#on the other hand it is such a small inconsequential change

[tropes-and-tales]

Fall from Grace

(Captain John Price x F!Reader)

CW:  Slight angst. Inexperienced (but not virgin) reader. Smut (oral, f!receiving; PiV, unprotected). 18+ only.

Word Count:  7324

AN:  This was requested by an anonymous person!

It’s part of Captain Price’s job to know his soldiers.  He has their dossiers memorized, of course, but he also learns them intimately through their work together.  How could he not?  War reveals the true core of a person, their real character, but the mundane moments add color.  The long helicopter rides, the long plane rides.  The long stretches of time sitting, waiting for intel, waiting for orders.

It's boring.  His soldiers talk to fill the quiet and pass the time.  They joke and tease each other, discuss football matches and rugby scores.  Sometimes, when it’s dark outside, in the quiet hours before dawn, they talk in low voices and share secrets, fears, worries. 

Captain Price overhears much of it.

He overhears Gaz talk about his girl back in London, how terrified he is to lose her.  How he worries that he’ll never be good enough for her.

He overhears Ghost’s low rumble as he talks about his family and the loss of them.  How losing his brother Tommy and his nephew Joseph broke some part of him that will never heal.

He overhears Soap—convivial Soap—talk about his passel of siblings and how they’ve all married and found careers and started to have children.  How he feels left behind, out of sync with his own family.  How he doesn’t want to go home on leave, sometimes, because he feels so out of step with where he came from.

What Captain Price overhears from you is less deep for a long while.  You’re a cipher.  He has the bare facts of your dossier, but when it’s the small hours of the night and everyone is restless, you don’t open up the way the men do.  You rarely let your guard down.

It shouldn’t affect Price, but it does.  Is it a benign sort of misogyny that makes him want to protect you more than he does Gaz or Ghost or Soap?  Or is it the fact that he sees how hard you try, how you keep your walls up even when everyone else is sharing their darkest secrets?  Is it because he worries that you think he’s judging you, that when you catch him watching you, you see judgement there?

So for a long while, Price overhears little from you.  He hears inconsequential things.  Music you like, your favorite brand of beer.  A memory from your childhood that makes the guys laugh.

But there is a night where it changes.

The 141 is on a plane back to base.  The latest mission was a success, a new terrorist group quashed before it could get off the ground.  Price sits in the back of the plane and gets a head start on his paperwork while you and the guys sit around a four-seat table and play a no-stakes game of poker for little chits of torn notebook paper.

Everyone has leave coming up, so the evening’s talk is brighter.  There’s more laughter, more gentle shoving and ribbing as Gaz throws down winning cards and sweeps the pile of chits in front of him.

And when the chatter turns to sex, Captain Price bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.  He’s reminded that these soldiers, his men, are little more than boys sometimes.

It starts with Gaz waxing poetic about his girl, and Soap makes it bawdy by saying Gaz will spend his leave horizontal and return to base dehydrated and exhausted.  Gaz chucks him on the shoulder but Price can see the pleased grin on the man’s face:  of course he’s going to spend a lot of his leave in bed with his girl.

Then it shifts to Soap and his handful of reliable hook-ups.  He says he has a bevy of women, all Scottish and feisty, and that earns him a chuck from you, a hard little punch to his bicep and you tell him to behave himself.

“Ach, don’t be jealous, hen,” Soap whines, rubbing his arm.  “I could clear some room in the schedule for ye if ye want to join me in Inverness.”

“That’s a lot of travel for, what?  Two minutes of disappointment?”

Soap lays his palm over his heart, mimes being wounded, and he says something in reply but Price misses it because Gaz and Ghost are laughing too loudly.

And that’s how Price learns about you.  The flight turns into rapid-fire questions, talk, and rejoinders about sex.  You mostly stay silent, but you take little zings—mostly at Soap—but each time Price glances over at you, your face has a taut quality that he’s only seen on the battlefield.

Interesting.

If he thought it’d be something for him to mull over later, he’s wrong.  Halfway through the flight, Gaz brings up the topic of favorite positions, and when Soap asks you what your favorite position is, you snort and say, “on my right side, curled up with my pillow, alone.  Asleep.  White noise machine set on ‘rainstorm.’”

That makes Price laugh, but he covers it smoothly with a cough, keeps his head bent over his paperwork.

But the guys are like sharks, and your sarcastic non-answer is like chum in the water.  And you’re good—smart, resilient—but you’re also their captive audience, and they wear you down.

An hour into their three-on-one interrogation, the truth comes out:  you are fairly inexperienced at sex.

“Virgin?” asks Gaz.

“No.”

“How many times—” starts Soap, but you cut him with a glare that even he won’t challenge.

“Were you assaulted?” Ghost asks in his soft rumble, and that makes you go soft too, your glare shifting from Soap to gazing at the hulking man in his skull mask.

“No, Si.”  Your voice is low, and Price watches as  you lay a gentle hand on Ghost’s forearm.  “I’m lucky.  Never that.”

Ghost pats your hand with his own.  “Just saying, love.  If you were, and you knew the guy’s name, I’d make him a grease stain before the week is out.”

(And this is part of why being a captain is such a burden:  the quiet little exchange between you and Ghost makes a hot flare of love burn in his chest, how the two of you are like a brother and sister to each other.  The purest form of found family.)

But then Soap breaks the moment.  “Just not into it then?”

You shrug.  “Guess not.”

“Why?”  Gaz asks it, and he sounds genuinely curious.

Another shrug.  “It’s hard to have a relationship in our line of work.”

“Ah,” Soap says.  He leans back in his seat, crosses his arms over his chest.  “Makes sense now.  You need to be in love with someone before you’ll sleep with ‘em.”

“Not necessarily.”  You reach out and gather the playing cards, the poker game long abandoned.  Price watches from under the brim of his hat as you fiddle with the cards, stacking them up, squaring the edges, shuffling them idly.

“Then what?” Soap prods, and you sigh.

“I dunno.  It’s just…a lot of work, you know?  You gotta vet a guy even if he’s a one-night stand, and you have to play it cool but not too cool, and you have to be friendly but not too friendly. You have to shower and shave and smell nice but not put on too much perfume, and you have to dress just right and wear uncomfortable lingerie and pinching shoes.  I did all that shit when I was in my twenties, and the handful of times I finally got a guy on the line and reeled him in?  It wasn’t worth the effort.  All that work and stress for what?  A few minutes of nothing.  A few minutes of bad kissing where the guy slobbers on me worse than a Saint Bernard, awful beer breath too.  And while he’s jamming his tongue down my throat, he’s groping me like someone drowning and grabbing at a life preserver.  Then what?  Then the main event, and all that effort is a waste because he doesn’t notice the nice lingerie at all, he doesn’t notice that I smell nice and shaved and moisturized because he’s lying on top of me like some paradoxical corpse slash jackhammer because he’s weirdly positioned and barely touching me, not looking at me, just dead eyes fixed off into space, but he’s also, what, thrusting for half a minute before he’s done?  And then it’s ‘thanks, love, great shag,’ and he’s rolling off of me, getting dressed again and out the door, and the entire affair took less time than it takes to bake a frozen pizza.  I mean, what’s the point?”

A deadly silence falls over the group.  The only sound is the thrum of the plane’s engines, and you look up from where you’re fiddling with the cards to find everyone staring at you.  Your eyes dart over to where Price is staring at you too, and you make a face and duck your head.

“Jesus, hen,” Soap breathes out.

“I’m sorry,” Gaz adds. 

You chuckle weakly.  “For what?”

“On behalf of men, I guess?”

Ghost, at least…sweet Ghost and his brotherly love for you…he pats your hand and says quietly, “well, you always smell nice, love, and I always notice.”

-----

Price doesn’t do anything. 

Leave starts and you disappear, off to someplace on your list of places to visit.  Who knows with you?  You love the world, all parts of it, so it’s just as likely that you’re in a jungle in Costa Rica as you would be in Tokyo.

Leave ends and the team reassembles.  There’s a mission in the mountains of a country teetering into civil war.  There’s a mission for intel.  There’s an extraction mission.  There’s a mission to take down a warlord in a lithium-rich country, and there’s a close call there.  A bullet grazes you, cuts a burning line along your hip, and seeing you bloodstained and limping pulls Price up short.

He shouldn’t care the way he does.  He cares about all of his soldiers, loves everyone, but he’d be lying if you weren’t different.  The love he holds for the men is paternal:  Soap and Ghost and Gaz are the sons he never had.

You?  His love for you is more complicated.  There’s a whiff of paternalism, a protectiveness that he knows you’d chafe at if you knew.  There’s admiration, of course.  But there’s also a deep vein of romantic love that threads between you and Price, and if you don’t know it, it’s only because Price has a good poker face and hides his feelings so well.

By the time you’re shot, everyone has earned another leave.  Ghost, Gaz, and Soap all disappear for a month.  Price could go to his empty house in the countryside, but he usually just stays on base anyway.

You?

The night before leave starts, there’s a knock on his office door, and when he calls out, you poke your head in.

“Have a moment, sir?”

He nods, gestures at the chair in front of his desk, and he winces internally at how you limp a bit, your stitches obviously pulling.  You settle in your seat and he nods at you to start.

“I thought I might stay here for leave,” you say.  “I’m not really in any shape to travel, and I’d be close to medical if anything goes bad with my wound.”

He says nothing, so you add, with less certainty, “would that be alright, sir?”

Price clears his throat.  “Of course.”

Of course it’s okay that you stay on base for leave.  With him.  With few other people around.

-----

But he does nothing during your month together.  How could he?  He’s your superior.  It would be wildly inappropriate to knock on your door some evening and confess his feelings for you.

One small concession:  he orders you to call him ‘John’ while you’re on leave.  No Captain, no ‘sir.’  He wants you at ease, relaxed, healing.  You still wake up early, he notices.  You train on a modified program as you heal.  You keep your room painfully neat, hospital corners on your bed, boots polished and tucked in your foot locker.

But you do relax.  You go off base and have a pint alone in a pub, come back slightly looser with your smiles.  His name rolls easier off your tongue when you have some alcohol in you.

You lie on the couch in the rec room and read giant novels.  You doze off to tennis on the television, and Price aches as he watches you sleep.  You look so young this way; the years and stress slough off of you in slumber.

There is one night he cajoles you into joining him out for dinner off base.  There’s a steakhouse nearby, and Price is craving a steak and a whiskey and a good cigar, and he’s craving your company.  You agree, and the weeks on leave have softened you towards him.  Maybe you see him as John now and not just Captain Price, and the conversation over steak flows so evenly that any casual observer might think it a date between an established couple.

But he does nothing more.  Not this time.

-----

Leave ends.  Another mission.  Another.  Intel-gathering, coup-ending.  They intercept a dirty bomb for sale in a Morocco marketplace.  They break up a human trafficking ring.  They support Kor-tac in a mission.

Another leave.  You’re healed now, but when Gaz asks where you’re going, you shrug and say nowhere.

“I didn’t plan anything,” you admit, and Price watches you on the sly.  You explain that New York City was next on your list of places, but you are tired of cities, tired of the crush of people and always wondering where the next threat was.  You tell Gaz, as Price eavesdrops, that you really just wanted a quiet month in the country but hadn’t the time to research anywhere or book anything—

He has to wait for Gaz to leave, which gives him a moment to despair that it’s a bad idea.  It’s a terrible idea, the worst idea, but even with a moment to stop himself, Price can’t stop himself.  He pulls you aside once you’re alone and the words tumble out of his mouth before he can stop them.

“I have a place in the Lake District,” he says.  “Quiet, in Rosgill.  I’m going myself, but it’s a big place for just me.  Too big, really.  You could join, if you want.”

It’s a terrible idea, the worst idea, but it must mean something that you only think on it for a beat before you smile at him and accept his offer with your genuine thanks.

-----

On the trip to his home, he explains it to you, and he hates how he sounds like an estate agent selling you on the charms of the place.

“It’s an old seventeenth century blacksmith forge that’s been converted into a home.  Quiet.  One side overlooks the eastern fells.” 

He explains how he bought it when he was young with the windfall of his father’s modest estate when the old man died from a heart attack. 

He doesn’t explain that it had been his dream as a young man to share it with someone, and as that dream had steadily died off, so too has the planned renovations.  The place is half-restored—mostly the house proper—but his plans for the outbuildings and grounds have been abandoned.  He had planned a copse of trees, a raised garden bed for vegetables and herbs, a small greenhouse.  What was the point of sinking money into a place that never saw any use?

You laugh quietly, then say that you don’t even have a home, that you have a small storage unit in Reading for the handful of things you can’t bear to give up.

“I appreciate your hospitality, Captain,” you say.

He tuts, reminds you to call him by his first name.  “There’s no Captain Price in Rosgill.  Just John.”

-----

It takes less than a week to fall into a comfortable domestic rhythm with you.  John wonders at it:  he had a girlfriend in his late twenties who had moved in for a year, and the two of them never reached even a fraction of the ease you and he reach within days.

It doesn’t mean it’s not torture.  The house has two bathrooms and a WC, but you end up sharing a bathroom because it’s the only one on the second floor, situated between both of your bedrooms.  It’s torture to shower after you, when everything is damp and faintly scented with your soap.  It’s torture to see your toiletry bag sitting on the edge of the sink, and of course he snoops.  Takes in the tube of lip balm, your brand of toothpaste, a bottle of paracetamol.  He sees a little ornate glass bottle of perfume, and he uncaps it, smells it.  It makes him remember the conversation on the plane, your rant about your disappointing experiences with sex, all the effort you put in to look nice and smell nice.

Which makes the rest torture too.  You calling him John.  You stretched out on a chaise in the conservatory that overlooks the fells.  You making him a simple, hearty dinner—who knew you could cook?—then calling him to table, your name in his mouth, your hands passing him a plate with chicken and roasted vegetables, your smile as he pours you another glass of wine.  You passing him in the hallway at night in your sleepwear, the soft-looking pajama pants and oversized t-shirt that strains around your breasts.  You meeting his eye, smiling at him, saying “g’night, John.”

Then the torture of your bedroom door clicking shut behind you, with John on the other side of it.

-----

It’s the meteor shower that changes it.  The Perseids, and John’s home has a big conservatory with a wall of windows that overlooks the night sky.  He mentions them to you that morning, suggests it might be nice to stay up and watch them together, maybe open a bottle of Lagavulin to mark the occasion.

It’s also Soap that changes it.  You and John make dinner together—just a spag bol—and your phone chimes as you’re sitting to eat.  You swipe at the lock screen, read the message, and snort.

“Soap,” you say, and you hold up the screen to John even though he can’t read the tiny print.  “Says he had a cancellation with one of his standby ladies and can work me into his rotation if I can get to Inverness in an hour.”

John chuckles, shakes his head.  “Want me to put him on KP duty when we get back?”

“A few extra laps on his runs wouldn’t hurt.  Wearing full kit, for the weight.”

The thread of conversation could die off, but it’s an opening, and John takes it.  He clears his throat, spins a forkful of spaghetti on his plate, then offers, “I’m sorry you’ve had such a rough go of it.  Romantically, I mean.”

You shrug.  “It’s fine.”

“For what it’s worth, I’ve not had the easiest time of it lately.”

It earns him another snort, and you cock an eyebrow at him, pull an incredulous face.  “I don’t buy it.”

He’s not lying.  His twenties, he was a wolf on the prowl.  Broke plenty of hearts, had his own broken in turn.  He had a few girlfriends, one who moved in for a bit, then moved out after a terrific row, never to return.  He always had the fixed idea that he’d meet someone by his mid-thirties, take an early retirement by his mid-forties, and have a family waiting for him by then. 

But as his mid-thirties receded, he found the prospect of dating a bleak affair.  Some women were too young, too immature.  The generational differences in sex and love were too steep to overcome.  Some wanted a sugar daddy.  Some wanted to be taken care of with no care extending back in his direction.  Other women were older, closer to his age, but saddled with ex-husbands, children bitter from divorce, a cynicism that John couldn’t overcome.

He doesn’t tell you any of that.  Instead, he volleys it back at you, retorts with a gentle smile that he doesn’t buy that you hadn’t had a single satisfying experience in your life. 

You sigh, shrug again.  “Ah, well.  I guess I can’t blame the men entirely.  Who’s to say I wasn’t the problem?  Maybe I’m a terrible kisser.”

“Doubtful.”

“Just outrageous amounts of tongue.”

John laughs, and you grin at him, add, “garlic breath, too.  Got too bitey halfway through a make-out session.  Made the guy bleed.  Now he has a scar on his lip and he tells all the blokes down at the pub about the crazy girl he took out once who bit him.”

John puts down his fork and takes a drink of wine.  He smiles around the rim of his glass.  “None of that can be true.”

“Didn’t know how to move during sex, so I elbowed him hard and broke his nose.  Touched him in a weird spot in an attempt to be sexy and creeped him out.”

He laughs again.  “What’s considered a weird spot?”

“Maybe I, I dunno…rubbed his elbows in a seductive way.  Touched him between his toes in the hopes of turning him on.  Maybe no one ever told me that that there’s no erogenous zone in the space between toes.”

His laughter grows at the mental image you’re painting; tears creep out of the corners of his eyes.  “That’s how I know you’re lying,” he manages to reply.  “Because most men would find any type of touch from a woman sexy.”

You cock an eyebrow at that and take a sip of your own wine.  “Duly noted, John.  If I ever make a move on you, I’m coming for your toes.”

“Prepare to be awestruck then, sweetness:  I have feet like a fucking hobbit.”

Your first response is to laugh at him, but he notes the way you take in the pet name, the little shine you get in your eyes.  The conversation dies off, shifts to other topics, but the rest of dinner holds a charge in the air, and both of you can feel it.

-----

After you share clean-up duties in the kitchen, you make your way to the conservatory.  It’s just a fancy word for ‘living room,’ but it holds no television:  just a bookcase, a fireplace, and a few chaise lounges and couches for taking in the view.  John used to envision lazy weekends in here with a family:  a wife and kids, maybe, settled around a board game.  A dog curled up by the fire. 

He also used to envision something like this:  sharing an intimate moment with a woman here.  His ex hated the house, hated how remote it was.  She liked London and the bustle of cities, but you are a better fit.  You settle on the chaise, curl up on your side like a cat, and you sip at the cut-glass tumbler of whiskey when he hands it to you.  John settles on the floor right near you, and the two of you chat while you wait for the meteor shower to start.

You don’t talk about much of consequence.  It’s a rambling conversation, tinged by the alcohol but not impaired by it.  The evening holds a dreamy quality, like it’s not quite real, like if John raises his voice above a low rumble he might pop the ambiance like a soap bubble.

When the first streak of white shoots across the sky, you both fall silent.  John turns away from you and faces the windows, and you both watch quietly.  Once in a while you sigh, a pleased little exhale, and the spell deepens.  Weaves of magic seem to tighten around the two of you with each brilliant falling star.

John leans his head back and rests it against the chaise, but he bumps into some part of you.  He mutters a sorry, and you whisper back no worries, but a beat later he feels your hand on the top of his head.  Tentative.  Shy.  A question in the touch, and he answers it by leaning into you more.  You push your fingers into his hair, and he honest-to-god has to bite his fucking tongue at the moan that threatens to tear out of his throat at the feeling of you touching him.

He turns his head and finds you watching him, not the meteor shower.  He knows he cannot go a single step further without putting it all out in the open, addressing it immediately.

“You know I’m your commanding officer,” he says softly.  “Not here, but when we get back. And I’m not stupid.  I know some part of you still thinks of me as your captain even here, just like some part of me still thinks of you as my charge.”

You nod.  Say nothing.  Look at him expectantly.

“What I mean is, this leave will end and we’ll have to go back.  We have to be able to compartmentalize it.  And I need to know that you want this completely free and clear.  That there’s no part of you that feels you have to do this, because I know there’s a power imbalance, but…”  He trails off, doesn’t want to admit it out loud.

“But what, John?” you prod, and he takes a breath, finally says it.

“I know there’s a power imbalance here, and I know I should be strong enough—should be your captain, I mean—and stop this before it starts.  But I can’t.  I don’t want to.”

You don’t laugh at him, and you don’t pout at his words.  You nod seriously.  You say you understand, that it’s complicated.  You promise that you will try to compartmentalize it.

“It’s just me and you right now,” you say, softly.  “Just two people.  Not boss and employee or captain and soldier.  I don’t feel pressured or feel any power imbalance.  And John?  I don’t want you to stop it before it starts.  Truly.”

This must be what falling from grace feels like.  Some small part of John despairs at this breach of trust, even if you assure him it isn’t so:  he’s your captain, he’s worked so hard to always keep clear lines between him and his soldiers.  He needs to be able to send people he cares about, people he loves, into situations where death is more likely than staying alive.  He needs to be able to leaf through your dossier and not blink at the section where you’ve listed out your final wishes in the event of death.  He needs to be able to leave you behind if it threatens the mission or the 141, and he’s always been able to do that before but the moment you lean forward and kiss him—your hand cupping the curve of his face, drawing him to you eagerly—he knows he’ll never be able to do any of that again.

He's failed as a commander, and a small part of him despairs, but the larger part rejoices at the feeling of your lips on his, your hands on him.  His eyes shut, and you both completely forget the meteor shower as you fall from grace together.

-----

You make out in stages:  the eagerness cedes to a near-shyness, then melts into a level of comfort as you get used to each other.  John knows now that you oversold your inability to kiss—you’re eager, then you’re shy, but you’re pretty damned good at it after all, and if those other assholes you’ve slept with didn’t think so, then that’s on them. 

He eventually makes his way up to the chaise to sit beside you, and then he guides you into his lap.  He has you straddle him, and when his palm gently grasps your cheek to lead you back to kiss him, he feels how flushed you are under his hand. 

“You okay?”

You nod against his hold.  “Yes,” you reply, but you perch yourself back in his lap, closer to his knees, and he can feel how you’re holding your weight off of him.

“We can take this slow.  There’s no rush.  We can stop here.”

“I know.”  A beat, and you add, “I’m good, John, really.”

“Then c’mere, love.  Settle in.”

When you don’t move, he puts his hands on your hips and draws you down and in, pulls the delicious weight of you right where he wants you most.  Right on top of him.  His growing erection presses against your clothed core, and your breasts brush against his chest.  He slides one hand around to your ass and grips the swell of you, kneads at your flesh, but the other hand slides up to cup the nape of your neck.  To hold you steady as he kisses you more forcefully.

John tries to strike the perfect balance between gentle and still leading you.  He presses his tongue against the seam of your mouth, urges you to open yourself to him, and you obey.  He licks against your mouth, tastes the smoky peat of the whiskey on you, and the sensation of his tongue against yours makes you rock in his lap.  He feels the pressure of you brushing against his cock, and it draws dual moans from each of you.

He breaks the kiss, catches his breath.  “Sweetness, what do you want?  What do you like?”  He wants to make you moan like that again and again, wants you to breathe out his name  or scream it or both.  He wants your eyes to shine up at him like they did at dinner when he used that sweet nickname on you the first time. 

You shake your head.  “I don’t know.”

He knows what it must take for you to admit that.  He remembers your rant on the plane, the disappointment in your past dealings with lovers.  It makes his chest ache at how lonely you must have been, how separate you must have felt from others.

He loosens his hold on your neck.  He slides his palm around to cup your face, and he brushes his thumb over the curve of your cheek. 

“Then how about we find out together?”

You answer him by turning your head into his palm and kissing him there, a sweet gesture, and that ache in his chest blooms stronger.

-----

It’s awkward at first, and John can’t figure out why.

He manages to get you out of your shirt and shorts, manages to unhook your bra and strip himself until you’re both nearly naked and stretched out together over the chaise.  You let him lead, but you aren’t exactly eager.  You are passive to an almost uncomfortable degree, and there’s something off—

“Is this okay?” he murmurs against your skin.  You’re so warm under his lips, soft, and he is going so slowly, but you’re hardly moving and you’re saying even less.  Your earlier touches—your hand in his hair, cupping his face—have disappeared entirely. 

Yet when he asks his question, you whisper back that it’s wonderful.

It takes another moment before he realizes part of what’s wrong:  you’re holding your breath.  You’re barely breathing, and once he locks in on that, everything else falls into place.  You’re not precisely rigid underneath him, but you’re tense, your muscles taut to the point of trembling.  And your hands lie by your side.  Not touching him at all.

He pauses, then makes his way back up to where your face is.  In the faint light from the windows, he can make out a tension in your expression too.  Something else too.  Not dread, maybe, but maybe a lighter version of that.  Trepidation. 

John kisses you lightly on your mouth.  “How are you doing, sweetness?” 

“Good.”  You smile at him, but it doesn’t reach your eyes.  “Great, really.”

“You sure?”

You nod.

