#second column are the upright meanings

[randomly--accessed--memories]

A couple months ago, I had the idea of assigning the RAM cast Tarot cards, but never did it. @voxaholic reminded me of that idea tonight and I decided to actually go through with it this time.

[somebluemelodies]

@atthebell's SPIDERBIT WEEK DAY SIX: it couple | enigma revisiting the coffee shop au for this one, which you can read here! consider this a couple months or so post first date :> featuring: qroier being hopelessly in love and qcellbit being a total fucking nerd (/affectionate. and also hopelessly in love) this is a little lengthy like the last one my apologies-

"Roier, I can hear you thinking from here, man."

Roier abruptly stands from his spot leaning against the counter. "Perdón."

"Keep thinking that hard and you're going to destroy your last functioning brain cell." Mariana eyes his best friend. "Are you still trying to ask that guy out?"

"Yes," he answers, exasperated. "I don't know what the fuck to do."

"Just fucking ask him, man! It's not hard."

"I don't want to just ask, man! I want to do something cool for him, you know? He deserves it." Roier eyes Mariana right back. "Besides, I don't think you're allowed to offer relationship advice. You and Slime just started making out every day and eventually slapped a label on it."

Mariana looks smug and punchable. "And we're engaged now."

Roier only flips him off, leaning back against the counter and returning to his moping pondering. The other barista huffs after a few seconds, finally attempting to make himself useful. "Well, what does he like?"

"He's an investigator," is how Roier answers, "he—"

It's like a flip is switched in his brain, and he shoots back upright. "That's it! I know!" And before Mariana can question it, he's rushing out back to grab his phone.

When he returns, he's near-silent for the next several minutes upon grabbing a pen and napkin, save for occasional mumbling to himself as he studies intently whatever is on his phone screen.

Mariana doesn't bother stepping over yet, watching as Roier eventually starts writing something down on the napkin. Only when the pen has been capped, and Roier sighs to himself, seemingly satisfied, does he finally question the other again. "Happy now?"

Roier nods, smiling. "Sí."

(And so it goes.)

...

“And someone left this on one of the tables?”

Roier nodded. “Sí. Shortly before my shift ended.”

Cellbit seems mildly skeptical, but he doesn’t question it. Besides, who would he be to pass up solving a jumbled mess of letters?

“Well, it’s not a Caesar cipher. Doesn’t make sense. But…” He leans down, reaching for his satchel and rummaging through its contents before he finds a piece of paper, placing it on the coffee table alongside the napkin.

Intrigued, Roier scoots closer from their spot on his couch, hooking his chin over Cellbit’s shoulder. It looks like a table, but it’s full of letters instead of numbers. “What is that?”

(It’s just to get a closer look.)

(Cellbit wills his cheeks to cool down.)

“It’s for a Vigenère cipher. The letters in the middle are for all the encrypted letters. The left-hand column is the alphabet for whatever the key is, and the top row is the plaintext, or the 'normal' letters, if you will. In this case, it's what we're going to solve for."

(Cellbit explaining is leagues better than reading a bunch of words on a screen.)

(He could listen to Cellbit talk all day.)

“So how exactly do you solve it?” Roier asks. He has somewhat of an idea, but it was mostly him filling out the criteria on the website to encrypt it for him.

“I want to try and figure out the key first. I’m guessing the little coffee cup in the corner here has something to do it.” Cellbit points to the little doodle in the bottom right-hand corner, thinking for a moment. “It might not work, but let’s say the key is the word café. Vigenères are polyalphabetic ciphers; it utilizes multiple Caesar ciphers inside of itself, but the increments depend on whatever the key is— sorry, not important— polyalphabetic just means that they—"

“Use multiple alphabets?”

Cellbit smiles, and warmth blooms in Roier’s chest. “Yes!”

He pulls a pen from his chest jacket pocket. “We’re going to repeat café until it matches the length of the message.” He starts writing the letters underneath the cipher, continuing to talk. “We’re only going to be using the C, A, F, and E letters on the left-hand column, none of the others. Let me just finish this…”

Roier waits patiently until Cellbit gets to the last letter. When he does, he reaches for the table he’d pulled out. “Okay! So, now, to actually decipher it, we’re going to take the first letter of the key, C, and we’re going to locate the first letter of the cryptic message, Y, in C's row.” Cellbit’s pen lands on the letter Y. “Next, we’re going to follow that up to the top row for the plaintext.” The pen travels up. “W. So, the first letter of the decrypted message is W. Does that make sense?"

The barista nods as the investigator glances over to check. "Yeah. You're very smart, gatinho, you know that?"

Cellbit chuckles. "Gracias, guapito."

With that, he starts to work on decoding the rest of the cipher. Roier can't help but marvel at the speed he's able to work at - and doing it manually at that, not just putting it through online like he did. But Cellbit solving it fast is doing nothing for his nerves, his heartbeat starting to pick up.

He lets the other work quietly, trying not to shuffle and shift too much from his place leaning against him. He can't tell if he's regretting this or not, with the way the anticipation is killing him.

(But he also knows shit like this makes Cellbit happy, so maybe it won't be the complete end of the world.)

When Cellbit gets to the last word, though, he starts to slow down, processing exactly what the message is in front of him. He becomes acutely aware of Roier's head on his shoulder, the way his dark eyes are flitting back and forth between him and the papers, and pieces start clicking into place.

But he finishes it, because he knows Roier made it. Because he's stunned someone would go to this length for him. And so, the decoded cipher stares back up at him.

(WILL YOU BE MY BOYFRIEND)

Cellbit reads it back over to himself, once, twice, heart hammering in his chest as a haziness washes over him. He feels Roier lift his head, momentarily mourning the loss of contact, but wills his voice to work. "Roier..?"

"Well?" Roier asks after a moment, and Cellbit feels brave enough to glance over at him. They lock eyes, and he looks just as nervous as Cellbit feels, if not more. "Will you?"

For a moment, Cellbit doesn't move, expression unreadable, and Roier wonders if maybe this was a mistake after all. But then he sits upright, and orients to face him. "Cellbo—?"

He's effectively cut off by lips pressing against his, one of Cellbit's hands cupping his face as the other rests against the back of his neck.

Roier's eyes close immediately, melting into it as one arm wraps around the investigator's neck. His other hand goes up, threading through Cellbit's hair and subconsciously deepening the kiss.

(It feels warm, it feels right.)

They only pull apart when their lungs demand oxygen, foreheads resting together.

"Does that answer your question, guapito?" Cellbit breathes out.

Roier grins. "I think I need a little more clarification, gatinho."

Cellbit can't help but laugh. "Let me try again, then."

"By all means."

And somehow, the second kiss is almost better than the first.

(Enigma solved.)

[definegodliness]

Swinging

Short story (1282 words).

I was having breakfast at Bob's Intercontinental Swinging Club, as I tend to do, each Saturday morning. They've got great home-made sandwiches. Horrendous coffee, though.

I suspect Donna, Bob's wife, reheats the leftover coffee from the day before, to then add some fresh brew, that is so criminally strong it'll have a spoon standing upright in your mug, to mask the taste. Any taste.

Still, Bob's is the only place I know where you can still smoke indoors, so what do I care. I was just about to start my second sandwich, when I saw Bob waft through the streaks and plumes of nicotine blue, approaching my window side table.

"Hey, Bob."

He sat down at my table. Bob never has to ask. I offered him a cigarette, which he denied. And from his front-side pocket he fetched a small box of cigarellos. He lit one with a match, inhaled deeply, and, then, let out a big, tear-inducing column of a sigh. He was evidently feeling heavy, so I tried to lighten the mood:

"Damn, Biff — I call him Biff because Bob looks like Old Man Biff from the Back to the Future movies — what do they put in those; asphalt and conifer?"

This caused a faint smile, before he took another pensive draw.

"So, eh, how's business?", I leaned forward over the table, interested, and immediately drew back due to my elbows sticking to yesterday's beer.

"Not great, McFly, not great."

"Yeah, I noticed customer amounts dwindling. What is up with that?", I lifted my sandwich off the plate, "Can't be these, Donna still aces them."

"No, no. People still love those. And you can smoke indoors. The cafeteria's fine, but I just can't seem to get people excited for swinging anymore."

"Ludicrous. I can't think of anything more exciting."

I closed my eyes and thought of yesterday's Friday Swinging Night, letting a grin curl my mouth. I don't know if I spoke or whispered.

"It's just so… satisfying."

For sure, though, I then once more leaned forward over the table, overcoming its stickiness for the sake of importance. And, solemnly, I added:

"Come on, Biff, I'm sure it's just a temporary slump. I've been coming here for years and years. Swinging is timeless. I know it's different, now, then when Pops started in the 60's, but when you took over, the club went intercontinental. That's a great feat. Besides, I mean, I'm half this club's age, but you and Donna picked me up, and pulled me into swinging. I'm sure we can do this for the next generation."

"Frankly, Mark — wait, no McFly? — I think that's the problem."

"¿Que?"

"Guys, like you… you are the problem."

I spat out my coffee.

"Awful, isn't it?

"Yes", I muttered, wiping my mouth with my palm, to then swiftly and frantically brush the coffee grounds from my teeth with my index finger.

"But I am also shocked! How can you say such a thing? I'm your most loyal customer. AND your friend."

"You're also very conservative."

"That's not true. I was the first to laud you for omitting Family Swings. I am definitely not for everything staying the same."

"Yeah, but that's just because they made you queasy…"

I pulled an ugly face, thinking of Family Swings. Horrible occasions. I didn't need to say a thing. Bob was right.

And so he continued:

"… So don't act like you're all progressive. You always go for the same. Hey, the older they get, the more you love 'em."

"What can I say? I like mine vintage. They feel better. Move better."

I leaned backwards and crossed my arms.

"They make better noises, too. Heck, they make sound, Bob! Do you know how unsatisfying silence is?"

Bob frowned, and shook his head. Clearly unimpressed by my arguments. So I continued my passionate plea:

"I mean, come on, you know I'm loud. Don't you know how awkward I feels when I'm alone at that? I need them to be louder than me!"

Bob just took another draw of his cigarello and blew out a deep sigh of disappointment.

"They don't make noise, because you never play with them."

He put out his cigarello as a statement.

"Don't you remember how you were when you first came here? Like a kid in a candy store. You tried them all. Loved them all. Here you can't even remember how silent Jessica was, until you were all over her. Now, she's the loudest of them all."

"Yeah, that's why she feels mine. That's why I keep returning", I weaselled, unwisely.

"That is so against swinging culture."

"All right, all right. I take that back. I just like my 90's baby a lot. But you know I also love my 80's baby Stella, and Tiffany…

Bob interrupted me.

"That's exactly my point! You only go for the older ones. The one's that've been here for years!"

I, however, was already too far gone. Lost in recalling Fridays. Thinking about my favourites: 60's baby's, 50's, 40's, 30's… 20's! Listing all their names. Until I, in my excitement, named that one name who should not be named.

By me, that is.

"Huberta! Oh, Huberta. Sure, she's wobbly and creaks a little, but…"

Bob slammed the table.

"You know you're no longer allowed near Huberta!"

"Ah, come on. Why not? Still not?"

"You broke her."

"Nothing a little titanium couldn't fix..."

He threw his hands in the air, anguished at this statement.

"I'm not having this." Then, louder, and to the kitchen: "Donna! I'm not having this! Can't talk to the kid."

"Just tryyy it."

He grunted.

"All right, listen. I see you sneaking around Huberta while you know she's off limits. Off. Limits. And you know what? All those names you just listed. Off limits. All. Off. Limits."

Bob waved his finger at me, the jolly fellow had never scolded anyone like this. Let alone myself. It was only now I understood he was really, really pissed. So, I did the only thing I could do. I apologized. Shut my mouth. And listened.

And, luckily, after I said sorry, Bob calmed a bit.

"Look, it's always the same with you. I appreciate your patronage and dedication to the club, but you use those poor things up. You have at them, and at them, and at them, until you break them. I know it's all out of your limitless swinging enthusiasm, but you are giving the club a bad name. Really, you are, Mark. In fact, we've come known as: not safe."

I sat silently, guiltily, trying to stir the spoon in my coffee.

"Am I banned now?"

"Nah, McFly, I wouldn't ban you. But I'm begging ya, just try the new ones. Play with them. See, Hailey for instance, she's our newest addition; been here for over a week, and I've never seen you even look at her."

Bob stood up and patted my shoulder.

"Do me a favour, will ya? Just try her. I'm sure you'll have lots of fun. You'll be coming back for more just like you did with Jessica."

"Hailey, eh?" I nodded.

And, so, I slumped to Bob's Intercontinental Swing Club's latest model, Hailey 2023. Silently muttering to myself. She was perfect. Far too perfect for me. But I hopped onto her, strapped myself to her — what a bullshit safety feature — and took a couple of steps backward. Shoes tipping over soft rubber tiles, another safety precaution. I rolled my eyes, thinking:

'It's a goddamn swing.'

I craved the element of danger the older models give me, and as I let Hailey 2023 launch me, steadily, and silently; back, and forth, smoothly, I uttered a reluctant:

"Whee."

---

30-8-2023, M.A. Tempels ©

[vacantgodling]

a distraction

wip: vampires don’t take road trips (sorta; this won’t appear in the actual narrative bc it’s first person pov and darren would have no way of knowing — nor does he need to know — his uncle’s sex life 💀)

character(s): laurent rouzet-blanc (darren’s uncle, younger brother of liz but still 200+), raymond cromwell (laurent’s best friend) ; mentions of antoinette rouzet-blanc (laurent’s daughter with his deceased human wife emìlie “emily” shingle so a half-bloodling), carlotta sinclaire, viktor sinclaire, and erasmus sinclaire (carlotta & viktor’s father)

some minor spoilers to plot related things surprisingly. also grief and second chances at love & all of that. tagging as suggestive bc handsy making out. read at your own digression etc etc

The tick of the grandfather clock was on time to the click of brown leather dress shoes on the dark oak wood floor of the drawing room. Laurent looked up from the magazine draped elegantly over the gray-clad suit pants of his lap up at one Raymond Cromwell, arriving quite unannounced. His dark suspenders were strapped tight, a habit from his far off youth, and his brown coat was clutched tightly between his side and arm, like a lifeline he was loathe to release. A pipe was tightly clutched in his other palm, his entire stance and body language stiff and rigid and Laurent folded the magazine; gingerly laying it on his drawing room table.

“To what honor do I owe this visit?” Laurent asked plainly, not questioning how he got in, nor necessarily why. It was a disguised question, a verbal bait and switch for words that Laurent dared not ask, but their meaning felt. Raymond took a steadying breath, and Laurent sat at further attention.

“Smoke first.” Raymond decided after a heavy beat.

In a fluid motion his coat was tossed over a nearby floral chair, and his ever present newsboy cap followed. Wavy, thick, salt and chocolate tresses revealed themselves from underneath, stuck up and on end from their previous enclosure. Raymond ripped a hand through this unruly mop, only succeeding in making it messier. He sat down on the chaise immediately behind the one Laurent lounged on with a loud sigh and stuck the pipe in his mouth. He leant his head back until it was brushing against Laurent’s shoulder, exposing the smooth column of his neck.

“Do you have a light?” He drawled. Laurent nodded and reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket for his book of matches he always kept close for this purpose. “Upright.” Laurent chided, jostling him. Raymond complied and sat up straight, leaning into Laurent’s space enough so the other man could cup a hand around the black, worn bowl. He brought the delicate flame to the herbs within, illuminating just how bloodshot the sclera around Raymond’s deep crimson eyes were. But still, he didn’t prod. He leaned back when the pipe was lit, shaking out the match and tucking it into a different pocket in his coat to dispose of later. As he did so, he felt the shuddering inhale of Raymond’s lungs, turning his head to witness it all billow out of his friend’s nose and mouth, not entirely dissimilar to a dragon, milky and white.

It was another moment before Raymond finally said, with a noticeable lack of forewarning, “She’s dead, Laur.”

Laurent felt his shoulders tense, but when he turned to glance at Raymond out of the corner of his eyes, his expression was oh, so, carefully neutral.

“… Carlotta?” He asked, carefully. Raymond let out another shuddering breath and pinched the bridge of his nose with the hand not gripping his pipe. Laurent heard the pipe cracking between his friend’s distraught fingers. “That bastard fucking killed her.”

