#their music makes me weep it’s so wonderful

[anachronisticmech]

Having autistic mechs thoughts I love them so much I’m genuinely crying so much right now

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[naneki-maid]

Dear March-Come in-

How glad I am…

[meowzfordayz]

analysis (; — hashira men

Author’s Note: took this not-actually-a-prompt and got carried away heh... 😌

analysis (; — hashira men

Himejima Gyomei x Reader, Iguro Obanai x Reader, Rengoku Kyojuro x Reader, Shinazugawa Sanemi x Reader, Tomioka Giyuu x Reader

Word Count: ~2,200

CW: 18+NSFW, degrading language, explicit language, Fem!Reader, oral, spit, squirting

Thirst Fulfilled: I NEED someone to settle an argument between me and a friend-

Do you think sanemi has a big [redacted]-

Because I KNOW he is packing a huge one.

Ps I’m sorry but I don’t know who else to ask 😭

~faqs~

Update as of 12 May 2023: A foreword that these headcanons are first and foremost indulgent !! 😌 They are not intended to be realistic. They’re supposed to be fun. Hot. 🥵 Within the realm of possibility, but not ~normal. 😉

Dick so big it has him blushing 🤭

—I mean, c’mon: Look at him 😳

That being said, it’s also very pretty — not monstrous or scary (besides its size heh)

A nice, rounded head that oozes precum throughout foreplay, sensitive and rosy pink as you flick your tongue across it, thick and heavy balls tightening at the breathy moan in your throat

A delicate vein curves from its base to the underside of the tip, thankfully not too pronounced, bc it’ll stretch you out enough regardless

Speaking of stretch…

Your fingers can barely wrap around its girth — it’s much easier to drool and lap at the shaft than commit to anything close to deep throating (unless your jaw stamina’s through the roof 👀)

Doesn’t exactly groom himself, but that isn’t too much of an issue since it’s not like his pubic hair’s getting in your way too often (re: dick too huge to regularly deepthroat) 

As for length, Gyomei’s in the ball park of ~reasonable (10 inches when erect), but it still requires a hell of a lot of prep before you’re fully seated on his cock, ass flush against his flexed thighs while large, sweaty hands grip your hips in a feeble attempt to restrain himself from immediately thrusting into your dimly throbbing cervix

“This okay?” he murmurs, thumbs pressing firmly into the softness of your skin, low groan caught in his chest at the suffocating heat of your pussy, your shaky, faintly pained breaths keeping his desire in check

“Take as much time as you need,” as you use his stomach to steady yourself, muscles rippling beneath your palms

“You feel wonderful,” whispered gently—patient as ever—even as he longs to raise your trembling body up and almost off of his cock, only to fuck the air out of your lungs w/ a single, smooth drop of your wanton weight, unsuspecting wail music to his ears as you convulse in orgasm at the overwhelming pressure of his cock stuffing your puffy walls

Obanai’s closer to average, but he isn’t small (at least, his dick isn’t 😆 #short king)

Def a grower, slim, veiny shaft elongating (to ~6 inches) as you stroke him w/ a practiced flick of your wrist

Not exactly related to his dick, but he also def growls during foreplay, needy and eager to melt into you and to ruin you — just depends on his mood, yanno?

His head is the kind of head that you almost wanna chomp 🤗, all squishy, bulbous, and fat, quickly reddening and weeping precum, making a mess of your fingers

Perfect lubrication for touching yourself while sucking him off, gleam in his eyes at how filthy you are

Typically can’t be bothered to trim his pubic hair, but it doesn’t get especially long anyway — more so coarse and curly

His shaft doesn’t stretch you out significantly, sliding easily into your slick heat, hovering above you as his hands keep your legs parted widely, “You like being splayed out for me, hm?” pinching lightly at your inner thigh, grinning smugly as you whimper contently, “My precious plaything.”

But it (his shaft) does have a wicked, upward curve, tip grinding firm and repetitive against the spongy bundle of nerves deep in your pussy

And its veins 🤤

What he lacks in girth, he makes up for in texture

Plus, Obanai 11/10 fucks aggressive and erratic, pubic bone flush to your clit, friction delicious and constant as he thrusts full force into your hole, sweat dripping from his brow onto your clavicle, his eyes narrowed in lust and passion, balls slapping sticky against your asshole, less concerned about hurting you since he’s aware that he isn’t ~the biggest guy on the block

Altho, if he’s tired, then he lowkey enjoys you on top, edging him w/ every slow and steady undulation of your hips, your tits pressed warm and hot to his chest as he clings to you and the squelch of your cunt

For whatever reason, my immediate thought was: Raging! Hard! On! 😂😍

Kyojuro’s absolutely packing, but still decently proportionate to his stature (177cm aka 5’10”)

—Bc, contrary to porn-pular belief, comically large dicks hurt 😒💀

8 inches erect, and a sizeable bulge when flaccid

—Never thought I’d use this term, bc (imo) it’s hot when I’m horny, but 🥴 when I’m ~sober 😆…

BREEDER BALLS

As much as Kyojuro loves worshiping your pussy, he might love when you worship his balls more 🤭

You kissing, sucking, licking his balls while he jerks himself off = 100% orgasm guarantee

Drooling on his shiny, reddening tip, your spit trickling down between his fingers, making a mess of your lips as you return to fondling his balls w/ your mouth?

110% orgasm guarantee

Prefers cumming on your tits, btw — will stave off his orgasm until you can get ~in position ☺️

Nothing like an even messier round two 😎

Bc, ofc, he is more than happy to reciprocate the pleasure 💞

W/ enough girth to warrant a gradual sinking (vs an abrupt thrust to the hilt), his shaft fills you breathless, its last couple of inches just barely fitting into your heat

“Can’t believe you’re already hard again,” you giggle delightedly, eyes hazy as he smears his cum across your nipple, throbbing head pressing deeper into your pussy, “You’re insatiable, I swear.”

A heady groan is his only response, gaze bright and attentive as always, reaching for your hand, dipping your thumb into his cum splatter, tasting himself on your skin as he maintains eye contact

“Fuck,” you gasp, pussy clenching at his nonchalance, tongue swiping subconsciously along your bottom lip

“Taste?” he offers, enthusiastic tone muted by the determined pressure of him lapping at your other nipple, his cum bitter and warm as he kisses you sloppy and needy, grip gentle on your jaw as he inhales your scent

And then you whisper Umai!

One word: brutal 😵‍💫

Not bc he’s ridiculously hung (i.e. Gyomei), but bc he’s ridiculously good (at using his dick)

—I actually headcanon Sanemi being a ~bashful virgin (sex can be intimate, and intimacy can be scary, but he loves you, so if that means being soft and scared w/ you… then he’s willing to go there 🥺🤍), buuut once he’s comfortable/well practiced?

—😈😈😈

Not much of a show-er when flaccid (and absolutely, positively shriveled when cold 😂), but an ideal 7 inches when erect w/ girth in between Gyomei and Kyojuro (slimmer than Gyo, thicker than Kyo)

His tip seems to get ~angrier the longer you tease him, going from an almost cute pink to an engorged, lustful red — def the hardest part about fitting him in your pussy, breath catching every time he finally slips into your dripping hole

Which, he has to get you dripping before attempting to penetrate, or at least use lube, bc rushed sex + his dick = not super enjoyable

Alternatively, he’ll facefuck you to get his dick wet enough for your pussy, 7 inches manageable, albeit veering on unpleasant, your nails digging into his flexed ass as he shoves himself languid and satisfied into your mouth, head twitching and leaking precum down the back of your throat whenever you gag on his length

“Watch your teeth,” he grunts lowly, tugging warningly at your hair, swallowing a moan as his cock muffles your whimper, eyes watering at his roughness, “Don’t make me gag and choke you,” calloused fingers brushing soothingly—promisingly—at your neck

In terms of pubic hair, he keeps it neatly trimmed, but not clean shaven: he likes hearing—seeing—the filthy mess of your saliva, tears, and precum as he fucks up and into your pussy

“Is this fast enough for you?” he snarls, your body balanced precariously atop his pelvis, grip nearly bruising on your hips as he smirks knowingly, “Obviously not,” pace frenzied as you moan raggedly, “If you’re still moaning like a whore, then it isn’t fast enough.”

Feet shifting beneath him in search of a different angle, grin triumphant and deadly as you shout silently, head tilted backward, tits bouncing in mesmerizing sync w/ his thrusts

“There we go,” he murmurs, balls tightening at your fucked out expression, “There’s my perfect cunt, squeezing all pathetic and hopeless around my cock,” stamina never ending, pussydrunk on the feeling of you, “Can’t wait for you to cum on my cock, gonna make this cunt so fucking sloppy.”

The prettiest dick 😭

—Ik I mentioned Gyomei’s dick being pretty too, but Giyuu takes pretty to another lvl 🥺

Aka Giyuu has the Goldilocks Cock™ 💀

Just shy of 7 inches, w/ thin veins that curl neat and yummy around his shaft — which, btw, is thick enough to have you pushing on his shoulders Slowly, p-please as the tip catches on your entrance, his eyes hooded and glassy as he ignores you in favor of thrusting in further Sorry not sorry at all You feel so g-good

A faint shudder trembles down his spine, pooling in his groin, traveling along his girth, head twitching in the viscous grip of your heat

Maintains a tidy patch of pubic hair, delicate happy trail tantalizing and subtle whenever he stretches 🥱

As for his balls… once again: Goldilocks Balls™ 🤤

Optimally sized for sucking into your mouth, hanging beautifully even, downy hairs tickling your nose as he cups the back of your head, quiet groans spilling from his cherry bitten lips as you glance toward his fluttering lashes, your vision obscured by the muscle of his tensed inner thigh

Giyuu’s fave position? 

—for these headcanons, at least 😆

Cowgirl 🤠 #yee #haw

Your pussy clings to his shaft like a greedy vice, creamy essence smearing from your swollen folds to his lower abdomen, tits presented as you arch backward, using his legs to steady yourself as you fuck yourself on his (perfect) cock

“Touch yourself,” he demands softly, spreading your asscheeks w/ surprisingly cool hands, easily supporting your weight, eyes closing at the satisfying smack of your skin bouncing against his

“Touch yourself till you cum,” his biceps hardly straining as you chase your orgasm, rhythm smooth and delectable, “I want to feel you fall apart,” murmured slick and gentle, in stark contrast to the lewd squish of his balls tapping your asshole

“C’mon sweetheart, fall apart for me, so gorgeous on my cock, love feeling you gush all over me.”

—I pondered long and hard about Tengen’s dick (both puns intended 🤗)

—Lemme organize my thoughts for a sec…

—Girth (from wide to slim): Gyomei, Tengen, Sanemi, Kyojuro, Giyuu, Obanai

—Length (from long to ~short): Gyomei, Tengen, Kyojuro, Sanemi, Giyuu, Obanai

In other words, as the second tallest, Tengen also happens to be the second biggest 🙃

—I initially considered putting him behind Kyo in terms of length, but 198cm aka 6’6” vs 177cm aka 5’10”... the math just wouldn’t have mathed 😆

Erect, Tengen measures a solid 9 inches, and if Obanai’s dick is veiny, then Tengen’s dick = veins GALORE 😵

“Even my dick is flashy! 😎” “It has ✨decor✨!”

His shaft bends slightly downward (blame gravity — his dick’s so fucking heavy 😌), so certain positions can be a bit tricky, but damn if he doesn’t rearrange your insides 🤪

Def enjoys being the center of attention, fucking slow and confident into your stretched out hole, dirty talk muffled by Makio’s thighs as he maintains a steady rhythm licking her folds, Hina’s index finger slim and practiced as she stimulates your clit, Suma’s tongue gliding wet and hot against Tengen’s taint

“What was that?” Makio coos, eyes twinkling as she grinds firmly onto Tengen’s mouth, “We can’t understand you dear,” squealing when he smacks her tits, “You seem a bit preoccupied, try speaking up.”

“S-shit,” you gasp, gripping Hina’s hand, pressure building as Tengen thrusts sharply into you, “D-don’t encourage him Makio,” whining as Hina latches onto your nipple, sucking lightly

“Why not?” Makio giggles, ass wiggling playfully, “Can’t take it?” knowing all too well that, ultimately, your pussy’s paying the price for her teasing

“Hm, you’re so messy babe,” Suma sighs contently, pausing her ministrations to kiss Tengen’s thigh, lips shiny w/ spit and your essence, “Seems like you want Makio to encourage him.”

Hina nods in agreement, eyes narrowed devilishly, twisting your other nipple, “Her clit’s throbbing,” spoken w/ unbearable casualness, “I think she’s going to cum.”

“Are you going to cum?” Tengen asks conversationally, finally taking a breath from Makio’s pussy, engorged tip twitching in your cunt, “I’ve hardly ruined you, and you’re already spasming on my cock.”

“T-tengen,” you whimper, clenching at his taunting tone, falling forward, cheek smooshed into Makio’s back, “So fucking d-deep,” stuttering as the new angle forces his fat head flush to the entrance of your cervix

“Think we can get her to squirt?” Tengen hums smugly, a hypothetical question, really, as you begin convulsing, pussy gushing messily onto his stomach, Hina’s hand glistening, ignoring your meek mewls of T-too much! as she continues rubbing your clit, Suma lapping at your cum as it coats Tengen’s balls, trickling between his asscheeks

[love-marimo]

Dancing in the Rain (Neuvillette x Reader)

Lolita's Note: ー in which you saw neuvillette standing by the porch in the midst of a downpour of rain ー you asked him to dance, and little did you know it soothed his aching heart.

This, again, is taken from the actual lore of the hydro dragon crying whenever it rains!

There is a common superstition passed down through the hushed whispers in Fontaine…

…that when it rains, it is said that the Hydro dragon weeps.

It is something that you have always wondered about. You always thought about the things that made the hydro dragon cry, because it happens quite often too.

With that said, you have come to a realization that the Hydro Dragon must have a tender heart.

One that is as gentle as a morning drizzle.

Yet one that is as powerful as a thunderstorm blaring through the darkest of nights.

When the latter happens, you seek the arms of the one you love, Neuvillette. And somehow, when your bodies find each other, you swear to the archons that the storm has calmed down.

Even just a little.

The thing about Neuvillette is he does not like to display his emotions.

But he is very polite and courteous. He does not like to make anyone feel excluded, despite working in an occupation where a cutthroat attitude is necessary.

One can say that his personality becomes two sides of the same coin.

There is a middle ground, though ー a blurred space that combines these said facets of his personality. One that he fails to hide every single time.

One that comes out when it rains.

"Darling? Neuvillette?" You shift on your shared bed in a half-asleep state, looking for him.

When you sense that he's not inside your bedroom, you lit up a lamp and searched for him in your shared home.

It's been raining pretty hard these days. Coincidentally in your point of view, Neuvillette has been acting odd. It's as if he's more uptight and aloof. You noticed that he also stays up pretty late ー sometimes you think he doesn't sleep at all.

Another strange thing he frequently does, is he stands by the front porch watching the downpour of rain.

So now you definitely knew where he is.

Slowly, you hesitated to reach for his hair, but you did anyway. Caressing it gently, he was taken by surprise for a moment before he turned to you and gave you a small smile.

"Oh, my dear. You should go back to bed. We still have two hours before it is morning." He curtly tells you before he holds you closer to him.

"It seems that you want me to stay, though." You chuckle, placing your hand on top of his.

He lets out a small laugh ー one that comes out as a content sigh.

The loud downpour of the rain calmed down into a somber drizzle.

"Do you still find storms scary?" He asked you, while he looked out to the distance. You nod in reply. He sighs once again, as if he's apologizing that it cannot be helped.

"As long as you're here, I'm going to be fine." You held his hand and took him with you outside, a sudden idea of dancing in the rain popped in your head.

"What are you doing?" He asked you, a bit alarmed.

"Let's dance in the rain!" You exclaim.

"You're going to catch a cold." Neuvillette tries to take you back inside.

"Then take care of me when that happens!" You retort.

Neuvillette laughs. It sounded more genuine now.

