#some of them ive been wanting to write/finish since the first month ive been in this fandom

[applesap-fics]

so many wips release me from this hell

[soxcietyy]

So I was thinking about virgin Y/n begging experienced Gojo to do it with her after he refused many times not wanting to rush her into things she could regret later on but then after she begged and begged he ended up fucking her at the edge of the bed forcing her to look in the mirror how he fucks her, with lots of praising.

Please?!

Gojo x virgin reader

First time writing on Gojo sooo here we go.

"Please?!"

"No."

"Please?!"

"No."

"Pleaseeeee?!"

"Since you put it that way I guess I’ll still say no. What’s up with you? Your being so persistent about something we’ve talked about before. Your not ready y/n" he said as he slouched onto the couch.

You decide to sit next to him with a disappointed look on your face. So he could see how much his answer affected you. It’s been 7 month of you guys dating and you still had yet to get some action.

You curse yourself for ruining your opportunity the first time. It was when you guys where two months in and he had you on his bed. You guys were kissing and taking his clothes off first because you were too embarrassed to do it first. You were so nervous that in the middle of making out you blurted out that fact that you were a virgin. His eyes widened at your response and he got off of you immediately, nothing ever happened after.

You didnt understand why that happened. Other people told you how much of a whore your boyfriend was before dating you and that he would sleep with anyone that caught his eye. Now he decided to be a saint and go months without doing it. You could remember googling if being a virgin was bad. How to seduce your boyfriend into doing it with you. Is my boyfriend broken?

You didn’t really gain much information with that last one.

You lay on his lap defeated. You laid down facing him so he could see how sad you were from the answer he just gave you. Were you meant to die a virgin? Looking up at him you could see how his pupils moved around from watching tv.

"Gojo please? Iv heard it’s bad for a guy to be pent up like that." You say.

He looks down at you with a smile,"thank you for your concern but I’m fine trust me." He said.

Maybe it was time you try to seductively win him over. You remember everything that Reddit post said about doing it. You just gotta look hot and do sexual things. When you thought about the example you’ve read your face turned red. How in the world do they think your going to put his fingers in your mouth so you can suck on them?! This was to embarrassing and scandalous. You cover your face not wanting to think about it anymore. You could also feel his gaze on you as he watched you.

Fuck it you’ll just suck him off. You took a deep breath before quickly unzipping his pants and unbuttoned it. He froze at your sudden antics and sighed as he tried to stop you. You pushing his hands away thought and got him member out of his pants. It was as big as you remember it being.

"Whenever your done doing whatever this is can you please put it back?" He raised a brow.

You shrug and put the tip in your mouth making him jump. "Hey get it out of your mouth." He says trying to push you off of him. You refused and went as deep as you could. To the point of your eyes watering and your mouth feeling so full that you gagged.

"You realize your less than halfway right?" He said as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

He didn’t know weather to feel second hand embarrassment or surprise by your willingness.

"You know what fine, I’ll give you what you want but just know I’m not going to go easy on you. I keep telling you your not ready and you don’t listen. If you won’t listen to me then I won’t listen when your crying later." He said standing up and carrying you into his room over him shoulder.

Finally, this was a win for you. Your finally managed to convince him to do it with you!

He laid you on the bed and began to take his clothes off. When he finished he turned to you and began to take your shirt off. You gasp remembering that you haven’t even been fully naked in front of him. He slowly took them off as he buried his eyes onto your skin. Looking at everything he hasn’t seen before. You felt so exposed nervous at the same time. Looking at body you admired how it was built. As if he were an god or something. Your eyes narrow down to his member and you notice something. Did it get bigger?!

"Don’t get all shy on me now." He cooes as he easily read you. your try to hide your breast from him since he was starting to stare daggers into them.

He leans in and kisses you passionately as he removes your hands and puts them on your side. He kissed you so desperate that it was hard to keep up with him. His tongue in your mouth as he explored everything. You didn’t seem to notice that he was taking your bottoms off since he was keeping your attention somewhere else. When you did notice you jump.

"Wait! This is too fast no?" You say pushing his face away.

"We would of been doing the deed by now if it wasn’t for you dragging things on like this." He said as he slipped your bottoms off in one go.

Your hand immediately moves to cover yourself but by the time you almost reach it Gojo is already eating you out. You throw your head back at the weird sensation. This isn’t okay right? Like is he even supposed to be doing that? You squirm feeling how the tongue moved inside of you.

"Du chu ike at?" You hear him say as he ate you out.

You looked at him confused not begging able to understand a word. He emerges from inbetween your legs and shoved two finger in you making you gasp.

"I said, do you like that?" He smirked at you as he started to curl his fingers inside of you repeatedly.

"Stop doing that and put it in my already!" You furrow your brow.

"Your no fun," he exhaled deeply as he sat In front of you and spread your legs wide.

You once again cover your face from embarrassment. You could feel how he shoved around to a position. You couldn’t help but be scared. You’ve been told that losing your virginity can be so painful while others say that it didn’t hurt at all. Hopefully it was going to be painless. Your attention was brought back by him rubbing his member up and down your cunt. Smacking it a few times on you making you jump.

Clearly he was taunting you and trying to see if you tapped out last minute. You take a deep breath as you mentally prepared yourself. There’s no way your backing out now. You feel how the tip of his member was slowly pushed in. Nothing bad until he continues to go in. It felt like he was going to rip you apart.

"Wait! Wait! Wait! It hurts!" You tell as you started pushing him back with your leg.

You could hear him chuckle as he grabbed your foot that you placed on his chest to force him back.

"Y/n, I said I wasn’t going to go easy on you." He pushes your leg down to your chest.

Your eyes widen realizing this wasn’t going to be as easy as you initially thought it would be. He continued to slide in as you frantically try to stop him. Your begging him to stop and to go slower.

"Gojo, please it hurts so bad! I can’t, I can’t!" You say as tears appear in the corner of your eyes.

He leans into you and caresses your chin as he whispered into your ear.

"Be a good girl and take me. This is what you’ve been begging for no? I’m giving it to you so how about a thank you?" He said as he leaned back.

He mouthed 'thank you' to you as a way for you to do what he said.

You shake your head not wanting to do something like that. You could see a devilish grin form on his face as he began to press into you again. The same burning and painful sensation started again.

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" You yell hoping it would stop him and that it did.

"You know the best way to get me all the way inside with only a bit of pain?" He asks you.

You look at him hoping for a good resolution to this.

"It’s distraction, so I’m going to try to distract you as I go inside of almost like this!" He finished his sentence as he rams into you.

Your body lurched from the pain and you let out a loud cry. That had to be one of the most painful experiences in your life. Tears began to fall from your eyes from the pain.

"Aw my poor sugar cube don’t cry. I know it hurts a lot but I needed to get inside. Right now your insides are getting used to me so just relax. You did such a good job." He said as he ran his fingers on your shaking thigh.

You nod at him as you wipe your tears away. It took a bit for your body to get kind of used to him. When he noticed he he slid out and turned you around. He told you to get on fours and to look at yourself in the mirror.

"I think iv been pretty patient with you so it’s my turn to have fun okay? Be a good girl and no cryin" he kisses you on the head.

Once again he slid inside of you fully making you want to cry again. You see as he shook his finger at you telling you not to cry. You shut your eyes and fight off the tears. Once he decided to move he slid out and slammed into you fully. Your jaw drops a bit from the sudden unfamiliar feeling. This was something new to you. A feeling that made you feel a way you couldn’t describe. He did it a few times before saying something.

"That’s it huh? That’s your sweet spot. Found it faster than I thought I would. Now we can have real fun." He smiles.

He grabs you by the hips and digs deep into your cunt making you moan. He rolled his over and over again.

"Such a good girl, this is what you wanted huh?" He praised you.

He grabbed you by the hair making you look straight in the mirror as he pushed you down. He made sure your ass was still up as he pounded you forcefully.

"Gonna make you into such a whore for my cock only." He groans as your walls tighten.

He pounded you so aggressively that you gripped on the bed sheets and let out whimpers. He forced you to look at how me drilled your virgin hole with no mercy. The wet sounds filling your ears as he continued.

"I feel weird Gojo, ah! Something feels really off." You moan.

"Fuck, your gonna come huh? Be a good girl and come all over my cock. I want you to leave a mess on it." He says as he doesn’t stop. He pushed your head down as he went in you harder. Your legs began to shake as you orgasmed. Tears began to fall as you finished so hard. The sensation was something so amazing. You couldn’t move from the after math of it. You felt so weak and out of energy.

"Common get back up, i haven’t finished yet."

[unsolvedjarin]

omg after reading part two of the mentor!seb x ferrari driver!reader fic i NEED something where he actually tries to play matchmaker for reader and mick😭 Like him giving so many hints but reader is just oblivious and Seb decides to take matter into his own hands yk?

Only if you’re open to it ofc! 🥰🥰

BEES, AMONG OTHER THINGS.

pairing: (mick schumacher x driver! reader) (mentor! sebastian vettel x reader)

note: HEY. i havent written anything in weeks and its been KILLING me. ive been so burnt out lately its crazy, but seeing seb in suzuka did give me a bit of motivation (although this is more of a mick-centric fic, my boy deserves it.) anyways sorry for letting this stew for so long anon, hopefully i can write more soon ive missed it tbh

summary: suzuka finds itself not only an interesting spot for bee hotels, but for reunions and confrontations as well.

content warning: none, except its a little all over the place and once again i havent grammar checked this im so sorry it’s three in the morning

previous part, but can be read without <3

When Sebastian invited the grid to his bee hotel opening, he expected maybe five or six people to come, but not this.

Everyone was coming.

And by everyone, I mean everyone. The drivers, the reserves, even the team principals, had all confirmed their appearance for the event. Sebastian knew he was loved by the grid, but the thought of all of them coming together for him still made his heart swell.

It was one in the afternoon, just thirty minutes before they were about to actually start the event. While the participation of the drivers were confirmed, they were still coming in one by one, some later than the others. Sebastian was in a particularly interesting conversation with Fernando about flowers when a poke to his shoulder captured his attention.

He turned around to find you, standing there behind him, waiting for him to finish his conversation with excitement you couldn’t contain. It was the first time you’ve seen each other since Silverstone, and even then you barely had time to talk to each other.

Before he could say anything, you jumped into his arms and hugged him so tight that Sebastian thought he would lose oxygen— but he still hugged you back with equal enthusiasm.

“Sebastian!” you screamed, being spun around once by the man. He missed you so much. Sebastian wasn’t particularly the greatest texter, and calling wasn’t something you were fond of, so besides the occasional visit you barely talked.

“Y/N, I thought you’d never come,” he says with a grin. He knew you were coming, of course. You would never miss out on this. You give him a playful shove, before giving Fernando a quick hug as well. In the year Seb has been gone, you had gotten closer with the Aston Martin driver who replaced him.

Fernando excuses himself quickly after, knowing you and Sebastian had some catching up to do. “Don’t tell me you’ve replaced me with him,” Sebastian jokes the second the Spaniard was out of earshot.

“Why, are you jealous?” you teased. He scoffs in reply, but you could hear the hint of jealousy in his tone. “Don’t worry Seb, while I love his talk about flowers, you talking my ear off about bees still appeals to me more.”

That makes him smile.

“I’m glad you prefer my infodumping, then.”

The fact that you taught him that term makes your grin even wider. “Anytime.”

You wanted to talk with him more, to tell him how you’ve been doing the past few months, but before you could, some PR person swooped in to film some videos with him.

“Ah, sorry liebling,” Sebastian sighs. He leans in and whispers in your ear, “One thing I haven’t missed are these media hungry people.”

You stifle a giggle, before nudging him away from you. “Go on, it’s your event, this is your own doing.”

He rolls his eyes but walks away nonetheless, following the person from the media. Before he moves out of earshot, however, he shouts, “Oh by the way, Mick is here! Don’t be shy, go talk to him.”

Oh the bastard.

Half the grid must have heard that. You look at him with shock and a light blush on your cheeks but are met only with a cheeky grin from the man before he turns around to fully walk away.

Admittedly though, he was right. You hadn’t been talking to Mick much. You had a few lunches with him after Seb retired but without his third wheeling company, it just felt awkward to go out with the reserve driver one on one. You started thinking he just ate with you because he felt bad for you or something of the sort.

“Penny for your thoughts?” A voice snaps you out of your thinking.

“Jesus! Lewis, don’t give me a heart attack like that.”

The Mercedes driver laughs before replying, “Sorry, you just looked tense. Thinking about the race?”

“Not really, just some other stuff.”

“Like what? Like Mick?”

You almost choked on your own saliva right there and then. “Wh- what? What would— haha— make you think that? No that’s crazy, I’m just thinking about the bees! Yeah, because like the bee hotel and stuff I love b—”

“Sebastian wasn’t really quiet talking to you just then, you know.” He comments, cutting you off.

“Oh I’ll kill him.”

“Doubt it, you’ve missed him too much these past months to kill him immediately.”

“Touché, maybe I’ll wait a few more then.”

“Stop avoiding the question, why’re you thinking about Mick?” Lewis asks, not giving the topic up. Oh what the hell, Sebastian trusts him right? So you could trust him.

Thinking of how you could word your thoughts properly, you start, “I kinda— I dunno— I mean he’s a nice guy, he’s pretty sweet, and we’re friends obviously so it’d be—”

“You like him don’t you.” Lewis cuts you off for the second time in a row.

“Yeah.”

“Damn,” he sighs, letting it linger for a moment. “That’s crazy.”

A beat of silence passes. “You’re not gonna say anything else?”

“Say anything else about what?” Sebastian butts in your conversation, clearly just having finished his short interview. He takes his place beside you, scooching in between you and Lewis instead of taking up the free space on the other side.

“Oh, Y/N was just talking about how she likes Mick.”

“Was not!” You exclaim.

“Was too,” Lewis retorts. His teasing never ceased to amuse and annoy you at the same time.

“I think I’m going to believe Lewis on this one. After all, you did tell me, and I quote, you ‘sorta have a little maybe crush’ on Mick.”

You hang your mouth agape incredulously before slapping Seb on the arm, “I told you that in confidence!”

Seb laughs before defending himself, “Well Lewis knows now! Besides, it’s not like you’ve been that discrete about it.”

You look at Lewis who shrugs in reply, “It’s true. Pretty obvious when a Ferrari driver keeps hanging around the Mercedes garage, mate.”

Oh well, cat’s out of the bag. There’s no point in keeping it secret from Lewis now, you think. Putting your head in your hands, you groan, “That’s the problem! I’m always at the Mercedes garage talking to you or Toto or even George but never him!”

“Well why don’t you…talk to him?”

“Great advice Sherlock, gee, got any more good ones for me?” You ask Sebastian sarcastically. While you and Seb banter though, Lewis recalls a conversation he had with Mick one late night back in Singapore.

“Hey Lew, was Y/N here earlier?”

Lewis, who was packing up to go home, redirects his focus to the only remaining guy in the garage save for a few engineers. “Yeah, she visited right after the race to congratulate me. Why’re you looking for her?”

“Oh nothing, just asking.” Mick replies, fiddling with his hands. Even in his tired state, Lewis could tell that there was more the young driver wasn’t saying.

“C’mon, spit it out.” Lewis says, taking a seat on a random chair and patting the one beside him for Mick to take a seat. The younger driver hesitates for a moment before sighing and sitting down. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Better than anyone. Do you know what happened when Alonso crashed his McLaren back in 2015?”

“No, what?”

“Exactly,” Lewis replies with a grin. “So what is it?”

“I…” Mick sighs, unable to find the right words for what he was trying to say. “I think I like Y/N.”

There, it’s out in the open, he thinks. Mick waits for a reply from Lewis, but gets none. “Hello?”

Another beat of silence.

“Okay, this is starting to scare me.”

Lewis finally snaps out of his trance-like state, before getting up and continuing to pack up his things. “Okay.”

“That’s it? Okay?”

“Well I thought it’d be something more secretive,” he says, putting up bunny ears.

“It is secretive,” Mick replies, mocking Lewis’ bunny ears. “No one knows.”

“Eh, I’m not so sure about that mate. I mean if you exclude Sebastian, Fernando, Toto, and myself, then sure, no one knows.”

Oh shit. Was he that obvious? “How- how did you all figure it out?”

“Well for one, if constantly tailing Sebastian and Y/N last year was your attempt at being discreet, then it was a horrible attempt. Second, you need to stop turning red and running away whenever she’s at the garage giving out food and what not. I can’t keep asking her for extra donuts for you forever, you know?”

Mick blushed slightly at the comment, not realizing how every time you came around to the garage he’d been unwillingly avoiding you out of fear you wouldn’t want to talk to him.

Lewis pats Mick on the back, getting ready to leave. “Listen man, if I were you, I’d make a move. That opportunity won’t last forever, plus, it seems like they like you back. Didn’t you guys go out together just the two of you a couple of times?”

Mick shrugged, “I don’t know, I mean I think she did that just because she felt bad for me being alone in the grid and because she missed Sebastian.”

Lewis internally rolled his eyes. He’s seen the way you look at Mick, there’s no way you didn’t like him too. “You have to stop doubting yourself. I mean the worst she can do is say no, right?”

“The worst she can do is avoid me for the rest of my life because I misread all the signs and she actually hates me.”

“That’s the spirit!” Lewis replied sarcastically, before murmuring a goodbye and leaving the garage.

That was weeks ago now, but the conversation was still stuck in Lewis’ head. He’d been right all along, you did like Mick back.

“Hey Seb, can I talk to you in private really quickly?” He speaks up, making you and the retired driver stop your bantering for a moment.

“You can say it in front of Y/N, it’s fine.” Seb replied. He trusted you completely with anything and everything.

“Well not if it’s about her.”

“Hey!” you complain. “Are you openly gossiping about me?”

“Listen, if you want our help, then let us huddle for a minute.”

Rolling your eyes, you sigh and nod at them. You really really liked Mick, but you were too much of a pussy to do anything about it. So if these two old twats could help you, then so be it.

Lewis pulls Seb to the side for a moment, inhaling deeply before talking softly so you couldn’t hear. “Okay, so here’s the thing. Mick told me he likes Y/N.”

Sebastian whips his head to face Lewis, “Holy shit, I knew it. I knew he wasn’t going out with us all the time last year for no reason.”

“Yeah, he’s not so discreet. Here’s the problem though, he firmly believes Y/N may hate him, and you know that Y/N believes Mick only likes her as a friend.”

“So what you’re saying is they’re both hopeless?”

“Without our help, basically yes.”

“God I can’t believe they haven’t caught a clue,” Sebastian sighs. “I even excused myself from multiple meals so I could leave the two of them alone even for a few minutes.”

“You’re telling me mate, I basically had to shove Mick towards her whenever she was at the garage or in hospitality.”

Meanwhile, while the two men were devising on their own, you were getting antsy. What could they possibly be coming up with? You didn’t really want to think about it too much, so you decided to take a walk around the track. After all, the event was about to start, so you might as well familiarize yourself with your surroundings.

You went through the unpainted bee hotels, admiring their woodwork and the effort it must’ve taken to make them. Sebastian had sent you a text at three in the morning yesterday saying “Finished! :-)” with a picture of the bee hotels attached, so you knew he put hard work into this project. You were happy that he was doing something he loved while retired, but at the same time you missed him terribly on the grid. It was lonely, you will admit, without him by your side. Sure you had your teammate Charles and the support of your fellow drivers, but it never felt like anyone truly knew you on the track besides Seb.

Stuck in your thoughts, you failed to notice the man who was walking up behind you mustering the courage to strike a conversation. You turn around to check out another bee hotel when you bump straight into Mick walking up to you.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”

“Ow—” you hold your head in pain, which you bumped into the bee hotel roof when you recoiled backwards from the hit. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

Great, Mick thought. Now what?

