#they all had high fantasy names or were named after rocks or plants

[sty-rex]

Im reading through the drafts of the "saga of random plot points that somehow connect that I wrote between the ages of 5 and 13™️" and it really does come together as the daughter of "good queen goodness the element of creation" trying to make friends with the daughter of "evil warlord king of darkness and destruction" in a bid to create world peace between the two because one day they will ascend to the throne as allies (they also happen to be cousins). and I want to draw them with the sun and moon, because although it really is not 1:1 there are connections (they also happen to be cousins).

[purplesurveys]

1905

Have you ever been considered popular? My high school friends were, and I also was part of the main friend group that my college org had...so I guess to an extent, I was. I was always the person who was a bit different than the rest of the people in those groups, though. I had vastly different interests in my personal life, but I guess it was my personality that helped me get close to those people. In any case, I never set out to be 'popular' and when I got included in those cliques I still actively tried to be as lowkey as possible and let the other girls shine lol.

Favorite undersea creature? Dolphins and whales :)

What types of things would you plant in a garden? I would not enjoy growing a garden.

Favorite type of fantasy creature? None.

Are you short or tall for your age? A bit on the shorter side but I'm not strikingly tiny. Everyone else is just like an inch or three taller hahaha.

Have you ever liked someone much older than you? No.

What was your first favorite band? Paramore.

Anyone’s grave you visit, regularly? I visit my grandpa a few times a year. It helps that he's very close by.

Have you ever been seriously addicted to anything? When it was new to me at the time, the internet. I was so reliant on it and was signing up for every website I could find, just crazily fascinated about this new online world I was exploring for the very first time. I lost a social life from it and also barely slept. I was irritable whenever I had to go outside because all I wanted was to be using my laptop again. I was also like...11. So pretty bad!

Have you ever had a hamster? Nope.

How many books have you read in the past YEAR? Three. Two memoirs, one novel.

Are you popular on any websites? Nah.

Ever been in the emergency room? I have not.

Are you subscribed to anything (magazines, monthly boxes, streaming sites, etc.)? A handful of streaming sites + there's also a local animal shelter that has started a subscription feature where the funds go to their vet expenses and food. I love that they started that, but I'm hoping they can also consider opening up tiers because I'm super willing to pay more on a monthly basis.

Have you ever given a lap dance? I would hate being on either end the most.

Do bats frighten you? Yes. They're not common here, so it would feel unusual and freaky tbh.

Are you a KPOP fan? I'm more a BTS fan than anything, but I like certain songs from certain groups. After BTS, I like Seventeen and TXT.

Were you anyone’s first kiss? I think so, yes.

Will you keep your last name when you get married? I had planned to hyphenate it.

Are you biracial? Nope.

What is your most expensive piece of clothing? Idk, I don't spend like my life depends on it on clothes tbh. Probably something branded or merch.

Have you ever started a rumor? Gross, no.

Color of your bedspread? Beige.

Do you have a piggy bank? Nope.

Did you ever skip a grade or get held back a grade? Neither ever happened to me.

What’s your favorite rock band? Paramore.

What color(s) eyeshadow do you wear the most? I don't put on eyeshadow.

Do you identify with any organized religion? I was born and raised in it, but I left because nothing about it made sense.

Have you read the book 13 Reasons Why or watched the show? Neither.

What is the sexiest part of the opposite sex’s body? Nothing in particular.

Are you confrontational? Never in a war freak way, but I am when I need to be.

Who was the last person you know (or that you know of) that died? A work contact's dad.

Does your first crush know that he/she was your first crush? Maybe? I don't know, I don't think much about these things anymore.

Do you like your butt? Sure.

Have you ever been to a night club? I have several times, yes

Do you believe in reincarnation? It's fun to theorize/fantasize about, but in the grand scheme of things I don't think it's true. There's nothing in death, at least for me.

Can your dog roll over on command, if you have a dog? Nah, we never got to that point. Cooper can sit, high five, shake, and stand up though. He does kiss too but like super selectively, i.e. if there's food waiting for him LOL.

Do you use any styling products on your hair? Yup, I put serum in it as it helps lessen the friziness.

Do you have a favorite local band? Who are they? No one that stands out above the rest.

Do you use the Facebook chat often? Yeah, Messenger is all people use here.

Do you own a robe? What color is it? Nope.

Who ended your last relationship? She did.

Have you ever been engaged? Nope.

Do you have any bug bites on you right now? If so, where? I don't currently, thank goodness. They're such a nuisance when you do get them.

What is the biggest problem in your life right now? Just impostor syndrome following me around at work all the time.

How many pets do you have? Three.

Do you like tomatoes? No. I remove them from stuff when I can, haha.

When was the last time you shaved your legs? This morning.

Do you have any exes your parents never liked? My relationship was never out in the open with them.

Are you a fast or a slow eater? SLOW. Very slow. I will either take hours to finish a meal, or not finish it 100% if I need to leave/do something else already haha.

What was the last thing you purchased from a small local business? I guess this quaint cafe I'm in at the moment counts as a small business? I got their almond mocha latte and a ham and cheese panini. Both are very good!

Have you ever run from the police? Nope.

What does your wallet look like? It's pastel purple and has like a million and one slots inside.

Do you have any hickeys on you? Haven't had one of those in years.

If you had a son right now, what would you name him? Owen has always been a contender, after Owen Hart.

Have you ever dated someone longer than a year? Yes, we were together for six years total.

Have you ever done ballet? I took classes when I was 5, but I was terrible, couldn't follow instructions, and apparently was very prone to distraction. After that summer session, never dabbled in ballet again lol.

When was the last time you consumed alcohol? Two Wednesdays ago.

Are you interested in creative writing of any sort? No. I tried to make it my friend, but it just doesn't like me back.

Are any of your friends virgins? I don't think so. But I'm also honestly not so sure, we never talk about sex...

Who is the funniest person you know? Hans.

Are you overweight? The opposite – I'm underweight.

Ever had a black eye? Have not.

Last person to cuddle with? My ex, a long long very long time ago.

Have you ever lost a friend to drugs or alcohol? Nope.

Have you ever read a play outside of school? Uhhh no. I've watched a musical though if that counts?...I saw Miss Saigon twice a few months back.

Do you listen to music while you sleep? Nah, I prefer having videos in the background as it's the talking sounds that help me fall asleep much quickly.

Do you sell any products? If so, what? I mean, I'm in an agency so the job is technically selling our services but that's as far as it goes for me.

Do you own a bobblehead? Nope, not my style.

Do you like scrambled eggs? Love them.

What is currently happening that is scaring you? The Taylor Swift-Vienna thing is pretty freaky tbh. I feel bad for the fans but seeing the outpouring of support from the local community to give the Swifties as best an experience as possible without the concert was very heartwarming.

What was the last movie you saw and who did you watch it with? My sister turned on Contagion when my cousin and grandma came over last week. I watched bits of it but mainly stayed for Kate Winslet's scenes tbh hahaha.

Can you cry on command? If so, have you ever used it to your advantage? No I cannot.

Have you ever snuck out of your house? Nah.

Can you do any impressions? My Mr. Bean is pretty spot on. I know so because it sends my sister laughing every time I do it. Hahahaha

Have you ever been kicked out of a public place? Why? Not kicked out but my group has gotten stares for being too noisy. I was always the one trying to ask them to shut the fuck up but would get overpowered.

Do you have any important anniversaries you celebrate? [TW: SUICIDE] Yeah, there's the day I decided not to push through with dying.

Do you know how to use a DSLR camera? Only if it's in auto mode, which I know barely counts hah.

[thepixelpenguin]

EXOGARDEN LOG #3

Hi! Now is a bad time to be picking up extra hobbies, but my brain doesn't seem to care. Still, I found some time for this one, too. My Minecraft mock-ups are fully realised now, but I'm not sure about uploading them. They probably won't make a lot of sense without knowing what each block represents, and they do kind of spoil the whole game. Nice scenery though. Heck, maybe I'll just post one of them...

But for now, some more plants!

🌼Webbed Flytrap🌼

Fallaranea muscipula

Home planet: Zion

A maroon and yellow flower with a spider-like construct framing its petals, with a gooey nectar web stretched between. If it detects a small creature, the legs close in on its prey, trapping it for gradual digestion. The legs of the flower use a hydraulic system to keep the pressure high enough to trap the creature.

