#the game doesn’t spell it out but can piece things together if you look around | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thebunnednun · 11 months ago

Text

LOYALTY [Chapter 6]

Katsuki Bakugou x Sugar Baby! Reader

Summary:

You're running out of time.

Songs: Money by Cardi B Streets by Doja Cat

-----------------------------Chapter 7: Deal-------------------------------

You blink, snapping back to reality, and glance toward the source of the voice. Your manager stands there, a cancer stick dangling from his lips, a smirk playing on his features. But as you catch the way the blonde guy’s fiery glare zeroes in on him, your manager hesitates, taking an involuntary step back, the smirk faltering for just a second.

Without thinking, you place your hand over his heart to calm him, to offer some reassurance. But the moment your palm meets his chest, you freeze. ‘Holy shit!’ His heart is racing—pounding so hard it startles you. ‘Dear God, please don’t let him die here with me on top of him.’ The intensity of it continues to send a jolt through you, and for a split second, you consider pulling your hand away. But instead, you keep it there, feeling the strong, rapid rhythm beneath your fingers.

A soft breath escapes you, realizing the effect this moment has had on him—on both of you. With a steadying breath, you slowly peel yourself away from him, the connection lingering even as you step back.

“I’m hilarious,” you retort to your manager, a playful edge to your voice as you regain your composure. You give him a look that’s both a warning and a tease, letting him know you’re not in the mood for his games right now.

Your manager raises his hands in mock surrender, a chuckle escaping him as he takes another drag from his cigarette. "Sure thing, doll. Just don’t get too caught up, yeah?"

‘Fucking bastard!’

‘Fucking bastard.’

You don’t bother responding, your focus already shifting back to the group, the energy of the room buzzing once more as you slip back into the role you’ve perfected. But as you rejoin the others, you can still feel the lingering heat from where his heart beat so fiercely against your palm, a reminder that you had some unfinished business.

But as soon as the opening beats of Cardi B's "Money" hit the speakers, the spell is broken. You pull yourself into the princess persona you created and begin to slowly bounce and step along with the beat.

Bakugou stays rooted in place for a moment, watching as you step back into your role. But he can’t bring himself to watch this one, not with the way the song and your movements suggest a confidence that’s about more than just performance. He knows you have a job to do, but he doesn’t want to see you like this, not in front of other people. The thought of another man watching you, admiring you the way he has, makes something uncomfortable coil in his chest.

Without another word, he slides six grand onto the stage before making his way back to the bar, trying to put some distance between himself and the stage. He nurses a whiskey, eyes occasionally flicking back to you as you work the crowd.

It’s clear to him that you’re different with the women. There’s a lightness to your movements, a comfort in how you tease them, accepting their dollars with a smile. But it’s not the same as with the men, especially him. With them, you keep your distance, keeping the illusion alive but never fully closing the gap.

It’s subtle, but Bakugou notices, each stolen glance confirming what he suspected. You’re more at ease around women, more in control. When those men try to control your attention you don’t reward them. He finds himself wondering why, piecing together the little details he’s gathered about you.

From his seat at the bar, he can see the energy between you and your friends as you mouth the lyrics, moving in sync with one another. There’s a camaraderie there, a sense of trust and understanding that’s palpable, even to him. And as he watches, he can’t help but feel a pang of something unidentifiable—admiration, maybe, or something more complicated.

The song’s aggressive beat contrasts sharply with the way you handle yourself, the confidence in your movements underscoring that, despite everything, you’re in control. Even when you’re playing a role, there’s an undeniable strength in how you hold yourself.

Bakugou swirls the whiskey in his glass, glancing over at you again. He can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to you than what he’s seen tonight, more than what you’ve let anyone else see. And for reasons he doesn’t quite understand, that makes him want to learn more.

But for now, he settles back into his seat, content to steal glimpses of you while keeping a safe distance, letting you do what you need to do, all while feeling that unmistakable pull toward you.

As Bakugou leans back at the bar, his thoughts churn. The way you sang the lyrics to Cardi B’s “Money” so passionately had him wondering if you really loved money that much. But the way you moved, the fierce energy in your eyes, made him doubt that simple answer.

He knew there was more to it. A top 10 Pro Hero had left you, and that piece of information gnawed at him. He’d done some digging, but every time he searched for any past addresses linked to you in Japan, that other guy’s name popped up—your ex, the one the police mentioned had a history of abusing you.

Bakugou had looked him up too. The police might be idiots, but he wasn’t so easily fooled. Thanks to Kirishima’s quick thinking, he’d run your fingerprints through his personal database before destroying the cup. He didn’t need anyone else knowing what he did. And even if, later on, you told him you didn’t care if people knew,it was your choice whether to reveal your work in the club and online.

It was a strange thought, considering you never sold nudes or adult films. You never stripped down to more than a bikini. It was clear you value your privacy and had firm boundaries.

But what he found out about you shocked him. You were a foreigner here on a work visa, a registered Pro Hero. That floored him. A Pro Hero working in a strip club… why? He knew he wasn’t owed an answer, but damn it, he wanted to know why.

You were young, in your twenties, like him. You were in great shape, and with the strength you’d shown when you pushed him down earlier, he was sure you could handle yourself. Hell, you could probably throw that mammoth, Kirishima, if you wanted to!

So what the fuck happened?

His thoughts drifted back to your ex. Why did that wimp want to kill you? Yeah, he’d looked him up too—that sappy-ass loser, a poser who couldn’t even do the job himself. What kind of idiot delivers his own murder device?

Unless… What if it was just to scare you?

What if it was a trick to get you to retaliate, to get the cops involved and make the whole thing public like you feared? What if he had something on you, something that made it impossible for you to use your hero license, forcing you to work here instead?

The more Bakugou thought about it, the more the pieces started to come together. If that were the case, what was that bitch of an ex really planning to do? What did he have over you that kept you in this life, dancing for money and doing sultry streams instead of being out there, saving lives like you were clearly capable of doing?

He took another sip of his whiskey, eyes narrowing as he watched you on stage, the gears in his mind turning. There was something deeper going on here, something that made him want to dig even further, to understand what had brought you to this point. And for reasons he couldn’t quite explain, he found himself wanting to protect you, to figure out a way to help, even if you didn’t think you needed it.

He really needed to get his heart checked out, finally.

As the song wound down, Bakugou assumed it was over, but he couldn’t really tell with the hurricane of dollar bills and coins raining down on you and your friends. The stage was a mess of cash and glittering lights, obscuring his view as the crowd went wild. Some of your friends pulled out big trash bags, efficiently collecting the money while you grabbed a broom, doing your best to sweep the stage clean. Katsuki ordered a water and drank it slowly, trying to counteract the alcohol that was still buzzing in his veins.

Despite the chaos, he noticed how you deftly handled the crowd. Several people tried to stuff money into your clothes, but you just snatched it away, playing into the bratty persona you’d crafted online. It was shocking, really—how well you played the spoiled, mean girl while keeping those men drooling for more. Maybe that was your quirk after all, he thought. He didn’t know, and right now, it didn’t matter.

All he knew was that his heart hadn’t stopped racing since he met you. And like a drug, he needed more. There was something about you that pulled him in, made him want to dig deeper, to uncover the real you beneath all the layers of performance and secrecy. He left money for his tab on the counter, ordered a water bottle, and then made his way to the back, waiting for you.

As he leaned against the wall, watching the door to the private rooms, he felt an unfamiliar tension building in his chest. He had no idea what he was going to say to you, or if he even had the right to ask the questions that had been piling up in his mind. But one thing was clear—he wasn’t leaving this place until he had some answers.

Meanwhile–

Megumi worked swiftly with the vacuum, sucking up every dollar that fluttered on the stage, while the rest of you—eight in total, including Megumi's boyfriend and Eraza's girlfriend, who'd been blending into the crowd—hauled the bags to the trunk of their cars. You had the DJ, Freddy, close the curtains the moment the show ended, and now you were all stuffing your purses with decoy money, just in case things went south.

The plan was set: pay the house fees, none of the "protection" crap, and then quit. Tonight was your last night here. You were all moving to that new club, the one for pro heroes.

Well… maybe not you.

Freddy, the DJ—honestly too sweet for a place like this—came to warn you that the boss had "Big Ricky" waiting for you in your usual spot. The mention of Ricky made your blood run cold. He was the guy that would pretend to be all sweet before beating the girls senseless.

You handed Freddy your purse full of money, insisting he take it, even as he tried to shove it back. You hugged him quickly, taking his business card from his back pocket. You knew they’d break his sweet face if they found out he’d warned you all and he’d have a better chance at the new club than you would.

Why all this trouble? Your second day you found out, this wasn’t just a strip club. It was a front for dirty dealings—stolen goods, drugs, if you could name it, it was probably on the bathroom walls. Majority of the other dancers participated in the sex work, but your group was the last one standing—the only ones "unowned" by your boss, Yuji Tanaka. The only one’s he had nothing incriminating on to keep them there. He would’ve gotten rid of all of you by now if you all didn’t bring in such big spenders.

Eraza and Megumi were gonna leave with their partners, Casey dashed to the backroom to grab her things, her usual gun in tow. That left you, Michael, and Diamond—Kimiko—without a car. Michael all but ordered Kimiko to go with the others, and Freddy decided now was a good time to offer her a ride. "No funny business!" he added, but they couldn’t chase all the cars at once.

You Told everyone to regroup at the local church parking lot. They wouldn’t think to look there. Then you would change drivers of the cars to further throw them off and use old costumes from the dressing room. You were different people everyday anyway, how hard could it be?

They looked at you in shock and disbelief as Casey came back and you instituted it was the only way. Micheal nodded behind you, there was no other option. Some protests began, but Eraza's boyfriend reminded everyone the engines were running, and you all dashed for it. Not a dollar was left on the stage when you did. It was funny how clean the place looked now.

The curtains split open, but you didn’t wait to see the look on Nick's face. You and Michael took the back stairs to the lap dance section, where she quickly peeled off to take care of her regulars. Just as you were about to continue, you remembered the money in the ceiling and personal items you left in the locked drawer.

“Shit!”

You could hear footsteps behind you. Michael had a pink stun gun hidden in her wing, just in case there was trouble—she’d be fine. Plus, you’d seen her bench at the gym; she could handle herself. You, on the other hand, had a different plan.

Using some nearby leftover furniture, you climbed up into the ceiling, trying not to touch anything too gross as you crawled through the dark, the trash bags crinkling beside you. You kept going until you reached the hallway where you’d last seen the ash-blond. Peeking through the tiles, you gauged the situation below, then dropped down behind him with a cat-like grace.

He was surveying the area tensely, every muscle coiled as if ready to spring into action. You felt a flutter of nerves as you reached out and gently tugged his jacket.

"Uh, hey," you tried to manage casually, hoping you didn’t sound as nervous as you felt.

Bakugou turned around, completely shocked to see you standing there. His eyes widened as if he couldn’t quite believe you’d just appeared out of nowhere. Before he could utter a word, you sighed heavily, grabbing his wrist firmly.

"Look, I don't have a lot of time, but I need your help. Follow me," you said, your tone leaving no room for argument.

Without waiting for a response, you began dragging him down the hallway, your grip on his wrist strong and unyielding. He followed, too stunned to protest, his mind racing with a million questions. What the hell was going on? Why did you need his help? And why did it feel like whatever was happening was serious?

You led him into the bathroom, pushing open a secret door that led into one of the empty lap dance rooms. The dim lighting barely illuminated the space, casting eerie shadows along the walls. Bakugou’s eyes darted around, trying to take in everything at once, but it was clear from the look on your face that whatever was going down took precedence over his questions.

You all but threw him into a chair, keeping the lights off in the room. The sudden buzz in your bra made you pause. You pulled out your phone, seeing that the other girls had already gotten away and were sharing their locations with each other. Before you could drop yours, Michael texted that she was finishing up and hiding out back, waiting for you because she had a taxi on the way.

You quickly texted back, giving yourself a ten-minute window, before sliding your phone back into your bra. When you looked up, Bakugou's intense red eyes were trained on you, his gaze filled with confusion and concern.

"I think we know who we are, don't we?" you said, your voice low but steady, breaking the silence that had settled over the room.

Bakugou's breath hitched for a moment as he processed your words. Everything about this situation screamed danger, but the way you looked at him, the way you moved with such purpose—it stirred something in him. This wasn’t the time for his usual bravado. Instead, he simply nodded, acknowledging the unspoken truth that had been hanging between you since that night at the police station.

"Spill, princess," Bakugou demanded, his voice gruff but edged with genuine concern.

"Please don't call me that." You flinched at the nickname, as if his words had physically hurt you. The reaction made him frown, hard. A deep crease forming between his brows. He hadn’t meant to upset you, and seeing you react like that unsettled him.

Without a word, he passed you the water bottle he had been holding, a silent gesture of peace. You took it gently from his hands, your fingers brushing against his for a brief moment. The touch was brief, but it left an imprint on both of you. You inspected the bottle as if checking it for any hidden intentions before unscrewing the cap and finishing it in one shot. The cold water was a small comfort, grounding you as you prepared to open up.

"So you already know who I am. I'm assuming you're Ground Zero, right?" you asked, trying to sound casual but failing to hide the tension in your voice.

Bakugou stiffened, the name hitting him like a jolt. He nodded slowly, confirming your suspicion. His mind was racing, trying to piece together what you might be about to tell him. He opened his wallet and slid you his pro hero license. You looked it over and used the condensation of your fingers to wipe over it and make sure it was legit before sliding it back.

"Look," you began, your voice softer now, almost hesitant. "How you spend your time off duty is on you. Thank you for the save earlier and for being a good client, but I'm in a lot of deep shit—other than the shitty ex—and I need your help."

He leaned forward slightly, his full attention on you. “Go on.”

Taking a deep breath, you began to explain everything. How you ended up in this mess, the reasons behind your current situation, and what was happening right now.

"I was a registered pro hero, once," you started, your voice trembling slightly as you delved into the past. "I came here on a work visa after graduating, ready to start my career. But things didn't go as planned. My ex—he’s not just a shitty old flmae. He’s dangerous. He’s been controlling, manipulative... abusive. He’s a pro hero too, and not exactly the type to go down in a fight.”

As you spoke, Bakugou’s frown deepened. He could see the pain and frustration in your eyes, the weight of your words heavy in the room.

“Longer story short, he kicked me out and I couldn’t find another job. I was isolated, scared, and... I didn’t have anyone to turn to. I ended up here, doing this,” you gestured vaguely around the room, “because I needed to survive. But this place... it’s not just a strip club. There’s shady shit happening here. Stolen crap, drugs, sex, whatever. My group refused to hand over the cash haul tonight and now we’re on the run.”

Bakugou clenched his fists, the thought of someone like you being trapped in this kind of life making his blood boil. You continued, unaware of the storm brewing inside him.

“I need to get out, but it’s not that easy. Tonight, we planned to quit. But there’s a chance I’ll be caught before we can leave. The boss has people watching us, and if they find out what we’re doing... it won’t end well.”

You paused, looking down at your hands, which were now trembling slightly. “I need your help. I don’t know who else to trust, and I’m running out of options.” You sniffed and tried to bite your cheek to keep the tears forming in your eyes from spilling.

Bakugou exhaled slowly, his mind reeling from everything you’d just told him. He hadn’t expected this when he walked into the club tonight. But as much as the situation was fucked up, there was no way he was going to leave you to deal with it alone.

“What do you need?”

You looked up at him, your eyes meeting his, and once again for the first time in a long while, you felt a glimmer of hope.

You looked up at him, your eyes meeting his, and for the first time took notice of how nice they were. "I'm sure Nick is still trying to find the money from the first performance. I know it's petty to just not leave it, but we worked hard for it, and you contributed too!"

Bakugou felt his ears get hot at that. The compliment caught him off guard, and he could feel the heat creeping up his neck.

"I know you're not the best with people from your interviews and whatnot, but you're great at rescue missions. I have a spare janitor's uniform in the back and two trash bags. I left my personal stuff in a cabinet and—" You turned around, fishing a small key out of your top, then turned back to see Bakugou’s face tilted toward the ceiling, clearly trying to give you some privacy.

"Hey, don't leave yourself exposed," you said, your voice firm but with a hint of a smile. "But I need my personal stuff. I ran here after the station, and I had my day job's crap on me. You’ll basically pretend to take out the trash, but one bag will be me and my stuff, and the other will be the money."

Bakugou lowered his gaze back to you, processing your plan. Before he could get a full sentence out, the door burst open with a loud crash.

You both whipped around to see a large, burly man standing in the doorway, his eyes narrowing as he took in the scene. It was Big Ricky, one of the club’s enforcers, and the menacing aura he gave off was enough to make anyone’s blood run cold.

Bakugou instinctively stepped in front of you, his posture tense, ready for a fight. "What's your problem, asshole?" Bakugou growled, his voice low and dangerous, already on edge from everything that had happened tonight.

Big Ricky’s eyes flicked between the two of you, clearly sizing up the situation. “Boss wants to see you, princess,” he sneered, ignoring Bakugou’s question entirely and focusing on you.

Your heart pounded in your chest, the plan you’d just formulated now hanging by a thread. You knew you didn’t have much time before everything went sideways.

“We were just heading that way,” you said, trying to sound calm, even as your mind raced for a way out. You gave Bakugou a quick glance, hoping he’d catch on to what you were about to do.

Bakugou’s eyes flashed with understanding. “Yeah, but we need to make a stop first. Girl’s got some stuff to pick up,” he said, his tone cold and authoritative, daring Big Ricky to challenge him.

Ricky hesitated, clearly not expecting Bakugou to be so bold. “Boss didn’t say anything about that,” he said, though there was uncertainty in his voice now.

“Then the boss can wait,” Bakugou shot back, his voice firm.

Bakugou didn’t miss a beat. As Big Ricky continued to size the two of you up, he scoffed loudly, crossing his arms over his chest with a dramatic flair that surprised even you.

“What the hell is this?” Bakugou barked, his tone dripping with indignation. “I drop stacks in this place every time I walk in, and this is how I’m treated? Like some fucking nobody?”

You turned to Bakugou, eyes wide, momentarily stunned by his performance. It was as if he’d smoked something strong and was high on his own dramatics. But then you caught the look in his eyes—a silent plea for you to play along.

