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cresvalkyrie · 2 years ago

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I'm gonna list down every plot divergences that happens in the Chroniclerverse, both major and minor. For Act 1, at least. There’s too many to count lol.

Major canon divergences: Alain survived Storm-9 with Crescent, and gains ownership of Kali with Artemis’s death. She later joins the Stormchasers with Crescent as her partner, with the only Pokemon she was allowed to keep being Tazer and Kali. After Hauyne defeated Rift Gyarados, Alain returned Kali to her original trainer (not that she realised it at the time).

Hauyne doesn't confront Jenkel during the Xen Lockdown. Instead, she beelined it to Amethyst Mines since she knew that's where Melia was heading and managed to intercept her, just before Crescent came to collect her. She was able to persuade Melia to join the Stormchasers, but volunteered to take the fall for Melia's "death" just so there wouldn't be a Rift Galvantula (much to their horror). The bait worked a little too well... since everyone fell for it, with various results. Zetta simply turned a wild Onix into a Rift Pokemon and sicced it at her, forcing her to defeat it solo. Ren and Venam were extremely pissed/betrayed and blew out; their friendship would've been irreversibly ruined if Alain hadn't intervened and cleared up the misunderstanding (while also chiding Hauyne for being an idiot and not defending herself).

Before she and Aelita left Sheridan Village, the Eldest secretly gave Hauyne a package. It contains only a worn-out book she calls the Enigmatic Journal, a white hand-carved flute and a Time Amulet. She later uses the Journal's contents to plan and map out her divergences more effectively, though she wasn't always successful.

During the Blacksteeple arc, she managed to save Nancy by slipping her Elgyem Coeus’s Pokeball into her pocket and having it Teleport Nancy to the ship before Madame X could even touch her. Then, she held off Madame X by engaging her in a duel (one she was rapidly losing ground due to her inexperience in combat and only lasted this long because of her dirty tricks), buying everyone time to get onboard the escape vessel. She sustained a severe gash on her back, courtesy of Madame X, for her troubles and would have bled to death if her Healing Stasis hadn’t kicked in at the last second, putting her into a week-long deathlike coma. When she awakens, all that’s left of the injury was a large, hideous jagged scar stretched across her entire back.

Even though Nancy survived Blacksteeple, Tesla still offers them a room in the resort to stay in since they had nowhere to go until the battleship was fixed enough to make the trip to Akuwa Town. So the argument between her and Amber still happens, except a lot worse since Amber perceived it as an attempt to replace her and her father.

When they were “invited” to the Church of Theolia, Hauyne physically wrangles Venam from following the girl to her grandparents’ TM shop, even breaking out of her usually quiet demeanour to yell at her. Because of this, the shop was never frozen (they still got the TM Magma Drift for free, as thanks for freeing the town from Angie’s tyranny) and they didn’t need the Magma Stone, resulting in Aelita never falling into a coma due to the effects of a Garufan curse.

Hauyne defeats Angie using Purgatory, a move she specifically made as a hard counter to her reliance on the Frozen Dimensional Field. She ended up being so pissed about it, that she tries to kill her by summoning icicles from the ground to impale her with as they flee the scene. She was so out of control that she began to fuse with her Rift Regice, beginning her metamorphosis into a nightmarish creature. It took both Kreiss and Hauyne to stop her, using a combo attack with his Froslass’ Blizzard and Shiva’s Snowgrave to seal her away in a coffin of Never Melt Ice.

Hauyne tries to warn her friends about the rigged cooking show (which happens shortly after the trio returned from Kristilline) and tells them not to eat the food served there, but no one except for Aelita listened to her. So Team Xen abducted Melia and Amber, with her and Aelita fighting their way through hoards of Xen Grunts in an attempt to save them, but were subdued and knocked out cold by Madelis.

In Mt. Valor, Aelita went with Venam to rescue Melia at the summit, whereas Hauyne split off to rescue Tesla and Amber from imprisonment. She wounds up fighting Primal Kyogre, and only managed to win because the god was impressed by her resolve in the face of adversity and admitted defeat, unravelling the curse that kept them prisoner. However, he questions her resolve to walk her current path, and decides to test her by suppressing her powers with a spell (ignoring the fact that his ability Primordial Sea had already weakened her considerably). Despite this, Hauyne continues to make her way to the summit to confront Zetta and Geara.

The showdown at the summit of Mt. Valor happens very differently, to say the least. With most of her powers deactivated, Hauyne was unable to fight at full force and struggled tremendously against the duo plus Griselda who was back for revenge. Even with Venam and Aelita (later joined by Nancy and Jenner) backing her up, she just barely seized victory against them by the skin of her teeth when otherwise she wouldn’t struggle nearly as much. Even so, she was able to prevent Jenner’s death... at the cost of Nim and Nancy’s lives; the latter jumping in and took a fatal blow from Griselda that was meant for her.

Following the brutal kill, Geara orders Griselda to maul Hauyne, much to everyone’s horror. Zetta was so aghast by the act of needless cruelty that he tried to stop his partner, but it was too late; everyone watched as the vengeful queen-turned-eldritch-dragon tore her enemy’s descendant apart into bloody pieces. Later, with Crescent’s guidance, she was able to resurrect herself and restore herself to full power, returning to challenge the duo once more after they had made quick work of Venam and Aelita in her absence and defeated them for good.

During the scene where Crescent turns Zetta back into a Solosis (after having Dranna wreck the teleporter and forced Geara to teleport back in its damaged, unstable state), Hauyne captured him before she could, and refused to hand him over. Even going so far as to send his Pokeball to a PC, where Crescent couldn’t reach, to make her point clear. They would have continued to argue if Hauyne hadn’t collapsed mid-sentence from overexertion and exhaustion, forcing her to put it on hold so that they could hurriedly carry her back to Teila Resort to recuperate.

Minor canon divergences: Hauyne fell off the S.S Oceana during the hijacking, got struck by lightning and nearly drowned if it weren't for Tesla's Talonflame fishing her out of the water.

Instead of a Buizel, the abandoned Pokemon at the docks of Oceana Pier was an Alolan Vulpix. She later becomes a core member of Hauyne's main team after she defended her from her abusive ex-trainer.

Hauyne's first meeting with Nim was technically at Venam's Gym: she somehow saw through her invisibility spell. When they actually talked in person, she tried to nudge her towards eating the souls at the Den of Souls so she wouldn't turn to stone and release the prisoners. Not that it worked, since Nim was scared off by the nightmares prowling the area before she could even devour a lost soul.

In the Carotos Base, Hauyne managed to rescue a Shadow Treecko from the room filled with tanks (also the room where Eli somehow trapped himself in a tank, and Sharon had to frantically bust him out). As it turns out, it was no ordinary Treecko: he was an artificially made hybrid created to serve as an ultimate killing machine until the Shadow Mewtwo project got approved and subsequently phasing it out, leaving him eternally frozen in time until Hauyne saved him.

Technically in this AU, Hauyne was the one who named the Shadow Mewtwo... because she accidentally called her Dranna since she was used to it. The Mewtwo ended up liking the name so much that she adopted it as her own, requesting that everyone refer to her as such from then on.

Alain has a Volcanion, who also happens to be the mother of the Rift Volcanion in Carotos Mountain. She... didn't take the news of her son's grim death well, though she was somewhat thankful for Hauyne putting him out of his misery after learning that death was the only mercy she could grant him.

During the Chrysalis Manor arc, Marianette twisted her ankle during the Dusknoir Maze trial. Hauyne ends up carrying her in a piggyback and somehow managing to outrun Dusknoir for the entire trial even with his magical shortcuts. Needless to say, Marianette was very captivated by the feat and wouldn’t stop gushing about it; she only paused to watch Hauyne heal her ankle with aura, then continued her ramblings.

Also in the same arc, when Hauyne visits Anju in her underground prison, the latter recognised her, called her by her birth name Artemis and expressed genuine surprise/relief/concern upon seeing her. After asking her about the outside world, she gives Hauyne her pendant and requests her to give it to her son and to tell him that she’s sorry, if she ever saw him again. She tries to convince Anju to come with her, but to no avail and Anju insists that she needs to stay here for everyone’s sake.

In the Goldenwood arc, Hauyne has a few panic attacks because of the townspeople triggering some unpleasant memories from her homeworld. Aelita had to drag her into Narcissa’s house because she was utterly incapacitated by panic.

When exploring the labs beneath Wispy Tower, Griselda/Giratina mistakes Hauyne for her ancestor Altair (who was one of the Aura Wielders responsible for sealing her away) and flies into a berserk rage. She tries to attack Hauyne without any input from Geara whatsoever, but was rebuffed thanks to Ren and Narcissa’s assistance.

Before she and Aelita left for Akuwa Town, Hauyne decides to take a detour back to East Gearen City to show Zumi the Drifloon she captured. This was when she met Erin in the library, who later stomps off in anger when she couldn’t find the reading materials she travelled all the way for. She later runs into her again in Gearen Laboratories, dismayed that she had missed the last train home and that she’s stuck here for the night. Hauyne offers to let her stay the night in the apartment Tesla loaned to her, since it was too late to make the journey back to Goldenwood Town anyway, which Erin reluctantly agrees to. Surprisingly, the two got on pretty well despite the strange circumstances of their meeting, with them going their separate ways after Hauyne saw her off at Junction Bridge.

During the Blacksteeple Castle arc, Hauyne had her Phantump Okiku serve as a messenger between her and Aelita. She brought her Cheri and Oran berries to help with the electric torture Neved put her through, with the occasional written messages encouraging her to hang on and that help is on the way. In return, Aelita has Okiku carry a message back to Hauyne to let her know that she’s okay.

When Emma arrived at Blacksteeple, Hauyne immediately recognises her as Melia... although she’s careful not to let it slip until they’re out of prying eyes and ears. It’s only then did she greet her warmly, much to her surprise.

How Hauyne defeated Madame X’s Yveltal was that she had all her team members out and attack it from all sides. This, in turn, serves as a distraction for the actual tactic: Okiku setting up Destiny Bond on the Yveltal from the shadows, then using Ally Switch to take the place of its immediate target so that she would be KO’d by the attack and taking the Yveltal down with her.

When traversing Aquamarine Cave, Hauyne briefly talks about the bioluminescence often seen around the village she grew up in during a conversation between her and Valarie. When asked about her home village, she clams up and refused to speak about it.

Tesla and Nancy hitting it off after their official meeting at Teila Resort. The two just bonded with each other, mostly as fellow concerned parents worried for their children. Which is largely why Tesla decided to adopt Hauyne after she lost Nancy on Mt. Valor, since she had asked Tesla to watch over her daughter should anything happen to her.

After receiving the badge and TM from Kreiss, Hauyne gives him Anju’s pendant and relays her message to him, adding her own regrets of not being able to save her. Kreiss then remarks of her uncanny resemblance to a girl he’s seen in an old family portrait, taken when he was still an infant, and inwardly muses whether she was the same girl... only to dismiss it before he could finish that thought and rationalised that she was probably a relative/descendant of that girl.

#chroniclerverse #interceptor oc: hauyne #yeah its a long post #will see if i can post the divergences of act 2 in a reblog

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youngster-monster · 1 year ago

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everytime i look back at my own anon asks they get longer and i feel like im writing an essay except the essay is hyperfixation fueled rambling . does that mean anything i WILL get my wow lore from you i HAVE been getting my wow lore from you and there is nothing that any gamer alive can do to stop me because i have more free time than i should be allowed to have and an obsession for two dead gay elves. i think about them every single day and i think that this can be accredited to you, ELVES???? IN MY MULTI-MASSIVELY ONLINE ROLEPLAYING GAME???????? MANY OF THEM??? AND THEYRE COMPETENT TOO?????? oh man oh god i (i am shoveling everything on my desk into a suitcase) i dunno if i (i am hauling my computer and monitors into a comically enormous suitcase that is far larger than the contents would require) dunno if i can (searching "FINAL FANTASY XIV DOWNLOAD") i dont know if i can play that g- okay for real though i May In Fact Download FFXIV . i am scared of games i know nothing about because Uh brain sucks but youve convinced me by setting up one of those stick and box animal traps with promise of elves as the bait. i now get to message my sister who has also been hitting me with ffxiv copypasta and tell her i am interested PLEASE please please i would literally do anything to see subs tank so that they have no choice but to kick illidan out of space hell and by extension kael and vashj too so they can be mean to eachother and have the banter i so crave. to me their banter is what mana addiction is to the high elves. i miss them every single day my brother actually found out about the gay elves when i left wow open on my computer ("what relevance does that have?" you know how you can name your wow character almost anything? yeah so i have this thing where i physically cannot stop myself from testing if ship names are available for use on any game i play and uhm. youll never guess what i was testing on wow right then and there) which is tragically positioned in such a way that it is visible to the entire room and when he saw it he looked so disappointed but in no way surprised whatsoever

the time that i have to message you approaches very quickly because the ask length is getting Worse. it is getting So Bad. my deepest condolences that you have to sift through this whole thing i just have so many things to say at any given time

frankly this reminds me of my old forums days. did y'all ever do that thing where you made a friend on a forum and instead of exchanging numbers (no mobile phone) or skype contacts you'd just exchange novel-length private messages? emails with extra steps.

i am so sorry for the dead elves brainrot. it will get worse.

me 🤝 your sister Come Play FFXIV. They Are Extending The Free Trial In October. You Cannot Escape The Elves

it's actually a good game too especially once you make it past base game! as a wow player i found it pretty easy to get into after a quick period of adaptation ( < forged in the crucible of wotlk-era wow)

i just KNOW the outland trio has some incredibly comedic AND tragic potential with their banter and blizzard is KEEPING IT FROM US.

everyday hapless brothers are subjected to their sibling's dead gay elves obsession.... and it will happen again. when we're in the same room i often ask my brother random wow lore questions and he answers me immediately before going (extremely suspicious) "why. is this for a fanfic." yes it is now tell me more about coastal cities in the eastern kingdom for this throwaway line im trying to write

i also cannot shut the fuck up and i love attention and friendship so i'm having a blast personally 😌 everyday i log on and go "ah :) got a new message from my Secret Connection" like we're two spies in the 17th century corresponding through letters folded under a rock

#asks #anonymous #shout out to baron who apparently at least skims these asks and sent me a screen of that 'he can harrow me any day' tag from the last one #saying 'i hate you for putting this on my dash'#buddy i may have put this on your dash but YOU put it in your retinas. not my fault you're reading my highly public private correspondence #i keep trying to drag people into ffxiv im always happy when it works #(< famously told a ffxiv person 'i don't think i'll get into it much :/ doesn't look like my type of game')#(how the turn tables...)#i only wish i could put reaction emojis on ask paragraphs because these asks crack me up

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shadowweaver06 · 1 year ago

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Tagging for s2 spoilers.

Seconding what OP is saying here - y'all act like you've never seen a romance movie where one of the characters isn't quite ready to run off into the sunset, Bonnie and Clyde style.

Welcome to Plot 101 people.

Stop with the gay baiting complaints. Season 2 was always meant to be a leadup to season 3, and shit sometimes hurts before the bandaid gets slapped on. Neil is telling a story, and sometimes there's heartbreak in a good story. I get that the world sucks and you want your fluffy escapist love story and want it *now*, but a one dimensional love story in which the characters go off into the sunset without complications was never in the cards (I mean, have you read anything written by Neil ever? Even the book has lots of conflict, and most of Neil's other works do as well) and you're delusional if you thought that it was (or if you thought that S2 was ever going to be an entirely self contained story without loose ends the way that S1 was - he announced ages ago that S2 was the lead up to S3).

Also, this isn't the 'gay people get hurt' trope. Like it's not torture porn, it's the kinda natural consequence of too many years of silently conflicting priorities and motivations between characters who are complex, flawed, and who dance around shit but never actually tell each other what they want despite however many years of tenuous, anxiety frought friendship until things hit a breaking point. (Remember S1's bandstand scene? Yeah. We're back there all over again, except this time it is worse because one of them has now laid every last one of his cards on the table in a seemingly failed attempt to call his counterpart's bluff, and Aziraphale isn't prepared or ready to cope with what it means). Aziraphale moves slower than molasses in a January blizzard when it comes to matters of his own heart, and he's also exceedingly single-minded, and cannot see the forest for all of the trees in London, even when confronted with Crowley literally telling him 'this is what I want' in not so many words.

The story isn't done being told. Yes. It's a cliffhanger. Yes. It hurts. But there is more story to be told. Let Neil tell it. In the meantime, we have all the fix it fic fodder we could ever want or need for the next century until we watch enough that S3 gets the greenlight from Amazon.

some of u r so entitled and it’s lowkey a part of what makes current fandom environment so much worse than it used to be. crowley and aziraphale are non-binary heavenly entities who are canonically in love with each other. we had queer ao3 subplot this season between a coffee shop owner and a record shop owner. crowley and aziraphale KISSED. and it’s still not enough just because it was angsty? because the writers chose for aziraphale to be in character (aka weighed down by 6000 + years of religious trauma and his own personal issues)? aziraphale isn’t strong enough to run away from everything and everyone with crowley. not yet. but he’s a character who is growing. some of you have been threatening for months that you would harass neil & others involved if there wasn’t a kiss, and they gave us one. an incredibly painful but incredibly believable kiss. and intent for a continuation of the story where aziraphale will finally choose humanity/crowley for good. but nooooooooooo that’s not good enough? k.

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kiridarling · 4 years ago

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𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐒.

katsuki bakugou | birthday gone wrong (aha), f!reader, baker!reader, pro hero!katsuki, blizzards, angst and smut, exhibitionism, cockwarming, begging, confessions. minors dni!

— 4.7k words

Wanna blow off some steam?

“Surprise!”

Katsuki jumps ten feet high, and the plastic grocery bags precariously balanced on each finger tear without a second thought. Apples hit the ground with a thud and the egg carton with a depressing slap; one that signifies the crack of at least half a dozen. Katsuki looks at the crowd, red-faced and livid, and Eijirou Kirishima intercepts the awkward silence with:

“Happy Birthday Bakubro! I know y—“

“Said that I didn’t want a fuckin’ party?” Katsuki growls, groceries forgotten on the forgotten. Eijirou looks guilty and chuckles, scratching the back of his head.

“W-Well, yeah, but—“

“Everybody out.”

People sigh, and you think you hear Denki whisper told you he’d kick us out. You hate to say that you foresaw a similar outcome. Katsuki’s never been one for people.

Especially you.

“Awe come on, Kacchan,” Izuku says with hands on his hips. “We came all this way! Just let us stay for a little bit.”

“Yeah!” Eijirou seems to cheer up once given a sliver of hope. “Plus, we got cake and stuff. And Just Dance.”

Katsuki narrows his eyes, but you know better—he’s always had a soft spot for the redhead. You all wait with baited breath, wondering if this entire evening was a bust, as Katsuki weighs his options in a pool of fallen groceries.

“One hour.”

Eijirou gasps so hard he chokes, and Katsuki’s generosity earns him applause from the audience. (Plus whoops and hollers from Denki and Mina.)

“And I mean it—y’all have sixty fuckin’ minutes before you’re gone without a goddamn trace. Kapeesh?”

“Kapeesh!”

Katsuki sighs, rubbing at his temples as he steps over the mess at the front door. You assume he’ll make Eijirou clean it up. “Whatever. Where’s the fuckin’ cake?”

Ah.

“In the kitchen, my good sir!” Denki says as he ushers the ash-blond into the said kitchen, the rest of the party hot on their heels. Eijirou grabs the cake from the fridge and you’re tense until the plate hits the marble of their island.

“Flavor?” Katsuki asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Uh, I dunno, [Y/N] made it,” Eijirou throws you under the bus, just like that, and you want to scoff at the way Katsuki freezes—if only for a moment. Eijirou’s oblivious as ever, “[Y/N]?”

“It’s red velvet,” you say, trying not to burn under Katsuki’s carmine eyes. You don’t know why he doesn’t look away.

“Frosting?”

“Buttercream.”

As if you’d give him anything else.

Eijirou tries his best to cram 26 candles into the cake before being forced to opt for 23 lest he ruin your decorations. Denki presses him to make a wish and Katsuki rolls his eyes as he blows out the candles. Eijirou wipes an invisible tear because ‘his boy is getting so old.’ Mina and Jiro cut the cake and people seem to enjoy it, and you think that maybe, reuniting with your high school friends after so long isn’t as bad as you thought it’d be.

Even if he said he never wanted to see you again.

“—due to the incoming blizzard, we highly suggest all those who reside in the red and orange zones stay inside until it passes; which should be around ten am tomorrow morning.”

You spoke too soon.

Katsuki turns to the crowd, and you know what he’s going to say before his lip curls.

“Out.”

“Kacchan, don’t be unreasonable!” Izuku says from his comfortable position on the couch. “We’d get caught in the storm if we leave now.”

“Not if you’re fuckin’ fast enough,” Katsuki growls, pulling the greenette’s to his feet by his hair. “Get out, I’m not bunking with you fuckers overnight.”

“Dude,” Denki points to the window, and if you hadn’t known any better, you would’ve thought the blizzard had already started. “If we leave now, we’ll literally die.”

“Die, then.”

