#open yet kinda dangerous roads

[saintobio]

blank canvas. (2)

after offering a painful ultimatum to finally be enough for him, things ultimately get worse as he decides between keeping you or losing you as the only resolution.

pairings. ryōmen sukuna, fem!reader

genre. florist x tattoo artist au, mild angst, opposites attract

tags/warnings. strong language, defloration (kinda), explicit smut, undertones of manipulation and gaslighting, toxic relationship, undertones of cheating

notes. 11.2k wc! thanks for the love on bc1, i didn't expect it to gain traction at all but tyty. last part will come soon, but that will be the final chapter to this mini-series.

part 1 | part 3

The ride back home was uncomfortable. 

It wasn’t because you had promised to give yourself to him that night, but rather because his uncharacteristic silence was not what you had expected after delivering your ultimatum. You already proposed a wonderful solution to his needs, so why was he acting like you were the one being ridiculous? This was why you hated it whenever Sukuna chose silence over open communication, as it left you a hard time guessing about what was running through his mind. His expression didn’t offer any clues either, because he did pretty well at concealing his emotions behind a facade of indifference.

When you said you would do it with him, you meant it. But what did he think of it? 

The sharp wind cut through your skin, the roar of his motorbike deafening your ears as your boyfriend accelerated his vehicle upon entering the tunnel. The vibrant yellow lights offered a cinematic view, tempting you to imagine yourself embracing the wind with open arms, though you knew better than to do so. Instead, you held onto him tightly, wrapping your arms around his waist and leaning forward as he sped through the empty lane.

It was nearing midnight, and the sparse traffic allowed Sukuna to indulge in one of his habits: riding his bike in the late hours of the night through this particular tunnel and onto the highway. You knew this ritual helped him clear his mind since it offered a rush of danger that sharpened his focus on the road. His choice to take this route tonight also only confirmed to you that he was grappling with internal thoughts. The last time he rode this fast was when your parents made you choose between them and him, slapping it in his face that he was and would never be welcomed in your family. 

To be honest, it frightened you. The speed at which he was riding was dangerous for both of you. Moreover, his bike was a YZF-R1, although street-legal, it was still a high-performance sport bike more suited for the track. It required agile and precise handling with its 1000cc engine. Yet, no other vehicle seemed more fitting for Sukuna than this. 

Whatever was on his mind, he didn’t care to let you know. You two didn’t really speak throughout the ride while you clung to him like a backpack, praying in your head that you two wouldn’t get into an accident. Thankfully enough, he did safely take you home as you arrived at your shared apartment at exactly midnight. 

“Please don’t ride like that again,” you muttered as he helped you out of his motorbike. “You could’ve gotten us killed.” 

His fingers then reached to unclasp your helmet, pulling it up to reveal your face. “Well, we’re still alive.” 

You looked at his face despite his best effort to avoid yours, standing centimeters apart while he switched off the engine. He didn’t return your gaze as though he was drowned by guilt. Should you speak at this? Or should you let him do it first? 

“Baby.” After a minute or so, it was your boyfriend who sighed and finally gave in, pulling you close and resting his forehead against yours. He kept his eyes closed even when he was cupping your cheeks. “You don’t have to do this.” 

Yes, you certainly shouldn’t. You didn’t have to do things unwillingly, but that wouldn’t change the fact that this on-going issue was putting a strain on your relationship and this would be your last shot at trying to salvage it. And you couldn’t have him looking for sensual gratification from anyone else other than you, so what other option did you have, really? 

“I want to do it.” 

“Not if you’re forcing yourself like this.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Who said I’m forcing myself?”

“Your face tells me you are,” replied he, staring at your face in defeat. “So, let’s not—”

“What, and let this issue haunt us over and over?” You smiled bitterly, shaking your head adamantly. “This has to be done. I need to experience it so I’ll finally understand.”

Understand what? His face almost spelled out those words, but he chose not to say anything of the sort and instead leaned in to kiss your forehead. “Alright. I’ll make it memorable.” 

— —

Easier said than done, of course. You kept overthinking about whether your performance would be satisfactory to him given that you didn’t have enough experience to learn anything at all, aside from the make out sessions that you did once in a blue moon. Around thirty minutes of your time was spent hyperanalyzing your situation in the shower, while the other half of it was spent doing a little more than your nightly routines. Since Sukuna liked powdery scents, you placed a good effort in applying lavender-scented oil and perfume on every inch of your body. You also shaved any unwanted hair, especially on all the intimate places you knew he would be seeing. And by the time you were done, you stepped out of the bathroom blooming like a fresh flower, wrapped in nothing but a thin towel that hugged your womanly figure. 

It didn’t feel right at all. It didn’t feel good knowing that you were preparing yourself like that, when these things should only happen on the first night after your wedding. It didn’t feel great that you were going to lose your virginity to a man who had not even proposed to you. This wasn’t even your honeymoon, but you had to pretend like it was. 

Did Sukuna feel the same? 

He wasn’t lying in bed when you walked out of the bathroom. Instead, he had just returned from outside—shirtless, wearing his favorite gray sweatpants, and holding a box of condoms and a tube of lube in his hand. It was clear he had made a quick visit to the convenience store nearby and got the essentials for your first night.

Immediately, he eyed your towel-wrapped body with restrained lust, clearing his throat as he walked towards the nightstand. “You look nice.” 

Really? Did he really have to make this more awkward than it already was? 

“Thank you,” was all you could softly reply. It was funny how he pretended to be busy placing the box and tube above the bedside table instead of lunging at you like a desperate man. But because you wanted to get this over with, you were the one who approached him from behind, wrapping your arms around his waist, and touching the firmness of his abs. For someone who had zero experience, you were definitely trying hard enough and that should please him. “You have to help me out here, my love. Guide me.” 

When Sukuna turned around, your heart started racing. Of excitement? Maybe. Of anxiety? Perhaps. He made it better though when he finally caved in and looked straight into your eyes, tucking a few strands of hair behind your ear before lifting your chin with his hand. “You smell extra nice, too,” he added, leaning close enough that you could feel his warm breath fanning your face. 

You were feeling it now. The equal lust. The carnal desire. The feeling of his sweet kisses, which he made true as soon as he crashed his lips onto yours. His kisses usually ranged from tender to rough, but this time, it was an altogether different type of kiss. It was passionate and demonstrative, as if showing you exactly what he had been wanting to do to you the first time you got together. This must be the result of being celibate in over a year. He was clearly a man deprived of sexual pleasure, and you were responsible for it. You actually turned him into a monk. 

Now, he wasn’t holding anything back anymore. With his hand on your nape, he deepened the kiss to the point where you could feel his tongue exploring your mouth. You followed whatever he was doing like a good girl, like a very good girl, as he completely devoured your mouth with his. It didn’t take long for him to advance his kisses in other places too, being your jawline his next target, and then your neck as he feathered kisses around the soft flesh, leaving marks that would need a few days to be concealed. 

Because his arms were tight around your waist, yours were locked around his neck. Where else should you be putting them? What does the girl usually do in this situation? You tried not to think much of it and listened to your own body while your boyfriend was sucking the skin around your collarbone. At first, your hand traced his toned chest, then it moved southwards to feel his abs, and further down to his…

“Y-You’re hard.” Your eyes widened as you felt his growing erection behind the fabric of his sweatpants. It wasn’t your first time seeing his boner, but it was the first time you touched it with your own hand. It was the first time you had your palm stroking his length, swallowing hard as you realized just how hard and thick he was. 

“It wants to be inside you,” he whispered through your mouth, kissing you back again, “so bad, baby.” 

Gosh. Your knees felt weak and you two hadn’t even really started yet. How much more when he starts putting that thing of his inside you? You were breathing hard, trying to catch air as your boyfriend continued to lap his tongue with yours, guiding your hand to continue fondling his wood while it grew bigger the more stimulated it got. By letting you touch his hardened crotch together with his own, you realized that you had just unlocked a newfound fetish of yours. “D-Do you… do you think about doing it with me often?”

He bit your lower lip before pulling away, animalistic eyes sending you into an orbit of pleasure. “Do you mean if I touch myself to the thought of you a lot?” he teased, chuckling darkly at the obvious heat on your cheeks. You couldn’t help but feel excited at how vulgar he could be with his words. “I do jack off a lot, angel. And it’s always you in my mind.” 

You didn’t even have the time to melt from his words, because before you knew it, he was already peeling the towel off your body to reveal your completely naked figure. Obviously, your first reaction was to get shy—with your heated cheeks, your inability to look him in the eyes, your little efforts in covering your breasts and crotch, but he made sure to pull your hands away while keeping his eyes on you. “…Don’t stare.” 

Sukuna, however, didn’t listen. His dark eyes scanned every curve of your body, particularly around your chest area before he sighed and threw his head back. “Fuck,” he cussed under his breath. “You’re so fucking sexy. I can’t believe no other punk has seen you like this.” 

Your confidence grew little by little because of his praises. “But isn’t that a good thing?” 

“For sure.” He almost laughed at his own words, more so in disbelief, before he reached out to touch your bosom. “No one can touch you like this, either, baby.” 

“That’s—”

“Hmm?” Your boyfriend smirked at your reaction. While his other hand went to squeeze your breast, the other traveled to your bum, squeezing the cheek with equal fervor. “Can I have a taste of you, baby?”

He fondled your breasts with both hands now, massaging the rounded mass like they were his property. You had to admit to yourself that the feeling of being touched actually transcended your expectations. Or maybe it was only because of how erotic it was, but you couldn’t deny how turned on you were as his veiny, manly hands cupped your bosom. 

And as soon as you nodded and permitted him to ‘taste’ you, he took no time in gently pushing you down the mattress, allowing you to lay at a comfortable position under him and his wanton stare. Taste you? He was more like eating you, when he pinned you against the mattress and sucked the skin on your chest. At first, his tongue rolled along your cleavage, inching closer and closer to your right breast while he had his hand squeezing the left. Your body naturally gravitated towards him as you arched your back so he could have better access to your chest. Not only your chest, but also your crotch as he started grinding his clothed manhood in between your folds. 

“Mm…”

Sukuna’s mouth was on your breast now, suckling on your flesh and playing his tongue around your nipple. You couldn’t tell if it was pleasurable or painful because his tongue felt ticklish on your skin, but the suction definitely was an entirely different feeling. Both weren’t bad, anyway. They were just new to you. But even if they were foreign, you were curious and all the more interested, studying every little thing he was doing with your body and trying to make mental notes out of it. 

Maybe you should have watched porn. That way, you could have been more aware of the step-by-step process of having sex. Who knew there were steps to follow at all? You didn’t think that foreplay could draw this much delay in your session because all you thought was that he was going to insert his cock straight inside you as soon as he saw you naked. 

With all the touching, fondling, and kissing… what were you supposed to do? He was doing all the work here. 

“Baby,” you spoke softly, staring at the ceiling, “C-Can I… touch you?” 

Instead of pulling away, his mouth latched onto your left boob, giving it the same attention before moving south. “Not yet.” 

When he said that, you didn’t expect his hand to land on your crotch. Your heart was thumping at an irregular rhythm as you felt his fingers moving in circles around your bud, playing with your clit before spreading your folds apart. “Nghh—!” you let out an embarrassingly loud moan, eyes widening at the sound of your voice, but your boyfriend shushed you by placing a peck on your lips before spreading your legs into a V. 

“You’re so wet,” he said, pointing out the obvious as he positioned himself in between your legs, spreading your labia to reveal your entrance. Something about the situation made you increasingly self-conscious, but his undeniably hungry gaze kept you from covering your most sensitive area. It seemed like he was enjoying the sight of your pussy, especially with how wet and ‘untouched’ it was. “Your pussy’s so pretty, baby,” he mumbled, lowering his face closer to the area, “Can’t wait to put my dick inside it.” 

You whimpered at the feeling of his tongue in between your folds. No, you couldn’t even think straight after he started teasing your vagina, alternating between flicking his tongue around your bud to french kissing your entrance. His tongue was so deep in your cavern that you were raising your hips involuntarily, going insane from the pleasure it sent your body. Your hands even gripped the sheets and your back arched into a C as you held back from moaning like a wild animal. At some point, the slurping sounds and the feeling of his mouth kissing your vagina had your legs shaking. 

Though, you could ask yourself: what turned you on the most? Was it him actually eating your pussy or just the idea of him doing it? 

And just when you thought he was done, he replaced his mouth by inserting a finger inside your cunt, garnering a much louder whimper out of you. “B-Baby!”

“Does it hurt?” he asked, eyes locked with yours as he slowly moved his middle finger in and out. “It’s so tight.” 

“It hurts…” You nodded, feeling his finger moving in circles inside your cunt as though he was trying to get a feel of your walls, measuring the tightness and such. 

He kissed you for a good minute. “Relax, angel. Don’t clench too much.” 

Clench? You didn’t even know you were doing such a thing. “How to…?” 

“Just relax.” Sukuna placed a hand on your abdomen, pressing it down while he was inserting yet another finger inside of you. “This’ll help you prepare so it won’t hurt as much later.” 

Now, you were goddamn nervous. What did he mean it wouldn’t hurt as much? Because you were overthinking the pain of having him his actual cock inside of you. If you couldn’t even bear having his two fingers inside you, how much more with his clearly thick shaft? It was ridiculous to feel both anxious and yet aroused at the same time. Anxious, because you knew he could rip you open. Aroused, because his fingers were currently doing a great job at hitting your most sensitive spot. Whatever it was that he was reaching, it was certainly sending waves of ecstasy throughout your body. 

His fingers continued to move. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. Around. When he pulled his digits out, he sucked the juices on them, tasting every drip of your essence from his fingers. “Sweet.”

Were you? You started to get curious at how he tasted, too. Sweet? Salty? Bitter? You seemed to be moving on autopilot when you pulled yourself up and sat in bed on your knees. “Your turn?” 

You asked the question as if you knew what you were doing, which was why Sukuna found it adorable and humorous at the same time. He did help you pull down the sweatpants that had been covering his erection for what felt like eternity, only to reveal a monstrous size that sprung out of the garment. 

Holy fuck was all you could say. 

He stood at the edge of the bed, a devilish smirk displayed on his saintly face as he saw the length of his cock compared to your face. You obviously hadn’t seen many cocks in your lifetime to be able to compare his size, but in your eyes, he was definitely big. He was girthy. He was lengthy. He was veiny. Meaty. 

“Wanna suck it for me, baby?” he encouraged, pumping his shaft while looking at you. Fuck. “Open your mouth.” 

You did as told, wrapping a hand at the base of his length while placing his tip on your mouth. You pressed your tongue flat on the surface of his tip, rolling your tongue around the head as if it were a lollipop. Was that what you were supposed to do?

“Eyes on me.” His voice deepened an octave. And it was also raspier. 

Why did he want you to look up at him? It was already embarrassing. 

“I said, eyes on me, angel.” He grabbed your chin and forced you to lock eyes with his darkened ones. Damn. No wonder girls were desperate to see him in his shop every single day. This was probably what they had been daydreaming about. “Suck my cock.” 

In your head, you became a slut. In reality, you were still a shy, inexperienced virgin who didn’t know what to do. You relied on his instructions and looked at his expressions to know if you were doing a good job and to see what he liked and didn’t like. He definitely liked it when you sucked the head, liked it even more when you started to let him go deeper in your mouth, and surely liked it a hell lot better when you gagged after his cock hit the back of your throat. But in spite of the string of saliva that left your mouth after gagging from his cock, his arousal only grew harder, this time holding your hair in his fist as he began thrusting his hip forward. You were bobbing your head at a rhythm that satisfied him, feeling the stretch on your scalp as he tightened his grip on your hair. 

“Tighten your mouth around it,” he instructed, fucking your mouth senselessly like hitting your throat was driving him nuts. Your eyes were already filling up with tears because of your urge to gag again, but you didn’t think it would be a good idea to stop now while he was just starting to pleasure himself. 

This was the first time in your life to give someone a blowjob, and you weren’t sure what to make of that experience. It personally didn’t give you pleasure, but you liked hearing his desperate moans. You liked hearing him curse and get vulgar with his words. You liked seeing him get rough. His taste, on the other hand, was somewhat a different experience. Since you were only sucking his flesh, it was a tad bit salty at first contact but didn’t taste anything much after tongue got used to the skin around his shaft. Perhaps his cum would have a stronger flavor, though it looked like he had no plans in releasing his load into your mouth as he pulled his member out. 

“Fuck it,” he grunted, gently pushing you back and spreading your legs wide open again, “I wanna feel your pussy so bad. Can I fuck you raw, babe?” 

All those condoms, and he wanted to have you raw? 

“But… I don’t wanna get pregnant.” 

His face was full of assurance, shaking his head and denying any chance of knocking you up. “You won’t be. I’ll pull out, I just… I have to feel you raw the first time. I have to.” 

“Okay…” 

You were nervous as hell. You had butterflies in your stomach, your heart pounding in your chest like a drumbeat you couldn’t silence. You had imagined this moment countless times, but now that it was here, the reality of it was too overwhelming. Your mind yet again raced with a whirlwind of doubts and insecurities, and every nerve on your body seemed to be on high alert while you watched him getting occupied with rubbing his entire length with lube, ensuring a smooth entrance inside you. 

He was nervous too, right? You couldn’t be the only one. You couldn’t be. 

You just wanted everything to be perfect. To show him how much you cared. To feel that you were enough. But the thought was paralyzing. Tonight was more than just physical intimacy; it was a step forward in your relationship, a moment of connection you wanted so badly to cherish. This first intimate encounter should be filled with love, respect, and mutual understanding. 

But what if after this, he’d come to realize that you weren’t the one? What if he’d get disappointed and tell you that you weren’t worth it? What if he’d leave you for someone else who could pleasure him better? What if, after you had given yourself to him, no one else would ever appreciate you anymore? 

You wanted this, didn’t you? You wanted to feel the heat of his touch, the intensity of his gaze, the intimacy of your connection. You wanted to explore this uncharted territory with him, to dive headfirst into the unknown and discover what lay on the other side. But were you really ready for this? Did you truly want this? Would it be everything you had imagined, or would you regret losing your virginity to him?

The fear of inadequacy gnawed at your confidence as Sukuna positioned himself back in between you, his tip rubbing at your slit a couple times before he finally sunk it into your entrance. 

“Haaa—!” 

“Shh. It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay.”

“N-No, I—!”

It felt like your walls were being stretched so painfully, like your flesh was being torn open in the most agonizing way. This was not the kind of pain you pictured out when he put his member inside. Sukuna even tried to grab hold of your hips to keep you steady, but you were withdrawing your hips back, wanting nothing but for him to remove his cock. 

“It hurts… It hurts… please, stop. Please!” 

“Baby, I’m trying to be gentle—”

“I SAID STOP!” 

Both of your eyes widened at the same time, and that was the only time you two were ever in sync. He was clearly shocked by your outburst, while you yourself were surprised at how you raised your voice at him. Neither of you expected that situation. As a result, he did pull away and completely withdrew himself from you. 

Frustration was evident on his visage and he couldn’t even hide it anymore. “Fuck this,” he spat in exasperation, taking a deep breath as he reached to slip his sweatpants back on. “I knew it.” 

“No, I…” You swallowed. “It just… You kinda forced it, I wasn’t ready.” 

“I forced it, really? I forced you?” His laugh was out of complete disbelief. “I never forced you into anything, angel. I’ve asked you since the beginning if this is really what you want.” He took a pause, a very uncomfortable one, before he went on murmuring, “It was just my tip and you’re overreacting like this. I’m not even halfway in.”

His agitation had finally awakened you to your senses, realizing that you did end up doing what you were scared of doing. You ruined the moment. You were so caught up in your bubble of negative thoughts that you had once again failed to fulfill what you were supposed to do. No wonder he was aggravated, now sitting away from you and wearing his clothes as if telling you that he was done. Done being blue balled by his own girlfriend. Done expecting something he was never really bound to have. 

You reached out to touch his arm. “Baby, I’m sorry… I just got scared, but we can still—”

“Still do it?” he continued your sentence by ironically cutting you off, “No, the fuck, I won’t. I’m not in the mood anymore.” 

His reaction brought tears to your eyes, because the way he was acting stung your fragile heart. You didn’t mean to ruin anything. More importantly, you didn’t wish for everything to just turn out like this. “I-I’m sorry. Let me try again, please.” 

The weakness of your voice seemed to have softened him, becoming calmer and more composed after a few minutes of contemplation, but he still held his ground when he massaged his temple and sighed. “Let’s just not push it, Y/N.” He looked at your eyes, with hurt and rejection reflecting on them. “Even if you say you wanna do it, you think I can’t see it in your face that you’re not really into it? You’re never ready for me and maybe it’s my fault, maybe there’s something about me that you’re so scared of. Maybe it’s because you don’t feel secure with me, maybe you wanna save yourself for someone better, someone who can give you a brighter future—”

“That’s not true!” You shook your head desperately, your eyes blurring from the pool of tears while you clung to his arm. Where was all this coming from? It sounded like he had been harboring those feelings for so long. “That’s not true. What are you even saying?” 

“I don’t even know what I’m saying. I’m just…” Trying to give a reason why you won’t give it to me. That must be what he had wanted to say. “Look, I don’t wanna pressure you into this bullshit anymore. I don’t wanna make it look like I’m begging for your affection like this. Intimacy should happen normally for couples, and if we can’t have that, then we can’t. That’s it.” 

Why did he sound like he was giving up? 

You tried to keep your emotions at bay while listening to him battling with his internal thoughts. “I understand I disappointed you tonight, but…”

He was adamant at shaking his head, distancing himself from you by getting up from the bed. “No, you got nothin’ to apologize for. It’s your body and your choice. I’d never force you into anything.” 

Then… then…

“I just think it’s not the perfect time,” he continued, shooting you a glance before looking away. Each step he took added another crack on your fragile heart. “From now on, I’m never gonna initiate anything intimate nor will I expect anything from you, aight? I’m over it.”

Alone in your vulnerability, you could feel the cold air hugging your naked body as you watched him walk towards the door, leaving you in the dark both literally and figuratively. “Where a-are you going? Come on… Please.” 

He no longer cared to turn around. He no longer bothered to comfort you as he walked away, muttering, “Just gonna go for a ride. Don’t wait on me.” 

— —

Nearly three weeks had passed since that night and you would be lying if you said everything was okay. 

No, everything was not okay. You could feel the distance growing each day even when you two still did everything together. Your normal routines didn’t feel normal anymore because he was acting too detached ever since he told you that he wouldn’t initiate anything intimate ever again. And to be honest? It hurt. A whole fucking lot. Hearing your partner say that they would never wish to do anything intimate with you was probably the worst way to experience heartbreak. Because he was truthful with it, and he showed it very openly. 

Now, he’d lock the door whenever he would take showers. He’d spent most of his time outside riding his bike until midnight. He stopped texting you sweet messages while on tattoo shop duty. He seldomly joined you to eat breakfast and dinner together. His back would face you whenever you two slept in bed. His eyes avoided you even when you walked around in underwear. His hand wouldn’t touch you even when you were centimeters close to him. There were no kisses exchanged either, unless obliged to do so when leaving the house. No hugs. No hair-stroking, hand-holding sweetness ever shared. You were simply cohabiting in your shared apartment like strangers who had barely even said I love you’s. 

“Man, that’s rough,” remarked Suguru Getou, your cousin and the barista, as he tidied up the counter behind the elevated bar. Having just served his friend an Americano, he listened intently as you vented about your situation with Sukuna. “I’ll be honest with you, Y/N. It’s not looking good for you.”

You knew that. You just refused to acknowledge it. “I mean, all couples fight.” 

Suguru shook his head, however. “You two aren’t even fighting. Dude just gave up and started detaching himself from you. If that’s not a sign already, then I don’t know what is.” 

“What sign?” you asked, hiding the obvious worry in your voice. You need not be dense about his words, but you wanted to have some kind of hope to grasp on. 

“Sign that he’s falling out of love?” he continued. 

And somehow, his white-haired friend thought it would be okay to chime in. “More like a sign that the tool's not interested anymore and is about to dump her.”

Your face felt hot and in the most terrible way. “Sorry, what was your name again?” you asked, your tone dripping with sarcasm. You hadn’t expected the guy to suddenly chime in, considering he had been quietly typing on his laptop just moments before. “I don’t remember asking for your opinion, so don’t go listening to somebody else’s business when you’re not part of the conversation.”

“Jeez,” said the albino guy, grinning at your cousin as if amused by your barrage of a response. “She’s a yapper, too. I thought she was supposed to be this sweet and innocent type, Suguru?”

“Not always.” Suguru chuckled at his friend before turning to you, apologetic eyes now attempting to soothe your nerves. “Sorry ‘bout that, Y/N. Satoru just likes to tease people. Don’t mind him.”  

