#readershot

[clonewarswritings]

The Squadron’s Spouse

Rookies of Rishi (1/2)

Series Summary: An AU where clone squads are sometimes assigned an Emotional Support Partner who is equal parts counselor, mediator (and spouse) in order to keep morale and loyalty as high as possible—somebody gets a job and at least several fairly loyal not-on-paper-but-you-know husbands, while the squadron of clones are less inclined to do things that, you know, make accidental babies happen.

Featured Clones: Domino Squad (Hevy & Cutup)

Rating: Explicit

It’s… quiet. Almost. Even with the sound of the music echoing from the command deck and the boys in various states of jokes and bickering, it’s somehow still… quiet, in a fashion.

Though you want to use it, peaceful isn’t really the right word—the Rishi moon outpost exists solely as an early warning system in the case of Separatist invasion, so you suppose that life on it can never quite be truly ‘peaceful’ by the most traditional of definitions. Always waiting for an attack, always worried that you’d wake up to the sound of blaring alarms and blaster shots; the anxiety never quite left the back of your thoughts.

Of course, you literally signed up for a life like this; the officers handling your papers in the Companion Program had been very overt in what would be expected if you decided to be with Domino Squad. Their assignment to the outpost arrived quickly after graduating from Kamino, and your arrival was all but scarcely afterwards.

That had been a while ago, and you had long-since lost track of the days when it became apparent that the Rishi Moon Outpost was… less than active, which is technically a good thing. The boys call it boring—or, most of them do. Hevy and Cutup tend to be the first to grumble whenever someone brought it up, but Echo never seems bothered.

You’re always catching him with a holopad in his hands and, without fail, he wants to ramble to you about some obscure regulation or rule that you’d never realized existed. His current policy obsession seems to be the Companion Program, and you do have to admit he helped you figure out quite a lot in just the first few weeks of knowing him. The man’s ability to memorize information was fantastic.

“Did you know that, technically, you are part of the chain of command?” he had asked one day over dinner, a bland mix of rations and shipped fresh goods that only came once a month.

You of course didn’t know such information, but Echo had been ecstatic to tell you about it. He shot off immediately into a ramble about various details of the program you doubted anyone else would find even a quarter as interesting.

But that was several days ago, though the memory still felt fresh enough with how little did genuinely seem to happen from one day to the next—and today you are ‘helping’ to keep an eye on the security cameras with Hevy and Cutup. ‘Helping’ of course is in the loosest sense of the word, given the fact that you technically have no obligation to do the same job as any clone in your assigned squadron. But, like many spouses in a similar position outside of the front-lines, you try to do so anyway… even if the job is as entertaining as watching grass grow.

”At least the meteor showers break things up,” you offer, waving a hand towards the console, “So you can’t say there’s nothing that happens here.”

The next wave of raining rocks would be in an hour of course, though the only thing different to do for the two men manning the station is press the button to activate the facility’s shields.

Hevy rolls his eyes. “Baby,” he says, voice almost cooing the pet name he’d started calling you, “you’re starting to sound like Echo.”

You glance at him for a moment as your lips curl into a smile.

“So what if I am?”

”Then that means I should start callin’ you Echo-2.”

”Maybe jus’ ‘Two’,” Cutup offers with a chuckle. “It’ll stick much better that way.”

”You’re right,” Hevy agrees with a nod of his head and a smirk on his lips. “And then we’ll hafta tell Echo himself when he wakes up.”

In almost any other situation, you’d be touched to get a nickname from your squad. Names were a precious thing, after all, and earning a nickname as a spouse is no less important than a clone earning their own—it’s not something you’d expect an outsider to understand the subtleties of.

But, as much as you’d be touched otherwise, their teasing is obvious. You feel your cheeks go red-hot as the two clones laugh, but Hevy’s gentle hand on your shoulder keeps the feelings of embarrassment from getting too sharp against your thoughts.

”We’re not really gonna start callin’ you that, baby.”

”It would be the silliest nickname ever,” you huff, crossing your arms over your chest. “Even Droidbait’s name sounds like it has a better story behind it.”

”Not really!” comes a call from across the room, where the namesake clone sits at another monitoring station.

The three of you laugh together with Droidbait’s answer, a moment of gentle absurdity breaking up the otherwise dull hours of the shift at the consoles. If nothing else, your presence seems to be offering entertainment to Hevy and Cutup both, which are particularly bothered by the concept of boredom.

A few minutes pass without a word to break up the silence, just the gentle beeping of the monitoring station and the occasional song humming through the outer-rim broadcast that Droidbait has playing from one of the speakers.

It’s… quiet again, as it always is in the background of things. There’s scarcely a thing to do but stare at the empty screen and feel a gentle lull of drowsiness start to tug at your eyes—so you shouldn’t have been surprised when Hevy started to get handsy.

He’s had a hand on your shoulders since the moment you decided to sit down with him and lean into his side, so you don’t notice when that hand shifts from idly stroking the back of your neck and instead starts curling around your body so that his fingertips are at your throat, then slipping beneath the collar of your shirt to stroke your collarbone, then sternum, then-

Your body jumps almost instinctively when his fingertips pinch one of your nipples.

”Hm?” Hevy says, acting as if totally unaware. “Something wrong?”

You stiffen your back and reach a hand up to touch where his is /clearly/ still half in your shirt, eyes locked with his.

”Hevy,” you say, expression mixed between surprise and embarrassment while you try not to think about how he keeps teasing you between a thumb and forefinger, “you are actively on a shift.”

”Really? I haven’t noticed,” he turns his gaze momentarily to a screen showing the empty swath of the moon’s landscape, pockmarked by previous meteor showers. Afterwards his eyes turn back to you.

They are absolutely mischievous.

You are desperate not to let his touch break your firm expression—not of non-consent, just flushed-face judgement.

”I swear, if sergeant O’niner catches you…”

”He’s busy on the other side of the outpost with Fives,” Hevy purrs, his hand getting bolder as he gropes at your chest with open interest. “Besides, if he really gets mad then I’ll take all the blame.”

There's a gentle couch beside both of you, and your eyes quickly turn to see Cutup watching with eager interest. He raises a brow and chuckles.

”If I take half of th’blame, can I get in on half the action?”

”Fuck yeah,” Hevy answers before you can even open your mouth. “Last I checked, sharing is quite the virtue—wouldn’t you agree babydoll?”

”I didn’t-“ you fumble for words, warm face growing even hotter as the man turns so that both hands are actively trying to remove your shirt. “This is a horrible idea. Why /here/?”

”You said it y’self,” Cutup coos, his voice suddenly much closer to your ear, “We’re on duty. Can’t leave the console ‘cause someone’s gotta keep an eye on it.”

”Well, if only one of us needs to be looking…” Hevy‘s words trail off, but you can imagine that he and Cutup are sharing a look with one another—a horrible, dreadful, mischievous look.

It doesn’t take them more than a minute, tops, in order to get your shirt off. It’s lined with an anti-blaster material, but offers just as much resistance as you do in slipping it over your head: absolutely none. For all you protest, there really isn’t a sizeable part of you that doesn’t want to give into the clone’s hormonal urge. There is something a bit hot in getting fucked like this admittedly, in the open of the command room. You can feel Cutup’s eyes watching every motion as he sits back in his chair, glancing only occasionally at the observation feed from outside while Hevy continues to run his hands over your naked chest and purr in your ear.

”You must really wanna get fucked like this if you’re not stoppin’ me, baby.”

The petname sounds positively lascivious when he says it like that, voice so low that it’s nearly a growl. His hands roam further down, until they’re playing at the top hem of your pants and slowly undoing the belt holding them up—the joy of clothes for spouses often being too small or too large, simply depending on what was available.

While Hevy is messing with that, Cutup leans forward in his chair and props his chin on the heel of his palm.

”C’mon, sweetheart, give us an answer.”

”… please…”

“What’s that?” Hevy asks, lips brushing the back of your ear. “Thought I heard somethin’.” And just to make a point, he pulls his hands away from where they’ve practically undone your pants, just one movement shy of stripping your body of clothes from the stifling heat.

The soft noise of dismay you make must have been arousing, because both men stare at you like starving animals, pupils blown wide and their breathing quick. They look at one another as if confirming that to be a positive answer before you finally whine and pull Hevy’s hand back towards your pants.

”Yes,” you whisper, mouth suddenly feeling quite dry. “Please, take me like this. Here.”

”The man seems all too eager to remove the last bit of clothing from your body, leaving the layers in a pool of cloth at the base of the consoles and chairs. Before you can even breath you’re sitting on Hevy’s lap, his strong arms tugging you so that your back is to his chest and your hips precariously grinding back into a hard shape swiftly realized to be his cock. When the man had the time to undress you, remove the plastoid plate between his thighs and undue the fasteners, you’re not quite sure—and at this point, you’re just grateful to feel his naked flesh against your own.

”C’mere, baby,” the man coos in your ear, one arm wrapped securely around your waist while the other is out of sight—you’re not sure what he’s doing with it until he brings bare, gloveless fingers tips to your lips. “Why don’t you get these wet?”

You allow them with silent consent between your lips and against your tongue, sucking on Hevy’s fingers albeit sloppily as he purred dirty, half-heard whispers in your ear while grinding his cock between your thighs. The ache in your belly has twisted into something truly horrible, a need so strong that the mere debauchery of the moment is enough to make your nerves feel raw. Your tongue presses between the two fingers in your mouth, trying desperately to make them split-slick enough to meet the man’s satisfaction; it doesn’t take more than a minute before he’s gently pulling them back out, gleaming wet with saliva.

”Good job,” he murmurs, appreciatively. “Wanna make sure we get you wet enough for me, babydoll.”

His words send a shiver down your spine—for all his rugged personality, Hevy was never anything but a gentleman to you, even in moments like this. He seems to know all the buttons to push to make you need him all the more.

Still with one arm wrapped around you, his other moves down between your legs, fingertips prodding gently at your entrance. The spit may have not been entirely necessary in terms of lubricant, but it certainly did help in terms of arousal; you need him so much, want him so dearly, it’s hard not to shiver when Hevy finally dips his fingers inside of your body and harder still not to moan his name too loudly.

”Would’ja look at that,” Cutup says, his voice bringing you back into the moment. Your eyes shoot open (not realizing they were closed) and upon a glance to the other side of the console chairs, you find the man equally disrobed as Hevy—cock out and wrapped in a gloveless hand. He’s stroking it over carefully as his eyes linger over your body, hungry like a predator.

He smirks even wider when he sees you looking. “Don’tcha you worry now, sweetheart, you’ll get your turn on me soon enough.”

Oh. Oh. You had known somewhere in the back of your head that you would wind up taking care of both Hevy AND Cutup—it simply came with the territory of being in a polyamorous relationship with several men under a lot of stress—but you didn’t think about the /how/. Somehow, the idea of being passed between them, used and watched like a toy and show, it only made you more aroused. Your skin prickled with nervous desire, your heart racing and your belly hot and twisting with eagerness that only grows the longer you watch Cutup stroke himself while watching you.

You smile at him as best you can, face hot but body knowing exactly what to do in the moment as Hevy’s careful fingers ease your body open.

”You good, baby?” He asks gently. You nod, arms reaching so that you’re almost hugging yourself where his arm is around you already. Hevy breaths out, and then growls, “Good. Need t’ make sure you’re ready to take my cock—don’t wanna be breaking our precious little spouse now.”

He slides in with relative ease. Though the working of his wet fingers had helped a little, it’s mostly your arousal and need that helps him slide balls deep within the aching grip of your body.

Hevy wastes no time to start thrusting; the motions are hard, slow, and deep, angled so that they are almost perfectly striking what feels like a deep bundle of nerves desperate for stimulation. As if that isn’t enough, his free hand reaches down between your thighs and reminds you, keenly, of how deftly those fingers are with the many weapons he likes to train with.

You moan, words a garbled mess of need, and hold his arm around you in a desperate need to be anchored.

”Yeah, yeah—hold onto me, babydoll…” Hevy purrs, voice straining. “Tell me how much you want me.”

”… Hevy…” the sound of his name is a whisper. You’re getting closer, closer—and then, suddenly, the man stops moving. His cock sits inside of you.

”Say it louder,” he growls. The words are firm, a command. You’re hesitant to speak much louder if only out of embarrassment, not wanting to draw attention towards the carnal act of desperation you are partaking in with Hevy and Cutup—but the need to orgasm outweighs the nervousness.

”Hevy,” you whine, “Please, Hevy, make me cum—“ lungs burn with a need for air, your breathing too quick and shallow. “Hevy, Hevy, Hevyyy-!”

”Perfect,” he murmurs, then immediately begins moving his hips again—so fast and hard that it makes the chair squeak beneath the weight of both of you. No more than ten seconds pass before both of you are cresting over orgasm, the sweet blossom of heat coming unfurled with a shout into the cold air of the outpost.

The man growls as he presses inside you one last time, deep and possessive, and fills you with his seed that you don’t need to think twice about for one reason or another and enjoy the messy warmth all the same. Hevy takes a few moments to press a kiss to the nape of your neck, then carefully helps to lift your hips enough that his cock slips out from you.

You’re not able to take more than a moment to think before Cutup, who has pushed his chair closer to you, reaches out a hand and carefully takes your chin in his hand.

”Doin’ alright?” He asks, tone delicate with concern. The nod of your head confirms that you’re alright, simply tired from the orgasm and settled in the sweet afterglow.

With one hand still stroking his cock over, Cutup smirks and pulls your face towards his so that he can kiss you—it’s deep and needy. “Lil’ sweetheart lookin’ all tuckered out. Don’t worry then, I’ll do all the work for you.”

It doesn’t take much for the two men to shift you from one lap into another. You’ve seen their strength firsthand, their bodies perfected physically and biologically to handle gear and weapons that must have weight as much or more as you do. Cutup positions you comfortably astride his hips, and it doesn’t take much effort for his cock to slip inside you, your orgasm leaving muscles lax and Hevy’s orgasm leaving you dripping wet.

He was honest about doing all the work; Cutup’s hands hold your hips firm, but gentle, lifting you just enough so that his own body can close the gap between you over and over again as he races towards his own orgasm. You don’t think that you’ll be able to cum again, but there’s a satisfaction in feeling the man inside you and knowing that you are making him feel so good.

”Cutup,” you lean forward and whisper in his ear, voice low and sweet. “Oh, Cutup—please—won’t you cum inside me too?”

The poor thing must have been so pent-up watching you and Hevy fuck, because that’s all it takes for him to find release. You feel his grip tense on your skin, his motions go stiff and desperate, and the telltale warmth of his orgasm flooding your channel. It drips down your thighs in thick pearly droplets when you shakily pull yourself off of him, a dopey smile on both of your faces all the while.

“Well,” Hevy says, “that’s always a good way to waste some time n’ take the edge off.”

”You turn to look at him, and he’s already seemed to compose himself again—plastoid plate back in its spot, gloves on and even your clothes collected and laying in his lap as neatly as he could gather them up.

The smile on your lips is fueled a bit by the afterglow, but you laugh and raise a brow, “I think you should give me more credit than that.”

”I can say you always make my shifts at observation a helluva lot more interesting.”

A moment passes in silence before, suddenly, a forgotten fourth party in the room finally speaks up.

”So uh,” Droidbait says evenly from his faithful spot at another console, “you guys are done… right?”

[kimetsunoyaibawritings]

Introspection

[AO3 Version] | [Original Request]

Rating: General

Summary: When a rainstorm threatens Tanjiro's travels through the countryside, he takes refuge in the home of a kind stranger. During his stay, he discovers that not only is his host of half-demon blood, but their mother had also been a member of the Demon Slayer Corps.

Tanjiro is nothing if not curious, and learns more about the multifaceted world of demonkind, hopefully growing ever closer to undoing the curse upon his sister.

Tanjiro could tell that something was off. From the moment that the man had entered into his physical perception he knew that something wasn't quite right. The man -- you -- weren't entirely human. Neither were you entirely demon, but he couldn't get much detail behind the simple fact of otherness that permeated the air around you with every shift of your body.

It wasn't a bad smell either. In fact, when you bowed in greeting, he found the gesture scented with honesty and friendliness instead of hidden malice or insincerity. He bowed in turn, and the two of you exchanged names. It didn't take long before you took note of his weapon, and much less after that to realize that the wooden case hefted against his back held something far less trivial than one would have assumed. Not something, but someone.

His nose was sharp -- for a human, at least. Yours was just as honed, though the ability came from your mixed blood than from a rare natural gift. It took but one breath with a defined focus to realize the young man you'd met was hardly a normal person.

Demon Slayer.

The words held some semblance of meaning. Nothing with coherent form; they were words passed down to you from your parents, spoken with such fearful vitriol that you had to wonder what kinds of people became such Slayers of Demons. Surely they would be bloodthirsty, heartless souls that would so willingly strike down such simple people without due thought or consideration to what their sins truly were -- assuming that existence itself wasn't a sin for a demon.

But as Tanjiro stood before your eyes, you had to reconsider the image that had built up behind the words. He did not look bloodthirsty. He didn't even seem aggressive. But he still carried the nichirin blade that you'd been warned of, and you had to wonder how many demons had been killed at the mercy of its sharpened edge.

So you, a half-demon standing before one so named a demon slayer, do the careful thing:

You invite Tanjiro to stay with you for the night.

Truthfully, Tanjiro isn’t in a position to reject the offer. he’d been traveling for several days through the rolling landscape between the mountains, and he could smell a thunderstorm coming in. For all that he couldn’t understand you or your strange scent, Tanjiro really had no reason not to trust in his kindness.

The house you called your own is humble, too far from the nearest village for anyone to randomly stumble upon you without incredible forewarning. Tanjiro is actually quite the rarity, one that you find some manner of joy in meeting — the last person you’d met was half as kind and barely a fraction as patient.

“Are you a demon slayer?” you find yourself asking barely a moment after the two of you have stepped into the narrow threshold of the front doorway. Beyond is a home consisting of a few rooms at most, minimally furnished but meticulously cared for.

Tanjiro barely has the chance to set his gear down, but he flashes an earnest smile in your direction.

“I am,” he says. There’s pride in his tone. “Though I’m a little surprised. Not a lot of people recognize us that quickly, unless…”

“No. I don’t have any connection,” you quickly dash his assumption aside. “But I recognize the uniform and weapon you’re carrying. Nichirin blade, correct?”

