#she has the upper hand because no one is directly below her

[cinewhore]

ok be real with me is it weird to write my downstairs neighbor a note about her sexcapades?

[peachdues]

Tell Me to Stop: Part 2 (NSFW Kyojuro Rengoku x F!Ice Pillar)

A/N: oh man, it’s here. This took a lot out of me, so I hope that you all like it.

Part One can be found here: post-Mugen AU where Kyojuro lives; events take place post-Entertainment District.

Multiple POVs (Y/N, Shinobu, and Kyojuro). There are several flashbacks, which are in all italics and separated from the main text.

Massive TW: trauma/PTSD, anger, nightmares, descriptions of corpses, violence and violence between characters (shoving, grabbing/shaking). One character triggers another and it’s dubious whether it’s intentional or not.

CW: 16.7k words; explicit sexual content. Unprotected sex/oral (F!receiving), creampies, cursing, light scar worship, intimacy, angst.

For the song that inspired this, listen here.

Without further ado!

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

(Y/N’s POV)

Y/N began her rehabilitation training within one week of awakening from her coma.

For those seven days of rest, Y/N had fielded all sorts of visitors — the Master, escorted by his two daughters; the Love Pillar, who had wasted no time throwing her arms around Y/N’s shoulders and sobbing in relief; and three of the Mansion’s youngest girls, all of whom crawled up on her bed and cried while hugging her.

Uzui had sent her a note by crow telling her he would be by to see her as soon as his wives finished making her favorite treat — red bean mochi — and said they could compare battle wounds in celebration of their feat.

Y/N had neither seen nor heard as much of a whisper from the Flame Pillar.

The Ice Pillar resolved to distract herself from the glaring absence of the man who embodied fire, though every day that passed without word from him only seemed to make that absence more pronounced.

Y/N had thrown herself into her rehabilitation training, as supervised by Shinobu. Because she was a Hashira, her recovery was vastly different from that of lower-ranked slayers, and she worked with the Insect Pillar directly, rather than with the haughty Aoi and other younger Mansion girls.

That particular morning, the Love Pillar had joined them in an effort to recuperate Y/N’s loss of flexibility as the result of the nearly two months she’d spent sedentary. Y/N cherished the one-on-one time she had with the other two women Hashira; the three of them had formed a tight bond with one another since ascending as Pillars, united amidst the predominance of male demon slayers.  

“Good! Now just bend this way-“ Mitsuri Kanroji kept a steady hand at the small of Y/N’s back as Y/N arched over backward, teeth grinding as her stiff spine resisted her movement.

“Almost there! Just touch your other hand to the floor and hold it!” The Love Hashira said encouragingly.

Y/N stretched her left arm over her head as hard as she could. Her fingers had just graced the wooden grain of the training room floor when her body seized, and her legs gave out from under her.

“Oh!” Mitsuri caught Y/N effortlessly before she could crumple to the floor, gently helping her to sit while blushing at the stream of colorful curses that poured from the Ice Pillar’s mouth.  

“This damn wound,” Y/N moaned, her hand pressing against the angry red mark that curved from below her belly button to her right hip. “You would think it would have healed by now.”

Shinobu frowned as she crouched next to the Ice Pillar, fingers lightly prodding at the scar left behind by Upper Moon Six. “It has healed; if it hadn’t, it wouldn’t have scarred already.” Shinobu pursed her lips. “Though, I suppose it could just be a residual effect of the Upper Rank’s blood demon art – after all, it was no ordinary blade that he pierced you with, was it?”

Y/N shook her head, though she tried to suppress the memory of the demon’s cursed flesh blade ramming through her back and into her stomach. “The blade was his conduit for his blood demon art – but I think it was made from him.”

“How often does it hurt, Y/N?” Mitsuri asked, rubbing soothing circles on her friend’s upper back. Mitsuri was one of the few people Y/N knew who preferred to give physical comfort, and Y/N was grateful for it.

Y/N furrowed her brows in thought. “In a way, there’s always just this dull ache I feel, though it becomes sharper whenever I move a particular way.” Y/N pulled at the band of her uniform bottoms in discomfort. “And, it doesn’t help that these damn pants chafe and rub against it. I’ve even foregone the belt, and it still feels like they’re cutting into me.”

Mitsuri hummed in thought. “Have you considered one of the uniform skirts? They sit a little higher on the waist, so they’re less likely to aggravate it.”

Y/N scowled. “I would rather be stabbed by Upper Six again than request a skirt from that pervert tailor,” she said severely, “Sorry,” she added when she saw the Love Pillar flush with embarrassment.

“Lecherous Corps tailors aside, you may have a good point, Mitsuri.” Shinobu said, eyeing Y/N’s uniform pants in thought. “Y/N, do you mind if I brainstorm some designs for you? I can’t promise whatever I come up with will be suitable for public appearances or assignments, but I might be able to come up with something that will at least keep you comfortable while you heal and build back your strength.”

Y/N smiled as she stretched her legs out, bringing herself into a pose meant to flex her hips. “I’d be grateful for anything you could do, Shinobu.”

The Insect Pillar nodded. “Mitsuri, you know how to sew quite well, do you not? I’m afraid my proficiency with the needle is limited to sewing up wounds.”

The pinkette glowed with enthusiasm. “Yes! I have an entire room dedicated to sewing at my Estate – if you bring by your designs, I’m sure I could put something together!”

Shinobu smiled. “Then it’s settled. I’ll see what I can come up with tonight, and I’ll bring it by in the morning.”

Y/N’s heart swelled at the dedication her two friends showed towards her comfort and recovery. “Thank you both, from the bottom of my heart.”

Shinobu’s smile turned wicked. “Don’t thank us yet, Y/N. You have agility training next.”

Y/N groaned and pulled on her uniform top, buttoning it over her bindings. As a Hashira, agility training meant that she was to meet the Wind Pillar outside of Kocho’s estate where she would endure two hours of having to dodge his relentless attacks. Y/N got along just fine with Shinazugawa – he’d even welcomed her back, and gruffly complimented her work in the Entertainment District – but that did not mean he eased up in his ruthless training.  

By the time the Wind Pillar had dismissed her with a satisfied nod, Y/N had all but limped back to her room, wondering whether she could even summon the strength to bathe after such an arduous day. She almost decided against it, but when her newest scar began to pulse and throb once more, she knew nothing else would soothe it better than the hot water in Kocho’s private hot spring.

Y/N greeted the bowing Kakushi who guarded the entrance to the northernmost wing of the Butterfly Mansion’s hospital as she passed by, and she hoped that Aoi had remembered to restock her room with fresh towels so she could go straight to her bath from her room.

She drew short at the sight of a familiar figure which stood outside of Kocho’s office, leaning against the wall of the small hallway.

“Rengoku!” Y/N was startled, taking a step back in surprise at the sight of the Flame Pillar.

“Y/L/N.” The man who reminded her of the sun nodded in greeting, but his familiar, sunny disposition was noticeably absent, his face impassive and his voice detached.

“I am happy to see you in good health.” Rengoku spoke with unnatural formality; he’d never used that cold, detached manner of speaking to her, not once since she’d caught him staring at her right before the commencement of Final Selection all those years ago.

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“Ice Pillar Y/L/N!” His sunny voice boomed, and Y/N groaned. She’d just gotten her migraine to calm down.

“Rengoku,” she nodded politely, as her comrade came to stand beside her, all smiles and warmth. 

“It’s been a while, Y/L/N! I was beginning to forget what you look like when you roll your eyes at me.” He laughed, and Y/N scowled.

“Perhaps I’ll pay to have my photograph taken, Rengoku. That way, you can carry it with you wherever you go.”

Rengoku turned to her, an eyebrow raised in surprise at her willingness to engage with his banter so quickly. “If that’s the case, Y/N, I’d prefer to have one of you smiling. It would do well to keep me warm on those cold nights away from home.”

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“I heard you were called away on another mission— some train?” Y/N asked him as they strolled through the Master’s garden following their meeting.

“Yes, we’ve unfortunately lost a number of slayers. Perhaps it’s an upper rank!” The Flame Pillar responded jovially, but he stopped in front of Y/N when he saw her frown.

“What is it?” His voice was gentle, and Y/N shook her head, focusing her eyes on the blooming wisteria saplings that had been planted.

A warm finger curled under her chin and tilted her face up until her eyes clashed with pools of golden ore. “My dear Ice Pillar, are you worried for me?” He was smirking, and his thumb lightly caressed the underside of her jaw.

Y/N gingerly took his hand and removed it from her face, though she did not let it go right away. “You are the Flame Hashira, Rengoku. If anyone is capable of defeating an Upper Rank, it most certainly is you.” 

Rengoku smiled broadly at her, his hand nearly grazing her own. “For someone whose prowess lies in ice breathing, Y/L/N, you sure know how to start fires.”

Under any other circumstance, she would have changed the subject, or not said anything at all. But Y/N couldn’t help her sudden desire to flirt back, just to see if she could knock him off his feet as he so often tried to do to her.

“Yours is the only one I’m interested in stoking, Rengoku.” She said sweetly.

She’d laughed at the Flame Pillar’s beet-red face for the rest of the day.

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“And I, you.” Y/N responded, her eyes still wide with surprise as she came to a stop before him, maintaining a cautious distance between them.

A pregnant pause followed, and Y/N made to speak once more, but she was cut off by another deep throb from the wound on her lower abdomen, her hand unconsciously flying to press against it as she swallowed the gasp that threatened to leave her.   

“You’re in pain.” It wasn’t a question.

Y/N shrugged in a feeble attempt at nonchalance. “I suppose it’s to be expected for a while yet. At least until I recover.”

Rengoku said nothing, and the silence felt suffocating.

“Would you-“ Y/N hesitated, and inwardly she’d never felt more embarrassed, or more uncertain than she did then as she stood before the uncharacteristically stoic Flame Pillar. “Would you like to sit down?”

Rengoku’s face remained impassive, and he turned away from her, dismissively.

“I cannot. I came only to retrieve a salve from Kocho.” His voice was just as cold, just as unfamiliar as the rest of him had been.

“Rengoku, is everything all right?” She stretched out a hand to touch his shoulder but was alarmed at how quickly he flinched away from her as if her touch could burn him.

“Everything is fine, Y/L/N. I need to be on my way.” Rengoku’s voice was flat, monotone, and wholly foreign to her.

“I’m sorry for not thanking you sooner — for everything you did to help me that night.” Y/N blurted, and to her relief, Rengoku froze mid-step, though he did not turn towards her. “I owe you my life.”

She did not miss the way Rengoku’s fists clenched at his side. “You owe me nothing. I would have done the same for any other comrade.” He replied, voice tight. “I must get going now. Farewell, Y/L/N.

She was so stunned that she’d not bidden him farewell back. Rather, she’d stood helplessly in her doorway, even long after the edge of his haori had disappeared around the corner of the Butterfly Mansion’s hall.

He had not looked at her once.

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(Kyojuro’s POV)

Kyojuro’s fists remained clenched the entire journey back to his estate.

He felt disgusted with himself. He felt like a coward.

It had nearly knocked him to his knees to see Y/L/N up and standing and talking because for so long, he had feared he would never again see the way she crinkled her nose when she laughed, or how she tucked that one loose strand of hair behind her ear whenever she was concentrating — the one that never stayed put in her braid.

But he had not been able to meet her eyes; couldn’t bear to bring himself to try, because he had been terrified of what he would see.

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Every night for the last two months, he has dreamed of her.

They were not pretty dreams, not like those he had before when he’d wrap her in his arms and kiss her until she laughed, the two of them living in a monster-free world and at peace.

Now, he dreamt of vacant eyes-tinged blue, unseeing and unblinking and frozen, just like the rest of her. He dreams of iced skin and blood and poison pouring from her mouth and her nose until she chokes, her chest rising once with a final rattle before it falls still.

He dreams of Upper Three, smiling deviously as he aims his fist to deal his final blow, and Kyojuro wrenches his blade down, desperate to finally win.

Only, his blade decapitates Y/N, not the Upper Rank demon and he is helpless to watch her head bounce pathetically to the ground. His hands are covered in her blood, and instead of disintegrating, her body falls uselessly to the side. Human.

As quickly as he kills her, the dream changes. He is in a lively street, filled to the brim with street vendors and women and men offering their services. It is night but the lights of the shops and gambling dens and pleasure houses are so bright that it looks like daytime.

He recognizes her by the back of her haori, and his feet move towards her, relieved to see her amidst the hustle and bustle of the city. He reaches out to touch her shoulder, her name whispering on his lips. But she turns before he can make contact, and though she looks healthy, her eyes — her eyes are white and unseeing.

I don’t understand, she pleads with him, it doesn’t make sense.

Kyojuro looks around in alarm and they are no longer standing amongst eager entertainment seekers, but among flame and wreckage, the once-ornately decorated stalls now smashed to splinters as fire slowly consumes the skeletal remains of the entertainment district.

He turns back to her right as a blade pierces through her gut, lifting her from the ground before letting her drop.

His hands shake as he reaches for her, desperate to check her wounds, but when she looks up at him, he stumbles back.

She is all wrong. Her skin is mottled and rotting from her face, and her hair is gray and matted. In place of her eyes are black holes, empty and cold.

Why can’t I come with you? Why can’t I go home, Kyojuro?

Please take me home.

Every night for the last two months, he awoke screaming.

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Y/L/N was alive; he knew that. He knew that if he looked at her, he would not see a corpse; but terrifying visuals aside, Kyojuro had not been able to look at her because he knew what his nightmares were telling him.

He’d been responsible for her near death.

If the Kakushi had returned with a box rather than a Pillar, it would have been his fault.

The thought that Y/L/N — his Y/L/N -- had almost obtained her own headstone in the Master’s graveyard had rocked him to his very core, for that had almost become a reality. She had actually died – for the briefest moment – in his arms; and it had been his fault.

Why can't I go home, Kyojuro?

And though Y/N had awoken from her slumber, her corpse still haunted Kyojuro’s dreams.

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(Y/N’s POV)

Y/N was sprawled on her infirmary floor, preparing her limbs for another day of rigorous recuperation training at the hands of her fellow Hashira.

She stood to stretch her arms and lower back, wincing slightly at the pull of her scar. “Don’t you start,” she warned her body, willing total concentration breathing to dull the persistent ache that threatened to derail her entire day.

Y/N sensed movement near her doorway and knew, without looking, who watched her as she warmed up her aching muscles.

“Uzui retired. It’s time for you to do the same.”

Y/N who had been in mid-stretch, righted herself and blinked at the Flame Pillar. “Pardon?” Both the news of Uzui’s retirement and Rengoku’s words were a shock to her.

“Retire, Y/LN.” Rengoku repeated in that detached manner of his that she hardly recognized. “You helped take down an Upper Rank. You’ve done enough. Let someone else shoulder the burden, now.”

“I see no reason to retire, Rengoku.” Y/N retorted, voice hardening. “And unless and until the Master requests it or I perish, I see no reason to do so.”

Rengoku exhaled harshly through his nose. “You were injured — seriously so.”

“As were you, and yet you seem to have no intention of slowing down.” Y/N said, coolly.

Rengoku’s attention stayed fixed on the garden outside her window. “And I was only unconscious for three weeks. You were out for nearly two months, Y/L/N. That is unheard of and frankly, unacceptable for a Hashira.”

“What is your problem?” Y/N was growing more irritated the longer this inane conversation dragged on, and it wasn’t helping that Rengoku still refused to so much as look her direction, let alone meet her eyes. “Is this about what happened after you brought me here? Kocho told me everything — I’m not mad.”

Rengoku’s shoulders tensed. “It was necessary. Again, I would have done it for any one of my comrades.”

Y/N felt like she’d been slapped.

“You keep saying that, yet you won’t look at me— why?” Her confusion and hurt were beginning to melt into anger. “If I am just another comrade, then you should be able to meet my eyes.”

Rengoku said nothing.

“What Uzui did for me— that was what comrades do,” Y/N continued, her voice growing stronger as her blood grew hotter. “But you? You and I both know you were under no obligation to bring me back from the brink of death the way you did.”

“I’m not sure what you want me to say, Y/L/N,” Rengoku answered after a long moment.

Y/N took a step towards him. “I want to know why.”

“It was necessary.”

Y/N felt like throttling him.

How long had they danced around each other? How many times had they caught themselves staring at the other for a breath longer than normal, had allowed an otherwise friendly touch during a spar linger?

How could he have held her, half nude for hours, putting himself on the brink of death all for the sake of keeping her alive — and then tell her she was the same as any other comrade?

“What are we doing Rengoku -- is this to be our destiny?” Y/N demanded, exasperatedly, her voice hard. “We continue to pretend like we don’t care about one another until one of us dies?”

Rengoku remained silent, back still turned away from her.

“We’ve each had a near-death experience in a matter of months,” Y/N continued, throat working hard to keep her voice steady despite the telling burn of angry tears in her eyes. “By all accounts, one if not both of us should be dead.”

“And yet, somehow, you expect me to act as though the fact you carried me back here— that you put yourself on death’s door to keep my heart beating — doesn’t mean anything?”

It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense for him to fight so hard for her, to make her believe that someone valued her life that much, only to cast her aside.

She hadn’t wanted to wake up, initially; she’d felt relief for the hair’s breadth she’d thought she’d finally met her end. He was the one who dragged her back, and now he wouldn’t even look at her.

It didn’t make sense.

Y/N’s fists shook beside her, and she felt the venomous words fly from her mouth before she could stop them.

“You should’ve let me die.”

No sooner had she let the poison drip from her mouth had she felt herself flying backward, back slamming against the nearest wall of her temporary room.

“Never,” Rengoku snarled at her, his arm pressing firmly against her shoulders to hold her in place against the wood. “Never say those words to me again.”

Y/N’s chest was heaving, and she trembled beneath him, her fury threatening to explode out of her.

“There is no place on this earth where you could be in peril and I would not find you,” he said quietly, his eyes a simmering, fiery orange. “Where I wouldn’t find a way to bring you back home.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Y/N said softly, breath still coming hard from her nose but no longer from her anger.

“Doesn’t it?” Rengoku was close, dangerously close.

Y/N wanted nothing more than to lean in, to close the distance that barely existed between Rengoku’s face and hers and finally be done with all the nonsense. But he had spent so much time avoiding her gaze until that moment, and Y/N felt more lost than ever, set adrift by the look of heat and longing that was mixed with the burning rage in his eyes.

Something tugged incessantly at her gut and it would not allow her to move from her place against her recovery room’s wall.

Instead, her arms came up to rest against Rengoku’s chest before gently, but firmly, pushing him away.

“No, it doesn’t.” She repeated. “And I am tired, Rengoku.”

The Flame Pillar allowed himself to be pushed away, but he looked at her with a small, cruel smile.

“Then you’re right; it doesn’t mean anything at all.”

She flinched against the ugly slap of his words. Y/N had expected him to hit back, but she hadn’t anticipated his venom to sting as much as it did.

She felt all of the fight within her gutter out, leaving her with nothing but a heavy weight in her chest that she wished she couldn’t feel.

“Y/L/N, I-“ the Flame Pillar almost sounded remorseful.

“Thank you, for your clarification, Lord Rengoku,” she said numbly, formally, parroting his earlier tone with her. “And thank you for your assistance that night. Please, next time — don’t trouble yourself.”

Rengoku hesitated for a moment, his hand twitching as though he wanted to reach for her. He swallowed hard, and turned away, shutting the door to Y/N’s infirmary.

The moment the door at clicked shut, Y/N exhaled harshly, stumbling back against her bed as she hugged her arms around herself, and she tried to keep herself from falling apart.

It shouldn’t have hurt this bad. They were both in the Demon Slayer Corps; they saved strangers all the time without it ever meaning anything other than good will and a desire to exterminate all demons.

So why did his insistence that she was no different hurt so badly?

Because she wasn’t a stranger.

Because, while she’d always known she wasn’t his, she’d still thought she’d been something.

As Y/N curled against her blanket, an unsettling numbness began to spread from her heart, quieting even the dull ache from the scar across her belly, Y/N realized that she’d meant nothing to the Flame Pillar all along.

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(Kyojuro’s POV)

He hated himself.

He utterly and truly despised himself.

He’d been hurt by her insistence that she did not know his feelings even though he was the one who’d opened the door, yet somehow, it still felt like a rejection.

So he’d hit back, only for her to visibly recoil at the sharp blow of his words.

He would not forgive himself, for as long as he lived, for the way the light in her eyes had winked out.

He did not know what bothered him more: the fact that she’d assumed that he regretted keeping her alive, or that she’d said “next time” he needn’t bother. As though she were counting on there being a next time.

He knew he should turn around; knew that he should barge back into her hospital room, drop to his knees, and beg her to forgive his cruelty.

He knew that he should explain to her why he found it so difficult to admit his feelings for her — that he had watched his father turn into a shell of a man and abandon his children in the wake of their mother’s death, leaving them to raise themselves. That he had vowed, as he’d watched his father drink his days away, that he would never be like him, would never abandon those who relied on him most.

He’d promised that he would never be a coward, even if, in all honesty, the idea that he, Kyojuro, could ever love someone that fiercely only to have them ripped from his grasp terrified him to no end.

As he forced his legs to carry him to back to his estate, Kyojuro wondered if perhaps, in his desperation not to turn into his father, he’d become the old man after all.

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(Shinobu’s POV)

Shinobu felt the Flame Pillar’s presence in her office before she saw him, though she was in no rush to give him his salve, especially not after what she’d overheard him spit at her friend.

“If you do not mind, I would like to send my crow to collect this from here on,” Rengoku said tightly, and Shinobu could sense his failing attempt to keep his fury in check.

“Very well then,” the Insect Pillar responded just as tersely, turning away from the papers and books on her desk to pull out the small tin containing the salve the Flame Pillar used to soothe the ache of the scar he now bore across his pectoral and shoulder. Rather than handing it to him, she tossed it through the air, the Flame Hashira catching it swiftly in his hand.

Rengoku nodded his thanks and turned to leave.

“I didn’t realize it was against Corps’ rules to care about our comrades,” Shinobu said icily, if not to signal to him that there had been spectators to his ugly outburst.

He couldn’t resist taking her bait. “Maybe it should be. It would be easier that way — for everyone.”

“Is that so?” Kocho sneered, no hint of familiarity or kindness in her features; nothing but that poisonous, deadly smile. “Well, if that was the case, then you would’ve preferred Uzui to leave Y/L/N for dead among the rubble in Yoshiwara, correct?

“You would rather us be searching to fill the newest Hashira vacancy, with her corpse barely cold in the ground-“

“Do not say another word, Kocho.” Rengoku warned, quietly.

But for Shinobu, anger was her vice, and so his warning only spurred her on.

“Tell me, Rengoku, if the new Pillar had been a woman, would you have held her the way you held Y/N?”

Shinobu’s smile was chilling as she relished the way the Flame Pillar began to tremble. “Or perhaps, would you finally confess to her, having learned your lesson from the missed opportunity with Y/N? Would you live out your days with her, while Y/N rotted below the earth, having never known someone loved her?”

“ENOUGH.” Rengoku roared, and for a moment, Shinobu thought the Flame Pillar might put his clenched fist through her wall. The silence that followed was tense and long as Rengoku struggled to calm his breathing.

“What do you want from me, Kocho?” Rengoku finally snapped, wheeling around to glower at the Insect Pillar, eyes half-crazed in his frustration.

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(Two months earlier)

Dawn was still far off, but the hall of her estate was a mess.

