#so small and blurry even in a separate window :(

[manicpixievixen]

Open arms

Jason todd x gn!reader one-shot

Warnings: None really, the reader is still referred to as smaller than Jason and wearing a 'small pajama set', but other than that, it can be read as any gender.

Summary: Another one of Redhoods visits to your place, and he was always welcome. You give Jason a little talk about what you are to each other.

Wc: 2.1k masterlist

Jason had been stopping by your apartment for so long you could barely pinpoint the day it'd started. Like clockwork at increasingly late hours of the night, he would climb in through a purposefully open window and make his way inside. Sometimes getting caught in the drapes and hoping you hadn't noticed him clumsily swatting them away like a cat with its claw stuck in the window screen.

The memory of how this routine started was almost blurry in your head. It was so normal now, expected even. You'd known Jason separately from redhood for a while. One night, he couldn’t be bothered to go home and change just to keep his alter ego in hiding. You'd freaked out at the supposed stranger in your house before he took off the mask. And then it just kept happening.

Tonight was no different. In fact, if he hadn't shown up, you would've been concerned considering his recent consistency.

He grumbled some obscenities at the curtains that had gotten caught around him once again with the help of a gust of wind from the open window. Then once he'd escaped he stared down at the welcome mat you'd placed under the window, an amused sigh escaping from under the deep red helmet that's so often hiding his face.

He guessed maybe you'd gotten tired of his boots dirtying the floor when he visited, but not tired of him.

He limped ever so slightly as he left his boots behind on the little mat you'd layed out, moving towards the couch and shedding his helmet and gloves once he got there. They were supposed to protect him, but his bloodied knuckles said otherwise. Later, it would make you question just how overboard he could get on anger alone. You'd supposed it wasn't quite a problem in your circumstance, Jason almost made too much of an effort to be gentle on your part. He settled into the couch, not feeling too ashamed to be the occasional freeloader.

You emerged from your bedroom, having heard him curse a couple of times on his way in. “You need somethin’?” You asked quietly, entering with a blanket still wrapped around you. Formal greetings were long gone between the two of you.

He looks up at you, eyes half lidded. “Food.” His tone is tired. He's happy to see your face, the first friendly one in a while. He wonders if eventually he might poison your sweet attitude towards him, just by being around you, like maybe you might realize he's horrible and broken and not so apologetic for his actions as red hood.

"Please?" You ask, wrapping your blanket tighter around you as you look at his pale blue eyes for a response. He smiles at your encouragement, muttering a quiet but gruff ‘please’

You left him to settle down, returning with a plate for him. Nothing special at this hour, a sandwich would do. "Thanks." He spoke, taking the plate from your hands and practically shoving half of the sandwich in his mouth, from what you could observe he hadn't eaten all day.

"No one's gonna take it from you Jay." he'd forgotten how long he'd been waiting to hear that nickname again.

Jason freezes, he mumbles something unintelligible with a full mouth, finally swallowing and clearing his throat before replying. "Yeah, well. You never know in this city."

You'd been settled beside him, picking up his red hood helmet and inspecting it. As he ate his food, you slipped it on yourself. At first, he was going to ask you to take it off, and he still might. But you looked oddly cute with it, accompanied by a small pajama set.

He visibly looked you up and down, placing the plate down on the coffee table. His usual frown had softened slightly along with a hint of amusement in his eyes. “Cute.” He finally mumbles, quiet as his eyes wander before meeting your own again.

"Really?" You ask, sort of encouraging, as if to tell him,'say that again.' He rolled his eyes at that, but his softened frown turned into a smirk pretty quickly. He shifted on the couch, pulling you to sit on his lap. His larger frame easily engulfed your smaller one as he held you.

One of his hands slowly traced the curve of your hip, sneaking under the hem of your sleep shorts just a little bit. “Yeah, really.” his eyes showed he meant it.

You reached both hands up to pull the helmet off, messing up your hair a little when you did so. “Things fucking uncomfortable.” You discarded it on the opposite side of the couch, enjoying your spot in his lap.

His hand moved to your hair, attempting to untangle a few pieces, pushing them away from your face. It eventually turned into a gentle caress of your cheek. “you looked cute though.” He teased, holding your hips gently and helping you straddle his lap, legs on either side of his thighs.

"What are you doing Jason?" You hadn't asked it like you were oblivious to his intentions or innocent. Just a sort of reality check, you'd been teetering on the edge of friends with benefits for a while. You were okay with letting him come and wind down and feel safe. You wanted him to be okay, but it was going to be rough if you only ever saw him during these times. Especially if you started really seeing each other.

He slung an arm around your waist, pulling you impossibly closer and keeping you in place on his lap. "What does it look like I'm doing?" He said above a soft whisper, but he couldn't possibly put your current situation into words. There wasn't ever going to be a good answer for what you had or would have with him.

"Blurring the lines?" You'd offered, even though you were absentmindedly doing the same, picking up his hand and running your fingers over his bruised and bloody knuckles.

He watched as your smaller hand held his own, his rough and battered knuckles meeting your soft skin. The contrast sent something through him, something he needed to feel more often. “maybe.” He mumbled in response. He'd tried to pull his hand away slowly. The feeling was nice, but something deeply rooted in his chest made him cringe at the way you were so soft on him, like he didn't need that treatment.

You'd noticed, telling him not to, by bringing that same hand up to your lips and leaving a soft kiss on each knuckle, your eyes not leaving his.

Jason swallowed hard at the continued soft feeling. There was a hint of something vulnerable in the usually stoic expression he wore. His lips parted slightly, trying to let out words that were caught in his throat, leaving an almost whimper in their place. He allowed his eyes to close for a second, his other hand gently exploring your thigh.

"Jay," you said quietly, as you dropped his hand and picked up the other, repeating the same actions. "You can come in here every night and blur the lines until there isn't any," you whispered, "but you better make some time to be something other than a visitor.” Jason's eyes moved with your lips as you spoke, tensing up underneath your warm body, his hand twitching at your careful touch. He swallowed again, his gaze continued to follow your lips, then back to your eyes.

His voice was a bit hoarse as he spoke. “I will.” His hands continued to rub up and down your thighs. You pushed yourself off of him. He'd almost let out a whine at the sudden lack of contact.

“go shower.” You mumbled, pressing your lips to his cheek. He sighed, reluctantly getting up.

“Bossy.” He mumbled in response, heading towards the bathroom, already pulling his shirt up as you relished in the sight of his muscular back. It was adorned in a couple of faded scars. You liked to trace your fingers over them in the darkness of your room.

"This is my house." You justified, beginning to walk back to your bedroom. You knew he would find you there when he was finished. He rolled his eyes even though you couldn't see it.

"Then maybe you should show some hospitality." He teased, his voice slightly muffled by the sound of the running water.

The hot water was no match for your soft touch, but it still felt soothing to his sore muscles. His mind, however, was still somewhat occupied with your earlier words, going back to the feeling of your lips against his knuckles and your weight on his lap, and how your thighs felt resting against his own.

He left the washroom with a pair of sweats on and his hair sending water droplets down his toned chest. Jason paused outside the bedroom door, his hand hovering over the handle for a brief moment before he slowly opened it. He could see your figure laying on the bed, still awake, a lamp casting the most flattering warm light across your skin.

You lifted the blanket up, patting the spot beside you. Most times, he would sleep on the couch or leave before morning. Because of course, the odd relationship between you two was complicated. Sure, he'd spent a few nights on and off in your room, only in times where the city streets had been truly horrible to him. But you'd offered… He took a few slow steps forward, approaching the bed and joining you under the covers, accepting your invitation.

"Much better." You told him, running a hand through his damp hair, you'd always loved the bleached streak amongst the dark waves. He let out a barely audible grumble, shivering involuntarily at the feeling of your fingers running through his hair. Jason shifted, turning to properly face you. One of his hands returning to his favourite spot on your hip.

"You gonna come over some time that isn't some odd hour of the night?" You asked, continuing the talk from earlier. "Maybe not leave before morning?”

Jason's grip on your hip tightened at the question, his eyes darting away for a brief moment before he looked at you again. His bottom lip caught between his teeth as he thought, shifting forward and resting against the crook of your neck, his lips gently pressing against your skin. "Maybe." He mumbled against your neck, almost as if to hide his face while his other hand continued tracing your body.

"I'm serious, Jay." You said, all but ignoring his hand grasping underneath your shirt."If this is all it's gonna be, it's not gonna be anything for much longer.”

His body shivered at those words, and he pushed himself farther into the crook of your neck, his breath fanning over your skin. He understood what you meant, and yet, admitting he did would make things so much more complicated. He liked the way you were with him now. He didn't need to change that. "I know." His words a whisper against the skin of your neck, his hand continuing to roam under the loose cotton of your sleep top.

"Next time I see you, better not be twelve at night in that goddamned mask." You said, holding onto his wrist, stopping his hand under your shirt so he would look at you.

He stilled again, letting you stop him. The beauty of your dynamic was the way he could rip his arm away in one action if he wanted to, but he would let you hold him down like this. He took in a sharp breath before sighing, lifting his head from your shoulder. His eyes met yours for the tenth time tonight. His blue stare held a guilty expression. "I'll try." He mumbled.

"You will." You agreed, dropping his wrist.

His eyes stayed locked onto yours, his expression still a mix of guilt and something foreign. He swallowed hard. "Promise." He whispered, his voice still hoarse. You nodded in acknowledgment at him, less serious now that the two of you had that talk.

His shoulders slumped, letting the tension of the discussion go. Easing upon seeing your approving nod. He very gently pulled your figure closer to him, muscular arms making contact with the small of your back. He rested his head on top of your own, burying his nose in your hair, taking in a now very recognizable scent.

It was his choice now, to return as Jason again. No red hood in sight. Through the door this time and not the window. You hadn't seen his old self in a long while. He knew either way he'd be welcomed with open arms, it was just a matter of what you were to each other.

[skyeslittlecorner]

If you’re able to do a tiny bit of spicy: I’ll be real with you, after reading the romantic head canons post, I’m going to need a continuation of the Foras. Little 1 on 1 private after party if you know what I mean…. 👀

I'll be honest, too. I'm glad you asked because I really wanted to write it~ I actually already started writing this but I didn't know whether to post it or not. Now I know, lol.

As always, while I generally know how to put letters together, I'm still learning how to write spice. So, experimenting and testing out. I hope you like it anyway!

For those who didn't see: here is first part!

Words: ~1000

Afterparty | Foras

The ball was wonderful. Dresses and suits in dark, smoky colors, tables full of snacks, dim lighting resembling moonlight. A mystical aura radiated from whispering couples and classical music. You should feel calm and enjoy this extraordinary place. Still, instead of taking in the atmosphere, you scanned the room for your silent desire.

Since you and Foras had separated, you had only exchanged a few words and many glances. Something was still keeping you apart. You saw him looking at you as you twirled and danced with Barbatos, didn't want to disturb him when he was talking to the Tartaros magnate, and neither of you dared to get within five meters of each other when, for a moment, Leviathan graced the ball with its presence.

On the one hand, you missed Avisos. Their loose rules would allow you to pull Foras onto the table and demand a quickie right then and there. But it was Hades. Strict rules, ancient traditions and general distrust mixed with secrecy prohibited you from doing such things in public. It wasn't a rule, but you wanted to avoid the judging eyes and the king's jealousy. But with every glance, with every passing and random brush of arms and fingers, your longing for each other only grew.

You needed a moment to yourself, needed to cool down. All you could think about was his warm touch and his quick breathing as you tugged at his horns… In a most tamed scenario. Standing with champagne on one of the terraces, you wanted to pour it on your face just to avoid thinking about Foras. As you raised the glass, you felt warmth on your hand. First on the fingertips, it moved to the palm and then to the wrist. A gentle pressure guided your hand to place the alcohol far away on the stone railing. Warm breath tickled the back of your neck, and a hot shiver ran through your spine. You knew who it was.

Finally.

You tilted your head back, a devil's hand brushing the hair from the nape of your neck, followed by hot lips. That chaste kiss sent electricity throughout your body. Too slow. Too little.

"I missed you." Foras whispered into the back of your neck, sliding his hand through the slit on your hip, and ran his fingers up the inside of your thigh. Through the huge, milky terrace window, people could only see your blurry silhouette. If only they knew… knowing you were breaking the rules made you feel even hotter.

“Come on, please, I need you…” You didn't finish. His hand pressed your entrance through your underwear and moved to your clit. Slender fingers massaged you in small circles. A step back was enough for you to lean against his chest, and to feel him shudder as you pressed your ass to his hips. He was harder than you thought; you wondered if he wet you, what the other devils would think. You were in such a state that you found it funny. 

Fuck morals. You turned around and sat on the railing with your legs spread wide. You were already wet and trembling, wanted more, wanted him deep here and now. This time he was visible, and his red face and sticking out tongue told you he wanted the same thing. Is he no longer invisible? Blunt. You liked it.

He stood between your legs and leaned down. The kiss was hurried, so deep that you were breathless, tongues dancing but not letting you forget what you were waiting for. You quickly unbuttoned his pants and felt the demon moan in your mouth as you cupped his throbbing penis. He bit your lip until you tasted blood. In a fit of sobriety he tried to step back, but you pulled him to another kiss just to keep him silent. He was always so loud.

The music from the ballroom was calm and smooth, quite different from your quick, longing movements. The last of your consciousness hoped that no one would come out to catch you two. Just a moment. A little more. You had to enjoy him as much as you could. His moves were quick, and you felt it hard as he entered you. Hard dick almost ripped you inside. Wet sound of him fucking you in the middle of party disturbed the silence of the terrace. He was almost too much to handle; you buried your face in his shoulder to silence yourself this time. Even thought he tried, you heard how small moans escaped his lips. 

It was as intensive as quick. There was not much time left. Opalescent horn you grabbed was already wet and surprisingly hot. Foras moved in you even faster as you were tugging him down. Hands hurriedly wandering over your body, lips nibbling at your neck, hard dick pushing your tight hole, already wet and dripping. The stars in the sky danced before your eyes as you both reached climax. 

If you weren't in his arms, you would have fallen off the railing, but he held you tight and safe. His breathing was just as loud and ragged. Your heart was pounding in your chest as if you had at least broken the rules... oops? A soft laugh escaped from your chest. You folded your arms over his neck and reached up to kiss him. That was enough for you to see the patio doors open.

You looked speechless at the pair of men who passed you by, calmly exchanging gossip, down the stairs and disappeared down the path through the hedge. None of them paid you any attention. Foras smiled, pulled your head to his chest and stroked you affectionately.

“Do you think I would risk getting you punished?” His heart was racing, his breathing still hasty. “We, the devils of Hades, know how to reduce risk. Take a breath, no one can see us. I wouldn't let anyone see you so beautiful, so mine.” He added quietly.

You would have preferred to snuggle directly into his chest, but his shirt had his scent on it too. Caressing hands continued to stroke your hair.

“Those two old men were wondering where we were… they must have noticed our absence.” He laughed. “I'll help you get ready and we'll go back to the ball, what do you say?”

"I don't want. I want you. Again."

"Trust me, I would prefer it that way too."