Tanjiro blinks, but the look of warmth never quite fades from his face even as he nods to affirm your suspicion. It sates your surface curiosity, but it doesn’t offer any sort of clue as to what is in the box he’d carried upon his back. For a moment you wonder if it would be rude to inquire about it, but shrug the notion off quickly when you remember how strange the box smells. Not weapons, not rations, but something softer.

“What’s in that box of yours?”

Tanjiro’s entire frame stiffens. In barely a breath’s worth of time, his demeanor tightens up and leaves the young man looking tense and unsure. With one hand gently laying upon the wooden surface of his cargo, he says, “Something… very important to me,” he then reaches his other hand up, fingers splayed open and shaking as if to ward off concern. “-but I promise it’s nothing dangerous.”

You can smell a soft trace of anxiety around him. While the unexpected reaction incites a spark of curiosity within your chest, it’s not without a resounding sense of restraint and mannered respect for Tanjiro’s privacy. If he doesn’t wish to share the nature of it’s contents with you — someone who is little more than a stranger to him, admittedly — then he is under no such obligation. Still, you purse your lips for a moment in disappointment before lightly gesturing for him to step further into the house with you.

“I’d been cooking food when you arrived,” you say gently. “Clean yourself up and I’ll serve us both something hot to eat.”

It doesn’t take very long before the two of you are sitting together, sipping at the brothy soup that had been bubbling away for the entirety of the earlier afternoon. Though the majority of the meal is somewhat silent, Tanjiro’s eyes move about the room, taking in every detail that raises above the floor and out from the walls. It doesn’t take a genius to realize how well he fits into the ideal of a Demon Slayer — Tanjiro is perceptive and foolhardy with at least some basic talent for the blade on his hip.

Beyond that, however, you’re not quite sure what is to be expected of him as a slayer. He’s very kind and respectful… but those are hardly the traits you’ve come to associate with the title. Everything about the young man demands curiosity, so much that you don’t realize how his gaze has settled onto one particular spot on the wall behind you. By the time you remember what is hanging openly, Tanjiro’s lips are already forming a question -

“Whose sword is that on your wall?”

You don’t even turn your eyes around to look at it. The object has taken a defined place within your memories — you can’t forget the shape of the blade, the texture of the hilt, or the soft smile of it’s previous owner even if you genuinely wanted to purge them from your thoughts.

A sigh escapes your lips after a few moments. “It belonged to my mother,” you explain after a moment. When Tanjiro’s rust-colored eyes light up, you decide to answer the question just behind his lips. “And yes, it’s what you think it is. She was a demon slayer herself.”

“Oh,” the syllable falls with a sense of understanding of was rather than is. A misjudged understanding, given the ambiguity of your answer, but a respectful one nonetheless. “I’m sorry.”

A moment passes.

“And… your father?” Tanjiro asks.

The speed at which you shake your head is almost comical. No. No. The visual image is a joke in itself, and Tanjiro doesn’t even realize why his question is so humorous to you.

“My father was not the kind of person for that line of work.” a gentle chuckle does manage to escape the poised line of your lips. “…I doubt he’d be able to wield a blade like that in the first place.”

It feels as if the conversation is going to continue out from there, a gentle rolling of waves upon the edge of a beach after the brief storm of near-realization to what was hiding just beneath the surface of half-dodged answers. But it doesn’t manage to get farther than another breath before a noise sharply echoes out from the wooden box set out near the doorway and shocks both of you into a gazing silence.

“Tanjiro,” your tone is careful and your eyes hone in on the item. Caution prickles in your fingertips and against your tongue as claws and fangs slowly emerge from behind a carefully-kept glamor. “what is in that-”

“What are your thoughts on demons?”

You blink, turning to face the man again with a look that does not hide an ounce of your confusion. It takes a few moments for some of the dots to connect to one another. The reason for him asking your opinion is hanging right above your head, a heavy reminder to half of your heritage — but it doesn’t quite match all of the points of confusion all but emanating from Tanjiro and the strange box he carried with him.

Still, his question deserves an answer. And even as your eyes settle carefully on the square shape across the room, you offer one.

“Asking my thoughts on demons is no different than asking my thoughts on humans,” you say, words careful and tone oddly tight. “Some are good, some are bad, and none-” a sharp breath passes over your lips. “-none are perfect.”

Tanjiro’s eyes linger on you for a long while, longer than what feels comfortable for the silence between you. For a few moments you wonder if his question was a test and your answer had failed it abysmally, but it didn’t change your feelings on the matter in the slightest. Nothing ever will.

Another sharp noise echoes from the direction of the box. Your eyes begin to dart towards it, but the motion of Tanjiro’s body commands your attention towards him instead, he as if ready at any moment to launch himself towards the box, but his eyes meeting yours openly and earnestly.

“So you’re saying you think some demons can be good, right?”

You watch him, but sense no malice in the young man’s gaze.

“Of course.”

Relief seems to flood across his expression. When another, more rhythmic sound comes from the box, he doesn’t so much jump towards it as he does shuffle to his feet and step across the room. Before he’s able to reach it, however, the door suddenly opens to reveal a shape of pink fabric spilling out from within. You blink and watch as the fabric moves, and ever so quickly does your mind realize that there is a person within it, wearing the kimono that reminds you of cherry blossoms in springtime.

By the time Tanjiro is at the side of the wooden box and holding out an outstretched hand, you’ve come to realize that it’s been a young girl inside of it the entire time.

A demon. The scent doesn’t escape your nose for a moment, though it lacks the underlying sharpness of iron you’d come to expect from others of her kind and yours alike.

And Tanjiro regards her with tolerance, nay, respect. It seems to take the young woman a few moments to orientate herself to her surroundings, but he smiles at her with all the same gentleness.

“It’s okay, Nezuko,” Tanjiro says brightly, pulling the woman onto her feet. “This is a safe place.”

Despite all the words that press up behind your tongue, you can’t help but stare at the young duo. Tanjiro smiles and gestures towards the young woman beside him, Nezuko.

“This is my… younger sister,” he says at last. The air settles around the room in a nonverbal confirmation of information that doesn’t take more than a heartbeat to confirm, but it leaves you equally confused and curious all the same.

“Tanjiro,” you murmur, words finally picking up a semblance of strength. “This may be a stupid question, but are you aware that your sister is currently a demon?”

Though it’s not clear what would have been more surprising of an answer, Tanjiro’s honest nod does seem to do plenty to throw you for a loop. A demon slayer traveling around with a demon at his side? The notion vexes you completely, even if the demon in question is a member of his familiy. Unless…

“Was she born a demon?”

Tanjiro and Nezuko both look at you, the former with a more defined look of confusion across his face.

“Born…?” he asks. “As in turned? Turned into a demon?”

“Ah,” you suddenly feel a bit silly and more than a little embarrassed as his confusion seems to be genuine. “I think I misunderstood a few things. I’ve got my answer in any case but, no, I did actually mean born as in physically birthed.”

While Nezuko loses interest in the conversation and begins to roam about the room, her brother slowly settles back onto his spot across from you — albeit shooting a glance to his young sister every once in a while which is admittedly endearing. The two of them seem barely old enough to be out on their own, and you’re not sure if the demon slayers even have a minimum age requirement to begin with as long as someone can hold a weapon and defend another.

“How could someone give birth to a demon?” Tanjiro finally asks. “I thought they were only created by… uh.” he pauses for a few moments, waiting as if to catch something in your eyes. Recognition perhaps? “…A man named Muzan Kibutsugi.”

He’s not bothering to conceal his befuddled expression as, behind his eyes, you can see the threads of thought and logic try desperately to put an answer together from the bits of information he already knows about demon-kind.

“Most are,” your words taste bittersweet on the tongue. “But not all of them. Some demons can create other demons if they’re strong enough.”

Tanjiro nods as the faces of both Lady Tamayo and Yushiro appear in his mind’s eye. Though she had been a demon created by Muzan, he recalled that Yushiro was created by her hand in the continuing search for a cure to turn someone human once more. It had been the only instance where he’d come across a demon not created by the demon king himself, but it’s a clear enough example that Tanjiro doesn’t need to stretch his mind very far to understand your words.

Seeing this recognition, your hand raises to gesture up towards your chest, fingertips barely skimming across the wash-worn fabric of your kimono.

“You asked before about some demons being ‘good’.”

Tanjiro nods. Even Nezuko has moved her attention towards you, though she stands solemnly in one of the darker corners of the room as her eyes glow like shimmering sakura blossoms.

Considering the nature of whom was sitting in front of you — the organization for which Tanjiro allied himself with — there was a part of you that wished to simply lie between your teeth and wait out the night until it would be socially acceptable to all but kick the young warrior out of your home. That part had good reasons to be cautious and fearful, but another part of you found something hopeful behind the young man’s eyes. You aren’t naïve enough to call it ‘trust’, but the emotion is certainly within the same pond.

“My father was a good man,” your hand lingers, stilled against your chest and all but faintly feeling the thrum of your own heartbeat. “An odd man, but a good one. Tended to the fields, took care of my mother when she fell ill, even managed to make friends with some folks of the local village. He respected everyone around him.”

Even as he remains politely silent, something starts to click in Tanjiro’s eyes, even before you finish the point of your words.

“…my father was also a demon created by Kibutsugi.”

Tanjiro blinks with wide surprise and shock stilling the words that otherwise press against the back of his lips. While there had been a growing hunch forming somewhere within his thoughts, he can’t help the suddenness of the question needed to confirm them when he finally can speak again.

“Does that mean that you are-”

“Half-demon, yes.”

"How does that even...happen...?"

You chuckle, "I'd imagine how most people go about having babies."

Tanjiro's cheeks turn a dark red, and he quickly drops that particular line of questions.

You try to offer the young man a comforting smile, but he continues to stare in a summation of awe and disbelief. He’d never even thought that a demon and human could have a child together. For the longest time since learning of their existence, Tanjiro simply thought that demons couldn’t have children at all — like an extension of the curse befallen upon them, leaving them wanting for human flesh and blood, feral and wild and-

It is then that Tanjiro’s thoughts click into place once more. No. He’s not without multiple examples to the contrary, strengthened each and every day by the knowledge that his own sister is of the same creation as many of the demons so easily vilified and hated. But, even then, it doesn’t change the fact that Nezuko is a rarity — her lack of bloodshed is, as far as he’d learned, a genuine oddity among other demons.

“… Have you killed anyone?” he finally asks. His eyes glance towards the floor, looking almost ashamed in having to speak the words.

You shake your head. The question is hardly a surprise — you actually would have been more caught off-guard if that hadn’t been the first thought on his mind. But oddly enough, the question is something of a comfort. It allows to you answer it honestly.

“I haven’t hurt or killed anyone before — since part of my blood itself is human, my diet is relatively lackluster.” with a sweep of your hand, you gesture out to the empty bowls in front of the two of you. “I can be out beneath the sun, but my skin is somewhat sensitive to it; just a short while in direct sunlight can leave me with a terrible burn.”

Tanjiro nods. He brings up a hand to his chin for a moment to ponder over the details and new information as what appears to be every thread of his thoughts devote to try and weave it all together with what he already knew. One detail into another, filling up the ever-growing sense of curiosity that he had for demons and those around them. If nothing else, it proved that there were still things that not even the Demon Slayer corps understood properly — or, if they did, they certainly didn’t admit to them. The Hashira’s response to Nezuko solidified that well enough.

After a few moments, Tanjiro’s attention flicks back up to your face.

“Your… mother was a demon slayer, right?”

You nod politely, though it doesn’t take more than a quick glance back up to the nichirin blade hanging above both of your heads on the wall behind you to be reminded of the fact.

Tanjiro’s gaze tilts ever so slightly with his head to one side. “How did your mother and father meet?”

You shrug. “I never learned much of the details, though I do know that he was at one time a demon she was sent out to kill.”

Tanjiro chuckles after a few moments.

“I think I can guess what came after that,” he says. “So was your father… around much after you were born?”

“Of course!” your expression all but beams at the gentle memories. “Just because he was a demon doesn’t mean by default he was a bad or neglectful father. Though I suppose he so often seemed sickly to others; not able to go outside during the day, having to hide himself when there was company… I admit there is a lot about my father I still don’t know.”

For but a flicker of a moment, you are absolutely certain that there is a sadness within Tanjiro’s eyes. A mutual bitterness, empathetic beyond words. But the look is gone ever so quick, so much that if your perception was but a moment slower it would have been missed entirely.

But what remains is yet a soft expression.

“Thank you,” he finally says. “I am trying to learn as much as I can about demons right now.”

“I assume as much, being a demon slayer.”

“No, no it’s-” the young man looks suddenly flushed. “I promise I’m-… I’m not going to tell anyone about you. I just, think that… there’s a lot that I don’t understand. But I would like to. You see, my sister and I-”

And so, Tanjiro tells you the story of how he and his sister began traveling together — the murder of his family, his sister being turned into a demon, his promise to himself and those he lost that he would try to right all of the wrongs that had been done to them. He explains how he joined the demon slayers, how he had met other demons who had been kind to him in much the same way that you had been. Though the names Tamayo and Yushiro held no recognition, they did bring a sense of warmth to your chest in the confirmation that being a demon didn’t truly mean one had to give up their sense of humanity and kindness.

One topic moved onto another as the night continued on and the rainstorms moved in. Through the soft pitter-patter of water against the roof, you did your best to answer as many of Tanjiro’s questions as you could despite the fact that your knowledge of Muzan went no farther than simply hearing it once or twice and having a basic understanding of his role in the origin of demons themselves. There is also something admittedly humorous in watching Tanjiro’s expression when your glamor falls just a little, revealing sharp claws at the tip of each finger and fangs barely hidden behind the press of your lips.

“Neither my father nor I had any semblance of combat ability, but they’re useful for hunting.” a moment passes. “Animals, I mean. Me and mother still had to eat something.”

Perhaps it’s the reminder of your mother, and her lack of presence in the house with you, that finally encourages the question forth, “How long have your parents been…?”

“Dead?” you don’t fear the sound of the word or the notion behind it. “It will be twenty years this coming spring.”

“Twenty years?” Tanjiro gawks. “H-how old are you then?”

“I was born in 1857, so…” you do the math in your head, giving Tanjiro several moments to try and come to terms with the fact that you barely look older than your mid twenties at most. “This year I will be fifty-five!”

Your bright, sharp grin is in hilarious contrast with the shock all but painted across the young man’s face. After giving him a breath to take in the information, you point out, “I am half-demon. Time doesn’t mean as much to my health as it does a normal demon.”

“I… see,” Tanjiro’s eyes return to normal, but there’s no hiding his lingering awe. “So will just a nichirin blade… kill you?”

You have to laugh at just how shy the question is for the severity of the words. “Trying to plan my demise already, demon slayer?”

Though Tanjiro immediately begins to shake his hand and try to babble out an apology and explanation alike, you aren’t cruel enough to let it linger for more than a moment before explaining, “A normal blade could behead me and I would die. I could drown in a lake or perish from a high enough fall. In all things but old age, I’m still very mortal, Tanjiro — for better or worse. I can’t speak for any other half-demon you may come across, but I know that much.”

A moment of silence passes between you. Tanjiro thankfully doesn’t ask about your parents or their passing. In fact, he seems rather satisfied by the amount of information he’s gotten already, so much that his mind constantly looks as if it’s rolling about within his skull, putting together a puzzle with far too many pieces missing for most people to even bother in the first place.

The rain continues to fall. It’s a gentle white noise, ceaseless, and punctured only by the dull rolling sounds of thunder as it moves across the edges of your perception. It doesn’t take long for you to realize the time either, knowing even without looking out the door or window that the moon is high into the night sky and that, furthermore, it was not hospitable of you to keep your guest from getting a good night’s rest.

“If you have no more questions, I think it would be a good idea to get some sleep.”

There were more questions — there is always more questions — but Tanjiro can’t ignore the fact that it’s late and, yes, he would need to be moving along to his next destination early in the morning. It doesn't’ take long to ready a place for him to sleep, and less so for Nezuko who seems content to simply be near her older brother. Though she doesn’t speak a single word to you, the look in her eyes seems soft and curious, perhaps even grateful.

It’s understandable why Tanjiro has such a moderate view of demons despite being among the Demon Slayer Corps himself.

That fact in itself is something of a comfort as much as it is a curiosity, one that lingers with you even when you see the young man off the next morning, so early that the sun has barely crested above the hills and mountains on the horizon.

And Tanjiro, as he leaves, finds himself renewed with energy and questions alike. Every time he thinks he has a strong grasp on the world around him, something new emerges that throws it further into perspective in an ever-growing map of knowledge. Though the edges continue to get blurrier, there’s something nice in familiarizing himself in it. To Tanjiro, it brings him further hope for the future of not only himself, but for the Demon Slayer Corps and the greater world around them.

Maybe, he hopes, he’ll run into you again one day.

And maybe then he’ll be able to introduce his sister to you as a human — or perhaps the world will have grown in such a way that, like the union of your parents and the makeup of your own blood, it won’t even matter in the first place.

[finalfantasyxivwritings]

Tomorrow and Tomorrow

AO3 Version

Relationship: Bard!Reader/Ardbert

Rating: Teen

Summary: In which the you, the Warrior of Light and a bard, compose Tomorrow and Tomorrow after the events of Shadowbringers. You're having a hard time finishing the piece, but an unexpected (but not unwelcome) visitor shows up and becomes and equally unexpected muse for your soul.

-

It’s a familiar sight, one that you keenly remember seeing since childhood. There is nothing particularly special about it in form nor function, but yet it is arguably the most beautiful sight that you can distantly recall seeing in quite a long time.

The sun, setting off in the distance, slowly falling to the western horizon far beyond the hills of Lakeland. You watch the scene in gentle awe, letting it wash over you in a sublime sort of wonder that is difficult to explain in words alone. There is truly nothing special about it in regards to how sunsets normally go, but you feel especially taken by the fading glow in the sky, shifting into the warm spectrum of red and orange that overtakes the entire sky.

Perhaps the sight is ever more wondrous because you know the pains it took to make it so. The pain, the effort, the sacrifices made just so you can gaze your eyes out over the fading light, content in the knowledge that the sky would soon embrace the world below with moon and starlight, the latter as numerous as the lives spent in trying to regain such a simple gift that forces had stolen away and threatened to swallow the world in misery and suffering.

Or perhaps still it's because you have learned to appreciate it. It hadn’t taken very long after your arrival upon the First for your body and mind to find such everlasting light stressful and anxious. When you would fall asleep and wake yet under the scorching, unnatural brightness of the sky above, such wonder befell upon you for what it must have been like for the multitudes of other people living in the First to endure it for over a century. 

