in your throat as you hurriedly urge him to get back to his feet, fingers brushing over his shoulder. “Ah, no, not—how about some water first?” Hior rises, the fine hairs of his eyebrows catching the light as he furrows them. They’re the same coppery red as the hair on his head and arms, and even on his legs when you take the time to glance down. “Here,” you mutter, slipping the glass into his hand as soon as his fingers uncurl. “If you don’t want it, or, or you can’t, then it’s fine. But, uh, I’m not a deity. Not a God. Just a man.” Like you, weighs down the tip of your tongue, but you clamp your jaws shut. You can’t honestly claim similarity, seeing as you still have blood flowing through your veins and your neck doesn’t have eerily clean stitches from ear to ear.

"A man," he repeats, but he doesn't sound like he believes you, "of course." Hior sniffs at the water, but he must not need it. He cradles the glass against his chest, water untouched and risks another sly glance at your face, waiting, as if he expects you to change your mind and confess to a different identity. Your brain buzzes, skipping over the hint he’s attempting to fish for.

“Those… It looks like that was a bad injury,” you murmur, gesturing to the neat stitches, a permanent, unsettling necklace. It doesn’t really help change the subject.

“Hmm,” he rumbles, reaching up a single hand. For a moment, he marvels at the sight of his own skin, turning his wrist this way and that before he finally ghosts his touch over the stitches. Hior doesn’t shy away from them, or even appear concerned, fingertip dipping between each rib of cord. “I’ve little idea how I came to possess these,” he confesses. “It wasn’t you?” You grimace, and Hior croaks out a laugh when he notices. Warmth blossoms in your chest, the sound of a real, genuine laugh soothing away some of your nerves. “No. I can see that now. And it wasn’t Mother Gree either,” he says softly, eyes lowering. “No one would have taken me from the water. The… the star?”

“Star?” The God you think I am? You want to ask, but the stiffness is easing from his limbs, memory returning, and you don’t want to interrupt. Frankly, you might be a little shell shocked yourself, but something about his question makes your brows furrow.

“It followed me into the water,” Hior adds, and your heart skips a beat, your own memories a cacophony in the back of your head. You’ve read something about that before, you’re certain of it.

“The star followed you?” You ask, clarifying. “Dove after you?”

For the first time, Hior isn’t staring past you or searching your face for any hint of divinity. A wry smile twists his lips, exposing the polished stones serving as his teeth. “From what I recall, yes. Of course, I was dying at the time,” he says quietly, humor in the arch of his eyebrows. “Perhaps I could not comprehend the visage of our Gods? They often take other shapes, so as not to cause alarm. Such as that of a man,” he says. He’s hinting again, gaze heavy on your face, but all you can think about is the phrase: the star followed me into the water, on repeat.

You lick your lips, darting past Hior for the stacks of books you’d left out this morning. “The Diving Stars,” you explain, pushing two volumes to the side and letting them fall to the floor with a clatter. You seize the elderly green book, whirling so you can brandish it in Hior’s direction. The title glitters, faintly golden but worn away by the passing years. “It’s a folktale, a legend, about… About you, I think.”

————-　🌠　————-

Hior never does drink the water. He sets it aside, fingertips lingering along the rim before you settle down on the floor, book laid open across your knees. He joins you, and as respectful as Hior has been up to this point, he sits close against your side, pressed against you from shoulder to hip so he can better see the pages. It’s intimate, and strange, and he’s… He’s not cold, not exactly, but the lack of human warmth is enough to have the fine hairs along your neck prickling with awareness. It only takes a moment before his attention drifts from the book to your face, staring at your mouth as you read the short tale aloud.

The Diving Stars

For the greater good of a war torn village, a sacrifice was made. A favored son was chosen, one beloved by the village, and kind to all he knew. He was strong, and clever, and though he was leaving behind his family, he knew he must act for the well being of all. When it came time for his sacrifice, he smiled and walked willingly to his ending, hoping that the Gods would accept his service and defend the village from invaders.

A God took notice.

You do your best not to lift your eyes from the text, heat spreading over the back of your neck when you realize how hard Hior is staring at you. You might keep trying to ignore his assumptions, but Hior isn’t going to let you forget about them completely. He still fully believes that you’re the deity from his tale.

Moved by his plight and coveting the favored son’s courage for his own hall, the God left his domain. He dove from the sky as a star, following the favored son into the depths and setting the entire blog ablaze with his magic. When the light faded, when the villagers uncovered their eyes, two men stood by the side of the water, the light of the stars in their eyes. One was the favored son, strange and withered, having sacrificed his vitality to the Gods. The other was the God who had accepted his bargain, and behind them, marching up out of the water, was a brigade of the village ancestors, led back from the underworld to help defend the home of their children.

When the battle was won, and the ancestors had marched back into the water, the favored son wished his people farewell. Lit up from within, the favored son and the God slipped back into the depths, and then two brilliant lights fountained up out of the water, diving back into the sky as stars.

When you lift your gaze away from the book, Hior’s eyes are still on you. They’ve grown even brighter than before, the shine of them sharp enough to make you wince. His hands, resting gently on his knees, are steadily curling into fists, and he’s smiling. Small and sweet and absolutely enchanted. “I knew it,” he whispers, voice tight and low, and then Hior yanks you by the neck of your shirt halfway into his lap, knocking the book completely out of your hands. He kisses you, in want or in gratitude, you’re not sure, the taste of rainwater and the chill of stone heavy on his lips. It’s… It’s not unpleasant at all, the kiss. His lips are smooth, and cool, and tingling, like the sharpness of static in the air, seeping through your skin and racing through your veins. When Hior finally allows you to wrench yourself away, lungs heaving as you attempt to remember how to breathe, all you can think about is the way he’s smiling, arousal pooling heavily in every limb.

“No matter what you might believe,” you mutter, trying to keep your thoughts in order, “I’m not a God. Not of any sort, Hior. I swear I’m not lying.” You lick your lips, the taste of rainwater still lingering on your skin. “Though, even if I don’t know how to help you yet?” You take his hand off of your arm, lacing your fingers with his. “We’re bound to find out together.”

————-　🌠　————-

[wilteddaisies]

Yours - Chapter Two

Azriel x Female!Reader (acotar)

Word Count: 2.2k

Summary: You are Feysand’s daughter and you’ve just come home from your studies in the Day Court. Azriel needs someone with extensive training in magic in order to complete a mission for the Night Court. You happen to be just what he needs.

Fic Warnings: age gap?, probably cursing, eventual smut, wing kink ;)

Chapter Warnings: cursing, injury, mentions of blood, angst, masturbation

Note: Finally more Azriel! It was surprisingly hard to hold myself back while writing this chapter. I wanted to write the angst and the pining, but in my head I just wanted them to love each other already lol. But don’t worry, that part will come soon ;). It won’t be the only thing coming soon. Hope you enjoy!

CHAPTER TWO

As you gazed at your reflection in the mirror of the bathroom, you realised that you really did look like a mess. Your eyes had dark circles under them and your whole body seemed to sag with exhaustion. You turned the water to practically scalding, waiting a moment for it to heat up before you stripped off your dress and then followed with your undergarments. You stepped into the steaming shower and hissed as the water hit your body. Your muscles sang in thanks to the scalding shower. 

After using your favorite jasmine scented soap, you finished up and stepped out of the shower. You dried off but then quickly realised that you forgot to bring clean clothes into the bathroom with you. Cursing, you wrapped your towel around you and reached for the door knob. Hopefully, Azriel was still passed out and you could just grab the clothes. 

But, when you pushed the door open, you found him sitting upright on the bed. Forgetting your state of undress, you rushed over to him.

“Az, you're awake!” You tried to gently push him back down to the bed. “Lay back down before you strain your back or your wing.” But, he resisted, taking your hands in his instead. He took note of your appearance, his words escaping him for a moment at the sight of your flushed cheeks, damp hair, and bare legs. He tore his eyes away from where the towel was struggling to conceal your breasts and cleared his head.

“Did you do this?” He looked at his nearly healed wing. You nodded. “How. . .” he began, “How long was I out for?” 

You glanced at the clock on your dresser. “Just a few hours.” you shrugged. 

“You managed to almost completely heal my wing in just a few hours?” He looked at you with a peculiar expression on his face. Was that awe? Admiration? Surely not. You looked down, trying to hide your blush and you nodded again.

“I may have learned a thing or two in the Day Court.” you said with a little smirk. But you should be proud, even Helion praised you for your ability to pick up magical techniques so quickly. 

“You certainly did.” That was definitely a new look. Azriel looked at you like he was seeing you for the first time. “Maybe you can fix these hands next.” he says jokingly but also with a sad sincerity. You look at his scarred hands still holding your own. He looks too, as if remembering that he still held them. His brows furrow at them, as if he resents that his rough scars are touching your smooth, unblemished hands and tries to pull them away but you don’t let him, holding on with a gentle firmness. 

“No, Az. Please. Don’t pull away, not from me.” You tried not to be hurt by his actions, it wasn’t that he didn’t trust you with his scars but that he was ashamed of them. But, he shouldn’t be ashamed of them. Those were the same hands that fought to protect Prythian in two wars, the same hands that carried you over Velaris to go on adventures in the city while your parents were busy, the same hands that held you steady as you were learning to fly, and they were the hands of the person you loved so deeply with your entire being. You raised his left hand to your lips and pressed a kiss to each and every scar littering the back of his hand, his knuckles, his fingers, and his palm. Then you did the same to his right hand. 

