#thank you image search for the cake

[thebigbiwolf]

Spittle - Part 1/2

Summary: The chocolate seems innocent enough - if you look past the Infernal writing on the wrapper, and with so few pleasures in the wilderness, you all but jump at the chance to sneak yourself a small treat.

Unbeknownst to you, the bar is infused with succubus spittle. Just one square is rumored to contain enough potency to send a mortal into the throes of ecstasy.

This is what happens when you eat half the bar.

Fic Tags: Sex Pollen (kinda), aphrodisiacs, succubus magic, a bit of dom!Astarion, unprotected piv, overstimulation, he talks you through it (iykyk), more tags will be added later.

Fic Warnings: Explicit Smut (18+ MDNI), Dubcon (if you squint), Language, No use of Y/N, magical influence

Read on AO3: Here

A/N: Remember the dead spider? I remember the dead spider. Anyways, the reception I've been getting on Starvin', Darlin' has me wanting to thank everyone with a one-shot. This got away from me so I went ahead and split it into two parts.

I've never written anything like this and it was significantly more difficult than a multi-chapter fic. I hope everything comes across the way its supposed to! And a huge thank you to my beta @imaginarydromedary for...you know... encouraging me to post this, despite everything.

From what you could tell, there wasn’t much to the apothecary. 

As you push open the dilapidated doors, your first thought is to search for supplies - anything that could help if things went south on your way to the goblin camp. 

Dried herbs hang from the rafters beneath a thin veil of cobwebs, filling your lungs with a pungent clash of scents. Empty bottles lined the shelves along the wall, caked in several months worth of dust. Large chunks of the building were missing where stone met splintered wood, some areas almost entirely overtaken by greenery.

You step over broken shards of pottery, scanning over the floor and countertops for something - anything that may be of use, but to your disappointment, it seems like the shop was entirely ransacked long before your arrival.

You sigh deeply, knowing you’ll likely never hear the end of this from your companions. It was your idea to search the village. You were the one who suggested taking out the goblin scouts, exerting everyones’ energy, and now you’re afraid you’ll have very little to show for it.

You catch a glint of gold, an object reflecting the sun's rays beneath a pile of rubble. You kneel down to brush away the surrounding debris, thankful for even the smallest promise of coin before your hands catch on… some sort of serrated edge?

You pull at it, and it easily comes loose. It's a thin, rectangular block, just barely larger than the length of your hand. You wipe away some of the dirt with your sleeve, revealing an intricately designed foil wrapping underneath.

As you speculate what this might be, you hear footsteps approaching from behind, light and familiar. You turn to face the elf with a smirk.

“You’re supposed to be the stealthy one.” You chide at him, playfully, “Or has my blood put a little skip in your step?”

Astarion scoffs. “I’ve been here the entire time, watching you fumble around in the dirt.” 

Crimson eyes study you, then the object you’re holding. He places his hands on his hips, head cocked to the side with a raised brow. “Is that what you’ve dragged us all the way here for?”

“First of all,” you waggle a finger at him, “You’re especially grumpy when you’re tired. I’ll have to make a note to prioritize your beauty rest. Second, I haven’t finished looking around, but check this out.”

You hand the bar to him as you stand. The cool skin of his fingers brush against your own, and you’re irritated with the way your heart skips at the brief contact. Why did the one man you found attractive in your camp have to be such a primadonna? And such a huge pain in the ass? 

Astarion’s eyes scan over the textured paper with suspicion, angling it towards the light to get a better look. The golden wrapping is stamped with an image of red lips On the back, letters twist and curve in a language you don't recognize, following a single circular pattern where they meet in the center. You’ve never seen anything like this, neither in your travels, nor within the city walls of Baldur’s Gate.

“Where did you find this?” 

You shrug, then point to the pile next to you. “It was buried right there.” 

He silently stares at the foil, mouth pursed, until your patience begins to wear thin.

“Well, can you read it or not?”

His nose scrunches. “Of course I can’t read it. It’s written in Infernal.”

That’s… odd. Why would an ordinary apothecary sell goods made by devils? Or, worse, for devils. Unless, of course, it was some sort of marketing trick, perhaps a play on the phrase ‘sinfully sweet’, or some other cringeworthy branding.

You take it back, turning it over in your hands before tearing at the corner of the wrapping. It's sectioned into dark, rich squares, and smells indisputably like chocolate.

“It looks like candy.”

“An excellent observation.” he says, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Now, can we go? We’ve spent more than enough time here already.”

You roll your eyes and stuff it into your bag, setting off for camp, vampire in tow.

–

During dinner, you decide not to tell the others about what you found, knowing Astarion’s likely already forgotten the event. You set down your empty plate, thanking Gale for tonight’s meal. He smiles at you and bids you goodnight as you excuse yourself to your tent. 

You pick up your rucksack, thinking fondly of the dessert that awaits you inside. Having lived at the beck and call of your companions for weeks on end, you can’t help but smile at the idea of selfishly indulging in a small treat like this.

You tear open the rest of the wrapping and snap off one of the squares, immediately popping one into your mouth. It melts - buttery in texture, with a smokey, slightly bitter flavor. You can’t remember the last time you’ve eaten something so rich. Maybe weeks of the same rations have made you easier to impress, but this felt especially notable.

As you break off a second piece, a strange tingling sensation begins to spread across your lips - a pleasant buzzing that starts at your neck and spreads down through your chest. 

Strange, but not entirely unwelcome. You’ve heard of such inebriating chocolates, ones laced with alcohol or species of flowers that numb one’s senses for a short while. All harmless, of course, and you don’t have watch tonight. You may as well enjoy yourself. If worst comes to worst, Shadowheart is just outside with an assortment of spells and potions. Always better to ask for forgiveness.

It only takes you minutes to finish half the bar. You set the rest next to your bedroll for later and turn to blow out your candles, enjoying the lingering physical effects of the chocolate. Your skin feels flushed and delightfully warm as you settle down for the night.

When sleep finally takes you, it's dreamless, at first. Your consciousness sways, floating in an empty abyss, until colors begin to bleed onto the blank canvas of your mind.

A trickle of red morphs into the shape of familiar eyes, piercing you with their intensity..

Droplets of white spatter over a dark background, diffusing, blending into whisps. They curl and twist before settling into soft, coiffed fibers. 

Hair , you recognize immediately, his hair . His eyes.

Astarion. 

His image fully takes form, as if it had been waiting for you to make the connection before entirely revealing itself. 

He reaches out and seizes you, grabbing painfully at your hips as you crash into his body, hands exploring you - tight, possessive, squeezing at every inch of exposed skin before settling on the curve of your ass. He digs into your flesh with the blunt edge of his nails.

His lips press hot, wet kisses to your throat, mouthing just below the ear, before dragging his tongue along your nape and sucking, hard . You whine at the pressure, eliciting a grin from the elf, so characteristically pleased with the pathetic little noise he’s managed to pull from you.

“You thought sleeping would allow you to escape this - to escape me , unscathed?” He growls against your skin, his voice almost unrecognizable - as if it’s layered beneath a lighter, somehow more arrogant, feminine one.

“No, no, no. Wake up, darling. You’re in for a very long night.”

–

You startle awake, gasping - loud, labored breaths struggling to make use of the unbearably thin air. The edges of your tent bleed in and out of focus, spinning at a nauseating pace as you attempt to recollect yourself.

You wipe at the sweat collecting on your brow, the muscles of your arm heavy and aching, and find that your skin is absolutely drenched. 

Hot. Why is everything so hot? 

It's as if you're being cooked alive beneath your blankets, strangled beneath the furs. You throw them off; normally soft to the touch, the fibers now only worsen the prickling beneath your skin.

Could this be some sort of illness? A fever? 

No, this doesn’t make sense. Everything feels off. 

Fleeting thoughts of Astarion cross your mind - quick flashes of a sinful smile that was not his own.

It didn’t quite match the one you’d silently come to admire, and now that you think of it, the hunger in his gaze was much too intense for the reserved elf. 

His hands, his mouth, the way he touched you -

Your abdomen cramps, bringing your thoughts to a screeching halt.

A stabbing, visceral pain; a knife plunging into your organs. It overwhelms you, forces your body to curl into itself. You hold your pelvis, grunting, and grasp at your sheets. Tears sting the corner of your eyes.

This is - well, you have no idea what this is. 

You can’t think past the pounding in your head, the throbbing in your midsection. You're compulsively twisting, writhing, begging the gods for some sort of reprieve, but it's then when you make the most mortifying discovery of the night.

You’re soaked .

N ot just your smallclothes, which may have been understandable given your strange dreams, but through your damned pants. Not even the sheets were spared. 

“What  in the hells…?” 

You run your fingers over yourself, only intending to confirm the horrifying reality of your situation - that this is not, in fact, some sick, perverted nightmare, but the lightest touch sets off every nerve. 

You wail at the sensation: one massive wave of bliss giving way to several small jolts of pain. 

Pleasure to the point of agony.

The shock of the sudden orgasm courses from your sex through every limb, clenching and releasing pitiful, warm slick. It leaks freely out of you into your already thoroughly ruined underwear. 

Your heart pounds. You stay like that for what feels like a lifetime, toes curled, limbs twitching, waiting for your body to settle. 

After a minute or so, your breathing evens, and the thick haze surrounding your thoughts begins to lift just slightly, along with the suffocating heat. 

But something within you knows this isn’t the end - knows this isn’t enough . A desperation lurks beneath the surface that you can’t quite name. It screams at you. You need more.

‘Aw…’ A familiar, feminine voice prods at your mind. You quickly recognize her, the woman from your dreams who wore Astarion’s image.  

‘All alone, are we? Empty and needing to be filled? Doesn’t that hurt?’

It does. It aches unlike anything you’ve ever known. The lingering buzz of your orgasm just barely quells the worsening cramps, and they’re beginning to rear their ugly head again not minutes later.

You choke out a sob. “Wh- why are you doing this? What do you want?”

Sharp, wicked laughter fills your head, echoing off the walls of your skull. ‘I’m not doing anything, dear. Just enjoying the show.’ She hisses, ‘I told you, it’s going to be a very long night.’

You must be hallucinating. This fever - whatever this is, is simply cauterizing your senses, or possibly interacting with the tadpole? But the tadpole doesn’t speak, not like this. Never so clearly. Not with words.

Think, please. There has to be a reason this -

“Is everything alright?” Shadowheart raps on the canvas of your tent. “I heard a yelp. Are you hurt?”

Shit.

‘Ooh, this one might do!’  You feel an unwelcome… eagerness flood you.

No. No. Absolutely not.

You try not to panic. 

Under no circumstances should she or anyone else come in here.

The best strategy may be to ignore her - pretend you’re still sleeping. It seems like a good plan, but before you have a chance to follow through with it, another sharp contraction hits. This one is somehow even worse than the ones before. 

You pull your sheets up to your mouth to stifle your whine, but the half elf’s ears are sharper than most. “I’m coming in.”

She opens the flap to your tent and gasps when she sees you there - skin flushed pink, doubled over and covered in sweat. 

“Gods, what’s wrong? What’s happened?” Her hand reaches out towards you. 

Without thinking, you swat it away with your own. Your skin tingles at the contact, and the essence of a smile crosses over the threshold into your mind. The intruder giggles with satisfaction.

“Don’t,” you plead, “Don’t touch me.”

She scans over you, taking in your humiliating state. Her face twists with concern. “I need to know if you’re feverish. Please. You look awful.” 

‘Well, I think you look delectable.’

You groan.

At this point, you know it’s no use fighting this thing on your own. You go back and forth on whether you want to tell her the whole truth, about the voice in your head and its influence on your body, but the idea mortifies you into silence. 

Regardless, a cleric is likely your best chance of fixing this literal mess, so you nod, close your eyes, and brace yourself.

Shadowheart’s palm meets your forehead. It’s somehow worse than you anticipated. Even the simple, chaste touch sends you reeling, as if her soft hands are caressing your entire body. Flashes of heat wash over you, burning your skin, threatening to pull you back under another wave of ecstasy. 

It’s too much. You try your hardest to suppress a moan, but the muffled sound manages to escape from between your tightened lips, pitiful and broken.

The disembodied voice squeals with delight.

She quickly retracts her hand, clearing her throat. “Apologies. I can confirm your temperature is… elevated, but the rest…” She shakes her head. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

You want to scream, cry - anything to release your frustration, but you keep your mouth shut, not wanting to risk making any more unsavory noises.

“I believe I can give you some relief by treating the fever, but I’ll have to consult the others on the rest. This doesn’t look like any ordinary sickness.”

Consult the others? No. Gods, no. Nobody can know about this. Is she mad?

You intend to protest, beg her not to share this with anyone, tell her whatever death awaits you on the other side of this would be preferable, but she’s speaking an incantation before you have the chance.

A bright, green aura envelopes you, cooling your skin and ever so slightly easing the cramps. With the pain dulled, it's as though you can finally think again. 

You want to laugh. This situation is so utterly ridiculous that you’d find it hilarious, were it anyone else, but with the modicum of relief comes exhaustion - eyelids heavy, vision blurring with weariness.

“Get some rest. We’ll figure this out.” 

Her reassuring words are the last thing you hear before you’re overcome by darkness.

[jasmines-library]

Hi. Um... i have been craving angst

👀 and my angsty mind has been making up... scenarios, but like would love them typed out so i can read 💀 i live your work, p.s. <3

anyways, would like to ask for something along these lines:

reader is a batsibling

is kidnapped

fam cant find her for a few days and is panicked

they find her somewhere, blindfolded and tied up, on the ground and caked in blood

they get her some med stuff and whatever

and they're like how did this happen so they somehow get cctv or duke uses his powers or something and finds out that they've been beaten for info

and they get like really angry and all that jazz

:D rest up to you!

would be great if you did it 🥺

but i understand if it's too much

love youuuu 💖/platonic ehe

okay, i will excuse myself from your asks now. byeee

Loaded Silence

hello hello! Thanks for requesting. This was super angsty, but as you put I crave it too... ❤️

Warnings: Kidnapping, Torture (not very graphic), fear, medical scenes.

Word Count: 1.5k

⛤ BATFAM MASTERLIST ⛤

It had happened unexpectedly. You were there one second and gone the next. In a blink of an eye. Nothing more nothing less. That was all it took for you to slip away. Damian could have sworn he was only gone for a minute. To stretch his legs and grab something to eat. But that was all it took for them to sneak in. Quiet as a mouse they crept in, splitting through the open window at the back of the room. Leaving it open had been a careless mistake, but who was to think that you would have been taken in the safety of your own home? 

They grabbed you roughly from behind. A set of rough hands pinning you to the sofa, clamped tightly over your mouth as another worked to tie a heavy bandage around your eyes. You had squirmed feebly trying to gain some leverage. Your training desperately tried to kick in but at that moment, you were not a vigilante. You were Y/N Wayne: A citizen, child to the wealthiest man in Gotham and utterly fucked. 

You had no choice after that than to allow them to drag you downtown, you had kicked and cried blindly, desperate for one of your brothers to chase after you. But whoever was gripping you tight enough to bruise was clearly experienced and you knew that they stood no chance so unexpectedly. 

When they tossed you down on the ground, you thought it would offer some relief. The room was dank, dusty and smelt of water rot and mould. This was the part where they would send a ransom note to Bruce and he and your brothers would come charging in sooner or later. But you had never been more wrong. 

“We know who you are, Wayne.” A voice spoke. Feminine but not soft spoken. Threatening. “Or would you prefer Raven?”

Your stomach dropped as bile burned the back of your throat. You knew you could fight now, but you were defenceless weaponless with your hands and feet bound together. 

“The fuck do you want?” You spat, though the effect of the venom in your words was lost for you looked so helpless. 

“Bold of you to speak to me that way, given your predicament.” The woman chuckled, prodding you with her foot. “You’re here as a sort of…payment.”  She mused. “I suppose you could call it that.”

“What?” 

“My husband.” She started, moving away from you. You could hear her pacing around the room but you  could only conjure up images in your mind. “Leader of the greatest crime suricate in Gotham. And now, he’s dead. Rotting in some coffin in the ground, thanks to your father.” 

She moved closer again. Her heels clattered against the floor. 

“He took away the only thing that ever mattered to me!” She gripped your wrist, lifting you up off the floor and leaning into your face. “So now, I’m going to take away one of his toys until someone tells me how to get him out! His precious little girl. Oh how I can’t wait to see the look on all of their faces when they see you. That is of course…after we have a little fun.”

~

There was still no sign of you. And it felt as if they had searched every inch of the city. The high and the low but still nothing. No one had slept much in the three days you had been missing. Their nights were either spent searching for you on patrol or laying awake staring blankly at the ceiling as their minds conjured up the worst. None of them said it outloud but the possibility that you were dead loomed over them. But no one ever said anything. They just continued to search in silence. It seemed like Babs and Tim hadn’t torn their eyes away from the screens since Damian came barging into the room three days ago, doubled over and panting as he revealed the news. The only time they ever moved was to head to the bathroom or to make another mug of lukewarm coffee. 

The rest of the family were out on patrol. That was what they were calling it anyway. Really they were looking for you. And still there had been no sign until Dick stumbled upon a window. It was low down to his feet covered by concrete as though the building had just sunk into the concrete. And when he tried to peer inside, it seemed to be covered by something on the inside. 

It could have been nothing.

But Dick was desperate. 

He called over the other vigilantes with a signal on his com. They all came tricking over towards him silently through the city. Some bubbling with hope and anticipation, but all dreading the worst. 

Moving around the back of the house, Dick pushed open the door. 

