#seriously jesus fuck SO fucking long

[fuckyeahisawthat]

What is Mage Viktor doing?

So it turns out I do have a take on what's going on with Mage Viktor, why he's messing with timelines in the way he is, and what he hoped to achieve by bringing Jayce to the torment nexus dimension and then sending him back to his own timeline armed with facial hair, trauma, and the ruthless determination to somehow stop his own Viktor.

Of course this is just my own reading; there are many ways you can interpret the reveals of the final episode. But it's become my preferred reading because it makes Mage Viktor come off as absolutely BATSHIT. The apotheosis of all Viktor's best and worst qualities. As he would be.

First we gotta lay out some fundamental principles about how I understand Viktor that will inform this reading.

Viktor was never being controlled by the Hexcore. This deserves its own whole meta, but tl;dr, I think it is directly antithetical to the core themes of the show to think that Viktor wasn't making his own decisions all through s2.

Over and over again in Arcane, we see characters become "monsters" and do monstrous things, and every time the thematic point is that this is still the person you love. When Vi says that her sister is dead because she is Jinx now and when Jayce says "my partner died in this room" THEY ARE BOTH WRONG. The person they love is different now but they're still in there and they can still be reached.

Viktor is transformed by something terrible happening to him (like many characters in the show!) but all his decisions are still his own and to me they seem like perfectly consistent--if extreme--extensions of what we know about him as a character before he gets a Hexcore heart.

So my analysis starts with the premise that Mage Viktor is not trying to free his past self from an outside influence. He's trying to hack his own character traits to make a different version of himself do what he wants.

Viktor is BOTH genuinely altruistic and compassionate AND deeply arrogant. This is such a banger combination and I think turning down the dial on either trait makes Viktor less interesting. I think Mage Viktor has genuine remorse about what he did in his timeline and he is, fundamentally, trying to find a way he could have stopped himself from killing everyone (within certain constraints; we'll get to that). When Jayce is able to show main timeline Herald Viktor his memories of what Viktor is about to do to their world, the first thing Viktor sees is not dead Jayce, or himself left alone in an empty world. It's all the ordinary people who are going to die terrified because of him.

I do not think any version of Viktor wanted this result. But Viktor is so convinced he is always right that his arrogance carries him right past the point of no return before he realizes oh actually I haven't freed everybody I have killed them.

So I do think Mage Viktor is trying to find a timeline where this doesn't happen, but he is not timeline-hopping in order to preemptively stop other versions of himself from making the same mistake. If he wanted to do that, he would just leave all the many many timelines where Jayce dies in a blizzard as a child alone. No Jayce who grows up obsessed with magic, goes around Academy rules to get the hex crystals, invents Hextech and gives Viktor the power to fuck everything up. Easy peasy.

But no. Instead, Viktor is actively going into other timelines and changing them at the point where Jayce would have died.

He is doing things that appear to make the sequence of events that leads to his world-ending magic blast WAY MORE LIKELY. And that's because...

Viktor is obsessively selfish when it comes to Jayce.

Mage Viktor wants to find a timeline where he doesn't doom the world but not at the expense of meeting Jayce and spending years doing science with him.

If the goal was only to prevent Jayce from dying in the blizzard, he could have done it quietly, waiting for Jayce to collapse in the snow and then transporting him to the base of the mountain, leaving before Jayce had any idea who saved him. Instead he makes SUCH A DRAMATIC PRODUCTION of it that Jayce remembers and can repeat the steps of the action years later, well enough that he actually produces a working spell from a barely-tested Hextech prototype. Mage Viktor wants that shit burned into baby Jayce's brain. He wants to make sure he fundamentally alters the arc of Jayce's life, bending it into a trajectory that collides with his own.

Viktor also (as far as we see) doesn't go the route of going back in time and killing his younger self, or steering the course of his own life along a path where he never meets Jayce. He doesn't even go for a timeline where he and Jayce meet each other but they don't invent Hextech. Now maybe it's the case that some time before our Jayce arrives in his timeline, Mage Viktor tried all that, and has figured out that none of those options work. (Maybe in some of those timelines Jayce is the one who goes Machine Herald, and there's no partner there to talk him off the ledge of ending the world.) But I think it's also possible that, now that he's gotten the experience in one timeline of spending years with Jayce making once-in-a-generation scientific breakthroughs together (which I truly believe is just as important a part of their relationship to Viktor as any romantic or sexual element might be)...he can't bear to deny any version of himself the chance of having that--even if the price is the rest of the world. Because a world where Jayce isn't his partner isn't a world worth saving.

So what I think Mage Viktor is doing is sitting there with his stubborn engineer brain and the husk of his dead soulmate, fiddling with the timelines like a Rubik's cube, going Not meeting Jayce CANNOT be the only option. There MUST be a timeline where Jayce and I meet each other and entangle our lives in an alarmingly codependent way AND we dodge the apocalypse at the last minute, I don't end up killing him, and we do not doom the world together. And I'm going to fucking find it.

So he's been hitting timeline after timeline, trying to find the combination of factors where everything works. He is not trying to preemptively save every timeline from himself, he is trying to prove to himself that meeting the love of his life doesn't doom the entire fucking world. It's devotion that is SO PROFOUNDLY SELFISH that he is willing to doom timeline after timeline, but driven by someone with enough compassion and pride that he doesn't want the guilt and shame of knowing he can only have this one life-changing thing if he ruins everything else for everyone, and enough arrogance to still look at this as a problem he must be smart enough to solve.

At some point in this process, I think he also figures out that Jayce is the only person who has any chance of reasoning with any version of himself. I think it's worth paying attention to the exact wording of his "in all timelines, in all possibilities" speech, because it's not just a love confession (although it is that).

"I thought I could bring an end to the world's suffering. But when every equation was solved, all that remained were fields of dreamless solitude. There is no prize to perfection. Only an end to pursuit. In all timelines, in all possibilities, only you can show me this."

And while this is some hella romantic cosmic soulmate level shit, it is also Viktor saying I need you, because you are the only person I have ever trusted enough to save me from myself.

It's the Hexcore promise all over again. Viktor knew he couldn't destroy his own creation. I read this not as Viktor being physically unable to destroy it because the Hexcore had some power over him, but not having the will to destroy it. Because this huge leap in Hextech technology was his big breakthrough and not (as I think he saw it) him supporting Jayce's dream. He knew he couldn't do it. So he asked Jayce to do it for him. Please, save me from my own pride, my desire to leave a legacy. I can't do it on my own.

It's a huge extension of trust, for Viktor to admit such a need. And now he's doing it again when the stakes are MUCH MUCH higher. I need you, because you are the only person who can show me the horror of what I am about to do and have me believe it.

Of course, the deep irony is that really the only person Viktor trusts to tell him he is wrong is HIMSELF FROM THE FUTURE. Astral plane Machine Herald Viktor is standing right behind Jayce, watching Jayce's memory of Mage Viktor telling him what the consequences of his actions will be, and that is the moment the horror sinks in and cracks him fully out of his machine shell.

But of course Jayce is the only person he would ever trust enough to carry such a message (from himself!!) to somewhere close enough to reach him.

It's not clear exactly how much of a detailed plan Mage Viktor has when he sends Jayce back to the main timeline, or how much of that plan he shares with Jayce. But I think he has figured out some broad strokes which affect how Jayce behaves.

(1) Jayce has to immediately go and kill commune Viktor. Squishing Salo is maybe a bonus side quest, but Jayce doesn't even take time to fucking shower before he heads for the commune. (I would love to see the part of the conversation where Mage Viktor is like yeah you know that pit you just climbed out of? Yeah the first thing you gotta do is go right back in there, all the way to the bottom, and find me looking like ethereal cyborg Jesus and blast a fucking hole through my chest.) Maybe this is because if Jayce waits around at all, commune Viktor finds a way to get to him and he folds and joins the cult. Maybe this is because there are just fewer variables involved in forcing Viktor to speedrun his own villain arc by Jayce repeatedly turning him down in one "perfect" form after another. Maybe Mage Viktor knows himself well enough to realize "yeah if you say no to me even ONE TIME but ESPECIALLY when you are HOT and SUFFERING I will go fucking apeshit and we can use that to our advantage."

(2) I think Mage Viktor has realized that he can only be stopped at the very very VERY last minute. He has to be able to see the direct line between what he is about to do right now and the arcane-blasted hell world he's about to create. Otherwise his ego will get in the way and tell him he is smart enough to figure out a way to somehow not kill everybody. Yeah Mage Viktor fucked that one up obviously, but I, main timeline Viktor, will be smart enough and well-intentioned enough when the time comes to simply not do that. I think this is why, for example, Jayce doesn't go to the commune trying to get Viktor to see the error of his ways. It won't work until it is allllmost too late.

Main timeline Viktor stops literally seconds before the point of no return. The arcane corruption spikes that we see everywhere in Mage Viktor's world are already starting to appear.

I think Mage Viktor knows that Jayce has to let him get right up to the edge, close enough to be looking over into the abyss, before he'll be able to pull him back.

But he knows Jayce can do that. That's what they do for each other, right?

This is why I think it was always the plan for Jayce to fight him all the way to the top of the Hexgate, and then surrender. Jayce has to survive until the end of the fight, and maybe for magical physics reasons he has to wait until Viktor sends the anomaly into the sky above the Hexgate. But once they get to the top of the Hexgate tower he stops trying to fight Viktor altogether. Maybe Mage Viktor told him exactly when it had to happen or maybe he just realizes this is the exact same place where he died in Mage Viktor's world; this is his last chance. But in any case, Jayce lands on the top of the Hexgate on his knees and he doesn't try to get up.

He waits, and when he senses Viktor behind him he doesn't try to fight or run away.

I think he knows, either because Mage Viktor told him or through his own intuition, that he has to let Viktor pull him into the astral plane if he wants a chance at reaching him.

How exactly he was going to get through to him and/or get close enough to share the memories before Viktor assimilated him...ehhhh I don't know if either of them had that figured out. The "you were never broken" part of Jayce's speech, while important from a character perspective...very crucially DOES NOT WORK. IT DOES NOT WORK AT ALL. Viktor is assimilating Jayce the whole time. You can see Jayce's astral body changing from the unique version that's still him (like his hands on the left, when he first enters the astral plane--which still look more or less human even though Viktor has already erased "imperfections" like the scrapes and cuts from his time in the pit and the arcane corruption that's spreading up and down his arm from where the rune is embedded) into a featureless gold blob like the other assimilated people.

You can watch the gold light creeping up his body steadily during those lines until it reaches his eyes.

The ONLY thing that stops this timeline from ending the same way Mage Viktor's does...is EKKO.

I think you can make the case that Mage Viktor sent Ekko to the no-Hextech timeline intentionally. But it is such a complex chain of causality for Ekko to get to the point where he's chucking a time machine at Herald Viktor's face that there is no way anyone--even a remorseful demigod with lots of time on his hands--could control every possible factor.

However elaborate Mage Viktor's plan was, and however determined Jayce was to keep his promise to him, it all would have failed if not for factors outside their control and random fucking chance.

Arcane is FULL of near-misses and what-could-have-beens and characters who are trying their best to do something getting knocked off course by consequences they never could have foreseen. Season 2 in particular introduces a persistent thread of chaos and the sense that even events that have understandable root causes are now spiraling out of characters' control. So it feels fitting that such a moment factors into the show's ending.

This is Jayce right before Ekko blasts through spacetime right above Viktor's head.

Yeah that guy was cooked.

The only thing that stops Jayce from being assimilated is Ekko breaking time to throw the Z drive at Viktor's face.

Which startles Viktor enough that he takes his hand off Jayce's head in the physical realm, and also breaks a piece of his machine mask off in the astral realm.

As he always does when one of his "perfect" bodies gets damaged, Viktor withdraws and tried to hide, enough that he lets go of the assimilation connection with Jayce.

Jayce starts to regain his own identity/autonomy.

And he gets a do-over. Exactly the same way Ekko used the Z drive to get a do-over with Jinx when he was trying to talk her out of suicide. Jayce gets another chance, and that's when he goes for "all I want is my partner back" and "because I promised you." Which works.

Mage Viktor's plan, I think, was for Jayce to help main timeline Viktor realize what he was doing before it was too late, and then give him the runestone, which allows him to release all the minds/souls that are connected to him before this becomes some runaway chain reaction of arcane power that swallows everything around him. (How the runestone does this exactly, and how the anomalies play into it, is stuff I am still thinking about. But tbh I am less concerned with the details of made-up magic physics than I am with the character beats.) Mage Viktor had accepted that main timeline Viktor was probably going to die in this process and he'd made peace with it. That's what "should" have happened anyway, if Viktor never found a way to forestall his illness, right? As long as this Viktor got to spend the best years of his life with his Jayce, it was okay.

I don't think Mage Viktor ever expected Jayce to stay there until the end. His goal was to save the world and spare Jayce from himself. And why would he plan otherwise? We know why Jayce stays, but Mage Viktor never got that part of the story. He schlorped up his own Jayce's consciousness with everyone else and maybe he only understood the depths of what Jayce felt for him in the moment that he was killing him. And main timeline Viktor certainly does not expect Jayce to stay. He's shocked when he realizes Jayce has no intention of leaving. No, that wasn't part of any master plan. That part was all Jayce.

[naivety]

my sense of urgency for this election was all used up watching a genocide play out live on instagram while my mom continued to talk about which politician might make the housing market better and i tried not to genuinely lose my mind over the dissonance. in all honesty short of bombs dropping on americans' houses my adrenal glands are beyond checked out. i'll show up to the polls and do my part and try to plug into the bare bones direct action i can find in the middle of nowhere deep red county state but god. there are so many posts circulating trying to fear monger me into voting for one genocidal president of this genocidal nation over another and i may as well live on a different planet. i can fathom the urgency but i could not make myself feel it short of being held at gunpoint. which may even be on the ballot but that's how americans have been voting for decades now and each of them regardless of party has worried about the idea of being held at gunpoint while a right of theirs is taken away while there are people who are already being held at gunpoint and their rights have already been taken away by the very people being beamed into my eyeballs as the escape from this hypothetical violence that's already non-hypothetically happened to millions who aren't US liberals because of the america they're trying to save from trump the same america regardless of democrats or republicans or whigs or federalists and does anyone else feel like they're going crazy

[queerofthedagger]

behold! sauron.