He brushes his lips over your cheekbone, to the edge of your jaw near your ear.  “Not nervous at all?”

“Maybe a little.”

You’re hedging.  Lightly lying to him.  Your nervousness fills the room like the incoming tide, and John susses it out gently, teases it from you bit by bit.  It’s not difficult to guess the source of your nerves.

“Thinking about past encounters, maybe?”

You huff softly near his ear.  “Hard not to.”  You hesitate, then add, “it was always so bad.”

“And you think you were the reason it was so bad?”

Another huff, and your voice is tinged with embarrassment.  “I’m the constant factor each time, John.”

It occurs to him that you’ve likely missed all of the experimenting that many people get when they are younger.  All the goofy, awkward moments in sex, when a person figures out what they like or don’t like, what they love and what they hate.  You’ve probably been left with a handful of one night stands where you got no feedback, never had a chance to understand what felt good to you, and now are paralyzed to the point of doing nothing. 

John resets the moment.  He strokes the side of your face, then leans down and kisses you.  Slow, gentle.  No rushing.  The barest brush of his tongue against yours, just enough until he feels you relax a bit underneath him.

As much as he wants to compartmentalize it, John knows from working with you that you’re eager for feedback.  You’re eager to learn, and you never take constructive criticism badly. 

“Let me help you,” he says now.  “Okay?”

You gaze up at him, and if your body is tense as a strung wire, your eyes are full of trust.  “Okay.”

“First thing, sweetness.  You have to breathe for me.  You’re holding your breath, and it’s making you tense.”

Sure enough, your tight, shallow breathing evens out and deepens.  And sure enough, he feels your body relax a bit more.  He kisses you as a reward, then gives you more advice that you take readily.

“You can move your body.  Make yourself comfortable.”

“I want to feel your hands on me.  I want you to touch me too.  I’m yours.”

“You need to talk to me.  Tell me what feels good.  Tell me if anything doesn’t feel good.”

As he instructs you, he eases back into it.  Kisses your mouth, kisses his way over your face and neck, spends long moments at your bared breasts.  It’s the first test, but you breathe as he mouths at your tender skin, as he suckles against your hardened peaks.  And you move underneath him, arching your chest to give him better access.

A beat later, he feels your hands—still tentative, but warm, soft—touching him.  Stroking his shoulders, his arms.  Running your fingertips through his hair.

He’ll find out later, days later, that you had only been working off of previous feedback from those terrible one night stands.  The guy who told you that you were breathing too loudly, the guy who told you to lie still.  One baffling guy who told you not to touch him, to keep your hands to yourself as he fucked you.

But now?  This is a good start to finally getting to what you like.  To finding out together.

What you don’t like:  anything remotely like tickling.  He skates his fingertips too lightly over your sides, down the curve of your waist, and you jerk away from him like you’ve been burned.  You apologize a second later, but John laughs, which makes you laugh too.  It dispels some more of your nervousness, and when he tries the move against with more pressure—down your sides, over your waist—you like that far better.

You also don’t like it when he pauses at the scar on your hip.  It’s still a lurid red, and it pulls him up short for a moment.  Dampens his own mood.  It reminds him at how close you were to really being hurt, even killed.  You don’t like it when he bends his head to kiss the ridge of scar tissue, and he doesn’t push it.  Instead, he shifts his head and kisses your stomach where the edge of your panties is, and you like that a whole lot more.

What you like:  everything else.  Every other thing he gives you, everything he does to you.  You like it when he eases your panties off you.  You groan when he buries his face between your thighs, and you gasp when he kisses you there, when he drags his tongue over the slick seam of your cunt.  You like it very much when he laps at your arousal, when he lays plush kisses to your swollen clit, when he slides a finger inside you and a second finger and when he slides them along your inner wall until he finds the spot that makes you jerk underneath him, whine out his name, reach down and tug at his hair.

You like it when he makes you come with his mouth, and you like it when he makes his way back up your trembling body, when he spreads your legs wider to fit him.  When he pushes into you in a slow, steady thrust, so soon after your orgasm that he feels the tiny aftershocks as he seats himself inside you for the first time.  You gasp at the sensation, you breathe out a “god, John,” but when he opens his mouth to ask if you’re okay, you grab his head and kiss him so hard you steal his breath from him.

And you especially like it when he coaxes another orgasm from you, his thrusts strong and steady, deep.  When you bend one leg alongside him, he reaches down and hikes it higher over his hip.  It allows him to push deeper inside you, that extra fraction making you cock-dumb, because you’re so far gone you forget to be nervous.  You forget to lie still, to keep your hands to yourself, to hold your breath. 

You arch up and meet him thrust for thrust.  You wrap one arm around his broad shoulders but the other hand reaches down and grips the meat of his ass, urges him on.  You breathe; you pant in his ear, and sometimes it’s just your hot breath, but just as often it’s you talking, babbling, begging him to fuck you, to please don’t stop, to keep going, to never stop fucking you.

And you like it when he does as you say.  He doesn’t stop, and you come again, but then you whine out that it’s too much.  It probably is:  you’ve gone from disappointing interludes with absolute bell-ends, and now you’re an overstimulated mess underneath him.  You’re not openly crying but tears leak out of the corners of your eyes and streak down your face.  Your lips are slightly chapped and swollen, and you look stunned. 

“Want me to stop?” he asks.  He kisses one damp cheek, then the other, and he can taste the salt from your tears.  “Too much?”

“Uh-huh.”  It comes out slurred.

“Need you to use your words, sweetness.”

“I don’t think…”  You blink, and you lose a bit of your stunned quality.  “I don’t think I can again.”

“Oh, I think you could.”  Another kiss, this one open-mouthed on your pulse point.  He presses his teeth there, sucks lightly against your skin.  “I think you have one more.”

“John—”

“Gotta make up for lost time.”

“I can’t.”  You whine, but it ends in a moan as he bites you harder at where your shoulder meets your neck.  “Too much.  It’s too much.”

“You’re doing so well, though.  You don’t have one more?  Not even for me?”  He laves the flat of his tongue over where his teeth have left dimpled marks, then he blows over the wet line, makes you shudder underneath him. 

“John,” you reply, but it holds less of a warning than before.  There’s surrender in your tone.

“Love feeling this sweet pussy coming around me,” he growls in your ear.  “Fucking soaking my cock, sweetness.”

The dirty talk makes you clench down on him, and he smiles to himself.  He draws back, sinks back into you.  He goes slow, and you whine that it’s too much, but you like this too because you hold him tighter.  You press back against him each time he seats himself in you, his hips settled against yours.  He goes slow, so slow, sinks into you as deep as he can, barely pulls out before he’s pushing back inside.  You’re swollen, fevered where he’s joined to you.  You’re so fucking wet that he feels your arousal soaking the coarse hair at the base of him, dripping down your thighs, likely soaking the chaise. 

He's proud that he’s been able to forestall his own pleasure, but his restraint has frayed.  How could it not?  The whole moment had been sold as for you, to make you feel good, to make sex not the scary specter it has been for most of your adult life, but John can’t remember the last time he had sex where he felt so connected to his partner. 

Maybe he never has.  He can’t conjure up a moment from his past when he felt so flayed alive, his heart visible and beating as he joined with another person.  He can’t remember ever reveling so deeply in his partner’s pleasure.  He can’t remember anyone else’s touch or voice in his ear or breath panting underneath him making him feel so whole.

But you like it when he finally comes too.  He pulls another orgasm from you, less intense but longer—you tremble for longer, and your cunt twitches against him—and it sets him over the edge.  He groans in your ear that he’s close too, asks where he should…but your hand on his ass pulls him deeper into you, and if the gesture wasn’t clear, you whisper that you want him to come inside you, you want to feel him, and he does.  His pleasure breaks around him, shatters him, and he growls your name as he fills you, and you answer by whispering his name back, over and over.

-----

If you never had a satisfying sexual experience before, John can guess that you never had the post-sex moments either.  The come-down, the cuddling, the falling asleep together.

He gives that to you now too, but it’s not altruistic at all:  he wants it too.  He selfishly wants it.  He leaves you on the chaise to get a washcloth, a glass of water, and he helps you clean up.  He helps you recover, but then he leads you to the deep couch on the other side of the room and has you lie down.  He lies down beside you—it’s a tight fit, but he holds you safe between the broad planes of his body and the back of the couch, and he covers you both with a light blanket.

“Thank you,” you tell him, and it’s plaintive.  It makes that ache in his chest flare back, so he kisses you gently, replies, “don’t ever thank for me this.”

It doesn’t take long for you both to fall asleep:  you go first, the slack weight of you pleasant against his body, the deep and even breathing, the little grumble as you shift.  He’s not far behind you, but he has a moment or two where the earlier thread of despair pushes to the forefront of his mind. 

He might just be John right now, and you’re just you, but soon enough you’ll be soldier and captain again.  How will it ever work, now that you’ve fallen from grace together?

[romaritimeharbor]

FAMILY, OF SORTS. — in which kafka, blade, and silver wolf are an odd but quite special found family to be a part of.

— trigger & content warnings. mentions of unspecified injury.

— pairings & notes. fluff, found family. kafka & teen!reader, blade & teen!reader, silver wolf & teen!reader. 1.3k words. reader is a stellaron hunter. reader is gender neutral (they/them pronouns used).

— author's notes. the sillies <3 APHE POSTING???? APHELION POSTING REAL AND TRUE????????? i had a request for this on my old blog (from my dear beloved moot @starryshinyskies <3) so i decided to finish it 💪 nd tagging @www-brontide since i know you were excited for this post HEHE anyways how are we feeling about this formatting? if you guys don't like it i'm very open to changing it back. i'm just experimenting with my post format is all 🫶

kafka seems strangely motherly to me. caring and doting in her own unique ways, but also quite strange and odd in those same ways. an enigma of sorts.

she is the kind of person to always send the stellaron hunters' youngest member texts throughout the day; these texts range anywhere from silly and inconsequential to sweet messages letting [name] know that she was thinking about them.

(her doting nature is not dissimilar to how she thinks of and regards the trailblazer... hm.)

KAFKA

My coat got stained again :(

Won't you help me clean it when you get home, little one?

[ 1:22 PM ]

KAFKA

I saw a new movie today.

It made me think of you. It was quite to your tastes.

Perhaps we should go see it together sometime, hm?

Ah, but you're probably asleep by now...

That's fine. You do need it more than the rest of us.

Sleep well, darling.

[ 11:34 PM ]

she thinks of her little one quite frequently and has been known to pick up little trinkets from different planets that reminded her of them. a phone charm, a set of rings, something more practical like a new weapon... she once returned with a nice coat that matches one of hers. her gifts are always unpredictable but nonetheless very thoughtful.

and when or if they get injured, she is the one who treats their wound(s) with a tender hand.

she does chide them, however.

"you are a stellaron hunter, little one," she reminds, pulling the bandages wrapped around their wound a little tighter, making them wince. it is akin to a slap on the wrist—not enough pain to seriously harm them, but enough to force them to take her words to heart. "if it is not a part of the plan, try your best not to get caught or injured, hm? silver wolf doesn't like to see you this way, and it causes a unique stir in bladie. your getting injured causes quite the unrest among us all! do be more careful next time."

if there is ever a night during which they are struggling to sleep, they are more than welcome to seek out kafka's company.

she would be willing to read them to sleep, if that is what they desired.

however... a far easier method that would ensure they would stay asleep? her spirit whisper ability, of course.

they know kafka would not use it to harm them.

kafka finds their earnest trust beyond endearing. the trust of a little one like them is quite an important gift! the least she can do, she thinks, is assist them when her assistance is needed.

and sometimes, that just means lulling them to sleep.

blade is quite a difficult person to read, regardless of whether he intends to be so or not.

some days, he is distant and prefers to keep to himself. others, less so.

this, though, should not be mistaken for a lack of care. in fact, he cares quite deeply. his care is simply very quiet and he desperately, earnestly, truly does not wish to cause [name] harm.

he is also most likely the one who spars with them and trains them in the ways of combat, which... he isn't exactly the gentlest at doing. training sessions can be quite frustrating in that they often emerge sore and with new cuts and bruises (but really, these injuries are small and insignificant; they are confident in saying that blade would never truly hurt them, nobody in their family would). he does mean well in his tough methods, though.

the universe is not kind or gentle. it will never treat them that way. therefore, he does his best to prepare them so that they can effectively handle the universe's cruelty and defend themselves from it.

one of the ways in which his quiet care manifests is through his treatment of the small wounds he gives them during training. kafka has said many times that she can treat them, but blade always insists on doing it himself.

out of all of their coworkers, blade becomes the most restless when they're away. he gets particularly antsy when they've been gone for a long period or when they're out there alone. kafka always giggles and points out to him how utterly restless he becomes when such circumstances occur.

(he should be assured that they can handle themselves, given that he is their mentor—there is surely nobody else who would know their skills as well as he would—but somehow he simply isn't.)

blade is also, generally speaking, the most protective.

should they come back injured... if it is anything other than a shallow scratch on the cheek, a rage hotter than the brightest star burns under his skin. in those moments, he almost does not dare to touch them, for fear that he might harm them unwittingly... but he does. his hands are somewhat rough when he snatches their face and tilts their chin around to get a better look at the blood (is it theirs? he hopes not) and grime dirtying their face. there is a terrifying threat present in his voice when he demands, not asks, "who did this to you?"

(if kafka was not present in these moments, he might worry that his mara would get the best of him. thankfully, kafka is intentional and present in such situations.)

unless the ones responsible for the wound have already been adequately... taken care of, he will do so himself. there is nowhere in the universe that the perpetrators could hide from him.

it's about protecting them, but it is also about sending a message.

something along the lines of "anyone who lays hands on them will suffer a fate worse than death," perhaps.

death is anything but a terrible fate to blade, but he knows that it is the worst imaginable to some. he will be certain to deliver something infinitely worse, something beyond imagination, to those daring to hurt his younger teammate.

silver wolf is perhaps the least enigmatic of their little family. she isn't an open book, per se, but she's easier to read than kafka or blade... at least, for someone like [name], anyway.

she never fails to harrass them to play a few rounds (which tends to spiral into many, many rounds...) of a game or two with her. why them, specifically? she insists that blade isn't good at them and kafka is kafka. really, it may very well just be that she enjoys spending time with them, but she—of course—will not simply say that.

however... she bullies them terribly about how bad they are. it comes from a place of affection!

she is also the type to win them every single prize at carnivals, just because she likes the joy it seems to bring them. when she encounters rigged games, however, she becomes all the more motivated by her unadulterated annoyance to beat them.

what do you mean she of all people can't beat this awful and horrible rigged game? her???? the silver wolf????? seriously????????

unfortunately, it does not always end in her victory, even when she is infinitely motivated by her anger.

...and she really isn't above just taking one of the prizes when the stall's owner isn't looking. she has done so multiple times for [name].

she would definitely try to teach them hacking (keyword: try) if they aren't already familiar with it. since it has come in handy for her, she figures that they might also find use in it. it's her quiet way of looking out for them.

(her more obvious way of looking out for them is often seen when she is on missions with them. most commonly, it manifests as her snatching their arm and pulling them out of the way of an enemy before obliterating said threat.)

silver wolf is totally the sort of person to pinch their cheeks (to different degrees, kafka and blade also do this!). they are very cute to her.

overall they are a weird but very special little family to be a part of <3

please consider supporting your writers by reblogging and leaving a kind tag or comment. it really helps me out!

[just-trying-to-fangirl-in-peace]

Perfect illusion (Sauron x Celebrimbor’s daughter!reader)

-> in which you have to sit by your father’s side as Sauron coerces him into finishing the Nine, realizing just how blind you have been all along

Warnings: No romance, just angst. You marry Annatar (+ implied smut) when you don’t know he’s Sauron, so there’s all the emotional torment and consent issues that come with that. Uncomfortable touching (not smut) after you find out he’s Sauron. Manipulation, mind control and victim blaming as per canon

You sit in your chair, watching your father work. A familiar thing, which you have done a million times before. Before, however, there had never been a shackle around his wrist, or blood marring his brow. There had never been rubble scattered about the workplace, or the sound of battle coming through the window. Before, there had never been The Dark Lord standing behind you, his hands weighing you down as though the ceiling had collapsed upon you.

That is not to say that they are forceful. No, his touch is soft, as it has always been, his fingers brushing your hair gently, almost absent-mindedly. At times they reach your neck or your cheek, grazing your skin and sending shivers down your spine. You dig your nails painfully into your own hands to keep from trembling. It’s the least, even if the most inconsequential thing, that you can still do—to deny him this small satisfaction.

“Stop that,” Sauron says, his voice deceivingly gentle as he gives your shoulder a warning squeeze. “You’ll only hurt yourself.”

Of course, that only makes you want to clench your fists harder. But you force yourself to open them, mindful of what might happen if you disobey.

“You once took comfort in my touch,” he says. If you knew no better, you’d believe the sorrow in his voice is genuine. “It is only comfort I wish to give you now as well.”

His knuckles brush your cheek, painfully tender and excruciatingly familiar. Though you’ve been trying to keep as still as possible, you cannot help but turn your face away, if only just an inch.

His hand stills mid-air, then returns to your shoulder. He takes a breath, quiet but long and deep.

“I have caused you suffering. That is true,” he admits, patiently. “But I assure you that this too shall pass. Once Middle-Earth is healed, and the people will see what we did here... your feelings will change.”

You can’t help how your breath quickens, chest trembling with anger. It only becomes worse when Sauron puts his fingers to your chin, coaxing you to twist your neck and look up into his piercing eyes. “You must know it pains me,” he says, “treating you like—”

“Like you have treated countless others?” your father intercedes in haste.

Sauron’s attention turns to Celebrimbor then, as your father had no doubt hoped it would. The whole time he’d been working, his eyes kept straying to you, as if to make sure you are still alive and whole. To your relief, Sauron removes his hand from your face. To your dread, he is now moving towards Celebrimbor, displeased with his remark.

“Like Morgoth treated me,” he corrects, hovering over your father.

You are not bound. You could, in theory, try to run. But you are not foolish enough to believe you could escape. Any such attempt would only earn you a shackle of your own, similar to your father’s. Though, you’re starting to believe that the cold bite of metal might just be more bearable than the silent imprisonment of your husband’s touch.

Your husband. The word twists in your stomach, carves holes into your heart. It all came so naturally to you when you spoke the vows and sealed the bond. Now, you can’t imagine how you got here. All you know are the facts of what happened, and even those no longer seem to make sense in your weakened mind.

You know who you used to be, when the world still made sense: daughter of Celebrimbor, the greatest of Elven smiths. You think his talents mixed with your mother’s magic may have resulted in your gift to manipulate materials in particular ways which do not necessarily come naturally. You know the mithril had refused to be coaxed into joining with the other metals without your intervention. You know Halbrand had been the one to suggest that you try it.

You know how easily he had endeared himself to you from the moment you met, and how confusing and sharp the pain had been when he disappeared without a trace. You know how quick you had been to let him into Eregion when he returned, despite Galadriel’s inexplicable request that you refrain from doing so.

You know the transition from Halbrand to Annatar had been unexpected, if not jarring, but in the end the pull you felt towards him was unchanged. You know there were touches, desire... trust.

You no longer know why. Because there never was a reason—not a true one, anyway. Only his deception, his mind games. But at the time, you didn’t know. At the time, it had made perfect sense when, one night, you had found yourself at the dining table, anxious about giving your father the news of what had happened a mere few hours prior.

Annatar was to your side, sitting at the head of the long table, while your father was across from you. He may be the Lord of Eregion, but he had insisted that an emissary of the Valar should take the most important seat. Yet despite your father’s deep admiration for Annatar, you were not sure how he would react.

“As you know,” you began tentatively, “Lord Annatar has been a close and trusted friend to me, these past few weeks. As he has been to you.”

“Indeed,” your father nodded. His unsure smile and knitted brow told you he was at a loss for what you were leading up to. You opened your mouth, but found yourself quite tongue-tied. You glanced at Annatar, who graciously took over.

“However,” he continued, lips forming a gentle, almost bashful smile, “after a time, we found that there were... deeper feelings between us.”

Though he was speaking to Celebrimbor, his gaze sought yours. You met it, heart fluttering as he wrapped your hand in his, resting them on the table in such a way that the new ring on your finger was in your father’s line of sight.

“Annatar has proposed marriage, father,” you finally say, turning to him. “And I have accepted.”

Your father blinked, eyebrows lifting in an expression of wordless surprise. When words failed to leave his mouth, Annatar took it upon himself to break the silence once more.

“My friend, I...” He trailed off, uncharacteristically hesitant in his choice of words. “I am well aware I should have asked for your blessing beforehand. Especially since things have progressed with such unusual haste, but—”

“Oh, nonsense!” your father burst out, as if finally regaining his senses. “Nonsense, my friend, this...” A short laugh bubbled out of him as he turned to you with a face-splitting grin. “Such wonderful news! Oh, my dear,” he took your hand in his, gazing in wonder upon your betrothal ring before he pressed a kiss filled with fatherly love to your knuckles. “You could not have found a better match,” he praised.

“The same is true for myself,” Annatar said, giving you that kind smile of his that never failed to have you return it.

Relief washed over you. All was well.

You’d be lying to say there isn’t a part of you that resents your father for giving you away so eagerly. He could not stop you no matter who you chose to wed, but with anyone else, he’d have at the very least warned you that the engagement had happened much too quickly. He’d have been more cautious of your betrothed, tried to determine whether or not their intentions towards you were true. But Annatar, in your father’s eyes, was of divine nature, and the thought of becoming kin with one of his kind had filled your father with such pride, it overshadowed all else.

You wonder if he is as ashamed of that moment now as you are. And of everything that came after.

You’re not sure if speaking the wedding vows had somehow allowed Sauron better dominion over your mind, or if you were simply too far gone by then. Little by little, more and more over time, you came to depend on your husband. When your father began acting strange and ill-tempered, Annatar alone knew of his ailment, and he alone could help him heal. He alone could provide the comfort you needed as you watched your father lose himself by the day, unaware that the same was happening to you.

He always knew when and what to say to bring you peace. He never seemed to leave your side, whether in the presence of others or alone. And you craved being alone with him more than anything else. He was an expert lover, so attuned to the needs of your flesh, it was as though he could slither beneath your skin and discern for himself which of his touches felt the most exquisite. Being near him was a delight in itself, but intimacy with him was simply addictive.

Warm morning light flooded through your window, and you wondered how you were supposed to ever leave this bed. Lying on your husband’s chest, skin to skin in the afterglow of your love-making, everything else in the world seemed so inconsequential in comparison.

“Do you ever sleep?” you asked, wondering suddenly how it had never crossed your mind before. He was always by your side as you drifted to sleep—most often spent from yet another passionate exchange—and he was there to greet you each time you awoke. Yet he was not of your kind, and an emissary of the Valar seemed to you above such things as sleep.

“It is not in my nature to sleep,” he admitted, fingers tracing gentle lines up and down your spine. “But I rather enjoy laying by your side as you do.”

Your heart soared at the quiet adoration in his voice. And before long, you found yourself aching for him once more. You brushed his neck with your lips, lightly at first, and then with more insistence, making your desire known.

“Again?” he asked, faintly amused.

You lifted your head, the smallest furrow in your brow. “Does it bother you?”

“Not in the least,” he replied. If that wasn’t reassurance enough, his lips caught yours, and he moved so that your body was safely beneath his, and even the thousandth time would not have been enough.

You can still taste his kisses—and they feel like ash. You remember how each time you became one, it felt better, but only now can you see how it made things so much worse. A corner of your mind, growing larger by the day, was always occupied by him. Each time you aided in the making of one of your father’s Ring designs, you did so with thoughts of Annatar. You know now why he wanted it that way—your craving for his touch, your utter devotion to him, seeping into the Rings the Power, one by one. You think you might have known even then. But he was always careful not to push you too far, to bring you back from the brink of suspicion before it ever started to take shape in your mind.

Even when the reality of things was undeniable before your eyes.

Your last night before finding out had been spent in a dreadful haze. Sleep felt more like a waking prison as you dreamt of terrible, yet distant things, hearing screams without seeing where they came from, seeing blood and ashes on streets you felt you should but could not recognize. You were grateful to wake up and see the sunlit sky beyond your window. Its light adorned your husband’s hair beautifully, the familiar sight of him sitting on the edge of your bed bringing you further relief.

“There you are,” he greeted softly, brow creased with a trace of concern. “You gave us quite the scare.”

“What—?” Your attempt to speak ended in a cough, as if you’d been breathing dust instead of air. Annatar left your side in haste, returning but a moment later with a glass of water.

“Here,” he said, putting the glass to your lips. You took it gladly, relishing the water soothing your throat. Once Annatar had helped you sit up and settle against the pillows, you asked, as you had meant to, “What happened?”