“Viktor?” Laurent hesitated to ask but Raymond immediately sucked his teeth.

“No. Erasmus.” That wasn’t who Laurent was expecting to hear. He turned again, draping his arm over the other chaise to look at Raymond fully but the man wouldn’t meet his gaze. Instead, he stared out of the large bay window before him, unseeing.

“How do you wager that, old friend?” In a rare show of physical contact, Laurent bumped Raymond’s elbow with his own and it finally made Raymond shift. His eyes slid back to Laurent’s.

“I’ve been watching that miserable piece of shit for a long time. I just know.”

Laurent studied Raymond’s face and not finding a trace of insincerity he closed his eyes, trying not to heave a sigh himself.

“I believe you.”

“She’s gone.” Raymond’s voice cracked a bit on the second word, but he didn’t have to say it for Laurent knew. He knew what he was feeling. What he never got to say. Two moths that were dancing around a mutual flame and it was suddenly, without warning, extinguished. Even if losing Emìlie wasn’t the same, Laurent knew. He knew.

“How long does it hurt, Laur?” Raymond asked, already scanning his thoughts. “It’s been nearly a century.” Laurent said quietly. “And I still feel her absence like the day I buried her.” From his peripheral, he saw Raymond bob his head, until it was tucked against his chest.

Silence fell.

Eventually Laurent grasped Raymond’s arm.

“She knew you loved her.” Was all he said. Raymond didn’t move still, the pipe nearly half fallen out of his lips. Laurent was almost worried that in his grief, Raymond simply passed out, but suddenly his friend jolted to his feet. The pipe still did fall, and Laurent reached out, grasping it before it clattered to the ground.

“Raymond?” It wasn’t often Laurent said his name. But at it, Raymond looked. Tears had finally begun to streak down his dark, chiseled face, and Laurent was up on his feet until Raymond was in front of him, pushing him back down into the chaise. Laurent wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but Raymond dropping onto his lap, knees bracketing his hips wasn’t one of the myriad of scenarios flipping through his mind.

Raymond crowded in close, until their noses were brushing, and Laurent draped his arms around his friend’s waist, studying him—waiting for his next move.

“I need a smoke.” Raymond’s whisper was husky and rasp, then dark lips were pressing into Laurent’s easier than breathing.

He didn’t push him away.

Laurent stroked long fingers against the bunched material of Raymond’s shirt tucked into his dress pants, and let his friend work his mouth open with long, languid drags of his tongue. Laurent’s eyes, half lidded and not fully closed, studied the half furrow of Raymond’s brows. If it was stress, or relief, pain or pleasure, he couldn’t tell. But he licked back against Raymond’s tongue as it started to retreat, coaxing him back to him after a scant parting for breath.

Raymond’s hands slid into Laurent’s long loose tresses of ink and silver, tugging until he let out an involuntary small gasp. It was then that the first rock of Raymond’s hips startled Laurent into this sudden reality. The reality that Carlotta was dead, and his beloved wife was long gone; where his best friend was kissing him and was perched on his lap. The reality that perhaps the two of them had always been this close to this cliff’s edge. The reality that this was all it took for them to finally tumble over it. Laurent’s hands gripped Raymond’s hips, holding him fast and steady, encouraging his hips to move again and they did with a dark, rumble of a moan in tandem against Laurent’s chest.

Raymond pulled back. He wiped a hand across his lips, perhaps to hide the wry, delighted grin that was tracing across his face.

“Damn.” He said. Laurent didn’t say anything. With their eyes still locked, Raymond rolled his hips once more. Testing. Prodding. Laurent hissed when they caught against his growing arousal.

“That thing you do with your eyebrows when you feel pleasure is quite… interesting.” His friend’s voice dropped to a inquisitive murmur, making Laurent scoff.

“My eyebrows aren’t doing anything.” However, Raymond paid him no mind, instead skating his fingers against Laurent’s jaw, then leant down to follow the trail with his lips.

“Laur…” Raymond’s voice was a heady rumble and Laurent just barely managed to stave off the urge to shiver. “Let me guess,” He reached up to card a hand through Raymond’s tousled hair. “You’ve wanted this for awhile.” Raymond huffed out a laugh. “Oh since we met, old friend. You’ve always been easy on the eyes.” Raymond pulled back only slightly to peek at Laurent’s raised eyebrow. Something warm stirred within him when it caused his friend to laugh. “Trust me. There’s only one reason I’ve ever fallen into Saph’s chambers—and it wasn’t for him.” Laurent couldn’t help his laugh if he tried, though as always, it bubbled as a low, dark chuckle. “So then were you jealous?” He couldn’t help but ask. “Of Em and I?”

“No.” That answer did give Laurent pause and he regarded him. The grief was still there, ever present in his eyes. But there was some spark of life beginning to return to them; a dollop of rich, bright hazel intermingling like a dance in his crimson eyes. Curiously, Laurent found himself lifting a hand to trail it thoughtfully against his friend’s dark cheek. Unless it were his imagination, Raymond lent into it.

“I was happy you found someone who made you less miserable. I still am.” Raymond’s smile was soft and pliable. “And you know Emily was a dear friend of mine. I felt partially responsible for your meeting.” Raymond chuckled, but finally leaned in once more, back into Laurent’s space. The heat, the arousal, it was all still there, and Raymond’s head fell to his neck. He pressed an exploring kiss there, then another one more searing when Laurent tilted his head to let him continue. “And before you worry your head about it, this doesn’t have to change anything between us.” Raymond’s voice was a hoarse rasp, circling the shell of his ear like a thick smoke. “I just need—“ Laurent pushed his hips up and Raymond’s words caught in his throat, clipped on a gasp. “A distraction.” Laurent finished for him. Yet, this felt like more than that. It was as if the strength of the revelation 100 years ago with Emìlie reached forward in time to strike him again, with interest—their history. Laurent wouldn’t pretend he’d looked at Raymond like this before, but he’d never looked at anyone, never thought himself capable of the emotions. Yet, he’d married, had a child, grieved—still grieved—and now his best friend’s comfortable weight on his lap felt just as right now as Emily’s did then. He couldn’t change the past, neither of them. They couldn’t restore what either of them lost. But their companionship, a distraction, an inquest into something more… Perhaps that was in order.

Before the topic could be breached or Laurent could make his thoughts known, the door to the study swung open to reveal a familiar tidy head of ginger hair; Antoinette’s darker, but still as vibrant as her mother’s.

“Father?” She called softly, her voice always comparable to a mouse. And well, Laurent knew wouldn’t take long for her eyes to find the two of them, entangled as they were. Raymond made no move to pull away, but he did pause his exploration towards Laurent’s jugular. Laurent tilted his head so he could meet his daughter’s eyes.

Her face blossomed red before he could say a word, and she quickly spun around and hurried back into the connecting corridor, without another word.

Against his neck, Raymond chuckled. “Poor Nettie. She wasn’t expecting to see her da like this I’m sure.” Laurent scoffed in reply, tilting his head back to gaze at the ceiling. He’d talk to Antoinette later, if she would see him. It was no different than the first time she’d stumbled upon him and her mother, though that was ages ago. She hadn’t looked him in the eyes for a week. He really wasn’t sure where her demureness came from.

“I didn’t say stop.” Laurent murmured instead. Raymond’s laugh and grip on his shoulders, tight and sure, as he got back to business made something warm and comfortable coil in Laurent’s gut.

They’d have more time to discover it later.

[starman-john-tracy]

Submerge [RP]

John and Star centric RP with a little Virgil and Gordon for luck. Content Warning: Injury, Blood, Near-Drowning

@asteria-star:

Star still can’t feel her leg, which is probably a good thing, but she can’t bring herself to appreciate it as what little blood remains in her drains from her head as she finds herself suddenly upright in a great, gyroscopic woosh. Her pulse thunders in her head and her heart is absolutely hammering at her chest, so fast that - for a moment - she feels as if she can’t breathe. “Let us help, Virgil,” she argues anyway, when the sound of blood rushing in her head clears enough that she can hear herself think. She clings to Gordon for balance and stretches down to retrieve the medical equipment - what looks like the oxygen tank and a whole lot of other stuff her vision won’t focus on - and she hoists it onto her own shoulder before Virgil can even think of trying it himself. The long thin line of tubing means she has to walk close to John, dragging Gordon with her by the arm around his shoulders and resting her spare hand on Virgil’s hip, unsure of how to actually make this better, as if it might help. She feels a little sick, from more than just the bloodloss as she watches Virgil’s face twist.“Where is Scott going to meet us?” She asks, “And can he make it closer?’

Virgil gives her an appraising look, but whatever he sees - be that the determination on her face or simply the fact she’s on two feet - he clearly decides not to argue, as he lets her be. The landscape around them looks genuinely apocalyptic with the column of smoke and flame and the ground blackened, charred rubble; with his ribs most likely broken, Virgil will take all the help he can get to get out of here.

“Scott’s heading over,” Gordon tells her, his voice lower than his usual register, “But that’s gonna take time. The choice is a hike to either Thunderbird Four, which is closer but has less gear, or Two, aboard which we can actually do something for John, and… well, get him to a hospital way faster, if we need to.”

Gordon sounds pretty certain they’ll need to.

Virgil pulls John toward him; his brother a dead very much unconscious weight in his arms and his pale face a dangerous grey. John’s injuries make a firefighter carry unsafe, so Virgil does his best to protect the man’s spine as, instead, he heaves one of John’s floppy arms over his own broad shoulders. He winces as the thick material of his brother’s spacesuit scrapes over the smattering of burns on the back of his neck, where it had been only minimally protected from the explosion.

He takes a breath - it's not as deep as he'd like, but Virgil doesn't dare try for deeper.

He unwinds his second arm from his ribs and slides it under the man’s knees. John, worryingly, doesn’t react - his eyes are closed and his head rests safely, but limply, against his brother’s collarbone, his cheek pillowed on Virgil’s sash as he gets ready to lift him.

It’s a heave of his back and unbend of his knees that he’s done a thousand times, but the searing pain in his side completely whites out Virgil's vision for a moment. He plants his boots and grits his teeth and holds onto his brother something fierce, blinking rapidly to clear the static and trying his best to breathe through it.

“Thought you were gonna pass out there.” That’s Gordon, helpfully, from somewhere around his elbow. “You sure you can do this?”

Virgil’s response is little more than a grunt, but it's more than enough to convey let’s just get the fuck out of here. There's no way in hell he's going to drop John.

[ihopeyoubothstaysafefromharm]

all the ghosts

i don't like fireworks. for the @drarrymicrofic prompt abrupt.

Contrary to what one might imagine from encountering the Weasley twins at Hogwarts, there are no fireworks in the Wizarding World. While gunpowder does in itself contain magic, that magic is a natural byproduct of its ingredients, and its uses have been, from the very beginning, solely muggle. To go along with that, magical Wiltshire and the grounds of Malfoy Manor are so distant from the nearest muggle settlements, let alone ones that would engage in such frivolities on any holiday, that fireworks have likely never even been seen in the area. All of this means that Draco has no experience with the concept, no positive connotations to the idea of explosions suddenly painting the sky. It’s a quiet night in their little rented flat, an ordinary day. Their little ready meal containers have been tucked away in the recycling, their fine china washed and gleaming in stark contrast to all the plywood and aluminium and grubby carpeted floors. Muggle England seems to embrace carpeting with the same enthusiasm that Scandinavians apply to interior lighting design, but much less success and efficacy. Draco is setting out his work uniform for the next day - the brown polo shirt topped with bright green and red stripes, the black slacks, the strange hat with the visor. Narcissa is embroidering. Smoothing out the creases on the bottom of his uniform trousers, Draco frowns - the bottom hem of the trousers has ripped all along one edge. It’s not surprising, only irritating - the trousers are too long on him, he’d accepted the job in such a hurry that the chain restaurant hadn’t been able to provide him with regulation apparel in the right size. He picks up the trousers - wishing briefly for his wand, for tailoring charms, and underneath it all, for the finery of what had been his closet just under a year ago - and makes his way the few paces across the room to his mother. “What is it, darling?” says Narcissa, eyebrows inching up but not yet looking away from her work. “The hem’s ripped open, just along one side - here,” says Draco, leaning down to show her the frayed fabric. Narcissa hums. “Oh, that shouldn’t be too hard to fix,” she says, running her darning needle along the split edge of the trouser leg, “I’ll just have to find the right-“

A brief flash of orange light from just outside their little window precedes an explosion so loud and so high that Draco dives over his mother, covering her body with his negligibly larger frame. The next explosion is introduced by a vertical, gradual column of white light that makes an unpleasant dropped whistling sound, coming somehow simultaneously from outside the window, from within the room and, oddly, from Draco’s own head. The second explosion isn’t that loud - it sounds more like pebbles thrown on the ground, just high up. Draco and Narcissa are both breathing heavily - at this point sharing the same breath - in the leathery womb of the end of their squashy sofa, which they are currently piled onto. Draco can smell the dry, dusty odour of the lining just under the leather surface of the couch, picked away in places, he can smell Narcissa, who despite not owning any perfume smells endlessly like Mother, and impossibly, he can smell the sharp, burnt-hair smell of offensive spells. The smell of the Battle.

He was in the dungeons when the protective enchantments had gone up over the grounds. He doesn’t remember hearing much of anything, other than the rhythmic stomping of the suits of armour making their way from their common room and to the stairs leading up.

“It’s- ” Draco tries to get out, still caging in his mother’s body even though the threat seems to be decorative, from the distant joyful cheering Draco can hear from outside their building.

Draco sits up, slowly, careful not to smother Narcissa more than he already has, but the second she sits upright again, she pulls him onto her lap, her cut glass-firm arms wrapping tightly around his middle. His head tucks under her chin, naturally, instinctively, following the script of comfort set up early on in life by each child and guardian pair. “Shhhh,” she mumbles in his hair, gently begins to rock them, eased by the impossibly worn, unstable sofa stuffing. She’s so warm, always so warm. He thinks she probably looks like she’d be cold to the touch, to people who don’t know her like he does. Draco realises he hasn’t exhaled in impossibly long, and he almost keeps holding his breath out of some odd shame, but his mother’s gentle shushing comes again, a soft huff ruffling his hair, and his lungs simply deflate without his input. As the last of the air leaves his lungs, a bitter little sob rips out of him. Narcissa simply holds him closer as he pulls his arms up to clutch at her blouse, turns his body in towards her, burrowing into the safety and warmth of her arms. “Shhhh. I know, I know.” Draco sobs openly now, pressing his head close to her chest, his ear against her blouse until all he can hear is her heartbeat, her reverberating voice from within, until all that filters through to him are the coloured lights, not the horrible, ripping sounds.

They let them out of the dungeons just in time to see Voldemort tear the sky open with one strike. The world has no bearing, no tiled floor to collapse on, no one coming to its aid. It seemed to Draco that life afforded him more kindness than it did to the whole of earth, no matter what he did. He would never forgive it, and could never thank it enough.

Eventually he stops crying, gets through even the stage where he’s gulping for air, and now he’s simply dried out and and delayed, in that way that crying always leaves you. Draco is unsure how, but the strongest surface on the planet for him has always been his mother’s lap. The explosions and lights have not stopped, but have gotten more distant, now only a smudge of colour against their windowpanes. Draco can hear chatter and music moving from the street below. Narcissa keeps holding him, keeps rocking them gently to some unknowable soothing rhythm.

A mother and her child on an overstuffed, worn out loveseat in a run down flat. A mighty huddle against the world. A little boat at sea, in the dead of night, holding itself up even as the waves carry it on.

[thatfanficstuff]

Absent-Minded Kisses - Bucky Barnes

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: 18+ only. Minors DNI. Smut, including but not limited to: unprotected sex, locker rooms, excessive usage of Fuck

A/N: Celebration Summer #17. Combined two requests for this one. One was Sleepy early morning kisses and the other is the two prompts in bold. I kind of love this one. Enjoy!

wc: 2037

***

It was so early. So, so early. You weren’t even certain why you were up other than you didn’t like your best friends heading out on mission without you there to say goodbye. That, and you knew neither of them would bother to eat if you didn’t feed them. Which is how you ended up at a table with Bucky and Steve watching them eat in silence while you sipped at your coffee.

You noticed that for once, they both seemed to be just as exhausted as you. Normally, they were bright-eyed and making fun of you for lagging behind. Not that they’d do that when you got up oh-god-it’s-early just to feed them.

