#still smells godawful though

[eugeniedanglars]

hey if any of my followers have ever gotten acrylic nails, i'm curious to know if they feel hot while the acrylic is setting? i'm not planning on getting them myself, i'm just wondering because i just realized acrylic nails are made of pmma, which we also use to make temporary crowns but the exothermic setting reaction means we have to use a special technique to avoid damaging the nerve

[seeingivy]

pretty girl

ryomen sukuna x f!reader

an: kind of suggestive? reader is super insecure + sukuna might be ooc but ??? yk. it is what it is. come get yall juice.

**part of my best friends (older brother) fic

--

when sukuna’s phone rings - for the third time, signaling that he actually has to pick up now - he definitively decides that he is going to move far, far away. maybe if he lived in shibuya, or even as far as kyoto, his stupid little brother wouldn’t call him every time he got too drunk to drive him and his idiotic friends home. 

and when sukuna walks straight into the bar - blaring music, haphazard puddles of alcohol all over the floor, and the most pungent, putrid sweat smell hanging in the air - he’s almost positive that he’s going to start looking for a new apartment tomorrow. 

it takes him approximately thirty-five seconds to find yuuji. though he supposed he should have noticed faster that the pink haired idiot standing on top of the bar, with a black sea urchin shaking at his legs was exactly what he was looking for. 

sukuna makes his way over, shoving megumi hard in the shoulder as he looks over, eyes glazed and cheeks pink. after almost seven times of doing this, sukuna knows exactly how this is going to go. that despite the tattoos, the entirely different facial structure, and physique, megumi is going to confuse sukuna for yuuji. 

“yuu’? how’d you get over there so fast?” megumi murmurs, reaching to cup the side of his face. 

right again. sukuna smacks his hand out of his peripheral as he looks up at yuuji, who hasn’t even noticed that he’s arrived yet. 

“move over.” he responds, irritated. 

the second megumi lets go, sukuna all but shuffles yuuji off of his balance, making it a point to somewhat break his fall off of the countertop. only somewhat, because naturally he wouldn’t injure his little brother. but that doesn’t mean he’s not deserving of sometime of retribution for all the times he’s had to do this.

yuuji’s groaning in his arms as he pulls him up, as he halfheartedly makes grabby hands for fushiguro who was three feet away. 

“‘gumi, cm’here.” 

“we’re leaving. you can sit next to your gumi in the car.” sukuna states sternly, curling his nose at the godawful nickname, as he drags the two of them straight out into the cold air. 

he’s all but opening the doors for the two of them, getting more irritated as the two of them excitedly look up at the sky, pointing at all the little stars together before he all but shoves them again. 

“look yuuji. it’s us.” 

“where?” 

“the two stars next to each other.” 

sukuna watches yuuji’s eyes go wide, cheeks bright pink, as he wraps his arms around megumi. and fights the urge to gag. 

it’s only then - when he’s wrestled seatbelts onto the two of them and stopped megumi from being the affectionate drunk that he is - that they make it a point to share an important piece of information. 

“kugisaki and y/n are still in there! we can’t leave.” yuuji whines, leaning his head against megumi’s as his eyes quickly start drooping, almost fluttering shut before he can ask where the two of you could possibly be. 

sukuna shuffles back through the group of bodies, this time looking for the other pair of the set. it takes more effort - because he’s sure that kugisaki is going to be sucking face with someone in the back corner and he’s going to have to put an end to it. and you. you were always particularly hard to find. 

he spots the red hair three feet away and takes a deep breath. she’s almost entirely sitting on the girls lap - green hair, shitty glasses - as he makes it a point to tap on her shoulder. naturally, she doesn’t stop and he gets more disgusted as it goes on. he never thought she’d be so…handsy. or that he’d have to see it. 

he does the next best thing. reaches to her side and tickles her, just enough to stop her and start the godawful, obscene screaming that worsens tenfold with every consecutive pint of alcohol she drinks. and of course, she’s just as predictable as the last. 

“yuuji?! where the fuck do you get off doing that?” 

he reaches for her wrist, shooting a polite smile. 

“maki. always a pleasure. kugisaki, we’re leaving.” 

“i’m not leaving.” 

maki gives him a halfhearted shrug as he all but throws her over her shoulder, tuning out the insults that are streaming out of her mouth as he all but carries her through the group of bodies. if you weren’t regulars here, sukuna was positive that he’d get arrested for that profanities coming out of her mouth - that, and the fact that it looked like he was abducting her. but no one turns a blind eye, almost irritated that she’s at it again. 

that makes two of them. 

when nobara’s tucked into the back, he makes it a point to throw a water bottle at each of them - specifically square in the face for yuuji and megumi who are cuddling in his backseat - as he glares at all of them. 

“okay, kugisaki. where’s y/n?” sukuna asks. 

she’s leaning her head back against the headrest, eyes fluttering shut, as she murmurs something unintelligible. 

“she….ugly.” kugisaki murmurs. 

“she’s ugly?” sukuna deadpans. 

well, she’s certainly not ugly. 

“ugly…bathroom.” she murmurs again, taking it as his best option. 

sukuna marches back into the bar, for the third time, and beelines straight into the bathroom in the back. and there you are, crumpled up on the floor with your knees hiked to your chest, with big tears in your eyes and two girls sitting right across from you. 

sukuna finds the sight rather…unusual. he knew that girls were quite different than guys, having heard you go on your spiels about womanhood and female friendship too damn often to know that it was a whole thing that was beyond him. but really, he finds it sincerely odd that the two girls sitting across from you are comforting you in your puddle of tears. 

it’s not that sukuna’s stereotyping. or being judgemental. or he is a little, but he doesn’t frankly care. because labels, or groups or whatever existed for a reason. people who were similar flocked to one another. it’s how people were comfortable. how they functioned. 

which is why sukuna’s unsure why these two girls - who are actually dressed up to be at the club - are sitting on the tiles with you, when you’re wearing one of those pink ribbons in your hair, that of course, matches the one on your bag. 

but granted, this is you he’s talking about. he’s spent enough time trying to figure you out, before he naturally gave up. he always found that you transcended normal groups that he assigned. 

you look up at him through your tearfilled eyes, a half smile on your face. 

“sukuna, you-you’re here.” 

sukuna ignores the fact that he’s pleased, very pleased, that you didn’t just confuse him with yuuji, as he holds his hand out to you and grabs your purse with the other one. and when you place your hand in his, you can feel the heat rushing up your body, more so when he leans down, lips few feet apart as he murmurs to you. 

“we’re leaving. now.” sukuna states, glaring at you. 

you feel the heat rush to your cheeks, acutely aware of every detail on his face. that his hair is slightly messy - because he must have woken up to come get you - and that his eyes are almost tired. you fight the urge to smile...at how sweet It all is.

“okay. thanks for coming to get us.” you respond, giving him a smile. 

the two girls sprawled on the floor stand up, yanking their dresses down the slightest amounts as they flash you warm, kind-hearted smiles.

sukuna, really, truly does not understand it. at the way that you’re so open with them, despite the fact that they must be strangers. 

“you, give him hell. and you, i’m really happy for you. i’m sure your wedding will be beautiful.” you state, pointing at the two girls who had been accompanying you on the bathroom floor for the past hour. 

“and you. stop letting people call you ugly and taking it to heart. the bows are cute. your fashion is amazing. and men don’t deserve shit.” the first girl slurs.

you give her a smile, as sukuna all but tugs you out of the bathroom by the wrist, arm secured around your shoulder as he leads you through the crowd. sukuna drops his arm around you as the crowd gets thicker, hands straight on your waist as he steadies you in front of him. and when he leans down to whisper in your ear, it sends a shiver down your entire spine. 

“do i even want to ask?” he sneers. 

“it’s her bachelorette party! and that’s her best friend, though she seems kind of…off her rocker. but in a good way. power to her for being bold.” you respond. 

sukuna rolls his eyes as he pushes you out into the cold air last, reaching for the front seat door and opening it for you. except when he looks back, you’re staring up into the sky just as yuuji and megumi were, the softest of smiles on your face.

sukuna makes a mental note of the dark, black tear streaks on your cheeks and your sniflfy nose as he clears his throat to get your attention. 

“oh. sorry, i’m here. i’m here.” you respond, quickly shuffling into the car as you wipe your face. 

sukuna shuts the door behind you, pausing to look up at the sky too. and silently wonders what exactly it was that you thought when you looked up at it. 

--

sukuna makes it a point to take you out of the car last. because naturally, he’d save the easiest job for the end. by the time he had turned onto his street, you were snug asleep against the window of his car, creating a small indent into your forehead from the plastic of the door as he parked on the street. and he’d give you the few seconds of peace as he wrangles the rest of them out. 

megumi and yuuji were easy to wrangle. because if sukuna too one out, the other one would quickly follow - and mope a great deal. megumi was on the side closer to the door, meaning he had to brace himself for the confusion once again, as he shrugged him awake. 

“‘yuu. are you going to carry me to bed?” he murmurs. 

“absolutely fucking not.” sukuna responds, yanking him out as yuuji follows up the stairs. he sets the two of them on the couch, a surefire way to ensure that they don’t do something heinous to his sheets during the night - or the morning after - as he braces himself for kugisaki next. 

when he slings her arm around his shoulder, the obscenities start. 

“maybe if you had a job or something, maybe we wouldn’t bother you so much. It-” 

“i have a job, kugisaki. a job that just payed for your drinks, mind you.” 

it seems that in his rusk of getting ready, yuuji had accidentally swiped his wallet on the way out. and of course, it was his turn to pay for the drinks. 

“you need to get a hobby. have you thought of sewing?” she asks. 

“that would be useful. then i’d have hundreds of needles to stick in your eyes.” 

“when was the last time you felt the touch of a woman, sukuna?” 

“when was the last time you went on a date? are the middle school makeout sessions hitting the mark for you, kugisaki?” 

“shut the fuck up.” she sneers, reaching to smack him as he shoves her straight on to the guest bed and quickly shuts the door behind him. 

he’s satisfied when he hears no inclination of her following, which always seems to be a gamble depending on how much she’s downed that night. or how short he cut off whatever it was she was doing with maki. 

when sukuna makes it back to the car, he half debates just leaving you in there. because you look so comfortable, with his stray jacket strewn over your shoulders, and your breath that’s fogging up the glass of the mirror. but the fact that your neck is at an awkward angle and the cold air solidify his decision. 

he open the door and you halfhazardly jolt awake, blinking your eyes as sukuna comes into your line of vision. you shoot him a smile as he holds his hand out to you, locking them together as he drags you up to the apartment, straight into his bedroom. 

“can i use the bathroom?” you ask. 

“you know where it is.” he responds, noting and particularly hating the biting tone in his voice. 

“thank you!” you respond, shuffling into the room and shutting the door. 

albeit weirdly, sukuna presses his ear to the door to confirm his suspicions. and the soft clinking of bottles, of the water running on and off, tells him enough. 

that you’re doing your longwinded skin care routine in his bathroom. that you shoved all of your serums and moisturizers in your purse because you couldn’t skip out on it for even one day. 

he’d make it a point. to slam the door open and make fun of you for it. but he bites down any retort he has when he hears soft sniffling and pushes the door open for an entirely different reason. 

“what the hell is your problem?” he asks. 

“huh?” 

“you and your friends get obscenely drunk. then, you call me in the middle of the night and wake me up. and right when i’m about to go to bed, you’re crying in my bathroom. so what the hell is it? just tell me.” 

you sniffle. 

“do you really want to know?” you whisper. 

“you’re wasting more of time with your shitty attitude. i’m not going to stand here and coax it out of you, so just tell me straight up or stop crying.” 

you sigh. 

“if you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.” 

sukuna wants to smack you. of course you feel the need to talk in tongues. 

“in english this time?” he asks. 

“you can try to look nice as much as you want. but even all that…makeup…fancy skincare. it can’t change the fact that i just look like this. that if you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.” you state. 

“you think you’re a pig?” sukuna asks. 

you sigh. 

“maybe.” you murmur. 

sukuna tosses you the extra set of clothes he dragged out, tossing them straight at you as you send him a grateful smile. 

“thanks, sukuna.” you murmur. 

“for what?” 

he could barely even muster a response, a coherent one that you deserved, in response to what you shared with him. 

“dunno. i tell other people and they just kind of go…but you’re so pretty!! and…it falls flat. it’s nice to not be coddled. just said things as they are.” 

sukuna can feel a burning feeling in his chest that increases tenfold when you press a kiss into the softness of his cheek. and he stands there dumbfounded, watching you smile and make a move to walk away. he instinctively reaches for your bicep and pulls back, a sweet smell emanating from whatever you’ve just smeared on your face, as he looks down at your lips. 

there’s some type of glitter on them. whatever you’ve just put on makes them look bigger, fuller. he wonders if some trace of it is left on his cheek. 

“did you need something?” you ask. 

“sleep in my bed.” 

“huh?” 

“i’ll take the couch. get in the bed.” he utters. 

the following morning, sukuna wakes up to three plates of breakfast with an annoying sticky note pressed on top. 

thanks for coming to get us sukuna!!! :DD 

it’s the first time the thought crosses his mind. that his preconceived notion might be incorrect. 

that it’s not that you’re too good for him. it’s that everyone else isn’t good enough for you. 

--

the next time you see sukuna is when you’re teetering past tipsy to fully drunk in your childhood bedroom, on christmas eve. well, he’s not exactly inside the room, more knocking on the door frame.

you gesture for him to come in, setting the wine bottle down, as he takes the seat next to you. 

“where’s yuuji?” you ask.

“still at megumi’s.” 

sukuna loosens the tie around his neck and unbuttons the top three buttons of his collared shirt, as he slides closer to you. you've never been one to shy from his touch, settling into his embrace, as he racks his mind, desperately, on how to broach the topic, that’s been on his mind for weeks. 

sukuna slides his arm around your shoulder to your nightstand, to a little bundle of dried flowers. he opts to leave his hand pulled around you, as he pulls it closer to the two of your faces, resting his temple against yours.

“what’s this?” 

“it’s my corsage from prom. like sixty years ago.” 

“who did you go with?” sukuna asks. 

“no one. i never got asked. i just bought one because…you know how all the girls line up in a row and stick their hands out to show their corsage off? i didn’t want to be left out of that picture.” you state. 

“so you ordered it yourself?” 

“mhm. pink flowers, white bow. it matched my dress.” you hum. 

“always the bows huh?” 

sukuna sets the corsage down in your lap, as he leans closer into your space and digs into his pocket. you can smell his cologne, strong and musky in your space, as it mixes with your own flowery perfume and gives your head a slight rush. 

he pulls out his keys and sets them flat in the palm of your hand, as you inspect each little accessory on his ring. there’s two keys - one for his apartment and one for his house - and two keychains. one of him as a lego, which you know yuuji bought him for his birthday, and another one from alaska, that you and yuuji had bought him on your school trip in eighth grade. 

but the third is a ribbon, secured right on the ring of his keychain. you inspect it between your fingers, and he supplies the answer before you can ask. 

“you left it at my house.” he states. 

“so…so you put it on your keys?” 

“wanted to make sure it was on me. in case i saw you.” 

you make a move to pull it off the ring, but he closes his hand over yours. 

“it’s mine now.” he states. 

“then why did you show it to me?” you whispers. 

sukuna’s not sure what it is that drives him to do it, merely the fact that he has no patience and surely no self control, but he hooks his hand straight under your thigh, securing you straight on his lap. you can feel your breath hitch in your throat as he leans his forehead straight against yours, his hands on your thighs burning your skin. 

“what are you doing? yu-yuuji will eventually get here you know.” you whisper. 

“do you like him?” sukuna asks. 

“what? no-no, he’s with megumi. and he’s gay.” you whisper. 

“so why are you thinking about him when you’re here with me?” 

“i-i’m not. you just-”

sukuna swallows hard, taking a deep inhale of your smell, before he slithers one of his hands around your neck and pulls you closer. he can feel you fidget in his lap, nearly knocking over half the things behind you as you twitch in his lap and he murmurs into your skin. 

“relax.” 

you take a deep breath, grounding yourself by digging your hands into the muscle of his arms.

“okay. you-”

“the guy at the bar. what did he say to you?” he whispers. 

“which guy?” 

“when i picked you up last. when you slept in my bed.” 

you feel your cheeks burn in embarrassment. 

“nothing. he-” 

sukuna’s squeezing into the plush of your thighs, his hands firm and warm as you fight the urge to yelp. 

“tell me what he said.” 

“nothing, sukuna. i didn’t want to kiss him yet. and he leaned in. got-got offended. just said some things before he walked away.” you mumble. 

“things like?” 

“like you know. the usual stuff.” 

“that you’re ugly?” he asks. 

it's almost embarrassing, but his look is so unrelenting that you have to give in. you nod, as sukuna takes his hands off of your legs, bringing them up to cup the side of your face this time. he snakes one of his hands into your hair, yanking the bow out as he curls it in his hand. 

“do you believe him?” he asks. 

“no.” you respond. 

sukuna leans closer, his lips brushing against yours as you instinctively shut your eyes. that it burns too much to look at him. 

“are you lying to me?” 

“n-no.” you mumble back, as you try to lean in but feel sukuna pull back. 

when you open your eyes, you can’t but pout as he smiles at you, as he grins at you after pulling away. 

“don’t be a tease, sukuna.” 

he laughs into your neck, before the warmth blooms on your neck as his lips connect to your skin, as he leaves a trail of warm kisses up the side of your neck. each new spot he touches has you nearly melting in his touch, as he can feel you slouching onto him, leaning your entire body weight against his. 

he continues that way, refusing to kiss you full on the mouth, as you feel your skin bloom warmth with every new place that he touches. each of your cheeks, the tip of your nose, even your eyelids that you’ve fluttered shut this entire time. some part of it is agonizing, that he continues to give but won’t receive in return. 

you take his collar into your hands, crumpling the fabric as you yank him straight and feel him smile against your lips. 

“needy?” 