[lab-gr0wn-lambs]

Steven Universe.. hit different and I don’t really understand why? Thinking about any of my other old hypefixations, I smile. But Steven Universe just makes me a deeply uncomfortable kind of sad that latches onto my brain like a leech and doesn’t let go for many hours. And I have no idea what it did to deserve that lmao

[frostbite-the-bat]

... My parents really for real are leaving the uncleaned, rotten potato juice and other misc unknown juice infested, LITERALLY FRUIT FLY LARVAE INFESTED, cupboards, in the bathroom,

For like the 4th day starting today if I am counting right

Sure just don't let me shower sure just let me get paranoid over the larvae sure make me not trust the bathtub for like a week sure let the place get more infested sure let it stink up the whole place SURE LEAVE THE FUCKING BATHROOM UNUSABLE

[deepfriedpaddymayne]

no more sand wrestling…. no more poetry guys….. no confrontation about fake family… no post episode 6 feels….. kills and maims i want my stupid wife back he deserves catharsis

ok I know it's not Monday anymore but this ask DID come in yesterday and the Terrible Discovery did happen on Monday so from now on I am instituting Missing Augustin Mondays on this blog, where every Monday I complain again about how unfair it is that they took my insane French twink from me and no one gets to be annoyed about it because it alliterates

[jackass-jones]

Feeling just every single kind of horrific now I’m literally living my nightmare and have no where to run anymore

[lesbiansaaviik]

Can I be beautifully honest with you guys? I hate 91 Whiskey and So Says the Sword

[your-internet-bf]

Awww, c'mon, man, you can tell me how big it is. Cmonnnnn, I'm curious! You're a good lookin guy, I'm sure you're packin some heat down there, right?

What's that? You don't... huh? What do you mean? Here, just let me...

Don't moan, man, don't gotta make this weird... Well damn. No, no, I'm not disappointed at all, it's just... Here. Feel this.

No, shh, just feel. When you reach between a man's legs, you should feel something like this. Yeah, there's a lot there haha, maybe not something quite like this... What's that? Can you see it? That's a little gay, dude... Naw, I'm joking. Here.

Ahaha, you should see your face, man. What, you thought just because it was that big it had to be hard already? Naww, look, you're cute and all but it takes a little more than - ohhh, shit. No, you're right, your hands probably won't fit. Yeah. Why don't you...

Ahhh, fuck. Quick to get on your knees, and christ, that feels good... Yeah, fuck, use your... Ugh, christ, I know you're choking, I'm just gonna use your throat for a minute. You look so fucking hot down there... C'mon, c'mon... Aha. A little too big for your throat, huh? That's alright. Lick your spit up off my cock, I've got something else for you to try.

Jesus, I can see how soaked you are through your clothes. Take those off, lemme get a look at you. God, you've got a great ass, you know that? Spread that shit for me, let me look... God, dude, you look tight. Let me just feel around here... Yeah, shit, can you spread a little more? I wanna really get a good look. Yeahhh, that's good, right there. Yeah, I'm gonna - aha, that was a cute sound. What happens if I - ahaaaa. That wasn't very manly of you. Okay, okay... On the bed.

Spread your fuckin legs, what do you think I'm about to do? No use in being shy now, I JUST felt how fuckin wet you are. If you're not gonna do it, I'm gonna have to make you... Yeah, alright, I've waited long enough. Oh don't gimme that, I know you want it. Look, when I lay it on your tummy... Almost to your belly button. Beg me to put it in. Yeah, man, seriously. Beg me for it. Like a slut. Use your big boy words and fucking beg me to take this fat fucking cock of mine and pound your cunt.

See, was that so hard? Good boy. Now, grab onto something, cuz this is gonna hurt.

[thundersoothers]

spike, the dog (still derogatory)

who: John Price x wife!reader

what: continuation of this fic and this thought about john price being a softie for his wife and the dog you found on the side of the road (y’all LOVEDDDDD this, thank u omg)

word count: 0.9k

“We are not naming the fucking dog Gremlin.”

“Pooh Bear.” 

“No.” 

You and John are sitting in the living room, staring at the dog you picked up from the side of the road a few days ago, trying to come up with a name for him.  

Convincing your husband to let you keep the dog was a challenge.  It felt like you were debating with judge, jury, and executioner.  Stakes were high.  He was sitting across from you at the dining room table, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed.  His eyes were narrowed at you and his face was expressionless, giving nothing away as you plead your case. 

Somehow, you won. 

So now, here you both are, brainstorming names to replace “Puppy”.  You’re holding the dog in your arms on the couch and John is sitting across from you in his chair. 

“And where the hell did you come up with these names?” 

“I have a list.” 

“You have a list?” 

“I have a list,” you say, “of dog names and baby names.  Every girl does.” 

And then, for just a second, the room stills. 

“Baby names?” John asks. 

A shiver runs up the bottom of your spine and you sit up a little straighter.  You feel the air buzz and John’s heavy gaze on you. 

“Yeah,” you say, glancing at John and then back at the dog in your lap.  “But—Pooh Bear?” 

After a long second, he says, “No.”

“Georgie Banks.” 

“The actress?” 

“Wha— no, fucker, Georgie Banks from Mary Poppins.” 

“… I’ll consider it.  What else.” 

“Ja’Marcus.” 

“My love,” he says, leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees and clasp his hands together, looking at you seriously.  “What the fuck are you talking about.  It’s a dog.” 

“Tra’davious.” 

“I’m making a list,” he scoffs, sitting back again.  “Jesus.” 

“It’s a nice name!” you exclaim.  “What are you gonna name him, Scout?” 

He looks at you.  

You look at him. 

“No.”  Your face drops and you almost shudder.  “No, John, that’s not even funny.” 

“Oreo?”  The corner of his mouth twitches but he quickly steels himself. 

“Stop.”  You hold the dog close to your chest, horrified. 

“Rocky?” 

“No!” 

“Buddy?” 

“John.” 

“We could just call him Puppy.” 

“What is this, Bird Box?  When Sandra Bullock named her kids Boy and Girl?  We can’t just name the dog Dog.  We would sound like neglectful parents.” 

“Your friend has a dog named Cat,” John says. 

“And that gets confusing because she just got a cat.  I think she’ll have to rename Cat.  And by Cat I mean the dog.  Jesus,” you mutter, shaking your head, eyebrows furrowed.  What a mess that would be. 

“We could name him after your team…?” you say, the idea popping into your head.  Then, you frown.  “I’m not calling him Kyle, though.  That’s too human.  Ghost?  He is—you know.”  You rub over the dog’s mangey back gently.  “A little ghastly, still.” 

“Riley?” 

“Who’s Riley?” 

“No one.”

You eye him.  “Must be one of your other wives…” 

He ignores you.  “It would inflate their egos too much.  They’re already insufferable enough.  And,” he adds, “they don’t need another reason to suck up to you.” 

“They don’t suck up to me,” you say. 

“Sweetheart,” he says.  “They suck up to you.” 

“A pun with Price?  Uhhhh… High?  Low?  Buy one get one?  Bogo?”  You hold up the dog, as if to present him.  “Bogo Price, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Price?” 

“You think you’re funny,” John says. 

“I think I’m hilarious.” 

“How about Mackie?  For Mack?  Soap’ld love that–Scottish for ‘my son’.” 

“… I’ll consider it.” 

“You did find him near Notting Hill.  Maybe Notting?” 

You shudder.  “No.” 

“Why not?” 

“Knotting.  It’s a—I’ll explain it to you later.”  

(By later you mean never.  Explaining A/B/O to your husband who doesn’t have any social media?  And has never heard of the website Ao3?  He’d have an aneurysm and then wonder why you know about it.  And you cannot have that conversation.) 

“What are the characters from Notting Hill again?” he says, scratching his chin. He needs to shave—well. You need to shave him, rather. “We just watched it.  William Thacker, Anna Scott, uh, her shit husband, what’s his name—“ 

“Jeff King.” 

“Jeff King, yeah.  King, maybe?” 

“Look at him, John.”  You turn the dog to face him.  He wiggles in your hands and yips, his tongue falling out of his mouth.  “He’s not a King.” 

He sighs and shakes his head.  “He’s not a King.” 

“What about William’s weird roommate?  Uh, Spike?” 

“Spike,” John repeats slowly. 

You nod.  “Spike.” 

You both focus on the dog. 

“I like Spike,” you say. 

“I like Spike, too.” 

You hum, considering this.  “Spike…”  You narrow your eyes and study the dog closely, holding him tighter in your hands. 

He yawns with a high-pitched whine and then hacks.  

“Jesus,” John mutters, shaking his head. 

“Better than Georgie, Banks, or Mackie?” 

“Yeah,” John says, “look at ‘im.  He’s a Spike.” 

“He’s such a Spike,” you muse.  “He’s gonna be huge, too.  I mean, look at his ears and paws–they’re already too big for him.  Shit, he’s probably gonna be 70 pounds or 30 kilos.” 

“We need to train him.” 

“Yeah.  I can hire a trainer?  Find one online.” 

“I could get a trainer from base.” 

“I do NOT want an army dog.” 

“It wouldn’t be an army dog.  It would be a dog trained by the army.” 

You eye him.  “John.” 

“Love.” 

You sigh.  “Fine.”

“Good girl.”

note: prob gonna make wife!reader and spike a universe/series bc i loveeeee them. I hope you enjoy!!!!

posted 01.02.2025.

do not repost or modify any of my original words on any other platform.

to masterlist.

[yameoto]

SUPERNOVA CAITLYN KIRAMMAN

kpop idol caitlyn X her insatiably horny junior

"Noona is so cool!"  You mimic, voice pitching either higher or lower, depending on which of the plethora of comments you pick, at your leisure. "Caitlyn’s a CF goddess. Her talents are seriously wasted. Wah, her visuals are really otherworldly. Unnie looks so good I’m creaming my pants—" Caitlyn fixes you with a flat, unimpressed look, at that last one. “It doesn't say that.” You grin, like the effervescent angel you are. “Yeah. That was just me.”

tw; dom/sub!caitlyn, brat!reader, idolverse, girlcock, semi-public sex, sex in dance practice rooms, mirror sex, handjobs, handjobs during vlives, voyeurism, mild age-gap, age hierarchy dynamics, use of korean honorifics. idol!caitlyn x idol!reader wc; 5.1k. ao3

notes: set in modern day runeterra. ionia encompasses the entire region of asia in league which i personally find stupid but i dont make the rules. fluff/smut/humour. derivative of korean culture (kpop idol au) + pokes a lil fun at stan culture. no prior kpop knowledge is needed (though it would likely help) the sex is filthy regardless. wrote this after finding caitlyn is only a 1/4 white like hallelujah jesus

CAITLYN looks stupidly good. Like stupid, stupidly good. Her grey sweatpants are slung low on her hips, waistband of her briefs peeking out. Sweat-slickened abs glare back at you, from the floor-to-ceiling mirror. The outline of her bulge is visible. These are all observations that you latch into like an IV-drip hooked-up to your wrist, in order to stay alive—lest you die from the fatigue. And boredom.

“Please,” You grumble, head slumped on your knee as your arm drops to the floor, phone abandoned Candy Crush side, up. “Please, please, please, can we go home?” 

“No,” Caitlyn huffs, hands on her hips, looking entirely too good as she takes a momentary (and you mean, momentary) break to swig a sip of water, before she hurls herself right back into it, sweaty and stunning.

The two of you have been trapped in the practice rooms for what feels like eternity. Or, more accurately, Caitlyn has trapped you in the practice rooms for what feels like eternity. You would rather be snuggled up and content in the comfort of your dorms; rather than slogging away in the basement, like you’re still trainees clawing your way up the company ladder inch by inch—rather than the four-time daesang winners, face of Ionia’s girl-groups’, and other innumerable accolades under your belts that seemingly mean nothing to your fearless group leader. At least, at the moment.

You’ve long slunk to the floor, sleepy eyes tracing the way sweat rolls down Caitlyn’s nape as she re-runs the movements for about the zillionth time. Her shoulder-blades flex through the thin fabric of her shirt, sweat dampening into a darkened pool in a way that should be gross, but on her, it just looks sexy. The ache in your muscles has simmered to a low burn, by now. Jeez, your eyelids are slipping. Thank God you have your sweet leader to ogle. The sight of Caitlyn’s bulge peeking through those sweatpants is practically your sole motivator in keeping your eyes open.

“You know,” After what feels like a decade, you pipe up again, because time has begun to melds together. “You’ve got it. Seriously.” The swig of water that sluices down your throat is lukewarm and unsatisfactory. Fuck, you’re thirsty. “The stage is a week away. You’ll be fine.”

Caitlyn’s eyes narrow at you through the mirror, incredulous.

“When in the world has fine ever been good enough?” 

Okay, sure. Caitlyn’s right. But she’s more than fine. Almost-perfect, actually—and come seven days—her dance moves will indubitably be heaven-sent and her ending fairy will probably trend #1 on three different social media platforms, and you will most definitely tug her ear endlessly about it, like the benevolent, supportive junior you are.

Seven days prior, however—and all you are is tired, grouchy, and maybe just a little bit horny. 

“I crave the sanctity of my blankets.” You lament, hand falling over your forehead as you languish on the floor, because the sun has probably set by now and you are seriously contemplating the possibility of dying of old age in this godforsaken practice room. (Not that that would be so bad, if Caitlyn were with you).

“You can go home, you know,” Caitlyn sighs, twisting around to face you, sneakers squeaking on the glossy wooden floors. 