You didn't know if you stayed in his embrace for minutes or an eternity before you had to go back to the ball. First you improved your appearance anyway; it's easier to explain an absence than disheveled hair and a disturbed dress. Especially when you walk back arm in arm with your partner in crime.

[quotidianish]

“Where’s Winter?” he whispered, nudging Ostrich with his elbow. She sat up and looked around with blurry confusion.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “He was here a moment ago.”

Qibli twisted in a frantic circle and spotted a shadow flitting through the pear orchard. He couldn’t shout for Winter lest he alert the whole compound. Qibli groaned internally.

  “Stay here,” he whispered to Ostrich. “Stay as hidden as you can. We’ll be right back.”

She nodded, strutting back into the shadows.

  Qibli hurried after the Icewing prince and realized that he was aiming for the courtyard, separated from the orchard with a wall. It was enormous, surrounded with buildings and a partial bailey, blocking his view of the inside. The bricks were painted in a turquoise and amber mosaic of snakes and lizards chasing one another endlessly.

  Before even seeing where Winter was headed, Qibli knew all too well what he was planning to do. The courtyard was noisy with birds and other pest-like creatures, alongside the distinct growl of a dragon.

Arrrrgh, Winter, you obsessed ninny.

  He caught up as Winter was tinkering with the lock of the metal gate. It stretched up to an arch at the doorway, where the mud had begun to crumble, smelling of spoiled food, live pigs, and dates. 

“Are you serious?” he said, and Winter jumped a mile, which was almost hilarious enough to make this side excursion worthwhile.

  “Shhhhh!” Winter hissed.

“What are you thinking?” Qibli whispered.

  “I’m thinking your horrifying grandfather will make this poor dragon into tomorrow’s buffet,” Winter whispered back. “Unless I save it.”

“Right now?” Qibli asked. “In the middle of our own precarious escape?”

  “Well, I’m not planning on coming back!” Winter said, tugging on the lock again. “Hey, you’re a street thug. Can you pick this lock for me?”

  “An Outclaw is not the same thing as a criminal,” Qibli protested. “Oh, fine, move over.” He studied the lock for a moment, unsheathing his kirpan and inserting it into the mechanism, wiggling it around until he heard a click.

  “Now what?” he asked Winter as he nudged at the gate, careful not to open it too wide so the hinges wouldn’t creak. “We shove it in a bag and carry it off into the desert with us? I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this, but dragons aren’t exactly travel-sized.”

  “We’ll just let it out,” Winter said, pacing past him into the moonlit quadrangle. “It’s smart enough to fend for itself after that.”

   Qibli decided not to point out that it hadn’t been smart enough not to get caught in the first place.

  Winter crouched beside a large chain, bound against the beige dragon’s hind leg and anchored into the ground with weights. Despite having thrashed helplessly a moment ago, this time it peered curiously down at them.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Winter said softly. He looked around for the small alcohol lamp by the window they’d seen earlier, and carefully reached for its shackle. Upon bringing the flame close to the brass chains, the heat thawed through the metal like snow. They both stepped back and waited.

  Slowly, the levitation-esque creature raised its head, tearing its obsidian black eyes from the two humans and towards the night sky. A plume of smoke shot through the air as it flapped its enormous wings once, then twice, then lifting itself off the ground, sending a whirlwind of sand flying into Qibli’s face, before swiftly gliding away to freedom.

[dippiin-dops]

Lately

Where Bruno wishes Narancia could've enjoyed a better life

Something short I wrote at about 1.755 words. I don't know how well platonic things like this do here, but someone might like it at least 👍👍

(Apologies if you're seeing this twice, I had to reupload because I deleted the original by mistake when I tried fixing a reblog </3)

From his point on the balcony, as the wind swept though him and through his hair, the people below moved like he were watching a movie. From where he stood at the top, he could see everyone; he could see the small group of kids running in zigzagged lines like petals pulled along the wind, and the couple trailing behind them, and he could see that the couple’s matching rings glittered beneath the sun. And, with his head in his hands, Bruno could see how peaceful they all looked.

A little ways off, in the park, a high-school-aged boy sat on a picnic bench reading a book. A much younger boy from the playground ran to greet him, carrying a flower plucked from the public garden. The older boy laughed, and said something, and the younger boy shook his head then ran quickly back to the flowerbed he plucked the flower from and left it there again.

A girl in similar age to the older boy leans on a separate picnic table, hesitating to sit, and looks around the park. She holds an ice cream cone in her hand, but neglects it, and the green scoop at the top begins to drip onto her blouse.

Days like these, where the smell of the sea hangs over towns around the coast like a fatherly embrace, were the hardest days of Summer. Nostalgia and melancholy would poison the air like a gas, and infect all of Bruno's foods with memories of his mother’s cooking. His father cooked too, eventually, but it never tasted the same-- though, even the meals his mother offered on Christmas days never tasted the same as it did before.

The sea remained with the same scent, at least. And kids that weren’t him and have yet to grow into him enjoyed it all the same without him. The sea didn’t poison everyone. Days like these weren’t hard on everyone.

A black car skitters across the open road, but falls to a stop soon after passing the balcony and backs up a moment later. Then, with similar motions of a twitching bug succumbing to a death, it aligns itself in stuttering motions against the curb. Another boy, another high-school-aged boy, opens the black door and sets foot onto the street. He doesn’t close the door behind him when he gets out. His head swivels in surveillance of his surroundings. He looks, then, and nods at Bruno on the balcony.

When Bruno got down to the street, the boy was still standing outside the car. He said; “Mista and Abbachio are with the guy right now. He’s not really the gangster-type, so Abbachio says he’ll probably spill before you get there.”

Narancia’s headband was skewed to the left today, and pushed further down his forehead then usual. Fugo would adjust it most mornings, but the mission from yesterday carried onto the next day and Fugo didn’t have the chance to see Narancia like normal.

“Bucciarati?”

“That’s good. I’ll ride back there with you.”

Narancia nods.

The two of them enter into the car; it hardly waits for a second to settle before sputtering down the road again at the full brunt of the speed limit.

Bruno had paid for the boy’s driver’s training a year and some months ago when he'd just turned sixteen, but Narancia maintained a tendency to push the limits of the law he was taught; it wouldn’t be too much longer until the buildings and clouds and occasional greenery would be reduced to blurry blobs of colors outside of Bruno’s window.

“Narancia...”

Suppose, though… those laws he were taught way back when, how do they differ so much from the laws Bruno would have the boy break with any given order?

“Yes, Bucciarati?” Narancia looks quickly to his passenger side.

“...No, never mind. Ignore me.”

The car hums and bumps against the rough road. As he predicted, the summer’s day scenery melts into abstract figures and hues before it dissolves altogether into blue and gray streaks at the empty freeway. Bruno rolls down his window-- just enough to let some air in –and stares out the sliver there made.

“...Say, Bucciarati, I could be just misunderstanding, but… are you okay?” Narancia nervously adjusts in his seat and the car jostles from his foot moving across the gas pedal. “You seem kind of distracted. But maybe I don’t know. I dunno.”

Something so odd was in his nervousness. No, he was never really the anxious kind of kid, nor the type to be so careful about things like emotion. Even when Bruno met him as the trembling orphan, struck by disease and ridden by abandonment, he declared his fragile future with all the resolution of a politician announcing their campaign. As if it was something to be proud of.

But it was true enough that there was something odd in the way Bruno was acting-- he recognized it too, that odd sense of melancholy nostalgia and, perhaps, guilt that’s so unusual to him.

“Do you ever wish you took a different path?”

“…In what?” Narancia looked something maybe a little bit more then nervous now.

“Do you wish you never joined Passione?”

Narancia’s grip on the steering wheel visibly tightens; his knuckles turned white from the pressure. His voice stayed firm, also, like it did the first time he spoke about joining Bruno. He said; “Never.. not once. It was the best thing I’ve ever done. But… I don’t really understand. Are you mad about that again?”

Those first few minutes when Narancia joined, Bruno really was mad. He was mad before he even knew what the kid was doing there, sitting at Libeccio next to Fugo-- like he just knew, somehow. But when he saw that Passione badge, tiny piece of gray lint stuck to the pin, he grabbed Narancia’s arm and dragged him out to the back of the restaurant. Bruno yelled by the trash cans for minutes, saying things he can’t precisely recall now about mistakes and stupid decisions.

Narancia just stood there for all of it, waiting for a chance to speak. When he got it, he said Polpol gave him a stand, and he’s just as capable as anyone else is now. He called out his stand like it was something that’d make Bruno happy, but seeing Aerosmith for the first time was the worst memory of that day-- it was a grave for the future Bruno had hoped for Narancia. It was like seeing a corpse of a loved one at a morgue. You’d hate to say it, but you know that face; you know that loved one is dead. So it doesn’t really matter if you say it.

Bruno calmed down, and walked back inside with his newest subordinate. He introduced him properly to Fugo, although they had already spoken together. Bruno never really verbally brought up the situation again.

“I’m not mad anymore. You’ve made your decision and are just as much of a mafioso as anyone else here.” Really, that was all there is to it. He knew that. Narancia was his subordinate now, and complaining won’t change it. “I’m… no, I’m just curious, is all.”

“...I never once regretted it.”

Maybe faster then he could realize what he was doing, Bruno spoke again; “I wished, when I took you to the hospital after we met… I wanted you to enjoy the rest of your childhood. You were so small then, but I was relieved by how strong you were anyways. You should’ve been able to spend nice days like this at the park, Narancia.”

The air from the crack in the window has made its stay obvious in the car; cooler, most namely, but adjoined with that familiar smell.

“I tried hard… really hard, to do what you told me then. Like I always do. I really mean it.” His voice might’ve trembled in saying so, but the white noise of the car made it hard to tell. “I just couldn’t… I didn’t… my own father, even…”

A silence hung over the car again for longer then it was welcome. It was Bruno’s own hesitance, his own turn to speak, but he was appalled by the effect of his own words that would make Narancia relive a decision he’s already made so long ago. He had no right to question it in the first place, and even less of a right to admonish it as such without so much as a careful thought.

“I’m sorry, that was inappropriate of me to say.” His eyes were closed and his voice settled weird in his throat. “I don’t have any right to speak to you in that way as your superior.”

The car went on for a little ways more but it got there to the empty warehouse in the time it normally takes to get there. When the car was parked, Narancia said; “I guess that maybe means you see it differently… but, I know this was the best life I could’ve possibly had. I see you, kind of like... a he-- hmm... well, you mean more to me then just about anyone I knew before. You and Fugo and Abbachio and Mista. Maybe you think I still deserve more, but I’m the happiest I’ve ever been helping you.”

“I know that, Narancia. I don’t doubt it. That reason should’ve been good enough; I shouldn’t have said anything.”

The car turned off and Narancia stepped out into the entrance of the warehouse.

In a moment, less then a minute but more then a few seconds, Bruno will follow and they’ll meet up with the group and head up to inside the warehouse and, speaking around a probably bloodied body, they’ll talk about intel and risks and plans. The inside will be dark, because the lights don’t work there anymore and there’s only a few candles. It’s better that it’s darker, so there’s never anymore then a few candles.

It’s not good to beat a man senseless and scar him in all ways for life, but an order is an order and the man is a talkative witness to things he shouldn’t have seen. They’ll make sure his wife and son won’t be, and if it all works out everyone’s lives will continue. It sucks, but no one can change circumstance. Getting the best outcome is all anyone could hope for.

Bruno steps out of the car, and nears to the entrance of the warehouse. Narancia is just a little bit in front of him now, so that Bruno can see; when Narancia arrives arm’s reach within Fugo, pale hands go up to adjust an orange headband.

[crackedpumpkin]

|| ᴄᴀᴜɢʜᴛ ʀᴇᴅ ʜᴀɴᴅᴇᴅ || ᴘᴛ. ꜱᴇᴠᴇɴ (ꜰɪɴᴀʟᴇ) ||

Well, guys, this is it. Welcome to the series finale of Caught Red Handed. I won't make this a/n long; I'll post a separate one -> HERE! if you're interested in reading it! Other than that, I genuinely hope you all enjoyed this series with me :) - Love, crackedpumpkin

| previous |  masterlist |

This is it.

This is the day. The day the Sun Festival draws to a close and the day he leaves.

The day Leo leaves.

You stir at the smell of fried eggs, blinking sleepily as your eyes register the blurry ceiling above you. You turn your head to face the open window beside your bed, squinting when the sunlight almost blinds you. 

You hum softly, feeling the rise and fall of your chest as you breathe in the fresh air of the morning. You watch the birds soar past, flying off toward the forest beyond. The bustle of the streets hasn’t reached its peak hour yet, with most visitors and vendors still asleep or beginning to stir. 

You slowly sit up, wincing when you feel your arms ache. You slowly massage them, doing a quick stretch with your arms raised above your head before getting off your bed and opening your closet doors.

You grab a fresh set of clothes, heading into the bathroom to wash up. You emerge soon after with damp hair, a rough towel slung around your neck as you sit down in front of the vanity mirror next to your bed. 

You’re just starting to brush your hair when you hear a brief knock on your door. “Come in!” You call out, only to smile when Leo’s head pokes through the open door.

“Hey,” He greets you softly, entering the room and leaving the door open. He stands near the doorway, fidgeting awkwardly as he determines whether or not to move closer.

“Hey,” You respond with a warm smile, still in the middle of detangling your hair from the brush in your hand. 

“Do you need any help with that?” He gestures to your damp hair, eyeing the knots in it. You nod sheepishly, allowing him to approach. He stands behind you, his gentle hands reaching up and taking the brush from your grasp.

He starts combing through your locks, noting even the slightest wince on your lips and becoming more gentle with each brush. Your cheeks flush when his fingers just barely brush against your neck.

You sit in silence, your eyes flickering up every now and then and catching his in the mirror. You watch him purse his lips, fingers smoothly untangling your hair. You like it, the way he’s so gentle and considerate. 

You don’t want him to leave, you realize, your smile faltering at the thought that invades your mind. You want him to stay. Especially after yesterday, when you were panicked, wanting nothing more than to save him. 

He’s wormed his way into your heart, practically making himself at home. Your eyes dart to the swords that rest on his hip, recalling the first night you met. After only seven days, everything’s changed faster than you can even blink. You’ve experienced what it’s like to have someone around, to have Leo around.

It’s a good change, one you don’t want to let go of so easily.

He sets down the brush, both of your faces dusted with soft pink. You glance down first, unable to fight back the small smile that finds itself present on your lips. 

“I, uh, made some breakfast for you,” You look back up when Leo speaks, noticing how he averts his gaze. He gestures lamely towards the kitchen next door with a shy grin, rubbing the back of his neck. “Thought you might be hungry after last night.”

“Thanks,” You murmur softly, standing up and walking with him to the small dining table he had tidied up nicely. You smile in thanks, sitting down. He walks to the kitchen, bringing out a plate of egg sandwiches. 

Your stomach grumbles, eyeing the pile of cut sandwiches hungrily. He takes a seat opposite you, picking up the nearest one and biting down. You gingerly grab one, your mouth watering before you bite down and almost swoon at the taste. 

“This ish reall goods,” You mumble through your chews with an impressed gaze, Leo raising a brow with an amused smile. 

“Thanks, I might’ve…used a little too many eggs,” He admits sheepishly, glancing at the many eggshells that fill your rubbish basket. You pause, taking in the sight of your messy kitchen. Raw egg splatters the counter, scattered dishes and utensils on the stove.