Eijirou sighs, clapping his roommate on the back. “C’mon, man. You know we ca—“

There’s a whirr then a click, and the lights and tv die at once. You can’t see a thing but you definitely hear Katsuki shout:

“Motherfucker!”

Eijirou turns his phone flashlight on first; Katsuki’s busy angrily flicking at the light to no avail. You sigh, turning to the ash-blond (and ignoring those ugly fucking butterflies in your stomach.)

“It’s a blackout Katsuki. The lights aren’t going to work.”

“Don’t you think I fuckin’ know that, dumbass?” And your chest tightens because even though he’s not eighteen anymore, he sounds the same—but you aren’t sure why you expected him to sound so different either.

You lift an eyebrow (not that he can see it), “It doesn’t look like you do.”

Denki snorts at that, hollering about how you just owned the ash-blond as Katsuki yells at him to shut the fuck up. It’s...familiar and comfortable, like you’re all in high school again, before you had to worry about your friends dying in their line of work because you couldn’t be there with them.

Before you got injured.

“Well I mean, we have a few blankets,” Eijirou offers, and as your eyes slowly adjust to the dark, you’re convinced you see his figure cross the living room. “And like, sweatshirts if it gets too cold.”

“It’s already getting too cold,” Mina says, and you can’t help but agree. The quickly cooling room has the goosebumps raising on your shoulders, and you’re starting to regret forgetting your jacket at home.

“Okay! I don’t have that many, but,” Eijirou hollers from somewhere, before returning with a handful of cloth. He drops it onto the coffee table. “Plus Hanta and Denks left their hoodies here last time.”

“Oh shit, we did?” Hanta says, and you assume it’s his figure who starts digging through the clothes. “Totally thought I lost this, lol.”

“Did you just saw lol out loud?”

“I did.”

“Ooh Ei, do you still have that old Red Riot hoodie?” Mina asks, and all of a sudden, she’s all over the pile. She finds it before the redhead can answer and snatches it away with a gasp.

You watch the pile dissolve in the darkness, one by one, and by the time you reach for something, your palm hits the cool wood of the coffee table. Fuck.

“Oh [Y/N]! Do you need some of my blanket?” Mina offers, but the blanket is small, and wrapping it around both of your shoulders just renders it utterly useless. You shake your head after she tries for a while.

“It’s fine Mina, I’m not that cold,” you laugh, but she shakes her head vehemently.

“No! Girl c’mon, you look like you’re freezing!”

And, well. Freezing is a stretch. Sure, you’re a little cold, but you’ll live.

“Do you need my sweatshirt?” Eijirou asks, already pulling at the hem. You roll your eyes.

“I’m serious guys, it’s not that bad,” you say, waving your arms for emphasis. They all grumble but they give up, and you feel like you can finally relax.

Something soft and army green drops into your lap. You pick it up in confusion, before looking up to see who dropped it.

Katsuki looks down at you, face glowing white from the phone flashlights. His eyes pierce your soul nevertheless.

“I don’t ne—“

“Take it.”

Katsuki takes a seat next to you on the couch in his own hoodie. You don’t realize until you put it on that he gave you a sweatshirt themed after his own hero costume.

You can’t sleep.

You can’t sleep, and you’re sure it’s due to the temperature. The wind howls and it sounds like you’re in the eye of a tornado, loose branches knocking against the rattling glass, and upon looking through the window, you see nothing but stark white. You sigh, checking the time on your phone for the fiftieth time this hour. Yep. Still four am.

“Stop fuckin’ movin’, dumbass.”

You all decided to bunk in the living room for warmth. You’re surprised Katsuki stayed, though; you figured he would just head to his room and let you all fend for yourselves while he slept in a comfortable bed. But here he is, sleeping next to you on the cold fucking floor.

“Sorry,” you say, but it’s hard when your shivering and your jaw aches from stunting your chattering teeth. Katsuki and Eijirou only had a limited amount of sleeping bags, meaning you’ve got to share a blanket with the hulking ash-blond.

“You cold?” He grunts. You don’t know why he’s asking.

“No.”

Katsuki sighs, and you hear him adjust, the blanket sliding from your neck to your shoulder. “You’re a shit liar.”

You prop yourself up on your elbows to glare his way, and you look to notice Katsuki’s laying the same way.

“What’s your point?”

Katsuki doesn’t answer for a moment, but it doesn’t seem like he’s looking for an answer, either—his neon red eyes glow through the dark and straight into your soul, and the next time you shiver, it isn’t because of the temperature.

“You’re stubborn.”

You roll your eyes, scoffing, “Thought you figured that out senior year.”

Katsuki’s face flashes with an emotion you can’t quite pinpoint before it’s gone again. “Yeah. You’d think almost dying would fuckin’ fix that.”

You sigh. Looks like you’re having this conversation now, then.

“I didn’t almost die—“

“Yes, you fuckin’ did,” Katsuki snarls, and Denki almost stirs at his raised tone. “You took that bullet and you didn’t get up for months—“

“And then I woke up and everything was fine! Seriously Katsuki, what’s your problem? I lived.”

“My problem is that you shouldn’t have been there in the goddamn first place!” Katsuki says through grit teeth. You watch his temple roll underneath his hairline. “That was my fuckin’ fight. I don’t need some chick jumping in front of a bullet for me just ‘cause she thinks I can’t take it!”

You scoff, looking around to see if any of your other sleeping friends are listening because get a load of this guy. Naturally, they don’t respond.

“That’s what this is about? Oh, well I’m sorry I bruised your dignity because I didn’t want to see you get fucking shot!”

Katsuki chest inflates with disbelief before it deflates again, and he’s rolling his eyes before he says, “That’s not—you fuckin’ know that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh really?” You laugh, and goddammit Katsuki, you just had to bring it up, didn’t you? “Because waking up after two months to your best friend telling you to give up doesn’t preserve your dignity at all, huh?”

“I didn’t tell you to fu—“

“You said those exact words, Katsuki. You said give up, and you left the hospital.”

The ash-blond has nothing to say to that, because he knows that you know you’re right, and trying to jedi mind trick you into believing he isn’t an asshole won’t work.

“Well you fuckin’ listened,” he grumbles, more to himself than you, but enough emotion flares in your core to make you want to scream.

“I didn’t have a choice,” you say, huffing, before turning your back to him, deeming this conversation over. “Good night, Katsuki.”

There’s a lull and it has you convinced you’ve won, finally relaxing (as much as you can) onto the cold floor. At least arguing heated your blood up a bit.

“The fuck do you mean?”

You roll your eyes even though they’re closed before you hop back onto your forearms to give the ash-blond a nasty look. “What?”

“You...said you didn’t have a choice,” Katsuki says, and it’s the first time you think you’ve heard him sound weary. Unsure. “The fuck does that mean?”

“It means I had to give up on being a hero either way.”

Which sucked. Because you had spent the past four years of your life working your ass off to save others, and you wind up out of commission before you even got started. You...suppose you didn’t tell Katsuki the whole story. Well, you hadn’t had a chance to—today’s the first time speaking with him since you woke up in the hospital.

Katsuki eyes you out of his peripheral, but only for a second. “And that means...?”

“It means that if I land on my spine the wrong way, there’s a high chance I’ll be paralyzed from the waist down.” You growl, frustrated that it was easier to coax the truth out of you than you thought.

The bullet buried close to your spinal column. You had to do PT for months, relearning how to walk as you slowly regain your motor functions. That’s when you started to bake.

“Oh.”

The howling of the wind turns from somewhat soothing to aggravating as Katsuki’s unimpressive “oh” hangs heavy in the air, and you find yourself sighing, the puzzle pieces finally clicking in your head. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?” Katsuki asks—he’s still not looking at you.

“Blaming yourself,” you gesture to his figure, which is lax with depression, lacking its sturdiness and usual fire. “You didn’t shoot the gun.”

Katsuki snorts at that, running a hand through his hair, “I might as well.”

“Stop.”

“You got shot because of me,” Katsuki says as if it were a fact. “They were trying to kill me. Not you.”

“And they didn’t kill me. I’m here and you’re here. If I hadn’t been there, you’d be six feet under right now,” you reason. Katsuki shrugs because he’s just as stubborn as you are, and you figure he’s been carrying around this baggage for too many years.

“Does your back hurt often?”

“No,” you shake your head. “I mean sure, I get flare-ups sometimes, but it’s not too bad. Doesn’t really get in the way of baking as long as the table is high enough.”

Katsuki thinks for a moment, teeth worrying his bottom lip. “Is the table high enough? At your café.”

You shrug, failing to see where he’s going with this. “I have a platform thingy, so. It’s mostly for decorating cakes and things—“

“I’ll buy you a new one.”

“What?”

“I’ll buy you a new table,” Katsuki says, nodding to himself as if he was confirming the idea. “A higher one.”

It takes a second for his offer to process, but once it does, you’re fighting a smile. Still the same kid. “Kats, I don’t nee—“

“An—And if you need a new chair. I’ll pay for that shit too.”

You shake your head—mainly in disbelief, “I don’t need a chair, Katsuki.”

“Then what?” He asks, and it almost sounds desperate with the speed he rushed the sentence, “Y’need a car? That hunk of junk you drive could use some work.”

You ignore the jab, because your car works perfectly fine thank you very much, and snort at the suggestion of such an outrageous purchase.

“What? You tryna be my sugar daddy or something?” You joke. Katsuki gives you a look, and it's dead serious.

“D’ya need one?”

“I—no!” You laugh, and have to remind yourself to reel it in before you actually wake Denki up. “I’m fine financially I just—what’s gotten into you?”

“Nothin’.” Katsuki quickly grumbles, facing forwards again. “I just...”

You raise an eyebrow, “You just..?”

“I dunno. I dunno,” Katsuki shakes his head. You let him gather his thoughts in silence before he tries again. He doesn’t.

“Then fuck me.”

In your defense, your mouth moved before you thought it through.

Katsuki has an unreadable look on his face, but his voice is anything but steady when he says, “What?”

Fuck. Fuck.

“U-Uh, I mean,” you recoil. Stupid big mouth. “I—you—don’t worry about it.”

“You said you wanted to fuck me,” Katsuki deadpans. You choke.

“I—no, that’s not—“

“That’s exactly what you said.”

“No, I meant as in I’m pent up. Obviously,” you defend with a huff, crossing your arms on the pillow as you glare daggers his way. Katsuki matches your stare.

“Not as pent up as a Pro Hero,” he scoffs, lifting an eyebrow. You take it as a challenge.

You click your tongue in faux pity, “Awe, the number two hero Dynamight doesn’t get laid?”

“No fuckin’ time,” he grunts, though you don’t find much remorse in his voice.

“Well, you have time now,” you say, completely unsure of where this confidence is coming from. Either way, you’ll take it and run.

“I do,” Katsuki confirms, leaning in closer. He’s close enough that you can smell what’s leftover of his cologne, and see the hint of a grin that makes his upper cheek shine silver in the moonlight. You find yourself leaning in just as much as he does.

“Wanna blow off some steam?” You dare to question. Katsuki’s grin only grows wider.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Katsuki’s kisses are surprisingly soft, you think, and so are his lips. But you don’t have much time to think about it as he pulls you in by the waist, quietly groaning into your mouth while he lays you down on your back.

“Always thought you were the prettiest fuckin’ thing,” he growls, trailing butterfly kisses down your neck. “‘M gonna make it up to you, yeah? Make you feel so fuckin’ good.”

A hand hikes his sweatshirt above your chest before Katsuki’s latching onto the skin under your collarbone and sucking, teeth digging into your skin hard enough to bruise.

“Y-Yeah, that’s fine,” you whimper, intoxicated by the way Katsuki’s lips flush pink as he pulls away, eyes locked on the fresh hickey on your chest. They flicker up to you; he grins.

“Good?”

“Mhm.”

Katsuki hums at that, licking his lips before diving back in. You hiss when he bites too hard, prompting him to bite harder, but he always soothes it over with his tongue, topping each bruise with a kiss. You flinch when his lips wrap around your nipple and he chuckles at your meek whimper; a hand removes its grip on the sweatshirt in favor of sliding it up your thigh.

“Fuckin’ perfect,” Katsuki says once he pulls away, enjoying the sight of you writhing in anticipation. “And it’s all for me, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, ‘m all yours just—“ you kick a leg in frustration at the thumb playing with the hem of your panties, “—do something already.”

Katsuki raises an eyebrow, “Do what?”

You frown, huffing, “You know what.”

Katsuki shrugs, adjusting so he’s caging you to the floor. Ghosting a thumb over your panties, he says, “‘Course I do. You gotta ask nicely first.”

You tighten your hands into fists. He would.

“I’m no—“

“Beg, Princess,” Katsuki growls, his stare unwavering. He presses an inquisitive finger to your clit through your panties either as a promise or a threat—which, you’re not quite sure.

You crumble.

“I—fine, just—finger me.”

Katsuki doesn’t move. Asshole.

“Please.”

The ash-blond grins, finally pushing your panties to the side.

“Good girl.”

When Katsuki slides his first finger in, it’s much too easy, and you blame it on the foreplay. You shudder, hands moving to brace themselves on his big shoulders, and the ash-blond muffles a moan as your nails dig into his shoulders.

“Another,” you moan, bucking your hips into his palm. Katsuki’s heated gaze flickers from your body to your face.

“Already?” He chuckles, the rasp in his throat giving his arousal away. You nod—he clicks his tongue.

“Fuckin’ dirty.”

Two fingers feel like so much more than just one, and they have your eyebrows folding in a poor attempt to muffle a whimper. Katsuki’s fingers still move tentatively but they’re getting comfortable, curling and searching for that place that’ll make you tremble. And then he finds it.

“F-Fuck,” your body jolts, and Katsuki’s shushing you against the pillows.

“Keep your mouth shut, Princess,” he purrs, head dipping down to nip at your neck. It adjusts the angle ever so slightly, but enough to make you hiss, and he chuckles. “Unless you wanna get caught.”

“Oh yeah, because that sounds fun right now,” you snort towards the ceiling. Katsuki pulls away with an unimpressed look as his thumb comes down over your clit.

“Can’t wait to fuck the brat outta ya. Maybe then you’ll actually shut up for once, huh?” Katsuki inserts a third finger without you asking him to, and you gasp, clawing at his back.

“Shh, shh, shh,” he laughs against your mouth lowly, as if the light kisses will do anything but make more noise, “Good God sweetheart, you’re really pent up, aren’t ya?”

“Shit—I doubt you’re much better,” you try, scoffing at what you can see of his painfully hard cock in his sweatpants. Katsuki looks down before sending a huff your way, with a cute little blush dusted on his cheeks.

“Shut the fuck up,” he grunts, pulling out his fingers. You whine at the loss. “How d’ya want me to fuck you?”

You need to take a step back from how crude the question is. Right, sex.

“Right um,” you look around, trying to find the least obvious position—and one that doesn’t make a shit ton of noise. Laying on your side, you tuck an arm under the pillow, before turning around to Katsuki to suggest, “Cuddle-fucking?”

“Cuddle-fucking.”

“Yep,” you say with finality, popping the p. Making big grabby hands his way, you say, “C’mere, big guy.”

Katsuki rolls his eyes but moves behind you anyways, warm arms easily finding themselves around your waist under the blanket. After a few adjustments and ensuring you're both fully covered, Katsuki’s hard cock presses against your entrance as he hooks his head over your chin with a huff.

“This is so not on fuckin’ brand.”

“I don’t think fucking in a living room with sleeping friends is on-brand for a pro hero or a baker,” you say casually. Katsuki breaks out into a snort, pressing his face deeper into your neck.

“God, I fuckin’ missed you, ya know that?” He chortles. Your chest blooms with something it hasn’t in years, and for the first time, you find that you don’t mind.

“Don’t be such a dick and maybe I’ll stick around this time,” you quip with a smile he can’t see. Though you feel his against the base of your neck.

“Noted.”

Katsuki’s last words hang in the air, unusually heavy, and your eyes catch the snow beating against the window with a less than angry howl. Katsuki’s chest shudders against your back but he doesn’t move, hands frozen at your waist.

“Hey, I thought you were gon—“

“I’m getting to it,” Katsuki snaps, and you gasp as he starts to push inside. “So fuckin’ impatient, goddamn.”

He pulls you down until he fills you completely, and you suppress the urge to shout at the speed he did it with. Katsuki moves a hand to slap over your mouth.

“Shut the fuck up.”

You reach around to pinch him in the side with a huff, he calls you a bitch. It’s a little hard to hear you behind his hand as you say, “Then don’t catch me off guard like that, asshole.”

Katsuki snaps his hips and does exactly what you tell him not to do—prompting another surprised whine out of you and a dark chuckle from the ash-blond. His cheek presses into your jaw as he finds leverage in hiking your lower half up until your puffy cunt is level with his cock, and fucking you until you drool all over the pillow.

“What a pretty fuckin’ thing,” Katsuki grunts, and you can tell he struggles to keep quiet in the way his chest sporadically shudders. You have to grip the pillow for some semblance of purchase and Katsuki chuckles at watching you struggle, before he’s hiking your leg up to fuck you that much deeper.

“I always—always knew you’d sound so good,” he pants, the grip around your mouth bordering on clammy. You want to tell him that if he keeps making so much noise he’ll wake up everyone in this fucking room, but there isn’t much time between moans to get more than a word in. “Fuck baby, keep tightening around me like that, and I might fuckin’ cum.”

You find it amusing how close he is so quickly, until two fingers land on your clit and start rubbing in slow, small circles. Your walls flutter around him and Katsuki digs his teeth into your neck with a curse, his grip around your raised thigh contracting as he tries to hold on for as long as he can.

And that’s when Denki starts to move.

First, he rolls to the left. Which would’ve been fine, seeing as it’s in the opposite direction until he bops Eijirou straight on the nose and promptly rouses the redhead from his slumber. Katsuki’s hips still.

“O-Ow, dick,” Eijirou curses under his breath, quickly scrambling to his forearms. It’s hard to tell through the darkness, mostly because you’re squinting your eyes to feign sleep, but it seems like Eijirou rubs under his nose, only to blink back at a bloody hand.

“...Shit.”

Katsuki’s hips shift, ever so slightly, but enough to nestle his cock deeper and force you to bite back a whine. And another. And then another.

You try your hardest to be discreet when you reach to pinch Katsuki in the side, and he breathes a laugh down your neck.

“What?” He whispers, though it's more than a rasp than anything else. Good to know you’re not the only one struggling to not cum, here.

“You know 'what,'” you quickly hiss. But Katsuki’s hips don’t stop as Eijirou weighs his options to cure his bloody nose in the dark. The fingers on your clit return their usual pressure and you inhale sharply, nails digging into Katsuki’s forearm as your orgasm begins creeping up on you.

Eijirou sniffles and gets up, stumbling through the darkness to turn down the hall that leads to the bedrooms. Katsuki sees that as fucking freedom and his hips really start to pick up so much speed that you struggle to breathe through it all.

“‘M gonna cum,” Katsuki whimpers into your neck, burying his face deeper in a poor attempt to stunt any sound. “Fuck, fuck ‘m gonna cum, you close baby?”

“Y-Yeah jus’ a little more,” you whimper, eyes rolling as Katsuki finds some inhumane energy in him to fuck faster. He nods at that and bites into your shoulder with a growl, “C’mon, fuckin’ cream all over my cock—atta girl, fuck, fuck—“

Katsuki fills you up the moment you clench around his cock with a sigh, the weight of your orgasm knocking you forehead-first into your pillow as you bite the urge to squeal. Katsuki doesn't growl as much as you expect, moans breathy and light as his hips finally stutter to a stop—but you suppose some things have to change over the years.

Katsuki collapses next to you in pure exhaustion and you’re sure that’s his cum leaking down your thigh, but for some reason, you don’t really mind.

“Hey you,” he speaks first, eyes blazing red in the darkness. You snort.

“Hey, you.”

Katsuki chuckles with a stupidly giddy smile on his face, "Y'know, you still fuck really well."

You drop your head on his chest to snort, and his hands find their rightful place around your waist.

"Better than high school?"

"Yeah..." Katsuki grumbles, before his eyes narrow. "Wait—hey, yo—"

"I haven't fucked anyone since," you snuff the fire before it even starts, and Katsuki relaxes, though his eyes stay slim. He pulls you closer and you sigh—it's comfortable.

"Good," he grunts. And then after a pregnant silence: "I haven't either."

That's...strangely reassuring.

Your arms wriggle until they fold over his shoulders to play with the small hairs on the back of his neck, and he hums, eyes fluttering shut with a final peck on the lips. As Katsuki's breathing evens and the white of the snow dyes the highest points of his face white, you smile. He looks older.

You think he's asleep until he nudges your waist.

"Be my girlfriend."

You don't even hesitate.

"Okay."

By the time Eijirou comes stumbling down the hall, both you and Katsuki are passed out—with his body encompassing yours in the most intimate way, face tucked into your hickey-ridden neck as your arms and legs lock around his being. The redhead gives you both a soft smile as he passes, snorting to himself.

“Took them long enough.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY THOTSUKI

#— 𝐊𝐀𝐓𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐈 #bnha smut #bakugou smut #mha smut

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captainrexisboo · 4 years ago

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Ice

-DJ Khaled voice- Another one.

