#there’s a whole red string board behind this post

[the-nation-of-today]

Today’s late night activity is [looks at notes] trying to guess which angelus leather paint Andy used on his second bleeders jacket

[aesthetic-bbyg]

SWEETNESS ~ BUGGY

LA!buggy x straw hat!reader

Based off of this post bc it made me giggle PT 2

Nattie speaks: y’all this mf clown has no right to be so fine but LAWRD. I’d do anything just for one lick. This is short nd simple but cute🤭

ZORO DRAGGED HIS FEET across the wooden floors of the Going Merry, ignoring the muffled screeching of the clown head inside the dark sack as he set his eyes on thing. Nightfall was approaching, everyone on the ship wanted some rest, yet nobody was getting any with the constant whining of Buggy. The green haired man pushed open your door, making you jumped slightly as you looked towards him with a raised brow.

“I give up, all yours now.” Zoro voiced practically dripped in annoyance, he tossed the sack across the room, making it land onto the soft cushion of your bed before slamming the door behind him.

You could hear groans coming from the sack, “Damn you, you fucking broccoli-haired ass!” You chuckled softly, putting down the comb you had in your hand and walking towards the scruffy bag. As you released the clown head he sighed in content, breathing in the fresh scent of berries that engulfed the room. “Ah, sweetness, so good to see you!”

“Nice to see you too, Buggy.” You giggled, “You doing alright there?” You asked, smiling a bit as the man got comfortable on your bed.

“Much better now that I have you in front of me.” He winked with a flirtatious smirk on his red painted lips. “I definitely thought he was going to put me with that weird chef guy again so he could chop me into piece and cook me or something.”

“Looks like you got lucky today.” You smirked back, grabbing him and placing him on the small vanity, going back to combing through your hair. Buggy was a simple man, with simple needs, especially since his whole body was gone. The angle his head was facing gave him more fuel into his dirty thoughts. His eyes directly faced your chest, eyes captured on the line of cleavage peeking from the low cut tank top you had on. He was hypnotized by you, for the first time since he was taken by Luffy and placed on the ship to sail away to Arlong island he’d gone completely silent.

You simply hummed, clueless of how the clown shifted slightly to get a closer view. You suddenly let out a huff, dropping the comb and looking over at the clown. “Y’know, I like having you around here, you totally make me feel special and even though the rest of the crew might really, really not like you, know I’m on your side.”

“Mhmm.” Buggy hummed in response, eyes hungrily watching you. “I appreciate that, sweetness.”

You smiled. “You hungry?” You stood up and took him in your arms, cradling him carefully like he was a baby. The blue hairs that peaked from under the striped bandana tickled your skin.

Buggy enjoyed being around you, especially since you were so generous and careful with him, the others simply tossed him into the sack or an empty barrel whenever he even spoke. But you, you fed him, you defended him, you took care of him and did the exact opposite of what everyone else did. “I’m hungry for one thing, that’s for sure, sweetness.” The clown replied, eyes still clued onto your tits as you entered the small kitchen.

“Hey, maybe we can brush through that tangled mess once we get a quick snack.” You replied giddily with a big smile, “Hey, and wanna know another thing—“ You heard a string of groans follow as soon as you stepped into the room with Buggy.

“I gave him to you specifically to get away from him.” Zoro groaned, making Sanji nod in agreement.

“I’ll be out soon, stop your whining.” You replied with a roll of your eyes, reaching for the basket of fruit and picking out two apples. You picked up a knife and cutting board, quickly going to work and chopping up a few apple slices. “So as I was saying, nobody has ever taken me seriously, which why I also like you, you don’t make fun of me which is what many others do.”

Zoro and Sanji glanced at eachother with questioning looks as you proceeded with your mini rant, both of them making eye contact with the clown head that smirked at them, a cheeky look in his eyes.

“But I mean, Luffy chose me to be a part of his crew so obviously I can be more, I’m not dumb, and I feel like more people need to take me seriously.”

“Hey.” The clown smirked as he watched your every move, finally speaking up about his slight obsessing with your chest. “Nice tits.”

“Thank you!” You happily replied with a smile, placing the slices on a clean plate and taking Buggy back to your room as everyone stared in shock. “Goodnight boys!”

“Yeah, goodnight fellas!” Buggy called out, and if only he’d had the rest of his body he’d most definitely be given them a middle finger.

“How is it that a clown can do better at getting that girl then me?” Sanji muttered in annoyance.

Forever will live, love, and laugh Buggy

yummy, I <3 men who are bbyg’s

[s-nebul0sa]

String Theory

You can also read this on AO3. Prompt was from this post by @ekingston but I also wanted to post separately. I had: Sci-Fi, lying on the floor, mutual pining and string theory.

It has been a long flight. Longer than any of them expected when they signed up for this job. The last time Lena set foot on a planet was 3 weeks, 5 days, 2 hours and 24 minutes ago. But who is counting?

The ship shakes beneath her feet. Their stabilisers have been having a rough time lately with the amount of meteor fields they had to evade and lack of downtime for maintenance. At least they do not get turbulence in outer space because there is no air. 

Lena clutches one of the walls as she navigates the narrow passageway to the exercise room. Not to exercise but to get some time away. She needs a break. And the exercise room is the best place for that. This also happens to be the time of day most of her crewmates will not be exercising.

As hoped, Lena finds the room empty and quiet. She shuts the door behind her and lowers herself to the floor on top of a yoga mat. The artificial gravity on board is such a blessing in moments like this.

Ever since she was little, Lena has had a desperate need to do her thinking on the floor. A need that is much harder in outer space on a small spacecraft. Especially when it is one without artificial gravity to create something that resembles a ‘floor’. 

This ship, however, has everything she needs. Grateful, she spreads out her arms and savours the moment with a deep breath in and out. 

She slips the bag of peanuts she snuck out of the kitchen from her pocket and tears it open. Thinking is best done on the floor and with snacks. She takes a few peanuts and puts them in her mouth, relishing the way they break between her teeth. Most of their food consists of flavourless nutrition bars catered to their species needs. Why nobody ever thought to put some taste in them, is beyond Lena because flavourless food is the worst type of food she could ever imagine. 

Her mind drifts to daydreams about better food, solid ground beneath her feet, fresh air, plants, and physics. 

The door opens with a small whoosh as the air pressure resettles and Lena opens her eyes. It is Kara, with her big blue eyes, looking startled.

“Sorry, I guess– I think we had the same idea,” she stutters gesturing to the rest of the spaceship beyond the door and the quiet in the exercise room. A tinge of red creeps up her neck as she struggles to decide whether to stay or leave.

“It’s okay, we can share,” Lena says with a smile that feels more casual than it is. Kara makes her nervous, but not as nervous as she makes Kara so she can suck it up and deal with it. It was never her intention to scare Kara, but she has been attracted to her crewmate from the moment they got on board of this ship together and she does not want a messy space travel relationship, so she might have been a little stand-offish. 

“Oh, yes, o–okay.” Kara shuffles her feet for a few seconds before closing the door behind her and finding a place on the floor next to Lena. Though the exercise room is the most spacious room –floor-space-wise– on the ship, it is by no means big. They are nearly shoulder to shoulder. 

“Peanuts?” Lena offers.

Kara nods and takes a whole hand, putting all of the peanuts in her mouth in one go and nearly choking on them.

Lena looks away. She cannot believe she finds this woman attractive even when she nearly chokes herself to death on peanuts. She tries desperately to push it down. To not think about how close Kara is to her. How she could touch her if she just moved her hand a few centimeters…

“Thanks,” Kara croaks when she has managed to swallow most of her bite. “Those Kryptonian nutrient bars are really gross, so I needed to taste something.”

Lena has to suppress a laugh because no sane person would laugh at that. Only a hopelessly gay person who is in love with the person who said it would. And Lena is not in love.

“The human ones are horrid too,” Lena says, her eyes looking purposefully at the ceiling and not at Kara.

Kara hums and takes some more peanuts. A much more reasonable amount this time and she manages to eat them without choking. 

They lie in silence, side by side, for several minutes. Lena’s fingers itch to reach out and touch Kara’s skin. She stomps down on those feelings and pulls her hand in closer, crossing it over her stomach so she is less likely to accidentally do something really, really stupid. 

“Lena?” Kara asks after a while, turning to Lena. 

Lena can see the red in Kara’s neck has not actually gone down. In fact, it might have spread even further and now also covers part of her cheeks.

“Yes.”

“I have a human physics question for you, but if you don’t want to answer it now that’s also okay,” Kara rambles, saying something barely audible about coming here for quiet and peace.

“No, that’s fine. What is your question?”

“So, you humans have made up your own laws of physics, right?”

“Yes, before we got in touch with other species, we had our own laws.”

“I was wondering, how does your string theory work?” Kara turns even redder at asking and adds, in an even softer voice “And what’s quantum entanglement?”

Lena smiles, she loves physics and the difference between human physics and most alien species’ physics. Of course she can teach Kara about string theory and quantum entanglement.

She begins explaining and loses herself in her teaching, drawing Kara pictures in the air. Kara eagerly nods along with the story, her eyes flashing down to Lena’s lips every so often. But Lena is too busy to notice.

[shizucheese]

Welcome to my Red String Board for the Magnus Protocol. Instead of making new posts I'm just going to reblog this and add new thoughts after every episode and update certain theories. Things might be a little bit messy because some of this is a bit stream of conscious but I'll try my best to at least keep the formatting consistent. So let's get this party started. 1/24/23: As of this writing the first two episodes have been released. Theory: As more episodes come out and we get more cases/ statements, is there going to be a pattern to the "Talker" statements and which voice gets used (or if it's a Talker at all?). References to specific subjects, Entities, other themes? What we have right now: “Talkers”

Norris (Voice: Martin?/ Alex)

Episode 1: “Reanimation (Partial) -/- Regret [Email]”. The Stranger? The End? The Dark? The Lonely? The Flesh? Arthur (Nolan?).

Chester (Voice: John?/ Jonny)

Episode 1: “Transformation (eyes) -/- Tresspass [chat log]”. Magnus Institute, The Eye. (Involves a forum; the Web?).

Agustus: N/A

Non-Talkers (?) Episode 2: "Transformation (full) -/- dysmorphic [video call]". The Spiral? The Flesh. The Stranger. Ink 5oul (avatar/ entity?) Are different characters aligned with certain Entities (working off of known Entities from TMA)

Alice  = Spiral? (Conspiracy Theories). Web? (Is the reason why Sam got his job. Her whole conspiracy theory thing could be way to mess with people/ manipulate them)

Gwen = The Buried (?) (Behind on her work. Ambition?)

Colin = The Slaughter? (Irritability) The Eye? (Something’s listening?)

Sam = The Eye (Hunger for knowledge/ need to know even when warned it could be detrimental).

I have a theory about the butterfly effect/ multiverse theory regarding the manifestation of the Entities and new ones emerging as a result of things being just different enough for it to happen. The full thing + my support for it is long enough to warrant it's own post though so I'm going to make it one and then probably link it here just for record keeping purposes. Edit: My Butterfly effect/ Multiverse Entity Theory

[coolcataetheryte]

I've never posted a fanfic on this platform before, so sorry if anything looks weird. The characterization may be a bit iffy *shrug* I wrote this at like 3am. Also, I don't write smut often, so I expect this to feel about the level of a cheesy romance novel, and maybe that's fine. Can you imagine Estinien on the cover of one of those?

Summary: The WoL is feeling burnt out and lonely, Estinien shows up and helps her relax.

Pairing: Delphinium(WoL)xEstinien

Rating: NC-17

Tags: first time, uuuh size kink i guess? Barely, basically pwp, minor plot, I'm not sure what else. I don’t do this often, sorry lol so i’m not sure what should be tagged

Word count: 3,250

Delphinium sighed as she closed the door to her inn room behind her. The sound of the other scions’ drunken merrymaking muffled to a whisper and she was thankful for it. Of course, she loved celebrating a job well done as much as the next adventurer but once things got too loud and rowdy, it was time to make her exit. The boisterous cheering and laughter and music was just too overwhelming.

She took a few deep breaths then simply stood there, staring at nothing really. The room was a bit stuffy and her clothing felt stifling. Her rapier felt heavy at her hip. She was exhausted.

She finally peeled herself from the door and laid down her weapon on the bench. Her fingers brushed her harp as she withdrew her hand. She stopped and gave it a long look. She hadn’t played it since becoming a red mage some time ago. It was gathering dust and probably had fallen out of tune. Tired as she was, maybe a little bit of mindless work would do her well. She picked it up gently and sat down right where she was on the floor. The old wooden boards creaked slightly under her. She began cleaning and tuning the neglected instrument, all other noises fading into the background and her mind fell more at ease as she focused. Her fingers worked meticulously. Her ears missed nothing, quickly fixing any sour notes. Her scaly tail swished gently behind her the more she got into it.

Quite some time had passed when she gave the harp a satisfied nod. The noise from the lobby had disappeared. They’d finally decided to call it a night. That meant it was likely around midnight now. She hadn’t meant to stay up so late but admittedly, doting on the harp had somehow given her a bit of a second wind. She looked around the room absently, fingers just barely touching the strings and creating a mere whisper of song. What should she do now? Her eyes fell back on the instrument in her hands. It’d been a while since she sang. While less so than playing the harp, as she did sing to herself on occasion, she hadn’t truly sang and she began to feel like perhaps she should.

She loved singing. She always had. It was why she initially sought the way of the bard to begin with. To use song in battle had started to strip the joy from it, however. A side effect she never would have expected. That was the reason she turned to the blade. The others of course had questioned her decision. She played her role as bard well, and no doubt they enjoyed to hear it even if their focus was battle and not her performance. She’d told them it was simply to strengthen herself and feel more helpful with damage. It wasn’t a lie. But it wasn’t the whole, intimate, personal truth that she had never told anyone.