Realizing what he needed, you quickly slipped into the role, your expression turning icy. “Is this how you treat your best customers?” you chimed in, crossing your arms and adding a touch of haughtiness to your voice. “I’d think twice before coming back here if this is how you run things.”

The two of you made such a ruckus that it wasn’t long before the boss himself, Yuji Tanaka, appeared in the doorway. His expression was one of irritation mixed with curiosity as he took in the scene before him.

“What’s going on here?” Tanaka demanded, his gaze flicking between you, Bakugou, and Big Ricky.

“He says she owes him a lap dance or some shit,” Big Ricky muttered, trying to deflect the tension onto you.

Tanaka’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment, you feared he might see through the charade. But then he sighed, clearly more interested in keeping his high rollers happy than dealing with whatever drama was unfolding. “Fine,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “One dance, then baby doll has to take care of something for me. Clear?”

“Crystal,” you spat, glaring at Tanaka with enough venom to make it believable. As soon as the words left your mouth, the lights dimmed, and the door clicked shut behind the two of you.

“I better hear that music!” Tanaka’s voice echoed from the hallway, making your heart race even faster.

Swallowing hard, you rushed over to the speakers and plugged in your phone, quickly selecting Doja Cat’s “Streets” on loop. You knew those old geezers outside wouldn’t notice if it played twice, but three times? That was pushing it, and you couldn’t afford to test your luck tonight.

As the sultry beats filled the room, you turned back to Bakugou, feeling a wave of nervousness wash over you. This was supposed to be a distraction, but now it felt too real. You took a step closer to him, trying to ignore the pounding of your heart.

Bakugou’s red eyes were locked on you, intense and focused. You could see the gears turning in his head, questions swirling just beneath the surface.

“Before we do anything,” he began, his voice low and steady, “I’ve got some questions.”

You bit your lip, knowing that time was ticking away but also understanding that he needed answers to trust you fully. “Okay,” you whispered, your voice barely audible over the music. “Ask away.”

Bakugou didn’t waste a second. “What’s really going on here? You’ve got the boss breathing down your neck, you’ve got some shitty ex who’s out for blood, and now you’re dragging me into this mess. Why are you doing this?”

You hesitated, feeling the weight of his gaze on you. “I didn’t want to involve anyone,” you confessed, your voice trembling slightly. “But I’m out of options. All kinds of shit is going down and I’m stuck in the middle of it.”

Bakugou’s jaw tightened, but he remained silent, letting you continue.

“I was trying to save enough to get out, to disappear for good. But then my ex found me, and everything went to hell. I don’t have a choice. I need to get my stuff, get the money we earned tonight, and get the hell out of here before they catch on.”

The raw honesty in your voice seemed to soften Bakugou’s expression, though his eyes still burned with determination. “And you think sneaking out in a fucking trash bag is gonna work?”

“It’s the best plan I’ve got,” you admitted, feeling a bit foolish as the words left your mouth. “Unless you’ve got a better idea?”

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, clearly torn between the urgency of the situation and the questions still swirling in his mind.

“Alright, we’ll do it your way,” he finally said, his tone begrudging but resigned. “But don’t think this means I’m done asking questions.”

You managed a small smile, the tension between you easing just a fraction. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

With the music filling the room and time running out, you hoped this dance wouldn’t be your last. And with Bakugou by your side, maybe—just maybe—you’d make it out of this mess alive.

Maybe.

As the door suddenly swung open, you didn’t have time to think. You instinctively threw yourself into Bakugou’s lap, catching him completely off guard. His arms reflexively wrapped around you as he tried to steady both of you. Nick, standing in the doorway, scowled at the sight.

“Hey, don’t get too handsy with the merchandise,” Nick sneered, his eyes narrowing at Bakugou.

You shot Nick a glare, brimming with defiance. “Close the door,” you demanded, your voice sharp and unwavering. You didn’t wait for him to respond, your body still pressed against Bakugou’s, your heart pounding against your ribs. Maybe it was adrenaline or desperation, but you decided to give Bakugou a dance anyway, hoping it would keep up the charade just long enough.

But before you could move, Bakugou’s hands were on your shoulders, gently pushing you back. “Stop,” he said, his voice low and firm. He sat you up on the table instead, his gaze locking with yours, something unreadable flickering behind his crimson eyes.

“What if you had someone to take care of you?” he asked suddenly, the words catching you off guard.

Your eyes widened at his question. A sense of dread washed over you, freezing you in place. “No,” you whispered, shaking your head slowly. You knew where this conversation could lead, and it terrified you. “No, I can’t let that happen again.”

Bakugou inhaled deeply, his chest rising as he tried to temper his frustration. He exhaled slowly, his breath matching yours without either of you realizing it. There was something painfully familiar in his expression—an understanding that only came from experience. He wasn’t just seeing you; he was seeing a reflection of his own struggles.

He glanced at your hands for a moment, noticing the slight tremor in them before wiping the sweat off his palms on his pants. “Look, I know you don’t trust the cops,” he began, his voice tinged with uncertainty. “And maybe you hate pro heroes too. But…”

“But?” you prompted, trying to keep the tremor out of your voice.

“God, I don’t know how to say this without it sounding shitty,” Bakugou muttered, the frustration evident in his tone.

“Then just spit it out,” you urged, your impatience growing with every second.

He sighed, clearly struggling with the right words, before reaching out to take your hands in his. You hesitated, then placed your palm flat against his, just like that night behind the glass. His hands were still larger than yours, strong and capable, enveloping both of your hands in one of his.

“Look, this isn’t how I wanted to do this, but… what if I gave you a job?”

You tilted your head, confusion flickering across your face. You’d heard of his agency with Red Riot. “Like hero work? Can’t do that right now, I’m afraid.”

He blinked, a storm brewing in his eyes. His irises, a deep, fiery red, seemed to hold a world of emotions—anger, frustration, determination, and something softer, something that made your heart skip a beat. His brows furrowed, casting shadows over those intense eyes that never left yours.

“No, I mean a desk job,” he clarified, his tone softer but still resolute. “Something simple, behind the scenes.”

You shook your head, the weight of the day pressing down on you. “I can’t do that either,” you said, your voice tinged with regret. “I had a meeting with my boss this morning… and I ran into my ex in the elevator. It’s all a mess.”

Bakugou’s jaw clenched so tightly you could practically hear his teeth grinding. The muscles in his neck strained, tension radiating from his entire body. You were surprised he didn’t crack his jaw with how hard he was biting down.

“What about if I paid you to live with me?” he asked, his tone suddenly intense, like he was trying to push you toward an answer.

“Your apartment is cute, but it’s compromised. So is your little friends’ place. If they can’t find you again, they can’t release anything to the public. But I’m assuming he doesn’t want to let you go because you have something equally bad or worse on him that could end his career and put him in jail.”

He raised his eyebrows, waiting for your response, but before he could react, you grabbed his face in your hands, holding it firmly. You stared deeply into his eyes, searching for something, anything, that would give you a reason to trust him. His eyes, those stormy, crimson orbs, were a whirlwind of emotions—strength, vulnerability, anger, and a fierce protectiveness that made you wonder if he could really be the one to save you.

The room seemed to hold its breath as you searched his gaze, trying to decide if you could trust this man who was offering to take you away from everything you’d known, who was willing to fight for you when you didn’t know if you could fight for yourself.

Bakugou didn’t flinch under your scrutiny. Instead, he let you see everything—the pain, the regret, the resolve. It was as if he was saying,

“I’m not perfect, but I’m here. I’ll be here.”

Fuck, that was a whole lot more than you ever had before.

“Let’s entertain the idea of me living with you. What did you have in mind?”

You could hear the door starting to rattle, and a wave of panic surged through you. Without a second thought, you pulled Bakugou’s face into your chest, shielding him from view. As you pressed him close, Ricky felt the sudden, sharp impact of your heel against Nick’s face, followed by another swift heel.

“Get out!” you shouted, your voice echoing with desperation. You snatched your heels back, glaring fiercely as you slammed the door shut and locked it. It wouldn’t hold for long, you knew, but it bought you a moment.

Bakugou, still flushed and bewildered, looked up at you with wide eyes. “What? First time?” you asked, noticing his shocked expression. His pupils were dilated, and he was trying to wipe the shock from his face, his breath coming in quick, shallow gasps.

‘ Fuck, she does smell good, ’ he thought, his senses overwhelmed by the close contact. He nodded slowly, still trying to process everything. You walk back over to him,

“Mine too.”

You slid onto his lap, shifting slightly to test his reactions. “So, I live with you and then what? You have me all to yourself?” you teased, your voice a mix of temptation and challenge.

Bakugou shook his head quickly, his face turning even redder. “No, that’s not what I meant,” he said, his voice strained. “Do you always offer your personal home to civilians in trouble or am I just that special?”

“It’s just you,” he replied firmly, “Because I know I could protect you better than any of those other fuckers.”

You sat on his waist, starting to grind softly, feeling the tension in his body as he tried to keep control.Without warning, he lifts you up and places you back on the table, his movements abrupt but controlled.

“I’m not one of them, pretty,” he said, his voice low and intense. “You can’t hide behind that persona with me. Now, are you gonna keep being stubborn or—”

Before he could finish, you slapped him hard. The sting of the impact seemed to resonate through him, and to his surprise, tears welled up in his eyes. When did he become such a punk? You hit harder than his old hag. But as he looked at your flushed face, your tired eyes, he felt a pang of guilt and a rush of protectiveness.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice breaking slightly. He was out of his depth, and it showed.

You started to move away, but Bakugou quickly grabbed your hand again. “No, really, I am. I’m not good at this shit. My mouth gets in the way. Look, is there anything I could do to prove myself to you?”

You swallowed hard, forcing your emotions back behind a blank expression. It pains him how easily you do that. “First, if we’re gonna do this, I’d rather do it like a sugar baby relationship. That would ironically make it easier for me right now. No sex.”

“None needed,” he confirmed quickly.

“Good. And no falling in love. Also, give me your hero license.”

Bakugou stiffened at that request, his eyes narrowing slightly. You could see the hesitance in his eyes. But before you could even react, he had already pressed the cool metal into your palm. You didn’t even see him open his wallet to retrieve it. You tuck it into your top and cross your arms.

“What's your condition?” you ask, your gaze steady as you looked up at him. With your heels off, you were shorter, and the fire in your eyes was even more apparent.

“You have to trust me,” he added, his tone firm.

“Trust isn’t given, it’s earned,” you said, your voice suspicious.

“Trust me, princess, I know that better than anyone else,” Bakugou replied. “But right now, I need you to trust me and to know I can trust you, or neither of us is going to make it out alive tonight.”

You bit your plump lip, staring deeply into his eyes, challenging him to prove his sincerity. Katsuki held your gaze, his eyes dark and intense, a silent battle of wills playing out between you.

He was right, now without the heels, you were even shorter than he thought and your eyes burned like a wildfire, like you were daring him, and Katsuki stares like he's daring you right back.

The raw honesty in his voice made you pause. His eyes, sharp and unwavering, meet yours with a steely determination. You feel the intensity of the moment, a palpable tension that crackles between you. Emotions flickering wildly within your chest and you feel like a dragon. The unspoken question lingers in the air:

‘What if you fuck me over?’

The tension in your body is visible as you weigh his words and your lack of options. Your gaze remains steady, daring him to prove himself, and Katsuki’s eyes meet yours with equal intensity, as if daring you to see past the angry facade.

“Deal?” he asked finally, his voice steady despite the tension.

“Deal,” you responded, your voice barely more than a whisper.

You both shook on it, a silent agreement sealed between you. Bakugou then scooped you up, carrying you as if you were weightless, and stood on the table. With a grunt of effort, he pushed the ceiling tiles aside, revealing the escape route.

“I hope this plan works,” you said, your voice filled with a mix of hope and anxiety.

“Me too,” Bakugou replied, his voice firm with determination.

As you both prepared to make your escape, the urgency of the situation was palpable. The night had been a whirlwind, and as you climbed through the opening, you could only hope that this risky plan would lead to safety.

"THEY'RE GETTING AWAY!"

"SHOOT THEM!"

BANG! BANG!

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

Taglist: @elarakive, @thealtofvalleyxdoodles, the-dumpster-fire-of-life, @raendarkfaerie If you wanna be added lemme know!

Chapter 1 is here

Chapter 4 is here

That was the first chapter! So far there are 9 posted on my ao3 account.

I own none of the images or art!!!

Be sure to check out my other works and leave likes and comments, they really help. I have a Farmer Bakugou x Gardener Reader here in the master list. Drop a follow as well if you please. Don’t be shy to leave me a little reblog if you want.

I promise I bite~

See you soon my loves!!

(｡･ω･｡)ﾉ♡

49 notes · View notes

sir-sphinx · 5 months ago

Note

how did dysmas and wylls first meeting go

thought process here: so Dysmas is a wild magic sorc in game but i dont think that's actually what he is. idk what his subclass is i havent decided, but he's a sorcerer who can no longer remember incantations and whose magic has been really really unpredictable ever since his head injury. point being i think he'd fuck up catastrophically in battles early on

open the bloody gates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There’s a low sound, a rumbling crackle that fills the air with a crushing pressure. Ears pop, like being too deep in a lake, and in a light that’s somehow lacking light, one of the goblin archers is flung backwards to the rocks. Her companion looks frantically about the cliffs.

Dysmas’ eyes lock on the scene. The pull of magic in the air, not quite like his but just as frightful.

“Damnable roach!” A voice from the rocks. The man leaps from the cliff fearlessly – threads of a spell around his boots, a different spell – and slides down the perilous stones leaving scrapes in the moss.

“Provoke the blade…” he disarms the second goblin with barely a flick of his rapier, then like it’s second nature he slides that rapier into the goblin’s poorly-armored body just below the sternum. A strong hand guides his enemy’s shoulder and drives the blade all the way through, hilts it for just a moment, then slips it back out and shoves the sputtering thing off the ledge. He finishes his little speech, “...and suffer it’s sting.”

Dysmas holds it together, he really does, for a while. The crackle of the stranger’s spell, the battle-rush to his heart, the tang of blood being spilled. They wrap around him like a cloud, confusing and thick, a profound sense of wrongness and inexplicable pain in his chest. Emotion he can’t quite identify – shame, fear, desire, excitement, sorrow, recognition? – and overwhelmed senses. The world itself tilts. His very skull hurts.

He shakes it from his pounding head but it clings to him, as he prepares to ready a spell. He’s already stood for too long, too many seconds. Lae’zel is already in the thick of it sloshing goblin blood into the dirt and Shadowheart is throwing a reluctant blessing onto her from farther back. He can’t see Astarion, he’s vanished to the shadows beneath the outcropping.

He has to remember spells. He doesn’t remember them, no more than he remembers if his name is really his name. His hands remember the grips of his daggers but his head won’t pull incantations easily. What did it say, that book Gale lent him?

He’ll call a web. Drow cliché, right? Only half, maybe more maybe less, you can’t remember, can you?

A spider’s web, it felt easy in his hands when he practiced at camp and it’ll slow the goblin archers beneath him. Hold them still for the stranger’s bloody blade.

Voco – that’s the first piece. He remembers a few that started that way.

“Vo-” his voice fails him, “Voco ...ar...Voco ar—uh, vina, VOCO ARVINA!” It sounded right, close to right, maybe right, up until the spell backfires against his hands like a rebellious horse. Called forth isn’t a spider’s web to wrap the goblin in but a catastrophic burst of grease and mud, roiling around him. He steps back, startled, and it wraps around his boots; he slips backwards and wheels his arms around desperately. Hands scrape on the nearby stones. The cascade of sludge rushes down the ledge, taking the goblin below with it but also spreading out across the clearing. Dysmas hears Astarion yell, apparently caught up in it.

“No! No no no, not-” Dysmas calls out like his magic will obey him, even as a pointed head, wings, and claws begin to birth from the grease-mud. “-mephit?!”

He holds his hands up, hoping that thing will obey him as its summoner but the mephit, flapping muddy wings, looks at him with dark and ill-intended eyes.

He’s so occupied trying to remember any spell that might hold it off, he doesn’t even see the goblin from above flip his crude daggers in his hands and back up for the jump.

He never sees that one, not until the low squeezing pressure change of the Eldritch blast that throws the goblin back and the second that hits the mephit in the back just as it sends Dysmas to the muddy ground.

Then he’s being pulled up, guided back to his shaking feet by a strong hand on his shoulder. Dysmas peers up, head tilted back like a curious dog to find he’s sagged against the stranger from the rocks. He’s a young man, a human, with dark skin and a scarred face, and he takes the moment to steady Dysmas in the midst of the battle around them.

“Breathe easy,” the stranger says, and pulls Dysmas a few steps back, a safe relatively dry path off the ledge. Leading him quick out of the range of the misfired spell. “Stay back here!”

He holds his hands up, motioning Dysmas into the shade of the ledge, and a small smile slightly wrinkles that scarred face.

Then he’s off, back into the fray, leaving Dysmas at the very back. He must look frail to the man, considerably so. By now the heady mix of blood and fear and dark magics in the air has the edges of Dysmas’ vision clouding again. Hands reach for the two mismatched daggers at his hips, fingertips tingling at contact. He doesn’t listen, because he’s no wizard; he follows the stranger into the fray, and doesn’t try any more spells.

#oc: dysmas #baldurs gate 3 #idk if this is good but uhhh here it is #durge

7 notes · View notes

nokillbananashelter · 25 days ago

Text

I am SO glad Zelda Notes is not 100% integrated into the game because these would have 100% damaged my initial experience of botw. It’s not poorly done, it’s not badly acted, its not canon breaking, or even illogical narratively. It’s not even something I don’t want in *other* zeldas. I literally would love zelda to be quipping about stuff in SOME WAY in future zeldas and gushed about the concept in another post(though now i see the concept might need some tooling).

For THIS GAME, It just shrinks the theatre of the mind BOTW was designed around. The narrative of totk and botw is supposed to be found hidden in plane sight. Wordlessly. And most of what the notes cover…. Are things you can infer to SOME degree. Zelda recalls her father being a just man who knows his people….but maybe not super aware of his foibles. marketplaces have exactly the suspects you’d imagine and are multicultural centers of exchange. Bell towers are indeed bell towers. The temple of time looks a lot like the OOT temple…. But maybe isnt!