Steve leaned back in his seat with a sigh. “Thanks for feeding us. Remember, we’re going dark as soon as we leave the tower. You won’t hear from us unless there’s a problem until we’re on our way back.”

You nodded in acknowledgement. You didn’t like it, but you understood.

Steve stood and finished off his coffee. He put the mug down and glanced at Bucky. “We’ve got to go, Buck.” He left without waiting for a response, patting your shoulder on the way by.

Bucky nodded as he finished shoveling his eggs into his mouth. He washed them down with his coffee then stood. He smiled down at you. “Thanks for taking care of us, doll.”

You returned the smile. “It’s not a problem, Bucky. Be careful.”

He braced one hand on the back of your chair and the other on the table as he leaned over you. “Always am, sweetheart.”

“Buck, come on!” Steve hollered from down the hall, making you laugh. It was like this every mission.

Bucky shook his head with a roll of his eyes. Leaning forward, he pressed a firm but swift kiss to your lips before hurrying after his best friend. “See you in a week,” he yelled over his shoulder as he went.

You hadn’t moved since Bucky’s lips had left yours. That wasn’t the kind of relationship you two had. You were friends. That’s it. Not that you hadn’t wished for more on occasion, but you’d never dare make a move. But he’d kissed you. Kissed you like it was nothing. You took a deep breath. It probably was nothing to him. Just a tired thank you. An absent-minded gesture.

You ran a hand down your tired face as you stood to clear away the plates. “Damnit, Barnes,” you muttered to yourself as you over thought every interaction the two of you had ever had.

***

“You okay?” Steve asked as he kicked the side of Bucky’s foot.

The brunet’s head jerked up, his brow furrowed. “I feel like I forgot something important, but I can’t think of what it might be.”

Steve shrugged. “It can’t be that important then. Quit stressing.”

Bucky nodded absently, his mind running over everything he’d done as he prepared to leave that morning. Suddenly, he froze and bolted upright. “Oh no. Shit.”

“What?” Steve asked, his friend’s tension affecting his own stance.

Bucky simply stared at him with wide eyes. “Oh God, Steve. What did I do?”

“I don’t know, Bucky, what did you do?” Cap asked, feeling slightly amused.

“I kissed Y/N.”

His brow lifted in surprise. When did this happen? And why did it take Buck so long to remember? What the hell happened after he left the table? “You did?”

Buck hopped to his feet and started pacing. “What if she didn’t like it? What if she did? What if she’s pissed? What if—”

“Bucky,” Steve said louder than necessary. “Calm down. There’s nothing you can do about it until we get home.”

***

The week passed slowly as you waited for Bucky to come home. That stupid, simple kiss was tearing you up inside. Obviously, it was just a friend thing, right? Like, he was just moving your friendship to the next level. He’d kissed the top of your head or your forehead before. This was no different, right? But what if it was?

And it was that what if that had you in the gym working on the punching bag. Because the truth was, you very much wanted it to mean more than friendship. That, even though he was tired, he’d done it because he thought about kissing you all the time. You were terrified that he wouldn’t bring it up. Even more terrified that he would, only to assure you that it meant nothing.

Ugh. Stupid, super soldier. You released a series of punches and kicks on the bag trying to work out your irritation. Finally, you stepped back, panting as you attempted to catch your breath.

“Who pissed you off, sweetheart?” that honey rich voice came from behind you and you spun to find Bucky watching you with his arms crossed over his chest.

You smiled seeing him safe and whole and some of the tension in your chest eased. Without thought, you moved to him and hugged him. “Glad you’re back,” you told him as you stepped away. “Steve okay?”

He nodded and rubbed and hand across the back of his neck. “Yeah, he’s good.” He looked at you then down at the floor. “Listen…”

He trailed off and his cheeks flushed. You tilted your head and waited for him to continue. He sighed and his shoulders slumped forward. “I’m sorry about the kiss. I was tired and wasn’t thinking.”

Your heart shriveled just a bit with his words, but you really hadn’t expected any different. You tried your best to keep the smile on your face. “Don’t worry about it, Buck. It’s fine.”

His eyes ran over your face, probably trying to see if you were telling the truth. You gestured over your shoulder toward the locker rooms. “I’m going to hit the shower. I’ll see you later.”

Just as you turned away from him, a hand fell on your arm, stopping you. You turned slightly to look at him again. Those deep blue eyes seemed to see right through you. “Did you…did you want me to kiss you?”

He was worried about hurting you. You gave him a soft smile as your heart twinged then you repeated your earlier words. “Don’t worry about it, Buck. It’s fine.”

The corner of his mouth kicked up and he pulled you toward him. “Would you just shut up and kiss me already?” A moment later his lips found yours. This time you took the opportunity to savor it. His lips were soft but earnest as they moved against yours. His metal arm slipped around your waist to hold you close to him. His other hand threaded into your hair to hold your head in place. His tongue slipped into your mouth pulling a moan from you.

Finally. You leaned back just far enough to breathe. “Damn, Bucky.”

He gave you that grin that never failed to make you smile. It was infectious. He leaned forward and kissed you again. A firm but swift kiss that mirrored the first one he’d given you. “Missed you.”

You hummed in agreement as you fisted your hands in his shirt and pulled him back to you for another kiss. This time it was hot. Needy. Wanting. Bucky’s lips moved from yours to run along the line of your jaw, talking as he went. “Thought about you every day. Worried I fucked up. Drove Steve fucking nuts talking about you.” His lips traced the column of your throat before he licked his way back up to your ear. He tugged the lobe into his mouth to scrape it with his teeth. “Pissed at myself for not giving you the kiss you deserved.”

You whimpered. There was absolutely no other word you could give the sound that came from your mouth. Bucky groaned in response and squeezed your thighs. “Jump, baby.” You obeyed and he lifted so you could wrap your legs around his waist. He moved you across the gym and into the women’s locker room. He sat you down only long enough to strip your leggings from you, your panties following immediately after. A second later your legs were wrapped back around him as he backed you into a wall.

The cold tile did little to soothe your heated skin. Bucky’s fingers slid through your folds as he pressed his forehead to yours. “Jesus, sweetheart. You’re killing me here.”

You tugged at his hair and he hissed. Those blue eyes narrowed in warning and you tugged again. His lips found yours again, feeding, begging. Two fingers slid into your core and he curled them. You rocked against him and let out a half scream as he found that perfect spot. His mouth moved to your throat where he bit and sucked, marking you as his as he fucked you with his fingers. “Fuck, Bucky. I have never wanted anyone to fuck me this badly.”

He pulled his fingers from you and fumbled with his pants. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Finally, he freed his heavy cock from the confines of his uniform. Lowering the two of you onto the nearby bench, his hands wrapped around your waist to lift you up and positioned himself at your opening. “Tell me you want this, baby.”

You placed your hands on his shoulders to help balance yourself. You looked deep into his eyes and said, “Barnes, if you don’t fuck me right now, I will shoot you.”

He laughed and slammed himself into you with no further warning. You gripped his shoulders and arched your back. He was long and thick and it had been awhile for you. Your pussy ached where he stretched and filled you beyond anything you’d felt before. And god, did it feel good. You rocked against him to tell him you were ready and he immediately began to pump in and out of you.

Every movement sent jolts of pleasure straight to your core. That knot was already tightening, preparing to bring you a wave of ecstasy. Your hold on Bucky tightened as he hammered into you. This wasn’t love making, it was just a good old-fashioned fucking. This was the release of the tension that had been building between the two of you from the moment you met.

Bucky hissed. “Fuck, baby. I’m gonna cum. Cum for me, baby. Show me how much you need me. Soak my cock, baby.” His thumb found your clit and flicked over it as he spoke. The combination of the two was enough to push you over the edge. As your pussy clenched around his cock, he followed you over the peak.

You were both panting as you dropped your head onto his shoulder. He was still buried inside of you, but you weren’t inclined to move at the moment. Too happy. Too content. He pressed a kiss to your temple. “That was fucking amazing,” he said drawing a laugh from you. You leaned back to look at him and his hands settled on your hips to hold you steady. His thumbs rubbed on the bare skin he found beneath your top.

Looking down, you realized he was still fully clothed. “Well, this hardly seems fair.”

And there was that grin again before he kissed you slow and sweet. “What do you say, we move this to your bedroom and we’ll both get naked this time?”

***

The next morning you stirred, shifting on your sheets as you tried to figure out what had woken you. You smiled as you felt the soft kisses trailing up the length of your spine. Letting out a moan of contentment, you turned to see your soldier. He held himself over you and mirrored your smile. You laid a hand along the side of his face, feeling his early morning stubble. “Hey, baby.”

“Hey.” He leaned down to kiss you in a sweet good morning. Pulling away, he kissed the tip of your nose then pressed his forehead to yours. “I love you, sweetheart. Have for a while.”

“I love you, too, soldier.” You hooked a leg around him and shifted your position so you he was under you and you were straddling his hips. “Let me show you how much.”

[embyrinitalics]

An Inconvenience

Read the previous thread here, or jump down the rabbit hole 🕳🐇

In the morning there are hatch patterns all over her legs from the hammock and marks on her cheek from his armor, half her braids have fallen out, and she feels stiff with hardened warpaint. But there’s a soothing breeze, and his arm around her waist is warm, and she might’ve called waking up there pleasant if the sun wasn’t burning a hole in her head—

The sun.

She sits bolt upright with a gasp, trying to untangle their legs from where they’ve entwined overnight. The give of the hammock hampers any real progress, and the harder she thrashes the worse it gets, until her desperate struggle finally culminates in the entire net rolling. She has just enough time to yelp before they’re both deposited in a heap on the ground.

She plants a hand on his chest—it’s shaking with laughter—and he grins lazily up at her as she glares down.

“I said sunrise!” She points desperately at the giant orb glowing in the sky. “Sun!” And when he seems to grasp that, she makes a too-large sweeping gesture up from the horizon. “Rise!”

He reaches up and runs the edge of his thumb against her lip, a soft smirk on his mouth, and says, “Sunrise.”

She growls at him, finally wrenching herself free, and gets up to—well, she can’t get down from the colonnade on her own, so she paces and drops her head in her hands. It’s only then that he seems to notice she’s in real distress, his smirk twisting out of place as he gets to his feet.

“This is awful. Father has to have realized I’m gone by now. He’s probably worried sick, and has the whole team out scouring the jungle for me—”

He tries to placate her, resting a soothing hand on her shoulder, but she bats him away.

“I need to go home, Link! Right now!”

His brow furrows.

“Home?” she demands, but of course that doesn’t help. She digs her fingers into her scalp and they get caught in half a braid. She pats the columns emphatically, gestures at the colonnade, at the great dragon head below, and says, “Link’s home.”

His eyes follow her hands, absorbing everything, and when she waits, he repeats, still frowning, “Link home.”

She points furiously out to the jungle in the direction she hopes the campsite lies. “Zelda’s home.”

His eyes change, but she can’t read them. She holds them another second or so before she throws her hands up and goes back to pacing. But then he takes her hand—warmly, firmly—and tugs her toward their route down from the cliffs, making a beckoning gesture.

“Home,” he says, and it sounds like a promise, and her whole body sags and her lip trembles.

“Thank you,” she whispers, even though it means nothing to him.

He gets her down easily, the way he skips from one place to the next and then catches her as she hops after him not unlike their dance through the treetops the night before. The tribe is already awake, half their number dispersed in the jungle and the rest busying themselves around the lake: sharpening tools, watching children, mending armor, preparing food.

Link stops briefly in the dragon’s maw to get a few supplies. Just beyond the gathering she spies a spring, and a statue of a beautiful woman cast in shimmering light. It’s too ethereal somehow, too sacred, and she has to look away. He has a few exchanges with the others beneath the overhang of stone teeth—his words are clipped, theirs are amused—and as he draws her towards the mouth of the river she hears in a sing-song voice, “Shehsa tahilam yulaiti kihna, Zelda!”

Her ears turn unaccountably red.

He leads her up the river, and where she’s certain they came from the left, he turns right. She beats down the concern that tries to well up. Link knows where he’s going, and she trusts him. Besides, she has other things on her mind.

So it’s very disconcerting when, a few steps later, they’re walking into a pen and she comes face to face with a water buffalo.

“Oh,” she says, watching as he slips leather bands up the animal’s massive horns and flips the affixed reins up over its head. “Oh dear. I don’t think this is a good idea.”

He climbs aboard. All she can do is pout at its bulging shoulder. She’s already a jumble of nerves—thinking of her father, thinking of the chaos that must have ensued back at camp, thinking about how she’s going to have to explain all this—and now her only way back is atop a wild animal that she expects to gore her at any moment. It turns a lazy eye on her, as though it heard. Maybe it will, it seems to say, maybe it won’t.

She allows herself a tiny, defeated huff as she takes his hand and clambers up after him.

He settles her in front of him on its withers, and with a soothing voice and gentle pat, tells it to walk on. Its steps are massive and it sways like the hammock, and she has to dig her fingers into its back to steady herself. But Link’s arms are there, guiding the buffalo with a lax rein, and within a few minutes she’s used to the pendulous swing of the gait and back to worrying about how much trouble she’s going to be in back at camp.

She wrings her hands. He offers her a banana out of his pack. She turns it down. The buffalo snorts, and she wrings her hands some more.

He starts humming. And at first it’s irritating, rubbing beneath the torrent of birdsong like something that doesn’t belong. It’s unfair that he can be so unconcerned at a time like this. But then the hum turns into a murmur, turns into lyrics thrumming like another one of his stories. He coils the reins in one hand and slides the other over one of hers, slipping their fingers together, stroking soothing lines across her thumb with his so her hands can’t worry at each other anymore. Soothing her, the only way he knows how.

It’s... surprising, how well it’s working.

“That’s nice,” she tells him quietly, peering timidly over her shoulder. He gives her a half-smile and keeps on. “I just—well. I’m sure I caused a lot of worry, and I feel guilty about that. And there’s bound to be consequences once everything settles down. And father already doesn’t like you. I’m sure this isn’t going to help.”

He keeps singing. She hasn’t had someone sing to soothe her since she was a little girl—since her mother. She’d forgotten how nice it could be. She’s about to give into it, about to lean into him and close her eyes and let his voice smooth away her anxieties.

But then she remembers the paint all over her legs and her bare middle, and the ludicrous outfit she’s wearing which will scandalize absolutely everyone if she’s spotted, and it all comes flooding back.

Still. The song is nice.

[gisachi]

Okay I LOVE YOU TO DEATH ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡ but I think you already know that. I'm hereby requesting for #2 or #15 for the ShinRan kisses bc omfgahd you the b e s t ❤❤❤

This is for the dearest Tru because guurl your dcmk fandom misses you but I know you’re enjoying yourself over in HQ fandom and that’s great too ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) if you feel like coming back, let this be your ShinRan welcoming gift ok~ 💝😘

2. A small, fleeting kiss - which is immediately followed by a passionate, hungry kiss. 15. A fierce kiss that ends with a bite on the lip, soothing it with a lick. (1,659 words)

.

.

.

Shinichi is a biter. It’s a fact not even he was aware of until Ran pointed it out. She discovered this weird trait of his back in middle school when in the dead silence of their study session, Shinichi unlookingly reached for Ran’s dormant hand and gave a light bite on the side of her palm.

Utterly aghast, Ran gave his head a good whack, questioning where the hell that came from,  only for him to respond with a clueless (and pained) ‘Huh, what did I do?’

Ran believed that Shinichi did know but merely played pretend to avoid her flying fist of death. Yet, it happened more than once, all done randomly and without any hint of hesitancy nor perversity in his end. That was when she started to consider that maybe, Shinichi was indeed blissfully unaware of his habit— of his fondness?— of biting her.

She isn’t going to lie, it’s very weird at first. It isn’t simply some information she can share so casually because even Agasa-hakase would find it hard to believe. Shinichi? Bites? Dogs bite. Not people. Moreso not him. He who cowers like a kitten when he senses the Ran Rage. Not that his bites hurt, but still. Weird.

Though after noting the pattern, Ran concludes that Shinichi mechanically does it only when three conditions are met: when he isn’t stressed, when they are beside each other, and when they are alone. If absorbed in a case, he doesn’t so much as flinch from his chair, sitting upright in a foetal position, and Ran beside him is reduced to an invisible post. But when his mind is free of cases, leisurely reading his mystery novels next to her, the hand grabbing and hand biting occur.

