#once again i am incapable of writing short things | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lyriumcoloredskies · 1 year ago

Text

Shaken Up Hearts

Pairing: Sanji x Reader, Zoro x Reader, Zoro x Sanji, Zoro x Reader x Sanji WC: 10k Summary: Sanji's brain short-circuits. What? Did he hear that correctly? You both wanted him? “Don’t over think this.” Zoro murmurs into his ear, hot breath fanning over the sensitive skin. CW: 18+ MDNI, alcohol consumption, misunderstanding, idiots in love, porn with way too many feelings, angst, jealousy, pining, PIV, anal sex, oral, threesome, guy on guy, girl on guy, bisexual sanji, bisexual zoro, reader is described as AFAB, polyamory, happy ending AN: *taps cigarette on the ashtray* look idk what to say, this was supposed to be a 5k word mindless smut but it turned into this because I am incapable of writing smut without feels it seems.

Faithfulness and resoluteness.

You and Zoro.

The two of you are held in high regard as the oldest crew members, with you joining only a few days after Zoro. Dependable and resilient, should any troubles find them on the seas, the crew knew they could always rely on you two. The sentiment is shared between you and Zoro. Time and time again, Zoro proved himself worthy of the mantle of first mate, making agonizing decisions for the betterment of the crew when even Luffy couldn’t. He was a surprising voice of pragmatism in the hardest of times, something you appreciated him for.

Zoro’s opinion of you ran deep as well. Steadfast, you were a beacon in the darkest times, an outstretched hand always offered to any nakama in need. Without hesitation, you always had the right words to breathe new life into the resolves of those around you.

It’s a deep respect that’s built off watching each other defeat every obstacle to persevere despite the difficult nature of having such large dreams in a vast ocean that only knows to crush the people that enter its waters. It’s something primal as you watch in titillation as Zoro dominates his adversaries with his iron will, something Zoro reciprocates with a voracious gleam in his eyes any time he fought alongside you.

That respect for each other would sometimes turn into something mischievous. Two tigers testing the limits of each other’s boundaries, teeth bared at the anticipation of gaining ground. Friendly competition the two of you called it – the crew called it anything but. The two of you were people who, once you set your mind to something, would chase the ends of the world for it. This included winning childish competitions. It was impossible to break the two of you apart when you decided to sink your teethes into each other like snarling pups. The point was proven early into your journey, during the banquet at Vivi’s castle, an incident that would aptly be named the Drinking Contest Incident of Alabasta, where the two of you were goaded by Usopp into seeing how many barrels of alcohol each of you could consume.

'Surely they won’t go too far' Usopp thought.

He was proven wrong when both you and Zoro neared the bottom of the second barrels, only taking a break to puke in the Royal Alabastan Gardens before going back to drinking – health be damned. The night ended in you and Zoro out cold, laid out on your sides as to not choke on your own vomit while Chopper flittered about, panicking that the two morons might actually die in his care. After seeing Chopper’s visage overcome hysterics, face streaked with tears and snot, Nami beat the both of you over the head the next day. She sternly put her foot down on any future y/n and Zoro competitions. The rest of the crew dutifully agreed that you and Zoro were not to be trusted. It only took two more incidents for you and Zoro to admit they were right. It was purely out of self-preservation, lest the two of you not even survive to see your dreams fulfilled. Occasionally the competitiveness would rear up, but time had tempered the two of you. The both of you found less and less things worth fighting over, no longer did you fight over bottles of wine and sake, instead choosing to share.

Life was funny in that way.

****

You were on your 5th bottle of wine and Zoro on his 7th, not that you were counting.

Of course not.

The warm embrace of alcohol has long since settled in your flesh, the balmy air adding to the flush of your cheeks. You found yourself swaying to the beat of the Shandorian drums, beat thrumming in your veins. Drunken eyes watched as your crewmates and the Skypeians dance around the bonfire, care thrown to the wind. You glaze over the figure of Usopp surrounded by a group of children, no doubt enthralling them with a legendary tale of Captain Usopp, commander of 8000 troops.

A mixture of the wine and altitude have you searching for a place to sit, wanting to not fall on your ass in spectacular fashion. Your head swivels about, you see Robin in deep discussion with Gan Fall and rule that out. Another turn a few degrees to the left and you spy Zoro sitting alone. Fueled by bad ideas and Skypeian wine, you grab another bottle before settling on the log next to Zoro, leaving a comfortable distance in between. The rich tannins of the wine dance delightfully on your tongue, and you decide to take another pull before you offer the bottle to Zoro. He accepts, your fingers minutely brushing against each other at the pass. He takes a moment to read the label before taking a swig, throwing his head back, the prominent veins of his neck highlighted by the firelight. Traitorous eyes linger for too long at the bob of his adams apple. The two of you sit in comfortable silence, passing the bottle back and forth, watching the silly antics of your crew as they celebrate this hard earned win.

Zoro is the first to break the lazy pattern of back and forth with the wine. Your outstretched arm aches as you hold the bottle out for a mite too long. The confused look you offer him goes unanswered as well, the swordsman a million miles away. Your eyes follow his gaze and you can’t help the feeling that settles into your stomach with the wine.

It’s Sanji.

He’s staring at Sanji.

Sanji, who is bathed in orange glow from the bonfire, his porcelain skin flushed with pink like an angel dusted it over his cheeks. Emotions well inside of you, flooding into an ugly feeling that you found yourself wadding in. Not wanting to bother with the messiness of it all, you brashly decide to down the rest of the bottle, hoping that the burn of the alcohol would drown everything out. To hell with feeling bad on a night as good as this.

Unfortunately, like a whore on the day that the rent is due, the feelings don’t stop bothering you, nagging constantly in the inner cogs of your mind. Inhibited by the mind meddling nature of wine, your mouth opens and words you don’t recognize tumble out.

“Got a crush?”

Your fishing attempt snags you a gaping, sputtering Zoro. Fuck, now you wish you hadn’t said anything at all. Zoro’s hilarious dumbfounded expression only soothes your heart a tiny bit.

Unrestrained, a loud cackle rips out of you, another cheap cover to hide the hurt radiating through you. It seems to further Zoro’s embarrassment, the man’s cheeks flushing a pretty red. In an attempt to get even, he snatches the bottle from you only to realize it was empty.

“Asshole.”

The only response he gets from you is another cackle. It takes a few moments for you to settle down, letting the silence envelope the two of you again.

“If you like him so much, why don’t you tell him?”

You pick at the skin near your nails, an ugly habit.

“Tch. It’s not that simple.”

You roll your eyes, of course it was simple. Zoro was just an idiot. Irritation lingers like a fog in your mind as the wine fails to numb your pesky feelings. Quickly, you lose yourself, letting various fleeting thoughts pull you in every direction. Zoro doesn’t comment on your sudden silence, keeping you company while you think.

“What if I like him too?”

Two heads turn and eyes lock. Zoro’s eyes are dark and indecipherable to you as the firelight danced on them. Seconds tick by but neither of you drop your gaze.

“Marimo! Y/n-swan! Try these!”

Two pairs of eyes break their battle, swinging over to catch the sight of Sanji walking over, an excited wide grin gracing his delicate features. His signature cigarette firmly between his white teeth and in each hand he holds a skewers of meat and vegetables.

The blond thrusts a skewer to the both of you before sitting between the two of you. You examine the skewer, it’s comprised of some sort of marinated red meat and vegetables that look like mushrooms and leeks. Steam wafts upward and with it the smell of something peppery and tangy.

“The flavors are something I’ve never tried before! I asked them and they say that they use a combination of pink peppercorns and a citrus called the hand of god” Sanji prattles on, his enthusiasm palpable. You and Zoro watch him, engrossed in the boyish wonder on his face. Pairs of eyes meet again in a fragile moment. You have no words for Zoro and he has none for you, yet you know that the two of you understand each other. He studies you intensely before offering you a solid nod, one that you reciprocate. The cook chatters on, inhibitions lowered by the alcohol, oblivious to what was happening only a few inches from him.

****

The next few islands pass by uneventfully, both you and Zoro hesitant to make a move. It ends up an awkward dance around each other and Sanji, a weird tango of frustration whose steps involve having enough nerve to track down the blond but suffering from cold feet when it came to talking with him. It’s only after the events of Water 7 that you decide to muster up the gumption to try. Life was too short for you to shy away from the things you wanted, and you could tell Zoro decided the same.

“Sanji-”

The cook’s ears perk up at the melodic notes of your voice, heart stirring. He turns his attention from the prep work in front of him, meeting your face with a playboy smile.

“Yes, my sweet angel?”

“Do you mind if I watch you cook lunch?” you ask, the innocent tilt of your head making Sanji’s heart palpate. You wanted to watch him cook?

“O-of course my angel!”

You beam and it makes his heart beat rapidly. With gentle footsteps you pad into the kitchen. The two of you fall into a comfortable silence, the sounds of Sanji’s knifework taking over the small space. After a few minutes, his curiosity picks up and he peeks out of his periphery to see you standing a mere few inches from him, leaning close enough to touch his arm. He works on autopilot, hands relying on muscle memory as he prepped the vegetables for lunch. Your hands are clasped behind your back in your usual pose. For anyone else, Sanji would preen like a peacock, ready to show off his honed skills, but under the lens of your inscrutable eye, he feels so exposed. Trying to stave off sudden uncomfortableness of the silence his mouth opens, and he finds himself rambling about cooking techniques. Ever patient, you nod and comment in all the right places.

While Sanji loved every lady on the ship, in the deepest crevices of his heart, he would readily admit that you were his favorite. Your soft smiles of encouragement, the way you entertained his foolish notions, all of it made Sanji’s heart turn into goo in his chest.

Gods, you had managed to carve out your place in his heart so early, the memory often rewinding and replaying in his head. It hadn’t been long since he left Baratie to make his home on Merry Go, back when Luffy still had the habit of picking out the vegetables in all his dishes. You chided the boyish captain on his behalf. The first bits of kindness he received from someone who wasn’t Zeff or the Baratie cooks.

“Luffy, Sanji worked hard to cook us this food. Don’t disrespect his efforts by being picky.”

After dinner that you offered him an earnest smile, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“In case anyone hasn’t told you yet, you’re doing a wonderful job Sanji. Dinner was lovely.”

It made him feel like the same little boy stuck in the North Blue watching his mother eat his food for the first time. The grip you had on him had only tightened since then.

“You know Sanji, every time you cook, I find myself understanding you a bit more.”

Hands plating an intricate dish pause.

“A-ah why do you say that y/n-swan?”

Sanji’s heart seizes as you take one of his hands into yours, fingertips running over callouses and burn scars. An action so tender that for just a moment, Sanji could fool himself into thinking it was the touch of a lover. Your heated gaze focuses on his hands with a look of fondness, it causes him to reel, mind spinning with possibilities of what this could all mean. Did you want this just as much as he did? Did you spend your nights staring at the ceiling and thinking of him like he did with you?

“I understand why you don’t want to fight with your hands. When you cook it’s like a symphony, every movement you take, every dish you make, it’s all meant to nourish and heal. You’re built to love Sanji, not destroy.”

The lump in his throat grows until it’s too painful for him to swallow, edges of his vision blur with tears, threatening to fall. Was he so transparent that you could read him so well? A few words and you had flayed open his very existence, his heart and soul. The words you say mean more than you’ll ever know. His ocean eyes search yours hoping to find an answer to his lingering questions.

BANG

He jumps, the two of you breaking apart at the loud noise, any tension in the room dissipating.

“OIII SANJIII!! LUUUUNCH!!!”

Luffy catapult himself at Sanji, wrapping his limbs around him like an unruly octopus, much to the ire of the chef. Sanji tries to wrestle himself out of Luffy’s grasp, angrily yelling at him.

The loud noise startles you, your heart pounding a mile a minute in your chest. You marinate in the sudden surge of adrenaline for too long before you feel a hand on your wrist. Eyes trace it back to its owner – Zoro. He assesses you for a few seconds.

“You alright?”

Thud. Thud. Thud. Your pulse pounds in every inch of you and your lungs greedily swallow air and hold it in an attempt to calm down. Your thoughts race and you feel the distinct feeling of regret. Regret that you didn’t make a bolder move.

A wobbly smile is the answer Zoro gets, one that makes him frown ever so slightly. The sight makes him rub circles on your wrist with his thumb. The contact soothes you and you’re grateful that you had the swordsman as such an understanding friend. You settle a free hand on his, offering him a brighter smile, hoping to lessen his worries.

“I am.”

The two of you unaware of the pair of eyes that witnessed the scene.

****

Sanji stares from the railing of the Thousand Sunny, the light of the setting sun casts an ethereal rosy light over the glimmering ocean. Pinks, reds, and blues mashing into a myriad of colors that all swirl like glittering gems.

From the upper deck, it isn’t the sun or the ocean that Zoro admires. It’s the glow of the sun on Sanji’s face. His eyes trace the elegant slope of his nose, drinking up the way the sun dyes his fair hair into a strawberry blond. His mouth goes dry, his palms becoming sweatier by the minute. Plucking up some courage, Zoro crosses the distance of the Sunny, stopping next to the object of his desires.

“The sunset is beautiful isn’t it.”

Zoro wants to cut out his tongue. What a lame comment. Sanji deserved better. Someone who could weave him a beautiful tapestry of words, words which don’t even exist in Zoro. After all he is a man of action and not platitudes.

Sanji hums out in agreement, never moving his eyes from the beauty of the scene in front of them.

They don’t talk much, but there’s an easiness to the quiet between them as they watch the sun inch closer into the horizon. The Sunny lurches at a particularly big wave and Sanji is caught off guard, wobbling a little. He’s steadied by a hand on the small of his back.

“Ah, thanks Marimo.”

“No problem, Sanji.”

His name on the swordsman’s lips gives him pause. Zoro almost never calls him by his name. Then he becomes acutely aware that Zoro hasn’t moved his hand, his palm is large and warm on Sanji’s clothed back. The contact is like lightning in his spine and for reasons unknown his heart stutters. He mildly wonders if he should say something, unsure of what the contact means for the two of them.

Deciding his brain feels too stuffed with cotton, Sanji fishes out his lighter and cigarette from his suit jacket pocket, hoping for some clarity in the nicotine. Stupidly, he holds the pack out for Zoro offering him a cigarette, despite knowing the swordsman doesn’t smoke. Before he can rescind the gesture, Zoro’s free hand takes a cigarette from him. Their eyes meet and he finds Zoro’s are unreadable as always. The other man brings the cigarette closer to his face, rolling it in his fingers as he examines the tobacco stick. A laugh huffs out of Sanji’s mouth as he lights his cigarette. He inhales precious smoke, and in the haze of his exhale, his eyes linger a little too long at the sight of the cigarette loosely held in between Zoro’s chapped lips.

“Here let me light it for you.”

Sanji holds the lit lighter out, only for the wind to snuff it. He tries again, flicking the flint a few more times. Each time the wind picks up, extinguishing the flame. A scowl overcomes Sanji’s face.

“Here, we can just-”

Sanji looks up from the lighter at the sound of Zoro’s voice. The other man pulls his hand from Sanji’s lower back and Sanji becomes conscious of the fact that the action leaves him sad at the loss of contact. That’s when he feels the green haired man’s large palm on the back of his neck, searing into his skin as he steadies him. Zoro leans in closer bringing his cigarette to the tip of Sanji’s.

A cigarette kiss.

Sanji’s brain is a mess. ‘It’s just the damn Marimo’ he tries to reason with himself, but he feels heat lick at the apples of his cheeks.

He’s blushing. At Zoro.

The man’s actions have flustered him to his core, tongue too heavy to form words. His eyes soak in the sight of Zoro slowly sucking in – ‘holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, what the fuck?!’ his mind screams at him.

The man offers Sanji no reprieve, continuing his hold on Sanji as he made sure the of his cigarette is lit before breaking apart. Sanji’s world is tilted on its axis, heart pounding so furiously he feels it in his fingertips. He half expects it to burst through his sternum.

Zoro gives an experimental breath before hacking out a loud cough, sound reminiscent of a dying walrus. The scene is so jarring, how the man could go from turning Sanji’s brain into mush to coughing out a lung. It makes him laugh so hard he’s clutching his stomach, abs cramping as he tries to greedily swallow in more air.