Shinobu knew that at any moment, another group of Kakushi would be coming through the hole Rengoku had left in her wall bearing the unconscious body of the Sound Pillar, and if they did so, they’d be stumbling upon the chaotic scene that had unfolded before.

Rengoku was still on the floor, legs on either side of Y/N, who was slumped against his chest and fully exposed from the waist up.

With some satisfaction, Shinobu noted that the dark purple bruising around Y/N’s chest was clearing, a sure sign that she had chosen the correct antidote for the Flame Hashira to slam into her heart.

But her hypothermia persisted.

Rengoku, on the other hand, was beginning to breathe rather loudly, no doubt as he continued to maintain his high fever for the sake of the unmoving woman braced between his thighs.

“Rengoku,” Shinobu crouched down next to the Flame Pillar, her hand coming to a rest on his shoulder, which burned beneath her palm. “Rengoku, we need to move.”

The man lifted his head up to meet her eyes, his own glassy and unfocused. Shinobu clamped down on the swear building on her tongue — he had fever fog.

Rengoku grunted at her before his head slumped back down, chin nearly touching his chest.

Shinobu tried again. “Rengoku, we are in the open hallway of the Butterfly Mansion. Others will be arriving soon. Y/N is completed exposed.”

That seemed to get his attention. Rengoku’s head lifted, his eyes narrowed slits, but nonetheless open. He grunted in some sort of acknowledgement and began to shift Y/N in his lap.

He turned the unconscious Ice Pillar so that her back rested against one arm that curled around her bare waist. His free arm slid to grip beneath her knees, shifting her into a bridal-style position to carry her.

Two of the Butterfly Mansion’s staff moved to help him stand, but Rengoku shrugged them off, surprising Shinobu as he managed to rise steadily to his feet, Y/N secured against his chest.

He looked at Shinobu expectantly and she began ushering him towards a secluded wing of the Manor, towards her private hall. Across from her personal office was a special infirmary room, walled off from the rest of the recovery ward.

Shinobu withdrew a ring of keys from her pocket and unlocked the heavy, wooden door.

“You two can stay in here until her body temperature returns to normal,” She said, as Rengoku made his way towards the recovery bed.

Shinobu watched as Rengoku, still wearing his zori and uniform pants, ever so gently lowered himself and Y/N down on the bed, repeating his earlier positioning of her between his thighs. He propped up one leg slightly to keep the Ice Pillar from slumping over, her back pressed to his bare chest. Rengoku leaned against the headboard so that Y/N’s head could rest against his clavicle, though it slumped instead towards her left shoulder.

Shinobu made to grab a blanket to throw over the two topless Hashira but stopped short as Rengoku made to move again.

He seemed to realize that Y/N, while also still in her torn uniform pants and zori, was still bare from the waist up, her body positioned towards the door. He frowned, his hand coming up to graze the side of her arm. He flinched slightly, no doubt at the persistent chill that lingered on her skin, and he moved both of his large hands down over the back of hers as they lay limply on either side of her thighs, intertwining their fingers.

Awestruck, Shinobu watched as Rengoku brought Y/N’s arms up to cross them over her chest, locking them in place by covering her arms with his own, as though wrapping her in a sweet embrace. Shinobu knew that he’d done so to avoid touching her bare breasts himself, or at least to do so as minimally as possible, while still providing her cover. And, due to the breadth of Rengoku’s muscled forearms, Y/N’s sensitive area was almost entirely obscured from view.

Rengoku had barely been clinging to consciousness himself, and once she was sufficiently hidden in his arms, his head dropped forward until his forehead came to a rest on Y/N’s shoulder, opposite of where she’d rolled her head.

To the unassuming eye, it would have appeared as though the pair of Hashira were simply engaged in an intimate moment, rather than one desperately trying to anchor the other to life.

Shinobu moved to place the blanket over the Pillars’ laps, before quietly exiting the private room.

“Seal this wing off entirely,” she murmured to Aoi, who had been waiting dutifully outside. “No one comes down here without my explicit permission.”

Aoi bowed to her before she ushered the other Kakushi out. Faintly, Shinobu heard the arriving shouts of the group bearing the Sound Pillar. She took a single deep breath, steeling herself once more, before moving to check on her incoming patient.

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

Shinobu raised her chin, looking down her nose at him in disgust. “I’m waiting for the man who would have set the world ablaze to save Y/N to reappear.”

She cocked her head, narrowing her eyes at him. “I’m waiting for the man who used his own body as her lifeline, and who tried to smash open the infirmary door when he was delirious with fever because he thought that she had died while he was asleep.”

The Insect Pillar’s masked smile finally slipped from her face and her true rage towards the Flame Pillar shone through. “It is cruel to make her feel as though she’s done something wrong,” Shinobu’s arms folded across her chest. “And it is cruel to you both for you to pretend as though she does not mean anything to you. Haven’t you both been through enough? Are you not exhausted as well?”

A tortured look passed over Rengoku’s face. “It is better this way, Kocho. I do not want to be the cause of her pain, and I cannot survive going through what happened to her again.

“For all your talk about either of you dying, I’ve yet to hear you mention the equal alternative,” Shinobu sighed, gathering her papers and books. “The one where we win and you both live. What do you suppose happens then?”

Rengoku said nothing and so, Shinobu continued. “Suppose we emerge victorious – would you truly prefer for you and Y/N to go your separate ways – to never see one another again, or never acknowledge the bond the two of you share?”

“There is no guarantee that either of us survives, Kocho,” Rengoku said quietly, his eyes falling to his feet.

Shinobu smiled but it was no longer cruel or bitter; it was wistful. “And there is no guarantee that either of you die. That’s the fickle nature of humanity, is it not? The very reason we fight?”

The Insect Pillar gathered her papers and stacked them neatly on her shelf. “For the possibilities of it all.”

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

The sun was high in the sky by the time Shinobu had a moment to check on the two unconscious pillars in the back room.

Uzui had required quite a bit of attention in order to stop the poison from becoming deadly, though the fact that her combination of the wisteria antidote with the amphetamine had been so effective on Y/N meant that Shinobu was able to administer the same to the Sound Pillar in half the time.

She was exhausted; the strain of the night’s events weighed heavily on her, but she had to check on Y/N’s temperature — if the Ice Pillar still had not recovered, she feared that hope was lost.

She pushed the door to the private infirmary room open and saw the two Hashira, still in the same position she’d left them in. Rengoku was deeply asleep, no doubt from the exhaustion wrought by his high fever.

Enclosed within his arms, Y/N remained unconscious but pink.

Shinobu felt the relief course through her, but she did not allow herself to relax until she reached out a hand to lightly pinch the Ice Pillar’s cheek.

It bloomed red beneath her fingers, and it was warm to the touch.

He’d done it. The Flame Pillar had staved off her hypothermia. Their only obstacle now lay in getting her to reawaken.

Shinobu laid her hand across Rengoku’s forehead, frowning at the scorching heat of his brow; his fever had worsened more than she’d anticipated, and he would need intervention soon. She turned to nod at the Kakushi who waited by the door to the recovery room, and the three of them moved to separate the Flame and Ice Pillars.

“Put him in one of the other single-recovery rooms. Tell Aoi to administer the fever medication I keep in my cabinet – it should dispel his fever within a few hours.” Shinobu ordered, as the Kakushi, with great effort, lifted the Flame Pillar from his position behind Y/N. Shinobu gently eased her friend down against the bed and pulled a blanket over her exposed torso. “I will also need a fresh hospital gown for Lady Y/L/N.”

The Kakushi nodded their assent and got to work, heaving the unconscious Flame Pillar towards the door when he awoke. At first, his eyes were dazed, and confused as they darted around him, but as he took in his surroundings, he began to struggle against the grip of the Kakushi.

“Please, Lord Rengoku, your fever is dangerously high! Allow us to help!” One of them cried, though his efforts to tug the Pillar away were futile. Shinobu supposed the only reason he had not yet succeeded in completely throwing them off was the fact that his fever had severely weakened him.

“Rengoku,” Shinobu said sternly, coming around from her position by Y/N to meet his eyes, though he only thrashed harder against the Kakushi as he began to mutter incoherently under his breath. “Rengoku, that’s enough. You’re safe. You’re in the Butterfly Mansion, and you have a high fever. Please, let the Kakushi do their job.”

But the Insect Pillar’s words fell on deaf ears as Rengoku began to hyperventilate, his muscles straining as he tried desperately to break free from the Kakushi’s hold. Shinobu was at a loss; her comrade did not merely look frantic – he looked terrified, desperate, and utterly beyond reproach or reason. His heart rate had spiked considerably, and his breath was jerky and uneven, as though he could not fully understand where he was or that he was amongst friends.

As she strained to make out what the Flame Pillar repeated, over and over, under his breath, Shinobu realized that his eyes were not unfocused at all; they were locked on the unconscious Ice Pillar in the bed behind her.

“I can still save her!” he roared.

It all made sense then.

Shinobu realized that he thought they were moving him not because he’d successfully thwarted her hypothermia, but because he had failed — and that she was now dead.

“Rengoku,” Shinobu said sharply, trying to force the irate and delirious Flame Pillar to meet her eyes. “Rengoku, Y/N is alive. Her body temperature has returned to normal. She is safe.”

But the Flame Pillar seemed not to hear her, as he only struggled harder against the Kakushi desperately trying to usher him out of Y/N’s room.

Rengoku was becoming more violent, even as the Kakushi finally managed to shove him through the doorway of Y/N’s room. Just before they’d managed to slam the door shut, Shinobu caught Aoi’s eye and nodded, the younger girl quickly disappeared into the Pillar’s office.

Shinobu watched in stunned silence as the Flame Pillar broke free from the Kakushi and began hurtling his body against the door, Y/N’s name falling from his lips in an anguished chant.

Rengoku was so delirious in his fevered panic that he did not notice Aoi slip behind him and plunge a syringe into his neck, depositing a thick stream of the clear liquid that Shinobu knew would have a near-instantaneous effect on his consciousness.

The Insect Pillar felt a strange sense of pity and remorse as she watched her friend slump to the floor outside of the infirmary room, a final cry out for the Ice Pillar falling from his lips before the sedative lulled him back to sleep.

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

(Kyojuro’s POV – three days later)

He didn’t know why he’d returned to the Butterfly Mansion.

Kyojuro tried to convince himself that it was because he didn’t want to wait for his crow to return with Kocho’s salve, but he knew it was a pathetic excuse. He’d sworn to himself that he would leave Y/L/N alone after their last argument. He’d vowed that the door between them had been closed for good, and they would only ever be colleagues. Nothing more.

But he couldn’t stay away. Perhaps it was because he’d spent the last few days stewing over their last argument, and somewhere, amidst his endless supply of self-hatred, he’d also grown angry with the Ice Pillar.

Angry, because she had put herself in harm’s way when he’d specifically told her not to.

Angry because she’d nearly died, and she’d threatened to take the last vestiges of his sanity with her to the afterlife.

Angry that she insisted on remaining in the Demon Slayer Corps despite having given more than enough of herself to their cause; angry that she didn’t understand why he couldn’t yet do the same.

Angry because she didn’t seem to understand his feelings at all.

Perhaps in another life, they could have had each other. Had they both been born into a world without demons, then maybe they would have still found each other and maybe, just maybe, he would have been able to love her the way she deserved.

But for Kyojuro, their relationship would always be defined by a series of maybes, and nothing more.

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

It would have been a lie for Kyojuro to say he’d not been struck dumb by her.

She was stretched out on the steps of Kocho’s engawa, legs dangling off the edge of the porch as she leaned back on her elbows, eyes closed dreamily as she kept her face tilted up towards the cooling night air.

Long, lean, bare legs, he realized, an uncomfortable heat creeping up his collar. He couldn’t help running his eyes up their length, fixating hard on the supple curves of her thighs.

Why were her legs bare?

She looked…so unguarded this way. Her haori was draped around her shoulders, one of its sleeves hanging loosely to the side and exposing her bare shoulder – how exposed was she, the idiot – and her hair was completely unbound, falling in a silken river to her waist.

It was a stark contrast to the braided crown she wore at the base of her neck. It hit him that, not counting the night she’d nearly died, he had not otherwise seen her with her hair down.

He liked it. A lot.

“I finally rid myself of one migraine only for another to appear,” Y/N’s lofty voice snapped him out of his reverence, as the Ice Pillar opened her eyes to glare at him. 

“If you’ve come for Shinobu, she is not here. She’s on an errand and will not be back until early morning.” Y/N turned her attention away from him and back towards the garden, her voice stony.

At that moment, there were a million things Kyojuro could have said to the Ice Pillar.  

How are you?

I missed the way you glare at me.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Any of those options would have been far better than what came tumbling out of his mouth.

“I hadn’t realized you were indecent. My apologies.”

Y/N’s head snapped back to him, her eyes chips of ice. “Indecent?” She rose from her seat on the engawa and faced him fully, and Rengoku nearly groaned.

Indecent, indeed.

Y/N was showing more skin than Kanroji did on a regular day. As she stood, Rengoku saw that she was hardly wearing any clothing at all, save for the haori draped loosely around her frame.

The Ice Pillar wore no top but the bindings around her chest, leaving a sizeable swath of her midriff exposed to the summer air. Whatever she wore as bottoms could hardly be labeled as “pants,” given that their hem ended just short of the middle of her thigh, leaving the vast majority of her legs exposed to anyone who would happen to walk by.  

The Flame Pillar felt as though he were overheating, and he tugged uselessly at the collar of his uniform shirt. As he looked over the scowling Ice Pillar, Rengoku found himself unable to remember why he had come to the Mansion at all.  

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

(Y/N’s POV)

(Earlier that day)

“Ta-da!” Mitsuri sang as she pulled the small bundle from behind her, a grin wide on her face. “A gift from Shinobu and myself!”

Y/N peered down quizzically at the small, folded bunch of cloth in the Love Pillar’s hands. “What is it?”

“A new take on the Corps’ uniform,” Shinobu replied crisply, sitting down on the tatami floor of her office. “I designed it myself, and Mitsuri sewed it.”

“But what is it?” Y/N pressed.

Mitsuri joined Shinobu on the floor. “Your new training pants. Altered, so that you have more flexibility and less irritation against your wound.”

Y/N held up the tiny scrap of fabric between her index finger and thumb. “Are you telling me these are pants?”

Mitsuri and Shinobu nodded, smiling.

Y/N looked incredulously at the two women. “But where are the pants?”

Mitsuri laughed. “Think of it as a cross between the uniform skirt and pants, but more modified.”

Shinobu nodded. “I used the same material that our uniform is made out of but designed it in a way to be more flexible – it will mold to your body rather than require you to use a belt to keep it up.” Y/N unfurled the cloth and gaped down at it. “They likely aren’t suitable for public, but around here and during your training, they should be perfectly adequate.”

“Perfectly adequate?” Y/N repeated, turning the garment over in her hands. “Shinobu, these are underclothes! Not pants!” The Ice Pillar could not stop herself from giggling. “My legs will be entirely exposed!”

“Try them on!” Mitsuri urged. “Shinobu and I estimated they would hit around mid-thigh, so you’ll still have some coverage.” Mitsuri looked down at her own skirt in consideration. “Slightly more so than I do.”

Y/N groaned but removed her uniform pants and slid into her friends’ gift. She was surprised at how comfortable they felt; they had a similar feel to the chest bindings most of the women in the Corps wore, in terms of fit. The black bottoms had no true waistband, but fit snuggly at the dip of her waist, before hugging her hips and thighs until the hem cut right above the middle of her thigh.

“How do they feel?” Shinobu asked as Y/N inspected the new garment.

Y/N turned from side to side, testing their flexibility. “Good. They don’t seem to rub against the scar at all.” Y/N smiled devilishly at her friends. “Even if they do leave little to the imagination.”

MItsuri giggled. “I hadn’t noticed Y/N, but you have – oh, what did Uzui call it?” She scrunched her eyebrows in thought. “Oh! An ‘easy and deliverable type of butt!’” The three girls laughed, carefree as Y/N wiggled her hips suggestively in front of her friends, her heart warm at the care and consideration they had put into their gift.

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

Y/N mused that Mitsuri’s assessment of how she looked in the undershorts had been correct as Rengoku’s eyes raked over her as she stood tall before him, an unmistakable glint of hunger glowing in his amber pools.

Until they snagged on the thick, curved gash that extended from the band of her bottoms to just over her belly button.

In an instant, simmering fire of the Flame Pillar’s gaze had been snuffed out, something harder and colder taking over as he glared at where Upper Moon Six had buried his poisoned sickle within her.

Under any other circumstance, Y/N might have felt self-conscious at the mixture of frigid contempt that pulled on Rengoku’s face as he ran his eyes over her scar, but at that moment, it only made her blood boil.

“You should return to your room. You shouldn’t be out here exposed like this.” Rengoku said after a moment, his eyes moving away from her to stare over her shoulder, resolutely avoiding her gaze.

Y/N wondered briefly if it were possible to make someone combust with the fire of their stare. She was so tired and so angry at the way in which he demanded she stay at arm’s length yet felt utterly entitled to boss her around.

She decided then that she would not comply. Instead, Y/N took one step and then another, and again until she pushed past him, marching intently up the path she knew led away from the Butterfly Estate and to a secluded, grassy, hilled clifftop.

“Stop — Y/L/N” Rengoku growled, lunging after her, but Y/N, despite her injured state, was still faster than he, and she twisted out of his grasp before he could grab her and haul her back to the Mansion.

She probably looked insane, and maybe she was -- barely dressed, hair unbound, and striding towards that grassy hill up the winding path from Shinobu’s estate like she had any idea what she was doing.

The Flame Pillar followed.

—————————————————————--------

Apart from her close friendship with the Insect Pillar, there was another reason Y/N spent so much time in and around the Butterfly Mansion — its view.

Though she supposed this secret area she’d discovered couldn’t really be counted as part of Shinobu’s Estate — it was, after all, up a rather steep and twisting climb from the western-most point of her friend’s manor, and one could scarcely see the lights of the house once they ascended the small cliff.

Her thighs ached after nearly two months of disuse as she stormed up the steep incline, narrowly avoiding the sharp, twisting branches of the ancient trees that had concaved over the beaten path, forming a tunnel of gnarled wood that forced her to duck her head to navigate.

Y/N’s chest tightened as she neared the end of the path, the steady beat of the Flame Pillar’s footsteps trailing closely behind her.

When she finally emerged from the thicket of branches, she felt as though she could breathe again.

The path had given way to a cliff-top clearing. Soft, emerald grass covered the earthen floor, peppered with various wildflowers in vibrant hues of periwinkle, white, and pink. Towards the center was a thick, ancient oak tree, with a trunk as wide as a small hut, Its leaves ruffled lazily in the slight summer breeze. Fat hotaru floated idly above the grass while the crickets hummed.

The clearing extended to a point before dropping into a rocky cliff. Had it been a night of a new moon, Y/N would never risk coming out here for fear of stumbling too close to the cliff’s edge. But that night, the moon was full and its silver light was so bright that Y/N could see all the way to the opposite of the clearing, down to the summer irises swaying in the warm night air.

It was a pity that instead of feeling the warm serenity she normally had when she came out to her little hideaway, she felt nothing but boiling anger and a growing headache.

“You need to go back inside,” Rengoku said from behind her. Y/N ground her teeth, turning sharply on her heel to face him.

“Why do you care — I thought you only did that when I’m unconscious.” She bit back, and it felt good to see him be the one who flinched for once. “Or maybe it’s when you think I’m dying?”

She laughed, derisively. “You’ll have to forgive me, I’ve long since forgotten the rules of your game. You change them so often, you see.”

“Go back to the Butterfly Mansion, Y/L/N. You shouldn’t be out here. Not in your current state.” He said, voice as hard and unforgiving as stone.

“I’ve told you already that you are not in a position to order me around!” Y/N snapped, her words and her eyes chips of ice as she glared at him.

He was so infuriating — he had told her, in so many ways, that she meant nothing to him, and yet here he was, glowering at her as though her very existence incensed him.

“You’ve been nothing but unkind to me since I awoke, and you’ve given me no explanation!” She took a step towards him.

“Stop,” the Flame Pillar bit out, barely concealing the way he trembled with rage. “Do not take another step. Turn around and go back inside.”

If Y/N had looked pissed before, she looked downright furious now.

“Why did you come to see me while I was unconscious?” Y/N demanded, shaking. “You came every day, yet the second I wake up, you stop?”

His refusal to answer her, to even look at her, only made her seethe.

“You’re a coward, Rengoku.”

Rengoku’s teeth gnashed together, his fists balling tightly by his sides as he drew upon every ounce last shred of sanity, of restraint, left within him.

“Go. In. Side.” He ground out dangerously, his voice dropping into a growl on the last syllable.

But the Ice Pillar took another step towards him, her eyes blazing with a fire that could outburn his own.

“No.”

Rengoku’s jaw flexed. “Y/L/N-“

“I said no, Rengoku.” She was now within arm’s reach of the rigid Flame Pillar.

His eyes met hers, cold and hard, but she did not balk. She went in for the kill. “You have no say over my choices when my life is meaningless to you.”

Y/N watched the blow land, and land hard.

“Meaningless?” Rengoku looked at her and there was a new fire in his gaze, a hot, angry fire that threatened to burn the grassy overlook around them to cinders. “You believe I think your life is meaningless?”

This time, it was Rengoku who advanced towards her, bringing her within an arm’s length, and forcing her to tilt her head up to hold his raging stare.

“Do you have any idea — any at all — what it was like to see you, half dead in Uzui’s arms?” Rengoku’s voice dark, and harsh as he narrowed his eyes at her. “Or what it was like to have to carry you to Kocho, not knowing whether your heart would give out before I could get you there?”

Y/N refused to cower beneath the intensity of his gaze, her chin lifting defiantly. “Do I know what it was like?” She hissed; hackles raised.

“Thank you Rengoku, truly — thank you.” Y/N laughed, but it was devoid of any humor. “I am so glad that you’ve finally given me something to work with — so those are your rules, are they?”  She was toe to toe with the Flame Hashira, glowering down at her.

“Well since we’re keeping score, Rengoku, do you know what it was like to see you broken and bleeding out on Kocho’s table after the incident on the train?”

“That’s not the same thing,” Rengoku shot back bitterly.

“How the fuck is it not-?”

“Because it wasn’t your mission to take!” Rengoku finally broke, his voice rising to a shout. He could not stop himself as his hands shot out and gripped Y/N’s shoulders, shaking her lightly in his torment.

“You have no idea how it felt to know that you had died — no matter how briefly — because you went on a mission in my place!”

“To know that — that you could still die because I had been too weak on that fucking train. Your death would have been my fault, Y/N!”

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

(Kyojuro’s POV)

And there it was: the truth that he had tried so hard to suppress, laid flat out in the open.

Everything that had happened to Y/N, the whole entire mess — had been entirely his fault.

His fault because he had been too weak to finish off Upper Moon Three, too weak to do anything but let the demon’s punch a hole through his chest like it was nothing.

Y/L/N and Uzui had saved themselves in the end; they’d completed their mission, defeating not just one, but two upper ranks. They hadn’t succumbed to their injuries until after they’d fulfilled their duties.

But him? He’d only been saved by the grace of the sun and the tireless efforts of the Kakushi.

He’d nearly lost his life and he had nothing to show for it. Rather than do anything to further the Corp’s ultimate goals, he’d only set them back, and nearly cost them something priceless in return — their Ice Pillar.

The woman he loved.

