#thank you so much for the prompt i had so much fun write this!!

[chaosherald]

Thursday bangers 5/8

Lyric prompt game started by @woundedsoul12

Thank you @blackwall-my-tiny-husband for the tag!

Rules: Free form a blurb or drawing based on the weekly lyrics prompt. It doesn't have to include the prompt just whatever you're inspired to write, write it! Then tag some friends so they can play as well. It doesn't have to be finished on Thursday just post it whenever you can (you have a whole week between Thursdays)

This week's prompt is :: taylor swift’s Lover - I've loved you three summers now, honey, but I want 'em all

(Post game Rookanis. This one absolutely got away from me and will need some polishing, but it was definitely fun ^_^ )

My Dear Readers, society's salacious soirees are in full swing as the spring social season has started! For this week’s column, I invite you to look back with me over a lesson hard learned by two of our favorites - the soon to be Lord and Lady Dellamorte of Treviso. Once, our intrepid god slayers attempted the impossible, to keep their torrid love affair behind closed doors. Let this little retrospective be a warning to any other aspiring lovers: be forthright with your passions less you find yourself mistaken for easy prey by those on the hunt for love.

((“We can’t keep doing this,” Rook said, tossing another unsolicited bouquet of flowers into the trash bin of her assigned room at the Starkhaven Keep. There was a note, a profession of love and desire from a local minor noble. It was not the first she had received since arriving for the tourney yesterday and she had already lost count of how many would be companions had approached her in person.

Lucanis was fastidiously pulling perfumed and embroidered scarves from where they had been stuffed into his pockets. Favors from various admirers. They joined the flowers and love note in the trash. He had just arrived this morning and already looked exhausted. “Agreed.”))

To set the scene, dear readers, we must go back to the first social season after the Final Blight. The social calendar of the First Talon of the Antivan Crows was always demanding. The social calendar of the newly appointed Champion of the Veil, Hero of the Final Blight, Savior of Thedas, was even worse. Our beloved Rook, humble Mourn Watcher turned unexpected diplomatic darling of the north, was wholly unused to the scene but found herself the recipient of countless cannot refuse invitations.

We know now they did their best to coordinate, making the rounds together as much as possible, providing support for one another’s agendas and providing cover when one or the other of them needed to make a graceful exit.

But these appearances were all treated as obligations where our lovers were forced to be on display and accessible as Symbols and Policy Makers and Deal Brokers and other dull things. Rumor also has it both also fastidiously intentionally hoarded their true selves for private moments. So while they attended the balls and dinners and endless meetings together, some started to question if they were anything more than politically convenient allies.

I assume you see where this is going, Dear Readers? If one does not make it clear they are spoken for, they are inviting others to try speaking up!

That first season went smoothly enough. Many of the attendees at the glittering galas of the northern kingdoms knew the truth of their relationship and were able to dissuade their companions from attempting anything foolish.

And yes, I hear you Readers. Many in Tevinter knew. Enough of Archon Pavus’ inner circle had seen the lovers clinging to each other after the Battle of Minrathous to remove any question as to the nature of their relationship.

Arlathan knew. Many had shared camps with our heroes, broken bread with them, and saw them without the careful facades.

The Wardens told stories in the Anderfels. The Lords of Fortune in Rivain. 

And of course Antiva knew. Antivans love a dramatic love story and we love them for it. The First Talon and the Champion of the Veil, killing gods to keep each other safe. And we all know there are eyes everywhere in Treviso and they often spied stolen kisses at the cafes, held hands at the markets, and acts of immediate and unforgiving violence against any who dared threaten our trying-to-stay-hidden lovers. Antiva had front row seats and it was better than the opera and I might be a little jealous.

Nevarra was where the first hint of trouble came to be, where dear Rook and Lucanis had a preview of what keeping their private lives private actually meant. One of the many would be heirs of King Markus attempted to woo Lady Rook over the course of a multiday diplomatic summit. Lavish gifts and a surprise private banquet and a dramatic public proposal on the dance floor almost came to blows when he was unwilling to gracefully accept the lady’s refusal. And that was but the beginning.

((After divesting themselves of the unwanted presents, they sprawled on her bed.  Lucanis had his own assigned room at the keep, in a different wing, and should have been heading there to avoid any appearance of impropriety. Another annoyance to add to the list. Lucanis rested his head on her shoulder while Rook threaded her fingers through his hair. “I think it needs to be tonight,” Rook said. “If we don't deal with it now, one of us is going to kill someone and cause a diplomatic incident.”

Lucanis grinned, kissing her collarbone. “I am not adverse to killing people. Especially for you.”

Rook smiled, turning her face to rest on the top of his head. “I know, but it would be terribly unprofessional.”

“Ah, that we cannot have. Tonight then, at the ball. If you are sure?”

“I’m sure.”))

As you can imagine, and as you might have heard, the second social season after the final blight was dramatically worse. The south had stabilized enough that there were more players on the field and more social obligations beyond the Waking Sea and more people who only saw the publicly polite sides of our hidden lovers and firmly rejected any rumors of them being involved with one another.

The attempts at their attentions and affections grew bolder, or so we have heard. After a ball in Val Royeaux, the First Talon found an Orlesian Bard in his room, wearing nothing but a mask and a smile.

A festival in Halamshiral fell to chaos when an elven hunter from the Dales attempted to kidnap Rook, convinced she would only find true love amongst her own.

The tale has also spread that Master Dellamorte had to duel a minor Ferelden noble who called Lady Rook a knife ear when she refused his invitation to dance and later at that same event, Rook had to curse a Templar who had tried to take on the “Crow Abomination” after his daughter’s flirting was rebuffed.

Doesn’t it all just sound exhausting, readers? One can appreciate a desire for privacy, but this is a truth nonnegotiable: one mustn’t hide. Not from us! Not from themselves! A little bird told me that at the end of the season our poor beleaguered lovers turned to their friends for suggestions on how best to stop the insanity. The consensus was simple - as much as they wanted to keep things private, that wasn’t an option. They had to show the world what they were to each other. Dramatically and decisively. And how lucky for us that they did.

((Lucanis helped Rook sneak out the window of her room in Starkhaven and she led them to the nearest active Eluvian. Their friends had been delighted to help them plan their grand debut as an official couple. Too delighted, in some cases. But everything they needed was at the Lighthouse, waiting to be fetched when they decided circumstances warranted it. It seemed counter to who they were, preparing to flaunt the private truths they had forged between them, but inevitable too. And if it meant they could get back to business without the endless distractions, it would be worth it.))

Last season had many memorable moments. Of particular interest to this gossip rag and scandal spreader was of course the behavior of First Talon Lucanis Dellamorte and his now officially intended, the Lady Rook, at the grand ball of the Starkhaven Tourney. They arrived together, fashionably late. He wore Watcher green and plum, Rook’s personal sigil embroidered on a scarf wrapped around his arm. Lady Rook was in a gown of Antivan design, done in the colors of House Dellamorte, a fancy crow blade at her side and a fancier opal ring on her finger. The crowd was stunned to see the normally professional, approachable, boring are-they-aren’t-they couple shut out the rest of the world and have eyes only for each other. They refused to talk business, fed each other canapes, chased with not so chaste kisses, and danced the night away. One of my lovely sources described their final turn of the dance floor as scandalously indecent, practically intercourse with their clothing on, and the couple made no secret of their intention to retire to the same room once the evening concluded.

Delightful, isn’t it readers? May we all be so open with our love! And may we all learn the lesson they did: trying to hide the truth does you no favors.

((Rook kept her eyes stubbornly closed, trying to shut out the light shining through the window. Last night had certainly been something.  Terrifying, at first. Putting themselves on display. By the end of the night, however, dancing with Lucanis, she had genuinely stopped caring about what everyone else thought. “How long do you think we have before Caterina and Teia start planning the wedding?”

Lucanis pulled her closer, his breath tickling her ear. “I’m sure they’ve already started.”))

Of course, that brings us back to the now. The highlight of the social scene this week is expected to be our lovers' grand wedding in Treviso. We wish them joy, a fabulous party, and just a little bit of drama and scandal.

And for the record, a little bird told me Lord and Lady Dellamorte already shared private vows in front of their inner circle, so maybe they did find a way to keep some parts of their lives to themselves. Dear Readers, we may never know for sure.

Until next week!

[alexanderlightweight]

Wednesday nights are my new/old/new again favourite part of the week. I'm solo parenting bedtime with 2 little ones and a doggy on Wednesdays which can be stressful when one is an infant who cries when tired (who would have thought 🤔) and the other is my 5yo autistic angel who manages her displeasure at a baby crying by being louder to down it out.

All this to say when the dust settles I treat myself to a cup of tea and binge read anything/everything you post during writing Wednesdays. So thank you for being you and sharing your gift. It's a sweet treat to frayed nerves and a sign that the week is almost over.

With that in mind I selfishly ask for a continuation of either guide/sentinel verse or some other where they're essentially power boosting eachother against others who would be happier to have them weaker (for control reasons or to get rid of them).NSFW please (should you be so inspired) but will happily take anything.

PS I hope you're getting some R&R yourself or at least snuggles with your pets 🐶🐈‍⬛.

that sounds... that sounds like you need a whole pot of tea and i'm very glad that my fics help you recenter and also remind you the week is near its end! I hope this wednesday was nice to you!

indeed! so shocking that a tiny human who doesn't understand anything cries at the surprise of exhaustion they can't comprehend! why I certainly don't still cry when i'm over tired even now that I understand it (jk I totally cry but I only wail sometimes). seriously, I love how kids are like 'oh hey. I can problem solves this by escalating' and you're just sitting there going '... someone please stop this ride. I would like to be off and go sit in the quiet, dark corner of peace I know exists somewhere'. not that kids aren't amazing, but well. they come with quite a few features that are understandable but no-less exhausting for all that they're being reasonable considering they're brand new humans.

as tempted as I was i didn't manage to get this written on Wednesday (because the brain fog decided I was done) but I hope you still enjoyed the other prompts filled that night when you took your break and I hope you enjoy this because I may have had too much fun with it

that being said, if this ends up not sounding like (don't read if I accidentally added something not your thing) something youd enjoy or if you read and it ends up not being your thing, just let me know.

uhm so I need to be clear this is 3DNE and it's in gladiolus first part here, so it's both bloody and kinky. seeing as Magnus senses Alec and goes Enemies to Married in about five minutes.

uh..., slaughter, fucking on a battlefield and using blood as lube (corpse blood so corpse desecration I guess). kinky sex and Magnus has dick piercings. battlefield bonding and some blasphemy. a little outside pov for some added despair. not for malec, malec are having a blast. probably some more but i'm bad at tagging without ao3's helpful database so be advised, here be dead doves.

also I did have some lovely cuddles with Nightshade (tho they are never enough according to him)

<3 lumine

gladiolus

Izzy isn’t sure what’s happened.

All she knows is that Alec is at the center of something powerful, red mist gathering in, obscuring her vision as she tries to find him.. Her hermano is in the eye of a storm that’s taken down the entire field of combatants. 

The shockwaves have stopped and while the ground still feels like it’s trembling with aftershocks, Izzy can’t be sure it’s the earth or her.  However, she’s finally conscious again and that means she can fight.  She pushes up from her side up to her knees, leaning on her elbows as she tries to steady herself and gather the will to get up.

She’s lucky that whatever happened took out both sides, giving her time to gather herself and then gets a look at what’s actually happening.

The warlock — the High Warlock and the reason her parents are in a different location rather than here —  is still in front of Alec, even if they're both standing now.  Izzy isn’t even sure if Alec’s standing or if he’s being held up, she can’t tell from this angle or from how blood drips down into her vision.  His wings are out, but they’re not glinting adamas and they’re not being ripped away from him either.

Finally she sees Alec fully as he steps away from the warlock and looks towards her, even across the distance, she feels like their gazes meet.

Run.

The stern command against her mind is silent to her ears, but not her senses. Izzy’s never felt a louder truth or a more desperate and deadly emotion from her hermano.

It’s dangerous.

He’s dangerous and it’s with fear that Izzy realizes the warlock must be a guide and if he’s a guide and Alec’s giving her a warning then...

Izzy closes her eyes and grits her teeth, forcing herself up even though she’s struggling along with every other shadowhunter on the battlefield. 

On a field of slaughter, more like.

Unlike the other shadowhunters who are picking their blades back up and orienting themselves, Izzy runs. One foot after the other, first a staggering limp before her gait steadies as her training overcomes the pain and shock.  Alec didn’t give empathic orders like that unless lives were in danger... but Izzy is the only one he’s bothered to warn.

Tears stream down Izzy’s face as the screams start.  

These are people she knows. 

Some of them are people she cares about and while she doesn’t like all of them, she’s been fighting on a battlefield with them for what feels like a lifetime. 

Even as others join her in fleeing, Izzy knows it won’t be of any  use.  

She’ll survive for one reason and one reason alone, because the bonds of kin can temper Alec’s reason enough to spare her.  There’s no such grace for anyone else on the field. Especially since most of them are hunter’s Alec only tolerated because they were all equal fodder once on the field and each body counted.

Alec’s never let on just how deep his soul ache is.  If the echoes of his un-shielded mind feel like a canyon or a puddle, or how deeply he yearns for a guide, if at all. 

Izzy feels like a fool.

Of course Alec would want a guide.  

Who else will give him the unconditional love he deserves and has been denied his whole life.  Their parents threw him at the Clave the moment he emerged and the Clave have him throwing him at demons and then on battlefields ever since.

Alec has no true reason to stay loyal to their people, not even the Pride of Idris that he was a part of.  Alec turned his nose up at too many guides, snubbed too many families and bruised too many personal feelings, despite the blatant lack of compatibility between him and well, anyone.

He’s been alone for years, not just by choice but because he’s never matched.

Which is exactly why he’s slaughtering them.

All of them.

Tiers and rows and teams of nephilim, killed by one of their own.  Worse, a sentinel, the steadfast protectors of their people.  The very reason Alec leads troops despite being unbonded is because of his natural instinct as a sentinel to protect them and his territory. 

Yet now he destroys what he once shielded with a near manic glee. Why wouldn’t he, when it’s to prove his devotion to his guide, Alec’s never been one to half-ass anything.

Izzy can feel Alec's satisfaction grow with each death.  It lingers heavy in the air as if Alec’s warlock guide is magnifying it. Projecting it out to further torture the nephilim dying in droves and flaunt his own victory in claiming a sentinel even the Clave has given up on.