“How am I supposed to sleep without my favourite member as a bolster?”  You pout, snatching on the chance to act a brat, immediately. Caitlyn just rolls her eyes, but her lips twitch upwards, so negligible that if you weren't so tuned in to all-things-Caitlyn, you might’ve missed it.

“Clingy.” She mutters, like she doesn't love it. Loves being your favourite. Not that it matters, because the glimmer of hope that flickers in your chest when Caitlyn crouches down in the direction of her bag—is immediately quashed when she only taps her screen, and the speaker rewinds all the way to the start. 

You’re really starting to hate this song.

“Are you serious? That’s not enough to rouse your cold, dead, heart?” You whine, because usually Caitlyn would've caved to your grabby-hands and doe-eyes by now (especially with the way you look; lips parted and shining with spit, water trickling down your chin down the column of your throat, from the leftover rivulets of your water-bottle.) Not that Caitlyn doesn't notice. She’s just really, really determined to get this right.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

“You work yourself too hard.”

You stretch to a stand, elongated and cat-like before you slink over and sling yourself dramatically along Caitlyn’s back. Her expression contorts into exasperation. She attempts to turn her head, to face you—to no avail. Not when you’re pushing her up against the mirror and the pinning her down against glass with the power of aggressive spooning on your side. Her hand shoots out to brace against the mirror, as your fingers hook the hem of her sweats, and Caitlyn stiffens under your thumb, lips falling open against her will.

“Darling,” She inhales, in that addictive, throaty accent of hers. Caitlyn sounds almost pained, as she catches your wrists—though she neither takes them in or wrests them away. The both of you have full view of the rising tent in her groin.

“What?” You smirk, teeth grazing the shell of her ear, like the sneaky little bastard you are. “Don’t tell me you’re planning to practice with a boner, unnie. That must hurt.”

Caitlyn’s breath hitches, and her knees almost buckle, if it weren’t for the way your arms tighten around your waist and squeeze the growing problem at her crotch. Your fingers twine with the string of her trackpants, loosening them under slim, deft fingers.

“Honorifics? Really?” Her voice is tight. She’s screwed. You only ever whip those out when you want something, seeing as how you've been speaking informally to your technical senior  since your very first meeting, in trainee days, (an accident she so loves to recount on variety shows. “It’s not my fault you just looked so young and pretty, unnie.” You’d fumble in defense, eyes wide and doling out the extra sparkle for the cameras as they zoomed-in on your frantic apologies, laugh track sure to be edited in. “What was I supposed to think?”

“You’re lucky I was too kind to scold you,” Caitlyn sighs, and—in a dramatic show of theatricality—flips the inky-blue curtains of her hair behind her shoulder, much to the hosts delight. “I can be really mean, baby.” 

That had been a hit. Probably because of the way her drawl had lilted playfully and she’d cupped your jaw in the most egregious display of fan service you’d ever seen. Caitlyn’s always known how to wrap the media around her pretty fingers; and your stammer and ensuing blush had mercilessly crowded your feed for at least two weeks, afterwards.)

That’s in public, though. In private? 

Caitlyn is a puddle to the graze of your fingers along her hipbone, and the glide of your breath up her neck. Dark eyes meet hers, hooded and intent, reflected in the pane of metal in front of you. It’s certainly a sight to behold. The two of you are both dripping in sweat, Caitlyn’s cheeks flushed, bare-faced and glowing—hair tangled up in that loose ponytail that you've always found so much hotter on her, than any amount of hours in the styling chair could ever produce.

“I really need to..” Caitlyn’s protests sound weak even to her own ears. Especially when heat pools in hot, throbbing waves that rush straight to her dick, and she's cut off by her own gasp when you nuzzle in the nook between her shoulder-blades and your hands—beautiful, cunning hands—ghost over her crotch and squeeze. Her entire world lurches into a haze, body spasming upwards.

“Unnie,” You breathe, sweet and soft, like the devil in her ear, “please fuck me.”

Just like that, Caitlyn can’t take it any longer. A low, strangled noise rips from her throat, eyes fogging over and black eclipsing blue. Lithe hands coil around your wrists, and flips your positions entirely—thrusting you right up against the glass.

Her muscles are throbbing, hours of dance practice flaming up her bones; but she pins you down with the strength of a woman possessed, all the same. As far as Caitlyn’s concerned, she’s like a sleeper agent to your bedroom voice, and the fact could never shine with more clarity, than now (other than the time you’d done a Lola Shark impression in an interview and she’d gotten, to her horror, embarrassingly hard underneath the blanket thrown over her lap. She’d had to call in a bathroom break, to take care of it—much to your smug, haunting amusement).

In the mirror, you watch as Caitlyn’s breathing shallows into pants, tongue licking hot up the stretch of your neck to under your jaw. Neither of you miss the brief, smugly satisfied spark to your eyes and glowing hot between your thighs, even as both squeeze shut when you arch up against Caitlyn’s bulge. She grinds down against your ass, and you moan, so brazen she almost can’t believe it.

“Shit. You're so shameless,” Caitlyn mutters, breaths rushing harsh against your shoulder as she fumbles with the knot at your sweats, rutting hopelessly into the coil of your figure. The moment thread slips free, pants pooling to your ankles as you bend over, head thrown back—Caitlyn’s brand-name briefs soak with a splurge of pre so intense she almost thinks she’s come early.

“You want my fingers?” Caitlyn asks, just to be a bitch. Your eyes squint open to glare at her through blurry vision and through an even blurrier visage.

“Don’t joke,” You spit, voice hoarse with want. It's meant to sound demanding, but all it comes out is whiney, and Caitlyn’s laugh sends shivers down your nape.

There’s a millisecond in which your mind empties completely, and it's almost cruel how you can only see the reflection of Caitlyn’s cock curving upwards from her underwear rather than the real deal. 

Caitlyn’s grasp is like steel around your neck. She thrusts you forwards, your flushed cheeks smushing against the cool surface of the mirror as your stuttered breaths puff in grey clouds of condensation. A groan wrangles itself out of your throat from being manhandled like that, knees wobbling the moment you feel something hot, thick and so, so wet press insistently against the backs of your thighs. Arousal has already begun to drip down your legs, running down in rivulets and moistening the floor under your feet. Yours or Caitlyn’s—you don’t have the eyes to know.

“Unnie,” You breathe, shakily, voice raw. Your fingers are slippery against glass, and you whimper when the familiar stretch of two fingers sinks into your cunt. You slide open, just like that, and Caitlyn temporarily wrenches you back so that you can see your fogged-up reflection in all its full, filthy glory. 

“S’not enough,” You pant, back arching and ramming urgently against her digits she’s spreading you wide, with—so eye-wateringly slow. Maybe it’s the fact that you've been working yourself up, blatantly eyeing her down, for hours since your head checked out of training and your brain devolved into its most primitive urges in coping with your mind-numbing boredom. 

“Not enough?” She grins, sharp-toothed and devastating, adoring the upper-hand. “What? You need a third finger, baby?” The noise that tears out of you is almost like a wounded animal, and you'd be embarrassed if you weren't so overcome with need and prolonging this teasing sounds like torture.

So, you answer with the obvious, “Your cock.” You hiss through gritted teeth, because Caitlyn loves it when you beg for her dick and you’re too hare-brained and empty to do anything more than push back, impossibly deeper into her fingers. They sink to her knuckles of entirely your own volition, without her having to do so much as twitch. 

Caitlyn’s laugh is practically a goad in itself. The lush curtain of her lashes are lowered, irises swallowed up by the deep dilation of her pupils. Still, though, she takes her time in playing with you, just a little longer. Revels in the way you thrash around her fingers, fucking yourself back, desperate.

Herself is one thing. Her dick can only take so much, however. The ache becomes too much, too soon, and the second she runs her glossy head against the drenched, hot pulse of your hole—she can’t not shudder, knot in her throat, before her fingers slip out of your pussy and your consequent whimper is interrupted by the plunge of her cock.

“Hah, baby..” Caitlyn whimpers, eyes fluttering back as she fucks you against the mirror, nails dragging up your hips and digging into supple flesh. Never has Caitlyn felt so at home, submerged in the deep, velvet ocean of your cunt.

“Unnie—” You gasp. It’s the one word, echoing over and over, like an all-consuming siren song throughout your head—with each gasp that comes with every thrust of Caitlyn’s hips, motions growing sloppier as the exhaustion of hours of tireless exertion catches up to the both of you. She nips at your ear, then down the curve of your nape, to the unblemished skin of your upper back. Teeth grazing, pads of her fingers leaving scorching trails as she gropes up your body—your mind a jumbled, fuzzy mess. Her cock plunges in and out, still guided, though she never slips out more than mid-way; bodies sticking together like gum. Like she can’t bear to be apart from you for even a moment—even if it is to pummel your cunt until you can hardly take it anymore.

It’s only when the pumps and rolls begin to slow into simple, gentle rocks, to absolutely nothing but a twitch—that your mind clumsily clasps onto a semblance of clarity, hasty and brief, like you know it’ll slip away and out of reach, soon. “Wha..?” You rasp, half-slurred, even if what you really want to whinge is; What’s goin’ on? Why’d you stop? And, please, please, please. Don’t stop. Keep goin’. Fill me up. Please, don’t ever stop— and other half-baked nonsense that you’ll be glad your tongue was too thick and heavy in your mouth to spill.

“I can’t mark you,” Caitlyn grunts, and your eyes sharpen, just a little. Her tongue peeks out from her lips as her expression looks disproportionately distraught, like it’ll be the end of the world if she doesn’t stake some sort of physical claim on you, eyes darting downwards to your unblemished shoulders with a low growl of frustration.

Distantly, that part of you is still clinging onto reality, knows she’s right. That your comeback is in a week’s time and risking a hickey or a bite-mark or worse (because Caitlyn is stronger and sharper and rougher than her delicate figure should ever have been allowed to be), is a bad, bad idea.

But the larger part of you—the part of you that is currently being railed by her unnie’s cock and trying desperately not to squirt cum all over the practice room mirror—rasps out a reckless, ragged, “Who cares?”, and that’s all the permission Caitlyn needs.

Caitlyn pulls out, and slams herself in again, grip on your waist, bruising. Your hands go sliding, uselessly against the steamy surface of the mirror, long fogged-up under the slick tangle of your bodies. She’s mouthing slurred nonsense into your ear, the music speaker knocked over by one of your ankles and emitting distant sounds from where it's rolled, to the other side of the room. Neither of you could give a single fuck. 

Not the least, when Caitlyn’s hand is sliding up your throat and thumbing over your gaping lips. It feels as if a pink-hued fuzziness has descended the room and become a thick veil over everything, and when her fingers slip into the hot, wet gasp of your mouth—it's only right for you to take the digits in your tongue and suck. 

“Ahnngh—Cait—”  

“When did I say you could speak informally to me?” Caitlyn husks, fingers pressing deeper into the roof of your mouth. In your reflection, you can see the razor angle of Caitlyn’s jaw as she nuzzles into your ear. The obscene glisten of your spit, coating her fingers and coasting down your chin as her digits languish between your parted lips. You look every bit like her precious fuckdoll, right now.

“Unnie—”

“Ah-ah.”

“Sunbae.” 

“Mm. That’s better.”

Her free hand skims up your shirt, slipping up the taut lines of your body and flicking idly at one nipple. You whine, garbled around the gag of her hand, and Caitlyn lets out a moan of content when your pussy tightens around her shaft.

“Fuck,” She pants, teeth sinking down into your shoulder and you buck, even though the pain barely registers with how Caitlyn barrels her cock in you, deeper, and your eyes roll back into your skull. Your thighs are shaking. “M’gonna—hfgh—” 

Her hips draw upwards, and Caitlyn cums like a faucet. All of it, inside you. Outside of you. Dripping from your still-leaking cunt and droplets getting fucked out with each, desperate thrust as she moans, guttural. “Take it—fuck—” Caitlyn groans, harsh and insistent as she pounds, your pussy squelching—so wonderfully wet—as your fingers scramble against the glass, her fingers cramming deep inside your mouth.

“Ah-ah—fuck!”

The two of you go crashing down, sliding down against the mirror and onto the floor with a twinning, indecipherable slew of obscenities, a boneless, panting heap, still moving in tandem. 

You both slump, slippery and sticky. The song on the speakers re-starts, yet again, from the other side of the room, though it's the first time it's even pierced your ears in the past forty minutes. Caitlyn groans, pushing her nose into the crook of your neck, arms tightening around your waist. The mirror is splattered in both your cum.

“We’re gonna have to clean this up, aren’t we?”

“..Probably.” You sigh, still leaking around her cock as you angle your head, the two of you slotting together like missing puzzle pieces.

Twenty-four hours and countless Kleenex wipes later (and really, cleaning your own cum from floor-to-ceiling mirrors—with two half-guilty reflections staring right back at you—is an uniquely humbling experience); it was totally worth it to see Caitlyn appropriately red, after the crash of post-nut clarity.

It’s your one, blissfully empty day before comeback promotions launch you all into full-throttle. You intend to enjoy it while it lasts. 

“Your latest Lotte CF went viral,” You pop behind her, totally innocously if weren’t for that familiar, impish glint in your eyes. Caitlyn sighs, not even glancing up from the stove, completely nonplussed. Probably because Caitlyn could record herself taking a piss and it would chart #1 on Melon.

“The seonjiguk is simmering.” She ignores you. You ignore her right back.

“Look at those dimples,” You beam like a little shit as you wave the video in her face. “Maybe you should go into acting. The GP would go crazy.”

“No thanks,” Caitlyn snorts, hand lifting upwards to stifle a brief yawn, sleeves coming up all the way to her knuckles. “been there, done that.” 

“Oh, right. All your Piltovian film connections.” You hum, idly tracing the underneath of Caitlyn’s elbow as you lean over her shoulder to watch her cook. She’s markably improved from her humble beginnings of blackened, bubbling slag (what was once instant Buldak), or the scotchmarks that still hail the kitchen tiles, to this day.