It was so Zoro.

Through the tears of laughter, Sanji can see pink dusting Zoro’s face, clearly embarrassed by his lack of experience.

“Take slow inhales, mix it in with some fresh air, it gets easier after a while.”

Sanji’s smile is so wide it hurts his cheeks. He watches Zoro attempt again, the man’s body tensing in an effort to not cough out all the smoke.

“This is horrible Sanji. I don’t know how you do this every day.”

All Sanji can offer the man is a chuckle. He takes in the sight of the swordsman, bathed in the dying light of the sunset, shadows accentuating the strong lines of his face. He’s about to respond when he hears Nami’s voice calling for him.

“Sanji, the bathroom is free if you want to shower!”

He turns, giving her his undivided attention.

“Thank you Nami-chwan! You look especially beautiful after your bath!”

When Sanji turns back, Zoro is no longer facing him instead looking out into the ocean where the last glimmers of the sun fade into the horizon.

“Go ahead and take your bath, cook.”

Sanji manages a nod, feeling odd at the sudden change in attitude. Things had felt so great between them, so what happened? His feet feel heavy as he walks towards the bathroom. Halfway, he doesn’t know why but he spins on his heel, wanting to confront the man.

He wishes he didn’t.

He sees you with Zoro, again.

The two of you huddled close, your hand caressing the swordsman’s cheek. The both of you bathed in the beginnings of moonlight. Sanji’s heart clenches painfully.

It was just like before – Vinsmoke Sanji always comes in last.

****

Things progress at a snail’s pace. Both you and Zoro are seemingly thwarted at every turn whether it be Sanji rejecting your advances or being interrupted in the most inopportune times. A silver lining for Zoro comes in the form of you. Despite being his rival in love, you’re there to pick up the pieces of him, little pep talks flowing from your lips. He hopes that he’s done the same for you. The best of his efforts goes into repairing the shaky smiles on your face, splitting bottles of wine with you as the two of you gripe about love. It’s an odd routine, but one that Zoro finds himself not minding. There is comfort and familiarity in your company.

That was until the crew step foot on Sabaody Archipelago. Everything came to a grinding halt at Sabaody. It was an utter disaster. Not even a foot into the New World and the Grand Line had chewed the crew up and spat them back out.

Panic sets Zoro’s bones the minute he wakes up. Thoughts of his nakama rushing through his brain at breakneck speed. Were you all safe? Did you guys make it off Sabaody? Zoro keenly feels the loss of his crew, guilt seeping into every crack in his heart. If only he had been stronger - strong enough to defeat Bartholomew Kuma on Thriller Bark, strong enough to carry everyone’s dreams on his back.

He spends two days lost in the maze of a castle that weird Ghost Girl brought him to, trying desperately to find his swords. He squashes down the invasive thoughts attempting to claw its way into his mind – were you all even still alive? It doesn’t help that the girl, Perona he finds out is her name, keeps giving him directions that seem to get him lost even further. Frustration bubbles under his skin. He is wholly useless, a feeling that is reaffirmed when he is defeated by the humandrills, his only hope of reaching his friends dashed by his own inadequacy.

When he feels like things couldn’t get worse, he hears about Ace. Zoro wants to scream, to dig his fingers into his chest and rip out his own beating heart. Frustration, fury, despair – it all whirls inside of him for Luffy. How could things have gone so wrong?

Zoro tries hard not to wallow in his sadness. He beats down his pride and grovels to Mihawk, begging the man he wants to defeat one day to teach him, to make him into a man worthy of being called Luffy’s nakama.

Time flows, and slowly but surely, Zoro adapts to his life on the deserted island. Mihawk is a fair teacher and his brutal teaching methods have Zoro progressing faster than even he could admit. Although the lack of alcohol grates on his nerves. Though he would never admit it out loud, Perona isn’t too bad either when she isn’t annoying him.

He spends his days training, eating, and sleeping, a routine that isn’t unfamiliar to him, but his mind remains plagued by the brewing thoughts of you and Sanji.

His mind goes in cycles, starting with hopes that you two are alright. Surely you’re safe, Zoro’s mind doesn’t want to can’t think of the alternative. He wonders if Sanji has found himself on an island with enough food, cold fear nestled in his heart at the idea of the cook going without. He hopes you have extra blankets at night, his mind supplying him images of your shivering body on Drum Island, lips tinged blue.

The months gruel onward and late at night, when the world is silent and his body aches from the brutal beatings from Mihawk, Zoro imagines your soft touches, a comforting hand on his shoulder when things went wrong. He dreams of the bottle of sake he desperately wants to split between you two, talking about any and everything. He wants to see your smile.

On days where the sun blisters in the sky and Mihawk forces him to help with the farming, Zoro wonders if Sanji would be impressed. Would he give Zoro that smug grin of his, telling him to till the farm with appreciation for the food it grew? Would he be brave enough to commandeer Mihawk’s kitchen, lecturing to Zoro the entire time he cooks about how he needs to eat the right macronutrients to gain muscle. Zoro luxuriates in what-if’s and could-be’s, day in and day out.

He spends the hours of sundown to sunrise, staring at the cold grey stone ceiling of the castle pondering in a mire of his own doing. He wanted both of you but was desperate to hold onto what you and him had together, while craving every potential what-if with Sanji.

He stews in his feelings for months, unable to take himself out of his own head.

On a day where Mihawk is away on business, Zoro finds himself in the dining room, sun barely rising into the sky. Perona was nice enough to fix breakfast for the two of them but it only puts Zoro in a worse mood. His body is gripped in nostalgia, heart aching to wake up to the sound of Luffy and Chopper’s chatter in the morning, to pass by a sleep drunk Usopp and Franky grumbling out good mornings, and to make his way to the kitchen and have a plate be handed to him by the star of half his dreams. Increasingly lost in his own thoughts, he’s oblivious to Perona’s pouting.

“Ugh! You’re such a jerk!”

Perona waits a few seconds, giving the mosshead time to come to his senses and apologize but minutes tick by and she finds herself empty handed. In childish anger, her hands slam on the table.

“What the hell? Aren’t you going to thank me for breakfast??”

She is only given a wave, the gesture vaguely dismissal.

“Okay you idiot, what is it? What could possibly be so important that you forget to thank the person who saved your life?”

The question gives Zoro pause. He deliberates in his head a bit, uneasiness mashing in the pit of his stomach. To let someone know about his problems felt too vulnerable, but against his will the words of his dilemma spill out of him like an ugly fountain with fat babies on it, like the ones he saw plastered all over Water 7.

Perona regards him for a few minutes before rolling her eyes.

“You’re not very smart, are you?”

“The fuck?”

“You’re a pirate idiot. Being a pirate means you take what you want, you don’t need to share. So have both, duh. Who says you can’t have a boyfriend and a girlfriend?”

Whiplash. His brain rattles in his skull at Perona’s words. How ridiculous. This is what he gets for telling her his problems. He opens his mouth to tell her off but then the words sink into him.

Both? He could have both?

They were both strong enough to protect themselves, their bounties reflecting their skill, determined enough to pursue their own goals. They, more than anyone on the ship, knew the stakes of his dreams, not once had they ever discouraged him. Plus, the thought of the two of them tangled in a mess of naked limbs beckoning Zoro to join was a particularly tasty thought.

Perona shoots him a smug smile.

“You’re welcome~”

****

Nerves rattle through your body as you disembark from the small sailboat, steered by the kind martial arts master that found you two years ago. The elderly woman pats your hand in reassurance.

“Don’t worry dearie, I’m sure your boys are waiting for you. Now you make sure you stay safe and don’t forget to always pack a scarf.”

You give her a bright smile.

“Thank you so much, for everything. I’ve learned so much! Please make sure you tell everyone I got here alright.”

The woman matches your smile before waving you off. Excited feet don’t hesitate to quickly wander down Sabaody, taking you down semi familiar paths. You count the grove numbers in your head, excitement gripping your stomach as you finally arrive.

Grove 13.

The sight of the wooden sign of Shakky’s Rip-Off Bar shoots fresh nerves into your veins, anticipation ripe in your head. You take a deep breath, steeling your nerves before you push open the door to the bar.

Your eyes skim over the empty chairs and booths, finally settling on a green clad figure at the bar. Time slows and your heart threatens to burst out of your sternum, you can feel your pulse in your ear, not even hearing his name tumble out of your lips. The sight of him makes tears sting the corners of your eyes.

Zoro.

His signature three swords are still affixed to his side, hilts glinting in the low light of the establishment. A head turn makes the three golden strands of his earrings collide into each other. He stands tall and proud, two years of effort reflected in his new silhouette. You run to him, finding half of everything you had missed in the last two years in his hug. Tears run down your cheeks, absorbed by the green of his outfit, staining the fabric dark. You can’t bring yourself to care.

He still smells like steel and sea salt.

He presses a kiss to your hair, his large hands rubbing circles on your back as he pulls you closer to his chest. After seconds that feel too short, you part from him. You soak in the sight of his familiar features. Your eyes trace over the new scar over his eye, the strong line of his jaw, the slight bump in his nose. Hands wander up his biceps and you can’t help but ghost your fingertips over the newly acquired scars present on exposed skin. Fingers smooth over every part of him, his wide chest, his corded arms, all of it – desperate to memorize him after these years apart.

Lost in the moment, you miss the way Rayleigh and Shakky sharing a knowing smile.

Fingers interlaced, you let Zoro lead you to his room at a small bed and breakfast in Grove 17. You aren’t even mad when he gets lost twice, taking you down a winding path to Grove 7 instead. You missed this, the idiosyncrasies that come with living with someone, spending every waking hour together.

Once in the room you let your small bucket bag tumble to the floor. You wait patiently until Zoro has a chance to take off his katanas before you throw yourself into his arms again, the two of you tumbling into the small bed. His entire presence offers you a familiar comfort. He felt like home. You can tell he feels the same, the way he holds you tightly, as if you would disappear from his arms at any moment. He buries his nose into your hair and his chest moves from under you as he inhales. The two of you stay like that for several minutes, the silence finally being broken by Zoro.

“Y/n, I don’t want to be without you.”

Shivers shoot down your spine.

“What about Sanji?”

“Him too. We’re pirates y/n, we take what we want.”

You bury your face deeper into his muscular chest, heart fluttering in your own chest.

“Good, I don’t know what I’d do without my two boy toys.”, your words come out muffled and you can feel the vibrations as Zoro chuckles.

Lifting your head, you give him a lascivious grin. His eyes are as intense as ever, but you find that this time around you can pin down the emotions within because they’re the same as yours.

Your lips meet his in a kiss that he doesn’t hesitate to accept. His lips are warm and chapped, a combination you quickly find yourself addicted to. Your arms move on their own, snaking around his neck as his wrap around your waist, bringing you in closer to him. The both of you move feverishly, desperate to make sure this moment didn’t evaporate into the ether. His kiss is hungry, ferocity over taking you before he seems to rein it back in. He coaxes out a whimper from you as his hands wander to your bottom before pulling your hips in close to his, letting you straddle his waist. You let out a gasp as you feel his hardness grinding on the sensitive flesh of your inner thigh. Utilizing the last braincell that isn’t drenched in hormones, you place a placating hand on his chest.

“Patience. Not without Sanji.”

To your surprise he is in agreeance with you, but he gives you a devilish grin all the same.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t get to kiss what’s mine.”

Laughter peels out of you, as Zoro smashes his lips into the crook of your neck, biting and sucking the sensitive flesh in a manner that was both ticklish and sensual.

“You’re right, it doesn’t.”

****

Sanji doesn’t know what to think. Reality was, he saw this was coming, the signs glaring at him two years ago.

You and Zoro were together.

The whole crew seemed to know it too.

“Yohohoho! They’re quite a handsome couple, don’t you agree Miss. Robin?”

“They do complement each other quite well.”

Everyone has seen the two of you look at each other, shooting puppy eyes at the dinner table, and of course Sanji is distinctly aware of the way Zoro takes your small hands into his, a rogue thumb tracing idle circles into your smooth skin. It’s all too intimate for two people who are “just crewmates”.

Sanji’s heart is broken, shattered into a million tiny pieces and he doesn’t know where to begin to put it all back together. He was an utter fool for having clung onto hope for two years, spending his days daydreaming about how the pieces would all fall into place, the two of you accepting his confessions of undying love.

Stupid, stupid Sanji.

The voices of his past mock him. How could anyone love stupid Sanji. How silly of you to even dream. Nestled in the sicker part of his brain, he wonders who he’s more jealous of – you or Zoro.

It should be him, his jealousy addled self whispers to him in the dead of night but Sanji knows it’s his fault for even daring to dream. The two of you were better off together. So, every day, he wakes up, chokes down the feelings that threaten to well up inside of him, and continue as if nothing was wrong.

He had been doing it well enough for the last twenty odd years, what’s the harm in a few more?

****

It doesn’t take long for an opportunity to present itself to you and Zoro.

The Sunny docks on a small island to restock on basic supplies and through divine intervention the stars align. Zoro catches the last vestiges of Sanji’s conversation with Nami, picking up the tidbit that he would come back to the ship immediately after he procured fresh meat and produce. Taking his chance, he offers himself and you up for guard duty, a move that garners no protest or suspicion.

After the crew clears out, the anxiety builds in your chest, your head spins and your palms feel clammy as the minutes pass by. Zoro doesn’t say it, but you could tell he felt the same, his rough fingers constantly flitting over the hilt of his katanas. You and Zoro split a bottle of sake for liquid courage, downing it like teenagers instead of passing it along at your usual leisurely pace. The sake helps a bit, dulling down the feelings.

The two of you are on the upper deck when you hear the click of expensive dress shoes on wood. Peeking, you spy Sanji’s golden hair as he reboards the ship. You signal Zoro with a nod of your head. The two of you break, Zoro to the kitchen to fetch Sanji and you to the women’s dormitory. Long strides quickly lead you to where you need to be, settling down on the blue comforter of your bed.

In the midst of fiddling with a loose thread on one of your sheets, you hear the door open. Nerves tingle through your body as you see Sanji’s figure enter.

“A-ah y/n-swan! Marimo said you needed help with something?”

He takes a few strides, standing at the foot of the bed you were sitting on. The door clicks as Zoro shuts it behind him. Sanji sucks in a breath, suddenly feeling trapped in this confined space, anxiety pooling in his stomach.

“O-oh! Well Sanji you see… Um, w-well we..”

You bite your lips, fingers picking at the skin near your nails, something Sanji picks up on. He can’t help the prickling of curiosity in the back of his brain. What got you, the very definition of calm and collected, so nervous?

“We want you, Sanji.”

It’s Zoro this time, the timber of his voice nearly reverberating in his bones as he becomes aware of how close the man stands behind him. You nod in agreeance.

Sanji’s brain short-circuits.

What?

Did he hear that right? You both wanted him?

Sanji searches your face for any inkling of deception but your cheeks are flush and you avoid his eyes out of nervousness.

“Don’t over think this.” Zoro murmurs into his ear, hot breath fanning over the sensitive skin. The other man’s large hands come from behind him and roam on his chest, going over the silky fabric of his suit. The action pulls him in closer to Zoro, sending shivers up his spine. It doesn’t take long for Sanji to make up his mind.

So be it.

He’ll take whatever scraps you have to offer him. Maybe if he gets a taste, it’ll be out of his system, and he’ll be free to pursue all the beautiful men and women he encounters in his travels. Maybe if he closes his eyes, he can imagine that this is something more than just sex.

He continues to feed himself the shallow lies.

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

At his affirmation, Sanji feels hand on his head, turning him into a hungry kiss. Chapped lips meet his and Sanji can faintly taste the sweetness of sake on Zoro’s breath. It’s everything Sanji has dreamed of. In the midst of their kiss, Sanji feels your hands undoing his tie, and unbuttoning his jacket and dress shirt. An impatient tongue spears into his mouth, coaxing his own tongue into a dance, drawing a moan from the blond man. A hot tongue presses into his neck and he can’t help the gasp that rises to his lips. In contrast to Zoro, your lips are soft and silky. You stamp fire into his skin with every kiss, setting his body into flames.

Breathless, he breaks the kiss with Zoro only to have you pull him into another one, gentler but no less voracious.