~

You had never been more scared in your entire life. Everything ached, burned or stung. From what you could feel there didn’t seem to be a single inch of your skin that wasn’t covered in blood. It clung sticky to your skin, cracking every time you managed to bring yourself to shift against the floor.

She had continued her onslaught for hours, trying to force answers that she knew you would never be able to give her from your chapped lips. She would leave every once in a while, returning silently to catch you off guard with another round of pain. You couldn’t see her: the blindfold still remained firmly around your eyes, so you had to anticipate when she would return as you cowered against the back wall in a pool of your own blood. You were unsure how long it had been since she tossed you into the room. Without the relief of sunlight, your woozy mind had lost track of time. 

And then a pair of hands gripped your shoulders. And you screamed, trying to recoil away from them. You didn’t make it far. Your body was too weak.

“No! No please! No more!” You begged, tears dribbling down your cheeks to mingle among the dirt and blood. “I already told you I-I don’t know anything! Please!”

“Woah, woah.” It was Dick’s voice that broke through to you, though they had all called out to you. It was him who had reached out to you in the first place, hesitant that the smallest touch would break you. As soon as they were met with resistance they knew you were here. And they fought as fast as they could to get to you. Praying that they wouldn’t find you as you had. Sprawled out across the floor in a pool of your own blood as you struggled to breathe. “It’s us.”

“We’re here, Kid.” Jason leaned forwards to remove the blindfold from your eyes as Dick tried to support you in his arms. You squiremed weakly, still untrusting. But the minute the blindfold was off and you had finished adjusting to the onslaught of light. You broke.

You collapsed into Dicks arms, sobbing and shaking. He cupped the back of your head with his hands and held you, giving Jason and Duke a nervous glance. Your blood had already begun to stain the front of his suit as you whimpered in his arms, clinging to him tightly. 

When he tried to shift you, you let out a sob and clung to him tighter. He wasn’t sure if it was because he had hurt you or because you were scared he was going to leave you. Probably both.

“Y/N?” Jason whispered, moving to crouch by your side. “ We’re here now. We’re going to get you home okay? Can you tell us what happened?”

You shook your head and buried your face into Dicks chest trying to block out the pain.

Eyes turned to Duke who watched you with sad eyes. They observed as he surveyed the room, taking in the horrors that the light revealed. And he couldn’t help the gasp that slipped out of his lips. 

He paled at what he saw. Winced at the way your face contorted with pain as the woman towered over you, tossing you about the room like a ragdoll and slashing you with various tools as she screamed at you. He saw how she would catch you off guard by sneaking up on you in the dark as some cruel game to satisfy her sick amusement. He felt sick. 

In the time it took for him to see the echo of your agonies, Dick had managed to coax enough for him to stand so they could bring you out of the room and get you urgently to medical attention. 

The two looked at him expectantly. And once he had managed to stutter out what he had seen, Jason was tensely clenching his jaw and fists. 

Someone was going to bleed tonight. He was going to make sure of that.

Taglist:

@aestheticdaisies

@hell-o-kittys

@xxrougefangxx

@mamapucket

@hearts4robs

@harleycao

[moondirti]

due to popular demand, a follow up to this featuring: 18+ content, gaz, ballerina!reader, internet stalking, men being gross, another a thinly veiled character study

Kyle is a good man.

Granted, his metric is not attuned to common standards for morality anymore, nor has it been that way since basic. He's sure that if he were to pick any sheltered samaritan off the street to read out his laundry list of transgressions, they'd balk at the fact that their taxes go to keeping him fed. They'd rather their image of the army stay unsullied and ideal. They'd rather keep him at arms length with a thank you for your service and not confront the blood caked beneath his fingernails.

But he can no longer be held to their degree. No longer exists within these spaces. No. Kyle – or Gaz, if one were to go off of what he's called most often nowadays – is a doorstop. A pestle. Something inconspicuous, obscure, that serves the sole function of making life easier for everyone but itself. And he assumes this role with a handful of others who have nothing else to live for, exiled to crowd the back of Foxhounds and kill at a moment's notice. Foul men. Friends.

If someone were to line up every operative on a special forces unit, or better yet collect the likes of the 141 and asses each for their moral standing, Gaz can rest knowing he'd come out on top. He's not yet as far gone as they are; can enjoy a night out or a pretty bird writhing underneath him without wanting to choke her out. Only devoted to his captain, or the others, to the extent that their professional relationship calls for (no matter how much it itches at him to watch Ghost take care of Soap, or to reject Price when he offers him a drink).

Sure, he laughs at their jokes. Might pitch in when they're swapping stories of their filthiest catch, Soap rattling on about the lass who'd stuffed her tongue up his arse, or encourage them to shoot on sight if they spot a potential threat, civilian or otherwise. Yet the difference is this: when he goes home, he can stuff that all away.

Knows not to let it infest the boundaries of the real world. Off deployment, his comrades play pretend at the noncombatant lifestyle, but the guise is ill-fitting. They're too big for their skin. They stretch and tear at the conventions holding them in place, like feral dogs made to heel. Kyle doesn't have to be tamed. He's still functional, familiar with the expectations held of him. Can submit to integrity more easily than most.

Kyle is a good man.

And that's what he tells himself as he returns home, train car completely void of anyone but himself. He's good for having given you up. He's good for not have followed you home. There'd been a brief lapse of judgement, but he's good for doing something about it before things passed the point of no return.

You've lived this far without his protection, he reasons. Yet it doesn't change the unreachable itch, closed away in a supposedly locked box. Gaz. Or, his captain's voice, cigar-smoked and advisory.

But why should you continue like that.

It's hard to fall asleep that night.

He's sick with worry wondering if you ever got home, bile broiling and distending up his throat at the thought of having abandoned you. It's pure concern that compels him to find your socials, really. Kyle is only searching for an update, or recent post, indicating that you're alive.

With nothing to go off of but a face, he searches for dance studios in both Acton Town, your area, and the Kensington, the area where you'd boarded the tube from. He makes a shortlist of the most reputable ones (your attire seemed to imply that you were a seasoned ballerina) and cross-checks them as hosts of upcoming recitals. Two renditions of Swan Lake and a production of Giselle turn up, each with their very own cast lists. Thus begins a tireless search of every name credited.

His heart almost leaps out of his nose when you eventually load into view, then plummets at how easy you'd been to find.

Your vulnerability only sets Kyle's conviction in stone. Bloody good thing he's got your best interests in mind.

Locked twitter, a LinkedIn, and a public Instagram page which sends his blood pressure skyrocketing after checking your follower count. Popular. And of course he can see why. Over a hundred posts chronicling bright smiles and flattering outfits. You mainly use the account to promote your practice, though; feed full of skimpy little outfits, leotards and exposed sternums and impossible poses.

Stop it. He's here for something specific.

Kyle sips in a deep breath, scrolls back to the top of your page, clicks on your most recent post. A casual video of your leg raised on a barre while your friend counts how high above your previous record you're able to stretch. Your skin is sweat-slicked. Your mouth is thrown open in a half-laugh, half-pant. He almost forgets why he clicked on it in the first place, before the timestamp catches his eye.

30 minutes ago.

So, you'd gotten home.

He can go to bed now.

Exit your account. Swipe up on Instagram to clear it from his running apps. If he's extra disciplined, he'd block you. Rob himself of the temptation to tug himself over the photo of you in the splits.

Kyle is a good man because he knows his limits.

(But Kyle now also knows the address of your studio. That, even if he blocks you, it'll take up space in his chest. A ticking-time bomb. A knowledge that'll haunt him whenever he's on the District, Circle, or Piccadilly lines, and the train announces Gloucester Road. A force, a stone in his throat, that'll grow so large it'll force him to stand up and disembark, to walk until he's standing right outside and wait on you to wrap up rehearsal.)

It occurs to him that the point of no return has long since passed.

inclusivity note: i felt the need to say that, while reader is a dancer, her profession is not meant to imply anything about her body type. flexibility and agility are not limited to thin builds, and while the ballet industry can be very toxic, i've seen my fair share of spaces where all figures are embraced and success is determined only by ability!

[hellsite-detective]

hellsite hall of fame reblogged it with the edit the other day, but the post where op is afraid of vampires and their brother changed the clock to confuse the vampires so they’d think it was day and leave them alone. it was edited to say danny devito instead of vampires

can you find the original version with vampires and not the danny devito edit ty

takin' a look at this request, i thought this was gonna be a real hard one. trackin' down the danny devito version is a piece of cake. but the original version with the vampires? anythin' but. or so i thought...

first thing i did was took a stroll down the Madame Curator's museum of eccentric antiquities, the Hellsite Hall of Fame itself. i went in and found the post rather quickly as it was a new edition to her gallery. but that's when i realized it wasn't an image that had been edited, it was the original post. i sent a correspondence along to the mysterious museum cryptid askin' if it were possible to track down the unedited version. while i waited for her response, i decided to take a look through the post's notes. my thought was that maybe, if i scrolled far enough, i could find reblogs from the time when this post was still about vampires. but what i found instead was incredible.

a screenshot showin' the original version of the post, with a second username included. i quickly searched that name on tumblr and found the post almost immediately. the original version about vampires had been found.

this one was one i thought was gonna be real hard, but ended up bein' quite an enjoyable ride. thanks for takin' me on this journey! have a great day!

Post Case: Closed

[moviecritc]

deaf, blind and mute ⋆ pato o'ward (ft. david malukas)

pairing: pato o'ward x teammate!fem!oc, david malukas x teammate!fem!oc (platonic)

tropes: secret relationship

summary: pato, david and mía have to do a challege together for the media day and they ended spilling that pato and mía are dating

warnings: chaos, partial smau

a/n: english is not my first language, sorry for the mistakes and poor storytelling.

masterlist | wattpad | letterboxd

The Arrow McLaren team knew Pato and Mía were sentimentally involved with each other for a long time. When they informed them about it they'd been dating for almost ten months and it's been four month since that meeting. Back then they agreed that they'll keep their relationship private so it doesn't interfere in bussiness and to mantain the team image. Also because of Mía being and dating a driver, she was afraid of losing credibility.

Privately, Pato and Mía were the cutest couple for all of their friends. They met on karting when they were kids, then they reunite many years later in McLaren's Indycar team. They were together in the same team for five years as friends before they started dating.

At that time, Mía was feeling down because she didn't like any guy. The only masculine contact that she liked was Pato's, and thanks to some friend's advice she realized that it was because she was in love with Pato. Meanwhile, Pato had had a crush on Mía for the past five years.

And now they were doing a silly challege for the Arrow McLaren media team because of the upcoming season. Oh and David Malukas was also around.

"Hey guys, it's Mía," she waved at the camera with a smile.

"This is David," he scrunched his nose and imitated Mía.

"And I'm Pato," he said. The team put David in the middle so Pato and Mía didn't get handy all of a sudden. "And we're here to do the deaf, mute and blind challege. Were one of us is going to be deaf, other blind and other mute."

"And we're also baking a cake for the Arrow McLaren anniversary," explained David.

"If that's not enough, they're going to ask us questions once in a while," Mía said, with a smirk. "And all of us are going to be able to answer them

"But that's a lot of work..." David complained.

"I know," Mía whispered.

"Alright! Let's get into work, mates," Pato clapped his hands.

Mía quickly move to his side, messing the organization the team made. "How do we distribute them?" she rubbed her hands together, watching the tape, headphones and band the team got them.

"It looks like a weird sex kit, don't you think?" David said.

"Oh my God, Dave!" Mía exclaimed, hiding a laughter. "You're going mute."

Mía handed him the tape and he gave her a bad look.

"I'll take the headphones," Mía smiled triumphant. "You guys received my playlist, right?"

Mía looked around into the backstage, receiving a nod from their media manager Vic.

"I'm too cool to be mute," David complained.

Meanwhile Mía helped Pato tying the band around his eyes with a silly smile.

"Okey, we're ready," Pato said, after Mía made sure he couldn't see anything.

"Give me a banger, Vic!" Mía said, almost shouting. They started playing Cruel Summer and she sang along from the very first verse.

Pato tried caught her attention so Mía could read the recipe for him. He knew it would be a bad idea to put headphones on her girlfriend.

"Mía!" he didn't shout too much, but she kept singing. "MÍA, I NEED YOU TO READ THE RECIPE OUT LOUD,"

"EH?" she also started to scream.

"THE RECIPE," Pato kept shouting.

"THE RECIPE?"

"YES!" Pato almost jumped when Mía got it right.

David looked at the camera, sick of the couple.

"NICE!" Mía said and handed Pato the paper so he could read it. "Oh, wait."

Mía read him the recipe trying to control her voice while David had a long face because of not being able to talk.

"Alright," Pato felt around the table, preparing to bake. He search for Mía. "MÍA, I NEED YOU TO GUIDE ME TO MAKE THE CAKE."

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO SHOUT, BABE, I CAN READ YOUR LIPS," she nodded with a soft smile.

None of the couple notice the nickname, they must've been used to it. But David looked to Vic quickly, with a scared glance.

"Ok, guys, hand me the butter," Pato extended his hand and Mía had the impulse to lick it. She controlled herself for the team's sake.

"THE WHAT?" she shouted again.

David made space for himself and gave Pato the goddamn butter. Mía looked at them with disgust.

"Why has to be Pato the one to do everything?"

"Because you'd fuck it, hermosa," Pato said, vocalizing slowly so Mía understanded every word.

She gasped but not as loud as the media team after Pato's word.

"Get the fuck out of my way," Mía said, decided to make the cake once and for all. "Dave, let's do this together. Oh, I love this song."

Mía got distracted and started singing No Scrubs.

"Ok, guys. It's time for the first question," Vic said, trying to control everything that had been going on for the whole challenge. "And, please, get Mía's attention."

Both of the guys stared at Mía dancinc in the back and singing along. Pato tapped her shoulder, only to Mía singing it straight to his face. Pato didn't even try to pretend that he despised it. He just stared at her with loving eyes.

"No, I don't want your number. No, I don't wanna give you mine," Mía sang horribly but Pato couldn't stop looking at her.

"Oh my God, guys!" David peeled off the tape from his mouth, his expression fed up. "Hide it a little more, idiots."

Pato stopped laughing and turn his head to David, even though he couldn't see him. He raised his band a little to look at Vic and see what they were doing now.

"WHAT DID HE SAID?" Mía gave Pato a scared stare and took off one of the headphones. "What is going on?"

Mía talk only to Pato, almost whispering. Pato give Vic another glance and she just shrugged her shoulders, downplaying importance.

"Jus Dave being stupid," Pato explained and looked at David rasing his eyebrow, he nodded.

"Oh, nothing out of the ordinary then," Mía smiled and put her headphones back on.

"What was the question again?" Pato said, before giving Mía a loving stare.

patriciooward new post

patriciooward isn't she lovely?

tagged mia54

liked by elbaoward, davidmalukas and others

davidmalukas she's not

mia54 shut the f up lil dave

elbaoward ok i'm jealouss

mia54 you're married??

mia54 that girl is super cute you must be a lucky man

patriciooward i'm actually forced to be her bf soo mia54 bad for you

user1 pato blink twice if you need help

user2 wait wat

user3 chat is this real?

user4 hell yea, they confirmed it in an arrow mclaren video

user5 FINALLY

user2 do we have to pretend we didn't know or how?

mía54 pretty boy 😘🦆

patriciooward lover girll 😍

user4 OK COUPLE GOALS

user3 i'm taking a bath with a toaster real quick

davidmalukas pato ur my fav wag now 🤩🤩

mia54 he's so housewife core 🥰

[severinageto]

TOXIC (and I love what you do) PART ONE

July, 2009

Satoru knew that some of the Japanese earthquakes, most of them and the strongest ones, were caused by the movement of the Pacific plates. But he also knew that others, generally those under six on the Richter scale, were the fault of Namazu, the giant catfish that lives even deeper than the deepest trench of the Japanese archipelago. A few days ago, Kashima, the god in charge of controlling this immense fish, had escaped. He wasn't very powerful, really, but they couldn't let him abandon his guardian duties. Namazu had been very restless lately, and the people didn’t need to keep reliving that over and over.

That's why, when the academy received the request for help from the Sendai municipality and despite any second-rate sorcerer being able to handle it, Gojo didn’t think twice. He liked the city and something inside him said that the sea air would do him good. Plus, they sold his favorite sweets there.

For Satoru, exorcizing it was a piece of cake. The hard part was finding it. On the first day, he searched almost the entire coast, without success. It shook three times. On the second day, in the residential neighborhoods. Six small tremors, but no trace of the god. On the third day, he decided to leave the city, heading more towards the countryside. There, at the entrance of one of the forests, he found an old man around 70 years old who emanated enough cursed energy to be a Window.

He wasn’t wrong. The old man recognized him immediately.

“Gojo Satoru?!” the old man shouted from afar. “They did well to send you! Come closer, please!”

Gojo huffed and approached as slowly as his long legs would allow. He hated interactions with locals who acted like fans. Almost two meters from the old man, it shook. Satoru stopped and waited for it to stop. He walked again. Another tremor. And so on, until he got close enough to have a conversation.

“What’s going on, old man? How’s the cursed energy around here?”

The old man, shocked by Satoru’s lack of respect, could only point towards the forest.

“Is it there?”

The man nodded.

“Oki doki, old man. Thanks a lot,” the albino said, smiling cheerfully. However, the smile vanished once he set foot in the forest; he felt a cursed energy that was, to say the least, familiar.

That cursed energy. That damn cursed energy.

“No, impossible,” he thought, waving his hands to dispel the images that had come to his mind. He ventured into the forest and, even though he stopped feeling it, the nervousness didn’t leave him.