He had no right to love her, of course — not when his reprehensible weakness had forced her to be offered up to two upper moon demons on a silver platter.

She’d been there, the morning he awoke from his three-week-long coma. She’d been right by his bedside, a sob choking from her throat as she’d called for Kocho to come quick!

At first, he’d been confused, because he hadn’t understood why she was crying. He’d tried to reach for her, to wipe the tears spilling down her cheeks when the pain had slammed into him, causing him to seize, arm suspended in mid-air.

Never before had he not been in control of his body; it had sent him into a panic.

“No, Kyojuro, please don’t move!” Y/N had cried, calling him, for the first time, by his given name. a warm hand wrapping around the one he’d stretched out towards her, lowering it gently down to the bed. “Your injuries are too grave!”

He didn’t remember much after that, only what Kocho had filled him in on later — namely, that he’d begun to panic, his breathing flaring out of control as he’d tried to fight off Y/L/N, a Kakushi, and the Insect Pillar.

His recovery had been long and slow. His wounds from the Upper Three demon had resulted in significant muscle damage that had required weeks of intensive care and training in order to build it back up again.

Those long days spent at the Butterfly Mansion had given him time to stew; to rage against himself. He’d been frustrated, so unbelievably frustrated over his inability to swing his own sword for more than five minutes that he almost considered giving in and retiring.

And then Uzui arrived, and he’d mentioned an upcoming mission to the Entertainment District, that they had discussed prior to Kyojuro leaving for the damned train, and the Sound Pillar revealed that his intel suggested the possible presence of an Upper Rank.

Kyojuro had promised to accompany him, and then he’d woken up in Kocho’s hospital, and that mission had been taken off the table and given to her.

The panic he had felt had been indescribable; he had narrowly survived an encounter with an Upper Rank, but then he was forced to watch the woman he loved walk straight into the wolf's den, and he had been incapable of convincing her to stay behind.

While she had been gone, he had railed against and prayed to and cursed at the gods, begging them to bring her home, to let her come back to him alive and whole.

Instead, they’d sent her back as a near-corpse and had laughed at his pitiful attempts to save her.

And then, she had straddled that narrow divide between life and death for nearly two months, and he had been as helpless as a cat chasing a string — his desire forever in sight yet somehow always just beyond his reach.

After his brush with death, he’d made a commitment to himself not to think of his battle with the Upper Three demon, to not waste his skill and energy on the past, but rather focus his fury on ensuring that when they did meet again, he would emerge victorious. He’d certainly not given any thought to the demon’s slime-tongued words.

He’d been disgusted when the demon had propositioned turning him into its like — and outright offended that those creatures could ever compare to the beautiful transience of humanity.

But then he’d cradled Y/N, broken and dying in his arms, and for the first time, Kyojuro had understood the appeal of the Upper Three’s offer.

Because he would rather have lived in a world in which Y/N had been turned into his enemy than in one in which she did not exist at all.

The very thought had shaken him to his core; because it meant he was not fully dedicated to their cause. He had no right to call himself a Hashira; nor did he have any right to claim to love Y/L/N. Not when he’d so easily damn her out of his own selfishness. So he had run.

A coward, after all.

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

(Y/N’s POV)

Y/N was panting, her fury rippling off her in near-tangible waves.

“So, this whole thing,” she seethed, her voice shaking. “Your whole fucking attitude — has been because you’ve had your head so far up your ass, that you thought my injuries were your fault?”

It was unbelievable. It was ridiculous. And yet it was so Rengoku that it made her ears ring, made her see red as she tried to keep herself from imploding.

Rengoku said nothing, but she could see the way his eyes shuttered closed, his walls flying back up as he remained intent on keeping her out. He turned and began walking back towards the path back to the Estates.

“I was right — you ARE a coward!” She shrieked after him.

He froze. She stood there, heaving, daring him to turn around, to face her.

“Do not call me a coward again,” he said quietly, his back still to her, but his shoulders tensed, his fists balling once more at his sides.

Y/N smiled ruefully. “Then exactly what would you call what you’re doing now?.” Her lip curled into a sneer. “Run away, Rengoku. It’s what you do best.”

A flash of orange and white clouded her vision as Rengoku turned on his heel and closed the distance between them before she could draw another breath.

Y/N did not have time to react before his hands gripped either side of her jaw as he slammed his mouth down against hers, furious and heated.

It was not gentle; it was an angry clash of lips and teeth, but it also stoked a fire so hot in Y/N’s belly that she did not care, and she fully gave herself over to the bruising press of his lips against hers. She gladly opened up to him so that his tongue could slide into her mouth as one of his hands snaked behind her head to press her harder to him, demanding that she let him take and take until he was sated.

As quickly as it had begun, it was over. They broke apart with a gasp, leaping back from one another as though burned. Their chests heaved as they stared at one another.

There was a line drawn in the sand between them. If either of them crossed it, there would be no going back.

He was a coward, but she wasn’t. And she’d grown tired of this tedious dance of theirs.

Yet it surprised her all the same that he reached for her at the same time she moved for him, the two of them colliding like magnets as their mouths clashed together once more.

Rengoku kissed her like he was drowning, and she was his lifeline.

Y/N threw her arms around his neck and tugged him down closer to her, determined to take from him as much as he wanted to take from her.

The pair of them stumbled back against the ancient oak tree that sat back from the grassy cliff, Y/N caged against its bark by the Flame Pillar.

His hands gripped fistfuls of her haori as though he couldn’t decide whether to pull her closer or tug her away. His lips devoured each breathy moan he pulled from her as one hand tangled in her hair and pulled, allowing him to deepen the kiss.

She ran her hands through the fiery strands of his hair, gripping and tugging it as he explored her mouth was his demanding tongue. Y/N, emboldened by the way his fingers dug into her haori, let her hands roam from his hair and to his neck, and then to the rocky planes of his broad chest before settling on his hips as she tugged him flush against her. 

His control was slipping, and fast. “Y/L/N, I can’t- I won’t be able to hold back.” Rengoku moaned into her mouth, his hands scrunching the fabric of her haori, his fingers desperately seeking to hold her closer to him. “Tell me to stop, Y/L/N.”

Y/N’s hands only buried deeper into his hair, tugging him harder against her as she slid her tongue into his waiting mouth.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered against his mouth between breaks for oxygen. “Never stop, Rengoku.”

Y/N pulled back from him, just enough to unlatch his hands from where they were buried in the back of her haori, and moved them inside its folds, right on her bare waist.

The burning weight of his hands felt exquisite.

Rengoku shuddered as he felt the smooth, soft dips of Y/N’s waist, his fingers digging into her flesh as he sought to touch more of her, his hands running across every inch that was not covered by her bindings or those glorious undershorts.

Lips still moving furiously against hers, Rengoku bent slightly to run his hands down the silken expanse of her thighs, gripping under her knees before hoisting her up to carry her away from the tree and lay her down in the velvety grass below.

Y/N felt as though she were on fire. The ache between her legs was almost maddening, and she was desperate to have the Flame Pillar sheathe himself inside her, to make her forget even her own name.

If she could not have his love, she could at least have this.

Her hands dragged down Rengoku’s front, coming to a rest at his belt before she began fumbling with the clasp. Y/N had just managed to undo it when Rengoku’s hands — large, warm, and much stronger than her own, wrapped around her wrists, stilling her.

“Not yet, you impatient woman,” he smirked against her mouth. He moved one wrist to join the other in his left hand before bringing her arms up over her head, pinning her to the ground.

Y/N whimpered and rolled her hips against his, impatient and demanding, wanting desperately to feel some relief as her core clenched wildly around nothing.

Rengoku chuckled darkly, the rich timbre of his voice causing her blood to nearly boil with her want, as he made his way down her body with his lips.

He first came to her chest bindings, growling in impatience as he nipped at one breast over the tightly wound fabric.

His fingers brushed against her sternum as he ripped her bindings straight down the middle, Y/N shuddering as the warm summer night’s air caressed her sensitive skin, her nipples pebbling at the change in temperature.

She waited for him to lavish her soft mounds, but the Flame Pillar paused, eyes narrowed on the valley between her breasts, right on the pale, lilac mark where he’d plunged Shinobu’s antidote into her heart.

Y/N felt a lump form in her throat. He’d reacted poorly to the ribboned scar on her lower belly already, and now her once chance to finally have Rengoku in the way she’d so desperately longed to have him was about to be ruined.

But instead of pulling away from her in disgust, he leaned forward and pressed his lips softly against it the healed wound.

“I hadn’t realized I wounded you,” he murmured softly, reverently as he kissed it again. Y/N watched in bewilderment as he pressed his ear against her chest, letting his head rest there for a moment.

Listening to her heart hammer against her sternum.

“The sweetest music,” he whispered, pulling away to look at her not with lust but with unbounded tenderness.

Don’t look at me like that, she silently begged, don’t give me hope.

But as quickly as the moment had come, it passed and the esurient flame in Rengoku’s eyes flickered back to life. His lips continued down her abdomen, hot and needy until he reached the source of her near-fatal injury.

His mouth paused at the scar left by Upper Moon Six, the one he’d so callously glared at not even an hour before. This time, he ran his tongue along it, from the top to its base near her hipbone, pressing a fierce kiss against its end before continuing his descent.

“I will either have to thank my old Tsugoku the next time I see her,” Rengoku whispered darkly as he pulled at the soft waistband of Y/N’s undershorts with his teeth. “Or I shall have to burn her sewing room to cinders.” Rengoku’s fingers slid beneath the short hem of her bottoms, pulling them down inch by inch to expose her sensitive flesh.

Rengoku groaned when he saw Y/N was not wearing anything else beneath her scandalous bottoms. “Definitely burning.” His hands, so large and warm ran up the outer curve of her thighs, marveling at the silky smoothness of her skin. “Because you are far too tempting when wearing them.”

The Flame Pillar looked wild as he leaned forward, pressing his lips against the lower indent between Y/N’s hipbones as he kissed his way down to where she ached the most.

He ducked around the center of her desire in favor of sucking softly on her inner thigh. Y/N’s chest heaved as her hands flailed next to her, desperately seeking purchase, until the Flame Hashira caught them in his hands, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles on her palms as their fingers interlaced.

“Rengoku - just fuck me already,” Y/N groaned as the Flame Pillar’s face settled between her thighs, his hot breath against her bare cunt causing her legs to attempt to clench shut.

“Well now, that won’t do,” Rengoku tutted, his hands withdrawing from hers as he wound his arms underneath both of her thighs, spreading them as wide as he could to expose her core to his heady gaze.

Rengoku leaned forward and lightly traced up her damp slit with the tip of his tongue. His amber irises which had been locked on hers, rolled back into his head as he groaned at her taste.

“I’m going to take my time with you. I’ve been dreaming of this for a long time, Y/N.” He warned, hands tightening around her thighs as he pressed a light kiss against her slit, teasing her.

In the back of her mind, Y/N registered that he’d used her first name. But the graze of his lips against her most sensitive flesh had her crying out his name, high-pitched and breathy, and she watched helplessly as the sound made Rengoku’s eyes turn black.

In an instant, he was upon her, and he was ravenous.

His mouth latched to her center as though she was an oasis in the middle of a blazing desert, and he was a man dying of thirst.

The way Rengoku’s teeth grazed her sensitive nub made her abdomen clench, and she fought against his ironclad grip on her thighs as they spasmed, desperate to clench around his head.

Y/N moaned, head thrown back into the soft summer grass as she felt herself grow wetter and wetter beneath the Flame Pillar, her hands desperately tugging and pinching at her breasts in an effort to feel more pleasure.

Y/N felt as though she was hurtling towards a cliff that she could not stop herself from tumbling over as Rengoku increased the intensity of his ministrations against her needy cunt.

“You taste,” he ground out through harsh drags of his tongue up her drenched folds, “like fucking paradise.”

His mouth latched around her clit, giving it a sharp suck that had Y/N seeing stars. She barely had time to recover, to acknowledge that she was at her tipping point when Rengoku thrust his tongue into her core and began to fuck her.

Y/N came apart the moment she felt his tongue enter her, a rush of her juices spilling over his relentless maw, but he held her hips down and continued his feast. His teeth grazed her clit over and over while his tongue pumped steadily in and out of her, and Y/N was close to sobbing at the overstimulation.

The Flame Pillar kept his eyes locked on hers the entire time, the amber orbs glowing almost ominously in the indigo night.

“I- fuck.” Y/N breathed, grinding unrestrainedly against the blonde’s greedy mouth. “Rengoku!”

The Ice Pillar tried to sit up, tried to grab her comrade’s hair to tell him that she couldn’t take it anymore, that she needed him, but Rengoku was faster. Unfurling a steely arm from where it had been locked around her thigh to hold her open to him, he reached up her torso, his large hand splaying across her upper abdomen to restrain her.

“Sit down,” he growled between thrusts of his tongue into her aching cunt, nipping harshly at her inner thigh. “I am not finished.”

Y/N whimpered beneath the weight of his hand holding her down against the earth and the nearly painful ecstasy that Rengoku bestowed upon her between her legs.

Whether it was in praise for her obedience or a further act of torture, Rengoku then pressed his face flush against her core and rocked it harshly from side to side, his nose and the burgeoning stubble along his jaw scraping against her overstimulated and sensitive flesh.

Y/N slapped her hand against her mouth to stifle the howl that tore from her throat. Rengoku repeated the movement; it felt wonderful. It felt obscene. It made Y/N’s thighs contract around his head as her stomach dipped inward and a gush of her juices spilled out of her, more powerful than before, dampening the collar of the Flame Pillar’s haori.

For a breath, Y/N thought she would die of embarrassment until she felt Rengoku’s mouth vibrate against her from his groan of satisfaction. His tongue thrust once, twice more into her aching core before he withdrew completely, satisfaction tugging at the corners of his smirking lips.

But Rengoku looked nowhere near sated as he gazed down hungrily at her, wantonly spread out against the grass, the shredded pieces of her training attire strewn about, save for her haori.

“I will give you one last chance to end this now,” Rengoku whispered, kneeling above her but no longer touching her. “Tell me to stop, and I will. I will walk away, and no one will know.”

Though her body already ached from the intensity of Rengoku’s mouth upon her, she could not fathom stopping here, not when she’d barely begun to taste him herself. The thought of rolling aside to pull on the tattered remains of her clothing, to return to her estate and awake tomorrow as though he had not melted every icy reservation she’d held with his touch, was enough to make her want to cry.

Though her limbs felt boneless, she summoned all her strength to reach toward the Flame Hashira, to beckon him to return to her.

“I want you, Rengoku,” Y/N said, her voice a breathy whisper as tears clung to her eyelashes. “Please.”

Rengoku’s pupils exploded, his eyes darkening as he covered her nude body with his own. Y/N nearly sobbed in relief as his lips roughly caught hers, one hand coming up to cradle her face while the other snaked beneath her head, tilting it to the side so he could deepen his claim over her mouth.

Y/N’s hands rose, shakily, to pull at the buttons of his uniform top, desperate to feel his skin burn against hers.

“On one condition,” Rengoku said, moving his lips from hers to press against her ear, Y/N shivering. “You must call me by my name,”

“Rengoku?” Y/N questioned her mind too fogged by her own desire.

He nipped lightly under her jaw before pulling his face back from hers, smirking slightly at the way she whined when avoided her attempt to kiss him again.

“My true name.”

With clarity, Y/N realized what he desired. But he had teased her far too much already, and she yearned to return the favor.

So she looked up at him through her eyelashes, teeth sinking into her lower lip in such a way that made the Flame Hashira’s eyes darken.

“Please, please, Kyojuro,” she whispered, lancing a hand up his bicep. “Take me.”

The growl that clawed its way out of the heaving chest of the Flame Pillar made Y//N’s thighs clamp together. Rengoku — Kyojuro — pounced on her, and Y/N summoned all her residual strength to rip his uniform shirt open.

Kyojuro moaned into her neck as his shirt gave way and Y/N’s hands came to rest against his bare skin, her nails raking down his taut pectorals to the rigid planes of his chiseled abdomen.

Her lips began descending the path carved by her nails when she drew short at the dark, thick starburst-shaped scar that covered his shoulder and left pectoral. Kyojuro’s breath seized as she pressed her lips ever so softly against it, turning so she could look up at him from beneath her lashes.

Kyojuro was panting as she nuzzled against his scar, kissing it once more before gently gliding her hand over his heart and resting it there, letting herself savor the strong, sturdy beat from within his chest.

Just as he did before, she resumed her trail down his body, her lips coming to the edge of his pants when his hands wound themselves in her hair, every nerve in his body alight as she licked her way up the small happy trail that stopped just below his belly button.

As much as he wanted to feel her mouth around him, Kyojuro had been driven to the brink of insanity by Y/N’s touch, and his resolve was quickly dwindling.

“Y/N — my flame — I can’t wait,” Kyojuro said by way of apology, as he covered her hands with his own to still them on his belt. He slipped his hands down to grip her wrists, bringing them together in one hand and moving her arms up over her head, pinning them against the grasp. With his free hand, Kyojuro loosened his belt and his pants, and shimmied them down, kicking them off behind him. Y/N’s eyes widened at the sight of his proud length as it bounced against his belly button.

Y/N’s breath caught in her throat. She was no stranger to the male body, but this – she’d never had anyone compare to Kyojuro’s size or girth.

Kyojuro noticed her hesitation. “Is this – have you ever --?” Kyojuro breathed, hovering above her. It did not matter to him whether she had or had not, but he wanted to ensure that he did not hurt her.

Y/N shook her head. “No, it’s not my first time – but you are the first one to be so…well endowed.” Y/N flushed as Kyojuro laughed softly above her, and she felt his lips graze hers.

He pulled back slightly, reaching to grip the base of his aching cock tapping it against her soaked cunt in a warning and in permission.

Y/N seized beneath him at the spark of hot pleasure that was sent crackling up her spine as he rubbed his velvety head against the most sensitive part of her core. “Kyojuro,” she hissed through clenched teeth, rolling her hips impatiently towards him.

The mushroomed tip of his cock pushed into her entrance and Y/N felt herself go cross-eyed. It was heaven; pure, unadulterated, blissful heaven.

He was insistent on easing his thick length into her, but the throbbing between Y/N’s legs had grown nearly unbearable. He still wasn’t close enough, not nearly as much as she needed him to be.

Boldly, Y/N locked her ankles against Kyojuro’s backside, and with all her might, hauled him into her in a single stroke.

“Fuck!” he yelled, unable to restrain his volume as Y/N forced him to become fully seated within her. Her core was impossibly tight and so fucking warm and wet that it had been a true exercise of self-restraint not to spill himself inside her right then.

Y/N nearly screamed in pleasured relief at the way her body burned and stretched around Kyojuro’s considerable length, his base pressed flush against her sensitive clit as she began to grind furiously against him, desperate to relieve the friction that made her ache.

Kyojuro was still panting from the way Y/N had slammed him into her, nearly trembling with restraint as he willed himself not to finish before they’d truly begun.

Once certain that he would not climax like some green boy, he laughed quietly under his breath. The dark sound caused Y/N’s eyes to fly open, and her stomach flipped at the wicked glint in his eyes as he stared at her like a hunter stalking its prey.

Kyojuro leaned forward and took one of her breasts, harshly into his mouth, grazing his teeth over her nipple hard enough to make Y/N cry out in slight pain before he lapped at it soothingly with his tongue.

“You want me to fuck you, is that it?” He murmured between his ministrations, leaving fresh marks all over aching mounds.

Y/N could hardly make a sound as Kyojuro withdrew almost completely from her heat before slamming into her once, the Ice Pillar nearly choking on the breath that flew from her chest with his force.

Desperately — pathetically — Y/N nodded, whimpering.

“If that’s how you want it,” Kyojuro growled against her breast, giving her nipple one harsh nip with his teeth before pulling himself off her.

He sat on his knees, back straight as he began to pound relentlessly into her, his hands gripping her backside and holding her flush against his strong thighs. Y/N’s head remained thrown back against the earth, her fingers tearing at the soft grass beneath her.

Rengoku’s movements were just like those he wielded in battle — powerful; all-consuming; relentless; and unforgiving.

Y/N had never considered herself to be a particularly vocal person when engaged in carnal activities, but the way that Rengoku’s cock hammered into her spasming core over and over had reduced her to a moaning and whimpering mess. The only intelligible thing that fell from her lips was his name — Kyojuro.

“You look so fucking beautiful like this,” Kyojuro grunted out between forceful snaps of his hips against hers, the night air alive with the lewd squelching of Y/N’s dripping cunt as he pistoned into her.

Y/N looked to see the Flame Pillar’s eyes locked on her breasts as they bounced with the force of his thrusts. Between the moans and whimpers he pulled from her with every punishing thrust of his hips against hers, she lightly dragged her fingers from their place in the grass to her hipbone, and then up to trace teasingly around her peaked breast.

Kyojuro’s eyes followed every move, his thrusts hardening as she pinched her nipple and let out a breathy little scream, her walls pulsing around his aching length.

“Fuck,” Kyojuro grit, feeling himself twitch within her as he watched Y/N play with herself, spurring him to go faster, deeper within her.

He moved his hand under one of her knees and lifted her leg over his shoulder, allowing him to plunge deeper into her silken heat, and he teasingly drew his fingers up and down her outer thigh.

At that moment, as Kyojuro was poised against the silhouette of the moon, his amber eyes glowing as he watched where he appeared and disappeared inside her, the realization hit Y/N like a storm, and it knocked her entirely off her axis.

She was in love with Kyojuro.

Who else could make her feel so sacred and yet so angry? Who else had been capable of slipping past every wall she’d built within herself, capable of getting her to let her guard down before consuming her so furiously she had not realized she’d ever been in danger?

He was fire, she was ice. One of them had to give to the other. She’d just always thought it would be him giving into her.

Yet there, beneath the moonlight, her climax rising above her like a tidal wave, Y/N realized that she was powerless against the waves that rose to pull her under, to never again let her up for air.

Distantly, Y/N felt the Flame Pillar’s callused thumb find her clit and her climax slammed into her, and she succumbed to the endless sea called Kyojuro.

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

As Y/N broke apart around him, Kyojuro swore he’d never seen anything as beautiful in his entire life.

She shattered over him with the prettiest scream he’d ever heard, and he could barely make out the drawn-out syllables of his name as her hips jerked up against his while her inner walls threatened to squeeze the life from him.

Y/N finally collapsed back against the ground, her body limp from the exhaustion of her pleasure. Kyojuro then moved in chase of his own release, his hips pressed solidly against hers as he rutted his cock deep within her.

“Fuck,” he groaned, his hands tightening around Y/N’s waist. The familiar electricity of impending release tingled at the base of Kyojuro’s spine, and his stomach began to clench as he began his ascent to his climax.  “Y/N — I am going to finish soon,” his head was thrown back, and his groans were loud enough to alert anyone nearby of exactly what was transpiring between the two Hashira. “Please — tell me where--”

“Inside,” Y/N gasped, her legs tightening around Kyojuro’s hips in a feeble attempt to keep him within her, to ensure that he wouldn’t yet leave her. “Please, Kyojuro, stay.”

Kyojuro was a rational man, and he knew of one major reason not to allow his seed to spill inside Y/N’s heavenly body. But all those rationalities flew out the window at the sound of her wanton and needy whimpers and the way her heat fluttered around him and Kyojuro did not think he could pull out of her if he wanted to.

Kyojuro’s thrusts became more and more frenzied and bruising, with the Flame Hashira hardly dragging his twitching length out of her as he neared his own climax.