There was pity in his gaze. “Don’t you remember, my love?”

You shut your eyes, trying to grasp at figments of blurry images. “I was outside, I think. Mirdania was there. And you. And...”

Annatar shook his head, speaking as softly as if to a frightened child. “Earlier in the day, perhaps. When you collapsed, you were in the forge, with me and Lord Celebrimbor. When you sought to aid your father in merging the metals for his latest attempt at the Nine, your efforts over these past weeks took their toll on you.” He gave you a sympathetic smile, fingers brushing your cheek. “You fell right into my arms.”

“I did?”

His words did evoke images. The memory was there, somewhere. But the more you tried to reach for it, the more your insides churned.

“Be at ease,” Annatar soothed. “You merely slept through the night. I have watched over you all the while, and I shall do so until you are better.”

Better. Yes, you would get better.

But you knew, deep in your bones, that you were not well. The sense of dread within you refused to recede, lingering in the furthest corner of your mind even in the moments where you felt the safest. Something deeply rooted in you wanted it all to be over—the work, the forging, the ailments, your father’s as well as yours. You wished so desperately for things to return to the way they used to be before the Rings, it felt as though a great fist had clenched around your heart and refused to release it. But then again, before the Rings, there hadn’t been Annatar. And your need for him hurt just as terribly.

In the end, everything hurt. Everything.

“Are you in pain?” your husband murmured. You hadn’t realized tears were already sliding down your cheeks.

You broke into sobs.

He slipped beneath the covers and wrapped you in his arms. It became even harder to breathe, and you clung to him all the harder for it, desperate to find that peace that he had offered you time and again.

“Hush, my love,” he cooed, holding you close to his chest as you wept for reasons unknown. “All will be well soon.”

You had fallen into his arms, just like he’d said. Only, you hadn’t been inside the forge, but outside, just as your mind had fruitlessly struggled to remind you. You were there when the siege alarms began to blare and chaos erupted in the streets. When you saw your husband walk amongst it, you had run to him at once. Asking where your father was, wanting to stand united with your kin amidst the unfolding madness.

Darkness had engulfed your vision instead, shrouding your memory as well. He must have carried you back to your chambers himself, crafting an illusion within your mind to match the one in which Celebrimbor was already trapped.

It makes sense now. How desperately you had clung to the very source of your misery. One cannot satisfy thirst by drinking sea water, but you, in your foolishness, had drunk enough to drain the sea.

“You chose it,” he now tells your father, speaking of the suffering he had inflicted, “not I.”

And there’s a part of you that believes him, even as another screams inside you that his words are poison. You cling desperately to the scrap of reason within you which recognizes that his claims are atrocious—that it is Celebrimbor who forced Sauron to torment him, that he is the true author of his own torment. You watch in disbelief, feeling as though you’re falling through the floor, waiting for your father to refute Sauron’s lies as if hearing the truth spoken out loud will save you from shattering to pieces at the bottom of the abyss.

And you can tell he wants to. There is defiance in Celebrimbor’s eyes as he glances to you, the fire of his will still burning beneath the burden of his torment. But, slowly and surely, he tames it. Averts his gaze in shame.

“Very well,” your father says. “Give me the blame. Punish me as you see fit. You have already taken my city. But I beg you,” his voice trembles, tears gathering in his eyes, “let my daughter leave.”

A smirk tugs at Sauron’s lips. “Your daughter...” He returns to your side, gathering your stiff hand in his and thumbing your wedding ring. “...is my wife, Celebrimbor. It is only natural that she should remain at my side.”

You and Celebrimbor exchange a despairing glance. Your father, determined to plea for your freedom—you, fearing the consequences he might bring upon himself.

“Please—”

“Father, don’t—”

“No!” he cries out. “I all but pushed you into his arms.” Tears slip from his regret-filled eyes. “That is my fault.”

Sauron takes a seat next to you, his brow furrowed as if he couldn’t possibly grasp the reason for such grievances.

“She has given herself to me freely,” he says, your hand still trapped in his as he wraps an arm around your shoulders. “Have you not?”

You glare daggers at him.

“How could I have chosen you freely, when I never knew who you were?” you hiss. It does nothing to deter him.

“Why do you lie to yourself? You knew.” You shake your head. He nods his, insisting, “Yes. Deep within your heart, you knew.”

“Don’t say such things to her,” Celebrimbor pleads, “I beg you—”

“Such things as the truth, Celebrimbor?” Sauron asks roughly, irritated by the interruption. “Tell him, my dear wife,” he challenges, “that you never once suspected I was more than what I claimed to be. That you never felt the caress of darkness within my touch.”

You cannot look at him, or at your father. You cannot speak those words, however desperately you wish you could.

“Tell him,” Sauron insists cruelly, squeezing your hand to the point of near pain.

“I did,” you murmur miserably. Sauron loosens his threatening grip on your hand, pleased.

“Yet even as you cried yourself to sleep in fear of it,” he goes on, “it was within my arms that you took comfort. Because, in truth, you were not afraid of who I was—you were afraid of how little it mattered to you.” A last spark of defiance drives you to make the mistake of meeting his gaze, and his sickly sympathetic smile makes you shudder within his hold. “He needed to create,” he reasons. “You needed to be desired. And I needed you both.”

His arm is no longer around you, but the relief is meager and short-lived as he then cups your cheek, thumb catching the tears that have begun to fall from your eyes. He insists to hold his hand there as you flinch, screwing your eyes shut. A small sigh leaves him.

“Have I not treated you well?” he asks. “Was I not kind to you when you most needed it? A caring husband, a most... generous lover?”

“Hold your wicked tongue!” you all but growl, your head jerking with enough force that he retracts his hand. Your eyes fly to Celebrimbor, and see that he has shut his in great pain. Shame crawls under your skin. Sauron smiles in a mockery of bashfulness.

“Forgive me for speaking of such matters before your father, but it is only the truth. You must admit that. And it need not change.”

His hand returns to your cheek then, pressed more firmly to it, and you only now realize it’s the one he cut. You feel a warm wetness on your skin, and know that once he removes it, his blood, black as the pitch, would be smeared there, marking you even further as his.

“The Rings are nearly finished,” you say through gritted teeth. “You never truly desired me. What more use could you have of me?”

“Who says I never desired you?” he whispers, almost as if wounded. “I would not have made you my wife, if it hadn’t been my wish to make you my Queen as well.”

His voice is so alluring, so saccharine and familiar to your ears, it takes everything in you to remind yourself that every word is a lie. And if you grasp at reason, you can tell why he speaks them. Because of your involvement in making the Rings, you would always have some measure of influence over them, so it serves him well to have you under his control. But not only that. He would relish knowing he has subdued you to his will. That he not only ensnared the mind of the greatest of Elven smiths, but also claimed his daughter as his prize.

A storm brews in Sauron’s eyes as he senses your persisting reluctance. His fingers grip your chin, pulling you close so that his breath falls on your cheek as he speaks.

“You will say yes to me once more.”

You hate how determined he is to make it so. You hate how helpless you are to do anything other than glare back at him.

But what you hate the most is that you are not certain he is wrong.

[p0orbaby]

Bubble Wrap

summary: it’s leah’s first time back captaining for england after her injury. i’ts fair to say she’s nervous

warnings: none

a/n: sorry this took so long ! Thanks for the request !

word count: 1.6k

-

You wake up to the sound of Leah shifting beside you, her unease practically tangible even in the early morning light. She’s staring at the ceiling, her mind clearly elsewhere. You can almost see the thoughts swirling behind her eyes, the weight of the day ahead pressing down on her chest like a fist. You reach over, gently tracing your fingers along her arm, hoping to soothe some of her stress.

“Big day,” you whisper, more a statement than a question. She nods, her eyes meeting yours briefly before flitting away.

“Yeah,” she mutters. “I just... I don’t want to let anyone down”

“You won’t,” you assure her, sitting up and pulling her into your arms. “You’re Leah Williamson. You’re going to smash it”

Her laugh is weak, but it’s there. A small victory. You know she’s been battling this inner turmoil for weeks, ever since the agreement of her return as England captain. The pressure, the expectations, the fear of not being the player she once was. It’s all been eating at her, gnawing away at her self confidence.

You spend the morning trying to keep things light, making her favorite breakfast, playing her favorite music. Anything to distract her from the nerves. She appreciates it, you can tell, even if the tension never fully leaves her body. You talk about anything and everything except the game. You reminisce about the time you went on that disastrous camping trip, getting lost for hours before finding your way back, laughing at how you both swore off camping forever after that.

As you move around the kitchen, whipping up a simple meal of eggs on toast, Leah sits at the table, picking at her food. You bring her a cup of tea just the way she likes it, hoping the familiar routine will bring her some comfort. “Remember when we tried to make pancakes that time at your mum’s house?” you say, trying to lighten the mood. “And we ended up with that one massive, crispy blob?”

She smiles at the memory, the corners of her mouth twitching upward. “Yeah, and Mum tried to act like it was still edible. She wouldn’t be so polite now”

“We were such disasters in the kitchen back then,” you say, laughing. “Not much has changed, huh?”

Her smile widens, and she finally takes a bite of her food. “No, but at least now we know how to feed ourselves without setting off the fire alarm”

You spend the rest of the morning chatting about inconsequential things, anything to keep her mind off the game. When it’s finally time to go, you take her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

“Remember, I’ll be right there in the stands. Every step of the way”

Her grip tightens on yours, a silent thank you. You drive to the stadium together, the silence in the car heavy but not uncomfortable. It’s the calm before the storm, both of you knowing what lies ahead but taking solace in each other’s presence.

-

At the stadium, you part ways, Leah heading towards the changing rooms while you find your seat. The crowd is buzzing with excitement, anticipation hanging thick in the air. You settle in, your eyes glued to the tunnel where the players will emerge. Your heart races in time with the pounding of the drums echoing through the stands.

When Leah steps onto the pitch, the roar of the crowd is deafening. You can see her searching, her eyes scanning the sea of faces until they land on you. You give her a thumbs up, mouthing the words “You’ve got this.” She nods, the smallest hint of a smile tugging at her lips.

You think back to the early days of her recovery. The frustration, the tears, the days when she thought she might never play again. You were there for all of it, holding her when she cried, pushing her when she wanted to give up. You remember the countless hours spent at physio sessions, watching her work tirelessly to regain her strength. She was relentless, never backing down, and it’s that same determination you see in her now.

The game starts, and your anxiety mirrors hers. Every time she touches the ball, you hold your breath. Every tackle, every pass, every decision she makes feels monumental. But she’s doing it. She’s leading, commanding, playing with the same grace and determination that made her captain in the first place.

You cheer with the crowd, your voice hoarse from shouting her name. There are moments of brilliance, moments of struggle, but through it all, she’s there, giving everything she has. And you’re there too, feeling every triumph and setback with her. You think about the time you watched her first big match, the same nervous energy, the same pride swelling in your chest. It’s different now, of course—the stakes are higher, the pressure greater—but the feeling is the same.

The final whistle blows, and the game is done. England wins, but more importantly, Leah wins. The relief on her face is evident, her shoulders finally relaxing as she looks up at you. You beam, your heart swelling with pride.

After the game, you wait by the tunnel, bouncing on the balls of your feet with anticipation. When she finally appears, she’s exhausted but glowing, the weight of the world no longer on her shoulders. She rushes into your arms, burying her face in your neck.

“You did it,” you whisper, holding her tight. “I knew you would.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” she murmurs back, her voice choked with emotion.

You pull back, looking into her eyes. “You’re incredible, Leah. Never doubt that.”

She smiles, a real, genuine smile this time, and you know that everything will be okay. You’ve got each other, and that’s all you need. As you walk out of the stadium hand in hand, the future feels bright, the shadows of doubt banished by the light of your love.

In the car, she’s quieter than usual, a contemplative silence hanging between you. You let her be, understanding she’s processing the day’s events. At home, you run a bath for her, the warm water and soothing scents easing the tension from her muscles. She sinks into it with a sigh, her eyes fluttering closed.

You sit on the edge of the tub, your hand resting on her shoulder. “Proud of you,” you say softly.

“Thank you,” she replies, her voice barely above a whisper. “For everything”

Later, as you lie in bed, her head resting on your chest, you feel a sense of peace wash over you. This journey, with all its ups and downs, has brought you closer together. You’ve seen her at her lowest and helped her rise to her best. And she’s done the same for you, in countless ways.

“Tomorrow,” she says, her voice drowsy, “let’s just be us. No football, no stress. Just us”

You smile, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Sounds perfect”

And as you drift off to sleep, holding her close, you know that no matter what challenges come your way, you’ll face them together. Because that’s what love is—a partnership, a shared journey, a bond that nothing can break.

-

The next morning, you wake up before Leah, savoring the rare moment of quiet. You watch her sleep, the lines of tension smoothed out, her breathing steady. You tiptoe out of bed, deciding to make her breakfast in bed. You rummage through the kitchen, finding the ingredients for her favorite avocado toast. As you prepare the meal, you think about everything you’ve been through together, every hurdle you’ve overcome. You can’t help but feel a swell of pride for her and for the relationship you’ve built.

Leah wakes up to the smell of coffee and toast. She pads into the kitchen, still in her pajamas, looking softer and more relaxed than she has in weeks. “What’s all this?” she asks, leaning against the doorway.

“Breakfast for my champion,” you say, grinning as you place the plate on the table.

She sits down, pulling you into her lap before you can protest. “You spoil me,” she says, nuzzling into your neck.

“You deserve it,” you reply, wrapping your arms around her.

The day unfolds lazily, a stark contrast to the intensity of the previous day. You lounge on the couch, watching movies, playing board games, just enjoying each other’s company. At some point, Leah pulls you outside, insisting on taking a walk to clear her mind. The air is crisp, the sky clear, and you walk hand in hand through the park, talking about everything and nothing.

“What do you want to do next?” you ask, swinging your intertwined hands between you.

“Honestly? I just want to keep playing, keep pushing myself,” she says. “But I also want to make sure we have time for us. I don’t want to get so caught up in football that I forget what’s really important.”

“You’ll find a balance,” you assure her. “You always do”

She stops walking, turning to face you. “I love you, you know that?”

“I know,” you say, smiling up at her. “I love you too”

-

That evening, as you sit in the garden with a glass of wine, Leah brings up the game, her tone reflective. “It’s weird, you know? Being back. There were moments out there when I felt like I was invincible, like nothing had changed. But there were other moments when I felt every bit of the time I spent off the pitch”

“You were amazing,” you say, your voice firm. “And you’re only going to get better. This is just the beginning”

[little-miss-dilf-lover]

hi!! can i request a miguel x jealous reader? this has been stuck in my head for quite some time now..

it is no question that spiderman 2099 was hot, even if the people of nueva york haven't seen his face.. his huge frame and voice will of course gain him some fans. one day, reader overhears a group of young highschoolers, fangirling about spiderman 2099 and how hot he was. even showing off some pictures and videos to each other.

of course, reader feels proud since spiderman 2099 is their husband. but also can't help but feel jealous knowing that others also want miguel. they push it down though since getting jealous over a bunch of highschoolers was silly.

however, reader is more bothered about it than they thought and miguel eventually notices their sour mood. after some denying and coaxing, miguel finally gets them to spill the beans. he is extremely amused, and even finds it a little funny. however, he's still going to reassure reader that he is only theirs like the great husband he is.. 🥰 ending can be smutty or fluffy, up to you!!! ❤️

hii!! sorry for the hold up for this. this is cute I love it!! thanks for requesting, hope you like it💌

—

SUBTLE ENVY

miguel o’hara x f!reader

word count. 644

There was no doubt that Spider-Man 2099 was the talk of the town - his towering, masculine physique often the main focal point. When you'd overhear strangers on the street conversing about the masked menace, your husband, you'd be overgrown with pride - listening in on their encounters of being saved by him.

Many things made you feel proud to know Spider-Man so personally - to know the real man under the suit and mask. Though, some things about the title of the wife aren't as easy to stomach.

Daily, you'd see hundreds of comments online about how handsome your husband is - see fan-made videos and edits with questionable captions. For the most part, you enjoyed them. You loved to watch clips and compilations of the man you love, loved to see how liked and appreciated he is by the people of Nueva York. 

However, sometimes the comments would get the best of you. You'd see teenage girls swooning over him online - talking about how they wish to replace his wife. At first, they were small, inconsequential remarks, but over time, they changed how you saw yourself. They made you question if you were good enough for Miguel. You kept your issue to yourself - deciding your husband had enough on his plate and didn't need you complaining about something you could easily ignore.

You kept your problem hidden until one afternoon at your local coffee shop; you overheard a group of high school girls talk about what they would do if they had a minute alone with Spider-Man 2099. What they said should've easily rolled off your back, should've been something that you laugh off, something you silently agreed with, but no. They caught you in a vulnerable mood where you were sensitive to their infatuation, already feeling insecure, and all you could do was leave the queue and head home.

You return to your apartment and change into something comfy, slumping onto the sofa with a blanket wrapped around you. You put on your show and cosy up.

"Cariño?" Miguel calls out from his office doorway. "I thought I heard you," his tone warm and comforting as he kisses your cheek from behind. "How was your day?"

"Good," you absentmindedly reply, keeping your gaze on the tv ahead.

"Is that all? Querida? Are you okay?"

"Mh-hm." 

"Pms?" he asks, joining you on the couch.

"No," you chuckle, cutely shaking your head. "Don't think so anyway."

"You seem sad."

You smile sincerely. "It's nothing— it's silly, really." 

Miguel's head cocks to the side, sweetly looking at you with softened eyes. His large hand reaching for yours. "Nothing's too silly," he shakes his head, trying to emphasise his statement. "Tell me what's on your mind."

"Miguel, it's stupid," you warn, suddenly embarrassed. "Like, really stupid."

"I don't care."

You exhale, turning to face him. "I was getting coffee and heard a bunch of girls swooning over you," you confess, your words quietening.

"Baby..." he hesitates, an amused smile lining his lips.

"I know it's childish, but it just bugs me sometimes—it's not funny."

"Of course not," he reassures, his posture stiffening from your soft scolding. "But you have to see the humour in it, no?"

"How so?"

"Cariño," he sweetly coos. "I'm here... with you. No one else gets to see me like this. Only you see me without the mask," his smile widens, looking at you in endearment. "You're the only one I want. I don't care about the girls on the internet or in coffee shops, just you."

Your smile mirrors his as you lean into him, nestling into his comfort. "Thank you," you say, your words muffle into the buff of his side. "I appreciate it. A lot."

"Of course," he chuckles, draping a blanket over himself - getting comfortable. He kisses the crown of your head. "Always."

— — — — — — — — — — ☆ — — — — — — — — — —

[impale-me-radio-daddy]

The Lookalike (Part 7)

☒ Summary: The first thing you remembered after your death was an argument. “No, this isn’t one of my fucking sluts.” The man behind you exhaled, frustrated. “This is a present for you. Something to help you work through your Alastor fixation.” You awaken in Hell as the near-spitting image of a certain infamous radio host. Unfortunately for you, you immediately fall into the clutches of his nemesis, then into the arms of the radio demon himself. 

☒ Warnings: hermaphrodite!reader, deer!reader, they/them pronouns used, reader x Alastor, reader x Vox, Alastor x Vox, explicit content, reader is in Hell for a reason, Valentino, canon typical scenarios, injury, gratuitous use of tentacles.

☒ Series links: Part I Part2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 6 BONUS SCENE Part 8 Part 9 Epilogue

The fight you’d had with Alastor hadn’t exactly quelled your bloodlust, but it had taken the edge off. He still hadn’t let you leave the hotel, though, and you could guess the reason. The pending confrontation gave a purpose to the edginess you felt, and you were settled into a quiet, predatory waiting.

You made the small preparations you could, and listened to Alastor’s record collection on the newly repaired player.

It was a little scary how quickly the bedtime routine had charmed you, the half hour of quiet before Alastor would sigh and put his book aside, lights dimming, his body warm through the thin fabric of your pajamas. Sometimes you would kiss, sometimes you would talk in the dark, limbs casually twined. Your conversations had moved to more dangerous topics than mere pleasantries; now you talked about musical theory and parts of your mortal lives, topics that you could argue about and secrets that were sweet, inconsequential morsels of each other. The death of a childhood pet, the use of steel guitar on a certain record, a half-remembered fairground treat. All of this was bookended by his smiling lips soft against yours, at once chaste and suggestive. His kisses were a question- would you debase yourself, ask for more than he was so generously giving? Or would you simply close your eyes and hope that his lips would part for you, that the tips of his sharp teeth would graze your lips, his tongue twining against yours?

Sometimes he would do the latter, kissing you until the ache of arousal resounded like a drumbeat between your legs, and then draw back, smiling, and announce that he was going to sleep.

In the morning, both of you would wake but not admit to having done so, basking in the plausible deniability of the early hours. His breathing, steady rather than deep, told you that the way he pressed against you was deliberate, and you suspected that your breathing told him the same as you twined your fingers with his and raised his hand to your lips. The noise that escaped him was soft, somewhere between a sigh and a squeak, and when you rose from the bed, his eyes held the unspoken expectation that you would tell no-one of it.

That morning was languid, waking as usual with Alastor, performing your ablutions, dressing, and sitting down for breakfast. Food in Hell was an odd mix, really. Some things tasted pretty normal, considering the changes to your physiology. Others, well.

You watched as Alastor dumped the rotting deer carcass on the table. “Really?”

Alastor’s gaze was knowing. “Sit.”

There were flies buzzing around the corpse. One landed on the head, crawling between the creatures ears, and the scent of decay was ripe and heavy. You didn’t have a particularly weak stomach; couldn’t afford to, but everything about this was making your brain scream that this wasn’t food. “If this disagrees with me, then-”

“Then?” Alastor raised an eyebrow.

“Then you’ll want me in a different bedroom.”

“Darling.” Alastor gave a snort of laughter as he took his seat. “If I wanted to poison you, I wouldn’t need to go to such lengths.” He stuck a fork in the side of the deer, twisted it, and pulled a chunk of meat out for himself, popping it in his mouth and chewing slowly.

Rather than give you the fork, he skewered a second forkful of meat himself, twisting it out, and offered it, tines first.

The smell alone made you want to recoil, but Alastor had eaten the flesh, and you did trust him. Enough to fight down your baser instincts, and accept the gift, at least.

You opened your mouth and let him feed you, keeping your eyes on his. The venison wasn’t bad, actually. The sweetness of the rot took away the gamey edge of the meat, and rendered it more tender than the flesh of a wild animal had any right to be. Your opinion clearly registered on your face, because Alastor’s smile widened a little, the corners of his eyes creasing.

“See? What did I tell you?”

Truthfully, you didn’t mind the treatment he gave you, and being fed morsels by him was part of that. In isolation it would have felt strange, but having woken up draped over each other a half hour previously, you simply soaked in the flash of pride that flickered across his face as he saw you enjoying the dish.

He was feeding you a second forkful as Vaggie burst into the room. “Alastor, there’s a documentary crew-”

Alastor turned his head towards her, only his head, the fork remaining by your mouth. “It’s rude to enter a gentleman’s room unannounced, you know,” he said, mildly.

Vaggie looked at Alastor, then you, then Alastor, expression somewhere between irritation and disgust. “There’s a whole load of them, and we could really use a hand.”

“Could you now?” Alastor turned back to you, dabbing your bottom lip with a napkin. “The king of Hell missing in action, is he?”

“Just come help,” said Vaggie, with a shake of her head.

Alastor smiled broadly. “Absolutely not.” His expression shifted subtly, to a smile that you had learned to associate with Alastor being pleased with himself. “I believe we had an agreement. That I would never be required to engage with the frivolous technology known as television ever again.”

Vaggie glared at him. “You’re still holding me to that?”

“Of course! I take all of my deals very seriously.” Alastor tilted his head. “Was that all? I was hoping to finish my breakfast with my friend here.”

Vaggie slammed the door on the way out, a few choice curse words in her wake.

“You’re worried,” you said, watching Vaggie leave. Approaching Alastor in the work day would have him waving you away with a snide nothing, but for now you were alone and unobserved.

His ear twitched towards you, eyes not leaving the door. “Vox is well within my capabilities,” he replied, a little terse. Despite all his talk, Alastor was on edge. You could tell from the strained corners of his eyes, the way his shadow flickered and skulked.

You watched him carefully. Vox was a sore spot; the two of them had history. Questioning Alastor’s capabilities at this point, or even pointing out his injuries, would only earn you his ire. “I have skin in this game too.”

“You are a freshly dead soul,” said Alastor, pointedly. He was right, in a way. You had no power; neither shadows or electricity at your command. The only element that could feasibly be yours to command was the element of surprise. “As I said before, if you can avoid his hypnosis, that would be convenient. I’d rather not have to disable you.”