After walking about four kilometers, he found an abandoned house and, like a lightning bolt, a terribly familiar smell hit him. “Oh, shit. It’s his trail. No doubt about it.” He turned his head in all directions, his face contorting into an almost terrified grimace. “No. It’s not just the trail. It’s…”

He looked at the roof of the house and saw him. Suguru dressed completely in black, hands in his pockets, and hair fully tied up. He watched him, cold, almost impassive, and handsome. As handsome as the last time.

Satoru swallowed hard.

“What are you doing here, Geto?”

Three days ago, Suguru had captured the god in charge of the mischievous underwater fish with the sole purpose of extorting the Sendai municipality. However, when his contacts warned him that someone from Jujutsu Tech had been sent, Geto thought it would be fun to stick around. Nanami? Shoko? Which of his old colleagues would be the lucky one to have a session with him?

Never in his damn life did he imagine it would be Satoru. This was beneath his level. And no, it couldn't be just for that reason. Could it? He found himself smiling as he felt his cursed energy, the moment Satoru entered the forest. Yep, it was definitely for the sweets.

“I was waiting for you, Gojo,” he lied with a wicked smile.

Satoru felt like throwing up. “What is this? How could I be so stupid?” he thought, distressed. He looked at Suguru, who was still smiling at him, and felt a rage he couldn't remember ever feeling. He clenched his fists, trying to stay cool. “No, I won't react. I have to look calm. It has to look like I don't give a damn.”

Suguru jumped down to his level.

“Long time no see!” he said, waving.

He looked at him more closely and, realizing his eyes were covered, stopped smiling. He didn't like it when he covered his eyes. In his opinion, it made him look weak. And he hated seeing Satoru weak.

“You've changed. I see you went with the bandages.”

“You look the same,” the albino said apathetically. He was trying his best not to breathe heavily, but the rage kept building. Of course Suguru looked the same. Just like all the times Gojo had caught him spying, at the same station as always. Did he really think he didn't notice?

Geto, on the other hand, was expecting a different reaction from the albino. He knew he had seen him those times. He did it on purpose. “I guess this is the game he chose today,” the curse manipulator thought.

He smiled at him again, this time sweetly.

“Ha, maybe freedom suits me. Doesn’t it suit you, Gojo?” Suguru had started circling him slowly, scrutinizing every detail of his long body. “Hmm… Maybe not.”

Gojo breathed slowly. Who was this idiot? His gaze, his movements, even his voice seemed like they belonged to someone else. “Obviously. This isn’t him. It’s Geto Sama. A cruel murderer. A son of a bitch.”

“Enough with the nonsense,” said the albino, moving away from Suguru. “What do you want? Or are you going to tell me it’s a coincidence finding you here, old friend?”

Suguru started walking towards him again. “Old friend, Satoru? Would that have been better for you?” he thought, amused.

“A bit of this, a bit of that. Come on, aren’t you going to try to kill me right away? Maybe I woke up wanting to die,” he said, putting his right hand to his forehead in a dramatic gesture.

“Don’t give me that shit.”

“Wow, Gojo. Why so violent? Wasn’t I the monster, the beast?” he asked sarcastically, getting closer and closer to Satoru.

Gojo didn’t know why he wasn’t smashing his face in at that moment. What was he up to? He didn’t believe for a second that he was there ready to die. From what he knew, Geto Sama was everything but a suicidal. He scoffed, remembering the teenage and depressive version of Suguru.

“Or are you still mad at me for that day?” Geto continued, now so close that their noses were almost touching. “When was it? September 2007?” He stretched out his right palm and counted on his fingers, out loud. “Come on, it’s been almost two years! Don’t you think that’s a bit much?”

He said this while still smiling, but now with cruelty. The accumulated rage he felt towards the albino was getting the better of him, and contrary to what his disciplined personality dictated, Suguru gave in to the impulse to torment him, even though he knew that with just one gesture, one small gesture, he’d be turned to dust. And Geto didn’t want to die, especially not at the hands of that idiot Satoru.

Or so he thought. Having him so close, after all that time, was stirring up feelings he thought he’d forgotten and god, what rage. He fixed his purple eyes on him and tried to hit him with his chest, but Gojo activated his technique.

The albino was fed up and confused. Why did his six eyes still think he could trust him? No, it was impossible. He didn’t even know the man standing in front of him.

He remembered that day. The cold, the wind, and the feeling of not knowing his own life. The first time he dissociated and the first time he realized that he was, truly, fragile. Arrogant. Weak. A puppet. All those things had been told to him, between the lines, by the person who was once his entire world, a world that now was leaving and abandoning him.

“Almost two years, yeah. That’s what you stole from me with your madness, you son of a bitch,” he thought, clenching his fist even tighter. He felt a small trickle of blood coming from his hand. He breathed very slowly again and, in a very calm voice, said:

“Don’t flatter yourself, Geto. You were nothing but a whim.”

“God, I’m disgusting,” he thought immediately.

Suguru looked at him indifferently, even though he could visualize, and feel, a silver knife piercing his dark heart. The albino was lying. Obviously. But that didn’t explain how betrayed he felt hearing those words.

“A whim? Wow… makes sense. Is that why you weren’t there when I needed you, Gojo?” he said with his most charming smile. “A year of loneliness, where ironically, I slept with you every night. In theory and to everyone else: the perfect couple. In practice: it was all about you and your path to perfection. In the end, it was all empty words. Do you remember the promises you made? Pff. A whim, of course. A whim of privileged people. Maybe it was my fault for expecting anything, anything at all, from you.”

Gojo knew he couldn’t continue in this dynamic, or he’d lose. Suguru’s words made him realize that he always loved him more than he did. What an unfair mess. Why didn’t he just kill him? Maybe just to see if he could hurt him the same way.

He lowered his bandage and locked his eyes onto his.

"We both said a lot of things that weren’t real, Geto. Probably just because of our age and who knows what else. I thought you were sexy. I wanted to sleep with you. So yeah, I played along with all that stuff you’re talking about. Can you blame me? You obviously know how hot you were, though not so much now."

Geto frowned. He wasn’t expecting that. But Satoru wouldn’t get under his skin. No, Suguru wasn’t as shallow as him. Still, he used all his meditation techniques to breathe calmly because his heart was racing.

"Oh, poor me! The great Gojo Satoru used me as his sex toy! And I... well, I..." He looked him up and down, piercingly. "I know I said I loved you, but it was never really like that, so we’re even."

He smiled mischievously. He knew Gojo had loved him with all his being. Probably still did. But what about him?

"Me? Did I stop loving him? No, that doesn’t matter now", he thought.

Satoru tried to breathe as calmly as possible. His heart had shattered with every word. He could feel there were no pieces left.

"I’m lying, Suguru. But it seems like you’re not", thought.

"So neither of us fell in love, blah, blah. How boring. Whatever. The truth is, you’re here, and I have to kill you. Are you really the suicidal type, Geto? No... you think too highly of yourself. Oh! Actually, you think you can beat me!" he said while covering his eyes again. He smiled. "That’s it! HAHA. You never could. You never will, Geto Suguru," he added mockingly.

Suguru felt humiliated. Defeated. "Touché. Weak spot, Satoru. You’ll see."

"Ha."

“Shit, he got here before me,” Satoru thought, realizing Geto had the spirit of Kashima; a rumble came from the depths of the earth, and a magnitude five quake shook the place.

Suguru looked at him, impassive, while Satoru thought quickly. He couldn’t leave Suguru with a curse of such power, but what could he offer him? Apparently, he didn’t just resent him; he hated him. He opened his mouth to ask him to stop, but didn’t get the chance: a blade passed by his head and cut a bit of his hair. Gojo looked at Suguru, alarmed. “He’s really strong, he won’t beat me, but...”

Suddenly, Suguru called Kashima, and he emerged from the ground with a beautiful and ethereal katana. The tremor stopped.

"Come on, Gojo Satoru. You’re right. We both know I won’t beat you. Not like this, at least. I just wanted to show you that I’m stronger than before. Do you really want to keep wasting time?"

Suguru was still annoyed, not really understanding why he had attacked him. “The bastard managed to get under my skin. All this time and he still does it. I hate him.”

Satoru was really confused. “What the hell is wrong with him? What’s the point of all this?”, he thought.

"So, what’s all this fuss for?" Satoru asked. "I thought maybe you’d want to make me sweat a bit before your end."

Hearing those words, Geto couldn’t help but think of Satoru sweating.

He remembered being on top of him during those hot summer nights when sweat would run down his white hair, and with every thrust, it would wet his face. Suguru would fake disgust, and Satoru would smile at him, lick his face, and then kiss him as tenderly as the heat of the moment allowed. Then he’d go back to thrusting, until the sweat mixed with everything else.

As those moments came to mind, Suguru automatically blushed; Gojo did too when he noticed. Their minds were filled with the same images that had invaded the black-haired guy’s. They stared at each other for a while, both with blank minds. They seemed like teenagers again. Suddenly, Satoru said:

"Uh…when I said sweating, I meant physical exercise, like with your hands—" The albino felt embarrassed. When did the situation take that turn? "Ah, I mean a fight to the death," he added nervously, thinking he was being a complete idiot.

Suguru, on the other hand, felt very irritated, but with himself. Seeing Satoru hesitate like that reminded him of his teenage years, when he had just met him and his clumsy flirting. That feeling of nostalgia not only made him feel unexpectedly tender but also made something stir in his pants. "No. No. NOT NOW, STUPID."

"That’s what you’d like..." Suguru grumbled.

"That stupid thing I said by accident... got you turned on, Suguru. Is that why you’re here?" Gojo thought. He had noticed what was happening to Geto. After all, it had been countless nights and days together. It was about a month after their first time that Satoru’s six eyes could even detect the change in Suguru’s blood pressure when it came to sexual desire.

The albino took a breath and teleported next to Suguru so he could whisper in his ear:

"Well, well. Don’t you remember how well I know you... Suguru?"

Without thinking and intuitively, Gojo moved his hand toward Suguru’s crotch. Geto felt his erection grow even more. However, he grabbed Satoru’s wrist tightly.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" he said, pushing him away with disdain.

Gojo’s eyes were wide open and he felt even more confused. "Why did I do that? Ugh, no, I can’t go back to…", thought.

Suguru’s view of summoning the kami again interrupted his thoughts and made him get on guard. However, he noticed that his ex-boyfriend’s expression, besides being angry, seemed strangely melancholic. Satoru waited. He didn’t want to be the first to attack.

However, Suguru put the curse away again. He felt awful. The memory of his teenage years not only brought him that excitement from their passionate days together but also the bitter taste of the time following Riko Amanai’s murder.

"It's ironic that you bring up how well you know me. You perfected your senses to notice when I was turned on. Congrats. You’re right. Thinking about you sweating turned me on. You still turn me on," Suguru said, staring at the ground. "But why couldn’t your eyes see that I needed you? Why didn’t they tell you to come find me? Why didn’t you come looking for me? Five days. I waited for you for five days, in our spot."

"Or maybe you always knew who I really was," Suguru thought. "Can I blame you? Not really. No one knows me like you do. Ugh. I don’t understand what I’m feeling. What a messed-up situation; I need to do something about it. I need to know if it’s real."

Satoru lowered his hands slowly. He didn’t know how to react. He felt sadness, but it was fleeting. Looking at his former lover, he saw cold eyes. Not the ones he loved. Not the ones that really excited him. "He’s playing with you. Stay strong, Satoru. You’re strong", he thought.

"I already told you. It was just sex. I played with you. For a moment, I thought about playing again. But why bother if…"

He stopped when he felt Suguru’s right hand touch him. Suguru had walked over while he was speaking, and the Infinite had automatically deactivated.

Suguru smiled genuinely. Apparently, the albino was also lying.

"Can I touch you just like that? Wow…."

Following his intuition and desire, Suguru gently slid his index finger into the waistband of Gojo’s pants. The albino tried with all his might to fight against what was coming, but it was useless. His mind was blank. He only knew he was rock hard.

"Does your instinct still trust me?" Suguru continued, bringing his face closer to the albino’s. "Or is it…" he whispered, sliding his entire hand into the pants, "…something purely carnal?"

"Suguru…no."

"Shh. Didn’t you want this a minute ago?"

He started masturbating him. Moving closer to his ear, he whispered:

"Don’t you remember how you used to play with me… Satoru?"

He said his name with a moan, just the way he knew he liked. He stopped thinking about the consequences of what he was doing, and like Satoru, only knew he needed to feel that body inside his again and again. He slipped his other hand into the pants and started to caress Satoru’s anus. Gojo was shocked, but he didn’t care. He was frozen. He wanted to fight Geto but couldn’t. He had called him by his name. It was something insignificant, maybe even ridiculous, but it worked like a curse for him. No one else called him that. Not like that. Not as if they cared.

Even so, in that intoxication, Satoru knew there was a chance he was just being used. He tried to think, to ground himself, but damn, it felt so good. It felt like coming home.

"Suguru…" He dug his nails into his shoulder. "…stop."

"Years ago, it was the same," Geto whispered, ignoring Satoru’s plea. "A tiny hint and… just feel me," he added, pressing against him.

Suguru rubbed his erection against Satoru’s and started moving slowly. Yes, just like when he was a fifteen-year-old with hormones raging, he had fallen prey to the innate charms of the Six Eyes bearer. He still couldn’t make himself immune. No, apparently, for Suguru, reaching nirvana was much easier than resisting. "I can’t stay still; it’s been too long; nothing compares to this smell. Oh, Satoru. I’ve missed you," he thought, resting his chin on his shoulder. He touched his chest, and even through the clothes, he could feel his nipples hardening. Slowly, he started to open his mouth near his neck. He stuck out his tongue and ran the tip close to Satoru’s ear. Gently, with his left hand, he pulled up the blindfold.

"Let me look at you, Satoru."

Suguru was about to kiss him, and Gojo knew that as soon as he felt the touch of his lips, he would explode.

“No, no. No. If I come, he’ll have me in his hands. More than I already am,” Satoru thought, confused. The curse user’s words still echoed in his soul. He didn’t believe that the excitement he was showing was real.

As a result, he pulled away violently. Geto looked at him as if he had been told the worst insult in the world.

“STOP, SUGURU! We can’t… No—” He moved away, fixing his pants and blindfold. “Let’s stop this crap. Tell me what you want. Quick. And before anything else, no. I can’t spare your life. It’s not up to me and…”

“Neither do you want to.”

Despite wanting nothing more than to let him live and fuck him every day, away from the sorcerers and their mundane problems, Satoru lied shamelessly:

“Yeah. I don’t want to either.”

Few things had hit Suguru’s ego like those words. His first reaction, like a wounded wild animal, was to kick him in the stomach. Instead of casting a spell, Satoru went straight into hand-to-hand combat with Geto.

They fought intensely. Kicks, punches, and pushes came and went relentlessly. The sound of their blows was all that could be heard, as they didn’t speak a word. Both had their minds blank.

Suddenly, Suguru’s superiority in martial arts became evident. He pinned Gojo to the ground with a hold. Geto saw only red and began to choke him.

Tears started running down the face of the one who had once been his lover. “Come on, move. Ugh, I shouldn’t even have to try. One flash and it’s over for him. But… okay. Maybe it’s time to let go,” the albino thought. “In his hands? Tsk. It’s… whatever. Better him than anyone else.”

Struggling to speak due to the pressure on his vocal cords, he said:

“Okay, do it. I won’t resist you anymore, Suguru.”

As soon as he heard his voice, Geto realized what he was doing. At that moment, he could end the Six Eyes bearer and easily pave the way to his new world. At that moment, all his cult leader's dreams would come true. But at that moment, Gojo Satoru would cease to exist, and with that, any chance of seeing him, touching him, or hearing him say his name.

The question was: Did he really want to live in a world without Satoru?

Surprised to be back to those thoughts, he let go. Satoru gasped for air, recovering and coughing. He was on his knees, looking at the ground, with his back to Suguru.

Geto was also breathing heavily. “Has it really been that long? It feels like it was yesterday. Why the hell can’t I let him go?” he thought. He straightened up and walked over to Gojo. He watched him for a moment. “He doesn’t want to let me go either. I can feel it in my bones.”

He offered his hand to help him up, which Gojo didn’t accept. The albino’s crystal blue eyes fixed on him, still gasping. He was realizing what had just happened. He had handed his life to him, the worst of all sorcerers. To Geto Sama. To Suguru. The love of his life. And he hadn’t taken it. For some reason, he felt offended. He wanted to spit at him. He wanted to hit him. He wanted to grab his silky hair and show him that Gojo Satoru’s life wasn’t a gift someone could afford to disregard like that. He wanted to tear him apart.

Suguru sighed deeply. He had squandered the chance to be the killer of the great Gojo Satoru, and why? Just because he had remembered the corner of his mouth when he smiled? The sparkle in his eyes when he greeted him in the mornings? His unmistakable purple scent? God, how he hated the albino. Maybe he did want to kill him. Maybe. But not before getting tangled up between his legs. He was already there, in a place he knew he couldn’t escape from. No turning back now.

“Damn it. I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t try”, Suguru thought.

“Unless you tell me otherwise right now, I’ll go to your hotel tonight, Satoru.”

Gojo’s expression hardened. “Is this really happening? DID HE REALLY SAY THAT? After what just happened, after the words earlier… he still wants us to fuck? Wow. This guy…” the albino thought, furious. He opened his mouth to tell him off and fill him with insults, but no sound came out.

Suguru waited a few seconds. Not getting a response, he walked away. “Oh well. At least I’ll have material to deal with the others.”