It continued raining, but unlike the violent storm before, it poured gently on your skin. The man brushes a wet strand of your hair that covered your face and smiles at you again.

"Very well. Lead the way, monsieur/mademoiselle." Neuvillette put his hand over his chest, while you held the hem of your dress shirt on both sides.

After you bowed, you took Neuvillette's hands and guided them ー one finds its way on your waist and the other holds your hand.

"We don't have music, so let's just pretend that we are dancing to the melody of the rain." You laugh, as you begin dancing to the rhythm of waltz.

You both shared tender laughs and danced in the rain like children, even if the only light that illuminated you were the lamps of your home.

"I am sorry. I should've stayed in bed. I don't want you to be the one seeking my presence every time you feel afraid, upset, or terrible in general." He sighs.

Just as you wonder if the hydro dragon has a human form, Neuvillette wonders if you already cracked the code.

"Hydro dragon, don't cry. Hydro dragon, don't cry." You started to chant softly, as if lulling a weeping child.

He softened at your expression. As he spun you around he asked,

"Where did you learn that?"

"Oh, nothing. I thought it would be nice if the Hydro dragon hears it. I mean, not that it would be of much help." You chuckle.

Neuvillette then finds himself repeating the same words.

"Yeah that's it, let's chant it together!"

Hydro Dragon, don't cry.

Hydro Dragon, don't cry.

Hydro Dragon, don't cry.

Neuvillette admires your gentle nature. One touch, one word, and one look ー all of his worries dissipate.

All of his woes disappear.

And of course, the heavy rainfall that he brings forth once he has a heavy heart stops.

Just like now.

"Oh? The rain stopped!" You squealed in excitement.

"Yes, it seems that the hydro dragon heard us." He replied.

The skies cleared to reveal the slight glimmer of light at the crack of dawn.

Looking up, you can still see the full moon.

"Come, let us go back inside and dry ourselves. We still have a few hours of sleep to catch." Neuvillette tells you, guiding you back to your shared home.

"I wonder if the Hydro dragon really heard us. I hope whatever troubles them is resolved soon." You say as he tucks you to bed.

To him, if it's you, then he can get used to your lullaby ー a hushed chanting of his name, one that seeks to comfort his sonder heart.

ー Lolita

[sunnylands-world]

the most hardcore smut you can make

i'm a sucker for your smut i'm sorry-

Mine

Pairing: draco malfoy x FEM reader

Summary: you wanted to be a brat so you'll just have to be put in your place for it…

Word count: 976

Warning: p in v, possessive draco, jealous draco, bratty reader, spitting, choking

Universe: Hogwarts

A/n: I hope you and everyone liked this. It's been a long time coming and I'm sorry about that. Hopefully this was worth the wait my loves…

You read the warnings if you continue to read. I'm not to be held responsible.

Comments, reblogs, and inboxes are appreciated and motivational

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Draco wasn't the type of guy to dance. He never really learned and he couldn't say he cared for it. you tugged at his sleeve pouting and begging him to dance just once but he wasn't one to change his mind so he told you no again. You huffed standing to your feet turning to him as you said

"Fine, if you won't dance I'll find another guy who will happily let me grind against him" and with that you walked away.

Who did you think you were?

Clearly you forgot who you belonged to but Draco didn't grab you then he let you play out your little act knowing you'd regret it later.

His eyebrows were knitted and the look in his eyes meant warning but you didn't care grinding your ass against the guy as he enjoyed himself looking like a kid in a candy store as he held your waist smiling far too happy to be touching something that wasn't his.

You smirked, adding extra sway to your hips as you looked at him and he stared back before nodding and walking off. He could tell you looked surprised as he headed towards his room.

When the party music got low he knew it was just a matter of time before you showed up and as if you heard his thoughts you knocked the door timidly.

He gave nothing away as he opened it and he saw the look of fear in your eyes which only fueled the need to punish you and as the door closed your back hit it making you gasp.

"Draco what are you-"

"Don't play dumb little girl, you know what you did" he says, cutting you off as his hands cup your face, puckering your lips into a pout as his thumb brushes over the bottom one.

"You're gonna swallow like a good girl" he says before spitting into your mouth and you know better than to test him swallowing and he gives your cheek a firm pat.

"Too bad you were so bad I was going to make this fun but I guess I will do that next time, hmm?"

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The sound of your moaning, coupled with Draco’s brutal thrust, fuel his own desire, making it nearly impossible to resist your pleas for more as he slams his cock into your needy pussy. You're tears streaming down your cheeks as you cry for him to slow down, that you can't take anymore.

Your heart pounds in your chest as you feel him reaching places that make you see stars, your pussy weeping, coating his length in your juices.

His face rests in the crook of your neck, whispering sweet nothings with his heavy breaths, ignoring your overstimulation. Your hands explore his back, nails caressing the muscles as they flex with the motion of his body, sending shivers through him to where he almost caves with the feeling of your touch.

With a mix of possession and lust, he comes from your neck eyes pouring into yours, giving you that sweet feeling deep in your belly once again. As his hardened length hits the spongy spot deep inside you. He can't help but groan in pleasure as you tighten around him, your walls throbbing weakly.

"Fuck," he growls, his voice laced with need. "I love feeling you wrapped around me, losing myself inside you while you look like you can’t take it." He moans

“But I know you can cause you were made to take this cock” he finishes, his eyes filled with possession wrapping his hand around your throat slowing your air supply and you wonder if you're well as you moan at the pressure.

He knows you can take it, you fucking love it and he may seem far gone but he pays attention to the look in your eyes and shake of your body telling him you like this.

"You're fucking mine" he mutters and you nod telling him your his.

With a sense of urgency, his pace quickens if that’s even possible, the heat of your core radiating against his throbbing length causes him to twitch inside your pussy as you whine.

“That’s right, tell me how good it feels pretty girl” he says, taking note of the high pitch sounds leaving you. you look so pretty with your face twisted in pleasure and it makes him more feral with his pace because he just needs to be buried inside that pretty pussy of yours.

His hair is ruined, a strand hanging over his forehead glistening with sweat.

He brings his hand down between you, fingers finding your clit easily in between your messy folds as he rubs tight, frantic, circles, smirking when you scream louder arching your back.

A guttural moan escapes his lips as he feels your walls clench around him, welcoming him into your depths. He can't help but revel in the sensations that consume him. The feeling of your body against his, the sound of yours and his mingling breaths, it all adds to the intensity of your connection.

With each thrust, he seeks to bring you more pleasure, to make you moan and writhe beneath him.

Draco grips the sheet beside your head, ensuring that every stroke is one of bliss and ecstasy for you.

In this moment, there are only you two, lost in a world of raw passion, desire, and possession. As your bodies move together, Draco can't help but feel grateful for the privilege of sharing this intimate connection with you, knowing that he gets to fuck you like this, gets to see you fall over the edge, and fill you to the brim, marking your throbbing walls with his cum.

You're his and you're gonna feel it as he makes you scream his name like the good girl you are.

His good girl…

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Draco lovers and requests

@alexxavicry,@kyracanwrite, @animeloverfreak310, @phildunphyisadilf, @lovelycassy

[charliehoennam]

hero's homestead

A/N: just a lil blurb I've had stuck on my mind and had to frigging get out since watching Road House

Pairing: Elwood Dalton x f!reader

Warnings: physical injuries, jealousy, kissing, mentions of grief and death

SHARING IS CARING, SO PLEASE REBLOG

Growing up in Glass Key made your face quite familiar around these parts. Everyone knew you, not because you were popular or from a rich family. Lord knows you wish you were.

But because the island was just so small, like a little fishbowl with too many sharks circling around their prey, everyone knew each other around here. However, the small island was full of a strong sense of community.

Your friendship with Charlie started while you were in high school. You were just a freshman and Charlie was six when Stephen and his wife would very often ask you to baby-sit.

Saying no to them was nearly impossible. Not only did they pay you well, but they always offered you a ride home and made you sure you had dinner before leaving. They really treated you like you were part of the family and helping one another in the community was just so normal.

They always treated you with welcoming kindness and respect so, if there was anything you could do to help them, you did it. Aside from baby-sitting Charlie, this included working at their book store.

You were around there most of the time. If you weren't at home or at school, you were at Glass Books.

As you got older, you started to spend less and less time there in order to focus on your own personal and professional life.

That didn't mean you were never around anymore. You still made your frequent stop to buy the new read of the week.

"Why don't you just get all the books you want for the month, so you don't have to keep coming back?" Charlie questioned genuinely curious.

"Nah, I like coming here. I like the service. And besides, you'd miss me too much, kid" you chuckled watching the young teenage ring your book up at the register.

When Stephen told you about his wife's illness, it really took you by surprise. She could've easily been voted the happiest woman of Glass Key. The aura she possessed could make the dullest room become the brightest. Her sense of humor would have even the most no-nonsense person cracking a smile. She was an amazing woman and a motherly figure to most.

The entire community mourned her loss. The blue sky and the tropical environment wasn't enough to brighten the day for your neighborhood's residents. The heavy rains that followed that entire week led you to believe that even the island was weeping for her absence.

Between medical expenses, funeral costs and a growing teenager, Stephen had to learn to be a single father quite fast. And that meant working a full-time job to make end's meet.

He asked you to help out with the store and you happily agreed. Glass Books was his wife's dream. She loved spending her days there, in the cozy little bookstore she'd built with the love of her life.

Although you know Stephen has a lot on his plate, you can't help but wonder if he wants to avoid the store and her memory altogether.

You refused to accept money for it, knowing the shop didn't make so much money. Even so, Stephen would still transfer you a small amount whenever he could and would often bring you breakfast, lunch or dinner because he felt it was the least he could do.

All you wanted to do was help.

He was more than grateful, especially when he saw how you could make Charlie laugh by putting on music and dancing in the middle of the store with her.

He could see her slipping into a dark place after the death of her mother. Dealing with his own pain, he did his best. But, you were the best friend she needed. A feminine figure she could go to talk about more embarrassing situations or just to get her mind off of the loss.

Gradually, it seemed like their small family was beginning to heal. Although the loss was a still a fresh wound, and Stephen would often find Charlie clutching a small portrait of her mother asleep in bed, they were managing to keep the pain at bay.

You understand how important this store to them. It represents so much more than being just a simple local book store. It represents her.

The store was just as special to you as it was to Charlie and Stephen.

It had always been your refuge, but now, it was always the place where you met him.

Charlie, with her overly friendly nature that she inherited from her mother, struck up a conversation with the then stranger just outside the bookstore.

Her overprotective father was soon outside within seconds. Although the friendly streak ran deep within him too, he knew these parts were full of men with bad intentions.

Once he realized the stranger wasn't from around, he felt a little more at ease.

Although you remained inside the shop, you could overhear their conversation as you inched towards the door and opened it to stand in the doorway, eyeing the stranger with caution.

Stephen was surprised to know he'd come out of town to work at the Road House. To be honest, neither of you expected him to last very long. At that place, security never does.

The bouncer turnover never ceased with the riots that broke out there almost every night. So, you didn't bother getting your hopes up.

However, Dalton kept coming back. Every other day, he came in with the excuse of using the computer or buying a book just to strike up a conversation with you and lay down his flirtatious charm.

Charlie was the first to notice he would always come around when you were there and, if you weren't, he'd always make sure to ask when you were.

She had quite a bit of fun poking fun at you, telling you he had a crush on you or mocking the unconscious change in your voice you had when talking to him.

It didn't long take for feelings to develop between you and him. There was no doubt in either of you. Although unspoken, the magnetic attraction was undeniably present.

Some of those talks were deep and you felt you could confide in him to share things you hadn't shared with anyone at all. He, in turn, told you about the night on the train tracks and how the last fight he had in the ring haunted him every night.

There was no denying the bond you were forming. However, the rumors that were spreading around the island about the closeness between Ellie and him made you hesitant to make the first move.

When you casually brought it up into conversation, he shook his head and told you it wasn't anything serious and that she'd took him on a date once. You wanted to ask him if he had feelings for her, but that would be too much.

"So what's the deal with you and Dalton?" Charlie curiously asked, having picked up on the constant courtship that you two refused to act on.

"There is no deal. We're just friends. Hardly that."

"I may be young, but I'm no fool. I know there's something going on between you two."

"Sorry to disappoint you, kid, but there isn't. Besides, I hear he's got a sort of a girlfriend" you replied without looking up at her from the book in your hand.

You were both sat in fold-out beach chairs placed in front of the store, enjoying a couple of white cherry slushies, hoping the ice cold drink could soothe the hot, humid weather.

"How do you have a 'sort of girlfriend'? Either she is or isn't."

"Those things are complicated. I guess they're getting to know each other," you shrugged wishing you could avoid the topic.

"Like you guys are?"

"There is nothing going on. Sure, he's cute and funny and all, but he's seeing someone else. He's not interested in me, Charlie."

"So, you are interested in him?"

"It doesn't matter if I am. She's a doctor, she's smart and she's really pretty and drives a nice car. I know I don't stand a chance, so I'd rather not get my hopes up," you rambled, failing to read anything on the page you were stuck on. "Can we please drop this now?"

"Oh my god," she smirked staring at you. "You're jealous."

You scoffed at her ridiculous accusation and shook your head as you closed the book and set it in your lap.

"I am not jealous. I do not get jealous."

"Yes, you are! You totally are!"

"I am not! I just don't want to talk about this anymore, alright? So can we drop it?"

"Alright, alright. Sorry I brought it up."

She couldn't stop smiling as you opened your book to continue reading. Although you weren't her parents, her mind couldn't stop thinking of a way to parent-trap you into getting together.

However, her plans were brought to a halt when Brandt's lackeys invaded the shop just a few days later.

You tried your best to stand your ground and defend the shop along with Stephen. He told you to leave, but you refused.

After the beatdown you both received unwillingly, a fire had been set and the cruel men left. The adrenaline that surged through your bodies was enough to numb the pain in order to get you both quickly back on your feet to put out the fire.

Between the blood loss and the resurfacing pain, the billowing smoke got stronger and stronger. The flames became too strong too quickly and had engulfed the entire wall across the front counter.

Light-headed and dizzy, Stephen tried to save whatever he could from the store. As you rushed back and forth, you realized that the fire had grown too much and swallowed the front entrance.

The heat of it shattered the glass windows. The open air only fueled the fire more. Coughing from the heavy smoke, both you and Stephen got down on the floor to avoid the unbreathable air and attempted to crawl to the back exit.

Everything went dark after that and melded into one huge blur.

You don't remember when you actually blacked out, but you do remember feeling relieved once you heard the fire department's arrival.

The time you spent in the hospital was short - only a couple of days - but it was enough to make you reflect on your life.

An overwhelming sense of regret washed over you as you thought about Dalton.

You'd only known each other for a few weeks, but what if you could've had something special? What if Charlie's jokes were true and he actually ended up to be your soulmate?

She could be wrong too, but the fact that you could've died and never found out if you ever really did stand a chance ate at your mind.

You hadn't fully realized the extent of your attachment until a couple days later.

You show up at the store with a limp from the beatdown you'd received a couple days ago.

Stephan tries to assure you they're fine, that you need to rest and recover, but you argue that you'll go insane if you stay at home with nothing to do, high on pain meds.

Helping the owners clean and salvage whatever they can, Charlie casually mentions that Dalton and left her and her father a suitcase full of money to rebuild the store before he got on a greyhound bus destined to leave Glass Key.

The same regret you'd felt in the hospital strikes you again and secretly consumes you.

You try to play it off and instruct her to not to tell anyone about the money. You barely understand what she said after that. All you can think about for the rest of that morning is that he left and didn't even say goodbye.

When Charlie and her father invite you to get some lunch with them, you politely refuse, opting to stay back and keep yourself busy. You lie and tell them you had a big breakfast beforehand just so they won't worry.

You promised you wouldn't get your hopes up. You knew better than that. Bouncers never last at the Road House. You know this just as well as any of the other residents of Glass Key.

He's gone now.

You just want to be alone for a bit to process it.