Although this would've fit quite neatly into the jungles of Elysium, that place was getting populated enough as it was, and a carnivorous spiderweb made for a much more Zion-esque idea than the Fractal Fern. I had to have at least one carnivorous plant, and having one based on a carnivorous animal AND a common piece of set dressing seemed only natural. It makes for quite a believable image!

🌼Hopper Grower🌼

Petrophilium bisemutium

Home planet: Ketumati

A simple leafy plant with a pink inflorescence, smooth leaves, and a metallic sheen. The flowerhead is peculiar: the sepal is flexible and colourful, but there are no actual petals. At the base of its stem is a large bismuth crystal which grows around it. The plant doesn't grow in existing crystals, but rather excretes excess bismuth absorbed from the rocks it grows on.

Yes, bismuth crystals really do look like that: they're my favourite for a reason! I knew I had to include it in a world themed around chemistry and general ethereal vibes. Oh, it's a fun one. It dances into the realm of fantasy a little more than the others, but that's part of the art. The faux flowerhead here makes it seem a little more inorganic than most, but it's not at all alien. It turns out flower morphology can be VERY deceptive. Some petals aren't really petals, some flowers aren't even really flowers, it's a mess! Tulips are an odd example: half the petals are actual petals, but the outer petals are just barely distinguishable sepals. Also daisies are a hundred flowers in one? I need a break from flowers...

🌳Furball Tree🌳

Laevidendron eriophyllum

Home planet: Eden

A usually short and sparse tree with little whorls of leaves that have a very soft texture. These leaves grow in separated round clusters on the surprisingly smooth branches. The tree also sprouts fluffy lilac blossoms but only on the side facing downwind

What, you didn't think flowers were the only thing I had to offer, did you?! I'm trying to group my drawings by the category of plant, so expect to see some more trees and grasses as time goes on. This is the first tree you see in the game, hence it earning the privilege of "Tree" in its name. I've never repeated a word in the common names, just to show the sheer diversity of plants there are, and to make it easier to specify them! It does require rather awkward constructions like "Hopper Grower", but hey, I like the half-rhyme and double-entendre.

Anyway, the Furball Tree. I wanted something friendly and whimsical, but a little more realistic than Dr Seuss! I hope you can see what I'm going for: it's like natural topiary. It looks quite sparse in my drawings, but it is supposed to be able to fit in a garden, after all. They probably get no taller than 5 metres. The blossom is just for extra prettiness, a perfect match with the Foreign Flyer, and it makes for quite a handy impromptu compass, incidentally.

===

Oh, I promised you a Minecraft world, didn't I? Well, I can't think of an easier way to do it, so... here.

https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/eden-evergreen-green-exogarden/

You might recognise the Furball Tree and Foreign Flyer, but the rest of the plants I've yet to reveal, of course. Still, it's quite a nice example of things to come. I hope with every passing post, you can see there's more depth to this than I can possibly hope to convey with a few drawings in my spare time... oh well.

[whumpy-writings]

The Origin of the World

Here's a bit of mythology for the OVAM world!

CW: Fantasy religion, starvation mention

In the beginning there was nothing. Only light. Out of this light emerged the Creator. They shielded their eyes from the light.

"It is too bright," they said. So they created the darkness. But then they couldn't see, so they created a cycle, light followed by darkness, followed by light. The addition of darkness to the universe dimmed the light, and the light brightened the darkness. Everything was in balance.

The Creator needed somewhere to put their feet, so they created rock and earth and placed the great oceans and rivers to soften the hardness of their world. They named their new world Pyrne. They roamed all over Pyrne, admiring the mountains and valleys they had created. However, they became distressed. They wanted someone to share their world with. The Creator reached down and touched the ground, coaxing green plants from the earth. This made them happy for a time, but soon enough the loneliness hit them again. So they took a rock and molded all sorts of animals. Fish and birds and the beasts of the land, all of them they made from the tiniest insect to the largest sea beast. This made them happy for a very long time. They loved to watch their creatures eat of Pyrne's plants and drink of its waters. They held such affection for these creatures.

After many years, the Creator started to feel lonely again. As much as they loved everything they had created, they couldn't talk to the rocks or the water or the plants or the animals. "What am I to do?" they said to themself. They were greatly troubled. Then they looked at the great lights they had placed in the sky, the sun for the day and the moon for the night. "Oh, my loyal companions, if only I could speak to you."

The Creator climbed to the top of the tallest mountain in Pyrne, so high that they could touch the sky. They reached out and grazed their fingers on the moon. "Join me, my child," they said. Their fingers wrapped around a hand and they pulled and pulled until out of the moon came a man. He was as pale as the moon itself, with hair so white it seemed to glow.

"I name you Lebne," the Creator said. "Son of the moon." And the Creator was happy. They and Lebne wandered the earth, talking about anything and everything.

"Creator," Lebne said one night when they were standing on the beach overlooking the rolling waves. "Just as I lived in the moon, I know that there is a woman living in the sun. Why don't we climb the mountain and bring her down to Pyrne?"

The Creator agreed that this was a good idea so they climbed back up the mountain. The sun was bright and hot and they both had to squeeze their eyes shut. But the Creator reached out their hand into the sun and grasped the arm of a person. They pulled and pulled and pulled until finally they had gotten the woman out of the sun. She was stunning, with gold-tinged skin and red hair.

"Welcome, my child. I will call you Clea," the Creator said.

And the three of them roamed Pyrne for years and years, happy.

...

"Creator," Lebne said one night. "You have made so many things, and they are all beautiful and good. I would like to try to create something."

"My son," said the Creator, "creating is a difficult job. But I believe you can do it." So the Creator showed Lebne the secrets of creating life.

Lebne worked on his creation for hours upon hours. Finally, he finished and showed it to Clea and the Creator.

"I call it a vampire," he said. "It's strong and smart."

Clea and the Creator both cooed over the vampire. "It's beautiful," the Creator said.

"You should make more," Clea said. So Lebne made more vampires, until he had enough for a small city. He loved walking among his creations. The vampires made art and music and built great buildings and Lebne was very happy. But soon enough, things started to go wrong.

"Father," the first vampire said. "We are hungry." Lebne was perplexed, because as a god he had no need for food.

"Hungry?" he said. "Well, there is plenty of food. Animals eat the plants of the earth, why don't you try doing that?"

So the vampires gathered every type of plant they could and ate them. But the plants made them sick, and they didn't fill the hunger in their bellies.

"Father," the first vampire said. "We have tried to eat the plants but they made us sick. Please, what else can we eat?"

Lebne was deeply troubled, as he didn't like to see his creatures suffering.

"Some animals eat other animals. That must be what you need to eat."

So the vampires killed all sorts of animals and ate them, but just as with the plants this only made them sick and hungrier. So the first vampire returned to Lebne.

"Please, Father, please, I fear we will die if we do not eat soon." And once he had said this, the first vampire began to cry.

"Don't cry my child, I will find food for you. Let me consult with my sister."

Lebne walked down to his sister's house. "I need help, sister. My vampires are hungry and I don't know what to feed them. They can't eat plants or animals, and they are afraid they will die."

Clea's heart ached, as she loved her brother and hated to see him in distress. But she was smart, and she knew that she could help him.

"I want to visit the village and talk to the vampires. Then I will be able to help," she said. So she and Lebne walked to the village.

"Please, tell me what has been troubling you," she asked the vampires. And the vampires told her the whole story. As they were talking, she couldn't stop staring at their fangs, which were long and sharp like a needle. They weren't like the teeth of animals who ate plants, not the teeth of animals who ate animals.

"You fool!" she burst out, jumping to her feet and whirling on her brother. "You creatures are made to eat something that doesn't exist yet. I will fix this."

So Clea ran to the Creator and they taught her the secrets of creating life. Clea fashioned a creature similar to Lebne's vampires, but with teeth made to eat plants and animals. When it was finished she brought it to Lebne.

"I call it a human," she said. "It can eat plants and animals."

Lebne stared at the human. "It is very pretty, but how will it feed my people?"

Clea smiled in triumph. "Your vampires are made to drink blood," she said. "That's why their teeth are such odd shapes. I created this human so that they can drink its blood. My humans may not be as strong or tall as your vampires, but they can talk and think. And they will feed your people."

Lebne was delighted. "Oh sister, you are brilliant. Please, make more humans."