He’s aware of Zoro helping him shed his shirt and jacket, but his head feels stuffed with cotton, not quite to registering any of it. A soft tongue mingles with Sanji’s and delicate hands caress the bare skin of his chest, each movement leaving gooseflesh in its wake. The light flicks to his nipples have him groaning into your mouth. The kiss breaks with a soft sigh from you, and Zoro surges forward to capture you a playful kiss, sandwiching Sanji between the two of you. The friction of the two bodies, one soft and one sturdy, melts his mind, his pants feeling tighter by the moment.

A larger rougher set of hands replace the soft ones on his chest as you kneel in front of Sanji, making quick work of his belt. You lavish his abs with floaty kisses and occasional playful nibbles, following down the trail of soft downy hair until you reach his boxers. You make quick work of that too, freeing his erection.

You nearly drool of the sight Sanji’s cock slapping against his belly, marking a spot on his belly with shiny precum. His cock is picturesque, like the men of the dirty magazines you used to buy as a teenager, a few shades darker than his porcelain skin leading into a dusky pink tip oozing slick. You give an experimental lick up the shaft before engulfing the tip in your mouth, making circles over it with your tongue. Sanji throws his head back, gracing you with a breathy pretty groan.

The salty taste of his precum ignites a fire deep in you, a need to taste more overcomes every sense. Driven by your baser instincts, you press down further, taking as much as you could until you feel him hit the back of your throat, eyes welling with tears as you try to stave off your gag reflex. His delicate fingers tangle into your hair, hands resting on your head. Pressed so close to Sanji his pubic hair tickles your lips and you can smell the clean rich sandalwood of his soap. You set a slow pace, looking up through dark lashes to observe Sanji’s expressions as he loses himself in the feeling of your mouth. Each circle of your tongue over the tip has him whimpering, his cheeks and chest flushed pink.

Not to be left out, Zoro joins you, kneeling in front of the blond man. You release his cock with a pop and stroke it lightly.

“Want a taste?”

Zoro gives a devilish smirk, coming in closer. He gives the tip kitten licks before slowly taking more of the length in his mouth.

“Tastes good doesn’t it?”

A muffled response has you grinning. You take a few moments take your own clothes off, only stopping to appreciate the sight of Zoro pouring his attention to Sanji’s cock. The contrast of the two men bubbles excitement in you, a longing finally quenched. Zoro is all muscle, posture and stance reflecting power and brutality, but Sanji’s is refined elegance, fluid even while motionless, muscles seemingly sculpted by a maestro.

Kneeling back down, you throw yourself into the fray of saliva and skin, taking one of Sanji’s balls into your mouth, earning a loud groan from the man. The two males’ intermingling musk cloying in your head, fogging up any thought you could muster. Sanji’s hips buck and Zoro gags, pulling another moan from the blond. You slowly suckle, running circles on the surface of his ball sack with your tongue before releasing it to lick up the shaft. Zoro meets you in a messy kiss with Sanji’s cock in the middle of two pairs of lips. Your tongues dance over the veiny surface of Sanji’s dick, occasionally skimming each other.

Sanji wants to throw his head back, to lose himself in the sensation of two mouths lavishing him with attention but he’s caught up in the sight of you and Zoro, your tongues fighting on his cock, hoping to find more skin to lick and suck at. The two of you work in synch, soon moving upward to suckle at the reddened tip of his cock.

“S-stop or I’ll cum” Sanji whines out, making you and Zoro share a laugh, shifting away from his sensitive cock to find each other in a kiss.

Feeling emboldened by the sexually charged energy, you saunter over to the bed, sitting and spreading your legs wide open. Sanji practically drools at the sight, stumbling over the clothes on the floor to get in closer.

Sanji slots himself between your legs, moving closer to kiss you. His lips are soft, and the hints of lingering tobacco pull you in for more. Sanji’s tender affection is a deluge you drown in, heart full you reciprocate keenly. He peppers kisses down your jawline before interspersing tender open mouth kisses on your neck. A hot tongue trails down further before capturing a nipple between his teeth. His actions are delicate, but they draw whimpers out of you, heat pooling between your thighs at the teasing. Sanji’s strong hands cup your breasts, massaging softly as his tongue runs circles around your hard nipples, dousing them in messy suckles.

He offers the same treatment to your other breast before trailing more kisses down until his head is settled between your thighs. You can feel his hot breath, a gossamer on your sensitive skin. The flat of his tongue licks a stripe through your folds and your back arches at the contact.

“Fuck angel, you’re so wet” he murmurs before diving back in, tongue working through your folds before encircling your clit.

“Mm fuck Sanji”, moans pour out of you endlessly, your hands tangling themselves in the golden silk of his hair.

His strong hands hold your hips steady as he begins to suckle at your clit, giving occasional kitten licks, as anticipated, the action has you bucking your hips, thighs tightening around his head as he tightens the coil in your loins, nerves dancing on fire.

Zoro’s calloused hands run over Sanji’s torso, earning a shiver from the man. His fingertips take time to appreciate the valley of muscles before moving to his hips, propping them up into position. Sanji is a mess of gooseflesh as rough fingers part his cheeks, exposing him to the other man. A hot tongue presses on his hole and Sanji lets out a gasp that’s muffled in your skin. The sensation is foreign as the tongue wriggles against his tight hole, but pleasure quickly finds him. Zoro’s tongue circles around his puckered hole, massaging and working the muscle, each move deliberate in driving Sanji further into a chasm of pleasure until he’s relaxed. Zoro intersperses it with licks from the flat of his tongue, the contrast drawing out whimpering moans from the blond. When he pulls away, Sanji whines.

“Get these wet for me.”

Sanji complies, taking his head out from your cunt to take Zoro’s digits in his mouth, tongue running over each individual one. Zoro grins at the sight of Sanji desperately sucking on his fingers while his goatee shines with your slick.

A whine from you has Zoro withdrawing his fingers from the other man’s hot mouth, allowing him to return to your needy hole.

Sanji returns to lavishing your clit with licks, before plunging a tongue deep in you hoping to taste more of your essence. Pressure against his puckered hole pauses him in the middle of his pussy eating. Your thighs tighten around him as you buck desperately against his mouth, hoping to find more friction despite his lack of action.

The breech of a large finger pulls a sound out of him, a mixture of a moan and a scream. You offer your own moan at the vibrations of Sanji’s on your clit.

Zoro presses kisses onto the skin of his buttocks, rubbing soothing circles on his skin as Sanji adjusts to the foreign intrusion. Slowly, he begins to rock his finger back and forth, occasionally stopping to spit on Sanji’s hole, an action that has the man’s dick twitching.

“Don’t worry Sanji he’ll be gentle. Won’t you marimo?” you tease, tone breathy from your own arousal at seeing Zoro knuckle deep in Sanji.

“We’ll see about that.”

Sanji turns to tell Zoro off, but the aforementioned man’s free hand grabs his head, shoving him back into your cunt, earning a squeal from you.

“Focus Sanji” Zoro gravels out, voice thick with lust. You snake your legs around Sanji’s head, heels resting on his mid back.

“He’s right Sanji, wanna cum so bad”

As if to demonstrate your need, your hips buck into his open mouth, hoping to find a tongue to grind into. Ever the gentleman, Sanji grants your request, eating you out with renewed vigor.

Zoro continues to work his fingers into him, one finger becomes two, pumping becomes scissoring, and soon Sanji feels more stretched out than possible. Sanji lets out loud moan after moan into your clit when he feels the man continuously brush his prostate. His mouth is messy with saliva and your slick, jaw aching as he continues to devour you. You reward him with looks from dark lashes glimmering with tears, your soft skin flushed by his ministrations. Pretty whines of his name spill out from your lips, urging him on as you chase your high. Your fingers clench onto his hair, the pain from the pulling mixing with the shockwaves that Zoro’s fingers provide him.

“A-ah right there S-sanji!”

Your tighten your legs around Sanji, a loud wail escaping you, hands fisting the blankets underneath as the coil in your belly snaps. Your orgasm wracks your body, vision going dark and heartbeat in your ear. Sanji’s tongue doesn’t stop, sending pins and needles through your nerves. Tears dot the corners of your eyes as he eats your overstimulated pussy out until you’re crying his name, begging him to stop. When he relents, you pull him into a kiss, tasting your own salty juices on his lips. You swipe your fingers over his messy slick shined lips and chin, offering them to Zoro who sucks on them with enthusiasm before letting go with a pop of his mouth.

You shimmy out from under Sanji, the blond pushing himself to all fours to offer you more space. Moving off to the side, you take in the sight of Zoro greedily pumping three fingers into Sanji who’s offering himself up like a dog in heat, whimpers pouring out of his mouth. Sanji’s dick is standing tall, precum dribbling out from the tip and onto the bedsheets where you can already spy a dark wet stain forming. You wrap a hand around his cock, thumb smearing the precum as you begin to pump up and down at a torturous pace. Sanji’s head buries into the bed as he lets out a string of expletives. You and Zoro share a naughty grin.

It doesn’t take long for Sanji to start moving his hips, desperately fucking himself into Zoro’s fingers trying to plunge deeper.

Zoro pulls out of him, and you take your hand off of his cock, Sanji is left whining at the loss of contact.

He isn’t left alone for long as Zoro pushes him into the bed before flipping him around so he’s on his back. Zoro devours the sight of Sanji’s hair pooling around him in a radiant halo, his cheeks flushed pink and dick twitching for attention. You come back and pass Zoro a bottle, lowering yourself to take the man’s dick in your mouth. Sanji’s eyes are glued to the sight of you bobbing your head along the impressive length of the swordsman. He watches as Zoro’s eye closes, clearly enjoying the way you’re taking all of him in. It isn’t long before the swordsman pulls you up and into a kiss.

Jealousy grips Sanji’s heart. Brook was right, the two of you were a beautiful couple.

You take the bottle from Zoro and pour out a viscous liquid onto your fingers, soaking them in it before wrapping it around Zoro’s cock, wetting him with long strokes.

“Fuc-k babe that feels good”

You offer Zoro one final kiss, a mischievous hand coming to smack the swordsman’s bottom sending him on his way to Sanji.

Zoro slots himself between Sanji’s legs, wrapping his hands around his ankles before yanking him, moving him closer to the edge of the bed. For the first time Sanji’s cock presses into Zoro’s and it twitches in excitement, the blond shudders at the contact. Zoro captures his lips into a kiss and Sanji loses himself in it. Sea salt and steel invade his senses, wiping his mind blank of every thought. Rough hands find their way to his slender hips, rubbing circles along the bone. Slim smaller fingers press against his hole, taking time to slather him in the same viscous liquid.

When Zoro breaks the kiss, Sanji opens his eyes, taking in the sight of the swordsman on top of him.

“You ready?”

He isn’t, but Sanji nods.

The blunt tip of Zoro’s cock on his hole startles him, and for the first time he begins to wonder how in the fuck he’s supposed to take all of it inside of him.

Then the push comes, a groan is ripped from his chest as Zoro breaches his tight hole for the first time. Sanji feels panic well inside of him. He’s going to be torn in two, there’s no doubt about it. The blond squirms in discomfort, and you’re quick to notice, kissing his tears away, interlacing your fingers with his.

“Shhh, it’s okay baby. You’re doing so good, such a good boy for us”

Zoro takes it at Sanji’s pace, allowing the blond to adjust to the stretch. One hand steadies his hip and the other strokes his calf, bringing it closer so the green haired man can press kisses into the pale skin.

Through the pain and panic, Sanji finds himself delusional. With his eyes closed and brain shut off, he imagines this is what it would be like to be loved by the both of you, drowning him in sweet nothings, soft kisses, and praises of what a good boy he is.

It takes a deliberate amount of self-control for Zoro to inch in slowly, the sight of Sanji’s greedy hole swallowing his shaft has anticipation pumping through his veins. He finds himself resisting the urge to pin the blond down and ravage him right there, to stretch his hole out so fully that it molds itself to the shape of Zoro’s cock and his alone. It isn’t long before he finds himself full sheathed, Sanji clenching around his dick, sending mind numbing pleasure into Zoro.

He holds him there, offering more time to adjust as he holds the blond’s hips steady. Letting go of Sanji’s hand, you happily move into the mix of bodies, sitting on top of Sanji, a hand guiding his length into you. As the tip of his dick enters you, Sanji throws his head back, wailing into his fist as he tries to quiet himself. Slowly, you sink into his length, engulfing him with tight searing heat. You’re tighter than he expected. You lean back, pressing your back into Zoro’s muscle bound chest as you turn to give him a kiss. He moans into your mouth as your tongues meld into each other.

In need of friction, you start a slow pace, moving up and down on Sanji’s length.

“F-fuck, oh my fucking g-god, feels ‘sgood” Sanji slurs out, tongue lolling and mind blank.

Zoro pulls from your kiss to start pumping into Sanji, ever impatient he fucks the blond with aggression. Unabashedly, the swordsman lets out a groan at the feeling, Sanji gripping his cock like a vise.

“Yer so fucking tight for me babe”

The blond isn’t shy about making noises, screams and moans mixing together as they leave his mouth. Zoro’s finger’s dig into the man’s hips to gain more purchase as he thrusts particularly deep, punching the air out of Sanji’s lungs, his legs spasming as Zoro jabs into his prostate. His body seizes, eyes rolling to the back of his head as he babbles out nonsense.

Sanji can’t think, he can barely breath with Zoro’s cock bullying him out of air only for your tight pussy to greedily clench, only allowing him short gasps of breath. He loses himself entirely in the feeling of being thoroughly used by the two of you, drool leaking out of the side of his mouth as eyes stare unfocused.

Sanji’s dick curves and hits the most sensitive parts of you, brushing along your g-spot as you bounce up and down on him, desperately chasing your own high.

“S-sanji, your cock f-feels so good baby”

Your words begin to slur as you feel the beginnings of an orgasm gather in your loins.

Sanji is the first to cum, letting out a loud wail as he bucks his hips upward, shooting his cum deep inside of you. The feeling of his warm cum flooding you makes your eyes roll to the back of your head, you keep riding him through his orgasm, oversensitive cock still hard as you grind down on it, losing yourself in the pleasure of his spongy dick tip grinding into your cervix. Zoro’s hand snakes around your hips, fingers pinching and rolling your clit, sending fireworks of pleasure into your spine, you hold onto Sanji, nails digging deep. Zoro’s thrusts get deeper, rocking you and Sanji. His breathing is choppy, moans spilling out of his lips as Zoro chases his own high.

Fireworks burst behind your eyelids as you feel the orgasm wrack your body, tears gathering in your eyes as your moan stutters in your throat. Sanji whimpers as your pussy milks his oversensitive cock for more cum. Zoro’s arm wraps around your waist and the other on Sanji’s thigh as he pulls both of you closer, the coil buried deep in his belly threatening to snap. He picks up the pace, relentlessly hammering inside of Sanji, the movement causing Sanji’s dick to rub the sensitive tissue of your cervix, gushing out the cum deep inside of you. The tight friction of Sanji’s hole is delicious as Zoro gives the last few pumps before burying himself as deep as possible in the blond, head resting on the crook of your neck as he came. His loud groan is muffled in your skin, stars shoot across his vision as he paints Sanji’s walls white, belly clenching as he slowly rocks the last vestiges of his orgasm out.

The three of you fall on the bed in a mess of limbs, sweat, and body fluids. You’re out of it until you feel an arm wrapping around you, hazily recognizing it as Zoro’s, bringing you and Sanji closer to him. You press yourself into his side, craving the comfort of his embrace. Your head rests on his wide chest listening to the pounding heartbeat as he presses a kiss into your sweaty hairline.

Zoro’s heart feels full as he watches his two lovers, fully sated and thoroughly fucked, resting in his arms, the trust they put in him is implicit.

The peace is broken when Sanji breaks out of the embrace, getting out of the bed picking up pieces of various strewn about clothing. The action startles you and Zoro out of your post orgasm glow, the two of you sharing a confused look.

“Where the fuck are you going?”

Zoro’s voice cuts through Sanji’s soul. Steeling himself, he looks up at the two of you, still wrapped around each other, clearly comfortable - a comfort Sanji can’t indulge in lest he lose more of his heart.

“Ah. Well, I figured you guys had your fun, right?” he weakly chuckles.

The silence is deafening.

“No need for me to linger while you tw-“

“Sanji when we said we wanted you we meant all of you. You mean more to us than just sex, we adore you.”