You gave him a long stare, your gaze settling on his throat, where he still wore his collar buttoned high. “You’re sure there’s nothing else I can do?”

“No. Although…” Alastor gave you a sultry look. “If you could see to it that you’re smiling today?”

Vox was sure this was a trap.

But fuck it if he wasn’t about to go in anyway. Velvette would tear him a new one for going in without consulting her. Val would tear him a new one for not inviting him along to Angel Dust’s living space. Vox had considered the latter, but dealing with Valentino’s probable tantrum over Angel Dust on top of whatever Alastor had planned for him was too much on the plate, even for him.

Being in the radio demon’s territory like this, even with the invitation, felt wrong. It made Vox feel uneasy. The feeling wasn’t helped by the lack of electronics in the hotel; about half the light fixtures seemed to be powered by angelic magic rather than actual electricity, and someone, Alastor if Vox had to guess, had set up Faraday enclosures in the walls through much of the rest of the hotel, which had the documentary staff complaining about poor signal, and Vox worrying about escape routes if this went badly. Yeah, this was definitely a trap.

Alastor traipsed through the hotel in your usual outfit of waistcoat, shirtsleeves and definitely not Alastor novelty fez, allowing himself a small smile for decency’s sake. It was strange how differently the other staff treated him in your disguise; even grumpy old Husker gave him a perfunctory nod as he passed, which he returned with a gesture he’d seen you perform, touching his index and ring finger to his brow.

Charlie was showing the film crew around, her smile as big as anything as she talked about the hotel’s mission, and the process of rebuilding the hotel after the failed extermination. As Alastor suspected, Vox was there, tailing behind the rest of the group.

Of course, you hadn’t picked a moniker for yourself yet, which wasn’t all that uncommon for fresh souls. Angel Dust called you Smiles Two briefly, before switching to a joking Full Range of Facial Expressions. Husk and Vaggie both stuck with Murder Twin, and Niffty had for some reason that Alastor couldn’t fathom settled on calling you Comrade. As far as Alastor had seen you were entirely beneath Lucifer’s notice, but on her handful of visits Angel Dust’s friend Cherri referred to you as Resting Bitch Face Alastor.

“Oh, hey there-” Charlie waved, clearly hesitant on the prospect of calling someone Murder Twin in front of a documentary crew.

“Charlie! Hello!” Alastor softened his transatlantic accent just slightly to sound more like you. “No time to chat, I have rooms to clean!”

“Oh, okay!” chirped Charlie, as Alastor sauntered past. “Keep up the good work!”

Alastor made a show of noticing Vox as he passed the group. Just as truth made the foundation for all the best lies, so to did true feeling make the best foundation for a charade. Alastor centered his memories of Vox; of poor, hopeless young Vox, so eager to impress. That Vox, he had been very fond of, once upon a time. And now? Vox’s power worried him, planting seeds of fear in his heart. In his current state, he could not afford a direct confrontation. Alastor called on all of this for his expressions. At the first glance, he let his eyes widen with shock, his smile faltering but not falling, before he turned to go.

Vox wasn’t stupid enough to chase Alastor down a blind corridor, but he was stupid enough to chase someone he thought was you. Alastor’s face broke into a grin as he heard Vox come after him, splitting from the group. The rebuilt hotel was a maze of corridors, and Alastor made sure to lead Vox down a few before coming to the planned dead end, facing the wall.

Vox grabbed Alastor, arm around his waist. “He’s made you into a fucking janitor? You shoulda stayed with me, baby.”

Alastor shoved down the shriek of distortion that rose within him at the unwanted contact. “Get your hands off of me.”

“C’mon, be reasonable here.” Vox was wheedling, now. He had learned that from Alastor. “I could treat you like royalty.” His touch was much too familiar, claws trailing below the navel to Alastor’s hips, and the thought of him touching you like this left a burnt, sour taste in Alastor’s mouth.

“Oh, could you now?” Alastor let the act slip, let his antlers grow, let his filters lend distortion and depth to his voice. “That’s not what you said in your last broadcast.”

Vox’s eyes grew wide as the realization that he had just bodily grabbed the radio demon settled in. He let go, stepping back. “Fuck! Alastor!”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” Alastor smiled to himself as he turned. He had Vox right where he needed him, off balance and falling into reflexive deference. In this sort of state, using his hypnosis wouldn’t even occur to the man. “Did you mistake me for my double? And after we’ve known each other for so long, too. I’m disappointed.”

“You tricked me, you old timey-” Vox started, but when he saw the look in Alastor’s eyes, he flinched. “I’m fuckin’ sorry, okay? It’s hard to tell the difference.”

“That was a very familiar embrace you gave me,” said Alastor, stepping forward, intruding into Vox’s personal space. “Could it be that you’re fond of my little impostor? That you’ve come to get them back?”

Alastor watched Vox’s face closely. Even now, after their estrangement, the man was an open book to him, and he registered the slight panic as his statement hit home. Vox was very fond of you, it seemed. All the more reason for Alastor to make his claim clear.

Vox didn’t admit it, though, and took a deep breath before he spoke. “No,” he lied, eyes closed. “I’m just here to talk about your offer. That’s all.”

Alastor smiled. “Splendid,” he said.

“Holy shit.” Vox sat back in his chair, exhaling. “You’re actually going to let me watch? From the armchair?”

The three of you were sat round a table in Alastor’s room, wards on the door so thick that the flies from the swamp dropped dead when they flew near it. As per Alastor’s instructions, you kept smiling, careful not to make prolonged eye contact with Vox. Vox’s gaze kept flicking between you, Alastor, and the neatly made bed behind you

“For a price, yes.” Alastor’s eyebrows rose, his grin predatory. “I might be old fashioned about these things, but I still have an eye for when something is going for considerably higher than the expected market rate. And when someone petitions a power higher than myself to breach my privacy, well. I’d be a fool if I didn’t at least consider a counter-offer. Particularly when I stand to lose nothing.”

“Alastor.” Vox’s expression froze briefly, as if he was having trouble processing what he was hearing.

“After all-” Alastor’s smile widened. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, isn’t that right, old chum?”

You sat back and listened to the two of them negotiate. It was only pragmatic that Alastor do the talking. He knew Vox better than you did, and had a clear notion of the worth of things in Hell, whereas you were only vaguely aware of the currencies available. Your job, as you had discussed with Alastor, was to keep Vox distracted and off-balance.

As Alastor conjured the contract he had prepared from the air beside him, your hand went to your neck, loosening your cravat with a sigh. Your reward was Vox’s eyes on you instantly, hungry.

You ran your gaze up his body, from the slight tent in his pants to the bow tie at his collar, watching his larynx bob as he swallowed saliva. It helped that it wasn’t entirely one-sided; for all his flaws you knew that Vox was still a good lay, and the sight of him wasn’t an unwelcome one.

Alastor tapped the table with a single, impatient talon. “If you’re keen to begin, you can simply sign the contract as-written,” he said.

Fortunately for Vox, his erection hadn’t quite siphoned all of the blood from his brain. “Lemme read it first,” he growled, taking the papers into his hands.

As Alastor had predicted, Vox was skim-reading, checking for clauses that would forfeit his soul or his power, too off-balance and horny to do much more. There were no such clauses- Alastor considered it poor sport- but what the document did contain were a multitude of conditions that meant the voyeurism was exactly to Alastor’s specification. No recordings, for example. And no touching.

“I’m adding a requirement,” said Vox, turning to the last page.

“Oh?” Alastor’s smile was steady

“I get to see you cum.”

Alastor gave a hiss like water falling on a hot pan, his eyes turning black, and you felt like he was seconds away from ripping out Vox’s heart and feeding it to him.

“C’maan, this is a fair ask.” Vox raised his hands in protest. “If I’m paying for it, it can’t just be an act, yeah? I should get to see you lose yourself, for real.”

Alastor’s grin was fixed in place as he reached for the contract, eyes skimming Vox’s wording. “I suppose that is a fair expectation,” he said, a note of reluctance in his voice. “I’ll grant it.”

You sat on the bed, letting Alastor undress you as Vox watched from the overstuffed yellow armchair by the headboard. He was pretending nonchalance, but it was clear that this wasn’t something that was meant to last.

“Darling,” said Alastor, in a tone of voice tuned precisely to make you feel your own pulse through your body. “Tell me that you’re mine.”

You watched him as he undid the buttons on your shirt, steady and unhurried, and brushed the back of his hand with your fingertips, letting the touch linger. “I’m yours,” you said, not just for Alastor, but for Vox, who was listening.

Your reward was a kiss, sweet and soft as anything you’d shared in the privacy of your nights together. It was enough for you to close your eyes, leaning into him as his hot tongue stroked yours. You embraced him, forearms locking behind his head, your fingers in his hair.

Jealousy. Jealousy was the axis upon which everything turned, two demons seizing the whole of the world with their fists and screaming in indignation at the debris that squeezed out between their fingers. And you were caught in this hellish mechanism; between Vox, who saw you as Alastor’s pale shadow, and Alastor, who saw you as a part of himself, saw the comfort he sought from your body as merely a medium for self-pleasure.

Vox’s eyes on you were jealous; jealous of your proximity to Alastor, the way he spread you out under him, touching you through the material of your trousers, but also jealousy of Alastor, to have you under him so rapt, so pliant.

Alastor’s eyes on you were jealous; jealous of having to share you with anyone. He begrudged Vox even the sight of you, and so he greedily filled your vision with him and only him, prompting affirmation from your words as he removed your clothes, piece by piece.

“Tell me that you’re mine. My possession, my property. My thing.”

Not for the first time, you were naked under Alastor, your cock hard and weeping, precum beading and dribbling from the tip.

“I’m yours,” you repeated, voice catching in your throat as Alastor pressed his palm to your cock, curling fingers around your shaft. “All yours, Alastor.”

“Fuck,” Vox breathed, his voice down at the bottom of his register and laden with vocal fry.

“Nice try, old pal,” said Alastor, his eyes still firmly on you and undertones of arousal creeping into his voice. “But I believe our contract stipulates that you don’t get to make requests.”

Part of you had been surprised that Alastor had drafted the contract to allow Vox to speak at all, but you could see the way his cock hardened in his trousers as he shut Vox down. There was one thing that Alastor loved more than anything, and that was being in control of a situation.

“Now,” Alastor continued, his smile wide, and you were quite happy to let him continue, with his grip on your cock applying the perfect amount of pressure, a lazy slide up and down your shaft. “If you would like to renegotiate we can all put our clothes back on and sit down, and-”

“Oh, hell no-” Vox backtracked rapidly. “This is fuckin’ peachy, Al. Great. I swear.”

“I see.” Alastor smirked. He turned his attention back you you. “Would you like a tentacle in you, darling?”

Your eyes must have widened, because he added. “You seemed to enjoy it, last time.”

Vox cursed to himself as you nodded yes, and Alastor pushed your thighs apart, extending a tentacle from his back. You reached up, stroking Alastor’s thigh, then his cock, through the material of his trousers as he pushed his tentacle into you. His grip on your cock tightened fractionally as you stroked him, the tentacle making an obscene, wet noise as he fucked the first couple inches of it back and forth into your cunt. The motion was almost teasing, the tentacle playing at sensitive flesh rather than seeking further egress, and you whined at the sensation.

“Oh, fuck me that’s hot. I can’t believe you’re using those like that- you got any idea how many people I’ve seen him kill with those things?”

“I’m fairly sure he’s killed people with his hands too,” you murmured, and Alastor gave a bark of laughter, completely unrehearsed, his expression softening utterly for a fraction of a second into fondness before he resumed the grin he’d worn a second prior, tentacle squelching deeper into your cunt for good measure.

You whimpered at the stretch, stroking the shaft of his cock between the palm and heel of your hand, and Alastor rocked his hips, a low vacuum tube hum in his throat as he rutted into your touch, his hand around your cock falling into the same languid rhythm. You unfastened his fly, freeing his cock from the confines of his pants and took it into your hand. Alastor gave a pleased noise as you settled your grip, his skin almost hot to the touch.

“Holy shit.” Vox’s eyes were fixed on the two of you, practically hypnotized by the scene, his usually brash tone rendered almost reverent. His hand went to his own fly, and he gave a yelp as something forced him back into the chair.

“Ah ah ah,” Alastor looked up from you for a moment, his expression gleeful, the tentacle inside you stilling alongside his hand.

“Alastor, what the fuck.” Vox’s arms were pulled to the arms of the chair by luminous green chains, and he strained against them. It was the first time you’d seen the constraints of a deal hit someone like that, and it wasn’t at all what you had expected.

“The contract states that you can masturbate if given permission,” said Alastor, his grin almost gleeful. “I have not yet given permission.”

“What? You want me to fuckin’ beg?” Vox’s screen glitched.

“Oh Voxxy, you always were a quick study.” Alastor’s smile was broad, his cock in your hand hot and hard. “Yes. Please. Beg.”

“Oh, fuck.” Vox’s screen shimmered briefly pink, segments of pink remaining below his eyes. “Fuck me that’s fucking depraved.”

“Hm.” Alastor smiled to himself, his gaze going back to you. “That doesn’t sound much like begging to me.”

“C’maan, Alastor, don’t be like that.” Vox’s tone was wheedling. “Just let a guy touch himself, please.” He drew out the last please into three syllables, a whine.

“You can do better than that,” Alastor said.

“You’re breakin’ my balls here, Al. I need this.”

“You need this?”

“Al, please, I’m beggin’ ya.”

Alastor gave a pleased hum. “Better. Continue.”

“Please, please.” There was a proper edge of desperation to Vox’s voice now, his eyes fluttering closed. “This is all I can think of. I close my eyes and I see you going at it in the swamp, Al. I need it, please let me.”

“You need it.”

“Yes,” Vox hissed, his voice going a little high, a dark spot at the apex of the tent in his pants where his precum had soaked through the fabric.

“You’re a depraved little creature.”

“Al, please-”

“Say it.”

“I’m the one who’s depraved.”

“You’re the one who needs to come into a gentleman’s bedroom and watch.”

Vox flashed teeth. “Oh, fuck you!”

“I don’t believe that was on the table,” said Alastor, his smile cruel, and you felt his cock swell fractionally in your hand.

It was fascinating, watching Vox’s erection duel with his self-respect. You watched with Alastor as the man swallowed the final scrap of his pride, voice cracking a little as his spoke. “Please, Al. I’m the sick, pathetic fuck who needs to come into your bedroom and watch you. I’m so hard right now and it hurts, just let me touch myself. Please. I’m begging.”

“Oh, Vox. You can’t even cage a freshly minted replica of me. A failure as a jailer and a lover.” Alastor’s thumb went to your jaw, slowly tracing a line over your skin up to your temple. “So, I suppose I should show pity.”

“Please, Alastor-” Vox whimpered, and Alastor slowly inclined his head. Vox gasped as the condition lifted, and he hurried to free his own cock. “Fu-uck.”

You felt a twinge of desire as you saw it, remembering how tenderly and skillfully he had brought you to orgasm, and Alastor must have felt it around the tentacle inside you, because he looked at you sharply, eyes dark.

“Eyes on me now, darling,” said Alastor, a claw on your cheek giving you little other choice. “We don’t want our guest getting self-conscious, now.”

As if he hadn’t gotten halfway to his own end just by making Vox beg. The hypocrite. Still, the possessiveness was a turn-on. You smiled up at Alastor, giving his cock a deliberate, slow, squeeze. “I’m yours, remember.”

Alastor narrowed his eyes, mollified. “I should hope so,” he said, mirroring your gesture with the cruel addition of a curl of the tentacle inside you, pressing spongy flesh that drew a cry from your lips.

He leaned forward, supporting his weight on a second tentacle as he drew you in for a kiss. Where his kisses were usually considered and leading, this was fervent and messy, leaving you gasping for air when it broke, lips burning. He pushed your hand from his cock and brought your hips in line with his, shifting his grip so that your cock pressed against his, his long fingers wrapping around both.

“Alastor-” you managed to whimper, and he smiled.

You held on for dear life as Alastor did his damnedest to wreck you. His mouth covered yours, teeth and tongue and the taste of hot blood, rendering you breathless and voiceless save for the cries you made into his mouth. His cock was pressed firmly against yours, hot and hard and heavy, both of them wrapped in the steady curl of his fingers and palm. His tentacle was inside your cunt, deep enough for you to feel the stretch, hitting each sweet spot inside you hard enough to draw helpless, animal cries from your throat. His antlers were close to yours but not enmeshed, enough that you felt their static hum. You stroked Alastor’s shoulders, his back and down to his hips, doing your best to clutch at him without ruining his clothes, each roll of his hips threatening to make you curl your fingers and claw him.

“Fuck,” hissed Vox, his jerking off matching Alastor’s frantic rhythm, but Alastor was too preoccupied with your mouth to scold him. If Vox hadn’t spoken you might have forgotten he existed, the sensation of Alastor’s cock pressed hard against yours bright as fire in your brain, his bullying tentacle pushing you fast towards your precipice.

Alastor must have been less lost in the moment than he seemed, because he pulled the tentacle out of you just as you were nearing your end, leaving you gasping, cunt twitching, and deftly angled himself in just in time to feel you pulse around his cock. Your cum splattered your own stomach and chest, some on Alastor’s shirt, judging by the wet patches that had formed over his chest, and he smiled down at you, something like pride in his red eyes as he held your hips, keeping himself firmly inside you as you came.

“Fuck man, what a mess,” groaned Vox, voice tinged with admiration.

Alastor hummed in agreement, his eyes narrowing as he felt the aftershocks of your orgasm.

“I can’t say I think much better of your state right now though, old chum,” he said, his tone conversational. “You’re getting pretty sloppy yourself.”

Vox groaned again, and you realized that you could hear the rhythmic noise of his fist wrapped around his cock. “Al,” he whined.

Alastor just laughed to himself, and hooked your knees over his shoulders, his cock still firmly in your cunt. “Shall we begin?” he asked, and to his credit, he did wait for a nod from you before he did.

Though his cock was less impressive than the tentacle, with your legs on his shoulders and a slight forward tilt, he was able to reach all of the sweet spots the tentacle had. Your throat hurt from crying out, and your spent cock lolled untended below your navel, but the feeling of having your guts rearranged was still exquisite. Your cum pooled in the hollows of your collarbones as Alastor fucked you, your cunt still oversensitive, your cock not even soft yet, bouncing with each stroke, in time with the noises you made as the motion forced air from your lungs.

You were dully aware of Vox’s orgasm; his movement ceasing with a low moan, and Alastor’s smirk as he watched his rival coming undone.

“What’s this? Can’t stick it out til the end?” Alastor’s grin was fierce, his own breathing growing unsteady as his motion ripped another cry from your throat, his red shirt darkening with sweat.

“Fuck you,” Vox choked out.

Alastor grinned wide, teeth gleaming. “Never going to happen,” he taunted, and you felt the telltale twitch of his cock inside you as he closed on his own orgasm.

He grasped you more tightly as he chased it, intent on your voice and your eyes, bending you double a little more, a little more, until at last your thighs were pressed flush with your chest, and he kissed your lips, softly, as he hit that final sweetness. His cock pulsed inside you, once, with a wave of heat, before he pulled out, a second arc of cum hitting you neatly across the chest, then a third, then a fourth which landed in a hot line on your stomach.

“That- should fulfill everything,” said Alastor, sitting back heavily and tucking himself back into his pants. “You can go now.”

“What?” Vox blinked. He looked like you felt; stunned.

“The sex is over. The curtain has fallen. The show, concluded.” Alastor gave him a little wave. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

“Shit.” Vox sucked in air through his teeth. “You’re a real asshole sometimes, you know that Al?”

“And you’re a voyeur who inserts himself into people’s private lives,” said Alastor, with a thin smile. “Each of us has his burden to bear.”

Vox left with a stream of curses, slamming the door behind him, and Alastor lay down on his back on the bed, his smile a small, tight expression.

The wet spots forming on the front of Alastor’s shirt weren’t from sweat or cum, but blood.

“You’ve split your stitches,” you said, feeling a wave of guilt for not noticing sooner. Of course his pace had been more frenetic than usual; he’d been racing to push Vox out the door before Vox noticed.

Alastor looked as if he might deny everything, but closed his eyes instead, his smile tense. “If you could fetch me the surgeon’s kit?” he asked.

You picked up one of the towels left beside the bed for the purpose and gave yourself a cursory wipe down before stalking naked, first to the en suite to wash your hands with soap, then to the shelf where the tools were kept.

“You didn’t need to strain yourself like that,” you said, placing the wooden box down on the bed beside him and unclipping the clasps.

“Oh?” Alastor stared listlessly at the canopy above the bed. “What was my alternative?”

You retrieved the disinfectant, cotton, thread, needle and scissors, the same tools Alastor had used to stitch your arm, alongside a roll of bandages. “You could let me top.”

“In front of Vox?” Alastor gave a mirthful exhalation. “I would rather not let you deflower me in front of him, thank you.”

Deflower? Well, you couldn’t see him putting himself in the position of a submissive partner, at least not willingly. “But in general you have no objection?”

Alastor’s face colored, his gaze leaving yours. “Maybe,” he said. “Another night.”

For the first time, you unbuttoned Alastor’s shirt rather than the reverse. For someone who had seen you naked so many times, Alastor was surprisingly bashful, his gaze not meeting yours as you peeled away the bloody red fabric to reveal the soaked bandages beneath. You were struck with the desire to touch him, to run your palm over the soft concave lines of his belly, but you suspected that such a touch would be met with a blast of distressed audio, so instead you picked up the scissors, and set to work cutting the bandages away.

Alastor had never looked as small or as vulnerable as he did beneath you, his bloodied bandages peeled back. There was an ugly wound across his narrow chest, from his collar to his stomach and deepest over his sternum, the flesh either side livid and pink. He’d sewn it closed himself; you could tell by the way the stitches grew uneven as they grew closer to his dominant arm, and several of those nearest the center had ripped, the flesh on the side of the wound tearing where the thread had pulled it closed. Blood dribbled from the injury as Alastor’s chest rose and fell. If you hadn’t known that Alastor had been bearing the injury for as long as you’d known him, you would have guessed it had been made yesterday.

“I didn’t ask you to help with this,” he said, a worried edge to his smile, his ears lowering.

But, he did want your help, was the unspoken implication. “It’ll be easier for me to reach,” you pushed, more to preserve his pride than anything else. “It’s a pain to sew yourself up, after all.”

“Speaking from experience, I take it?” Alastor’s ears perked up a little, his eyes meeting yours.

You told him a story as you cleaned and stitched his wound, about how the hospitals in your old city always treated these sort of injuries with such suspicion, reporting them to the police. About how hospitals were overpriced and overrated anyway, and how anything that couldn’t be fixed at home with the correct tools probably wasn’t worth worrying about anyway. You kept talking, more to distract Alastor from the pain than anything else, and he watched you work with half-lidded eyes and parted lips.

“You’re good at this,” he said, as he watched you pin his bandages into place, fresh and bright white against his skin, and you felt the compliment bring heat to your cheeks.

“I’ll get you a fresh shirt,” you said, turning to go, but Alastor caught hold of you, drawing you to him. You felt the warmth of his bandaged chest against your back as he draped himself over you, the warmth of his bare arms around you.

Alastor breathed out heavily, a shaky sort of breath, his lips in your hair. “You will do no such thing,” he said, a tremor in his voice. “You will hold me. You will lie here and you will hold me.”

It was a silly demand, but you could do nothing save obey it. Not because a chain of obligation compelled you, but rather that your heart would not allow it to be otherwise.

[crookedkryptonitebeliever]

Hired

One of many ways Yves could establish first contact with you.

tw: i guess kind of none because if you take what happened here at face value, it kinda even seem wholesome and normal, except maybe the mild infantilization

u gotta look at the Yves lore before understanding the implications of some stuff

Yves is a wonderful employer, he is infinitely better than any of your other bosses. The economic and societal climate is changing; despite having a bachelor's degree, all you could get are entry-level jobs. At this point, the only way a person could reliably advance in their career is through contacts.

There was no wonder why you would jump at the chance when your cousin offered to put you in contact with their affluent associate. Of which, is looking to hire a personal assistant. It's not the most ideal job in the world, but you were hoping through Yves, you could network enough and open more doors.

You were nervous; as your cousin described him as quiet but not meek, polite but aloof, calm yet holding an air of absolute authority around him. You assume that he's someone who couldn't tolerate mistakes, no matter how small or inconsequential. However, the fact that Yves treats those who work under him well was enough to make you push your fears away and agree to a meeting with him.

He is a busy man, so you couldn't meet him until a week later. The wait is killing you; at least you had time to prepare, rehearse your responses, and gather whatever medication necessary to prevent you from vomiting upon seeing him. Your cousin had to assure you that Yves isn't as menacing or uncompromising as you built him up to be. Yet, you wouldn't believe them. So you suffer in your own anxiety.