But you look down at the sandwich, take another bite and remind yourself that it’s worth the outcome.

“Oh, we’ll only be opening the store for half a day,” You tell him, and he gives you a curious look. 

“Only half?” 

“Yeah, because you should enjoy the celebration. It’s your last day here, after all.” 

The mood becomes sombre in that split second, and you wince, wishing the words never left your mouth. You continue your meal in silence, only to look up in surprise when you hear someone climbing up the steps to your living area.

“Y/n? Yokai thief? You there?” 

Leo automatically reaches for his cloak, slipping it on and covering his face right before Margaret enters. She spots the both of you sitting opposite each other, rolling her eyes and grabbing another chair to join you.

She picks up a sandwich, ignoring the way Leo’s body stiffens. He had made them for you, not her.

“Hey Margaret,” You greet tensely, eyes darting back and forth between Leo and the hungry girl. 

“Hey, Leo, you don’t have to put on your cloak or whatever, it’s not as scary or as intimidating as you think it is,” Margaret complains. You wonder how she got so obnoxious overnight.

“It’s Leonardo,” He responds tersely, pulling down his hood with a roll of his eyes and a grumpy scowl on his lips. He reaches out to grab the plate with the remaining sandwiches, pushing it closer to you. 

“Whatever. Just thought I’d let you all know that Leonardo is a free man now. Oh, and all the convicts except for the Stabbington Brothers. It might have something to do with the name; who knows?” 

“Really?” You ask hopefully, sharing an excited look with Leo. She nods, placing a newspaper on the table with the headline:

‘All crimes to be forgiven in the kingdom as part of the Princess’s celebration!’ 

“Looks like your bribery worked,” Margaret points out, leaning back in her seat. 

“Bribery??” Leo looks at you with a baffled grin, eager to hear more.

“It was nothing much,” You try to wave it off.

“She bribed the princess with her baked goodies, was no big deal. Except that we had to bake for god knows how many hours straight! I swear, I can probably win an arm wrestle against you now.” 

Leo sits back with an intrigued smile, not bothering to take her up on the challenge; his interest lies somewhere else. “So, you did all that for me?” He hums, a mischievous smile on his lips that hint at future teasing to come.

You stammer but compose yourself with a roll of your eyes. “Maybe I did, but that doesn’t explain how you got out of prison so easily!” 

“Oh, that? I happened to run into the Princess’s fiance. Duked it out - you know how guys are.” Leo holds up his hands, admiring his nails with a smug grin.

“Yeah, yeah. C’mon, we gotta open the store.” You stand up, already regretting moving so quickly, as your arms start to ache even more than this morning. You try to pick up your plate, only to wince. Leo arches a brow, smoothly taking it from your weak grip and heading to the kitchen to start cleaning up.

The rest of the day goes as usual, with you and Leo seemingly much closer than before. He’s constantly helping you out without any of the sly tactics he’d pull to get more money. Instead, he’s genuinely concerned about you, always hovering around, helping you pack small items, and dealing with difficult customers.

Time flies past, and the time to close your store reaches all too soon. Your store is laid bare; all your customers have bought every last item off the shelves.

You shut the door behind you, locking it and pocketing the key. Leo waits patiently for you, his hood securely on his head. You walk side by side through the bustle of the streets, vendors lighting up the traditional lanterns attached to the stores as the sun goes down.

They fill the streets with a warm glow, and Leo makes sure to stick to your side like glue. He’s still wary, eyeing the guards that come close every now and then. However, they don’t move to arrest him, merely sending him glares every now and then.

You spot him handing over a few crowns to the vendor selling some kebabs, noticing the money coming straight from the bag he had pocketed the money for ‘charity’ a couple of days back. Your heart warms at the sight, and he thanks the store owner before turning and walking back to you with a happy smile.

“Thanks!” You hum, taking a skewer from him and biting down before sighing blissfully at the wonderful flavours that coat your tongue. You look up at Leo who’s staring down at the remaining half of your skewer, hesitantly offering it to him. 

He bends down and takes a huge bite of whatever’s left, chewing with a mischievous grin. You gasp in mock offence, hitting his arm lightly. His shoulders shake with laughter, eyes shining with an amused glint.

You narrow your eyes, placing your hand on his arm and tiptoeing towards him, leaning in and stealing a bite off of his skewer as well. He gasps in dramatic horror, glaring playfully at you as you chew with a satisfied hum.

“Thief.”

“Of your heart, maybe,” You shoot back with a grin, only for it to falter when you see his arm stiffen, looking away from you with a cough. However, you spot his smile under the hood, relaxing after.

You continue to look around the stores, holding up a few trinkets for Leo to decide whether or not you should get them. He’d usually shake his head with a grimace, but for some, he’d nod approvingly. His hood had fallen back a while earlier, sending you both into a panic until you realized that no one really seemed to care, only the occasional odd glances and murmurs sent your way.

He’s about to put his hood back up, but you stop him with a soft smile, your hand on his wrist.

“I like it better down.”

— — — — — — — — —

“How’s this?” You ask, holding up a flower crown and beaming. You place it on your head, and it tilts slightly, almost falling off your head had he not caught it. Your breath hitches, his face too close for your comfort. 

You pull away with a shy blush that dusts your cheeks, clearing your throat and focusing on adjusting it on your head to fit perfectly. He approaches the store owner, pulling out a few crowns to pay. 

“Five crowns, please!” 

“Five crowns??” His disbelieving tone makes you look over, slightly concerned from where you stand. He sends you a reassuring smile, looking back at the owner with astonishment in his eyes. 

“No way, two crowns at the most,” He tries to bargain, hating how his wallet practically cries out in pain.

“I’m sure your fiancée loves it, though; it’s a good spend!” The store owner whispers to him with a wink, and he’s left speechless, lips parting as he tries to find the words to deny it. 

“Oh, we’re not- she’s not- we’re-” He flounders, the store owner shaking her head with a pitying look in her eyes. 

“Young man, I can’t see your face, but I don’t have to, to know the way you look at her is special.” The store owner chides.

Leo flushes, hanging his head in defeat as he holds out the five crowns to the store owner, who gladly accepts. However, he looks back up at you as you check out the flower crown in the small mirror, placing it on different angles with pursed lips before looking back up and meeting his eyes. You smile warmly, and he almost loses all feeling in his legs. 

He’s never been so grateful to the inventor of the cloak.

You walk away with a happy purchase, giggling when Leo moves it so that it’s tilted. You readjust it, swatting his hand away. You’re distracted, however, when you spot a group of musicians walking around, playing the flute, violin, and accordion. 

You follow them automatically, drawn like a moth to a flame, when you hear the beautiful melody they play. It’s joyful and contagious, and you see many townspeople start to dance together, forming circles of couples dancing together. 

When someone holds out their hand to you, you hesitate but accept it. They pull you in, your hands in theirs as you dance. You spot Leo’s confused glances, giving him a quick wave when his eyes finally find you. 

His hood is still down, watching you with a soft gaze. Your feet move to the rhythm, your body embracing the melody as you gesture for him to join you. He shakes his head at first, wanting you to enjoy yourself.

"C'mon!" You laugh, holding out a hand to him. He hesitates, glancing around at everyone else. You wait patiently, humour dancing in your eyes. He wants to refuse, to hide away back in the store and spend time with just the two of you. Even right now is scary for him with his hood down, exposing his existence to everyone.

But how could he say no, when you looked at him like that?

So he slips his hand into yours, letting out a loud yelp when you drag him into the town dance. You laugh and giggle, and he feels his lips automatically curve upwards into a warm smile at the sight. 

He tries to follow along, undeterred by his clumsy movements as you grin in pure amusement. He likes your smile. He wants to see more of it. 

He makes his way towards you, and your hands are just about to brush against each other's when you're both suddenly dragged away by other partners in opposite directions. 

You send him a sheepish grin, and he shrugs simply in response. You continue to dance the night away, always trying to find him in the crowd and yet, never being able to bump into him.

Unknown to you, Leo's eyes constantly scan the sea of people around him, trying to find the familiar head of hair he's grown to adore. He finally spots you, his eyes meeting yours that fill with relief once you see him too.

The both of you attempt to make your way to each other, Leo's breath hitching when someone brushes up against his side. He cranes his neck; having lost you in the split second, he looks away. 

There you are. You're just a slight distance away from him. Just a few more steps, and he'd be with you once again, maybe even be able to replicate the closeness from that special night.

Your breath hitches when he disappears once someone momentarily blocks your vision. Your eyes dart around, your heart sinking when you don't see him anything. Another man holds out his hand to you, but you twirl to avoid him. 

Your feet struggle to keep up with your quick movements, the violin setting a pace for your heart when it speeds up just as your eyes land on a hooded figure with clear, blue eyes filled with mischief and endearment. You're only a few steps away.

You're so close. 

Your breath hitches in your chest when you stumble, bracing yourself for a harsh fall.

Your back meets empty air, and you scramble to find something to hold as your eyes squeeze shut, fully expecting to meet the ground as the music builds to a crescendo before ending with a flourish.

"Hey there," Your eyes slowly open, blinking a couple of times as the corner of your mouth tugs up into a welcoming grin. Leo looks down at you, having caught you just in time before you'd have landed on the ground.

He helps you stand back up, his arm still holding your waist securely. You glance up at him with flushed cheeks and bright eyes, though the tender smile he gives you makes your heart quiver, melting into a pile of goo.

You stay there for a moment, finally parting when the both of you notice that the crowd is beginning to leave. You pull away from each other with flustered smiles, and you don’t know where to put your hands. You’re about to return them to your sides when one is suddenly caught in a warm hold. 

You pause, looking down at the green hand holding yours.

Leo looks down at you with care and earnestness, like waves of emotion crashing against each other in a sea of blue. His smile is contagious, one you want to keep in your memory forevermore. 

So you place your free hand on his bicep, tiptoeing and brushing your lips against his cheek. Your eyes flutter open, having subconsciously squeezed them shut with your brief kiss. You lean back, clearing your throat as red starts to spread up your neck and across your cheeks.

“We should probably get back to the store,” You murmur, trying not to smile when you see Leo’s dumbfounded gaze. His eyes are wide, officially rendered speechless. You wave your hand in front of his face, getting slightly concerned when he doesn’t react. 

“Hello? Leo?” You call out. He snaps out of his daze, looking back down at you. It’s useless, you have him in a chokehold, wrapped around your fingers, and he knows it. You breathe a sigh of relief when he finally reacts, lacing your fingers with his.

You make your way back to the store in bashful silence, only for you to suck in a sharp breath through your teeth when he slings his arms around your shoulders, pulling you close. You can barely meet his gaze, your heart racing a million miles a minute.

You reach the store all too soon, lingering outside the locked door. You pretend to be searching for your key, wanting to prolong your last few moments with him. Sure, maybe he’d come by for visits now and then, but you didn’t want that.

You want something more.

You pause, shoulders tense as you decide whether or not to do it. You slowly turn to face his questioning gaze, suddenly finding it hard to swallow. You part your dry lips, brain scrambling to search for the right words to say while summoning every last drop of courage in your body.

“Stay,” The words tumble past your lips before you can process them. Your heart is heavy at the thought of him leaving. You don’t know if you can live without it now, his cheesy retorts and witty remarks that constantly make you laugh, his very presence giving each day a brighter start.

You look down at his plastron as you struggle to find the words to express how you truly feel. Your hands grip his arms with a hold so tight you’re afraid to let go. “Stay with me,” You repeat in a whisper, cheeks turning scarlet.

A moment of silence passes, and you’re too scared to look up, arms falling to your sides. 

But he bends down, wrapping his arms around you, and it’s so soft and so gentle that you almost think it’s just your imagination. He buries his head into your shoulder, the hilts of his katanas barely brushing against your limp hands.

“Okay,” You feel his shoulders relax, all the tension leaving his body as he replies with a breathless chuckle. You feel his smile against your bare shoulder, your arms wrapping around his shoulders and hugging back just as tightly. 

So, Y/n and I? Well, we're living happily ever after in the castle after she made good use of her palace connections.

"Leo." You chide with a hint of amusement in your tone.

"Okay, so maybe we still live together in the store. But hey, now we have someone in the palace to bail us out when we need it!" 

You giggle, slapping his wrist lightly when he tries to take some cookie dough in your bowl. 

"Not just that, but whether or not Y/n and I stayed together after that? Well, after years and years of asking..."

Leo grabs your hands, a soft smile on his lips as his eyes look into yours. Flickers of warmth tickle your cheeks, and you flush, looking away. 

However, you're surprised when he suddenly takes a step back. You watch with intrigue when he takes a knee in front of you, the tails of his bandanna fluttering and resting on his toned biceps as he pulls out a small box.

You’re his beginning and end, the start and finish of the chapters in his life. 

You gasp, tears already stinging your eyes, when realization dawns on you. 

"She finally said yes."

And he wouldn’t prefer it any other way.

[cybrpwup]

ɪ’ʟʟ ᴡᴀʟᴋ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʏᴏᴜ || ʟᴀʀʀʏ ᴄʀᴏꜰᴛ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ - ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴏɴᴇ

Larry x f!reader !

content warnings; Implications of an Abusive Relationship summary; Larry hears noise coming from Sammy & Y/N’s apartment; he investigates. Requested?; No !

Blue = flashback

Afternoon sun seeped in between where the window curtains in his bedroom met, creating a diagonal slash of light across Larry’s face. Eyes closed; light brown eyelashes rested softly on even softer cheeks. Their natural blush toned down in his unconsciousness. Lips relaxed to be parted the tiniest amount, enough to let out small mewls as he slept: more like purring than snoring.

He appeared delicate enough to break with a single glance. Peaceful. Calm. Unproblematic. Unlike when he was awake.

Clattering of cookware and the smell of burnt are both unpleasant things to wake up to. Combine the two, add muttered cursing in his flatmate’s distinct voice, and that would be Larry’s alarm clock.

Ten hours of dead sleep ended abruptly at a SLAM of a kitchen drawer followed with the metal clash of pans and the refrigerator door being opened and shut repeatedly. It was odd. Tanner was usually a quiet presence to have around. Often loud-mouthed but always light on his feet.

Larry groaned and squeezed his eyes tighter, but he was not able to ignore the noise. Rolling twice over, he moved to one side of the bed and dragged himself out from under his duvet. Retying the strings on his pajama bottoms – which had slipped to be sitting precariously on his hips – he scanned his room. Deciding to load his arms up with food wrappers and half-full glasses before leaving.

“Morning,” Tanner called over his shoulder as he pushed a spatula around in a pan in short panic-fueled movements. A light smoke spiraled up into his face.

“Is it?”

“Close enough.” He moved the pan off the stovetop. “Almost half past one.”  

Flipping the glasses in his arms upside down and loading them into the dishwasher, Larry smiled to himself. Knowing whatever it was his roommate was making – he would end up eating. It was not that either of them were terrible cooks just that both were impatient and set temperatures higher than should be or was recommended. To be fair, things did come out faster but also often simultaneously burnt in parts and still raw in others.

“Nick wants to know if you wanna be in a video.” Tanner piped up as he pushed his concoction from the pan onto a plate – an identical one next to it.