The door opens and the bell above it rings as you sweep away at the shattered glass, forcing you to look back over your shoulder.

The sight you see has you frozen in surprise.

His face is impossible to forget. You could never forget those big blue doe eyes, even with the dark skin that circles his right eye.

You groan lightly at the shooting pain from your broken rib as you straighten and turn to face him, holding the broom by your side as you stand next to it.

Dalton closes the glassless door behind him as he greets you with a silent but friendly smile until the cut on your lip and the black eye remind him of the damage he caused.

He doesn't look too different from you. His eye is still a little swollen but mostly black now, his lip busted and the stitches on his eyebrow are all evidence that business has been handled at the Road House.

"So, the Glass Key hero returns" you smile at him, ignoring the sting on your bottom lip. "Charlie said you were riding off into the sunset. You forget something?"

"I'm not a hero and, no, I didn't" he starts, looking around the burned down shop trying to swallow his guilt.

"Changed your mind?"

"Someone kinda changed it for me, actually. A very wise person told me that heroes don't always have to ride off into the sunset. They can stay and make a homestead instead."

Joy bursts within you like fireworks on new years. You try to fight back the smile that creeps onto you lips.

"Thought you weren't a hero."

"I'm not."

You nod biting the inside of your cheek to mask your excitement. You take the second broom that Charlie had been using earlier and left leaning against the wall by the front door.

"This homestead could use a hand" you smile and offer him the broom.

He takes it with a happy grin, feeling finally accepted as if he finally found somewhere he belongs.

"There's, uh, one more thing" he says in a soft voice.

His hand raises to your chin, tilting your head up as he cranes his neck to kiss you in the most tender of ways.

Unable to forget about Ellie, you place a hand on his chest and gently push to stop the kiss.

Dalton's face contorts with confusion. He doesn't notice the breath he's holding, anxiety settling in as he fears that you'll ask him to stop. Maybe he got the wrong signals and you don't like him that way. He'd respect it, if that's the case, but it doesn't mean his heart won't be crushed.

"I thought you were seeing Ellie?"

He blinks slightly surprised. That's not what he had expected to hear, but it makes him kind of happy that you're not asking him to stop.

"She took me on a date and we kissed, but that was it."

"So, you are dating her?"

"What, are you jealous?"

"Why does everyone keep saying that? I'm not jealous."

"You sound a little jealous" he smirks.

"I'm not. I just... I don't wanna get my hopes up."

"I'm not dating her," he says gently stroking your bruised cheek. "I told her there's someone else for me, someone that I really wanna date."

He gazes into your eyes as you smile up at him and let him continue his kiss. You let his lips linger on yours and smile when you feel them stretch into a grin.

The cuts on your mouths hurt, but neither of you bother to pull away.

His kiss gradually intensifies. His tongue flicks over your bottom lip, politely asking for entrance. His free hand reaches for your waist as the other sets against your cheek, leaving the broom tucked in his arm.

You let his tongue slip past your defenses. The gentle way his hand cradles your face has you holding onto his strong forearm and the other broom for balance as the room spins around you from his vertiginous kiss.

Your chest presses against his as you moan softly into his mouth. It takes him every ounce of his self-control to not pin you against the wall.

The bell rings again, alerting you both of another's presence so you quickly pull apart, trying to quickly compose yourselves. Your eyes shoot to the door along with Dalton's.

You realize who it is, so he shyly lets his eyes wander around what's left of the store and sweeps the ashy floor.

"Hope I'm not interrupting anything," Charlie smirks sipping her juice from a straw as she stands in the doorway.

"No, no," you reply nervously as heat pools in your cheeks. "Dalton and I were just, uh, cleaning up."

"Cleaning what? The floor or each other's throats?"

Dalton snickers at her candor, glancing at you until she continues.

"Good to see you're back though. And if you ask me, it's about time."

[pparacxosm]

wounded in

(blue-eyed son part 2: electric boogaloo !!!! ; (hate to be that gal but you may have to read the first bit for context); homeless era!patrick zweig x jaded businesswoman!reader; nonlinear narrative; tw office job; tw coworkers; tw mcdonald’s; the sound of music stuff is for myself; i fucking love sound of music; and i fucking love cats (the animal not the musical, though that's lovely too) so there’s that; pushing a patrick zweig can’t spell agenda; tw new england maybe; i gave new rochelle a better rap this time; kiss scene kindaaaa ??..? ; tashi coaching patrick after new rochelle is canon to me; tw descriptions of emojis; what if i told you there’s a part 3; then what)

You hold in a bout of laughter when Patrick brings the drinks to the table.

His hair is longer than the last time you saw him, which wasn’t that long ago, in scale. In bones, in feels like a while.

Dear old New Rochelle. Far enough out that the city is a twinkle on the horizon like a cluster of stars, far enough that there are some actual stars above you, now. It’s odd to see him in New England. It’s odd to see him in jeans. But then it’s September.

There are new lines on his face already. He’s aging quicker now, as if to make a point.

Drinks are on me,

Is the first thing Patrick told you, when you walked in in a juniper parka. Scanned the room, picked out his booth.

Is this the part where you tell me you’ve opened a savings account? you said, trying to seem completely blasé about it. It would have been childish to be thrilled by such meagre chivalry at twentyeight. I feel like I should pay, you’re in my city.

Yeah, but you’ve hosted me enough for now.

That’s what you are, half the time. A host to him.

A museum. Thumbing through a rolodex of all the different shades of blue his eyes could go in one humid night.

You pass on more nights out than you accede to. You got a cat. You’re getting LASIK soon. But what it really looks like is that you’re wearing glasses to show that time has passed.

“What’re you smiling about?” Patrick asks, placing the foamy mug of beer in front of you.

You wipe discreetly under your eyes, spreading the mascara smudge. “Just thinking about how my aweinspiring generosity has rescued you from the misery of total squalor.”

Patrick chuckles. “Well, they say to pay it forward.” He sounds pleased as he lifts his own mug with a wink.

You look out the window. There’s a film of dust on it. There’s dust on the faux-chintz curtains too.

You start to wonder if that’s what he really thinks. That this is him going forward.

Patrick picks up the plastic menu. “We ordering sidedishes or do we want a full dinner? What’s good in Wellesley?”

You try to laugh, though the noise has the distinct tender hue of a sob. But you’re sure you feel mostly fine. “What are you doing here?”

“Hm?”

“What are you doing in Wellesley?”

Patrick looks up at you with bright, twinkling eyes. “Challenger in Boston. Thought it’d be a waste not to come see you.”

You clench your jaw to prevent more runny mascara. It’s stupid. You don’t much like waste either. But you’re not going to weep in front of Patrick like a child.

“You hungry?”

You nod, picking up your own menu, hiding your face behind it.

His hand reaches suddenly across the table, trying to touch yours. You pull away, but make it look like you didn’t.

“Bet you had a hard time leaving Tobes for the night,” he says, trying to lift the mood.

“Um yeah. A little. I like to imagine what she gets up to when I’m away.”

“My sister had a cat, when we were young. My sister was, like, seventeen, and I was eight, so pretty big gap.”

Because he has to clarify those sorts of things. Because you don’t know he has a sister. You don’t know anything.

You find it hard to picture him pinned down in any humane way. It’s always his beautiful leg (now sheathed in denim) writhing in a bear trap. Always his papery wings unfurled and pinned against a picture frame like a butterfly. Something metamorphosed. Something capable of a great change, and that must be tortured for it.

“She found the cat in an alleyway. She called it Patrick.”

You lift your eyes. You feel it bubbling in you like magma, the urge to coo. You feel all soft these days. And maybe that’s just open heart season, and the passage of time. But you see a vivid meridian in your life, and it falls right along the night you met this guy. And this back half is all soft, so you sort of want to blame him.

You swallow.

“Well, that’s sweet.”

Patrick lowers the menu. “Nope,” he shakes his head, that huge smirk on his face, like his name is on every ticket of the raffle, like he’s cheating at something. “Let me tell you what she used to do. She used to put the fucker in, like, a blanket, right? And she’d lift it up like a sack, with him inside, and he’d obviously start clawing and making all of these noises—“

He makes the noises. Just starts whipping his head around and making kitten growls, imitating this cat with his name. You get the sense that this is one of those anecdotes that explains a lot about a person.

“—And she’d come into my room, in, like, the middle of the night—this is real psycho shit—and she’d lift my covers and drop the cat. And the shit would fucking claw at me and bite me, just—“

He’s doing the noises again. And now he’s clawing at the air with his hands.

He stops, and the way he closes his mouth around his grin makes his teeth look like they’re trying to escape past his lips. But it looks sort of lovely.

“When the fuck died, Saskia texted me. She was like, oh, he loved you so much, you should’ve said goodbye.” He pauses, widens his eyes, looks at you with the pointed intimacy of sharing in this ludicrousness.

You roll your eyes. But you catch yourself smiling. You like the idea of him being mauled like that, skin deep. You get the sense that life has done to him a lot of that—those growls and scratches. And that sounds a little fucked. But what you like about it is how he seems so unmoved now, by this psycho shit. This flailing animal, this torture device. Pinning him down. He's laughing.

You try to imagine him as a child, but the proportions are all comically bizarre, in your mind’s eye.

“Pork chops,” you say, throwing the menu aside. “I feel like stuffing my face.”

Patrick gets three sausage egg McMuffins on the way to the New Rochelle Country Club—and fries, and a hash, and a soda—and he’s eating the second by the time you pull out of the drivethru.

There is a compelling sense of chaos to how he drives. Like, he’s so bad at driving. Three different people honk at him in a dozenminute window. And you feel content knowing that whatever had had your heart thumping last night has not shrivelled and died with the morningtime. Though now it’s maybe a partial distress for your safety. But you get the sense that, maybe, this is actually the person you are now. The woman who sleeps beside a rugged stranger and buys him breakfast and doesn’t care how he speaks with his mouth open while he’s eating the fries. Doesn’t care about the writhing mire of half chewed potato on his tongue. The way his lips gleam pink with salt.

“I need to listen to really specific music to, like, get in the zone? If you don’t mind?”

He sounds so uncharacteristically shy, for brief a moment. You have to lean forward and look to see he isn’t joking. He isn't.

“Uh— yeah, of course. It’s your car.”

He slides a Sound of Music soundtrack disc into the mouth of the dashboard.

You laugh so hard you fold over.

He’s got one hand on the wheel, and shifts is his seat, peeling the unfamiliarly clean skin of his thighs off the leather before sitting back down. He’s tearing into his third breakfast sandwich with a reckless abandon reserved for death row. He laughs around the bite, glancing, bemused, between you and the road, and, ultimately, spending more time looking at you.

“What?” he laughs around a halfmasticated mouthful. “What?”

There are tears sluicing down your face. You can’t breathe. You think you can, and then you start laughing again, and you can’t.

“How do you solve a problem like Maria?” Patrick hums cheerily as he noshes. It’s a gross and wonderful noise, the food moving between his teeth, circumventing Hammerstein.

You think the large coke is probably no performance enhancer, not only because he all but tumbles out of the car when it’s hardly halfway parked (poorly, you’ll add).

“Fuck, need to piss,” he says frenetically.

When you know the notes to sing…, carols Julie Andrews.

You’re still laughing. Crying. Your tummy fluttering painfully.

Patrick makes you order dessert too, since you’re celebrating.

Celebrating what? you had to ask, though, at the time, you were wearing an impish, knowing, frankly celebratory sort of smile.

Patrick feigned great offense. He said, I’m fucking here, aren’t I?

He wants you to have sundaes together. You spill some ice cream on your skirt. He finds that funny. He’s always got this weasel smile, like he’s constantly ready for amusement. He’s shaved, at some point between now and then. The hairs on his face are sparser. The skin on his face looks milky and organic like a crinite litchifruit.

The frumpy diner was his idea too.

He’s spent some time on the veritable extremes of the economic spectrum—that’s what life tends to be for him; veritable extremes, scratching him meanly—and now he just wants to play at being the average wage earner.

“You really are welcome to stay with me, if you’d like.”

Patrick looks at you like he’d rather shoot himself.

You sort of marvel at his sense of pride, as if it were a rare stone, swallowing light and spewing it out at all angles. The Sociology course you took in uni had a whole two modules on personal pride. It is one of the few emotions that are unique to humans.

Patrick—for his weasel smile and beastly hunger and feline anti—is remarkably proficient in being human. In the real, visceral parts of it. In wielding his emotions like kaleidoscope hues. Dancing freely in confinement.

“When are you leaving?”

“Don’t worry about that. If you have time for breakfast tomorrow, we can—”

“Mm, not tomorrow, I don’t think. But I have no plans this weekend.”

You say it with this weird, bright intonation, like you’re jesting. Which—a lot of things feel like a bit of a joke these days. But he seems to understand you well enough. Delivers a curt, unspurned nod, and even a smile. Not the weasley, chronicling one. The wolfish one that makes his eyes crinkle up.

“Come here then,” he says.

Patrick leans in for a hug. You can’t avoid it. He enfolds you in a fascinatingly soft, burning embrace. He still smells sort of musky and acrid. Like even though he can shower regularly now, he maybe doesn’t as often as he should. But you find a gross comfort that. This pleasantly fetid, human man. His cologne smells like a wine cellar.

He says, “It’s nice to see you again.”

Something churns in your belly. Maybe the pork chops. Maybe the ice cream. This whole fucking day. You accidentally deleted some files and IT spent five hours trying to help you unsheathe them from oblivion. You felt like a failure. And now you’re here and,

“Fuck, you’re still so cool.”

You push away from him with a forceful laugh.

You used to be able to tell your sister all kinds of things. But, lately, you haven’t been able to talk to anyone about anything.

Working so many years for a soulless corporate hive mind has turned you into an expert at short, polite, and meaningless feedback that only varies with inflection.

“Right”, “Sure”, “Got it”, “Whatever you think is best”, “Already on it”.

Half the time you sound illiterate. The other half, you sound like you could have written Prozac Nation.

When your sister asks, how was New Rochelle? she expects you to say something annoyingly vague and ominous in your cool, collected adjunct’s voice, like: Everything is under control.

But, instead, you say, “Do you and Mark still go to mass? I really want to start giving more of myself away.” And you’re wearing this smile that’s utterly sincere.

That’s what spooks your sister.

Of course, you want to tell her more. Because your sister married a Herman Melville character; one of those grizzly, stinky, sacerdotal men who don’t want to work but don’t want to lose either. You know your tale of Linklateresque, serendipitous connection would render her mesmerised and marginally jealous.

But, soft and charitable as you may now be, you keep it all to yourself.

Patrick is still in Massachusetts a fortnight later. You say you’d have loved to come and see him play, but you’re really busy, and he says not to sweat it. Insists really. Maybe even begs. Do not sweat it.

You text him, presumably a day or two afterwards, and ask how it went.

Smahsed it!, he texts, and garlands the (misspelled) notion with eight sunglassfaced emojis. You counted. Dibner? he texts.

Then, a moment later,

*dinner?

You get to see your first New Rochelle sunrise.

You slink out of bed with toothfairy softness, even though Patrick is sleeping the sleep of death—with a deep, miserable snore like a resounding dirge to prove it—beside you. Your pillow wall, in the night, had collapsed like Berlin in 89.

You step outside. You check your phone, first, but you do go outside. You do believe in fresh air in the mornings, even if you don’t have the fortitude for mindfulness and journaling.

The parking lot is a vast open soul. Regretfully resigned and stunningly silent.

The sky looks like a bleeding mouth, but the hard grey edges around it don’t seem to care. The concrete enterprises and litter splay do not want anything to do with this bruise. A tart, sort of sewery smell makes your eyes water.

Cars drive by too fast. 

You think, in some faraway capacity, you can hear the soft, rhythmic thunk of tennis balls hitting asphalt. But it’s only your heart.

You hear things. You see things.

You don’t want to sound like some haunted Victorian heiress with a mystical past, but you do.

In the break room, mostly.