You’ve made a fool of yourself, congratulations, you thought.

Sebastian was about to walk over to see what all the commotion was about, when Lewis put a hand out and stopped him. “Look who bumped into her.”

Sebastian squinted a little— his eyesight had gotten worse but he refused to get glasses— and grins when he realizes who it is. “Best leave them to it then, I have an event to organize anyways.”

Meanwhile, Mick had no clue what to do. You were holding your head in pain, with your eyes closed trying to regain stability from the dizziness, and he was just standing there awkwardly trying to figure out what the right move was. Should he ask you again if you were alright? Should he hold you to stabilize you?

Well, why not both. Without thinking, he holds your shoulders, crouching down a little to look you in your eye, and asking a simple “You okay?”

You open your eyes, squinting because of the sun, and are met with a set of beautiful blue ones staring at you. Holy fucking shit. Now you don't know what to do.

“Uh— yeah, just hit my head. No biggie honestly, all good here,” you reply awkwardly. God, was it this hard to talk to him when Sebastian was around?

Mick lets go of your shoulders— you miss his touch already— and straightens up, nodding. “Good. Sorry for hitting you, I thought you heard me walking up.”

“No, it’s my fault honestly. Was stuck in my own thoughts. Nice that you pulled me out,” you joked, praying to whatever higher power was listening that it stuck.

Thankfully it did, and Mick let out a small giggle at your quip. It was enough for your stomach to do flips. And even though you had no clue, you joking around with him made his stomach do the same thing too. The simple interaction was enough to make him think that maybe you weren’t just hanging around with him before because you pitied him.

“You know,” Mick starts, before he loses confidence to breach the topic. He was here anyway, so might as well. “You’re always at the Mercedes garage but I never see you. I am sorry about that.”

You raised an eyebrow at him in confusion. Why was he sorry? You were the one who avoided him out of nervousness whenever you were there.

“You don’t have to be sorry about that, honestly, that’s my fault anyway. Same with our lunches before, I’m sorry we did those less and less. I guess I got too caught up in the races. We should have another one here in Japan!” You add the last part haphazardly, not really thinking about what you’re saying because if you do you’ll lose confidence.

It was too late when you realized what you said, and terrified to see Mick’s reaction to the invitation, you stare at anything but him. Wow, the sky was blue today. How interesting.

Mick, on the other hand, was frozen on the spot. Did he hear that correctly? Were you inviting him to lunch for the first time in months?

Before the reserve driver could get his hopes up, however, he realized what was different this time. Sebastian was around.

Oh. Maybe that was the only reason you invited him this time around. Because, again, like before, you felt sorry for him being alone and you had the confidence to ask him because Sebastian was here.

“Would…Sebastian be coming?” He asked. He wasn’t a religious man by any means, but he begged God at that moment you would say no. He had nothing against the retired driver of course, he was like an uncle to him, but it would determine— for him at least— if you were going out with him out of pity or because you actually wanted to.

You, on the other hand, had a completely different interpretation of that question.

Did Mick not want to have lunch with you without Sebastian because he didn’t want to spend time with you? Did he feel like you were too awkward? Too weird? You stopped yourself before you could spiral even more.

“I mean, do you want him to?”

“Honestly? No.” Mick hears himself say without thinking. His eyes widened a bit at the fact that he said that aloud, making you giggle. It lifts the tension a bit and the air feels freer talking to him.

“Tsk tsk, I’ll make sure to tell him that.”

“Please don’t, I’ll never hear the end of it. I just meant—” Mick pauses for a second, finding it difficult to word his thoughts.

Oh fuck it. Fuck it all. “I want it to be you, just you.”

Oh.

Oh.

“Oh.” Before Mick can regret saying anything and repeatedly apologize for the implications of what he said, you tug on his shirt a little to get him to look at you. “Me too.”

He lets out a sigh of relief, laughing a bit at himself. “Thank god, I thought I made the wrong move there.”

“God no,” you laugh out. “I’m glad you said that honestly, I thought you just hung out with me before for Sebastian.”

Mick raised his eyebrows in confusion. Was that what you’d been thinking this whole time? “I thought you were just hanging out with me because you felt bad I was alone without Seb.”

This time you both look at each other, confused. You had both gotten it completely wrong.

The absurdity of it all makes you burst out laughing, and you try to cover it up with your hand but to no avail. “I’m sorry I just— ha!— I can’t believe I’ve been reading it wrong this whole time! I even avoided you in the garages because I thought you felt awkward around me.”

“I hid whenever you were at the garage because I thought you didn’t wanna talk to me,” Mick replied bashfully, scratching the back of his neck. “In hindsight, that was pretty stupid, I suppose I wouldn’t ever know if you liked talking to me or not if I kept avoiding you.”

“Hold on, is that why Lewis always asked for extra food when I came around?”

“Yeah,” he answered, feeling embarrassed. It all felt so foolish now.

“That was stupid,” you tease. “So…what now?”

“I suppose we can just,” Mick gestures aimlessly with his hands. “Restart.”

You smile at him, liking the simplicity of the idea. After dancing around each other for a year, this is exactly what you wanted. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

“What you were saying earlier, lunch? I know a good place. It’s pretty far from the track, but they have the best ramen and— hello Seb…?”

Unbeknownst to you, Sebastian had slowly inched himself closer to where you two were standing, trying to overhear your conversation. He was now stood a few meters away from you, pretending to be taking care of his bee hotel.

“You sneaky bastard!” you exclaim, slapping him on his shoulder for the second time that day. “How long have you been eavesdropping on our conversation?”

“I just got here!” Sebastian replied, trying to defend himself. He’d actually been standing there for a couple minutes, but if none of you had noticed, then it was better for him to not bring it up. “Anyway, I came to say we’re starting the event. Charles is looking for you at the Ferrari station, Y/N.”

Sebastian moves to leave, but turns back around, standing beside you. “And Mick, if it’s no bother, you could come with me and Y/N to Disneyland on Tuesday. Only if you’d like, of course.”

“We’re going to Disneyland?” You ask, but a quick glance at Sebastian's expression and you realize what he was trying to do. “Oh! Yeah, we totally planned on going to Disneyland. You should come with us.”

“Yeah! Sure, I have nothing to do anyways. And lunch on Monday, Y/N?” Mick replies. You give him a soft smile and nod in response.

Seb looks at you in confusion, “Am I part of these lunch plans?”

“No.”

“Great to know. Anyways, to the Ferrari station liebe, chop chop,” Seb retorts, putting his arm around you to pull you towards the station. As much as he wanted you and Mick to talk more, he also wanted his event to get going.

“Talk later!” you shout, being practically dragged by Sebastian. Mick laughs at the sight, waving a goodbye to you and the retired driver. He felt like he won the lottery. You might not like him the way he liked you, but this was a start. This meant that you hung around him for him.

“Was the plan you and Lewis came up with simply inviting Mick to go to Disneyland?” You ask, the second you were far away enough from Mick.

Sebastian shrugs, “Yeah, basically.”

“Oh you pricks. Thank God I didn’t rely on you two then.”

“Hey! We tried,” Seb remarked. “But we saw you two getting along without our help so we decided to leave you two to it. What did you even talk about?”

“Our shared hatred for you,” you replied with no hesitation. You look over at Sebastian with a grin, watching him roll his eyes, smiling.

“Well if that’s what it took for you two to talk, then I’d happily be the butt of your conversations.”

God. Why did he have to be so nice about it? “I’m just kidding Seb, we just cleared up some misunderstandings. Honestly we should’ve talked sooner, it was such a relief to find out I’d just been overthinking our interactions.”

“Like you do with half of all things, schatz,” Sebastian says softly, smiling at you. He was right, you did overthink too much.

“I know,” you sigh. “I’m trying to change.”

“That’s great, but you know what you should try first before that?” Seb asks with a playful look on his face. He comes to a stop in front of a bee hotel and grabs a paintbrush from beside it, putting it in your hands. “You should try participating in the event.”

“Cheeky bastard,” you mutter, grinning. You didn’t even notice you had walked all the way to the Ferrari station until then. You greet Charles, who was already there, before facing Sebastian again. “Still can’t believe you and Lewis’ plan was just Disneyland. Remind me to never trust you ever again.”

“Love you too,” Seb retorts sarcastically, grinning as he walks away to assist the other drivers. You shake your head with a smile, before facing the bee hotel again. Cheeky bastard.

Sebastian and Lewis had planned more than just Disneyland of course, they weren’t stupid. But the first phase of their plan was complete. Sebastian smiled to himself as he watched Mick talking to Lewis at the Mercedes station, ready to operate the second part of their ‘genius’ plan.

It was going to be a long, interesting week for all of them.

[kabutoden]

aphids update

since i started posting aphids, nearly the entire thing has been written. and i really want to see it complete!!

its especially a bummer because i wanted to put out each chapter in 1 month, which i almost managed to complete with the first chapter by focusing on the grind but not quite, burning out hard before completing it. ive had the pages inked for months now, they just need some touchups to be released. it’s just mostly cus I got work and work exhausting. yah know how it is.

i want everyone to know every couple of weeks i look at my aphids writing and comics WIPs and go WOW. GODDAMN. THIS SHIT GOOD. there have been a few changes and additions i've made in the past few months: some of them are just gags, while others are super valuable and i think these additions help with expanding the story. they aren't things i would have realized quickly. things that have been added include two raps, one by dave and slam poetry by karkat, but more importantly pacing improvements. so that’s cool

currently im working a temp job but im TEMPted (haha) to take some time off work and visit my family if they don’t keep me on. im considering taking some time between jobs to really make some progress on Aphids or my other projects. like finishing explaining bugstuck versions of all castes. maybe answering those asks too. i got some neato fantrolls to post i just spend forever explaining the characters whenever i wanna post. LAMMMEEE. ok bye -kabu

[sineala]

Are there ANY stony/Star Trek AUs?

Okay. Um. I'm just going to assume this is a legitimate question and not actually a way to express frustration about my progress on the sequel I am writing (I stared at this ask for a while), so I will just conclude that you must have missed the Steve/Tony Star Trek AU I wrote, um, back in 2016:

Straight on till Morning (109848 words) by Sineala Chapters: 6/6 Fandom: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Avengers (Comics) Rating: Explicit  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply  Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark  Characters: Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Carol Danvers, Janet Van Dyne, Hank Pym, Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Clint Barton, Donald Blake (Marvel), Jocasta (Marvel)  Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, Action/Adventure, Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pining, Angst, Secret Identity, Identity Porn, Sex Pollen, Fuck Or Die, Caves, Sex In A Cave, Technobabble, Happy Ending, Cap_Ironman Big Bang 2016, Community: cap_ironman, Podfic Available  Summary: 

Tony Stark resigned his commission in Starfleet five years ago, after a disastrous away mission, and he swore he'd never go back. He just wants to be left alone to build warp engines in peace. But the universe has more in store for him than that, as he discovers when Admiral Fury comes to him with an offer he could never have expected and cannot possibly refuse: first officer and chief engineer aboard the all-new USS Avenger, a starship of Tony's own design. What's more, the Avenger's captain is Steve Rogers, hero of the Earth-Romulan War. Believed dead for over a century, Steve is miraculously alive... and very, very attractive. 

But nothing is ever easy for Tony. As he wrestles with his secret desire for his new captain and his not-so-dormant fears, another mission starts to go wrong, and Tony becomes aware that Steve has secrets of his own -- and the truth could change everything.

So, yeah, if you actually haven't read that one, that'll keep you busy for a while. It's a Trek fusion with comics Steve/Tony, set in the era of the later TOS movies. (This is important so that you can picture the correct uniforms, and also because it actually matters that the events of Star Trek II, III, and IV have happened.) It was a Big Bang fic, so it's got some great art by Ran and Phoenix -- embedded in the story -- and also M_Samro made a really amazing podfic of it, if you like podfics.

For a charity auction in 2017, I promised I would write a sequel, and I plotted the whole thing out and started writing this extremely epic sequel, which was unfortunately, about a plague threatening the galaxy, and I got about 120,000 words in and then 2020 happened and I decided I needed to not be writing it right now. So it went on an extended hiatus.

But the good news is that I've actually gotten back to it! I picked it up again last month and I've put 40,000 more words in it since then and at this exact moment I am currently working on the last scene of Chapter 4 (out of six total)! I swear it is happening! I've been putting in about a thousand words a day for the past month! It is really happening this time! The sequel is coming! I promise! I know it has been years but it's happening!

See? It's happening! (I would include a screencap of the part that is happening, but all of Chapter 4 is pretty spoilery.)

So that will exist! Someday! I mean that!

And if you're asking about Steve/Tony Star Trek AUs by people other than me, there are some! If you filter the AU - Star Trek Fusion tag by Steve/Tony, there are 25 matches. Several of them are related to my fic (remixes, art) but there is some stuff that isn't my fault! I haven't read a lot of them because I was trying not to read things that seemed like they might be similar to mine while I was plotting my series here, and also I have never finished watching DS9, so I skipped the DS9 ones.

Under Stars by vulcanscully: A fun fusion that I thought was interesting because Steve is an ensign and that's not how this usually goes.

Discovery of the Century by DepressingGreenie: More 616 in flavor than a lot of the Trek AUs, this is basically Finding Steve In The Ice but Make It Star Trek. As far as I am concerned, Finding Steve In The Ice is great every time.

and so we rebuild by raeldaza: I'm probably biased because this one was inspired by my fic, but I also really enjoyed this one for not being how these things usually go. A lot of Trek AUs in many fandoms are written through a TOS/AOS kind of lens and will often do a Kirk/Spock thing and make one of them a Vulcan or half-Vulcan. In this one that's Tony, but also he's a terrible Vulcan! He's found a new way to disappoint his father!

Stellar Love Affairs by AvengersNewB: I honestly had never imagined a Star Trek fusion that was also A/B/O but I think it really works here! It's like bringing pon farr full circle.

Xenophilia by Captain_Panda: Captain_Panda has several Trek AUs but I am reccing this one because it's the longest. And also the whumpiest. Everyone loves some good away-mission whump!

So there you go! Live long and prosper! I promise I am still writing this Star Trek AU sequel!

[augustghosts]

Stewy Hosseini x female reader

A classic tale of fucking your ex at your friends wedding. We’ve all been there, I think.

Word Count: 3.9k

Warnings: 18+ pls, minors will be blocked! Not proofread which is defo a warning, lmk if you spot anything ive missed. Smut. Oral f!recieving and protected pinv. Alcohol and drugs are mentioned slightly.

Little authors note sorry: Hey everyone i am actually alive lol. 5 months later i return writing for someone new… not out of character for me. I watched succession for the first time recently (late asf to the party i know) and i read some amazing stewy fics so i thought i’d add my piece because i’m obsessed with him. Sorry to all my tommy miller babes on here, i swear i tried writing for him again but my inspiration for tommy fics seems to have gotten lost. I really struggled when i tried finishing my half way done tommy series lol. But when i started writing this one it just floooowed and i finished it in like a few hours. Maybe my tommy love will come back someday but for now…. This. Hope someone out there enjoys lol <3

You’ve felt eyes on you all night. Everywhere you go you end up meeting his eyes across the room. Eveytime you look over at him, he’s already looking. He should be the one that's embarrassed, you’ve caught him looking at you multiple times, but you’re always the one who ends up looking away first and feeling your skin heat with the embarrassment of being caught. While he shamelessly stares at you over the rim of his glass, that awful fucking smirk gracing his lips and he watches you squirm. Honestly, it’s kinda creepy. And you almost hope he approaches you so you can tell him that.

Towards the end of the night he starts to close in, starts inching closer to you. He starts making conversation with the people around you, people at the bar next to you, and eventually your friends. Asking them how they are, how it’s been such a long time. Then, he finally gets to you. He takes his time looking you over before he speaks and you’re determined not to be the first one to talk, so you let him stare. Both of you standing in silence for a few seconds before he finally speaks.

“You look great.”

”Thanks.” Keeping it simple seems safe. You want to tell him he looks good too because fuck, he does. He always does. He notices your eyes drifting over his suit and tie and he chuckles.

“What are you doing?” You ask.

“Uhm,” He trails off - pretends to think. “I’m at a fucking wedding, and i’m enjoying myself.”

”Yeah?” You ask, he nods in agreement. The way his eyebrows raise tells you he’s still being sarcastic, still mocking you. “Watching my every move all night is how you enjoy yourself?”

“Actually, yes.” He confirms. “Watching you squirm all night was pretty fun.”

”I wasn’t.” You attempt to defend yourself, downing your drink. “I was just-“

“I’ll get you another.” He cuts you off, snatching your glass out of your hand - not even bothering to ask. You almost try to protest, but you don’t see the point. You know him too well, you know how stubborn he is, once he gets an idea it’s hard for him to let it go. If the idea he’s got tonight is paying for your drinks, then so be it - who were you to complain. You sit down on the stool next to you, watching as Stewy makes the bartender laugh as he orders your drinks. You're kind of pissed that you still can’t figure him out sometimes, you know him better than most people - maybe better than anyone, but he still confuses you. It has been a while since you last saw him, but you conclude that he hasn’t changed much.

When he comes back with your drinks he puts yours down in front of you and asks: “Still your favorite?”

You nod, kind of pissed that he got it right. You try to convince yourself that he didn’t actually remember that small detail. That he’s just been watching you order them all night during your staring competition.

“So, how’s your family?” You ask, cringing at how lame you sound. You just don’t want to let him start a conversation you don’t want to have.

He smiles, because he knows what you're doing. “They’re fine. I still don’t see them much, but they’re good.”

”You’re still too busy to see your family?” You joke.

“Mhm,” His smile almost looks genuine as you joke with each other. “I’m always busy.”

“Busy stealing people's money?”

He laughs then, a genuine laugh that makes you laugh as well. God, you don’t want to admit that you missed him. But everyone else just seems so boring after him, you’ve never found the same thing you’d had with him with anyone else.

“You never really understood business did you?” He laughs.

“I understand perfectly.”

“Sure,” He agrees. “I explained it to you enough times.”

“Yeah, and bored me to death.”

”Is that why you broke up with me?”

His question completely catches you off guard and you almost choke on your drink. You almost want to ask him if he purposefully said that while you were taking a sip, but you’re too busy trying to supress your coughing.

“Jesus, it was just a question.” Stewy laughs at you again, his warm hand coming to rest on your back as he watches you almost choke.

“Fuck you.” You say pointedly, after getting yourself back under control. ”You know why we broke up. Also, I broke up with you?”

”You did.”

“Stewy, it was amicable.”

“Was it?” His face goes serious again and you instantly miss the sound of his laugh. You just sigh, taking another sip of your drink. This was exactly the conversation you didn’t want to have.

“I thought you said you were enjoying yourself,” You say after a few moments of silence. “Don’t ruin it now.”

”I lied.” He says. “I always hated those two, I can't believe they actually got married.”

”Match made in hell.” You agree, both of you laugh softly again.

“You know I also lied earlier when I said you looked great.” He says, surprising you. You brace yourself for whatever joke he’s going to make about you, you shouldn't have pissed him off, he can get mean when he’s pissed off. It’s not his fault, it’s just his defense mechanism - but nevertheless you brace yourself for his comment - and he surprises you again by saying: “You look fucking incredible.”

You open your mouth to speak, but no words come out. You opt for another sip of your drink instead and he watches you in amusement.

“I only came because I hoped you would be here,” He continued. You still can’t tell if he’s being serious or not, that damned smirk on his face makes you think he’s making fun of you, but those big brown eyes look so sincere.

“Stewy, stop.” You sigh.