“Hold onto me,” he panted, falling forward so that his chest was pressed flush against Y/N’s, one arm going to wrap around her waist while the other snaked over to where her arm lay in the grass, gripping her wrist to pin it up over her head as his fingers interlocked tightly with hers.

Y/N hiked her legs higher up his waist, crossing them at her shins so that he was buried deep within her. Her free arm looped under the one he had braced above her head to wrap around his back, her fingers digging into the rippling muscle and scarred skin that littered his shoulders.

“Make me yours, Kyojuro,” she whispered against his neck, squeezing his hips with her thighs.

Y/N felt his entire body tense at her words and Kyojuro’s moans turned into shouts as he gave one final, deep thrust within her before he exploded. His hand tightened fiercely around hers with the force of his climax,

The pleasure that surged up his spine had been white hot as he pushed himself as deeply as he could possibly go within Y/N’s vice-like core. Kyojuro was not a novice to pleasure, but he had never finished as hard or as much as he did buried within her.

Kyojuro canted his hips, prolonging his release as he continued to empty himself into her, coming down from his earth-shattering high. Y/N mewled against his throat, her lips brushing against his sensitive pulse point as her legs spasmed. once more around his hips.

He finally stilled within her, arms shaking as he braced himself above her, to keep from crushing the exhausted woman beneath him.

He lowered his head down to her level. “Are you all right, my flame?” He panted, pressing a kiss between her brows before he rested his forehead heavily against hers.

She looked up at him from under her eyelashes and nodded shakily.

He no longer could keep himself from collapsing against Y/N, but as he fell forward, he gripped her and rolled, pulling her to his chest with his leaking cock still nestled deeply between her legs.  

“I don’t want to push you away,” Kyojuro murmured softly after a moment, his chest finally easing as his breathing slowed.

Y/N made a show of looking down to where they were still joined, the Flame Pillar’s pearly seed slowly leaking out of her and onto the grass below them. “I think I’m about as close to you as physically possible, Rengoku.”

Kyojuro rolled his eyes and ground his hips slightly into her, causing Y/N to squeak against him.

“Quiet, woman, I’m trying to apologize to you.” He trailed his fingers up and down her spine as she nestled back against his chest, chin perched on his pectoral as she waited for him to continue.

“I was just so angry. After the incident on the train, when I woke up in Kocho’s hospital — I was furious. With myself.” Amber eyes met hers and softened to pools of melted honey. “It was never you I was angry with.”

Y/N held his gaze evenly, her voice firm. “But you took it out on me all the same.” It wasn’t an angry accusation — it was the truth; ugly and sharp. But it was real, and so was the tentative, knowing hope in her eyes.

“Yes,” Kyojuro breathed. “Yes, I did. And I am so sorry for it, Y/N.” His hand reached up to gently cup the side of her face, thumb smoothing over the soft expanse of her cheek. “May I ask for your forgiveness?”

Y/N leaned her head into his warm palm, and smiled, softly.

“You may ask, Kyojuro.”

He brushed his thumb along her lower lip. “Can you forgive me, Y/N?”

Y/N threw a leg out over his other hip, straddling him beneath her, though moving so fluidly that they remained connected at their base.

She rolled her hips against his, and he felt himself begin to harden within her once more. Kyojuro moaned softly, head falling back against the earth as he brought his hands up to steady her, fingers digging gently into her hips as she repeated the movement, again and again, until he’d fully stiffened within her.

“Yes Kyojuro,” she sighed, hands coming to brace themselves against his abdomen as she began to ride him. “I forgive you.”

Kyojuro groaned, his head thrown back as he began to gently grind up into her, goosebumps erupting over his flesh as she lightly raked her nails over his pectorals and the hard ridges of his abdomen.

He wanted so very badly to lose himself within his pleasure, to allow Y/N to consume him whole and never let him go again, but his atonement was not complete.

Because Y/N had given him every opportunity to confess to her before, and he had been careless with them; she would not open that door herself again.

So he would.

“And may I give you my heart, Y/N?” He asked, his hands gliding sensually up from her hips to brace themselves on either side of her sensitive waist, squeezing her firmly.

Her pace had stuttered slightly once his words registered, eyes widening as she looked down at him, and Kyojuro hated that he was the reason the shadow of doubt lingered in her eyes.

“Is it truly mine?” She breathed, resuming the intoxicating rise and fall and push and grind of her hips, breasts beginning to bounce as she picked up her pace.

Kyojuro’s mouth watered, but he restrained himself, holding her gaze. “It was only ever yours, Y/N.”

Y/N cried out then, her hips beginning to drop and roll into his with urgency. By the way her damp heat began to pulse and constrict around him, Kyojuro knew that she was barreling towards her release once more.

One hand left its searing position at her waist to drift down to where they were connected, his rough thumb toying with the sensitive nub that had her heavenly cunt squeezing him for dear life.

“My beautiful flame,” he moaned, “how lucky I am to have such a darling god be the keeper of my heart.”

Kyojuro rolled into her from below again, the hand still braced on her waist guiding himself to push deeper into her, as his thumb began to press harder into the apex of her thighs.

“Sweet tempest, please,” Kyojuro panted, the relentless squeeze of Y/N’s walls around his aching length beginning to drive him to the point of madness. “Please, may I have your love?”

Y/N’s moans were piercing as she half-sobbed above him, head thrown back into the night sky, the hoary glow of the moon making her look like a celestial deity given human form as she writhed above him.

“Yes!” Y/N cried, “Yes Kyojuro, you have always had my love!”

The moment the words fell from her lips, Kyojuro jolted upright, coming into a sitting position as Y/N’s legs instantly wrapped around him. He wound one arm around her waist to bounce her in his lap, the other moving to circle his fingers around her nub.

Kyojuro nuzzled her nose with his own, his lips mere centimeters from hers as he pressed his forehead against her and held her eyes. “Then come for me, Y/N,” he murmured, his breath tickling her lips as he nuzzled her again. “Come for me, my love.”

Y/N seized around him like a vice, her head falling back as she unleashed a euphoric cry.

The force of her climax had caused her to arch backward in Kyojuro’s lap, thrusting her breasts up and forward, and Kyojuro bent to suck one into his greedy mouth, his own release imminent. The warm sticky rush of her pleasure combined with the way her velvety, molten walls constricted around him had Kyojuro seeing stars as his seed shot into her, hot and fast, his strangled groan muffled only by the soft plush of Y/N’s breast as he filled her to her brim for the second time that night.

For a long moment, neither Pillar said anything as they came down from their mutual highs, Y/N’s head pressed against Kyojuro’s shoulder while the Flame Pillar kept his arms firmly around her waist, his fingers trailing up and down her spine.

“Y/N, are you all right?” He murmured into her ear, still buried deep within her heat.

Y/N nodded sleepily against his skin, savoring how full and complete she felt perched in his lap.

“I love you, Kyojuro.” She said so softly that the Flame Pillar thought his heart might break. Kyojuro pulled away slightly to bring his fingers beneath her chin where she lay against his shoulder. Gently, he tilted her face towards his and captured her lips with his own.  

“My darling flame,” He murmured against her lips as they broke apart, his eyes sweeping over her face, committing every detail of her beauty to memory. “Thank you.”

Y/N gave him a lazy smile. “I cannot be your flame, Kyojuro,” she teased, “Not when I am made of ice.”

Kyojuro flipped her back beneath him and danced his lips teasingly across the bridge of her nose. “Don’t you know, my beautiful foil, that ice can burn just as well as flame?” He pressed a feather-light kiss against her lips. “And I have been consumed by your silvery fire since I first laid eyes on you at Final Selection.”

Y/N looked up at him in wonder, her hand coming to rest against his face as she adoringly caressed his cheek.

“I love you, Y/N. I am so sorry it took me until now to say it.”

-------------------------------------------------—

Epilogue

Y/N made back it into her room, sight unseen, just as dawn had crept over the horizon.

Feet bare, she padded softly over to her waiting bed, shrugging out of Kyojuro’s uniform shirt and falling into her blankets, not caring at the growing discomfort she felt as the Flame Pillar’s seed dried in her undershorts.

She just wanted to sleep.

Y/N and Kyojuro had come together twice more before the pair realized that morning was imminent, and they needed to return to their respective dwellings before anyone noticed they were gone.

Y/N had lamented that Kyojuro had shredded her chest bindings beyond salvation and had worried she’d be forced to sneak back into the Butterfly Mansion with nothing but her haori to cover her bare chest when Kyojuro slid his uniform shirt over her shoulders.

“No one will think twice if they see me bare,” he’d said by way of explanation, gaze dropping momentarily to appreciate the marks he had left dotted across her breasts before rising back to her face. “I would like to keep you hidden, however.”

Kyojuro then fastened each button one by one, beginning from the bottom as he kissed his way up Y/N’s torso until his lips found the sensitive spot beneath her jaw, which he’d nipped.

It had taken everything in her not to throw him down and have him for the fifth time.

Kyojuro had walked with her as far as the edge of the path back to Shinobu’s before parting her with a sweet kiss and a promise to return to her later in the morning. He had also mentioned, somewhat mischievously, that he would be inquiring into when Y/N could expect to be discharged from the Butterfly Mansion and return to her own Estate.

Her empty, person-free estate.

Y/N collapsed into her bed, ready to sleep for a precious few hours before her training would begin anew.

“So, do you mind sharing where you’ve been all night?” A dangerously sweet voice chirped from over by the door.

Y/N shot up out of her bed, stomach falling out of her ass, as she faced the smiling, enraged Insect Pillar seated primly atop her wooden stool opposite of her.

“I was quite worried, you know,” Shinobu tutted, the honey of her smile poisoned by the violence in her eyes.

Y/N had never been one to be at a loss for words, a quick comment, or a snappy retort always on hand when the situation called for it.

But to her horror, her mind had gone dreadfully blank, and her tongue was swollen stupid in her mouth.

Shinobu smiled like she knew, eyes slowly looking her over, and Y/N was left with the uncomfortable feeling that her friend could see every way she’d allowed Kyojuro to utterly defile her.

“Will you be in need of a contraceptive?” Shinobu asked lightly, and Y/N felt like she would drop dead right then and there.

“…Yes, please.” She managed to squeak, and the Insect Pillar turned to leave.

“I will bring it with your breakfast.” Her hand closed around the doorknob but stilled.

“And Y/N?”

The Ice Pillar whimpered as her friend turned to look back at her, all smiles and throbbing forehead veins.

“If you ever keep the younger girls awake from the sounds of your activities with the Flame Pillar again, I will poison you both.”

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

[stevesgother]

Take It Off - S.H

Pairing - Steve Harrington x Fem!Reader

WC - 2.4k

Warnings - THIS CHAPTER IS 18+ MDNI, ONE use of Y/N (pls give me a break it was essential to the plot), swearing, drinking, angst

AN - the 3rd and final part to the Dress mini series! I’ve never written anything smutty or remotely spicy so I hope this doesn’t read as awkward as it felt to write. i appreciate all the support on my first fics i’ve ever written. love , emma <3

Now

New Years Eve

1987

The Harrington residence had always been the go-to for ragers in high school. Devoid of parents, unlocked liquor cabinets and plenty of unoccupied bedrooms for steamy teenage rendezvous’; but this party would be different. Smaller and more intimate.

Nancy was helping you unload the groceries you had bought for the party tonight when she noticed a shift in your demeanor, you seemed on edge. It took her an entire year to stop staring daggers at you in public, making group settings tense. Nancy knew that Steve had the hots for you. As a matter of fact, it seemed like everyone knew, everyone except you. It was in his lingering touches and the longing glances. She had always known.

Now, the tension between you had withered and snapped like nothing more than a frayed rope pulled too taut. She wasn’t your best friend, and you weren’t hers; but there was a mutual respect. There was civility. She had Jonathan now, and they were happy.

“Do you think it’ll be awkward?” you ask, scared to know her answer.

Then

December 1987

The sun was shining through the windows in thick, golden beams that highlighted the slope of Steve’s cheekbones and the moles that dotted down his neck and disappeared below the collar of his t-shirt. Little specks of dust float through the air, illuminated by the light seeping through the curtains.

You take a moment to admire how ethereal he looks like this. You’re a tangle of limbs when you look down; even in your subconscious you long to be close to him. A sudden melancholy washes over you as you realize this would likely be the last time you ever wake in this position. Nose to nose, his arm strewn haphazardly across your middle.

He must sense your staring because slowly, he starts to peel open his eyes. It takes him exactly 4 seconds to realize he is in fact, not dreaming, and has accidentally enveloped you in his sleep. 

“Oh--” he startles groggily as he hurriedly pushes himself away from your side of the bed. “I’m sorry, I- I must’ve-” you want to protest at the lack of warmth his absence brings.

“No, you’re okay! I didn’t notice. Honest.” he looks skeptical; afraid that he might’ve crossed a line he can’t uncross. You reach a hand toward him, “Steve, it’s alright. You kept me warm actually,” you chuckle, “it’s freezing in here.”

He nods, clumsily stumbling out of bed and the tangle of sheets you two had found yourselves in. Too late, he realizes his rather compromising position. More specifically, the state of his dick directly after waking up.

“Oh my God!” you shout, moving quickly to cover your eyes and turning your entire upper body away from him. You already knew Steve was…well endowed. Girls love to talk, and those tight, light wash Levi’s don’t leave a lot up to the imagination; but now, with it literally staring you in the face, there’s not a doubt in your mind that that your best friend is absolutely hung.

“Ah! Jesus-” he grabs one of the sheets off the bed to cover his lower half. You realize just how hot you feel in contrast to the chilly air of the cabin. 

“Okay you can uh,” he trails off, “turn around.”

When you face him, Steve’s tomato red with a blush that reaches all the way from his cheeks to the tips of his ears. Still not daring to make eye contact with him, “Jeez, Harrington. You got a permit for that thing?” A poor, ill-timed attempt at a joke, but he chuckles nonetheless.

“Sorry I- uh forgot I went to bed without pants on,” he smiles sheepishly, “I’m gonna hop in the shower before we leave.” You reply with a two-finger salute, finding the loose threads of the sheets suddenly very interesting as he disappears behind the bathroom door.

The drive home was awkward to say the least. Eddie, Robin and Vickie all sensing the tension, but knowing better than to bring it up in front of you. When you arrive back in Hawkins, Steve drops everyone off at their respective homes, saving you for last.

“Thanks again for offering to drive,” you move to open the door but are interrupted by Steve, “Here, let me help with your bags. I’ll walk you to the door.”

You don’t fight him as he takes every bag from you, not even allowing you to carry your own purse. He stands on your porch with you, clammy hands shoved tightly into his pockets, for an uncomfortable amount of time.

“I’d better…you know, get going,” you nod in the direction of your house. “Yeah, yeah okay,” he pulls you into a warm bear hug; his specialty. The gesture feels different. An air of bashfulness radiating from both of you. When you pull away, he has an indistinguishable look in his eyes as he tucks a stray piece of hair behind your ear. His gaze flits quickly from your eyes, to your lips, and back again.

You fear that he might kiss you. That he might change everything. That you might let him.

Clearing your throat abruptly, it seems to snap him out of whatever trance he’s in and he looks just as startled as you do, taking a step back.

“Alright! Bye Steve! Love you!” you rush out as you practically shove your bags inside your foyer and slam the door. As you lean against it, you hear a muttered ‘shit’ as he makes his way back to his car.

Now

New Years Eve

1987

Despite the party being relatively small, just your friend group and a few friends of friends, the house was lively with music and laughter. On the television inside Steve’s entertainment center was the CBS broadcast of the New Years Eve ball drop in New York City.

A game of ‘spin the bottle’ was being played on the floor of the living room. “For old time’s sake!’ Eddie had claimed. You were skeptical, but a boy in the group whose name might have been James, had caught your eye earlier in the night. You thought maybe this could be it. After years of pointless or just downright awful dates, maybe this would be the ‘meet-cute’ you’d been waiting for.

‘Little Lies’ by Fleetwood Mac was playing distantly from the speakers in the kitchen, and then it was finally your turn to spin. You glance up at James before you take your turn, watching him throw a smirk in your direction. What you can’t see, is Steve in your peripheral glaring daggers at him. He’d watched him flirt with you all night, whether you’d realized it or not. It had completely soured his mood, and edged him to pick a fight even if he knew it wouldn’t be fair.

You give the empty coke bottle on the carpet a tentative spin, making it clear who you're aiming for; and when it lands on James, no one’s surprised. Slowly, you rise onto your knees and crawl forward with your hands, just far enough for you to reach out to him. The vodka in your stomach makes you brave as you reach for his face with both hands, and kiss him deeply. He tastes like cigarettes and spearmint gum when he licks into your mouth, earning the two of you wolf whistles and hollers from your surrounding circle of friends.

When the adolescent game is abandoned, your friends opting for one that gets them drunk faster, you decide to sit out for a round. Steve had been muddling around the kitchen for the past 30 minutes, pretending to clean up nonexistent solo cups and dishes.

‘Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies’

“Hey,” you say lightheartedly as you sit down on one of the stools surrounding the island. If Steve heard you, he didn’t acknowledge your presence.

“So, are you two together?” he still doesn’t bother turning to look at you when he asks.

“What?”

He finally looks at you, expression is unreadable, “You and fuckin’ Bruce Springsteen over there. Are you together?”

What? Dude no-- I barely know him,”

“Sure looked like you knew him with his damn tongue down your throat.” he spits, turning back to the nearly empty garbage bag he had been pretending to throw things in to busy his hands.

He could count on one hand the amount of times you two had genuinely argued, and the heat crawling the back of his neck was starting to feel an awful lot like guilt.

“I’m sorry, what the hell is your problem?” you spit back at him, getting defensive now.

He glares at you, long and hard, “Nothing just-- nevermind. Forget it,”

What's that saying? ‘Loose lips sink ships’? You think what might sink this ship is you, and too much alcohol.

“No. You do not get to do that,” your words slur together ever so slightly, alcohol churning in your stomach, “that’s not fair.” Tears prick the corners of your eye, your voice wobbling at the end of your sentence. It practically tears him in two.

Before he can get a word in edgewise, you’re vomiting a drunken confession. One you swore you’d never make, on the basis that it could change everything you and Steve worked so hard to build.

“God forbid I get to be happy right? That after years! Fucking years, Steve, of pining after you, that someone might like me! That someone might give me the goddamn time of day. That I might love someone who isn’t you!”

“What?” The sincerity and the slight quiver in his tone is almost enough to completely extinguish your anger. If you were fire, Steve was water. He was your Achilles Heel.

The realization of what you just confessed hits you a second too late, and even though you’re practically shouting, you have no one's attention except for Steve’s. Swiping your drink off the granite countertop you storm through the sliding glass door that leads to the Harringtons’ spacious backyard, deciding you need some air. Need to be anywhere except in that stifling kitchen with Steve.

“Wait no– please,” you hear Steve call after you. You don’t stop, you don’t turn around. Beelining for the gate that leads to the driveway, and then to the road. The January air was frigid; it gnawed and bit harshly at your exposed skin but you didn’t care. You just needed to be home.

You could hear Steve’s heavy footfall not far behind you, he was jogging to keep up. Not a chance that he was letting you walk home alone. Someday the world will end, and it will feel just like this does. You spin around to face him, cheeks stained with black streaks of mascara and nose bright red from the cold.

“Y/N!” He sounded desperate calling after you. He felt desperate. Standing there in the middle of his empty, suburban street – Steve felt terribly, consumingly desperate.

Throwing all caution to the wind, Steve strides towards you with a determination you’ve never seen in him. Before you can blink, his warm hands are grasping both sides of your face and his lips are crashing into yours with a passion that only comes from longing. A fervor that only comes from pining and anticipation.

When he pulls away he looks frightened; like he had come to his senses. Before he can start to ramble apologies, you throw your arms around his neck and kiss him back with the same ferocity he met you with moments ago.

He stumbles back with you, only separating for measly gasps of air between kisses and suddenly you feel the cool metal of his BMW against your exposed back. Strong arms cage you in as he fumbles with the door to the backseat. You don’t hesitate to climb in after him when he finally manages it open.

Straddling him on soft leather, your thighs bracketed each of his. His lips move south as he presses hot, open-mouthed kisses to the column of your neck, to just below your ear, to your collarbones.

His hands travel slowly up your thighs, and just before breaching the hem on your dress he pants, “Is this okay?” You relish in how wrecked he sounds already, barely having touched you yet. You respond with a breathy ‘yes’.

His nimble fingers find the zipper of your dress in a blissful sense of deja vu. This time though, there’s an eagerness in his touch. A need to map every inch of your skin like he’s committing it to memory.

He slows for a moment, like you both remembered the situation you’ve found yourselves in. His usual hazel eyes have darkened to a deep brown that sucks you in; their very own gravitational pull. He pulls the sleeves of your dress slowly down your shoulders and glances up in a silent ask before letting the fabric fall the rest of the way; exposing your breasts. Just as his eyes are raking over your newly exposed skin – as if he has a sixth sense for being cockblocked – he reverses his action; making an effort to cover you before you hear a ‘tap tap tap’ on the fogged window. 

Behind the glass is a blurry picture of Robin and Eddie. To say they look smug is an understatement.

“Fucking finally,” Eddie says, exasperated. You try to hide from your embarrassment in the crook of Steve’s neck, like a kid having been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Robin sends you a poorly concealed wink as she elbows Eddie’s ribs – even more poorly concealed.

“C’mon. You owe me ten bucks,” you hear her mumble as the pair saunter away from the BMW, leaving you and Steve back to your ‘nefarious activities’ as Robin would say.

You try to protest at Steve rezipping your dress but he cuts you off before your complaints, “I’m not having sex with you for the first time in my car,” he tucks a stray piece of hair behind your ear.

“If you insist,” teasing him a little, you poke his chest, “Bruce Springsteen,”

“Not funny,” he tries to deadpan, but the smirk permanently on his lips gives him away, “You know I'm way more of a Tom Cruise.”

[nyxlarkyn]

Jinx's Dynamics Between Sevika and Isha Will be My Current Roman Empire:

Isha is holding onto the role of an inner child/Powder for Jinx.

I keep seeing mother/daughter comparisons between the two. A nice sentiment but not what's playing out. Think of Brittany Murphy's "Uptown Girls" Where a young girl forced to grow up early falls into the care of a woman clinging to her youth. Isha and Jinx will be about the cycle of trauma children face under the corruption of the upper and under cities. Isha is forced to survive at all costs at a young age and Jinx is a damaged individual lost within herself due to the same conditions Isha currently faces.

She's introduced to Jinx almost exactly the same way Silco took Powder in; terrified for her life a child buries herself in an adult for protection. Silco raises a hand to the child and his cronies watch on afraid of what he may do to this kid. Jinx waves a gun at her child and the audience watches on with the same dread Silcos lackeys held. Both sparing the girl and choosing to protect her. When Isha risks her life to save Jinx, I couldn't help but think of how Jinx must've been at that age with Silco. How she made a name for herself as his psycho daughter. The weight of a child ready to risk their life and kill for you.

Almost all of Isha's movements feel like they're just Powders old animations being recycled or her actions directly mirroring hers.

Isha's wardrobe is also very detailed. She has a similar helmet we've seen Powder wear, her boots have a very prominent X stitched on one and the other has a very deep V silhouette, she has one glove that looks like Jinx's gloves, her other arm is covered and wrapped with a red string- reminiscent of Vis wrappings, she also wears a beaded chocker that's laced around her neck the same way Jinx and Sevika wears theirs.