You kept a straight face. “Well, then maybe tell your friend to keep his nose out of conversations he’s not invited to.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” Satoru gave you a playful salute before extending his hand towards you. “Look, I didn’t mean to overhear, but I actually sympathize with you. If it were me, I’d never do that to you, baby.”

Oh, God. You were so bad at this. Was he flirting with you or was he simply playful like this? 

Nevertheless, you rolled your eyes and ignored the hand he offered, essentially brushing off his advances. “I don’t need sympathy. All I’m here for is to talk to my cousin to try and have his advice on the matter,” you emphasized pointedly, making it clear to Satoru that he was the last person you wanted advice from. “I don’t need a stranger listening to my personal life.” 

“Doesn’t hurt to receive advice from another guy,” countered Satoru, shrugging. “Right, Suguru? I mean, we’re both guys. We can give you some insight into how men think.” 

You felt the urge to bury your face in your hands. It was clearly a mistake going there and putting yourself in that situation, and now having two guys aware of your sex life with your boyfriend. That alone was so wrong on many levels. But could it be helped? Suguru was your closest cousin, the only one who didn’t turn his back on you after you left your parents’ home. He was working at a cafe three blocks away from your flower shop and you happened to be delivering a batch of fresh floral decorations for their cafe. You obviously found it a good opportunity to open up to him about your struggling relationship and hoped he could offer some male perspective on Sukuna’s behavior. You just hadn’t anticipated his friend eavesdropping on the conversation the entire time.

Well, that should have been expected anyway, since only the three of you were in that cafe on a lazy Wednesday afternoon. 

“I don’t kiss and tell, by the way.” Satoru was beaming as he gave you that assurance and you couldn’t help but admit that the man had some charm in him. He was attractive, no doubt about it. He was also tall, toned, and seemingly well off based on the way he dressed. He had a casual yet preppy style, something you would normally see from guys who went to private school. 

“Do you work?” you asked out of sheer curiosity. “You don’t seem like the type.” 

“Oh, now she’s interested.” Satoru seemed to have found your sudden interest in him humorous. “I’m finishing my MBA, miss. Thank you for asking.”

“He’s a privileged rich kid with generational wealth and a family business,” Suguru remarked, playfully gesturing a cutting motion across his neck. “Definitely not your type, huh, Y/N?”

“Why, what’s her type?” The white-haired man looked intrigued, pulling his stool closer. He had that stupid grin on his face as though the topic just sparked his curiosity. “What’s her boyfriend like?”

Suguru, who wanted to play along, jokingly hummed in deep thought. “He’s got tattoos, likes to tattoo other people, is a college dropout, rides a big bike, smokes and drinks, listens to heavy metal, was probably a delinquent and a juvie alumni—”

“Excuse you, he’s never been in a juvenile detention center,” you defended your man, feeling like your cousin’s categorization of Sukuna was becoming a little too derogatory and you had to correct him for that, “and he’s a good man. He’s sweet and caring, he’s passionate, and he loves me sincerely.” 

“Sincerely, not?” Satoru quipped, earning your glare in return. He immediately raised his hands in surrender. “I'm just joking. If you believe he’s all that, that’s your choice. I don’t judge booktok girls who romanticize typical bad boys.”

You rolled your eyes at his audacity. Each word that left his mouth seemed to stoke the flames of your irritation. “You’re so offensive, I’ll have you know that.” 

The white-haired guy smugly took a sip from his coffee. “At least I don’t make girls feel guilty for not having sex with me.” 

“Oooh.” Suguru was clearly enjoying the show, unaware that you were one step closer from smacking his friend across the face. “Touché. He kinda has a point, Y/N.” 

“Be serious,” you warned. 

To which he agreed to. “Okay, I am being serious now,” he said, abandoning his playful stance to lean in on a more solemn posture against the counter, “If you think Sukuna makes you feel guilty for not doing it with him, then shouldn’t that speak for the kind of relationship you two have? He wants something you can’t give. His reaction tells you everything you need to know about him.” 

You tried to absorb his words with a better understanding and without any bias. “Isn’t his reaction normal? He’s a man, too. I understand his needs and I made him feel somewhat rejected.”

“It’s all about respect, Y/N,” answered Suguru, “If he’s a decent man, he wouldn’t make you feel that way. No mixed signals, no guilt tripping, no nothing. If you can’t do it, then don’t.” 

“So, you’re saying you wouldn’t feel the same if your girlfriend keeps rejecting sex with you?” 

Suguru smirked. “I never said I’m a decent man, either. All I’m saying is if what you want isn’t exactly aligned to what he wants, then maybe it’s best you break it off with him because this shit won’t get you anywhere, Y/N. Trust me. He’s gonna dump you before you know it. I mean, it’s one thing to pretend he’s all fine with it, and it’s another to distance himself from you like he’s silently protesting.” 

“Yeah, that’s true,” Satoru joined in once again. “It’s impossible for a guy like that to be in a relationship for so long and not have any pussy. We think of sex 24/7, some of us are just better at restraining ourselves than others. He’s putting up with it now, but it’s only a matter of time he gets sick and tired of waiting. You do realize he can get any girl he wants, anytime he wants, right?” 

Although you were still uncomfortable at Satoru casually chiming in on the conversation, it was true when they said they could give you the exact male perspective you needed to hear. This allowed you to go deeper into Sukuna’s psyche and understand why he was acting that way. You just didn’t know how to save the connection you have with your boyfriend when both your cousin and his friend were describing all the red flags on Sukuna’s behavior. 

“I don’t know,” you spoke in a tone of defeat. “I kinda understand where he’s coming from, so I can’t just leave him for it. I love him.”

Satoru looked at your cousin like you couldn’t be saved. “She’s in too deep.” 

“Yeah, gaslighted as fuck.” Suguru was shaking his head in disappointment. 

The taller man chuckled and brought up a ridiculous offer to lighten the situation up. “Honestly, Y/N. I know we just met and all, but if you ever need someone to teach you how to do good in bed, just hit me up. He’ll never know.” 

“Shut up,” you shot back at Satoru, eyes rolling at his remark. 

“You’re out here feeling bad for that guy when he could be fucking his clients at the tattoo shop.”

You argued. “No, he’s not—”

“Are you sure he isn’t?” 

It wasn’t Suguru nor Satoru who posed that question; it was Yuki Tsukumo, the café’s manager and Suguru's respected senior. She was in a relationship with one of your boyfriend’s stepbrothers, Choso, and was also a fellow biker, which allowed her to cross paths with Sukuna in their community. Despite this connection, she was never particularly close to him. In fact, Yuki didn’t personally get along with Sukuna and she was very vocal about it. She was, however, a regular client of yours and ordered floral arrangements from your shop on a weekly basis.

It had been awhile since you last saw her, and didn’t expect that the first greeting you would give her was a question. “Yuki, what do you mean?” 

Great. Now, three people know about your relationship quagmires. 

She was placing her helmet at the counter and sitting on a stool before answering you, “I really think you should talk to him about it, Y/N.” 

No, no. Why did you suddenly feel a pang of anxiety out of nowhere? Something about the sympathy in Yuki’s eyes felt unsettling, and it sent a wave of fear through you. She definitely knew something. What was Sukuna doing behind your back?

“Can you please just tell me?” 

Her gaze studied your face intently, as if deliberating on the right thing to do. “Well... I spotted him riding with a girl the other night. Initially, I thought it might be you, but last night, I saw them together again. I recognized her... because it was his ex. I think he’s been giving her rides home lately.” 

Amidst the quiet of the room, your heart felt like it was breaking in two. The sudden revelation sent you into an abyss of pain.

“You might wanna visit his tattoo shop later.” Yuki encouraged me with a comforting smile. “It may be best to confront him about it.”

— —

Sukuna wasn’t sure how to act around you anymore. It wasn’t like he was purposely avoiding you, but he just didn’t feel comfortable acting like everything was fine and dandy. Because if he was damn honest, the sexual frustration was fucking with his head. So much so to the point where he started questioning himself if he should still put up with a relationship like this. 

First of all, there were pros and cons involved. He had to consider that it was a special connection filled with special memories, too. 

If he was talking about the pros, he knew he would have a loving lifetime partner with you. You were beautiful, kind, and pure. You inspired him and motivated him to be better. You were unmaterialistic and happy with the littlest things. You gave his dominant side the urge to be a better man, like he was made to protect and provide for you. You became his muse; a blank canvas that was all for him to paint on. A canvas that no one had ever touched. Or, in your world, a white lily that was associated with chastity and virtue. 

But then, there were also cons, and the foremost of it being you were too conservative for your own good. You grew up in a strict environment with uptight parents who wanted to control your life. He could never voice it out, but he really hated that you were square like your parents sometimes. You were too traditional and afraid to explore new experiences, oftentimes policing him for living his life as free as he wanted it to be. The ‘opposites attract’ thing did seem to work in your relationship at first, with your differences being exciting for each other, but as time went by, it became clearer to him that you two were too different to actually be in sync together. 

Hence why your relationship became rigid and suffocating, forcing him to take a breather by distancing himself from you for some time. He did this for your benefit, because he had to clear his head before risking losing you for good. He didn’t want to jeopardize a relationship that he knew meant the world to him. Perhaps this was just a phase, a challenging period following the honeymoon phase, where all your differences seemed to become more pronounced.

But to repeatedly make him look forward to sharing intimacy with you, only for you to back out at the very last minute? Man, was that so frustrating. 

It didn’t help that it was destiny itself that seemed to be stirring the pot. Because while you two were going through a rough time in your relationship, the irony presented itself outside of Sukuna’s tattoo shop late at night just as he was about to close. 

“Ryo?” A tall woman with athletic build, long dark hair, and beautiful doe eyes came into view with a wide smile on her face. 

His ex-girlfriend of three years. 

Sukuna held the door for her albeit the confusion in his eyes. “Yorozu?” 

The only difference he noticed was that she had become a lot sexier, with the curves on her body more womanly than ever. It was obvious that she was active in the gym to achieve such a fit physique. But other than that, her facial features were the same. Her heart eyes still shone bright at the mere sight of him, as if they carried stars and galaxies. 

“I think I came too late,” said Yorozu, smiling in disappointment, “I should probably just return tomorrow.” 

“No, you’re good.” Sukuna insisted on letting her enter his shop, closing the door as soon as she was inside. “What brought you here?” 

She stood confidently in front him, wearing nothing but a blank tank top and some loose white pants. “Funny story ‘cause I actually just moved to this city recently and I just found out you had a shop in this area.” 

Oh? That was interesting, indeed. Sukuna wondered how she even found his shop in that case, while he was leading her to the tattoo chair. “Are you here to get a tattoo or?” 

“Yeah, yeah I am.” She was sprinkling some charm in her grin. He knew her too well. “I think it’s amazing that I’m gonna get it from you again.”

While Yorozu was talking to him, he couldn’t help but ask: was it wrong for him to be in the same vicinity as his ex? Considering how jealous you could get, this was definitely wrong in your eyes. But as he wasn’t doing anything sketchy, he figured there was nothing wrong about what he was doing. Yorozu was technically a client and he couldn’t deny her his services since she was basically a friend of his, too. So, was he breaking any code here? 

“Well, only if you have time now, of course,” she added out of consideration, “It’s kinda late so I can always come back.” 

Sukuna shook his head and headed to get his book of tattoo art samples. “It’s fine. I got clients lined up all day tomorrow, so,” he said, placing the book on her lap, “You wanna check that or do you have a design in mind already?” 

Yorozu’s eyes fell on the tattoos marking Sukuna’s body, her gaze landing on every familiar inch as though she had seen them all the time before. It was true. She had seen more of him, actually. She had done more with his body, too. “I kinda wanna get a sleeve, but I want you to choose the design for me.” 

A tattoo sleeve? Damn. It was something he would never in a million years see from you, but for Yorozu, it was totally normal. She was as obsessed with ink as he was. And although she’s had a couple of tattoos in her body already, which were done by him, it would be her first time to get a full sleeve. 

“I get to choose, really?” Sukuna chuckled lightly. If he were to think of Yorozu’s traits, she was definitely a classic red rose. A seductress, alluring woman was how he saw her and the said flower would be a true-to-life representation of her personality. She was passionate when it came to loving someone, and was completely devoted to him back when they were together. The only reason they broke up was because they were too similar, as if she was his counterpart, and he saw fit to leave a relationship where they both constantly battled for dominance. Yorozu could get too aggressive on loving someone and he didn’t particularly like that. He made her understand why they weren’t working as a couple, and it took her some time, but she eventually accepted his decision. Now, you could say, they were somehow on good terms. “Alright, I’ll do your sleeve, but I’ll keep the design as a surprise.” 

Her eyes sparkled in excitement at the thought. “I’d love that!” 

“Since you want a sleeve, we’re gonna do some stencil application today.” Sukuna didn’t waste any more time in getting ready with his equipment, biting on the glove while wearing the other on his hand. “It’ll take fifteen to twenty hours to complete a sleeve, and each session could last two to six hours depending on your pain tolerance. My schedule’s actually full all day until next week, but you can come around the same time every night so I can finish yours.” 

“Yeah, I’m absolutely fine with that,” she enthused. For some reason, Yorozu was happy with the idea. The idea of coming to visit Sukuna every night in his shop. The idea that they get to be alone. The idea that they would be able to reconnect just like old times. Those were the things that Sukuna assumed was going through her head. 

And as he did start with his ‘client’, it was probably best to admit that the sexual tension was high. The room felt stuffy as the both of them remained there until midnight, with her sitting on the tattoo chair, and him doing her tattoo to her left. His eyes were intently focused on the intricate patterns he was doing on her arm, but also couldn’t avoid seeing the contours of her breasts since she was wearing such a thin tank top. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen them before. He’d seen every part of her body from her neck down to her toes. He’d put her in every position from missionary to doggy. Goddamn, he could even remember how warm she felt around his cock. Didn’t she like it when he came inside her? Or when he made her swallow every drop of his seed? 

Sukuna cleared his throat, shaking his vulgar thoughts away as he continued with Yorozu’s arm. He may not be cheating, but thinking back on those intimate experiences with someone else other than his girlfriend was definitely not morally right either. But what sexual experience could he reminisce about with you? That ridiculously embarrassing night you two had shouldn’t even be counted since he was trying so hard to forget about it. 

He cleared his throat. Again. For the third time. “What, uh, what’ve you been up to?” 

Yorozu, who had no clue about his thoughts, turned her face to look at him happily. “Not much, actually. The bar I worked at closed down, but I got myself a new job in this club as a full time hostess and part-time promoter. You should come by. Drinks on me.” 

By not exactly accepting or refusing, Sukuna decided to just smile it off. “That’s why you moved to this city?” 

“Yeah, I mean… obviously, the rent here is higher, but it’s closer to my job. I get paid decently, too.” 

“That’s nice.” He was just trying to make small talk at this point. “Do you know your way ‘round here? How are you gonna get home?” 

She considered her options. “Probably a bus or something?” 

Sukuna paused, contemplating the situation. “There's no bus here at midnight,” he remarked, concerned for the girl who would have to navigate her way home alone at such a late hour. She was new to the area and clearly still adjusting to the commuter lifestyle. Unlike her, he had a vehicle that could safely transport her home. There would be no harm in offering, right? “Look, I have a bike and I usually take midnight rides, anyway. I can drop you off on my way home.”

“Really?” Her voice echoed excitement in them. “I’d appreciate it, Ryo. Thanks so much.” 

Life was ironic, truly. He didn’t see this situation coming because he never expected that he would even come across Yorozu ever again. They didn’t have any contact prior, but he still saw her on social media whenever he (on very rare occasions) decided to check his accounts. He never had her blocked, either, which was why you knew about Yorozu after snooping through his phone and reading through some of his old messages with her. Sukuna used to tell you not to worry about her, and that she was just his ex, and that she had nothing on you—which were all true, of course, but it was funny to him now that the woman his girlfriend was most threatened by was back in his life. 

And she was riding at the backseat of his motorbike, her arms latching at nothing else but around his torso. She was seated at the seat reserved for you, wearing the helmet that was bought for you, and holding onto a man that was rightfully yours. It all didn’t feel right. 

But because Yorozu delighted in his habit of speeding on the highway, he had somehow forgotten about the guilt that was forming in his heart. 

**

“You still have your ex’s Instagram?” Your questioning eyes met his defensive ones as he joined you in the living room, finding his space on the couch next to you. “I read your dms. Why haven’t you blocked her?” 

Sukuna’s breath remained steady. “Only toxic people do that shit.” 

“But I’m not comfortable with it!” you nagged, letting him snatch his phone from your grasp. 

“Do you see me talking to her still?” he asked, trying to be as patient as he could be, “Baby, I don’t even talk to her. I don’t think she’s active there, either.” 

You crossed your arms. “Then, block her?” 

“You’re being ridiculous.” 

“I’m being fair. You shouldn’t be keeping tabs with an ex.” 

“What are you—” Sukuna decided to cut his own sentence after realizing that the argument was plain stupid. “You know what, I’ll just delete my insta.” 

**

“How many times do you two do it?” you asked out of nowhere, sitting at the waiting area while he was closing his shop. “Your ex. How often do you have sex with her?” 

What kind of trap were you setting now? If he told you an honest answer, you would get mad. If he lied or even sugar coated it, you would also get mad. 

“Does it matter? Why do you keep asking questions about her and then get upset with me?” Sukuna’s frustration resonated in his sigh as he tidied the space where he tattooed his client a few minutes ago. “She’s an ex for a reason, so get over it.”

He was starting to get annoyed by your never-ending questions about his past experiences, but he knew you were simply coming from a place of no experience. You probably wanted to know what he liked in bed, what pleased him the most, what kept him from wanting more. Was that too much? No. Were you overdoing this entire thing? A little bit. 

“Why are you defensive?” you asked softly, still sitting on the couch as you watched him avoid your eyes. “You make me feel so insecure every time.” 

He scoffed, shaking his head as he turned around. “I don’t know, baby. If you’re feeling insecure, then do something about it.” 

**

“Thanks so much for the ride, Ryo.” 

Yorozu stood by her door, returning the helmet back to him while she kept her eyes locked on his. Her gaze was inviting, tempting him to give in and submit to his carnal desires. Any man would read her intentions the same way; Yorozu stared at him like that because she wanted to invite him to her place. She wanted him to spend the night and do unforgivable things. To remember the passionate exchange they once shared. 

But Sukuna wasn’t like that. No, he wasn’t a cheater. “I, uh, gotta get going.” 

“Oh…” Disappointment clouded Yorozu’s face. “Okay, then.” 

“See you tomorrow?” 

“...Alright.” 

“Okay.” 

“Wait!” Yorozu pulled his arm just as he was heading back to his motorbike. The sudden closeness in their proximity made his heart race fast. He knew what was coming. “I missed you, Ryo.” 

He knew what she was about to do next. 

And holy fuck did he guess right, as he was taken aback when Yorozu suddenly leaned in to press her lips onto his. Her soft, cherry lips moved desperately to taste his sweet kisses. 

But he didn’t return it. Instead, he immediately pushed her away. “Yorozu,” he spoke softly, “I have a girlfriend.” 

“You do?” She didn’t need to hide it. He could see the heartbreak on her face. 

“Yeah,” Sukuna confirmed, maintaining a more appropriate distance now. “We’ve been together for some time, and I live with her.”

Yorozu tried to maintain her facade of indifference, making it appear as though she was unfazed by his revelation. “That’s... That’s cool,” she said, “I’m sorry for, uh, the kiss.”

Sukuna nodded, “It’s fine. I should’ve told you sooner.”

“You’re alright,” she reassured him, “It's totally my fault. I hope she won’t be upset with you or something.”

Sukuna had no plans to tell you, knowing well the additional turmoil it would bring to your already strained relationship. However, he realized the importance of clarity in his intentions and the need to set boundaries. “We’re just friends. We’ll keep things civil. I’ll finish your tattoo in a couple more sessions, and then we’re done. Sounds fair?”

Yorozu nodded her head with a reluctant smile. “Fair enough.” 

— —

5 more days. Her sleeve required five more sessions, and days went by too fast for him to count. He had busied himself with his clients, while you had busied yourself with yours. He couldn’t even spend time with you because his shop took a chunk of his time from him, and even at home, things had become too awkward ever since your unspoken night. 

So, in some ways, Yorozu became his routine. She visited his shop for the past four nights and he had taken her home afterwards. She was in absolute love with her rose sleeve and they weren’t even complete yet. He still owed her one last session and told himself that it should also be the last time she should be around him. It wasn’t right and he didn’t want to create another source of argument with you. 

And in truth, he certainly felt a little guilty for spending more time with his ex than his own girlfriend. But did he purposely do it? No, it was fate that brought her to his door about a week ago. 

In spite of his stubbornness to admit his wrongdoing, he still ended up stopping by the flower market to get you a nice bouquet of white lilies. He knew you could make a prettier bouquet than that, but he thought it would be a perfect opportunity to surprise you with flowers that didn’t exactly come from you. Besides, he had some making up to do. 

Later that night, when he returned to your shared home, he found you sitting at the couch seemingly waiting for him to come home. The lights were dimmed and the television was turned off. For some reason, you were wearing outside clothes and had a somber expression on your face, too. That alone caused the loud thumping of his heart. 

“Hey,” he greeted, nonetheless, sitting next to you on the couch and kissing your cheek. “Everything okay, baby?” 

Your eyes carried sadness in them as you looked at him and searched for answers you couldn’t find. “Where were you?” 

Sukuna handed the bouquet over. “Got you flowers.” 

You didn’t accept them. Instead, every second seemed to torture you. “Where were you before that?” 

“In the shop…?” He didn’t know where to start, but he was definitely scared. “Why? Sorry I’ve been busy lately. I’ll make it up to you, angel.” 

“You close your shop at nine,” you pointed out, voice breaking in the middle of your sentence. “Why do you always come home at two in the morning?” 

Fuck. Fuck! What should he say? Should he make an excuse for it? Should he say he’d been checking on Yuuji after his shifts? Should he say he’d been riding to other cities to clear his mind? He didn’t fucking know what to say, especially not when you were clearly on the verge of bursting out. 

“Answer me!” you cried, finally releasing the bottle out in the open. The tears that welled in your eyes now streamed ceaselessly down your face. “You’re an asshole. I-I hate you! I fucking… you think I don’t know? You think I’m too stupid to know?!”

Sukuna calmly received the fists you had swung on his chest as he tried to grab ahold of your arms. “Baby, I’ll explain everything.” 

“No, damn y-you!” The tremor in your voice squeezed his heart in the most painful way because he hated seeing you breaking down in front of him and over him. This wasn’t the first time he had made you cry, but this was the first time he had seen you actually sob like this. “I-I gave myself to you! I left my p-parents for you! And this is what you do to me? You’re cheating on me with your ex?!” 

He was desperate to hold you, hug you, cage you in his arms. He wanted to take your pain away. Wipe your tears away. However, you didn’t allow him to touch even a strand on your hair as you kept on pushing him off. Sukuna felt like he was going to lose his mind. “Baby, listen to me please. It’s really not what you think—”

“I don’t care!” you spat, moving away to wipe the tears off your face. “I don’t fucking care! You sleeping with her or not doesn’t change a thing. Don’t you get it? I’ll never be enough for you!” Despite your loud voice, the cracks in her facade only revealed your longing for validation and acceptance, etching into every tear-stained moment you two had shared over the course of your relationship. He watched you, paralyzed by the sight of you breaking down, as you grabbed a luggage you had been hiding behind the couch as if you were ready to leave. “I’ll never be the person you want me to be and staying with you will always remind me of it!” 

“No, no, no… Let’s talk.” Sukuna had to suppress his own tears while he tried to reach out for you. “Baby, please. I don’t feel anything for her, or anyone. It’s just you. You are enough for me, baby. I’m sorry, please.” 

You, on the other hand, were adamant at your decision. “I can’t stand what you’re doing to me anymore. I don’t like how you make me feel about myself. I hate how you make me question my own choices!” Tears continued to flow, and your voice wavered, transitioning from anger to a more subdued, pained tone. “I hate… I hate that I love you so much, that I lost all my backbone just to make you happy.” 

“You don’t need to.” He was feeling more and more miserable now, his heart sore from all the emotions he had seen from you. “Y/N, you don’t need to. I’m sorry, I love you. I love you so fucking much.”  

…

…

…

“It’s over, Sukuna,” were the last words he could recall hearing before passing out drunk in his bed that afternoon. “We’re done.”

— —

It was your first heartbreak. Your first actual relationship. Your first everything. Surely, people shouldn’t expect you to move on easily, especially not when the subject of your heartache worked across the street from you. 