“Come on, baby.” He murmurs, he leans forward in his chair and places his hand on your knee. The nickname makes you tense up. Makes a familiar heat spread through you. “Let me get you another drink and take you up to my room.”

Fuck. He’s fucking good at this, and he knows it. He knows exactly how to get you. You’re trying to think, but the alcohol and the way his thumb is rubbing your knee is clouding your mind. He waits patiently, watching as you look down at his hand and back up to his face. Your eyes stop at his lips before meeting his gaze.

“Alright,” You say, you swear you can actually see his eyes light up. “Go get me another drink and show me your room. Then I'll decide.”

“You got it.” He grins and practically jumps out of his seat. When he returns he holds out his hand to help you off your stool, the heels you decided to wear and the drinks weren’t a good match. He hands you your drink, although you don’t really want it now. His hand finds its place on the small of your back and a fire lights up somewhere inside of you. His touch feels so familiar - comforting. He leads you out of the bar and to the elevators. Punching in the right number before the doors close, leaving you both alone in the small space. It suddenly feels too quiet.

You want to touch him, but once again you don’t want to be the one to make the first move. You don't want him to know how desperate you are for him, although you think he already knows. He’s watching you in silence, his eyes dark and wanting. A look you’ve seen a million times before - a look that makes you excited. The elevator ride is short, Stewy isn’t the type to kiss you in an elevator, and you know that, so you’re not disappointed when the doors open and he hasn’t touched you or said a word.

He gestures for you to leave first, putting his hand on the door so they don’t close on you, or him. Some people would find this strange, the silence, but it’s a game you’ve both played with each other before. A game you both enjoy. He guides you to his room with a hand on your back, just like before. When he unlocks the door and opens it for you, you suppress a gasp. As usual, Stewy needs to have the best of the best. The bride and groom's room probably isn’t even this nice. They probably couldn’t afford it - Stewy can.

“Well?” His voice sounds from behind you.

“Hm?”

”What do you think? You said you would decide when you saw the room. Is it good enough for you?”

”Uhm,” You pretend to think as you set your drink down on the dresser, turning around to dramatically inspect the room. It earns a playful eye roll from Stewy. He knows what impresses you and he knows he already has you. He already had you down at the bar.

“I think it’s okay.” You conclude, turning to face him. He hums in sarcastic agreement, looking you up and down. He’s playing the game again, who is going to end it first. Who is going to lose. You don’t like losing, and neither does he. But honestly, haven’t you already lost? He has you in his room for christ sake. He has you standing in front of him, already dripping and all he’s done is touch your leg a little and look at you the right way. So you put aside your pride and step towards him, you bring your hands up to his cheeks and roughly bring his face down to your, finally connecting your lips.

His hands immediately find their home at your hips, pulling you tightly against him. The kiss immediately turns from an innocent kiss to a hungry and passionate one, his tongue dominating your mouth. You both know each other's bodies so well, there's no need for taking it slow or asking questions.

“Fuck, Stewy.” You sigh as he backs you towards the bed, gently setting you down and climbing over you. Kissing every inch of your skin.

“God, I missed that.” He groans, marveling over the way you sigh his name. “I missed you, baby. I can admit it. I want you so badly.”

You moan softly at his words, at the way his lips feel on your neck - at how right this feels. You had missed him too. He catches you off guard when he pulls away to ask, ”Have you been fucking other people?”

“Sorry?” You giggle, “Why are you asking me that now?”

”Have you?” He presses.

“I ju- maybe.” You stutter, already missing his lips.

”Maybe?”

”I know you’ve been fucking as well.” You accuse, suddenly defensive. You push yourself up onto your elbows, despite still being trapped underneath him.

“Yeah, I have.” He says coolly.

“So?” You ask, irritated. Why was he doing this?

“So, none of them were as good as you.” His words earn an eye roll from you. “Nothing can compare to this pussy.” He adds, his hand sliding down to roughly grip your thigh and bring it over his waist. Oh, shit. His half hard cock is pressing perfectly against your pussy in this new position, the material of your dress and his suit pants keeping you apart. “And, i bet none of those guys fucked you the way i do.” One of his hands comes up to grip your chin, his other keeping him above you. He forces you to look him in the eyes as he asks, “Did they?”

“No.” You practically squeak. “None of them were like you. No one is like you, Stewy.”

You’re not even lying, after having sex with Stewy for so long nothing compared. You had gotten accustomed to a man who knew what he was doing, to a man who was generous in bed. You had gotten used to a man who could make you cum. No one had achieved that after him. Your answer obviously pleases him, he grins and leans down to kiss you again.

He ends the kiss and stands up leaving you spread out on the bed, you whine underneath him, chasing for more. He ignores you and slips off his suit jacket. He makes a show of undoing the top button of his shirt and loosening his sleeves in order to push them up to his elbows. Fuck, he looks so good. You almost want to tell him, but you don;t need to. He can see the way you're watching him, that look in your eye. He knows what you look like when you’re turned on - and this is it. He grabs your thighs and pushes your dress up to your waist, getting a good look before sliding your panties down your legs, throwing them over his shoulder somewhere.

“I’m gonna fuck you like you deserve, baby. I know what you need. I can’t wait to taste you.” He rambles as you whimper in anticipation, he presses a kiss to your ankle as he watches you buck your hips.

He has his mouth on you before you can respond. Just as you remember, he is painfully and infuriatingly good at it. He still eats pussy like it's his second nature. He still looks up at you through his gorgeous lashes as he traces your clit with his tongue. He has to hold back from grinning against you as you writhe and whimper. He groans as you sigh his name and run your hand through his hair. You remember how much you love it when he’s like this, when he's animalistic and loses his composure.

Your legs tighten around his head as he digs his fingers into the flesh of your thighs. It’s fucking embarassing how quickly you barrel towards your climax, but it has been a while. And no one else devours you like this, no one else is this good. You should have expected it. He recognizes it immediately, breaking away from you for a second to speak.

“Are you gonna come for me, baby?”

“Yes! Please, Stew.” You moan, your hands grabbing at his hair attempting to push him back down. He smiles wickedly, licking his lips as he watches you.

“God, I love it when you beg for me.” He mumbles before diving back in, allowing you to push his head down and maneuver him.

"Please make me come," you groan, arching your back. “I'm so close, don’t stop.”

And he doesn’t stop, he continues to lap at you and work you though your orgasm as you come against his mouth. His beard delightfully scratches your sensitive skin, leaving behind a delicious burning feeling. He’s painfully hard now, after watching you come and hearing you moan his name. You begin to push at his head when you come down, usually he would tease you a little now, knowing how sensitive you are and make the most of it. But he’s so fucking desprate for you, he has been all night. He’s been dreaming about being inside of you for hours now.

He’s instantly on his feet, undoing his belt and undressing. You follow suit, weakly sitting up - doing the best your legs can do when they feel like jelly, you lift your dress over your head and throw it on the floor with his clothes. He’s climbing back on top of you, kissing you hungrily. His lips and chin are still wet with your juices and you moan into his mouth as you taste yourself on his lips.

“How do you want me?” You ask breathlessly, fully prepared to submit to him- to do whatever he asks.

“Fuck,” He groans at your words, having to pause for a second. “Can you turn over for me?”

You smile, leaning up to kiss him one more time before turning over and crawling to the middle of the bed, pushing yourself up onto your knees and holding yourself up on your elbows, so your back is deliciously arched the way you know he likes. You grin as you hear him groan behind you, his hand petting your ass before he delivers a light slap to it. He steps away from you and you hear the rustling of a condom wrapper, did he have that in his fucking pocket? His words from earlier repeat in your head, ‘I only came because I hoped you would be here.’

“Plese fuck me, Stewy.” You moan softly, knowing exactly what he wants to hear. “I need you.”

”How bad?” He teases. The head of his cock is ever so slightly pressing against your entrance, he’s hardly holding back as he waits for your answer, pushing in slightly.

“So bad,” You sigh, pushing back on him so he slips easily inside of you. You both moan loudly, you love that he’s so loud and shameless in bed. He stays still once he’s bottomed out.

“Yeah?” He says through gritted teeth.

“Yes! Please move. I need to be fucked properly, only you can do it.”

The sound he makes behind you is heavenly, you knew that would work. He pulls out of you before pushing back in slowly. He always does this, he starts slow and then builds up to a bruising pace. All you can do is whimper beneath him and beg for him to fuck you faster. Your pussy sucks him in greedily, his cock pushing against that spongy spot inside of you with every thrust.

“You take me so fucking well. Like you were fucking made for me.” His voice is deep and raw.

”I think I am,” You moan. “You feel so fucking good!”

“Are you gonna come for me again, sweetheart? Gonna soak my cock?”

All you can do is furiously nod your head and moan beneath him, the sounds of your pussy squelching as he fucks you is almost embarassing. You don’t have time to think about it because he’s pulling out of you and gently flipping you over onto your back. He lifts your legs and rests his knees on the bed, throwing your feet over his shoulders and he leans over you. He guides his cock back into you and dives down to kiss you, his tongue pushing past your lips in a messy kiss. You’re both moaning into each other's mouths, not minding when your teeth momentarily clack together.

“Come on gorgeous,” He groans, he’s breathless - pressing kisses to your face between his words. You can tell he’s close too. “Come for me. Squeeze my cock. Let me fucking have it.”

He feels you tighten around him as you come, his name leaving your lips like a fucking prayer. Your hands tightening around his neck, nails digging into his skin.

“Fuck, that’s it. You look so beautiful, baby.” He talks you through it, still fucking you as you come around him.

“Oh my god,” You moan. “Come inside of me, Stewy.”

You know he’s wearing a condom, but the dirty talk is hot. He thinks so too, because that's all it takes for him to come. His head is buried in your neck, his teeth biting into the soft skin under your ear. No doubt leaving a mark, but you’ll worry about that tomorrow. Right now all you can think about is how hot he sounds when he comes, you love that he isn’t quiet, that he isn’t afraid to groan your name into your neck.

He stays still for a second, lifting his head and kissing you - gently this time, before he pulls out. You rest for a minute while he discards the condom. You hear rustling and sniffing while he’s in the bathroom and you almost want to yell out to him - this is why we broke up. But you ignore it, getting up from the bed and breezing past him as he leaves the bathroom. You close the door behind you, taking the hotel robe off the back of the door and cleaning yourself up, doing what you need to do. You wonder if you should shower, but decide you should probably go back to your own room to do that.

When you leave the bathroom he’s sitting in the bed under the covers, the tv remote in his hand. Your dress and underwear have been picked up and folded on the chair beside the bed. It makes you smile, how can someone be so thoughtful but so selfish at the same time. That’s why you broke up, you need to keep reminding yourself.

“So, I guess I'm gonna go back to my own room.” You say as you gather your things. You’re on your way back to the bathroom with your clothes when he speaks up.

“Okay,” He says, respecting your decision. “Why?”

”Why?” You repeat, stopping your tracks. “Don’t you want me to go?”

”No. I want you to watch tv with me.��

”Seriously?” You laugh before you realize he’s being serious.

“Yeah, seriously.” His face is impassive, and hard to read. But you can’t resist those big brown eyes and you drop your clothes back onto the floor and slip into bed with him.

“Hey,” He whines as he looks at your dress. “I picked that up and folded it for you and you just threw it on the floor again.”

“Sorry, how rude of me.” You laugh at the mock pout on his face. You’ve sat pretty far away from him and he eyes the space between you.

“Come here.” He says lifting up his arm so you can cuddle into his side. God, you shouldn’t be doing this, you should have left. But he smells good and this bed is so comfortable.

“Will you stay the night here?” He asks quietly

”I shouldn’t.” You sigh.

“I know.” He agrees.

Of course you end up staying the night, Stewy is very convincing. With his promise of round two and a warm shower in the morning, it’s hard to resist. He also promises an expensive breakfast after the shower, but he says, ‘only if you behave yourself.’ You spend the whole night talking and laughing with him. Not only is he the best fuck you’ve ever had, he’s also the funniest person on earth. He’s got the kindest eyes you’ve ever seen but he’s also the biggest assole you’ve ever met. He’s so confusing, but that night you decide that maybe taking a little more time to try and figure him out won’t be so bad - only time will tell.

[atthebell]

do you have any recommendations/resources to learn spanish?? i've been using busuu for about 104 days now, imo opinion it's actually pretty fun and i like it but i think my main problem with it is that it goes too fast?? it's hard to explain. it's also started to feel kinda repetitive to me. i still love busuu and i'm going to continue with my course, but it'd be nice to also have something else. like, preferably not an app, maybe a textbook or a website or something :D i don't really WHERE to find resources for language learning, despite being bilingual, i never really had to look on the internet to learn the languages i speak now, i picked it up from the people around me you know?

i've also been ''using'' duolingo but tbh, i really hate it. it feels boring to me, everyday it's ''ok what sentence am i going to be forced to write for the 40th time today?'' the single 'square' has 5 lessons and a 'unit' has around 10-8 of those squares and to finish a 'unit' you have to do about 50-45 of those lessons, which is shit because a 'unit' is only going to teach about 3 sentence structures and if you're lucky maybe 5. it's so shit, those greedy fuckers basically made it unusable. i've been using for about 140 days now, every single day i take at least one lesson, and it STILL has not taught me a SINGLE spanish tense. btw, i even had an entire phase where i would finish UNITS in about an hour and a half (1 min or less for every lesson) and still not a single ''pretérito Indefinido'' actual pain 🫠🫠 one day ll delete that app, one day (i guess that's why i like busuu in the first place, it actually teaches you these tenses and even some slang while duolingo makes you write ''papá, quiero visitar a nuestra abuela'' for the 700th time this week)

i want to watch vods and stuff, but tbh, i feel way too embarrassed? like, i don't know enough spanish to really understand them and even when they say basic sentences that i understand, i still have to listen to it multiple times and slow down the clip for me to really get it. the thing with spanish is that i'll understand the meaning of the words being said but i need to take a second or so to really comprehend what they mean together you know? i don't want to have to watch the stream slowed down because that would definitely make me feel stupid 😭 maybe when i have better spanish i'll start watching vods. although i do listen to spanish songs sometimes, it's fun :D

first thing: you don't have to feel embarrassed about needing time to process things/needing to listen to things slowed down. language learning is difficult and there are a lot of obstacles for many people; this is something i do understand and want to stress that i get that it's hard. you are not a bad person or an idiot or whatever for having a hard time understanding things-- you are still learning, and besides that, sometimes hearing things isn't someone's strong suit (it absolutely did not use to be mine, but i've practiced a lot and gotten much better at it. i'm still much much better at reading text in other languages, but it is something you can always improve on). if you need to take extra time to watch things, that is not a personal fault of yours nor does it make you stupid. everyone has different skill sets, and you can always practice to get better.

second thing: my own criticisms of both busuu and duolingo, along with their strengths. duolingo first, because i've used it since like. idk like 2016? not consistently but i've used it far more over the years and i'm very familiar with various changes they've made and the esp, ptbr, and french courses. busuu ive only been using for a few months

to get it out of the way, the recent change to laying off translators and using more AI in lessons. this sucks, obviously, for a myriad of reasons. machine translation cannot match with human translation, and frankly never will be able to. there are vast amounts of nuance and cultural context necessary for translation, along with the fact that an AI led course does not actually hit on all the things someone needs, particularly on a basics/foundational level. and from an ethical standpoint, laying off a ton of human translators because you think you can replace them with inaccurate machine translation sucks and is why so many people have dropped duolingo, myself included.

duolingo also has limitations in terms of format-- it gamifies language learning, which can make it feel more accessible to people and makes people want to open it and practice every day. however, most people use duolingo to do one lesson once a day and that's it. they're not getting in practice from lessons previously completed, they're not drilling vocab or conjugations, they're not actually maintaining or even remembering what they've already learned. obviously there are people (like myself, when i still used the app) who practice far more than that and continue to drill previous lessons, but that's not the majority, and it's not incentivized by the app. the paywalling of completing certain lessons and being able to drill error words also sucks for this reason. basically duolingo is not an ideal setup for actually maintaining knowledge once you go through it the first time and also the way the courses are laid out just. does not, imo, actually make sense. they rarely actually explain what they're trying to teach you and they don't get into enough detail on most concepts. and there is no incentive to review, which is hugely important. not an ideal situation for language learning, especially on its own.

my pros for duolingo: it gets you to practice daily. this is honestly what i use busuu for at this point-- when i get a notif for it, i open it up and flick through a lesson, but i also pull out a textbook or two to look at things there and practice stuff. if whipping out duolingo every day helps you practice a language, that is, at bare minimum, something. preferably you should be studying for at least 15min if not up to an hour or more of a language a day in order to really pick things up and maintain them; you can absolutely use duolingo or busuu for that (busuu i think is far less well formatted and oftentimes the lessons are very specific vocab, at least in the later courses).

for busuu, my issues are like. it's a poorly made imitation of duolingo, aside from a few things. the community aspect is something i REALLY like-- being able to send an exercise to a native speaker and get feedback on what to work on is great, especially with how it's a short answer question that lets you form your own sentences and try out vocab in context. that's a wonderful feature, and i really think it gets at something duolingo is completely missing.

but yeah like i said in terms of the lessons, busuu has very strange ways of teaching things. firstly, it's usually super specific topics and vocab that aren't paired with anything conceptually that helps you progress. usually in a language course, it's best to pair a concept you're working on with either relevant vocab or something that can be used to talk about similar subjects/in similar ways (for instance, subjunctive with food/restaurant vocab, so that you can build sentences both with the new vocab and using the new verbal form in ways that make sense, i.e. "I'll have whatever she's having, If I were to order the pasta, I would get a salad too," "If I were richer, I would always order filet mignon" (side note subjunctive is very difficult for eng speakers so idk if these examples actually make sense 😭))

also busuu will repeatedly teach me something phrased one way or with a certain word and then mark me wrong and insist i use a completely different word/phrase. i cannot figure out why it keeps doing this it's very frustrating. and it has recently been teaching me some european portuguese which is not what the course is supposed to be so i'm just baffled by what's going on there.

another positive for busuu, at least in contrast to duolingo, is it teaches you the vocab and phrases before quizzing you on them, which duolingo does not do. this is like a positive and also an "eh, idk" because i get why duolingo does that-- it's trying to throw you into using surrounding context to figure out what a word means, and that's a very good way to practice, but i think it doesn't necessarily achieve it well and sometimes will just spring random words on you without enough context for you to know what it's referring to without just clicking on the word anyway.

also neither app are good at teaching you verb conjugation or tenses which is really unfortunate for spanish and portuguese in particular, as they're both languages where verbs are really really key AND where understanding tenses and their names are important, particularly for native eng speakers who never got taught tense names or like. any terminology for languages in english 🙃

also here is a thing i wrote up complaining about duolingo & verbs ages ago: Duolingo does not teach you things explicitly. It expects you to pick them up in a semi-immersive style, which works okay most of the time for most people but for many people makes actually learning and understanding parts of a language very difficult. For instance, it won't teach you the exact difference in usage between ser and estar, in Spanish or Portuguese. This difference is something I spent weeks on in Spanish class in high school and continued to review the rest of my time learning Spanish in an academic setting-- it is a key element of two of the most important words in the language. Duolingo also doesn't explain stem changes or irregular verbs and their typical endings-- it simply expects you to pick these up and memorize them through sentence usage. Basically it's very obvious Duolingo was created by english speakers who were never taught key elements of their own language (this is not a dig on their personal fault; i was also never taught any of this shit about english) and don't know how to go about teaching a language, and the limited format doesn't help.

third thing, finally getting to what you actually asked: there are a lot of resources for learning spanish online! i'm not as familiar with them as i'd like, as i learned spanish in an academic setting, but i'll do my best to list some things out and anyone else can feel free to add on. i've been meaning to make a language learning advice post for literally ages and i guess this is going to become it lmao.

here is a video explaining how to make duolingo work for you along with other resources: A Linguist explains how to make duolingo actually work (tl;dr pair duolingo with conversation partners, textbook work, listening to music, watching movies, etc. etc.)

i've tagged this with my language learning tag, which has a bunch of resources including some specifically for learning spanish.

tumblr user salvador bonaparte has a drive of free textbooks you can check out here, including a ton of spanish resources. i also recommend looking around the internet/specifically linguistics tumblr to find more resources as well as looking at used bookstores/amazon/etc. for spanish textbooks to use, as that will provide a more thorough foundation along with other programs/types of learning.

i've never used babbel or any other online program like it, but spanish tends to be one of the more resource-heavy languages because it's so widely spoken, so typically spanish programs on various apps/sites are REALLY thorough (duolingo's spanish program is by far their best course, with a ton more resources than most other programs. you can go up to the equivalent of at least c2 on there i believe, versus many other languages where they don't even list the CEFR levels)

finally, the not-so-online answer: if you're in college/have a nearby community/junior college, consider taking spanish classes there! this option probably costs the most out of any others, but i genuinely think an academic setting is the a great way to learn a language for many people. if you're not one of them, that is totally fine, but an actual spanish course at a college is likely to be the most thorough way to learn the language. also many CCs/JCs offer spanish classes online, so if you can't drive or for whatever reason can't go to in-person courses, you'll likely still have options.

this is everything i can think of right now but i also want to add once again that learning a language is difficult!!! i know that, and i know that i complain a lot about monolinguals, but i am specifically complaining about people who refuse to engage respectfully with languages that are not their own and dismiss anything they don't understand as being stupid/not worth their time/culturally worthless. i am not complaining about people like you, who are trying really hard to engage with non-english content AND are trying really hard to learn another language.

i also think learning languages is one of the most incredible experiences there are and that expanding the kinds of cultural and social boundaries that you engage with is a really important facet of humanity that i wish more people would participate in. i get riled up because this is something i'm really truly passionate about, not because i think anyone is stupid or whatever for not learning. i want people to just try it and give it a chance, even if it's hard for them, and i'm glad that you are trying, anon. <333

[gothicflowers]

Alex Keller X GN!Reader

Field of Flowers

Warnings: Fluff.