Regardless, you were not one to ignore such beauty even if you couldn’t understand the reason for it; such was the nature of many things in the world, and you often had too many other issues to spend your thoughts on than of the natural mysteries of nature itself. Perhaps one day you will be able to make right on your words with the Exarch, of taking a well-deserved rest when the world was not beneath the shadows of those who would do her harm, but that day was not on the horizon just yet.

Until then, the sunset was a fitting, beautiful substitute to fill the expanse of your wandering thoughts for the evening. As the sun fell into the gentle embrace of the earth beneath it, and the sky began to fade from a brilliant fire and into a subdued indigo, you found a place upon the window sill with instrument in-hand.

And, as darkness gradually filled the sky above your head, so too did inspiration come into your heart, and then words upon your lips.

-

“For whom weeps the storm Her tears on our skin The days of our years gone Our souls soaked in sin These memories ache with the weight of tomorrow.”

Haunting. Aching. The words fill the air of the Pendants halls like an invisible smoke, dancing alongside the occasional pluck or strum of an instrument that one couldn’t be bothered to identify. 

It seeps into bones and hearts, carrying both hope and regret alike as it wavers from soft whisper into a powerful echo, until once more it grows soft upon a critical pair of lips, a tongue that tries to weave emotion into words.

“From those who've fallen to those who arise A prayer to keep us ever by your side An undying promise that we just might Carry on In a song.”

The moonlight falls into your open window as you feel the echoes of the words fade away into silence. Something about them feels right, but yet there still feels to be something missing from the piece, something you can’t quite capture yet even though you feel the muse of night itself an eternity above your eyes. Even as you stare out into the endless expanse of stars, nothing can quite make the connection with the burning fire in your chest.

Fingers absentmindedly strum over the lyre in your hands, finding pleasure in the soft noise of each individual string coming together in simple chords, and then once more into the soft melody you’d long-since devised for the song before the words had started weaving themselves into your dreams.

“ These memories ache with the weight of tomorrow… ” your lips mumble the whisper of a verse, just barely loud enough to hold a tune. Like many of the songs you’d composed in the time since you’d joined the Scions, since you’d become the Warrior of Light, it feels natural to craft songs from your efforts and sacrifices. Of experiences made. Of friends found and lost. 

Though you had started the efforts as simply a way to soothe the ache of the world constantly weighing upon your shoulders, the music had quickly become a way to preserve everything that you continue to fight for.

For friends. For enemies. For battles fought and won, battles fought and lost . For every single day that you’d agonized over your worth in being the Warrior of Light--and soon the Warrior of Darkness--music was a way to keep it all immortalized in a way that would outlive you, and perhaps still even outlive your own legacy that would surely come to pass when people remembered your efforts and skill than you as a person.

Bittersweetness gripped your heart as you repeated a line, and then another, wanting for it all to come together. Waiting. Your fingers touch upon the strings, and your lungs fill with air, but there’s… nothing.

And that frustrates you more than anything else. Your mind can recall the names and faces of so many people, so many lives that had lived and died, and yet your heart can’t find the muse enough to offer them worthwhile words for their sacrifice towards the safety of their home.

“I didn’t take you for the singing sort.”

The voice sounds sharp, cutting through the thick tension of the moment between your mind and body, fingers and strings. Surprise enough, at least, that your head jerks around to find a second presence standing in the center of your room. A familiar presence, but a surprising one nonetheless.

“And I thought you promised to warn me before you made an abrupt entrance into my room.”

Ardbert offers but a half-cocked smile and a shrug of his shoulders, confident enough that your annoyance wouldn’t last very long in him.

And he would be correct. 

“It’s hardly as if I can offer a knock,” he says, glancing once to the door behind him before approaching the window sill upon which you sat. “And you can’t blame a man for curiosity; I could nearly hear you from the front desk.”

Tension fades away from our lips as the shade moves to sit beside you, fortunate enough that he is able to actually sit upon the sill than fall through it like his body does most other objects. 

“And what were you doing all the way down there?” the question is equal parts amused and curious. Fingers strum over the taut strings of the instrument in your hands, filling the air with a soft chorus of noise.

Ardbert offers another shrug, which you catch out the corner of your eyes.

“People-watching, mostly. Little else that you can do when your options to interact with the world are rather limited.”

Your lips part to say something, but the words are quickly stilled between them when you realize how miserable they would sound, a man so lonely that he could not speak or even touch another person but yourself. Even you can’t twist his perception of the world into something humorous, morbid or otherwise, so you shut the attempt down completely in favor of strumming the lyre once more in an experimental chord.

Ardbert hums, and it takes a moment for you to realize that he’s trying to mimic one of the notes in the chord. But when you turn your face to ask about it, the specter of a man has already beat you, peddled back to the topic you are about to leave behind as an unspoken pain.

“They’re happier, you know.”

You blink.

“What?”

“The people of the Crystarium.”

Ardbert lets out a long sigh, a chest full of air that he breathes out from between softly parted lips, eyes closed in the moment as he gathers up his thoughts and words alike. His shoulders brush lightly against yours as the two of you sit close, closer than what would have been appropriate. You feel like it’s on purpose, given that the man seems lacking in some of the outer layers of his armor, in just enough to call him as casually dressed as you are.

You don’t say anything about it. His presence is comforting.

“You should hear some of the things that they say about you. Rumors and hearsay is already turning into tales and bedtime stories, y’know.”

Ardbert leans against you. Knowing that there was no other person that he could share such connections with, a fair bit literally speaking, it means more than but a simple brush of shoulders and catch of glances.

And his words fill your heart with something warm and unexplainable. Like the very sunset your eyes had caught but a short time before, the emotion is sublime and without words to give it proper description. Put to the barest of forms, you feel happy. Happy in knowing your efforts have impact, a genuinely positive impact upon the world around you. Of knowing the sacrifices of the lives before you had meaning, that future generations would be able to appreciate the world without fear of sin-eaters and lighwardens alike.

Knowing that you had done good.

Whether he is aware of the effect of his words upon you, Ardbert eventually lets out a chuckle, kicking out his legs and leaning back to more properly appreciate the dark-enveloped sky above your heads.

“After seeing you take down all of the lightwardens, I’m surprised to know you’re so skilled in crafting a tune. Full of surprises are you, Warrior of Light?”

Another pluck of a string, another brush of shoulders, another warm twist around your heart.

The edges of your lips quirk up as one chord fades into another, and then another still.

“Do you think my extraneous skills silly, Ardbert?”

“Hardly,” he says quickly, gesturing with a hand of his sincerity in it. “I simply could never find the time or talent to do much with music myself. I tried a few times, but I found I was far more apt with the steel of an axe than the wood of a lyre.”

His hand settles back between the two of you, close enough that you yourself could reach down and cover it in one of your own. Somehow, you know that Ardbert is equally aware of this fact, and makes no effort to move it away.

Ardbert clears his throat after a moment, “But, going back to before.” He shifts a little, decidedly closer to you. “I did hear your singing, but I don’t believe I got to hear the end of the song.”

“That’s because it’s not complete yet.”

“Ah,” the man takes a beat, filtering the words before realization and hindsight seems to move through him. “Did I interrupt you? I can leave if you would like; there was a rather interesting debate going on in the Cabinet of Curiosity I was eavesdropping on if you’d rather for me to leave-”

“No!”

For once since you’d put your hands on the lyre at the set of the sun, one of your hands tears away from it’s familiar shape to instinctively reach out and grab the hand sitting between your bodies. Fingers lightly entwined, skin warm despite the layers of cloth and the incorporeal state of Ardbert’s form.

And he stops.

In fact, the whole world stops. It freezes in the moment, leaving you with your eyes looking towards his own, your expression equally surprised and vulnerable from an outburst that had spontaneously erupted from your lips before you could stop it.

But then the seconds start to tick by once more, and your heart beating in your chest, though perhaps a little faster than before.

“You don’t need to leave,” the whisper falls gently from your lips. “I… like it when you’re here.”

Ardbert watches you for a few moments, and wordlessly nods his head in silent understanding. He doesn’t pull his hand away from yours, and instead the touch lingers on until you find the strength to take in a deep breath and slowly pull your hand back to the shape of the instrument in your lap. Though you can almost feel the remnants of the last chord struck over the strings, the air feels so still and silent.

Empty. It seems to cry out for noise, for sound, 

For music .

Though your eyes linger upon Ardbert’s face for a few moments longer, something begins to work through your fingertips. A feeling. A memory. It sinks deep into the fabric of your very being as your mind ponders harder on what it truly is that starts to curl around your inner self. Though it was a feeling that you’d experienced dozens, perhaps hundreds of times before, there is something so abrupt and new about it, about how it seems to swirl inside your heart and within the soft gaze of Ardbert’s eyes, that it takes you the span of several heartbeats to realize it.

A muse. An inspiration. A voice filled with words, the very words you’ve been searching for. Aching to be free, to be heard, experienced by all who would listen to them.

The missing piece to the song.

One note fades into a second, and then a third. Soon, the chords start to fill the air, abuzz with the familiar tune of the song you’d been crafting for weeks since the fall of the ascian who seemed both beginning and end of the tragedy fallen upon the First.

“Stand tall my friend May all of the dark lost inside you find light again In time tumbling turning we seek amends Eternal winds to the land descend Our journey will never end

From those who've fallen to those who arise A prayer to keep us ever by your side An undying promise that we just might Carry on In a song.”

There is no true way to describe the feeling which floods your soul, seeping into every crack and crevice of who you are. As if your being has been dunked in ice water, with only the shock as inspiration and the cold as meaning, leaving you shaking with the raw energy and beauty of the world humming around you. 

You can recall, through song, the feeling of your struggles within the First. Of the pain, the sacrifice, the hope that filled every action and word, even when everything seemed daunting and endless. You remember every step taken, every face and name memorized, every single person and life that played a part into the very night sky you sit below. 

More than just the warrior of light or darkness, you are a beacon, a keeper of experiences and stories--stories beyond your own. You have the weight of the world upon your shoulders, yes, but moreso than that the weight of the people who live upon it. 

“Pray don't forget us Your bygone kin With one world's end Does a new begin And should our souls scatter Unto the wind Still we shall live on Stand tall my friend May all of the dark deep inside you find light again This time tumbling turning we make amends Eternal winds from the land ascend Here to lift us Then we won't end.”

By the time the last word has left your mouth and faded into the night air beyond your window, all has turned still and peaceful. You feel a sense of completion in it, the pieces finally fitting together as they had always meant to be. A lost puzzle finally come together, a mystery at last uncovered. The energy of the music buzzes yet at your fingertips, but even through your racing heart and blood pounding in your ears, you can hear and feel the appreciation from your window-side companion.

“Beautiful.”

It sends your soul abound to hear such a simple, single word. You’re not a stranger to the compliments of your musical talents, but it’s the first time in recollection that it has ever meant so much . To hear the word come from the very being who finally connected the dots and broken down the wall of artist’s block, to sow the last seeds of a song that would hopefully outlive yourself and inspire future generations to defend what they hold dear.

Your eyes blink for a time, before the world seems to come back into place. Until colors and shapes have meaning again, and you realize that you’d been crying. Tears obscure most of your vision, but it clears once you reach a hand up towards your face-

But it is Ardbert’s thumbs that brush them from your cheeks.

Warm. Gentle. Soothing.

The world clears at last, yet the tears continue to well and fall from your eyes like a gentle river of emotion you can’t control. It’s far from a shock to come out of a music-driven trance to find yourself in such a state, but it’s the rawest that you’ve ever felt in a long time. Not since Ishgard. Since the last time you’d lost someone so dear that it took months for you to find the inkling of a muse again, inspired only by the realization that you could keep him alive in the spirit of your music.

It’s a lot of emotions that run without restriction, though they are the very same emotions that gave birth to the haunting words that had fallen from your lips but moments prior.

Giving into the touch, you gently press your face into the specter’s physical touch, and reach a hand up to make sure that it doesn’t leave if he has a sudden flicker of insecurity or embarrassment in its intimacy.

Eventually, the man speaks.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. “For… letting me listen to that. To you.” His words are so soft, like the touch of his palms and fingers cupping either side of your face which anchor you to the earth in an ironic twist of reality, given that he himself was anchored to the very same world by you.

Words, at least the speaking sort, are still rather difficult to get ahold of. You simply nod in response, lips trembling into something of a smile. You don’t have even the time to try and force yourself to speak before you’re enveloped at last in the man’s arms, held tight against his body in a gesture of warmth and unlabeled intimacy that it acts much like a salve over the vulnerable ache of your raw psyche.

There is a time and a place to write the finished piece down upon paper.

But right now, with the night sky and glittering stars above your head, with the music of fallen friends and foes alike still shaking within your soul, you are content to remain safe and warm within the loving embrace of Ardbert’s arms.

[wtnvwritings]

Meeting Your Mate

AO3 Version

Relationship: Kevin/Reader

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 2.4k

Note: This is part of my Escape Strex AU, and this was also a commission for @matronofthevoid!

Summary: All seems normal in Night Vale, until a sudden sandstorm overtakes the town. While Cecil is out trying to get first-hand information and updates, Kevin is left to man the studio, reporting on all the mysterious portals popping up and so-called 'doubles' walking out of them.

But then he meets someone familiar--someone he had been told was dead:

You.

---

Lights twinkling above our high above our heads in the dark night sky. Are they stars, or are they government-funded observation planes making sure that you’ve not forgotten to brush your teeth that night?

Either way, please make sure you report to city hall tomorrow morning for reconditioning after hearing this,

Welcome to Night Vale.

[Intro Music Plays]

Good morning Night Vale, it’s Cecil! Or, well, it would be Cecil, if he wasn’t currently out of the studio, and it would be a good morning if we weren’t already under the terrible threat of a sandstorm coming in from the west.

If you can't already tell from the sound of my voice, it’s Kevin, your local radio co-host, bringing you all of the latest news and updates to this happy little town of ours.

...Oh, by the way, there’s a sandstorm coming in!

City Counsel has declared an emergency, in fact, so please make sure that all of you seek shelter from the wind and the sand--preferably somewhere with four walls and a roof. Though I know that some of you are very fond of your dugout holes, Night Vale, it simply won’t do to keep you safe!

I’ve been told that the sandstorm will be arriving on the edge of Night Vale in just a couple minutes! I would think that the City Counsel is apologetic about the short-notice warning, but I can’t dare assume anything from them--we all know what happened to the last person who assumed they wanted a medium fry from the local burger joint, after all--but never fear! Cecil himself is working diligently to get a quote, though I hope that he isn’t caught out in this storm as well.

More to report on the sandstorm whenever it gets here--I mean, we can’t rush nature, amiright?

Some wonderful news for all you sports fans out there: baseball season has finally arrived in Night Vale! This Saturday is the minor league opening game for the Night Vale Spider Wolves. They’ll be taking on bitter rivals, the Desert Bluffs Sunbeams.

I’m supposed to say that it will be an exciting, evenly-matched game, but we all know that our very own Spider Wolves won’t have any issues taking on the Sunbeams, especially after we broke the news of their funding getting cut last year.

But who cares? The Sunbeams are just not exciting , or, as Cecil likes to say in a not-as-kind way, ‘ terrible ’. But you didn’t hear that from me Night Vale, because I’m simply reporting on the facts!

And now for traffic.

It seems that the sandstorm has finally reached the highway, Night Vale, and it’s causing all sorts of issues for drivers on the roadway. I’m getting reports of wind speeds as high as--well, on the paper it says ‘unfathomable speeds unlike any ever recorded’ but I’m certain one of the meteorologists just assumed we couldn’t handle the raw numbers. Either way, travelers are advised to stay off the road and seek shelter wherever it can be found.

...There seems to be something far more troubling to the sandstorm, listeners. I am receiving this information right now from Intern Dana--she is handing me the folder, and I am opening it….reading the summary…..taking it all in and….oh, Dana? I believe you had a typo right there, yes, ‘lack of time or space’ should be ‘lack of time AND space’ considering the foreboding context clues by Lerry Leroy.

[Sounds of shuffling papers]

It would seem that portals are opening up across town, dear listeners. From out of these portals walks out people who seem like people we know, but are most assuredly not the people we know. They may look similar, but I am getting reports that these people, dare I say doubles , have brought multiple people to violence.

Please do not fight your double!

We can’t be sure what sorts of consequences there are for fighting--and possibly killing!--your double is, but I am certain it can be nothing good. After all, we remember what happened last month when time and existence came to a stop? Surely you remember that?

Let’s not repeat that unfortunate, uncountable number of repeated evenings, shall we Night Vale?

Now, onto financial news.

You are lost in a sea of sand. You look to the west and see the sun setting in the distance, it’s light slowly hiding behind the endless dunes. There is nowhere to go. Nobody else around you. You are lost.

You stare into the setting sun for what feels like hours, and soon it seems that the sun isn’t really setting at all--has it ever moved? Has anything ever truly moved? Have you moved? Are you moving right now?

Are you even breathing right now?

That has been financial news.

[More sounds of shuffling papers]

Listeners, that sandstorm is starting to get a little...frightening. I know that’s a strong word, like ‘government surveillance’ and ‘wheat’, but I simply cannot find any other word to properly describe what is going on just outside the radio station.

Across Night Vale, it seems dozens upon dozens of people--doubles--have made their way through those mysterious portals. Though some have done best to make peace with their doubles, others have either not heard or ignored my warning and have taken to battle with them.

Please, Night Vale, do not fight your doubles!

Cecil, our normal radio host, has just sent me a direct announcement from our own Mayor Pamela Winchell.

“Please return to your homes immediately!” Mayor Winchell said, her eyes as if wild with an emotion we can not truly comprehend. “I am declaring a state of emergency; if anyone is outside, return to your homes or else risk dematerialization, non-existence and some rather serious sand-burns.”

A second announcement, shortly after, says that she was lying and that “you shouldn’t listen to her. She’s not the real mayor! I am!”

Cecil wrote that, at such point, he was joined by a second Mayor Winchell, who quickly became violent with the first.

A third announcement followed between Mayor Pamela Winchell and the other Mayor Pamela Winchell, requesting that we “give me the microphone and get away from the podium! This is my announcement, you replicant clown!”

Unfortunately, our radio host could not provide much more information, as he was dragged into the fight between the two Mayor Winchells. It is good to know at least that he is safe--I hope that all of you are safe right now, Night Vale, I--

…

[Extended silence]

…

Listeners?

…

I...I see a portal. Night Vale, I see a portal right now, here in this very studio. It is...small, or at least smaller than what I expected it to be--but it is exactly like you expected to be. It’s...swirling, ominously across the room, on the wall opposite of where I am set up so that you all can hear my voice.

