#that's worse than my entire steam library

[semi-sketchy]

Well Gens 3DS was pretty short, but you know what? I think it might be over-hated. It wasn't the best game in the world, but it was fine for the most part. Actually might've enjoyed it more than Colors DS.

To be honest, I didn't remember much about this game other than my brother bought it, didn't like it, gave it to me, I played like 20 minutes and went "yeah ok" then didn't touch it for 10 years.

The first few zones are pretty dull. Classic's are just a recreation of the original stages, like I know we complain about recycling a lot in Sonic but this is ridiculous. Though it might be why he gets the homing attack once you enter the Adventure era.

I think they tried to recreate Emerald Coast in 2D, but...it did not work at all. As far as I can tell, they went for original layouts past that point. Well, I think Modern Sonic gets the Radical Highway recreation... It's kinda hard to tell if a 2D stage plays like a fully 3D one, though.

The two Adventure stages were arguably the worst, but Water Palace? I don't know if it's just my Rush nostalgia speaking, but that stage SLAPPED. Additionally, the stages have so many extra paths. You fall off and you're likely to land on another, at least in Tropical Resort. Some stages, I did notice the “Dimps special” bottomless pits becoming really apparent.

Although, the bosses were actually pretty good!

Egg Emperor was definitely a highlight and the rival fights being a callback to Sonic Rivals was also a really cool idea! I actually think I prefer the rival battles in this game to the console version. Time Eater was probably the worst boss, though. I swear the timing for those hands keeps changing and I was in hell...

My biggest complaint is probably how long they waited to give you stomp. Like I have all of Modern Sonic's moves except stomp and coming off Colors DS, I wanted to stomp. Actually Water Palace is the first stage you have it for, so maybe that's a reason I liked it so much.

Classic with the homing attack feels...wrong. Though to be honest, it isn't required that much if at all. Actually, I ran into a couple problems where using it actively was a detriment. But, I will say, the physics for him felt good. I enjoyed him as much as Modern, which is not something I can say for the console version.

Oh, and no Red Rings. The only reason to replay the stages are for better ranks and times. That...kinda threw me a bit.

The special stages were also okay, the biggest problem is the low resolution screen making it hard to see what's coming before it's on top of you. I tried turning 3D on for it, but that gives me a headache and didn't really help.

It's also kinda funny they did the opposite of Colors DS for this game. Instead of adding all of Sonic's friends, they removed them. It's just Sonic, Tails and Eggman. Still a nothing burger of a story, half the lines are the same as the console version, except the Tails' try to save the Sonics at the end. A cool detail I like.

Anyways if I had to sum up the game, it's like this.

I don't know if the good bosses/rivals can really make up for the fact that like 5/7 of the stages are mediocre or if it's really worth pushing through the game just to get to the little bit of actually good content. I didn't mind it much, but definitely wouldn't start a new save file if I ever went back.

So the next Sonic handheld is...

[the-oblivious-writer]

A Loving Distraction

Wednesday Addams x Reader

One-shot

Summary: Wednesday attempts what’s meant to be a study session, but being the distraction you are, you had other plans in mind.

Warning(s): kissing, established relationship, and no pronouns

Notes: dedicated to @101rizzlrr - ask and I shall deliver

You stare at your phone, thumb hovering over the text you're about to send to Wednesday. The message reads: "Meet me in the library? Promise to actually study this time."

The memory of your last "study session" brings a smile to your face. You'd spent more time debating the merits of different torture methods throughout history than actually reviewing for finals. Not that you minded - Wednesday's passionate defense of the rack over the iron maiden had been oddly endearing.

Your phone buzzes with her reply: "Bold of you to imply I was the distraction last time. But fine. West wing, third floor. Don't be late."

Twenty minutes later, you're climbing the worn stone steps of Nevermore Academy's library. The afternoon light filters through the Gothic windows, casting long shadows across the floor. You spot Wednesday at her usual table, surrounded by a fortress of leather-bound books. She's wearing her signature black dress, white collar crisp and perfect despite the late hour.

"You're four minutes late," she says without looking up from her notes.

"I brought a peace offering." You place a steaming cup of black coffee - no sugar, no cream - next to her elbow. "And I was delayed by Principal Weems giving her weekly lecture about proper uniform length to some poor first year."

"Excuses." But she takes the coffee, and you catch the slight softening around her eyes that passes for a smile in Wednesday's world. "I assume you're here because you're still struggling with Advanced Poisons?"

You slide into the chair across from her, pulling out your own textbook. "Some of us didn't grow up taste-testing deadly nightshade."

"Your loss. Mother always said it builds character." She reaches for your notebook, scanning your latest attempts at categorizing toxic fungi. "Your classification system is almost painfully wrong. Look at this - you've put death caps under 'slow-acting.' They can kill within 48 hours."

"Not everyone shares your enthusiasm for mortality rates," you tease, leaning closer to see where she's marking corrections in precise red ink. Her hair smells faintly of rain and graveyard dirt - a scent you've come to associate with comfort, oddly enough.

"Clearly. Which is why you need my help." She pauses, dark eyes flickering to yours. "Though I suppose there are worse ways to spend an afternoon than ensuring you don't accidentally poison yourself with basic mushroom identification."

"Aw, you do care."

"Don't be ridiculous." But her knee bumps yours under the table, and stays there.

The next hour passes in a comfortable rhythm of studying and bickering. Wednesday corrects your work with cutting efficiency, while you try to distract her by suggesting increasingly outlandish uses for non-lethal poisons. ("Think about it - just enough to make the entire school board mildly nauseated during budget meetings.")

"Focus," she chides, but there's amusement lurking in her voice. "Unless you want to explain to your parents why you failed this semester."

"They'd understand. I'd just tell them I was distracted by my brilliant, beautiful girlfriend who happens to be a walking encyclopedia of death."

"Flattery will get you nowhere." She turns a page with deliberate precision. "And that's not even close to my most impressive quality."

You lean forward, resting your chin on your hand. "Oh? Do tell."

"I can name at least fifteen ways to incapacitate someone with items found in this library alone." Her eyes meet yours, challenging. "Would you like a demonstration?"

"Tempting, but I think the librarian is still mad about last time." You reach across the table, fingers brushing her wrist. "Besides, I can think of better uses for our time."

Wednesday arches an eyebrow. "Can you now?"

The tension shifts, electric and familiar. You stand slowly, walking around the table until you're beside her chair. She turns to face you, expression unreadable but for the slight catch in her breath when you lean down.

"Much better uses," you murmur, and then you're kissing her. Her lips are cool against yours, tasting of coffee and secrets. One of her hands finds its way to your collar, pulling you closer with that controlled intensity that is so uniquely Wednesday.

You break apart at the sound of footsteps approaching, though you don't go far. Wednesday's normally pale cheeks have the faintest hint of color, and you can't help feeling a bit smug about that.

"That was…" she starts.

"Distracting?" you offer with a grin.

"Entirely inappropriate for a study session." But she's fighting a smile now, the real kind that makes her look almost human. "We have an exam tomorrow."

"True." You brush a strand of dark hair from her face. "But I'd argue that was an excellent practical demonstration of biological responses to stimuli."

Wednesday rolls her eyes, but she's definitely smiling now. "Your scientific method needs work."

"Then I suppose we'll need more practice." You gesture to the towering shelves around you. "We have the whole library."

"You're impossible." She stands, gathering her books with precise movements. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"To find somewhere more private for your… research." She gives you a look that makes your heart skip. "Unless you'd rather stay here and actually study?"

You grab your bag, already following her toward the stacks. "Lead the way."

-----------

A/N: nice little one-shot before I post more angst

[slytherinlives]

Study Session - (Sebastian Sallow x OC)

MDNI - 18+

Tags: Hurt feelings, Fluff, Teasing, Smut, Library Smut , Established Relationship. Hufflepuff x Slytherin

Words: ~1600

Summary: Sebastian has been neglecting his girlfriend in favor of his studies. She surprises him with more than he expected.

(This was my first MxF smut piece that wasn't just fade to black, so I apologize if things seem clunky. I love these characters so much and I want to write with them more but I'm not too experienced with writing MxF smut yet. Anyway, hope you enjoy!)

Sebastian was stuck in the library, books spread open all around him and crumpled pieces of parchment littered about. He'd been there for hours now, lost between the pages of books and not resting until he found what he was looking for.

He was so lost in his book that Sebastian hadn't noticed the footsteps approaching him, until he felt the familiar hands of his girlfriend Kathryn wrap around his shoulders from behind. "I knew I'd find you here." She mumbled into his ear, bringing a hand up to ruffle his hair.

Humming, Sebastian spared a quick glance and a peck to the side of her cheek. He returned to his book and sighed in frustration before slamming it closed and tossing it to the side. "This is so useless."

Kathryn sighed at his rapidly growing temper, used to her boyfriend's stubborn nature when it came to researching. "Perhaps you should take a break. You've been here for hours." She suggested, treading carefully around the pile of books and moving to straddle Sebastian's lap. "Maybe some time away will help you figure it out." Kathryn gave a wry smile, moving her hands to lightly run her fingers down his chest.

Sebastian leaned his head back toward the ceiling, closing his eyes to soothe the ache behind them from reading too long. He sighed at the touches, which were now running up his shoulders to massage them gently. A groan left his mouth at Kathryn's hands massaging out the stiffness of his shoulders, causing him to open his eyes in alarm.

"See, your body is begging for you to relax." Kathryn chastised, knowing Sebastian would neglect his needs in favor of a book. She leaned down to place a light trail of kisses along the column of his exposed throat.

Moving his hands to grip at her hips, Sebastian pulled Kathryn forward. Giving her a heated stare as he slowly rocked her hips back and forth on his growing arousal. "I can think of a few ways to help us both blow off some steam." Sebastian suggested, bucking his own hips up to emphasize his point.

Kathryn raised a brow, bringing one hand up to brush away the stray hairs falling along his forehead. "Is that so?" She teased, leaning down to pull Sebastian's bottom lip between her teeth and eliciting a small whine from him. "Are you going to actually relax or are you going to think about getting back to your books the whole time?"

"Actually relax." Sebastian spoke eagerly, his voice breathy as the rising heat of anticipation coursed through him.

Not looking entirely convinced, Kathryn trailed her hands down his chest, abdomen, waist. Her hands stopping along the buckle of his belt. "You know, it's been so long since we've had a moment to ourselves. I would be so disappointed if your mind was focused elsewhere instead." She pouted, undoing the buckle of Sebastian's belt and pulling up the hem of his shirt from the waistband of his trousers.

Sebastian swallowed hard, a thrill running up his spine at the tone of his girlfriend's voice. The undertones of sultry command igniting an inferno inside him like nothing else. "My focus is only on you, I swear." He breathed, biting onto his lower lip as he watched her unbutton and fold open his trousers.

Part of him worried they would get caught, being so bold in a corner of the library. Any unsuspecting student could walk by, or worse Madam Scribner. There would be no hiding what the two of them were getting up to. No charming his way out of a detention with a signature smirk and silver tongued words.

That excited Sebastian more, the chance of being caught. Showing everyone just who their famed Hufflepuff belonged to. Sebastian also knew that underneath all his bravado, he very much belonged to her.

"Do you promise?" Kathryn looked up at him with wide eyes, pupils blown wide in her own desire as she took him into the palm of her hand, giving light strokes to the hardened erection.

Sebastian nodded rapidly, pulling her in for a searing kiss. Devouring her mouth as he ran his fingers up Kathryn's skirt. Following the trail of her warm thigh all the way to the top of her-

"You little minx." Sebastian rasped into her mouth, groaning at the feel of bare skin beneath his fingers. "You're not wearing any undergarments."

Kathryn leaned back slightly, a smirk playing on her lips. "Like I said. It's been so long since we've had a moment alone. I missed you." She breathed, lifting her hips up to line herself up to him. "Do you think you can be a good boy and be quiet?" Kathryn challenged, slowly lowering herself down until his erection was just barely pressing against her entrance.

"Yes." Sebastian huffed, mouth dropping open as he felt her slowly sink down onto him. Sebastian's eyes rolled to the back of his head, "Oh, fuck." He groaned out, his hands flying to her waist.

"Be quiet." Kathryn whispered, bringing their mouths back together as she sank the rest of the way down. Sebastian moaned loudly into her mouth at the feel. The sounds encouraging her to continue. "You know I love how vocal you are hon, but if you don't keep it down we're going to be caught."

Sebastian nodded in response, wrapping his arms around her and slowly beginning to rock his hips up and down. His breathing turning ragged as he lost himself in the tight warm feel of her.

A rummaging sound broke Sebastian from his stupor, looking up to find Kathryn with a book in her hand. "What are you doing?" He gasped, still rocking his hips up to chase the pent up release he'd been holding for weeks.

Kathryn hummed, "I'm helping you study. If you get an answer right, you get a reward." She emphasized her point by clenching herself around him, causing Sebastian's brow to furrow up and a broken moan to leave his lips.

"Before the golden snitch was introduced, what used to be the item used in quidditch?" Kathryn quizzed, holding Sebastian in place as she slowly rocked her own hips.

Sebastian felt so much confusion in the moment, thinking this was supposed to be a break from the books Kathryn was adamant about leaving behind. "Uh, snidget?" He answered dumbly, not feeling entirely confident with the lack of blood flowing to his brain.

Kathryn clenched herself around him again, "Correct." She praised, enjoying the way her boyfriend started spewing out a string of curses.

He was embarrassingly close, and the starting and stopping was driving Sebastian mad. Ten more minutes of her questions and he was done with the books. "Kate, please." Sebastian begged, taking the book from her and tossing it to the side.

"Please what?" Kathryn raised a brow, watching her boyfriend all flushed and panting beneath her with narrowed eyes.

"Put the book away and be with me. Please." Sebastian whined, bucking his hips up again to try and be more convincing.

A triumphant grin split across her face and Kathryn leaned down to brush their lips together. "Doesn't feel so good to be ignored does it?" She spoke lowly, a hint of hurt in her voice.

Sebastian was suddenly hit with a wave of understanding and guilt. In the past few weeks he had been holed up with a stack of books and turning down plans. Which in turn caused him to hurt Kathryn's feelings.

"No. It doesn't. I'm sorry, love." Sebastian soothed, running his hands up and down her sides and leaning up for a kiss. "I'm here with you, I promise."

Kathryn nodded and returned the kiss in heated fervor.

Their hips retuned to the languid pace from before, slowly picking up speed as their hands roamed over each other. Kathryn readjusted her legs so she was resting on her knees, using them to bounce onto Sebastian's lap.

"Fuck, yes." Sebastian groaned, gripping her hips tightly and helping to push and pull her body up and back down onto him. "That's it. So close, I'm so close love. Are you close?"

Kathryn nodded with a slight whimper, both losing themselves in the feel of each other. They returned to heated kisses, Sebastian bringing a hand down to rub circles along her center. "Come on, sweetheart. Let it go."

As if she were waiting for his command, Kathryn fell apart in his lap. Shaking and tightening around him as he swallowed up her cries. He followed quickly behind, allowing her to swallow up his own whimpering groan.

After a few minutes to recollect themselves, Kathryn stood up and readjusted her uniform. Sebastian did the same, and had just managed to thread his belt through the last loop of his trousers as Madam Scribner turned the corner.

"Mister Sallow. Miss Knight." The librarian greeted, eyeing them both suspiciously. "It's almost curfew so I suggest you head back to your common rooms."

"Yes ma'am." Sebastian and Kathryn spoke at the same time, sharing a glance.

As they were left alone again, they both burst into a fit of giggles as they collected their things. "That was close." Sebastian commented, referring to almost being caught in the act.

Kathryn turned around and gave him a devious smile. "Are you willing to test your luck, Mister Sallow?" She asked mischievously, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a key to the headmasters office.

Sebastian's eyes widened, then he thought about the rush of adrenaline he'd get from doing something so depraved in such a space. "I love you." He blurted out, surging forward and planting another kiss to her lips.

"I know." Kathryn smiled, grabbing his hand and tugging Sebastian along toward the exit of the library.

[eris-snow]

7. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝐈 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝

Tags: bakugou x fem!reader, juxtaposition, angst, swearing, crying

A life behind the curtain is heaven for some, but for others, it’s utter hell. 

L/n!” Katsuki hollers, ripping the curtain open. “We need to talk—oh.”

Katsuki knows what he sees. He doesn’t like it.

You’re wearing that big hoodie and you’re hiding your face, shivering in a corner with a pack of tissues next to you.

You’re sniffling and shaking like an earthquake hit, and his thoughts immediately go blank.

Uh-oh.

Katsuki has been through a war, died and came back. His heart stopped beating for the love of nachos, and he still can’t handle it when he sees someone cry.

What’s worse is that your breaths are quickening and you’re tearing your hands through your hair as your eyes are shut so tightly he’s afraid they might never open up again.

A tiny sob wrecks your entire body before Katsuki says fuck it and kicks his instincts to gear.

“L/n?” He kneels down, forcing himself to smoothen his tone of its rough edges.

No go. You’re still quivering as frantically as before and he thinks it’s getting worse.

“Y/n, hey—” He reaches out experimentally, but you don’t even flinch at his touch. Nothing he does helps, hell, he’s the worst person to deal with this kind of—

Sunshine.

His mind spat out.

Almost instinctively, his mouth followed suit. “Sunshine.”

To his utter surprise, your head snaps up for him to see your face riddled with tears and snot. Your face says one word: Help.

“Katsuki?” you croke, eyes desperate and breath caught.

He nods, right in front of you. “I’m here.”

Your breath doesn’t slow, but your eyes are on him and he needs to do something. He lets go of the decade-old foolscap and focuses his gaze on you.

“Breathe with me,” he says softly, “I need you to stay with me.”

He works you through the exercise for god knows how long, rubbing circles on your hands and breathing, but it’s finally worth it when your breaths coincide and you look lucid again. It’s especially rewarding when you stop quaking like you’re in a frenzy.

He eases himself on the floor, letting your hands go.

“Better?”

Your nod is shameful, and you can’t bear to look him straight in the eye. You look so embarrassed, hiding your face away and shaking your head like you’ve made a fatal mistake.

“This is—you shouldn’t have seen this,” you finally mutter. “Forget this happened, please—”

“No.” Katsuki’s voice is firm, and it holds such authority that it makes you flinch. “I’m done pretending that whatever the fuck going on is normal. Shit’s been weird, and we’re finally going to talk about it. No diversions, no more secrets.” He grabs the foolscap paper at his side and tosses it to you, eyeing your reaction. “I found this in the library. Seen it before?”

Your silence speaks louder than any words could.

“Thought so. I’ve had a real, shitty week with no fuckin’ sleep and too much coffee to be healthy.” He grits out, hands steaming. He’s fed up, and he has every reason to be after being strung along like an idiot. You’re so frustrating that it’s driving him insane.

“I don’t have a damn clue as to what is going on, but I’m smart enough to know that I’m involved in it. So for the sake of my sanity, tell me what is going on.”

You don’t say anything for a good second. And then, you take a tissue out of the packet beside you, blow your nose, and crumple it up in your hand. You look at him, and you look wrecked. Eyes frost cold, the usual warmth stripped and shredded like a glass shattering on concrete.

“You’ve had a shitty week?” You repeat, voice sharp, enunciating each syllable like the words are foreign to you. It’s such a stark difference from the you that would listen to him earnestly, or reply to his banters ever so snarkily.

“I’m sorry you’ve had a shitty week, Bakugou, and I’m sorry that you’re scarred emotionally because of the war, your kidnapping, and being literally revived on the battlefield. But news flash, everyone probably had a shitty week too! And you don’t see them complaining about it, do you?”

“You wanna know what’s happening? Fine! Where should I start? What about when I found this stupid report, hm? Or that time you told Izuku to take a swan dive off the roof? Oh! How about the day you forgot about me.” You’re practically snarling now, and, oh look, you’re crying again.