“We’ve been inseparable for almost eight years. For some reason I just assumed I’d always have you around. I don’t wanna face that reality but I have to now. Saying goodbye completely ends the story.”

“New chapters mean you get to keep on writing the story. Why would it make you scared?”

“I’m terrified honestly. I want a life outside of all this, to be able to lay in a field of flowers and rest.” Motioning to your ballistics vest and the gun on his hip. “But ive been doing this for so long it’s almost like I have to completely hit reset on my life. I can’t tell anybody about any of this. About what I’ve done, the places I’ve seen. Hell, I can’t even tell them about you. It all dies with me.”

Over all these years with Alex you never told him your feelings. Too afraid to lose the only person who’s stuck by your side. Every mission, every wound, every sunrise and sunset he was with you. Learning to live without him was going to be hard. It was going to be even harder trying to start the life you envisioned without him.

Alex leaned against the hummer next to you trying to find the words to say. He hated that you were leaving. But he couldn’t ask you to stay with him. Not when he just abandoned the CIA for farahs army. But he loves you too much to tell you his feelings. He wants you to be happy, not to go to bed wondering if he’s ok or when he’ll return to you.

“I hope you find peace and get everything you want out of this lifetime. You deserve it.” His words felt heavy leaving his chest. “How about instead of goodbye, I’ll see you around.”

Tears welled up in your eyes. Biting your lip to try and stop a choked sob from leaving your lips. Nodding and looking at the sunset. “I’ll see you around Alex.” You look up at him, just as pretty as the day you first met. Only couple more scars and some lines around his eyes changed him. His eyes still sparkled when they looked into yours. A single tear falls down from your eyes taking in the sight of the man you’ll never see again.

His hand comes to rest on the nape of your neck as the other wipes away the single tear. Pressing a kiss to your forehead he takes in this final moment. His forehead rests against yours knowing he has to let go now or he won’t let you go. “I’ll see you around.”

And he’s gone. Gone from your life. You’re left watching the sun disappear over the mountains wondering why it is to be like this.

It’s been a little over three years since that day. You opened up that company you always told Alex about. Got a car and even purchased a home. Everything on paper looked like you had become quite successful. Your family was excited to have you home. But with all good things considered it didn’t feel how you thought it would.

The house was quiet. Making friends in your late twenties proved to be difficult. And every date you went on couldn’t compare to the man you left in a war zone. You thought about him often. Was he doing well? Was he making sure to eat enough? Was there someone that could cut his hair as well as you could? And the scariest thought, was he still alive?

Your dreams were fleeting with memories of your time together and the battles fought. Often times waking you in the night too scared to fall back asleep. Even though you were happy to be away from it all you still thought about it, if you hadn’t left. Stayed and told him that you loved him. Or should you have just told him before you left. At least then you’d have had an answer of some sort. Never to be left wondering like you still do. The waves of regret consumed you from time to time.

Today was a slow day, as most Mondays are for your company so it was just you today. You sat behind your computer finishing up this months paperwork. The front door bell chimed upon someone entering. Since it was just you, you headed to the front to greet the customer.

“Hello, how can I-“ you stopped dead in your tracks in disbelief when your eyes noticed the man standing there. Soft eyes, strong arms, and a smile like no other.

“Hi” he could barely make out that single word. Just seeing you took the breath out of his lungs. “I said I’ll see you later, not goodbye.” His mustache covered lips turned up into a smirk.

You run up to him wrapping your arms around his neck in a hug. His warm embrace welcoming you into his arms. His arms wrapped around you felt more like home than anything has the past three years.

“I can’t believe you’re here” your hands cup his face, thumbs caressing his cheeks “What are you doing here?”

“Laswell got my name cleared, thought about lying in a field of flowers like you said.” His arms still wrapped around you not wanting to let go. “And there was something I didn’t tell you before you left, I’m hoping I’m not too late.”

“What didn’t you tell me.” Your arms unraveled and your hands rest on his strong chest. You could feel his heart beating fast.

Taking a deep breath he looks deep into you. “That I’ve been in love with you since the moment I met you.”

Your voice weakened with the joy of hearing his confession. “I wanted to tell you I loved you before I left but I was scared you didn’t love me back.”

Alex looked down at you with a look you had seen glimpses of but never fully. It was love, joy, excitement and more passion than anyone had ever looked at you with in your lifetime.

Without words you both embraced in a passionate kiss making up for all the lost years. His hands pulling your hips into him closer desperately wanting to keep you close. Your hands traveling from his chest to his neck. Clinging to each other fearing separation. After what felt like eternity your lips departed one another.

“So since the moment you met me?” How could you have not seen? Was that truly what all those intense moments of eye contact meant? The fighting over each other going into something far too dangerous. Love?

His bright goofy smile was uncontrollable “Yeah”

You couldn’t help but laugh recalling that exact moment in time. “Alex I had a gun to your head because Laswell didn’t tell me I was gonna have a partner that mission. I was seconds away from killing you”

“Can’t lie it was definitely intimidating, but oddly attractive.” He smirked knowing it was the honest truth.

You give his chest a light hit at his comment “Shut up and kiss me again.”

“Yes ma’am.”

[seasaltdevotion]

i want to learn about hellenistic polytheism but i dont even know where to start. could you please give me a base? i know about gods deities n such, i know ill need to make offerings and id like to pray to the god(s) ill worship but i feel like im about to jump in the middle of the ocean without knowing how to swim so please help

Ofc!

Ive only been practicing for a few months but i can give my two sense.

A really great video series id reccomend for some more veteran help is Hellenism 101 from Fel the Blythe’s YouTube channel! I’ll like it for you here. Shes how I got started on everything.

Prayer

First thing I’d recommend is prayer! Since it’s the easiest form of devotion/communication.

Usually you start by mentioning Hestia, Goddess of the hearth who also allows us to communicate with the gods. So I tend to start by saying “to Hestia, the first and last I pray, I thank you.” And then i start praying to the gods I worship.

This can be you just thanking them for being there or for whatever they rule over. For example I might thank Apollon for my health, the sunshine etc. When you finish you thank Hestia the first and last again and then boom, you’ve prayed!

You don’t have to be formal in your prayers or you can be super formal, the gods won’t mind either way as long as you’re polite. And just by praying you’ve started to build Kharis, which is your relationship with the gods.

Kharis

You build Kharis by praying, offerings, and by dedicating things you do to the gods, for example I will just, in my mind, tell the gods that the food I eat is for them, and that counts as an offering. Or again; Apollo as an example, you can listen to music and dedicate that time to him, or for Hermes maybe you could go on a walk or write a letter to someone or even the gods themselves.

Building Kharis all comes down to setting the intention of giving to the gods, and in return they give back. You don’t even need to do physical offerings to worship. But if you’d like to, it’s good to research your gods for ideas on what you could give them. And don’t worry about not praying enough/offering enough etc. not everyone can pray every hour of the day or offer a million offerings a week, all that matters is you’re doing what’s best for you.

Other basics

- Divination is not required, you don’t need tarot a pendulum or any of that fancy stuff!

- We don’t really have sins in Hellenism!

However, on that note, it’s also good to cleanse before approaching the gods, washing off something called Lyma or general negativity that kind of builds up on the day to day. It just happens.

And how you cleanse?

You wash your hands and/or your face. Or even shower! As long as you’re clean then you’re pretty set.

- Xenia

Xenia is hospitality, which is a major benchmark in Hellenism. It’s what the religion is really based on. Basically, love thy neighbor sort of thing. Just be kind and courteous to those who are in your home and welcome those in need no matter who they are.

- What if I want to worship two gods who dislike each other in mythology?

Don’t worry about it. You can always pray to them and preface it before hand, but the gods know this is a polytheistic religion. They know you’re going to worship more than one and may end up praying to one more than the other. We’re human, and they understand that.

They won’t be mad at you for having multiple gods or prioritizing one over another at a certain time.

So what now?

I’ve thrown a lot at you, so where do we go from here?

Take your time.

Research, research, research.

Understand the gods you’d like to pray to, know their myths, read literature surrounding them.

I cannot say this enough but Theoi.com is a great resource for learning about the gods. Find any sort of book you can get your hands on. And take your time. I can’t stress that enough. Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed by offerings and things.

If all you can do to stay is pray? Then pray! Or even just talk to them. Just sit and tell them gods about your day either mentally or verbally, just talk to them.

Do what’s easiest and best for you and only move on when you can.

If you need help along the way, I’m always willing and there are plenty of other Hellenic polytheists who are willing to help! Everyone also has different practices and beliefs, so what I say may be different from someone else. Plus I’m still learning myself so there’s always things that I can improve on myself!

I’m so glad you reached out and I hope you enjoy the ride!!

[sechsviciado]

when doves cry

reaperken/touka ; written circa nov/dec 2022

no warnings or ratings really?

-

so after my slight reaperken/touka rambling yesterday i figured that i really have nothing to lose from posting this small snippet of a fic (oneshot??) thats been sitting in my google drafts for nearly the past two years; if this is crappy i can always just delete it but ive wanted to contribute a bit more to keep tokyo ghoul tumblr alive so i figure why not?

i felt so smart when i came up with the title since ken was a dove during that entire reaper arc until the events of cochlea. i didnt really pay attention to prince's lyrics in the song but looking back at it now i guess some apply? not really any inspiration was gained from it though, i just grew up with music from the 60s-90s so the title kind of came to my mind and it happened to be a prince reference. not really any ratings or warnings yet?? its nowhere near finished and im not sure if ill even finish it because i feel my writing heavily lacks.

anyway, without further ado

how many months had it been?

it had been months — years — since he recalled feeling this exact way. of course, haise had felt this way too, but it would never compare to the feelings he had for her before that brief period of time where he had lost recognition of everything and everyone who once meant something to him. ironically, it's when he felt most at peace with the butterflies in his stomach, beating against his rib cage and the cage surrounding the longing which could never be released. he’s regained his memories now, but he knew something was different within him even when he laid his glassy eyes on her again on that first visit to :re as sasaki haise. why did he feel so entrapped and yet so wrongly distant even when he had no recollection of her prior on that first visit to the cafe?

it would never be the same.

it would never compare to the feeling of falling in love with her and the realization that came with it. the realization that left him in a state of both a mix of surprise and agitation for days and with a feeling that could only be described as his heart skipping a beat and yet crumbling at the same time. it would never happen, would it? he had chosen to face that reality when he was still his old self, naive and too ashamed of his actions to actually face her after all the pain he caused her as a result of the pain which engulfed his entire life, too. too ashamed to accept his new reality, hiding behind his eyepatch — too ashamed to admit he had fallen in love so easily. he wasn't any different now.

haise may have fallen in love with her through the lens of a reborn figure with a fresh start and no boundaries to stand behind (apart from his obvious shyness and the weird sense of familiarity), but it just occurred by fate. the same fate that had snatched him from her years prior had found a way to bring him back into her arms and make him belong to her once again. he can't help but believe that maybe there was some future destined between them; the embittered part of his heart and soul makes him realize even that destiny would probably be cursed or filled with further strife.

though he supposed that didn't matter now.

not when he was even more distant from her than when he was an amnesiac with no recollection of her apart from the same old feeling of confusing comfort and longing. it's humorous and yet painful to think about how low he'd fallen in this aspect, not even being able to face her once again. despite his older age, he was still just a boy when it came to this same ancient rush, wasn't he? it doesn't matter. she surely didn't want anything to do with him anyways, especially not after everything that he's done. he's betrayed her and everyone who was once a part of him once again, and he’s chosen to accept that painful reality ever since he vowed to stop dreaming and flung tsukiyama off that building. facades all break down eventually.

though he supposed that didn't matter now, either.

he’d be disposed of soon enough before any of this could matter at all — before hinami was to be the one to disappear from the purgatory that was life as a ghoul. there was no heaven and there was no hell; there was no afterlife. heaven was bliss and safety on earth while hell was anguish and pain.

it was selfish of him to hope touka would feel any sort of pain after all of the grief and rage he's put her through time and time again, but he hoped he'd at least be remembered by the person he felt he loved most in this lifetime — the one who hadn't thrown him aside but who had instead built a nest for him as if though her life depended on it. he can't help but wonder… he’s had everyone he's ever known and cared for snatched from his hands by the same twisted fate that led him to await his upcoming death, he doesn't know if the puddle of both coldness and warmth in his stomach is either fear or love.

he'd truly cherish any memory he had of her before he’d be killed.

he vaguely remembers telling her, years ago, that he'd be sad if she died; he just hopes she would be saddened at his death, too.

[commander-rahrah]

Talking to the Moon: Part VI

Pairing: Astarion x GN!Reader Word Count: ~4800 Warnings: slightly suggestive, swearing, blood, non-con touching (Cazador touching reader), some borrowed in game dialogue, canonical warnings apply!

archiveofourown: here

masterlist: here

part I: here part II: here part III: here part IV: here part V: here

Summary: Set in Act III, after you arrive in Baldur's Gate and have met some of Astarion's siblings but not yet confronted Cazador. Astarion struggles with inner turmoil as he is suddenly thrusted back into the clutches of his old master's influence.

Notes: Long time no update! Long story short December was the month where everything was bad and everything hurt - ER hospital visits and many, many days laying in bed and on the couch very unmotivated and just wanting to feel better! I am very grateful to be feeling better and up to writing as my fics is one of my favorite creative outlets! So thank you for being patient between updates! I really appreciate it and any kind of interaction like a reblog, like or comment truly makes my friggin' day!

So this update and the next chapter will be focused on confronting Cazador! I have had these thoughts and ideas to add more to the in-game scenes since the very first time I played it! I was doing a multiplayer save with my fiancé and the second we finished Astarion's quest (I sobbed the entire time btw) I stayed up all night writing all my thoughts onto my notes app. I didn't even intend to write into a fic back then, I just wanted the outlet of writing it all down to help with how emotional I was feeling about it all! And now a few months later, I have a fic with over 30k words. Aha... whoops!

Anyways, I really hope you enjoy this update and the slight changes and add-ons I've added to this final part of Astarion's quest. I honestly teared up writing parts of it, because Astarion and his and my Tav's story means so much to me, I couldn't help it. ALSO, I don't plan on these being the last updates since it is the "end" of Astarion's quests. I still have plans for this Tav/Reader and Astarion yet. Not enough kissing and happiness had happened yet!! Just some angst and pain has to happen first.

As always, reblogs and comments are very very appreciated ♡♡♡

·:¨༺ ༻¨:·..·:¨༺ ༻¨:·..·:¨༺ ༻¨:·..·:¨༺ ༻¨:·..·:¨༺ ༻¨

You had wandered the streets of Baldur’s Gate before. Long before the nautiloid, in your time living in the city you had explored as much of the exciting city as you could. But never like this.

Your party had taken every cobblestone street, every back alley and shortcut. Astarion lead the way for most of them, pointing things out and sharing antidotes with you.

But you noticed how his smile strained at times, that he was wearing down the stitches on his leather pants from his fingers picking them nervously. At night when you slept side by side you’d wake to him trembling and muttering through a nightmare, which had become more frequent since you stepped into the city boundaries.

The vampire has been so sure of the next step in the Shadowlands and Wyrm’s Crossing. But now anytime you neared the streets leading to Cazador’s castle, he was turning on his heel and looking at one of your companions to ask what they needed to do instead.

Meeting his siblings days ago had been eye-opening. You thought you understood what he had gone through, that the memories he had described to you, and even shown you through the tadpoles, was enough. But after seeing how controlled and manipulated Petras and Dalyria had been… What they were being forced to do…You couldn’t bring yourself to picture Astarion like that.

You couldn’t imagine the turmoil and anguish going through your lover — seeing his siblings, being in the city again in a way he never thought he would, being so close to seizing power that could change his fate forever. You hadn’t voiced that every time he mentioned taking the ritual for himself fear stabbed in your belly. You knew what was motivating him to even consider the choice — outright fear and the call of power that was easily addicting. But too many things in his life has been decided for him… so you didn’t voice that to him, instead insisting that you only needed for him to be safe and happy. You trusted him to make the right choice.

You did trust him. You loved him.

And you showed him as such — throughout the day as you laced your fingers through his, as you rolled your neck for him to feed, as you curled into each other to sleep.

And he had been returning that trust and love back.

He had continued to expand his boundaries with you, slowly but surely as the days went on. Your quiet time together after a long day, you were a reprieve he sought out over and over. You whispered and giggled with each other between kisses in your shared bed in the Elfsong Tavern — tucked into the corner and hidden behind privacy screens. Privacy screens that Karlach had loudly dragged over before giving you both a very unsubtle wink. Then she did the same for her and Shadowheart.

The teasing had been relentless.

You still hadn’t taken those final steps, and you were in no rush too. Astarion’s happiness and agency was the most important to you, always. Yet, you couldn’t help the way your heart thundered and breath got higher as he slowly explored any kind of touch and intimacy with you again.

You were laid together now, draped across each other — you only in your night clothes and Astarion in very thin linen pants. You were pressed gently on top of him, your voice and lips whispering across his pale skin as he pointed his fingertip to various parts of his body. His new game he had started that night — seemingly convinced that he would find a part of himself that you did not love.

Utterly impossible — but you indulged him anyways.

“Even this? You like this?” He pointed to his knobby elbow.

"Hmm,” You hummed approvingly, pressing a gentle peck to the bare, taut skin of his bent joint.