You were a mess. You had cried enough tears after you moved out of his apartment that night, screamed your heart out as you suffered from the pain of loneliness once more. You couldn’t even bear the thought of returning to your parents and hearing them say they told you so, because loving Sukuna was a choice you thought was good for you. 

In the end, he was just a poison without any antidote. A toxin without remedy. The most effective solution was to sever all ties to prevent further contamination.

But strangely enough, you hadn’t seen him in his shop ever since that night, either. The tattoo parlor remained closed for more than two weeks without any notice. While a small part of you worried for him, a bigger part of you cared for yourself. He no longer held any importance to your life, and you should let it remain that way. 

What you should focus on, instead, was living your life without any trace of him. A life of independence, away from the toxicity of a manipulative man who constantly made you doubt yourself and what you offered. As they say, you have to learn to love yourself first before you can fully learn to love others. 

And in your journey of knowing the truth of that saying, a certain white-haired man entered your floral shop on a somber Friday afternoon just as you were arranging preordered bouquets for multiple customers to pick up. 

“Hey,” you greeted the man, surprised at his sudden appearance at your shop. 

Satoru grinned as he approached you closer. “I’m here to pick up two bouquets.”

“Oh, it was your order?” Your eyes widened. Silly you. Of course, Suguru would order on his friend’s behalf. He wouldn’t even get his girlfriend some flowers, let alone his mother. So this being Satoru’s order made much more sense. “Okay, you got a bouquet of blush peonies and another bouquet of pink tulips, am I correct?”

He smiled handsomely, displaying his set of perfect white teeth while listening to you talk. “Correct.” 

“For your mom?” you asked before you made your way to pick up the bouquets, handing them to him carefully. 

His response came with a soft, affirmative hum. “Mhm. One for her,” he said, taking only the bouquet of tulips, “The other is for you.” 

Oh, no, no, definitely no. You had seen this before and it didn’t go well. 

“That’s lovely, but…” You offered a smile. “I’m not taking those peonies.” 

Satoru acted innocent, his vibrant blue eyes coruscating under the ambient lights. “But it’s mother’s day.” 

You playfully shook your head. “I’m not even a mother.”

“Yes, you are,” he went on teasing, “the mother of my future kids. I like to think in advance, you know.” 

Honestly? This man started off with a bad impression on you, but he wasn’t actually so bad. He was an easygoing, happy-go-lucky person who carried positive energy around him. That, and he was decent, too. He was the type of guy your parents would have surely approved of. He was a degree holder like you, even pursuing graduate studies to run a business that was already generating an income that you could only imagine of getting. He was set for life with no uncertainty with what he wanted for his future. 

“Satoru?”

He met your gaze. “Yeah?”

“About your offer last time,” you recalled, recalling his earlier jest about teaching you some things in bed, “I think I'd like to take you up on that.”

[shortcakesturns]

Am I making you feel sick?

A/N: eventual smut later in the fic, you are responsible for what you consume. Cannabilism however u spell it, P in v, asphyxiation, blood, unprotected sex! (DONT DO THIS), cream pie, daddy kink, pet names: baby, honey,sweetheart princess, pretty girl. Female reader, semi, public sex. prolly more. fluff, angst. IN THIS UNIVERSE LEE WILL NOT DIE. PERIOD. THATS IT.

REQUESTS OPEN!!! I write for a lot of people please check my pinned to see who I write for! (I also take requests of who to write for)

Summary: you meet a stranger that’s also a so called eater, eventually you fall in love with him and during a kill you wonder how good he could make you feel

“Don’t talk to strangers, or you might fall in love”

A dimly lit streetlight shines above me, I could smell him in the store. He left shortly after having a man chase him out. My eyes are drawn to the corner of the abandoned building where I know he lays above the man's bloodied body eating.

The skinny boy stands up and out of the window stumbling, blood dripping down his body and coming from his mouth.

“Whatcha looking at darlin?” he asked

“I could smell you in the store.” I blankly replied.

“Could you now? I could smell you too, another eater?” he tilts his head to the side.

I nod and look around. “So where you headed?” I inquire.

“Wherever the wind takes me, honey, what about you?” his smirk grew.

“Same.” I stay quiet observing the boy, from top to bottom. Curly red grown-out hair, shell necklace originally white covered in blood droplets, the res stain meeting his skinny frame, and suddenly his hips shift.

“You like what you see there? Well if you have nowhere to go either. Come with me.” he pointed to the blue truck and his feet began to move towards the driver's side. Before my mouth could say anything I felt myself following him. I open the door from the passenger's side and climb up into the seat. With a creak, the door shuts.

“I asked you a question doll” he turns to look me in my eyes, grabbing my chin to turn my face to look at him. “I said, you like what you see doll?” giving him yet another glance down his body. I nod slowly. He lets go and turns his eyes toward the wheel and road. “Thatta girl” With a jerk the car starts up and begins to move slowly.

“Where are we staying for the night?” I look at him curiously.

“Wherever this guy's house is” he nods.

“What's your name beautiful?” he follows up with.

“Y/n, you?” I meet his eyes yet again.

“Lee.”

————

The light gleams in, and my eyes start to flutter. I turn to the other side and Lee is dangerously close to me. Cramped up in a small twin-size bed. Without waking Lee I jolt up and get ready for the day, opening the man's fridge to see if anything good could be scavenged, eggs.

A crack and pop of the eggs cooking is the ambiance as I look around the house, the eerie feeling is lingering. The house smelt like weed and cigarettes. I go to turn a corner in the house and my waist is quickly pulled back and spun around.

“You probably don't wanna go in there, it smells the worst in there. It's just an old record and a TV, rotten food. He really was a low life. Well, good riddance..”

I chuckle and my head falls into Lee's chest. His arms wrap tighter around me. “I made eggs in case you hungry for not…people” I look up at his beautiful blue eyes and his perfect smile.

“I'm always hungry honey.” he makes his way to the kitchen grabbing the eggs out of the pan and bringing them to the table.

For some reason, meeting a nonscary eater has made me more comfortable, and makes me feel more connected to him.

“I feel like I can be myself around you.” I break the silence sitting down.

“Whys that?” he makes a confused face.

“You're just the only eater that I've met that isn't scary, kinda sweet actually.” I smile

“Well, that's just perfect honey, and kinda? I'm insulted.” Lee chuckled.

“You are sweet, are” I laugh.

—— two months later ——

Lee drives down the road after picking a man up at the carnival to eat for the night, Lee brings him into the cornfield and begins to touch him. It was odd seeing Lee like that. Talking someone through it, the farthest we had gone was just a quick make-out session.

The man's moans echo throughout the so-called empty cornfield. Does Lee make people feel that good? Before the man could finish Lee slit his throat and waves me over. “Were you watching darlin'?”

“Yeah, I was.” I kneel down to feed on the man, but then Lee’s eyes dart up to look at me. “Eat baby, come on” I began to feed on the man, but keeping my eyes on who I'm truly craving. Lee.

As we finish the man Lee stands up with his blouse unbuttoned and blood down his body. “Come on pretty girl, let's get out of here.” he motions for me to follow him. I quickly follow him. Once we're at the truck I keep my eyes on Lee.

“Need somethin’ sweetheart?” Lee smirks.

“You, Lee, need you.” Lee is taken aback by the sudden boldness but keeps his mischievous smirk plastered on his face.

“Go to the bed of the truck, and bend that ass over f’me mk? I'll get there in a second love”

I do as he says and pull down the wall to the truck bed plant my feet on the road and arch my back laying the front of my body on the cold truck bed. I look around the dark isolated road, with only us. Fog covering the cornfield. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lee walk over and feel his presence behind me.

“Mm that's a good girl, love seeing this ass bent over for daddy.” a harsh slap makes contact with my ass, my dress is slowly lifted up to reveal my wet pussy.

“No panties hm? You slut.” another slap is landed on my ass. I feel Lee get on his knees and lick a stripe down my cunt, he begins to attack my clit, the noise of him sucking on my clit could make me cum alone. Suddenly he adds a finger to my pussy stretching it out.

“Gotta stretch this pussy for my dick, yeah?” he mumbles into my pussy,

I cry as I feel a second finger added to my pussy, he continues to fuck my pussy with his fingers at a fast pace. His tongue lapped over my sweet spot, I started to build up this feeling in my stomach.

“Im gonna- fuck- Lee I'm gonna cum.” his pace quickens.

“Come on baby come f’me, come on my tongue.”

I feel my legs twitch and white covers Lee’s tongue but he doesn't stop.

“Gonna get your cum all over my face baby,” my legs twitch and my pussy becomes sensitive, and my legs began to shake more intensely. “Thats my good girl.”

Lee licks one last stripe and stands up, the pressure on his hips is sudden and firm. “You feel that princess, you feel how hard my dick is for you?” he groans out. “Yeah baby it's so big.” he jerks his hips, rubbing his clothed cock around my entrance. “That's all you have to say? Hmm okay, baby.”

His pants and underwear are yanked off in one swift motion, and his undergarments hang low against his ankles. The tip of his cock begins to rub against my pussy, from my clit to my entrance. “You want it inside baby.” he pulls back spitting in his cock and fondling it and rubbing the tip around my opening.

“Yes Lee, baby please need it so bad”

“So needy sweetheart.”

With one swift motion, Lee is inside me entirely. letting out a loud groan, he stays for one second letting my pussy adjust to the hasty stretch. “So tight baby.”

He begins to thrust deeply into my pussy, “Hmm baby, so wet and tight for me.” his cock hits my cervix over and over again. The sounds of slapping and moaning fill the once-quiet atmosphere. I glance behind me at Lee with his head thrown back encircled in blood, muttering incoherent words.

“Lee fuck its so big.”

“Yeah, this dick big enough for you? Who's fucking pussy is this?” he starts to thrust harder, “Your pussy baby.”

“Thats right pretty girl.” his thrusts slow down. “Thats fucking right” he grumbles.

A tug on my hair is felt and then a hand creeps up on my neck. “You want me to make you a mommy baby, fill up this pussy?” his thrusts are painfully slow and deep. “Yes baby please wanna be a mommy,” I beg and cry out when his thrusts speed up.

“Good girl, gonna make you the most perfect mom- oh fu- fuck gonna cum in this pussy baby.” hot cum spurts to my cervix and he lets go of my throat. “Good girl, don't let it drip out.” I stand up and he kisses my lips.

“We better get going hun, don't wanna get caught.” he steps away and walks to the front of the truck. I follow quickly behind.

We sit in silence and the car starts.

“Lee I love you.”

“I love you pretty girl.”

[chamomiletealeaf]

Sweet as Pie

Chapter 3

a/n: I'm having such bad writers block for this story guys but I kinda like this idea. It's just more of Simon being in awe of you from afar because I'm not sure how to move on with the story yet so this is kind of a filler chapter I guess? Idk, but hope you guys enjoy it anyway!

-

Simon found himself falling asleep faster, easier, and more soundly each night, and he didn't know why. It definitely wasn't because his mind is filled with thoughts of you rather than the horrors he's witnessed on the battlefield, right? No, that would be crazy. It's not like he had a little big crush on you or anything... Right?

Simon decided to take a walk the morning after you visited him to learn more about the area. It was truly beautiful. The lake was sound and quiet and there was a light breeze swaying the trees above him. In a way the lake was like Simon. Dark, looks dangerous and cold from afar, but once you get your feet in the water it's warmer than it ever could have appeared. The area was nice. Simon can't remember the last time he enjoyed what he was looking at, other than yesterday and the day before that when he first saw you.

With his hands in his jacket pocket, he slowly and carefully roamed the area by his house. He found a hiking trail and decided to follow it, purposely taking the direction he knew your house was by, but he would never admit that to himself.

As he followed the narrow dirt path, he heard a faint sound coming from nearby where your house would be. His curious ears perked up and followed the sound cautiously. As he inched further up the road, he heard that the sounds coming from your house was music. This part of the road passed right behind your house, which gave him the perfect view of your living room, where you were watering your house plants and singing your heart out to whatever song you had on your record player. He didn't care whether or not you were good or bad at singing. What mattered to him was that he was looking at you. Simon had tunnel vision take over him as his eyes softened and lips parted slightly in awe. You seemed to have that effect on him.

His honey-colored eyes fixated on the way you swayed to the music while you reached up with a green mini watering can to water the plants you seemed to treat as your own children. He watched you through the window standing in the middle of the narrow dirt road as if he was in a trance as you smiled and sang along, looking so peaceful, warm, and joyful. You were so unreal. So genuine. So, sweet. And he wanted nothing more than to feel that warmth you exhumed infiltrate his cold soul like an infection, lighting up every shadowed corner of his heart in a way he never thought possible.

Simon only saw you through your tiny, cracked open living room window, and he never wanted to look at anything else ever again. As you continued to dance and sing along to your music, you turned your body to face the plants by the window, preparing to water them next, and you froze when you saw Simon outside standing on the dirt road.

Simon snapped out of his hypnotic state when you made eye contact with him and felt a chill run down his spine from realization.

Fuck, what am I doing? I probably look like a creep he thought, and he turned his head down to look at his feet as he tried to hurry on his way.

You noticed his sudden movement and watched him fade from view from where he stood in the frame of the window. You quickly placed the watering can down and ran to the window. You quickly threw it open and called out to him, trying to catch him before he got too far away.

"Hey honey bunch! Where you off to?" You called out to him, leaning out the window with that smile he loved so much that melted him like a popsicle on black pavement in the middle of July.

Honey bunch, Simon thought to himself.

He turned around and looked at you, then immediately looked away, feeling his cheeks heat up and turn into that shade of pink you always seemed to cause. God why was this happening to him? Why is he blushing like a school girl?

"Oh hey, uh, sorry I didn't mean to stare at you like that." He apologized softly, bringing his hand up to rub his neck as he avoided your eyes.

"Oh don't you worry about that. Anyone would stare at a crazy girl like me frolickin' around like that." You reassured him with a laugh.

The soft wind kissed your skin and caused your hair to blow so angelically. It nearly made Simon sick. You looked straight out of a fairy tale with the way you leaned out the window frame and the way the strap of your dress was centimeters away from falling down your shoulder.

You stared at each other for a second in comfortable silence with the faint sounds of your record player playing as white noise in the moment. It felt so easy with you.

"You know, a little bit further down to the left on the bank of the lake, there's the biggest, most gorgeous willow tree you'll ever see. Can't miss it. It's been there for lord knows how long. Makes a real nice sittin' spot." You inform him, hoping to make his walk a little more interesting. But little do you know, nothing will be more interesting to him than you.

"That sounds nice, thank you." He says.

"You want me to show you?" You ask with a smile.

Simon wants to say no. He's not used to company. He likes being alone. But there's something about you he just can't resist.

After a pause of silence between you two, you retreat a little and start to move out of the window frame.

"It's ok if not-" You start to say, embarrassed of your boldness, but Simon cuts you off.

"I'd love that." He says a bit too enthusiastically, realizing he's scaring you off.

You lean back out the window and smile at him.

"Ok. One sec. Wait right there." You say, and then you were gone from the window.

Simon stands there waiting patiently for you, and then he straightens up when he sees you appear from behind your house, walking towards him on the path.

And of course, you had on your white cardigan he loved on you so much.

You caught up to him and he got a whiff of your hair. You smelled like fresh peaches and apples, which had just in this moment become Simon's favorite fruits, because he associated them with you now.

You walked up to his side and smiled, and he smiled back down at you. God you were so cute.

"C'mon hun, right down here." You motion to the road in front of you, and Simon secretly hoped that this would be the first of many walks you two would take together.

And as the two of you conversed and laughed on the way to the willow tree, and as hands occasionally brushed against each other, Simon found himself feeling something he hadn't felt in years.

Simon Riley felt joy.

taglist: @pussypinkbarbie @thatonepupkai

[whereianonymouslypostfics]

Reunion 

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x reader

Word count: ~4.3k

Summary: You and Wanda attend your high school reunion.

A/N: This was fun to write. Wanda gets kinda mad. It’s so cute. Part one of the  jealous Wanda series. 

Warnings: jealousy😈, thoughts of violence, fluff

Going to your 15-year high school reunion sounded unappealing anyway you thought about it. You hadn’t really liked high school because of how stressful it was, and how mean people could be. You didn’t remember it fondly and when the phone call came one day, and the emailed invitation the next, Wanda found you in the kitchen scowling at your computer.

After a long discussion, Wanda had convinced you to at least give it a shot. She’d promised to take time off to go with you, and given that it was almost all the way across the country, it would be a three-day trip. The appeal of spending time away with your wife was much higher than that of going to your high school reunion, but you decided to worry about this later. You’d left Boone with Yelena, and Fletcher would get a couple of visits a day from Steve while you were gone, so they would barely miss your absence.

Right now, as you sit beside Wanda as she drives you through an unfamiliar part of the airport, you’re very confused. You look to your wife who takes off her sunglasses with a sigh before turning down a road that leads dangerously close to the runways.

“Uh, Wands.”

You’re supposed to catch your flight soon, but Wanda had driven you both somewhere that doesn’t seem anywhere close to the terminal. She smiles at you before realizing that you look a little worried, but she doesn’t have to wonder about it long as you voice your concerns hesitantly.

“Why are we here? Don’t we have to catch our flight soon?”

Wanda simply smiles at you as she turns down one last road and pulls into a small garage. You’re too focused on the plane that you drive by and you’re staring at it with an impressed look as Wanda explains what’s happening. You’d told her about your reservations about this trip, and she’d wanted to make everything as stress free as possible for you both. For this reason, she’d dealt with organizing your travel and your hotel room. You were just along for the ride until the reunion.

“We’re here, detka. This is our ride.”

Your head whips back around toward your wife as your jaw drops in bewilderment. You must have heard her wrong because Wanda definitely wasn’t saying what you thought she was. You followed her lead and got out of the car before peeking out of the garage at the damn jet that was not twenty feet from you.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Wanda smirks as she opens the trunk and grabs your bags before handing you your backpack with a smile. She reaches out to push your chin up to close your still gaping mouth, and she can’t help but chuckle under her breath.

“This is one of my planes.”

Wanda walks toward the jet where you now see someone is coming out to meet her. He looks like a pilot, but you can’t even comprehend this right now as you chase after your wife. You had so many questions, but the first one that you asked was arguably the most relevant.

“What do you mean you have a jet?”

Wanda smiles before she grabs your hand so you can meet the pilot and then the small three-person crew that will be with you on this flight. They offer to take your luggage, and you’re too stunned to protest as you follow Wanda up the stairs into the plane you’ll apparently be taking to Miami.

“It’s not just mine, or ours rather, but I made sure we could use it so we can enjoy the trip.”

Wanda leaves out the little detail of her not being able to fly commercially like you. She’s a known criminal and she’s pretty sure that if she stepped into the airport with the intent to ride on a passenger plane, they’d refuse if not arrest her for simply trying. Seeing your wide eyes and the awe in your expression, she realizes that this was a good choice. She doesn’t think you’ll mind this surprise as you take in the small yet somehow spacious interior that looks more comfortable than anything you’ve ever sat on.

“Oh my God.”

There are sets of four seats that are divided into two groups on each side of the plane. The leather recliners are paired with tables that have drinks already set up. There are also two televisions on each side with charging stations beneath, and you can’t stop yourself from sitting down in the nearest chair. You turn to your wife with a stunned expression that you’ll probably wear for the entire trip.

“This is amazing, Wanda. Were you ever going to tell me about this?”

Wanda just shrugs as she takes off her coat and sits down beside you with a smile. She just wanted you to enjoy your weekend, and as she says this you can’t help but kiss her. She’s so sweet and you can’t wait to go on this trip with her. It’s been too long since you’ve had quality time alone and although reuniting with the high school mean girls wasn’t something you were excited about; you at least were going to enjoy the ride.

The 4-hour flight seems to fly by and when you and Wanda leave the plane you almost wish it had been longer. You and Wanda arrive to the hotel that she’d booked and you are once again surprised by Wanda’s choice. It’s very reminiscent of the one you two stayed in during your honeymoon, and you’re already recalling how much fun that was as you and your wife step into the elevator.

“So? How’s the trip so far?”

Your wide smile is enough of an answer for Wanda, but she doesn’t complain about you offering a verbal response as well. You are the only ones in the elevator so you don’t resist the urge to kiss your wife appreciatively. You sneak a hand in her hair, careful not to knock off her sunglasses on her head as you deepen the kiss with a sigh.

“It’s perfect, Wands. Thank you for this.”

Wanda’s hands squeeze your hips before she buries her face in your hair. She turns so she can kiss your neck before leading you off the elevator as soon as you reach your floor. The top floor.

“Of course, detka. I want you to enjoy this weekend, and not stress about the mean girls. I promise I’ll beat them up if they look at you wrong.”

You laugh as you follow Wanda into your room that resembles the rest of the hotel in its extravagance. You see your bags in the room already so you just hurry over to the king size bed and fall face first on it with a sigh. This weekend is proving to be unpredictable, but luckily, it’s in a good way so far. Hopefully this will continue to be the case as the reunion rolls around, but you have no real way of knowing.

Wanda comes to lie down beside you, and you adjust so you’re more comfortable and able to put an arm around her. You know that regardless of what happens tomorrow, you’ll have Wanda by your side and you couldn’t be more grateful for this. You appreciated your wife’s support and despite the fact that you would not let her beat up anyone for you, it was nice to hear that she would be in your corner. You hadn’t seen any of these people in nearly 15 years and you were nervous to say the least.

You hadn’t been popular in high school, but despite keeping to yourself you knew that you’d be recognized. You had no idea how people would remember you but you hadn’t been out of the closet then yet, so maybe some of them would be surprised to learn Wanda was your wife. You weren’t ashamed of anything, but you’d rather talk about how much you loved being a vet and maybe see some people’s puppy pictures. However, you were going to take what you could get, and not worry too much about it. You’d prefer anything to having to talk about Wanda’s less than legal career because that could definitely get dicey.

“Thank you, Wands.”

The rest of the day is mostly spent in bed ordering ridiculously expensive room service. You didn’t want to go out much before the reunion and Wanda understood. You were anxious and you’d rather just hang out, and luckily for her you were in the mood for sitcoms and cuddling. Her two favorite things. It wasn’t until you fell asleep that night that Wanda considered how tomorrow would go for you two.

She wasn’t too worried about being recognized because anyone that knew her there would have a secret of their own to keep. She supposed she was mostly wondering how meeting your former classmates would go. You’d never told her much about your time in high school, but from what she’d gathered you were more studious than social. You mentioned friends occasionally, but you didn’t really keep in touch with them anymore. You only talked to vet school friends every now and then, but never high school.

She wonders if you really wanted to go to this or if you felt guilted into it. Wanda sighs as she lies down next to you to finally go to sleep. It’s nearly midnight and she’s just been watching you sleep for the past hour. She supposes she should try to get some rest. Tomorrow will surely be exhausting with how much you’re going to have to socialize.

This is what you’re thinking about as you and Wanda arrive at the venue where the reunion is being held. You try not to cringe as you see the large banner that says ‘Welcome back class’. You’re regretting your decision to come here, but you choose to focus on the food you’ll hopefully get to eat and your beautiful wife that’s accompanying you. She’s wearing a dress that should make you jealous, but instead you’re proud to show her off to your former classmates. The dress isn’t overly revealing, but the black accentuates her assets and is complemented well with her bright red hair.

“Are you ready for this, my love?”

Wanda smiles as she takes your hand and leads you into the building. You come up on a table quickly and see it’s full of sticker name tags that you’re going to have to stick to your shirt. You smile at the unfamiliar woman sitting behind it. She’s blonde and you definitely could buy that she used to be a cheerleader, but you can’t be sure. You’re certainly not going to ask.

“Hi there, welcome! Let me try and guess?”

You don’t get to respond and you just watch as the blonde looks at the names in front of her curiously. You are actually surprised when she guesses right and you accept it with a small smile before Wanda’s handed a blank tag to fill out with her name.

“I remember you, Y/n. You dated my friend!”

You’re a little confused by this and when Wanda stops in the middle of writing her name you realize she is too. You don’t get to ask ‘Hannah’ for clarification before two other couples come in behind you and force you to move on. You just shake your head as you hold Wanda’s hand and whisper under your breath.

“I have no idea who she was talking about.”

Wanda just laughs at this as she follows you through the hall to the ballroom. The sound of a room full of people chatting makes you tense a little, but Wanda squeezes your hand and offers you a reassuring smile. You take a deep breath before kissing her cheek and leading her the rest of the way to the open doors.

“Let’s do this.”

You were optimistic to say the least about how this day was going to go. You’d believed that it would be fine and you could just mingle with your old friends and try to kill time. This had worked out for the first half hour, but then the group you’d been talking to decide to venture off to talk to others. You’re fine with this and after bidding them goodbye you look to Wanda with a smile.

