#sun dredge au

[scarlett-ink]

Hi :)

i couldn't help but notice your dca dredge au and as someone who is very much a fan of the game (and is working on their own dredge dca fic) i'm incredibly curious and would love to hear more about your au. please and thank you ( •̯́ ^ •̯̀)♡

Hi! Aaaaah another dredge fan! I'm always happy to rant about an au, especially Dredge holy shit I am in so deep with this game (no pun intended). Thank you for asking! (Giant dredge rant incoming lmao)

But basically what I have for this au so far is just a lot of ideas, some one shots I've written for myself, and the only art I have (added it below) is just a rough rushed sketch for a little animatic I made a while back for an art trend that was going around a while ago.

Spoilers for Dredge and it's DLCs below the cut for anyone reading and wants to play blind, you have been warned! (Seriously play this game blind its fucking amazing!)

The main gist I have is that yn is essentially in the shoes of the fisherman we play as in Dredge, showing up for a fishing job all while having mysterious gaps in their memory and a lack of understanding as to why these people they're meeting for the first time seem to recognize and know them! They meet the collector and follow the games plot (including the big reveal of the collector being the player, so in this case being yn) Rather than yn having lost a partner like the player though I've shifted things to be the person they lost, and their Collector half is trying to get back regardless of cost, is actually Eclipse himself who happens to be an eldritch entity that would be a very bad idea to release on the world, so the ending of the game in this au is essentially the choice of 'bring back your eldritch companion or accept that you aren't gonna see them again and do what you can to fix the shit going on with the world! So yn has to deal with the two versions of her in her head, the one that wants Eclipse back and the one that understands the catastrophic consequences of what doing that entails for the rest of the world.

Sun and Moon in this au are mers who have their own territory and love poking around yn's boat (and trying to keep them from getting themselves killed by the plethora of monsters and dangers roaming the sea with them!) Sun's territories are the Stellar Basin and Gale Cliffs in the south and Moon's are the Twisted Strand and the Devil's Spine in the north. I have a few different ideas floating around for the two of them, the main of which is that both are literally just smaller manifestations of Eclipse and together can form him so normally they make a point not to be too close together or not to touch when they are (or maybe just under certain conditions when Eclipse is close to being freed that's when they stay apart most to try to keep that from happening) I have some images in my mind of designs for Sun and Moon but nothing really fleshed out and actually drawn though each has certain characteristics tying to their respective territories, like Moon's red eyes resembling the eyes of the fire fish and the Unseeing Mother have in the Devil's Spine while also having slit pupils at times like the crocodiles do in the Twisted Strand. Meanwhile Sun has fluorescent spots on him like the fish and creature in the center of the Stellar Basin but can also change colors to blend into the more dull colors of the Gale Cliffs (or at least dull colors in comparison to how vibrant the Stellar Basin is lmao). I also imagine Sun and Moon have certain comfort spots they like to nestle into depending on the territory they're in when they're not busy trying to get all of yn's attention, Sun specifically usually enjoys resting behind the waterfall in the Gale Cliffs where you catch the oarfish while Moon enjoys lying hidden in the roots of the mangrove trees in the Twisted Strand near where you catch the goliath tigerfish.

While Sun and Moon are more playfully antagonistic towards yn Eclipse is a lot more intimidating for obvious reasons! He can't directly communicate a lot with yn the way Sun and Moon can since he has to be summoned to their world while Sun and Moon just get to exist in it but I imagine he is still very adamant in interacting when he can, usually through dreams that yn can't even always discern between being real things or just something random their brain made up in their sleep! Eclipse just wants out and could care less about what that means for the rest of the world so he is very keen on yn giving in to the Collector and gathering the things needed to bring him to yn's world. While all three of the boys care for yn, Eclipse has a bit more extreme of an obsession and desire to keep them around and struggles to grasp why yn won't just bring him back since he's promised to keep them safe when the world goes to shit. I also imagine him having direct ties to certain fish aberrations end up since I do have some scenes either rough draft written out or just in my head which could be its own whole long post in itself but the main idea is that some fish aberrations just happened to occur the way they did while others Eclipse specifically altered the way they look for a reason (with this being most relevant for the legendary fish aberrations which, like I mentioned, can be an entire long post on its own lmao). In terms of how Eclipse and yn met and what got him so interested in them in the first place has a couple options floating around my mind still, the main one being while Eclipse was spying on the world yn inhabits he notices that they actually seem intrigued and curious over the fish aberrations rather than repulsed like humans typically are and he gets so curious over the odd reaction he starts keeping more of an eye on them to the point he develops an obsession and starts trying to reach out in the ways he can, and then one way or another after they've actually started talking we get to the events of the game where the book is dragged up only for yn to lose their memories and now be faced with the choice of throw the book back or bring Eclipse to their world.

I also have ideas about how the dlc plays into things, with none of the boys really being happy about the Iron Rig showing up and ruining things for them (on top of endangering their yn!) and for the Pale Reach I have a lot more ideas that drift farther from the actual lore of the dlc, though that dlc's main story is still involved and is the same. But basically the Pale Reach story in this dlc on top of the actual dlc's story follows yn trying to see if there's a way for either Eclipse or if not then a smaller more restrained version of him to visit without ending the whole world as they know it since they are trying to meet him again just not at the cost of reality itself breaking!

But yeah that's a lot of the overview stuff I have for this au, Dredge has been a very strong brain rot for me (clearly by the length of this post lmao) but I love talking about it, so feel free to ask more about it if you have anymore specific questions about it or just want to know more in general! ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

Thanks for asking about the au I love ranting about this, and I'd love to check out your dredge dca fic! (Sorry this took over a week to get through time has really gotten away from me recently lol)

[definitelynotshouting]

heyo! i learned a new word today and thought i'd share cause it sounds like a word you'd like

the word is apricity and its an old English word meaning "the warmth of the sun in winter" :]

-🍁

leaf anon ur spot on the money i have instantly fallen in love with this word right now immediately. If anyone sees this show up in one of the next hunger au chapters you know EXACTLY who to blame /DEEPLY SILLY

[muzzlemouths]

Who is diner shop looking sun and is she smoking? I love her.

That's Sunny from my newest AU, Easy As Pie!

It's a story that (sometimes) takes place in the 1950s and (sometimes) in the modern year, wherein Sun manages a small diner, and Moon runs the sleazy motel right across from it, both owned by everyone's favorite public menace — Willie Afton himself.

You play the part of a Noir Detective Private Investigator who is down on their luck and hoping to turn it around and get the recognition you deserve by solving a case that's been cold for 75 long years, which is easier said than done when your biggest leads on the case are two sentient animatronics who want nothing to do with you or your eagerness to dredge old, bitter memories back to the surface.

[sunflowervoltwentyeight]

Happy 28th! Here is my February 2025 fic rec, organized by word count, from longest to shortest. You can view my other fic recs here. Enjoy!

Wildflower by blueskiesrry / @blueskiesrry (112k)

“You look like a wildflower,” Louis comments, shielding his eyes from the sun, the crinkles near them even more prominent in this light.

“What?” Harry’s words stumble over a surprised laugh.

“With your hair all fluffy like that.”

Harry’s fingers automatically find their way into his hair as he silently curses the humidity out on the water.

“He kind of does, doesn’t he?” Elizabeth adds.

Louis tilts his head to the side, smile softening and blurred around the edges. “Our very own long-stemmed wildflower.”

-

or: a 1950s hollywood story spanning half a decade where harry and louis are constantly growing towards, away from, & around each other and everything harry wants are things he can’t have.

Through Eerie Chaos Series by MediaWhore / @mediawhorefics (103k)

Through Eerie Chaos (102k) For as long as anyone can remember, Old Hillsbridge Manor has always been believed to be haunted. Everyone in the village agrees and keeps a respectful, fearful, distance. New in town after a bad breakup and an internship that led to disappointment rather than a permanent job, Harry Styles figures taking pictures of the decrepit building could be a great new creative project. Or at least a much-needed distraction while he searches for a job and crashes at his parents’ new house. No one warned him about the apparitions though; about the music, the laughter, the people who flicker and vanish when you call after them, the echoes of a past that should be long gone… Harry has never believed in spirits but even he can admit that there’s something weird going on. What starts as mere curiosity evolves into a full-blown investigation and soon enough, Harry finds himself making friends with an aristocrat from the 1920s and struggling with finding the best way to tell him that he’s dead. The Ghost Hunter AU where Niall lives to prove ghosts are real, Zayn is a skeptical librarian and Harry gets caught up in a century-old mystery and catches feeling in the process. Peace In Your Arms (1k) The happily ever after ...

I Could Fall In Love With You by tippitytap / @tippitytap (55k)

If Louis were asked to describe Harry's role in his life, the answer would have always been quite simple: best friend.

Since last year, the answer might have also been: housemate and co-parent to the cats.

What Louis didn't think would ever happen was that the answer would one day change to: the man he was falling deeply in love with.

or: Right at the beginning of a nationwide lockdown might be the worst time to fall in love with your childhood best friend and housemate. But if Louis knew one thing, it was that Harry and he would always find a way through life together.

Carry This Feeling by Awriterwrites, dimpled_halo / @a-writerwrites (49k)

There’s something about Louis Tomlinson that makes Harry feel unhinged. It’s in the other man’s stare, in the way he looks at Harry like he knows he’s hiding something. Like he’s not really all he says he is.

Harry’s not so sure it’s fear he’s feeling. Maybe it’s something deeper. Ever since Louis walked into his house, he’s felt on edge. He’s just being himself after all, and that’s usually enough to get just about anyone to drop their pants. But...it’s clearly not working on Louis Tomlinson. It dredges up something oily and unpleasant inside Harry. He doesn’t like it.

He’s got to lock that shit down tight.

*** Harry knows, objectively, that he shouldn't try to get his ghostwriter into bed. He knows. But...he finds it hard to resist temptation when Louis waltzes into his home and his life and turns everything upside down. And, as it turns out, Louis might just need a little turning upside down too.

Salt in Your Wounds by Halos_Boat / @halohamilton (32k)

Harry and Louis have been with each other since university; together for almost a decade and married for seven years when their marriage starts to take a tumble.

Harry doesn't think there's anything worth saving anymore, so he leaves. Louis doesn't see the use of stopping him, so he let's Harry go.

Beige by blueskiesrry / @blueskiesrry (5k)

Harry finds it hot–he always does–the way Louis is so attentive, but he finds himself more drawn to Niall and Zayn, watching as the two of them whisper softly to one another, having their own conversation in the midst of the larger, group one, one of their hands coming up to run soothingly along the other’s thigh. It reminds him of him and Louis in their early days, so completely enthralled with one another, caught up in the novelty and freshness. There could be twenty people in a room, and he’d only have eyes for one.

He glances at Louis every now and again to see if he notices as well, and Louis watches some, but he mostly watches Harry.

 or: harry and louis are in love on valentine's day. louis pretends he hates it. they host game night for their friends.

Different Than You Do by galactic_larry / @galacticlarry (2k)

Louis and Harry have been friends for a little over four years. Louis has been in love with Harry for most of those years, even if he didn’t want to admit it at first.

What happens when he impulsively decides to tell him?

Don't Call Me Baby by 28sunflowers / @vintageumbroshirt (2k)

A short and cliché roommates AU inspired by To Be So Lonely, where they’re both oblivious to each other’s feelings and Harry gets sad and jealous over nothing. It works out in the end.

Happy Valentine's Day, You Cockroach by allwaswell16 / @allwaswell16 (2k)

Harry Styles, new director of the Milltown Zoo, has a great idea for a Valentine's Day themed fundraiser. For a donation, they'll name cockroaches after people's exes and then feed them to the meerkats on a live stream. He just didn't foresee how many cockroaches would end up with his name...

[utterlyazriel]

whom the shadows sing for —(and the thief's echoing hymn)

a/n: chapter twoooo i hope you guys enjoy!! and i take this as pure reason to knuckle down and finish chapter three tehe <3 let me know what u think!! a million mwahs to @strangerstilinski for being my beta too, even tho i yelled at u sorry :/

word count: 3.5k

synopsis: Azriel trains you and is particularly unforgivable about it. Together, you tackle tonics. Azriel ponders the unmistakable pull he feels and you try your best to keep your secret under wraps. fem!reader, mulan-esque au

— CHAPTER TWO :: ALLIES

The storm had calmed come morning. The Mother's Kiss slowed, quietened to only a whisper between the trees.

With it, the ache in your forearm too. The torn skin knitted up in the night, the heat from the fire like a balm on the wound.

But right now, the ache was threatening to make a reappearance.

You glare across the clearing at Azriel from your place in the mud, where he's just knocked you down. Your lungs burn. Your chest heaves as you try to catch you breath. The last hour has been spent on the same infuriating exercise.

The sludgy dirt, still sloppy from the melted snow of last night, drips off your arms as you scramble to get to your feet. Your wings shudder, flicking off the cold dirt with a shake.

"Try again." Azriel says, his voice calm.

He has no weapons on him today with the exception of one knife, strapped high on his thigh. Its obsidian hilt glimmers under the winter sun, rays catching the decorative jewel on the end. The rest of his weapons won't be far you're willing to bet. No Illyrian warrior lets themself be so unprepared.

Or perhaps he truly only needs one blade to hold his own in a fight.

A flicker of envy. You suppose you should feel little more gratuitous of his offer to train, especially considering he's such a mighty warrior.

But between the built-in wariness that comes with having a secret such as yours and the way he keeps throwing you in the mud... it's hard to dredge up some gratitude. You must have been at this for hours now.

Besides, a little part of you can't help but be skeptical of his offer. What exactly did he stand to gain from helping you?

"Why are you helping me again?"

You're panting lightly, bent over with your hands on your knees. Your bound chest twinges in pain. You weren't out of shape by any means — you were an Illyrian warrior after all. But getting knocked down endlessly was beginning to wear you down.

"And," You huff, waving a hand behind at the mud pile he keeps dumping you in. "How does this help?"

Azriel crosses his arms across his broad chest. In the daylight, his shadows shimmer and wisp about. You had been unsurprised to find he's even more devastatingly handsome in the light of daytime.

After his final words the evening before, Azriel had disappeared out into the storm without further explanation, his shadows swirling around him like falling snow.