One instance, they were walking home, and although they were beside each other, fingers grazing fingers, Ran sensed his hesitancy to snatch her hand for a usual bite. Side glancing at him, she teased, “So you’re finally becoming conscious of your weird habit?”

“Conscious enough to understand that I must stop myself from doing that in public… give me credit, Ran,” he scoffed.

They weren’t even dating then, but the blush on her face was akin to the blush of a woman receiving a declaration of love from her man. He realized he was weird. And he wanted to be weird, comfortably weird, only around her.

The affectionate bites have continued without issue until high school, even beyond. She’s allowed to call it affectionate, right? Yes, it grew on her, and though it’s questionably odd, the act of imprinting innocent, visible teeth marks somewhere on another’s body is something that does not just happen if both parties aren’t comfortable with it. Letting him bite her is a sign that she returns his affection too.

And then they started dating.

The only thing that’s changed apart from their relationship status is that the biting doesn’t only happen on the hand. Sometimes, he treats her forearm like a roasted chicken leg and Ran tickles him on the rib as punishment. Her arm and shoulder are his favorite body parts to nibble on. Fortunately, teeth marks don’t take long to disappear, unless they blotch which is a different story. That hasn’t happened. Yet.

“You’re doing it again,” Ran complained during another private study session when the nibble on her unsleeved shoulder felt deeper than usual.

“Crap, sorry.” And he soothed with a kiss. Ran blushed.

That was a first.

She moved a tiny inch away from him, formidable pink growing in her cheeks. “Sorry for the bite, or for biting too hard?” she snipped. Shinichi simply laughed.

Pensively, he observed the embedded mark on her skin as she moved, eyebrows scrunching in contemplation. Suddenly his mood shifted.

“Do you think I ought to stop this?” he spoke up.

Ran blinked, a little surprised. “And you’re asking that question now?”

“Better than not asking and making you feel uncomfortable for the rest of your life, yeah.”

“What makes you say I’m uncomfortable?”

“ ‘Cause I never hear you say you’re okay with it?”

Ran blinked a few more times.

“Shinichi, I don’t have to say I’m okay with it for you to know I’m okay with it. You of all people should know that.”

“That’s not it,” Shinichi argued, “it’s precisely because I know you that I need to hear you say it. Your silence can mean a lot of things... I still can’t read you one hundred percent, you know...”

Stopping a growing smile, Ran rolled her eyes and sighed thickly through her mouth. She was so tempted to humor him but he looked so sincere with that sad apologetic face.

“It’s just odd. But I don’t...I don’t hate it,” she answered.

“So you like it?” His face brightened, voice upping mirthfully as he leaned closer. “C’mon! Say it.”

“M-Mah,” flustered, she lifted her nose in the air and looked the other way, “You’re just making fun of me now!”  

He laughed, then kissed her shoulder again. “Fine. I’ll take that answer.”

And so he never stops.

In the most random moments alone together, he'll grab the opportunity to steal a bite. When she’s brushing her hair, when she’s zoning out during a movie, while she takes a call from her mom, or even while she’s cooking. Especially while she’s cooking. He’ll stand behind her and wrap his arms around her waist, making everything more intimate than it already is.

One fine night, he drops by Ran’s after solving yet another case that has earned him another column in the next morning paper. In a very good mood, he bites her shoulder, after he has taken his bath, and Ran is cooking his favorite food for dinner. His lips - not his teeth - linger longer on her skin, longer than how he often soothes her, and Ran notices that the warmth is zipping north, onto the slope of her neck and shoulder, and then on her neck.

Suddenly, the heat that emanates isn’t just from the steam from the pot; it’s in her body, everywhere.

“You smell so nice…” She can hear his relaxed smile as his hands caress her waist, and Ran releases a quivering exhale. She knows he’s saying that more out of admiration than anything else, but his voice is raspy and it makes her knees weak. It doesn’t help that he just finished his bath and his bare chest touches her back, and he smells like her lavender shampoo and soap, and he is very far from stressed, and they’re alone in the apartment.

That fine night, the intimacy in the air feels tantalizingly different from usual.

“Did… Did you already heat the teapot as I told you?” Her question is not at all suggestive, but her tone seems to indicate otherwise.

“Mm,” lazily, he parts her long hair to the other side and nibs on the silky skin of her neck, “seven minutes ‘til it boils.”

And then the following seconds are quiet, body language speaking for itself. Her head craning, breathing short; his relaxing nibbles softer and deeper, hands on her waist playful. His alternating kisses and bites electrify her, and she wants to fuel this spark into something greater, something that will make both of them combust.

So she sets the stove to low heat, and turns around.

On that fine night, she seizes the opportunity to kiss him where she prefers.

Chaste and gentle, but eager all the same. Instances like these are when Shinichi need not ask if she likes what he’s doing because the answer is crystal clear in her eyes.

Still, with a shell-shocked expression, he stares back, unmoving. Heart beating fast and head spinning crazy. That is a first.

The next second, he’s kissing her back.

“Doing it...again,” Ran breathes, breaking their connection every two seconds to let him punctuate each kiss with a tender bite on her lip.

“ ‘M sorry,” he airs, smiling, kissing deep, drinking the moan that trembles out her throat. “Force of habit... Didn’t notice.”

She feels the swirling heat change the color of her cheeks; she’s probably burning red now. “You always don’t,” she chuckles over his lips as her back hits the edge of the kitchen island.

They are no expert at this, but it feels like they’ve been doing this for so long with the way their lips move and glide and dance with each other, already done testing the waters, encouraging for more. As if his skin kisses are but the foreplay leading to this special moment. Soon, she feels herself being lifted from the floor, thighs laid to rest flat on the countertop, his body slotted between her legs. Ran feels her soul leave her body. This intimacy has easily transcended into another level.

In the middle of concentration, Shinichi’s eyes blow wide like dinner plates and he separates, touching the corner of his lower lip.

He tastes iron on his tongue. He looks at his girlfriend, realizing what she’s done. “...Whoa.”

Smiling coyly, Ran leans close, pausing a breath away, before soothing his swollen lip with a soft bite and gentle lick, and Shinichi groans a little. “I think...I see the appeal now.”

Shinichi’s smirk is smug and thrilled, loving his girl’s newest discovery. “And I see why you aren’t stopping me before…” he kisses her again, “Do it more.”

And on that night, more she does. Her first kisses, her first nibbles, her first tongue action she offers while taking all of his in turn. Perhaps she might have taken more, if not for the kettle whistling and dinner boiling out of the pot.

As for his weird biting habit, safe to say it’s best she gets even for the hundred times he’s done before. And apart from his lips, she’s willing to discover where he likes to receive it most and how he likes it given.

That won’t take long. He’s a willing teacher anyway.

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.

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[bagog]

What On Earth Has Happened

Hey, no story here, no experiments. Just a play by play of an awful year in my life. Please don't reblog. Trying to just get it down in one place for people who care about me. Long, sob-story beneath the cut.

Air - 'Things are looking up!' I had started to drift a bit from tumblr. The porno purge came and a lot of my friends trickled off the platform after that. I went back to school, attempting to score myself a Masters degree in something that would pay enough to get me out of Student Debt. I was doing great, picking things up fast. I got a new job at a company doing pretty menial work, but the people I worked with were great conversationalists. The work didn't involve dealing with customers at all, paid well, and was small and accomplishable tasks. Essentially I was being prepped to take a better position at the place once I had my Masters. Covid happened, then. Earth - 'The Whole World Sucks Right Now' My company was "essential," so I continued going to work, now on weird schedules. The company I worked for was profiting off Covid, all the while making fun of it as an overblown conspiracy, even as their own epidemiologist urged them to take better precautions. Work became hard to swallow. Water - 'When your lowest place could be lower' The apartment I shared with my boyfriend flooded. The lowest place in any sewage system is typically the bathtub, such that if it backs up, it does so into that tub. Our lowest point is the toilet. So the apartment flooded. Three times. Roots growing through the sewage outflow meant that, often, you needed to wait a solid hour between toilet flushes, or else the toilet would back up with such gusto the sewage would slosh down the hallway and into the living room. We mopped many times. The problem was finally fixed 8 months later, necessitating our having to camp because our house had no water. Fire - 'To destroy all you've done' One afternoon, I smelled burning. Going to our bedroom, I found our shelf a column of flame. I could barely breathe for all the smoke, but I managed to grab a blanket and beat the fire out. On the other side of the room, the pages of the books upon another shelf had begun to crisp from the heat, the blinds on all the windows were warped. The whole apartment had been about to go up. I'm kinda scared of fire now. Heart - 'When moving is too much to ask' Personal health sorta hit a new low. Migraines kept me out of work for two full weeks. I have seasonal foot pain, I always assumed from hiking for a living in my 20s. Turns out it was gout, all the while. Gout is exceptionally painful: it's like a messy pile of razor blades in the ball of your foot every time you step down. At work, I could barely stand. Walking from my car to the door became something I needed to psyche myself up for. Not a lot can stop a gout flare-up once it's in full swing, so I just had to wait it out. For a month. Two. Some of the worst sustained pain I've been in. Little did I know that, in January, come the kidney stones. Kidney stones feel awful. Feel like total shit. Gout and kidney stones are comorbid--brought about as a result of the meds I take to help me focus. So any day I don't drink enough water is a day when my kidneys or my foot just starts aching. But going back to September of 2020... Homophobia - 'goddammit' Finally things are looking better. I'm limping quickly again. Then I am called into the HR office. I am told that two sexual harassment charges have been brought against me. I'm told that one individual has alleged that I, while in the restroom, used a reflective toilet brush to attempt to peep him under a stall wall. I did not do this. I do not understand--reflective toilet brush?? wtf. The second allegation: I just straight up looked over a stall at a guy. I didn't do this either. I'm asked to defend myself, I ask who or date or time of day. I am given nothing. I remark that I don't think I'm tall enough to see over the stall, and I do not understand about the toilet brush. Of the ten minutes of the meeting, I spend 8 of them trying to get my head around how a claim about a reflective toilet brush has me here. "Would you like us to go now to see if you're tall enough to see over the stall? If that would help your defense?" says the HR head. "Yes, I

would," says I. We did not go. I am told that the accusers have no reason to be collaborating, or to even know each other made a claim. This is bullshit, because it was a company of 80 people, and only a quarter of those employees used the restroom where my alleged harassment was to have taken place. Before I am dismissed from work for the day to go home and wait to find out if I'll be fired or not, I march into the HR office once more and say "I hope none of this is happening because I'm gay." The HR head looks positively offended. I got fired cuz I'm gay. Next day I got a call. They'd come to the "objective truth" (that phrase is burned in my mind), and were terminating me. Apparently they discounted the toilet brush rumor, after all. But they really honestly believed I looked over the stall at a dude. Nightmare - 'No Fear One Fear' Let me tell you something: this is a nightmare. This is my honest-to-god nightmare. I've been terrified of getting accused of something in a bathroom since I was 11 years old. I am incredibly self-conscious and careful in public restrooms. To be fired? From a place full of people I like? And all of them will think I'm a pervert. My boyfriend worked at the same place. He would now have to work there every day dealing with people looking at him and wondering what he must think of his boyfriend. That sent me on a spiral. I'm still out of work, almost a year later. It would have been the worst mental health crisis of my life if it wasn't for my boyfriend, my support network, and the meds I've finally been able to get ahold of. Oh, also. My two accusers? Were roommates. HR knew they were roommates. They basically collaborated on a story to get me fired. The story circulating around the place (I still have acquaintances I talk to working there) has dropped the reflective toilet brush entirely. I guess they thought it was too unbelievable. So anyway, the people who accused me are now telling a different set of events than what I was told. Absolute horse shit. Tried to go to my city's human right's council to see if my situation warranted further attention. I gave my side of the story--including tales of the straight manager who had had enough harassment charges brought against him that he was no longer allowed to meet female staff--which indicated I'd been treated differently and wrongly. My old job made an impassioned argument that the committee violated their First Amendment rights(?) ('Freedom of speech' is the biggie with the First Amendment, for people who cba re:USA). I won the vote!! But one member of the committee was missing. So there weren't enough people for the vote to pass. Dismissed. We took it to the EEOC to make an official federal complaint. Just a week ago, an agent of the US Government patiently explained to us that these laws are literally designed to fuck over the worker and protect the employer unless they are epically stupid, and unfortunately, mine had not been epically stupid. So there's nowhere to go, no recourse to be had. It's over, I guess. Family - 'How to sum it up quickly...' My family hit me with the old soft-disown. No more calls, no more communication. They think they are loving me by not having contact with me. By depriving me of my family, they hope it will make me realize that the path I'm on is destructive, and I'll return to them living an upright life. No. I'm living an upright life, now. And if my family can choose to throw me away, then they are not a family I choose. Then my dad hit me back two months later, absolutely gaslighting me and pretending we never had the disown conversation at all. Reality - 'I don't know who I am anymore' I have trouble knowing what's real, anymore. Every message my dad sends on the surface seems loving and supportive and plaintive. I feel I must be the one in the wrong. I got fired for bullshit reasons. It doesn't feel real. "My family can't possibly have ceased contact with me: that's one of those things I know can never happen!!" But that did happen. So what else that feels real, actually isn't? I do

mean to be so dramatic, and I won't apologize for it. But I truly do feel like my mind has been pretty thoroughly unseated by the last year. Whoever I am, I'm becoming someone different. More distilled, at very least. I've discovered a lot of things about myself: trauma that has likely led to a lot of my mental health problems. Discovered I actually have RAGING ADHD, and it has robber me of a lot of things I wanted to do, and now is sort of consuming me completely. I'm looking for help. Trying to get better. Here's hoping. Every bold point above could be its own book, for all my thoughts about them. But enough of that for now. Love you. Thanks for reading.

[codedredalert]

atop the wall, wisdom cries out [One Piece, Robin] -- oneshot

Robin-centric character study || 1052 words

She has the split-second to wonder if all great turning points in history are like this—destiny at the mercy of a momentous decision—

(Written for the OP Tarot Project High Priestess and Eight of Wands cards.)

High Priestess Upright: Intuition, insight, sacred knowledge, things yet to be revealed, reflection. Reversed: Secrets, information withheld, disharmony.

Eight of Wands Upright: Movement, action, alignment, abrupt changes, quick decisions. Reversed: Delays, frustration, resisting change, internal alignment.

Explanations of references in the end notes.

Warnings: canon-typical violence

(On Ao3)

===/\===

.

             (1) Lesson: A cup of water is not yours until you drink it. Likewise, knowledge.

All scholars of Ohara memorise via the method of loci, and Nico Robin, at eight years old, is no exception. Her favourite is a temple hewn from stone, a wise king's magna opus as reconstructed from academic blueprints. There, she stores the lessons she learns: a kind elderly lady still calls for the marines in the night after she's fed you; a knife in the hands of a frightened child can still slit a soldier's throat; a powerful man is still not quite immune to the intrigue of a beautiful woman.

She drinks deeply from the cup of knowledge and suffering, and two pillars form in the forefront of the temple. The first is who she has always been—the pursuit of good things, knowledge for knowledge's sake, building up, preserving, and leaving a legacy for all humanity. The other is who she discovered she was when the world government placed a bounty on her head—an immovable strength, manifesting in guile, bloodshed, and conquest.

Her surprise is only at how readily she accepts these as her foundation—the twin load-bearing columns of the woman she now is.  

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===/\===

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             (2) Aphorism: Scientia potestas est. (Translation: Knowledge is power.)

"Read it," demands Crocodile. Then he raises a hand to call her to pause and adds, almost smugly, "Out loud."

He thinks he's clever. Robin smiles. He's not stupid, but Robin is really,  really clever.

She hadn't intended deception when she'd first sought out the most comprehensive history of Alabasta. (Three archaic hand-scribed manuscripts and a yellowed but hardly-used guide. It was technically restricted access, though that hardly mattered in the face of Robin's devil fruit.) She had merely wanted to know—the first pillar of Nico Robin.

She recites this knowledge from memory, trailing her fingers along the runes of the poneglyph before her, retrieving the words  verbatim as she walks through the temple rooms in her mind. She fully expects Crocodile to interrupt her, to point to one word or the other and demand its meaning. She already has the textbook explanation on why translation is an imperfect art on the tip of her tongue. She doesn't get that far.