Nothing here is supremely significant- not even the revali blurb. We KNEW he had a rivalry with link. We KNEW he wanted to be *the* guy and was a competitive person. Of course he put stock in zelda. I did not need the confirmation. Its cool to think about, but i was invested in imagining it already.

None of the biggest added details are not inferable on a level that deeply matters- and thats GREAT because I personally did not need it spelled out! Assuming stuff *like* the details listed is more fun to think about when it can be *anything*. I would rather think about all the ways revali was a dickhead or deeply caring, i would rather note the similarities and differences of the architecture (in botw & totk) on my own.

And don’t get me wrong here- i recognize and appreciate that specificity is being made that CANNOT be inferred, but much of it isn’t world shattering.

I really appreciate that we are getting this test because in my opinion I find this to be a first draft of reintroducing Navi-style information dumping as a mechanic. It is good to get this idea on paper in a low invested way to see what works and what doesn’t, and what could make the next iteration of this really fascinating.

Let’s imagine for a second that Zelda in the next game does lore dropping similarly to this- but there is riddles, lyrics, and folklore zelda is there to assist in framing for you….but not spelling it out.

And I think that is something that I really hope is continued in the next Zelda. It is so important to not spell everything out that is the same exact pitfall that held Slyward Sword back.

The goal should be communicating in a way that engages players to piece it together themselves- thats what makes Zelda so special and I don’t want Botw/TOTKs best narrative lessons to be abandoned!

#tears of the kingdom #legend of zelda #breath of the wild #switch 2 #zelda notes

4 notes · View notes

alln64games · 1 year ago

Text

Banjo-Kazooie

NA release: 29th June 1998

PAL release: 17th July 1998

JP release: 6th December 1998

Developer: Rare

Publisher: Nintendo

N64 Magazine Score: 90%

Banjo-Kazooie is possibly my favourite game, something I utterly love. I play it around Christmas every year and never get tired of it. But why is this? What makes Banjo-Kazooie such a lovable game to play?

For starters, Banjo-Kazooie has a lot of character, from Banjo-Kazooie themselves to the worlds, settings and music. Even characters like Colliwobble (a giant cauliflower with googly eyes) has a magical style and charm to it. I think it’s Rare’s love for googly eyes, so much stuff has it, including boulders, blocks of ice and boxes of TNT. The world of Banjo-Kazooie is just alive in a joyful way.

Then you have the heroes Banjo and Kazooie. Banjo is a fairly straight character. For the most part he’s kind and gentle and wants to do good. If he was completely on his own, he may be a bit bland, but luckily his trust friend Kazooie lives in his backpack. Kazooie is rude, sassy and will mock anything. Together, it makes for great banter between them and other characters. And all dialogue is text with grunts, which helps make their world remain unique. I really hope any (if there are any) future games keep this as I’m not sure how I’d feel about proper voice acting.

Banjo-Kazooie is a 3D collect-a-thon platformer, which doesn’t go overboard on its collectibles. Banjo and Kazooie have a lot of moves crammed onto a controller, but they all work really well. There are some slight niggles, like trying to change the camera while aiming an egg can activate your golden feathers, but the platforming itself feels extremely precise, with any missed jumps never feeling like the game’s fault. The camera also functions fine for the most part, but there’s a couple of areas with some forced angles that don’t work, such as the path to Mad Monster Mansion which is a narrow walkway that can be difficult to see.

There are 9 worlds in Banjo-Kazooie. These each have 10 jiggies to collect, 100 notes, two honeycomb pieces (which increase your health). One jiggy in every level will be finding all five Jinjos hidden in each level. The levels will be considered small by today’s standards, but I think that they are ideal. It’s a size where you can search for everything without tedium or growing tired of it. Each world has its own charm.

Mumbo’s Mountain is a great introductory world. It’s a great introduction to how jiggies are hidden. Some are out in the open, some given to you by characters, some by activating switches and some by smashing things or just trying to shoot eggs into any hole you find. It sets you up for handling the later levels. It also introduces the important Talon Trot move, which allows you to use Kazooie’s legs to traverse steep slopes, and the layout of the level encourages heavy use.

Also here is the first Mumbo Skull. Enter here and you’ll find the crazy shaman Mumbo Jumbo. If you’ve found enough Mumbo tokens, he’ll cast a spell on you and you’ll turn into a termite. These transformations are another wonderful thing about Banjo-Kazooie. They’re not in every level so aren’t overused, but they turn you into different animals (or objects), which is required for certain jiggies. They’re all wonderful to use and are simply a joyous thing to have in the game.

After Mumbo’s Mountain, we get Treasure Trove Cove, a beach level filled with crabs. Mambo’s Mountain also introduces you to a pound attack (using Kazooie’s beak), which is used here for enemies and tasks. Flying is also introduced, as Kazooie can use red feathers to fly around the map. Treasure Trove Cove is quite open, with a jiggy that encourages flying around it. There’s also a very scary shark in the water. It’s a really wonderful level.

Next up is the weakest part of Banjo-Kazooie: Clanker’s Cavern. It’s a murky underwater level, and looks fairly dull. I do like Clanker – a big whale that has been turned into a horrifying trash disposal monster, but is actually a nice but depressed individual, but there’s a lot of swimming in this level, including a very deep dive that terrified me as a kid. That said, I grow more and more fond of the level each time I play the game.

Bubblegloop Swamp swiftly returns to form, especially because of adorable crocodile Banjo. This level is split up into segments, and then croc Banjo can traverse new areas, including a fairly difficult minigame with Mr Vile, sneaky crocodile (although a move from a later level can make this easier if you wish).

Then the wonderful wintery world of Freezeezy Peak, a level revolving around a giant snowman. One slight niggle for me with this is that you can’t finish the level initially, so I’d recommend a quick trip into the next level to grab the speed trainers, but it’s only a minor hassle. In Freezeezy Peak you get to climb the giant snowman’s scarf, have aerial fights with aggressive smaller snowmen, turn into a Walrus and take part in races – WAHEEEY!

From the snow straight to the sand of Gobi’s Valley. This is one of the more challenging levels, with pyramids, temples and sphinxes holding challenges you need to complete. One of these requires a perfect run with the speed boots, and still takes me multiple attempts each playthrough. That said, there is still a load of fun and charm.

Up next is for some halloween fun in Mad Monster Mansion, a haunted house and grounds. Initially, I found this level to be incredibly daunting, but traversal isn’t as difficult as initially seems, and getting around the level is quite fun. There’s lots of rooms to explore and even a toilet to explore. Brilliantly, the toilet itself is also a character called Loggo. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention is that Banjo-Kazooie loves puns. Some people may pretend to groan at puns, but everyone loves them.

Rusty Bucket Bay is the penultimate level, with some very tough challenges. The water in this level drains your air much faster than previous levels, so even though there’s a lot of water, you only spend small stints in it. There’s lots of hidden rooms to find, with some fun and cute details hidden in them. The transformation in this level is also super adorable.

And last is the seasonal Click Clock Wood. This is split into four “sections” that you open up over time, each is the whole world in a different season, and some jiggies require doing parts in each season, although if you fully explore each season before moving on, you don’t have to go back and forth. It’s lovely to see all the changes throughout the seasons.

Connecting these together is Grunty’s tower. Grunty is an evil witch who wants to make herself beautiful (by stealing the beauty from Banjo’s sister, Tooty, who became a staple of all future Banjo games…either that or she was relegated to a missing person’s poster and forgotten about). You explore the tower, finding jigsaws to fill in with the jiggy pieces you collect to open the main worlds. There are also 10 jiggies hidden here, which require you to hit a switch in each level to reveal (except for one, which is given to you at the start of the game).

And once you get past all the levels and go to defeat Gunty, it doesn’t go straight into a boss battle (that comes later), instead you have to complete Grunty’s Furnace Fun, a trivia board game where you have to answer questions about the game (or complete some mini games from previous levels). These questions could be about Grunty herself, pictures of places in levels to identify, trivia about characters or identifying sound and music.

Music. That’s a very important part of what makes Banjo-Kazooie work. Composer Grant Kirkhope did an absolutely phenomenal job of creating some tunes that you will be humming for the rest of your lives. They also work with the levels extremely well, adding to the magical experience. The music will also vary slightly based on different locations of each level or going underwater, all with perfectly smooth transitions between them. The music to Banjo-Kazooie is simply heaven for your ears, and will put a smile on your face for the entirety of your playthrough. Even other people in your house will start humming the tunes.

Replaying Banjo-Kazooie takes between 6 and 10 hours, although this will be a lot longer the first time. It’s a great length for annual revisits and is an extremely well-contained piece of media. You can follow it by its sequel, Banjo-Tooie (as I do every few years), but it works extremely well on its own. The entirety of the game is just full of joy, accompanied by very happy tunes and a sense that everyone working on the game was enjoying themselves.

There are two versions of this game, the original on N64 and a remaster version on Xbox. I highly recommend the Xbox version, as the better controller design helps a lot, and the widescreen HD image is much nicer to see. The main other difference between the two is that the Xbox version is easier, as it saves what notes you have collected. In the original, you need to collect all 100 in one go, which I believe was mainly due to memory limits on the N64 and not the original intention.

Banjo-Kazooie is my perfect game.

And stop playing you won’t. You can always tell when you’ve got a great game on your hands: when it starts to warp time. 16 straight hours of Banjo, leaving only for calls of nature – we had food and drink brought in.

- James Ashton, N64 Magazine #18

Remake or remaster?

The Xbox remaster is pretty great, although releasing on more platforms and a few fixes and refinements would be great.

Official ways to get the game.

Banjo-Kazooie is available on Xbox One/Series and is included in Rare Replay. You can also rent it on Switch via Nintendo Switch Online

Re-releases

2008: Xbox Live Arcade

2015: Rare Replay

2023: Nintendo Switch Online (Subscription Only)

#n64 #n64 games #rare replay #nintendo 64 #banjo kazooie #rareware #rare #retro games

5 notes · View notes

fancyloveavenue · 5 months ago

Text

How to Create an Insta-Worthy Valentine’s Day Celebration

Valentine’s Day is all about love, and in today’s world, it’s also about capturing the perfect moment to share with the world. Whether you’re celebrating with your partner, friends, or even treating yourself, making the day feel special and picture-perfect doesn’t have to be complicated. If you want to create an Insta-worthy Valentine’s Day, here’s how you can do it step by step.

1. Set the Scene with Stunning Decor

The key to a beautiful Valentine’s Day setup is the atmosphere. You don’t need to go overboard, but adding a few romantic touches will make all the difference.

• Fairy Lights & Candles: These create a soft, dreamy glow that looks amazing in pictures. Drape fairy lights around your room or across the table. Scatter tea lights or scented candles to add warmth and a romantic vibe.

• Flowers Everywhere: Nothing says romance like fresh flowers. A classic bouquet of red roses is a timeless choice, but you can also go for pink peonies, tulips, or wildflowers for a more relaxed look.

• Custom LED Neon Signs: Want something truly eye-catching? A neon sign can be the perfect statement piece. Sparky Neon offers custom neon signs that can spell out sweet messages like "Love You Forever" or simply a glowing heart shape. It’s an effortless way to make your space Insta-worthy.

2. Create a Picture-Perfect Table Setting

If you’re planning a romantic dinner, the table setup is just as important as the meal itself.

• Elegant Tableware: Use nice plates, wine glasses, and cloth napkins. Even if it’s a simple meal, good presentation makes everything look high-end.

• Mood Lighting: Dim the lights and let candles do their magic.

• Personal Touches: Handwritten love notes, name cards, or tiny gifts at each place setting will add a sentimental touch and make the moment feel extra special.

3. Dress for the Occasion

Whether you're planning a fancy dinner or a cosy night in, dressing up will make the occasion feel more exciting.

• For a Glamorous Look: A classic red dress or a chic black outfit always works for Valentine’s Day. If you prefer something softer, blush pink or white are lovely choices too.

• For a Cozy Night In: Cute pyjamas, silk robes, or matching loungewear sets can be just as stylish and make for adorable pictures.

Don’t forget accessories! Statement earrings, a romantic hairstyle, or a bold lip colour can instantly elevate your look.

4. Prepare a Delicious Meal (or Order In!)

Food is a huge part of any celebration. Whether you're cooking or ordering from your favourite restaurant, make sure the presentation is Instagram-worthy.

• Home-Cooked Meal: If you enjoy cooking, prepare something special like a heart-shaped pizza, a fancy pasta dish, or chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert.

• Takeaway Done Right: If cooking isn’t your thing, set up your takeaway meal on beautiful plates. Add candles and flowers to make it feel just as fancy as a homemade dinner.

• DIY Dessert Station: Set up a fun dessert bar with ice cream, waffles, or cupcakes. Let everyone decorate their own treat with sprinkles, fruits, and chocolates.

5. Plan a Fun and Romantic Activity

Keeping the evening exciting with an activity will make your celebration even more memorable.

• Movie Night: Pick a classic romantic film or a feel-good comedy. Set up a comfy area with blankets, popcorn, and fairy lights.

• Love Letter Exchange: Write heartfelt letters to each other and read them aloud.

• DIY Photoshoot: Set up a little photoshoot corner with a backdrop (like fairy lights or a balloon wall). Use a tripod or a timer to capture beautiful pictures together.

• Games Night: Play a fun couples’ quiz, board games, or card games to add some laughter to the night.

6. Sweet Treats and Drinks

No Valentine’s Day is complete without some indulgent treats.

• Chocolate Fondue: Melt chocolate and dip in strawberries, marshmallows, or biscuits.

• Signature Drinks: Mix up a themed cocktail or mocktail. A strawberry champagne cocktail or a pink lemonade spritz looks stunning in photos.

• Pretty Plated Desserts: Even store-bought desserts look amazing when plated well. Add some powdered sugar, edible flowers, or a drizzle of chocolate to make it Instagram-ready.

7. Capture the Perfect Insta Shot

Now that you have everything set up, it’s time to take some amazing photos!

• Natural Lighting: Daytime shots look best in natural light. If you're taking evening pictures, use warm lighting or fairy lights to keep things cosy.

• Angles Matter: Experiment with different angles to see what looks best. Overhead shots work great for food, while close-ups capture the little details beautifully.

• Candid Moments: Instead of stiff poses, try laughing, holding hands, or looking at each other naturally. It makes photos feel more genuine and romantic.

8. Spread the Love on Social Media

Once you have the perfect shots, it’s time to share them! Use thoughtful captions like:

• "Love is in the air, and so is the smell of chocolate! 🍰💕 #ValentinesDayVibes"

• "Just me, my favourite person, and a table full of love. 💖 #RomanticEvening"

• "Love is the best kind of light – and so is this neon glow! ✨ #ValentineAesthetic"

Adding relevant hashtags like #ValentinesDay, #CoupleGoals, #LoveInTheAir, and #RomanticVibes will help your posts get noticed.

Final Thoughts

An Insta-worthy Valentine’s Day is all about creating a magical atmosphere, enjoying beautiful moments, and capturing them in a way that tells your love story. Whether you go all out with a lavish setup or keep it sweet and simple, what matters most is celebrating love in your own unique way.

So, grab those fairy lights, pour a glass of wine, and get ready to make this Valentine’s Day one to remember – and one worth sharing! Making your Valentine’s Day Insta-worthy is all about setting the right vibe, enjoying the special moments, and capturing them in a way that feels true to you. Whether you go all out with neon signs and fairy lights or keep it simple and cozy, the most important thing is to make the day your own. It’s about celebrating love, making memories, and sharing those moments with others. So, light up your space, enjoy some tasty treats, and don’t forget to take some great photos, this Valentine’s Day is all yours to make unforgettable!

0 notes

prose-priest-potentate · 6 months ago

Text

In the Interim

Fic on Ao3: Here

<<< Previous | Next >>>

______________________________________________________________

Chapter 13: Laying a Few Babies to Rest: Recovering (Limbs & Memories)

Izek Stazni is not what one could call an easy sleeper.

Never has been, really. Always the last to bed and the first up in the morning without ever seeming tired despite the lack of rest. He doesn’t really even stay down for long when he’s knocked out in a fight. It’s such an ingrained fact of life now that Imrath and Wixen are especially slow to rouse without the sound of him shuffling around already dressed, and strange for everyone to wake up and see him still fast asleep, snoring and propped up crooked on all the pillows they stuffed underneath him the night before instead of posted up somewhere snooping through Imrath’s journal or picking through a game of cards by himself.

But he is snoring, and each drag of breath seems to come easier than it had before, so they leave him to it. He’s got a lot of healing to do, and Imrath is delighted to report that his right arm does look like it’s knitting itself together again when they sneak out into the sitting room. Not that they assumed the ring wouldn't work, but a little reassurance does wonders for morale.

They’re all curled up on various pieces of furniture, still waking up for the day themselves and trying not to wake up their sleeping beauty with idle chatter when a knock on the door of Marileina’s chambers breaks the morning calm. Light Above, already? Tired looks are shared around the room and drowsy conversation pauses when she hops up to answer it. Whatever remaining peace they were enjoying dies altogether when Strahd glides in. Like a bucket of cold water over their heads, they’re all awake now.

“Good morning. I’ve brought your breakfast.” He waves his hand and a couple of servants scurry in with a serving dish and handful of individual plates, ignored entirely by the vampire while he unceremoniously prompts them for an update. “I’ve heard rumors of good things yesterday…?”

Imrath and Ismark both thank the thralls out of habit when they breeze by, take their plates, and quietly put them right back down, empty, on the table. Wixen forgoes hers entirely and takes a chunk of meat straight off the serving platter, snorting and rolling her shoulders.

“Wouldn’t call it good, but we got his soul back in him if that’s what you’re askin’.”

“That is what I was referring to, yes.” Arms out, he makes a show of looking around, even leaning back to pretend to check behind the settee. “He is still asleep, I presume? I believe I’ll step in and check on him myself-” Dishes clink, a chair squeaks, and boots hit the ground as soon as he moves toward the bedroom door. He pauses, smirking over his shoulder like he’s a cat with a canary in its teeth to see each and every one of them on their feet. “By all means, join me.”

“He’s sleeping it off. It was a miserable fight.” Marileina stays at his elbow with a sour look that she can keep off her face but can’t clear from her storming eyes, and gives her report of the evening. Quietly, for Izek’s sake.