When you looked back up to meet his eyes, you saw that tears were falling from them. Azriel, who never cried, was weeping in front of you. And the sight shattered your heart. Had no one ever shown him this love? How often did he feel loved and secure and appreciated? Not nearly enough, not by a long shot. 

You took his hands and wrapped his arms around your waist. They immediately tightened, drawing you closer. Your breath hitched for a moment, but you leaned in to kiss his cheeks, trying to catch each tear. Your arms snaked around his neck and as you met his eyes once again. But this time, along with adoration, you found smoldering intensity. Your gaze drifted down towards his lips and ever so slowly, you leaned towards them. They seemed so warm and inviting, plump and slightly parted as he was breathing a little heavier. Your eyes drifted shut as your lips finally brushed his. For a moment, you savored them, their softness, their taste. But they had only just touched when he pulled away, gently pushing you away with his hands that were just around your waist. 

As your contact broke, shame coursed through you, you took a few steps back, adjusting your towel. Fuck. It was the wrong thing to do. You must have misread the atmosphere in the room. You opened your eyes but kept them glued to the floor, slightly panting from the moment you just shared. 

“I-” His voice sounded choked and he cleared his throat before speaking again. “We can’t. . . We shouldn’t have-”

“I know,” you interrupted, curt. And there you were, with him still sitting on the edge of the bed and you nearly four feet away. The awkward silence that ensued was unbearable. 

 “I should-”

“You should-”

More awkward silence. . .

He sighed. “I should go.” Azriel stood up and turned towards the door. You looked at him again.

“But your wing-”

“Is practically healed, thanks to you. I’ll be fine. Thank you, truly. I don’t know

what might have happened if you hadn’t been here.”

You blushed at his praise. He looked at you as if he wanted to say more, but then thought better of it. He gave you one last smile and walked out of your room, shutting the door. You slumped down onto your bed and tried to forget his rejection.

You tossed and turned in your sheets, gods damn it you couldn’t fall asleep. After using magic to clean Azriel’s blood from your sheets, you got dressed and practically fell into bed, thinking that the exhaustion of using your magic would pull you under. But no, your pulse was still racing, your skin still burned from his touch, and your core ached every time your thoughts drifted back to the feeling of his lips on yours, of his hands tightening around your waist. You pressed your thighs together hoping to relieve the pressure but it just made you yearn even more for his touch. Your thoughts drifted even further, to the image of his sculpted abs on display, even more defined with the gleam of sweat. You wondered how they would look above you, with his muscled arms on either side of your head while he pounded into your- 

Fuck. You gave in. Your legs spread and your fingers drifted towards your center to find yourself unsurprisingly wet. You moan softly as you imagine your fingers as Azriel’s. You teased your clit, lightly petting it before drawing circles around it. You lightly jolted at the zap of pleasure. Your free hand clamped over your mouth to muffle the whimpers that escaped you. You slid one finger inside you with ease, then another, hissing at the pleasant stretch. You thought of his eyes, their smoldering hazel seeming so deep you could see into his very soul.

You adjusted the angle of your hand so that your palm pressed against your swollen clit with every movement. You felt a tightening in your stomach, you writhed as your core tightened further, and clamped down on your fingers as you finally fell over the edge. You bite on your hand to keep from crying out in pleasure. Your thoughts are still on him as you come down, your pussy throbbing and legs trembling with the aftershocks. You leave your fingers inside you for a moment more before pulling them out, savoring the feeling of the slight stretch of your walls and how you could feel yourself throbbing around your fingers. 

Fuck, you wish it was him. You feel tears start to well in your eyes and your heart cracks at the realisation that he will never be yours, never love you as you love him. He’s one of your father’s best friends, he’ll never see you as anything other than a child. You know this and yet you still want him, yearn for him, need him. You fall asleep on a damp pillow. 

You wake up the next day with not nearly enough sleep, but you got up anyway at the sound of talking from downstairs. You threw on a robe and left your room to find out what was going on. Still trying to shake off the haze of sleep, you trudged into the dining hall, which had now been turned into a makeshift meeting area. Your mother, father, Mor, Amren, Cassian, and Azriel stood around the mahogany table which was covered with books, maps, and other various papers. You tried to avoid Azriel’s gaze, not that it was difficult, he seemed determined to look at everything else other than you.

“Perhaps it could be sedated with a poisoned arrow,” Mor suggested.

“Tried that,” Az countered, “the thing just knocked the arrows away, as if it was swatting flies, and any arrows that made their mark merely bounced off of its hide.”

“Shit,” Feyre huffed. She was the first to notice your quiet entrance. “Sweetheart, what are you doing? Go back to bed, you must be exhausted from using so much magic.” She walked over to where you stood at the entrance of the dining hall and embraced you. You leaned in to her comforting touch, but as much as you wanted to rest, you knew you couldn’t until you figured out what to do about Azriel’s mission. 

“I can’t, mom. There’s work to be done.” You gently escaped her hold to peer over the documents on the table. Maps, more maps, a blueprint of the castle’s underground chambers, and was that-

“A wyvern,” Cassian answered your unspoken question. The beast in the ancient drawings looked ferocious. That was the thing that Azriel had tried to bypass in order to access the weapon? How had he even managed to fly or winnow home? 

“We just have to find a way to get around the bloody thing,” Amren huffed in annoyance. “It’s fast, and strong. Even against a fae. Maybe we could get Helion to brew us an airborne potion or maybe come up with a weapon that can be used against it. But he’s dealing with trouble in his own court at the moment, it could take weeks to even-”

“Let me go.” The silence was instantaneous. All eyes snapped to you. “I can use my magic to subdue it. Or I could try to talk to it.” The wariness in their eyes turned to confusion. 

“Huh?” The confused sound came from Cassian this time. “Did I hear that wrong or did you say you could talk to it.”

You smiled, “Being a daemati is good for reading more minds than just those of the fae and humans.” Everyone looked to Rhys, who thought about it for a moment. 

He finally shrugged, “I guess I never cared enough to try. But, in that case, I’ll just go with Azriel instead.”

“Dad, no-” But your mother already beat you to it. 

“Oh come on, Rhys. You were doing things much more dangerous than fighting wyverns at her age.” She took his hand and pleaded to him with those gorgeous blue eyes that you inherited, batting her eyelashes, as if it would help convince him. It would. “We had our epic adventure. Maybe it’s time for our daughter to have one of her own.” 

He looked like he was going to argue, but then he looked at you, the spitting image of your mother with a temper to match, and with his own midnight black hair. He looked at you and saw the strength that you inherited from both of them. It was his duty as a father to protect you from harm, but it was also his duty to help you grow, whether it be as a woman, a fae, or a warrior. He finally sighed and rolled his eyes. “Fine, fine. But,” he turned to Azriel with a glare icy enough to rival Azriel’s own signature glower, “you bring her back in one piece. Or I will feed you to the wyvern myself. Or worse, I’ll hand you over to Feyre.” Your mothers face broke into a wicked grin and you could see there was some truth in his words. 

You squealed and hugged your father, then your mother. And then you looked to Azriel, who had been ignoring you the entire time, but finally looked up to meet your gaze. 

And with just a touch of a mischievous glint in his eyes he said, “Let’s go on an adventure.”

Author’s Note: Thanks for reading and for the notes on the last part! I am SO FUCKING excited for this next chapter, I absolutely loved writing it. If you wanna to be added to the taglist for this fic, you can leave comment below :)

I do not consent for my work to be reposted or translated on tumblr or any other site, but reblogs are always welcome!

Taglist:  @moonchild-cf​ @pansexual-booknerd​ @huffypuffyme @tinkymae​  @peneflop​  @myfuckingacademia

[queerbrujas]

I was set alight

pairing: morgan x eva navarro word count: 1.7k rating: T

read on ao3

today i bring you two emotionally unintelligent idiots sort-of realizing things... this is a fun way to play the M route, let me tell you.

Eva is quiet. Uncharacteristically so, all things considered: she has never been loud, not exactly, but her presence is never one to go ignored.

And yet when Adam praises her for her instrumental role in the successful mission, she acknowledges it with a nod and a half-smile—and she really is appreciative of the team leader’s recognition, by this point she has nothing but the utmost respect for his opinion—but she manages little else.

Even after the debrief with Rebecca, after they return to the Warehouse, she remains silent. Keeps grasping at a thought she can’t quite reach, one that has her frowning and keeps her from focusing on what happens around her.

The mission had gone well, yes. Far better than anyone had expected given the circumstances, but there had been that one moment—Eva purses her lips at the memory of it, at the tightness it creates in her chest without her permission. She can’t get it out of her mind, keeps ruminating on it because she doesn’t understand why it’s affecting her so much.

Morgan had been okay. It hadn’t been a particularly dangerous threat to the vampires—the DMB had been too diluted to truly affect them beyond mild disorientation, likely something the trappers had a limited supply of, obtained second- or third-hand—and yet it’s useless to try and push the ‘what if’ thoughts out of her mind.

In the end, she excuses herself (to concerned glances from Nate and Farah, but they don’t say anything—they know by now it’s pointless, and it’s been a long day for everyone). Morgan walks her to her room, as has become her habit.

(At first, she’d always bring up how it was an excuse to try and get her into bed; it likely was, but Morgan hasn’t said anything of the sort in a while. She does it now without explanation because it’s just what they do, a constant Eva finds herself admitting she would miss if it were gone—and there’s that thought again, something just out of reach.)