Come morning, you rose before the sun and stepped outside, prepared to head to training—and there he was. Posed up against a tree, the obsidian-hilt blade his hands, sharpening it in long, precise strokes.

"Lord Mylind has been spoken to regarding your training." Azriel had said, in place of a greeting. "He knows of your expected absence whilst you train under me."

You hadn't said anything; half convinced there had been something coated on Brudam's knife that made you hallucinate the whole thing.

"Though," The male before you continued, finally sheathing his dagger away into the holster on his thigh with casual precision. "He tells me that your absences during training have come to be somewhat expected."

He raises his eyebrows slightly.

"Why do you think they hate me so much?" You asked, a bitter edge to your voice. It's a non-answer.

"Because you neglect your duties as a warrior?"

"Ha. Did Lord Mylind use that word?"

"It's true, one is not considered a warrior until one passes The Blood Rite." Azriel commented, his head tilting to the side just an inch. "You're a warrior-in-training. Provided you go to training, that is."

The combined mention of The Blood Rite and your missing time during training had you tensing up. Azriel had noticed, his eyes shifting to your stiff posture. He hadn’t commented — just stalked off into the snow, wings held high and proud, not checking to see if you bothered to follow.

Now, muscles aching and skin coated in mud-slick, you briefly wonder if you were regretting following him.

"You're smaller than usual Illyrians.” Azriel says. “They rely on brute strength but someone your size is better to rely on your agility— a skill they've been neglecting. No doubt to try to discourage you."

A flush of nervousness rushes through your system at his comment on your size. There's a good reason you don't size up against Illyrian males—being that you aren't one at all.

For good measure, you wipe your face haphazardly with a muddy hand. Any pesky scents that might give you away get smothered beneath it.

"And I believe in what you're doing," Azriel continues, his hazel eyes watching you closely. "It's honourable, no matter what Brudam and his brood say."

Something akin to pride blooms deep in your chest at his approval, at his belief in your mission. Having fought on your own for so many years had taken its toll— one you weren't aware of until it eased. Just a touch.

"Could've sworn you just enjoyed knocking me on my ass."

That glimmer of amusement is back in his hazel eyes. You swear his lips twitch as if holding back a smile.

"Try again." He says, in lieu of an answer. Not a denial.

He gestures to his neck again. Tan skin that hides beneath dark, scaly armor. This has been your task for the last hour — get your hand on his throat, through hand-to-hand combat.

Considering how you'd managed to stick him with a fork just yesterday, you had assumed it was easy territory.

You had been sorely, sorely wrong.

Straightening yourself up properly, you roll your shoulders back and flare your wings out a bit. Your boots sink into the mud an inch. You assess the distance between you and Azriel, eyes narrowed, and try to put together each piece of advice he's given you in the last hours.

Plant your feet when you're striking.

Stay on your toes if you're advancing.

Use your environment to your advantage.

Punch through, not just at.

Your height is as much an advantage as it is a disadvantage.

Some of it was nothing more than a reiteration of your training in camp. And yet, when delivered from Azriel, under his focused gaze, it seems easier to absorb. It holds a different meaning.

This time as you survey your approach a thousand other details whisper in your ear.

The rustle of the trees, the whirl of the wind, the stance he sinks into like second nature.

If you can't overpower him, how can you get a hand on his neck?

Your boots sink deeper into the mud and you tense, your wings held taut and high behind you as you ready yourself to pounce.

The wind picks up, a whistle in the air, and you can see, even from afar, how the swirling of his shadows perk up — as if listening for any whispers in it.

Time to strike.

You burst forward and stay low this time, letting your knees take the brunt of your weight. Instead of trying to get past him, you need to bring his neck down to your level. A half-baked plan scrambles together.

Feigning moves against a proficient warrior like him is nearly laughable and his thick forearm moves to parry your punch as quickly as you form it. Good. It's what you're relying on.

You pivot your energy and focus it on kicking out his bent knee— and you catch him enough by surprise that he stumbles back a step. He doesn’t fall though.

You grit your teeth and know you have about half a second before he’s going to have you dodging punches and landing back in the mud. You keep pressing forward.

Skin meets leather as you land a sharp snap against his shoulder, your knuckles stinging deliciously but he deftly blocks your next blow. And the next, and the next.

Then you’re hitting more of his hands than you are anywhere else.

Frustrated, you snarl, increasing your speed and letting him focus on your incoming punches so he doesn’t see it when you send a kick into his groin.

His defense drops razor fast— both his scarred hands wrapping around your calf and capturing it between his legs, stopping it 2 inches from making contact.

Your eyes dart up to his face, nearly grinning at the incredulous look he gives you.

It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for — and something gleeful in you sings when you shoot your hand up faster than both his can move. The palm of your hand connects with the skin of his neck.

“Aha!” You shout, unable to help yourself.

You’re panting, out of breath from the fast combat and yet, still savouring the victory. A foreign glimmer of admiration and approval flashes deep in your chest. It's gone as quick as it appears.

Azriel doesn’t waste a second to sweep your feet out from beneath you.

Unprepared, you crumple and hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. A groan rumbles in your chest. Mud squishes up against your cheek, sullying it.

For a moment, you just lay there and groan in pain.

You're pretty sure every single muscle in your body aches as you gather your strength and push yourself up from the mud, elbows quivering. If you thought regular training was rigorous, this has been brutal.

True, there's less hitting you while you're down which you were more than accustomed to — only once have you thought Azriel might give you a kick while you were defenseless and too tired to cover your face.

But instead, he had surprised you and offered a hand. You had hesitated before taking it.

And as you're finding out, when you're spending less time worrying about Illyrians unfairly targeting you due to your size, you're a hell of a lot better fighter.

With a much better opponent though.

You win some, you lose some.

"Anyone ever call you a prick before?" You seethe quietly; because you had done the task he wanted you to do and he'd still sent you back on your ass. You spit into the mud and wipe your mouth.

"Definitely." Azriel answers. Again, there's that hint of amusement in his voice.

You huff and push up to rest back on your heels, planting your hands on your knees and glaring up at him. The muck on your wings makes you shiver, sludgy trails of mud sliding off them unpleasantly. You're well used to the cold.

"Good." You huff. "Prick."

Azriel smiles at that, not bothering to hide it. You find yourself smiling back at him, an out-of-breath laugh making your shoulders shake and your head bow. The muscles in your stomach hurt as they move.

When you look back up at him, he's offering his hand again.

You take it, this time without hesitation.

—

The day is for training. Azriel, the mentor. You, the student.

The night is for learning. You're both students here.

The second part of his offer that you clearly hadn't expected, given your wide-eyed look when he turned up at your door on that first evening, bringing all manners of plants needed to make healing tonics. Things you hadn't been able to find or afford on your own.

It had been then, he thinks, that you realised how serious he was about helping you. That his offer extended beyond training you physically.

"Is there really a difference between cutting and slicing?" Azriel asks as he peers down at the table beneath him.

In his marred hands is a root vegetable, something that flowered prettily— nice purple skin with a golden centre. He frowns down at it, his gaze shifting slowly from the vegetable to the knife in his hand.

It’s strange, he thinks. Strange to hold a knife and have it not be for violence.

"There is a difference," Your reply floats across from the other side of the room.

Nearly a week he's been here. Azriel had been pushing you more each day he was here, brutal one-on-one training to hone your skills.

It’s working; already he can see the certainty of your stance, your increased agility, the hunter's glint in your eyes. The clumsiness of the first day of training has already been worn away. Beneath it, the Illyrian warrior emerges.

He's exhausting you, he knows. Working you twice as hard to try to fill every gap in your training that seems to be missed. Finding every weak point left by the Lords of this camp, to disadvantage you no doubt, and training it up.

But if you’re tired from it, you don’t complain.

Azriel lifts his head to look at you properly, his eyes watching your hands as you strip leaves off one of the plants he had brought with him today.

Hands, weathered and much smaller than most males, that work diligently at your task. Your focus remains strong, even as you talk over your shoulder.

"Well, slicing is cutting but a more precise form." You shift your wing back, tucking it in, as you finally turn your head back to look at him.

You're a very peculiar male.

Azriel can't say he's ever met a warrior, or even an Illyrian, like yourself before. You're small. It's the first thing he had noticed when he had slipped into your tiny home those nights ago, a sturdy shelter against the harsh wind of the mountains.

You're small but your wings are still large and beautiful, tucked up neatly behind your back. Most warriors in camp must have at least a head of height on you.

The armor you wear looks old. It's been worn down, softened against your body but even still, it sits a little too low on your hips. The shoulders hang out an extra inch.

You're small and you're hardened at every edge.

It's the way anyone who grows up here has to be. And for you to have made the cut to become a warrior, even with the impairment of your height... Azriel knows you're made of tougher stuff than most.

Within that, he finds himself inexplicably drawn to you.

Azriel hates the Illyrian mountains. Loathes the culture he comes from that festers here, their swift brutality and preferred cruelty against even their own. Invisible standards that made one Fae better than another.

The lives they taught him to take so easily.

So the last thing he had expected to find coming back here, to a place haunted with wretched memories, was... an ally.

But staring across the space to you, he can't think of any other word to describe the stirring in his chest. The drag on his heart, as if it's lurching forward.

"Look, let me show you."

You drop what's in your hands and take a couple steps to cross the space. The shelter is like you, small, just shy of cramped. The ceiling could stand to gain a few inches and the inside is as bare as Azriel would expect of a home in a war-camp.

One rickety table. A bed tucked into a corner. A fireplace with slanted, mismatched soot-covered bricks. There's the general rustle about the place that indicates someone sleeps here. Things hang off nails, bedded into the wall.

Hovering beside the table, you gesture for the knife in Azriel's hand. There's tenseness in your shoulders. You're still wary of him— or perhaps so used to your own company. He wonders which it is as he hands over the knife wordlessly.

"You just gotta—" The vegetable gets re-positioned on the board and when you bring down the knife, it's with an elegance that Azriel had been severely lacking.

You slice a long strip off, lengths-wise, and then pause, looking up at him to make sure he understands. "Slice?"

Azriel smiles despite himself.

That's the other thing.

You are, without a doubt, the most beautiful Fae he's ever seen in his life— not to mention, by far the most beautiful male he’s ever laid his eyes on.

It had taken him by surprise initially, even his shadows rearing back in shock when you had turned and sprung at him, cutlery in hand. Azriel had fumbled one of his blocks and it led to you sinking the fork into his shoulder— all because his mind had been whispering beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

It's the reason you had managed to land a hit at all— or Azriel tells himself that. Because otherwise, he had a serious reason to brush up on his own training.

He also tells himself it had nothing to do with his offer.

It hadn't swayed his reasoning in the slightest; not the way he can't take his eyes off you for some peculiar, unbidden reason. Training you and learning how to make tonics alongside you was entirely due to his belief in your mission.

Liar, one of his shadows seems to whisper in response.

Azriel was over five hundred years old — tangling with a male was not entirely foreign to him. And yet, Azriel had found it was not as to his taste as females were.

Another glance at you has him, once again, second-guessing that.

As quickly as it enters his mind, he snuffs it, his wings giving a minuscule twitch, right as you offer him back the knife.

He opts for a question instead. "How did you come to live here?"

It's one of the other unusual parts of your intriguing survival out here. Not only did you make the cut to train to become a warrior against the odds, but you also live alone. Azriel lets himself survey the shelter once more.

It's far better than some of the conditions he's been subjected to before and yet... it's not quite homey. As though you've never relaxed here, even when it's just you.

"I built it."

Azriel blinks. Then he turns his head down to look at you, perplexed.

"You...?"

You've walked back to the plant you were handling, starting to strip off the leaves again. You hum in response to his words, sparing a glance up at the ceiling.

That certainly explained why it was on the smaller side, made to your stature. Azriel can't fathom how you managed it in the blizzardly conditions of the mountains, entirely on your own.

"As I'm sure you're familiar, bastards don't get anything in these camps."

Your voice tightens with the pain of an unhealed wound.

Azriel doesn't say anything, just presses his lips together thinly. He nods.

"It was already a ruin, the fireplace and floorboards were about the only thing left." This time as you tug the leaves off the plant in your hand, it's a little meaner. "It took me years to properly finish it because the males in camp kept coming by to see if they could knock it back down."

Something roars in Azriel's ears, a familiar icy fury at the injustice that roamed so freely in these mountains. A plague amongst these people. So many Fae, so eager to kick those who are already down.

Looking up from your hands, your motions slow, and a distant look dawns on your face as though you've been whisked away into an old memory. A cold smile graces your mouth.

"So eventually when one of them came around, I showed them why they shouldn't fuck with my stuff. Or with me."

How you gained your solitary fortress out here.

It had piqued his interest on the very first evening, the sole shelter out from the cluster of cabins in the camp. That even though the drunken warriors were first to point it out when Azriel came asking who was causing trouble, none of them would go near it.

He can guess a multitude of things you did to protect it and yourself. Something akin to admiration blooms in his chest. Something heavier, deeper, lurks beneath it.

As your hands go back to work, Azriel can't help but watch you silently for a moment. His shadows pour over his shoulders, seeping down his arms the longer he looks; as though they, too, want to figure out the enigma in front of them.

You're a very peculiar male, Azriel thinks for the second time that evening.

The runt of the litter and a bastard just as him.

A natural born fighter and an Illyrian warrior against all the odds.

A Fae with long hair like Cassian's, chopped at the shoulder and scraped back — and a voice softer than most. A Fae with eyes that burn with a promise for retribution, with icy fury like his own.

Azriel picks up the knife and slices the vegetable as you had, slow and long. He steals one more glance at you — to find you're doing the same, chancing a split-second glimpse to look at him.

Azriel averts his eyes back to the table.

He feels the treacherous glow of his cheeks and is thankful you can't see his face clearly in the dim light. He slices again.

And as he mulls his thoughts, the pair of you working in tandem as the fire crackles loudly in the corner, Azriel makes a point to ignore the thundering feeling that seems to sing right out of his heart.

No matter if he's half-sure he knows just what word it's singing.

(Mate. Mate. Mate).

[NEXT PART: COMPANIONS]

—

tags below!