His body tenses in surprise, the shock written all over his face.

Zoro leans forward, grabbing Sanji’s hand to pull him back into the mess of limbs.

“C’mere and cuddle us Sanji.”

Sanji sinks into the cuddle, hungry heart full for the first time in a long time.

#fanfic #one piece #vinsmoke sanji #one piece sanji #sanji x reader #zoro x reader #roronoa zoro #zoro #one piece zoro #zoro x reader x sanji

440 notes · View notes

shunsuiken · 7 months ago

Text

I JUST CAN’T LEAVE YOU ALONE, CAN WE GET EVEN CLOSER?

pairing. kamisato ayato x gn!bodyguard!reader

genre. fluff for the most part + does get suggestive tho 😁

synopsis. the yashiro commissioner resorts to a scandalous method to get your attention.

wc. 1.5k (i know its short but i wanted to get straight to the point LMAO)

an. guys this is so dumb but one thing that popped up in my head while writing this is that tiktok of that girl going i slowly started to be seducted by him like he’s trying to SEDUCE me 😭😭😭 omg that shits so fuckin funny

“you’re too far away, y/n.”

your eye twitches as you stare at the wooden door. he’s teasing you. a filthy load of shamelessness drips in his tone. an arm rises so he can relax his cheek in his palm, eyeing your figure that has been standing in front of the door this whole time.

you realise why he’s decided to open his mouth after five minutes of dead silence.

you’re not looking at him.

“y/n, i said you’re too far away.” his voice is louder this time. it sounds closer to a command.

“i am standing at an appropriate distance from you, my lord.” you’re staring laser beams into the door at this point. “feel free to attend to your bathing requirements independently.”

ayato scoffs. a shiver crawls up your spine.

“it was my understanding that you, my personal bodyguard, were informed about the injuries i sustained during the failed fatui assassination attempt.” drawing circles in the water with the tip of his index finger, he sighs, “sadly, my current physical state renders me incapable of attending to my bathing requirements.”

“so i would be most grateful for your assistance.” you can practically see the grin on his lips, devilish and scheming.

before ayato picks up the bathing cloth, you’ve already given in, practically attaching your eyes to the bathtub as you sit on the stool provided for you. taking the cloth, you dip it in the water to soak it up before gently gliding it across his shoulders with shaky hands.

“ah, there we go. now wasn’t that easy?” ayato turns his face towards you, now showing more of his naked back—wet and glistening in all its glory.

you feel you might faint.

you hum in agreement, holding onto that blasted bathing cloth for dear life. ayato seems to notice and turns his whole body towards you out of curiosity, but your head snaps in the other direction instead!

“y/n, how will you help me bathe if you’re facing that way?” you can hear the water splash around the stone material of the tub. it drips down the side, slowly sliding towards the stone floor.

you’re his bodyguard. you’re his bodyguard. this wasn’t part of the job description—so why are you even here?!

“my lord, i find it difficult to provide assistance if you keep moving,” you respond indifferently, maintaining some level of professionalism despite how this situation has broken all levels of it.

from the corner of your eye, you can vaguely see his hair sticking to his collarbones and shoulders. ayato knows you can see him like this. so there’s simply no point in acting such a way. but he laughs, humoured by your behaviour anyway. “oh please drop the formalities. i am merely an injured man before you.”

a naked, injured man. you correct him silently.

“mm.” you don’t really know what else to say. how were you supposed to explain any of this to anybody if they caught you leaving the bathing hall with him?!

you soak up the wash cloth once more, beginning to clean him up again. avoiding all eye contact and opportunities of skinship turns out to be much more difficult than you thought. however, when it’s time to clean his chest area, you wordlessly pass the cloth back to him.

“hm?” he looks at you. “what about over here?” he asks, pointing at his chest shamelessly.

you gape at him—oh, you’re finally looking at him now. and you wish you didn’t.

ayato is so utterly gorgeous. cheeks dusted in a shade of pink from the steam and his lips, moistened and sanguine. he would have been recognised as a deity were it not for his mortal disposition.

ayato rather takes pleasure in this look on your face. baffled, stunned, dumbfounded—this list could go on! what he finds interesting though, is that your eyes never seem to go past his shoulders. and, ayato, being quite fond of his cute and adorable bodyguard, has to tease you.

“this is as far as i will go,” you inhale, feeling like your mask of indifference will crumble within seconds. “my lord, it would be inappropriate for me to assist you in this area.”

ayato’s brows raise in excitement, revelling in how you try to stay professional. you’re doing a much better job than he would’ve expected—if it were anybody else, they would have been seduced right away.

but it’s you that the lord is playing with. and he intends to play with you until he is satisfied.

“but you’ve already come this far, why not do the rest while you’re at it?” your bottom lip quivers.

ayato figures that he’ll need to try something else to get your attention to where it needs to be.

you gasp when he takes your hand in his, gently pulling you towards him until you’re sitting on the edge of the stone tub. your uniform is dampened as you sit on the edge but you can care less when ayato peers up at you with those lavender eyes.

“m- my lord, what do you intend to do?” you curse yourself silently for stuttering. the vapour from the bath water makes your cheeks hot and sticks your hair to your forehead.

kind of looks like you could use a bath too. ayato makes a brief comment in his mind, his thumb caressing the back of your hand as he ponders on a response.

“get in the bath with me.”

a moment passes by. you swear you have never heard a more ridiculous request than this. for the past few years you’ve dealt with his unique appetite, his clothing requirements and his… special personality but this request is the first one that renders you speechless.

“what?”

“get in the bath with me,” ayato repeats, firmer this time.

you’ve lost feeling in your legs ever since he took your hand, but it’s not long before you’re soaked in bath water—with ayato there to soften the fall as your hands instinctively grab onto his shoulders. you land with an oompf, fingers wiping droplets on your face, unfortunately missing the biggest grin on your boss’ lips.

“there, that was not so difficult, was it?” his voice is much closer by your ear now, sending a wave of chills down your spine.

you hesitantly meet his eyes, behind those pretty lashes and soft sky blue hair that clings to his forehead and cheeks. “wasn’t,” you mutter as your gaze shakes in your stare. you fear that if you tear your eyes away from him again he’ll do something else even more ridiculous.

the water swooshes and you fall onto your butt when ayato finds himself on top of your lap. you can feel his thighs just gently pressing against your own which is making you wonder how you haven’t already lost consciousness.

but it’s also making you think about things you never would’ve thought you would think about.

is ayato, your employer, trying to seduce you?!

you try to think of something to say. anything. doesn’t matter how random it could be. you inhale sharply, “so did you actually have work to do or did you just want me to loiter around you?”

“not to ‘loiter’,” ayato chuckles at your word choice while you think you’ve heard heaven’s gates fly right open. “but to ‘accompany’. i did indeed have work to complete but such a mind-numbing task becomes more bearable with you around.” he traces your cheek with the pad of his thumb, palm just ghosting over your ear. “do you know how adorable you look when you’re sitting by the door with that straight look on your face?”

“that is my job, my lord.” you don’t lean away from his touch. a good sign for him. “i didn’t think i would be such a distraction, if you would like, i could relocate just outsi-”

it’s featherlight. barely even a kiss. just a gentle brush of his lips over yours. but that miniscule feeling is like a fire and it burgeons in your chest, melting away the cold iceberg of your doubts and worries. there is no turning back now. it’s like your hand has grown a mind of its own when it wraps around ayato’s neck, pulling him closer so his lips collide with yours again.

“oh dear,” ayato mutters lowly. his hair tickles your cheek. “are my feelings being reciprocated?”

your lips are like magnets to his. it makes you grin at the revelation of your own emotions. “i fear you’ve successfully seduced me, my lord.” ayato smiles as your gaze flickers between his eyes and lips.

being caged between his arms has to be considered some sort of sport for your heart. the last time it threatened to leap out of your chest like this was during the official selection of ayato’s bodyguards.

“that makes a fine headline for the steambird, don’t you think?” ayato keeps his lips close to yours, doing everything he can in his power to not crash his lips onto yours again. and so pathetically too. “‘bodyguard allegedly seduced by the yashiro commissioner’.”

“indeed. now wouldn’t that shake things up here in inazuma,” you laugh, cupping your hands in the water to pour over what you can onto his shoulders. “well now that you’re all cleaned up, don’t you think you should get ready for bed?”

ayato gives you a pointed look. “will you dress me?”

“i-” you shouldn’t even pretend like you’re surprised by this. nodding your head, you reassure him, “that can be arranged.”

#ayato x reader #kamisato ayato x reader #ayato fluff #genshin x reader #genshin fluff #genshin x reader fluff #ayato x reader fluff #kamisato ayato fluff

377 notes · View notes

misty--nights · 4 months ago

Text

Here's a short silly thing inspired by this convo with @anshares (you really have to stop giving me such fun ideas). I wrote this in like 30 minutes with no regards for historical accuracy. Enjoy some silly ghost kings banter and He Xuan being down bad for Shi Qingxuan because I have a brand and am incapable of writing his pov without making him pine pathetically ^^

“Is this what you spend my money on?” Hua Cheng asks from his side. He Xuan rolls his eyes.

“What do you care?” He Xuan finally asks. The glass bottle in his hands feels far too frail, like it could shatter with one wrong movement. He Xuan very carefully doesn’t think about what else—who else—feels too fragile under his hands. “I’ll pay you back either way.”

“I’m sure you will,” Hua Cheng mutters. His attention is fixed elsewhere, though, eye caught by a little box decorated with delicate white flowers. One track mind, He Xuan thinks, but doesn’t say.

One can find just about anything in Ghost City. There are many sketchy, and even downright dangerous establishments, but there are also genuine shops, with rare products that are nearly impossible to find elsewhere. It’s just a matter of knowing where to look. He Xuan has had centuries to familiarize himself with the place. He knows exactly where everything he needs can be found. And right now, what he needs is a new hair product Shi Qingxuan has been raving about.

He Xuan opens the bottle in his hands and takes a deep breath. The product inside smells sweet. Like a meadow, he thinks, and the summer breeze. It’s a familiar smell, the same one his mind has come to associate with Shi Qingxuan, the one he always catches when the Wind Master throws his head back to laugh. He Xuan closes his eyes, and he can almost hear that precious laughter. His treacherous chest clenches at that and he knows if he were still alive his whole face would be blushing.

Hua Cheng is looking at him when he opens his eyes again. He raises an eyebrow at him, and He Xuan has to resist the urge to growl. He still has products to buy. It won’t serve him well to anger Hua Cheng before he pays. A silver butterfly flutters down to land on Hua Cheng’s shoulder and his mouth twists into a sharp, dangerous smile.

“What?” He Xuan asks, closing the bottle again and setting it down on the shelf he took it from.

“Nothing,” Hua Cheng says, but that smile is still there, sharper by the second. “Just wait until the next time you complain about my face when talking about His Highness.”

He Xuan feels a shiver run up his spine. He won’t ask, won’t give Hua Cheng the satisfaction, but he knows whatever face he was making when smelling the product will be a blow to his pride for years to come.

“Whatever,” he mutters. He tries to sound indifferent, but he knows it’s not very convincing. Hua Cheng, thanks to some miracle, doesn’t call him out on it. “There’s supposed to be a new scent from this manufacturer. Help me find it.”

“You think I’m here to do your work for you?” Hua Cheng asks with a scoff. He still sets the little box down on the counter and turns towards the hair product bottles. He Xuan doesn’t call him out on it. “Why do you need a different one, anyways? I thought you always used the same.”

“Shi Qingxuan mentioned the new scent reminded him of me,” He Xuan replies without much thought.

He realizes his mistake a second later. Hua Cheng has turned to look at him with an intensity he doesn’t like, both eyebrows raised in surprise. He Xuan holds his gaze for a long moment before he has to look away. Once more, he feels like he would be blushing if he could.

“Well,” Hua Cheng says. He Xuan waits for him to say more, but he doesn’t.

There’s an odd look on his face when He Xuan turns to look at him, one that feels too knowing. In the silence that settles around them, he debates the merits of just puffing out of existence. He doesn’t know how he’ll be able to look Hua Cheng in the eye again after this.

“Just help me find the damn bottle,” he finally manages to bite out after what feels like an eternity.

Hua Cheng just hums and turns back towards the shelf. He lets the topic go for now, but He Xuan is not so naïve. He knows Hua Cheng, and he knows he won’t let it go forever. This conversation will come up again, at the worst possible moment. He will brace himself for that. Until then, though, he will do his very best to pretend he never said anything incriminating, pretend nothing has changed since he first took Ming Yi’s place as the Earth Master. After all, he has become truly amazing at lying to himself on that matter.

#tgcf #beefleaf #he xuan #hua cheng #shi qingxuan #is there in spirit #my writing #everyone say thank you ruby #never posted my stuff directly on tumblr before #it feels odd to do #but i needed to get this out #while i had the inspiration #also this was supposed to be a drabble #how did it become almost 800 words

28 notes · View notes

heliads · 9 months ago

Note

If requests are still open :) Something for dead poets society, just sth with the gang having a good time, maybe trying to stage a play in the woods? Tbh just a everyone lives and is happy AU with fluff and winter and hot tea! (while I love this book I havent read it in a very long time...)

ok consider an everyone lives au but they are not 100% happy. (i am incapable of not writing angst my apologies) also this is movie dead poets society not book because i have not yet read the books whoops. hope you enjoy xoxo

'and it's not tonight' - dead poets society

masterlist

Todd Anderson is looking out the window at a gray, blustery morning, when they ask him if he’s going to be alright. It wasn’t quite certain before then. It’s not quite certain now, either, even after he answers.

“Of course,” he says somewhat unconvincingly, “Why do you ask?”

Behind him, Charlie Dalton raises a dubious brow. For once in his life, he’s holding himself back, but the situation requires discretion, and who is he to mess up at a time like this? He’s already been warned about treating Todd like a glass doll rather than a paper mache target, but even Charlie can tell that now is the time to pull a few punches. The hollows under his friend’s eyes are far darker than they were a couple of months ago. He wears unease like a well-traveled coat, thin at the elbows and rubbed raw at the seams.

“Look at yourself,” Charlie answers at last, “You’re exhaustion walking. And don’t tell me otherwise, I’ve got eyes.”

“I should hope so,” Todd remarks, and permits himself a small curl of his lips up into a half-smile. Half-smiles are good, though. Almost there to the real thing. So he’ll tell himself, at least.

Even a half-smile can let Charlie know that he’s alright. The other boy breaks into a well-intentioned snorting laugh. “Hey, ask any girl in town and they’ll tell you I’ve got beautiful ones. ‘Sides, Anderson, you know everything’s alright. The stuff with Neil was cleared over, right? He came back.”

“He came back,” Todd repeats somewhat weakly.

“Yeah, yeah, he came back,” Charlie confirms, walking over to clap his friend on the shoulder, shaking him a little bit just to mess with him but mainly to get his affections across. “He’s a little more tired than he used to be, and we’re all plenty scared from what could have happened, but overall we’re glad to see him again. His parents realized they messed up in the nick of time, and even if they wanted him under watch for a little bit, he’s back and we’re back and everything’s alright. Capiche?” He asks dramatically, wiggling his eyebrows for a bit of flair.

“Since when are you Italian?” Todd asks doubtfully.

“Since the situation requires it,” Charlie answers him, and slings an arm around the boy’s bony frame. “Come on now. The snow’s cleared up, and even if all that does is remind us how little grass grows on our campus, it means we can go into the woods again. I’ve been talking to the boys and we all agree that it’s time to dust off our finesse with literature. What do you say, Todd? You up for another rousing poetic exchange tonight?”

Todd jerks his head up and down in a hasty agreement. “Yeah. Neill’ be there?”

“Yeah, and me, and Knoxie, and everyone else you forgot to mention,” Charlie says in a tone of mock outrage. “God, you live with the guy, don’t you? Can’t you spare some excitement for the rest of us, too?”

Todd rolls his eyes, and finds the grace to elbow Charlie in the ribs. “Spare me the self-indulgence, Dalton. I’m glad to see all of you.”

“Don’t I know it,” Charlie affirms. “It’s been a while since we were all together, yeah?”