“We attended the same piano lessons; best in our academy's and whatever. We skipped stones and traded likes as I listened to you rant obsessively about heroes like a sick puppy dog. You called me Sunshine, you called me your equal. Your ideas, your dreams, your friends, you shared everything with lil’ old me even as we quit music. Where’d you think I know All Might’s successor from?”

“Izuku’s been high profile for a long while now—”

“You told him to suicide because he was Quirkless.” You spit. “I was in that classroom when that happened, the same classroom you told me to get lost in because you didn’t remember me.” You laugh. It’s a bitter, dark, humourless one. “I was so confused. Everyone kept ignoring me and so were you. I kept calling out to you in class and you got so fed up with me, you snapped.”

—

Past (3 years ago): Middle school 2nd year,

“Katsuki.”

The ash blond stopped and looked back, obviously annoyed. “What do you want, extra? Who the fuck are you?”

You looked at him in disbelief, face crumbling as fear, hurt and disbelief seeped into your heart.

“Katsuki, don’t you remember me?”

No. No way. Not you too.

He laughed, low and raspy and god damn mocking that it makes your blood boil. “Who do you think you are, hah? I’ve never seen you in my life. Now get lost—”

“Sunshine, remember? Nuvole Bianche our duet?” You pointed to yourself, getting desperate now. If Katsuki didn’t know you, who would?

“You’re a freak,” He spat, shouldering his bag. “Stay the fuck away from me, creep. Talk to me again, and see what’ll happen.”

You stood there in utter shock, watching as he stalked off with his lackeys who flanked him left, right and back, and in a wave of utter panic you called out to him, just one more time.

But your voice was stolen by the wind, and you didn’t even get a glance as he left you alone in the classroom.

—

Present:

“I couldn’t have known you!” Katsuki’s voice cuts deep, and boy, it stings. ”There’s too many missing holes, someone would have noticed!”

Lashing out is the worst thing you could have done with Katsuki. When you yell, he yells back, and everything escalates until harsh words that can’t be taken back spew from both your lips. You’ve always been good at taking, but it’s a pity that Katsuki finds a way to tear down your mask one way or the other.

You give him a glum smile, the fire in you finally fading as you settle back into your corner.

“If everybody forgets, nobody remembers.”

And because of that, Katsuki’s heart tugs.

Katsuki doesn’t know you. He doesn’t know a thing about your family, have a clue about your past or even how this happened.

So why did he call you Sunshine? Why did he come back and visit you every goddamn day when he has internships, school work, training and so much in between?

Why does he feel like even though he knows nothing about you…

He’s drawn like a moth to a flame to this place just so he can see you again?

You seem to blend a little more into your surroundings as you murmur, no longer shouting but instead coming back to grudging acceptance. “Who am I kidding? You read that catalogue. I’m finished, whether you believe me or not.” You slump down, head tucked in between your knees. “I tried everything.”

“You clearly didn’t.”

You glance up to glare at the blond, opening your mouth to snap back when you catch his eyes.

You’ve forgotten that feeling. That feeling of being really seen, of being heard. That look that you’ve long for the past 3 years…is now the look that is being given by one of the most explosive people on the planet.

Something stirs in your chest but you fight it down. Now isn’t the time for past regrets. Now isn’t the time for feelings.

“You have me now, don’t you?” Katsuki refutes, raising an eyebrow as he swipes the log out of your hands. “For someone who supposedly knew me my entire life, you have balls to underestimate me like that.”

He waves the foolscap in front of your face, a familiar, cocky smirk coiling on his face. “We have alumni, teachers, and I have insane fuckin’ connections. This was written by Invisible Shit and his knight in shining armour? Great.”

“Let’s go find them.”

[weirdowithaquill]

Not sure if i can ask for more than 1 but ... 53,56,71? 71 is especially cool cause i just got back into a galaxy railways kick

I'd say ask for them separately (I love answering asks + it makes my life easier) so I'll answer 71 in this post! But you can definitely ask for more than one!

71: Wisps of Time (The Galaxy Railways)

So, this fic is a bit of an AU idea that has been floating around in my head for the longest time, but only recently did I start typing up an idea for it. The basic idea is that Sirius Platoon is punished for 'insubordination' after a mission and as punishment have to help digitise the books in the railway's central library. While there, Manabu keeps finding references to engines that - to his knowledge - never ran on the Galaxy Railways, starting a long chain of events that leads to the group crossing the universe in search of the truth behind the origins of the railway.

Here's a quick snapshot of what I've written!

'Manabu made it to the museum not long before it was due to close, hurrying through its halls past centuries’ worth of rail history until he came to a stop in front of the only surviving example of a Type 1472: Type 1472, number 1472.0091. It was just as Captain Bulge described it - an attempt at clean lines and beauty in steam disturbed by dozens of exposed pipes that burst from the boiler at random to run alongside it. The entire thing was painted in Galaxy Railways red, with the standard issue whistle and filter - and it was all so utterly wrong. The tender had the Galaxy Railways logo stamped on it - and it was a standard-issue tender, not the sleek one that 4472 had. 

The blurb was no help either - if anything, it made things worse. 

The Type 1472 was built between 2180 and 2200 in the Brittanion Quadrant for the Galaxy Railways, being numbered between 1472.0001 and 1472.1001. These engines formed the majority of passenger engines used in the Quadrant between 2180 and 2235, when they were replaced by the Type 55 diesels. Number 1472.0091 was built in 2183 on the Planet Nottingborough and used on expresses between Planet Destiny and the Brittanion Quadrant. In 2205, it became famous for its part in the evacuation of the Planet Edinscow when it pulled the last train to leave the planet before it was destroyed. 

Manabu pulled up the first picture of 4472 - the one that had dragged him into this rabbit hole in the first place. The beauty in its lines, the brilliant shade of green that almost seemed to blend in with the lush grass around it. The number and letters that seemed to taunt him - the numbers and letters that didn’t exist with this class. 

Snapping a photo of 1472.0091, Manabu turned to leave. “I wonder what Captain Bulge will think of this - these two cannot be the same,” he muttered to himself.'

Thank you for your ask!

[grandhotelabyss]

I guess they're about to learn this the hard way on Wikifeet, but the only thing worse than reading philosophy is reading contemporary popular political nonfiction. The past's popular political nonfiction, if it's ripened into a classic, is fine to read—often better than philosophy, in fact, hence my elevation of Emerson and Chesterton over the philosophers. But trying to sift through present-day material for the gems is too much of an opportunity cost. I had the patience for it when I was a kid but not now. I read so many of the Bush-era political books, for example, and what do I have to show for it? When's the last time you heard anybody deploy an insight gleaned from the once painfully au courant Verso volume, Afflicted Powers? Ironically, given how things turned out for all involved, the best of the W. books were probably Mark Crispin Miller's Frankfurt-School-inflected Bush Dyslexicon and Cruel and Unusual.

Anyway, I haven't done an ad on Tumblr in a while, and in another Xeet Anna K advocates "grandiose narcissism," so please let me renew my recommendation to Tumblr's apparently substantial Red Scare contingent of Portraits and Ashes, a novel I wrote in 2013, which foretold the whole Red Scare sensibility. In my later material, though, I have moved on thematically. (A paid subscription to my Substack gets you access to a post containing pdfs of my three prior novels, including Portraits and Ashes, as well as to my serialized novel-in-progress, the occult-themed American epic, Major Arcana.) I wrote my last Red-Scare-ish story, "Sweet Angry God," in 2015, three years before the pod debuted. You can read that story for free here. The opening paragraphs:

Apparently it began with a hate fuck. There was a dirtball café, no doubt collectively owned, a few blocks from the art school. He worked there, and she had been watching him for some months, maybe even her entire sophomore year. The first time she went into the place she noticed him, how hateful and stupid he was. Some kind of percussion-heavy music rumbled over the speakers, hissing with analogue static. She thought she felt the tuba thrum in her throat. Above the music she heard him talk to his co-worker as his face glistened in the espresso machine steam. He didn’t look at her, not even when his dirty fingernails grazed her palm with the change. “No, Romanian. It was a group, yeah, I mean they allied with Hitler. Not saying I’m defending them, but, I mean. They were pissed off that their culture was being violated by the modern west. Yeah, they hacked people’s heads off. Limbs. Like werewolves, man. Okay, it’s fucked up. But today you just push a button. Is that better? This is their marching music.” She kept her eye on him after that. Maybe he was dangerous. She would look over her laptop screen when he came out from behind the counter to wipe down the tables. He stomped around in careless bursts, like a toddler. He had a pervert’s goatee and wore bowling shirts stained at the armpits. When she saw his sneakers, so old they’d become fashionable again, she understood what “down-at-heel” literally meant. His body looked sinewy, a bad cut of meat. Stupid-ass white boy. Sometimes she checked certain books out of the library to read in front of him, anything by or about men ready for violence. Marinetti, Mao, Fanon, whatever. His eyes were always elsewhere. Men ready for violence unmade and remade the world. She just lived in it. She wondered if he didn’t want to just live in it. Her sophomore-year final project she called Men Ready for Violence. Blood-spatter paintings were arrayed around a screen showing various armies on the march. Their choreography contrasted with the chaos of the red paint. She loaded the artist’s statement with jargon, quotations from Klaus Theweleit and Judith Butler, so that her teachers didn’t call a shrink or a cop. Everyone was polite about it, one professor even enthusiastic. Her classmates looked at her strangely. Especially the girls. Then the semester was over. One week left before she had to come home to mamá. She sat in the café reading Ernst Jünger. He wiped down her table while she was still sitting at it, his face vacantly smiling, the dirt-nailed knob-boned fingers sinking in the washcloth’s soft folds. One week. What would a Romanian fascist do? She reached out and grabbed his wrist hard. Her face must have looked like it couldn’t believe what her hand had done. Her nails were red-stained with oil paint. He was looking at her nails and then turned to look into her eyes. He showed smoker’s teeth.

How did I know in 2015 that this type of young woman, then still immersed in pop Jezebel-style feminism, would soon be getting into aesthetic fascism? Because I'm not a philosopher. I can't afford to let logical argument block the truth.

[ageless-aislynn]

Rules || Share 10 facts about yourself and tag 10 other blogs! I want to get to know my mutuals, and the people I follow a little bit :) The facts can be about anything! 

Tagged by @mrtobenamedlater, thank you!

1. I vid by using a lot of line-of-sight, meaning I find the beat I want the action to match on the audio line and line it up that way. I, of course, also watch the video/audio preview window but, for fine tuning the beat use, I rely on line-of-sight to get things hitting when I want it to. Hopefully. 🤞😣🤞😂

Here, have a random cap of “Like Ghosts” (John/Kai, Halo) as it was in progress. 😉

2. Once I finish my WIPs, I plan on taking a sabbatical from writing. I’m honestly not sure for how long, I’ll have to see how I feel when I get there. Right now, that means, over on the Halo side of the Field of WIPs, finishing “15 Minutes” and “Recreation” and, for the Flash, “The Price,” “Guardian Angel”, “Split” (temp name for final fic in the Ghost of Eobard Thawne series) and whatever I can come up with for the final Snowells Week for this year. 

3. I now have way more games in my Steam library than I’ll ever play in my life.

This is mostly because of how I like to play. I like to get to know a game, to become familiar and comfortable with it. This is why the Halo MCC was perfect for me: I can replay something like Reach a million times and either do exactly what I usually do and STILL have something unexpected happen or I can try out something totally new and different. Like, I had no idea for the longest time that you can save the Troop ‘hog on ONI: Sword Base, the one that drives across the way and gets blown up by the Wraiths as soon as the door opens when you pick up the target locator. But you can TOTALLY save it (with the Acrophobia skull and a plasma pistol 😉) and drive it all of the way through the rest of the mission with a full load of 3 marines and Kat along with you until you reach the elevator section! It will be on fire the entire time but its health is fine, it’s all just cosmetic. So I always save the Troop ‘hog now, unless I have a reason to need a Warthog with a turret on it. I love my Flamin’ Troop ‘hog! I named it Trooper because I’m original and unique. 😎👍

If I have to not save them, I always dramatically exclaim, “NOOOO, MAH BOYS!!!” when Trooper goes boom. 😭😭😭 We also pause to acknowledge Trooper’s destroyed shell when we return to the base later. 😥😉

Anyway, playing like this means I’ll replay one game over and over and, with long games, well... I can spend a LOT of time on them, rather than “one and done” playthroughs and move on to the next one. I just find this more fun than always learning something new. 🤷‍♀️

4. I wish I could take good photos of my action figures but I have a lack of decent light, a serious need for a tripod or something to steady my camera and I could definitely use some cool or interesting backdrop/dioramas. 😕

5. Speaking of action figures, my Master Chief in his Olaf bathrobe is one I’m always going to keep right next to me. I think of him as my Cozy Chief, lol.

6. This is my most popular vid on Youtube. It’s 14 years old and was a request.

7. I think this is a GIF I’m going to get a lot of use out of

I feel like I buffer a lot these days, lol!

8. I listen to a lot of ASMR and I highly recommend it if you have trouble sleeping, need something to listen to while you work or study that is “background noise-ish” or if you have anxiety. If you’ve tried before and didn’t like it or didn’t find it helpful, I also really recommend trying different types. There’s tapping, scratching, mic noises, nature sounds, no talking, whispering, fast, slow, roleplays... Honestly, it’s kinda endless at this point, lol! Headphones recommended as well to get the best effect, IMO. Oh and an ad blocker because there’s nothing worse than drifting to sleep at long last and then HERE, BUY THIS PRODUCT!!!! blares you back awake. 😱🤬😉

9. This is the most recent Barbie I bought. She’s sooooo pretty and has a real, knitted sweater!

(Barbie Extra #20 😉)

My mom and I started collecting Barbies in the last year of her life and it makes me feel closer to her, especially if I find something I know she would’ve liked or if I get a great deal on something. Or whenever I find a Barbie shoe pack, lol. I can still hear her telling me, “We need more shoes! Barbie never has too many shoes!” and those are some trufax right there. 😉

10. I’ve struggled to find interesting answers for this that I haven’t told you over and over before. So in lieu of a (nonexistent 😛😉) cool final fact about me, here’s a hug to carry you on your way today.

Tagging: anybody who’d like to do this *boops your nose politely* 😉🤗💖

[kyrodo]

As far as politics go when I say I don't care about politics, there are plenty of easy negative takes people can make from the outside. "Oh it means you don't care what happens to us or these various marginized groups". Which don't carry any actual weight if you actually think about it It just means I spend more time looking at my steam library than watching debates on tv or listening to the radio. Which I assume most people do anyway. Red is the one always turning on the "happy fun time channel" whenever we get in the car. If there's anything pressing I need to know I'll either get snippets of it half listening to that or whenever Red points something out. I also know saying such things have worse connotations when it's during a major event. But I am the type to try to reduce the amount of things that stress me out to what my more immediate concerns are, like work, medical appointments, yearly obligations like taxes, rent, social conflicts, what to play, the day to day. I don't watch random videos very often. I don't watch much of anything compared to most people. My outlets are whatever Red tells me and whatever people are retweeting.

So internally at least it makes a lot of sense. I don't pay attention. I nap I eat I sleep I play I work when I have to. And that's literally it. People are going to be more hyper aware of whatever horrible bills are being passed than I am, but I'm not anything special. A lot of people do that anyway. If there's anyone to single out it's the people that are pushing for bad things to happen, not the people who are just living. People will pressure each other to do things like go out and get shot by police protesting, but I'm not going. Even if I wanted to Red is overprotective to the point it's not even an option. And you could say nobody was telling me to do that but Kalas literally did. Kalas was injured and couldn't go out so he was pushing other people to in his place. Because life or death on the grand scale was more important to him than the lives of his friends.

I am a lazy person, low energy I focus on recreational activities more than anything else and I'm not in a good position nor am I motivated to go do things for a cause. And angering a crush isn't going to change that. You can try to divert the real issue as much as you want but in the end that is what it all boils down to. If you wanted someone to laugh about the latest stupid shit some idiot said on a debate, that's not what I'm here for. You can go to Red for that. You want to take advantage of me for it there's nothing stopping you now is there? That's what you've done the entire time anyway.

You look for all the easy ways to attack someone even without knowing who it was you were attacking. Every insult, every point made shallow, meaningless, or outright misplaced. A shitty crush with an even shittier friend. If you actually talked to people instead of shadowing them you would be a fucking saint compared to who you were. And in comparison what did I do? What did I do that is even a fraction of the bullshit you did.

We are not even. We are not even fucking close. I just don't go out of my way to fuck people up whenever I'm mad at them like you do. You need to change. I can make so many easy points against you, but at least every single one I make is real. Wish you knew how to talk to people without gaslighting them. Do you treat everyone like ass or is it just me?

I can be all nice to people even when I don't want to be, but I'll take that over you.

If you have a problem with someone you could always block them and move on instead of trying to provoke them into dming you. Right, but we're not about responsible action, we're about getting back at everyone that upsets whether it is excessive, deserved, or not.

Poking fun at me now probably isn't as fun as it was when I was incoherent and invested into your indirect subtext style.

[erwinsvow]

𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭.

summary: you and eren, your boyfriend armin’s best friend, have always had a strange relationship. things take a turn when armin goes home for the weekend, leaving the two of you alone on friday night.

warnings: smut, oral sex (f receiving), guilty reader feels bad, implied infidelity, masturbation, slight dumbification, dacryphilia, daddy kink

word count: 6.8k

author’s note: i once said i would never write for eren, so i guess that was a fat lie! enjoy!

You’re not sure about exactly when you became so comfortable with having Eren around. It was kind of like a two-for-one deal with your boyfriend, Armin, since he was so rarely seen without his best friend at his side. Their majors were so different that they hardly ever had classes together, and so the pair of them made up for lost time by spending all their other time together. 

It wasn’t totally out of the blue if Eren would crash on the couch next to you, while you were curled up beside Armin, hands interlaced and head resting softly on his chest. You’d jolt at the impact of Eren—a huge guy compared to anyone’s standards—jumping beside you and disrupting the peaceful intimacy you were sharing with your boyfriend. Armin didn’t seem to be annoyed or frustrated, and so you wouldn’t prove to be, either. You and him would welcome Eren with a laugh, directing him to the leftovers from your take-out and enjoying the company of a man who wasn’t your boyfriend far too much. 

It was easy to fall into the trap of it. Maybe Armin was always missing the way Eren’s eyes raked over your figure whenever you’d walk into the room. Maybe he was too enraptured by his marine biology textbook to notice how Eren stared at the supple skin of your exposed thighs when you took a seat next to them, dress hiking up a little or skirt much too short for a study-date with two boys. You were never much of a tease because it was so easy when you and Armin started seeing each other, so natural and comfortable that you didn’t have to try any unusual flirting methods on the golden-haired boy. As a result, he didn’t really know what bubbled under the surface of your skin and all the different thoughts that plagued your mind. 

So you think that’s why it was so easy to fall into the trap of it all, making eyes at Eren while your boyfriend sat right next to you. Choosing outfits that had previously been stuffed into the depths of your closet, because you didn’t think Armin would approve. You kept up the facade in front of your lovely boyfriend, though, because at the end of the day, you loved him and no one else. You didn’t want to break his heart by cheating on him with his closest friend, even though the electricity between you and Eren made all the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and made goosebumps appear on every inch of the soft skin of your legs that Eren loved to leer at so much. No, because at the end of the day, it was plainly wrong to even think about another man when you had Armin in your life. 

That’s what you told yourself when you stopped exchanging glances with Eren, started wearing blue again instead of green, and asked Armin if you two could have more time alone. You thought Armin looked confused, and he was, but for entirely different reasons. While you had been concerned with Eren’s gaze and intentions, Armin had been silently paying attention to his best friend and girlfriend. You thought he was innocent, sure, but he wasn’t stupid. And there wasn’t a thought in Eren’s head that Armin couldn’t figure out well in advance. If you wanted to fuck Eren, all you had to do was ask, but he quickly realized you were trying to be a good little girlfriend again, rather than the devilish slut you had been recently. Well, if you weren’t going to do anything, he was going to have to take matters into his own hands. 