What the fuck?? Four fics in just one weekend?? After two whole months of inactivity?? Aha, I am in no way as productive as you think I am. I’ve been sitting on all of these projects for almost three months now lmao- but they’re here now for your viewing pleasure, babes! This is a one shot Rex x Jedi!Reader, but they are not together. They do not get together. This is just Rex, pining for some oblivious Jedi General (you) and dealing with it by being grumpy and thinking he has the upper hand in teasing the reader. I left the gender of the reader pretty ambiguous I think? I hope?

No warnings apply, except I guess foul language if you don’t like that. And vague imaginings of semi steamy scenarios. Some angst if you squint. But really, it’s just fluffy pining, with a needy (and in denial) Rex. Comments, questions, reblogs and replies absolutely welcome and encouraged!

“T-take off the a-a-armor.”

The jaig eyes turned to you, the blue and white blending into the Pantoran ice and snow effortlessly. This would be the only environment suitable for their stark white armor as camouflage, and here you were demanding him stripped. Knowing you couldn’t read his bewildered expression, Rex tilted his head to you in a curious motion, “Why?”

“It’s fekkin’ f-freezin’ Cap,” you spoke through chattering teeth, pulling your robes tighter around you. He chuckled at your cursing, no other Jedi talked so blunt like you did, so casual. It was even worse when you were outside the temple, falling out of regulations and decorum the moment it was just you and your troopers. Hell, they didn’t even have to be your troopers. Force knows how often you’ve snuck around the barracks on Coruscant, going from battalion to battalion, whoever had furlough, making sure every clone gets at least a moment's worth of normalcy in their too-short life. Rex would be lying if he said it wasn’t endearing, and he may have felt a slight smidgen of pride that, aside from your own men, you seemed to find yourself in the 501st bunks the most.

“So? I’m perfectly toasty in this specialized insulated armor. You’re the one that decided not to wear your cold-assault gear until we got to the surface, General L/N,” Rex teased, drawing out your name and title nice and slow, biting back a bit of laughter at the way you scrunch your nose whenever you got annoyed, “Why would you want me to de-kit? To be cold with you?”

“Don’t c-call me that, Rex,” you bit out, groaning at the formality, and the chill going down your spine, “Y-you know I’m just Y/N.”

“I’ll stop calling you proper, when you stop being a Jedi,” he chided, prodding some more at the fire in the dim cavern, the only light being the glowing embers in front of you and whatever was being illuminated off the snow right at the mouth of the cave. Your ship had crashed into the freezing moon in the midst of a brutal blizzard, luckily right next to the base of a mountain with accessible caves. Unluckily, you were also 15 klicks west of your rendezvous point, with the wind and snow causing major damage to your transmitters and interfering with the signal in your commlinks. You weren’t going anywhere, or talking to anyone, until the storm let up.

You huffed at his strict persona, you know Rex only acted so dogmatic to rile you up. You saw how nonchalantly he acted around Anakin and Ahsoka, even Obi-Wan at times. No, with you it was entertainment, a game to see how much you could take before breaking, and he loved it. Even without the Force, you could see it in the shake of his shoulders at his quiet laughter, hear the coy smirk in the dip of his drawl, watching the extra swing in his stride as he walked away triumphant every time, so sure he had succeeded in driving you crazy. This time, he had nowhere to run.

Ignoring his baiting taunt, you crawled around the fire to sit right next to him, “P-please, Captain? I’m r-r-really kriffin’ c-cold, and while the fire is so delightful, I think i-it’d be in both o-our best interests to h-have a second source of heat.”

Rex nearly dropped his stick he was using to poke at the kindles, tensing slightly before clearing his throat, “Oh? And what ‘source of heat’ did you have in mind?”

“D-don’t play dumb,” you shivered again, pouting at how you stuttered while he sat a little too well composed for your liking, “I know the K-Kaminoans t-taught you all about s-s-survival tactics. I d-do it with my boys a-all the time. Strip to your b-blacks, m-me to my t-t-tunic, then I’ll wrap my robes around the two of us. B-body heat, Rex.”

Your boys. Your affectionate term for your ever-faithful battalion, that apparently frequently slept and cuddled with you in the most innocent and familiar of ways. Still, something about it made Rex’s stomach stir, his mouth twisting from a smirk into a silent snarl under his helmet. He wasn’t against ‘cuddle puddles’ with the vode, every single brother took part in them, and it wasn’t unusual to find a stray jedi or padawan compacted in the very middle of the pile. He knew for a fact that the 212th had regular arguments as to who’s turn it was to use General Kenobi as a pillow (and that Cody never partook in those bouts- no, he was always the General’s pillow). In theory, he knows it's more than a possibility for you to be a part of them, especially with your extremely relaxed extroverted personality, but actually hearing you say it out loud had something ugly rear its head to sour the Captain’s mood. He attempted to shoo the little creature away, trying to scare it off with a forced cough to make it scurry back into hiding and leave his inner peace alone. His mind clear again, he peered into your pleading doe eyes through his visor, seeing the flames flickering reflections off your irises in a whimsical dance. His gaze went lower, following the slope of your nose, before tracing the shape of your full pout, lips trembling and reddened from the cold, nearly beginning to chap. The slight clicking of your teeth as he watched you shiver under your robes made him resign to your request, sighing as he removed the cowled helmet, “Fine. Why you didn’t just wear your own cold-assault gear is beyond me, but I’ll help you stay warm this time.”

“Oh, thank the force,” you whimpered, immediately dropping the outermost robe from your shoulders, staying on your knees as he stood up to remove his layers. Rex nearly dropped his cuirass, watching you unwrap your tan-colored linen underneath to reveal a gripping white tunic, clinging to your every curve and muscle, no part of you left to the imagination except the actual flesh itself. You even discarded your boots and breeches, leaving you in opaque black tights. Without the safety of his helmet, Rex tore his eyes from you, desperate to hold onto some semblance of rectitude, taking a deep inhale through his nose before continuing his own removal. Rex could feel the tip of his nose numbing just slightly, shaking his head at what the hell was he doing-

“You know, if we get found like this-”

“We’ll s-say I got hypothermia and you were ‘d-doing your duty t-to protect the Jedi’,” you giggled, a little forced, hands coming up to rub at your shoulders, attempting to create some friction, but wincing at the iciness of your fingers, “Rex, hurry!”

Your whine of his name had him hesitant to remove the bottom half of his armor, already starting to feel something forbidden gathering in the depths of his stomach. He tried to fend off the feeling by turning his head to the stone wall and talking- though whether that was an effective decision remained to be seen. “I’m just saying, can’t you use the Force or whatever to warm yourself up? Isn’t that something you can do? I know you can use the Force for healing purposes, this’d be like that, right?”

“If I had f-followed the path of m-m-medical practice, sure,” your breath came out in little clouds as you puffed through another tremor, wrapping your dark robe around your shoulders as you waited for Rex to finish, “But, I didn’t, I chose the kn-n-nights, and so I’m here, and n-now I’m your problem.”

“My problem,” Rex grumbled under his breath as he sat back down, tugging at the final parts of his boots, not caring that you could actually hear him, “Skywalker is my problem. Tano is my problem. Kenobi can even be considered my problem at times, but you, General? No, no, no. You’re not my problem, you’re-”

Turning back around to face you, he nearly choked on his own spit. He hadn’t realized how close you were, and without his helmet, his nose brushed against yours in an innocent bunny kiss, the brief friction making him jump back nearly a foot away. A teasing chuckle left you at his skittish reaction, cocking your head to the side as you opened your robe back up and beckoned him closer, “Wrong way, Captain. C’mere.”

His throat felt tight, closing off almost everything, even air, and despite his discarded layers he was certain the back of his neck was beginning to sweat. The way you so carefully had folded your legs, thighs pillowing together in such an enticing way, leaning on your elbow to pronounce the slope of your hips and curve of your waist...he could so easily wrap his arms around you perfectly, before settling his head to rest on your chest and memorize the beat of your heart- the pinch of his nails digging into the meat of his palm drew him out of his mind before he could fall any further down that rabbit hole. He cleared his throat, throwing his gaze to the floor as his entire being tensed, “This…i-is not regulation, General.”

“Oh my maker you’ve been hanging out with Echo too much,” you groaned, throwing your head back dramatically, “Rex, please?”

He swallowed down a hard gulp of air, inching his way over to you, without looking up from the floor. You met him halfway, dragging your thickest robe behind you, and sighed in relief at the natural waves of heat coming off of him. Every single clone ran hot, and you trapped that heat by throwing the robes over the two of you, wrapping your hands around the back of Rex’s head and pulling him into your neck as you leaned against a standing rock.

One minute his eyes were counting cracks and jagged holes scattered over the cave floor, and the next they were gifted with a gracious view of your form, so close he could smell your clean body wash, a soft mint that tickled his nose, and he had to count to ten to control his breath so he didn’t just inhale you instead of oxygen. It was a concentrated effort made extremely difficult due to the delightfully sharp pressure of your nails against his scalp. You already felt like heaven, he had to tense himself from wanting to grab for more of you- which he didn’t have to do anyways. You had pulled him into you, his nose brushing over your neck, the tip still chilled, making a breathless giggle leave you, “Oh, your nose is s-so icy!”

“Who's fault is that,” Rex grumbled into you, mumbling to try to keep his lips from mouthing over your exposed collarbone. What he couldn’t stop was the delighted shiver that ran through him as your hands started massaging the tired planes of muscle in his back, making him lose a bit of discipline and dropping flush against you. He made a horrified sound, the breath strangled in his throat as he felt a nervous sweat thickly dripping over the back of his neck, before that sweet amused sound left you once again.

“Rex, you're so tense! Here, lemme just-”

Your hands worked in smooth motions, rubbing deep into his tired tissue. He could feel his eyes roll back into his head, biting the swell of his lip to keep any lewd sounds from leaving him, focusing on syncing his breath with the flow of your touches. His form was finally slack, keeping you trapped underneath him as his arms tentatively found their way around your waist, holding you to him, his face buried in the crook of your neck. You hummed at the coverage of him over you, leaning to nuzzle against the side of his head, the prick of his blond tickling the tip of your numbed nose. You whispered to him, eyelids growing heavy as you curled into him, “Thank you, Captain.”

Your breathing evened out, deep and slow, your hands coming to a rest, stopping on the small of his back and between his shoulder blades. Rex couldn’t believe it; you had fallen asleep in his arms. His eyes slowly peeked open, and he wiggled a bit, getting to a place where he faced you instead of the rock you were both leaning on. His eyes were nearly level with your jawline, he could trace the profile of your parted lips, still threatening to chap in the cold air, but your breath didn’t stutter anymore from the chill. He really was helping keep you warm.

He had dreamt about those lips, memorized the way they shaped his name, watched the direction you preferred to run your tongue over them while you were deep in thought. He licked his own lips in just that way, thinking about how maybe it’d feel if he were to do that to yours.

Maker, he was awful. Thinking about his wretched togue playing at your perfect lips, while you laid so peaceful and trusting underneath him.

Rex prided himself as a man of honor, he wasn’t so foolish as to attempt anything, but even just thinking about you in this vulnerable way as you let him hold you… he felt slimy, unworthy to be in your good graces. He let out a shuddering breath, not in the cold but in longing, exhaling your name as his arms brought you impossibly closer to him. For however long the two of you had, however long the storm lasted, he would treasure this. He would treasure you.

He was a fool for fighting you on this. Being lulled by your breath to join you into rest as the blizzard raged on, the only thing he would change would be how late he was in agreeing to your conditions. When you both awoke, with the snow settled and communications running, when you were both with your respective teams, and yourself in proper gear, Rex would still have tonight in his memory. He would still be holding you in his arms, breathing you in, and playing the memory of your heartbeat, the soft thumping tempo so soothing, on repeat in his mind.

#captain rex #captain rex x reader #captain rex imagine #captain rex x y/n #captain rex x you #pining #cuddling for warmth #oblivious reader #grumpy captain #hes done with your shit but fucking hells youre so damn cute #swtcw fanfic #commander rex #the clone wars #star wars the clone wars #star wars #my writing #liz speaks #jedi!reader #oblivious!reader

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letsfluxshitup · 4 years ago

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bonding b-over broken bones (ao3!)

(tw: a lil angst and a minor injury <3)

“I want to resurrect Schlatt.” Quackity blurted out, hands fisted in the blanket he’d wrapped around him.

“Ok.” Techno’s eyes didn’t lift from the thick book he was reading from, settled in a rocking chair in front of the fire.

“Ok? That’s it? You’re not going to stop me?” Quackity snapped, shrugging the blanket off of him.

“Am I… supposed to?” Techno sighed, flipping another page in his book. He shifted slightly, shooting a look at Quackity over the top of his book, looking unimpressed.

“I want to resurrect a dictator, of course you’re supposed to stop me!” Quackity stood quickly, crossing the room in an instant and jabbing a finger into Techno’s chest. Techno batted his hand away like it was nothing, completely unbothered.

“Ok. Quackity… Don’t resurrect Schlatt. That’s… a horrible idea.” He drawled, already looking over the conversation. “You know if you wanted to roleplay you should’ve just said so—”

“I’m not fucking around, Technoblade!” Quackity’s wings puffed up from where they’d been settled against his back, desperate to look intimidating, to get Technoblade to take him seriously. “This isn’t a fucking joke! Don’t demean me, I’m gonna do it!”

Techno paused, head tilted to the side with a considerate look across his face, expression oddly soft in the firelight. Quackity decided then that he hated that look. He didn’t want to be pitied. He wanted to be taken seriously, wanted Techno to make him stop his self-destructive mission, for Techno to act like he wanted him around.

“Why do I feel like we’re talking about more than resurrecting Schlatt here?” Techno broke the silence finally, apparently finding what he was looking for in Quackity’s expression. “I’ll be blunt, Quackity. I’m a bit tired, of all the mind games, of all the political intrigue. If you want something from me you’re just going to have to say it.”

Quackity huffed, Techno didn’t fucking get it, and that was fine, it didn’t bother him. He wished Techno would just do things, instead of making Quackity choose. A small part of him missed that about Schlatt, about how he was just told what to do. Even with the others, he went along with what was said. Techno didn’t allow that, though, and he hated that.

“Why? Why do I have to say anything?” Quackity lashed out again, shoving at Techno’s shoulder. The rocking chair moved with the shove, but Techno remained stony, face impassive and blank. “I want to resurrect Schlatt. That’s obviously a horrible idea! Why won’t you stop me?”

There was a long beat of silence as the rocking chair swayed back and forth, finally settling again before Techno spoke.

“It’s your choice, Quackity. You can do what you want. I’m not going to tell you what to do, because I don’t want to. If you wanted guidance, or a helping hand, maybe I can help you with that.” Techno stood then, grabbing Quackity by the shoulders and leaning close. “But, I am not your boss. I don’t care what you do.”

Quackity felt his heart in his throat, staring into Techno’s eyes, the man looking more serious then he’d ever seen him before. Defensive, Quackity lashed out, arms flailing wildly as he stumbled backwards.

“FUCK you, I didn’t want you to care about what I do anyways, you ass-” He cut himself off with a shriek as he stumbled over the carpet, crashing down the stairs and landing at the bottom in a tangle of limbs and wings.

He blinked and Techno was at his side, and he would’ve been impressed by the graceful landing considering Techno had just jumped from the second floor, but he was distracted by a horrible pain in his ankle.

There was a flurry of movement after that, Techno ordering him to stop squirming as he scooped him up before bridal carrying him up the stairs.

Techno carefully laid him out on his bed, and moved to look over his ankle. He was frowning and Quackity couldn’t help the squeak he made when Techno lightly touched it.

It was a fucked up way to ask for attention, Quackity knew, and he shouldn’t be so offended that Techno didn’t rise to the bait, but it was like he didn’t even consider it. And that hurt.

“Well, Quackity, I think it’s twisted.” Techno said finally, deadpan voice cut with the slightest hint of concern. “Looks like you’ll be stuck here for a while.”

“Just call someone to come get me, I can still ride a horse.” Quackity huffed, arms crossed as he glared at Techno. He was still pissed, alright? It still smarted a little that Techno, apparently, didn’t care about him enough to stop him from hurting himself and others.

He huffed again, and stuck his tongue out at Techno when he shot him a questioning look.

“Unfortunately for you, a blizzard’s coming in. Even if someone could get here before it arrives, there’s no way you could make it back safely.” Techno moved to stoke the fire more, settling another log on the pile.

“For…?” He prompted after a long lapse of silence, both of them just staring at each other, Quackity irritated and Techno puzzled.

“Whatever,” Quackity mumbled, fiddling with the edge of the blanket Techno had carefully draped over him. “You should apologize, you know.”

Techno blinked at him, looking genuinely confused.

“Whatever!” Quackity snapped, “Never mind, it’s whatever.”

“Ok.” Techno responded simply, standing up from his squat next to the fireplace and stretching. He looked like he was going to say something before he was interrupted by a door opening downstairs.

“Techno?” Philza called into the empty bottom floor, stomping the snow off of his boots as he came into the house. He shook the snow from his wings as he stripped off his outer layers, meeting Techno’s eyes over the railing of the stairs.

“Hallo. Quackity’s here.” Techno said, making his way down the stairs to meet Philza at the door.

“Oh? Quackity?” Philza paused, before whispering, “The loud one with the messy wings?”

At Techno’s affirmative nod, he beamed.

“Such a good young man. Very… Nonthreatening.” Philza smiled at him. “Good friend material.”

Techno squinted at him.

“I’m not a child,” Techno huffed. “I don’t need you to approve of all of my friends.”

Philza just snorted, deciding not to call him out on how he practically preened when Philza voiced his approval.

Philza carefully stroked down the feathers on Quackity’s wings, loose feathers drifting slowly to the ground. Quackity was sat on a chair with a low back, crafted specifically with the winged hybrids in mind. His ankle was propped on another chair across from him, an ice pack on his ankle.

Techno had been aggressively doting over him, adjusting his pillows and helping him drape the red cape Quackity had bullied him into handing over. Philza had gently sent him away, asking him to make them something to eat while he helped Quackity with his wings, amusement over the mother-henning palpable.

Philza didn’t miss the pout on his son’s face when he mentioned grooming Quackity’s wings, and barely managed to hold back a snort when he caught Techno shooting him a jealous look from the kitchen.

The clanking of pans and dishes hitting together and the sounds of cupboards open and closing filled the background.

Quackity cleared his throat, uncomfortable before falling silent again.

Philza continued to groom his wings, silently amused by the squirming the uncomfortable silence caused. Quackity’s shoulders relaxed a miniscule amount and Philza pounced.

“Do you even know how to groom your wings?” Philza said abruptly, startling Quackity into a more rigid sitting position. The sudden movement earned a squeak as he jostled his injured ankle. Techno appeared at the doorway, a concerned look on his face, blue frilly apron on and dirty spoon in hand.

Thank God, Quackity thought to himself, please help this is so fucking awkward.

Philza just sent him his most disarming smile, earning him a suspicious squint, he’d taught him well, but Techno disappeared into the kitchen again without comment.

I’m fucked, Quackity thought, cursing his lack of telepathy as his one hope of salvaging this interaction walked away.

Has it been too long now? Quackity wondered, does he still expect a response?

The silence stretched on for far too fucking long, Quackity shifting slightly in his chair as he tried to think of a way to save the situation. He glanced into the mirror hanging on the wall, Philza looking as peaceful and impassive as he had when they started. He nervously twisted a corner of the cape in his lap, and fuck Techno for leaving me alone with his dad you never leave your friends alone with your dad why would he do this to me, motherfuck-

“Quackity?” Philza chirped, sounding amused, “You alright in there?”

“Fine!” Quackity squeaked, cursing his high pitch and nervousness before clearing his throat and trying again. “I’m just fine, how are you, uh-, big man?”

Quackity flinched. Big man? Seriously?

“I’m alright. Joined this server, killed my son, my other son got exiled by my other other son’s government. Same old, same old.” Philza kept the same tone throughout, light and airy and Quackity winced. He hadn’t thought that through, fuck.

“No hard feelings, right?” Quackity joked nervously.

“Should there be?” Philza said, suddenly dead serious as he made eye contact with Quackity through the mirror across from them. And, oh, yeah Quackity could see why Philza had the reputation he did and how did he keep getting himself into these situations, god fucking-

Philza snorted, patting him on the shoulder before standing and stretching.

“I’m just fucking with ya, mate, don’t worry about it. No hard feelings.” Philza smiled, but there was something a little too feral to it, too sharp to be completely friendly, and Quackity saw where Techno got it from.

“I just— I hate all of this, L’Manburg, Manburg— after all of that started things started going to shit.”

Techno paused in his knitting, carefully set it down as he turned to look towards Quackity. Quackity was staring pensively into the fire, leaning heavily on one elbow as he studied the flames.

Philza had disappeared down the staircase moments before, despite Techno’s silent pleading with him to stay, only giving Techno a smug look over Quackity’s head, and a promise to return with hot chocolate.

After it looked like he wasn’t going to continue, Techno picked up his knitting again.

“It’s just—” Quackity started, and Techno sighed, “everything sucks now! Everyone’s all up in arms about everything, and everything is all about ‘intercountry relations‘ and it’s dumb and I hate it and it sucks. Governments suck, Techno.”