This was all a little anticlimactic if you were being honest. Given who you were, you’d feared that something dramatic and uncomfortable would happen to you. However, you and Wanda had chatted and actually had a decent time catching up with your old acquaintances. You’d introduced your wife and told everyone that she was in sales. Something boring-sounding but potentially lucrative, yet not specific enough for anyone to try and look her up.

“Thank you for coming with me to this.”

You say this a little while later when the two of you are alone with your snacks. You’re sipping on your drink when Wanda takes one of your hands with a smile. She’s glad that she came here with you. She can tell that you’re less on edge and you’re almost enjoying yourself when someone new comes up to you.

Wanda hadn’t seen the other redhead here as she’d glanced around casually while you talked to your friends. She was pretty and Wanda hates this fact as soon as she realizes who she is or rather was to you.

“Dr. Y/L/N. Look at you all grown up! You somehow look even better than the last time I saw you.”

The urge to crawl into a hole and die overwhelms you as you force yourself to swallow what you’re chewing before you turn toward the familiar voice. You were torn between horror that you’re running into her, and shame at the fact that you’d forgotten about her existence up until this moment. As you turn around to face her you have to stop yourself from doing anything other than smiling.

She looks as good as you remember, albeit briefly forgot, and you meet her blue eyes before looking away to her shirt to remind yourself of her name.

“Jessica. Hi. I didn’t expect to see you here!”

It wasn’t exactly a lie given that you’d forgotten a majority of high school due to the sheer amount of stress it had caused you. Your tactic had been to repress whatever you didn’t want to remember which ended up being most of it. This happened to include your brief, trivial fling with the redhead in front of you.

She’s smiling at you still as she leans in for a hug that you feel obligated to give. You try to keep it short and you bounce uncomfortably on the balls of your feet as you watch Jessica shrug as she looks around the room.

“Of course! How else am I supposed to catch up with everyone. I knew for sure it would be the only way I’d ever see you again.”

Wanda notices that your smile is a little pained, and she doubts this could indicate anything good. She doesn’t have much time to consider this further before you’re reaching out for her and looking between her and the redhead who’s still staring at you.

“Jessica, this is Wanda, my wife. Wanda, Jessica was one of my friends.”

It would have been too lucky for this introduction to go unchallenged. You could feel the color drain from your face when Jessica laughs as she reaches out to shake Wanda’s hand. You can tell she’s confused and you want to explain, but not here and now.

“Mostly friends, sometimes with benefits.”

Wanda’s eyes widen when the other redhead says this, and she can’t help but frown as she turns back to you. You hadn’t told her about any relationships you’d had, other than that short stent with the guy you went to prom with. You take a deep breath before releasing an uncomfortable laugh that seems to spur Jessica on. You take a moment to look at her, and you see that she doesn’t have a ring on her finger. This could mean many things, but unfortunately for you it means that she feels free to flirt with you. Despite the fact that you’re wearing a wedding band and your wife is holding your hand, she’s bolder than you’d feared.

“It’s so good to see you! I hate that we lost touch.”

You run a hand through your hair yanking a good bit of it out as you use work as an excuse. It’s a valid one considering how busy you’d been, but you also hadn’t said a word to Jessica in person or otherwise since graduating high school. She couldn’t have forgotten this.

“Yeah, school was just crazy and now work is crazy.”

You talk a little bit about work when she mentions that she’d read that you were a vet. You ask what she does in return and you listen to her marketing spiel before realizing that Wanda’s near frozen beside you. She’s watching Jessica carefully as she speaks to and continues to ogle you. She’s amazed by this woman’s boldness; her blatant disregard for her presence as she looks at you like she’s imagining you naked.

“I bet you’re amazing at that. You were always so passionate.”

When she reaches out to touch your arm Wanda considers smacking her hand away. She looks to you as you let her do it for only a split second before stepping away. You tug at the hem of your shirt needlessly before covering your discomfort with a cough.

“Ahah thanks, um. If you’ll excuse me.”

You run off before either redhead can stop you and they just frown in unison before turning their attention back to each other. They’re sizing each other up and it’s fairly obvious to any onlooker as Jessica’s frown deepens before speaking up.

“So how long have you and Y/n been married?”

Wanda doesn’t need to think about this at all and she tells Jessica the truth. She has to remind herself to take comfort in the fact that she’d been with you for years, and you’d never once mentioned her.

“For 5 years, but we’ve been together since before she started vet school.”

Jessica nods before she looks toward the doorway that you’d disappeared through before grinning at your behavior. You’d always been a skittish thing until she got you alone, and it was then that you’d find your confidence. She remembers the time she spent with you fondly, and despite wanting to rehash some of that, she has a feeling this won’t happen since Wanda’s here.

“She did always have a thing for redheads.”

Wanda’s still scowling when you return from bringing the car around. You’d wanted to flee and you considered taking Wanda with you but she hadn’t followed you so you decided to just make it quick. You ran back into the building hoping to avoid any drama, but seeing your wife near glaring at Jessica’s smug expression, you realize you’re too late.

You walk back over to them quickly and reach out for your wife’s shoulder with a smile.

“Wands, are you ready to go?”

She doesn’t hurry to respond as she considers what you could have seen in this woman. Beyond her looks, Jessica is pretty intolerable and Wanda opens her mouth to say this when you cut her off. You’d seen the look in your wife’s eyes and you knew that things were about to get ugly if you didn’t get her out of here now.

“Jessica, sorry to run off but we have a flight to catch. It was nice seeing you.”

Two minutes later you and Wanda are sitting in a suffocating silence as you drive back to the hotel. You hadn’t bothered to say goodbye to anyone else because you were mostly worried about your wife. You’d made such a hasty exit that you wondered what rumors were spreading, but that thought is cut short by Wanda’s voice.

“Why didn’t you give me a heads up about her?”

Your grimace isn’t missed as Wanda turns to watch you come up with a response while trying to focus on driving. You hadn’t been able to think of an answer to this question that wasn’t more annoying than Jessica, but you didn’t have a lot of time or the courage to come up with a lie.

“I forgot about her, Wands.”

The responding scoff is probably paired with an eye roll you don’t see as Wanda crosses her arms in annoyance. She hadn’t thought that today would go like this. You’d given her no reason to believe that things would go so sideways, and that’s part of the problem and the reason why she’s ticked.

“Bullshit. You didn’t forget about her, Y/n.”

You open your mouth to protest but you realize you have no excuse so you just stay silent. Wanda seems to get more annoyed at this and she huffs in exasperation as you pull into the hotel parking lot.

“How could you? It sounded like you had a really nice time together.”

The sarcasm in Wanda’s voice makes you cringe in realization. You’d really fucked up and in more ways than one. Not only had you neglected to tell Wanda that you had a friend with benefits in high school, but you’d also just let her flirt with you right in front of your wife. You’d be mad too which is why you’re not surprised when Wanda gets out of the car and storms towards the elevator in silence.

“Wands, come on. I was just a kid it didn’t mean anything.”

She’s just angrily pressing the button for the elevator when you reach out for her only for her to jerk away. She watches the elevator crawl down to their level with an inaudible sigh. She really wishes that they’d just stayed in bed today.

“Well, you didn’t rush to tell her that did you? You just let her fucking flirt with you.”

The ride up to the room is made in silence, and you’re almost afraid that Wanda won’t let you go in as she practically storms out of the elevator.

“I’m sorry, it made me uncomfortable, but I didn’t want to risk her saying more.”

You realize too late that this is admitting to remembering something about your time with Jessica and Wanda zeroes in on this immediately. She opens the door to the room before turning to watch you sweat as she backs up.

“More about what, exactly? What more do you remember, detka? “

You’d like to lie down and cry right now because you’d almost been having fun. You’d been starting to think that it was a good thing that you’d come out here to see old friends, and then this bullshit happened. Sure, maybe you’d liked Jessica a little in high school, but that was 15 years ago. You’d moved on and had an amazing wife and you loved the life you shared with her.

“I remember that we had meaningless sex in the theater changing rooms. However, it’s not something that I’d ever want to think about because it wasn’t memorable.”

Wanda scowls at the confirmation that you’d had sex with the other redhead, and she can’t help but hate that she’d had you first. She knew it was irrational. You’d been in high school around the same time as her, but on completely different sides of the country. You would have never met her at that time.

“I also have it way better now because I’m married to my wonderful wife.”

Wanda sighs in frustration before she turns and walks over to the bed with a frown. She sits down on her side and crosses her arms and legs as she watches you follow her tentatively. She is mad at you for not telling her about this sooner, but unfortunately, she’s starting to forgive you for that. However, she’s still pissed that you hadn’t said anything to deter her from flirting with you, and she wants to remind you of this.

“I shouldn’t have had to watch her flirt with you.”

You’re nodding before Wanda’s even finished speaking, and you creep toward the bed as your wife continues. She’s shooting you a look that makes you want to agree to anything that comes out of her mouth. She’s furious and you don’t want to ruin the rest of your trip because of your stupidity. She watches as you kneel at the edge of the bed and just wait for any indication that you’re not welcome.

“You’re mine and you should have told her that.”

Again, you nod furiously in agreement as you do your best to placate your wife. You need her to know that she’s right, and that you will always be hers; never anyone else’s.

“I know, you’re right. I’m yours.”

Wanda’s eyes darken and she stares at you for the longest time before she lays back against the pillows behind her. She doesn’t want to fight with you about this. However, she’d love to teach you a lesson that will hopefully prevent you from doing something like this ever again. Her arms are still crossed as she watches you fidget nervously, and a smile creeps onto her lips as she decides what your punishment will be.

“Prove it to me then.”

Your head snaps up and you meet your wife’s hard gaze with a puzzled look.

“What?”

Wanda’s smile widens as she leans forward and takes a moment to look you over. You’re tense and flushed and Wanda has a feeling you’ll be very compliant given that you feel guilty for not standing up to your ex-friends with benefits or whatever she was. She plans on taking advantage of this, just so long as you’re game. 

“Prove to me that you’re mine and I’ll forgive you.”

To be continued...

Masterlist

[elf-kid2]

Modern Witchers

So this contractor drives into this tiny town, way out in the sticks, in the kind of beat-up white van used by many tradesman, and allegedly favored by murderous kidnappers.

He's got white hair that you're not sure is bleached or not, strange eyes short manners. Maybe (probably) he kinda gives you the creeps. White van, stranger-danger, big guy with muscles, and all. Bad vibes.

But you've got a problem, no denying: there's SOMETHING in those woods that doesn't belong there, and recently, when the local boys went to DO something about it... that SOMETHING went from killing livestock, to killing people to. And you know, once those types of creatures get a taste for human blood... best to deal with it sooner, rather than later. Hence, the out-of-town contractor.

Witchers specialize in hunting monsters, after all.

Better to put together a fundraiser to pay the (frankly, outrageous) fees now, then to have to pay all that later, plus the surcharge for beasts that've killed multiple people, plus pulling together the funds for more funerals.

A stitch in time save nine, as the saying goes.

He's got a musician hitchhiking with him, which you weren't expecting. Some hapless hitchhiker with a dufflebag over his shoulder, and a guitar on his back, who got lost on the way to Vegas, or Nashville, or wherever it is starry-eyed musicians go to Make It Big, these days.

Auntie said that any hitchhiker with sense'd be better off walking down a lonely road, instead of getting into a van like that, driven by a man like that. But I guess it takes all kinds of kinds, and that musician hadn't been murdered yet, so make of that what you will.

Anyhow, the musician started busking in the farmer's market-- some decent covers, a few original songs, and some kind of surprisingly catchy jingle for the contractor who'd given him a lift into town. It was pretty good; live music is always a treat when you can get it, and it'd been a while since the last Bluegrass Festival.

He knew how to charm people, work the crowd, how to ask for "donations to the fine arts" without being irritating about it. People dropped cash, and pennies, and quarters, into his open guitar case, at any rate.

I reckon he scraped together at least enough for lunch, form himself'n his friend. Witchers are surly and stingy as anything, y'know, so I wondered why he wasn't covering the meal, with how much he'd charged for slaying the monster...

...But I overheard mention of how he'd had to get that van fixed up at Joe's Auto-Mechanics, over by the old factory in the valley-- and everyone knows that Joe's Auto'll charge three times what the repairs are worth, with parts that cost ten times as much as they oughtta. Lord knows, those scammers'd be out of business, if there were any better options within 50 miles of their shop!

And that is why if you think your truck's getting ready to break down, you should try an' make sure it breaks down closer to home. And also why I figure it makes sense that even a Witcher'd be short on cash, after dealing with 'em.

Anyway, the Witcher spoke with the Sheriff, and he went out monster-hunting that night.

Meanwhile, that hitchhiking musician was playing at the local bar, and let me tell you-- he was pretty damn good! Played a few drinking-songs, and the kind of songs you can't play in front of the kiddos at Farmer's Market, played some catchy tunes that had people dancing and clapping along...!

I particularly enjoyed the murder-ballad about the woman who turned into a vengeful fire-monster when she found out her man was messing around with other women. Very clever wordplay, "flames of desire lighting up your funeral pyre!" Good stuff.

Then the Witcher came in-- fresh from the contract, and half-covered in mud and blood! Barkeep wouldn't even let him sit down until he'd hosed off the worst of it, out back!

Musician-- Jaskier, he called himself-- raised a toast to a successful hunt, and another to monster-hunters who let loving families sleep safely, and rowdy drunks stumble home un-eaten, and soon enough somebody was buying that Witcher a drink, and the barkeep gave him a plate of food on the house, and it was good times all around!

Beats toasting newly-dead friends, and drinking to forget the monsters at the door, any day.

The thing is, this is a small town. Not a lot of people come visit, and if they do, they're generally staying with family. Which is to say, there aren't any motels around here.

Now, that contractor, that Witcher, he'd asked around, beforehand, about what was available, in terms of overnight accomodations-- which, let's be honest, isn't much around here. Come morning, I saw that beat-up van parked outside the Rosebud Bed & Breakfast.

Now Rosebud's is a nice place, a respectable establishment, but we all know they've had some trouble since that big storm last month, when a tree smashed through the roof! Las I checked, that Bed & Breakfast only had the one bed fit for guests to sleep in!

Might've been a rather one-sided bidding war, or a tight fit, with two out-of-towners vying for a roof overhead, that night. But that's none of my business.

Jaskier the musician left town with the Witcher-- Geralt Rivera, I think the name was-- same as he came in. Well, makes sense that he wouldn't want to stay long enough to put down roots, a young musician on a mission to see the world and/or become rich and famous.

The Witcher, Geralt, did good work with the monster, too. I guess that's why they're the experts... Some folks are talking about having what's left of the beasty taxidermy'd, did you know? Might make a decent tourist attraction, or a decoration for Town Hall, or something. I don't know.

Anyway, all that's to say... don't let anybody tell you there's not still a need for Witchers, in the modern day.

[rustingcat]

Enchanted 

"I'm in love with you Lena Luthor."

The words echoed in Lena's head, as she desperately tried to connect any sense into them. A love confession was the last thing she expected that Sunday morning. Her first instincts were to dismiss it, write it off as a joke or an exaggerated friendly comment, but Kara's sincere gaze told her otherwise. It rooted her in place, unsure what to do.

"Lena?" Kara's voice came out worried. "Well, I suppose you don't have to say anything, but you're making me kinda nervous. Please, just say something."

Lena opened her mouth to talk, but came up empty. Lena realised with horror that she had no idea what to do next, she had lost control of the situation. She felt as if she was drifting in space with no anchor to keep her grounded, and it was terrifying.

What were her options? She tried to gather all of her wits to figure out the correct course of action. She could just say no and walk away, Kara would no doubt be hurt, yet she didn't think she would back away from their plan of joint parenthood. They would continue to live together, that is until Kara would no doubt find someone else, move in with them and live a happy life without her. Terrible outcome for her, yet very clear and predictable. A future she could somewhat control.

On the other hand she could say yes. Reveal her own feelings, open herself up and let herself live the life she wanted. That was the journey she was on after all, yet it could lead to so many unpredictable scenarios; Kara could realise that her feelings were not as deep and leave, they could end up not working as a couple leaving them with a constant weird awkwardness that could be unpredictable by itself, they could break up after years in a big couple's fight that would tear them apart, or they could be happy with the usual bumps in the road. All of it seemed so random and unpredictable, just thinking about it made her feel the reins of control slipping from her grasp.

Kara's eyes seemed so valuable, so open and full of love and care. She was her best friend, her most cherished ally, the mother of their future children and the love of her life.

"Lena?" Kara asked again in a small voice.

Magic was a complicated thing to practice. She felt so free letting herself dive into it, like it was a part of life that was missing for so long and she finally found it, but it was dangerous and highly unpredictable. Learning it, she tried to take small steps, keeping everything low stakes, small and controlled until she was ready for more. One hundred percent ready for more. But the book made it a constant point to remind her that magic was not about control, it was about letting go and directing the flow. Control was the thing that was holding her back. Holding her back in many aspects of her life. Maybe it was finally time to let some of it go.

Fuck it.

Lena leaned forward to finally connect their lips together. Kara seemed startled at first, but her surprise quickly subsided as she began kissing her back with matching enthusiasm, reaching up to grasp her hips to draw her closer. Lena reached to cup Kara's face with each hand, deepening the kiss as she caressed her cheek.

She got lost in the kiss, letting herself be consumed by Kara's touches and her heat, directing every ounce of emotion she had into it. They separated to breathe, foreheads touching as they panted heavily. 

They stayed in that moment, catching their breaths, while holding each other close, not saying a thing. Once they got their breathing under control, Kara lifted Lena's cupped face to meet her gaze. Lena couldn't help but smile, a shy smile that slowly spread, encompassing her entire face, Kara matched her like a mirror. 

"How do you feel?" Kara checked.

How could she even begin to describe it? She felt the heat running through her body, the fluttering butterflies in her stomach, the racing heart in her chest along with the spreading lightness and warmth, and something more… something she couldn't really describe.

"Enchanted," she answered simply. She felt a surge from the unexplainable feeling run through her as Kara's smile grew. That is until her now empty coffee mug suddenly burst in flames that disappeared in an instance. "Quite literally," she said, still shocked from the unexpected magical burst.

Kara's smile slowly turned into chuckles that gradually grew into full on laughter. Held tightly in each other’s arms in their own home, they just laughed.

Once they got their breathing back in order, their chuckles subsiding, Lena finally found the strength to say the words that have been sitting on the edge of her tongue for so long . "I love you, too. I love you so much Kara Zor-El Danvers."

Kara kissed her again, and again until the only thought in her head was Kara.

"Wait," Kara broke the kiss. "Should we… Should we talk some more?" She asked unsure.

"Um…" Lena tried to calm her racing heart and the heat that was spreading throughout her body. If Kara could be brave enough to talk she should be able to do the same, Lena owed it to her. Not to mention that talking was something they've been failing at consistently and it was probably a time to change that. "Yes. Let's talk." Lena nodded and gestured to the table under the mountain of food they were sitting beside just moments ago.

"Yes. Cool. Awesome." Kara mumbled as she sat down. "So…" she started.

"So…?"

"Um… will, I mean, if you want that is – um, do you wanna go out with me? Like on a date?" Kara barely breathed as she stumbled on her question.

Lena tried to suppress the growing grin that spread on her lips. It was ridiculous how nervous Kara was considering their heartfelt love confessions they just exchanged, not to mention the heated make out sessions. She didn't want Kara to think she was laughing at her, but she was just so adorable that Lena couldn't help herself.

"Yes," she giggled. "Kara, if you had any doubt, I want you. I want to be with you." She tried to reassure her.

"I want to do it properly." Kara insisted.

"Kara, we're living together and have twins coming in just a couple of months, proper went out the window ages ago."

"I…" Kara's face turned bright red, it really shouldn't have been so charming. "Ah, yeah," she chuckled. "We really haven't done anything in order."

"Nope." Lena laughed. "I do need you to promise me something."

"Of course, anything."

"I need to know if you're committed to this. To us. This can't be a causal thing Kara. It means too much for me, you mean too much for me."

"Lena, you're it for me. I've never been surer of anything in my life. I'd marry you right now if I could."

"We should probably go out on a date first." It was a small deflect, but Lena's body went through so many warm and positive emotions, she wasn't sure she could handle more without turning into a puddle.

"Haha, yes. Probably best. Do you have a preferred place you want to go? I think we've exhausted most restaurants in town."

"Hm…" Lena hummed and took out another scone. She spread it with some butter and jam and was about to take a bite out of the delightful deliciousness, when a thought occurred to her. "How about out of town?"

"Sure, wherever you want to go."

"It is my turn to ask, fancy a trip to Ireland?"

[daffi-990]

WIP Wednesday 📝

Tagged by @tizniz and @fortheloveofbuddie

So even though yesterday’s snippet kinda flopped like a dead fish, I kept at it and ended up writing almost 1K for my buddie Fantasy AU! 🤩

I’ve been trying to work on my descriptive writing and am quite happy with how this turned out.

(Prev snippet here & AU synopsis here)

The sun is still sitting below the horizon, its light not yet touching the city and waking it from its slumber, when he hears a crash from down an alley. He knows it’s probably a bad idea to investigate, that a mysterious noise in a dark alley is an opening in almost every crime drama for a reason, but someone could be in trouble and Buck’s conscience won’t just let him walk on by without checking. He makes his way down the alley, his steps quick but cautious, careful not to make too much noise. If someone dangerous is lurking down here, he doesn’t want to give away his position so easily. Assuming they don’t have a visual on him already.

Buck's heart thuds in his chest as he moves further into the alleyway. The alley is shrouded in darkness, the only light coming from the streetlight on the road that is struggling to pierce through the shadows. The air is heavy with something that smells like rotten eggs, the scent so thick it makes Buck gag. He covers his nose and mouth with his hand, trying to block the pungent smell as best he can.

He reaches the end of the alleyway but finds no one, only a dumpster overflowing with construction waste and a rat that quickly scurries off into the darkness. Buck scoffs and shakes his head at himself; trust him to wander all the way down an alley because of a rat. As he turns to leave and continue his trek home, he jolts with a sudden fright. Standing at the mouth of the alley is a large dog.

“Holy fuck,” Buck exclaims, pressing a hand to his chest, his heart beating rapidly under his palm. “You scared the shit out of me buddy.”

The dog lifts it’s head as if sniffing the air and emits a low growl that has the hair on Buck’s arms and the back of his neck standing up. The dog begins to move forward, its form seeming to grow larger with each step until the once Rottweiler sized dog is now the size of a small horse, it’s shoulder easily at Buck’s hip height.

With trembling hands, Buck pulls out his phone and turns on the flashlight, casting a dull light onto the creature. Its black fur blends in with the darkness of the night and appears short in length everywhere apart from what Buck can only describe as a mane mullet along the back of its neck. It has razor- sharp claws protruding from each massive paw and its face is scarred and skeletal in appearance, its eyes blood red and glowing, pointed teeth on full display as it snarls at Buck.