Most of them are trying to fight back but some know better and are running.  Alec’s deadly enough on his own, but now in defense of his guide?  There’s no hope for any of them.

Izzy stumbles, nearly tripping as the hunter in front of her drops, an arrow through their throat.  Izzy wants to fall and kneel, take advantage of the fact that Alec’s her brother and take a moment to mourn and just breathe but she can’t.

Alec may be her brother but Alec’s guide is her enemy.

This is Alec’s last gift.

Her life, before her brother completely turns to the other side.

That warlock didn’t demand this. 

Oh the Clave will assume so and so will their parents.  They’ll make it sound like the warlock mind-controlled Alec but Izzy knows the truth.  This is a gift.  A courting gesture. A Raziel damned promise, that Alec will never betray his new guide and is firmly by his side, despite being enemies only moments before.

Izzy gets past the runline and to the tents, where runed defenses normally keep those in charge and those wounded who are sent back to heal.

Her first step past the zone where her body can recognize nephilim grace and she collapses. Rolling with the force of her fall and barely remembering to tuck herself to take the brunt on her shoulder rather than head.

For a moment she lays there, blood and mud in her mouth and then she’s being hauled up.  Aline and Sebastian pulling her up and into a tent rather than in the mud.

“Izzy, what in Raziel’s name is happening past the runes? We can’t see anything.” Sebastian’s voice is soothing and familiar and Izzy chokes, turning to spit before accepting a canteen of water.

“The High Warlock, the one no one can get near. The reason my parents got called to Idris—” Izzy gets out and then she takes several more sips.  They’ve both paled but what they’re imagining is nothing as bad as the reality.  “He’s a guide. A powerful guide, he brought the entire battlefield down. Even his own side and by the time I managed to get up it was too late.” Izzy shrugs, laughing mirthlessly as she cries because she can’t tell if this is worse or better than losing Alec to death. “He’s claimed Alec as his sentinel.”

Aline turns to where the wardline is lit up with silver-blue wards and runestones and Izzy follows her gaze.  The field she ran from can’t be seen, hidden beneath a deep, dark unnatural fog of crimson.

“The screams stopped a few seconds ago.” Sebastian murmurs, “I can’t tell if that’s bad or good. You think the warlock killed them all so that Alec wouldn’t have to choose? It makes sense he’d spare Izzy then, since she’s Alec’s sister.”

Izzy shakes her head, not sure if it’s guilt, love or exhaustion that holds her tongue from spilling the truth.  Better to let them understand and see with their own eyes the carnage Alec’s wrought. 

“Can you see out there, if you go past the wardline?” Aline asks her and Izzy isn’t sure, she doesn’t remember anything but trying to make sure she didn’t trip on the bodies that dropped as easily as the apples Izzy used to throw for Alec to shoot.

—-

Pleased avarice fills the entirety of Magnus as he watches his sentinel slaughter his way through packs of his fellow shadowhunters.  No sooner had Magnus pulled Alexander to his feet and into a kiss to ground his boy with his touch as he pulled Alexander from a zone-out and his sentinel bristled.  Turning his backto Magnus and hand on his unlit blade.

Magnus had thought it to be symbolic, that his delightfully tall sentinel wanted to show that he’d protect Magnus despite it hardly being necessary or what Magnus wants.  Instead of posturing however, he’d launched forward, blade reaping lives and his psyche oozing grim satisfaction. He’s a scythe in a field of bodies ripe for the harvest. 

This isn’t protection, it’s carnage.

Magnus is quite frankly, shocked and delighted by Alexander’s brutal instincts and the way he cuts through bodies with both his blade and wings.  They’re bonded and even if it hasn’t settled that’s more than enough for him to shield Alexander from the mental agony ringing across the field.

His boy is drenched in the sacred and holy blood of his own people, uncaring of the gore as Alexander crushes bones and cuts off limbs. A battledance of gruesome beauty dedicated to Magnus alone.

Magnus hadn’t had any particular plans for the rest of the shadowhunters on the field before this. He’d fully intended on taking Alexander somewhere private, where he could make sure his sentinel wasn’t too overstimulated as they finished bonding. Sentinel senses could be rather delicate, especially before the final claim to complete and settle a bond. Alexander’s mind and soul submitted so sweetly to Magnus’ claiming that he thought he’d need to protect his boy until it settled.

Yet Alexander stands strongly, bow drawn and arrow aimed, feet steady and planted on bloodsoaked ground.  Quickly and efficiently picking off those who try to run, avoiding only one single shadowhunter.

That singular mercy would normally be enough to raise Magnus’ hackles, however the bond that thrums between his boy and the lone shadowhunter is familial and filled with farewell, not one of lust or yearning.

Still, it stokes something bitter in Magnus’ instincts that anyone was spared when this is a display from Alexander to himself.  It’s not even a display of protection, but one of devotion. One survivor won’t make him doubt his sentinel but it does make him wistful, as Magnus watches his boy decapitate one of the hunter’s actually trying to fight back.

Despite thinking of taking Alexander somewhere calm and isolated, where his senses could be soothed as they bonded, Magnus has changed his mind.

Because while it isn’t necessary, Magnus intended to finalized his bond with Alexander with sex. He wants a primal bond and considering Alexander is slaughtering the soldiers he was leading only moments ago, his boy can only want the same.

Magnus doesn’t want to tame Alexander’s tempest, he wants to unleash it and add his own gale to the storm.

—-

The minute every threat is neutralized — perhaps not yet dead, but no longer a threat, Magnus pushes his sentinel down onto the ground and follows. Kissing Alexander messily and marveling at how just how much blood his boy got on himself during the massacre he just gifted Magnus.

“You’re divine, Alexander.” Magnus praises as he kisses blood from Alexander’s jaw and they both groan when Alexander gets his viscera soaked fingers under Magnus’ shirt. They’re firm and calloused and slick with still warm blood and Magnus chuckles into Alexander’s mouth as he uses magic to get both their pants open.

“I hope you’ll forgive me darling, but I’m afraid after your little display we’re bonding here and now, Alexander. I’ll fuck you on silks and roses later if you like, but for now. I’ll have you like this.” Magnus means it too, his sweetly vicious sentinel deserves finery and gentleness as equally as he deserves to be ravaged in the pools of blood he’s created.

Alexander chuckles under him, eyes dark and wild as he pulls Magnus down so he can lean up and kiss him — teeth catching on Magnus’ lip in a taunt.

“You think I mind bonding on the land I washed clean for you with blood? You think I’d let you bond me somewhere else? I’m your sentinel now. You decreed it. So prove it here, where it can’t be denied.”

Magnus has to kiss him for that and then Magnus drags his fingers through the thick blood on Alexander’s clothes.

“Do you think your dead comrades ever imagined that the most useful thing they’d ever do in life or death is help me fuck you open?”  

Alexander whines, hips wriggling to give Magnus more room to pull his pants down far enough so Magnus can fuck him. 

Magnus pets his fingers across Alexander’s hole, anointing it with the blood of Alexander’s own hunters with a smirk.  There’s a whine of impatience and Magnus spits, letting blood and saliva mix and adding magic to slick the way as he presses into Alexander.

Magnus feels as impatient as Alexander looks, the way he’s urging Magnus to hurry with little hitching breaths and judders of his hips as he clenches down on Magnus fingers.

“I’m trying to loosen you sweetheart, let me in.” Magnus nips at Alexander’s ear, careful to avoid breaking or biting skin just yet. “If you keep clenching like that, how are you ever going to handle my cock, hmm?”

Alexander whines, tensing despite Magnus orders and finally after a deep, steadying breath he forcibly relaxes.  Magnus fucks into him with his fingers, curling them and twisting and holding down Alexander’s hip with his other hand. Unrepentant when he finds Alexander’s prostate and rubs teasingly at it.

“There, isn’t that better?” Magnus asks and Alexander’s gasp of his name is the correct answer as Magnus adds a third finger, twisting until he’s knuckle deep. The rings of his fingers pressing together and stretching Alexander’s rim tight against the cold metal.

Magnus crooks his fingers teasingly, the rings threatening to slip past Alexander’s rim and he laughs in delight as Alexander comes, breathless and untouched between them.

“Such a good boy,” Magnus praises him mentally and also petting him with emotions.  Laving him with affection and pride and Alexander squirms, clenching around Magnus’ fingers like he’s afraid they’ll leave.  Magnus gives him a moment to settle and then presses his fingers deeper, curling them so they press insistently against Alexander’s prostate this time.

It earns him a deep whine and Alexander tenses and trembles beneath him.  His wings are muddy, fluttering and gathering filth and blood and Magnus only allows it because he’ll personally clean each and every feather later.

Once Alexander is entirely his.

Alexander’s hole is pink and swollen and streaked with blood when Magnus pulls his fingers free.  It’s obscene to use nephilim blood to fuck Alexander, but how can Magnus waste such a precious opportunity when it’s been provided by Alexander.

Magnus slicks his cock with the blood on Alexander’s torso and then fucks into him.  He’s not nice or gentle about it and Alexander’s scream is silent as his nails claw into Magnus’ back and he bites at the shoulder of Magnus’ jacket.  His teeth nearly pierce through the leather, prickles of pain teasing at Magn us’ skin as Alexander moans.

“Did I forget to mention the piercings, darling?” Magnus barely manages to get the words out.  Breathless himself and too entranced by how tight Alexander is around him.  The jacobs ladder of platinum rings down his cock dragging and catching on Alexander’s hole had been blissful but it’s even better now, fully inside him. Magnus has to take a moment, just to let himself feel as Alexander’s soft walls flutter around him. Each of the nine captive beaded piercings ensure that his sentinel will never be able to forget the feeling of Magnus fucking him. 

Of Magnus claiming him from the inside out..  

Alexander is breathing wildly, wings puffed up and trembling and eyes clenched shut as he tries to breathe.  There’s blood and mud in his hair and on his face and Magnus snaps his hips forward, just to make Alexander look at him.

He does, gasping out Magnus' name in both complaint and awe.

—-

Alec can feel everything and it’s been too much since Magnus caught him and claimed him but that doesn’t matter. Because all sensation fades away, to where he can’t feel the mud or smell the blood or anything but Magnus.

Magnus cock breaks and remakes him, as he memorizes every imprint of metal and flesh inside him as Magnus fucks him. 

Alec could zone out on the sensation of cool metal that stays chilled and Magnus’ cock searing hot in contrast. He can’t though, Magnus keeps him on the edge of awareness, dragging his cock in and out in smooth, slow thrusts, as if he has all the time in the world. Each piercing catches on Alec’s rim, again and again every time Magnus pulls out only to slam back in and when he hits Alec’s prostate, it’s with metal kissing it.

Alec can still hear the gasps of the dying.  The gargle of blood in lungs, slowly drowning those he stabbed in vital places but didn’t personally finish off.

But what does that matter when he can also hear the way Magnus’ heart beats in tandem with his own and feel how Magnus cock pulses inside him, slicking his walls with precome and the blood Magnus opened him with. Alec’s too sensitive to come again, even if he’s half-hard and wishing he could. That kind of pleasure would black him out when he’s this open and overwhelmed or worse. Send him into a zone out..

Magnus is shielding him, but not completely, not yet.

He wants Alec to feel this and Alec wants to feel it even if he feels like he’s drowning.

Alec wants to feel the raw agony of death around him as he discovers the brutal joy of being found and claimed. Wants to be lost and then found again by the pained pleasure of Magnus fucking him, his cock erasing and rewriting every moment Alec ever felt lonely and aching and empty without Magnus.

Magnus fingers stroke his dick, forcing him fully hard and then slowing to jerk Alec off with unhurried, lazy movements as the thick crimson fog around them begins to disperse.  

It lingers on the edges of his vision before disappearing and Alec groans as he realizes Magnus did it on purpose.

Magnus wants everyone to see and feel the backlash as their bond finishes forming, to witness Alec’s guide fucking him in a valley of blood and as Magnus comes, the bond sears fully into place.

Existence roars and the world spins before it’s tucked away behind Magnus, the sensations that overwhelm Alec fading away. Even with as over sensitive and vulnerable as he is.

He comes, barely feeling and nearly blacking out from the feeling of Magnus’ limp cock and hard piercings sliding from his raw hole. 

Fingers pet over his face and he can hear each kiss of metal teeth as Magnus zips him back into his pants and then hauls him up.  Alec’s not sure how he does it, when Alec’s spine feels like jelly and his wings are a dead weight.

There’s the noise of a portal and Alec follows with relief, knowing that wherever Magnus takes him will be home.

Will be safe.

—

AN:

When Magnus dropped his shields, they connected on a psionic level and he claimed Alec mentally, he then locked Alec’s senses on him with a quick imprint, to ensure that Alec will know him no matter what.  The sex just finalized the bond and also cemented what kind of bond it is. The psionic melding shared the basics of who they are with each other. Not like, favorite color and food, but like the primal basics of a soul and mind and their names.

I’m gonna explain the sentinel/guide bonds in my universe because everyone kind of has their own thing and mine is aro/ace inclusive which a lot of them are really not. In fact in this universe stabilizing/formalizing/settling a bond via sex is the rarer of the three options.

Okay so full-bonding can occur with either sex/mutual full sense-imprinting (including psionic)/and mutual, scarring bites. There’s about a twelve hour window after you start forming your bond to stabilize it with a full/complete bonding. It does not take a full twelve hours, but that’s about the limit before you start going feral with the need to finalize the bond.

Full and (mutual) sense-imprinting is both physical and psionic and creates a bond based on a kind of mutual steadiness, a baseline bond that's got a firm and even foundation and is very grounded. If one half of a pair is especially hot-headed/reckless/impulsive or something, they might want this kind of a bond to help ground themselves just a little more. Or if both sides have anxiety etc. This is the kind of bond that helps stabilize you and your partner to the point where a lot of partners can work apart if they want/need to. It’s the most common bond. 

A mutual bite blood-shared bond creates a very protective more insular bond. It’s basically the most defensive version of the bonds and it’s very focused on each other. More contact platonic or otherwise is required, a lot of holding hands and leaning against each other and generally being in each other’s space. Which is less optional and more a need to feel each other as close as can be. Most pairs who bond like this don’t work apart ever. Second most common bond.

Sex bonding is actually in fact a sex ritual with a side of bonding and is more raw and primal driven. It’s a more rare form of bonding because of that. The bond it forms is a violent, decadent and feral energy that toes the line of humanity. It’s a more rare bond because it does symbolize a sacrifice of control for the raw, wildness of a bond that's also rabidly obsessive. Depending on the pair, you never know if they’re more or less dangerous together or apart and which they are depends on the sentinel/guide. Least common bond.