So Clea made enough humans to feed Lebne's vampires. She brought her humans to them. The vampire's rejoiced as they were finally able to eat. But the humans were scared.

"Mother," one of the humans said. "we're frightened of the vampires and their sharp teeth."

"You don't have to be afraid, my child," she said with affection. "The vampires will give you venom. I have made it so that when they bite you, the venom will overtake your body and lull you into a state of peace and calm. The vampires have agreed to use this venom every time they bite, so you will be comfortable."

"The vampires will also close your wounds after they bite by licking them. They will take good care of you, you don't have to fear."

And so the vampires fed and were finally full after so long. The vampires took care of the humans and the humans fed the vampires, and everybody was happy.

Tag list: @thecitythatdoesntsleep @whump-cravings @thecyrulik @neverthelass @michelleswhumpyreblogs @whumpsy-daisy @the-monarch-whumperfly @aswallowimprisoned @secretwhumplair @whumpzone @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @nicolepascaline @susiequaz12 @princessofonwardsworld @puffball-lover554 @itsleighlove @pumpkin-spice-whump @wiwinia @sunflower1000 @whump-blog @blushing-snail @melancholy-in-the-morning @pizzasthengym @suspicious-whumping-egg @whumpsday @ceph-the-writing-spook @inkkswhumpandstuff

[vibesandwonders]

“The what?”

“The Lord of the Rings,” Sam stops dead, and jogs back to him, “You serious? You said you read the Hobbit?”

“Yeah?”

“JRR Tolkien?”

“Yes.” Bucky runs a hand through his hair and sighs.

“But you don’t know The Lord of the Rings?”

“If you keep repeating it, maybe it’ll catch this time.”

Sam’s mouth falls open, “Mother of— they froze you before Lord of the friggin Rings?”

Bucky blows out a blast of annoyed air and moves to run, Sam grabs his forearm, “Stop that, we’re talkin—“

“—We are running.”

“Not anymore,” Sam leans his weight on Bucky and laughs, “Shit. I always forget that they popsicled you,” He shakes his head, “Tolkien, he wrote the Hobbit yeah, but like… ten years later he wrote a Trilogy, the Trilogy, like, the one to rule them all.”

“Are they any good?”

Sam practically squeals with laughter, his arm still looped inside Bucky’s, “Yes.” He says, emphatically, grinning so much that Bucky is tempted to smile back, almost, “The movies are good too.”

“Movies?”

“Moving pictures?” Sam grins wider, “Talkies?”

Bucky tilts his head, rolls his eyes, already ready to run again, Sam’s having none of it, he starts pulling Buck back the way they came,

“What about the run?”

“This,” Sam insists, “Is more important, we gotta head back,”

“It’s 7am.”

“Exactly, which means we’ve got time to hit the store on the way home,”

“Why?”

“Provisions, we’re gonna be busy all day, we need to have snacks and keep hydrated.”

“What?”

“Extended editions baby, this is a 12-hour Lord of the Rings lockdown,” He grins at Bucky, “Consider yourself absolutely blessed that I was nerdy as hell in high school. I gotta text Torres, tell him we are taking the day off.”

“You’re taking a day off, from being Captain America?”

“He’ll understand.”

~ Hours later~

“Bucky,” He sighs, and plants his palms on the kitchen countertop, “James Buchanan Barnes,” Nothing.

He takes his phone out and pauses the damn TV,

The man in question rotates very slightly, his eyes wide, red, in shock, also as pissed as Sam had quite possibly ever seen him, including the time he was kicked off a domestic flight home because of his ‘metal arm’.

“You good?” Sam asks,

“So they just left him? After he sacrificed himself to get them out and across the bridge of Khazad-dûm and away from the Balrog?”

Oh Jesus,

“The bridge of Khaza—" He stops himself, chuckles, can't help it, he shouldn't surprised by this and yet, "Yeah man, they couldn’t—“

“What? Walk out there and grab his hands? There were eight men,” He shakes his head incredulously, “Bilbo’s nephew, wouldn’t walk twenty feet to save Gandalf?”

“Wait wait, Are you crying man?” He smirks, teasing, “There are two and a half more movies to go Buck, and you’re already out here cryin’ your ass off, you gotta chill—“

Bucky regards him sourly, “Have you even read the Hobbit?”

“Not even gonna dignify that kinda hostility with an answer James.”

He unpauses the tv and digs through the fridge, a moment later, the TV pauses again,

“Sorry.” Bucky mutters, “I uh, I’m enjoying them.”

“I can tell.” Sam says, and again, a grown-ass man getting way too sucked in to a High Fantasy trilogy 60 years late shouldn’t be damn adorable, but it is, “You hungry, oh member of the fellowship?”

Bucky rolls his eyes, turns back around,

“Is there coffee?”

Sam grins, and starts filling the water kettle.

“We, are gonna take a break.”

Bucky spins, finger already on the remote to jump to the next movie, Sam shakes his head.

“You haven’t eaten yet, and this is our…shit, third pot of coffee.”

“But they’re taking the hobbits to Isengard.”

Sam cackles, “Yeah, you are indeed correct, that is happening, but, we got 8 more hours of cinematic masterpiece, and you— are gonna eat somethin’”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Would Aragorn not sustain himself while trying to rescue Merry and Pippin?” He asks dramatically,

Another eyeroll, but he stands and stretches, folding one of the new blankets that had somehow started appearing randomly inside his apartment.

“How do you feel about cookies?”

He watches the top of his head twist, but Bucky’s eyes don’t leave the screen, “Thought we were eating lunch?”

Sam laughs, “Thai?”

He texts Sarah, attaches a picture of Bucky swathed in a blanket, staring in fascination at the TV.

“He’s never seen Lord of the Rings.” And then a bunch of laughing emojis.

“So where’s Rohan in relation to Mordor?” Bucky asks over the top of the couch, “They keep talking about the Gap of Rohan, but then…”

“Google it.”

“You’ve got your phone.” Bucky argues, “Do library books still have the maps in the back nowadays?”

Sam’s already got his app open, Complete Works of JRR Tolkien, Hardback

He swipes and makes sure they have maps— New York freakin City, it’ll be delivered before they finish the second one.

“Sam needs to kill Gollum.”

He looks up at the mention of his name, grinning at the screen, then back at the microwave: he lost rock, paper, scissors, so popcorn’s on him.

“Smeagol?”

Bucky purses his lips, unimpressed, “He is clearly untrustworthy, “

“Sam’s also a little jealous of Frodo’s attention, they’ve been one-on-one for a while now,”

“I guess,”

“Frodo also sees a lot of himself in Smeagol, what he could have become…”

Bucky pauses the movie, “they’ve still got those elf-blades.” He mutters, “He’s talking to himself, and creeping off in the night, Sam should kill him, and tell Frodo he found him that way.”

“He was Aragorn’s best friend,” Bucky murmurs, his voice is a little choked up, “He came to defend the men of Rohan.”

“Mmmhmm.”

Sarah’s texted him back:

“Oh god, you found another geek.” She says, “Are ya’ll gonna like have a Star Trek themed wedding?”

Bucky’s got the second book open across his knees, his fingers holding it open so he can occasionally frown down at the maps.

“He died protecting him.”

“They had a bond.” Sam agrees, “Read the appendices, there’s loads more about the elves. Just wait until you get deep in the Silmarillion.”

“Yeah.” Bucky says, only half-listening, “Starting to think his ‘heir of Gondor’ schtick is getting old, man can’t even protect his friends— and where is Gandalf?”

“Are you shitting on Aragorn? Son of Arathorn?”

Bucky shrugs, “Just seems like he’s avoiding his calling, what he’s good at, born to do… running from it, cause he’s scared.”

“It’s a lot of responsibility he didn’t ask for.” Sam replies mildly,

“Tough shit. Sometimes you just gotta use the cards you’re dealt.” Bucky stands, “I gotta pee.”

“You think I should grow my hair out?”

Sam hides his grin, making an effort not to stare at Aragorn on screen, who is currently smoldering with the best of them,

“I think you should do whatever makes you happy, Buck.” He takes a sip of his coffee (decaf this time) and stares fondly (not really) at the side of Bucky’s face. Sure, he’s distracted, but at least this time it’s not damn mission files.