No pressure tagging: @spotsandsocks @hippolotamus @disasterbuckdiaz @diazsdimples @wikiangela @wildlife4life @watchyourbuck @exhuastedpigeon @elvensorceress @eddiebabygirldiaz @evanbegins @rainbow-nerdss @rewritetheending @thewolvesof1998 @try-set-me-on-fire @theotherbuckley @puppyboybuckley @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove @athenagranted @shortsighted-owl @steadfastsaturnsrings @devirnis @fiona-fififi @giddyupbuck @honestlydarkprincess @homerforsure @hoodie-buck @jeeyuns @jesuisici33 @lover-of-mine @ladydorian05 @loserdiaz @spagheddiediaz @sunshinediaz @captain-hen @bekkachaos @nmcggg @missmagooglie @mellaithwen @monsterrae1

[rynnaissance]

ok so for future reference, if i ever do continue working on my fic, how do we think bell’s hells would be at driving cars in a modern au? i’ve got ideas, but i want to hear other people’s input.

here’s what i’ve got:

chetney: DO NOT GET IN A CAR WITH CHETNEY WHATEVER YOU DO. that senior citizen is batshit insane and he WILL road rage. if someone cuts him off then wherever he was going is forgotten because he has to tailgate that person now while yelling at them to pull over so they can “talk.” i can’t decide if he would have a really nice car or a really shitty one because honestly both fit. maybe a fancy truck for hauling wood?

orym: he’s your safest bet out of the hells if you want to get somewhere on time without fearing for your life. bro is a law abiding citizen of the road. he never loses his cool (unlike chet) and his car is always clean and smells super nice. he mostly listens to meditation style music, but he’ll let the other person have the aux because he’s genuinely curious to hear what they listen to. shout out to orym.

laudna: okay back to the insanity. ALSO DO NOT GET IN A CAR WITH LAUDNA! girlie pop should not be on the road. she’s blasting the weirdest fucking genres of metal imaginable, she can hear nothing else. the music only somewhat drowns out the horrible keening noises her car makes, as if it’s begging to die. that thing hasn’t been to the shop in decades and omits the occasional plume of black smoke that smell like burnt hair and buttered popcorn for some reason? i saw someone else talk about how she’s a crazy driver with everyone except imogen who she drives very well for and never blasts music, and i like that idea a lot.

imogen: it was her dad’s truck before her’s, a farm vehicle meant for rural roads with four wheel drive. it’s pretty beat up, but it’s reliable. imogen hates driving though, as it can be super overwhelming in the city, and prefers to go with laudna. outside of the city, on rural roads where you won’t see another car for miles, she finds it almost as relaxing as horseback riding. she likes to cruise around with her widows down, shamelessly listening to country music. yeehaw.

ashton: should you get in a car with ashton? depends on the day, as they are kind of a wild card. one day, it might be a chill drive with you two causally exchanging stories, like sober “what the fuck is up with that?” other times you better hold onto your seat because you are getting to your location regardless of how traffic is flowing. ashton is the person who cuts chetney off. it may be on purpose, no one knows for certain, but he always seems to manage to find the old man and make his day a little more difficult. if they see someone they know, they’ll lay on horn and yell, “hey asshole!” with a wave and a grin. the car itself is covered in stickers and sharpie graffiti, interior and exterior. you’ll always know it’s him.

fearne: does she have a license? she would say yes. the truth is no. fearne was never taught how to drive, she just kinda figured it out as she went along. because of ashton, she used to think honking is a friendly thing, but had to be informed by fcg that those people are not just saying hi, but are actually mad at her. she didn’t like that very much. she doesn’t seem to be aware that there are any dangers to driving. she’s almost always getting into crashes, which she responds to with a giggle and a “whoops(:” it’s a marvel she hasn’t been arrested yet. there’s also an angry possum that’s sometimes found in the truck of her car, so it’s best not to open it.

fcg: much like orym, fcg is a very safe person to drive with. although maybe a little annoying, as he’ll let everyone go before him at a four way stop regardless of if it’s actually their turn. sometimes though, when they’re under a lot of stress, they resemble chetney more. they won’t tolerate any bullshit from other drivers and yell at pedestrians to get out of the way. he’s been getting better about this though, but still.

[frogsndogs]

So recently I watched this pilot short: Epilogue of endings. It’s about 12 minutes long, created by a group of animation students over a single summer. I had never heard of the project before it showed up in my youtube recommended.

It changed my brain chemistry. I watched it 9 days ago and I can’t stop thinking about it to save my life. The music? Spectacular. The voice acting? Perfect. The art? astounding. The characters? I’m already emotionally attached. Hotel? Trivago.

Listen, I don’t tend to watch of a lot of things anymore unless I’m with other people, and I have this weird thing about engaging in new media, I think because a lot of what I’ve been watching recently has been kinda disappointing, or very… I don’t know… it’s hard to describe. It just feels like a lot of studios are making characters shallower, relationships strained, and half-assing their world building. A lot of media that I’ve taken in recently is trying very hard to make itself seem edgy and serious and that’s not what I want right now and definitely not what I need.

But this 12 minute pilot? This is everything I never knew I needed. The characters feel like real people, with complex motivations and interpersonal relationships. They’re flawed, but they’re trying their best with the situation that they have. They have things, other people that they care about and would fight for, they have motivations and backstories that you can see the breadcrumbs of, but have not been revealed yet, and the breadcrumbs are so good you can’t wait for the whole loaf. The world-building is exquisite, built up enough that you can see the beginning, but still drawing you in with more questions. 

I have a more detailed review under the cut, with SPOILERS, but I highly recommend that you go watch the pilot. It’s 12 minutes of time well spent in my opinion.

So the first scene. We’re introduced to Lucy, Blu and CG. I think Blu is already my fav, lol. In this scene, we see the three characters playing eye-spy while walking through a forest. It’s a pretty innocuous scene if we didn’t pan up to the sky and see the sun having broken open and Lucy becoming emotional over having to leave town, and presumably the rest of her life behind. Blu doesn’t answer her.

So Lucy clearly doesn’t know what’s going on, and I’m wondering if Blu has limited information himself. Maybe even Blu doesn’t know why or how any of this is happening. Maybe Blu literally can’t answer her question because he doesn’t have the answers. Maybe it hurts, being so helpless and out of control, so he’s in denial to a certain extent, trying to pretend that everything is fine. He’s trying to keep this little girl, happy and safe and alive, while also presumably dealing with his own shit, and no he’s not doing it perfectly, he’s flawed, as people and characters should be, but he’s trying and so far she is alive and safe to a certain extent so way to go Blu! I think this will probably cause some tension between the two down the road, but for now they just keep walking.

I wonder where they’re going, if anywhere specific? Why did they leave town specifically, we see there’s lots of danger pretty much everywhere, did something happen?

Anyways, then we get to this scene of someone fixing what appears to be a subway train. He stops, pulls out a journal and we get some exposition stuff. We find out that the world ended, and how. And WOW. This whole thing was gut-punchingly realistic I feel. People blowing up the competition trying to race off into space when it’s announced that the sun is going to die out? That’s something that unfortunately I can see people doing. I wonder/hope that this will become a plot point again later on, and we’ll find out what happened to all those people. But anyways that’s not even the craziest part; the fact the sun broke open and released a whole bunch of eldritch horror monsters??? Yep here we go. And then the next thing hurts. Like a lot. Because the narrator says that ‘people who hoped to live out their last days in normalcy quickly found out that their life-style was no longer sustainable’. That shit made me want to cry. The want for a peaceful death, a calm death, a painless death, but having even that ripped away from you. This setting that these characters are in is awful and very terrifying, and we can see how it is hurting them, torturing them, but I got to give props to the world building. It’s good writing. They set up the plot, the problem, what’s been going on the past couple yrs, some mysteries, to both the viewers and the characters, and in doing so give us some idea of the characters that we do have. Because the characters that we do have are trapped. The characters that we do have are abandoned. The characters that we do have are survivors. 

And then we pan out to see the narrator having an interaction with one of the Monarchs. And this scene? Gave me chills, man. I was so creeped out by this. Acedia’s ‘I do not like that response,’ Mole’s utter helplessness to do anything, his clear, potent fear of the creature, the way that it just lightly touches him and he flinches. Then the frustration that we see on his face after it leaves, the anger that turns into tiredness and then hopelessness? Someone needs to wrap this man in a blanket stat.

And this is where I’m starting to think that Blu doesn’t really know the full extent of what’s going on. There’s a good chance that Mole knows about the Monarchs because he’s being held prisoner by one. It’s possible that Mole is seeing the world collapse before his very eyes, while Blu is just seeing the aftermath and not knowing why and I can’t say which is more terrifying.

The ‘I have influence?’ line is peak. I love it so much, I can’t even say why. That whole little interaction with Lucy saying that she takes after Blu, Blu being so genuinely touched and CG being low-key offended is perfect and I love it. It shows how close they are, how much they care about each other.

The the… zombie ppl??? I love the detail of how unlike a lot of teenage protagonists, Lucy listens to Blu, and gets out of danger. She trusts him to handle the situation on his own, and knows that the best thing that she can do right now is get to safety. There’s an implicit trust there, in spite of her clear issues with Blu not telling her things, and this is what I’m talking about when I say the character relationships are complex.

Oh fuck. The transitions? The way that it cuts from one character to another, each unintentionally completing one another’s scentences, and unknowingly engaging in conversation. It’s amazing storytelling, an amazing presentation and for some reason it just confirms to me that these characters are family. They fit together like puzzle pieces. I don’t know what else to say.

We get more info on our mysterious narrator, Mole, who is an amnesiac, and clearly going through it. During this scene we see a crumpled newspaper of what seems to be a younger version of him, winning an award for his dedication at being a subway motorman. His name is crossed out in black ink, so we can’t see it. Which makes me question, did he do this to himself? Is his amnesia a trauma response to everything he’s going through? Did something happen to the point that his brain decided shutting down and forgetting everything was better than remembering this one thing? And it hurts, because in the picture in the newspaper he looks so happy. So young. So alive. It’s a stark contrast to the man we see with bags under his eyes, talking to himself and becoming increasingly distressed. I read through the article, and again, props to the team, some other people might have just did random letters or whatever but they put in a whole ass-story, giving the viewers more info about Mole than even he has. We know he was a dedicated subway motorman. We know he was inspired by his father. We know he had a sister. But these answers only serve to bring up more questions? What happened to his sister? Was his father still alive at the time of he end of the world and what was their relationship like? Because there’s a chance that their relationship was really good, and that’s why he went on to become a subway motorman, but there is also the possibility that he was pressured into doing so, and the way that he complains about being on a train when the world ended makes me kinda lean towards that option.

Then we see CG and Lucy walking around the underground tunnels and we get more info on them. We find out that CG was created by Lucy’s mom, which begs the question of where is Lucy’s mom???? What happened to her? Is there a chance that she’s still alive? Does Lucy know what happened to her mother?? Or is this just another thing that Blu is keeping her in the dark about? Does Blu know what happened to Lucy’s mother???? Or— as you can see I am totally normal about this woman. Anyways.

CG is a fun character, optimistic and bringing a lighter atmosphere to the show, but there is just something… off about her in this scene. The disregard for the danger, the naiveté, the joyful voice in such a horrible situation, feels so wrong to me. I wonder though if CG chose to be like this, or a certain amount of it is her programming? Does CG know what happened to Lucy’s mom? I think CG was created to be take care of Lucy but it seems to be the other way around here, why is that? 

And then we get info on Blu. Blu was a solider during the war when ppl were trying to get all the resources to race off into space. I wonder if Blu had believed that he would be granted a place on one of these ships. (If he managed to survive of course.) Or had he been in the military prior to all this, and was just pulled along? This makes me want to know more about his belief system before and after the end of the world. Also it is implied by CG that Blu is carrying a lot of pressure, and I wonder how that will be dealt with later on… hmm… 

Also the music that plays when Blu uses his arms to pull down the wall? Amazing, I love it, I love the scene, I love the fact that he’s a cyborg, I am so invested in these characters already it’s killing me.

Then we see Mole almost (accidentally) kill Lucy and CG. He’s out of it, he’s the only person running the trains, he didn’t expect to have to watch out for anyone, I think that we can give him a pass on this. Blu doesn’t think so obviously.

(Sidenote: the way that Lucy curls into Blu, as he protectively shields her is so cute, my heart, help)

Blu is pissed. His tone doesn’t change too much, it’s light, but there’s this threatening undertone there that kinda creeps me out. Mole tells them he doesn’t have a name, before Blu forces him to tell them that its Mole. Wait… is he called that bc Moles live underground? Anyways, Blu wants to leave him to die there, which shows an interesting side of his character. Prior to this we’ve seen him take a protective, fun role as Lucy’s guardian but here we see this apathy towards someone who is obviously not doing so well. A lot of other people would be excited to find another living person in the apocalypse, but he’s fine just walking away. Is this just because he almost killed Lucy? Or is there something more going on here? In Blu’s bio on the rainbott instagram, it says that Blu was ‘left to die in a mysterious incident’ and it’s interesting that he feels fine leaving someone else to die in such horrible conditions. Again - complex character writing, props to the team.

But Lucy doesn’t want to leave him. This shows her compassion and maybe too her want for connection with other people. Blu resists; ‘Lucy that is the most unimpressive man I have ever seen,’ this line has no right to be so funny, esp with Mole just staring at him in the background. Did he hear that or is he too far away, too out of it? Then he relents, perhaps solely because of Lucy, or maybe also because of his own want to do the right thing. He doesn’t like Mole, he makes that obvious, but if Lucy want’s to adopt this strange hobo man, fine, if it makes her happy. He’ll do whatever it takes to make Lucy a little more happy.

Mole’s ‘it doesn’t want me to leave’ scares the shit out of me, and the way that he just freezes up when Acedia shows up… 

The scene when it talks about humans really creeps me out, and makes me worried even more about Mole. Calling him ‘entertaining’ and saying that he ‘belongs’ to them. It sounds like it sees him as a toy at best, and reminds me of the way that Mole said earlier that the Monarchs had the power to ‘turn Earth into their own personal sandbox’. Did Acedia get rid of Mole's memories for that purpose? So that he would 'belong' only to them. I wonder though, why Mole, and if there were others, if Mole had to watch those around him die, or worse when they gave an answer that it didn’t like. I wonder what Mole has had to do to scrape by and survive, what he’s been through. But Blu pulls him along anyways, kind of against Mole’s will. Like obviously being with Blu, Lucy and CG is better than being with a horrifying shadow monster, but aforesaid horrifying shadow monster is going to be pissed at him. I wonder how he’s going to react to that, if he’ll lash out at Blu or worse, Lucy for rescuing him because now it’s gonna be angry and he’s gonna have to be the one to deal with the fallout of that.

Then the scene where Blu pretends to buy tickets to appease CG? It’s for comedic relief, but again it makes me think about Blu. Is he doing it because he knows CG will be annoying if he doesn’t? Or does he genuinely not want her to be hurt? I’m not sure. 

Then the campfire scene. Lucy looks away when Blu removes his mask, Mole tries to lean in to see what’s behind it. Blu doesn’t like this, I assume it’s a sensitive subject, but Mole is again, kind of out of it. Mole is scared of Blu and Blu clearly knows this, even kinda uses it to freak him out. I’m looking forwards to see that relationship developing, maybe one that contrasts Mole’s relationship with Acedia, I dunno, someone who cares about him in this really twisted way that hurts him, and someone who at first doesn’t care at all(at first), but still takes care of him in spite of it. I dunno… just vibes.

And Lucy’s little ‘what if we tell ghost stories around the fire’ breaks my heart. It’s like she too, is in denial to a certain extent. This is just a fun camping trip not the end of the world. Everything is fine. Everything will be fine.

Then the post-credit scene. There’s presumably, something left of the government that is working to try and deal with the Monarchs, which gives me hope that there might be a way to stop them, a way to stop all this death and destruction. I am curious about what’s left of this order, what the gov was like during the war, and how they’re operating now. Also the way the commander calls the droid C21, and the way that CG is called CG, and the way that he says ‘find the girl’ and C21 frowns and does this have something to do with Lucy’s mom??????? What does any of this have to do with Lucy? Does she know more than she’s letting on, or does not even she know what she knows??? Help I need answers.

Also all the characters in the credits. I desperately hope that they find the main cast and all become friends pls.

CG’s little song is beautiful and I think that it embodies the heart of the show. Like I said earlier a lot of the stuff I’ve watched recently tries very hard to be dark and edgy and a dystopian show where all the characters have been trapped and abandoned and tortured is the perfect setup for some grim and gritty TV. But it’s… not. The characters are funny and lighthearted and smiling in spite of all the shit that’s going on around them. The characters are trying to be nice, to be good. They are connected, they are a family. It is a dystopian setting for sure, but I think that the story is about family, about love and caring for each other. The story is about Blu, Lucy and CG playing eye-spy. The story is about Lucy smiling when she tells Blu her mom said he was a bad influence. The story is about CG wanting Blu to get some rest and take a break. The story is about Mole’s desperate panic at trying to stop the train before it hits Lucy, and Lucy not wanting to leave him to die. The story is about four people sitting around a fire, listening to music.

I really love this story, and I hope to see more of it one day. It’s really beautiful.

[razorblade180]

Dragonslayer Week Day8: Pregnancy

[Lasting Embers Au]

After a daunting journey and calm boat ride home, Yang walked down the familiar dirt roads of Patch with a duffel bag hanging off her body. Her feet hurt a little but not as much as her head from mentally constructing the conversation she’d be having in a couple minutes.

When she finally made it home, a feeling of relief hit to see that Jaune wasn’t in the living room. It was still kinda early after all. Yang carefully tipped toed a few steps inside before the loving husband came sliding down the stair rail, landing in front of her to give a warm hug.

Jaune:Welcome back! You’re home early!

Yang:H-Hey! Since when are you an early bird? *kisses him* I thought you’d be sleeping?

Jaune:I went on a run with your parents.

Yang:(Damn, I forgot they like him!)

Jaune was quick to notice his ray of sunshine was looking a little dim. Not by much, but noticeable.

Jaune:You okay? Don’t tell me the reunion went terribly?

Yang:No- well….it started good, but then got fairly bad, but then it got good again!

Jaune:…So are you Blake on better terms?

Yang:*nods* Somehow we ended in a net positive.

Jaune:Soooo why do you look a little exhausted? Like this isn’t the “party hard” exhausted. It’s “well that just happened.”

Yang:….*teary eyed*

Jaune:!? *cuffs face* Hey hey hey, what’s wrong?

Yang:I wish it was “party hard” that trip! Can you promise me you won’t be upset?

Jaune:O..Okay? I’m all ears.

The blonde bruiser began to recount her unexpected adventure as the two of them sat on the couch.

Jaune:So instead of a simple visit to Menagerie, you and Blake went on an adventure across two different deserts to find kidnapped faunus? Can’t say that’s exactly out of the ordinary.

Yang:Yeah but it daunting. I may or may not have almost…got caught in a fiery explosion that destroyed a house.

Jaune:Who’s house exploded!?

Yang:Hehe, so that’s the kicker. This entire thing started with the Winter Maiden looking for….Adam. Who was one of the abducted.

Jaune:Ah…oh…so when you said things got fairly bad-

Yang:Old wounds and sore spots opened between Blake and I. I’m a little ashamed to say part of me didn’t want to deal with this at all but I wasn’t about to leave Blake alone in that situation.

Jaune:No one would’ve expected you to. It’s you. I get why you said it was daunting. Why didn’t you call for help?

Yang:We were on a time crunch. Things were happening so fast and…I saw some stuff i rather not talk about. We got a lot of people out but not all of them.

Jaune:Adam?

Yang:Man is too stubborn to die. For Blake and Jacquelyn’s sake, that’s a good thing. As for me…I’ll never be upset I saved a life. I just can’t believe I saved his. Imagine saving Cinder’s life.

Jaune:See, this is how I know you’re a better person than me; because I wouldn’t have done that. To be fair though, none of friends would want me to. No wonder the trip ended early, but why’d you tell me to not get upset?

Yang:….It was really dangerous throughout. I was reckless; and I even got caught up in dangerous situations when my guard was up. I should’ve asked for your input.

Jaune:I mean a call would’ve been nice but it kinda sounds no different from any of our other insane missions. You’re Yang Xiao Long, The Blazing Huntress. Strong, capable, clever, caring, and-

Yang:Pregnant. I’m…pregnant.

Her hands began fiddling with themselves as her eyes got watery, their gaze fixated on Jaune’s growing shock.

Yang:Blake didn’t know at first but after she learned I pushed to stay. I know that was so…so stupid. Even if I didn’t know what exactly I was getting into I should’ve said no, but I felt stuck between worlds! I never got hurt but….*crying* I don’t know. The more I think about it the more I realize how much I could’ve ruined us. How badly I could end up hurting you-

His arms wrapped around faster than she could blink. Yang felt her body press against his, receiving a gentle warmth that secure and yet so fragile. His fingers stroked her hair while the warmth of his tears fell on the crook of her neck.

Jaune:We’re gonna be family.

No malice or resentment. Not a drop of anxiety in the words that didn’t ponder what could’ve been. Just the sound of happy disbelief that spoke in what was going to be. It was as if a haze disappeared from Yang’s eyes that turned her tears of guilt into comfort. Jaune pulled himself away just enough for her to see the same shimmering gleam in his eyes as they begged her to speak. Yang began nodding her head again as her breath hitched through a growing smile of relief. It felt like the news finally felt real.

Yang:Yeah; we’re gonna have a baby.

[where-are-the-spooky-gays-2]

hey, I heard you liked assassin AUs? this ask turned out long as eff, whoops.

tw: mentions of death, murder, gore, dismemberment, mutilation, poison, and probably more. General assassin stuff. (not described, just mentioned)(murder, death, and poison are mentioned throughout, but the rest is just in the first paragraph)

so: 

Everyone has heard of the Duke, he’s a terror. He kills for anyone who pays him, and he does it gruesomely. If you want hearts ripped out of chests, people ground into sausage meat, one body part sent to each of the corpse’s loved ones, you go to the Duke. I heard he lives in the forest near… I know someone who knows someone… he’s easy to find, just go north. The Duke is the kind of story older kids tell to their younger siblings. He’ll find you, he’ll rip you in half… Other, less well-known assassins have said that he won’t last long. They’ve seen killers with his style before, they get careless. They get caught. It hasn’t happened yet though, so who knows? One of those assassins is found impaled the next day, DUKE carved into his chest as a warning to the others. 

Very few have heard of Anxiety. 

Good, Virgil thinks, as he slips ricin powder into a teabag. (He works as a castor oil salesman, he has to use the byproduct for something.) He mails the teabag to the address written on the discreet envelope he had received, and another corrupt politician is dead within the month. Technically, Virgil’s never killed anyone. It’s none of his business what his clients do with his products, after all. 

One day, Virgil is collecting the mail from the false address he uses as Anxiety, and he notices a letter. The stationery is too fancy, the handwriting would be easily identified—either this client is very stupid or they don’t care about being found out, which amounts to the same thing regardless. He carefully opens the letter.

It contains a hundred worth of marks, and instructions.

The instructions say to travel to the royal court. To get a job as a servant in the palace kitchens. To administer his product to the king and four others, whose names Virgil only vaguely recognizes. They must be important, though, for this much money.

He doesn’t usually travel, and this job seems dangerous... Clearly, more factors are at play here than a hired killer is permitted to know. But the letter promises four hundred more when the murder is done, and, well, that’s a lot of money. Virgil would be set for life. And who knows the consequences if he declines? 

He starts a mental packing list, and is on the road to the court within the week. 

(end) 

idk yet what happens next—my current idea is that Remus is also hired to kill the same people, and only the person who completes the job gets paid for it. That’s not great though… I kinda feel like one of them (probably Virgil) would just give up on the job if there was competition. It’d be pretty easy to contrive a reason for them to Not Do That—maybe if they don’t complete the job, they get killed? Virgil’s mysterious employer is already planning to kill him when the job is done, though—can’t have anyone knowing that you were (indirectly) the one to kill the previous king. Virgil isn’t fully aware of his employer’s plans, but he suspects. Virgil suspects everything. Paranoia keeps him alive. 

WAIT ACTUALLY IDEA (you are watching me brainstorm this au in real time)(ooh, how would a brainstorm work in the Mindscape? anyways)

I stopped typing for a sec and my brain wandered over to thinking about where the other sides could come into this au. (bear with me. also, this idea isn’t necessarily better than the last one. you have been warned.) 

So. Virgil’s employer (who I will call M. Evil or probably Mevil from now on) is probably killing the four people who are ahead of them for the throne, right? 

And Roman is a prince, right? 

So: Remus is Roman’s brother… c!Thomas is their dad… Logan and Janus are also ahead of Mevil for the throne (maybe one or both of them is engaged to Roman)… See where I’m going with this? (Maybe? Yes? No?)

(and Patton is the royal baker, Virgil’s boss while he works at the palace. Nobody is trying to kill him, but he might be accidentally endangered anyways)

okay, so Remus is the black sheep of the family, as he is wont to be in basically every AU I write. Being the Duke is sort of his side hobby? (Legally, he is a duke. Being a serial killer is the side hobby) He travels a lot, which is fairly normal for nobility. And wherever he goes, bloodshed follows.

There are theories among the kingdom that the Duke is following Remus, disturbingly obsessed with him. No one suspects that Remus might be the Duke, because Remus is a public figure and is ostensibly under too much scrutiny to get away with literal murder. Interestingly enough, it’s usually the crown’s political opponents who are murdered? Who knows why that could be. 

Somehow (brainstorm first, details later) Remus hears of a plot to murder himself, his twin, his father, and a few of his favourite court members. He travels back to the court to protect them, because who can defend from an assassin better than an assassin? He immediately clocks Virgil as the would-be-killer, they mutually attempt to kill each other a few times, then they fall in gay love and kill Mevil. The end. 

hmm. not the best, but probably better than my first idea. 

thoughts? 