Imrath is right behind her, trying to keep the most telling of his body language under control as well, and makes sure to put himself in the way of the seat he’d been occupying all night by pretending to check Izek’s forehead for fever. To keep some distance between them.

“But you achieved our goal. I’m pleased with that.” Strahd takes up the place at the end of the bed, murmuring with Marileina about which spells she used and how she might do it again, given the chance. He doesn’t seem overly surprised to hear about the trouble with the vestige, and only makes a few comments on their ingenuity and quick thinking when Wixen and Ismark explain how they kept him from burning up. He nods like he’s making his own notes -undoubtedly something that will bite them in the ass later- and humors them until it’s clear that he’s no longer paying attention to anything they’re saying.

The count stares at the gnarled scar tissue starting to climb its way across Izek’s shoulder with an unreadable expression.

Once Ismark is done suggesting that it was, all things considered, a success, Strahd looks him up and down, with a pointed pause where he’s not putting much weight on his bad leg yet today. Ismark straightens up immediately, but it’s too late.

“It is a shame he’s been crippled like that though.” Tutting, disappointment oozes off him. “It’ll be a difficult life for a warrior with no sword arm. Don’t you think, Baron?”

Ismark responds in kind with the many advancements he’s seen in artificial limbs and several men he knew who were wounded in his father’s service who went on to remain assets to their forces for many years. A good save, but Imrath, who fears that he himself is becoming quite paranoid, is deeply uncomfortable with the line of inquiry at all.

Everything they’ve done was to save Izek. This Izek, theirs, but Strahd has never really needed to wait to release that soul. And Imrath isn’t sure if he was too sentimental to kill his own son before, or if something in Izek’s face had sparked the whole plan and toppled all the dominoes, but he cannot shake the truth once it’s presented to him:

If he doesn’t live up to Strahd’s expectations, he could kill him and wait. Just like Marileina. Just like they were worried in the first place. It isn’t over. Izek isn’t safe.

He sighs, half to recollect himself into some modicum of propriety, and half to seem casual as he sits back into his tail. Izek’s bandages are fine too: filthy, but no new blood and more regrowth than a few hours ago, however ugly and painful looking it is. “You’ll be delighted to know that it will regrow, then, Count Strahd.”

This catches his attention. He breezes around Mari and Ismark to loom over Imrath’s shoulder. “Oh?”

“It’s already started.” Though he is loathed to do it, the dragonborn leans out of the way to let him see as he explains. “The ring he wore on that hand is doing its work, so I suspect he’ll be good as new within the week.”

“I see…” Strahd looks a little closer, and Imrath can hear the smug grin crawl across his face when he chuckles. He rests a cold hand on Imrath’s shoulder, leans into it, and teases, “How in the world did a devil get that? I seem to recall it being buried…”

Of course he knows about the ring… Imrath nods, and bites down all the pride in his chest when he explains that his god led him to the grave of Miss Petrovna, and he himself wore it for a while until he gave it to Izek. He leaves out the conversation they had in Marileina’s bedroom previous to his decision and the broken way Izek had admitted to him that he was worried about being weak if he lost his firepower; that it had taken watching him put it on his demon hand to realize how seriously unsettled he was about it all…

Strahd doesn’t need to know that. Not when he’s already having so much fun with what he can piece together himself.

“Did you think your god’s borrowed gift would save him, then?” He twists two of Imrath’s crest feathers around his finger, humming like it’s a silly little forgone conclusion. “It’s quite a sacrifice to give up such an item to someone you barely know.”

He shakes his head, enough to answer and dislodge the fingers from his feathers, but not rude. He straightens up, shoulders back, and looks up at where the count’s face would be. “He’s never needed saving, and it turned out to be a good decision.”

“Hmm.” Amused, and apparently satisfied, Strahd stands back up with a final, condescending pat between Imrath’s horns. “Perhaps you will be a good addition, with a little training.” Wixen snarls on his behalf, and Strahd beams over at her. “You too, perhaps, young one.”

Half crawled over the footboard, fur on end, Wixen spits, “You’ve lost your mind if you think I’d-”

Strahd snaps, and her jaw clamps shut on her. She snarls and growls and tries to pry her own mouth back open with her hands, to no avail. “Enough. I will not have my good mood ruined; Not when my son is on the mend.” He turns again to Izek, who has shifted in his sleep with all the noise, and smiles. It’s fond, despite it all, and stays like that -pleased, paternal- as he wanders back towards the door.

Marileina joins him when he holds out his hand, and she lets him squeeze her shoulder. “I’ll take my leave. Once he’s properly awake, inform Rahadin and we will prepare another dinner.”

“Yes, Uncle.”

Affectionate, Strahd pinches her chin before he heads out with a flourish of his tailcoat.

______________________________________________________________

Wixen isn’t able to speak for an hour afterward, and the only thing keeping her from raging through the halls again is the immense patience of Imrath continuing to try to teach her how to write Common, and Ismark, who manages to pull enough stories of his and Mari’s childhood shenanigans to keep her distracted and doubled over snickering through her teeth once she’s fed up of literacy lessons.

It’s just as well. Imrath is still exhausted from the day before, so leaves them to enjoy some alone time and curls back up in his chair by Izek’s head to keep Marileina quiet company. She’s sitting on the edge of her own bed, with some tome she’d grabbed from one of the many libraries on her lap, flipping her wand idly in her fingers trying to parse through a spell. Snowflakes dance around the movement, and have collected in a little pile on the floor by the time Ismark peeks back in with the good news that whatever spell it was ran out or got released.

The morning, all things considered, was too peaceful for the ladies; Wixen is antsy to make progress on their long to-do list now that the most pressing issues are halfway cleared up, and Marileina is eager to have help exploring some of the more dangerous areas of Ravenloft that she found on her own and had to leave before she got hurt, so they decide to take turns standing vigil over Izek.

Imrath is all too happy to volunteer for the day since he’s barely holding his own head up from an armchair anyway. “Please let me sit down with a dusty old book and recuperate before I have to swing my sword again.” He drags his hands down his face, as if he might squeeze a little more energy back into himself if he just rubs hard enough. “I’m a scholar at heart.”

Wixen sticks her finger in her own mouth at the thought of any more academia for the day, and waves him off. “Sure, lover boy. We can handle ourselves.”

“Do you need-” He moves to pat his own pockets even though he has no idea what he’s even got to offer. A habit to be helpful that’s hard to kick, interrupted by fur stuck in his nose when Wixen flicks him in the face with the end of her tail.

“We’re good, Imrath. Go on.”

“Alright, alright. Point taken.” He stands, stretches, and sees them quietly out into the unknowns of adventure before he really tries to settle in.

Back in the bedroom up on his toes to stay as silent as possible, he snuffs out some of the candles -for his own comfort and maybe in the vain hope that it’ll ease Izek’s rest. As much as he prefers the man’s company, he’d like him to sleep through and skip over as much of this as possible. So it is with such a long suffering sigh that any old man would mistake him as one of their own that he curls himself up into a ball in the armchair and has just cracked open a book when he hears Izek snort through his nose. His head snaps up to find Izek’s eyes squinting open, and the man smirking at him.

Blazes. He must be exhausted. Book disregarded, he moves to help as soon as Izek starts shifting *around, pulling back covers for him while Izek hisses; his body protesting the twisting. “I didn’t realize you were up.”

“‘M not yet.” His voice is all gravel and growling from hours of disuse and trying to catch his breath against the stitch in his side while he tries to figure out how best to wriggle all the way over to the side of this massive bed without embarrassing himself too much, but doesn't actually sound too mad. He tries again and manages to kick a foot out from under the duvet. “Ugh. I feel like shit.”

It’s all music to Imrath’s ears anyway, and he doesn’t try to keep the smile off his face, hovering. The hand he holds out to help is denied with a glare and shake of his head as Izek swings his legs onto the floor. He half expected it anyway. “This is the longest I think I’ve seen you sleep.”

“Can’t imagine why.” Sarcastic, Izek looks up in time to watch Imrath’s smile crack into a toothy grin, and rolls his eyes, forcing himself up onto his feet as steady as he can.

Stubbornly under his own power, he tests his balance - manages to find it, though his side twitches where he had grown into adulthood compensating for the heavier demon arm on that side and now his other is having to fight to keep him upright. He makes it work and moves on. Rolling his good shoulder is sore, but fine, but the other is a different story. It aches, and even the twitch of thinking about moving it has pain running him through. It doesn’t even have the decency to move right when he grits his teeth and makes it anyway - something from the back of him pulls when he tries to move it forward. Annoying. His ribs still hurt, but don’t feel unstable or hurt any worse when he inhales. Alright. Shit, but alright.

Once he’s fairly confident that Izek won’t topple, Imrath heads over to their leftovers to get him something to eat. “Are you rested, at least?”

Izek huffs and starts forward; his back’s sore and he wants to walk it off, and he’s tired of being in bed. Steady, deliberate steps. He’s done this before, years ago. He can do it again, even if the thought of being reduced back to when he was a shitty, terrified kid makes him sick and dredges up memories he thought he’d forgotten. He doesn’t bother answering until Imrath is already back, plate in hand. “Slept like shit too.”

Imrath is just happy he’s upright. He leans in, grinning, and forces a glass of water into his friend’s hand. “Can’t imagine why.”

Izek twitches when he tries on instinct to shove him in the face for that, but there’s no arm there to respond, leaning into nothing. Shit. He considers upending the water on his stupid feathery head, but he’s thirsty. So instead, he kicks Imrath in the shin and hides his satisfaction in the glass when the man pouts about it.

______________________________________________________________

After a late breakfast and working out the worst of his stiffness in circles around the room, Izek is a lot more himself. Which means he’s blunt when, after actually looking at his friend and realizing that Imrath looks like shit, says. “You need a bath.”

As a testament to the truth of it, the dragonborn just nods from where he’s half-asleep on his feet leaned against a dresser. He sucks in a deep breath like it’s the thing inflating him and pushes himself back upright. “Yeah. I haven’t had the time for a real one.” His feathers are frazzled, stringy because he hasn’t bothered to do more than shove them out of his face in a while and there’s blood stained on all his white nails and stuck between the scales of his hands. “We cleaned the worst of it off you and that got most of it off me, but-” He shrugs.

Something about that makes Izek uncomfortable… not the blood. Never blood. And he’s seen Imrath fresh off battle plenty of times, covered in worse than a little grime and exhausted before, but still. It sits unbalanced in his chest. Makes him wanna do something about it. Or have something done. To put him back right.

“Go take one.” He nods towards the washroom, and rolls his eyes when Imrath’s eyebrows knit together like he’s gonna say something about it. Before he can, Izek interrupts, “I’m fine. I’m not gonna keel over as soon as you leave. Go.”

Imrath, walking over now, lifts his blindfold up onto his forehead to deadpan at him properly by the time he makes it to the man’s side: Not funny. He hooks a claw in the edge of the bandages and pulls. They’re so stiff with dried blood that it tugs on his hair when it peels off. Izek barks at him for the pinch, and gets no where for it because Imrath doesn’t flinch -only wrinkles his nose. “You need one too.”

Izek curls his lip. “You’re not washing me like some invalid.”

“You’re awake this time,” Imrath shrugs, turning. “You can wash yourself.”

He watches him wander over to the pile of packs and armor in the corner -now just theirs, since the others were out. It all looks tossed into place instead of neatly set and cleaned like usual. His first thought is that it’s stupid not to treat their armor better, no matter how tired they must have been after the fight, but watching him… Imrath has to move his breastplate to reach their bags and pull them both out a new set of clothes and it’s covered completely in soot, save for the spot in the middle where his holy symbol sits, and when he moves that Izek sees his own, mangled and sheared off halfway across.

Maybe, it occurs to him, they were distracted. Izek tries to cross his arms, realizes how stupid that is with just one, and props his left arm on his hip instead, waiting until Imrath’s got everything in hand before turning to walk in first.

It’s a big lavatory, designed for someone used to all the comforts of the world: with a hearth along the exterior wall to warm the room and refresh water, an ornate, claw-foot tub in the center, and a modesty screen off to the side. The fire is out and the windows are high in the wall, but Izek can make out the evidence of recent use if he squints. A drying line has been strung up between the fireplace and corner, draped with everyone’s half-dry laundry. Among the pieces, he recognizes Marileina’s tiny set of leggings and dress, and Imrath’s wrap skirt easily. Most, if not all of it, still has smears and splatters above whole cloth blood stains.

Those will need a tougher scrubbing to get it out after they’re set like that. It was always a pain for the maid at Vargas’ manor house when he came home and shoved his own bloodied clothes in her hands. She was good at not looking annoyed with him, but he knew. Relished in it sometimes… He shakes his head. That was then.

He’s still staring at the laundry, stuck in the thought, while Imrath warms the water. His mind conjures up what they all might have looked like with that much blood on them. What condition he must have been in, and vaguely, thinks he remembers being carried.

“Must’ve been worse than I remember.” He buries the worst of it, the squirming in his stomach - shoves it back down his throat, and manages to kick out of his boots and pants easily, but gets lost in the bandages trying to find where the tie is.

“Anything you don’t remember is probably a mercy.” Imrath, already drenched from dunking his head over the side of the tub, takes pity on him when he hears the frustrated groaning and reaches over to slice up through the back of it all with a claw so Izek can just pull it all off the front. He sits on the edge, leaving the tub for Izek, and starts scrubbing soap through his feathers.

“That bad?” It’s awkward to get down into the stupid thing, but Izek manages it fairly smoothly with only the one arm to lower himself with. It helps that Imrath’s weight is holding down the other side of the tub.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

Trying to throw himself out the window. But that’s not something Imrath wants to hear. Izek busies himself picking the viscera out of his chest hair. “The explosion… then…”

Pain. Werewolves. Fire. Darkness. Freezing in the snow. He can’t pick reality from the scraps so he trails off, face pinched, trying to make it all make sense in words for so long that Imrath moves. He tilts his head, twists towards him with a hum. He’s sitting there, patient and waiting, when Izek refocuses; with his tail looped over the edge so that the middle of it is sitting in the water, face and feathers dripping with bubbles while he scrubs between the scales on his hands and arms. Izek can see now how far up the blood actually went. Given the state of their shirts, he shouldn’t be surprised to see it up to his elbows.

Come on. It’s just Imrath. He thinks, and that itself comes with more confusion than usual, but it’s enough to unlock his tongue. “I can’t tell the nightmares from what actually happened.”

Imrath’s hands pause. His brow twitches and he sighs, but instead of saying anything about it like Izek is expecting, he takes the time to dunk his head before he responds. Izek moves his leg so he doesn’t get stabbed by a horn while Imrath washes out the suds. At least the water is still mostly clean for it.

“Well, let’s figure it out then.” He settles back down on the side of the tub with a towel in his lap and the little bottle of oil that always leaves him smelling funny and his golden feathers extra shiny when he’s done preening. He’d explained it before; something about little barbs and hooks and other words Izek didn’t commit to memory. Now, he kind of wishes he had… Whatever. It’s a routine they both know, and they take their time connecting dots between their memories.

Apparently some of his nightmares were real, and he probably owes Wixen some kind of favor for not letting him get incinerated. And a punch; she could have at least used a blade.

______________________________________________________________

Izek is awake when the others get back, and whatever tall tales of their adventures they were ready to tell Imrath die on their tongues as soon as they see him upright in the sitting room. Weariness evaporates from them all instantly and the room erupts into chaos: cheering, checking on him, teasing, and retelling their own versions of the fight after he got knocked out now that he’s awake to hear it. It’s a lot, but he manages well enough.

Maybe it’s because the exhaustion is still threatening to roll his eyes back into his head, but he isn’t even as annoyed as he would usually be that Wixen is pacing around, circling him, chattering about missing out on all the fun of fighting zombies and hunting down bitchy vampire boys. He would much rather be doing that instead of pacing for the last few hours, but the vitriol that rises to meet her is little more than habit when she pokes at his cheek and he swats at her, barking that she shut up and not rub it in. It isn’t even particularly hard to choose to ignore the stupid little giggle that pulls out of her and Imrath both.

Even as Mari climbs up onto the couch beside him on her knees to twist and turn his face in her thin little hands, rambling a hundred miles an hour and scolding him for pushing her away and trying to sacrifice himself. There isn’t any real frustration bubbling up when she refuses to hear any explanation that he hadn’t wanted her to get hit. He’s just content to see her and see that she’s not any worse for wear. Ismark, too, once he’s through his delight that his weird sort-of-brother is whole and hale, and although he does try not to be a pain about it, is very interested in the way that the majority of his shoulder has already grown back into muscles out of the vicious red mass that it was the day before, and Izek finds that he’s just as relieved himself. Today’s patience with them all comes surprisingly easy.

At least for a few hours.

Izek fights the heaviness of his eyelids for as long as he can, keeping himself awake and aware even as his normal temper rounds on him again. It’s just as well. He was wondering when it would come back up.

Still, he does fight it. He bites his tongue and sits up straighter, even as the ache behind his eyes starts pounding and his head threatens to nod. He keeps himself upright so he can spend time with everyone and reassure them that he’s fine; that he’ll be good as new and ready to run around behind them and knock heads together again soon. That he isn’t some frail thing to be handled like glass. That… that he isn’t a burden.

The thought happens, and then suddenly there is ice in his veins, shattering and prickling from the inside of his gut. He hadn’t meant to think about it, but it’s there now, and so is everything else, stuck with him now even awake.

He stands, already falling forward into walking, mumbling some excuse about having to take a leak, and ignores everything else. Doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have to explain himself. It’s been a long damn day. He half expects that one of them will chase after him and runs from that idea too. He’s halfway down the hall already, cursing under his breath and trying to rub the afterimages back out of his eyes before he realizes he’s not stomping down the hall of Vargas’ manor toward the cool night air and the Blue Water Inn, and is in fact, still stuck in the musty, glorified crypt that is Ravenloft.

Gods, he wants to be out of this bloody castle.

Where the fuck does he think he’s going, anyway? With no weapon? Izek grinds his teeth until they creak and he spins back around. Literally a day ago, he wasn’t ever without a weapon, before his own fucking ARM turned on him. Gotta get used to that.

He takes a long time in the toilet, just sitting there fully dressed with his hand clenched over his own jaw, staring down at the stone without seeing it. He’d say he was enjoying some alone time after a day being babysat if anyone asked - can’t a man shit in peace, or something like that. Sure, that’s what he’ll say when one of them makes a comment…

Hells. It’s been years since the nightmares kept up in the shadows while he was awake.