“please. i want to-” 

sukuna cuts you off before you can finish your request, the first inclination of your begging snapping the very little patience he had in the first place. your lips are soft and warm against his, as you surely spread that glittery nonsense over him, over his neck as you start peppering kisses over him. from how shy and awkward he’s seen you, he swallows down the surprise at how eager you are, at the way you’re basically pawing at him through his shirt.  

except you pull back, wide eyed, when the two of you hear pounding up the step, accompanied by two voices getting louder in your ears. 

“y/n!!! y/n, y/n merry christmas!!!” yuuji bellows, as you shove sukuna onto the floor and sit upright as he pads into the room and wraps you in a hug. 

sukuna wipes his lips with the back of his hand as he stands up, giving megumi a nod, as yuuji turns to him and shakes hands. sukuna can’t help but smile at how pink your cheeks are, swollen lips and glazed eyes, as megumi and yuuji settle into both of your sides, arms wrapped around you. 

you swallow hard as you look at sukuna, wide eyed as you noticed all the lipgloss that you left over him. and pale when megumi notices the big red mark on his neck. 

“is that a rookie mark, sukuna?” 

sukuna brings his hand up to his neck, only to be met back with the glitter on his fingers as he smiles - or more appropriately, grins at you - as you feel your cheeks go pink. 

“who gave you that sukuna? your neighbor?” yuuji asks. 

you feel your eyes go wide, as sukuna pinches his eyes at yours before responding. 

“no. i haven’t talked to her in a while.” 

you tuck away the detail, making sure to ask him about it later. it’s only now that sukuna’s reputation comes to the forefront of your mind, as you realize you might have made a grave mistake by letting sukuna indulge in whatever infatuation it is he’s having with you. 

“yuuji. did you say hello to y/n’s sister?” he asks. 

“she’s back in town?” he asks, turning to you. 

“mhm. got back in today.” you murmur, as the two of them shoot you a smile and shuffle back into your room. 

sukuna lifts you up by your wrists, as he starts fixing your appearance little by little. you can feel him zipping up the back of your dress - entirely unsure when he even had the time to do that - as he snags the little bow from his pocket and smooths it back into your hair. 

“whose your neighbor?” 

“jealous, princess?” he asks. 

you turn around, poking one of your hands into the muscle of his chest. 

“sukuna. i am not going to be one of your little lack-” 

“you are not a lackey.” he whispers. 

you pout at him, entirely disbelieving, as he wraps his hands around your face, the kiss sweeter, softer than the ones the two of you had just shared on the bed. 

“you’d kill me if you did that.” you murmur. 

“you think i relish in your pain?” he asks. 

“dunno. you-” 

he leans your head up again, tucking his head into the softness of your neck as he starts peppering kisses you again. your hands are a futile attempt to stop him, as he laughs into your skin. 

“i’m here to make you feel good. i’ve been thinking about it for weeks.” 

“oh?” 

“let me. you- you’ve always been my pretty girl. and no one can make you feel good, treat you like you should, better than me.” 

you push him off again as megumi and yuuji come back, with your sister in tow, as they gesture for you to join them downstairs. and sukuna follows behind, as you fight the urge to beam, when he secures his hand into yours behind their backs.

--

next part linked here

an: do NAWT ask for a part 2 bc I will do it. my brain is steaming. I am thinking thoughts.

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[sharkenedfangs]

— ☆ “IN THE IMAGE OF YOU.”

— #. synopsis. all in all, the entirety of what was meant to be said, thoroughly snuffed out by a stuttered curse is hastily stifled in favour of carefully processing what he’s currently being greeted with, once again. little shit that dared to impulsively walk upon an important moment meant to be properly spent with himself, and of course— it’s you of all people responsible for that result. well, not exactly you— but, still you. 

— #. content warning! dub-con, anal fucking, degradation, brief mentions of past bullying entailing physical abuse, coercion, implications of medical malpractice, doctor harper behind the scenes, former bastard or not— neurosurgeon male whitney, amnesiac male reader and some actual pining on the blonde’s part.

— #. word count? 5.2k — longer than initially intended.

— #. what is it this time, asher? : “pretty sure you’re not supposed to trust the filthy doctors in this town, including your ex-bully. better luck next time. this one is for my dear shoku, @shoknsfw.”

Though, perhaps the very last of things Whitney would’ve predictably expected there to be, patiently awaiting for him at the end of the day, would be— well, this thing. Not that he necessarily knows what the actual fuck ‘this’ is, but he’s getting the slightest idea that his boss is as fuckin’ insane as he had initially thought of him to be. Or others, in the past, have repeatedly warned him so of, too.

Sure, he’s not a mindless moron and he remains acutely aware of the shady rumours carelessly thrown around here and there amongst the nosy patients, accompanied by that fuckin’ Sydney profusely muttering out against his boss. Some incoherent tangent, he — himself, wouldn’t genuinely understand either way, fuck. Still, this.. This wasn’t in the goddamn job description nor did he ever truly expect it to be cuz’ there’s no way in hell he would’ve so easily accepted a simple offer such as this one. Seamlessly roping him into another one of his sick experiments, notably those involving others without their spoken consent, and would’ya look at that? 

Naively fell for it this time without sparing the slightest thought as to why — doctor Harper of all people — would be in potential need of his gracious help. Idiot, ever heard of that freak selflessly askin’ for one’s hand in a time of desperation, openly expressing his innate admission to defeat? Real funny, huh? Not so fuckin’ funny when he’s awkwardly left to deal with this complex issue within his own working hours, said time originally meant to be taken as a mere moment of solitude, of some much-needed tranquility in exchange for his gruelling hours tirelessly spent in good efforts, now solely ruined by this unfaithful encounter. 

Okay, cutting the entire crap up— it was originally intended to be spent miserably jerking off alone in the middle of his office like some crude loser. Not that he’d ever truthfully admit it to anyone, this.. otherwise unhealthy habit or perhaps, addiction he’s progressively took on due to the sheer amount of stress burdening him as a surgeon, weighing upon his slouched shoulders everyday. It’s— It’s not like it’s fuckin’ bad! Coping mechanism or whatever, it beats the stinking scent of nicotine faintly lingering on the material of his coat, a hint of the godawful smell, repeatedly going out for a ‘quick’ smoke whenever things gradually took its toll on him to the point it’d annoyingly kept him from getting some precious shut-eye at night. Like he possibly needed more on his already, busy and stuffed plate too, of all times. 

All in all, the entirety of what was meant to be said, thoroughly snuffed out by a stuttered curse is hastily stifled in favour of carefully processing what he’s currently being greeted with, once again. Little shit that dared to impulsively walk upon an important moment meant to be properly spent with himself, and of course— it’s you of all people responsible for that result. Well, not exactly you— but, still you. 

See, the tentative peering of your gaze, quizzical cock of your head noticeably tilting to the edge of the doorway to openly display your shared confusion at his presence, the same way he, himself, is not entirely amused by your sudden pop-in either. “Hello— Oh, you’re not mister.. Harper, are you?” Stupid fuckin’ scanning of his slouched frame sat atop the creaking, wooden chair audibly squeaking throughout the otherwise narrow room and— god, why do they build these things so damn loud?? Not the point here, y’a moron. 

Sputtering out a cuss out of pure habit because sure, he’s a professional doctor now or should be notably referred to as such, however, doesn’t mean he’s about to fully give out on his old, habitual gestures. Nearly had a heart attack at the ripe age of twenty-one due to your sheer incompetence and, ah— he’s becoming like those old folks repetitively reprimanding younger people for their lack of care and attentiveness or.. something. Fuck, either way, therein lies the single question in his mind; what are you, of all people, precisely doing here? In the staffs room of all places? 

“Shit, you scared me..” Huffing out annoyingly at your unwanted arrival or maybe, it is a good coincidence that he’s luckily granted with a long-awaited reunion with one of his memorable victims in high school. Fleeting days he had long since pushed past by then, but.. he’s not entirely against the mere idea of sneakily revisiting that foggy era solely for the sake of recollecting those notable, cute expressions you’d make, all scrunched up and flustered.. Spurred on further by the fuckin’ sounds of yours too, in the narrow stalls of the bathroom and, fuck— Enough of that, gotta get to the point one way or another to initially receive a reply to his beckoning curiosity itching to be answered. “Why’re you even here? What? Got an appointment with Harper or somethin’? Well, he’s not here and I don’t know where he is, so either you come back later or just—“

“An appointment? No, no. I just was supposed to put these— here, and— Sorry, was I not supposed to come here?” Plainly interrupting him with your oddly.. formal way of speaking. Since when the fuck do you even speak like that again? Last time he’s checked — which was years ago— you’re not exactly the eloquent type like that goody-two shoes Sydney nor overly polite like Robin either. You’re just. Fuck, well— you’re you with a hint of defiance. Not this. Whatever this is.

“..No, this is the staffs room. I don’t see why the hell you’re even here to begin with. Do you need something? I’m sort of in the middle of my break right now.” He grunts in return, visible scowl appearing upon his sharp features to then, thereafter, dissipate entirely when met with your confused face to his gruff response.

Right, right. Supposedly obligated to keep up with all that polite etiquette crap which he miserably fails to do so in the face of your presence. How your pathetic, little self comes and numbly reduce him to the rebellious bully he previously once was truly fuckin’ messes with him. Because, there’s no goddamn way that your reaction towards him, after all these years— after every shitty thing he’s done to you, especially the whole sucking off thing — would be so minimal, right?? Or has he become so unrecognizable in the span of just a few years that you, yourself, don’t precisely know who he, in fact, truthfully is? Surely, a slight shift in his usually messy, ruffled hair now mildly slicked back to intently follow hospital’s policies and a pair of glasses isn’t that major of a change, is it? 

Unless you’re as stupid as he had thought of you to be, blatantly ignoring that minute detail of forcibly shoving his every homework and assignment on you too. Hah, funny. Even funnier is that blank look you absentmindedly regard him with, as if you’re not quickly getting the fuckin’ hint that he’d like some alone time now. Real fast on that area, aren’t ya? Slut. Get on with it already.

“Huh, I could’ve sworn I got the right room though..” Your subtle head shakes and spared glances around to anywhere but him shouldn’t be so damn cute to him. Fuck, he sure as hell would like to redirect your precious attention to him only. Like a petulant child secretly throwing a tantrum for the lack of importance currently being given to him here. 

Arms expectantly crossed across his broad chest, foot idly tapping against the tiled floor below in a pure display of his ever burgeoning impatience. “Well? Answer the question. Do you need something or not?”

“Um, well— yes. Mister Harper told me to put these here and gather a sample from.. someone.” Mister Harper? Why’re you even.. referring to him as that, unless.. Hesitancy lacing your tone as if he isn’t carefully hanging upon every lull within your voice, ah— how he’s actually missed the lilt of it during the excruciatingly long lessons of math class being boringly taught to by that.. one teacher. What’s their name again? Right, River. Something like that. 

“Um.. I’m sorry, have we.. met before? Are you Whitney, by any chance?” Promptly blurting that out of the blue, puzzling gaze deftly meeting his as his own eyes immediately widen in exchange. Finally recognized him? Is that it? Was about damn time already and he’s not one to particularly lie in situations such as these ones, right? More like he desires to hungrily drink in the mere sight of your face, the slightest flicker of recognition amongst your softened features when reality fully settles in. 

That meek demeanour you’ve adopted so abruptly towards him does irk him however, to say the least. Never really been the timid type nor the likes when it came to him, if anything, you’d openly be opposed to his every cruel method of tormenting others. Hell, he’d know it— he’s grown familiar with your childish antics by now despite the warping time easily slipping past his tight-held grasp. Hah, knows it better than anyone else when it comes to you, as cheesy and downright ironic that might appear to others. A bully cheekily aware of their victim’s peculiarities and this, right here, is bound to take its due course.

“Yeah, that’s right. That’s me. Long time no see, huh?” Clicking his tongue in this unadulterated need, itch meant to be satiated— fuck, in utter disbelief that he almost called you by that old nickname once again. Slut. As much as he’d like to dumbly feign ignorance considering the circumstances at hand, that this is the most uncomfortable way you could possibly reunite with someone of your high school days— he knows better than to do so.

Continuing on further, maybe as an idle distraction for the aching hard-on fervently twitching against the front of his trousers, hopefully concealed enough by his slouched posture or otherwise awkward angle from below here. Wouldn’t want you taking notice of that, would he? “So, are you going to tell me what’re you actually doing here or not? I’ve got things to do and only staff are permitted to enter this room.” Skip the formalities goddamnit and just get to the fuckin’ point! He’s got one to rub out here and the annoying, pretty face he’s used to stupidly jack off to, in high school — suddenly appearing before him out of nowhere — isn’t necessarily helping matters here either!

“Oh— I see, so that means you’re.. the guy that—” Jesus Christ, he’s uncertain whether to sarcastically repeat your dumbfounded expression in a snarky remark or simply shut himself up in favour of awaiting for your next move. Though, of course, you promptly do the honours for him in return to the affirmed confirmation to your confused questioning. And truly, nothing could’ve properly prepared him for the next set of your unpredictable actions as your peering gaze soon shifts to that of unbridled shock at the sudden discovery of his identity — to then, take on that oddly bright glimmer within your eyes. Little scrunch of your nose, ah fuck— shouldn’t be so cute — as if carefully processing this newfound fact, innocent tilt and frown ever so slowly creeping up to the corner of your rosy lips in a pure display of perplexity in face of this.

“Excuse me, sir.. But I really need to do this real quick, if you don’t mind.” Why’re you suddenly settled atop the barely dusted ground, on your knees and— and, fuckin’ looking so goddamn methodical for?? Blatantly discarding the mere fact that you’re also, brazenly acting like a complete stranger in this instant, impulsively throwing yourself onto him — whether it’d be with open arms invitingly welcoming you or not — openly placing your oddly cold palms against his sides, practically clinging upon his frame for no reason whatsoever other than.. God, actually why’re you fuckin’ tugging at the hem of his— his pants, right now?! Fumbling at his zipper, hastily unbuckling his belt with a light jingle to irresponsibly sprawl across the tiled floor.

“H-Hey! Wha—What the fuck’re you doing??” Blubbering out, in sheer, utter shock when his legs should’ve notably been begging him to move, kick you away like some other stray cat uselessly pawing at him in one of the deserted alleyways, yet his feet remain firmly planted onto the floor — paralyzed even, reeled off his initial tracks as this naturally plays out to the likes of a.. cheap, porno film. 

Y’know, the ones he’d absently flip through whenever work drew on a bit too slowly for his tastes, randomly picked the nearest magazine idly displayed on his side and there you go; Bunch of freaks fuckin’ bringing shitty porn in a sacred place, namely the clinic he dutifully worked in. Ain’t that funny? Not that he can’t similarly sympathize, he’s just as much as a pervert as those lustful patients, just better at concealing it.

Oh, who’s he fuckin’ kidding? Conceal? Like the painfully evident hard-on visibly twitching against his boxers, soaking wet patch of sticky pre-cum darkening the shade humiliatingly bare for your eyes to calmly take in. Feathered breaths wistfully close along the outline of his aching dick insistently throbbing in response to the puff of heated air blown out— god, way too fucking close for his tastes. Yeah, he’s known you for being surprisingly crude at certain times, specially when you’d actually readily obey to his orders in math class like sloppily sucking him off, messily coating his cock in a layer of translucent spit underneath the wobbly desk while slobbering all over his fat balls as he made no effort to stifle his guttural groans, but— but, damn.. Thought you would’ve left those slutty tendencies long behind you after those few years, slut. Guess he’s thought wrong and been disproven once again.

“I’m taking a sample as I promised mister Harper that I would. Now stay still for me, it’ll just take a second — a couple minutes, to be exact if all goes well.” Mister Harper this, mister Harper that, he’s got half a mind to curiously question you as to what’s up with the unnatural, formal name calling because since when did you refer to the local doctor in town — partially known for being a freak by a limited bunch, though few actually made it out to tentatively whisper out the tale — as Mister?? Which, his main objection should logically be plainly getting you off of him, but with his arms hanging limply at his sides, instead settling upon reluctantly tugging at the silky strands of your hair, he’s not making much progress to say the least.

“S-Sample?? Sample of what— fuck! Get your hands off my fuckin’ pants before I report your ass to security!!” Preferably, he would’ve unavoidably settled with knocking the lights out of you— still, is a tad bit too far lest he wants to get fired from his prestigious job — ah, since when is being a surgeon tirelessly worked to death exactly seen as an accomplishment again? To hell with this, he should’ve been a smuggler or some shit. 

“I need a sample of your semen, so you just gotta keep still for a second.” As you assertively claim your reasoning for this all which still makes no sense, by the way— why the fuck would you or should he say, doctor Harper need his fucking jizz in the first place anyway? “What was it again.. Need to stimulate this part of your dick till you climax, correct?” Alright, now you’re just being too clinical with your wording, shivering into your touch, the delicate trace of your supple fingertip running along the curve of the veiny underside of his shaft nearly enough to have him push aside the unbelievable logistics of what this is inevitably leading to.

Beyond that puzzling rambling, a tinge of disgust lurches in his heart, towards himself for being unable to lay the slightest hand on your angelic face due to how adorable you appear in this moment. Pretty, stupid fuckin’ pretty boy, god. Said it twice cuz’ that’s just how pretty you are to him. Despite literally forcing him to be naked from the waist down against his will, okay— not fully convinced about that last part. This is playing out too well like one of his depraved fantasies, you, all obedient and pliable, pushing him to his withering limits. 

And if your insistent, albeit nonsensical explanation is meant to supposedly soothe his frantic panic and bewilderment of this unfavourable situation, then that’s immediately thrown out the window as your invasive hands shamelessly strip him down to basically nothing, save for his boxers that’s also— ah, fucking shit.. swiftly being chucked down too. Muttered curses and maybe, the meanest swears and insults that would’ve put a seasoned sailor to shame, aimlessly falling upon deaf ears. After all, he’s but a man, is he not? So, don’t fault him for his body to instinctively experience a natural reaction when a pretty mouth is so stupidly close to his bare cock, springing free of its unbearable confines to then audibly slap against his toned stomach, smear the already present, pearly pre-cum along the curve of his tummy with a sigh. Fuck, he’d just about pin you down and fill you to the brim right then and there, as if.

So what’s stopping him from doing so anyway? 