Eren had always wondered why you spent so much time with Armin, and by virtue of association, with him. Any other little girlfriend would at least take some time alone to study, but you practically spent every minute at Armin’s side or in their shared apartment. Armin’s explanation of how you didn’t get along with your roommates made so much sense, especially now that you were going to be sleeping in Armin’s room for the weekend while he went back home for a ‘family emergency’. 

You had asked Armin if Eren would be going back with him in a certain voice, one that he couldn’t exactly pinpoint as he eavesdropped from his own bedroom. A mixture of uncertainty, nervousness, and excitement? Was that excitement he noted? He wishes he could look into your eyes to tell, but all he can do is listen to Armin tell you that Eren would be staying in the apartment. 

Eren can almost hear your heartbeat speed up, eyes blinking quickly and heat rushing to your face. Of course Armin trusted his best friend to stay with his girlfriend for a weekend. The two people he loved the most would never betray him, and so he had nothing to fear. 

Back to being the devoted girlfriend you are, you help Armin pack his bags late Thursday night. You folded clothes on his bed and tucked them into the duffel bag neatly, while Armin looked around for his books. He would be leaving right after his classes Friday morning, and so you knew by the time you returned after your classes, he would be long gone, leaving just you and Eren to fend for yourselves Friday night. 

In the morning, you’re greeted by Armin pressing a kiss to your forehead as he heads to his eight-am lecture. Through the daze of sleep and heavy-lidded eyes, you grasp his hand softly in a failed attempt to keep him with you a little longer, but you hear him murmur something that distinctly sounds like “Don't worry, baby, Eren will take care of you” before he leaves.

You fall back asleep after, missing the way Armin and Eren talk briefly before he departs. You wake up in Armin’s bed alone, to the sound of your alarm. Usually, Fridays are your favorite day of the week because you have a light schedule and you get to spend most of the day with Armin. His classes end right when yours start, so you’d get to grab coffee with him and meet for lunch after, before either heading to the library to get work done or to his apartment because you knew Eren wouldn’t be around and therefore you could be as loud as you want.

But not today. You had to get breakfast alone, before going off to class and sitting in the library alone. You didn’t realize how quickly the day had passed by, in between studying and texting Armin to make sure he got home safely, and avoiding the pit in your stomach that kept reminding you that you’d be going home to Eren soon. You looked outside the library window from your seat, and saw the sun was setting, meaning the library was closing soon and that you had to face reality. You’re thinking about how to put going back to the apartment for even longer, maybe stopping somewhere to eat dinner, when your phone buzzes with a text notification. 

You pick it up quickly, hoping it’s from Armin, but your stomach drops again when you see the screen lit up with Eren’s name. A singular message from him reads: Did you eat yet? 

Bastard. How does he know your thoughts before you even think them? 

You’re faced with two choices. Lie to him, then go get dinner by yourself, and then finally go back to your own home and put up with your terrible roommates for another night… or go to the apartment, order dinner with Eren, and avoid his lecherous looks long enough to get yourself safely inside Armin’s room with the door locked. 

You feel your heart pounding inside your chest at the thought of having dinner with Eren alone. He never did anything too forward or telling with you, but you suspect it was only because Armin was always right beside you. There’s no telling what he would do if he got you alone. Your heart’s pounding, but another feeling altogether is creeping into your stomach and up to your chest, one that’s making you feel hot all over despite how chilly the air in the library is. 

You’re nearly lost in your thoughts until your phone buzzing again brings you back to reality. You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding in as you read his text, this time longer; We can order dinner when you get here. Promise I don’t bite.

You feel like hurling your phone across the empty library, because every sane thought in your mind is telling you not to go over there, but every bone in your body feels like it’s being pulled towards Eren. Suddenly you think back to all those times you had teased him intentionally, and how strange you feel right now, like two different versions of yourself are fighting with each other. A third buzz makes your decision for you. 

Am I really so much worse than those roommates of yours?

Eren was many things, but that was one thing he was not. You quickly remember just how often you had shown up at Armin’s doorstep in tears, or so angry you had steam blowing out of your ears, because of how much you hated them. You only had to deal with them for a few more months, so it was easy enough to avoid them and only stop by to get clothes and the occasional shower. To make matters worse, it was Friday night and they would definitely be having some kind of a party or get-together, which meant there was no way you’d be getting any sleep there. 

I’m on my way, can we get pizza? 

… 

It’s only seven-thirty when you and Eren are sitting on the couch, some movie playing on the television that you aren’t paying attention to. Your nerves only let you eat a slice of pizza, while Eren scarfed down nearly half the box. You knew you were fucked when Eren opened the door, clad only in grey sweatpants and the slick sheen of sweat apparent on his entire body, from his muscular arms to his abs.

Bastard, bastard, bastard. He opened the door like that on purpose, just to see you react with a splutter and blush red.

“I’m just gonna jump into the shower, can you order the pizza?” he shouted to you while walking back to his bedroom. He came out with a towel, and you had barely processed the words because the only thing you could think about were his arms. You knew Eren was fit, anyone could tell just by looking at him, but you had no idea he was built like that. If you were a lesser woman, you would have tried to sneak glances at Eren getting into or out of the shower during all those opportunities you had, but you never did, because it felt wrong to look away from Armin’s blue eyes to focus on Eren.

But now, with no one else there to stop or distract you, your eyes were glued to his muscular figure. It wasn’t too hard to think about how easily he could pin you somewhere—up against a wall, or a door maybe, or across the dinner table. It wouldn’t even take him both hands to keep your head shoved down or keep both your arms pinned back as he—

“Hey, you okay? Did you hear me?” Eren asks again, standing right in front of you. He’s trying his hardest to sound sincere, but there’s a smirk on his face as he observes your behavior. If it wasn’t obvious before, it’s clear as day now.

“I-I’m fine. What kind of pizza do you want?”

“Whatever kind you want, just get extra cheese. Menus on the table,” he says, before turning back around and walking to the bathroom. You’re almost jaw-dropped as you watch him walk away, and hear the water turn on. You take several deep breaths, reminding yourself to stay calm. After dinner, you could go into Armin’s room and be completely fine. 

You order the pizza and go into Armin’s room to sort your stuff out, looking through your bag and searching for clothes to sleep in. You knew you had packed them, but you suddenly couldn’t find them anywhere. Your shorts and t-shirt were missing, and you quickly realized you left them on your bed while you had gone to grab your toothbrush. Damn it. 

Armin has a collection of perfectly soft and comfortable shirts to sleep in, so you open one of his drawers and pull out a dark green one, with some design on it. There’s no shorts that would fit you among Armin’s clothes, so you’ll have to do without them tonight. It’s fine though, considering the door will be locked and you’ll be safe and sound once you and Eren go to bed. Or so you thought.

Now you’re sitting on the couch, still dressed in your day clothes and feeling hot again. You knew Armin liked to keep the apartment on the warmer side, but you had never felt quite this warm before.

Eren glances at you with a quizzical look, and you realize your shiftiness and breathy pants are more noticeable than you thought. 

“Are you okay? You look like you’re about to pass out and you barely ate a thing,” he comments, keeping his eyes on you which somehow makes you feel even worse. His gaze is piercing, and though you never really cared that Eren always looks like he’s undressing you with his eyes, it’s bothering you now more than ever.

“I-I’m okay,” you get out, before suddenly standing up and taking off the cardigan you had worn all day. “I think I just need to shower, good night Eren,” you say, before walking away much too quickly. Eren’s eyes don’t leave you until you’re inside Armin’s room once more, wondering why you’re so hot and bothered at a simple stare from him. Him, who is not your boyfriend, and barely qualifies as your friend and for some reason has you wet from looking into those green eyes for too long.

Enough. 

Armin was kind and sweet enough to let you sleep at his place when he’s not even there, and you wanted to repay that kindness by having dirty thoughts about his best friend? No, it wasn’t right, in fact, it was inherently wrong. You take a few more moments in Armin’s room, inhaling the familiar scent of his fabric softener and all the old books on his shelves, before taking your towel and going to the bathroom. Eren is still in the living room, eating and watching the movie, you presume, and you wish to God he would leave you alone and go out to party or fuck some other girl, but he’s not. He’s spending a quiet Friday night at home with you.

The hot water and clean soap distract you from your thoughts, but the tension and heat growing in your body is only exacerbated when you run your hands across your body. There’s something very wrong about touching yourself in the shower when Eren is a dozen feet away and could hear you easily—but that’s a risk you’re willing to take if it meant it would get illicit thoughts of him out of your brain for the rest of the night. 

One hand goes to play with your hardened nipple, as the other tenderly begins to rub circles on your clit. Your hands try to imitate Armin’s, and he’s always gentle with you, but as you let out a muffled moan, you realize it’s not Armin’s careful touch you want right now. It’s Eren’s rough fingers, fingers that would move in and out of your wetness harshly, not waiting for you to adjust to their size. Eren wouldn’t start with one, like Armin, he would go for three and keep his thumb on your clit, rubbing so fast and in just the right way, while his mouth would be on your tits—tongue doing the talking for him on your sensitive nipples. He wouldn’t care to stop if it was getting to be too much, and he wouldn’t let you come down from your high before starting again, he would just keep going. Eren would know when you’ve had enough, and just once didn’t meet his requirements for enough. 

If anyone could see you right now, you could die from embarrassment, furiously fucking your fingers and completely unaware of how loud you were being as you tried to imitate what Eren would do to you. But imitating wasn’t quite enough, You were so close, you could almost feel that tight knot in your stomach unwind, just a little more—-

Knock. 

“Hey, you’ve been in there a while. Everything okay?” Eren’s voice is muffled from outside the door, and the waterfall coming from the shower suddenly felt like it was pounding beside you. 

Your hand covers your mouth as you let out a frustrated, stifled sob. 

“Y-yeah! I’m almost done!” you call back out, fingers still inside you. You remove them with a gasp, shaking and face burning at the idea that Eren might have overheard you. You get out of the shower on wobbly legs, wrapping the towel securely around you and heading to Armin’s bedroom to change and put an end to this strange day. You don’t notice that Eren’s door is cracked open a little.

As strange as it sounds, you feel much better once you’re in Armin’s shirt and just a pair of panties, ready for bed. A nagging voice in the back of your head wants you to finish what you started in the shower, nipples hard again as the air seems cooler than earlier, but you push the thoughts aside. Another day.

You grab your water bottle to take your birth-control pill, eight forty-five on the dot, but realize its contents are empty as a result of your earlier hot flash. You tiptoe into the kitchen, extra careful because you don’t want Eren to hear and come out, but as you fill up a glass, your roommate for the night is suddenly leaning against the counter. 

It should be illegal the way he says your name. Sultry and deep and rolling off his tongue without even trying. Eren doesn’t have to change a thing about him to be the very definition of the word erotic, which is coincidentally the only word you can use to describe this encounter. 

He’s forgone the shirt he had on earlier, when you were eating together, and you knew he had put it on just to make sure you didn’t choke on your pizza. Just in those sweatpants again, you could see everything you had tried too hard to avert your gaze from, on display right in front of you. 

“E-Eren,” you stutter out, skin burning again even though it was cold now. “I didn’t see you there.”

“It’s okay. What are you taking, there?” You flushed again at the idea of having to tell Eren it was your birth control, because it felt as if he already knew somehow. He watches you with that damn smirk and a raised eyebrow, waiting for your answer.

“It’s ibuprofen.”

“Oh.. ibuprofen, huh? That’s weird, because every time I asked you if you were okay, you said you were fine. Were you lying to me?” His tone is dangerous, somewhere between amused and angry.

You didn’t even realize he had gotten so close to you, until you tried to take another step backwards to put some distance between you two, but you were met by resistance from a cupboard, signifying the end of the wall.

“I-I wasn’t lying, I just forgot-” You hear him click his tongue. He’s dangerously close to you now, you can feel the heat coming off of his body and one more step from him would make you feel the cold breath of his exhales.

“Forgot what, baby? It seems to me that I just caught you in a lie.” Another click of his tongue. “Now, Armin always says you’re a good girl, but I don’t think a good girl would lie to me like you’ve been doing all night, right?”

Armin. The very mention of his name makes something recoil inside your chest, makes you remember how you don’t want to hurt him like this, and how much pain he would be in if he found out about this little interaction between you and Eren.

You try to push back, but Eren extends his arms up, trapping you between them and the cabinet, leaving no way for you to escape. 

“Don’t you wanna be a good girl for me?” 

The simple sentence is enough to send your brain, skin, heart on fire, as you let out a breath and find your head nodding up and down. Your body seems to have a mind of its own, wetness seeping from between your folds and no doubt creating a darkened patch on your panties.

“Good girl,” he mewls, dragging out each syllable as he speaks. “I thought I might have to punish you if you kept lying to me, but I don’t think that’ll be an issue anymore. Am I right?” He watches you dumbly nod again, eyes very much blank and just focused on one thing: him. He nods too, mocking your movements and smirking again. “Should we play a game? How about I ask a question, and you have to tell the truth? Sound good?”

Everything’s on fire, and you can’t hear anything besides the thumping of your heart in your chest. Long gone are your inhibitions and desperate hope of a quiet night in with your boyfriend’s roommate.

“First question…” Eren trails off quickly, looking down your body slowly. He takes one hand down from its position of blockading you and brings it to the hem of your—Armin’s—shirt. He plays with it there before continuing his sentence. “What were you thinking about in the shower earlier?”

You feel your breath catch in your throat and a quick flame erupts in your chest at the humiliation you feel—so he had heard you after all. And he interrupted you on purpose.

“You-you were listening? I-” Eren laughs, a low rumble from his chest meeting your ears as you begin to quiver from your position against him. 

“I wasn’t listening so much as you were being loud. It seems to me that you wanted me to hear you, isn’t that right? Or else what kind of a filthy slut would be so loud?” 

You tremble at the name he calls you, not used to sort of degradation Eren is putting you through. A small voice in the back of your head tells you that he’s not wrong, and your behavior is akin to some kind of whore. Maybe you’ve been like this all along, and you just needed the right person to bring it out of you. Your head feels utterly empty and devoid of any more thoughts, and you blank at what to say to Eren next. 

“I-I’m s-sorry,” you splutter out, feeling incredibly small near Eren, who towers over you. There’s something sadistic in Eren’s gaze, but you notice him soften up at your apology.

“What are you apologizing for?” he questions, quieter than before. He knows the two of you are alone, but he can’t bring himself to raise his voice at you.

You, the bane of his existence, and a blessing all at once. Since the day Armin introduced you to him, there’s been nothing he’s wanted more than for you to meet his gaze and look at him the way you looked at his best friend, with love and adoration. He got a few lucky weeks where you didn’t immediately shy away from his eyes, when he felt like you were challenging him to do something, anything. But it went as soon as it came, and suddenly he was seeing less and less of you. Until this opportunity from Armin’s departure, that is.

“I… I was being a slut,” you whisper back to him, tears lining up at the waterline of your pretty eyes as he moves a hand to your jaw and forces you to look right at him while you speak. You shudder at the touch of his skin on yours, but you don’t want him to stop all the same. 

“That’s okay, baby,” he says in an incredibly reassuring tone that has you wondering what he’ll do next. “I like my girls a little slutty, but just for me, right?” You nod again, quickly. “Besides, I have to make it up to you, you know. I stopped you right when you were getting real close, didn’t I? I could just tell from those pretty noises you were making.” 

The next few moments pass by in a blur, Eren’s arms move and suddenly you’re over his shoulder, ass up and out as the shirt you’re wearing rides up. He delivers a quick slap, making you cry out, as he brings you into the room and lays you on the bed. He’s standing between your legs, a hand on each thigh keeping you spread open for him as he observes closely the impact of his actions on you. 

“You’re just soaking through your panties, aren’t you? Are you really that eager for me?”

You let out a whine, not wanting to answer his question because your face is burning again at the idea of Eren staring so closely at your clothed pussy—and you let out an even higher-pitched squeal when he uses a finger to push your panties aside, and look at your wetness completely. 

“So wet, and so pretty, all for me, huh?”

“Y-yes. All for you,” you let out with a moan, eager for Eren to do something. Anything at all would set you over the edge, with how you’ve been feeling these last few hours. But you think he knows that, because his actions are all teasing you and leaving you wanting more, blindly clenching around nothing at all as his fingers barely graze your clit. He lets out a laugh at your desperate antics, and you’re about to come from the slightest touch, and suddenly you feel the bed moving as Eren wraps his lips around your clit and pushes his tongue against you.

You didn’t even know you could make the noise that you let out, a scream and a cry and carnal moan all wrapped in one. You know Eren thinks the same because he looks up at you from his position between your legs, laughing against your core. The vibration from his laugh makes your legs shake even harder, as you feel Eren’s tongue attacking your clit at an even faster pace. You’re seeing stars and completely unaware of everything else, like how Eren’s nimble hands slid your panties down and tossed them to the side somewhere, landing near the bookshelf, so close to the edge when you feel his fingers teasing at your opening and plunge in without any warning. 

You were completely right about your earlier predictions, feeling Eren quickly add a third finger inside you as you clasp a hand over your mouth to stop the obscene noises from leaving your mouth. You do have neighbors, after all, despite how much empty your head feels of every thought besides one; Eren. 

He pulls his mouth away from your sensitive nerves for just a second, just to chastise you before continuing his actions.

“Don’t do that,” he says the words against your lips, “I want to hear you.” 

You weren’t sure it was possible to feel even more pleasure than you were now, but Eren’s words made you feel feral as you let out another loud moan, this time not muffled. You think he calls you a good girl, but you’re not sure if it’s your imagination. You whine when you feel Eren pull his fingers out of you, suddenly so empty when you had been so full moments ago. You’re trying to collect the words to tell him to keep going, and how this is the second time he’s ruined your finishing, but you just can’t. The only thing that comes out is a mumble of ‘please’ and ‘Eren’ 

“Don’t worry, baby, I’m not stopping,” he says, pulling himself up and hovering over you. One of his strong arms is by your head, holding himself up as the other hand, the one that had been inside of you, finds its way to your mouth. “Open.”

You do as you’re told, dropping your jaw quickly for him as he shoves the fingers into your hot mouth.

“Suck.” Another command that has you reeling, doing exactly as he wants and swirling your tongue around Eren’s long fingers. They’re coated with your heady wetness, and the taste is unlike anything you’ve experienced before, but you don’t stop. It feels entirely too dirty and filthy, but you’re willing to do anything to get Eren’s approval now. His words are clear now.

“Good girl. Since you’ve been so good, I think you can cum now.”

His fingers leave your mouth quickly, and he’s fiddling with your hands now, that were previously gripping the sheets so tightly you were scared they might tear. He pulls up your shirt even more, exposing your tits to the cold air of the room, and puts your fingers on your hardened nipples. He doesn’t give a command, but you know it instinctively, that he wants you to play with your nipples while he makes you come. You’re not sure how long you’ll be able to follow his orders, but you go ahead anyways. You’re teasing yourself in front of his hungry, wolf-like gaze, as you clench on nothing every time you run your fingers over your sensitive nipples.

Satisfied, he returns back to his position between your legs. You’re crying out before his fingers even reach your wetness, and choke on your moan when he inserts three at once again. You know there’s no way you’ll be able to hold out now, and if he stops again you feel like you might explode into a million pieces. His tongue is rough against your clit, moving in the perfect motion, and one more thrust of his perfect fingers against that spot inside you will have you cumming so hard— Eren speaks against your pussy, a singular word.

“Cum.”

You feel the knot snap in your stomach and your orgasm shakes through you like a bolt of lightning. You hear yourself release a scream before you can stop it, fingers leaving your breasts and grasping onto Eren’s dark strands for dear life, because he hasn’t let up on his actions yet. He keeps going, riding you through it, tongue and mouth continuing on and fingers pumping in and out so quickly that the bedroom is filled with a crude, squelching noise. You’re not sure exactly how loud you were, but your throat is dry and scratchy, and you’re swallowing just to feel some relief. You feel Eren slowly retract his fingers, breathing heavy against the soft skin of your thigh, as you find your way back to reality. You don’t look down at Eren, but you hear him licking his fingers, tasting your wetness in such a sinful manner, you know you can’t look at him do it.