Speaking of Sevika:

Jinx chose to gift Sevika a new arm made out of parts of the old punching game the girls would train on as kids. We know the significance it holds to Jinx, so her taking it apart for Sevika is huge. This act is her dismantling her old relationship with her sister to form a new one with Sevika.

Sevika's eyes reflect more silver this season than brown making her more reminiscent of Powder and Vi. Her hair being down later in the season and Vi growing hers out and dying it black adds to their mirroring. They also fight with mechanical fist(s).

Silco was a man both Jinx and Sevika answered to. Whether or not Sevika viewed him as a Paternal figure, he was her most respected authority figure. Both women have that grief over Silco and bond over their resentment towards him and aimlessnes with him gone.

This post below inspire me to post this, because seriously why aren't more people talking about this.

[coldairballoons]

i've seen a lot of people saying that saltburn (2023) isn't a commentary on class, and genuinely, i have to disagree.

keep in mind, i watched this at 3am last night with my sibling, but i'm also a literature major with a focus in literary criticism of popular culture (including film), so i do know what i'm talking about!

spoilers below the break

first of all, framing saltburn as a conflict between the upper class and lower class is incorrect. in fact, that in itself is one of the major criticisms that comes up throughout it! oliver is quite literally not lower class, but uses the preconception that the cattons will view anyone in a lower social class than them as a tool to manipulate his way into their life. despite this, he is not lower class. and you are not meant to root for him, especially not towards the end.

the marxist theory of literary criticism surrounds the idea that in every story, one of the key concepts is a class struggle. this could be between any class, but the most common is the rich vs poor duality that shows up in most stories - ex. titanic, the fall of the house of usher. the thing is, in both of those examples, the sympathy lies with the victims - the lower class. in titanic, you are meant to feel guilty on behalf of the rich leaving the lower class to die. in usher, you are meant to feel anger towards the mistreatment of those who seek out the treatment the family offers. but while usher is a clear criticism of class, is that its main genre? is is purely a class struggle movie? no. it is a story inspired by edgar allan poe that surrounds horrors of family, trauma, and yes, class, but also morality. meanwhile titanic is supposedly a romance. though jack dawson is young and poor, he is not the only sympathetic character. what i'm saying here is that media is incredibly layered, and while on the surface level, something may not be entirely a class conflict story, those undertones exist throughout, no matter what. even take hit series percy jackson for example. there is still a class discussion to be had there, with percy and his mom struggling with finances, while annabeth and her father live comfortably.

but saltburn is interesting, because the antagonist throughout the entirety of it is, as far as the audience knows, lower class. you are introduced to him, not through judgement for his living condition, but through compassion and generosity. felix offers him a hand, even when he isn't in the same group as him. that in itself is a criticism of class dynamics.

listen. i hate rich people as much as the next gen-z college student. i personally have a hit list with many a billionaire's name right at the very top. but it's undeniable that, despite the class difference, the cattons - at least venitia and felix - are kind to oliver at first. obviously, he is a part of the other, but he is still a person. elspeth enjoys his presence. james treats him as a son. farleigh feels threatened by his presence, because he knows that, if they so choose, they could replace him with oliver.

i want to talk about farleigh for a second.

i literally have not seen anyone talk about farleigh, and i am upset about it. not only is he one of the most compelling characters - a supposed american slacker who lives with his extended family and blows their money on lavish means -, but he is important in the class discussion because it affects him directly. the cattons do not support his mother. she is in america, and although they have the ability to, they actively choose not to. the reason felix is bothered when farleigh implies that it is, in fact, a "race thing", is because it is. why is farleigh the one dependent on the cattons, and risking expulsion from the family? because he is the first other that they encounter.

and then pamela, who not only has sought help from the cattons, but disappears midway through with no explanation. she goes directly from rehab to them, and although she is trying to find a place to live on her own, the cattons offer her no assistance. they offer her nothing, and complain when she is in their space. they offer her NO help, when they so easily could set her up with a small flat and monthly allowance to help her find a job.

and not only is this a criticism of the upper class - the inactivity and extremely single-minded worldview that the cattons have, the amount that they are out of touch with not only the outside world and the lower class, but their own emotions -, it's also a criticism of the upper middle class.

as someone currently in college, whose parents are a college professor and a high school teacher, i am fairly middle class. however, there are so many people in my immediate vicinity - folks i know from high school, in my classes, extended family, etc., - who are Extremely upper middle class. however, they have the comfort of certain things that i, and my family, don't have. that's just part of life. however, in saltburn, oliver milks the "middle" in his "upper middle" class. he milks it, and he runs it absolutely dry.

someone truly in his alleged position would not be able to spend the summer lavishly and hedonistically gallivanting around the countryside of england, playing tennis and smoking cigarettes by the lake. hell, someone in my middle class position wouldn't be able to do that either, especially not while attending oxford fucking university. he would likely need to work, not just to support himself, but to support his mother, especially after - again, allegedly - his father died. and not only is this coming from a place of an oversight on his part, not realizing what his privilege truly is, but it also comes from a place of oversight on the part of the cattons.

do i think that saltburn is a movie about class? nope. at its core, it's a story about a desire for power and possession, ownership and obsession. there is this intense, almost vampiric lust throughout the entire thing, and that's in part what makes it the perfect setting for discussions of sexuality, of madness, and, honestly, class. wealth is power, and the cattons have a lot of it.

[odditycircus-2002]

Important question but how would Shang have reacted if medusa reader had died between Mkx or something, like not long after many of the other characters were turned into Revannts, she got taken out as well despite her best efforts, and got resurrected by Quan Chi. How would he react when he comes back in mk11 to his wife’s death and turned into a undead servant.

Short answer: Astonishment at the fact Quan-chi managed to get his hooks into her. Shortly follows by a cold fury he barely manages to contain. Given who is allies are and the fact he’s got beef with EVERYONE, he’s not going to show the full extent your death and enslavement has on him. Granted, Medusa!Reader doesn’t exactly make it easy.

Long answer below:

Fujinn groans as he blinks against the low torchlight. The first thing he notices is the feeling of cold metal wrapped around his wrists, and just a glance up confirms what he suspected to be true. He's chained to the ceiling with both his arms in the air. The demigod's chains rattle as he looks to his left and right to find Night Wolf and Shang Tsung chained by their hands with their backs against pillars decorated with skulls.

"Night Wolf! Shang Tsung!"

Fujinn's calls finally rouse the Matokka and Sorcerer from their stupor. Both men take a quick moment to observe their surroundings, which look to be made in a gothic style, with bones decorating every surface as far as they can see. Night Wolf is the first to speak.

"Where are we?"

They already had a good idea where they were, given that the last thing they recalled was attempting to sneak past the Netherealm armies, only to be captured by Lui Kang's Revenant. That and Shinnok's decapitated head directly in front of them, where its been placed on a wheel that crackled with red lightning. Just as Shang Tsung was about to answer, a familiar voice beat him to it.

"Why, you're in Lord Shinnok's Bone Temple."

Shang Tsung feels his heart skip a beat at that voice. While it's raspier than he remembered with a dual undertone, leaving a faint echo to your words, he's known it for so many eons that he'd recognize it anywhere. Yet, as he tried to turn his head to the side to catch even a glimpse of your figure, you were already gone. Instead, he's met with former Empress Sindel's Revenant.

"Sindel, you look well. Death becomes you."

He comments with his usual poise and smug expression, barely faltering when Sindel scratches his cheek.

"Always the charmer, Shang Tsung. I will enjoy feeding Lord Shinnok your soul."

Your voice could then be heard again; this time, the Sorcerer can get a good look at you.

"Can we not have ssssome fun with them first? I'm sure our Lord has been dying for some entertainment."

You stood in front of the pillar Night Wolf was chained to with a veil that covered the upper half of your face with a familiar, serene, and sinister grin he fondly remembers. However, you had undergone many changes after his death. Like the rest of the Revenants, your once vibrant and lively form had become an ashen grey, with your snakes becoming black as coal with glowing yellow eyes. While he couldn't see your eyes, as usual, he could make out a faint glow from behind the mask; no doubt, your gaze had become filled with fire with barely a trace of you left. You had a thick orange line covering the entire neck like that of a choker, yet Shang Tsung already knows that's the injury that killed you after Sindel chopped your head off.

Sindel scowls at you. "This would not be because you wish to keep the Sorcerer for yourself, would it?"

You reply with a clear, patronizing tone while waving your taloned hands in front of you. Sindel and Night Wolf scowl deeply at you. The latter's expression shifts into one of disgust as you lean close to him, your nest of snakes snapping their jaws just a hair's width from his skin.

"Oh no no, Sssindel. Fujinn and Night Wolf, the man who killed you, most certainly deserve to suffer. I am simply reminding you to enjoy yourself while doing so, to entertain our Lord. However, if I may make a suggestion,"

In the blink of an eye, you stood before Shang Tsung to gently caress his face, careful with your talons, unlike Sindel.

”Wouldn’t he make a better Revenant than a snack for our Lord? Surely, it could never hurt to ensure our victory for the New Era by recruiting more minions.”

The Sorcerer's gaze narrows in a mixture of cold fury and dejection. How could Quan-chi, that second-rate Sorcerer, have the gull to claim his wife as a minion? How could you, a conniving sorceress who's always stood by his side for centuries, be brought so low? He should've been wiser as to listen to your suspicions of Quan-chi.

Yet, it's a relief to know that even in your sorry new form, your love hasn't wavered. Even if said love includes you briefly scuffling with Night Wolf's Revenant on his behalf, only so you could drag him to what remained of Shinnok to make him "better and stronger" once you see the damage the Revenant did to his face.

"I am sure Lord Shinnok will resurrect you once I convince him of your worth. I did not forget our vows, my love. Not even death will part us forever; soon, we will never be apart."

Fortunately, Fujinn interfered before you could carry out your plan, by sending an arrow in your direction which you easily dodge. You hiss at the demi-god as you move your entire body in front of Shang Tsung to block him from view.

"HE. ISsssSss. MINE!"

You then pounce at Fujinn who held out his crossbow in front of him to jam between your jaws, preventing you from sinking your fangs into his flesh.

Despite the flashes of pain that pulsated from his face, it still touched Shang Tsung to know that you still remained so steadfast in your devotion to him, as much as you could under Shinnok's control anyway. There's no use in stewing in his anger and astonishment for now. He will succeed in resurrecting both you and Sindel, then claiming Kronika's crown for himself with you by his side as his muse while rebuilding fate and destiny in his image.

A/N: I hope this answered your question well enough😅Don't forget to comment, like, and reblog!

[d-parade]

please don’t be like this

useless warning mentions of violence

my original post for context (not at all vicious or rude, just me reacting mildly to a violent comment and explaining):

here are some comments she made. she blocked me, of course, not even giving me the time to respond before blocking to make it look like she has the upper hand. but luckily i have another tumblr account.

she’s not even a trans woman… if you were a trans man before that means you were female. how is it in any way transmisogyny if you’re not a trans woman?

and… we skipped right past transphobia and straight to transmisogyny? whew what a leap.

oh and there’s other comments too. she combed through my account. lucky.

ohhhh so we misgendering now? kinda hypocritical and ironic how you believe in a mindset of respecting everyone’s “identities” until it’s someone who you don’t agree with.

at least transmedicalists misgender because of how they define dysphoria. it’s not like they purposefully want to misgender (when they don’t even see them as trans in the first place) (like if it’s a binary tucute with dysphoria they use proper pronouns). not the same for tucutes apparently. they just do it because they believe they’re the good guys and misgendering is an act of justice against evil…

and funny enough this was my post directly below the one she commented on… which sums up my experience with her nicely. i’m sure she read it too.

i’m not saying this person represents all tucutes and inclusionists of course. like i said in the above pic, there’s genuinely nice people who come from a place of love. i just don’t agree with how their ideas work.

all in all, no matter who you are, what you are, do not respond with violence. and it’s not because i’m triggered or disturbed by it or anything. it’s just straight up immature. you’re also not at all open to discussion or even try to counter argue my points, just straight up “TERF RHETORIC” “TRANSMISOGNY” “KILL YOURSELF”

do you not find it embarrassing?

this is a reminder that your actions determine how someone else perceives the communities you’re in. while it’s impossible to control other’s perception of an entire community, change starts with you. just be a respectful person. no matter how much you hate the other party, maintain dignity. by doing that, you already won the war.

it’s not so much about “being a person you want others to respect”, but more of self respect. don’t ever reduce yourself to plain, mindless hate.

it’s not that hard. so just please don’t do this. you’re only hurting yourself, and the ideologies you represent.

[delphi-dreamin]

Hi dearest

Question: does Lucifer kiss your skin goodbye before you tattoo it?

- 🌞

Oh, my darling. This gave me such delicious ideas...

Kiss Goodbye

Word Count: 654

Genre: Fluff, lightly suggestive

Relationship: Lucifer x Delphi

Lucifer watches with a soft smile as his little human bustles about the room, her hair tied back in a messy bun, his own black button-down shirt draped tantalizingly over her petite frame. The sleeves are bunched at her elbows, the buttons undone to her navel, and the hem only barely covers her rear, giving him the barest glimpse of her red lace panties when she bends over. He doesn't think he'll ever understand why she likes sleeping in the shirt, but seeing her in it and only it makes an odd feeling of pride swell in his chest.

“You have a meeting with Diavolo first thing tomorrow at RAD, then we're having lunch with Simeon at noon,” she reminds him as she packs her laptop into her school bag. “We’ve got reservations at Ristorante Six at 8. And don't forget I have a tattoo appointment at 3, so I'll be out for a few hours after classes. I'll meet you back here before dinner.”

Lucifer frowns. “You have a tattoo appointment?”

Delphi looks up at him, her brow raised with amusement. “There's a visiting artist at the shop I like this weekend. I told you about the appointment last week! You seriously forgot?”

“I've had a bit of a busy week, darling,” he reminds her with an amused grin of his own. “Remind me what you're having done?”

Her eyes light up and he smiles. She loves talking about her tattoos, and he loves listening to her. Her excitement and passion are infectious when she's explaining her newest body art.

“I've been messaging them about a design based on one of my drawings. It's a honey bee with honeycomb and a crown,” she explains, the twinkle in her eyes and the light flush in her cheeks betraying her excitement. She sets her bag on the sofa and approaches where he sits on the bed, slotting herself between his thighs and draping her arms over his shoulders. “It's been almost a year since my last big piece, and I can't wait!”

“And where will this one go?” Lucifer asks, his gaze lingering on her bright eyes even as his fingers begin to undo the remaining buttons on the shirt she's appropriated.

He doesn't miss the darkening of her cheeks and the way her gaze flies down to his lips when she says, “It's going to be an under-bust. They're going to incorporate my pact mark into the design as the crown.”

“So, here?” he asks, gently splaying his hand over the soft skin above her lower sternum. His ruby eyes never leave hers as she nods, her lips parting slightly. Her heartbeat quickens under his hand and he smiles. He dips his head to press his lips to the warm skin there and grins when she gasps at the contact.

“Right there,” she breathes, her head falling back as his hands spread over either side of her ribcage. Warmth begins to pool in her belly as his lips wander her upper stomach. Her fingers find his hair of their own accord, burying themselves in his soft locks.

“What are you doing?” she asks, chuckling softly as goosebumps raise on her skin.

“I’m saying goodbye to this lovely patch of bare skin,” Lucifer whispers against her, sending heat directly to her core. He continues to murmur against her, “I love your tattoos and your piercings because you love them and they make you feel beautiful. But you have such gorgeous, delicate skin. And this might be the last time I get to see this particular patch.”

His tongue flicks out and caresses the unmarked flesh below her pact mark and a moan escapes her lips. His breath feels cool against the trail of his tongue, and it makes sparks bloom within her, makes her skin prickle with want. He continues placing open-mouthed kisses on her chest and stomach, smiling as she trembles beneath him.

“You sound almost like Asmo,” she huffs, grinning like a cat.

Lucifer chuckles, “Sometimes he has the right idea.”

Taglist: @sassykattery @bite-sized-devil @sparkbeast20 @kyungjoon-do @attic-club-sandwich @consolationblog @flemmingbamse @syren201

[burnmyloveaway]

Johan's "Kimi" to Nina's "Anata"

WARNING: LONG-ISH POST

The following post is an acid trip down Monster Lane following some observations, permanent weeb-ness and massive brainrot.

I watched Monster subbed, and when the twins talk about what happened back at the RRM in episodes 66 and 67, they use two different forms of "you" for each other.

Johan addresses Nina with "Kimi."

Nina addresses Johan with "Anata."

I can't speak Japanese, but I've watched enough anime to understand that there are different pronouns people use to refer to others in Japanese (depending on the context, on the degree of formality/informality, etc...) and, in this case, I got curious about the difference between "Kimi" and "Anata" specifically, so I looked it up.

Firstly, "Kimi" is more informal, familiar, intimate, and affectionate (even translatable as "honey" or "sweetie": source). It implies closeness on the speaker's part and is used only for people the speaker knows well.

In particular, men use "Kimi" towards those lower on the social hierarchy (source) and between members of the same family, romantic partners (men use it when talking to their girlfriends or wives), or with kids (source). Also, [Kimi] "is for talking to friends who may be younger than you" (source). Or, again, it can be used condescendingly, as if looking down on the other person (source; can there be just a bit of resentment on Johan's part for Nina?).

I'm not sure whether or not Johan truly believes he's somewhat above Nina (i.e.: does he believe he's "chosen" in a way Nina isn't? Doesn't he also believe they're one and the same? If he truly believes he's chosen, wouldn't that make Nina chosen as well?).

Perhaps it's more likely he uses "Kimi" when talking to her simply because he's the elder twin. In the original script and dub this is emphasized many times as the vocabulary - on the part of both Johan and Nina - is rather insistent in underlining it throughout the series, even if they're twins.

Also, the pronoun "Kimi" is used to display having "the upper position" in a situation (source) in the sense (to my understanding at least) of being the one in control.

This last point reminded me of something. On having the upper hand, below is the scene of the aforementioned episodes where the twins meet in the ruins. Johan (having decided to have Nina escorted there) is standing literally on the upper floor when she finds him:

[manga vs anime]

In nonverbal communication proxemics is the branch of knowledge that deals with the amount of space that people feel necessary to set between themselves and others (Oxford Dictionary).

As adults, Johan and Nina never get close. She seemingly wants to kill him after the murder of the Fortners. Instead, he openly invites her to kill him again and again and remains distant from her as events unfold (it's also interesting to note that the one time he effectively saves her life - back in the Nazis' mansion - he decides not to meet her directly, as if taking it upon himself to looking after her from the shadows).

Another interesting detail about the frame(s) above is how Johan's silhouette is obscured in the light background of the open sky in contrast to Nina's. The latter's is illuminated by the sun in the midst of the darkened ruins, resembling the inverted dots of the Yin and Yang symbol.

Johan's mind is clear. He has recovered all his memories. He stands above the ruins because there's a memory only he can recall. Nina's still missing something as she can't reach the sky above her, she's framed by the ruins of her own dark and fractured memory.

However, at this point, they can't reunite. The heavy baggage each carries, doesn't allow the two halves of the same whole to reconcile yet. This is possibly represented by the wooden column in the middle dividing the frame between Johan's light half and Nina's dark half.

As a further contrast between the two, while Johan uses "Kimi" for Nina, Nina uses "Anata" for Johan.

The latter is more polite, neutral, and formal (source) but it also denotes more humbleness on the speakers' part (source).

In correspondence to how "Kimi" is used by someone in a higher position, "Anata" also implies respect (source) for the other person (are there mixed feelings on Nina's part in this particular moment, or is it simple politeness?).

As for "Kimi," "Anata" is gendered and used mostly by women. While it's a formal "you" more often than not, it's also used as a term of endearment by wives for their husbands and can be translated as "darling" (source; this case is similar to the possible translations of "Kimi" as "honey" or "sweetie" for couples).

Interestingly, "Anata" can be used by a speaker to put a certain degree of emotional distance from the other person (source) or when the speaker doesn't know who the other person is (source). It can often express exasperation as well (source).

Moreover, Nina has always identified her brother as "Johan."

To Nina, even if she doesn't really know him as a person in the present (since they didn't grow up together), her brother is "Johan" and Johan is her brother.

It's the first name he received and the one he used more often. He keeps going by it in the canon timeline (at least until the end?), as everyone associated with him refers to him by it. Still, he tells Dr. Tenma that it's not his real name as he doesn't have one (never completely identifying with it: Wolf argued it may have awakened something in him, though.)

As such, while Nina knows her estranged elder twin brother as "Johan," "Anata" can also be used for someone whose name you don't know (source). Usually, it's used to politely ask someone's name, which is not what Nina's doing in this scene.

However, she's dealing with what happened in the past after she has refused to face it for a long time: she's still processing it.

She's taking her memories back from Johan, who made them his. Figuratively, she gave a name to the girl who said: "I'm back," and a name to the girl who said: "Welcome home." For the longest time, she had believed the latter was herself ("I was greeting myself?").

That girl wasn't real. That was her brother. That was the brother whose existence she forgot and then confused for her own. It can be as if through that "Anata" she's asking him who he is, in a sense.

Or in Nina's words just earlier: "So you know what we are?" (As the results of a particular experiment, their parents met in unusual circumstances: it's safe to assume they'd have never existed otherwise).

Although this last use of "Anata" isn't literal, considering the problems on identity posed by this work, it can be thematically coherent and relevant.

[faithintheunknownsblog]

Chapter Summary: Over a month of working and you finally run into some issues from you past that you have avoided dealing with

TW: Mention of an erection, alcohol, throw up, blood, guns

Master List

The Blood On Our Hands

Chapter Three: Open A Window

You hum as you unlock the door to the infirmary, you’re just getting back from eating your lunch with some of the troops. You have grown fond of your new friends that you’ve made over the past month, well, some of them at least. But others are like pests and some are more pesky than others, such as Thomas.

Somehow he is always in the infirmary for something or another and you’re positive that he is getting hurt on purpose at this point. Also the wounds will be on his torso or back and he’ll take his shirt off even if he doesn’t need to in order to treat the wound. Though a few times he got wounds dangerously close his nether regions, and you’re pretty sure those were unintentional because you doubt he would be that crazy to put his manhood on the line.

When those incidents happened, that's when you’re most thankful that you asked Integra to buy you KN95 masks over plain surgical masks the morning after your first day working the infirmary.

Integra asked you why, and you told her that they’re better because not only are they thicker but they also don’t fall down as easily as plain surgical masks do. As well as they give more coverage to your face… Which at the time was the reason why you wanted them the most, though it wasn’t really for your safety. It was because nobody- especially Thomas- could see your blushing face when you saw their very nice bodies.

But you didn’t tell Integra that last bit because she didn’t need to know all that, so since you put up a good argument she bought you a large stockpile of the KN95 masks.

Though now it’s just become a habit to always wear one unless you’re eating, but even then all you do is pull it down so it rests below your chin. It still comes in handy when treating Thomas at times, because if you don’t wear one he’d be able to see your blushing face when he pulls up his shirt… or pulls down his pants.

After he did such a thing for the first time you hated the fact that you were so easily flustered by him for a whole week after.

On that day- a few weeks ago- he entered the infirmary in a pair of sweats along with a smirk on his face, and as soon as you saw him you knew something was up. Then Thomas handed you a paper that was signed by Integra stating that he had to be checked for a cut on his upper thigh.