His low laughter rumbled through both of you, shaking you slightly. “I’m running out of ideas.”

You eyed him greedily, “I’m not. You’ve missed some of your best parts.”

“Have I?” He cocked a brow, a smirk spreading across his face. “Alright, go on then.”

“I can—?”

“Mhmm,” He nodded his head against the silk pillow, settling himself deeper into the mattress under your weight.

Swallowing, you took him in underneath you and felt your mind start whirring. Slow, patient, soft — you reminded yourself. You gently touched his jawline, the tip of your finger following the strong line. “Here.”

Then your forefinger and thumb rubbed the cartilage on the tops of his ears, “Here.” His mouth fell open deliciously with that one.

“Here,” You caressed the mole on his cheek with a swipe of your thumb.

You continued your movements, so drawn into him that you didn’t notice his red eyes blazing as they flickered between watching your hand and watching your face.

Your fingers gracefully dragged across him. His Adam’s apple. His knuckles. Collarbone. Inner wrist.

“I told you, there is no part of you that I do not like. Every inch of you I want to—“ You cut yourself off. Perhaps that was too much. This was a fun, teasing game — exploratory and gentle. You hadn’t meant to make it about your own desire and arousal.

He swallowed, his mouth hanging open slightly, “You want to what?”

You let out a fake cough, lifting yourself off of him slightly with a blush crossing your cheeks. “Well, I—“

A grin spread across his face, “Oh, I love it when you get all coy.” He purred, pulling you back before you could fully get away. “Tell me, please.” He whispered.

“There isn’t an inch of you that I don’t wish to kiss. To taste.” You admitted huskily, the heat on your face spreading to your neck.

The groan that escaped him made the fire in your belly sputter even hotter.

“Show me?” He asked softly, but his tone was slightly more sultry than before.

“Sho—show you?”

He nodded before fidgeting under you to display himself more — stretching out his neck, spreading his arms out.

“May I—“

“Darling,” He said the pet name a tad exasperated as his slowly closing eyes snapped to yours. “This was my idea. You don’t have to ask every time.”

“Yes, I do.” You insisted.

He rolled his eyes playfully, shaking his soft curls, “Really—“

But you cut him off. “Astarion, I do. I will continue to. It’s important to me. I never want you to do something you don’t want. I never want to make you feel like that with me.”

“You haven’t. I know you wouldn’t.” He trailed his pale fingers through the hair hanging in front of your face as you hovered over him. He tucked it behind your ear.

“I know it seems like a silly question, especially between us but I want you to know you can—“

It was his turn to cut you off, silencing you with a reassuring kiss. He was looking at you with astonishment when you finally opened your eyes from the deep kiss. “What ever did I do to deserve you my lovely moon?”

You smiled tenderly down at him, “Perhaps it was fate.”

“Hmm," His red eyes blinked slowly, "I used to despise that sentiment.”

“And now?”

Astarion gave you one of the most tender smiles you'd ever seen. “I think you might be right.” He ran his fingers gently down your cheek before letting out a dramatic puff. “Now, stop turning me into a sappy lovesick fool and kiss me already.” He growled playfully.

"As you wish, love." You mumbled as you pressed your lips to his.

• • •

You woke with a stir, the weight of the mattress shifting suddenly and then the sound of scuffling feet. Astarion was standing in front of the bed — in front of you defensively, still only in his night pants with his bare chest rising and falling quickly. A dagger was closed in his fist, aimed in front of him of threateningly. “Stop right where you are.” His voice was commanding like it had never been before, but you could still hear a twinge of uncertainty in it.

“You know why we’re here, brother.” A low, masculine voice said — seemingly coming from the dark shadows in the corners of the large suite.

Astarion's stance grew wider, his grip on his dagger tightening until his already pale knuckles turned white. “Come any closer to us and it will be the last thing you do.”

Peering over your lover's figure, you found four pairs of glowing red eyes studying you intently. The hairs on the back of your neck and arms started to stand up.

"I mean it - get the hells away from us!" Astarion growled again, his hand blinding reaching back for you. You laced your fingers through his and a protection spell was on your lips seconds later, muttered quietly until you felt the magical aura surround him.

The rest of your companions were up on their feet after Astarion's shout, pushing in towards your bed, edging around it in a protective semi-circle. Most of them were scantily clad in only undergarments and nightclothes - but all of them had their hands glowing with magic or weapons drawn. Fury was etched on every one of their faces from the intrusion and threat.

One of the female vampires eyed the rest of your group, counting and calculating. Then she raised her hands up, "We come in peace, brother."

"You call this peace, Aurelia?" He frowned at her. Your grip on him tightened as you stood up and tried to go to his side, but he stepped in front of you protectively once again.

A male stepped forward slightly, his mouth and eyes ruby red with deep scars carved over his skin, trailing down his chin. It was a terrifying sight. But his voice did not match his appearance, and instead was laced with desperation and hope. "The master needs all seven us for the ceremony. Come with us and be reborn. We'll live again."

The suite remained deadly silent. Like you all were waiting to see who would make the first move, who would let loose a spell or swing a blade first.

But it was your meek voice that broke the silence, "How did you find us?"

Their red eyes snapped instantly to you, but it was one of his sister's who spoke. "Master Cazador has known where Astarion was this entire time — where both of you were. He has been watching carefully since you arrived in the city."

"You know what our master will do to them.” His scarred brother warned, nodding his head towards you. His eyes almost looked... sad.

“He won’t get the chance, Leon.” Astarion snarled back.

Leon raised his hands defensively, "We aren't here for them. We are here about the rite. The master needs you. You must attend."

Astarion scoffed, "Oh, I am well aware of what the master needs. But don't we all deserve better?" His features were contorted in a strange mixture of emotion. "After these centuries of torment, I know what you all want. More then power. More than to walk in the sun. You want to see him dead."

The desire for revenge, for Cazador's death, did not surprise you. He had said as much, and bluntly too. You had agreed that Cazador deserved such a fate after the years of abuse and exploitation he had forced upon Astarion.

"If you think I will be a willing sacrifice for him and his deranged ritual, you really are stupidly blinded by him."

"Sacrifice?" Aurelia stepped forward, shaking her head. "No, this is our way to cheat undeath."

"Is that the lie he told you?" He sneered.

"I-"

Astarion's lips curled up, "You're all fools. You think he cares about us? You think he will grant us such power? We are nothing but pawns to be slaughtered for the king — one final, grand maneuver so he can win the game."

His four siblings shook with disbelief. "The master doesn't need to lie to us. He controls us, fully. Why go through the trouble of giving us hope..."

Leon got there first, his face crumbling. "Because its more cruel... shit."

The vampires exchanged a look — a look between siblings that you knew well. One that you had shared with your own brother many times. A silent conversation had happened between them in an instant.

"That manipulative bastard." The other female finally spoke, her words a hiss between her fanged teeth.

"How did we not see this?"

Leon squared his shoulders, moving his red eyes to look back at his free brother. "Astarion is right... because we are blind fools."

"We must go before he compels us too— agghhh." Aurelia grabbed her head, her expression one of excruciating pain. "Aggghhhhh!"

"Take her." Leon commanded the other siblings who looped their arms around her, dragging her away as she fought them. But he lingered behind them for a moment, stopping to look over his shoulder and study the pair of you. To look at the rest of your companions surrounding you defensively. "Help us, brother." His voice was a whispered plea, his terrifying, red eyes wide and shining. Then with a loud crack and a sudden puff of red, they were gone.

A collective sigh escaped your party as they disappeared, spells extinguished and weapons dropped down to their sides before they turned to face both of you.

Astarion’s shoulders sagged as he realized his family had indeed left. He all but collapsed into your side, burying his face into the crook of your neck as you held him back. Really, as you held him up.

You stroked his hair as he murmured into your shoulder, “Tomorrow. This ends tomorrow.”

“Okay, my love. We’ll be with you the whole way.” You whispered into his pointed ear, returning the concerned expression of your companions watching as your hold on Astarion tightened a bit more.

• • •

Whatever you do... I just don't want to die down here.

Sebastian’s voice was echoing in his ears, his mind, and creeping down into parts of him he had just barely started to recognize again. Parts of him that a few months ago he had deemed long dead. He had to force his pink lips into a firm line just to stop them from trembling. 

This place, his so-called home was his personal hell. Every step through the fading carpets and ostentatiously decorated rooms had gotten harder and harder — until he had started to feel physically ill. Bile was rising in his throat, his back and palms of his hands turning clammy. And now, standing in the secret, buried crypt beneath — it felt like the castle above him was pressing down, screaming at him of what a luxury it had been that he was a prisoner up there and not down here. That voice in his head, that ringing, echoing voice. Gods, he wished it would stop. 

And you... you had been so uncommonly quiet. You who had lent him your strength since the moment he met you, you and your presence a steady reassurance that he had come to depend on. But his little moon who was usually so chatty and poetic, was so quiet. Your eyes were wide as you followed him through Cazador’s castle, your steps clumsy and dazed like he wasn't the only one walking through this twisted nightmare. Perhaps it was for you — realizing the realities of what he had been through.

When Astarion's composure had really started to shake, you snapped back to reality and were with him in an instant. Your warm fingers threading through his icy ones. Your voice, your soft, hushed voice using the smallest amount of words to try and put his cruel mind at ease. The words you had used were choice, but powerful. You insisted that all of this was Cazador's cruelty — not his. 

But how could he believe that as he stood in front of the cells filled with people he had brought his master? How could he deny the role he played in all of this when he could stare into the eyes of all of those victims — the stupid, innocent fools who in a fleeting moment fell for him. 

Especially when he realized how fortunate, how damn lucky, it was that he never stumbled on you on the streets of Baldur’s Gate the past year you'd lived in the city. 

Astarion stood before the precipice of Cazador’s ritual room. The grand doors that would lead to these final moments just a few steps away from him.

The fine outfit he picked for himself suddenly felt unbearably tight and itchy. The lacy neck scratching and digging into his skin, his leather shoes too restricting. He had wanted to use the clothes as a symbol to his old master — look how well I’ve done without you, look who I’ve become without you. His hands became fists at his sides, his knuckles white and half moons appearing on the soft skin of his palms as he squeezed tighter and tighter. The only way to stop them from trembling — with both fear and rage. 

“I'm here for you, love.” You whispered gently, your warm fingers ghosting the sides of his wrists as you stepped in beside him. His fists unclenched slightly as he breathed in your familiar scent, as he savored the soft caress of your skin on his. He pushed down the building sob climbing up through his chest, the urgency of the cry growing as he felt your presence surround him. "Just... remember who you are, Astarion." 

Who was he? It felt even blurrier in this sadistic crypt under the castle he used to call home. Though it never was one. A prison, that's what it was. 

And what version of him did you see? Could he really be what you thought you saw? What you thought he could be?

Astarion had left Baldur's Gate against his will — a tormented, violent, broken thing. A puppet. A slave. He thought he had returned to this city anew — a free male, softer around the edges but no longer a thing to be used. His own person.

Yet the second he felt the influence of Cazador's control, the moment he felt that familiar threat he felt as if he was falling backwards. Being backed into a corner, corralled into the cage and slapped into chains that he had rotted away in for two hundred years. 

He would not go back. 

A shudder went through him as he tried to compose himself once more, taking a deep breath that he knew he did not truly need. Looking sideways at you, he gave you a final nod. "I'm ready for this to be over." 

Something flashed in your eyes, but it was gone as fast as it appeared. You nodded, before following him through the grand doors with the rest of your companions trailing behind. 

The descent down those stairs was brutal. Time seemed to drag to such a slow that it was almost like the scene before them was frozen in time. Astarion could recognize the familiar silhouette of his master anywhere. It had haunted him long enough that he had memorized every harsh line and angle. He loosed a breath as he counted six figures bound and hovering by some form of magic — a seventh spot on the top center left open and waiting.

For him. 

"Could it be?!" The voice that plagued his thoughts, his nightmares and memories echoed throughout the large chamber. It sent hundreds of different feelings throughout his body, his flesh getting goosebumps and steps faltering for a moment on the stone stairs.

"Our prodigal son returned to us!" Cazador's voice was jovial, but there was no mistaking why. The final piece to his game had just delivered themselves to him, the sacrificial lamb for slaughter had seemingly come with no ill intent. 

Astarion would make the vampire bastard regret underestimating him.

He could hear you just steps behind him, the pads of your feet, the familiar thrum of your heart increasing as you both stepped closer and closer to Cazador's place on the central dais. He gritted his teeth, his back molars clenching down so hard he swore he heard a crunch in the back of his mouth. He lowered his head, looking up at the monster that had ruined him through his eyebrows. 

"Do not slouch before me, boy! Have you no respect for yourself?" Cazador snapped, waving his hand dismissively at him. "Look at you, crawling back after abandoning your family. You should be begging for our forgiveness."

"I will do no crawling, nor begging." Astarion snarled, baring his teeth slightly. "And forgiveness? Really? You have never forgiven anything. Every mistake, every slip was punished."

The bastard had the audacity to roll his red eyes, "I strove for perfection in all things — even those as imperfect as you. A pity you amounted to so little, despite my efforts." 

"No!!" He roared, stepping forward once more as he pointed his finger. "No, fuck you and fuck everything you've ever done to me!" 

Cazador raised a single dark brow before letting out a humorless laugh, "You stupid, little boy."

"You son of a bitch!" Astarion couldn't stop the explosion of anger that coursed through him and he charged forward. His pale hand formed a fist as he launched himself at Cazador but a flare of red magic suddenly froze him in place. His body stopped completely, caught mid-lunge with his fingers still curled in a punch. 

He heard a strangled whimper from behind him. It was you, the sound one he had rarely heard — one of you paralyzed from fear. 

But the master mercifully ignored you, only having eyes for his spawn. He smirked as he surveyed Astarion trapped in the swell of magic, "Tut, tut." He clicked his tongue, "Did you think it would be that easy?" 

Astarion let out a groan of pain as he tried to resist the red binding power that started to form around him. Tears began to prickle in the corners of his eyes as they began to squeeze and cut into his skin, seeping into him slowly like a dreadful poison. 

"Astarion!!" His name ripped out of you at his pained cries, stepping forward onto the dais to intervene. The agony in your voice was more unbearable then what he was currently suffering. 

He was a fool to bring you here, to ask you to help him. He had served them all to Cazador on a silver platter.  

“Oh?" The ancient vampire's voice had a hint of wicked glee in it as he turned on his heel and set his eyes on you, with the rest of your companions lingering just behind you. Like he had just finally bothered to notice your presence. "And who do we have here? Your little pet, Astarion?” 

You froze in place, but stood up slightly taller. He watched as you jutted your chin forward, setting your shoulders back as you refused to cower in front of him. Even if he could scent your fear from here.  Then the old master slinked around you, his chest almost brushing your back as he inspected you head to toe. Your jaw set as he circled behind you where you could not see, but you did your best to keep your face neutral.  “And what’s this?” Cazador asked with a flicker of false humor. 

Astarion hissed as the vampire stepped even closer, bending down to eye his puncture marks that had scarred on your neck. “You finally gained enough courage to feed from a being capable of thought? Congratulations, spawn.” Then he took in a large inhale, “And quite an appetizing pick too, they smell absolutely delicious."

His glowing red eyes snapped back to Astarion as he remained behind you, looming over your shoulder. He was gauging every reaction from both of you, he knew.

Studying. Calculating. Deducing. 

Like any manipulative vampire would.

"But it seems my dear boy, you’ve been double dipping with this one haven’t you?” He made to grab your silver hair and Astarion felt his mind go berserk.  “DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH THEM!” He roared, pulling hard enough on the magical red tethers around him that they flared and flickered for a moment. 

An evil grin contorted his master's fingers as he still put his long fingers through your hair and pushed it behind your ear. The action revealed even more of your neck so he pressed his prominent nose against your pulse point, inhaling deeply. “Your scent is all over them.” You shuddered involuntarily, your face wincing and flinching away at his cold touch.

Astarion growled, his fangs barring and snapping at his old master. “Oh, so upset. They are your favorite little pet aren’t they?" A long finger nail dragged down your jaw. Astarion's eyes were glued to yours, your body seemingly immobilized from fear — for both yourself and him. Cazador cocked his head as he watched the pair of you before letting out a scoff. "You fool, you fell for your snack instead. What a pity... for once I was almost proud of you.”

He finally let you go, wiping the fingers that touched you off on his jacket like you were a worm he had picked up from the dirt. He licked his lips as he approached his spawn again, still frozen with his scarlet magic that buzzed and echoed with authority throughout the entire chamber.  “Well, I can give you one last comfort, since I am such a generous master." He whispered into Astarion's ear, both of their eyes locked onto your worried expression. "Once you and all your siblings are nothing but pulp... I’ll treat your special love extra carefully. I’ll be so lonely since the rest of you will all be gone. But this one… they will make for a delectable companion."

Another growl escaped from deep in his chest, but the sound was caught as Cazador wrapped his long fingers around his pale throat. “It’s a pity I have to lose you. So much work, so much time... gone. But my new companion will do a much better job than you, with a pretty face like that no one would resist? I mean, even you didn’t.” He hissed in his ear. 

"ENOUGH!” You barked, stepping forward closer to him with your mouth and brow set in a hardline. "Release him, Cazador, at once."

The bastard only smirked and snapped around to meet you, "Ha. Or what?"

"This all ends here. You end here." You did not stutter or stumble. Your voice was strong and carried across the chamber. Your companions stepped up behind you, hands moving at their sides as they readied their weapons and spells at your word. 

"Is that so? You are willing to risk death for him? A wasted, mistake of a spawn? A stupid, little boy?"

Your nostrils flared, your eyes shining with familiar power that was now coming off of you in waves, "I would do anything for him."

"Stupid mortal." Cazador barked, his lips curling in disgust. "I forgot how foolish you can be when you fall in "love". But not to worry... I'll train that right out of you." He twirled back around dramatically, looking at Astarion as he held onto his staff tighter. The red magic swirled and brightened around Astarion, squeezing him so tightly he felt as if may be crushed from the inside out. "You truly forgot my power, Astarion. You truly thought our bond as creator and creation was all that stopped you from killing me. You are weak, my child. You are a small, pathetic little boy who never amounted to anything. But today, you will finally do something worthwhile. You will burn, and I will ascend."

The vampire master flicked his wrist, and Astarion was soaring across the room — completing the final spot in the ritual circle. The entire chamber room suddenly lit up with the red light, a enormous sigils swirling underneath Astarion and the rest of his siblings as they hovered in mid air. Their tops suddenly shredded from the force of the spell as their naked, scared torsos were revealed — the scars littered across them glowing the same scarlet as the patterns beneath them.  

"ASTARION!" His name was a roar from your lips again as you surged forward, hands outstretched for him across the ritual floor.  

"Witness the birth of the Vampire Ascendant! Ecce dominus!" Cazador's staff slammed down onto the marked stone floor. 

And pain like nothing Astarion had ever felt went through every part of him. 

Read the next chapter: here

[bibibi-tchx]

welp shit

it was fun while it lasted, but rd is the foundation of my fic universe, and it is so so hard for me to ignore whats happened and continue writing

and YES ik its scripted, ive just got bp2 and therefore cannot cope

if it was somehow all a ruse, then expect me coming back when its revealed but until then clove is outy

thank you all sm for the love and inspiration, but since the liv thing even started its been hard

keep reading for the fic

im gna copy and paste it here, and if anyone wants to finish it go ahead, just make sure u credit me

They could do this. They could totally do this.