Clearly, you’re asking for it, if not in the weirdest of ways. Cleanly popping his leaking cock between your too soft lips, outwardly hissing at the wet warmth he’s sought to crave late at night with his sheets haphazardly thrown aside to give way to his fat, drooling cock frustratingly squeezed in the cup of his palm. Red, hot tip dribbling out thick globs of pre-cum along his tense tummy, arm lazily thrown over his face to stifle his ever growing curses of dissatisfaction. Not enough though, not fucking enough— because nothing truly beats the squishy, tight insides he’s come to secretly cherish, if not take for granted, of his stupid, little slut. An addict is what he is, pathetically yearning for the chance to at the very least, indulge himself once more in that sickly, tight heat one last time, just one last fuckin’ time, god. Upper lip curling upward at the sheer thought as he miserably drives himself to shoot his spent seed, messily splattering along his stomach to then paint his chest white in the same crude manner. What a fucking sight, huh. Whitney, former bully in the making, stained in his own cum cuz’ no other bitch does it for him much like you do.

But, as often spoken by most— old habits die hard, do they fuckin’ not? It’s instinct on his part, so you really shouldn’t cruelly place the fault onto him when he’s practically manhandling you on the squeaking bed instead, usually meant for carefully inspecting sickly patients and the likes. New purpose found, he guesses. “Fine, you wanna do this then? I’ll give y’a my fuckin’ cum you’re so desperately askin’ for, you whore— so, don’t start crying now.”Crinkly, thin, barely translucent sheet of paper laid atop the surface, audibly shifting underneath your sudden weight. Thought you had him beat? Well, guess what? He’s kept you snugly stuck beneath the heel of his foot during the entirety of high school, so what’s the goddamn difference if he does it now as older adults? 

Just.. a slight change in the way it’s done and, you wouldn’t mind, would you? By the looks of it, familiar squeaks he’s recurrently heard, partially muffled by the thumping blood hurriedly rushing to his head— and fucking south too, though that doesn’t need to be said twice, y’know. Heaving groan at the feel of his bare cock already instinctively rubbing himself against the outline of your own, cute cock incidentally stuck in your pants. Collective, shared gasps slipped out in tandem with each full rub of his twitching length smearing a sticky mess across the patched outline of your shorts. 

“Fuck.” Cute. Unconsciously cursing to himself at the welcoming warmth your soft body provides when encompassed by his own bigger one— know how much he’s missed ya all this time? Pawing hands that he somehow can’t manage to keep to himself when you’re around, and it’s not his fault, really. Zeroing gaze descending downwards to where your leaking cock rests so cutely against your tummy, fuckin’ asking for it, aren’t you?

Did ‘mister Harper’ make you wear those all-too tight, fitting shorts to accentuate your plush thighs or somethin’ too, huh? Prepped you all up and pretty for him? Speaking of that freak, he’ll make note to visit the little cunt later once he’s done with you, either punch the lights out of him or reluctantly thank him for the opportunity made by him— maybe both, actually. Far too busy in greedily inhaling the dizzyingly sweet scent exuding out of your frame, no matter how weird that may seemingly appear to others. Comfortably tucking his nose in the crook of your neck in favour of mindlessly humping himself stupid between your forcibly spread legs to actually catch the slight tilt of his glasses slipping downwards, on the verge of falling forth before coincidentally caught by your fumbling hands slicked in sweat. Aren’t you so helpful? Gotta hand it to ya, your preventive action merely spurs on this creeping idea in his disgusting mind, itch meant to be satiated as he coldly dotes a single, rather simple order upon you. 

“Put ‘em on.” He simply grunts out of the blue, gaze fixated on the quiver of your bottom lip, ah— fuck. He’d like to suck on it and stain it sticky with his cum and spit, give it a little bite while he’s at it too, watch it prettily bloom red beneath the sharpness of his teeth. Would look so cute like that, wouldn’t y’a?

“Huh?” Wide, puzzled eyes confusingly blinking back at him cuz’ isn’t it obvious what he’s asking for? He wants you to slip on those pair of glasses, his glasses, to be exact. 

“I said, put ‘em on.” Even if the gesture itself, despite not being that big of a deal brings a certain, feverish heat to his cheeks as it’s sort of intimate for a man like Whitney to be willingly shoving his property onto another, generously sharing it with you his own possession like the glasses he routinely wears to work everyday. Useless to repeat himself any further, but like a good boy, you abide to his crystal clear instructions— shakily placing the rims onto yourself, breath immediately caught in his throat at the sight of your averting eyes stubbornly set downcast to avoid his piercing gaze boring a hole into your flushing face. 

God, you’re way too cute for your own good, aren’t you? Something— something about you wearing those— his glasses, to be exact, has his mouth dumbly hanging open, palms eagerly pawing at your supple legs, tender flesh beneath his grasp that’s so fuckin’ delicate it might as well break, decisively ripping your shorts down to display your soft, wanting hole for his awaiting, throbbing cock. “W-Wait! Don’t look!”Cutest squeaks he’s ever heard as your palms instantly cover your puckered entrance and cock like that’ll actually stop him from repeatedly slamming his entire length inside your fragile body, openly snarling at your measly attempt to hide your wet and ready hole from his prying eyes greedily drinking in the pretty sight that greets him in return— etch it to memory if he could and oh, he will. Whether you want it or not.

“Fucking shit— and you act like you don’t want it. Don’t go lying to me when you want it just as bad as I do.” It’s a bold admission on his part, yet he remains intricately aware that he’s the one who’s right here, isn’t he? Hand raising upwards to meet your face, hopefully untouched by that other freak’s claws or he might as well bust his face in too. Calloused thumb uncharacteristically tender in its strokes along your blazing cheeks. Little, heated sighs of apparent relief once you’ve eased into the blonde’s abnormally soft touch to then, suddenly morph to a rougher form as his fingers harshly dig in the softness of your cheeks, forcibly keeping you in his hold so that he may direct your gaze to his own figure towering over yours. Bitten lip meant to fuck, loudly sighing at your annoyingly cute face accompanied by his smudged glasses resting atop your nose. “Look what’ya do to me, gettin’ me all hard and shit, and then you suddenly wanna back out now? No fucking way, slut. I’ll give you what you want— I’ll give you my fuckin’ cum, so keep still for me.”

Not a heeding warning, but a command which you should notably be listening to, by the way, if you’ve retained any foggy memories of the shit he’s cruelly had you endure back in high school. Plush thighs firmly pinned against your chest, full view of your tight, little hole, ass and balls to appreciatively take in for the briefest of moments. Ah, he’s missed this so goddamn bad, y’know? Directly lining up his pulsing cock head dribbling out fat globs of pre along your entrance, relishing in that curled, wide-eyed expression of yours, parted lips he’d like to just shove his slippery tongue into— fuck. Either mixed with utter fear or maybe, actual, shared desire for this as much too, that he’ll settle upon it being both for the sake of his sadistic mind. You wear fear pretty well, don’t’cha think? 

So much so that he can’t help, but precariously crane his head over to fully paint the sight to mind like the prettiest of pictures he’s ever been graciously blessed to witness. “Pretty.” He muses inwardly, subconsciously, without the slightest sense of awareness of the overly soft praise he’s just given you. Too fuckin’ busy in cutting himself off as the slippery wet tip of his fat cock so effortlessly slides in your tight hole with ease,  no sense of handling you with care when you’ve been such a damn tease about it too— because ah, fuck— know just how long he’s been waiting for this opportunity? Fucking, slicked walls instinctually clamping down around his throbbing length, hissing at the burning stretch of your hole gradually accommodating to the girth of his cock. Muted whines, fluttering lashes wet with bubbling tears threatening to spill forth, pink tongue discreetly peeking out to delicately lick away at the sheer proof that he’s potentially hurting you, or maybe not. Looks more like you actually enjoy having a fat cock up your ass— your ex-bully’s too.

Conflicted between the helpless babbles the sharp, punishing snap of his hips flush against your backside draw out from you and the scrunch of your features undeniably spelling pleasure. “Fuck— hah, fuck.. D-Don’t look at me like that. I’m fuckin’ giving you what you’re asking for, aren’t I?” God, he looks just as dumb as you right now, head thrown back, eyes automatically rolling to meet his skull from just how goddamn nice it is to be snugly stuffing your whorish boy hole full of his twitching length— fuuuuuckkk. Golden locks of hair unceremoniously tumbling forth to conceal the strained expression etched along his face, biting of his bottom lip and the sharp puffs of air endlessly being exhaled out of his hanging mouth. Palms locked upon your slutty waist, practically using your lithe frame as though you were a squishy flesh light— which, by all means, you definitely beat the actual feel of it, shit, only your stupidly warm hole would’ve gotten him this dizzyingly high off of the wet sensation enveloping his cock. Only stupid, little, ol’ you— really. 

Frustratingly gritting his teeth at your feeble head shakes despite the full-on body shudders of your quivering legs held— no, fucking raised high, feet resting atop his shoulders mainly used as a means of support. “N-No— ah, don’t l-like it. Uh, I don’t like it—” Alright, keep telling yourself that then, with your fists decisively clenched upon your chest, rosy, pink nipples evidently erect in the cooling air of the closed room. Hard cock cutely bobbing up and down in times with each of his sloppy thrusts accompanied by the squirming bulge of the outline of his cock fully sheathed in your slippery warm insides, protruding against the flesh of your tummy. ‘Don’t like it’ my fucking ass, you’re about this close to cummin’ hands free from your old bully’s cock harshly shoved up your hole. 

And truly, he’d be nothing more than content to aid in that— it’s where your rightful place has always been, hasn’t it? Glasses somehow not clumsily knocked off your drooling face, smudged with the heated huffs steaming up the air. Within arms reach, in his unrelenting grasp that his self-deluded mind has dumbly convinced Whitney of so. ‘Course, why wouldn’t he have thought so of it earlier? Dotting smile, lashes prettily staring back at him with a rosy flush adorning your cheeks. Outstretched arm gleefully welcoming him in— your fucking husband in, to be exact in that matter. Wouldn’t you be so kind to carefully reach for his worn coat, seamlessly slip it off his taller frame as you dutifully greet him like a caring husband should? Timidly reward him for the tireless efforts he’s put in after a long, torturous day of work. Pouty lips lovingly tracing his jawline, your soft palms he’d wish for nothing more than to constantly cling upon his body everyday, every second actually — comforting warmth he’d fervently seek out and easily find when you’re so tenderly embraced within his arms. 

It’s stupid, so fucking stupid that it’s that single thought that merely drives him to the edge. Whitney, fuckin’ him of all people to be experiencing such domestic thoughts, never been much of a family’s man or so others predictably think so of him, but— fuck, would it be so damn bad if it were you instead, happily greeting him at the edge of his doorstep every day— for the rest of his godforsaken life?? Devotedly stuck to his side? Yeah, hah. Actually, he’d like that a whole lot, really. “God, ah— fuck— fuck, cummin’— hah, fuckin’ cumming inside you, ‘kay?” High-pitched whine, all too soft to be a sound belonging to the blonde’s parted lips, stuttered curses at the slight twitch of his full length noticeably quivering deep inside your slutty hole. Hot, white spurts of his sticky seed uncontrollably squirting out of his fat cock to messily stain your insides tacky with his cum— ah, shit. Really is no better than that fucker after all, is he? 

Still, he can’t go letting your weeping cock miserably go neglected, can he? Thumb insistently nudging at the flesh of your pouty lips, snidely grinning at your reluctant obedience as your shakily part your mouth open for the spit coated digit to slip in. “Good boy.” Haven’t cum yet, have you? Well, that would be too bad if he were to cruelly leave you be as you are, though good thing Whitney has changed for the better, right? Previous bully reformed and all that— thanks to society, right? 

Oh, who’s he kidding— hah. Change? Progress slipped way off the second his gaze landed upon your all too nosy one in his office. 

You look better with his cum lodged in your hole, wobbly lips and tear stained cheeks anyway.

[franzkafkagf]

Bag of Bones

summary ♡ Aegon, consumed by hatred and grief, seeks out Helaena in a desperate attempt to find solace and connection amidst their shared tragedy.

pairing ♡ Aegon II Targaryen x Helaena Targaryen

tags ♡ 18+, MINORS DNI! grief sex, angst, codependency, mild dubcon

wordcount ♡ 2k

song rec ♡ Bag of Bones – Mitski

read it on ao3

He fucking hated the Red Keep. He hated everything about it.

He hated the stench of old stone that seemed to linger on everything. He hated the paintings and tapestries adorning the cold stone walls. He hated the memories he made inside these wretched walls.

The torches cast long shadows as he moved through the hallways, his footsteps echoing in the silence. Blood clung to his garments, smeared his hands, and marred his face. The metallic scent of it filled his nostrils, it was the smell of justice, for all he cared. His heart pounded in his chest, the sound of it travelling all the way up to his ears; he could barely hear his own thoughts over it.

He had a clear destination, a single place where he might find peace, or at least understanding. He stopped in front of a wooden door, his hand trembling pathetically as he raised it to knock. The wood felt rough under his knuckles.

No reaction from the other side. The silence was like a hot knife to his flesh, cutting deeper the longer he waited. For a moment, he wondered if she was even there, if she could sense his presence through the heavy wooden door.

He knocked again, harder this time. Still, there was no answer.

His throat tightened, and he felt a surge of panic build inside him. He couldn’t bear it if she wouldn’t see him, wouldn’t speak to him.

After a moment’s hesitation, he pushed the door open. It creaked on its hinges, the sound loud and jarring in the oppressive and unnatural quiet of the chamber. The air inside was stale, heavy with the godawful stench of the Keep. The only source of light was a nearly burnt-out candle on the nightstand, its wax dripping slowly to the floor.

On the edge of the bed, he saw her—a woman, her form slumped and defeated. Helaena, his wife, his sister.

Her head was lowered, her silver hair hanging in loose, tangled strands that obscured her face partially. Did she want to hide from prying eyes, or just his? The sight of her like this made him bite the inside of his cheek raw until he tasted blood.

“Helaena.” His voice cracked with emotion as the words left the threshold of his lips. She didn’t stir, she didn’t even seem to hear him.

He took a tentative step forward, his boots dragging against the floor. “Helaena,” he repeated, more insistent this time. Still, there was no response.

Why couldn’t she offer him at least this? At least a reaction? These past two weeks had been the worst of his life. They hadn’t talked since. How hadn’t they talked since?

Aegon felt a tear slip down his cheek, mixing with the blood that stained his skin. He moved closer, desperate for anything. He wanted to touch her, he wanted her to hold him. He wanted to tell her what he had done, he wanted her to tell him that everything would be alright, even though he knew it was a lie.

“Helaena, please,” he whispered as he fell to his knees in front of her. “Look at me.”

She didn't move, didn't lift her head, didn't offer the slightest indication that she had heard him. The silence in the room felt suffocating, pressing down on him like the weight of the entire Keep. He needed her to acknowledge him, to show some sign of life, but she remained as still and silent as a statue.

Desperation clawed at his insides. He reached out and grasped her hands, smearing her pale skin with blood. “Helaena, I killed one of them. One of the men who took our son. He suffered, Helaena. For a week, he suffered greatly. I didn’t let him go easy.”

Her fingers were cold and limp in his grasp. She didn’t react, didn’t seem to notice the blood now staining her hands. She was far beyond his reach.

Frustration surged within him, and he tightened his grip on her hands, his knuckles turning white. “Helaena, please,” he begged her, not befitting of a king. “Look at me. Say something.”

Slowly, she lifted her head, her eyes meeting his. There was no recognition in them, nothing from the woman he had known. Just an empty void that mirrored the hollowness in his own soul.

“We will fall, Aegon. You will fall, and I will fall. Jaehaera will fall, and Maelor...” Her voice broke on the name, and she screamed, burying her face in her hands, her nails digging into her flesh.

“No!” Aegon cried, reaching out to stop her. He grabbed her wrists, pulling her hands away from her face. “Stop, Helaena. Please, stop.”

She looked at him with wild, tear-filled eyes. “I see it,” she said, her voice shaking and frenzied. “I see our end. There is no escape.”

He shook his head fiercely, refusing to accept her words. This was all he had left, it would break him. “I will avenge Jaehaerys.” It was his promise to make. “I killed one of them. I will find the other, I will have all the rat catchers in the city hanged if I must. Then I will burn Rhaenyra. She will burn for what she did, rest assured.”

Helaena’s eyes were distant and unfocused again, she swayed and let her back fall on the mattress. “The rats will come again,” she murmured, her voice barely audible. “They always come again.”

Aegon felt a sob rise in his throat, he climbed on top of her on the bed, hands cupping her face. “Please come back to me. I need you. Our children need you.”

He felt the weight of his grief, heavier than anything he had ever experienced. All his thoughts over the past weeks had been consumed by revenge. Cutting off the butcher's fingers and breaking his bones had offered some semblance of solace, a brief respite from the constant agony. But now, seeing Helaena unresponsive like this, it all felt futile. He started to cry, his hot tears falling onto her skin.

“We’re already dead, Aegon. You and I. Jaehaera, Maelor. We are all dead.”

“No,” he sobbed, shaking his head as he cradled her face in his hands. “Don’t say that. Don’t speak like that. We’re alive, Helaena. I can still fight. We can still—”

“We’re ghosts.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t.” Desperation clawed at his insides as he caressed her cheeks, his thumbs wiping away his own tears on her face, leaving smears of blood. “We are not dead yet. I will burn them Helaena I—”

“The flames will consume us all.” She didn’t seem to hear him anymore. “They will burn until there’s nothing left but ashes.”

It was all too much. The resignation in her voice, the stench of the fucking Keep in the chamber, the feeling of blood clinging to him like a second skin. Aegon leaned in, pressing his lips to hers, desperate to silence her. He couldn’t bear to hear any more of her prophecies, couldn’t endure it. He kissed her with everything he could muster up, trying to pour all his love and his pain into that single moment.

His soul was an ugly little thing, it had shriveled and shrunk from the years of neglect. His love was pathetic, he knew that, but it was all he had to offer her at this moment.