He told you he wanted you to ‘check it out’ to make sure he didn’t need stitches and stood by one of the beds.

You knew that was a load of crap but as a good nurse you treat any of your patients regardless, so you set up a partial curtain. As soon as you got done with that he pulled down his sweatpants and laid on the bed, looking up at you to see your reaction.

Only your eyes were showing and you somehow managed to leave them looking neutral, but under your mask your cheeks were a deep shade of red. It wasn’t even because you could see the outline of his dick, it was simply because of the boldness he has in order to just drop his pants in front of you like it was nothing.

You made yourself act as you normally would but not only were you flustered but irritated as well because Thomas didn’t pull the leg of his boxers to reveal the cut. So you had to carefully lift them up instead.

That wasn’t even the worst part of it because as you were gingerly touching the wound in order to inspect it you could see that he was starting to get an erection. You weren’t even looking directly at it, that’s how big it was or maybe it was just because his boxers were tight on him.

At least that’s what you tried to force yourself to believe but it doesn’t really matter anymore because luckily you’ve started to get used to him trying to impress you by showing off his body. Before images of him would plague your mind for what felt like forever, but now it’ll only last for a couple of hours.

After you enter you happily walk over to your desk, planning to sit down and get back to filing the papers that you started doing before lunch. But you don’t even get the chance to do that before someone- along with a few others- walks into the infirmary.

Though this time you don’t think they’re faking because they all look miserable as they stumble, having their hands on their stomachs. You were still skeptical about them just because Thomas was there, but when you see his cheeks puff up you run over to him with a trash can.

Thomas doesn’t have a chance to take it so you just hold it in front of him as he quickly throws up, and now that you’re close to them you can smell them even through your mask. It’s a smell you know all too well, they reek of cheap booze and hard liquor to the point where it makes you want to throw up as well.

You guide Thomas to a bed first then do the same for the rest of them, giving them each a puke bucket and keep one at your desk for you as well. Then you call Integra and when she picks up she immediately asks you, “what do you need?”

You feel so queasy as the smell in the room keeps getting worse, but you manage to speak, “sorry to bother Sir, but there a way to ‘pen the windows in the ‘firmary?”

“Yes, but it’s a pain in the ass,” Integra plainly states, the windows are huge and the latch had to be reached by a pole. Plus they were heavy and had to be pushed outwards, so there was no screen to keep bugs out either.

“Sir, I only nee’ one ‘n’ I cain’t get it m’self,” you try to make it seem like you have everything under control but you have to pull down your mask still fighting back the urge to throw up as well.

Integra sighs in annoyance, “I’ll send Walter.”

“Thank you Sir,” you mutter and hang up, desperately hoping that someone shows up soon.

You watch the door and let out a sigh of relief when you see Walter walk in with an extendable pole and go over to the window that’s in the middle of the room. He partially opens it so air isn’t blowing directly on anyone and the window won’t be so hard to close when it’s time to.

When Walter sees you at your desk he walks up to you and says, “you look like you should be lying in bed as well madam.”

“I’ll be fine, just nee’ the smell outta here,” you say and look back down at the bucket you have sitting on your desk. You’re keeping your head down so you don’t throw up right in front of you and all over your desk.

Walter wrongly assesses the situation, thinking that you were unable to handle the position you’re currently in, “this job may not be right for you if the smell of throw up is too much.”

“Throw up ain’t the ‘sue,” you say and already feel a bit better when the room slowly stops smelling like back home.

Walter thinks for a moment but catches on before it’s noticeable that he didn’t understand right away, “would you like some air freshener?”

“That don’ cover the smell, it jus’ make it worse. Trus’ me-” you already know that all air freshener will do is just try to cover up, which will reek, especially if they continue to throw up, “manure still manure when ya grow roses ‘round it. Ya jus‘ make ’er look pretty ’n’ get disappointed.”

“I’ve never heard that one before,” Walter chuckles a bit but he gets the point you’re trying to make. “Very well, I shall leave the window open. Is there anything else you may need?”

“They gonna nee’ some crackers, I can handle the res’,” you say and get up, heading to the closet with all the supplies you need. You grab disposable plastic cups and fill them with water, then you put your mask back up before walking out to take the cups to the guys.

You see how some of them are laying flat on their backs, so you politely tell the ones who are still awake to please sit up or lay on their sides. But for the others who are already asleep you’re going to have to do it for them, so you put on a pair of gloves and put them in the position that’s going to work for them.

You saved the heaviest guy for last and just as you start to move him Walter walks in with a large box of packs of crackers, “would you like some assistance?”

“Could ya give ‘em crackers?” You say, not realizing that he means helping you move the heavy troop.

“Of course madam,” Walter says and begins to give out the cracker packs while watching you from the corner of his eye. He expected you to need help but was surprised with how easily you turned the heavy troop over. “Your strength, it is quite impressive.”

You smile though he can’t see it but he can tell that you are by your tone, “thank ya sir!”

“If I'm being honest I thought that you were going to require some assistance,” Walter admits because he assumed that you weren’t strong because of how you look.

You shake your head a bit and giggle, “I was born ‘n’ raised on a farm dow’ south, so I got some muscle to me.”

“I can see that-” Walter chuckles and continues to hand out packs of crackers, “-but may I ask what was affecting you earlier?”

You keep your usual cheerful demeanor and say, “think that’s a story for ‘nother time, gotta take care of these folks first.”

Walter nods and finishes handing out the crackers to each troop then sets the box containing the rest of them by the door, “I’ll leave these here. Is there anything else you may need?”

You shake your head, “no Sir, thank ya for all the help!”

“No problem madam, if you need anything else please do not hesitate to call.” Walter says and you nod to him as he leaves, closing the door behind him then you go back to work.

“What took so long?” Integra asks as soon as Walter gets back to her office and Integra makes a face of pure disgust, “and what is that putrid smell?”

“It’s the smell of the infirmary, that’s why a window needed to be opened.” Walter says and keeps his distance from Integra, “she also needed me to get some crackers.”

“What for exactly?” Integra asks him because this was the first time you made such requests. Any other time you have everything under control, so she was curious as to why you couldn’t handle this issue on your own.

“Our men decided to go out and get drunk and now they’re facing the consequences for their actions,” Walter states.

Integra rolls her eyes in annoyance and says, “bumbling fools.”

“Indeed Sir-” Walter nods and would usually leave the conversation as is but he feels the need to give you praise, “-Integra, I must say that she is doing astoundingly well at her job for only being a human.”

“Is that so, Walter?” Integra has been busy with other tasks so she hasn’t actually checked in on how well you’re doing. All she sees is that her troops are still able to work and that is good enough for her.

“Indeed Sir… but I do believe she has some underlying issues.” Walter may be impressed by your work, but he also needs to report what he sees when it comes to anything that could possibly become a problem in the future.

“Underlying issues?” Integra raises an eyebrow not exactly sure what he means by that given that he was just talking so highly of you, “what are you implying Walter?”

“I believe she could have possibly gone through something traumatic,” Walter states, he knows Integra did a very thorough investigation on you- to the point where it was illegal- before she decided you were a good fit to work for the Hellsing Organization. But due to what he witnessed he knows that there is some information that they do not know.

“What makes you say that?” Integra asks, she knows everything about you that was ever put on paper or online. She even had the ability to scan through all your electronics and found no red flags, that’s the only reason why she doesn’t listen in to your conversations. She finds no need to because you give her no reason not to trust you.

“Well Sir, when I first walked into the room she looked like she was going to be sick because of the men throwing up. Though upon making a comment saying that if she could handle that then she isn’t in the proper line of work. To which she responded saying that it wasn’t that they were getting sick being the problem.” Walter pauses for a moment to see if Integra has anything to say but when she nods he continues, “though she wanted the smell gone. I offered her some air freshener and she told me that she knows that it will not help, but it will actually make the situation worse.”

“So you believe that there is a possibility that she has past experience with situations such as those?” Integra asks, though she already knows that is exactly what he means.

Walter nods once again, “yes Sir, I don’t believe this will become an issue but I figured I’d still report it.

“Is there anything else?” Integra asks, now curious about what you may be hiding from them without even realizing it. But she also knows that if she directly asks that also poses another issue, she could use Alucard but she would only use him as a last resort.

“No Sir-” Walter shakes his head, “-now if you could please excuse me, I need a shower.”

“Yes, please go, I don’t want to deal with that smell any longer.” Integra says and watches as Walter leaves, she just sits at her desk and thinks of what type of issues may arise from this. But she also knows that there is a possibility that absolutely nothing comes from this, she’ll just have to wait and see.

You become nervous as the time for your curfew grows closer because you feel- due to last trauma- that the troops still need to be watched over until they’re all sobered up, so you call Integra once more.

Integra picks up after a few rings like usual, “yes?”

“Um, hello Sir,” you are clearly nervous, “um, I’m won’rin if I can spen’ the night in the ‘firmary to watch over the guys?”

“They are grown men,” Integra says in a ridiculing way as if that’s the stupidest request she has ever heard.

“Sir I understand but-” you begin to plead your case but Integra just wasn’t having it.

“But nothing, this is ridiculous,” Integra says in an annoyed voice. She wasn’t mad at you but she became stressed after worrying about all the ‘what ifs’ that came to her mind after the conversation her and Walter had about you. Now you’re requesting something that she has a rule against happening is a bit aggravating, “they do not need a babysitter.”

Well now you’re mad because you were already having your own issues and now Integra is being rude to you for now reason. Your southern accent starts to really kick in and you damn near become incomprehensible to her British self, “my job is makin’ sure these folks- your folks- get care for, meanin’ watch over ‘em when dey can start chokin’ on dey own spit! You ain’t hire nobod’ else to do dis, so ‘m one responsible for takin’ care of ‘em! You go ‘head ‘n’ lock ‘em doors, I don’ care ‘cause everythin’ I nee’ right here! You might see ‘em as replaceable but I ain’t lettin’ nobody die if I gotta say in it!”

The line goes silent as realization of what you said and horror of the repercussions set in, you immediately start profusely apologizing, “I’m so sorry Sir! I ain’t mean to act like that! I promise it ain’t gonna happen again!”

Integra is smirking from behind the phone, proud of you for finally sticking up for yourself but she won’t show that and instead she plainly says “close up the window and lock the doors.”

You look around, “Sir I don’ have that rod.”

“Figure it out,” Integra says plainly and the line goes dead.

So you do, grabbing a roll of gauze and throwing it up around the handle of one side, pulling it shut and then doing the same for the other side. You may not be able to lock them but at least you got the window closed and the curtains closed for that one, then you close the curtains for the rest.

You lock up the doors and spend the rest of your night watching over them, ignoring the fact that it sounds like a warzone right outside the mansion. Which you’ve grown used to at this point but it’s the laughter just the laughter that gets to you. Whoever that crazy mother fucker that’s always laughing is, you surely never want to meet them.

=======

The next morning you hear the door being unlocked and see Integra enter, you have been dreading this all night. As Integra approaches, you’re positive she’s going to scream at you and tell you that you’re fired. You’re not even going to bother trying to beg to keep your job because you know that you don’t deserve to. So as she stands at your desk looking down at you with such a serious demeanor you just accept your fate and wait for her to unleash her wrath upon you.

But Integra doesn’t, instead of screaming she chuckles which makes you even more nervous. After a moment she says with a smirk, “I was wondering how much it would take for you to crack. Turns out it’s a lot longer than I expected.”

You just stay silent because you have no idea how to respond or if you should respond. Then Integra catches you off guard by saying, “I’m quite pleased with you.”

“Pleased?!” You were terribly confused now and didn’t even bother to attempt hiding it. Her being proud of you is the last thing you expected.

Integra nods, amused by your confusion, “very much so.”

“So does this mean I’m not gettin’ fired?” You ask but don’t get your hopes up because you wouldn’t be surprised if she would try to trick you like that.

“Not unless you want to be-” Integra says plainly, “-which will happen if you disrespect me like that again.”

You quickly shake your head, “of course not Sir! I absolutely love this job ‘n’ Imma never disrespect ya ever again!”

“Good-” Integra begins to walk away but stops at the door frame and looks over her shoulder, “-they should be fine now correct?”

“As long as they drink plenty of wooter ‘n’ don’ lay flat on their backs they should be fine-” you tell her, “-they will probably be wakin’ up soon.”

“Then for god’s sake go get a shower, I’ll have someone to come in and watch these dipshits so you can take the day off. That’s an order,” Integra says and walks out.

Once someone comes in to watch over them you leave, going straight to your shower. Integra didn’t need to tell you to do that because you’ve been wanting to shower as soon as you smelled the booze yesterday, but taking the day off was the issue.

You’re able to take a nap for a few hours, but you’re back awake at 10AM and can’t go back to sleep after that. So you get up and get yourself looking somewhat decent, putting on a long sleeve button up shirt, black dress pants, along with black dress shoes. After putting your hair up you leave your room and head back down stairs to be around everyone else.

“Well if it ain’t Nurse Night Shift,” one of your friends says with a chuckle and tosses water to you.

“Huh?” You catch the bottle with your quick reflexes and open it, taking a small sip.

“Heard about how you stayed out of your room for once,” someone else says.

“And she told off Integra just so she could take care of us,” Thomas says and sits down on a chair. He is still hung over, but has sober upped significantly. “Didn’t you?”

Everyone looks at you in shock and you blush because all eyes are on you, “erm… uh… not exactly.”

“Oh yes you did-” Thomas smirks and looks at his pals, “-and that really sexy southern accent of hers came out.”

You blush even harder because you know that this type of attention is most definitely not good. You don’t want to now be known as the girl who stupid enough to disrespect the great Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing.

“Oi, knock it off,” one of the guys who has become like a brother to you says.

“Oh, but why can’t I appreciate such a fine little thing?” Thomas sarcastically asks then looks at you, “I just want to tell her ‘thank you’ for all she does.”

“You’re welcome,” you bow your head but everyone knows you don’t mean it, including Thomas. He is taking advantage of the fact that you always use your manners even when people aren’t sincere with what they say. Because what type of person would you be if you got mad at someone giving you compliments?

“Well you do deserve it with all the work you do to take care of us, darling,” Thomas smirks because he thinks he has the upper hand. He is slowly changing some of his actions and attitude thinking that he’ll fool you quicker that way.

But Thomas has yet to realize your mind is like a steel trap when it comes to these types of shenanigans and you can easily see through his games. With his first impression he left on you, he’d have to truly change significantly and actually become a good person before he has anywhere near a chance with you.

You figure out what to say back without giving him the satisfaction of you showing him gratitude for his words. So you smirk and your southern accent gets thicker as you make your tone sound nicer, “well it ain’t really nuthin’ sweetheart, ‘cause Sir Integra don’ pay me ta do the bare minimum jus’ foe’ me ta use my check up ‘n’ get skunk-drunk off my rocker! Now do she?”

Everyone looks at Thomas to see how he responds to you calling him out and he only gives an eye roll because he can’t think of anything witty to say back. So you keep your sweet smile and continue, “‘n’ what kinda worker woul’ I be if I come in like that?! Don’ think a very good one! Mean gotta know what I’m doin’ ‘n’ I cain’t do tha’ if I‘m door fumblin’ like a toddler jus’ learnin’ ta stand on they own two feet! Can I?”

They can see Thomas getting more pissed off as he continues his silence and that’s all you wanted, now that you said everything you needed to you’re done. So you scan the room then say, “so whadda y’all do for free time? ‘Cause Integra told me to take the day off.”

A few of them shrug, “if we aren’t sleeping, we’re training.”

“Well, what are we doin’ for training then?!” You ask with a smile, you need something- anything- because if you don’t you’re going to go insane. Or end up not following orders and go check up on the troops still in the infirmary.

They look amongst each other then one pipes up, “well we were going to practice our aim but we can do something else.”

“Why would you do something else?” You ask, acting confused but you know why they suggest doing something else. Especially by how they go silent, which you take as the opportunity to turn on your heels and head out the door even though you have no idea where you’re going. “C’mon! We’re burning daylight!”

They know you don’t know where you’re going and they don’t know if they should let you know the way there.

Thomas sees his opportunity as well, so he stands up with a smirk and begins following you. If nobody else was going to take you he’ll do it.

This prompted the rest of them following you because they do NOT trust you with a firearm if you’re going to be alone with Thomas. That is just asking for trouble, which nobody needs so they’ll take you.

Once you get to the range you follow everyone in, deciding that you’re going to act oblivious to all of this just so you can give them a run for their money.

“Okay so let’s start you off with-” one of them begins to say but you cut them off.

“I wanna use that one!” You say excitedly while pointing to a double barrel shotgun hanging on the wall. You grew up hunting with those so you know

They all give you a look of uncertainty and the one who was trying to give you a suggestion of what gun to start with says, “uh, I don’t think that’s a good one to start out with.”

“Awwwe! C’mon! Please!” You plead, and before they can try to deny your request Thomas speaks up.

“I say let her have it,” Thomas says and pulls the gun off of the wall then loads it. He wants payback for earlier and what better than having you possibly hurting yourself?

You smile and take it when he holds it out to you, looking at him you ask, “okay so how do I stand?”

“Like this,” Thomas shows you the stance you would need. But he doesn’t warn you about the recoil like he should when you give a rookie a gun.

You wait for the paper target to come forward, once it does you get into stance and pump the gun, then fire the first bullet with no problem. But you accidentally hit the target in the throat, when you were aiming for the middle of the chest. Then you aim for its temple but hit in the middle of the face, “guess I’m rusty after all these years.”

You turn to the troops with a disappointed pout and they all just stare at you, surprised because they assumed that you never held a gun a single day in your life since you are a nurse. You play dumb and furrow your brows, “what’s the matter y’all?”

A few of them just shake their heads and unanimously say, “nothing.”

You chuckle and walk over to a table that has a box of ammo for the shotgun sitting on it, picking up the box then walking back over to the firing lane you were in before. You reload the gun and pump it then take another shot for the target. You hit exactly for where you were aiming this time, which is right where the heart would be, then shoot straight for the head again and land the shot right in the temple. You smirk, “that’s much better, ‘fraid I’s lost my shootin’ sight.”

Thomas- being the horny bastard he is- finds you being able to shoot a gun *extremely* hot, especially since you tricked everyone into thinking that you couldn’t do it. He leans up against the wall of the firing lane you’re in and looks down at you with a smirk, “and here I thought those pretty little hands of yours were only good for healing. Turns out I was wrong and now you have me wondering what else they can do.”

“Well-” you give him a flirty grin, “-I can gut a twelve pointer with nothin’ more than m’ bare hands and some rusty kitchen scissors.”

Thomas loses his grin and gains a look of disgust as he backs away from you. He just had his whole mood ruined because all he can picture now is the grotesque scene of your bare ungloved hands covered in blood as you pull the insides out of a deer carcass. He takes a few steps back from you.

Some of the troops snicker at the way Thomas is put off by what you said, meanwhile some of them can’t help but feel the same disgust as Thomas is feeling.

You play innocent, looking up at him with confusion written all over your face, “what? Is it somethin’ I said?”

Thomas ignores you as he walks away and leans against the far wall, you only respond with a shrug and go back to target practice.

Meanwhile At The Hellsing Estate

“So when do you plan to let at least one of them know of the other?” Walter asks Integra, referring to you and Alucard.

“I don’t know yet… She’s a good nurse and I don’t want to scare her off, and I know if he is told about her he’ll find a way to reveal himself.” Integra knows it’s only a matter of time until one- if not both- of you find out about each other. But she just wants to push it off for as long as she possibly can.

“We could let it happen naturally?” Walter suggests, though he knows that idea isn’t on the table. Not if Integra has a say in it at least.

Integra lets out a chuckle, “and you think that will end well?”

“I’m not sure sir, it could,” Walter says. Just like Integra he doesn’t know how any of the options will end well, “or maybe restrict him from doing anything that gives a way that he is supernatural.”

Integra pauses for a moment, pondering the idea, “do that until she is at least more comfortable with him, perhaps?”

Walter nods, “indeed Sir, slowly introducing them without them realizing that you’re in control of the situation I believe is the best way to go.”

“I hope you’re right Walter,” Integra admits. She has little hope in any of her other options and little hope in this one as well.

“I do as well,” Walter believes something is better than nothing and that it was only a matter of time until something goes horribly wrong if Integra kept avoiding the situation.

Now all Integra has to do is give Alucard the order.

[tachvintlogic]

Modern Retelling of The Beetle

Genre: Rom-com

Beetle is a young woman who just moved to [US or UK] from [country] and is trying to build a new life for herself with nothing but her wits, some cash, and some ornate rugs she plans to start her business.

She buys a storefront for her new fabric store and gets ready to open it to the public. A few days before opening, she finds a homeless man broke in and is now sleeping on one of her rugs. The man is Robert Holt, who can't catch a break and recently became homeless.

She feels sorry for the guy and hires him and helps him find a place to stay. His experience as a clerk turns out to be very useful in helping her run the business.

After some initial success, strange things start happening that result in a sudden drop in customers, like getting fake reviews and surprise inspections. After some investigating, it seems politician Paul Lessingham, who is Beetle's ex, is behind it.

After more investigation into him, they plan to expose him for [insert white-collar crime] and this plan includes Holt breaking into Paul's house to look for evidence.

Meanwhile, Marjorie Lindon is in the worst love triangle ever. Her options are Paul, a boring man she doesn't love, and Sydney Atherton, who enjoys killing small animals. She would love to break off her engagement to Paul, but it's the only thing stopping her father from pressuring her to marry Sydney instead.

Her only respite from the misery that is her love life is going to the new fabric store that opened up recently and talking to the cute foreign girl who runs it. (you see where I'm going with this?)

They get closer, and Marjorie learns that Paul is trying to shut down Beetle's store and agrees to help them. Marjorie also learns that the reason Paul hates Beetle so much is because Beetle is a beetle-themed Magical Girl, and he hates bugs, especially beetles. Beetle is worried Marjorie will reject her like Paul did, but she assures Beetle that she won't, and that beetles are cute.

They expose Paul for [insert white-collar crime] and his career is ruined. Marjorie breaks off her engagement, and she and Beetle officially become a couple.

Then, Sidney sets the fabric store on fire because he's racist and angry that Beetle stole Marjorie from him. He tries to attack the trio, going all axe-murderer on them, but Beetle uses her Magical Girl powers to defeat him.

Marjorie and Beetle decide to go to Beetle's hometown so they can plan their next move and set up a store somewhere else. Holt comes too because he's now out of a job.

Other notes about this story below

Holt is comic relief. One of his gimmicks is that he keeps showing up in strange outfits and the reasons he gives get more and more bizarre. He'll show up to work in a Santa outfit and his explanation is that he got abducted by aliens. The world of this story is a bit surreal, so this gimmick helps establish that.

Beetle was in a bug-themed Magical Girl squad when she was younger, and after they saved the world they retired but kept the powers.

It turns out that Sidney is actually one of Beetle’s old foes when she was a Magical Girl, now in a human disguise. He assumes he has the upper hand without Beetle’s squad, but the power of love and not being 14 anymore put the odds in Beetle’s favor.

Sidney's introduction: Paul, Marjorie, and her father are chatting. Her father mentions that it's almost a shame they're engaged because before he met Paul, he wanted Marjorie to marry Sidney because "he's such a nice lad." Camera cuts to Sidney in the same room in a dark corner sitting on a chair sharpening a knife. He's staring directly into the camera with the "Here's Johnny" face from The Shining. Paul and Marjorie's father fail to notice there's something deeply wrong with Sidney no matter how over the top he is.

