#my ao3 bookmarks are filling up

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

I’m sorry for tooting my own horn but I just. There’s someone over on AO3 who just bookmarked my last fic and I went to check out their profile and it was ALL EMPTY except for that one bookmark. On my fic. Like do you get it I’m going to go crazy I’ve never felt so honoured in my life. I think I might cry over this actually

[uhuraprime]

Does anyone else have any old fics they wrote like a decade ago that they're not super proud of but also deleting/orphaning them feels... wrong? It's like throwing away your childhood drawings. You might want to look back on it at some point, even if they're 'cringe' to you.

[triglycercule]

comms collection by carelesscreativity chapter 59 "murder trio love". when it comes to mtt i have to pull up and pick up the slack. there are a few other mttpoly ones in the collection,,,,, never enough to satiate me tho

I once read a fanfic somewhere, I think it was a series of various one shots, and like one of them was mtt poly but like..

I don’t know, I guess horror and murder (dust in the fic) were like, having a misunderstanding or were too unsure about like getting intimate. and killer was like, one realized what was going on and was like “no let me show you” and was like..guiding horror and dust on how to make this a pleasant and less scary experience for them both. like guiding their hands on the others body, something like, “see? he likes being touched here.”

and like when one of them started getting nervous or insecure hed like rub their back and reassure them that its okay and no ones being hurt and “you arent hurting him, he enjoyed that,” and like..hed make prompting questions like, “did that feel good?” in a way that prompted horror and dust to be upfront and clear about their wants, likes and dislikes.

and like it probably wasn’t exactly as I described cuz I read it like a year or two ago and I’m pretty sure I was skipping over some parts but idk something made me remember that so I figured I’d share

[cherrrydragon]

➤ reading between the lines

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read it on ao3

SUMMARY ↳ Jason Todd loves nothing more than the sight of you with a book. The book's tension builds, your fingers gripping the pages a little tighter as the protagonist faces a crucial moment. You barely register the sound of the water shutting off or Jason stepping out of the bathroom. He stands in the doorway, towel slung low around his waist, shaking his head with an amused smirk. He slowly takes steps toward you, right up until his knees hit the mattress. He leans down, his arms coming to cage you. Finally, you really take notice of him. “Hi, Jay.” pairing: jason todd x fem!reader warnings: smut tags/notes: oral sex (fem receiving), domestic fluff, jason might be ooc sorry, lets just pretend its a less traumatized version of him wc: 2k

You think Jason has a thing for you and books.

You mean together, of course. Jason Todd’s affinity for literature is well known, and so is his affection for you. But you can see the way his lips curl up when he sees you curled up on the couch reading, wrapped in his favorite blanket.

The soft glow of the lamp casts a warm light over the room, highlighting the way Jason leans against the doorframe, his arms crossed, a smirk playing on his lips. He’s always been drawn to those quiet moments, watching you lose yourself in a world of words.

“Is that another tragic romance?” he teases, stepping further into the room. You glance up, catching his playful gaze.

“Not as tragic as your face.”

“Ouch,” he groans dramatically, clutching his chest. He falls onto you, plopping his full body weight and nearly crushing you. He buries his face in your neck and presses a chaste kiss there.

You huff and half-heartedly shove him away. “You’ll make me lose my place!”

“That’s why you should use those bookmarks I got you, honey.” He lifts his head, eyes sparkling with mischief. “

You roll your eyes but can’t help the smile tugging at your lips. “Bookmarks are for amateurs, Jay.” You gesture to the stack of books on the coffee table, a mixture of dog-eared pages and hastily folded corners.

He grimaces at the sight. “I should break up with you.”

“Who would read to you, then?”

He narrows his eyes at you. “Touché.” He presses a quick kiss to your lips and shifts so as to pull you into leaning on him. He wraps the blanket around both of you, plucking the book out of your hands in spite of your protests. “Can’t let you ruin this anymore. Lemme read to you, hm?”

You rest your head on his shoulder. “You can’t do it justice.”

“I’ve got the voice of a poet,” he retorts, arm wrapping around you. His voice is low, intimate and for your ears only. You move to rest on his chest so you can feel the way his chest rumbles as he speaks.

As he reads, you let your eyes drift shut, the sound of his voice becoming a soothing backdrop. Jason leans his down, pressing a light kiss on your head and effectively muffling his voice. Each word he reads intertwines with his heartbeat, spinning a cocoon of intimacy that cradles the both of you.

You notice the way he plops a bookmark on the page you were on just before you fall asleep.

“You’re killing me, honey,” Jason groans over the phone.

The smell of a home-cooked meal fills your apartment as you shoulder your phone. “Come home, then,” you chuckle.

“I swear I can smell it through the phone. Why’re you always cooking something good when I’m away, huh?”

You move to grab a pan. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t be away so much.”

“Gotta do my job, honey,” he sighs. “To keep my beautiful girlfriend safe so she can continue to spoil me with her delicious cooking.”

You laugh, stirring the simmering sauce. “It’s just pasta, Jay.”

“Yeah, but it’s your pasta. That makes it gourmet.”

You can’t help but smile at his praise. “Dork. I’ll save you a plate. Just don’t take too long, or I might eat it all.”

“Don’t you dare!” His voice rises in mock horror. “I’ll be home soon, I promise. Just a couple more things to wrap up. You got dessert for me?”

You scoff playfully. “Pick it up yourself. I’ve got a book to finish.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he drawls, then his tone softens. “I’ll get you your favorite. Only the best for my girl.”

You exchange sweet goodbyes before hanging up, the warmth of Jason’s words lingers in the air, wrapping around you like the blanket he often claims. You focus on the pasta simmering on the stove, the fragrant aroma filling the kitchen. Your mind drifts to Jason, as it does a lot, and you can’t keep the stupid grin of your face as you finish cooking.

After plating the pasta, you set the table, stealing glances at the clock as you wait for him to come home. You flip through the book, and allow yourself to get lost in the words. The minutes stretch, the kitchen filled with nothing but your muttered words as you read. You’re just about to take a distracted bite of your food when there’s knocks on the door, the specific pattern Jason went over with you.

Jason steps in, Red Hood helmets already off and perched under his arm, a bag carried by his other. You perk up, unable to suppress the smile that spreads across your face. He steps in, shaking off the remnants of his day, and his eyes light up at the sight of the table set for two. “You’re making me fall in love with you all over again, you know that?”

You laugh, stepping forward to meet him in a kiss. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he greets back one you separate. He places the bag on the table, the logo of your favorite sweets brand greeting you. “As promised.”

“You spoil me,” you hum happily, parroting his earlier words. “Everything go okay?”

Jason nods, pulling out your chair for you before taking his own seat. He grabs his fork with an eager shine in his eye that makes you snort. If there’s one thing you’ve learned about Jason, it’s that he loves to eat.

“Usual stuff.” He keeps it brief, for your sake. He doesn’t like you to hear about the stuff he deals with on patrol, once said, “pretty things like you shouldn’t worry about things like that.” Flattering, but it’s whatever.

“Dickhead mentioned this new bakery that opened up, though you might like it,” he mumbles, voice obscured by his chewing.

You smile. “Sure, let's make it a date.”

Jason goes on to mention little things about his day, and you do listen… at first. You love hearing Jason talk, and you love hearing about his day but… you also really wanna finish this book. It starts as subtle glances to the open pages. Then, it goes to skim reading while nodding along to his words. Now, you’re full on reading and have tuned him out. Whoops.

Jason pauses mid-sentence, a playful glint in his eye as he watches you. “Baby.”

“Hm?”

“Are you even listening to me?” he asks, smirking.

You look up, feigning innocence. “Of course. You just mentioned the arcade you went to with Roy.”

He raises a brow and you know he doesn’t believe you. Damn detective skills. If he feels any type of way because of it he lets it go and continues talking. This time you do better to try and pay attention, but when he leaves to go to the bathroom your eyes wander right back onto the pages.

“You’re killing me again, honey.” Shit, he came back fast. To his credit he doesn’t look annoyed, just fond. Still, you feel guilty.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry,” you groan, shutting the book and throwing it across the room. Miraculously, it lands on the couch.

Jason raises a brow. “Nice throw.”

“Jay,” you whine. He snorts and comes around you, laying a hand comfortingly on your shoulder. “It’s so good. You’ll love it when I finish.”

“I’m not mad, honey.” He leans down and presses a kiss against your forehead, whispering, “Besides, I think it’s hot.”

You blink, watching him sit back down as if he said nothing at all. Well, that’s probably all you’re going to get out of him about it.

You are one of the many people guilty of not knowing when to put down a good read.

In your defense, however, it’s not bedtime yet. Bedtime is whenever you and Jason are in bed, and he still has to shower. Until then, you’re content to let him take his time, as you’re completely taken by your book. The gentle hum of the water running in the background almost becomes white noise to the whirlwind of words in your head.

The book's tension builds, your fingers gripping the pages a little tighter as the protagonist faces a crucial moment. You barely register the sound of the water shutting off or Jason stepping out of the bathroom. He stands in the doorway, towel slung low around his waist, shaking his head with an amused smirk.

He slowly takes steps toward you, right up until his knees hit the mattress. He leans down, his arms coming to cage you. Finally, you really take notice of him. “Hi, Jay.”

“Hi, honey.” His eyes sparkle with amusement as he takes you in. He smooches your cheek before his hands come to grasp at your hips, pulling you to sit at the edge of the bed. You don’t break your focus from your book (if we’re being honest, you’re kind of used to it…)

He knees at your shared bed and spreads your legs. You don’t pay too much mind, even when the feeling of your underwear sliding down your legs sends a familiar shiver down your spine. It is only when a hot wet feel slides against your core that you’re snapped back into reality.

Your body reacts instinctively, squeezing your thighs around Jason’s head. “Jay!” you yelp.

He responds with a hum that sends a buzz through your body. His hands massage your skin as he kisses around your thighs. Your heartbeat picks up and your chest starts to heave. Your fingers tremble around the pages.

A hand leaves your pressure book to grip Jason’s hair. Your hips begin to rock against his face. Your breathing becomes more labored. His thumb begins to swirl your clit, stimulating you to your very core. The room around you fades away, leaving only the rising tension in your body. 

Jason's hands move up your thighs, his fingers digging gently into your skin as he holds you in place. His tongue darts in and out, teasing you with gentle licks and soft kisses. You moan, your head falling back against the bed as you give in to the pleasure.

Suddenly, the book slips from your fingers, falling to the floor with a soft thud. You don't even notice, too caught up in the sensations coursing through your body. Jason’s hands pull you impossibly closer, caught up in your pleasure.

"Jason," you moan, voice laced with desire.

It seems that your voice sets him off, because his tongue starts moving faster along with his fingers to bring you to your peak. Your body trembles, and your hips rock against his face, seeking more of the pleasure he's giving you. Your toes curl, back arching against the bed as your moans get louder and louder.

White fills your vision, mouth falling open as a final whine leaves your lips. You take deep breaths as you come down from your high, thighs twitching. Jason’s eyes meet yours, slowly rising from his knees to meet you. His lips brush against yours in a gentle manner. You feel yourself melt once again, your body aligning itself with him.

“Good?” he mumbles against your lips.

“Good,” you affirm, breathing him in.

“Good,” he nods, breaking away from the kiss, before meeting you back for more. You smile against him as the two of you exchange chaste kisses. Your legs fall open to welcome him closer. You whimper at the feel of his bulge against you.

“Jay,” you moan, grinding against him.

You feel his smirk. “Yeah?”

“Please…” He’s only wearing a towel, all you have to do is hook a finger around it and pull…

You’ve never felt such disappointment like when he pulls away from you, tightening the towel. He bends down, picking up your forgotten book, and strolling out of the room.

“Wh- Jay!”

“You said I’d like it, might as well start now. Who knows when you’ll put this thing down again,” he calls from the hallway.

“Jason!”

“This is payback!”

notes: kinda hate this but what can ya do 🔥

[scoops-aboy86]

Your Smile Is My Favorite

Prompt Used: Summer reading (@thehairandthebanished) and cheesy pickup lines (@softsteddieseptember) | Your Smile Is My Favorite | Rating: T | CW: mild body image issues | Additional Tags: chubby Steve Harrington, gay Eddie Munson, pining, bizarre communication through intricate pickup line rituals, Robin loves these two idiots

I wrote most of this while on a 11 hour car trip, I’ll post it to ao3 later. 🥱 Still the 4th in my time zone though!

It’s hard to stay absorbed in a book when Steve Harrington is swimming laps in his little red shorts, but Eddie is managing. 

Sort of. Kinda. 

Okay, not really. Or at all. 

But he’s read Return of the King so many times before that he can fill in any paragraphs his eyes accidentally skim over from memory, so it’s fine. And he definitely rolled high on stealth by being smart enough to bring sunglasses, because Middle Earth has nothing on his view of Steve’s chest while the guy does the backstroke. 

Earlier in the summer Steve would have been poolside with Eddie and Robin, sprawled out in the sun snacking on pizza and chips with them and letting Eddie draw him into their umpteenth debate on which is better, Coca Cola or Mountain Dew. Now he’s going at it in the pool like he has something to prove, or diving in over and over while complaining about his form. 

Which, Eddie thinks, is a very fine form indeed. He’s thickened up some since their harrowing adventures last Spring Break, transformed from merely good-looking to downright beefy in a way that makes Eddie’s mouth water and fingers twitch with the urge to rake through that tantalizing chest hair, test the give of Steve’s deliciously softer pecs and stomach. It’s starting to become a problem. 

As if Aragorn, son of Arathorn, would have an easier time concentrating on a book about the Party’s adventures if Arwen were parading around in front of him while scantily clad, Eddie thinks, trying to make himself feel like a little bit less of a pining loser. 

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Robin says, sounding bored from the next lounge chair over. She hasn’t even looked up from her own book. 

Eddie considers protesting. He could; they’ve never actually discussed the way they’d clocked each other as queer during Spring Break, he has plausible deniability. 

Instead, he says, “Got a camera you can loan me, Birdie?”

She snorts, sliding her bookmark into place as she turns towards him on her lounger. “No, but now that we’re talking about it, can we talk about how your crush is visible from, like, space?”

“He is not!” The protest tumbles out of him before Eddie even thinks about it, and his cheeks immediately flare red under layers of sunblock. It’s not like Robin would talk about the way her platonic soulmate had recently put on some extra weight like that, Eddie is just a moron. Well, he’ll just have to blow past it and pretend he’d been… bluffing about his crush not being Steve. Yeah. “Uh, I mean. Fuck, I’m not being too obvious, am I?”

Robin’s grin is smug, and definitely a little bit at his expense. “Not really. You’re super easily distracted when there’s more people around, so the kids haven’t picked up on it yet.” She glances back at the pool and the expression softens to amused affection. “It’s written all over your face right now, but I’m pretty sure dingus over there has this fixed idea about your type being all dark clothes and leather and tattoos. He’ll never figure it out on his own, completely hopeless.”

That’s a relief to hear. Eddie relaxes beneath the shade of his poolside umbrella, glances down at his book again… 

And snaps it shut and scrunches up on his side to face her too. He’ll be able to find his place again later, more or less. The occasional splashes of Steve reaching one side of the pool and flipping around to swim back fades into the background for the first time all day in the face of this new, unexplored conversational territory. 

“So,” he says matter-of-factly. Because he’s reconciled with this a long time ago: Robin has literally helped save his life a number of times, she’s safe. “Clearly you’ve got me all figured out. And there’s no way you could be around that all the time and still get anything done without being… oppositely inclined.”

She nods, and the teeny tiny bit of him that had been braced just in case he was wrong relaxes. “Yeah. I don’t see the appeal, but I’ve literally seen a few girls walk into things when they catch sight of him.”

Eddie snickers, like the hypocrite slightly wired on nerves and relief that he is. Curbs, trash cans, the glass doors of Family Video… he’s been there, done that, and been forced to turn it into a bit so no one catches on to what all of those instances had in common. (Steve smiling at him. Steve looking at him. Just, Steve.)

“Not as many lately though,” Robin confides, a little sad. “Shallow bitches.”

“Shallow as hell,” Eddie agrees. One hundred percent. “They have no idea what they’re missing out on.”

“It’s taking a toll on him,” she continues. “You know, how his hair kinda deflates a little when he’s bummed out? Those great big puppy dog eyes come out and it’s all—” her voice drops in a possible Steve impression “—‘Is it me, Rob? What am I doing wrong?’”

Eddie huffs a wordless disagreement with that whole sentiment. Wrong with Steve? Wrong with Steve? There’s nothing wrong with Steve, in his opinion. Badass scars, heart of gold, hair of the gods, and a little more meat on his bones making him even more solid and dependable? Sign Eddie the fuck up. 

Sure, there’s also the nightmares and a general jumpiness whenever the phone rings or lights flicker or a radio starts to crackle, but the same can be said of pretty much everyone in the Party, Eddie included. It’s perfectly understandable after everything they’ve been through, the number of times they’ve helped save the world. 

“I think that’s why he’s leaning so hard into swimming again,” Robin adds. And even though she seems totally casual, there’s something… not pointed, exactly, but definitely not dull behind her words. She’s giving him a look that Eddie can’t figure out, because he just doesn’t have the same kind of in-tune-ness with her that she and Steve display on a regular basis, having conversations with nothing but stares, blinks, and funny eyebrow twitches. 