Techno inhaled. Exhaled. He slowly set down his knitting, lest any sudden movements scare away Quackity’s one moment of clarity. They were few and far between, you really had to capitalize on what you got when you got it. They were very close to a revelation here, and Techno had to act carefully.

When Techno turned to look at him Quackity was staring at him, expression open and vulnerable.

“Be careful, Ducky, you’re starting to sound like me.” He deadpanned, finally breaking the silence between them.

It was almost funny how quickly Quackity’s face crumpled, cycling between affronted, bamboozled, then contemplative. The old ABCs of realizing you’re an anarchist,Techno thought, happens every time.

Quackity blinked twice, quickly, before shaking his head.

“Y’know what— actually, nevermind. I don’t— We can worry about government another day, alright, asshole?” There was no bite to his tone this time, still looking deep in thought. He huffed before shifting in his seat uncomfortably, looking into the fire again.

“I think… We should talk. About our feelings.” Quackity’s speech was stilted, looking wildly uncomfortable and like he wanted to be literally anywhere else. Techno felt the same way.

“Ok.” Techno said finally, looking down at his knitting project again. “You can start.”

Quackity huffed, looking offended, before anxiously rubbing his hands across his thighs. Why did this have to be so awkward?

“I’m a licensed therapist, you know—” Quackity started, hands waving as if gesturing authoritatively would give him more credit.

“You’re not.”

Quackity flipped him off.

“Ok, you got me— I’m not, but I think we could work with some I feel statements.” He spoke semi confidently, desperate to put on a front, but his wings’ anxious shifting gave him away. “I feel upset, because of what you said earlier. Or, I guess— what you didn’t say?”

“I feel confused, because I don’t know what I didn’t say that upset you.” Techno said, stuttering slightly over the sentence. A glance at Quackity proved that he was just as confused, and Quackity huffed, frustrated.

Quackity flipped him off again before starting over.

“Ok, I see how that could be confusing. But, you—” He didn’t get to finish as Techno cut him off.

“I thought we were doing I feel statements. You can’t just ignore your own rules, you’re the one who set them.”

“Ok- fine- I feel hurt, that you didn’t do anything when I said I was going to resurrect Schlatt.” At the blank look he received he continued, voice noticeably shakier. “I feel like you don’t care, because if you did care, you’d make me stop. Or tell me not to, I guess.”

Quackity finished lamely, hands dropping back into his lap as he glared at the fire.

“Oh.” Techno said finally, nervously tapping on the table. “I can see how that would hurt. I’m— I feel— Do I still have to do this I feel statement thing?”

Quackity snorted before waving his hand dismissively. “Just speak.”

“I think resurrecting Schlatt is an awful idea. Like, there’s no way that’s going to end well. But I don’t— I don’t know!” He looked frustrated now, running his hands over the knitted yarn. “I’m tired of being told what to do. Of being used. I didn’t want you to feel the same way. You’re your own person, Quackity, you can do what you want. I trust you.”

“Oh.” Quackity said finally.

“Oh.” Techno agreed, staring into the fire again.

“Thanks? For trusting me, I guess,” Quackity shifted again, adjusting his wings against his back.

Techno just grunted, before looking towards Quackity again. Quackity was looking at him, too, nerves written across his face.

“Can we be friends again?” Quackity blurted out, flushing slightly.

“Sure,” Techno snorted, grabbing his knitting before standing up. He settled down again next to Quackity’s chair, head resting on the side of his thigh as he continued his soon-to-be mittens. They were varying shades of blue, and Techno planned to line them with soft fabric.

He’d noticed how cold Quackity got, the man used to the much warmer temperatures of Manburg. He was slowly working on a set of winter clothes for him, starting with the mittens. Philza had recommended starting small, after teaching Techno the basics.

Speak of the devil, Philza came up the staircase carrying a tray with three mugs on it. After handing them out, he settled into the chair Techno had abandoned, looking unbearably smug as he took a sip from his mug.

Techno knew that look. Techno feared that look.

“So!” Philza said cheerily, gesturing at Techno and Quackity, “When’s the wedding?”

#technoblade #quackity #philza #ph1lza #my fics #every day i talk about quacknoblade crack wedding and every day i dont write about that im so sorry LKDJFLKSDJFLDSKFJ #uwu! anyways #ok to reblog <3 #quacknobros

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

Text

Prompt: LQR/NMJ fuck or die, whether literally or socially

Without a Path - Chapter 1 - ao3

Warnings: adult content - please mind the other tags on Ao3!

These discussion conferences were getting less tolerable by the year, Lan Qiren thought as he trudged up the steep steps that led to the little house on the top of the hill. It was only two years ago that Sect Leader Nie had died, his place among the five Great Sects taken by his eldest son, and it was as if without his steadying (if irreverent) presence the other sect leaders had completely lost all sense of restraint.

Just last year, Jin Guangshan, who had been hosting, had set some late afternoon meetings in a “wine shop” that had almost predictably turned out to be a brothel, and he’d even taken the further step of paying the ladies of the establishment in advance to accompany them for the evening. A number of the smaller sect leaders had taken him up on the offer, carousing gleefully in the main room, but in the luxuriously laid out room reserved for the Great Sects, three of the five of them had stubbornly refused to partake – Lan Qiren on account of his sect rules, Nie Mingjue on account of his mourning, and Jiang Fengmian on account of his wife.

The entire evening had been unbearably awkward as a result: the ladies continued to make advances, even after having been rejected, and Wen Ruohan and Jin Guangshan only pressured them all the harder the drunker they got, both with a girl on each leg and one rubbing their shoulders. At one point, when Nie Mingjue had gotten up to leave, utterly disgusted – Lan Qiren couldn’t blame him – Wen Ruohan had even reached out to catch him, using his superior strength to pull him off his feet and onto his couch. Nie Mingjue had recoiled as if he’d landed amidst a bed of poisonous snakes, leaping up and storming out, and Jin Guangshan had nearly burst something laughing.

And now there was this year, Wen Ruohan was hosting, and he’d decided to do some sort of fancy winter night-hunt set up, encircling an entire mountain valley in the north for their use. There were a half-dozen houses in the foothills for all the sect leaders to stay in as their disciples conducted the hunts, excluding only the leaders of the Great Set, who were invited to walk up an unnecessarily steep hill to stay in the house up there. Fancier, more prestigious, with a better view…really, Wen Ruohan probably just wanted to rub all the smaller sect’s faces in the Great Sects’ glory, by which he meant his glory, again. Lan Qiren was most definitely not impressed.

The house might be better positioned, but it was inconvenient.

It was located on vein of power that boosted cultivation considerably but made flying by sword difficult – meaning they could only walk up, not fly – and the house itself was more elegant than it was spacious, meaning that once all the servants Wen Ruohan deemed essential were included the rest of them could each bring no more than two attendants. It was distant from the other houses, including the ones where their remaining sect disciples were being housed, and that in turn meant that someone would need to make the trek in between the two on a regular basis to bring them news of their own sects’ successes or failures in the hunt.

Moreover, it had already begun to gently snow, which meant they didn’t even get the benefit of the supposed view!

No, Lan Qiren was most certainly not impressed.

He entered the house, which was at least properly warm, and nodded at Jiang Fengmian, who was sitting with Jin Guangshan and receiving a cup of tea – he looked minorly pained, but that could just be proximity to Jin Guangshan and his idea of acceptable small talk – and it wasn’t long before Nie Mingjue arrived, habitual scowl on his face as he stalked in, flanked by his own two attendants. He was probably least comfortable out of all of them, it being no secret that he believed Wen Ruohan had had something to do with the death of his father – no, that was too polite. More accurately, he believed Wen Ruohan to have murdered his father, and Wen Ruohan had only barely gone through the motions of denying it, yet there was nothing anyone could do about it without starting a war that no one was ready for.

This was the first discussion conference he had to attend as Wen Ruohan’s guest. Lan Qiren felt a stab of sympathy and nodded to him; Nie Mingjue’s scowl softened, fading slightly as he nodded back.

The two of them were more familiar than most, and not only because the Nie and the Lan were long-standing allies. Nie Mingjue himself had spent some time in Gusu at one of Lan Qiren’s early lectures, back when he was still figuring things out – he had been a good student, thoughtful and hard-working, and he had become friends with Lan Qiren’s eldest nephew. That had been a friendship Lan Qiren had sought to encourage, thinking it would be good for them when they would both be sect leaders in the future; it was only that he had not expected Nie Mingjue to become sect leader so fast, so early. It was in many ways deeply strange to think that one of his students was now his peer and equal, even though Lan Qiren acknowledged that that was simply how inheritance worked.

(He wondered a little, sometimes, at Nie Mingjue’s age – the Qinghe Nie were unusually secretive on such matters, had always been. He’d never known the boy’s age when he had been his student, only that Nie Mingjue had grown tall at an advanced clip compared to the other boys, suggesting that he was perhaps older than he appeared. The Nie sect hadn’t objected to his ascension to the role of sect leader, suggesting he must be at least close to being of age at twenty, but really there wasn’t any polite way to ask. Not that that had stopped Jin Guangshan from trying to pry, though naturally Nie Mingjue had rebuffed all such queries.)

“Wonderful view,” he remarked, seeking to ease the mood, and Nie Mingjue briefly almost smiled.

“If you like dull white,” Jin Guangshan sniffed, completely missing the implied criticism. “But then again, I suppose that is the Lan sect’s preferred taste.”

“We generally prefer clouds to snow,” Lan Qiren said, not rising to his bait. “Where is our host?”

“An excellent question. One typically expects a host to be present to greet his guests,” Nie Mingjue said in agreement, his voice low and hot with seething rage.

“He was here, but was called away unexpectedly,” Jiang Fengmian said, acting as the peacemaker as always. “I have no doubt he’ll return shortly.”

Another ke passed before Wen Ruohan strode in, his shoulders slightly damp with snow that turned into condensation from the heat of his cultivation – a waste of spiritual energy, really, but quite in character for him. It occurred briefly to Lan Qiren that for there to be sufficient snow to make such a performance meant that the gentle snow must have gotten stronger since he had entered earlier, but then Wen Ruohan was opening the meeting and he had to focus on more important things. These discussion conferences might officially be held out to be social events, a way for the cultivation world to come together to share knowledge and trade pointers, but for the sect leaders, the Great Sects most of all, it was also an opportunity to do business. Interactions between the great cultivation sects was an especially cut-throat business, each move, even those of allies, being filled with traps, and that meant Lan Qiren had to be paying full attention at all times.

Wen Ruohan seemed especially enthusiastic for business that day, the agenda for that afternoon’s meeting being more filled up than usual with contentious subjects that required significant debate. The meetings on the first day always ran long, a shichen or more, but this one ran past two and was nearing three by the time they started to near the end – they’d even worked through dinner, servants flitting into the room with trays that they placed in front of each sect leader’s seat and communal dishes carried around, a set-up that suggested that Wen Ruohan had anticipated such an over-long meeting from the start.

An attempt to finagle some benefits through driving them all into exhaustion, perhaps? He would have had the advantage of being here for several days in advance, while the rest of them had only just arrived. A cheap trick, if that’s what he was up to, and not successful; if anything, the pressure put them all on their guard.

“I think we’re just about done,” Wen Ruohan finally said, which was a relief. “It’s too late to have the entertainment I planned with our dinner, but I’ll have them bring out some wine to accompany us.”

Lan Qiren suppressed a groan.

Jiang Fengmian cleared his throat. “I had planned to go check on how my disciples were settling in,” he said apologetically, and Lan Qiren was just about to agree that that was a marvelous idea when Wen Ruohan broke the sound-suppressing arrays that had been protecting the room they were in and they abruptly heard the rattling sound of intense winds.

“A storm?” Jin Guangshan asked with a frown, and they all went out to look – it was indeed a storm, the snow from earlier having intensified into a blizzard. It was impossible to see more than a few zhang out, even with eyes sharpened through cultivation; it would be inadvisable weather to fly in even if such a thing were not already made difficult by the dense qi of the hilltop, and of course the stairs would be impossible to navigate. “Ah, well. Such things are impossible to predict.”

They weren’t, actually, Lan Qiren thought with irritation, and Wen Ruohan should have put some more effort into trying to predict it before insisting on this ridiculous winter hunt. Perhaps he’d even deliberately planned for something like this to increase the difficulty level for their disciples, who would not be expecting it – the man’s pettiness and need for victory truly knew no bounds.

“I suppose it’s time for the entertainment, then,” Wen Ruohan said with a smirk, clapping to summon in the dancers. Scantily clad ones, to Jin Guangshan’s delight and everyone else’s growing misery, and Lan Qiren couldn’t help but think grumpily that he wouldn’t have considered dancers ‘essential’ enough to take up space that could have been used by adding in additional attendants.

Luckily, a glance at the candle clock revealed that it wouldn’t be long – enough time to burn an incense stick or two, no more – before he could plausibly plead out on the basis of his sect rules regarding the right time to retire for the evening. It wasn’t an excuse that always worked, unfortunately, as the other sect leaders knew that the rules of hospitality took precedence, but in this particular instance when he tried it Nie Mingjue made some noises about wanting to take advantage of the mountain spiritual vein and winter storm to cultivate and Wen Ruohan for once acted the gracious host, allowing them to retire without raising too much of a fuss. Jiang Fengmian stayed behind to continue watching the dancers, his posture clearly appreciative and more interested than usual, but Lan Qiren had no doubt that he’d be following them soon enough; with a wife like his, he’d soon conclude that the momentary pleasure of watching the admittedly beautiful and well-trained women wasn’t worth her reaction should she hear of it.

He himself settled into his room with a sigh, dismissing his two attendants to go to their own beds. It was already hai hour, the time for sleep according to the Lan sect rules, and by all rights he ought to be fading off to sleep as well through sheer force of habit.

Unfortunately, sleep did not seem forthcoming. He felt restless and confined, hot under the collar with suppressed inactivity – still full of adrenaline from the high-pressure tension that always accompanied the business parts of the discussion conferences, the often vicious arguments that always danced on the very edge of a war he was no longer certain he could say that no one wanted, and, worse, because of the ice storm battering the windows, he could not take a walk to burn off the excess energy.

Sleep seemed far out of reach.

At least he had his duties as sect leader to keep him busy. Lan Qiren occupied himself with taking down notes regarding the results of the meeting at once, lest he forget and have his forgetfulness used against him, and with a meeting that went on so long there was a great deal to record and plenty of information he would need to obtain from his disciples once connection was reestablished in the morning.

A shichen later, he was still awake, writing out one final set of instructions, and he was just about to finally retire for the evening and try to go to sleep, however unsuccessful he expected that endeavor to be, when there was an unexpected knock on his door.

Frowning, Lan Qiren rose to his feet and went to open it.

“Sect Leader Nie,” he said, surprised. “What brings you here this late?”

“Can I come in?” Nie Mingjue asked, and Lan Qiren would have refused if he hadn’t noticed that the other man appeared unusually upset – although the room was lit only by flickering lanterns, Lan Qiren’s cultivation was high enough to make his night vision excellent, and he could see the tightness in Nie Mingjue’s eyes and the bulge of his jaw as he ground his teeth together.

“Very well,” Lan Qiren said, and stepped aside, allowing Nie Mingjue to enter. “What’s the matter?”

“Have you been feeling unusual this evening?” Nie Mingjue asked, voice abrupt. He was standing especially straight, his hands behind his back. “Uncomfortable, or – overheating?”

Lan Qiren frowned.

“I have,” he said slowly. Now that he thought about it, he could feel sweat on the back of his neck, which could not be explained merely by the braziers and conductive array keeping the room warm – not in the face of the ice storm right outside. He did not like that, nor did he like the implications of Nie Mingjue coming to him late at night with the question. “Why?”

“I found this in the kitchen,” Nie Mingjue said, and he stuck out his hand with a jar with herbs in it. “It was – I think they put it in our food.”

Lan Qiren accepted the jar and examined it, his lips twisting into a scowl of his own as he realized what it was. “A consequence of our refusal to participate in the planned entertainment last time, no doubt,” he said, his voice tight, thinking that this was truly intolerable behavior. They were sect leaders, not schoolchildren; such a prank went beyond the mere unseemly into the inappropriate.

He noticed that Nie Mingjue’s expression had only grown more anxious, however, and sought to reassure him. “It’s not poison,” he explained. “At least not in the traditional sense – the drug is a powerful yin stimulant, with amatory properties.”

An extremely powerful aphrodisiac, in other words.

“Although it has some legitimate uses, it is best known to be used in the more dubious forms of dual cultivation. The effects cannot be simply filtered out with a golden core, but are easy enough to blunt with an infusion of yang energy.”

That was, of course, the basis of the prank, stupid and infantile as it was: for a man, it was generally not difficult to infuse one’s core with yang energy. Although it would of course be easier and more beneficial to accept an offer from one of the undoubtedly specially selected female dancers to engage in dual cultivation, a man could always utilize his own hand to stimulate the appropriate effect, even if it would take longer. Wen Ruohan – and Jin Guangshan, no doubt – would undoubtedly laugh themselves sick, dallying the night away with the dancers while the rest of them were forced to abuse themselves for hours just to have some peace.

Bastards.

“Fuck,” Nie Mingjue said vehemently, and Lan Qiren found to his surprise that his expression looked, if anything, even worse, his face having gone a ghastly shade of pale. “I can’t – do that.”

“Why not?” Lan Qiren asked, bewildered. Surely the former sect leader Nie had given his son the most basic education – Lan Qiren truly hoped he would not be called upon to explain the cultivation mechanics of masturbation, although he would grit his teeth and endure if necessary. “It may take several repetitions to flush it out entirely, but the drug itself will assist with – with the, uh, motivation – physically – for the infusion, that is –”

“You don’t understand,” Nie Mingjue said, and his face was now flushed, red at the cheeks as if he had a fever. “It’s not – I know what an infusion of yang energy is. It’s just – it’s not…”

He closed his eyes tightly. He was actually shaking, Lan Qiren noticed, his shoulders trembling – he was clearly very distressed by the whole thing.

“He knows,” he finally muttered. “He must have…there’s no other explanation. This was intentional, all of it. Wen Ruohan knows.”

Something about Nie Mingjue’s tone – almost fatalistic, defeated and resigned, as if he had lost some great battle that he had not even known he was fighting – made a hard tight ball of anxiety in Lan Qiren’s stomach.

“What does he know?” he asked cautiously.

Nie Mingjue laughed dully, a short bark of sound that was all bitterness. “That I can’t generate that type of yang energy on my own, Sect Leader Lan. That I’m misaligned.”

The implications of that hit Lan Qiren with all the impact of an avalanche.

Misaligned. It was one of those strange Qinghe Nie traditions, along with not disclosing private information such as the year of one’s birth – they believed that it was possible for the reincarnation wheel to err, for a man’s soul to be born in a woman’s body, or a woman in a man, or even in some cases a nebulous sort of existence that recognized neither. The substance of what they were wasn’t important, not really; the term was all-encompassing, meaning only that the physical body and the ephemeral souls and spirits did not match.

But for Nie Mingjue to say that he couldn’t generate an infusion of yang meant that the body he had been born with was that of a woman – yin-aligned, not yang-aligned, even though his stature and bearing suggested that his eight characters were likely to be heavily tilted towards yang, if not entirely yang. For a woman, giving in to the aphrodisiacal effects of the drug would aggravate the effects, not cure them; for a woman, ingesting such a drug in sufficiently large quantities could even be fatal, with the effects of the excess yin unbalancing her qi, causing –

Causing a qi deviation.

The former sect leader Nie had died of a qi deviation only two years ago. His father had died of the same.

Nie Mingjue, with his only heir a child under ten, could not risk one.

If they had been at home – if they’d been anywhere more civilized, Nie Mingjue could have summoned some doctor to help flush out the effects through a manual infusion of yang, using drugs, purges, the transfer of spiritual energy, that sort of thing. Without one, the only way to obtain a yang infusion of the strength necessary to keep the effects of a drug this powerful at bay would be through dual cultivation.

Through sex, specifically. Sex in which he was penetrated by a man.

And that, itself, was the problem. The Qinghe Nie recognized the misaligned, and some of the cultivation world followed their lead, but the majority did not. If it was ever publicized that Nie Mingjue had the body of a woman, and that he had, moreover, lost his chastity – it would be a crippling loss of face for the Nie sect, not unless he subsequently married the man who had dishonored him.

“Who can you ask?” Lan Qiren asked, his heart sinking. Between the ice storm that he’d thought had been an oversight on Wen Ruohan’s part, the tall hill with its barrier to flight, the restricted number of attendants they were able to bring, and the application of the drug in such quantity that it could affect a cultivator as strong as Lan Qiren so quickly…there were too many coincidences for this to be anything but what Nie Mingjue suspected it was: a trap designed to ensnare him in an impossible situation. “Perhaps…your attendants? You were allowed to bring two –”

“I wanted to bring people I could trust,” Nie Mingjue said dully. “With such a small number…”

Lan Qiren understood. Nie Mingjue was young, still new to his role as sect leader even after two years – there must be plenty of people both in and out of the Nie sect waiting anxiously to see him fail. For a situation in which he would have to be at close quarters with the other sect leaders, he would have wanted people that he believed would support him unreservedly.

He would have brought family.