“Mhm. I was almost poached. My mother wanted me to—what was that? Follow in her footsteps.”

“Well, I’m grateful that you didn't,” You hum, into her shoulder. You poke her side, grinning. “Then you wouldn't have met me, and wouldn't that be tragic?”

Caitlyn scoffs, but you feel her sink a little deeper into your embrace, eyes flitting to settle onto the top of your head, as you nudge into her. You both, really are grateful.

You’re pretty sure Ionia is grateful, too. 

Whatever the day, it always feels like Caitlyn’s name has taken up a permanent residence in the nation’s newsites. ICE PRINCESS. AI VISUALS. ATTITUDE PROBLEM. Her quarter Piltovian and subsequent accent injects an ‘attractive exoticism’ (or whatever management had stapled to your files, at the dawn of debut), that had made Caitlyn internationally explosive, too. 

The Kiramman surname certainly helped. Caitlyn’s debut was like, the biggest plot-twist in nepotism, ever. It was like if Nicole Kidman’s kid suddenly became Hatsune Miku. Not to mention the fact the Kirammans are the largest benefactor of Hextech, whose global rollout of leading-edge tech has gone unmatched. Of all careers for the Kiramman’s mysterious, devastatingly attractive daughter to take—this is the one that took the entire globe off-guard. Including the great and glamorous, Cassandra Kiramman.

Of course, the initial shock long lapsed underwater, with the constant roil of the media waves. Caitlyn’s fame, however, has not.

“Noona is so cool!”  You mimic, voice pitching either higher or lower, depending on which of the plethora of comments you pick, at your leisure. “Caitlyn’s a CF goddess. Ah, her talents are seriously wasted. Is she an angel? Her visuals are really otherworldly—”

“Get that away from me.” Caitlyn swats your phone away with a scowl, pretty pink flush glowing on her features.

“Don’t act all coy,” You prod her so-highly-lauded cheekbones as Caitlyn huffs in annoyance, though begrudgingly leans against the touch anyways. You squish. “We all know you’re preening inside.”

“I am not!”

“Ooh, sexy. I love it when your accent comes out like that.”

Caitlyn groans, because you’re impossible, and just twists so that she’s facing you, back against the kitchen counter. You reach behind her to switch off the stove.

She hooks her fingers into the hem of your pyjama shorts, thumbing over familiar cotton. She sighs outwardly, propping her head up on your shoulder and slumping forwards to rest the cold press of her nose into the crook of your shoulder. Her fingers skim up your shirt, absently rubbing circles into the plane of your stomach.

“You know I hate it when you read those.”

“About how you look like an eepy bunny when you’re sleepy? Or that you have moles in the shape of a giraffe on your nape.” You arch a brow, looking past her as you flick through the blurs of text in various degrees of capitalisation, on your phone. A subtle smirk lifts your lips. “Hey. Is that true? Let me check.”

She scowls, and then almost looks offended that you don’t know that already (You do. Caitlyn also has a darkened, heart-shaped birthmark indented in the crook of her inner thigh—but that’s just for you to know, thank you very much).

Your voice raises a pitch. “Unnie looks so good I’m creaming my pants!”

Caitlyn fixes you with a flat, unimpressed look. “It doesn't say that.”

You grin, like the effervescent angel you are. “Yeah. That was just me.”

Oh, now Caitlyn’s cheeks go red. You push valiantly past the triumphant flutter in your heart, in favour of continuing your teasing. Hey—there’s no schedule today, the dorms are all to yourselves—and you’re on a roll. 

“Look. They wanna steal your eyes and put them in a boba drink.”

Thoroughly fed-up with your antics, Caitlyn snatches the phone out of your hand, and you immediately squirm, to lunging for it. Caitlyn’s ridiculous height advantage has the one-up on you, though, and you puff out an aggrieved yelp of protest when she dangles it above your head, like a dickhead.

“Hey, what the fuck?” You complain, like your comeuppance wasn't exactly what you were hoping for. Except you were more aiming for a pin-you-against-the-fridge, fuck-the-insides-out-of-you type of comeuppance. Not a sordid reminder that you need a stool to reach the top of Caitlyn’s head. “Don’t lord your freakish Frankenstein genetics over me!”

Caitlyn laughs, eyes flickering down. “Are you on your tip-toes right now?” 

Your eyes narrow, because you do not appreciate having the tables turned on you. Your hand shoots up to cup her jaw, tilting it upwards. Caitlyn softens, putty in your hands, adorable furrow in her brow melting away along with her pride as she sinks into your palm with a soft sigh, arm falling to her side.

There we go.

“It’s not my fault you avoid socials like the plague. I’m just doing my duty to take care of my leader’s PR. Your fans are starving.”

Caitlyn grumbles, “Well, let them starve.” though it comes out pinched between smushed lips, cheeks squishing like a dumpling. So heartless, like she’s not the industry’s princess and probably makes up a total of 50% of the company’s annual income. You know exactly why, as you cradle her face in her palms and watch as she leans upwards because no matter how disgruntled Caitlyn acts, or how shockingly humble she is under that front of aloof, arrogance–she definitely preens under attention.

Just. Only yours. 

“Hey, you know what? We should go live right now.”

“What—?” Caitlyn stammers, flabbergasted by the sudden change in direction, “Don’t—“

Too late. Within seconds, you’ve swiped your phone back from her limp hands and flipped the vlive on. Recording. Like, now. Damn, you're speedy. 

“Ah..” Caitlyn’s expression smooths over to that charming, impeccably gorgeous grin of hers that shows off the sharp curves of her cheekbones and has won her the hearts of a nation. 

You pull her to the couch, and under the scrutiny of the camera—Caitlyn acquises with little more than a subtle elbow to your ribs, when the both of you go thudding into the cushions with a low oomph.

Then, you flop against her chest, and the stream of hearts that ensue are absolutely incredible, comments rolling in faster than you can read them. There’s a reason why the two of you are the most popular pairing in the group.

“Hm. Is it on?” You muse, faux confusion tugging on your pretty features. Knitted brows and a plush little pout always do the job, especially when you add a sneak of tongue. No doubt to be screenshotted and re-uploaded countless times, within the next hour. “Hello? Can you guys hear us?”

Which is, you know, the perfect time to grab Caitlyn’s dick through her pants.

A choked noise resounds beside you, and you don’t glance over, for you’re too busy fiddling with the phone and the settings and all other kinds of bullshit that is really just an excuse for you to focus your attention on snaking a hand down Caitlyn’s waistband, just out of view of the camera. “Oh! It’s working. Did you miss us?” You beam, as Caitlyn struggles not to either sock you in the stomach or throw her head back and moan.

If anybody notices Caitlyn’s pupils are suspiciously blown, it doesn’t come up. What does come up, is her ever traitorous cock that lilts immediately into your touch. Fuck. Fuck, fuck.

“Aw, little Caity’s missed me, too,” You croon, as your sneaky fucking fingers stroke idly along her girth, underneath the veil of her sweatpants and just over the thin fabric of her underwear. Caitlyn visibly bristles, because, 1. You’re jacking her off. 2. She hates that your coo instigates a flood of love-bombing so intense, that the hearts on the screen almost completely obscure the both of you. 3, and the most important one; you just gave her dick a nickname! 

“Cait.” You tease out, eyes glittering, not even bothering to conceal your amusement as Caitlyn’s hips buck upwards, her fingers pinching against your sides, lips completely shut mum, for fear she’ll let slip a moan on camera. “C’mon. Say something. You missed them too, right?”

Gods. Caitlyn hates you. She really, really hates you. Just—not enough to not shove your hand away when it starts to peel away the waistband of her underwear. If only because the feeling of precum soaking its seat, sticking to her skin, and not because she’s itching for the sweet relief of your hand around her cock.

“..Hi,” Caitlyn forces her winning, boxy grin, and the years of practice make it an admirably unstrained effort. Maybe she really should go into acting. “Mm. Long time no see, hm?” 

“Unnie’s being awkward, today.” You snark, all sly, and Caitlyn shoots you a glare. She’s rewarded by the sudden, fervent warmth of your hand wrapping around her dick, and then the harsh tug of your fist that has her knees jerking upwards and her dastard slit spurting out a shiny, hot glob of precum. She swallows back a low, strangled whine, like a dry pill. Oh, Gods. She’s supposed to say something.

“Ah, just..—we’ve—ah—”

In a rare show of mercy (because apparently, you’re not out to throw both your careers to the dogs), you swipe the phone back with the most cherubic, triumphant grin to adorn your face, literally ever. Catilyn lets slip a barely-audible hiss as your fingers coil, just a little tighter, stroking up and down—thumb running back over the swollen, gloatingly shiny cockhead.

“We just had a long time in the practice rooms for our comeback, yeah? So we’re pretty tired. Right, unnie?” 

Oh, you're really pushing it, now. 

“Mm. We’ve been—working. Really hard.” She has to lean out of the screen to release a silent, desperate gasp, nails digging into the back of the couch as she tries to rut up into your hand in a way that doesn't obviously send the sofa, trembling. You idly thumb over her slit, smearing the thick, embarrassingly copious amounts of pre down her length. It twitches in your palm, as you ramble on about schedules and the comeback and spoilers and other things that have long become white noise in Caitlyn’s ears. Her hips chase your touch, brazenly, now. She barely even realises when you’re calling it quits; early, too. Because obviously, this was all just to fuck with her.

“Caitlyn,” You sing-song—smirking (supremely unsubtly), at the camera. “Say bye-bye.”

She only just registers the comment. Barely. “Bye.” Caitlyn’s voice is a low croak, hips arching upwards off the couch just as you end the live. Just in time, too, because—

“Oh, fuck.” Caitlyn releases the longest moan of her life, cum spilling over your fist, and she collapses back into the couch. Your phone falls from your hand, and you’re practically shaking with laughter. 

(“Little Caitey,” Caitlyn grumbles, after the fact, with your head nestled between her thighs in apology, “That’s preposterous. What’s so little about her?” Nothing. But there’s no fun in that, is there? At the slow, sly smile spreading on your face, Caitlyn groans. “What?”

“You referred to her in third-person.”

“..Please just suck me off already.”)

[rosedpetal]

Behave

Summary: Bucky shows you what happens when you test him.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Wife!Reader

Word count: 1.2k

Warnings: smut.

Minors, do not interact.

Masterlist | Part II

You didn't mean to be so overbearing, but you just loved him so much.

"Doll, you have to stop giving the stinky eye to these women. It's getting embarrassing." He whispered on your ear, his grip tightening just a little bit on your arm as he smiled for the people schmoozing at Tony's gala event. "Seriously, when did you get so jealous?"

"Jealous?" You scoff, adjusting the skirt of your long dress, softening the slightly wrinkled fabric. "Barely. I just wish you didn't look so smug with all those single bitches fawning over you."

"In my time, we used to call them spinsters." Bucky raised his eyebrow at you.

"Well, that's just sexist."

"And calling them bitches is not?"

Your glare made him shut his mouth, a little smirk threatening to tug at the corner of his lips.

"I get it, okay? I'm being too much. It's just that I'm so obsessed with you. Why can't I just be one of those wives who barely wait for their husbands to drop dead?" You sighed, adjusting his tie.

He chuckles, a low rumble reverberating through his chest. He trapped your chin between his thumb and index finger, amused at you. "You're crazy, you know that? But it's okay. Your psycho side is almost as cute as your clingy and needy one."

You roll your eyes. "Gotta admit, though. You looked really hot over there talking to them and signing autographs and all. If I didn't want to stab your guts off, I'd be horny... " You paused. "Okay. I'm horny either way."

"Behave." Bucky hissed, looking around to see if anyone was paying attention to the two of you. At the sound of your little crazed giggle, he snapped his head back to you. "How much have you had to drink, by the way?"

"I didn't drink that much. I don't know what's taken over me, okay? You're just... Ugh!" You groaned, and Bucky blinked, a little taken aback. "You're hot. Are you taken?" You playfully bat your eyelashes at him and he chuckles.

"Well, I do have a wife. But she's quite small, so I think you can take me from her if you want to." He smirked, rubbing circles on the small of your back.

"Ugh, you're married? I bet she's a fucking witch."

Bucky shakes his head, getting his lips close to your ear. "Honestly... My wife is quite crazy. Sometimes I'm scared at how unhinged she can be when she's jealous."

"Is she hot, though?"

"Oh... She's so hot. Just thinking of her has me feeling all types of way... But she's also quite needy. It gets on my fucking nerves. I swear, that woman could drop on her knees to beg for my attention."

"Is begging the only good thing she can do on her knees, though?" You purr.

Bucky checks again for any nosy listeners, relaxing a bit as he realizes you're too are safe.

"Well... She also prays really well, just like a good girl should."

Your could feel your gaze becoming a little unfocused, your core warming up. "I wanna choke you so bad."

Bucky's face and neck turn a little red. "Jesus, baby. What has gotten into you tonight? Is it all because I dressed up?"

"Maybe. Do you think it's possible for humans do go into heat?"

"Oh. I don't know, are you?"

"Breed me. Breed me. Breed me." You chanted on his ear, and his grip on your hips tightened almost painfully.

"Stop right this second." He hisses. "I do not need this right now. Are you trying to get me hard in public, you little shit?"

"Is it working?"

"You're going to pay for this."

"Are you gonna give me your belt tonight?"

"Y/N-"

"What? Is this too kinky for you? Is the idea of marking my ass with your leather belt too much for your poor brain to handle right now, baby?"

Bucky closes his eyes, fists clenching on his sides. Then, he grabs you by your waist, pulling you to the nearest room he could find.

He swiftly unlocks the door, assessing the small supply closet you two are in. It's not ideal, but it'll be enough. His hand fly to your throat, pressing on it slightly, eyes darkened with desire, his slacks tight and uncomfortable. "Filthy little tease. You enjoy riling me up, don't you? Do you think you'll get away with this little stunt you just pulled, huh?"