In a swift motion she stood with the harp and made her way across the room to open the door to the balcony. The night was crisp and quiet, with naught but a few insects disrupting the silence. Her chest swelled as she breathed deep of the cool air. It was only when a small shiver ran through her that she realized she’d been sweating. She paid no mind and began to string together notes that drifted into the night. Then her sweet voice joined in. It was an old song. One she didn’t even remember learning. It was simply part of her core despite having few memories from before her arrival in Gridania on that carriage. A lullaby from her people she presumed, with its soft melody and lilting sung notes.

Her song faded into an echo as she finished. A small smile graced her lips.

“That was lovely.”

She nearly jumped out of her scales at the sudden voice. Normally it was difficult to startle the Warrior of Light but Estinien had a way of catching her off guard randomly. Had he been there the whole time? Why did he jump onto her balcony of all places? He was probably lost. She gave him an exasperated look before turning on her heel to return to her room. His footsteps followed behind her.

“My intent wasn’t to frighten you,” he said.

He seemed sincere but she could hear the mirth in his voice. Yet somehow she couldn’t bring herself to tell him to leave. Without a word she placed the harp in its previous resting spot. She found herself simply standing and staring at nothing again.

The material of Estininen’s trousers caught gently on one of her tail spikes and she became aware of his presence directly behind her. He was close, a hair’s breadth from her back.

“What is it,” he asked. “You only stand about like this when something is on your mind.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder and that was all it took for her demeanor to completely break away. She relaxed back against his body with a sharp sigh, her head resting just barely at his navel.

“Delphinium?”

He sounded concerned. She gently placed her hand over his. His hand felt so large. She imagined what they might be like holding her more intimately. She quickly shoved those thoughts to the back of her mind. Sure, they had their banter, and yes, many knew it was flirtatious but that was all it had ever been and this.. was entirely too comfortable. She couldn’t afford herself this. She suddenly wanted desperately to move away from him but she was stuck between him and the bench. She decided on a side step but, in her exhaustion, quite embarrassingly caught the edge of Estinien’s boot. He caught her with ease before she could fall to the ground. Their eyes met, and for a moment there was nothing in the world but the concern in his eyes as they searched her own.

Her breath hitched when she was pressed against him. Her feet left the floor, and it took her a moment to realize he had lifted her to crush her against his chest in a tight embrace.

“Whatever it is,” he said quietly. “I hope that you would trust me enough to tell me.”

The dam broke. She gripped his tunic as her tears streamed down cheeks. Estinien held tighter and gently lowered to sit on the floor as she sobbed into his chest. She easily fit into his lap.

“I’m sorry,” she choked out. “It’s just all been so much. I’ve done so much in so little time. I barely have any time to rest. I always have to be strong for everyone. I’m just so..tired.”

He said nothing but continued to hold her close. A hand stroked her hair gently. After a while, she calmed, taking deep breaths.

“You must think so little of me now,” she chuckled dryly. “The great hero, crying like a child.”

“No,” he said. “I know how much you hide your emotion. You bear quite a burden and you seldom let anyone see what you truly feel. I know how I seem, but I do understand you.”

She looked up at him at his words. Being half his size, she’d never seen his face so close before. She’d also never been so vulnerable with anyone, yet here she was looking so deeply at him with tear stained cheeks. He used a thumb to wipe a tear from her eye, then his hand drifted to caress her cheek. His thumb dared to ever so gently brush across her lip, the pink of her lipstick leaving a faint streak on his skin.

It was Delphinium that closed the distance between their lips. She gave in to the desire she held since she first battled alongside him on the bridge. He didn’t resist her, secretly having had the same thoughts since that moment. He’d cast them aside as he continued to focus on his revenge, but now there was nothing to hold him back. He helped her adjust into a more comfortable position as he deepened the kiss.

Her hands found their way into his long tresses, while Estinien’s hands rested comfortably at her waist and back. The tiny moan as Delphinium allowed his tongue access sent a shiver through him. They stayed there a while. There was no battle for dominance. Delphinium gladly gave into him, letting someone else take the lead of something for once.

Somewhere they’d ended up with Delphinium on the floor beneath him. His lips found their way to her neck, and she finally registered her horns scraping uncomfortably against the unforgiving wood as she arched a bit into him. She stopped his hand as it began tugging at the laces of her blouse. He paused, looking at her.

“Let's have a bath,” she said breathlessly.

“After. We’d need another once we’re through.”

She gave a bit of a snort at that. “Please. I want you to bathe with me. We should be clean before we do anything.”

He relented easily. One more kiss, then he helped her to her feet. She held his hand and led him to the washroom with a smile.

As the tub filled, Delphinium felt a wave of self-consciousness. She had her back to her companion, but could hear him beginning to undress. She weighed the possible consequences of following through with her actions. Was this a good idea? Could she afford to be involved with someone so intimately? Could she allow herself?

A hand on her arm turned her toward Estinien. She looked up at him immediately, trying to ignore his naked groin just below her eye level. He slowly began to unlace her blouse. He looked at her, silently asking permission to remove it. She nodded. As he worked to undress her, her eyes scanned over the scars decorating Estinien’s upper body. They were many, some old and faint, some clearly more recent. When he knelt down to remove her boots, she caught sight of his gnarled shoulder. Without thinking, she reached toward it, her fingers carressing over the marred flesh as gently as they had the harp strings earlier that night. He looked up at her and she muttered an apology, removing her hand.

“It’s all right,” he said and continued the task at hand.

Now both fully nude, a blush crept over Delphinium’s face. She noticed Estinien’s cheeks began to dust with pink as well and smiled. She took his hand and guided him into the warm water with her. Seeing his scars reminded her just how strong and resilient the Elezen was. To hell with her doubts, Estinien could handle himself. The fear of losing him would always be there, but she knew he would not fall easily. She was tired of handling everything alone. It was clear he felt the same.

The tub was more than large enough for them and she was thankful not to have ended up cramped together. She’d never been so close to anyone, let alone been naked with them. But she was the one that wanted this and wouldn't back out now. Estinien watched her while she began to lather soap onto a cloth. She tried not to appear so nervous under his gaze.

She looked at him, this time being the one to silently ask permission. He nodded just as she had. She washed him gently. Upon reaching the scar on his shoulder, he placed a hand over hers. She understood, relinquishing the cloth to him. She found another and scrubbed her face, removing her lipstick. Wiping under her eyes, she realized how smeared her makeup must’ve been, and how silly she likely looked. She laighed to herself, drawing Estinien’s attention.

“What is it,” he asked.

“Nothing. Just imagining how I must've appeared this whole time. I’m sorry for suddenly crying at you. And sorry if your tunic is stained.”

It was his turn to chuckle. “Pay no mind. I have other tunics. I’m honored you shared your tears with me.”

She smiled and kissed his hand gently. “Let me wash your back?”

He nodded, then turned to give her access, moving his hair off to the side. She rubbed the cloth over him, again noting all of his scars. She kissed a thin scar near the base of his neck. He turned to her and she was about to apologize when he captured her lips with his own once more.

“Your turn,” he whispered.

She looked at him confused.

“Your back? I should return the favor.”

“Right,” she laughed awkwardly and quickly turned away from him.

He didn’t hide his chortle. He was a bit rougher with his washing than Delphinium would normally be. However, she could tell he was cleaning her scales with the same precision he cleaned his weapons. She relaxed into it with a sigh, drawing her knees up and leaning her chin on them to keep her head above the water. He was nearly massaging her at this point and she felt like she could fall asleep like this.

Estinien pulled her into his lap, her back flush against his chest. He seemed to ignore the small spikes of her tail biting into his stomach. She shivered against him as her breasts were exposed above the water. She became more alert again when she felt a hand glide up around one of them. Of course, she couldn’t sleep just yet. This is what they both had been looking forward to.

She was aware of her short stature, but now with his hand covering her ample breast she felt downright tiny. It was as thrilling as she imagined. She let out a breathy sigh as his fingers teased the bud of her nipple. She felt his other hand move downward, brushing over the deep scar on her lower abdomen. She knew he must’ve seen it earlier. She expected he’d ask about it, and was a little surprised he hadn’t. It didn’t necessarily bother her to speak of it, but it did bring back memories of awful pain. His hand didn’t linger over the scar for long, and drifted lower still.

Another sigh left her lips when his long fingers met their destination between her thighs.

She squirmed slightly at the sensation his rubbing fingers sent through her. A moan escaped her throat and that seemed to encourage him quite a lot. She felt his erection growing beneath her, the length of it coming to rest against the cleft of her heated folds. He continued his motions. Her breathing became more erratic, and her moans more frequent. She never thought he’d bring her to the edge so quickly but she couldn’t hold back.

She couldn’t help but rock her hips into his massaging fingers, the motion also grinding against the erection between her legs.

Estinien pressed his lips to her shoulder, stifling a heated groan that went straight to Delphinium’s core. She climaxed with a shout that echoed embarrassingly through the large washroom. His fingers lingered a few moments longer as her spasms calmed. Then, he moved to grasp his length. He held her impossibly closer as he stroked himself to his own completion. If she hadn’t been so preoccupied with him breathing heavily in her ear, she would worry about her tail possibly drawing blood from his crushing embrace.

He finished with a grunt then finally loosened his hold. They both needed more.

“Bed, now,” Delphinium said.

They wasted no time. Drying just enough so as not to slip, he carried her easily to the bedroom. He all but tossed her onto the soft bed and immediately he was crawling over her, planting a trail of kisses along her thigh all the way up to her breasts. She moaned quietly as he mouthed at the perked nipple, her hands gripped his hair gently, urging him on. His tongue flicked over the bud, earning him a louder sound and a twitch. Satisfied, he continued his trail upward, finally capturing her lips for what seemed like the thousandth time that night.

Again, she allowed his tongue access, gasping against his lips while his thumbs firmly caressed her nipples. Her legs spread wider of their own accord and she was beginning to ache for him.

“Estinien,” she breathed. “I need you now.”

Without hesitation, Estinien sat back to hold her hips. He gently probed the tip of his erection at her entrance. She watched him eagerly, the difference in size wildly apparent. Neither had any idea if it would truly fit, but by the twelve, they weren’t about to stop now.

Their eyes met and she gave a quick nod. The tip plunged inside her not a moment later. She gasped out a moan and tangled her hands into the bedsheet as he slowly slid the rest of his length into her heat. He grunted out his own pleasured moan as it engulfed him. He paused, the only sound was their panting breaths. He gave her a minute to adjust to him. Then, at her nod, began a quick pace of thrusting. While it would’ve been lovely to take it slow, they both desperately needed this connection and release. There was no way he could hold himself back now.

Delphinium’s fervor matched his, a string of moans falling from her parted lips. She watched him with half lidded eyes, memorizing the way his muscles clenched with each movement.

Estinien carefully pulled her up into his lap. She let out another moan of pleasure as the new position pushed him deeper still. Her hands glided over him, feeling his chiseled body. She kissed his chest and held tight as he began to move once more. His thrusts were quickly growing desperate, she was nearing her limit as well. His passionate, breathy, moans were right in her ear again. Her own sounds had gone up an octave. With a few more thrusts, she was pushed again over the edge into that wonderful, white hot pleasure. Moments later she felt him pulsating within her, filling her to the brim with his seed.

Panting, he stroked her freckled cheek and realization settled in. She saw the streak of panic in his eyes and gently shook her head.

“I can’t,” she whispered, leaning her forehead against his.

His mind flashed back to the scar he’d felt on her stomach and he relaxed, understanding.

They held each other close as they caught their breath, and the high passed. Gently, he laid her on the bed and disappeared for a moment.

Delphinium was already beginning to let sleep take her when he returned. She startled slightly when the warm, wet cloth touched her, but once she understood she allowed herself to fall into her slumber.

Estinien cleaned them carefully. While typically he wouldn’t bother, he remembered how much Delphinium hated to feel sticky. He would do anything for her. He would die for her. Of course, he’d try very hard to never let it come to that.

He settled them under the blankets and watched the sun slowly light up the room.

[mydarlingdearestdead]

In the Last Strains of Sunlight

Remus and Maria, Katie, Emmeline and some lady called Delilah. Ocs

She turned on her heel and, kicking up much dust, strolled meaningfully out of the courtyard, toward the idle kitchen.

Maria clapped her hands once, "To work!" She yelled, taking up a knife and chopping board. She cut carrots toward herself, disregarding every safety lesson she'd instilled in her child, but at an astonishing pace.

All around her, staff came out of the woodwork, each continuing their respective jobs like any other mundane day at work. Many eyed her warily at intervals, fingering the bandages they were instructed to keep at hand in their aprons.

Two maids chattered as they deboned fish, speaking of the weather and wedding outfits. A third leaned across, muttering, and the original two burst into a bout of giggles. The third returned to her post, a pleased smile on her lips.

With the sun now retreating in the west, the air gained a stubborn chill. The kitchen, however, remained boiling as the pots on their stoves.

Remus wrapped their- Or, rather, their mother's- shawl around their shoulders, holding it tight in one fist. They made their own retreat toward the west, clambering over rocks and stray clumps of Earth.

Eventually, in the last strains of sunlight, they fell to their knees on the beach. They dug their fingers into the sand, feeling the sharp grains dig into the pads of their fingers, embedding under their nails...

Remus shuffled forward on their knees to the tide-owned sand, tracing a sweet, swirling font into the soggy canvas.

Their skirt grew moist, clinging to their knees as they bent over their work.

In their opinion, sand was the ideal place to write a journal. Afterall, who would invest but the tide? And, if nothing else, who could possibly keep your secrets secure?

"Remus!"

The sun had long descended over the hills. Remus squinted at the rocks, who...

"Katie!"

She held an old oil lantern aloft above her head, using it to light her way.

Her sole comment: "You'll never get that stain out of that skirt."

Remus shrugged, "Then I'll just have to stain the whole thing, won't I?"

Katie shook her head fondly, handing the lantern off. She didn't glance at the sand, but only led Remus home, to the beacon of light that was the restaurant.

Her blue hair looked green in the lantern's yellow light. Remus thought it looked ethereal. Her red roots, however, looked black.

The dozens of string-lights Maria had purchased and strung up in the courtyard were lit, illuminating figures as they twirled in a dance and laughed drunkenly, leaning on cobblestone walls in their lack of balance.