He tries anyway. Even pushes his sunglasses up into his hair for a clearer look, but message not received. Frowning, he glances over his shoulder at the pool again. “Because he’s… upset about not going on dates lately?”

Not that Eddie had been paying attention or anything. Not that he’d daydreamed hopelessly a few times that it was because Steve was hung up on him, lingering a bit more than necessary when dropping off and picking up the kids on Hellfire days. Inviting Eddie to hangout days like this. Taking Eddie up on it whenever he offers to smoke the guy out, usually when they both have dark circles from sleeping poorly blooming under their eyes and everything about the no longer in peril world around them feels like too much. Springing for fast food whenever they get the munchies, since Eddie supplied the grass…

“Because he thinks there’s something wrong about him,” Robin corrects, “that he needs to work out.” 

Oh. What—oh. Eddie blinks, reorients, and realizes that the thing he hadn’t been able to read before is concern. “But… he looks so good,” he says dumbly. 

Steve is self-conscious about his weight? Oh no, that won’t do at all. Eddie’s mind is already racing through ways to reassure their friend that he looks great, fantastic, amazing, all the positive adjectives that he knows. He wants to build Steve up, make sure he knows that there are definitely people who would absolutely jump at the chance to be with him. 

Or, you know, right here. Or something. 

Splashing sounds draw his attention back to the pool, and it’s Steve wading up the shallow end towards them, apparently tired out for the time being. And Eddie… panics. 

“Damn, Harrington,” he blurts out, “is it hot out here or is it just you?”

Which is. It’s. Something out of that terrible pickup lines book one of the Corroded Coffin guys found at a yard sale a few weeks ago—he can’t remember who exactly, maybe Jeff?—that they’d all howled over, reading the worst ones out loud in ridiculous voices. Why the hell is that what popped into his head?

Steve pauses with one foot still in the pool, squinting at him. “Uh… It’s definitely hot today. Are you… overheated or something? I could get you some ice water.”

“No, I’m good,” Eddie manages. And then, because he’s an idiot, he continues, “Have I told you lately that you’re very attractive? You must eat magnets for breakfast.”

He catches a glimpse of Robin out of the corner of one eye. For a second he hopes that she might step in and save him from himself, but nope; her face is frozen in a look of appalled fascination. No help coming from that quarter. 

“I,” Steve starts, stepping the rest of the way out of the pool and putting both hands on his hips like he doesn’t know what else to do with them. “Dude, are you high?”

If only he were. The proximity of Steve’s naked, dripping wet chest and the gentle roll over the top of his swim trunks seems to have roughly the same effect on him though. 

“Nope,” Eddie squeaks. His face feels incandescent, and he can’t even blame it on a sunburn. And still he opens his mouth again, because he’s already gone this far, might as well commit to the bit. “But we should smoke up later, sweetheart. I think weed be really good together.”

That one wasn’t from the book. It’s an Eddie Munson original. If death took him now, he would not hate it. 

Steve looks to Robin, who shrugs and throws him a towel. He catches it and starts drying his hair, returning his attention to Eddie with a perplexed look. “Low blood sugar?” he asks, and it takes a second for Eddie to place that Steve is still trying to guess why he’s being so weird. 

As if the Freak of Hawkins needs something so pedestrian as a reason. 

“We can order pizza,” Robin suggests in a strangled voice. She’s trying so hard not to laugh, which is good. Probably. 

Eddie can muster a little gratitude for that, right up until he opens his mouth again and “Oh, are you craving pizza? Because I’d love to get a pizz-a you” falls out. 

… Maybe he does have low blood sugar. Or, like. A brain tumor or something. 

Steve sends Robin another look, then shrugs and heads inside the house. Presumably to order pizza, and hopefully for Eddie’s sanity to put on a shirt. 

As soon as the glass door slides shut behind him, Robin whips around and whisper yells, “What the hell was that?!”

Eddie throws himself back on his lounger and covers his face with both hands. “I don’t know. I wanted to cheer him up, make him feel good about himself or something, but—”

“And you thought hitting on him would do the trick? Very badly, I might add!”

“Oh, like you know anything about what works when hitting on dudes!” Eddie shoots back, even though she’s right. So very right. Cruelly correct, to a poor gay man who is suffering. 

He rolls over on the chair, only putting a knee or elbow through the plastic straps beneath him a few times before flopping face down and tugging his own unused towel over his entire head. It’s almost restful under there. The lounger cradles his face a little too high because the back is still angled slightly up for, you know, lounging… and Return of the King is dry and solid under one shoulder, twisting his frame a little oddly, but other than that…

~

By the time Steve comes back outside, Eddie barely notices. He feels slow and drowsy from the heat, everything muffled by the towel. But he does hear a scrape over the concrete beneath him and cracks an eye open to peer through the gaps in the chair. 

It’s a slice of pepperoni and extra cheese on a paper plate, positioned directly below his head, right where he can smell it. 

Fuck, okay. He can’t not get up for food freely offered. It’s just not how Wayne raised him. 

“There you are,” Steve says brightly when Eddie emerges and resituates himself with the plate in hand. “Feeling better? Seemed like the heat was getting to you there.”

“Must’ve,” Eddie replies with a weak laugh. “Thanks.” For the pizza, and for allowing him some semblance of dignity to fall back on after… whatever that had been. Because Steve, above all else, is a good dude; something Eddie has been all too aware of for over a year now. 

Steve passes him a can of Mountain Dew and taps his own Coke can against it like a toast. “Don’t mention it. And, uh, Eds…” He’s starting to smile, just a little. “I know this is going to sound cheesy, but I think you're the gratest.”

Somewhere to Eddie’s other side, Robin chokes on her drink and has to cough a few times to clear it. 

Eddie just stares, jaw dropped open and feeling flushed all over, heart in his throat. Even with his hair still wet and smelling strongly of chlorine, Steve has somehow retained that signature swoop. Maybe he fixed it while he was inside, procuring pizza and slipping into an old and raggedy high school gym shirt that makes him only slightly less biteable. 

And that smile, fully bloomed now and brighter than the afternoon sun. Like he’s decided, playfully, to meet Eddie at his level no matter how dumb it is. 

“Alright,” Robin rasps. “Okay. I’m just gonna go inside to finish my summer reading while you dingi do… whatever this is.” Followed by the creak of her chair as she clambers off. 

“Don’t mess with the thermostat,” Steve calls after her. He turns slightly to do it and releases Eddie from his tractor beam stare, letting Eddie breathe again—when had he stopped doing that? And then those hazel eyes are back on him, hypnotizing. “Well? Cat got your tongue, or do you have any more?”

The words are… different, now that they’re alone. Quieter. Steve is leaning forward slightly, legs over the side of the chair as he faces Eddie. Elbows on his knees and Coke can dangling forgotten from one big hand. His stare is intense in a way that is almost too terrifying to try to read into. 

Eddie wets his lips nervously. “No, I… I’ve got more.” He sits up a little straighter, turns to put his feet down on the shaded but still warm concrete and face Steve head-on. “I’m no photographer, but I can picture us together.”

It sounds, feels, almost terrifyingly like a confession. 

Steve’s grin gets impossibly brighter and Eddie is back to not daring to breathe, because what is happening. “Are you a camera? Because every time I look at you, I smile.”

Which is. That’s. Does he? Eddie is having some sort of out of body experience trying to think back. 

The part of him that’s still anchored in bones and nerves and skin takes a deep breath. Committing to it. 

“Of all the beautiful curves on your body, your smile is my favorite,” he hears himself say, and it’s probably the plainest, most honest words he’s uttered in his entire twenty-one years of life. 

It’s not like he thinks Steve is going to punch him for saying it. Or even for saying it like that. Good dude, inescapable. But he wasn’t expecting the guy’s eyes to go big and molten, or for him to swallow hard, all while that amazing smile never dims. 

“I’m… Shit, I’m going to give you a kiss, Eddie. If you don't like it, you can return it.”

And then Steve leans forward, and does. 

~

Half an hour later, Robin comes back outside to check on them and finds the two young men twined together on one lounger. Steve is sprawled half on top of Eddie, who looks like he’s holding him in place with both legs and teasing a half eaten slice of pizza against Steve’s mouth. Steve snaps at it with his teeth, and Eddie yanks it away but then goes back in to tap it against his lips anyway with a laugh, loose and easy. Happy. 

They both look so happy together. 

She knew it. All she’d had to do was get those two pining idiots talking about something real—even if Eddie had surprised her with a deeply unexpected means of doing so. Whatever, he’s weird, nothing new there. The important thing is that her plan to end her two best friends’ ridiculous mutual pining for one another had worked. 

And Steve hadn’t believed her when she’d insisted that the metalhead definitely doesn’t think it’s a bad thing that his clothes all fit a little more snug these days. Ha. One more tally on her own You Rule column. 

Feeling magnanimous, Robin decides to wait until they’re done with lunch to turn the hose on them. 

Permanent tag list: @hotluncheddie @lawrencebshoggoth @sofadofax @irishvampireboy @oatmilk-vampire

@wheneverfeasible @hamiltonswiftie @grtwdsmwhr @yesdangerpls @theseaofdespair

[eddiediaaz]

You answered an anon about 911 fics and you finished saying that could recommend more! I’m new in the fandom and taking all the recommendations so if you want to give more, my ao3 and I are ready ☺️☺️☺️☺️

omg alright!! let me go through more of my bookmarks then hehe

Your Fingerprints Smeared on My Heart (Lead Me Back to You) by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels

what a heart can do by bvckandeddie

dead reckoning by euadnes

takin my time verse by archerincombat

would you lie with me and just forget the world by colonoscopys

a spell on you (because you’re mine) by starkvandyne, tawaifeddiediaz

a bleeding sun on a silver screen by rarakiplin

how you lean on my shoulder (how i see myself with you) by withoutthetiger

Traded by Princessfbi

i just wanna tell you how i'm feeling by calvingseason

i like you so much (it's kinda gross) by Aficatyourfingertips, brewrosemilk

the persistence of memory by withmeornotatall

stupid people. by brewrosemilk

dirty symphony by tawaifeddiediaz

Being Eddie by Daisies_and_Briars

Smoke and Ashes Brushed Off with Ink by Princessfbi

take me to the lakes by archerincombat

let's hear it for the boy by hattalove

Wait for me there by kitkatpancakestack

Ever After by ElvenSorceress

Frequent Flyer by whileyouresleeping

burn the straw house down by rarakiplin

maybe i’ll be brave enough by then by trippedandfell

Love Leaves A Memory by LeandraLocke

never felt this way before (yes i swear) by withoutthetiger

listen to you breathing (is where I wanna be) by Yavilee

at the right time by elisela

wishing to be the friction by ipretendtobesane

Lifelines by hetrez

Your Love is an Oil Slick (It Glows like Rainbows, It Stains My Soul) by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels

Leveling Up by lamardeuse

Evan Buckley & The Coma-Verse of Madness by Daisies_and_Briars

Agua Dulce and Other Sweet Things by TazzySnow

Gravity by rowan_wood

I'm cold but you light the fire within me by Beulaugh

if i need to rearrange my particles — i will for you. by dylaesthetics

you fill my head with you by Underhung_Aura

okay i think this is quite enough lmao, but if you do need more after all of these and the previous ones, let me know (because yes i do have more and more bookmarks lol)!! you can also check my #fanfic tag 😁 it's mostly buddie in there!

[altruistic-meme]

skk fic rec time !!! 🖤🖤

okay i officially have more skk fics bookmarked on my ao3 than my sister has fics in general bookmarked on hers. so. it is time for another ficrec list by abram, bsd/skk version this time!!!

i have no idea yet how many fics will be on this list. i will go until i decide to stop. but as of right now i have 124 bsd fics bookmarked and i definitely won't be listing all of them so if anyone wants a pt. 2 then i certainly have the material to do that.

i'm not putting warnings with the fics, but bc this is BSD please do take note of tags and warnings that are given! i read a lot of fics with darker material so do be cautious!

One-Shots:

keep you alive, set you on fire by flyby @orbitalflyby (Explicit, 23k) Dazai steps out in a dress and heels for a mission, since the gown won't fit Yosano. He's only supposed to spend an hour or so leading their targets on a dance around a charity gala, but the unexpected arrival of a certain Port Mafia Executive threatens to disrupt all his plans. And when he and Chuuya find themselves finally face to face, they end up entwined in a tense game of mutual provocation...

~

Don't Pull Your Punches by kanekei (Teen and Up Audiences, 5k) Everyone thinks that their partnership is a series of Dazai being a troublemaker while Chuuya is helplessly dragged along for the ride. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Some days it feels like Dazai is the only one aware of how insane Chuuya actually is. OR: 3 times Dazai cleans up after Chuuya + 1 time he doesn’t bother

~

The 5 Elements of an Apology by artemisiatea (Teen and Up Audiences, 6k) in which dazai learns that change is hard, but accountability is harder

~

Tea Over Rice by the_most_happy (Teen and Up Audiences, 8k) “Oi, Dazai— what would people say if they saw us?” Dazai gave him a puzzled look. “That we’re happy,” he answered. He made it sound simple; he made it sound pure. “They would say we’re happy.” They never stopped being Double Black — just different clothes and less blood on their hands. [Or: What if Dazai and Chuuya escaped the Port Mafia together?]

~

Lost All Judgement by todxrxki (Teen and Up Audiences, 12k) “Uh, sorry, but unfortunately I already have a date to the dance.” “Oh, really?” Tachihara says, sounding disappointed. He pauses for a second, clearly processing what Chuuya’s just told him, and then says, “Who is it?” Chuuya certainly hadn’t budgeted for this. Panicking, he tries to think of the people that he knows that are single, and before he knows it, the first name that comes to mind is slipping out of his mouth. “With Dazai.” / After a momentary lapse in judgment, high school student Chuuya ends up having to pretend to date his enemy Dazai to get Tachihara off of his back - and quickly finds it's nowhere as bad as he'd imagined.

~

oh darling it's alarming to think of us apart (you know you've got me in your pocket) by interludewings (Teen and Up Audiences, 20k) “Okay so if we’re both still single when we’re twenty two,” Dazai’s smile grew even wider. “Let’s marry each other.” By the time Chuuya’s twenty two, he’d probably be in a relationship with someone else, and the possibilities of them even remembering each other were slim to none. And so, Chuuya gave his answer. “Fine, let’s do that.” In short, fifteen year olds Dazai Osamu and Nakahara Chuuya made a stupid promise one day in their school library out of boredom, which leads to the next seven years of their life filled with fighting, burnt notebooks and late night conversations.

~

The Undercover Mission by OldSauk411 (Teen and Up Audiences, 16k) It all started when Atsushi was sent to drop off some papers that the Port Mafia had let them borrow. That was when he saw her, the woman with orange hair and blue eyes standing in the Port Mafia's hallways and talking. She was beautiful if he was being honest. However, after he left, he forgot about her- at least until a few months later, when the ADA and the Port Mafia teamed up for an undercover mission. One that was led by said 'woman'. Aka, Chuuya Nakahara. _____ Or: Atsushi sees a woman from a distance and thinks she's beautiful, up until the Port Mafia and the ADA team up for an undercover mission and it's revealed that the woman was actually Chuuya Nakahara.

~

Nothing but your spine by osamuchuu (Mature, 6k) “Oi, Dazai. We’re here.” Chuuya reached into the car to shake Dazai’s shoulders a bit, rearranging his coat to lay over the man’s back. Dazai swayed and blinked up at him. Whatever painkillers he’d been given had stolen the sharpness from his face. Dazai looked fifteen again, wide-eyed and vulnerable. And then he smiled. He smiled and Chuuya’s heart stuttered because it was so fucking real, so small and different from all the painted faces he wore now. This was dangerous.

~

strange loyalties by finalizer @tarmairons (Mature, 13k) “The Agency dorms are being fumigated,” Dazai explained cheerfully. “So, I offered—Atsushi can stay with us.” Or: Atsushi's observations from inside Yokohama's strangest household.

[sidenote: this is actually a sequel fic and while i loved the first one, this one really just took me to a whole other plane of existence which is why it's the one on the rec list. i do also rec the first one though!]

~

Yokohama public High School- almost as crazy as their pep rallies by BlowingYourMind (General Audiences, 20k) "The slacks! They're way too tight on him! Exactly no teachers ass should be like that, the students may be offended-" "Dazai, I think you're the only one that notices, and maybe refrain from eyeing up your co-workers like that-" "But how can I not!" Dazai huffed "It's right there in front of my face, it's hideous!" Oda sighed. he was just an average man with an average job gaining an average salary, but he would need to find a way to help Dazai and his obvious crush on Chuuya Nakahara before he lost his sanity. Or The story of how Chemistry teacher Dazai Osamu fell helplessly for coach Nakahara Chuuya, and the student body's many attempts to get them together.

~

If you refuse to listen I'll say it twice, love of my life by olympiansally @olympiansally (Mature, 15k) There’s Atsushi, Dazai’s star pupil. There’s Fyodor, arguably Dazai’s soulmate, a single mind in two bodies. There’s Kunikida, Dazai’s partner. There’s Oda, the reason Dazai wants to live. And then there’s Chuuya. If he asked Dazai to define him, to name his purpose, Chuuya already knows what he would hear. Chuuya is his dog, Chuuya is a slug, Chuuya is a chibi. And sure, maybe he is. But none of that is enough. Or, Chuuya can’t figure out what he means to Dazai exactly, but if he would only listen, he would realize that Dazai has been telling him all along.