Buck grunts, they’re sprawled next to each other on the couch, knees touching, blankets shared and spread between them. Between bathroom breaks and Sam occasionally poking Bucky to make sure he was still breathing, personal space had become even less of an issue than usual. Not that Sam was terribly bothered by it. They’re roommates, sorta? Partners?

A couple of guys.

“So, Arwen or Eowyn?” Bucky asks, still unblinking, Sam is pretty sure he unleashed a monster, cause this boy is a nerd. He’s already googled other trilogies, on Sam’s phone. Sam is pretty sure movie night might become a thing.

Buck’s still waiting on his answer, it’s a timeless question to be sure, Sam pretends to ponder it.

“Eomer actually.” He says, keeping his eyes on the screen, “Loyal, strong, and the man knows how to ride.”

actual fic here plus others, leave some love, say hi,

[askaalaska-vdeppressed]

Seeing Stars and Stripes

18+ ONLY MINORS DNI

This is just porn, I have no excuse for it other than I need the practice

Here you go babes 

You were sure that many would see the upturned lip, the finale of the cacophony of scars that marred his face as off-putting. They’d see the way the injured skin forced his lip up into a permanent snarl as a warning. Yet as you stared at him from across the room you couldn’t help up imagine what it would be like to run your tongue across it. Letting the tip slide quickly over the before quickly jumping back and smirking. Would he grow at you? Call you a minx? Drag your head back to do it again? Put you over his shoulder and take you away to have his way with you? You hoped a version of all three.

So engrossed in your daydreaming you completely forgot where you were or whom you were with till one of your friends—Alma-- cleared her throat.

“Y/n?..... Y/N?” She playfully slapped your shoulder getting your attention. You turned to her, still clearing your head of the vision.

“Are you going to continue to make eyes at strangers or are you going to take your turn?” Your other friend at the table Jordie chimed in.

“Are you saying I have a choice?” you replied. As they both laughed you reached out to grab the dice that were in front of you on the table.

“I say you just go for it” Jordie said looking down at the scores for the game and then back up at your roll,

“Damn Y/n, 650 you gonna take it?”

“What’s my score again?” You asked coyly. Jordie looked down at the board with the scores and back up at you.

“Plenty high” She said not giving you a proper answer. You had been ahead of both the girls for quite some time. Poor Alma having only just gotten on the board about three rounds ago.  

“I’ll take it” you answered passing the dice to Jordie.

“I’m with her on this one” Alma stated splitting her attention between you and Jordie’s rolls “You never go after men on our girls’ nights, if this stranger’s got something that’s getting you going I say chase after it”

Jordie let out a small curse as the dice went cold for her. You waved a server down to refill your drink as you contemplated Alma’s words.

It was true you never were one to go get lost in a man’s arms. It wasn’t that you were prudish or that you lacked offers. It really boiled down to two factors. The first being that your town was small. And any news, especially who slept with whom was bound to get spread as soon as your legs were. The second being that all the men and near all the women for that matter lacked depth. There lives were firmly planted in this village. They were born in this land, they grew in this land, they will die in this land and they will eventually become this land.  Every thought in there heads was of this land. Even your friends were not immune to this. Sleeping with men here felt more akin to sleeping with a very polished rock.

Your mother blamed your wanderlust on all the reading you did. Your family was the only completely literate one in the whole village. You and your mother being two out the three women that knew how to read. The third being Jordie. Together you were trying to teach Alma, though she insisted it was a wasted endeavor.

Altogether the village was simple, routine and safe. You had given up years ago of trying to force yourself to be complacent with it. You soothed your wanders heart by travel for business. From a family of farmers you took up soap making to cure your boredom. During the summer months you would travel to different markets to sell your wares and see the different villages and cities. But one woman can only travel so far on her own, and summer can only last so many months. And then it was back to this. Back to the cage of a home set in stone.

Yet looking at the traveler he seemed to ooze an aura complexity. You imagined he had seen many places, fought many fights and tasted many flavors. For a brief moment when you first saw him you contemplated asking him to tell you of his travel rather than anything untoward.

Then he’d rolled his neck, thrown down his pack with a clamor, and with a voice of gravel ordered a meal, a bed and an ale.

And it was all over for you.

Alma smiled as she rolled a cool thousand points in one role and surpassed Jordie on the board when you put your hands on the table and forced yourself up. Both girls gave you a wink as you passed the server from before grabbing the pitcher he had brought to refill your drink. You sauntered over to the man in the red striped jacket. He was looking absentmindedly at the wall when you approached—the sound of the pitcher landing on the table breaking him out of his daze.

He looked up to meet your gaze and his golden amber eyes hypnotized you for a moment.

“Can I help you lass?” The low tone of his voice mixed with the roughness of it made you weak at the knees. You got control of your legs and broke the spell his eye had cast on you and fixed a smile on your face.

“You looked like you could use some company” You grabbed your skirts and swished them to the side in order to sit on the chair cattycorner to him. He turned his body to you, his eyebrows held high on his head in a face of skepticism.  He looked around the room before addressing you.

“It looks like this place is filled with men that are much more suited for you company” He gave a half hearted gesture to the lively bar.

You gave a snort and rolled your eyes.

“Oh believe me I’ve tried but the whole lot of them is either boorish or simple” You scooted your chair closer to him not touching shoulder. You pointed at a blonde gentleman in a green vest.

“That’s Karlson, he is completely convinced that boiled beaver testicles are curing his wife’s monthly pains” The man pulled a face and your let out a snort.

“She replaces them with boiled eggs when he’s not looking. The real thing helping her is the whiskey she mixes in her tea.” The strangers hand shot up to cover his mouth as he struggled not to laugh.

You turned a bit and pointed at another gentleman. This time a balding man in a shirt much to small for him.

“The man one bend over from busting a seam is Magnus. He once lectured me for two hours on the science behind putting grooves in your teeth to make you a better warrior.”

The man scoffed looking up. His hair fell from his face falling behind his ears in a motion like water.

“Humans will try anything to be more than they are” You fixed him with a look.

“You say that as if you aren’t one” He turned to you perplexed.

“I’m not”

You made a big gesture out of looking him up and down. Inspecting his eyes and hair. You stuck your hand out and poked his arm—careful to avoid the spikes that poked out of his shoulders.

“You seem pretty human to me” You looked over to him smiling from ear to ear. Your cheeks forcing your eyes to squint. He broke your gaze as a small smile crept onto his face for a moment.

“Your too cute for you own good….”

“Y/N” you filled in for him

“Y/n” He parroted back.

“And I don’t know…”

“Eskel” he provided.

“I don’t know Eskel” you started “I think I balance on the perfect ratio of sweet timid kitten and sexy goddess” You waited until he was posed to take a drink to continue. “After all I came over here too see if you wanted to fuck my  brains out”

Your timing had been perfect and Eskel’s hand shot up again to his mouth to try and stop the spray that was currently coming out of his mouth from the shock of your statement.  He wiped his hand with his mouth and gave a harsh swallow.

“Your funny Y/n.” he choked out. You put your arm on the table and placed your head in your hand.

“True, I am masterful in whit” your gaze lingered on his lips, a small amount of ale his hand had missed dripped down his chin. You moved fluidly reaching one hand to wipe his chin and the other to rest on his thigh. You leaned in close as your thumb moved from his chin to his bottom lip.

“But I was being quite sincere with that request” His eyes seemed to take you in for a moment. In his irises he seemed to be fighting something. For a split second he looked like he might start crying before his gaze turned hungry. He leered down your top then back up to the pout of your lips, slightly ajar.

“Eskel” you regarded him, the name low in your voice.

“Y/n” he returned. The combination of his gaze and his voice sent a shiver down your spine and caused your cunt to clench. You caught your breath for a moment, ever so slightly rubbing your legs together.

“You have a room upstairs?”

“Indeed I do” he smirked at you. That damned notch in his lip driving you even crazier. You lifted yourself up going to grab your bag from your friends quickly.  You three had planned on staying with Jordie that night since her husband was away.

You were sure she’d understand.

As you passed they both smiled and winked at you again. Eskel—having gathered his own belongings—met you at the entrance to the stairs. He stuck out his arm, making you giggle. You hooked your hand into it as you made your way up. You looked more like a pair of nobles ready to meet a monarch than you did strangers on their way to hook up in a backwater inn. He lead you too one of the inn’s three rooms. You made your way across the threshold, heading to place your bag in a chair in the corner. When you turned around Eskel had set his belongings down and was anxiously shifting on his feet. A hand behind his head playing with the skin of his neck.