Reality sets in, and you look around your surroundings. Every single one of your senses had been preoccupied with Eren minutes ago, but now that they were free again, you take in the comfortable scent of the sheets and the lingering scent of your slick leaves your thoughts as you take in the familiar scent of old books. Your heartbeat was just returning to normal, when you look around and realize you’re in Armin’s room, on Armin’s bed, as Armin’s best friend gave you the most powerful orgasm of your life. 

You sit up quickly, breathing rapidly as your shirt falls to cover yourself, and you meet Eren’s eyes again.

“Lay back, baby, we’re not done yet.” There’s a haze over your thoughts, and his words, because you want to fight him, and yell and scream at him for bringing you into Armin’s room when you already felt so horrible about what you’ve done, but you can’t summon anything. The only thing you can think about is Eren’s dick, and how it would feel inside you, and how your sensitive walls would take him. So you follow Eren’s orders, and lay back down. Eren hovers over you again, pulling at your shirt, up and over your head, and it lands with a soft thud on the carpet. 

He’s looking at you now, up and down slowly, but different than all the other times. He doesn’t have to rush to take it all in this time, because you’re on display just for him now. So he takes his time, and starts with a soft kiss to the skin right above your heart, wondering if he can hear the hard thuds or if that’s just his imagination. You look at him while he continues his ministrations, wondering why he’s being so slow and careful, because you hadn’t expected this.

His lips work their way up, to your collarbone and then your neck, taking his time to suck on the skin and pepper it with kisses once he hears you hiss in pain. He murmurs an apology against your jaw, before his teeth take your bottom lip between them. He lets go soon after, too eager to feel your lips against his. He’s scared you might pull away, but you don’t. You know you’ve done something terrible, but it’s too late to take it back now. 

He kisses you deeply, tongues finding each other and exchanging that heady taste of yourself. You moan into the kiss, your hands finding the side of Eren’s face and trying to push him onto yourself even harder. You’re not sure if you ever want to pull away from Eren’s lips, but he finally does, trying to catch his breath. You look into his green eyes for a moment, and find your own eyes watering. 

“Don’t cry, baby. I’ll give you what you want.” Eren’s words send you scrambling again, too eager for the fullness you know is inevitable when he finally fucks you.

You feel yourself grabbing for the waistband of his sweats, but Eren’s faster than you. His one hand pins both of yours against your chest, as he clicks his tongue in that obnoxious way again.

“Patience. Only patient girls get daddy’s cock.” You want to scream at him about how patient you’ve been, all this time and all of tonight, but you bite your tongue. You don’t need Eren’s punishment on top of the torture he’s put you through already. 

You let go of your resistance and watch with wide eyes as he removes the only thing that was in your way. His erect dick snaps up against his stomach once it’s freed, and you swallow without thinking, looking at the sheer size of him. He’s just as big as you had imagined, the tip a pretty, dark pink with white beads of pre-cum gathered at the top, and every vein causing you to descend further and further into a wanton state. It’s his thickness that you weren’t prepared for. If three of his fingers were such a tight stretch, you can only imagine what this would do to you. But at the same time, you think you might die if Eren doesn’t fuck you right now. 

He watches with that damn smirk as you stare at his dick with more eagerness than he’s ever seen before. He holds his length in his hand, directing himself to your entrance but not pushing in. He holds himself there, running his dick over your folds and almost succumbing to the inviting wetness of your cunt, but he stops himself. 

“Do you want my cock, baby?” Another surge of heat rushes through your body, feeling almost light-headed at how difficult he’s making this. But you weren’t about to start misbehaving now.

“Y-yes, yes, Eren, please-” You hiccup out, feeling yourself lose the battle against your watery eyes, as the tears roll down your face. “Please, I want it so badly, please, please, please—Oh!” 

Eren pushes in without any warning, watery eyes being his own breaking point. He could have finished on the spot seeing you cry begging for his dick, and he was determined to make you cum again before then. The noises you’re making are incredibly obscene, and he knows you’re being loud enough to notify the entire floor, but he’s not going to stop you. He’s only about half way in, but he wants to be nice and let you adjust to him.

“P-please, Eren, please-” You’re not entirely sure what you’re begging Eren for. A part of you doesn’t think it’s possible to feel more full, and another part of you wants Eren to fuck you so hard you forget everything and everyone. 

He’s about to chastise you again to be patient, and let you know that he’s doing this for you, not him, but he realizes his actions are louder than his words. With another thrust, he pushes his entire length in you. You moan again, this time with a breathy gasp, and he can’t help the smile on his face. You look so pretty crying, trying to take his entire dick and struggling immensely.

He thrusts slowly, wanting to make it last and make you feel every last vein of dick deep inside you, but the way your tight cunt grips him has him speeding up before he can help it. The noises filling Armin’s room are beyond lecherous, as the only sounds are of his tightening balls smacking against your skin with every deep thrust, and the lewd noise of your wetness taking him. 

He’s got you on your back, sitting up between your thighs and one leg hoisted on his shoulder, and thrusting so hard you can feel his hip-bone bruising your skin. There’s only one thought left in your head, and that’s how good Eren feels inside you. The aching burn of his initial assault is long gone, leaving just the feeling of Eren filling you up. Your hands remember his earlier order and find their way to your hardened nipples again, pinching and teasing, putting on a show for Eren as he moans loudly. Every noise he makes goes straight to your core, making you clench around him harder than before.

His lithe fingers find your clit again, and you throw your head back and moan even louder at the feeling. You were so, so sensitive already and this was the last straw. One more of Eren’s thrusts, hitting that special spot inside you, and one more touch of his fingers on your clit sent you screaming to your second orgasm. You were clenching tightly, as Eren worked you through it again and kept his thrusts going. You were seeing black, screaming his name and God knows what else, as you came and waves of pleasure washed over you and heat radiated from your head to your toes.

Eren’s continued thrusts kept going, even after your pussy tightened around him. You were out of breath and sweaty, and you felt Eren’s hips stutter as he leaned forwards and found your hot mouth again. You were kissing again, his lips on yours as you swallowed his moans and grabbed his arms to steady yourself. With another rapid succession of thrusts, Eren moved his lips to your neck and groaned loudly as he came inside you. You felt the hot ropes of his cum deep inside your pussy, as he kept going and going, eventually pulling out of you with a heady moan. You could feel his cum leaking out of you and onto Armin’s sheets, as you laid incredibly still beside Eren, both of you trying to catch your breath. You were ashamed to look Eren in the eyes, avoiding his gaze still as you felt your heart rate return somewhat back to normal. 

“Hey,” was all he said, breathlessly, and with a deep look in his eyes that you had never seen before. “Are you okay?” 

He straightened himself up, leaning against the bed frame and opening his arms in an inviting manner. You wanted nothing more than to avoid his touch, but you felt the exhaustion in your limbs and you convinced yourself there was nothing wrong with being held by him for a few minutes. You leaned against his chest, his strong arms wrapping around you and pulling up the covers to shield you both from the cold air. You were content to fall asleep right here, every sense of yours taken up by Eren, but you couldn’t just yet. 

“What are we going to tell Armin?” you breathed out dejectedly. It was the one thought that was plaguing your mind, the one thought stopping you from being happy and peaceful beside Eren tonight. 

“Oh, baby. You’re acting like this entire thing this wasn’t his idea.”

...

thanks for reading! part two with armin, anyone?

[warmblanketwhump]

safe enough to fall

a little university-themed thing I wrote using @sicktember prompts: comfort item, sneaky temperature check, medicine, unlikely caregiver, and lightly inspired by these prompts

the grip of the winter’s cold was their constant, unrelenting companion - but sometimes, B just wished it would be a little less faithful.

It doesn’t ease in the morning, when B wakes up coughing with a cold nose and stiff limbs. It stays as B shivers through the lukewarm shower and the hurried layering of clothes over damp, goosebumped skin. It sticks to them like cling wrap on the bus, in the lecture hall, the windy walk to their next class, makes them tense their rattling jaw, and leaves them hunched over and huddled up, desperate to conserve any scrap of heat.

This was a fact of their university existence - that after the pleasant crispness of fall, their poor, scholarship-funded body was plunged into four months of frozen hell. They didn’t like to complain - after all, they were getting a free education. But no one told them how brutal their university’s winters would be, nor that dorm heating was little more than a few puffs of warm air every hour, or that regardless of how many layers they pulled on, they’d be chilled to the bone until late March.

Their final class of the week is in a drafty science lab, and they hold back a groan. The cold's not the only source of their dread - it was the thought of spending 90 minutes with their perky, overly friendly lab partner, A.

A, whose parents were well-off, well-known benefactors of their university. A, who lived in a nice house with proper heating and had the money for a warm winter coat. A, who obliviously chattered on about anything and everything. Besides that, they were just so...happy. All the time.

The can afford to be, B thought miserably. There was no way all that sunshine could be real.

B really tried to tamp down their bitterness, but it was hard to listen to someone gush on about their amazing weekend their family spent on some tropical island when B spent the same weekend wrapped up in blankets, trying to stay warm enough to study their nomenclature notes.

Two minutes before class, A bounds into the lab like a freed golden retriever and begins their usual volley of caffeinated questions, which B responds to in short, clipped answers. Suddenly, the questions stop and A’s brows furrow.

“You look cold. Are you okay?”

B shifts on their stool and tucks their fingers into the sleeves of their worn secondhand coat, pulling it tighter with a shudder. “I am cold. It’s winter.” They cough weakly into their elbow - the nagging cough has gripped them for weeks now.

“Are you sick?”

Direct, then. That was new. “No. At least, I don’t think so. I don’t have a fever or anything.” In truth, they had been feeling a little lower than usual the past couple of days, the chill a little deeper, the aches more pronounced, the cough a bit more painful. But in their book, that was hardly enough call themselves sick. B sniffles and A opens their mouth to comment further, but the professor calls the class to attention, and the moment is gone.

90 minutes later, they’ve got their work cut out for them - a ten-page lab report that’s going to count for nearly a quarter of their final grade. And as luck would have it, it was a partner project, which meant B got to spend more time with the equivalent of human rocket fuel.

“So...do you want to just knock this out tonight?” A's eyes dart around nervously.

B frowns - it’s almost the weekend, and they figured A would have plans with friends this evening. But B sure doesn’t have anything going on., so they don’t protest. “No… I s’pose we should get as much done as possible while it’s still fresh. Want to go to the library?”

“Ugh." A cringes. "Do we have to? That place is like a tomb.”

B huffs indignantly. “It's not that bad," they mumble in a weak defense of their favorite study spot. A shoots them a glare, and B rolls their eyes. "Do you have somewhere better? It's Friday, so most places are closing up.”

“Well, my parents decided to go on some last-minute ski trip to the Alps again, so my place is free," A says as they step out into the biting wind. "Plus, I have a ton of food and it's actually warm in there, unlike these buildings.”

The promise of decent heating and food that wasn't from the dining hall was enough for B. "Fine. Your place." The pair trudge through the bitter wind as the sun begins to set, and soon they arrive at A's parents’ home - a beautiful, winding estate just a couple minutes away from campus. B has to bite their lip to keep their jaw off the ground - in the blustering snow, this place looks straight out of a Christmas card. Another reminder of how they don’t fit in this world.

Will you stop? B chastises themselves. A having money isn't a personal attack on you. Just enjoy the free food, finish the assignment and get over it.

Despite the towering exterior, B's house was quite cozy, colored in warm neutrals and filled with soft, comfortable furniture. Just past the mudroom, they spot a big living room filled with with an enormous overstuffed couch, squashy-looking pillows, and soft throw blankets. Everything about this place screams warm. A rubs their arms, suddenly aware of how cold they are. The heat nearly makes them dizzy, and they can feel the temperature difference as it seeps into their cold skin.

"Want some cocoa?" A tosses their bag into the corner and heads for an electric kettle in the kitchen, and B follows. "It always helps me warm up." B nods. A couple minutes later, A pushes over a steaming mug with the top entirely covered in marshmallows.

B wraps their chilled fingers around the mug and takes a sip, and the warm, rich liquid feels like heaven to their cold body. "That's amazing."

A smiles. "It's the good stuff." They sip in a surprising silence for a few moments, before A sighs in resignation. "As much as I wish this was just a social call, this report isn't gonna write itself." They grab a bag of popcorn and nod their head toward the living room, and B follows dutifully. A flicks on the gas fireplace and tosses B a throw blanket, and the pair gets to work.

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

After a couple hours of studying, three instances of indignantly thrown popcorn, and a dramatic reading of the periodic table, B realized that they may have misjudged A. Deep down, under the bubbly exterior, A was a genuinely kind, sweet person. It wasn't an act - they just were human sunshine. And the longer they spent time with them, the more B realized they didn't mind their company at all.

"Alright." A drops their pencil and rubs their eyes. "If I have to balance one more equation, my brain's gonna explode. Study break time." A flips on the TV and puts the volume on low.

B leans their head back on the couch and pulls their throw blanket to their chin, trying to ward off the shivery feeling in their core. Despite the heat of the fire, the mug of hot chocolate, and the thick blanket, they just can’t seem to get warm.

Their face feels hot, but their blood feels chilled and heavy, the weight of it making them ache deep down in their bones. B wraps their arms around their knees, trying to rub away the throbbing pain and get some warmth into their skin. They glance out the picture window at the now-blowing snow. It's gonna be a miserable walk home.

"B, you're shivering." A's turning to look at them now.

B startles. "It's-It's nothing. Just a chill." The concern in A's voice triggers their flight response. "I....I should probably get back to the dorms. It’s late–" They're cut off with a hacking cough that leaves them breathless and they wince at the ache in their chest.

"B, it's snowing, and you haven't even had dinner-"

"Where's my jacket?" They push themselves up and toss the throw blanket off, instantly regretting it as the air invades their pocket of hard fought warmth. They’re trembling and dizzy and desperately freezing, but they cannot stay here. Then, the world tilts and they fall back on to the couch. For a moment, they're just laying in an icy, spinning world, trying to catch their breath, when warmth suddenly envelops them.

A's tucking the same thick grey blanket around their shivering form. As they pull away, their hand lightly brushes over B's neck, then freezes. B twists away from the gentle touch, but it’s too late. Realization floods over A's face. Caught. "You lied. You are sick."

B groans, even as their fingers weave into the chunky knit and pull the warm layer closer. "A, please. Just let me go home. I'm probably contagious. You don't want me here."

"B, you look like death warmed over. I'm not sending you out in a blizzard when you're feverish like this. I won't do it." There's a spark in their eyes and a set to A's jaw that dares B to challenge them.

B leans back, defeated. Even though they want nothing more than to run out of this room, they're too weak to stand and too cold to move. So here they'll stay.

It's okay. Someone's here. You can give in now.

No. I can't. I can't let them see me like this.

What choice do you have? You already look awful. Let them help you.

A covers them with another blanket and places a gentle hand on their back, rubbing slowly. The firelight flickers, casting light and shadow across their solemn face. “B. Tell me what you're feeling, and I'll get you what you need.”

B swallows down the rising panic, the helpless vulnerability they feel, and takes a shallow, shaky breath. “I…I guess I just feel….not right. I’m always cold...but it's...worse.” They sniffle weakly, trying to still and order their swirling thoughts. “Chills, fever, cough, sore throat, kinda stuffed up. And it just hurts everywhere.”

A nods slowly, then leaves the room. They return in a few minutes with a few small bottles, carefully scanning the labels and holding them up for B to see.

“Can you take this? Any problems with this one?” B had to take a moment and match the brand names with their usual knockoff brands, but soon they had a couple over the counter medicines picked out, along with something for their cough.

A glances at the medicine labels once more. "This one says to take with food. I've got some leftover chicken and dumpling soup I can heat up - does that sound okay?"

B nods almost imperceptibly. "Sounds wonderful." A gets up to heat the soup, and B feels the anxiety rising in their stomach when they're not in the room with them. A returns with a mug and manages to gently spoon a few sips of broth into B's mouth before B starts falling asleep, clutching the grey blanket even tighter to their shoulders.

A smiles sadly. “That blanket's my favorite whenever I'm not feeling good. It's the best thing you could have to fight off what you’ve got. Trust me.”

B curls into the soft fabric. It was as if the warm environment of the apartment and the comfort of the blanket had been a signal that it was safe to leave survival mode, rest for a moment, open the floodgates that had been holding back whatever had been ailing them for weeks.

After B takes their medicine, A’s eyes shift awkwardly around the room. “So….when you’re sick, do you like having someone with you? Or do you want to be by yourself?”

A sudden rush of emotion crashes over B. They’d so rarely had the choice. It takes all they’ve got not to throw themselves around A and beg them not to leave. “Stay, please,” they ask in a small, trembling voice. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

A smiles halfway and gently pats B’s leg. “Seeing as how I live here, I don’t think that’ll be a problem.” They take their spot at the end of the couch and pull B’s legs over their own, flicking the TV to a familiar movie. B tries to keep up with the plot, but they keep falling in and out of a fitful, restless sleep, tossing, turning, unable to get comfortable enough.

When B’s about ready to cry from exhaustion, A’s there, covering them up with another blanket, bringing them a glass of water, gently stroking the damp hair off their forehead before laying a cold cloth over it. They flinch at first, but the cool dampness eases the fire of their fever, even for just a moment. The last thing B remembers before falling unconscious is a gentle hand squeezing theirs.

It could be minutes or hours later when they jolt awake from a fever dream in a cold sweat, choking and coughing. They’ve kicked off their blankets and the cloth is nowhere to be found, but the chills are back in full force. A appears in B’s blurred vision, hand held to B’s forehead. “Poor thing. Your fever’s worse,” they murmur.

B’s still gasping for breath, curled up in the fetal position, body wracked by the shakes as they try force the words through their chattering teeth. “A...It's so cold. I’m so scared.”

If B was more lucid, they’d see something in A’s eyes crack wide open at their weak, fearful cries. A pulls the trusted grey blanket from the floor and wraps it back around B, rubbing their arms to try and make them feel warmer. There's something in the tenderness of the gesture, and B’s panicked gasps turn into soft, quiet sobs. They try and cover their face with one hand, but A’s hand is there, catching their wrist and wiping the tears away with their thumb.

“Hey. You’re gonna be okay. We just gotta get through tonight, alright?” A’s voice matches their usual cheery demeanor, but B can see the fear in their own eyes. They don’t know what they’re doing either.

“Why are you helping me?” B whispers in a tear-roughened voice.

A shrugs. "You're sick. You need help. Is it that so surprising?"

B's eyes flash a delirious spark. "You don't get it. I'm a broke scholarship student. I'm nothing like you. I'm not fun, or bubbly, or rich, or any of those things you are, and I don't fit in here. So why?"

B can't stop the words now, every single insecurity laid bare. "Why do you try to talk to me when I'm nothing but rude to you? Why'd you invite me here? Am I just a project to you? Why are you helping me? I'm not worth it!" The words spill out before B can stop them, and the raw hurt in A's eyes nearly rips B's heart out of their chest.

B claps their hand over their mouth, tears flooding their eyes. Now they've done it. They've laid it all out there. A's gonna kick them to the curb. And B won't blame them one bit.

But instead, A just looks at them, and pulls B into a hug. Their voice wavers only a bit as they whisper in B's ear: "You're not a project. You are completely worth being cared for. And you’re not the only one who knows what it feels like to not fit somewhere. Trust me.”

Alone. In a big, empty house. Studying on a Friday night. No plans of their own.

A, are you lonely, too?

Their words are so simple.

And yet they're everything B didn't know they needed to hear. A's got one arm around their shoulders, and one hand threaded through their sweaty, fever-damp hair, and they're cradling B so tightly it’s like they're the one who needs to be held.