He's never been a patient man, especially when it comes to failure.

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             (3) Quote: Death never takes a wise man by surprise; he is always ready to go.

He deals her a mortal wound and leaves her to bleed out in the collapsing tomb of this country's kings. The age-old stone crumbles and groans, weary and slow to return to dust. She closes her eyes and waits.

It's surprisingly peaceful.

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             (4) Comment: As implied ibid, "life is full of surprises".               (5) Fallacy: Appeal to pity.

Straw Hat Luffy saves her and she demands 'why' but receives no answer. As she dusts herself off, she decides a fitting consequence for his unwelcome charity. She invites herself to his crew.

A strange group—they actually accept her, welcome her into their lives and their home despite being enemies three days before.

Over time, she learns that if she drops into a light doze below deck beside Nami, the next morning will come with warmth, the smell of breakfast wafting in from the adjoining kitchen, and that strange, unconditional acceptance.

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             (6) Study: Repeated exposure to similar situations without negative stimuli result in dissociation of situation and stimuli.

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. . . and she is . . . happy?

.

             (7) Supra (4).

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===/\===

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             (8) Truism: Nothing lasts forever.              (9) Quote: Only a fool can be happy.

The government finds her, as they have many times before. This time, however, she can't bring herself to offer these people as sacrifice in her place. She tries desperately to think of an alternative to the offer laid before.

She becomes the illusion of stillness, there is no stillness in her. Her mind is structure and movement all at once—the earth in revolution beneath the temple's foundation stone. Her mind moves as the celestial bodies, a million miles a minute, yet imperceptible. She is perfectly grounded as the centrifugal force tears her apart.

A lifetime ago, she was taught to smile when she wants to cry, so she smiles now. A mind built by the wisest men in history and it yields no solutions, so what use is it? What use is she? She's only good for secrets, sabotage, and smiles like sweet poison.

Even the greatest temple cannot stand forever.

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             (10) Quote: The only way to have a friend is to be one. Nb. This implies friends are worth having. Comment: The author agrees.               (11) Quote: There is nothing worth living for, unless it is worth dying for.     ��         (12) (Non-)issue: Hobson's choice.               (13) Principle: Occam's razor.

 .

She takes the offer.

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===/\===

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             (14) Policy: No man left behind.

The friends she tried to save came for her. They stand in proud defiance of the authorities that have wronged her all her life, figures of would-be legend backlit by the sun, their shadows stark and black, bridging the deep chasm she stands on the other side of, alone.

It borders on the absurd. They shouldn't have, it makes no logical sense. And yet, there they stand.

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             (15) Quote: When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

She fails to understand and finds that for once, she does not need to know. Equally illogical hope wells up in her. (The temple is shored up, its glory to be restored. Not yet, but in the future promised.)  

"Say you wanna live," shouts Luffy, and he waits for her answer, as if he has all the time in the world. As if time itself will yield to his force of will.

It almost does. The mad rush of adrenaline blocks all noise except the rush of blood in her veins, her captain's voice ringing in her ears. She has the split-second to wonder if all great turning points in history are like this, destiny at the mercy of a momentous decision, all the world in bated breath.

She doesn't stop to wonder if she dares. The second pillar of her identity commands her to be bold.

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             (16) Proverb: Fortune favours the bold.

"I want to live," she cries across the divide—

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                                   —and—

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             (17) Supra (4).

.

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                                               —she is saved.

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===/ENDNOTES\===

 At the risk of these notes being longer than the actual fic (I got too hyped by the thought of pseudo-academic formatting and used way too many probably-obscure references), here's helpful notes so you don't have to ask google:

 the method of loci— (loci being Latin for "places")— is a strategy of memory enhancement which uses visualisations of familiar spatial environments in order to enhance the recall of information. The method of loci is also known as the memory journey, memory palace, or mind palace technique.

 magna opus— Latin for "great work", especially the greatest achievement of an artist or writer.

 aphorism— an observation which contains a general truth/ a concise statement of a scientific principle, typically by a classical author.

 ibid— a citation signal to refer to a single work cited in the note immediately preceding. The abbreviation of ibidem, being Latin for "in the same place".

 supra—  a citation signal used to refer to an earlier-cited authority. Supra is Latin for "above".

 truism— a statement that is obviously true and says nothing new or interesting.

 nb— a citation signal to draw the reader's attention to a certain aspect or detail of the subject being discussed. The abbreviation of nota bene, which is Latin for "note well".

 Hobson's choice—  A forced or false choice. It is believed that the phrase derives from Thomas Hobson (1545–1631) who ran a horse rental business in England. He rented out horses but insisted that customers took the horse nearest the stable door. The choice his customers were given was "this or none"; making it effectively Hobson's choice of horse. — (source)

 Occam's razor— Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor) is a principle from philosophy that the simplest solution is usually the best one.

===/END\===

(On Ao3) ( patreon ) ( kofi ) ( paypal )

[beewolfwrites]

And When I am Formulated, Sprawling on a Pin - Chapter Twenty-Four: And the Rest is Silence

And this is it: the final chapter! It’s been insane, but this is the only fanfiction I've ever finished before, and it wouldn’t have happened without all the support. Thank you so much!! I didn’t think anyone would read this, but seeing everyone’s reactions to each chapter has kept me going :D

I’m sorry for the essay, but I’m aware I didn’t post anything about this in the AIB tag. Yes, there will be a sequel!

I need to read the manga properly before writing it, so I don’t know when the sequel will start. But in the meantime, there’ll be a series of Chishiya one-shots of his perspective, and there’ll even be scenes that weren’t in this fic, plus an original game!

For the full fanfic, you can find it here on AO3. 

I’ll also be creating a master list, and I'll post the literature references after this for those who wanted them <3

Once again, thank you so much!! And I hope you enjoy this last chapter. 

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

By the time Kuina found us again, it was already late afternoon, and even though our visas had extended by ten days after the Witch Hunt game, there was something about the setting of the sun that felt foreboding.

We lit up the furniture shop with candles and changed into the clean clothes we’d collected. Seeing Chishiya wearing ordinary clothes felt strange. Aside from when we’d crossed paths in the Tag game, the entire time I’d known him he’d been wearing swim shorts and flip flops.

Now, he emerged from the bathroom wearing grey sweatpants and a variegated blue cardigan that suited him perfectly. When his eyes flickered to mine, I realised I’d been staring, and distracted myself with preparing dinner instead. It wasn’t much, especially since all I had was canned goods and a camping stove, but the vegetable stew kept us warm while we curled up in our makeshift living room. As evening turned to night, however, it became obvious that something was missing.

There are no games.

Kuina chewed on her lip, looking out of the window. ‘What d’you think will happen when our visas run out?’

‘It probably has something to do with the Ten of Hearts,’ I told her. ‘Maybe there’s no need for games anymore, since we’ve got all the numbered cards.’

It didn’t bode well for us. If there were no games by the time our visas ran out, there was no chance of us getting out of the Borderlands. At least not alive.

As the night wore on, Kuina was the first to go upstairs. Covering her yawn with her hand, she waved goodnight and winked at me. I tried not to blush. Not that it made a difference, anyway. Chishiya was busying himself over a scrap of paper, and barely reacted when I smushed up by his side.

I frowned at the paper in his hand. ‘Isn’t that...’

‘Ah.’ He held it out so I could see it. ‘I took it from the tagger’s pocket.’ It was a drawing of a circle with squiggly lines, clearly a rushed sketch of something. In the middle of a line, the pen had stabbed a hole straight through.

‘What is it?’

‘Well, I have an idea,’ he said, but never elaborated.

Fighting the onset of sleep, I leaned my head against his shoulder, paying no mind to the way he tensed beneath me. The fabric of his cardigan was soft as down and made for a perfect pillow. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me?’

‘And if I don’t want to?’

I pushed my face into the fabric, pretending to settle in for the night. ‘Then I’ll just stay here and annoy you until your visa runs out.’

‘I have a feeling that won’t happen any time soon,’ he said, looking out the window.

And that was when I noticed it too. Midnight had passed by only a few minutes ago, yet there were no lasers. Did that mean the Borderlands were at a standstill? Were we stuck here permanently now? I wasn’t aware of how silent I had become, lost in my own thoughts, until Chishiya spoke up.

‘I believe it’s a map.’

My eyes slid to the drawing again. ‘And that hole in the paper, do you think that’s where the others are? The dealers, I mean.’

He shifted uncomfortably and I sat upright, conscious that I might have been unintentionally hurting or bothering him. Looking at the map properly, the lines could represent different interlocking pathways. If the marked place was a hideout of some kind, it couldn’t be in the open streets; there was too big a risk that a player might stumble upon it by accident.

So where...?

As soon as the idea came to mind, the words slipped out of my mouth. ‘The subway....’

He hummed in agreement. ‘I went to the nearest subway station this morning to check it against the real map. It’s a loose fit, but it works.’

I thought back to the second tagger – the crying woman – and how she’d been forced to participate in the game, donning an explosive collar. ‘Maybe if we find the place, we’ll get some answers.’

‘Probably,’ he said. ‘But I’m curious to see if anything changes within the next few days.’

‘Do you think we’ll hear something soon?’ I asked, yawning into my hand.

‘I believe we will.’ He gave me that same half-smile I had grown so used to. ‘But right now, I think you should go to sleep.’

Chishiya didn’t complain when I crawled into his bed. Like the night before, he kept his distance, but I could’ve sworn at times, when my sleeping became lighter throughout the night, I could feel fingers lightly touching my hair, only to pull back the moment I stirred. Over the next few days, it became the norm, and every night I would curl up on my side of the bed, slipping into calm dreams under the blue light of the window.

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

Despite the sunshine washing over the grey of the city, the stairs leading into Minami-Aoyama station descended into darkness. We’d checked and double-checked the drawing against the official subway map several times, but the idea of entering an abandoned station to uncover who knows what wasn’t inviting.

‘Are you sure this is it?’ Kuina asked for the third time.

I looked at the route map hanging over the station entrance, my eyes tracing the shape of the lines. ‘Positive.’

Folding her arms, Kuina went first. I waited for Chishiya to take a small torch from his pocket before following behind. The station was truly submerged in blackness, and if not for Chishiya’s torch, we would have easily become lost. He shone the beam at the paper in his hand, then held it up against each train line.

‘This way,’ he said, and walked towards the edge of the platform.

We hopped down onto the gravel below, using the metal tracks to guide us further into the tunnels. It was disconcerting to see the subway so empty, but with Kuina and Chishiya here, I felt safe somehow.

Several minutes in, Chishiya stopped abruptly, and I almost walked into him. If he reacted at all, I couldn’t see to tell. But he seemed more focused on something else, as he pointed the torch at a door that had been busted open.

‘That must be it.’ Kuina’s voice echoed.  

Without hesitation, Chishiya disappeared through the door, leaving Kuina and I in the darkness.

Chishiya?!

I panicked, arms waving as I tried to find something to hold onto. I heard Kuina hiss as we stumbled into each other and bumped elbows. Feeling around for the door frame, we managed to make our way inside, where Chishiya held his torch at us from further away.

‘Hey!’ Kuina snapped. ‘Don’t do that again! You’re the only one with a light here.’

‘Walk faster then,’ he said, waiting impatiently as we jogged over.

He shone the beam in the opposite direction, where it bounced off something. It was still too dark to tell just what, but as we walked forwards, everything became clearer. A structure lay ahead, with tunnels and walkways all leading into a giant room. Overhead, wires were strung across the ceiling, all feeding into the same place. We entered through one of the tunnels, and my heart jumped.

Televisions. They stared, black and empty, in rows and columns up the walls. But what was even more surprising was the setup right in front of us. It was an office, with papers, pen pots and coffee-stained mugs strewn about on desks. It would have looked like any other workplace, if not for the bodies draped in chairs and across the floor.

‘What... is this?’ I crouched to inspect the body of a man in a suit. Judging from its state, he had only died recently, but more importantly, there was a singed hole running through his head. He had been killed by a laser. ‘They’re not the ones in charge of the games.’

Chishiya closely inspected a desk. ‘Evidently not,’ he said, picking up a folded piece of paper and passing it to me. It was filled with numbers, some ticked off. Whoever it had belonged to was keeping track of their visa.

They’re playing games too, I thought. Or at least, they were.

‘So, these guys were the dealers.’ Kuina gingerly held up a sheet of paper with scribbles all over it. Upon closer inspection, they appeared to be odds. ‘They were betting on us,’ she said.  

A shiver ran along my skin. Of course, they had been watching us this whole time, that was expected. But to place bets on our survival was a whole other story. If the dealers were playing too, there must’ve been a separate system for them to extend their days. Perhaps how many people survived each game had some kind of impact on their visas.

A finger lightly brushed the back of my arm and Chishiya appeared beside me. ‘Momoka’s friend,’ I said, ‘she died right after she told everyone she was a dealer. And the taggers died because we won. I have a feeling their visas depended on whether or not we cleared each game... or maybe how many people didn’t make it.’

From his expression, I knew he had been thinking the same thing. ‘It doesn’t explain why they’re all dead now.’

I glanced around at the stiffened bodies slumped around us. ‘Actually, I have a bad feeling about that too.’

At that moment, a tap of footsteps echoed from the entrance. Chishiya instantly turned off his torch and tugged me into one of the tunnels. Kuina joined us and we hid, waiting. The footsteps grew louder, closer, and two torchlights waved through the darkness. I kept my eyes trained on the tunnel opposite as the footsteps paused.

‘Where is this place?’  

‘Who knows?’

With a sigh, I relaxed instantly.

Those two.

It had only been a few days since I had made peace with Arisu and Usagi, but I was glad to see them again. Arisu was cleaned up, his wounds well on the way to healing, while Usagi stared in amazement at the television screens around us.

Chishiya grazed past me as he moved out from under the shadows. ‘You actually found this place,’ he said. ‘As expected from someone I have high hopes for.’  

‘We meet again,’ Kuina said, walking around the desks to lean against the wall.

Arisu and Usagi’s eyes scanned the two of them before stopping at me. They looked visibly confused, probably wondering what I was doing with them after I’d told them I wasn’t involved in Chishiya’s setup. In an attempt at diffusing the awkwardness, I smiled and waved.

‘You guys,’ Usagi whispered. Her voice bordered on distrust, not that anyone could blame her.

I couldn’t tell whether Chishiya was trying to make things better or worse when he held up the full deck of cards and smiled. ‘Thanks to you guys, I have all the playing cards with me,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

Arisu only looked at him cynically. ‘How did you discover this place?’

Chishiya rooted in his pocket and pulled out the drawing. ‘It took me some time to realise this is actually a map. The route map of the subway.’ He sauntered around the desks. ‘As for what happens when we collect the cards... I thought I would know the answer if I came here.’ His eyes jumped to mine. ‘But there’s something else we discovered instead.’

‘They’re not the gamemasters,’ Arisu said, eyes fixed on the bodies around us.

I stepped over a hand strewn across the floor. ‘カードを集めたので、殺された.’ Because we collected the cards, they were all killed. I struggled for a moment, trying to think of the right words. ‘There must be someone above them.’

Chishiya translated, and Usagi turned to me with worry. ‘But who?’

‘Who knows?’ Chishiya shrugged. ‘They might be aliens... or even God.’

The idea didn’t sound as strange as it should have done. We were in a world where lasers appeared from the sky, and death games were the norm. Even when I first arrived here, I’d wondered whether this was a form of judgement. Nothing was out of the question anymore.

Suddenly, the screens burst into life and white light flooded the room. I jumped, flocking to Chishiya and Kuina’s side.

Have we been caught?

Music reverberated all around us, and the screens displayed all four card suits, along with a message I couldn’t read. It didn’t matter though, as the voice that rang through the speakers was one I remembered well. My stomach dropped.

‘Congratulations to all players!’

The screens blurred until Mira’s wild eyes and subdued smile came into focus. It was now obvious why the Ten of Hearts had taken place at the Beach at the very moment things had fallen apart.

She must’ve been feeding information back, I thought. But back to where?

‘How interesting,’ Chishiya said. Seeking stability, I slipped a hand into his pocket. There was a slight hesitation before his fingers laced around mine.