Suddenly, he heard Gojo’s voice:

“Suguru…”

Geto froze. “Wow, I got nervous. Am I a complete idiot?” He nodded, indicating he was listening.

“Room 603.”

Suguru, without turning around, gave him the peace sign. He couldn’t help but smile, a smile that came from the bottom of his soul. “I’m a complete idiot,” he thought as he left.

As Satoru adjusted his blindfold, he also reflected. “Suguru is a complete idiot. But I’m worse.”

—————-

Part two on: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57588175/chapters/146534281

Image by https://x.com/lxzemathena?s=21

[scuttlingcrab]

A Hellish Dealer

Inspired by the Merchant Raphael that could've been, but now only exists in our imaginations. RIP. Gone but not forgotten. Thank you @firlionemoontav for the prompt idea and letting me know that we were robbed of Merchant Raphael!

Summary: Raphael isn't only a saviour, but a proficient salesman. After coming to Tav’s rescue, again, he offers the little mouse an item, straight from his Devilish line of goods, that he hopes will aid her in the fights ahead.

Link to my other work in the Devil's Archive.

(Image via devils-little-mouse)

Tav gasped for air, clutching at her chest. Her temples pulsed, her skull vibrating along with each thumping heartbeat. Her throat burned as she inhaled, like she had swallowed a bucket full of coal. It made her want to vomit, a cold sweat dripping from her forehead. Tav shivered, struggling to sit up. She eventually found the strength to hug her knees in a sad attempt to warm herself.

Without warning, memories flashed before her eyes. Just moments ago, she had been falling, her body plunging into something sharp. Pain jetted through her chest, a searing sensation stemming from the pits of her soul. Her companions' screams echoed in the recesses of her mind, their pleas for help, cries of agony had blended into one… until there was only quiet, her entire world consumed by nothing but shadows. 

Tav blinked, her eyes caked with dirt. She rubbed away the grime, her mind scrambling, attempting to put the millions of shattered pieces of this reality back together. She loosened the laces of her tunic, hoping that would give her some more room to breathe. Her hands stopped abruptly, running over a massive tear in the middle of her chest. She looked down, eyes widening at the discovery that her entire tunic was covered in dried blood. She instantly reached for her back, feeling an identical rip between her shoulder blades.

Tav’s chest tightened, spots of black dotting across her vision. 

Breathe, Tav. Breathe. 

She felt the floor with her fingertips. Stones. It was damp, slippery. 

She’s still here. Breathe. That’s it. 

She turned her head, attempting to look around, to search for her companions… but her vision was hazy, the specks of black refusing to leave her alone. 

Tav’s nose itched and she suppressed a cough, tears forming from the corner of her eyes as the scent of sulphur suddenly assaulted her senses.  

A large black shadow came into view, looming above her ominously. She blinked again and the area around her slowly came into focus, the shapeless being forming a clearer silhouette… and then a face. Their features morphed into something familiar. Big dark eyes stared down at her, the irises briefly flickering orange, like tiny flames. They were tall, their hair short and brown… 

Wait a damned second. 

“Raphael?” Tav whispered, confusion contorting her face.

Raphael smiled wide, bearing his teeth. He wore the same shit eating grin from when they first met on that bridge, when this entire fiasco began.

“It seems you’re not very perceptive after all, despite my countless warnings.” 

“Your… W-what?” Tav coughed, blood splattering on her palms. She immediately wiped it away on her trousers, growing more disgusted with herself. 

“The infernal markings, scattered throughout this Mausoleum. So simple I had assumed even a half-wit such as yourself could’ve spotted them.” 

Tav swallowed, another lump forming in her throat. Now that Raphael mentioned it, there were a bunch of weird symbols littered throughout the doorways of that stupid fucking Mausoleum, and a few of those scribbles suspiciously resembled arrows. She had shrugged them off, thinking it was some kind of joke or just someone’s sad attempt at artwork. Not actual warning signs from the Devil himself… pointing in the right bloody direction this entire time. They had been lost for hours, going back and forth one twisted hallway after another.

Well, Karlach was right… and Tav was a fucking idiot. 

Tav stood abruptly, hoping to cover up her festering embarrassment. As soon as she rose, the room rotated, faster and faster like she was caught in the middle of a windstorm. The floor came up to meet her in a blur and she shut her eyes, bracing herself for another explosive impact. She instead felt a sharp tug on her arm as her body was yanked to one side, promptly followed by a pleasant embrace. Tav leaned into the hold, enjoying the stillness and melting against the comforting heat radiating from… 

She opened her eyes, only to find herself snuggled in Raphael’s arms, her head resting against his chest. She held her breath as she glanced up at him. He winked in response and Tav blushed, her cheeks catching fire almost immediately. That damned face, that damned Devil… she never thought his smile could get any more condescending.

Tav ripped herself away from Raphael, wobbling as she tried to keep herself upright without his support, but it only got worse. 

“Oh Gods, I’m going to be sic–” 

The sound of a snap ricocheted throughout the chamber walls, settling her stomach and the spinning room simultaneously. 

“The little mouse, ever so hasty to escape the hands that saved it. You nearly soiled my favourite pair of boots. I will have you know, these are quite expensive.”

Tav held her hands out wide to keep her balance, shaking away any lingering bouts of nausea. 

“My f-friends… what have you don…”

“Oh, they aren’t going anywhere. Besides, I’d like a few more minutes alone with you.” Raphael paused, his eyes travelling up Tav’s body as if he was about to devour her for supper. “And please wipe that bewildered look off your face. Yes, that boney little cretin that lingers at your camp isn’t the only one who can bring mortals back from the dead. Now sit still, else you’ll ruin my handiwork.” 

There was another snap and Tav was transported away from the Mausoleum in a rush of sparks that tickled her skin. She materialised on a spacious balcony, her body gently fitting into a plush leather chair. The material stuck to her exposed skin like glue as she fidgeted. Tav inhaled sharply at the view, blood-red skies and an otherwise barren wasteland overtaking her vision. The air was thicker here, weighing on her shoulders like a heavy piece of armour.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” Tav whispered, just as a dark Hellish cloud appeared on the horizon, growing more ferocious as it crept closer. 

Raphael sat in front of her, legs crossed and cradling a silver goblet. His eyes glimmered against the fiery skies of Avernus as he continued to gaze at her. Out of fondness or hunger? Tav had no fucking clue anymore.

A small table was placed between them, lined with a tray of refreshments.

“Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? I’d like to offer you some commodities for the fight ahead.”

“Hold on. Since when are you , the almighty Raphael, scary Devil-man who threatens foolish mortals, a vendor?” Tav leaned back, laughing hysterically. She watched as Raphael’s smile faded, a menacing scowl replacing any hint of amusement that had previously occupied his face. “Gods, I must’ve really, I mean really, hit my head back there.”

Raphael’s neck twitched and his eyes narrowed, but he remained calm, taking a sip from the goblet. 

“There is a whole world of services you’ve yet to discover that only I can provide. I just so happen to have an entire line of goods that are simply too Devilish to keep all to myself.”

“Do you think I have any bloody gold left? I don’t want anything from you. I just want to be done with this never-ending bullshit! As if this damned tadpole wasn’t enough, you have to be creeping and crawling around every corner! I’ve ju–”

Raphael leapt towards Tav, erupting into his cambion form. Tav cried out in shock as the table burst into flames, the bottles of wine and various jars of food exploding. She winced, covering her face to protect herself from the flying shards of glass. Raphael crushed the goblet in his hand like it was nothing but cheap, flimsy material. Wine oozed from his fist like blood, the liquid sizzling as it touched his skin.

He leaned closer to Tav, pointing a claw at her face. 

“I would hold that wretched, ungrateful tongue if I were you. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be nothing but a sack of flesh rotting on the shores of the Chionthar.” 

“Raphael, I’m sorry.” Tav muttered, her words barely audible against the thunder from the approaching storm. 

“I cannot hear your pitiful squeaks, little mouse.”

“I’m sorry.” Tav said again, her voice shaking. “I-I w…” 

She hid her face in her hands before Raphael could see her weep. She felt humiliated. Actually worse, like she was a spoiled child having a temper tantrum. Ungrateful. 

Tav choked on her tears, her body trembling against each emotional wave that crashed against her, destroying what was left of her self-control. The sadness was suffocating, her exhaustion crippling. She was just so tired. Of everything. Everyone. Fed up with being bent and moulded like she was merely a piece of metal in a forge. It wasn’t only Raphael. No . But her companions, pulling her in twelve different directions all at once, each with their own personal vendettas. And that tadpole, swimming around her brain, digging deeper and deeper into her subconscious. The sleepless nights, tossing and turning from the voices in her head. 

It was too much. 

“Why did you bring me back?” Tav muttered eventually. 

There was a brief pause as thunder cracked through the air, a hot gust of wind blowing across her hands.

“I’m not done with you yet.” Raphael replied, softly. 

“I hope you make it quick then. So the next time I fall you can just leave me to die in peace.”

“Yes…” Raphael began, delicately peeling Tav’s fingers away from her face, lowering her shield. He placed his own hand on her cheek, the warmth from his palm drying the tears that fell. He held his hand there for what felt like an eternity, and in truth, Tav didn’t want him to let go. She tried to look away, but she was drawn into his gaze; those dark, deceitful eyes, slowly losing herself the more she stared into that welcoming abyss. 

“I think I’m satisfied.” Raphael continued, releasing Tav from his hold. “Consider that my first and only warning. Next time I won’t be so… generous.”

Raphael returned to his seat and Tav let out a sigh, pressing her fingers to her cheek where the remains of his touch still lingered. 

He clapped his hands twice and a massive wooden wardrobe appeared behind him. He twirled his wrist, opening the double doors and showcasing an endless expanse of weapons, armour, and potions. He swiped his hand and the thousands of artefacts flew past him at a rapid speed. He hummed thoughtfully until he raised an index finger and stopped the movement, staring at a large metallic staff in front of him. It floated patiently, the metal was smooth and twisted, almost like silver vines.

“That’ll do nicely…”

Raphael moved his index finger and the staff flew out of the wardrobe, hovering before Tav.

“Feast your eyes on this . It can detect creatures who might not want to be found, simply activate the barrier with an intermediate incantation and nothing can hide within its boundaries. I think it suits your strengths just enough to get this next job done.” 

The staff bounced in the air as it twirled, beckoning Tav to touch it. She reached towards the staff, but Raphael yanked it away with the flick of his wrist. 

“Tut, tut. I don’t just hand things out for free, not even to my most treasured customers. I can give you a discount, however.”

Tav opened her mouth in protest but Raphael raised his hand dramatically to silence her. 

“Those soul coins, I can hear them screaming from your person. A far more satisfactory payment for my services. I don’t stoop so low as to accept gold .” Raphael practically shuddered as the words left his lips.

Tav hesitated, her hand resting above her trousers.

“Come now, Karlach doesn’t need them. If you give her any more, she’ll likely explode before you reach Baldur’s Gate.”

“How did you… riiight .” Tav muttered, nodding to herself. “You’ve got eyes and ears everywhere, yes, yes, I know.”

“Ah, has that tadpole riddled brain finally caught up?”

“Fine.”

Tav unclipped a leather pouch from her belt, digging her fingers inside it. She removed a soul coin and held it up to Raphael. 

“And for an additional soul coin I can throw in a few revivify scrolls, 4 for the price of 1. Seeing as you could barely walk the halls of the Mausoleum without falling into a trap meant for the undead. I simply don’t have enough time on my agenda to wait for you buffoons to drop like flies again. Which will undoubtedly happen, I can assure you. I might even bet you on it.”

Tav bit the side of her mouth, trying to keep herself from saying anything stupid to rile his temper a second time. She shook her head as she pulled another soul coin from the pouch. She placed both coins in her palm, extending it towards Raphael. He giddily accepted, snatching the Hellish currency in one showy movement. 

“Ta.”

Raphael inspected each soul coin carefully, rubbing his thumb over the jagged designs. He brought them to his ear, closing his eyes as he listened to music that Tav could not hear. He sighed with pleasure, nodding along to a silent melody. 

“Oh, how delicious. There is nothing that brings me more delight than the screams of doomed mortals. One of life’s simple pleasures.”

Raphael bounced the soul coins between his fingers, like he was trying to impress Tav with an amateur magic trick, until they vanished in a puff of smoke. The goods Tav purchased flew into her hands, nearly causing her to topple over in the chair.

“Well then, thank you for your business. I’ll be sure to keep my fingers crossed you can survive the next few hours. You know what’s at stake. Until we meet again.”

Before Tav could even utter her thanks, Raphael stood from his chair, gifting her with one of his flourishing bows. Her body was enveloped in another burst of sparks and just like that, she was swiftly returned to the Mausoleum. She unexpectedly found herself yearning for the stifling air of Avernus, her thoughts rushing back to Raphael. 

Tav stood in the same chamber, but she was no longer alone. Her companions were lying at her feet, just like the Devil had promised, groaning as they regained consciousness.  

“Gods, my head. That nearly ended us all…” Astarion whispered, jumping to his feet. 

“Yeah, what a fucking close call. Good job getting us out of that one, Tav,” Karlach added. She remained on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. 

“It would have been an undignified death.” Minthara said, rising to her knees as she released a healing spell. “And worst of all, my vengeance would have remained unquenched.”

Karlach laughed, using her elbows to lift herself up. 

“We’ll get that bastard Thorm soon enough, Minthara.”

Minthara huffed and the companions continued the idle chatter, their voices slowly fading from Tav’s focus.

Tav looked down at the metal staff in her hands, her grip tightening around it.

Right, she better not fuck this up. For all of their sakes.

[ashbeneviento]

I dreamed of you amid the flowers

A short story. Fem reader x Donna Beneviento, warnings: none. Fluff.

You(reader) have been having a reoccurring dream of the mysterious Lady Beneviento. You decide to clear your head in search for answers. Was she all just a dream?

(No beta reader/sorry for any grammatical mistakes. First fic post, thanks for reading!)

Based on the song “Daydream” by: The Wallace Collection. It’s a beautiful song and reminds me of Donna 🖤

Sunlight cascaded over the field in the early hours of the morning as you walked.

You had to clear your head, but last nights dream was still fresh behind your eyes and clouded your vision with each step into damp dirt.

It was the same dream you had for a couple of years now, with each one giving you more bits and pieces to the story it told.

A meadow of bright yellow flowers circled around you smelling so sweet and inviting. Irresistible to stray from. Not like you wanted to, however, because you knew you were waiting on her.

A mysterious woman in all black, her face hidden behind a veil emerges from the shadows of the trees like a ghost. And maybe she was.

She never spoke to you in these dreams. It didn’t matter, you understood her just fine as you sat together in that circle of flowers.

Sometimes she would bring tea and you would drink it, and some mornings you’d wake to still taste it on your lips.

But the dream always ended the same way.

The phantom like woman would trace her slender fingers across her veil and gently pull it to the side revealing a manniquins head.

And then you’d wake.

Last night was different however. You could see her single eye, full dark eyelashes with an iris as black as the clothes she wore.

And she smiled at you.

Your heart beats faster at the image, legs still carrying you away from your field and into the tree line.

You had no idea where you were going, all you knew was that you needed answers.

Why were you having these dreams?

Why was it always the same woman?

Who was this woman?

Was she even real, could you have passed her by one day in the village and just forgot?

You huff and rub your palms into your temples in frustration.

“Maybe I’m just crazy…” you mumble under your breath.

The sun was shining in full now through the tops of the trees above you. You were admiring the simple beauty of nature when your foot hooks under a large vine and causes you to land flat into the dirt with a thud.

Groaning at the pain you inspect yourself and find nothing broken, save for the mud caked into your clothes.

And that’s when you find yourself in a circle of bright yellow flowers.

“No way…” you whisper in awe, standing up to walk around them and smell their sweet scent.

“You’re here” a raspy feminine voice emerges from the trees, startling you as you whip your head around for its person.

It’s her. The phantom from your dreams.

Still as stone you nod, hands trembling at your sides as she walked closer.

“D-do we know each other?” You stutter and she stops walking.

It’s silent for a few moments before she nods.

“Somewhat” a short reply from behind the veil.

You take a deep breath and sit back down in the flowers, unsure of what to make of her answer.

“I’ve been dreaming of you. But I’m sure you are aware of that seeing that you came. I don’t.. I don’t understand” you say nervously, hands wringing together in your lap as she takes a seat on the ground across from you.

Pale slender fingers brush against the flowers with a content hum, plucking one to play with it.

“I’ve been dreaming of you, too”

She says in a whisper, looking down at you. You couldn’t see her face but you could feel her eyes through the dark fabric.

“I’ve been waiting on you to come.”

You swallow the lump in your throat and decide this probably wasn’t the best idea. The village ran rampant with all types of creatures, some of which most would only assume as fairy tales. Who’s to say she wasn’t one of them?

As if she read your mind, a gentle hand lays on top of yours with a sigh.

“I won’t hurt you. I am.. not like my siblings”

Her voice sounds like it hasn’t been used in ages as she speaks, but it comforted you just as much as it scared you. What did she mean by her siblings?

“You’re from the village. I assume you are aware of the Four Lords..” she whispers, cocking her head to the side in question.

You nod as the realization hits you, a short gasp coming from your mouth.

Most were aware of Lady Dimitrescu and Lord Heisenberg. You even knew of Lord Moarou as your uncle went to work for him once.

Once.

And that only left one other Lord.

“Lady Beneviento..” You whisper, hands shaking underneath hers.

She nods slowly and pats your hand, leaning back as she continued to play with the flower.

You contemplate the seriousness of your situation with the mysterious Lady as she sits in silence. Was she lying? If she possessed Mother Miranda��s dark gifts then she couldn’t be trusted.