After a bond stabilizes, the acts of full sense imprinting, sex and biting each other don’t have any effect on the bond itself. They’re just fun things they can do or not do. 

Yes they still need to do full sense and psionics imprints, but if they’d done that first it would be a different kind of bond. Therefore, sex first.

There are nine captive beaded piercings (which are a hoop with a locking bead in the middle that seals the piercing shut) on Magnus’ Jacob’s ladder piercing and they represent the nine circle of hell because he’s extra like that.

also for anyone wondering, Magnus didn’t influence Alec at all even though he could have. Alec is just also extra and wants to make sure Magnus understands that he’s picking Magnus, just like Magnus chose him. Alec wants everyone to know what side of this war he now belongs to. there will be no allowance of someone even hinting he's not loyal to Magnus and Magnus alone.

[blitzwhore]

Sleepover Saturday ❤️

I am literally working on my first fanfic ever right now and I’m so excited. It’s so self-indulgent and I’m positive only 3 people will ever read it 🤣 but it’s been fun to actually write something instead of just thinking about it non-stop.

I wanted to ask: do you have any tips for planning a fic out? Do you organize your ideas in a formal way, or do you just write and see where it goes?

I just kind of started writing and I’m worried that I’m going all over the place.

First fanfic ever!!! Omg that's so exciting! Congratulations on taking this step 😍 Do you have an AO3 account set up? One I can perhaps subscribe to? 👀

Oh gosh, I am not the best person to ask for story planning tips. I am soooooo all over the place it's not even funny. Usually, when I write short one-shots or drabbles, I just start writing without any previous planning (other than vague ideas floating in my mind) and see where the story takes me.

For longer fics, I... okay, it's hard to explain. I do plan, but it's vague and chaotic. What I usually do is create a separate Google doc and dump every single thought I have about the fic in there, unfiltered. Streams of consciousness I have, dialogue exchanges that suddenly pop up in my mind, backstory for the characters, events I'd like to write, ways in which I'd like them to touch or look at each other, songs they'd listen to... And anything else I'd like to include in my story at some point.

Then, I start writing. And as the story progresses, both in the doc and inside my head, I frequently go back to those notes and ideas, moving them around and changing them up to fit the characterisation and tone as those slowly come together. Some of those ideas become milestones I want to get to. Everything I write, I write steering them towards that moment, that scene that I've planned out. But I have no idea how they'll actually get from A to B; that all comes to life while I write. And sometimes, while writing, the characters go "actually, B is stupid and we're gonna do W instead, thanks." And I'm just sitting there like... God fucking dammit you guys 🤣

For example, in my tattoo fic, I knew while writing chapter 1 that I wanted their first date to be at the park, and I had many ideas for how their first kiss would be. I knew I wanted Stolas to ask Blitz to kiss him, and then get nervous when Blitz laughed in response, and I knew I wanted Blitz to take charge and start slow, kissing Stolas' neck until Stolas was so desperate he dragged Blitz into a proper kiss himself. And I knew I wanted it to happen on a park bench, with Blitz in Stolas' lap. But while planning for, and writing, chapter 2, I had no intention of making them talk about circus stuff, or to have Stolas having seen Blitz perform as a teen; that came out of nowhere. And I also didn't plan on them hearing water or finding a creek or taking selfies together, that was all them!

And don't even get me started on chapter 3. That was meant to be the club chapter. They were just meant to have a quick meeting so Stolas could give back the jacket and they could make out a bit. The tacos, and Blitz lending him a shirt, and Stolas getting nervous and prompting Blitz to be more careful about dragging Stolas into things he doesn't actually want to do... That was all them. I had no part in it! 🤣

So yeah, whatever you're doing, I'm sure it can't get much worse than what I'm doing 😂 I'm now writing chapter 6 and I have a lot of specific moments I want to get to in the chapter, but how they'll get to each of them and what will happen between A and B and C is beyond me. And I have plans for what's going to happen in future chapters, many plans. But as to how and when we'll get to each of those moments in the fic? Yeah, I have no clue!

And this is coming from someone who's been writing fanfic for over a decade (and writing in general since I was 8), so... Whatever it is you're doing, if it's working, then keep going! That's all the wisdom I can offer 🤡😂

[sustainably-du-mortain]

I'm not afraid of you - for the polyam. If you're taking requests?

I know these were supposed to be fluff prompts but apparently I cannot write anything soft without Jonah through pain first, so have some hurt/comfort!

'I'm not afraid of you'

Fandom: The Wayhaven Chronicles Pairing: Adam du Mortain x m!detective (Jonah Rafferty) x Nate Sewell Word count: ~1.6k prompt list here

Something is wrong.

Jonah hasn’t said a word since he got back from his apartment, although the quiet is not something unusual for the three of them, the fact that Bo’s fur is bristling and that the dog hasn’t left their boyfriends side since they got back is a clear indicator that something happened while they were away.

“Jonah?” Nate’s voice breaks the heavy silence, worry seeping through the name, but Jonah doesn’t seem to hear it, or if he does, he ignores it. Instead he keeps on scribbling frantically in his notebook.

Adam cannot see what he’s writing from where he’s sitting but, the way his hand follows the same pattern of movements repeatedly, tells him that Jonah has been writing the same words over and over since he sat down.

“Jonah?” This time he’s the one trying to grab their boyfriend's attention but, just like the first time, calling his name doesn’t get him any reaction, or at least not the one he hoped for.

Jonah’s scribbling grows more frenetic. Desperate even. He starts underlining certain words, each line he draws sounding like a knife slicing the tense silence. His breathing becomes erratic. He circles one word. Again and again. The motion like a rope that coils around one’s neck. Suffocating. Until finally, the paper tears and Jonah’s pencil’s snaps in his hand. Sobs follow, ripping away their heart as the sound echoes through the room.

Adam is kneeling before him in a flash, Nate stands next to him in the next.

Cautiously, Adam puts a hand on his knee, but Jonah flinches away as if the touch singed him. Adam can almost hear his heart shattering in his chest. His eyes riveted to his hands, he takes a step back. Tears well in his eyes as Nate takes his place before Jonah. 

A wail, brings his focus back on Jonah and he takes Nate’s previous place beside their boyfriend. He doesn’t have time to feel monstrous, not when Jonah needs them.

“Jonah?” Nate’s voice is hesitant but gentle. “Jonah, can you look at me?”

He doesn’t move. His face is buried in his hands and he’s slightly rocking back and forth in his chair. Nate throws a desperate look towards Adam, looking for help, but he is as lost as Nate is: their boyfriend is right before them and yet they have no idea how to reach him. If they could just get him to look at them.

“Ya rouhi…” The petname is tinted with a hint of despair and concern. “I’m going to touch your hands, if that’s okay with you?” Nate warns him. He waits for a sign that Jonah heard him, but it never comes. Yet, in hopes that the warning made its way through, Nate slowly reaches for his hands, ready to back away at any sign of discomfort from Jonah.

When Jonah lets him put his hands over his, Nate starts softly rubbing circles on the back of his hands. Adam watches as their boyfriend relaxes a little at the gesture, until he allows Nate to peel his hands away from his face.

“Hi…” Nate whispers with a smile when their eyes finally meet, although he’s not sure Jonah can see him through the stream of tears. “Now I want you to take a deep breath with me, do you think you can do that?”

Nate breathes in and Jonah joins him. Nate doesn’t let go of his hands the whole time. 

“You’re doing great, my love. One more time.”

Adam’s eyes fall on the open notebook while they do it a few more times. Covering every square inch of the page, he can barely decipher the five words etched over and over again into the paper.

‘I’m not afraid of you’ they read. 

Instantly worry washes over him. What the hell happened while Jonah was at his apartment? Who did he encounter? Did they attack him? He barely holds back from questioning him, knowing this would only make the situation worse. Instead he tries to reign in his concern and takes a deep breath along with his boyfriends.

When the sobbing quiets down, he puts a hand on Jonah’s shoulder who looks up at him, tears still trickling down his face. Adam hesitantly reaches to brush away a strand of hair sticking to his cheek. His heart soothes in his chest when Jonah leans into the touch before wrapping his arms around his waist, pulling him closer. Adam immediately starts raking his fingers through his hair for he knows that Jonah is very fond of the gesture.

They stay like this for a while. Jonah pressed against his stomach. Nate, still kneeling before him, although his head is resting on his lap now. This is an uncomfortable position for the three of them, but this is the one thing they need to ease the remnants of worry and fear which washed over them. So they do not move, not until every single one of them feels better.

“Want to tell us what happened?”

“Who is this about?”

A hoarse chuckle escapes Jonah’s mouth when the two vampires break the quiet at the same time.

“Bobby...” Jonah whispers with an exhausted sigh. He doesn’t need to explain furthermore, the mention of the reporter is enough to make the two vampires tense instantly. 

A few weeks ago, Jonah told them about their shared past, how things ended between them, the impact he had on Jonah’s life and well-being. So the thought of the two of them, alone in Jonah’s apartment, makes Adam’s stomach lurch in his throat. This might be worse than anything he had in mind.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Jonah shakes his head. “Maybe later…”

“Would you like some distraction then?” This time Nate’s question is met with a nod. “Do you have something in mind?”

***

Felix is walking by to get to the kitchen when a scream, coming from the living room, makes him stop in his tracks.

Adam requisitioned the living room earlier this evening, denying the other half of Unit Bravo access to the room for the rest of the night, which of course spurred a lewd quip from Mason. And since Adam did not tell them the reason behind his request, Felix has been dying to take a look inside the living room. So, when another scream escapes from the room, followed closely by three distinct fits of laughter - bright and loud giggles, a low chuckle and a muffled laugh - he can’t help but push the doors of the living room ajar.

“I told you we should have put these pillows here!” Jonah complains just as Felix peeks his head through the door. He hardly manages to hold back a laugh when he sees what’s going on.

Adam and Jonah are standing in front of a massive pillow fort, or at least what is supposed to be a pillow fort, for it seems to have collapsed in on itself, which Felix guesses is the reason for the screams and giggles he heard seconds before. The ruins of the fort take up half of the living room and Felix would have given everything to see it in all of its glorious magnificence. So, he makes up a mental note of sneaking into the living room later on to see it, since they seem to be keen on rebuilding it.

In the meantime he observes as Adam and Jonah stand before the mountain of pillows and sheets, only remnants of the construction, trying to assess the damage. Jonah is actually holding what looks like a construction plan and Felix struggles to bite back the chuckle that threatens to leave the barrier of his lips. He shouldn’t be surprised, these two always take things way too seriously, but a construction plan? For a blanket fort? Really? He wishes he had taken his phone with him, Mason is never going to believe him without proof.

As they start debating over their next course of action, Felix’ eyes travel across the room in search of Nate. He heard him laugh earlier, so he must be somewhere in there. But his focus is caught by the paused image projected on the wall behind them. He recognizes that one movie with the green ogre that Jonah once called a masterpiece and Felix has to admit he’s quite impressed with the fact that he managed to get Nate and Adam to watch it. Adam in particular, seeing that making him sit through an animated movie is a feat Felix hasn’t yet managed to achieve.

Bo, emerging from underneath the collapsed heap of blankets, catches his attention.

With a bark, the dog starts pulling at the sheets when a strange bump suddenly forms into the pile of bed-linen and pillows. 

“I know I cannot actually suffocate, but it would be nice if you two could actually help me out.” This time Felix cannot hold back a snort upon hearing Nate.

The other two immediately rush to haul him out of the wreckage. Jonah helps him up before rising on his tiptoes to land a soft peck on his cheek. Adam does the same on the other cheek.

“I’m sorry we left you in there.” Adam apologizes, his head nuzzling in the crook of his neck when Nate wraps an arm around him.

“Sorry!” Jonah gives him a sheepish smile before joining the hug, that’s when he finally spots him. “Oh, hi Felix!”

“Shit!” 

The vampire slams the door shut, cursing Jonah for revealing his presence. He has to flee before Adam kills him for catching them being all lovey-dovey despite the fact that he was supposedly banned from the living room.

[the-broken-pen]

Hey hey

Could you perhaps write a snippet where the building hero is in, gets bombed? Its bombed as an assassination attempt to get them, however the people in that building die and hero, succumbed to their injuries couldn't save everyone of them. At last they watched the last ambulance left without them, even as they called for help

Villians villa is just few kilometres away

Thankfu hero's legs aren't broken

They begin walking

The problem? Vil is way to composed and prim and perfect to let all of hero's blood get on their expensive carpets and fabrics. They could even be mad at the hero for reddening their porch if they hero stood their asking for bandages. What now? And the fight the two had yesterday that ended with "never see me again" and "don't ever talk to me"s.....vil was stopping hero from attending the event the building....

Will vil help them? They can just ask for bandages and leave.

What hero doesn't know: vil would literally destroy the world for hero, and there's no way in hell are they leaving hero on their doorstep.

(Anon you were cooking with this ask, thank you!)

The hero realized the building was going to explode a split second before it did, which wasn’t enough time to do anything other than brace.

They tensed, and there was a horrible screeching of metal and brick, followed by a deafening silence that covered them more completely than the rubble did.

The hero coughed once, weakly, pain rocketing through their chest, and shoved a piece of concrete off themself.

From somewhere else in the building, a soft, terrified wail began, broken around desperate sobs.

The hero coughed again, hand rising to their ribs. They didn’t have the energy to be surprised when their fingers came back coated in blood and dust. They grimaced at it, struggling to their feet–

And oh, god. That hurt.

The hero had a surgery once, the kind that resulted in bandages and a care regime and a set of stitches, and when they had woken up in the recovery unit, it had felt sort of like this. A moment of loopy half-awareness, and then a pain that had knocked the breath out of them, hands clenching into the sheets as a nurse tried to figure out if they needed more medication. 

This was worse. Their vision swam, and they blinked it back with a hiss.

Because someone, somewhere in the wreckage, was crying. And if one person was crying, it meant there was someone who survived. Which meant it was likely there were other survivors–ones too hurt to make any noise, ones knocked unconscious, ones still too shocked to do anything other than lay there–and it was the hero’s job to find them.

It took them far too long to locate the source of the crying. Longer to dig them out, vision going white as the person slammed into the hero’s chest in some facsimile of a terrified hug.