Larry closed the dishwasher and put the food wrappers in the kitchen bin. He took a bar seat and watched Tanner finish up. “Yeah, sure.”

Tanner slid the spatula and pan he used to cook, into the waiting water of the plugged sink. Taking a plate up in each hand, he moved to take a bar seat and placed in front of Larry a very crispy looking omelet. It was cheese and ham and mushroom.

“Thanks,” Larry mumbled around the fork already shoveling food into his mouth.

It was quiet for a few minutes as both men ate at their respective speeds: Tanner with small quick bites and Larry with large, almost inhuman bites he did not necessarily chew before swallowing.

Omelets were eaten. Plates were cleared and cleaned. It came time for both to go return to their separate sides of the apartment into their separate lives and separate understandings. Larry reached for the handle on his bedroom door.

—

Larry flopped himself onto his bed and started to scroll through his photos with the group. There was not much choice, so he took the least blurry one and posted it to twitter – with a bright filter and a sarcastic caption that took him longer to come up with than he would have liked.

Fifty minutes he spent scrolling through twitter, occasionally checking back to watch the likes on his photo go up and to reply to some of the first commenters. It was mind-numbing in the good and proper sense.

Until he saw it – and it was not his fault, he just happened upon it – and it sent his thoughts into hyperdrive.

A post. A photo. Y/N sitting on her sofa in the dark with the one light source (presumably her television) from behind the camera casting a blue light across her face. One hand clutching the blanket in her lap as the other hand was held up. Jewel-like eyes peering through her fingers and connecting with the camera. A smile playing purposefully on her lips.

If Larry’s thoughts at that moment were put into a blender, they might still have come out making more sense than they did in his head. Eyes. Lips. Blue. Watching? Angelic. Eyes. Fingers. Dancing. Blue. Lips. Taste. Lips. Soft. Photographer. Photographer.

Before he might ask for the app to load more photos, Larry's burst of energy and hectic but classic over-thinking was interrupted. From above him came the sound of muffled shouting. He held his breath, stilled as if a prey animal not wanting to be spotted, and focused an ear to the noise.

There were no words he could pick out, but from what he could tell – or from the details he filled in – it was not a light argument of few words but something that might supersede a genuine scrap.

And it was coming from Y/N's apartment.

As he listened, his imagination wandered. Larry visualized himself, rushing to Y/N's aid and wrapping his thin arms around her in more emotional comfort than physical protection. He saw her turn to him with wet eyes and a red nose before burying her face into his shirt.

It would be uncomfortable – as it is to be around distressed people.

Yet it would be comfortable – as she would fit against him so well.

Again, his imagination wandered. Larry visualized himself as the one shouting at Y/N and growing angrier as she refused his hard-hitting gaze. He saw her turn to him with wet eyes and a red nose before hiccupping out a sob and dashing from the room.

No. That was not right. It was wrong.

He would not— could not do that.

Jolting from the grasps of his own vivid imagination, Larry was sickened with the twisted scene and shocked with himself for conjuring it. What am I doing? He looked to his phone – to the photos, he poured over moments before and recoiled at his actions. He closed twitter and shifted around on the bed: embarrassed to be listening as the shouting from above continued.

He needed an excuse to leave his bedroom, or else he might start thinking again – about it – about her. He did not want to start thinking; he had switched off his feelings and did not want them back.

From above him came the familiar sound of muffled shouting followed with a new sound – the shattering of glass. It was loud enough to hear over his music. Larry pulled his earbuds out and laid still, cocking his head a tad, as he listened.

All couples fight. Larry knew that. First of all, because he was not an idiot. Second of all, because he had gotten into it with all his past partners at some time or another. Now he also knew he was not an aggressive person nor intimidating in most situations. But he had gotten rather angry before – pulsing neck vein kind of angry.

He had shouted and been met with stunned quiet.

He had shouted and been met with shouts of equal anger.

It was never pleasant. It solved nothing, and he regretted it after.

Muffled shouting remained indistinct but grew in volume. Larry closed his eyes tighter; he was weak in the stomach like he was going to be sick and felt lighter like he had been bloodletting. His breathing picked up. He tried to ignore it – the shouting. With rattling hands, he put his earbuds back in and practiced some of that self-talk.

All couples fight. It is normal.

There is nothing to be anxious about.

I am not there. It does not involve me.

There was a second shattering sound from above. An army of nightmare scenarios invaded his head.

He did not know what was happening.

He did not know what was happening and it. was. killing. him.

What if I did nothing and Y/N’s in genuine trouble?

Larry took to his feet in a flash. Slipping his phone in his pocket and snatching his keys off his desk, he stormed out of the bedroom like he was escaping a fire.

“Larry,, where are you going?” Tanner dropped what he was doing, jumped to stand, and near hurdled over the sofa in a race to reach the front door first. In a stern command, he called, “Stop.”

But the younger was not listening. Larry had his hand on the door handle, pulling it open just ten centimetres when Tanner appeared to the side of him and closed it with one hand, trapping him inside.

“Let me go.” He pulled the handle, gaining no more leverage.

“Not until you tell me where you’re going.”

“I—” It was apparent he wanted to get the words out, but before another distorted syllable could be spoken, Larry stopped and turned his eyes up to the ceiling: to the muffled shouting.

Rigid in stance, Tanner scrunched up his forehead; he did not move his gaze from Larry. “No. You have to let it be. You have to—just, don’t get involved.”

After dropping his focus to the floor, and looking to his feet for a short second, Larry pulled his eyes back up – pathetic and pleading. Desperate for something but trapping all possible answers inside. Opening his mouth and closing it again, he appeared liable to spring a leak or deflate entirely. “Please.”

Tanner complied. He removed his hand from the door.

And Larry left the room.

He was the same person in the same hall he had been in a thousand times. Yet. It was different that time. Familiar but wrong – spoiled – a rip-off version of a beloved video game.

Might have been the lights were about dead and not shining as bright. Or the carpeting had not been hoovered recently and was stiffer under his shoes. Or some decoration had been removed from the walls, something large enough that his peripheral recognized it as being absent.

Might have been, but Larry could not be sure.

Weaving around the crumbling blockades of rationality and through the ripped recklessness filter, a spark carrying a thought completed the obstacle course from stem to the front of his brain: You’re not a fighter.

Even if Larry walked straight into Sammy and Y/N battling it out on the floor above, what was he expecting himself to do?

Could he even act logically in such a situation?

When just the thought of it had riled him up so terribly?

Each step Larry walked, the stale air expanded further beyond the physical limits of the hall. Goose pimples bubbled up on the skin of his arms. His own footfalls sounded distant behind his breathless breathing and the ring in his ears.

At reaching the lift doors, the feeling of suffocation broke to little relief. Not broke like a fever, with the hope of good health ahead, broke like snapping a pen in half, leaving it useless. Surely, he would be useless.

His index finger smashed against the call button; the sliding doors opened. Anxious fires died down while worried coals remained warm and present. He needed to know what was happening – not with himself – that was a question he could not answer. But with Y/N. Lovely, Y/N.

DING. Larry cleared the doors and took the hall above his own in quick strides until he stopped outside Sammy and Y/N’s apartment.

Shouts could be heard from behind the door, first from Sammy, “You never remember any of the good things I do!”

Y/N interjected, “I—”

“No. I’m talking. You’re such a depressive bitch to be around – everybody agrees. Oh, go on. Get all teary-eyed. Can’t you see how manipulative that is? Where are you go—? Y/n!”

Larry raised his fist to knock when the handle jumped, and the door was thrown open. Startled, he stood stock-still as Y/N harshly shoulder-checked him. She fled up the hall – opposite the lift – to the door for the stairwell.

Nothing in her hands.

Not even wearing shoes.

“Larry? What are you doing here?” Sammy stepped forward from his hidden spot inside the apartment and into view; his frame took up almost the entire doorway. A reserved but friendly smile stretched across his mouth. His cheeks were not flushed red with heat, and there was not a speck of hostility in his stare.

Neither acting nor looking like he had just been screaming. As if he had flipped a switch, the second Y/N was out of sight; shifted into a new skin entirely.

“Um—I,” Larry babbled as he dragged his focus from the door Y/N had disappeared behind. “I—there was a crash. It was loud, and Tanner thought I better check-up on you two, make sure everyone’s ok.”

Putting his hand on the smaller man’s shoulder, Sammy jostled him a touch. “No worries. That’s actually really cool – very thoughtful. Yeah, when Y/n gets agitated, things can get out of hand fast.”

“Tanner and I, we’ve gotten a good number of noise complaints before, and we’re still here. But I’ll be honest. Keep going like that, and the eviction notice will be slid under your door tomorrow.”

“Good looking out. We got security called on us yesterday. Poor guy had to practically tear Y/n off of me.” Sammy held his hands out and curled his finger in a representation of cat claws. “I don’t expect there to be much noise going forward. She’ll calm down. Best to just leave her alone for a bit.”

Larry was decidedly not going to do that. “I could talk to her.”

“I wouldn’t bother, but I won’t stop you.” Sammy’s face brightened. “Actually. You know what? That might not be a bad idea. Less chance of her causing a scene if she’s with someone. And your type is well good at handling women and the emotional stuff, aren’t you?”

“My type?”

“Oh?” Sammy raised his head. “You’re gay?”

Tanner started, “Well, he’s bi—”

“Yeah.” Larry cut him off. Sometimes it was easier to just be “gay” than to get specific with someone who might not understand or even accept further explanation.

Sammy breathed out an, “Oh.”

“Is that an issue?”

“It’s a relief! Don’t have to be worried about you trying to chat up Y/n.”

“Oh!” Larry forced a smile, “My type right. I got yous.”

“That’ll be perfect. Much better to have you giving Y/n advice than—well, just remind her that you’ve known me long enough to know I’m a good guy and stuff.” Sammy stepped back and wrapped his hand around the door to close it. “Maybe, tell her I’m sorry or something.”

“Got it.” Larry turned and walked up the hall to the stairwell door. He heard Y/N’s whimpers and then jogged up one flight of stairs and found her.

Y/N sat on the edge of the landing with her bare feet planted on the step below. Crying quietly, despite stairwell echo, as she held a hand over her mouth in a bid to suppress each hiccup and each broken noise. Her her head hung low.

Others might have described her as a portrait of lost strength after holding out for so long: a tragedy-struck Venus: an inspirational and poetic muse. Larry would not. He saw nothing analogous to artwork.

Y/N was not a subject to be romanticized in her lowest moments.

She was not a canvas, painted pale with a couple of blue-tinted tears.

She was a person, shuddering while red blotches bloomed across her skin.

“Hey, Y/n. I—uh…heard what happened, and I’m sorry for following you, but I was worried.” His heart gushed with empathy or sympathy – if he had ever bothered to learn the difference, maybe he could tell.

All Larry knew was his core ached with physical pain when he looked at her.

There was no reaction to his words nor his presence. Y/N did not lift her head; Larry ducked to see if he could perhaps catch her eyes, but they were screwed shut. Tears carved rivers down her cheeks. The hand over her mouth remained and was accompanied by her other hand as her sobs reached a new peak. It did not seem she would be speaking anytime soon.

And what was Larry supposed to do? He could not force her to want him there, so he reluctantly turned around and started back down the stairs. While he walked, a voice broke the silence in his head: Y/N’s emotional state and relationship issues are not your responsibility. It is not your job to help pick her up.

True. It was not Larry’s job to be there, and that was reason enough for him to leave without guilt. He was not responsible for her, and that should have stopped him from thinking about it again.

It would have stopped him if he had not lived the life he had.

If he had not known how frustrating – how debilitating it was to feel so helpless. To need others so desperately while also unable to ask for that help.

Leaning on the push bar of the stairwell door two floors down, opening it to his hall, he could see the door to his apartment, and where he knew Tanner would be anxiously waiting for him.

Larry traced his gumline with his tongue. What am I doing?

Spinning around, he took the stairs two at a time back up to Y/N.

True. It was not his job to be there. Larry wanted to be there.

Even if Y/N was not in a position to understand that.

Returning to the landing, he stopped for a breath, unsure how to approach the crying woman, just watching her for a short moment. He sat beside her and planted his feet on the step below. A pair of shoes set next to a pair of bare feet.

When his bottom touched the floor, he felt the full weight of Y/N pushing on him. Her sobbing renewed as her arms wrapped around his neck, and her hands found the back of his shirt with clinging grasps. Larry wrapped his arms around her. Y/N brought her legs in closer and practically pulled herself into his lap.

From how limp and pliable Y/N was as she spilled over him, it was clear there was no anger behind her tears. No rage. No thought that she might start shouting obscenities or stomping her feet. Nothing like that. These were cries of exhaustion. But how she clung onto Larry like she was trying to ground herself, like he was the one real thing in her world at that moment, made him think there was more to it. How she had pacified herself with her hands earlier and how she buried her face in Larry’s chest to similar results. Y/N was frightened. Scared.

Tears formed wet spots on his shirt. Larry tried to keep himself as stable as possible, and he was, for the most part, considering how the woman he held shook like a coke-addicted pomeranian. It was not as uncomfortable as he might have thought. There was no talking, shushing, or humming. Larry and Y/N just sat in their relative quiet for however long it took.

Eventually, the hiccupping slowed.

Stopped. Then it was just them and the quiet.

Larry asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

Y/N’s limbs stiffened, and Larry relaxed his hold to allow her to untangle herself from him; she did. Pulling back, she swung her legs and situated herself to be sitting perpendicular to him. Her puffy, wet eyes hesitantly met his dry ones.

“Is it normal? For couples to fight like us?” Y/N asked somehow able to keep eye contact as she did but not able to raise her voice much above a whisper. “For him to throw things?”

“No.”

“Oh. I’m sorry you had to—”

“You don’t have to apologize. It was scary.” He assumed as he ventured to place his hand lightly on her knee. “If you ever want to talk to someone, I’m here. Whenever you want to drop in, just do it. Seriously. I got lots of free time; I’m basically unemployed.”

“Thank you.” Giggling, Y/N wiped the remaining tears from her cheeks and dropped her hand to her knee – curling her fingers around his hand; she gave a small squeeze. “You’re sweet.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“Have I? Huh. It must be true then.” The words were barely out her mouth when she dropped her newfound smile entirely, and her brows furrowed in seriousness. “I should—it’s time I head back.”

Larry bit his lip, wanting to protest, wanting to scream and shout, but knowing he could not risk starting an argument with her – not now, not about this. “Ok. I’ll walk with you.”

[malulls]

Under the mistletoe

Manorian Christmas one shot

The world through the windows seemed to have been painted in white. Snow had begun to fall at dawn, and now covered Rifthold completely. Manon sighed, making the glass in front of her blurry.

The queen had arrived just before the storm, and the weather was already unbearable. Even being more resistant to the cold than any mortal she didn't want to go outside now. Manon's bare toes curved on the cold stone floor. The chambers separated for her were directly connected to the ones she was in, so she hadn't bothered to put anything on or change the clothes she had worn to sleep, all she had done was braid her hair.

Which turned out not to be a good decision, as the fire in the hearth was low and not warming the room enough. Manon curled her finger around a silver string hanging from the window frame, trying to ignore the cold. The place, like the rest of the castle, was covered in Yule decorations, with ornaments and candles scattered all over the furniture.