@janebirkln @itsswritten @mischiefmanagers @hnyclover @waytoomanyteenagefeels @idkitsem @illyrianbitch @jeweline16 @fightmedraco @iamjimintrash @maeandering @spideytingley @aneekapaneeka

(if i tagged u and u would like to opt out, no hard feelings! send me an ask and i’ll leave u off :D)

[dawn-moths]

"Birthday Wishes"

Undertaker x Female Reader

word count: 3,700+

(@fanfictionsworld requested: spending your birthday with Undertaker from my Cause to Start a Vendetta AU.)

disclaimer/content warning: 18+ content! minors dni! fluff with some smut at the end, oral sex (reader receiving), use of the word “Daddy”, reader is called “princess, baby, sweetheart”.

*ao3 mirror*

***

You’d been counting down the days for weeks now, your birthday circled on the calendar with a big pink glitter gel pen heart several times over, every day crossed off that crawled closer to the day— your day— making you more and more excited.

Because, as you’d quickly grown accustomed to being spoiled by Undertaker— special occasion or otherwise— your birthday was no exception to being showered with all the love and luxury he had at his disposal.

“Morning, princess…” he cooed, gently smoothing down some of your sleep-tousled hair with a big, cool palm, pressing a kiss to your forehead as you blinked open beary eyes, wrapped in his arms and the many layers of blankets that twisted and tangled about your bodies sprawled across the bed.

“Morning, Daddy…” you replied, voice soft and delicate as the lingering dredges of slumber clung to your tone, an angelic little grin curving up on your sweet lips as you nuzzled closer into Undertaker’s chest, seeking out his elusive warmth.

For a moment, nearly forgetting what today was as you drifted in and out of consciousness, your figure filling with the heavy weight of sleep once more, your eyelids fluttered closed and your breathing began to turn slow and shallow. Undertaker rubbed a hand up and down your back, stirring you back to the waking world and smiling to himself as you let out a big yawn, nose scrunching adorably with the expression.

“If you want to go back to sleep,” he murmured, pressing another kiss to your nose and causing a fragile giggle to bubble up in your chest, “I won’t stop you. But that would certainly be a shame when we have so many fun things on our to-do list today.”

That was enough to entice you, your mind suddenly much more alert than before, and you snaked your arms up to gently rest over his shoulders. “Just a few more minutes…” you said, pressing yourself even closer to him, wishing you could bask in the safety of his touch forever. “Then I promise I’ll get up.”

A smooth, sonorous chuckle vibrated through his bones, the sound warming you from the inside out like hot milk and honey. “Alright, sweetheart,” he said, allowing himself to melt back to a more relaxed state as well. “Just a few more minutes…”

As the sun crept further through the cracks of the curtains, bright beams painting the ornate master bedroom with thin strokes of gold, stirring up the wispy clouds of dust motes swirling through the air, Undertaker coaxed you into finally rising, draping one of his big, fluffy black robes over your shoulders when you became burdened with a chill, the mansion’s usual temperature kept low upon his preference.

Once your feet were dressed in your favorite pair of fluffy socks and even fluffier slippers, you took Undertaker’s hand and let him guide you down the wide halls to the curving staircase, heading towards the kitchen where you could already smell your special birthday breakfast.

The long dining table was decorated to the nines with all kinds of balloon bouquets and bundles of black and white roses overflowing from crystal vases. Spelled out in gold glitter confetti at one end of the display was HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PRINCESS punctuated by a big heart. At the other was a full selection of all your breakfast favorites— souffle pancakes piled high with bananas and melty chocolate chips, strawberry french toasts drizzled with sticky maple syrup and sprinkled with a frosty snowfall of powdered sugar, fluffy scrambled eggs and yogurt parfaits and fruit arranged by color.

You sucked in a gasp of delight, hands clasped before your chest as you eagerly surveyed the scene, looking up at your Daddy like he’d outdone himself.

“Happy birthday, baby,” he said, extending a hand towards the chair at the head of the table— his usual chair, the master’s chair, the dining room’s throne— and pulling it out for you to sit in, taking the seat adjacent to it to join you in the morning’s sugary culinary experience.

Over the meal— you choosing a bit of everything to pile onto your plate in an orderly array, because why should you have to choose just one when today you could have whatever your little heart desired— you and Undertaker began to discuss the day’s itinerary.

There was a packed schedule planned indeed— a shopping outing at all your most beloved designer stores, afternoon tea at the Ritz, exploring some of the artsy nooks and crannies of the city and dropping into your favorite bookstore all before hopping on the Aurora Society’s private jet and taking the hour and a half flight to your favorite five star restaurant in Paris, sure to end the evening by enjoying your usual penthouse suit of the expensive hotel that gave the best view among any of the establishments around.

“Oh, and there’s one more thing,” Undertaker slyly prompted just as you were about to head upstairs to get changed and ready for the events ahead, thoughts already spinning trying to decide what you wanted to wear. You stopped and considered him with an adorably cute expression for a moment until he pulled a big gift bag from under the table where he’d hidden it from you, the glossy black packaging stuffed with glittering silver tissue paper and two perfect satin ribbons serving as the handles. “You know,” he shrugged as he slid it towards you on the table, drinking in your awe, never growing tired of how easily you seemed to be innocently surprised sometimes, “just in case you felt like going out in something new.”

Carefully, as if the wrapping itself was just as valuable as the gift, you plucked the sparkling tissue paper away to uncover the pristinely wrapped box beneath, a marbling of glossy and matte black swirling over the decorative paper like ink dropped into water. The moment the first half of your favorite clothing brand’s name was visible to you, you shot him a glance, as if to say, “you shouldn’t have” despite believing down to your very core that you deserved every expensive, extravagant thing that Undertaker placed in your cute little lap.

Once you lifted the garment from where it had been perfectly folded within its box, holding it up to your body as if to sample how it would look before trying it on, you heard Undertaker sigh, a dreamy, lilting hum tailing off the end of it. “Exquisite…” he remarked, and you now held the dress out from your body, studying the intricate craftsmanship that had been hand stitched into the garment as you smiled to yourself, eyes sparkling.

“Yeah,” you agreed. “It really is.”

But then Undertaker was by your side, having moved soundlessly, his even stride gliding across the short distance to meet you. “I wasn’t talking about the dress,” he murmured, big hands settling on your hips. “Now, why don’t you head upstairs and start getting ready.”

You turned your face up to his, met his lips when he was close enough for a kiss, and muttered out a sweet little, “Thank you, Daddy,” before following his instruction and heading for the staircase.

He watched you go, saw the skip in your step as you ventured off, only returning to clearing the table once you disappeared down the long second story hallway and out of his view. He was going to look forward to taking that dress off of you later, unwrapping you like his own special gift by the time night draped itself over the sky.

***

The afternoon had been like a dream, you and your lover floating from one location to the next to try on extravagant clothing and sample imported teas, the two of you practically waltzing through the downtown streets where you longed to see what new installments the local London artists put up around the city before you’d lost track of time perusing your favorite bookstore, a good two hours going by without you even noticing as you strategically searched for the next story to get yourself hooked on.

But as the sky began to fade from blue to gold, it signaled that dinner was soon approaching, which meant you two had a plane to catch if you wanted to arrive to your reservation on time.

The hostess greeted you two with a friendly smile, addressing you both by name, the entire restaurant staff made familiar with London’s most notorious boss and the beautiful girl who was always on his arm, Undertaker making short, lighthearted conversation with the manager in French while they crossed paths on the walk to your usual table, the man chuckling at something your Daddy had said, forever able to charm anyone if he set his mind to it, it seemed.

As you both enjoyed the delicacies of the six course meal, you continued to talk and laugh, never running out of topics to converse about, though tonight you were most excited to tell him all about the book you’d recently finished and your expectations for the new one you’d chosen on your earlier excursion, having heard nothing but praise for the acclaimed tale.

Once the horizon had lost its lilac blush and sunk deep into the velvet navy of nightfall though, you knew you were just about to enter into yet another phase of your luxurious birthday festivities.

***

You could smell the roses from down the hall before the doors to your hotel suite in Paris even opened. The entirety of the three connected rooms were decked from floor to ceiling in at least one hundred thousand dollars worth of florals, vibrant reds and sultry blacks, flawless creams and even a dash of lovely soft pinks.

You could’ve cried at how gorgeous it all was, blinking the mist from your eyes as you spun in slow circles about the place, taking it all in. Undertaker’s hands found your shoulders to steady you, stopping your awestruck turns to face the beautiful birthday cake on the hotel room’s center table, the special dessert shaped like a heart and iced in a rainbow of your favorite colors, several candles placed strategically on the top and already lit, small flames glowing and beckoning you over to make a wish.

But what could you possibly wish for when you already had everything you’d ever want or need— a gorgeous man who loved you, showering you in every stunning thing life had to offer, as simple as the snap of his fingers or a wave of his hand— besides to continue living this blessed life that had found its way to you, through trial and tribulation?

Taking a few steps forward towards the cake, you choked out through a shaky breath, “Oh my god…” unable to hold back your tears any longer, a few sparkling drops running down your cheeks, glittering like gold as they caught the amber of the flickering firelight. You looked back at Undertaker, who was not far behind you, and wondered if you’d ever be able to convey how much this all meant to you. It almost seemed unfair. He’d always be able to do more for you than you would for him, though he never seemed to mind.

For him, just having you— his sweet, precious baby girl to dote on and adore as much as he pleased— was far more than enough. All you had to do was exist. All you had to do was be his.

“Well, go on,” he lightly urged, a calm smile playing at the corner of his lips as he gestured towards the center table. “The candles won’t blow themselves out, now will they?”

You smiled, big and bright, and let out a sound that could only be described as pure joy. Undertaker was addicted to that sound, the way it rang out like the delicate jingle of bells, the way it warmed him like the sun’s rays after so much rain. It made everything he’d ever done, good, bad, or somewhere in between, all worth it. Just to see you smile at him like that, just to hear you laugh. Just to know it was him who’d been the orchestrator of such emotions.

And as you let out a strong gust of a breath, turning each melting birthday candle from flame to smoke, you realized you did have one wish you wanted to make afterall.

Let things be like this forever, you thought to yourself, like a silent prayer. Let us stay as in love for the rest of our lives as we are right now, in this moment.

Undertaker cut the cake, a piece for you and a piece for him, and then the two of you sat by the counter outlooking the spotless floor to ceiling windows that gave way to the sprawling view of the City of Light, the night sky clear and sparkling with little bursts of silver stars overhead.

You talked and joked and laughed while you both enjoyed your dessert, your chair pressed right next to his, close enough that you could lean your head over to rest against the side of his shoulder while his arm slung across your back, hugging you closer to him, his most cherished treasure.

“You know…” you began, gazing dreamily out the window at the romantic scene the city offered. Then, casting him a glance from where you were nestled into his side, you said, “I think this might really be the best birthday ever.”

Something in his eyes softened a shade then, and in response Undertaker lightly took your chin between his lithe fingers, tilting your mouth just ever so slightly upwards so he could lean down to meet it. You hadn’t expected the kiss, languid and savoring at first as you parted your lips to let him in, both of you tasting like your favorite flavor of cake, soon turning more hungry, having you straddling his lap and blinded by the blissful haze that was slowly filling you from the inside out.

When he finally broke away, leaned back just far enough to look you in the eyes, gently wiping the cool pad of his thumb across the plush of your bottom lip, glossy from your mingled saliva, a weak attempt to clean you up a bit, he said, “I guess that means I’ll have to go above and beyond next year,” and you laughed and nuzzled your head into the crook of his neck, breathing in his scent as you felt yourself relax over him.

“No, but really…” you murmured. “Thank you, Daddy. For everything. Always.”

All you got as a warning for what happened next was a low, lilting chuckle humming in his chest before he was hoisting you up, big hands splayed against the backs of your thighs as he began to carry you elsewhere in the suite.

“Where are we going?” you playfully asked, though you already had a pretty good idea.

“There’s still a few hours until midnight,” he remarked, a new kind of vigor in his voice and stride. He set you down on the edge of the king-sized bed, beginning to shrug off his jacket and tug his belt buckle free of its loops as he added, “Which means your birthday’s not over yet, princess.”

The smirk that spread across his face then made that fluttering creature resting in your lower belly roll over inside of you, beginning to wake, soon asking to be satisfied like a dog scratching at the door begging for treats, relentless until it was given its desired reward. It wasn’t long before Undertaker was hooking his grip under your thighs again, pulling you further down the bed where he then knelt at the foot of it.

You gave him an uncertain and slightly suspicious look as he flicked his emerald gaze up to meet yours. Usually, he liked to undress you, strip you down piece by piece before ridding himself of his own clothing, admiring every inch of your bare body like it was the most masterful work of art. Then he’d pin you down, his prized butterfly, and get to work at soaking both your bodies with pleasure before wringing them dry, squeezing you for every last lustful drop he could.

But tonight— on your night— he figured he’d do things a little differently. Give you one last birthday surprise before the clock struck twelve.

“Just relax, sweetheart…” he cooed, carefully bunching your new dress up around your waist, exposing the expensive lace clinging to the most delicate parts of you and drinking in the sight like it rivaled even that of the one just beyond the windows. “Let Daddy make you feel good…”

Undertaker pressed gentle kisses to the soft raise of your lower belly, and you felt your tight little hole futter and your sensitive bud pulse as he slowly removed your panties, your already damp core causing them to cling to you a moment before the cool air sighed against your damp slit.

Undertaker ran a long finger through your dewy folds, making your next breath catch as he slipped it inside of you to gather more of your slick before rubbing it against your puffy clit, already swollen with arousal, pulling one of those adorable whines from your throat as you lay one arm over your eyes, the other sprawled out across the bed, little fingers twisting into the sheets, trying to grab hold of anything while you still had the chance.

“That’s it, baby…” he praised, helping to spread you wider for him, a leg thrown over one of his broad shoulders as he continued to tease you. His next words sent a puff of his warm breath against your cunt, and you squeezed your eyes shut in anticipation, exhaling a shuddering sigh. He whispered, “I’m gonna take good care of you, baby,” and when he licked a flat-tongued stripe up your pussy, you let out a soft, broken whine, back already beginning to arch a little at the sinfully sweet feel of him.

Undertaker was skilled at a lot of things— running a business, making money, getting away with murder— but the thing you thought he was best at, above all else, was pleasuring you.