B can't find the words to apologize or comfort them back. They're too tired for that. But they wrap their other arm around A and let their head rest on their shoulder. They stay like that for ages until their head begins to drop, and A shifts so they’re both laying down, B curled against A, A’s arm wrapped around their shoulders as they tuck a blanket around them both.

And finally, finally, B lets go. It's safe to fall, this time around. Because for the first time, there's someone there to catch them.

[slytherinwh0re]

Fresh linen, daisies, and a hint of honey

Draco Malfoy x female reader AU

Warnings: SMUT (18+ minors dni), a little fluff and maybe a swear word or two?

Summary: Where Draco has a crush on a girl and becomes her partner for a potions assignment.

Masterlist

*Draco’s POV*

The things I would do to that girl if she would just give me the time of day. I’m not quite sure why it happened, one day I noticed (y/n) walking down the hall with her friends and ever since I can’t seem to shake the image of her from my head, it’s no question she’s beautiful.

I have plenty of girls throwing themselves at me but why isn’t she? I mean I am Draco Malfoy. 

The witch has never even glanced in my direction and I know she knows who I am, we’ve had many classes together over the years and well, everyone knows who I am. I would never say it out loud but it truly bothers me that (y/n) seems to be the only person in Hogwarts who doesn’t care about being in my presence. It makes it much worse that I think I may even have a tiny crush on the girl. 

***

There she is, walking into our potions class right past me like I don’t even exist. I have to stop myself from staring at her for most the class. The girl makes it so hard for me to concentrate and she doesn’t even know it, luckily I’m godlike at potions or who knows what my marks would look like.

I’m not sure what it is about her that pulls me in so much. (Y/n)’s easily the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen but I don’t think that’s the only thing keeping my eyes on her. She’s also very kind, always smiling at every twit she comes in contact with and she seems to have this air around her that just reels you in.

“(Y/l/n), since you’re struggling so much you’ll work with Malfoy.”

Did I just hear Snape correctly?

I see her pick up her belongings and make her way over to the empty seat right next to mine. As soon as she sits down all I smell is fresh linen, daises, and something sweet. She turn to look at me with a small smile on her face and stretches out her hand.

“I’m (y/n) (y/l/n), we’ve never properly met.”

I look at her hand, a bit shocked at first but after a second I’m taking it into my much larger one. Her skin is soft.

“I’m Malfoy, Draco Malfoy.” I smirk at the pretty girl in front of me.

“I know.” She smiles wider. “I’m sorry in advance for how bad I am at potions.” Her cheeks turn pink and she turns back towards the front, listening to the rest of Snape’s instructions on our assignment. We had a week to figure out how to make amortentia, a powerful love potion.

As the class was coming to an end (y/n) turns back to me “So I was thinking we could actually start the assignment tonight? I could meet you in the library once my classes are over for the day?”

“Sounds good to me (y/l/n), I’ll see you later.” I wink at her and start heading to my next class.

***

Finally classes are over, all I could think about was how tonight would go and I may be slightly excited to see (y/n) again. I walked to the library as quickly as possible and to my surprise she was already at the entrance looking slightly disappointed.

“Hey (y/l/n), what’s with the long face?”

“It seems everyone had the same idea, there isn’t a single work table open.” She has the cutest little frown on her face.

“Well if you’re okay with it, we could always go to my dorm. I have a private one, being a prefect and all.” I like the idea of having her in my room but I wouldn’t want her to feel uncomfortable. She seems to think about it for a second and then shrugs her shoulders.

“Lead the way Malfoy.”

Once we get to my dorm we start setting up all the different ingredients and materials we’ll need on my work table. I could be imagining it but I swear I catch her glancing at me every once in a while out the corner of my eye. Not that I’m any better.

After the third time the potion explodes she lets out a frustrated sigh.

“Hey it’s okay, we still have all week to figure it out.”

“I know I just wish I wasn’t so useless at potions, maybe then we would’ve made a little progress.” She’s pouting.

“If it makes you feel any better, you’re a way better partner than Crabbe or Goyle.” She starts to laugh and I can’t help but smile at how beautiful she looks. Once she settles down she still has a little smile on her face and I feel good knowing I’m the one who caused it.

“I should get going, it’s past curfew.” She says starting to put away the materials but I lightly grab her hand to stop her.

“You could just leave everything and we could work here from now on.” I scratch my head, nervous to hear what she says. She smiles and nods her head in agreement, picking up her bag from my bed.

“Well I should go.”

“Come on, I’ll walk you to your room.” I think I see her blush but it’s too dark in the hallway to be sure. We make our way to her room in silence, the only sound is our quiet footsteps as we approach her door.

“Thank you for walking me back Draco.” My breath hitches in my throat, no one calls me Draco other than mum and father but it sounds like velvet coming from her lips. I must look as stunned as I feel because then she quickly adds, “I mean Malfoy.” (Y/n) looks so nervous thinking I’m angry but in reality I just want to hear her say it again so I just shake my head.

“It’s okay, you can call me Draco.” This time I’m positive I see a blush on her cheek.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, have a good night (y/n).” I smirk at the blushing girl.

“Goodnight Draco.” Before I even know what’s happening she stands on her tiptoes, grabs my shoulders and plants a short kiss on my cheek, with a little smirk of her own she turns and disappears behind the door.

I smile the entire walk back to my room.

***

When I walk into potions the next day (y/n)’s already sitting at the table I usually sit at. As soon as she sees me she smiles brightly making me smile back.

“Hi Draco, we still on for today?”

“Yeah of course, you can just come to my room whenever you’re ready.”

“All right, I’ll probably change into comfier clothes before heading over.” She says, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in anything other than her school uniform and robes.

***

I’m laying in my bed waiting for (y/n) and I can’t help but think about her kissing my cheek last night. What did it mean? I decided she was probably just being nice but I wouldn’t hate it if she did it again.

Finally she knocks on the door and I open it up to see her clutching her books to her chest, smiling, as per usual. Once she steps in my room I see she’s wearing jeans and a comfy looking black tshirt, even in such simple clothes the girl outshines everyone.

Once again we worked for hours on the potion and still no progress. However I really enjoyed myself, hanging out with (y/n) was more fun than I could have imagined. She’s funny and so sweet, I don’t know that I could ever grow tired of being near her.

Just like last night I walked her back to her room and to my pleasure she kissed my cheek again, this time a tad closer to the corner of my mouth.

***

The rest of the week went the same, she’d come to my room, we’d work on the assignment, I’d walk her to her room and then she’d kiss my cheek, a little closer to my lips each night. Now it’s Sunday and we have to turn the potion into Snape tomorrow.

“Draco I think we finally did it! If I put in this last ingredient and it doesn’t explode we’ve done it.”

She drops in the last ingredient and the mix starts to steam. (Y/n) squeals in delight and throws her arms around my neck but before I can even move she let go and starts doing a happy dance around my room making me laugh.

“Go smell the potion before you hurt yourself.” I tell the dancing girl. She makes her way over to the cauldron and takes a big whiff, making my heart pound against my chest.

“I smell apples, expensive cologne, and maybe mint?” I can tell she’s confused. “It smells exactly like you Draco. What does that mean?”

“Amortentia is a love potion, whatever the potion smells like to you is the smell of what, or who, you find most desirable.” I sniff the potion, looking right at (y/n) who’s bright red at this point. “For instance I smell fresh linen, daises, and a hint of honey. Sound familiar?”

The beautiful witch is lost for words as I get closer and closer. When I finally reach her I pull her small body flush against mine, putting my face in the crook of her neck and giving it a feathery light kiss.

“You’re an exact match.” I whisper in her ear making her shudder. I start to pepper light kisses on her neck making her moan softly.

“Let me show you just how much I desire you (y/n).” I pull back to see her reaction. She puts her arms around my neck and pulls me down until her lips are an inch away from my ear.

“Kiss me already Draco.”

It takes exactly one second for me to have her pressed against me again, this time with my lips on hers. I start walking us forward until the back of her legs hit my bed and she falls back, the sight of her laying on my emerald sheets has my pants tightening by the second.

She moves so she’s kneeling on the bed, eyes level with mine. She starts unbuttoning my uniform shirt, her (y/e/c) eyes never looking away from mine. Once she has my shirt all the way off she puts her small hands on my shoulders slowly moving them down my chest until they reach my abs making me groan, her hands are so soft.

I reach for the hem of her shirt, pausing to look at her for permission. She nods so I push the shirt over her head, revealing a black lace bra.

She moves one of her hands behind her back and unclasps the material around her chest, removing a strap from each arm and finally letting it fall to the floor by my feet. I take her in for a while, not quite believing that the girl of my dreams is allowing me to be with her this way.

“You’re beautiful (y/n).” With that my mouth is back on hers, our bare chests pressed together. I skim my tongue on her bottom lip asking for permission when I feel the little minx smirking into the kiss, keeping her lips sealed. Two can play that game, I bring my hand down on her ass causing her to gasp, allowing enough room for my tongue to tangle with hers.

I lightly push her back onto the bed, immediately climbing over her. I start laying kisses down her neck, sucking on the skin, wanting her to remember who made her feel this good. I go lower until I reach her jeans, once I unbutton them I tap her hip so I can slide them off her long legs.

“Are you sure about this love?”

“Hurry up Malfoy.” She demands.

“Yes ma’am.” I hook my finger in her underwear pulling them down as slow as possible just so I could watch her squirm. I haven’t even touched her and she’s already soaked, the thought makes me smirk as I settle in between her legs.

I start kissing the inside of her thighs, placing them behind my shoulders. I leave small marks as I get closer to her core.

“Draco, please. I need you to touch me.” Fuck, that was hot.

“I want you to watch (y/n), if you look away I won’t let you finish, understood?” She nods her head vigorously, eyes locked on mine.

I lick a bold stripe up her slick folds making her grab my hair and let out the sexiest moan I’ve ever heard. This girl is driving me mad and she barely even touched me.

I slowly start tracing figure eights on her clit making her squirm, I put one of my hands flat on her stomach to hold her down, with the other I circle a finger at her entrance before sinking it into her. Her eyes never leaving mine.

She moans my name and I’ve decided I would do this everyday if she allowed me, just so I could hear my name come out her mouth like that.

I sink another finger into her, thrusting them faster as her legs begin to shake. I can tell she’s close, she’s having a hard time keeping her eyes open.

“I’m gonna c-” she let’s go before she can even finish her sentence. She throws her head back screaming my name as I flick my tongue over her. When she comes down from her high I pull my fingers out and she watches as I lick them clean, a small smile on her lips.

I get off the bed taking my pants and boxers off, my dick hitting my stomach. I grab a condom from my drawer but her hand stops me before I rip it open.

“Let me do it.” (Y/n) grabs the condom from my hand and rips the foil open with her teeth, slowly rolling it onto me. Feeling her soft hands on me makes me hiss.

“Are you ready?” I line myself up at her entrance, when she nods her head I push myself in. She’s absolutely soaked. Her legs wrap around my waist as I hold her body as close to mine as possible.

“You feel so bloody good.” I moan into her neck as her nails dig into my back. Her little whimpers encouraging me to go faster.

I grab one of her legs and pull it over my shoulder, the new angle making her scream. I smirk at how thoroughly fucked the sweet girl below me looks as I wrap my hand around her delicate throat, her tits bouncing up and down with the force of my thrusts.

I push her leg down and flip her body so she’s laying on her stomach. I don’t even have to say anything, she’s already lifting her hips off the bed and parting her legs so I could fit inbetween them. I’m going to marry this girl one day.

With her ass in the air like that I can’t help but smack it before slamming back into her. (Y/n) buries her face in my sheets as I reach around to rub her clit.

“I’m close Draco.”

“Cum for me love. Let go, I’ve got you.” And that’s all it take for her to be pushed over the edge. Her walls tighten around me as she moans my name, my thrusts become sloppy and I’m seeing stars as I cum into the condom.

Once I get myself cleaned up I go back to the bed and pull the tired girl close to my chest, kissing the top of her head.

“Let me take you on a date tomorrow.” I break the silence.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

[olderthannetfic]

Thanks for the advice, VTS. I've written some mild underage but all OCs who happened to be teenagers in connection to some larger non-smut plot and nothing connected to my main account where people know I'm from the land of moose and kink-shamers. It makes me twitchy. Seriously, BDSM is illegal over here and we have a fun history of seizing "obscene" content at the border which is sometimes kink but usually queer stuff. Search of the Little Sisters Book & Art Emporium if you're interested, the conclusion of that legal battle just perfectly summarizes Canada's entire deal.

@my-ass-is-heavy is right, Canada literally charged an indie author for a few paragraphs of sexual assault of a kid character in a published horror novel (it was a retelling of Hansel & Gretel if I remember right, a fable which features a witch trying to eat the kids so... sexual content is worse to depict than cannibalism I guess). It was clearly not meant to arouse but our government is... it is like that, I guess. Blegh. For once Canada can not use our time honoured excuse excuse of at least we're not as bad as America.

But don't worry, plenty of sexual assault featuring minors on the library bookshelves and for sale in bulk. We only prosecute when we're uncomfortable, so basically anything transgressive or challenging.

--

The US sucks, and I'm perfectly on board with my mutuals dunking on my country. Our health care is shit. We're imperialist wankers. etc. etc. But in this particular issue of free speech, the US is just about the best place on earth (despite the occasional drama over trying to remove books from schools). It's no accident the OTW is based here, and it's not only because our founders are here.

Canada beats us at a lot of things, but it really is hot steaming garbage when it comes to defending transgressive art.

[pitviperofdoom]

Me: I’ve got some time and motivation on my hands! Maybe I should work on one of my immediate projects, like putting the finishing touches on my RQBB piece, or making some headway on my TMA BB piece, or editing the next chapter of the DND AU...

Me: *writes a 5k opener for an au that’s basically The Owl House*

------

“Again.”

Jon held still and kept his eyes shut. Everything ached, his head most of all; the slightest movement sent lightning bolts of pain through his skull. Even now it throbbed like a quiet threat behind his closed eyes.

“Get up, Jon.”

He couldn’t. He was done. Wasn’t that obvious?

“I don’t have time to indulge you. I know you can do more. Now get up.”

He couldn’t.

“Open your eyes, Jonathan.”

That was a simpler request, at least. He could do that much, couldn’t he? He could open his eyes. It barely counted as moving.

Dutifully, Jon forced his eyelids apart. Punishment was swift; this time the pain was so intense that he couldn’t even scream, only curl up tighter on the floor with a strangled whimper. The polished tiles were cold against his face, but they did little to soothe the ache. Warm liquid trickled from his closed eyes; when had he started crying?

Across the room, Jonah sighed. “Already? We’ve barely scratched the surface, Jon. I expected another hour from you, at minimum.” Footsteps echoed against the floor, and Jon tensed in spite of the pain, but the hands that picked him up were gentle. “Come now. Our work is too important for me to indulge you like this. For Titan’s sake, your endurance was better when you were a mere child.”

Jon kept his eyes shut, and hated the part of himself that wanted to curl up again, apologize, and promise to do better. The ache was beginning to recede, just barely, but he kept his eyes shut. If he opened them too soon, then Jonah would take it as a sign that he wasn’t as tired as he behaved.

“Can you make your own way back?” Jonah asked, steadying him by the shoulders. “Or do you need help?”

Jon’s blood ran cold. That was a dangerous question. If he chose to go under his own power, then Jonah might change his mind about letting him stop. But he didn’t want help. His limbs felt like wet clay, and there wasn’t a single muscle in his body that didn’t hurt, but at least they were still his.

“I—” HIs voice cracked in his dry throat. “I can—I can make my own way. Th-thank you, Jonah.” He held his breath.

After far too long for comfort, Jonah sighed again, heavy with disappointment. “Alright, Jon. Get some rest. We’ll do better in the morning.”

“Yes, Jonah,” Jon replied, faint with relief, and waited.

He was met with silence.

“Have you changed your mind?” Jonah said, after a moment. “If you’d like to continue…”

“No,” Jon replied. “No, I’m—thank you. For letting me stop. Just…” He held his hands out in a blind plea. “It’s my eyes, so I need…”

“Ah, of course, how could it have slipped my mind?” He heard a faint rustle from Jonah’s robe, before warm, smooth wood was pressed into his waiting hands. Jon swallowed another sob of relief. “There you are, then.”

“Thank you,” Jon repeated, and turned toward where he hoped the exit was.

The shape in his hands shifted. Smooth wood became downy softness, before the feeling left his hands and landed gently against his face. Soft wings brushed his cheeks, tiny legs grasped the bridge of his nose, and the world returned to him.

He hadn’t opened his eyes, but he could see the room once more: the library’s main room, a vast space where he and Jonah did most of their work. He could see Jonah as well, watching him with the weary patience of a parent indulging a child’s tantrum.

Jon looked away, muttered his thanks again, and limped out of the room.

Even with a closed door between them, the weight of Jonah’s scrutiny never left. Not helping the matter was the wallpaper that, currently, was openly tracking his progress through the countless eyes hidden in the intricate pattern.

That was the downside to navigating with these eyes; when he used his own, he couldn’t see the Beholding that soaked every nook and cranny of the manor. At least then he could pretend that closed doors and distance meant something.

It was a long way from the research wing to his quarters—their quarters—and Jon had to pause several times for a moment’s rest. By the time he reached the last flight of stairs, he was shaking from exhaustion, and strongly considering the benefits of simply curling up in a corner of the hallway and falling asleep on the floor. Jonah certainly kept the carpets plush enough.

His borrowed vision went hazy for a moment, and soft wings beat gently against his face. Jon braced himself against the wall as another powerful headache washed over him, closed eyes be damned. His face was wet with tears again.

“Alright,” he murmured. “Alright. Just a bit farther.”

The mask of wings left his face in a sudden flurry of beating, leaving him blind again. Jon bit back a cry of alarm and stayed where he was, leaning against the wall. He wouldn’t leave—surely he wouldn’t. He’d be back. Maybe he was just…

Before he could work himself into a proper panic, he heard the door at the top of the stairs creak open. Familiar footsteps came tumbling down the steps.

“Fuck, Jon,” a familiar, wonderfully welcome voice breathed out, and Gerry caught him before he could fall.

Jon made the rest of the journey leaning heavily against him, blind and trusting. He could feel gentle puffs of air against his face, fluttering wings that didn’t quite touch, and smiled gratefully.

Eventually Gerry deposited him in a chair and went to retrieve something—from the potions stand, going by the clatter of glass vials. Less than a minute later, one of them was pressed into his hand.

“Here. Need help drinking?”

Jon shook his head. “I can manage. Thanks.” He downed the potion and was rewarded by a receding headache. His eyelids were so sticky that he had to massage them open, and his vision came back in blurry patches, one piece of the room at a time: A single table and chair by the kitchenette. Two beds shoved together in the far corner. The sparsest alchemy array on the Isles. Gerry's face, watching him with open concern.

"Do you know how much you lost?" Gerry asked.

"What?"

Gerry gestured to his face, and Jon mirrored the motion until he found rough, sticky stains streaked down his face. He was confused until some of it crumbled off at his touch, and he looked down to find flecks of congealed blood clinging to his fingertips. "That's probably not good."

"Yeah, Jon," Gerry sighed, short and forceful with held back anger. "Probably isn't." He moved off to the kitchenette, and returned moments later with a damp towel.

Jon cleaned his face, sighing in relief at the coolness against the lingering ache. He put the now-soiled towel aside, eyes finally clear, and caught the briefest glimpse of amber eye spots on coppery wings before their owner alighted gently on the side of his head.

"Yes, of course," he said, reaching up to stroke one of the moth's large downy wings. His familiar nuzzled his finger in return. "Thank you, Atlas."

"He alright?" Gerry asked grimly, already checking the moth for any sign of damage.

"Jonah had him for the entire session," Jon replied. "No overt threats today, he just… didn't let him go until we were finished. So. Could be worse."

"Could be a lot better," Gerry muttered.

It will be, he carefully didn't say. Soon, it will be.