So you hadn’t noticed before. Your coworker, Sam, goes fucking wild for tennis. Sam’s slobbering lewd and voracious over tennis. It’s hard to witness. In fact, you feel dirty witnessing this. You should call HR. Sam’s in the break room doing an onanistic oneman scene play about tennis.

Or maybe he just kind of likes it.

And you hadn’t noticed it before.

There’s a lot, for your part, that you were content not noticing around the office.

But now every errant tenniscentric commentary makes your hands feel sore and weightless without the presence of a gun.

“No, you don’t get it, Deirdre, this is like if LeBron played a game at some random Y, and got dunked on by this fuckin’ nobody, and then just… quit the game.” He sounds tumid with bewilderment. “Just fuckin’ dipped!” Sam’s incredulous. “Forever!”

“LeBron…?”

“Fuck, Deirdre, you’re killing me.”

You slot the mouth of your bottle beneath the spout of the water cooler. You close your eyes—zombieleaden, uneven on the tiles; it’s only 10—and listen to the halting trickle, trickle… stream. The plastic goes cold against your palm as the water rises.

“All because of some… fuckin’,” Sam snaps his fingers, “Fuck, I forget the name.”

Peter Zeppelin, your mind supplies dryly.

It is then that Sam chooses to notice you. Points his finger. Wide smile. “Oh-ho, here’s trouble!” says Sam.

Sam and you have had enough one on one conversations for you to list on your one free hand, and you wouldn’t be spoiled for digits. But, all the same,

“Here’s trouble!” Sam announces, “Big shot boss babe, huh? Back from kickin’ rear in New Rochelle. I know you’re glad to be back.”

You don’t say anything. You feign responsiveness, flash a stilted smile. But you don’t say anything. Because what would you say?

Outside the men’s bathroom of the New Rochelle Country Club, you fidget awkwardly, standing against a wall and trying to look inconspicuous. Patrick’s duffel sits at your heels like a staunch hound.

Your gaze meanders around the venue with an idle sense of inquiry.

You’d expected a certain echelon of grandiosity, anyway. And the country club is nice—you feel silly casting any judgement at all—if a little outdated. All glossy woodpanelling and pea green outdoor carpet.

You can see yourself, warped and bleary, upon the polished floor. The bar flourishes a glassy sheen and cloistered amber rows of lavish whiskeys.

Through glass windows, golf splays unfurl, ceaseless viridescence, beset on all sides by sharpcornered hedges.

People mill about with the air of the lookedafter, and polo shirts as white as the maw of God.

Which is nice—it’s all nice—and all, but your chest seems to enwreathe a stark state of dread. You feel the sort of nausea that would rack you as a child. Floating in the curtains at your dance recitals, like an anxious little poltergeist.

When Patrick emerges from the loo, he is whistling. Fluting finely the swooping tune of ‘Sixteen Going on Seventeen’.

“You certainly seem unburdened,” you murmur, gaze shadowing him as he draws near. You know you sound unconvinced. For his part, he looks undeterred.

Slings his bag over his shoulder like it is floatable, even as you know it bears the poundage of half a man’s life.

He grins, flashing a canine.

To you, he has just eaten his weight in greasy, leaden carbcloth, and proceeded to piss for twelve minutes straight.

But Patrick seems imbued by morningshine.

He throws a heavy arm around you, squeezes your shoulder. Says, “Look alive!” Says, “I’ve had a good night’s sleep, a hot shower, the breakfast of champions, and I’m about to get paid!”

You wince a bit at his volume, and also because he seems to be emanating a bit of that morningshine. Not to speak of the heat. Searing from his very bones.

If nothing else you admire his buoyancy. In that way, the warmth—even as the sun blooms above you—is a fascinating comfort.

Like something to be shared.

You say yes to dinner.

You keep having dinner. He keeps taking you out for dinner, and to decent places, too, places you haven’t even been to around here.

You’re sitting across from him. You’re eating, as one does. He’s regarding you with something like awe. Though you wouldn’t know it, because he regards, too, his plate, when the waiter rests it before him, with a sort of comical reverence. Even though you’re pretty sure he’s not starving, anymore.

But hunger’s not always about those sorts of things, you suppose. Maybe he's just still hungry.

He’s winning a lot. Must be, if he’s taking you out all the time, and—hey—maybe you can get him to sign something for Sam. That’d be nice of you.

Patrick watches you eat.

You try not to stare back at him. As long as you keep chewing, you won’t have to ask why he’s still here.

“That’s a nice shirt,” he says after a long silence.

You smile. “Thank you.”

He doesn’t text you for months, many months, after New Rochelle. You’d given him your number, because you wanted to put the ball in his court, and—fuck—here’s hoping you didn’t say that.

But you can’t recall.

It’s been months.

So, when you do get the text, you’re pleased to see it’s aptly contrite.

ypu probably think I’msn idiot, it reads, and it’s late at night and you’re already in bed, stewing over NYT Connections.

You eye the ID. Maybe: Patrick Zweig, but that’s implied—so many implicit little shards—because not a lot of people are so tortured by the prospect of your opinion on them so as to text you at 1 AM. So.

Define idiot, you text back.

dictionary defenition is Patrick Rupert Zweih. There’s prpbably even a lil picture of me next to it.

A few moments.

A bad one.

Ten or eleven emojis of abject terror.

You consider this—not a bad picture of him (though he doesn’t quite strike you as wildly photogenic anyway), just... This Whole Wound—and tap the side of your phonecase in tentative thought.

Your full name is Patrick Rupert Zweig? Tough.

Like ypu didnt already look me up.

You blink. Whoa—okay.

Not a humble idiot, I see, you type.

You don’t know where you get the balls. There’s a sweeping litany of long, gorgeous miles between your bed and New Rochelle, but maybe he can smell you thinking as much because,

Im in MA next week

In the registration room, a man with a binder asks his name, and Patrick sheathes his canine in a way that makes him look conspiratorial and amused. You suppose it’s become an inside joke.

The ATP official seems to gleam with recognition when Patrick does give his name—his real name—and he says, “Oh wow, that is you!”

You can’t see his face from this angle, but you can envisage the way his moue has settled in confusion.

Apparently, the ATP official was a line judge at the Junior US Open back in 06.

You try to think back to what you were doing in 2006. Probably populating your microcosm in The Sims. Trapping little imitations of those who had scorned you in swimming pools to drown.

“You were really something back then, huh?” says the ATP official.

Your eyes flicker to Patrick’s profile. He doesn’t quite know how to respond to that.

The official hands Patrick a packet. There’s a little map of the facility in there, in case he gets lost. His first match is against one Gonzalez, on court seven.

Patrick says, marginally halting, “Hey, so, is there any chance of an advance payment on the prize money.”

The official blinks.

“Because I know I’m guaranteed a minimum of four hundred dollars even if I get knocked out today—“

You frown a bit at that. The official frowns a lot at that.

“Well,” he says, “Generally we don’t give out winnings until a player makes his way through the tournament…”

A beat.

Then,

“You could always just lose today. Then we’d have to cut you a check this evening.”

Patrick hardens to bone. You hope he has another lifeaffirming piss in him. He doesn’t meet your eyes when he turns to leave, but flicks you a glance that seems to ask that you spare him the judgement.

You leave New Rochelle today. Good as the night’s sleep may have been, he knows better than anyone that life’s loveliest things are fleeting.

So—fine—you don’t begrudge him. Instead,

“He seems hopeful,” you say wryly.

“Must’ve been thrown off by my pretty caddie,” he says dismissively. Maybe a little bristled.

The warmup courts, deep blue plane, shimmer in the sunheat.

Patrick takes the asphalt, flicks his racket around by its handgrip as though refamiliarising himself with the palmfeel for the first time in a while. Which—well—doesn’t give you confidence, at risk of contesting Julie Andrews.

He practices his serve. Starts to work the ball up and down the court. Hits a few forehands, a few backhands.

Then,

“He was lying,” he yells to the bleachers.

The bleachers are mostly empty. A few errant loiterers. Bored spectators who have finished their lunch earlier than their friends. What have you.

He’s looking at you, though. With a staggering precision from so far away.

“What?”

“That guy. He was lying. Or… bigging it up. Or whatever. I wasn’t really something, I was just decent.”

He strikes a ball over the net. You can see, from here, the vibration ricochet through the racketstrings with a shudder that has you expecting music to flutter out.

You lean back in your seat, sort of sliding down against the glossy plastic, a tremor of induced electric tickling your bum through your jeans. You cross your arms.

“That’s kind of bullshit,” you call out.

He spares you a glance, sort of doubletakes, and you can see the corner of his mouth tremble with intrigue.

He takes another ball from the basket. Tosses it up. You watch the neon starsphere spin fleetingly in the air before being walloped to oblivion. And what do you know of tennis? But you do think his serve is a thing of beauty. Beauty measured in power and precision, sure (he hits the ball straight and hard and fast and low, just barely clearing the net), but you can also see the way his muscles work beneath his skin. Which—you know.

Patrick walks to the fence that partitions the courts from the stands. He leans over, rests his arms on the palisade, and looks at you.

“This was the whole problem,” he tells you, “Everyone was always telling me how good I was. And it got to my head. And now I’m here.”

It’s a shabby imitation of humility. What it really is, is an attempt to scale down the apogee, so the fall seems less mythic. So the years seem less unkind.

“I didn’t come here to watch you sulk just because some guy was nice to you.”

Patrick grins. His cheeks are flushed with heat, and there are little spots of sweat on the hollows where his skin and bones meet. But he seems to know not to exert himself fully right now.

“You think I’m sulking?”

“I think you seem pretty torn up for a guy who’s going to play a thirty minute match, and walk away a few hundred dollars richer.”

He makes a noise like you’ve wounded him, but he seems elated.

“A few hundred dollars?” he says, raising his brows. “So you’ve lost your faith in me.”

“I have some,” you allow, and you’re not surprised to find that you really do. “Just don’t choke.”

Patrick wears the smile of a newly crowned Miss Universe. He looks touched that you’re being so frank.

“I won’t,” he says, with a sense of finality and what you feel is an incongruous tenderness. “I’m pretty good at dealing with pressure. My parents always used to take me to work with them and tell employees to come to me at random intervals with madeup highstakes scenarios. Like, pretending to have a breakdown, and saying they needed me to help them out and make the final decision. Some of them could cry on command.”

You try and fail to hide a look on your face that divulges how demented you think that anecdote is. But you try to find something neutral to say.

“Well, maybe you’re lucky,” you tell him. “I was horrifically nervous as a child.”

“Not anymore?” he asks, swinging his racket idly, and you get the sense he’s actually very interested in how you will answer.

So it’s hard not to answer him honestly.

“I don’t know,” you say finally, and you look away from his eyes, and instead at the sky. You’re alarmed to find they are precisely the same tincture of aegean. “Mostly not. But if I have to give a presentation or speak up in a meeting, I have to take one of those beta blockers, you know? Propranolol?”

You are stricken, at odd moments, in New Rochelle, in Massachusetts.

You get the sense that he’s trying to be cavalier. But, at the same time, there’s this unmistakable fragility about him. Like it wouldn’t take much to knock him down.

You are stricken by how he’s managed to maintain this cocksure swagger for so long. With such a brittle, aching core.

How easily it all might’ve been shaken by the wrong person, and the wrong word.

You love the smell of your dear kitty’s head right after a bath. The fluff of dandelions and baby bird. You love toweling her, taking her little paws in your hand and prying the toes open.

Toby pretends not to like being fussed over, but she doesn’t put up much of a fight. In fact, most nights, she falls asleep in your arms.

When he pays you the visit, Ms Tobes is breathing evenly in your arms, your thumb caressing the organtender slope of her silky head.

You open the door, and great weeping gales have been jostling your windows all evening. But he is in shorts.

Patrick’s been in New England for nearly a month.

There’s an odd sort of look on his face, and an unlit cigarette behind his ear.

Hands in his pockets, he leans against the door frame, staring down at you. You feel a remarkable heat radiating from the downy flesh of his bare legs.

He doesn’t seem confident, nor does he seem unperturbed. He seems… pensive and maybe even penitent, but he wears it with a fascinating poise. There’s still something wounded and vulnerable about the way of his shoulders, the slant of his mouth. It's the softness that kills you, anyway, you think incoherently. 

You peer up at him, dubious, through the briar of your lashes. He looks down at Toby, at the sweep of your finger over her head. You do not know if it is he or Toby who purrs.

When he speaks, he is whispering very softly, though there’s a frayed, low seep of his voice in his throat. It feels revoltingly intimate.

“When Patrick died,” he says, “The cat. I felt so shitty. I had this weird feeling of—like—I don’t know. Shittiness. Because of how Sassy said what she said. You should’ve said goodbye. What am I supposed to do with that, y’know?”

You swallow. The hallway is so vacant and noiseless you can hear the plush shuffle of his running shoes against the carpet. Dutifully beyond the boundary of your home, even though he’s been here quite a few times now.

“Patr—“ you croak.

“I’m not in Massachusetts for a game,” he tells you, shrugging hopelessly and almost smiling. But failing to. Which you register. “There’s no challenger in Boston. There’s just you. In Wellesley. All these… fucking ponds everywhere. Private schools. Bunch of rich little assholes who need a tennis coach, I bet. All these res—fuck. You know,” he shifts, taking the cigarette from his ear and gesturing with it between the two of you, “We’ve been out, like, twenty times, since I’ve been here, and there’s still, like, fifty restaurants we haven’t been to.”

You stare up at him. Your palms, where they cradle Toby, grow damp. The throbbing organ of your heart takes up residence in your throat. There’s a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall.

You lift one trembling finger to your lips.

Please, don’t say anything else, you beg with your eyes. Please, not in front of Toby.

Patrick’s eyes glint ruefully. Almost ominously. He seems insulted by your gesture, but he understands. He always understands. He never holds anything against anyone.

“No need for that,” he says very quietly. “I come in peace.”

He moves closer, breaking the enclave where the carpet of the hall meets the vinyl of your floor, until he is inches away.

A head taller, yet shrinking, as if you were seeing him from across a room.

He smells very good today. He smells like spice and bergamot and the laundered fabric of his navy blue halfzip. You sort of miss the musk. Of course you think of New Rochelle. You think of Bob Dylan and Hello Kitty and thermostats. Fucking Sally.

You lift your chin.

“I’m not asking you to—“

Patrick leans forward, his nose touching your nose.

“I’m gonna do the tennis,” he speaks the words into your mouth, voice like gravel melting in the sun.

You part your lips. A part of you hates him, hates how he’s insinuated himself in your life without warning. Another part, however, is asleep and betrays you.

He shushes you, though you’re sure you haven’t said anything. It’s just that you’re crying now. Completely still and silent. Weeping like the dead, because the dead weep, too.

He shakes his head, his nose brushing over yours, says shhh like you’re a cat, and, even then, Toby only stirs between your fingers.

“It’ll be good,” he says, and you’ve heard him sound convincing. You know that right now he sounds… something else. And he’s still shaking his head as he whispers, “It’ll be good, I’ll be good. I have a coach, I’m not done, I love the tennis.”

You look up at him. Lick your lips, which, when you’re so close, also means sort of licking his. Sort of licking into him. You want to say, fuck your tennis and fuck you too, but you also want to fuck him and you want to fuck his tennis, too.

You think of New Rochelle.

Patrick’s hand meanders upward toward Toby, and, if his cigarette was lit, you’d see sweeping coils of smoke floating heavenward.

It isn’t lit, but still.

You catch him quickly. You hold him by the wrist.

His skin is nauseatingly warm.

“You love it?” You sound unimpressed now. Your mouth moves over and around and against his as you speak.

“I do.”

“You love it, you love the tennis?” You’re sort of spitting it at him, and he tastes it.

And he thinks of Patrick the cat, how he lay there and was mauled. Pinned down. He thinks he’d let you draw blood, now, if you really wanted to.

“Tennis doesn’t love you.”

“Do you?”

There is time enough for you to answer. But when a sound is finally made it is only Toby, who mewls.

Patrick smiles. You feel the seam of his lips touch your lower teeth. “Didn’t think so.”