And when you do finally meet in a fine dining restaurant as per his arrangement, it took you every ounce of your strength not to pass out.

Yves is beautiful. He carried himself with such grace and elegance, even his movements look unreal. As if it's much more fluid and effortless than normal people. His jet black hair that cascades down to the middle of his back, to his piercing emerald gaze, everything about him intimidated you half to death. It's not a human that you're looking at, you're looking at something closer to an ethereal deity, if anything.

He offered a small, polite smile before addressing you by your first name.

The combination of his overwhelming aura and the opulence of the meeting venue, you're beginning to doubt you should even be here.

He presented his perfectly manicured hand to you, obviously for you to shake and do a proper introduction. But you merely stared at it, blanking out in panic. You felt dirty, a filthy commoner should never touch such a delicate, expensive-

"Are you alright?" He asked. Yves has a pleasant sounding baritone voice; it exudes warmth that is unfamiliar, but addicting. You craned your neck upwards to see no malice, only concern.

You cleared your throat and muttered an apology before shaking his hand. You were hyper focused on how clammy your hands must feel to him.

"(name)." You felt your heart drop into your stomach when he unpredictability enveloped your trembling hand with both of his. For the first time, you realized that his hands are unnaturally cold. So cold, that it almost felt like you're touching a block of ice. Your unending loop of self negativity was broken by the unexpected temperature shock.

He leaned down a bit closer. "You are doing well."

Yves stated with such assurance, you released a breath of relief and felt the fear melt away. His thumbs massaged your hand for a few more seconds, just enough to calm you down further, but not long enough to make you uncomfortable.

When his grip loosened, you successfully took it as a cue to let go. He took a seat and gestured for you to do the same.

You braced yourself for the first interview question as the food isn't here yet. There was no menu, Yves already preordered the food. That was why he had contacted you a few days prior to ask about your dietary requirements and/or restrictions.

You expected every generic and obscure that a Human Resources department could ever come up with, repeating the lines in your head so you wouldn't mess up. You intently watch him part his soft lips to speak.

"How are you, (name)?"

You froze. You didn't take into account that he would test you on small talk. You didn't practice that.

So you stuttered and stumbled over your words, eventually giving him a generic "Good." Then, you immediately clammed up, waiting for his next response.

He smiled. It was kind and genuine. "That's wonderful to know. I am also doing well myself."

You cringed internally, realizing that you should have returned the question.

But before you could beat yourself up over it, he continued exchanging pleasantries with you. Talking about mundane topics about the weather, the restaurant, travelling, hobbies- it was boring, but you felt safer and safer as it went on.

You became comfortable because Yves eventually seemed human enough to recognize, as someone who wouldn't bite your head off at the first wrong move. An image of a caring gentleman who just happens to be reserved replaced the ruthless dictator-like persona you had for Yves in your head.

Your cousin was right, you were really stressing over nothing. It became so easy to talk to him that the tension in your shoulders was gone, your words now flow without stumbles and you can feel your anxiety medication course through your veins and finally doing it's job.

The way he puppets the conversation is so masterful, that you didn't even realize he had transitioned the topics to the actual interview. You still spoke to him so casually, as if he's your non-judgemental prude of a friend.

If it wasn't for Yves's conversational skills, you would have been malfunctioning over how you should hold your fork and knife. But you were eating like you always would; fast, slow, neat or slightly messy, it didn't matter. You stopped seeing Yves as a potential employer and more of a buddy.

The "interview" went on until the plates were cleared, including desserts. Waiters and waitresses took them away, you took that as your cue to stiffen up because the real interview is about to start.

You went through the same process of silently repeating your memorized answers to yourself, but this time with no pressure.

Only to be dumbfounded when Yves asked, "How soon can you start working with me?" implying that you somehow passed the interview that never happened.

There were a few moments of silence from you, trying to process it all. You end up asking him about the other questions you were expecting him to ask.

"I did ask about those earlier. I find that your responses reflect a personality best suited for this position." He folded his hands on his lap.

Then you realized, he actually did. All this time, you thought those were inconsequential small talk.

You were suddenly caught up in a decision paralysis, unable to come up with a clear choice immediately. Yves must have noticed this, as he took out a file from his designer handbag and a fountain pen.

"Are you available to start tomorrow?" He opened the file and put the contract in front of you.

And that was how you secured a high paying job with almost unbelievable fringe benefits: free accommodation (as it was much easier to work with him if you stayed in the same house), three free meals a day cooked by your boss, including whatever Yves has in his kitchen, a company car for private use (his personal car), and hell, he even covers your self-education expenses.

It was strange at first that Yves would cook. You expected him to have private chefs and servants to handle maintenance of his humble abode. But you quickly come to realize, the reason why he was so busy is precisely due to that. He would do all the chores himself, no matter how undignified you thought it was.

He makes his own tea and fixes a cup of your favourite beverage too. The free meals he whips up on the daily are healthy and delicious, there are no ultra processed foods in his house. He manages his own finances, so you don't know how much he earns or has in the bank.

Yves surprisingly loved doing such menial tasks- tasks that you were supposed to handle, becoming fussy when you tried doing some of them for him. He would send you away and tell you to stick to what you're instructed to do. Which was to arrange Yves's meetings with his business associates based on his packed schedules. And to reply to his emails and answer calls, the latter is rare but you're glad as it's so daunting to talk to other rich folks.

As days turn into months, you notice how Yves is such a damn recluse. He wouldn't leave the house unless he has to and he doesn't seem to have friends he would regularly hang out with. You don't even think he has friends he enjoys being around. No family either.

Your job eventually was to just be there for him. You were never bored despite having very little to do, because Yves would talk to you and bring you wherever you always wanted to go, all expenses paid out of his own pocket.

The downside to all of these was that he nags. He nags your ear off if you forgot to put on sunscreen for the day, he nags if you're bringing in candies into his pantry, he nags if you still hung out with that friend who spread nasty rumors about you and he nags if you're doing something he perceives as harmful towards yourself.

But you knew he genuinely cared about you and he also verbally confirmed it himself, as he considered you as someone awfully special to him. Unfortunately, his boldness developed some awkward feelings in you. Never in your life did you have some who gave a crap about you as much as Yves.

You had come to see him as a crush. It's hard to avoid him when you're living under the same roof, eating the same meals and hanging out with him as part of your job description.

Predictably, he quickly sniffed out that something was amiss, and he directly questioned you about it one random afternoon. It didn't take long for you to buckle under the stress he was putting on you with his unique, maternal-esque interrogation techniques. You spilled the beans, you told him everything no matter how painfully embarrassing it was.

You ended your speech with a hot face and a belief that he will fire you right after this.

Yves merely hummed in response. You hung your head low, bracing for impact.

However, the only impact you felt was a feathery, sweet peck on the cheek. Your head shot back up and stared at him with wide eyes, Yves was smiling with glee and serenity.

"Dinner will be ready at five, dear." He traced his fingers along your jawline and walked away to prepare a meal for two.

Of course, after you recovered from your stupor, you ran after him and began asking what exactly happened.

"You confessed your feelings for me, and I accepted it." He explained as he cupped both sides of your cheeks, rubbing them with his thumbs. "You are now my beloved partner. And if all goes well, eventually, my lawfully wedded spouse."

You couldn't coherently get your thoughts out, a million of them are firing through your mind and you're still struggling to process that your boss might feel the same way. And what does this mean for your job? It's definitely going to change now that you're romantically involved with him.

He then pulled you into a hug, holding you close and raking his fingers through your hair.

"One step at a time, my love. Do not overwhelm yourself." He kissed you on the crown of your head. You allowed yourself to melt in his arms, inhaling his comforting scent as he pets you.

And as it turns out, there isn't too much of a difference after Yves becomes your boyfriend. He still cooks and cleans, you still schedule his meetings for him. It's just that he would show his gratitude with forehead kisses now. And there is the addition of pet names.

You unlocked the option to sleep in the same bed as him, either in his room or yours. You almost immediately become secure enough to randomly cuddle up to him throughout the day. Likewise, he was comfortable enough to leave lipstick marks on your face whenever he feels like it.

He could be reading on the sofa, and you could lay your head on his lap with no problem at all. Yves would proceed to mindlessly massage your scalp.

Yves nags a lot less now, because he would simply apply sunscreen on you if you forgot, fix your clothes if it's messy, and basically baby you to an unbearable extent.

Except, it is bearable. Because if it wasn't, you wouldn't have let it slide for so long. And you wouldn't have allowed him to tie your shoelaces for you or wipe your snot away whenever you have the sniffles.

So, you still think Yves is a pretty swell boss and an amazing boyfriend. You felt like you hit the jackpot on this one and you couldn't have been luckier.

[strawberry-cow-smut]

"It's always been there."

Character: Gojo Satoru, Jujutsu Kaisen

Reader: Gender Neutral

Exploring: First Meeting, Love at First Sight, First Date, Relationship Moments, Gaslighting (about small and inconsequential things), Awkward Moments, Lots of Fluff

Gojo Satoru is known for his boyish demeanor; full of fun, laughter, and a playfulness that rivals any other. Sure, he's possibly the most powerful sorcerer to have ever existed in the written memory of mankind and likely the closest thing to an actual god that humanity currently has on its side, but none of that really changes anything; at least when you look at him.

Satoru is like a mischievous cat. He'll mess with your hair and move essential items onto higher shelves then hide the stepladder just so you have to come ask him for help. He'll lurk around corners just to "casually" walk out just as you're coming around them to cause a crash of bodies in which he can ever-so-heroically save you from "certain death". To put it frankly, he's an asshole (affectionate).

But he's your asshole.

Gojo Satoru asked you out back when you were both in middle school. He'd decided to walk a different path on his way to the local convenience store after class had ended. For you, on the other hand, this path was your chosen way home from your own middle school.

It was a cold spring and the cherry blossoms had yet to bloom; decorating the landscape with trees that vaguely resembled themselves after the first powder of a chilly winter season. Some buds had already fallen and were floating their way down the stream next to his path.

He remembers seeing your reflection in the water of the river first, then moments later being awestruck as your figure popped out from a corner and began heading towards him. Normally, Satoru wouldn't think much of a person walking towards him, but something about you just had his heart in shambles the moment he laid eyes on you.

Is it really all that unusual for a middle schooler to hear wedding bells when he's barely even gotten over the idea of cooties?

The distance between you two was closing at a slow yet steady pace. He'd been frozen in place since the moment you'd appeared, but you hadn't stopped walking at all. Once you were roughly six or seven meters away, he couldn't hold himself back any longer.

"HEY!"

The sudden yell caught you off guard; bringing your own body's movements to a grinding halt.

"DO YOU WANT TO GO OUT SOMETIME?"

With a boyish smile and bright eyes, Satoru stared eagerly, waiting for an answer. Sure, the delivery wasn't the most impressive, nor had you ever seen this kid before in your life, but what did you have to lose?

"No."

Apparently, your dignity.

Not giving him another second of your time, you turned tail and walked away, leaving him frozen in the same spot, with a much sadder posture.

Satoru stayed still for a few minutes, processing what just happened and what he'd just done. What he'd just done was make an absolute fool of himself and blow what possibly could have been his only chance with you. He wasn't about to give up so easily, though.

For the next month and a half (or forty-three days, to be precise), Satoru walked that same route every single day at the same time, even on days when he didn't feel like heading to the convenience store, just hoping to see you again.

You, on the other hand, purposely walked a different path in hopes of avoiding a weird white-haired kid with a tendency to yell out his unfounded love confessions. On the forty-third day, you incorrectly decided it was safe to return to your normal path, and encountered the doofus once more.

Once again, he was awestruck. He did wait for you to approach a bit closer this time, though. Once you had passed by and were a few steps behind him, he stuttered out his name, accompanied with a rather charming voice crack. You muttered your own in response, and he lit up. He jogged a bit to catch up with you, abandoning his trip to the convenience store in favor of a conversation with you.

In all honesty, he was a bit of a pest. He was loud and a bit obnoxious with hardly any regard for personal space, but something about this weird kid with his sights on you seemed oddly right; maybe not a good idea, but right all the same. Reluctantly, you conceded and agreed to meet him for a movie after class next week.

Your first date wasn't all that great. He was so amped up about the idea of seeing you that he'd practically yelled every sentence he spoke. Whenever he awkwardly attempted to hold your hand, he'd squeeze a bit too tight.

But still, he'd opened the door for you, bought both the tickets and popcorn, made sure you had the best seats in the theater, and had tried his best to manage both the date and his enthusiasm.

Oh god, his enthusiasm.

You'd arrived to your first date exactly when you said you would, but Satoru had already been standing outside the theater gates for two hours before the movie would even start. He'd visited two different flower shops on his way there, trying to decide which ones were the perfect ones to get for a first date, then ultimately decided holding flowers during a movie wouldn't be all that comfortable and forgetting about that idea altogether.

He didn't plan on you ever knowing that, wanting to seem as cool as possible in front of his crush, but the box office cashier made sure to tell you all about it. Of course, Satoru was bright red by the time they'd finished, but so were you. It was a new feeling to have someone be so excited to see you, and even more new to know they'd been thinking of you so intensely beforehand.

Before you two parted after the movie, you did mention an ice cream shop you'd be at that Saturday. Despite all his annoyances, they were still charming annoyances; and he'd earned a second date.

Throughout the years, you two would go on hundreds of other dates where his annoyances would make themselves known time and time again, each of them becoming endearing and something you'd almost look forward to.

He'd tell you there's a cool bird outside to get you to turn your head, then steal a bite off your plate when you weren't looking. When you'd invite him over, he'd open your sock drawer the moment you left him unattended and would switch around all the paired socks with others that were very obviously not their mate. He'd leave cute notes that said "I love you" or something similar in places you'd undoubtedly find them: your glovebox, your dresser, the kitchen counter, inside the fridge; although they'd always have a silly little poorly drawn penis in the bottom right corner. He'd reenact the famous "Long Live the King" scene from The Lion King with your stuffed animals then flop back in your bed, claiming to be the only thing you need to snuggle at night.

With all this in mind, it's truly a wonder how willing you were to trust him when he started gaslighting you.

It started small, and it certainly wasn't intentional the first time. As far as you know, the first instance was when you noticed a large stash of your favorite snack sitting in your shared pantry. Not wanting to lose his cool like he'd done so many times before, Satoru played dumb and acted like he hadn't ever seen the snack before in his entire life. You held firmly to your suspicion that he had something to do with the tiny mountain on the shelf, but it's not like it mattered, nor could you prove anything... and you did really like the snack, so you just shrugged it off and went with it; genuinely considering the possibility that you'd forgotten accumulating so many treats for yourself.

He really didn't think it'd be that easy to convince you. He turned the situation over in his head a few times that night, thinking about what your gullibility meant for the future of your relationship, but he didn't see many downsides; at least with how he planned to take advantage of it.

"Yes dear, the TV was always that big. No, it certainly didn't grow overnight. Are you imagining things?"

"Oh, you really like the fabric of our bedsheets? It's your favorite texture? What do you mean they're new? Oh, Honey, we've had these sheets forever and you're just now telling me about this?"

"You haven't worn that outfit in a while. What do you mean you've never seen it before? It was always in the back of your closet. It was just behind that old shirt you stole from me when we first moved in together. Yeah. You mentioned it was your dream outfit, but you've always had that."

"No, a jeweler didn't call today. You must be going crazy. I didn't even hear the phone ring and I've been home all day long. You're so silly."

One morning, the sun started shining a bit brighter than usual, or at least it appeared to since Satoru had forgotten to close the window before bed last night. He said he would before he laid down to sleep, but apparently forgot to keep his promise. While you slept peacefully. he'd been up the majority of the night. He'd been stirring about the house the entire night; sitting in every chair, making a thousand Google searches, playing Jenga by himself, and debating on whether or not to crawl into bed with you. Eventually, he would give into this little desire, but not before tending to another small task first. Satoru completed his little task before climbing into his side of the bed and snuggling up to you as per his usual.

You woke the following morning with the sun's rays leaping through your window and assaulting your face as it rose on the horizon. The arm around your waist kept you cemented in place. As you attempted to roll over to escape the warmth of another day, tired grumbles sounded from the face hidden from the same criminal in the small of your back.

"Five more minutes."

Given how he towered over you in both strength and stubbornness, you sighed and gave in to his grumbling without much of a fight. If you're going to be stuck here, you might as well make the most of it, right? Five minutes for him can at least mean four more for you too. As you lay your head back down on your pillow, a sudden and bright sparkle from your bedsheets caught your eye.

What the hell could that be?

In your sleep-drunken state, you attempted to reach out and grab the object, only to realize the shimmering object moved at the same pace as your fingertips... or did it?

The mysterious twinkle seemed to be attached to your hand; your left ring finger to be precise.

The extra heft was surely noticeable once you'd awakened enough to gain some form of higher thinking. There is absolutely not a single logical reason as to why this giant ring, almost gaudy in its presentation and glittering enough to make oncoming cars swerve, would be on your finger. Sure, Satoru had made some jokes in the past, but you swore he'd never proposed to you.

He stirs and grumbles again, obviously disturbed by your refusal to lay back down.

"Satoru? What's this?" you inquire without breaking your gaze at the ring. Satoru sits up slightly and yawns; blinking a few times before waking up enough to respond properly.

"... Oh! I know this one! It's a ring!"

Wow. So intelligent.

"Of course it's a ring, dumbass. What's it doing on my hand?"

"It's your engagement ring, silly. Don't you remember? I proposed like a month ago."

"......... Are you sure you did that?"

"Absolutely positive. Never been more sure of anything in my life."

"I think I'd remember something like that."

"Hmm... I don't know if you would. You've been forgetting a lot of things lately. Good thing I can remember it enough for both of us. We were in that cafe you like with those cute plants on the windowsill and it was snowing outside. You ordered a hot chocolate in their signature seasonal Santa mug and I had my glass of steamed apple juice to go with it. I got down on one knee and you said yes before I even had a chance to ask the question. It was so cute how eager you were." Satoru took a deep sigh and gave your body a slight squeeze, burying his face in the small of your back once more.

You're immediately calling "bullshit" in your head, but the slight tremble in his breathing makes you go along with it this time, fully understanding exactly what he's trying to do. With a sigh, you lay back down as well, rolling over to face him and cup his cheeks. Looking into his cerulean eyes, you give a soft smile and a gentle peck on his lips.

"I'm so glad you remember. I'm sorry I don't, but maybe you can do it again so I can remember this time?"

Satoru froze for a moment; taking the time to think through his next words carefully.

"Of course, my love." He cupped your cheek with one of his large hands and pressed his nose to your own; bright eyes peering directly into your soul.