It was effortless, the way he knew exactly what to do that made you body bend to his command, melting your mind until all you knew was the press of his hips or the wet warmth of his mouth, the indents of his teeth, his fingerprints, all of it branded into you so no matter where you looked on your own body there would be a reminder of him, like a promise, a gift.

You were clenching the silky sheets in your trembling fist as he speared his tongue into you, his sharp nose nudging against your clit every time and forcing moan after delicious, high-pitched moan out of you like that was the only sound you’d ever known how to make. If he thought your laugh was syrupy sweet, then your moans were something else entirely, something far more addicting or satisfying than sticky, sickly sweet sugar. More like a drug to him, making him addicted in a way that, once he got a taste, he couldn’t stop. Not until you had nothing left to give, his pursuit at seeing just how far or how long he could make you go merciless time and time again.

“P-please—” you sobbed, the new veil of tears that had welled in your eyes causing your lashes to clump and spike together with every fluttering roll of your eyes back into your head. His pace was voracious, wanting to devour you down to your very core. You could barely get half a broken plea out before it was interrupted by a surrendering mewl or a soundless gasp, mouth hung open in ecstasy before he prepared to shatter you. “Please— I’m gonna—”

But before you could even speak the last word of your sentence, let alone remember it, Undertaker had you coming undone, unraveling you like a frayed thread on a silk scarf, pulling you apart until there was nothing left but a tangle of string he could then rearrange into any shape he pleased.

Your chest rose and fell with short, shallow, panting breaths, rigid form relaxing back into the mattress, body gone all pliable and boneless once the remaining tension melted away. Meanwhile, Undertaker pressed gentle kisses to the sensitive insides of your stained thighs, palms gently petting you as you drifted down from the high and back into the garden of Eden he’d planted, nurtured, and grown just for you.

Normally, he’d barely give you enough time to recover before commencing round two, but, as he seemed to be a little more patient with you on this most special of days, he allowed your heart to slow to a steady rhythm and your breathing to smooth out into even inhales and exhales before shifting over you, darting out his tongue to lick at his own lips to catch one last obscene taste of you before wiping away your glistening arousal from the bottom half of his pale face with the back of his hand.

As he stared down at you through half-lidded eyes, the vibrant green of them almost glowing through the dim dark of the bedroom, he said, as if only to himself, “Just look at you… So gorgeous… My beautiful girl…” as he helped free you the rest of the way from your pretty birthday dress, mindfully folding it and placing it on the nearest bedside drawer so it didn’t get ruined.

Because he did intend to ruin you.

He intended to ruin you in all the right ways.

As he shed his own clothing like a black-skinned snake, all those silvery scars wrapped around alabaster flesh now on full display, you reached out for him, wanting, craving, needing to feel the press of his body back on yours before the ebbing pleasure made you drift off to dreamland. Though, with Undertaker, reality could often feel like a dream, so perfect your conscious mind almost struggled to comprehend it was real at times.

But, as he began to lean back over you, your fingers interlocked as he pressed your hands down into the comforter on either side of your head, both your legs thrown over his shoulders to have you splayed wide and vulnerable for him, just the way he liked you, one thing was for certain. Undertaker had been ahead of himself when he’d said he’d have to find a way to outdo your birthday next year. After tonight, you had no idea how things could get any better than this.

***

(Hello and thank you so much to @fanfictionsworld for your request! I hope I did it justice and thank you for being so patient with me while you waited for it. I know you’ve been following me for quite some time and I always recognize you when I see you pop up in my notifs, so it was truly a pleasure getting to write for you <3

Also want to give a big thank you to everyone else for reading as well! I hope you enjoyed and I hope you have a wonderful day!)

[priincebutt]

His fingers clench around the brass railing that encompasses the statue, and he tries to remember fleeting things, moments from lifetimes long since gone, but his brain refuses to dredge up the memories that aren’t core; there are too many of them for that, and now only so many come forth when he calls for them.

He’s trying to remember details about his family, who are long dead and gone, trying to remember anything but the heartbreak and the loneliness of losing them – but it’s futile. Just as he’s about to turn and leave, to let this past part of him go to make room for new lifetimes that open up before him, his eyes catch on a halo of curls and warm brown eyes that light up with the smile on the young man’s lips. And – 

Oh.

Henry’s heart feels as if it plummets into his stomach. His vision narrows to a pinprick, and all he can see is this man, a man Henry’s never seen before but has become the very sun he orbits around in the span of seconds. Henry’s heart is racing, and his breath hitches in his chest where one hand has come to rest, rubbing idly at his collarbone and the old scar there. His eyes trace down the man’s form, well-cut and outlined against the bright white walls of the museum that he’s standing against, and stop as his breath seizes when he sees it –

There’s a tattoo on the man’s right forearm.

Some Part of Me Came Alive, a soulmates au written by priincebutt, podfic by @schitthappens

[adrift-in-thyme]

I saw your post about requesting things for your Fairy Time AU and have a question. Does this AU include any of the weaknesses the Fae have in real wild folklore (ex. Iron)?

Oh, maybe you could write a little snippet with Time/Hyrule debunking common fairy myths with the rest of the group?

First off I’m SO SO SORRY for the long wait!! My writing motivation flew out the window and didn’t return until today. Tysm for being patient <333

ALSO, this got unexpectedly angsty (though was it really unexpected? This is me we’re talking about XD). So sorry about that

CW for mentions of injury, specifically burn wounds, and mind control

—————————————-

Time expects questions. After all, it is only natural that in the face of the information they have managed to uncover, the heroes would wonder. A fairy is a mystical thing, mysterious even to those as closely acquainted as they. And to learn that blessed blood runs through two of their companions is no small thing.

But the queries that come, pelting like raindrops, are different than he anticipated.

“Magic,” Legend says when the sun is high and the heroes prepare for battle, “can it harm you in ways it doesn’t others? Mortals, I mean.”

“What about salt?” It is Wild who asks, when they have set up camp for the night. He peers at the rock salt in his hand as though it is liable to attack. “I’ve heard fairies don’t like it.”

“Can fairies die?” Wind asks with eyes so large, Time imagines he can see the Great Sea roiling within them. “In ways humans can’t?”

Iron, curses, traps to ensnare — they have heard of them all. And now, they wonder about them all.

It’s touching, Time decides as he and Hyrule respond to their queries. Or attempt to. It is difficult to reply to things that spear their deepest worries, their most intimate wounds. That dredge up memories long thought buried and fling them into the light of day.

But yes, this protective instinct, this reckless kindness is touching. Knowledge is power, especially where Hyrule’s saviors are concerned. Obtaining it can be the difference between success and defeat.

From anyone else, such queries would be little more than flaming arrows, flying towards the heart. And truthfully, Time must shove aside that soul-deep instinct to hold up his shield to stave them off. The words that usher from his lips, the answers he gives, could very well doom him.

They have — unspoken though they were — many times before.

“Iron is the fae’s greatest weakness,” he whispers, a secret that burns like the material he references. “However, spells, when properly cast, are just as dangerous.”

“Salt doesn’t harm us though,” Hyrule clarifies, his voice a summer’s day breeze. “And neither does your cooking, champion.”

Wild laughs at that, a sound like water singing over river stones.

Wind’s question is the hardest to answer, though. In a way, the reply is cloaked within the others, enveloped in the unveiling of their deepest frailties.

Iron will sear a fae’s skin clean off their bones, mangle their wings into masses of excruciating matter.

Spells will enslave them, transform them into monsters that devour their own kin. Or simply wipe their minds clean, enslave them to a purpose they can no longer remember to resist.

Yes, many things can kill a fairy. But the thing that truly does them in (the thing Time sometimes wonders about whether it will do him in) is not unique to fae-kind.

Fairies, like mortals, care deeply.

(Though, perhaps that care they hold inside goes further than even mortal capabilities. Perhaps, the protective instinct, the need to guard and heal and care for is unnatural. Perhaps, it always has been and Time has only failed to notice it.)

(Perhaps, the love he sees in Malon’s eyes when he wraps his arms around her waist and holds her close, the teasing affection in Warriors’ when he claps a hand on Time’s shoulder, the vulnerability in Twilight’s when Time admits his pride…perhaps, those are not quite the same stuff as the emotion in his own heart.)

(He will never know. He is content with that.)

Regardless, this love is the greatest danger fairies face. For when their loved ones are in danger, when evil threatens the people whose caring hands embrace their very souls, a fairy is helpless to stand back and do nothing.

The weaknesses that plague them — their small size and precious, fragile wings, these make a fairy vulnerable. But their willingness to lunge into the fire, that is what causes them to burn.

[milliesfishes]

Enchanted (Part Two)𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

[fem reader] contains: nudity, talk of male anatomy pairing: billy the kid x fem reader summary: pirate billy x mermaid reader author’s note: based on my love @francixoxoxo 's pirate billy au- leaving the tag below. Pinterest Board Spotify Playlist

Billy was no pursuer of the ocean’s secrets.

He had long accepted that it was impossible to ever truly know of the water, and foolish to try. All one could do was take what it chose to reveal. 

For some reason it had chosen to give him you. He, o unworthy mortal, was the chosen object of your curiosity and attentions that night. Whatever he had done right, whatever good deed was floating back around to him…he was grateful. 

You occupied his every thought long after the ship left port, tethered to that single memory. All day onboard as the sun beat at his back, he could only picture you. Your long, luscious hair that’d been so silky between his fingers. He looked down at his weathered hands. Unworthy. He’d scrub them raw for another chance to touch you. 

At night when he slunk belowdecks to close his eyes, you were there too. Swimming around every corner of his mind, where dreadful thoughts of the future had previously occupied. This was a welcome respite from them, but they were accompanied by a similar misery. Heaven knows if he’d ever be able to see you again. Would he spend the rest of his life pining after you? Sucking the last dredges of joy from that one memory until it was as dry as a bunch of grapes left in the sun?

It weighed heavily on him even a week later at sea. Leaning over the edge of the boat and watching the horizon, Billy felt melancholy settle over him like a gray cloud. He wished with all his might for even one more glimpse of you, at least so he’d know he hadn’t made it up.

A hand clapped his back as Jesse sidled up beside him with a good-natured grin. “Long face?”

Billy managed a half smile, staring into the watery depths as if you might suddenly pop up. “Just thinkin’.”

“Aye, we gotta get ya t’ shore if you’re thinkin’.” His captain elbowed him. “Rum ‘n a girl under each arm’ll getcha outta yer head.” When Billy said nothing, Jesse fell silent. Then he leaned his elbows on the railing, mirroring his position. “Wha’s on yer mind?”

Rubbing his thumb over the smooth wood, Billy tried to imagine it was your cheek. “D’ya ever hear the boys talk ‘bout mermaids?”

Brow furrowing, the other man nodded. “Few times.”

“‘S it true, ya think?” As he asked, Billy lifted his eyes to his friend’s.

Jesse tilted his hat up, and Billy could see that his face had gone dead serious. He leaned forward a little. “I know ‘s true.”

Intrigued and a little surprised by his serious nature, Billy nodded, encouraging him to continue. Jesse had a long history sailing, and there were a great number of things he’d come across in that time, things Billy couldn’t even dream of.

“Merfolk’r ‘s real ‘s my nose,” Jesse nodded, his face hardening. “Had a few run-ins way back when. Ain’t good folk t’ mess with.”

“They dangerous?” Billy was picturing you, seemingly innocent and pure. The way you’d looked at him with bright eyes.

“Maybe not all of ‘em, but it ain’t a risk I’m willin’ t’ take,” Jesse shifted where he stood. “Their men ‘r viscous and the women’re worse.” Something in his eyes darkened. “Got some kinda magic in ‘em that makes those like you ‘n me melt.”

Billy frowned a little, remembering how quickly he’d been enraptured by your presence alone. Had it all been a farce? Some sort of spell to take advantage of him? “What’d you do if ya saw one?”

Jesse whipped out his pistol and fired a single shot at the water, smoke wafting out of the tip from the severity, making Billy jolt. Turning his head back to him slowly, Jesse said, “No chances.”

There were ripples from the bullet’s impact, and Billy watched the circles expand until the waves swallowed them up, trying not to let the horror show on his face. 

Jesse noted Billy’s look. “Ya ain’t come across one, didja?”

“No.” His answer was immediate. Whatever you’d been trying to do with him, he didn’t want to leave you at Jesse’s mercy. “Just curious. Heard whispers.”

“Ah.” His friend didn’t question it, patting him on the shoulder again. “Well, we’ll be t’ port soon ‘nough ‘n we can get some drink for those poor thoughts ‘f yours.”

“Dunno if I’ll be much for pubs tonight, Jesse,” Billy glumly traced the grain of the wood again. No amount of rum, cheap or not, could erase the echoes of your musical voice.

Half smiling, the other man nodded, following Billy’s eyes to the water, silent for a moment. Then he lightened. “Why don’tcha keep watch over the ship tonight? It’ll be quiet, ‘n ya won’t hafta hear the crew snorin’ in the boardin’ house.”

Billy cracked a slight grin at that. “Doesn’t Dick usually stay on?”

“Ah, Dick can piss off forra night,” Jesse laughed a bit. “He’s sweet on a gal in town, he’ll go see ‘er ‘n forget he’s gotta sleep witha buncha pirates.” Clapping Billy’s shoulder again, he said, “Enjoy the quiet.”

After Jesse left, Billy’s eyes magnetically fell back to the water. The offer was mighty generous. It surely wasn’t offered to just anyone. He’d take it, he decided. Maybe being on the ship would stop him from going back to a certain rocky spot on the beach.

Another of the crew called him, and he turned away, casting one last glance at the sea, as if you might finally be waiting there and smiling up at him.

The night was long and it’d hardly been two hours since the crew had departed for land. 

Billy was semi-regretting his decision as he sat on the starboard steps leading to the helm, able to hear the rowdy sounds of the port nightlife even from here. He pictured the hot, crowded, sticky-floored bar and knew he didn’t want to be there. But he didn’t want to be here either, lonely and empty with nothing but the sea for company. 