The kiss was a frantic attempt to drown out the crushing despair with something, with anything, that felt alive. He felt her hesitate, her lips cold and unresponsive at first. But then, after what seemed like an eternity, she began to kiss him back. It was tentative, a flicker of the warmth he remembered, and it ignited a desperate hope within him. His hands wandered down her body, tracing the familiar paths, seeking what they had once shared.

He thought of all the times he had fucked her. He needed this, needed to feel her, to remind her and himself that they were still here, still alive. He fumbled with the ties of her nightgown, freeing her from its confines. It was only now that he noticed how much weight she had lost. Where she was soft and inviting once, she was hard and angular.

“I will make you feel good,” he promised against her lips, his hands roaming over her bare skin. This was all he knew, the only thing he was truly good at. The only thing he could do to maybe make it better.

He stood up just long enough to remove his garments, discarding them hastily before returning to her. His fingers went between her legs, teasing her gently, trying to coax a response from her. His thumb drew slow circles around her sensitive flesh, and he felt a tremor run through her body. She needed this, he needed this. He needed to remind her of her warmth, her life.

For a moment, there was nothing, just the silence and her stillness. But then, slowly, she began to react. Her breathing hitched, her hips shifting slightly towards his hand. Encouraged, he slipped two fingers inside her, thrusting into her softly. Her walls tightened around his fingers— a small moan escaped her lips.

“That’s it.” His voice was low and reassuring, he wasn’t sure who he was trying to reassure. “You’re doing good, Helaena. Just focus on me. Forget about everything else. Just focus on me.”

Her hands gripped the sheets, her knuckles turning white. He continued while her moans grew louder and more desperate. He felt his own arousal building, his hardness pressing against her thigh as he leaned down to kiss her neck and collarbones.

He trailed kisses along her skin, his lips and teeth grazing the sensitive spots he knew so well. Her body responded to him, her back arching slightly as she pressed herself closer to him. She was trembling now, her breaths coming in short, ragged gasps.

“Just let go,” he whispered against her skin. “I’ve got you.”

With a shuddering cry, she came, her body tightening around his fingers. Fueled by her pleasure she positioned himself at her wet entrance. With a single, thrust, he entered her, a groan escaping his lips as he did.

She gasped, her legs wrapping around his hips. He started moving inside her, his thrusts deep and steady. She was tight and warm around him, her body welcoming him so perfectly, as if nothing had ever happened.

“You feel so good,” he breathed, his lips brushing against her ear. “We’re here, Helaena. We’re alive.”

Her moans mixed with his, the room filled with the rhythmic beat of flesh banging against flesh. He moved faster, his thrusts becoming more urgent, more insistent. He needed this, needed to feel her, to lose himself in her.

“We were made for each other.” He leaned in closer, capturing her lips. “Stay with me.”

Her arms wrapped around him, her nails dug into his flesh; the pain of it a welcome escape from the wounds that didn’t bleed. For a moment he felt a flicker of hope, maybe she wasn’t truly gone. They were broken, the had been broken long before that night. But they nearly were a real person when they were together, weren’t they? That was at least something, wasn’t it?

He moved faster, his movements driven by his need for release, his need to lose himself in the pleasure of her touch. Her cries grew louder, her body responding so perfectly. He felt the tension building within him, the pressure mounting until he couldn’t hold back any longer. With a final thrust, he came, filling her. He collapsed against her, his body still trembling from his orgasm. His breath was still ragged and uneven as he spoke.

“We’ll get through this. I swear it.”

She didn’t respond, but she didn’t push him away either. They just lay there, tangled in each other. He closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of her skin on his skin. It wasn’t a solution, it wasn’t an idea either. Fuck, it was barely a distraction.

But it was something.

[piningforstan]

Talking in Your Sleep

Part One | Part Two

Summary: You start to suspect that there’s more to Stan than what he tells you, at least while he’s awake. Asleep is a different story

Pairings: Stanley Pines x GN!Reader

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: None, just angst

A/N: Don’t ask me why I put characters I love so much through so much heartache. There might be something wrong with me

“You dated him, didn’t you?”

“Hm?” You pretended not to be paying attention, wiping down the bar. No matter how many times you cleaned it, it stayed perpetually grimy to the touch. You doing the rag over your shoulder. “Who?”

“Weird guy. Lives in the woods.”

“Pines,” the other guy at the bar supplied. The foam of the cheap beer left a rim around his mouth. The former nodded.

“Oh, yeah,” you said casually, though it was anything but. Dated as in committed every dip and plane of his body to memory, told him about your childhood, envisioned a life unfolding before you with this man you considered your best friend. Until his lies ripped it away.

The two men continued their conversation then as if they only needed you to confirm something they already knew.

You would be lying if you said you didn’t partially want the job at Skull Fracture because you knew it was a notorious house of gossip and rumors, a way to check on Stan without actually having to speak to him. You picked up bits and pieces of what he was up to, how he was, all without actually inserting yourself.

In a small town like Gravity Falls there wasn’t much to talk about, and Stan posed a compelling story every time. You supposed it was a good thing that they never tired of him, speculating about his life and his job and everything else. You were of minor interest, too, since everyone knew you had lived and worked with him. But you never revealed much. It disgusted you, this unwavering loyalty to Stan. What did you owe him?

It became well known, anyway, that you refused to offer much in terms of fodder for gossip. You were intriguing in a vague, less interesting sense, a lens through which they hoped to grasp a better understanding of Stan.

The roar of the bar usually muted those thoughts of him. Music blared at all times of the day, men smoked and fought and cursed, greasy-smelling food wafted from the kitchen, and you facilitated all of it with a plastered smile. You needed money after leaving Stan. Gravity Falls wasn’t exactly a hotbed of employment opportunities, and unless you wanted to be stuck in the lumber business you had no other option than barkeep.

Your name floated over the din of drunk bikers, your manager appearing out of the back. “There’s a call. For you.”

You wiped your hands on your thighs and followed him to the phone. “Hello?”

“Doll, you gotta help me out.”

Stan’s voice, deep and rasping, struck you like a slap. Your stomach dropped. It took you a few moments to eke out a response. “Stan?”

“They, uh, got me down at the station. Some bogus arrest.”

“What?” You shook your head. “Stan, you got arrested?”

“Just say you’ll come down, eh?”

“Why are you calling me? I’m at work.”

A pause on his end, the sound of a door being slammed shut. “I ain’t got no one else.”

You inhaled sharply and exhaled out your mouth, fingers digging into the phone. You could examine your decision making abilities later. “Fine. Fine, Stan. How much is bail?”

“S’not much.”

It s’was much, you came to find out, nearly all of your savings. But for some godawful reason, you still loved Stan, and you knew since his voice rang out on the line that you would do anything he asked. You loathed yourself for this, loathed him for putting you in this position.

Stan was grinning sheepishly and rubbing his wrists as he walked out of the station. Everything you had to say, all of the reprimands and lectures, vanished upon seeing him.

“You cut your hair,” you blurted stupidly.

Gone was the mullet, the unruly curls. You quickly admired the shape of his jaw leading into his neck, his slightly too big ears that endeared you to him even more. He looked younger this way.

Stan rubbed the back of his neck, chuckling. “Yeah. If bad haircuts were a crime, I would’ve been arrested a lot sooner.”

You opened your mouth to tell him that you had loved his mullet, but promptly closed it again. It hurt to look at him, properly, since that night in the basement; the ache you carried in your heart increased tenfold now, throbbing so painfully that you thought you might now understand how people could die from broken hearts. You tore your gaze from him. Suddenly the bushes outside the station held your rapt attention.

“Listen, uh, thanks. For bailing me out. How much do I owe ya?”

“Stan, you’ve forgotten I’ve balanced your books. You couldn’t pay me back even if you wanted.”

“That’s not true,” Stan protested, “the Shack’s been breakin’ even most days. She’s doin’ alright. Not the same without you, though.”

He rushed this last part, an afterthought that he wanted to retract but had already brought to life.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” you said. Perhaps if you pretended you didn’t hear him entirely, it wouldn’t take roost in your mind.

“I’ve been meanin’ to tell ya —”

“I have to get back to work, Stan,” you said, sharper than you meant to. You couldn’t think with the amount of hurt being in his company afforded you. “Do you need a ride?”

He nodded, stuffing his hands in his pockets. The drive back transpired in silence. Your headlights sliced through the darkened woods like two sabers, finally falling onto the Mystery Shack as you pulled into the gravel lot. You still considered it more home than your place now, a room you rented from one of the locals. You didn’t realize just how much you missed it.

Your grip on the steering wheel tightened. “Have a good night, Stan.”

“You should come in. Please. I won’t keep ya long.”

Your resolve, well, dissolved. Not that it was heavily fortified to begin with. You found yourself crossing the lot to the porch and in through the front door, the process a lot like slipping into a familiar piece of clothing. It smelled distinctly Stan-ish, you noticed, though not unkindly. He had kept the place neat since you left. The reminder of that afternoon, dragging your meager belongings out, glared in your memory. Stan watching out the window as you drove away.

“Jus’ one cup. I swear.” He placed a mug of coffee in front of you. Your mug. The one you forgot.

“Thanks,” you mumbled. You were grateful for the excuse to do something with your hands, even though the coffee tasted like mornings with your feet in his lap and his lips on your shoulder.

“I hear yer workin’ at the bar now.”

You smiled grimly. “Regrettably.”

“Ya know you always have a job here,” Stan said.

“What’re you doing?” You set down the mug on the table. The anger boiled in you, words escaping like trapped steam with no where else to go. “You can’t just act like nothing happened. Like this is normal.”

“I jus’ wanted to talk,” Stan told you. His throat bobbed uncertainly. “To apologize.”

You stayed quiet.

When he realized you wouldn’t be responding, he forged ahead. “I should’ve been honest with you. From the beginning. But ya don’t understand where I was when I met you — I finally reconnected with my brother after ten years and then I lost him. Again. Because I fucked up.”

His hands formed into fists. Stan took a breath, seemingly to steady himself. “I was lost. I was angry. It was easier to lie. And what was I s’ppose to do? Spill the whole truth? When I first met you, you were a stranger. I had no idea that you would stick around w’me as long as you did.”

“That’s…fair.” Stan looked relieved at this, though it wasn’t long lasting. “But why not tell me the truth when I asked?”

“I didn’t know how. Every time I tried, I…I couldn’t. Would you have had a different reaction, though? I knew you would leave.”

“At least I would’ve heard it from you straight, Stan. I had to find out while you were asleep that you were keeping these huge secrets from me.”

“I know. I’m…I’m sorry. I didn’t want things to end the way they did.”

You bit down on your lip to keep the tears at bay. “Neither did I.”

“We could try it again, ya know.”

The way he looked at you was so earnest, so genuine, that you had to close your eyes to ward off the image of him as a skinned-knee child, the one who solved problems with his fists and resided just below the surface of this man now.

“Stan —”

“Please?”

You swallowed, your throat thick with emotion. “I don’t know if I can trust you again.”

“The truth is out now. You know everything.”

“But I will never be able to ignore the feeling that you’re hiding something from me,” you said. “So much is still unclear to me.”

“Ask me anythin’. I’ll tell ya.”

You couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes as you said, “Stop building the portal or whatever you’re doing. Focus on the people — here — in your life.”

Focus on me, you inwardly pleaded.

Stan’s jaw feathered. “I can’t stop working to get him back.”

The swift finality of his words washed over you, a decisive blow to the traitorous hope you still clung to. Coffee not even halfway drank, you stood and rounded the table. Stan’s cheeks were wet with tears as you put your hands to them, pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Goodnight, Stanley.”

The bar shined. It was never dirty for long, you ensured that when you bought it, ensured that you wiped away every mess. You could even see the door opening in the reflection of the bar, two small bodies stepping through. You looked up.

It wasn’t rare for new faces to visit. It was summer, the height of tourism season, and your bar was preferable to Skull Fracture. Gentle music drifted from the speakers. Bar wasn’t even the right word — you served small meals and drinks of all kinds, not just alcohol. You smiled at the two children as they approached. “Thirsty?”

“Yes!” The girl, buried in a sweater despite the heat, smiled brightly at you. Her braces winked in the low lighting.

“And,” the boy said, her brother, glancing at her purposefully, “we need to ask some questions.”

You nodded. “Ask away. Lemonade okay?”

The juxtaposition of the two, the girl, looking around eagerly, and the boy, doing his best to present himself as mature and composed, brought a smile to your face. He laid a notebook on the bar counter, brows furrowed.

“Where were you the night of June twenty-first?”

“Hm. At home, I suppose.”

“Can anyone confirm that?”

You peered at him. Amusement ignited inside you, a flicker of affection. You loved kids, always have. “I live alone, so, no.”

“Did you see anything…peculiar that night?”

“Not that I can recall.” You set down two glasses of lemonade in front of them. “Why?”

“There was a reported sighting of an unidentifiable object in the sky,” the boy said. “We were just gathering information about it.”

The girl wiggled her fingers, whispering conspiratorially, “Aaaaaliens.”

“We don’t know that,” the boy countered.

“I wouldn’t be surprised. Strange things always happen in this town,” you said.

“You see them too?”

You smiled softly at the two of them. “I do.”

“I’m Dipper. This is my sister, Mabel,” the boy introduced, jerking a thumb at her. “Would you mind telling me stories about what you’ve seen?”

You entertained their questions, recalling the unexplainable things you’d seen over the last thirty years. You refilled their drinks twice. They listened intently to your stories, interrupting only to clarify something specific.

There was something familiar in their shape of their mouths, the keen way that they interacted with their world. Had they been in town before? You knew some families returned to Gravity Falls every summer to enjoy the wilderness and disconnect.

“What did it look like?” Dipper asked, leaning forward in interest.

You had been telling them about the time you swear you saw glowing lights in the trees, floating blue spheres leading you away from the path. “Well, they —”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Dipper said. “I should be putting this in the journal.”

“Dipper,” Mabel warned him.

Dipper ignored her. “Would you mind following us home? I’d love to write everything down and-and draw a picture, if you don’t mind.”

His cheeks flushed at this.

You gazed around the empty bar, then shrugged. What point was there to owning your own business if you couldn’t close down when you wanted?

“Sure, give me one moment.”

The twins appealed to you. And you were curious to find out more about them. Not to mention, it had been a long time since someone wanted to talk to you. Really talk. You weren’t lonely, per se, but you sometimes missed the comfort of another person. As you closed the cash register and locked up, you couldn’t ignore the fact that you had wanted kids, long ago, but the years slipped away and now the dream was gone.

You liked these kids. Even though you’d only known them for an afternoon, you’d taken a shine to them — smart and witty, perceptive, the right amount of childish enthusiasm. You told them to put their bikes in the trunk of your car and followed their direction back home.

“You live…here?” Your stomach dropped as the Mystery Shack emerged from the dense forest, the S lying precariously on the roof.

“Kinda,” Mabel said, “we’re staying with our Grunkle Stan for the summer.”

Dipper, insisting that he got the front seat, turned to you. “Do you know him?”

“Kinda,” you muttered. “If it’s all the same to you, I might just stay in the car.”

The twins exchanged a look. A pointed, knowing look, like they suspected their uncle had done something to lose your favor. They weren’t wrong, exactly. Dipper and Mabel ran inside with the promise to return shortly. All you could do was stare at the Shack numbly, imagine the man within and the memories you held with him. You should’ve known that he would make an appearance, stomp out onto the porch after his niece and nephew to investigate.

Stan’s expression crumbled.

You couldn’t hear, but he uttered something to them. They gesticulated frantically back. Your heart had leapt into your throat by the time the three of them walked back to the car, Stan lingering a few steps behind.

“Grunkle Stan says we shouldn’t bother you,” Mabel said, pouting.

You finally forced your gaze to him. Stan had aged well, you reluctantly noticed, still unbearably handsome. The same broad shoulders. The features that you knew so well, lined with the years you spent apart.

“They aren’t bothering me,” you choked out.

“You shouldn’t fill their heads w’stories,” Stan replied, refusing to meet your eyes.

“They aren’t stories,” you and Dipper both protested at the same time. You shared a secretive smile with him.

“Jus’ tell the nice person sorry and let them get on with her day.”

Mabel tugged on his suit jacket. “They told us that you knew each other.”

“We-We did,” Stan said.

You supplied, “A long time ago.”

“Then come inside and catch up!” Mabel beamed at the idea. “You gave us lemonade so it’s only fair. I can make you Mabel-cakes!”

“If it’s fine with your uncle.”

Stan studied you closely. You could only imagine what he saw, your greying hair and swollen knuckles. “Uh, yeah…’course.”

You were both pleased and devastated to see how the inside of the Shack had changed. Judging by the “exhibits” and amount of items in the gift shop, business was prosperous. A redheaded girl at the register waved at you as you passed. Dipper disappeared upstairs to fetch his journal, and Mabel busied herself preparing the pancake mix, leaving you alone with Stan.

“It’s, uh, been awhile,” Stan said, effectively breaking the silence.

You feigned an interest in the water stains on the ceilings. “It has.”

The last time you were together had been almost— what, two years ago? You had knocked. Stan had answered. He touched you with expert precision, years of exploring one another resulting in experiences both familiar and new, somehow each brief encounter over the years never dulling your attraction. You weren’t proud, necessarily, of your weakness in the form of Stan Pines. You had almost overcome it until today; you should’ve known that the twins were Pines.

“How’s the bar?” Stan asked.

“Fine.”

“I’m sorry if they were botherin’ ya. Kids.”

“They weren’t,” you said, and you meant it. “They seem really great. They’re your niece and nephew?”

“Great niece and nephew. My brother’s grandkids.” When you arched a brow in confusion, Stan grimaced. “Other brother.”

“Oh.” You hugged your arms around yourself. Should you ask him how his search was? You wanted to care, but found it hard when it only brought back painful memories. Clearly it hadn’t been well, not if his brother was still absent.

You bit your lip. “Do they know?”

“No, they don’t.” Stan’s face shuttered closed.

Indignation swelled inside you, pressed against your rib cage. “You haven’t told them?”

“Everyone thinks that —” he lowered his voice, “—that Stanley Pines is dead. Including their parents and my brother.”

“I can’t believe you.”

“What I do with my life isn’t your problem,” Stan snapped. “You made that clear.”

“They’re good kids, Stan.”