No one would fail to recognize the way even that small room was a display of Adarlan's riches. It looked beautiful, though she didn't think it was worth so many hours of work. The sound of footsteps, followed by a turning knob, reached her ears before the door suddenly opened, causing her to turn to face the king standing in the doorway.

— Is that my shirt?

Dorian looked at her with his head slightly bowed, wearing only gray sleep pants and a few gold rings on his left hand. His dark hair was messy, as if he had just got up. He was handsome.

Manon almost rolled her eyes at the thought. And at the smirk on his face. Stupid male arrogance. The witch crossed her arms.

— I didn't notice what I was wearing when I went to sleep. Do not think it has anything to do with you.

His smile narrowed a little, and he raised his eyebrows.

— You didn't come to see me yesterday.

When the witch had arrived — with her clothes half-frozen and her muscles completely sore — she would have rather collapsed on the bed with him. But she knew that if she had done that she would want to talk to Dorian, probably take off his clothes as well, so she had preferred to stay in her own rooms — which she almost never used.

— It was late when I arrived. I'm sure it was past your bedtime.

He tilted his head back and laughed at her answer, and that lightness, which had only appeared after the war, only made him more handsome. Dorian took a step toward her, and Manon quickly moved out of his reach. He always seemed to forget that he wasn't the only one who could be annoying.

The queen turned away and stopped at the door to the dining room, on the soft carpet instead of the icy floor. He didn't roll his eyes, nor did he tease her back as she had expected. Dorian smiled, looking almost content as he began to walk closer to her. He was not looking at Manon, but at something above her.

The queen followed the direction of his gaze. There was a small ornament in a garland on the door, a mistletoe, hanging right above her. The king was no longer looking up when Manon looked back at him to ask what was so interesting about the plant. He held her face and surprised her with a kiss.

She widened her eyes and raised her eyebrows for a second before kissing Dorian back. It wasn't the kind of kiss that had them both ripping each other's clothes off in seconds. This one was almost amused, as if he was claiming victory for catching her by surprise. Dorian pulled away faster than she expected, leaving her breathless.

— It's a Yule tradition. Two people must kiss if they are under a mistletoe.

She frowned at the explanation. He still had his hands on her cheeks.

— That doesn't make any sense. —He shrugged, as if to say that he did not create the rules. — Was that just an excuse to kiss me?

— Do I need one?

She didn't even try to argue, and that seemed to make his smile grow wider. They both knew he didn't need it. He began to draw circles with his thumb on her skin.

— I missed you.

Manon looked away. She always tensed up when Dorian said that sort of thing. Not because she didn't like it, but because she mostly didn't know how to respond. She couldn't say what she was feeling so easily. A bitter taste spread in her mouth. It must be the result of spending a hundred years being forced to act as if she felt nothing but hate. As if he had heard her thoughts, he pulled the conversation back to teasing.

— I know you miss me too, witchling. Don't waste your time trying to pretend otherwise.

— I wouldn't be so sure, princeling. — She let the same smile reach her face, though she was pretty sure it was much more thankful than sarcastic.

— I notice, you know. When you lay with me while I'm reading. You are wearing my clothes. — She rolled her eyes, and he poked the tip of her nose in response. — Don't think that I don't know this is what you mean when you do these things. I don't need a dramatic declaration.

She didn't pull away when he put his arms around her. He always, even when the two of them barely knew each other, seemed to easily understand what she was feeling. Even when the rest of the people thought she didn't feel anything. That could be annoying sometimes, but it was a relief when it was hard for the her to even accept that she was feeling something, so showing it could be worse.

She wouldn't have minded staying there longer, if the icy morning breeze hadn't started to come in through the gaps in the window.

— It's cold.

Immediately, the flames in the fireplace rose and his magic enveloped them both in a comfortable warmth. Indeed, everyone should have the luck to have a king with pure magic as a lover.

— Good thing I have the most beautiful queen in the world to warm my bed, then.

— You're the one warming my bed.

He pulled away, but not far enough to let go of her waist. Dorian pointed to the room behind the half-opened door.

— The bed is mine.

She raised an eyebrow.

— Is it ?

Manon turned away before he could see she was smiling. The witch started to walk toward the room, but didn't even make it past the doorway before Dorian grabbed her hand and turned her around again. He was pointing upwards with a grin in his face.

There was another mistletoe in the door frame.

— How many damn decorations-

He interrupted Manon with another kiss. This time, neither of them pulled away.

Inspired by this perfect fanart by @mellendraws

[secretkeeper13]

Christmas, Interrupted

It’s been ages since I’ve posted anything— return to the office and real life this past year has been an adjustment, to say the least. But somehow, I managed to write this silly, smutty fic for the Harry/Ginny Discord Incognito Elf fic exchange for the lovely, kind @sweeethinny. A true Christmas miracle!

First part below, full fic on Ao3.

23 December, 1998

The thrum of anticipation radiated throughout platform nine and three quarters, the voices of anxious parents and excited children echoing off the domed ceiling and the brick walls adorned with boughs of holly.

“There it is!” a child shouted, running down the platform. Harry’s heart quickened as the scarlet engine of the Hogwarts express became visible, thick steam billowing out of the stack and into the chilly air. Next to him, Ron rocked up onto his toes, trying to make out the blurry faces through the windows.

“They’ll probably be the last off the train,” Ron said, with a tone of fond exasperation, raising his voice over the hiss of the brakes. “You know Hermione, she’ll think it’s her responsibility as Head Girl to make sure every bloody first year is off the train and accounted for before she’ll leave.”

“Don’t think she’s wrong there, mate,” replied Harry wryly, though he understood Ron’s eagerness far too well.

He hadn’t seen Ginny in nearly two months, since a painfully short reunion in Hogsmeade at the end of October. Of course, he’d gone much longer without seeing Ginny in the past, but he quickly realized that it was much harder (literally and figuratively) to endure their separation now that they were properly together.

At the Burrow during the summer, though they had to be discreet, it was easy enough for Harry to slip down to Ginny’s room under the cloak once everyone else had gone to bed and be back in his bed before anyone woke. And so, Harry had become accustomed to engaging in certain activities on a fairly regular basis. But after just two months of shagging the girl of his dreams, Ginny returned to Hogwarts, and they were forced off being together, cold turkey.

Time apart had made them rather desperate, and with far more attention than either had ever paid to their Hogwarts timetables, Harry and Ginny had carefully planned the Christmas holiday to ensure they would be able to spend as much time alone as possible together. It was not an easy feat, considering that Ginny’s presence was expected at the Burrow, and Harry would rather face a bevy of Death Eaters than ask Mrs. Weasley if Ginny could spend the night alone with him at Grimmauld Place while she was still a Hogwarts student. And so, through the exchange of many letters, they’d planned and prepared, making a foolproof schedule for the Christmas holidays with diligence and attention to detail that even Hermione would be proud of, Harry thought, suppressing a snort of laughter.

As the air around them grew thicker with steam and louder from the sounds of happy reunions, Harry scanned the cars, looking for Ginny.

Ron spotted her first, his height working to his advantage on the crowded platform. “Ginny,” he called, with a wave.

Harry’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of Ginny, running towards him, her long red hair flowing behind her, eyes blazing. She threw her arms around him, and he pulled her tightly to him. Time stopped, as it always did when they kissed— Harry lost himself in the feel of her fingers in his hair, her small body pressed against him, her familiar scent, like flowers and flying and home—

“Oi,” Ron called, causing them to pull apart. “Nice to see you too,” he said sarcastically to Ginny.

She rolled her eyes and stepped away from Harry to give her brother a hug. “Hermione should be out in a moment, she was just making sure that everyone was off the train,” she said. “And nice to see you, idiot.”

Ron grinned down at her. “Knew you missed me.”

“Not as much as Hermione did,” she replied, nudging Ron towards the farthest car, where Hermione was stepping out onto the platform.

Ron ran to Hermione with a whoop, and when he reached her, he hugged her around the waist. Harry looked away as the two began snogging in earnest.

“Bloody hypocrite,” Ginny grumbled.

Harry embraced her again and walked her a few steps backwards towards the brick wall, the platform growing emptier by the moment. He leaned down and kissed her, his lips parting, relishing her quiet gasp as he pressed her towards the wall, the feel of her breasts pressed against his chest making him desperate for them to be alone.

“Let’s skip dinner at the Burrow and just go to yours,” Ginny murmured as Harry pulled back, his trousers already starting to feel tight.

He raised his brow, trying to ignore his body, which was fervently in agreement with hers. “That’ll go over well, considering Charlie’s just got in and your whole family is waiting to see you,” said Harry, the sarcasm apparent in his tone. He stroked down her cheek gently, tilting her chin up to look at him. “Besides, we’ve got a plan, remember?”

Ginny sighed, dropping her chin slightly to place a quick kiss on his fingers. “Right, stick to the plan, I suppose.”

“Stick to the plan,” Harry echoed, trying to ignore the electricity coursing through his body from the barest brush of her lips upon his fingers.

“Someone should record that for posterity,” Hermione interrupted, her smile broad and cheeks very flushed.

“What plan?” asked Ron, who approached behind her, pulling Hermione’s and Ginny’s trunks.

Harry laughed as Hermione pulled him into a hug, purposefully ignoring Ron’s remark.

Only Ginny knew of their well-crafted plan for the first night of the holidays: dinner at the Burrow, then after, he’d bring her to Grimmauld Place, ostensibly to ‘show her the renovations,’ but in reality, to have their own private reunion before she returned to the Burrow for bed.

“Harry and I’ve got to go to the Burrow for dinner, remember,” Ginny said smoothly.

“Right, Charlie can’t wait to see you. Better have your broomstick ready, he said wants to put the Quidditch captain through her paces.” Ron grinned, setting the trunk next to Ginny.

Ginny snorted. “I’ll fly circles around him, there’s no way he’s in shape.”

“We’ve got to go to my parents, Ron, they’re expecting us for dinner, remember?”

“Course I remember,” Ron said, hitching up Hermione’s trunk as they reached the apparition point before placing a shrinking charm on it. “Harry, don’t wait up for me at Grimmauld, I won’t be back until late.”

“We’ll see you at Christmas,” Hermione said, and she and Ron disapparated.

“Come on, we’d better get to the Burrow.” Harry turned towards Ginny, resisting the strong urge to sod it all and just go back to Grimmauld Place.

“Do we have to?” Ginny trailed her hand down Harry’s arm, her fingers swirling over his bicep, causing a swooping sensation low in his stomach. “We could pop over to yours for a minute and no one would be the wiser.” Her eyes gleamed as they met his.

Body still tingling from her touch, Harry swallowed, fighting back the temptation to take her home with him immediately.

“We can’t, your whole family is waiting for us for dinner. And they all know what time the Hogwarts Express gets in, it’d be obvious.” Harry sighed. “But we’ll leave as soon as dinner’s over.”

“Good. Because I can’t wait to see the renovations,” Ginny replied, with a knowing grin.

“We’ll definitely start the tour in the bedroom.” Harry tried to keep his face deadpan, but Ginny’s laughter was infectious.

Continue reading on Ao3

[l0reenthusiast]

"Thank You for Staying"

IT IS DAY 7 OF VENTOBER EVERYBODY AND THE PROPOSAL AUDIO CANNOT COME FAST ENOUGH

Word count: 751

(also a continuation of this here post)

A small white dove landed on the windowsill to watch the seen before it unfold.

"Relax cutie, you'll be fine. Honestly, you remind me of Jean when we got married." Lisa said with a smile as you paced around the room. You had chosen Lisa to be your maid of honor for your wedding, and she had helped you with everything from the decorations to getting dressed in your attire. It was only as you finally finished dressing that reality set in.

"Well, I mean go figure. Anyone's going to be like this on their wedding day, right? I'm really excited because holy shit I'm going to be marrying the love of my life, but I'm still so nervous even though I know that he proposed in the first placed and he put his heart and soul into this-" You spit out at record speed. Lisa could only shake her head with a grin in amusement. A knock at the door quickly shut you up. "Come in!" You shouted nervously. Zhongli walked into the room, adorned in a suit of his own.

"I hate to interrupt any conversation but, it's time." Zhongli said with a warm smile. You inhaled sharply as Lisa giggled, handing you your bouquet of Cecilias.

"You'll do great. I can tell he truly loves you." Lisa spoke, bidding you a farewell as she walked down the hall. You held the bouquet in your dominant hand as you linked your remaining arm with Zhongli's.

"I never thought that Barbatos would get married before I did." Zhongli spoke fondly, shaking his head.

"Perhaps it's because you're dating a ginger." You said, trying to calm your nerves. Zhongli rolled his eyes in amusement as you reached the chapel, the door and walk being the only thing to separate you and your soon to be husband. You looked down to Klee who was iggiling in her sweet attire.

"You remember what to do, right young one?" Zhongli asked her. Klee nodded her head excitedly as you took a deep breath before speaking; "Alright, here we go." Zhongli opened the door, and Barbara began to play the music of your choice on the organ while you walked down the aisle with Zhongli. Klee put her small hand into the basket of flower petals and spread them over floor you walked on. All eyes were on you as you looked straight ahead to your fiancé, who was looking directly back at you. I didn't take long for tears to fall down Venti's as he looked at you. All he could think about in that moment was your beauty and how lucky he was that you loved him. Before you knew it, Zhongli let go of your arm and sat amidst everyone in the pews, and you were standing in front of your fiancé. As you locked hands with Venti, your eyes drifted to the same dove that was on the windowsill earlier land on the frame of one of the open windows. It seemed as if it was almost looking at you and your lover specifically.

"You're beautiful." He whispered, astonished, bringing your attention back to him. He never thought you could get any more radiant than you already were, but here you are. You replied with a soft 'Thank you', then letting Seamus Pegg speak.

================================================

Venti slipped the ring onto your finger, his vision once again becoming blurry as he looked into your eyes. Both of your hearts began to beat faster than they already were.

"And now, by the power vested in me, I pronounce you husband and partner. You may now-" Seamus was cut off, a look of surprise as he watched you kiss, finalizing your marriage. Cheers erupted from the crowd as Venti spun you around, the both of you filling the air with unadulterated laughter. When your husband finally put you down, he cupped your cheeks and looked into your eyes lovingly, that same shine from the moment you walked into the room still there.

"Thank you for staying."

The dove that sat on the window changed its form as it watched the church fill with joy. The dove now had the appearance of transparent bard with clothes that would make him stick out like a sore thumb among the modern-day people of Mondstadt. He smiled fondly at the two of you, but especially at your husband. The braids of the bard flowed in the wind as he felt is presence fade away.

"I'm proud of you, Venti."

[vsnotresponding]

CHAPTER 13 - COMEBACK - KARMA

masterpost

It didn’t work.

In spite of what happened on the meeting, the khadae managed to convince the shahin not to stop the process, going over Sher’s orders. I haven't seen him since. It’s not like I could have, even if I wanted to, because the shahin has also ordered me to focus back on working with the Iria instead of wasting my time in meetings that don’t pertain to me.

It wasn’t a pretty conversation. I flinch now remembering it, sitting in my study looking at the papers full of data and blurry reports. For an instant, I wanted to scream at him that he was who made me lose my time when I could have been working, that if it weren’t for that, if he had allowed me to stay with Ira instead of passing my responsibility to Sher, nothing would have happened.