It was their first proper outing to a social event as a family, a work related event no less, since Rhea’s departure. Each member of the Judgement Day, and a plethora of their colleagues, had received an email from the big man, Triple H, himself, inviting them all to a company gathering to commemorate the company’s milestones since his takeover. It weren’t as if they could decline, either, because pretty much the whole roster from each show had been invited, and the whole of Judgement Day (including Rhea, barring the fact that it had to be discussed on a FaceTime where the whole family- inclusive of JD McDonagh for once- could come to a verdict) had agreed to going so that no one could possibly call them out on bunking the event.

For obvious reasons, Rhea herself would not be turning up, but she had played an essential role in levelling Dominik’s confidence to go to the event and actually socialise with his fellow wrestlers on the FaceTime call, reminding him of sweet nothings, of how far he has come in such a short period and how proud she’ll be even if he went with a pout on his face like he had been stuck in for the last few weeks.

So far, it had been a rough month or so without her, with all of the issues regarding Dominik and the rocky relationship he had been beginning to have with his regression since Rhea had returned back home to Australia, and then the whole debacle around Dominik feeling as though he would be abandoned to revel and reside in emotions of utmost despair- especially in the way in which Damian’s actions would juxtapose depending on if they were in front of the cameras, out in the ring, or when they finally reached backstage: where any quests initiated by preying and hurtful eyes that would attempt to enact upon their cruel and ignorant judgements based upon the interactions within their dynamic could be shut down.

In the most simplest ways of describing it: it had been an incredible mess, that not only Dominik learned that Damian, and Finn, would always love him to the point where it could be sickening, but Damian had it honed into his own mind that Dominik needed to understand that he was cherished, and Damian needed to express that no matter where they were. Even if there were thousands of people staring at them. Damian couldn’t keep on maintaining the perpetuating, unrelenting nightmarish cycle of not truly nor effectively communicating how much he genuinely felt heaps of adoration for Dominik outside of their family home; thus, Dominik was left to his own devices to think that Damian did not love him.

Overall, to keep it even more brief than before, it had been a horrible, cob-webbed debacle that no one in their family ever wanted to recreate.

As Dominik leans into Austin Theory slightly, knowing that the action makes people believe as though he is actually digesting their dialogue, he can’t help but pay mind to the feelings of layering guilt- he wanted to go home, but he knows how much work had been put into this moment; how long it took for them to get Dominik somewhat keen to go, and even getting ready had been a bit of a chore from what Dominik could remember from behind the fog of his headspace.

Originally, after some cajoling and totally-not-bribery from all three of Dominik’s caregivers, Dominik had been the most amped up to go, eager to finally step his anxious footing into the barrelling outside world after hiding away in the guarding of his Papi and his Daddy’s arms since Rhea’s departure to Australia. He had dragged Damian and Finn throughout their home, helping (more like rushing) them to get ready- even despite how he only had one working arm. Dominik was finally ready to leave the nest, in an odd way.

“Faster, Daddy! We got’sa go to the party!” Was hollered out from the depth of Dominik's throat more times than Finn would like to admit. But, in Finn’s defence, it is harder than the majority would think to wrangle a fully grown, six foot, toddler into the only sweatshirt that he would wear.

Not because any others were dirty. Or because of the presence of any holes in the fabric.

No- because Dominik wanted to wear his dark blue sweatshirt, the one with ‘Atlanta’ written across the chest in white lettering, and there was no other one that he wanted to wear. He had to wear that sweatshirt. And, by now in their loving dynamic, Damian and Finn knew more than fully well at this point it was better to try and help Dominik with what he wanted to achieve as long as it was within reasonable means.

After all, the whole point of Dominik’s age regression was to help him heal from what he had faced growing up; to give him a stable sense of self where he can be extremely secure in the knowledge that he does have a support system.

What damage is letting Dominik be spoiled with a sweatshirt going to do to that bond they had carefully crafted?

Then, it was having to wrestle (not literally, of course) with Dominik’s black arm sling. It wasn’t at all akin to Rhea’s injury, and he was able to remove the sling when having a bath, but the ever kind doctors had advised that Dominik to try and keep the muscle compress on for as long as humanly possible: and Rhea had been fully made aware of this development as well; so, even from across the globe, Rhea had cracked down on her parenting partners with an iron fist to ensure that this had been implemented. Of course, both Finn and Damian had consequently agreed with this revelation. Additionally, there was no way that they were going to go against Rhea’s orders.

On the hour ride over- which, they were immensely happy for, as the shorter rides means that Damian doesn’t have to worry about packing snacks for when they were on the vexatiously long motorways- they had managed to help ease Dominik away from the light fuzz that was associated with his headspace whilst he was regressed, hyping him up and encouraging Dominik to relish the social evening for what it was: to take it as a time to distract himself from the eternally gnawing sensation that had been clawing and weighing down his heart since that fateful day back in April where Rhea had kissed him goodbye whilst he hid under the comforting leather of Damian’s jacket.

But, alas, an hour into the event, Dominik’s ears were starting to ring out, all of the noise meshing together in cruel and despicable ways.

The offensive hum of the people collided with the bombarding bass of the music, and all Dominik wanted to do was return back into the crook of either of his caregivers’ arms before they would head home where Dominik wouldn’t be subjected to the horrible noises of anything else but Finn’s exceedingly engaging storytelling, and the soft lull of Damian’s singing voice dancing in his ear drums.

His brown eyes darted around the room, not intentionally ignoring Austin Theory, notwithstanding the irksome fact that Austin was dragging on a pointless conversation, remaining to talk absolute nonsense into his ears, as Dominik knows it can be considered rude to not pay his attention to his friend, but he needed to locate Damian or Finn- he needed his ear defenders, at the very least.

Typically, Dominik would have all of his sensory-related items on his person, all organised neatly (all thanks to Damian, in that regard) into the tight compartments of his black backpack, that would always be slung around his shoulder and swinging against his shoulder blade- whereas Damian would hold his age regression supplies in his own matching (literally: it was the exact same bag and brand) black backpack. That was purely to restrict any confusion between the two bags, in case Dominik needed to whip out a fidget toy, and ended up yanking out his dark blue pacifier inside its sticker-covered plastic case.

One is a much more prefered conversation to have with nyon strangers than the other.

However, tonight, the group had made the very conscious decision to keep both bags secured, locked inside of their black Range Rover in a means of trying to prevent either bag from going missing or getting left behind due to the high levels of social intensity in the event.

Finn and Damian had checked with Dominik multiple times about the decision, not wanting to shove Dominik into a situation without any easy access to his comfort items, but Dominik had given them the same tooth-bearing grin as he usually does (the one that makes both of their hearts melt at the drop of a hat), shooting them a little, “Yeah! I’m all good!”, and they were on their merry way.

They brushed their way through the security briefing, with the whole shebang of ‘no drugs, no this, no that’ with everyone having to agree that no recreational drugs will be used on their premises, even despite how they literally worked there and knew all of this, and then the reminders of where to go if there was a fire. Triple H had concluded the meeting with bustles of praise, after all, it had been a celebration of their recent successes in terms of the brand’s growth around the world in the last few months, a way of the higher ups giving their thanks and recognition to their wrestlers. A nice treat as a means to encourage this behaviour. So, it makes sense for the Big Boss, something that Dominik has heard Damian refer to him as a lot more frequently than before, to make sure everyone left the room with a positive sense of keenness for the upcoming future of their company.

The only thing Dominik had paid attention to in the briefing was the suffocating sensation in the room, staring at the sweeping amount of people that had filled the meeting room to the brim.

Even as they began to sizzle out, groups and friends making their way to all of the different rooms to the evening, Dominik’s mind kept on focusing on how utterly foreboding it all felt; the awfully paralysing size of the people in each room painting Dominik with increasing layers of agony as he continued to survey the area.

There were bustles of them, incredulous amounts of many crowds of loud people surrounded them, laughing, talking, flirting- the whole seemingly-desirable package of general socialisation that was expected when it came to their company meetings.

Party? Meeting? Neither caregiver, JD, nor Dominik had really the foresight to pinpoint which this event was categorised as: the email hadn’t been all that clear. Sure, there wasn’t as much alcohol as a party, but there was no way it was a proper ‘meeting’, less there wouldn’t be such a heavy emphasis on all of the wrestlers from across all of the shows being able to socialise with each other.

Dominik knew that Damian was most likely to go and congregate along with the other champions, which he was more than fine with, and he had seen Finn and JD leave the meeting room with an unfamiliar woman, but Dominik mustered up the courage to try and be big, to try and talk with everyone else.

“I mean, who does that? Like-“ Austin continues, and Dominik knows that he’s merely just attempting to formulate a conversation with one of his longest friends since he ever joined the company itself, but he doesn’t want to talk anymore.

He wants his muffling sound defenders: the sticker-covered pair that he had decorated with his Mami back when she was still with them, and she wanted to do some activities with her little boy before they would head on their way together to one of her doctor appointments for her shoulder injury.

He wants to hide away from the world once more: to shove his head into his weighted blankets and feel the weight of the world transfer from him to the beads inside the grey and fluffy blanket.

He wants his Daddy and his Papi: he wants to pull them into the tightest cuddle that Dominik could ever be capable of mustering up the strength to enact upon, just so that he didn’t have to deal with none of the abrasive lighting of the rooms across the floor which the social gathering was taking place upon as his Papi would tower over any light coming through, and his Daddy’s hand would distract Dominik, toying with his dark brown locks of luscious hair that was still growing out strongly, his long and calloused hands working their ways in a rhythmic and familiar manner.

Maybe, just maybe, Dominik wasn’t all that prepared to go out and socialise as much as he originally thought. The promise of some of Damian’s specialised chocolate mousse that he crafts for Dominik at home be damned.

The haziness that often accompanies his headspace makes itself known, knocking at the doors of his mind with pastel hues and reminders that he’s clearly much too little or small to be in such a grown-up, matured, space like the one he was in. Dominik doesn’t particularly know where the heavy emotions had come from, nor can he exactly pinpoint when they had begun to swim in his mind, chucking any coherent, adult, thoughts out from his conscious mindspace with a beckoning urge to scream, cry out for his caregivers so that they could pluck him up from the agonisingly sticky leather sofa where people were ingesting ludicrous amounts of alcohol (he swears Triple H had put a limit on how much everyone could drink) and engaging in with prattling conversations and take him back home.

Dominik sucks in a breath of tension, holding it staunchly in the jaws of his mouth so as to prevent alerting Theory, or any of the other people on the sofa they were sitting together on, that something was starting to off-hilter his mind. The doe brown of his eyes look back at Austin, sending a swift smile (though, a thought rushes to his mind that his Mami would have pointed out that it was a ‘bread smile’- whatever that meant, it always went over Dominik’s head, so he never gave much actual thought to it) as a makeshift way of giving Theory the illusion that Dominik was still listening to what he was saying, before they go back to surveying the room.

He doesn’t see Damian.

And Dominik definitely cannot see Finn, nor does JD McDonagh breach his cautious eyeline.

But, there is one person that he sees. Sure, the guy himself is probably one of the loudest in the room, maybe one of the loudest people in the whole company, but Dominik had grown comfortable with the dude, even more so since he had practically saved him during the Royal Rumble- even though the reasoning behind his help was a bit out of pocket.

R-Truth was across the room, talking in that gravel-soaked voice that always made a regressed Dominik feel ever-so giggly. It appears as though Truth was the only person in the room who was actually aware of his regression, and Dominik doesn’t really have to second guess nor does he have the ability to dismiss that vague idea.

Dominik silently, fondly, curses Rhea, Finn and Damian for being territorial when it comes to him, not allowing any unwanted eyes to peek through their family curtains, and guarding Dominik with what might as well have been diamond swords. Maybe if they weren’t so restrictive, he could have the capabilities to find someone else, and not be forced to interrupt R-Truth’s conversation with some of the older wrestlers, who would have all known Dominik since he was actually as old as he feels, if not a little bit older.

Though, Dominik knows that their protection and restrictive behaviour is all in good faith to cage him from those who are able to cause any sort of disruption to him.

The Miz was there,obviously, and he’d seen Dominik back when he was still just a preteen. It was evident that he was by R-Truth’s side because he had assigned himself R-Truth’s caretaker, something that Dominik found funny to no end, but it also looks as though they were talking to Triple H himself, and that man has known him since Dominik could really remember when he had started to accompany his father to the shows.

“Sorry, Austin, but I wanna go speak to Triple H about something- y’know, before he slips off to go boast to whoever will listen to him again.” Dominik makes a measly attempt at a joke, but it appears to work as Austin chuckles a little, slapping his hand on Dominik’s shoulders in a clumsy, obviously intoxicated, manner.

“You go do you, big man. Good luck!” Austin cheers, pointing his drink in Dominik’s general vicinity, the cliche red cup in his hands causing Dominik to giggle a little about how Austin was the picture perfect example of an American party-goer.

The heavenly giggle still lays upon the pink of his lips just as Dominik waves his goodbye to Austin, “Thank you, Theory! I’ll see you later!” Dominik calls out, although, if things went his way, then there’s a very little chance that Theory will actually see Dominik again for the rest of the evening.

He walks the five seconds over to where R-Truth, Triple H and the Miz are in what is definitely exceeding five seconds, trying his best not to anger a colleague or two as he has to swim his way through the sea of people, having to keep in mind that shoving was rude, and that if his Papi or Daddy were to see him shove someone, without their direct guidance or direction, then they will surely be upset with the lack of manners, reminding him that his Mami always preaches about how we have to be kind to others, and they will be nicer to us in the return.

Funnily enough, the Miz caught Dominik heading their way first, and he more than welcomes the distraction- there’s a sense of fond annoyedness that Dominik sees in his Papi’s dark brown eyes whenever he’s up to mischief, and relief begins to collide with the anxiety that he was feeling only a few seconds ago.

“Wassup, little dude!” Before the Miz even gets a chance to welcome Dominik with grateful arms into the conversation, R-Truth beckons out a typical greeting, and the nickname makes Dominik want to bounce on his feet in delight; he’s not as graceful in stopping the behaviour, but he manages to reign it in.

R-Truth brings in Dominik for a ‘hug’: it was not so much as a hug but a way for R-Truth to have an excuse to pick up Dominik, his cherished and white Jordans dangling from the height that the older wrestler has managed to bring him up to, and swing him from side to side.

If Dominik wasn’t feeling the haze and the sensations of bewilderment of his headspace before R-Truth had made him feel about as heavy as a feather, he definitely was now. The fact that all three of them towered over him didn’t exactly help that much either- all it did was remind Dominik that he was evidently too small to be in such a setting, much too little, and that he needed to find his Daddy and his Papi to aid him in whisking all of the negativity and lugubriosity of the world.

“Hey, big dude!” Dominik says with a shabby, cheerful tone, repeating their nicknames for each other that had been coined during their time together whilst Truth was terrorising their family during the Monday Night Raw segments.

Although, behind the scenes was a whole different scene: Damian and R-Truth got along more than Dominik had ever seen his Papi bond with someone else, and it made the younger Latino happy to witness his Papi, his Damian, to finally get comfortable to relax around other people. And, of course, a regressed Dominik absolutely adored the older man: R-Truth would always pick him up and swing him around; he would crouch down and bend when speaking to Dominik when he was feeling small, which, of course, would only push Dominik deeper into his regression.

R-Truth was the best- no questions asked, no doubt riddled.

The Miz and Triple H join in with welcoming and greeting their younger colleague, but R-Truth, as he typically does, pounces back into the conversation- “What brings you over here, Dom Dom? What can I do for you?” Truth’s smile is truly infectious, and Dominik feels his lips replicating the joyous feeling that R-Truth was spreading as he tries to think of an answer.

He opens and closes his mouth for a second or so, fumbling around for a response- although, yet again, Dominik is interrupted by R-Turth’s hoarse voice ringing through their social circle, his eyes scanning around Dominik momentarily before looking in different areas of the room they were in, “Where’s the big dog?” R-Truth questions, hints of concern beginning to trail in his tone, increasing in prowess as Dominik shrugs his shoulders, a neat and non-verbal way of letting Truth know that Dominik was not aware of Damian’s location, “What about that grumpy old man Finn?” R-Truth tries again, and upon Dominik repeating his earlier actions, the older man sighs in a dramatic, hyperbolised manner, “Not even that alien looking dude?”

Dominik giggles a smidge at the insult aimed towards JD, and R-Truth’s dark brown eyes bulge open as he realises that Dominik had clearly come to him because of the fact that everyone else was off, leaving Dominik behind in a space that, judging by the way he was bouncing on his heels subtly, now that Truth actually gets a chance to analyse it, “No idea, dog. I was hoping that you’d seen them, actually.”

“Oh snap…y’know what, Mizer-”

“Miz.”

“And Mister H-Man-”

“I’ll take that.”

“Were starting to bore me- all this talk about the championships. You get it, don’t you, little champ? You guys should see how much he takes after Dame.” R-Truth comments, large hands gesturing at Dominik’s outfit, pointing at the matching silver chains (the really cool ones that Damian had gotten him even before he knew of Dominik’s regression, with Dominik having the smaller cross whilst Damian had the bigger one) that he and Damian would always wear together.

Heat rushed to Dominik’s cheeks, flushing his face a paintable shade of pink that highlights the browns of his doe eyes, and he can’t really tell if it’s because of the heat from all of the people, or because R-Truth has just successfully managed to make Triple H chuckle a hint about how much Dominik has been taken after the older Latino man in the last few months.

“So…you don’t mind tagging along?” Dominik asks, a juvenile sense of hope riddled in his voice that R-Truth notices as well- he may not be as well-versed or knowledgable on Dominik whilst in his regressed headspace compared to his three other caregivers, but R-Truth can tell that he was definitely dealing with a smaller version of one of his favourite colleagues.

“Nah- of course not! Farewell, Mister H. Mizer, I’ll catch you later. For now, returning the lost boy to his family!” R-Truth calls out, and Dominik’s just grateful that everyone is so familiar with Truth's shenanigans that no one, absolutely no one, even bats an eyelid in their pathway as R-Truth wraps his large and toned left arm around Dominik’s figure, bringing the regressed boy closer in to his chest so as to shield him from everyone else around them.

R-Truth walks Dominik and himself along the edge of the room, with his own right arm brushing against the wall every so often as he committedly guides Dominik out of the area, doing all he can to be as fast as he could whilst also making sure to treat the Judgement Day’s youngest member with great care as they pushed their way out and into the hallway; a significantly smaller amount of people were loitering in between the three or four rooms that they had been designated to socialise that evening, the only person of note being someone from NXT taking a phone call.

In a husky and hushed tone, R-Truth whispers something of concern into Dominik’s ear.

“Where’s your bag at, kid? That little black one that you and your Papi have.”

Dominik smiles a tad at the implication that someone else outside of his makeshift family actually cares about him that much to notice such intricate details, his voice matching how quiet Truth’s was, a drip of an attitude of a sombre kind evident in his articulation, “In the car- both of ‘em.”

“That’s fine, Dom Dom. I bet your old man has the keys, so why don’t we go find him? A R-Truth and Dominik adventure.” Truth ruffles the brown hair on Dominik’s head as he smoothes out his voice, recalling how the boy’s Mami had informed him one day a few months ago that it was best to distract Dominik with smaller, attainable goals if he was visibly upset or distraught at something and his caregivers were not in the immediate vicinity to even notice Dominik’s shift in mood.

The pair of them remain out in the hallway, utilising the floor-to-ceiling glass panels to save them both the stress of searching each individual hang out spot for Damian’s whereabouts

“He was wearing one of his baseball jerseys, wasn’t he?” Truth prods, trying to aid Dominik in looking for his Papi, who, in retrospect, due to his grand height alone, really shouldn’t be that hard to spot, both R-Truth and Dominik grateful for the fact that it would take significantly less time. Dominik’s head rested onto R-Truth’s shoulder, happy to let his head relax in the older man’s neck whilst they surveyed the room in silence.