Empty bottles lay strewn across tables, balanced on handrails, forgotten by the bar. Ditching the lantern behind the bar with Emmeline, Remus piled half a dozen into their arms. Following suit, Katie did the same.

The two carried their loads through to the recycling bin, where they met their fate. After that it was simply a matter of as many trips as it took. That number, as it turns out, was six.

Katie took her leave after three, kissing Remus chastely on the cheek. She grasped her brother by the wrist, commanding he say goodbye to Remus.

"Bye." Carter said curtly, stomping toward the door on bare feet. Katie left him in the care of the kitchen staff for a mere hour, apparently he'd learned from them what real discipline looks like.

Remus smiled, "Bye, sweetheart."

They gathered the remaining thirty-four bottles before returning to Emmeline. She returned their lantern with an easy smile, spinning a cocktail shaker with one hand.

With her other, she wrote on an order sheet, Where were you? We all heard the fight disagreement earlier.

Remus watched as she poured a fluorescent green liquid into a cocktail glass and charged a lanky gentleman for it. He took it and swallowed in one gulp.

The B-E-A-C-H, Remus signed, wondering how, after all these years, they'd missed the sign for beach.

Emmeline nodded and, while her hands were free, asked, Can you call for last orders?

Grinning, Remus hoisted themselves to stand on the bar's edge. "Hey!" They screamed, allowing the suspense to grow as every eye sluggishly focused, "Last call! The bar will be closing in five minutes!"

Few people turned away, nor toward the bar. Remus lowered themselves back to ground-level. How was that?

Emme's hands were in use so she simply widened her eyes and raised her eyebrows, pouring yet another green concoction.

Grasping the lantern's handle, Remus rushed away, cackling. They left it in it's rightful place by the stable door.

Maria had already retired to bed, as Delilah told Remus. She trusted both the staff to be responsible and her patrons to be respectful. Thinking of the several dozen discarded bottles, Remus broke into a rather severe bout of laughter. Delilah said she better find her way back to the kitchen, offering to take Remus' shawl and hang it in the closest on her way.

Remus declined, instead offering to help with the washing up.

Delilah glanced at the grandfather clock, standing ominously in the shadows cast by the door. "No, no," She refused, "It's well past eleven. You should sleep. You're not even of age!"

"For what? To work?" Remus chuckled, "If that was an issue it would've been resolved years ago."

Delilah joined in their merriment with but a brief smile. She insisted, "Sleep, child."

She waved Remus off, chasing them across creaky floorboards all the way to the landing. From there Remus raced into their bedroom and slammed the door, grinning from ear to ear.

"Sleep!" Was her final call before Remus heard Delilah's descending footsteps. From there it was only the drunken shouts of local patrons, taking their leave, and the usual humdrum of the kitchen to be heard.

Remus turned to met merely a reflection. The full length mirror gifted oh so generously by Allie. They met their own gaze before letting it fall to their ruined skirt. Strangely, they felt a smile creep onto their lips.

The white gauzy fabric was crusted with golden sand, forming a strange stained shape. This was highlighted well by the unblemished state of the remaining fabric, freshly pressed and compiled.

Remus made a mental note to order new fabric on the next ferry. Katie hated whenever anything was destroyed needlessly, especially if such thing was made by her hand.

They shrugged and, leaving their reflection at their back for once, pulled their tank-top over their head. Remus balled it up and aimed for the laundry basket. Missing by a long margin, they strolled to pick it up. Tripping once over the hem of their skirt, resulting in their simply tugging and letting it pool at their ankles.

Both items of clothing eventually found their way into the basket and a threadbare nightgown eventually found itself draped across Remus' shoulders.

From there they slipped into bed, reaching for a book.

[sterlingarcher23]

I just noticed this.... Max is indeed the Pac-Man (arcade machine behind her) and her mouth been covered in this scene:

Mustard/Pac-Man eats ketchup/red ghost when Blue meets Yellow (obviously via a mind connection).

"You were wearing that yellow benny's burgers t-shirt and it was so big it almost swallowed you whole.

There's a reason why Brenner uses the word "consume" bc it's all about consumption, in this case, consuming what is forbidden.

Think of "Ravenous" which is on the inspo board.

Max is like Henry (and wasn't consumed by V that was clearly shown on screen or better NOT shown on screen and "show" is at odds with "tell" - Brenner’s - mind absorption is an active thing nothing passive and people don't default back to V that was established.), she is another One (there are at least three Ones), a silver cat that consumes - that's the reason why Max has parallels/mirrors with Henry.

"The silver cat feeds..."

"When Blue meets Yellow in the west"

And the silver cat could be a fun nod towards Flerkens.

Just a little teaser:

I'll talk about the One in another post but everything you think you know....is not true. Not a lie. Just untrue.

[ivanpshenichnyy]

Day 1 of Filming

Hello again! Today we had our first shoot day, and I will be honest, we had some unexpected challenges. But still, there were plenty of valuable lessons and progress made. Below is a recap of the whole day:

I came to school at around 7:40, and met my teammate Ruben (who plays Cliff) outside to help him bring all the equipment into the class. First we moved out most of the tables and chairs, and then we started to assemble and set up the lights, tripod, plug in the sound equipment, and test it all out.

Unfortunately Ruben forgot the detective hats and the gun at home. On top of that, one of our lead actors, Angelo (who plays Russ), had trouble remembering some of his lines, and the first takes weren't working the way we had hoped. In fact, 25 minutes per shot as we planned, wasn't enough. Me and Ruben decided that we may need one more day to finish our shoots, therefore we plan to end on Wednesay 2nd of April, instead of Tuesday, 1st of April.

I was resonsible for making the evidence board, but I wasn't satisfied with how it ended up looking, because as you can see on the pictures, only a small segment of the corkboard was used, which looks empty and kind of unrealistic. Also, I didn't like the red yarn, because looked too thick.

To improve this, today I will print more stuff so I can put it all on the board tomorrow morning, and I will find another string. I will make a separate post regarding the evidence board production.

Despite those challenges, this day was still very useful because we have spent a lot of time rehearsing the lines and going through each scene again and again. By the end of the day both Ruben and Angelo were more relaxed about acting.

We also had a lot of time to expriment with the lighting for each scene, and cinematographic elements such as camera angles, framing (rule of thirds) and camera positions.

Then, Ruben and I have worked closely with Angelo to guide him on the body language, facial expressions and intonations that we wanted from his performance. Also, we came up with some ideas that we didn't think of when writting the script. For example Ruben suggested that when Angelo's character walks into the room, he should put his hat on the top hanger which is a subtle detail to show his superiority in the room.

Also I made and added some behind the scenes pictures which you can see below!

Even though not much made into the camera today, the work we put in today, will definitely pay off tomorrow, so stay tuned for the updates.

[mccoyquialisms]

my fantasy high red-string-conspiracy-theory-board-of-the-main-mystery lore tracker (a long ass post) (because I love both mysteries AND organization of inconsequential information):

rough chronology of events:

In ages past there is a wedding attended in the Chaos Mountains by Sol and Galicaea of their sister the Witch Goddess to an unnamed giantkin god. This god is a summer god, sibling of the giant winter goddess Ruvina

Over centuries, the unnamed god's domain changes from the sun and summer to fire

This unnamed god is killed and their name was wiped from history. The other gods remember who this being is, but due to obliviati mori, cannot reference them directly to mortals. Red shatter stars appear around this time

850 years before present day, the Witch Goddess's name is erased by her followers (encouraged by followers of Galicaea) and she is transformed into the Nightmare King. Before she does she performs the 4 trans-substantiations to resist being "unmade". Her familiar Kalina becomes a plague and begins to spread through the mortal populace. These events likely happen after the death of her spouse, as there is no reference to a spouse when the Witch Goddess was previously mentioned

Roughly 4-6 years before modern day, the pit fiend Bakur attempts to resurrect his god, whose name was lost "so they could not be worshiped." The return of this god is felt to be a significant threat to the world. Lydia Barkrock and her adventuring party stop him by sealing Bakur in a red gem in Lydia's chest, where she keeps him imprisoned with her rage

The Ratgrinders, then called the High 5 Heroes, meet in freshman year and consist of Kipperlilly, Oisin, Mary Anne, Ruben, Ivy and Lucy.

They xp level up by killing rats, twig gremlins and other small magical creatures in the woods behind Aguefort

The events of freshman year happen and Kalvaxus is released. During prom, Ragh spots Jace Stardiamond talking to Arianwen. He is later "barbarian healed" by Porter and after this can see Kalina. Kalina finds Ragh later and threatens Lydia if he talks about what he's seen

Sophomore year spring break happens and the Nightmare King is transformed into the goddess now named Cassandra

At some point Lucy began to return to the woods after party sessions to revive the rats they killed. She did this long enough and with enough regularity that the rats remember her name/face well and think of her fondly

Paperwork is submitted for Lucy to change her god from Ruvina to a god whose name cannot be read, just before her disappearance. A few days later a second request is submitted to withdraw this change. Neither form was ever seen by Lucy's teacher Yolanda Badgood

Lucy was killed near Lake Shimmerstone by multiple assailants with both weapon and magical damage towards the end of sophomore year, in the period of weeks after grades were complete, but before summer break. The area has multiple uprooted trees, some of which were used to hide her body. Unholy rites were performed over her body to force her soul to the beyond, so she cannot be revived.

Lucy is reported as dead but her body was never found. She was described as "not alive in this material plane" via divination

Because of the timing of her death, her party was not moved to pass/fail as all grades for that year had already been submitted

Night Yorb and the long dark summer happens

Buddy Dawn, a cleric of Sol, is specifically requested by the Ratgrinders to be their new cleric for junior year

Also over the long dark summer, the Loam farmers are accused of embezzlement and the Frostyfair festival is moved from there to the Thistlesprings tree at the recommendation of Lola Embers. Sklonda Gukgak is assigned as the Loam couple's public defender

Kipperlilly finds or is found by the rogue teacher and has passed the whole of junior year

Junior year begins. On her first day, Kipperlilly questions Jawbone on where YES! was created

Kipperlily announces she is running for student body president and her primary platform is for uniform equity under the rules without "favoritism"

In the mall of the Synod, the event that kicks off the battle is Cassandra becomes angry hearing Kristen isn't coming to help find followers. She says "This isn't fair!" as a razor-sharp flickering star of red light emerges from her chest. 24-point, red shatter stars infect nearby wizards and turns them into rage-filled, violent, giant versions of themselves. The people taken over by the shatter stars are instructed by an unknown voice to attack Cassandra

Cassandra is able to be calmed by a high persuasion and when she does, she expels multiple shatter stars. She seems to recognize them and says "I thought you were dead.”

Before Kalina is taken over by the shatter stars, she looks to Riz and says "Ragh Barkrock". She then slits Cassandra's throat, triggering a new round of rage in Cassandra

Cassandra suffers multiple attacks and begins to transform into a giant, red raging version of herself and attempts to kill the party. Before she's successful, the gang are swept away in a time loop back to Spyre. The Bad Kids see the Synod is destroyed, and Kristen finds she has shards of Cassandra in her pocket

Kristen attempts to commune with Cassandra and hears a voice say "She is at my side once more." The voice then mocks Kristen with YES!'s body and then tells Kristen it is coming for her, and it will break her irrevocably.

Ivy sees Fig disguised as Lucy at the party at Seacastor Manor, and has an inscrutable reaction to it, but did not seem surprised

The cloud rider engine in Fabian's basement is broken and a piece is found missing

Kipperlily does the food truck event with the subliminal OK messaging on the packaging

Ruben Hopclap performs at FrostFaire when he is attacked by Principal Grix. Grix is eventually killed by Fabian. The Bad Kids determine Ruben was doing some kind of ritual with a song about anger above an arcano-tech array in a 24 point star pattern, successfully releasing a large amount of some type of magical energy.

Simultaneously, Yolanda Badgood is killed at Lake Shimmerstone by immense concussive force damage, and afterwards her body is expertly hidden. She is subjected to the same unholy last rites that Lucy was.

The Bad Kids find Lucy and Yolanda's bodies, and Kristen releases their souls, who travel to the beyond on a "trail of moonlight"

Sklonda's clients are found murdered

Mazey reveals that the Vice Principal (i.e. Jace) does not become the Principal, and it would be the student body president who becomes the new principal of Aguefort

additional info we can reasonably infer or that don't fit neatly in the timeline:

Buddy's grandparents, and likely Buddy himself, have a vested interest in his grandfather becoming the cleric teacher. He went to Aguefort and is familiar with the school. Presumably he wants this to be able to preach about Sol and spread his influence

At some point before her death, Yolanda told Jace about her concerns regarding Lucy's deity-transfer paperwork

Cassandra is not dead, but is "beyond reach"

Lucy and Yolanda were noted to be in "realms beyond", which Brennan specifically noted they were taken from and "whatever was happening there"

The Ratgrinders are gunning for the bad kids and seem to be orchestrating situations to try to get them to take drugs

Porter's philosophical discussion with Fig regarding the concept of protection and how that is often inextricably tied with rage, that one can act as a fuel for the other

Porter is a path of the ancestors barbarian, and at some point was mentioned to be a goliath, though this seems to be debated in canon. If true, it's possible he's a descendant of giants

Kristen bring's up Sol's wrath and Buddy does not refute this, agreeing Sol's wrath is a well known aspect of him and he has been quite angry because of the dark summer/night yorb situation

As above so below. What the gods do affect their mortal followers, but conversely, what the mortals who follow them do also affect the gods

A god can only come back from death in a place a god had been born or created, meaning Bakur's decision to try to revive his fallen god in the Red Waste was what doomed it to failure

Bakur's documents are written in the language of giants, and his deity is said to be from the same region as Ruvina. Combining this with Adaine’s research, and the “mitochondrial magic print”, Bakur’s god is Cassandra’s former spouse

The cloud rider piece was likely stolen by the Ratgrinders as Kipperlily asked Aelwyn to research schematics of the device

Kipperlily seems to be keeping information from some of the other Ratgrinders, telling Aelwyn she needs to "protect Oisin" from their shady deals

Kipperlily's mother works for the city treasury and her father is in real estate. Neither are super wealthy, but Kipperlilly has been paying Aelwyn large amounts of money to obtain arcane components. Given the timing of this with the disappearance of a large sum of money from the Frostyfair accounts, the timing of the murder of the people who were blamed for it, and that the new chosen location happens to be the home of one of the Ratgrinders rivals, the Ratgrinders involvement is thought to be likely

Cassandra's whispered clue of "spies, tongue, curse"

Places outside Spyre, like the Synod, are easier for dead gods to reach

For whatever the Ratgrinders have planned, a student being the principal of Aguefort is essential for it. A lot of people have had to be conveniently absent or dead for this circumstance to occur.