~

In the throes of Corruption by BlowingYourMind (Teen and Up Audiences, 7k) Dazai’s ability ‘No longer human’ ironically made Chuuya human. It stripped him of the god that set his insides to flame and wreaked havoc. Corruption was terrible to Chuuya but Dazai’s touch never was. Or Five times Dazai helps Chuuya through the throes of Corruption.

~

hide the truth by writingfromtheshadows (Not Rated, 24k) When Chuuya wakes up in the middle of an ongoing fight without any memory of how he got there or what happened to him, he ends up turning to someone saved as 'bandage-waster' in his phone. Somehow, it just feels like the right decision.

~

Dream a little dream of me by BlowingYourMind (Teen and Up Audiences, 9k) "What would you like to dream of, Chuuya?" Dazai asked, and his partner shifted in the bed before settling down. "I dunno idiot, you pick." Dazai hummed, "I believe I can arrange that." Chuuya's eyelashes fluttered against Dazai's palm as Dazai continued to speak, voice turning into a whisper as he spoke late into the night. Or Chuuya can't dream, and Dazai has a soloution that quickly turns into a routine between the two of them.

~

Multichapter fics (all complete)

in the mirror, i bloom by ephemeralis (Teen and Up Audiences, 12k, 2/2) It twists him, turns him, curls in his chest like something alive, something he knows but can’t dare to name. Chuuya curses the red-black petals that fall from his lips, these nearly rotten things that tear him apart from the inside out. Part of him wants to rip his own traitorous heart out, through a ribcage shattered by feelings he can’t contain. Anger is easy, a thing he’s learned to control. This— whatever the hell this is— is not. Or at least it’s easier to feel as though this is beyond his own control, because Chuuya is not in love. (It feels like a lie even to himself.) After he's hit by a strange ability, Chuuya is forced to consider truths he'd much rather keep hidden- but not everything is as simple it seems.

[sidenote: this was the first bsd fic i ever read and HOOOOLLY CRAP what a beautiful way to join the fandom. i've reread this fic several times since. stunning.]

~

where your loyalties lie by writingfromtheshadows (Explicit, 163k, 20/20) Loyalty is the foundation of the yakuza code, something that was drilled into Chuuya at an early age. However, his lessons did not cover how to manage a political marriage with his organization's oldest rival.

~

Inseparable by milwritsecausewhynot (Teen and Up Audiences, 107k, 21/21) Best friends is too simple a term to squash the entire dynamic of Dazai Osamu and Nakahara Chuuya within. Sure, they’ve known each other since they were children, and they’re each other’s #1 on their best friend lists on Snapchat, and Chuuya’s been seen one too many times in his hoodies. People have also noticed how Dazai’s main muse for his volunteer hobby of polaroid photographer is the redhead himself. But the pranks they pull on each other isn’t much of a ‘best friend’ thing to do. Especially when one of the pranks get pulled so far, That Chuuya is forbidden from seeing Dazai ever again. And though he sees no good coming from such a forced separation, the one thing that can enhance their futures together is propelled forward at a faster speed than either of them could have ever imagined: Coming to terms with their unusual feelings for each other.

~

Do I Get My Worthless Reward Yet? by World_Ender22 (Teen and Up Audiences, 40k, 10/10) Chuuya has always been certain of two things: he is going to die young, and it will be Corruption that kills him. So when the Boss orders him to use his Corrupted form without an out, he is neither surprised nor distressed. He simply does what he's told. When Dazai learns that the whole thing is a ploy to make him rejoin the Mafia, he plans to beat Mori at his own game... starting with convincing Chuuya to join the Armed Detective Agency. / Soukoku

~

When I Awake by wildflowertea @wildflowerteas (Mature, 235k, 23/23) Dazai Osamu has been in a coma for exactly one year, seven months, and twenty-two days. But Death still refuses to take him. Trapped in the space between worlds, and unable to die, Dazai waits, killing what precious time he may have left and hoping—praying—that his family will pull the plug and move on. He doesn't expect someone to move into his old apartment instead. Nakahara Chuuya, two-time Grammy awards winner, and freshly unemployed pessimist, has never believed in fate—much less the supernatural. But the lively—if a bit annoying—ghost of his apartment's previous tenant, might just change everything.

~

hopelessly devoted by soukocacola (Explicit, 188k, 18/18) "Get your grades up." Oda tells him. "Then we'll talk." Well, Dazai thinks. If he's going to be miserable, the least he can do is make Chuuya miserable, too. Maybe then Chuuya will ditch him and Dazai can fail out of college with no regrets. 

~

His Prized Experiment by fauxtales @fauxfroot (Mature, 94k, 18/18) "As terrifying as it could be, there was something just so freeing in using Corruption. It is, after all, his strongest state. No one can harm him when he uses Corruption; he is all but invincible. There are days when he lets himself dream. There is the part of him wondering if that’s just the god or his instincts trying to convince him to unleash pure chaos and destruction on the world, but that thought is easy enough to push away. He has no control in that state after all." As a teenager, Chuuya is subjected to experiments at Mori's hand in an attempt to find a way to control Corruption. Now, years later, Mori has decided it's time to revisit the experiments. Dazai is having none of it. But can they really leave their entire life behind?

~

death offers no absolution by Zairielon (Mature, 62k, 10/10) After so many years in the Port Mafia, Chuuya thought he couldn't be phased by anything - that he had carried out the worst orders that would ever be given to him. Then he sees things he never saw before. He sees horror, cruelty, needless suffering. He sees death in every step he takes. Chuuya is only human, too. Eventually, he breaks. OR, Chuuya leaves the Port Mafia and attempts to escape his bloodstained past.

~

from a to o, i love you so by anticide @anticidic (Explicit, 22k, 3/3) Here they were dancing a dangerous tango and crossing lines and blurring boundaries that neither Fukuzawa nor Mori would take kindly to. Dazai was supposed to have gotten over Chuuya, not melted in his embrace and bound them together for an eternity. (Or: Dazai and Chuuya's unconventional relationship sparks a radical change within Dazai when he wakes up one day under the weather and feeling very, very off.)

~

My Body is Your Body (I Won't Tell Anybody) by thereweregiants (Explicit, 26k, 2/2) Thanks to a rogue ability user, Dazai and Chuuya find themselves switching bodies. ...yeah, there's no way this ends well.

~

Mission - Entrancing Armed Detective Agency by cocktailjjrs (Teen and Up Audiences, 105k, 12/12) “Charming? Have you finally started dreaming now?” Dazai turned to face his longtime partner again “Say what you want, asshole, but people like me better anyway” Chuuya ignored the jab at his lack of dreams, only shrugging in response. “I can bet anything in this world that you can’t be liked by everyone. Your efforts will be fruitless by the end of the day” “Wanna bet?” Chuuya smirked “You’re on!” Dazai returned the smirk “I’ll tell you who your target will be” . . . In which, Dazai and Chuuya are upto their old shenanigans and make a bet. As a result - Bonds are formed, secrets are revealed, money is spent, devious plans are concatenated; someone gets drugged, someone gets punched, someone gets a wakeup slap. And Chuuya's 'brute' image is at imminent risk. All of this - to with the bet!

~

Prey to Your Instincts by skylorr (Mature, 98k, 8/8) He was a beta. He was normal. Barely any scent, no cycles, no mating instincts. Just plain old normal. At least, that’s what he thought. He thought he was normal. But instead, Dazai is currently curled up on his single mattress in the shipping container that he calls home as he sweats profusely and struggles through cramps, pains, and the desire to nest. His mattress has a single thin blanket, which apparently does not satisfy the omega instincts trying to claw their way out of his mind. He was so close, too; days away from his 17th birthday, the birthday that would have officially made him a beta. Hope is a killer disease.

[sidenote: there is also a sequel to this fic that i recommend just as much! it's still a WIP <3]

~

Illustrations of Lying by writingfromtheshadows (Mature, 49k, 20/20) It is more difficult, perhaps, to bear with fortitude the little daily trails of life, than great calamities, because we summon up all our spiritual and moral strength to resist the latter...  Upon faced with the culmination of Mori's plan, Dazai does not go to Odasaku's side. Instead, he relieves Mori of his duties.

~

i'll bleed out for you by StarshipDancer @neonganymede (Mature, 75k, 7/7) What a shitty way to die.... Less than forty-eight hours ago, they’d been impaled together, and Chuuya had feared that the broken metal pole had pinned him in place against a corpse. Now, he worried that a corpse sat next to him, nothing more than a poorly-crafted imitation of his ex-partner. ... And what an even shittier situation to be stuck in. Or, A mission goes wrong, and Soukoku die together. Except, they don't, but now they're stuck in a safe house pretending that they did. And if Chuuya wants to find out what went wrong with Dazai's plan, he'll first have to find a way around the wall of silence that his former partner has built to keep him out.

~

Cigarette Game by chowderpuff (Teen and Up Audiences, 9k, 2/2) Chuuya has a crush on Dazai. Dazai knows this, and he thinks it’s a prime opportunity to mess with his partner a little. After all, why not? Chuuya’s reactions to his flirting are priceless, a new little bonus feature to the game between them, and Dazai actually starts to find it more entertaining than outright arguing. It’s all harmless fun until Dazai realizes that he has feelings too. Then it's decidedly not.

[ author's tumblrs are tagged when i could find them! if you know one who wasn't tagged or if you're an author and would like to be untagged, let me know! ]

[thetickleeraven]

Ticklish Tank

BG3 - Tav x Halsin x Astarion polycule

Summary: Tav is a strong, almost stoic leader and the tank of the party. Halsin, Tav, and Astarion are relaxing in a clearing in the forest when the two discover that Tav is ticklish. Tav is they/them, class and race unspecified but said to be a tank. [THIS IS A TICKLE FIC]

its literally been 11 months from my last fic and they may very well be my last tickle fic. idk we'll see how i feel. REMINDER THAT THIS BLOG WILL BE DELETED WITHIN THIS YEAR AND ALL MY FICS WILL BE ON AO3 FOREVER.

>>>BOOKMARK MY AO3 HERE<<<

---

The forest clearing is cool and quiet. In it stand three lovers: A druid, Halsin, admiring the beauty of nature at night; Astarion, a vampire basking in the moonlight; and Tav, a strong tank of a leader admiring the images of both their partners.

As Tav eyes the pale elf, Halsin approaches them from behind to wrap them in a hug.

The hug is a welcome surprise, as usual. However, not as usual, Halsin lays his hands on Tav's sides and notices them tense. He moves his hands down a bit and Tav begins squirming, cringes, and eventually jerks out of his hold with a smile giving away the reason.

Halsin is amused by Tav’s reaction. "Are you truly so sensitive that you couldn’t stand it?"

"What can’t they stand?" Astarion turns his attention to the two, curiosity piqued at the mention of their stoic leader presumably having some sort of weakness.

Tav's eyes widens knowing the last person who should know is Star.

"Our partner is just ticklish. That is all."

"Oh. That’s ‘all’ is it?" Astarion is suddenly predatory. Grinning like a wolf who happened on its prey. "I think we've just discovered our entertainment for the night."

"I-I'm not really ticklish." Tav curses inwardly for the stammer. "I'm just a little sensitive there, is all.

"Beloved, you and I both know that smile of yours gives it away. There is no need to be shy. Being ticklish is natural for you."

"No, I was smiling because you were hugging me, nothing more." They hold their hands up to defend theirself. They frustratingly couldn't wipe the smile off their face and a flurry of butterflies in their stomach, knowing what was probably coming.

"Oh, really now? is that why you're smiling still? With those pretty eyes of yours wide as saucers?" Astarion is stalking closer like an owlbear about to pounce.

Tav tries to suppress their smile as they slowly back away, and it almost works, until they see Astarion's fingers curl into claws. The knowledge that those swift thieving fingers would soon be prodding and poking all over Tav's (unfortunately) severely ticklish body was enough to swarm their belly with butterflies, almost tickling them from the inside out.

"I, myself, would love to hear you laugh. Throughout all our travels I don't think we've heard so much as a chuckle of you." Halsin muses.

"Yeah, you can keep dreaming." Tav turns to run, Astarion quick to follow. They dash through the clearing, Tav occasionally jumping over bushes or weaving through tress in order to get Astarion off their tail, though the elf is much too agile to be deterred that easily.. Halsin smiles, watching his lovers chase and play in the vast harmony of nature. It fills his heart, but he can't resist the thought of Tav laughing and beaming in the moonlight. With a wave of his hand, vines grow from the ground, tripping Tav in the middle of their chase, sending them flailing to the ground. Astarion leaps over the vines and skids to a stop, quickly dropping down to the ground and straddling their partner. Halsin quickly approaches the two, knowing the vampire, while capable, has no chance of holding down Tav on their own. He kneels next to the crown of Tav's head and wrestles their arms to the ground, holding them with his bear-like strength.

"This is ridiculous! I'm not even ticklish so this is a waste of time!" Tav protests, hoping somehow, against all odds, they can talk their way out of this.

"No amount of time spent touching your body is ever a waste of time." Halsin says.

"I must agree with our druid, darling. If you're not ticklish, well, you just get to enjoy having your lovers' hands all over you." Astarion raises his hands above Tav, fingers twitching as if they had a mind of their own just begging to make Tav squeal.

Tav feels their heart pumping and face heating up.

Their panic is interrupted by Halsin's low rumbling chuckle. "Red is a wonderful color on you, love."

"Oh, look. Our little pet is blushing, how disgustingly adorable."

"If you're just gonna compliment me, there's much more fun things we could be doing together." Tav tries to sound suave, hoping some flirtation and faux confidence could change their partners' minds to something else that doesn't involve them laughing their ass off.

"I agree. There is something fun we could be doing." Astarion smirks, a familiar flirty smirk that makes Tav think that maybe they've successfully deflected to that something else. Just as they're about to sigh in relief, Astarion's fingers dive towards their exposed ribs and start dancing and skittering across them, Tav's thin night shirt barely doing anything to dull the sensations.

Tav jolts violently and immediately chomps down on the inside of their cheek to keep from smiling or, gods forbid, giggling.

The scowl they planned to keep stays for about 2 seconds before morphing into a bright smile despite their best efforts.

Astarion has a look of unmatched glee at the strong reaction, knowing this is just the very beginning.

"Tav, it is alright to laugh. Don't fight your instincts. Just let it out." Halsin says with the fondest of smiles.

"It's like you don't know them at all. They're so focused on being a strong and great leader. They'd never give up so easily. Especially to something as silly and juvenile as tickling, am I correct?" Astarion says in that infuriatingly teasy tone only he can muster while his fingers continue to torment Tav's upper body.

"You are right, Astarion. They are notoriously stubborn."

"Remember how they said they weren't ticklish? So sure of theirself?"

"I do remember, yes." Halsin chuckles.

"Well..." Astarion coos in a sing-song voice as he puts more pressure in his pokes and prods. Tav's body instantly starts jerking and jolting side-to-side despite Tav trying to keep still and smooth their expression to nonchalance. However much they try, their eyes still crinkle, their smile still beam, their laugh lines still show.

"I suspect they might have been lying." Halsin raises an eyebrow with a radiant smile of his own as he gazes down at one of his loves.

"It's almost as if..." Astarion's fingers skitter up and down Tav's body, searching, hungry, for a good spot. "...they'll start laughing any second now."

Tav can't help it, when his fingers venture a little too high they let out a few very quick high-pitched giggles before chomping down on their lip.

The two ticklers expressions brighten victoriously.

"What's this? Is thiiiiiiis a good spot?" The vampire circles his index fingers around the hollows of Tav's armpits. Tav's eyes practically bug out of their skull and their frame begins shaking with barely contained laughter.

"I'd say so." Halsin says.

"Well then... I'd better not do this then!" Astarion, the evil EVIL bastard, begins scribbling his fingers across each armpit and poor poor Tav can't resist any longer. They explode into loud laughter interspersed with little fits of giggles before descending right back into helpless cackling. They yank on their arms and kick their feet, but nothing can stop those two.

Astarion grins a sadistic... yet somehow fond grin. Halsin's expression meanwhile melts into the sappiest and most endearing lovestruck look an elf could possibly muster.

"OHOHOHO MY GOHOHOHAHAHAHADS!" Tav fights hard, bucking, jerking, yanking, everything they can, but their partners didn't seem to care.

"What a lovely laugh you have there darling, though I could do with a lower volume." Astarion teases whilst his digits continue their mirthful torment.

"I have another idea." Halsin says with a smirk of his own.

"Oh, do tell." The rogue lifts his hands, mercifully giving Tav time to breathe.

"Y-You guys..." Tav takes a breath. "...are the worst."

"Careful what you say, darling. You might not like what comes next."

Tav bites their lip and resigns theirself to just catching their breath.

"Now, what was your idea?"

Halsin wordlessly waves his hand and lets the vines hold down Tav's wrists so he's handsfree.

"Oh hells, I can't take both of you." Tav whines.

"Oh, our poor leader, completely helpless. And they admit to not being able to take it? Now this is a side of you I could get used to."

Tav turns their face away, feeling it heat up again, though they're sure it was already red enough from the torture they just endured.

Halsin's form suddenly shifted and changed... he was using wildshape.

And the shape he chose?

The dire raven.

At first Tav didn't know where this was going. A bird? Why would a bird be the form to torture them?

"Oh, you are brilliant at this." Astarion giggles and reaches to the bird's wings who stretched them out for him. He then plucks...

Oh no.