The moment was awkward. Back in the crowded bar you had both been in high confidence. Safety in numbers giving you courage to speak boldly. When the doors were closed and it was just the two of alone it was a different story.

Fearing he may be getting cold feet you strode across the room. A woman on a mission. At the very least you were going to fulfill the fantasy from earlier. Coming this far you were not about to walk away with nothing.

When you reached him your hands sought either side of his face. Pulling him towards you. Your lips met tenderly. The plushness of his lips not being lost on you. Eskel became more and more receptive to the kiss, the two of you now beginning to push against the other. Your thumbs caressed the bones of his cheeks. The sun ravaged skin providing just the slightest bit of drag against your finger pads. He stepped into you deepening the kiss and your hands migrated so that your arms were hung on his shoulders. You rubbed your core against the leg that was nestled there, releasing a small moan at the friction. You broke apart for air for a split second before diving back in. His mouth much more open this time. It was now or never

You swiped your tongue along his bottom lip first. Then migrated up. In a split second you ran your tongue into the divot in his upper lip. Sliding it back and forth before pulling away. You looked at him through your lashes, biting your lip to try and control the giddiness inside you.

Eskel looked wild. His mouth was still agape and his breath was ragged. His brain seemed to need a second to catch up. With a jolt he fixed you with a stare. His pupils blown out and his lips in a snarl. Eskel grabbed your waist and lifted you with no effort. Instinctively you wrapped you legs around his torso as he all but slammed you against the wall. The force of the impact causing a tapestry to fall from it’s place on the wall.

Ravaged against a wall… You were so close.

Eskel pinned you again the wall with his hips. The pressure of it causing you to whimper. With his hands free he violently wrung the jacket from his torso, dropping the leather to the floor unceremoniously. The blue undershirt underneath open and loose on him.  You reached out push open the center. Running your hand down the firm muscles of his neck and into the coarse field of hair on his chest. The muscle underneath was firm and the heartbeat usually slow.  

Eskel leaned into you, his mouth making its way to the junction of your neck and shoulder. He nipped at the spot, forcing a breath out of your lungs. You brought your hands up to tangle into his hair and bring him closer. Pushing him into you. As Eskel began littering your chest with bruises he started to grind you into the wall. You whimpered at the friction, griding back with enthusiasm.

Eskel had made his way to the tops of your breasts, giving one a playful bite as he looked up at you through his lashes. You felt his hand grab your ass lifting you with his arms. He slid down to his knees as you yanked up your skirts to see what he was doing. Eskel fixed your plush thighs on his shoulders, moving his hands up to play with the band of your undergarments.

“You’ve had your dinner, am I dessert?” you asked, quickly scolding yourself for never being able to stop your mouth. Eskel laughed, the puffs of air cooling the damp fabric surrounding your pussy.

“Do you want to be?” he smirked, giving your waistband a quick snap. You let out a high pitched “mmhmm” and it was all the confirmation he needed. HIs large and calloused hand peeling the garment down, flinging it behind him with no regard for where is landed. He moved in closer, at first nuzzling your thigh and placing languid open mouth kisses on it.

You fisted the skirts in your hands, trying desperately to be patient. However as he continued to tease you, you started to inch your cunt closer and close to him, using the wall as leverage. Eskel caught on to what you were doing and gave out a tisk before pushing the pair of you closer to the wall. Using the same momentum he dove head first into you. Flattening his tongue and lapping at the excitement that was dripping from you. You pulled the skirts up higher in your clenched fists as he ate you out like a man starved. Alternating between long broad stokes and precise attacks using the tip of his tongue on your clit.

Eskel shifted on his knees. One hand coming to press your sternum to the wall.  And the other coming to join him at your pussy. He suctioned his lips around your clit and gave a hard suck as he thrust two fingers into you. The double assault caused you to convulse. Moaning out his name, glad that his room was upstairs and not closer to the crowded bar downstairs. You switched to hold your skirts with one hand, tangling the other into his hair. Your pleasure becoming tug of war as he fought to push against the wall and you fought to push away from the wall to get even closer to him.

As the pumping of Eskel’s fingers continued he added a third finger to the mix, causing you to hit your head against the wall as you panted up towards the ceiling. Just as you were starting to look down again he curled his fingers inside you, hitting that soft spot in you head on. The intense pleasure sending your hear careening once again with the wall. Eskel began to hit your g-spot full on increasing the pressure and speed. It only took a minute at this speed before your legs were clamming on his head and you were coating his face in release.

Eskel worked you through your release, stopping as you dismounted your legs to try and stand. He stood up backing up to give you room. The first step was rocky but it didn’t take long for you to reach him and slam up into him in a kiss. You felt the very need to consume him as you tasted yourself on his tongue. Your hands forcefully yanked his shirt from where it was tucking into his breeches. He broke the kiss to toss the shirt over his head to join your undergarments somewhere in the room.

Your hand reached out to him, nails dragging over the chords of muscle and scars. Eskel’s hand traveled over your waist to the back of your dress, unlacing it. As the fabric dropped to the floor his hands stayed in there position beginning to unlace your corset. However after the dress he seemed impatient, because all you heard was a growl and a quick “fuck it’ before a second hand joined its brother and pulled the corset open. The laces violently popping out of the weaving. It would be a pain to relace in the morning, but right now your mind was elseward. Mainly on trying to get him to join you in being naked.  

Your hand fumbled with the belt and Eskel granted you mercy in helping you take it off. Once rid of it you took hold of his pants and underwear and pulled them down in one fell swoop. Caught off guard by it Eskel stumbled back, landing with a bounce on the bed. You knelt down, finalizing your mission in making him naked. You looked up at him and he looked as if his mouth had gone dry. You moved your hands over his thighs, his breath hitching up as if the gentle touch had scared him.

Lifting up even more you threw your arms over his thighs his cock coming into your direct eyesight. Thick was the first word that came to mind. It was thick, the head starting to turn purple as it leaked onto his stomach. You moved you hands up over his stomach you brought your mouth closer. You followed the prominent vein on the underside with the tip of your tongue as you made your way up.

You readjusted his cock with your hand and placed you mouth just so over the tip. You looked up at him and gave him a smile.

“You will have to forgive me Eskel” you started, “I’m quite starved” and that was all the warning you gave as you sunk your lips down over the tip. Eskel let out a groan, bending over slightly as he twisted a hand into your hair. You played with his tip a bit. Giving it a hard suck using your tongue to play with the slit. Trying not to tease him to much you sunk down quickly, using your hand to stimulate what your couldn’t reach.

Eskel seemed to struggle holding back as you sucked his cock. With each pass of your tongue over his head or hard suck on his shaft the string seemed to fray more and more. Eskel moved you off of him, urging you up and onto the bed. He pressed you down onto your stomach with an almost shocking tenderness. As he mounted you he pressed a languid kiss over the back of your neck, breath coming up to tease the shell of your ear.

You felt him spread your lips pressing his head in through the first ring of muscle. Being so close to your ear you cloud hear each and every delicious sound as it escaped his mouth. The gravel of it only deepened as he pushed further into you. The thick cock pushing your further apart and your walls clenched around him. He fully seated himself and pressed his chest into your back. As if Eskel was trying to get as much skin to touch as possible.

Slowly he pulled out, the tip just barely in as he slammed back home, causing your to shriek out in pleasure. He set a brutal pace. Simultaneously sweet and sinister at the same time. His hands gentle as he toyed with you, roaming over your sides. Yet his thrusts were brutal and punishing. His mouth was ajar and pressed into your shoulder.

Eskel’s thrust began to get erratic and your legs began to shake. The sounds he was making into your shoulder going up in tone. He slithered a hand to play with your clit and your body gave a jolt. Bucking up into him his paced increased even more. Suddenly his thighs began to shake and he gave a few hard thrusts before spilling into you. His bottom lip between his teeth as he pressed a far into you as possible. The fingers on your clit continued to speed up and combined with the feeling of his release inside you, you clenched down onto him in your second organism of the night.

Eskel stayed on top of you for a few moments before heaving himself off and onto the other side of the bed. His chest still driving up and down. You crawled your way over to him, grabbing the blanket that lay on the end of the bed with you. You halfheartedly draped the fabric over the two of you as you rested your head on his chest. As the fuzziness of sleep began to over take you, you reminded yourself of one thing.