“Too close?” Lan Qiren checked, and grimaced when Nie Mingjue nodded. Obviously engaging in incest would only make a bad situation worse, even if Nie Mingjue were willing to order such a thing, which he very obviously wasn’t. “In that case, there’s only…”

His voice trailed off.

“Servants,” Nie Mingjue said, his voice very tight. “Servants, or another sect leader.”

He swallowed, hard. Then, suddenly, before Lan Qiren could do or say anything more, he knelt down before Lan Qiren and pressed his forehead to the floor.

“Sect Leader Lan,” he said. “Please help me.”

Lan Qiren stared down at him in horror, quickly crouching to pull Nie Mingjue up again. “Me? You can’t be serious!”

“It has to be you,” Nie Mingjue said. “Fucking another sect’s servant while they were still in their employ would be as good as saying that my sect was only good to be servants themselves, and of the sect leaders…there’s no one else. Jiang Fengmian is married to a vicious shrew that would castrate him if he even thought about anyone else, Jin Guangshan is a notorious whoremonger known for his cruelty to his bedpartners – and Wen Ruohan…”

He looked up at Lan Qiren, tears glinting in his eyes.

“Sect Leader Lan, please,” he whispered. “Please. It can’t be Wen Ruohan. It can’t.”

Now it was Lan Qiren’s turn to swallow.

“I am faithful to my sect’s traditions,” he croaked. There was no rule against engaging in sexual relations in his sect, only against promiscuity, but among those who were the most faithful to the traditions of their founder, those like Lan Qiren who sought to model themselves on Lan An, such things were taken very seriously. This situation fell nowhere in the list of acceptable exceptions that the young used to explore their inclinations and manage the hormones of adolescence and early adulthood; for Lan Qiren, at this point in his life, he wished only to go to bed with the woman who would become his wife.

The one he would walk to on foot without a path, as Lan An had done, bringing gifts and an oath of eternal loyalty, binding their hands together with his forehead ribbon in a promise that would never be broken.

His dao companion, his one, the other half of his life.

Not this.

Not like this.

“I know,” Nie Mingjue said, and he sounded truly wretched. “I know what I’m asking of you. I know I have no reason to expect anything from you, much less something that may affect the rest of your life. But – please. I beg of you, please. I know what a drug like this can do, especially if combined with certain others, and I just know he’ll find a way to get those to me, too. He won’t let me have the chance to just wait it out and hope for the best – I’ll enter delirium and be unable to resist, and then I’ll wake up and find myself bound to marry the man who murdered my father. Teacher Lan, please!”

Lan Qiren’s shoulders shook. Nie Mingjue was a proud man, and rightfully so, powerful and righteous as he was; it was abominable that he should be begging on his knees for Lan Qiren to violate him because he feared the all-too-plausible alternative more. And at the end he had slipped up in his desperation and called Lan Qiren ‘Teacher’, as if he was still his student, not his peer, still that boy from not so long ago.

The worst of it was that he truly could not think of another option.

If he refused, and he knew he was well within his rights to refuse, Nie Mingjue would try to submit himself in desperation to someone else – Jiang Fengmian would reject him, claiming that Wen Ruohan would never do such a thing even though it was patently obvious that he would, and to submit in such a way to Jin Guangshan was very nearly as bad, given his greed and treatment of women. Faced with such a rejection, with his only other options being intolerable politically or personally or both, Nie Mingjue might try to leave this place contrary all reason, heading into the snow and ice and the steep steps that had been treacherous even without a blinding blizzard, but that might kill him.

He might prefer that it kill him.

“I will help,” he said, because the alternative was unthinkable, because Nie Mingjue had been his student and he couldn’t abandon him now. Nie Mingjue looked up at him, eyes wide as if with disbelief, so he repeated himself: “I will help you.” He hesitated, but only briefly. “Come to bed.”

Nie Mingjue rose to his feet unsteadily and followed him obediently to the bed.

(From his daydreams and the admittedly minimal exploration that he had done in his youth, Lan Qiren knew that he liked obedience in his lovers. He enjoyed pampering them, caring for them, but most of all he liked having them wholly yield to him and trust him, as Nie Mingjue was doing now. He liked it best when the submission was worthwhile, when it was someone brave and bold and smart and powerful, and in another time, another place, a person very much like Nie Mingjue would have been just what he wanted. But he was only doing him a favor – had only been sought out in desperation, not desire – he should not think of such things, nor of how beautiful Nie Mingjue was in the flickering candlelight.)

“Have you done anything before?” Lan Qiren asked, and was unsurprised when Nie Mingjue shook his head. “Anything at all?”

“With another person? No.”

Lan Qiren nodded, accepting it. “You should – probably get undressed.”

Nie Mingjue nodded. His gaze was averted, but his hands were sure and straightforward as he removed the various layers of clothing he wore, the visible markings of the sect leader of the Nie sect; underneath, he was as tall and broad as might be expected.

Lan Qiren put a hand on Nie Mingjue’s thigh. He flinched.

“You’re going to have to relax,” Lan Qiren said, trying to be kind. Nie Mingjue lay back on the bed and clearly made an effort, shoulders settling and muscles unclenching through sheer willpower. Lan Qiren would like very much to blame the fact that his cock hung heavy and hard between his thighs entirely on the drug he had consumed, but he wasn’t that ignorant of himself. “Would you like me to…?”

“Just get on with it,” Nie Mingjue snapped, and then amended to add, “If you would.”

To his shame, Lan Qiren’s cock twitched.

He ignored it and reached forward to touch Nie Mingjue’s body, which shivered invitingly under his hands: his shoulders, his hips, the hard planes of his belly and the surprising softness of his chest – Nie Mingjue flinched once again at that, and Lan Qiren moved away immediately – before dipping a hand down between his legs.

It was probably the drug that made Nie Mingjue warm and wet for him, he reminded himself, and the expression of surprise and the way his hips jerked up when fingers slid over his cunt was simply inexperience. And the way he bit his lower lip and tried to force himself to grind into Lan Qiren’s hand –

“Stop that,” Lan Qiren said, and Nie Mingjue obeyed at once, cheeks pinking with embarrassment. He sank back onto the bed when instructed and spread his legs wider, and Lan Qiren wanted to eat him out until he cried. The effect of the drug, he hoped. “Tell me what feels good to you.”

“It mostly feels strange,” Nie Mingjue confessed, even as Lan Qiren worked a finger into him. He was unsurprisingly tight as a vise, so tight that Lan Qiren was starting to have doubts that he would be able to fit himself inside – he was not small by any measure – but after a few moments either the drug or the sensations started to do its work and Nie Mingjue softened around him. “I don’t normally touch myself in there.”

“Can you show me what you normally do, then?”

“Is that really necessary?” Lan Qiren gave him a stern look. “…yes, Teacher Lan.”

Lan Qiren could have done without the self-knowledge that he liked being called teacher in bed, especially by a blushing former student – who was of an age to be his nephew’s dearest friend, no less – but he was stuck with that now.

Just like he was stuck with the knowledge of what Nie Mingjue looked like when he touched himself, of hearing the muffled grunt he gave when his fingers rubbed against his clit, how he arched his back and raised his hips as he pressed down on it. How tight and wet he was when Lan Qiren gave him another finger, how he hissed at the stretch and then furrowed his brow when Lan Qiren crooked his fingers, rubbing him from the inside. The way his thighs trembled.

“Are you going to fuck me at any point?” Nie Mingjue asked, a little plaintive.

“I’m not sure you’re ready,” Lan Qiren said, but he pulled open his clothing – it hadn’t occurred to him to get undressed, even if Nie Mingjue was, and the little inequality jarred his sense of righteousness even as it turned him on – and took out his cock, pressing against it Nie Mingjue’s slick cunt.

It didn’t go in.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Nie Mingjue, who had been staring at the ceiling and bracing himself, said, and pushed himself up onto his elbows, craning his neck up to look down at where they were failing to join. “Oh, well, see, that’s the problem right there. I’d assumed that I’d invited a man into my bed, not a horse.”

“My bed,” Lan Qiren reminded him, though he wasn’t quite able to keep his lips from twitching in amusement. “It might be easier if you reached completion first. It would relax you.”

“Oh, sure. No problem. Because the prospect of imminent impalement is so very sexy,” Nie Mingjue grumbled – Lan Qiren did not laugh, but it was close – and reached down, closing his eyes as he started touching himself in earnest.

Lan Qiren ground his cock into the bed as he waited, two fingers still inside and steadily stretching, his mouth dry as he listened to the slick, rhythmic sounds, as he watched Nie Mingjue’s face go steadily more slack – too slack, actually, and when Nie Mingjue opened his eyes he looked dazed. Maybe it was simply how he reacted to pleasure, or maybe it was the second drug he’d suspected that he’d been dosed with, perhaps, something to make him less vigilant.

Lan Qiren hoped it was just pleasure, but he knew that it didn’t make a difference either way to what they had to do.

Lan Qiren waited until Nie Mingjue’s hips finished shuddering – one foot twitched and nearly kicked, and he caught it with one hand and pressed it back down – before pulling out his fingers and pressing his cock up against the young man’s entrance again. It was still tight, but he was able to force it in, squeezing himself until the head had gone inside.

“Fuck,” Nie Mingjue said. He sounded half-drunk. “That’s so weird. You’re – inside of me.”

“Not yet,” Lan Qiren said, and pressed himself forward slowly, bracing himself against the bed for leverage as he did. He managed to get about halfway in before Nie Mingjue whimpered. “Are you in pain?”

“No,” Nie Mingjue said. “More like – pressure. Heat. I don’t know. I can feel you.”

“Focus on cultivation,” Lan Qiren advised, which was very good advice except for the fact that Nie Mingjue said, “Yes, Teacher Lan,” and Lan Qiren’s hips involuntarily jerked forward, making Nie Mingjue groan and getting him almost all the way in.

He forced himself to slow down again, to stop. His arms were trembling where he was holding himself up, and it wasn’t with the strain – as if someone raised in the Lan sect, with their habit of handstands and other such exercises, would feel strain over something like this – but rather from the effort of restraint.

He was not going to grab Nie Mingjue by the hips, bend him in two, and start fucking him into the bed until he shouted for mercy, but it was – more difficult than he liked to admit to stop himself from doing just that. This was not a type of restraint that he was familiar with.

“I feel like I should be doing something with my hands,” Nie Mingjue said.

“You may touch my shoulders,” Lan Qiren said, and felt Nie Mingjue’s hands settle there a moment later, fingers gripping the cloth tightly. A moment later, he could felt the spiritual energy inside of Nie Mingjue starting to circulate, and he nodded, impressed that Nie Mingjue was able to find his focus even in such a situation. “Well done. Good boy.”

Nie Mingjue’s legs had ended up slung over Lan Qiren’s hips at some point in the process and he abruptly tightened them, before releasing the pressure just as abruptly a moment later.

“Would you prefer that I avoid saying that?” Lan Qiren asked, desperately trying to focus on starting his own cultivation instead of thinking about Nie Mingjue’s reaction.

“…no,” Nie Mingjue muttered, and turned his face to the side. He was blushing again. “It’s fine. You can – I like that.”

Lan Qiren put one hand on Nie Mingjue’s hips, and pulled himself halfway out, then thrust back inside in a sudden motion, making Nie Mingjue cry out in surprise.

“Cultivation,” he reminded him as he started moving his hips, more cruelty than anything else because he was having some considerable trouble thinking or focusing himself. “You can do it. You’re a good boy for me, aren’t you?”

“Y – yes, Teacher Lan,” Nie Mingjue said, his whole body shifting with the force of Lan Qiren’s thrusts. Amazingly, somehow, he really did start to cultivate, and then Lan Qiren finally got his act together and did the same, and suddenly their spiritual energy was intertwining, yin feeding into yang and yang spilling into yin, and it wasn’t long before that metaphor became a reality, Lan Qiren gripping tightly onto Nie Mingjue’s hips as he came. He reached down between them and rubbed Nie Mingjue’s clit, mimicking the actions he’d seen him take earlier – a little rough, circles a little careless – and a few moments later the dual cultivation did its work, pulling Nie Mingjue along, his hips jerking up again as he hit his peak once more, squeezing him from the inside.

“Fuck,” Nie Mingjue said, with feeling. “Fuck.”

“A good start,” Lan Qiren said. He was still hard, even after he’d finished inside of him. That was definitely the effect of the drug. “Make sure to draw the yang energy into your dantian. Use it to cleanse your core. Would you like to try another position for the next round?”

“Huh?” Nie Mingjue asked, the daze he was in earlier having clearly deepened, so Lan Qiren pulled out of him – Nie Mingjue whined at that – and helped him turn over so that he was on his hands and knees, his hair having fallen out of some of its braids, though not all, and falling down over his shoulders and back. “Oh, I see. Is this right?”

Lan Qiren was able to push back inside much more easily, whether from the earlier stretch or the new position. “Yes, very good,” he praised, and Nie Mingjue shivered underneath him. “Spread your legs a little more – good, good. Start cultivating again. I’m going to fuck you.”

Nie Mingjue’s cunt tightened around him when he used the crude language. Anticipation, not dread, he hoped, and matched action to word.

Having gotten the edge off with the first round, the second round took longer, Nie Mingjue reduced to shuddering and gasping almost despite himself. The new position also made balancing easier, as Lan Qiren could rely on Nie Mingjue’s own body to steady them both, and that gave him freer use of his hands: he could run them up and down Nie Mingjue’s sides, could press a hand to his belly as if he were trying to feel himself there inside. Could reach up and touch that tempting softness at his chest – this time, Nie Mingjue did not resist, too lost in sensation to really notice, although Lan Qiren did not linger – could slide his fingers down so that he could finger Nie Mingjue’s clit. Could trace around the place where they were connected, the slick dripping out and smearing across Nie Mingjue’s thighs as he fucked into him with wet sounds.

The cultivation aspect was also improved: their spiritual energies recognized each other better now, and for all its faults this mountaintop house was in fact an excellent natural source of spiritual qi. Lan Qiren could feel the energy being drawn throughout his body, strengthening him much faster than meditation or playing guqin or swordsmanship usually did, the ecstasy of spiritual pleasure accompanying the physical sensations besieging him.

Nie Mingjue begged me to do this, Lan Qiren thought hazily, his balls tightening in anticipation of another orgasm. He wondered if he could get Nie Mingjue to beg him again, although maybe this time it would be for his cock or for permission to come.

He suddenly wanted to see Nie Mingjue’s face again, currently hidden in his folded arms with his ass in the air like some bitch waiting to get bred. He wanted to fuck him for a week, never resting, until he couldn’t walk any more, and then he wanted to take him home and do it all over again. He wanted to see Nie Mingjue bent over the low table he used in his study at the Cloud Recesses, hands held obediently on his wrists behind his back, calling him teacher like the good little student he’d been as he used his body to milk Lan Qiren’s cock dry.

One of those, at least, he could have.

He pulled out again, even though he was starting to get close. “Turn,” he ordered, and Nie Mingjue did. “Hold your legs open – no, use your hands. Put them under your knees.”

Nie Mingjue obeyed. He looked obscene in that posture, as Lan Qiren had expected he would: his face was red and sweat was dripping down his forehead, drool at the corners of his mouth and eyes glassy with tears that occasionally rolled down his cheek.

Lan Qiren put his cock against him, but did not go in, just rubbed up against his cunt, marveling at how slick with his juices his cock was. “Are you in pain?” he asked again, an echo of his earlier question when he’d actually meant it as a serious question rather than a tease. “You’re crying.”

“No,” Nie Mingjue said, then stuttered, “Yes. It doesn’t hurt, it’s just – a lot. Don’t stop.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t want to hurt you –”

“Teacher Lan,” Nie Mingjue whined. “Please fuck me already.”

Lan Qiren clicked his tongue. “So impatient,” he said, but he was already sinking in, their spiritual qi at once twining together again, and it wasn’t hard to reach in and tweak it, making Nie Mingjue’s hips jerk and his mouth fall open slack as he came once again. His whole body tensed, and then relaxed, and Lan Qiren used the moment to fuck him hard, hips pistoning as he thrust in and out, using his own hands to keep one of Nie Mingjue’s legs up – he’d released them when he came, hands dropping to grab at the bedding instead – and it wasn’t long before he was coming himself, buried deep inside.

Nie Mingjue was crying in earnest now, but not unhappily – tears spilling down his cheeks, but enthusiastically participating the whole while – and Lan Qiren pulled out and pressed their bodies together.

“It’s going well,” he assured him, reaching for his own cultivation to encourage his cock to recover faster. “Once or twice more. You can do it.”

Nie Mingjue nodded

“Good boy,” Lan Qiren said, enjoying the way it made Nie Mingjue both blush and pant at the same time. “Your teacher is proud of you.”

Nie Mingjue covered his face with his hands, but Lan Qiren was inside of him again by that point, and he could tell from the way Nie Mingjue bore down on him that didn’t really object to it at all.

Still, the pleasure and joy of their coupling – the physicality of sex, the way they unexpectedly suited each other in temperament and in cultivation – was tempered by the reality of their situation. After his third orgasm, or possibly fourth, Nie Mingjue started to succumb to delirium as he’d predicted at the start, and by this point there was no denying that the daze he kept slipping into was pharmacological in origin.

They had both been dosed with the aphrodisiac, that much was clear, but somehow Nie Mingjue had also received a dose of something else, something that made his eyes go increasingly vacant even as he curled his limbs around Lan Qiren, trying to increase the amount of bodily contact between them. Whatever the secondary drug was, it clearly increased his pleasure, which was good, but Lan Qiren disliked the dullness of his expression, the way that it was increasingly obvious that Nie Mingjue no longer recognized what exactly he was doing or with whom. If he’d refused to accede to Nie Mingjue’s request…

Best not to think on that, he told himself, and set himself to the task of reaching his own peak once again as quickly as possible. As much as he was repulsed by the idea of bedding a man who was clearly no longer sober, he knew that it was only through more of his yang energy that Nie Mingjue would pass through this night unscathed.

“Truly it is as they say,” a voice drawled from behind him, and Lan Qiren froze mid-thrust even as Nie Mingjue whimpered and jerked up against him. “The quick-footed ones climb up first, the early bird catches the worm – however it goes. Sect Leader Lan, I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.”

“Sect Leader Wen,” Lan Qiren said, voice stiff. “You are not welcome in my room.”

Wen Ruohan ignored him, walking forward until he was standing by Lan Qiren’s side, looking down at Nie Mingjue lying senseless on the pillow.

“Lovely girl,” he said idly, and reached down to tuck some of Nie Mingjue’s hair back behind his ear. “Do you know, I had no idea she was a woman until she fell into me at last year’s discussion conference? Her breasts pressed up against my arm, my knee between her legs – the Qinghe Nie really do play their cards close to their chests.”

“By the traditions of his clan, he’s a man,” Lan Qiren said icily, or as icily as he could with Nie Mingjue still squirming on his softening cock. “Wen Ruohan. Leave.”

“Have some shame, Sect Leader Lan. It’s my precious jade that you pilfered, after all,” Wen Ruohan scolded lightly. He skimmed two fingers down along Nie Mingjue’s cheek before pressing into his mouth, pushing down on his tongue before starting to move them in and out in a familiar motion – fucking his mouth with them. Nie Mingjue’s eyes were completely blank as he sucked on the fingers of the man who he believed killed his father, who only a shichen or two earlier he had begged on his knees to avoid. “And here I thought your Lan sect had a rule against illicit sex.”

“It isn’t illicit if I’m willing to marry him,” Lan Qiren said. His entire body was tense with rage: he hadn’t expected Wen Ruohan to admit that he’d been planning this at all, much less so causally, as if there was nothing anyone could do about it.

He was right, though. There wasn’t. Even if Lan Qiren could bring forward proof of this atrocity, no one would join hands with him to enforce any type of punishment other than the Nie sect, and the Nie and the Lan by themselves could not hope to shake the power of the Wen sect.

It was as pointless to try to make something over this as it had been over Lao Nie’s murder.

“Marry?” Wen Ruohan echoed, and then laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Tell me, is there any chance you’d share her?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Wen Ruohan asked, and he seemed almost genuinely curious. “Sect Leader Jin and I shared one of the dancers earlier; I assure you, it’s a very enjoyable experience, and most beneficial in increasing your strength.”

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed,” Lan Qiren said, his teeth grinding together painfully. “But he hates you.”

He wanted nothing more than to stand up and reach for his sword to run Wen Ruohan through for his presumption, but his cultivation, however powerful, had always been centered in music, not swordsmanship, and at any rate Wen Ruohan’s own cultivation level left his own far behind. As it was, he didn’t even dare pull out of his intimate embrace with Nie Mingjue no matter how vulnerable the position made him feel – he half suspected that if he did, Wen Ruohan would take it as an invitation to simply push him aside and replace his cock with his own.

It can’t be Wen Ruohan, Nie Mingjue had said at the start, tears in his eyes. It can’t. Please!

He stayed where he was.

“I’m not sure why you think that matters,” Wen Ruohan mused. “That bit about killing her father, hmm? Look at her, Sect Leader Lan. She wouldn’t say no even if the man fucking her was her own father.”

“Because you drugged him.”