Todd blows out a low breath as they walk back towards the halls. It has been a long time, or it felt that way, at least. After the– after the incident after the play, in which Neil was found in his father’s study with a gun in his hands about to blow the trigger, it was decided that all of the pupils of Welton Academy would go home for a short period of time to clear their heads and come back ready to face the end of term.

Mainly, Todd thinks it was so rumors couldn’t spread about just what happened with Neil Perry to take him out of school, and he’s glad for it. Neil doesn’t deserve to have everyone whispering about what happened to make him decide that the best thing for his life was to end it. Neil deserves the world, and none of them could give it to him.

That was the worst part of it all, Todd decides. The guilt, how it wrapped around him in wires as strong as the heaviest chains of iron. He couldn’t escape it. If he was really Neil’s friend, he would have known. If he was really Neil’s friend, Todd could have stopped him. If he was really Neil’s friend, Todd wouldn’t have found out about the attempt the next morning, quietly awoken from drowsy sleep by a Charlie Dalton with eyes like a stricken soldier as he lurchingly informed Todd that Neill Perry had tried to kill himself the night before. And none of them had known. And when his father had taken the gun away, Neil fought and screamed for it, worse than he did when he tried to convince his parents that he wanted to act, louder than he protested that he would be sent away to military school.

And then they were alone. At home. The worst place for boys to be. Should you grieve the friend who is not dead? Do you call each other on the phone, and ask if you have been playing any sporting games with other boys your age, or if you have given any thought to the fact that your friend might not have wanted to die if you had praised him more in class, or clapped louder when he performed, or said something– anything– to this beautiful, brittle boy?

They don’t say any of that. They think it quite loudly, but unspoken thoughts do not travel well over the telephone. The flittering ghosts of would-be words tend to get lodged in the coils of wire from receiver to housing, across the street and over the miles of terrain until they reach the abode of the boy on the end, who also has a lot to say but won’t. And then they both stay silent. And they both know exactly what the other wanted to say anyway. That is how friendship works.

They came back, though. Welton sent out a series of letters to usher back the pupils, even had its secretaries working overtime to call the people who never seem to answer their mail. There was another rush of cars and luggage to the dorms, and then they were settled in again. Todd had wondered if he might be assigned another roommate– anyone other than Cameron, God, but preferably Neil still– and then the door had opened quietly and Neil was there again, trying for a brave smile, and saying, “Todd?” in a voice that had once rung pure and true through a theater that loved him.

Todd loves him for it. He’d embraced Neill with open arms, felt the air punch out of his lungs in one strike, but it came back. He came back. They were alright again, sort of. They might be alright in time, but time is what they have.

Now they’ve all been waiting for the snow to melt, and treading on thin ice around topics they don’t dare broach. Neil has been a good sport, never making them feel awkward for wanting to treat him like a china doll. He was good before, too, though, and– It gets hard to tell sometimes, that’s all. Hard to tell when he genuinely is unbothered and when he’s superbly good at pretending otherwise. They stick to safer subjects anyway.

At last, though, the ground is firm, the weather not terrible, and Charlie’s gone and rallied the troops for a night out there. At first, Todd’s first instinct is to panic. They aren’t supposed to be having any more meetings of the Dead Poets Society, not since Keating was the scapegoat for all the trouble and everyone cracked down on what makes a good boy want to escape, but over time he realizes that it’ll be alright. Some things are worth the risk. Making Neil smile again is one of them.

They meet at midnight. Todd sits awake with bated breath, even though the act by itself isn’t even all that unusual. They’re teenage boys. Staying up until the moon hangs high and lofty in the sky is expected, not uncommon. Still, a delicious shiver of inherent wrongdoing whispers down his spine when Neil walks slowly into the center of their shared dorm room and says quietly, reverently, “It’s time.”

As if the others had been waiting upon that very proclamation, the remaining boys peer out into the hall immediately after Neil and Todd silently close their door behind them. Their eyes meet with shared secrecy, shared triumph, and they make their way down the wooden stairs and out into the bristling chill of night. The stars are out tonight. We are all out tonight.

They all start heading out into the woods. Charlie takes off like a flash at the end of a matchstick, hurtling at a runner’s sprint across the hills, and the others follow him at varying speeds. Todd begins walking at a normal clip until it occurs to him that he doesn’t see enough heads bobbing around him and he turns to see Neil hesitating by the door.

They lock eyes, and Todd sees a whole host of things swimming in brown irises, fear and apprehension and a sick sort of guilt that makes Todd’s stomach squirm in sympathy. He gives Neil one last moment over the threshold, then jerks his head towards the others, putting a little faux arrogance into the gesture in the hopes that an actor might appreciate an act in someone else and remember what it is like to trust oneself again.

Neil accepts the move and grins, his teeth flashing in the moonlight. “I’ll race you to the caves,” he calls, and begins to run, his footsteps sure and strong.

Todd stares after him, an astronomer watching his first comet, then takes off after him. The grass is dry and quick under his feet, spread out under each footstep like the wake of a speedboat. The wind, already coarse, pulls at Todd’s skin, his hair, his clothes, but not even the strongest gusts could keep him down. Somehow, he’s already to the edge of the forest, and he lets out a loud, delighted whoop. A barbaric yawp, if you will. Somewhere in the back of Todd’s mind, a dark-haired man in a comfortable brown sweater smiles indulgently, and chalks up another small victory to the wonders of poetry.

The second his war cry leaves Todd’s throat, the other boys swarm him like moths to a flame. Someone claps a hand over his mouth, and around him, laughs echo into the crunching of leaves underfoot.

“Don’t be so loud, you’ll get the professors on us in no time,” someone admonishes, but then a different boy cuts in, “Don’t be stupid, we’re far enough out that we can all be shouting,” and Todd’s punishment is lifted and he can yell once more. His defender– Neil, it must be, no one else can make their voice ring with glory like that in just a few words– joins in in the triumphant calls, and then they’re all shrieking up to the stars above, here we are, not boys and not men, bold enough to scream and young enough to never listen.

Todd thinks, as they run through the forest, that it’s been a while since he let himself go free. He hasn’t listened to his mind in a long time, hasn’t let the words roll around in his brain, loose marbles of similes and paraphrased poems. His musings are dusty, dark things most of the time, but sometimes the light catches them just right and they glow like sapphires. He could write a thousand stanzas if he wanted to, right now, and everyone would listen.

The Dead Poets Society reaches the caves and a hush falls among the crowd. Slowly, they edge inside, eyes wide. The rock faces and crumbling caverns should be different, Todd thinks, something should mark the passage of time and all the awful things that have twisted their fates since the last time they sat together and thought of prose, but the stones still look as they did the last time they were here. The moss grows in familiar patterns, albeit a little thicker in certain patches now that it hasn’t been scuffed by boots in a month or so, but one of Charlie’s magazines that he forgot to take back with him turns up under some spiderwebs, and Todd’s favorite place to sit is still just as inviting. Maybe, then, the only thing that changed was them. Maybe that’s all that needs to happen.

“So?” Meeks asks, settling into a seat, “What are we doing tonight?”

“Poetry, duh,” Charlie answers him, rolling his eyes fondly. “We’re the Dead Poets Society. What else would we do, peruse our textbooks?”

This earns him a vengeful swat on the shoulder from Meeks, but even Charlie can admit that the question was fair. They’ve read plenty of poems, they’ve written a few, they’ve even gone off and run some improv limerick challenges, although Todd notes that they haven’t brought nearly enough alcohol for that tonight.

After a few moments’ thought, someone suggests a play. It might be Todd. Instantly, the idea is accepted, and roles are divided out. They’ll be doing Hamlet, since there are plenty of long sticks outside and everyone is quite fond of the idea of pretending to run each other through. Pitts is already practicing his death rattles, except he’s not very good at it, and it sounds more like he’s hacking up a lung or two.

Neil, though, is glowing at the idea, and even though they haven’t got any scripts so everyone is mostly just planning on paraphrasing the hell out of one of William Shakespeare’s finer works, Todd gets the idea that Neil has a few memorized soliloquies rattling around in his head already.

Good, then. They’ll enjoy tonight, and the next night they’re out here, and the one after that, too. It has been a very long winter, but Todd has caught his first glimpse of new spring, and he gets the feeling that warmer, sunnier days aren’t the impossibility they seemed a few weeks ago. The days are healing, and they will too. And so the Dead Poets come back to life.

requested by @reinekes-fox, i hope you enjoy!

dead poets society tag list: @faerieroyal

all tags list: @wordsarelife

61 notes · View notes

mngo-jii · 1 year ago

Note

Suggestion cuz this boy has been living in my head rent free for the last week

A Daniel x f!reader where the reader notices how much time Daniel has lately stuffed himself in the potions classroom and decides to drag him out for some butterbeer and fun at hogsmeade

“ A (reluctant) TRIP TO HOGSMEADE. ” d. page

wc: 1.1k

letter ✉️: i’m sorry this is quite short and probably not what you expected </3 this is the most i could muster up at the moment... i would wait until i'm in the best mood to write but i dont want to keep you waiting any longer

“You look knackered.”

“Well hello to you too, Daniel!” You grin at the familiar head of red hair, before it forms into an ‘O’ at the number of potions cluttered and sprawled around the table. You wonder how he’s been given permission to spend such an abominable amount of hours in the Potions classroom. But, you digress, this is Daniel after all.

“Jeez, Daniel. How long have you been here?” You stroll yourself around the table to meet Daniel’s face—who isn’t really looking at you but rather at his cauldron. “Don’t you think you should settle down for the day? We’ve only got 48 hours of full leisure, you know.”

His cauldron lights up, casting a purple glow on his face before he backs away with a hum to grab ahold of a bottle across the table.

“I could say the same to you,” he leans forward, keeping a steady hand to pour only a tiny drop into the mixture, before he straightens up once again and stirs it in, “Have you been running around the Hogwarts grounds again?"

You huff, brushing a strand of hair off of your face to get a better look on what he’s making. “Bored out of my mind, I tried to look for the others to go to Hogsmeade with—but everyone else was already too engulfed in their own thing! Though, you seem just as busy too—making... A hair-raising potion.”

“Alihotsy, actually. Why don’t you try Gosammer?”

“Very funny. Now—” You tug onto his robe, “Please please please, will you go to Hogsmeade with me?”

He halts, eyes darting from your hand to your face.

“Agh... Are you really incapable of going on your own? You sound like a child begging to go to the candy shop.”

“Maybe I am! There’s this new cute candy shop down in Hogsmeade, or so I heard.”

Silence fills in the room for a split second.

“Besides! You could use a little fun. It’s been a week since you’ve went out of your way to hang out with us, spending so much time with your cauldron like it’s your girlfriend.” You grinned, swiping your finger on the edges of said cauldron as you earned an unamused look from the boy—“No.” He says.

You groan, planting your face on the surface of the table, defeated.

That’s it. You might as well just stuff your face into the covers of your bed and hope to god something extravagant happens, so you get the chance to stick your nose into it yourself.

Or, I can watch Daniel make potions all day... You considered, leaning your head onto the palm of your hand. It’s better than nothing.

Silence completely falls onto the floor of the room, engulfing you two in nothing but the bubbly sounds of the fermented potion.

Your eyes follow Daniel’s hands—grabbing several herbs from across the table, stirring the pot, fingers patiently tapping the table. And you follow the movement of the mixture, swirling, smoke emerging from the pot ever so often.

In contrast, Daniel had already rejected your offer—or rather pleas—to go to Hogsmeade with you. But he’ll never tell you to leave.

Part of him wishes he could, despite how he enjoys your accompany. He can’t help but shrink under your unwavering gaze as you watch his every move like he’s the most interesting thing in the world. Or maybe at the moment he is now, he can’t blame you for your boredom after all.

Before you found him, you had wandered about the castle, feverishly searching for who you may run into to hang out for the weekend. Though, nearly everyone else was busy—Robyn had already dragged Kevin off to play Quidditch (much to the boy’s dismay), Lottie had gotten into an art frenzy and have been constantly painting portraits all day, and Ivy is off to visit her nana.

At that moment, you felt as though you have already used the very few last drops of your energy walking around, and you started contemplating if you should just take a shower and sleep all day to rest your worn out legs.

You musn’t be downcast on a day free of classes and scheduled activities, it’s the only time you’re able to get leisure after all! Though you had hoped to spend some time with your friends. Yet, despite the tiredness of your legs working to find them, they’re already immersed in their own things.

Your gaze strips away from the cauldron towards Daniel’s face, deciding you cannot possibly take this. You had walked all the way here just to be thrown a big fat no to your face once again. But now, more importantly, this boy had stuffed himself in the Potions classroom as if it were his second home! He might as well drown himself in countless potions once the room is filled with them.

Before you could even say a thing, his shoulders rise up and immediately he plops his arms down on the table, as if he was defeated.

“Fine.” He surrenders himself to you, as always.

“But only before sundow—”

“Let’s go!” In a matter of seconds, he’s being dragged by his arm out of the classroom, completely neglecting the cauldron that had been left on the table.

"What is that...?" Daniel eyes you peculiarly.

You look back at him, your hands struggling to adjust the goggles on your face. "Orange Eye of Newt Goggles."

Daniel doesn't say anything as he turns his head with a lingering gaze over to you, before shifting his attention on the variety of accesories in front of him.

He allows himself to curiously scan the items—hats, goggles, robes, scarves, glasses... All shaped, designed, in such diverse and odd ways that completely oppose each other.

He doesn't react quickly as a shadow looms over him, before a peculiar object made out of straw is forcibly pushed down onto his head.

Daniel panics for a split second, feeling as if he's about to get sacked, only to go stiff at the sound of you stiffling your giggles behind him.

He turns to look at his reflection, seeing as ¼ of his head is swallowed whole by the biggest top hat he had ever seen.

"...Of course."

Long story short, the others found the two of you hours later on a window seat, drifting into a deep slumber after such a long day. You're practically glued together, the sound of peaceful breathing overlapping.

They're expecting Daniel to complain about it when he wakes up, but only the two of you know how smiley he was the entire time. Not like he would admit it.

Kevin studies the two of you further, leaning forward as if he had discovered something incredibly rare. Maybe it is.

He sniffs. "...Is that... butterbeer?"

#(*ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ꕤ*.ﾟ— written by lnr #hpma x reader #hogwarts magic awakened x reader #daniel page x reader

150 notes · View notes

invye · 3 months ago

Text

How They Met [1/3] - MiShanks

[CoraMiShanks Fix It AU]

I think it's time I write up my thoughts about how exactly Mihawk, Shanks and Rosinante met and outline the start of what will become their relationship. And since I am pathologically incapable of writing short posts, I'll cut it into three, so I can take my time.

Mihawk & Shanks [this post]

Mihawk & Rosinante/Corazón [link]

Rosinante & Shanks [link]

- Mihawk & Shanks -

The first meet in Loguetown, as they so often do. At the point of Rogers' execution Mihawk's exploits have pinged the Marine's radar once or twice, but he has not been given a bounty of his own yet as there were bigger fish to contend with. Mihawk attends to pay his respect to Roger as the Marine's greatest challenger, shoes that he doesn't expect - nor wants - to fill, but will aspire to anyway along his way to becoming the World's Strongest Swordsman.

He doesn't expect the reaction of the crowd to Roger sending them out to find his treasure, given that Mihawk himself doesn't care about treasure at all. Roger hasn't even taken his last breath yet and the pirates of tomorrow are running to be the first ones out at sea. It's a bit disrespectful, honestly. On top of that, crowds really aren't Mihawk's thing. At all. And he didn't bring Yoru (that would only have gone wrong with the amount of Marines all around), so while he's desperately trying to keep his cool and get out of the crowd's way, his mind is growing increasingly more frantic.

That is until he quite literally stumbles over Shanks. Mihawk recognises him immediately (really, it should be illegal to give minors bounties, no matter what crew they belong to), red hair, strawhat, planted like a rock in the moving crowd, the only person in sight to actually shed tears. Mihawk blessedly stops thinking (panicking) and instead starts acting. Grabs the kid, who no doubt would be the Marine's first target three minutes from now, and gets them the hell out of there, leading them away from the port instead of toward it.

They don't talk as Mihawk ducks them into an alley when the Marines start running by. It's not the best hiding spot, but with Mihawk playing up the bored noble act, shielding Shanks from direct view, its enough that the Marines don't look twice and keep going. Mihawk ends up handing Shanks his handkerchief, faintly hears himself giving a platitude about Roger having been a great man, and once things calm down he makes his exit, without looking back even once.