I didn’t. I closed my fists tightly, looked at the floor, and left without reproach. I ignored Sahare when she found me and asked about Sher, even if I don’t have anything against her. But she reminded me of my brother, who I understand less by the day, confusing me, his behavior erratic and illogical to me, who seems to want to help me to then throw me to the lion.

As I always do, I focused on work. I now help Emhi with the rookies, explaining the theoretical side to being an imitator, leaving her to her swords and stuff. I substitute Áine when, exhausted, she takes a break from restlessly watching over Ira to see if something changes. Most of all, I help Garvan when he starts to get trouble in the infirmary, now that he’s substituting the sahira.

He’s not as good as her, and certainly khithi would rather she was there than not him, aldamu as he technically is. But his charm helps him manage imitators and khithi, or at least that’s what I see when I’ve seen him in the tunnels under the palace. I haven’t dared to go into the ones housing the khithi, but I help him with the injured imitators often, I take the chance to ask about the prisoners they’ve taken in the protests after the Iria, worried about Ira’s friends.

I spend my days alternating between the énna infirmary, my study, and Ira’s room, trapped in the routine of solving tiny problems while I find myself dominated by a monstrous one I don’t find an exit from.

So when one night Garvan barges in to my study basically begging me to get Áine because of some anomaly he’s found in the dima of some khithi’s blood, I don’t doubt in running to the isolated area of the palace where we decided it was best to keep Ira. Even if I have morning lessons with the rookies tomorrow, even if it’s way past midnight, even if entering that small and almost claustrophobic room makes memories I’d rather forget resurface.

Even if seeing Ira’s immobile body reminds me of everything I’ve done wrong, everything that’s happened because of me, the void in my stomach, the almost nostalgia at afternoons doing experiments, the easiness—warm memories substituted now for the clear moonlight falling over white sheets and closed eyes.

Distracted, I start to tell Áine what I’m doing here. Looking up, I freeze in place, the door slowly closing behind me, my body paralyzed.

Ira is looking at me, smiling like she never has before, sweet and weak. She hesitates, separating herself from Áine. I blink trying to make the illusion disappear, I think that I’ve must have fallen asleep on my desk and that this is only my brain trying to make me feel better, but the vision stays.

Waves of emotion hit me. Relief, first, because she’s not dead, because, somehow, it worked, and she looks like the Ira we got to know. A sob escapes me, almost a whisper, but it’s clearly heard through the rain that hits the window at her back.

I’m relieved and hopeful and happy, because she’s okay and because I have really hated these past weeks with nothing more than silence and closed eyes answering my questions, entire nights curled up in between the bed and the nightstand, back against the wall. Fighting sleep to guard her after Áine had fallen asleep, just in case, waiting for something, anything, my voice telling her about my mother and letting my memories flow.

My eyes tear up, and I feel tears gathering to be freed. I let them go, even if I hate crying in front of other people. Everything is too much, because for some reason she opens her arms in an invitation, because I simply need them to fall.

I stumble with some bandages on the floor, my legs moving on their own accord, and I doubt, knees against the mattress, because I now can believe that this is a dream.

“Come on, you can hug me too, little ara.”

I ignore her raspy voice, almost mute. I hug her, and it’s almost like she’s the one comforting me after almost dying. I think that this is not another accident, that, this time, I won’t lose anyone I care about. Áine joins our hug and I feel her silently sobbing on my shoulder, I feel her relax after weeks in constant tension, in constant alert.

I join her.

But its starts to be too much for Ira, that suddenly moves away from us, letting go a pained whimper, clenching her good hand and her jaw, and closing her eyes, a grimace on her face.

“Are you alright?”

“Ira?”

She nods. Then repeats the movement again. Slowly, she opens her eyes to look at us.

“It hurts a little. Touch.”

“Ira, you should have told me that before. Your body is already too sensitive lately for you to—" Áine has gotten in one of her “you are sick, and you’ll do whatever I tell you to do” mode, she looks at her with a frown, her cheeks painted with the trail of her tears.

“I’m sorry,” I say, instead, smiling embarrassed in her direction, apologizing both for hurting her and for Áine, that keeps reprimanding her. I close my fist around the sheets besides my leg as a substitute for playing with my creation in my ear, because she’s not there.

“It’s fine.” She smiles back at me, tired, but calm too.

We half listen to Áine finish her sermon until she’s finally done. She looks at me.

“Garvan said he needed me?” I nod. I’m reminded of the anomaly he was talking about, how it might be due to the recent activity of the Iria, another little clue to the puzzle that’s the island’s illness.

“I think infirmary two is getting out of his hands.” I avoid saying who exactly is at infirmary two, but Áine knows.

“You can’t leave him alone…” she shakes her head and stands up, rubbing her hands on the cloth hanging from her waist, walking to the door. “I’ll tell Alanna to bring you some food,” to Ira. “But you should rest, and about… about what happened…” Ira looks at her bandaged arm, hand to elbow. “We’ll tell you when you get better. Rest for now.” She looks at me intently before closing the door, I understand that she wants me to stay just in case to watch her.

I nod, and then she’s gone.

The air turns weird immediately, the overflowing emotion of before banished. Ira's sitting, back against the window, her shadow a dark spot on the white sheets. I sit on the mattress’ edge, fist still closed, eyes on my knees, uncomfortable, though happy because she’s alright.

I can feel her eyes on me, fixed, for some seconds. Then I see her looking around the room out of the corner of my eyes, the lack of imitations on the walls, her creation on her hand, bright, dimly echoing her heartbeat.

“You aren’t wearing your creation.” I open my eyes, and try to focus on looking forwards to avoid turning to look at her face. Her hand closes around her creation.

Oh, shit.

“How are you feeling?” I try to change topic, but I know I spectacularly fail. She straightens.

“Well, I guess… Tired, the pain is manageable,” I flinch, remembering her screams. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“You didn’t make one,” I try to joke, because technically she didn’t ask me anything. She softly slaps my arm and I flinch again.

“You know perfectly what I’m talking about.” I sigh.

“Áine said she’ll talk to you when you are feeling better.”

“Are we doing this again?” indignant, her voice barely audible breaks even more. “Really?”

“Last time’s excuses…” I force myself to look at her. “They might not be excuses anymore.”

Her eyes open at the same time her pupils shrink, a fleeting expression of fear before her fist squeezes her creation. It lets out a dim glow. Before she can add anything else, I keep talking.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” I don’t like this, but she’s right. We might not exactly know how the qudra affected her abilities, but hiding the truth will only make us lose all the progress we hardly won.

“I…” she closes her eyes, blocking her memories. “I was in front of him and… and then I fell and touched it and…” A sigh, heavy. Her brow burrows, eyes open, looking beyond me. “I saw the protests, Karma. I saw the people and the rain and the heat and smoke and—”

“Ira,” I stop her, softly putting my hand on top of hers, that squeezes her brighter by the second creation in a death grip. I retire it immediately when her gaze focuses on me, holding it. “Ira. Breathe.” I breathe in and out deeply, exaggeratedly. She follows me, the glow dims.

I sigh, relieved, glad for the lack of imitations around us. I decide that, whatever we do, she’ll get angry at us, for what happened, and she’ll end up afraid of what we now know she can do too.

“I’ll tell you everything, but you need to promise me that you’ll try to stay calm as much as you can.”

“You can’t tell me to stay calm when—”

“I know,” I stop her again. Gathering my courage, I make an effort to not look away when I look at her, her gaze bright in the partial gloom of the room. “I know, Ira, but what I’m going to tell you will upset you and, definitely, you can’t control yourself anymore because of us, so I need you to promise me that you’ll do everything in your power to focus on breathing and keeping a blank mind.”

She nods, jaw tense, and looks away, confused and doubtful. I tense, too, stand to seat on Áine’s chair to see her face, even if she looks away.

“People died.” I start with the worst. She jumps at my words and I see how, physically, she forces herself to relax. “The island felt it all, it… it was bad. You recall the accident?” she nods. “It was a hundred times worse.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, the creation starting to light up again. Her fist closes and it stops. She doesn’t say anything, so I force myself to continue.

“The protests… they ended up stopping, after a while. Um…there are no protests anymore. Everything has calmed down.” She decides to talk.

“That’s what they told you, you don’t know if it’s true.”

“Emhi hasn’t gotten out of the palace since then.” I think she liked the imitator, that she can trust in what she told us. “She’s told us, it’s all calm now.”

She nods, dubious, but doesn’t argue back. I sigh, because now comes the hardest part, but for me. Ira notices, watches me, face tired.

“You were dying.” I pause, closing my fists over my pants. “You were dying and we couldn’t do anything to help you, everything we tried failed.” I clench my jaw, trying not to remember how I gave up. “We gave you suicide doses of alziwaq—nothing. I begged my brother for your creation—we barely got any signals of improvement.” I pause when she stops looking at me to focus on the creation in her palm, which she moves to make it roll on it. I sniff, blinking, look at the corner of her bed. “I think your heart stopped once or twice, that you died for a few seconds, more than once. But we couldn’t do anything because it wasn’t your body that was failing, but your mind and…” I force myself to look back at her once more, to accept the consequences of my crazy idea. “We were desperate, I was desperate, and—”

“What did you do to me?” she interrupts me. Her voice shakes a little, for fear or rage I can’t tell, her loss of voice heartbreaking. My gaze falls, her creation lights up, but there’s nothing for her to connect to from here.

“I’d been working on something, before… everything. And, I’m truly sorry, but it was our only chance and—”

“Karma,” she stops me again, serious, hard. I raise my head slightly without facing her. “What did you do.”

“I call it qudra,” she moves backwards at my words. “It’s based on the legends, it’s—”

“What does it do?” she doesn’t realize that her creation has started to heat up. I don’t think about warning her.

“We don’t know. Not all, yet.” Here I go, I talk faster: “Do you want to know what happened to my creation? I had to leave it before coming here, like every other creation and imitation that was around.”

“Why?” She’s the one not looking at me now, the heat disappearing as does the brightness, the room suddenly cold. I pause.

“When we gave it to you, everything just… exploded. Not like it used to,” I add. Not like the sudden decomposition of the elements that constitute imitations, no. “First an expansive wave, then they just… broke, shards of crystal flying around,” I turn one arm, so she can see the white thin lines that cover it, the light of her creation fully disappearing. “My creation held, but it burnt me a bit. We are all okay,” I add, because her hands have started to shake. “Ira, truly, no one got badly hurt.”

“But,” she interrupts me. Looking at me again, her eyes also dimmed, guilty under the moonlight, she’s back to clenching her fist around her creation. “I was out of control. That’s why I need to calm down.”

I nod, head low, her fist clenches even more.

“Tho, we don’t know why yours didn’t seem affected, or why she didn’t get destroyed.”

“Because she’s broken.” Her hand opens and she starts playing with her. “I guess they broke it when they took the earring out.”

“I’m sorry,” I think about what to say next, about the disaster we find ourselves. “I know how important a creation is to a creator, almost a family heirloom, I—”

“It doesn’t matter.” She holds out the creation towards me. “Take it.” I look at her, confused, but her eyes are on the floor. “I don’t want to do anything dangerous by accident, I don’t want to even try to connect. If you keep her,” she explains, “I won’t be tempted to.”

“Oh. Okay.” I wasn’t expecting this. “Alright.”

I carefully take her from her palm, the surface rough, the edge catching onto my skin when I move a finger over it, feeling the texture. It cuts a little.

The silence stretches and I fidget on the chair, I stand up when I can’t take it anymore and roam the room. I end up sitting on the floor, on the bed’s other side, back against the wall, legs to my chest in front of me in between the wall and the bed. Ira, still seated against the window, watches me move, leans her head to a side when I sit down.

“Won’t you offer to leave, little ara?” I huff, amused, relieved because the tension seems to be lifting, because of the nickname she won’t get tired of using. I shake my head.

“Trust me,” I play with her creation in between my fingers, “I’d love to. But we decided it was better if we didn’t leave you alone, you know, just in case.”

“I guess it’s for the best.” She sinks on the pillows at her bag, caresses the edge of the sheet that covers her to her waist, looks at her white tunic they put her in when we brought her here. I see worry cross her face, insecurity, strangeness.

“Anyways…” I look for something to distract her with. “What with the nickname? You perfectly know that my name is Karma.”

“Yeah, well, you do look alike the shahin like, a lot.”

“Eh.” I fidget in place. I don’t like being compared to him. “I’m aware of that, but, ‘little king’? I’m not even the heir. And I’m… I’m not like him or my brother in their… way of being.” She shrugs, amused. Now the uncomfortable one is me.

“You do get bossy when we work.”

“No I don’t!” I don’t. Nope. “And, either way,” I add, because I’m aware how in denial I sound, “Áine is the bossier of the two of us.”

“Whatever you say.” And she pauses, looks at me straight in the eyes before continuing without being able to keep her smile at bay, her voice hoarse. “Little ara.”

I huff, fake crossed, to hide my laugh, short but amused. I have to admit that I might enjoy the nickname, even if just a bit. It makes me feel… important, in a way. Also, it feels good, being able to joke after the torture of the last days, weeks.

The silence stretches, comfortable now, relaxed. It allows me to think, hands busy with the creation. The past few weeks might have been hell for us, but they were so much worse for her.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” she looks at me puzzled when I break the silence. “When you were unconscious?, we… we heard you scream and—”

“Maybe later,” and her eyes move away from me.

“Oh. Yeah. Sure, of course.” An uncomfortable pause, I think that I fucked up again, shrinking. The movement gets her attention back to me, she rubs her face, sighs.

“Hey, it’s alright. I know you must have a bunch of questions for me but… I just need to…” she looks at her bandaged hand, rubs a thumb over it, frowning. “I just need to precess what happened.”

“I get it.”

“Yeah” she smiles at me, then. “Yeah, I now.”