“Because I drugged her,” Wen Ruohan agreed. “The second one was in the incense in her room, if you were curious. Why do you think I was so willing to let you two off the hook earlier? If everything had gone according to plan, she would’ve absorbed it while meditating and then succumbed to the temptation of getting herself off before retiring for the night, and after the first orgasm or two her rationality would have started slipping away. By the time I arrived, she would have been begging for me to fuck her. Me, and anyone else I chose to invite.”

Jin Guangshan, probably, Lan Qiren thought to himself, white hot fury filling his head.

“Don’t look so offended. I would’ve invited you, too.”

That was worse.

“It could have been a bonding experience,” Wen Ruohan said, then laughed. “You’re the one who’s always talking about the importance of creating ties between the Great Sects, so as to better forestall a war between us – I’m not sure what could be better than having us share our very qi with each other.”

“Sharing,” Lan Qiren said flatly. “Is that what you call gang-raping an innocent young man? Who’s probably your son’s age?”

“Younger than Wen Xu, I expect, though of course with Qinghe Nie you can never really be sure,” Wen Ruohan said, utterly indifferent. “Girls mature faster than boys, don’t they? And anyway, it’s rather hypocritical of you to raise such a protest; you’re the one balls-deep inside of her.”

Lan Qiren hadn’t thought about that, though now that he did he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had always assumed that Nie Mingjue was older than the other boys that had been his students, that the distance in ages between him and Lan Xichen was larger than might be expected, but that had been based on the fact that he was growing so fast – but Wen Ruohan was right. Because Nie Mingjue’s body was a woman’s, the growth spurt he’d had at the Cloud Recesses wouldn’t have signified that he was in the middle of his adolescent years, but at the start of them; he might have been even younger than Lan Qiren had thought, younger than his peers rather than older.

He’d already felt like an old cow eating young grass, but the feeling was abruptly magnified, and no matter that Nie Mingjue had asked him – had begged him – to do what he was doing.

“If you feel so strongly about it,” Wen Ruohan murmured, his voice too close to Lan Qiren’s ear for comfort, “I won’t even insist on having my own turn. I’d be happy with just her mouth – look at how well she’s taking my fingers.”

Lan Qiren didn’t mean to look, but he did. Wen Ruohan’s fingers were shining with spit as they dipped in and out of Nie Mingjue’s mouth, his lips swollen. Tears dripped unconsciously from his eyes.

“You could always just tell her that she needed more yang energy than you alone could provide…”

“What I do is of no concern to you,” Lan Qiren said harshly, cutting him off. “You asked if I would share; I told you that I would not. Do you intend to start something over it?”

Wen Ruohan paused.

Lan Qiren waited, his nerves strung tight. He couldn’t fight Wen Ruohan personally, one-on-one, and he had no authorization from his sect to start a war over this – nor any assurance that they would back him if he did, even though the ethics of the moment seemed clear. He was instead gambling on Wen Ruohan’s past: the other man was older than him, and remembered the wars of Lan Qiren’s grandparents’ generation. There were stories passed down about those battles, about how they had begun, how they had ended, and the role played therein by the contemporaneous members of the Lan sect. The five Great Sects had not been so at odds back then; Wen Ruohan would know the same stories.

He knew about Lan Qiren’s brother, too. He knew that the same madness of all those years ago still ran true in at least some of the current generation.

“Very well,” Wen Ruohan finally said, and withdrew his fingers entirely. “You Lan sect and your ‘one’ – tell me, was your sect founder’s wife as inappropriate a choice as you all seem to land on?”

“Lan An was a monk,” Lan Qiren said, keeping the irritation and tightness in his voice to avoid letting on his relief. “I suspect any ‘one’ would have been inappropriate. Now, as much as I enjoy discussing matters of sect history…”

“You’re somewhat otherwise occupied?” Wen Ruohan chuckled. “Yes, I suppose so. Well, let me not further encroach upon your happy time, Sect Leader Lan. I wish the two of you much joy, both now and in the future.”

From anyone else, that might have been sincere. From Wen Ruohan, it was a threat to watch themselves carefully in the future – that he hadn’t yet changed his mind about what he wanted to obtain, because he never did, not really; he only postponed the date in which it would fall into his hands. He believed all things in the world belonged to him, his acquisition of the object of his desires an inevitability, and he behaved accordingly.

Lan Qiren would have to instruct Nie Mingjue not to agree to any one-on-one meetings with Wen Ruohan in the future, however awkward conveying such a message to a peer would be. Wen Ruohan had already been daring enough to plan out the gang-rape of a fellow sect leader; he would not hesitate to try to take Nie Mingjue by force in the midst of a conference if he thought he could get away with it.

But those were concerns for the future; for the moment, he was content with Wen Ruohan leaving the room with a final chuckle and a crude suggestion about what Lan Qiren ought to do to Nie Mingjue on Wen Ruohan’s behalf – a suggestion he would not be taking.

Nie Mingjue had stopped struggling at some point in the conversation and was lying beneath him, insensate and shivering; Lan Qiren dropped his hand onto his stomach and began transferring spiritual energy directly, hoping to help counteract the effects of the drugs he’d been given.

After a while, Nie Mingjue started to stir, responding again – as much to the spiritual energy as anything else, he was obviously exhausted – and Lan Qiren was able to finally rouse himself as well. His movements this time were slow and gentle, their bodies rocking together and spiritual energy comfortably circulating between them, and when Lan Qiren finally shuddered to completion once again he could feel Nie Mingjue drawing in his energy and letting out only clean, untainted energy in return.

Lan Qiren exhaled in relief. He was more than a little exhausted himself.

“Sleep,” he instructed Nie Mingjue, who blinked at him and nodded. He grunted when Lan Qiren pulled out of him, but didn’t make a sound when he wet his sleeve and ran a few rough swipes over them both to clean them. “We’ll discuss more in the morning.”

#mdzs #lan qiren #nie mingjue #wen ruohan #my fic #my fics #without a path #please read the tags on ao3 if you want to know what you're getting into #i don't use warnings on tumblr other than to direct you to ao3

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flautistsandpeonies · 3 years ago

Text

Reformation Part 3

Read the Previous Chapter [Here]

Word Length: 3,931

Summary: Something needs to be done about this tragedy, but at what cost?

TW: Sexual Assault in this chapter.

“Calling me.....“

“Wei-Xiong, “Nie Huaisang muttered while walking alongside his brother, a saddened look upon his face as he stared at his friend

“I have him, “Nie MingJue replied, one arm encircled around Wei WuXian’s waist to keep him upright, while the other gripped his wrists so he couldn’t fight against his hold

The people of the search party were, for the most part, as quiet as mouses. Walking alongside one another, they could only spare glances at the bewitched cultivator as he continued to chant on and on.

“He’s….calling me…, ”Wei WuXian chanted, jerking against the tight grip on his person

The gates to the Cloud Recesses shimmered and dimmed as the search party was let in by the night-watch. Lesser disciples broke off, deciding to retire to their rooms for the night while the rest continued on towards the Jingshi.

“You’ve returned, “Wen Ruohan, Lan Qiren, and the Jiang parents were waiting for them at the entrance of the residence

“Calling....calling!, “twisting in his hold, Wei WuXian began to violently thrash against Nie Sect Leader

“Wei-Xiong!, “Huaisang gasped, flinching and taking a couple of steps back

“Damn it, “Nie MingJue grunted as he was thrown into a tussle with the bewitched man

Freeing his wrists, Wei WuXian pushed against Nie MingJue’s face, attempting to scratch at his eyes with his nails. Gritting his teeth, MingJue attempted to grapple him again as the enchanted man hissed and twisted against him. Minor sect members of the search party rapidly retrieved talismans from their sleeves but did not pitch them at the snarling duo. Afraid to hurt the leader of a Great Sect, they were stuck in place.

“Enough!, “Mingjue hollered, tackling the man to the group and forcing his arms above his head

“a-Xian!, “Jiang Yanli called wringing her hands at the sight

Untying his sash, Sect Leader Nie’s outer robe fell open as he tied Wei WuXian’s hands behind his back, the man’s screams not hindering him in the slightest. Hoisting him up, he held his fast against his chest. Growling in agitation, Wei WuXian shook his head back and forth, trying to pull himself free once again.

“a-Jie, don’t, “Jiang WanYin tried to reach for his sister but she slipped through his grasp

“a-Xian!, “Yanli ran towards the quarreling men, taking Wei WuXian’s face in her hands, “a-Xian, please stop!”

“Nng, “shaking his head and snarling at her, teeth nearly bit through Yanli’s smooth skin

“a-Jie!, “Sandu’s hilt held tightly in his grip, Jiang Wanyin stomped towards his sister while his mother in the background screamed, “a-Li, get away from him!”

“Away, “taking her arm, Lan WangJi gently pushed her away towards her brother who held her back from approaching once more

“Oh, a-Xian, “wiping tears from her eyes, she watched as WuXian continued to struggle

“Chifeng-zun, follow me, “Lan WangJi uttered while walking towards his residence

“Mm, “MingJue nodded, gripping Wei WuXian’s arms tightly while pushing the struggling man forward

“Aahh!!, “the enchanted man screamed while being forced through the doors of the Jingshi

As the voice slowly faded away, the sects couldn’t help but stare at the open doors of the residence as they made their way back to the Lan Sect’s discussion hall.

“We can’t let this happen again, “Lan XiChen started once everyone settled in and quieted down

“Does he wander off often?, “Sect Leader Yao asked

“For the past couple of weeks he’d rise every night and try and escape the Jingshi, “XiChen explained, “WangJi was normally there to make sure he didn’t leave and often has to restrain him.”

“And he says the same thing? Every night?, “Sect Leader Rong inquired

“That’s right, “Lan Qiren replied while smoothing out his sleeve, “We theorized that whatever attacked him must have a nest hidden away somewhere.”

“But why not devour him already?, “Jin GuangShan pondered, “It can’t have just attacked him for food; it must want something else.”

“It may want his Yang energy, “Lan Yu suggested, “His core is powerful; it may want to siphon his energy from him.”

Many found themselves nodding in agreement with this reasoning. There were many types of dangerous creatures that loved to suck the yang energy from cultivators, perhaps this was one that they haven’t encountered yet?

“But what a terrifying creature, “Jiang Fengmian said, “It’s left no trace whatsoever and seems hell-bent on having him.“

“Why don’t we just follow him to the thing, “Jin ZiXun grumbled, “It’ll be easy if we just let him lead us to it.”

“ZiXun, “Jin GuangShan sighed and shook his head, “It’s not that simple.”

“Isn’t it, uncle, “the man grunted, “Whatever it is wants him, so we just do what it wants until we find it and exterminate it.”

“Night-hunts take at least a day of planning, “GuangShan replied, “Being hasty only makes way for mistakes and unnecessary expenditures, “Besides, what you’re suggesting...”

“You want to use Wei Ying as bait, “eyes turned as Lan WangJi and Nie MingJue walked into the room, the Second Jade’s eyes pierced through Jin ZiXun as he walked to sit beside his uncle

“How is WuXian?, “XiChen asked

“Had to restrain him, left a guard, “WangJi replied with a displeased air around him

“He’ll break through those ropes eventually, “Nie MingJue added walking to sit down beside his brother once more

Many minor sect leaders started to express ideas about what sort of creature they could be facing. “It could be a bat king”, exclaimed a Yao senior disciple. “No, no, a seduction demon, “claimed another. The possibilities of what truly sent Wei WuXian under were endless.

“I’m just saying that we could have this whole situation over and done with, “Jin ZiXun stood and crossed his arms, “We use Wei WuXian’s compass to lure us straight to it while using him a sure guide, easy.”

“Except that puts him in direct contact with the creature, “Lan XiChen disagreed, “Wei WuXian should stay here until we find out more.”

“Are the Lan unwilling to take risks? Didn’t the Second Young Master say that the Lan would make every effort to cure Wei WuXian?, “Jiang WanYin jeered, “How can that be if you’re not even willing to do something as simple as this?”

“We won’t endanger him, unnecessarily, “XiChen said in a curt tone

“We can’t be certain if he won’t try and fight us again, either, “Jiang Fengmian added his input

“We should at least try, father“Jiang WanYin insisted, “Besides, isn’t this our responsibility?”

“What are you saying, a-Cheng, “the Jiang Sect Leader looked to his son

“I’m saying that the Lan Sect has no business interfering with disciples of our sect. This has gone on for too long; we should end this and get back to our own; we have enough problems as it is, “the Jiang heir said in a clipped tone

Standing up from the table, Jiang WanYin looked at everyone in the room with a sharp demeanor and a challenging glint in his eyes.

“The Jiang Sect are going through with Young Master Jin’s plan, “WanYin said with an air of finality, “Since the Lan are too cowardly, we’ll be assuming control of this situation.”

“Jiang WanYin, “Lan WangJi stood tall, “You’ve no right.”

“Second Young Master Lan is all talk and no action, “WanYin ridiculed him,

“Have you truly put any effort into mending this headache?”

“You cannot be trusted with his safety, “WangJi protested with a fiery look in his gaze

“Neither can you! It’s your fault he’s even in a coma!, “WanYin nearly shouted, “This would’ve never happened had he stayed in Yunmeng!”

The two got closer as they disputed; the sect heirs were almost nose to nose, Jiang WanYin a crackling lightning storm while Lan WangJi a quiet blizzard. Many of the people were astounded that the Jiang Sect heir was willing to rile up the Second Jade of Lan and even more were surprised that the Lan heir was even riled.

“Plan a safer hunt, “WangJi glared

“Show some gallantry, “WanYin countered

Jiang WanYin rubbed at his hand, a contemptuous glare adorning his face as he stared down Lan WangJi; fortunately, he was without Zidian. With how the situation was slowly escalating; many people feared the Jiang heir would raise his blade against the Lan.

“Shouldn’t we all be in agreement, then?, “the tension in the room suddenly shattered to pieces as Wen Ruohan’s luke-warm voice filtered through everyone’s ears

Turning to the Wen Sect Leader, the man sat with his legs cross and hands clasped in front of him. His eyes were lidded, a small smile splayed on his face as if watching a performance instead of two sect heirs disputing.

“It’s no question that a hunt is in order. The Lan want to prove that they are capable of taking care of Wei WuXian. And the Jiang need to prove that they are no longer a threat to him, so both sects will be a part of the hunt, “Ruohan mused, eyes shifting as the air seemed to thin and choke everyone else in the room, “Everyone else here is simply support.”

The Lans stared as the Wen Sect leader unclasped his hands and started to tap on the side of his seat, posture set as if he was waiting on a simple missive from a teaching disciple instead of forcing the other sects to make a decision. Nie MingJue glared at the man, slowly seething within at his arrogance. The Jiangs all found themselves glaring, but no words or actions were taken. The minor sects were all sufficiently cowed, everyone silent and afraid to speak.

Wen Ruohan smirked.

“I’ll say again....are we all in agreement?”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning, Lan and Jiang disciples were shuffling back and forth to hurriedly prepare the night-hunt that night. Back again in the discussion hall, leaders of the sects and Lan Qiren collaborated on who they would be sending in such a short manner of time.

In the Jingshi, Lan XiChen helped his little brother change Wei WuXian into a fresher set of robes.

“You know you could just ask a servant to attend to him, “XiChen raised a brow as he helped removed WuXian’s arms from the old robe’s sleeves

“No need, “WangJi succinctly replied

A fond smile coming over his face, XiChen reached for the nearby basin and ringed out a tower, wiping down Wei WuXian’s face, arms and torso before throwing the dusty rag back into the bowl.

“I’m going to tell him how loving you were when he wakes, “XiChen huffed as he slipped arms through clean silk

Lan WangJi did not reply, seemingly ignoring his brother, but XiChen was immediately delighted to see the tips of his didi’s ears darkening ever so slightly.

“a-Cheng!, “a frightful shout interrupted the brother’s peace

Standing quickly, they moved towards the window of the Jingshi and peered out to see who dared break their rules in broad daylight.

Yu ZiYuan with her arms crossed and a dark look upon her face as she glared up at her son. Her maids, ever-present at her side, sent sharp looks to any disciple frowning at their madam’s direct disregard of their rules.

“What are you doing, playing around! Do you normally idle this much before a night-hunt?! What a lazy son of mine, “Yu ZiYuan scolded her son in the middle of the path

Jiang WanYin scowled as his mother continued to berate him. Letting out a barely noticeable sigh, he nodded along to what she was saying.

“Don’t embarrass YunmengJiang tonight! Heavens already knows the madness we have to endure because of that boy; don’t make it any worse!, “ZiYuan barked while twisting the ring around her finger

The ring crackled slightly while slipping off its master’s slender finger. Landing in Jiang WanYin’s hand, he quickly slipped the ring on; the spiritual tool adjusting to his size and sparkling as it registered its current user.

“Xiongzhang, “Lan WangJi said with a tight-lipped expression, watching as mother and son continued to converse

“I don’t want Jiang WanYin going as much as you do, “XiChen replied, “but if we try to make the Jiangs stay behind, Wen Zongzhu....”

Eyes narrowing and fists clenching at the mention of the Wen Sect Leader, Lan WangJi vowed, “I won’t let him take Wei Ying.”

“Mother, a-Cheng, “the Twin Jades watched as Jiang Yanli slowly walked up the path to her relatives, “Father wants to see you both in the discussion hall.”

Both mother and son were tight-faced as they followed the Jiang heiress back down the path. The Lan brothers looked to one another.

“MingJue-Xiong is coming as support tonight, “XiChen folded an arm behind his back, “We’ll do our best to keep WuXian safe, from this creature....and everyone else.”

...

The night came faster than they would have wanted. The full moon shined down on them, brightening up the quiet paths of the Cloud Recesses as disciples gathered in front of the Jingshi.

“Calling me.....”

Standing on the porch of the Jingshi, the Twin jades of Lan held Wei WuXian tightly by the arms. The enthralled man weakly struggled against their hold, trying to wander off once more.

“I’m still uncomfortable with this, “Lan XiChen said to his uncle

“I am as well, “Lan Qiren brows furrowed deeply as he watched the night-hunting party check their supplies

“He’s....calling me......, “Wei WuXian gave a weak tug at his arms

“Wei Ying, “Lan WangJi said, gently grasping the man’s chin to make him face him

Once again, Lan WangJi stared into glossy pink eyes, the man’s cognition completely gone. What was normally a smiling face held practically no emotion as he continued his endless chant.

“Calling me.....”

Letting out a deep sigh, Lan WangJi pressed his forehead against the other man’s. Take a few calming breaths, he nodded towards his brother who watched on with a solemn smile.

Simultaneously, the Twin Jades let go of the man’s arms; Wei WuXian instantly stepping forward and walking off the porch. Body slouched forward and hair covering his face, he was no different from the walking dead.

“He’s....calling me.....”

“Be careful, “Lan Qiren gave a sharp nod to his nephews

“Thank you, shufu, “XiChen smiled while WangJi nodded

As his nephews and the parties shuffled past, Lan Qiren said in a quiet tone, “I will see what I can do about Jiang Zongzhu and Wen Zongzhu.”

The night watch was waiting for them at the gate, giving the bewitched man a slight head start, they opened the barrier just enough for him to slip through while the hunting party trailed behind.

“Let’s head out!, “Jiang WanYin ordered everyone

Everyone was quiet as they followed Wei WuXian through the mountains. Crossing over creeks and fallen trees, they sometimes had to zoom forward to help the man overcome the obstacles. All the while, he continued as if those things weren’t there, ever determined to reach his destination.

“Calling me.....”

Tensions rose as they once again met at the waterfall. This time, however, they were better prepared and tensely helped the man cross the log bridge despite the tight feeling in their chests ever-worsening with each step across the dangerous basin.

“He’s....calling me.....”

Mountain range after range was crossed, the night sky dimming from midnight blue to the darkest of black. The chirps of nightly creatures continued on, trilling away as the hunting party followed their lure.

“Calling...calling.....”

The many trees soon thinned away in a clearing. Wei WuXian stopped dead in his tracks.

The hunting party was immediately set on edge.

“Ehh, what is he-”

"SCREEEEEAAAAAH!”

The cultivators flinched at the sound, taking out banishment talismans for quick defense. Quickly shielding themselves within the trees, they could only prepare for the coming encounter.

Lan WangJi’s hand immediately went to his sword’s hilt, “The sound that made up separate, “he warned his brother

XiChen nodded in understanding, “Everyone, be careful.”

"SCREEEEEAAAAAH!”

Sleeping birds woke abruptly, fleeing from their trees in fear, the cries of critters and prey animals scurrying away from the approaching creature added to the rising tension of the hunting party.

The wind seemed to shift as if noticing the creature’s arrival; the air grew colder. The sound of wings slicing through the sky reverberated through their ears.

Suddenly, a large being landed roughly on the other side of the clearing upon large stones. It was huddled, but then, its large wings flew out! Its silhouette was in the shape of a gangly man.

With a beastly growl, it stepped forward into the moonlight.

"Huh, “Jin ZiXun gasped in shock and horror

It was a horrible sight to see, a bony, stark white creature covered with leather -like skin. The wings of a bat protruded out of its back, clawed hands and feet digging into the rough bark of the trees. Blood red eyes blazed from behind black sockets; its mouth bared a pair of needle-like fangs.

Wei WuXian smiled at the creature, a pleasant sigh leaving his mouth.