“Something on your mind?” Morgan asks as they reach the door to her bedroom, almost nonchalantly, almost as if she didn’t care about the answer, though Eva knows better: there’s a kind of intention behind the casualness in her voice that she has come to recognize. One that would usually make her smile, but not today.

Eva shakes her head, avoids Morgan’s eyes—she knows what she would find in them, anyway. “Just tired.”

“You’re lying,” comes the immediate response, almost automatic. There’s no venom in it, but neither is there any willingness to let her get away with what she knows—what they both know—is bullshit.

She should have known Morgan would call her out on it. She always does.

Eva bites her bottom lip. It’s not that she doesn’t want to talk about it (talking about things with Morgan is easy, easier than it has ever been with anyone, mostly because there is so little that needs to actually be said), but she just wouldn’t know where to start.

She dares a glance back at Morgan and oh, that’s a mistake. It’s a mistake because she can’t look away now, drawn into the storm of her grey eyes—it’s a look she’s seen on her sometimes, a look that leaves her both hot and cold at the same time. Morgan is easy to talk to except when she isn’t, when she looks at her like that and leaves her speechless and scrambling for words that all her education and all her languages are not enough to find.

(It’s a mess, Eva’s mind is a mess. Too many feelings just on the edge of understanding and too many thoughts she can’t make sense of.)

And still she can’t give her anything but the truth.

“I was just thinking about what happened. With the DMB. You could’ve gotten hurt.”

Morgan’s eyes widen for a second before they narrow again, and she takes a step closer towards Eva—always in her space, as long as she knows she’s welcome in it (and she is, she is, Eva doesn’t know when it happened but being too far from her feels stranger now than being too close).

“Sweetheart, I’m fine.” Morgan’s voice is softer, lower. She raises her hand to hook a finger under Eva’s chin—she doesn’t have to tilt her face so their eyes meet, they’re the same height, but it’s more about the contact, in the end. “I’m always fine.”

No, that’s not true.

“You weren’t fine when we got Sanja back from the trappers.”

The words come out of Eva’s mouth almost too quickly, almost unconsciously. Morgan immediately frowns.

“Hey.” Her fingers grasp Eva’s face more tightly and her voice becomes a razor that cuts through the air, but Eva knows the sharpness is not directed at her—it’s never at her. “If you’re blaming yourself for that—”

Eva shakes her head before Morgan can finish speaking. “I’m not.”

It’s not guilt that has her flashing back to that moment so often: she did what she had to do, she made the right choice for the mission (and would do it again, is how that sentence should end, but even she is aware that's not true).

“But I don’t want you to get hurt again.”

Morgan's hand falls away, and there it is, again, that examining gaze. Again that feeling of burning underneath it, but Eva is nothing if not stubborn, and she stands her ground.

“I can take hits, Eva. I heal.”

It’s meant to be dismissive, Eva knows that. It’s meant to be ‘I’m a vampire, get with the program’. But the warmth underneath the words is unmistakable (to her, at least, now that she has learned to read it), as is the use of her name, something Morgan never does unless she’s being serious.

And yet—

“That’s not the point,” Eva snaps. Of course Morgan can heal, of course she can take hits. This is what she has been trying to tell herself all day, that there’s no reason for her to be worried or for her to feel like this at all, but it doesn’t help the hollowness in her chest.

And instead of arguing, or walking away from the conversation, Morgan just looks—uncertain. Something storm-dark that Eva can’t recognize clouds her eyes and it takes her a moment to ask, in a whisper that seems to stay suspended in the air, “Then what is?”

Well, the point is—the point is—

What even is the point?

The point is so far out of Eva’s reach she can’t begin to look for words to describe it, has no clue where to start: nothing sounds right, nothing sounds like the way she feels. Nothing sounds like the way her throat constricts at the thought of Morgan being hurt again, healing ability be damned, or like the way tension eases out of Eva’s body as soon as they’re touching, like something is off-balance with the world if they’re not.

The point is that words are impossible but the need to say, to do something burns, the urgency and the feeling that this is important and if she doesn’t manage to convey just how important then something, something might break.

The point is that they've drifted so close to each other Eva is suddenly aware of every freckle on Morgan's face, of the way her frown seems to pull at every line on it (she wants to smooth it out, she realizes). Of the way her lips have remained slightly parted after speaking and the heavy, heavy weight of that grey gaze is fully, entirely focused on her.

She’s not sure what does it. It could be any one of a number of things, the warmth of her breath or the look in her eyes or anything, anything. But it's the easiest thing in the world to lean the slightest amount forward, close the few inches of distance between them and it just feels like something she should be doing.

(It's not like she hasn't wondered before what kissing her would be like—it would have been impossible not to, at least in passing, when Morgan had made her physical interest in her so abundantly clear—but the desire to give in has never been as overwhelming as it is now.)

Morgan makes a sound when their lips meet—the contact is soft and it is too much and it is electric, even as it remains gentle. It stirs a fire within Eva she hadn’t realized could ever be there, and before she knows it Morgan’s lips are moving against her own, too, and her hands are buried in the soft, soft strands of Morgan’s hair and how the hell has she gone this long without this—

This, this is how it should feel. This is exactly what she means, what she'd been wanting to say without ever finding the words.

They break apart once, twice, and each time they find each other’s lips again; the warmth of Morgan’s hands has drifted to Eva’s waist and she pulls her closer, closer. Eva can’t imagine wanting this to end—

But eventually, she pulls back for air, air that she needs, still, even if Morgan doesn’t. She rests her forehead against Morgan’s, breathless, lightheaded, and her hand still rests on the back of her neck. “I think that’s the point. Fuck.”

Morgan looks the way Eva feels—her eyes are wide, and her breathing is even heavier. Her hands tighten on Eva’s waist and she swallows, opens her mouth and then closes it again, seemingly lost for words. (Eva knows the feeling.)

Morgan lifts a hand to Eva’s face, the touch featherlight and tentative as she drags her thumb across Eva’s bottom lip, and Eva wants to kiss her again, wants to say so many things she still doesn’t have the words for.

Morgan’s voice is soft and like it’s coming from miles away when she says, “You should get some rest, sweetheart.”

She draws back—and there is hesitation in her when she does, Eva is sure of this, but she herself is too out of it to say anything, do anything. Morgan looks at her as though she doesn’t know what to do, but in the end, she runs a hand through her hair and turns away.

“I’ll see you later.”

Right. Yeah. That’s probably a good idea.

[joonkorre]

letters and words

@drarrymicrofic prompt: love letter

was thinking of tgcf’s hualian playing around with the supernatural and. it hit me.

just a quick one since i have a ton of WIPs to take care of. enjoy. AO3

“He says to take better care of yourself now that he's not here.”

“Of course,” Narcissa says, dignified in her hollowness. She merely looks at his face, her curiosity in his rapidly moving hands having faded long ago.

Harry sighs inwardly. When he first started this career, he had expected his Master of Death status to be enough for clients to believe him. As it turns out, it usually takes about ten sessions and an expensive investment in the Scale of Truth for them to even start looking at him with something other than polite indulgence. His work has spoken for itself, though, and to his contentment, the number of skeptics is dwindling by the day.

One Narcissa Malfoy remains unimpressed, however. Strange, considering she’s the one who wrote three letters consecutively to plead for a moment of his time like he wouldn’t readily accept.

Death is unbiased. It doesn't discriminate, only takes and takes. If he doesn’t grow to be unbiased himself, how can Harry even dare to approach its throne, let alone work with it?

Still, Narcissa pays the Scale of Truth no mind and agrees with his statements as if she anticipates everything he says, like he’s a fraud. Either way, Harry doesn’t really care. He’s here to do his job and give this woman peace of mind. So, his eyes never leave the planchette.

It darts from one letter to the next, Harry so used to each one’s placement that he can generally tell what the spirits want to say before they even finish.

“He asks if you know he loves you,” Harry says. His head is bent down and focused, missing the slight twitch in Narcissa’s fingers. “Do you know he loves you?”

If it’s not for the flickering of withering candles, the room might as well be completely silent. Narcissa pauses, before:

“Interesting question for a mother,” she says. “‘Do you know he loves you?’”

Harry looks up. The way she phrases the question doesn’t make sense; it's like she’s asking someone else. That is, if there’s any other person in the dusty, hazy room except Harry. The planchette quivers then, jackrabbiting across the board.

“Better answer him,” Harry murmurs as his eyes are pinned on the little wooden heart. It makes no discernable word, then stops altogether. “Yes or no?”

“Yes,” Narcissa stirs her tea absentmindedly. She stares at him. “May I have a question for him in return?”

Harry gives the same answer he’s been giving her every time she asks him this question: a nod.

“Am I the one he loves?”

Harry shoots a glance at the woman. What kind of question is that?

“He hated Lucius, you see,” she explains, “and held no love for his peers. They’ve either abandoned him or died, and he couldn’t find it in himself to dwell in their memories.”

“So, logically, you should be the one person he loves?”

“Indeed.”

Harry nods.

“Hmm,” nods again. “Okay. Alright.” Not weird in the slightest.

Harry repeats the question and the planchette draws a decisive line toward the word ‘Yes.’ Something clinks. The two occupants of the room look in its direction at the same time.

The Scale of Truth tips heavily to one side, the peacock feather apparently way heavier than the obsidian orb on the other side. The spirit has lied. A lot. Harry frowns and prepares himself for the oncoming fit of jealousy.

Instead of shouting or even a hint of biting snark, Narcissa smiles her first smile in the five sessions they’ve had. It doesn’t reach her eyes, but it does make her look a few years younger. Good genes, Harry notes. Wonders that if her last relative was still here, the age-regressing effect would also be noticeable on that pinched face.