The vampire now holds two long feathers, one in each hand.

Dread pools in Tav's gut along with another storm of butterflies.

Halsin shifts back to his elf form and lightly slides his fingertips across Tav's ribs. Tav can't hope to hold back, they're already broken. Tired helpless giggles spill from their mouth, causing both their tormentors to chuckle at the sight.

"You're a beautiful sight, indeed." Halsin continues gently sliding his fingers across Tav's body, lighting up their nerves like a cantrip.

"I wonder how you'll fare against these two little feathers? Surely the great Tav can take it, can't they?" The bastard slowly lowers the feathers... inching them closer to their underarms.

"No... no no noho nohoho-" Tav is positively giddy with anticipation, eyes glued to those damn things as they came closer... and closer...

"Tickle tickle, little pet." He begins fluttering the feathers agonizingly quick all across those two tickle spots.

Tav doesn't explode into laughter this time, rather bursts into a hysterical fit of unstoppable giggling. They shake, wiggle, and squirm as much as they can with a vampire straddling them and vines tight around their wrists.

"Gohohohods NOhohoho! Ihi- Ihihihi cahahahahan't!"

"Can't what, beautiful?"

Tav elects not to respond, instead succumbing to the giggle fit completely, almost sinking into the ground as they accept their mirthful fate.

It's almost relaxing. Despite the instinctive fighting their body does of its own accord, laughing uncontrollably is... soothing in some sort of way.

That is until Tav feels Halsin taking off their boots.

"NO! Nohoho no no NO! Hahahalsin Ihi swehehear on all Gohods in this realm ihihif you do thihihis Ihi wihihil kihihihick you!"

Astarion full on laughs at that, still not letting up on those godsdamned feathers. "Is this really all it takes? To get you to beg? To fall completely under our mercy?"

"I'll start soft. If you truly cannot take this, I think we'll know." Halsin laughs, knowing Tav has much more fight in them than what's being observed on this night.

All Halsin does is drag one fingertip from the heel to the toes.

"FUHUCK nohohohohahahaha! Hahahalsin!" Tav screeches, kicking as much as they can muster given the circumstances.

Astarion laughs hard, dropping the feathers to hold his stomach in sadistic cackling. "Yohohou're soho dead."

Halsin picks up one of the feathers and twirls it in his fingers. Tav had no idea the peaceful druid could be so cruel to his lover.

"Nohohoho-"

"Do it." Astarion snickers.

They truly were the metaphorical angel and devil on Halsin's shoulders. Torture Tav at their worst spot? Or let them go?

"Let's see if you can hold on a little more, then we'll let you go." Halsin says with a villainous smirk.

"Yes!"

"No!"

Devil it is.

All he does... all this elf does is start fluttering the feather over the arch of Tav's bare foot.

And in turn Tav begins thrashing uncontrollably, cackling and screeching helplessly. Tears of mirth are flying off their red hot face as its whipped from side to side and hiccups and wheezes litter their forceful laughs. The vines nearly snap from the tension. "STOHOHOHAHAHAP PLEHEHEHEASE!"

At that, the feather is dropped and Astarion, partially having been bucked off, is sitting on the grass to the side. After a few moments the vines are released and Tav curls into a ball, frantically rubbing the sensations on their soles away.

"Apologies, Tav. I believe... I believe I went too far." Halsin bows his head, regret evident.

"Oh, come off it. Sure it got a little extreme in the end but they were obviously enjoying it up until then." Astarion scoffs, though not without a sly smirk decorating his features.

"I... I was not-" Tav starts to object but is cut off with a quick fit of giggles as Astarion flutters his fingers just under their arm.

"Oh, you absolutely were. Don't even try to deny it."

Tav lays on their back, utterly exhausted. "...Was it that obvious?"

The two ticklers laugh.

"You could've made it clear in the beginning that it would make you uncomfortable. You know as well as we do that we would've listened."

"Plus those vines? With enough effort you could've snapped those before we brought out the feathers." Astarion snarks.

Tav shivers at the mention of those feathers. Gods they could practically still feel them.

Astarion snorts at their reaction.

"I believe we've disproved your lie." Halsin says smugly.

"Do it say it aloud, darling. You know we'd love to hear it."

Tav feels the return of those butterflies.

"Fine. I'm extremely ticklish. Happy?"

"Quite." Astarion pokes Tav's underarm, causing even more giggles. "I do hope you're aware this will become a regular occurrence now."

"I'd have to agree. This was most enjoyable... for everyone involved." Halsin nods.

"No more tonight." Tav yawns. "I'm more tired than when we fought that entire goblin camp in one day." They say groggily, eyes slowly falling.

Halsin chuckles and wildshapes into his bear form, laying on his side so his two lovers could lay on his warm furry body and fall asleep.

"Night night, Tav. Who knows what will await you come morning." Astarion sings.

Tav doesn't even respond, already out for the night.

And so the polycule slumbers for whatever awaits them tomorrow. (Probably more tickling)

[android-and-ale]

My Philon Awards Spirk Fic and Art Recs (Updated)

EDIT: Updated to include art links! Scroll down to feast your eyes!

It's Philon Awards Season! I'm going through my bookmarks trying to decide how to narrow down the many, MANY amazing fics and art I've voraciously consumed.

If you're not deep in the fandom you might not have heard of the awards. They're given at KisCon, the annual Kirk/Spock convention in Seattle. However, they're open to nomination and voting by anyone who enjoys Spirk, no convention membership required!

Click Here for a link where you can learn all about the categories and access the anonymous google form to nominate your favorites. You don't have to attend the con to vote. It's open to all Spirk loving fans!

I've assembled my own short list below. It doesn't begin to cover all the great fics published in the last year, and for some of these writers narrowing it down to only a couple nominations each was incredibly hard! (For the official nominations ballot, you can only chose a max of 3.)

Whether or not any thing below makes it onto your personal nominations lists, please check them out. This has been a great year in the fandom!

Short Fic (under 10K):

Lost and Found in Translation by @indeedcaptain

How to Win Plants and Influence Lizards by @indeedcaptain

We Need Disposable Towels In The Gym by @affixjoy

Baby It's Cold Outside by ChancelorGriffen/SpaceIsGay

Here We Go Again Again Again Again Again Again Again Again (Again Again) by @flippyspoon

Melting Snow, Sweat, and Other Dripping Fluids by CampySpaceSlime

Long Fic (10K - 50K):

The Yeomen of the Garden by @cicaklah

Get Some by @flippyspoon

Please Don't Take Him Just Because You Can by ChancelorGriffen/SpaceIsGay

Way from Within by @gunstreet

Sugar In Your Hand by @werewolves-are-real

Don't You Know Me by @strangenewwords

Hurt by @therebewhaleshere

Novels (over 50K):

The Exiles by @jennelikejennay

The Recitation of Names by @jennelikejennay

Regulatory Relations by @indeedcaptain

(note: the author says RR will be complete before the end of the nomination period)

Mol-Kur by @uhuraprime

Of Trees And Telepathy by StupidCat

Traditional Art:

Untitled Nude Spock in Pencil by Florian/spirk-ny-love

The Ritual by Purple Enma

The Birth of Adam As Spirk by garneneva

A Piece of the Action by red-cicada

Untitled Spock as a Satyr by USS Genderprise

Untitled Pencil Screenshot Redraw by catloverkid00

Digital Art:

Captain's Gambit by Lorvee

Vulcan's Forge by CelestialVoyeur

Video of "Birdhouse in your soul" with Spirk art they drew by Knifecat111

Untitled Amok Time Portrait by Gensho

This Time In Front of the Klingons by Honey Ginsen

Untitled Shore Leave Gift by Eldar-of-Zemlya

A Barrier by iskander-tm

Kill Your Captain by asyncamestel

Untitled Plato's Stepchildren Art by daekiyu

Untitled Pride Month Pinky Kiss by who-i-am-is-who-i-am

(I might have to roll a D10 to pick my favorite art for the official nomination form. It's been such a good year, and so much stuff scrolls past with only a few seconds of appreciation. Treat yourself to another look!)

Shameless Self Recs (both fics under 10K):

And Filled With Tomorrows by me

Replicator Roulette by me

If you're looking for some great new fic, please read the back catalog of FlippySpoon, Moreta1848, IndeedCaptain, Gunstreet, SpaceIsGay, and the entire One Man series by Cicak. It's all so good! (All links take you to their AO3.)

THESE RECS ARE BY NO MEANS COMPREHENSIVE!

This has been a bumper year for Spirk! I'm about to write a follow up post with stats, but FWIW, based on AO3 posts, this is the most active the fandom has been in over a decade! 2024 is the year we feast!

[littlelostmabari]

Some Galemancing fluff for @sorceresssundries and @miradelletarot and @gale-force-storm who fill my dash so reliably with the delicious wizard.

Gale x f!Reader, post-epilogue. (Reader unnamed, referred to as she/her/wife) Word Count: 2.2k

Edit: Now on AO3!

The evening sun threatens to kiss the horizon across the bay of Waterdeep as you weave your fingers through the feathery fur of your favorite four-legged companion.

Well, the closest four-legged companion, you laugh to yourself as you hear a familiar roar from a floor above where Karlach and the owlbear were no doubt tussling in the arcane arena your darling wizard had installed in the upper levels of his newly conjured tower. She arrived from Avernus a few hours ago with some rage to burn, and Nugget was always willing to practice new ways to defend his nest. His home.

“Your hand is on the page, pet,” Tara purrs. Your thoughts are quickly brought back to the balcony and the sunset, your hand naturally moving back to the delicate fur on the top of Tara’s head. You run her fingers down the tressym’s neck and back, finally scratching the base of Tara’s tail — just as you know she likes it — before resting back on the bench. You’ve purposefully avoided Tara’s reading material this time. The apprentice Aribella rests on her stomach on the ground nearby, her legs kicking up into the air as she hems and haws over the bud that won’t quite open into bloom from her palm. The violent magic of nature's wrath had been easy for her to draw on after her experience with the druid totem, but under Gale’s tutelage she was slowly learning the calmer patterns of the Weave. She focuses intently on her latest homework to druidcraft a flower crown for her constant canine companion.

Speaking of, Scratch had been noticeably absent from Aribella’s side. You feel a frown cross your face, and find your eyes drawn deeper into the dim light of the tower. The study had slowly gotten messier the longer you had lived there, an awesome wreck after only a few months (although Gale often commented that since there was a wide pathway through the mess, technically it wasn’t hoarding). Aribella devoured books the same way Tav imagined Gale did at her age. There were tomes lying on every surface: open, closed, dog-eared, bookmarked, stacked to the ceiling. No one but Gale and Aribella knew which projects were active and which had been discussed, debated, discarded.

The piano in the corner played a new tune, a soft baudy jingle that you had accidentally brought home from your most recent night out with Alfira and the other tiefling refugees from the Grove. No, not refugees, not anymore. They had found their homes in Baldur’s Gate, and you visited the Elfsong Tavern as often as you could — you knew all Alfira’s songs at this point but loved absorbing the joy from the room as she played... But the piano had a terrible habit of catching any tune hummed in its presence, a constant bittersweet reminder of the distance to your friends.

Not seeing a white furry tail wagging from this distance, you murmur an apology to Tara, who fluffs her feathers indignantly. She digs claws just the other side of painfully into your lap as if to dare you to get up. Knowing she will be just fine without you, you take in one hand your empty wine glass, then close your eyes and gently tug on your connection to the Weave. A misty step cruelly leaves Tara with only a conjured pillow for comfort. Tara would call it cruel, anyway, regardless of Gale’s gentle warming spell that forever permeated the pillow slip. The tressym narrows her eyes without leaving her most recent tome — her only other reaction reaching out with a back leg to scratch a spot behind her ear.

With a chuckle, you absentmindedly bring the glass to your lips, remembering at once that it was empty. To the kitchen then.

The noise is the first thing to reach you. It is uncommonly loud for your little tower (ignoring the more recent arcane stories), even considering its normal inhabitants. You had grown used to raucous laughter from your many adventures, but it had been too long since it echoed within these walls. You pause with one hand just barely touching the door into the parlor, smiling contently as a soft memory of bedrolls and looted wine and butter buns crosses the forefront of your memory.

“And then… and then…” you hear Wyll’s tenor deep into another story, laughing so hard he can’t find the words. “The kid asks me if I’ve ever bested an owlbear!” Another ringing laugh joins in, then, and you find yourself pushing the door open. Your eyes land first on your dearest, closest friend, currently desperately trying to pat down a growing wine spill on the ruffles of her white shirt. Shadowheart brushes hair and tears out of her eyes. “I’m sure you then told the poor lad that you fought back-to-back with an armored Nugget? Just to see the soul leave his eyes?”.

Wyll nods. “I did, I did! And the kid just stood there staring at me… and then he turned on his heel and left the tavern! Fool trying to out-match the Blade of Avernus!” The two dissolve into another fit of giggles, uninterrupted by your entrance into the parlor. The door swings shut behind you with a soft reverberation, and Shadowheart’s eyes brighten to meet yours. She points at her shirt and winks; you gently pluck at the Weave and the wine stain is gone, prestidigitated to wherever those lost memories go. You reach out for Shadowheart… before ducking the hug and stealing her wine glass. A hearty laugh follows you to the other side of the parlor as Shadowheart rises from her stool and chases after you with a sudden hug from behind. You feel the soft echo of magic between the two of you, knowledge of each other harmonizing. Wyll swings around the table to refill both glasses, a lingering kiss on your cheek on the way.

“I’m so glad you both made it,” you smile to two of your dearest friends. “I heard Karlach come in earlier, she’s still upstairs.”

Wyll nods. “We missed Mizora by this much,” he sighs, bringing his pointer finger and thumb to a centimeter apart before looking up and out to the entrance to the upper floors. “She’ll be alright come dinnertime.”

“And who exactly are we having for dinner tonight?” a smirking voice sings from the end of the room as the door to the bustling outside world closes with a sharp click. His arrival had been expected… arrived last night in fact, with business in Waterdeep important enough to go out cloaked rather than waiting for the sun to set.

“Depends, Astarion, would you prefer the red wine or the white? I’m sure Gale could make some recommendations,” Shadowheart snorts. Laughter meets the wrinkle of Astarion’s nose as he removes his deep purple enchanted cloak to hang at the side. There are still too few outer layers missing from the coat closet --- friends yet to arrive for the celebration.

As if summoned by the hungry rumble of your belly — and knowing your husband, it probably was — a platter of cheese, cured meats, and pickled bits and bobs appeared within arms reach. Shadowheart and Wyll lunge in competition for first taste, and you decide you'd prefer your first bite directly from the source. 

The kitchen is only across the hall, a single sip of wine away. Laughter fades gently into the clink of dishware and the soft hum of another song you had brought home from the Gate. This one was a moving tune in three-four time, and the soft pat of house shoes suggested the kitchen's occupant was floating about his dinner prep with perfect rhythm. 

You push the door open gently, mindful of its creak so as to not disrupt one of your favorite sights in this tower. His hands are in his hair, again, pulling another traitorous lock back from where it had escaped from the bun he sports when he is at his most focused. You had left him to his work this afternoon, as he had requested, which meant no one had been around to tell him which spots of gray were his natural coloring and which were simply dashes of flour. The chorus of the waltz rises, his hands back at his hips as he surveys another recipe written carefully by his mother into a book that was so lovingly used you'd insisted on rebinding last year for his nameday. He balances on the balls of his feet, prepared to move the moment he knows what comes next. 

Time slows around you as you watch him slide between dishes, one stirred with mage hand, another whipped by an unseen servant. He tastes each, seasons one, and spins through a crescendo in the source-less music, intent on the oven. It is in this turn that he spies you leaning against the wall with the door closed softly behind you. 

If the kitchen had been completely frozen over, his smile would have melted it all away in an instant. 

“My love!”

You can feel the effort it takes for him to drag his eyes away from you, but a short ring from the oven indicates something desperately needs his attention more than you.

He pulls a kitchen towel from the ether and wrestles the roast from the oven under his own power. His mother insists that this particular recipe out of all of those tucked away in her book must be done with mortal, mundane hands. When it is safely secured on the trivet (quickly set in place by an unseen servant), he brushes the day's mess from his palms and rushes to your side. 

“As always you have the most impeccable timing, my darling.” 

Gale has many different kisses, you have come to learn. Some, like those he left on your forehead and nose and lips this morning as he crawled from bed, ignoring your pleas to sleep in, were soft and kind and loving. Those kisses were reserved for sleepy minds and moments in between moments. Others, like those you anticipated would follow the last of your friends succumbing to slumber this evening, were deep and pressing. Those kisses begged for the barriers between two souls alight with desire to be sundered so that the two could become a single being of light and love. 

And then there were the kisses like the one he pressed into you now. These were promises of tonight and tomorrow and the next day and next year and forever. These were the kisses that made you hope, that drove your soul to the gentle smile of one who loves and is loved in return. It was the kind of kiss that he had pulled you into when Shadowheart had called out to the temple “man and wife”. 

One hand reaches down to your waist, pulling you away from the wall and into the warmth of his body. The other passes up to your jawline where his fingers press gently into the back of your neck. When he finally relents, a crooked grin alights across his face. He has evidently left something of dinner behind on your jaw, which he wipes away with a quick rub of his thumb, and with a soft breath he brings to your lips. The taste is sour and sweet, the tang of lemon and honey glaze — 

“I believe that particular flavor is meant for the roast, my dear,” you murmur, pressing your tongue against the flat of his thumb.