“You don’t think I know that?”

“Don’t push them away, too,” you told him softly. “I-I need to go. Can you tell them I’m sorry? Say that I had to go back to work or something.”

Stan’s words chased you out the door: “Whose the liar now?”

Tags:

@gimmemorecherries @tellybearryyyy

[cordeliawhohung]

Dunno if you've answered this but what are our Mafia men like drunk? How often do they do so? How high are their tolerances?

you know what, this is only fair since we've been talking about the girls and them being drunk lmao

mafia!Price probably drinks the most out of all of them, but doesn't drink so much to the point that he gets drunk. he likes to have a pint after a hard days worth of work and whatnot, so alcohol is probably in his daily/weekly diet. because of this, i imagine he has a higher tolerance than normal, but not like, anything too high. when he does get drunk, i imagine he's pretty smiley. maybe not all that talkative but he's a good listener. and the staring. jfc this man and his blue eyes. if you're in the room, he's staring at you. thinking about you. touching you if he can. wants you in his lap, wants his lips on your skin. and if you're not in the room? or anywhere close? he's texting you. wanting to call you. just wants to listen to you. he def strikes me as a sappy sort of drunk (which is probably why he doesn't get drunk all that often lmao) and he just wants to be close to you ):

mafia!Simon probably has the highest tolerance out of all of them, simply for his size if anything else. he enjoys his whiskey every now and then, but i feel like he very rarely gets plastered or anything. always been put off by it because of how his dad acted when he was drunk. if he were to get drunk, though, i'd imagine he'd be pretty loud. not like, shouting and yelling loud but just... his voice is booming. that is, if he does talk, otherwise he's on a goddamn mission to play pool, darts, or what have you. the man cannot and will not sit still. i also feel like he'd be a sleepy drunk lmao. like he'll be moving around and doing all this shit, but the moment he's sitting on a couch or leaning on the counter, he's dozing off. his poor liver is working overtime to process the godawful amount of alcohol he had to shove into his system. because of that, he uses you as his personal stuffed animal when he's drunk. oh, you're cuddling and now you're too warm? maybe you're suffocating a little? too bad. try again come morning.

mafia!Gaz is a fucking lightweight. i'm sorry. he really is. the guy is really proud of his physique, and he works out a lot at the gym, and going out for beers all the time won't really do him much good. besides, it's rare that he does go out, and drinking alone feels depressing, so why bother? but when he does get drunk? this man will not shut the fuck up. he's already got a nice voice but when it's all groggy from the alcohol? god, it's impossible to not fall in love with. and he'll just talk about anything. he'll respond to something you say with something completely unrelated to what you had brought up in the first place. he also will use his drunkenness to get out his real thoughts. sure he can talk a big game when he's sober, but he is going to tell you that you smell nice and that he likes your hair and that he wouldn't mind bending you over the couch, whoops.

mafia!Soap has a pretty high tolerance simply because he drinks so goddamn much. he'd probably be right under Simon as far as tolerances go. and this man is loud. like, loud because he's yelling. he's watching footie on the tv. he's playing pool with Simon. he's yelling about both of them. he's trying to get Kyle to take a shot with him. he's asking Price about his beard. he's whispering to you how he wants to eat you out in the bathroom. he's the hard party guy, probably the most akin to a frat boy. but once he hits that point where his tummy feels sick? he's the biggest fucking baby ever. wants you to run your fingers through his hair, wants forehead kisses, wants to rest his head on your thighs, he wants it all. you have to force him to drink water. have to tuck the man into bed like a toddler. it's endearing for a little while, but you get a bit annoyed with it once he starts throwing up lmao.

[thesandsofelsweyr]

What is the 'wild card' option do?

from Headcanon Game - A to Z (NSFW)

It means I get to share a sexy headcanon of my choosing, so of course it's gonna be scar related 😎

(This is not the aforementioned scar headcanon post. Still working on that one.)

⚠️ cw: here be more angst than smut 😅, torture mentions

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

Scars: he’s covered in them—from his scalp to the soles of his feet. Joker made use of nearly every square inch of flesh available on his “canvas” for his “artwork” 😞 Jay doesn’t want them seen: by himself, by others, by you especially. He feels like anyone can read his entire humiliating history from his scars, because all he sees are flashing advertisements for his many failures, for his cowardice, for his weakness. So he wears hats and hoodies, long sleeves, pants, and even gloves year-round (sexy driving gloves in the warmer months 😎). He’ll let you tug down his pants and boxer briefs to his thighs, but that’s as much of his ruined flesh as he wants showing, especially since he’s already feeling emotionally vulnerable when you two are intimate.

Touching his scars brings up a knotted tangle of emotions in him. They’re ultra sensitive. Not physically, per se, but the sensation reminds him that they’re there, reminds him of what happened to him. He remembers all of the times he “let” Joker touch him… how the man would trace the ridges of scar tissue almost tenderly, admiring his masterpiece, his plaything, his boy toy… His… and that godawful feeling makes him want to puke. But then you touch them—the crude mockery of the Robin logo carved into his breast, the puckered “HAHAHA” cut into his stomach, the Clown’s laugh permanently imprinted into his flesh—you trace them gently, absently with your fingertip while you rest your head on his shoulder in bed, and he can’t help but feel as though you’re reclaiming them and him from the Clown.

You place a soft kiss on his brand, and immediately that red hot iron is sinking into his cheek again—he can feel the Clown’s cruel fingers twisted into his matted hair, yanking back his head, can hear his wail of agony echoing off the walls of his torture chamber, can smell his flesh as it cooks, can taste the salt of his tears pouring down his permanently disfigured face—but then it’s your fingers combing through his hair, your soothing voice reminding him you want him, love him even, it's the scent of your perfume filling his nose, the taste of you lingering on his lips…

Over time you carve out much of the hatred, the pain, the blackness left by the Clown, and fill that hollowed out shell back up with your love, your loyalty, your light… and he trusts that you see more than the scars that litter his naked body… that you don’t see him as a coward or a failure, that you’ll never abandon him like the others he thought had loved him, that you don’t care about his past mistakes, only his future. With you 💕

(A/N: GOD, I could talk about his scars all day long, hehe. I love that he finds them disgusting, while all of us find them sexy as hell 😋)

[quirkle2]

who wants zombie au writing. don't answer that ur getting it anyway (1.6k words)

His shoes knock against the old flooring of the house, wood creaking under rubber soles that slide over the woodgrain. He drags them a bit, lifts his limbs up no more than he strictly has to, and they lead him to the nearest sittable surface.

The couch is old and dusty and has likely gone untouched for months, much like everything else nowadays, so he watches the thin cloud of dust billow off the cushions largely with disinterest. He collapses into the fabric heavily, feels the whole thing scoot back an inch and hit the wall behind him. The sound echoes, carried by lifeless rooms, while he unceremoniously drops his backpack to the floor by his feet.

The breath he lets out is slow and methodical and born of pent up muscles, aimed at the ceiling where he rests his neck against the back of the couch and relaxes every limb one by one. It’s a process he forces himself through, if only to rid the constant ache beneath his skin.

Slow, sweeping footsteps meander around the room in front of him, and Ritsu angles his gaze down from his craned back position to look at his brother. He wanders, like he so often does—seemingly aimless, but there’s something procedural about it that he’s convinced he just hasn’t figured out yet.

Shigeo’s empty eyes crawl along the hearth of the fireplace, explosions of ash sprayed out across the red brick. His head tilts up to trace his attention around the angular lines of the television, hung on the wall and screen grey with dust. He flits back and forth between the roundness of the bricked mantle and the sharp edges of the screen, like he’s taking notes.

Shigeo paws the television. Four lines of muck are cleared. The zombie blinks, paws at it again with dusty, curious fingers. Ritsu watches him make a mess of the television screen in silence, blinking tiredly.

He almost closes his eyes, but he fights against the urge and moves his fingers down his lap to reach for his bag. His middle hooks around the loop at the top and he lugs it up and into his lap, where he unzips it and peers into the shadowy contents.

Ritsu fishes out the water bottles. He finds the one with the messy R scribbled along the cap in sharpie and takes a big swig of it. It’s warm going down, constantly insulated in a bag of old, sweaty clothes. He feels like he can taste the odor in it, but it clears the grain in his throat from stomping all over dirt roads today, so he’s still grateful.

He holds out the one labeled S to Shigeo. “Thirsty?”

Shigeo looks at him from where he’s crouched down to the floor now, inspecting the soot along the hearth. Unfortunately, he sees handprints in the black already, and when his brother reaches a hand out to take it, his palm is covered in soot.

He lets him have his fun and settles his own bottle back in the mess of tangled clothes and rolls of bandages. Ritsu rakes his fingers through their stock with no real purpose—he knows exactly what’s in here, and none of it is useful.

They’d been searching all day; Ritsu doesn’t really know how far they’d walked, but it had to be a lot of miles. In and out of stores, up and down empty houses, weaving between warehouses—they didn’t really stop for a break. Not when Ritsu can hear Shigeo’s stomach from here and he himself has shaking hands. They can’t afford a break.

Nothing, though. Not a single goddamn thing worth taking. A settlement must have come through here long ago and swept the highway. They’re in the countryside, where houses are spaced out acres from each other and there’s entire cow pastures between properties. And yet every house they’d seen and entered provided nothing.

Ritsu stares into the negative space in his bag where there should be supplies. His stomach cramps and if he smells another whiff of that godawful sweaty, bloody sweatshirt he still carries, he’s going to throw up bile.

He leans away from the open pouch, eyes wandering to his brother who draws… something into the soot of the hearth. His water bottle sits on the floor, abandoned and still unscrewed. Ritsu leans forward with great effort and a grunt, leaning over his bag to grab at the top of it.

It takes him two tries to get Shigeo’s attention, and one more for an answer on where the cap is. It’s then placed in his palm, covered in soot and also saliva. Ritsu swallows down the nausea that rolls up his throat and wipes it off with his frankly already disgusting sleeve, and screws it back on.

He leans back again, succumbing to the urge to let his eyes rest, and he listens to the very subtle swipe of his brother’s hands across brick. There’s birds outside, chirping, and even though it’s still very much a common occurrence, Ritsu cannot help but feel nostalgic about it.

If he ignores the awful hum of silence, and the distinct lack of an electric thrum throughout the walls, and the fact that this is a stranger’s couch and not his, he can almost imagine normalcy. He can almost say this feels like those quiet moments after school, when he settles on the couch and scrolls through his phone in a house that only holds him and his brother because their parents simply aren’t home yet.

He can almost hear the creak of wood from Shigeo walking around his room upstairs. He can almost tap his fingers on the couch cushions to the pattern of his brother making his way down the steps. He can almost hear the fridge opening, and the sound of milk being poured into glass.

Almost. But Ritsu listens to sharp silence instead, and he tries not to think too hard.

He drifts for a while, feels himself truly sink into the couch and let the cushions claim him, and he thinks about nothings because if he doesn’t, then he’ll lose it. He carefully sifts through the nothingness of his mind, through the passing thoughts that have no bearing, and he focuses on that, on the lack of substance. His head is too full of things that have too much substance.

He misses boredom. He tells himself he misses boredom—the complete insubstantiality of it—because if he lets himself think of what he really misses, it’ll drive him insane.

The cushions move, and Ritsu peels his eyes open and lets himself get pulled from liminal mindspace. The cotton in his head recedes, and he blinks, and then he’s swiveling his head to look at his brother who sits in the cushion right next to him.

His hands and the cuffs of his hoodie are smothered in black. Shigeo sits hunched, gaze still wandering even when there’s not much decoration in this house to look at. He studies the off-white walls, the chips in the paint, the holes drilled in where there maybe used to be photos hung.

Ritsu gazes at him quietly, chest instinctively rising and falling to match his brother’s rhythm. He watches the expansion there, under his hoodie, in the subtlety of the folds and the way they warp over the movement. It’s slightly quicker than what he’s used to, but Ritsu knows his brother’s heart rate is much slower. He’s felt it before. He’s listened to it before, with his ear against a chest.

Ritsu’s attention moves to his eyes, and the heavy bags underneath them, and the paleness of his pupils and the ghostlight of him underneath that. He stares into them, looks for stray, familiar thoughts that might enter his head. Looks for old memories that might shine through in the form of recognition when he sees furniture layouts, and candy wrappers, and ads for soda.

Ritsu looks for it all the time, that glint of familiarity. And he finds it, sometimes. And really, he thinks that’s keeping him going more than food ever will.

Shigeo turns his head, and looks at him. Sometimes, when his brother looks at him, there’s not much there. No substance, no anything. And Ritsu finds it a bit evil that he craves silence in his own head, and yet noise in Shigeo’s, and often times it is the other way around.

His brother looks at him now, though, with that comforting recognition. That growth of the pupils, that softening of the hard edges of his face where unknown stressors have gotten to him. Ritsu wonders what zombies get stressed out. He figures it’s the same deal with humans, considering they’re largely alike.

Ritsu wonders if Shigeo knows he’s sick. He wishes he could ask him. He wishes for a lot of things. Silence in his own head is one of them.

Ritsu swivels his head away and stares at the ceiling, if only to force the thoughts to pause. He studies the popcorn ridges above them, traces the peaks with his gaze. It calms him, gives him something to focus on. He looks for patterns in the shadows they make.

Shigeo shifts next to him. And then he shimmies down, settles into the cushions, and plops his head right down on Ritsu’s shoulder.

Static roars in his mind and his heart stammers. Ritsu swallows the lump in his throat but that just makes it bigger, so he clamps his mouth shut and breathes carefully through his nose.

The tears cut through the grime on his face. He plops his own head down against his brother’s, and lives in the noise.

[awakenthemusic]

Threshold

Summary: Cas is gone… again. That doesn't mean he's not still haunting Dean's dreams, though.

Tags: Destiel, Short fic, ~600 words, Angst, Grief/Mourning

For Suptober 2023 Day 1 - Liminal.

Under the cut or on Ao3

Dean woke with a gasp, the stench of singed feathers clogging his nose and coating his throat with ash.

The smell of burning wings.

His heart pounded as he fought the bed sheets tangled around his legs where they clung to the sweat that drenched his skin. He wrestled his way out enough to turn on the bedside lamp and searched his surroundings with frantic eyes.

He was in his room at the bunker. There were no sunny green fields with the grass scorched black. No tang of char and lightning. No angels.

No Cas.

Dean buried his face in his shaking hands and tried not to scream.

The dream had felt so real and so hazy at the same time. He’d seen so many angels, recognized them and known that they were kin. He’d stared them in the face as they’d burned.

Even now, the guilt and the fury and the godawful smell made his stomach roil. It took him back to kneeling in the dirt outside the house where Kelly Kline was giving her life to bring a possible monster into the world. Took him back to the paralyzing grief that had reached into his chest and ripped out his heart only to grind it into the ashes left behind by Cas’ wings.

A vicious voice in his mind taunted, You don't even have a body to burn this time.

Dean wrenched himself from his bed, stumbling over to grab the bottle of whiskey he'd left on the table by the door. He held it for a long moment, his shaking arms screaming with the impulse to throw it, to smash it against the wall and watch it shatter, to grind the broken glass under his feet like he’d been walking on the shards of himself ever since Cas had said… had said goodbye in the fucking dungeon.

He squeezed the neck of the bottle so hard, he started to lose feeling in his fingers.

“You son of a bitch.” The words wrenched out of him, jagged and ripping at his throat. With sudden clarity, he knew he had to get himself somewhere else before he lost the ability to bite them back entirely.

He threw on yesterday’s clothes and grabbed his keys, tearing out of the bunker’s garage like he had hellhounds on his ass.

Baby flew down the highway, eating up the miles as Dean’s thoughts spun faster than Baby’s tires. Emotions twisted up in his gut so tight, he worried he’d never get the knot to come loose.

He angrily scrubbed away the tears that itched as they flowed down his cheeks.

He drove to a field outside town, one with a brook, a little garden, and a windmill nearby, all bathed in moonlight.

He skidded to a stop, uncaring of the way the tires tore into the grass on the side of the road. He marched out into the field and screamed.

All of the pain, all of the turmoil raging in his head, poured out of Dean, burning his throat like acid as it went.

“You SON OF A BITCH!”

He paced the clearing like a wild animal, uncaring if the town’s newly-returned residents heard him. “You fucking asshole! You were supposed to be here! Paradise on earth, that was the plan! How can I— How could you—“

Dean screamed wordlessly at the sky, falling to his knees in the soft grass.

The fight left him in a rush, nothing but empty ache left behind. He sank back onto his ass and buried his face in his hands. His voice cracked as he whispered, “There’s no paradise for me without you.”

[do-not-lick-the-walls]

a devil put aside | chapter three - renaissance

masterlist | read on ao3

(gif by @goodsirs <3)

beelzebub x fallen angel!reader

summary: you wash off the blood, and make a deal with the devil.

(she/her pronouns are used for the reader, no description of any sexual characteristics for the reader, no use of y/n)

warnings: non-sexual nudity & being undressed, religious themes & trauma, aftermath of injury, references to slight cosmic horror, some sexual undertones

ineffable taglist: @sarcastic-sourwolf <3

-----

You don't want to go in the bath.

Filthy is an understatement for you right now. Sticky with dry blood, covered in grime, clothes ripped up and hair swept into tangles. It makes you want to crawl out of your skin, how dirty you are. Too many layers made for Heaven's air-conditioned climate stick to your body, soot and ash mix with sweat to cover you in smears of dull gray. It's the third-worst thing you've ever experienced.

But you don't want to go in the bath. Sixty centuries worth of instinct is telling you not to touch molten sulfur, not to go near anything this hot, and certainly not to sink yourself in liquid hellfire. Your brush with death mere hours ago hasn't left you eager for a second try, no matter what godawful sensations you keep discovering.

You don't want to go in the bath. Because if it doesn't kill you, you'll know what you are, and you're not sure that would be any better.

So you just stare at it.

"Yes, you have to."

You shake your head and keep your feet firmly planted on the tile. You do not want to. It's not going to happen.

Beelzebub sighs. "You have to, love. I told them you would."