To ask him if he would be interested in a traveling partner.

[hardkuna]

asmr

› 𝚜𝚊𝚔𝚞𝚜𝚊 𝚡 𝚏𝚎𝚖!𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛 

› 𝚎𝚍𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝚍𝚘𝚖/𝚜𝚞𝚋 𝚊𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚜. 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜. 𝚍𝚒𝚛𝚝𝚢 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔. 𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐.  𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚙𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝚜𝚊𝚔𝚞𝚜𝚊 𝚊𝚜𝚖𝚛 𝚊𝚞𝚍𝚒𝚘.

› 𝟸𝟼𝟻𝟸 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜

You’ve always had a fascination with sounds and movements. The gentle rustle of a bag being rummaged through often sent a delicate sensation over your scalp, for example. The sensation was similar to fingers ghostling along your hairline, trailing down the back of your neck and continuing down your spine. If the sound or motion were specific enough, goose flesh would prickle your skin in its wake. With it came serenity - a peacefulness that helped lull you into sleep.

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, or ASMR, is what it was called.

There were, however, some sounds that sent your nerves into a short circuit. Sometimes hearing them would break any attention you’ve devoted to another task, making your thighs squish together ever so slightly. You would be lying if you said you didn’t fantasize while listening to the gentle hush of whispers or the light clicks of a tongue over saliva. The sharp trickle of consonants commanded a strum within you in ways you couldn’t fully explain. You’ve tried with previous lovers, asking to wear headphones and lose yourself in a soundscape, but would come to no avail. Many didn’t understand the interest in the first place, let alone sexually.

That was until you met Sakusa.

(Like yourself, he was one to binge video after video of audio, especially while in a crowded space. He didn’t get the same physical response but it did calm him down and distract him in the ways that only ambient, repetitive noise could.)

There were many nights where you’d lay in bed with headphones in and that particular sound would wrap warm tendrils along your senses. The caress on your spine made your muscles twitch with each subtle click. Sakusa often felt the gentle sway of your hips as you rubbed your legs together in a feeble attempt to rid yourself of the ache between them. Or he took note of the way you take shallow, shaking breaths, struggling to keep your lungs in control. A dry swallow peppered here and there confirmed his suspicions.

One night, Sakusa decided to find out just what was on your phone to make you so aroused. As he reached over you, nudging your phone screen up, he saw it. An asmr video put on repeat of someone speaking closely into the microphones. They moved from side to side, lips moving in ways unread. He hummed to himself, settling the phone back down. One long arm wrapped around you as he tucked your body into his.

All of it was quite baffling. Why wouldn’t you just tell him that something as mundane as mouth sounds or whispering turned you on? Originally, he wanted to refrain from caressing your form until you brought it up to him. He wasn’t in competition with anything. So long as it made you cum, what did it matter to him what you listened to? But then he recalled the stories. One of your ex’s who belittled your interests. Weaker men, truly.

With a plan in mind, Sakusa came to a resolution.

-

Thumbing through youtube, you aimed to find the perfect video to sleep to. Your back leaned into Sakusa’s chest, comfortably forming to him. There was a peculiar expression he wore, upper lip pursed and brows slightly furrowed. Defensively, you hugged your phone to your chest, cheeks puffing out, “What? What’s that look for?”

“I can do better than them.” His voice vibrated within you, deep and gravely, triggering a sudden chill to lick your core, freezing you in place. The ravenette craned his neck so that his lips rested next to your ear. He let out a little sigh and a small ‘tt’ sound of his lips separating flushed your cheeks.

He scrolled through the videos with you, making small noises as he’d stop at one to read the description and move on. The thing about Sakusa’s hands was that despite the thickness of his lengthy fingers, they moved with a fluid grace. It was bewitching, the smallest sense of comfort and tiredness inching its way into your periphery. Visual triggers were a very specific spell to cast on you.

Small and hushed, you questioned, “Do better in what? Against who?”

Not that you could see from your  vantage point, but you could hear the way his lips pulled back into a smile. Or was it a smirk? “Do better at turning you on. Fucking you,” The syllables swam laps around your left ear. His voice dipped and crackled in just the right way to make your back twitch against him at its call. At the first long release of air form your nose, he pulled the device from your fingers and set it at the night stand. His chest pressed you forward as his muscled arm reached for the light, tapping it to the lowest dim.

The hand now found its home at your mid-thigh, the tips of his fingers just barely grazing the bare skin as it danced up, up, up. It pressed on the fabric of your panties at the hip, dragging it slightly before letting it go, “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” He dropped his tone to a whisper, practically pressing his lips to your ear, “How every night you’ve been denying yourself a simple satisfaction?” The hiss of the ‘s’ and click of each consonant triggered your body to move. You pressed into him, crossing one leg over the other in a squeeze.

Sakusa kept speaking, but of nonsensical words made up of nonsensical syllables. His own breath was heavy, lust lacing each sound as your body rhythmically rolled into his. By the redness in your cheeks and the effort to restrain the swirl of your hips against his, he could tell you were trying to be good for him. It was amusing to see how flustered you got that such simple sounds could make you react in this way. He tsk’d thrice, large palm slinking to and then sinking into your inner thigh. Fingers wrapped hard into the flesh, pulling your leg away from its cross.

The motion alone would have had your cunt clench at nothing, but paired with the low lights and entrancing quality of his tone, you were dripping in anticipation. To make matters more complicated, the arm underneath you began to wrap around. He pressed heavily into your breast and let the warmth of his palm be the only signal for you to tilt your chin up for further purchase of your throat.

You were trapped into him, feeling his cock harden through his sweats at your back. Sakusa muttered into you, “Is this what you’ve wanted?” He hooked your leg around his, propping you open for his fingers to prattle up to the lining of your panties, “For me to whisper close to you? You’ve held back from me, baby. I don’t like that.” The fingers around your throat squeezed at the words and you bit your lip to cage the mewl threatening to leave them.

His forearm pressed into your chest, keeping you locked into place against him. He made it damn well apparent that you were in his control. And god you needed him to stop fucking around! The way he teased with a single finger, so lightly slipping up and down your slit was torturous. Sakusa let a low groan out as he rocked his hips against your ass in time with each teasing slide. He loved the desperate pulse of your heat every time he passed the entrance. He adored your high whine when he just barely touched on your puffy clit. Your body ached in wanton need and suddenly you regretted every night you went without being filled.

Weakly, your left arm wandered up so that dainty fingers slid into black waves lapping at the sands of his neck. He planted a small kiss along your cheekbone. With a bit of a devious streak, his lips carried back to the shell of your ear, where the tip of his tongue languidly traced the curve. His fingers nudged away the fabric of your panties. The pad of his index made circles against the quiver of your entrance. You shuddered in response, mouth opening just enough for a drawn and annoyed moan to escape, “Saa- ah!” The first breath you took, he pulled his finger back, slipping over the nub of nerves begging for his attention. Your sharp change in pitch was music to his ears. An instrument for him to play a tune of pleasure.

All the while, he continued to mutter nonsense into your ear, drowning you with the sounds you craved to engulf you. Your mind swam at each sense slowly being taken by him. His voice filling your mind with filth and praise. His body pressed so tight against yours that his warmth overpowered your own. Even your hands grasped at whatever surface of him they could find. Your existence was Sakusa Kiyoomi. Just how he wanted it to be.

Pleasure snaked into his insides with your grinding hips, his own following their rhythm. Cock twitch angrily, jealous of the finger that swirled still at your entrance. His lungs caught as the sticking sound of slick weeping onto his hand echoed. It was a gentle sound that he wanted to push farther. This was barely all his effort yet.

For as much as Bokuto or Atsumu could brag about getting their lovers to cum as fast and as many times as possible, Sakusa preferred the long and arduous route. He wanted begging. He wanted you so frustrated by your own desires that you couldn’t think of anything other than his cock stretching your gummy walls. He could rut you out from the start, but the way you drew his name out when you were at a breaking point was sheer decadence.

Sakusa was enamored by the beautiful glass sheen of your eyes as he agonizingly pressed the tip of his finger into your heat. You blinked a frustrated tear that clung to your lashes, lips prettily swollen from the abuse of your teeth. You were close, but stubborn. His own sex ached to be in you, his mind caught up in the fantasy of it. He growled, “How do you manage to stay so quiet when you’re swallowing up my fingers? I want to hear you. U-use your words, brat.” His brows twitched as the satisfying throb of you against his fingers.