“You’re okay,” they managed, voice like gravel. “It’s okay. I’m going to get you out, and you’re going to be just fine. Were you with anyone?”

And then again, and again, and again.

The hero panted, hands on their knees as their body fought them in an attempt to just collapse onto the concrete below. They just–they just needed a minute. Just one, maybe, and then they could–

This time, the hero wasn’t even aware of it before it happened.

The remains of the building shook, then disintegrated into itself in a plume of dust and rock. The hero shielded their eyes with one hand, blinking against the onslaught.

What little air they had managed to get stuttered out of their lungs in something close to a sob. They had done this enough times to know there wasn’t anyone in that building left alive. 

They sagged down against the nearest thing–more rubble, maybe? They didn’t know–and this time when they rested a hand on their side, there was a considerably larger amount of blood.

“That’s…not great,” they said, and their fingers blurred in front of them slightly. There was an ambulance right there. Just a couple feet away. They had already helped most of the survivors, so maybe it would be okay for the hero to–

A paramedic rounded the back of the ambulance, and the hero lifted a hand, reaching–

“Please, wait, I think–I think,” it hurt coming out of their mouth, “help. Please I need–” they trailed off as the paramedic took the step up into the ambulance.

And closed the door behind them.

The hero wasn’t even that surprised when the ambulance began to drive away.

“Help,” they finished weakly, then sucked a breath in through their nose.

They were supposed to be good at this kind of thing. Surviving, no, thriving in catastrophe. A pillar of light. The one with the plan. 

The kind of being that didn’t beg for help on the ground.

The hero wasn’t entirely sure how they managed to get themselves back to standing. It was as easy as that–one moment they were on the ground, gravel embedded in their knees, and the next they were up and shaking but they were up.

“If I stay here, I’ll die,” they murmured. They had hoped maybe the threat would keep their legs from buckling again. It didn’t.

They weren’t near any place that could be trusted. There wasn’t a safe clinic for heroes on this side of the city, and even if there was, the hero wouldn’t trust them. Couldn’t afford to.

But as for near…the hero swallowed the nausea as it rose in their throat. There was one place they could go. One person they could go to.

Four miles. They could do four. There was no other option.

Where the hero had had some blurry recollection, or at least, a good guess of how they got to standing, they had absolutely no clue how they made it onto the villain’s porch. They managed a blink, retching slightly as they stared at the villain’s wavering door, then had to freeze just to bite down the pain that had come from the gagging.

They tried to knock and ended up collapsing against the villain’s door, knees giving out entirely as their fingers scrabbled for purchase and left behind smeared bloody marks on the wood.

They weren’t entirely sure how that happened either, or how long it took the villain to answer the door. Just that it hurt—so, so much, it hurt so–and that they managed to shove themself back into some semblance of standing right before the villain pulled the door open.

The villain’s face did a sort of spasming thing as soon as they saw the hero, jaw dropping slightly in what the hero could only really read as shock.

There was a very considerable amount of blood on the door. They were cold.

“I–” the hero tried, but they weren’t really sure where they had been going with that sentence, and after yesterday and the screaming and the fight the villain probably didn’t want to see them at all, didn’t want to ever see their face again, so–their mind blanked. “I got blood on your door.”

They tried to gesture towards it, but that hurt, so their hand simply twitched slightly from where it hung by their side.

They glanced down at their feet, because they didn’t want to see what the villain’s face was doing, especially if what it was doing was anything resembling anger.

“Oh.” There was blood at the hero’s feet. “And on your porch, too, I guess.”

They looked up at the villain, but they were still staring at them, brow furrowed, hand clenching on the doorframe.

“I’m sorry.”

There was a very faint quiver of tears when they said it, and the hero knew better than to hope the villain didn’t catch it. 

Were they saying sorry for the porch or the door or yesterday–

“Holy shit,” the villain finally breathed, and it sounded like it had been punched out of them. The hero froze, panic rising in their chest.

“I’m sorry,” the hero blurted out, stammering. “I’m–I’m so sorry, I’ll go, just–could I maybe have some bandages? Just–just one, maybe, please? I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” they said uselessly, head swimming. They couldn’t even remember what they were doing here. The villain was perfect in every sense of the word, stoic and proper and collected in a way the hero would never be; a marble statue brought to life. The idea of them letting the hero–the personification of a train wreck in motion–in to bleed all over the villain’s soft carpet and nice shoes and cause irreparable damage to their very expensive house was almost laughable. 

If they had had the breath to laugh.

More of the hero’s blood dripped onto the slats of the porch, and they stepped back. “I’m sorry–”

The villain reached for them, and the hero flinched, taking it for the dismissal it was–

The hero blinked, and it stuck for a moment too long as the world tilted, and when they pried their eyes open again the villain was staring at them with something the hero was too out of it with pain and possibly delirium to identify. Their gaze drifted back to the blood smeared on the door, and the villain’s grip tightened on the hero’s bicep–when had they grabbed the hero’s bicep?–until the hero’s gaze returned to theirs.

The villain said something, but there was a roaring that had started up in the hero’s ears. They seemed to take the uncomprehending blink the hero gave them in return for an answer anyways, and guided them down until they were both sitting on the cool wood. A tug, and the hero was resting against their own propped up knees, villain’s hand still firm on their arm.

“How much blood did you lose?”

It was like screaming underwater, the hero reasoned. Or through a mirror. But they heard it nonetheless, and that was their villain, and even in hatred and war they would always answer them.

“Was ‘supposed to be counting?” If they had any more energy–or maybe slightly more blood–in their body, the slur to their own words would have been concerning.

The villain’s lips pursed into a thin line, and the hero felt them begin to run an assessing hand over their injuries, cataloguing them, brow furrowing further with every second.

“M’sorry,” they managed, tongue thick. The villain didn’t pause.

“For what?”

“Bleeding on your door,” they managed. The villain stopped them from raising their head from their knees. “And your–porch.”

“I don’t give a shit about either of those things,” the villain said, simply, easily. Like it was nothing. Like they didn’t feel the weight of it as they threw it into the air.

The villain sat back on their heels, clearly having learned what they wanted from the hero’s injuries.

When the hero didn’t immediately look at them, the villain grabbed their chin, gently turning it until the hero faced them.

“How far did you walk,” they said slowly, and the hero had never been more grateful for anything in their life.

“Four miles,” the hero said, and they couldn’t hear their own voice above the roaring, but the villain obviously could from the way their eyes darkened.

The hero wanted no part in making the villain angry again–I never want to see you again, do you hear me? If you ever try to talk to me again I will kill the both of us, I promise you that–, but when they attempted to push themselves up to leave, the only thing they managed was a piteous whine and a stab of pain so intense they forgot to breathe.

“Idiot,” the villain hissed. But oddly, the hero didn’t sense any anger coming from the villain.

They blinked–too long, again–and found themselves in the villain’s arms as they walked through the house. Their head lolled back onto the villain’s shoulder, and the villain glanced down as if–to make sure the hero was okay. That they were conscious, and breathing.

Oh.

Oh.

The villain wasn’t angry.

They were afraid. For the hero.

Which didn’t make any sense, because–

I never want to see you again–

“You’re mad at me,” the hero reasoned, and it came out half strangled and petulant. The villain looked down at them, and the hero caught the tiniest flinch in their jaw.

“I’m not mad at you.”

“That’s not what you said yesterday,” the hero whispered, and the villain flinched.

“I wanted to stop this from happening.” The villain settled them onto a bathroom counter, lights flickering on as the hero leaned back against the mirror. Blood began to dry, sticky, between their fingers.

The hero’s mouth went dry, and it caught in their throat when they tried to swallow it.

“You could have just left me there.” Their voice only shook a little bit, but the villain’s head still snapped up from where they had been digging through a drawer.

“What?”

“On the porch,” the hero clarified, clearing their throat. The lump didn’t go away, and they had begun shaking at some point, and they couldn’t stop. “If you didn’t want to deal with me you could have just left me there–”

The villain’s face had darkened into something the hero almost didn’t recognize. 

“I would burn the world for you, and you think I would leave you to die on my porch?”

“You said you didn’t want this to happen.”

“No, that’s not–” the villain rubbed a hand over their brow, and the hero winced at the blood it left behind. “No. No, that’s not what I meant. I was trying to keep you from going to that stupid event and getting hurt. I knew it was going to blow.”

“I would have gone anyway.”

The villain stilled. “I thought maybe if you never wanted to see me again, and you knew I was there…”

“I would,” the hero repeated. “Have gone anyway.”

The hero watched as the villain’s face rippled through a dozen emotions, settling onto something unidentifiable.

“Why?”

“Because you were there,” the hero said easily, shrugging one shoulder. Because when it came to the villain, it really was that easy. They could scream, and shout, and hold a knife to the hero’s throat, and the hero would still follow them into hell. That was their villain.

The villain looked like the hero had stabbed them, face draining of color. Their fingers went white around the edge of the counter, as if it was the only thing keeping them upright.

“What,” the villain’s voice was hoarse.

“I went because I was hoping you would be there,” the hero said honestly

“Stop,” the villain raised a hand between them, a shield, voice breaking. They sucked in a breath, then another, like they were trying to keep themself from breaking down onto the tile.

“You would have gone to the event no matter what, just to see me,” the villain said slowly, and the hero nodded

“Yes.”

“Even though I screamed at you?”

“Yes.”

“And told you I hated you.”

“Villain, please–”

“Now you know,” the villain interrupted, voice incredibly soft. “Why I would have never left you on that porch.”

The hero forgot to breathe for a moment, tongue going numb in their mouth. The villain couldn’t mean–

They blinked for a moment too long, and then the villain was standing between the hero’s knees, hand on their chest.

“You love me,” the hero said a moment later.

“Ruinously,” the villain agreed.

“So you–”

“I was trying to save your life,” the villain’s hands were gentle as they began to patch up the hero’s side. “And now I’m saving your life in a new and unanticipated way. But there is nothing you could ever do to stop me from saving your life.”

The hero’s heart clenched. 

“Really?”

The villain caught their chin, eyes boring into the hero’s. They brushed a piece of hair off the side of the hero’s face.

“Really.”

The hero sighed, and the villain caught them as they slumped.

“I thought you hated me,” the hero said, and they hated how raw they sounded. The villain made a choked little noise.

“I’m so sorry.”

The hero sniffed.

“Don’t do it again.”

The villain simply hummed, and smoothed the ends of a bandage down against the hero’s abdomen. The hero could feel their hands shaking.

You scared me.

A second later, their hands settled on either side of the hero’s head, and the villain rested their face into the hero’s hair. They pressed a kiss to the hero’s temple, tension easing from their shoulders.

I’m sorry.

The hero clutched the front of the villain’s shirt between their hands, drawing them closer. The villain went willingly, loose limbed with affection and the rapid draining of terror from their system.

“I would have never left you on that porch.”

The hero had never believed anyone more.

[agentpeggycartering]

Buck/Tommy + 41 (comfort food), please!

Thank you for the prompt! Also, I had a bit of a chuckle because I'm not sure if you're aware or not, but I gave @mmso-notlikethat the same prompt the other day! Anyways, here you go! Enjoy!

"I know it's not your grandmother's recipe," Buck starts, placing a tray bearing a bowl and a glass of water onto Tommy's lap where he's laying in bed, propped up by all the pillows Buck could find, tucked in with the coziest blankets. "But it is Bobby's recipe, and that's the next best thing when it comes to comfort food. Or, at least, it is is for me." Buck stammered, realizing how his statement might come off.

Tommy chuckled, then broke into a coughing fit. He reached out towards Buck, putting a hand on his forearm. Buck waited, patient but concerned, rubbing Tommy's back until the fit passed. When he finally stopped coughing Buck picked up the water glass and handed it to Tommy. He took a few large sips and then carefully placed the glass back onto the tray. "You didn't upset me, baby. I appreciate the thought, and the soup is the perfect comfort food because you made it for me with the secret ingredient." Tommy said, voice going soft.

"Wait. How do you know the secret ingredient? This is Bobby's special recipe, he only told me the secret ingredient a few months ago, and I had to beg him for weeks before he relented!"

"Love." Tommy said, taking pity on Buck. "The secret ingredient is love."

"Oh!" Buck said, his own expression melting. "You sap. Yeah, it's made with lots of love." To illustrate his point Buck leaned over and pressed a kiss to Tommy's temple.

"Evan. Stop. I'm gross and you're going to get sick." Tommy protested, doing his best to squirm away from Buck, turning his head to cough into his elbow. Buck once again rubbed his back through the coughing.

"I'm pretty sure that ship has already sailed. Or do you forget what we were doing the other day?"

[agent-birdnoises]

🤔 There's way too many beds (and we only use one) - author's choice for pairing :)

“Loki, this is ridiculous!”

“It is not.”

“Sure is, buddy.”

“More ridiculous than breaking into a furniture store late at night and sleeping in one of the beds?”

“That's just it, Lokes: one bed! Tell me again why you think we have to share?”

Mobius rubs his temples and looks at Loki with arched brows, eagerly waiting for a response that is not completely absurd.

Then again, the whole situation is downright silly.

At least when Mobius headed out for this absolutely unspectacular mission on the timeline earlier, naturally with Loki in tow, he could have never predicted where he would end up a few hours later. They were just supposed to check out a couple of temporal anomalies and that was about it.

However, then the TVA's entire system had to crash down for some reason and they both found themselves stranded in some rural area of Germany in the late 2000's. Thankfully communications still worked and Mobius was told by headquarters that they should lay low for a while and wait for the software to reboot.

And since Mobius had no intention of staying outside late at night (because of course it was late at night on the timeline) he quickly began to search for some accommodations and discovered them in the shape of an IKEA furniture store down the road. Somewhere warm to sleep and maybe grab a few snacks along the way – perfect!

So Loki used his special talents to pick the locks without any alarm going off and Mobius immediately headed for the bed section, feeling utterly exhausted after having to deal with way more excitement than he had prepared himself for.

And now here they are, in one of the beds.

Yes, ONE, because Loki decided, without consulting Mobius first, that he would slip under the covers right beside the agent and completely ignore all the other two million beds around them filling the entire showroom.

“Don't be difficult, Mobius,” Loki says, rolling his eyes as though the analyst is the one who is acting crazy here. “This is only tactical.”

He shifts a bit closer, making their arms brush for a second, and Mobius is fairly sure he will lose his mind rather sooner than later.

“How exactly is this tactical?” Mobius wonders with a weary sigh.

“A night guard might show up any second now,” Loki reasons. “Of course I would be able to hide us with my magic, but I need to be close to you for that.”