Tongues of steam-smoke curl around the little room, slowly licking at the air as the fire throws shifting pieces of darkness along the walls. Whirls of yellow sulfur float lazily within the red-orange fire. Dried blood sticks your shirt to your back.

"I don't want to."

They place a hand on your shoulder.

Every time you look away, the swirling patterns of the bath draw your eyes back. It's mesmerizing, in a horrible kind of way. Bright, like you're meant to be. Glowing with the vibrancy of colors found in fine stained-glass windows; the shades of red somebody could cut a depiction of Eve's apple straight from, hues of yellow fit for halos.

"You'll be okay." Beelzebub's voice is gentle, coaxing as they pull your suit jacket down your shoulders. You move to cling to it, but by the time you manage to tear your gaze from the fire, it's already been dropped on the floor, and they're undoing what's left of the knot in your tie. "It won't hurt, I promise."

That's what I'm afraid of.

Your tie follows your jacket, and though your brain wants it back, your body untenses at the loosening of your collar. The air feels cool in comparison to the humidity that's been building between your clothing and your skin, despite its actual temperature.

They peel off the rest of your clothes like that; carefully, slowly. Every button undone lets your skin breathe a little more. It's a relief. It's a deathmarch.

You fall into a detached kind of state, simply exist while your clothes turn into a pile of ruined fabric on the floor. Let time move through you without intervention. Only when Beelzebub holds out a hand to help you into the tub do you return to the active world, and by then your fear has settled into something less frantic. You have to go in, whether you want it or not. The quiet sinking of the inevitable wraps around your hand as you brace yourself on theirs, and step into the bath.

It doesn't kill you. It doesn't even hurt. It is a little uncomfortable when you sink all the way in, but you're quick to start adjusting to the heat, and it's nothing you can't handle. You haven't been smelling the sulfur this whole time, either. The scent is still there, but it's like somebody turned down your receptors to it. You're both thankful and concerned.

Beelzebub sits leaning against the tub, fidgeting with their hands in a way uncharacteristic to the calculated mannerisms you've come to expect. You don't dwell on it; the bathfire is starting to feel good, and you want to get this filth off your body before you explode.

You take a breath, close your eyes, and sink underfire. It's oddly peaceful, not altogether different from being underwater. There's the same bubbling noise, the same semi-floaty feeling. It'll take scrubbing for the blood to come off, but some of it is already starting to loosen while you soak. You wonder if it'll still be you underneath it all.

A tightening in your chest reminds you of your new need to breathe, and you resurface with a gasp and a slosh, fire-soaked hair sticking to your face and the back of your neck. Rivulets of sulfur run down your skin to drip back into the bath, rolling over your face and along your neck like rain on a window. A quick glance to Beelzebub reassures that you didn't splash them.

The cuts and bruises from tumbling around the office seem to have disappeared, though a general soreness remains. It's your back that truly hurts. From your shoulderblades all the way down past your ribs, a deep ache pulses angrily beneath your skin. You decide to save the back and the wings for last. Hopefully the fire will soothe in the meantime. You pick up a cloth.

Scrubbing the dirt from yourself isn't easy, and the blood's even harder to deal with. Your legs aren't too bad, but from the hips upward you're caked in blood that ran over your shoulders and down your chest, or around your sides to your waist. Your hands are particularly disgusting, bits of dark red-brown are mashed into every line and stuck underneath your fingernails. So the hands go first.

You weren't bloody after the war. Having a full cardiovascular system wasn't really your forte as an angel. When you took an injury, it was always pure light that shone out of the wound, clean and easy to manage until you or someone else could miracle you back to full. And you didn't take blows very often in the first place. But now a beating, bleeding heart's been shoved inside your chest, and you have a feeling it won't be going away. You've been cursed with a heart and lungs and guts. Your wounds will never be beautiful again, just messy and impure.

"Tell me how it happened."

The suddenly-broken silence makes you jump a little, knocking you out of your bitter thoughts. You stop scraping the ash from your forearm.

Some things are hard to say out loud. Hope leaves you lonely when you run out of denial to feed it with, and once the truth is past your throat it's never going back in. Your cardinal sins cannot be unconfessed, to others or to yourself.

When you answer, you answer quiet.

"Pride."

"Yeah," they sigh. "That'll do it."

A silver thread of understanding passes between you. You don't really want to say any more, and they don't push. The silence becomes a little more comfortable. You return to scrubbing the blood and grime off your body, probably ruining the washcloth forever in the process, and things are okay for a minute. As long as you don't think about where and what you are.

Eventually, you manage to get most of the gunk off. All that's left is whatever mess your back must be. The fire's helped the ache some, but your shoulder starts complaining when you move to reach behind you. The other one fares no better, and after a few attempts on each side coming up fruitless, you swallow the pride that led you here. "Um... would you...?"

Beelzebub turns around, and you gesture to your back sheepishly. "I can't reach. My shoulders won't, ah..."

"Oh." They blink a couple times. "Oh. Uh... yeah. Sure,"

You must've caught them off-guard, to get a reaction so much less confident than their usual demeanor. Or maybe you've just been assuming their patterns wrong based on first impressions. This could be how they actually are, and the confident, authoritative Beelzebub could have been the outlier. You don't really know them.

And yet, you have a feeling the truth lies somewhere in between.

They pull off those odd little gloves of theirs, and their sash follows, then their blazer. Your throat catches at the sight of them left in mostly white, then catches again as they roll up their sleeves past the elbow, carefully tucking them so they won't unroll. As you hand them the cloth, your fingertips meet for half a second.

The fire-soaked cloth drags once across your back, and you're about to relax into it, when they inhale sharply. "Shit, angel..."

Their finger runs along the spot where one of your upper wings used to connect to your back. Ah. It must've scarred when they healed you, then.

"Did they...?"

You nod.

Beelzebub sighs, curses under their breath, and continues their work. The repetitive, slow swipes across your back are somewhat comforting.

"I miss the eyes more," the words fall from you suddenly, and without prompt. After all the crying and heavy breathing yesterday, your voice has gone hoarse, but you have an urge to talk again. Your thoughts have been racing around in your head like scattering rats, and you want them out. "I've still got two wings, I'm sure i'll be able to fly eventually, but the eyes..." you trail off, unsure of the right phrasing.

"You've still got two eyes. You can see, can't you?" They pour fire over your hair and start to work their fingers through it, and you lean into their touch without thought.

"No, I--- I meant the other ones. In here." You tap the side of you head.

"Well yeah, maybe you can't see in three-sixty or anything, but you can still see."

You pause, try to figure out a way to explain this to them.

"No, the ones on the inside aren't just eyes, really. They don't just see, they... they think."

"...How do you mean?"

"They're not just extrasensory, they're---" You struggle to find the right words for a moment, "They're a part of my brain. They're on it, they're in it. It's not just sight, it's foresight, it's insight, and now they're all closed, and I can't understand the things I usually do. It's like... like somebody's stapled a part of my mind shut."

The longer you think about it, the more frustrating it gets. You're stuck in the here and now, seeing only in three dimensions, unable to slip into bits of future or past or places far away. You can't see behind you, or through the walls, or what's going to happen. You can't see the answer to infinity, or how to divide by zero. You just sigh again, and stare at the curlicues of sulfur drifting through the bath.

"Do you want me to get your wings?"

You hesitate, then let them out. They fixed your wings themself yesterday, you can probably trust them with cleaning your feathers. You swear you can feel the missing sets unfurl too, but there's nothing left behind. Michael made sure of that. Sliced them clean off, left your upper and lower back flat like a human's. But Beelzebub healed you well. The remaining set feels perfectly uninjured, if a little sore, and all the other damage has been fixed alongside.

Nobody but you has ever groomed your wings before. It's a kind of intimacy you don't find in heaven. Even if you ever wanted to, if you had someone close to you, it wouldn't have been proper upstairs. It's probably not down here either, now that you think about it, but it's not like anyone's watching. The security cameras are all broken or fake. There are dark corners to hide in, dark little rooms to make secrets in. This can be one of them, you think, while their soft hands brush over you. I won't tell anyone.

They're careful not to dislodge any feathers, or bend them out of pattern while they clear away the blood. It's almost contradictory, how gentle their touch is for someone who's fallen so far.

Did their fall hurt just as bad?

A pang hits your chest at the thought. You want to ask, but can't bring yourself to.

How many did you send falling in that battle? How many lost their halos to your spear? How many did you put through this?

You beat the thought back. They're demons, it was justice when you struck them down. And it doesn't matter anyway, because if you didn't get them, someone else would've. It was inevitable for them all to fall. You were doing your job.

When your wings are free of blood and put away, Beelzebub offers their hand to help you out of the bath.

You shake your head. "I don't feel clean yet."

They give you a look that falls somewhere between sad and resigned. "You never will again."

You're dried off and wrapped in a long silk robe. The red looks wrong against your skin, replacing the beiges and whites and soft blues that should be there. While Beelzebub rolls their sleeves back down, you look at your pile of clothes, stained beyond repair, and let yourself mourn them. The last visible trace of angel is gone from you.

Your stockings lie at the top of the pile. They're ruined, of course. But maybe not quite so much as everything else. Maybe, if you could find a way to wash them...

You doubt they're compliant with hell's dress code, and although they've been kind to you, you really doubt Beelzebub wants you hanging onto a piece of heaven. But... they're pretty. And nobody would ever have to know.

You sneak a glance at Beelzebub. They're facing the other way, distracted with pinning their sash back on.

You take your stockings from the pile, and slip them up your sleeve.

Barely a second after you finish, Beelzebub turns back around, pulling on their gloves, and waves for you to follow.

---

Beelzebub's throne room isn't much of a throne room. It's a small, undecorated concrete box with a short platform, a gold-edged old sitting room chair, and as of last night, thanks to you, a bloodstain on the floor. But there's one thing to say for it: it's a lot cleaner than the rest of hell. The huge piles of newsprint and paperwork are tied into neat-ish stacks, likely never to be finished, and although the chair trying to be a throne is old, it doesn't look infested with anything.

Beelzebub flops onto it, throwing a leg over the side, and gestures vaguely to a collection of newspaper bunches stacked like haybales. Seeing no other chairs, and not wanting to sit on the floor beneath them, you follow their suggestion. It's not actually the worst place you've ever sat.

The silk robe moves and falls with you in a way so elegant it has to be borderline sinful. The feeling of it against your skin, too, is horrifically pleasant. Empresses from long-gone dynasties come to mind, in their bright dresses and golden hairpins, or perhaps more similarly the lush dressing gowns of golden-age Hollywood stars. You try not to look at yourself.

"So," Beelzebub starts, "We've got a lot to talk about here, I suppose."

An icy sinking along your spine pulleys your heart up into your throat like a double elevator shaft.

They sigh. "Don't look so tense, love. I'm not going to bite you. Go ahead, relax."

You make an attempt at relaxing into your seat, at first trying to mirror them before quickly realizing that's not going to work with your setup, then fumble around for another couple of seconds trying to find some other position. It feels unnatural, to lean back at a time like this. You're not sure you like it. You must not do a very good job of it either, because they wince, and wave you off. You go back to sitting straight up with your feet together like you're meant to.

"But you just did it in the--- no, not important, actually. We can work on the uh, relaxing thing later. More pressing matters." In a seeming attempt to reset themself, they exhale, and straighten their lapels. "Alright, I'm assuming you know who I am, or you would've asked by now, and I know who you are, or I would've asked by now, so thankfully we can skip that bit, yeah? Good. Okay," they pause, then reset themself again.

"I don't know how a Seraph managed to get the boot after so long. But however it happened, you've joined the Fallen now, and you're clearly not faking it. Making you," they sit up a little, focusing. You're stuck between wanting to break eye contact, and wanting to lean in closer. "An unprecedented phenomenon. And an important one, too."

Still stuck in your throat, your heart flutters.

"Point is," they sit up fully now, resting their elbows on their knees. "You're something special, pet. So,"

Their mouth twitches upward, so slightly that you would've missed it if you'd blinked. Their eyes flash like they're letting you in on a joke. You brace yourself for the words.

"I have an offer for you."

It was always going to come to this. To a deal with the devil. Your heart sinks back down the shaft, pulling the icy dread up again in counter.

"Let me train you."

You blink.

You're not sure what you expected. Maybe a threat, or something more candy-coated, an obvious temptation. Something other than an internship with the Prince of Hell.

Tentatively, you poke at the idea with your foot. "What's the catch?"

"No catch. I'm not trying to trick you into something. Be my apprentice, let me teach you to be a demon. There's still power in you, I'll help you tap back into it."

They look you dead in the eyes, and you almost say yes right then. A sudden want to bury yourself in that obsidian gaze comes rushing through your veins and down to your fingertips, hot, then cold, then hot again. You stare into the void, and the void stares back.

A second passes.

Cut it out, traitor! Your rationality slams you over the head with a laptop full of reasons why you're an idiot. They are a demon. They are Prince of Hell, patron unsaint of the flies that follow them. They are distracting you. Demons are liars, no matter how beautiful, how kind, and you cannot afford to forget that. You are in enemy territory.

You clear your head, and move with caution as you prod at this a little more. "What's in it for you?"

They chuckle. "You, sweet. You're drowning in potential. I'd be a fool not to want you on my side."

They say it as if it's the most obvious thing in the world, and you have to look away to avoid being hypnotized again. The idea of being wanted drips into your head, starts to melt into the cracks like honey while your brain tries to scrape it off.

Didn't they just say you're something unprecedented? Important? Whispers the scars on your back. Even missing wings and eyes, they still want you.

"Come on, love. It's a win-win. I get to teach you, you don't get fed to something, everybody's happy."

That sobers you again for a moment, furrowing your brows. There's the threat, then.

"You don't have to worry about it," they take your hands, moving closer, an honesty in their undertone that you want to believe is real. "I'm offering to bring you under my protection. Nobody would ever touch you again, and if they did, I'd kill them."

A finger traces your cheek, like it did yesterday, and your face untenses. Such a violent idea should scare you. Instead, it makes your heart skip beats and tremble in a different way, slowly trying to push the lid closed on your moral compass.

You swallow. "Tell me more."

"I'll train you myself. Teach you to be a proper demon, and keep you by my side while you learn. You'll assist me with things, if I need you to." They pull your hands in so slightly you might be imagining it. "And you won't just be some errand girl. You could have status. Who knows, in time, you could be a Duke of Hell."

You want to say that's not tempting, but so help you, it is. Technically, you fell high in the ranks of Heaven, but not in the way they're offering. Seraphim think, not lead; that's an Archangel's job. God trusted you with higher cosmic knowledge, but what else did she ever give you but commands?

Images flash through your mind: more red silk, jewels and pins, comfortable sofas, ignoring your paperwork. Darkness, depravity, hedonism. The kinds of sin that make your body go hot just thinking of it. Giving the orders instead of only taking them. Wine. Music. Velvet.

Suddenly, you become very aware of the stockings hidden in your sleeve, take another laptop to the face, and frantically shove your visions of grandeur back into the box labeled 'SIN: DO NOT OPEN.' You have to get out of here. You're being corrupted already, and worse, you're starting to like it. God forgive you, you're starting to like it.

But where else is there to go? If you say no, you're getting fed to something, probably over and over for all eternity. And short of an intervention from God herself, you're not getting out of hell entirely.

"So. What'll it be?" Beelzebub drops your hands, then reextends one of theirs, inviting.

Those hands have only been kind so far. Every touch from them has been to help you, to heal you. You want their touch again, that feeling of another that's so rare to find in heaven, their hand on your face, in your hair. You want them to want you.

You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

You slide your hand into theirs.

They smile.

[gaytotaldrama]

duncney week day 3: dress up

somehow, duncan convinces courtney to let him give her a makeover.

duncney song of the day: 'make me feel,' janelle monaé

also on my ao3!

Her answer was no. A flat, resounding no.

And then she thought a little more about it.

"Fine," she told him, plopping down on the bed they shared. "You know what, I'd like to see you try. Do your worst, Duncan."

"You're gonna regret saying that, Princess," he replied, grinning ear-to-ear like a shark. "You're not ready for how punk I can make you."

"Yeah, yeah, just get on with it."

In all actuality, he wasn't entirely sure what his game plan was here. It wasn't like he'd thought Court was going to agree to him giving her a serious style change. Brainstorming on the fly, he delved into his side of the closet, much messier and uncoordinated than Courtney's neatly folded and primly labeled drawers. Deciding he'd give her a little autonomy (and also make things easier for himself) Duncan asked, "Dress, skirt, or pants, babe?"

"Um, skirt. I guess. Just not that godawful kilt Owen gifted you, please."

He picked out a torn midnight blue piece that he was 110% positive belonged to Gwen - Duncan didn't go for skirts often, but when he did, they weren't so...pasty. Still, imagining Courtney wearing it got his blood roaring. He turned around and tossed it to her, along with a maroon leather belt Gwen's friend Crimson had left behind. Or was it Ennui's? And, more importantly, why was Duncan's closet full of everyone else's goddamn clothes but his own?

The rustle of fabric behind him told him she was changing. Any other day he'd smirk and watch, but right now, it was more important to find her a shirt.

"Does Gwen even know you have their stuff?" He could hear the whisper of leather being pulled swiftly through loops. "Good call on the belt, though. Last time I borrowed Gwen's pajama pants, they fell down and I accidentally showed Harold my undies."

"Doris saw your panties? Might have to beat him up for that," Duncan returned casually, fishing out a tie-dyed black-and-blue Metallica shirt. "Here you go, Princess, Ride the Lightning."

He did turn to watch as she pulled her sweater over her head. She was wearing that black lace bra that drove Duncan crazy; he was sad to see it disappear under the new shirt. 

"You said punk," Courtney pointed out, looking down at her - unfortunately well-concealed, fuck Duncan's wide-ass torso - chest. "This is metal," she groused, like he didn't already know that.

He grinned. "You wanna swap it out for the Sex Pistols one?"

"...Fine." She sat on the edge of the bed again, crossing her arms. "Well? Shoes? Hair? Makeup?"

"Piercings?" Duncan joked, but at the answering withering glare, he quickly turned back to the closet. "Here, I've got these patchwork sneakers that should fit, and some fishnets. As for hair..."