It wasn't safe to talk like that. Not here. Not yet.

After Gerry coaxed food into him, Jon crawled beneath the covers and curled up as small as he could manage. Patched and mended blankets didn’t offer any more protection than the walls of this place, but huddling in the dark made it easier to pretend that Jonah couldn’t see him here. It was the only way he could make himself sleep, these days.

When he awoke to Gerry’s gentle shaking, Jon found that he hadn’t moved so much as a finger in his sleep.

Without a word, he slipped out from under the blanket. The light in their quarters was dimming as twilight approached. Gerry barely glanced up from the book he was reading at the table as Jon shuffled to the kitchenette and the kettle.

Casting the spell was a simple matter of well-practiced sleight of hand, disguised beneath mundane activities. One spell circle traced idly by Gerry’s finger against the page as he turned it, the other drawn in the air as Jon waved away the steam. They never did it the same way twice, nor with any regularity by day or week or month. If it became a pattern, then Jonah might catch it.

The spell slipped into place smoothly, with none of the clumsy ripples of their earliest attempts, and Jon let out a shaky sigh. They had to assume that Jonah was always watching—but now, if he was, all he would see was Gerry reading at the table, and Jon drinking tea at the kitchenette. It was a routine they had set long ago. It was exactly what Jonah would expect to see.

Titan willing, it would be enough. They couldn’t afford to slip up now.

“It’s almost ready,” Gerry assured him. “Everything’s in place. All we have to do is wait for the moon’s alignment to power it.”

Jon ran his hand absently over his arm, scratching at the pockmark scars that dotted his skin. Some of the ingredients had cost them dearly to procure. They likely wouldn’t get another chance on any of them.

When he looked at Gerry again, his friend was watching him with something indescribably soft in his face. “It’ll work, Jon.”

“And if we’re caught?” Jon blurted. “We can’t hide this ritual behind false visions. He’ll sense it no matter what his eyes tell him.”

“Once it’s cast, it won’t matter,” Gerry said with grim satisfaction. “We’ll have our out. And where it leads, Jonah won’t have any of the power he does here.”

Jon took a deep, shaky breath, and nodded. His hands curled and uncurled at his sides, nails digging deep into his palms.

Gerry’s eyes never left him. “What’s on your mind?”

Swallowing against the thickness in his throat, Jon struggled to find an answer. “Is it—is it wrong that I’m afraid?”

“Jon, no—”

“I didn’t want to be here,” Jon went on. “I never wanted—ever since I came here, I’ve wanted to leave. And now we finally have a chance. Why am I afraid?” Gerry opened his mouth like he was about to reply, but Jon couldn’t have stopped himself if he tried. “It’s not like I’m safe here. Today wasn’t even that bad, compared to… it wasn't that bad.” A bitter, ragged laugh tore itself from his throat. "He pushed me until I bled from my eyes, and he was happy to keep pushing, and all I can think is it wasn't that bad. Why am I afraid to leave?" His voice trailed off. Atlas’s wings fluttered against his head, mirroring his agitation.

Instead of answering, Gerry held out his arms. Jon walked into them without hesitation.

“You were a kid.” With his head on Gerry’s shoulder, his hand to his heart, and Gerry’s arms holding him close, Jon felt surrounded by his friend’s voice.

“I was nearly eighteen,” Jon protested. “Hardly a child.”

“I’m just saying, you’ve been here too long not to be scared of what’s out there,” Gerry reminded him. “And it’s not like we’re escaping out the front door. We don’t really know what we’ll find on the other side.”

Jon’s hand curled into a fist against Gerry’s chest, and his other arm tightened around him. If they did this right, then their exit strategy would dump them into an entirely new world, of which Jon had only ever read old books or heard second and third-hand stories. A fresh wave of apprehension seized him.

Not for the first time, he let himself be desperately, pathetically grateful that he wasn’t doing this alone.

“Can you keep it together?” Gerry asked, still quietly gentle. “I just—I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. But I can’t do this alone. This is a two-person job at least, and—”

“Of course.” Reluctantly, Jon pulled back to look him in the eye. “I’m not going to give up at the last moment. You can rely on me.”

Gerry smiled. That was a rare thing, these days. All the more reason not to lose his nerve. Once they got out, Jon was going to spend the rest of their lives giving Gerry every reason to keep doing it.

“I know,” Gerry replied. “Now come on. Let’s finish prepping before we run out of twilight.”

***

“You know,” Gerry whispered late at night, as Jon settled himself into the curve of his body. “By the time I left home, I’d passed up five chances to escape.”

Jon listened in silence. He was never quite sure what to say when Gerry talked about how he grew up. Nothing felt like the right thing to say. Luckily, Gerry never seemed to expect him to say anything at all.

“Those are just the ones I was looking out for, at the time,” Gerry went on. “Couldn’t tell you how many I just didn’t see.”

“You were a kid,” Jon murmured back.

Gerry scoffed into Jon’s hair, and Jon smiled. “Don’t you turn my words back on me. How dare you.” A moment later, “But… you’re not wrong. I was a kid. She was all I knew. I didn’t know who I was without her.”

Safely out of Gerry’s line of vision, Jon allowed himself a thoughtful frown. It was different for him, wasn’t it? Gerry had been born his mother’s son, but Jon had been someone before he was Jonah’s… whatever he was. Student, research assistant, test subject, prisoner.

Before, he’d been the son of parents he barely remembered. He’d been the grandson of a woman who did her best until he drove her to give up on him, and a coven leader came to her with a kind smile and a promise to take away her burden. And now…

And now he wasn’t any of that. Because there wasn’t anything for him to go back to. The only way out was forward, into the unknown.

“I figured it out in the end,” Gerry told him. “You will too. I know you will.”

“I might need help with that,” Jon admitted. “I could use your expertise.”

A soft huff of laughter jostled him. “I’m gonna be in the same boat as you, you know? I’ve never been to the human world.”

“You still know more about it than me,” Jon pointed out.

Gerry was quiet for a moment. “He didn’t tell you anything?” he asked eventually. “It didn’t take much to get him talking, when I was running around with him.”

“Only a few things. His family, his brother, some of his favorite foods. It was all we had time for before we parted ways.”

“Ah, that’s a shame,” Gerry sighed. “The human world sounds amazing—if even half the things he told me about were even real.”

Jon laughed softly. “I know what you mean. Can you imagine someone actually swimming in the ocean? It would strip the flesh clean off your bones.”

“Not if the water’s cold and non-corrosive. Which it apparently is. People swim in the ocean all the time. It’s a thing. They take their kids and everything.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Jon stifled a yawn.

“It was weird, you know?” Gerry went on. “The things he’d talk about like they were nothing. Sometimes he’d say just the wildest thing, and he’d look at me like I was crazy when I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.”

“Like what?”

“Hmm… trying to think of one I haven’t told you before…” Gerry hesitated. “Did I tell you about how mornings in the human realm just… make water?”

“You mentioned something about the rainwater being cold,” Jon replied.

“No no, this is different. Titan, how did he explain it…” Gerry hummed thoughtfully. “Something about how, when it’s cold enough, everything’s covered in little droplets of water in the morning. The air just… does that. Makes water out of nothing.”

“I’m sure there’s more to it than that.”

“Can’t remember,” Gerry admitted. “He showed me a picture, though. Water droplets on a spiderweb. Looked like tiny little diamonds. Dunno what kind of face I was making, but he laughed at me.”

“Rude,” Jon murmured.

“Still not sure I believe it.”

“Maybe we’ll see it for ourselves. One day.” One day very, very soon.

Gerry’s only reply was to run gentle fingers through Jon’s hair, again and again, until Jon finally fell asleep.

***

The moon sat at its apex, round and bright and wreathed in blue fire that seemed to dim the stars around it. It was the first thing Jon saw when Gerry gently shook him awake.

He stirred, wincing when his movements jarred his injuries. Most of the day had been devoted to Jonah’s experiments, and Jon had fresh wounds to prove it. The burns on his face would heal without scarring, but his right hand was still wrapped in liniment-soaked bandages. Jon avoided putting any weight on it as he rose to a sitting position and pushed back the blanket. The sight of the moon, burning brightly in celestial alignment, chased away any lingering weariness.

They cast their usual cloaking spell with less caution than usual. It was only a stopgap measure at best, a few minutes’ safety to get everything in place. The table, chair, and alchemy set were pushed aside to clear the floor. With steadier hands—Jonah had been focused on Jon today, leaving Gerry a day of respite—Gerry borrowed Jon’s staff to draw the circle. Atlas alighted on his place at the top of the staff, colors fading as he shifted back into wood, and the symbols glowed brighter. Jon fetched each component from their hiding places around the room, and began laying them out amid the lines that Gerry was tracing.

They worked quickly, not speaking, barely breathing. For all their planning, there had been no time to practice. They would get only one chance, and no more.

And so, there was no time or opportunity to brace themselves before Gerry drew the last line, and Jon poured the last drop of Titan blood, and the circle caught the moonfire blazing through the open window.

The spell ignited, and the sheer force of clashing power nearly knocked them both off their feet. Their flimsy cloaking spell shattered, exposing them to Jonah’s sight, but it was far too late to turn back.

Jon had barely regained his footing when his own magic, coursing through the spell circle alongside Gerry’s, was caught in the moonlight’s amplifying effect. For a single, glorious moment, for the first time in years, Jon felt magic—wild magic, covenless magic—coursing through him. He smelled fire and earth and sea air, felt wind against his face, sensed the distant light of stars above them, tasted blood in the back of his throat as drumbeats pounded in his ears. Every sensation rushed him at once, melding together into a storm of color and music. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever felt.

And then the coven brand on his arm blazed, burning away the storm until only the Beholding remained.

It seized him mercilessly, knowledge clamoring its way into his head all at once. It was a confusing mess, so many sights and sounds and thoughts that he couldn’t have picked out a single one among them. But in the end he adjusted, the stream became more focused, and his mind was his own once more.

At the center of the circle, a seam formed in the fabric of the world. It split neatly down the length of it, opening wide into a ragged doorway.

Jon’s heart leapt. They had been planning this for years, researching in secret, sneaking and lying and stealing to get the components together, and yet—only now did he realize that he had never expected it to actually work. The fact that it had, that freedom lay only a few steps from where he stood, was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.

Jonah was on his way, he realized absently. It wasn’t just the inevitability of it; even without his focus on the river of knowledge flowing through him, he couldn’t help but catch a few drops. One of them showed their captor flying up the stairs toward their quarters, wild-eyed and intent.

“Gerry,” he said. “We have to—”

Another scrap of knowledge slipped into his mind, like a dagger between his ribs.

“Jon?” Gerry’s voice sounded far away. Everything was suddenly muffled, even the portal. Even the Beholding, swollen with moonlight, felt far away. The whole world was contained in a single, inescapable truth.

“We can’t.” The words slipped from Jon’s mouth. His hand closed on Gerry’s arm. “Gerry, we can’t.”

“Jon, let go, the portal’s right—”

“It won’t work.” Jon squeezed his arm. “It won’t—there’s not enough power. It’s not stable enough for both of us. As soon as one of us goes through, the spell will fall apart and the portal will close. It won’t work.”

Gerry stared back at him, face suffused with dismay.

Dismay, but not surprise.

Jon’s heart sank like a stone in mud. “You knew.”

“Jon, there’s no time for this, now let go—” He was pulling away, prying Jon’s fingers from his arm, and the portal was within his reach, and Jonah was so close to their door.

“You knew,” he repeated. “How long have you known? How long have you been lying?”

“I had no choice!” Gerry shouted over the crackling, ringing din of the spell. “There was no other way! What was I supposed to do, sit here while both of us wasted away? What other chance was either of us going to get?”

The worst part was, Jon couldn’t bring himself to be surprised, or even all that angry, really. Of course this was going to happen. It was simply the culmination of his entire life, thus far. His parents, his old friends, his grandmother—and now Gerry.

Maybe it was just his lot to be left behind.

Across the room, the door rattled. Jonah called to them from the other side. Jon barely heard either.

“I…” His throat grew thick. “I understand.”

“Jon, I’m sorry,” Gerry said desperately. “I wish there was another way.”

“No, I—” He really shouldn’t be crying. This was a happy thing, after all. Gerry was going to be free. “At least—even if it’s just one of us—”

Gerry smiled through his own tears. “I’m really gonna miss you,” he said.

“It’s not fair,” Jon blurted out. “We were supposed to go together. We were supposed to see it together!”

“When has any of this ever been fair?”

Tears gathered in his eyes until Jon blinked them away. His last sight of Gerry should be a clear one. “Please don’t forget me.”

The door rattled again, and Gerry choked back a sob. “Fuck. I could never. You’re not the sort of person anyone just forgets.”

Before Jon could reply, Gerry lunged forward. Not toward the portal, not toward freedom, but to Jon. The kiss was fast and clumsy with desperation, but the hands against the sides of his face were ruthlessly gentle.

“I love you,” Gerry whispered. “Don’t look back.”

Jon blinked back his tears, confusion cutting through the grief. “What?”

Gerry curled Jon’s hands around the staff and threw him into the portal.

He fell through the riot of color and music, too shocked to scream as the image of Gerry shattered into pieces above him. The light winked out, and Jon fell into the emptiness alone.

***

Jon landed hard, though not nearly hard enough for how long he must have been falling.

He lay in darkness and silence, wheezing softly as he regained his breath, gripping his staff until his fingers went numb and his injured hand screamed in protest. The air was cold and smelled stale. The light show from the portal was gone, but he could still feel its power humming beneath his skin, threatening to burst free.

After a while, Jon gathered himself enough to roll over. The floor felt like stone beneath his hands, relatively smooth but unpolished. With a grunt of effort, Jon planted his staff on the ground and pulled himself to his feet. It was too dark to see well when he opened his eyes, so he felt along the length of the staff until he found the shape of wooden moth wings at the end.

“Atlas?” His voice rasped in his chest. The wood turned to soft chitin, and Atlas took off from the head of the staff to flutter in frantic circles around his head, buffeting him gently when he flew too close. “Yes, yes—it’s alright. We’re alright.”

Atlas landed on his shoulder, and Jon’s eyes adjusted.

Was this the human world? For all he knew, the portal might have simply dropped him elsewhere in the demon realm. He was in a room, possibly a basement, judging by the clutter. Boxes sat in stacks and piles, some of them too full to close properly. Indistinct objects sat against the walls—an old mirror, frames wrapped in thick brown paper, a tall wooden clock that didn’t seem to be working. A thick layer of dust blanketed everything, untouched by fingerprints or footsteps.

He was alone.

Of course he was alone, he’d seen the portal break apart as soon as he fell into it, with Gerry still on the other side. Jonah had been seconds from breaking the door down, and now—

A harsh sob took him by surprise, and tears blinded him all over again.

Jonah had never set a clear punishment for escaping. And now, whatever it was, Gerry was facing it alone.

They weren’t supposed to be alone, they were never supposed to be alone. It shouldn’t have been him going through the portal, it should have been Gerry, why couldn’t have been Gerry, why couldn’t Gerry have been selfish for once in his life—

A distant scream rang out, shocking him out of his tears. Jon stared around, wide-eyed and searching, but the room was still. Then the ceiling shook with a crash, drawing his eyes upward.

“It’s above us,” he murmured. “Stairs—we need to find stairs.” Atlas took off from his shoulder, eye spots glowing in the gloom.

With an extra set of eyes, Jon found the stairs within a minute. He ran up them, his brand warming as he loosened the leash on his swollen magic. The door at the top of the steps was locked, but he Knew within seconds where to find a key. Atlas vanished from his side and returned moments later, clutching it in all six of his legs.

The door opened to an unlit hallway. Jon hesitated, took one last look back at the dark and cluttered basement, and hurried on.

He could hear more, now that he was really listening for it. Running footsteps, multiple sets by the sound of it. Shouting, always muffled and bitten-off, as if whoever was doing it was trying very hard not to. There were people in trouble—this was the human world, wasn’t it? Was it as hostile as the demon realm after all?

The hallway ended and took him up another flight of stairs. He expected to see light at some point, either artificial or from the windows. The last time he saw the moon, it had nearly blinded him. But instead, the darkness of the stairwell only seemed to grow thicker as he ascended, and reaching the door at the top did nothing to abate it.

At the very least, what he could see of the room he stepped out into looked more like the ground floor. There were proper floorboards, high ceilings, and windows that only showed faint outlines of trees against a dark, starless sky. The house was unlit, and his eyes refused to adjust. Jon drew a quick spell circle on his forehead with one fingertip, and magic poured into his eyes to light the way.

Shouting rang out again from somewhere above. Jon raced to follow it.

Around him, the house was in the slow process of falling apart. Ornate wallpaper hung faded and peeling, shreds of old rugs showed the ragged remains of color and embroidery, and broken shards of wood protruded from walls and doorways alike, as if any ornamentation set into them had been ripped out long ago. This must have been a fine-looking house once, but now it was a crumbling wreck.

Eventually the hallway opened up to another dilapidated chamber, this one a rotting front hall with its doors still standing ajar. Opposite them, the sagging remains of a grand staircase led up to another floor.

Jon had nearly reached the foot of it when he spotted movement at the top of the steps, and his vision went black.

For a split second he thought he’d lost consciousness, but the floor remained firmly beneath his feet. His breath came in short bursts of alarm as he drew another spell circle for sight in the darkness, to no avail.

Jon settled his grip on the staff, wincing at the pain in his burned hand. The bad news was, nothing that simple was going to let him see through this darkness. The good news was, it meant he knew what he was dealing with. He should have figured it out as soon as he left the basement and saw how dark it was. Stupid.

He could hear the others. Their running footsteps had fallen still, but the sound of panicked breathing was unmistakable. Someone was whimpering in pain with each breath. Someone else was whispering frantic reassurances. The darkness swallowed up everything else.

Jon hardly had to reach for his magic. It was brimming all the way to the surface, swollen from the storm of half-wild magic that had brought him here. When he drew a spell circle in the air with a tight whirl of his staff, it all came boiling up and out like a geyser.

Eyes opened everywhere—in Jon’s face and neck, along the length of his staff, in Atlas’s wooden face and wings, and in the choked air all around him. The darkness burned away as quick and clean as thin paper, revealing the scene before him.

There were three people now at the foot of the stairs, in such a state of panicked disarray that Jon could hardly tell whether they’d run or fallen down them. The larger of the two men had the others pushed behind him, backing away from the creature that menaced them, all three of them too frozen in terror to even attempt to cast a spell.

In spite of the glowing eyes that lit the room, a single wriggling mass of darkness remained, crawling and twitching toward its prey with wispy feelers that reached out to touch them. Sour air wafted from its body, filling the room with the smell of rot.

An acid shade. Nasty, hateful things that hunted prey by blinding it, then dissolving it while it was still alive. One touch was enough to melt the skin off your hand. Gerry still had scars from his last encounter with one.

Gerry.

The eyes blazed, and for the first time the brightness touched the shade’s slick hide. It recoiled, convulsing with a sound that was not a scream, but close enough.

Jon didn’t remember crossing the room, but he stood between the writhing mass of shadows and its would-be victims, so he must have. Fear warred with wild, directionless anger. He missed Gerry and hated Jonah. He remembered the feeling of lips on his, and the sight of his only friend weeping as his image shattered. Jon took all of it, gathered up every last drop, and poured it all into the merciless light of his swollen magic. He gave it all of himself, until it was blinding, until he could See every part of the room he stood in, down to every last crack in the walls, down to every convulsing wisp of darkness that made up the shade.

It let out another not-scream as it was utterly, agonizingly Seen.

And then it was gone, and Jon’s last drop of magic trickled out and left him hollow.

The darkness returned—not a demonic creature this time, but regular unconsciousness creeping up on him. He fought it as he turned and looked back at the faces of the people he’d saved. A round-faced man, so pale that his freckles stood out in his face; a woman with wide eyes and dark hair in disarray; and the second man clutching a corrosive burn that covered his arm, whose face—

—whose face Jon recognized.