Mobius knows that this is bullshit because he's seen Loki using his seidr on people without requiring actual physical contact more times than he can count. Hell, he's witnessed the god pulling down his brother's pants in a crowded room while being on the other side of the hall, an innocent look on his face as he was standing tall and proud next to Odin, playing the dutiful and obedient son.

Loki could easily hide Mobius by sleeping at least thirty beds away.

But Mobius doesn't point that out. Instead he says, “This is an IKEA, Lokes. There are no night guards here.”

Loki purses his lips. “Are you sure about that?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.”

Loki scoffs. “Pretty sure is not good enough for me.”

And before Mobius even has a chance to say anything else, Loki has fallen down into the surprisingly fluffy pillows and has pulled the agent along with him. Mobius only has a chance to blink in confusion and then all of a sudden he's got a god plastered all over his back.

A god who is astonishingly warm, despite being a Frost Giant.

Mobius grumbles underneath his breath, but he is also too tired to argue and this actually does feel kinda nice, come to think of it. So in the end he just curses Loki quietly and lets his eyelids drop closed.

He falls asleep in a matter of seconds, feeling safe and content.

[ladycrimsonandblack]

(sorry if I have sent this to you earlier, I didn't know if it went through cuz my laptop bugged out haha. Feel free to ignore this if so-)

Idk if your still open for TCF prompts, but if soooo: Everyone in the group knows that Cale is aromantic, or at least knows he doesn't want a romantic partner. However the public doesn't know this, and assumptions and rumors begins to fly as they see Young Master Cale interact with some members of his group. (Basically Cale is in a QPR, or has something similar to that, with those of your choosing! People makes assumptions but it's eventually revealed what is really going on)

AO3

There are a lot of rumors about Commander Cale Henituse, the esteemed hero Silver Shield and the savior of both continents. Ranging from ridiculous (saying that Cale Henituse is related to the White Star and that’s why he was able to defeat him will get you laughed out of a tavern, with a few good kicks added for emphasis), to actually plausible (the current raging theory that the Commander is on his path to godhood is usually met with agreeing nods), the rumors fly from kingdom to kingdom and from continent to continent at unprecedented speed. Thanks to his many great and varied public deeds, Cale Henituse’s life is an excellent fodder for imaginations of nobles and commoners alike. 

However, the current rumor is a bit different. 

It seems that Commander Cale Henituse actually has a harem. 

It started innocuously, in a small tavern in Rain City, the patrons imbibing large quantities of alcohol and listening to even larger quantities of gossip.

“I heard he attended a ball with Princess Rosalyn, from the Breck Kingdom! Did you know that she’s building a new Magic Tower? Only someone as capable as that is worthy of the Commander!” 

“Didn’t he attend a ball with Knight Choi Han a few weeks back?” A couple of nods and a rumble of murmurs answer the question. “Did they break up?”

“No, they weren’t even together. Going to the ball at the same time doesn’t mean they’re dating.”

“You’re the one that said that the Commander is dating Princess Rosalyn!”

“They just fit! I saw them once on the street in the shopping district and they were very close! And the picture they make— ah, they look so beautiful together!”

“Well, Knight Choi Han always follows the Commander, so I guess they might be dating too!”

“Uhhh, guys,” a timid voice interrupts them as one of the gate guards raises his hand like he’s in a classroom. “Doesn’t Knight Choi Han live together with the Commander? I heard they have a villa near Harris Village.”

A thoughtful silence follows this sentence. Then a series of considering nods and whispers, as the patrons catch each other’s eyes. 

“It’s not so strange? A knight should live with his lord, right?” 

“But, uh, isn’t Choi Han from Harris Village? Did the Commander build a villa there just to have Choi Han live closer to home?”

“That seems like something the Commander would do. He’s so kind!” 

Everyone drinks to that, and then there’s shouting for a new round. 

“But doesn’t that mean that Choi Han is more than just a knight?” 

“He’s a hero too, he deserves that much,” someone refutes. 

“A whole villa where they live together? I think that’s a bit too much for any hero. The Commander didn’t need to move into Choi Han’s villa.”

This time, the murmurs lean more toward Choi Han. 

The man who first talked about Princess Rosalyn and the Commander frowns. “But Princess Rosalyn is also living together with them. Didn’t she move in during the war?”

The following moment of silence is full of consideration. 

“Does that mean he’s dating both of them?”

The room explodes. The evening ends with a bar fight so nasty that two people end up in the hospital and the rumors about what started it only grow with retelling. As does Commander Cale’s harem. 

Eventually, the rumors reach Huiss City and the ears of royal spies therein. When Tasha hears them, she bursts out laughing, doesn’t stop for good ten minutes, and then immediately goes to inform her nephew. 

“So there are rumors that my dongsaeng is dating Choi Han.” At Tasha’s nod, Alberu frowns in confusion. “There have always been rumors like that. Why is this important?”

“There are also rumors saying Young Master Cale is dating Princess Rosalyn...”

Alberu sighs. “Well, those will have more immediate political consequences, but it’s nothing we haven’t heard before.”

“... At the same time as he’s dating Choi Han,” Tasha finishes, her pearly white teeth stark against her face as she grins. 

“...What?” Alberu chokes out. 

The thought of Cale dating two people at once is so strange that Alberu needs to take a moment to recover. As if Cale would want to be in a romantic relationship with even one person!

Tasha’s grin becomes outright mean. “There are even some rumors that the two of you are having an affair.”

“He’s my younger brother!” Alberu bursts out, more indignant than he remembers himself ever being in his life. 

“And then there is Mary.”

“Surely people don’t think there is something going on between Cale and Mary?”

“Oh, they do, and there’s a lot of them.”

Alberu feels a headache oncoming. He rubs his temples and reaches into a tin can on his desk for some cookies to comfort him. “He treats her like she’s his kid.” Never mind that Mary is physically older than Cale. Cale has mentally slotted her into the same category as Raon, On, and Hong very early on, and now Mary gets an extravagant monthly allowance on Cale’s dime. 

It’s telling that nobody has actually commented on this, or thought it strange. Their whole family accepted it as just another one of Cale’s eccentricities.  

“And of course,” Tasha says, apparently not finished. “There is also Eruhaben.”

“He treats Cale as his kid!” 

“Well, it’s not like people on the street know that,” Tasha points out, very reasonably. “But they do think that Young Master Cale is dating all of you. At the same time.”

“So they think that Cale… has a harem?” Alberu tries to wrap his head around this. There is not a person less likely to have a harem than Cale Henituse. 

“Yes,” Tasha says, and smiles like this is the funniest thing she’s heard the whole year. 

“Why?” Alberu wonders, for once not being able to guess what people are thinking. Cale is just so… Cale. Alberu can’t even imagine him wanting to date someone. 

“Nephew,” Tasha gives him an arch look, and Alberu feels like he’s thirteen again, and is caught sneaking out for more practice with his sword. “You forget that not many people know Young Master Cale as well as you do. And when looking from outside, our family’s situation is a little strange.” 

Alberu tries to think about this objectively. 

“Our whole family lives together, even though most others have their own homes.”

“That is one part of it,” Tasha agrees. “It is especially strange for Princess Rosalyn, who is a royal from another kingdom, and Eruhaben-nim, who is known to be a Dragon.”

Alberu nods. “And whenever Cale goes somewhere, at least one member of our family accompanies him.”

“And the Young Master always buys everyone extravagant gifts.”

With each sentence, Alberu frowns even more. 

“This is nuts,” he says. 

Because, looking from outside perspective, it does seem like Cale has a harem. 

…

He decides not to talk to Cale. Instead, he gathers Choi Han, Rosalyn, Eruhaben and Mary for a private talk, with the children averaging nine years old dragging Cale off to shop in the city (On takes one look at Alberu’s face before suggesting the trip; she is growing up to be terrifyingly perceptive). 

When Alberu tells them the latest rumor, Eruhaben is the first to react. He sighs. “Unlucky bastard. And now he’s dragging me down with him.”

Choi Han is so red that his ears appear to be steaming. “How can they— why would anyone even think that?!”

“Because Cale provides for all of us,” Rosalyn says, laughing in delight. “And most people can’t imagine us being family. Not like this.” 

“But this is so strange! Cale’s not… he is not—”

Interested. Cale is simply not interested. 

It hadn’t taken them long to figure it out. Cale’s lack of interest in anything approaching romance or romantic relationships is so obvious to those close to him, that even the few of them that might have quietly considered it as an option chose to discard it immediately. Cale loves them, but it will never be romantic, and doesn’t have to be. They’re a family. That’s all there is to it, in the end.

Alberu smiles pleasantly, none of his previous confusion visible. “Of course, not many people know my dongsaeng well, so they would come to their own conclusions. However, I called you here today to discuss what to do next.”

“We have to stop them from saying it!” Choi Han burst out. “Cale-nim would be upset.”

“We don’t need to let Cale know,” Eruhaben points out reasonably. “He doesn’t need to worry about this too, and it’s not really a big problem.”

Alberu nods. “Eruhaben-nim is right. There is really no way to stop the rumors, but they’re not doing any real harm.”

“Why can’t we just say that none of us are involved with Young Master?” Mary asks. “Won’t people stop talking after that?”

“That won’t work,” Rosalyn shakes her head. “Denying something like this never works. It just makes it look like you have something to hide.”

“Exactly, Princess-nim is right,” Alberu agrees. “Our best official course of action would be to ignore the rumors completely. I wanted you to know about them so that you wouldn’t be surprised if you heard someone talk about it in a public setting.” Choi Han frowns at that answer, but Alberu only aims a bright smile in his direction. “Of course, if anyone approaches you privately to ask about any kind of rumors about my precious dongsaeng, feel free to respond as you wish.”

Choi Han’s answering smile appears innocent. Everyone in the room knows better than to trust it.

…

In the end, the gossip is stopped by the most unlikely person of them all. 

During the couple of weeks the rumors have been rampaging around without any checks, no one has actually been brave enough to ask for clarification from any of the people involved. Alberu, Cale and Rosalyn’s high positions stop everyone from commenting on it in their hearing, even obliquely, and Eruhaben… Well. Eruhaben is a Dragon. No one dares. 

There are a couple of people who try to broach the subject with Choi Han, thinking that the famously noble knight would not take offense. Those people end up in infirmary after Choi Han, somehow, convinces them to spar against him. 

That leaves only Mary. 

The thing about Mary is that she has a very clear, very even voice. So when she says, “I am not dating Young Master Cale-nim,” in a very crowded ballroom filled with Roan nobility, her voice carries despite the fact that she is not any louder than usual.

The nearby conversations immediately taper off as everyone strains their ears to listen. 

“Oh?” asks the madam that had had enough courage to approach Mary in her little corner. “Does someone else have the luck to be the recipient the Commander’s affection?”

“Of course not,” Mary answers, apparently not noticing that she has the attention of half the crowd. “Young Master-nim is very busy. He does not have any time nor inclination for romantic attachments.”

The crowd murmurs in agreement. The madam lifts a hand to her mouth, looking stricken. “Of course, I completely forgot.” Eyes misting over, she says, “It’s admirable that the Commander is willing to deny himself so much just to keep our kingdom safe.”

Mary nods. “Cale-nim is very dedicated to his goal.”

Everyone feels very moved, but also very curious about the Commander’s goal. They haven’t heard anything about that, beyond Cale Henituse’s well-known wish to keep everyone in the kingdom safe and happy. 

“His goal?” the madam asks, curiosity rising. 

“Yes,” Mary confirms. “It will be very difficult and very hard to accomplish, but Cale-nim will surely succeed.”

“Of course he will!” the madam exclaims. “Who would ever doubt the Commander?”

Nevertheless, people are very eager to talk about his goal. 

Very difficult and hard to accomplish? Perhaps it has something to do with his latest battles? The Commander had informed the public that he has been battling the organization behind the White Star’s power in other worlds. That is surely a feat that would bring him divine attention, and he has been seen visiting the Temple of the God of Death. 

Perhaps… perhaps those rumors about Cale Henituse ascending to the path of legend and godhood are not so far off. Everyone has heard about them, and some even believed them, but this is the first time someone from the Commander’s inner circle confirmed that there is a bigger personal goal for him in all this. 

The next day, there is some new gossip going around the taverns of Huiss City. This time, there are no bar fights, or even small brawls. 

Everyone agrees that Cale Henituse is deserving of godhood anyway. Why would they fight about it?

[thedeadthree]

-ˋˏ .·:·. ⊱ 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐘𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐕𝐄𝐈𝐋𝐆𝐔𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐛𝐲 @pavus — day one: 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞.

— 𝐈𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐄 𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐕𝐀𝐑 . 𝐕𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐈 𝐃𝐄 𝐑𝐈𝐕���� . 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐀 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐄.

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐒. 𝐄𝐍𝐉𝐎𝐘 𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝐈𝐓 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐒.

— 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 (mutuals can opt in/out via 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 <3):

@loriane-elmuerto, @carrionsflower, @auricfog, @girliefailure, @sunsofdawn

@risingsh0t, @griffin-wood, @lilywatt, @full---ofstarlight, @grapecaseschoices

@tommyarashikage, @shadowsofrose, @shadowglens, @weisshaupts, @queennymeria

@deadrlngers, @d-esmond, @courtana, @gothimp, @wlwaerith

@unholymilf, @aezyrraeshh, @socially-awkward-skeleton, @shellibisshe, @florbelles

@celticwoman, @neonshrike, @cloudofbutterflies92, @adelaidedrubman, @carlosoliveiraa

@pinkfey, @spookyrares, @yharnams, @aceghosts, @confidentandgood

@theelderhazelnut, @leviiackrman, @ellierenae, @anoras, @lavampira

@dialdrunk, @full---ofstarlight, @imogenkol

[mappingthesky]

planymphia wives honeymoon cutesy fluffy and overwhelmingly emotional drabble pleaseee

take my hand (take my whole life, too)

or: it’s their first week of being married - jane can’t stop referring to nymphia as ‘my wife’, nymphia can’t stop crying, and no one has ever been more in love in all of time.

Jane wakes up when Nymphia rolls over and flings a heavy arm across her torso in sleep.

Jane’s eyes flutter. Sunlight threatens to spill in from the other side of the heavy hotel room curtains all too soon. She’s only half conscious, and her eyes are still a little blurry with last night’s wine, and she’s content to drift back off to sleep, lulled by the gentle brush of Nymphia’s fingertips down her sternum, but then-

A little gasp, a sharp intake of breath. “Oh my god.”