His vibranium hand snakes under your dress through the slit on your thigh, his eyes darkening at how soaked your underwear is. "Tsk. Does being a little slut make you wet, baby?"

You whimper, completely overtaken by lust, his digits teasing your clothed clit. "You can try to give me shit for misbehaving, but you love how obsessed I am with you, isn't that right? You crave my attention. You thrive on how needy I can get for you."

Bucky's eyes darken, the beautiful expansion of his blue irises only getting noticed by you by the moonlight reflecting through the small window.

"You're giving me fucking butterflies, Bucky. What the fuck? Wasn't that supposed to stop after we got married?" Your brows furrow, your indignant tone making a little snicker escape him. He hooks his finger on the waistband of your panties, a sharp tug being enough to rip your underwear.

"I didn't vow to bore you 'til death do us part, doll. I'll never stop making you feel this way." He whispered, gaze softening at you. Time seemed to stop as he inched closer to you, lips brushing against your red painted ones. "I fucking love you, you unhinged little thing."

"Love you too, baby." Your eyes close shut, mouth hanging open as he fingers you in the supply closet, swallowing your moans with his tongue, bucking his hips on your hand as you palm him through the straining fabric.

Reaching down, you swiftly undo his slacks, pulling them low enough just to free his twitching cock, guiding the thick head to your entrance.

With how lubricated you are, he only has to spit on his cock and moisten the length with his hand, a low growl leaving his mouth as he sink on your heat, inch by inch.

There's a moment of silence as you two lock eyes, your weeping pussy welcoming him with a tight grip that he swears it makes him harden, if that's even possible.

Your head falls back with the first shallow thrusts, a small gasp leaving your lips. Bucky's gritting his teeth, pulling you up, your legs wrapping around his middle. Then, he slams into you.

You can't even speak, getting your walls bullied repeatedly by your husband's thick cock. "F-fuck! Bucky, ohmygod, wait!"

He smirks, not slowing down a second. "I told you were gonna pay for being a menace tonight. What's the problem, baby? What happened to the slut who told me to breed her just a few minutes ago? Where is she? Huh?" He circles his hips, buried deep inside you, making you see white. He swats your thigh, his voice rough. "Answer me."

A little, humiliating whine escapes you, and he chuckles again.

"See, baby? How I can fuck the brat out of you? How you should think before riling me up? How you can't back up for your little antics?" His vibranium thumb circles your clit, the coolness of it only serving to make you orgasm quicker.

Bucky moans at your walls clamping violently on him, a grip so deliciously tight it makes him wanna pull his own hair. So he tugs hard at your locks instead, exposing your neck for his greedy lips as he comes inside you.

[himbosandhardwear]

Steddie I Soulmate AU I 2k I Rated Mature I idiot4idiot

The thing about linking with your soulmate, you never knew when it was going to happen. There were horror stories about it happening during weddings to someone else or while performing heart surgery or landing a plane, but linking was so rare, stories like that seemed more like fairy tales than cautionary ones.

If anyone had asked Eddie what he thought about it, he would've said the odds of there being some guy out there destined to be his mate, let alone that he'd have to worry about linking during some critical moment, were astronomically low.

He'd be wrong.

Because his ears are ringing, his vision has tunnelled, and there's an empty vacuum where his usual chaotic thoughts should be. All signs pointing toward-

Hello?

Jesus H. Christ, not now! Not right now, this cannot be happening now. Quick! Think of something else! Uhhh… Golems! Ice golems! Or maybe frost giants. Yeah! Not having hate sex with your arch nemesis. Shit! Stop thinking about it! Frost giants, frost giants, frost giants!

Hate sex? He hears echo around his noggin next. Arch nemesis?

Fuuuuuck. No, darlin’, don't even worry about that stray thought! Nothing to see here. I'm, uh, baking! Yeah. Brownies. For a charity bake sale

A long pause, empty space between them, before he says, I don't believe you. I think you are having sex

Sex?! He screeches. How dare you! I would never!

You would. Go balls deep into a guy you don't even like, sounds like to me. Class act.

Oh god, there’s gotta be a way to salvage this.

No, let me explain, please!

Knock yourself out

Right. So, this guy, I know him from school, right? And he was always kind of a jerk. The space between them pings with a sort of stung feeling but Eddie doesn't understand how any of this works yet so he ignores it. But we end up having a few mutual friends, and this one really weird event happens that forces us to, like, team up, I guess. After all that I'm spending more time around the guy and he's not so bad. Invited me over to smoke up with him, which was cool. I'm gonna be totally honest, I'm not sure how exactly we got here, the sex part, but it’s pretty hot and heavy, kinda aggressive, so… yeah. Hate sex I guess

Soulmate is quiet again. His feelings bleed through anyway, at least Eddie's pretty sure that's what he's getting. It feels like embarrassment and disappointment.

You okay? Did I scare you off?

You don't like the guy at all? You said arch nemesis

Oh. Uh. Well… How did he explain to his future partner, if he hadn't already ruined it, that he likes him plenty, he's just been holding him at arms length, metaphorically, because he assumed the guy was straight? Up until roughly twenty minutes ago. He should probably start with honesty.

No, I like him okay. He's not as bad as I'd always thought. We give each other shit but I'm pretty sure it's just left over bullshit stereotypes from high school. I bully him about his music taste, he bullies me about my shitty van. That type of thing

…Right

He waits to hear back from his soulmate but he's not very talkative. That's okay, Eddie can talk enough for both of them.

So, what were you up to when we linked? Not driving I hope

He can hear the guy sighing over the link, which is worrying.

You'll never believe it, but I'm also having sex at the moment

Seriously? That's hilarious

Yeah. A hoot

Not having fun?

I was. But I recently found out the guy doesn't like me that much. So, yeah, real mood killer

Oh man. That sucks

Oh my god. Yeah, it really does. Kinda wish he'd get off of me so we can get the awkward part over with but he's distracted at the moment

Doing what?! Eddie yells, offended on his behalf.

“He’s busy not realizing he linked to the guy he was hate fucking.”

Huh?

“Eddie, open your fucking eyes.”

That's Steve talking.

He blinks his eyes open to see Steve looking up at him. He's not pleased.

Wait

“Yeah.”

Oh my god

“As impressive as it is that you managed to stay hard through that whole thing, I'd appreciate it if you-” He hisses as Eddie, rudely he realizes, pulls out without warning.

He scrambles to the end of the bed, bunching up the comforter around his junk. “I'm so sorry, fuck, Steve, I'm so sorry. I don't… I didn't…”

He can't fix this, he starts to slowly comprehend. He's made Steve think he hates him.

“Nah, it's cool. I get it.”

I don't hate you, I swear. You have to believe me

“Sure, Eddie.” He's yanking his briefs back on, angry and trying not to show it. “You just don't like me much.” Can't believe I did this again. So fucking stupid

Eddie's certain he's not meant to hear any of that but he responds anyway.

You're not stupid. Please let me explain

“You already did. And I am fucking stupid,” he snaps. “Here I thought we were flirting this whole time and you thought we were bullying each other. That's real fuckin’ stupid of me. I'd convinced myself you actually-” He snaps his teeth shut but Eddie can still hear the unfinished -liked me. “I really wish you would control your feelings, dude. You're broadcasting your horror straight into my head.”

“I don't know how to stop,” he quietly admits.

“Well if you'd ever shown up to health class you'd know how to control it.”

I never thought I would get a soulmate

Steve's surprise at that pings around his brain before he does what Eddie can't and shuts it down.

“I did. I've been thinking about it for years.”

And you ended up with me… And I ruined it before we even got started. I ruined it. Steve Harrington is my soulmate and I ruined it. What the fuck

“You don't have to say it like I'm some kind of prize.” He steps into his jeans and tugs them back up to his hips, not even bothering to do them up. Which is- “I guess it's nice that you think I'm hot. That's something. Maybe we'll be the first casual hookup soulmates.”

He has to fix this. Somehow. Think, god damnit! Wait! That's it! He just has to show Steve what he's thinking!

“I wish you wouldn't.”

“Too bad!” He snaps back.

Okay, as embarrassing as this is about to be, he has to tell the truth.

Eddie was in the 8th grade, Steve in 7th, when they first met. Or, when Eddie first noticed Steve anyway, they never really spoke to each other, their cliques already established by then. But Eddie can remember it like it was yesterday. It was lunch, Eddie was walking by with his bagged PB&J, when he heard it. Steve laughing. It was so joyful, Eddie didn't even know what he was laughing about but it made him smile anyway. Of course one of Steve's shitty jock friends caught him staring and called him a queer freak but that wasn't unusual.

“What the fuck, Eddie? Why do you remember that? And how are you so good at visualizing?”

He ignores the questions to move on to the next memory. Eddie's sophomore year they somehow ended up in the same Shop class. Again, they never spoke but he got to watch Steve work, tongue poking out while he concentrated, the proud look on his face when he whittled some hunk of wood into a recognisable shape.

“I forgot about that. It was a dolphin. I was dating Chelsea Hosteller, they were her favorite animal.”

“Lucky her.”

“Hey, fuck you, man, you're the one showing me this shit! What am I supposed to assume from any of this? You thought I was cute? So what? You clearly don't like who I am as a person, so what difference does it make?”

He's not going to have the patience for every single moment, and they're a lot of them, Eddie realizes that now. So he speed runs through them, making sure to send every bit of feeling through their link.

Steve in his Scoops outfit, luring Eddie to the mall but never making him brave enough to go in. The horror of not knowing whether Steve was alive or dead when he heard about the mall burning down. The joy of finding him at Family Video, somewhere he had reason to visit.

You never even talked to me there

Listening to every word to every story Henderson told him about Steve and his bravery. Pretending to be annoyed so no one noticed he was eating it up. Getting to know the real Steve over Spring Break, the giddiness he couldn't quite tamp down, even as he was scared shitless. The pain of knowing Steve was still in love with Nancy Wheeler, even though it was the obvious narrative to Steve's fairytale life. Of course he gets the girl at the end.

What? Is that why you-

The way he stuck around afterward, even though their dynamic was more antagonistic than friendly, and the way Eddie thrived off of every snarky comment. How it felt like banter even though Eddie knew, by all logic and reason, Steve was merely tolerating his presence. They would always be antithetical to each other, circling but never meeting.

Eddie, no

Steve growling ‘Do you ever shut up!’ before pouncing on him downstairs. The heavy pounding of his heart as he wrestled Steve up the stairs. The way his brain never did catch up to what was happening or why, until it was too late, and he was ruining both the greatest sex he'd ever had and also the chance to prove, though he's still completely unworthy, that he has already been primed and ready to fall for Steve for years. The shame of ruining it. The heartbreak of ruining it. The teeny, tiny spark of hope as Steve stares him down. He has to close his eyes to avoid it, lest he say something stupid and fuck it up again.

You…do like me?

Yeah, Stevie. I like you a whole lot. I just didn't think I was allowed to like you. I didn't realize you liked me too. I'm sorry I said all that shit earlier. I didn't want to tell the guy I'd just linked with that I was thoroughly enjoying the chance to sleep with this guy I'd had a crush on for years. That seemed rude

The bed dips and so does Eddie's stomach. Steve's enormous hands slide up his neck, into his hair, and gently cradle his face as he leans in to kiss Eddie square on the mouth.

Oh. Hi

Hi

This is nice

I think so too. How do you feel about finishing what we started but this time we both know that we like each other?

That sounds awesome. But are you sure? I really, really fucked up the first time

I thought you were perfect up until you called me your arch nemesis

I have been told that sometimes I'm a little dramatic

You know what, that's fair. I really should've taken that as a compliment, if anything

See? Now you get it

What I'm getting is another condom. Hold my ankle so I don't slide off the bed

You got it, baby

Unbelievable. Salvaged the wreckage of his own stupidity and managed to bag the hottest guy in town! Score one for the nerds!

“I heard that.”

[jaewritesfic]

Everlasting Trio DPxDC Nobody Knows Au Pt 3

Parts 1 and 2

They both fall silent and stare. 

That's an answer to one of many questions they've been asking themselves for years, isn't it?

Their best friend disappeared, and it wasn't abduction or murder. It was an escape.

“You guys don't have contact with Jack and Maddie, do you?”

Tucker swears there's a record scratch in his brain.

Sam gapes. “You mean your parents?”

Danny smiles, small, grim and humorless. “Jack and Maddie.”

Jesus Christ.

Sam glances over at Tucker and they exchange a look. Tucker knows they've been feeling a shared guilt for a long time, feeling like they didn't do enough. They had suspicions about something fucked going on in Danny's home life since the beginning of freshman year, but they never blew the whistle about it.

Rationally they know it wasn't their responsibility. All of Amity had suspicions - someone should have called CPS, and it shouldn't have been a couple of kids. A goddamn adult should have stepped up.

It doesn't keep either of them from feeling like they failed their childhood best friend.

“Considering I've spent the last four years suspecting they killed you and chucked your body into the portal to hide it? Hell fucking no, Danny,” Sam asserts.

The set of Danny's shoulders relaxes significantly. “Good,” he breathes. “Good. Please keep it that way.”

“What the fuck was going on in that house, man?” Tucker asks, a little sick to his stomach. He knows right away he shouldn't have asked.

Danny's expression shutters into something polite and pleasant to hide discomfort, and he immediately starts ‘casually’ gathering his papers and computer into his bag.

“Listen, I'm really happy to see you guys - seriously. I really should get going though, I-”

Sam reaches out and snatches him by the scruff of his shirt before he can even stand up all the way, yanking him back down into his chair.

His dumbfounded expression makes Tucker snort a laugh, so familiar and puppy-like. Danny is still all big blue eyes and nearly visible question marks when taken off guard. Tucker missed that face.

“You're not going anywhere until we get your phone number,” Sam argues, not a hint of wiggle room in her face or tone. “We'll get lunch or something, all three of us. Go to the mall. We're living in the same city, you know I'll hunt you down.”

When Danny hesitates, her face and tone melt into something softer.

“Please, Danny. We miss you.”