It’s...just there. I am not sure if I should be afraid or not, but...for some reason the portal feels...calming?

It’s just sitting there, listeners. Should I approach it? I mean, as any good journalist of Night Vale, being prepared for the unknown is a skill we all learn early in our lives--though the fear of the unknown often quickly comes after that when we all reach the age of seven so I suppose it doesn’t matter in the end.

I am...watching it shimmer. The portal is growing, taking up the entirety of the wall just across from me. I can make out the faintest image within the portal, listeners, and…

…

…

...It looks like...Night Vale? No, no it doesn’t, it looks….It looks nothing like Night Vale. There is a town through the portal, and it looks bright--so bright. Too bright .

Oh.

Oh.

I-

…

[Small sounds of shuffling]

It looks like ...like…

Like Desert Bluffs.

I cannot begin to fathom this, Night Vale, but the portals we are seeing--the people coming through them, the ones we believe are our doubles…

Are they all from Desert Bluffs?

You may all know my…. history with that town, my...change of loyalty, to this wondrous little hamlet of ours. If there is anyone here who can identify Desert Bluffs, it would surely be me--and what I see right now, through the portal, is more assuredly that very town.

That town .

I dare to think that perhaps these people coming through the portals, the ones we assume are our doubles, I think instead they might be-

[Near-silent gasp of breath]

...My...my mate…?

Listeners, I apologize for being so confusing. You must understand that these portals--these... things are causing not just your normal tears into time and space--we deal with those every second Wednesday of the month, after all. What I mean is, I…

I’m looking right at the person I had long thought, until this very moment, was dead.

But...you aren’t dead, are you?

I’m talking to my mate of course, listeners--you see, when I escap-... left Desert Bluffs, I had been...waiting for someone. Someone very important to me. For those of you who know who and what I am, you will surely understand the magnitude of the situation I was faced with.

For people like me and Cecil, finding our mate is...the most important thing in our world. Cecil found Carlos and I...I had waited for many years. Many, many years indeed.

[Shuffling noises, the sound of a chair being pushed back]

And...here you are?

How...is that even possible? I thought you were dead--you...you were dead! I was told so. I was…told I’d never see you, never find you...you weren’t…

...Oh?

...Oh.

I see.

You were...waiting for me. In Desert Bluffs. But where? Where were you?

Hiding? No?

Hidden?

Hidden away? But why would you try to hide yourself from m-

Oh.

[Extended silence]

...I see now.

They were hiding you from me.

How long have you been there, at Desert Bluffs?

[Muffled sound of an answer]

I...I can’t imagine waiting that long, except that I can, I have also waited so long--too long--and now you’re...you're right here!

You’re here!

You are standing here in front of me--my mate, listeners--and you are...absolutely beautiful.

No, no it’s alright, don’t mind the scars, love, I have them too--we both have them. Don’t be ashamed--you’re beautiful in all the ways you are right now. I am just...overwhelmed. I was told that I would never meet you, that you were…

...that you were dead.

But they were hiding you from me.

They were...hiding you...from me...

Hi̶̲̚d̸̗̓i̸̼͆n̵͎̈g̴̖͂ ̶͍͆y̶͓͗o̶̯͊ǔ̵̩.̵̻.̵̦̉.̶̙̀.f̷̼͙͖͖̿̇̓̒̅̃͗͆̕r̷͔͔̻͔̀̓̽̔̃̈͆̏̕ȍ̸̰̗̤͉̗͇͜m̴͕͉̦͊̋̆̏̐̉͊̚ ̵̟͖̠̗͐͂̑͋̏̇̎m̷̢͚͐͗̈͒̐͘̚̕ẻ̴̘͕̿̂̐̍̒͐̅͘͘…

I̶̜̋'̶̣͗l̴̟̅l̵̟̑ ̸̫̏h̶̞̋a̷̟̚v̴̰͒e̵̥̿ ̸̺͒t̶̘̾o̸̍ͅ.̸̧̾.̴̜͊.̴̡̃p̶͉̈a̸̭̐ẙ̴̯ ̶̤͒t̸̖̍ḩ̷̉e̶̱̋m̴͕̈́ ̶̰̊á̴͓ ̸̽ͅḻ̷͐i̶̞͘t̸̻̑t̸̖̀l̴̩͠e̴̳̽ ̵̱̂v̸̢̓i̷̮͛s̴͖͘i̶̜͗t̴̫͠.̷̺͝.̷̖̊.̴̥̍ṛ̴͝i̶̡̊ģ̶̏h̶̙͒t̴͙́?̶̫̄

[Sound from the radio shorts out, then turns to white noise for several seconds]

...

[Extended silence]

...

[Sound of the microphone being picked up]

...

Listeners? Are you still there? Night Vale?

If you are still there, this is Cecil, your regular radio host--I’ve returned from my journey to get the front-line news of the sandstorm, since our Intern Dana has been quite busy trying to keep our social media updated with all the relevant outages and traffic warnings. How long has the radio been silent?

Where is...Kevin?

Where is anyone, in fact?

I am standing here in the middle of the recording room, but across from me is a portal and a-

Oh. Hello there! I am sorry, I didn’t see you--uh, I don’t think I recognize you at all. Do I uh, know you?

What?

...Listeners, the person standing in the room with me says that they are…

...Kevin’s mate?

Well, that’s not something I expected to hear. I mean, there’s a lot of things I never expect to hear--none of us are. The news of a baby, the death of a loved one, the securing of a new job, the need to move to a new state….

I mean, we really--Oh!

Listeners, I’m seeing someone coming through the portal now--I can make out the vague shape of their body...they’re stepping closer, the dark silhouette shimmering against what I can only assume is the surface of the portal itself…

Kevin? What in the world are you doing going through the portal? Where...were you? I said in my press report that it wasn’t a smart idea to-

…

...why...are you...covered in blood?

[Sound of a muffled answer]

Ah. I uh, suppose that explains the lovely person standing over here, does it? From Desert Bluffs? I suppose that you...ah, well, I’ll spare our listeners on the silly little details of your encounter-er-visit over there, I’m sure they don’t want to hear all of that anyway.

In fact, I think they would rather hear the update that the sandstorm is finally passing! That’s right Night Vale, we have survived yet another horrific, unfathomable beast of nature, and have come out 100% alright--well, minus the millions of dollars worth in property damage, including several fields worth of corn grown by John Peters, you know, the farmer?

Despite the major damages though, there seem to be no deaths and not a single accountable injury--not even any dematerialization either! I am proud to say that Night Vale, we again have kept ourselves safe from harm and have weathered through yet another disaster--and I hope, nay, I pray that you had considered carefully my words of warning.

I hope you did not hurt or kill your double.

But other than that, it seems that we have reached the end of our segment, so I will turn it back to Kevin to-

Oh?

What’s that?

...Well, what wonderful news, Night Vale! It would seem that we not only didn’t lose a single person to the sandstorm, but in fact gained a new member of our little town! Let me be the first to say how happy I am for you, Kevin, what luck you have to finally meet your beloved mate--you can take them back to the apartment to get them settled, if you like.

We’ll get them taken care of just like we did for you.

[Muffled sounds of conversation, as if a hand is over the microphone]

So uh, that is the end of this segment, Night Vale! Tune in next for the sound of deep contemplation, and the bittersweet love of two people who had long thought they would never meet, but are finally able to be with one another.

Goodnight, Night Vale,

Goodnight.

[dragonprincewritings]

Sticks and Stones

AO3 Version

Relationship: Runaan/Reader/Aaravos

Rating: General

Summary: You saved Aaravos and Runaan both from their respective imprisonments without even knowing how you could do such a thing. You're the castle-keeper of Katolis, not a mage and certainly nobody powerful--and yet you free them both, leading to Runaan taking you and Aaravos to his village in Xadia to try and patch together some semblance of a normal life.

This is just one glance into your lives together.

It’s been a year.

Twelve months, fifty-two weeks or even three hundred and sixty-five days, depending on the way you choose to divide up the time. It’s darted through your perception as quickly as a frightened doe, but it has also limped by as slowly as it takes for the new moon to rise full.

Despite all of that time spent in practice and observation, you still don’t know how to sharpen a blade quite as good as even one of the village’s youngest initiates.

It’s not as if you don’t understand the concept or technique, as you’ve seen the knights caring for their weapons as far back as when you were castle-keeper of Katolis, but there’s simply something in the execution that always leaves you stumped.

So here you are, sitting on the steps outside the humble cottage you’ve called home in the last year, willing for even a single god above to let you do this right.

You feel your brows furrow as you stare down at the small dagger in your hand, a whetstone in the other. You’ve been trying to sharpen the damn thing for almost an hour, but all you’ve seem to manage is just to put unseemly scratches against the edge you really hope can be buffed out.

It’s aggravating enough that you don’t realize there’s someone in front of you until their shadow falls over your hands. You’re about to look up just as a hand reaches forward and grabs the wrist of the hand holding the whetstone.

“You need to remember to keep the angle smaller.”

The grip is as gentle as the words, voice familiar enough that you simply turn back to the job literally at hand and allow the help from the man, Runaan, as he takes a seat beside you.

“I don’t know how you’re able to do this so quickly,” you sigh. “I seem to damage blades more than sharpen them, no matter how many times I’m shown.”

You hear the elven man let out a short, disbelieving huff.

“And have you asked for any help?” It’s hard not to hear a thread of tension, the same tone of voice he’ll sometimes get when speaking to the young initiates he’s training. “I recall Merith and Rydell having offered.”

You don’t answer him right away. The man’s hands carefully put yours into a new position, both of his hands over yours, delicately angling the stone against the blade in a position you assume is the correct one–he is right, you were holding the blade at a vastly larger angle.

“I…” the words feel like stones in your throat, as heavy and rough as the one against your palm. “…I don’t want them to think of me as useless at everything I do around here.”

Sharpening blades. Organizing books. Hunting game. They aren’t exactly skills you learned in your upbringing as a castle-keeper.

You let Runaan tug your hand–and thus the whetstone–carefully across the blade in a smooth, slow motion. He does it a second time and then a third, finally letting you try to do it yourself.

By the sound of the hum that leaves him or the fact that his hands remain on yours, you must not have the motion mirrored quite well just yet.

But at least he doesn’t berate your fear.

The moonshadow elves are not as hostile towards you as they once were, when you were new in their village and stood precariously on the border of ‘hostage’ or ‘guest’–perhaps you had been both at the same time, until ultimately they decided to see you as the one exception to an unspoken, yet powerful Xadian rule.

Maybe it had something to do with you freeing Runaan from imprisonment. Maybe it’s because you were accompanied by a powerful startouch elf mage, someone who you also freed in the same night as Runaan though similar means of magic or power that you still don’t understand yourself.

Maybe a lot of things.

…It’s a long story.

“You won’t learn how to do this right until you ask for help,” Runaan says, dragging you out of your thoughts. “It takes years for a moonshadow elf to learn these things–you’ve only been here for one.”

“But I’m a human.”

Runaan is quiet for a few moments, giving away a lot more than words ever can.

“You still have hands,” he argues, grip getting a little tighter around your wrists. “And that extra finger has to be good for something.”

He’s learning to grow past his colored stereotypes for humans as much as the rest of his village, but at least he’s honest–there’s an effort, much in the same way that you continue to learn about them.

You don’t have the chance to say something witty in return before both you and Runaan are interrupted by a new voice booming across the air, familiar and strong and pulling both of your attentions away from the lost cause of a dagger.

“I thought that I would find both of you together.”

It’s not hard to guess who it is–the voice alone is as unique as the rest of Aaravos, a startouch elf settled in a vastly moonshadow village. There’s no hiding the difference of his eyes, his horns or the starlike sparkle of both his form and clothes.

There’s a smile on his lips as he approaches the two of you.

“What mischief have you gotten to now?” Runaan asks, not a single beat of silence missed from the moment his eyes lay on the other elf.

Aaravos’ expression drops into a pout, lips pursed and brows tilted, but it’s not that hard to see that it’s simply a playful, but fake expression.

“Mischief?” he asks, raising a hand to his chest as if wounded. “Runaan, you think so little of me. I have many years of experience and knowledge to my life, the ability to weave the power of the stars to my desire and you accuse me of but childish pranks?”

He steps closer to the two of you and sits down on your opposite side, the three of you taking up all of the space on one of the steps leading up to the house you and Aaravos have called home since arriving at the moonshadow village.

Runaan merely stares at the other elf, eyes narrowed in caution.

“Did you set something on fire?”

Aaravos merely laughs, making you look at him with all of the same caution, but a plethora more of curiosity, if only from the glimmer of playfulness in his eyes as he smiles even wider.

“No,” the older elf says softly, his eyes glancing off to the side. “But I did teach some of the children how to glamor rocks as poisonous insects.”

As if on queue, both you and Runaan turn to look where Aaravos’ eyes are, only to see a small group of children run past screaming in delight and every single one of them with stones clutched in their hands.

“Aaravos,” Runaan sounds exasperated already. “You can’t just do that, it will mess up their training and cause a mess that-”

You drop the blade and whetstone so you can reach a now-free hand to grab his, stopping the words of argument before they can begin.

“It’s not going to hurt anyone.”

You feel a smile on your lips and watch as Runaan looks at you, takes in your words, but looks back to Aaravos with caution still nipping at his thoughts.

Somewhere in the exchange, Aaravos takes your other hand in his, leaving the three of you in a silence that takes a long time to break. It would be hard to describe your relationship to the two elves to anyone–it’s hard enough to label it yourself. You’d freed Aaravos from his prison and saved Runaan from death, leaving both of the elves with a sense of debt to you.

Debt that became companionship.

A year is a long time, after all, and it can change a lot of things. Perceptions, understanding, relationships. It can break connections and forge trust in the same blow and, honestly, it’s left the three of you unsure where you stand in life–it feels almost as if each of you had somehow escaped death itself and were trying to find yourselves in a world that had been prepared to go on without you.

Maybe love is a good word to describe it. Forged in debt and cemented by time, made strong only by shared little moments, comfort and companionship. It might be the right word, but it’s not one you’re ready to use just yet, and it feels like Runaan and Aaravos feel much the same.

You feel both of their grips on your hand tighten, just a little bit.

“I doubt they’ll even be able to do the spell properly,” you say gently, glancing from one man to the other.

“Don’t underestimate them,” Aaravos muses softly, the words spoken with almost a vague sense of pride. “For being so young they are exceptionally talented; you shouldn’t be so hard on them, Runaan.”

You watch as Aaravos’ smile curls into something wicked, on the teasing side of mocking, as if the two of them have had a similar conversation in the past that you’ve not been privy to.

Runaan merely makes a noise of exasperation, seeing his defeat in the conversation.

“Fine,” he mumbles, eventually pinching the bridge of his nose. “I can tell when I’m outnumbered. At least promise me you won’t teach them how to light something aflame.”

There’s a tone in his voice, as if it’s something spoken with previous experience.

Aaravos takes in a breath and slowly leans his body against your shoulder; he is warm and gentle in both voice and movement. Runaan eventually does the same, squishing you gently between the two elves as they lean against you, your hands held in a gesture not one of you will label.

“Oh, I don’t need to teach them a spell for that,” there’s a cryptic, toying note in Aaravos’ words. “A piece of flint and steel is less troublesome.”

Before Runaan can respond, there’s a familiar commotion coming from down the path. Screams and shouts fill the air before you catch the sight of a group of children–the same as before–come barreling down they way. Ranging from small child to young teen they run, almost clamoring over one another, all holding fistfuls of candy in their hands.

They’re chased by a man, who stops to catch his breath in front of you, Runaan and Aaravos. He pants and leans forward, hands on his knees and face quickly looking up to all three of you.

“Runaan, I have no idea how it happened,” he starts, rubbing a hand over his face. “There is a nest of scorpions in my shop.”

All three of you are silent for a few seconds, but you can feel two very powerful emotions flowing from either side of you: one is annoyance, but the other is immense, smug-colored pride

“Very talented children indeed,” is all Aaravos cares to say, expression mischievous as ever.

[fullmetalwritings]

Ouroboros Tattoo

Summary: Of all the places to meet your soulmate, you never would have expected it to be in the middle of a darkened alley after he saves you from a douchebag. You especially didn’t expect him to have a name like ‘Greed’ either.

Read on AO3

It’s a very strange tattoo. Where some people had quote quotes, personal symbols or maybe even names of their soulmates (for the most blunt of people), the only tattoo on your body was the singular one on the back of your hand. It took you a long time to figure out what it was, let alone what it meant.

Ouroboros. You found the symbol in an old book on alchemy after a long couple days of research, looking for some meaning to a tattoo that nobody seemed to have any information on. You knew for a long time that it was something from your soulmate, wherever they were, but you couldn’t begin to imagine why they had it or what it meant. Were they an alchemist? The child of an alchemist?

Since soulmate marks didn’t appear until young adulthood, it was a mystery to know when exactly your soulmate got the tattoo or what it would signify. It took a long time to accept the lone mark on your body, yourself too scared to get something as permanent and blunt as your own name tattooed on your body (though it was rather common for some, marking their own name on their wrist for their soulmate to find).

Some people used to say that markers would still show, if only temporarily, but you never got a response from your soulmate even after covering your arms with messages, with questions--you never once got a reply.

Years passed since the mark appeared on the back of your left hand and, as many do, you stopped thinking much about the mark and lived on your life, content with the fact that you will find them whenever the time was right.

You still don’t understand why you were the one who had to go out shopping for food. It wasn’t as if your roommate didn’t have a completely free schedule for the next few days, or if you had other errands you needed to worry about more-- oh no , it wasn’t at all as if you were annoyed for having to tote around several heavy cloth bags filled with items from the bakery, farmer’s market and butcher. Nevertheless, the negative thoughts fell empty as you instead tried to consider the positives. Like dinner! At least the fresh food would help figuring out dinner much easier; there are so few options when there’s barely anything in the pantry.

You turned a corner--a shortcut, really--down into a narrow alley that would cut at least ten minutes from your walk home. It wasn’t so much a back alley as it was a narrow path, just narrow enough for it to be inaccessible by an automobile, but more than wide enough for you to bustle through. There were a few storefronts down the alley, though most of them consisted of bars and abandoned buildings waiting for a tenant that might never buy it out.

Most of the bars weren’t even open anyway, it was still a touch too early in the day for that, so you figured the path wouldn’t be anything more than a quicker route home.