This is all not even touching Aguefort's whole journey through time and possible time quangle issue and whatever the fuck Fig's Bad Luck Thing is. I'm not convinced that these are related to the god stuff and are likely their own separate issues. also, I am tired lmao. If you want to hear my rambling theories, I'll be making a separate post.

[dhcmpirs]

danteragnulf​:

It was a quiet night in, Kayce was out somewhere and while Dante had tried to write, or draw, or do something… His mind was kind of all over the place. So, the lycan had taken to throwing a rubber ball against the wall as he sat in his bed. Repeating the motion each time the red ball bounced back, maybe it was a cliche - a dog playing with a ball but it was more a way to keep his mind idle as he threw the ball against the floor, watched it bounce against the wall before it returned to his hand. He could go out, maybe go to All Fours for a drink, check out the Embassy - get lucky, hangout at the park. Busk somewhere to try and scrape together the scratch for a plane ticket. Truth was he didn’t want to do any of those things. Dante slumped back onto his bed, arms folded behind his head as he sighed. Wonder if he’s okay. 

The text had come shortly after Dante had dozed off, stood outside the other’s apartment he wondered if this was a mistake. Apparently this wasn’t about sex, which made the lycan worry that it was something worse. Kay looked rough, worse than the last time they’d seen each other and Dante couldn’t help but think that things had deteriorated for him. He could smell… He could smell everything. The things that had been on the other’s skin, fangs and whatever else. Dante ignored it, the vampires had had their party, so of course Kay had gone. The lycan didn’t have any business being jealous about it. “Yeah, it’s cool. Of course.” Dante said as he followed the other inside the familiar place. 

Kay doesn’t waste any time going up to the bedroom and that’s when he starts being hyper conscious of worrying about how this is all coming across and it’s the lack of sleep that makes the anxiety so much worse. Lack of sleep and the notion that he is painfully sober at the moment, he hadn’t even bothered smoking between texting Dante and his arrival. But they get to the bedroom and in order to stop this from being suspicious, he doesn’t even acknowledge the bed, he’s looking at the corkboard across from it right above his desk and it’s not at ‘Charlie at the Corkboard’ levels, there’s no string connected anything but there is a lot of crude drawings and post it notes and he gestures to it. He gestures to it and grabs for his pack of cigarettes and his lighter from the desks surface.

 “I’ve been having dreams about the fountain since that night.” He talks quickly as he pulls a cigarette out, lights it and brings it to his lips. “I thought at first it was just a bad dream, you know? I don’t like water, we had no fucking clue we weren’t going to drown.” Kay points with his cigarette that’s trailing smoke towards one of the notes and there’s two stick figures, one wearing a red hoodie that’s colored in with pen, that’s Dante. The other has a little fireball, also colored in with pen, the notes kind of crudely chronicle the whole ordeal but he gestures at his sad drawings of what’s supposed to be the statue in different states of decay. “The fountain changes now. I see it clearly right before we jump in every time. I don’t sleep anymore, I just wake up before I can drown.” The hand not holding his cigarette runs through his hair and he is well aware he sounds insane, is desperate for somebody to understand some part of it. “Like I close my eyes sometimes and it’s either stone or-” He pauses in his pacing before the board to just sort of look at Dante in the low light of the bedroom and something clicks into place. “Can you do the eye thing?”

Location: Kay's Place Person: @danteragnulf notes: this is actually a two paragraph starter bc the first paragraph is a dream

He can hear the music from the house party in the background, there’s a tree at his back and Dante’s mouth is on his and then he’s off towards the forest and tumbling downwards. It’s not always accurate to what actually happened, sometimes he’s like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. This isn’t one of those times, he hits the ground hard, there’s Dante calling for him, they meet up again. It’s all by the book this time around, he lights his fire, he leads the way, they move towards the fountain and this is where it’s always different, this is where he always starts paying more attention. Because the fountain is not the same fountain physically as the one that’d been there that day. Sometimes the eyes are closed, sometimes open, sometimes there’s a hole in the statues chest that reveals it’s hollow. It seems to escalate, the damage done to it and sometimes when they jump into the fountain, neither of them come out. Sometimes it’s just him coming out on the other side. This time he goes into the water and he’s fully aware of his heart hammering in his chest and there’s this flash of eyes, bright blue and tired and he opens his mouth and reaches out his hand towards something in the water. Something reaching towards him and he swears his fingers brush something in the darkness of the water and there’s water going into his lungs and- Kay hits the floor between his couch and his coffee table hard, banging his ankle on the way down and his elbow squarely on the hardwood. It doesn’t hurt right away, he’s desperately trying to breathe and remind himself that he’s not drowning, he’s home and he’s safe and when he peels himself off the floor to sit up, there sits his ever annoyed companion. Major had come to check out the noise out of what felt like childish habit, he reaches and cradles the cat to his chest and matches his breathing until they’re both sitting there on the floor without him panting like he’d just ran three miles. When he processes it all, he’s more annoyed than scared because what the fuck did it all mean?? “I’m gonna do it.” He says, looking down at the large gray cat who is peering up, ever annoyed. *

“I didn’t have anyone else I could call.” It’d sound sadder if he didn’t sound out of breath from practically jumping down the stairs when he heard the knock. He looks at Dante on his front steps and after the summit, after yelling at Cloe, that big vampire party, days that’d stretched into weeks dreaming about the man before him, he’s not quite sure he’s even real. Hell, he’d sent the ‘u up? not for a sex thing promise its important’ and hadn’t expected a response at all because he figured one day Dante was going to just disappear. But there he is, in the flesh. “I have something to show you.” He doesn’t really give the wolf time to process it before he’s nodding for him to follow further into the house.

[lovetohate001]

i literally cannot stop thinking of 001 x reader where the reader secretly gives the kids small things from the outside (like flowers or art supplies) and each time she gets punished for it but one day she gives 001 a bracelet

also i am sososo sorry if im giving too many requests, plz take care <3

I’ll Bring You The Sun As Daisies

Peter Ballard (001) x Orderly! Reader | FLUFF and a small bit of ANGST if you look closely

© lovetohate001, 2022. reposting/translating is not allowed.

CW: all my works may or may not contain spoilers for S4 so proceed with caution!

Hawkin’s Laboratory was heavily guarded. As in, full grade military, body search, change your clothes before going in kind of heavily guarded.

But somehow you still managed to sneak small little pressed wildflowers in with you, whether it be in your notebook or in your small sanitary bag. If the soldiers standing at their posts noticed or were ordered to stop you, they didn’t say a thing.

In many ways, you were the brightest thing in this facility. Besides the warmth and kindness Peter was known for when handling the children in their lessons, your smile brightened any room you entered.

“Hey,” you greeted 011 softly as you stood in the doorway of her small room.

She looked up at you with wide eyes, wary as you took out your notebook and held out a pressed, yellow daisy to her.

“I found this in the forest today,” you started, sitting on the edge of her bed, the flower resting in the palm of your hand. “I went for a run and I found a whole patch of them right next to where we are now.”

011 softly and hesitantly reached for the dried flower, her fingers daintily plucking it up to hold in her own palm.

“When summer comes, it gets really hot outside. And flowers like these grow everywhere,” you continued explaining. “And this is a daisy. They’re usually white, but I found a yellow one for you. I know how much you like yellow.”

Later on in the day, Peter smiled when he spotted a few of the children with small daisies in their shirt pockets when they came into the Rainbow Room to practice. He knew you were behind this. And so did everyone else. The soldiers didn’t mind and not many of the other orderlies did either. The only one who truly seemed to care was Doctor Brenner himself.

“Don’t you think Brenner will get tired of your antics soon?” was Peter’s way of greeting you when you sat down next to 002, watching him by the pin board, controlling where the red pucks clack clack clacked their way down the pins.

You cast a glare his way and shook your head. “I think they quite like my little gifts, Ballard. And if I’m not mistaken, you’ve done the same on many occasions.”

“On a second name basis, are we?’ he teased you, a cocky grin on his face as he leaned in and whispered in your ear, “At least I haven’t been caught yet, whereas I know you have.”

You huffed and took a step away from him, glaring straight through those blue eyes and into his soul before saying, “You are the favourite. And Brenner has a soft spot for you. You know he takes it out on me.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged, his grin dimming a little. You knew it was a low blow. He’d been here longer than you and you had no inkling as to what he had been through here prior to your employment.

“You’re just jealous that they like my presents a bit more,” you jabbed at him playfully, your heart sighing in relief when that smile of his crinkled the corners of his eyes again.

“Well, there’s no arguing that. I could be only a little bit jealous of how much they adore being around you.”

A few days later you came into work with more flowers in your journal. You’d made sure to bring string with you as well, so that when you went to 011’s room again, the two of you sat for a good ten minutes making a daisy chain.

Peter found himself a few hours later with a small little bracelet, delicate and temporary, tied to his wrist. 011 had ran up to him, you trailing close behind, as she wordlessly gave the chain to him.

He never took it off for the whole day.

The next day, when the flowers were already dry and the petals were breaking off, only then, did you see him finally take it off.

From then on, you came in with one little extra chain in your pocket. Just for him. 

MASTERLIST

SEND A FIC REQUEST / ASK HERE

[brianedner]

Luz’s Crimes 4: Breaking and Entering

Since it was brought to my attention in the comments, Willow used her plant magic to tone down the negative side effects of the drugs she sells to her customers. I decided to not name the drugs mainly because it was getting annoying on the research into what kinds of drugs are and aren’t legal in Connecticut (they recently made Weed legal).

 I am not endorsing any felonies.

 Gus had Luz had been hiding under one of Gus’s illusions all day, waiting for Jacob to leave his house. So far it seemed like he was going to spend the whole day at home.

 Gus smiled once his watch (A human watch! He was still excited about that.) turned to 3. They would have to be home by 5 to meet Camila when she got back from work, so it meant that he had a chance to try out a new trick he wanted to try.

 “Plan B Luz?”

 She just sighed and turned to him. “Go for it you little trickster.”

 “I know you are, but what am I?”

 He then took off his ear ring mirror and then walked over with Luz to Jacobs front door. The two then stood to the side and Gus rang the door bell before making a illusion of a Harry from “Harry and the Hendersons” appear in front of the door holding a brief case while wearing a bowler hat and a plaid tie.

 When Jacob opens the door, the illusion spoke. “Good afternoon, sir.” He then brought up the brief case and opened it, showing a large collection of DVD copies of ‘SVTFOE.’ “Would you like to buy some boot legged copies of Star vs the Forces of Evil? I have season 4, obviously the best season.”

 Jacob’s eye just twitched at that and he pulled out a baseball bat from a umbrella stand next to the door. “What did you say?”

 ‘Harry just took a step back to make room for Jacob. “I said that I have boot legged copies of SVTFOE season 4 for sale.”

 Jacob then sent outside, then closed and locked the door behind him. “No, the other thing.”

 “Oh, you mean about Season 4 being the best one of the series?”

 Jacob just yelled in rage at that. “THAT SEASON WAS THE WORST!” He then took up his bat and started hitting Harry with it.

 “Ow, Ow, stop it!”

 Harry then ran away from the porch with Jacob close behind, chasing him with the bat.

 Luz and Gus then stepped forward, looking at them as they ran.

 “How long will the spell on Jacob keep up?”

 Gus just smiled. “Normally, I could only make someone do those hallucinations for a minute before they stopped. But with this toy from Adrian, he should be chasing that bigfoot around for the next hour. And he should be spouting every flame war inducing phrase you got from the message boards he posts on.”

 He then turned to her. “Thanks for that again, by the way. I am still trying to figure out how to get the spider on the inter-web to like me. No matter how many flies I put in its mouth, the computer still won’t connect me.”

 Luz just stared in shock at him before sighing and turning to the door. “I’ll explain it later, but for now we need to get inside.”

 “How, he locked the door! As much as I hate to say it, I am impressed with how much he kept a calm head to actually lock the door behind him before he charged off in a fit of rage. Breaking a window to get in would let him know that someone is onto him, we can’t pick the lock-“

 “I just picked the lock.”

 At that, Gus just looked up at the open door and Luz crouched in front of it holding some pieces of metal in her hand. She then looked back at him with a smile on her face.

 “I spent the summer with Eda, remember? I could pick these locks in my sleep. I just needed to be sure he was out of the house first.”

 The two then made their way into the house. The living room was small and backed right into the kitchen. In front of the door was a small table with one clear space for eating and the rest of it covered in files. The wall closest to the table had a massive cork board with multiple pictures and newspaper articles attached to it, connected to each other with red string.

 “OK, you focus on the first floor and keep an eye out if he comes back. I am going to check out the basement, and then the second floor if there is nothing there.”

 Gus just nodded before heading to the table and checking out the files. They were mostly just records of paranormal sightings around the town. To Gus, about 90% of them were fakes or had normal explanations. The other 10% however were pictures of Eda and things tied to her.

 The cork board on the other hand was entirely devoted to Eda, Vee, and the Hex squad. There was even a section on Luz and Camilla to the side, with pictures of the animal clinic and school.

 “If this is how creepy it looks like from the other side, I am glad that Luz convinced me to take down my human board back home.”

 He then held up his ear ring again and began to focus, summoning ghostly forms of all the documents around him to fly out of the originals before circling him in a tornado. They then began to slowly shrink until each page was the size of a postage stamp before going into the bag by his side.