“Ah, you would be correct. The time is long past that I attempt to improve upon a lover's perfection.” He leans in and presses more than casually into your core, his next murmurs meant for your ears only with how he nibbles gently on your neck. “Besides, I have other flavors in mind when it comes to complementing your particular essence…

“But!” He pushes away suddenly, and you have to catch yourself from falling into the space he leaves. “That discussion must be put on pause for the time that our long-awaited guests have found their lodgings and I am able to devote my full attention away from this feast.” His smile and the crinkles around his eyes betray his teasing — you both know you must leave him to work if your guests are to be fed anywhere near on time. He leans in only once more to press a kiss of the first kind onto the tip of your nose, and then rapidly shoves a basket of garlic and spring onion rolls into your unoccupied hand. “I am certain my beloved has many a song or story that can distract from her husband's deplorable time management.”

A sizzle of an over-boiled pot pulls his attention away. You linger just long enough to see that errant lock fall back into his face once more, before you turn toward the door and hallway that will allow your return to the gentle bubble of companionship. 

You should enjoy the evening with your dearest friends, for Gale will be here tomorrow when they have left — some for Avernus, others for the Gate, and others back to lives hidden and quiet. 

When they are gone, Gale will remain, and perhaps you will learn what his newest kisses taste like. 

[apomaro-mellow]

Hot for Teacher(s) 9

Part 8 / AO3 Link

Eddie felt like he blacked out. One moment he was on stage, playing his heart out, the next, Steve was leading him by the hand back to his car. Eddie had come to the venue with one of his bandmates, instruments in the back. When they got to Steve’s car, the keys were put in his hand.

“Your place”, Steve said, going around to the passenger side.

Eddie nodded hurriedly and in a rush of movements, they were off. He worried for a split second about the state of his apartment but those thoughts were pushed out when he felt Steve’s hand on his thigh. In the close space of the car, Eddie could smell him so deeply. He took a deep breath. 

“You looked great up there”, Steve said. “Have you been playing long?”

“Since I was a kid”, Eddie answered, wishing with all his might that they could get a red light just so he could look at Steve at least once. It had been only a few minutes but even that was too long. “My mom put a guitar in my hand and it was like…nothing was ever the same.”

“A natural.” Steve started to stroke his thigh. 

They came to an apartment complex and Eddie led the way up to the third floor. They got to his place and he paused as he unlocked the door. He turned to Steve with a sheepish expression.

“Gimme just one minute.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Eddie, I live with a child. A little untidiness isn’t going to turn me off.”

“I’d rather not welcome comparisons to a kid”, Eddie said.

“Fair enough. Go on, go and spruce it up before I see.”

Eddie thanked him and then went inside. Steve could hear movement from behind the door and after about a minute, Eddie opened it again. Steve took everything in and looked around. It had the makings of the usual bachelor pad, everything here was clearly Eddie’s. All meant for a single alpha. He smiled when he saw the teacher manuals, bookmarks sticking out from the lesson he’d left off at. 

Part of him wanted to explore some more, see all the little pieces of Eddie that could be found. But then there was a warmth against his back and a nose at his neck. Eddie’s arms snaked around his waist.

“I’d love to give you the grand tour. Starting with the bedroom~”

“I bet you say that to all the groupies.”

“You’re the only one hot enough to make it this far”, Eddie said, turning Steve in his arms. “And you didn’t even have to throw me your panties.”

“Hmm, sounds to me like you don’t even want them tossed to you”, Steve teased. “And after all the trouble I went through…”

“‘Trouble’?”, Eddie perked at that.

“Lead the way.”

Eddie released Steve, holding his hand only to take him to his bedroom. Steve closed the door behind them and then pushed Eddie onto the bed. Eddie leaned back on his elbows to watch Steve make a show of removing his jacket and shirt. Then he unbuttoned his pants and Eddie saw a sneak peek of what was to come. Steve licked his lips as he watched the alpha’s eyes darken and the scent of arousal began to fill the room.

Steve took off everything else, leaving only the black thong. The darkness of the fabric meant that Eddie couldn’t see the wet patch between his legs. But the way his nostrils flared, he could probably smell it. Steve walked closer and Eddie sat up, his hands moving reverently like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to touch.

Taking the initiative, Steve brought Eddie’s hands to his hips. Eddie licked his lips as his eyes traveled up and down the other man’s body, lingering on what must be a sopping wet cunt. He swallowed thickly. 

“When was the last time someone ate you out baby?”

“Well-”, Steve was saved from answering by Eddie diving face first, mouthing at his crotch like a man starved. His knees buckled and one hand went to Eddie’s shoulder while the other went to the back of his head, cradling it there. 

Eddie had been able to smell his wetness. Now he could actually feel and taste it. And it was so. Fucking. Good. He lifted one of Steve’s legs over his shoulders to spread him even more, still licking the fabric and sucking him through it. Eddie felt the leg by his ear tremble and he looked up. The purr that left his body, seeing Steve enraptured because of him, it must’ve traveled from his throat to his lips because Steve let out a purr of his own.

Steve felt Eddie pulled off and nearly let out a whine when he found himself on the bed. His legs must’ve been weaker than he’d thought if he was able to be moved like that. Eddie kissed him sweetly and then kissed down his neck, to his chest. 

“How the hell do you still have so many clothes?”, Steve breathed out.

“Natural talent”, Eddie winked. But he was beginning to overheat, so he paused to started undressing himself. He moved just a tad slower when he realized Steve’s hand was between his legs, stroking himself. 

“Careful Mr. Harrington. I might need to start charging you for the show.”

Steve snickered. “Please do not call me ‘Mr. Harrington’. Makes me think of my students.”

“Alright”, Eddie stripped off the last bit of clothing. “How’s about baby?” He kissed Steve’s ankle. “Or sweetheart?” He kissed his calf. “Angel face?” He gave one of Steve’s thighs a soft bite.

“Yes.”

Eddie peeled off the thong, duty completed and watched a string of slick try to stay attached. It was soaked from them both and Eddie was fighting the urge to stuff his face in it and he wondered how attached Steve was to this particular piece of underwear.

“I can tell you wanna lick it”, Steve said. “But wouldn’t you rather have the real thing?” He used his fingers to spread himself and a thick drop of pre cum dripped from Eddie’s cock. 

Permission given, Eddie dove in, his hips rutting against the bed as he ate Steve out. It was so soft and warm, he felt like he could get lost in it. All Steve saw was a mop of dark curls between his legs but he could feel everything Eddie was doing and it made him see stars. He felt something else prod him and when he looked down, Eddie was gazing up at him, asking with his eyes while his lips were wrapped around his clit.

Steve nodded and then he felt a finger push inside. Eddie treated him gentle, which Steve appreciated. He’d done his best to prep for the night, knowing what he wanted. But the fact that Eddie was taking his time, was enjoying the scenic route. Whenever his mouth left his pussy it was to lick his thighs, to kiss his hips, even to nuzzle his bush like every part of him was worth savoring.

During all this, he spread Steve open, bringing him to the brink before pulling back. Steve wanted to be frustrated but he liked going the long way. No rush, no fuss. He was more than happy to cum on Eddie’s cock. If it was like this now…he could only imagine during a heat or a rut.

Steve was lost in the thought as Eddie pulled his fingers out and reached for a condom. Steve sat up a little and held a hand out.

“Let me.”

When Eddie handed it to him, Steve took his time too. He got up on his knees and scented Eddie’s neck. That aroma was no longer just safety when he was on the brink of rejection sickness. It was a deep fondness, a strong attraction, and the utmost trust. Steve licked his throat and collarbone while looking down and placing the condom onto him. Even just the feather light touches were almost too much for him and he sucked in a breath.

“You don’t know what you do to me, sweetness”, he said as he laid kisses on Steve’s shoulder.

Steve used his fingertip to play with Eddie’s tip. “I think I have an idea.”

Eddie pushed him back down and lined himself up. He waited for Steve’s nod and then began to push inside. Steve waited until he was fully inside and then wrapped both his arms and legs around him.

“Feels so good, you’re so deep, fuck.”

Eddie growled in his ear as he started to move. Steve smelled so delicious. Eddie’s nose was pressed into his neck, fighting the urge to bite, to claim him, to make Steve his own. Steve wasn’t helping things by actually baring it to him, back arching as they pushed and pulled into each other. Everything about Steve was telling him to do it, to seal the deal.

Everything but Steve’s own words.

So Eddie stayed his teeth. But he was going to make sure that before the night was through that Steve would be carrying his scent home with him.

Steve was no nun, there had been partners after Billy, here and there, and of course, he had his own heats to deal with. But nothing could have prepared him for the way his orgasm crashed over him when Eddie thrusted just right. He scratched down his back (he’d apologize later) as his cunt squeezed down, trying to take his knot and milk it for everything.

He was still riding the wave when he felt that knot finally come inside and Eddie bit down on his shoulder as he came. For a few moments, all they did was breathe together. Eddie brushed the sweaty hairs away from Steve’s forehead and kissed it. Words lingered on his lips. Words that felt too heavy to say. So for now, he would let his body do the talking.

There was a split second where Eddie thought of everything the words might entail - changing his address, being a sudden parent to a six year old and all that it required, Steve learning about him and vice versa. It all sounded too good to be true. Definitely not the kind of pillow talk after having sex for the first time. So all he said was:

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to pop it in like that”, he said, moving them to their sides.

“It’s fine. Not like I’m going anywhere soon. Hope you weren’t expecting to kick me outta bed.”

“Honey, it’s all yours. I’ll give you the deed and everything.”

“Actually, did you know that until the 50’s there was something called ‘common scent law’ that-no wait, nevermind”, Steve covered his face with his hand. 

Eddie knew that look. The ‘I had to learn something to teach my students and now I have an abundance of knowledge on this obscure subject’. He pushed a lock of Steve’s hair behind his ear and then kissed the hand that was hiding his face.

“We’re gonna be here a while, sweetness. Go ahead and tell me about now defunct laws.”

The way Steve melted, Eddie wished he could bottle it up and keep it forever.

Part 10 coming soon

Tags

@anne-bennett-cosplayer @aol19 @lololol-1234 @gregre369 @attic-cat-blog

@hippieg1rl420 @spectrum-spectre

[jolalibrary]

I’m embarrassed to ask but so many fav’s are going there so how do you use ao3?

hello hello!

do not be embarrassed at all! and hopefully, i can try and help.

now, i wish to preface this by saying there's likely guides already on tumblr and i don't mean to be rehashings what they might already say/have shared, but I'm going to try and give a run down of things that might help. now, I've done this as if you're a reader, but if you're a writer and want help, pop back in!

I asked my good friend @toomanytookas for help with this one so I knew we was covering off a lot and she lovingly helped me with finding some additional resources to support my bits!

searching for your people

there are a few different search options available on AO3 to find the things you want. if you know the name of the user, you can use the search bar (as seen below).

or if you're after a certain pairing, you can use the search option.

you can then search from: works, bookmarks, tags or people.

i tend to use "works" but, others may have their own preferences. but i find this is the easiest way for me to find the things i'm after.

i don't tend to fill in every bit of info, but the ones i do are in 'work tags':

fandoms

relationships

additional tags

i might check 'single chapter' (in work info) if i just want to read a one shot, but most of the time i just see what spits up. for me, additional tags is what makes navigating AO3 so much easier because I can filter by a trope (friends to lovers, colleagues, second chances) or i can filter by a "mood" (smut, fluff etc.). when you've filled in your desired bits you can click search and then your results will show.

ANOTHER great way to search is if you already know the pairing you're after. so say you're reading a Francisco morales x reader and you want MORE of that, click that tag on a piece of work and a new search will show up of all the works with that pairing.

you then have a new filter choice on the right where you can 'exclude' tags or characters too.

there's also this guide i found from 2020!

there’s also this way of searching too! with an addition from @burntheedges

another cool resource on excluding too

-

2. supporting your people

so, you've found yourself a writer you adore, and you've read a piece of their work. if this is a one shot, you can:

drop a kudos (like a like, but you can only ever give it once)

leave a comment (even writing "love it" or an emoji makes a day)

bookmark (this is more for you if you loved it, you can bookmark things and they save to YOUR bookmarks and you can read again without searching for it - like a lil library)

now, say that piece is a multi-chap/collection, and you want to subscribe and be notified, you can 'subscribe' at the top of the fic

bookmarks do not notify you of a new chapter, but a subscribe will.

if you love the writer and want to know as soon as they drop anything, you can click their name, go to their profile and click 'subscribe' just under their name in the top right.

here’s a resource too!!

here’s a resource on why bookmarks/comments are cool

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3. going back in time... the AO3 way

okay, we've all been there when you're engrossed in something and then life happens and you close a tab or your phone crashes (tumblr app, grr) and then the work is lost. on AO3, if you're logged in, you have a thing called 'my history' and in this is every work you've clicked on. wahay! this has saved me so often because i flick between phone and laptop a lot.

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4. a final thing to be aware of...

warnings - a writer can choose to give a warning to the piece. many will use 'creator chose not to use archive warnings' or 'no archive warnings apply', but there are a few to keep an eye out for, such as:

graphics depiction of violence

major character death

rape/non-con

underage

'choose not to use warnings' is a read at your own risk, and i always recommend checking out the additional tags for the piece just so you know if there's any trigger warnings.

a resource on excluding (mentioned above too)

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this is just a top level thought process of what i thought might help, but if there's any specific questions i will deffo try to help. this resource has a ton of helpful things too. there's also AO3 FAQs which might be able to help if i didn't actually help. and this absolutely brilliant guide created too!

thank you for the ask, and happy AO3'ing 🧡

[whyisaravenlike-awritingdesk]

In My Civilization You’re the King and the Queen (ao3)

For day 7 of @cassianappreciationweek ❤️ (if you thought Semper Eadem was self-indulgent, this is a whole other level...)

When a favour for Rhys brings historian Cassian up to the special Manuscripts reading room at the British Library, he crosses paths with the formidable - and beautiful - archivist, who isn't at all pleased when this towering and tattooed newcomer badly handles one of her Anglo-Saxon treasures.

Cassian’s eyes hurt.

He didn’t know how it was possible— he’d only been working for two hours but, he supposed, staring grimly at the pile of books still waiting on his borrowed desk, he’d spent every moment of those two hours scanning page after page of printed text, looking up only to type up his notes. Given the fact that his head was spinning and his water bottle remained sealed away in the lockers downstairs, forbidden in any of the library’s reading rooms, it was probably no wonder that the two hours he’d been there was already starting to feel like two years.

How do you get a headache in your fucking eyes, anyway?

God— he needed a break. 

The pulsing at his temples was the nudge he needed to push away from his desk with a final, cursory look at the stack of material on twentieth-century warfare, closing his laptop with a gentle snap that seemed to resound through the carefully maintained silence. The single blunt pencil he’d brought with him was left on the desk beside the small notebook he’d scribbled in; a silent I’ll be back soon conveyed in the piece of paper he’d used as a bookmark and tucked between the pages of the book he’d just been rifling through like his career depended on it. 

Given the current state of the higher education job market, perhaps his career did depend on it. 

He didn’t let loose the derisive snort that bloomed in his throat as that thought crossed his mind. Instead he kept his steps silent as he abandoned his desk, cutting through the expansive, high-ceilinged space filled with sunlight streaming in from the high windows. On all sides he was surrounded by the rustle of pages turning, of wooden seats creaking, of fingers typing rapidly on keyboards— and Cassian breathed it all in, drawing it deep into his lungs in the hope that it might chase away the headache before it could take root. 

As a historian, he wouldn’t ever deny the thrill that research gave him.

He slipped out of the first-floor reading room in silence, and only when he was outside, standing in the cool hallway that seemed to echo with a hundred voices drifting up from the foyer below, did he let loose a breath. Already the headache was starting to subside, like all he’d really needed was some fresh air, and in the brief respite he allowed himself before he returned to his desk, he leaned against the wall and pulled his phone from his pocket. 

He was only half surprised to find a message waiting from Rhys. 

Are you at the BL today?

Cassian rolled his eyes before sending back an affirmative. Yes— he was at the BL, or the British Library. The home of thousands upon thousands of books and historical artefacts, including the journals Cassian needed to write his latest article and the hand-written accounts of some soldiers present at the Somme which would form the basis of a conference paper he planned to give in the spring. 

Almost immediately, Rhys responded.

Remember that favour you promised me last year? I’m calling it in.

Against the pale stone wall, Cassian blinked warily at the message chain, wondering what in all seven hells Rhys wanted this time. A senior lecturer at the same university, Rhys was a historian of language and literature, already well on the way to a professorship in some stuffy department that somehow saw twice the amount of funding as Cassian’s modern history department, despite receiving less than half the number of students. Cassian often imagined his brother’s office hours to be little more than him donning a velvet smoking jacket, legs crossed whilst seated in a leather armchair before a roaring fireplace. What are your conferences like, he teased Rhys often, Mr-fucking-Tolkien?

Rhys only ever rolled his eyes and launched into a pre-prepared lecture about the fucking structure and etymology of Beowulf or something. 

But before he had chance to ask what, exactly, it was that Rhys wanted, the bastard was already calling. 

“Why do you only ever call me when you want something?” Cassian asked as he picked up the call, tucking it between his ear and shoulder as he pushed off the wall and made for the spiral staircase that would take him down to his locker. 