Percy is there too. He gets a job at the fabric store. When asked why he's no longer working for Sidney, the camera cuts to Sidney doing something menacing before cutting back to Percy. "I don't want to talk about it," he says.

[noxspost]

Tattoos and scars that Ares has

well as you assume the god of war himself has many scars well unlike his sister Athena who she could whisk those scars away maybe after three years of having them.

his scars stay on his body some fade till they're nothing but a thin line some permanently stay there looking old but not but well after they were healed he has them all over his body some bigger and more noticeable in others than others like the ones he got when he was merely a child barely nine years old when he was captured by the Giants.

who tried to cad nap his mother and sister of course he has those ones and then he have the ones upon his body from his training some from different wars and conflicts but some but most that are not of those variety are from his father stray bolts of lightning and Ares being an absolute idiot.

considering his childhood where he was scorned and neglected just because his domain he has many scars from him trying to take care of himself and some of his siblings due to the arguing of his parents it was so bad that the majority of his siblings would hide in his bed holding the strain knives he had in his room while he guarded at the door.

most of the time he'd be guarding on his side of the door when he was already covered in bruises and small cuts from the lightning and from his mother's peacock like talons.

But anyway he is a fair amount of tattoos he has a bunch of butterfly tattoos which represent his love for the god of death his respect for the god of the dead which are represented by moths and owl feathers he also has a rose tattoo right between his collarbones which represents Aphrodite.

he has a acorn and a pinecone tattoo on the back of his upper forearm on the left side for Dionysus he has a simple bottle of ambrosia on the back of one of his calves representing Zagreus and he has a poppy flower directly between the back on his back between his shoulder blades for Hypnos.

he has a safety pin tattoo right where his shoulder and upper chest meat which has three individual hearts pierced through the safety pin representing his childhood and its connotations of how good his parents were at being parents... they really weren't.

he has a certain tattoo which wraps around his right arm starting from the tip of the shoulder going all the way down to middle of his forearm which is a purple ribbon and it covers where most of the chains dug into his arm on that side and on his back right below his poppy flower tattoo.

is a Medusa tattoo of course scaled and want to fit his back which goes all the way just maybe five inches above his his tailbone and it is a It's Medusa standing on what was a base of a Greek pillar and she was holding a basket full of apples in her hands.

all of these tattoos he has on his body represent what he's gotten through some of the butterflies are not just for Thanatos but for over coming his self harm.

he overcame all these things his scars and his tattoos and his memories show that and even though he is the god of war he is not just that he's a father and he was a better father than Zeus will ever be but he does have two semicolon Tattoos on the back of each of his hands.

they represent the time he to try to take his life twice the first time was when both his twin sons were toddlers and just starting to walk around he was in one of his rooms on the brink of deciding what to do when Deimos walk in.

the kid unaware of what was going to happen as Aries had the poison in his water bottle he was going to drink it all and escape of course he would have come back but the relief would be the relief anyway but his son stopped him by saying hello dad...

he had said hello his first really his first few words because Deimos didn't really speak till he was well into being a toddler that struck a chord with Ares.

he put down his water bottle and picked up his son and cried the second time was with his daughter the goddess of harmony Similar story but she was more or less a child and she had said what'd you do when he had that same bottle of poison mixed in with his water he threw out the poison shortly after.

by the way these are just my head cannons relating to him even though yes he is still the god of war I imagine he is more mortal like than most of his family.

I imagine he's very protective over his family.

May that be his friends May that be his lovers. May that be his close family members like siblings.

May that be his children May that be even be his descendants look to the Amazon women and Hercules for that

(actual myth he's very responsible and more accountable for his action than most of the pantheon members and he never ever treated women terribly he just respected people in general of course outside of war because you know wars really really messy.)

[elixirfromthestars]

Cait this was just the Halloween smutty fun I needed to read 🤭❤️ You have me all giddy and blushing over here 🫣💖

All my feelings under the cut as always 💞

First of all, I love everything about the friend group, like I miss them so much so I love seeing them in fics 😭❤️❤️ The matching costume with Nat was so cute!! Steve as a pirate and Sam as a cowboy—perfect!! And Bucky being Bucky and not really having a costume was hilarious lol

"Come on!" The red-faced vendor insists, looking at Bucky. "Don't you want to win your girl a giant sloth? Perhaps a giant giraffe? If she was mine, I'd be winning her any prize she wants. I'll give you five throws for ten doll-" "Fine, fine," Bucky relents, digging into his back pocket for his wallet. You notice a faint hint of pink blooms along the apples of his cheeks, but he doesn't correct the man when he calls you his girl. "You've worn me down," he sighs as he shoves a crumpled ten dollar bill into the man's hand.

^ Omg not him blushing over that, so sweet!! 🩷 I wouldn’t correct the man either 😌💖

"She'll take the bunny," Bucky tells him before he can erase the stunned look off of his face. He points to a large, flop-eared purple bunny hanging from the upper row of prizes.

^ I love this scene so much!!! Him winning the purple bunny for the reader and remembering that she loves bunnies 🥹💜 Too cute!! And the way he carries it for her too 🥺💕

"Or what?" One of them taunts. "You'll use that little pitchfork on us? Jokes on you, because we're into that." "What if I used it on you?" A familiar voice comes from behind them. "Would you still like that?" Before they can even turn around to identify the voice, Bucky is pulling him back by the hood of his sweatshirt and throwing him on the ground with little to no effort. The other one attempts to stumble away as Bucky turns his attention to him.

^ Bucky stepping in oh my 👀💗💗 And him doing it with the purple bunny in one hand I cannot 😂 imaging in my head made me cackle 🤣

I love that he’s like I know you could handle it, but you handling it would’ve been a whole show 💀 I can imagine the ass kicking the reader would’ve done if it weren’t for Bucky stepping in 😂

The ferris wheel, huh? 👀🎡❤️ oh, the tension and the proximity 🤭💓 love it!!

"That depends," he contemplates. "Are you my girl?" You open your mouth to answer when the sensation of his index finger grazing the fabric that covers your cunt makes you forget how to speak. You sit there with your mouth agape as he hooks a finger into the cotton panties. He eases a finger through your folds, lubricating it in your slick before adding a second finger and massaging the pads of them over your sensitive clit. "Feels like you're my girl."

^ EXCUSE ME 🫠❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 WOW WOW WOW 🥵💗 What a way to confirm it 🫣❤️❤️

You can't help but snort a laugh at the position of the large stuffed animal - directly over Bucky's crotch. "Real discreet," you tell him, glancing down at the bunny and then back up to the semi-pained expression on his face.

^ Once again I’m giggling over here 😂 that poor bunny has witnessed so much and is about to witness even more 😳💗

Oh, what a cheeky little shit handing that old man $100 to have a private moment with the reader 😂❤️‍🔥 And the fact that’s it’s about to happen in a mirror maze with all those lights and mirrors 👀😳🫣💖

Adrenaline begins to kick in when he pulls away, looking down at you with lust blown pupils. He sinks to the floor below you, kneeling in front of your cunt as he raises your dress around your waist and tugs your panties down your legs and over your boots. He slips them into his back pocket before hiking one of your legs across his shoulder.

^ I need a moment 🫠❤️❤️ the mental image is just 😮‍💨💗💗

Cait, as always you write the smut scenes so perfectly and have me losing my mind 🤭💗💗 My heart can’t take it sometimes 🥵❤️‍🔥 (who am I kidding yes it can 🤭💗) This was so hot and so in season!!! 🎡💜 I’m already so ready for Halloween and this was just the cherry on top I needed 👀💕

Poor Sam though, having to be a fifth wheel now 😂❤️ Maybe the bunny will keep him company for the rest of the festival fun 🐇💜 I will be thinking about ferris wheels & mirror mazes for the rest of the day so thank you 😌🎡❤️🪞

devil's in the backseat

bucky barnes x reader

word count: 3.7k

summary/prompt: a night at coney island with your friends turns out much differently than expected.

or getting fucked in front of a mirror

author's note: this is my first halloween fic!! this was so much fun to write. if you've read haunting adeline, then you know exactly what inspired the mirror maze scene! also disclaimer i have never been to coney island so if any of this is inaccurate then just pretend ok it's fiction :))

warnings/tags: smut, 18+ only content, sex in a public setting, mirror sex, oral (female receiving), unprotected p in v, friends to lovers, romanogers makes an appearance! kind of grumpy!reader, protective bucky, random men being creepy, language, reader is afab, she/her pronouns, reader pov, no use of y/n, porn with a little plot, fluff

my masterlist

“I can't fucking believe I let you talk me into wearing this.”

You tug the tight, cherry red colored velvet fabric of the babydoll dress in place for the dozenth time since arriving at Coney Island.

“What? You look hot. Plus, our costumes go great together.”

Natasha's costume mirrors your own - except hers is a pearlescent white and instead of a pitchfork and horns, she dons angel wings and a halo.

“I don't feel hot. I feel cold. It's fifty degrees and the sun hasn't even set yet.” If it wasn't for the black thigh high boots that cover the majority of your legs, you'd be shivering in the chilly late October weather.

“It's not my fault that you put off getting a costume until the last minute and had to pick through what little was left at Spirit Halloween,” she mumbles, passing you one of the cups of apple cider that the cashier hands to her. You gladly accept, sucking down the hot liquid in hopes that it will warm you from the inside.

Her phone dings as the two of you walk towards the rides. “It's Steve,” she informs you as she reads the text message. “They just got here,” she looks back up at you with a smirk on her face and a mischievous gleam in her eye. “Bucky decided to come with them.”

You roll your eyes, suddenly hating your borderline provocative costume even more.

“I thought he was leaving for a job in Denver this evening?”

It's not that you didn't want to see Bucky. It's that you didn't want to see Bucky dressed like this. As if you don't already get flustered around him when you're dressed in normal, everyday clothing. The hem of your dress barely conceals the curve of your ass and your tits are practically spilling over the low neckline.

“Guess it's been postponed,” she shrugs, nudging you with her shoulder.

The two of you turn to look in the opposite direction when a familiar voice calls your names. You see Steve, Sam, and Bucky walking towards you. Steve is dressed as a pirate, eyepatch and all. Sam wears a cowboy costume with an oversized hat, concealing the upper half of his face entirely.

And Bucky? Bucky wears jeans and a navy blue Henley.

Yeah, you're regretting any of your life choices that lead up to this moment.

“Well, well, well,” Sam drawls as he tips his hat back enough to take in yours and Natasha’s outfits. “Look what we have here. An angel and a devil. Have you two already entered the costume contest for best duo or should I go add your names?”

“You wouldn't dare,” you scold him. Natasha just laughs, falling into Steve’s embrace as he plants a kiss to her forehead.

“We should, you know,” Natasha agrees. “I think we'd have a pretty good shot at winning.”

“Yeah, right,” you retort, looking around at some of the more elaborate, creative costumes that many of the strangers around you are sporting. You notice a man and woman dressed as Beetlejuice and Lydia Deetz and know that you and Nat wouldn't stand a chance in a costume contest. “And what about you?” You acknowledge Bucky, your eyes skimming up and down his civilian clothes. “Didn't have time to pull together a costume?”

He smirks, his eyes trailing up your figure for a heated moment before he responds. “I'll have you know that I am in costume, actually.”

Steve and Sam both snort in laughter.

“Oh yeah? And what are you supposed to be, exactly?”

He tugs up the sleeve of his shirt, showing off the shiny vibranium that is his left arm.

“I'm the Winter Soldier,” he says with a smug grin. “Obviously.”

“How creative,” you praise sarcastically.

“Cut me some slack,” he feigns insult. “I was supposed to be halfway to Colorado right now. I didn't have time to pull together anything too cute.” His eyes flicker to your dress and boots at the word cute. If anyone else notices, they say nothing.

“What are we doing just standing around here?” Natasha exclaims, tugging Steve in the direction of the rides and games. “I want to ride every ride and eat funnel cake.”

They race ahead of the rest of you, with Sam close behind, leaving you and Bucky to fall into step beside each other.

“So, why did your mission get postponed?” You ask casually, trying to fight down the nerves that threaten to bubble over every time you're alone with him.

“Beats me,” he shrugs. “Fury didn't give much of an explanation. I got the text as I was loading my bags into the car to head out.”

“That's annoying,” you mumble, swallowing the remnants of your hot apple cider. “I'm sorry,” you tell him with a glance in his direction. “I'm sure it was for a good reason.”

He shrugs. “I'm here, so I can't be too mad about it.”

Before you can overthink exactly what he means by that, you're both brought to a halt when a jolly looking man in a Ghostbusters costume steps directly in front of you, blocking your path.

“This little devil looks like she needs a giant sloth!” He exclaims, gesturing towards the prizes hanging above the balloon darts station next to you.

“Oh, no,” you start. “That’s okay–”

“Come on!” The red-faced vendor insists, looking at Bucky. “Don't you want to win your girl a giant sloth? Perhaps a giant giraffe? If she was mine, I'd be winning her any prize she wants. I'll give you five throws for ten doll–”

“Fine, fine,” Bucky relents, digging into his back pocket for his wallet. You notice a faint hint of pink blooms along the apples of his cheeks, but he doesn't correct the man when he calls you his girl. “You've worn me down,” he sighs as he shoves a crumpled ten dollar bill into the man's hand.

The man accepts the money with a satisfied, toothy grin and hands Bucky five darts.

“If you get three out of the five throws, you can choose a prize from here,” the man gestures towards a section of smaller prizes. “And if you get all five throws, you can choose–”

The man is cut off by the sharp popping sound of a balloon, and then a second, and a third, until all five darts have been impaled on the board in a consecutive line in a matter of seconds.

“She'll take the bunny,” Bucky tells him before he can erase the stunned look off of his face. He points to a large, flop-eared purple bunny hanging from the upper row of prizes.

Unlike the vendor, you aren't shocked by his perfect aim at all. Anyone who knows Bucky would have known that he wouldn't miss a single shot. You are shocked, however, that he chose the bunny without even asking which prize you want.

The man in the Ghostbusters costume grabs the bunny and hands it to you, surprise still etched on his face. He mumbles a quick goodnight before he's moving onto the next people approaching the stand.

“How did you know I'd want the bunny?” You ask Bucky, trying to juggle the stuffed animal, your empty cup of cider, and your pitchfork all in your arms.

“You like bunnies, right? It was an educated guess.” He shrugs, moving through a thick crowd of people away from the game stations. “Here, let me carry it for you,” he offers when he notices the large stuffed animal is obstructing your vision. You hand it over to him and he tucks it underneath his metal arm.

“Thank you,” you tell him, your cheeks heating at the realization that he'd remembered such an inconsequential piece of information about you. You do like bunnies. The cold night air suddenly feels a lot more balmy.

“I'm - uh - I'm going to find a trash can real quick,” you say as you wiggle the empty cup in your hand. Truthfully, you just need a moment to collect yourself.

You begin walking in the opposite direction before he can reply, your eyes scanning the throng of people for a garbage can.

So what if he knows that you like bunnies? It's a pretty trivial fact that probably means nothing. You know that Natasha’s favorite animal is flamingos - because she's your friend. It's normal for friends to know things that their friends like.

Right? Right.

“I like that outfit a whole lot, baby. But I think you'd look even cuter in just the boots and those horns.”

You're so lost in your internal monologue that you don't even notice two men closing in on you as you toss the empty cup into a trash can. Unlike most of the people here tonight, neither of them are in costumes. They stand so close to you that you can smell booze on their breath.

“Oh, fuck off,” you groan as you attempt to walk away, but they've effectively blocked you between their bodies and the large garbage can behind you. Wicked grins grow on their faces as you realize that you can't get by them.

“Look, I don’t have the patience for this tonight. Get out of my fucking way.”

“Or what?” One of them taunts. “You'll use that little pitchfork on us? Jokes on you, because we're into that.”

“What if I used it on you?” A familiar voice comes from behind them. “Would you still like that?”

Before they can even turn around to identify the voice, Bucky is pulling him back by the hood of his sweatshirt and throwing him on the ground with little to no effort. The other one attempts to stumble away as Bucky turns his attention to him.

He still has your bunny clutched in his flesh hand - despite the seriousness of the situation, you have to bite your lip to keep from smirking at the sight. You don't know of anyone who could be quite as intimidating while holding a stuffed purple bunny.

“What about you?” Bucky asks, towering over the guy by half a foot. “You got anything you wanna say?”

“I - no - we didn't know she was with someone,” he half slurs, half stutters out. His gaze flickers to Bucky's vibranium hand. The man on the ground manages to stand back up, following after his friend.

“Now you know,” Bucky calls after them as they quickly hobble away.

“I had that handled, you know,” you tell Bucky with a nod towards your pitchfork. “But thank you, anyway. Really.”

He places a gentle but firm grasp on the top of your arms and begins to tug you in the opposite direction, guiding you through the small crowd that had stopped to witness the altercation.

“I have no doubt about that,” he sighs, releasing his grip on you when the two of you are a reasonable distance away. “But I also don't doubt that you handling it would have drawn even more attention.”

He's right. If he hadn't stepped in, your method of handling it would have been even more dramatic.

“They would have deserved it,” you mumble. “I knew I shouldn't have worn this stupid costume.”

“They definitely would have deserved it,” he agrees. “And your costume isn't stupid. You should be able to wear any costume you like without getting harassed by drunk assholes.”

The two of you approach the ferris wheel as it comes to a slow stop, a couple getting out of one of the cars. You and Bucky flash your wristbands to the operator, who offers to hold your pitchfork for you while you’re on the ride.

“Besides,” he continues as you sit down next to each other in the car, the operator locking the gate in place. “I happen to like your costume. A lot.” He turns his head to you, his gaze trailing from the tops of your thigh high boots and up to the felt horns that adorn your head.

There's a shift in energy as the ferris wheel suddenly comes to life, sending you sliding across the limited space of the metal bench seat and right up against him.

“Oh, yeah?” You tease with your face a few inches from his. Close enough to see your reflection in his irises. “Is that why two different people have implied that I'm yours tonight and you haven't corrected either of them?”

“Your costume had nothing to do with that. I wouldn't have corrected them even if you were dressed as a giant banana,” he says, his tone and face both serious. “Does it bother you that I didn't correct them?”

“No,” you answer automatically - eagerly. You should feel embarrassed, but with the way he's looking at you, and how good it feels to be pressed so snug against him, you can't find it within yourself to care. “I didn't correct them either,” you point out.

The ferris wheel comes to a stop to let new people get on when your cart reaches the peak.

“And why is that?” he asks lowly. If you weren't sitting so close to him, you wouldn't have been able to hear him over the obnoxiously loud carnival music that pours from speakers in between the ferris wheel's carts.

He wraps his metal arm around your shoulders, pulling you further into him.

“Because I liked the sound of it,” you answer honestly. Your voice quivers - from nerves, or from a gust of wind that sways the pod still perching at the top of the wheel.

“Is that right?” he murmurs. He places his flesh hand on the exposed skin of your thigh - just above the top of your boot and just under the hem of your dress. His fingertips rest near the crack between your thighs. Instinctively, you spread your legs apart - not much, but enough for him to smirk at your body's automatic response to his touch.

“You like the sound of being my girl?”

“Yeah,” you breathe. “I do. Is that okay with you?”

He chuckles, his fingers inching further up your thigh. You spread your legs open further, giving him the go ahead to go as high as he wants. He stops when he reaches the apex of your thighs, just an inch away from the cloth of your panties. He applies pressure with his fingertips, his short nails digging into the sensitive flesh and making you clench your legs around his hand.

“That depends,” he contemplates. “Are you my girl?”

You open your mouth to answer when the sensation of his index finger grazing the fabric that covers your cunt makes you forget how to speak. You sit there with your mouth agape as he hooks a finger into the cotton panties.

He eases a finger through your folds, lubricating it in your slick before adding a second finger and massaging the pads of them over your sensitive clit.

“Feels like you're my girl.”

You become vaguely aware of the fact that the ride is now in motion once more, heading back down to the ground, when Bucky places the stuffed bunny on your lap in an effort to conceal what is happening in the cart that you and him share.

He alternates between slow, languid circles and quick strokes against your clit as the ferris wheel makes its way down and then back up again. You can feel yourself soaking your underwear as the world dizzies around you. You hide your face in Bucky's neck to conceal the pleasure written across your face.

You're seconds away from coming against his fingers, the pressure in your belly building to a climax, when he pulls away and tugs your dress into place. Your gaze snaps up to his, shooting daggers, as the ride comes to a slow stop. He looks back at you with an amused smirk as the operator approaches the cart to unlock the gate.

“Sorry about that, sweetheart,” he tells you in a strained voice as he snatches the bunny back from you. “After you,” he motions with his head as the operator holds the gate open for you.

Stunned and speechless at what just happened, you stumble out of the cart and down the stairs to the ride's exit with Bucky behind you - both of you completely forgetting about your pitchfork. You can't help but snort a laugh at the position of the large stuffed animal - directly over Bucky’s crotch.

“Real discreet,” you tell him, glancing down at the bunny and then back up to the semi-pained expression on his face.

“I have to admit, right now this thing is worth every penny that I spent on it,” he sighs, and then removes one hand from the bunny to place it on your lower back. “Follow me,” he instructs with a smirk.

He guides you through the crowd and you follow him without question, just trying to ignore the wet ache between your legs.

You shoot him a quizzical look when you arrive at the house of mirrors. You haven't been in a mirror maze since you'd gotten lost in one at ten years old.

There's an attendant sitting in a chair outside of the entrance who unenthusiastically greets the two of you. Bucky reaches into his pocket, digging out his wallet for the second time that evening. He pulls out a hundred dollar bill and flashes it at the elderly man smoking a Pall Mall.

“Take this and don't let anyone else in until we come out,” Bucky tells him before dragging you into the attraction. You and the gray haired man both go wide eyed.

“What was that?” you cackle as the door slams to a close behind you. Bucky doesn't answer, just grabs one of your hands in his and begins guiding you through the maze of mirrors as if he's been here a hundred times.

The entire place is lit by bright, neon red lights that only aid in further confusing your sense of direction. Bucky doesn’t seem phased in the slightest, finally coming to a stop after a few minutes of maneuvering through the endless mirrors.

“You never answered me, you know,” he says as he drops your bunny to the floor. “When I asked if you're my girl.” He smirks at you, stepping closer to you and backing you against the mirror behind you.

“You just paid that man a hundred dollars to get me alone,” you jab as you pull him to you by the front of his Henley. “I think it's safe to say that I am.”

He smiles as you pull him down to you, crushing your lips to his. His hands trail down your back until they land where your thighs meet the curve of your ass cheeks. You release months worth of tension into the kiss, sweeping your tongue along the swell of his bottom lip before slipping it into his mouth the second that he parts his lips for you. He groans into the kiss, kneading the globes of your ass with his fingers. You can feel a prominent bulge through his jeans against your stomach.

Adrenaline begins to kick in when he pulls away, looking down at you with lust blown pupils. He sinks to the floor below you, kneeling in front of your cunt as he raises your dress around your waist and tugs your panties down your legs and over your boots. He slips them into his back pocket before hiking one of your legs across his shoulder.

You can already feel your juices leaking down your inner thighs before his mouth makes contact with you. When he does, you lean your head back against the glass behind you in pleasure.

He sucks your clit between his kiss-swollen lips with an obscene pop before running his tongue down your folds. He plunges his tongue inside you and you grind yourself against his face, chasing the release that you were seconds away from on the ferris wheel.