-🐢

I fucking L O V E both ideas S O fucking much oml P L E A S E!!! I absolutely adore the cleverness of their assassin names and Ree being the most creatively gruesome towards his targets is so badass and fitting!!! Character!Thomas being the Creativitwins' dads is such an underrated concept that I L O V E and I am L O O K I N G at that Roloceit implication 👀👀👀👀👀👀 I seriously find the concept that no one suspects Ree to be a known assassin because of his title and that he'd "easily be caught" is D E L I C I O U S like he's just doing his royal duties nothing to see here he's definitely not causing murders or anything XD Also I L O V E that the beloveds are out for each other at first because Ree needs to protect himself and his people but they end up in love and killing Vee's employer instead that's just beautiful <3

[cutekittenlady]

Trains, Planes, and Autobots

Summary Fic Part 9

((this ones gonna be a bit longer))

[Previous] [Next]

Bumblebee is speeding down the highway with Thrash following closely. Bee radios Nightshade and asks if they can see the three decepticons from the air. Nightshade responds that they have not yet spotted any of the cars.

Bee sighs and thanks Nightshade asking that they continue keeping an eye out. He then grumbles about having gotten a late start.

Alex tries to reassure Bumblebee saying that they're bound to catch up to Breakdown sooner or later. Especially with the other working on finding out who he looked up. With any luck, they can figure out where hes going and will be able to catch up at the location.

Bumblebee says that he doesnt want it to come to that. He knows Optimus ordered him not to confront Breakdown, but Bee wants a chance to talk to him before things get too out of hand.

Thrash pulls up alongside Bee and casually asks how he and Breakdown know each other. Admitting that ever since Breakdown "got Bee caught" he's been wanting to know.

Bee repeats that Breakdown didn't "get me caught" and in fact rescued him from being taken in by GHOST.

Thrash just reminds him that he was only there to help Breakdown in the first place so it amounts to the same thing.

Bee gets a little heated and asks if Thrash is just going to disregard everything he has to say about Breakdown.

Thrash backs off a bit and asks Bumblebee why hes getting so upset.

Bumblebee calms down a little and apologizes. He knows Thrash, Ratchet, and everyone else is just concerned but its difficult for Bumblebee to fully give up on Brakdown.

Thrash asks if he can tell him about it as its "just you, me, and the open road." though after a moment adds "oh and nightshade and dad too I guess"

Nightshade reveals they've been listening in by piping in that they would ALSO very much like to hear more about Bumblebees history with Breakdown.

Bumblebee caves and tries to begin only to be interrupted by Alex asking that, if they're going to have a story time if it'd be possible for them to go through a drive thru so he could get a soda first.

This is met wtih silence by all three of the bots. Alex gets the hint, apologizes and tells Bee to carry on.

Bumblebee explains that he and Breakdown were amongst the last hundred or so few bots "born" on cybertron before the loss of the allspark. Breakdown being one of the last bots constructed and Bumblebee being one of the last forged.

Nightshade interrupts and asks for clarification on what "constructed and forged" means. Bumblebee is about to explain when Thrash interrupts and begs Nightshade not to make him sit through another lecture. Saying that theyre on a mission and they've alerady learned enough about "history and junk". He just wants to know about Breakdown.

Bumblebee asks if he's going to be allowed to tell his story.

Nightshade apologizes and asks that he go on ahead.

Bee tells him that while they both emerged around the same time Breakdown is a bit older than him. Kinda like how Thrash is older than Nightshade.

It didn't take long for the two to meet as, since there weren't that many other cybertronians in their "generation" and they all were more or less thrown together. He and breakdown both shared a love for racing and would sneak out frequently to race each other in the open air outside the cities. Occasionally they'd even play hooky from their official duties. Breakdown a bit more than bumblebee.

They were both workers to begin with. Neither were particularly happy about the work they were doing and would complain to each other. Bee was careful not to be heard while Breakdown... Well breakdown was never very good at careful. He got caught and scolded more than once.

Bee confesses that Breakdown always enjoyed doing things, well, dangerously.

Thrash enthuses that he can see why. He admits that the way Bee talks makes him think that young Bee must've lived so "excitedly".

Bee reflects that Ratchet was almost definitely right about Breakdown being a potentially bad influence.

Out loud he tells Thrash that he wouldn't have liked growing up like he and Breakdown had. Things weren't exactly... Luxurious for them.

Nightshade asks if Breakdowns dissatisfaction and his love of danger were why he joined the decepticons.

Bumblebee admits he doesn't fully know. Breakdown and he... Well they sorta wound up separated for a time. During that time things were escalating as the Decepticons formed and gained members until eventually fighting broke out.

During all the craziness Bumblebee met Optimus and, thanks to him, Bee saw the importance of what the Autobots were trying to preserve. So he wound up working with Optimus and the others.

Eventually he did meet up with Breakdown again.

Wearing a decepticon badge.

Bumblebee admits that at first he thought he had to rescue Breakdown from the decepticons. Thinking his friend had been forced into joining or otherwise tricked.

However Breakdown made it very clear that joining them was entirely his own choice and even tried just as hard to get Bumblebee to leave the autobots and join up with him. As the war raged on and things got worse they were both forced to recognize that they were on opposite sides of the war and went their seperate ways.

Thrash asks if he was angry that Breakdown became a decepticon and Bumblebee admits that he was a little but mostly he was hurt and confused. He and Breakdown had had a lot in common before the war and it had surprised him that his old friend, someone who was almost a brother to him, could make such a different decision. When they became stranded on earth and the war more or less ended Bee had hoped Breakdown would leave the decepticons and join back up with him. If only to make life a bit easier on himself.

However he never did.

Bumblebee never really stopped thinking of Breakdown as his friend, and when he caught up with him during races after the war, he was pleased to find that Breakdown seemed to feel the same. Not that it changed what had already happened between them. He insists Breakdown is just a "reckless idiot" whose not really that bad. He can be selfish and doesnt have the best opinion of humanity, but he never, on his own, went out of his way to harm humanity.

Nightshade quietly points out that Ratchet had mentioned that the "Menasor" that Breakdown formed into, had caused a lot of destruction.

Bumblebee hesitates before admitting that that was true. However he chalks it up to the influence of the other stunticons. Combiners are a combination of several minds after all. Breakdown would be at a 4-1 disadvantage. He wouldn't have participated in any of that normally.

None of the others respond.

Bumblebee repeats that he wouldn't.

Alex breaks the tension by asking if anyone wants to listen to his roadtrip playlist.

Bumblebee lets out a deep sigh.

After a moment he admits that, yeah actually, he could go for that right now.

---

Back at the Malto's Ratchet is deadpanning a repeated explanation of combiners that he had given the day before yesterday. Hashtag is 'directing' the re-enactment and having Mo, Robbie, and Schloder fill in for Thrash, Twitch, and Nightshade and herself as Breakdown.

Hashtag tries to get Ratchet to get more into the acting but one glare from him makes her back off.

Hashtag asks Jawbreaker if he can remember during what part of the explanation he saw Breakdown looking up the mystery bot. Jawbreaker thinks about it and says that he thinks it was either in the middle of the explanation or near the end.

Robbie says that makes sense as it'd mean most of them would be concentrated on Ratchet rather than the computer. He asks if Ratchet can remember how long the explanation ran on. The medic says that it couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes. Robbie says that that means he couldn't have been looking at the file for very long and wonders aloud if that would have given him enough time to make a copy.

Ratchet thinks about it and says that its unlikely.

Robbie concludes that that must mean Breakdown was looking for a specific piece of information since reading the whole file would have taken too much time.

Jawbreaker asks why that matters, and Robbie says that it means that the person Breakdown looked up had to be someone he didn't need the complete file about.

Ratchet says that that is a reasonable thing to assume. When looking up the Stunticons, he recalls Breakdown was largely looking into their status, who was and wasn't captured, etc. So its possible he may have been looking for the same information about the bot he looked up.

Hashtag also points out that he must have also known his name in order to look it up. So did that imply it was someone he knew?

Ratchet hums and says that its not guranteed as a lot of the autobots and decepticons only know about one another via reputation. However the idea that Breakdown would be more likely to look up and seek out a con he was already associated with made sense. He says that if all other attempts to discover the individual fails they can speak to Megatron and ask if he can recall which cons were close to Breakdown outside of the Stunticons.

Schloder sighs and says that its a lot of speculation but not getting them any closer to a name.

Mo suggests that, for now, they just sit Jawbreaker in front of the screen and start flipping through the files one at a time until they find the one they're looking for. Or at the very least write down the name of every red colored con.

Hashtag groans that that would take forever. But Robbie says that it might be all they could do for now. At least until they can get more information.

Ratchet says that that might be all they can hope for.

Ratchet suddenly hears Wheeljack over the comms and excuses himself to take the call.

Jawbreaker sits down clearly disheartened. Mo asks if hes alright, and Jawbreaker responds that no, he isn't. He says that Twitch, Thrash, and Nightshade could all be in danger on their missions while hes sitting here failing to remember information that could help them all. He feels anxious and upset with himself for not saying something the moment he saw Breakdown accessing the console. Robbie tells him he had no way of knowing it was something sneaky and it was an honest mistake. He and Mo were gone at the time Breakdown came to the house, but points out that Breakdown succeeded in fooling Bumblebee so its no surprise Jawbreakder didn't register him as a threat.

Jawbreaker confesses that hes still a bit surprised about that. Breakdown was so relaxed and friendly when he was there. Bumblebee clearly trusted him. And he knows Bee wouldn't have let him anywhere near him if he'd thought Breakdown was any danger to the terrans.

Mo suggests there might still be a chance that what Breakdown was doing was actually harmless, but Robbie shoots it down. Saying that its too much to believe that Breakdown just coincidentally came there to look up the other stunticons in the database when just months before Motormaster had gotten out of prison. Mo acknowledges that tis unlikely but not impossible. Robbie just sighs at his sisters insistence.

Ratchet returns and tells them he's spoken to Wheeljack and has some good news to report to their two "teams" in the field.

---

Dorothy looks out of the window from Megatrons cockpit and reminices that it reminds her of how he'd fly her around during the war. Megatron reflects that they were good times and tells Dorothy frankly that so far shes still the only human hes allowed to ride along in his alt mode in this way. Dot points out that hes airlifted several people in the past, but Megatron argues its not the same thing.

Carrying humans during a combat or emergency scenario is different from riding with her casually like this.

She thinks about it and agrees that she can see why the thought might make him uncomfortable. After all she wouldn't want people just riding around inside her body wily nily. Megatron laughs and tells her he doesnt mind it if its her since he knows he can trust her.

Dorothy pauses and ask if she can ask Megatron an extremely personal question. One that might make him uncomfortable.

Megatron gives her the go ahead and Dorothy carefully asks Megatron if hes ever had a relationship like the one Ratchet described to her; a conjunx endura.

Megatron stammers a bit and says that that IS a very personal question.

She apologizes and tells him he doesn't have to answer if he doesn't want to.

Megatron sighs and tells her its alright. He admits that there had been bots in his past whom he could have imagined himself developing such a relationship with, but that they never came to be. His cause and his vision had always come first before anything else to him, and he expected the same thing from his men and comrades during the war. He had long since forbidden any of the decepticons from fraternizing with each other.

Dorothy is surprised and asks to clarify if he really banned them from ever getting married.

Megatron replies affirmatively but defends his decision by pointing out that the Decepticons were not a pre-existing military group. There was no such ban on relationships back when they were just another political faction on prewar cybertron, but once the fighting broke out Megatron knew he needed to impose discipline onto his followers. Hence the ban.

He points out that he never made any secret about forbidding conjunxing when he recruited cons into the cause. They all knew what they were getting into when they signed up.

Megatron says that even knowing what he does now, and realizing all the mistakes hes made, he still feels that forbidding the Decepticons from conjunxing was the right decision.

The Conjunx Endura can be a beautiful and meaningful ceremony. But it introduced the possibility for heavy emotional conflict. He feared that the cons might make decisions detrimental to the war effort or even endanger entire teams and platoons, if they were too emotionally invested in a singular person. He tells her to imagine if a higher officer prioritized the safety of one group of cons over another because their conjunx was amongst them and how that could cost a lot of unnecessary losses as a result.

Dorothy begrudingly admits that she can see why he might feel that would be necessary. All the same, being a former soldier herself who is married and in love, she can't help but feel it was unfair.

Megatron acknowledges this, but also tells her such deep feelings are rare among their kind. Deep friendships, yes. Familial ties, yes. But romance is something most cybertronians never find.

Dot wonders if Megatron was more open to seeking something like that out now that the war was over and GHOST was gone.

Megatron handwaves the idea. Most of the cybertronians he could have ever considered such a relationship with were either dead, now hated him, on the other side of the universe, or otherwise... Besides, he was an old bot now. Fantasies about things like romance were for younger bots with more time on their hands.

His job, right now, was to ensure the safety of their species on Earth so that future generations like the Terrans would have a chance at such a thing for themselves.

Dorothy just hums in response and looks out the window down where Optimus was driving along the highway.

She radios in to ask how Twitch was doing riding along in Optimus' trailer. (She tried flying alongside for as long as she could but found she couldn't keep up with Optimus and Megatrons speeds for the long term)

Twitch responds that shes fine, though she wishes Optimus had a better road trip playlist.

Optimus, sounding offended, says he has a great road trip playlist!

Twitch groans and says hes played "Dare" three times already.

Megatron just responds that he LOVES that song!*

Dot tells Twitch to hang on as they should be arriving at their destination in just another hour or so.

She stops when she notices Megatron is receiving a message. When she takes the call its Ratchet calling in.

She asks if everything is alright back at the house, and Ratchet affirms its fine if a little dull. He reports that they've sadly made no progress on identify their mystery bot.

However, he tells them that Wheeljack has gotten back with him, and that his most recent project is ready for a test drive.

Optimus responds positively to the news.

Dorothy asks what this "project" is.

Optimus explains that he had set Wheeljack on attempting to create a downgraded version of groundbridge tech. After what happened with GHOST he wanted to try and have a system in place for emergency exists or to call in back up.

Ratchet says that unfortunately they had to stop using it until now because the default tech ate up too much energon. And attempts at reverse engineering the technology on Earth had seen little success. However, Ratchet says sardonically, thanks to GHOSTS secret little project that nearly wiped them all out, they made great strides on making a small scale groundbridge that was compatible with human technology and didn't guzzle energon.

Unfortunately the tradeoff is that this downgraded ground bridge will likely be weaker. Only being able to transport a handful of bots at a time, and only being able to remain open for a short window of time. Worse yet its efficacy is limited by distance. The farther away the target the weaker it is.

Optimus says that thats somewhat disappointing but that its still a great stride. Assuming, of course, that it works.

Ratchet scoffs and says that he's going to make sure Wheeljacks the one who tests it. Though he tells him that if they DO send one their way, to make sure to send Megatron in first.

Optimus says Ratchets name warningly. Ratchet says he was kidding, and Megatron scoffs to himself.

Feeling a bit of tension rising, Twitch cuts in and asks if Ratchet has told bumblebees group. If this stuff works it could cut their travel time by, like, a lot.

Ratchet tells her he was going to contact bumblebee next with the information while also collecting an update on the Breakdown situation. But he wanted to call Optimus and co first in case things with Deadend either go south or they need a bridge to bring him in.

Dorothy says thank you in an overly polite voice and Ratchet signs off.

A moment of silence passes before Twitch asks what that was about.

Dot says it was kind of rude and she doesnt appreciate Ratchets humor.

Megatron simply tells her that Ratchet doesn't like him, to which Optimus sighs and asks Megatron not to take it personally. Megatron asks how exactly hes not supposed to take it personally.

Twitch asks why Ratchet doesnt like Megatron.

Megatron says that Ratchet had been an autobot for longer than he and Optimus had been alive, and between forming the decepticons and one thing and another, he has never forgiven Megatron for his part in the war.

Optimus apologizes but says that Ratchet HAS accepted Megatron as one of them now, but that hes also stubborn and that it can take a long loooong while for him to change his tune towards someone. Frankly the fact that hes gotten used to Megs after just 15 years is a bit impressive.

Dorothy says Optimus talks about him like hes his stubborn old grandfather.

Optimus chuckles awkwardly and admits that hes known Ratchet since before he was even a Prime, and that he had more than a little influence on him as a young bot.

Twitch is surprised and says that that must make Ratchet, like, really really old. She asks exactly how old he is.

Dot reprimands Twitch, telling her its a rude question to ask.

Megatron agrees, though putting in a pot shot by adding that he and Optimus "aren't nearly THAT old"

Optimus says "NOW whose being rude?"

---

Breakdown and the Con Bros have stopped at a Truck stop where they're resting out of sight downing some of the energon they'd brought with them. While drinking Swindle says, while taking stock, that they'll likely have to leave the highway down the line to hunt down somewhere to steal energy. He asks Breakdown if he knows where there are any powerplants or dams or something that they could use to collect Energon.

breakdown doesnt seem to hear him as hes swirling his energon and seems to just be staring into space.

Hardtop asks if Breakdown heard him.

Breakdown blinks and seems to come back to himself. Apologizing and asking them to repeat the question.

Swindle and Hardtop share a look and ask if Breakdowns "head is in the game". Breakdown says that of course he is, he was just thinking things through.

Hardtop says that, in that case, breakdown must know where theres a place they can collect Energon.

Breakdown hesitates. He says that wherever they get it they'll want to be sneaky. They don't want to attract any attention by attacking humans or blowing junk up.

Swindle says that hes thinking too hard. So long as they drive fast enough after grabbing the energon nobody would know it was them so their methods hardly matter.

Breakdown growls and points out that, given Hardtop got arrested during a failed heist, they should be more careful. Hardtop gets in Breakdowns face and dares him to say that again. The two stare each other down before Breakdown laughs and says that his attempts at being intimidation were "nothing" compared to the people he used to drive with.

The sudden laugh throws both Con Bros for a loop giving breakdown a chance to change the subject and say that, since he doesnt have GPS and his paper map likely won't pinpoint powerplants for them, he'll leave finding sources of energy to the pair of them, and even let them carry out the raid on the condition that they don't attract attention, don't hurt any humans, or damage any buildings. Get in, get the energon, and then get out. Deal?

The Con Bros agree, and clarify that while they're working together that doesnt mean Breakdown gets to order them around.

Breakdown raises his hands and agrees. But begs that they listen to him about not attracting attention or causing damage. He wants to deliver them to "the good doctor" in good condition after all.

Swindle says suspiciously that he still hasn't told them who this doctor hes taking them to see is. How do they know he's legit?

Breakdown tells him cryptically that he knows he's legit. Explaining that after the stunticons were disbanded he was sent to work in the med bay where made the acquiantance with this doctor. As far as he knows he managed to evade getting captured by GHOST, and has been living largely under the radar for the past 15 years.

Hardtop demands to know his name but Breakdown refuses. Explaining that medics sympathetic to the cons were rare even during the war. If this trip somehow goes wrong, if they get captured by humans or autobots or whatever, breakdown doesnt want either of them using information about the medic to win leniency for themselves.

Swindle turns it around and asks why HE can be trusted not to sell the medic out.

Breakdown goes quiet and looks off for a moment before quietly saying that he'll never sell him out. Even if the autobots or humans kill him.

This shocks Swindle and Hardtop enough that they end the questions right then and there.

Breakdown tells them to finish off their energon because the moment they're done they're hitting the road again.

---

((

*This is the darkest transformers joke I have made thus far. If you know, you know.

))

[yellowhollyhock]

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5

I wish Casey would've said how far this wizard is supposed to be.

Me and Toto didn't pack for a long journey or nothing. It's getting near sunset. I guess this place, wherever it is, is a couple hours behind New York City.

I'm starting to get the idea Shredder's done a lot worse around here than he's done yet at home. Maybe that's because back home, me and my brothers stopped him. I don't know, but we passed a little town--and I mean a really little town--and the people were real appreciative of us getting rid of him. The munchkins sure gave us a heck of a sendoff, but I haven't seen anything between there and here, so I'm surprised the news spread so fast.

I guess I'm just not used to being thanked for stuff, out in the open like this. It's weird; it feels nice, but it also kinda gives me the creeps. Don't like being all exposed.

Anyway, the little people, they were a lot more helpful than Casey. Their advice is if I'm not ready for a long journey I gotta stop before I get to the forest. I can see it up ahead. I'll pass right by that corn field before then; maybe I can talk to somebody there, get some food. Or not talk to somebody and still get some food. I'll feel safer sleeping with at least a bit of cover.

They also said I'd find people along the way who could help. I'll be honest, that drove me a little bit crazy; none of them seem to be volunteering to come along. If the forest is dangerous, it sure would be nice to have help before getting there, not after.

But whatever. I think these guys are just scared. Can't say I blame them. I think they're a bit smarter than the munchkins that way; Shredder may be gone, but this Vigilante of the West ain't gonna be pleased if she hears I'm going to see the wizard. I'd be real happy not to see her again at all, but seeing how much road is still ahead, I'm sure word'll get back to her.

We just gotta get to that corn field before dark. Toto's full turtle, she doesn't mind walking and chewing on weeds here and there, but I got some mutant in me. I need food and sleep.

I wonder how my family is doing. Did whatever Shredder did pull them into this upside down world, too? I kinda hope so, 'cause if not I guess they must've been caught in the flood. It's not that I miss their company or nothing, I'm just worried, you know?

Toto gets it. She's a real good listener.

[warrior-cats-rewritten]

You punish Bramblestar just enough. Enough to make up for all the times canon and its authors kissed his ass, putting an abusive tyrant on a pedestal over all other characters. It’s both satisfying, compelling, and kinda funny; a fitting end for someone so blatantly yet subtly abusive and corrupt, but somehow also petty and childish in a way no other character is. My favourite staple of Warriors rewrites to show how far their stance is from canon is giving Bramble actual, at times genuinely REALISTIC consequences for his actions. It’s a deserved spit in the face to the idea of hyping up some toxic fragile asshole as a noble hero, like the cognitive dissonance that persists in the books and the authors seem to genuinely believe. Did I mention the lightning is SO funny, it’s like a fire scene in terms of iconicness to me. Deserved. Bramble stans stay loosing, y’all can’t even form an argument.

In terms of the Holy Firestar Lightning Attack, I wanted something quick, "divine looking", and just strange enough that it crossed the border of possible magic. Something I feel fits into Warriors.

I'll never "over punish" a character. Thistleclaw gets a fitting end, ripped open like a bag of doritos by Snowfur, realizing his ideals have actually pushed her away, and that after all this time, Snowfur changed. He dies in complete shock and betrayal.

Tom The Wifebeater gets eaten by One Eye, mind you it was in front of poor Sparrow Fur, but afterwards One Eye uses his dark Sun God magic and consumes Tom's soul as well.

Clear Sky is pancaked on the side of the road by two Twolegs, his body left in the small ditch (respectfully, as they are humans who felt terrible for hitting a kitty and had no way of burying him) before they look out over what is going to be Skyclan's land, realizing how nice it would be to expand Chelford into that area.... Thus setting in motion the events of Skyfall. His spirit is used by Bright Storm to BECOME the Dark Forest barrier.

Gray Wing dies alone and bitter when he pushes away all forms of help, becoming a hateful spirit that perpetuates a curse that's timer has finally hit 0 on, resulting in the death/displacement of all 5 Clan leaders, starting with Riverclan. He also manifests himself through the unlucky offspring of 2 cursed bloodlines (Tigerkin and Applekin) Curlfeather. I'm not giving away his defeat yet though!

For Brambleclaw, I wanted that classic Warrior cats feel, and I think getting smote by holy lightning similar to Mudclaw fits that.

A lightning bolt during plain daylight is already considered a freak event like that has only ever happened once before in Clan history, to the magic user Ṣ̶̫̅n̴̹̯̾̒o̸̜͛ẁ̷͍t̵̰̎ủ̴̲͝f̷̙̳̆t̸̼͐ who got magic BANNED because he used it to ruin Sunningrocks and put generations of bloody wars and pointless fighting in place.

The only cat I've ever gone "too far" with is in an in-universe example of a cat who was punished for her mother's crimes, as her mother had murdered an apprentice. When her apprentice went missing later, she was blamed, and exiled. She also didn't go to Starclan, or the Dark Forest, but rather, somewhere much, much more dangerous.

[harringtonstudios]

heartless.

plot: you’re known for being the worst of the Saviors crew, brutal and mean, but Rick somehow manages to uncover a different side of you.

note: reader is a Savior in this! warnings include: mentions of violence, smut (fingering), dirty language, and patriarchy 

word count: 3.1k divider credit: @firefly-graphics​

smut will start with the bolded word and end with the bolded word if you want to skip! enjoy send in ideas... i kinda like savior!reader haha 

Rick Grimes hears whispers about you before he meets you. 

Negan’s favorite soldier, cold-blooded, mean-spirited. Cruel with both your words and your actions, careless about the brutality you surround yourself with. 

You’re notorious with the rest of the Saviors for being heartless. Ice princess possessing a dangerous way with words. 