 “One room down, the rest of the floor to go.”

 Basement

 Luz expected the basement to be creepy, either containing the more disturbing parts of Jacobs surveillance stalking of her family or his adult anime collection (there are some things a teenage girl should not see).

 Luckily for her, it was just being used for Jacob’s storage, weapon training, and “Research.” There were two bookshelves in a corner filled with Earth books on the supernatural, with a small table in front of them. to the side was a punching bag with a blurry picture of Eda in her owl beast form on it and a wooden target filled with stab holes with a picture of Vee in her basilisk form on it. His armor and dagger were on a rack next to them, all shiny and ready to go.

 The other half of the room was filled with boxes that just contained the normal stuff you would find in a basement.

 The only really interesting thing that Luz found were a recipe for 3 video cameras that was being used as a bookmark. There were three locations on the back of it. “In the cabin, watching the cabin, and undecided.”

 Luz panicked a little at the 3rd one until she saw the 3rd camera siting out of its box on top of the book shelf. She then sighed in relief before putting the bookmark back in the book and leaving it on the table where it was before going to the 2nd floor.

 1st floor office.

 Gus just looked at shock at the set up inside. There were three different computer monitors with multiple pages up.

 There were two accounting spread sheets showing that he was embezzling money from the Flat Earth Association to fund his exploits towards exposing witches, maps of the school and animal clinic with multiple locations for a camera to be hidden, and multiple e-mails written out about all Jacob knew about the Hex squad ready to be sent to multiple federal and state agencies (along the lines of “there are shapeshifting witches from Mars here living in a Dominican Women’s house, they have obviously replaced her with a robot already.”)

 Gus looked at it for a bit before he just smiled.

 “Luz, can you come over here and show me how to do something with computers?”

 Luz stopped on her way to the 2nd floor and looked at the computers with Gus.

 “How would I set it up so that the stuff on the first two screens were sent with the e-mails when he sent them?”

 Luz just smiled and walked over with him.

 “Step one, put on gloves so that we don’t leave finger prints behind. Step two…”

 2nd floor

 Since the first floor and basement were both cleared, the two decided to check out the top floor together. Gus would search Jacobs room while Luz searched the other rooms.

 So far, neither had much luck. The bathrooms and closets were normal, the bedroom had several posters but nothing they were interested in, and Luz just opened the guest room slightly before slamming it shut and telling Gus to never look inside.

 “Please tell me there wasn’t an autopsy table with a witch on it.”

 “Believe me Gus, I wish that was what I saw.”

 They were about to head down before Gus noticed something odd about a picture on the wall of Jacobs bedroom. “Why are all the other decorations here just posters taped to the wall and this is a full frame.”

 Luz just looked at the picture of Nami from One Piece bathing in gold before her eyes widened. “Please let him be that dumb.” She then reached for the picture and swung it on its hinges, revealing the safe behind it.

 “Yes. He really is that dumb.”

 She then turned to Gus. You look around and see if he left the combination lying around, I am going to try and crack this.”

 Gus just looked at her. “You know how to crack a safe?”

 Luz just smiled. “Thank you, Eda; she might not have been the best magic teacher, but she was an amazing mother figure and crime teacher.”

 Gus looked around the room and at every piece of paper he could find. “So, how many crime skills do you have?”

 “Lets see? Pick pocketing, reverse pickpocketing, lock picking, safe cracking, cleaning up murder sites-”

 “Wait, isn’t that last one just part of home ec at Hexside?”

 “that is just the basics, Eda showed me the extra steps related to not reporting it to the cops. Luckily, I never had to put that into practice there and hopefully I won’t have to do it here.”

 Gus then saw that there was an autographed picture of him shaking hands with a high member of the Flat Earth Society with a date next to it.

 “Hay Luz, I think I found it.”

 At that, he heard the sound of the safe opening. “No need, I have this.”

 Gus then went over to the safe and looked inside. There was a number of documents, (social security card, birth certificate, ect), a bundle of cash, and a USB drive labeled “backup info.”

 Luz then grabbed the USB, took her lap top out of her bag and popped it in. She then started to look through the files. In it were hundreds of files, pictures, and more about everything Boiling Isle related that had happened in Gravesfield; though the lens of a paranoid Flat Earther thought.

 “Jackpot, it even said that it was updated yesterday.”

 She then copied everything on the drive onto one she brought with her and left the original in the safe. “Let’s get out of here and see if there is anything we need to worry about on here.”

 Gus just nodded before twirling his finger to dismiss the illusion copies he made before. Before Luz closed the safe, he stopped her and made an illusion copy of the money in the vault.

 “Might be a good idea to replace this with some counterfeits later.”

 Luz just smiled. “Good idea.”

 The two then left the house, locked the door behind them, and then went home.

 Later

 “I told you officer; I was chasing a bigfoot through the street with the baseball bat.”

 “Right, the bigfoot with the hat, tie, briefcase full of DVDs-“

 “SVTFOE season 4 DVD, and he had the gall to say it was the best season.”

 “You forgot to mention that he was invisible to everyone else.”

 “In my defense, I only realized that only I could see him when you mentioned that there was no on where I was pointing when we were talking.”

 “You were yelling at me to arrest the bigfoot for saying that the prequals were better than the original trilogy of Star Wars.”

 “Are you going to honestly tell me that I was wrong for that?”

 “I actually prefer the sequel trilogy.”

 “…”

 “Do you mean Rogue One?”

 “Hell no, hated that move.”

 “HOW DARE YOU! THAT WAS THE ONLY GOOD ONE OF THE BUNCH!”

 I am a casual Star Wars fan, I like the original, haven’t seen the prequals except for the 1st (I liked it), disliked the sequels because I think the quality went down with each one, and LOVED Rogue One (especially “the Hallway Scene”, you know the one I’m talking about. The one at the end before the ship flew away to set up IV.

 Jacob seems very much like he is the kind of guy that would get into flame wars online. I just had Gus and Luz exploit that.

 I am also doing “Fanfic info dumps” on multiple series to help other fanfic writers with their works. They are on DevientArt here (https://www.deviantart.com/1228248) because Fanfiction and AO3 both said I couldn’t post them there.

 Fanfiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/5646512/

Tumbler: https://at.tumblr.com/brianedner/luzs-crime-list-masterpost/dia848df51z4

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrianEdner1/wo

[sunflovverharry]

Driving Home for Christmas

a/n: hii! i wanted to make this a super cute dad!h during christmas fic so i hope you enjoy! this fic is a part of @goldenbluesuit ´s christmas song fic challenge which i’m honored to be a part of! It's the first fic challenge I’ve entered and I’ve been nervous to post something along with all these other amazing writers, but I'm excited to post this little piece centered in the dad universe. Happy reading, and remember to read the rest of the entries as well (which I’ve read some these past two weeks and they’re fab!) <3

pairing: dad!h + y/n

warnings: none! just a cute dad!h piece

word count: 3.8k

Harry was loading the trunk of their Audi, putting all their packed suitcases and bags of presents in there. The car was smack full as this year they had another addition to their family, waiting patiently for her mum to feed her before they left the city. It was snowing heavily and Anne made sure they knew they didn’t have to drive up today with the weather making the roads worse than usual. Y/n also told him a hundred times it was his decision as he was the one driving. Harry didn’t budge though, telling his mum they would definitely be there by tonight.

This year's Christmas celebrations were being spent in Cheshire with Harry’s family seeing as they were with her family in Nottingham last year. They’ve found it works best this way rather than splitting it up to go both places every year. After four years together and buying a house at the start of this year, y/n thinks this might be the last Christmas spent out of their own home. They have their two cats (Nellie and Sunny) and having their first child it might be time to start celebrating the holiday at their own house.

«Babe, did you remember to pack the board games?» Harry heard his girlfriend ask from the threshold where they had hung a mistletoe and had Harry not been busy trying to make everything fit, he definitely would’ve turned around, ran up to her and gave her a big smack on the lips. He settled for giving her a thumbs up not swirling around as he was too busy trying to figure out how he could make most of their things fit in the trunk, thinking it was just like a game of tetris. While Harry had been doing the heavy lifting and packing; y/n had put a cute Christmas onesie on the still tiny body of their daughter, definitely small for her age but she was eating like her daddy so where the weight went they had no idea.

Olive was a generally happy, cuddly baby who more often than not reached for her dad over her mum. It didn’t bother y/n that she was a daddy’s girl, knowing how much Harry loves children and now that he has his own he’s all over her. She finds the two cuddled together on the sofa, their bed or the armchair in her nursery at least a couple times a day. Her phone is now overflowing with photos of the two and she’s hoping to put together a photo album for Harry’s birthday filled with them - knowing he’d cherish it forever.

Half an hour later they were pulling out of the driveway. Harry had checked multiple times that all the lights were out, the doors were locked and the alarm system was functioning properly. Olive was smiling as she sat still in her car seat behind y/n. She had wondered if sitting in the back with her daughter would be better, but decided against it. If she got fussy they’d stop at a gas station and she’d move to the back.

The couple was tremendously excited to bring along their little bundle of happiness and get to show her off to all of Harry’s family and friends. Of course, his family have seen her when she was a newborn but living quite far away most of them only get to see them once or twice a year. It’ll change the dynamic of how they celebrate the holidays for sure, but it's a positive change. Anne will spoil her rotten, just like she does to y/n when they visit - making her tea whenever she wants some, washing their dirty laundry (which y/n didn’t care that her mother-in-law saw her underwear cause she didn’t bring anything too scandalous) and heading to the shops when they needed even the smallest thing. Really, y/n thought she was too kind for her own good. At the same time though, y/n always did play a good host when Anne visited them - spoiling her with the comfiest bed sheets, making the food for every meal, not wanting her to lift a finger as if she was the queen.

Olive was eight months - a fairly active one at that - and loves to crawl everywhere, especially to follow her mum or dad around the lower floor of their (way too big) house for only the three (five) of them. Since the pair hadn’t brought Olive with them for such a long drive, the longest being an hour, they were anxious to find out how she’d react to being confined over a longer period of time.

Half an hour in and Olive was babbling away to the teddy bear in her arms (she got it from her nephews when she was born and has been attached to it since) as Harry and y/n talked about how excited they were for their daughter to explore her daddy´s hometown and how his whole family and friends would fall in love with Olive even more. With their little girl just starting to sleep all through the night in her own room, Anne wanted to make sure she got her own room at her nana's too, so apparently she’s cleaned the office and made it into a makeshift nursery for her granddaughter.

Y/n doesn’t know who’s more excited to see all the familiar faces, the family that’s become not only important to her in the last four years, but now also to their baby. The last time they visited Cheshire, y/n was barely two months pregnant and as tough as it was to keep it hidden from Anne for another month, they managed to keep it to the two of them (with just a handful of slip-ups). They were sure Anne knew they were having a baby with the small smirks she gave y/n and harry when she didn’t want the wine - Harry keeping to non-alcoholics in solidarity with her - which was unregular for her, normally jumping on the thought of having a glass or two after a long day.

“You know mum won’t give her up after she gets her hands on her right as we walk through the front door? Might want to hop in the back and get your fix before we get there.” Harry let out a chuckle with y/n joining in knowing just how true his words were. Anne was a godsend of a grandmother, taking Olive in her arms doting over her until she’ll start crying for her daddy. Though everyone gives her all the attention she could wish for, no one could ever do what Harry can. He’s her favorite, no matter how much I wish I could be.

Another half hour later and we were making our first stop at a local gas station in Aylesbury. We were about a third of the way in, but the weather was getting harsher with the snow falling harder and the wind picking up just a little bit. While Harry filled the car up with gas and made sure Olive didn’t start fussing, y/n went inside to get a couple snacky items for the three of them and a filled up cup of coffee for her boyfriend. Coming out of the station she could see Harry in the back with his love bug, bringing her out of the car seat as her cute little wails haltered. She was due for a feed, so they found a secluded space to park so no one would stare at her while breastfeeding their daughter.

Sitting in the front passenger seat with her daughter attached to her nipple with her baby daddy sitting in the driver's seat next to her they spent the next twenty minutes singing along to the Christmas songs playing one after the other on the radio.

Y/n had always loved this time of year - the snow, the songs (which - admittedly - she listened to throughout the entire year), the decorations, the joy and cheer. With y/n and Harry moving in together a month before Christmas, only half a year after they first began dating, they had a mutual understanding for how they would go all out with lights, trees and decorations both on the inside and outside. Though their house was gated with a high fence along the perimeter of their entire land. The trees lining the driveway all the way from the gate to where the gravel road extends into two, one leading to the garage and the other to the front door, were now lit up with strings of light going through them. It was only the beginning to their decorations, but it couldn’t be seen from the gate. More lights were lit along the house, windows were accentuated by red tape creating squares with spray along it, making it seem like snow on the glass. Though there aren’t tons of colourful lights, outside at least, the inside is littered with different colours, shining and sparkling along the staircases, mantels, dressers, counters and tables.

Olive felt like there was something new to look at, touch and be amazed by in every room of their house. As the clock sets seven in the morning, like clockwork, Harry hears Olive’s wails for him to get her out of the crib so she can move around. He kisses y/n’s forehead as he lets her sleep for another half hour to an hour like every morning before pulling on a pair of boxers and some pajama pants if it’s cold to get his daughter from her nursery across the hall.

The two of them were like two giggling girlfriends when they finally saw each other for the first time that day, not being able to keep their smiles from their similar lips. Walking downstairs Olive points at the garland wrapping the staircase and every time she sees it, a small sound of surprise and excitement exit her puckered lips. Harry talks to her about how good her mama is at decorating their house and how good it looks good for Christmas (he only helped her put up decorations, following her direct orders). Y/n had a certain way she liked to decorate and with this being the first Christmas in their house she wanted everything to look perfect.

Coming into the kitchen after turning the dimmed lights on low to have some lighting in the morning dark they had a little shimmy along the floor. Olive babbled along with Harry’s singing and mumbling to her explaining how the buttons on the walls turned on the different lights. She probably didn’t understand or care about the lights, but the two continued singing and talking about nonsense along the way. In the kitchen, Harry made her a bottle she demanded having before getting started on the omelette he makes for him and y/n every morning he’s home without fail.