“Hey there,” a voice purred, sickly-sweet, from the door of one of the bars. “What’s a lil’ thing like you down a street like this?”

Well, that was a quick. You didn’t turn your head, didn’t even flick your eyes in the direction of the voice. Your steps quickened into a near-jog, hoping that the pace would put enough room between you and the stranger so that they would just leave you alone. Maybe they were just looking to pickup someone, maybe they were trying to harass someone, anyone unwitting or idiotic enough to take this seedy back road--someone like you.

You tried to ignore the voice, low and masculine, and continued to walk with groceries in-hand. For a few moments you thought you were free, but the sound of footsteps behind you made your heart sink. A hand suddenly grabbed one of your arms, forcing you to whip around to see the owner of the hand gripping you still.

“Ain’t that rude,” you heard, turning to see a man towering over you. He was big, muscled, and his expression looked somewhere between predatory and amused. A scar pulled down one side of his face. He wasn’t a man you were familiar with, but he didn’t look like a man who was particularly friendly.

“Let me go,” You tried to keep your voice firm.

“Not until you answer my question, sweetheart.”

The voice was still so sickly-sweet, overly coated in kindness that it almost made you sick to your stomach. You tried struggling against the hold, but between his grip and the weight of the bags in your hand, the motion felt nearly impossible. Your heart hammered with anxious worry. The man’s fingers gripped even harder around your arm, a sense of pain quickly shooting through the limb from the pressure of his fingers.

Just as you opened your mouth to say something (you’re still not sure what that something was) another voice rang out. A new voice.

“What in the world is a piece of trash like you doin’ in my alley, Harley?”

You blinked, feeling the man’s grip loosen for only a moment. He turned, pulling you with him as you and he both caught sight of a second man approaching casually. You’re not exactly sure where the new stranger came from, but you surely couldn’t care any less about the details when you already were terrified.

You yanked against the man’s grip, pulling your arm through his fingers until he instead had a hold on your wrist. The pressure and weight on your hand made you drop the bags of groceries onto the brick road below, no doubt ruining most of what was inside--several items rolled out of the confines.

“Let go of me!” You said again, more forceful, trying even harder to get your hand back. “Let go of me right now or else I’ll-”

“You’ll what?” The man said, momentarily returning his gaze to you. When you had no argument, he seemed satisfied, content to return a look at the man who had nearly walked up to the two of you.

Even though you couldn’t get a full sight of him from behind the man practically harassing you, you were able to see enough to get an idea.

Tall and lean, muscles defined on his bare arms just enough to figure that he was strong. He looked rough, like someone you’d expect to be hiding out on these back roads, with his short hair somewhat slicked-back, sunglasses covering his eyes. The man’s hands were deep in the pockets of his pants, giving him an appearance that was far too casual for the situation.

“I’m nowhere near your damn bar, Greed,” The man practically sneered, as if he was taking some sort of personal pleasure from the logical play, a past agreement he seemed to think he was in the right of. “I don’t recall this being one of your whores either. Who do you think you are to tell me what to do in the free space of the public?”

The expression on Greed’s face fell from casual politeness to something neutral, though you could feel a sense of animosity radiating from him somehow, some way. You could feel a moment of anger that felt, above anything, inhuman. It wasn’t directed at you at least.

After a moment, Greed pulled his hands out of his pockets. He glanced towards you for a moment and--

Was he looking at your hand?

The look moved faster than you could follow, back towards the burly man grabbing you. There seemed to be a moment of contemplation on his face, a silent moment of thought that only last for a breath or two of time.

Within a blink of time, suddenly you felt your wrist come free from the grip, sending you tumbling backwards onto your ass as the motion unbalanced you. In the span of the time from reeling back to catching your thoughts (and breath), the man was on the ground himself, several steps away, and Greed was practically hovering over him. His fists were covered with a layer of shiny, black substance, and your harasser looked as if he’d been punched. Blood was dripping down his face, a broken nose probably the least of the injuries your newfound savior had inflicted.

“If I see you in this alley again, I’m going to break something more than your nose.”

The voice that flowed from the man’s lips were deep, something powerful and husky that left your mind welling for a moment--it latched onto your attention like nothing else, like a memory that you’ve long-forgotten, just at the edges of recollection.

It felt like forgotten nostalgia.

In the span of barely a minute, you were left alone in the alley with Greed, your attacker running off with a stream of curses and threats falling from his mouth, though the other man didn’t bother pursuing him any.

It took a moment to realize that you were shaking, surrounded by a mess of groceries, your left hand gently pulled toward your chest in a moment of vulnerable fear for the man you were left with.

He approached you slowly, finally kneeling down just a few feet away.

“Hey there,” He said, pushing his glasses up and propping them on his head so you could see his eyes. They looked purple, inhumanly bright, and they stared at you with an odd intensity that didn’t make you feel uncomfortable. There was a lot of things to notice about the man, but one thing stuck out more than anything else the moment that your eyes caught the bright color in your peripheral vision.

On the back of his left hand, there was a tattoo, bright red and very familiar.

An ouroboros. The same one that was on your left hand, the one you were clutching to your chest.

“So what’s your name?” the man asked, flashing a gentle grin. The look should have been frightening, a strange man with an inhuman aura floating around him who punched a man almost a foot and a hundred pounds over him into retreating. His smile was toothy and sharp, but his voice, as it had been moments before, felt oddly welcoming.

Despite your better judgement, you give him your name.

He contemplates your answer for a moment, then gently reaches out for your left hand. When you twitch, Greed pauses.

“I’m just lookin’ at something, don’t worry,” he purred, voice sounding as though he was comforting a small animal. You offer your hand to him after a moment.

Greed gently takes your wrist, rolling your hand over so he can see the tattoo on the back of your hand, the exact same symbol that was on his hand. After a moment, he chuckled, dropping your hand and running his own through his hair. He didn’t seem to care when the motion pushed his glasses off his head and to the ground--in fact, Greed barely noticed, his laugh building into a hearty noise that was something between amusement and disbelief.

“So you’re the one!” He exclaimed.

Your brows furrow.

“I’m the...one…?” You weren’t sure what he was getting at, confusion and caution quickly filling your thoughts as the light of the sun continues to dim. It was starting to get late, and your mind was already overfilled with thoughts and questions--it had barely registered what it meant that both of you had the same tattoo on your hands. “I’m sorry sir, but I need to get home, I appreciate your help and--”

“You’re the one who kept writing all those messages on my arms years ago.”

You stopped speaking, his mere sentence filling you with something akin to a revelation. Memories from years ago filled your mind, all of the nights spent writing up and down the bare skin of your arms, hoping that there would be a reply.

Who are you? What does the tattoo mean? What is your name? Where do you live?

None of the questions had ever been answered, but you were amazed by the fact that he had seen them--had read them--that the man before you was the one the mark on your hand had been pulling you to.

You never once imagined meeting your soulmate like that, in the middle of a forgotten back road after he saved you from a near-assault.

For some reason, the only logical response that seemed to override everything else was, in fact, to grab the nearest cloth grocery bag and try to hit the man with it. It seemed fair at the time, admittedly, something that your thoughts had all come to agree on.

“You could have said something back!” You can feel a moment of simmering anger at the end of your words as you speak, failing to hit Greed when he merely jumped back. “Answered at least one of my questions! I still barely know what this mark is on my hand because of you.”

Slowly, you stand onto your feet, almost glaring at Greed as you compose yourself once more. You have heard plenty of stories of people finding their soulmates, and they all usually are fairly romantic. Finding them at a party. Meeting them through a friend. Pursuing them in an adventure, the constant clues and messages passed from one another through bare skin and markers.

Of all the people who had to be your soulmate, you had to get an asshole.

Greed seemed, if only slightly, apologetic. He raised his hands, palm-forward, and spoke earnestly.

“Listen, I didn’t even know a guy like me qualified for that sorta shit,” He tried to offer another grin, wide and sheepish. “I’m not exactly a normal person, sweetheart.”

You felt your brows furrow again. The confusion must have been obvious on your face, yet Greed took a step closer, and then another, moving until the two of you were almost intimately close.

“But that doesn’t mean I’m not happy to know that I was wrong,” He said, just over a whisper in that same, deep voice that left your heart practically shivering. “It’s good to finally meet you, soulmate. It seems that we have a lot to talk about in getting to know one another.”

The moment stuck, the air stilled, and suddenly you found yourself in such a crazy situation. Standing in the middle of a darkened alley, streetlights starting to turn on, with a man who saved you and who just so happened to be your soulmate. He felt dangerous, mysterious, but the look in his brilliant eyes was nothing short of excited joy as he looked at you.

It was the same look of relieved joy when someone found something they had lost.

Before you could gather up your thoughts, there was a sudden motion and--

He was kissing you. You felt the sudden warmth of lips against your own, the quick, chaste feeling of intimacy that sent your thoughts into a fervent explosion. Hands were on your waist, there was a pressure of another body against your own, pushing you back just enough to feel the entirety of Greed against you.

And then he was pulling away, leaving you breathless from the emotion, the moment, and the kiss itself.

“Holy fuck, so it is true what they say,” Greed leaned down to pick up his glasses, gently putting them back over his eyes before he started to collect your scattered groceries. “The first kiss with your soulmate really is something amazing! And here I thought you were shitting me with a prank or something.”

He either didn’t notice you standing there, frozen in shock, or he simply was letting you come back to yourself on your own time. He continued to gather your groceries, putting them all back in their respective bags.

“No!” You finally got your thoughts together, letting them fall into a moment of clarity as you huff towards Greed and caught his attention just as he had collected the last of your fallen food. “You can’t…!”

“Can’t….?” He tilted his head.

You huffed again, poking a finger into his chest. Heat started to rise over your cheeks.

“You can’t just kiss me like that! I don’t care if you are my soulmate, I deserve a chance to sit down and talk with you first!” You jab your finger into his chest again, which only seems to further the man’s amusement. He gently lifts your grocery bags up for you to take, though he only offered a few bags.

“Well then,” He whispered. “How about we start with walking you home first?”

You considered the offer, as well as the fact that you’d have someone else helping you carry the bags. Your acceptance came wordlessly, merely taking the few bags that Greed offered before you started walking, with him following in-step with you.

“....So, is your name actually Greed?”

“Hell yes it is,” he laughed. “It’ll make sense when we talk about it over dinner.”

[darthsuki]

When the frick did I get to be 7 followers away from 1k

[kimetsunoyaibawritings]

This is a side-blog for all of Darthsuki's written work for the manga and anime series Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer) -- including headcanons, drabbles and other reader-centric content.

Please be aware that this blog will contain Spicy™ content, and all posts are tagged appropriately (either with #lemon or #spicy).

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“If you can do just one thing, hone it to perfection. Hone it to the utmost limit.” - Jigoro Kuwajima

[rwbywritings]

Read My Lips

Request: How about a Ozpin x reader, the first kiss or first time (or both)? Whichever one you feel more comfortable with?

His lips felt warm and soft against your own.

He moved slowly, carefully, as if afraid that anything could frighten you into breaking the kiss. His hands were at your waist, you could feel his hair tickling your face; you could have sworn that the two of you were so close and so quiet that you could even hear his quick, thumping heartbeat (but it may have just been the rush of your own in the moment).

It was a wonderful moment, but one that hardly lasted long enough--

Not when the sound of your alarm woke you abruptly from sleep.

It took a few moments for your bearings to arrange themselves correctly, memories falling back into place of the who, where and how of things. The world had settled back into normalcy by the time you slapped your hand over your scroll to shut off the alarm.

Though groggy, you managed to get out of bed and settle onto your feet. With a lingering thought towards your dream (the warmth against your lips) you began to ready yourself for the day’s events.

The weather was cold and a little deary--Fall and Winter weren’t playing well with one another, leaving the air chilled, but not nearly enough for snow. The rain came down softly, more like a heavy mist, blanketing the campus and being a nuisance for the students who didn’t think to prepare for the weather.

Umbrella in hand, you slowly moved across the campus, the ambling buildings and unmarked crossways. Even now, it seemed a surprise that you knew your way around so well; what had once been little more than a maze was now an extension of home.

Beacon Academy was truly an intriguing place to work; as a teacher’s assistant, you were able to see things in a different perspective, having a few years of an active career of hunts beneath your belt. You were able to see where all of the lessons were put to use, how the caffeine-fueled rants of Oobleck or outrageous stories of Port were somewhat useful in your endeavors after graduation.

It was nice to come back to a place you had called home for a few years of your formative years--particularly now that you were an equal and not a student.

Your schedule was regular; you were with Prof. Oobleck in the early morning, Prof. Port late morning, had some time to yourself around lunch. You could spent the few hours doing just about anything--it was one of the things you enjoyed most about your job. The freedom to specialize your already-existing skills, to research just about anything that caught your fancy.

It was...freeing, honestly. Beacon had become more of your home than it had been when you were a student.

One hour gently blurred into the next, and half the day had gone by before you knew it. Though you had been directed every which way to help out your assigned classes of responsibility, there was a lingering feeling of something that simmered within you. Something you couldn’t place, but it always slipped back into flickering images from your dream, over and over again.

It was hard to ignore and downright frustrating. The feeling of soft lips, gentle hands and a body against yours, all in the overwhelming moment of what must have been the most romantic kiss you ever felt--

--and it was a dream, dammit.

It wouldn’t make it any easier to work with Ozpin. Since Prof. Goodwitch was taking care of personal business, you were filling in for her some of her administrative duties with the headmaster. It wasn’t as if the duties were anything difficult--mostly secretarial work, really, filing away paperwork and attending a few faculty meetings to take notes when required.

No, the most difficult thing wasn’t the job, but the man himself. Ozpin had long been somewhat of a crush for you--it had started out as something silly in your last year of academics, a little fancy that you were sure would fly away the moment you stepped into a career of your own. But as fate would play with your heart, it pulled you right back to Beacon--

And the feelings were still there. If anything, what had once been silly infatuation had turned into deep admiration, a toying series of thoughts of ‘what-if’ and ‘how-so’ that made your cheeks feel hot if he so much as smiled at you for a job well done.

Damn it all.

Your fingertips barely touched the surface of the broad wooden doors when they opened, seemingly by command. Confusion filtered through your face until you saw Ozpin, hand on the doorknob and eyes falling to you. He smiled (warmth filled your cheeks) and welcomed you into his office with a gesture of his other hand.

“And here I thought you were going to miss out on being ten minutes early,” He said with a chuckle. “I think you’ll be happy to know there’s little for you today.”

You stepped inside his office, trying not to glance back at the man as he closed the door behind you (a gentleman, truly). He walked around you and back to his desk, still smiling all the while as you instinctively started to search about the room for piles of papers, folders or books to start sorting through.

Just as Ozpin had said, there’s very little set on the tables beside his desk. Compared to what you had been used to, looked to be hardly an hour’s worth of work.

Your fingertips leafed through a couple of the books before turning to glance at Ozpin. He was standing by the large window of his office, overlooking much of the campus as sunlight fell into the room. It hit him, that sunlight, in just the right way--he almost seemed to glow when he finally realized that you were looking--and those brown eyes caught the falling sunlight so perfectly that you were left frozen for a few moments.

Just...staring...at him...

You caught yourself with a sharp breath in, book pulled to your chest as you tried to brush off the awkward moment with laughter and a joke.

“I uh, guess I just expected more is all.”

Your eyes fell first to the floor, then down to the book in your arms. Despite trying to force your attention back to the pile of papers and books on the table, you couldn’t help but feel that Ozpin’s gaze was lingering on you. 

It made your stomach twist, but it  wasn’t impossible to curb the awkward feeling of butterflies with your duties--you practically tossed yourself into getting started, if only to forget that the air was still silent and tinged awkward from the moment before.

“I think it’s good,” Ozpin’s soft voice filled the room. He didn’t have to speak particularly loud for his words to carry, holding a sort of firm command that you’d expect from a man in such a powerful position. “You’ve been working hard since Glynda has been away, it’s only fair you have a break every now and then.”

The words were kind, but you couldn’t bring yourself to overcome the shyness enough to actually thank him for the thought. You simply kept to working over the books, settling them into their own piles to be further organized after you had gone through everything. A lot of teaching plans, hand-written notes and thensome, scattered between different series of books that you assumed had something to do with teaching theory and some higher academics that the professors must have used.

A minute passed and, eventually, you fell back into the soft, familiar headspace of busy-bee work. It wrapped around you like a blanket, helping you get through the tedious motions from one book to the next and opening a folder to take note of what was within, then find a temporary home for it.

In fact, you were so caught-up in your head that you hadn’t heard the footsteps behind you, nor the question in the air. It wasn’t until there was a hand on your shoulder that you realized Ozpin had been trying to get your attention. When he did, you practically jumped, quickly turning around and--

His face was so close.

His eyes looked into yours, soft and brown and deep with things you couldn’t begin to wrap your mind around. You caught such minute details of him as you stood there, breath held and body frozen in a confused, embarassed heat. 

The way his glasses fell just a hair too low, falling down Ozpin’s nose. How his messy hair fell over his eyes, only mildly obscuring them from sight. How his lips looked soft, slightly parted with unspoken words behind them.

You couldn’t pull yourself away from the intimacy of the otherwise silent moment.

“...You’ve been acting odd the last couple days,” Ozpin whispered, words falling slowly from his lips (but he didn’t pull away). “Is...everything alright?”

“Yes!” The word burst from you like an explosion. “Absolutely, totally alright--I mean why would you ask that? Quite good.”

It was like some kind of defense mechanism, the spilling words making so little sense as you tried to take a step back--

--only to find you couldn’t. The table was directly behind you, halting the motion. It took only another heartbeat for you to realize how close it put you to Ozpin, how he looked at you, how you could just lean forward and...just...

...

...

You didn’t know what came over you. Impulse was a horrible beast, and it took the sharpest hold over your thoughts, your sense of direction and desire and forced it all to the forefront of your being. It was like seeing something shiny and yearning to grab it, catching sight of small animal and wanting to pet it, the urge to fall to the grass and stare up at the moonlit sky.

It could be called whatever you liked, but you didn’t stop yourself as your face moved, pressing forward just fast enough to press your lips to Ozpin’s.

It was only a peck, lasting barely half a breath before you felt the hard stone in your stomach, the realization coming back to your rebooted thoughts.

You kissed him.

Your eyes blinked and your breathing started to quicken. Leaning back, surprise was obvious in the man’s eyes, blinking and looking at you with a look you couldn’t hope to decipher while dealing with the current situation.

You. Kissed. Ozpin.

What had felt so lovely quickly fell into cold fear. Words of apology fell from your lips like rushing water.