“It’s you, “Wei WuXian murmured trailing forward with an enamored look on his face

Arms and wings spreading wide, the creature grumbled at its prey. Its scarlet eyes narrowed in on the bewitched cultivator as he approached. A few feet away from it, Wei WuXian jumped into its arms, wrapping his arms around the beast.

The Twin Jades hissed at the sight, filled with worry.

“Stay where you are, “Nie MingJue warned as Jiang WanYin and Jin ZiXun raised their blades, “It may kill him if we move too quickly.”

“It’s you, “Wei WuXian said once more, raising his hand towards the creature’s head, his fingers curled in the air beside its bare skull, as if twisting locks of hair

The creature captured Wei WuXian within its arms, followed by its wings attempt to hide the man from view.

"Master, “only due to their enhanced senses were the cultivator’s able to hear Wei WuXian’s amorous words, “I’m here.”

Removing one hand from his person, a clawed hand grasped Wei WuXian’s chin, forcing him to look up, eyes lidded, a dream-like expression and pleasant smile upon his face. The creature gave a low rumble and lowered its head, closing the space between them.

Lan XiChen forced himself to look away, while Jiang WanYin growled in disgust.

‘Wei Ying, ‘Lan WangJi thought, gripping Bichen with enough force to crumble even the densest of stone

Wei WuXian gave a gasp as the creature separated from him, an enamored smile splayed across his lips as he once again wrapped his arms around it.

“Master, “the bewitched man repeated, “I’m here.”

The creature moved Wei WuXian’s head to the side, exposing his neck. A sharp tongue unfurled from the monster’s mouth, trailing up the bewitched man’s neck; and he sighed in content.

The beast growled; the hunting party lifted their blades in preparation.

Suddenly, the monster’s fangs seemed to elongate before thrusting down upon Wei WuXian’s neck!

“Go, go!, “XiChen ordered in a near shout, eyes wide

Dashing from their hiding space, the creature’s eyes widened as glares from as many as twenty swords came its way. Ripping its teeth from Wei WuXian’s neck, blood splashed along the ground.

"SCREEEEEAAAAAH!, “it thundered out towards them, throwing Wei WuXian behind it in one fell swoop

Charging ahead, the creature met Nie MingJue’s saber head-on. Sharp nails grated against the blade’s dark metal. Gritting his teeth, the Nie Sect Leader tried to push forward against it, but the beast held strong.

“Surround it!, “unfurling Zidian, Jiang WanYin barked towards his fellow Jiang disciples

Spreading out, some Jiang disciples took out arrows while the rest got into formation with their swords. Brandishing his whip and Sandu, Jiang WanYin looked for a break in the beast’s defense.

A clawed hand forced Nie MingJue back. Getting in line with Lan XiChen they both charged at the gangly beast as one, purple and light green sword glares lashed out.

The beast wrapped itself in its wings as the glares collided, dust rising up from the grounds as glare after glare pummeled into it.

“Fire!, “Jiang WanYin ordered to the archers

Aiming into the dust cloud, the archers struck true, arrow after arrow flying into the beast. A loud angry roar sounded from the cloud as they wouldn’t let up with the assault.

Rushing past them all, WangJi stormed up to the unconscious Wei WuXian. Ripping the arm off his sleeve, WangJi hurriedly pressed the fabric against WuXian’s bleeding neck.

“Enough!, “Jin ZiXun called an end to the assault with the raise of his hand

The archers halted and XiChen and MingJue lowered their swords ever so slightly. The dust cloud was thick with the smell of blood.

"SCREEEEEAAAAAH!, “Suddenly, the strong flag of its wings, the cloud dissipated and the creature revealed itself once more

“What?, “Jiang WanYin gasped at the creature

The beast was full of arrows and covered in slashes, its leather-like skin punctured all over. Its bare head was covered in gashes from sword glares.

*Thump* *Thump* The beast growled at them a dark a guttural noise. The arrows were falling off of its body as if being pushed out; the beast’s wounds were healing!

“What the hell is that thing!, “a Jin disciple shouted

“Charge!, “Nie MingJue hollered

All raising their swords, they could only face the beast head-on with their blades. It screamed again, claws reaching out to tear them in two.

“Rah!, “Jiang WanYin tried to lash at it with his whip, but it deflected it as easily as it did their swords

“WangJi, go!, “XiChen ordered with a quick glance back, parrying against the beast

Taking the limp man into his arms, Bichen quickly hovered for its master to mount it. Long grasses danced and leaves were ripped from their branches as the Lan Sect heir shot out the clearing.

"SCREEEEEAAAAAH!, “The creature shrieked at the sight of its prey being taken away and attempted to charge after them. Before it could, a pair of light green sword glares stopped it right in its path.

Lan XiChen and Nie MingJue glared the creature down, blades raised high as they prepared for another clash. Circling around the beast, Jiang and Jin Cultivators glared it down, harsh breaths coming out from the long fight before them.

Bearing its teeth at them, the monster’s eyes seemed to grow even redder in its anger as it glared them down. Shuddering, it opened its mouth and roared.

"SCREEEEEAAAAAH!“

With a burst of wind, the creature shot up into the sky, the moonlight shining on its pale body.

“After it!, “Jin ZiXun shouted, about to mount his blade

“No, forget it!, “Nie MingJue hollered, “Get back to the Cloud Recesses, seal everything off in case it tries to come back for Wei WuXian!”

...

“Nnng, “Wei WuXian groaned as golden spiritual energy pulsed throughout his body

“Almost over, “passing over his own spiritual power, Lan WangJi sat in the middle of the array with Wei WuXian huddled in his lap

“Calling....calling, “Wei WuXian started to mumble while flinching at the energy seeping into him

Frowning at the cursed words, WangJi nodded to the other disciples in the room. The sound of Cleansing permeated and echoed against the walls, Lan Qing's long fingers danced along the silver strings of their guqin. The healing array shined brightly in the room, the golden energy a stark contrast to the looming shadows of the night.

On Wei WuXian’s neck, the bite marks slowly closed, a small trickle of blood still seeping out of the holes.

“Hah, “a loud gasp resounded throughout the entire room, sweat dripping from Wei WuXian’s creased brows

“Calling me.....”

Brushing his hair out of his face, WangJi held WuXian’s face as gently as he could. Harsh breathes blew against his hand, and Wei WuXian hissed again.

“Master....”

Ever so slowly, the bite marks were replaced with freshly healed skin; Wei WuXian groaned in agony. Calling out for the monster, he weakly shifted in Lan WangJi’s hold.

With a final flourish of the hand, Lan Qing slowly took their hand away from their guqin and the room soon quieted, the resonating sound of Cleansing abated.

"He’s....calling me.....”

Wiping the sweat from WuXian’s brow, WangJi tried to move him into a move comfortable position as the man weakly pushed against him.

“I’m sorry, “he said to the unconscious man

Holding him tight, he pressed his face deep into the crook of his neck. The sound of WuXian’s chants rumbled from his throat and thumped against his face.

With the wounds closed, the medics stopped distributing their energy into the array. As the light dimmed, the room grew darker and darker until they were all encased in shadows.

“I’m sorry.”

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Author’s Notes:

-Wen Ruohan really just slapped me across the face and said “I’m the tertiary antagonist of this fic.”

Read my Prompts and WIPs [Here]

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wxlfstxrx · 4 years ago

Text

sweater weather chat #5, part 2

our dear @shinymooncolor asked me to help write part 2 of her amazing text fic that had me screaming into my pillow at 6am. lots of hockey puns, lots of laughter, and lots of flirting oOoOooOOoo. thanks shiny for the guidance, and i hope you like it as much as i do :) characters by @lumosinlove!

They had won. He had had his second shutout of the season. A perfect way to pay back a new sponsor. Kasey had never cared much for sucking up to the guys in suits. He had a handful of lucrative endorsements— he didn’t have to do much besides wear certain brands for press and endorse a bunch of stuff like skates, equipment, and even hair products once in a while.

The teasing over the past few days had been near insufferable. And he still felt like kicking himself. But he’d been so frustrated and turned on and Nat knew. She knew what a single snap would do, knew he had to suffer through another two hours worth of presentations. He had tried to pay attention, he really had, but once he knew Kris was taking notes, his mind had drifted. Having his girlfriend live texting and snapping pictures of herself did not help. His phone had glitched at one point, and the texts had been sent off to the worst imaginable group of people. Even texting his mother by accident would have been better than his immature, prankster teammates.

He stomped down the hallway, following the excited chatter and buzzing of his team. He knew the press would be interviewing him, so he stayed in character, not even wincing when Pots threw an arm around his shoulders and cheered loudly before smacking a kiss to the helmet perched on the top of his head. He did, however, squeeze back when Leo wrapped an arm around him, part congratulating and part sympathetic, and he patted his rookie mentee on the back in response.

Coach began his victory speech as he slowly and methodically padded down, unlacing his skates and disregarding the increasing volume that arose on the back of a win. He ignored the pointed whispers of the boys next to him— Kuny and Nado were always up to something, and he wasn’t going to rise to their bait. Not this time.

Dumo got his attention as he sat down heavily next to him, between him and his Russian stall neighbour, wrapping a sweaty arm around his shoulder and waxing poetic about his saves. He rolled his eyes, but immediately re-schooled his face as the media swarmed through the doors. They descended upon him and Cap, and he politely answered questions with pre-studied replies and polite smiles. There was a commotion and some wolf whistles and whooping, but he resolutely ignored it and continued speaking to the reporter.

“No, I’m always preparing differently, each game is new and you can never truly rely—” He stopped short, feeling his cheeks flame; even his many years of psychological training and optimisation had not prepared him for the sight of his six foot teammate dressed up in fishnet tights, some sort of leather bodice and his tattoos on full display. Their teammates were whooping and guffawing, and when Nado caught his eye, he winked exaggeratedly and blew a kiss.

“What the bloody fuck,” Kasey whispered, his jaw dropped and his face bright red.

Nado casually sauntered over to him, falling into Kuny’s stall with frankly too much grace for someone in five inch stilettos. He draped himself against Kasey’s side, and Kasey blinked, leaning back.

“Hey, handsome,” Nado smirked, curling a lock of Kasey’s long brown hair around his finger. He leaned closer, his breath tickling Kasey’s cheek. “I bet my stick would feel great in your crease, don’t you agree, sweetie?”

Bewildered, Kasey’s gaze snapped to the rest of the locker room, purposefully avoiding looking into the cameras. God, he bet the media was having a field day with this… whatever this was. All around him, his teammates and some of their partners who had come down to congratulate them on their win were bent double with laughter, with Pots right at the front gleefully recording the whole spectacle, presumably for Nat, who had not been able to make it due to a gig on the other end of the city.

Nado hooked his legs over Kasey’s on the bench, throwing his arms around him as he seductively trailed a finger down his cheek. “Or, if that’s not your cup of tea, I’m happy to let you cover my crease any time. We can work on our power plays together.”

Someone roared with laughter, and Kasey pushed Nado, who was practically seated on his lap now, off of him. The heavily tattooed man pouted, his big blue eyes glistening like the ocean on a clear summer’s day.

“Aww, c’mon babe, don’t I look hot in leather? The boys seem to think so, and something tells me that you do too,” He smiled sweetly, and Kasey scowled at the others. Tremzy looked like he had just scored his first goal in the league, and Harzy had an arm slung around him, grinning smugly. He met Leo’s eye, and he gave him an apologetic smile and half nod, but his eyes were glittering with amusement.

“I—” Kasey had to stop himself from cussing in front of the media, and he groaned instead, running his hands through his frazzled hair.

“Err, sorry,” The reporter— not Skeeter, this time— cut in, evidently entertained but also very confused. She turned to Nado, seeing as Kasey had buried his face in his hands, muttering under his breath. “Jackson, help me to understand the situation here. Is this some sort of new game ritual you have, or are we missing something?”

Nado smiled lazily, leaning back against the stall divider beside him and combing his fingers through his floppy brown fringe. “Ask Kuny, he’s boss.”

Realising what Nado had done, Kuny spluttered, glaring warningly back at Nado, but he simply shrugged and began to rub Kasey’s back sensually.

Kasey jumped, and he quickly whispered to Nado as the reporter headed over to a very harassed looking Kuny, the cameras trailing behind her.

“Nado, what on earth? What are you guys playing at?”

“Sorry man, I had to. ‘s my punishment for that whole… thing with Kuny’s cousin. He made me do it,” Nado grimaced for a second, then shrugged, batting his eyelashes. He looked down at himself, cocking his head and nodding in approval at the tight leather bodice around his torso. “Gotta admit I look smashing though, I might just have to get a picture of this for the gram.”

Kasey sighed, and looked over at Kuny, who was surrounded by the media and the rest of the team, in their various states of undress.

“Nado been bad. I punish him,” He replied curtly, not wanting to speak more than he had to. Talker snorted, and Sergei and Dumo both barked out a laugh which they covered up with a cough.

The reporter’s eyebrows flew up beneath her bangs. “Oooookay, seems like there’s been lots of, uh, love going around today,” She turned back to the cameras, which swung back round to face her, and she began wrapping up her interview.

Kuny awkwardly slid away, approaching Nado and Kasey as the press made their exit. He thwacked Nado upside the head, and he yelped.

“Fuck you. You— You buttface,” Kuny growled menacingly, but everyone around them burst into another round of laughter.

Timmers wheezed, and he slapped Kuny hard on the back. “Fuck Kuny, you’re a real special one, you know that?”

“What?” He glared. “I cuss at Nado, why you laugh?”

“Nothing,” Timmers shook his head, his hazel eyes bright and shining with mirth. “Nothing, Kuny. You’re good. Stay like this forever, please.”

Pots, who was still recording, whipped the camera around to face Kasey and Nado, still seated on the bench, Kasey having forgotten about removing his gear when the press had come in. Nado instantly threw himself back onto Kasey’s lap, flicking his fringe dramatically and smiling at the camera.

“Say, Nado, why do I have a feeling you’ve got more to offer than what you’ve given us already?” Pots grins, zooming in to Nado’s wink.

“Oh, I thought you’d never ask!” He lifted the back of his hand to his forehead theatrically, his voice a high pitched whine. He didn’t even break character, Kasey had to give him that, but before he had the chance to push Nado off him again, the other boy had cupped both his cheeks in his large hands and brought their faces close together.

“You know, I think the ref should’ve given you two minutes in the box earlier,” Nado simpered, waggling his eyebrows at Kasey, who decided to fix his gaze on the long scar running across his teammate’s face rather than look into his eyes. “Because baby, you’ve got me hooked onto you.”

Kasey’s eyes flew up to meet Nado’s in a frown. “I— That wasn’t— What?”

Tremzy gasped loudly. “Blizzard, are you… blushing? From that pick up line?”

“What? No I’m not,” Kasey tried to defend himself indignantly, but Nado was grinning from ear to ear and even Loops, who had been silently watching all this while with a mysterious smile, snickered at that.

Nado turned so he was straddling Kasey, and his hands gripped onto the dividers on either side of them, effectively caging Kasey in his stall. With nowhere else to look at, Kasey dared to roam his eyes over Nado, from his chin-length brown hair falling into a curtain around his face, to his confident smirk, down to his bare unshaved chest, still glistening with sweat from the match earlier and the stifling heat in the locker room.

Up close, he could see the details on his tight leather corset, the three heavy straps in the front and the tight shiny material stretched out at the crotch, giving Kasey an impressive but probably very inappropriate view of Nado’s groin. He flushed even more as he realised Nado’s bare ass, save for the fishnet stockings, was planted on his lap.

Speaking of the fishnet… Fuck.

Nado had actually shaved his legs for this. What the hell. His long legs were spread wide open and his muscular thighs were pressed against his own, and those stilettos... His stall suddenly seemed very warm, and Kasey leaned back against the wall behind him, his head thunking against the wood loudly.

“Oh, Kasey,” He pinched Kasey’s flaming cheek with one hand, and he swatted it away, huffing in embarrassment. “Seems like the fishnet and leather are indeed to your liking, eh?”

“Fuck off,” He muttered in response, crossing his arms and turning to the side.

“Oh, but don’t you just love the way the fishnet feels against your legs?” Nado purred into his ear. “Just imagine, darling, what these legs will feel like, wrapped around your—”

Kasey stood up suddenly, his hands sliding under Nado’s ass and lifting him up. Nado shrieked and clutched onto Kasey’s broad shoulders tightly as he turned around, slamming him up against the empty wall beside his stall. He leaned in close enough so their noses were almost touching, his light brown eyes blazing, a stark contrast from his usual calm and collected front. “Yeah, Nado? You wanna go? Why imagine? I’m not afraid of spearing you. Think you can handle me, hmmm?”

He raised a brow, and Nado’s eyes widened in shock. He heard a mixture of gasps, chokes and laughter from behind him, and his lips curled up in a victorious smirk. He stepped back from the wall, walking them over to Kuny, who was seated by his stall. Kasey let go of Nado, dropping him into his roommate’s lap, and nonchalantly turned back to his stall to continue undressing. As he tugged off his leg pads and skates, he called over his shoulder to Kuny.

“Take your work wife home, won’t you, Russian God? He’s got a timeout.”

With that, he peeled off his jersey and the rest of his gear, and headed to the gym to cool down, leaving the rest of the team in chaos.

On the way out, he passed by Kuny patting Nado on the head comfortingly and telling him, “Hehe, not be bad anymore. I’m win.”

He was sure he heard Nado respond with a “Fuck, I think I need a cold shower. Now.”

#Sweater Weather #sweaterweatherchats #lumosinlove #sweaterweatherchatsnr5

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drarrysinful · 4 years ago

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Blizzard

How could this have happened?

Here he, Harry Potter, was, stuck in a freezing cave with Draco bloody Malfoy.

He knew how it had happened... He had been out on a holiday with his friends after finally going back and graduating from Hogwarts. Hermione had wanted to take himself and Ron skiing, and since neither of them had done it before, they decided to go.

And wouldn’t you know, Malfoy and his mother also happened to love skiing on this very mountain.

Because of course they did.

While the war was over and the Dark Lord was no longer a threat, it seemed that he and Malfoy had never been able to put aside their differences. In fact since they were now in the same “house” and had to share a dorm and all their classes, their rivalry had just become worse.

So of course, when they ran into each other at the top of the mountain where they were about to ski, the argument started.

Hermione and Ron had just gone down the easy slope he was meant to go down, when he had heard the unwelcomely familiar sneering voice behind him.

“Potter!”

He had turned, as he always did, when he heard that voice. Of course, Malfoy was walking up behind him with a sneer on his face. And, of course, he was wearing all the most expensive gear and had the best skis. Well, he had assumed Malfoy had the best gear, he didn’t know anything about skiing, but it had looked expensive.

“What are you doing here, Potter?” Malfoy had sneered.

“Well clearly I’m here surfing.” He had shot back.

“Clearly.” Malfoy had drawled, in his oh so annoying way.

“Well I was having fun skiing with Ron and Hermione before you showed up and distracted me.”

Malfoy had scoffed and looked over his shoulder at the easy slope he was about to go down. “You call that baby slope fun?” Malfoy had then pointed farther up the mountain, “well you enjoy your infantile skiing. I’ll be doing something actually fun and challenging. A black diamond.”

He had merely rolled his eyes and turned around. “You have fun with that. I’m not suicidal.”

“Scared, Potter?”

... and that was how he had found himself almost at the top of the mountain, staring down the single most terrifying slope he had ever laid his eyes on.

They had both stared for a few moments down the slope, and he had a fleeting thought that Malfoy hadn’t actually planned on doing this slope, but then had felt like he couldn’t back down when Harry had taken the bait. Then they had glanced at each other, glared, and pushed off.

It was just as terrifying as he had imagined it, and having no idea what he was doing, he had quickly lost control and fell. Then he had crashed right into Malfoy and brought them both down. He didn’t know how long they had rolled and crashed down the side of the mountain, but it had felt like forever, and it had hurt.

Once they had finally came to a stop, neither of them knew where they were, both of them had lost their wands, and it had started to snow. They had quickly scrambled to find shelter.

And now they were here, in a cave, wandless, no fire, and the snow was intensifying into a blizzard.

“This is completely your fault” Malfoy sneered, rubbing his hands on his arms trying to keep warm.

“M-my fault!?” Harry demanded from the opposite side of the cave, “I was just enjoying my holiday and you had to show up and turn it into a competition!”

“If you hadn’t been incapable of staying on your skis, I would have made it down that slope with no problem and would right now be in the warm cabin with Mother!”

“Well excuse me for being a new skier!”

“Why in the bloody hell did you agree to going down a black diamond if you had never been skiing before!?!”

Harry stood up at this and pointed an accusing finger at Malfoy, “Because you challenged me! You’ve always enjoyed being able to get under my skin and make me do stuff I don’t want to do!”

Malfoy scoffed and stood up as well “Maybe if you weren’t so weak willed you would be able to say no for a change!”

“And have you hold it over my head for the rest of my life? I don’t think so!” Harry turned away after yelling this, rubbing his gloved hands together to keep away the numbing sensation that was slowly creeping through them.

There was a long and awkward silence after this altercation, in which both of them sat on opposite sides of the cave and tried to keep themselves warm while they waited for someone to find them. But the blizzard outside wasn’t showing any signs of stopping and night was rapidly approaching.