“I do not,” Rhys insisted, his voice thick with indignation. “You know I love you like a brother.”

Cassian only hummed, and in answer Rhys let out a short laugh that echoed down the line. From that alone, Cassian knew Rhys was in his office on campus. Cassian had to share an office that was roughly the size of a fucking postage stamp with another member of the modern history department, but Rhys— oh, Rhys had a sprawling office on the top floor, with a sash window that looked out over the green, and ceilings so high that his voice tended to echo. 

Bastard.

“There’s a manuscript I need you to call up from the stacks for me,” he said, his voice growing distant, like he’d left his phone on speaker on his desk as he paced around his palatial office. “The archivist is dragging her feet and says there’s a ten-day wait for scans of the pages I need. I can’t wait that long, Cass, and I won’t get chance to get down there myself and see the thing in person.”

Cassian sighed. “So?”

“So I need you to request the manuscript and take some photos of it for me.”

“Can’t you just promise a big donation to help speed things along?”

Rhys snorted. “I tried. She wasn’t having it.” A brief pause followed— one where Rhys’ footsteps sounded, growing closer to the phone, and when he next spoke his voice was clearer, louder, like he’d taken it off speaker. “Would it help if I said please?”

Cassian let out a laugh of his own, equally as dry and echoing on the smooth floor of the hallway outside the locker room. “It might be a start, yeah.”

“Look, I’ll send you all the details. All you’ll need to do is take the manuscript out, and take some photos of like, ten pages for me.”

Cassian sighed, pinching his brow as he thought of all the work he had to get through himself, and any hopes he’d had of an early finish dried up like an abandoned well. 

“That means I’ll have to go to Manuscripts, Rhys. Fucking Manuscripts.”

It was, truly, Cassian’s worst nightmare. 

Manuscripts was the reading room tucked into a corner on the top floor, a mezzanine that stuck out two levels above the ordinary reading room, like the scholars using it quite literally enjoyed looking down upon the rest. Reserved for those consulting the oldest and rarest of texts, it was far smaller than the other reading rooms below it, with a low ceiling that gave the place a feeling of closeness that was ludicrous considering the size of the building. It made him shudder just to think about it. He’d been there only once before, when Rhys had dragged him in as part of a joint research trip, and Cassian had suddenly understood why Rhys was so damned stuffy. 

It was like a fucking advertisement for tweed, in there. 

He huffed heavily, and Rhys laughed again, his voice distant once more.

Bastard.

“Mhm,” he answered, clearly distracted already. Cassian heard typing, and knew that Rhys had already started working again, his phone likely discarded on his desk as he waited for Cassian to agree. With a scowl, Cassian headed for his locker and punched in the code, slamming the door when he’d fished his water bottle from his bag. 

“You owe me,” Cassian hissed. “You won that favour in a bet and this is way beyond—“

“I’ll send you the details,” Rhys cut in breezily, his voice practically fucking melodic with victory. “Oh and Cass? Tell the archivist I said hi.”

***

As soon as Rhys sent over the manuscript’s details, Cassian put in the damned request.

Back at his desk, he didn’t bother to read the brief description of the manuscript on the archive catalogue before submitting, but he glimpsed the words tenth-century and groaned so loudly it earned him a scowl from the library’s patrons on either side of him. 

Already he’d begun to pray that the request might be rejected— after all, even though his reader’s card granted him access to the collection - and the letter of introduction he’d provided years ago extended his access even further - there was still no guarantee he’d be cleared to work with a document that old without the archivist asking questions. It was older than anything else he’d ever touched by a solid nine centuries, and even though his account no doubt listed his status as a professional historian, well…

For once, Cassian thought, Rhys might just have to be disappointed.

He flicked his eyes up to the mezzanine jutting out over the reading room, suppressing a sigh before turning back to his own work instead of focusing on Rhys’. 

It was three hours before he checked the request status, crossing his fingers beneath the desk as the page loaded. Rejected, he thought. Please be rejected.

He’d have time to kill before his train home. Could swing by a nice cafe, or grab a beer at Coal Drops Yard before catching a train at King’s Cross. Hell, if he walked the other way, he could even call to the British Museum for an hour, given that it was open late on Fridays. He could relax after a day spent reading harrowing accounts of twentieth century battlefields, and—

Ready to collect.

There, right in the status bar; three little words that derailed what had, for a moment, promised to be fucking lovely evening. 

Cassian scowled. 

Around him the library was entirely silent apart from the soft clacking of keyboards and the rustle of turning pages and as the afternoon neared four-thirty, most of the patrons began to pack up and think about going home. But before Cassian could so much as glare at that mezzanine for a hundredth time—

His phone screen lit up with a text from Rhys.

Don’t forget my manuscript, he’d written.

Prick, Cassian answered. 

***

“I have a request,” he said ten minutes later, standing at the desk on that mezzanine floor.

He’d already had to sanitise his hands before entering - once he’d asked Rhys why they didn’t wear gloves like they do on TV, and he’d received a ten-minute lecture about the fragility of vellum and the friction created by gloves - and flash his pass at the security guard sitting by the door, watching like a hawk.

Dragons, Cassian thought. The fucking lot of them— like dragons hoarding treasure up here.

But the woman behind the desk had her arms full with a bound manuscript that was easily two feet long, and for a moment she ignored him entirely as her fingers curled gracefully around the navy-blue binding. She carried it like it was nothing, held it like something precious close to her chest, and for a moment Cassian simply watched her, tilting his head at the way the overhead lights turned her golden-brown hair to muted bronze. It was braided in a coronet that framed her face, and when her eyes flicked up, they were a blue so stunning that for a moment Cassian completely forgot why he was there. 

She raised a single eyebrow, placing the tall manuscript down in the pile to be sent back to the stacks, and Cassian had to clear his throat.

Right— Rhys.

A favour for Rhys.

“Name?” she asked, holding out one elegant hand for his readers card.

“Cassian,” he answered, handing it over, wondering if this was the woman who’d given Rhys so much trouble.

God, he hoped it was.

He flashed her a smile. “Just the one manuscript on order.”

She hummed, lifting her eyes to study him. She scanned him head to toe, taking in the tattoos that peeked from the neckline of his shirt, curling at the base of his neck, before tracking her eyes down, over the muscles that corded his arms to the ink on his knuckles. He’d gotten vita and mors tattooed on his knuckles after finishing his PhD— life and death in Latin, a fitting tribute to the fact that he spent his life with the dead.

There was something about the way she looked at him— something that said she was trying to piece him together, puzzle out the man that towered over the collections desk half an hour before closing on a Friday. And when her eyes flicked up to his once more, Cassian let himself smirk just a little, lifting his chin as he watched her slide his card back towards him over the counter. 

Maybe he should have said something, asked for her name. 

But before he could so much as remember what words were, she turned sharply on her heel and headed for the shelves behind her, where one single, small manuscript sat alone in the collections pile. 

“Here,” she said, sliding it slowly across the desk.

It was bound in black leather, with the gilt numbering on the spine its only identifier. A nineteenth-century binding Cassian would guess, though it was far from his area of expertise. He merely took the manuscript in hand, waiting for the questions— waiting for her to ask why on earth he’d turned up and requested this manuscript in particular.

But she had already turned away, tracing a hand along the spine of another manuscript as she tucked a request card beneath the cover. A stray piece of hair from her braid crossed into her eyes, and without breaking her focus she tucked it back behind her ear. Looking down, her eyelashes almost brushed her cheek, and as she began to scribble away at something in pencil, she drew her bottom lip between her teeth in concentration.

Cassian couldn’t stop watching her— was entranced, and only with effort did he pull himself away and turn for the four rows of mostly-empty desks that stretched behind him. It was a world away from the countless rows of desks downstairs, and as he made his way across the muted olive-green carpet and picked a desk at random, he’d honestly forgotten why he’d been so unwilling to come up here in the first place.

She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. 

God, he wished he’d gotten her name.

Sighing softly, Cassian plunked the manuscript down on the desk, sinking into the chair and taking a single breath as he stretched his neck, easing the stiffness that had worked its way into his muscles after an entire day spent with his head bent over old books. He plucked at the manuscript’s cover, fingers lingering on the leather.

Not as old as this, he thought dryly.

His phone buzzed once in his pocket, breaking him from his thoughts. It was Rhys— sending yet another text to check that Cassian had actually managed to take out the manuscript with no issues. Rolling his eyes, Cassian snapped a photo of the manuscript, still closed, on the desk.

Happy?

Rhys sent him back a simple thumbs-up. 

With an indulgent shake of his head - and a silent promise that he’d make Rhys pay through the fucking nose for this, perhaps in the form of a very expensive bottle of whiskey - Cassian pulled the manuscript towards him, opening the front cover with one hand whilst with the other he pulled up the list of page numbers Rhys had messaged him over. 

The leather creaked as he cracked it open, and inside he was met immediately with stiff vellum pages, yellowed with age. It smelled of ink and dust and aged parchment, that curious combination that was musky and thick and far from unpleasant— like somebody had taken the smell of a library and distilled it down to its most concentrated form. He breathed it in, running a hand along the edge of the pages that were soft, worn from centuries of handling. 

No, this wasn’t his period, and he’d never call up something like this from the stacks himself but…

The historian in him saw the age of the thing in his hands and couldn’t help but feel a sense of awe. 

The ink inside was still a bright black, as if it had been penned yesterday, and each line was straight as an arrow, the script perfectly uniform and precise, meticulous. Cassian inhaled, breathing in the utterly unique scent of age-old craftsmanship, but even as he scanned the first line, trying and failing to find any word or, hell, any letter he could recognise, he felt the frown creasing his brow. 

Is this even English? he asked Rhys, thumbs flying over the keys. 

Yes, Rhys replied instantly.

Cassian snorted quietly to himself, barely suppressing the roll of his eyes as he glanced up, flicking his attention towards the one other scholar still in Manuscripts at quarter to five— fifteen minutes before closing. How the fuck do you even read this shit?

He could practically hear Rhys’ dry tone when his brother responded. It’s called palaeography, Cass. Those of us interested in real history learn it.

Cassian snorted again.

Rhys was firmly under the impression that anything that had happened less than a hundred years ago barely even counted as history. He’d almost had an aneurism when Cassian told him one of his colleagues had a student writing their dissertation on the pop culture of the 1980s and 1990s. “That’s not history,” Rhys had said as he’d spat out his drink in the pub. “That’s sociology at best, and at worst— it’s our fucking childhood. It doesn’t count.”

With a wry smile, Cassian turned his attention back to the manuscript in his hand, flipping through the pages to find the ones Rhys needed. On each, the script ran edge to edge in flowing black, in a hand Cassian couldn’t even begin to decipher. The initials were grand though, decorated with swirling vines and small figures, as though some monk in the 900s had poured his heart and soul into the writing of this volume. Something about that tugged at Cassian, at the part of him that longed to uncover every version of the past there was to find, and as he brushed a finger over the ink once more, he almost wished he was able to read the text; almost wished he could find out what, exactly, that monk had deemed so important he’d immortalised it with his pen. 

There was something wondrous in it— something that called out to him and made him feel like a child again, staring up at the walls of a castle in ruins, embers of insatiable curiosity igniting like a wildfire he’d never been able to extinguish. The manuscript in his hands had survived centuries— war and plague and famine and fire, it had weathered them all. It had witnessed the breadth of human history and arrived here, to sit beneath his fingertips and give Rhys the means to write his article. 

Not that he’d ever admit any of that out loud, of course. Rhys would have a field day.

Rolling his eyes, Cassian flipped another page over, finally finding the first of the ones Rhys wanted photographed. Using one hand to splay the pages wide open, he picked up his phone in the other and lifted it up to take the picture—

“What on earth are you doing?”

Cassian startled, and looked up to find the woman from the desk - the archivist, surely - standing behind him, her arms crossed over her chest as disbelief flitted across that beautiful face. Something like horror flared in those magnificent eyes, and her lips were parted in an expression of abject shock. Cassian’s brow furrowed.

“A favour for a friend,” he said slowly, confused. For a moment he wondered if Rhys had gotten it wrong— if this was one of the manuscripts not permitted to be photographed. But the archivist shook her head sharply.

“Are you an imbecile?” she asked bluntly. “Or have you just never been inside an archive before?”

Cassian bristled. “Of course I’ve been inside an archive before.” 

Just not to examine documents…. quite this old.

He’d admit that he was perhaps a little bit clueless when it came to this— handling things that predated anything else he’d ever worked with by almost a fucking millennia.

And yet… he wasn’t about to let her know that.

He pushed away from the chair, rising to his feet as the carpet hissed beneath his boots. God— she barely came up to his shoulders, but she didn’t back away. No, instead she lifted her chin to fix him with that encompassing stare, her glare almost enough to melt the flesh from his bones.

“I find that difficult to believe,” she hissed, nodding at the desk. “No book rest. No snake weights. And no historian would ever open a manuscript the way you just did.” She scowled as she nodded to the vellum pages he’d just had his hands all over. “The pages in that manuscript are a thousand years old.”

Suddenly there was a fire rising in his chest, some kind of beckoning interest flaring to life as he looked down into eyes brimming with so much ire they threatened to tear him apart. Every inch of her was lined with hauteur, her jaw tight as he canted his head and looked down at her, folding his arms over his chest in a stubborn gesture that said he wasn’t going to be the one to back down. She met him stroke for stroke, catching his gaze and refusing to step back, standing so close that he could smell her perfume. Something in Cassian relished it, revelled in the way she was forced to tilt her head back as he took a step closer, eliminating the distance between them until barely an inch separated his folded arms from hers. 

“I’m a modern historian, sweetheart. I’m just here to take some pictures for a colleague of mine and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Oh— oh,” she said, inhaling sharply, and Cassian saw the moment she made the connection. Her eyes darkened, her brows rising, and if he’d thought she was pissed before… Christ, he hadn’t known the meaning of the word. “You’re here for that prick who somehow found my office phone number and called me to demand that I rush his request through.”

Cassian bit back a grin. He had no idea how Rhys had managed to find her number. Azriel, probably. 

“Does the word no mean anything to either of you?”

“No,” he answered easily, letting a feral smile loose across his lips. Indignation flared in her eyes, and Cassian could have sworn he felt his heart skip a beat or several. “Look, just let me take these photos and I’ll be gone. You can have your decrepit old book back then.”

Her scowl deepened, those sharp eyes growing somehow - impossibly - sharper. Like she’d taken offence on behalf of the manuscript he’d just called decrepit. 

Fucking hell, she was stunning. She reminded him of a blade— shining as bright and as pure as silver, and yet sharp enough to have him bleeding if he so much as breathed wrong in her direction. And that scowl… 

It was enough to have him simpering after her like a fucking teenager.

She said nothing, only huffed forcefully before turning on her heel and marching briskly back towards the desk. Cassian nodded once before turning back to the manuscript, but before he could so much as raise his phone for another photo, the archivist had returned, slamming down a thin string of weights onto the desk beside him. With her other hand she reached around him to pull forward the foam book rest that sat at the back of his desk.

“Move,” she said sharply.

Cassian could only hold up his hands in surrender as he backed off. 

With perfect and practised care, gently she lifted the manuscript from its spot on the surface of the desk. The thing wasn’t inherently fragile, but still she checked the spine for damage - aiming a pointed glare over her shoulder as she did so - before setting it down on the book rest, letting the foam cradle it. 

“You open bound manuscripts from the centre, not the front cover,” she said, like it was the most fundamental thing in the entire world. “Otherwise you’ll strain the binding.”

Slowly, she teased the pages apart, starting right in the middle and working her way back to the page Cassian had been photographing only a handful of minutes ago. Then, she draped the thin string of weights across the pages to keep them spread.

“These are used to keep the pages open— not your hands.”

She took a step back away from the desk, folding her arms back over her chest as she studied the new set up. For a heartbeat, her eyes dropped to his hands, lingering once more on the tattoos decorating his knuckles. Once it might have been considered a professional hindrance, to have so much ink on display, but historians with tattoos were far from rare these days. And he didn’t think that the woman before him looked with disdain, either. 

“What would I do without you?” he drawled, tilting his head to the side. 

She rolled those devastating eyes of hers, and when she shook her head, Cassian caught a hint of her perfume. It was delicate, something floral with just a hint of spice— like rose and honey, and it had him drawing her deep into his lungs, savouring it and throwing her a wink that he knew might end up with her throwing him off the ledge of the mezzanine altogether. 

“Be banned from ever entering my reading room ever again,” she muttered, her voice low and bitter. She shook her head again, sending her small silver earrings glinting beneath the bright white lights. Harsh lights, not flattering for anybody, and yet— she was beautiful. When Rhys had called, Cassian hadn’t really known what to expect, but he sure as hell hadn’t expected the archivist to be… well. Like this.

As he snapped another photo for Rhys and nodded for her to gently turn the page - parchment rustling, binding creaking, weights whispering as she arranged them carefully on the edges of the vellum - his eyes fixed on her hands, elegant and sure.

No ring there, he noticed.

He didn’t know why he’d looked, or why he’d even bothered to note it. Just because she wasn’t married didn’t mean there wasn’t somebody in her life, and besides, whether she did or did not, it didn’t necessarily mean that he had any real interest anyway, did it?

Or perhaps he was just kidding himself— practically tripping over that empty space on her finger in case it meant he might have a chance.