When they finally got back on the road the snow was coming down heavily and the only thing they could see were the lines of cars in front of them on the M40 pushing the break every few seconds before accelerating again moving only a couple meters before breaking again. Y/n didn’t have a lot of patience in traffic - or in general - and quickly became annoyed making Harry laugh at her telling her to calm down (she wasn’t even the one who had to drive through this horrible weather). This lasted for another forty-five minutes before the snow let up just a little bit and the cars seemed to roll along the road like normal.

“I didn’t think driving home for Christmas would take this long. At least, I hoped it wouldn’t.” They’d been on the road since nine thirty this morning and now, two and a half hours later, they still have at least another two hours left until they’re at Anne’s. It wasn’t unusual for y/n to call Anne’s home, having stayed there for weeks at a time during the almost five years her and Harry have known each other. Harry isn’t unknown to calling y/n’s parents’ house his home either.

“I know. Wish it didn’t have to take this long and I’m sure little Ollie is going to get antsy soon. If the weather continues like this and we don’t have to take more than one more break, I think we’ll be there within three hours, but if we run into traffic, we might have to take more stops along the way.” Harry wanted to move along quickly to get to his mum’s before Olive’s nap time around three, if she didn’t end up sleeping in the car. We knew when we decided to drive in the morning that Olive would probably stay up the whole way, too engrossed with the cars and lights along the way to ever be able to fall asleep.

“You know what we should do to keep her happy for another half hour at least?” Y/n turned to look at Harry with a smile grazing her lips. “Play some Christmas music! She loves when we sing and dance around the house.” Playing the memories of hearing Olive’s belly laughter through the house while Harry and her danced in circles around her like another pair of idiots.

Putting on the same Christmas song list they’ve played since making it together all those years ago, the first song coming on shuffle being Santa Claus is Coming to Town. The noise was at a comfortable volume so they could still hear Olive if she started fussing though it’s unlikely and for it to not be too disturbing for Harry’s driving. With Olive seated with her back to them she couldn’t see her mummy dancing in her seat while they sang along to song after song, but she heard her parents’ voices singing out to the songs she’s heard oh so many times before.

“This is accurate, huh?” Harry snickered as Driving Home for Christmas began playing through the speakers.

“You don’t say.” It was one of their favorite songs and it fit the scene they were in, driving home for Christmas, excited to see their family, singing along the slowly getting better traffic. Looking around at the cars next to them, most of them looked to be families also driving home to be with their families for this year's holiday celebrations.

The rest of the drive was filled with more singing, two more stops for Harry to give his baby some cuddles and walking around one of the local Tesco’s they stopped at to get some more drinks and snacks. Olive was waving at everyone walking past us and talking all kinds of gibberish. While y/n grabbed the snacks, Harry had Olive walking along the aisles in between his feet while holding her little hands in his following her around the store.

A quarter to three they finally made it to Anne’s home, reversing into the driveway so they could get their baggage inside easier later in the day. Y/n saw Anne open the front door in the rearview mirror when Harry was pulling in the last meters. There was a bright smile on her face when we got out of the car. The snow had laid thick on the ground up north and the slick ice underneath made it harder to walk without having to make sure every step was carefully thought out.

Just minutes later Olive was already crawling with her little legs all over her grandma’s home, interested in anything and everything she could get her chubby hands on not seeming to be tired at all. They decided to forgo her nap and hope for an early night, which isn’t likely with everything going on around her. Anne was on granny duties right away telling the pair to sit down and relax with the tea she had prepared while she took care of the baby. There was no doubt she loved the attention from the person she might not remember from this summer but quickly became attached to, almost as much as she is to her daddy.

Harry found his place on the sofa, head in y/n’s lap and feet hanging over the armrest demanding her fingers curling through his locks. It wasn’t surprising to her that he was tired from driving the entirety of the way in traffic and tightly packed snow at times. Sure, if needed he could have stayed awake, but with his mum taking care of his little love he didn’t care much, falling asleep to his other love combing her fingers through his hair. It didn’t happen too often that they could have a cuddle in the middle of the day - just the two of them - with Olive needing their attention at all hours of the day so when the opportunity arose he wasn’t going to turn it down. He admits, though this is nice as well, that a naked cuddle in bed would definitely top laying on the sofa with his mum and daughter running around them. Maybe tonight, he thinks, as he finally falls asleep to the sound of Olive’s giggles.

As nighttime inched closer and Olive’s bedtime was passing them in the chatter and laughter, y/n told Harry to get their things from the car while she nurses Olive before getting her ready for bed. While they took care of their daughter, Anne made a nice spread of cheese and crackers for them to indulge tonight while catching up on everything that’s been going on in their lives since the last time she visited them in London.

Harry found Olive’s bag first, choosing a pair of christmassy pajamas from the mountain of clothes they had brought for her. Y/n walked upstairs to the nursery Anne had set up, seeing Harry already unpacking her bags into the cute vintage turquoise chiffonier Anne had bought from a neighbour only a couple weeks ago immediately falling in love with it.

«Would you like to have a cuddle with daddy before bed, Ollie?» Y/n firmly believed her daughter needed the nightly cuddle from Harry, just like she does, to fall asleep. She was already reaching out for him with her nimble hands waiting for him to take her in for a snuggle in his arms. There was no armchair in the makeshift nursery like they had purchased for Olive’s nursery back home where they always sat but Harry made it work. Anything for a cuddle with his baby growing way too quick for his liking.

It was no secret Harry loved babies and that only heightened when he had his own baby. With how good Olive is and how lush it’s been having a baby around and it not be just the two of them, he had thought about what it would be like with another baby around. Another little love for them to have, give Olive a sister or brother to play with. He hadn’t said anything to y/n about the thoughts he’d been having, not knowing if she'd agree with him. It’s been eight months and when they had talked about it before they agreed on a maximum of two years between their children.

Only a couple hours later they headed to bed themselves, ready for a good night's sleep before another long day tomorrow. Harry had been debating with himself whether he was going to mention babies to y/n or not - ultimately ended up with yes, he would mention it. Now they were finally alone with y/n resting her head on Harry’s pillow, her fingers delicately drawing patterns on his chest.

“I have something I’d like to discuss with you.” Harry’s voice wasn’t much louder than a whisper, not wanting to ruin the calmness around them. He wasn’t nervous so to say, but he felt his pulse quicken the tiniest bit at the thought of getting turned down. Y/n turned her head to watch Harry as he pulled her in as close as he could without suffocating her.

“It’s been lovely having Olive, right? Seems like it was meant to be to have a baby and during the holidays it’s been so fun watching her so interested in everything.” Y/n murmured her answer. She had loved having a little one to care for and to fill their days with joy over the last eight months.

“Well, with how well it’s been going with her, I was thinking we could talk about having another little one? Maybe discuss it a bit. What do you say, let's make Ollie a big sister?”

“I think we might be well on the way to making her a sister, bub.” Harry turned his head at lightning speed hearing her words, not knowing if he heard her quite right. His open mouth and big round eyes weren’t something she saw often combined as she wasn’t always the best at surprising him, but this time she was sure her secret had come as a big shock. It wasn’t as if they had been trying for a baby either, only forgetting a condom a handful times when they were too in the moment to care for it.

She found out only a week ago, thinking she could keep it to herself until Christmas day. It wasn’t difficult to hide it from him, not struggling with morning sickness and only craving sweets as if she was on her period. Knowing they had agreed on the number of children they wanted - four - she wasn’t scared of him reacting badly.

“You’re not joking, right?” Harry smashed his lips onto his girlfriends when she shook her head - no, i’m not joking - kissing her slow and long, showing her just how happy he was. They spent the night talking about how thrilled and excited they were to expand their family with more children and how great of a sister Olive would be. Baby names were flying between them, agreeing to never naming one of their babies after a city, but rather continuing naming them something more unique than Chloe or Adam.

The rest of the holiday spent up north with Harry’s family was relaxing and lovely all around. Playing board games, exploring the city with Olive (who was way too fascinated by all the snow), family dinner parties and having fun with friends they didn’t get to see all too often. Olive was wiped out after opening her presents on Christmas morning and spending all her energy on all the toys she got and the paper ripping she played with (more than the toys to be honest).

This year had been special for the family and Christmas was just the same. Olive was lively and it made y/n and Harry exhausted with everything going on, but they wouldn’t change it for the world. After all, Olive was their little girl and soon there would be another little love in their family. Trying to keep the pregnancy from their family and friends was easier this time around as she could blame not drinking alcohol on her breastfeeding and decided they would keep it hidden from everyone until the last possible minute.

[swimmingleo]

Just writing down my thoughts about the two backstage pictures we got. yeah I love to joke and bully harry about it but me not liking the visuals doesn't mean they don't make me feel stuff <3

ok so Harry's naked, in his bath, icebath it seems like so chilling after the show, not exactly looking up with his whole body but rather rising his eyes like "??". He looks caught mid-expression, like he's about to say something. The angle is kind of off-centre, like some on-board camera effect.

The watcher (the pov) is above Harry, hovering over him in his private space. It looks like we jumped in the bath, without any warning.

It's invasive. Harry doesn't want us here, in his space, in his bath.

Okay this was the one that made me go "???" Because it really really gives me Psycho.

It literally feels like we're the one lurking behind the curtain. And right after a pic where Harry was actually in a bathtub... Why is Harry so far ? It's like the photographer doesn't want to come any closer not to be noticed. Harry doesn't know we're here, he's doing his lil pre-show routine before putting up a show for thousands of people and still, he's not alone. Or he always feels observed. I don't know.

Basically it's really the pov of those photographs that intrigues me. They feel very personal in a sense, but also troubling. Pre show and post show. Way too close and way too far. I'm waiting for more to see if there's some kind of red string but it's already a pretty strong beginning. not saying that it means anything but the vibes are peculiar to me. but that could just be his edgy hipster vision

[fandomficsnstuff]

Guardian Angel

Daryl Dixon x Reader

(Warnings: It’s gonna get kinda gory cause the reader is gonna learn how to skin a rabbit, so prepare yourselves, also Merle is a creep, as always, also cussing and this is kinda long)

(Okay! So I’m considering making this a series, just don’t really know yet, but let me know if you guys want a series outta this, I have a lot of ideas for this. Also I'm borrowing my friend's computer so I'll try to get more fics done and post them, stay safe out therer ya'll!)

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

You let out a huff as you continued to scrub the shirt on the washing board, listening to the girls talk, but too lost in your own head to listen. You were, however, brought out of your day dreaming by Carol’s voice, looking up at her and her kind smile that she always bore, despite what that monster of a husband did to her. “You alright honey?” You forced a smile, giving a brief nod before shrugging, “just lost in thought, I guess” you looked down briefly before looking back up, noticing how you had all of the girls’ attention now, making you bite your lip nervously “what?” Andrea was the first to giggle at your response, “oh nothing, just, does that thought of yours happen to carry a crossbow around?” your mouth fell open at her question, making her smirk at you and the other girls laugh “shut up!” you splashed water at her, making everyone, including you, laugh loudly. You all continued to laugh, you felt tears in your eyes as your stomach hurt from laughing, but it all died down once you heard a whistle, turning to look at none other but the biggest perv in camp, Merle Fucking Dixon.

“Well, what do we have here? What’re you pretty little ladies gigglin’ about?” It was amazing to see all the girls roll their eyes at the exact same time, it almost made you laugh again, almost. “Mind your own business, Merle” Andrea got back to washing the clothes, clearly not impressed with him, which no one was at this point, but Merle didn’t take too kindly to it “why don’t you say that to my face, sugar tits? I’d sure as hell love to shut that pretty little mouth of yours up” you gagged at Merle’s comment, feeling sick to your stomach, and a part of you admired Andrea for how she kept a stone face.

“In your dreams, Merle” Andrea huffed out, but Merle just smirked.

“Oh it sure will be” you gagged again, so you decided to get up, the wet clothes in your arms, you didn’t much feel like washing them again after throwing up on them because of Merle. “Excuse me ladies, I have to go throw up” you walked past Merle to hang up the clothes to dry, but stopped abruptly as Merle gave your ass a smack on the way, turning back to ogle at Andrea. You turned slowly around, quietly balancing all of the clothes in one hand to bend down and pick up a rock, almost the size of your palm, and a smirk slowly made it’s way onto your lips as you thought over your plan. You chugged it as hard as you could at Merle’s head, hitting him right on his balding head, and you just ran for it. You moved your legs as fast as you could, your mind going almost as fast, now you had to come up with something, you heard Merle yell from down in the quarry. You spotted Lori and bolted towards her, making her look up at you with narrowed eyes as you panted heavily, trying to find the words you needed to ask her to help you, but you barely had the chance before she extended her arms “go on, before he catches up” you smiled brightly, letting her take the wet clothes “thank you Lori you are a goddess!” she rolled her eyes with a smile “don’t I know it. Now go” you nodded and bolted off into the woods, you had your knife with you, you would be fine.

Once you thought you were far enough into the woods you leaned against a big tree, panting heavily as you tried to catch your breath, once you had a decent hold of your breathing, you slowed it down, listening for any sounds, but mostly listening for the angry footsteps of Merle searching for you. After a minute or so of listening, you breathed out a breathless laugh, bending over with your hands on your knees to really catch your breath, now that you had been holding it for a while. You were about to go back when you heard footsteps and leaves crunching, spinning around to see none other than your favorite Dixon, not that there was much competition.

You exhaled heavily, a hand over your hand “you scares the fuck outta me, Daryl” you gave him a warm smile, making him scoff as he approached you “wasn’t even tryin’ to be quiet” he commented as he approached, he never really looked at you, he was too shy, but now he were. You both had small moments like this where you could be yourselves, where he could look at you without blushing, at least not too much, and you found it adorable.