Making him feel hunted, like he’s one wrong step away from snapping a twig and letting them know he’s there too, caught between fight or flight while the werewolves circle him and his parents. Every time he shifts or twitches or steps without overcorrecting to the right… every time he glances down and finds that his arm’s not there again.

Izek knows fear. He’s dealt it with and gotten used to it, but… Maybe it’s all the sleep. Too much time spent at the mercy of his own hateful imagination reminding him of all his faults and failures. That’s got to be why he’s so out of sorts now, churned up and paranoid.

Yeah, that must be it.

When he gets back -now a little more settled- and plops back down unceremoniously beside Marileina to listen to everyone yabber on about their next days’ plans, no one moves to summon Rahadin. Despite the fact that Izek’s awake, upright, and doing well, they all steal just a little more time to enjoy the light back in his eyes and the bark back in his voice. Marileina will send word in the morning.

______________________________________________________________

It takes four days. Four miserable days for Izek’s arm to grow back into some semblance of a working limb that can begin to grip a hilt or tie his own laces again, stuck in the meantime trying to cope, to keep a stiff upper lip from nightmare to waking nightmare.

That first night he’d been laid out in Marileina’s bed -and he gets why they did it- but as soon as he gets a say in it, Izek insists on tucking back into his own half of the bed in the other room. He doesn’t like the idea of keeping any comfort from her, and waves off any of their concerns with a roll of his eyes, saying that he’s used to kicking Imrath when he digs a horn in his side, and that it isn’t up for debate.

From there, the party takes turns keeping him company while the others wander; Marileina spends day two with him while Imrath third-wheels Wixen and Ismark up and around one of the other towers. They meet another mongrel, significantly more cognizant than the ones left in Krezk (and that itself is a bit of a stab through the bleeding heart for our little paladin) named Cyrus. He’s friendly enough, and they do manage to get a little more of the story of the Belview family by chatting with him, but they make their polite goodbyes from him fairly soon. When they return, worn out and beaten up from running into a trio of witches that took immediate issue with them, Izek’s arm is reformed down to the elbow, and he and Marileina have had a pretty relaxing, if boring, day.

Izek slept too long again, and Mari is a little too keen eyed to let him wander and avoid the fact that he’s having trouble keeping it together after he wakes up and feels like his eyes are going to explode out of his head. He has to dig his nails into his own hand to pull himself back around and try to save face, but she gets it out of him that he’s been thinking about the day their parents were killed, again. She doesn’t remember it herself, and Izek pieces together enough of the fringes of his memory to explain that their Mum and Dad had left her with a neighbor to be looked after while they took him on his first hunt. He had been livid that that old woman had lost his sister, when the mistress at the orphanage finally told him days after he woke up, but also a little bit relieved that he wasn’t trying to look after a toddler in an orphanage, half of who he used to be. Marileina comforts him with reminders that she had a lovely life with Ismark and his parents, for which he is thankful.

Ismark is stuck with him on day three while the others head out to find that little doll-thing Blinksy used to ramble about. He wasn’t really listening whenever the toymaker talked about it, but the name Pidlwick sounds familiar enough to ring a bell when Imrath is flipping back through his notes on the way out the door. Izek loses more time in the middle of the day to a nap he hadn’t intended to take, and wakes to the sound of Ismark’s pen scribbling on the desk nearby. Faster than Vargas ever wrote, unless of course he was pissy and scribbling out some new mandate meant specifically to punish someone.

His own sleepy, loosened tongue surprises him too when it asks what all the writing is about -not something he ever did with Vargas, who normally raved enough about whatever it was that Izek was never out of the loop for long- but Ismark, ever gentle and warm, is happy to put it down and explain that he’s been working on ways to improve the morale of Barovia town in the wake of his father’s early death and the loss (for better or worse) of the hag’s mill and dream pastries.

He finds himself staring at the far wall, racking his brain for suggestions and only coming up with unhelpful ideas. Vargas had legislated happiness in Valakai, and he had enforced compliance with prejudice when he had been captain of the guard, but… Izek looks over at Ismark. A gentle man with softness oozing off of him, even in armor. Practical, at times, the way that eldest children and heirs have to be, but not the right fit for the way he used to handle things.

The train of thought leaves him feeling… hollow in a new way that he can’t place.

So he ignores it, buries it, and gets Ismark talking again by asking what ideas he had so far.

By midafternoon, his arm has got to the right length, but still working on the right shapes well into the evening while Ismark has gotten a bit lost in a web of what-ifs and trying to set out multi-step plans to reach out to Baron Nikolai and Burgomaster Demetri and see if they can cobble anything up together. Which is boring for Izek, but he doesn’t mind too much. What’s there of his new hand and lower arm is thin, frail, and skeletal with tendons visibly rolling whenever he tries to move it, but he can move it, if nothing else.

It’s something, and he spends some hours trying to force the jerky, weak fingers to tie knots in the laces on his shirt.

When Imrath, Wixen, and Mari get back that afternoon with mud and dust on their armor and wild stories about the little puppet man. Having passed on Blinsky’s admiration and invitation to the toyshop for a chat, he had warmed right up to them. Apparently, despite being a little off putting to look at at first he’s an absolute delight, with excellent mime and sleight of hand tricks, who accompanied them throughout the castle until they fell in a hole. (Apparently, he did try to warn them, but they were all having trouble figuring out the gestures before it was too late.)

Later, over their late dinner, when Marileina leans in close to investigate and makes a nasty face at his hand, saying that they look like hag fingers, Izek wiggles the boney digits at her. She makes the mistake of flinches and he, for the first time in a while, cracks a smile and moves to terrorize her more, mimicking the claw hand he’d seen the hags use and chasing her around the table until she squeals and blasts him in the face with a torrent of snow.

______________________________________________________________

Izek is getting pretty damn tired of waking up and looking around to find that everyone else is already up and gone.

The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes on day four is the slit of the window in this room and the retreating afterimage of a lightning flash - probably what woke him up in the first place. Thunder passes over, rumbling the room and the air in his lungs while the other bed comes into focus, empty and half made. Ismark at least tucks his covers back up in the morning but Wixen just rolls out of the pile she makes. A familiar sight after months of traveling together.

He hadn’t even heard them leave this time, so he must have been too deep for Wixen’s inane chattering to make it through. There goes another eight hours.

He groans and rolls onto his back, flopping his good arm out to shove the cover off and sit up. Pins and needles rage up his new arm’s new nerves like flames used to, and distract him enough that he doesn’t realize he smacked something solid when it came down until it moves; slithers, heavy, off his thigh. He flinches, and then feels like an idiot immediately after when he recognizes the mass under the covers.

Beside him, curled up facing the door and radiating heat, Imrath trills in his sleep and tucks tighter into a ball. His tail wraps itself in lazy, serpentine loops back over Imrath’s own leg.

Izek sighs. At least he didn’t punch him this time.

He’s fairly careful, leaning up onto his hand to see if he’s actually sleeping in and deserves to be shoved out of bed and mocked for being lazy or- he spies the edge of a book past the feathers. Must have fallen asleep reading, then. Which means he probably got up with the rest of them, volunteered to take Wixen’s turn babysitting, and then snuck back in to curl up and read. He was pretty sure he didn’t see him bring the book to bed the night before… but trying to think of it, Izek isn’t entirely sure he was awake when Imrath came to bed.

Damn healing, sapping all his energy. He had forgotten about the exhaustion.

He pauses, right arm raised and shaky, reaching for the dragonborn’s shoulder to shove him awake and ask about the book, or tease him for being a lazy bum, whichever comes up first -but he gets distracted staring at his hand, wavering like a branch in wind. He gets stuck there, trying to make it hold still in the air but finding it difficult. The muscles are weak. The whole arm is thin, but no worse than Marileina’s. Underdeveloped, but not so frail that he thought he might break it squeezing too hard like the day before. When he tries them, all his fingers respond individually.

Good.

Great, actually.

Maybe… Pieces of thoughts about the future get mixed up immediately with the past, and Izek frowns. Well, he’ll never be normal really, never could have been, but like this. This might be more like what he was supposed to be in the first place. He ends up focusing on his own wrist. Too smooth, even wrapped over the bones and meat still working their way back down, and almost green in the dark where there has been red for a decade. No scales. No spines. There aren’t any scars on the new skin to match the ones on the other side. Even the hair is fluffier. It looks more like…

Well, like his dad’s arm. His real dad. What it must have been like, since he can’t quite remember him anymore. Though, he’s sure his Papa had scars too, given his line of work. And surely he must have looked a little more like Izek, right? Since he and Marileina don’t favor much. Did Papa have his dark hair too, or has he just been imagining it, seeing it again over and over, corrupted by night terrors for so long that he’s made it all up?

Pressure prickles behind his nose and he shakes his head, inhaling quick and trying to dig the heel of his new palm, sharp and boney, in rough enough to stop the tears. He’s fought them for days now, always on the edge of his sinuses, building salt on his lashes in the morning, and he won’t let them fall now. He isn’t even alone. He sniffs, too loud, and the noise wakes Imrath.

One deep inhale and a few seconds while he rolls over is all the time Izek has to hide the evidence and get his hands back down on the duvet so it doesn't look like he was just scrubbing his own face. He breathes through his mouth to avoid sniffling and turns his back to his friend, feet on the floor, while Imrath rumbles out one of those dragon noises he’s getting used to and stretches, popping in several places.

Izek considers flopping his pillow in the dragonborn’s face to buy himself some time, maybe wrestle him half off the mattress and interrogate him, but he hesitates too long, Mari’s voice in his head. She had rolled her eyes and slapped his leg with her wand and told him to talk about his problems instead of bottling it up. That day, finally sitting back down with her as his little sister and fitting together the memories of the two years they had together… had eased the tension a little, for a little while, and she had given him a look when she reminded him to talk to Imrath too.

So maybe…

Imrath lays himself out like a star and props one arm up on its elbow to pat Izek's back. “I really gotta stop falling asleep on you, man. Sorry.”

He doesn’t turn fully, but he does glance over his shoulder when he asks. “Not sleeping enough at night or something?” He finds the man laid out with his eyes closed easy - the picture perfect image of not suspecting that Izek is having a hard time. Good.

“Guess not.” Imrath shrugs. “This castle freaks me out, can't imagine I’m dreaming of festivals and sweets all night.”

Not so distant memories, relatively untainted, spring to mind; Imrath with a stupid over-polite smile and his arm tucked behind his back like a gentleman, bowing and asking for a dance in public. The idiot. And he hadn’t been able to find a reason not to at the time. Izek snorts, and finds it all a little easier to ask, “Is that what you dream about?”

“On the good nights, yeah.” Imrath chuckles behind him, and stretches again. He pops somewhere else that Izek can’t see and groans. “Sometimes I think I’m just reliving the ‘adventures’ the girls used to drag us through though. Leaves me stiff.”

Izek remembers them, sort of. They’re shadows in his head vaguely shaped like women with horns. He knows their names; Rurzu and Phlora. They’re some of the easier ones to pronounce when all of Imrath’s stories of home come with a bunch of consonants that roll off Imrath’s forked tongue but stick on Izek’s, so he avoids them.

“The tiefling sisters, right?”

“Mmhmm.”

“You talk about them a lot.”

Them, and Nyerg. He’s explained before that they’re like his siblings - childhood friends that are as close as he’ll ever get, and that Nyerg is his kin, even though they don’t share blood. (It’s a complicated thing and Izek stopped him trying to explain it when he tried drawing a chart.) It isn’t hard to draw lines between whatever mess they have going on with what he’s got: Marileina, his real sister that he hasn’t known. Viktor, never his brother, but the kid he did watch grow up. Now Ismark, related like an in-law.

“Of course. I miss them.”

Just days ago -or, actually, a week ago? Izek’s lost an annoying amount of time lately. He can’t remember- Imrath was talking about homesickness, scared that his sister would show up in Barovia and trap herself with him. And… he is trapped, isn’t he?

It’s easy to forget. Or ignore. The Mist is just reality here: No leaving, so you never consider it unless you’re after a weird suicide. And Vallakai is far enough from the border that Izek had never seen the real edge of it until a few months ago, and then he’d been so caught up trying to get back to Marileina that he didn’t spare a second glance, but… Imrath can’t leave.

He always talks a big, noble game about fixing the valley and doing what’s right, talking like he really believes this is where he’s meant to be, but he does want out to get back to his family. He talks all the time about going back once this is all over, about people and food and comforts that he misses. The day before when he told Marileina he would be helping for his own reasons…

Izek can understand that. He’s been made painfully aware of how much he’d rather have his own family back with all these bloody nightmares, and knows how viciously protective he is of Marileina now that he’s got her. Ismark too, now. And Imrath. And Wixen, too, if he’s being really charitable.

Blissfully ignorant of the mental laps Izek is running, Imrath is enjoying one of the very few perks of Ravenloft castle; a bed big and luxurious enough to fit him pretty well. It’s better than the ones in the Blue Water Inn, and way better than his bedroll, so you’ll have to forgive him for taking a little more time to rest. And for being a little self indulgent, as he moves to scratch circles along Izek’s shoulder blade. He hopes it’s pleasant.

It’s distracting, at least. Which is enough to drag Izek back around from trying to parse out why the idea of how fond he’s become of all of them is making his stomach churn, and why the idea of Imrath leaving makes him itch to pin the guy down and sit on his chest instead of allowing it.

He’s quiet, still just sitting on the side of the bed, half-up for the day, when Imrath braves a glance in his direction, so he curls around till he can see the side of his handsome face to ask, “How's your arm?”

“Skinny.” Izek holds it out with a frown, and feels warmth flood his body from where Imrath's hand still sits on his back; healing magic, like he does every day. It doesn't change his arm at all -never does, but it loosens his sore lower back so he doesn’t complain. It also makes him a little drowsy again, but he blinks that away, fighting a yawn while Imrath wriggles around enough to sit up beside him.

“I’m just glad it worked.” Imrath reaches out for the new hand and when it is granted, runs his thumb over the knuckles, frowning. “I know you didn't really want to be rid of it.”

“Couldn't keep it after it attacked you guys. So good riddance.” Izek shrugs, flexing his new fingers the way he used to flex claws. “I’ll get used to it. Did it once.”

“You’re already doing great.” Imrath grins wide and happy and proud at him and Izek's stomach twists up in knots. He’s tongue-tied and tense, with his face wrinkled up, when Imrath leans in to bump his forehead on his shoulder and he gets a face full of feathers and horns that barely miss his nose, but Imrath is gone too quick, saying something about breakfast, for him to think much about it. He follows like a loyal hound, mind elsewhere.

______________________________________________________________

It preoccupies him all day. Nonstop little thoughts bubble up, stinging like liquor down the wrong pipe. Every little mistake he’s ever made and how he should have done better. How it would have been better, smoother, in the long run if he had just stepped in and stopped Viktor from driving that girl mad, then her mother wouldn’t have killed Vargas as soon as he was gone and he wouldn’t have had to kill that guard in Imrath’s face and see the disappointment on his face-

He grits his teeth. Readjusts his grip. It’s too late. Let it go already.

Every awkward word that he would say better. Every misstep where he should have acted faster. He should have hugged Mari back when he ran to him that first time. Should have hit Strahd harder. Should have kept Imrath close so he didn’t follow Wixen into the Death House for three fucking days-

Swing. Hold the weight of the sword. Don’t let yourself sway. Reset, swing again.

Whenever there’s any silence to fill it all swirls up in his head. Haunts him - dragging the corpse of the thoughts he’s trying to just shove aside and ignore so he can move on with his day and train some strength back into his stupid arm if could manage a moment of peace without–

“Bloody Hell!”

Imrath nearly jumps out of his skin across the room, snapping his book closed on his own fingers and scrambling up out of his seat at the sound of Izek’s sword clanging against the stone floor, echoing around the room. He’s got his cloak half shoved back off his head, blinking against the fire in the hearth.

Izek meets him halfway, one hand buried in his hair, waving the other around. “Is it always like this?”

He steps out of Izek’s way as he paces the room, clearly frustrated, and curses himself for being so caught up in the early history of the valley that he missed… whatever was wrong. He spins while Izek circles, looking for clues to figure out why his friend is pulling out his own hair, and settles on the sword, no longer singing. Maybe he dropped it? Thinking that he’s just feeling the growing pains of the arm, Imrath retrieves it for him. “Like what, darling?”

“Miserable.” Growling, stalking back and forth across the carpet, Izek catches his eye, incredulous. He throws his hands in the air again and huffs.

Blazes, it sends a pang of sympathy right through him. He softens all over, shoulders drooping, and props the sword against a chair. “Well I’ve never regrown a limb myself, but I think it might be part of the process.”

“No, the-” Izek scowls, disgusted by the idea of it and himself, and weirdly nervous so he stomps over; so his voice doesn’t carry so far or echo the pathetic tone of his own voice back at him. Hearing himself be pitiful doesn’t help trying to make himself say it. Imrath seems to get the idea and puts a hand on his shoulder, turning and tilting his head like they’re having a conversation in a crowded room. “The feelings.”

“Oh. Uh,” The dragonborn stops and pulls his hand back. Izek misses the warmth as soon as it’s gone, even though he hadn’t realized he even felt it. It pulls something inside out through his ribcage, and he wants to run from it and chase after it, but Imrath is already talking again, hand back on his forearm, rooting him in place. “No, it won’t be.” He’s confident. Warm. Unwavering like every other stupid sentimental thing he’s ever said. The thumb on his skin moves, rubs, and Izek stares down at it. “It’s not- Is it painful?”

He shakes his head, curls his lip. “It’s…” He won’t say overwhelming, “A lot.” Imrath watches him too closely, too kindly. Izek is reminded -filled to the brim with the foam of it choking him- that he doesn’t deserve it. Not yet.

But Imrath still just nods and pulls him gently, guiding him over to a chair. “I wasn’t sure what it would be like for you - I’m still not, exactly. The midwife talked about it like mist-touched people would never be happy, but,” Imrath cocks his head and the side of his mouth that isn’t scarred and numbed by the lightning-

And isn’t that a punch to the gut?