“You think too loud, Tesoro.” She hums, placing the plucked flower back on the ground.

“Prehaps you should stay in your own head, then”

You snap back, irritated by the fact that she could indeed read your mind.

A small laugh escapes her lips, placing her cold hand on your cheek.

You stare deeply into her veil, hoping for a glimpse of what she might look like. Wondering if her smile was as beautiful as it was in your dreams.

“I’m not dreaming.. am I?” You whisper. She shakes her head no.

“Not anymore, ragazza dolce. You’re wide awake..and you’re finally mine” she says softly, pulling her veil to the side. That pool of black stares deeply into your eyes as she leans to kiss you.

With both of your hearts beating fast, you sit in that field of flowers for hours and think to yourself;

How could this ever feel anything less than a dream come true?

And yes…

Her smile was more beautiful than you imagined.

[soulc-hilde]

Prologue - Bizcocho

Pairing: Carmen Berzatto x OFC! Caden Woods

Warnings: Family trauma, mental illness, improper coping methods, cursing, implied sexual scenes, mentions of suicide, drug abuse

Synopsis: Caden was never a sociable person, preferring her pastries and cemeteries to the human world. Carmen, on the other hand, is drenched in chaos; his need to be perfect in life, echoes his work ethic in the kitchen. Desperate to prove his brother's spirit and former boss wrong, he forges his family's restaurant into his own image. Is it possible for bears to get lost in the woods? Or do they just make it their home?

divider by ... I forgot, but if y'all know who created this please tag them in the comments!

Loneliness. Is it as grim as people make it out to be or is it just a misconception? Can one really drive themselves into madness or is it all just an illusion? A trick of the mind?

A series of questions that required a list of answers remain, floating in the back of Caden’s thoughts like some mystical prophecy waiting to be fulfilled. Conditioned to live life in her own way, viewing the world through a third eye and abandoning any emotion outside of the usual deadpan. Even in the unruliest moments, that’s all she’d appear. Dead. Cold. Unwilling to process anything.

Escaping to Chicago wasn’t supposed to be as successful as it was. She believed that within the first week of her settling in, police would kick down her door and drag her all the way back home to her oh-so worrisome mother. Yet, nothing came. No texts, no calls, no police. Just silence, and she welcomed it until it became unsettling. So, she searched for a job.

It wasn’t like she was a walking Jeopardy of career experiences, but it’d be a lie to say that she wasn’t well-rounded. She could cook, clean, sell, fix, and paint just about anything in record timing. Anything to get some money in her pocket and keep her bills covered. Although, there was a skill of her’s that was a bit personal, a reminiscence of her life that didn’t involve a stonehearted girl and her shit of a family.

She lived to bake. Never bothered to attend proper schooling for it outside of vocational school nor could she afford it, but it was where she was at peace with herself. Drawing the different pastries and their ingredients before bringing it to life, it was like she was in her own Wonderland.

It was how she met her neighbor, Tina Marrero, who designated herself as the girl’s Tia. The woman and her son, Louie were walking past the open apartment door when the familiar smell of Bizcocho Dominicano. Leaning inside, the older woman knocked on the metal frame of the doorway, watching the small, curved figure appear from around the corner with a pan in hand.

“Oh, uh, hi,” she stutters, lifting the recently baked cake as a wave. Tina nods, “hi. Sorry to barge in, I’m Tina and this is my son, Louie. We were walking by and smelled Bizcocho.”

Caden sends a small smile her way, setting the pan down on the closest table nearby. “Ah, yes. Yes, bizcocho Dominicano. Are you?” Tina nods, a small smile growing across her freckled features, “yeah. Yeah, I am. It’s good to meet you,” she trails.

“Oh, Caden. Caden Woods,” she answers the unspoken question. “I was in the middle of making the second cake and it got really hot in here, so I propped the door open. I’m sorry if that caused any trouble.”

Tina shakes her head, “no. No, no problem at all. I’d rather deal with this for a neighbor than some baboso.” Caden chuckles, nodding in understanding, “I don’t blame you at all. Uh, would you like to take a cake home? The first one I made has already cooled, I just have to frost it.”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to. I’m the one who trespassed into your home, there’s no need.” Caden stops her, “no, please. I kind of came to Chicago on a whim and didn’t see what areas were had the highest Dominicans, if any at all, so it’s been kind of lonely at times. I want you to have it.”

Tina smiles, “thank you.” Caden simply nods, walking back into the kitchen. Within a few minutes, the girl returns into the kitchen with a round sage green cake carrier.

She sets it on the living room coffee table, pulling the lid off with a small ‘tada.’ The older woman’s jaw drops, eyeing the blinding white traditional merengue frosting and tiny sage green hearts lined the top and bottom of the cake.

“Anda el diablo,” she gasps. “This looks amazing, kid.” She looks down, hearty cheeks pushing up against her almond shaped eyes. “Thank you, Miss. Tina.” She places the lid back on, locking the cake away. “It has the traditional pineapple jam inside; I hope you enjoy.”

Tina stands, holding the carrier to her chest. She gently pats the girl on her shoulder, “Gracias, mija. I’ll return this to you when we finish the cake.”

“No, it’s yours to keep,” she laughs, leading the woman back to the hallway. “I have way too many of those.” Tina just looks at her with a soft gaze, “welcome to Chicago,” and leaves with Louie following behind.

Stepping inside her own apartment, Tina sits the cake down onto the dinner table. Louie sits down, eyes wide and focused on the dessert. “Can I have some?” He asks, drool nearly dropping from his lips. “I got you, papito.” She smiles, opening the case. She grabs her kitchen knife, slicing it into the airy dessert.

Carefully serving the slice on a blue rimmed, white porcelain saucer. The golden center contrasts beautifully with the ivory white merengue that seemed to melt into the white center of the plate before bleeding into a deep blue ocean. It was the picture-perfect definition of baked with love. Her son digs his fork into the triangular tip, the pineapple magma slurs onto the plate. 

His lips wrap around the slightly sharp edges of the fork, humming as the sponge melts against his tongue. He swallows the remnants of jam and cake, nodding with content. “That good?” Tina asks, eyes watching with surprise.

“That good,” he nods with a grin. “Let me try some,” she grabs a fork. Taking her own dive, she inserts the tip full of cake into her mouth. It melts perfectly, the taste of vanilla and pineapple working together as it warms against her tongue. The merengue was as soft as the cake itself, smooth and sweet yet not too much that the taste of sugar was strong.

She nods, humming, “damn good.”

The next morning, Tina walks out her door when she sees Caden leaving out of her’s. “Hey, kid,” she greets. The girl turns, sending the older woman a small smile, “mornin’, Miss. Tina. How are you today?”

“I’m pretty good, gotta head to work. You?” Caden shrugs, “as good as I can be. This’ll be, well, I lost count how many times I went out for a job.”

Tina raises an eyebrow, “is there a certain job you’re looking for?” She shakes her head, “no. I’m a Jack-of-all-trades and I’m desperate, so if you know anyone or anything, please let me know.”

“Oh, I do. Come with me,” she walks off. Caden follows the woman, confused.

After a few moments of driving, Tina pulls outside of the The Beef of Chicagoland. Caden’s eyebrows raise at the familiarity at the restaurant. “Have you tried getting a job here before?” Tina asks, stepping out of the car.

“Uh, no, actually.” The young woman scoffs, “I’ve only been here for a quick bite. Do y’all have a bakery in here?” Tina shrugs, walking through the back, “somethin’ of the sort.”

--

“I need two honey rolls, three cannolis, a chocolate cake,” Carmen calls off the receipt during the lunch rush.

It’s been a few years since Caden first stepped into The Beef and got the job thanks to Tina. Getting the job on the spot, she became their residential baker, replacing their old one who turned out to be a junkie, selling meth out the back of the restaurant. Working in the tiny square space was something to get used to, for sure, but the workload wasn’t abnormal for her as a freelance caterer.

Within The Beef, a family-oriented team created a space of joy and familiarity. Tina was, of course, her mother-figure while Richie was like the funny yet annoyingly drunk cousin, Mickey was the cocky, overzealous older brother that you love but wish he could shut up. Marcus, a recent hire under Caden’s watch, was a sweetheart and there was Ebra, who reminded her of her uncle.

As usual, once life believed that things were going just a little too good for her, things had to fall apart. After Mickey committed suicide, things began to change. The days at The Beef seemed long and pointless, her pastries were bland and commercially appropriate. In his will, he left a part of the restaurant to his little brother, Carmen.

She’s heard a lot of things about him. Good, shy, kid with a passion for food who gained acclaimed success within the culinary industry. Unlike his little sister, Sugar, Carmen never attended his funeral. Richie complained, ranting about it whenever Berzatto was mentioned. A part of her believed he was mad that he was never mentioned in Mickey’s will, but she knew Richie wasn’t that shallow.

She wouldn’t lie, though, Mickey could’ve at least warned her that man was like a fucking siren. “Chef, I need three more cannolis,” he barks. “I need to hear you, do you… understand me?!”

“Yes, chef.” Caden barks back, serving out the fresh Sicilian pastry without a blink. “Hey, don’t shout at her like that, what the fuck is wrong with you? What the hell got caught in your ass, Bear?” Carmen keeps his focus on the service, sending out plate after plate.

“I wasn’t shouting at her, Richie, I just needed to know that she heard what I said.” Richie leans over the window, ignoring the crowd of customers in front that watched the chaos. “Well, I’m just sayin’, you could act like you’ve got manners. Alright? Okay? She’s a lady, this is Honey, we’re talkin’ about.”

Carmen clenches his jaw, “shut the fuck up, Richie, alright? I got it, okay? Look,” he turns to Caden, “Caden, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.”

She simply shakes her head, not bothering to pay mind to either one of the two. “It’s cool, I got two dozen honey rolls comin’ out the oven, Chef.” Watching her, his wide cerulean gaze follows her around that tight corner.

For Carmen, his take on Caden was fresh and a journey he had to partake on his own. There was no forlorn voicemails or letters from Mickey that told him about her despite the constant reminder from Richie that she was like the star in his eyes. Coming out of hiding, he was told at the last minute that his brother left a portion of the restaurant to him. The same restaurant he refused to let the younger Berzatto work in for unspoken reasons.

There was a lot of shit Mickey left behind that just didn’t make sense. From the amount of debt he was in down to who owned the other 50%. It was all too much. If Sugar wasn’t trying to spam his phone in hopes he’d respond, he was playing fucking Sherlock Holmes. A bad one at that.

After the final rush of the day, The Beef was closed, and the kitchen was as spotless as the staff was willing to do. Carmen holds the back door open for Caden, the two being the last to leave. He watches her all black form walk across the gravel, heading for the green and black Kawasaki Ninja with a matching skull designed helmet in hand.

“I’ll see you, tomorrow, Chef,” he calls after her. She simply raises a hand in return, keeping straight before straddling the leather seat. She starts the engine, its roar echoing through the quiet neighborhood. The smell of exhaust takes over, replacing the one of grease and beef.

He takes quick, timid steps toward her side. Praying that she doesn’t back over his toes. “Uh, Caden,’ he clears his throat, cigarette bouncing between his lips. “I wanted to, uh, I wanted to apologize, ya know? For, for my actions today. I, it, it was really shitty of me to, uh, act like that, especially put, putting you on the spot.”

Impulsively, she lays a gloved hand on his chest, shaking her head. “Dude, you’re cool. Richie’s just acting like an asshole, like usual. Especially towards you. If I was insulted, everyone would know, but it takes a lot for that to happen.”

Her lidded eyes stare into his wide ones. Anxious gaze clashing with the nonchalant glare. His fingers twitch, the spot her fingers touched was warm and taking its time to leave. God, she was beautiful. Short, honey blonde afro fluffy and glistening paired with a round, oval face and dark features. The center of her face was painted with dark freckles, like Tina’s, but her skin was darker. Her brown skin always glistened, ignorant of the feeling of being ashy.

Despite her work in the kitchen, her hands were void of blemishes and cuts. They weren’t perfect, but they were soft and small. Her right arm was tatted from her wrist to the top of her shoulder, a blended sleeve of cartoon characters and designs of a panda bear and thorns. She was a small thing, taller than Tina yet smaller than him with curves that whined for days.

Snapping out of his mind, he nods, stopping his jaw from biting on the head of the cigarette. “Goodnight, yeah?” She nods, “Goodnight.” She slides the helmet on as he watches, backing out of the parking slot and down the Chicago streets.

Baboso: Dominican adjective term for a liar or an idiot

Anda el diablo: Dominican phrase for Oh My God or like, Wow

Bizcocho Dominicano: Dominican style sponge cake made with a fruit jam and vanilla merengue.

I decided to make Tina of Dominican descent since I'm also of Dominican heritage. I also wanna practice my Spanish, so I'm kind of living through Caden. Other than that, I hope you enjoy our intro.

Taglist: @spiderstyles04 @lostinwonderland314

[savanaclaw1996]

Heart of a Lion-Leona Kingscholar x Fem! Reader! (Birthday Fic)

Happy Birthday to our favorite Dorm Leader of Savanaclaw and lion prince, Leona Kingscholar! Happy birthday, my beloved king of my heart!🎂🦁💖 Also, major thanks to the beautiful Miss Raven for lending me her fic as reference and mongpht for the language of flowers. Thank you!

Warnings: mentions of Chapter 2 spoilers!

Word Count: 2,043 words.

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

You wandered around the town below the hill where the prestigious Night Raven College sat. Finally, you spotted the place you were searching for: the jewelry shop.

You remembered the day Cater took you, Ace, Deuce and Grim out shopping for some plates and cups since Grim accidentally broke them. As you browsed around the jewelry shop, you spotted a beautiful golden ring sitting in a display case.

There was a regal golden lion's head carved into the ring and you could see the inscription carved inside the ring, "Heart of a Lion". You smiled. "That ring would look perfect on Leona-senpai's finger." you thought. "And it somewhat matches his nobility...in a way."

Even when you arrived home, the image of that ring had never left your mind. "Once Leona's birthday arrives, I'll get that ring for him." you promised yourself. And so, before the month of July came, you worked hard at Azul's Mostro Lounge daily to earn enough money to buy that ring as a birthday present for Leona.

Once you've scrimped and scraped enough money, you didn't hesitate to head towards the jewelry store and purchase the ring. Once you made your purchase, you quickly headed back to Night Raven. Just in time for the birthday celebrations at Savanaclaw.

The party at Savanaclaw was a blast! Balloons of coconut white, muddy brown and charcoal grey dotted the green shrubbery near the waterfall. Beneath the waterfall, glowing leaf lanterns floated idly in the water.

On the buffet table, there were apple fritters, courtesy of Epel, hamburgers, potato salad, shish kebabs, barbequed misuji meat, exotic fruits and in the center, a large, three-tiered cake with white vanilla icing and chocolate and mocha-flavored crispy pearls.

Leona stood at the very center of the lounge, clad in his blue mage birthday robes. You swear you've never seen anyone more handsome than Leona. He looked like a true mage in those robes.

Cater was with him, phone in hand. He was to be his birthday interviewer. As you approached them, you heard Leona answer Cater's first question, "If I'm going there by flight, I'd like a place that's in the middle of nowhere that not many people go to."

When Cater replied that it'll be difficult to enjoy touring and leisure, Leona responded that he just wanted to relax and that in a quiet environment where no one will disturb him, he wanted to sleep calmly.

You felt your heart sink a little when you heard his words. You've always known that Leona wasn't always the social type. He much preferred his own company rather than anyone else's.

Even though you've had a huge crush on him for quite the longest time, you doubted if he'd ever have feelings for you, too.

"A quiet place where no one will disturb you. You're right, that doesn't sound like a bad way to spend the time." Cater replied. Leona smirked. "Right? As a dorm leader and club captain, I usually always have something to worry about." he said. "It means I need time to rest my body and mind sometimes."

You rolled your eyes at that. "Obviously." you thought. Then Cater asked Leona the final question. "What's something you'd like to do in the upcoming year?"

"Not be held back, that's all." Leona replied simply. Neither you nor Cater were prepared to hear that answer at all. Were you going deaf, or did you clearly hear Leona say that he wasn't going to be held back? "Wh...! Huh, that's all?!" Cater asked in disbelief.

You couldn't help but smile at his answer. You heard that he held himself back for over 3 years because of poor attendance and him not putting any effort in studying. But you knew better.

Leona has always held himself back because he didn't want to go through the painful hassle of the palace life. Being the second-born prince, he always got the short end of the straw. Always being overlooked, no matter how hard he worked to be recognized.

You thought back to the time of that inter-dorm Magical Shift Tournament. When you and your friends found out that Leona was the mastermind behind the incidents, you confronted him. And that was when you saw the emotions in his eyes.

He looked frustrated, angry that everything he had worked so hard for had slipped through his fingers yet again. And when Lilia rebuked him, saying that a collar fits him more than a crown would, and that he would never be king, the words felt like a final nail in the coffin for Leona.

Watching Leona become so broken and defeated, you couldn't help but feel your heart break at the sight of him. You even heard how hollow his voice sounded as he spoke. "This agony, this despair. How could any of you possibly understand?!"

And then, his Overblot happened. After you managed to defeat him, you glimpsed at his past memories. Being badmouthed by the servants of his palace, being pressured by his desire to be respected and recognized, trying to best himself against Malleus but failing...

Even though Falena, Leona's brother and King of Sunset Savannah tried his best to support his little brother, Leona just coldly brushed him off, not wanting his pity.