“Good game?” you asked, pointing to the squirrels and rabbits over his shoulder, making him glance at it and shrug “yeah, the rabbit was a bitch to find though” you furrowed your brows “what? The great Daryl Dixon, master hunter, couldn’t catch a little bunny?” you joked, making him scoff once again, shaking his head at you as he looked down before back up at you “nah I caught it alright, it was finding it that was a bitch” you smirked at him, studying him for a few seconds before shrugging, leaning against the tree you had been hiding behind just a few minutes earlier, “then why go after it?” Daryl looked down, blushing red like a tomato at your question, shrugging as he kept his eyes on the ground “well, you liked the last one I caught right?” you nodded, giving a small ‘mhm’ in conformation, which just made him shrug again, as if that was the answer itself. Your eyes widened a bit, and now it was your turn to look like a tomato, letting out a quiet ‘oh’ as you looked down at the leaves under your boots, a dumb grin on your face “well, that was very nice of you, Daryl, thank you” you nudged his shoulder as you looked back up at him, only to find him looking at you already. It was like a scene from a movie, and cliché as it sounds, the way the whole world just went away, how everything else faded as you held eye contact. Maybe it was just on your part, maybe you were just hallucinating, but you liked to think that he felt the same, even if it was just wishful thinking.

You were snapped out of it as he cleared his throat, looking down again, you didn’t think it was possible for his face to turn even more red, but here you were, staring at a very red Daryl. “So, wanna head back?” he looked back up at you, making you smile even more, though you wanted to say no, you wanted to just sit down on the ground with him and just talk. You wanted to stay here with him for so much longer, just have the world fade around you until only the two of you were left, you wanted to sit and talk about his life, the things he loved, the things he did before the whole world went to shit. You realized then that you didn’t know that much about him, you knew his life had been shit, it was a given, you knew he must’ve had a tough childhood, you knew he liked to be alone, he liked the quiet, hence the hunting and tracking, but other than that, you didn’t know much, but in this world you didn’t really need to, you thought. Who he was before didn’t matter, you knew who he was now, and that's all that mattered to you.

You realized you had been quiet and just staring at him when he said your name, you loved it when he said your name, it sounded so heavenly coming from his lips. “(Y/N)? You alright?” you blinked a few times before coughing, looking down embarrassed “y-yeah I just uh, I think I’ll stay here a while longer, you know? Enjoy nature and all that” he let out a small laugh, something you quickly engraved in your memory, it sounded so sweet, it was one of the very rare times you had heard it, and it was always when you were alone. Daryl walked past you towards camp, and for a second you actually thought he bought it, but seeing him turn around to face you, a knowing smirk on his lips made you realize that he simply knew you too well at this point, that or you were a lousy liar, one of the two, “come on, I ain’t gonna let him get ya”, you let out a small chuckle, stepping closer to him, leaning in and pecking his cheek, your own cheeks were burning up, so was the tip of your ears “thank you, Daryl” you went ahead towards camp, Daryl completely frozen in place though it didn’t last long, he soon caught up to you, walking next to you with his head down, though every once in a while you’d see him sneaking a glance at you out of the corner of your eyes, and it made a bright smile form on your lips.

As you reached the edge of camp you looked around for Merle, cautious, which made Daryl scoff in amusement “whatcha do this time?” you looked at him with as much innocence as you could muster, but seeing as it didn’t work you sighed, you knew it was his brother, so you didn’t want to upset him in any way “he was ogling and saying some things to Andrea… and when I tried to walk past him he slapped my ass,” you swore you saw Daryl clench his jaw, but you couldn’t be too sure, your eyes were partially on the ground, you cleared your throat and continued “and I uh, may or may not have.. thrown a rock at him, and hit him… possibly…” you dared to sneak a glance at Daryl, but all you could see was amusement “well, he ain't never learnt how to treat women” was all Daryl said as he sat down on a tree stump with a leg on each side, taking off the string of squirrels and two rabbits he had tied to it, you bit your lip to hide your smile, nodding and sitting down across from him on the ground, studying him as he was about to skin one of the two rabbits.

“Can you teach me?” his eyes looked up at yours and you swore you saw a hint of confusion in them, but he looked down quickly again “you sure? It ain’t pretty” you raised a brow at his comment, smirking at him “Daryl Dixon, just so you know, I ain’t a ‘pretty girl’ “you tried your best to match his accent, making him eye you before shaking his head again “please never do that again” you laughed low “what? I ain’t doin’ nothin’” you continued to say in the accent, making him smirk, but he tried to hide it “if you’re gonna be like that I won’t teach ya” you held your hands up in surrencer, seeing the amused look on his face that he tried to hide “alright, you win, now teach me” he scoffed low, shaking his head as he got out his hunting knife.

(this is where the gore kinda starts, so you can skip this part if you want to)

“Alright then. You’ll want to pinch the hide on the rabbit’s back and make a small cut. The hide of a rabbit is very thin and you don’t even need a knife to do this; I’ve used a sharp stick to puncture the skin. Now you’re gonna watch me, and then see how you do on the other one, got it?” you nodded with a small smile, turning your eyes back to his hands and the rabbit, you really did want to learn, so you paid as much attention as possible. “Once you’ve made the cut, work your middle and index finger from both hands into the opening, like this. Now, you’re gonna wanna have steady hands, you're just gonna hook your fingers under the skin and pull one hand toward the head and the other toward the ass, alright? Don’t be scared to use a bit of force” you bit your lip to hold back a laugh at his casual language, merely nodding your head and continuing to watch him work, “The skin will begin to tear and separate from the body in two pieces. Keep pulling, grabbing more of the skin as you go to get a better grip, alright? It’s gonna be a bit tough but it’s alright. Now you just gotta work the legs out.” you nodded as you watched him, and before you knew it, your mouth opened “like pulling off a shirt” you blushed as he looked at you but he just shrugged and looked back down to the rabbit “yeah, somethin’ like that”, he gave you a small smirk before continuing his work, continuing to pull on the fur, ripping on it left the feet still covered, it reminded you of tiny shoes.

(the gore ends now, there’ll be hints at the rest of the process but this is where the explanation and detail ends)

You watched as he made a final pull, tugging harshly at the rear and you had a small snapping like noise, realizing the tail had been pulled off as well “wow” Daryl scoffed low “eh don’t worry about it, it happens, just saves the work of doing it later” you nodded as he put the now skinned fur to the side, about to tell you what to do next when you heard your name being called by an angry raspy voice, your head snapping around to look at the source, the source being Merle Dixon himself, the man you had completely forgotten about.

“(Y/N)! You little bitch!” Merle still held the back of his head in pain, and it would've made you laugh, if you didn’t feel like he could kill you at any moment given how angry he was. You were stuck in between smirking and running away, but Daryl quickly brought Merle’s attention away from you “whatchu want Merle?” he sounded pissed off, and a part of you hoped it was because he enjoyed spending time with you, and because that time was now interrupted, another part was worried that this was just because today was being too much, had it really been that difficult to find those rabbits for you? Or maybe you pushed it too far with asking him to teach you, but on the other hand, he actually seemed like he enjoyed teaching you, so maybe it really was just the aura or Merle annoying the hell out of him.

“Ain’t got nothin’ to do with you baby brother, so mind ya own business! (Y/N) you bitch! Think you can just throw shit at me and get away with it?! Huh?! I’m gonna show you-” Daryl stood up the second Merle took a step closer to you “just piss of Merle, I don’t care if she threw shit at ya, ya ain’t dead, so stop whining like a little bitch” your eyes widened at the scene unfolding in front of you, you had never heard Daryl talk to him that way, and these two weren’t exactly shy about fighting in front of others. Merle glanced between the two of you, a part of him was seething and another part of him was mocking you as he started to laugh “well! What do we have here? Little baby Daryl’s in love, everybody! What’s gonna happen next huh? You gonna let her paint your nails, huh? Maybe play dress up?! I ain’t the one acting like a little love sick puppy so don’t call me a whiny bitch!” As quick as he had acted amused he acted furious, they stood chest to chest now, their noses almost touching as they stared each other down, and you were pretty positive that if it went on any longer, one of them would punch the other.

“G-Guys… maybe, uh… maybe we could all just take a step back?” you glanced at Glenn as he nervously approached, God bless his heart, he was just trying to make everyone calm down. Glenn had always been sweet to you, Dale as well, so you cringed when Merle spun around and hit him in the face, Glenn had tried to move away but Merle had still hit him, you quickly sprung to your feet, your first instinct was to hold Daryl back as he moved towards Merle, but you let Shane handle him, pinning him to the ground with his hands behind his back, holding him down.

“Don’t, Daryl, come on” you whispered, you hadn’t realized how close you two stood, until you tore your eyes away from Merle to look at Daryl, his face mere inches away from yours, but he didn’t notice, he was too busy contemplating if he should get Shane off of Merle or if he should help hold him down. You frowned as Daryl moved from your side “get the fuck off of him!” he ripped Shane to the side, helping Merle stand up and you couldn’t help the scoff you let out. You looked down and shook your head, walking past him to Glenn, kneeling besides him to look at his cheek, Lori, Andrea and Amy were on the ground next to him as well “here let me look” you inspected his cheek cringing a bit seeing the redness “it’s alright, he hit you but you still moved back, you’re not gonna get a bruise I think” Glenn nodded as he held his cheek again, wincing slightly as all the girls, you included, helped him stand up, even though he could do so just fine.

You glanced at Dale, giving him a small smile, assuring him that Glenn was okay, to which he visibly relaxed. You glanced at Daryl who was busy yelling at Shane to not touch his brother, and Shane yelling back that he shouldn’t just hit people then. It was chaos, not in a traditional sense, but those three yelling at each other, Glenn hurt, even though it wasn’t serious, it just made you feel like this was chaos.

You sighed and walked off towards the quarry, Andrea and Lori helping Glenn put something cold on his cheek. You sighed as you sat down on a rock near the water, watching the ripples caused by the wind, you barely noticed Dale approaching, sitting down next to you on a rock. You both sat there in silence watching the water, and after a while Dale finally broke the silence “it’s so quiet here” you hummed in response, taking in a deep breath of fresh air “yeah it is… almost makes you forget how shit everything is” Dale chuckled low “yeah, though not everything is bad” you looked at him “no?” Dale shook his head and met your gaze “I saw you and Daryl, that’s not bad, is it?” you chuckled low and looked out over the water again “no, I guess… I mean… I just wish he-... you know? I just-... and he, he just… it’s frustrating” you sighed and looked down at the rocks under your feet, picking one up and fiddling with it “Daryl is-”

“Complicated?” you laughed as Dale basically finished your sentence, nodding your head gently “yeah, but he’s also so sweet… it’s his brother Merle, he irks him and riles him up and he just… he’s just so… I don’t know… but it’s not who Daryl is, Daryl is sweet and shy and I know he doesn’t show it a lot but he’s so kind, while hunting, he remembered that I liked the rabbit he caught last time, so he went out of his way to find two more today, it makes me feel, I don’t know… special, and when he defended me from Merle, it made me feel like he’s my guardian angel sometimes...” you shrugged, looking back at Dale who nodded, giving you a knowing look which made you blush as you realized what you had just said out loud, your gaze turning back to the rock in your hands.

“I agree, you know, Daryl is definitely not like his brother, I’m just happy he shows it to someone at least, instead of hiding it. No one can be alone with who they are all the time, at least they shouldn’t, in my experience” you hummed low again, your eyes looking back out over the water, a small smile on your lips “‘walking in the dark with a friend is better than walking alone in the light’” you mumbled, making Dale look at you with an intrigued look, a warm smile still on his lips, as it usually was. “It’s… it’s a quote from Helen Keller” you explained, Dale giving you a small ‘aha’ sound before looking back out over the water. You both sat there for a while longer, he had given guard duty to Andrea before coming down here, so you both just sat and watched the water and the sun reflected upon it’s surface.

[wh6res]

taeil — part of the my bloody valentine collection.

prompt. soulmates are connected by a red string.

synopsis. taeil thinks the whole system is bullshit. he needs to take matters into his own hands.

warnings. tread cautiously. swearing, mentions of death, blood, mentions of kidnapping, violence, turning a 'lil dubcon near the end, severe stockholm syndrome, manipulation 

disclaimer. a friendly reminder that i do not, under any circumstance, condone or support any acts like this. this is not love and this is not how a normal relationship should be like. the things i write are all fiction and should be treated as such and if you don’t like it, please do not read it and waste your time hating on it. the 9 members of nct 127 do not act like this in real life and shouldn’t act like this in real life. 

thank you to. sexeh sam @yukwonghei, cutie charlie @dundun-baby, and baby rina @greenish-taro for beta-reading!

since he was a kid, he’s fantasized about meeting his soulmate. creating scenario after scenario of how he’d meet ‘the one’ as he had cheesily addressed and had absolutely freaked when he finally saw the red string tied around his right wrist on his 20th birthday—courtesy of the soulmate rules of the universe, where one will finally be able to see the string tied around their body once they’ve come of age. 

for years before he met that other soul who’s destined to be with him, taeil would stare at the red thread lying across the floor, disappearing under the gap of his door and out to the world unknown. he’d be so distracted, so aloof and in his own world as he anticipates the long-awaited day until his professor calls him out—“moon! do yourself a favor and stop daydreaming!”

until his friends snap him out of it—“thinking of them again? really?”

until his parents shake him out of his thoughts—“don’t worry, i bet they’ll love you!”

sometimes he just loved staring at the string, it was something so measly as a bunch of threads intricately woven together yet it held such a symbol in today’s world. call him lovesick or stupid but was it really wrong to feel excited? taeil’s even betting the person on the other side of this string is just as excited as he was, if not more. 

in the man’s eyes, the strings are a symbol of something more than love—it symbolized the person the universe has created especially for him and no one else. 

taeil can’t even imagine a world without these strings. how difficult it would be, to love and invest in someone who will only end up breaking your heart? no, the strings also meant reassurance. 

assurance that he won’t get hurt. 

an assurance of faithfulness. 

he had only been a wide-eyed fresh grad looking for some place to intern when it happened. like a scene right out of a cheesy romance movie—he felt the persistent tugs of the string before finally meeting his soulmate. well, using the word meet to describe the whole ordeal is a huge stretch because it was more of a holy shit, is that my soulmate? rather than a hi, i'm your soulmate, taeil!

he merely saw the back of her poised figure but taeil’s heart felt like it wanted to explode, his emotions a mess and feeling everything to the extremes. nervous. scared. anxiety. happiness. excitement—it was all coming at him like bullets. 

as taeil stared at her back, walking away, johnny kept shoving him forward, encouraging him to finally approach the person he’s been waiting for ever since that soulmate string appeared around his pinky. 

but he couldn’t—not because he was so anxious he’d accidentally vomit the 4-cheese whopper he had for lunch but due to the line of people trailing behind his soulmate like a bunch of baby ducks to their mom. the thought of coming up to his soulmate and introducing himself in front of all those people?

romantic, maybe, but taeil doesn’t have the stomach to do that. 

he remembers how much johnny had wolf whistled, unbelieving of the fact his friend managed to snag the possible heir to the company they’re attending an interview in as his soulmate. 