In the months following after, Mihawk is one of the many many new pirates who receive bounties during the rush onto the Grand Line. Shanks is elated when he finally gets to put a proper name to the man who helped him instead of thinking of him as Hawkeyes (he likes Hawkeyes though, and that nickname might already be stuck given how much he has asked around for him... Whoops).

Mihawk doesn't care for his bounty. Doesn't care for being a pirate either, but there's plenty strong people to fight among the pirates now, and a high bounty does attract interesting challengers... Also he does still have some unfinished business with the Marines, so.

Mihawk's bounty skyrockets as he's given the Marine Hunter epithet. Shanks turns around to newly recruited Benn and says: "This is gonna be our swordsman!" and Benn can't do anything but raise his eyebrows in open questioning of Shanks' sanity. Then again, he doesn't follow Shanks because he thinks he's sane.

It takes another year for Shanks to track Mihawk down. It really wasn't an easy task with how Mihawk seems to just go wherever the wind takes him, but he finds him none the less.

"Hawkeyes!!" Shanks yells (and Mihawk has a sudden epiphany about where that epithet came from, because he's heard it being whispered behind his back, but no one has used it to his face yet), "Join my crew!!!" "No." "Why not?" "There's nothing a crew could offer me." "I want you to be my swordsman though." "You carry a sword of your own." "You're better." "Obviously. I'll be the World's Strongest Swordsman before long." "See! That's why I want you on my crew!" "No." Had Mihawk known Shanks a little better at that time, he would have been worried about the sudden silence and the contemplating look on Shanks face. But he didn't, so he simply turned to leave. Then: "Will you join me if I beat you?" And Mihawk can't help but laugh.

They do duel after that. Mihawk thoroughly unites Shanks' behind with the sand under their feet. Shanks is weaker than him, a little off balance (might be the recent growth spurt [actually is mostly due to Shanks being flustered at realising he really likes Mihawk's laugh]), but his technique loudly speaks of his upbringing. It's exhilarating. There is a telling spark of Haki that Shanks is actively holding back and Mihawk can't wait to see what he can do when he decides to fully unleash it. Mihawk ends the duel by telling Shanks to keep up his training and try again a couple months from now.

Shanks is back the next month. He still loses, but from then on the duels are a regular thing, only becoming more frequent until there is barely a week going by in which they don't cross blades.

When Shanks eventually manages to eek out a win (by going all in with his Conqueror's Haki rather than his swordsmanship), he doesn't ask Mihawk to join the crew again. They've already long understood that if Mihawk ever is to join, he will do so on his own time and volition. Until then they will have their duels.

(Shanks is working on making Mihawk stick around for drinks every now and then, it's only a matter of time.)

#i couldn't not write my own version of the loguetown meeting #it feels like a rite of passage for writing mishanks #coramishanks fix it au #mishanks #dracule mihawk #red haired shanks #one piece

18 notes · View notes

aseriesofsmallthings · 10 months ago

Text

Hello!

Welcome to my writeblr! I'm very new to this whole thing, and while I have *had* tumblr for a while now, I've never actually used it, so please bear with me :)

About my writing

I started out writing fanfic and short stories over a decade ago (ouch, now I feel old) and am hoping someday to become a published novelist. I mostly write horror, fantasy, and dystopian fiction, (with romance often playing quite a big role), though I am incapable of resisting dabbling in other genres too from time to time. A lot of my writing tends to deal with themes of loss, mental illness, suffering, and the inevitability of the human condition. In a bid to see myself and others like me represented more widely in the media, my longer fiction works often include neurodiverse, disabled and lgbt+ characters.

About me!

First things first, my name is Shannon, though online I mostly go by Shay. Feel to free use either :)

Now, a few fun little facts to break up those hefty chunks of writing (make the most of it, this might be the last time in a while).

I'm from, and currently live in, the UK. And I use she/they pronouns.

I'm a (twenty-something year old) child living an adult's life. And I am not having fun. Please, send help.

My reading tastes tend to be quite similar to my writing, in that I'll read just about anything I deem interesting in most genres but my preferences lie in dystopia and fantasy.

I have AuDHD and a whole host of other funky little brain things that keep writing (and life) all that much more fun! On a serious note, this may mean I'll disappear from time to time and posts may not always be consistent. (It also means interactions may be somewhat difficult for me, so again, please bear with me :)

I'm an amateur field hockey player with no other interest in sport besides playing it.

I have studied creative writing at uni briefly but I'm currently in the midst of switching to a social sciences and anthropology degree - expect a little academia related content maybe.

I'm a fur-parent - pictures may follow (they definitely will) of my little demon child.

I love to travel (especially solo) and often take a lot of inspiration for my writing from my little adventures, from setting and plot ideas to character development and world-building. Also, train journeys have proven quite fruitful in producing some pretty solid sentences... that have yet to be of further use.

A few pictures (below) from my most recent solo trip.

I also occasionally play video games, listen to an unhealthy amount of rock music, obsess over fictional characters (other than my own), and partake in multiple other creative pastimes, most of which get abandoned rather unceremoniously (thank you, ADHD).

About my writeblr

My username 'a series of small things' comes from one of my favourite Van Gogh quotes; "great things are not done all at once, but by a series of small things brought together", which I think is really apt, not only as a writer but also just in everyday life too. Also, inspite being rather artistically inept myself, I have a fondness for ol' Vinny, which makes the quote even more perfect.

I hope to use this space as a way to start getting my original work out into the world and to hopefully make some like-minded friends along the way too! I'll mostly be posting some of my short stories and progress reports on my longer wips, but may also post some poetry and other random ramblings from time to time.

Feel free to ask me any questions and interact with me :)

#writerscommunity #writeblr #fantasy writer #writers #writerscorner #queer fiction #writer things #writers on tumblr #neurodivergent #adhd writer #new blog

45 notes · View notes

inkblackorchid · 10 months ago

Text

What the hell happened with Crow: an autopsy (Part 2)

Hope you didn't think I'd forgotten about this post yet. Lads, ladies, and other lovely people, here we go. I have more yelling about bird boy to do.

But first, a few disclaimers. For people who may have missed part one, yes, as the title implies, this post is part two of an attempt to analyse Crow's character throughout 5Ds' whole run. You can find part one here. Now, both for people who may not have the time/energy to read my first, huge post about this right now, let me explain what I'm about here before we start again: My analysis is not meant to deter people who like Crow from liking him. It's also not meant to convince Crow haters otherwise, even if I admittedly personally like Crow. All of this stuff is just my personal attempt at dissecting how his character was handled in the show and why that might have been. And because this is part two, and I covered the Fortune Cup and Dark Signers arc in the first post, I'll start with the pre-WRGP arc, then dig into the backstory Crow was given directly before the WRGP begins properly. Also, mind the length of this post. I'm physically incapable of writing short things.

I also feel the need to reiterate another thing before I really get into the meat of things again: If you were hoping to see any old rumours about 5Ds confirmed, this is the wrong post. In fact, thanks to the very thorough work of someone over on Reddit (another shoutout to @mbg159 here, who's the author of those posts), I know for a fact that literally all the big rumours surrounding Crow are one big pile of logistically impossible horseshit, and I think after so, so many years of people citing this nonsense, the fandom as a whole finally deserves to let these go:

No, Crow was not meant to be a dark signer, least of all the final boss of season one, and Blackwings were not the reason he got more screentime later.

No, Aki being sidelined was not the result of her irl voice actress' pregnancy.

Yes, I know these two posts are both a long read each, but I cannot begin to tell you how tired I am of these rumours. So even if you don't have time to read the stuff above, please take away this: The big 5Ds production conspiracy theories are. all. bullshit. Because, to put it in as simple terms as possible, none of them work out logistically. The events people have pretended affected the show's production in a major way all don't line up with the actual production timeline. So just can the rumours already. Please let them die. And no pitting Aki and Crow against each other on his post or because of this post, yes? I beg you, I am so tired. Ok? Ok.

All right, now we can get to the good part. In my previous post, I left off at the end of the DS arc. So, in what position is Crow at the end of the DS arc? He helped save the world by defeating Goodwin and got his very own signer mark after Rudger/Roman Goodwin's death.

And now, where is Crow at the start of the pre-WRGP arc?

(Bam. Delivery bird boy be upon ye.)

This time, Crow wastes absolutely no time coming back on screen. We see him again within the first episode of the second half of the show, and wouldn't you know it! He moved in with Yusei and Jack and the three of them have a funny, brotherly, bickering dynamic between them. Also, as a fun little add-on that is very much in line with his deeply Satellite, down to earth characterisation from the first half, Crow now works as a delivery driver to earn money for the household. That's all very nice and good.

But what is his role in the plot from here on out? Well.

First, a small note about the pre-WRGP arc. Though this arc is fun to watch because it gives us a lot of silly character interactions the show no longer found the time for once the WRGP started, the pre-WRGP arc really can't be said to bother with actual plot much. It's the known filler arc of 5Ds, and as such, Crow is not the only character who gets pretty much nothing plot-related to do during this arc. Thus, I'll only give a quick run-down of what he does get up to, just in case any of these tidbits end up showcasing a relevant aspect of Crow's character I might come back to later.

Furthermore, another thing that's pretty much obvious to everyone who's ever watched the show in its entirety but still bears mentioning: Crow gets a lot more screentime from this point on out. Technically. Why do I say "technically"? I'll get back to that further below. For now, just keep it in mind.

So, how does Bird Boy spend his time during the arc where the plot's on the back burner? To be honest, on the sidelines, mostly. Don't get me wrong, Crow's there. Most of the time. But he gets pretty much only two episodes where he's the focus, and both of those aren't exactly known for being 5Ds' most memorable episodes (even though I still like them both tbh, but I digress): For one, in episode 68, he gets to convince Bashford to move in with Martha so the depressed old man isn't spending his entire retirement living in a scrapyard.

(This episode's comedic moments are actually fairly solid. But those are just my two cents.)

And for two, in episode 85, Crow gets to bond with the boys' somewhat cranky landlady, Zora, by duelling some sense into her son, Lyndon. (Which also introduces us to a duelling tactic only Crow uses that we will later see again: Losing on purpose.)

(And here we can see Crow showing off his skills at dealing with petulant children.)

Now, do these two episodes where he gets to be relevant actually do anything for Crow? As a character? Debatable. If nothing else, they strongly reaffirm the values Crow represents which we were introduced to in the first half of the show, though. They reintroduce us to his stubbornness, to his (in comparison to Jack and Yusei) more playful nature, to his very Yusei-ish dedication to doing the right thing, to his penchant for spite, and to his strong sense of family and community and his belief that these two things shouldn't be abandoned unless you have a damned good reason for it.

You may notice that there's a sizeable gap between these two episodes. That's because those episodes are where we get the only smidgens of plot in this arc. Among them, highlights like Sherry's introduction, the first reveal of accel synchro, Aki's turbo duelling license exam, three separate story beats hinting at the machinations of the emperors of Iliaster (Luciano's little stunt with Rua and Ruka, Placido getting started on building a killer robot army, and the Jack double being unleashed onto NDC), and Bruno's introduction. So, here's the thing: Crow is technically present during most of those episodes, too, but he doesn't actually get to meaningfully interact with the plot-relevant elements. (Which is not to say he doesn't have nice moments here and there. He does get to bounce off the other characters, and, just as one example, helps Yusei and Jack upgrade Aki's duel runner, as well as help Yusei build Rua's duel board. Crucially, he doesn't get to do anything that later becomes plot-relevant, though.) Moreover, not one, but two characters who end up becoming major players in the series' finale are introduced here, which is relevant insofar as that Bruno and Sherry both end up needing a good amount of development before they can impactfully take their later roles. Now, I say this with nothing but genuine appreciation for both these characters, because I do like them, but I feel the need to point out what this means not just for Crow, but for pretty much everyone who isn't Jack or Yusei: Every minute of screentime that was dedicated to Bruno and/or Sherry was one minute less the writers could spend on the rest of the cast. This is not to say that time shouldn't have been spent on them, they needed it, especially because they were introduced so late, but it's something I do want people to keep in mind when talking about who got how much screentime and whether or not that time was well spent. (I also have a larger gripe with the definition of "screentime" in general, but more on that later.)

So when does Crow get to be relevant to the plot again, now that he's even a signer and all? Well, not until episode 94, when the WRGP arc has already started. (Note that I'm using the 5Ds episode list on wikipedia as a general guide for which arc and which season starts where. You can find it here.)

*Deep breath*

So. Episode 94.

(Pictured: One very scruffy dragon. Bird? Dragon-bird. Bird-dragon. You figure this shit out.)

That episode. The episode where Crow, who was awarded with the status of a signer during the finale of the DS arc, finally gets a dragon to match his mark. And the episode where we finally, finally, get some actual backstory for Crow that goes beyond his involvement with the Enforcers and childhood with Jack and Yusei. A backstory that's only Crow's own. Except. How do I put this politely...

This shit doesn't make a lick of sense. Neither the events in the duel between Crow and Bolger in the present resulting in Black-Winged Dragon's appearance, nor the Pearson backstory.

Now, I'm not saying this to step on anyone's toes. From a writing standpoint, I can even make a fairly reasonable guess as to why this episode/mini-arc is here, I think: As I mentioned in part one of this analysis, Crow was not only introduced very late, but also got very little backstory of his own, which set him apart from the other signers. Don't get me wrong, he did get some backstory—we know of his strong connection to Duel Monsters because he learned to read from cards, and we know of his involvement with the Enforcers/Team Satisfaction. Crucially, though, Crow doesn't really get a backstory segment that feels as unique to him as the others. Aki gets her tragic past with her parents and her powers, Jack gets his betrayal of Yusei, which also doubles as part of Yusei's backstory, who as the protagonist understandably gets the most backstory, and even the twins, though they are as always treated as one unit, get their very own segment about the time when Ruka was essentially in a coma. Meanwhile, Crow only has that one-off tear-jerker moment about learning to read from his cards and his being a part of the boys' duel gang, which, and I cannot stress this enough, is treated as more of a Yusei and Kalin/Kiryu backstory by canon than a Crow backstory. Thus, it makes perfect sense from a writing standpoint that the Pearson/Black-Winged Dragon mini-arc would be here. Crow, up until this point, has neither a backstory segment dedicated solely to him, nor a signer dragon to call his own. So, how do we solve this? Give him both in a strategic double-whammy! The math checks out. Unfortunately, the writing of said mini-arc... doesn't.

Now, look. The juicy question of whether Crow would have worked better as a non-signer or not, which I already discussed in part one aside, I personally don't hate what this backstory is trying to do. It's just that the whole Pearson-drama has some very notable, logical holes which I'll get into below. Furthermore, this is not the first time something related to Crow has some unfortunate, logical and/or chronological issues. I already brought up the infamous fridge and Rex Goodwin's rather confusing backstory in part one, both of which raise some serious questions. However, Pearson and everything surrounding him arguably blow that clean out of the water. Let's examine this more closely, shall we.

The long-overdue backstory we get for Crow begins with a mystery: Mikage and Trudge, for a reason that is never given to us, are investigating the death of Robert Pearson (whose death would have been several years ago at this point), whom Crow knew very well, and they're doing it because they found a hint that the person who killed Pearson used an illegal card, Crimson Mefist, to do it.

(Post redemption-arc Trudge actually doing his job instead of bullying random Satellite citizens. Who would have thunk.)

Thing is, here, we already encounter our first, minor problem: Pearson has never been mentioned up until this point, not even as an aside. And this issue is compounded by the fact that not only Crow seems to know him, but Trudge claims to as well, because "Satellite used to be his jurisdiction". So, a named character who's familiar to both one of our protagonists and a notable side character, and we've never seen hide nor hair of him. If we pull our heads out of the story for a second, the irl reason for how this came to be is probably pretty obvious: Pearson was never mentioned before because the writers had nowhere near as solid of a plan for Crow as they did for the other characters, which leads to him being introduced out of nowhere here because we need a backstory and a dragon for Crow and we need those now. Moving on.