At sundown he’d resolved not to think of you. But that was like trying to stop breathing. After years upon years of identical months that bled and overlapped into one mass of time, you had been the sun breaking through the clouds. He’d heard others on the crew talk of what it was to be enamored by a woman, and, young and naive, he hadn’t understood. But now he issued a silent apology for every judgment he’d ever made. Billy knew more than ever now that he was only a man, helpless to the charms of the fairer sex.

Hopelessly, he thought that maybe a few years and the ocean’s sway would erase his agony. Perhaps this would become some distant memory that he, as a time-tossed, hopefully former, pirate, would reminisce on as a mere pleasure, and nothing more.

Just as he was coming to terms with it, he heard a loud splash to his right. Billy stood up and leaned over the railing to investigate. When he saw you there, lifting a hand out of the water to wave sweetly, all thoughts of abandonment were lost. How could he dwell on them when you were actually here, radiant even under the darkness, looking so happy to see him.

“Hello!” you called joyfully, and his smile was uncontrollable, nearly splitting his face in two.

“Evenin’!” he said back, and you somehow brightened more. In a surprising feat of strength, you found the slat of wood ingrained in the ship that the crew used to board from smaller boats or the water, lifting yourself slightly up. 

“Is it alright if I come aboard?” you asked shyly, and his knees nearly went weak. 

“‘F course, pretty,” he reached down for you, hooking his hands under your arms and hoisting you up to sit on the railing, your tail fluttering excitedly as he did.

The second he was in reach, you pulled him in for a deep kiss, your lips moving against his mesmerizingly. He was caught off guard by the passionate nature of it, but quickly recovering, he slid his hands to your waist and pulled you in close.

When you broke off, you smiled eagerly. “I’ve been wanting to do that again forever.”

Billy laughed in delight, his eyes wandering over you. He’d only seen you half in water, so now, under the moonlight’s vantage, he felt as if he’d accidentally opened a door to heaven. Your tail was long and slender and shiny, and it looked blue, but he couldn’t tell if it was the sky’s reflection or the natural color.

He stroked the side of your waist tentatively, just looking at you in awe. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see ya ‘gain.”

“I’m here,” you smiled, pulling his head down for another kiss. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Didn’t get your name ‘r anythin’,” he said between kisses. “Didn’t know if ya were just there for the night…mmph-” you were kissing him so intently, and he chuckled, pulling back. “Woah, there.”

You smiled, your tail flapping a little. “This-” you kissed him again, once. “-is how you show people you like them, right?”

Billy grinned as you echoed his words. “Sure is.” He grasped your waist, trying not to look at your breasts. Your wet hair was sticking to them, and it outlined their shape. It was the most erotic modest thing he’d ever seen. “Ya don’t just do it with anyone though.”

“Hmm?” you tilted your head adorably.

“Only with people ya really like,” he emphasized. “Lovers do it, most often.”

That seemed to intrigue you, and you shifted on the railing, opening your mouth to say something. But the combined smoothness of the surface and your damp tail sent you suddenly collapsing right on top of him, his body cushioning yours from the planks of the ship. 

You giggled, and he was distracted by the sensation of your breasts pressing against him, through his thin shirt. But your laugh was contagious, and he couldn’t help but join in, sitting up slightly so your body was nestled between his legs. The end of your tail fluttered lazily as you looked up at him, your vivid smile sending his heart jumping like a fish on a sunny day.

“Does that make us lovers?” you tilted your head up, sending the waves of your hair cascading around your back. The innocent question had him weak. 

“Depends what you’re wantin’,” he said slightly nervously, and you hummed, sitting up fully, and folding your tail underneath you, remaining between his legs. 

Looking over him, you got that curious look on your face he’d remembered so many times since that first night. “You look different with clothes on.”

“Ah.” he remembered your fascination with his…nude body. “Disappointing?”

“Mm mm,” you shook your head, still looking. “Just different.” Reaching out, you tugged on the collar of his half-unbuttoned shirt. “Why do you wear these anyways?”

“I…” he realized he didn’t know, exactly. “I s’pose to protect us. From the elements ‘n all. And so we’re not showin’ our full parts all the time.”

“Would that be bad?” you tilted your head the other way.

“Huh…” he was stumped. “Well…humans get a lil’ shy ‘bout that kinda stuff. Only special people getta see us without clothes.”

“I saw you without clothes,” you pointed out, and he breathed a laugh.

“Well, I wasn’t plannin’ on you seein’ me,” he grinned. “‘Sides, it’s different with you, pretty.”

“Different how?” Billy could have sworn his heart swelled every time you asked a question. Your inquisitive nature was endearing. He knew right then he’d answer anything you asked and never get tired of it. 

“I said it earlier, I like ya,” he smoothed his hands over your sides. “Like ya in a different way, y’know?”

Your smile grew as you nodded. “I think I understand perfectly.”

The sea’s ways were arcane, unpredictable. It gave and took what it pleased, the secrets within as foreign as the stars. Billy had both known and heard tales of men who spent their lives seeking out these unknowns aggressively, only becoming more frustrated when the waters were closed to them. He himself had never had such a desire, knowing the ocean would reveal what she wanted him to know, in her own time. It appeared to have paid off, gifting him one of her daughters to have in this way.

For hours you sat with him on the deck, asking question after question, much to his delight. He found your fascination with the world on land winning, your unsatisfied thirst for answers beguiling.

Lying there side by side on the wood, your hair slowly drying into the loveliest, soft looking waves, your stormy eyes connected with his, he felt like he’d been thrust into one of the fantasies men lost at sea spoke of. They described washing up on the sands of faraway lands and being told after they regained consciousness that they’d been raving about beautiful women and endless feasts, palaces of pearl and gold. But here you were in front of him, angelic and, as far as he could tell, very real.

“I was always told humans are dangerous because they aren’t the same as us,” you said softly. The sun was rising, the soft golden rays making you glow. Billy was struck dumb by the sight of it, you flush up against him and playing with the collar of his shirt, his arm securing you to him and tracing the border of your skin and your tail on your waist. “But…” there was a light in your eyes. “...you’re not so different after all.”

Billy tilted your chin up with a single finger, his lips ghosting yours. “Well…” he started, a light smile gracing his lips. “I hope I’m a little different.”

Luminescent, shining, sparkling. Your smile was all of those things, and probably a few other words his sailor’s mind didn’t know of. You nodded, searching his eyes like a lookout after a storm. “You’re different from anybody I’ve known. Above the water or not.” 

He closed the distance, kissing you gently and sliding his hand into your hair. You were the air in his lungs, the water surrounding him. You were the sea captured in a single woman, simple and true.

Billy held you until he heard the telltale sounds of the crew moseying over, regretfully slipping you back into the water until the next time.

Previous part | Next part

[scarlett-ink]

“Do you think they find us in every universe?”

“If not, I hope we find them.”

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

DCA Promotober day 1: Best Friend

AUs in order of appearance:

To Steal a Butterfly

Eclipse of the Valley

Dead in the Water

Drive Fast, Trust Slow

Dredge au

Splatoon au

The Jack-O-Lantern and The Witch by @corrupted-tale (seriously go read this little fic it’s perfect for spooky season!)

(also feel free to ask me about any of my AUs I’ll gladly talk your ear off)

[swordsmans]

yayayay thank you for the tag, @acewithapaintbrush !! this is so fun

words posted:

53,241 - not bad! a far cry from 2023's 200k+, but it was a rough year so im pleased i managed that much.

additional words written:

13,532 - zine pieces and a WIP, but this is only counting prose. if u know anything about my writing process... i fear this number is much larger but im not dredging that up

fandoms:

one piece, babbeeyyy

highest kudos + highest hit one shot:

highest kudos: the heart is just an organ, the "crew encounters a DF that temporarily suppresses zoan powers" fic

highest hits: step 2: survive anyway, the second half of the "zoro finds out about luffy's poison immunity and subsequent 10 year life loss" fic

new things i tried:

not new, per se, but i definitely went a bit "mask off" with my roots re: horror this year. step 2 and everything rots in the sun were my darkest fics in years i think.

fic i spent the most time on:

by purely 2024 standards, i think i worked on both step 2 and everything rots in the sun for about the same amount of time (~5 months each). if we're going by fic tho then definitely step 2. that took 8 months to write.

fic i spent the least time on:

the heart is just an organ lol. while i was technically kicking the idea around for 3-ish months, actual prose-to-posting time was 4 days.

favorite thing i wrote:

ohh tough question, because everything i wrote this year is a "favorite" for different reasons. i think i'll always be extremely proud of step 2 though (and both step 1/step 2 in general tbh), but everything rots was a feat unto itself.

its very interesting to look back on the two fics i bookended the year with, bc theyre both extremely dark but they have sort of... opposite theses. step 2 is about being unable to focus on the joy of something thats alive because you know it will die, and everything rots is about doing everything you can to cling to the possibility of joy even though you know in the end, itll mean death.

favorite things i read:

how dare you make me choose!! i read so many wonderful fics by so many incredible writers this year, but theundiagnosable's impiety duology is one of those stories i keep thinking about. its a very tangentially/loosely-canon luzo au thatll just flay you alive.

writing goals for 2025:

i actually dont have any real plans to write much in 2025 beyond maybe 2-3 small fics, so we'll see what the future holds. it might be a quiet year tho. (watch--ill say this and then post another 90k beast in july like i did in 2023 or smth. surprise us both)

new works:

ive gooottt some smut ive been batting around. finally. we'll see where that goes :3c

tagging:

i tag...!!! @the-furthest-city-light, @ghostlandtoo, @toxinspired, and @thychesters~!

[anghraine]

I was tagged by @brynnmclean in the WIP Wednesday meme! Thank you very much—I'm too sleepy to tag, but anyone who feels moved to do it should consider themselves tagged. In any case, this inspired me to finish the femslash Spirk AU version of "The Naked Time" (aka Jessica Kirk vs other people's internalized homophobia) that I wrote on my birthday:

“It’s our only chance!” S’paak’s dark eyes looked clearer, though her face was still drawn and anguished. “It’s never been done!” she said wildly. “Don’t tell me that again, science officer,” Kirk snapped, on the point of slapping her again. It would mostly just hurt her own hand, but if she could shake S’paak out of this—yet she knew it wasn’t just that. Distantly, she realized that the tension boiling in her wasn’t just panic and urgency, but anger, a sudden pained, shocking fury that wouldn’t help anything. She grabbed S’paak’s arm instead. “It's a theory. It's possible. We may go up into the biggest ball of fire since the last sun in these parts exploded, but we've got to take that one in ten thousand chance!” An entirely unreasonable sense of betrayal—no, not quite—abandonment, loneliness, always that, ran through the rage, somehow extinguishing it. The lurch of feeling left her all the dizzier, hot and sweating, even as Uhura called from the bridge and Kirk managed to say something to her. I found Commander S’paak!  S’paak straightened further, tears drying on her cheeks as she dredged up her PADD and started to tap … something into it. Some science thing, maybe. The anti-matter reaction. But it didn’t seem to matter nearly as much as it had the moment before, and Kirk realized: the disease had gotten to her, too. Of course it had. The captain, last of all. Of course, of course.

“I’ve got it. The disease,” she told S’paak, laughing through the blood on her mouth. Not crying. She never cried. “Love. You're better off without it, and I'm better off without mine.”

S’paak gave her a sharp, unreadable glance even as her fingers kept working. Kirk thought of Ruth again, Jan. She could just stick to men; it was always easier, without the secrecy, without having to be so careful, making sure another woman was trustworthy, much less interested in women, much less interested in her. And even if they were, she didn’t always like the way women willing to try could be, in her experience. So often unserious, unromantic. She liked men about as much and could have just stuck to them, made that choice, been fine. But the idea repelled her, felt more dishonest than the secrecy.

She was babbling, she realized, unsure quite what she’d said as S’paak worked. Too much.

Kirk leaned her head against the wall of the chamber. She could hardly feel it through the coiled weight of her hair and turned her face to the side, the wall cold against her burning face. The Enterprise. Her ship, her career. She loved it. But sometimes she nearly hated it, too.

“This vessel,” she said, her voice higher than usual, still choked in laughter. “I give, she takes. She won't permit me my life. I've got to live hers.”

“Jess,” said S’paak quietly. 

Her name, Kirk thought. Hers. S’paak and McCoy were the only ones here who did use it: Bones almost always, S’paak now and then, when she considered it worth her while. S’paak did sound concerned, urgent, but at least not pained or ashamed, and it cooled her mind a very little bit. Jess—Kirk opened her eyes. S’paak stood not far away, calm again, far calmer than Kirk imagined she herself could ever be, below the surface.

“I have a beautiful yeoman,” Kirk said conversationally. “Have you noticed, Commander?” Her head was spinning again. “No, no, you wouldn’t. But Sulu could notice her, Leslie, not us. Not me. The captain. I’m not … I can’t …”

The briefing room was a blur around them, her first officer’s face somehow more so. Her friend. Maybe. Did it count, when—

“Jess, there is an intermix formula,” S’paak told her.

“Now I know why it’s called she,” said Kirk, laughing again.

“It's never been tested. It's a theoretical relationship between time and antimatter,” S’paak said.

This was important. Kirk knew that, in some remote corner of her mind. The ship, the crew. S’paak. She tried to pull her thoughts into some kind of order, anything other than this awful human chaos burning through her brain. S’paak, she thought, must be embarrassed. More than usual.

It didn’t help. She felt like her mind was darting around in crazed lines, each different from the rest, endlessly. Fractals of thought.

“A flesh woman, to touch, to hold,” she said dreamily. “A beach to walk on. Nobody watching. No one would have to see, to know. For a few days at least. No braid on my shoulder—”

S’paak shook her just as Scotty hurried out of the turbolift.

Not in front of him.

He was her third in command, reliable, more than reliable. But such a distant third, not like S’paak, always near, faithful, incisive. Kirk couldn’t do this in front of him, anyone else, though she was hunched over the table, hands splayed as she stared at them.

Even through her blurry, burning misery, she could see that Scotty looked shocked and concerned.

“Captain,” he was saying. He never questioned her. Never had. 

“Scotty,” said Kirk, trying to catch her breath even as she clenched her teeth together. “Help.”

S’paak, as ever, interceded, her voice cooling some of the fever still raging in Kirk’s mind. “Stand by to intermix. I'll call the formulae in from the bridge.”