He straightens, his lips swiping your nose on his way up. He gently removes his arm from your grasp, your nails scraping is skin.

You exhale sharply. You feel stung.

Poor Toby, caught between your beating hearts. Patrick steps away. He places the cigarette between his lips, and then you do not stop him from touching Tobes. He strokes her gently.

“You got a lighter?” he asks around the cig.

There are three aflame candles in your home right now. He can smell the vanilla. You shake your head. He smiles again. Toby purrs. Patrick’s fingers touch yours between the heather fur.

You feel a strange ignition in your bones.

The game begins.

Everything is quick and violent.

You don’t know if tennis is actually quick and violent, or if that’s just him.

You are astounded by just how much a man can sweat. You are spellbound by the visceral implication of being drenched in one’s own exertion.

Gonzalez is younger. A little bit more thrilled to be here. And he’s got the kind of easy, quick thoroughness that means he probably practices with a ball machine at home, but not a lot of real experience.

Patrick makes brutal work of him.

There is a certain way his muscles tense through his forearm and the pulse travels up his bicep when he strikes the ball. His shirt rises as he twists to send it flying over the net. There is so much laboured breath and dripping skin.

He has you sit exactly where you sat during warmups.

Between sets, he extends his arm, taut and sweatsoused, and points to you with the scratched edge of his racket, one eye closed like he’s mapping trajectory. And he does sort of have this bloodhungry precision in his gaze, like a marksman.

You feel it in your neck, the ache of your focus, how your eyes water for lack of blinking as you swivel your head side to side. You do not close your mouth once.

He hits the ball again, and then again. Each with an almost startling accuracy. Each with a deep and fleshsatisfying thwack that makes your very ear canals thrum with the sort of pain that has you expecting the warmth of dripping crimson on your shoulders.

But it’s not just the force that strikes you. It’s that precision. That bulletgleam precision.

He seems to know, with a profound, animalic certainty, exactly where to place each shot.

At times, they will land exactly where the last landed.

And by the time his adversary cottons on, he has set his hungry eyes upon another target.

It’s beautiful.

You start to wonder if you have ever—ever—looked so fucking beautiful doing any single thing in your life. This strange and beautiful violence. Refined and delicate violence. He is violent and graceful.

Patrick groans when he hits the ball. Makes a guttural sound, a pained sort of sound, like he loses something of himself with each forceful departure.

The sun beams down, and you see his beautiful legs flex aglow with the beautiful gleam of his abject labour.

You think, fuck—

New Rochelle is beautiful.

“You know, I could have gone pro.”

Sam leans back in his Herman Miller chair. Takes a deep quaff of his coffee before pointing to Deirdre with his mug.

“You played for two years in middle school,” Deirdre deadpans, her gaze unmoving from her monitor as she populates a spreadsheet with who the fuck knows.

“This is huge, D,” says Sam, unhurt, “This is like if Jamal Mashburn started coaching the fuckin’ nobody that demolished LeBron at the Y.”

Deirdre seems to have forgotten this analogy, which, for her part, Sam first made months ago now.

“But also if Mashburn was married to Lebron,” adds Sam.

Your computer screen casts depressing polygons across your glasses. You slide your AirPods in. You don’t want to know where Bob Dylan will appear on your Spotify Wrapped.

I met one man who was wounded in love. I met another man who was wounded in hatred. And it’s a hard, it’s a hard— It’s a hard, it’s a hard—

It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

[arabellavernierwrites]

patched up. will graham.

summary : after accidentally slicing your hand open in the kitchen , will takes care of you.

word count : 463

warnings : mention of knives , mention of blood , mention of injury (cut from knife) , brief swearing , mentions of pain

a/n : hello everyone !!! thank you so much for how kind and supportive you all are. the fact that anyone reads my writing is such an honor and i’m so appreciative of all of you. i wanted to make something a little short today , an idea that came to me this morning. i adore will graham and would love to write for him more , so if you have any requests , please send them in !!! have an amazing wonderful incredible day , love you guys !!!

dinnertime had rolled around once again.

mid-evening, the last remaining golden glow of the sun before it tucked itself in.

the beginning of the ending of another day.

you and will were in the kitchen.

a soft hum of music circled and spun its way through the air, filling the empty space between you two.

you were chopping vegetables, will was stationed at the stove, carefully stirring the stew.

it was rare for you two to be assuming these roles while cooking.

will was almost always assigned to the chopping. he wasn’t known for his cooking skills.

the vegetables on your cutting board fought against you.

your knife was dangerously dull and you knew that. you had been meaning to take them in to get them sharpened for weeks, but the shop was far and you hadn’t had the time in your schedule.

“how’s it going over here?” will asked, stepping beside you, wrapping a hand around your waist.

you looked up at his smiling face, “good”.

whatever solanaceous veggie you were cutting had slipped out of your grip. the blade of the knife fell, slicing your palm.

“shit,” you dropped it, an angry puddle of blood weeping from your slashed skin.

“here,” will grasped your wrist hurriedly, guiding your hand under the faucet as he flicked it on, “are you okay?”

you nodded, the pain was uncomfortable but the vulnerability was worse.

“i’m fine, it doesn’t even hurt,” you lied.

will studied human behavior for a living, he knew you were fibbing.

he placed a soft kiss on the side of your head, “we’ll clean this and then get you patched up, okay?”

“okay,” you tried to smile, wanting to pull away from him and handle it all yourself.

once the blood stopped spilling from your torn skin, will dried it off, pulling you into a chair at the kitchen table.

he sat beside you, pulling you closer so your knees were pressed against the inside of his thighs.

“does it still hurt?” he asked, smearing ointment across your wound.

you dropped your head, “yes”.

he set small sheets of gauze on your palm, gently pressing them down. you winced at the pressure.

“i’m sorry,” he brought your knuckles to his lips, a tender kiss deepening his apology.

his movements were thoughtful and slow, different from how he was understood to be by most people.

will wrapped the elastic roll around your hand, holding all of his work in place.

he taped it up, mindful of your pain, but keeping the cloth secure, “done”.

“thank you,” you placed your good hand on his hip, patting it lightly.

“of course,” he smiled, his big, round eyes pulling you in.

you leaned forward, a gentle, appreciative kiss for the boy you loved the most.

[itsbubbleteataro]

Heloo! :D I saw your request are open so i decided to send one! what would be Sunday's reaction to a Furina!s/o? If that's a tad bit confusing, can you do Sunday's reaction to his s/o performing Sinners Finale (Furina's execution song) and the execution if you're feeling angsty :3 (You dont need to add that part if you dont want to) SORRY FOR MY BAD ENGLISH IM REALLY BAD AT EXPLAINING

can i be 🤸 anon pls :3

-🤸

You bet you can! Sorry 🤸 if it's not as you'd like but I did have a lot of fun writing about it. I kept some elements that I really enjoyed and found some nice music to listen to in the prosess. I had a lot of fun brainstorming in a cafe with some coffee!

Sorry about my posting being all over the place, moving across the country in the next few months will keep one busy! Anyways heads up this will pull at the heart strings,

Without anymore stalling, I present

La Danse du Chagrin

"Long, long ago, on a small planet named La Sec, a tradition old as the aeons persisted. Every 500 years a lottery was to be held. The winner is said to preform a dance so wonderful that the skies themselves weep and bring this dry and starved planet the water it desires"

You've told this story to Sunday as many times as he asked. Every time he seemed more and more enthralled within the sad story.

The very same story you told him when he first found you, one of of his many trips outside of Penacony.

He saw you dancing for the very first time, a style he wasn't familiar with at first. You lived gracefully, going up en point as if it were as easy as breathing.

The two of you met when he went to extend an invitation, to invite you to dance for the dreamscape. You soon became one of the more popular shows to go to when Robin wasn't present.

It was just after one of your shows, you and Sunday were in your dressing room. Him away from the public eye, watching you make yourself perfect before your next performance.

Sunday's always liked that about you, how your always perfect when you dance, as well as when you dress for the day or for the stage.

A bloodhound knocks on the door to the dressing room, prompting Sunday to get up and answer it as you were busy making sure your hair was perfect. Sunday was handed a note, addressed to you. He passed it along, setting it down on your table while he took his seat again.

Carefully you opened it, taking the note in hand and reading it. You bit your lip, keeping as stoic an expression as you could muster.

"Well my dear dove, it seems we have a show to attend in La Sec. I do hope you will come watch me dance, they did personally invite me too"

You said as you stood up, turning to face him. In hand your point shoes. In the other a red tambourine with matching velvet ribbons tied to it. Your dress a silky white with blood red accents.

"By of course my dear, it seems we are to depart?"

You nodded your head and walked side by side with him.

----

Arriving home was just like you expected. Dry, the earth cracked and starved for water. You took Sunday to Palace d'ear. A grand palace with many a room and beautiful gardens made of stones instead of lush greens. Inside tall ceilings with paintings.

Sunday looked at the paintings, filled with beautiful dancers, tales of woe and sorrow. Some of excutions.

The two of you walked on, further and further. You directed Sunday to a stage, and had him sit in the audience, while you went off to speak with an official.

------

It had been about an hour, he noticed a spinning blue sword above the stage, he figured it was just an effect. After all, it is a stage.

He blinked as he looked at you, then, the music started to play.

He watched you dance both your and his favorite solo, La Esmeralda Finale .

Your white dress swirled around you as you danced, your pristine point shoes matching your skin as always. Your hair half up and half down. Sunday always lived watching you dance.

The music ended as you held your final pose. As Sunday stood clap, the blue sword he saw beforehand stopped spinning, and came crashing down with a thunk.

Your dress was stained red, like the bow in your hair.

His eyes, wide in horror. No one had explained the sacrifice to him.

He bolted to the stage when he could, cradling what was left of you as he watched your body turn to little blue droplets and head into the sky.

Your bloodied point shoes, held close to his chest as it started to rain outside.

Oh what a terrible day for rain.

He clutched your beloved shoes close to his heart. He started to sob.

First he was robbed of his sister, now of his beloved? How the world was cruel to him.

He stayed long past the crowd leaving, gathering up your belongings to take them back to his home, your home.

Sunday never went to a ballet again, it wasn't the same.

How he wished he could have watched you keep dancing on for him

[threepandas]

Bad End: Royal Weddings

They whispered. About the scandal of it all. Such a bold and shameless color.

As far as I was concerned? What was shameless? Was inviting your affair partner to a Royal Wedding. He hadn't even looked at her. Too absorbed in the sight of his True Love weeping. Too busy wallowing in his own drama to care that he wasn't the only one giving up his life to this.

After all... who WOULDN'T want to marry him?

She must be overjoyed.

I walk High Princesses Kiara, of the United Northern Kingdoms, down the aisle. In the traditions of her people, it SHOULD be the Crown Prince. To show that from this moment, this wedding, they walk together. It's symbolic.

The rich reds, the color of life and love, are painstakingly embroidered. It would have taken decades. Likely by her own hand. As is also traditional. A show of skill and wealth, I think. I studied up. All the better to serve my new lady. My Queen.

The prince hasn't even glanced at her.

People sneer.

This by all rights should be a wedding of mixed traditions, so as to not offend either people. Yet it... it is a paltry effort at best. An INSULT. Each turn another slap across the face.

First there were flowers, when there should have been a dagger and salt. I manage to hunt down satisfactory articles only to find them about to OFFER HER MEAT. On this! Her WEDDING DAY! Something I KNOW his Highness did not hunt himself and CERTAINLY was not PRESENTING himself!

I drive THEM off? Only to have to fend off maids trying to slather her face up in the "latest fashions" of make up. As though I don't recognize that HARLOTS maids! Is the humiliation of having her be the "poor bereaved lover" of the wedding not ENOUGH?! Not to MENTION that her Highness' people DONT WEAR MAKEUP ON THEIR WEDDING DAY.

On and on it went. For DAYS. I was forced to keep her Highness wedding dress WITH ME in my quarters! Lest it "mysteriously vanish" and she be forced to wear WHITE. You know, like a CORPSE? White? The COLOR OF THE DEAD for her people?!

Now, near tears, I walk. Steps even. Head high. Wondering how she has the strength.

These people are AWFUL. Vicious, nasty, ugly, soul-less, MONSTERS to the last. This... this was supposed to be a HAPPY day! Happy!! I was so EXCITED. One of the few people in the capital who had ever even studied the North in any depth, I... I thought it was an HONOR! But it WASN'T was it? No.

It was just one more insult.

The inexperienced lady in waiting, with no idea of how to do ANYTHING. How very perfect for the Queen that his Highness doesn't actually WANT. No. No HE wants his fragile, waifish, VIPER of a-!

"Calm. When you let them anger you, they begin to win. You start to make mistakes you can not afford. Be Calm. I am here." Her Highness whispers, voice soft but commanding beneath the bland music. It is the sort of voice meant for speech. The command of armies and simple men. "We will get through this farce and be done with it. Do not forget, but do not let it hold you. You are a bird, far from here. Their insults mean nothing."

I nod subtly. Try to visualize it. A bird... a bird... open skies beneath my wings, the rush of air. No whispers or cloying perfumes. Green countryside stretched out far beneath me. Free to go anywhere. I am a bird. I... I am a bird. Breathe.

We reach the end of the aisle. The prince I am supposed to one day serve as king, is making moon eyes at his fucking mistress in broad daylight. At his WEDDING. She dressed like this is a funeral. Oh, boo hoo. He's been ENGAGED SINCE BIRTH. This is NOT A SUPRISE.

Maybe it's first life sensibilities, the ones that carried over. When, for whatever reason, I didn't quite "blank slate" between dying and being born like everyone else. Got that proper Isekai experience of starting over. New world and a only sorta new me etc. But?

If a man is FUCKING ENGAGED? Maybe don't TRY THAT? What the actual hell? Yeah, yeah, complexe social mobility issues. But like? Royal Marriages are COMPLEX ALLIANCE CONTRACTS?? Fuckboi is risking a very real WAR? The assassins alone are going to be both vicious and immediate? Cause the King is not dead yet.

The Crown Prince HAS brothers.

"Hunting accidents" have a precedent here.

Her Highness brothers are going to be PISSED when they hear about this wedding. The treatment of their sister. The alliance hinges on "treat my sister well or at least politely". And he couldn't even manage THAT. It baffles and enraged.

I listen as the priest drones on... and on... and on...

With a growing horror? I realize? His royal moronic? Is using SOLEY our peoples vows. Which won't be RECOGNIZED by the United North as a valid marriage, according to ANY of the predominant alliances, agreements, or faiths. Motherfuckers. I KNOW I sent the wedding planners Big Boldly Worded Warnings about this!!

The prince reluctantly goes in for the binding kiss.

Her Highness leans back.

The room goes Dead Silent. Oh gods. I break line and, under the eyes of FUCKING EVERYBODY (ha ha... oh gods, this is terrible, I hate this so muuuuuch) step up to the royal couple. Pick up the gods damned KNIFE. You know? The MARRIAGE KNIFE? The knife specifically required to MARRY EACH OTHER? That one?

I offer it to her Highness. Who tears her now distainfully blank look away from the prince to look down at me. To consider what's in my hands. The moment seems... charged. I wonder if she's reconsidering her marriage to the prince. She looks at it, drags her gaze up to meet mine, then slowly reaches out. Each finger wrapping around the blade with careful precision.

Holding eye contact as she does. The hint of a smile gracing her face. Approval in her eyes. She tucks in in her sash, in the appropriate place. Then picks up the salt from where it was carelessly shoved aside. Turning fully to hand it to me.

Well THAT'S subtle. She's supposed to hand that to her husband. But I guess since he didn't hand her the blade, she refuses to hand him that salt directly either. I turn and try to offer the prince the salt. He rolls his eyes and demands to know if this is some "northern ritual".

YES, you TWIT. It's called a MARRIAGE CEREMONY.

Getting no answer, he turns to the priest and declare that they are married, can they move ON now? My jaw wants to drop. No. No, they are NOT. In EITHER culture. I was WATCHING. She didn't seal SHIT. Or even verbally AGREE to the vows. Priest. Priest for the LOVE OF THE GODS YOU SERVE-!