Frustrated grappled with the words. His composure was crackling. Your mouth fell open at his admission, mind beginning to fog as his finger pressed fully into you, “Oomii,” your whine was throaty, barely squeezing past tense vocal chords, “just, ah- I want- your cock!”

“Where, baby?” The words were made in efficient haste. He would have chuckled when your hips roughly rubbed into his had he not been throbbing to be in you so urgently.

“In me. Now. Please, please,” Your pleading repeated into muddled huffs as his thumb drew circles on your clit. That was the last straw. Desperation drew your hand from his hair and to his pants. Your back arched to accommodate the room as you slinked your hand through his waistband to pull his length out.

In a succinct motion, you wet your hand with saliva, and pumped him twice. A deliciously loud, “Hng!” vaulted past his open lips, which pressed hungered kisses onto your jaw. The hand at your throat now cupped your breast, teasing the sensitive bud in its grasp. His mouth littered violent along the freed and smooth surface. Fingers slipped from your cunt and occupied themselves with your clit instead, tapping lazily, “My pretty baby is so responsive. So sensitive-“ His lips moved along your colored nape.

You shimmied up, aligning him at the entrance and letting go once his tip pressed firmly at your arousal. You couldn’t wait. You didn’t want to wait. Sakusa’s teeth sank into your shoulder. He wouldn’t let you just pull him around. Swiftly, he tugged you on your knees, fingers digging into the crease that thigh made with hip. The tip of his cock eagerly shoved past your twitching entrance. All that teasing, keeping you right at the cusp per his will built to this. Your eyes glazed as your walls stretched to accommodate him. Every small movement felt like a mile slide, sparking fire quick in your core. Legs shook with impatience.

Sure, his composure may have crumbled, leaving behind raw instinct to kiss at your cervix, but he still snapped you back with his movements forward. He still held you up with strong, calloused palms as your legs threatened to collapse. In only a few strokes, your walls clamped down on him, pulling him greedily back for every stroke out. You could feel the nails of orgasm claw its way from your walls to your throat, a beast ready to escape a cage holding it for far too long. Your fist balled the once pristine-pressed sheets beneath you.

Every muscle in your body tense, chaining back what threatened to unleash. Sakusa ran a hand through messied locks, pushing them back to admire the beauty of your blissed out expression. He leaned forward, left hand now entangling in your hair while the right rubbed your clit. He rutted mercilessly into you, a crisp and wet smack then stick filling the four walls around you. You wailed, “C-cum now puh-lease?”

Rough, careful, and managed, Sakusa tugged you onto your hands, leaning over you so only his voice took residence within your mind, “Mhm, but I want to hear you scream.” His breath hitched as you released. Your throat burned with a loud, low, and uncontrolled howl of his name. Every once tensed muscle spasmed so that the only thing keeping you up was the adjusted grip Kiyoomi had on you. From your hair, his arm supported your torso and pulled your back close to his chest in a kneel. He pumped through your orgasm, burying his nose into the crook of your neck as his own body wracked itself free of pent-up pleasure that curled at his stomach. A swallowed hummed filled the space between the two of you as his cock pulsed against your twitching walls, ropes of hot cum coating you from the inside and dripping out as he unsheathed.

Strong arms wrapped around you in an embrace as he flopped onto his back on the bed. Rapid pants conversed back and forth. Reality came back to you in slow pieces, recollecting like shattered porcelain glued by gold. Coming to was always the roughest part, even if the session wasn’t exactly the hardest. Kiyoomi kept his lips on your forehead, deliberately ignoring the sweat trickling on it and the cum spilling onto his thigh and bed. His large hand rubbed circles at your back and in turn, your fingers traced shapes along his chest.

Just as his own mind cleared, he grabbed the phone from the nightstand and clicked on a video he knew you liked. While the audio wasn’t exactly the same without headphones, you both collected your wits to the gentle sounds of wood-surface tapping. When you called his name, peering up through thick lashes, he felt his heart clench. Your voice was soft and filled with exhaustion, “Thank you. I love you. A lot. I mean it. So much.” You cooed at him, mumbling your praise and adoration. He returned each on in some way, whether it be a small “love you too” or a light press of his lips to your temple.

He had a goal to tear down the fear that he’d judge you like the others may have. To you, he not only tore the notion down, he disintegrated it to nothing.

 The thing is, Sakusa Kiyoomi, the man who seldom spoke past commands during sex, just devoted an entire session based on the sound of his voice for you.

[bang-fantansies]

Yandere! God Profile - Taehyung

Human Amongst Gods [TEASER] - upcoming fic

Warnings: Suicidal! Taehyung, suicide attempt, mentions of anxiety, mentions of emotional numbness, mentions of death, mentions of afterlife, extreme isolation and loneliness, mythical creatures (imps).

I did my best to include any triggering topics mentioned in this post, but if you see any more potentially sensitive topics I may have missed, please let me know!

This does not represent Bangtan as people or a business, nor does it represent anyone/anything associated with them. This is purely fictional and was made for entertainment purposes only; not to slander anyone or any company.

Name: Kim Taehyung Occupation: God of Death

Taehyung had never had a life, so to speak.

On the contrary, he’d only ever known the fringes of it - the last whisper it would emit before being snuffed out. By him.

So was his purpose as he was hailed as the God of Death.

A title that comes with great power, Taehyung would soon discover.

But with such great power comes an even greater loneliness.

After all, most other gods from galaxies over knew of his reputation, and how to stay away from him if they wished to avoid an untimely death at the simple touch of his hands.

The same for mortals, he’d found.

Day in and day out, he’d sit at the sides of thousands of mortals, watching their soul drain from their body and take his arm as he guided them to their destination.

And every time he did so, he’d feel a sense of malice spike in the back of his mind.

He knew that mortals were released from their duty to wander the Universe a lost soul.

So why not him?

Or, at least, a companion to travel without him: to smile at him without fear in their eyes, to touch him without their body trembling.

But such a fantasy had never come to pass.

Not yet, at least.

And after being exiled from most areas of the Universe for all his life, Taehyung had accepted his fate as a dealer of death. The responsibility of cataloguing and distributing death throughout the Universe was a mighty job, after all.

So much so that he’d employed underlings - impish little beings - to bear the brunt of the work for him.

To release and record all the souls they’d freed that day.

And when all was said and done and his office imps went home for the day, he realised something.

He wasn’t going anywhere.

Even his subordinates had families and homes to go to, but he had nothing.

He just existed for the convenience of the Universe - to maintain the balance that allowed it to live on.

And so here he stood - before a window of a wall overlooking an empty planet he inhabited and used for his work.

The land was filled with office buildings identical to his own, stretching as far as the eye could see; a field of concrete.

Each building housed a thousand or so imps, all working to keep up with the ever-increasing demand of death records that required filing and uploading to the System.

And Taehyung looked upon them as he would his own children.

They were the only company he had. And even then his workers had never actually seen him, for he spent his days cooped up in his office or out harvesting lives.

This was for their benefit, of course. Hellish creatures like them were not immune to Taehyung’s touch.

No-one was.

Taehyung’s reflection gazed back at him, the buildings taking a backseat as it came to focus on the stranger before him.

With so little experience and so little identity, would the Universe really collapse without his effort?

Would anything change if he were to...disappear?

Taehyung oftentimes found himself wondering such a concept in the few spare minutes the day held for him, but before a decision could come to fruition, he was called say to a far-off galaxy to harvest the lives of the ready-to-depart.

Taehyung bit his lip and glanced back into the confines of his office.

Red carpet, four walls of sheer darkness, all glass yet revealing nothing but darkness.

There were no achievements to be held on shelves or written in history books.

The only thing to be written in books about Taehyung were the deaths he’d orchestrated and recorded himself.

He literally had nothing to show for his life, despite having existed for many thousands of years.

Taehyung stuck one hand in a pocket of his suit, raising his other before the glass and making a swiping motion before it.

The glass vanished, simply fading from existence, allowing the frozen winds of Taehyung’s planet to invade the office.

Eyes half-lidded, taehyung peered over the edge.

Nothing but a straight drop for miles.

Taehyung knew what death entailed for mortals, but for gods, he had no idea.

No god had ever shown signs of having reached another place after death, which was a good incentive for other gods to avoid Taehyung.