Danny melts a little, sighing and smiling. “...yeah. Yeah, I missed you too. I've missed you guys so much.”

“So?” Sam prompts, holding her hand out.

Danny huffs a little laughing breath and fishes around in his pocket, unlocking his phone and plopping it into her hand. 

His nails are black and green. Gradient.

Tucker doesn't know much about nails, but he knows there's a difference when Sam paints them and when she splurges for acrylics.

“Are those professionally done?” he asks, bemused. Danny had never expressed an interest in that kind of thing as a kid. It's kind of cool to see signs that he's, like…growing into himself.

Danny shrugs, and it feels good to see that he doesn't even seem to consider Tucker might give a shit in a bad way.

“I'm on my hot girl shit,” he deadpans, and Sam nearly drops his phone with the force of her startled laugh.

Tucker snorts. “Oh, well about time.”

“Hey!” Danny protests, offense fake and eyes dancing. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, nothing! You had a glow up is all.”

Danny snickers and kicks him gently under the table.

“Okay, dick.”

It's like they never parted at all for a moment.

“Here, Mr. Hot Girl Shit,” Sam says, handing Danny his phone back. “I put our numbers in and sent a text in a group chat so you can't forget to reach out. I'm serious, Danny. We missed you, don't disappear. It was scary enough the first time.”

Danny grimaces, at least looking genuinely apologetic. “I know. I'm sorry. I really do need to get going today, though. I've got an appointment.”

“What kind of appointment?” Tucker asks.

The grin Danny gives him is mischievous and has a few teeth sharper than he remembers there being. 

He breezes past them and out the door with an impish response of, “Hide and seek with furries.”

Part 4

Masterpost

[thegreatyin]

so. to tldr + elaborate on a few things now that people have had time to read this absolute trainwreck:

both the robe and the resurrection endings of nemesis are technically canon in the scoundrel's continuity. officially, caeru chose the robe ending. he just also happened to invent his own resurrection ending because he's a batshit insane freak

the above decision (believe it or not) wasn't actually motivated by personal regret! i've had this plot twist in mind for months, even before the scientist completed his ambition. i chose his in-game ending knowing full well he would spiral and manifest the other one in the worst way possible. i'm very satisfied with my choice and its results, even if my character very much is not (⁠◠⁠‿⁠・⁠)⁠—⁠☆

the plutonian shadow's true identity is that of the doomed scientist's resurrected lover. his ""real name"" or at least the only name he remembers going by is greylu. his current body can best be described as a wholly artificial noman contained in a wooden mannequin shell. he also doubles as the future protagonist of my bag a legend playthrough :)

the shadow's ""heart"" is a mass of melted-together mountain shreds, which help animate him in a manner similar to clay men, as well as reflecting the apocyan memories that give him his (deceptively complicated) identity in the first place. this apocyan light flows throughout his entire body and specifically leaks out of his unfinished eyesocket. he cannot control this. fortunately, it is not painful.

if this diamond was to be removed, damaged, or otherwise tampered with in any way, he would collapse instantly. it is effectively his brain as well as his heart. mr stones do not interact, he's just a little guy :(

to this day, caeru has no idea where the shadow is and what the yearner has done with him. this causes him no small amount of stress.

the shadow, meanwhile, has been living with the yearner and the scarred naturalist. he does not know exactly who created him or the circumstances surrounding said creation, only that the vake yearner "rescued" him and took him in when he had nowhere else to go. he trusts her completely. he thinks she's his best friend in the whole wide world (which, to be entirely fair- he only knows, like, 3 people tops)

the vake yearner is definitely 100% sinister about her intentions surrounding him but i like to think they do buddy-buddy stuff anyway. literally nothing supports this. it's just a headcanon i have. the yearner is taking the shadow on evil snow playdates and he is hanging on her every word and they are having a lovely time (provided you ignore the kidnapping and gaslighting)

the vake and the yearner know each other carnally. i will not elaborate on this.

the silverer lived!!! she's okay. she's vibing. she probably put caeru in the doghouse for a little while but their relationship has somehow survived this particular shooting incident. possibly because both of them have experienced infinitely worse.

the scoundrel has no idea any of this has happened. as far as it's concerned it had a lovely christmas and it has no idea where its husband has gone or why everyone is suddenly all up in arms about trying to find its evil snowwoman clone. it's lonely :(

lark/the unlucky songbird is equally completely and utterly uninformed about current homunculi-related-events, but to be entirely fair, that's kind of the norm for him

caeru still loves greylu. greylu still loves caeru. they both love each other very, very much.

they miss each other even more.

On heartbreak, homunculi, and the small yet very awkward matter of shooting one's girlfriend in the neck over your ex

OR: How The Doomed Scientist has been coping in the aftermath of his ambition (Badly. The answer is very very badly indeed.)

OR: A loosely abridged summary of an RP between myself and @superoffbatter, posted on Tumblr for OC lore purposes.

OR: Major spoilers for the entirety of the Nemesis ambition, as well as minor spoilers for Bag a Legend and a brief spot of blog-typical spoilers for a certain "powerful" ending of Heart's Desire.

OR: What The Plutonian Shadow's deal actually is.

So.

In order to explain this long and complicated tale, we're going to need to set a good bit of groundwork first. For some, this will effectively be a recap. For others, it will be important new lore that will harm us later.

Let's dive right in, shall we?

The Doomed Scientist- also known by his real name, Caeru- has a long and storied history of obsessing over serving others. He's always had this concept in his head that he needs to help, he needs to give himself up for the good of everyone around him, and if he's not doing that then he barely deserves to live at all.

This is the mindset that drove his quest to kill Mr Cups. He wasn't doing it for himself. He was doing it for everyone Cups has hurt, everyone Cups has murdered, every other victim that died so it could fulfill its need for stories of vengeance and misery. During his ambition, he very much saw himself as nothing more than a tool and a weapon to be pointed and used as the dead saw fit.

His own emotions didn't matter. His own grief, all-consuming as it was, didn't matter. Cups needed to die.

Cups- Cups needed to-

Oh, fuck.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't take it. He had an obligation towards those that died, towards his lover, towards everyone who ever wanted the beast dead. He couldn't take it. He just couldn't.

No matter how much he desperately, desperately wanted to.

For the first few weeks after his ambition concluded, Caeru was inconsolable. He was wracked with guilt over ""failing"" to save his former paramour, even more than he was already- for god's sake, the man could've been revived! He could've lived again! He deserved to live again!

And Caeru failed him. He failed to serve him. To be useful. To be good. To be worthy of living.

He... lost it, just a little bit. He became obsessed with fixing this perceived flaw in himself. This perceived flaw in everything. He couldn't sleep yet, he couldn't die yet, not when his love deserved to live.

Deserved to come back.

And. I mean. Well.

How hard could it be, really?

Cups was a Master, yes, and the Masters are lying conniving tyrants- but this was a promise it staked its life upon. A promise it gave on its deathbed. It clearly knew that Caeru could kill it, will kill it, and thus it had no reason to lie-

Cups could have brought his lover back. The Scientist knew that, intimately.

What he didn't know was how. But... well, that's alright, isn't it? He's created life before.

Lenses are arranged, corpses are arranged in a circle, their skin parted carefully with a knife. When the lenses are aligned correctly, the flesh will coalesce into the correct shape.

There are some venge-rats that dedicate themselves to a vengeance so thoroughly that there is nothing left of them but this one desire. When they die, their corpses are saturated with this emotion- but nothing else. When the Academic's machinery leaps to life (more slowly then the one at Station VIII, of course) it drains this, and leaves only withered shells in its wake. Perfect vessels.

Soon, the Knot of Tails reappears in the mirror. In its little coils of many paws, shimmering lights rest- memories. Reflections of rays of light long forgotten by the waking world.

And the false-Noman twists.

It turns.

Second by second, it looks more and more like a person.

When it looks up and smiles a shaky smile, its face is human- and two delicate flowers adorn its hair. The snow lacing its body curls like silk, the nails on its hands delicate and precise and perfect

It doesn't move, for a second. Two. Three.

And then the Rosette Yearner opens her eyes.

All he has to do is perfect the process.

The Yearner reaches a trembling hand up to her head, pursuing her lips in thoughtful silence. She blinks, slowly- once, twice. The silence is finally broken when she speaks, a trembling lilt, her words falling like petals from their stem.

"I'm alive.”

It's cold, unfeeling, distant. Like she's only talking about the weather.

Caeru's first attempt at artificial life, The False Yearner- she who would later be dubbed The Vake Yearner- is a complicated figure. Born out of an insanely long RP exchange with @superoffbatter, she is a ghost in all but name. A failed attempt to replicate a certain Scoundrel's past self, all while her makers were unaware that her and the Scoundrel were one in the same.

Except while the Scoundrel pursued ambitions of power, glory, and transformation, the Yearner ultimately took a different path. A darker path.

The Yearner stumbles over the mirror as they both exit through the window of the Royal Bethlehem. She sighs. "Where to go, now?" she whispers. "I can't stay here. I don't want to stay like this. I want to... do something."

The Silverer shrugs. "It's up to you. I suppose you could hunt the Vake if all else fails?" It's an offhandedly thrown joke, but the Yearner stops moving.

She considers it in her head. She takes a deep breath.

The Vake, huh. The Vake.

She became an avid hunter of the Neath's most infamous monster.

Her relationship with her creator is strained at best. For the most part, they've refused to acknowledge each other- they've hardly even spoken since the incident of her creation, save for a brief yet notable encounter at the Captivating Princess' last masquerade ball.

Someone steps closer to the Scientist, staring him in the eyes. The atmosphere grows colder.

It's a woman in a large fur-trimmed overcoat, with thick gloves and a staggeringly realistically furred marsh-wolf mask. The cosmogone shade of her eyes reveals her identity- the False Yearner- or, as some have taken to call her, the Vake-Yearner. The mask, now that the Scientist gives it a better look, is very obviously made from a real marsh-wolf, but the expert skill behind it... it's Snuffer-made.

The Yearner got a Snuffer to pull off a wolf's face for her. How curious.

"My other self's fiancé." she says, in a monotone. "And their pet Drownie. How curious. How droll."

The Scientist's face may be hidden behind a mask, but nothing could ever hope to conceal his alarmed blanch, the widening of his eyes, the shift of his stance- distinctly defensive, like a prey animal ready to flee at any moment.

"Yearner." his tone is one of forced detachment. "I never took you as someone who'd.. enjoy this sort of thing."

A glance to the side, where violant eyes (albeit from a distance) still gleam amidst the other invitees. Their mask is smiling, even if their lips are pulled into a wickedly fanged frown.

His mask tips downward. He doesn't retract this statement.

It ended... well. Shall we say. Poorly.

He is allowed in the scene- and witnesses the frozen corpses.

Dead, for sure, though how permanent it will be is yet to be tested. A thin layer of frost clings to their skin, and the scene is obviously filled with signs of struggle. Eight bodies, all trying to leave the room as they were cut down- all trying to escape.

Signs of a blunt instrument. Some of them were smashed against the walls, against the ground- one had both arms torn off. Frozen splatters of blood cover the walls.

The Yearner is nowhere to be seen.

The Yearner, after all, is what can best be described as an immortal and unmelting Noman, sustaining herself off of nothing but sorrow and human hearts. Her very existence is built upon blood and misery. She thrives off it. Needs it to survive, to live, to flourish.

Nobody deserves that kind of existence. Not even the Scoundrel's very own doppelganger.

But she's alive. And she did come back from some sort of death, hellish and ironic and false as it may be. It can be done.

The Scientist has done it before.

He can do it again.

He will do it again.

And so Caeru works. And works. And works.

To serve. To fix. To help. Finally, he's going to rectify his mistake, going to make everything better, going to give his lover the life he knows they deserve. This is a noble service. A noble obligation. The last attempt may have failed, but this- this cannot fail- he will not let himself fail, not again, not ever.

And nothing can stand in his way. Nothing except-

"Caeru?" a voice can be heard, knocking on the door to the Scientist's laboratory. "Are you there?"

Were one to look through the one-way glass window, they would see the Silverer, looking worried. "Where were you?" she says. "I haven't seen you all week. What has got you locked in there?" she taps again, more hurried-

-His current paramour, The Snowswept Silverer.

A loud crash echoes at the Silverer's sixth knock. Someone curses. The door slams open harsh enough to send her flinching back, the Scientist standing in the doorway with a look of pure vitriol- then, far slower than his typical reaction speed, his fury ebbs.

"Louise." his voice is gratingly hoarse, his hair tied in a half-hazard bun via a thoroughly exhausted ribbon struggling to keep the strands together (it would be a cute look, if not for the blue hue in his cheeks and the blood and dirt caking his arms). His laboratory is- cold. Blisteringly cold. He's barely even shivering, but- surely it can't be healthy, staying in there for so long-?

"I'm... working." he stresses the word as though it's an obvious and irrefutable explanation. "Can we talk in-" he looks back, "A month?" he has the audacity to pause thoughtfully. "Two?"

And thus the preamble concludes, and the pieces and players of our play all finally fall into place.

"...Caeru, I’m not stupid." Louise replies, giving him a throughly unimpressed look. "Is this yet another Yearner situation?"

The accompanying dumbfounded expression that her paramour produces would cause her some amount of delight, were this any other situation. As it is, she is simply more worried- and a fair bit annoyed, as well. "Yes, I know you were involved with her creation, somehow. You and the Academic were rather obvious about it. Whatever you've been doing inside this laboratory, Caeru, it's not nearly as discreet as you think it is. You have a budget, and whenever you ask for it to be extended or spend carelessly on a new batch of supplies, people see it happen-”

Her paramour squirms uncomfortably. She continues her rant unabated.

“-The GHR is in fact a major supplier of experimental materials for the University. As long as it's an import from the Hinterlands, I know what comes in here and what comes out. And I know for sure a certain Yearner has also been looking around your laboratory. I would have left you to your devices, but this will lead to a disaster if I don't interfere."