The coward nods, letting the sham continue. Holy shit.

They aren't fucking married. If he sleeps with her? It'll be considered an ACT OF WAR. I stare in horror at the priest, who avoids my eyes. He knows as well as I do that the marriage isn't complete. Watching him squirm in his expensive robes, sweating like a rat in a trap factory, I wonder who ACTUALLY owns his soul. In my hands, the salt in it's delicate glass container, feels like it's soaked in blood.

Slick with all the innocent blood that's going to spill, because one man and one COWARD couldn't finish a simple ceremony.

The North will NEVER forgive this trespass. This spit to the face. It goes against everything their people stand for. Cultural THEY CAN'T let this go. The people would RIOT.

My hands tuck the salt in my sash, careful and far away. Feel numb as I watch the priest skitter away to safety like an insect jumping ship. Watch the Crown Prince sweep away to escort no his Supposed WIFE, but his LOVER to the reception. In full view of the court. Before the eyes of visiting diplomats and foreign royals alike. Ha ha...

I want to scream. Just scream and scream until the horror leaves me.

But I can't. The day is not over and I am not alone.

A soft but calloused hand, warm and grounding, touches my arm. I turn to my future Queen. She is bathed in light. Tall and regal, unbending in the face of this endless parade degradation. Her eyes are like the clearest sky I've ever seen. The sunlight catching her hair and making it light itself. I wish I could be a fraction so composed.

"It's the practice." She says, lips barely moving. No doubt to the great frustration of attempted easedropers. "I've had years of training. You're doing well, considering the circumstances, little Brave. Let us go. Endure one last party. Then we will be free to consider our options."

She correct of course. Just... just one more party. And it's nice, reassuring even, how she talks like we're a united front. It does? Niggle something. Try to knock some factoid or other lose in my brain. But I'm so fried. Rattled. Just get through this and we're done. Just... just get through this. It can't be that important, surely. I would remember it if it was. Right?

.....right.

The reception is a horror show. I don't know why I expected it to be anything BUT, at this point. Every single thing The LOVER enjoys. A party to make HER happy. No doubt as an apology for the grave crime of DOING HIS DAMN DUTY. But of course, God's forbid! Any consideration for the BRIDE who had to LEAVE HER HOMELAND! Who ALSO is doing her duty!

At least, bless them eternally and to the last, the dignitaries and other royals all come and speak with her Highness. Keep her company.

Joke about her single status.

Sweet merciful fuck, the country is going to burn. And it's all that idiots fault. I don't even... actually? ACTUALLY?! No! No, this is above my pay grade. I tried! I really, really did! First thing in the morning? I'm sending the folks a priority Strongly Worded Letter that it might be a GREAT idea to pack up everything we care about and "visit the in-laws" over in Gammia. Heard the coast is LOVELY this time of year!

Whole ass family should join um. Take the pets. Any neighbors they much care about.

REALLY, REALLY Lovely. That Coast.

I have to stop FIVE MORE MEAT DISHES. Literally grab a server, drag him down, and inform him the NEXT bastard that brings any form of animal near her Highness? Is getting things thrown at them. Public spectacle be damned. I WILL throw carving knives, Do Not Test ME.

Strangely enough! Suddenly the miscommunication suddenly STOPPED.

.....I hate everyone here. Wish desperately I could be drunk. Can't afford to be. But wouldn't it be nice? Instead, I just aggressively correct people. Oh? You were talking? Not my problem. You were wrong. You KNEW you were wrong, were being RUDE, so frankly? Fuck you.

Fire me. I fucking DARE YOU.

Oh, that's RIGHT! You CAN'T can you? LAPDOG. Because YOU are to busy chasing the favor of the Crown Idiot's FUCKING SIDEPIECE to remember that? He's marrying an actual ROYAL. The person who will ACTUALLY have access to all those contracts, funds, and staffing decisions! (You know... if he ACTUALLY MARRIED HER.)

By the time we turn in? I am considering defecting to the North when this all blows up. I've heard it's harsh but ultimately nice. Good food, beautiful clothing, hot people everywhere. What's not to like? Certainly less asshole behavior. They get stabbed.

I walk the High Princess to her rooms. Pulling open the HEAVILY padlocked chests with the key that I'd kept on me. The wedding furs went on the bed, soft as clouds. They're decorative obviously. You move them before... well. But they are meant to show off her greatest accomplishments. Some fur from difficult hunts, others hide with stories carefully burned onto. A life's work.

See, it is meant to say, the whole of who I am and what has lead me here.

There are fabrics, beads, sets of jewelry. I am setting them all out under the softly watching eyes of her Highness. We are waiting. Even though the marriage is a fucking sham. The idiot still seems to THINK it's done. Which means he must come, remove her veil, undo her braid.

No longer a bride, no longer a girl. There are TRADITIONS. They are MEANINGFUL. They hold a special place in people's heart, in their lives and memories. It is supposed to be tender. Intimate. An emotional, close moment between two people, now bound for the rest of their lives.

Which is why, obviously, the BASTARD doesn't show.

I don't need to even GUESS where he's gone. Let my fury and disgust show, as I slam the door with a VIOLENCE. How dare he. How DARE HE?! ON HIS WEDDING NIGHT!? I hope they DO kill him. At this point, he's begging for it!

Rage shakes through me as I imagine wrapping my hand around his gods forsaken throat. Him and his viper DESERVE each other. I hope they BOTH get every! Last! BIT! Of what they've EARNED.

Hissing out a furious breath. I center myself. Shove it down for later. And turn back to the matter at hand. Her Highness still needs to sleep. And I DON'T trust any of these fuckers. Glancing the fire place, I grab the fire poker. Wedge it through the doors handles. There.

No surprises.

Turning back to her Highness, still sitting at the foot of her own wedding bed, surrounded by her life's work? Years and YEARS of hardwork and meticulous planning? Beautiful things meant to be SHARED with the one she loved? I want to cry and put my fist through something. Be sick. Gods... this isn't right.

"I can only assume then, he's not coming? I can not say I'm suprised." She says, hold a hand out to me. "But then who will remove my veil? Unbraid my hair? I wonder..."

Once again, I'm taking over for what the prince should be doing. I planned the wedding as best I could. Provided, to the best of my ability. Offered the knife and received salt in return. Now? After a, hopefully comforting, squeeze of her Highness hand? I gently begin unpinning her veil.

This close, she smells of highland flowers. The little white-blue ones, that I can only barely recall. I saw them once. When I was younger. They were beautiful. Cover everything, come spring. I wish I knew the name of them.

So many little pins. Her hair is soft. I try not to let my hands linger. It's not my place too. Besides, she's likely not remotely interested. It's been one shit show after another, since we met. Finally though...? The veil is free. I gently lower it away. Together, we remove the no doubt heavy bits of jewelry she's worn all day.

I fetch a brush. Sit behind her. Something about the straightening of her back, softly expectant. Does she think it will hurt? A sensitive scalp perhaps. I work to be extra gentle. Making sure to lightly massage her no doubt sore crown, from where all manner of things have pulled and tugged at her hair all day. Softly working her hair tangle free, I make loose sleeping braids off to each side.

"You know..." her Highness muses, a current of something I can't quite place threading through her words. "This technically makes you my 'husband.' We are married, by Northern law. Irreparably bound. I can not say it's what I expected, coming here... but I think we suit each other, no?"

She's smiling. The first time, fully at least, all day. I can not help but smile back. It's a joke, of course. Silly. I could never be married to a High Princess. No one in their right mind would ever allow it. Not to mention I'm fairly certain only a handful of islands and two nations in the south even recognize such marriages... right?

Again, the niggling in the part of my brain where half forgotten facts lay. Something about her Highness specific Northern region? Her faith? Maternal clan? It's something. I studied this. KNOW this. But... gods, it's been such a day. Can't we just joke and laugh in peace? Rest? Surely we can deal with it tomorrow...

I unearth her nigh clothes. Soft and warm. Sweep back to help her get free of her marital dress. Beautiful as it may be? It weights a TON. I am careful to pack it away. Refuse to chance any mysterious loses. Standing, I move to repack her marriage works. Only to be stopped by the sight of her Highness sitting in bed, covers moved back, hand held out to me again.

"Join me? Surely you will not have me sleep alone, on my wedding night, husband?"

The bed is far too large for just one person. Surrounded by her works, hopeful expression on her face, it would take a far strong woman then I to turn her down. Respectful thoughts. Respectful! Thoughts! It's just a joke. You are her FRIEND. This is FRIEND CUDDLING.

.....oh gods.

Pretty. So pretty. So, so, SO pretty!

Mentally I smack myself. Take myself by the shoulders and shake, as I go and change into my night clothes. Do! NOT! Make this weird for her! She is lonely and far from home. TRUSTS YOU. Needs a friend. You can die over how unbelievably gorgeous she is on you OWN time! Be the friend she needs right now!

I come back. Awkwardly crawl into bed only to get tugged down into unexpectedly strong arms. Uuunnnggggff?! No! NO. Respect thoughts! Ha ha... oh gods they are testing me.

Her Highness arms wrap around me. Cuddling me close. The bed is possibly the single most comfortable thing I've ever rest on. That scent of flowers. Everywhere. I am cradled, even as I lay there frozen and unsure. Feel a hand, softly stroking my back, as though soothing a skittish little creature.

"I've always preferred women you know. But the contract was already made. We do not go back on our word." The words as whispered, an intimate and dangerous confession, almost directly into my ear. "But certain parties have grown rather arrogant. Full of themselves and their supposed superiority. Unfortunate then, for them, that they broke the only thing keeping us from breaking THEM."

The pieces finally align enough, in my head, to click into place. Factoids connecting with string. Her Highness is from the Redcrest Clan on her mother's side. The Redcrest Clan, due to a Matriarch five generations back, formally recognize any-sex marriages. His Highness... if she completes the marriage exchange...

Wait.

A....am I married?

Her Highness presses a kiss to my forhead. Gently tugging my body closer toward hers. To tangle her legs with mine. A pleased little noise escapes her, deep in her throat. A near soundless hum that's more exhale then anything else.

"You'll love the North. And I have no doubt my brothers will adore you. We will have to fetch your Clan, of course, but I have lands I can give them. I swear to kill any who dare harm you. Love you as you deserve."

With a sleepy smile, that did nothing to hide the deadly edges to it and eyes that seems to dance with the coming flames of war, she whispered.

"I'll make you a Queen, my love. Lay these lands at your feet. You will look so lovely in a crown."

[honeytama]

Look After You

Matt Dierkes x Plus Size!Fem!Reader

A/N: Matt shares an old tee with Reader in this, indulge me, and imagine that thing fits you amazingly!! Also, def don't listen to Look After You by the Fray after reading this, I'm crying.

Summary: After a guy cancels on a first date for the ?'th time, your friend, Matt, shows you’re worthy of honest love.

“Will you, won’t you, be the one I’ll always know?”

Content: Reader is plus size, friends to lovers, fluff, hurt/comfort, bed sharing/sharing clothes, first kiss

Word Count: 2.7k

Tag List: @exitwoundsx @areuirish @artificialbreezy @thisbicc @alloraiona

@xcllnt

Something happened. Can I come over? You anxiously send this text over to your friend Matt.

You wait for his response. The tears in your eyes blur his contact photo at the top of your screen; it’s an old selfie he sent you while on tour.

You wonder why it can't just be him. Why did you have to pursue other men? Especially when they treat you like this.

Your phone buzzes and a gray bubble appears.

Hey, of course. I just made dinner.

The keys in your hand jingle as you dash to your car to make your way to his house.

—

You fell into his chest once he opened the door to his home, and his arms held you as you stood there weeping against him. He usually was adverse about your habit of touching him, but tonight he indulged you, comforted you by holding you close and rubbing soothing circles on your back.

“Sorry, for getting tears on your shirt,” you had said while wiping the two wet spots on his shoulder.

He shrugged. “I’ve gotten over it already,” he gave you a sheepish smile. “Come eat some food and then we can talk about what's going on.”

For twenty minutes, you could feel his eyes stealing worried glances as you two ate in silence.

So, now that you’re both finished eating dinner, Matt checks in on you while taking your plate to do the dishes. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” you frown at him while he scrubs your plates at his sink. “But, that’s why I came over anyway, so I might as well share.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he says reassuringly while drying his hands and turning to face you. Matt crosses his arms and leans against the counter. “We can watch a movie or listen to some music. Whatever you want to get your mind off of it.”

“No, I want to tell you,” you breathe out nervously. “I went on a date– or I was supposed to be on a date tonight with a guy I met online.”

“Oh,” he shakes his head in surprise and furrows his brow. “I didn't know you were dating,” he says softly.

“I thought it would be weird to tell you,” you play with your hands in your lap. “We don't really talk about dating…or sex, those kinds of things, with each other.”

“I know we don’t, but I hoped that you would share that you were trying to date,” he says before clearing his throat. “So, that I could vet him, I mean. Make sure he’s good enough for you.”

“Well, now I wish you had,” you look down at your feet and your bottom lip quivers.

Matt sees this and rushes over the the dining chair next to you. He pulls it out and sits so you two are facing each other. “Shit, what the hell did he do?”

You touch his knee to calm him, “Nothing serious. I swear.” You continue to explain your night after a deep breath.

“I’ve been talking to him for a few days. We planned out a whole dinner date and maybe going back to his place afterward if things went well, but when I sent him a picture of myself in my date outfit to show him I was excited he just… rejected me, right then,” your eyes begin to water as you’re reminded of the humiliation. “He canceled on me and made some stupid fucking excuse about how he was having car trouble.” 

“What the fuck?” Matt fumes.

“So, I asked him if I could just go over to his place to hang out and he said his apartment’s AC was broken—?” It’s then that your voice breaks into sobs and tears trickle down your cheeks. Embarrassment rolls over you in a wave that burns your skin.

“What an asshole,” he takes your phone in his hands from the dining table. “Did that fucker ever share his address with you? I’ll pay him a visit for—.”

“Please, no,” you reach to grab your phone. “I just want you here with me.”

“He deserves to pay for treating you like that! Why the fuck would he just cancel on you?” Matt asks angrily. 

“Matt, I—,” you stammer through your sobs and avoid his eyes. “I don’t think he knew what my… full body looked like, even with the pictures in my profile.”

“Motherfucker,” he lowers his voice so as not to startle you. Sure, he’s enraged at the situation, but you’re breaking down in front of him and he doesn't want his anger to exacerbate it.

“This isn’t the only time this has happened, either” you hang your head in shame. “It’s either they cancel on dates because of my body, or act the complete opposite and use me for my body just to ghost me,” you reveal to him.

While this made him want to put his hands around someone's throat until they saw red, he gently held your hands through it and nodded sweetly while listening to you stammer and tear up at the past. “You can tell me everything. Lay it on me,” he encouraged.

After an hour of talking to him about the hell other men have put you through, you sniffle while checking your phone and notice it’s nearing his and his dogs’ usual bedtime. “Thank you for letting me come over to talk to you. I’m going to head home; I don’t want to keep you from going to sleep,” you start to gather your things, but Matt puts a hand on your knee.

“Y/N, of course, but I don’t feel comfortable with you going home alone like this. Why don't you stay with me tonight?” He suggests softly.

“Matt, It’s okay. I’m okay. I’ll go home,” you say with a shrug. It’s then you notice how heavy your shoulders feel.

“Please. You can stay in the guest bedroom. You can even borrow some of my clothes to change into,” he smiles.

You giggle and wipe your tears with the back of your hand. “I don’t think I’ll fit into your clothes.”

“One sleep shirt I have doesn’t fit on me. Try it and if it doesn’t work, then I’ll drive over to your place myself to get you pajamas,” he assures.

A tingle creeps up your neck imagining him doing something so thoughtful. Matt usually makes gestures to show he cares, but it’s usually in the form of his words or fists being thrown. Why did he care so much about you? Sure, he wasn't an angel, but there’s a soft spot that only you manage to access when you're around him. You almost hoped he would be a massive jerk to you; it would help you eliminate the feelings you had for him and make your heart feel less tangled.