"My beloved dove, I have loved you with everything that I am, and, if you'll allow me, I'd be honored to love you with all that I will ever be for all eternity. For the rest of our lives, I want to wake up next to you, just like this, and hold you in my arms, just like this. Whether we're fighting the clock and rushing out of the house after another 'Just five more minutes' or taking it easy and sleeping in until noon, I want that to be our every day together. I want to stay with you as long as you'll let me, as close as you'll have me. When I'm with you, the days turn into hours and the hours into minutes and minutes into seconds. I fear that forever may not be long enough to truly show you how much I love you, so I'm afraid I'll have to cut my little speech short. What I'm really trying to say is... Will you marry me?"

~~~~~~~~~~~Author’s Note~~~~~~~~~

Happy holidays to @saintsugu!! I'm your Secret Santa! This one's written especially for you, Ezra! This is the first JJK piece I've written so it might seem a little funky, but I sincerely hope you enjoyed getting to experience this little love story with Gojo <3

Heart dividers made by @/cafekitsune

[the-case-book-of-fanfiction]

Little Love

Love Bites, Chapter 3 // Love Bites {Masterlist}

Ship: Astarion Ancunin x fem!vampire spawn!elf!Tav/reader

Summary: Appearances can be deceiving, but they can also tell you everything you need to know. A second look at the elf you once called a friend is all you need to fill in the two-hundred year gap.

Word Count: 4,631 words

Warnings: flashback within a flashback (your perspective), alcohol, Astarion's parents (I gave them my own names), grave desecration, grief

☟ Continue below the fold ☟

Astarion never went back to the same tavern twice. Not for many years, at least. But, against his better judgment, he went back to yours, three nights later.

He wasn’t sure what was drawing him back, not really. It wasn’t as if this particular tavern seemed very promising. Its patrons were, well, regular people. Nothing about them seemed particularly special. In fact, it was probably more dangerous to be going back so soon—for all Astarion knew, Rahul’s friends were still loitering there and would kill him the moment they saw the man Rahul had left the tavern with. The last man who ever saw Rahul alive. 

His other victims from the past two nights were inconsequential. They hadn’t insisted on telling him their names, the male druid and female elf who had each been a little more than an hour’s worth of his time combined. They had been easy targets, lonely people who were all too easy to seduce. He almost felt bad for them. But not as bad as he felt about Rahul. Both nights, Astarion had jolted out of his trances with a shout upon hearing Rahul’s screams in his dreams again. Both times, he’d been rewarded by Godey with a whipping. 

Even as he walked into the tavern, Astarion wasn’t sure what he was doing. It was only after the door had swung shut behind him, hitting a little bell as it did, and you looked over from the bar and raised a hand in greeting did he realize why he’d come back.

He locked eyes with you as he made his way toward a small table in the corner. He paused, watching you. There was something in your eyes that made the tension in his shoulders disappear. 

You’d done your hair differently today. It was braided back, a couple strands of it loose around your face, clearly having escaped during your work. Your beautiful face had morphed into an expression of surprise, like you were shocked to see him here again.

But there was something else in it—the slightest bit of repressed hope, an expression Astarion had seen all too often on the faces of his victims just before they died, when they still thought he might save them from his master. 

On your face, though, hope was comforting. You looked almost…relieved to see him. 

Before he realized what he was doing, Astarion turned toward the bar and sat directly in front of you. He heard your breath catch in your throat and your pulse speed up and for a moment he felt a twinge of regret. You, too, would make an easy target. 

You recovered quickly, however. You finished wiping down the bartop and dropped the rag into the sink. You leaned on the bartop. “What can I get you tonight, sir?”

“A glass of your finest red wine,” he says after a moment of thought. 

Something minute in your face changed. You blinked too fast and hid the look in your eyes, but for a moment the façade of a bartender serving a patron disappeared. It was only a second, but was enough for the gears in Astarion’s head to start turning.

You laughed with a smile on your face. “You’re going to have to be more specific, hun. The ‘finest red wine’ changes from person to person. What kind of flavor are you going for?”

Hun. The moniker stood out in Astarion’s mind, dominating every other word you’d said. Hun, short for honey, and for some reason, he could hear the complete word in your voice: softer, gentler, loving. Not at all the way a bartender speaks to her patrons. 

Only after you raised your brow did Astarion remember you’d asked him a question. He shook himself out of his head. “Oh, something full-bodied,” he said. 

“Now that I can work with,” you said. You turned to search your shelves and Astarion watched you release a long breath very slowly. You wiped your palms on your pants before reaching up and sliding a bottle from its place. You presented the bottle to him. “How about this?”

Astarion studied the label and vintage. “I’ll admit, I’ve never heard of it,” he said, shrugging idly. “But if you think I’ll like it, I’m inclined to trust you.”

He watched you cut off the wax seal and uncork the bottle. You poured enough for a tasting into the glass and slid it across the bartop to him. 

“How does that taste?”

Astarion sniffed the wine before swallowing it down. Pleasantly, it didn’t taste like vinegar, like most wines he’d had the bad luck to drink in tavern after tavern. He could taste the alcohol and the grapes and the blackberry undertones easily, all melding together wonderfully.

“This,” he said, passing back the glass, “is absolutely what I am looking for.”

You grinned and filled up the glass. “I thought it might be.”

Astarion swirled his glass while you re-corked the bottle and set it in ice. He watched as you helped another patron sitting at the bar, a middle-aged woman complaining about her husband being out of work and asking if there was perhaps a job for him at the tavern.

You calmed her as you made her cocktail, talking soothingly and nodding in sympathy as she complained about trying to feed their infant. It was your sympathy that made Astarion feel pity for the woman. 

Something about you was achingly familiar. There were times when you spoke, certain words that you said, that struck a chord in him, simply because they sounded familiar. The way you moved behind the bar, so graceful in a space that was unbearably small, seemed comfortable to Astarion, as if he would be able to anticipate your movements and react accordingly if he were to join you behind the bar. 

It was almost painful, this feeling of familiarity and alienation combining in one person. It was like the nights when Astarion first realized he was forgetting his life before being a vampire where he would sit in the dark and grasp at straws for pieces of his life, only for his mother’s face to fade into nothingness and his father’s voice to be lost in the shadows forever and—

A twinge of pain split through Astarion. It was nothing compared to the pain Cazador or Godey regularly inflicted on him, but it was enough to make him flinch anyway. He rubbed his temple as if he could will the building migraine away.

Your eyes flicked over to him, watching the motion with concern, but it just confused Astarion further. You reacted to him so readily, so easily. If it hadn’t been for how innately close and familiar you felt, Astarion would simply have chalked it up to your attraction for him. It wasn’t unlike his prey to keep a close eye on him. But he hadn’t even picked you as his victim for the night, he hadn’t even attempted to seduce you yet. This was entirely of your own accord. 

You gave the woman her drink and pulled your braid over your shoulder as you helped the female tiefling Astarion had seen and considered taking back to Cazador the other day. Suddenly he was very glad he hadn’t; the disappearance of a regular might have been enough to force him out of this part of town for several months at least. 

Astarion glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the tavern. He didn’t see the group Rahul had been with anywhere; perhaps they had already moved on, without a care in the world for their lost friend or comrade or what have you.

Perhaps they thought Rahul had settled into a happy life with a nice young man and would be staying here to live out his days, enjoying nights of passion and drinks at a nice tavern and playing the protector of the pretty boy elf he’d left with. 

Astarion wasn’t sure if it was for his own sake or Rahul’s that he wished that such a fantasy was what they believed. 

As you gave the tiefling a glass of champagne, your eyes strayed back to Astarion. He caught your glance and grinned.

“Surprised to see me still sitting here?” he teased.

You shrugged. “You were here three days ago and vanished without a trace. Forgive me if I feel like you might blow away in the wind.”

“Sometimes it feels like I might.” The words slipped out without any thought behind them. For a moment, Astarion wondered what the hell was wrong with him to dare say such a thing, but your sympathetic smile soothed him.

The talent of a well-practiced bartender, he thought. Get your patrons to loosen up, ply them for more liquor, take home more money—all by smiling and charming and flirting. From one actor to another, I must hand it to her. She’s quite good at this kind of thing.

“Wanna talk about it?” you asked, propping your head up on your hand. The movement exposed more of your cleavage, but judging from the look in your eyes, Astarion guessed that wasn’t your purpose in the movement. You genuinely wanted him to open up.

Your gaze stopped him from speaking. Your eyes were clear and focused entirely on him. You weren’t like the other bartenders he’d chatted up in the past, with their shifting eyes betraying how they were never really focused on him but instead on their tavern and the other patrons they could squeeze more coin out of. 

And, what’s more, your lips formed a soft smile. Joy and love and the sun itself seemed to radiate from you and your expressive face. You looked at him the way a young woman ought to look at her betrothed, with the purity of young love, much more genuine than the pseudo-love and lust he so often saw in his victims. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Astarion whispered, unable to stop himself from asking. 

You realized yourself quite suddenly. Your face dropped and Astarion wanted to beg you to look at him like that again, to apologize and say he never wanted you to stop looking at him like that—he just wanted to know why? Why had you chosen him to be the object of your affections?

Your eyes dipped to the bartop, where his fingers still held the stem of his glass. “I’m sorry,” you said softly. “You— You remind me of someone I know. Someone I miss.”

“A lover?” Astarion guessed, attempting to make it into a tease.

“More than that,” you said, your voice impossibly soft and serious. You fiddled with the strings on your corset. “He was my best friend.”

Astarion’s heart sank in his chest. “Was?”

You nodded slowly. “He died. A long, long time ago.” You shake yourself out of the sorrow that settled on you like a blanket. “You just so happen to look a lot like him. Hells, you even sound like him, just a little bit. I’m sorry if that made…this…strange. You just…sort of brought him back to me, for a moment.”

“Not at all,” Astarion said quietly. “I’m…happy to have brought you that.”

You nodded, lost in your thoughts, your eyes fixated on his. Your lower lip trembled. You sought words, but came up empty handed. All you said was, again, “You remind me of him.”

~❊~

It’s him. By the gods, it’s really him.

You kept busy for the rest of the night, watching Astarion out of the corner of your eye. For he was Astarion, you were certain of that now. Hearing his voice, smooth and suave and the same as you remembered had confirmed it for you. The moment he’d requested your finest red wine, you could hear him calling you darling, could hear your name rolling off his tongue. 

He didn’t remember you, that much was obvious. Some part of you was glad he didn’t, because you weren’t sure what you would have done if he had remembered who you were. You had to focus on that gladness, or else you were going to focus on the disappointment, which made you want to sit on the floor and cry like you had when you’d first received word that he was dead—the kind of crying that left you shaking and never seemed to stop and sounded more like screams than anything else. 

You were also quite certain he would not be flirting with the young elf sitting next to him if he remembered you, his best friend since birth and lover of nearly two decades. 

Perhaps even more obvious than his lack of memory was how he was alive—or rather, undead, for it was quite clear he was a vampire. He was careful to hide his fangs, but the red eyes were enough for you to know, combined with the paleness of his skin and the color of the skin around his eyes. It might have been two hundred years, but you knew your lover well-enough to know he had not been quite so pale in his life. 

The realization of what he was answered a question that had lingered in your mind for years, ever since you’d paid a visit to his desecrated grave. The city had explained the dug-up earth to be the vandalism of the gang that had first attacked and killed him and had assured you and the Ancunins that Astarion’s coffin had not been touched; his body remained inside.

Clearly, they had been wrong. 

You glanced at Astarion. The smug, seductive, confident look on his face was that of a practiced lover, nothing like the goofy and slightly shy boy you had made love to. You wondered what happened, but knew a lot could happen in the two hundred years between now and that terrible night. 

~❊~

The Ancunins walked hand-in-hand. You were just ahead of them, leading the way to their son’s grave, a plot you had chosen to keep their beautiful boy in the sun at high noon. It was far from high noon now; they had chosen to visit the grave in the night, certain they would be attacked by the Gur who had killed their boy if they were seen mourning. 

It was a beautiful night, the kind of night you and Astarion would have loved. He would have held your hand and helped you to climb up to the roof, and you would have sat there for hours, cuddling and talking and admiring the stars he’d been named after. He would have told you about his day at work and played with your bracelets and rings when talking about the difficult rulings he’d made that day made him anxious all over again. He would have wrapped his cloak around your shoulders when you got cold. He would have kissed your nose when you asked to go back to the safety of the bed you shared. He would have helped you climb down and would have put you to bed, only to go stand on the balcony to stare up at the sky for a few moments more. 

He loved the night, and this was the kind of night he would have wanted to have lasted forever: not so cold that you shivered instantly, but cold enough to have a chill bite in the air. Bats danced in the air and wisps of clouds moved across the moon and stars. Pale light illuminated the world in a hauntingly beautiful way. It seemed particularly cruel. 

His mother trembled terribly. Already, silver tear tracks stained her cheeks. You had never seen Selwynn so frail, so scared. Even when she’d found out her son had been murdered, she hadn’t been the skeleton she was now. No, then she had been a fire, screaming and raging and demanding answers until the tears started coming. Now she was a ghost, silent and pale, her veins stark against her skin. All the life and color had drained from her in the past few days. 

His father fared better, but not by much. Thesan’s eyes were sunken, his hair matted and limp, the whites of his eyes bloodshot, though he had not cried at all since he heard the news, unlike his wife. He hadn’t been resting, but then again, none of you had. More than once, your mother had stumbled across you in the night to find you in the kitchen, staring sightlessly into the dark, a glass of water held limply in your hand.

You were glad you hadn’t let them see the body. Looking at them now, you were certain it would have broken them to see their golden boy without life. It had been enough to break you; let them, at least, live out their long lives with their last memories of their son being of him alive and smiling and kissing them goodbye as he left for work. 

Somewhere in the graveyard, an owl called. Another answered. Mice squeaked and scattered nearby, scurrying for shelter amongst the fallen leaves and in the shadows of tall graves. 

“Where is he?” Astarion’s mother asked. Her voice was little more than a faint whisper, lost easily in the slightest breeze. Gone was the strong, operatic voice that had once sung her son to sleep when he was little. “Where’s my son?”

“Patience, darling,” Thesan said, sounding just as—if not more—tired as she. 

“He’s just ahead,” you promised. You looked forward to where you knew his grave to be. Through the grey dark, you read his name on the stone and it felt wrong, like it went against the grain of your life to see him like this—a stone instead of a young man. 

The three of you came to a rest before the headstone. You took a step back and let them crouch before their son. Silence fell heavily over them and the cemetery. Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes; you looked down so they couldn’t see you cry. They’d seen enough of your tears. 

“Astarion,” Selwynn whispered, her voice wavering. She reached out to touch the stone, tracing her son’s name carved into it with care. For a moment, she seemed to be at peace, looking at his name. It didn’t last. In moments, she crumbled with a cry that was a cross between a sob and a scream. 

She keeled forward, grabbing the stone and pressing her forehead to it. She inhaled sharply and coughed on her own tears. When she finally cleared her throat, helped by her husband rubbing her back, her cries became wails that shook her entire body. The freshly turned dirt beneath her began to stain her pale grey dress. 

Thesan puts an arm around his wife’s back, comforting her the only way he could, and he put his palm on the top of the stone. He began murmuring in Elvish, too low for you to hear clearly, but you caught a few words and understood he was whispering for his son to find safety in the afterlife, until he was reborn. After a moment, his broad shoulders began to shake and your heart cracked in half as you realized he was crying for the first time. His tears interrupted his speech every so often.

You wiped your tears from your eyelashes and sat on the ground. You hugged your legs to your chest, biting your lip so hard you drew blood to keep yourself from crying again. 

His father looked up at the starry sky, a fist raised in anger. “He’s still a child!” he shouted. “A child! And he’s in the godsdamned ground!”

A sharp cry came from Astarion’s mother and she got to her feet so quickly she knocked her husband to the ground. She looked at you and you rose from where you sat.

“I can’t stay here,” she gasped through tears. “He’s beneath me. I can’t— He— He shouldn’t be… He should be in my arms! In your arms! But he’s beneath me!” 

She looked at the ground like she might start digging it up to see her little boy again. You took her hands in hers, holding her tightly. 

“It’s okay, you don’t have to stay. You can go. It’s okay. He’ll understand. He knows, I promise you he knows,” you whispered. A tear rolled down your cheek. 

Selwynn squeezed her eyes shut. “I just want him to be okay…”

“He is okay,” you promised. “He is with the gods. They’ll send him back to us, one day, in a new body.”

Her lower lip trembled. “But he won’t be my son anymore.”

“There can always be more children,” Thesan started, speaking hesitantly.

“No!” she snapped, almost screamed, at him. She drew in a deep breath and shook her head. Calmer, she repeated, “No.”

He nodded. “I thought not.” He wrapped her in his arms and she cried into his chest. He opened his arm to you and you joined them in their hug. “You are still our daughter, even if you are not marrying our son. You are…the only family we have left.”

A small sob escaped you. Your body trembled as you looked up at him; you had always thought Astarion resembled his mother more, but now all you could see was the man Astarion would never get to be in his father’s face. “Thank you.”

He kissed his wife’s hair. “Come, darling. We should get home. You need to rest.”

You led them out of the cemetery. It was only after you were closing the gate leading into it that Selwynn stopped short, gasping loudly.

“Flowers! I— I forgot to put flowers on his grave,” she moaned, folding her hands above her heart. She glanced at the flowers outside the gate door. “I have to go back—”

“I’ll do it,” you said. “Get some rest. You need it. You deserve it, after all of this.”

“He deserves flowers from his mother,” she said weakly.

“In the morning,” Thesan said. “When all of this has died down, we can come back and pay him our respects.”

You shared a look of understanding with him; even if it took weeks, months, years for Baldur’s Gate to stop reeling from this crime and for the Gur to calm down from the ruling—which was being reversed later in the week, much to the relief of everyone else who the Gur had believed complicit in Astarion’s actions and who had feared for their own lives—the Ancunins would visit their son again to say farewell when they could finally do so in peace.

You watched them go. Several long, silent minutes passed, but you waited until they were out of your sight and you were alone before you bent to pick flowers for your lover. You chose them carefully, plucking only the most vibrant and tallest and fullest for him. Once you had a sizable bouquet of wildflowers in your hand, you headed back through the cemetery and search out Astarion’s headstone again. You found it easily, but your heart stopped beating when you saw it.

Something was wrong. You knew it instantly. The already chill air seemed to turn frigid as you looked at the plot. It was too dark, too big, spilling into the spaces next to it. It looked nothing like it did only minutes ago. 

An iron tang filled your nose, distinct and wrong and laced with something you could only describe as evil. 

You ran, dodging around headstones to get to the grave—to get to Astarion—as fast as possible.

I couldn’t protect him that night. I have to protect him now!

Mud squelched beneath your feet, smelling strongly of blood and death. You looked at it in horror; it was a mix of dirt and gravel and clay from deep in the earth, all of it soaked in blood. All of it in piles, coming from the center of Astarion’s grave. 

The smell was worse than the sight: chemicals of entombment, the body’s natural gasses, blood, vomit, sweat, urine. Something about it seemed alcoholic and heady, making you sway on your feet, though you knew that could easily just be from your disgust. 

But worst of all, his stone was splattered with the terrible mixture. 

Your stomach dropped to your feet and then rose to your throat. You cupped a hand over your mouth to keep back your bile. Tears streamed down your face.

A moment. You had been gone only a moment. And in that time, someone—or multiple someones—had come and desecrated your lover’s grave, as if killing him had been enough. 

You fell to your knees with a gut-wrenching scream. You bent in half, clutching the flowers to your chest, clenching your teeth tightly. You bit down on your hand to keep from screaming again.

Muffled sobs ripped themselves from your chest. “Astarion,” you gasped. “Astarion, I’m sorry! I’m so fucking sorry! I— I— I’ll fix this! I promise! I’ll…I’ll speak to the town’s jury, I’ll get them to punish whoever did it— Gods, your grave. Your beautiful stone…”

Mindlessly, you put the flowers aside. You stepped around the muddy mess of chopped up dirt and pulled out your handkerchief. You cleaned the stone with it as best as you could, using your fingers and spit when the cloth was too dirty to do anything else but push the gunk around. 

“There,” you said when it was as clean as you could get it. “Clean. Clean like you.”

You looked at the turned grave dirt. “I have to fix this, too. Your parents—I can’t let them see you like this, can I? They’ll be devastated.” 

You got back on your knees and began shoving the dirt back over the grave, patting it back down and drenching your hands and arms with bloody dirt. As you worked, you spoke to him: “I’ll get this all sorted out in the morning, love, I promise. I’ll get you justice. I won’t stand for this, Astarion. I’ll talk to someone first thing tomorrow morning. They’ve already killed you, can’t they just leave you be? Is dying not enough for—for a simple ruling? Yes, I admit, it wasn’t the best decision you could have made, but there had to be a better solution than…than mugging you in a godsdamned alleyway and then desecrating your grave! At the very least, if they can’t respect you, can’t they have some respect for your parents? For me? Your mother doesn’t deserve this endless pain!” You sighed, leaning back and wiping your forehead. Some part of you, the rational part, was aware that you had streaked blood and dirt all over yourself, but the part of you working didn’t care very much. “Of course, I can’t make you too pretty yet, Astarion. I’m sorry, but no one will believe me if I fix you up perfectly. But I can at least make it look like you haven’t been graverobbed.”

You worked for several more minutes. At last, you staggered to your feet, a wave of exhaustion passing through you. 

“You know what?” you said to the headstone. “I’m not waiting until morning. I’m going to go talk to someone right now. I can’t let you stay like this all night. Not when your stars are shining down on you.” Dimly, you were aware that you looked like a graverobber and that you looked insane—but that would probably help your case. “I’ll be back soon, Astarion. I promise I won’t leave you alone like this.”

You began to walk away from his stone. Only a few paces away, you paused and turned around. You stared up at the sky and pointed up at it as if you could command it to watch over your dead lover while you were gone. 

Once more, you knelt to kiss his name. 

☞ ❊ ☜

[Image Caption: I do not give permission to repost, translate, or publish my work on any other site or app by anyone except myself. I do not give permission for my work to be fed into AI (for audio, art, or writing).]

Baldur's Gate 3 // Astarion Ancunin

Taglist: {comment and let me know if you'd like to be added to the Astarion taglist!} @wayward-hel @cheeslyy @ofmyth-andmagicart @neetheslayer @whispering-depths @freesidexjunkie @lightsinmycity @the0ldmann @gobbodoggo @oooof-ifellforyou @beeblisss @fangboner @aquaarietes @fiercest-eigengrau-skies @niqhtfell @call-me-nyxx @lueji-m @ceres-xiv @tricksy-trinity @graynstairs @rosa-rubus @ynisthatyou @thegoodwitchs-blog @catching-fire-in-the-wind @kiyastrf94 @vincemachina @silverfangmarks @ravenswritingroom @hinata7346 @hellethil

[goodlucktai]

name your courage now

one piece word count: 2k pairing: usopp & luffy my piece for the @opfluffzine ! @beasttrash drew some absolutely lovely art to go with my fic, go take a look if you'd like ! title borrowed from the moon will sing by the crane wives read on ao3

x

When Usopp was seventeen, he met a man who made him feel small. 

It wasn’t the first time in his life someone looked at him and found him wanting. But it was the first time elevator eyes and a sneer had caused a deep pang of uneasiness to take up residence in his gut.

“This guy?” the stranger had said to Luffy, incredulous. “Come on, you can tell just by looking between us that I have more to offer than he ever could.”

He was trying to cozy up to the rookie captain already making a name for himself across the blues. He wanted to tag along, take the easy street to adventure and infamy. He couldn’t seem to understand why Usopp, of all people, had a spot, while he didn’t. 

Until that point, Usopp had never had any compunctions about his own physicality. He had a runner’s body, lithe muscle that got him from Point A to Point B swiftly, and the excellent cardio required to scream every step of the way. He would never try to go toe-to-toe with someone like this man—a little taller than Zoro, a little broader in the shoulders, more muscled than the nineteen-year-old former pirate hunter by virtue of being about a decade older. 

But Luffy’s first mate had a devil in him that made him an actual walking natural disaster. This stranger just seemed like the type of bully who was used to using his size to get what he wanted, and his handsome, chiseled face when brute force failed him. 

Luffy had looked at the man the way Usopp imagined the sun might look at a satellite, a glancing interest in this tiny, inconsequential thing that decided to cut boldly across his view. 

Then he looked at Usopp and the shape of that regard changed completely, all warmth and light and safekeeping—the sun looking at one of its planets, Luffy looking at someone who was his. 

Usopp knew how special it was to have that sunlight in his life. He knew better than to think, even for a second, that the special one was him. 

“Who are you?” Luffy said plainly, as if he hadn’t been present for the introductions that had happened literal minutes before. 

The stranger’s face flushed with humiliation, and Zoro’s low chuckle rumbling around them like thunder certainly didn’t help. 

“Shall I get rid of him, captain?” Zoro said with a courteousness that felt dangerous in the moment. 

Luffy, as petulant as any spoiled little brother or soon-to-be king, said, “Just get him out of the way! Usopp was telling a story.”

The stranger chose to take himself out of the way, proving he was at least a little smarter than most wannabe big shots they bumped into. Even after he had disappeared down the road—even after the encounter had drifted back into the company of one thousand other encounters that wouldn’t even make it into the footnotes of their crew’s grand tale—that oily uncertainty remained in Usopp’s stomach. 

Looking back, it was stupid. But it was the first time Usopp felt worried that his place could be snatched away; that someone more deserving could take his spot. 

He knows that he’s lucky, that fate decided to be kind to him that day it brought his future right to his front door. He knows he never would have mustered the courage to go meet his destiny on his own, because Usopp was a runner, and a coward, and only as strong and fast as he needed to be to race away from danger, not towards. 

Then his family was ripped apart. Then Luffy suffered, alone and out of his reach. Usopp clutched a newspaper in hands that shook and imagined, for one second, a world without Luffy’s sunny smile. 