Izek is sent reeling back through memories of watching Imrath stumble back from a sarcophagus just to be run through by a bolt of lightning. Right through the heart. He can hear the crack and ringing; the sounds of the bolt shaking the room and Imrath’s armor hitting the floor. The way he had crumbled. Electricity was rolling all around his body, over the ends of his horns, and stung their hands when they rushed forward to check on him. The twitching of his breathless, dead body right before he jerked back to life and gasped in air.

Izek knows fear, but he doesn’t recognize the cold that shoots through him.

Whatever. Imrath is still talking. He tries to refocus. Inhale. Exhale.

He’s still smiling and reminiscing, “-seemed happy enough. Normal enough. You laughed and smiled and always cared in your own way. Which, that was never what worried me so much, anyway.”

Imrath shoves on his chest to sit him down and he goes easy enough, and only stays seated because the dragonborn drags the other overly fancy armchair over for himself and sits close. If he’d tried to sit across the room, Izek is sure he’d have been back on his feet hovering at his shoulder. His voice comes out mercifully even despite the way his gut churns. “You were always worried about me dying.”

“That I wouldn’t be able to pull you back.” Imrath, somehow infinitely more casual, relaxed and teasing, reaches over to poke him in the chest with a spark of magic, claw like a hook against his shirt that reaches right through him. Izek feels something swell in his chest to meet it. Warm. Hot. It bursts into pins and needles. It didn’t do that before.

Again, he thinks he doesn’t deserve it. He thinks back to the first time they talked about this - when he’d questioned if he was even worth bringing back and Imrath had all but rolled his eyes saying of course like it was obvious. Something ugly and sour pulls his mouth down into a frown that he doesn’t feel until Imrath pats his arm and squeezes. Drags him back out of his own head. Izek blinks.

“Regardless, we’re all here, and things are looking up.” He smiles, and it’s more crooked than it’s ever been; toothy, in a way that Izek realizes he likes looking at. “You and me, side by side, right?”

Another memory - of Imrath with all pretenses dropped for the first time, walking tense and angry back down the steps of a haunted keep with the statue of a dragon looming large behind him. No diplomatic smiles, no kind words. Only bloodlust and the promise that he would defeat Strahd or die trying.

It had been the first real inkling that Imrath was truly worth his time. He had looked the man up and down and said that he might just die by his side. Back then he’d meant it sarcastically, since he’s still not convinced they have a snowball’s chance and had definitely not had any faith in all this shit working out before… but well.

Hells. Maybe. ______________________________________________________________

<<< Previous | Next >>>

#in the interim the novel #in the interim #dnd fanfic #cos fanfic #cos spoilers

1 note · View note

mrssweethomealabamareads · 1 year ago

Text

Underneath the goody-two-shoes persona is damaged goods…but can the bad boy across the street save her?

Damaged Goods, an all-new angsty, enemies to lovers, sports romance from USA Today bestselling author L.J. Shen is now available!

Bailey Followhill is the perfect daughter.

Sweet. Charitable. Pretty. Control freak.

Not a hair out of place, not an inch out of line, she is everything her troublemaking sister Daria isn't.

But when her A game turns out to be a lukewarm C- at Juilliard, Bailey's picture-ready life starts fraying faster than the worn satin ribbons of her pointe shoes.

She's becoming a piece of gossip.

The Troubled Child. A drug abuser.

No longer the girl her best friend once knew.

Lev Cole is so golden, he's got the Midas Touch.

Prized quarterback. Football captain. Hottest guy in SoCal. A textbook cliché.

But with a girlfriend he doesn't love and a career path he doesn't value, Lev is coasting.

The only two things he cares about―Bailey and becoming a pilot―are out of reach.

But Lev is done being satisfied with the life others have chosen for him. He wants to pick his own cards. To demolish the seamless kingdom of lies his family stitched together on the ruins his mother left behind.

The question is, can he save his best friend and his dream before too much damage is done?

Start reading today!

FREE in Kindle Unlimited

Amazon Worldwide: https://mybook.to/damagedgoods

Bloom Paperback: https://bit.ly/3OUfHYc

Audible: https://adbl.co/48fFJgT

Add Damaged Goods to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3YJGWc8

Keep reading for a look inside Damaged Goods!

PROLOGUE

Lev

Age fourteen

I’m standing over my mother’s grave, wondering why the fuck my eyes are dry.

I couldn’t look at the coffin back inside the church. Knight said she looked pretty. Calm. At peace. But also…nothing like herself.

I squeezed my eyes shut the entire way through, the way I did when I was really little and went on spooky rides at theme parks. Now I’m freaking out because maybe I made a mistake, because it was the last time I could look at her face not through a picture.

That’s the thing about losing someone—there are so many losses along the way that make up a big loss.

No more cuddles in bed on rainy days.

No more heart-shaped fruit in my lunch box.

No more singing lullabies to me when I’m sick, with me pretending I’m embarrassed and annoyed by it when actually Mom singing lullabies is the best thing to happen to this universe since sliced bread.

Bailey is hugging me so close, my bones are about to dissipate to dust. She’s about four inches taller than me now, which is stupid and embarrassing and just my luck. My face is hidden deep inside her hair, and I pretend to cry because it seems rude and screwed up if I don’t. But the truth is, I’m not sad or gloomy or any of those things. I’m fucking pissed. Angry. Enraged.

Mom’s gone.

What if she’s cold? What if she’s claustrophobic? What if she is struggling to breathe? What if she’s scared? Reasonably, I know she isn’t. She’s dead. But logic isn’t my friend right now. Not even an acquaintance. Hell, I doubt I could spell the word in my current state. I feel like Bailey is physically keeping me together. Like if she loosens her arms around me, I’ll collapse into thousands of little marbles, scatter and disappear into the nooks and crannies of the cemetery.

Everyone files back to their cars. Dad claps a shaking hand over my shoulder and steers me away from the grave. Bails reluctantly releases me. I clutch the tips of her fingers. She’s gravity. She’s oxygen. In this moment in time, she’s everything.

Sensing my unspoken need for her, Bailey turns to my dad. “May I please catch a ride with you, Uncle Dean?”

Thank you, Jesus.

“Yeah, Bails, sure,” Dad says distractedly, laser-focused on Knight’s back. My brother is going through his own stuff right now and my dad is trying to ensure he doesn’t lose another member of our family. Usually, I’m cool with being the low-maintenance, “background” kid. Not today, though. I just lost my mom at fourteen. I want the world to stop, but it disrespectfully keeps on spinning and functioning like my life wasn’t just destroyed.

Before we hop into the car, I clutch Bailey’s fingers and pull her to me. “If I told you I want to run away from here, somewhere really far, like…I dunno, Kansas far, what would you say?”

Her big blue eyes hold mine like my eyeballs are about to fall off. “We ride at dawn, bitch.”

“Really?” I ask.

She nods once. “Try me, Lev. You’re my best friend. I’ll never let you down.”

It’s weird, but the possibility of Bailey and me running away from all this is the one thing holding my ass together right now. She might be everyone’s good girl, but to me, she’s a bad addiction.

The drive is silent. I’m a page torn out of a book. Out of place and floating aimlessly. All I have is the memory of once belonging. Then, we’re in front of my house. Everyone trickles inside in their black frocks. They look like ghouls. Home without Mom isn’t a home. It’s a pile of bricks and expensive furniture.

Invisible ivy roots me to the ground. Bailey is the only one who notices. She loiters behind with me, and suddenly, I really hate that I’m putting all my dreams and hopes on her. Because she could be gone tomorrow too. Bus accident. Freak heart attack at fifteen. A kidnap-and-murder plot. The options are endless, and I have really shitty luck with people.

“Kansas?” She grabs my fingers, playing them like they’re keys on a piano.

I shake my head, too choked up to produce actual words.

“We don’t have to go inside.” Her hands slide up to grab my arms and keep me standing. How did she know I’m close to falling? “We can hang out at mine. I’ll make fondue. We can watch South Park.” Her blues gleam like sapphires.

Fresh irritation floods me. Bailey is being soooo understanding, even though she doesn’t understand jack shit. She does have a mom. A healthy one. And a dad. And a sister who isn’t an addict. Her life is perfect, while mine is a pile of calamities.

She’s a blossoming flower, and I’m dirt, but that’s okay because the thing about flowers is they’re buried in dirt, so I know exactly how to cut her off.

Shaking her off, I swivel and stomp my way out of our cul-de-sac. She races after me, calling my name. Her Mary Janes clap the ground urgently.

“Lev, please! Did I say something wrong?”

To be fair to her, she stood no chance at saying anything right. But screw being fair. I’m hurting, and she is baggage. Just another person to love and to lose.

I pick up my pace, running now. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m eager to get there. The sky—completely blue just seconds ago—cracks like an egg. Thunder rolls, gray washes over it, and rain starts pouring in thick sheets. It’s summer in SoCal and shouldn’t rain. The universe is angry, but I’m angrier.

Whenever Bailey manages to catch the sleeve of my shirt, I speed up, but even after thirty minutes of running in the rain, soaked to the bone, she doesn’t quit. Somehow, we find ourselves in the woods on the outskirts of town. The thick, tall branches and blankets of leaves intertwine together like laced fingers above us, creating a makeshift umbrella. I can sort of see my surroundings now, and it’s pretty and it’s calm and far enough away from that stupid cemetery. I stop running when I realize I’m not gonna escape the new reality: Mom’s dead.

I finally understand the term heartbreak. Because that thing in my chest? Split open clean in two.

I turn around, my lungs scorching. Bailey is pale and sodden, her black dress clinging to her body. Her lips are blue and her skin is so pale, I see a map of purple and red veins under her flesh.

“Go home,” I growl. But I don’t want her to go home. I want her to never leave.

She steps closer, tilting her chin up defiantly. “I’m not leaving you.”

“Fuck off, Bailey!” I fold in half, screaming. I feel like she kicked me in the stomach.

She’ll leave. She’ll let you down. Don’t fall for this, Lev.

“I’m so sorry.” Her eyes are full of tears, and she flexes her fingers, itching to grab me.

Hug me.

Go away.

Fuckfuckfuck.

My mouth opens again and more bullshit spews out. “Don’t be sorry for me. Be sorry for yourself. You’re the loser who hangs out with an eighth grader instead of people your own age.”

“I wish it didn’t happen.” She ignores my insults, trying to grab my fingers again and play them like a piano, like she does every time I’m upset.

Laughing, I rasp, “I wish you didn’t happen.”

“I wish it were me who was dead.” Her face is covered with tears and pain and mud, and I can’t do this anymore. I don’t care how much I’m hurting, I can’t ruin the only good thing about my life right now. She gives me something to fight for when every cell of my body wants to give up.

“Now you’re just talking outta your ass.” I spit phlegm between us.

She shakes her head, quivering fingers darting to her hair, massaging her scalp. I believe her. And it kills me that even though I feel like someone slashed me open and my guts are pouring out, I still wouldn’t want Bailey to be in Mom’s place.

“I’m not. I’m serious. I would die before willingly watch you suffer.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then I open my mouth and the most feral, scary, loud cry I’ve ever heard tears out of it. It echoes in the sky and bounces off the trees. A flock of ravens takes flight from the treetops.

And then I go to the only place I need to be right now—I go mad.

For more information about L.J. Shen and her books, visit her website:

https://www.authorljshen.com

#books and reading #new books #ljshen #literallyyourspr

0 notes

blessyourhondahurley · 3 years ago

Text

No Harm, No Fowl (Yet)

Dean comes to Cas's garden with a surprise.

Suptober prompt: Red Flufftober prompt: "I hate you" – "I love you too" Fictober prompt: "You’re looking, but you don’t see." Inktober prompt: Fowl

(Read on AO3)

This fic is a continuation of Keep Me Fed All Year although it also makes sense as a standalone...

Dean finds him in the garden. Of course he does. Why did I bother looking anywhere else? he wonders. He's keyed up, jittery with excitement over what he's about to do, but he stops anyway, stands outside the low fence that surrounds Cas's flowerbeds, and looks.

He surveys the flowers, hundred and hundreds of assorted blooms that crowd every inch of the available space with a riotous splash of colors. He checks over the little fence that he and Cas built together, noting its continued sturdiness with approval. But most of all he watches his husband, follows his movements as he tends to his plants, ogles the way his biceps bulge his sleeves when he carries a tray of seedlings.

He only intends to pause for a moment, to enjoy the view and collect his thoughts, but he loses track of time. He might have stood there all day, except that eventually Cas looks up and sees him. The smile that splits his angel's handsome face in that moment washes out the floral rainbow in Dean's sight. Flaming red dulls to maroon. Sunny yellow fades to beige. Natural splendor whomst? Dean thinks besottedly. Don't know her. Only one beauty worth admiring around these parts...

“Dean!” Cas calls, standing up off his kneeler. “I didn't hear you get back. How were your errands?”

“Good, good,” Dean replies. The jittering anticipation is back, and he struggles to keep his tone light. “Dropped off the books at the library, picked up your order at the yarn store, checked the PO box...”

“Anything good in the box?” Cas asks, because he knows that Dean uses that box to order all sorts of useful and unusual things off the internet. His weekly trip to the post office has become something of a mini holiday between the two of them. Some weeks he comes back from town with a new bronze knife or an obscure book of lore, some weeks it's a box of fancy liquor-filled chocolates or a bottle of high-grade lube. This week there was only one package to pick up – deceptively small, metaphorically huge. Dean keeps his mouth shut, though, just smiles and nods.

Cas cocks his head and furrows his brow at Dean's unexpected silence. “Are you going to tell me what you got?” he prompts.

“Try and figure it out,” is Dean's reply. He assumes parade rest position and smiles serenely.

“Figure it...?” Cas repeats, squinting. Dean hums and waits.

“Did... Is it something I already knew you'd ordered?”

Dean shakes his head no.

“Is it for us to use together?”

An emphatic yes.

“Intimately?”

Tough call, Dean thinks, answering with a waggling, equivocal yes but not like that kind of head movement.

Cas stops asking questions and stares hard at him for a full minute. If Dean wasn't absolutely sure that Cas's remaining “10% angel” doesn't allow for direct mind reading any more, he'd throw a flag for cheating. Still, it's uncanny how focused and direct and on target the next question is.

“Is that a new t-shirt?”

“Brand new,” Dean purrs.

“Come closer, I can't read it.”

Dean files this piece of information away for later discussion. He's suspected for a while now that Cas needs glasses. He allows himself one fleeting fantasy – a vigorous round of “stern librarian and naughty patron” with his newly bespectacled hubby. Then he mentally tables the issue and steps forward.

Cas reads his shirt and gives him a nonplussed look. “I don't get it,” he states, voice flat.

“You're looking, but you don't see,” Dean says, throwing a little sass into his tone.

His husband gives a huff, already exasperated with this game. “It says 'FOWL PLAY' in big fancy letters. So it's both cryptic and badly spelled.”

“Nope, the spelling is correct.” Dean can see the burgeoning annoyance in his husband's features. It's time to make the big reveal before the fun turns into frustration. “Do you give up?” he asks with a soft smile.

“Ugh, you know I hate to give up, but yes. What's the deal with 'Fowl Play'?”

“It's the name of our farm.”

“Our...?”

“Farm, Cas. The farm we're buying, where you're gonna be able to raise chickens and keep bees and grow flowers. You can even plant a vegetable garden and I promise I'll eat what you grow.”

“Dean, what?”

“It's about seven miles from here. Good land. A little over five acres. There's a farmhouse, three bed two bath, and a barn, and there's already a nice big chicken coop with a covered yard. I put the word out in town a while back that I was looking, and the owners of this place got in touch with me a couple weeks ago. They're good people. They're heading down to Florida to retire, and they want their place to pass to someone who will love it like they have. They're ready to sell, and if you like it, we're ready to buy.”

Cas is speechless, one hand against his mouth in shock.

“We've both been wanting to get out of the Bunker and into a place that's a little more... Us. This place is perfect, baby. Think of it as an early anniversary present.”

His still-bemused husband laughs at that. “I hate you. An entire farm as an anniversary present? I'll never be able to top that.”

“I love you too, sunshine,” Dean replies fondly. “But technically, really, it's only a farmette. And besides, this gift is for both of us. So do you like the name? I figure, we need a catchy name if you're gonna sell your honey and eggs and stuff at the farmer's market like you always talk about. And Fowl Play's pretty cute, right, cuz of the chickens? I had a shirt made for you, too. I even thought of a motto!" He turns around to show Cas the back of the shirt. "'They lay, we play'. Huh?”

“We can workshop it,” Cas replies tartly, but Dean knows it'll stick.

Hot damn, he thinks. We're gonna buy ourselves a farm.

Concludes Continued here...

#suptober22 #flufftober2022 #fictober22 #destiel #supernatural #day 16

45 notes · View notes

theringers · 4 years ago

Text

friends with benefits - charles leclerc

summary: type A planner best friend lives with no thoughts head empty best friend and they decide to start sleeping together

request: 37 , 70, 78 w charles😃

prompts: 37) “Please? I'll be good, I promise!" 70) “we’re just…friends.” “friends don’t do this type of shit!” 78) “Not to make things weird, but I thought about you when I came last night.”

a/n: charles, head empty no thoughts just his hot roommate and his inability to keep things to himself

warnings: nsfw, 18+, angst kinda, friends to fuck buddies, oral sex

“Could you uhhhhh do me a favor?” You asked Charles. The fuzzy blanket was draped over both of you and he was about to press play on the movie.

His eyes rolled. “What do you need, my love?” He asked in a sarcastic tone.

“Can you maybe make some popcorn?” You tried to slow your words down a bit, for some reason thinking he would be more inclined to say yes if you asked like that.

He exhaled loudly. “Fine.” He tossed the blanket over to you so he could get up off the couch. “But only because now you’ve got that thought in my mind and I want it.”

“If doing things for yourself instead of me makes you feel better, that’s okay with me.” You smiled. This was a typical weeknight for the two of you.

You were a self proclaimed movie critic. Charles just got stuck with a self proclaimed movie critic as a roommate, but it made for some entertaining nights.

The two of you met in high school and immediately formed a bond. Everything between you two was easygoing and laid back, which he loved. He was never a huge people person or party type and neither were you.

You found peace in each other’s silent company and eventually realized you had more in common than you first thought. That following summer, you did practically everything together. Charles had a couple girlfriends here and there and you had a couple boyfriends as well, but it didn’t really matter. Nothing ever stuck.