“Danny?” Half-blind, Jon struggled to focus as the world grew smaller, and the darkness overtaking it nearly obscured the look of shock on the man’s face. “You found your way home?”

He lost his grip on consciousness before he could hear the answer.

[lollytea]

Hi! I love you Shageera fic! The fandom is so small and your fic is so good, I can't thank you enough! And I wanted to ask you, do you have any headcanon about their relationship outside of Talespin? In the original Jungle Book "canon" or some other AU? I'd love to hear them if you do have them, your takes are gold!

Hi! Thank you so much!!

Hmmm. All the versions of shagheera in my head follows the same basic story structure of “friends as kids, grow apart as they get older, reconnect as adults” EXCEPT for the jungle book/canon universe, where the first two DO apply to them (thank you jungle cubs for making that canon, idk where I’d be without jungle cubs canon.) but they continue to keep their distance from each other once they’re grown. I mean Khan tried to kill Bagheera’s kid AND his bear husband. I don’t think they ever can bounce back from that one. They got bad blood and they probably always will.

Unless….just kidding…..unless….

I think about the plot of this cancelled third jungle book movie very often. Yeah it would’ve been bad but….but….but adult Khan and Bagheera might have interacted. Also I wanna know how the fuck a shere khan redemption arc is written. Not very well probably but I still wanna see it. I think Disney should send me the script to this film. As a gift. I think I deserve it. It’s not like they want it. Hand it over, lads.

ANYWAY

Besides the talespin universe, I’ve got like two shagheera AUs

Treasure Planet AU — Bagheera is a scholar and astronomer who comes aboard Captain Shere Khan’s ship. The two know recognize each other as the childhood friend they used to play pirates with. So, rather ironic circumstances they’ve found themselves in. Neither know how to react to reuniting so they’re pretty awkward about it and refuse to acknowledge that they were ever close. They mostly interact with the distant politeness of people who barely know each other and strictly refer to the other Captain/Doctor (unless circumstances are dire) But they’re gonna be stuck on this ship together for the next few weeks so they better figure out what the fuck their relationship is.

Bagheera is deeply out of his element. He’s intimidated by the crew and he doesn’t know how to handle a weapon so he considers himself rather useless on this expedition. He’s never even held a pistol before and now he’s expected to know how to shoot one. He’s so frazzled that he nearly (accidentally) shoots Khan dead at one point. But he wouldn’t be Bagheera if he wasn’t stubbornly insisting that he knows what he’s doing, especially when the captain shoots some sardonic comment his way. The two get into more squabbles than he cane keep track of.

Shere Khan is exasperated with the doctor, with the boy he brought aboard, with the entire idiot crew he hired, but especially with the doctor. He attempts to keep himself composed but he keeps stooping to the most childish arguments and he feels like the presence of Bagheera is forcibly dragging him back 25 years every time they interact. Shere Khan does not know how to feel about that.

Shere Khan finds himself having to acknowledge that Bagheera is brilliant. Due to the doctor’s calculations, the ship avoided the waves of impact during a difficult path through a black hole and he’s the reason they got out alive. He never felt all that much admiration for the little brainiac when they were children but now he is absolutely blowing him away.

Bagheera starts spending more time in Shere Khan’s office because it’s the only place he feels comfortable. (The crew really creeps him out.) and they do everything from argue to discuss alternate routes to pour over the map. This evolves to Shere Khan teaching Bagheera what he knows about wielding a sword and they have many homoerotic sparring sessions. Sometimes they’ll lay out in the escape boats and Bagheera will teach Khan the names of all his favourite constellations. They have many homoerotic star gazing sessions. BASICALLY they have a gay space pirate love story but it’s behind the scenes stuff cuz Kit is the protagonist of this au and he doesn’t give a fuck what Shere Khan and Bagheera are doing.

They are forced to acknowledge that they care about each other when the stakes get more dangerous and both have their near death experiences, rattling the other considerably. At the very least they start calling each other by their first names again ❤️

Fairytale/ Dragon Princess AU — OKAY i don’t think I’ve ever publicly posted about this au so I won’t unpack all of it cuz I know y’all aren’t familiar with it. It’s mostly focused on Baloo/Rebecca and the bear family as a whole but Shagheera is involved too so I’ll focus on that part for now.

So basically Shere Khan was a kid prince and Bagheera was the son of a servant so, as the only two children in the castle, they’ve been playmates since before they could walk.

The only other children they interacted with were Bagheera’s friends (Baloo, Louie etc.) and Shere Khan’s wife-to-be, Princess Rebecca. Their parents arranged the engagement and neither Khan or Rebecca were thrilled about it. As they grow older, Bagheera leaves the palace to make his own way and he and Khan don’t keep in touch.

By the time they were young adults, mysterious circumstances paused Shere Khan and Rebecca’s upcoming marriage when word spread around that the princess had been horribly cursed and locked away in a tower. Details were sparse, even to her fiancé. All that was known was that she had last been seen talking with a man who had a reputation for being a dark mage and it can be deduced that he was the one behind the curse.

But before she disappeared, Rebecca sent Khan a letter begging him to please not retrieve her from the tower, warning him that whoever ventured out to save her would not make it back alive. Khan obliged of course, both because he respected her wishes and if she returned, he would have to marry her.

As a king, Shere Khan had excellent publicity. He was charming and charismatic in public, masking the fact that he was an absolute bitch in private. He was also obliged to act like he cared about his fiancée being returned to his side so every now and then he allowed whatever arrogant glory seeking fool who offered, to go “save” her. None of them lived.

Years later, Khan drops into an ancient, desolate library on the outskirts of town, hoping to find a particular book on plants. It’s after midnight, so he doesn’t have to deal with the scandal of the king being out and about. And who does he find between the shelves, bathed in the dim glow of oil lamps, but Bagheera, snoring on the floor in a pile of open books.

This begins a tentative acquaintanceship in which Khan escapes to the library every now and again for a change of scenery and to meet with Bagheera, who lives on the floor above.

It doesn’t take long for Shere Khan to learn Bagheera’s reputation. As it turns out, the passionate yet introverted scholar with books on the brain, is allegedly the “dark mage” that put a curse on Rebecca all those years ago. This would explain why his library is always empty. Everyone in town is petrified of him.

Rather than turn to anger or fear, Shere Khan can only feel disbelief and intrigue because whatever rumors are going around are clearly fabricated. He challenges Bagheera to perform some evil little spell for him, summon hellbeasts if he must. But Bagheera falters and it is revealed that underneath that reputation is a bit of a sham. Bagheera has been trying for years to become an adept mage but he just can’t get the hang of it. His spell-work is terrible. Always has been.

“Well surely you can’t have cursed the princess then?” Shere Khan reasons. But that’s not exactly true. Yes, Bagheera was not behind the original curse but when Rebecca came to him for help, he accidentally made it so so much worse. Bagheera is the reason shes been forced to hide herself away in a tower and he’s been spending all these years attempting to improve his magic so he can finally undo what he’s done.

And so Fairytale/Dragon Princess AU is a fantasy love story where Shere Khan attempts to help Bagheera effectively channel his magic. The fun part about it is magic is intricately tied to a persons emotional state so when you’re having homoerotic little scenes with your childhood buddy and he touches your forearm, you nearly set the whole goddamn library ablaze. Real gay shit.

I have run out of steam and cannot ramble anymore. Hope I have pleased you.

[freaoscanlin]

In the Arms of an Aila

Fandom: High Rollers Aerois Campaign

Notes: Rated PG, 4438 words, trigger warnings for minor blood mentions. This is a Uni AU wherein the Storm Chasers are a group of students sharing a house on Stormchaser Avenue after their dormitory burns down. Shout out to @obishenshenobi for being amazing and co-writing this series with me!

Summary: Four times Aila carries the party, and one time they return the favor.

Read it on AO3

“Hey, Aila?” Nova said.

“What?”

“Just...thanks.”

“Very welcome. Just do your part and hold on. Sentry will get mad if I drop you.”

Nova

The blister set in somewhere between mile two and mile four. Since it was supposed to be a five mile hike, and a torrential downpour hit at the end of mile two, soaking them to the bone within minutes, a blister was the last thing Nova needed.

Of course, who really needed a blister? Rubbing an actual sore onto the skin as the first step on the way to a callus was an absolute stupid function of humanity, and human feet should not be designed this way. In fact, all humans were composed of stupid engineering. Her thighs burned, her lower back ached, she was muddy and cross and cold, and the pain rubbing along the back of her heel made her actually want to cry.

“We’ll get to the end soon.” Sentry kept a cheerful look in place. This whole hike had been her idea in the first place, and she’d led the pack all the way out to the waterfall. Which, admittedly, had been very pretty. On a sunny day it might have even been gorgeous. But Nova could feel her teeth chattering, and she must have looked miserable because Sentry had been making remarks like that for the past twenty minutes. “And then we’ll be in a nice warm car. And we’ll get some hot chocolate.”

“Coffee,” Nova managed to say through her chattering teeth.

“Or coffee. Sure. Coffee’s fine.”

Lucius, following behind Sentry without too much trouble, should have looked bedraggled and miserable. But he’d packed a fancy purple camping jacket for the adventure. Quill, trudging behind him, kept flicking a hand through his sopping hair and sending water droplets everywhere.

Aila, after the first time Nova had landed on her ass, had taken the rear. Every so often, she reached out to grab Nova and keep her from careening off the edge of the path.

“Let’s take a hike,” Nova muttered under her breath as she limped along. “It’s beautiful, Nova. You’ll love it, Nova. Just think of the pretty views, Nova. This is great. Just great.”

She stepped down and hissed in pain as her boot moved against the blister. Instantly, the three people ahead of her turned to look. “Are you okay?” Sentry asked, her brow furrowed.

“Fi—I’m fine. It’s just a blister. I’ll be fine.”

It took a great deal of reassurance that she would be fine in order for the others to believe her. They had less than a mile to go, soon they’d be in the car, she could grit her teeth through it. After a day of holding the group back to her pace—it wasn’t her fault she lived with a bunch of jocks who preferred the gym to the library—the idea of stopping just because her foot hurt made her burn with shame. So she waved away their protests and gamely set off.

For a couple hundred meters, at least. At that point she began to whimper.

Something rustled behind her, followed by a sigh. Aila grabbed her arm to stop her. “What? Was I about to fall?” Nova asked, looking down at the steep incline beside the little trail.

“Hop on.” Aila turned to face away from her, bending her knees just a little.

“What?”

“I’ll give you a piggy-back ride.”

“But it’s so far still.”

“You weigh less than a sack of potatoes. I’ll be fine. Hop on.”

The others, having missed all of this, continued on their way up the path. Nova glanced back toward them, wondering if she should just suck it up and run to catch up. The thought alone made her want to cry.

Red-faced and embarrassed, she climbed onto Aila’s back and wrapped her arms around Aila’s neck. The relief of being off her feet came instantly.

“Comfortable?” Aila asked.

“If I get too heavy—”

Aila snorted at that. “Please. This isn’t even a workout. Hey, Sentry, wait up!”

In no time at all, she caught up to the group, trotting along as though she wasn’t even burdened by Nova’s weight. Nova decided she’d feel embarrassed later, when she wasn’t so wrecked. Aila was big and sturdy and warm, and it was the first reprieve from misery she’d had in over an hour. Quill gave her a small smile of commiseration, letting out a “hey” when she tiredly reached out to muss his hair.

“Hey, Aila?” Nova said.

“What?”

“Just...thanks.”

“Very welcome. Just do your part and hold on. Sentry will get mad if I drop you.”

Nova rested her cheek against the back of Aila’s shoulder, watching the landscape go by around them, and obeyed.

Sentry

“And just what do you think you’re doing?”

Sentry, about to reach for the pantry door in the darkness, froze. A split-second after Aila’s voice rang out through the kitchen, the lights flooded on. Sentry didn’t need a highly active imagination to fully see the picture it painted: Aila by the switch in an ancient pair of joggers and one of the hundreds of tacky free T-shirts they handed out during orientation week. A massive gulf of space between the pantry and Sentry’s bedroom. And Sentry herself in her Tom Servo sleep tank and shorts, balanced on one foot to stay off of her bad knee, right by the pantry—with her crutches nowhere nearby.

“Ah, um, ah,” Sentry said, looking about for an excuse. Her shoulders sagged. “I just wanted a snack?”

“And you decided, ‘oh, I’ll just hop to it, then, will I?’”

Sentry spread her hands wide, sheepishly. “Yes?”

Aila’s expression could melt steel. “Even though you’ve got a perfectly good pair of crutches by your bed.”

She hated the crutches, yes, but in that moment Sentry decided she hated disappointing Aila more. Still, she pushed her shoulders back. “I’m allowed to put a little weight on it—”

“In two weeks! You’re supposed to stay off it for now, or you’ll make it worse.”

“I’m only getting a snack. That’s not that strenuous.”

“For somebody who mothers the rest of us when we’ve so much as got the sniffles, you’re a bad patient yourself.” Aila strode across the kitchen and before Sentry quite knew what was happening, scooped her up. Just as quickly—though a little more gently—Sentry was deposited into one of the kitchen chairs. “You could have called one of us to get you a snack if you hate the crutches so much.”

“You were all asleep, and you need your rest.”

“We need our Sentry in one piece more than we need rest.”

Aila stomped into the pantry. A bag of crisps sailed through the air, landing in front of Sentry on the table. Grumbling under her breath the whole time, Aila emerged and stormed about the kitchen, collecting a midnight snack for herself. Sentry angled a chair over to prop her recovering leg up, trusting that Aila would work through this head of steam eventually. At long last, Aila sat down across from her with a glass of water for each of them. She dug viciously into a yogurt.

“Feel better now that you’ve bitched me out?” Sentry asked, digging into the chips.

Aila considered. “A little, actually. Now I see why Nova does it all the time.”

Sentry saluted her with a crisp. “Glad to help. Thanks for getting these for me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You don’t need to keep me company if all you were coming down for was a glass of water or something, though. I don’t want to keep you up.”

“Sentry,” Aila said in a measured voice. “If I leave you there, you’ll just hop right back to bed. So I’m going to stay here until you’re finished and I’m going to eat my yogurt and then I’ll carry you back to bed, and we’ll not tell the others any of this ever happened because they’ll scold you.”

“That might be the most I’ve ever heard you speak,” Sentry said.

“Yeah, I’m a real chatty Cathy at this hour, apparently.” Aila nudged one of the glasses toward her. “Drink your water. It’s good for recovery.”

“Yes, Mom,” Sentry teased, and Aila rolled her eyes at her.

Lucius

Lucius saw the blood, had a brief eternity to think whoopsy, there I go, and when time returned to its normal course of business, fainted. Well, he went woozy, at any rate. He felt his knees buckle, but from afar like they weren’t his knees anymore, and his vision squeezed into one narrow point of blankness, and he staggered.

He slammed into something very solid, but warm like a person. “Oh, no, you don’t,” said a familiar voice in his ear.

“S-so much blood,” Lucius said, his voice sounding as far away as his knees.

The entire world seemed to tilt and a feeling of warmth suffused him, reminding him of the earliest days with Nanny Nophir. That changed abruptly, though, when he realized that instead of being cradled like a small child, somebody had slung him over a shoulder like a bag of cement. Not just anybody, he realized in a muddled storm of thought. Aila had him over one shoulder, bracing him with an arm behind his knees.

Muzzily, he twisted his head to see Sentry hurrying out of the kitchen and into the shared living room. “What’s happened?” she asked.

“Nova’s got a nosebleed,” Aila said. “His majesty still faints at the sight of blood, apparently.”

“Hey,” Lucius said feebly, as the dig felt a little unfair. He let his body hang limp, too wrung out to really protest beyond that. There had been so much blood...

“I’m so sorry,” Nova said, her voice muffled by either a towel or her hand. “Lucius, I’m so sorry, I forgot you don’t like blood. It’s just so dry—”

“Let’s just get you cleaned up,” Sentry said kindly, resting a hand on Lucius’s back as she passed. “Maybe put him on the couch?”

The last must have been directed at Aila, for she moved over and Lucius found himself being lowered onto the divan. They really should have gotten a proper fainting couch for the living room, even though it clashed with the rest of the furniture he’d hand-selected. Though the ultimate irony remained: if Aila hadn’t caught him, he wouldn’t have made it to said fainting couch anyway.

Lucius, feeling queasy, glanced over. He spotted the bloody towel that Nova had instinctively put over her face to staunch the blood, and his eyes rolled back into his head.

“Hey—hey!” Something snapped loudly in front of his face and Lucius opened his eyes. Aila snapped her fingers a few more times. “None of that now. Turn that way.”

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Lucius said, automatically obeying. “Good heavens. I could have cracked my head open on the coffee table if you hadn’t caught me.”

“Doubt it.” Aila snorted. “Hard as your head is, you’d have cracked the coffee table in half.”

“Oh really, do you think?” Lucius couldn’t help but be a little pleased at the thought. Having somebody like Aila think any part of him was tough—she’d certainly made enough jokes about lacrosse in their first days together—was quite exhilarating. He studiously kept his gaze focused on the back of the couch, deliberately not looking as Aila took the bloody towel out of the room and returned with bleach wipes. “Oh, I do hope she didn’t stain the carpet.”

“Eh,” Aila said. “I’ve gotten blood out of worse. Though I’ll let Nova clean up her textbook on her own. I’m nice but not that nice. It should be safe for you to look now.”

Lucius swallowed hard and sat up, rubbing his head. He’d come in to inquire of Nova, seated at the coffee table with a textbook and a soap opera on in the background for noise, if she wanted to perhaps grab a quick dinner with him before their evening class. And she’d turned to him in horror, blood leaking and...

Well, he’d prefer not to remember beyond that point. Instead, he resolutely turned his thoughts to more pressing matters (after all, Sentry was taking care of Nova, which meant she would be just fine). He cleared his throat. “Aila, I do have a question for you.”

“Yeah, what is it?”

“Do you think we should get a fainting couch in here? For the aesthetic?”

Aila stared at him for a long time, then turned on a heel and left without saying a word or even making a face at him.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Lucius said, and began to set his mussed clothing to rights.

Quill

No matter how they jeered and teased, there was no getting Sentry into the water. Even the triple dog dare, which would have worked on Quill without fail, held no effect. She merely gazed at them serenely from her lakeside lounger, told them they were all very clever, and closed her eyes once more, returning to sunbathing.

“Boo,” Quill called, cupping his hand around his mouth. He tried to splash water in her direction, but Sentry had wisely set her chair out of range.

“Oh, quit bugging her,” Nova said from deeper in the lake where she was treading water in her cute old-fashioned swim suit. Even in the water, she hadn’t taken off the elbow-length glove she wore to cover the scars from her lab accident. “Let the woman get some sun away from our shenanigans.”

“I refuse to let my best friend be too much of a coward,” and Quill raised his voice over his shoulder as he swam toward Nova, “to swim in the lake!”

“Love you too, Quill,” Sentry called back without opening her eyes.

The sun did feel nice, admittedly. Their first day at the cabin—one of Lucius’s family’s many, many vacation properties—had been gray and cold and unpromising, but today the skies were clear and the air was warm. Donning a pair of swim trunks and cannon-balling off of the private dock was the only logical choice to be made, in Quill’s opinion. And the others had followed not far behind: Nova in her one-piece, Lucius in speedos that left absolutely nothing to the imagination, and Aila in what Quill suspected just to be her underwear, as she hadn’t gone shopping for their vacation, even at Sentry and Nova’s urging. Sentry herself had donned a tankini but was staying far, far away from the water, having made it clear just how much she found the thought of parasites and other lakely dangers distressing.

Swimming wasn’t as easy as it had been before his accident, but Quill made it out to Nova and began to tread water beside her. She closed her eyes and tipped her face to the sun. “This feels so nice. I didn’t realize how much I needed a break. I had more than four hours of sleep last night, Quill. It felt like a miracle.”