“He let go of love so easily, that boy of mine. I had hoped for him to let go of what little he had left before he went, at least, to make his journey less full of burdens,” Narcissa sips her tea, pausing for a moment.

“On the contrary, it’d seem that it’s only grown,” she continues. “That boy of mine. My boy. He had never been one to keep his emotions in check very well.”

Harry can’t deny that.

“Is another question alright?”

A swift turn to the ticking clock on the far wall, and Harry can tell they have but a few minutes left of today’s session.

“Yeah, sure. Please make it quick, though,” he says.

“Of course,” Narcissa nods. Then, staring at the planchette, she asks, her voice softened. “Who is the person he loves, then?”

Harry hums. Good question. Even better if there’s a reply. But, well, even after two repeats of the question, the planchette only lies there.

Minutes pass. Harry is more than happy to wait it out for a little longer just to ensure that Narcissa’s question is answered. But if no answer comes, then he’d have to finish the ritual and make both of them wait until next week for another session. Many clients drive themselves spare when situations like this happen, and while Harry thinks Narcissa’d rather eat mud than be associated with those people, it doesn’t sit right with him that an old woman would have to wander the lonely halls of this forgotten mansion, wondering what her son might have said. But since they've just been sitting here, waiting...

“Alright. Seems like we're gonna have to continue this next time,” Harry concludes, moving the planchette toward the ‘Goodbye’ carved in the bottom of the board. “Good-”

Something brushes against his cheek. A press. Soft and fleeting, then it’s gone.

“-bye.”

Harry almost throws the planchette on the table and risks the consequences for such a disrespectful act, but he refrains from doing so. Setting it down without a sound, he leans back against the squeaking armchair, leaving his equipment unpacked. Hesitant fingers against a stubbled cheek, Harry catches Narcissa’s eyes.

“Did he do something?” She asks.

“Yeah.”

“So he did,” Narcissa peers at the yellowed windows as if she can clearly watch the overgrown garden. “How do we know if a spirit is at peace?”

Harry pulls his hand from his cheek to rub his chin, eyes still a bit glazed over. “When they no longer respond to the ritual’s call.”

The clock ticks on.

“Well,” Narcissa says. She smiles once more, her eyes now curving along with it. “Thank you for what you’ve done for me, Mr. Potter. For him.”

“Oh, that’s, that’s just, I’m just doing my job.”

“And you did it perfectly.”

Uncrossing her legs, Narcissa strolls to the fireplace with an effortless glide that's been startling in its absence. The pouch she retrieves from the mantle is generous, nearly bursting with coins. When the lazily floating candles extinguish themselves with a hush at the wave of her wand, Harry snaps out of the fuzzy fog that's permeated every corner of his head.

“Mrs. Malfoy, your second payment isn’t due until—”

“You have no need to burden yourself with us anymore,” Narcissa pushes the pouch toward him. “He’s done what he’s yearned for all these years. He is free and finally at peace, and that is all I ever wanted for him. Another session is not necessary.”

She smiles kindly.

“Thank you.”

Harry vaguely feels himself say, “You're welcome,” then averts his eyes. He doesn’t look at the Scale of Truth. He doesn’t look at the board nor its planchette.

He doesn’t look at anything at all.

[jasontoddiefor]

[ooo if you're still doing the sentence prompts!] It's dark and his heart is heavy in his throat.

I’ve Had A Day and this escalated.

He’s tired of it all. Exhaustion runs deep in his veins. It steals his breath away, hides it down below at the bottom of the ocean, daring him to drown so he could truly be alive.

He doesn’t dare think he is secretly searching for death. It’s not death he seeks; it has never been. Ever since he has been young and capable of understanding that the galaxy is so much larger than his mother’s embrace, he has wanted nothing more than to be alive.

He wants to see the world again for the first time without having to wonder about the bloodshed and the horrors he might find. He knows there are people out there capable of looking at a meadow and think of all the flowers blooming there without their vision being overtaken by images of barren wasteland.

He can’t.

He doesn’t know how to.

The darkness that keeps tearing at every fiber of his being sinks its teeth deep into his mind and every time he tries to escape it, he is left with a gushing wound, bleeding out on the cold floor.

The water keeps rising.

It is only a question of time until he will be lost in its depths.

He doesn’t mind as much as he ought to, but the part of him that remembers warmth protests that he’s become so used to shivering in the cold. It’s funny how much he adored water until his Master showered him in it, dunking his head beneath it to teach him that he has no wants of his own.

He will be what his Master needs him to be and only that.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

It feels like giving up, giving in, but if that were the case, he wouldn’t be fighting against it still. His limbs are growing heavier by the minute and he knows he can’t keep this up forever. His Master says that he is the strongest Force-user ever born, calls him a sun with the knowledge of someone who has seen what destruction a star can bring.

His Master doesn’t know that even stars burn out.

And his light is so close to fading, it is a miracle that it’s still strong enough to cast any shadows at all. It bears fruit to desperation within him. He swallows mouthfuls of water when he tries to speak, but he forces out the words anyway.

Please.

The art of begging is nothing unfamiliar to him. He has done nothing else in front of his Master. He lashes out with the expected anger and rage, though nowadays, he can’t even tell anymore whether those are his emotions or just a reflection of how he knows he should behave. Underneath that exterior, he begs his Master not to hurt him again, not to take away the last comfort he has, not to violate the memories of his mother, of a childhood bound in chains that was still so full of light he scarcely recalls the bomb beneath his skin.

The hands that reach for him a warm, kind. They do not smell of sacrifice and decay, and he wants to weep because of how careful they are.

He closes his eyes.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

The world around them is silent as he’s pulled close to a body, his bloodied face leaning against an unarmored chest. A heartbeat thrums beneath the skin and it would be so easy to reach for a lightsaber, to summon the Force and kill this person. It is what he has been created for. The destruction left in his wake is his purpose, his singular goal.

He can’t bring himself to lift even a finger.

He curls up as much as his injuries allow him to, thinking himself so much younger than the years he actually counts. The gentle hands of before began to comb through his hair, messy golden curls covered by ashes. The sensation is soothing, calming. His breath stutters and the motion stops, hands pull away. The lack of contact draws a pitiful whine from his throat, but he doesn’t dare to open his eyes and see what expression the other makes. He might lose whatever resemblance of control he has if he allows himself to examine his situation further, to be drawn out of this sweet lullaby of a moment.

Don’t leave me.

A warm hand returns to his cheek and he thinks it might be burning him with the fires of Mustafar.

“You don’t need to beg.”

The so familiar voice, his salvation and nightmare, is just loud enough that only he can hear it.

“I’m not your Master. I do not demand obedience. I only need your permission.”

You have it, take me with you, please, please, please—

He starts crying in earnest now, hides his face in the chest because he can’t face the world outside of the bubble he created. His shoulders tremble and he holds onto whatever warmth he can find with an iron grip.

“Can you tell me your name, dear one?”

Inevitability, his mother named him in the dead of night, blood covering her thighs. She never told him whether she had the same gift of foresight as him and bestowed upon his fate one last prophecy.

Anakin.

His chance at freedom hums as sweetly as the winds that used to tousle his hair during dawn, then he stands up. He carries Anakin as if he weighs nothing, and perhaps after months on the run, he doesn’t. Anakin still continues sobbing even when his mind is wrapped in the same warmth as his mind, spring sunlight shining through suddenly shallow waters as his body is lifted out of the ocean. Unconditional love and acceptance flood the fledgling bond that gives his soul wings and allows him to look at the pit below.

It’s still there and he is terrified of sinking into the darkness.

I don’t want to go back.

You won’t, I promise.

He is carried out of the Sith temple, whose ghosts scream and attack his fragmented shields. They are incapable of reaching him, his new guardian already protecting him with a ferocity Anakin can’t remember witnessing before.

His mother had been too tortured herself to offer him this sense of safety.

It’s even colder outside than it was within the building and his protector takes a deep breath, steadying himself. They are barely a few steps away from the gateway, but the world already feels so much more alive. The stars above are as loud and bright as the souls wandering outside this desecrated hall.

“General Kenobi—” One out of thousand identical voices rings out.

His shield stops and Anakin fears this is all a lie, a trick, but comforting melodies and featherlight brushes against his worries reassure him.

“We have apprehended Darth Vader,” his savior says with a steady voice. “Get a secure comm to the Council and tell them I have taken Anakin Skywalker into my custody. He will remain there until his former Master is apprehended.”

You will keep me?

For as long as you want me to.

And if I don’t learn to let go?

“Then I will spend forever teaching you,” Obi-Wan Kenobi says. Nothing in his voice allows for Anakin to doubt him.

Anakin gathers what strength remains within him and throws himself into a running leap, trusting that he will not crash back into the dark ocean below, but that Obi-Wan will catch him.

(He does. Again and again, even years after his Master’s death.)

[bitchwhoreofastorm]

this is not very good. you have been warned.

-

When Lorkhan dreamed of inhabiting his world, he must have dreamed of inhabiting it as Wulf. This is what Aspera thinks, watching Wulf stride through the forest as comfortably as if it were his, as if it had been crafted for him alone.