Then there was Uhura, too, just as steady, her voice crackling over the comms. “Entering upper stratosphere, captain. Skin temperature now twenty one hundred seventy degrees.”

Kirk managed to look at S’paak and Scotty, both troubled in their own ways, her body still bent over the table, hands clenching and unclenching. Troubled! That was the least of their problems. She just had to think. Like one of her students, back at the Academy. They’d called her course the think-or-sink class. Gary told her that, years after the fact. But nothing was more like think or sink than this. She bit the inside of her cheek and her thoughts settled further, the madness receding just out of touch.

“I’ve got to hang on,” she thought or muttered, blinking. Remember. That was the thing, remembering. Who she was, what mattered. Somehow, she managed to gasp out, “Tell them ... clear the corridors, the turbolift. Hurry.”

They rushed off, leaving her alone in the briefing room. Nobody to brief, of course. Just her, alone, nails digging into her palms, the way she always was in the end. Except—not quite, was she? Not now.

Kirk straightened up, gazing around at the walls of the briefing room, the ceiling, letting the rumble of the ship resonate through her awareness of her entire body. She closed her eyes.

“Never lose you,” she whispered. “Never.”

No time. Her crew needed her. Her ship. The Enterprise, always willing to take what she had to give. That was something, anyway.

With an effort she couldn’t conceivably have put into words, Kirk straightened up and staggered towards the turbolift, smoothing her uniform as she went. Once inside, she forced herself to say,

“Bridge.”

Another victim of the disease had scrawled SINNER REPENT in bright crimson letters on the wall. Sometimes she truly couldn’t make this life up. Kirk wiped the blood off her mouth and stared bleakly ahead as deck after deck rushed by. She was still unsteady and distantly miserable when the doors opened, but that didn’t matter. She was the captain. She could always be miserable later.

She stepped out onto the bridge, taking in the familiarity of the panels and the efficient bridge crew, entirely back to themselves. And McCoy was there, too, equipment in hand, grabbing her by the arm and tearing off her sleeve to stab her with one of his damn needles. Worth it in this case. She felt more sane, if not appreciably better. No danger of humiliating herself in front of anyone but S’paak, who she knew would never breathe a word. And it wasn’t like S’paak wasn’t already—

While the entire bridge crew watched her, waiting for the orders that would determine life or death, Kirk carefully made her way to the captain’s seat, sweat still clinging to her face and body. With effort, she hit the comm connection to engineering.

“Engine room,” Kirk snapped out. “We're set. Hyperbolic course.”

The current navigator said, “Direction, ma’am?”

“Direction, direction,” she muttered, then raised her voice. “It doesn’t matter. The way we came.”

All that mattered was getting out. 

“Course laid in, ma’am,” said Sulu, wholly himself once more. The disease hadn’t affected him the same way, she recalled. Just swinging a rapier around, carefree, longing for nothing worse than a chance at dashing heroics. Most of the crew hadn’t been like her or S’paak, either.

Guess we’re special, she thought, and tried to repress the whole thing from her thoughts. She really needed to stop harping on it, even in silence. The ship needed her attention, and anyway, it wasn’t fair to S’paak herself, who would never have said anything under her own power, nor betrayed it in her conduct. Kirk might as well hold poor Riley accountable for nearly getting them all killed.

Then Janice Rand shifted slightly beside her chair, her face nervous, upset. Kirk’s hand twitched towards her then pulled back, refusing to let her eyes linger on anything below her collarbone, instead flicking her glance up at her pleasant expression below the piles of pale blonde hair, lighter and brighter than her own. It didn’t appreciably help.

No beach to walk on. She choked down the words.

“Ma’am?” said Rand. “Can I get you anything else?”

The comm crackled again, and S’paak’s voice broke through.

“Bridge, we’re ready.”

Kirk kept her hands, still curled into fists, on the arms of her chair.

“Engage,” she ordered.

She didn’t know all the details of the reaction happening in engineering, nor did she need to. In another instant, the lights of the ship died. Stars spun out on the viewscreen, and something screamed in her ears, her head, pain radiating throughout her body. Her head jerked backwards in the darkness, but her mind stayed coherent, rational. That was something, she thought, even as she felt her throat tightening, the heat on her skin intensifying, her breaths coming in ragged gasps. Pain could be endured, but not madness.

Then the pain receded and Kirk straightened up, the ship steadying, retreating with increasingly impossible speed as the lights flickered back on. The red alert blinked and beeped. Rand was clutching the arm of Kirk’s chair even as S’paak came hurrying out of the turbolift, alone.

S’paak strode to the other side of Kirk’s chair with her usual decisive grace, Kirk turning towards her without will or deliberation. S’paak’s face was composed, one hand dropping to the back of the chair and the other to the arm, leaning towards her with a trace of urgency in the lean slope of her body. Exactly the S’paak she had always been, almost.

“Are you all right, Jess?” S’paak asked, searching her face as if nobody else on the bridge existed.

“Are you?” Kirk said quietly.

It was a strange, heady moment. Kirk almost felt like everyone else really had vanished, like it was just the two of them amidst a sea of stars. Dimly, she thought that between her ripped sleeve and sweat-streaked face, she must look like hell. S’paak just looked like herself, maybe worried in a S’paak sort of way, not exactly Vulcan and not exactly human. She didn’t seem injured, but if her memories were as clear as Kirk’s, she remembered. Even now, the memory must be far worse for her than for Kirk, worse than for anyone else here. And they might have never seen each other again.

Everything else that Jessica Kirk had thought and felt dissolved, drowned by the sheer force of affection and concern for S’paak, her best friend, her right hand, no one nobler, more faithful, more brilliant. She knew S’paak wouldn’t have liked being sent away, however necessarily, no matter what private conflict battled behind the outwards mask. That was S’paak’s business.

S’paak relaxed into reassuring calm, nodding her head, and Kirk smiled at her. Nothing had to change. She forced herself to remember the existence of Bones, Rand, Sulu, everyone all around them, the Enterprise, whatever the hell was happening outside it.

Something actually had changed, it turned out: the experimental formula had sent them all blasting backwards in time until Kirk gave the border to slow the engines, shifting them out of—time? The stars returned, clear and sharp, the alarms shifted back to green, everything looked and felt normal except Kirk’s own muscles, still coiled tight with tension.

She glanced sharply at S’paak, who was surveying a no-doubt-vast quantity of data at the science station.

“Commander S’paak,” she said. “The time warp—what did it do to us?”

S’paak wheeled around to face her, affect still smooth, but her face alive with interest nonetheless.

“We've regressed in time seventy-one hours,” she reported. “It is now three days ago, Captain. We have three days to live over again.”

Kirk inhaled, her pulse finally slowing.

“Not those last three days,” she said.

S’paak politely ignored that and said, “This does open some intriguing prospects, captain. Since the formula worked, we can go back in time, to any planet, any era.”

Anywhere. Any when. Possibilities, still shapeless, flickered through Kirk’s mind. Not a beach, but something else, perhaps better. Other places, peoples, ways of life, discoveries. Maybe even a place or time where, for a little while, they’d all be safe.

Jess smiled up at S’paak again, fingers uncurling.

“We may risk it someday, Commander S’paak,” she said.

[eleanor-bradstreet]

Chiaroscuro - Part 5 (Benedict Bridgerton x Reader)

Benedict Bridgerton x fem!Reader Vampire AU Rated/warnings: T - language, blood, descriptions of violence Word count: 5.7k Art by @bridgertontess

Part 4 Part 6 Masterpost

When you woke the next morning Ben was gone. You felt wonderful, more rested than you had been in ages. You had dreamt of nothing. Not the terrifying maw of nothing but the blissful, refreshing nothing. Remembering everything that had happened you half convinced yourself it had been another dream until you walked into your kitchen and found a single red rose lying on your counter with a note in familiar handwriting.

I hope you slept well. I’ll see you again tonight. -B

Your insides knotted like a teenager with a crush. You still weren’t sure what you had done to attract the attention of someone lightyears out of your league but you decided to stop questioning it. Life’s outrageous curveballs were coming thick and fast. You’d be pummeled a bit less if you allowed yourself to catch one. 

Thank god it was a Saturday because you were unable to focus on anything except the memory of Ben’s eyes, the cool trace of his long fingers, the glisten of his parted lips. You rolled your tongue in your mouth, wondering if you could still taste him. Giddy and horny in a way you hadn’t felt in years, you swanned through your day, donning one of your favorite outfits, splurging at your favorite bakery, reveling in the sunshine as you bounced between errands. At some point in your heady bliss you realized that you didn’t even have Ben’s number. He had said you would meet at night but you had no idea when or where. Granted, you knew where each other lived. But would he want to meet at one of yours? Would he want to go out? You smirked at what an antiquated dilemma it seemed to be - courtship without technology.

After a day of uninterrupted happiness you sat on your balcony and watched the sun sink, painting the sky with ombre pinks, oranges and purples. Then the anxiety kicked in. When would Ben show up? Should you go to him? After two hours of overthinking and the approach of dinnertime you decided to be proactive. You changed into a dress that wasn’t trying too hard but would look great whether he wanted to take you out or just take it off of you. Buzzing with anticipation you took the lift to the penthouse floor and hovered at his door. You knocked. There was no answer. You knocked again. Nothing.

Maybe you were being foolish. Overeager. Maybe he was out and planning to meet you later. Maybe he was awkwardly knocking on your door three floors below. You really needed to get his number to avoid this in future. As you pondered your next move, the lift suddenly chimed and Ben stepped out wrapped in his signature peacoat. 

“Ben!” you chirped. “I was just…are you ok?” You were so elated to see him that it took a moment to register how oddly he was hurrying toward you. His arms were tight around himself. He looked up with something like panic in his eyes.

“I’m fine,” he mumbled. “I’m just getting back.”

He couldn’t hide the agitation in his voice and the urgency in how he marched around you to the door. Then you saw the dark stain seeping through the left side of his coat.

“Is that…oh my god, are you bleeding!?”

He averted his eyes. ““I’m fine, really, I just need to get inside.”

He opened the door and brushed straight past you into his darkened flat. You followed down a short hall and rounded a corner into a kitchen.

“Ben, what happened?” You were frantic. You hadn’t even gotten to know him and now he was grievously injured. Your mind was dredging up random bits of first aid knowledge gained through osmosis. Pressure…bandages…what were you supposed to do? You stood trembling with indecision in the dim overhead light and watched him peel off his coat and rest it on a chair at the island.

“Holy shit, oh my god…” you gasped. The entire left side of his pale grey jumper was soaked in blood. A crimson stain that ran from the arm to the hem and was dripping on the floor with a patter. It was more blood than you had ever seen outside of television and you had no idea how he was still standing. Ben looked down at himself and grimaced. 

“I’m…should I call an ambulance? Jesus…” Your clammy hands patted your hips for your phone only to remember that you had no pockets and had left your phone in your flat. Without Ben’s number there didn’t seem any point in carrying it en route to him.

“I’m alright, honestly.” He was oddly calm, raising a bloody hand to placate you. This set you off. You would not allow him to be captain chivalry for your sake while he bled out in front of you. You would not hold him for just one night and then let him die on you the next.

“The fuck you are!” you barked, snatching a nearby dish towel and moving toward him. “You’re bleeding everywhere!”

Now he raised both hands to keep you back. “I was jumped in the park,” he explained. “Guy had a knife.”

It did not make you feel any better to learn he had been stabbed. “Oh shit, oh god, I…”

“It’s not my blood,” he said flatly.

“What?”

“It’s not my blood.” He lifted his soaked jumper and you swallowed hard to tame the part of your brain ready to swoon at the sight of his lean, rippling abdomen. You managed to focus enough to realize that though it was streaked red, he had no wounds. The blood had no discernible source. “See?” The cheeky grin had returned to his face. “I’m fine. You can relax.”

Between his mouthwatering body and your profound confusion over the entire situation, you stood short circuiting, trying to puzzle out his explanation.

“So…you fought him off?”

“Yes.”

“Is he…? I mean, is he bleeding out somewhere? Should we call the police?” Again you were kicking yourself for not bringing your phone.

“He ran off.” Something in his tone made it clear he didn’t want to explain himself any further. He closed the distance between you and gazed down into your eyes. Even without touching you, he made you breathless with his proximity alone. If he was satisfied to move on without further discussion, who were you to insist? “I’m sorry to scare you. I really just need a shower.” He chuckled softly and leaned in to nuzzle his nose against your cheek, murmuring honeyed words. “Will you wait here for me? Then we can talk.”

Your eyes rolled closed, powerless against him. You nodded and he kissed you, tender but with an underlying hunger. No one had ever kissed you the way he did; As if he cast a spell on you each time, his incantations pressed directly by his lips into your skin without the need for words. 

“Good.” He pulled back and grinned. You felt yourself falling into the glittering light of his eyes, nearly forgetting the gore and drama of the moment. You would do anything he asked when he looked at you like that. “Stay right here. Make yourself at home.” Then with one final peck on your forehead, he turned and disappeared into the flat.

You took a steadying breath, studying your surroundings. You had been so caught up in panic you barely knew where you were. As expected the penthouse was luxe, but not in the shiny new construction way like the rest of the building. It was decorated in a traditional style, regency if you had to guess. And it was dark. You moved through the open layout from the kitchen to the lounge and switched on each light but they only cast a dusty glow among all the dark furnishings. Dark wood cabinets, rich jewel-toned upholstery and massive velvet blackout curtains that were pulled closed across every window. Perhaps it was a peculiar setup for a young bachelor but for Ben it seemed to make sense. His dabbling in old wines, poetry, art, antiquities - this was a realm where tastes like that could flourish.

And the stuff. There were things everywhere. The lounge was in a state of orderly chaos. The built-in bookcases overflowed with old tomes, papers and antiques. Small statuary, musical instruments, photographs. He really was a collector. Books piled on the floor and buried what appeared to be a piano in a corner. Nearly every inch of wall space was covered in ornately framed artwork and even more pieces were propped against each other in stacks throughout the room. It reminded you of the museum storage. How could you have shared so much in common and never realized? 