College rolled around and you weren’t sure what to do. You wanted to stay in Monaco close to your family, but you just couldn’t live at home anymore. Lucky for you, Charles offered to let you move into his spare bedroom until you could make a decision. It had been years and you were still in that spare bedroom. The thought of moving out and doing something different hadn’t crossed your mind since the day you moved in.

“Do you want butter or no butter?” He asked from the kitchen, hands full of popcorn bags.

“Come on is that even a question?”

“Right. Butter. Lots of it.” He threw the bag into the microwave and it started to pop.

He came back with a bowl full of steaming popcorn and handed it to you.

“Be careful it’s,” he looked at you to see your mouth wide open and steam coming out, “hot.”

“Almost hotter than you,” you said once you caught your breath.

He rolled his eyes and fake laughed. “Hilarious, y/n.”

“I’m being serious.”

“C’mon, we’ve talked about this.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that I think you’re hot,” you said. Every time this was brought up, he got so flustered. Which was why you continued to joke around with him and flirt with him. He would never act on it.

“Y/n…. I’m gonna go to bed if you keep this up.” He was annoyed.

“I’m sorry. Please stay? I’ll be good, I promise.” You batted your eyelashes at him.

“Fine, but you gotta stop,” he said, pulling your legs onto his lap so you could lounge more comfortably.

A rom-com was playing on the TV and the sound of munching on popcorn was filling the room.

A long distance relationship played out on the screen. Lots of phone calls, lots of phone sex, lots of jerking off to each other’s photos. You shifted in your seat, trying to seem casual and not uncomfortable.

“Not to make things weird, but I thought about you when I came last night.” You stopped shifting and looked at Charles.

“So much for ‘we’ve talked about this’.” You held up air quotes. “Care to elaborate?” He was known for saying out of pocket things. Sometimes you weren’t sure if he fully thought things through before he said them.

“I mean, not really. The movie just reminded me of it.”

You couldn’t think of a response quick enough so he continued to talk. “You always say whatever’s on your mind so I thought I might try it out.”

“You don’t do that enough already?”

“I’m trying to be more honest.”

You laughed and rolled your eyes at him. “I applaud you for that. But you can’t just leave me hanging like this.”

“Don’t hate me, that’s all I’m going to say.” His hand rubbed up and down your shins that were resting on his lap.

“I could never hate you, Charles.”

“Last night when you took a shower, you left the bathroom door wide open. I was just walking back to my room from the kitchen, I didn’t mean to-”

You laughed and interrupted him. “Charles, it’s okay. That’s my fault.”

“I just glanced, I promise. But I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind. And my cock was still really hard after a while.”

“You knew I was awake, you should have come to my room,” you said. It sounded good in theory but if you were being honest with yourself, you wouldn’t know what to do if he showed up at your bedroom door with a boner.

“We’re just friends though. Friends don’t do that type of shit.” He took a deep breath and looked off in the distance. Anything to avoid eye contact.

“Says who?” He looked at you and tilted his head in confusion. “A lot of friends do that type of shit. There’s even a word for it.”

“Have you thought about this before?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t… Charles, we’re two young twenty somethings that live together. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about what it would be like if we were sleeping together.”

“I don’t mean this in a bad way but I honestly didn’t think about it until I saw you.”

“Maybe it’s just the hopeless romantic in me.” You had thought about what a perfect storyline it would make for you two to sleep together but never the reality of actually getting into bed with him. Now that made you nervous.

“More like the horny romantic”

“Very funny…” You tossed a piece of popcorn at him and he swatted it away.

“So, are we doing this thing?” He turned his attention from the TV to you.

“Tell me you didn’t just actually ask me that question.” He was blunt and never beat around the bush.

“I did, and I would like an answer, please.” You wanted to smack that stupid smile off of his face for how he was making you feel.

“What’s this thing?” He needed to spell it out.

“Are you,” he pointed to you, “going to let me,” his finger moved to himself, “inside of you?”

You burst out laughing. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty. We need to set some ground rules for this.”

“Rules?” He didn’t look like he was a fan of rules. And as his roommate, you knew he wasn’t a fan of them. Just ask the groceries you’ve gone shopping for two months in a row.

“Our friendship, our cohabitation, you know. I’m not just going to let you go willy nilly on me without making sure you aren’t going to leave me friendless or homeless after.” Nothing could be done with you unless it was carefully planned. All possible outcomes had to be thought through.

“I would never leave you friendless or homeless.”

“Even if I was the worst person at sex, in the world, ever?”

“I highly doubt you’re the worst, but even if you were.”

“You’d still fuck me, even if everyone in the entire world was better than me. Damn I’m lucky.”

“Here’s a rule for you. You need to tell me how it feels. I’ll fuck you however you want to be fucked so you better tell me when something feels good.” Charles said.

“I can do that. If you like something I do, tell me. If you don’t, tell me.” You talked a big game but telling Charles how he made you feel sexually made your spine tingle, and you weren’t sure if it was anxiety or desire.

“I doubt there’s anything you can do to my body that I won’t like.” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. He was a guy after all.

“You wanna bet?” You asked, lunging at him jokingly.

“Sure, I’d like to see you try.”

“I guess I will, then.” You just needed time to plan it first.

He stood up and held out his hand for you to take. “Now that we’ve talked about it, I can’t get it off my mind.”

“You want to do this, right now?” Panic set in. This was too sudden.

“Right now,” he said, confidently. “If, that’s what you want, of course.”

“Okay.” You followed him into the hallway, bypassing your bedroom and ending up in his.

You took a few shy steps around, like you’d never been in there before. “Do you want to get on top or do you want me to?”

“Y/n…” He needed you to just relax and let go.

“Right, right, let’s just do it.” You took a step forward and he grabbed your face in his hands. Your lips moved with his, feeling soft and warm. There was only so much in your life you could plan. This was never part of it.

He slowly guided you to his bed and gently pushed you backwards. His shirt slid over his head and you admired his body, looking at him in a different light. He never took his shirt off around you with sexual intentions but this was new. And fun.

You smiled at him, both of you acknowledging what you were about to do. It made you explode inside thinking about how much you were enjoying this, letting someone else take control and letting go. You shouldn’t be enjoying this, you thought. Snap out of it.

“Before we start, is there anything you really don’t like?” He asked, reaching for the button of your denim shorts. You nodded side to side, giving him permission to pull the shorts down your legs.

He immediately pulled your thong aside and slipped a finger between your folds. He smiled feeling the wetness. “Thinking about us fucking is turning you on, isn’t it?”

“Don’t embarrass me,” you shot him a look and he understood.

“I’m not embarrassing you. It’s sexy.” He kneeled between your legs on the floor.

“Well, keep it to yourself,” you said.

“Why would I keep it to myself when I have physical proof that thinking about us is turning you on?” One of his fingers easily slid inside of you and your hips shifted as you rolled your eyes at him. “Is this okay?” He asked, concerned by your movements.

“Yes,” you said, unsure of what else to say. You didn’t want to give him any more ammo to make fun of you. You told each other everything but this was one side of you he never saw, and you didn’t think he ever would. Vulnerability at its finest, but you agreed to this.

His finger moved in and out of you and the sounds of your wet pussy made you want to cover your face and hide. He added a second and slowly curled his fingers up to hit your g-spot. A soft moan escaped your lips despite the fact that you were trying hard to keep them to yourself.

“Tell me how it feels.” He said.

“It feels,” you took a moment to breathe in, “so good.” He used his other hand to play with your clit, causing you more pleasure. You were looking at the ceiling, finding it hard to acknowledge that Charles was the one making you feel like this. If you squeezed your eyes shut hard enough, maybe this wouldn’t be something you needed to worry about.

A euphoric feeling began to build in your stomach, your legs slowly going numb in the best way possible. You continued to try and hold in your moans but when you hit your climax, everything was uncontrollable. Your body jerked and moans fell as you rode out your high.

You opened your eyes to see Charles pulling his fingers out and smiling. He made you feel that way and while you lay half naked on his bed post-orgasm, it was starting to feel okay. How much more vulnerable could you get with him than this?

He stood up and pulled his sweatpants off, his hard cock springing out of his cotton boxers. Your jaw dropped and you couldn’t help but stare as he stroked himself, preparing for you. He noticed, but ignored it, granting your request of not embarrassing you. The look he shot you was enough to know that he was aware of your stares.

“I’m only gonna say it one more time,” he said, leaning on top of you with his hands on either side of your head. “You need to tell me how it feels, or I’m going to start talking really dirty with you.”

You laughed, feeling more relaxed than before. “I almost want to keep quiet on purpose just to see that.”

He dipped his head in disappointment. “Not funny.”

“I think I’m pretty funny.”

“You are, but I want to make you feel good. I’d rather know then instead of you telling me I sucked after.”

“Okay, okay,” you obliged. He nodded and positioned himself at your entrance, slowly pushing himself inside of you.

You had to adjust to his size - his dick was nothing like his fingers. He didn’t give you much time before he started moving and you didn’t even care. He felt so good inside of you and seeing his body on top of you was putting you at ease rather than stressing you out, like you had expected it to.

His head rested in the crook of your neck, giving you perfect access to his ear. Almost like he did it on purpose, to make you more comfortable. You didn’t have to look at him in the eyes and admit how good he was making you feel. “Your dick feels so good,” you whispered in his ear and he grunted in response.

“You’re so tight, fuck,” he said into your ear, slightly nibbling on the lobe.

His hips moved rhythmically while you lifted your feet onto his back to change the angle. You couldn’t help but let more moans slip out at the feeling. “I think I’m gonna cum,” you said, quietly.

“Let go,” he said followed by a few expletives. His pelvis ground into you, creating a sensation on your clit you’ve never experienced.

You felt your second orgasm of the night build up as he continued to fuck you, keeping the same pace. You held your hands on his back and let moans fall to his ear making sure he knew how good you felt.

He pulled out of you and your body felt like deadweight. You were glued to the bed and couldn’t find the energy to get up. “How was that?” He asked. Of course he couldn’t give you a second to recover before opening his mouth.

“Great,” you smiled, propping yourself up on your elbows. “Did you finish?” You sure hadn’t felt him cum inside of you and you don’t think he wore a condominium either.

“No, but I just wanted to make sure you felt good.” He picked his sweatpants up off the floor and went to put his boxers back on before you stopped him.

“Unacceptable. I’m not going to let you jerk off thinking about me two nights in a row. Especially not after I was just naked in your bed.” Your post-orgasm confidence was showing when you dropped to your knees in front of him and took his still hard cock in your hand.

Slick juices still covered it, making it easier for you once you took him in your mouth. He was bigger than you expected, so you started swirling your tongue around the tip while your hand worked at the rest of him. “Shit,” you could hear him say.

You slowly took more of him, hollowing out your cheeks in response to his moans. His hand found the back of your head but rested there, not wanting to pressure you for more but he couldn’t resist once you fit almost all of him in your mouth.

The sounds he made caused butterflies in your stomach knowing that you were the sole reason for those sounds. His grip got tighter on you and he started to thrust into you when you felt a warm liquid shoot down your throat.

His eyes rolled to the back of his head and he grunted while you took every last drop. You stood up and took a step back, swiping your finger over your bottom lip.

He looked at you with the same eyes you looked at him after he finished fucking you. “So, uh,” he said. “Where do we go from here?”

You nervously looked around the room. “Should we finish the movie?”

“Great idea.”

You both put your clothes back on and sat back on the couch. “Let’s talk about that.” He never knew when to shut up, but sometimes it was for the better.

“What about it?”

“Did you like it? Should we do it again? Do you want to move out?” You laughed at his last question.

“It was really good,” you said, your thoughts wandering to just a few moments ago. You wouldn’t mind having him on top of you again. “We might as well.”

“Just one more thing,” he said. “Don’t fall in love with me.” He smiled and let out a giggle. You weren’t sure if he was being serious or not, but you laughed along too.

#f1 imagine #charles leclerc smut #f1 smut #f1 x reader #f1 blurb #smut prompts #f1 fanfic #charles leclerc prompt #charles leclerc blurb #charles leclerc imagine #charles leclerc x reader #cl

607 notes · View notes

honeyabyss · 4 years ago

Text

Mc falling asleep next to them

Lucifer:

he had been working nonstop for hours now and the pile of yet to be read and signed documents wasn't getting any smaller

you had been sitting in his study silently working on your own assignments, that was until you've finished them about an hour ago

pacing his room in boredom and looking at the stuff he keeps in his closets (mostly books, records and demonus)

"Could you stop wandering around, you're irritating me!" Lucifer is stressed, annoyed, etc and your sighs, constant footsteps and opening and closing of closet doors, didn't help him to concentrate

you could have left the room and found something else to do, but you were determined to spend some time with him, as the evening work hours are quite literally the only hours where you can be alone with him

so instead you seeked permission for putting on a record to have at least some entertainment, which was both a good and a bad choice at the same time

yes you had something to enjoy and relax to, but the relaxing part worked a little bit too well

after a good ten minutes you were sleeping peacefully, stretched out all over his sofa with no care in the world

"I'm going to take a small break and get some coffee. Do you want something as well?" Lucifer asked only to be met with silence, which he didn't appreciate

he was about scold you for being rude, when his gaze fell on your sleeping form and the words seemed stuck in his throat

how could you sleep so peacefully right next to one of the strongest demons of hell, he honestly didn't know if he was pleased you found comfort in his presence or if he should be annoyed that you don't take him serious enough

nonetheless you seemed to have a good sleep and as this is often near impossible in the House of Lamentation, he decided to let you sleep

he got himself his coffee and once back in his study he moved his workplace to the small coffee table and took a seat next to you on the sofa

he adjusted your form so you weren't hanging half of the edge and put his coat over your sleeping form for some warmth

"Foolish little lamb, letting your guard down in a house of wolves, good thing I'm here to protect you..."

Mammon:

"And then I, the Great Mammon, made an action movie worthy escape and totally didn't run away in a panic, because Lucifer was chasing me..."

he had been telling you how exactly he got into the situation of hanging from the ceiling once again, as you've tried as careful as possible to cut him free, which was harder then expected with the way he kept moving around

once finally free, he dropped onto the ground, whining about the rope burns he got basically all over his body, though demons heal quicker, it still wasn't a nice feeling

with a sigh you offered him your hand and pulled him up and away to your room to give him some of the salve Satan had made you the last time you had accidentally cut yourself while cooking

you sat a flustered Mammon onto your bed while you went ahead and searched through your bathroom cabinets that were filled with products Asmo had gifted you, when you finally found it you asked Mammon to hold still while you put some salve onto his burned skin

"W-what?! N-no way! I don't need your help, I can do that on my own!" and with that Mammon stormed away with your salve and locked himself into your bathroom

you knew better then to argue at this point, Mammon would do what Mammon wants to do...until he fails and seeks protection behind your back...

be it because he is embarrassed, doesn't know how to open the salve tube, or because there were so many rope burns...but Mammon took quite long to apply the crème, leaving you to wait for him for at least half an hour now

helping out Mammon can become quite tiring, not that you mind helping him or don't like being around him, but a nap sounds nice right now

and so you lay down in your bed, it is after all your room, and just because Mammon is currently camping out in your bathroom, doesn't mean that you can't take a nap

Mammon comes out of the bathroom a few minutes later, he probably needed a few more minutes to build up courage to face and thank you, but he is met with the sight of you sleeping on your bed

Mammons brain is working overdrive, trying to figure out if he should leave the room quietly, wake you up or stay and watch over you...then again he doesn't want to be seen as a creep by you, but he can't deny that he would like to stay with you

he carefully climbs into bed and pushes you a bit further in so you sleep on the wall side and don't fall off in case you move, it takes five more minutes until Mammon risks putting his arm around you all while holding his breath in anticipation of your rejection, when none comes he settles a little closer to you and falls asleep as well

"Don't worry my human, the Great Mammon is gonna keep you warm and protected in your sleep!"

Bonus: even though you two fall asleep next to each other with only Mammons arm wrapped around you, expect him to wake up on top of you holding you like your his pillow

Leviathan:

it was 5am and Levi and you were currently waiting in line in front of a shop to get your hands on a new limited edition Ruri-Chan figurine

surprisingly enough even though you turned up quite early, there were a good amount of people in front of you

the shop would only open a 9am so you still had a long time to queue in the coldness of the devildom morning

"Ah that is not fair! We planned everything so carefully, it was the perfect timing, why aren't we first in line?" Levi complained while standing on his tiptoes to be able to see and count the demons in front of him, coming to the conclusion that if everyone were to buy one figurine he'd still be able to buy one for himself...and whatever you might want

you weren't the happiest when he told you about his plan a few weeks prior and getting woken up this early you might have been a little slower than usual in getting yourself ready, now that you were here you couldn't help but feel a little guilty

you tried to cheer Levi up with the argument that if you were longer in line that also meant you could spend more time together, which resulted in Levi turning into a blushing but happy mess

you put down the blanket you've brought and made yourself comfortable on it, Levi joining you but looking a bit stiff from the closeness

you ate a breakfast consisting out of sandwiches made with whatever was left after Beels midnight snack, which wasn't much but better than nothing

afterwards as there was still a lot of time to pass you started to play some games on his Switch, trying to stay awake

the emphasis lies on 'trying', because after 2 hours or so you start to fall asleep, eyelids and limbs heavy, you don't have the energy left in you to fight the sleep and so you nod off, your head falling onto Levis shoulder who had been inching closer over the period of time...to be able to better see the Switch display not to be closer to you...

Levi.exe has stopped working

there he sits red as a tomato with Mc sleeping on his shoulder, the queue in front of him starts to pack up and move as the shop gets ready to open up, his Switch display is showing the game over screen, his mind feels fogged over and he has no idea how to react now

Mc just fell asleep and Levi feels guilty to wake them...but they have to move...

"H-hey Mc? T-the line i-is moving? Wake up....please..." his attempts are way to quiet for you to hear and even as he gently shakes your shoulder you do not wake, leaving Levi quiet in a dilemma

"N-no other choice..." he says as he packs up the stuff alone, leaving only you sitting on the cold floor...he can't just leave you here..