Mira’s voice shook with a quiet excitement. ‘With the exception of the face cards, you’ve all cleared the numbered games and emerged as victors. It’s a sweet victory, gained by sacrificing so many lives.’ Her expression turned wistful as she stood. ‘I wonder, how many of your comrades have died. Try remembering those who were shot dead with guns.’

A single screen switched to show footage from a miscellaneous game. A group were stood, clutching their guns as they inspected the scatter of bodies across the ground.

They’ve been recording us.

‘And that girl you burned alive.’

A second display opened up, revealing several players watching on as a girl, engulfed in flames, struggled and clawed at her skin and clothes. I held my breath, Niragi’s animalistic cries ringing through my memory.

‘Those struck by lasers, and those that drowned.’

My eyes widened, and I gripped Chishiya’s hand as the inside of the furniture store appeared on-screen. The fractured image of myself flinched, quivering with shock, as the first man and Green Shirt leapt from their seats, only to crumple to the ground, lasers piercing them where they stood.

Chishiya’s fingers squeezed mine, and I gasped, blinking away the image. He must’ve seen it too.

‘Those who’s heads were blown off,’ Mira continued, dreamily. ‘Those comrades of yours, the despair you’ve felt so far, and those dying moments you’ll never forget.’

The screen changed once more, and from the corner of my eye, Arisu winced. Following his gaze, I recognized his partner from the Tag game, his neck exploding around a collar.

I’m so sorry....

Meanwhile, Mira’s expression shifted into pure, childlike delight. ‘Everyone... I’m so touched!’ She held her hand over her heart. ‘All of you players, we’d like to give you a present.’

We?

Chishiya tensed slightly. He had noticed it too. If Mira wasn’t the only gamemaster, just who were the others?

Although Mira couldn’t hear us, Kuina mumbled, ‘Are you returning us to the real world?’

It seemed too good to be true, and sure enough, it was. Mira clapped her hands together excitedly. ‘There will be new games! Let’s play more games together and fight for the face cards this time!’

Aside from Chishiya, everyone sank with disappointment and fear. Just how much more would we have to deal with before we could go home? If we were competing for the face cards, did that mean there were only twelve more games in total, or would there be repeat cards like there were for the numbered ones?

Kuina groaned. ‘New games? You’re kidding.’

‘I don’t dislike the idea,’ Chishiya murmured.

I looked at him, curious. ‘What do you mean?’

His expression was guarded, but before he could reply, Mira’s voice cut in again. ‘The next stage will commence tomorrow at noon. Everyone, let’s have fun together!’

All at once, the screens shut down, leaving us all in the darkness once more. Everything was quiet as we came to terms with what had just happened. It was Arisu who first suggested that we get out of here. Him and Usagi disappeared back through the tunnel, and with one glance at Chishiya and I, Kuina followed.

My fingers were still interlaced with his, hidden within the warmth of his pocket. He was watching me, waiting.

‘These games,’ I said. ‘They’re going to be harder than the others.’

He was silent for a moment. ‘Probably.’

‘About what you said before...’ I began. ‘Do you remember that time on the rooftop of the Beach, when I asked you if you were okay, and you told me it shouldn’t matter to me.’

I could see him thinking back. ‘I remember.’

‘What I said then still stands. You might not care about your own life, and I can’t stop you from taking part in these new games.’ I bit my lip, unable to face him as my eyes began tearing up. ‘Perhaps this is selfish of me, but you need to survive. And if you can’t do it for yourself, then....’

He sighed. ‘You cry too much.’ When I looked up, his lips were curled into that same, familiar smile, only this time, there was nothing cruel or condescending there. ‘We should find the others.’

Wiping my eyes with the edge of my sleeve, I finally let go of his hand, following him back out and through the tunnels. As we climbed the steps of the station, emerging into daylight, a series of loud bangs resounded throughout the city. The others were peering up at the skyscrapers towering over us, and the fireworks that burst like flowers against the sunlight.

‘Let’s make a new deal,’ Chishiya said, idly watching the display. ‘I’ll survive, if you return the favour.’

I looked to him, admiring the way his hair shifted in the breeze, and how the reflection of the fireworks danced in his dark eyes.

Let’s go home together.

‘It’s a deal.’

[perlen-gold]

Storm Night

“I am not good at talking about how I feel.” said Fenris once.

Ordinarily it is not the rain that arouses Hawke. He was not awake to witness the birth of the storm, far away from the shallow piers of Kirkwall, across the heaving and hungry sea. After hours of silent hunting, dark and looming clouds have entrapped the aspiring stone buildings of men.

The rain gushes down in endless silvery streams, chasing any four-legged or upright stranglers mercilessly into desperate shelter. Violently, a myriad of furious drops besiege the quivering glass in the windows, its irate cadence ceaselessly drowning out the occasional crackling of the fireplace. For a brief moment the bed room is plunged in an uncanny flash of dazzling light. The columns of the four-poster bed flinch, ghosts briefly awaken upon the seashell white bed sheet. Above gloomy curtains shudder in trepidation as the searing white lightning strikes once, twice, thrice. The skies over Kirkwall are illuminated in wraithlike shadows full of clouded hunters and rumbling beasts, washed over by the piercing of light, and felled in forlorn battle by thunder and bolt.

In the blink of an eye, Hawke’s eye, amber-colored and wide awake, the short-tempered light disperses into the night.

The smell of fresh, hard rain mixed with the herb burn of the dance in the fireside that shelters the bedroom under-fire from the feud outside is nearly palpable. Once more the keen blade of light strikes and transforms the hunters into warriors and the warriors into tombs for the fallen and demised, cleaving through the stormy night.

That which usually rudely awakes Hawke from sleep is neither hunter nor tomb; a kick, unexpected and painful in the lulling reverie of slumber; a sudden stroke hitting some uncovered part of his body that leaves his knee, his thigh, his shoulder, his ribs a bruised mark as purple as ripe plums; an entangling wrench yanking imprisoning feather and fabric away; and sounds, sounds, sounds, muffled, leashed, involuntary, sounds seared in Hawke’s mind.

This night is different, though.

When he wakes up, thunder forces his eyelids fly open. He lies still and he knows something is wrong.

He looks around, searches. That which wakes him this night is the slashing of the relentless rain and the cold spot on the soft mattress beside Hawke.

After a short moment of blessed silence as the storm outside gathers its strength for the next oncoming assault, Hawke sits up and swings his feet to the dry carpeted floor. It is this bare patch on the bed beside him, bereft of any body’s warmth, that has imprinted itself upon his dormant consciousness.

On bare feet he walks out of the room, along the ghostly dark corridor.  Beyond the stalwart stone walls of the Amell estate dark and light continue to lash out at each other as sundered lovers. Listening to the weeping skies Hawke remembers Carver’s wide-stricken eyes and how he swallowed his own boyhood tears for his brother’s and sister’s sake during a similar night. So big a house sunken in a darkness so impenetrable, it is impossible for Hawke to judge whether he has been roused in the middle of the night or at the cusp of dawn and day.

Wrapped in the clattering sound of the endless rain he passes the stairs, two closed doors, the kitchen till a flicker of faintly orange light piques his interest hidden amidst shelves of books.

In bad nights, Hawke will resolutely grip Fenris shoulders in order to shake him awake from his violent thrashing. In good nights, observing his twitching jaw muscles, Hawke wraps his arms around Fenris’waist, cradling him, bringing him close to his chest so he can breath softly into his ear, easing him out of his sleep just to the verge of awakening.

On those nights that are worst, Hawke will wake to a cold bed and find Fenris swigging down abundant-flavored wine from dark bottles. During these nights, Hawke joins him. They drink, they talk about other things while Hawke laughs and smiles and mounts guard over the distant look in Fenris’ wakeful eyes. Then, occasionally, out of the blue, Fenris might blurt out some mutinous memento, granted by his former life under the unyielding Tevinter sun, that leaves Hawke unsmiling and Fenris with bitterness or – worse still – with a callous shrug.

“And here I thought you hated reading.”

In this particular night Hawke finds Fenris hunched over a book in the lone flame of a single candle. He could illume the lamps and torches in the library without so much as a flicker of his fingers but he refrains from doing so. Instead, he pulls up a plain wooden chair and sits opposite Fenris, elbow on the abraded tabletop, one side of his scratchy face in his hand.

“Why?” Fenris retorts brusquely.

Hawke cannot help but smile in remembrance.

“Because last time I tried to teach you, you ended up flinging my poor book aside with the result that it was crouching in a corner quivering from spine to edge. I have not seen it since. It is probably in hiding by now.”

Fenris’ even brow patterns into struggling concentration.

“It is easy enough for you to taunt. I expected you were going to teach me reading but the sole thing you do is unnerve me with your constant correcting and scoffing.”

“And here I thought you liked my dallying.”

On other nights Fenris might look at him, his eyes alight with that dark spring green glare that there dwells perpetually, till a sudden smile flickers across his curling lips. Tonight, he does not give in to his bait, though. There is an edge in Fenris’ voice that is not often prevalent, not when they are quite alone like this. Hawke strains towards it without Fenris’ notice.

The drum of tempest-tossed rain falls upon their ears. Hawke feels his smile grow softer.  

“Maybe you are just a dreadful student.”

“Maybe you are just a dreadful teacher, Hawke.”

A chuckle rises from Hawke’s chest, light and amused.

“I probably am.”

He can see Fenris’ skin is still damp on the undersides of his arms and the nape of his neck.

The deluging torrent is not as loud here but its unyielding tremor splashing the rooftop unforgettable.

Fenris leans back, his elbows raised, his hands abruptly restless on his thighs. With a sweep of the flickering candle flame all his riposting ire seems gone all of a sudden.

“I was a fool to believe I could learn a skill like this.”

Fenris does not raise his gaze when Hawke stands and comes round the table. He draws his chair to Fenris’ side, sitting next to him. Thunder anew rumbles in the invisible night as Hawke clasps Fenris’ right hand. He does so gingerly, with the slightest hint of tarrying deference just before their fingers touch as if to see whether Fenris’ hand will move away, ever so slightly.

After dipping it into blue-black ink he threads a gray-blue quill between Fenris’ almond-colored fingers (a griffon plume, ostensible, when it was actually taken out of a phoenix’ reluctant plumage.)

With great care, slowly, deliberately, the feather tip scratches in high curves and narrow prongs over the mottled sheet of parchment. The scraping sound seems to echo among the endless shelves of books even under the voices of the thunderstorm. Long after the scratching has stopped Fenris keeps staring at the straight arcs and meandering lines in blue-black colors. Brows lowered in reflective toil his fingertips brush over the barely dried lines, smearing them at the outer edges.

“What does it say?” requests he.

Indicatively Hawke’s index finger passes from inky character to character, pronouncing each consonant and vowel with great care. Once he has reached the final letter, the last shred of reluctance is brushed away of Fenris’ expression.  Superseded by a diffident smile that he is not yet poised to evince.

“Show me yours.” he asks, half plea, half demand.

Once more Hawke guides his hand over the torn piece of parchment, tip grazing, ink fanning out as a peacock indigo feathers.

“H,” he pronounces softly but sumptuously, “A. W …”

Again, Fenris gazes at the finished name for quite a long time before he begins writing it down slowly, painstakingly, yet perfectly, unaided. Twice he then writes his own name before switching the quill from his right to his left hand. Gradually, the letters, first bristle, become more fluid with increasing pace.

Arms folded, Hawke leans back and watches Fenris practice. First copying down the portrait of their names, secondly each letter individually, then rearranging them hesitantly and strained-eyed until new words are being born, the characters pronounced meaning suddenly becoming easier with each line. Soon there is not an inch of crammed parchment left to pen on and Hawke produces a whole new sheet from his writing desk while the storm outside howls and prowls with strenuous menace.

Quite abruptly the ink-gleaming letters, bearing a childlike quality, loose their fierce focus. The subsequent line swerves out of line, then steadies, but the next does, too, and the one after that. Then the trembling begins.

At first it is only his hand, though Fenris keeps writing, writing their names, teeth gritted.

Mere seconds later the shaking has befallen his fingers, his legs, his shoulders hunched into his chest. His whole frame shudders under the shivering grip, as iron as his own grip on the quill.

Hawke has stood up.

Soon Fenris’ clammy hand cannot clutch the quill anymore. It falls, twisting itself out of his quavering grasp, dark spots of ink spraying everyway.

Few futile attempts later he stops altogether.

Hawke is standing behind his chair when it starts. With slow movements he wraps his arms loosely around his shoulders. He does not count the minutes, muss less the seconds.

Somewhen and somewhere Hawke feels Fenris startlingly cold hand on the side of his face, fingers cradling his charcoal black beard.

Rivulets of time run by.

Then Fenris picks the quill up again.

Leaning into the gentle touch Hawke lowers his weary head and rests his chin atop the crown of Fenris’ head, char stubbles shaving ebony shocks of white hair. By experience, Hawke knows better than to waste any words on that which has just happened.

So silence remains.

As Fenris finishes his next word it gives the impression of an even more childish scrawling.

Softly Hawke reads the letters aloud, feeling the fine strands of pearly white hair rubbing between his beard. “Garrett” Then, quieter, “where did you pick that one up?”

“It was stitched onto the insides of one of your shirts you gave me.”

Hawke feels a smile capturing his lips, first small, then warm and filling.

“Fenris?”

“Yes.”

“Come”, he whispers and takes his hand into his, the one that has the scarlet scarf slung about its wrist, leading him back to the warm shelter of the room of their bedroom.

Beyond the drop-gleaming windows the undying rain has lost its edge and grown somewhat quieter, enough to transmute into a deceiving semblance of repose. Back in the wide four-poster bed  they arrange for sleep in the same fashion they adopt each evening, night after night. Hawke lies on his back in the not-so-exact middle of the soft mattress, Fenris at his side, half-spread, half-outflung across Hawke’s chest, one long sharp-ended ear bedded against Hawke’s shoulder, collarbone, heart. As twisted as they might move during sleep – entangled into the warm blankets so one of them has to yank it back from under the other’s body – warped and tousled, on their sides, backs, sprawled on their stomachs – Hawke’s nose may be pitched by Fenris adamant fingers to stop his occasional but insistent snoring, his limps loose with sleep – however slumber may let them wander apart, this is the irrevocable way they settle for sleep.

Fenris’ ear near Hawke’s heart where he can harken its steady, willful beat.

Hawke knows Fenris can hear its wordless, confessing avowals for he can hear Fenris’ equally, a little  arrhythmic heartbeat through his hand on the elf’s back, the answer creeping up the arm he has slung around him.

“I am not good at talking about how I feel.” said Fenris once.

This ineptness is an inevitable part of the man beside him as is the color of his eye or skin and Fenris can no more shed it than he could change the length of his limps or stop the breathing in his lungs.

“I like this.”

“What? This?” Hawke pulls him closer in merriment.

“I like this kind of weather.”

Astonished Hawke listens to the rataplan of the rain. No lightening forks the dark martial skies outside anymore save for a distant rumbling afar.

“Bethany,” Hawke remembers, still startled, “liked storms, too.”

Suddenly, Fenris straightens up and with one swift, vigorous motion he pulls Hawke out of the sheets intentionally.

Out of the bedroom into the hall he is dragged by the elf whose strength is as unsettling as ever. Hawke, no weakling himself and impressively built, once probed the silver-bladed sword (Fenris cherished nearly as much as Varric did Bianca) for several minutes and strained to fathom how Fenris could bear running around with it all day long without having his tendons and ligaments reattached afterwards. How he commiserates and dotes on this brutality of his.

“Oh,” Hawke groans, irony and grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, “I am not going to like this.”

Down the shadowy stairs, through the unlit foyer, up to the storm-pondered font gate and, in an instant, gushes of rain and wind wash over their faces.  

The moment they leave the safety of the house Fenris opens his grasp on Hawke’s hand but the impulse of his powerful motion propels Hawke forward right into the battle ground of the storm. Before he can blink he is soaked to the skin.

Side by side they stand in the sheath of glassy rain, barefooted, barely closed.

Before them the skies are ashore with waves of gloomy clouds. The ever-raging warrior thunder, lightening his merciless blazing blade, is aloud with booming vengeance here and fighting the skies and the earths alike.

A stroke of electrifying light from afar paints the streets and walls of Kirkwall in sharp relieve, a miniscule, insignificant thorp cowering at the feet of blue and gray and black mountains awash by breaking, spuming , spraying waves of stormy sea.