“Look,” Harry said, glancing over at Malfoy, “It looks like we might be here overnight, we should at least try to keep warm.” He gave a long-suffering sigh, where his breath came out in a heavy fog, trying to think of how to word his suggestion without sounding like a prat. “Maybe if we share body heat—“

“If you are trying to suggest that we cuddle,” Malfoy spat out the word, “then you can forget it. Mother will find me and in the meantime I will sleep over here and you will sleep over there. If I find out you accosted next in my sleep I will hex you into next week the moment I find my wand.” And with that, Malfoy lay down on the ground and rolled away from him.

Grumbling about stubborn Malfoy’s and that he was absolutely not suggesting that they cuddle, Harry laid down and did the same.

It was a long time before he fell asleep.

It was cold.

Harry found himself walking along the platforms at Kings Cross Station. He was waiting for a train, but he wasn’t sure where it was going. He breathed into his hands and rubbed his arms. He was freezing! Vaguely he wondered why no one had turned up the heat at the station if it was so cold outside.

So so cold.

Dammit Potter.

That was Malfoy’s voice. Harry looked around, what was Malfoy doing here? He couldn’t see anyone. But he had definitely heard Malfoy.

Why do you have to be so stubborn?

Him? He wasn’t the stubborn one! Malfoy was the stubborn one! Again he looked around, wanting to tell Malfoy that to his face. But again, he saw no one.

Why do we have to be so stubborn?

Harry paused at that question, feeling a small amount of warmth enveloping his body. We. Yes, that was probably the right word. We are stubborn. We don’t know how to talk to each other. He knew the words he always wanted to say to Malfoy got lost on the way out. Words of apology, words of friendship, maybe even...

One of these days I’ll be able to tell you how I really feel about you. How I just want to be by your side. But every time I see you, the words come out wrong...

Draco’s voice again, cutting through the silence of the train station. Hitting Harry straight in the gut. So they did feel the same about each other? Harry felt a strong warmth enveloping him, and he ran from the platform. Vaguely he heard his train pulling up to the platform as he ran away. That didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was finding Draco and finally getting things out in the open. But no matter where he looked or how far he ran, Draco was nowhere to be seen.

When you wake up I’m finally going to tell you how I feel.

Wake up? Was he dreaming then? That explained why he couldn’t find Draco anywhere. But why was he dreaming about King’s Cross...?

So just don’t die on me you git.

Die?

Harry jolted awake, suddenly remembering where he was. He could see dim light filling the cave as he slowly opened his eyes. It must be morning.

He found himself pressed against a hard chest. Malfoy was cradling him in his arms, wrapped around him and pressing his head against him. Apparently he had changed his mind during the night about cuddling. Then Harry’s strange dream flitted back into his mind. Was Malfoy... Draco... actually speaking to him last night? We’re those Draco’s true feelings?

“Look you prat,” Harry said, looking up at Draco’s face, “I didn’t die, so now you have to tell me how you really feel. Or should I hex you into next week instead?”

Draco didn’t respond, his eyes were closed and his face was still, in a serene expression of sleep. Harry tried to pull away from him, but Draco’s grip was stronger than he expected. As he struggled to get out of Draco’s grasp, something slipped from his shoulder. He looked down, to see Draco’s thick jacket slipping off of him.

Draco had given him his jacket to keep him warm while he slept... but then... how had Draco kept warm...?

“Draco...?” Harry tried again, pressing his hand against Draco’s cheek.

It was cold to the touch.

That was when Harry realized that it wasn’t just Draco’s face that was cold. It was his arms, his chest, his whole body...

“Draco??”

Cold... freezing... and rigid...

“Draco!!”

—————————

A/N: Aaaaaand I’m back. And clearly I’ve been scrolling through @otpdisaster again. Enjoy!

#drarry #harry potter #draco malfoy #drarry squad #skiing #after hogwarts #at least i didnt kill Harry again #right?#fine ill tag these properly #but way in the back so no one sees them #angst #character death #probably #you never really know

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themattress · 5 years ago

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Varian & Cassandra Parallels

1. Zhan Tiri had a hand in their turn to evil - In “Queen For a Day”, it was her blizzard that caused Rapunzel or anyone in Corona to not be able to help Varian when he needed it. And for Cass, Zhan Tiri facilitated her turn and has guided it along every step of the way.

2. Repeatedly refused the chance to stop doing evil - Varian is given a chance by Rapunzel in “The Alchemist Returns” and by Ariana in “Secret of the Sundrop”, and he turns them down. Cass is given a chance on a routine basis, and she turns them down.

3. Betrayed Rapunzel’s trust, signified by them reaching out and taking something unexpectedly - For Varian, it was the sundrop flower in “The Alchemist Returns”, for Cass, it was the moon stone in “Destinies Collide”.

4. Kidnapping people and threatening their lives as a means of coercion - Varian kidnaps Queen Ariana in “Secret of the Sundrop” and threatens to encase her in amber if his demands are not met. Cass kidnaps Varian as bait for Rapunzel in “Cassandra’s Revenge” and then later threatens to crush Eugene unless Rapunzel does what she wants, in the following episode, “Race to the Spire”, Cass kidnaps and threatens Caliope in order to get something she wants from Rapunzel.

5. Attempts murder - Varian tries to kill anyone he possibly can in the last act of “Secret of the Sundrop”, coming dangerously close to killing Cass, Queen Ariana, and Rapunzel. Cass tries to kill Rapunzel, Eugene, and multiple others in “Cassandra’s Revenge” and onward.

6. Leaves people for dead, but looks conflicted about it - Varian does so in “Rapunzel’s Return”, while Cass does so in “A Tale of Two Sisters”.

7. Screws with others’ minds against their will - Varian does it to the castle staff with a mood potion that he modified into a truth serum in “The Alchemist Returns”, then to his raccoon Ruddiger in “Secret of the Sundrop”, and to King Frederic and Queen Ariana in “Rapunzel’s Return”, with intent to do so to the rest of Corona. Cass does it to Varian in “Cassandra’s Revenge” with his own truth serum, and then to the members of the Brotherhood with a mind-controlling artifact at the end of “Race to the Spire”.

8. Terrorizes Corona in order to deliver ultimatums - Varian does it with a mutated raccoon in “Secret of the Sundrop”, while Cass does it by herself in “Cassandra’s Revenge”.

9. Conquers Corona - Varian does it alongside the Saporians in “Rapunzel’s Return”, while Cass does it alongside the controlled members of the Brotherhood in “Once a Handmaiden”.

10. First they are driven by anger, then by genuine malice, and finally by a remorseful fear that they can never be forgiven - This one goes without saying, it’s the exact same progression. The only difference is that Varian is able to be talked out of that last state of mind and begin redeeming himself by helping to save Corona from destruction and liberate it from the Saporian conquest he helped bring about, while thanks to Zhan Tiri’s meddling, Cass only doubled down on it and chose to destroy and conquer Corona.

So, going into the finale, if you’re saying that Cass is “irredeemable” while ignoring that her rap sheet is almost identical to Varian’s, then please re-evaluate your standards for redemption. It’s fine to think that the writing for Cass as a villain and whatever redemption she’s going to get isn’t as strong as Varian’s - heck, I certainly think that. But claiming that one is irredeemable while the other is not is a double standard, plain and simple.

#Disney #Tangled the Series #Varian #Cassandra #Comparison #This has been a PSA

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flutteringphalanges · 4 years ago

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Summary: “Am I in Hell?” Agatha’s voice was hoarse, a hint of fear in her tone. “That depends on your definition,” Dracula answered. “Perhaps.” His fingers felt cool against her burning skin, the fever raging through her body. “If you’re going to kill me, then do it,” she mumbled. The count chuckled, gazing into her eyes. “On the contrary,” he smirked. “I’m going to save you.”

((In which Dracula cares for a gravely ill Agatha))

Characters: Agatha Van Helsing/Dracula

Rating: M

Read on FFN and AO3

A/N: Thank you all so much for your support! It means the world! Quick shout out to @rheabalaur! She is incredibly knowledgeable about the history of Dracula and Vlad Tepes and though I ended up not exploring human!Drac in this chapter, I wanted to thank her! She’s got some neat posts on the history and I learned a lot! Anywho, feedback is greatly loved and appreciated! Here is the next chapter!

Chapter Ten (Part Two)

Psychosomatic heart palpitations. The only diagnoses one can give to someone whose heart has stopped so long ago. Settled deep behind his rib cage, Count Dracula could almost swear he felt the dead organ pound against his ancient bones. Its rapid beating battering against his ear drums. Agatha Van Helsing was gone. Vanished without a trace except for a final message scribbled hastily on a scrap of paper. And it was all his fault.

"Fuck, Agatha!" He cursed, feeling the draft from the air outside. She'd neglected to close the doors properly, though that was beside the point. The cold temperature didn't bother him. No, he was immune. But she wasn't. "Dammit!"

Transformation. On foot. But there was the issue of his missing boots. The vampire's mind reeled a million miles a second. Usually he was so good thinking on his feet. Decisions coming easily to his mind. Yet there he was, standing hopelessly like a fool, trying to devise a plan. A way to find her. Agatha. His Agatha. In all of his centuries of life, never had he made such a fatal mistake.

He stared down at the corpse of the young man whose lifeless brown eyes gazed back at him. His skin was so pale, almost lily white after being completely drained of blood. Dracula let out a grunt, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Sloppy. Careless. His new existence as a vampire had yet to come easy to him. Despite being a learned man, he was well on his way of opening Pandora's box if he wasn't careful.

"Oh don't look so stoic." The vampire exhaled, glancing up to the dark sky. "You were far from valuable to begin with. Now what to do with you…"

Thunder rumbled overhead and small raindrops began to fall from above. Dracula frowned and glanced towards the direction of his castle. Experimentation. Understanding what he was didn't just fall on his shoulders. No. There was something interesting he witnessed with each new kill. From cradle to grave and from grave to coffin. Dying from one life into the next. A small smirk crossed his features as lightning crackled from above.

"Perhaps you will prove more use to me after all." He stated, lifting the body with ease. "So we shall see…"

By some stroke of sheer luck, Dracula managed to come across a pair of old boots tucked away in an old closet. Dusty, they gave off an unpleasant smell that even he found rather foul. But his own comfort was far from his concern. Slipping them forcefully on, he hurried out through the front doors and into the winter elements. Going bravely forth into the bitter snowstorm that had begun to stir from its sleep again.

His pace was brisk, each long stride with purpose as he walked away from the castle. Much to his misfortune, the fresh snow had completely covered the ground, burying with it any sign of Agatha's tracks. Not even transforming into a wolf would help at this stage. No. He couldn't sense her and that alone terrified him. If she was...no, no he couldn't think like that. So he pressed on, faster now.

Lovech Province, Bulgaria. At least, that's what he had learned from her blood. A pretty little thing, traveling alone to meet relatives in a nearby village. She'd been an easy target and quite an interesting one at that. Someone he had deemed worthy enough to keep.

"Please!" Dracula heard her wail from her box. "Please let me go! I'm so thirsty!"

"No." The vampire replied simply, so casually as if he was merely telling her the time of day. "No, I think it's best you stay put for now. Don't worry, I'll take good care of you. I always do with my brides."

Brides. He scoffed at his own term. It had been something he had come up with after holding captive several of his victims. Dracula needed to, after all, have some sort of name for them. In a sense, it seemed fitting. They were his after all. Property. Like cattle. Valuable, unusual stock that any bidder would desire and yet not know the horrors they were getting into.

"Let me go!" The woman pleaded. "Please, I promise I won't tell anyone! Just free me!"

"I shall return later." Dracula sighed as he ignored her screams of protest. "Perhaps with something to eat if I feel willing." He paused before looking over his shoulder. "And do try to keep the wailing to a minimum. I hate how it echoes throughout the halls."

Brides. Cattle. He grinned to himself as he exited the cellar. Disposable indeed.

"Agatha!"

He mentally cursed the howling wind that drowned out his voice each time he called out for her. Of all the times for her to disappear, of course it had to be in the middle of a blizzard. On many occasions she had threatened to leave, but the vampire had never thought she'd go through with it. If he had, if he had half the mind to, maybe he could've prevented this. All of this. If he had just been honest. Maybe she'd still be safe. Warm. Tucked away with him in the castle. But she wasn't and he was to blame.

"AGATHA!"

He hadn't quite expected his time with Jonathan Harker to turn the way that it had. It wasn't often that Dracula was left to deal with a slip up-if one would even call it that-but he found himself in a quite peculiar situation. An instance that led him to the steps of St. Mary's Convent in Budapest, Hungary. To her.

Agatha Van Helsing was a creature he'd never seen before. Such wit. Such spirit. She did not fear him like the others. She tested him like a fishman precariously dangling bait off the side of a boat where a shark was spotted. And that very moment when those few drops of her blood met his tongue it was a euphoria he couldn't explain. Seeing glimpses of her past. Of her history. Of who she was and of him. Of the infamous Abraham Van Helsing who had proven for a while to be a thorn in his side. Her grandfather. The product of a vampire slayer. And Dracula wanted...no, needed more.

The next course of action ended grizzly, not that he was quite surprised. But it wasn't until he came upon Agatha and that innocent, weakling Mina that his desire for the nun became curious. In any given dangerous situation, one must choose fight or flight. To defend yourself against your enemy and possibly die, or to out run them in the hopes of living. Agatha did neither. Instead, she offered herself in place of Mina. Seemingly cared nothing for her own life but only that of the woman's.

And so against what he thought at the time was his better judgement, he freed them both. Unknowing that soon enough fate would have them meet again under even stranger circumstances. How delectable and useful just a small amount of blood could be.

He couldn't smell her. No matter how far he walked, he still had yet to pick up any of her scent. That gave him some hope that maybe she hadn't injured herself. That perhaps she had found someone by some chance who had given her a ride somewhere. Unlikely as it was, it gave him a false sense of peace.

But due to the hindrance of his tracking abilities, a part of the Count began to wonder if Agatha's former Convent's beloved God was punishing him. That perhaps his version of Hell was not having her. Losing her. And who was he to deny that truth? Hell had frozen over and with it the former nun's mysterious disappearance. Dammit, Agatha, where could she have gone?

Dracula found himself staring at her for hours when he had first brought her to his castle. Watched as her chest rose and fell with each unstable breath. How her creamy skin was blotched by the red of the fever. At any point he could've killed her. Any second. With how ill she was, she wouldn't even see it coming. But she didn't. Instead, he observed. Quiet as his unaware guest rested.

When she did wake, truly became aware of her surroundings, it was a fond memory. How furious she was. How spiteful. After everything he'd done, Agatha showed no sign of gratitude and quite frankly, the vampire took no offense to that. She was merely an experiment after all. Someone he desired to learn more about. Except, he never expected it to go as far as it did.

"Fuck!"

Dracula's arms shielded him out of pure reflex as a tree fell just a yard away, spraying him with the wet snow that had clung to its branches. He wiped the substance away, his skin cool enough that it didn't immediately melt on impact. The way it clung to his clothes like some form of unwanted camouflage. For the first time in a long, long while, he was starting to despise the stuff.

"Agatha!" He tried again, this time louder. "Agatha, answer me! Where are you?!"

But only the storm returned his calling.

Emotions. Perhaps that's why he found it confusing at first. These feelings that no cold blooded person should experience. But the first real flicker struck him the moment he saw her wearing the dress he'd gotten her to replace that dreadful habit of hers.

Dracula thought of them. The hundreds-thousands of women he'd seen throughout his lifetime. Many whose beauty was beyond compare. But Agatha was different. Something about her, the way she stood there before him. There was so much he wanted to say. And at the same time, he wasn't sure what.

"Well," she said testily. "If it looks bad on me, you might as well-"

"No," he interjected. "No. You look...lovely."

Lovely. Out of everything he could've said, those were the words to spill past his lips. She blushed, but it wasn't the same color as her fever. No, this was different. So it truly began. The start of something he had very much yet to comprehend.

It was growing darker outside and Dracula knew it wasn't just because of the storm. He began to pick up his pace, fear beginning to rise even further than before. How long had he been asleep? A few hours at most? Could she really have gotten this far?

That's when he smelled it. The very faint, but familiar scent of blood. An aroma he was so familiar with that his stomach dropped at the realization. Agatha. It was Agatha. And the sweetness he associated with it only made him want to gag. His worries had been confirmed. Something had happened to his nun.

Maybe it was when they lost control over dinner and ended up having sex so rough, the aftermath of their heated lovemaking shouted to the heavens the next day. Or when she got so furious with him once, she broke her hand against his face. But perhaps the moment it really dawned on him that his feelings for Agatha Van Helsing were far from just a whim of passion was that night he truly tasted her.

The way she trembled against his touch. How he had to hold her as he ran his tongue across the inner thigh and to her very center. Sweet, like her blood, and he savored her like a fine wine. It hadn't been rough. Fueled by aggression. No, the way she melted into him was something far different. And when he was finally inside of her, that same sense of euphoria that he'd experienced those several, several months ago struck him. And he lost it. Completely gave way and pierced his teeth into Agatha's sensitive flesh. Blessed with her indulgence once more. That was his first mistake.

The smell of fresh blood was stronger now and Dracula followed it like a bloodhound. Though he knew he had to be drawing closer, how potent it was becoming only left his stomach twisting into knots. This wasn't a mere scratch. Not with how intense the smell was. There was a significant amount and the vampire dreaded what that could mean. What the outcome he was about to face was. How he wished Agatha had just gone ahead and staked him.

Cruel. That was the proper description for his next actions. Never mind triggering Agatha with old memories of Abraham-a man he knew well enough while, not evil, lacked any sort of endearment towards his granddaughter. He only furthered his stupidity when he abandoned her afterwards, leaving what should've been a good moment with a negative, abrupt ending.

In an almost sadistic, poetic way, the stake to his heart had been the final straw that broke the camel's back. The moment where Agatha's walls completely crumbled to the ground. Where she had, in her actions, admitted her true feelings when he had not. Metaphorically piercing her own heart when she should've done his. And he smiled. Grinned and waved away her affections. If only he realized the cost. The consequences. Those few words scrawled upon a strip of parchment.

Something caused him to stop in his tracks. Not the giant branch that blocked his path, but the feeling that there was something else. And so he hesitantly gazed over the edge, over a set of ragged rocks that dropped down several yards to the bottom. That's when he saw her. A figure lying motionless below wet by something other than snow. Dark. Even from where he stood, his excellent vision could make it out. Blood. Agatha.

"Agatha!"

Dracula leaped with such grace it made the long drop seem like a mere step. He hurried over to her side. Blood. There was so much blood. It stained the rock around her, caked locks of her hair together. And for a brief moment, for a fraction of a second, the vampire thought he was too late. It was only when he heard her pulse, the weak thrumming of her heart, that he knew she was alive. Barely. But still with him. As he exhaled in relief, her eyes opened.

Quickly he knelt beside her, the smell of her blood burning his nostrils. Thirst. Hunger. But he fought it. Battle the feral urge to feast within him. Dracula's hands were warm, sticky and red as he cradled her head ever so gently. She stared back at him unfocused.

The Count wanted to berate her. Scream at her for being so boneheaded. But not because he was furious with her. No, she had terrified him. So many questions. So much to say. Yet he couldn't. There wasn't any time to do so. He was losing her. Right there in his arms, the only person he'd truly ever cared about was withering away. He couldn't let that happen.

"You're dying." And the words held far more emotion than he'd ever had anticipated. "Agatha..."

"I know," she croaked.

The way she said it. Her tone. She wasn't afraid. Far worse. It was as if she was more than willing to accept this horrid fate. This end where one no longer exists. And he had planted the seed that made her okay with that.

"I can save you." There was a tremor in his voice. "This doesn't have to be the end. Let me..." He swallowed, damn how he hated to sound vulnerable. "Let me..."

There was a moment of pause as Agatha struggled to catch a breath. It ached deep within him to hear the pain as she did so. She was so strong. Even in death, she fought with bravery. What a soldier she would've made. What a companion in his human lifetime she would've been.

"Tell me..." Blood bubbled up in the corner of her mouth as she struggled to remain conscious. "Tell me..."

"Agatha!" He spoke to her loudly, trying desperately to keep her awake. "Tell you what?" But the Count already knew what she meant. "Tell you what?!"

"Just..." She was fading now. Fading so fast. "Tell me..."

Tell her. He looked deep within her blue eyes as the light began to fade in them. Tried to hold her stare so she knew he really meant it. Weeks. Months. It was so long overdue and this was far from how he wanted to ever admit it. Open up to her like she had him. But now he needed to. So he swallowed, swallowed so thick as if his very life was caught in his throat.

"I love you." A statement so foreign, and yet, felt so right. Something wet brushed against his cheek. A tear. Was he crying? "I love you, Agatha Van Helsing."

A weight lifted off his shoulders. The entire universe relieving him of the pressure he'd felt for so long. He gazed down at her so longingly it was as if everything had stopped around them. Waited for her final words. Praying she'd give into his demands.

Agatha smiled weakly and closed her eyes at his confession. "Okay," his lover murmured. "Okay…"

And Dracula's fangs plunged into her throat.

#Dracula #Dracula 2020 #Dragatha #Agatha Van Helsing #Dracula x Agatha #Bad Moon Rising

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