Levi turns into his demon form, his hands shaking and eyes flitting across your from and over the crowd of other demons, before he carefully lifts you into his arm, his tail wrapping around you as well for more stabilization, so he has one hand free to carry his shopping bag later

he never bought something faster than that day, he got his figurine and even bought you some anime merch he knew you had stated to like, all while feeling like he was running the worst fever of his life and receiving stares, giggles and smug smiles from way too may people, that was enough attention for at least a century for Levi...but he did like holding you in his arms

"This is not fair! I have to deal with all the embarrassment while you sleep...but I guess it's okay if it's for you..."

Satan:

Satans last anger fit had caused way more damage than usually, it had taken place in the library when Mammon had tried to steal a very rare book about spells, to sell it after he found out how rare it actually is...now that lead to Satan throwing down and emptying almost all bookshelves and kicking Mammon through the room

While Mammon was strung upside down from the ceiling, Satan was forced to clean up the library alone, but you had pity on him as there were quite a lot to clean up, if Lucifer doesn't find out you helped there will be no consequences

Satans opinion about you helping was split, first of all he was really thankful for the help even though he was at fault for the chaos, having to clean up all alone was a bit much, but on second thought Satan was worried that you tried to go against Lucifers orders, he's proud of you for defying his eldest brother but also feels like it's a stupid idea

but you have made your mind up and so while Satan repairs and stands up the shelves, you begin to put the books in, you might not know the exact way they stood like Satan, but for now getting them off the floor is the priority

there aren't many words spoken as you silently work away, only once in a while you point out a book which got a bit more damage, the cover hanging off loosely or a few pages ripped out, you two decide depending on the damage if it can be fixed or not

every now and then Satan asks you to hold a piece of a shelf together while he fixes it, he is surprisingly fast and knows exactly how to repair it...just as if he had to do it more than once in a while...

"Oh Mc? Can you give me the screwdriver? No no that one, the one with the cross head is what I need..." you had no idea there were so many different tools, and wouldn't be the slotted one sufficient if you just angled it right? Satan just laughs and let's you try it for yourself, only for you to fail, he then shows you how to do it correctly guiding you through fixing your first shelf

"The last shelf is standing again, I'll help you with the book now." Satan pointed out, a small ray of hope now that only the books were left, you didn't reply, which honestly wasn't really necessary, but a small affirming noise would have been nice, so Satan tries to keep the 'conversation' going, while he works on the books with his back turned to you

"...you're still ignoring me? Are you angry at me for making such a mess? You know you didn't have to help...you can go, no need to act like all high and mighty!" he was getting angry again, yes he did make a mess, but he didn't do anything to you! Had he? He couldn't remember, but humans might interpret actions and words differently…he didn't want you to be mad at him, and neither did he want to get angry at you, but with you ignoring him it became quite difficult to keep his voice low

having enough and wanting to make up before it gets worse, he makes his way over to you, who was leaning against a shelf with a book in your hand

as he sits down next to you and turns your body to him through a guiding hand on your shoulder, he startles, you fell asleep in a sitting position? That sounds more like something Belphie would do...Isn't that uncomfortable?

You must have been exhausted after filling up three shelves of books and fell asleep midway on your fourth shelf, Satan chuckles amused and relieved you aren't mad at him but simply sleeping

He picks you up and brings you to your room where he lies you down in your bed, covering you with the blanket and hesitantly stroking your hair before going back to cleaning up the library

"Thank you for being so patient with me and helping me! You can rest now and I'll make it up to you later!"

Bonus: he will most definitely take you out on a date of your choice, even if he doesn't enjoy the idea as much as you

Asmodeus:

Asmo had taken you out shopping, as he claimed his wardrobe was not having the right clothes anymore so he had to get new ones fast

he had dragged you through town for the whole day and you two only returned home late in the afternoon, you completely exhausted and ready to drop in your bed, while Asmo while being slightly tired, still insisted on putting on all the clothes and showing them off to you and his followers on Devilgram

he entrusted you with his D.D.D to take some nice amazing shots of him to gain even more followers, though that seemed impossible as it already felt as if the whole population of hell was already subscribed to his account

but as long as all you had to do was hold the D.D.D up and click the screen for a picture, you were fine, you sat down on Asmos bed trying not to disturb the bags of clothes that lay there as well

Asmos screen lit up nearly every few seconds with a new message, how did this man not get crazy with all the message?! And he must check them all, because whenever you write him, he is on and writing back instantly...maybe you should steal his D.D.D from time to time to get him away from it...

While Asmo was changing into new clothes in the bathroom, you could hear him humming a happy tune, clearly in his element and enjoying his time, which made you happy as well, but the exhaustion was still plaguing you and the bed felt unbelievably comfy and on top of that the humming of Asmo was slowly lulling you into sleep

"Oooh Mc~ I especially like this top! Just look how nicely it fits, it shows of my best parts, which are all of me haha...hey Mc?~ Look at me!" Asmo pouted as you stayed put on his bed, and climbed over your form, already expecting you to start pushing him off, only to get concerned when you don't

then he sees your eyes are closed and you seem to be peacefully asleep, he instantly coos at your sweet sleeping expression, the back of his hand caresses you cheeks softly, but you don't react much besides moving a bit into am ore comfy position

Asmo backs off and begins to put down his bags, then he tucks you under his covers and climbs right in with you, pulling you close so that you lie on his chest, his arms encircling you to keep you put

the pictures for Devilgram are forgotten for now, they're not running away anyway, you two can continue another time, but for a beauty nap sounds good

"Oh Mc! You look so cute when you're sleeping...next time tell me you need a break, I'm happy to cuddle you while you're recovering!"

Beelzebub:

you had decided to stay a bit longer at RAD today, because you still had something to discuss with one of the teacher, as well as doing some research for an essay that was due next week

most of the brothers had already left for home or different work related activities, except Beel who had Fangol practice today after school, and as you were not allowed to walk around the Devildom without someone accompanying you for protection, all that was left for you was to wait for Beel to finish his practice, which usually took place for about two hours

you sat down on one of the benches at the side of the field, waving to Beel so he knew you where you were and could keep an eye on you

you worked away on your homework and checked you D.D.D from time to time replying to all the messages you got

the practice seemed to be still not finished even after two hours had passed and you were getting a bit tired from sitting around, but you also couldn't just wander off, Beel might start worry...plus the risk of running into a less friendly demon was still a thing

so you shifted from one position into another not really being able to get comfortable on the hard wooden bench

the ground seemed to be comfier with every minute passing, and so you lay down ignoring the weird looks of the team and trainers, you're body simply wasn't made to sit on this bench longer than necessary

"Here you can wrap yourself in this...it's getting cold. Training is almost over, just hold out a few more minutes!" Beel came over and gave you his jacket and you quickly put it on revelling in his warmth

but here is the problem the jacket made you feel so comfortable that you fell asleep, right on the floor next to a few dozen demons

"We're finished! I'm hungry, let's go get something to eat, any wishes what you want?" Beel was packing his stuff and rambling on about how he could eat at least one year worth of food, training having starved him quite a lot

but when you didn't respond he grew worried and kneeled down next to you, gently resting his hand on your side, he simply laughed when he saw you fell asleep, he is used to it due to Belphie, so he carefully picks you up and carries you home, deciding to order food once there

just Beel giving you a piggy back home, softly smiling to himself and being happy you've come to be so at ease around demons..still at bit worried, but he'll protect you, no worries

"I'll stay by your side until you wake up...and then we can eat lots of good food...please just don't sleep too long or I might have to eat before you wake up."

Belphegor:

so there he was, sleeping, on your bed, in your room, without an invitation...and honestly it wasn't even a surprise anymore, coming home after a work shift at Hell's Kitchen and just wanting to sleep, but no there was no space for you on the bed

I have no idea how, but he manages to occupy the whole bed, and hog blanket and pillows to himself as well

if only he was easy to wake, just to tell him to move over, but no he wouldn't wake up unless you pulled the big guns and nobody wants to face the consequences after one dumped water bottle on his head, it would be a hundred times easier and less dangerous to wake Satan

but you were really tired and just wanted to cuddle into your bed, maybe you could maneuver him with a bit strength..actually forget that...you could always call Beel for help to carry him to his own bed, but by the way he was clinging to your blanket and pillows, that would only end in a empty mattress to sleep on and then you would get cold...

honestly it was his own fault at this point you had threatened him to do it, but he had just laughed it off...

and so you climbed into bed and lay down on top of him, wrapping your arms around him so that you would get at least his body warmth if not the blanket

to your surprise he didn't wake up and he was really comfy, his rhythmic breathing was really relaxing and it didn't take you long to fall asleep

after some time Belphie wakes up with you wrapped around him, he quickly realises that you're asleep, but is stunned nonetheless that you would actually have the guts to sleep on top of him with the risk of waking him up in a bad mood

"That's quite bold of you! You didn't think I will let that slip though, right?" he chuckles amused but shifts nonetheless to make room for you, his embrace is tight, and he hopes just a little bit that you wake up, so he can tease you, but you stay asleep looking content with your new position

"I suppose I could go for another nap...now that I have my favourite pillow with me, sleeping will be even better!" he cuddles you, just like the blanket and pillows...which you don't get any of by the way, but you get Belphie so that's even better, he's gonna keep you warm, don't worry

"You're such a odd human...no idea why I like you...anyway just stay here in my arms and sleep!"

Diavolo:

yesterday was amazing, Dia had taken you to a trip in the human world and you had showed him around, visiting as many places as you two could

what you didn't know was that he had actually sneaked out of the castle to spend time with you

well you didn't know until a very angry Barbatos opened a portal right in front of you two and started lecturing Dia for at least one hour

you felt a bit guilty that you were the indirect cause of this and quickly apologised to him promising to make it up

so here you were in Dias office, overseeing him to do his work so he couldn't sneak out again and Barb didn't have to find him

after all if the reason for sneaking out was right in his room then he had no reason to go, besides the intimidating amount of work left on his desk after yesterdays excurse

Dia worked concentrated for most of the time, only now and then staring out of the window or talking to you

"Isn't it boring to watch me work? I can work alone, I promise to run away...or else Barbatos might get a heart attack from shock of seeing me gone again" he chuckled while signing another document

you reassured you didn't mind sitting next to him in silence, you had a good book borrowed from Satan, tea and cookies from Barbatos and you could stare at Diavolo all day long

your last statement made Dia flush red quite quickly and he tried to distract himself with his work, he slouched over in his chair trying to escape your gaze, but you were having none of it

your arms snaked around his waist and your head came to lean on his shoulder, Dia stiffened not sure how to react he liked the feeling of you hugging him, but now he was scared to move too much as not to disturb you or accidentally hit you with his elbow while trying to write

after a few more documents his eyes flit over to your face, cheek squished against his shoulder, eyes closed and breathing calmly

"Mc? Are.. are you sleeping?" he is whispering trying not to be too loud in case you are truly sleeping, and that you are! A soft smile graces his lips, nobody was ever this relaxed around him, he is proud and wants you to stay asleep as long as possible

he keeps working until Barbatos knocks on the door, coming in and announcing to have brought more tea, only to stop when he sees the sight in front him, Mc holding onto Dia, head resting on his shoulder and sleeping, while Dia put his finger to his lips to tell him not to be too loud

you sleep for an hour or so until Dia really has to move, apologising multiple times for having to wake you

"I'm glad you're able to relax around me, please continue to be yourself! My shoulder is always there for you to nap!"

Barbatos:

"You liked the cake that much? I'm flattered! I could teach you how to make it if you'd like?"

you had been over for tea at the castle and the chocolate cake with black-as-hell cherries was the best cake you've ever ate, it was bittersweet in taste not too much sweetness and not too much bitterness, paired with the melting chocolate, you could have eaten the whole cake on your own

you doubt you'd be able to get the same ingredients in the human realm but maybe you could find similar ones, so you were more than willing to learn with Barbatos

and so you arranged to meet the next Sunday afternoon for a baking session

Barb let you into the castle already awaiting you at the door even though you were early

you two worked on the cake, Barb explaining each step carefully, even for the easiest steps he takes his time to explain and help you, being very patient with you no matter how much you screw up

"Next we have to melt the chocolate in a pot. Wait a minute I turn on the stove for you" while you put the chocolate pieces into a pot, Barb moves behind you and turns on the stove, his arms brushing your sides, yet he stays fully focused, what can't be said for you

the cake is put together quickly with you two working together and while it bakes in the oven and the chocolate is meting, you two go ahead and start cutting and coring the rest of the cherries to decorate the cake later

"Here have a taste, they're bitter at first but the aftertaste is nicely sweet!" He holds out a cored cherry for you to taste and eats one himself, smiling gently at you while you sniff at the fruit first, which smells exactly like a normal human world cherry

the only thing left to do is wait for the cake so you two sit down for some tea at a small table in the kitchen, talking about the week, when Diavolo calls for Barb and he quickly excuses himself to help the prince out

the sweet aroma of the baking cake, the warmth of the tea and the very comfy chair you're sitting in, are a dangerous combination making you fall asleep

as Barb returns he sees you with your head lying on your folded arms on the table, clearly asleep, Barb decides to eave you there while cleans the kitchen and checks on the cake half an hour later

"Mc? The cake is ready to be decorated do you want sleep or do you want to help me?" somewhat embarrassed you stand up and help him with the decorations , Barb acts if nothing happened but he can't help but think about your gentle expression while you slept

"Next time I'll let you sleep longer... I wouldn't mind if you visited me for your naps if that meant I could see you more often."

Solomon:

learning magic was many things: exciting, frustrating, dangerous, fun...but sometimes it also was unbelievable boring

like when you think about magic, you think about casting charms, curses, making potions and all that stuff, but nobody told you that beforehand you have to learn everything about the new spell or etc in theory!

so here you were sitting with Solomon as he rambled on about how while the shrinking charm could have really bad side effects if casted wrong, sure it was important to know how to cast it correctly but did you really have to listen on to everything that might go wrong?

listening to all this just make you feel less confident, I mean technically you were practicing with a tea cup to shrink, so shrinking only a part of it wouldn't be too bad of a side effect, but what if you used too much pressure and made the cup explode and you'd hurt Solomon in the process?!

You took a deep breath, which made Solomon stop talking as he looked at you questioningly

"Anything wrong? Already giving up? Is it toom much?" his light teasing was meant to make you relax, but all you could do was give a small, stiff smile, signalling for him to continue and he did, after messing up your hair with his hand giving you a huge grin, but he talked slower now giving you more glances to make sure you were still alright

"How about a small break? I'll make us some tea..." he stood up and made some tea...in a beaker over a Bunsen burner..this weirdo..

the tea didn't taste weird though, it was just normal tea, even though the preparation would have made Barbatos get a stroke

after the break he was back to full tutor mode and your concentration slipped with each new word, until your head falls down, your chin resting on your chest comfortably, you had fallen asleep right before him

Solomon notices instantly that you're asleep and starts laughing so loud that you wake up again, he is crying and gasping for breath at your flustered state and you hit for good measurement on the arm

"Am I that boring? Fine if you're tired you can rest on my bed. I'll read you a bedtime spell book..." he doesn't stop laughing and teases you endlessly, you better be on your toes around him, you won't be hearing the end of this

"Hey sleepyhead? Do you want me to read you into boredom? I won't take pictures of your sleeping and drooling self...No promises made though..."

Simeon:

He was staring blankly at his manuscript, writers block had been plaguing him for quite some while now, but the new chapter had to be sent to the company until next week

you had offered to help him out maybe you could give him some ideas, so he invited you over and let you read the latest chapter so you'd know what had happened

you sat in his room brainstorming ideas on a small extra sheet trying your best to help Simeon out who looked quite lost

"Do you think that would work? Doesn't if feel a bit too rushed? But maybe if we combined these two ideas together..." he seemed to had found something and began to roughly write up a plan for his further writings

he continuously asked you questions about the smallest details, it was kind of cute that he relied so much on you, he probably could have done the rest himself as well, yet he kept involving you into the whole process

while his one hand scribbled like a madman, his other rested on your arm occasionally lightly squeezing it, reminding you that he didn't forget about you

you slowly fell asleep, the sounds of each others breathing, the pen scratching over paper and the ticking of the clock hanging on the wall, the inly sounds to be heard

"What about this part? How do you think it could go from here?...Mc?" he wasted no time in making sure you were lying comfortably, putting his cloak over your form and still squeezing your arm from time to time while he continued to write late into the night

only then did he notice, the brothers might worry about your absence, should he wake and bring you home? or should he let you sleep here and inform Lucifer about your safety? but the sofa you were currently sitting on, would make your back hurt if you continued to sleep here

it took him some time debating with himself, but came to the conclusion to carry you to his bed and tuck you in, giving you a forehead kiss like he was used to with Luke, only to realise what he'd done and quickly scrambling away in embarrassment to give Lucifer a quick call about the situation

"Have sweet dreams my lamb! I'll be guarding you in any realm, even the dream realm!"

Luke:

Luke, Simeon and you were having a small movie evening, watching some old Disney movies

Simeon didn't allow you to watch something else to protect Luke, but you didn't mind too much

you were having some freshly made desserts by Luke who had worked on them the whole day, as he was very excited for your meetup

you watched a few movies, talking, laughing and joking together, just having fun

"Huh? They called the mean cat Lucifer? Hahah how fitting, he kind of even looks like the real Lucifer! Ah, don't tell him that though!" Luke really liked to compare the different characters to the people he knows, but when there actually were a cat called Lucifer he was quite surprised...who would want their cute pet to be called like a demon? Why not call them angel names? Michael is a pretty cool name...

over the time you became more and more tired and Simeon seemed to notice, suggesting on stopping for today and continuing another time, but Luke convinced you two of one more movie

unfortunately you didn't last the final movie and fell asleep cuddled underneath the blanket between Simeon and Luke

Luke took some time to notice, only seeing it when he turned to you wanting to tell you his opinion about the last scene

"Oh! Simeon... Mc fell asleep..." Simeon already knew, as you had fallen onto his shoulder, not that he minded, he just told Luke to stay quiet and watch the rest of the movie

Luke cuddled up to you to keep you warm and occasionally glanced at you to make sure you were okay, and there cuddled next to you he as well fell asleep...trapping Simeon underneath your combined weight, making it impossible for Simeon to get out of the bed, so you three just slept together that night

"Don't worry Mc! I'll keep all demons away from you while you sleep!"

#obey me headcanons #obey me #swd obey me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me belphegor #obey me beelzebub #obey me simeon #obey me diavolo #obey me barbatos #obey me luke #obey me solomon #obey me shall we date #headcanon

2K notes · View notes