“Mmwhat?” Nymphia mumbles, her eyes still closed as Jane grabs for her hand. Again, when her wrist is nearly pulled from the rest of her arm. “What?”

“Nymphia,” Jane whispers, but it’s thin, because she’s smiling. Nymphia can barely make it out through the dim light of the room and the sleep that clouds her vision, but she knows it just the same. She would recognize that smile by the sound of Jane’s words spoken through it, by the feeling of her soft gaze upon her. She would know it anywhere - even in the dark.

“We got married.”

Nymphia’s eyes blink open and look over at Jane. She’s on her back, holding Nymphia’s hand up to the light. She turns it over carefully, fingertips against her open palm, thumb tracing over the silver band on Nymphia’s ring finger. A diamond glitters in the dark.

“I know,” Nymphia grumbles, still half-asleep, still unwilling to be awoken for anything at all. “Spent eight months planning it, ’member?”

It was longer than that. It was the culmination of years of dreaming and months of planning, of Nymphia ironing out every last detail, Jane somehow even more stressed than she was, because she’d wanted it all to be perfect. For her.

(“You have a say, too,” Nymphia had reminded her on more than one occasion. “This day is about the both of us.”

“I know, baby,” Jane said, that spot between her brows that creases when she thinks too hard momentarily relaxing as she kisses Nymphia’s cheek. “But it’s really about you. Everything is about you.”)

Jane pulls Nymphia’s hand closer, studies it for a long while. Nymphia’s eyes are just closing again when Jane presses a kiss to her ring finger, then to her palm, more kisses up the inside of her wrist, the length of her arm, up her shoulder. Nymphia whines.

It comes back to her slowly as Jane coaxes her from her sleep, the only one she’d ever allow. Their night. It was everything they ever could have asked for, more than that. Their friends lining the aisle, swearing that they knew this day would come, arguing over who had really called it first. Jane, who had sworn she wouldn’t cry, who had warned Nymphia not to be worried if she didn’t, dissolving into tears the moment Nymphia emerged in all white. Nymphia, unsurprisingly to everyone, openly sobbing for half of the night, dabbing a tissue underneath her damp eyes at the dinner table. They’d had two glasses of champagne each, and nothing else.  They’d promised, because they wanted to remember this: the toasts, the dancing, each other, every moment.

Nymphia is beaming by the time Jane kisses her shoulder blade, eliciting a hum.

“Was it everything you wanted?” Jane murmurs, brushing a dark strand of hair back to kiss Nymphia’s ear.

A smile splits through Nymphia’s sleep, eyes still closed as she nuzzles deeper into the pillow, deeper into Jane. “It was perfect.”

Jane kisses Nymphia’s cheek. “What was your favorite part?”

“Mmm,” Nymphia hums, because how could she ever pick just one shining moment to stand out among the rest? How could she even begin to split the single most incandescent day of her life into segments? 

“The part where we went home,” Nymphia says, and Jane is pulling her closer. “The part where we went to bed and you let me sleep in.”

“Can’t let you sleep in,” Jane says, chin coming to rest on the crown of Nymphia’s head where it comes to press against her chest. “Too in love with you.”

They’re both quiet for a moment, basking in the warmth of last night as it rolls over to this morning.

“Wanna know my favorite part?” Jane asks, and Nymphia can feel the soft reverberation of her voice through her skin. “The part where we wake up and I get to say that you’re my wife.”

Nymphia can’t help but laugh at the sentiment. “This part?” she says, finally tilting her head up to look at Jane. She’s never gotten used to this - Jane looking at her every day like she’s still shiny and new. She doesn’t think she ever will. 

“Yeah. This part,” Jane beams, one hand coming to cradle Nymphia’s cheek as she smiles. “You’re my wife.”

“This part’s pretty good,” Nymphia stares into Jane, belly burning with butterflies, a love bigger and brighter than she ever thought was possible. “Say it again.”

Jane grins and brings her lips to Nymphia’s, kisses her with a lifetime of devotion. She pulls away, and there’s forever in her eyes. 

“You’re my wife,” Jane smiles. “And I’m yours.”

-

Jane doesn’t travel well.

She puts her packing off until the last possible minute and grumbles all the way to the airport. Nymphia can’t be upset though, because Jane ‘my wife’s’ Nymphia at every possible opportunity - she does it to the disgruntled employee who checks their bags, and the TSA agent who checks their passports, and the barista who makes their coffees while they’re killing time at their terminal. Nymphia rolls her eyes every time, but she’s smiling too, and can’t stop examining the sparkle on her left hand ring finger. 

Jane goes so anxious on the plane that Nymphia has to hold her hand through the takeoff. She doesn’t let go until thirty minutes into the flight, when Jane is finally distracted enough to drop her shoulders and stop thinking about the miniscule possibility that they go plummeting to the ground.

Eventually, they settle in. It’s a long flight, nearly twenty hours, and they shelled out on first class for the occasion. Nymphia’s got the window seat (partly because Jane knows she likes to look out the window, and partly because she can’t stomach seeing the ocean several thousand feet beneath them), and Jane wastes no time getting comfortable. 

(“It’s for my wife,” Jane tells the stewardess when she requests an extra blanket. “She runs cold.” 

Nymphia stares up from her book just long enough to swat Jane’s arm, muttering “that’s not even true.”

“I know,” Jane shrugs. “Just wanted to see what playing the wife card could get me.”

“Careful,” Nymphia warns. “You’re gonna wear it out.”

“What, calling you my wife?” Jane grins. “Baby, that’s never gonna get old.”)

They’re curled up together, alternating between books and movies and laughing at odd little happenings around them. Jane scoffs at shitty jokes on the screen, and Nymphia leans over to read her passages from her book, and Jane hums like she’s listening, but really she’s just admiring Nymphia in her comfy clothes, dark hair pulled back, glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose. She likes her the best like this.

At the end of her movie, Jane glances over at Nymphia. “Are you excited?”

She thinks she knows what the answer will be, but she’s asking anyway, because she wants it to be perfect - their honeymoon, their first trip together as a married couple, their first foray into the rest of their lives together. They’d debated on a destination for weeks on end. They’d considered a roadtrip across America (too pedestrian - they’ll save that one for another summer), or a week in Vegas where they’d get married again in some cheap chapel (too cliche - they’ll save it for their vow renewals). They’d debated on whether or not to book a room in the most luxurious resort they could find in Thailand, but had settled on a cozy beachside bungalow instead. Jane thought Nymphia would like that the best, knew she would too, because she’d be happy if Nymphia was.

It’s funny how someone can change you so completely and entirely, how they can bring out the best part of you that was waiting to be discovered. Before Nymphia, Jane had always put herself first, even at the expense of others. She was content like that, and then she met Nymphia, and the center of her universe shifted outside of herself. For the first time it wasn’t a chore to care for someone else, and Jane was better because of it. 

“For the honeymoon?” Nymphia asks, folding her book in her lap. She looks down at Jane all nestled in her blankets, hoodie pulled over her blonde hair, and can’t help but smile. 

Nymphia had always been a hopeless romantic, all too eager to hand her heart over to the wrong person. She was a tender thing then, bruising easily in careless hands, burning through her own wells of hope faster than she could replenish them, and after the almost-great-loves of her young adulthood, she felt like she’d been cored. Having her heart handed back to her so unrequitedly time after time, she’d thought she’d been selfish to want a love as big as her own, to expect anyone to be able to return what she gave to them. She’d stopped dreaming of it altogether, and then she’d met Jane. Jane, who reveres her like the Earth reveres the Sun, who worships the ground that she walks on, who straightened out every desire Nymphia had crumpled up inside of herself and gave her more than she could ever dare ask for. 

Now, Nymphia knows she can be selfish. She looks over at Jane and thinks that she wants this for all time - all of Jane, all to herself. 

“Yeah, baby. I’m so excited.” Nymphia reaches over to take Jane’s hand. “Jus’ wanna spend time with you.”

“Good,” Jane smiles, “me too.” She tilts her head up, puckers her lips in a silent request for a kiss, and Nymphia obliges.

-

The plane starts its descent several long hours after they’ve woken up, and Nymphia is grabbing Jane’s hand before she even has to ask, because she knows she hates this part the most. Jane sucks air through her teeth as the last bit of turbulence rocks the plane, and Nymphia rubs her thumb in soothing circles over the back of her hand. As soon as they hit the tarmac, Jane snaps back into place, blocking the whole aisle just to get Nymphia’s carry-on out of the overhead compartment.

“Sorry,” Jane says over her shoulder to a disgruntled passenger. “My wife. She’s pregnant.”

“Jane,” Nymphia hisses through her teeth. “You of all people should know I’m not pregnant.”

“Not yet,” Jane kisses her shoulder before they maneuver down the aisle. “But when I’m through with you…”

Nymphia scoffs, smiling into the air, because she knows it’s impossible, but if anyone’s love could defy the laws of science, it would be theirs.

-

Despite their sleep on the plane, Jane and Nymphia are so impossibly jetlagged, and the car ride to the bungalow is a delirious haze. Determined to push through the rest of the day, they tumble out of their room and onto the tree-lined streets, perusing the local offerings and getting dinner while they speak to each other in exhausted, two-word sentences that wouldn’t make sense to anyone else. It’s all they need.

And then they’re out under the sky, wandering in this beautiful place with blue-green water that laps in whispering waves over the sandy beach, and Nymphia has never looked so beautiful to Jane as she does under the moonlight. 

She’s running up the beach, shrieking as the water splashes at her feet, or when Jane chases her up the shore and catches her, spinning her around and pressing crazed kisses against her hairline. Nymphia is laughing, and then her cheeks are wet with tears, and Jane is wiping underneath her eyes.

“Hey,” Jane says, pushing Nymphia’s hair behind her ears, a careful concern crossing her face. “Why tears?”

“I’m just so happy,” Nymphia blubbers, smiling through the silver-wet stars in her eyes, because it’s all been such a beautiful blur, and it hasn’t hit her until right now that this is the rest of her life. “I can’t believe we get to do this forever.”

“God, you’re unbelievable, you know that?” Jane smiles. “Here I was thinking you stepped on a sea urchin. Or you got stung by a jellyfish. And I’d have to pee on your leg or something. Wouldn’t that be a great start to our honeymoon?”

“Shut up,” Nymphia sobs. “You’re ruining the moment!”

“M’sorry, my love,” Jane coos, wiping another tear from Nymphia’s face. “You’re the most sentimental girl alive, you know I can’t keep up with that.”

Nymphia just laughs, because yes, she’s endlessly sentimental, but, secretly, so is Jane. She still remembers the first time she’d opened a card from Jane and was met with pages filled almost entirely with ink, letters squished together to make room for as many as possible, words winding around whatever tacky quote was stamped in the middle. Jane had a way with words, despite whatever she’d tell you otherwise, and never ceased to amaze Nymphia with the sincerity she seemed to save just for her. 

(It crosses Nymphia’s mind then what her favorite part of the wedding really was - when Jane had recited her vows from memory in front of all their family and friends, had taken those impossibly beautiful things that were usually relinquished to their most intimate moments and had loved Nymphia enough to profess it in front of everyone. Not that they didn’t know already. You can’t hide a love as enormous as this one.)

“You keep up just fine,” Nymphia says softly, resting her cheek against Jane’s hand. She swears Jane’s eyes go misty just before she kisses her right there on the sand, beneath the stars, beneath the universe that brought them together.

-

Nymphia smiles when Jane crawls into bed. She’s in a gray crewneck that’s cut across her shoulders, and she’s propped up against fluffy pillows, and Jane is pushing the book out of her hands.

“Dinner was perfect,” Jane kisses her cheek before slipping into bed beside Nymphia. “But is it bad that I just wanted to get back to the room?”

“It’s terrible,” Nymphia turns over, slotting her back against Jane’s chest. “Is this the part where we get old and boring?”

“Yes,” Jane envelops Nymphia in her hold, fits against her in the way they’re going to for the rest of their lives, slides a hand down the length of her torso and up the inside of her thigh. 

“Not even gonna call you a whore or anything,” Jane kisses her ear. One hand cups Nymphia’s breast, the other dips between her legs. “Just gonna fuck you good and tell you how much I love you.”

“So boring,” Nymphia sighs, already melting away.

“So boring.”

(It’s not boring at all.)

-

Now that it’s hit Nymphia, she can’t stop crying every time the sheer enormity of it washes over her.

She’s always been emotional, but sometimes there’s a delay. Her life moves so fast, always swept up in the current of whatever dream she’s chasing, and sometimes it isn’t until she has a second to slow down that she realizes just how special every fleeting moment has been.

It’s been a whole week of being married, of wandering through villages and long hikes up mountain sides and afternoons spent sunning on the shore, of dawns and dinners and keeping a distance from the rest of the world as they know it. Now, Nymphia is sitting in a hammock at the edge of the beach, and she’s looking out over the water, and she’s basking in the overwhelming perfection of this moment. It’s something out of a dream, the sort of thing she’d long thought would be impossible for her to experience, and she can’t help but want to slow it all down, to draw out every precious moment long enough to memorize them, to make them last forever.

She’s sniffling just a bit when Jane finally finds her. She slides into place beside her, knees tucked into her chest, and stares quietly at the last of the sun as it sets over the ocean.

“Beautiful,” Jane murmurs, and it’s about the sunset, but it’s about Nymphia too. She presses a soft kiss to Nymphia’s shoulder.

“I don’t want it to end,” Nymphia sighs, unwilling to look away from the heaven that’s in front of her. They still have another day of this, one more perfect day at the edge of reality, and then they’ll be packing their things, leaving the quiet paradise of their bungalow and flying home. Back to work, back to their crazy, stupid friends, back to the never-ending rush and whirr of the city.

It’s not just that Nymphia doesn’t want the honeymoon to end. She doesn’t want this to end: her and Jane, so head-spinningly in love that nothing else matters, so finely attuned to one another, so freshly devoted to making it last. Nymphia wants so desperately to do it right, for their love to outlive that of either of their parents, for them to see all of their promises through for years to come. The possibility that they can’t pull it off is mind-numbingly terrifying, but the possibility that they can…

It’s an impossible promise to make to one another, and yet they’ve already done it. 

Nymphia sighs, mind swirling, and Jane somehow knows exactly what she means when she says, “what do we do now?”

Jane goes quiet for a moment, staring out over everything she’s ever wanted, and does her best to be brave for Nymphia.