“I’m--I’m so sorry sir, that was horribly inappropriate--I don’t know what came over me I uh--I’ll just see myself out and come back later to finish the--the uh books--I’m so sorry for doing--”

You would have rambled more, tried to slip away and hurry out the doorway of the office back out to the hall. You would have done a million and a half things, but it all stopped cold for a second time when you felt lips upon yours again.

This time, it was Ozpin who leaned forward, Ozpin who kissed you, Ozpin whose hands reached up and gently pressed to either side of your face to hold you still. Though your heart hammered against your chest and blood rushed through your ears, you couldn’t help but lean into him.

“You’re not good at hiding your feelings,” the man murmured against your mouth. “Do you want this?”

Your breath caught, heart skipping a beat as you found the thought available to make the simple answer of a hurried ‘yes’. Just after the sound left your lips, Ozpin’s stole them again, just as soft and ginger as he had been before.

His hands moved as you settled against his body. So warm, so comforting--you could feel as his palms slid down your body, finally stopping at the top of your hips. He held you still, held you close, pressing your body against his with such a sweetness that it almost felt hard to breathe.

Though it felt like an eternity, the second kiss only lasted for several seconds. It was passionate, surprisingly so, and it absolutely took your breath away as Ozpin finally pulled his face away enough to that you could look at him properly.

Fire burned at your cheeks as harshly as the butterflies felt in your stomach, the sensations all so new and powerful that your thoughts were no more than scattered fragments to the wind. It took several long seconds to collect them, all spent gazing into the other’s dark eyes that never left your own.

“Ozpin, I--”

“If I wasn’t correct,” The man said, interrupting you with a slight hurry to his tone. As if he was trying to say it before you said something--before you might say something that would hurt. “If I....misinterpreted something, I deeply apologize for my rash actions.”

You blinked, biting at your lower lip as Ozpin’s eyes finally fell down and to the side; you’d never seen him, the headmaster of Beacon, look legitimately nervous before. It was a rather cute look on him, the pink on his pale cheeks so obvious and sweet.

“...If I didn’t....misinterpret...this relationship,” he continued, cautiously going over each word. “Then I would...like to make it known the feelings are more mutual than you might have assumed, dearest.”

You aren’t sure if it’s the confession or the petname that does it, but you feel your head spin with a feeling of sweet elation at the sound regardless. Is this what love felt like? The returned, sweet, innocent sort of love that you had dreamed and wondered so dearly for?

It was a feeling like none other, still held by Ozpin’s hands against the table behind you, his body so tall and warm against your own. 

A smile slowly worked its way over your lips and, after a few moments after, you regained your voice, if only as a whisper.

“I...like the way that sounds when you say it.”

“When I say what?” Ozpin questions in equal quietness.

The smile grows wider on your lips.

“When you call me ‘dearest’,” 

The feeling of joy in your chest is barely contained as a hand of yours reaches up to the man’s face, palm pressed against his warm cheek.

Ozpin looks at you, then presses his face into your touch.

“I guess I will have to call you that more often then,” he whispers. “My dearest.”

[finalfantasyxivwritings]

Are You my Nhaama?

AO3 Version

Relationship: Magnai/Raen!Reader

Rating: Teen

Wordcount: 1.8k

Summary: In which the reader, a Raen Au Ra healer, realizes they are the beloved Nhaama of Magnai Oronir.

-

“Are you my Nhaama?”

The question catches you off-guard. It yanks you from your thoughts so suddenly that you scarcely have enough time to turn your eyes to the source. 

So focused had you been on tending to a young Oronir warrior, the approach of another is the last thing on your mind--the footsteps all but numbed from your perception when compared to ensuring the gash on the young boy’s arm is sufficiently bandaged.

Though you have been a guest of the Oronir for but a week, you've already learned to deal with the prodding attention of its older warriors. Those who assume they know more than you, some still who see your work as useless--and some, though very few, who see your light-colored scales and say nothing at all, gazes hard and suspicion clear.

It's a healer’s job to heal. To care for people who need help. Though you may have not seen yourself traveling upon the Azim Steppe but few months before, you have long-since accepted to go where fate guides you.

So of course, in the presence of such a large Xaela tribe, you had expected the presence of others to interrupt your hands as they bandage wounds, your thoughts as you channel careful aether into ill bodies.

However, the sight of Magnai himself, leader to the Oronir, falls far beyond such feeble assumption. It's rare to see him, rarer still to see him outside of the throne room, for you have only seen him but twice before.

Once to allow you upon the Dawn Throne, and once to offer you extended blessings for your work upon the tribe. The latter of which was three days ago, when you realized how deep injuries from the previous battle had run across the tribe's members.

But neither time did you feel nearly as afraid as you do now at his approach, his strides long and hurried, reaching you in but a breath of time from the moment your eyes finally lay upon his grand form.

Worry creeps up into your words as you speak despite the desperate efforts to keep the tone even.

“W-what....did you say, r-radiant brother M-Magnai?

Surprise fills your veins and keeps you frozen in place, eyes wide as the moon as the man approaches you. A look of fire burns in his gaze as he stops at last, but a stride or two in front of you, keeping a distance though he looks like a predator readied to pounce.

“My Nhaama,” the leader repeats, tone firm and as unyielding as the rest of his being.

The word is more familiar in mind than upon your tongue, for it is a Xaela word for a Au Ra belief.

You blink, trying to let the thoughts catch up to you, recalling the significance of what the Xaela call the Dusk Mother--Nhaama--and how it ties so intricately with the Oronir tribe. 

How Magnai, believing himself to be the mortal-born Dawn Father, known as Azim to the Xaela, searches endlessly for his lover--his equal and destined Nhaama.

To hear him accuse, no, to question if you are such a one as that...

You know not what to say. But the silence at least is not long-lasting, for the leader of the Oronir is quick to speak.

“For years have I wondered if my Nhaama would be born outside of the Steppe, less so outside of the Xaela--but after many sunfalls of thought, such sense does it make at last!” 

Magnai’s words are filled with such warmth and energy, an excitement that mirrored that of a child--you can't help but feel a heat across your cheeks as you listen and look upon the man, rising slowly to your feet to but come barely to his chest.

“Just as Azim took on the form of the Xaela, so too might the sun’s own fated one be of the Raen--a union of Dusk and Dawn, of Sun and Moon. An ethereal maiden of healing as if blessed by the Dusk Mother herself--I have seen how your gentle touch has already healed the brave warriors who follow the Sun.”

The words, spoken with such flourish and care, leave you without a single sound in your throat. All you can do is stare at the man, still frozen, still silent, taking in all he has to say.

“You have found your way home at last, into the warm embrace of the Sun’s court, for the Oronir--for the heavenly Sun himself--have been waiting for you. My sweet, beloved Nhaama.”

From around the Dawn Throne’s land, people approach. Young and old step into the open area, if only to explore the commotion of noise of their leader’s booming voice, for Magnai did naught to keep his confident declarations of love quiet.

You can see them all as they grow nearer, some trying to hide their curiosity behind the edges of nearby tents, and others yet who cared if they were seen watching with crossed arms and quirked brows. Buduga and Oronir warriors alike, all watching in a slowly-gathering crowd, gazes fixed upon the grand Xaela warrior at its center, and the small Raen healer who he stood in front of in but a grand display, arms outstretched and tail lashing behind him in that same child-like excitement.

The beat of your heart is rapid. It hammers hard in your chest, making your blood rush and your head feel dizzy. Thoughts come too rapidly for you to catch. Like sand through loosely-bound fingers, they slip through. All you can do is stand and behold Magnai in all of his show, his burning attention upon you and you alone.

Despite it all, your eyes remain locked with his. You heard his words, yes, but they scarcely pierce through your swirling emotions. For as many experiences you’ve held close to your chest, for as many near-deaths, fears, hopes and dreams that you’ve clutched in the years since birth, never once did you feel an emotion quite like the one filling your chest now.

It feels warm. It feels radiant. It feels comforting and familiar.

Like a switch, a button, something flipped inside of your heart. A revelation crashed through your mind like an ocean of water, threatening to swallow you whole, to drown you in its never-ending pressure. One of your hands reached up to your own chest, fingertips digging into the cloth that lay over your heart as if you had to keep it from jumping out.

And still you met Magnai’s gaze.

Without meaning to, you take a step forward.

You take another, and then a third. 

Magnai is still as you approach him, closing the last few strides of a gap between your forms, until he is close enough to reach out and touch. He makes no move nor shift. Though he could all but reach out and grab you the man keeps himself still, as if but the slightest motion may scare you away.

The warmth in your chest only grows as you get close to him, getting hotter until it’s a burning radiance of emotion you can but barely describe, of which the Oronir leader is the undeniable source. 

Careful. Cautious. Unsure.

You reach a hand up, fingertips shyly brushing across the side of the man’s face. Though you struggle for a few moments to reach him comfortably upon the tips of your toes, Magnai wordlessly leans down enough that you can lay your palm flat over the curve of his cheek, fingertips against the texture of his obsidian scales as black as night.

And then, you feel compelled to speak. A deep instinct bubbles within your chest. It is primal, the feeling, and one you cannot stop.

“You are my Sun.”

It feels as natural as breathing. 

"My...Azim."

If not for how you looked so closely upon Magnai’s face, you might have missed the way his eyes widen, glimmering golden in the light of the sun above. You might miss how his lips tremble or his body shakes. The man’s brows knit tight above his eyes in a range of emotions untrained or simply unprepared, the words a key to an ocean of raw feelings he too was not ready to feel.

And all the while, to the outside world, the two of you stand in silence. 

Magnai finally reaches a hand up to your face. His fingertips lightly stroke across one of your horns, as if committing the shape and texture already to his memory.

“You are the most beautiful thing ever to grace the vision of the Sun.”

His words are a whisper, spoken soft and intimate for only the two of you to hear. After a moment longer you feel the man’s hand shift, cupping one side of your face against his palm; the touch is warm, fingertips calloused from years of training and battle. 

Your heart sings for the simple gesture.

“I...” you start, heartbeat beginning to race again as you take in the moment. “I don’t understand what’s going on....why I feel this way...”

“Worry not, my Nhaama, you will learn the details of your journey to me in time.” Magnai reaches his other hand out to cup your face completely, thumbs gently rubbing over the curve of your cheekbone, as if tracing the lines of your scales. “Know only that you will be loved and cared for in all of your years under the embrace of the Sun. I have found you at last.”

At last his hands move, arms reaching around your body to tug you against him--you offer no rejection, just a soft noise of surprise as you feel your form press flush to his. Your face instinctively nuzzles against where it reaches of the man’s chest before your eyes peer up to meet Magnai’s own once more.

In but one breathless moment he pulls you up and into his arms, lifting you off your feet enough so that neither he nor you have to strain to reach eachother’s lips. 

There is no hesitation in how your mouths meet, and neither is there issue with the shape of your horns and his. It is truly an exhilarating thought, a revaluation, your bodies and faces and lips meeting as if you were truly crafted to be with one another. 

Though you feel a gentle pressure of his horns sliding against your own, there is nothing to stop him from claiming your lips with tongue and teeth, from growling into the kiss in a manner that only vaguely reminds that you have an audience of Oronir and Buduga still watching the union before their very eyes.

Before you could think to pull away, Magnai has long-since felt the subtle change in the pressure of your lips. His face pulls back just enough, though your foreheads still touch, breaths mingling delicately across one another’s skin.

“I have found you at last,” the man murmurs lowly, making no effort to release you or allowing you out of his arms. “And now that I have you, my beautiful Nhaama, I will never let you go.”

[dragonprincewritings]

Touch Me, Have Me, Make Me Yours (2/2)

AO3 Version

Relationship: Aaravos/Reader

Rating: Explicit

First Chapter | Second Chapter

Summary:  It’s been many months since you found the mirror and learn its secrets, learned about the imprisoned elf who calls himself Aaravos. In those months you’ve befriended him, grown close to him in ways you can’t much label, and now you awake on the other side of the mirror through magic you can’t understand–and Aaravos craves your touch.

For someone so attuned to magic, Aaravos is surprisingly strong. Well, surprisingly against anyone who is able to pluck you off your feet without so much as a noise of struggle, which are few in number and fewer still like him. He carries you with all the careless ease as a parent carries a child, or perhaps more accurately as one might carry a pet–with one arm beneath your shoulder blades and the other behind your knees. He holds you against his chest, grip firm and unwavering as he carries you over to the small bed from where you originally awoke from.

“Forgive any lack of decoration or flourish,” Aaravos says in honey-sweet apology, though it comes more from obligation than any sense of shame. “This room was not designed to entertain more than one specific guest.”

You don’t need to push for clarification, so instead you merely let him move you, lay you down over the plush mattress and press his hands over your body in one fluid motion as he stands back up to his full height. He starts to undress without pause, and such a simple motion as him shedding his cloak looks graceful and measured.

“If you’ve only been here for…however long it’s been,” you try to sound casual, sitting up so you can watch as he slowly, carefully gathers his cloak in his arms and lays it over the headboard. “Then how long has it been since you last…..”

There is absolutely no way to make that sound casual.

Still, you try your best not to avert your eyes when they meet Aaravos’ own, his expression unreadable before he quickly turns away from you, shedding his vest. The air in the room shifts, but you don’t have the time nor the emotional prowess to read it accurately. For a moment you feel fear that you’ve crossed a line, a boundary of personal discomfort, so you hurriedly drop your gaze and look down instead to your own still-clothed body.

Ah, you’d been staring at him with such focus that you’ve forgotten to get yourself undressed.

It seems a good way to shift your attention without feeling awkward (though you manage to feel that way regardless); your fingers find the buttons of your simple shirt, undoing one after another with a nervous little shake to each little movement.

You’ve not even touched the third button before a pair of hands suddenly grab your wrists and stop them, leaving you staring dumbly as star-speckled fingers keep your hands still from your rush to undress.

“No,” comes the simple, yet powerful word. “That’s for me to do.”

Aaravos doesn’t give you room nor time to reply any particular way as his body suddenly moves over you. Clad in but loose pants, he straddles your hips and pins you down, surprising you enough in the moment that you’re lost for words until his mouth is at your throat.

All you can go is gasp out in short bursts of air, half-words that don’t have any meaning than for their sound alone from your quivering lips. Sharp teeth and careful lips press to your skin in half-hearted bites that only remind you how hard he could mark you with but a fancy or strike of want, all of which he’s already admitted to having.

He’s deft with his fingers, undoing all the buttons of your top in barely a few seconds before gently urging your arms up so he can tug it free from your upper body. Despite all the squirming, you can’t register a moment that you don’t feel his lips on your throat, seeking out the most sensitive spots and toying the tip of his tongue against them. The same tongue and teeth and lips that can form such beautiful words seem to have much the same talent in pleasure, your body blooming with heat for anything he so much as cared to do with you.

“Aaravos,” you moan, his name broken and weak on your lips. “Please.”

It’s a simple word, but it feels as heavy as iron over the two of you, weighed down with want and need for so much more than just his mouth on your neck–though it’s proven to be a talent in itself for how worked up it’s already made you.

“So impatient,” the man murmurs, voice rumbling softly against your throat. “And here I worried for a moment that I was moving too quickly in my own feverish desire.”

The amusement fills his words softly, and his chuckle sounds even sweeter. It’s only then that you remember yourself and his situation, the irony coming down on you so hard that your face blooms with raging heat.

“I didn’t mean-”

“I’m not angry,” Aaravos cuts off your apology as he lifts his face from your throat. His hair falls from where it had been temporarily pulled behind his ears, falling around your face like a curtain of silvery silk. “You have not endured the same as I have, to be so distant from another person. To long for so much as a person’s voice or their simple company.”

Golden eyes shut slowly with a sigh, a gathering of thoughts physically showcased only by the soft glimmer of the marks scattered across the elf’s cheeks. For whatever it’s supposed to represent on him, you can’t ignore that to you, it looks akin to a blush.

You reach your hands up without thinking and hold Aaravos’ face between them, so your thumbs can trace over those glittering marks on his skin. For some reason you expect them to feel different on his skin, but there’s no texture or difference in anything–they are simply part of his flesh, yet somehow alive and glittering like the stars of the midnight sky.

The man’s eyes shoot open the moment your touch is upon him, wide and surprised in so much more than in the simple fact that you’re touching him.

No, it’s so much more than that.

They blink, those soulful eyes, and stare at you for what feels like forever.

Aaravos feels so warm as he lays over you, still straddling your hips and half-dressed, hair still a curtain around your face so that all your eyes can see is his expression; it’s soft and curious and awed in so many layers beyond what you can hope to read, emotions running deeper than you’ve ever seen in another person.

“I have not felt the touch of another person for so long,” he says at last, a whisper so soft and deep that you’d not hear it if you were any farther from him.  “The warmth of skin against my own, the feeling of arms and hands and fingertips-”

Carefully, Aaravos brings one hand between you. He pulls one of your wrists from his face, but only so that he can press a kiss to your palm, and then to each of your fingertips.

“-I’ve craved the company of someone through sleepless nights and dreary days, someone I could touch and embrace in my arms if only once.”

His kisses grow gentler as he pulls your hand to his lips, to press one more on your inner-wrist. It’s as if he’s trying to worship the smallest detail, to commit it to memory through kisses alone.

All you can do is watch, bittersweetness tugging at your thoughts and mind–you can’t begin to understand what it feels like to be isolated like him, to be locked away without anything of the world beyond this room and it’s loneliness. To want just the company of another person, just the notion that they exist–it’s…horrible.

You take in a breath and feel steeled to the blossoming lust and compassion in your chest for the man above you, the man of midnight skies and starlit skin and silver-silk hair.

“I’m here now,” you say, hands reaching up and holding Aaravos’ face once more, cradling it with a love you’d almost feel ashamed for if the moment wasn’t already so saturated with emotion. “Touch me. Have me. Make me yours, Aaravos.”

The man watches you for a moment, expression unreadable again though only for a few breaths of time.

And then it shifts into a look of hunger.

“You’ve sealed away your fate,” he growls, voice going deep as the currents of a wondrous but powerful ocean. “You’ll have no hope to rid yourself of me now, silly human, when you’ve promised yourself to me like this.”

There had been a level of care in how Aaravos’ helped you remove your shirt, but there was no such gentleness for the rest of your clothes. He tears at what remains on your body, his hands making quick work while his mouth once more finds his mark of a passionate kiss.

It doesn’t take long before you’re stripped bare beneath him, mind swirling and thick with want.