Although, as Dominik had grown to be more than fond of in the last few months, R-Truth and silence is a combination that never works cohesively past five seconds.

“What’s the plan when we find your Damian then, little man? Just want to grab your special headphones?” R-Truth enquiries, his eyes squinting as he continues to survey the room, looking for people who appeared to be around Damian’s height as a first clue.

“Don’ know, Truth. I wan’ go home, but I know D…Dame an’ Finn are having fun- I don’ want to make them say bye’s to everyone.” Dominik shrugged his shoulders, the ghost of a pout beginning to strengthen, coming to fruition by the second as he heard R-Truth sigh in a tender and doting manner as Dominik continued, “It’s all so loud and… ugh. So much goin’ on.”

“Kiddo, they won’t mind. They know what they are doing, okay? You don’t ever need to worry about your Damian and Finn- they will absolutely understand if you need to go home. They are your caregivers, and, most importantly, your family. It would be rather silly of them if they didn’t let you go home.” R-Truth does his best to console the growingly anxious Dominik, his eyes catching how Dominik’s feet were shuffling against his own trainers once more. The thumb on R-Truth's left hand, the arm he had been clutching Dominik to his side with, rubbed up and down Dominik’s shoulder.

Suddenly, Dominik’s arm raised upwards and pointed at where he could see his Papi, along with Cody and Bayley (so, Dominik’s estimation was correct about his Damian going to see the other champions) congregating by the snack and drinks table, noticing Damian’s hands being bare of a beverage, which means Dominik obviously has to turn to face Truth as he began to jump on his tip-toes slightly, already starting to feel a bit more happy, “Look, tío!” Dominik says, an adorably awkward merge of a whisper and a yell coming out from his lips.

The sight of Damian makes Dominik teeter more deeper into his headspace, not to mention the deep chuckle from R-Truth upon hearing the term of endearment fall eagerly from childishly rosy-coloured lips.

Sensing a set of light brown eyes- his boy’s light brown eyes, no less- Damian’s own dark brown irises glance up from where they had been focused on Cody Rhodes, and his eyebrows soften, his eyes beginning to crinkle as love swarms his heart upon seeing Dominik switch on his heels to face his friend, R-Truth, a toothy grin on his face and mouthing words that Damian can easily tell, even from the distance alone, is something along the lines of, “Dame!”, as Dominik’s lips hold on the ‘m’ sound for longer than he would with any other word.

The older Peutro-Rican man is snapped out of his love-filled trance upon hearing Bayley let out a joking taunt, “Oh!” She teases, dragging out the vowel for as long as humanly possible, and when Cody catches on to the fact that Domnik is standing outside of the room, his left hand waving big and wide with a teeth-baring smile that could not more obviously be painted on for Damian to see, he cheerfully waves back at the younger boy whilst Bayley continues talking, “I was wondering where Dominik was- he trails right behind you these days; it is honestly so sweet how you care for him like that. How’s he been with the whole Rhea leaving thing?”

Damian expresses his gratitude for her thoughtfulness and compassionate words with a short simper, “He’s been doing better than we thought he would originally; I’m so proud of how he’s been handling it, you have no idea.”

“What about you?”

“Hm?”

Cody repeats himself, this time his hand touching Damian’s shoulder in a friendly and genial approach, “Have you been taking it since Rhea left to go back home? I can only imagine how hard it is for you- you two are literally brother and sister at this point.”

Damian chuckles at the implication, but also finds himself grinning once more at the fact that Cody seems to genuinely care about how he has also been feeling, “Well, I’ve been better, you feel me? It looks like Dominik’s getting all antsy about something, so I’m going have to leave this conversation here. It was genuinely so nice to have this catch up. Hopefully, we get to have another party soon.” Damian swiftly shakes each of their hands, both of his fellow WWE Champions saying similar compliments and niceties to send Damian off with.

Although, Cody does whisper something of note into Damian’s ear, and the way it was said so rushed and yet so cheekily leaves Damian walking away from the conversation with another set of his typical deep and rumbling chuckles, “When parenting calls, you always got to respond.”

Meanwhile, Dominik had been talking his way to R-Truth, the older wrestler always being happy to engage with the little one’s talks and eager questions about how the world works whilst they waited for Damian to leave the room.

“Tío?” Dominik signals, eyes still casted to where Damian was walking through the room t get to Dominik, a hint of concern beginning to riddle his chiselled features, looking up at R-Truth with a world of childish wonder painted in his eyes that R-Truth can’t help but admire.

Specifically, the nickname never fails to make R-Truth feel as though he’s truly being admired and appreciated by the little boy.

“Yeah? What’re you thinking about, Dom Dom?” Truth probes in a soft voice, curious about what Dominik was about to say, one of his eyebrows raising in curiosity, and also partly to make Dominik feel better about his beloved Papi taking so long to leave the room and bid his colleagues a good day - or, at least, something along those lines.

“Why’s the Sun follow me when���when I’s in the car?” Dominik asks, his voice just a tad bit timid from how he was slightly embarrassed to ask the question so loud in the hallway that his Papi would hear the ‘silliness’ as he gets closer to the glass door that opens up to where R-Truth and Dominik were waiting idly together.

“I think you might have to ask your old man about that, kiddo. I don’t really know myself.” R-Truth shrugs his shoulders, and Dominik’s eyes cast to the floor, a look of juvenile determination beginning to paint his round features.

“Eso es tonto…” Dominik mumbles under his breath, eyebrows furrowed and evidently not impressed with Truth’s response to his question.

“Say that again please, mi chiquitin. I couldn’t quite hear you over all the music that’s playing.” Damian requests in a nonchalant tone, and Dominik breaches the three steps in front of him and dives his body right into the comfort and familiar sense of home that Damian’s chest effortlessly provides, wrapping his arms tightly around Damian’s waist, his nimble fingers pulling at the hem of his Papi’s shirt as Dominik finally has a chance to collect his thoughts and focus on something else that isn’t how loud the music is, or how sticky his nice trousers felt from the sofa he was just sitting on with Theory.

“Papi.” Dominik breathes out into the fabric of Damian’s patterned shirt, delighted at the relief that Damian’s presence immediately provided.

“Yeah, I’m here, I’ve got you, Dom.” Damian reciprocates the hug in a moment of instinct. Damian’s dark brown eyes cast upwards from where he had been possesively staring down at Dominik, a paternal smile donning his lips, looking up at Truth, jumping straight to the point instead of dancing around the issue that was currently in Damian’s arms and dampening his shirt, “What happened, Truth? Anyone hurt him?” Damian probes, protective instincts surging any normal state of mind that he was in.

“No- he’s all good, big dog. Just felt a bit clogged up, if you get my gist.” R-Truth explains with an over-dramatised whisper, and Dominik lets out a wet giggle into the fabric of Damian’s white and blue striped jersey at how silly the older man seemed to lean into his Papi’s ear,looming over Dominik as though Dominik was no more than a foot or so tall, the two giants towering over him with Dominik beneath.

“Alright. Well, thanks for bringing him over to me.” Damian ’s voice is thick with gratitude, and R-Truth takes that as his cue to leave Dominik and Damian, on his way back to torment the Miz once more.

Damian’s dark brown eyes begin to pool with concern as he feels a small wet spot form on the shoulder of his jersey; his calloused, yet always able to grace Dominik’s sensitive skin with softness and doting drops of love, hands gently pry Dominik’s face away from his shirt and in front of his own face.

Damian decides to switch the language of their now-private conversation into Spanish, just so that any nosy ears couldn’t really understand what they were saying, “Qué voy a hacer contigo, mmm? Qué pasó, mi pequeño cachorro?” Damian dotes with a fond sigh, and Dominik’s feet begin to twist out of a stabbing sensation of anxiety as the older Puetro-Rican male’s concerns aimed towards the shabby state of his (only his, and Rhea’s, if their suspicions about JD, and even possibly Finn were true in the slightest of ways) little boy.

God, he really didn’t want it to be true. Not after what happened with Liv Morgan a week or so prior; it had taken ages of Finn wheedling his way back in, and even Damian had began to soften, but Rhea was stone cold and stubborn. No one she didn’t want, no one she did not trust, or respect, would be around her boy.

He was hers, first and foremost.

Damian begins to walk him across the hallway and to the elevator, knowing how shakey Dominik’s legs could be when he begins to regress into his smaller, more innocent, headspace.

“What happened, Dominik?” Damian asks, his tone leaving no room for Dominik to dismiss or ignore the question- concerned, for the lack of a better word, was how Dominik would describe Damian’s voice.

“It started when…when I couldn’t see you or Finn. It was all super loud, like in the stupid way-”

Damian lets out a chuckle at the way his little boy, who still had his regressed headspace swimming at the surface of his mind, manages to retell the account of his feelings: the level of his metric; the pacing of his words, and how it coincides with the rhythm of his foot swaying against the metal of the elevator floor.

“What’s so funny, Papi?” Dominik asks with an accusatory tone, obviously unbeknownst as to what exactly his older friend and parental figure had found amusing.

“Nothing Dom,

[baalzebufo]

good ol fashioned razzmatazz

SO I wrote more... :) ive wanted to do a series of scenes from Gideon's life for a while now- moments in time we didn't see in the show. mostly past, maybe some present or future, depending. wanted to explore his life a little more, and the headcanons ive got surrounding it. drabbles is the best way to solve this because i cant write one long cohesive plot very well haha

ive got a handful of ideas in mind but this is the first one that i finished to any degree. just a little scene from his childhood. gideon makes his first sale, and learns something about himself.

‘What are you up to, sweetie?’

‘Shh- it’s a secret.’

Gideon hushed his mother as he ran over to the back door and shoved his face up against it, peering out through the frosted glass window into the car lot. His mother, Florence, turned her attention away from the oven for a moment to squint at him. He was wearing his favorite dress shirt, the dark blue one covered in golden stars- shorts and sandals for the weather, and his long hair was pulled back into a white braid. The sun caught on his hair through the window, and she could have sworn she saw it sparkle. What a strange little boy they had, she thought.

---

She remembers how tiny he was when she first held him, and how odd his shock of white hair had been. Odder still when she first saw the icy blue eyes he had- not like hers or Bud’s, not at all. Neither of them had even heard of what the doctors diagnosed him with before then. Some sort of ‘congenital condition’, for whatever that meant. All that fancy medical talk was a bit out of her area of expertise. All that mattered to her was that their little boy was alive- and now, at least on his way to better health.

Their little Gideon had been much more adventurous these days. Ever since the doctors had given him the OK during his last hospital visit, he’d seemingly been itching to get outside. He hummed loudly, like he was deep in thought.

Florence smiled. She reached over to the fridge.

‘Well, if you aren’t too busy with your secrets, could you do me a favor?’

‘Hm?’ He whipped his head over to look at his mother, who was holding a little tupperware container.

‘How about you go across the lot and take this to your dad for me?’

The wheels turned for a moment, and Gideon perked up instantly.

‘Y’mean it? On my own?’

‘Of course, hon. As long as you’re careful-’

He nodded, a smile creasing his face. Oh- she couldn’t help it, every time he smiled, she smiled too. Surely every mother thinks their child is the cutest kid on the planet, but well… she KNEW hers was. And she knew that they’d been very protective of him these past few months, what with the hospital scare and all. As much as she fretted about his health- she made a mental note to deep clean his room again this weekend- she couldn’t squash that spirit behind his eyes. It couldn’t hurt to let him out on his own for a little bit.

He took the container from her hands and tucked it under one of his arms, nodding solemnly.

‘Ah’ll handle it, ma’am!’ He stood up straight and gave a little salute, his face faux-stern, and she couldn’t help but laugh. He’d been watching too much TV lately, bless him.

She waved him off as he skittered out of the door, turning her attention back to the oven.

---

Gideon shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun. The worst of his sensitivity to it may have gone away with the treatments, but it still got awful bright out in summer. But he’d power through it. After all, he had a mission.

He took off at a run down the winding garden path, rushing through the gate onto the concrete car lot. The weather was hot, but there was that fresh summer breeze blowing in his face that made him glad to be out of his room. He liked it in there plenty- he had books and instruments and more toys than he knew what to do with- but being cooped up in bed for so long had him yearning for the outdoors. He squinted, spying the towering figure of his father through the light glinting off the windows of his work building.

Giggling, he sprinted across the lot as fast as his legs could carry him into the shop.

‘Dad!’ He burst through the door, startling his father. Bud Gleeful whipped around from where he was sat across a little plastic table with a skinny spectacled gentleman, poring over a contract. He wore a battered looking old suit but held himself with an oddly aristocratic air. He seemed out of place on a used car lot.

‘Woah there, sunshine-’ Bud started, his sentence cut off with an oof- as Gideon jumped onto his lap. ‘Heavens, boy! What’s gotten into you?’

Gideon looked up at him- and then across the table to his latest customer. He had put the contract down and was looking down at the two of them, a smile creasing his cheeks. Bud raised a hand, a little embarrassed. ‘Oh my, I’m mighty sorry for the interruption, sir-’

‘Oh, no. It’s quite alright.’ He laughed- he had that fancy city-folk accent, Gideon noticed. He tilted his head to the side to get a better look at him. ‘Now who is this fine little fellow?’

‘Oh, well this is-’

‘Gideon!’ He piped up, folding his hands across his lap with a smile. ‘Gideon Charles Gleeful!’

‘Haha- yep. That’s my lil’ Gideon.’ Bud finished for him, resting one big hand on his son's shoulder. ‘This is my son. Little fella ain’t been too well recently, but he’s lookin’ fit as a fiddle now. Acting it, too! Well now, why’d you rush over here in such a hurry, boy? Does your mother know you’re-’

‘Oh, yeah! I brought ya’ this from mom.’ He held out the container to Bud, who picked it up- turned it over, then hummed in understanding.

‘Hah, oh yeah. I s’pose I did almost forget about lunch, all caught up in negotiatin’.’ He mused. ‘Thank you kindly, sweetheart.’ He leant down to kiss his forehead, which Gideon responded to by playfully swatting him away.

The moment was interrupted then by the man across the table clearing his throat. Gideon and Bud both turned their attention back to him.

‘Mr. Gleeful, I have to be honest- I wasn’t sure if this was the right car for me, a few minutes ago. Forgive me for my bluntness, but I was worried this place might not be… on the up-and-up, if you catch my drift.’ Gideon felt his fathers hand slip off his shoulder, a subtle change in his demeanor.

‘But… well, seeing you here- you seem like a real family man, Mr. Gleeful. Trustworthy. I’m sorry for doubting you.’ He chuckled. ‘I suppose I thought this contract might be too good to be true for a moment there.’

‘Nah, dad’s the best at this stuff!’ Gideon piped up- he felt Bud tense up for a second, about to hush him, but he carried on. ‘I’m gonna learn to sell cars just as good as his, someday! So you can tell yer kids to come buy from me!’

Bud held his breath a moment, but then the customer burst out laughing.

‘Oh- goodness, how sweet. You know what, Gideon? I’ll have to remember that.’

‘That’ll be Mr. Gleeful to you!’

Bud picked him up then, lifting himself out of his chair and carrying his son high up to perch on his shoulder. ‘Okay, that’s enough teasing, boy-’

‘Haha! No, no, he’s got it right.’ The skinny man stood too, pushing his glasses up his nose. ‘You know what? You’ve got yourself a sale, Mr. Gleeful.’

He held his hand out- up, above Bud’s, to Gideon. He grasped it firmly, grinning ear to ear and shook his hand. The gentleman nodded his head, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a crisp 20 dollar bill.

‘Forgive me for being forward- but may I give the young man a commission?’

Bud startled, glancing at it- then back to Gideon- then back to the money. ‘Oh, my- that’s awful kind of you sir, it certainly is! Of course you can.’

Gideon’s eyes lit up. He eagerly took the twenty, held it up to the light- then slipped it into his pocket. He squirmed- a sign for Bud to pick him up and let him down on the floor again- and stood up straight with his arms folded.

‘Thanks, sir!’ He chirped, and Bud leant down to pat the top of his head.

‘Now Gideon, do you think you could let the grown-ups handle the borin’ part of all this paperwork?’ He crouched to smile at his son.

‘Sure thing.’

‘Alright, sweetpea. Don’t spend your money all in one place, y’hear?’

‘Okay, dad!’

His mission complete, Gideon padded over to the door- leant over his shoulder to wave at the man his father was now pushing a pen into the hand of- and left the room.

Stopping on the sun-soaked car lot, he reached into his pocket and felt the dollar again. Thought about the look on that man's face when he gave him the money, for nothing but a few words and a smile. His dad had a pretty easy job, he figured. But he didn’t really understand the whole sales thing- not yet, at least.

---

Gideon would spend the rest of the day playing in the garden- until he got too hot and tired, and retreated back to his shaded room for a nap. He wouldn’t think too much about what happened that day.

But that night, his father would take them out to the diner and boast loudly about how his son- barely in his fifth year!- had made his first ever sale. He’d let him order dessert- seconds, too. And he’d ask Gideon to stop by the lot more often, especially if he wants to learn to be a salesman someday. He was one talented boy, his parents told him. Showered him with that notion, really. He was destined to be a big shot one day with a personality as glowing as his.

'You have a face folks would never say no to!' His father told him. He didn't mean much when he said it- more of a joke than anything. But something about it settled with Gideon, still learning about the world. Nobody would say no to him, huh...?

He figured that sounded pretty nice.

[oldiesstationlover11607]

hiii, ive been having this idea of vessel era tyler x reader where they've been good friends for years, and she decides to post a cover of one of his older songs on youtube. tyler, who didnt know she could sing, becomes enthralledddddd. basically just fluff, realizing feelings, and all the good stuff!!! :D :D :D

Cover - Tyler Joseph x reader

Relationship: Tyler Joseph × Reader

Warnings: none - fluffy

Word Count: 1953

A/N: Hello anon! This was a great request and I really hope you enjoy my interpretation. I've been in a Vessel era mood a lot recently so perfect timing :) feel free to keep requesting stuff if you enjoy this and if you have feedback let me know!

With Vessel being a huge success, Tyler was finally able to buy the house he, Josh, and I had all been living in since I finished college and the boys started the band. But with signing to a major label came long studio sessions which meant being alone in the house. Tyler and I had been friends since high school and I’d gotten to see his love of music bloom. While he’d decided to pursue his dream instead of finishing college, both my parents thought it was the best option for me. I never told Tyler that I made music too, it was the one secret I kept from him. When Tyler and Josh were off at the studio I always used the equipment they had lying around the house–especially Tyler’s piano. Today, Tyler and Josh were going to be out of the house till 9pm, meaning I had enough time to go to work and play music before they came home. 

“What are you going to play now?” asked my friend April. She was the only one who knew about my music. Our mothers had been friends before we were born and as fate would tell, we carried on the legacy of friendship. 

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, “I’m too tired to write anything new.” April chuckled, laying down on the floor in the music room. She’d been begging me to cover one of the boys’ songs for months–even going so far as having a list of songs she wanted me to sing. 

“Taxi Cab or Air Catcher!!” She begged, a large smile on her face. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t sung some of their songs in the shower but I swore I’d never sing them in front of anyone. They were amazing, but nothing could live up to Tyler’s angelic voice. “Please?” 

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” I muttered, resting my hands on the keyboard in front of me. April let out a loud groan. “Come on Y/N… just sing a song.” If anyone could convince me to sing for them it was her. Back in elementary school she was the most convincing person in our grade–to the point where she got our class out of at least 5 tests. 

“Which one then?” I asked, grabbing my phone to look for the sheet music. 