He needs me, Usopp thought. It wasn’t a lie to bolster himself in a moment of crippling insecurity. It wasn’t an act of silly, self-important grandeur to make Nami scoff or Chopper giggle or Sanji roll his eyes. It was a frightening, heavy thing to hold, something he was halfway tempted to put down, and that’s how he knew it was the truth. That’s how he knew he had to keep holding it. 

Usopp worked hard on himself in those two painful years apart, let himself go and then dragged himself back kicking and screaming. He has plenty to show for it, his body a machine as trustworthy as the ones he and Franky build together in their workshop. Just let someone try to take his nakama away again. 

I could carry any one of you, he thinks sometimes, gazing at them over drinks or under the stars, feeling settled in his skin and bones in a way he never was before. If you needed me, I'm strong enough to carry you now.

They meet that man again one more time, when Usopp is twenty.

On the main street of a city they’re poking around for the afternoon, they stumble upon a seaside restaurant's soft opening. Sandwich board menus planted in the street boast cheap specials for couples due to some local holiday. 

Usopp and Luffy lock eyes, and grin, and slide into each other’s space with the ease of people who have put their lives in each other’s hands on the regular. When they amble up to join the queue, they don’t get any second glances.

The shape of Luffy against Usopp’s side is familiar. His hair is stiff, starched with sun and sea salt, but it bends to Usopp's whims when he finger-combs it back into waves. 

Luffy isn’t handsome in a textbook way, isn’t pretty the way people like Vivi and Cavendish are, but he stops strangers in their tracks regardless. Gazes linger where he goes, maybe because humans at a base level can tell when a god is walking with them. 

Or maybe it’s his huge brown eyes. Even odds, Usopp decides, grinning when Luffy pushes into his touch like a pampered pet monster. 

“If we don’t have enough for the bill we can just run away,” Luffy says none too quietly, because he’s very much a product of the two half-feral older brothers who raised him.

“We’ll have enough,” Usopp reassures, even though he’s not entirely sure. Things will work out one way or another. He's learned from the best, after all, and while he’s no Nami, he can charm a few hundred bellies off the bill at the very least. 

Their chatter attracts attention. One of the two girls holding hands in line ahead of them scoffs, good-humored, and her partner giggles. A man walking down the street does a double-take and stops in his tracks.

Usopp recognizes him, even if it takes a minute. He’s smaller than Usopp remembers. The years haven’t been kind, weathering away his roguish good looks. Now he wouldn’t stand out of a crowd one way or another. 

In a split second, Usopp can see the spark of something like blame in his eyes. He looks like he’s about to start a fight.

“Hey, Lu, I bet they’ve got free samples up at the front,” Usopp says, giving his captain a nudge. “Get us something good, I'll save our spot in line.”

“Good idea!” Luffy’s off like a shot, thankfully barreling around the queue of customers instead of through it. Usopp spares a moment of sympathy for the waitstaff if there aren’t actually any samples up there and then turns his attention back to the stranger. 

Usopp folds his arms and sets his shoulders back, a broad wall between Luffy and this guy who thinks he has a right to ruin their fun day off. 

“For all you know, we’re on a date,” he says dryly. “Make it quick.”

“I just don't get it,” he says, jaded and unhappy with whatever turns his life has taken. “Why did he take you with him? What makes someone like you so special?”

“Yeah, you really don’t get it,” Usopp replies, not unkindly. 

None of us were special until he picked us out of the blues and made us that way, he could say. He saw something in us that no one else did, that hadn’t even existed yet, he could try to explain. Maybe we just got lucky. 

But there’s more to it than that. That’s only half the truth. 

They chose Luffy, too. And that’s not a small thing. It’s not simple, or easy, or a choice they only had to make once. Luffy picked them, and they picked him right back, and all the hard work that came with him. 

Every so often, when his friends are being noisy and annoying, Usopp thinks I would do anything for them and he means it . He would fight tooth and nail to stay at their side. He would cling with his last breath to Luffy's flag. Even when it hurts. Even when he’s scared. 

There is nowhere else that he belongs, Usopp realized one day, and it’s the truth. It’s something he made true, over and over and over again. Maybe he did get lucky that day Luffy happened to meet him. 

But maybe Luffy got lucky, too. 

“I put in the work,” Usopp finally settles for saying. “This is how far it got me. I’m nowhere near done yet.”

The man scoffs, but it doesn’t have the condescending edge it did the first time they met. When he sizes Usopp up again, it’s not nerve-wracking the way it would have been once. 

If Robin was there to make it really funny, Usopp would say excuse me, my eyes are up here, like he does in dive bars when flirty strangers get a little too close for comfort, only to shriek in alarm at the extra ice blue eyes staring unblinkingly at them from Usopp’s face. 

The man glances over Usopp's shoulder and quickly withdraws himself from their conversation. Usopp didn’t need his obvious reaction to tell him that Luffy is scampering back, because his passive observation haki is finely tuned to his captain’s presence at all times. That, and the audible oof from a stranger in the crowd who didn’t dive out of Luffy’s path in time not to get trampled over was kind of a giveaway. 

“Oh, score,” Usopp cheers when he sees what is probably six times the suggested number of samples for any one customer clutched in Luffy’s hands. 

Luffy is watching the stranger depart, a confused frown on his face. He looks back and Usopp meets his eyes easily, a smile already curling the edges of his mouth because he knows what’s coming. 

Sure enough, his best friend says, “Who was he?”

The line moves up and now they’re within line of sight of the hostess podium, so Usopp resumes their fake date by slinging an arm around Luffy’s waist. He squeezes playfully, and Luffy actually squeaks in surprise like a rubber monkey, then bursts into bright peals of ringing laughter. 

It settles over the street the way sunlight falls on everything, casting the world in warm, rich gold.  

“He was nobody worth worrying about,” Usopp says, wishing he could say it to himself at seventeen.

Usopp used to be a liar and could even trick himself into thinking he was somehow worth standing next to his friends, the brilliant, incredible people that they were. 

Usopp is still a liar, when it suits him, and even a coward, but only when it’s good for a laugh. More than that, he’s an inventor and a storyteller and the best sharpshooter in the New World. Maybe sometimes he still flinches from danger, but he doesn’t let his crew run to meet it without him. He builds things and helps people and nobody has the power to make him feel like anything except what he is.

He’s someone worth betting your last beli on. Somehow, Luffy knew that from the very first moment they met. Usopp took the long way around, but he caught up eventually.

[hungrywriter]

The Middle Child (one-shot)

Jobe Bellingham x reader (Platonic!) Jude Bellingham x reader (Platonic)

A/n: I'm sorry if this broke your heart, because it broke mine. To all those who struggle with their family's support, remember that your worth and potential are not defined by the validation of others. Embrace the strength in you.

Y/n Bellingham, the middle child of the Bellingham family, had always been living in the shadow of her famous brothers. Jobe's rise to soccer stardom and Jude's recent signing with Real Madrid had propelled them into the limelight, leaving Y/n feeling like an afterthought in her own family.

As Y/n grew up, Mr. and Mrs. Bellingham couldn't help but notice that she had a different passion and interests compared to her brothers. While Jobe and Jude thrived in their love for football, Y/n seemed to gravitate towards a different path. Instead of kicking a ball with her feet, she found joy in catching and throwing with her hands. It was a small detail, but it spoke volumes about her individuality.

Y/n's lack of interest in her father's work further set her apart from her brothers. Her father, hoping to pass on his love for football, had dedicated much of his time and attention to Jobe and Jude's development in the sport. Y/n's divergence from their shared passion caused her father to shift his focus solely onto his sons, unintentionally neglecting the unique interests and talents that Y/n possessed.

It wasn't that Y/n lacked talent or capability; rather, her abilities simply lay in a different realm, one that wasn't immediately understood or appreciated by her family. Unlike her brothers, Y/n found love and passion in volleyball. A sport that was uncommon in the Bellingham family. Since young, Y/n had always wished to compete in the Volleyball Women’s National League. When she had finally reached 17, she had signed to one of the biggest Volleyball teams in England. Once again, her parents were too busy to care.

At the age of 19, Y/n was promoted to captain of the volleyball team. She came home giddily, excited to announce the good news. She was also a bit nervous. How would they react? She longed for her family's support and recognition, yearning for them to be present on this significant day. But as the news of Jude's signing broke, the entire household erupted in joyous celebration, forgetting Y/n's accomplishment amidst the chaos.

Heart heavy with disappointment, Y/n stood in her room, gazing at the captain's armband in her hand. The weight of her brothers' success pressed upon her, threatening to crush her spirit. She had always been proud of her brothers, cheering them on from the sidelines, but now it felt like her own achievements were inconsequential.

Days turned into weeks, and the disparity between her brothers' fame and her own accomplishments deepened. Y/n poured her heart and soul into leading the volleyball team, hoping to find solace and recognition within her own passion. Yet, each victory and milestone seemed to fade into obscurity, overshadowed by the constant spotlight on Jobe and Jude.

It was the day that Jude finally signed the papers for Real Madrid. Y/n had an important match that day that determined whether the team was allowed to participate in the championship. Before and after the match, she keeps checking her phone. No text or calls. Y/n scoffed. 

It was dinner time when Y/n reached home. She was sweaty and tired, and all she wanted to do was take a nice hot bath and have an early rest. She made a mental reminder to change the bandage on her father, as she had an injury during the tournament. When she entered the house, her family was sitting at the dinner table and there was silence when her father bellowed her name.

“Y/n! Where the hell have you been? You missed the proudest day of our lives! And what happened to your forehead?” Your father shouted in anger. Normally, Y/n would shrug it off. But hearing the phrase ‘proudest day of our lives’ finally set her off. 

“Maybe if you had paid attention to me more, you would have known what happened,” She talked back. Her family was shocked at her outburst. Her father’s face was becoming red and her mother was trying to calm him down. 

“I learned to tie my own shoes. I memorised the route home from school because no one was there to take me home. I learnt how to make my own food, because while Jude and Jobe got pasta or-or steak, I had cereal. Do you know what I was doing today, Dad? Mom? Do you know what I want to be when I grow up? Jude? Jobe? Hell, do you even know what sport I play?” She roared, and at every sentence, she stepped forward towards the dining table.

She pulled out a photo from her jacket that she had kept for 2 years and slammed it on the table. It was a photo of her signing the contract with the volleyball team. “2 years ago, I signed for the top league volleyball team in england. It was the most important day of my life. Look at the picture. Do you know what’s missing? MY OWN GODDAMN FAMILY.”

“How could you all forget me? How could you let my accomplishments fade into oblivion while you showered Jobe and Jude with all your attention? Am I not worthy of recognition? Am I not important enough to be seen as an individual?”

“Y/n, please try to understand…” Mark Bellingham said as he stood up from his seat,

“Understand? I understand perfectly! I understand that my dreams and achievements mean nothing compared to Jobe's goals and Jude's signing! I understand that I've become invisible in my own damn family!”

With a heavy heart, Y/n turned away from her family, leaving them to grapple with the reality of their actions. Deep down, she yearned for a future where her worth was recognized, where she could stand tall in her own accomplishments, and where her family truly saw her for who she was.

She left the house and walked straight towards the park. The only place that brings her comfort. She took a seat at the bench and put her head in her hands to clear her head. After a few minutes, she could feel two figures sitting beside her, one on each side. When she saw both her family, she broke down again. This time, her mother hugged her first and cooed her. The rest of the family soon joined in.

“I’m so sorry. I was stressed because of the whole captain thing,”

“Oh baby, don’t be sorry. We’re sorry. We promise we’ll do better,” Her mother whispered as she rubbed her arm down her daughter’s back. Y/n smiled back, and she finally felt seen and heard. For the first time in her life, she had a reason to hope.

With time, Y/n's own star began to rise. Her talent and dedication to volleyball brought her recognition beyond the confines of her family, and she became a respected figure in her own right. She learned that her worth wasn't defined by comparisons or the validation of others, but by her own strength, passion, and the love she held for herself.

In the end, Y/n's struggle had forged an unbreakable bond within her family. They realised that each member, regardless of their accomplishments, deserved to be seen and valued for who they were. And together, they embarked on a journey of unconditional support, celebrating the victories of each sibling, no matter how big or small.

[gabessquishytum]

Okay we’ve had a very sad lack of pregnant Hob here lately so I must fill the gap with a silly idea!!! So imagine it takes Hob getting knocked up for Dream to realize he loves him. It’s in one of those in-between moments where Dream hasn’t been to the waking world in months, too busy rebuilding his crumbling kingdom to check in on his favorite mortal or nurture this strange sort of friendship they’ve started up after hundreds of years. But Dream thinks of him often, more often than he’s willing to admit. So often that the second he’s done cleaning up his kingdom he doesn’t waste a second before he’s materializing in front of the pub (their tavern, it’s always been theirs) and walking in

Hob seems fine at first. He’s sat down at the back of the pub in a booth up against the wall. He looks a little tired, hair a little longer, strands brushing up just at the tips of his shoulders, the rest of it up in a messy bun that’s half falling out. And Dream is immediately so taken with him as he always is, something warm and soft and secret beginning to bloom in his chest. And then Hob sees him, his smile doing a strange little wobbly crease before smoothing out into a too-tight smile, and he’s about to say something, something that looks important, but Dream is already rounding the table and he sees Hob’s obviously pregnant stomach resting in his lap, stretching out one of his silly professor sweaters—

Either trans Hob times or maybe a little fuckery from everyone’s favorite Endless, Desire. Maybe it’s a demonic curse, or a gift from a lesser god. Either way it doesn’t take long for Hob to explain himself when Dream’s soul has been shoved back into his body and he finally relents and sits down. Hob explains that yes, he’s fine; yes, he’s taking care of himself and sleeping well; yes, it’s twins, thanks for asking; no, the other parent isn’t in the picture. And Hob looks so sad when he says that last bit that it makes something stupid and protective swell up in Dream’s chest, the same sort of feeling he gets seeing empty bird nests and children’s nightmares. Dream can’t get the way Hob says I guess it’s just me out of his head for a long, long time

But most of all Dream can’t ever burn away the image of Hob standing up and pressing his hands to the soft small of his back and arching forward with a groan. And for the first time in almost a thousand years Dream imagines silk sheets and bodies in between them. Maybe his offer to help Hob out around the pub and at campus is more selfish than he lets on

Omg, Dream falling in love with Hob/realising that he's been in love with him for ages WHILE HES PREGNANT is so perfect for them <3

Once his pregnancy is out in the open, Hob begins to see quite a lot of his favourite dreamlord. He's a little hurt that Dream might be seeing him just out of pity, but in the end he's grateful to have a friend. And someone to carry his bag around campus. Dream follows him devotedly from lecture to lecture, brings him nutrious lunches, and dotes on him so much that people begin to assume that he must surely be the baby-daddy! And Hob, well... somewhere along the line he stops denying it. Its kinda nice to fantasise that Dream is the other parent of his children.

And Dream, who can naturally sense fantasies and daydreams without meaning to, has to stop his heart from trembling when he realises that Hob wants them to be a family. Not just friends, but partners and co-parents. If he keeps making the right moves, he might actually be able to have Hob?! It seems crazy that such little inconsequential things, like running him a nice soothing bath or organising the shifts at the New Inn, should be the foundation for one of Dream’s legendary cosmic love stories.

With his undeniably changed physique, Hob can't help but feel that he'd never be attractive to Dream. Not when he's so round and swollen and all kinds of weird things are going on in his body. He never dreamed that he'd go through the humiliation of peeing in front of his centennial stranger, but here he is! What he doesn't know is that Dream has never been so aesthetically attracted to anyone. When he sees Hob sleeping on his side with his t-shirt riding up over his belly, Dream nearly melts into a puddle. He just wants to hold, touch, love and worship his body.

Thank goodness they get their shit together around the time Hob hits his third trimester, so he can get those life-saving pregnancy orgasms. He still can't quite believe that his massive belly, messy hair and eye bags were what attracted Dream to him....... but he's never going to complain. His twins are going to be luckiest babies in the whole damn multiverse.

[inuhalfdemon]

No One Can Know...(16/?)

Word Count: 5, 842 Words

Rating: Explicit (SMUT)

Chapter 16

"Now there's nothing left behind, nothing left of you.

Voices start to change...faces re-arrange,

Eyes roll back and hands are pulling you down,

They're dragging you beneath,

Blood between your teeth...

You'll sleep when the shadow moves over your...black eyes."

- The Birthday Massacre

With less than a few weeks left before extermination day; Lucifer and Alastor were finding less and less alone time for themselves.

 It was becoming clear that not all fortifications that could be made would be made on time.

There just was too much to do with such a small group to get it done with. Lucifer and Charlie met regularly now; deciding what areas deserved priority and what areas could be sacrificed in the line of defense. Alastor checked and double checked that the cannibals were fully prepared; that they would be armed appropriately; that they knew which wave would advance and when; ensuring that each and every one of them were still fully willing and dedicated to the cause.

Satisfied and confident that the cannibals were, in fact, ready – Alastor then began collaborating with both Vaggie and Sir Pentious; using their knowledge and experience in formulating the best plans for attack – knowing very well that Alastor’s shield would very likely only serve to buy them some time to prepare for the full assault.

Alastor too, took special care in monitoring the comings and goings of all Voxtech drones into their territory. Finding no real threat from the tech, he let Vox be as nosy as the pompous prick wished to be – finding the TV man’s outward involvement entirely inconsequential to the ongoing preparations.

Because there was less free time and because there was potential for added risks to Alastor being away for any length of time now, Alastor made it a point to invite Lucifer to the Hazbin Hotel every night. Some nights they discussed plans, some nights they bickered in the lobby or over a few drinks at the bar, and some nights they just spent time together – reading, playing at cards or just….conversing. Some of the later nights turned to fucking or intimacy of some form; others found them simply tiredly dragging themselves together into Alastor’s bed, sleeping soundly beside each other; and still - on other late nights - Lucifer would bid Alastor his own goodnight before taking leave and returning to the hotel to continue their work in the morning. 

One week before Heaven’s planned attack; Alastor and Lucifer were asleep together in Alastor’s bed. It was very late when Alastor felt his shadow touch him; waking him in complete darkness. His ears twitched and tweaked swiftly; then nodding to his shadow he sat up to wake Lucifer.

“I’m very sorry to wake you…but, do you think you could shift form? Someone is coming.”

 “Huh, what?” Lucifer blinked at him; clearly not fully awake yet.

“I said-“ Just then, the faintest, most quietest of knocks came from the hotel room door.

Lucifer’s eyes widened and he jolted up, realizing.

“You can stay….if you’d like.” Alastor offered. “Or you can go home, but I have to see to this.” Alastor told him, getting up; he quickly found his pair of black sweats to slip into before drifting into shadow and disappearing completely.

Alastor’s shadow motioned for Lucifer. Waving his hand, Lucifer made sure all of his belongings were moved from the room and then he quickly shifted his form into a small, white ermine; quickly darting off of the bed and after the shadow. Lucifer curled himself under a dresser and the shadow pressed in on him as Alastor drifted back into the room; carrying a very distressed Niffty.

The small demon clung to him with little hands; her tiny body shaking with sobs.

Alastor held her close; his ears drawn back as he spoke softly to her. “It was just another night terror, my dear…I’m here.”

Niffty choked out more sobs, whimpering against his chest as Alastor stepped up and into the bed, sitting with her held tightly in his arms. He rocked her back and forth; humming to some old southern tune that Lucifer didn’t recognize.

Lucifer laid still, listening intently with perked small and round ears.

 It took some time but Niffty’s sobs and whimpers slowly died; turning to a soft crying. Alastor spoke to her again; talking to her in hushed tones…asking her about her day and what funny thing Angel or Sir Pentious might have said or done that made her laugh recently. Niffty struggled to verbalize at first; making small noises and nods before she found her voice and was able to softly speak with him. She said something to Alastor that Lucifer didn’t quite catch and Alastor chuckled lightly; still holding her close. Not long after that, she was asleep in his arms. Shifting himself slowly and carefully so as not to wake her; Alastor laid down with her – her little body tucked tightly underneath one arm.

Alastor’s shadow lifted; darting to Alastor and disappearing into its master.

Lucifer slunk himself out from underneath the dresser; glancing at the space just beneath the door and wondering if he should leave. A movement at the corner of his eye turned his head and he saw Alastor’s arm stretching to him from the bed; palm open and dipped to the ground.

With smooth movements, Lucifer’s ermine form leapt from the floor; onto the palm of Alastor’s outstretched hand and up his arm. Diving into the covers; he turned and slid himself against Alastor’s side – opposite from Niffty – and poked his ermine head out just enough to look up at Alastor with small black eyes.

Alastor brought his arm back up; wrapping it around the ermine and scratching the little head gently between the ears with the tips of his claws. Lucifer grinned at him with small, sharply pointed teeth; flicking a small ear at the pleasurable scratching before circling in place to curl himself into a tight, soft ball of fur against Alastor.

Pulling both small and tired bodies close to his sides; Alastor drifted off to sleep.

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“Well, you look like shit. Didn’t get much sleep last night, huh?” Lucifer joined Alastor on the sofa; leaning back and holding his steaming cup of tea.

Alastor was visibly tired; his smile less stretched across his face, eyes and ears all drooping. He was dressed in his black dress pants and shirt but his jacket and staff were placed aside.

“Not really…” Alastor sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “And, with everything we’ve had to do around here, I don’t get much time to sleep throughout parts of the day like I’m used to either.”

“Ah, yes because your…creep-, creeped-…uh, no fuck; creepy-?“

“Because I’m crepuscular.” Alastor finished, lifting his coffee with a groan. 

“Yes! That!” Lucifer smiled as if happy with himself. “Well, I had a lovely night of restful sleep myself. I should weasel my way into your bed more often.”  He lifted and dropped his eyebrows; grinning widely.

“Keep making jokes like that, and you’ll never be allowed in my bed again.”

“Oh…tired and cranky.” Lucifer prodded him.

Alastor lifted his mug, taking a deep swallow from it, while lifting his other hand and giving Lucifer a very raised and very pointed middle finger.

Lucifer erupted in a bout of snickering.

His giddiness subsiding, Lucifer asked Alastor, “So…does she get the night terrors often?”

“Niffty?” Alastor looked at Lucifer; surprised that he was asking and blinking with tiredness.  “Not as often...no. I think this is the first one she’s had since coming to the hotel. I’m sure the stress from everything that’s happening is what brought it on. She’s more attune to things than she lets on; more than what people normally would perceive. The night terrors they…come from a place of horrible trauma.”

Lucifer nodded, understanding.

Alastor had moved his coffee so that he was holding the mug in both of his hands; his eyes staring off into the cup, lost in his thoughts.

“Does it bother you?” Lucifer asked him quietly, tipping his teacup and swirling the contents absent-mindedly. “That you have to keep secrets from her?”

“Heh, not really.” Alastor chuckled. “The girl is obsessed with writing something she calls ‘fanfiction’…I really don’t wish to add any kind of fuel to that fire.”   

“Fan-what?”

“Fanfiction.”

“What is it?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Well, is it like a genre or?”

“No…it’s- Well, she writes a collection of stories about people she knows - or imagines - in the most bizarre and absurd situations you could possibly envision. It’s….well, I can’t explain because I simply don’t understand it.” He shrugged.

Throwing back his coffee; Alastor set the mug down and asked, “What about you? Are you bothered that Charlie can’t know about….well, about any of this?”

“Yeah…I mean, it just makes everything feel kind of…off, you know? I’m trying to  be there for her and support her in every way that I can, but at the same time…I can’t be honest with her and that’s…well, it’s hard.”

“What do you think she’d say about…whatever this is?” Alastor gestured awkwardly.

“This? This? As in us? What you and I are doing?” Lucifer asked him.

“Yes.” Alastor told him; exasperated by Lucifer needing the clarification.

Lucifer laughed. “Eh, she’d get it.”

“What?” Alastor stared at him, waiting for the punchline. Then, when none came: “You can’t be serious.” 

“Why wouldn’t I be serious?” Lucifer asked him, clearly not joking. “She’s an adult. She’s the Princess of Hell. She’s not sheltered, Al. She knows what Lilith and I get up to; we’ve never been secretive with her – well, not until now, anyway. She won’t care about the things you and I have been doing. behind closed doors but...” He sighed. “She is going to care that we kept it hidden from her. You’re supposed to be someone she can turn to; look to for guidance and I’m her father…we’re supposed to be the people she can lean on; not the ones who are there to deceive her.

Alastor’s ear tweaked at that, but he offered nothing for a reply.

“I’m very…proud of her.” Lucifer said, becoming emotional. “She’s finding her own way…really coming into her own. Lilith was right – we should have pursued this long ago.”

“So…no cold feet this time, then?” Alastor asked him. 

“No…” Lucifer shook his head, swallowing down his emotion. “Not this time.”

Alastor considered him; seeing a hard look in Lucifer’s expression and he knew that the angel was fully committed.

But, will you hold to that commitment…once you’re faced with Adam?

Alastor was made very aware of the deal made between Adam and Lilith; that Lilith had promised him an eventual powerful and ruling position over all of the sinners in Hell in exchange for whatever access she had currently been granted into Heaven. Her and Lucifer had even sweetened the pot; offering the annual exterminations for Adam to exercise and establish his authority; use them as a means to “reduce Hell’s growing overpopulation” – the exception to these killings being: all Hell-born kind.

It wasn’t lost on Alastor though, that despite all of this – and Adam’s obvious greater newfound lust for power and control – Lucifer was one of only a few beings to be both alive and present for the creation of Adam. Alastor wasn’t even entirely sure that Lucifer hadn’t had a hand in it.

Per Lilith’s instructions, they were to do everything they could to spare Adam – refrain from killing him, if they could avoid it, but if push-came-to-shove…they would do so. 

Alastor had no reservations with killing Adam, but he suspected Lucifer might have a few.

“So, speaking of time…we’ve got some now.” Lucifer pulled Alastor from his thoughts, shooting him a coy smile.”

“No, we don’t.” Alastor told him. “Charlie wants us to attend another one of her activities this morning. Did you forget?”

“Well, no…I hadn’t forgotten. But, there is something called a ‘quickie’.” He smirked.

  “Don’t you and I already have…plans? Tonight?” Alastor asked him, steadily.

“….yes.” Lucifer allowed.

“Then, let’s stick with those.” Alastor told him grumpily; getting up to go get his jacket and his staff.