Wulf is handsome, and not only for the Lorkhan written upon him. His youth in the wilds has left him strong and muscular, his healthy diet and new civilized life on Hrothgar have made him tidy and clean. Someone has cut the mats from his hair, though he still wears it loose and long in a shiny oak veil around his thick shoulders; someone has taken a knife and shaved away the unsightly fuzz from his square jaw, and someone has clad his massive frame in long wool trousers and a fine leather belt, as if he were being made fit for Auri-el's court. But he goes shirtless beneath his trollskin cape, although the forest he moves through is glittering palely with frost, and there's still an untamed savageness in his careful silent steps, and a hint of danger in the golden sword that hangs at the end of one of his long arms, and a profound sadness in his storm-grey eyes.

He could be Lorkhan incarnate, surveying his own deeds for a span, and Aspera is as always captivated by him. Forced to assume a mortal form for this profoundly mortal act of indulgence, she sits still as she can on a bough of one of Skyrim's tall silent evergreens, and rests her chin on her knees, and watches Wulf move silent through the forest. She's as motionless as the chilly air (Kyne dares not intrude here), if her eyes could devour she's been fasting for this moment. All this time they spent together, in the Dawn era in different forms, and then in the woods not so long ago, and not once has Aspera come close to being sated for sight of him. Even now she aches with hunger. How, she wonders, can even the mere shadow of him be so beautiful?

But he's come closer, now, his head bowed and veiled by his shiny wood-coloured hair, his thick limbs hidden beneath the cape. Aspera wonders if he's aware that his walk betrays him-- he moves like something not of this world, each stride a little too long, each step a little too light for his size. He moves like his next step will be into Aetherius, into the veil of death, forever out of reach, a terrifying sort of grace. He moves past the tree Aspera perches in, and she leans forwards, eyes wide and hungry, devouring the sight of him.

Her own movement is not so delicate; with the shift the tree she perches in groans.

Wulf stops in his tracks and looks around him.

He does not think to look up (he must be getting sloppy, she taught him to always look up), but he's definitely caught the noise, and he looks this way and that, stray snowflakes snagging in his loose hair. His eyes, deep and colourless as any glacier, widen as he tries to peer through the tall narrow trees which surround him. The frost crinkles underfoot as he turns a slow circle, and Aspera dares not breathe.

"Hans?" Wulf calls out. His voice is soft, but his words rumble even through the trees.

No answer comes, so he looks in another direction. 

"Harald?”

The forest remains silent. Frowning, Wulf begins to walk again, and within moments, once again, so painfully, he's gone.

Aspera is left to slump back against the trunk of the tree, clenching her eyes shut, attempting to imprison the sight she'd so eagerly drank in. 

The loss of him from her view is unbearable; it’s as if she’s reliving the tower all over again, and each time she feels as if the grief might shatter her. She considered taking him captive, once. In her darkest moments she’s imagined keeping this piece of Lorkhan for herself, nestled close and safe deep in the heart of her realm, but she already can't stand the sadness in him and she loathes the thought of hurting him further, so she's banished the idea to the only part of her which feels guilt, and resigned herself to possessing him only in the form of these glimpses. Cold comfort, trapping his form like fire beneath her eyelid, stealing looks at him from behind Hrothgar’s walls. However, it’s all that’s within her reach, and even something so small as his silhouette in her memory is to be cherished, guarded--

A mighty heave shakes the tree and Aspera is toppling to the ground before she can even draw her daggers.

Then she stops falling, and she is in someone's arms.

Wulf never laughs-- a strange trait, because Lorkhan was always laughing-- but he has his own equivalent, for when he successfully pulls a prank, and that is a big toothy smile that burns like the sun. Said smile is burning into Aspera’s shoulders now, for Wulf has caught her on the descent and is now crushing her into an embrace, swinging her around mightily and beaming hot and triumphant against her when he presses his face into her torso.

Aspera, of course, cannot tolerate this. Aspera, of course, shouts in alarm and knees him in the stomach. This shocks him and he staggers back, and Aspera’s on him in an instant, pushing him down to the ground and wresting him into a grapple. But he's larger than he was before, heavier, and he manages to overturn them, pinning her down with his whole body, resting his forehead against her own.

"As-peh-rah," Wulf breathes through his smile.

"Wulf," Aspera replies, and flips him hard into the ground.

The blow knocks the wind from his lungs, and he lets out a hearty 'oof', but he's smiling still, his shoulders shaking with the mute mirth that's as close as he'll ever come to laughter. His eyes are crinkled happily, his hair is tangled with clumps of ice and leaf-litter, and when Aspera gets on top of him again, pinning his shoulders with her knees and wrapping a hand around his neck, he only smiles wider.

"Wulf," Aspera says again, amazed. "Did you trick me?"

"I'm Ysmir now," Wulf replies. His voice knocks snowflakes back into the air and sends Aspera’s hair fluttering.

"Ysmir? Who calls you Ysmir?"

"Paarthurnax."

As easily as if he were brushing off leaves, Wulf-- Ysmir-- rises to sitting, shoving Aspera off of him. She falls back on her rump without a struggle, only staring as Wulf shakes debris from his hair. He does not look so civilized, now, smeared with dirt and snow; she sees that he's been painted in the Atmoran fashion, with an image of a dark red gash cleaving his bare breast from collar to left nipple.

"Paarthurnax," Aspera sneers, through her nose, so that her voice takes on a mocking lilt. "Ambitious lord of cruelty. Is that who you're serving, now, little Wulf?"

Wulf frowns at her, in the way that he always used to frown at her-- taking everything too seriously, especially the jokes. “I serve nobody,” he tells her, deathly-grave. “None but myself.” 

“So what is this?” Aspera reaches out and grabs his hair, thumbing the neatly-trimmed edges.

“My hair.”

“You cut it.” 

“Hans cut it.” Flushing red (he’d always been a sensitive soul), Wulf shoves Aspera’s hand away, and even the graze of his palm feels supernaturally hot. But then the sight of her seems to rekindle something in him, a light behind his cloud-grey eyes that comes perilously close to feeling familiar, and his mouth once again splits open in a smile, revealing perfect yellow teeth. 

“Why are you smiling?” Aspera asks him. 

In reply, Wulf reaches out and clasps her face between his big palms. “Aspera,” he repeats himself, in awe. “It’s truly you.”

“Yes, it’s me. Let go of me.” 

“You’ve come back.” His palms are scratchy with callouses, smelling richly of earth. 

Affectionately, Aspera elbows his arm away, then rises to her feet. “Don’t flatter yourself, mortal. I’m not here for you.” 

Wulf ignores the lie, ignores the good-natured act of violence. He gropes around him, lifts the sword which had fallen to the side when he’d caught her, rises to his feet and stretches. He’s grown since Aspera last saw him, she can’t help but notice, not just in his considerable height; his body has filled out, his already-generous muscles now padded with a healthy layer of Nordic fat. “But you’re back,” he repeats himself, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. 

Aspera can only nod. She feels mute, breathless, winded not only by the fall; she’s being forced to consider once again that if Lorkhan ever dreamed of roaming his own world, this must be the form he would choose. The alluring seriousness of his dark eyes, the handsome downwards curl of his mouth and the sheer power betrayed by his mortal form (she recalls uneasily the strength with which he’d caught her, the magnetic heat behind his skin); as with Lorkhan, being near him feels like standing on a precipice, the temptation to fling herself in overwhelming.

He takes her contemplative silence as an invitation and seizes her hand in his own. “Come,” he bids her, “Let’s go meet Hans. And Harald.”

“Who?”

“My friends. We travel, we hunt, we’ll roam the world, like you and I did.”

“I don’t want to meet your friends.” 

“Oh.” Wulf blinks. “We won’t, then. I know where they are. We’ll go away from them.” 

“And go where? Towards the halls of Kyne’s crony?”

“Paarthurnax?” 

“Him.” 

“No, to a cabin. I left Paarthurnax long ago.” 

“Did you.”

“I told you, I travel now. With Hans and Harald.” (There’s that frown again, full of concern). “You’re mad?” 

It takes all of Aspera’s strength to wrench her hand away from him. Shaking her head mutely, she turns away. 

Time, Auri-el’s invention, does not mean much to either of them, but if one was reckoning by time they had once shared a lot of it. When Wulf was still the foundling of dragons, living alone and without language in the wilds of Tamriel, Aspera had stolen to Nirn and made herself his companion. She’d saved his life, and it had been a perfectly selfish endeavor; they had fought together, hunted together, wrestled, riddled each other, spent long nights by paltry fires cooking scrappy meals of rabbits. They had fled Hircine’s wild hunt on foot and hacked their way out of a herd of werewolves, they had crept around Namira’s corruption and looked Herma-Mora in the eye without flinching. They had shared precious moments together, moments where Aspera had forgot to feel as if something had been torn from her. And when Wulf had allowed himself to be convinced to join the storm-bitten wicked society of the Northmen, abandoning their adventures for a mountain and the mandates of Kyne, those moments had begun to seem paltry indeed.

“Aspera?”

“How arrogant you are, mortal. Asking me to return to your side, after you left me.”

“You left me. You could have stayed.”

“You didn’t give me a choice,” replies Aspera. “Was I meant to follow you, make a toady of myself for Kyne?” 

“But I left him, I told you. I’m with Hans and Harald now.” The soft crackle of frost as Wulf shifts on his feet. “So you can come with me.”

Aspera exhales. “No.” 

“No?” 

No. I’m going to the south, and we shall never meet again.”

“Don’t go. Join Hans and Harald and I. We can hunt--” 

“Typical of you. You only want me for your collection.” 

“I want you to stay with me.” 

“Haven’t I denied you enough times before, Shor? When will you learn your lesson?” 