“We sit out here until we’re too tired to keep our eyes open, and then I’ll take you to bed,” Jane says softly. “And then we have one more beautiful day, okay?”

“Okay,” Nymphia says, chewing on her cheek, still unable to look away from the landscape should it all disappear on her. “And then what?”

“And then we go home,” Jane looks over at Nymphia. “We go back to our house. And I’ll take you to work every morning, and then I’ll come home and be pissed about something, probably, and you’ll roll your eyes and tell me to shut up and I will, because I love you and, y’know, I generally think you’re right about everything. And we’ll have our stupid friends over and show them a billion pictures from our trip and kick them out so we can watch Project Runway and fuck. How does that sound?”

Nymphia giggles, and when she finally tears her gaze away from the beach, she realizes there’s another heaven right beside her, one that she gets to take home. And home, their home, the one with the fat cat and the mismatched furniture and their pictures all over the wall, that's another heaven too. Suddenly, the trip being over doesn’t seem like such a bad thing. Nymphia is almost looking forward to it.

“Are you scared?” Jane ventures softly, searching Nymphia’s face carefully. “It’s okay if you are.”

“Only a little,” Nymphia mumbles, voice wavering, eyes watering. 

“I’m a little scared too. We’ll take it one day at a time, okay?” Jane continues, looking a little smaller all of a sudden, pushing through every worry that threatens to override her strong front. “I know we’ll have bad days too, Nymph. I know I’m gonna fuck up and not listen enough and piss you off sometimes, but I love you to fucking pieces. I’m gonna give you the best I’ve got, I promise you.”

Nymphia takes Jane’s hand, and there are silent tears streaming down her face, because it’s only been a week and she already loves Jane more than she did on the day that she married her. It’s enough love to override everything that threatens to pierce through their perfect bubble, enough to fuel the years to come, enough to roll over into the next life and the one after that.

“And if you get sick of me,” Jane teases, squeezing Nymphia’s hand. “Y’know. Just say the word.”

“Shut up. I’ll never get sick of you,” Nymphia cries, throwing her arms around Jane’s shoulders. Jane laughs into her neck, pulls her closer into a bone-crushing embrace. This is the best part - Nymphia married her best friend. It’s enough just to hold her, just to be beside her. All those other parts, the sex and the sweet nothings and the swearing each other to forever, they’re just the luxuries of being in love with her. 

“You promise?” Jane says into Nymphia’s hair. She knows what the answer will be. She just wants to hear it anyway.

“I promise,” Nymphia whispers. “I love you.”

“I love you,” Jane says. “With all my heart.”

(They go home two mornings later, back to the city and their couch and their cat, and they aren’t scared anymore, because the warm glow of one another lasts much longer than fleeting sunsets over foreign shores. They wake up together, kiss goodbye on the way to work, hang their wedding photos on the wall and muse over the best day of their lives for years to come. They have lots of good days, and a few bad ones, too. They fight, and then they talk, and they never go to bed angry, just put each other back together in the way that only they can. And then they wake up and love each other more in spite of it.

The honeymoon was great, but here’s the best part: they make it last.)

[purrpickle]

A while ago, I asked for somone to create a gifset of the parallel of Pin feeling her heartbeat after Anil kissed her cheek and Sam feeling her heartbeat after biting Mon's lip, offering up a ficlet in exchange, and @musicdramalove answered with this amazing gifset. In return, they finally called in my offer of a ficlet with:

The last few episodes of the loyal pin have been very heartbreaking to watch. Really want a fluff fic, let anilpin be happy together without all these external factors keeping them apart.

Thank you for the prompt, and I hope you enjoy!

*

There's a fleck of sand on Pin's knee. Instead of moving her hand away after using her thumb to rub it off, Anil slides her fingers up the start of her bare thigh.

"Anil!" Pin laughs in that way that always makes Anil grin, and Anil is not surprised in the least when Pin's fingers wrap around hers to stop her. "Anil," Pin's eyes dart over Anil's shoulders, "What if someone sees?"

"Prik and Pia are down the beach, near the palace," Anil reminds her. She stops a reflexive glance behind her even so, purposefully choosing to trust her servants. "They will stop anyone coming towards us."

"Will they?" Pin's eyebrows raise. Her annoyance from earlier seemingly forgotten, she grins. "Didn't you leave Prik buried?"

Disgruntledly, Anil finds herself making a face. Flexing her fingers, Pin letting her go a few seconds later, Anil turns her wrist, catching her hand before she can withdraw. "Then Pia will stop them," she says with full conviction.

Studying her, then ducking her head, cheeks flushing as Anil takes the opportunity to press a kiss to her knuckles, Pin nods.

Having made sure to catch and keep her gaze, Anil brushes her lips against her knuckles again before moving once more, lacing their hands together. Her eyes shift past Pin's shoulder. She sighs. "The ocean is beautiful."

Blinking, a little caught off guard by Anil's comment being apropos to nothing, Pin turns her head to look where Anil is. Her free hand tucking hair behind her ear that the wind kicks up, she smiles. "It really is."

Anil leans in. "You sure you don't want to get in the water?"

"Anil."

The look Pin gives her is pure indulgent longsuffering, and Anil laughs through a wide smile, dropping her head back. "I can teach you how to swim," she promises once she sobers.

"I'm sure you could." Pin's eyes are warm. And when she speaks again, her voice is a little vulnerable, her thumb stroking along Anil's hand still holding hers, "But can we stay here a bit longer? And maybe..."

Anil nods, butterflies eagerly perking up in her stomach, "Maybe...?"

Pin moves in so her lips are near Anil's ear, "Maybe show me how our honeymoon would go?"

The look she gives Anil when she pulls back is all Anil needs to know that she's ready and waiting for Anil's arm to wrap around her waist so she can pull her in - and capture her lips with her own, over and over and over again.

[the-broken-pen]

I adore your writing style! If you want could you do something about a hero with wings?

The villain rounded the corner into the alley just in time to watch the hero nudge the boot of the body in front of them with their foot, face considering.

“For a hero, you kill an awful lot of people,” the villain pointed out, and the hero turned to stare at them, blood splattered across their pure white wings.

“What, that?” The hero kicked the boot of the body strewn across the concrete below them. “This is community service.”

The villain tipped their head at the body. “Does he know that?”

“I think he’s figuring it out,” the hero grinned, and the villain could do nothing more than stare at them, slightly dumb, for a second.

“How the fuck are they still calling you archangel when you keep murdering people in broad daylight.”

The hero shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t even know why they started calling me that in the first place, to be honest.”

The villain made a mocking face at them, and the hero made one back. “Oh, with the pure white wings and dazzling face, I wonder.”

The hero clasped a still bloody hand to their chest. “You think I’m pretty?”

“I think you belong in a jar of formaldehyde.”

The hero dropped their hand, sighing. “Funny, because everyone else keeps writing fanfiction in my honor. And trust me, they have very strong opinions on my appearance.”

The hero’s grin couldn’t be described as anything other than catlike, pleased and sharp. Their wings cocked behind them.

“I’m sorry, you read fanfiction about yourself?”

“Don’t be jealous, there’s plenty about you, too.”

The villain spluttered. “I’m not jealous–”

“Sounds like it.”

“Oh my god.”

“Don’t bring that douche canoe into this,” the hero said, looking up. “His ego is the size of the titanic and I am doing my very best to sink that fucker.”

The villain gaped at them. “That is not very ‘innocent angel baby of the media’ of you.”

The hero kicked the boot of the body once more, and the villain winced. “Will you stop that–”

“Oh, sorry,” the hero looked down at the body. “Do you mind?” They turned back to the villain , gesturing with their thumb over their shoulder. “He says he doesn’t mind.”

“Archangel,” the villain repeated. “Fallen angel, saint of the city–”

“Listen, people will excuse anything if it comes from a pretty package.”

“What, so you use your pretty face to get away with murder?”

“No, I commit murder, and I happen to be pretty, and for some reason everyone is plenty fine with excusing the murder because of that fact. I’d be doing it regardless,” the hero confided. “My murderous tendencies continue whether or not I am forgiven for them.”

“What, so you just murder anyone you feel like?”

The hero gasped. “I’m not a monster,” they said, the corner of their mouth twisting into a wry grin. “My mother raised me right.”

The villain got the sense they were on the wrong side of an inside joke.

“That was decidedly not an answer to my question.”

The hero groaned. “You’re absolutely no fun right now. No, I only kill bad people. I’m a good samaritan.”

“I think we need to redefine your idea of what that term means.”

“Okay, if I was going around killing anyone who annoyed me, I would have a way longer rap sheet. Like people who cut in line. Not to mention how fucking annoying it is when someone decides to DIY a summoning circle in their basement and I have to handle that mess. Do you know how annoying it is to get magically butt dialed by a white woman on a random ass Tuesday?”

The villain blinked. “Uh. Can’t say I do, no.”

The hero ran a hand down their face in annoyance, smearing blood behind as they went. The villain cringed, but it didn’t seem to bother the hero in the slightest. 

“It’s really fucking annoying.”

“You also swear a lot,” the villain noted. “Not very heroic.”

“I think we can both agree I remain very firmly planted in the vigilante section of the spectrum,” the hero gestured with their hands to some imaginary chart. The villain squinted at them. “Also, what are you, the language police?”

“Uh,” the villain said, and the hero smiled innocently at them. There really wasn’t anything to say to that. “No?”

“Tell me, you pick up lots of girls with that suave demeanor of yours?”

The villain bristled at that. “You–I–ugh,” the villain groaned. “Did it hurt?”

The hero’s head tipped slightly to the side, endlessly amused. “Hmm?”

“When you fell from heaven,” the villain continued, and it was quite possibly the dumbest thing to have ever come out of their mouth, but this entire conversation bordered on a level of unhinged they hadn’t thought possible. 

The hero blinked once, twice, then burst into laughter, doubling over. Their wings ruffled in a way the villain had long since learned meant amusement.

The villain flushed. 

“You really think I fell from heaven?”

“I don’t know,” the villain said defensively. “It’s just a dumb pick up line–”

“You said it with an awful lot of certainty, though,” the hero countered, and the villain wished they had something to throw at them. 

“What was I supposed to think, with a name like Archangel and blinding white wings?”

The hero shrugged one shoulder.

“Have you ever actually met an angel before?” the hero asked, then amended, “other than me?”

“No,” the villain admitted.

“They don’t go around killing people, that’s for sure. Bunch of stuffy–”

Lightning cracked across the sky, and the ground rumbled slightly.

The hero groaned, wings tucking in. Blood flaked onto the ground. “What, you’re both pissed at me?”

A gust of wind whipped past them, hurtling down the alley, there one second and gone the next, and the hero let out a sigh. “Sorry.”

They did not sound sorry.

“Both?”

The hero looked back at them, and this time when they grinned, it was slightly sheepish.

“Yeah,” they said. “God, and, you know. My mom. Raised me right, remember?”

The villain was an idiot.

“You didn’t fall,” the villain confirmed, and the hero nodded their head. “Though I’m sure you absolutely would have earned that by now, if you were going to.”

The hero reared back, like they were about to spit something rude, but the villain continued before they could.

“Please, please tell me your father isn’t Lucifer,” the villain said, and the hero rubbed a hand across the back of their neck.

They laughed slightly. “Uh. About that.”

“Oh my god,” the villain said, and the hero didn’t even look upset about the reference. “You’re from hell.”

“You could call me an avid climber,” the hero offered, and the villain just looked at them.

“You’re an angel from hell,” the villain said.

“Technically, I’m an archangel from hell. So like, the media wasn’t exactly wrong with that one.”

The villain could write a killer memoir about this.

“This makes so much sense.”

The hero frowned. “I don’t like the implications of that.”

“You literally kill people.”

“Bad people,” the hero corrected. “We’ve discussed this.”

“I feel like that violates some sort of cosmic rule. There has to be some rule that breaks.”

“What?”

The villain gestured vaguely. “You’re self supplying your hometown.”

The hero laughed at that. 

“This really is not that big of a deal.”

“You’re a nepo baby.”

“And you’re awfully comfortable saying that to a literal child of satan.”

“If you wanted me dead, I would be.”

The hero weighed their head from side to side. Their wings moved behind them, as if they, too, were considering. “True.”

The villain found themself rubbing a hand over their brow. “You kill people, and you get away with it because you’re pretty, and people think you’re a child of god. When actually, you’re a child of Satan, and you crawled your way out of hell to wreak havoc on my life.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly why I did it,” the hero said dryly. “To fuck with you.”

“I would not put it past you,” the villain countered. 

“You were not my reason,” the hero said. They slid a step closer, hand curling into the villain’s collar, and the villain's mouth went dry. “But you are awfully pretty.”

“You’re literally an angel–”

“Which means it’s high praise,” the hero murmured, wings curving over the tops of their shoulders, and up close they looked even softer than the villain had thought they would. Their eyes stayed firmly planted on the villain’s lips, and the villain had no idea how they had gotten here but they were confused about it and also not quite mad–

“If you’re trying to woo me to distract me from the fact that you’re a dark angel, it’s not working.”

“Isn’t it?”

The villain swallowed. 

“You know, all that fan media includes you,” the hero said casually, and the villain’s heart skipped a beat.

“What?”

“You really thought I read it just for me?” the hero grinned, stepping back, hand falling away from the villain. “Oh, please.”

The villain opened their mouth to say anything, then closed it, then opened it again.

The hero’s eyes were laughing at them.

“Maybe the bloodshed is partially because I want your attention,” the hero mused. “Or maybe not. You’ll never know, will you, human.”

They said it like an endearment.

“You–”

The hero nodded. “Yeah. I tend to do that to people.”

“I don’t–”

“If it means anything,” the hero said as they went to move past the villain. They tucked themselves against the villain, lips brushing the shell of their ear. Their feathers skated down the villain’s bare arm, and they shivered. “My mother approves.”

The villain’s face was hot. They shuddered out a breath. The hero released them, continuing their path down the alleyway, and the villain spun to watch them go.

The hero paused at the mouth of it.

“Oh,” they snapped their fingers like they had remembered something, but their grin said this had been planned. “Her name is Lilith, by the way.”

The villain’s brain short circuited.

Lilith. The mother of all monsters. Lilith, the wife of Lucifer. Lilith, someone who apparently approved of the villain.

‘I’m not a monster. My mother raised me right.’

Oh, this little shit.

The hero laughed, vanishing around the corner, blowing a kiss as they went. The villain could have sworn they had a halo, wings still splattered with blood, and in the arch of the sunlight they were every bit the fallen angel the media thought they were.