You nod at his proposition and follow him to his bedroom. He pulls his drawers open and closed rummaging through his things until finding an old, white Underoath merch tee. He holds it out to you, “Go get changed, let me know how it fits.”

You take the shirt and leave his bedroom. Just down the hall from him, you enter his well-decorated guest room and lock the door. Pulling off your clothes, you put on Matt’s old shirt and look into the full-length mirror leaning against the wall. 

Like a dream, it fits perfectly. It’s so soft, and the front of the shirt ends comfortably at your upper thighs.

However, you didn't have any bottoms so you would sleep with bare legs tonight. 

The carpet in the hallway carries your feet back to Matt’s bedroom. Through the crack in the door, he tucks Boo and Zeus into their beds on the floor. The soft glow of his bedside lamp light bathes his physique. You didn’t expect him to be down to his boxers already.

It was the first time you had ever seen him like this. His collar bones, chest, abdomen, thighs, everything that’s ever been covered by him just out, nonchalantly.

“Matt,” you push the door open slightly, hiding your bottom half. “It fits.”

He turns to you and smiles, “I’m glad. Go try to get some rest,” he tells you caringly. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Goodnight, Matt,” you reply and give a small wave to the dogs. “Night night, puppies.”

—

Matt said to try to get some rest and that’s what you were doing. It just isn’t working.

Without checking your phone, forty minutes have passed of you tossing and turning in his guest bed. It was comfortable, but you couldn’t settle your mind enough to fall asleep.

Fuck it.

You slip out of bed and quietly creep back down the hallway to his room. With a soft knock on his door, you bounce on the balls of your feet impatient for him to open it.

The door is pulled open and Matt stands there in his underwear in front of you. “Y/N, you okay?” He squints at you and rubs his eyes in the darkness while only moonlight slips through the cracks of his blinds to illuminate you.

“I’m sorry if I woke you…I couldn’t sleep,” you offered shyly while fidgeting with the hem of his tee shirt on your thighs. 

“Mmm,” he nods. “Come get in my bed.” 

You tiptoe past his dogs sleeping soundly over to the opposite side of the bed from him. Timidly climbing into his sheets, he invites you to lay down by pulling his comforter over your waist and fluffing his unused pillows. 

“Get comfortable,” he whispers as he climbs in after you.

“Thank you,” you whisper back.

Matt and you face each other in the dark while sharing his comforter. Heat radiates off of him and you want so badly to reach out and pull him closer to feel it directly from the source. 

“Do you need to talk some more?” He asks softly.

“I think I just need you near me. I should fall asleep soon,” you whisper hesitantly.

“Come closer,” Matt switches to lie on his back and he offers out his arm for you to climb into his space. You slide over and lay your head on his chest as his arm hooks around you. He allows his fingers to rub figure eights along your spine. “You can wrap your leg around me,” he says into your hair. “I don't mind.”

You carefully wrap your leg over his body, avoiding his pelvis, and like a puzzle, your bodies fit perfectly together as one. Your hand finds its way to his naked stomach and his breath hitches as you return the favor to draw circles above his navel.

Silence enveloped the room as you two lie together, but it's broken when you bite your lip and ask, “Why are you being so sweet to me?” 

He chuckles and it makes your head raise with his chest, “I’m always nice to you. What are you saying?”

“If you being a little bully to me is you being nice, then yes, you’re a saint,” you giggle. “You just— never let me touch you like this or let me wear your clothes.”

“You needed it tonight,” he murmurs above you. “I’m here to give you what you need, that’s all.”

You think about his words and agree, He’s what I need.

“I was mostly awake, by the way,” he says softly.

“When I knocked?” You ask.

“Yeah, I was thinking about those guys you told me about,” he stops the figure eights on your back.

“Matt,” you warn.

“I know, I know,” he huffs. “I’m not going to search for their addresses online. I swear.”

“Good,” you pat his stomach.

“I just think you deserve someone who knows you're worthy of love— someone who loves your mind… your body,” he confides.

“It would help me out if you knew someone that thought like that, Matty,” you chuckle and look up at him.

“I do,” he says softly. His eyes dart over the features of your face searching for any slight reaction to his words. “I mean, me, I do.”

“What?” You laugh in disbelief.

“I think you're pretty, gorgeous, hot, sexy, whatever word you like best,” he talks with fervor as his eyes bore into yours. “I would most definitely take you on the best first date of your life. Just like tonight, I would set the table and make you dinner. Also, you wouldn’t be crying,” he boasts and it starts to make you giggle. “You could wear whatever you wanted. We would watch movies on my couch afterward, or I could teach you how to play my drums. It would be perfect, and there wouldn't be any stupid excuses made by me because I’m not one of those fucking loser ass dudes you meet on Tinder or wherever.”

“Calm down. Your heart is beating really fast,” you whisper and he looks down at your hand on his chest.

“I know and I don’t care,” he huffs. “I would rather have a stroke trying to let you know how well I would treat you than for you to ever have to return to trying other guys. Why can’t it just be me and you?”

“I didn’t know you felt that way,” you say softly.

“Also,” he continues his rant, “how can they not enjoy a picture of you looking fine as fuck in your first date outfits? I’ve never seen them, but I see you every other time and I want to take screenshots of you with my damn eyes. Matter of fact, there’s this one top you wear that makes your tits look—”

“Matt, stop talking,” you put a hand over his mouth. 

“What?” His voice is muffled under your palm. It’s then he notices that you’ve maneuvered yourself to straddle him. As you lean over him, your face is a mere foot away from his.

Removing your hand from his mouth you ask, “You like me, huh?”

“Yeah, and?” He scoffs, the slightest smile creeping over his lips.

“I like you, too,” you admit.

“Oh,” he furrows his brow. “That’s cool, now get off of me.” You both laugh as he pushes your body back onto your side of the bed. After a fit of laughter and fighting him, he finds himself pinning both of your hands with his on either side of your head. Your stomach flutters as his face is so close to yours now; all of him is so close. “You need to go to sleep.”

“Well, now I can't,” you tilt your head and squint at him in the dark. “There’s something I need to say first.”

“What is tha—?”

You sneak a kiss to the corner of his lips. “Thank you for saying those mushy things about me. If I knew you felt that way, then there’s no way I would let another man believe they deserved my time and patience. I just want it to be you, too.”

“Just you and me? Sounds nice,” Matt smiles before his face turns pensive. “You missed my mouth by the way. Kiss me better this time,” he rolls his eyes while dipping to your lips beneath him.

You closed her eyes as your lips met in a hesitant first kiss.

It was soft. Yet, it sparked a fire within you; a delicious warmth flowering in your chest. Matt’s hands squeeze yours harder, but you gather the strength to escape one of his hands and instinctively reach up into his hair, your fingers tangling in the soft wavy strands.

The kiss deepened and your playful banter was forgotten, replaced by the sound of his lips moving against yours and his tongue sneaking gauging licks a your bottom lip. When you finally break apart, breathless and flushed, a comfortable silence settles between you as you share knowing grins.

The sheets rustle as Matt gets out of bed and walks over to the upholstered accent chair in the corner of his bedroom. “Where are you going? Get back in bed and keep kissing me,” you whine when the heat of his body has left you.

“I’ll be over here,” he sits lazily, his legs spread apart. “No one can hurt you while I’m looking after you.”

“You need sleep, too,” you pat his side of the bed.

“Don’t worry about me. Now, get some rest,” he nods at your pillow to lay down.

He softly chuckles when you huff, throw yourself down and toss his comforter over your body. “Ugh, goodnight, Matt.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

[gingerteawrites]

BY THE HEARTH: SWAY

A/N: Hello hello again. I know, it's been slightly more than a week🏃🏾‍♂️. BUUUUUT, I'm really proud of this chapter and am excited to share it with you. Thank you all for being so patient with me, and please let me know how you liked this installment of BTH! Read previous chapter here.

Content:Royalty!AU, Nanami x female reader, king Nanami, Princess Y/N, Widower Nanami, Toddler Yuuji, hurt, angst. Not beta read

Word count: ~2.6K

Banner by @cafekitsune

ACT VI

The king’s arm wraps around your waist and his other hand finds yours, guiding you into a formal dance position at the center of the dance floor. The rigidness of your postures remind you of your first dance teacher, a cynical old man who thought of dance as but a formality. Something that must be executed down to the last instructed detail.

The musicians drew out a slow tune, cueing you into the beginning of the dance. You take slow, deliberate steps, flowing alongside the melody, executed to perfection. Left and right, clear and bright.

Despite your best efforts to only think about your steps, the proximity with this strange man was a difficult thing to get used to. He seemed so consuming. You found your senses filled with the earthy scent of his cologne. The shadow of his frame towered over you. You willed your mind to stay on the task. Left and right, clear and bright.

But you couldn’t help your thoughts wandering back to the last time you were this close with him. The thundering storm, the weeping stained class. The stiff hold. The kiss.

This was not the time to reminisce. You chastised yourself with a soft sigh.

Now desperate for a distraction, you looked over his shoulder, discreetly scanning the crowd. The attendees seemed to move in slow motion around you, chatting about, eating and drinking. But you did not miss the way their eyes fleeted over you, pretending not to watch. All but one engaged in this game of hide-and-seek: Yuuji, who observed your tango intently, bringing a smile to your face.

The king cleared his throat. Your distraction was caught.

“It is impolite to look away from your dance partner.” He comments, tone surprising you with its lack of accusation.

“I apologize, your majesty.” Your eyes return to the amber of his, striking in their depth. They gave the impression that he could see through you, making you simultaneously want to hide and bare yourself. The latter urge won. “You can be quite intimidating, that is all.” You added.

The tempo of the music changed, and you each crossed your arms over the others’, spinning gracefully so your back was to his chest, maintaining the rhythmic steps in his hold.

“I do apologize.” He spoke quietly, his warm breath against your neck causing an unintentional shiver to run down your spine. “Scaring you is not my intention.” He spun your around, returning to your steps face to face.

Your heart thrummed with foreign excitement. This man, whom you had spent the last few weeks pondering about only made your curiosity bloom more. Was he truly being honest? Was he not malicious in regard to you? Could you trust his words? This was perhaps your opportunities to find answers.

“I cannot help but wonder what your intention is in having me here” You ask, eyes boring into his, hands resting high on his shoulders. He twirls you around, catching you by the waist to bring you back close to him. You could feel the velvet of the cape draped across him caress your bare shoulders.

“Did you not want to attend the ball?” his voice is low, for your ears only to hear.

“Having me in this kingdom, not the ball.” You correct, mirroring his tone.

You can see him hesitate for a second. As if contemplating whether to be honest with you or not, and the flash of doubt you see behind his deep eyes makes you itch uncomfortably.

“Well, why does one marry?” His answer is a non-answer. You suddenly grow frustrated, pressing closer. Maybe with you right in his face, he would need to be honest. You were thirsty for answers. For any information.

“For a plethora of reasons my king.” Your tone hardened, emotions swelling with the music “I only wish to know which one is responsible for this arrangement.”

He looks at you with a raised brow, and you cannot tell if it is in curiosity or annoyance. Regardless, you refuse to back down. Some part of your brain registers the music swelling higher, strings spinning faster, and while your bodies match the tempo, all your attention is on the man facing you.

“I know this marriage was advantageous for my kingdom, that is a given. But what are YOU in it for?” You drape a hand around his neck, drawing closer to his ear to ask the question.

The music pulls you away, both of your spinning and bowing, before returning to your embrace, stepping in circular motions around the floor.

He draws closer to you so the side of his face almost rests against yours, his words grazing the shell of your ear. “Frankly, I ask myself the same question.” The king pulled away so his eyes found yours again, and the honesty they held did nothing to diffuse your confusion.

You wanted to ask more. To unveil what hid behind the hard shell that this man seemed to have surrounding him. But you had a feeling your king was not willing to divulge any more at this moment. It would be useless to press on.

So you kept swaying to the increasingly fast melody, letting Nanami’s hands guide you along with him, the rigid rules of dance forgotten, fingers tracing the outline of each other’s bodies, breathing in each other's scent. You lost yourself in this trance, forgetting all thoughts and anxieties, even if for just a moment. He spun you around, and the strings stopped their cry when you landed in a dip, chest heaving, heart racing after your breath.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, you register your surroundings: the sounds of claps, oos and aas from all around reach your ears. Nanami helps you up and steps away, offering an arm with a slight bow. You notice the way his own chest heaves slightly, and how his eyes don’t leave yours. You wrap your hand around the outstretched arm, and walk away from the center of the floor, back into reality.

The orchestra resumes its play, starting the melody of a festive tune. Couples fill the empty floor, their intricate garments painting the room in shades of vermillion, opulent blues and purples as they spin about.

You have no time to fully recover or untangle yourself from Nanami before a slew of people walk up to you, seeking introductions and a word with new royalty. You straighten your back, donning a polite, practiced smile when the first person approaches.

“Your majesties.” A noble decorated with too much jewelry bowed in greeting, a crooked smile pulling at his face “What a pleasure to finally see you out. We were starting to wonder why his highness had locked you away, but witnessing your beauty, we have no need to wonder anymore” He laughed at his own observation.

You chuckled, forced, awkward.

“Marquess Kamo.” Nanami greeted curtly, pulling his arm towards himself, drawing you close with the motion. A distinct sign of protectiveness. The old man’s grin faltered a bit, but he covered it with a gruff laugh, excusing himself with wishes of a nice evening.

“I look forward to seeing BOTH of you again.” He stepped away.

You looked up at the king once the marquess was out of earshot. “I take it we are not on very good terms with them?” You could swear you saw a hint of a smile play at his lips.

“He’s a cunning man. It’s better to be careful of his words.” He replied, turning towards the next group of people.

It felt like hundreds of people had come up to you to introduce themselves and offer some sorts of compliment. After some time, all of their words started merging together in your brain, and you were unsure you could distinguish between their names if you saw them again. Having been out in society since your coming of age, you thought you were prepared for formal events. But your home’s aristocracy was composed of a dozen families at most. You were positively overwhelmed.

Exhaustion tugged your body down, but the king by your side still stood straight, engaging in whatever form of small talk people approached you with. You rolled your shoulders slightly, feeling the duty to match his stature at least for this evening. Appearing weak next to a man like him felt wrong.

“It seems my wife has not had anything to eat yet. If you would excuse us.” The words reach your ears just as you call your attention back to the Countess before you, catching you off-guard.

The lady laughs, as if Nanami was the most amusing man on earth, waving her fan to shoo the both of you away. “Oh, of course your highness. As always, it was a pleasure.”

He begins to walk away with you in tow, and you look up at him in question, “I never said I was hungry.”

“I know you did not.” He beckons someone over before his gaze returns to you. “I just meant to give you a break.”

The next thing you heard was soft clanging noises, and a knight appeared before you, his ceremonial silver armor laying heavy on his shoulders. It commanded gravity, staunchly contrasted by the warmth of his grin. He exuded an almost boy-ish charm, at complete odds Nanami’s smooth allure.

The man bowed deeply, hand over his chest. “Your highness, I am royal knight Yu Haibara, at your service.”

You bowed your head in greeting, his smile causing you smile as well.

“If I may, you look absolutely radiant, your highness,” He complimented.

“Thank you, sir.” You replied politely.

Nanami clears his throat once again, calling your attention back to him. His expression, which had seemed to warm throughout the night had returned to its stoic disposition, his eyes focused on the knight.

“Haibara please find Alma and make sure her highness has some time to cool off.” You could swear he wanted to say more with the way his eyes lingered on you. But no more words were uttered.

Haibara looked at the king with a mischievous glint, before turning to offer his arm and guide you away. Despite the easy air that the knight carried around him, you noticed how alert he was, his eyes discreetly hovering around the room while he made small talk. You find Alma tucked into a corner of the room, as always, doling out instructions to the staff, and Yu relays Nanami's words to her.

She welcomes you with a smile, and takes you to the part of the huge ballroom with sofas and coffee tables set out where some ladies were already sat, enjoying hors-d’oeuvres and light drinks.