Wulf is silent for several seconds at that, so quiet that Aspera thinks he’s left. But when she turns she finds that he’s come closer to her, and he’s still staring at her with his sad, serious expression, his eyes as dull grey as ash. 

And he comes even closer to her, painfully close, and she cannot bring herself to move away when he touches her cheek once more.

“Koraav zey, Boethiah,” Wulf says softly.

Aspera turns her head away. “I won’t.” 

“I am not him.”  

“I don’t believe you. How can you deny what you are, after all I’ve known about you?” 

“I’m not him,” Wulf repeats. One of his hands, hot despite the chill of the day, cradles her cheek, and with the other he brushes his thumb over her lips. He’s standing very close, staring seriously into her eyes with a gaze like staring into one of Kyne’s tempests, fathomless, a spark of violence beneath the eyelid. “Look at me.” 

Aspera closes her eyes and laughs a bitter laugh. “I don’t believe you.” 

“Boet-hi-ah.” 

“Do you think you know me, then, using that name? You know I won’t listen to your words, that I never have; so if you mean to say this thing to me, prove it.” 

And Aspera must have known what challenge he was planning, the single thing Lorkhan would never have given to her, for she is not surprised when Ysmir bites a kiss into her lips. 

The kiss is sweet, and tastes of ash, and burns for the beauty of it, and Aspera tries her best to bring Lorkhan’s face to mind, as if it were Lorkhan’s mouth on her own, as if Lorkhan were living and Lorkhan would have ever held her so closely, partaking of her hunger with a warm tongue and sharp teeth. It’s not exactly gentle, but she must jealously wonder where he’s gotten all the practice (who are Hans and Harald?), in the few moments before he drags her into an embrace and crushes any power of thought out of her. Later there will be time to ponder this all, to contemplate the real want behind the deed and whether Lorkhan’s memory is behind the depth of the kiss and the grasping of fingers, but for a sliver of that so-called time, somewhere between tasting ash and separating just enough to concoct a plan in breathy whispers, Aspera forgets to pretend that it’s Lorkhan she’s embracing. 

-

In a rough-shod hunting cabin, on a frigid winter night, Ysmir kneels by a straw bed and holds a sword aloft like an offering.

“What is this?” laughs Aspera. She’s perched above him on the thin straw mattress, draped in blankets like a queen. 

“It’s a sword,” says Ysmir, earnestly. 

“You’re holding it wrong, Wulf. How much have you forgotten?”

“It’s a gift.”

“Always giving me gifts. Come, get off the floor and join me again.” 

But Ysmir stays kneeling, and he might have looked a little ridiculous, naked on his knees with the blade held high over his head, if it weren’t for the deathly somberness of his eyes. “Take it,” he commands her, with no hint of humour, “It’s for you.” 

“Well, aren’t you cocky.” But Aspera knows him, and knows his stubbornness, so, without further argument, she takes the sword from his hand and lifts it in her own. It’s unlike any sword she’s seen before: the blade is golden, very thin and very long, with a slight curve to it; the balance is impeccable. When she moves her arm to cut the air with it, it flickers hotly like a candle’s flame.

She’s so captivated by the blade that she feels rather than sees Ysmir sit on the bed behind her, keeping his distance respectfully, save for the large hand that lightly cups the outer rim of her hip. 

“It’s a good blade,” Aspera declares, resisting the urge to sink back into him. The fire’s burned out ages ago and the cabin is cold, but Ysmir’s hand feels hot as any brand. “Why give it to me?”

“To know you by, when we meet again.” 

Aspera places the sword down on her bare thighs with one hand, and uses the other to clasp the hand on her hip. “Who says we will meet again?” she asks lazily, leaning back against his warm chest, so that her head comes to rest with the ear pressed just over the place where a mortal man’s heart would be. “No matter. Does it have a name?”

Ysmir bows his head, embraces her from behind, pulls her in close against that uncanny-quiet chest. And he whispers in her ear, in a voice that rumbles through the world itself: “Goldbrand.”

[stupid-stew]

Boiling Rain

my finger slipped again oopsies idk if this is 100% in character but like what if eda kicked lilith out right away and ended up regretting it later

There was nothing worse than a knock on the door for Eda. Especially not in the middle of the night, during a boiling rain storm, when she was fresh out of magic, and she had a kid in the house, and there was no hooty noise to warn her beforehand. What was he up to?

Eda was still new at defending herself without her magic, but she knew her way around a bat, just ask that guy at the bar from her 20’s and his massive medical bill. Whatever she thought, laughing to herself, that jerk deserved it, no medical bill was larger than his ego. Bat in her left hand, doorknob in her right, she simultaneously swung the door open and raised the bat into a defensive position, ready to strike, that is until…

“Lily?”

What she saw before her definitely wasn’t her sister, but that was Lilith on her doorstep. Well kind of, Lilith collapsed in front of her, drenched in steaming water, clearly out of breath, nothing like the perfect prissy Lilith she knew, and what was she wearing? Where was her dress and cloak? Oh, Eda realized, that is her dress and cloak. The clothes were nearly melting off of her sister, riddled with holes. That couldn’t have made her injuries any less severe. Eda had been stuck in her fair share of boiling rain storms, even with the thick skin of the owl beast it had still taken her weeks to heal, she couldn’t even begin to fathom the state her sister was in.

“I’m sorry” came a hoarse whisper from the pile at her feet

“Lily oh my titan-” Eda dropped the bat and turned her head to yell up the stairs, hoping she was loud enough to wake her sleeping apprentice “LUZ, WAKE UP” Her head snapped back to the door frame at the movement of Lilith flinching at her loud voice. What happened to her.

Eda bent down to at least try to get an idea of the injuries her sister had suffered, but before she could get her hands on Lilith, Luz appeared at the base of the stairs. “What’s going on?” she asked, clearly still half asleep. “I need you to go up to the bathroom and grab the first aid kit, not the one in the first aid kit box, the one in the lunchbox.” Eda instructed.

Luz went to move up the stairs but suddenly snapped awake, “Is that Lilith?”

“Luz, later, first aid kit now, please” Eda responded, back turned to the now fully attentive teenager

“Got it…” Luz ran up the stairs, “...the blue or the purple one?” she shouted

Eda sighed, now that Luz was going to be here a while she should make a point to show the kid the ropes around the house “The purple one please.”

Not even a half minute later Eda had the box in her hand and was sorting through the bandages, what was she doing, she didn’t even know how badly wounded Lilith was. Eda set the supplies down and moved to touch Lilith when a pale, terribly blistered hand shot out of the mound in front of her and grabbed her wrist.

“No.”

Eda was confused and jerked her hand away “What do you mean no?”

Lilith took a couple ragged breaths before weakly responding “I don’t want your help, I don’t deserve it”

They sat there in silence for a moment before Eda remembered Luz was still behind her, “Luz, sweetie, could you go grab some blankets and maybe draw up some of those healing glyphs you’ve been working on?”

“Sure” the girl replied softly before quietly stepping back up the stairs

“Edalyn I sai-” Lilith started

“I heard you. I don’t want to hear it. You need help.”

“Not your help-” Lilith inhaled painfully “not after everything I did to you.”

“Oh for titan’s sake Lily, you think just because you made a mistake I’m going to let you lay here in pain? I haven’t even seen your face yet and I can tell you need help, mine or not.”

“No, I shouldn’t have come here, it’s all my fault, I’ll go.” Lilith moved to get up, but the burns weren’t having it and she barely got a push-up’s distance off the ground before her arms gave out.

“Are you kidding me right now? You come to my door in the middle of the night, after having gone through titan-knows-what, covered in burns, your clothes are barely intact, and you expect me to just let you leave?”

Eda wasn’t having any more of it, and reached out and grabbed Lilith’s arm, who hissed in a combination of pain and protest.

“Not on my watch sister” Eda spoke through her teeth. For someone so frail, Lilith was definitely a bit heavier than she looked, though the fact she was drenched probably didn’t help.

She managed to drag the complaining witch all the way to the couch before Luz made her way down the stairs, blankets and a stack of healing glyphs in hand.

“Kid, drop those and come help me please.”

Together they were able to get Lilith into a lying position on the couch, and for the first time see how bad of a state Lilith was in. Not an inch of the witch’s skin was spared from the rains, red blotches and boils acted like massive freckles over her whole body. While taking in the sight of her sister, Eda managed to meet the injured witch’s eyes for a split second, and what she saw scared her more than anything. Of course Lilith’s face was contorted in pain, but there was also shame and embarrassment in her eyes. If I showed up in her state I’d be embarrassed too, but did she really think I wasn’t going to help her?

“Kid can you go upstairs and grab Lilith some clothes from my dresser? Anything you think will fit her is fine, and…” Eda leaned in next to Luz’s ear and in a low whisper “could you take your time? I’d like to talk to my sister in private”

Luz looked at her with understanding “Of course, if you need anything just yell up the stairs.” She eyed Lilith one more time before retreating back up the stairs.

Eda then turned back to Lilith, who seemed unwilling to meet her eye again. “Alright. Let’s get started, you look a mess, so this might hurt a lot more than a little.”

“Edalyn why are you doing this”

Eda chuckled “Have you seen yourself, I’ve never been the best at responsibility, but I think it would make me a bad person to not help someone in your condition.”

“No Eda, I mean why after everything that I did to you, to Luz, why are you still helping me when I am the last person you should want to help, I don’t understand.”

There was a heavy silence followed by a long exhale from Eda. She didn’t respond, instead moving for the pile of glyphs that Luz had left them. “This is going to hurt a lot, and I’m not going to be able to get it all without my magic, the glyphs only do so much, but I think I can make the worst of it at least better.”