Water streams down the sides of Hawke’s face, filling the tiny spaces between his seeping beard stubbles. Angry winds gush and billow.

Endless rivulets of rain, sapid with the aroma of the wounded skies, flow in streams along the inside of Hawke’s palms, cascade forward from his slack fingertips.  

Hawke closes his eyes.

In he breathes the taste of the thunder and the light, inhaling the raining waters.

All four of their naked, bare feet are engulfed by ankle-deep flows of water.

“Maker’s breath,” Hawke exclaims in a sudden mad fit of laughter, “how can you stand this all day long?”

Since there is no answer, lost in the grace of nature, Hawke finally opens his eyes.

Fenris’ face is only a blur in the embrace of the rains. Winds tear at the strangely pearly white hair glued to his cheeks. Innumerable drops of gleaming water are falling upon the cobbled streets from his naked arms, his pointed ears, the tip of his nose.

So fierce are the winds that their sheer physical strength all but overthrows them – even so, Fenris’ slender shape towers among them indomitable.  His elven face may be blurred by the spray of the gush and rain, his deep green emerald eyes, however, glitter with the rage of the roaring warrior and his blazing blade.

Once again the skies are cast alight and Fenris face flashed, his eyes lit as by a fire within.

Sometimes Hawke wishes he would simply start crying.

He is stepping towards Hawke.

Hawke is giving him a wet smile that he cannot hear through the chaos. His eyes are fixed with studying one single silver bead among a plethora which is running down along his curved neck and disperses wetly into his the well of his collarbone.

“We will both be stone-cold dead by the end of the night.”  

Thirst-ridden Fenris’ eyes blazing virid eyes find his, and his hard mouth, arms entwining around Hawke’s neck, finds his and is pressing against his lips tasting of rain and the aroma of his caramel-shaded skin. Hawke grasps him, savors him not heeding the chatty gossip that might burst from a prying eye behind the dark rain-stained windows around them – who would anyway?

“I am not good at talking about how I feel.” said Fenris once.

In the peach-colored rays of morning light when the horizon will be skewed with skeins of tangerine, Hawke will sleepily wave away Orana’s considerate knock at the door and her regardful eyes peering from behind the bedroom door announcing that breakfast is ready, and Hawke will feel inclined, as ever, to cover Fenris’ long elven ears lest he might give him that glare that brings Hawke to consider a tremendous pay raise each time he does so. Soon, Orana will be wealthier than half of his Hightown neighbors.

For now, however, they trip and splash back inside leaving wet footmarks all over the floor and carpets. Long after drying each other with nowhere near enough towels, the window aglow with firelight reviving honey and daffodil and gold beads, they fall back to sleep, hearts pounding, skins resting, as they always do.

There might and will be many a nightmare in the gloomy nights to come.

But for now, for the remaining fragment of this one short, storm-shaken night, Fenris eases peacefully in his arms.

[kaitoujokerscans]

The Night the Silver Cape is Set Ablaze CH8

<8> Battle Between Rivals

"Hmm, I don't get it..." In the Riviera HQ corridor, Joker tilted his head.

"Same here. Should we do a magic square or rock-paper-scissors like we did before?" Beside him, Hachi tossed out a random guess.

"The magic square and rock-paper-scissors... Ohh! I know!" Joker suddenly exclaimed.

"Joker-san, did you figure it out?"

"Yep, thanks to your hint. You have to combine the magic square and rock-paper-scissors for this puzzle. We just have to work out which one wins every time when going horizontally, vertically, and diagonally!"

"Really?" Hachi examined the numbers.

Joker took out a notepad from his pocket and copied down the 16 numbers. "First, going vertical. The leftmost column is {5, 0, 0, 0}, which works out to paper, rock, rock, rock. Paper wins. That means all the 0s lose," Joker said and crossed out the three 0s.

"Next is the second column. This is {2, 5, 2, 5}, making it scissors, paper, scissors, paper. Scissors wins here, so the 5s lose," said Joker, crossing out the two 5s. "Do the same for the third and fourth columns and X out the rest like this, see?" Joker crossed out the 2s in the third column and the 5s in the fourth column.

"I get it. So any of the numbers that lose here aren't the one we're looking for, right?"

"Yeah. Now go horizontally. Do the same rock-paper-scissors conversions we did with the columns, and..." He went across the rows crossing out one number after another, and in no time, there were only two numbers left out of the sixteen. The other fourteen were all crossed out. The remaining numbers were the 2 in the top row, rightmost column, and the 2 in the second column.

"Which of these two is stronger?" asked Hachi.

Joker puffed up as he answered. "There's still the diagonals, right? The line going from the top-right to the bottom-left is {2, 0, 2, 0}, rocks and scissors, so the scissors lose!" Joker crossed out the top-right 2 last of all.

"Which means..."

"Right. The 2 in the top row, second from the left, is the 'number that doesn't lose'!"

"I see now. That was incredible, Joker-san!"

"I got it because of your hint, you know. All right, time to push the button!"

"Okay! Right on!" Hachi jumped up and pushed the "2" button. There was a low beep, and then the clang of something unlocking. The door slowly opened, revealing the door of the safe holding the Riviera recipe behind it. It certainly looked like a sturdy door.

"Let's get to opening this thing up!" Joker pulled a giant electric saw out of hammerspace.

"Joker-san, what's that...?"

"Hm? This baby can crack open any door or safe. It's my custom Joker electric saw!"

"Then couldn't you just have used that from the start!?"

"Ha ha, now that wouldn't be any fun. A phantom thief uses his brain wherever possible when breaking in." Joker smiled from ear to ear, just before hitting the electric saw's power switch. After a LOT of noise and rattling, the safe was quite literally busted open.

Joker fished the recipe page out of the safe where it had been kept. But he didn't exactly look pleased. "Sheesh, what a letdown. And here I thought I'd finally get back at him for what happened with the Crimson Crystal."

What he said confused Hachi. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"This is where Noir works."

"Whaaat!? Really!?"

Joker picked up an empty popcorn bag off the ground and started to explain. "Yeah. After Noir quit being a spy, he ended up in charge of security at Riviera HQ. If you wanna protect an international secret, get yourself an international spy."

"That makes sense. So he got a job where he could put his spy skills to use... But then why is Noir not around? It's unsettling how there's nothing here."

"You've got that right. I thought sure he'd have a trap set..."

They looked around at the safe room again. It was stark empty, not even a desk or table in sight. Save for a small security camera in one corner, there didn't seem to be much of a security system at all.

"Well, whatever. Let's blow this joint."

Joker and Hachi were just about to leave, when...

The door that they had just come in through budged.

"It's gotta be Noir...!" Joker reflexively pulled out his cards. But the one who came in wasn't the person he had expected.

"Spade!"

"Spade-san!"

Right in front of their eyes were Spade and Dark Eye, who had opened the last door and entered the safe room. They looked surprised to see Joker and Hachi as well.

"Joker!?"

"Kyo kyo kyo!"

"Spade, what are you here for?""

"I could ask you the same thing? Wait, what about Noir...?" Spade asked, darting his eyes around. Apparently Spade had also learned about Noir's link to this place and had come to steal the treasure.

"He's not here. You were a step too late, besides. The 'Riviera Recipe' is mine!" Joker dangled the recipe page and waved it about.

"...Oh, so that's what you were after. Where's Noir? There's something I have to return to him," Spade said, taking an object out of his pocket.

When he saw what it was, Joker was shocked. "That's my Crimson Crystal!"

Spade held up the bright red gemstone and turned up the corners of his lips. "That's right. Noir left it with me because he wanted me to return it to you. But my pride won't let me do that."

"Pride? What exactly did Noir tell you?"

"Well..." Spade clammed up. Noir had said something that injured his pride, no doubt about it. Joker had some idea of what it was. Noir had stolen his treasure.

Then, realizing something, Spade inhaled sharply. "Now I get it. This is Noir's strategy."

"Strategy?"

"He damaged our psyche and provoked our anger, all so that we would come across each other like this."

"You mean he knew that we'd come here?"

"Yes, exactly. And we each have the treasure that the other wants..." Spade's gaze focused on the recipe in Joker's hand. He probably also wanted the recipe so he could put Noir to shame. And in Spade's hand was the Crimson Crystal which Joker had stolen from Kaneari. The two of them stared each other down.

"Joker, this is a great opportunity. How about whoever wins gets the other's treasure?" Spade shot an incendiary look at Joker. He recalled what Noir had said: "Go ahead and chase behind Joker forever..." I'll prove him wrong...!

Joker whipped out his cards and readied himself as well. "Fine by me. Let's do this, Spade!"

"Here I come, Joker!" Spade swiftly unholstered his Ice Shot and aimed it.

A low bellow droned through the dark sky. An enormous ship floated upon the endless night ocean. It was one of the world's most luxurious passenger crafts, Urban of the Sea. The ship, which was 3000 meters long, housed over 1000 guest rooms as well as all kinds of recreational facilities. With its own pool, restaurant, theater, multiple liquor lounges, an ice-skating rink, and even a rock-climbing wall, it was like an entire city stuffed onto a boat. It hosted over 3000 passengers per voyage and visited tourist destinations all over the world.

Tonight, this enormous ship was filled with silence.

The ship had been rented out to VIPs from the Kingdom of Lachla. These VIPs were staying in the best guest room there was, and it was in this room that the Lachla Crown was being kept under heavy security.

This guest room was near the fore of the ship. Spaced away from it, at the aft of the ship, was a huge structure. Though "huge" is an understatement — it was as tall as a five-story building. This cabin, with its obtuse angles, curved up to a circular floor at the top. It was meant as an observatory deck where one could survey the outside scenery. A man stood atop the observatory deck, his black cape fluttering. It was Noir. He was quietly awaiting Silver Heart. Soon, I can have my long-awaited revenge...

"So you're here..." murmured Noir, sensing a presence. A man had come up behind him. His white double-breasted suit was smartly buttoned, and his silver cape fluttered. His straight, upright bearing hardly suggested his age. This was the legendary phantom thief, Silver Heart!

"It's been a long time, Noir."

"Yes. I wanted to see you, Silver... or rather, you're Silver Heart now, aren't you?"

Strangely enough, Silver Heart didn't feel at all wistful as he observed Noir. He had certainly aged, but Noir's face hadn't lost the keenness from when he had known him as a spy. Silver Heart glared at Noir. "I heard, Noir. So you've become a phantom thief."

"Yes, I retired from being a spy. Because of you. Now I'm the head of security for a beverage manufacturer."

"Because of me?"

"You heard me. You ran away from me and kept being a thorn in my side..."

"You're right. I was probably running away from you... from my responsibilities as a spy. I couldn't put up with the ruthlessness of it anymore. I couldn't become as cold-blooded as you..."

"Heh heh heh, are you so sure that's the case?"

"What...?" Silver Heart continued to stare down Noir.

"We'll fight once more, with you as cold-blooded as you once were. Whoever wins the match can take the Lachla Crown," said Noir. He pulled the cloth off a table set up on the deck. Lying upon it was a crown studded with brilliant jewels. Noir had already stolen the Lachla Crown!

"I've already put the Lachlans to sleep. If you want this, you have to steal it from me."

"So that's what you're after..."

"This brings me back... you and I once infiltrated Lachla in order to destroy this. But it was your fault that the plan went awry. Now that I think about it, we've been at odds ever since..." Noir mused, his eyes focused on the crown.

But Silver Heart lowered his voice and spoke. "I will never again be like I was. There's not an ounce of spy left in me."

"Heh heh heh, humans don't ever really change. You're a cold-blooded spy. And if you aren't, you'll never be able to win against me..."

"That's not true. I'm going to fight against you as a phantom thief." Silver faced back to Noir and strengthened his grip on his rod. "Noir, our long-overdue reunion wasn't so emotional after all..."

"I expected as much. Here I come, Silver!" Not even a moment later, Noir kicked off the ground and lunged at Silver Heart.

The floor split open with a bang, and Joker and Spade plummeted down towards the floor below.

"Joker-san!"

"Kyo kyo, Spade-sama!"

Hachi and Dark Eye peeked down over the edge to see them lying on the ground, still squabbling with each other. The lower floor was a recreational sports center with a pool, exercise machines, a running track, and more. They let each other go, took their distance, and stood off against each other.

"Been a while since I fought you like this, Spade."

"Yes, but that's because you never take me seriously."

"Not true!" Joker took an advance notice card out of his pocket and quickly scribbled something on it. "Spade, I'm gonna take the treasure from you, no two ways about it!"

"Heh heh heh, now that's more like it. Then we'll face off in a minute-long match, like the one you lost to Noir in."

"Ghh..." Joker bit his lip bitterly. So Spade had known about Joker and Noir's match after all. "All right. I'll steal the treasure from you in one minute, no more than that!"

"And if you can't?"

"I can!" Joker pulled cards out of his breast pocket and threw them at Spade. "Emblem Fire!" The cards caught fire one by one and flew straight towards Spade.

"Ice Shot!" Spade used his Ice Shot to closely target and freeze the cards.

"Not bad! Emblem Fire!" Joker tossed more cards out. A flurry of cards scattered to every corner of the room, sticking into the walls and sinking into the pool. While Spade was shooting down the cards that were coming his way, Joker jumped to the side. He flipped around and leapt toward Spade. Once he was in front of him, he fanned out his cards. "Straight Flash!"

"Not good enough! Ice Shot Mirror!" Spade spun his Ice Shot around and made a small mirror of ice in midair. It reflected the light from the Straight Flash, blinding Joker.

"Gwah!"

"Ha ha ha! Your attacks are so repetitive!" Spade froze the pool with his Ice Shot, slid the blades out of his shoes, and skated onto the makeshift rink. "Catch me if you can!"

"Gah! Says the guy who only ever uses Ice Shot!"

Going after Spade, Joker stepped onto the makeshift rink. But he slipped and fell right onto his back with a magnificent thud. "Owwwww...."

"It's been almost a minute. There's no way I'm going to lose to you...!" Spade spun about on the ice and faced back to him. He was saying this not just about Joker, but about Noir as well.

"Say that again...?" Joker glared hard at Spade.

Spade was looking down at Joker with cold eyes. "Now that I'm standing before you like this, I feel a bit of pity. For myself. I hate how bothered I am by your existence."

"..." Joker listened quietly.

"Well, it's just about time. Fifteen seconds left... if you admit your loss here and now, I'll at least acknowledge you have the skills to be my rival." Spade silently pointed his Ice Shot.

But Joker shook his head with a derisive laugh. "No thanks. I'll decide my rivals on my own. And Spade, you're my rival in every respect."

"I'm what...?"

Just then, the ice under Spade's feet cracked loudly. "What!?" Spade involuntarily lost his balance. Joker immediately ran up to him and swiped the Crimson Crystal out of Spade's hand. At the same time, he pushed against the ice and jumped over to the poolside.

"Waaaugh!" The ice surrounding him split, and Spade splashed into the pool. Thoroughly soaked, Spade poked his head out of the water with a gasp and scowled at Joker. "W-What... did you do!?"

"It's simple. I set up my Emblem Fire inside the pool."

"You what...!?" Sure enough, when he looked at the ice, there were ashes from the burned cards. "...But the fire should have gone out when it was underwater!"

"Didn't you know? Gunpowder doesn't need external oxygen to burn, so it can stay aflame even underwater. There's a substance in fireworks that lets them keep burning even when they're immersed."

"You're kidding..."

"As soon as I saw the pool, I knew you'd freeze it over. That's why I shot Emblem Fire into it in advance. Then I just had to wait for the spot you were on to melt."

"You... predicted my attack..."

"Heh heh, you're pretty repetitive too," said Joker, spitting Spade's words right back at him. "Just as warned, I've stolen the Crimson Crystal in under a minute!"

"Ghh...!" Spade bit his lip and balled up his fists.

"Spade, you can challenge me any time," grinned Joker.

Just then, they heard a scream from outside the window. "KYAAAAAAAA!"

Looking out, they saw a blob of pink in the night sky approaching them at high speed. It was Queen, holding onto Balloon Gum.

"Queen!?"

Carried by powerful gusts of wind, Queen was hurtling their way.

She's going to crash into the window glass...! Joker used his Emblem Fire and Spade used his Ice Shot to break the glass, and Queen was forcefully swept into the building.

"T-Thanks."

"Queen, what's up?"

"Trouble. Noir sent out an advance notice. He's going to steal the treasure that Grandpa is after!"