When you both woke up, you saw that Leona was willing to do his best at the tournament. Even after Savanaclaw lost the match, you were somewhat happy to see Leona being determined to win next year's match, even though you don't agree with his underhanded methods.

As time went on, even though it wasn't noticeable at first glance, you could see the steps of progress Leona has made, little by little. Even though he was still lazy, languid and downright arrogant, you could see the bits of kindness, determination and will to live shine through.

Even now, you felt a sense of pride and joy for Leona for making it this far. Tears brimmed in your eyes as the memories flashed through your mind. "Leona-senpai..." you whispered, holding back a choked sob...

"Hey, herbivore!" Leona's baritone voice cuts through your thoughts like a blade, snapping you out of your musings. "How long are you going to stand there?"

"Oh, right! I need to give him his gift!" Without wasting another second, you hurried over to his side with the little black box with a golden bow in your hand. Leona raised an eyebrow as he watched you approach him with something hiding behind your back.

"So, you came to wish me a happy birthday, huh?" he asked with a smirk. "Well, ain't that admirable of you. So, what did you bring me, then? At the very least, you are presenting a gift to royalty. As such, I'm sure you've prepared a very fine gift."

You froze, starting to panic. A fine gift? Well, it is pretty expensive. Will he like it, though? You were starting to get anxious.

"I'll take it off your hands, so show me what you got behind your back, already." Leona demanded, holding out his hand. You gulped silently. "Well, here goes nothing. I hope he likes it." you thought as you handed him the black box.

Leona opened the box and saw the ring. "Huh. A gold ring." he said casually. "I've got plenty of those, you know." You nodded, knowing how much jewelry he has, being a wealthy prince and all.

"This ring is different, though." you said. This was it. It was time to confess how you felt towards him. You took a deep breath before you started to explain. "There's a reason why I picked that ring for you, senpai. I picked it because it reminds me of you."

"Leona, I understand that you've been through a lot over your lifetime. Everything from your childhood to your Overblot episode to now. That ring you hold in your hand symbolizes strength, courage, resoluteness and nobility."

"The words etched in that ring say, "Heart of a Lion". I sincerely believe that you do have the heart of a lion, despite what others say and think of you. Even though you can be lazy at times, arrogant, smug, bossy, snide..." Cater snickered at your descriptions.

"True." he whispered. Leona shot him a quick glare, telling him to shut up as you continued. "...You truly care about other people, even though you never show it outwardly. Leona Kingscholar, please consider this ring as a token of my unchanging love and support to you." you said as you gave him a small bow of respect.

"No matter what happens, I hope that you will be able to go beyond, to be able to reach for the stars, even though they seem very far. I have absolute faith that you will."

Leona was silent as he listened to your little speech. After you finished, a short silence fell upon the lounge. You wondered if he thought your speech was too boring and silly. You lifted your head, and you were about to apologize when you saw the smile on Leona's face.

"So I have the heart of a lion, huh?" Leona asked, admiring the golden lion ring. He looked at the inscription in the ring and smiled. "Guess you've got some taste, herbivore."

Your heart swelled with joy when you saw Leona slip the ring onto his index finger. He held up his hand, the golden ring glimmering in the light. "Thank you. It's a very meaningful gift." Hearing those thankful words coming from Leona, you smiled as more tears streamed down your cheeks.

A soft sob escaped from your throat as you tried to swallow the lump in it. "How embarrassing. Crying in front of Leona on his birthday? What's the matter with you?!" you berated yourself mentally.

You raised your arm in a frantic attempt to dry your tears, but they just kept coming. "Please, just stop crying!" you silently pleaded. You then noticed movement coming towards you and you looked up at Leona.

Your cheeks flushed red. But before you could apologize for putting on such a babyish display, Leona wrapped his arms around you, embracing your body. "Le-Leona?" you asked, feeling your heart beating rapidly in your chest.

"It's okay, herbivore. You're just happy, right?" Leona whispered in your ear. You nodded. "Sorry about that." you apologized. Leona shook his head. "Don't worry about it. Thanks."

You smiled. "You're welcome." Cater held up his phone, capturing that sweet, tender, loving moment on video. Leona will have to deal with him later...

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

Finally, it was time for Leona to take off on his broom. As you and Leona walked down the cobblestone path of Main Street, Leona then reached towards his broom's bouquet and plucked out a golden orchid.

He held it towards you. "For you, herbivore, as thanks for the speech." he said. You know what that orchid meant. In the language of flowers, the golden orchid symbolizes love, luxury, beauty and strength.

Leona had all those: strength, beauty, luxury and love. You hoped that one day, with your perseverance, love, courage and strength, you'll be able to stand by his side as his beloved queen.

You smiled as you took the orchid from his hand. "Thank you, Leona." you replied gratefully. "Happy birthday, my beloved king."

Leona gave you one last wink before he hopped onto his broom and flew off into the night, leaving behind a trail of golden petals and sparkles.

As Leona soared higher and higher, he looked up at the evening sky. Thousands upon thousands of bright, shining stars dotted the inky darkness, some of them streaking across the heavens, leaving behind trails of stardust.

Back in his homeland, the stars were said to be the great kings of the past watching over everyone down below. Your words echoed in his mind, "No matter what happens, I hope that you will be able to go beyond, to be able to reach for the stars, even though they seem very far. I have absolute faith that you will."

As Leona gazed at the glittering golden lion ring on his finger, a great spark of hope ignited within his heart. "One day," he silently vowed, "my story will be told throughout the ages. My star will be shining the brightest, the greatest of them all. And (Y/N)'s alongside mine." And he will see to it that that promise comes true.

[simdertalia]

😘 💐 Animal Crossing Mother’s Day Set 😘 💐

Sims 4, Base game compatible | 15 items

I meant to get this posted earlier but I'm not feeling well today. Whatever everyone’s relationship is with their mothers I hope you enjoy, and my heart goes out to people who feel any kinds of pain on this day 🌸 💗 -Cake | 7 swatches | 420 poly -Clean Laundry | 6 swatches | 1199 poly -Cushion | 6 swatches | 778 poly -Embroidery wall decor | 786 swatches | 160 poly -Gift Box | 4 swatches | 250 poly -Flower Radio (functional) | 5 swatches | 1214 poly -Ring Box | 8 swatches | 1116 poly -Lilies 1 | 5 swatches | 1761 poly -Lilies 2 | 5 swatches | 2045 poly -Mug | 2 swatches | 1050 poly -Pen Stand | 6 swatches | 1190 poly -Rug | 4 swatches | 442 poly -Tea Set | 6 swatches | 1204 poly -Tissue Box | 6 swatches | 750 poly -Wall Art | 8 swatches | 684 poly (the preview image shows this item scaled down to allow it to fit in the screenshot. Remember that you can do this with any items to allow for more versatility)

Use the scale up & down feature on your keyboard to make the items larger or smaller to your liking. If you have a non-US keyboard, it may be different keys depending on which alphabet it uses.

Always suggested: bb.objects ON, it makes placing items much easier. For further placement tweaking, check out the TOOL mod. Start typing “animal crossing mother” into the search query in build mode to find quickly. You can always find items like this, just begin typing the title and it will appear.

📁 Download (SFS, No Ads): <HERE> https://simfileshare.net/folder/188645/

📁 Alt Download (still no ads): <HERE> https://mega.nz/folder/llxxXDyb#NyYS-jn3QKhNpflTJlxSlg

As always, please let me know if you have any issues! Happy Simming! ✨ If you like my work, please consider supporting me:

★ Patreon  🎉 ❤️ |★ Ko-Fi  ☕️  ❤️ ★ Instagram  📷

Thank you for reblogging ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

@sssvitlanz  @maxismatchccworld @mmoutfitters  @coffee-cc-finds  @itsjessicaccfinds  @gamommypeach  @stargazer-sims-finds  @khelga68  @suricringe  @vaporwavesims  @mystictrance15 @public-ccfinds

[psshaw]

You have been one of the most unapologetically yourself artists Ive come across and I dont mean that in the cliche way I mean like... your idiosyncrasies seem particularly unstifled. Your art is purely yourself and the mainstream isnt gonna go for it but the audience you do speak to gets to feel like an alien finding someone else from their homeland. AI image gen feels like a beautiful cake with flowery frosting and when you cut into it its actually frosting all the way down and has nothing of substance. I obviously can speak only in metaphors lol so I just wanted to say I appreciate reading your thoughts on AI and tho I feel strongly abt it I have a hard time putting exacting words to what about it is so worrying to me. As an artist it energizes me when I see artists who are wildly unique and expressing themselves without a care to their skill limitations or personal strangenesses (read: mainstream unmarketability). Manga artist ONE and his charming and funky style is a great example. Anyway I love your thoughts and wanted to say thanks and also throw words at you

FUCKIGN DAMN DUDE, ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE ME CRY? Why is the weather getting misty on my face specifically. Thank you. My most contentious trait is that I keep forgetting to care what people want from me.

It's really interesting following people who are very honest but more mathy than me, because the way they talk about art and AI lately has gotten... increasingly callous. Even bitter. It's partly justified, because artists tend to suck at defending themselves charismatically. ("AI art isn't real art"; the "AI can't do hands" thing was always destined to age badly) But also, I can't stand the sheer selfishness of people who claim to be rational but don't seem know how to investigate what art at its best is for and why they view it the way they do. When I read "AI is great for hobbyists" I'm like. 95% of the time, I'M A HOBBYIST... I would never generate a script, or music... javascript maybe, but I'd feel guilty about it... but the excitement? I think some guys are just looking to suckle on a feeding tube. Cos they were done a disservice by thinking they had to stop visual art after fingerpainting!

I don't think AI NEVER has substance, but the type of person who gets excited about AI doesn't tend to do interesting things with it. And what really bothers me is that I can never tell exactly WHAT they did, versus how much was a coin flip. This is useless for understanding your voice as an artist. I don't care to see more by you.

ONE is a perfect example. His style MAKES that story. The manga and the anime feel so different. That's why I hate when people say that hating AI is discriminating against people who can't draw, cos like... if you can't make something intentional and real without using what's functionally a search engine, why would I believe you're having ideas worth the cliche conceptartdotcom overrendered AI polish at all? Not to be a dick, but like. In terms of rate of return on my attention investment, so far I'd do better by sitting at a craps table.

[cyten0]

A Symphony in Crimson

Act 2: A Movement in White

Chapter 2-A

You tap the device, and the woman appears on your screen. You… What do you say?!?

✦ “H-Hello? W-who is this?”

You look over the screen, hunting, searching for ANYTHING to go off of!!!

Their at an Inn, there’s a symbol over the counter, concentric circles, change belief, in Vaugarde. Other voices, similar accent as you? Next to another person, young, Vaugardian garb. Looks familiar?

✿ “Wait, is that Nille?!”

Wait WHAT?!?! HOW???? I mean, now that you look you can see it, the two are REALLY similar looking. Nille has longer hair, and has it braided into a ponytail, but past that their nearly identical.

❁ “I- Bonnie, Where are you?!? Are you Okay? You’re not hurt right?!”

✿ “I’m fine Nille! I’m in Dormont, We just kicked the King’s butt!”

❁ “Wait you WHAT?!?”

Mirabelle leans over your shoulder, to look at the screen.

◉ “Oh, um, Hi! You must be Petronille, right? H-Hi! I-I’m Mirabelle, Bonnie insisted to join us when we went to fight the King. We made sure to keep them safe!”

▲ “We just sent a letter to you, but this works too!”

As Nille cycles through their emotions, you also feel your head spinning. The woman. The woman who KNOWS you. She… She’s been silent. Staring… slowly tearing up…

✦ “um. Are… are you okay?”

She instantly starts to bawl.

♯ “I… just…. I’M SO GLAD YOU’RE OKAY!!!!!!”

!!! She just. Continues to cry. Another woman comes up, with an eyepatch and long hair.

♪ “Hey Fa. Long time no see, huh?”

Fa?… Is… is that… your name? Your real name?

✦ “...Fa?...”

A woman off screen speaks in a calm and direct tone.

𝄢 “I would like to remind you that they most likely don’t remember us, or likely anything else. We’re likely complete strangers.”

Odile peaks over your shoulder.

◆ “Not entirely, presuming you are their presumed loved ones. Siffrin, or Fa, I presume? Regardless, they recently had a reminder. Though that is about the extent of it, as far as I know.”

♯ “OH THANK STARS!!! At least there’s SOMETHING!!! Oh wait, I should make it so you can see all of us!”

The image on the screen moves, and you see it lifted up, showing all of them standing around a table. A battlemage, a scientist with horns, the two knight women, and a moth person with a guitar.

𝄡 “Ti. Short for Titania.”

♫ “Oh! Um. Mi! Mi Calistege! H-Hi Fa!!”

♪ “Names Aurola, that’s Regulus. La and Re for short.”

The scientist just looks at the camera, their face strangely upset. You saw it change from cheerful within seconds after seeing you.

𝄢 “So. Song Polaris. STARS this is weird.”

P-Polaris?!?!!!! Oh!!! Oh stars!!!

✦ “s-sorry.”

Their face suddenly flickers, into a more even tone.

𝄢 “No worries, I had somewhat expected that to be the only face within your memory. But my emotions around my brother are rather complex at the time.”

Isa leans over to the screen.

▲ “Well, if you knew Sif, or Fa, from before, you must know all sorts about them! Can’t say we’re not interested!”

♯ “Yeah Same! We havn’t seen the poor kid in seven years!!! I need to know SO MUCH!!!”

◉ “...Kid?”

♫ “Hey, their not that much of a kid! I think they turn 21 in two weeks, actually!”

WHAT!?! Your entire family jumps! You thought you were like, 29?!??

◆ “… Congratulations, Siffrin, you have gone from being the second oldest to the second youngest.”

✿ “Can we do a birthday party? I know they got one last month, but I wanna make nother cake.”

▲ “It was a really good cake. I’m down!”

♯ "Lucky you, Fa!"

◉ “Isabeau, you better help me with gifts!”

▲ “Huh? Hm. I don’t know. Not sure what to get myself!”

◆ “Really? You and Siffrin literally had a love confession yesterday. Think anything would work.”

Everyone except Nille on the other side of the phone jumps in surprise!

𝄢 “Fa did WHAT?!?”

𝄡 “Congratulations.”

Oh stars everything is moving so fast and you are not prepared for literally any of it! You have an entire new, extra family after you JUST obtained this one, and you didn’t even know they were alive, and you can’t remember any of your life with them, and their already talking so much and you’re not ready!!!

♯ “SEE?!?? THIS is what I mean!! We gotta swap stories SO BAD!!”

♪ “Maybe after we meet up? We did promise Petronille to reunite them with their sibling, and We’d like to be able to meet back up with Fa.”

✿ “Heck yeah! We get to meet Frin’s family!”

◆ “If you were planning on traveling, shall we meet halfway?”

♯ “I’m down!”

♫ “Y-Yes! I’d love to see more of Vaugarde!”

What?!? Meet them?! They want to- You were already holding back so many emotions, your barely holding yourself together at all right now!!!

❁ “… Fine, if it means I get to see Bonnie sooner. You better keep them safe.”

♫ “A-And Fa! Please!”

▲ “Course we will! Think Carrefour is a good spot to aim for, if I remember the route right?”

𝄡 “Good. Call if we need to adjust.”

♯ “Or any other reason!!! We have SO BLINDING MUCH to catch up on!!! And you better send me Pics!!”

♪ “Any questions before we go?”

Stars you have so blinding many, but your brain is too confused and emotional to begin to think of any!!! If you so much as open your mouth you feel like you’ll start crying!

◆ “Hm. One thing. When Siffrin, or Fa, opened this device up, there was a strange symbol and some craft? Any idea what that was?”

𝄢 “Ah, something Ti recently designed. It prevents further memory alteration by the wishcraft surrounding our home. Actually, do you know where that is?”

◆ “Yes, the Island up north.”

𝄢 “Ah good, at least a little up to speed. You should be able to talk and think freely about it, though anything already lost might take some effort and prompting to recover.”

Wait, but then…

Does that… does that mean….

✦ “Can you tell me it’s name?!? I… I…”

Regulus chuckles, and looks to you. There’s this gentleness in her face, that makes your heart ache.

♯ “It’s Astravia. That’s the name of our home.”

You… You think… You can feel your emotions start to break through...

A strange beeping noise starts happening, and Re jumps.

♯ “Ack! Blind it, I kept this thing on too much today, It’s about to run out of charge! Gonna have to end the call here, but it should be back up by tomorrow morning!!! Make sure to call us!”

▲ “Course! See you all soon!”

They all wave. Your old family all waves at you… you slowly. Lift your hand. And wave back at them… Before their image vanishes from the screen… In a mere blink of an eye.

And as they fade… you… you can’t hold it in anymore….

You start to cry. You can’t help it. Their alive. Their alive and… and they… even after everything. After EVERYTHING…. They still care about you. They still!!!!!

You can barely breathe through your tears. It feels like it’s barely real. It feels like it can’t be real!!! Like any second, all of this is going to crash down on you and fall apart!!! But it’s not!! It’s still here!! It’s still real!!! And!! and!!!

You can REMEMBER your home! You can remember THEM!!! Even if it’s just the names! It’s not being ripped away from you! You can hold it this time!!! For once, for ONCE, You can keep SOMETHING of it!!

And… the one thing… you never thought you’d never had… even before, you didn’t know you ever had one… didn’t know if anyone would ever have bothered with one, even if they cared for you… That it was too far a reach to give a monster such a thing… But… They did… They said it…

….Fa…

...You don’t even know what to do with that. You’ve been Siffrin for so long. As long as you can remember. So much that your family here don’t know what to do with it. Even as your crying, you can faintly hear them, comforting you with the name you had with them. And you don’t even care to stop them, because you know they mean you. And you’re too busy crying, mumbling between your sobs about all your feeling.