“Oh, you beautiful, monstrous, wretched thing,” the villain murmured, but it was fond. “Only you could make damnation look like divinity.”

[singsweetmelodies]

in a daze, learning each other's shapes

When Charles Leclerc's friends bully him into joining them on a ten-day holiday to a beautiful island for New Year's, Charles is barely even expecting to enjoy it, let alone meet the love of his life there.

But then he meets Pierre, and everything changes.

my contribution to this year's Piarles Winter Fic Exchange, written for the incredible @hourcat 🩷 i love you so much, phoebe, and i hope you love this fic!

[aplatypusshapedkite]

Whumpuary January 5: Do you trust me

Context/ Au under cut

Context 

This is for an Au made by me and @paradoxlemonade a long while ago. 

Red leader is not ‘our’ Tord, he's a clone that managed to escape during Spares. Tord left to go back to college but gets kidnaped by the clone to design weapons for the army. Clone! Tord was more than capable of doing it himself–getting the original was merely a time saver. During an attack by the Resistance he manages to escape unseen. He cuts and dyes his hair darker like he had during his early twenties in a gas station bathroom to avoid anyone looking at him too closely.

He finds his friends and tries to explain what happened.They have no reason to believe Tord. Tom does not believe him and openly despises him. Matt and Edd really want to believe him. Matt voices this, but Edd does not and cannot. He is the resistance leader. If he makes the wrong call, the results will be devastating and deadly. Tord tries to prove his story by helping with pointing weak points and creating counter measures. The resistance had bodies but not a lot of power or training. Tord can give them firepower which in turn buys them time.

Edd eventually plans a full-on assault on the Red Army’s main stronghold. Its risky but he’s out of time and soon resources. Tord knows that it will probably end the Resistance if this goes as planned. Tord comes up with a plan-Taking out the Red Leader. Any fingerprint scanners, password deduction, retinal scans—if Red Leader is in the system, then Tord can get in. Its a suicide mission but its the best chance they’ve got. No one trusts him enough for him to put his plan into motion, all except for Matt.

Matt is the only one who believes that he’s on their side and can get him the tools he needs. Matt also trust’s Tom and Edd’s judgment. He has to make a choice.

Matt arms Tord and breaks him out of the resistance compound, driving him to a drop location near the Red Army’s main stronghold. If Tord was telling the truth, he would drive away safely. If not, he will be dead before the sun sets.

He drives away safely. No turning back now.

Edd and Tom are pissed when Matts returns without Tord, but the plans for their assault on the compound are already in motion and they can’t afford infighting. If the mission succeeds, they will deal a heavy blow to the Red Army. If not, well, at least they won’t be alive to regret it.

They arrive to the base already in chaos. It’s still wasn’t an easy battle, but it’s a steamroll compared to previous fights. They breach the inner sanctum. They find two corpses–Red Leader and Tord. Tord gave his life to take him out. With the Red Army’s power so centralized, it struggles to regroup after this massive blow and is pushed back by the resistance before falling. They won. They know what it cost them.

[sheikahwarriork]

prompt for childhood enemies dimileth!!!

When Byleth was 6 years old, and Jeralt left her in the care of an inkeeper while he was doing merc jobs, a traveling caravan of rich people arrived to the inn, and she heard an ugly rich bowlcut blonde baby say his dad was the strongest and could beat anybody's dad and she choose violence.

Someone had to put the bowlcut in his place and make him understand Jeralt was the strongest.

Dimitri didn't want to fight back for his crest until Byleth called him a wussy... which is a word the mercs used around her and she didn't know what it meant.

(she fondly recalls this story as the first time she won a fight)

(dimitri still has bite scars from the incident and was very scared of girls for a long time)

(gustave was worried sick a commoner kid got the crown prince rabbies)

(they haven't connected the dots)

(This is the same anon who hates Dimitri's hair)

(hello dear dimitri's hair hater anon, i loved this prompt a lot! i changed some little points in the narration, but the main plotis the one you wrote. i really hope you'll like this :3)

wordcount: 1.2k

Byleth was extremely bored. Jeralt— no, he said to call him dad— Dad ­­went to do some cool mercenary stuff he said were 'too dangerous' for Byleth to attend. How silly! She was perfectly capable of taking care of enemies. She had the best teacher in the world, after all; the Blade Breaker’s abilities were well known along all Fodlan.

Of course, she was still only six, while her father was… How many years old was Jeralt again? She realised she didn’t know exactly. Probably the same age all dads were. Like three-hundred years old or something like that.

Byleth frowned. Did she need to wait three-hundred years to become as powerful as Jeralt? No, it was too far away from now! The little girl stood up. She needed to go training now.

She went out the little inn where Jeralt— Dad left her some days ago, heading for that nice spot she found out the day before to train with her new super powerful sword. (Well, wood sword. After the last time Byleth tried to train by herself, she almost chopped her own leg, so Jeralt took precautions by giving her a weapon that 'woudn’t hurt his precious little girl'. How melodramatic! But he chose it precisely for her. It was special. She wasn’t gonna break it!)

Her wandering gaze stopped when she noticed some people a few meters from her. She frowned. A tall guy with dark hair and a younger blonde boy with an ugly bowlcut were talking under a tree, the very tree of her perfect nice training spot.

She frowned again. As people said, Byleth wasn’t… the best at social interactions. She didn’t like talking to people, especially strangers. And she hated when she had to. Like this moment. She needed those two to get out of her new special training spot. She needed to train! To become more powerful! Like, right now!

The urge to train was bigger than her despise for talking to strangers, so she got closer to the tree, holding hard her sword. Byleth repeated in her mind Jeralt— Dad’s lessons about how ‘not to be too scary with other people’. She had to act nice.

“Hi. Get out of my training spot”.

A greeting! Super nice. ‘Good job, me’, she thought, pleased with herself.

The taller boy looked at her with surprise, but his expression quickly changed in a smile. “Hello, you fellow warrior”, he said in a condescending tone, winking.

Ugh. That was one of the thing Byleth hated the most: grown-ups treating her like she was just a little child!

“Get out, I said! I need to train”, she said, pointing at her sword.

Bowlcut boy frowned. “But you’re too young to train by your own!”

“What?!” Byleth exclaimed to him, annoyed.

“Yes! My dad says children shouldn’t fight until they grow up. And you look almost my age! So, you can’t train”, Bowlcut boy explained, nodding.

Byleth crossed her arms. “It doesn’t make sense! My dad helps me train since I was… younger than you!”

Bowlcut boy looked troubled. “Why does you dad train you?”

“Because I want to become strong, and he’s the strongest mercenary of all Fodlan!”, Byleth said with a hint of pride.

Now Bowlcut boy looked annoyed. “That’s not true! My dad is the strongest one! Glenn, tell her!” he added, looking at the taller annoying guy.

Tall-annoying guy was watching at them holding a hand over his mouth as if he wanted to hide it, slightly shaking. Then he proceeded to burst into laughter, hitting the ground with his fist, without saying a thing.

Byleth frowned. What a weird guy.

Bowlcut boy frowned too, but apparently he decided to let the matter drop, as he looked at Byleth again. “My dad is stronger! He has big muscles, and he’s the only one that can use a super uper big powerful spear!” Then he looked down at Tall-annoying guy, who was still on the floor. “Glenn! Tell her!”

The guy tried to stop laughing, but miserably failed. “So… sorry, Dimitri… you’ll have to… deal with her yourself… PUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Byleth crossed her arms; then, she got an idea. “Let’s settle this with a fight. However wins, has the strongest dad!”

Bowlcut boy’s eyes widened. “N… no! I can’t! I’ll hurt you!”

Byleth was really annoyed now: how dared that little brat imply he could beat her?!

She lifted her sword, pointing at Bowlcut boy. “Prepare yourself!”

“Oh, fuck!” Tall-annoying guy stopped laughing and stood up between them. “Ok, party’s over. Let’s try to get along, shall we?”

Bowlcut boy sighed in relief. Byleth sticked her tongue out, looking at him. “Your dad’s just a… wussy!”

Byleth really liked the word ‘wussy’. The way it sounded was funny. She didn’t exactly know the meaning, but Jeralt’s mercenaries often used it when someone was arguing (usually when drinking that weird ‘grown-ups fruit juice’) with some other of the band, getting the latter very angry. And Byleth wanted to make Bowlcut boy angry.

And she succeded! Bowlcut boy’s eyes widened, and he proceeded to run towards her. Byleth was ready, and promptly dodged the boy. She grabbed his arm, and sinked her teeth in it.

The boy screamed in pain until Tall-annoying boy managed to pull him away. “Shit shit shit! What the hell is wrong with you two?!” he said in a high-pitched tone. Bowlcut boy started crying.

‘Pathetic’, Byleth thought.

“Okay, little girl, we’re leaving, but promise me you’ll stay away from Dimitri!” Tall-annoying guy said, while taking Bowlcut boy in his arms. “We’re leaving soon anyway, so forget about this and do not tell anyone!” he added, going inside the inn, without waiting for Byleth to respond. “Shit! I did tell Gustave I’m not a good babysitter…” she heard him muttering, while Bowlcut boy was still crying.

She looked at the now closed door for a few seconds more, then turned around. “Okay. Melee training for day: done. I should practice with my sword now…”

“You did what?!” Jeralt—Dad screamed in shock.

Byleth crossed her arms. “I bit him, I told you! He was saying some crap about you!”

Dad looked at her in disbelief, and then bursted into laughter.

‘Why is everyone laughing at me today?!’

“You… you bit him… you bit the… freaking… AHAHAHAHAHA!” Dad was laughing so hard he didn’t finish the phrase.

Byleth shrugged, deciding to let him be. ‘It’s not like I’m gonna ever see Bowlcut boy again…’

15 years later

Byleth didn’t know if she was getting better at reading people, or if Jeralt was acting strange more than usual. Since she told him she chose to lead the Blue Lion House, her father started to make a soft giggle everytime she mentioned the house-leader, Dimitri. It was getting annoying.

“Are you going to tell me why do you make that sound everytime I mention Dimitri, dad?!” she finally said one afternoon, while her and Jeralt were having tea in her room.

Jeralt smiled. “Ah! Never. But maybe, you’ll have your answer if you’ll ever see his arm… Summer is starting, after all…”

[thetarttfuldickhead]

For the first sentence: It wasn't his fault, Jamie desperately reminded himself.

I couldn’t settle on any one scenario, so uh, have 5 times when it wasn’t Jamie’s fault + 1 time when it very much was. You’re welcome?

You can also read it on AO3.

1.

It wasn't his fault, Jamie desperately reminded himself. Blinking his eyes, blinking away stupid fucking tears, he tried to focus on the road as he took a left turn, exiting Manchester proper.

Dr. Sharon would tell him as much, he was sure. Roy, too, though he’d have to grit the words out between swallowing down all the I told you so:s he’d no doubt be fighting hard not to throw in Jamie’s face.

Dad wouldn’t agree with either of them, of course, judging by the way he’d snarled and wagged his finger in Jamie’s face, unsteadily leaning against the door to the flat Jamie had gotten him once he got out of rehab. “Couldn’t be bothered to get here on Friday like you said you would, could you, son, and what was I supposed to do all by meself all night, eh, just sit around and twiddle me thumbs like a twat?”

2.

It wasn't his fault, Jamie desperately reminded himself. He wanted to say as much, profess his innocence to Roy’s sister as she carefully pushed and prodded at Roy’s knee while Roy bit back enough swears to keep Phoebe in sweets for a year.

After all, it hadn’t been Jamie who decided that they would go for a run; wasn’t Jamie who laid out the route, or decided how far they should go, or how fast.

It had been for his benefit, though. And it’d been him who kept on going, pushing on and on because he wanted to prove a point, wanted to prove to Roy that he could do it, that he wasn’t soft, wouldn’t quit, wouldn’t break.

And in the end, it wasn’t Jamie who broke.

3.

It wasn't his fault, Jamie desperately reminded himself. Or, if it was, it wasn’t only his fault, because that’s what Ted had been going on about, wasn’t it – how Jamie was only one of eleven, and that meant it wasn’t all down to just him if things went poorly, or if they went well.

Hard to fucking remember that, when he saw the defeated looks on his teammates’ faces as they walked off the pitch in the pouring rain and with the other team’s jubilant cheers still in their ears. Hard to remember that when remembering the sitter he’d missed early in the second half was so very easy.

A familiar hand fell on his shoulder, and a familiar gruff voice murmured in his ear: hey, it was a bad game for all of us, it wasn’t just you.

Jamie gave a curt nod, and tried to believe him.

4.

It wasn't his fault, Jamie desperately reminded himself. Yes, it was his birthday, and yes, it was him who’d nagged Roy into coming with him to the club, but it was Roy who’d dragged him out into the alley and kissed him like he wanted to devour him whole, and they’d both been too drunk, on beer and on each other, to notice the wanker with the phone.

“Papers won’t run it until you make a statement one way or the other, but it’s fucking everywhere on Twitter,” Keeley had told them over the phone after all hell broke lose, sounding as apologetic as if she’d been the one to out them. “I’m so sorry, boys, but not even Rebecca can bury this, and believe me, she’s tried, I think she even threatened to have people killed at some point.”

“Well, happy fucking birthday to me,” Jamie told Roy sourly as he tossed the phone aside and curled up closer to the other man. “For this year I got a hairy old boyfriend.”

5.

It wasn't his fault, Jamie desperately reminded himself. Keeley had already told him that, repeatedly and in between emptying her stomach into the loo.

“This wasn’t your fault, Jamie,” she had assured him, face pale and her hair a sweaty mess that he held back for her. “We’ve ordered from that place loads of times, and there’s never been a problem before.”

And that was true, wasn’t it, but it was also true that he’d been supposed to make dinner for them last night, only he’d been running late after shopping with Isaac so he’d picked up curries on the way back and now Keeley was curled up on the bathroom floor instead of getting ready for the weekend trip they’d been planning for ages.

Roy was going to fucking kill him.

+ 1.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Jamie told Roy as innocently as he could manage, but he knew he wasn’t able to fully hide the smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.

“It absolutely fucking was,” Roy told him flatly, wiping uselessly at his stained trousers and shooting the giggling Keeley a reproachful glare. But when he turned his eyes back on Jamie there was a dark glimmer in them. “You’ll pay for this when we get home,” he promised.

Mmm, yes. Jamie was rather counting on it.