"He's what!?" Joker and Spade exclaimed in unison.

Then there was a series of loud rumbles as reinforced shutters rolled over each wall and the ceiling.

"Oh shoot...!"

The three of them were trapped on this floor.

[reyesstrand]

#9 for Tarlos please 🥰

thank you for the prompt! i hope you enjoy!! 💗

feel free to send me a number from this list. also available on ao3!

((tw: minor description of blood/injuries caused by a car accident)) 

Ever since he was a kid, he knew that it was hard to leave some calls at the scene.

Sometimes they lingered on the trip back to the firehouse, where a silence fell over the whole crew as nothing but dead air passed between their headsets. Other times, they dug in deeper, as if they were physical things with claws and teeth, refusing to be shaken off until something worse occupied their minds. He saw it enough with his dad when he was still a little too young to understand why he had to work such long hours; he saw it when the towers fell, and it was like he had to grow up overnight, practically set aflame at the thought that he could’ve lost his dad, like other kids lost their parents in a single moment.

TK doesn’t let that stop him from giving his all, though, even if that means he becomes too personally wedged into rescues.

It seems like it’s going to be a standard day, when they get the call from dispatch about a motor vehicle accident. The rest of the team seems to think the same thing—given the fact that they seemingly have no qualms about pushing him for the juicy details on his date night last night, only spurred on by the fact that Carlos had picked him up at the station yesterday afternoon and dropped him back off this morning.

“Come on, aren’t we supposed to be professionals here?” TK says, though he can barely get it out without smiling.

Immediately, voices erupt around him through his headset, all of them essentially calling his bullshit. Marjan smacks him in the shoulder. 

“Hey!” TK laughs, nudging her in the side with his elbow in retaliation. 

“If you spilled the details, maybe I’ll go easy on you,” Marjan says, cocking a brow, and TK rolls his eyes and barely suppresses a groan. 

“There’s nothing to tell?” TK tries, though he knows his lie is evident to all of them. 

“That hickey says otherwise,” Judd pipes up, and TK shoots him a glare. 

“Come on now, children,” his dad says, and TK huffs a little laugh. 

And then he looks out the window as the rig slows. 

“Shit,” Paul says, following TK’s line of vision. And, well, yeah. Because the road is a mess, various vehicles piled up. But it’s what’s at the heart of the accident that catches all of their attention: a semi-truck, tipped onto its side, with a dull grey car trapped underneath. 

“Okay, everyone, all hands on deck,” Owen says, all of them out of the truck the moment it comes to a full stop. They’re the first to the scene, only a few police cruisers trying to set up a barrier, and so he hears his dad yell to him that he’s on point for checking on the car driver. It’s all he needs to hear to immediately jump into action, even as his dad keeps shouting orders for Paul and Judd to grab the jaws and deal with the truck driver. 

He and Marjan move into a jog, hiking their gear up high on their shoulders. 

Once they get to the driver’s side of the car, TK knows it’s going to be a tough day. 

The driver is completely crushed under the weight of the steering column, the whole front of her car folded in like an accordion. There’s blood dripping from a gash on her forehead, and what looks to be a broken arm, and TK has only barely set eyes on her and he already doesn’t like the way she’s trying so hard to breathe. 

“Ma’am? My name’s TK, and this is Marjan, we’re AFD,” TK starts, the spiel coming out of his mouth without a second thought. Marjan clears the window of the sharp shards of broken glass, giving them more room to work; he meets her eyes and she nods, reaching down for her radio to call for the jaws and some extra hands. “Can you tell me your name?” 

“Rachel,” she gasps, and TK nods, pressing his fingers to her wrist that looks mostly uninjured for a pulse. It’s weak, but he tries to school his features so she can’t see his worry. 

“Marjan, we’re going to need to secure her neck, and once medical gets here we’re going to need to get her on oxygen,” he says, before meeting Rachel’s eyes. “Okay, Rachel, we’re getting you out of here. We just need a minute to secure you.” 

“Hurts to—breathe,” she stutters, and TK clenches his jaw. Marjan opens the backdoor of the car with a few good tugs, and slips into the seat, reaching around to place a neck brace on Rachel. 

“TK, tell me what’s going on.” 

His dad’s voice pulls him from listening to Rachel’s shallow breathing, and he responds: “Female driver, she’s completely pinned, Cap. Weak pulse, low BP—I need medical here now.” 

“They’re coming, maybe a minute out,” his dad says, sidling up to him. He looks through the car and meets TK’s eyes, both of them knowing how time sensitive this rescue is going to be. 

TK feels a little relieved when he sees Mateo arrive with a backboard, and Nancy and Tim trailing just steps behind him. Judd’s voice crackles through the radio, informing them that the truck driver’s only a little banged up. 

“Hey, Rachel, the paramedics are here now, okay?” TK says, though when she latches onto his arm, he squeezes her hand. “I won’t leave you.” 

She nods, looking at him with wide, scared eyes.

When Nancy gets the other side of the car open, pulling a nasal cannula from her bag and talking with Tim about her ABCs, TK keeps her looking at him. She looks like she’s going to drop any second, tears sliding through the grime on her cheeks, her breaths still too weak. 

“Hey, just talk to me,” TK says, his only thought to keep her awake. 

Rachel just starts crying harder. 

TK meets Nancy’s eyes from across the car, and feels Marjan at his side. “Hey, hey, Rachel. Listen to me. Do you have someone? Someone waiting for you at home?” 

“Lena,” she sniffles, her voice growing weaker. “We’re—we’re getting married in April.” 

“Tell me about her,” TK says, eyes pleading, barely registering the murmured conversation around them as a plan forms. 

“She’s always worrying about me, calls me a danger magnet,” she laughs wetly, and neither of them mention the blood that stains her lips. 

“Sounds like my boyfriend,” he tells her, and she meets his eyes, something hopeful presented in her gaze. “I got shot last year and burst my stitches a week later. He tells me all the time that I’m not allowed to go to the hospital again unless I want to send him to an early grave.”

Rachel smiles at him, faintly, and squeezes his hand. “She—she’s my best friend. I just want to see her again.” 

“You will,” TK says, before he can even think about what he’s promising. 

He steps back for a moment, being pulled into the plan from his dad. He’s left with the job of talking to Rachel, considering he’s made the most significant contact with her. 

TK takes a deep breath, and returns, frowning at her pained expression. “Okay, Rachel. We’re going to have to use some equipment to get you out, and I won’t lie to you, it’s going to hurt. But think of Lena, okay? I promise you that we’ll get you back to her.” 

“But my chest,” she groans, trying weakly to move against the weight pushing her down again. Both he and Nancy immediately reach out to settle her, hands on her shoulders. “I think I have a concussion, and—and it hurts. Everything hurts.”

“You’re going to see her, so soon,” TK promises, imagining what he’d want to hear if he were in her place. He thinks of Carlos, and knows he’d do anything if it meant getting home to him. “I swear to you. I will make sure you get home to her.” 

“TK,” Marjan whispers, and he meets her gaze before his eyes flit away. He knows what it means, to make impossible promises. But he fully intends on keeping this one. 

“Now, I’m going to count down from three, and me and my team are cutting you out of here, okay?” TK says, and she nods, eyes closing tight. “Think of Lena.” 

It’s a bit of a mess, once Owen starts them on the routine procedure, using the jaws and every tool they have to remove the driver’s door; to wedge her out from the steering column. Once she’s on the backboard and lifted onto the stretcher, they start losing her, and Tim immediately starts on compressions. 

TK holds his breath, staggering back against the car. Marjan squeezes his shoulder until they hear Nancy declare that she’s got a pulse. They rush her to the ambulance, and that’s supposed to be it. TK knows it. 

“Take a breather,” his dad says, cupping the back of his neck. TK nods, feeling exhaustion ache deep in his bones. “You did good, kid.” 

TK just nods again. Marjan knocks her shoulder into his before giving him some space, heading off to check the few witnesses still standing around for any superficial injuries. He ends up walking to somewhere private, which ends up being the back of the ladder truck, where he can lean against the paneling and keep himself upright. 

He doesn’t realize how out of it he feels until there’s hands gently cupping either side of his face, carefully tipping his head up. 

“Carlos?” TK’s voice sounds weak even to his own ears, and his boyfriend nods, looking concerned. 

“TK, are you okay?” Carlos asks, and it’s only when he drags his thumbs across TK’s cheeks and wipes away the tears there that TK realizes he’d even been crying. “Sweetheart...”

“I’m okay,” TK says, sniffing hard. “I swear. I’m just exhausted.”

He leans into Carlos’ touch, though, because he’s got his boyfriend here and doesn’t want to have to let him go just yet. 

He voices his desire, barely audible to anyone but his boyfriend. “Stay with me for a minute? I just need to—to get my head on straight.” 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Carlos whispers, and TK sighs and drops his head to rest against Carlos’ chest. 

“Just—just a rough call,” he murmurs, mostly into Carlos’ uniform. He feels a hand carding through his hair, and settles under the touch. “I’m glad you’re here.” 

“I’ll be wherever you need me, Ty,” Carlos says, ducking down to press a kiss to the crown of TK’s head. “Always.” 

[queen--kenobi]

hi ٩( ᐛ )و can i get a 1) cant sleep with jed?

i hope you have a good day ⭐️

50 Reasons to Have Sex

Can’t sleep with Jed Olsen/Danny Johnson and AFAB reader!

Warnings for breath play, degradation/humilation, orgasm control, BDSM, and marking!

The problem with Jed teaching you how to be more aware of your surroundings in case of danger is that you can never sleep. You’re hyper-aware of everything now, and darkness amplifies it.  Every creak has you bolting upright, every squeak has you tossing and turning, every noise has you on edge.

You roll over again. You try to will your brain to shut down for even an hour.

The bed creaks. You stiffen.

The lamp on the bedside table flickers to life. Jed rolls back onto his back. He stretches his arms above his head before turning his head to look at you. You try to hide more under the covers, pulling them closer to your body. He sighs.

“I can hear your brain running a mile a minute.” He grumbles, his voice thick with sleep. The grogginess makes it hard to tell if he’s teasing you or criticizing you.

“Sorry.” You murmur. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m just having one of those nights.”

Jed grumbles. He motions for you to come close to him. You scoot closer. He sighs.

“Closer. I’m not going to bite.” He grabs your wrist and pulls you so you’re touching his side. “Yet.” You huff. You try to hide your embarrassment by burying your face in his shoulder. Jed never wore a shirt to bed, so the skin to skin contact is nice. It helps quell some of your mounting anxiety. You close your eyes for a second and enjoy the peace.

Something makes a loud noise. You nearly jump out of your skin at the sound, your head turning towards the door. Jed lets out a long sigh.

“It’s the ice maker.” His voice is thick with impatience. You bury your head into his shoulder again so he can’t see your face. You know your cheeks are hot. You can feel his gaze as he considers what to do with you. He places a finger under your chin and forces you to lift your head up. “I know what will work.”

You blink. He slips one of his hands under each of your arms and pulls you on top of him. You squeak with surprise. He chuckles at that.  He begins tugging at the sheets to pull them down. You get the hint and unravel yourself from them. You lean down so your chest is pressed against his. You place your forearms on either side of his chest so the entirety of your weight doesn’t rest on him.

“You’re so dense sometimes.” For a second, you think you can hear fondness in his tone. He lifts your chin with his finger again and looks at you. You lean forward and kiss him. He makes a content noise, a rumble from somewhere within his chest. The hand that was lifting your chin goes to the back of your head to pull you closer. His other hand rests on your waist. You bring one of your hands up to bury your fingers in his hair. When he pulls away, his eyes are dark. The hand on the back of your head becomes decidedly less gentle as he buries his fingers in your hair. He uses his grip to pull your head up, exposing the column of your neck. He scrapes his teeth over your throat, and you can’t help the whimper that escapes you. You can feel him grin against your skin as he lazily sucks a mark into the soft skin.

It’s hard to move, but you manage to get your hands underneath the tops of his shoulders. You runs your fingers down along his back, making sure to dig your nails slightly into the skin. He rewards you with a nip to your collarbone and a hiss against your skin. You can’t help your smirk. He yanks your hair harder.

“Fucking brat.” He growls, but you can tell he’s not all that upset. He lets go of your hair and flips the two of you over. You’re always surprised by the surprising amount of grace he moves with. The motion is fluid. You squeak when your back hits the mattress. Jed takes the hem of your sleep shirt in his hands, and you take the hint. You throw it off to the side somewhere. He stares down at you hungrily before kissing you again. You wrap one arm around him to deepen the kiss and use the other to map out his chest. 

Jed manhandles you easily, sliding you down so he’s settled more between your legs. He presses against you. You arch up towards him. You can already feel his semi-erection pressing against your core. You roll your hips, and he lets out a soft hiss in return. He leans down abd begins littering your chest with bite marks. When you go to dig your nails into his back, he stops to grab your wrists and pin them above your head with a single hand.

“Don’t move.” His voice is a deep growl that sends a shiver up your spine. You nod, not trusting yourself to speak. He bends his head down again, teasing at your nipples until you feel like you can’t take anymore. He uses his fingers and mouth until you’re whimpering. He grins and moves back up to kiss you. You try to subtle grind against him. His free hand instantly comes up to your throat. He doesn’t squeeze yet, just presses as a warning. You nod.

“Good girl.” His grin is feral. He lets go of your wrists. Jed watches for a minute to make sure you keep them above your head. Once he’s satisfied you won’t move them, he rips down your sleep pants in one go. You lift your hips to help him. He pauses. You still your movements again. He moves his thumb to hover right over one the blossoming hickies on your neck. He waits once again. You tremble with effort as you try to keep yourself still. This time, his grin is lazy. 

“I knew you could follow orders.” He teases. “Takes you a bit to learn, but we can work on that.” He shifts and takes himself in hand. You’re wet but not stretched, so it hurts slightly as he slides into you. He watches your face. You let out a hiss at the discomfort, which makes him chuckle. He at least waits for you to adjust once he’s all the way inside you. It takes all of your willpower to not move. 

Jed snaps his hips. He settles into a quick and dirty rhythm. As he does so, he tightens his grip on your throat. He starts to go too far, and your hands drop as you try to push at his shoulders. He stop his movements. Thankfully, he ease up on the pressure. You take in a deep breath, gasping for a second. Once you’ve done that, he narrows his eyes. He presses hard into one of the hickies he’s left. You let out a whimper that’s somewhere between pain and pleasure. That makes him laugh. He starts up again. Jed didn’t move your hands back up over your head, so you keep them on his shoulders. You don’t move them, though. You have no idea how he might react.

He drops his free hand down to your clit and starts rubbing slow circles around it. They start large and grow smaller and smaller with each movement. You whimper in delight. It’s so hard to not dig your nails into his skin. He bites down at the juncture of your collarbone and shoulder. He keeps at the movements until he feels you tremble around him.

“Are you going to cum for me?” He asks. His voice is ragged, betraying him. “Are you going to cum for me like the good little slut you are?” You nod, not trusting yourself to speak. “Yeah you fucking are because you’re a little slut who just, fuck, who just wants to be used and abused.” Jed shifts suddenly, moving so he can sit back on his heels. He moves your hips. The new angle has hit him grazing right against that spot inside of you that makes you see stars. Your toes curl. Your legs quake. Jed laughs.

“You should look at yourself. You’re all fucked out and cock drunk. You’re such a fucking slut, huh? You love this, don’t you? I’m the only one, fuck, who can fuck you this good.”

“Can I-?” You take a deep breath. “Can I cum/ i need to cum please let me cum.” You plead. Jed stills his hips for a second. His grin is feral.

“Who’s is this?” He slaps your thighs, so close to where the two of you are joined.

“Yours.”

“That’s what I thought.” He starts moving again. His fingers move back to your clit. He moves his hand back to your throat and presses even harder into one of your bruises. “You can cum, but don’t take all day.”

It’s a little difficult to regain where you were, but it’s not impossible. You’re soon close again. He can tell from the look in his eyes. He nods, and you let yourself tumble over the edge. You’re vaguely aware that you thank him as you do so. He fucks you through it without a thought to your comfort. He snarls when he spills inside of you and drapes himself over you.

The two of you lay there for a moment, chest heaving. He looks down at you.

“You better go the fuck to sleep.” Jed warns as he pulls out of you. You nod. That wasn’t going to a problem anymore.