Okay. Breathe. In. and out. In. and out.

You start to ease out of your crying. Your family’s words start to become clear again, bit by bit.

▲ “-okay Sif, it’s okay. Take it easy.”

✦ “i-i’m okay… i…. their…”

◉ “Yeah! Their okay!”

You nod. Still exhausted from your tears, too much to speak.

◆ “Must be quite the pleasant surprise. Though, Seeing them here and now. And With Nille of all people… That is quite the coincidence.”

◉ “… I think, Change might have nudged things a bit when they saw them…”

✿ “Woah! Is that why you asked bout them?! Cause then Frin pulled out the thingy!”

Mirabelle thinks for a moment.

◉ “Huh. Maybe? I’m still sorting this whole thing out a bit… But I’m glad I could help!”

✦ “yeah. Thank you. I… I think… I might need some time to think.”

◆ “Take your time. There has been a LOT packed into a very short while.”

✿ “Dile! Let’s get the thing we talked about!”

◆ “Ah, right. We should have plenty of time to look through the options.”

Part of you wonders what their up to, but your mind is still too muddled to bother. Those names and faces are still bounding around, including that one name...

▲ “You both do that! I think I’m gonna be resting for the whole day. Whole body still hurts a bit.”

◉ “I’ll stay here too! Don’t really have much to do right now.”

◆ “Thought you had more to settle with the House?”

◉ “I can do that tomorrow morning, did plenty today! And could use a bit to settle myself, anyways.”

✦ “Fair. I’ll…. I’ll just be… Up. I guess? Shout if you need me…”

The others give you some questioning looks before you lasso one of the upper rafters with your tendril, and pull yourself up into the clockwork, and up to the face.

You can hear a few comments about it below, but you just let it fade away, into the background noise.

You listen to the sound of ticking, of the movement of gears.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

… You came here often, during that time. Gave yourself a chance to think… The view is different this time, given it’s mid-day, but you don’t mind. The stars were a bonus, but daytime is new. More importantly, No matter how bad a time you were having. No matter how much you were struggling, or what you were worried about… This was a place you could just. Breathe. And relax…

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

… It makes for a nice metronome, doesn’t it? For both body and mind. Easing you into a calm, steady rhythm…

You start to sing. No words to your song, but voice none the less. Not that you’d have the words to speak. Too much to say, too little ways to say it. Your song sounds somber, yet happy, as it echoes through the clockwork. You watch the town below, busy yet safely distant.

… Fa…

You still don’t know what to think about it. It’s short, it’s simple. It’s more a nickname then anything. But… It was for you. You could make it yours, couldn’t you?…

You don’t know if it’s okay. You still can’t remember them all. Their still lost. They still didn’t get a chance to live. And you’re still known as Siffrin, even if just in part. You always thought that, even when you stopped being Siffrin, you’d pick another to give a second chance to, but…

You… You never… never realized how much you wanted this. Wanted to be someone. You always told yourself, if you could just do it right, if you could just play the part right, you’d be happy. But…

But they cared. Even when the illusion shattered, and they saw you for what you are. Even to those who you likely never played a part for. They cared. They still care.

They… they really care about you, don’t they? You. Not Siffrin. You.

… Maybe… Maybe just for them… You can be that? Even if it’s just a bit, you… You can find out who Fa is? Just for them, right?...

You remember what Isa said that one night.

Change is destruction, you know? To bring change, you might hurt people. Might hurt yourself even. So you always have to be careful, make sure it’s worth it.

You’re scared. Siffrin has been safe. Siffrin has been reliable. Siffrin has been your life for seven blinding years now. And doing this…

You’d never be able to go back to it. Not really. The moment you let go of being them, it’ll start to fade as your new you takes it’s space.

And you have no idea what’s on the other side. It could be worse. So much of what you’ve done as yourself instead of Siffrin has felt like it breaks everything it touches, but…

…You...

...You think… You can do this. You think. It’s worth doing this… The fact that, within mere minutes of hearing that name, you are at war with yourself, wanting it so badly… It’s worth it. It’s worth trying…

You think… You know what to do with that name.

… Thank you Siffrin, for carrying you this far. Rest well.

And good luck. Fantasia.

[deadboyfriendd]

Sovereign Creatures: The Triumph Of Death

Summary: You plan on reanimating your lover piece by piece, today, you are in search of his eyes.

Warnings: Fem!Reader, Mermaid reader, Plague Doctor!Steve Harrington, based off of The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw, period appropriate violence, gore, blood, self mutilation, surgical instruments

My content is 18+ Minors DNI

The bezoar sits encased in a glass cloche, its ruminating pulse the only thing to remind you that he was once alive, too– and that he may be alive again one day. 

The bezoar of your dead lover– a bolus of broken-off teeth and snarled hairs, fingernails, caked dirt, curds of mummified gray, colored glass. Over it all, a lettering of fine blue veins, like an alphabet that only muscle can decode – incubated his dwindling consciousness. You dreamed of the day this organ would pulsate behind flesh once more. 

You knew nothing of his pilot existence, where he learned his kindness. You did not know of the life he lived with a mother and father, where he learned to speak and run, where he felt the weight of the earth in all of its glory. Where the warmth of the sunburn overcomes the sting and the weight of existence is a beautiful one to bear. 

Instead you knew of his last existence. This one stunk with the morosity of being reanimated but never fully alive again. You’d wondered if his first death had been as painful as his last, even though you knew it would be foolish to assume that it hadn’t. Creatures of his nature rarely harbored peace in death. The weight of this existence was bruising– crushing, even. 

You knew this existence would be beautiful– almost as beautiful as he had been.

Your boy would be beautiful again, made in the image of your own ideal of it. 

Your finger traced over his notes, scared to smudge to ink despite its age. You felt the embossing against the parchment and tried to feel his hands against your fingers like reeds, blood flowing under his skin in its inky black beauty and pulsating through the ruminants of his inkwell heart. 

The study felt more like yours than his own now, though he had inhabited it for years before your existence. You were merely a vessel for his findings. A piece plucked and carved from this rib of his essence. A slave to the bezoar behind a glass cloche. 

It still pulsated its erratic song in a fleshy waltz. You looked for the hum of his voice beneath it, not quite able to remember its exact pitch. You listen to it again and again, the mellow drone of it a backing that fills your studies. Sometimes you listened for a whisper, sometimes you listened for permission to continue. 

There were more pieces of you covering this place than there were pieces of him, it felt like. You could no longer differentiate your books interwoven with his on the shelves– the lines between your handwriting and his becoming one blurred entity, the line where your being ended and the pieced-together formations of where his new being began intertwined as one desolate, threadbare creature. 

The human hands can be differentiated by the presence of an opposable thumb, made different from the other phalanges marked by the absence of the middle phalanx… the metacarpal is the connecting factor to the smaller subset of carpals within the wrist. 

This you knew was his writing, and you were thankful in the beginning for how thorough he had been in his studies. You allowed yourself the pleasure of feeling the ridges of his writing:

Trapezoid, trapezium, capitate, hamate, scaphoid, lunate, triquetrum, pisiform. 

You try to feel them in your own wrists, try to feel the sutures in bone and the roll of ligament over them. You tried to feel the feeling of being alive once more, differentiating it from what– you weren’t quite certain. You tried to remember a time in which he had been alive. 

“That’s it.” He would have whispered to you, through a velveteen smile, his own gentle fingers wrapped delicately around your wrists– feeling the roll of ligament over bone the way you tried to feel now, “So Long To Pinkie, Here Comes The Thumb.” 

Scaphoid, lunate, triquetrum, pisiform, hamate, capitate, trapezoid, trapezium.  You jotted down alongside his writing. 

His hands were one of the few things remaining after the day of the saints– your body seethed like the embers that remained of him. You watched them settle low against the glass in their formaldehyde home and wished desperately that you could pull one out to cradle your face just once– the way he had. 

You wished that you could trail your fingers over the hills and valleys of the soft plush of his hands in search of the canyons between his fingers in which yours would seek solace just once more. You wished to feel his thumb run rivers across the crest of your lip, pilling downward over the plush and settle in the crevice between there and your chin. Just once do you wish to  feel warmth behind flesh. 

It had been years, now. More than you could remember. 

His existence, the way he was before the only remnants of him you had were his studies, seemed blurry now– a far off memory in which you could not quite soft through. But you remembered the warmth that radiated from him like the sun. You do not remember who he was, yet the remnants of his previous existence consumed your entirety. 

The violence in which he gave his life for you no longer stings, but fills you with a hot, blinding anger.

His existence was violent and painful, manufactured to be that way, yet nonetheless beautiful. Sometimes you believe he does not want to live again, but you are selfish. You will show him that there is existence without pain. 

You press tender fingers, cold and aching against the glass cloche. A promise to him that you will return in due time. That you will come bearing gifts. That you will hold each other once more. 

The air is clammy this time of year, salty on your tongue when you inhale and chilled from the sea air. The cobblestone is right beneath your feet, and you walk with more caution than you typically would during the day. A fire burns in the distance, woolen-cloaked bodies stand around it in a horde in silence, staring into its molten nucleus. Humans were like that, you found, drawn to warmth. Maybe you had lost your edge. Maybe the frailty of humanity was contagious. 

Maybe a part of him had stayed human. 

He had been drawn to it as a moth to a gas lamp, quick to release his body to her thrashing, ravenous hands. Had the fire been the cause? Or, perhaps, the warmth in which death held him delicately between her fingers. He had held you the same way. You would hold him that way again. 

The first doctor was one that he was close to in his reanimated life; they had been brothers in death, harvested and reanimated at the hands of The Saints. They had passed years of orphaned childhood by playing kill the pig– a sickening game it was, even to you. Swine to slaughter, children for sacrificial youth. The saints plucked pieces from their bodies like ripened fruit, replaced them with other displaced pieces, ugly shows in sick theaters under the guise of ritualism for the other children to watch– until there were no remnants of them to be left. A quilt of leftover parts and shells of children that once were and would never be again. 

The woods that congregate like hooded men at the mouth of where river meets ocean are deep. His house is hidden deeper within them, not unlike your own, a dry thatched roof and stone walls. Solitary, with sea salt tears brimming cobblestone eyes. Yet, somehow warmer than yours. It felt like the depths of the ocean in which you resided. The part of you that human-adjacent held it close to you. 

His name is Edward. It was one of the few things he kept for himself in his old life, along with his eyes. When you would ask why, he would say:

“The Saints preferred colored eyes, my dear.” 

You’d figured that was why you were searching for your own pair now. Green, like the moss that covers the dirt in a spongy expanse in the spring.

You knock on the door and he is warm in greeting– almost as warm as it is within his house. 

“Ah, you’re here for them.”

There is a code in the way the plague doctors speak, they are warm to each other, but speak around the visceral topics of what they are actually doing. The world still feared them. In your bluntness, you had still not mastered the art. 

“The eyes, yes.” 

His back is to you. Even with his figure cloaked, you can see the misshapenness flex and roll beneath a linen sea. There is a tincture clinking as the jars bounce off of another in a song as he picks each one up and examines it– contents dancing formaldehyde dances. He is a creature in his own respect. You feel a solidarity to him despite the sovereigness to your creation. 

Your hands were not warm, not like his were. Skin rubbery and catching along itself in a tacky half-dryness as you reach to your back. Scales lay there, green and blue like the refraction of abalone. Sharp against any flesh that dare come close. The skin there is raised where you had done this before. 

It stings less for this time, but the dull ache pulsates beneath the skin where the pockets still remain. Your fingers bleed from the grip, and a deep blood seeps from the wounds like outstretched arms that reach for the scale. 

There is an infatuation that resides within the plague doctors with your existence. These pieces of you had proven incredibly valuable to them in the past. 

A book on the shelf calls to you– bound in leather and charred to an inky blackness around the edges. Necromantia. 

An old magic. Older than your lifetime. 

“What will that cost me?” You asked, Edward, who, in turn, pulls the book from the shelf. 

“We will settle that in time.”

You aren’t quite sure what it means, regardless, you tuck the book into your cloak– near your chest. It ruminates its own pulse, respires its own breaths– much like the bezoar. 

“You know,” he begins, eyes somber and black against the golden glow of the fire light, “the saints had a way of resurrecting us, of sorts… bringing us to life without actually killing us–”

“Rebirth without death.”

“Yes, so it was.” His eyes have become pits, swirling blackness of eternal oblivion. A rift in the seams of this world that points you toward his damnation. 

They had only been children. 

“I know this may be difficult to hear,” He says, voice low– you cannot tell if it for preservation of your emotions or for caution of violence, “but it may be best to let the dead be dead.” 

You assumed his resentment towards the saints was a mirror reflection of Steven’s. A fiery hatred that burned like embers deep within his chest– the lifeblood in which kept him alive for so long. He fed off of this hatred, he burned his own body to ash in search of it. He wanted The Saints dead– so much that he would offer himself to this hatred, too. 

This resentment burned in your throat tonight. It burned in choking sobs and hot tears that rolled down your rubbery flesh. It clouded your vision as you splayed ocular nerves. It burned your nose in tandem with preserving fluids. It burned in your chest as you took a step back, admiring his beauty in anatomical pieces. 

He isn’t dead. Just incomplete.

You should let him be dead, but the pulsating of the bezoar pleads to stay alive. 

When he opens borrowed eyes again, would he resent you too?

[greatlydelirious]

𝐒𝐨 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡

Karl Heisenberg x F!Reader

bonus chapter in the “Crucible of Desire” universe, but this can be read as a standalone

wordcount: 4.1k words

summary: After a villager covered in mysterious pollen comes to you to patch up his wounds, a weird feeling begins to swell in your body. Good thing the Lord watching you is more than happy to help.

warnings: smut, sex pollen, pwp, possessiveness, established relationship

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Today is painfully mundane. In the past, you’d label the day as normal, but with the sudden excitement you’ve got yourself wrapped up in you couldn’t help but sigh as you looked out the window. A pensive act when nothing substantial was knocking around in your brain. Well, that’s not completely true. The image of a certain quick-tongued silver-haired Lord was plaguing your thoughts. Quick-tongued described more than just his wit. The memory of that tongue pleasurably lashing your most intimate parts makes you shiver.

Damn him for making your libido positively insatiable. Shaking your head, you move to your medicine-laden counter to busy yourself with the mindless task of making salves and cures. You’ve done this so many times you could practically do it in your sleep. Maybe Elena could come over and-

A loud boom sounds as the door to your home almost splinters with how hard it is slammed open. Startled you see Luiza’s husband carrying Sebastian in his arms. Snapping out of your previous stupor, you quickly come to your wits.

“Lay him on the table quickly.” Vasile sets the injured man on your makeshift examination table without any preamble. Sebastion gurgles out a groan, clearly in a very groggy state. Mud and blood are caked all over the man’s body, as well as a dusting of a yellow powder you don’t recognize.

“What the hell happened?”

Your eyes search Vasile’s, but they seem just as confused as yours. “Wish I knew. I was visiting the altar when I saw him stumble out of the gates that head southeast. Took him here as fast as I could.”

Realization dawns on you after only a second. That’s the path to Lady Donna Beneviento’s home. Despite being more than curious about the foliage that grows in those parts you had common sense. You’ve heard countless stories of men and women alike wandering inside and descending into madness. It’s said the plants in that area emit pollen that clings to the senses and messes with the mind and body of the person who inhales it. The very few who have survived the powerful hallucinations claimed to have experienced what they desired and seen what was most important to them.

Blanching you observe the yellow pollen covering Sebastian’s clothes. That’s the last thing you wanted to confirm firsthand. “I need help undressing him.” When Vasile simply blinks at you like a child being confronted by one of the black goats you snap your fingers, “Quickly!”

-

After what must have been an hour you managed to throw Sebastian’s contaminated outer clothes in a cloth sack and treat the light scratches littering his body. A thin sheen of sweat has accumulated on your skin even though you usually don’t get this winded after such minimal activity. You’ve traversed the woods for longer without as much as a sigh for Lord’s sake.

Vasile grunts as he picks up the younger man again. “I’ll take him back to the house. Is he going to stay in good health?”

“I think you found him just in time. I’ll take care of his clothes; just make sure Sebastian drinks this once he wakes up.” You present a glass vile filled with a dark antibiotic liquid before dropping it into Vasile’s coat pocket. “Since he’s knocked out that must mean he’s already gotten through the worst of it.”

The older man nods, “Thank you. I’ll have Luiza come after sunrise to drop off the lei.” When he reaches the door that’s still open, he pauses and looks back at you. “May you have a blessed night.”

Following him to the entrance you give Vasile a thin-lipped smile, “May you have a blessed night as well, sir.” You rest your head against the cold wooden door after you’re finally able to close it. Despite the raging winter outside your body feels unbearably warm.

“You’re just tired,” you try to convince yourself aloud, “Clean everything off, get some rest, and by the morning you’ll be fine.”

When you walk toward the wooden examination table, a sudden dizzy spell makes you fall against it. A tacky waxiness coats your hands when you grab at the surface. You curse when you look down at the substance. The yellow pollen is, has been, all over you, soaking into your skin and probably already making its way through your bloodstream.

In a mild panic, you rush to turn on the lone shower head in the corner of the room. It was used for emergency purposes only, but now seemed a more appropriate time than ever. Frigid water spills over you as you scratch at your skin and rub at the clothes still encasing your body. Despite your efforts, you only seemed to be getting a more intense prickling sensation all across your body; only further igniting the flaming heat that was also plaguing you.