The mention of Pearson having been not simply killed in a fire, like Crow previously assumed, but having been murdered through a special, illegal card immediately makes him suspicious. So, he goes to consult Bolger/Bolton, another never-before-seen character who gets introduced in service of this backstory, and who knew Pearson well. And while this guy certainly acts amiable towards Crow at first, implying that the two have a good rapport, at least, he quickly starts acting suspicious when Pearson's murder comes up. Moreover, we as the audience at this point already know Bolger's looking for Black-Winged Dragon so he can use the card essentially as collateral to save his company. And the name "Black-Winged Dragon" already leaves very little to the imagination as to whose deck this monster is supposed to fit into. But, in a small twist, we learn from Crow that this was apparently Pearson's card, and supposedly lost in the fire where said man died, to boot. Then Bolger challenges Crow to a duel, too, offering to tell the truth about Pearson's death if he loses, but demanding Black-Winged Dragon, which he believes Crow to be in possession of, if he wins. So far, so good. We've got a mystery here, and canon is not contradicting itself just yet. Until we get to the actual backstory, which shows us the time Crow spent with Pearson, that is. Before we get into that, I'd like to highlight one theme this mini-arc introduces that actually feels like it fits Crow: Legacy. Over the course of meeting Bolger again and being reminded of his time with Pearson, Crow starts thinking about whether he's taking over his former mentor's/father figure's legacy well enough.

(Crow having some Deep Thoughts TM, featuring one of Yusei's most relaxed, easygoing smiles in the entire show, probably.)

This theme, I would argue, is one of the major things this backstory introduces that really meshes well with the Crow we already had until this point. He's a community-focussed guy and absolutely a family person, if him taking care of Satellite orphans is anything to go by, so leaving behind a good legacy for the people after him (read: the kids he took care of) would absolutely be something he cares about. We see this element of legacy again in his cards during this episode, too, which canon implies he inherited from Pearson. (I'll get to THAT can of worms below.) And on paper, with the themes he's already got going, Crow being the only one to inherit his deck rather than build it all by himself would actually make sense!

However. This is where we have to get into the meat of the backstory. I'll start by listing the barebones information Crow's backstory with Pearson gives us, then going into why several aspects of it are either logistical or chronological nonsense.

So, as canon tells us, Crow met Pearson after Kiryu/Kalin was arrested, when the Enforcers/Team Satisfaction all went their separate ways. During this period, Crow had already set up shop near the original Daedalus Bridge and started out taking care of orphans, but it wasn't all smooth sailing. He was, by his own admission, "living aimlessly". Then, during a pinch, Pearson and Bolger show up, take care of some bad guys for Crow and the kids, and Crow sees a new role model in Pearson. Pearson, who rides the Blackbird, plays a Blackwing deck and owns Black-Winged Dragon. So, he joins up with Pearson, presumably learns how to work on duel runners from him, and also befriends Bolger. Then, one day, a fire breaks out at Pearson's workshop and the man in question dies, but leaves Crow his runner and his duel disk before he does so. End flashback. Because I want to tie this together nicely, we also learn later that Pearson technically left him Black-Winged Dragon, too, by sealing it in his runner. And, of course, that dragon later becomes Crow's very own signer dragon.

Several points to be dissected here. And funnily enough, Bolger's duel with Crow isn't relevant for any of them. Let's start with the big one: The timeline. I want you to remember that as far as canon is concerned, Crow is 17 during the DS arc. Moreover, it's canonically stated that Jack stole Yusei's first duel runner two years before the show's start, at which time Crow would have been 15. And their time together as the Enforcers must have been even before that, because Kiryu/Kalin was already in prison for a while at that point and Crow and Yusei don't reunite until the DS arc is basically in full swing. So, I'll make a vague estimate here and say that during the time of the Enforcers, Crow would have probably been 13-14. (Which is hilarious when you think about the fact that this gang of angry teenagers essentially took over the entire duelling underground of Satellite, but I digress.) Now we add the idea that Crow met Pearson after the Enforcers, but that he died before canon starts into the mix. That means Crow first ran into Pearson sometime around age 15, and that he then died presumably before Crow turned 17. So far, so good, that still slots into canon, even if it makes Crow pretty damn young for some things. He's even missing the personalised Blackbird duel disk he later wears during the Enforcer days, I went back to check. What he is not missing, however, are his Blackwings. And this is where canon may or may not have made an implication that, if intentional, breaks this timeline. See, during the scene where Pearson's workshop is burning down and he's already trapped under debris and has embraced death, he tosses Crow his duel disk and leaves him his runner.

(Two important screenshots, in sequence. One, Pearson with his duel disk still strapped to his arm. His deck is very obviously still in there. Two, Crow with that same duel disk, as made obvious by its distinct shape.)

What this implies is that Pearson also left Crow his deck. Which, yeah, fair enough, if I were dying in a fire I'd probably also think "fuck it, not like I'll need my cards in the afterlife". What this (and Crow's look the first time he sees Pearson's monsters) implies, though, is that Crow didn't start playing Blackwings until Pearson left him his deck. Which is factually untrue, because there is literal evidence in the show that Crow already had Blackwings during his time as part of the duel gang, before ever meeting Pearson. (The exact episode, if you want to check for yourself, is 33, where Crow summons both Bora the Spear and Blackwing Armor Master during a flashback.) However, I will concede that the show never actually states this is the case, it's just implied by what we see on screen, so perhaps the idea here was that Crow already played Blackwings before Pearson, but grew to love them even more through his mentor/father figure, and so later happily integrated the deck he inherited into his own. Crucially, canon never states this outright, either, though, so the option remains on the table. But, to give the benefit of the doubt here, the possibility that this could still slot in with canon and that it was just handled poorly is there. The same cannot be said for the Blackbird, however.

(Uh oh. So much for canon continuity.)

The above two screenshots directly contradict each other. First we have Yusei, upon reuniting with Crow in Satellite during the DS arc, casually remarking that Crow finished his duel runner. Which means that canon at this point suggests to the audience that one, Crow built this duel runner by himself, for himself, and two, that Yusei knew about it for a while already. Then there's the second screenshot, from the Pearson backstory episode, where Crow outright claims the Blackbird was left to him when Pearson died. I don't think I need to tell anyone that these two things can't be true at the same time. And again, I think this is where Crow fell victim to the writers not having a clear outline for him. At first, he was supposed to be this scrappy guy who also built a duel runner for himself, just like Yusei. But now, he's a signer, needs a backstory and a dragon, and because a theme of legacy is introduced alongside Pearson, the runner suddenly needs to be inherited, as well as (possibly) Crow's cards. Now, a crafty fanfic writer could probably reconcile the above contradiction somehow, and I know some stories that accomplished that. But the point isn't that we, as the audience/fandom could make this work, the point is that canon didn't make it work. What canon, sadly, also didn't get to work was Black-Winged Dragon.

(We meet again, bird-dragon.)

Here comes the next elephant in the room: Everyone and their mother who has watched 5Ds knows that Black-Winged Dragon was never implied to be a signer dragon up until the duel where Crow acquires it. In fact, an entirely different dragon is teased so heavily long before BWD ever shows up that it to this day is one of many people's major gripes with the show's writing.

(Why, hello, Life Stream Dragon! Fancy seeing you here.)

And yet, Black-Winged Dragon is turned into a signer dragon before Life Stream Dragon, who was teased more than sixty (!!!) episodes before BWD was ever even mentioned. Why? Simple: Because Crow became a signer and Rua/Leo didn't, because the signers all need dragons (or else the "5Ds" part kind of doesn't work), and because Life Stream Dragon thematically doesn't fit Crow.

Now, I've seen people post theories to reconcile this weird hitch in canon, hell, I've even posted an idea for how it could be reconciled myself. But, again, that isn't the point here. The point is that as far as good old, barebones canon is concerned, it isn't reconciled. Canon at first states there are five signers, suggesting that there are also five dragons. But then, the fifth dragon never shows up, and one of the signers dies, to boot. Only for canon to then teach us, oh, no, look, the signer marks can wander from one person to the next. And to add insult to injury (at least where the show's writing and internal consistency is concerned), the signer mark that was "freed up" by Roman/Rudger's death doesn't wander to Rua/Leo, who any attentive watcher would have expected to become a signer because it was heavily teased during the DS arc, but to Crow. Frankly, I'm not surprised many people were angry about this, but in case my disclaimer didn't make it clear, I don't think it's productive to pin this on Crow by claiming his cards became super popular irl. There was definitely an out-of-left-field writing choice made here, but the only answers as to "why" were left in the 5Ds' writer's room, I believe. At a guess, if you want me to throw out a non-sugarcoated theory as to why, though? They probably thought Crow would be a more interesting character for their target audience. He's a scrappy guy who sticks it to authority, he's brave, he's funny, he plays a cool deck, and most of all, unlike Rua, he never embarrasses himself in a duel on screen. Why am I highlighting that last part? Because I feel like people sometimes forget that the target audience for this show, at the time of its creation, were about twelve year-old boys. And you can feel free to contradict me on this, but most twelve year-old boys I've known and know don't want to project themselves onto a chracter who loses and gets his butt kicked a lot, and who's a bit awkward and steps in it sometimes, which is much closer to how actual twelve year-olds are—but that's exactly why they prefer the cooler characters. And Crow is the cooler character, by average twelve year-old boy logic, regardless of what the grownups of this fandom think.

So Crow gets a dragon and the writing doesn't bother explaining the how or why of it, let alone tackles any of the implications made by Black-Winged Dragon's existence as a signer dragon. (Like what does this mean for the larger worldbuilding? Does the Crimson Dragon actually have more than five servants, but chooses to only ever bestow five marks at a time? Can any "dragon" the Crimson Dragon chooses be a signer dragon, and it just so happens that the constellation of signer dragons is nearly the same as the original one in present-time 5Ds canon? Did the Crimson Dragon specifically elevate BWD to a signer dragon because it felt like it? Was BWD always supposed to be a signer dragon? Was Pearson supposed to be a signer, but died too early before the dark signer prophecy was set into motion? Am I overthinking this? (Yes.)) He also obtains his dragon in what feels like the weirdest way possible to me, because it suddenly??? Just decides to appear in his runner????? Out of nowhere??????

(Why is that here. How did it get there. Why did Pearson even put it in there. And HOW. Is it just wedged between the machinery or what???? And how on earth did Yusei, Bruno, and/or Crow never find it before this point considering how often someone tinkered on the Blackbird on screen???)

(This scenario, of course, also raises the question how the other signers even got their dragons. But like many other, interesting questions, this episode chooses not to interact with that one whatsoever.)

In short, this backstory is a bit of a mess, to say the least. For as much good as it tries to do by contextualising Crow's character and giving him something that sets him apart from the rest of the protag group, it feels like a rough draft of an episode was given the green light to be produced without any editing, judging by the contradictions and weird implications. As such, it harms Crow's character as much as it builds it, as evidenced by how much fandom backlash he still receives years later for the things that were bungled in this backstory and also in different aspects of his character writing.

Now, you may notice this post has gotten stupidly long due to just how convoluted the specific hangups of Crow's backstory are. I originally meant to cover the WRGP and even the Ark Cradle arc for Crow in this post, too, but due to how much there was to say about canon's attempt to finally make Crow a "proper" signer, I've decided that trying to force another two whole arcs in here would be a disservice to the analysis and the character, and also make this agonisingly long, so I'll close this part out here and write a part three, perhaps even a part four depending on how much material the WRGP gives me to work with.

There's one more thing I need to get back to before I finish up this part, though: The "screentime" discussion. I mentioned far above that I take issue with how some people seem to be using the word screentime, and now I can explain why. First, I want you to take a look back at the episodes I covered here, those being 65-95, essentially. Now, as anyone who usually dislikes Crow will tell you, Crow is present in most, if not all of these episodes. He's on screen. He's getting screentime, and, according to many people, hogging it, even. Okay. Now, I want you to look back up at the analysis. How many episodes did I cover where Crow actually gets something to do? As in, where he's either the focus of the plot or gets to contribute to it in a significant way? There's the old man Bashford episode. There's the Poppo Time clock episode. There's his two backstory episodes. That's four. Four episodes. If you're generous, you might add in the episode where he gets to narrate Yusei's backstory alongside Jack and the two fake Jack episodes where he gets to have an emotional moment or two with his foster-brother. If you're less generous, you'll note that none of these episodes have Crow actually interacting with the main antagonists in a meaningful way or set up anything important that pays off later. (Hell, he doesn't even get any, and I really mean, any meaningful setup interactions with Sherry, who ends up being his final-boss-level opponent during the final episodes! Aki gets more meaningful interactions with Sherry than him, not that this ever gets a payoff.) And this is why I take an issue with people claiming Crow gets so much "screentime" post DS arc. Because to me, "screentime" should be time spent letting a character act meaningfully within the story, which most of the pre-WRGP episodes aren't for Crow. He's on screen, yes, but in many episodes, it wouldn't matter one whit whether you replaced him with a nameless side character, which isn't exactly a great look for a supposed third of a protagonist trifecta. Perhaps I'm being too strict with my definition of "screentime" here, fair enough! But the claim that Crow hogs screentime already rubs the wrong way during this comparably unimportant arc, so I can't leave it alone. It feels very decidedly malicious to claim a character who during some episodes seems to only be there to provide exposition or make whatever jokes Yusei and Jack's personalities aren't suited to is stealing screentime from other characters. As for the WRGP duels and whether he's "hogging" anyone's screentime there, I'll dig into that nonsense in the next part, please be patient with me.

...Phew. Okay.

Now, before I leave you to wonder whether I'm every finishing my Crow analysis in full again, I want to attempt to do the same thing I did in part one—propose some changes that could have been made to the writing for Crow's character in order to make things slot in better with the rest of canon. With a small disclaimer, of course: These are just my suggestions as to how Crow's character could have fit into canon more smoothly and been done less of a disservice by his own backstory.

So. First, a quick-fire thing about the pre-WRGP, to get that out of the way: Crow, alongside Aki, is the only signer who didn't get his own confrontation with either Iliaster or their minions. (Yusei had Ghost, Jack had fake Jack, Rua and Ruka had Luciano.) Instead of having him confront a cranky old man in a scrapyard or Zora's son, they could have easily given him a very short side-story where he gets to experience the threat of Iliaster up close and personal, too. Hell, they could have very nicely cut the recap episode where Crow and Jack lie in the mess of Jack's terribly built coffee table and philosophise about Yusei's backstory for this, too. (As funny as their interaction about the coffee table and Jack lying on the floor with a perfectly intact coffee cup are.)

(Pictured: Two idiots (affectionate) contemplating life among the scraps of a shitty, broken coffee table.)

Then, there's the Pearson backstory, of course. So, here's the thing, I think two very different kinds of "fixes" could have worked here. Crucially, they both depend on Crow's status as a signer. I argued in part one that Crow might have worked better as a character if he hadn't actually become a signer, so I'll give both versions here. Let's go.

Option A: We try not to touch canon too much and Crow stays a signer.

How to do this? Frankly, I think what Crow's mark and Black-Winged Dragon were majorly missing was setup. The mark is the smaller offence here, since, fair enough, the idea that signer marks can wander from person to person isn't too out there for 5Ds canon. However, the lack of a dragon despite the alleged 5Ds stands out, and Life Stream Dragon's wasted setup only makes it worse. Thus, making Black-Winged Dragon make sense would have required giving him the same amount of foreshadowing as Life Stream Dragon, at the very least. And you know who could have been great for that? Sweet, ever-forgotten-by-canon Ruka. She was already shown having flashback dreams to the signer dragons' first battle against the dark signers, so who's to say she couldn't have gotten dreams about a shadowy, new dragon she's never seen before? Perhaps even dreams where she's not sure if the dragon is good or bad at first! It could have provided intrigue, it could have made the audience curious. To strengthen that, canon could have also bothered taking the question "hey why are there only four dragons now" seriously. No character in canon ever questions why there are five marks, but only four dragons. Even Rua, who was previously hopeful that he might secretly be a signer, never brings it up. If canon had bothered to actually point this mystery out, they could have used it not only to foreshadow Black-Winged Dragon, but to aid Life Stream Dragon's setup, too. What the fuck am I talking about, I hear you ask. Hear me out: Life Stream Dragon is shown way, way later down the line, long after the audience probably already accepted that it was simply never going to show up, literally bursting out of Power Tool Dragon's armour. We are not provided with an explanation as to why. Imagine if they had sprinkled in another dream Ruka could have had about the ancient past here. Imagine if they had used the opportunity to show something like, oh, during the battle, Life Stream Dragon got injured so badly they had to protect its wounded body with a suit of armour, in the hopes that it would heal. And with one original signer dragon out of commission, the Crimson Dragon sadly had to choose a replacement in between, because the Earthbound Immortals were sure to return. Bam. Black-Winged Dragon. Two signer dragons, set up simultaneously, without forcing the canon lore to do somersaults. Furthermore, to actually explain why Pearson had the dragon but wasn't a signer, they could have easily sprinkled in a flashback between him and Crow. Maybe Pearson could have mentioned how the dragon always feels like it's never really his, as a joking aside. It would have been enough for me to suspend my disbelief, you know? And then the rest of canon could have played out exactly as we know it. Crow could have confronted Bolger, could have obtained Black-Winged Dragon because maybe the dragon finally decided he was worth throwing its weight behind. The mystery behind the missing fifth dragon could have been solved, and it would have made for satisfying payoff without kneecapping Life Stream Dragon's setup or conjuring an extra dragon out of thin air. And really, stuff like the runner thing could have so easily been solved by simply picking one version (did he build it himself or inherit it?) and sticking with it. All it took was a little more care.