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked warily, before shrieking as he pounced on her with a can of hairspray, intent on giving her some spikes. "Duncan! This stuff smells terrible!"

Then he decided he didn't like the spike idea, so he opted for just mussing it all up and layering it with some spritzes of dry shampoo. It did kinda hurt, just a little bit, to ruin Court's beautiful hair, but it was only temporary. 'Sides, alt Courtney had been a fantasy of his since...the first time he'd ever laid eyes on her, maybe?

Grabbing some mascara and umber eyeshadow, he ultra-darkened her lashes and smeared around her eyes carelessly, black and powdered. She fidgeted throughout all of that, but when he laid a steady hand on her jaw to fill in her soft lips with color, she stayed completely still, just looking at him.

When he capped the lipstick she sighed, breath fluttering out against his face, and dipped forward like she wanted to kiss him. "Nuh-uh," he said, holding a hand up between their two mouths. "You'll smudge it."

"Oh, like it matters," she said, and stepped up to the full-length mirror on their wall.

"Well?" For one reason or another, Duncan found himself nervous, sinking down to sit on the mattress. "What do you think?"

"Hmm." She was studying herself, turning her body this way and that to catch all the different angles. To him, she was beautiful. Metal, and makeupped, and fishnetted, and beautiful.

But still nowhere near as incredible as the real Courtney Reyes.

"It's missing something," she decided, and she grabbed Duncan's skull hoodie from the back of the desk chair. She didn't zip it up; she let the sleeves fall loose so her shoulders were bare and the hood hung to the small of her back. Then she turned to him and echoed, "Well?"

Duncan smiled like a goof. "Looks amazing."

"You think so? I kinda like it." She cast another glance in the mirror before settling her hooded gaze on him. "Hey, when did Geoff say he and Bridgette were coming back home?"

"Not for another hour or so." Duncan reached out for her, pulled her to stand between his legs with her arms looped around his neck. "What did you have in mind?"

"I think," she said, slow and sultry. "That it's time for..."

"Yeah, Princess?"

"...Your turn."

He frowned. "What do you mean my - wait, NO. No no no no no no no I am not going to - "

"Oh, yes you are!!!" Courtney crowed with delight, and she leapt off of him and raced, cackling, to her side of the closet.

[wreckmetoji]

idfc

An ongoing fic in which you don't realize you have both Fushiguros at your feet.

↳ Megumi Fushiguro/Reader Part 13/15

Part 9 , Part 10 , Part 11 , Part 12 

content warning. afab reader, profanity, angst, fluff, mention of death, is hitman/serial killer toji a tag or is it implied because he’s Just Like That, reader has bad sinner thoughts horny jail now immediately

This is part 13 of a 15 part story

2.2k words

You heard your front door click, ensuring you were now truly, and utterly... 

Alone.

You didn't remember falling asleep. You'd been up crying until some godawful hour, left to your own devices, but it must have been disastrously late, considering it was now half past noon and you were only just gaining consciousness. With a heavy sigh, you sluggishly slid out of bed, holding your aching head hoping for some merciful deity to grant you the patience to put up with a migraine first thing. It was dehydration, you knew that, and you also knew not doing anything with the water given to you was another self destructive behavioral habit. Maybe I should start talking to my therapist again, you thought, opening your bedroom door before promptly freezing in place. It smells like coffee and toast– why does it smell like coffee and toast? You were going to investigate, find out if maybe you were finally having a stroke and on your deathbed, until you heard a tinny unfamiliar voice coming from your living room. It was quiet, and you tried to listen in. Something something could be chalked up to a psychological something, any questions? "This is all based on theory, not observation, is it not?" Megumi? You poked your head around the corner to see a mop of spiky black hair on your couch, dressed down in baggy black lounge pants and a well worn shirt. Sitting in front of him was an expensive looking laptop, a video call open on one half of the screen, and a document filled with writing and notes on the other. You could have come out from hiding and asked exactly when he welcomed himself into your house again, or why he decided not to go to class in person today, but from the tousled blanket and shitty pillow haphazardly tossed on the end of the couch, you could take a guess that he stayed the night. Didn't he leave though? "Oh, you're awake." With three words you were shot back to what started this whole mess, eyes locking with aquamarine. "I made some coffee a couple hours ago, I left it on so it should still be warm." Megumi stated matter-of-factly before pressing the unmute on his laptop again and prattling off a couple questions. You were dumbfounded, blinking stupidly at him. Was he going to act like none of this happened? Was everything back to some semblance of normal? Upon realizing you hadn't moved from your spot, Megumi muted himself again, leaning on his forearms resting on his legs and glancing in your direction, as if he could sense your apprehension to the entire situation. There were too many questions you wanted to ask, you didn't know where to start. So, instead, you said nothing. You turned, grabbing a mug from your cupboard and filling it with the very much two plus hour old coffee, putting in your desired cream and sugar. You couldn't shake the feeling of unease, why had he stayed? Why was he acting so... normal? "If it's okay with you, I'd like to stay over the next couple days," Megumi spoke, and when you glanced up you could see him typing away lecture notes on the second half of his screen. "I think it would be wise." Completely unsure where to even start unpacking his request, you decided to take a sip of coffee to give yourself a moment. "You're always welcome over, Megumi," You saw his lips pull into a small frown at his full name, still typing away. "But... why? Why did you stay over last night?" "Because I want to keep you safe." What was he going on about? Sliding his laptop shut, Megumi leaned back into the couch, folding his arms over his chest. You held eye contact, expecting him to elaborate, but obviously today was one of those days where he made you play twenty-one questions to get any semblance of a conversation going with him. "Okay, I'll bite. What are you keeping me safe from, exactly?" You sneered, taking another sip from your coffee. Megumi was never a roundabout type of person, he was blunt and courteous enough to never beat around the bush, so this was new. If he was worried about you and your mental health he could have just said so. "There are a lot of things you don't know about me, and even more you don't know about my family," Megumi stood from his spot, shuffling over to the kitchen, empty mug in hand. "What does that have to do with anything?" You trailed after him, leaning against the counter beside him. "How does that translate to me being unsafe?" His lips parted, heaving a small sigh, obviously thinking very hard about his choice of words. "I didn't always live with Toji when I was younger," Megumi began, leaning against the counter beside you. You make note whenever he refers to him as Toji instead of father or dad. "For a period of time, I was in a different home with strangers that acted like I was family." "Have you ever heard of witness protection?" Obviously confused by where the conversation was going, you slowly nodded your head, brows furrowed, was he just trying to get a rise out of you? "It was kind of like that. From age seven to fifteen, I was in 'witness protection'. I'm sure I still would be if a few strings weren't pulled." He sipped his coffee. "Do you know why I was there?" You shook your head, leaning in at his sudden confession. "I watched Toji kill an innocent person." Wait. What? Your jaw was slack, unable to pick itself off the floor. He had to be fucking with you, was this all an attempt to get you to feel worse? An attempt to get you away from him? So many questions circled your head, and Megumi simply watched as the gears turn and your mind reeled. "No, that– that's just cruel, Megumi. Don't say something like that just to..." You trailed off, watching his unmoving, stoned over expression. You swallowed back the rest of your words, setting your mug down on the counter. The room felt warm, were you going to faint? "He's killed plenty of people. Most of them for his job, but the one I saw was his... girlfriend, or whatever she was at the time." The hand on your arm didn't go unnoticed, grounding you in the moment. "I saw lots of women come and go, only a couple of them I saw more than once. She was one of them. It didn't take much to put two and two together, I understood why I never saw any of them again." "I was angry when I walked in on you. I thought maybe you had reached out to him, and everything progressed from there but... Now that I know he reached out to you, I realized you're not safe. The only reason he's still walking around a free man, the only reason he got Tsumiki and I back, was because he knows some powerful people and he was forced to retire." The room was spinning, was the room spinning? "You're not fucking funny, Megumi. This isn't funny," You snapped, pulling your arm from his grip and taking a step back, wobbling in place. It felt like your entire body was heating up, starting at your gut and moving up to your head. Megumi heaved another sigh, reaching around his back, and pulling a sizable handgun from the waistband of his tied off lounge pants. He set it down on the counter beside you with a clunk, hand pulling back to cross his arms over his chest once more. "Believe me now?" All you could do was exhale sharply, stumbling back into the counter as the air that surrounded you got heavier. You couldn't breathe, your eyes couldn't focus, you could only uselessly grip the edge of your countertop to prevent you from tumbling over at any second. "Hey– careful," Megumi jumped forwards, arms hovering around you, but not touching you. "It's... a lot." The look he gave you was concerned, pleading, and with a small nod from you, his arms caged you in, pulling your shaking body against him. Tears tumbled from your eyes, wetting his shirt as you held onto him. He was here to protect you, you were in immediate danger, but how much danger were you actually in? Toji was making you dinner last night, he was being so soft, so kind, so intimate, something you didn't expect from him. Could a killer do that? Could he hurt you like that? Would he hurt you like that? Barely able to register Megumi saying let's go sit down, you were gently shuffled over to the couch, sat down right in the center. His hands held your shoulders, lean form crouching down in front of you, his eyes trying to provide some sort of comfort. You could only gaze through him, past him, mind gone somewhere else. His lips were moving, he was saying something, but you couldn't hear him over the ringing in your ears, or the pounding of your heart. You could feel his warm hand cup your jaw, you could feel him give your head a little shake, watching his expression grow more and more urgent. What you thought was a blink turned into a bottomless pit of water engulfing your body and consciousness. You woke to a click, eyes flying open and body shooting up with a gasp. Your heart filled with panic, trying to get your bearings as quickly as possible ended up disorienting and distorting your surroundings. "Hey, it's okay," A disembodied voice spoke, comforting and familiar. You felt warmth at your side, eyes finally focusing on your surroundings. It was your living room, you were laid out on the couch, blanket over your body, the entire room engulfed in warm orange light. It looked surreal, how everything was blurred around the edges, soft, deceiving. An echo of your name had you turning your head, looking up for the source. Megumi was crouched beside the couch, an arm around your back keeping you steady, his other hand warmly encasing your still numb fingers. It was safe, comfort, more than enough to let your shoulders relax, your eyes droop, and a slow, shaky hand reach out to grab the front of his shirt. It was like a gravitational pull, that or he weighed as light as a feather, considering the lack of force and effort you had to exert to pull him into a tight embrace. The silence was sweet, comforting, granting you just a sliver of relief in the mess you had managed to make of yourself and your life. Breathing in, breathing out, all you could see and smell and feel was Megumi, putting you at ease, assuring you he would keep you safe, keep you out of harms way. Slowly, hesitantly, you pulled back just a bit, which seemed to encourage him to do the same. His eyes always amazed you, how easily you could read him by looking into them, sapphire windows to his soul. And, oh, his eyelashes. He was beautiful. You didn't know who had leaned in, or when, or how you got so close your noses were touching, but you did know the small flutter in your stomach when he slotted his lips against yours quite well. The kiss was as short as it was desperate and eager, only lasting a breath or two before Megumi had pulled back, resting his forehead on yours. "I promise I won't let anything happen to you," He whispered, placing another kiss on your lips, then another, each longer than the last. "I'll keep you safe." Another kiss, then another, before he was leaning you back into the plush cushions of your couch, hovering over you. His thumb stroked your jaw, his other hand loosely gripping your waist. Your own hands had found purchase on his shoulders, arms slowly moving to wind around his neck the closer he got, and the closer he got the more you wanted to simply sink into him, drown in his love and care and safety. His tongue pressed against your own with soft urgency, pulling back when you whined. He was panting, eyes half lidded, and you found yourself staring a little too long, burning this image of him to your memory. Had he always been so beautiful? "I got us food," Megumi breathed, wiping his thumb across your plush, wet bottom lip, "The door lock is probably what woke you up." The sudden burst of passion had muddled your thoughts, made you fuzzy, blurred around the edges much like the golden orangey glow encasing your home. "I don't want food," You pressed, trying to lean in for more of him. He simply exhaled an amused sigh, giving you another kiss, this time much more quick and chaste. "You haven't eaten since yesterday, and it's already dinner time." It was a reasonable request. He was here to keep you safe and take care of you, and that's what he was trying to do, but how could he expect you to want anything else except him. You could still feel how softly he handled you, how gentle his hands were brushing up your sides and gripping your hips– "Just relax," Megumi sat up straight, reaching behind him on the coffee table to fish through a large paper bag. "We have plenty of time, and I got your favorite." The grumble in your stomach spoke volumes for you at both the mention and smell of the food in front of you. Perhaps you could be swayed, just this once. 

[julieverne]

Jane's broken up with men for a lot of stupid reasons.

For Joey it was cheating off her test. And calling her frog face.

For Steve it was the movie he chose.

For Martinez it was getting her CI killed. Not just that, but physically preventing her from going after her when she could have made a difference.

For Dean it was making her shoot Maura's father. For making Maura hate her, however brief that hate might have been. She wished Paddy had killed him. Still does sometimes, when she remembers the anger and hurt on Maura's face. Sometimes she wishes she'd shot him instead of Paddy for setting that whole thing up. For using her to get a lead.

But for Casey it was because he threw out the Marmite.

"Maura gave me that," Jane said, digging through the trash can, looking for that flash of yellow that always brightened her day.

"I got you a new one. One that's not expired," Casey said, putting it on the counter as though that made anything any better.

"Where is it?"

"I took the garbage out after you left this morning. It's gone." The congenial smile left his face, followed by concern.

"I told you not to touch it. Get out." Jane opens the door and watched as he packed quickly. She locked the door behind her, heading for the back of the building.

"I'm sorry," he called after her, but she was already vaulting into the dumpster.

---

When Maura's hand tapped the side of the dumpster, Jane's head popped over the edge, still scowling.

"Frankie said you needed Marmite," Maura said, holding up a jar. Jane shook her head, disappearing, rustling through the trash like a racoon. Occasionally Maura heard the thump of Jane hitting the dumpster in anger, or her swearing at touching something gross. "If I call Frankie, you know he's going to jump in." Jane's head appeared, filthy but excited.

"Yeah, call him. He's real good with trash. Oh. OH!" Jane disappeared again, coming up triumphantly with a jar of Marmite clenched in her hand. "YEAH!" Jane yelled, her adrenaline pumping. Maura moved forward to help her out of the dumpster, then stepped back. She grabbed a hose on the side of the building, taking the Marmite with a glove from her bag before hosing off Jane, arms spread wide and face turned to the sky, smile on her face without a care in the world.

Jane left puddles in the hall. Maura shoved her in the shower fully dressed, then went out to mop up after her so the HOA didn't try to kick her out again.

Jane came out in a towel using a second towel to dry her hair, occasionally sniffing herself.

"I think I'm clean. Am I clean?" Maura leaned forward and sniffed Jane, giving an impressed smile. "Okay I'm clean. Which isn't saying much because half the time we both smell like a deco." Jane threw herself on the couch. Maura had picked up some disinfectant wipes and started cleaning the original jar of Marmite, sitting beside Jane.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Jane groaned and turned away.

"He threw out my stuff, Maura, there's nothing to talk about."

"Frankie said Casey said you kept yelling that I gave it to you, and how dare he. He's staying with Frankie, by the way. He seems to think you broke up with him over Marmite."

"Not the Marmite." Jane sighed. "I leave it on the counter so I see it every day. So I remember that no matter what godawful kind of day I've had, you're my friend again. That we're still friends. The little flash of yellow makes me think maybe it's not so bad. That I'm not so bad. It's like... forgiveness? Absolution? Something. It's stupid, but it's something you gave me. You get it, don't you? And it felt like he was throwing you away. It told him not to, and he did it anyway, in my house. It was really disrespectful, and I don't take disrespect. Not any more. It felt like he was trying to replace you. It made my skin crawl."

"So you went dumpster diving for two hours? Jane. I have spare Marmite. I've given you lots of things over the years. Why the Marmite?" She tilted her head, genuinely curious. Jane looked down at her hands.

"It was the first thing you gave me. After Hoyt. We were just getting to be friends. You were opening my jars for me. And you gave me this." Jane picked it up and looked at it. "And you said I'd be able to open it myself one day, and if I never did then you'd do it for me. And I never opened it because I knew I could call you. And you'd come. You'd be here, and you'd open it. When we were fighting I moved it to my bedside table and I stared at it every night. But I never called."

"I would have come," Maura admitted. "I didn't realise you'd attached so much significance to such an unassuming object."

"It's a metaphor or something, right? A simile?"

"Symbolic," Maura corrected her gently. Jane shot her a grin, picking up the jar. "Don't," Maura said when Jane reached for the lid.

"Why not?"

"If it's a symbol, let it be a symbol. So you know, any time you need me. You can call. And I'll come. Even if it's to open your expired Marmite. It's a promise, Jane, and I take those seriously." Jane shrugged, trying to hide her smile, and grabbed the new jar, twisting the top off easily, dipping her finger in.

"Oh YUCK! That is rank, Maura." Jane gagged.

"You were in a dumpster for two hours and you regularly hang out with corpses. You can handle a little Marmite."

"It wasn't about the Marmite," Jane admitted, looking over at Maura. "It just made me think he was trying to make room for himself in my life by getting rid of you. And nothing is ever going to get you out of my life. Not Casey, not Hoyt, not Dennis. No one. Nothing. You know that, don't you?"

Maura wet her lips with her tongue nervously.

"What if I said I was jealous of Casey?"

"I'm done with Casey. You don't need to be jealous of him. You won't walk in on us again." Jane shot Maura a nervous grin. "We can jog whenever you like."

"No, Jane, I mean - I wasn't just jealous of him taking up your time. I was jealous because -" Maura bit her thumbnail and looked at it absently. "Because he got to be with you. He got to date you. He got to -" Maura blinked rapidly and looked away, grabbing her bag and getting to her feet.

"Maura." Jane's low voice stopped her. Made her turn back to the couch to see Jane's anguished face. "I wouldn't spend two seconds in a dumpster for anything he gave me," Jane admitted.

"Okay," Maura said slowly. "So where does that leave us?"

"I've been trying to figure that out for a while." Jane screwed the cap back on the Marmite and put it down, making a decision and getting to her feet. She strode over to Maura in two short steps and kissed her.