There was a centrally hung landscape that drew your eye. Something was oddly familiar about the sweep of the countryside hills dotted with flowers and stretching back to a stately home in the distance. You looked closer and stopped dead when you saw the signature in the bottom corner. Two faintly squiggled Bs. Benedict Bridgerton. That was his mark. You had seen it dozens of times before. But you had never seen nor heard of this landscape. You peered even closer. It wasn’t a printed image, it was an original with the careful but sometimes counterintuitive brushstrokes that were characteristic of the artist. Your pulse picked up speed. How did Ben have this? Had he lucked out at some undisclosed auction? Was he ever going to tell you about it? Why didn’t he mention it when you were at the museum?

You inspected the painting beneath it, a still life bowl of apples, and saw it again - BB. A sickening sense of dread began to spread through you as you moved from painting to painting and realized all of them were signed the same way. A vase of roses, a riverside, a moonlit garden - another and another and another. You picked through the stacked canvases leaning against the wall and found even more. All of them originals. All of them bearing those initials. 

Shaking, you stumbled out of the lounge and began to scurry for the door. What the actual fuck? Who was this man? He must have been some kind of thief or a replica artist, maybe both. And then it hit you - you were the perfect accomplice for someone like that. You had the knowledge and connections to the art world. You were his target. Tears surged in your eyes as it all began to fall into place. Of course he hadn’t been genuinely interested in you. How could he be? He was playing you; trying to schmooze you into his criminal enterprise. He was probably lying about the knife fight too. No doubt he ran with dangerous crowds. You had to get away, you had to report him. You’d have to move, it wasn’t safe in your building anymore, you had to…

Then you froze. Not intentionally. Just meters from the door you felt every muscle in your body tense and completely refuse to move further. You couldn’t command yourself to take a step. It was as if you had run into an invisible wall. You tried to scream but couldn’t do that either. You could still breathe as evidenced by the fact that you were starting to hyperventilate, but something in your brain wouldn’t let you continue down the hall. You found you could walk in any other direction and tumbled back into the kitchen. You had no idea what was going on in this house of horrors but you weren’t going to fall victim that easily. Strung out on survival adrenaline you began to tear through the drawers looking for a knife - anything to defend yourself.

The drawers were empty. All of them. The cabinets too. You pulled them open one after the other and found not a knife nor a plate nor an ounce of food. It was as bare as if no one lived in the flat at all. He was a psychopath. This was a setup. You didn’t know what compelled you to look in the fridge but you knew, instinctually, that you would find something gruesome. And you did. Three bags of blood, unlabelled and half-empty, were all that was inside. A visceral fear gripped you in a way you had never experienced. You were going to die here. 

A noise behind you made you slam the door closed and spin around. It was Ben, sauntering toward you wearing nothing but grey joggers slung low across his hips. His hair was damp and a few drops of water still clung to his naked torso. You pressed yourself back against the fridge unable to breathe, heart pounding wildly, fueled both by terror and the unavoidable reaction you had to his body. He was magnificent. David cut from pale marble and stepped down off his dais to stand before you. Acres of white skin taught over perfectly defined muscles. His strong, tendoned neck flowing into broad swimmers’ shoulders; his arms impossibly long and etched with prominent veins; his chest and abs so sculpted they appeared unreal. The few freckles dotted across his sternum were the only thing to indicate that he wasn’t actually carved from stone. You didn’t know if you should feel grateful or bitter that your predator was so gorgeous.

You had nothing to defend yourself with and no way to call for help. You’d have to speak with him. Perhaps you could convince him to let you go. You could see in his eyes that he knew you had discovered his secrets. There was no playing coy anymore.

“Why can’t I move toward the door?” Your voice shook uncontrollably.

“Because I asked you to stay here.” His tone was low but not threatening. He almost sounded apologetic.

“What?”

He stepped closer. “I glamoured you. I don’t like to use it, but I need you to stay here so we can talk.”

Glamour? Was he implying he had some kind of magical power? Granted, you couldn’t explain why you had been blocked in the hallway, but…was he serious?

“Who the fuck are you?”

“I think you know who I am.”

There was something in the sureness of his statement, the incline of his head, and suddenly everything fit together. The blood, the paintings, the blackout curtains. For god’s sake his name was Ben. This had to be an act, there was no way this was real. You refused to give in to his delusion.

“I think you’re some kind of…Bridgerton fanatic. And you’re a sicko and you drugged me.”

He chuckled and shoved his hands into his pockets which tugged the waistband tantalizingly lower. “That’s an awfully convoluted fact pattern. And very impressive of me, considering I’d have to have drugged you with a kiss. There is a simpler explanation.”

Standing only a few feet away now, he looked up through his thick lashes expectantly. You knew he knew what you were thinking. He wanted you to believe it. Your world had been thrown entirely off the rails this week but you weren’t ready to acknowledge that it had veered into a fantasy dimension. But there was nothing you could do except continue speaking with him, hoping for mercy or an eventual opening to make your escape.

“Are you going to kill me?”

Suddenly he looked tremendously guilty and backed away. “No, no. Of course not. We were going to have this conversation sooner or later, you just caught me at an inopportune moment.” He moved into the lounge and gestured to one of the plush chairs. “Please, sit.”

You were still far from trusting him but at least you were buying time to find a way out. You walked stiffly to the seat, never taking your eyes off him as he perched in the wingback across from you. He sat with the same friendly air as always, waiting silently for you to initiate. 

“You want me to say you’re Benedict Bridgerton.”

The crooked grin spread across his face. “It is good to hear someone call me that again.”

Now you knew you were dealing with a psycho. Maybe he wasn’t dangerous, maybe he was just run of the mill crazy. “And I’m supposed to believe you’re a fucking vampire.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as his eyes bored into yours. “Life can take incredibly odd turns. But it explains my disappearance doesn’t it? Explains where all of this came from.” He swept an arm out at the room and its antiquities. “It’s that or I’m an incomparably talented replica artist who is really into bloodplay and successful enough to afford a stradivarius.”

You followed his line of sight to the bookcase behind you and saw a violin perched on a top shelf. You weren’t an expert but you had seen originals behind glass and this didn’t look any different. You wouldn’t let yourself be swayed. If it even was authentic, all it proved is he was a rich cunt.

Sensing you needed more convincing, Ben stood and walked to the landscape that started your descent into disbelief. “This is actually a variation on your favorite,” he explained, nonchalant. “Dreams at Aubrey. I kept this one within the family. I never quite felt that I got Kent right. I kept adding in a figure then painting over her. I suppose I hadn’t found a muse worthy enough to be included.”

All you could do was gape at him. The painting did look like a companion piece to your favorite one in the gallery. How detailed was his delusion? Then he moved to a bookcase and pulled out a small blue volume. “You’ll have read this,” he mumbled, handing it to you before continuing to dig through the shelf. You turned it over in your hands. It was leatherbound and exceptionally old, the pages yellowed and brittle. You gently pried it open and felt your stomach drop into your shoes. It was Benedict Bridgerton’s diary. The same published diary that you had studied for your art degree. These were the same words but it was obvious ink had been scribbled directly onto paper in Ben’s handwriting. You looked at the date embossed on the spine - 1822. Holding your breath, you flipped through to find what you knew was tucked in the margins of page 58. It was there - his self-portrait sketch. Looking at it now, quick and sloppy though it was, you could see it. You could see Ben in his features.

You felt like you might be sick and focused on just trying to breathe. Ben was carrying on, not even looking at you. “I did keep more. Here’s ‘23, ‘24…” He was piling more diaries into your lap, all with the same binding, all containing the same handwriting, all impossibly old. 

“I’ve fallen out of the habit after so long, I’m afraid,” he sighed. “And since you thought so poorly of my self-portrait doodle, how is this?” 

From some hidden corner he produced a small painting and held it out to you. Trembling uncontrollably, you set the diaries aside and took it. It was a portrait of him. Unmistakably, it was Ben. But he was dressed in a high collar and colorful waistcoat, with longer hair and more warmth in his cheeks. You knew the art style. You knew it was regency. Stippled into the corner was a flourished signature - Granville.

This only added to the confusion. To the impossibility of it all. He had to have faked everything. You deliberately ignored all of your senses, honed by years of education, that were reluctantly admitting everything appeared genuine. But none of it made any sense.

 It took a moment to find your voice. “It’s…Granville. You painted this.”

You looked up at him for confirmation but he only smirked.

“Don’t sell yourself short. Your eye is skilled enough to know that that paint is 200 years old.”

He was right. You knew he was. He knew you knew he was. You slowly began to accept that the man who stood before you was not your reclusive neighbor Ben Granville as you had always presumed. He was someone else entirely.

“Then who is Granville?”

He smiled faintly. “An old friend who did not get the acclaim he deserved.” He gently took the painting back and tucked it away.

Fighting both for air and to keep from either screaming or vomiting, you dug your fingers into the upholstered armrests and pressed yourself into your seat. “Holy shit.” 

Ben moved back to his chair and studied you, looking concerned.

“I know it’s a lot to take in. But you are safe with me. You have my word.”

You were still struggling to believe the reality of the situation but you did believe his promise. You weren’t sure if he was still glamouring you, but the sincerity in his expression didn’t leave any room for doubt. You would live to see another day. But that would be the day you had to navigate the world knowing that vampires existed and that one lived in your building and had kissed you and slept in your bed. Even if this madness were true, why was he sharing his secrets with you?

“What do you want from me?” Your voice was still trembling.

“To talk to you. To tell you the truth. Now that we are getting to know one another.” 

His lopsided grin exuded kindness and confidence. If he really was a vampire - and you couldn’t believe you were actually entertaining the notion - he would have to prove it and share his story. You were a leading expert on the life of Benedict Bridgerton. You would test him.

“When were you born?”

“1786,” he answered breezily.

Too easy. He would have to tell you something no one could know.

“Then in your thirties you vanished.”

His brow knitted. “I fell ill. Brain fever.”

“Meningitis?”

He nodded. “It would have killed me. But my maker…gave me an option.”

You tried to picture it, some alternate history from the one you had always imagined. You had believed the Bridgerton family’s account that Benedict had sailed to Europe and was never heard from again. Now instead of envisioning him on a ship in the English channel, you saw him pale and sweating in a sickbed, tilting his neck for some dark, amorphous creature to bite into. 

“Who was that?”

He averted his eyes and moved to survey his paintings, keeping his back to you.

“It was a kindness,” he explained. “We had to travel a lot. We couldn’t stay in one place for very long or people would start to get suspicious. But we had each other. For a while.” There was something wistful in his tone. 

“You’re not together anymore?”

He sighed. “We grew apart.”

“Where are they now?”

“I have no idea.”

It was clear he wanted to change the subject. If he didn’t want to talk about his past, he could explain how he lived in the present.

“Are there a lot of you? Your kind?” Your confidence and curiosity were growing, even though you felt like a character in an Anne Rice novel.

Ben shrugged, pacing slowly around the lounge. “Not too many. Probably a dozen in every city. We tend to keep to ourselves and stay spread out. It helps to maintain our own food supply without drawing undue attention.”

Right, the food supply. The factor that made him more than just a beautiful curiosity. The memory of his bloodstained jumper was now more sinister. “So you…eat people? The man in the park?”

“No,” he turned to face you. “He did jump me but he sliced one of the bags and I scared him off. I didn’t bite him. I don’t do that anymore.” You watched him pad to the kitchen and reach into his bloodied coat. “For over a hundred years that was the only option. But now…” From an inner pocket he gingerly pulled out the hidden source of all the mess. Two more bags of blood, one of them ripped and leaking. He popped them in the fridge as casually as if they were bottles of beer, then cleaned the dark spatters they left behind. “I’m trying to be more humane about it. I got tired of seeing the fear in everyone’s eyes. And disposing of someone…it’s a pain in the arse.”

You swallowed hard. No one had ever confessed to murder in front of you before, but given the circumstances it all seemed so natural.

“Where do you get the blood?”

He smirked. “I have a doctor who owes me.” 

So you were not the only person he had revealed himself to. Your perception of the world was reorienting, having discovered two new communities that existed in the shadows of society. Immortal vampires and the mortals who knew them. Now you were one of them. 

“Are all of you…adapting to be more humane?”

Ben scoffed, leaning against a counter. “God, no. Everyone has their own approach. Some get so tired of the whole thing that they starve themselves. Or toss themselves out into the daylight.”

“And you haven’t tired of it?”

“No.” The wistfulness returned as he became contemplative. “I don’t know that I could ever leave the world willingly. It holds too much beauty. Too many things I love, even if I can only see them in darkness now.” 

The lyricism of his words echoed sentiments you had read in Benedict’s diary. He seemed to have an almost painful appreciation for the world. You had detected it in his notes, seen it brushed into his artwork, and now saw it etched on his face. Your heart fluttered at the notion that you may actually be speaking to the real Benedict Bridgerton. The mystery was finally solved. A man lost to history had suddenly showed up on your doorstep, almost as if you had willed him into returning. But the supernatural details of his existence were still enigmas.

“So the sunlight thing is true?” You already knew the answer given that your interactions had always occurred after dark.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Coffins? Garlic? Crucifixes?”

At this, he laughed. “I have to say it’s much more of a biological condition than one rooted in myth and religion.”

You couldn’t hide a bashful smile. Your curiosity was piqued and he could sense it. You had spent the night before snogging each other senseless and then fell asleep with him wrapped around you. How had you not noticed anything odd? A glance at his Adonis belt cresting over his hip provided a clue. You had been so entranced with the mere sight of him you had lost any thought for details. 

He straightened and put his hands in his pockets, voice dropping low. “You can come closer. I won’t bite.”

Your stomach flipped. Desire was starting to cloud over your fear. If he was still glamouring you, you didn’t care. You just wanted to explore him.

“Cheeky,” you lobbed as he chuckled smugly at his joke. Rising slowly, you walked to stand in front of him, drinking in the devastating perfection of his body. The low light cut precise shadows across his toned form, enhancing the effect even further. He was alabaster and strength, predation and pleasure. “Fucking hell,” you exhaled, shaking.

“Membership has its benefits,” he lilted playfully.

“So you didn’t look like this when you were…” ‘Alive’ seemed an odd thing to ask someone about in the past tense. “Before?”

“I looked alright,” he shrugged, his boyish face contrasting with the statue of the male ideal it sat atop.  