“Air Catcher hun,” she smiled, turning her camera on. Normally April would film our practice sessions and post them onto the private youtube account we created for me but for the first time in a while, I felt nervous about being recorded. Air Catcher was one of my favorites despite it almost never being played live these days. I remember the first time Tyler played it for me–the first time I saw him as something more than a friend. 

“You ready?” 

“I guess so,” I shrugged, starting to play the chords on the keyboard and singing the lyrics. As each word poured out of my mouth, I tried to convey the emotion I’d heard Tyler show on the song himself. Each lyric portrayed that mixed feeling of wanting to love someone but being scared of really showing who you are and giving that person a part of you. My mind started to wonder, reflecting on Tyler’s past relationships, each one failing for different reasons. I wondered who the song was about, which moment in time he was in when writing such a masterpiece. Tyler always felt so deeply about his music, something I could relate to in many ways. Yet, he was the one who was brave enough to properly showcase it to the world–to not hide anything.  

“But now, I'm here to give you words as tools that can destroy my heart,” I finished, holding the last note before turning around to April. She had a wide smile plastered onto her face. 

“Damn that was perfect Y/N! I’ll post it now!” She opened Youtube and immediately posted the cover. I was glad the channel was private, no one except us and the few family members I let hear me sing would see the video. “You know, I really think you should tell the boys about your music,” she started the conversation we had every time we hung out. 

“April, I’ve told you a hundred times, my music is personal and I’m really not ready to tell them about it yet,” I sighed, running a hand through my hair in frustration. 

She sighed in defeat. “Yeah, I know. I just think you’re too talented to keep it a secret.”

I let out a chuckle, turning off the keyboard and getting up. “It’ll happen one day, just not now.” Looking out the window I could see it was getting darker, the sun starting to set, and the sky turning orange and pink. 

 “I should probably head home, it’s getting late,” April said, packing her things away into her bag. I nodded, walking her to the door. She stopped in the doorway, pulling me in close for a hug. 

“You should show him Y/N,” she muttered. I nodded. 

“One day.”

A couple hours after April had left the house, the boys burst in through the door. 

“We’re home!” Tyler shouted from the hallway, hanging up his coat. I had moved from the music room to my bedroom, laying on my bed and watching some tv. I’d already eaten dinner and by the smells of it they had stopped by Taco Bell on the way home. That was the only complaint I had about living with Tyler and Josh–the amount of times the house smelt like Taco Bell. I could hear the thud of Tyler’s feet as he ran up the stairs and into my room. 

“Hey,” he smiled, flopping onto the bed next to me. The bed shook with his weight, my computer bouncing slightly. He scooted in close so his body was pressed against mine. God I wished he would hold me. 

“Hey.” I paused my show, rolling over so I could face Tyler. “How was your day?” I asked, ready for our daily debrief. 

“Good, we recorded Josh’s drums for house of gold which means we’re nearly ready to release the record,” he beamed. He was so excited about being signed and releasing their first studio album. I couldn’t hold back the smile on my face. 

“That’s great! What’s Josh up to?” I asked, looking out the door. 

“Showering probably,” he responded. Before we could say anything else, his phone started buzzing. Furrowing his brows, he took it out and showed me the screen. “Nevermind, he’s texting me a link to something,” he chuckled, pressing the link. All of a sudden I could hear the chords of air catcher playing through the speakers. There was no way this was happening. There was no way Josh would’ve found the video. With my palms starting to sweat and my heart racing, I wanted to grab Tyler’s phone from his hand and throw it out the window. I peeked over his shoulder to see the video didn’t actually show me but the ceiling of the music room. I really really hoped Tyler wouldn’t recognise my– “That’s you,” he stated, turning to look at me. I wanted to cry, I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t ready for Tyler to hear my music–let alone one of his songs. “That’s you,” he repeated, as if he expected me to say something. All I could do was nod. “This is–it’s–wow.” He ran a hand over his head and let out a breath of air. I couldn’t tell if it was a good or bad reaction but either way I felt like I wanted to run away. “You’re… amazing.” Well that was not what I expected. 

“Huh?” “You heard me,” he said. “Your voice–how did I not know you were into music?” I could feel the warmth growing in my face. I’d never felt shy or even nervous in front of Tyler before. 

“I–I was scared,” I mumbled, barely able to get the words out. He sat up and moved so he was right in front of me. I looked at him, trying to predict what he was about to do. He cupped my face, his eyes searching mine. 

“Y/N, your voice is amazing. You’re amazing,” he expressed, “what on earth would you be scared of?” I wanted to kiss him. I couldn’t take my eyes off his lips. 

“Tyler,” I started, unsure whether I was about to confess my feelings or protest his praises. I hated people making a fuss over me, much less my friends who normally went out of their way to make a fuss over me. 

“I know,” he interrupted, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear. He smiled subtly, as if he could read my mind. He couldn’t read my mind, right?

“I didn’t even say anything,” I said, unsure of how to continue. 

“You don’t have to. One, you’re amazing and I don’t care what you think about yourself because clearly Josh thinks you’re amazing too and we’re the only people whose opinion should matter. And two, I know. Me too Y/N. Me too.” He paused, trying to figure out if I understood what he was saying. The moment stretched between us, an unspoken understanding hanging in the air. Tyler’s eyes softened as his hand gently cradled my jaw, his thumb brushing the side of my face with a warmth that sent shivers down my spine. My heart pounded in my chest, every beat echoing in the space between us, and for the first time, it felt like everything was about to change. "I’m gonna kiss you now, okay?" Tyler’s voice was low, almost a whisper, as if he didn’t want to ruin the moment between us. His gaze searched mine, waiting for the slightest sign of hesitation. He was waiting too long. Before he could close the distance, I leaned forward, closing the gap and pressing my lips against his. It was a soft kiss, like we were both trying to figure out if this was real. Tyler’s hand slipped from my jaw to the back of my neck, his fingers tangling in my hair as he pulled me closer. The kiss deepened, slow and filled with years of unspoken words, emotions I’d buried away. I could feel his breath hitch as our lips moved in sync, a quiet sigh escaping him when I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him even closer. He pulled back for just a second, his forehead resting against mine as we both caught our breath. His eyes fluttered open, and I could see the same emotions swirling there that I felt inside of me—relief, desire, and something deeper. He smiled, that same grin that had always made my heart skip a beat, but now it was different. Now it was for me.

“That was long overdue,” he murmured. I nodded, breathless, my fingers tracing the edge of his jaw, still not quite believing this was happening.

“Yeah,” I whispered back, my lips brushing his again, barely able to stop myself from diving in for more. “A long time overdue.”

“So… I’m guessing you watched the video?” Josh chuckled from the doorway, his arms folded like a proud parent.  

“Josh, get out! Don’t think I’m happy with you sending that video to him,” I laughed, picking up a pillow and throwing it his way. I was definitely going to find out how he got access to the youtube–I had a gut feeling April had been scheming with him. 

“Sorry! Sorry! I’ve just been waiting for this to happen for like three years. I’ll leave you two alone.”

//

requests open!

[lady-pug]

dream a little dream of me

Chapter IV of Dream a Little Dream of Me

Summary: As you settled in for the night, sleep overcame you almost as soon as your head hit your pillow.

“You called?” you heard a voice call out in the darkness.

Opening your eyes, you noticed with joyous gidiness that you were once again standing on the cobbled street, the moonlight shining softly on your skin. And Morpheus, the man you desperately wished to see, was standing only a few steps in front of you.

“I-” you almost found yourself at a loss for words “I did.”

Pairing: Morpheus | Dream of the Endless x Reader

Word count: 1,4k

Warnings: none

Notes: So… hi. I’m back. I’d like to start off by apologizing. I’m so so sorry for how long I’ve been absent, and especially for how long this story went without an actual ending to it (even though I’d promised to have it out quickly, just goes to show I shouldn’t make promises I might not be able to keep). A lot has happened in my personal and professional life in the past months that have kept me away from writing. I’ve had the first half of this chapter for almost as long as the third one has been out but so much was happening that I didn’t have the time or the motivation (sometimes I lacked both to be honest) to come back and finish it.

But I’ve finally done it. This story is finally complete. I’ve had the idea for this chapter mostly planned out in my head since chapter 1, and now I finally get to share it with you. I’d like to thank anyone who has taken the time to read this story and embark on this small journey with me, whether it be just one chapter (even just one paragraph) or the complete story. Thank you so so much for reading, and a special thank you for anyone who has left any sort of feedback, it means the world to me. And again I’m so very sorry for taking so long to write this, I sincerely hope you can forgive me. And I truly hope you enjoy this, dear reader!

Reader's gender not specified

Previous part | Masterlist | Read on AO3

Things had started to look a little bit brighter after that night. Slowly, very slowly, little by little, things in your life started getting better, getting sorted out. It wasn’t immediate, nor was it without effort, but it was something.

The first thing you did after writing ten whole pages on that fateful Word Document was to start looking for a job. Literally anything would do, just so long as it got the bills paid and added food to the table, just long enough for you to get back on your feet and find a more permanent career. You’d be the first to admit that some of the jobs you took during that time, some of the people you’d met, were simply awful, sometimes bordering on humiliating. But some you actually enjoyed, and some of the people you had met you’d keep in your heart for a long time.

You’d also tried getting in touch with the people you’d grown apart, even if they didn’t want anything to do with you, just as a way to get closure. Some answered and some didn’t. Some didn’t want to talk, others agreed to meet. Some simply told you how things you’d done had hurt them, and you told them of how they had hurt you in return. And some had even agreed to try and work things out, slowly regaining contact and, eventually, their trust.

And finally, after several long months, you managed to save up enough money to travel back to your home town for a couple of days in order to pay your relative’s grave a visit. It wasn’t perfect, nor was it ideal, but it was enough, if only for now. You felt a strange sense of calmness looking at the words engraved in their headstone. The sort of calmness you had only felt when in the Dreaming.

Speaking of, your night visits to the Dreaming and its inhabitants had been a comfortable constant in your life for the past few months, at least in the beginning anyway. At first, you kept coming back every night, cherishing your conversations with the café owner, who you had come to know was named Amanda, or the little quips Matthew threw your way whenever he saw you walking around town. Even Mervyn’s rudeness was something you had grown fond of. But the thing you looked forward to the most was seeing Dream. Sometimes he’d actually stop by and engage in casual conversation with you, other times he'd just send a small grin your way over his shoulder in passing as he strode around town. But every single time you saw him you felt a warm, fuzzy fluttering feeling in your chest.

But eventually, as things in the waking world started to get better, your visits to the Dreaming started to become progressively more scarce. You started having other dreams too, some good, some not so much, your visions of the small town, and consequently your interactions with Morpheus, dwindling by the day. While it saddened you to let this go, to let him go, you cherished it even more so.

Tonight, though, almost an entire year after your first real conversation with him by the riverside, you really wished to visit him, even if it was one last time. It had been weeks since you’d last visited and you were hoping with all your heart to be able to talk to him again. You had good news to share after all.

As you got ready for bed your thoughts kept wandering back to Dream. Why had he become so special to you? Why were you special, like Lucienne had told you, in the first place? Why did you keep going back to the Dreaming? Maybe you’d never know the answer to those questions, and you realized with a quiet start that you were fine not knowing. Those things happened, and you were honestly glad they did, there was no point in dwelling on the past now.

As you settled in for the night, sleep overcame you almost as soon as your head hit your pillow. 

“You called?” you heard a voice call out in the darkness.

Opening your eyes, you noticed with joyous gidiness that you were once again standing on the cobbled street, the moonlight shining softly on your skin. And Morpheus, the man you desperately wished to see, was standing only a few steps in front of you.

“I-” you almost found yourself at a loss for words “I did.”

He smiled softly, head slightly tilted as if to ask what was on your mind.

“It’s just-” you shook your head in order to gather your thoughts “Since… that night, I’ve been coming here less and less.”

“It’s because you don’t need this anymore.”

For a brief moment you panicked, doesn’t he want you to come see him anymore?

“What? No, I-” you stammered “I still- I still need this. I still need you!”

His grin turned soft and he averted his eyes before speaking again.

“You have gotten to a point in your life in which I am no longer needed. There is nothing holding you back anymore, you get to live your life however you see fit.”

A stinging sensation accompanied the tears brimming in your eyes, threatening to fall.

“But I still want to see you. I still want you.”

His smile widened, small lines creasing in the corners of his eyes as he took a step towards you, leaving almost no space between the two of you. 

“I once said you could see me again…”

“If I wished.” your own smile grew as realization dawned on you.

“Always.” he whispered as the back of his hand caressed your own, light like a feather.

As you stood there,breathing each other in, a moment turned into two, which then turned into a few minutes more, so much so that you almost forgot the reason for your visit.

“Why are you here?” Dream asked softly.

“Hm?”

“Why did you summon me?” he took a minuscule step back, only enough to be able to gaze into your eyes “You seemed like you had something important on your mind.”

“Oh!” you shouted, and had he been any mere mortal, Morpheus might have just flinched away from you. But he was no mere mortal and thus didn’t startle so easily, so he simply tilted his head to the side and waited for you to proceed “I finished my book.”

“That’s wonderful.” he smiled, genuinely happy for you.

“And a publisher has agreed to publish it!” you rocked on the balls of your feet, suddenly feeling bashful “I got the confirmation email today. I thought you might like to hear about it, since you were oh so interested in it before, you know.”

He chuckled softly, both of his hands resting on your shoulders to keep you in place.

“I am truly happy for you. And I feel honored you decided to come all this way to share it with me.” he removed one of his hands from your shoulder and raised it in the air “I believe this moment calls for a celebration, don’t you think?”

For the briefest of moments you panicked, believing he was sending you away once more.

“No, no, wait!” you tried to hold onto his hand but it was too late, he had already snapped his fingers.

Nothing happened. You were still there with him, not back in your bed in the morning. His smile turned smug, bordering on a smirk, as if he was already expecting your reaction.

And then you heard it. From seemingly out of nowhere came the soft whisper of a trumpet, followed by a powerful voice.

“Where is that coming from?” you looked around but could not find the source of the music.

Dream simply shrugged. That did not matter now, did it? Slowly, he raised a hand towards you, palm up and inviting. Placing your own hand on top of his, he pulled you closer, your chests practically touching, as his other arm enveloped your waist.

“This is what you call a celebration around these parts?” you teased, earning a chuckle from him.

“Only when both parts are into it.” he responded, slowly swaying you both to the rhythm of the song.

As you and Dream danced together, the soft glow of moonlight caressing your skins, you couldn’t help but sigh, a small smile playing on your lips.

“Thank you.” you whispered.

“Whatever for?” he hummed.

“For this. All of this.”

As you slipped further into his embrace, you felt peaceful. Your whole body tingled and for only a moment you wished you didn’t have to go back to the waking world.

“You’re welcome, darling.” he whispered back to you.

But you now knew you could always return here, to this very moment. All you had to do was wish for it, and Dream would bring you back here. Back to him.

[charlieslowartsies]

the reason why my August vacation is so important...

This is a long, kinda emotional for me journal <3

As I mentioned a while ago, I was splitting my usual two weeks in June of debauchery (sleeping & laying in the sun & hiking in the woods outback lol) into one week last month and then saved the last week for the end of August.

I also wanted to explain the significance of this trip! Less about having to justify my time off and more about 'eeee excite omg!' and wanted to share with y'all!

SO a long time ago when I was a wee Charlie, from age 0 up to 21, I was incredibly close to my grandparents on my mom's side. My nana died when I was 15, and while that took a huge toll on me, I was fortunate enough to have my grandpa till 21. These two people were absolutely second parents. My parents did a good enough job raising me, but they had huge fights and my father had anger issues and it caused a lot of wounds. These were the people I could always rely on, when I couldn't rely on my folks.

They lived 2 hours away on a wonderful lake in a lil tiny trailer over looking it. I spent weeks at a time there, even the occasional month. I learned to swim in that lake, which in hindsight prolly wasn't the safest idea due to its depth, and grew up to be obsessed with swimming. Learned how to sail, ski, fish. Learned how to bake, tend a garden, how a fresh bowl of fruit in the morning should be before breakfast.

We'd swim 3x a day, sometimes just to float and cool down before bed, since there was no a/c and the summer nights were hot. Laid on our backs and counted stars like the Lion King. Fried trout on the grill after we'd caught them, had watermelon seed spittin' contests. My grandpa grew pumpkins and carved my name into one, so that the writing grew bigger and bigger over the months. I had one pumpkin live from September to April.

My handprint is on the last cement step leading down to the beach. It was eroded when we scattered my grandpa's ashes in 2014, but I remember where it was, how to place my palm to compare.

I guess I'd say I had a mixed childhood of various great, good, bad, and horrible things. Like most people, yanno? But those golden summer days on the lake were 100% a part of who I am today, and where my many of my happiest memories come from.

Due to me being in college, cost to heat the place in winter when they had no intention of living there, my family sold the property on the lake to an investor who planned to rent it out.

This was 2014. The same year he died, the same year my horse died (within 2 months of each other) and one of my father's many health issues landed him in the hospital from Oct to Dec, so that he spent xmas on an iv stand. With everything going on, we had no time or money for a big dinner, or presents that year.

I guess that was the first year I realized childhood was truly and officially over, and it was time to grow up. Many of us have that marked moment on our life.

Time passed. I finished college, went back home after turning down a few out of state jobs to spend time with my dad, who I had a feeling didn't have much time left. Turned out I was right, as I came home in 2015 and he died in 2022. There was an accident in '16 where he almost bled to death on our kitchen floor, but I was able to provide pressure/medical care and give him some more years.

Shortly after we moved in 17, I was notified that the house on the lake had been rented to someone who unfortunately had a lot of issues mental health wise, and they had eventually abandoned the property. It sat, rotting, and got so covered on the inside in black mold the county leveled the place and destroyed it.

We had left it fully furnished due to the buyer's urging. Ancient, stunning mid century and older furniture from my great-great grandparents time. My nana's organ player. The rocker my mom and I sat in. And, frankly, to quote one of those popular songs, the house that built me was just gone.

I figured that was the end of it, and cried and got angry/sad and then moved on and just tried surviving as covid hit later on in the years.

Turns out, the man who rented it decided that wasn't going to happen again. He put a new trailer on the property, and rented it out for vacationing due to it's location. We didn't know this until I stumbled across it while daydreaming about a vacation on the lake that I missed it was a relative, one I could at least go back to for a few days. My heart skipped so many beats when I saw the address and paused, thinking there had to be come mistake. It wasn't.

Not only can I spend time on that property again (in a new house which honestly might be for the best) But turns out, for whatever reason, they kept the furniture separate and placed a few pieces into the new house. There's a photo of the rocker in the layout photos. The two level lamp they had is still intact and functioning. I booked the place for a week immediately.

It's expensive for me, but my girlfriend and I will make it work. (Certainly not like we have far to travel.) We're going to be there smack dab in the middle of my Grandfather's birthday. I haven't had a true, just-for-me vacation since 2015 when we went to a camping ground. The excitement I have for this is immeasurable.

The dock my Dad and Grandpa put in themselves is fixed up. The crumbled little cement step is still there with a tiny indent, where my 4 yr old hand was pressed. I am going back to this place, and going back in time for just a short while, to heal and have fun and be a whole mess of emotions. I never got to say good bye to my Nana or Grandpa.

But I can say goodbye to them now, and say 'hello again, old friend' to the lake, and the new little house that sits before it.

That is why i am so excited about august. I know I don't share personal things on here a ton, but I wanted to share this. Thank you for reading this far if you have, I appreciate it.

I hope you have a wonderful day and remember how important you are <3 And as always stay hydrated! -Charlie