You walk into Alexandria as the sun starts to set. The road hasn’t been kind today, with a freak accident taking out your vehicle’s back tire, walkers appearing in small hordes around the Sanctuary, and Negan’s incessant orders over the radio. He’s been getting on your nerves lately, just like Simon and Dwight have been for the past few months. Men throwing tantrums, getting your own people killed, letting emotions overrun situations that lead to nothing but trouble. 

There’s guards at Alexandria’s watchpost, guns pointed at the two cars that pull up in front of the gate. You roll your eyes, annoyed yet again at the way people immediately react with violence. The Alexandrians know the Savior cars by now, know why you’d be coming into their community, and honestly these little shows of rebellion only end up giving rise to harsher consequences. 

“Open the gate!,” someone shouts from the driver’s seat and the guards share a quick look before continuing their staredown with your crew.

You give them a minute to reconsider, but when it’s clear that the gate isn’t going to be opened, you step out of the car grabbing your gun from the holster on your belt. Pointing it at the steel walls, you shoot a couple of rounds almost lazily, letting the bullets ricochet and echo in the empty night.

The gate creaks open, you salute the guards with your gun and a smile.

“Where’s Rick?” you ask, sauntering in as the cars pull up ahead.

Alexandria is quiet. The lights are off in most of the houses, with a handful of people meeting you by the gates, all clutching their guns with hard stares and set lips. There’s a lamppost, shining yellow against the wall. 

“He’s not here,” a voice says assertively, and you look up into the eyes of a pretty woman, face fully hidden under a military cap. 

“Right,” you say, smiling at her as you walk closer, “so where is he?” 

This close, you can see just how powerful her anger is. Jaw tightened, eyebrows lowered, narrowed eyes, lips pursed stiffly together. 

There’s a commotion from down the road, a door opening and closing loudly. The Saviors you’ve traveled with all turn, lifting their guns, aiming at the street as a person walks down, silhouette only visible against the moonlight. 

“Stand down,” you scoff. What a group of fucking idiots, pointing all the artillery at a mysterious figure and not the ensemble of people with their own weapons and clear resentment emanating off of them. 

“It’s Rick,” Joey murmurs, soft enough that you only can hear. Thank god for him, you wouldn’t have been able to match the man slowly walking in front of you to the insistently frustrating legend Negan speaks of. 

“Man of the hour, showing up late to the welcome party,” you announce, eyes locking with the famous Rick Grimes as he saunters into the light of the lamppost. 

“What’s all this? We already paid our dues,” he announces, hands gesturing to the cars. He nods at his people, who automatically take a few steps back, lowering their weapons, relaxing their shoulders. 

Everyone but the pretty woman, who seems to stand her ground, staring at you with disgust. 

“Gotta admit, I’m not too impressed. I’ve heard you Alexandrians usually welcome us with open arms, and houses,” you smile, showing off your teeth, stepping up closer to where he’s stopped. 

There’s a clear battle inside his head over what to say, and you almost roll your eyes. Yet another man in power with absolutely no sense how to handle the situation. 

“We’ll be staying here for the night. Arrangements need to be made for rooms, and I’ll need one of these beautiful suburbian Barbie Dream houses all to myself,” you state, laying out all the details for him. 

There’s a loud scoff from behind, pretty woman’s voice betraying her deep bitterness yet again. 

“Problem?” you ask Rick, watching him lock eyes with her over your shoulder.

“We can give you two houses,” he concedes, hand running over his short beard. 

“I just told you I need three,” you emphasize, taking another step closer. From here, you can see the blues of his eyes, the deep circles lining up under his eyes, the wrinkles etched into his forehead. He’s oddly beautiful in the yellow tint of the light, gruff and broken. 

“We only have two empty ones,” the voice comes from behind you again, and now you’re going to have to address it in the worst possible way.

“What’s her name?” you ask Rick, making eye contact with him. There’s something wild bouncing around in his brain, you can see it with the way his face contorts into something harsher, protective. 

You raise your eyebrows at him, and he blurts out, “Rosita.”

“Ah,” you mutter, turning around to face her. Dwight’s told you all about this one, carrying a personal rebellion on her shoulders, eager to fight, provoke. She’s lost someone. You don’t feel bad, everyone’s lost someone, it’s the end of the world. 

“Rosita, the next word that comes out of your mouth needs to be a ‘Sorry’. I was having a conversation, and it’s not polite to interrupt,” you raise your gun, waving it mindlessly in the air, trying to get a point across without using it. 

You don’t really want to kill her tonight.

Her eyebrows jump up just as Rick starts, “Listen, we can get three houses. It’s fine.” 

“Rosita, I’m waiting,” you tap your foot. The Saviors have started snickering. They travel with you often, know exactly where this little routine leads, how far you can take it. 

“Sorry,” she grits out painfully, eyes shooting daggers into yours. 

You shrug, and then look over at your crew. They’re all anticipating the next step. But the air is humid and your muscles are aching, there’s a crick in your neck from the bumpy ride, and you can already tell you’ve pissed her off successfully.

“Be a dear and lead my boys to their homes for the night.” 

Joey throws you a confused look, but you ignore it, turning back to Rick, “You can take me to mine.”

You almost laugh when the empty house comes into view. It feels like you’ve been walking for ages, energy dissipating the deeper you trek into Alexandria. It’s huge, looming like a pillar at the end of the street. 

Most of your nights have been spent in your shitty room at the Sanctuary. Negan might boast about you as his best soldier, but things are different when he brings up privileges. Simon had somehow convinced him that you needed to work harder to become one of the elite, needed to gather more communities, raid the already established ones. It’s how you’d ended up on this shitty mission in the first place. Even without the patriarchy in place, these awful men controlled the new world, and well, you could be the perfect follower, but never good enough to be considered a real leader.

Rick opens the door, flicks on the light in the entranceway and watches as you walk up the steps. He hasn’t said a word to you, instead opting to steal glances whenever he thinks you aren’t looking. You almost called him out on it, but you’re in no mood to start problems. 

He turns to leave as soon as you cross the threshold. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” you ask, exasperated.

“I have kids to get back to,” he states. 

“It’s nighttime. They should be asleep. I’d like a proper tour,” you reach over and close the door behind him. 

He grits his teeth, “It’s a fucking house, what do you want me to show you?”

“Some appreciation,” your tone is dry now, he’s back to getting on your nerves, “all of your family is alive. One word from me can change all that, so why don’t you show me where the master bedroom is without another one of those outbursts.” 

He leads you through the rest of the house without complaints, shoving open doors and dramatically explaining the rooms. It’s charming in the worst way, a man who knows the risks his little game can have yet still manages to play it. Still manages to piss you off and get under your skin all while doing what you’ve asked without a problem. 

Once he’s done and you’re both back in the hallway again, he turns to you and states, “You know I’ve heard the stories about you.”

“Oh yeah? And what’d they all say?” you ask, leaning back against one of the walls. 

“That you’re heartless. Worked your way to the top being ruthless. The shining star of Negan’s army. Never miss a target,” he rattles off.

“You flatter me,” you laugh and he looks at you with surprise in his eyes. 

“But you’re not who they say you are,” he continues, voice getting softer. 

“And you would know that how?” 

“You could’ve killed Rosita back there, could’ve hurt her or any of my people. You didn’t even lay a hand on them,” he explains and you cross your arms.

“I’m just tired. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?” you try to make it sound intimidating, but he’s smiling now like he’s got you all figured out, like he knows you from the ten words you’ve exchanged. 

There must be something in your demeanor that he sees because he backs off from the conversation, raises both hands above his head and goes, “Okay,” like a surrender. 

The smile lingers in the corners of his lips, his eyes are twinkling and you so badly need him to stop thinking he recognizes anything. You take a few steps closer, leaving an inch of space between the two of you as you murmur, “You think I’m nice?”

“I think you’re not as mean as you pretend to be,” he mutters back and you roll your eyes. 

“Think again,” you say before getting on your tiptoes and pressing your lips to his. 

He reacts almost immediately, mouth opening a little in some mixture of shock and pleasure. You take the opening, bite hard on his bottom lip, let your teeth sink in deep and pull, meeting his eyes. His pupils seem bigger, the black swallowing up blue as you release his lip from your hold. 

You push him hard against the wall and he lets you, his body slamming into the hallway. His hands grab at your hips, pulling you in close with him and suddenly, you’re on fire.

You kiss him harder and harder, punishingly, trying to get a message across. He takes it in stride, kissing you just as bruisingly, hands gripping at your hips, fingers tight. It’s surprising, the way he lets you take control, while dishing you the same energy back. 

“You aren’t proving much,” he whispers in between kisses. 

You stomp on his foot, and as he opens his mouth, you let your tongue slide in. His hand reaches down and pinches you hard on the ass in retaliation. 

You grind against him without thinking, and he’s slowing the kisses down, softly pushing at your shoulders until you’re moved out of his personal space.

“What,” you bite out, wiping your spit-slick mouth with the back of your hand. 

“Just wanted to see how badly you need this,” he answers simply and it’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard. 

You unzip your jeans and pull them down, reaching to grab them and fully take them off, kicking off your shoes at the same time. He watches you, breathing heavily, hand resting on his hardening dick. 

“Do you want to hook up?” you ask finally, feeling a little awkward in his gaze.

He laughs. You want to kill him. In fact, you can still reach your gun from here, it wouldn’t be too hard and yeah, Negan would probably be pissed but at least Rick Grimes wouldn’t be standing in front of you with his eyes trailing your thighs, tongue darting out to wet his lips, lust evident in his jeans. 

“C’mere,” he says and you’re back on him in a second, thoughts fleeting your mind. You’re tired and horny and he’s here and his hands feel good on your body. He’s warm and kisses like he’s drowning in you and every couple of seconds, soft groans drop from his mouth like little beats of heaven. 

One of his hands goes up to grab your jaw, fingers bracing both sides of your face before he pulls down, opening your mouth further for his tongue to sneak in. You immediately give in to his touches, the tightness of his grip getting to you, the space between your legs feeling slicker. 

His other hand slinks down to your thighs, fingers gently trailing the skin there, slowly moving up and down on the outsides of your legs. It feels like butterflies moving along your skin, and you shift your legs apart, trying to open them up for him.

He ignores your movement, removing his hand. You whine a little. 

“Please,” you pant out a minute later, as his hand grabs your ass, pulling at it slightly. You can feel the wetness completely soak up your underwear, can feel the way it’s warm and pulsing and begging for something, a touch, anything. 

He appeases, moving his hand from your jaw to your legs, nudging them apart. His lips move from yours to dipping down, trailing alongside your neck as he gently reaches a finger up, letting it touch the fabric. 

His lips on your neck feel like a flame, hot and heady, breath hitting the sensitive spots as he lets his finger linger in between your legs, lets himself feel how wet your underwear is. 

Another finger joins the first as he sucks on a pulse point, a moan falls out of your lips. He adds one more, three fingers gingerly feeling the wet spot, the warmth that seems to radiate off of the cotton. 

You move your hips a little, try to ground your core against his fingers. He’s teasing you and it’s too much. 

“Pushing against my fingers already? How pathetic,” he growls, his voice deep with want, rumbling through your ears. 

“Rick,” your voice sounds foreign to you, breathy and shaky, “please.”

He pulls down your underwear swiftly and the air hits you, making you arch slightly. 

“Dirty, dirty girl,” he softly tuts as you look at him, meeting his eyes.

He softly reaches up with his finger, swiping your wetness, dragging the slick up and down against your folds. You grip his shoulders tightly, feeling your legs tingle. 

His fingers continue swirling around your folds, spreading wetness, toying with your clit for a second and then dragging back down to your opening. You drop your head to his shoulder, panting as he slowly puts a finger inside of you.

“More,” you whisper out, barely audible. 

His second finger joins slowly, and then you’re grinding down, trying to take in more as he adds a third. He’s filling you up, and it hurts in the best possible way, stretching you while he presses in deep. 

He pulls them out after a second and you feel tears start to build, the emptiness a shock. He doesn’t delay, putting two fingers back in and starting to move them slowly inside of you, softly pushing at your walls. 

You moan in his ear as he uses his thumb to press at your clit while curling his fingers. He moves them around slightly before doing it again and this time, it feels like you’ve just exploded from within. You moan loud and press your core down even further on him, and he takes the hint and continues pushing in right there, giving you just the pressure you need. 

It takes less than two minutes for you to come as he plays with your clit. You let out a deep breath, feel the emotion take over, feel the pressure build up and then burst. Your body’s shaking slightly, his fingers still pressed inside of you, and you shift pushing at his hand to take them out. He does, but trails them through your folds and you let out a shaky whine, too much stimulation too quickly. 

Your eyes are blurry when you open them, and he wraps his arm around your waist, holding you up slightly. He brings his lips to yours, kisses you softly. It’s different than before, not biting or painful, instead it’s delicate, deliberate as you ride out the after tremors of your orgasm.

After a minute, you float back down to Earth again. Your legs are slightly cold now without the warmth of jeans and you’re suddenly feeling too vulnerable, too unprotected around him. 

“You know, you look real pretty when you cry,” he murmurs against your ear, nose bumping into your hair.

You push him off of you, and laugh shortly, “Get the fuck out of my house.”

He raises his eyebrows, watches as you pull your underwear up and wipe the tears that have dropped onto your cheeks. You’re still smiling.

You clear your throat quickly, straighten out your shoulders, feel the ice queen persona drop itself right back in place. You’re heartless. 

“This was amusing, but you’ve bored me,” you vocalize and his confusion seems to grow. 

“Oh c’mon Rick, I thought you were the smart capable leader that Negan’s scared of yet you can’t understand a word I just said? You thinking with your dick?” you mock him. It’s as if someone else has taken your place, cruel with the words you’re using, sadistic with the way you’re avoiding his eyes. 

“Get. Out. Of. My. House.” you repeat, taking a step away from him. 

He blinks once, twice as if clearing a fog from his head before he mutters, “Sleep well,” and then disappears out of your field of vision. 

You hear the door slam shut a minute later and let out a breath. They’d kill you if they found out you’d hooked up with Rick. Usually, it didn’t matter, people were fair game, but Negan had declared Grimes and his little troop public enemies of the Saviors and no dick was worth the trouble this could stir up. Even if it was dick from a man who clearly knew how to use his fingers, knew exactly where to touch you and how to make you submit. No, this was a dangerous game and you were not going to be the one to lose.

[overwhelve]

- nothing personal

hello :3 here's a short something i wrote involving my two ocs, Idymo (left) and Aya (right)!

warnings : very cute also very sad, mentions (and kinda actual) of death - 7.06k words

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

This was a bad idea. Terrible, even. How did she get dragged into this ordeal?

“Keep up, Aya. I’m thrice your age and you’re laggin’ behind like a snail!” 

“I’m coming!” Aya groaned. She was a metre behind (more like two), not that far.

The older woman who led ahead was hunched over, her feet jadedly shuffling through the dirt road. The hot summer air was starting to get to the two of them, tanned skin shiny from sweat, Sighilde’s exhaustion was beginning to visibly show. A long walk combined with unpleasantly humid temperatures were never ideal motivations for older folk to venture outside, but here was Sighilde.

Aya felt a pang of guilt that Sighilde pushed beyond her physical limits just to help her, perhaps that’s why she decided to fall behind a couple of paces. The guilt subdued when she was able to forget about the present situation, and instead let her mind drift into the peaceful surroundings of nature all around. It was hot, but it was also a beautiful morning.

“You didn’t have to come, you know.” Aya half-shouted from behind. “I could’ve gone by myself.”

“Believe me, if I’d trusted you to go alone, I’d be back at home with a cup of tea right now.” Sighilde chuckled, waving a hand up. 

Aya skipped ahead to finally catch up with the older woman, though she was still a couple steps behind. “Really, I would have.” she asserted.

Sighilde turned an amber eye in Aya’s direction. “I’ll believe it when I see it, dear.” 

“I-I’m serious! You don’t have to go out of your way to do me all of these favours.”

Sighilde halted on the path, a deep sigh escaping through her thin lips. “If I don’t, no one will. You refuse to do anything to improve your life.” 

“That’s not true!”

“The most socialisation you get, besides me, is your plants. I know you talk to them.”

Aya’s face grew hot. So what if she had conversations with her plants? She didn’t need friends. The outside world was a dangerous and scary place, full of the unknown and uncertainty. Pain and suffering. Her garden was her little sanctuary, and the many species of plants and flowers her company. It was a simple life, one she did not understand the point in disrupting her peaceful world. She was perfectly content like this….right?

“Ayariauma, you are the most stubborn girl I have ever met in my many years of life on this earth.” was anything but a new declaration. 

“Thank you.”

“I’m serious. It’s going to be your demise one of these days, you know?”

The younger woman’s brown eyes rolled, as she would always roll off Sighilde’s concerns. “That’s really encouraging.” Sarcasm laced her tone. “I feel so inspired.”

She turned her body fully to face Aya, peering up at her with a stern look on her face. “Look, I’m not trying to scare you, or be the bad guy,” Sighilde began. “but I won’t be around forever —”

“Can you not bring that up?” Aya abruptly interrupted. “Please.”

“You can’t run from your problems forever. They’ll catch up to you, whether you like it or not.”

Aya’s wings that were previously puffed out and open, drew closer to her body. They pressed flat to her back and her hands gripped tightly onto her arms, making herself smaller.

Many times before had Aya ran as far away and hid from her problems, yet the outcome was always the same; the most painful kick to the ass you could ever imagine, the kind that knocked you face down into a puddle of mud. But yet again without fail, she never bothered to break the vicious cycle she was stuck in. Running away was easier than dealing with the anxiety that flared within her. 

“I’m sorry. This heat’s really getting to me.” Sighilde apologised with a deflated heave. “I don’t mean to be harsh, but I still mean everything that I said.”

Aya said nothing but scowled as Sighilde rambled on. The older woman's lectures were quite frequent as of late.

“I understand your fears. The world is a scary place, but you have to be brave. You can’t run forever. This is a small step in the right direction for you. So please, even if you don’t want to do this for yourself, do it for me. It’ll help me sleep at night.

It’s just a little friend. Animals aren’t complicated like people, you have nothing to fear.”

Aya sucked in a nervous breath. “Okay.” 

“I think you’ll like them. And the woman who keeps and trains them sounds absolutely lovely. I spoke to her to organise some arrangements before we came.”

“Oh gods,” Aya groaned with humiliation.  “what did you tell her?”

“Well, I explained the basis of your condition to her. She was very understanding.” Sighilde began. “I spoke with her two weeks ago, and she insisted that she wouldn’t have anyone at her home for a week before this date. Isn’t that generous?”

“A week? I feel bad.”

“Well don't. You have to stop feeling bad about things that people willingly choose to do, even if it's for you. She did that without me even asking. I think you’ll like her.”

“I came for the littílkats, not to get personal with anyone.” Aya reminded.

“I’m just trying to ease your fears, my dear, because you’ll have to talk to her regardless.”

Soon enough, they came to their destination. Turning the corner around the last of dense forest growth, they came across a decorative little cottage, sitting in the middle of a clearing. There was plenty of foliage surrounding the little house, visibly well taken care of. Aya could spot plots growing various plants on the side, and trees with dappled colours of fruits sprouted from behind the building. Whoever lived here definitely had a commitment to gardening. To say she was enthralled was an understatement.

“Beautiful place, eh? I knew you’d like it.” Sighilde chirped. 

“I love it!” Aya couldn’t help but get excited over the scenery before her, even though that wasn’t the reason why they were here. Part of her began to think that maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as she initially thought.

As they neared the cottage, Aya observed more of her surroundings. There was a small stream that ran through the clearing, and the chattering sounds of what must be the littilkats. 

Sighilde rapped five times on the front door. The older woman turned her head towards Aya, flashing a reassuring smile.

Aya’s skin tingled with anxiety. She hated being around strangers, let alone having to meet and actually talk to them. There was also the constant fear of what if they were sick and never knew. Aya dreaded the thought of it, but speaking of getting sick, she came to a realisation that made her heart drop into her stomach.

“Wait, I forgot my face mask at home!” she fumed. How could she forget it?!

“Oh, that’s alright.” Sighilde reassured with a firm hand on her shoulder. “You won’t need it.”

“Yes I need it!” Aya hissed. “Getting sick is the last thing I need!”

Before Sighilde had the chance to respond, the sound of a knob turning interrupted them, and the front door swung open. 

“Glad you two could make it!” A voice spoke. A woman’s voice; a little bit on the deeper side. Soft, and flowed sweetly like honey. Though she spoke in the Etheldredian language, Aya easily picked up on an accent.

That accent, I know it from somewhere. She thought.

“Aya, it’s lovely to finally meet you. My name’s Idymo.” 

Idymo. Of course, it was an Umaeban accent. The same as her father. Sighilde was indeed right, Aya wouldn’t need her face mask.

Idymo towered over her with a beaming smile, her starry eyes twinkling in the sunlight. She was a renatus, a kibaonu, she was not endangering Aya in any way.

Aya’s tensed shoulders relaxed now at this newly learned information. She gave a gentle smile, shyly averting her gaze away. “It’s nice to meet you too.” she mumbled.

Idymo stepped aside so they could pass by to enter her home. “I hope your travel here was well, I didn’t expect it to be so hot during the morning. May I get you anything, some water perhaps?”

“It was alright. And some water would be great, thank you.” Sighilde grinned.

“Of course, have a seat and make yourselves at home. I’ll be right back.” She trekked away to the kitchen area.

Aya could not bring herself to peel her eyes away from her for some reason, fascinated by the way she carried herself. Dare she admit that she was gorgeous. Aya was tall, but Idymo was tall, easily towering over the younger woman. She had a generous amount of nebulardermis covering her body, a deep blue scattered atop her otherwise olive skin, sprinkled with thousands of twinkling stars. Her hair was black and silky, tied back in a loose band and so much length that it nearly dragged along the wood floor. It flowed with the robes of her attire as she made her away around the house. 

The guest pair sat on a plush couch situated in the middle of the main room. The interior was quite open, decorated with many shelves and.. hideouts?

Meshes of rope, items that looked like toys, and fabricated tunnels scattered all of the rooms that were visible, and presumably more out of sight.

Soft steps and the repeated tap! tap! of nails interrupted Aya’s daze. Idymo had returned, two glasses of cool water in hand.

“Here you both are. I hope they’re cold enough.”

“It’s perfect. Thank you so much.” Sighilde gave a warm smile.

“Of course.” Idymo bowed her head. She sat down across from them, folding her hands in her lap. “Alright, so, I’d like to get to know a little bit more about you, Aya.”

Aya almost spat out her water. This is exactly what she didn’t come here for. Her eyes narrowed, glaring at the other two women.

Sighilde nudged her side gently. “Go on.”

Idymo's head tilted, an awkward smile plastered on her face. “It’s just so that I can understand your condition more. Sighilde had given me some information when we met previously.”

Aya gripped onto her glass a bit tighter. So much for not getting personal with anyone.

Sighilde sighed, bringing a wrinkled hand to rub her face in frustration. “Aya.”

Aya flattened her wings. She wanted to leave. 

“I could explain the process of the adoption instead, so you’ll know what to expect. Is that alright?” Idymo questioned.

“Yeah.” Aya muttered bitterly.

“Let’s go out back into the sanctuary where all the littílkats are. I’ll let you hang out with them for a while until you find one that you like.” Idymo explained. “From there, I will have to help train it to perform tasks to support you with your needs. That’s why I ask to know more about you, it’s crucial for that process. If you’re not comfortable with those kinds of conversations quite yet, I understand.”

Aya’s brows furrowed as she processed Idymo's words. Train, that means I’ll have to see her more, right?

“Oh.”

“Aya is unable to go into town. If she gets sick, she’s bedbound for weeks.” Sighilde began. “When these episodes occur, she can’t do anything for herself, so I become her caretaker. I have to be careful, because there are times when I unfortunately bring home a little something. I can’t guarantee her wellbeing, no matter how careful I am in public.”

Idymo's gaze shifted from Sighilde to Aya. "That’s terrible, I’m sorry you have to suffer like that, Aya.”

Aya turned her head away from both women, utterly embarrassed. Their stares felt like they were searing the scattered patches of feathers off of her skin.

“She won’t let anyone else help her, so I resorted to an animal companion that would be able to help.” Sighilde’s tone was laced with sadness. “I’m old, I can’t deny that it’s getting more difficult for me each day. As much as I wish I could do everything for her, I can’t. Not forever.”

“I can only imagine.” Idymo’s expression became sullen with sympathy. “So you are looking for a littílkat to assist with basic care. Food, water, medicine, they can also learn to detect illnesses.”

Sighilde’s eyes brightened. “Yes, that sounds perfect.”

“Okay, that’s a great start.” Idymo cheered. “Aya, would you like to come outside and meet the littílkats?”