“Well, fuck…you really do need a nap.”

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“Okay, everyone: Charlie’s on her way down but I’m going to go ahead and split everyone off into pairs before she gets here. We don’t have a lot of time - with everything we still have left to get done this week - so this will be a quick one!” Vaggie started right in, directing them. “You guys are going to pair up and find a common interest that you share with each other!”

“Lucifer, Angel – you’re a pair! Alastor, Cherri – time to hit it off! Husker, Sir Pentious….”

 Everyone broke off and went to find their partners. They were in the lobby again and Charlie had left out one of the long tables with the stacks of papers and pens; should anyone like to utilize the resource. Lucifer and Angel immediately began talking and laughing with each other; both heading over to the table. Angel slipped a sheet of paper from the stack and quickly went to scribbling something on the blank page as they chatted happily.

Cherri strolled up to stand next to Alastor; not a hint of hesitation in her approach.

She blew out a large bubble from her gum, popping it loudly.

“Hello, Miss Cherr-“ Alastor started in, meaning to start into his typical and polite greeting.

“Ah, fuck yeah!” She burst in, interrupting him – clearly excited. “Your radio show kicks ass, mate!” She threw an enthusiastic punch to the air and Alastor’s teeth clenched in his wide smile, thinking for a moment she meant to hit or touch him amidst the outburst.

“Do you take requests!?” Cherri shifted back, leaning heavily on one hip; smiling and staring widely at him with her one gleaming eye.

“Pardon?”

Charlie came down to the lobby then, smiling widely and bouncing happily until she noted one of the pairings. Gasping, she went and found Vaggie.

“You put my dad with Angel!?”

“Yeah…is that not okay?” Vaggie asked her, looking toward the pair.

“I just worry things might turn to…inappropriate subjects…between those two.” Charlie told her.

Vaggie laughed. “Charlie…Angel knows your dad is the King of Hell. He might make a few distasteful jokes but I doubt that even he’d be that leud in front of your dad.”

“It’s not Angel that I’m worried about.” Charlie confessed.

“Huh?” Vaggie looked at her, saw the serious expression on her partner’s face then looked back to Lucifer and Angel. They were leant over the table, very focused on what Angel was doing with the paper and pen; conversing very seriously with each other. Oh…no.

Just then, ACDC’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap erupted loudly from where both Alastor and Cherri were standing from across the room. The song boomed from Alastor’s microphone staff that he held in front of him. Alastor was smiling impishly as Cherri head banged beside him to the lyrics, her voice singing with the rock music:

“Dirty deeds and they’re done dirt cheap! Dirty deed and they’re done dirt cheap!”

Whooping and cheers filled the lobby; the music dying as laughter followed.

Meanwhile; Angel and Lucifer’s enthusiasm for what they were discussing rose, their voices becoming louder so that others in the room could hear what they were saying:

“….and, this is very important,” Angel was saying. “You wanna go slow; alright? You don’t wanna just get things all hot and heavy before you add a little spiciness in to the mix, if you get my drift.”

Lucifer nodded quickly, “Hm, yes…I could see why.”

“Right?” Angel was telling him; “And, make sure you get those juices flowing, you know. A bit of pounding here and there is all good and fine but you really want things dripping and wet before you –“

“ANGEL!!!” Vaggie yelled and everyone froze.

“What!?” He glared at her over his shoulder; obviously annoyed by the interruption.

“Family…friendly.”  Vaggie growled between clenched teeth. 

“What’s more family friendly than sharing an Italian Pot Roast recipe?” Angel asked innocently, lifting the paper and showing a list of ingredients and directions for cooking the dish. Vaggie deflated; slapping a palm to her face.

Charlie gripped her gently by the shoulders; reassuring her. “Sorry, guys…” Charlie told them. “Judging from context, we thought you both might be discussing…other things.”

Lucifer and Angel looked at each other; seeing the look on each other’s faces they burst out into loud and shaking laughter.

Lucifer was bent over; holding his gut. “You thought…you thought I was asking the porn star for tips!?” He choked out and they both roared louder. “I mean…” Lucifer started to compose himself, wiping tears from the corner of one eye. “Maybe…if he had any good ideas for something suspensory.”

“Oh, I’ve got a few!” Angel told him excitedly, reaching for another piece of paper. “We talking rope, cable, chains; vertical, horizontal, inverted…whatcha want?”

“Hm…maybe something simple to begin with, I’ve never actually tried it before.” Lucifer told him and they leaned back over the table while the others stood staring at them both in complete silence.

“Okay, so first you need to consider the kind of suspension you’re going for. You’ll likely need a solid counterweight too - Oh! And, a release! - So…” Angel was quickly drawing.

A long black tentacle quickly slid itself across the table; touching the paper and combusting it into a bright flare of green flames.

Angel and Lucifer both jumped back; Angel yelling an indignant: “Hey!”  

“Okay, well I think…that’s good work…for today!” Charlie awkwardly managed, watching Alastor’s tentacle retreat back into his back as he glared at Angel and Lucifer with open disgust. “Great job, everyone!”

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“Does that feel okay? It’s not too tight, is it?” Lucifer asked Alastor, finishing with a knot.

“No…I think it feels fine.” Alastor told him; testing the restraint.

Lucifer sat behind him, fully naked; focusing on the Shibari-styled chicken wing tie he was applying to one of Alastor’s arms. Satisfied with the one he had completed; he moved to Alastor’s other arm – lifting the arm above and behind Alastor’s head, setting it folded against his shoulder and neck so that it rested comfortably in place. Uncoiling the length of soft, twisted cotton; he wound the rope in a spiraling pattern; replicating all of the previous knots he had made to the other limb.

Alastor leaned forward in the bed; giving him room to work. He, himself, sat in the bed dressed in only his black boxers; the sheets and covers draped across his bare legs as Lucifer went about placing the rope restraints that he wanted.

“You couldn’t just do all of this with a wave of your hand?” Alastor asked him.

“Well, yeah, I could.” Lucifer told him, securing another knot. “But, that kind of takes the fun out of it. It’s foreplay.”

“This is foreplay?” Alastor snorted; then Lucifer finished what he was doing behind him and moved to the front; eyes on the placement of his rope and knots. He was already sporting a sizeable erection. “Oh…okay.”

“I-uh…I really like this sort of thing.” Lucifer told him, blushing. “Okay, everything still feels alright?”

Alastor tested both arms now. “Yes.”

“There’s no pinching or extra tightness anywhere?” Lucifer asked.

“Luci…” Alastor sighed, exasperated.

“I know, I know, but I want to make sure it’s done right. This is all still new for you and I- I don’t want any of it to be a bad experience because of something I did.” 

“I appreciate the sentiment, your majesty, but I am quite alright.”

“Oh, I am your majesty, now?” Lucifer teased him; moving himself and pushing Alastor into laying down so that he was sitting straddled on Alastor’s chest – still checking and making adjustments. 

“Luci…your dick is in my face.”

“Well, just deal with it for a second, I gotta do a couple of more things.”

“Hm…” Alastor shifted; lifting his pelvis and lower back sharply so that Lucifer slid closer to him, the devil’s hips resting at his shoulders.

“Hey!” Lucifer objected sharply before Alastor took his dick into his mouth. “You sly fucker…”

Alastor grinned up at him; eyes wickedly gleaming.

“Whatever, I’m still doing this.” Lucifer went back to his adjustments with the rope – doing his absolute best to ignore the fact that Alastor was presently licking and softly sucking at his tight cock.

It became quickly apparent that Lucifer wasn’t going to maintain his composure for much longer. Satisfied with the results of his intricate bindings; he pretended to be re-evaluating everything further – out of sheer spite – while Alastor loudly sucked and slurped at him below.

Lucifer shuddered and Alastor hummed against him; eyes closed – tongue and mouth working slowly and sensuously against Lucifer’s throbbing sex.

Fuck…is he making up for lost time? For a guy who’s never sucked cock before he seems really into it now.

Alastor tilted his face and Lucifer’s penis slid in deeper. The angel’s head leant back and he groaned as he began to move his hips; griding himself against the roof of Alastor’s mouth.

Tasting pre-cum; Alastor tightened his suction – tongue teasing at Lucifer’s tip as the angel loudly began to huff and pant – his member curving and twitching sharply just before he released himself.

“Ah…” Lucifer panted; pulling himself away from Alastor’s wet and lapping tongue. “You’re a fucking natural at that…”

Alastor grinned; sharp-pointed yellow teeth flashing back up at him.

Lucifer shifted himself; pushing the sheets and covers away with his feet as he lay himself across Alastor.

His clawed hands raked down the skin of Alastor’s chest – leaving raised and red markings in their path. Feeling the effects of his restraint; Alastor bent backward; lifting himself into the intensity of the touch. Lucifer leant close, kissing and nipping at the skin stretched taut at Alastor’s collar bone; sending tingles and ripples of pleasure traveling downward.

Alastor’s back felt like it could curl with pleasure and he strained against the intricate webbing of ropes that held him bound. The soft lines and knots pressed into his skin; held him fast - sending more pulsing sensations all throughout his body from the nerve points they laid against and made contact with.

Lucifer pressed himself closer; hands kneading and exploring Alastor’s upper body. Teeth scraping and tongue lapping at heated skin. Alastor groaned deeply; his body lifting and twisting beneath Lucifer as he became flooded by sensual sensation.

Shifting; Lucifer slid himself down – pressing a hand to Alastor’s lower abdomen and sinking his palm down behind the waistband of Alastor’s black boxers and finding his groin. He palmed and teased at Alastor’s bulging length; encouraging a gentle buck from Alastor’s pelvis into his hand.

Lucifer laughed softly; hand twisting and claw piercing through and into the fabric; slicing through it with ease.

“Hope these weren’t precious to you in some way.” Lucifer growled, pulling the torn cloth from around Alastor’s waist.

Panting and sweating now; Alastor offered him no reply.

Chuckling; Lucifer appreciated the vibrant red he had flushed into Alastor’s chest and face. It made the radio demon look so lovely – laying there; strung up and wanting beneath him- all by Lucifer’s own hand. 

Taking the boxers, Lucifer tore at the cloth. Winding it into a thick strip; he raised himself so that he was leaning over Alastor.

“How about…we try something else that’s new.” He breathed; raising the strip to Alastor’s face with both hands and tying the clothing securely behind the deer demon’s twitching ears.

Cutting through the fog of pleasure; Alastor felt a sharp tightness in his chest before his world went completely dark…

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“ALASTOR!”

Alastor slow blinked, slowly coming to but feeling terribly disoriented.

“Ah, hell…Al! Can you hear me!?”

Lucifer was slapping at his cheek; but Alastor could barely feel it.

Alastor tried to lift his head – the room was full of the scent of burning dust and wires…he could feel a static humming all across his skin…

Alastor blinked more quickly, and his vision became less and less blurred.

“AL!?” Lucifer continued to yell at him; a panicked worry set across his face.

Finally, Alastor tilted his head. “Wha-what happened?” He mumbled, nearly incoherently.

“Oh, fuck!” Lucifer gasped out at him. “Oh, fucking Christ….you’re good. Okay…”   

“Luci…what -?” He tried to sit up but found that his neck was shackled to the bed.

“I thought you passed out!” Lucifer was nearly yelling at him; clearly frantic. “But, then you started shifting form and I – I had to –“ He gestured at the heavenly bonds. “You…you went wild, Al…I didn’t know what else to do!”

A sharp clarity cut into Alastor’s psyche and he suddenly jerked; feeling the restraint of the ropes pinning his arms behind his head, the chains and the shackles binding him tightly to the bed; an overwhelming panic gripped him.

“Al, don’t!” Lucifer told him, loudly but no longer yelling. “You need to calm down.”

Alastor fought harder against the restraints. “FUCKING LET ME GO!” He snarled; spit flying from his mouth.

“I can’t!” Lucifer told him desperately. “You need to chill the fuck out; you could hurt yourself if I do, and I don’t want to turn this into an even bigger stress response.”

A terrible heart-wrenching keening tore from Alastor’s chest – his eyes widened in a crazed madness; glazing as he saw the coils of wire tightening against him; flares of electricity sparking through the darkness and flashing consoles erupting across his vision.

“FUCKING HELL!!! STOP IT!!!” Lucifer roared at him. “IT’S NOT REAL!!!”

Lucifer shifted form; his six wings bursting from his back and quickly unfurling around both of them.

“LOOK AT ME!!!” Lucifer was yelling. “I’M REAL! I’M HERE!”

Alastor’s head bent back; seeing the wings – the brilliant colors of red and white feathers…hearing the soft sounds of their movement and feeling the soft rush of air that their sudden existence created.

Immediately; all the smells and imagery that Alastor had been perceiving diminished and he shivered and shook-  stretched out and naked in the bed; drenched in a cold sweat. Tears – involuntarily - were running down his face; his ears flattening tightly against his head.

“There! There we go!” Lucifer told him; shifting his wings so that they bent securely around them; not daring to touch Alastor quite yet.

Alastor’s shaking became more violent; he was very nearly chattering his teeth now.

“I’m not going to touch you….okay, but I’m going to pull up some of these blankets.” Lucifer yanked at the duvet; lifting it and covering Alastor with the heavy comforter. “Just…breathe for a second…you’re fucking hyperventilating. Can you feel it?”

Alastor’s ears twitched at the question and he tried to focus on what Lucifer was directing him to do. His chest was so painfully tight… Tilting his head back, he groaned low in his throat as he mentally fought with himself, forcing air through his nose and out through his mouth.

“That’s it! Good.” Lucifer encouraged him; eyes wide.

Alastor took more breaths in that way – each inhale becoming stronger, longer…and his body finally began to respond. The tightness in his chest loosened; giving way to even slower and fuller breathing. His heart rate began to lower by steady increments; locked muscles releasing in incredible relief.

Lucifer sighed, feeling a relief of his own.

“I’m going to take these away now.” Lucifer lifted the golden links. “I know your first instinct might be to burn those ropes away once I do but, please…try to endure it a little longer.” Lucifer moved his hand, and the shackle and chains were gone.

Alastor gave a huge and shaking breath out; closing his eyes and squeezing tears onto his face. With the heavenly bonds gone; his shadow slid from him – attaching itself to the wall; moving and watching Alastor from there with concern.

“Did you want to sit up?” Lucifer asked him; hovering close to Alastor but still not touching him.

“No..” Alastor’s throat felt tight and he swallowed. “I think-I think I’m fine.”

Lucifer nodded, watching him closely.

“Do you think you’ll be tolerant to my touching you?”

“Yes…Luci.”

Folding his wings and shifting back to form; Lucifer climbed onto the bed. Helping Al sit up and forward, he quickly checked his ropework; being especially attentive toward finding any lacerations or areas where Alastor’s circulation had been cut-off. Finding nothing amiss or concerning; he touched the ropes, and the binds immediately dissipated beneath his fingers.

Alastor went to move his arms and Lucifer cautioned him: “Slowly…”

Carefully stretching his arms out in a slow motion; Alastor felt the aching twinge of overworked muscles.  

Lucifer watched him work out the stiff soreness from his arms; noting that Alastor’s breathing had settled and he was no longer shaking.

“You feeling ok? Think you can get yourself dressed while I go find you some food?”

“I don’t really feel like I could stomach anything cooked right now…”

“I thought you might say that; I was actually going to haul that smelling deer carcass you’ve been gnawing on for the past several weeks out from the bayou.”

Alastor’s stomach made a loud squelching sound; almost as if in answer to the suggestion.

“God, you’re such a fucking freak…” Lucifer shook his head

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Lucifer left Alastor to dine as he liked; choosing instead to explore Alastor’s bayou in the form of the white ermine he had taken most recently. It still amazed him; how flawlessly and naturally the dimension butted up against the room in the hotel. Nothing about it was synthetic in structure; the bayou was a natural bayou – through and through. Lucifer found genuine enjoyment in darting and trotting through the reedy cattails; and in climbing over and under dead logs to cross the mud-filled bogs. He chased and leapt at the buzzing dragonflies and even hunted a field mouse; pausing briefly only when he heard the sound of a grunting gator coming from nearby in the swamp – the sound of it sending the fur along his back and down his tail to stand straight on end.

When Alastor had finished with his meal; his shadow slinked out into the bayou to retrieve Lucifer; finding him curiously investigating some bank burrow – possibly belonging to a muskrat or a nutria that utilized the resource. He quickly turned away from his investigations; darting playfully and agilely after the shadow as they cut their way from the swamp and back to the hotel.

Stepping back into the hotel room; Lucifer shifted back to form - dressed in only his grey sweatpants. He found Alastor tired and sitting on the sofa, likewise, wearing his black sweats. Lucifer produced a glass of water; setting it down on the small coffee table beside the sofa and close to Alastor. Alastor eyed the glass; lifting an eyebrow.

“I’m going to run you a bath and then I’m going to change out the sheets; that glass better be empty when I’m done.” Lucifer told him; walking away.

Alastor made a disgusted sound. “I’m not a child.”

“No.” Lucifer told him, stopping and turning to look at him. “But, I’m holding myself responsible for…what happened. Our session wasn’t what I wanted it to be, but things still got intense, Al. Let me at least do this part right.”

Alastor sighed, looking away. Even if it wasn’t your fault…?

“Do you want to talk about it?” Lucifer asked him.

“No.” Alastor’s answer was reflexive but firm.

“Then, we won’t.” Lucifer told him, leaving the room.

Lucifer started on the bath and switched out the sheets to the bed in Alastor’s bedroom. Seeing the lengths of rope that were left and finding the makeshift blindfold – he sent it all away. Done with that; he went back to the sofa – noting the empty water glass.

“Bath is ready. I’ll let you go do your thing.” Lucifer told him; sitting down heavily onto the sofa.

“What are you going to do?” Alastor asked him.

Lucifer laughed. “Probably have a fucking drink; I don’t know…”

“Are you going to go?”

“Do you want me to?” Lucifer asked him.

“…no, not particularly.”

Lucifer assessed his demeanor; quickly realizing…

He doesn’t want to be left alone…

Lucifer sighed. “Fuck…I’m sorry, Al.” Alastor’s ear turned at that and Alastor looked at him.

“I’ve only ever been on the one side these…sort of things.” Lucifer explained. “I don’t know what the Hell I’m doing…Thank god, for Lilith. She always knew what to do.”

And, your not exactly an open book…

“What…what triggered it?” Alastor asked him; ears raising – standing straighter.

“I don’t know. I wanted to ask you that….maybe, the blindfold? Maybe the ropes? Both? When did something change or feel different?”

“I’m…not sure. I’m having trouble remembering…If anything, it should have been the ropes but, I don’t think that did it.”

“Well, we’ll avoid blindfolds for a while.” Lucifer then made a face.  “Actually, maybe it’s best that we stop what we’re doing entirely.”

Alastor’s head snapped to the side at that. “I don’t want that.”

“I didn’t mean-“

“I don’t care.” Alastor shook his head. “I don’t-“ He swallowed, ears tilting back. Then, he sighed.

Alastor tilted his head back, pressing his eyes closed. “Could I…forgo the bath? Could we…could we just…?”

“Yes. Of course…”

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They entered the bedroom. Alastor paused as Lucifer went to the bedside; pulling back the freshly made covers.

“Why don’t I get see more of your wings?” Alastor asked him, wondering.

“Heh,” He laughed lightly. “Probably for much of the same reasons that I don’t get to see more of your tail.” Lucifer told him. “I’m not exactly proud of my wings, Al.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Alastor replied.

“But, you understand?”

“I might if they were the same things.”

“Because, I wouldn’t choose to hide my regrets from the world if I could be given such a choice?” Lucifer asked him, icily.

Alastor’s ears laid back at that.

“God, Al…” Lucifer pinched the bridge of his nose; squeezing his eyes shut. “I didn’t mean to be so…bitter. I’m…sorry.”

Lucifer looked at Alastor and his heart sank.

“You’re exhausted…”

Reaching for Alastor; Lucifer pulled him with him into the bed.

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Late into the night - Alastor shifted; unable to sleep. He moved himself so that he sat at the edge of the bed – steadying his breathing. It seemed like every time he closed his eyes…sparks and flashing screens haunted his mind. His smile twitched at the ends of his mouth and he lifted a hand to his face; leaning into the palm and feeling a sharp sting at the corners of his eyes.

There was a movement behind him and then wings unfurled and stretched out over him – curving up and around him as if they were his own - feathers caressing him softly as they closed gently around him; pulling him back so that he was pressed tightly against Lucifer as the angel held him in his arms. Lucifer tightly held him there – saying nothing; wings securely folded and pressing him closer. Alastor shook against his bare chest; refusing to release the ragged sob that meant to claw its way out of his chest.

I can’t change the damage that’s been done…

                        But, maybe…you could help me to forget….

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My headcannons regarding Niffty = here

Shibari-style chicken wing restraint reference =

Chapter 17

[shippingmyworld]

Hello! I think you might've already thought of this, but a cute tigerghost idea popped into my head last night/this morning that I'd like to share!

Manny and Danny just hanging out and casually flirting with each other, when suddenly Danny decides he's gonna go invisible to mess with Manny. Then while invisible, Danny gives Manny a kiss! Then Manny is like, "hey wait can we do that again!" and Danny's like, "find me first 😘". Then Manny uses his Tigre like hearing and senses to figure out where Danny is at. Then, pounce! And then they kissed 🐯❤👻

When a little out of control and wrote a whole ass fic for this one =P

“Come on, what’s the worst one you can think of?” Danny asked. His head rested in Manny’s lap and his hands were folded across his chest while his legs hung over the armrest of the couch. 

The two of them were lounging in the Fentonwork’s living room, house-sitting for Danny’s parents who were off in Wisconsin attending a ghost hunters convention. With Jazz having chosen to go to college out-of-state, the responsibility naturally fell to Danny, who was more than happy to do so. His neighbor back at his apartment complex had adopted a dog that was weirdly sensitive to his presence and would not stop yapping whenever Danny was home. Thus, it gave him the perfect excuse to invite his boyfriend over and crash in his old bedroom for an entire week. 

Manny was giving him a slight frown while playing casually with Danny’s long hair, which was free of his usual ponytail. “You think I can just come up with these on the spot?” Manny mused, drumming the fingers of his other hand softly against Danny’s chest 

“Please, I know you’ve just stolen at least half of them from social media.” 

Manny’s frown grew larger. “Exactly what sort of websites do you think I’m visiting? I’ll have you know that all my jokes are one hundred percent Rivera originals.” 

 “Oh yeah?” Danny pulled his phone from his pocket and quickly opened a text to show to Manny. “Then how come Tucker sent me a meme with one of your originals quoted in it a week before you used it on me?”

Manny snatched the phone from Danny’s hand, glaring at the screen. Danny’s soft smile grew as he stared up at his boyfriend, squinting at the phone and pulling it closer to his face. He found a content sense of satisfaction in watching the way Manny's skin wrinkled around his eyes as his expression changed. This last week had been particularly hectic with their superhero duties thanks to a joint raid between The Pixies and The Junkman against Jimmy and Timmy's homes. 

They’d been forced to bounce between one fight and the next, and Danny barely had enough free time to collapse into bed for a quick nap before the supervillain alarm on his phone woke him up with a shrill scream. Now that they finally had some downtime - partly thanks to Danny dropping into Jimmy’s lab at three in the morning and demanding time off - he’d realized how much he missed these quiet moments. Just small, inconsequential blocks of time in which he could take in all the quieter aspects of Manny’s behavior. Moments that made Danny’s stomach flutter with the exciting thought of, “This man is my boyfriend. ” 

[polonium-snap]

Bkdk Plot bunnies pt 1

Izuku is 12 and still quirkless

Katsuki is his #1 Bully being as every other day he corners Deku outside school to mock him and intimidate him

Until one day he just stops

Izuku doesn’t notice at first maybe is just one of those days Katsuki “can’t be bothered with a useless Deku”

However as time passes even Katsuki’s lackeys wonder what is wrong with him

He’s stopped complaining about Deku, and doesn’t ever mention the other boy’s quirklessness

Izuku doesn’t know how to feel about it; on one hand he is glad the harassment stopped, but somehow being completely ignored by Kacchan feels somehow worse

“I just realized; why be bothered with a quirkless extra.” Katsuki explained a week later when one of his friends asked

That’s what did it, for all the insults Katsuki had called Deku for the past six years he had never referred to Izuku as an extra

Izuku was the gum stuck in his shoe but never as inconsequential as an extra

That burned Izuku more than being called Deku ever had. But Izuku couldn’t say anything about it

One day some older kids saw the opportunity to corner Izuku on some alley and started push him around

It seemed Bakugou power was such everyone had steered clear of his “mark” but now that he was not interested in him anymore someone wanted the #1 bully position

However unlike Katsuki who used his quirk to intimidate and occasionally burn Deku’s belongings these bullies got physical. They hit Izuku a couple of times before big explosions interrupt them

Out of nowhere Katsuki appears “get away from him!” He screams in rage

He chases the older boys away then looks at Deku

Why his green eyes ask

Katsuki wears a look Deku has never seen before, guilt

Bakugou Katsuki was never guilty because Bakugou Katsuki never felt sorry and Bakugou Katsuki never made mistakes

So how come he’s looking at Deku with guilt?

Something is wrong, Katsuki is different and Izuku has to find out why

Katsuki is quieter and almost nice?

Not really he still brash and can’t be bothered with peoples names but he has less outbursts, the blond is oddly different with Deku, which is even more baffling

One day Izuku sees Katsuki at the convenience store when the boy suddenly drops everything and is practically running outside

Izuku follows

Bakugou stops a tall skinny blond old man, who looks just as surprised as Izuku

From the distance Deku can’t hear their conversation

The man tenses as he hears Katsuki talk, wary toward the younger blond, but his expressions keep changing

Katsuki said something more and the man sighs almost relieved

They seem to exchange numbers and Katsuki turns around, only just missing Izuku who had to hastily hide

His heart is racing, what was that? Why had Bakugou stopped a random man like that?

Just as suddenly Katsuki changes his routine only noticeable to Izuku who knows it like the back of his hand

Izuku sees Kachan outside a building where a small girl with white hair and red eyes of about 4 years old comes running out and into Katsuki’s arms

Strangely Bakugou welcomes the hug with a smile of his own as the underground hero Eraserhead comes out behind the child

Deku can’t believe his eyes

Soon enough Bakugou seems to express his goodbyes and Izuku takes that as his cue to hide scurrying through an alley

“So, what is your nerd brain thinking?” Bakugou’s voice sounds from the end of the alleyway izuku had hastily hidden

“I-I K-k-Kachan! Wh-what a co-coincidence to see you here! Haha” Deku fumbled. “Wh-“

“Shut up, I know you’ve been following me.” The blond acuses

Izuku closes his mouth

“I’m sure you’ve noticed something’s different, so hit me with your theories.”

“I-I do-don’t know. Nothing makes sense all the things that should be connected don’t link correctly to one another.” Izuku flounders. “One day you just changed, w-why?

Bakugou smiled bitterly. “Deku, shit’s complicated and at first I thought maybe it was for the better if you weren’t involved at all.” He looks hesitant before blustering. “But that’s obviously wistful thinking since you are a nosy little shit that won’t stay away,”

“Kacchan what is going on?

“4 years from now I died and came back in time.”

“…What?”

“I’m from the fucking future dumbass.”

“W-wait Kacchan you died?! What do you mean from the future?!”

“It’s better if All Might and I explain.”

“A-A-All Might?!?!”

“Tch, come with me” Katsuki starts to drag Deku.

“Wait Kacchan where are we going?”

“To get you a quirk.” Katsuki smiles back with a brightness Izuku hasn’t seen since they were little.

I decided to start this series because I have so many bkdk ideas I have planned out but I don’t either have the time or will to write out into an actual fanfic

Let me know what you think and if you guys like it I might write it

pt 2 |pt 2.5 |pt 3|pt 4|pt 5|pt 6