“lucky little asshole,” johnny muttered. 

taeil had been experiencing the post-effects of seeing his soulmate that he just weakly punched johnny’s arm for the heck of it. he probably didn’t even hear the name his younger friend had called him. taeil’s mind is clouding over, no thoughts in his head but the white polo shirt she wore, sleeves neatly rolled up, and the black pencil skirt hugging her legs and making her ass look so plump. 

focus. he needs to focus on the interview right now or else he won’t even have the chance to work here and officially meet her. everything the interviewer asked passed through his head like paper planes in a classroom, shamelessly asking the woman sitting before him to repeat the question, too busy reveling about how their soulmate story would be the cliché office-love. not that taeil minds, he’d love going to work together—

two weeks later, johnny receives an email of acceptance. taeil doesn’t.

the man nearly threw his laptop away out of sheer disbelief and anger. okay, sure, maybe he could’ve done better in the interview but he graduated with latin honors in college! and from a prestigious college at that. he shouldn’t even be applying as a mere intern with the skill set he had yet he went with it because he’d always dreamed of working there. 

and now knowing his soulmate is possibly someone who holds a high position in the company? everything just kept getting better and better for moon taeil. 

except for that fucking email—pft, or lack thereof. how can they not accept him when he’s more capable than johnny, anyway? for fuck’s sake! taeil doesn’t even ask that guy for rent and he’s so thick-skinned that he stayed up to this day and freeloaded off taeil’s food and shelter. 

the absolute unfairness of the situation makes taeil’s blood reach a fever point. he’s completely lossed it, leading him to spit “get the fuck out!” to the other male occupant in the apartment with eyes glaring and lips pulled into a nasty sneer. 

johnny’s never seen taeil this upset before and decided that he’d be better off abiding by the older man’s wishes instead of contradicting it. 

no. no. no. this can’t be happening. if taeil doesn’t work there, with her, all his sweet fantasies won’t come true and god forbid she ends up falling for another person in the company. 

anyone would be naturally drawn to taeil’s soulmate. in his eyes, she’s a goddess in the flesh. taeil doesn’t even need to see her face, from the few seconds he saw a glimpse of her, her presence and allure in itself is already eye-catching. the way her low ponytail swished from side to side as she walked, her back straight and head held high. 

taeil needs to see her again. maybe if she finds out he’s her soulmate she’ll put a good word in and he’ll get hired. 

yeah. yeah, that’s a good plan. 

“please get out of my office or i’ll call security.”

or not.

“no, wait. but i just said i’m your soulmate!” to further prove his point, he even raises up his pinky and sure enough the other end of the string is tied around hers. the incessant pull is there and if not for her sharp cold eyes anchoring him to the ground, taeil would’ve long been soaring high in cloud nine. 

“and i said i don’t care,” she snaps just as her fingers sneakily pressed a button in her phone. “i have a fiancé. the whole soulmate bullshit doesn’t apply to rich people. so for the fucking last time, get out of my office.”

“but—”

the double doors of the vice president’s office bounces off the walls when two burly guards barge in. dressed in a white long sleeves and those heavy tinted shades of glasses that taeil hates. the two men waste no time in hooking their arms underneath the smaller, frail man as he thrashes against their arms. 

“how can you not care about your soulmate?!” taeil can feel the beginning licks of the flames eating up his whole world as everything comes crashing down before his very eyes. “i’ve been—i’ve been waiting my whole life for you and this is how you treat me?!” 

he doesn’t know what hurts more, the scratch in his throat as he screamed with all his might or the stoic look written on her face as the guards haul him away. 

when johnny heard the news he’d never felt so sorry for his friend. rumors that initially circulated only between the executive board members had spread and trickled down to the common folk on the lower levels. johnny making it a mission to find out, had extracted himself from his usual cheery and extroverted self to blend in with the background. taeil has yet to talk to him after he got kicked out, so asking his friend—or ex-friend?—about what happened is out of the question. 

but like any other breed of rumor, the tale of their vice president’s soulmate barging in her office is ever changing through each mouth that tells the story. johnny doesn't know what to believe in. he’s been trying to put off a meeting with the older man ever since he started crashing in taeyong’s apartment instead. not that taeil himself even tried reaching out to johnny, anyway. 

so why should he, when he doesn’t even know what he did wrong?

but there’s a nagging voice at the back of johnny’s head. his conscience isn’t too loud but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s there and it doesn’t need excessive volumes to be heard. all it takes is a second of distraction from the paperwork he does, attention straying from the task at hand, and his body will automatically be wracked with guilt. 

knowing how much taeil had waited for his soulmate to come to his life, knowing how taeil can readily give everything up for his soulmate without even meeting them yet… and now knowing taeil just got the worst ever rejection in his entire life?

johnny can’t possibly imagine the pain he’s going through. is he really going to choose now out of all times to be petty because taeil kicked him out when he didn’t even bother asking johnny for anything in return during his stay in the apartment?

so when taeil finally contacted him, the sketchyness of what he had asked for flew right over johnny’s head. rational thoughts flying out the window because taeil needs him, he should his friend after everything taeil did for him—

“hey, uhm… i need insider’s information, can you do that for me?”

you shook your head at the long story johnny told you. tuffs of your hair have escaped the intricate pigtails taeil has put your hair up in earlier before he left for work. he’s always hated having your hair messy, but at the moment you couldn’t find yourself to care. 

“i wouldn’t put it past taeil’s original soulmate…” you think aloud, mouth speaking before you can stop yourself as you stare disdainfully at the dulled string wrapped around your pinky—it lost its divine red glow after your captor had cut it off on the same day he whisked you away.

ironic, how easy it was to destroy something so important.

you backtracked, realizing the gravity of what you said before looking up at your captor’s friend. johnny doesn’t look all too impressed and he sighs at the pleading look in your eyes. please, don’t tell him.

“i guess you’re somewhat right…” he gives in, coursing his fingers through his hair. “taeil had been… very passionate on finding his soulmate. but i mean, come on, why’d you even marry someone who isn’t your soulmate? i don’t blame taeil for doing what he did to them.”

johnny ignores the way your breath hitches and your body halts all movement. “what—what did he do?”

“paid them a ‘lil visit after gathering enough resources from someone on the inside,” his face stoic, voice monotone. johnny doesn’t like talking about this one. “he studied their schedules, where they live, where they work, how they get to work, what time they sleep, what time they wake. then just one day…” 

he drags a finger across his neck.

“oh.” 

pathetically, it was all you can say. why did you even bother to ask, anyway? if taeil had been willing to exert force just to keep you in line, then he has the stomach for whatever gruesome deaths he subjected his soulmate and her fiancé to.

you nibble on your lip as you stare at the knot of thread lying on the floor. you don’t see the need to wear the collar wrapped around your neck when that knot is good enough a reminder that you’re now bound to taeil. that he’s fucked around with your destiny and decided he’ll have you out of all people. 

its hard to believe taeil once almost worshipped the soulmate bonds, not when all he’s ever done is look at it like it's the bane of his existence and calling it a curse to humanity.

“do you know that you’re—”

“that i’m the 5th? yeah, i know. i saw all the knots on his string.” you defeatedly say, a vivid image of the knots spaced across his string like tophies. “taeil doesn’t like me staring at them, though.”

and you yourself didn’t like staring at them. you never thought something so small and insignificant can mean something so sinister. the knots on his string acting like a body counter. will he get sick of you one day and you’ll just be another knot on his string?

“you’re nothing like his soulmate—i’m not insulting you or anything, i’m just saying the truth. the past girls all had at least something in common with her but you… nothing. not even your hair shines like hers, and that’s even after taeil has taken good care of you.”

this doesn’t soothe you in any sense and before you can open your mouth to retort, the familiar beeping of the code getting punched into the keypad cuts you off. 

taeil stood in the entrance as he shrugged off his coat, his polo crinkled at some areas and pieces of his hair had escaped that slicked back hairstyle. 

“you’re home early…”

your blood runs cold when he doesn’t even offer you a glance, skipping you out and immediately addressing johnny. “i thought i told you to go home already after delivering the food.”

you admire the way johnny’s eyes roll. must be nice not to be so fucking terrified of the man. “yeah, but your current sweetheart here was lonely and practically begged me to stay.”

the sting of betrayal never grows familiar. 

“i never said anything—”

“you did, have you forgotten already?” you hate the show of lust clouding in johnny’s eyes as he stares you down. this can’t be happening right now. “have you forgotten how you even came unto me? whined like a bitch about how taeil doesn’t even fuck you hard enough and you had to fake orgasms all the time?”

“that’s not true!” your frustration manifests as tears. they sting your eyes as you look at taeil. “i never said anything—”

but you pale when you realize they’re not even listening to you, the two guys fist bumping in the foyer and exchanging a few words like “thanks for telling me,” and “no problem, bro,” were heard before taeil is heatedly storming up to you. 

you feel numb as you look over taeil’s shoulder at the little smirk johnny shoots at you. have fun, he mouths mockingly and then he’s out the door, extracting himself from the mess he created. 

when taeil wordlessly drags you across the hallway, you thought he’ll make a right turn and into the bedroom but imagine your surprise when he pulls you instead towards the bathroom. he wastes no time throwing you against the cold hard tiles as he tells you only one thing. 

“strip.”

“taeil…”

“you don’t want to be replaced.” it doesn’t take a genius to know taeil had hit the nail on the head. all your movements come to a halt, looking up at him with an unreadable look in your face. “that’s your fear, isn’t it? that if you die, if i kill you, i can just look for another girl and you’d be forgotten at the snap of a finger. i’m right, aren’t i?”

you gulp, his words stinging even if he didn’t mean for it to sting. or maybe he did. taeil takes a step closer to you, studying your appearance as he brings a hand up to caress your tear-stained face. 

spots in your clothes are wet due to the splashes of water on the tiles, and the clips in your hair that once looked neat and perfect are now hanging in disarray, falling off in some places. 

“i’m sorry,” you sob. “i’m sorry, john—johnny’s lying. you—you have to—to believe me. please don’t replace me… i’ll be good, i promise…”

truly, there’s no better motivator than fear. and there’s no better way to mess with someone’s head than using their weakness against them. 

“you say you’ll be good but i tell you to strip and you couldn’t even do that?” 

taeil could never imagine replacing you. he finds it stupid, whatever that brought in this fear of yours, but it doesn’t mean he won’t be extracting every little bit he can get out of this.

he can only stare in awe when you start wiggling your way out of your pretty pink clothes, eyes drinking every bit of your skin slowly being exposed to him as he reaches behind you to open the running water, slowly filling the bathtub.

“get in,” he instructs and you waste no time. 

as he sheds his own clothes, he can practically feel the want radiating off you. he knew johnny’s lying, but he humored his friend still. there’s no way you can fake the noises you always make. plus, taeil has seen one too many times the cum dribbling out of your cunt after he’s fucked you into oblivion. he scoffs. harder? then he’ll be breaking you in half already. 

taeil swats your hand away as it reaches for his cock and he hopes you don’t notice it twitching before you when you let out a cute whine. 

“you want it?”

you nod urgently, salavitating at the thought. taeil was more of a giver to his partners, it’s rare for him to take his pleasure first but you’re far from complaining. 

“oh, i don’t know…” he pouts, fisting himself in front of you before giving it a few testing pumps. he swallows the hiss threatening to spill from his lips, chuckling instead at the intense look in your eyes as it follows his hand movements. 

you were by far the most compliant girl he’s ever had, someone who’d rather stay than escape. his methods of forcing someone into submission worked extremely well with you. so really, how can he let go of his glorified little pet?

“you’re not lying to me, aren’t you? i got hurt, you know, with what johnny said… i guess i was doing something wrong.”

“no!” your reply is immediate. “no, that’s not true—”

hands wrap around your throat like a vice. “how about you prove it to me, love? tell me everything i want to hear.”

now, this is easy. you’ve practically memorized everything you need to tell him to boost his ego. it doesn’t even take much of an effort. 

“i love your cock so much that my body hurts. it hits all the right places inside of me and i will never even dream of wanting another man because they won’t be able to fuck me like you do.”

you feel giddy when he smiles that satisfied smile, your toes curling in anticipation as he leans in to give his obedient darling a kiss—

until he shoves your face down the water. 

it doesn’t take much effort to wrestle your limbs down and insert himself into you, groaning at the feeling of your lush and moist walls sucking him in. you’re always so damn wet when he fucks you, oh how much he loves it. loves how tighter your cunt wraps around him as you squirm and fight him to get to the surface of the half-filled tub.

it was only after a few deep thrusts did he relent and pull you up, the few hair clips in your hair floating in the water around as you gasp greedy amounts of air. one look at taeil’s face pulled in ecstasy is enough for you to know it was well worth it.

maybe being rejected by his soulmate was a blessing in disguise. maybe the disobedience of every girl he took before you had been deliberately well-planned. or else he’d never would’ve met you. 

taeil was right. all the soulmate and soulmark shit is utterly useless and stupid. because you are by no means his soulmate, but fuck he’ll never let you go.

not when your destiny is to lay there underneath him, taking whatever it is that he gave you like a good little whore.