They all stand to bow when you arrive, and you greet them politely. With a social battery is already dwindling, you fail to notice the hostile looks coming from some, and wear your usual smile as you sit down. Alma hands you a flute of bubbly champagne along with some finger food, which you accept gratefully.

“Your dress is magnificent, your majesty. Pray tell, how much did it cost?” A lady, who introduced herself as just Mei inquires. Her talk of lavishness and riches are enough to fluster anyone, but another lady, countess Shoko tries to divert her attention, seeming to notice your fatigue. You smile gratefully at her.

Two glasses of champagne in, you feel the burning gaze of someone at the back of your head, and turn to see the king staring right at you. Your grow flustered, worried you did something wrong.

Am I drink too much? Does he not want me to talk to them? You’re too busy mentally going over the list of possible wrongdoings, while the ladies giggle around you, making you turn back to them.

“The king is usually so cold and uninterested.” One flaps her fan open, hiding her smile behind it. “I was convinced he could not be swayed by a woman anymore.”

The words leave you speechless, certain that the women have had the wrong idea. This man was indifferent to you, at best. Not even your exhilarating dance you shared would change that.

“Well they are married after all, so is it surprising?” Mei Mei adds, sipping the dark liquid in her glass.

“It’s not like it’s his first time married anyway.” Someone else rolls her eyes as she comments, and Shoko steps on her toes, causing her to yelp.

“So, your majesty, tell us about your kingdom. I have never had the chance to visit.” She turns to you with a slight smile.

You are conscious of her attempt at a distraction, but you indulge her, feeling nostalgic. You share with them the beauty of your homeland, the weather, the warmth. You mention your entourage; your siblings and friends. And in return, they share pieces of the workings of this kingdom. The major families and the power structure. You recognize the name Kamo, the man who introduced himself earlier, and recall a rigid man who carried the name Zenin who gave a curt introduction. Most of the ladies start fanning themselves when they talk about the Gojo family, emphasizing that their new duke was truly something to behold.

You are grateful for the conversation. You had not fully realized how much the isolation of the castle had made you miss such company. However, you could not shake the thought of the previous queen. Nanami's wife, Yuuji's mother.

How had the king had been with her? you wondered.

You are not surprised though, that no one brings her up again in the conversation.

Eventually, growing restless from sitting and some of the ladies with their shrill laughs, you excuse yourself.

“Are you feeling okay your majesty?” Alma approaches you quietly. “We can retire to your quarters if you want to.”

“Oh no,” you shake your head. “I have barely had time to talk to Yuuji. I’ll find you when I am ready to head back.” You countered. You dreaded the solitude of your quarters, and a part of you wanted to extend your time at the ball as long as you could.

Your eyes find the young prince standing alongside the knight from earlier. The urge to be in the child’s company fills you and you take a wide step towards him, eager to be near. Maybe it was the slight alcohol in your veins, or maybe it was the mental fatigue you kept pushing away, but you step on the edge of your dress and lose your balance, tumbling forward.

Great! way to embarrass myself in front of everyone. You close your eyes, bracing for the fall. And for the eventual ridicule. Of how the ladies you were talking with would probably laugh and gossip about this for weeks to come. You were exhausted.

A pair of hands slip around your waist, halting your fall and bringing you against a firm chest. You recognize the smell of sandalwood, and the softness of velvet before your eyes reopen to focus on the king's face.

“Careful,” he says, his brows slightly furrowed.

“I apologize.” You replied, now steady on your feet. But his hold on you does not falter, supporting your body.

Yuuji comes up to you running, and the king's hand slips away, giving you space to speak with the boy. Your body misses the warmth where he held you.

“Are you okay?” the child asks, touching your hand and looking up at you with the most adorable, shiny eyes that reflect a hint of worry. You coo, holding his hand and rubbing a thumb over it.

“Sorry that I worried you. I think I might be a bit tired.” You whisper the last part, as if sharing a secret. A smile returns to his face.

“That’s okay!” He reassures. “Papa said it’s almost my bedtime too.” He shared, hoping to relate to you.

“It is. I’ll say my good byes to a few people and then we’ll head back.” Nanami drew close to Yuuji, looking down at him as he spoke the words.

“Can she come with us?” The child requests immediately. He sees his father’s brow furrow and lets go of your hand, now clinging to him “Pleaseeeeee?” he makes the biggest puppy eyes, and you see the king’s resolve falter. He looks to you, and you shrug lightly with a smile, causing him to sigh. He stays silent for a few moments, trying so hard to reject the child.

“Okay.” he finally resigns, and Yuuji almost launches himself off the ground in joy. “Yes!”

And here we go once again. I promise things pick up steam from here one! Please let me know what you think :)

Tag list:@ofcqdesi @tomiokasecretlover @luvstama @amisuh @abhootghiihii @cosmicbreathe @lucreied @starmapz @tylersaiddonteatbananas @taeteddybear @bopsigles @flaneur002 @evans-dejong

[reallyhatethiswebsite]

blame @ultrakatua for this raphael eats tav's heart (she's into it lol)

Read on AO3

-

“I heard an interesting saying once,” says the devil. Soft, slow, murmured like a gentle prayer by a devout at church. “You mortals are so terribly fond of those.”

“What saying,” says the mouse. Hushed, fast, words pushed through cracked dry lips licked one-too-many times by a tongue that cannot lay still. Impatient, but obedient.

“That the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” says the devil. “Quite the allegory. Don’t you agree?”

“Quite,” says the mouse.

The devil circles her. Stares, eyes dark and glittering. Calm, controlled, despite the yawning hunger so clearly written all over his handsome face. He is always hungry. Gluts upon the things he covets: souls, power, subservience. Her. Men like him cannot be sated. He will consume everything she offers and everything she doesn’t, for eternity. What a thrilling thought.

“I wonder,” says the devil. “What is the quickest way to your heart?”

He drags one sharp and solitary black claw along her bare flesh. Displayed so sweetly for him. Damp with sweat. Muscles quiver beneath her fragile skin that does not break, not yet, not until he wills it. Blood flows close to the surface yearning to be spilled. Her little baby hairs all stand on end.

“Raphael,” the mouse whispers. There is the gentle, ominous chime of a grandfather clock from somewhere.

“Beloved,” the devil croons. Smiles. Reaches between her legs to rub two fingers through her mons. She gasps, hips jerking when he nudges her swollen clit, but all he’s looking for is to coat himself in her warm slick. “A meal as fine as this should be savoured.” He holds those wet fingers up to her lips. “Open.”

The taste of her cunt is tart, earthy. Underneath it is purely him: cherries, smoke and magic. Reverently she sucks his digits clean. Bites them, thrilled by his quiet groan, the expanding of his pupils, the swish of his tail. Violence is a devil’s love language, after all. When he frees his fingers from the moist prison of her mouth, her teeth catch on his knuckles. He leaves twin trails of spit down her chin and throat as he lazily lets his huge paw rest between her breasts. She grows breathless with anticipation.

He doesn’t need a blade. The singular claw that earlier teased her with terrible promise is enough. He draws a division from the hollow of her clavicle to the end of her sternum, a division of red that blooms and blossoms into an incision, splitting skin and fat and muscle tissue like bursting fruit. She arches up off the table where he had her present herself, as all choice cuts should. The noise she releases is guttural, both agony and ecstasy. His first slice is always the deepest.

“Such beautiful sounds you make,” the devil purrs, voice tight. “Sweeter than all the music of the Hells. Let me hear more.”

Of course she obliges. Screams and whimpers and sobs even as her hands help him widen the wound further, pulling skin and meat slippery with gushing blood apart from the stained ivory of her ribs. It’s pain indescribable and pleasure inexplicable. The exposing of her true and tender self to the man who she wants to tear her apart. What he seeks, what she yearns to offer him, is protected behind a cage of bone. If he gave her a hammer, she would smash it open herself.

“Oh, my sweet pet. My darling little mouse,” the devil growls. His composure unravels the more she suffers. He is a monster below his veneer of charm and decorum, a monster excited and aroused. “You are exquisite.”

“Raphael…!” The mouse weeps.

He answers her call. Strokes her face, smearing it with crimson. His fine clothes splattered with blood. His hard cock strains in his trousers. He breathes through his mouth, fangs shining, pupils so large his eyes are abysses sunk into his deep sockets.

“Just a little more,” the devil promises.

Together they pry away her ribs, snapping them like dry twigs, and at last she can watch him reach into her chest, reach into her very being, and wrench out the thing that will always belong to him. Her heart beats loud and fast, torn valves spurting bright red arterial blood everywhere, as he holds it in his palm like a treasured jewel. Stares with insidious desire. She feels nothing but depraved satisfaction.

“Eat it,” the mouse chokes. “It’s for you. It’s yours.”

He feasts. Sinks his teeth into her heart as easy as a man eating an overripe peach. Rips pieces of rubbery muscle apart and swallows them whole. Pieces of her sliding down his gullet. All of the twisted, consuming emotions he makes her feel, the dark things about herself she could never escape – everything she is, was, and ever will be, contained in that bloody mass, and he is devouring it. Such sick rapture, to be destroyed by someone who wants you that much. Now she’ll be a part of him forever.

[loraliewritesthings]

Concept: inspired by @bluerosefox and they're work about danny demanding the jokers soul. I wanted to write the joker and Danny's interactions too.

Danny groaned as the next set of paperwork was slipped onto his desk.

Joker would soon croak.

He would slip on his own banana peel and fall down the stairs.

Gothem would celebrate that night with alcohol and music. The ghost zone would brace itself for the trial...

Honestly it was bound to happen. It wasn't that danny was surprised. But it would be a long drawn out case. When a human dies they become more of what they are after all.

It's like their souls are condensed to make up their ghostly form. As if their passions were their hearts.

For some that was amazing. Fiery passion can be useful in all sorts of situations, but for joker this would be a nightmare come true.

The ghost looked at him his eyes worried, almost teary.

"Should I alarm the Gothamites of the infinite realms."

Danny thought for a minute, let out a low hum, and thought some more.

He knew what he could do in theory.

If he was to judge the jokers soul in the room that he dies in, the ghost zone would be free from his wrath.

But if the joker defeated him in combat he shuddered at what that monster would do with all the power in the afterlife.

He didn't really think joker could take him down, but knowing others thought the same for him and his predecessor....

So Danny was left with one option.

"Call my knights," he commanded

The fright knight was captain. Head of the army and keeper of the soul shredder.

Danny only needed to borrow it, but when he explained the predicament the ghost dropped to his knees, the metal clang sound echoed through the office. The fright knight began to speak,

"You wish to spare me from looking into the eyes of evil, and I thank you my liege. But I can not and shall not send you alone to your second death."

Danny told him to rise to get off the dirty floor, but he continued.

"As captain of the guards my liege is only under my obligation to the knights under me."

Danny remembered the conversation that made that a possibility. That changed the priority of obligation completely and totally, hopefully for once and for all.

Danny hid a small smile and told him to get of the floor again

............

It didn't take long to find joker amoung the living. He was surrounded by weeping souls unable to move on.

Danny clutched his scale. A gift from clockwork, to a "good and fair king to continue to strive to be better."

Clockwork had, in the end taken up the role of advisor. As such he stood by Danny's right side, his captain to the left.

When they entered the room he was already dead.

The soul of the man was laughing hysterically.

He got louder when he spotted them.

Danny sighed and despite the noise tried to read him his rights.

He argued with each and every one in nonsensical logic.

The third time Danny slapped him across his ghostly face, leaving frostbite and cold crystals on his white cheek.

"I am not batman, I am death. I will not play as he does, I am the ghost king, death himself."

After the rights were read Danny peared into his soul, sticky and tar like, it made him feel ill. He put on the extra gauntlet brought and separated the dead from his deeds.

It felt like lifting a semi, and weighed him down about a foot.

The joker cackled with pride. Danny wondered if he didn't understand the gravity of the situation, or if he didn't care.

Then with the other hand he did the same to himself.

Both sets of deeds were set on the scale at the same time. Danny barely caught the peice of his own ghostly form.

The scale broke the table on its way down, jokers sludgelike, corrupted deeds stuck to it. The scale hadn't twitched once to the other side.

The knights went to pick up the piece of soul and put it back. It took three of them.

Danny put his deeds back were they belonged.

When everything was dead and done, joker was declared guilty and chained down, something he escaped out the window and around the block to avoid.

Danny took out the soul shredder.

It wasn't the fright knights job to play executioner.

Then the joker was blindfolded, he made this difficult via attempted biting, but once it was done, it was done.

Danny didn't ask for a last word.

He took the sword and swung as he had been taught. And as the jokers very soul was torn, the bells rang in Gotham for the first time in Years.

He didn't miss.

[heartofbusan]

The sun's radiant vibe.

Rebirth and the declaration of Park Jimin.

DPPAKCVBMMNNN HES SO PRETTY. HELP. FOCUS.

Over on Twix, a quietly renowned translator named Colin delivers his version of lyric translations for nearly all BTS songs. He just posted his translations of MUSE and boy..🫠...be sure to read them as they are well thought out and nuanced. It's just beautiful the way he seeks to find the most fitting word to convey a feeling. His translation made me realize that people been sleeping on Rebirth. Not only streaming wise, it's kinda lagging behind, but lyrics wise as well.

It's been my clear favorite since I first heard it. It reminds me of church music, say I the atheist. But it's the way that choirs can move your soul with those soaring compositions and exalted professions of love for the glorious in a harmonious coming together of voices. It's just so beautiful. I can hear you screaming: THERE’S AN ACTUAL CHOIR SINGING ALONG, OH, so that might just be it, Sherlock 🧐 ok ok. Noted.

It's also that line: "With you. I will be your reason, reason." He's singing his promise, his praise.

Rebirth is Jimin laying his love at the altar, ready to be either burned or scorned or blessed. In any case, he's no longer hiding. He's professing. He's been through utter despair, and there was his love, arm outstretched. He wants to be as one.

Furthermore, i think Rebirth is kind of a coda to the closing song of FACE: Letter.

If Letter is a quiet confession, whispered from one lover's lips to the other's ear, warm breath tickling his hair, then Rebirth is Brat.

Rebirth is one hell of an opening song. Bold and bravely confident, utterly romantic in the meeting your lover at dawn kinda way. But the irony lies in that it would be an amazing closing song of an album. The way the choir lingers and the music resonates long after the song has ended. The clapping! It screams, ending concert song, and the audience is absolutely weeping, hugging their seat mates, mascara running, chimmy headband drooping.

There's probably a technical explanation for why, but I'm telling you, a closing song. Because once Showtime (interlude) hits, we're in a totally new environment audibly and emotionally. Yet it had to be the intro because it's the seed that was planted in FACE.

Rebirth is this Jimin:

"Both he and the object of his affection have feelings for each other." It's mutual. Equal. I am you, you are me much?!

"So that I can sing as we lock eyes." Insert TTU 'But I still want you.' gif here

"...implying that the other person won't let him remain hidden."

'In my despair, you act as light. Like the sun's radiant vibe, You pass by me tenderly.'

The sun is tenderly beckoning him with its warmth, to finally step into the light. We all know who has been there for Jimin throughout 2022/2023, encouraging him both publicly with his simping and privately.

Jimin told Namjoon in MMM that JK diligently helped him, assisting him when he spent two months re-training his voice for longevity.

I don't want to read more into the lines of a song that could also be totally make-believe, but it's Jimin were talking about. A man who is willing to break down himself, piece by piece, to rebuild himself back stronger, more confident, and with his eye firmly set towards the future. Do we think he wouldn't speak in these exalted terms about his good love? Have you heard Letter!?!

*DEEEP SIGH*

No wonder Jimin wants to give pay back in bedtime cuddles. 🙂‍↕️

Rebirth is so confident, and it's not only the lyrics mind you. It's also the way he sings notes we haven't heard him sing this brazenly before. I will scream into the void once he performs this live someday. CAN YOU IMAGINE?!

Stream Muse and Rebirth for Real Love.

TLDR: Jimin is GOAT, author a simp.