“I may never go back,” Quill agreed. “Do you think Lucius would mind if we, like, just moved in permanently? There’s a bidet. Have you ever stayed in a place that had a bidet?”

“Can’t say that I have.” Nova turned. “Aila! Have you ever stayed in a place with a bidet?”

“When would I have done that?” came the reply. Aila didn’t even lift her head up from where she was floating on her back, eyes closed.

Lucius swam up, popped underwater, and emerged so that his hair flowed back in perfect waves. The sunlight caught very faint freckles on his shoulders. “I’ve been meaning to bring that up. It’s rather a travesty that we don’t have one at home. We could have one installed quite easily.”

“Eh,” Aila said, eyes still closed. “Feels bougie.”

“How dare you,” Lucius said.

Aila merely opened one eye a slit and smirked at him. Lucius, after a moment of grumpiness, smiled back.

“Did we bring a football or anything?” Nova twirled herself around in the water like a spinning top. “Or some kind of water game we could play? Not that I don’t love swimming.”

“We could play Chicken,” Quill said. When the other three merely gave him varying glances of confusion or interest (or disinterest on Aila’s part), he tilted his head. “Did none of you ever play Chicken as kids?”

“The thing where you dart out in front of cars and stay there until they almost hit you?” Nova asked.

“No, the bit where one person gets up on somebody’s shoulders and tries to knock another person—on somebody else’s shoulders—over into the water. Here, here, I’ll show you. It’s fun.” Quill glanced between the three of them and did some quick calculus that he would never, ever tell anybody else about. “Here, Aila, let me up on your shoulders.”

Aila kept floating for a few seconds more before she seemed to shrug to herself. “Eh. I’ve got nothing better to do.”

Left to his own devices, Quill was positive that he would have made it awkward to clamber up on Aila’s shoulders. But he’d forgotten just how strong rugby made Aila, and how often she went swimming. As they approached the shallower depths, she disappeared under the water. Quill felt something almost hit him from behind, and then he was launched toward the sky. He yelped and clung on for dear life as Aila straightened to her full height, the water coming up to her shoulders.

“Ooh! Ooh! I want to try. Lucius, let me up.” Nova scrambled over to Lucius and climbed up on his shoulders, kicking her feet excitedly (Lucius winced a little). She held her arms up like an old timey boxer. “You’re going into the water, bird-boy.”

“Hey, now,” Aila said. “Let’s make this fair. One hand behind your back.”

“Oh, right. Sorry, Quill.”

“I don’t need two hands to beat you,” Quill said, though he nearly disproved his entire point by overbalancing and almost falling off of Aila’s shoulders.

She merely locked her hands around his knees. Nova put her scarred hand behind her and waggled the fingers of her remaining hand at Quill.

“Oi!” A voice from the shore made all of them turn to look at Sentry, who’d sat up and set her book aside. “What are you doing? That looks dangerous!”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Lucius called back. “Aila and I have it all in hand.”

Sentry hovered on the edge of the lounger like she wasn’t entirely sure she believed that. “Well, just—just be careful.”

Quill used the distraction to lean over, scoop up a handful of water, and fling it in Nova’s direction.

“Hey!”

And just like that, the battle commenced. Aila charged forward with Quill holding on, Lucius did the same with Nova, and a wrestling match for the ages followed. Nobody would ever come up with a consensus on who actually hit the water first, though. Lucius swore it was Quill, Nova agreed, Quill argued vehemently that it was of course Nova, and Aila remained the neutral party, content to be the base for many, many games of Chicken afterward.

And Sentry remained on the shore, pretending she wasn’t keeping a close eye on them for injury and doing a horrible job at hiding it.

All in all, a pretty perfect summer morning, if you asked Quill.

+ 1 Time They Carried Her

“Sign up for survivalist camp, she says. It’ll be fun, she says. We’ll learn cool new techniques to surviving in the wild. Great bonding time!”

“To be fair,” Nova said from behind Aila’s head, where Aila couldn’t really see her without craning her neck, “we were having a great time bonding until, you know, all of this.”

Because Aila couldn’t see her, and moving to do so would only get her scolded, she had to imagine Nova waving her free hand in aggravation.

“I for one am having a perfectly lovely time,” Lucius said.

Aila could never tell when he was being sarcastic, and she didn’t see that changing any time soon. She suspected in this case he might be genuine, though. The course instructor had complimented him on his very fancy camping vest (“It has so many pockets,” Lucius had said) and nobody had yet found the heart to tell Lucius that had been sarcasm. So all through this hike he’d been in a particularly good mood. That made him the only one, probably.

Things had been going rather well during the whole course, up until this morning: the morning of their final day in the course, when they would be tested “randomly” and, using little but their wits, a compass, and a map, navigate themselves back to the parking lot. Camping with her friends had been fun, even if it meant being squished into a two-person tent with Sentry and Nova (the latter of whom had very bony elbows) at night. Aila liked the outdoors. She liked the feeling of self-sufficiency that this course had brought with it. She imagined herself as something of a pioneer. In the olden times, she would’ve kicked ass at all of this.

Unfortunately, it was nigh on impossible to kick ass with a “broken leg.”

And she wasn’t hiking out of the woods. She was being carried. On a stretcher. This sucked. The instructor had folded his arms over his chest in a rather smug fashion as he gave them their final assignment. His eyes had lingered between Sentry and Aila, easily the tallest members of the group. And he’d narrowed in on her, which was why she was being lifted by her friends on a tarp stretcher that they’d improvised.

“This sucks.”

“Yes,” Quill said, grimacing. “So you’ve said multiple times. We’re not having the best go of it either right now.”

Aila closed her eyes and leaned her head back. She’d already had to fold her arms close into her chest like a sleeping vampire to avoid being bumped and jostled about. The tarp they’d fashioned into a stretcher smelled bad. She felt like she’d been stuffed into a tiny little space, not great when she suspected she was a little claustrophobic anyway. “I’m bored.”

“I’ve got several books you could read,” Nova said, completely earnest.

That would only make this day worse, having to read. Fortunately Sentry, who was planted on the right side above Aila’s head and therefore easy to see, laughed. “I don’t think a book will help.”

“I was up late reading all about the local fauna in case there was a pop quiz,” Nova said. “I could tell you about some of them?”

“I’d rather read the book,” Aila said.

Nova tilted her head, considering. “You know what? Fair.”

“It’s not long to the parking lot,” Lucius said in a cheerful voice, though he was a bit out of breath.

“Feels like miles,” Quill grumbled.

“That’s probably because it is. I was lying,” Lucius said, tittering nervously.

Aila had pointed out that the course instructors couldn’t see them, so she could just get up and walk for a bit until they were nearing the end and all of her friends could be spared, but Nova had looked so abjectly horrified at the thought of cheating on a test that Aila had backpedaled and felt a little actual shame. Just a tiny bit, though. Not enough to fully penetrate the thick barrier of indifference she liked to carry about.

“Fine,” she said now, with a sigh. “Tell me all about these fascinating plants of yours, Nova. Not like I can do much else right now.”

Nova squeaked in excitement, reaching down to grab Aila’s leg.

“Ow,” Aila deadpanned. “That one’s broken.”

“I thought it was the other one?”

“It’s not real,” Quill said. “She’s messing with you.”

“Right. Right! Okay, so to start with, these are deciduous trees—”

Aila tuned her out in record time. Since there wasn’t anything to do but lay stiffly with her arms in a stupid position and the stretcher swaying nauseatingly below her, Aila let the patter of Nova’s excited overexplaining wash over her. She closed her eyes to stave off the nausea of watching the canopy overhead.

Sleep didn’t come right away, though it drifted near enough that she dozed a few times. Finally, she heard Nova whisper, “Did I do it? Is she out?”

“Think so, yeah,” Sentry replied.

“Oh, thank H’esper.”

“Quill!”

“We’re the ones marching miles carrying her and she’s whining?” Quill whispered back. “Have a care for my legs. I can’t feel them anymore.”

“Me either,” Lucius said.

“Meanwhile, all she has to do is lay there and be carried!”

“Which for Aila is torture and you know it,” Nova hissed.

“I do suppose she’d whine less with an actual broken leg,” Lucius said, thoughtfully, and Aila nearly gave up the game by grinning. “She does have that stoicism thing going for her. I rather admire it at times. Daddy always said that I should be stron—ow, splinter!”

“You okay? We can take a break if need be,” Sentry said.

“I’ll endeavor to carry on,” Lucius said, but he sounded tearful.

Aila almost opened her eyes again, but joining this conversation would require more mental energy than she was willing to expend. Maybe if she did actually fall asleep, this nightmare of a hike would be over sooner.

“She does look kind of peaceful,” Nova said. “In a very Angry Aila way. Nobody tell her I said that. Either of those things.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Sentry promised.

There was a long silence. The stretcher continued to sway, though not in a soothing or repeatable pattern that promoted sleep, and her friends were quiet apart from the sound of heavy breathing as they tromped through the woods. Not a bad day for a hike, overall. She really wished she could just get up and walk alongside them, but if she had to be carried, so be it. At least she had them around her.

Aila nearly opened her mouth to tell them so (and ruin the illusion that she’d been napping this entire time) when Quill cleared his throat. “We are agreed, yes, that she’ll be driving the whole way home since she’s been napping this entire time anyway?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Duh.”

“Why, obviously. I’ll be completely knackered by that point.”

Aila’s smile probably betrayed her, but she elected not to care about that. She merely let the group travel on, carrying her to their final destination in their survival course. There were worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon, even if it meant being the one to drive them home afterward.

[nightashes]

And We Were Roommates

A/N: A gift for @who-said-i-was-asleep for the @sanderssidesgiftxchange. I hope you enjoy!!

Summary: Virgil is tired. So very tired. Luckily, he has the best roommate in the world. Who also might have a crush on him?

Warnings: food mention, creepy face mention

writing masterlist - ao3 version

***

The wood of the bunk was kinda weird. Virgil thought to himself as he laid in bed, staring at the grain of the frame above him. If he squinted and tilted his head just right, he could make out the image of a face. It was kinda unsettling, the way it stared back at him with it’s eyeless visage. It caused a shiver to pass through his bone-weary body. Virgil knew his exhausted mind was making it seem worse than it actually was. But his eyes were heavy and his brain was foggy. And the last thing Virgil wanted to see, as he struggled to calm his mind enough to rest, was the image of a haunted face made up of the sketchy lines of wood grain. 

Virgil rolled his head to the side to escape the stare. The clock greeted him, blinking unforgivingly back at him. Six o’clock. Virgil slapped his hand against his forehead and let out a curse in frustration. Great. Another sleepless night. And another day of fighting to stay awake during class. Just perfect.

Above him, he could hear the beginnings of movement. His roommate climbed down from the top bunk. Virgil watched him attentively, what must it be like to be able to just sleep when you were supposed to? Logan stared back, no doubt noticing the growing bags beneath his eyes. 

“You know, Virgil, your curses in the morning work better than any alarm clock I’ve ever had.”

“I hate you.” Virgil only half joked.

“Another sleepless night?”

His answer was a groan of pain and exhaustion. He pulled his comforter up and over his face, hoping to hide from a world that could be so cruel as to deny him rest.

“Do you want to skip our morning class again? Try and get at least a couple hours of sleep?”

“I can’t miss any more, I’ll fail.” He mumbled from beneath the blanket. 

“I’ll grab you something to eat.” Logan shuffled off to dress for class. 

Virgil laid there listening to the sounds of his roommate. Silently, in his mind, Virgil conversed with his body. It’s time to get up, he whispered to his legs that refused to move. Leaving the safety and comfort of his bed seemed to be impossible at this moment. Perhaps a compromise could be reached?

He rolled out of bed, taking his comforter with him, and flopped onto the floor into a messy pile. He laid there, breathing in the stench of old carpet. This is fine, he thought, he could live here happily, on the floor.

“I’ll be back with food.” His roommate called. The door clicked shut and Virgil was left alone with the floor.

Coffee. He needed coffee. Virgil departed his friend, the carpet, with a reassuring pat to the polyester fibers. The room tilted as he stood. His head whirling from the movement. He steadied himself against the wall and breathed in deeply until his vision cleared. He slipped on a sweatshirt as the chill began to seep into his bones. His hands buzzed from exhaustion as he shuffled over to their busted second-hand coffee maker. It did not glitter but it sure did produce the finest gold, a hot cup of coffee.

He sipped at the steaming hot liquid, as he stared out the window, slowly forcing his mind to clear. It did not work.

Today was going to suck.

He took another sip.

Virgil slipped on a pair of shoes and groggily tied up the laces. His fingers fumbled as his hands buzzed, jittery and fatigued. Logan returned with a white paper bag of fast food. He passed Virgil a steaming breakfast burrito.  Yummy.  The idea of food was not a welcome one at this moment. Not that he wasn’t hungry. He was. But it just felt like too much. Still he forced himself to take several small bites. The taste was better than what his mind had expected. And once he got into the rhythm of eating, it became a little easier. He could do this.

They departed their dorm together and walked across campus in silence. Virgil hummed along to the tunes blasting through his earbuds, desperately clinging to the energy that the noise provided. Lost in his own little world, he tried to imagine a different one. A world without morning classes or sleepless nights or deadlines. A world full of pillowy clouds to drift to sleep on. He thought that would be quite a nice place to live. 

Logan was attempting to read as he walked. His gaze flicking furiously from the page to the sidewalk and back again. Virgil wasn’t sure how much Logan could retain anything reading like that. But then again, it was Logan. If anyone could manage it, he could.

The TA greeted them as they entered the lecture hall. Virgil led the way to a seat in the back. No way was he sitting up close while this tired. He plopped down into a chair and allowed all the tension to drop away. He was here now. All he had to do was make it through this class and then he could try and sleep after.

The hush of chattering voices began to die down as the professor took command of the room. Her voice was soft and monotonous. The sounds of her chalk scratched against the blackboard. Virgil could feel his eyes begin to droop. He shook his head, forcing himself back to attention. He fiddled with his pen. Trying to move enough to keep his body awake, while also making sure to not draw the attention of his fellow classmates. 

In the back of the class, he fought against his own mind. The fog that filled his head and softened the voices of rationality. He struggled to keep his eyes wide and open. He pinched at his skin, as if this were a bad dream that he could force himself to awaken from. But the room was warm from the packed bodies. It was warm and it was quiet. The lecture was a lullaby, a meditative chant that softened his gaze. As the hour ticked on, Virgil lost himself to the fog of sleep. He could feel his head bobbing. And then he lost his sense of presence.

Virgil drifted in consciousness. He knew a little about where he was and what he should be doing. But his body and mind were out of his control. He floated through the haze of thought. And in that classroom he slept.

The sounds of chatter jerked him back to awareness. Class. He was in class. He frantically swiveled his head, taking in as much as he could. What had he missed? Had anyone noticed him sleeping?

People were packing up their books. They were getting ready to leave. Class… he had missed the entire class. Virgil thumped his head against his textbook.

“You mustn't be too hard on yourself, Virgil. You were here, you were marked present. That’s all that matters right now.” Logan reassures him, closing up his own two notebooks. Wait, why did he have two notebooks?

Logan passed one of them to Virgil as he finished collecting his things. “Ready to go?”

Virgil stared down at the notebook in his hand. He flipped it open. It was full of lecture notes. Not just from today. The dates… they were from everyday that he had skipped so far and then today as well! 

“What is this?” Virgil asked dumbfounded.

“You expressed displeasure at the idea of failing. This will help. It is everything that you have missed so far.”

“You copied your notes into a separate notebook?”

“Well, no. I formatted these slightly differently and included certain contexts that you would need after having missed the lectures… It should help.”

“Logan, this is incredible.”

A blush of pink dusted the cheeks of his roommate. “It’s no big deal. I just thought it would help.” He cleared his throat and cast his eyes about, “No one should miss out on the chance to learn, afterall.”

Virgil smiled at his roommate. “I was going to take a nap before my next class. But later on, maybe we could study together? If you want that is. I mean it’d probably be easier to just study on your own and I know I’m really behind-”

“Yes.” Logan interrupted the torrent of thoughts spilling from Virgil’s mouth. “I would love to go over the notes with you.” 

He paused as if just realizing he had used the word love. Logan quickly tacked on: “I have a passion for teaching is all.”

“Of course,” Virgil rolled his eyes at the awkwardness. Logan was such a dork when he was flustered. Wait? He was flustered! Did this mean that… Logan liked him? Virgil cheeks flushed at the thought. “Uhhh… I’ll see you later?”

“Later then.” Logan stiffly departed the hall, leaving Virgil alone with a whirlwind of thoughts. His roommate had a crush on him? His roommate had a crush on him! 

After passing out in their dorm for his afternoon nap, Virgil spent his next class with one thought and one thought only running through his mind. Logan had a crush on him. Logan: who had gone out of his way to take notes for him. Logan: who was one of the smartest people he had ever met. Logan: who had blushed! 

Virgil wasn’t really sure what to make of it. All he knew was that with every passing minute, he was getting closer to their study date. Well, not a study  date, more like a study session. Wait, was it a date? Could it be a date? Did Logan think of it that way? No. Certainly not. He had been flustered by even the insinuation of romance! But maybe… Maybe it could become one… eventually?

And that is how Virgil found himself, pacing their dorm clutching the gifted notebook to his chest, and worrying his lip, as the time for the study session drew ever near. Logan arrived only a minute late. He was weighed down with books from the library and he smiled tiredly at his roommate. Despite this a soft blush was present on his face.

“Hello, Virgil. Are you ready? I got some extra books that might help.” He plopped himself down at his desk, swiveling the chair to face outwards. Virgil followed suit, still clutching his notebook to him.

“Yeah. Yeah. Let’s do this. Ummm… how was your day?”

“Adequate. A small mishap in labs, but nothing I couldn’t handle.” Logan rubbed at the bridge of his nose. 

“If you're tired. We can do this later. You know I would understand.”

Logan’s gaze locked onto him. “I want to do this.”

The heat in Virgil’s cheek was like a warning bell. He was in dangerous territory now. His heart was being stolen by a nerd in glasses. What a way to go!

“Alright, let’s do this!” Virgil smiled brightly.

They worked their way through the gifted notebook. Going over all the notes that were provided there. They stopped whenever Virgil found himself confused. Logan assured Virgil that no question was too small. And then he would beam at Virgil whenever he finally understood it. It made Virgil feel like he could accomplish anything. Virgil’s favorite part was when Logan would pick up a book to rant in depth about his favorite parts. His passion for academics was like a blazing fire. It flooded Virgil’s stomach with butterflies and made his heart race with the knowledge that he was falling hard. Eventually, they began to lapse into silence as they slowly got further into their own readings. 

Virgil was going over today’s lecture notes again. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the person beside him. The notes were written in a tight script. It was precise and easy to read. A sharp contrast to Virgil’s own chicken scratch. He traced his fingers over the blue ink. Virgil didn’t think Logan would be one to write with colored ink, but Logan enjoyed the color blue. The thought drifted into his head again. Logan liked him, right? 

Virgil flipped a page.

Virgil liked Logan. 

He really really did.

He should say something right?

Virgil looked up, the words forming on his lips, only to find Logan slumped over his desk. His face pressed into his arms, his glasses askew and digging into his skin. There was the smallest trail of drool beginning to form at the corner of his lips.

Virgil chuckled.

Now Logan was the bone-tired one.

Virgil stood from his seat. He carefully and gently removed the glasses from his roommate’s face. Pulling the blanket down from Logan’s bunk, Virgil draped it across his shoulders. And with a flick of the switch, the room is darkened.

Virgil readies himself for bed quickly and quietly. As he lays down in his bunk, he watches Logan at the desk. It couldn’t be comfortable to sleep at a desk. But selfishly, Virgil enjoyed seeing his crush asleep beside him. 

He whispered into their darkened room, “Goodnight, Logan.” And promptly fell asleep.

taglist: @stop-it-anxiety @hexatrash @ollyollyoxinfree @battlebunnyteardropsinthesun @leiasolo77 @arya-skywalker @alexxadontplaydespasito