You returned his smirk. You knew he would have been considered exceptionally handsome in any era. You had seen as much in his portrait. You began to wonder how many lovers he had had. Likely as many as he wanted. But now, impossibly, he was offering himself to you. He stood completely still, letting your eyes rove. Cautiously, you brought a hand to his chest. Solid muscle and silken skin, significantly cooler than any healthy person should be. You had assumed it was the chill of the night air. 

“Do you feel cold?”

“No,” he looked down at you, eyes smoldering. “I can feel heat pouring off of you but in my own skin, I feel comfortable. Heightened, actually. I can feel every ridge in your fingertips right now. I could count them.”

You trailed your fingers up to his defined clavicle, your breath growing heavier, equal parts fascination and arousal. He didn’t move. And that’s when you realized.

“You’re not breathing.” Now the unearthly was colliding directly with your senses. Your mind’s denial and flailing explanations were being overwhelmed. But you didn’t want to pull away. “It’s…weird.”

Ben hung his head in apology. “I know, sorry. I have to remind myself to pretend.” He took an imitated breath and you pondered how exhausting it must be to keep up the charade around people. Your hand continued its journey across the expanse of his chest, counting the freckles down his sternum, pressing your palm against his firm flesh. Then you gasped. He may not have been breathing, but something was moving behind his ribs. His heart was beating as hard and as fast as a hummingbird’s, so rapid that you couldn’t discern one beat from the next, just a steady thrum, practically vibrating under your hand.

He quirked a brow. “That still works. All this blood. Have to keep it moving somehow.”

“But I thought…”

“It’s like we become just a circulatory system in overdrive, trapped within a frozen body.” He cut you off, sounding as if he had delivered this explanation countless times before.

You pulled your hand away, nodding and straightening your glasses. You couldn’t rationalize this anymore. Whatever he was, he was something you had never encountered before and he wanted you to know it.  

“Why are you telling me all this?”

His eyes grew gentle. “Because I know I can trust you. You know who I am. You’re not going to tell anyone.”

No, you certainly weren’t going to tell anyone that your favorite long-lost regency artist had been turned into a vampire and was in fact your neighbor and new paramour. “They would think I was mad if I tried.”

He grinned. “There’s that too.” 

Something still didn’t make sense. You had been passing each other in the halls for years and it was only in the past few days that he had approached you. “But even before this. Last night you kissed me. You had to know I would learn your secret. Why me? Why now?”

Tentatively he brought his large hands to cup your face. You remembered how tenderly he held you the night before and were just as weak to his touch, even with everything you now knew. 

“Because you reminded me how it feels to be human.” His tone was reverent; his pale eyes filled with a soft pain. “I felt your sadness seeping through the walls. Your melancholy heartbreak is eating into me. You have something to lose and that makes you appreciate how precious life and beauty are, which is something I was starting to forget.”

You were rooted to the spot, aching at the thought that your diagnosis had created a palpable cloud of misery he could sense. To know your pain was engulfing not only you but him as well, made you feel both guilty and comforted. You weren’t alone. He could understand. A tear ran down your cheek and he brushed it away with his thumb.

“I’m sorry you are suffering. I don’t want it to perpetuate. But it awoke something in me. It made me feel even more admiration than I already had for you, seeing you take such good care of my work.”

Maybe it was his attractiveness. Maybe you were half-mad with fear and adrenaline and hunger. Maybe he was playing mind games with you. But for the rest of the night you found immense pleasure in playing along and imagining he really was Benedict Bridgerton. Eventually you found yourselves back in the lounge as you peppered him with questions. You marveled as he answered them all with ease. He detailed his human years studying art, cool months in the countryside and summers in London for the social season. He blushed as you recited all of the accolades he received before his disappearance. He wouldn’t talk about his love life or other vampires he had met, but he shared stories of the world transforming as he had witnessed it. 

He detailed the great artists he had known and mourned, the birth of railways and planes, the rise and fall of kings and continental powers. Some of his most riveting memories were of guiding refugees through France under cover of darkness during World War II. After seeing the horrors visited upon a captured group of fleeing Romani he had shifted to an offensive approach, prowling frontline villages at night to dispatch as many Germans as he could stomach. His reminiscing seemed so genuine, you steeped in the wonder of it all, losing track of time as the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were narrated to you firsthand. Eventually you noticed light beginning to gleam around the edges of the dark curtains. You had sat up until sunrise.

“I can’t believe this,” you gaped at Ben, your mind whirling.

He sat across from you in his wingback chair with an easy smile. “A part of you does.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m not glamouring you anymore and you’re still here.”

Your terrified dash for the exit seemed to have taken place years ago. Your entire understanding of the world had changed since then. You knew you should leave so you both could rest. Staggering under the weight of all you had learned, you stood and moved for the hall, turning to face him one last time.

“I’m going to wake up and think this was all a dream.”

For his closing argument Ben stood and walked to the window, tugging the curtain just wide enough for a sliver of daylight to pierce through the dusty air. Standing to one side, he stretched out a hand and brought the tip of his little finger into the beam. Instantly the hiss of sizzling flesh filled the room and a thin trail of smoke started to rise from his skin. You watched, speechless, as he nonchalantly pulled back and examined the charred wound.

“Get some sleep and see how you feel tonight. You know where to find me.”

Tagging: @angels17324 @broooookiecrisp @secretagentbucky @colettebronte @queen-of-the-misfit-toys @mysticwitchcraftco @suspendingtime @faye-tale

[spices28]

10 First Lines Challenge

Rules: Share the first line of your last ten published works or as many as you are able to, and see if there are any patterns!

thank you for tagging me @korokposting!! this was a fun trip down memory lane.

tendencies on repeat (post-botw zelink) -- "It was twenty-three days before Link came to Kakariko."

goodbye to the end of beginning (post-totk zelink) -- "No sooner than the words “I’m home” had sprung from her lips did Link rush forward and collapse to his knees at her feet."

What We Thought (pre!calamity Sheikah!Zelda AU zelink) -- "It had been two minutes. A full one hundred and twenty seconds since Link had heard a suspicious noise from within the princess’ bedroom." (OK this is two lines but four words is awfully short!)

Hyrule's First Couples Therapy (post!totk married zelink) -- "“Please, take a seat.” Lottlie gestured at the blue velvet couch sitting across from her green rocking chair." (again... four words....)

The Winter Festival (post!totk Queen Zelda and King Link) -- "“Please, you must try some!” A short, matronly woman pushed a wooden bowl filled with a steaming brown stew dotted with orange carrot and white potato under Zelda’s nose." ( do I just.... love starting fics with four words....?)

The Midnight Revelry (Pre!Calamity AU zelink) -- “...and how are you today, Sir Link?”

The Price of Spontaneity (Post!totk hangover zelink) -- “Come on, love,” Link rubbed Zelda’s back.

Rekindled Hunger (Post!totk reunion zelink) -- “Oh, Link,” Zelda cried in ecstasy. “This is exceptionally good!” 

Never Been Kissed (skyward sword zelink) -- "Link?" Zelda's curious tone did not startle Link as he flipped to the next page in his textbook.  aaaannnddddd I don't have a 10th zelink fic (I am not dredging up by destiel past) but I'll give you a bonus couple of lines from my upcoming fic The Melody of Courage, which is a zelink/hadestown AU, from Chapter 1: Any Way The Wind Blows.

"Link leans back in the shade and smiles. The warm sun beats down on his tan skin. He trails a toe through the cool spring he reclines beside."

I nominate @wouldyoustilllovemeifiwasawyrm and @flutefemme bc I know you both have a lot of killer first lines.

[happysaddca]

Okay @wyervan @lets-zofifi-stuff @spaceboisstuff

I'm @'ng you three in specific because you either implicitly or explicitly expressed interest in learning how I can write so much so quickly. This is my specific method and I can't promise it'll work for everyone, but here we go.

First, the don't do it like I used to method: hyperfixation and manic bipolar episodes. I wrote two-point-five novels in a month that way and they're still largely readable actually! But leaning into your mental illness only does you poorly because when you get burnt out or you slide into a depressive episode where you can barely function you're just going to have more fuel for the self-hating fire.

So what do we do instead? And mind you, I'm still working my way up. My goal is to eventually write for two hours a day (every day), and write about 3k words. For me, 3k words is about the length of the short stories I published online. I want to get back into that for passive income and creative outlet reasons. But for you, maybe it's enough to know that you sat and wrote a page, or a couple sentences. Whatever. Customize your goal to your current skillset and desires.

Get your to do list done. This sounds weird but if you got a bunch of stuff you gotta do you're not gonna be able to get in the zone for writing.

Don't be hungry or dehydrated. Don't sit like a gremlin either. Have I written 10k words in a day hunched over like a troll at my laptop? Yes. Do I regret now that I'm 31 years old and work with preschoolers? Yes. And the rest is basic self care. You're not going to be at your best if you're distracted or hurting in some way.

Have a dedicated zone to write. I literally bought a desktop computer so I could do this. You can make a corner of a bedroom or the kitchen table after dinner your spot. It tricks your brain into knowing it's time to write.

Typing lessons. Typing lessons? you might be asking yourself. Why on earth would I do typing lessons to write more? One word: speed. I can write up to 80 WPM with about 90% accuracy, even though my normal speed is about 60 WPM. If you're curious about yours, you can check here for free. But having the ability to use both hands on a keyboard, typing with minimal to no peeking is crucial if you want to write a lot, fast.

Word goals, sprints, etc. Setting yourself up with a friend to see who can write more faster in 15 minutes is a good start, as is setting a timer and seeing how quickly you can rip through a scene or three. You're focusing on words on the page here, not perfection. Perfection comes with

Reading and dissecting what you like about a story. This isn't limited to literary fiction either. You can do it to a movie, fanfiction, poetry. Whatever it is, find it and tear into it. Look at a book line by line to see how they convey a mood. Practice that with shorter form stories that you don't have to complete or perfect. The more you put into your brain, the more you'll be able to put out onto the paper (and quicker too).

Write through the sludge. You're in the middle of an amazing dialogue exchange and poof! the words are suddenly gone. Do you sit and agonize over each and every little word? No! You write FUCK THIS SHIT IT'S STUPID HERE'S THE GIST and keep going! If you're smart you'll use a special character like * to find it later, but if you're like me, just yelling at yourself a little before continuing to where you can write again is more than fine. We don't talk about how much human au does this.

DO write the gist though. Don't trust your brain to remember what you wanted to say. It won't remember. So if you're in a fight scene, write "Sun kicks Moon in the shin and Moon yells and throws him in the ballpit. It's very dramatic" and then continue to the aftermath.

Editing! This is where your writing will slow down. Unless you're like me, throwing out barely reread bits of dredge out for the world to consume because I like to torture myself, you're gonna want to sit back from a piece of work for a good 18-36 hours before going back to it (I've got books that've sat for TWO YEARS it's like I've given myself a present cause I remember nothing). This is when you go fix those murky spots and you destroy your crutch words and split those page long sentences into more manageable chunks. The more that you've read and dissected and put into your brain, the more some of this will already be done. But don't worry if it feels like you're rewriting hot garbage. Cause literally every writer feels that way. Meanwhile everyone else is so excited to try your cake.

Seriously, typing etiquette will help you a shit ton. Sometimes when I struggle with my writing I'll turn on Game of Thrones or Bob's Burgers and watch the show while writing out whatever it was I was struggling with. I'll do the same while talking to people irl. It's actually funny cause I can hold a conversation and write while looking at them and 7/10 times it freaks them out.

But most importantly, don't like. Expect to get prolific super fast. I burnt myself out before and during my MFA program and I am teetering on burning out if I am not careful now. Don't judge yourself but how much you haven't written. Just try to get the words out that you have in you now, and know they're good ones.

[sourw0lfs]

STWG Daily Drabble: April 20

Prompt: Accidentally kidnapping a mafia boss Tags/Warnings: Modern AU, Mafia AU (implied only) Pairing: Jargyle Words: 502

The room is still bathed orange when a loud pounding wakes Jonathan. He squints through sleep-crusted eyes as he tries to place where the sound is coming from and why. It takes a moment, at the ass crack of dawn, for his brain to catch on to the fact that the banging is coming from the front door.

With a groan, he hauls himself out of bed, leaving Argyle to shuffle into the warm space he leaves behind, still snoring softly. His footsteps feel like lead as he walks down the short hallway to the front of the apartment. Opening the door, Jonathan leans heavily on the frame and stares at the burly man on the other side. “Who the fuck are you?” he asks, voice fill with gravel.

Instead of answering, the man pushes past Jonathan, leaving him stumbling as their shoulders collide, making his way through the apartment like it’s his own. “Dude!” Jonathan calls after him, final dredges of sleep rushing away in a flood of adrenaline as he hurries back inside.

He makes it back to the bedroom just in time to see Argyle fall in a pile on the floor as the guy pulls him out of the bed. A shot of panic floods through Jonathan’s veins, but Argyle, through his sleepy blinks, seems unfazed by whatever is happening.

“Erik!” Argyle exclaims once he’s slightly more awake, leaving Jonathan more confused than ever. “Everything is a-okay, man. My bad for forgetting to call, yeah?”

The burly man, Erik apparently, looks unimpressed by the blasé way he’s being dismissed, but he also doesn’t argue with it. Instead he just heaves a long-suffering sigh, crouching and slapping a hand down on Argyle’s shoulder. The two of them have a silent conversation as Jonathan watches from the doorway, forehead creased in blatant confusion.

“I’ll cover for you this time,” Erik says after a prolonged silence, standing again. “But never again.”

“Thank, man!” Argyle replies with a lazy smile. “Knew I could count on you!”

Erik only grunts in response as he turns to leave, eying Jonathan in a way that makes him want to phase through the wall as he goes. Once the sound of the front door echoes into the bedroom, Jonathan finally dares to look at Argyle. “What the fuck was that?” he asks as he sinks to the floor, spent from the rush of early morning adrenaline.

“Oh, that was Erik. My mom sends him when I forget to call to make sure I’m not dead or kidnapped,” Argyle explains with a shrug as he clambers back on the bed.

The explanation leaves Jonathan with so many more questions than answers, but part of him isn’t actually sure he wants to know. For now, he just pulls himself back into the bed as well, nerves finally settling as Argyle octopuses his way back into Jonathan’s space, eyes already closed.

More sleep sounds like a great idea, actually. Everything else can wait until the sun is actually up.