They'd kissed before, on the cheek. Both cheeks when Maura was feeling cosmopolitan. But never quite on the mouth. Circling, perhaps, drawing closer every time. But Jane, emboldened by her near loss of something incredibly important, went for it, pressing her lips to the soft mouth she watched so often, feeling Maura open up to her, hearing Maura's purse drop to the floor.

"You taste terrible," Maura said when Jane pulled away. Her face and chest were flushed, and her hand was on Jane's ass under the towel.

"I taste like Marmite," Jane said, quirking her eyebrow and leaning in again.

---

Casey always maintained that Jane had broken up with him over a stupid jar of Marmite, but Jane knew that she had a good reason. The best reason.

She had Maura.

[the-heaminator]

@aphfrukweek

sorry for being late! Day 1: War and peace. Ie, me fucking rambling. Also war and peace as in the book comes up bc idk why not apparently. Fluff, lots of it

This was most certainly a scene, not that there was anything in particular happening, which was the odd thing, this is England and France we are talking about here, Arthur and Francis, even when they were on good terms they bickered often, more often than not they were most certainly not on good terms, then blood was usually drawn by either, or both sides.

This, this was bloody surreal, Rhys had seen a lot of odd things with his brothers involving Francis, somehow that man managed to get so deeply into both Arthur and Alisdair's mind, so fucking long ago, that he just sort of stayed there, it was a little fucking odd for someone to see two of his brothers, neither of which were particularly soft or loving in most meanings of either word, currently Arthur had gotten into Francis' good books, or the other way round, he wasn't sure, no one ever was, likely not even them.

Usually they were doing something, Arthur had a near inability to just sit still and relax, always wound tighter than a spring and just as ready to strike as one, but right now he was, wait, wait, was he fucking asleep???

That. That was sorcery, Arthur had genuinely fallen asleep, on Francis' shoulder no less.

Arthur, asleep as he was, did not notice Rhys walking in on that fucking scene of odd domestic affection, when he did sleep he slept hard and long, probably something built up from centuries of the most godawful sleep schedules, Francis did though, he was holding up an egregiously thick hardcover, the type that really looked like it could cause a concussion if used in the right (wrong?) way, Arthur had grabbed onto him in a way that even if he wanted to Francis couldn't move, and something told Rhys that it was unlikely that he wanted to do so anyways.

Francis noticed him loitering about the doorway "Come, sit down, you know as well as I that he wouldn't wake up if bombs were dropping overhead in this state."

He did have a point, and he sat down, Arthur was warm to the touch for once, and hey, that was his jumper, bloody jumper-stealing gremlin, he had his own! I mean if the jumpers didn't belong to them no one would notice the difference, frumpy, bobbled, faded and whatnot they all were, very clearly worn for a longass time, at least the one Artur was sleeping in right now did not smell like month-old buckfast and Scotland vomit.

This was a little awkward, he dimly registered that Francis was wearing one of Arthur's downright crustiest jumpers, a thing old enough to have a midlife crisis of its own, an utterly atrocious shade of green that somehow managed to be all the worst of green, brown and yellow all at once, but it was still one of the softest jumpers he owned, it was big on him, and for how large he appeared, Francis was not that much taller than Arthur, barely an inch, if that.

It was a little adorable he did have to admit, seeing Arthur almost nuzzle into Francis' chest as he lay asleep, how he so many centuries ago would react, probably even decades ago would react to this would be a mystery for all, but it was fun to imagine, they had always rutted like animals yes, but never just so, like this. Domestic was the only goddamn word for it, and domestic is not a word that i assure you that Rhys usually used for Francis or Arthur, let alone the both of them together.

He didn't comment on that though, and instead scanned the cover of the book that Francis was reading, War and Peace, sure he had read it before but jesus that book was a beast, clearly Arthurs copy by how dog eared the pages were, much to literally fucking everyone's chagrin.

"War and peace huh. You like it?"

"Eh, it's getting there, I've never actually read it before, it is certainly a rather dense book I do say."

That was certainly a nice way to put it, if he were to put weight labels on books, War and Peace would be considered quite morbidly obese, that shit was huge, Francis took off his glasses for a moment, he had glasses, most nations did nowadays, too long in the dark had fucked with their vision, and a lot of them weren't exactly as young as they once were, Arthur had been going grey slowly for nearly a century prior, Francis had started somewhat after that, vain bastard probably covered it up for a while but right now it seemed that he really couldn't give a shit.

It was fun to see Arthur go grey before he did, the way nations aged was odd, and while Arthur was the youngest of them nation-wise, excluding North of course, he was the oldest physically and he hadn't ever exactly taken the best care of himself ever and it fucking showed.

Anyhow that whole thing aside, Francis put down the book onto the table on the side of the sofa, it made quite a loud thunk, Arthur did not wake up because of course he didn't, put his glasses atop it, and slowly glided his fingers through Arthur's hair.

To Rhys, it seemed odd but in the best way possible, he had sem them at each others throats for what was literally nearly a fucking millennia, and if they weren't they usually had something else highly questionable going on, he had seen them fighting with knives, swords, muskets, guns, what all and whatnot, brawling in the mud when drunk, often till either or both were properly bruised and battered, how times changed huh.

Oh, now he just sounded old and cheesy, fuck this.

He rose from his seat and left those two to whatever it was that they were doing, it was a little too good to last, he knew it wouldn't, it was natural for them never to really stay still, but for now let them have their fun and cuddling, no one else would do it to Arthur, let alone willingly, probably the same for Francis (well save for Alisdair) so this was good for the both of them, so bad for anyone else that they had to be with each other.

He left the room with a sigh, Arthur still had his favourite bloody jumper, he would raid his cupboard in retribution. Hmpf, bastard.

[blackwood-library]

Night of: 6/24/24

Dream Type: Lucid

Subject: Maxwell G. Carmichael, The taste of his Fear, Mercy

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Maxwell G. Carmichael was a very lonely man. His wife left him, his daughters want nothing to do with him- and he knows both of those things are his own doing. He burnt those bridges to ash just for the sake of being right. Of course he knows he’s the only one to blame.

He was also a godawful boss. He screamed at servers, bullied the boy washing dishes, treated me like I was less than human. The way he spoke to me, to my coworkers, was as if we were lesser beings than him. Hopefully, though, that little problem is fixed.

I went for a walk last night. Just to clear my head. I had a destination in mind, but that was secondary.

There was a storm, but by the time I arrived at his home, the rain had stopped. Only dry thunder and flashes of occasional lightning were leftover.

It was easy to sneak around through the the small, planted garden behind his house without alerting him. His bedroom was on the second floor, after all.

Poor man should have closed and locked his back door.

Not like that would have stopped me, obviously. A lock is no object to an animal.

Especially not one with a hammer, but I digress.

I crept up to the back door, and I couldn’t help but be amused to find it not only unlocked, but hanging barely open in the doorframe. Of course I let myself in, it was practically an invitation.

I could hear his TV on upstairs, and I would have gone up, but I saw the light flick on in his kitchen. I stood still, silent- no beat to my heart, no breath in my lungs, until the light went off again and I heard him walking back upstairs to his bedroom.

I followed him shortly after, my steps silent as I went. The stairs, which had creaked for him, made no sound as I went up them.

I could smell the nervousness in Maxwell G. Carmichael’s chest as I watched him disappear into his bedroom. He knew something was amiss, that something wasn’t right.

I moved towards his bedroom door, and just as he made to get in bed, I pushed it open. Lightning flashed, and I was illuminated in the doorway.

Cold, burning fear flooded my senses- but not my own. His dread was vibrant, like iron on my tongue. My grip on my hammer tightened as he stared, frozen with horror, at the shadow in his doorway.

“What are you?” He asks me.

“The Devil,” I reply. I know he is a pious man. I know his piety is what drove his daughters away. I know how to terrify him.

“Please don’t kill me,” he begged me. I laughed.

“And why shouldn’t I?” I asked him, stepping closer, hammer clutched in my left hand.

“Who would miss you, Maxwell G. Carmichael. Who would mourn?” I asked him.

He was shaking, terrified, and I couldn’t have been more amused. I could hear him in the dark, crying and shaking.

“Who would plan your funeral?” I asked him. He only replied with a broken sob.

I don’t know what made me leave, but I chose to spare him. I won’t be working for him in two weeks time.

I leave his home.

I wake up.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

The WW1 fic with India and Canada was one of my favorites! And in no are fics set in WW1 repetitive :( its a really interesting time period for the world and it makes a lot of sense to focus in on it

Here it is! Ancient fic, set in February of 1916. Aditya saved Matt's ass at the Second Battle of Ypres the previous April, and I think they have a good rapport. Please note this fic dates to early 2019 or earlier, and I might have missed some cultural points. It is mostly unedited but cross-posted to Ao3.

February 1916

"When did you learn Hindi?" Aditya asks in the morning during rotation. Matthew's soldiers are coming off the line, and the Indian divisions are moving in. It's the same routine as usual. Men slowly trickle out under the cover of darkness, and others creep in. Soldiers rouse each other with hands on shoulders and single fingers pressed to mouths. Quiet is key. There's no oil left in the lamps, and the braziers are banned here since the last dugout fire, and it is cold. Bitterly, bitterly cold. Matt squats across from Aditya in front of the tiny camp stove, shaded from the enemy by a windbreak of scrap iron and pours tea into mugs, handing one over when it looks an appropriate shade of brown. Aditya looks down at it apprehensively but doesn't turn his nose up at Matt's shit attempt. He even holds it close. Matt feels grubby next to him and doesn't know how Aditya keeps himself a fair sight cleaner than any Canadian, officer or otherwise, considering the weather. Even Matt's fingers are blue when he pulls back his gun mitts to hold the tea and breathe in the steam.

"I didn't," Matt shrugged. "Only know little pieces,"

"I saw you this morning." Aditya looked at him through narrowed eyes. "Bypassed the officers and went right to the sergeant. And the sergeant doesn't speak English,"

"So you saw me gesturing like a windmill then," Matt gave a snort.

"You've got enough to get the point across,"

"Barely. And they needed to know about the funk holes. Three collapsed on us in the last week. Killed a man in his sleep. Officers usually forget their men don't sleep in beds in the dugout."

Aditya hummed, satisfied with the answer and gave a smile. They're rare on the front, but more common on the first day of a rotation than the last.

"Tell me," Aditya passed the mug between his hands, as if he was debating taking a drink of not. Matt didn't blame him. The water had smelled brackish even before he'd added tea. "Was the first word you learned vegetable? Or was it curry?"

"Neither," Matt shrugs. "Sorry,"

"What for?" Aditya frowned. "You're young still. You haven't finished growing. We'll make a fluent speaker out of you yet."

"No," Matt rolled his shoulders, a little embarrassed and resisting the urge to duck a bit. "The first word I learned. It was 'sorry,'"

Aditya snorts in amusement. "Of course it was." He takes a sip and grimaces.

"I make godawful cup of tea, sorry,"

"That you do." Aditya set the cup back down on the stove. "Though the fault is not entirely yours. Army tea is... regrettable,"

"What about the fucking army isn't regrettable?" Matt snorted, dug around his coat for the flask of grog he'd saved from the dinner rations the night before. He offered it up like a toast, at a jaunty angle, shaking it a little. Aditya shook his head, shrugged and made a small "Mm, why not," sort of sound. He held out the cup and Matt gave each of them a glug or two.

Face twisted up in a grimace Aditya shakes his head. "That never gets better. How do you drink that ever day?"

"Only England's finest paint thinner for Arthur Kirkland's third favorite son," Matt said bitterly, knocking back half the mug in two gulps. He wished he still had some of the bourbon Alfred had sent in his last care package. Aditya's brow furrowed. Matt drank more to escape his gaze. Even as sharp and foul as army grog was, it sent ribbons of warmth across his body, gave him courage when he didn't have any left, steadied his nerves. They're sitting in peaceable silence now, just the whistle of the wind through the grates. No gunshots, no gurgling wounded, no screaming dead. In moments like that, Matt thinks he might make it his next birdsongs with his sanity intact. But not in silence. He's used to Jack filling up the quiet with movement, with his inane chattering to anyone and anything. He's loud, lively, distracting.

Aditya's company is quiet, dignified. He's the sort of man Matthew gets on best with. Calm, logical, patient. He's older than them all put together. Father and Papa and the elder Beilschmidt brother are ancient to Matt. But Aditya is ancient to even them. He wonder's vaguely, if there's anything under the sun that satisfies anymore when someone got that old. Much of his own father seems deadened by the centuries. But Father doesn't grimace at the taste of army rum and army tea.

"What do you drink?" Matt asks, thinking of the spiced tea he'd had behind the lines once when the Indian divisions had swapped camp with the French on his flank.

"Anything warm," Aditya laughs, sits back onto a pile of sand bags and lifts his cup. "Tin of piss or not. At least its warm,"

"I mean at home."

"There are as many kinds of tea as there are languages in my country," Aditya shrugged placidly. "I have loved every one,"

"You can't drink every single one every day thought!" Matt returned. Aditya was hard to read but Matt did his best, searching him for… something. "What do you actually like to drink?"

Aditya frowns at him and turns Matt's scan back on him. Old countries scanning for suspicious intent drag a sort of weight along with their observation, a heaviness of centuries. Matt doesn't hide anything on his face around Aditya. He has no reason too. And Aditya could probably read anything he did try to hide anyway. Aditya has always been a distant presence, but he had dragged Matt out of Ypres the year before and had never been unkind, before or since. Eventually, Aditya smiled, as if satisfied with what he had found on Matt's face.

"Palm wine," He finally says and his eyes are thousands of miles away, at home. "It's rather sweet but you take the sap from certain kinds of palm tree, and it ferments quickly. Sometimes within a couple of hours its enough. Or you can let it sit and it will get stronger and more sour, but it’s a delight!"

His voice sounded nostalgic, homesick. Matt pours them more tea, and shoves a few more pieces of coal on the anemic fire. Aditya shuffles closer.

"Sounds nice," Matt sighed, leaning into his hand. "We make maple wine. Its about the same process." He could see the maples, thin and scarlet and just out of reach. He can almost smell them, earthy and nutty on the breeze. The soil of the Canadian shield was dense, compacted by glaciers that even centuries melted Matt could feel in his veins. Mountains had once laced up and down, but eroded by the centuries. He could taste the zinc and the salt of his black soil.

"How old are you?" Aditya asked all of a sudden, startling him out of his own poisonous thoughts. Home was strength and sorrow and everything good in him but it was only weakness now. He was staring at Matt again and Matt compulsively dragged his collar up.

"Three hundred and seventeen," Matt said, sitting up straight.

"You're an infant," Aditya shook his head. "A babe in arms exposed to this."

"And I have near 200 years on Jack and Zee," Matt said. "It's not fair to them. They're too young for this."

"You're all far young for this!" Aditya shook his head. "I never thought I would see mankind progress to this level of savagery. But to drag children into it!" He made a disgusted noise that Matt associated with Arthur, but he couldn't say he disagreed.

"It's not fair on them," Matt said.

"Nor you," Aditya looked pensively into his mug. "Or I,"

Matt didn't know what to say to that. The man he'd once called Papa had been invaded. He might have found himself here, even if Dad hadn't taken up the cause and dragged the empire with him. But Aditya? He was from what Matt dimly knew as a place thousands of miles away. He'd spent half of the crown's tours of India too feverish to roll over, much less take in the sights with any coherence.

"It doesn't get easier then?" He asked very gently because he might not know the depth of Aditya's sorrow, but he knew its breadth. Every square mile of his country and the lack of it beneath his feet ached like an old scar in his chest. "Missing home as you get older?"

"A little," Aditya said. "Human pains are so very intense when we're young. But you will never outgrow it. No matter how old we are, home is home. The lack of it will always ache." He looked devastatingly sad for a moment, a centuries long grief older than Matt and maybe even Arthur had been alive. "But it is cruel, to tear you from home when you've hardly planted your roots. It is much harder to kill a plant with deep roots."

"Its not the longest I've been away," Matt said. He thought of the years he'd spent in Australia after he had indulged the screaming need for just an inkling of control in his life. He thought of the prison ship and the burning sun on his neck, unnatural and agonising on his back. But he'd had Jack, who in his way, was a sort of home too. He swallowed down something painful born of love. "I'll survive. But it never goes away? The pain?"

"Never," Aditya said. "I think your father has numbed himself to the reality of our existence. Thinks that centuries have to make one cruel or they have not been long enough. But we never lose it. Every day people are born and people die, every year we reap and we plant. We build and tear down. There is always something new as the old fades. It brings life and feeling with it. After a few centuries it… stabalises. I think. Like adulthood in a way I think. The fits of passion that come with youth settle a bit. But you won't go numb, if that's what you fear."

Matt dipped his head, nodding and hiding. Endless misery then. Endless pain in his lungs, endless wars to be dragged into. The wind seemed to blow colder then, as if to remind Matt that home or abroad, his fate still rested under the north wind to be scoured with ice as it willed. He shivered.

"You didn't fear it at all!" Aditya looked startled. "You hoped for it!" He phrased it like a question but it wasn't one. He set his mug aside and looked very intense.

"Your humanity, our ties to humanity? It's what will keep you sane when you have nothing else. Every heart that beats in your chest is a chance to do better. To be better. Wish for anything but that fading, do you understand me?" He leaned forward, hands clenching between his legs.

Matt was silent, ashamed of himself for some reason. He felt like a coward. Next to Jack, next to Zee, even next to Alfred, he was quiet and steady and mature. But under Aditya's gaze in that moment, he had never felt more like a child. Aditya looked a bit kinder when Matt got up the courage to make eye contact again.

"They," He nodded off in the direction where Matt's soldiers were packing up their kits in their preparations to march behind the lines. "Are why we're here. And they cannot numb your agony. But they can be your joy. Don't align yourself with kings and politicians. It’s the ordinary people that will keep you. Live the cycles of years with them. Celebrate spring, peace and the festivals, mourn winter and war. It's how we stay sane."

"That's why Father--"

"Has been half mad for centuries?" Aditya laughed. "Yes. I believe it is. He likes to think himself rather posh, above it all. But he isn't. None of us are. And stay that way, Matthew. Don't make yourself an exception."