Her hand- which he notices is clawed- is putting quite a lot of pressure on his shoulder. "Tell me, Caeru. What have you been doing?"

He gulps. The look in her eyes is... serpentine in its wrath, even. Like a Knot who's just caught a scout from the Court of Cats intruding into its home. It's a look that demands an account.

His expression twists- regret, guilt, frustration, desperation. "Louise," he says softly, "Please, just- just give me more time. A week or two more, and- and this will all be done and over with. You'll never have to hear about it again. Please."

He tries to shy away from her hand and take a step back- it's not exactly successful, given his strength relative to hers. His hands tremble. His arms are slick and ruby red- weeping scars, never bandaged-

"I don't want to fight you." a rustle, as one hand drifts down to his pocket, so quiet as to be barely noticeable. "Please." he begs again. "Please don't make me fight you. It's not like the Yearner, it's- it's important, I can't just- please don't make me. Please."

Needless to say, things quickly go from bad to worse.

"Go ahead. Fight her." another voice, intensely recognizable, echoes through the corridor. The Scoundrel's voice- but colder. Less shrill. Less amused. "She won't leave you alone, and neither will I."

The Yearner stands there. Her feathery black dress is covered in blood- fresh. Going by the faint gurgling sounds, someone tried to block her way- and she reacted as she often does.

"I could feel something happening down here. I didn't know what it was, but it felt... important. Thank you for the confirmation that it was very important indeed." she steps forward. In her hand is a large spike of ice, the size of a sword. "Will you let me see it, Caeru? Or shall I tell your husband of what you’ve done? Of how I came to be? I still have that to hold over you, at least. I wonder if they would like to know what happened to that cufflink." the word is hissed, and she smiles in delight at the way he flinches.

(It's... so recognizable, Caeru realizes, and yet so twisted. They sound completely identical. If one were to ignore the face made of ice, they would even be able to identify the similarities- and the sharp differences. It's a little bit disquieting, to see her face. The Scoundrel does... does not make this kind of expression, even at their worst. The only kind of person who does is a certain Mr Veils. It's the sort of look only someone who delights in misery shows.)

He has no other options. No other way out.

He will not fail again. He will never let himself fail again.

A thousand possibilities run through his mind, all at once, before he can even so much as blink. The window- no. The door- terrifyingly fragile. The mirrors- if they weren't already swarming with serpents, he'd be shocked. No solution comes without violence, without- he can't lose again, he can't leave again, he-

The Scientist draws fast as a lightning bolt and shoots his paramour square in the chest, flipping the pistol and shooting a second time for good measure. The desperate scream of his apology can barely be heard over the slam of the door, the clicking of several dozen locks, the mad dash to retrieve something before what little safety he has inevitably gives way.

His prize is bundled in rags, apocyan soaking through the white cloth, pieces of shattered diamond and wood clippings scattered half-hazardly all over the floor-

Run. Run.

Thus the infamous girlfriend shooting incident. Don't worry, she gets better. For the most part.

Everyone else, well... they get substantially worse.

The Scientist acts on instinct, cradling his experiment against his chest. Not again. Never again. He turns when the door inevitably gives way and fires again, futile as it may be.

The bullet does not do much- not when the door is promptly kicked off its hinges, the locks snapping and shattering as the sheer force of the Yearner's kick propels it forward. In that moment, Caeru realizes that while the door was very secure, the frame is nothing but a few planks of wood. It wouldn't hold.

On the floor, bleeding profusely through the wound in her neck (though the ambery growths around it show it will be closing soon, whether it wants to or not), is the Silverer- who stares at the Yearner in horror. "This was not our deal." she hisses.

The Yearner shrugs. "I don't care."

And then she lunges for her prize like a woman possessed. Her eyes gleam, staring fixedly at the bundle in the Scientist's arms. "Either you tell me what that bundle is and why I feel so intensely that I need to see it, or I'll make you tell me." she purrs. "Make the choice, my dear creator.”

He desperately curls around the bundle, hugging it close enough for it to nearly bend under his grip- nearly. Whatever it is, it's sturdier than it looks.

"You can't take him." he gasps without thinking. "You can't- you can't take him, you can't hurt him, you can't-" he backs up against the wall and trembles. The weight makes him stagger with every step. When the Yearner approaches, he flinches. "You can't hurt him."

A delirious sob. The room is freezing. His skin is tinted such a vibrant shade of blue. It's a miracle he isn't already dead from hypothermia. Slowly, carefully, still keeping his gun aimed at the Yearner, his other hand pulls back part of the cloth- and the hand that dangles free is clawed and formed almost entirely from lacre.

Just like her.

"He's mine." Caeru whispers, pressing his head to the apocyan stains with equal parts guilt and adoration. "He's mine. And nobody will ever take him again."

The Silverer stumbles into the room, a gun in hand. The Yearner waves dismissively- and fractal spikes of ice erupt from the ground to block her advance. From the mirrors in the room, Fingerkings hiss and spit in fury- the Yearner should probably stay away from Parabola for a few weeks. She turns to look at the Scientist in disdain.

"Bringing back the dead." she spits. "Once again. You should know it gets you nowhere. Look at what you did before. You tried to return me to the world, when I wasn't ever real at all!" she yells. "An illusion. A dream! Delusions of high society and bohemian dreams of a waif that was never anything but a facade!" she roars, coming closer. "Who was it this time?! Tell me! Who was-”

She pauses, before smiling. It is not a nice smile. "Your lover, wasn't it? The seventh victim. Did you realize that killing Mr Cups would never return what you lost!?"

The words sting. They sting, because she doesn't know, how could she know. Her eyes are wild and mad. "Drop it. Let it go. You don't deserve to have them back.”

The Scientist chokes on a sob. He doesn't deny a word. His knees buckle- he slides down to the floor, holding the bundle like a lifeline and a precious piece of treasure, all rolled into one. "I know." his voice is calm, even with the tears sliding down his cheeks. "I don't deserve him."

He's- the Silverer recognizes the look in his eyes. He's never been more confident about anything else in the world.

"I'm not doing this for myself," the words ring slightly hollow when he's clinging to his creation on the floor, "I'm doing it for him. When Cups died, it-" his tone wavers. Caeru swallows. The despair and guilt in his voice is intoxicating, especially to a Noman standing so very close indeed.

"It begged for its life. It gave me an offer. It could bring him back, if I spared it." he looks beyond the Yearner- staring intently at a shadow on the wall, as though somehow it could stare back. "I couldn't- I couldn't, for everyone else it murdered, I couldn't-" he chokes. "I failed him. I failed him. He deserved to live, he deserved to come back- and I failed, and-"

He kicks at a spare diamond on the floor, watching it twist and freeze into place within moments of making contact with the Yearner. "I'm fixing it. I'm fixing him."

A kiss to his prize. To his magnum opus. His eyes stay fixed on it- nothing matters so long as it is in his arms. "I'm serving him. I'm fixing him."

🐈💙🐺

"No." the Yearner snarls. "No, you're not fixing him. I'll be the one doing that. Give him to me!"

She moves before he can say a word. Only a Licenciate's instincts save his head from being separated from its shoulders by a sharpened spike of ice. He dives out of the way of a furious flurry of stabs, and stumbles to keep hold of his prize- only to see the Yearner tear off her dress in front of him.

He blinks in disbelief before seeing it- connected to her body are numerous pulsating hearts. The blood vessels tear holes in the thin shirt she wore underneath, and wet the fabric in frozen blood. Nourishing her as they draw ever closer to death. How many people have been killed- perhaps permanently- to sustain her existence?

She grins wickedly, cosmogone eyes shining with Parabolan light. "You won't bring him back. Cups wouldn't have done it either, I'm sure. The Masters have experience with bringing the dead back- done it five times now. But it never works, not really, does it?" she spits out the words. "You don't know what it's like. To live knowing you are a failure. A failed attempt to bring someone ELSE back!? Do you want him to live like this, you bastard?! Give him to me. I'll give him life- his own life! He doesn't deserve to be the monument to your vanity!”

🐈💙🐺 🔫⛄

“You barely know how-" the Scientist curses and ducks around another flurry, flailing in a desperate attempt to keep his 'lover' close. He ducks and weaves around the room with expert precision- but his movements are more than slightly hindered by the weight of a corpse larger than he is tall. That... no, that can't be right-

"He won't be a failure." Caeru spits back, pressed against the spikes still binding the Silverer- can't she hear, some part of his mind wonders? What does she think of him? Of what he's done?

He gasps for air that comes stiff and frozen solid. His pistol is long-since discarded- useless, now, but he can't help looking at it and swallowing down his guilt. All the more reason to throw himself down the nearest well, really. At least it's worth it. At least he's worth it. At least it'll all be over soon.

"He's not finished, he's not fixed yet-" he dives away from yet another attempt to spear him in the head. "Do you really think I'd attempt the same experiment twice without learning from my mistakes?! He'll be better. He'll be- he'll be different. He'll be everything." he sounds utterly delirious. "He'll be everything you were meant to be."

The Yearner hisses- and her blade moves for the Scientist's neck with unbelievable speed. There will be no dodging this one. Encumbered as he is, he has to drop the bundle if he wants to dodge- and that he will never do. He closes his eyes-

And only opens them a second later, after the sound of flesh being cleaved resounds. He is- he is not on the slow boat. He sees the Silverer before him, blocking the Yearner's blade with her own arm. A steady trickle of blood is falling from the grievous-looking wound- the cut was such that it exposed the bone.

"Oh, hello. Does it hurt?" the Yearner remarks.

"Not... at all." the Silverer scoffs.

"What if I do this?"

The Noman wriggles her arm and the blade twitches on the spot it's stuck on. The Silverer yelps and wrenches herself free, before falling. There are holes torn all over her legs- even the Shapeling Arts couldn't hold back the blood loss indefinitely. She collapses, overwhelmed by pain. The sound that emerges from the Scientist's throat is one of near-inhuman agony.

For no reason in particular: Did you know Caeru's biggest fear is watching his loved ones die in front of him (especially while he's unable to save them?)

The Yearner laughs. "Guess it's just the two of us again. Now, hand it over. Or I'll tear your arms off.”

Caeru drops the bundle without thinking, kneeling over the Silverer and cradling her in his arms, barely acknowledging the Yearner's presence. Louise's name is all but chanted under his breath- he struggles to breathe. Blood soaks through his coat. Her head is held close against his heart. His hands scramble to stop the bleeding, to fix her, to save her, to- to-

His head darts up as the Yearner takes a step towards the bundle. His eyes are wide. An utterly distraught sob. He doesn't stop her. He only turns back to his (still living) paramour and desperately tries to keep her that way.

"Idiot." he mumbles into the Silverer's hair, still on the verge of delirium. "You didn't need to- you didn't-"

And thus, the Yearner wins this round. But the story isn't over quite yet.

He looks back just long enough to glare up at the Yearner. He spits. "I should've fed you to the Knot of Tails when I had the chance."

"You should have." the Yearner nods. "I agree on that, now."

She kicks the Scientist square in the jaw. Her delicate shoe goes flying off into the distance, and she leaps for the bundle. Before the Scientist can recover from his daze, she rips the cloth around it, and then her arm moves for one of the hearts in her chest- tearing it off in one clean motion. Blood- deathly cold- sprays everywhere. She shoves the heart into the chest of the Scientist's project, and it- horror of horrors- twitches. It opens its eyes, and gasps- before once again falling into utter silence.

"It worked." she grins. "That's what it needs, right? Life. You've been working with mountain-sherds, trying to breathe life into it- but you don't know anything. You don't know what you are doing, you've been getting nowhere. Your love needs life to come back. Life has to come from somewhere."

The many hearts on her body twitch and wriggle as she turns to leave, the body still in her hands, bathing her in apocyan light. "Don't worry. I have a lot of life to give."

She runs off, and Caeru can see-

The body is half-lacre, half-skeletal, and all mannequin. A horror of sable wood casings enveloping the lacre beneath like a shield, virtually impossible to separate without ripping it all apart. His chest is exposed just enough to betray the underlying array of cracked ribs, and inside lays a diamond shining brilliant apocyan. The light floods his body and leaks freely out of an exposed, half-finished eyesocket.

He's sturdier than the Yearner, clearly. Built to last. Built to survive. Not an accident, like she was, but something else entirely. He shudders, white hair flowing in waves down to her feet- his hands dig into her shoulders on instinct.

He meets Caeru’s eyes. He doesn't say a word.

Caeru watches them go, and tries not to scream. He fails spectacularly.

He stumbles to his feet, still cradling his paramour- he takes one step after them, then sobs. The Silverer twitches in his arms. His mind races.

If he leaves her, if he fails again, if he-

He turns tail and shoves coils of hissing Fingerkings aside, ducking into Parabola as the Yearner escapes. He'll regroup, he swears, he'll come back, he'll fix this, he'll fix everything, he'll-

He sets his paramour down and frantically sets about bandaging her wounds. The past can wait. He only has one Louise.

"I love you." he whispers uselessly. "I'm sorry. I love you. I'm so sorry-"

The Scientist's involvement in this tale ends here- left with many regrets, many things to answer for, and many wounds to try and heal.

Some, he succeeds at. Others, he does not.

But this was never about him in particular.

Far away is the Yearner, retreating to a lair in the swamps. A knock on the door, two knocks- and the Scarred Naturalist looks at her in disbelief. "What on earth is that?"

She enters, and places the body on the dining table without a word, knocking wooden plates and silverware (a strange contrast, indeed) aside. The body twitches, the sole heart connected to its chest pulsating madly as it slowly but surely withers into nothing. Her hand hovers over a cracked rib.

"We'll have to find replacements." she whispers.

The Naturalist shrugs. He doesn't know what this is all about, but he supports her interests, as always. He finds the Yearner is a surprisingly good influence on his master. Why, the master of silks has been startingly cheery since they've started their rivalry. "The swamp will provide," he notes. "Plenty of bodies around.