“Okay.” Aya placed her glass on a small, wooden table to the side. She rose and followed Idymo towards the back of the house.

“You girls take your time out there, I’ll be inside avoiding that awful heat!” Sighilde laughed.

“Of course, relax as much as you need. There's fresh fruit on the kitchen table if you get hungry!” Idymo called back into the house.

The sanctuary behind the house was a lot bigger than Aya had initially anticipated. Tiny wooden bridges connected the many fruit trees, also decorated by tiny wooden houses. Small burrows, water pools, and even more toys were scattered around, like a giant playpen for small creatures.

Lots of chirps, followed by the soft sounds of tiny paws scurrying about filled the atmosphere. Aya raised a leg to proceed after Idymo, but was startled by a flurry of furry creatures racing past her feet.

“What the —!” Aya gasped in surprise.

Idymo let out an alluring laugh. “Careful. They seem to be in a frisky mood at the moment.”

“I can see that.” Aya huffed as she regained her footing, proceeding more carefully now.

“Don’t worry, they’re not always like this. Just have to get their zoomies out and then they’re calm again.”

Looking around again, Aya noticed a couple of the littílkats crouched by small shrubs, picking off berries to snack on. 

“What’s their diet?” Aya inquired, watching the small animals with curiosity. 

“Fruits, vegetables, and insects. I’ll give you a list of which ones are good for them after.”

“That’s good to know. I can plant some fruit trees for them.” 

Idymo raised her brows in surprise. “You garden?”

At the mention of gardening, Aya piped up almost immediately. “Yes! It’s the best thing in the world.” 

“That’s perfect. I could even spare you some seeds if you need them.”

“Yes! I'd like that.” 

Idymo giggled, stopping in an open patch of grass in the middle of the yard. Her tall figure lowered to the ground in a crouch, beckoning Aya forward to follow her.

She reached into the pouch that sat on her hip, pulling out a handful of small, red berries.

“These are their absolute favourite. I use them as treats, otherwise all of the berries in the garden would be gone in a day.” Idymo used her other hand to conceal the berries in her palm, gods forbid they would be ambushed by the tiny creatures if they caught a glimpse of the sweet treats. 

Idymo inserted her index finger and thumb into her mouth, blowing a loud whistle. “Ibo nga’o!” She called out. (Come here!)

Wow, it really was Ancient Umaeba! Aya thought excitedly to herself. I’ve never met another person who could speak it.

Several littilkats jumped down and ran out at Idymo’s call. They peered up at the two women with big, curious eyes. A few of them cautiously inched forward, their interest peaked on Idymo’s closed fist.

“Ah-ah!” She raised her free hand, signalling for them to stop. “Niyae na nga’o.”  (Stay.)

The littílkats hopped backwards, diverting their attention back to Idymo. “Weia.” She praised. (Good.)

“Tu Oba turi tae?” Aya asked, more of a statement as she knew for certain it was her first language that Idymo was speaking. (Ancient Umaeba?)

“Ta dyy tu Oba turi kora ome tae?” Idymo blinked in surprise. (You can speak Ancient Umaeba too?)

Aya chuckled nervously. “A bit. I’m very out of practice, it’s been a while since I’ve had someone to speak it with.”

“I see, that’s pretty cool! How did you learn it?”

“It was my first language.” Aya shrugged. “Probably doesn’t seem like it now, though.’

“Oh wow, really? I thought I heard a slight accent in your voice.” Idymo commented with a bright smile. “Who taught you, if you don’t mind me asking?” 

Aya’s expression faltered into a slight frown at those memories being brought up. It wouldn’t hurt to mention it, she supposed. 

“My father. He’s a kibaonu.” 

“Oh, right." Idymo nodded in acknowledgement. "I’d be happy to practice Ancient Umaeba with you, if you ever wanted to.”

Aya froze. Again, she wasn’t here to get personal. Idymo seemed nice, really nice. She’d feel bad about being rude to her, so Aya decided to give a gentler response. “I’ll think about it, thanks.”

Idymo’s eyes crinkled in another big, radiant smile. “Of course!”

So radiant, it made Aya feel funny. What the fuck? 

Sighilde was more than at peace inside of the cool house. As the day fell into the afternoon, the sun grew hotter. At her age, the scorching heat of the summer season was more unpleasant than not, especially on days like these.

From where she sat, she could peer out of a wide window that gave her a perfect view of the sanctuary, and what Idymo and Aya were up to.

She had known Aya for a long time by this point, enough time to know her deep down. She looked relaxed, despite being left alone with a total stranger. Sighilde was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps this is the push she needed, a taste of everything she had been missing out on for the entirety of her life.

Give a sunflower a taste of sunlight, and it will forever yearn for warmth. 

Sighilde was already aware that Idymo would become a regular visitor at their home if they adopted a littílkat. She didn’t mind, Idymo was lovely to be around. Wherever she went, she enlightened the room with her contagiously joyful spirit. She was great at listening, and even better at comforting others, something that Sighilde struggled with when it came to Aya.

She knew it would be unprofessional to ask for any more favours from the renatus, but Sighilde hoped, truly hoped that perhaps Aya would warm up to Idymo.

An hour passed, or two. Perception of time was something that slipped out of her grasp easily whenever she was tending to her plants, but never outside of that. Hours were long and full of anxiety. The dread of not knowing whether tomorrow would be overcome with agony. 

Aya held a different fruit, a long, curved, yellow fruit that had its peel pulled back to reveal the sweet flesh underneath.

After some time of interacting and playing with the littílkats, one had taken a particular liking to Aya. 

“It’s a girl,” Idymo had said. “she’s a little sweetheart.”

Idymo had handed her the fruit she was now feeding the small animal. A banana, she called it. Aya would have to find what markets sold them in her area.

The littílkat took small bites, her tiny hands gripping the flesh of the fruit while she nibbled away. 

She was adorable. Her fur was a light beige, with darker hues of a rich umber on her snout, around her eyes, and along her body. Her massive eyes locked gaze with Aya’s own, a fiery gold that seemed to glow in the summer sun.

“She likes you.”

“Only because I’m feeding her.” Aya remarked doubtedly.

“She’s shy, doesn’t warm up to strangers as easily as the others do. I’ve never seen her approach a newcomer as fast as she did.”

The littílkat suddenly pulled away from the fruit, having had her fill. She leapt into Aya's lap and gazed up at her.

“She definitely likes you.” Idymo affirmed.

Aya gasped as the littílkat jumped up onto her chest, her hands shooting up to support the little animal so she wouldn’t slide off. She curled into her, a soft vibration emitting from her tiny body.

“Aww..” the corners of Aya's mouth curved into a sheepish smile. She held the animal ever so carefully. Its fur was so, so soft, like nothing she had ever touched before. 

“Any objections to her choice?” Idymo softly laughed, careful not to wake the littílkat. 

“None at all.” Aya shook her head. “I think I like her too.”

“Let’s go inside then. You can bring her with you.” Idymo rose, extending a hand to help Aya up. 

“I’ll give you a rundown of everything you’ll need to know, as well as the supplies she’ll need to start you off.” Idymo began. All three (four if you count the new addition) sat at the dining table, a variety of foods piled in front of Idymo. 

“They’re not too difficult to care for. Feed them twice a day. Once in the morning, once in the evening. You don’t have to feed them too much, as they’re smart enough to know where you keep the food and will definitely try to get a snack.”

“Is that bad?” Sighilde asked.

“Not necessarily. As long as they’re not eating too much outside of their scheduled meals, they’ll be fine. If they’re outside, they’re bound to find plenty of insects to snack on anyways.

Once you bond with her more and she’s better trained, you can let them outside anytime without having to keep an eye on her.

They’ll know where home is and not stray too far.”

Sighilde quickly jotted down notes on a piece of paper. Her memory was not what it used to be, she'd forget half of the instructions by tomorrow afternoon.

“How often do you plan to come over to help train the little one?” inquired Sighilde.

Idymo pondered for a moment. “As long as I don't get swamped by work, I could try to be there from Mánadagr through Frjádagr. If that’s alright you with, of course.”

Sighilde brightened up at that, much to Aya’s dismay. “Oh yes, that’d be perfect!”

Aya remained silent, not wanting to voice her objections. This is only temporary, this is only temporary.

“Perfect then!” Idymo clapped with a toothflashing grin. “I’ll stick to this schedule for now then. It helps that I don’t have any other clients at the moment. Once she is better trained in her tasks, I can reduce my visits.”

The littílkat was sleeping peacefully, now having moved to curl up on Aya’s shoulder. She’ll have to think of a name soon.

The first few weeks of training were challenging, to say the least, but the results were promising. Like Idymo had assured, she showed up on all the days she promised to be there. 

“Djao, fetch water.” 

The littílkat hurried off around the bend of a corner.

Idymo sat with Aya in the main area of her house. Two weeks had gone by, and the new addition to the home was settling in well. 

“I think I’ll name her Djaodunawetwi. Djao for short.” (A/N: Djaodunawetwi is the A. Umaeban word for 'golden'. The literal translation is 'of sunlight', because the "Sun" shines like gold.)

“Ooh! I like that.” Idymo agreed. “Why did you settle on that name?”

“Her eyes are like sunlight. They’re beautiful.” Aya smiled.

Djao skipped back into the living room, a small cup of water in grasp. She jumped up into Aya’s lap, spilling the rest of whatever water was left in the cup all over her sundress.

Idymo burst into a fit of laughter. Aya scowled, despite the heat that crept into her cheeks. She would never admit to it, but she had grown used to the melody of what was Idymo’s laughter.

“I apologise, I shouldn’t be laughing. I guess we forgot to teach her to be slow when she has cup full of water. Look at the trail she left!”

Aya’s gaze followed Idymo’s. Surely enough, there were several splotches of water along the path that Djao had taken. 

“Maybe we should invest in cups with a lid.”

Idymo shook her head. “Don’t worry, they can be taught to not spill water all over the place. We’ll work on that.”

On the fifth week, Aya had contracted an illness of some sort. One day she was alright, and by the next, she was unable to get out of bed.

“Aya, I’ll be gone for about three days. Are you sure you have everything you need?” Sighilde fretted. She always hated leaving her alone, unsure if she would be okay.

“Yes. I’ll be alright here, you can stop fussing over me and go.” Aya grumbled from where she sat at the table, busy sorting through piles of various seeds.

“Sounds like you’re trying to get rid of me.” Sighilde teased, stuffing the last of her belongings into a brown bag.

“I’m not.” Aya huffed out. “You’ve just been fussing over me all morning.”

“I just want to make sure you’re safe and prepared. I don’t want anything to happen while you’re all alone.”

“Nothing is going to happen. I can take care of myself.” Aya raised her head to shoot an arrogant glare at Sighilde. The older woman had a look of disbelief on her aged face. 

“For your sake, I hope so.”

Unfortunately, things did not go as hoped the following day. Aya awoke before the sun, greeted by a world of pain.

Just great. She grimaced in her mind. How many days would Sighilde be gone again? Two? Three? Four? She hoped it was the first possibility, because Aya was terrified. 

She lay flat on her back in her bed, her brunette hair plastered to her face from the amount of sweat her body produced. It was cold, she was shivering, but her skin was clammy and hot to the touch. 

Her lips fell agape, taking deep, strained breaths. She was always so scared when she couldn’t breathe. It felt like a horse was sitting on her chest. 

She was alone, with no one to help her. Even better, she forgot to eat dinner last night, too preoccupied with tending to the plants she feared were diseased. It was ironic, really. If only she had given herself that same care. 

She could only pray to the Gods that Sighilde forgot her reading glasses at home and decided to turn around and come back. Anything so that Aya wasn’t left to do nothing but lay and wait out the agony.

Djao stumbled into Aya’s room at the crack of dawn, jumping onto the bed. Her condition had remained the same, if not worse. Unfortunately, she was only able to perform a handful of tasks. 

Aya’s eyes fluttered open at the tickling sensation of the littílkat sniffing her face.

“Djao…” Aya whispered weakly.

Djao pulled herself onto Aya’s chest, still inspecting her. Though she was not trained to identify illnesses yet (as that would take more time to get her familiar with), littílkats were very intelligent and observational. She knew something was wrong with her master and wanted to help.

A violent fit of coughs shook her off of Aya. She choked out, struggling to regain her breath. Djao only grew restless with anxiety. The little creature jumped to the floor and hopped away, off to do what she was trained for.

Djao spent the entire morning retrieving a variety of foods, half-empty cups of water, and several types of medicinal plants, bringing them back to Aya’s room to try and help her.

She couldn’t understand why Aya wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t drink, and wouldn’t take the medicine. She was still young, an adolescent, and didn’t understand complex human speech yet. She didn’t understand that Aya felt too nauseous to eat, or didn't have the strength to raise her head to drink from a cup, or that these weren’t even the correct herbs.

Sunlight poured into the room, burning past her eyelids and only setting off a fire pressure in her head. The curtains were left wide open, as usual. Aya enjoyed waking up to warm sunlight on her skin.

In times like these, she hated the sun and wished it would explode and end her suffering. The pain was so great, it felt like several knives were digging into her skull, ripping her open down through her spine.

She couldn't get up to shut the sunlight out herself. Djao didn’t understand what the word ‘curtain’ meant yet. She sobbed helplessly.

She was going to die like this. It was most likely inevitable, given that her symptoms flared up as fast as they did, but the dread of waiting for yet another death was always torturous. On the brightside, this would be over soon.

Hopefully.

Idymo arrived at Sighilde’s cottage in the evening. Tucked under her arm was a woven basket, filled with bundles of various herbs she used to treat her patients. 

“What have you tried to treat her symptoms with?” Idymo asked while she fiddled with a sheet of paper.

“Nothing works. There is no point.” Sighilde sighed, defeatedly. Her shoulders drooped.

“I'm aware that her disorder cannot be cured, but maybe the symptoms can be managed. At most, we can try to find a method that can provide some relief from her pain.”

She reminisced about a conversation with Sighilde a few days prior. Idymo was already familiar with the name ‘astral-hybrid incompatibility disorder’, or simply ‘AHID’ for short. She had skimmed across it in a dusty medical textbook back when she was still only a student in Hajnalka. The description was brief, its list of documented cases even shorter, but she knew one thing. It sounded like a living hell. She couldn’t imagine living in a body where your own cells constantly rejected each other, to the point it attacked every cell, every nerve, every organ. Yet, it was Aya’s unfortunate reality.

Sighilde had told Idymo of her planned absence and that it would be alright for her to continue her visits to help Aya with Djao’s training. Aya wouldn't be alone for that entire time either, a bonus as Sighilde considered it.

“Just knock, I told Aya that she is to open the door for you. If she doesn’t, the spare key is under the window sill to your left. It’s in a little gap in the stone, so you’ll have to dig around for it.” 

Idymo approached the door. She knocked, and awaited an answer.

No one came to the door.

“Hmm..” Aya was not outside, she knew that. She was a renatus, the ceatures who had the most superior sense of hearing of any species in all of Ingonuudjia. Concentrating, she failed to hear any signs of life from within the house. Her gut twisted.

She set the basket down and crouched, feeling for the hole under the sill that Sighilde informed her of. Her finger dipped and she touched something cool. Found the key.

She pulled it out and unlocked the door, ducking down and stepping inside. 

At the sound of someone entering, Djao bolted out and jumped up onto Idymo’s robes. The littílkat did not climb, but rather held on and stared upwards at the renatus.

“Hey there, Djao.” She cooed. Her sudden rush to greet Idymo was unusual for her personality, which didn’t help that sinking feeling in her stomach.

Djao’s ears were angled, but not flat. A sign of unease, anxiety. That was another bad sign.

“What is it, girl? What’s wrong?” Idymo lowered her hands to scoop her up, but Djao jumped off and bounced down the hallway.

Idymo swallowed nervously, following the animal. It appeared as if she was following her training.

“Aya? It’s me, Idymo.” She called out, to not startle her.

Djao was leading Aya towards Idymo’s room, she realised. As she got closer, her superb hearing was able to hear Aya. Wheezing, gasping, like she was struggling to breathe.

Idymo quickened her pace and entered the room, only to be left in shock at the younger woman’s condition. She looked deathly ill.

“Oh, Aya. How long have you been like this?” Idymo dropped the basket and rushed to her side. This was her first encounter with AHID, let alone seeing a full blown episode.

Aya gave her an exhausted glance, sucking in a weak breath. Her lips were cracked, her mouth dry. She was incredibly dehydrated.

“Don’t.. k-know..” She wheezed.

Idymo blinked. She was panicking, something she rarely found herself doing, despite having faced death numerous times. Although this time, it was entirely different. AHID lacked research, severely lacked. Idymo was great at solving problems when it came down to how to help someone, but this time she was at a loss of what to do.

She took a deep breath. It would do Aya no good if Idymo was unable to remain composed. 

“What hurts?” She gently pressed.

“Head.” Aya croaked.

Idymo nodded. She stood up and closed the blinds, darkness washing over the room. 

“Throat.”

Idymo returned to her side.

“Chest. Can’t —” A fit of coughs interrupted her without warning. “Can’t….brea..the.”

Aya’s breathing was strained and weak. Idymo was sure she wasn’t getting enough oxygen. She gently took Aya’s wrist, turning her arm over and pressed two fingers to her pulse point. Her heart was racing.

Looking over her, she didn’t need to examine further to note the obvious fever. There was also a faint, bluish tone to her extremities, a very concerning symptom.

“Your breathing is terribly weak. I need to treat it immediately.” Idymo began to rummage through her stock of herbs, trying to find something that would be of use.

“Don’t.” Aya choked out. 

Idymo continued searching. “I can’t let you suffer like this. I’ll start with making you ginger tea, and then —”

“No.” Aya interrupted. “It’s.. t-too late. I-I can’t keep.. anything d-down..”

Idymo looked up, her eyes wide with fear. She couldn’t let Aya die, not like that.

“I won’t let that happen.”

“I’ll be...o-okay.”

Aya was really struggling to communicate, but she knew Idymo was unfamiliar with her condition. Given her fate was inevitable at this point, she pushed herself to speak.

“I’ll.. come back.. I p…rom..ise..”

Come back..?

The renatus froze, déjà vu washed over her like rain.

She remembered the description of AHID. The disorder was caused by an incompatibility of two types of cells. In Aya’s case, her kibaonu genes were unable to mix with her human genes.

There are several kinds of illnesses and diseases that humans can contract. Kibaonu are unable to contract human diseases, as they are biologically an entirely different group of species. 

Aya’s cells are like oil and water, unable to mix. They simply co-exist beside each other, all until she catches the common cold. Kibaonu cells have never had to encounter the common cold, not in a lifetime, nor an existence of several bloodlines. Kibaonu, in this sense, are similar to their stronger Ugwaam relatives. They are faced with a threat, and they will do anything to eradicate it. 

A human is no match for the strength of a kibaonu. It is a common occurrence for tissue to be destroyed, organs to fail and shut down, and inevitably, the individual to succumb to the attacks from their own body.

Kibaonu are immortal, they cannot die of a mere human disease. The kibaonu cells will preserve the body, and eventually resuscitate it, now with the diseased parts eradicated and reformed with the stronger cells.

Idymo understood now, though she felt sick at the thought of standing by and watching Aya ‘die’. She was a healer, to let anyone die went against everything she fought for.

She had never felt so useless.

“I’ll make you comfortable, at least.” Idymo softly declared. “I’ll only be gone for a moment.”

She found two cloths, taking them outside to dip them in a cool pond that was behind the house. She returned to Aya, using the first rag to gently wipe away the sweat that stuck to her skin. When she cleaned her up, she placed the other one over her forehead to cool her.

Aya let out a quiet sigh of relief, despite the rapid sensation of her life slipping away.

Idymo could only wait and watch in silence, hoping that her company would ease Aya’s distress. Though she did not verbalise it, she saw it in the way her features contorted with anxiety, the way her bottom lip trembled, how her eyes, though dull with fatigue, were evidently wide with fear.

The sun was now dipping into the horizon, the sky transitioning into a rich, orange colour.

Aya’s breathing was incredibly slow, Idymo figured it wouldn’t be much longer now. 

They had only known each other for a few weeks at this point, unsure if friend or acquaintance was the appropriate term for their relationship. Idymo enjoyed coming over. Despite it being her job to help with Djao’s training, she relished in the serenity of their home. It was quiet, unlike the average day in her life.

Her home was peaceful as well, but it was lonely. There is only so much companionship that animals can provide. Renati were not solitary beings, she craved for real connections.

She hoped she wouldn’t mind, but Idymo traced gentle circles into the back of Aya’s hand. She figured that Aya would have made her protests evident if she disliked Idymo's attempt to soothe her.

I’m here. She said in her mind, not brave enough to speak it aloud.

An hour into dusk, Aya’s breathing ceased. Idymo’s heart instinctively lurched with panic. She reminded herself that this was normal, that everything would be okay. She shifted backwards, yet not putting too much distance between her and Aya. She fiddled with her digits anxiously, waiting for what seemed like days.

Aya revived abruptly with a sharp gasp, her eyes still closed. It had been just under two hours since she quite literally died.

“Aya?” Idymo sprang from her seat, rushing to her side.

Aya hummed in acknowledgement, her body remaining still. Idymo could see she was still weak and unwell, but she didn’t appear to be in pain like she was hours ago.

It was truly incredible, Idymo had just watched her succumb right before her eyes and remain lifeless. Her body never shifted, no signs of decay ever began. She seemed at peace.

They sat in silence for a while longer. Idymo observed Aya’s body, wanting to assure that her health wouldn’t decline for a second time.

Aya opened her eyes after a short while, her eyelids heavy with exhaustion. Her body was weak, much so after that episode, but the burning, ripping sensation in her chest was no more. Her chest tingled with typical aftershocks of enduring so much pain, but this was euphoric compared to what she endured earlier.

Idymo leaned forward, looking into her green eyes. “How do you feel?” 

“Thirsty.” Aya rasped.

Idymo couldn’t help but laugh at Aya’s normal self coming back. She missed that.

“I’ll get you some water.”

Idymo returned with a cup. She placed it down to help prop Aya up against a fluffy pile of pillows. 

Aya was unable to feel anything but misery before, but now was much different. She was forever embarrassed that Idymo had to see her in such a state. She felt even more guilty that she stayed to care for her. This was the longest that she had ever stayed over.

She was so gentle with her. Aya melted under the softness of her hands, though she’d never admit that she enjoyed her attentiveness.

While she gingerly sipped down the water, Idymo brushed away Aya’s bangs to press the back of her hand to her forehead.

Aya hoped her temperature would cover up as an excuse as to why her cheeks had flushed into a deep shade of red.

“Your temperature is already much better.” Idymo breathed out a sigh of relief, retracting her hand. "You're improving quickly."

“Told you.” Aya handed the cup over, having had her fill. She sank down into the bed.

Idymo smiled at her remark. “You should drink more. You’re very dehydrated.”

“Later.” She mumbled. “Still feel sick.” Aya added when Idymo gave her that look.

“Are you in pain?” Idymo asked.

“Nothing like before. After um.. that happens, it’s typically okay from now on.”

“Typically?” Idymo reiterated. 

“Unless I get sick again, but I don’t think you can get me sick, so it's okay.”

“I’ll stay until whenever Sighilde returns.”

“You don't have to.”

“I’m not leaving you alone, not after I just witnessed you pass away in front of me. How long did that episode last?”

Aya hesitated to answer, not wanting to give Idymo even more reason to stay over for the next few days. She caved too quickly for her liking, uncomfortable with the lack of resistance she had when Idymo all but pouted with worry.

“Before dawn.” Aya yawned. Exhaustion was really hitting her hard.

“I’m sure you haven’t eaten, either. I’m glad that I don’t have to go into Samnathrum for the next few days.”

Aya weakly shook her head. “I’ll be okay by tomorrow. I can’t leave the garden —”

“You won’t be touching it. I’ll take care of that for you, alright?”

Aya’s face twisted with worry. She was protective of her plants, that was her only pride and joy in life. The thought of someone else touching them, and possibly damaging them made her panic.

“I’ll water them in a bit so you don’t have to worry about that. Tomorrow after you get a night’s rest, you can tell me how to take care of it. Okay?” Idymo offered. "Maybe if you're well enough, I'll let you come outside and supervise me."

Aya appreciated her compromise. Though she would rather do it herself, her feathers deflated at the thought of having a day to relax. "Okay.”

She rose, grabbing the soiled cloths and heading towards the doorway to dispose of them.

“Wait, Idymo!”

Idymo paused in her tracks, turning back to look at Aya.

"Um, thank you... thank you for staying."

Idymo said nothing, but gave a warm smile. There was that funny feeling in her gut again, though her health's condition wasn't the culprit this time.

Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to get a little personal, would it?