For the second time that night Eda was stopped from touching Lilith by a pale shaking hand.

“Edalyn, why?”

“Ok here’s a deal, you let me help you and I’ll tell you why in the end? Sounds fair enough?”

“You really aren’t going to budge on this are you.”

“Nope.” Eda replied, popping her lips on the last syllable.

Lilith flopped back onto her back, shutting her eyes and exclaiming at the, without a doubt, excruciating pain the impact with the couch had caused.

“Real smooth Lils”

“Oh shut it.”

Somehow the older witch’s face turned even more red through the burns and boils.

Eda managed to get through placing glyphs along Lilith’s arms and legs with minimal issue, Lilith didn’t seem to be enjoying herself very much, but even she had to admit it was starting to look better. At some point Luz had come back down with a cream colored shirt and black patchwork skirt for Lilith to change into along with some more glyphs. Eda had sent her back to bed, the kid did have school in a few hours.

“Ok, we are going to have to take off your dress so I can reach your back, looks like that’s where most of the damage is, and…” as Lilith sat up Eda caught a glimpse of her full back “there also doesn’t seem to be all that much dress left to remove. You really got caught in the rain huh?”

Lilith didn’t respond, but instead met Eda’s eyes again, which made Eda suspicious.

“Do we have to?”

“Yes Lilith we have to treat your injuries.” Eda rolled her eyes at her sister, what did she expect when she was out in the rain without protection?

Lilith didn’t look amused, instead she seemed to pale out. She pulled down the top half of her dress and rolled over onto her stomach.

Eda gasped.

Lilith’s back was covered in burns and boils sure, but what shocked Eda was the array of scratches and claw marks all over Lilith’s back, not only her back but they seemed to go up and down her whole body in varying degrees. Some of them looked healed, or on the way there, some of them fresh, some of them even seemed to be infected.

“What the hell Li-”

Was all she got out before she was interrupted

“Forest demons aren’t as nice as they seem. Ever.”

Oh. Eda snapped her mouth shut and silently applied as many glyphs as she could to Lilith’s back and upper arms as she could. Of course, Eda thought, I didn’t let her stay here, she’s got no friends outside the coven, she doesn’t look different enough to find somewhere safe from the coven guard in town, especially not with her posters lining the alleyways, she’s been sleeping in the woods. Where else would she have gone. With their mother? Any number of nights in the forest without a roof was better than one night under their mom’s.

“Thank you.” a voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Huh? Oh.” Eda had been so busy thinking that she didn’t realize she had finished. “I’ll go to the kitchen to make us some tea, you can change in here, don’t worry about hooty he seems to be asleep.”

Lilith nodded and Eda made her way to the kitchen. Once the water was on the stove, she dove back into her thoughts. All these nights? I kicked her to the curb the night of the incident, it’s been at least a week, it’s rained almost every night. Oh titan, not all of those burns were fresh, that’s probably why Lilith was able to move at all, she was used to it. How has she been eating, bathing, sleeping? She’d been weakened by the splitting of the curse, could she have even defended herself? She could have come around any time- wait. Eda realized that she had told Lilith not to come anywhere near the house… ever again. That’s why she was so convinced she wouldn’t get help at the owl house. Maybe if I had been less harsh, it I hadn-

The whistle of the water being ready pulled Eda back to reality. She quickly placed the tea bags into the mugs and filled them with water and left the kitchen. When she got back to the living room, Lilith was already sitting in her dry clothes, a dim blue light escaping through the thin fabrics from the glow of the healing glyphs. Eda handed her a mug and brought her own to her lips, taking a long sip before sitting down next to her sister.

They sat like that for a while, sipping and waiting. Eventually, much to Eda’s surprise, Lilith broke the silence.

“So why?”

“Huh?” Eda replied, still deep in thought.

“Why did you decide to help me?” Lilith asked, looking into her mug as if it held all the answers “We both know I didn’t deserve it.”

“You’re right.” Eda replied simply. “You don’t deserve my help.”

Looking up from her tea and at her sister with genuine confusion, Lilith asked “So why did you help me then?”

“Let me finish. You don’t deserve my help. You cursed me, you kept your mouth shut about it for decades, until it was far too late, and in a desperate attempt to save your own ass you captured not only me, but my apprentice. My apprentice who I might as well call my own daughter at this point. You hurt her you know?”

Lilith’s eyes reverted back to her mug in shame.

“Oh yeah, she’s got bruises that aren’t even healed yet, that’s why she got looking into the healing glyphs. Plus, she faced Belos. She had to burn her only way home, she’s stuck here now. And me? I lost my magic. The most powerful witch on the boiling isles, now without the witch part.”

To emphasize her point, Eda drew a golden spell circle in the air, only for it to crumble into a pile of dust at her feet.

“Edalyn, I-”

“But,” the younger Clawthorne interjected, “that doesn’t make you a bad person, and I refuse to let it make me a bad person. I don’t know what your reasons were for cursing me, not telling me, I don’t know what Belos promised you, but it had to be pretty big to do what you did. And it’s my fault for not knowing. I kicked you out without even hearing you out, and you got hurt for it, I never even gave you a chance to explain yourself.”

It was Eda’s turn to avoid eye contact now, staring contemplatively into her now empty cup.

“It’s my fault you got hurt. That’s why I helped you. I was so caught up in my own anger that I didn’t think about the consequences of my actions. I’m still mad at you, and you’re far from forgiven, but I think you need help. Let me help you.”

For the first time in a long time, the two sisters met eyes in a moment of understanding.

“Ok.” Lilith said after a moment of comfortable silence.

“Good because I wasn’t really giving you a choice.”

They both laughed at that.

They sat for a moment, before it was finally Eda’s turn to speak first.

“So why’d you come here if you didn’t want my help?”

Lilith picked at her fingers for a moment before responding.

“I don’t know, I guess I just didn’t have anywhere else to go. It was so dark and so hot, I could barely even think, none of the other storms had gotten me this bad.”

Ah, so I was right. Eda regretted.

“It was like my feet took me here, all I knew was I needed to get out of the rain, and before I knew it I was in front of your house on my knees. I expected you to turn me away, I wanted you to turn me away.”

Eda didn’t know how to respond to that with anything other than “Why.”

Lilith thought for a moment.

“I guess I needed you to turn me away, I thought it might feel better to know that for once you would be the one leaving me in pain after 30 years of the roles being reversed, I think after all of that I deser-”

“No.” Eda interrupted. “I might not be the best sister, neither are you, but I will not ever let you suffer in any way remotely close to the way I did. Nobody deserves that, I sure as hell didn’t but neither do you. You will always have a place to stay with me, no matter how mad I am at you.”

They sat for a while longer, both deep in thought. Eventually Eda took both mugs back to the kitchen and rinsed them before going back to the living room, sitting next to Lilith one last time to help her out with the blankets.

“I think the shed is livable, the tower might be a bit too overgrown at the moment but we can work something out. You can stay on the couch tonight, no way you’re going back out into that. We can set ground rules in the morning, just try and get some sleep before the kid wakes up. She’s very excited about the new day, every day.” Eda spoke fondly.

“You really care for her, don’t you.” Lilith asked, a sad smile tugging on her lips.

“That I do. Goodnight Lilith.” Eda responded before stretching and cracking more joints than any one witch should physically be able to. “Woof, even sitting on that couch is enough to make me sore”

“I’m sure it’s just fine, thank you Edalyn, for everything. And goodnight.” Lilith said while trying to find a comfortable position on the lumpy couch. Her injuries, while significantly better, weren’t doing anything to help the situation. It wasn’t long before the soothing warmth of the healing glyphs lulled Lilith into a deep, dreamless sleep, much better than any she’d gotten on the forest floor.

Not even a few hours later, the sun shone on the owl house, waking Luz first, and if she was any quieter than normal that morning, or if she saw a certain gray haired owl lady sleeping on the floor next to Lilith’s position on the couch on her way out the door, she never mentioned it to a soul.

[adsosfraser]

The Stone’s Toll - Chapter Six

Read on AO3

Before Claire could journey up to Inverness, she had to settle some matters first in London. The first thing she did was walk up the grand steps of her parents’ bank and walk through the marble columns of the main entrance. A little over two-thirds was left in her account, and she withdrew it all. She walked out, two hundred pounds heavier. The pound notes were neatly stacked into piles of twenty in her suitcase. It was all that remained of her inheritance which had been pretty substantial; the rest had been spent on various celebrations in her life and her travels with her uncle. In total, her trip up to Inverness would be very comfortable, and she would have some to spare for a mockup dress, with guidance of course as Mrs. Graham had assured her. 

 The first thing she did was purchase a train ticket at King’s Cross Station to Edinburgh for the next day. She was almost giddy when she felt the smooth surface of the ticket and her receipt shoved into her hands. 

 The pawn shops in London had infinitely more variety than Inverness, she was certain. There was practically one on every corner in London, but only one she could remember in the general area of Inverness. She couldn’t very well bring a banknote with her into the past. But she could find something to trade. No matter what century, gold, silver, and jewellery always held value. 