His mind was entirely somewhere else as he took the remaining few photos Rhys had requested, barely seeing the script on the pages anymore and too caught up with the way she stood silent by his side, her eyes occasionally flicking his way when she thought he wasn’t looking. He couldn’t have missed it, though. Her attention was like a match dragged along his skin, setting fire to him with a spark and a hiss and a perfectly lethal glare.

And when he was done, when the last photo was safe in his camera roll, Cassian drew fully away from the desk. Glancing up and taking in his surroundings for the first time since she’d stormed over, he noticed that the last scholar had left, leaving them almost entirely alone save for the security guard by the door. 

A breathless kind of anticipation crept up his spine, pricked his skin as he lingered by that desk. 

There was only one thing he wanted to ask now— one thing he’d been dying to know ever since he’d walked through that fucking door.

“What’s your name?” he asked, drawing closer as she lifted the weights from the pages and let them pool on the desk. 

She paused, not turning to look at him as she lifted the manuscript from its cradle and eased it closed. “Why should I tell you that?”

Cassian shrugged. “Because.” When she glanced over her shoulder, he flashed her a grin that could have been called cocky, could have been called boyish in its charm. “I’m a historian. Curiosity’s part of the job.”

“Historian of what, exactly?” she demanded, turning around sharply, in a tone so much like Rhys’ that Cassian couldn’t help but let his grin spread wider, unfettered. “I’ve never met a historian who can’t handle a manuscript before.”

“I told you. I’m a modernist, sweetheart.”

She ran her eyes up and down, lingering on his chest, his broad shoulders. Then her eyes flicked to his face, his long hair pulled back to reveal the earring studded through one lobe. 

“So you really haven’t been in archive before.”

“Of course I have,” he countered. 

“Not a real one,” she muttered and God— she sounded so fucking much like Rhys that Cassian thought they might even get along, if ever they met. If they could detach themselves from one another’s throats for more than five seconds. 

He let out a laugh that echoed through the vaulting space, something inside him igniting when her eyes widened, the hush breaking like glass beneath his feet. She blinked again, muttering something about how he clearly hadn’t ever been in a library before either, before gathering the manuscript in her hands and turning sharply on her heel, pushing past him to heard towards the collections desk. 

And like Theseus following Ariadne’s string, Cassian followed her.

Somewhat more earnest, he leaned against the counter, curling his tattooed knuckles loosely into his palm. “I do appreciate it, you know. You coming over to help.”

“I did it for the manuscript, not you,” she pointed out dryly.

He grinned. “Come on. Give me your name at least— so I know who to address the thank you note to.”

“Only a note?” she fired back, raising her eyebrows. 

Cassian felt a thrill skip through him, tripping along his veins until it reached his chest and made him feel slightly breathless. He liked this— the banter, the back and forth that was so remarkably easy it felt like falling into step with someone he’d known all his life. This stranger - this beautiful stranger - glared at him as he leaned over the counter, his chest pressing into the wood as he brought his face hardly an inch from hers, and he’d already figured out that her eyes sparked when she was irritated, that she huffed in exasperation often, and that the small tilt at the corner of her lips was the only outward sign she’d allow that she was entertaining him and his cocksure posturing. 

This close, he thought he might have died and gone to heaven. His eyes dropped to her lips again, unable to look away.

“What else would you like, sweetheart?” he murmured, offering her a crooked smile. “Shall I get on my knees and extol your virtues to all of London?”

She hummed. “It might be a start.”

Cassian laughed again, easy and free. She had no idea how willing he already was to get down on his knees. He half thought he might break his kneecaps in the rush to prostrate himself before her, and as he watched her standing there beneath the white lights, precious manuscript in her hands, something stirred in him. A kind of interest he’d not had in someone in, well… years.

The archivist drew back, putting space between them that left Cassian blinking like a fool as she took the manuscript back to the shelves, ready to be returned back down below to the stacks. He could only watch her stride purposefully away, his eyes straying to her hips and down, all the way to her heeled boots, and God, that couldn’t be it, could it? He couldn’t let that be it. Could he?

Suddenly, there was only one thought in his head.

Fuck it.

“Let me buy you a drink,” he said suddenly, the words leaving him in a rush that was far too loud in the silence of the reading room. 

With a gentle thud, the archivist set the manuscript down. Her silver-blue eyes flicked up so sharply that Cassian honestly wondered if one day she’d manage to cut a man and make him bleed with those eyes alone. 

“In what world do you think I’d want to get a drink with you?”

Cassian grinned. “Oh, come on, sweetheart.” He leaned back casually, tilted away from the desk when only a moment before he’d been a breath away from vaulting over it and falling at her feet.  “Consider it an apology for Rhys’… stubbornness.”

She straightened, her face turning contemplative as, slowly, she made her way back towards him. Imperious, she lifted one perfect eyebrow. “If I said yes, would you promise never to come into my archive again?”

Cassian let out a low, rumbling laugh as he lifted his shoulders in an idle shrug. He didn’t think he could promise her that. Suddenly he was wondering just how different the first world war and the eleventh-century were really, and whether he could pull off a drastic change in his field of study, just so he had an excuse to see her again. To come up here and have her lecture him some more on how rough he was with some ancient books. 

God, if he was lucky - exceptionally lucky - maybe he’d even get the chance someday to show her how rough he could be with other things, too. What else he could do with the hands she kept glancing at. 

He cleared his throat again. Now was not the time to be turned on, and yet. 

And fucking yet.

“I’ll even throw in dinner,” he said with a wink.

The archivist rolled her eyes. “You don’t even know my name.”

Cassian leaned forwards over the counter again. “So tell me.”

She paused, and the silence grew so weighted that Cassian could feel it. But it wasn’t oppressive or suffocating— it was electric. He could feel the air thrumming between them, dancing with tension that was so thick it was making him dizzy. Her eyes dropped to his lips— his to her neck, that expanse of bare skin that he was fairly sure he’d be begging to taste before the night was out. 

“Nesta,” she answered at last. “My name is Nesta.”

Already he wanted to know how it would feel to whisper her name in her ear, to feel it on his tongue. To shape it with his lips until there was nothing else left. 

“Well then, Nesta.” He offered up another winning smile, just a breath shy of rakish. “Dinner?”

She paused, assessing him like he was just another one of her manuscripts. He flourished beneath that attention, tilting his chin up like a fucking peacock, and if anyone else were here, he might have reined it in, might have kept himself in check. But apart from the security guard standing at the other end of the room, they were alone, and when Nesta looked at him with nothing but blatant interest in her eyes, Cassian felt his blood begin to hammer through his veins and knew that he had one more card to play— an ace hidden up his sleeve.

“You know,” he began slowly, tracing an idle finger in circles on the desk, “the British Museum is open till half six on a Friday.”

He cast a glance to his watch. 4:55pm. In twenty minutes they could be standing in the sculptures gallery, marvelling at beauty crafted by ancient hands. In the grey light, surrounded by the gleaming white marble, Cassian had no doubt he’d be falling over himself to impress this woman. 

“A bottle of wine and a couple of ancient artefacts. You do know how to charm a girl,” Nesta quipped. She laid a hand down, splayed on the desk between them, and as she raised her eyes to his, Cassian swore time stopped altogether. 

Her voice was dry, acerbic, but Cassian grinned, damn near feverish. 

“I know how to charm you, princess. Aren’t ancient artefacts your thing?”

“Well, they’re certainly not yours. Planning on breaking into a display case and shattering the Sutton Hoo helmet?”

Cassian grinned, feral in his delight as he shrugged. “Who knows what might happen if you’re not there to stop me.”

Nesta rolled her eyes, but she didn’t draw back. With every breath she seemed to shift a half inch closer, and Cassian’s heart was a war-drum in his chest, beating so fast, so loud, it was a wonder she couldn’t hear it. He wasn’t breathing— wasn’t sure he even remembered how. 

“Is that all I am? Your chaperone?”

He couldn’t think of anything witty, couldn’t find some cutting remark to send her way. She was so maddeningly close, all it would take would be a slight shift on his part to bring him crashing into her, and as his eyes fell to her mouth, all he could think about was her sharp tongue, her soft lips, how much he wanted her.

He wanted to kiss her so badly he thought he might die if he didn’t get the chance. 

Nesta said nothing, only stared at him in a way that said she knew exactly how undone he was. 

She was close, now. So close, and as his eyes roved across her face, he couldn’t think beyond the desire that was building in his chest, lining his throat and making him desperate to touch her. He wanted to reach out. Wanted to brush a thumb across her cheek, graze his knuckles across her jaw until he reached her lips. All he had to do was lift his hand—

The moment shattered when the security guard slammed a mug down on his desk at the other end of the room, looking pointedly in their direction as he plucked up his coat and prepared to leave.

Cassian reared back, clearing his throat, suppressing the laugh in his chest. A blush stole across Nesta’s cheeks, so perfectly pretty he wanted to reach out and brush it with his fingers. 

“Well, sweetheart,” he said as he cleared his throat again. “Is that a yes?”

Nesta took a moment, but when she huffed, there was a small smile at the corner of her lips, a glint in her eyes. She shook her head like she couldn’t quite believe she was about to agree to an immediate date with a total stranger, and Cassian’s grin was feral as she bit back that smile and walked away from the collection’s desk, into the back rooms of the library reserved for staff alone. But she looked back, glanced at him over her shoulder and said,

“Meet me downstairs in ten minutes.”

Taglist: @asnowfern @podemechamardek @c-e-d-dreamer @lady-winter-sunrise @starryblueskies7 @melphss @sv0430 @that-little-red-head @misswonderflower @fwiggle @tanishab @xstarlightsupremex @burningsnowleopard @hiimheresworld @wannawriteyouabook @hereforthenessian @valkyriesupremacy @kale-theteaqueen @moodymelanist @talkfantasytome

[cacodaemonia]

Waxer/Boil rec list

I'm just copying this from a post I made in the Waxer*Boil community about a month ago:

Here are some recs from my recent(ish) bookmarks on AO3. I've listed eight of them, so I'm putting them all under a cut:

"Far Into the Night" by @lizardberries, rated T, Force-sensitive clones and hurt/comfort!

Summary: Putting his hands on either side of Boil’s face, Waxer leans their foreheads together, closes his eyes, and opens their connection even more. The emptiness flows into him, and Waxer braces himself against it, calling out for Boil through their link as loudly as he dares.

Boil doesn’t answer.

---

"dropstone" by @theproblemwithstardust, rated T, huddling for warmth!

Summary: Boil is adjusting the wrap on his hiking pole when something hits his back with a soft fwump. He tenses, half expecting one of the planet’s large predators to break through the tree line. But instead of growling and heavy footfalls, there’s a quiet snicker and the telltale squeak of snowshoes.

Or, Waxer and Boil visit an ice planet

---

"Friends Don't Set You On Fire" by @elismor, rated T, Corrie!Waxer and Boil!

Summary: Five times the massifs brought Corrie Waxer and Boil together (and one they did not)

---

Everything Sings" by @aerjnn, rated M, meet-cute!

Summary: Boil lets himself into the room where a clone—not Wooley—is passed out fully clothed in Wooley’s bed and snoring like a ronto. This’ll be the sharpshooter's roommate, he guesses. Must’ve come back with the first wave. Boil sighs, tosses his jacket on the narrow bed, and heads back out onto the third floor landing. Leaning out over the little balcony to the courtyard, he breathes in deeply, filling his lungs with air that’s still warm in spite of the rain earlier. And still filled with possibility.

---

"'Til the Sky Falls Down on Us" by @lizardberries, rated M, mission fic with a love confession!

Summary: This is a terrible time for this—they’re both cold and hurt and miserable, they’re fairly certain no rescue is coming for them, and they could be discovered by the enemy at any time. But when Boil thinks of the few moments after the grenade blast when Waxer wasn’t moving, when he couldn’t tell yet whether Waxer still had a pulse, it suddenly feels incredibly important—he doesn’t want to go out with anything unsaid between them. He doesn’t want to die without letting Waxer know how much he means to him.

---

"Table Manners" by @petrifiedforests, rated T, vampires!

Summary: “Ah,” Waxer says, startled. “Uh hi! Are you Boil?” Boil nods and kind of awkwardly gestures to his comm. “If you have a bit, you signed up for, you know…” “Ohhhh, snack time. You’re hungry?” Waxer realizes, grinning when he sees Boil’s instinctual grimace at his phrasing.

---

"Horticulture" by @valkeakuulas, rated E, tentacle smut!

Summary: Despite this having been his idea, Boil couldn’t help but feel a little nervous as he stared at the large, slowly swaying plant.

---

"Three Long Summers Went By" by @bilbosmom-belladonna, rated G, flashbacks to the war and post-war happy ending!

Summary: At the table, Waxer was hovering over a pile of small tooka dolls. As Boil approached he picked one up and held it out. “Look at this!” he cried as he shook the purple and yellow doll. “It looks just like it!”

“Just like what?” Boil asked, glancing warily at the vendor who was eyeing them suspiciously, their head-tendrils waving in a menacing cloud around their head.

“Numa’s toy!” Waxer replied excitedly. “The one she had at her house. She had to leave it behind when the gutkurrs found us.” He gave the doll a little squeeze and it squeaked, just like Numa’s had. Waxer locked eyes with Boil, his face eager. “We have to get it.”

Boil raised an eyebrow. “Why would we do that?”

---

Enjoy! :D

[zarvasace]

Fic Rec List

AO3 is holding a Feedback Fest for International Fanworks Day! So, in no particular order, here are 10 fics from my bookmarks that I recommend. :) Most of these fics are by stellar authors, but the list is for individual fics. I recommend checking out the authors as well.

EDIT: fandom code. LU = Linked Universe. FS = Four Swords

Dawn of the Fourth by @lazuliquetzal - (LU, complete) A fic that's on plenty of rec lists, I'm sure! The mastery of plot, character, and language itself is top-tier. This has a mystery-ish plot filled with twists and turns that hold up very very well on rereads! The tension remains taut the whole time, but it isn't too stressful. There are some particular images from this one that have stuck with me since I read it.

Threats and Theatrics by htruona - (LU, complete) This one makes me laugh. A lot. Vio is too dramatic for his own good, and I adore the idea that they might just keep fake blood on them for stuff like this.

A Guide to Living (Again) by @cerame (LU, complete) - Also one that I'm sure is not unfamiliar to a lot of people! It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Shadow, and it was so so much fun to see these other opposite-Links coming around, too. This is just overall a very good time.

Awake, Sweet Prince by @vagueandominousvibes - (FS, complete) There's a lot by Kahl I adore, she's an excellent writer with a wonderful handle on world and words, and this one in particular is one of my favorites. I love slightly spooky fae and this is definitely high on my list.

Count to Nine by @tess-aka-fishy (LU, complete) - One of my top fluff and humor fics. Everyone is in-character in the best way possible, being chaotic but not necessarily on purpose. It's awesome.

It's Dangerous to Go Alone by @hey-adora (FS, complete) - Among the many standout works by Sam, this one is an excellent one to recommend thanks to the showcase of her particular brand of humor, the fun, adventure-y plot, canon-extension worldbuilding, and of course the focus on Vio and Shadow being awful as always.

Keep Your Face to the Sun by Ageofavalon (LU, complete) - This one is a wonderful little fic with, surprise surprise, a focus on Shadow. This one just feels cozy, and I've reread it a lot. I particularly enjoy the way that they adopt him into the LU Chain :)

Take a Number, Any Number by @cluelessmoose (LU, complete) - An outstanding Four whump fic that recently got a very satisfying second chapter. It uses a lot of my favorite whump tropes. The imagery and particular use of words makes this a delight to read.

Soft Glows by @youmixxx (FS, incomplete) - Breaking my hesitant rule of "only complete fics allowed" to rec this fantastic Green/Blue modern college AU story. The attention to detail in this fic is unbelievable—and I mean detail in-text in descriptions and narrative, as well as behind-the-scenes details like consistent schedules. It's beautiful. Don't let the word count intimidate you because it flies by in a haze of glory.

Draw a Circle Around Your Grief by @lattewritesthings (LU, complete) - Dramatic, horrific, bitter, hurt-no-comfort—BUT in a way that doesn't leave you hanging on a thread. It's tragic but the resolution is satisfying anyway. The images are striking and the emotions are potent.

[amhrosina]

To Be Loved (Namor x f!Reader)

MASTERLIST // JOIN MY TAGLIST

A/N: I read a Druig fic with this concept like a year ago and it’s stuck with me since then. However, I’ve searched through an entire year’s worth of tumblr fics & ao3 bookmarks, and I still can’t find it. If you know who came up with this concept, PLEASE tag them or let me know! I would like to credit them for the idea! Also, I can’t stop writing Namor (and I won’t, I love that man so much).

Update: A very kind soul found the fic that inspired this one and sent me their @! It was @itsapeterthing who originally wrote this concept and you should definitely check the Druig fic out!

Summary: Reader is an Eternal (you don’t have to know the movie to understand the fic) who can time travel. We follow her as she visits her lover, Namor, in different stages of his life over a 500-year time period. 

(Warnings: no big ones, some descriptions of war I guess?, soft!Namor, this is pure fluff like I somehow made myself fall more in love with him writing this??) 

Translations: 

in yakunaj – my love 

pixan – my soul 

ki'ichpanech – pretty girl 

Namor was being watched, though he didn’t know it yet. As he stood on the outskirts of his mother’s homeland, holding his mother’s body in his arms, the beauty of her memories was tarnished, ripped to shreds by slavers with whips and hatred in their hearts. Namor was a boy of ten and two, barely old enough to grasp the responsibilities he’d inherited in his birth, but strong enough already to understand the gravity of the situation in front of him.  