“For someone who hasn’t been with another,” the words fall from your lips almost breathlessly. “-you seem plenty familiar with this sort of thing.”

You catch Aaravos’ wicked grin as he shifts his body to strip the last piece of clothing from himself, making sure the motion is slow and deliberate.

“I only said it has been long since I’ve had companionship; I never once said that I’m unfamiliar with the activity one has upon a bed.” A shift of his eyes, mischievous and sly. “Or the wall. Or the floor. Only the uncreative limit themselves to the passions that lovers can enjoy together.”

You’re not quite sure what to focus on in the moment.

There’s his words, of course, steeped in something strong and carnal–you can’t begin to filter through all of the context clues to what sorts of things a man like Aaravos has done before (the sorts of activities he’s familiar with), but you’re also quite distracted by the sight of his naked form as he straddles your hips once again, pants tossed and forgotten quickly enough in some vague direction from the bed.

He truly looks like a piece of the midnight sky. From his hands, feet and face, there’s a shift of color to his skin from light to dark, reminding you faintly of the color that lingers on the horizon in the short hours after the sun finally sets.

He’s covered in freckles of glittering stars–they shimmer as if alive, as if actual stars without any shift of light or movement of Aaravos’ body. Your eyes take in all of him at once but nothing at the same time–it’s overwhelming, honestly, because he’s kneeling over you, tall and proud and–

Oh.

Aroused. Also very aroused.

It’s amazing that there’s any shame left to fill your cheeks with heat by this point, but you otherwise can’t pull your gaze away from the stiff organ between his legs colored similarly to the rest of his body (which is to say there’s a white, starry speckling across its length). The shape is plenty familiar in that it’s obvious it’s a cock despite the difference in species, but it’s also much different than what you’re used to.

It’s tapered, for one, though long and thick enough to make your belly flip in shameless need for it inside you. How would such a shape even feel? Would it open you up easier, slide inside you without a need for careful preparation? The possibilities were enough to make your thoughts spin, body shifting beneath the man in unsettled heat.

“Are you intrigued by something?”

The familiar, mischievous voice from above yanks your eyes away, towards his face and confronting the realization that you’d been staring quite dumbfoundedly at his dick for at least a solid five seconds, if not longer.

All you can do is scrabble for words, though there’s no explanation that can hope to save you from the embarrassment.

“I just-” You can’t meet Aaravos’ eyes entirely. “-I uh, I’ve never. Seen. Or. Er.”

Perhaps it’s better just to not try to excuse yourself or your arousal, your growing want for the man to be between your legs and make you cry out his name over and over again in unbridled lust.

He laughs–the sound is heavenly to your ears–and he finally leans down over you again, one hand anchoring his weight beside your head as the fingers of the other hold your chin so that you have to look at him.

“There’s no shame in being curious,” he all but purrs, lips pulled into a smirk. “There’s as much to learn about my body as I’m eager to learn about yours, but for now let’s focus on you.”

You try to shake your head.

“But you deserve to-”

“No,” Aaravos says, stilling your words with the weight of his command, even as it’s nearly whispered. “Your time is limited. I have seen you countless times through the mirror, I have watched you work and move, heard you laugh and sing even, yes, even when before you realized I could see and hear you.”

The meaning in his words sends a soft, but wondrous shiver down your spine. The two of you had been talking for several months, though you’d been almost enraptured with the mirror for many weeks before you ever learned that it was more than a well-crafted showpiece.

Aaravos has more to say, it’s obvious in the air and you feel as if breathless in waiting for him to continue. The man moves himself gently, but deliberately between your legs. You wrap them almost instinctively around his waist, ankles locked behind the small of his back.

He feels warm against your skin as his hand moves from your chin, skimming fingertips down the front of your body and tracing shapes against your skin.

“I’ve yearned to touch you from the moment you first spoke to me.”

The words are so honest, they feel as though plucked straight from the elf’s heart like stars from the night sky. His fingers continue to trace careless shapes against your skin until it reaches your hip where he grabs you and pulls you closer, your hips pressing harder to his in a moment of naked intimacy and heat.

“I’ve yearned to feel you just like this, to know what you sound like when my lips are on your skin and my tongue tracing your pulse.”

His words sound delicate and soothing despite the fire they light in the pit of your stomach or the ache between your legs. You can’t hope to hide the arousal over your face–so you simply don’t. Your brows knit together and your hands reach up once more to Aaravos’ face so you can get his attention, even though you can’t find the words to plead for what you want–even though the very thing of your desire is pressing against you, hot and hard and throbbing in equal need.

“Oh,” he murmurs, as if captured by your eyes as they meet his. “So many things I want to do to you, my little human. For what time you have left with me for now, all I want is to feel you come completely undone around me.”

It takes a moment for your brain to filter his words, but by then you can feel that his hand has skimmed down farther between your bodies, dipping between your legs and pressing against your entrance. They’re cold and slick with something you don’t recall being on them but a moment before as he touched and caressed your skin.

“Don’t fear,” Aaravos coos before you even have the chance to feel worried. “It will help you relax.”

Whatever the substance is, you’re sure it’s magical in origin, slicking up your inner walls as one, then two digits carefully press inside you. Arousal and need come together in their own aggravation because you only want more, more of him inside you, opening you up and bringing you closer to climax.

“Aaravos,” is all you can plead out, hoping that your tone is enough to encourage him.

“Impatient,” is all the elf tuts, amusement in his tone once more. “It’s as if you’ve been wanting my touch for as long as I’ve wanted to touch you.”

You don’t correct him, and that only seems to make his resolve stronger, his fingers press deeper within you. Aaravos is not a man unfamiliar with the details of sex or pleasure, as he’s able to bring you close enough to the edge with his hand alone that you’re panting his name in broken gasps.

Your body feels as if on fire by this point, be it from his voice, his fingers, the aching press of his cock or some combination of it all–you need him now or else you’ll fall apart.

So you plead and beg and moan for him, the last threads of shame fallen from thought and care and replaced solely with the aching, gnawing desire to have his cock inside of you.

“Aaravos,” you beg, hips shifting, trying desperately to find more. “Have me.”

You don’t get an answer, or at least not a verbal one from your lover. You’re almost worried that he isn’t listening to you at this point, letting your words fly useless into the air when all you crave is his intimate attention–

When that’s exactly what you get. Thick fingers slide out of you moments before you feel sturdy hands press over your hips and pull them up and closer against his body. You can feel the aching heat of his cock against you, grinding and rubbing for only a few moments as Aaravos adjusts himself and then, with a single, powerful but earth-shattering motion, he thrusts inside of you.

There’s too much to process all at once.

Pleasure and satisfaction and heat and girth spreading your body open–there’s just so much that you can’t hope to do more than gasp and arch your back into the myriad of sensations.

“Oh,” you hear your lover growl. “Oh how sweet you feel around me, how wondrous and pure.”

There’s a filth to the words that spill from Aaravos’ mouth, a certain carnal filter that seems emphasized by his smooth tone and poetic vocabulary. He doesn’t hide his thoughts or pleasure from you as he starts a quick and ruthless pace.

Kisses and nips and everything in between find their place along your throat, jaw and lips, your name weaved between each and every one in what almost sounds like a deep, gravely prayer; the sound of it alone is able to bring you closer to the edge, like honey and adoration from a man who craves your attention and touch in ways you’ll never quite understand.

You want to enjoy the intimacy for as long as possible, to put the feeling of his arms around you and lips nipping at your jaw somewhere deep in your mind so that you’ll never forget. Oh, you want this moment to last for eternity, but there’s no such thing when climax comes far too swift, a heat building low in your stomach that becomes far too much to ignore.

“I want-” you say, trying desperately to communication a million words in one breath. “Aara-v-vos I’m–I’m getting close.”

You expect certain things from a lover when you’re in their arms, writhing in need beneath their form. You expect certain words and whispers, promises and languid motions of needy bodies seeking the apex of pleasure–but you don’t expect what Aaravos does at all.

One of his hands seek out yours, gripping tight into the thin sheets of the bed. You feel him press his palm to yours and thread your fingers together as best as one can in the heat of the moment. You feel his lips on the underside of your jaw and his hips rocking feverishly against yours, making the bed bump and squeak with a filthy rhythm into the otherwise empty room.

“Sing for me,” the man finally says, a needy whisper that seems to break through his composed, deep voice. “Sing your pleasure for me, let yourself go so I may hear every beautiful syllable.”

You can’t even think of disobeying such a loving command. Pleasure comes in thick, hot waves over your form, leaving you to writhe as if your body barely knows what to do with it. Legs tighten around Aaravos’ waist as your body clenches around him, milking his cock and spurring him into orgasm with a kiss-muffled moan of his mouth to your throat for a mark you’ll certainly tend to tomorrow.

Every moment, stretched and gooey and warm, is filled with your voice. With his soft demand echoing around your mind, it’s all you can do in simple obedience but to moan, to let out all the noises that come to your lips with the pleasure of his touch and love and everything.

His name makes up most of it.

Aaravos, oh Aaravos, you don’t have quite the lilt to your words or tone, the honey-sweet depth, but you hope it sounds as pretty and lovely to him.

Somewhere in it all, in the heat and pleasure and rawness of climax, everything goes white around you.

...

And then, suddenly, you’re awake.

Not in Aaravos’ arms or even in his bed–not even in the room behind the mirror–you instead wake to find yourself in your own quarters. The walls are familiar, the floor is familiar, your very bed is familiar.

With a blink, the realization fades into your thoughts that you’re back home, in your own world and bedroom and–

No.

You stumble out of bed with a gasp, a rushed energy to your limbs. No, oh no it can’t have been a dream, please don’t let it all have been nothing but a feverish dream-

It doesn’t take long to hurry down the hall and to the study, to the mirror that sits so innocently by itself in the corner of the room. Without hesitation you pull the cover from over the piece, hoping almost desperately to see a familiar face behind the glass, maybe even teasing you for being so cute or pretty or some other lovely compliment that he’d surely say of you in the heat of sex.

But you don’t see anything. The mirror acts in the moment as simply a mirror, no haughty elf standing on the other side of any magical portal and no indication that what you’d waken from was nothing more than a dream of one castle-keeper’s silly crush on something–someone–that can’t be understood.

It’s not uncommon that you don’t see Aaravos in the mirror, it’s not completely his lack of appearance that leaves you momentarily disheartened, but the nagging worry that it was nothing more than a midnight fantasy that felt a bit too real.

You’ll have to ask him about it in the morning, if the day is cloudy and the metaphorical stars align just right. Though waiting will only leave you filled with more worry, it’s the only option you have.

But.

Wait.

You look at the mirror once more, focusing on your reflection in the surface. More specifically you look at your neck, catching a spot of color on your skin. It piques your curiosity enough that you tilt your head to the side, angling yourself so that you can get a clear look at it.

A bruise.

You feel heat in your cheeks at the recognition that the color on your throat, one that is high enough that you’ll have to figure out how to cover up–

–it’s kiss-shaped.

[falloutwritings]

Request (Anonymous): I always imagine the poor courier having depression--they’re always getting swept up in other people's messes, having to fix their problems, and they're so tired of it. Maybe they confess to Joshua one night around the campfire they think Benny would have been doing them a favor if he had actually managed to kill them like he was supposed to?

You wanna support my writing? Buy me a Ko-fi! ☕

The words flow as freely from your lips as the water down Zion Valley.

“Sometimes I wish I could have actually died when Benny shot me.”

There’s no response, at least, not immediately. The crackling of the fire fills the air with warmth and light. The glow flickers across  your body, the dirt, the low scrubs and even over your companion who was also sitting near the fire. He had been reading that old world book of his, probably focused on more of those stories that never made much sense to you. 

You could feel Joshua’s intense focus from the moment you spoke, even if you couldn’t see his eyes or bandaged face. His attention was sharp, piercing but not painful--it was a sort of intense gaze that you knew so few people to naturally carry about their person, and it comforted you in that moment more than made you unnerved.

“Why do you feel that way?” 

Joshua’s voice was so soft, barely cresting over the low crackle of the fire, but just as warm as the open flame that flickered on beside your body. The ground was cold, a stark difference from the fire’s heat, but it mattered so little when it afforded you a beautiful look at the night sky far above you both--so clear and crisp when compared to the night sky beneath New Vegas.

So beautiful. So perfect. So clean.

It made your stomach twist.

“...I...can’t remember anything before getting shot,” You start with a murmur. “I can’t remember my family, my place of birth--I don’t even know if I have friends waiting for me somewhere out there in the Mojave or, hell, somewhere else in the wasteland.”

You take in a slow, shuddering breath, half-expecting the man to find something to say, perhaps even a quote from that holy book of his. 

But Joshua says nothing; he gives you the respect of silence while you find the words to say, the will to speak, the energy to confess the feelings bound up within your mind.

“Nothing ever seems to go right around me--It’s like....I’m cursed. I’m surrounded by death and violence and bloodshed--who was I to want this life? I’m.....I’m scared of ever learning who I was before this, especially since the only information I have about me--before everything--was The Divide. It--”

Emotions welled up in your throat, choking away the words and leaving you gasping for a new breath of air. It was hard to speak so openly, even if it was Graham you were confessing to--you fought hot tears in the corners of your eyes when you felt one of his hands press gently to the top of your head, something between a mere touch and a gentle caress over your hair in a motion that only meant to say ‘I’m here’ without actually saying it.

“I am familiar with the events of that place,” he said softly. “You need not recount it to me if you don’t wish to.”

It calmed you, his assurance, his soft words by the firelight. It helped you get yourself together again, cobbling thoughts and words once more to achieve a coherent voice.

“I just...” You weren’t sure how you could put it all together. “The wasteland, the Mojave...it....it makes me feel so hopeless sometimes. Like there’s nothing to live for, nothing to wake up and see--sometimes I wake up in the morning all alone in the desert after camping out and the realization--” Breath. Breathe slow. Breathe gently, that’s it.... The words whispered on the soft breeze, so soft that it took you a moment to realize it was Joshua saying them to you. “--the realization that I live in this shithole is too much to handle, you know? I can only get shot and nearly bleed-out so many times before I just--I just wish that Benny’s shot would have killed me months ago. It would have done me a favor.”

And then you were silent, so silent, but breathing gently and staring up to the wide, open night sky. You didn’t let your thoughts begin stewing again, so you quickly took up the impossible task of counting out the stars one by one. By the time you had gotten to the second dozen and lost count twice, your companion finally spoke.

His hand never left where it settled on the top of your head, his fingers gently rubbing into your scalp.

“We’re all put on this world for a purpose,” Joshua whispered, his voice so low and gentle that it worked like a lulling purr. You simply closed your eyes and listened to him, the calming tones of his words and wisdom in his thoughts. “We will never know what that purpose is--some of us may never know even after we pass on, but there is a purpose in our lives.”

His hand moves, gently cupping one of your cheeks so his fingertips gently brushed the underside of your jaw. 

“You saved the Sorrows and Dead Horses from what could have been a force to wipe them out, and helped stayed my anger in a time that I needed a hand of kindness most of all. Though I cannot begin to speak of events and places beyond Zion, I know well enough that you are a person of great kindness and love beyond yourself--You are important, Courier. You mean a great deal to me, to everyone here.

I can’t heal your lost memories. I cannot bring back what family you may have somewhere across the wasteland, but know that you are always a friend and member of my family--I cannot change the cruelty of the wasteland, but I can offer the same hand of warmth and kindness that you had done for me.”

His words are raw and genuine. Whenever Joshua speaks, there is a level of power and meaning behind it--he doesn’t say something without meaning, doesn’t speak without consideration, so the soft words hit you deep in your chest. They’re so kind, so open--it’s more than you can say about a lot of what’s out there in the same world that’s ready to kick you down, steal your caps and leave you for dead.

Tears start to well up and trail down the sides of your face as you finally move, shifting into a fetal position but closer to Joshua’s sitting form, close enough so that the top of your head is almost nuzzling against his hip.

He comforts you all the while, a hand always on your face or brushing through your hair, a voice gently cooing and murmuring soft comforts and assurances as your emotions crack away at the lead wall you’d built up since waking up in Goodsprings. It feels good to let it out for once, even a little, in the comfort and protection of someone who feels as though they can just....protect you for once, keep your shattered pieces from falling apart long enough while you find the energy to glue them back together.

You’re not sure how long you spend the night like that, how long you cry, how long Joshua continues to murmur to you--all you know is that eventually the evening ends with the fire put out, the night sky bright, and your body laying next to him with his arms carefully wrapped around you.

The gesture, the man--it makes you feel safe, cared for, and genuinely wanted in the world.

And that’s enough to keep you going.

[detroitbecomehumanwritings]

In Your Hazel Eyes (2/?)

Pairing: Ralph/Reader

Rating: M to become NC-17 eventually

Chapter: First / Next // AO3

Summary: You are a customer support worker at a company that works for Cyberlife. The schedule is tedious and busy, so it’s easy for you to get caught up in the cycle of work-sleep-work without so much as finding something to smile about. You decide to take a new walking route one day and come across a garden, and in the garden, a peculiar Android that you grow ever so attached to.

This is the story of how you meet Ralph and fall in love, how you both find eachother again after he goes missing, how he learns to heal from his trauma and live like a free man after the revolution.

The following morning came too quickly. Like a banshee, the alarm beside your bed shrieked into the air of your apartment, abruptly yanking you out from whatever dream you were having. You managed to turn the damn thing off, but only just as the last fleeting moments of the night time visions faded away from memory. For a cold moment you were left to the hard reality of life again--like every morning, it took a breath to absorb it all once more, as if you're entire life had happened all in the expanse of a night and it was up to you to take it and go.

Bare feet against the wooden floor, you padded through your tiny, one-bedroom apartment to get ready for work. It was a cycle you had moved through so many times that your body was on autopilot, leaving your mind to wander from thing to another now that you were, for the most part, conscious. Thoughts about life, about work--those were all simple and tedious things you already had to think about on an occupied mind. No, you let yourself think, to wander about your curiosities and entertain what came forth.

By the time you were in the shower, the reminder of something popped into your head. A face, a smile and a pair of pretty hazel eyes.

Ralph.

And just like that, a flood of memories from the day before returned to the forefront of your mind, acutely reminding you of all that had happened when you decided to stop at that little garden area on the way to work. You remembered talking to him, remembered the way he looked so confused when you asked for his name originally.

You remember feeling so weird that he didn't have a name.

Sentience was something powerful. The ability to distinguish the self was a defining factor for why humans were able to achieve so much in the first place, or at least plenty of people argue as much. Personhood, the right to be, well, alive, came with that notion.