And I smile back at her.

tag list (ask to be added or removed): @my-cursed-prince @on-noon @aquil-writes @dotr-rose-love @e-klair

[ethernetmeep]

a neatly formatted amalgamation of pictures sits on a bed, bigger than a persons head. the cover is a photo of a windowsill, the curtains either dynamic or static depending on how you view the photo. the fabric of the curtain is somewhat transparent in nature, slightly altering the sight of the houses outside of the window. the photo is somewhat blurry in nature; just slightly.

there is only one word on the exterior of the book, on the spine.

the inside is adorned with a mixture of photos, drawings, posters, lyrics; a mix of many things. the last time said book was opened, the person who viewed its contents cried. i’ll explain their philosophy to it, as they totally are a separate entity from myself, yup, absolutely;

they saw.. people. young looking men who simply want to make music. women who helped along in the journey and made music themselves. random people, some known for long, some not. none of them are people the viewer recognizes, except for the primary artist. regardless of this fact, skimming through the pages makes them tear up. its similar to the forgotten flickr photo philosophy they had— where random forgotten photos of people living their lives & being happy affected them drastically because of how genuine it seemed to be.

a guy wears a paper costume; the character called WATERMELON THE TRUMPET BEAR. the women beside him is in similar paper attire; hers reading VASELINE THE BIG LADY if they read it right. its funny, cute, and simultaneously a personal memory for someone. they find comfort in the photos, along with many others in the collage of memories.

one of the first photos is of a small boy with his mother, both standing in a field of flowers. the last page of the book states the photo was taken under mount erie. they look at the boy, the mother, and they take in the details of it; how blurry the photo may be, the lighting, the angle.

as much as i am revulsed by feeling the heartbeat of living things, its the primary feature which makes them different from static objects. a pulse. it is both something which discomforts me & makes me feel dread, as i realize in the moment i am uncomfortable by how close i am to something which keeps them alive. not by discomfort towards the person, not generally, but by the way the human body works. feeling someones heartbeat or their pulse, even if only briefly, is objectively getting to feel one of their most vulnerable places, so easily on display. it feels almost too real, too personal.

this doesn’t mean i hate hugs; not at all. i enjoy them, believe it or not! it simply means the way i view a hug is much more personal, much more layered. you’re letting me be close to you & i am doing the same. its a mutual sort of vulnerability, in my eyes. it is quite comforting if by the right person.

of course, this tangent seems unrelated to the book— it is a bit off course, but still ultimately around the same subject. i simply get reminded of personal circumstances when i see the photos on its pages, how vulnerable they too are in a way.

i hug the book tightly, something i often do with novels i read— although this isn’t a novel and just a bunch of photos put together into a linear format— as it is a way to feel close to items which mean a lot to me. i suddenly feel tears spring up to life. this book means so much more to me than i thought, and it wasn’t even meant for me.

i find myself smiling all the same as i look down at the item in my arms. when i look at it, i get reminded of both good & depressing memories— get reminded of circumstances less than ideal. despite this, i still appreciate the item & its contents more than i am able to name. despite everything, i had my life changed for the better, and i won’t forget that.

and, when i look down at the cover, reminiscing about fond & silly memories alike, i realize something:

it is not, and never will be, a replacement for a true hug from a living and breathing person. but it is enough.

[viva-la-whump]

Whumptober - Day 1

Better late than never, right?! 🙃

I still have 8.5 more prompts to fill, but everything else is written....most of which is still in my notebook....and now I'm transcribing them directly onto tumblr...the day before the 31st...

This will be fine... *gulp*

Anyway, I'm doing something different this year - a 31 chapter story that is sort of acting as a rough draft for a larger story I have in mind, so consider this a fleshed out sort of storyboard that skips certain parts so I can go straight to the whumpy parts. And as such, some chapters are QUITE short (which definitely helped me write them faster 😉)

**Edit!! I hadn't realized before starting that putting multiple prompts into a single entry counts as fulfilling ALL prompts and not just one! So I don't actually have to do 31 separate chapters! Woohoo!! This just cut down what I had left to do by a LOT!!**

This is a Star Wars AU that is set directly after the 'Star Wars: Rebels' finale and melds together canon and Legends/EU material. I realize the target audience for this is probably pretty small among those who will see this, but it's 31 chapters of whump so even if you don't know the stories or characters, but I do a little bit of explaining, so hopefully you'll still enjoy their pain and suffering, haha!

So without further ado!

Chapter 1

Prompt No. 7 - “Can you hear me?”

“And remember, the Force will be with you. Always.”

The speeding clouds racing towards them turned into stars, which then turned into starlines, and then all went white. 

-

Ezra started awake and found himself…nowhere. There was nothing. Just a blank white landscape devoid of any features or life. Except for him. Was he dead? He still felt alive. But who knew if he could survive being launched into hyperspace with broken windows. Perhaps he’d been killed instantly and this was the afterlife. But no, that didn’t feel right. This didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like a Force Vision and it didn’t feel quite like the World Between Worlds he’d visited at the Lothal Temple. So what was this place?

“Hello?!” he called out, starting to walk in one direction and looking around for anything, or anyone that could give him answers. 

On and on he walked, nothing changing and no one answering his calls. Ezra wasn’t sure if he’d been walking for ten minutes or ten hours or even ten years. Time seemed to feel nonexistent in this nothing-place and– 

Wait! What was that? There was a speck of…something over there in the distance, slowly growing more clear as if emerging from mist. Ezra ran forward, the speck remaining small no matter how far he ran. But after a while he could distinguish that it was a human female with dark hair, though it was hard to make out any other features clearly.

“Hey! Over here!” 

He could sense the person turning their attention towards him but suddenly something stopped him from moving forward. Not like a wall, but like he’d been attached to a cord and he’d used up all the slack. 

Then the mist shifted again and another figure appeared off to the left, even more indistinct than the first. And then between them came a group of three figures.

“Hello!” Ezra tried again. “Can anyone hear me? Can you tell me what’s happening? Where are we?” But there was still no reaction from any of them and he couldn’t move himself forward even an inch.

Then suddenly Ezra felt like he was being pulled both forwards and from within. 

He was rushed forwards, the figures disappearing and the blank white surroundings stretching to reveal flashing images he couldn’t make sense of. Unfamiliar planets, blurry faces, and a barrage of feelings ranging from fear and pain to…hope? Yes, there was an overwhelming feeling of hope, but far beyond the simple hope of one person wanting to return home. This was something bigger, seeming to fill the whole galaxy.

As confused as Ezra was with this kaleidoscope of images he was gratified to know that he’d made the right choice. Wherever this path he’d chosen led him, no matter what happened to him, he knew everything would turn out okay. 

As the images started to fade, Ezra felt himself fading with it, and soon he was lost in a peaceful oblivion.

[getsusun]

There is silence, there is cold.

0.5 whump points out of ten. A little more than an eight hundred of years before main Bleach storyline.

It takes Naumi almost two weeks to require his zanpakuto actually to be present in shinigami’s inner world. Koigetsu can’t say that he is surprised. He also can’t say that he anticipated the call. Koigetsu returned to his shinigami, of course, not like there was a lot of choice. Things were already tense between them, and now, after…

white pillars / scorching sun / hands tied up / pain / humiliation / hot breath on his neck

Koigetsu shuddered and forcefully stopped this line of thoughts. While his back was healing, although Koigetsu could already feel that it would scar badly and that he was in for a long time of movements restricted by pain, it was not the blade of sword that made the deepest wounds. And these wounds were more on the souls than on the body. Koigetsu took a deep breath and tried to relax his mind.

He was standing on the top of one of the thousands of mirrors filling in Naumi’s inner world. Everything around was familiar to Koigetsu, the scenery he had spend all his time before they with Naumi mastered manifestation, and most of the time before zanpakuto spirit himself learned to materialize without help of his master. The cloudy darkness of endless space – was it really not that dark before, was it barely of light shade of gray? - and, of course, the mirrors.

A long, long time before Koigetsu loved them. The mirrors, all of different colors, could work as windows into the real world as much as in Naumi’s memories and thoughts, allowing Koigetsu to accompany his shinigami in everyday’s life with ease. Naumi himself, when visiting his inner world, could use the mirrors as a tool to master his emotions, to understand himself.

Naumi barely did.

Now, however, Koigetsu rarely caught a glimpse of image in the dark depths of the mirrors. They never reflected zanpakuto spirit fully, usually showing him a blurry humanoid shape instead. Now, when almost all his body was covered with cloth, Koigetsu couldn’t see more than a hint of movement. He prefers not to look into the mirrors much anymore.

While the mirrors varied in sizes, from small ones, barely of child’s height, to the large ones, ten times higher than Koigetsu was, and some wide enough to reflect a whole street, the one detail all of them had in common. They had narrow edges, not even flat ones – tapering into sharp blade-like lines.

When Koigetsu only started to be aware of his existence, when he first realized that he had a body, legs to walk and eyes to see, these edges were like streets for him. He had no footwear then, also no long sleeves and collar, and he felt light enough, like a feather, so he could step on sharp upper edges of mirrors and walk on them. He could sit on them, lay down, do whatever he wanted.

Koigetsu remembers quite clearly when did it changed. Well, may be not exactly the date – the year or even the decade, he still had difficulties tracking the passage of time. But Koigetsu remembered that it was soon after he mastered the trick of helping Naumi with manifestation. His shinigami was happy. Naumi was still in Academy then, just a student, but as a Kuchiki he got separate room, and Koigetsu had spent a lot of time in this room. Koigetsu was happy to be with his master, even if already not all Naumi’s choices of activities were quite… Pleasant. But it was enough that Naumi was enjoying himself.

That was what Koigetsu said to himself then, and that was what he thought he believed. But one night after returning to Naumi’s inner world a single misstep left Koigetsu with a deep wound on the sole of his foot. It was sudden and scary feeling, even if Koigetsu already knew pain. He, however, never before had cut wounds not from training with Naumi, and at that time wound from Naumi’s sword never hurt and never stayed for long. There was also rarely blood shed, at least more than a couple of drops of it.

The cut on Koigetsu’s foot stayed and scarred. He became more careful after, always protecting points of contact with sharp edges with additional layer of reitsu, and one day this protection just stayed, transformed into a pair of soft black boots. At that time Koigetsu was satisfied that at least Naumi was not affected by the strange behavior of mirrors. Also, with Koigetsu spending more time in manifested state, having a footwear was convenient.

Over the last hundred years Naumi’s inner world became a dark, lonely place. Koigetsu often contemplated on how it was his own fault. Zanpakuto should take care of their wielders, should support and help them to grow and master their powers. What had Koigetsu done wrong? Why everything seemed to became just worse and worse?

Strangely, Naumi didn’t actually seemed unhappy. Koigetsu felt him being angry – pretty often, on his elders, and on his – well, at this point their, considering how much paperwork Koigetsu had done over the last decades – Captain, and on Koigetsu himself. Bored. Joyful and satisfied, lately more often than not by Koigetsu’s expense, but… It still counted, right?

It is not like Koigetsu could actually die. Probably. Even with bankai broken – yes, Koigetsu was scared, and it was horrible and painful and wrong, but Koigetsu still could fight. Mostly. ...Good exercise in using his right arm instead of left one?

Koigetsu shuddered again and tucked his aching elbow closer to his chest. No, he could try to come up with any number of reasons, but the truth was that broken bankai was a big thing. A big bad thing which should never had happened.

Was it always that cold in here?

Lately Koigetsu sometimes felt a strange duality of his thoughts. One half of his mind diminished justified any tortures and cruelties Naumi performed, over his zanpakuto spirit and over others. The other half… The other half, which became stronger and stronger with every hit and every insult and each control collar being fastened on Koigetsu’s neck, was thinking about how it was not right. How it was not right for Naumi to be like that with his own soul, and – at the same time – how it was not right for Koigetsu to blame himself for all of it.

How it was wrong that Koigetsu loved being alone while manifested more and more. Away from his master. He shouldn’t be capable of being happy away from Naumi, and still. Somehow. He was.

Was it always that… Quiet?

Koigetsu frowned. He hadn’t paid attention before, but it was eerily quiet. It is not like Naumi’s inner world was a loud place, no, but there was always a peaceful hum of mirrors, and – and there were always echoes of Naumi’s thoughts, barely audible, not clear enough to distinguish words, but here, a background noise of emotions.

There was nothing now. Koigetsu could hear only his own breathing – a previously irritating, but lately calming habit of his, which he got after staying materialized for too long (after drinking tea with Juushiro, his mind suggests, but Koigetsu pushes that thought away). His breathing, occasional rustle of clothes, heartbeat becoming louder and louder with every passing second.

Koigetsu closed eyes and concentrated. The bond between him and Naumi was here, as it always was, but many years – decades – had passed since their bond was a thick and springy flow of energy. Now it is stretched to its limits. One moment it is barely perceptible, only the small fracture of reitsu from Naumi transmitting, the other moment – ready to burst from the volume of energy being drained out of Koigetsu. Koigetsu learned a lot about how to balance their bond, mostly through trial and error, and for a long time he was managing fine – they could fight, Naumi used shikai without thinking, they even had bankai, for hell’s sake!

Not anymore, apparently. Both about balancing and bankai.

The bond is weak, but it is here, and Koigetsu reaches out for Naumi, calls him – but there is nothing. A cold and rigid nothing, which is somehow worse than having energy drained out of Koigetsu.

- Master?

Koigetsu calls softly, long time of being used to speak seldom and quietly forcing his voice down. He feels how the bond shifts, reacting on his voice reaching to Naumi, and his shinigami should be able to sense that, but there is nothing, no spark of attention, not even an annoyed mental shrug. Emptiness.

Koigetsu spends a long time calling for Naumi. The time in inner world flows strangely, and what felt like days – weeks, even – could have been both hours and months in the real world. Koigetsu goes through negative half of spectrum of emotions, from anger to fear, from despair to denial. His throat aches, and it should be – must be – a fantom pain, because Koigetsu does not have a body now, is not manifested, but it still hurts.

Long, long time later Koigetsu not quite gives up, but more like spends all energy he had, mental and physical. He listens to the quiet of Naumi’s inner world for a while, surrounded by dark mirrors, and than whispers, softly, but with more power to break through the invisible shield to his master than he ever had.

- Can you hear me, Naumi?

Koigetsu does not care how furious could become Naumi after being called by name. Naumi may be his master, his wielder, but Koigetsu is also half of his soul, and even if he failed as a zanpakuto spirit, his shinigami should be still able to hear him.

Koigetsu waits. Calls. Waits and calls. But there is nothing.

Koigetsu feels like crying. But Naumi does not wants him to cry, and after dying from hunger, alone, in the stone pit Koigetsu really can’t anymore. But his eyes burn, and the scars in form of words on his wrists burn, and his back feels raw, like if the skin just melted, leaving inflamed flash exposed. The last one is not as far away from truth as Koigetsu would have liked. Yes, the pain lessened after Juushiro treated the wounds on his back, but it was still bad.

Koigetsu feels like a ruin. Wreck of a sword, like one of the debris that scattered on the earth when his bankai was broken. Koigetsu himself was broken, it seems, because what zanpakuto spirit he is, if he can’t even speak to his wielder anymore?

It takes a long time for the feeling of self-hate to stop being the strongest one. Even longer for sadness to settle into a calm shield around Koigetsu’s mind. But if he has something now, then it is time. A lot of time of being alone in the quiet darkness.

The darkness seems to become thicker, eating up even the sounds Koigetsu himself makes. At some point he starts speaking again, this time not to Naumi, to noone in particular. Quote poems from his memory, chapters from books he read. Koigetsu remembered a lot.

His voice dies down, and finally Koigetsu feels some kind of peace. He is getting sleepy, actually. Too tired to think, too tired to feel anything. Koigetsu is still standing on the mirror – not the same one, he may have moved around a little, trying to calm his thoughts. He is standing, perfectly balancing with the help of reflexes developed over the decades, but at one moment it seems easier to make one step ahead and just float in the empty darkness. Not much control and energy is required for that, and Koigetsu feels himself slipping into the sleep.

He wakes up – how long was he asleep? Does it matter? - and he is not floating, but falling down into the void, and it should bother him, but for some reason it does not. It is hard to think, and Koigetsu still wants to sleep – now even more than before, so he closes his eyes again. Not much changes.

[nextstorestore514]

Logitech HD Webcam: Enhance Your Video Calling Experience

Are you tired of blurry and pixelated video calls? Want to improve the quality of your online meetings and virtual hangouts? Look no further than the Logitech HD Webcam! In this article, we'll introduce you to this fantastic device that can transform your video calling experience. We'll explore what it is, how it works, and why it's an essential accessory for your computer setup. So, let's dive in!