The hatred that burned in his heart mirrored the flames he’d set to his mother’s homelands, his homeland, which had become a falsity so grand that he could no longer contain the rage within him. It was a wound that wouldn’t heal, a festering cesspool of a memory that would play in his mind for years afterwards. This day would go down in his people’s history as the day the boy-king became a man. 

From a young age, laying his mother to rest was something Namor knew he was going to have to do, but no amount of time could have prepared him for the overwhelming heartbreak he felt as he laid her down in her final resting place. He remained by her side, content to sit with her body for as long as he pleased, but he knew he would eventually have to return to Talokan.  

All the while, an unfamiliar set of eyes peeked at him through the brush. You would not reveal yourself to him, not quite yet. This moment, as important as it was to Namor’s moral compass and the man he would grow to be, was not a moment you felt the need to share with him. You had travelled through time and space to be here, at present-day Namor’s request, and you would not interfere with this moment.  

The young Namor, the one that was blissfully unaware of your presence, knelt down and whispered his last goodbyes to the woman who raised him. You remained in your kneeling position amongst the greenery, unwilling to move until you were sure Namor had gone. When the last of his people returned to the sea, you stood, shaking the ache from your knees.  

You tapped into your power, the warm hum traveling through your body as you focused on returning to the present, to your home where Namor was likely waiting for you. It was only a snap of your fingers, a quick blink of your eyes, and suddenly you were in familiar territory again.  

The walls around you were filled to the brim with Namor’s art, painted over the centuries. They told the story of him, showcasing different memories that he deemed important. The first one, the one you’d just returned from visiting, was a small painting of his mother, lying in her shallow grave.  

“How was it, my love?” Namor’s voice carried from the above water chambers you shared, his voice so warm and deep that he might as well have been standing right next to you.  

You peeked your head around the corner, spying his relaxed form in his favorite armchair. You had spent hours there, wrapped in his warm embrace. It was your favorite place to be, too.  

You scurried forward, eager to take your designated spot in his lap. He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you into his protective hold. You looked down at him, placing a soft kiss on his brow before cupping his cheeks.  

“It was informative, my King. I can see why you were so angry when we met.” You stroked his cheeks with your thumbs in an attempt to soothe the ache.  

“I spent many years after that day consumed with vengeance. It was only when I met you that I learned I still had the capacity to love.”  

“I’m sorry, my love, for the hurt humans have caused your people throughout the years.” You winced at the thought of Namor consumed by anything but love. 

“Don’t apologize, in yakunaj. You will see the man I became to protect my people, and you will see me as my enemies saw me. I did not know mercy for a very long time, and I fear you will not like the man I thought I had to be.” 

“I will always love you, K’uk’ulkan. Nothing,” you gripped his jaw for emphasis, “will ever change that.”  

Namor gripped your hand, pressing his lips into your knuckles. “I am undeserving of it, but I will accept it anyways, pixan. I am greedy like that.”  

He smiled, and your heart warmed at the sight. At one point, it had been decades since a smile had graced his beautiful face, so you always cherished the smiles he sent you, even if you got to see it all the time now. 

“Where am I going next?” You asked, glancing at the wall of art.  

“To our favorite place to hide away, before it was ours.” He nodded to a small, somewhat hidden section of the wall that had always been one of your favorites. You grinned in response. 

- 

Namor looked over the landscape in front of him, a little envious of the humans that got to see it every day. The view his hiding spot offered was a spectacular array of gold and red, surrounded by lakes and rivers, and if he didn’t have a million things waiting for him back at home, he might want to appreciate it more. The sea was his home, but he couldn’t help the desire to explore the surface every once in a while.  

Home. The empire he had built with his bare hands. Hidden from the world, protected from human interference. Namor was proud of his people and what they had achieved, but he had spent so many years fueled by anger that he feared he may have forgotten the beauty of living along the way. He was lonely, and he could not let this weakness lead his people into their graves. This hiding place was a respite from all of that, but the loneliness tended to follow him here.  

A sharp buzzing interrupted his thoughts, and he swung around, ready to defend himself. A being, no – a woman, stepped into the clearing. Namor studied her. A human? No. He could feel the power drumming in her veins, and he tried to make sense of her human-looking face. A threat? Maybe.  

You raised your hands in an innocent gesture. “I’m not here to hurt you.” 

Namor couldn’t stop the chuckle from leaving his throat. No one, no one, could hurt him.  

“Who are you?” He pointed his spear at your heart, ready to drive it deep in your chest at the slightest movement.  

You murmured your name. “We’ve met before.” 

“I think I would remember meeting you.” His brow furrowed. 

“Not yet, I mean. It won’t happen for another few centuries.” 

Namor’s confusion grew, and you reached towards your sleeve, rolling it up a few inches. The bracelet Namor had given you was tied around your wrist, and you held it up for his inspection. He balked. That was his mother’s bracelet, and he knew for a fact that it was tucked away in a safe space, miles under the sea.  

“You gave it to me a few years ago. You sent me here, K’uk’ulkan, many years in the future. It’s hard to explain.” You scratched the back of your neck. “The paintings on your cavern walls tell a story, and he, you, wanted me to experience them with him, er, you. Is this making any sense?”  

Namor eyed you carefully but lowered his spear.  

“I feel your power, deep in here,” he gestured to his chest, “but I do not understand it. It’s different from mine.”  

You smiled and lifted your hand, allowing a tiny sliver of your power to form into a ball in your palm. A stark yellow lit the clearing. The orb pulsed with power, and Namor took a step forward. Present-day Namor was also enamored with the way your power manifested and loved watching you create different shapes with it in your palm.  

Namor stepped closer, watching the orb float in the space above your hand.  

“How?” He asked, flicking his gaze up at you.  

“You will understand it, one day, in yakunaj.” You fell into your natural pattern with him, even though the man standing in front of you was centuries away from the man you knew and loved.  

Namor startled at your ability to speak his language so easily, and then inhaled sharply when he realized what you had just called him. He knew he should’ve been hightailing it home by now. This display of power could mean trouble for his people, and it was his duty to protect them, but the gentle caress of your power in his chest rooted him to the spot. His curiosity always did get the best of him.  

“You speak my language?” He asked in his mother tongue, too enthralled with you to worry about the rules he was breaking by doing so.  

You nodded, watching as the power faded back into your hand. “I know many languages.” 

“We are...together in your time?” He asked, looking over you again.  

“Yes. We are bonded, though that probably doesn’t mean anything to you right now. It will, one day.” You paused. “I must return to my time.” You gestured towards the forest, even though you didn’t technically have to move your body anywhere to jump forward in time.  

“Will I see you again? Before we officially meet?” He asked, taking a step closer to you.  

“Would you like to see me again?” You returned, tilting your head curiously.  

“Yes.” Namor said bluntly.  

“Then you will see me again, in yakunaj.” 

In a flash, you were gone, and Namor spent a long moment staring at the spot you had been standing in moments before. He wondered how long he would have to wait to see you again and hoped it wouldn’t be too long of a wait. 

- 

Namor waited decades for you, searching for you in every face he came across. His cousin and closest confidante, Namora, didn’t miss the excitement buzzing under his skin every time he had to leave for the surface. He finally told her of your existence after years of holding the secret close to his heart. She was cautious, warning him of the surface dweller’s wrongdoings, but he couldn’t think of you in the same way that he thought of them. You were different, gentler, and he spent the vast majority of his free time thinking about you.  

The night that you finally reappeared was a night of celebration for his people. It was Winter Solstice – the one night of the year that his people freely travelled between the sea and the sand. It was always a huge party, but he had spent the majority of it stewing in his longing for you. He had almost convinced himself you were a dream of his when you appeared. 

You stood towards the back of the crowd, looking up at the stars. Namor’s heart thundered in his chest as he approached you, unsure of what to say to the person he had spent the last 80 years of his life longing to see. Fortunately, you spoke first, and he wondered if it was possible to fall in love with someone after only meeting them once.  

“There are so many stars here. The doesn't look like this anymore, where I’m from. The surface dwellers have many flaws, and I think that is probably their worst transgression.” 

Namor said the only thing that he could think of in response.  

“I missed you.”  

You smiled bashfully, turning to look at him for the first time in 80 years.  

“I know. Thank you for being patient, in yakunaj. I go where he sends me, and there is always a good reason for it.” 

“Is he...like me? I mean, are we the same, or do you see us as different people?”  

“That is a hard question. You are the same Namor I know, but you are also different. At your core, though, you are the same man that I love in my time.” 

You looked back at the sky, shifting your body to stand next to his. A somber expression formed on your face, and he couldn’t help but brush the back of his hand against yours.  

“What is it, ki'ichpanech?”  

“I want you to enjoy this night, in yakunaj, because you will not have another one this easy for a very long time.” 

A cold chill ran down Namor’s spine. The conviction in which you spoke left little room for denial, and he could not ignore the uneasy feeling building in his stomach.  

“What do you mean?” He finally asked, breathing deeply. 

“I mean,” you paused, linking your pinky in his, “he chose this moment for me to visit for a reason. I cannot tell you details, because even I do not know them, but you will have to face an unimaginable threat, and it will be very hard for you. I will not return until after the carnage, and I want you to enjoy tonight, because you will have a hard time enjoying anything for many years afterwards.” 

He looked out into the sea, processing your warning. He wasn’t aware of any threats to his people, but the pleading look in your eyes told him he would soon face horrors, maybe outright war.  

“How long will it be before I see you again?” He asked, taking your hand in his and lightly squeezing it.  

“Do not worry about such trivial things, in yakunaj. Everything will right itself in time.” 

Your tone left no room for argument, not that Namor would want to argue with you anyways. You tugged him further away from the crowd, turning to face him after the darkness had blanketed you from the light of the party. You rested your palms on his cheeks, pulling his forehead down and pressing it against yours.  

“Be strong, my King. You will be pushed beyond what you believe your strength to be, but do not let that break you. You are a force to be reckoned with, and you will do anything to protect your people. Remember your strength, and above all, remember that there is love in your heart, even if you cannot feel it yet.”  

You pushed your lips against his in a chaste motion. It was over before it had even begun, and when Namor opened his eyes, you were gone. Namor clutched his chest, attempting to remember the feeling of your body against his.  

Your warning rang true a few days later, when the borders of Talokan were breached for the first time in its history. The water surrounding the city remained a misty red for months afterward.  

- 

Namor pushed his spear deeper into the chest of the enemy King, finally ending the slaughter that had plagued him and his people for many years. The jungle around him rang with a silence so sickening that he fell to his knees. He hung his head low, exhausted from the fight. You had been right about everything, and the only thing that had kept him fighting for this moment of triumph was the speech you’d given him all those years ago.  

The guilt of his warrior’s deaths weighed heavily on his shoulders. It didn’t seem fair, that he would continue living after so many of his people had to mourn the loss of their family members. Their family members, who had died fighting his fight. The weight was almost too much to bear, and he was suddenly glad that he was alone.  

His people did not deserve to see his pity-party. He slammed his fists into the ground, letting out a brutish grunt. It was over, but his mind was still reeling. The sound of your soft footsteps brought him out of his rage. 

“You shouldn’t be here.” His voice was hoarse as he pleaded with you not to see him like this.  

“I am here, all the same.” You waved your hand in a nonchalant motion, lowering your body into a kneeling position in front of him.  

He couldn’t look at you. The awfulness of what he had done, of the person he had to become to defeat this threat was so far beneath you, and he couldn’t imagine anyone loving the broken man he had become. Tears threatened to spill from his eyes, and he squeezed them shut to stop them from falling.  

“You should go.” He pleaded with you, shaking his head at the thought of you being so close to the gory battlefield he had just fought on.  

“I will not leave you, in yakunaj, just as you would not leave me if our positions were switched.”  

You reached forward, gently wrapping your hands around his wrists. The steady drum of your power grounded his thoughts for a moment, and he prayed to the universe that your touch wouldn’t leave him. He didn’t move for what felt like hours, cherishing the warmth in his chest at having you so close to him after so long.  

“I cannot stand being apart from you like this.” He mumbled, head still hung low.  

“It is not for much longer, my King. One day, not so far in the future, we will be together.” 

“How much longer must I live with this torment of longing I feel when you’re gone?” 

You cupped his cheeks, swiping at the dirt and grime that coated his face with your thumbs.  

“Soon, my love. I promise.”  

You walked with him as he made his way back to the sea, the urge within him to return home too strong to deny any longer. There weren’t many words spoken between the two of you, but words didn’t seem necessary. You were here, and you were a gentle reminder that his future was bright, and that’s all that mattered to him at the moment.  

When Namor stepped onto the beach, the bobbing heads of Namora and Attuma a few hundred yards out at sea caught his eye. They would return to Talokan with the news that their King had come out triumphant, and that the war was officially over.  

You watched as their heads dipped below the surface before facing him.  

“I have been gone for too long. I must go.” Namor’s grip on your hands tightened, unwilling to let you go so soon.  

“Stay. Please stay.”  

You smiled warmly, bringing his knuckles to your lips. “I cannot, in yakunaj. I must return to the present. But I will leave you with a gift, so that you don’t forget me while I’m gone.”  

“I could never forget you, ki'ichpanech. Even if you don’t return for 1,000 years, I will still remember you.”  

You smiled, pulling your hands out of his. You cupped your palms together, tapping into your power until the yellow orb appeared, floating between the two of you.  

“Take this with you. It will shine brightly in Talokan. Bring your people the sun, K’uk’ulkan, after the dark times this war has brought with it.” You pushed the orb into his hands, releasing the speck of power from your being.  

Namor gasped, shaking his head. “I cannot do that. This is yours.” He tried to push it back into your chest, but you wouldn’t accept it.  

“It will be mine again, one day, in yakunaj. Until then, let it guide your people. Let it guide your heart.”  

Namor looked at you, wide eyed. The orb floated around his body, refusing to move further than a few inches from his skin.  

“I do not know what to say, ki'ichpanech, other than that I am undeserving of this gift.”  

“You will take it anyway,” you say, patting the area of his chest near his heart. Your hand lingered on his skin, and he could not stop himself from crashing his lips into yours. You smiled into the kiss, wrapping your arms around his neck. He held you tightly against his body, arms wrapped fully around your waist in a tight embrace.  

You pulled away, gently cradling his face. “Stay safe, my King. I will see you soon.”  

Namor stumbled forward in your sudden absence, and he couldn’t help the frustrated grunt he let out. Soon had better be soon, or he’d start scouring the Earth for signs of you.  

- 

Namor had not expected to see you so soon. It had only been a few years since your last encounter, and after the enormous stints of time between your previous meetings, he had not expected you for another few decades. An enormous eruption from the sea had beckoned him far from Talokan, the furthest he’d been from his home in years. 

Something was different this time. Unlike your previous appearances, where you’d appeared seemingly out of thin air, this time you were accompanied by a small group of people. Your hair was disheveled, and it looked like you and the people around you had been fighting something, something huge.  

He rushed onto the beach towards you. If there was a threat to you, he’d eliminate it faster than you could blink. It wasn’t so much a choice, but more of an instinct. He stumbled forward when he felt the full brunt of power between you and your friends.  

Oh. They were like you.  

Your friends stiffened when they noticed him, but your smile was the only thing he could focus on as he made his way towards you. This felt different because it was different. You weren’t here from your present. This was the present, and he was about to officially meet you. He was suddenly glad you hadn’t told him the details of your first meeting because he hadn’t had time to grow anxious about it.  

You met him halfway across the beach, jumping into his arms when you got close enough to reach him. He pulled you into a hug, wondering if he could get away with never letting go of you again. 

“I would say it’s nice to meet you, but we’ve met before, ki'ichpanech.” He mumbled into your ear. 

“Yes, we have.” You let out a light laugh, planting a kiss on his cheek.  

Namor’s brow furrowed as he tried to figure out how this version of you could know who he was, or how you would know about your previous meetings since they technically hadn’t happened yet. He shook his head. The thought of it gave him a headache, and he wasn’t going to try and figure that one out on his own.  

“You are here to stay, right?” He asked, hopeful.  

“Yes, in yakunaj, I’m here to stay.”  

Namor kissed you sweetly, arms still wrapped around you. He wouldn’t be letting go of you for a while, and you seemed perfectly okay with that.  

- 

When you stumbled back into the present for the final time, Namor was stretched out in the bed you shared with him. It was late, much later than you had intended on being, and you opened your mouth to explain your absence before realizing that Namor would remember the encounter with you, and likely already understood why you had been gone for so long. You crawled into the bed next to him, pressing a kiss into his bare shoulder before cuddling into his side. 

“Now you have seen me at my worst.” Namor’s voice was a hushed whisper against the late hour.  

“I love you, even at your worst, in yakunaj.” You responded in an equally hushed tone.  

He pulled you closer, angling his body so that he could wrap you into a hug, and you shuttered against him. He was always so warm, and never once complained about how cold your skin was.  

“You are my greatest inspiration, ki'ichpanech. You are my strength and my love. My people are very lucky to have you as their queen. I cannot express the love I have for you in here.” He tapped his chest, resting his head on the top of yours.  

“You are an unbelievable sap, Namor.” You chuckled, nuzzling your face into his chest. “I love you even more for it, though.”

End Note: I really really love how this came out. I hope you enjoyed it! Either way, thank you for reading!

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