Option B: We assume Crow didn't actually become a signer, but try to keep his backstory intact.

Okay, this version works under the assumption that Crow, despite partaking in the final battle against Goodwin during the DS arc, didn't receive a signer mark. To make this work, I would, bluntly put, simply make it so that Black-Winged Dragon doesn't exist. Pearson can still play a powerful Blackwing monster during his flashback that Bolger wants to find and sell later, but it simply isn't that dragon. Really, Blackwings have enough to choose from there. If the backstory episodes had been placed a little later, say, during the pause in the middle of the WRGP, he could have even received something like Blackwing Full Armor Master here. (Yes, I know that card didn't exist at the time, but my point is that he could have simply received a powerup like Yusei and Jack did, instead of a completely new monster.) With this setup, they could have still added the intrigue of taking the question why there are only four signers now seriously. They could have still set up a mystery about why no one ever saw the fifth dragon outside of dreams. And it could have made Rua becoming a signer later, and in this version getting the tail mark instead of a completely new one, that much more satisfying. And Crow could have kept his "fuck destiny, I'm trying to save the world here"-attitude from the DS arc, providing a nice, amusing counterweight to our heroes chosen by an ancient Incan dragon deity. All it would have taken would have been not giving him a mark and switching out Black-Winged Dragon for something else.

So, take your pick, I guess. In the meantime, I'll try my best to work on part three faster than I did part two, lmao.

See you next time!

40 notes · View notes

thefairywithboots · 1 year ago

Text

Aftercare (Robert Plant x Reader) [NSFW]

Summary: Robert had warned you that he would get you back for tying him to the bed and having your way with him. However, after being rough with you in his revenge, he begins to feel guilty and pampers you with a hot bubble bath and some tea. But of course, he is unable to keep his hands to himself. Not that you're complaining.

Notes: Hi! :) So this is my first time ever writing in second person. Not sure if I'm going to do it again. I felt like "Submissive Robert" needed a resolution. It was also intended to be a fluffy piece but I am incapable of writing short stories that are not smut. 💀 Anyway, I hope someone enjoys this.

Warnings: Bathtub sex, everything else is pretty fluffy.

AO3 link

Robert had warned you that he would get back at you for tying him to the bed and fucking him last week. He had kept you anticipating it all week until you had thought that he had forgotten about the whole ordeal. Perhaps that had been his intention, you thought. To wait until your guard was down before pouncing on you.

But nothing had prepared you for what he had in mind. The teasing that you had done to him last week was nothing compared to what he had done to you in return; kissing your most sensitive areas, leaving bite marks and hickeys everywhere his mouth could touch, and fucking you so relentlessly into the mattress, you nearly forgot your own name.

You laid in bed afterwards, feeling disoriented from the intense night of passion. Bruises were left on your thighs where he had gripped you so tight, and bite marks were left from your neck all the way down to your breasts. He had left no part of you untouched. You felt sore and achy, yet satisfied.

Robert looked down at you with a smug grin once it was all over. It made you want to slap him but it had all felt so good, you couldn't.

The grin faded from his face when he pulled the covers off of you and saw the bruises he had left on your thighs. Concern filled his face.

"Did I hurt you?" His voice was soft as he ran his fingers gently over your bruises.

You shook your head quickly, not wanting him to feel guilty. "No! I mean... I'm a little sore... but I wanted you to do everything that you had done. Please... don't feel guilty about it."

He sighed and got up, pulling his boxers on before going into the bathroom. You laid there for a few minutes, hearing the water running in the bathtub. You rolled over onto your side, wondering what Robert was up to in the bathroom.

He came out a few minutes later and went to the small kitchenette to put some tea on. "I've run you a bubble bath. It will help with the soreness. And the tea will help you relax." The smug dominant Robert was gone now, and he was desperately trying to make things up to you for being too rough in bed.

"You don't have to do this..." you say as he stood over the kettle, his wild mane of golden hair a mess.

Robert shook his head. "I want to. Come, darling." He lifted you gently out of bed and carried your naked body into the bathroom. You held onto him, keeping your arms around his neck. He had to have put some sort of bath bomb into the hotel bathtub because the water was now pink and floral scented with suds reaching out past the edge of the tub. The water was hot against your skin as he placed you into the bathtub. You relaxed in the hot, scented water, feeling your muscles loosen.

Robert sat down in the floor behind the clawfoot tub, gently splashing water over your hair before he began shampooing your hair. The feeling of his hands on your scalp made you close your eyes, leaning back into his touch. You took in a deep breath, the scent of the shampoo filling your senses. It wasn't your usual shampoo. It smelled flowery and fruitful.

You moaned softly as the hot water poured over your scalp to rinse your hair. You leaned back, wanting to feel his skin against yours in the hot water.

"Does that feel good?" he asked while closing the distance between the two of you and kissing you softly on the cheek, leaning in close as if his lips were just begging for a taste of yours.

You nod. "Yeah..."

He gently pushed your wet hair over your shoulder before he began massaging your shoulders. The sudden pressure on your tense muscles surprised you but you quickly relaxed into his masterful touch.

"How about this?"

You nearly lost your train of thought when his hands had moved up to firmly massage your head.

"Y-yes..." you let out a quiet sigh of pleasure. "Please don't stop..."

Robert’s hands continued to work down your scalp, down your neck and finally began working the sore muscles of your lower back, his strong fingers kneading into your back. You let out a quiet gasp.

"Am I being to rough?" he asked gently.

You shake your head quickly, not wanting his ministrations to end. His hands seemed to know exactly where you needed him the most.

"No, Robert..." you let out another sigh as if trying to hold back a moan. "That feels incredible..."

He leaned over and gave you a gentle kiss on your neck. "I'm glad, darling..."

You turn around in the hot scented water to face him. He smiled softly and his eyes travelled down your flushed body, lingering on your breasts, as if contemplating the ways he wanted to ravish you all over again.

You reached up and ran your hands through his smooth golden locks, pulling him in for a passionate, heated kiss. He didn't waste any time, kissing you back in equal measure, his tongue making its way into your mouth.

You moaned into the kiss, and his hands continued to massage your body, except this time, he began massaging your breasts and arse.

You gasped against his lips.

Robert smirked against your lips. "You're intoxicating, you know that?"

Your hands traveled down his tone chest and to his waist where the waistband of his boxers were. "You're one to talk..."

He let out your name in a small groan.

"Get in the tub with me..." you whispered softly, longing to feel his body against yours in the hot water.

"Darling...you know that if I do that, then I won't be able to stop myself."

You continued to stroke his hair. He leaned his head against yours. You knew that was his weakness. He loved it when you played with his hair. "Then don't..."

You pull him into a passionate kiss, your hands snaking around his shoulders and neck and opening your mouth to welcome his tongue. You felt a small growl erupt from his chest, and for a moment, you worried that he might be as relentless with you as he had earlier.

His attention was broken when the sound of the kettle whistling rang out from the kitchenette. Robert untangled himself from your embrace to go out of the bathroom, only to come back with two tea cups that he had filled with chamomile tea.

"Here you are, love." He handed you the cup, and you smiled, accepting it graciously. You took a sip, the herbs calming you down.

"Thank you... Get in the tub and we can finish our tea together," you said as you watched Robert sip his while perched on the toilet with the lid down.

He glanced over at you, smirking as he placed his tea cup in his saucer. "You're a greedy thing tonight, aren’t you?"

You shrugged and watched as he removed his boxers, biting your lip as you saw that he was hard again. You moved over in the pink water to make room for him. He settled down in the water behind you before pulling you close to him, your back resting up against his chest. You smiled as you nestled yourself against his chest as you continued to sip the chamomile tea he had prepared for you.

Robert pushed your damp hair to the side before pressing a small kiss to the back of your neck again and continuing to massage your shoulders. You relaxed into his touch, reveling in the feeling of his skin against yours. He was pampering you and treating you like you were his goddess.

You sighed as you felt his fingers kneading your sore muscles. "Robert... that feels really good..."

He pressed another kiss to the back of your neck again. "Anywhere else feel sore?"

You sighed and leaned your head back over his shoulder, the heat of his body combined with the hot scented water making you feel relaxed and drowsed. You felt like you could melt right into him.

Robert trailed his hands down from your shoulders to cup your breasts, kneading them in his hands. You bit your lip, trying to hold back a moan. You turned your head to look him in the eye. He smirked before pressing a kiss to your lips.

You gave into the kiss, returning the same amount of gentle passion.

After a few moments you pulled away. Robert’s hands moved to your hips as you reached for the shampoo at the side of the tub. You turned around, gently wetting his long blond hair before lathering your hands with the floral smelling shampoo and began shampooing his hair. He smiled softly as he relaxed into your touch.

You continued to work your hands through his hair, taking extra time to massage his scalp. You straddled his waist in the bathtub, the feeling of your wet skin sliding against his was ethereal. You could feel him become harder; massaging his scalp was always a quick way to turn him on. Once his hair was fully shampooed, you took the bar of soap and began soaping up his chest, brushing your fingers over the light bit of chest hair.

Robert let out a soft groan as he looked up at you with heavy lidded eyes. "Are you trying to end up on your back again, my love?"

You bit your lip and grinned, leaning in to kiss his lips softly. His strong arms snaked around your waist, causing the kiss to become more firm and passionate. You couldn't hold it back anymore as you moaned into his mouth. You nibbled on his bottom lip as you reached your hand down into the water, wrapping your hand around his hardened manhood.

Robert let out a groan and grabbed you firmly by the hips before turning you around and pulling you tightly against him, your back pressed firmly against his chest. Without warning, he reached his hand down into the water to press his finger against your clit. You couldn't hold back your cry of surprise. He made a soft shushing sound into your ear as he began to gently yet firmly massage your clit, knowing exactly what you needed. You let out a strangled cry, your hands gripping the side of the tub as pleasure coursed through your body. Your clit stung with pleasure as his skillful fingers manipulated it.

"R-Robert... I-I can't..." The water splashed around the two of you as you writhed against his hand. He held you firmly against his naked body with his strong arm while using his other hand to work his magic on your clitoris. Your walls ached for his fingers to penetrate you. But his fingers continued to rub you until you felt a knot form in your stomach. You panted and turned your head, needing to feel his lips against yours.

His mouth found yours in a searing kiss before his fingers delved into you. You moaned hard into his mouth as you continued to grip the side of the tub so hard, your knuckles turned white.

The water continued to splash around you as his fingers thrust themselves in and out. Your hips writhed and thrust against his hand, the pleasure becoming far too much for you to bear. Robert whispered softly into your ear: "Just relax, love. Let me take care of you..."

And take care of you he did. He worked his masterful fingers into you, knowing all the right places to touch. He whispered softly into your ear, encouraging you to not hold back your sounds of pleasure. You let out strangled cries of pleasure, moaning his name as his fingers continued to delve into you while his thumb worked itself on your pulsing bud until at last, you came hard around his fingers. Your back arched against him as you collapsed back against him. The bathroom mirrors were fogged up with the combination of the hot water and your intense body heat.

Robert chuckled into your ear before pulling his fingers out of you. You whimpered softly, wanting more.

But he wasn't finished with you quite yet. Keeping your back turned to him, he lifted you up by your hips, and set you on top of his hard cock. Your mouth fell open in pure ecstasy as he impaled you from behind.

He didn't need to tell you what to do next. His hands guided your hips, working you on top of his cock. You wished you could see his face right now; you could hear him let out loud moans that other men would consider unmanly to make. But Robert wasn't shy when it came to vocally expressing his pleasure.

The hot bathwater felt lukewarm against your skin due to your combined body heat. You could feel him thrust up into you deeper and deeper, your walls clenching around him as your combined symphony of moans echoed off the bathroom walls. You rode him, the scented water continuing to splash around the two of you.

Robert sat up in the tub, wrapping his arms around you as he continued his thrusts. He reached his hand down to play with your clit again, and your hands released from the sides of the tub, splashing hard into the water. You let out a strangled cry as he pressed his mouth against your ear, tugging your earlobe between his teeth. He breathed heavier into your ear, and you could tell he was getting closer.

“Come for me, darling…” he whispered gruffly into your ear in between pants.

Your body seemed to shake loose on its own as your back arched sharply against his chest. Your moans echoed off the bathroom walls and you felt his warmth shoot inside you as he wailed out a loud moan, thrusting hard into you from behind, causing the bathwater to splash out onto the tiles as he rode out his orgasm. You panted heavily, settling down on top of him, resting back against his chest. You heard him pant heavily, catching his breath as he grabbed you by your hips and slowly pulled out of you.

He washed both of you off with the loofah before rinsing the shampoo out of his hair. You were still breathing heavily as you watched him from across the bathtub. He caught your gaze before leaning in and giving you a soft, tender kiss.

“That was incredible, my love…” he whisper softly.

You reached up to stroke his damp hair out of his eyes. “I love you, Robert…”

He gave you a soft, loving look. “I love you too, my dear…” He stood up and stepped out of the bathtub. “Come on, the water’s getting cold. And I need to get this water cleaned up off the floor so that housekeeping won’t fine us.”

You giggled as he helped you out of the bathtub, wrapping you in a fluffy towel, and pulling you into a loving embrace as he led you back into the bedroom. You reached for your suitcase to get some warm pajamas out but he shook his head, guiding you to the bed in nothing but your towel.

“No, no, dear. I will keep you warm tonight.” He lit a scented candle on one of the bed side tables. The sheets still smelled of your combined body sweat from your earlier romp in the sack. The bed was warm and dry though and you snuggled into the blankets as you waited for him to finish sopping up the water in the bathroom.

Robert came out a few minutes later to pour you another cup of chamomile tea before sliding into bed beside you, blanketing you with his naked warmth.

“Thank you…” you whispered as he reached for one of his Tolkien novels on his bedside table.

“For what?”

“For everything, silly.” You ran your hands over the light fuzz on his chest before resting your head there, feeling his heartbeat against your ear. You closed your eyes. This to you was heaven. “Robert?”

“Hmm?” His voice caused his chest to rumble and vibrate against your ear as he softly turned the pages of his novel. It was a pleasant feeling.

“Can you read to me?” You closed your eyes, basking in his warmth. “Until I fall asleep?”

You felt him press a light kiss to the top of your head. “Of course, my dear…”

Robert began reading to you from his novel. You recognized the passages he was reading from since you had read it hundreds of times yourself; it was The Hobbit. You rested your head on his chest, smiling softly as you listened to the soft sound of his voice as he read to you the scene when the dwarves were chased into the trees by the wolves.

Your body was numb and tired from both the hot bath and the multiple orgasms you had had in just that night alone. Robert held you with one arm while holding his book in the other, moving the arm holding you only to turn the page. You listened to the soft sound of his accent as you slipped into a pleasant drowse, feeling satisfied and loved as you sank deeper into sleep and his warmth.

#led zeppelin #led zeppelin fanfiction #robert plant #robert plant fanfiction #robert plant x reader #smut #fluff #my writing #my fanfiction #thefairywithbootslibrary

20 notes · View notes