What is a Logitech HD Webcam?

A Logitech HD Webcam is a small camera that you can attach to your computer or laptop to capture high-definition video and audio. It's specifically designed for video conferencing, online meetings, live streaming, and virtual chatting. The webcam allows you to see and be seen by others in crystal-clear detail, making your interactions more engaging and personal.

How Does It Work?

Setting up your Logitech HD Webcam is a breeze. All you need to do is connect it to your computer using a USB cable. Once connected, the webcam is ready to use with popular video conferencing applications like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype, and many others.

The webcam uses advanced optics and image sensors to capture video in high definition, ensuring that your video feed is sharp and vibrant. Some models even come with built-in microphones that capture your voice clearly, so you don't need to worry about using a separate headset.

Key Features of Logitech HD Webcam:

High-Definition Resolution: Enjoy stunning video quality with resolutions up to 1080p, providing clear and detailed images.

Auto-Focus: The webcam automatically adjusts its focus, so you don't appear blurry or out of focus during calls.

Low-Light Correction: Even in dimly lit environments, the webcam can adjust to provide well-lit and clear video.

Stereo Audio: Some models have dual built-in microphones that capture natural stereo audio for a more immersive experience.

Wide-Angle Lens: Capture more of your surroundings and include multiple people in the frame with a wide-angle lens.

Compatibility: Logitech HD Webcams are compatible with various operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Chrome OS.

Why Should You Get a Logitech HD Webcam?

Investing in a Logitech HD Webcam brings numerous benefits to your online communication and video conferencing. Here are some compelling reasons to consider getting one:

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Stay Connected: Keep in touch with friends, family, and colleagues, no matter the distance, with high-quality video calls.

Content Creation: If you're a content creator, the webcam can help you produce high-quality videos for your audience.

Easy to Use: The plug-and-play setup makes it simple to start using the webcam right away without any technical hassles.

Versatility: Whether it's video conferencing, live streaming, or recording, the webcam caters to various needs.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Do I need any special software to use the Logitech HD Webcam?

No, the webcam is plug-and-play, so it doesn't require any additional software. Just connect it via USB, and you're good to go.

Can I use the webcam with my Mac computer?

Yes, Logitech HD Webcams are compatible with macOS, along with Windows and Chrome OS.

Is the webcam compatible with video conferencing applications like Zoom?

Absolutely! The webcam works seamlessly with popular video conferencing apps like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Skype.

Does the webcam have a built-in microphone?

Some models of Logitech HD Webcam come with built-in dual microphones to capture your voice clearly.

What is the resolution of the webcam?

Logitech HD Webcams can capture video at resolutions up to 1080p, providing high-definition clarity.

Can I use the webcam in low-light conditions?

Yes, the webcam features low-light correction, ensuring clear video even in dimly lit environments.

Does the webcam have an autofocus feature?

Yes, the webcam has an autofocus feature, so you'll always look sharp and clear during video calls.

Can I use the webcam for live streaming on platforms like YouTube or Twitch?

Absolutely! The webcam is perfect for live streaming your content to platforms like YouTube, Twitch, and more.

Is the webcam suitable for recording videos for YouTube?

Yes, if you're a content creator, the webcam can help you produce high-quality videos for your YouTube channel.

Does the webcam support 60fps (frames per second) recording?

Some Logitech HD Webcams do support 60fps recording, delivering smoother and more lifelike video.

Can I adjust the webcam's settings, such as brightness and contrast?

Yes, you can customize various settings using Logitech's webcam software (available for download on their website).

Does the webcam come with a privacy cover?

Some models of Logitech HD Webcam come with a privacy cover that you can slide over the lens when not in use.

Is the webcam compatible with older computer models?

In most cases, yes. As long as your computer has a USB port and meets the system requirements, it should work fine.

Does the webcam work with smart TVs?

Logitech HD Webcams are primarily designed for computers, so they may not work directly with smart TVs.

Can I use the webcam on multiple computers?

Yes, you can disconnect the webcam and connect it to another computer with a USB port.

Is the webcam compatible with gaming consoles like PlayStation and Xbox?

The webcam is designed for computers and may not work directly with gaming consoles.

What is the field of view (FOV) of the webcam?

The field of view varies depending on the model but is typically around 78 to 90 degrees.

Is the webcam durable and built to last?

Yes, Logitech is known for its reliable and durable products, and the webcams are no exception.

Can I mount the webcam on a tripod?

Some Logitech HD Webcams have a universal tripod mount, allowing you to attach it to a tripod if needed.

Does the webcam have any built-in image filters or effects?

The webcam software may offer various image filters and effects that you can apply during video calls.

Can I use the webcam for document scanning?

While it's primarily designed for video calls, you can use the webcam to capture documents in good lighting conditions.

Does the webcam support 4K video recording?

As of now, most Logitech HD Webcams support up to 1080p resolution, not 4K.

Is the webcam compatible with third-party video conferencing software?

In general, yes. The webcam should work with any video conferencing software that supports external cameras.

Can I use the webcam for online interviews and job applications?

Yes, the webcam can significantly improve your online interview experience and professional appearance.

Does the webcam come with a warranty?

Yes, Logitech provides a warranty for their webcams, ensuring peace of mind regarding product reliability.

In conclusion, a Logitech HD Webcam is a must-have accessory to enhance your video calling experience. Its high-definition resolution, auto-focus, and low-light correction make it perfect for various scenarios, from professional meetings to staying connected with loved ones. Whether you're a content creator, a remote worker, or just someone who enjoys virtual interactions, the Logitech HD Webcam brings clarity and convenience to your digital communication.

So, upgrade your video calls today with a Logitech HD Webcam and see the difference for yourself!

[soroneir]

laaate Oumota Week Day 2: Monster (Hunter) AU for @oumota-events. Quest gone awry! Check out my Deviantart to see it in full detail, because it was originally 4000px wide and Tumblr shrunk a bunch of details out of existence.

Design notes:

When I saw “monster AU” I thought of one of my favorite games, Monster Hunter, and started thinking about what their armor would look like... and then I had to draw it.

Kaito and Kokichi are both hunters, and despite their initial differences they build up a great cooperation over time, melding their different styles to take down prey with ease. Most of the time.

Here they went to MH3U’s Flooded Forest to take down a Duramboros. Because I like Duramboros, and its verdant habitat compliments their purple. :D They managed to harvest part of the tail club (something you can do in-game), but now it’s charging, oops.

Kokichi: Light Bowgun

Weapon: As someone who does much of his work from behind the scenes during the game, he had to be a gunner. I chose the light bowgun because it’s the most mobile gunner weapon, suiting how he can appear out of nowhere. The weapon’s design is almost entirely based on the red rainbow-shooting raygun drawing in his room, with just the little mask tying it to his armor.

Ammo: Pellet and crag are generally useful ammos that I thought fit his personality more than the other basic ammos. Thunder is a reference to the electrohammer/bombs, and poison is obviously a reference to chapter 5 (yeah he doesn’t administer any poison, but I had to, and it’s purple). Paint lets him keep track of monsters, something he’d surely be good at, given that chart in his room and his general observantness. Demon boosts your ally’s attack stat, and, well, he riled a lot of people up. :D

Armor: As a gunner armor, it’s on the light side to allow for movement, being made mostly of thick cloth and leather. It’s loosely based on a pierrot outfit, with the puffy sleeves, pom-poms, and wide collar. The belt straps and checkered hip cape are from his canon outfit, and his breast is emblazoned with DICE’s logo. His left shoulder and gauntlet have game elements, marbles and chess. The boots are typical of trickster characters, and the devilish helmet represents his antagonistic role.

Kaito: Hunting Horn

Weapon: Straightforward and hasty, he’s a true blademaster, rushing headlong into combat. But he primarily plays a support role in the game. Hunting horn is the obvious choice, allowing Kaito to boost his friends while bashing his enemies in the face. The bell shape, slightly unstandard for hunting horns, is based on a spaceship engine. But the color scheme is based on his Argument Armament design.

Songs: The horn’s notes are purple, green, and red, making it strong in both offense and support. He can give a small health boost, enough to lighten a dire situation (such as lifting Shuichi out of his immediate grief after chapter 1). Or he can greatly boost recovery speed, offering long-term healing (through training)! The final song is Attack Boost L(arge), motivating his sidekicks to have the energy to fight harder.

Armor: Blademaster armors need to be tough to withstand damage, so his is made mostly of metal. It’s inspired by spacesuits, with the bright orange parts taking their color from the garment, and moon-worthy boots. The half-helmet protects his ears from roars (similar to Kokichi’s earplugs). His cape is obviously an alteration of his coat, and it’s held around his waist with a full moon buckle. To soften the sci-fi feel and add a touch of adventurer, I put fur trim on his cape and boots. The sharp, triangular edges of his star pauldron and kneecaps give a cool look. Look closely and you’ll see that his armor is peppered with nicks, dents, and gouges, each mark reflecting a time he got too reckless and was tossed across the battlefield.

I had a ton of fun designing for and painting this!

Bonus doodle for those who read all this:

[incorrectbatfam]

hcs about tim when he was a kid?

The first time Robin saved him wasn't from a villain or any sort of trouble Tim searched for with his little camera in the dead of night, but at 3:36 PM in the Gotham Academy parking lot, where Tim was playing on his Game Boy without watching where he was going, and wouldn't have noticed the school bus rumbling toward him had it not been for the hand on his backpack tugging him back into the crowd of kids on the chalk-covered sidewalk.

"Watch where you're going, kid," said Jason Todd-Wayne, the snarky kid from an older grade. "I don't wanna see blood and guts 'til at least ten tonight." Tim nodded, putting his video game away until it was his turn to board the bus.

Later that night, once his parents were out at another dinner party, Tim hung his camera around his neck, filled his little backpack with juice boxes and carrot sticks, and slipped out the back door. His destination was the harbor, where there have been reports of suspicious activity. If Batman and Robin were anywhere tonight, it was there.

The subway was quiet. Most people had gone home, and the ones who hadn't were either exhausted from their night shifts or too drunk to form a coherent sentence. Tim ignored the curious and concerned look from the ER nurse two seats away and adjusted his camera settings for the fourth time that evening. But even she was gone, since the harbor was the final stop. That left him with a man asleep in the corner and a dock worker holding a cigarette in his mouth, waiting for the first chance to light it.

Suddenly, in the middle of a pitch-black tunnel, the train lurched to a violent stop. Tim held his breath, waiting for the PA. But it never came. And he didn't have a phone—not that it mattered, 'cause no one could get a signal down here.

BANG! Large claws scraped across the window behind him. Tim squeezed himself under the seat as the yellowed eyes of Killer Croc scanned the car. Could lizards smell fear? Tim's trembling hands radiated it. It felt like forever before Croc moved on.

What came next was what he expected: Batman swooped in, Robin following suit. Tim managed to snap a photo through the window, but it was dark and blurry and he was too far away. Maybe if he got closer...

Tim quietly crawled across the grimy floor until he reached the part where one car connected to the next. He pulled the door open and tiptoed across the connector—he saw people do it while the train was moving, so he should be okay now. And it worked. He now had a much better view of Robin's fist colliding with Croc's jaw.

Down the train he went, changing cars every time the pictures stopped coming out to his satisfaction. Ten minutes and maybe a hundred snapshots later, he reached the caboose. He gave the cowering elderly woman a short nod and small smile, as if to say, "It's not that bad. I'm a kid and I'm here."

Croc's body crashed through the window, and Tim barely ducked behind a seat to avoid the flying class. Now, in the full emergency lights, he got a front-row view of the sharp yet elegant choreography. He took a couple pictures before turning to the old woman and saying, "You need to get out of here."

He helped her into the front car, but that wouldn't do much if the fight traveled back there. A tire iron slid across the floor as Croc had Robin in his grasp. Without thinking, Tim picked it up and slammed it down on the connector, separating his car from the rest of the civilians. Slowly, it rolled away. Through the adrenaline, he smiled. Maybe he could get into this superhero thing too.

His short victory was even shorter-lived. Croc's gargantuan form tumbled down the aisle. Tim leaped aside, camera clutched to his chest as the smallest squeak left his mouth. He didn't think anyone heard, but was instantly proven wrong when Robin whipped his head toward him, eyes wide.

Robin gave Batman a "be right back" and scooped Tim up and out of the train. Tim buried his face in Robin's cape, wind whipping past and stomach dipping with every up-and-down swing. A minute later, they landed on the platform and Tim forced himself to unlatch his fingers.

Robin asked if he was okay and Tim nodded mutely, then he asked, "Where are your parents" and Tim mustered the words to say it was just him.

Robin muttered something about lousy parents and told Tim to go home. When Tim pointed out that his only mode of transportation was being torn apart by a villain, Robin laughed, ruffled his hair, and asked if he knew how to hail a cab. Tim shook his head. He only ever used the train or his parents' chauffer. Robin said, "It's kinda like this." Then he stood up, waved his arm, and yelled, "EH TAXI!" Tim giggled and waited until Robin disappeared back down the tunnel.

Robin—Jason Todd—saved him a number of times after that—Poison Ivy's carnivorous plants, gunshot-filled alleyways, at least a dozen falls from high places, and even once when Tim found himself in point blank range of a freeze ray. Each time came with a hair-ruffle and cheeky wink and reassuring smile and clever quip, but not a grain of recollection in Robin's eyes. (Not that it was too surprising—Tim was just a nondescript dark-haired kid and Robin probably saved fifty people a day.) And each time stuck with him, just like that first day with the bus and train.

Then one day, while tailing Batman to a construction site, Tim climbed atop a crane to get a birds-eye view of the ten-against-one fight. Batman acted rougher than usual, and news of Jason's death hadn't been released yet, leaving Tim to wonder what was going on. A bullet whizzed past him, catching him by surprise and throwing him off-balance. He barely grabbed onto a beam by one hand, but didn't know how long he'd last with the slick dew making it impossible to grip. Tim gulped when he realized just how far up he was. His eyes darted around, waiting for the familiar flash of red and green.

"HELP!" His voice echoed through the lot. His fingers gave in and let go. He couldn't tell if he was screaming or not as he plummeted toward the ground. Suddenly, a strong arm wrapped around him and swung around the crane. He looked for the familiar cape to nestle in, but found it missing. Instead of the bright colors, he found blue and black. When they landed on solid ground, as grateful and starstruck as Tim was, he couldn't stop a question from spilling out.

"Where's Robin?"

Nightwing sighed and patted Tim's shoulder. "Don't worry about that. Just get home safe."

And with that, he was gone. Duty called, Tim supposed. Still, he couldn't help but feel the top of his head, the missing hair ruffle feeling plain wrong.

He saw the news later. He allowed himself to cry. No one was at home to hear him anyway.

Everything changed. Gotham changed. Batman and Nightwing changed. Tim's whole trajectory—the whole purpose of his existence—changed. You know how the story goes. He blackmailed Batman and became Robin.

The Jason came back. Jason scorned him, hated him for taking a mantle that was once his. Jason tried to kill him, and though he didn't succeed, Tim should've despised him.

But he couldn't bring himself to it.