You turn off the water and stumble toward the kitchen countertop. Your fingers bite into the wood as you look over every possible cure laid in front of you to alleviate your feverish state, only to come up with nothing.

“Shit!”

The outburst suddenly gives way to a whimper when the warm throbbing inside you travels lower. To your horror, wetness follows the newfound ache in your groin. An aliment with symptoms including overwhelming warmth, dizziness, wetness, and a sudden desire was not anything you were aware of. When another wave of warmth hits your pussy, you would have crumpled to the floor if not for your grip on the counter.

What was going on?

“Hallucinogenic plants are one hell of a drug, aren’t they?” Your nerves are so shot you don’t even flinch at the husky voice that comes from behind you. The haze circling your brain makes you wonder if the voice was even real. That is all but disproved when a heavyweight settles on your hip at the same time something hard presses against your back.

“Fuck doll… you’re on fire.” The words are mumbled into your ear, the whisp of air coming from it making you shiver. A cloud of smoke wafts from the mouth stationed by your ear and fills your senses. Almost out of nowhere you’re acutely aware of Heisenberg.

He smells of copper and a natural musk that doesn’t deter your senses but draws you in. It’s all accented by a foreign spice that comes from his favorite Cuban cigars. Heisenberg screams of something primal and dangerous, yet oddly comforting. He makes your blood sing and your stomach knot. Unlike the light butterfly sensation that he’s given you in the past, this was far more intense and carnal to the point it almost scares you.

“What are you talking about? What’s going on?”

The sound that comes out of your mouth is barely recognizable as your own. Your voice is as thick as molasses, but also as sweet. So much so that you can not only hear, but feel the satisfied rumble coming from Heisenberg’s chest.

“I think you know, my little healer. The pollen has taken hold of you…” His sentence cuts off as he kisses your temple, the hand on your hip squeezing reflexively. You lean into his touch with a moan when he starts to trail down your neck. “… not enough to harm that pretty brain of yours, but enough to expose your desire.”

Heisenberg’s hand moves slightly down to play with the band of your skirt, “Do you desire me? Do you desire my cock?”

Your body instinctively responds, all the nerves under your skin practically screaming for Heisenberg. The thoughts you had earlier today have come back with a vengeance. By now you’re dripping with not only sweat and the cold water from the shower, but slick. You can’t control the reactions you’re having, but since when have you been able to when it comes to this man?

“Heisenberg, please…”

In an act of mercy, Heisenberg slips his hand under your panties. Thick fingers slide through your soaked folds and when he bumps against your throbbing clit you can’t help but let out a choked whine. Immediately he shushes you while continuing to stroke you slowly.

“Don’t strain yourself telling me, doll. Your pussy says all I need to know.” Without any additional torment, Heisenberg sinks a single finger inside of you. With your joint sigh, you don’t know who’s getting more pleasure from this. You’re warm, slippery wet, and the inner walls of your pussy are even more plush than usual, practically swallowing his digit.

“I need-“ Once again Heisenberg knows what your body wants without needing another word. When a second finger joins the first an obscene squelching noise makes your face burn hotter than before. The leather encompassing his fingers makes them double their usual thickness and only adds to the depth of your depravity.

Heisenberg’s fingers curl as they move at a steady pace, overwhelming with pleasure, but still not giving you enough. Your voice quickly disappears and dissolves into needy whines.

“Quit your whining, little healer. I’ve got you.” Heisenberg coos his words as he brings his other hand down to rub your clit. The pleasure it pulls from you is immediate. It never ceases to amaze you how deft each little movement he makes is. The tips of his finger stroke your g-spot as the pad of his other fingers drags your clit with just enough friction to make you forget how to breathe.

Despite how wound up you are it is shocking how quickly you reach your climax. You hold the countertop in a death grip as you come around Heisenberg’s fingers. He helps you ride through your high, slowing down his movements until your body finally relaxes. The velvet walls of your pussy flutter around him so deliciously that all he can think about is what it will feel like when he’s actually inside you. Surprisingly enough, you already are too.

Although you just came, it’s not enough. The lust-fueled fever taking over your body doesn’t even remotely dim. When Heisenberg pulls his hands away, you whip around only to be left stunned. The sight of him sucking the taste of you off his fingers sends your already impossibly increased libido into overdrive. You don’t just want more of him, no, you need more. Your legs shake as you step forward until your bodies are only inches apart. Bold hands meet the large bulge straining the front of Heisenberg’s pants.

He’s had yet to experience the pleasure of your plush lips wrapping around his cock. Even though he wants nothing more, Heisenberg is not a complete bastard and tries to stop you from unbuckling his pants.

“Are you sure you want this? Once we start, I won’t be able to hold back.”

You continue to tug at his belt, determined to feel what your body craves. All you want every waking moment of every day is Heisenberg. For once in your life, you have something to look forward to, something to work toward. He could tear you to shreds and you would thank him for it. Not that you would ever say that in so many words.

“She makes you want things that you truly desire right? You’re what I want.”

You fall to your knees rather ungracefully before fumbling with his belt once again. Adrenaline and searing arousal that scorches to the point of pain makes you less coordinated than usual. After another minute of failing to take off the treacherous accessory, large hands push yours aside to take its place.

When Heisenberg pushes his pants down to the middle of his thigh, cock springing free to bob under the weight of its large size, you make no haste in taking him. Right when you encircle the shaft of his cock, Heisenberg’s leather glad index finger tips your chin up so you can meet his gaze.

“What happened to never kneeling for anyone?”

“You’re not just anyone.”

You could have sworn that you saw his eyes flash yellow for a second. If you tried to ask him about it though he would say the hallucinogenic was messing with your brain. In reality, he was quickly losing the war in his head battling between control and ripping you apart.

Worst of all, you mean it. To your chagrin, Heisenberg isn’t remotely like all the others you’ve grown up around. He’s sarcastic, bullheaded, and short-tempered, but the personification of a rainbow after a devastating storm. He can be callous and cold, but by the end, he turns into something sweet that you’re elated to behold.

Thankfully, the boiling pot of arousal you’re sitting in is keeping your sensitive emotions at bay. Carnality now, sensibility later.

Heisenberg braces himself on the examination table as you give a tentative kiss to the head of his cock. The way you kiss him with such tenderness despite your feverish state makes the man groan and already tighten his grip on the wood. If only you knew how you were the one tearing him apart.

Encouraged by his reaction you take the tip in your mouth. Your tongue instinctively swirls around the leaking slit, savoring the salty and heady flavor of his arousal. Heisenberg’s cock is already rock hard and pulsing for relief. If you didn’t know better you would think the pollen was affecting him too.

With slight trepidation, you take more of his cock. Your lips stretch thin around his thickness causing a hint of pain. A factor that only works to spur him on more. Heisenberg begins to stroke the remaining area of his cock left untouched by your lips.

“Good fucking girl…” One of his large hands comes to rest at the back of your head, not to force but to guide your movements. You reflexively swallow around his cock when he hits the back of your throat. The large intrusion in your mouth makes you gag, but Heisenberg groans in approval, “… you take my cock so well.”

Curses push past clenched teeth as you suck harder. You close your eyes to savor the feeling of being completely at his mercy. Heisenberg seems to override the pollen controlling your body and all you could feel, smell, and taste was him. The amalgamation of sensations was almost overwhelming. Each strangled moan around him only thins Heisenberg’s control more. The constricting of your wet, warm throat almost makes him become undone.

You gasp when Heisenberg pulls you back by your hair. A string of saliva connects your swollen lips and the tip of his cock until he smears the mix of your spit and his precum on your mouth. “I want to be in your sweet pussy when I cum.” You shiver as he helps you to your feet, his canines glinting at you like he wants to eat you alive.

“Take your clothes off now if you don’t want them torn apart.” Wanting to obey and to free yourself from the extra warmth you don’t hesitate in throwing off your skirt, top, and undergarments.

At the same time, the Lord pulls off the endless layers of clothes and accessories adorning his body in record time. They clattered to the floor with such force that something might have broken, but with how Heisenberg is stalking toward you, he didn’t give a single care in the world for anything but you right now.

“B-bed.” You manage to gasp once you’re undressed, the small coherent part of you wanting to be taken somewhere more proper for once.

“Your wish is my command.” Heisenberg teases before lifting you by your hips. He carries the brunt of your weight as your limbs loosely wrap around him like a monkey on a tree. He grunts when you squirm making your wetness coat his cock.

“Careful now. Keep testing my patience and I’ll fuck you standing right here.”

To emphasize his point, he thrusts his hips so his cock slides between the sensitive folds of your pussy. The sensation makes you bury your face in his neck and whimper. Heisenberg chuckles at your reactions to him. Who would have thought that Donna Beneviento would ever end up doing him a favor?

When Heisenberg gently lays you on your cold sheets you moan at the small moment of relief on your hot skin. You don’t even question how he knew where your room was, let alone how he knew to come and see you.

The pollen made your vision slightly blur, causing a haze of confusion to meddle your brain. It feels as though you are dreaming, but instead of your reoccurring nightmare, it’s all that you’ve ever fantasized about. Especially when his eyes held a softness that had to be from a trick of the light.

Fantasy merges with reality until you don’t feel real, like every atom in your body is breaking apart and flying away, but when his lips touch yours it’s like life is breathed back into you. Heisenberg is metal and sulfur and something so tangible with an underlying whimsy. He’s whimsical in the way he growls at you like a wolf but worships you like a princess.

As if he can hear your thoughts, the bed dips as he pulls away from your lips so his wide shoulders can part your pliant legs. Green eyes swirling with flecks of gold pierce you, practically challenging you to look away, “I’m going to take real good care of you sweetheart.”

Heisenberg’s scruff scratches you deviously as he kisses down your thigh. He whispers salacious compliments across your skin between each teasing peck. When he reaches where you want him the most you moan in anticipation. Hot breath fans across your wet core, “Beautiful.”

Heisenberg wastes no time as he licks up your pussy before latching onto your clit. Your hands desperately grip the sheets on the bed. As much as you want to throw your head back, you are hypnotized by the man between your legs.

Each swirl and stroke of his tongue makes you gasp for breath. Just when you think the pleasure couldn’t bring you more rapture a thick finger slides into your quivering entrance.

Heisenberg groans against you, “You are so tight and needy for me.” Like a starved man, he licks and sucks you with a new ferocity. A second finger joins the first and they curl inside of you in a way that makes you forget your name. Sensations blend until all you feel is pure bliss.

“I’m so close! I can’t-“ Your hands relinquish their grip on the sheets only to thread through silver strands of hair. The overwhelming sensation of reaching your peak makes you want to push him away, but your hands pull him closer.

Heisenberg’s pace only quickens. “Don’t hold back. Let me feel you come.” He pleads as though the act of you coming undone was more pleasurable for him. After a few more deep thrusts of his fingers, you cry out his name in pure rapture. Each wave of release is stronger than the last. You try to slam your thighs shut, but two large hands keep you at Heisenberg’s mercy.

His tongue continues to assault your sensitive nerves until overstimulation makes you quiver and beg. With one final kiss to your core, he towers over you on the bed. Your pussy clenches around nothing as the emptiness starts to feel unbearable.

“I need you, Heisenberg.” Grabbing your face, he rubs his thumbs across your cheek.

“You want me inside that tight pussy?”

You were a little too eager to nod your head. “More than anything.” A possessive growl leaves Heisenberg. When he captures your lips again, you can taste yourself on his tongue. He’s primal in his need to feel you with unwavering loyalty.

Hands caress your body like its fine silk. Pulling away from your lips Heisenberg maneuvers your legs around his hips. You can’t help but squirm under his intense gaze. The feeling of his cock sliding against the wet slit of your pussy makes you grab at his knees. You felt like you would explode if he wasn’t inside you for even one more second.

“Please fuck me.” Heisenberg pins you in place by your hips. He slowly lets the head of his cock enter you. Leaning down he swallows the whine that leaves your throat. Heisenberg’s lips are rough and unrelenting. It was like he could heal all your hurt through one kiss.

“All of this for me?” His voice comes out even lower; the huskiness that is usually there sounds more feral and dominating. It felt like you were going to have a heart attack with how much his comments were affecting you. Heisenberg’s hands crawl up your waist, “So fucking perfect.”

At the same time as his words, he thrust into you, pushing his cock fully inside you. You both moan at the sensation of being connected. The usual stretch of his cock doesn’t discomfort you but soothes your ache.

Immediately he begins to thrust into you deep and fast. High-pitched moans are all you can muster. “You’re mine. All fucking mine.” His words come out through clenched teeth. Even though his mind is scrambling while thrusting into your pussy he has to make his point.

Fingers dig into your soft skin. “I want to hear you say it.” You almost can’t hear him when his cock pushes against your g-spot.

“W-What?”

One of his hands moves to rest loosely on the base of your throat. “Say that you’re mine, doll. Come on.”

Heat creeps across your face as you try to steady your thoughts. “I-I’m yours.” Heisenberg’s fingers press into your throat slightly.

“You can do better than that.”

“The only thing I want is you! I’m yours!” Your words come out through heavy pants. The pollen, the thrust of his cock, his possessiveness, it’s all too much.

Satisfied with your words he brings his thumb down to circle your clit. The added stimulation makes you cry out Heisenberg’s name. Leaning down he whispers sweet nothings into your ear, fucking you faster at the same time. His praises continue to make your skin tingle. The feeling of being wanted so fully turns you on to no end.

“Now was that so hard?” Spots start to spread across your vision as you near your third orgasm.

Heisenberg can feel how close you are when your pussy wraps around him like a vice. “Come on little healer, I know you want to come just as much as I do.” Sweat-slick bodies rut together as you work toward each other’s climax. The heat you’ve been struggling with pools in your core to give way to a sudden rush of release.

You wrap your arms around Heisenberg, digging your nails into his shoulders at the sheer force of your orgasm. His hips stutter when he finds his own release. Strings of curses and low groans fan across your ear when he makes one final thrust, filling you. Heisenberg continues to pump inside of you despite the overstimulation. He pulls out only when you begin to feebly push at his shoulders. You are the closest thing to heaven to him, divine in all aspects of the word. You’re truly too perfect and kindhearted to be with a corrupted, mutated man like him.

With a huff, Heisenberg lays down next to you on the bed. You immediately attach yourself to his side. Reaching up you kiss the throbbing pulse point on his neck. This was an intimate moment for you both, one that showcased more than just two lovers helping each other through their lust. It’s always more when it comes to him.

A wave of exhaustion has you sinking your front into Heisenberg’s chest. The steady beat of his heart almost instantly lulls you to sleep. You barely comprehend a hand pushing the wet strands of hair from your sweaty forehead.

You can only imagine how much of a mess you looked. On the other hand, Heisenberg would have this image of you seared into his brain for the rest of his Miranda-forsaken life. His little healer, sated and blissful all because of him stirs an uncomfortable feeling in his chest.

The feeling only intensifies when you yawn against him. “Don’t leave.” You mumble sleepily, wrapping your arm around his waist, “I sleep better with you.” His hairy chest acts as a pillow as you continue to nuzzle into him. Heisenberg always feels so real, so right.

The moment your heavy eyelids fall shut, a deep voice whispers your name, “So do I.”

Any and all interactions are greatly appreciated.

[loftec]

Weekly Wednesday Saturday tag

Thanks to my pals @the-rat-wins @deedala and @wehangout for the tag! I had to wait until I got home from a work trip to do this, so I wouldn't go insane trying to format this beast on my phone <3

Name: Lofty

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (or you): Sweden

Ok, so this week we are going to snoop into your google search. Type in each phrase and tell us what the first suggestion is that google gives you!

What is the best way to… lose weight (not me.)

Where can I…watch (haha I ruined this one by accidentally googling "where can I watch" two seconds earlier because I thought it was part of the prompt)

How old is… Eminem (pfffh not me.)

How long does it take…to learn Japanese! (I don't think I've searched this because I know the answer (your whole life lol) but at least it's relevant to my interests).

How many… seconds in a day (interesting but not me.)

Who set the record for… the fastest time to reach one billion views on YouTube? (Extremely not me.)

When did… Russia invade Ukraine (...okay, also not me.)

What does it feel like to… be in love (actually not me.)

Can you… run it (What does this even mean? Not me.)

When you… say nothing at all (Not me, but now I've got this song stuck on my mind.)

Why do… es Sweden have so many islands? (Do we have an abnormal amount of islands? Not me.)

Is there a way… to save Karlach (whomst??? Oh, from the video games. Not me.)

How old do you have to be…to play fortnite (most definitely not me.)

Where do the… sturniolo triplets live (now you're just making things up, not me.)

What is the best time to… post on instagram (I might have searched this for work but not on this computer.)

And to finish us off…What comes up when you type in Shameless?Shameless cast (not me!) (Whenever I search Shameless things I always write [thing] shameless us, as in: "Ian Gallagher shameless us" when I need a reference image or something.)

Wow okay I think what I've learned today is that I never search things using standard question formats, so here are 10 random searches from my history, for free:

vermillion

off centre chau gif

is this a butterfly meme

sue charlton

Average temperature chicago september

farenheit to celcius

pysgod wibbly wobbly

running through a field

daffodils svenska

loftec cake potato

The few times I google as a question look more like this: WHY THE FUCK DOES IT SAY MY POST IS MADE WITH AI ON INSTAGRAM AND HOW DO I REMOVE IT?????? (recreation of a thing I actually googled yesterday) (answer was I probably accidentally ticked the AI box myself but also fuck off fuck off fuck off)

Not tagging anyone because it's Saturday, but also tagging anyone who wants to do this!