The Yearner nods. "Tell Veils I'm calling in that favour, too. It can provide far better materials than that fool of a scientist could. Ask it for wood- sturdy. Elder Continent- something that soaks in the light of the Mountain." she pauses. "Keep him safe. The box of hearts is under my bed- feed one to him every hour. I'll be leaving. I believe Fires had a shipment of apocyan lanterns sent over to Varchas? Surely nobody will notice if I take one..”

She takes a heavy coat, and steps out of the shack. She has a mission.

-

The body does not move for... quite some time. It merely stares up at the ceiling in idle bafflement, digging its claws into the table. It opens its mouth. All that emerges is a sickening click-

He closes his mouth. The heart shudders, and he goes with it. He rolls to his left and spends minutes on end staring at his hands in open fascination- another click.

He twists the joints on his fingers. He lifts his head, and while he may not have proper eyes- the empty stare of his eyesocket and the sickening glow of the apocyan leaking from his face is nothing short of disturbing.

He watches at the Naturalist for a long moment. Another click, as he opens his mouth, and then closes it. A claw unwisely pokes around the heart on his chest, another hand gesturing vaguely to the house around it. Finally, it manages to croak in a low rumble, like an oncoming storm- "Where?"

The Naturalist raises an eyebrow. "Bugsby's Marshes." at the confused look he gets back, he raises it further. "Watchmaker's Hill?" a pause. "The Fifth City, Fallen London? The Neath?" he chuckles. "My my. You're quite uninformed. I suppose it's just fair..."

He walks over to a cabinet, and takes out- is that skin? Human skin. A face. "You've just been born, haven't you?" He offers the face. It's fair-skinned and pudgy. He grins devilishly. "Perhaps a trip to the city would alert your senses."

(The Yearner didn't say he had to stay in the cabin. Just that he had to be kept safe- and that he needed the hearts.)

The Naturalist looks at the homunculus in front of him expectantly, and smiles again. It's not a nice smile.

The body's own face is carved from wood, and thus, cannot blanch- but its face certainly does scrunch up in noticeable revulsion. "No thank you." he says quickly, practically shoving it away. "I'm," he pauses, "Not, hungry?"

He reaches up- the heart beats faster. His finger dips into his eye. He could swallow, if he knew how. He sits up and stares down at his own body in obvious bafflement.

London. He's in London. In... what was it? Bugsby's Hill? This must be a dream.

He slides off the table, trips over his own hair, and falls facefirst onto the ground with a loud thud. A very strange dream indeed.

"...a trip would be appreciated, thank you..." oddly polite, for a newborn homunculus. If a bit laughable.

"My, you're clearly not fine." the Naturalist says. "And you can't go out like this, either way. I'll find you a suit. I have... one." the fact it belonged to someone the Yearner had hunted and killed probably doesn't matter. "Hm. But it's not your size. Maybe..."

He leaves the room to fetch something while the homunculus twitches on the ground. The body practically claws his way up to the wall as he tries once more to get his footing. 'Practically', of course, meaning 'leaves stark grooves in the wallpaper as though he was a particularly rambunctious kitten'.

Finally, the Naturalist returns with a cloak- torn in several places and repaired with careful carelessness. A trophy of war, a legendarily expensive article of clothing torn from the body of a Master and carefully, extensively defaced. Reworked and remade. He offers it.

"Thank you." a stiff sigh as he wraps the cloak around himself, tugging the hood over his head without a second thought. The illusion of anonymity is only slightly marred by the apocyan glow and uncomfortable resemblance to a Master of the Bazaar.

One hesitant step, then another. One more, for good measure. The homunculus looms above the Naturalist, voice rattling like gravel. "Who did you say you were..?" he looks at the door. "You and that- ah. Ice...? Ice. Woman. With the. Eyes." his tone reeks of disbelief.

"Quite tall..." the Scarred Naturalist mutters. "Ah, well. I am a Scarred Naturalist, just a humble scholar living here after my... let us call it an involuntary exile from academia. Unfortunately, prejudice tends to get in the way of scientific advancement... no matter." he coughs. "My associate is the Yearner, a hunter living on the marshes in search of a particularly elusive beast. She brought you here. Given by your state you must have been in quite a situation! Do you remember anything in particular? Have you an address to return to, perhaps?"

The body tilts his head roughly 45 degrees and ponders for a moment. "I run an inn," he looks up, vain as it may be, "Quite far from here. My, ahem, business partner- last I recall, I was bidding him farewell for the morning..."

He trails off and stares into space, not lost in any specific memory, but simply caught in a wave of utter bafflement at the holes in his own mind. "Next I remember, I was carried here by the Yearner. And now I look like-"

He stops, and raises a hand once again. The lacre coats his palms- fresh, vulnerable spots where his mannequin-like casing has not yet been applied. The apocyan dims. "-Like, this." he stands in silence for a long minute. His gaze, though unreadable, is inevitably drawn back to the face- the. Face.

He takes a step back. "Well! Now that I think about it! I really must be going!" he spins on his feet and twists the doorknob with forced cheer, barely able to keep the tremors out of his voice. "It was lovely meeting you, I'm quite grateful for your assistance, tell your associate she's a delight, but if you can just direct me to the nearest path back upwards-?"

He smiles. His mouth is full of uneven, half-formed teeth. "I'd hate to take up too much of your time. I'm sure you're busy doing... busy marsh things."

"Upwards...?" the Naturalist mutters. There's a grudge here. "Never been upwards." he says, too low for the homunculus to hear at all. "Not like they'd take us. The sun hates us more then Stone does. No, no path upwards for me…”

He composes himself, and gives his conversation partner an amused look. "I am loath to inform you, but there is no path upwards. Have you seen yourself, young man? The sun would scour you utterly. To ashes. It does not take kindly to Neathy things- and perhaps you should take a look at yourself? Thoroughly Neathy, that body of yours."

He reveals a mirror, and on it, the cloaked shadow can finally see his face. He tugs down his hood and stares. He's quiet for a time. A trembling hand caresses his cheek (hollow and wooden and false), then scratches at his beard (snow-white and soft as silk), then traces along his scars (carved deliberately and carefully into his face, as though replicating something that was already there).

The Naturalist continues, regardless of his guest's confusion. He sounds quite amused by the whole affair. "Do not worry. I am sure my roommate could not let you go without a shelter for the night- and when you wake up, Penstock's Land Agency will be ready and waiting. We could find you a home here- and perhaps arrange for mail to the Cumaean Canal? I'm sure that ‘business partner’ of yours might have explanations for what happened- and for these apparent gaps in your memory."

A soft sound escapes the body's mouth, indecipherable. He brings a hand up to the apocyan-lit hole in his left eye- and flinches on instinct when his claws dip into it with ease. "Thoroughly..."

There's awe, yes. Horror, most certainly. A hint of amazement. Most of all, complete and utter bafflement.

"But- I have people to get back to, I can't just-" he blinks. "Mail... that. Would be appreciated, yes. Thank you kindly." he looks back at the door. Without speaking, he steps outside- and stops, staring up at the false stars in open awe.

One tentative step, then another. He marvels at the world like a newborn babe.

"What is this?" he doesn't particularly expect an answer. "What... am I?"

The city is alive. Even at this hour, Watchmaker's Hill bustles with activity.

The Starved Embassy's ambered glow and the visitors from the Roof who walk the streets, the Clay Men who pass in stoic silence- the hawkers, the conmen offering rostygold for whoever beats them at arm-wrestling (hiding brass tacks between their fingers as they brag about their prowess), the marksmanship competitions for prizes of jade! The scholars debating the nature of the stars, taking blind steps towards the observatories. The criers announce Feducci's fighting rings, the chittering of surprisingly articulate insects and the growling of the marsh-beasts.

Fallen London stands before the Shadow in all its glory, this strange and wild city of a thousand stories. It gazes at him with mirth.

The Shadow gazes back.

He tugs up his hood and strolls along in absolute wonder- his hand dwarfs a wrestler's own as he pins their arm with ease, barely noticing tacks against wooden 'skin'. His voice is eager and enthralled as astronomers entertain each and every one of his questions about the 'stars' in the 'sky'. A sorrow spider creeps up his elbow- he plucks it by the leg and dangles it in front of his eyes. A half-hearted smile. It disappears into his cloak, and does not return.

Everyone gives him a wide berth, but if this bothers him, he doesn't voice it. This must be a dream- it is a dream, surely, but even so, there's no harm in enjoying it while it lasts.

He'll wake up eventually. He'll see his partner eventually.

Anxiety dies as he stops on the edge of a hill and gazes up at the firmament. London's invitation is easy to accept- after all, in a city of a thousand stories, surely an explanation lies within one.

Barely glancing at the Naturalist behind him, he wanders off into London's heart. Lacre trails in his wake.

It's a beautiful day to be alive.

[slytherinshua]

BROUGHT THE HEAT BACK

genre. vampire au/bthb au. established relationship. warnings. sunghoon is very jealous. profanity. kissing. slightly suggestive maybe. reader wears a dress. pairing. vampire!sunghoon x fem!witch!reader. wc. 1k. request. no. a/n. bthb is probably one of their best mvs ever it was so well made like omg?? giving tim burton film vibes esp at the end and every scene was just so stunning, obv it gave me fic ideas ksdjks. written esp for @blue-jisungs @hursheys and @loserlvrss

“Jesus, fuck, Sunghoon—” You shrieked when you entered your apartment, not expecting your boyfriend to be hanging from the ceiling, eyes staring at the door. He floated down to the floor, not moving a muscle. You were used to his… supernatural way of moving around by now, but you hadn’t expected him to jumpscare you like that.

“What did I say about hanging from the ceiling?” You muttered, brushing your coat off. Sunghoon slid over to you, hovering over your shoulder, eyes piercing your cheek. You figured something must be up. He didn’t act so vampirish unless he was pissed, reverting back to his old habits of hundreds of years.

“What did I say about going out without telling me?” He grunted in response, a very evident scowl etched on his face.

Ah, that’s why he was pissed.

“I did tell you, dumbass.” You slid your heels off next, padding your bare feet over to your shared bedroom. Sunghoon followed you, still too lazy to use his legs. 

“You didn’t say you’d be going in that outfit.” He countered, scarlet eyes shining brighter with his annoyance. 

“Seriously? I thought I looked pretty.” You huffed, grabbing one of his hoodies draped over a chair and glancing at the full-length mirror. You quite liked the dress you had picked out. Sure, it was a little revealing for your taste, but you wanted to try something different. All your friends were going to be dressing up nice. The dresses in your wardrobe were all gloomy colours and long-sleeves; very witchy thanks to your profession. 

The dark vermillion stained dress was sleeveless, adorned with jewels and a slit on the leg. You had bought it the week previously with your friend after trying it on and falling in love with how it looked. The colour reminded you of Sunghoon’s eyes. 

“You do look pretty. That’s the problem.” He muttered, biting his lip with his fang.

“There’s no need to be jealous, babe. I wasn’t looking at anyone else.” You assured him, pulling his black hoodie over your head. 

“People were looking at you, though. And for the record, I’m not jealous.” He frowned, his eyebrows furrowed as he too looked at the mirror, seeing the obvious absence of his reflection next to you. He hated that. Why did he always feel invisible?   

“Whatever you say.” A hint of a smile played on your lips. No matter how annoyed and angry Sunghoon got, you were never intimidated by him. He couldn’t hide the fact that he was secretly a softie. You pulled on his arm, and as he held no resistance, his body fell perfectly into your arms. 

“Geez, you’re burning up. Sure you’re not a little jealous?” You giggled, feeling his forehead and cheeks. Although they didn’t hold any colour, they were warm to the touch. You knew enough about vampires to know feelings of jealousy made their stolen blood boil. Literally. You had focused on vampires in your witch studies. 

“The room is just hot.” He made up an excuse, dipping away from your reach before you could see that he was lying. You shook your head, amused at him. He pursed his lips, taking a seat on the bed and avoiding eye contact with you out of spite.

You slid the dress off under his hoodie and grabbed a pair of pyjama pants to put on instead. His clothes were always the perfect amount of oversized on you, plus the added bonus of smelling just like him. It was like you were wrapped in a warm hug at all times.

“Burn it.” Sunghoon’s voice broke the silence in the room. You turned back around to him, quickly figuring out that he meant the dress.

“Good grief, you’re ridiculous—” You started to protest, but seeing his serious look painted in his eyes, you figured it was probably best to not test him when he was sensitive. You picked up the dress, using a simple spell to burst it into flames.

“Happy?” 

He nodded, satisfied. He tilted his head, and you felt a tug on your sleeve; his sorcery yanking you gently, a silent plead to come sit with him. You complied, knowing already what would get his mind off the burning jealousy he was feeling.

“Need your kisses now, hm?” You ruffled his hair lovingly, enjoying the grumpy expression on his face. Sliding his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose, you drew closer to his face. He couldn’t wait a second longer to taste your lips, his scorching possessiveness creeping in every cold vein of his body, heat shuddering through his skin.

He was annoyed at you and how you occupied his every thought. He just couldn’t get you out of his head, whether you were by his side or away from him. His entire life had turned upside down the second you walked in and trampled all over his heart. Now, he was stuck, inexplicable feelings swallowing him whole. He wasn’t used to it. No one else had such a big effect on him. He loved you too much.

He poured out his frustration into the kiss, fangs nipping at your lips, one hand holding the side of your neck to pull you closer. It wasn’t enough. Even as his tongue melted with yours, it wasn’t enough. He still felt the jealousy creeping up his spine, the thought of other guys seeing you look so pretty distressing his mind. 

You pulled apart for air, the eagerness of Sunghoon’s kiss depleting your breath quickly. He peppered kisses to your face and neck as you rested, tracing over every inch of skin he could reach as if to dispel any doubt that you were his. 

“Still burning up.” You mumbled to yourself, feeling the skin of his neck and shoulder junction. You smiled, wondering how many kisses it would take to cool him off again. Something was telling you that you would be there for a while.

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