He moans at the taste of you and the vibration has your walls clenching around his tongue. You ride out your orgasm on his face, the neon red lights blurring and spinning around you.

Despite the fact that your legs feel like jelly, you pull him up to you as soon as you're able to form a coherent thought. You clumsily paw at the button of his pants and his zipper, and he shoves both his jeans and boxers down over his ass, just far enough to free his cock.

He places both of his hands just under your armpits and lifts you as you instinctively lock your legs around his hips.

The head of his cock nudges your wet folds, your juices coating his length before he nudges it inside you.

You feel full before he's even halfway in you. Your walls constrict around him and he digs his teeth into his bottom lip as he adjusts to the sensation of you.

“Fuck, that's tight. You're perfect,” he grunts as he sheaths the rest of his length into you. You let out a sound somewhere between a whimper and a gasp.

He has total control as he cradles you between his body and the cold, hard mirror behind you. He sets a harsh pace, his head ramming against your cervix at the sweetest angle from his position beneath you.

He manages to support you with the strength of only his vibranium arm as he brings his flesh hand between your bodies, once again massaging your clit in rapid circles as he fucks up into you.

You cum around his length in a shockingly short amount of time, digging your teeth into the flesh of his neck as he follows after you, filling you up with hot ropes of his cum.

You stay in the same position after you've both reached your climax, panting against one another in the claustrophobic feeling space.

“We should probably go find our friends,” you say breathlessly with a kiss to the side of his face. “Sam's probably getting sick of being a third wheel.”

He pulls out of you, his cum running down your thighs and ass cheeks. He gently lowers you back down to the ground as he begins to tuck himself back into his pants.

He laughs, cupping your face in his hands as he pulls your lips to his once again.

“If he hates being a third wheel, just imagine how much he's going to hate being a fifth wheel.”

[musingsofaleaf]

Kohl's fall to Hell. Kohl is a Sinner OC. Non-binary. In this fic they haven't yet revealed their name. --------------------------- “No.” As obstinate with their last breath, as with their first piercing yowl. They died in defiance. They clung to their refusal. 

There was darkness and nothing… 

So much nothing. Disembodied. Their thoughts arrayed in the black limitless void. They tried to reach for their memories, precious flashes of something in the darkness. 

An old man hunched over his work desk—sparkling bits and bobs all in precise places.

The brightest thoughts. Joyful pieces, true delight, and the repulsive bits. The middling memories, thoughts, and fears had no spark. They were left to drift. 

Coal fires in the distance, smokey stacks over the dusky sky…and a lady leaning over her balcony. Vacant eyes.

Everything they were is scattered in the void. Their living name and all the nicknames are kept a guarded secret.  Slowly over ages untold, they grasp at the brightest bits…and then…

They’re falling. They feel, heat and air. They can breathe! The sweet memories of breathing and muscles moving reignite, but it’s all jumbled and feels like a …

Some things have been rearranged, and gaps have been filled. It’s a natural form and yet not the original. 

A flash against the darkened red sky is mostly ignored by Hell’s denizens. Whatever mechanism transforms and transports souls at least ensures a safe materialization. The landing on the other hand is a gamble.

Watching the city get closer with great alarm. The nameless denizen waved their arms frantically. Adjusting their descent only minimally. No wings for this sinner. “Haha…I’m gunna fuckin’ die again~! Fuck~!” There’s no time to adjust to gangly new features or to account for the changes they’ve taken on beyond the coal-black hands frantically trying to cling to the air. A bright roof is now directly below them. Some sign sparkling bright but they can’t really take account of what it says because they’re trying not to smack headfirst into the building. Trying to twirl in the air to fall feet first to an equally dead-death. There’s a near-sonic boom as the streak slams into magic and material. New structures creak and split as they careen through the upper floor and the next and several others. Face down on a cracked floor, arms and legs akimbo. The fact they can feel every fracture, tells them they survived. Charlie and Vaggie are the first to find the sinner, passed out and twitching in the 2nd floor. There are layers of holes through which Vaggie observed the red-tinged sky. “Oh my gosh!” “Wait Charlie, what if they’re bad news?” Vaggie holds her spear at the ready. Her eye narrowed while she tried to piece together what was going on. The noise and commotion has already alerted other residents. She can hear Angel and Husk coming up the stairs. 

Charlie pulls the sinner free of the depression on the floor. “We can’t just leave them.” “What the fuck?” Husk stays back, drink in hand. Angel Dust steps towards Charlie, his head tilted to the side as he observes the twitching Sinner. “Holy shit! It’s a baby Sinner. Fresh off the choppin’ block!” The spider cracked a wide grin. Grabbing one leg as Charlie and Vaggie grabbed the other. With some help from Husk, the poor dude was freed and laid out on the floor. 

“How can you tell? What if they just got punted across the city?”  Vaggie logically doubts the passed-out Sinner purposefully crashed into the hotel. The chances of a new Sinner falling into the hotel were even slimmer. “Don’t Sinners materialize on the ground or closer to it? Considering the damage, this Sinner had to have come from high up.”

“Nah, the smell says it all. Like they have a strong absence of anything to them. Also the fact their clothes look like they’ve shredded to accommodate their new form.” Folding his second arms and planting his first on his hips Angel was certain in his deduction. Husk swiped a piece of tin foil and paper from the floor. He sniffed it and tossed it at Charlie “ Earth chocolate bar wrapper just fell outta their pocket. ‘Less they got some strong connections, most folks just stick to Hell equivalent brands. Ain’t worth the effort for Earth brand.” Charlie knelt and tapped at the side of the Sinner’s face with her palm. “Vaggie!” Charlie's eyes blew wide open, excitement racing through her. What if they could be the first contact this Sinner had in Hell? What if they could reform a new Sinner before they were influenced by bad experiences in Hell? “Howdy down there…odd weather we’re getting. Ha! Hah?” From above Lucifer peeked through the layers of holes. “If you’d wanted a skylight all you had to do was ask.”  Slipping down the holes and landing on the 2nd floor Lucifer brushed off some invisible dirt. “Oh? Is this a new guest Charlie?” Snapping a finger the holes sealed up and some of the debris arranged itself. Charlie bounced up and grabbed Vaggie in a hug. Her arms draped over the angel who smiled fondly. “Dad! It’s a baby Sinner! We’re going to look after them and raise them to be redeemed.”

Observing the body on the floor Lucifer, nodded his head, a smile in place. “Well if anyone can do it, it’ll be you Apple Pie. But can I make a tiny, eensy little suggestion?”

“Oh course Dad~! Your advice is always appreciated.”

“Maybe…get the Sinner bandaged up and out of the hallway?”

“Oh…”

A groan of pain rumbled from the twitching  Sinner on the floor. 

[star-anise]

Ok, I'll bite. What *is* the difference between Bridgerton and Jane Austen in relationship to their skirts?

Oh! Not in their costuming, just in their general *waves hands* everything. It's a comment I see a lot about Bridgerton: "Well, it's not much like Austen, is it?"

That's because there are 200 years of literary history between the two, and they have not been empty!

This ended up being 1.5k words, but when I put stuff under a readmore, people don't actually read it and then just yell at me because of a misread of the 1/10th of the post they did read. Press j to skip or get ready to do a lot of scrolling (It takes four generous flicks to get past on my iPhone).

First I'll say my perspective on this is hugely shaped by Sherwood Smith, who has done a lot of research on silver fork novels and the way the Regency has been remembered in the romance genre.

The Regency and Napoleonic eras stretch from basically the 1790s to 1820, and after that, it was hard to ignore the amount of social change happening in Britain and Europe. The real watershed moment is the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where 60,000 working-class people protesting for political change were attacked by a militia. The issues of poverty, class, industrialization, and social change are inescapable, and we end up with things like the 1832 Reform Act and 1834 Poor Law.

This is why later novelists, like Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell, are so concerned with the experiences of the urban poor. Gaskell's North and South has been accurately described as "Pride and Prejudice for socialists."

So almost as soon as it ended, people started to look back and mythologize the Regency as a halcyon era, back when rich people could just live their rich lives and fret about "only" having three hundred pounds a year to live on. Back when London society was the domain of hereditary landowners, when you weren't constantly meeting with jumped-up industrialists and colonials.

Jane Austen is kind of perfect for this because she comes at the very end of the long eighteenth century, and her novels show hints of the tremors that are about to completely reshape England, but still comfortably sit in the old world. ("The Musgroves, like their houses, were in a state of alteration, perhaps of improvement. The father and mother were in the old English style, and the young people in the new. Mr and Mrs Musgrove were a very good sort of people; friendly and hospitable, not much educated, and not at all elegant. Their children had more modern minds and manners.")

Sherwood Smith covers the writers who birthed the Silver Fork genre in detail, but there's one name that stands out in its history more than any other: Georgette Heyer.

Georgette Heyer basically single-handedly established the Regency Romance as we know it today. Between 1935 and 1972, she published 26 novels set in a meticulously researched version of London of the late 18th and early 19th century. She took Silver Fork settings and characters and turned them into a highly recognizable set of tropes, conventions, and types. (As Sherwood points out, her fictional Regency England isn't actually very similar to the period as it really happened; it's like Arthurian Camelot, a mythical confection with a dash of truth for zest.)

Regency Romance is an escapist genre in which a happy, prosperous married life is an attainable prize that will solve everything for you. Georgette Heyer's novels are bright, sparkling, delightful romps through a beautiful and exotic world. Her female characters have spirit and vivacity, and are allowed to have flaws and make mistakes without being puritanically punished for them. Her romances have real unique sparks to them. She's able to write a formula over and over without it becoming dull.

And.... well. The essay that introduced me to Heyer still, in my opinion, says it best:

Here's the thing about Georgette Heyer: she hates you. Or, okay, she doesn't hate you, exactly. It's just that unless you are white, English, and upper class (and hale, and hearty, and straight, and and and), she thinks you are a lesser being. [...W]ith Heyer, I knew where I stood: somewhere way below the bottom rung of humanity. Along with everyone else in the world except Prince William and four of his friends from Eton, which really took away the sting. But my point is: if you are not that white British upper-class person of good stock and hearty bluffness and a large country estate, the only question for you is which book will contain a grimly bigoted caricature of you featuring every single stereotyped trait ever associated with your particular group. (You have to decide for yourself if really wonderful female characters and great writing are worth the rest of it.)

So Heyer created the genre, but she exacerbated the flaw that was always at the heart of fiction about the Regency, was that its appeal was not having to deal with the inherent rot of the British aristocracy. I think part of why it's such a popular genre in North America specifically is that we often don't know much British history, so we can focus more on the perfume and less on the dank odor it's hiding.

And like, escapism is not a bad thing. Romance writers as a community have sat down and said: We are an escapist genre. The Romance Writers of America, one of the biggest author associations out there, back when they were good, have foundationally said: "Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." A strong part of the community argue that publishing in the genre is a "contract" between author and reader: If it's marketed as a romance book, there's a Happily Ever After. If there's no Happily Ever After, it's not romance.

It's important for people to be able to take a break from the stresses of their lives and do things that are enjoyable. But the big question the romance genre in particular has to deal with is, who should be allowed to escape? Is it really "escapist" if only white, straight, upper class, able-bodied thin cis people get to escape into it? In historical romance, this is especially an issue for POC and LGBTQ+ people. It's taken a lot of work, in a genre dominated by the Georgette Heyers of the world, to try to hew out the space for optimistic romances for people of colour or LGBTQ+ people. These are minority groups that deal with a literally damaging amount of stress in real lives; they are in especial need of sources of comfort, refuge, community, and encouragement. For brief introductions to the issue, I can give you Talia Hibbert on race, and KJ Charles on LGBTQ+ issues.

Up until the 1990s, the romance genre evolved slowly. It did evolve; Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan's Beyond Heaving Bosoms charts the demise of the "bodice-ripper" genre as it became more acceptable for women to have and enjoy sex. The historical romance genre became more accommodating to non-aristocratic heroines, or ones that weren't thin or conventionally pretty. The first Bridgerton book, The Duke and I, was published in 2000, and has that kind of vibe: Its characters are all white but not all of them are aristocrats, its heroines are frequently not conventionally beautiful and occasionally plump, and its cultivation to modern sensibility is reflected in its titles, which reference popular media of today.

This is just my impression, but I think that while traditional mainstream publishing was beginning to diversify in the 1990s, the Internet was what really made diverse romance take off. Readers, reviewers, and authors could talk more freely on the internet, which allowed books to become unlikely successes even if their publishers didn't promote them very much. Then e-publishing meant that authors could market directly to their readers without the filter of a publishing house, and things exploded. Indie ebooks proved that there was a huge untapped market.

One of my favourite books, Zen Cho's Sorcerer to the Crown, is an example of what historical romance is like today; it's a direct callback and reclamation of Georgette Heyer, with a dash of "Fuck you and all your prejudices" on top of it. It fearlessly weaves magic into a classic Heyer plot, maintaining the essential structure while putting power into the hands of people of colour and non-Western cultures, enjoying the delights of London society while pointing out and dodging around the rot. It doesn't erase the ugliness, but imagines a Britain that is made better because its poor, its immigrants, its people of colour, and the foreign countries it interacts with have more power to make their voices heard and to enforce their wills. Another book I've loved that does the same thing is Courtney Milan's The Duke Who Didn't.

So then... Bridgerton the TV show is trying to take a book series with a very middle-of-the-road approach to diversity, differing from Heyer but not really critiquing her, and giving it a facelift to bring it up to date.

So to be honest, although it's set in the same time period as Austen, it's not in the least her literary successor. It's infinitely more "about" the past 30 years of conversation and art in the romance genre than it is about books written 200 years ago.

[seiyasabi]

Idolised

(Here’s a Yandere Todo Aoi x Female Reader story :P I wrote up the layout for this a while ago, and I’m currently madly in love w him, so here we are! 

Thank you all so much for your support and being so understanding of my situation. I love you all so much ;)

TW: !noncon/dubcon!, !Has a whole ass shrine dedicated to you, you literally don’t know he exists lmao, !claims he's ur bf to everyone, manipulation!, intimidation!, sort of kidnapping!, !forced cunnilingus!, etc.. 

Please proceed with caution!)

“(Your Name)-Chan, why didn’t you tell us that you have a boyfriend?” You slowly stop chewing, chopsticks going slack in your hand. Eyes darting towards your friend Mika, you raise an unamused eyebrow. 

“What are you talking about, Mika-Chan? I don’t have a boyfriend,” All of your girlfriends look at each other, unbelieving of your claim. All giggle, thinking that you’re just being shy. 

“Ne~ don’t be coy! It’s okay to tell us about your boyfriend! From the pictures I’ve seen, he’s quite handsome, huh?” At this point, you’re completely confused. Are they pranking you? You don’t have a boyfriend! 

“I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about-“ The seat next to you slides out, and a hulking figure plops itself down on the wooden chair, the wood creaking horrifically underneath their weight. 

Their arm wraps around the back of your own chair, practically engulfing you in the crook of their enormous elbow, “Hey, Pretty Girl. I’m sorry that I’m late, you know how late my classes run sometimes.” 

You’re too scared to even turn towards the large man, choosing instead to look at your friends with a horrified expression. They don’t notice it, too busy ogling at the apparent eye candy next to you, “Uhm, I’m sorry, but who are you? And why do they think that you’re my boyfriend?” An awkward silence immediately follows after, the man’s hand gripping the wood behind you so hard that it creaks. 

He forces a deep laugh, which sounds quite menacing. He moves his hand onto your back, his warm palm felt through your stylish top, “You’re so funny, (Nickname)-Chan! It’s alright, you don’t need to hide me anymore. I messaged your girls last week, they know about us.” 

“Yeah, (First Name)-Chan! It’s okay! We think you’re both so adorable,” They practically fawn over the two of you, trying to push you closer into each other’s arms. The man next to you takes this in stride, practically hauling your chair up next to his. His arm is now fully around you, as you lean in close to your hair and neck. He inhaled deeply, a satisfied grunt rumbling through his chest. 

“Don’t do anything stupid, (Your Name)-Chan. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll follow my every whim,” Tears of fear and anxiety bead your eyes, which your friends take as relief that you’re no longer hiding away from them. 

“Don’t cry, (First Name)-Chan! It’s okay! We all support you wholeheartedly!” 

The rest of the lunch consisted of you being extremely uncomfortable, and your closest friends being none the wiser. Somehow, they don’t notice how you constantly inch away from him, only to be dragged back to his side. Somehow, they don’t know how he’s whispering mild threats into your ear. 

But, through this time, you learned the name of your so-called ‘boyfriend.’ Todo Aoi, the beast currently keeping you glued to your seat in fear. He’s so much bigger than you, so much faster, seemingly so much smarter. 

“Bye, (First Name)-Chan, Bye, Todo-Kun! It was nice to meet you!” Your friends wave the two of you off, one of his large hands securely on the small of your back. His grip is bruising, controlling. Todo practically pushes you towards an unknown destination, your body only able to continue forward, whether you wanted it to or not. 

“I’m proud of you, (First Name)-Chan. I knew my girl was smart, beautiful, and capable. This just proved it to me,” A small whimper escapes your throat, as fresh tears bead your eyes. 

“Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?” A booming laugh is heard, practically shaking the ground below you, causing you to flinch. 

“Why am I doing this? Well, I’m doing this, because I love you. I want us to be together, so we’re going home,” He says this as if it solved all of your problems. 

“But we don’t know each other, why even bother-“ 

“We know each other. I saved your life, remember?” For the first time tonight, you look at him. His distinct scar immediately catches your attention- this man did, in fact, save your life. Two months prior, someone or something shoved you onto some train tracks, right in front of an oncoming train. In a mere moment, the bulky man grabbed you from the tracks, and hopped back up onto the platform, effectively saving your life. 

“I-Bu-But what? We met only once, and-“ He shushes you, forcing you closer to his side, his entire hand practically engulfing your waist. 

“There’s no need to worry. In that Moment, I knew that you were meant to be my beautiful Princess. You need me to care for you, and I’m up for the task.” 

“Princess? Sir, I think you need help! We’ve only talked once, and while I’m grateful for you saving my life, I think this is excessive! Please let me go!” 

He ignores you, sighing dreamily about what the two of you will get up to. Todo couldn’t wait to add more to your shrine at home! He’ll be sure to get as much dirty clothes, used tissues, and everything else he could ever want! 

Forcing you into an upper class loft building, he guides you by the small of your spine into a lift, disregarding the old woman inside. She looks at you as if the both of you are the most adorable couple she’s ever seen, making you shift in discomfort. Todo takes it in stride, practically preening under her gaze, but pretending it has no effect on him. 

He nonchalantly presses his floor’s number, before placing that hand on your hip, and rubbing it in circular motions. You try to move away from him, but his grip is solid. 

Before long, the lift stops on his floor, and he pushes you out. You stumble into the area outside of his front door- his home being the only one on the entire floor. The door itself has a pin pad on its handle, which he quickly typed in, once he’s directly in front of it, leading you to believe that there’s most likely a second pin pad on the other side. 

Once you hear the click of the door being unlocked, Todo moves away from the entryway, and motions you inside, “Go ahead, Princess.” 

In a Moment of defiance, you shake your Head no, “I think this has gone on long enough,” His eyes narrow slightly, yet you continue, practically shaking in your shoes, “I-I don’t want to go inside. Please let me go home.” 

His booming laughter fills the small space, as he shakes his head in disbelief, “You’re adorable, (Nickname)-Chan! Now, go inside before I become angry.” The bite in his final words forces you forward, into his dark flat. 

He flicks on the light switch the moment you step inside, momentarily blinding you. Once you’re able to blink away the dots swimming in your vision, you’re greeted with a fairly normal sight. The living room, kitchen, and dining room are conjoined in an open concept, making the large place seem even larger. Two hallways branch off on either side of the large room, most likely leading to a master, a guest room, bathroom, and an office. 

“What do you think? I read in a magazine that women like clean homes, so I deep clean this flat at least once a week.” 

You aren’t sure what to say, but you nod along anyway, “Yes, it’s very nice.” He beams down at you, cheeks practically stretching to the fullest extent. 

“This shows that I know how to make women happy! I believe that’s a redeeming quality,” You awkwardly give him the side eye, “Oh, don’t look at me like that, silly girl! I have many more redeeming qualities if that one isn’t good enough. Now,” He clasps your shoulder with a large hand, “Why don’t I show you our bedroom?” 

“Our?” Your eyes are practically bugging out of your skull, as he nods gleefully. 

“We’re a couple, aren’t we? And couples share everything with each other.” 

With that, he practically drags you down the left hallway. There’s only one door at the end of the hall, signalling that this is the master bedroom. With one hand, he pushes open the door, before coaxing you inside. His hand that was previously on your shoulder migrates to the bottom of your spine. The room is a mixture of black and your favourite colour, showcasing that this room is the both of yours. 

The bed is quite large, most likely to accommodate your large captor and yourself, “I thought you’d like that your favourite colour is in here.” 

You say nothing, tears beading your eyes. You wring your hands in anxiety, as he leads you to the bed. He sits you down on the edge, before kneeling in front of you. Todo leans forward, resting on your thighs, all whilst still practically towering over you even when sitting. 

“Why’re you crying, Princess? There’s no reason to,” He swipes under your eye the moment the first tear falls. 

“Why am I crying? You must be joking! You-you just kidnapped me!” He shushes you once more, causing a spark of anger to course through you. He hasn’t listened to a single complaint you’ve voiced! “Stop doing that! It’s rude! I’m allowed to be upset-“ 

With two massive hands, he forces your thighs open, “I know your work has you stressed, Pretty Girl- why don’t you let me calm you down?” He pushes his hands up your thighs, your skirt barely covering your pussy,  allowing his thumbs to ghost over your panty clad cunny. 

You try to thrash out of his hold, pushing against his hands, “No! Let go of me!” Your thrashing does nothing, as just the weight of his forearms we’re enough to press your thighs to the bed. His left hand rubs against your clit and hole, trying to make you as wet as possible. You try to push against his forearms, but he presses down harder. 

His thumb rubs fluidly over your clit in an even pressure. Your hips press up, trying to buck him off, but it only causes him to press down harder. In no time, you’re growing wet against his ministrations. You choke back your whines, smacking his arms, before pushing against his head which hovers just above your cunt. 

“Do you feel that, Princess? You’re getting so wet!” He suddenly presses his open mouth against your mound, tongue matching pace with his thumb. A moan escapes your throat before you can stop it, halting the large man in his tracks. You sound so perfect to him! 

In one swift motion, he yanks your panties down your legs, and tosses them onto the mattress beside you. You try to close your legs, but it’s no use. I’m seconds, he has your thighs presses as far open as they can go, and his face is buried in your pretty cunny. His tongue dips into your folds, savouring your taste, before flicking against your clit. 

His tongue rubs against your clit in swift, smooth motions, quickly causing you to grow wetter than before. Your slick drips down your cunny, coating your ass and inner thighs. More moans escape your mouth, as you writhe against him. 

“Sto-Stop! Oh my god-“ He gives a small laugh at your begs, eating you out faster than before. Loud slurps and ‘mms’ are heard throughout the room, as you quickly go over the edge. Your juices squirt out of your cunny, coating his chin and his shoulders in slick. A loud keen is heard throughout the room. 

The mixture of your wonderful cum and loud moans causes the large man to bust a load in his pants. He groans against you, causes your thighs to tremble in overstimulation. Todo removes himself from your pussy (not before licking up as much slick as possible), and smiles up at you. 

“You’re so wonderful, (Nickname)-Chan! I should’ve done this sooner!”