 She glanced through the miscellaneous items dotted throughout the store and finally assumed a stance before the jewellery counter. Dainty rings laid within velvet boxes and chains strung across the shelves enclosed in glass carefully haphazard. Her eyes paused on an emerald. Jamie’s birthstone. Next to it was a ruby, much like the ring meant for her baby, set into a gold necklace. She pointed at the different necklaces, bracelets, and rings for the attendant to put aside for her. With one final point, she was ready at the register with her money. At the last minute, she spied a stack of pictures and postcards depicting the world’s modern marvels. An airplane, skyscrapers, tug boats, telephones, even the atom bomb were included in the stack. She added it to her items and smiled up at the cashier. She left, with little less than half of what she had withdrawn that day from her purchases at the train station and the pawnshop. She could always purchase more in Inverness. 

 Claire hurried over to her next stop; the sun would be sinking soon. Her body stopped before the small metal door. A locker in the storage facility. It contained mementos from her childhood. Pictures of her parents and notes from the various friends she had made across the world with her uncle. It was the only tangible thing that anchored her to one spot. While she constantly left for new places, it had been reassuring to know that the locker would always be there for her to remember. She shuffled through the items and pulled out some of her baby pictures where she screamed with cake smeared over her face, her parents’ smiles shining brightly behind her. One with her mouth covered in ice cream on a pier at Brighton with her parents, months before the accident. The rest were her dirty and dusty with her uncle, beaming with curiosity at various excavation sites. Claire glanced slightly at the envelope that contained things pertaining to her time with Frank and shoved it back deep into the locker. There was a final one of her during the beginning of her nurse’s training, smiling optimistically for the camera in her uniform at the train station, oblivious to the gruesome years to come sewing back shattered men and hiding from the sky itself. 

 She boarded the train without fuss the next morning. No one was travelling during the New Year. They were all settled in with their families enjoying their feasts. So Claire enjoyed the luxury of an empty compartment within the train and patted her suitcase reassuringly. 

 The Reverend would be away for the week to substitute for a minister who had taken ill on short notice. The house was left to Roger, Claire, and Mrs. Graham. 

 “Och, Claire, it’s sae fine seeing ye again.” The short woman gathered her in her arms, bringing her down to her level. “Would ye like a cuppa?” 

 “That would be wonderful Mrs. Graham, thank you.” 

 She puttered about in the kitchen and instructed Claire to place her luggage in the second room to the right up the stairs. The door creaked open to a light room covered in a rosey wallpaper. Claire was glad it wasn’t the same room she had stayed in months ago. She set her things on the bed and returned downstairs to where the elderly woman had already set up the cups with tea on the small circular table. Tarot cards were strewn all over the tablecloth. Claire presumed Mrs. Graham wanted to take a peek into her future once again. Seeing no use in delaying the inevitable, Claire launched into her questions. 

 “What do you know about the stones Mrs. Graham?” 

 “Och, please call me Mairi, lass. I’m sae glad ye called over before ye arrived here, didna want ye to be disappointed. I looked through some of my mother’s old things, and there were many journals passed down through the matrilineal line. It would have been a mess to try to find them in short notice, but I managed to find the box just in time. One of them details the subject of powerful stones holding the Earth’s energy itself within them. Ye can read through dear and I’ll wait fer any questions.” She stood up to fetch something from the counter near the oven and returned with a smooth brown book. 

 She looked closely over the scribbled notes and drawings in the small leather-bound book. It most likely could fit into her coat pocket and she was amazed at the artistry of something so old. The pages were weathered yellow like they had been soaked in tea and there were tears in some spots, but it didn’t hinder the journal’s abilities to instruct. Within it contained certainties, speculations, doubts, and even contradictions coming back to scribble that human sacrifice was indeed  not necessary  and  strongly discouraged from the earlier statement regarding it as a necessity. Different hands amended the pages, added different textured paper when the pages ran out, and ripped out some to little stubs close to the spine. 

 A calendar was sketched into the very first page, listing fire festivals at each point of a star. Imbolc. That was the closest date. She had missed Yule while in the ward and cursed herself. She would have to wait a month more, if the information written down in the battered book was to be believed. After months of separation, what more was one month? But her soul agonised over the fact that she was so close to the stones, but their strange attributes limited her. Would the nagging feeling of anxiety for her son ever waver? Or did this new sabbatical mean she would be too late?

 “So Imbolc, a fire feast?” 

 “Aye, most all o’ the journals in my grove ha’ something similar. It’s always, a gem and a fire feast. Many other suggestions have been quite unsettling.” 

 “So when I came through, on April the 16th, I was two weeks away-”

 “Lass dinna work yerself up o’er that jes now. Ye canna blame anyone, it’s jes,” the kind woman squeezed Claire’s hand in comfort, “jes the way things went.” 

 “But, I put my baby in danger, and it killed him.” She couldn’t help the wobble of her lip and the big fat tear that rolled down her cheek.

 “Ye dinna even ken if he could ha’ gone through at the proper time anyway.” Mrs. Graham hooked her weathered finger under Claire’s chin and brought her gaze towards her. “I know it might not be what ye want to hear right now, but perhaps yer baby saved ye. Ye couldna ha’ travelled alone, even wi’ yer wee gem.” 

 “But why take my baby? Why not me?” 

 “The way I see it, the stones only wanted one tae live that day. And if yer baby survived while ye died, weel it wouldna ha’ survived anyway wi’out ye. It doesna do well to dwell on the past lass. The only thing ye can do is look to the future and move forward. Go to yer lad. Yer soul kens what yer brain refuses to. The boy needs ye.” 

 “What if I’m too late? The death certificate-”

 “Have faith, Claire, yer- Frank researched tirelessly to find his fate. If he wasna going to make it, yer soul wouldna be in overdrive to return to him.” 

 “Yes, of course. Faith.” 

 “Fer now we bide, and I’ll help ye prepare. These are lean years yer returning to, ye’ll need all the help ye can get.” 

 The greying woman stood up to leave but Claire placed a hand on her arm to stop her. “Thank you Mairi, for everything.” 

 For the next month, Claire helped Mrs. Graham tidy the manse and watch after Roger. Her heart had warmed to the small boy instantly and she played planes with him whenever he asked, mimicking the noises and spreading out her arms wide to fly across the garden. Reverend Wakefield, much to his own chagrin, helped Claire smuggle some supplies from the hospital, during his visits to the ailing and injured who couldn’t attend church. He even found a set of knives that were close to being pitched before he intervened and saved them from the dumpster. Claire passed those weeks amongst pleasant company in the manse, and knew she would miss her friends dearly. To her surprise, Graham Munro, the kind boy who had brought her to the hospital from the stones, visited the manse occasionally and would take up a game of cards with her and Roger. The seven-year-old won almost every game they played; Claire and Graham had made the mistake of having him lose and much to their dismay he had started a tantrum that lasted for four hours. One evening, he had sulked into Claire’s room, his cheeks tracked with fresh tears from a nightmare and she pulled him close, murmuring to the young boy. Yes, she would miss them all terribly. 

 Mrs. Graham worked on the logistics of Claire’s dress; she was impossible at sewing, knitting, and practically any other domestic task. A plain white slip dress was transformed into a shift, extra yards of wool were donated through her druid friends which turned into her various layers of skirts, and an old blue raincoat fit for a giant was found in the closet and transformed into a cloak of sorts to cover the fact of missing stays. 

 On the First of February, close to midnight, Claire, Roger, Mrs. Graham, and Reverend Wakefield climbed into the Reverend’s black car. Roger was bouncing off the back seat next to Claire, excited at being awake way past his bedtime. Reverend Wakefield had driven them to the stones to humour them, still not quite believing in the absurd story. A leather messenger bag sat on Claire’s lap, practically bursting from the contents within it. She had already dressed into her new clothes that would not be so conspicuous in the eighteenth century. Her heart raced as the headlights from the car illuminated the grey stone at the top of the hill. 

 Claire offered a short sentence of gratitude for the Reverend’s hospitality and then moved on to her fast friend Mairi. He lingered back behind the line of the stones with his arms around Roger. Claire shared a heartfelt goodbye with Mrs. Graham and thanked her profusely. Tears clung to her eyelashes and she pecked the small woman on the cheek. Roger was inconsolable when he felt the atmosphere shift. He thought it was a fun adventure with his new friend, not the finality of a goodbye. 

 “No Miss Claire! I dinna want ye to leave!” He slobbered into her stomach and held tight to the buttons of her cloak. 

 “I’m sorry, Roger. I’ll miss playing pilot with you terribly. Will you keep this safe for me?” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a toy rocket, the new fascination of young boys. Planes were old news, but space was exciting. 

 “Aye!” He tried to be brave like his father said his parents had been. She shoved back the hair from his eyes as he looked up at her with glassy eyes and a snotty nose. 

 “What do ye say, Roger?”

 “Thank ye, Miss Claire!” He hugged her tight. 

 He took the plastic object from Claire’s hands and skipped over to his father. His mood had instantly changed and he was happily distracted from the severity of the moment. They all walked slowly towards the stones, Roger hand in hand with his father. The buzzing swarmed through Claire’s ears and she was standing near the centre cleft now.  

 “Father, what’s that noise?” 

 “Stay put Roger.” He tightened his grip on his son’s shoulders, fear laced into his voice. 

 With one last tearful glance of goodbye, Claire vanished. The group was left stunned, even Mrs. Graham. Hearing certainly was not seeing. 

 “Mama?” She felt the soft curiosity of a child’s mind amongst all the screams of anguish and hopelessness. “It’s okay. You can go home now.” 

 She pulled her towards her, guiding her mother gently.

 “I love you, mama. Tell da I love him too.”

 Was it really the child she had lost, or a delusion her mind had conjured? One thing she was certain of though deep in her bones. She had been a girl. A beautiful soul.