Were androids sentient?

It was a question that came with a lot of weight. Despite living dead-center in the bloom of technology in both time and geographical area, you had a surprisingly low number of encounters with androids as a whole. Hell, even though you worked in a call center for Cyberlife, you had yet to step into a store itself. You were in a position where you could simply sidestep the worrying thought, simply pretend that your life could be its own boring, self-contained sphere.

But you remembered Ralph and his deep, soulful-looking eyes. You remembered the way they watched you, the way they danced with emotions so well--it was nothing like talking to a machine.

A machine.

The term hung on your mind like a coat on a rack, soaking-wet and heavy with doubt. You wondered if anyone had thought about the topic so deeply before, if anyone had been so awestruck by an android’s level of humanity that they too had to question what might have been inevitable of a fact--were they truly alive?

There was such a genuine conflict in your head that you stopped the train of thought--it wasn’t hard to see why some people may have never given it any thought. Would your mind change if you had been around other androids? Was it simply how human Ralph looked that made you wonder?

The entire process of getting ready for work takes no more than a bit over a half hour, on a good day at least. By the time you’re done, the sun is hovering over the horizon of the morning sky, shining down rays of warming sunlight over everything it can touch.

Most days it serves as a reminder for how early it was, and just how much you hated waking up at that time of the morning. It couldn’t have been much different than most workers though--a simple fact of life that everyone had to grumble through in their own way.

Fall was starting to creep into the air. Summer was on its last legs, consistent warm days turning into a coin toss mixed in with cold nights and breezy, cool afternoons that started people to require a jacket or so. The trees had begun to change color along parts of your walk to work--every day they looked a little more red, gold or orange, and every day more of them fell like a shower around you when you walked beneath their shady canopy.

Peaceful. It was the only moments of peace you really had when you counted the stress of both work and home. Adulthood was just like that, you guessed--moments of peace in a sea of problems and issues.

About ten minutes in to your walk had you stepping into the more bustling parts of the outer city, with roads further converging and crowds a common sight along the sidewalks. It was by about then that you started passing through the major square, the one filled with TVs and blaring with sound that, luckily, didn’t seem to come with any anxiety-inducing news.

You heard the distant weather forecast (getting colder, put on a jacket!) and the winner to last night’s sports game (home team won, what a game!) but your eyes wandered instead to the small park that filled the center of the square.

The one from yesterday.

You stood still for a moment, taking in the sights that you hadn’t quite taken in before, when the sun was glittering down over the trees. They too were changing colors, though they seemed yet to lose any of their leaves. There were families walking through the center pathway, a pair of children playing hide-and-seek around one of the benches--the flowers seemed to be just a touch more colorful in the morning light. It was, honestly, quite beautiful to see.

You glanced about the park from where you stood, hoping to see a familiar shape walking about. When you couldn’t find him, you started walking around, circling one side of the park, and then the other. Still no sign of Ralph. The absence of the gardener disappointed you more than you thought you’d feel--an odd feeling for someone you had only just met the other day.

It struck you after a moment that it must have looked odd, sounded odd if someone would have stepped up to ask why you were looking hopelessly around for someone, only to answer ‘I’m looking for an android I met yesterday because it feels like I made a friend’.

The only thing you’d get in return would have been a weird look, assuming the person didn’t feel particularly angry or annoyed with androids that day; unemployment was almost at 40%.

You tried to cover up your searching by sitting at one of the empty benches, hoping that Ralph had stepped away for a few minutes. Perhaps he was gathering the supplies he needed for the flowers, perhaps he was assisting someone who put in a complaint or comment about the park. Perhaps he was just….running late? Did androids even run late to work? That was under the assumption that their work was a job, and they had free time after the job and…

Too complicated, too many rabbit holes that your mind wanted to scurry down and follow to the end.

You stood up slowly from the bench and, with one final glance around, you started the second half of your walk to work.

The office felt busier than ever when you got in.

On any given day, it wasn’t uncommon to take a few calls in a half hour, with most of them being resolved with some simple answer a customer could have figured out themselves with a proper internet search.

It wasn’t unusual to be a bit busy, but it was absolute chaos when you stepped into the building. The air was filled with ringing phones and conversation, most of which you couldn’t do much to pick out from one another; they all blurred together in a constant, buzzing noise that followed you all the way to your desk.

You had a few minutes before you had to sit down and start taking calls, so you used the free moments as an excuse to lean over one of the dividers to the desk beside you. The young woman who sat there, Renee, was a short, unassuming young woman in her early 20’s. She was one of the best callers despite her young age, taking one after another without so much as a hint of fatigue--you often handed her the most capricious of customers since she could handle them so well.

Luckily enough, you found her just as she was setting the phone down. You seized the moment to speak before she would instinctively reach to pick it up when the inevitable ring came.

“Hey,” You said, waving your hand over the divider to catch her eyes. She turned them over to you, glittering green and curious. “So uh, what’s going on today? It’s uh, busier than usual?”

Though you were damn sure of it, there was still a moment of awkward fear that maybe it seemed that way simply because you were bad at your job, hadn’t noticed something on your walk, or a bit of information from last week’s meeting. Maybe even--

“--a new model.”

You blinked, not realizing you had been so deep in your thoughts that you missed nearly all of what Renee had answered with.

“S-sorry,” you offered an awkward grin. “Could you repeat that?”

The young woman smiled and pointed to a screen towards the end of the room. It was flashing over a news story that answered your question as much as she herself did.

“Cyberlife announced a couple new models today,” Renee said, looking back to meet your eyes. “The calls are all from local warehouses and private business trying to secure pre-orders, at least that’s been most of my calls since I got in earlier this morning.”

Thank god for Renee and her wide, exuberant grin. That alone was plenty to calm your nerves, help you realize your feverish worry was nothing more than paranoia-fueled fear. At least it explained things; you hadn’t a lot of experience with pre-orders, but there seemed to be plenty of more experienced employees around you to help if it was needed.

Alright then, it was time to get with the grind. After clocking yourself into the system with the computer on your desk, you saw the red light flicker to life on the phone beside you. After a breath, it began to ring. Instinct had you reach out, pluck it from the receiver and hold it to your ear as your mind started to numb itself into the workday’s beginning.

“Hello, Androtech Suppliers, proud partner of Cyberlife technologies!” Your voice sounded chipper, bright and automated. “How can I help you today?”

By the time that the work day is done, you’re exhausted. Despite having been at a desk for the last eight hours of your life, you feel drained, life sucked right out of you. The sound of ringing phones has been grating against your ears for the last hour because, by god, there is no way to make a tone that doesn’t eventually rub your mind raw and numb when it means that you have yet another customer to work with.

Clocking out of the system is a victory, albeit small in the grand scheme of your sanity, but it’s satisfying to gather up your things and make your way out of the office, the building, and finally onto the sidewalk just as the sun seemed to be dipping out of the sky.

Exhaustion is heavy in your limbs, your thoughts, tugging you down with every step forward. Though there’s certainly nothing physical with your job, the drain is still intense, leaving you feeling so empty by the end of every shift.

You made your way towards home in silence, thoughts gently rolling over the events of the day. Phone calls left and right, one after another that you nearly didn’t have a chance to step away from your desk to each lunch. Renee said that’s how new models usually went down, at least in terms of preorders--it was going to be a busy couple more days until the initial hype dropped and things evened out again.

Working hard for the paycheck, you supposed, though it would be nice to have enough energy to actually do something worthwhile after work every night--Friday seemed too far off to think about, a mere mirage over the horizon that you’d never get to.

By the time you arrived at the halfway point of your walk home, darkness had already crept over the skyline. The sun was gone, hidden away behind the tall buildings and horizon, and the streetlights had started to flicker to life.

You stood under the soft glow of one, looking out towards the garden that filled the area of the market square. At first, there doesn’t seem to be anyone there; the garden itself looks silent and empty.

It’s not quite clear why sadness seems to fill your heart at the sight, or lack thereof, but you’re more than aware that you had been hoping to see a particular face.

Something compels you to stay. It’s no more than a tiny whisper in your thoughts, but it’s enough to give you reason to take a seat at one of the nearby benches. Your feet hurt after all, the consistent walking has not done well for your old pair of sneakers--you really need to buy some new ones, maybe with some extra padding.

When you let yourself drop onto the bench, a soft and familiar voice rings out nearby.

The sound of your name catches your attention, startling you enough to quickly move you back onto your feet, one hand clutching the strap of your bag.

“I--Yes?” you turn your head down the center path of the garden, towards the shopping center, just in time to see those soft hazel eyes gazing back. Ralph approached you quickly, a smile on his face and a gentle flicker to his LED. “Oh, Ralph!”

The recognition poured into your expression and you laughed, falling once more unto the bench when you realized how silly you must have looked at being so surprised at his entrance into your attention.

“Goodness, and here I thought I wasn’t going to see you again,” You said with a laugh gently hanging on your words. “I didn’t see you this morning on my way to work.”

Ralph stood awkwardly beside the bench for a few moments before finally deciding to sit beside you, though he kept very much to his own bubble, pressed to the other side of the sitting area as if unsure how to hold himself.

“I...was required by my programming to get maintenance done.”

You glanced towards him, taking in his gentle features and neatly-kept hair.

“Maintenance?” You asked curiously, if only because you knew so very little about the logistics behind city-serving androids. “Is that something you have to get often?”

Ralph didn’t answer at first. Instead, he merely looked down at his clasped hands. He...looked nervous, for some reason, though you didn’t feel like it was appropriate to prod--it left you concerned, regardless, and you reached out a hand unthinkingly to lay over one of his own.

“Is...everything alright?” You whispered gently.

It was a gesture of comfort, you didn’t really give much thought into the reason behind it, nor to the fact that the being sitting beside you didn’t inherently need for the same comforts as a human--or did it?

Regardless, Ralph shook at the touch, looking surprised at it, and you quickly drew your hand back in the realization of what you had done.

The two of you sat in silence for a few moments, both with your eyes on your hands and your thoughts to yourselves. It...wasn’t a very good feeling, awkwardness bubbling in your stomach, unsure if you had said or done something wrong. Maybe you had--maybe you were trying to make a friendship from nothing. Maybe all you were doing was hindering this android from his job, forcing him into social niceties--could that be part of his programming? To humor humans around him who wanted to talk?

You weren’t sure. You didn’t like not being sure.

Abruptly, you pushed yourself onto your feet, ready to walk off and forget everything and go back to your normal, boring life. You were ready just to toss all your curiosities and worries aside about the gardening android you’d named ‘Ralph’ and pretend that it was all a silly little fantasy.

A hand on your wrist stopped you, fingers gentle but firm as they wrapped around your limb, holding you still when you were about to walk away.

You stilled, felt his grip linger, and then slowly moved to sit back down on the bench, a little closer this time to Ralph.

The silence didn’t last for much longer than a breath or two.

“...Most humans don’t pay me any mind,” Ralph began to say. “We--I--was created to tend this garden, which includes the programming to interact with guests and find out what they like, how I can continue to improve this garden. But….I have never spoken to a human before. Not...like you.”

“Me?” You asked softly, unsure of what he meant.

Ralph nodded. “You talk to me as if I’m….” He paused, trying to find the words. “As if I’m another human.”

His LED was flashing at that point, back and forth: blue, yellow, blue, yellow, red , yellow--

“H-Hold on now,” You forced words from your mouth even when you didn’t entirely have them nailed down yourself. “Hey, it’s alright, just….it’s okay, I promise.”

You didn’t know exactly what you were promising, but it did seem enough at least to calm the android down a bit. He pursed his lips and finally looked in your direction. Did he look….confused? Hurt? The expressions were very hard to decipher when they were all muddled together on his face at the same time.

Ralph’s eyes looked...surreal. Vulnerable. Curious. They looked almost human, if only for a moment, neglecting the still-flashing LED on his temple.

“Does...nobody else talk to you?” You feel confident enough to ask the question, gently, one hand reaching out to him again and falling on his shoulder.

Ralph stared at you for a moment, then spoke.

“Most humans prefer to….hit me. Young humans. Teenagers.” His gaze fell, though it was only for a second. “I have had to undergo multiple repairs due to the actions of several teenagers that live in the neighborhood nearby.”

Realization slowly dawned over you at his explanation, the reason why he was so taken back by an extremely simple act of kindness.

Your hand gripped his shoulder a little tighter.

“Is that why you weren’t here this morning?”

Ralph nodded after a moment.

“I am programmed to tend to this garden,” he said simply. “And gather the opinions of Detroit residents about my work, the choice of flora and any relevant health hazards during pollen season.”

He paused for only a beat.

“...however, the only feedback that has been given to me until you has been in the form of physical abuse by a group of teenagers who, given recent events, find amusement in hurting androids.”

You weren’t sure how to feel or react to the words. Though they were deeply troubling, Ralph spoke them with such a level of distant coolness that you...weren’t quite sure what to say in response?

“I’m sorry,” came out first, seeming the most appropriate. “You can’t….report them? Or anything?”

The answer was heavy at the bottom of your belly; you knew that he couldn’t just do that--he wasn’t a human, so it wasn’t harassment or abuse, legally speaking at least. The offender could be tried for the damage to property, especially if it was against the city, but you doubted the police force would put that much effort into a single civil-service unit when he could just be...replaced.

The information didn’t sit well with you.

It challenged a lot of what you knew and accepted as true, forced contrasting ideals and opinions to play together in your head. It didn’t feel fair that Ralph could be hurt without consequence, it didn’t feel right that he could be looked at with such little worth and, yet--

It started to make your head hurt. It was so easy to be distant, considering you had no funds to have a house android and you never worked with them directly. It was easy to not care or think about them as people when all they were marketed as hyper-realistic machines.

Machines.

Machines?

But when you had one sitting next to you, staring into your eyes as he talked about being hit and broken, it made something hurt in your heart. It was something genuine in his expression, enough that you were forced to confront the blissful ignorance you’d lived with for the past few years.

In that moment, you couldn’t call him a machine. He wasn’t human, wasn’t flesh and blood in the same way that you were, but he….he was still had the same worth, the same right to happiness that you did.

You felt your hand move, shifting from Ralph’s shoulder to lay over one of his hands.

“I’ll visit you every day,” you promised softly, hoping that it would mean something to him. “And if those teenagers bother you again, I…”

The sentence trailed off. You weren’t sure what you could do, if it meant anything to know when people were harassing him. Nevertheless, firm warmth bubbled into your words as you spoke again.

“If they hurt you again, tell me--okay?”

Ralph blinked and looked at you for a long while. You couldn’t make out any particular expression that moved across his face, any sense of emotion that filled those hazel eyes of his. He finally settled on something akin to happiness--his lips pulled into a soft smile and his LED finally settled onto a soft, comforting blue twinkle of light against his temple.

“Does that mean that we are friends?” he asked after a moment. “I think that the interactions we’ve held so far contribute to friendship, though I do not want to misinterpret your intentions.”

For some reason, his curiosity made you smile all the same.

“Yes,” The word sounded very matter-of-factly. “I think that does mean that we are friends, Ralph.”

The evening lingered pleasantly between the two of you from there, shifting into a gentle conversation that moved from topic to topic, though it largely lingered on the garden itself and Ralph’s work in caring for it. It was obvious how much he loved the plants, loved tending to them and watching them grow, especially since it became apparent that each WR600 model was assigned to a specific district and expected to remain there.

Then the topic moved to you and your job, though you felt intensely odd and awkward to talk about how your occupation was essentially selling androids. There was an intense internal fire going on in your thoughts, and talking about your job didn’t help very much at all, making you feel more awkward and unsure than anything else. Ralph seemed aware of the fact and, thankfully, continued to other topics as the two of you enjoyed one another’s simple company.

By the time you thought to glance at your phone for the time, it had grown late--late enough that you needed to hurry home to prepare for yet another long, exhausting day at the office.

You bid Ralph a goodnight and took joy in the smile from him that followed you out of the garden, the sound of his sweet voice still hanging in your ears even as you readied yourself for bed later that night.

“Goodnight!” He had said, so bright and happy. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning!”

You didn’t know what deviancy was back then. You didn’t understand it, the idea that androids were labeled deviants when they finally had control and free-will over their own happiness and desires.

No, back then it was simpler, easier, and all that mattered was the fact that Ralph seemed happy to have you as a friend.

Looking back, it’s clear that night was when Ralph started becoming a deviant, though you wouldn’t realize it for months--not until your friendship had started to blossom into something more.

[darthsuki]

Okay now I also have to confess my fondness for Aizawa ontop of Yagi, he’s just my type of aloof and lazy 👍

[android-babes]

MASTERLIST

The most important rules for requesting: 

(Other rules are found from https://android-babes.tumblr.com/rules)

1) I don’t write smut, because I can’t write it + trying makes me feel really uncomfortable, as does reading smut.

2) I write only for Ralph, Daniel and Rupert nowadays, and Ralph has a request limit (I won’t do more than 2 Ralph requests in a row). Sorry, but I can’t feel anything for other characters anymore and I wouldn’t do them justice if I forced myself to write about them.

+ I’d greatly appreciate it if you described what you want to happen in your readershot. I suck at making ideas of my own and they come out being very clumsy if I’m not given any idea D:

HEADCANONS

Ralph and short female s/o headcanons

Ralph and tall female s/o headcanons

Ralph headcanons when his s/o praises and kisses him to make him feel a better person

Connor and trans FTM s/o headcanons

Jerry(s) and the forgetful s/o headcanons

Simon headcanons when his s/o has periods/cramps

PUBLISHED IMAGINES

RALPH X READER

LIKE HUMANS

CHANGES

ANGER

MISUNDERSTOOD

CRUSH

NOT A GREEN THUMB

DARKNESS

PERFECT

REMEMBER

GUARDIAN

FAMILY

SURPRISES

THE PAST

SOFT

TO BE LOVED

TICKLISH

SLEEPER

A PACKAGE

SICK

ARTISTS

A FLOWER

SMILE

RED

THE HAPPIEST OF THEM ALL

JERRY X READER

HEART MADE OF FLOUR

YOU DESERVE US

HAPPY

CONNOR X READER

A TEACHING LESSON

THE ART OF ASKING

RUPERT X READER

SILLY HUMAN

MORNING

SIMON X READER

WARM

PROMISES

HANK X READER

HUGGY BEAR

FEAR

HIDDEN

DADDY ANDERSON

THE MODEL

MARKUS X READER

OVERTIME

A PROTECTOR

TO-DO-LIST (IN ORDER THEY WERE REQUESTED AND I WILL DO THEM IN THAT ORDER)

None!