The fear of the unknown bound them to their current existence, making them claw at any chance of survival they could reach when faced with dire circumstances.

With this in mind, Taehyung continued to lean over the ledge, gazing down into the pits of the desolate city.

The promises of the cycle of isolation his life had been urged him further.

He took a step forward, tips of his shoes peaking over the ledge.

He could feel the cold intensely, for it pierced his jacket, almost as if trying to push him back into his office.

“You had your chance. Now I get to decide who lives and who dies.”

His voice was carried by the wind, the high altitude ensuring that the message would reach no-one, to become a mere footnote in the grand scheme of things.

A final word to those that had pushed him away - forced him into his own corner and expected him to survive.

A particularly harsh blast of wind made him wobble, though he made an effort to try and keep his balance.

The numbness that came with his profession was lightly pierced by doubt, a flash of anxiety.

The most primal part of him knew this wasn’t the answer to his problems. With any luck, he’d simply become part of the darkness from which he had been plucked to begin with if he actually went through with this.

But even that had to be better than a lifetime of isolation, right?

On shaky legs, Taehyung inched over the edge, keeping his heels firmly planted in the carpet of his office.

He willed his eyes shut, the combination of the iced winds and the anticipation of falling made them flicker - fight - to stay open.

“It’s all over now,” he promised. “No need to fear.”

His own assurances eased his nerves, giving him the last push he’d need to right the wrongs his existence had brought.

The world slowed, Taehyung forcing a leg forwards to hover over the edge.

The frost nipped at his exposed skin as the leg of his trousers could do little to battle the winds.

His balance loosened, causing him to sway back and forth with the grace of an antique rocking horse.

He was so close to freedom.

He could feel himself lighten as the weight of worlds dropped from his shoulders.

But solice was not meant for him.

Not like this.

Behind him, his phone chimed.

It was not the same sound he’d hear when he was notified of another death.

No, this was the unfamiliar tinkling of a bell: a stark contrast to the melancholy hum he’d installed when he was to be called to work.

His ears pricked, so finely tuned to the sound of a knell that this fresh noise frightened him, almost tipping him over the edge.

A quiet part of him begged him to check what it was - anything to get away from the ledge.

The much larger, number half barked at him to hold his ground, stick to his guns and just get this whole ordeal over with.

He knew who to listen to - he knew when he saw the notification he’d find a reason not to carry out his plan.

And despite knowing nothing of the notification or its nature, Taehyung hesitated.

It would be a shame to die a curious man, he thought.

Besides, it was probably nothing important. Then he could spend an eternity in peace without wondering what this sound could mean.

Taehyung brought his leg back in, stumbling away from the ledge.

The prick of anxiety he’d experienced before quietened yet stayed at his side, an accomplice to his survival.

He left the window open, however.

Sighing, he shuffled over to his desk - a deep and dark mahogany - and died his phone lying dead-centre.

With Taehyung’s presence near, thy e screen aprung to action, displaying a notification.

It was a message. Sent from an unknown number.

Taehyung arched an eyebrow and brought the phone close to his face, unlocking it and opening his messages.

His contact list was barren save for this mystery caller.

Aware of this, he had adopted the presumption that it was a nuisance caller.

Though who dared to play jokes on such a deadly force as himself, Taehyung had no idea who would have the balls to even come up with such an idea.

And he checked.

He wanted to know who had jested him before his demise.

The message was blunt, void of courtesy, yet held a string of salvation for Taehyung.

There is another way.

Taehyung glanced over his shoulder and out to the sea of buildings .

Had someone seen him?

It wouldn’t be a surprise considering some of the imps were bound to still be at work, though Taehyung’s office was so far above the clouds that he’d assumed no-one would have spotted him.

I can only hope that I’m not too late.

I can help you.

Attached to the second message was a picture of a woman, a halo hanging above her head like a target.

Taehyung’s eyes widened, his breath short.

Pale fingers fumbled for his tie, pulling it loose while he observed the picture further.

He knew that halo.

He’d seen only one other like it in his many thousands of years of life, and even then it wasn’t glowing with life.

It had been while he was visiting a museum dedicated to gods past, and such a relic had appeared in a heavily-guarded display case.

Without its owner to wear it, it was neither as vibrant nor as beautiful as it lay on a satin pillow, merely resembling a circle of bone rather than an ethereal object.

But it’s brilliance enraptured him all the same.

He’d believed it a fable - a legend created to keep him tame and willing to do his job.

A legend of a soul who could withstand Taehyung’s killing touch.

And here he was, seeing it for a second time, in action.

Interested?

Taehyung found himself pausing.

This could just be a trick, he told himself.

But...what if it wasn’t fake?

He requested proof that the image was real.

The response was clear cut and blunt.

I can take you to her.

Taehyung glanced over his shoulder again, paranoia projecting shadows in the corners of his vision.

Still, nothing but the open window.

He glanced back down at his phone.

What did he have to lose?

All right.

Take me to her.

I will. The stranger typed.

But first, I need you to do something for me.

I don’t own the pictures used in the moodboard, but I edited the moodboard myself.

[sebastianshaw]

I got my ask cleared, so Munday rambles time! For new mutuals, this is just a pile up of OOC that’s irrelevant to the blog or my rodents.

- I am one of those people who adamantly Does Not Like Kids but volunteering at the wildlife sanctuary has shown me I'm actually great with them when animals are involved. Like Saturday I answered all the questions of this little boy at the coyote pen even the ones that were irrelevant and weird like "what if you were stuck on an island with only fruit and cows" and I helped another boy handfeed Ferdinand by guiding his hand with mine and holding it steady since he kept freaking out and dropping the lettuce. And didn't get outwardly annoyed with the girl who kept howling at the coyotes or the little shit who threw a rock at the fence (also his mom yelled MAVERICK and ma'am if you named your child that I think you asked for this) - Started reading Ra’s Al. Ghul stories and he’s indeed really interesting like I thought! I like him a lot. I like his motive as an eco-terrorist, and I also like that it’s in a way very different than Poison Ivy; Ivy loves plants and the lushness of forests and jungles and flowers, but Ra’s loves the bleak barrenness of desserts and snow-covered mountains, and wants the entire world to be like that. I also really like that he’s one of those “villains with a code” types---yeah, he wants to wipe out humanity, but he spares the lives of Alfred and Robin in one story because they WON’T sell out Batman, and he respects that loyalty, and it’s noted he dislikes taking hostages so only does it if he feels the stakes are so high that he has to. I know he’s def not un-problematic in his very Orientalist origins and portrayal but I just love how he feels like the lead of a Gothic novel to me. Talia of course is great as well, but I knew that already! - I notice that the writers make Ra’s a little more shitty with each retcon about his past concerning women. Originally, it’s that he was celibate after his first wife up until he met Talia’s mother. Then it becomes that actually he was with other women until they began to age and then he ditched them, and was petty/horny enough to straight-up engineer Napoleon’s downfall to get with his mistress. As with Shaw, that’s the sort of thing I’d be ok with if it was from the get-go, but the fact it WASN’T and then was shoved in there later directly contradicting previous canon for no real reason except to make him look sexist, bugs me. Like, is he not evil enough? Why add that? Similarly, the fate of Talia’s mother goes from her dying in an accident in which she fell into a in-progress Lazarus Pit and thus presumably could not be resurrected, to that she died of a drug overdose and Ra’s chose not to resurrect her for undisclosed reasons, to that she never died at all but Ra’s just cast her out after Talia’s birth. Like, why? - Speaking of Batman characters, I just found out about Silver St.  Cloud and even though I have not seen or watched a single thing with her in it, I like her because she’s PRETTY. - That said I just find it colossally gross that she informs Alfred the reason she calls Bruce “DD” is because the first night they had sex, he made her orgasm 11 times (double digits) It’s not that I think that’s bad, or that talking about sex is bad, it’s just it feels like something the writer shoved in as a self-insert sort of fantasy? The writer of that one, btw, was Kevin Smith, who is also the writer who decided that the reason Black Cat steals is because she was raped, because that super makes sense. These are the only two parts of Smith’s comics writing career I know of and neither gives me a high opinion of him, which is a shame because I do genuinely love Clerks and Dogma. But apparently you can’t ever let him write hot women in comics or you get this shit. 

[whumpingcrow]

Pt.24 "Hunting for Bunnies"

CW: creepy/intimate whumper, stalking, discussion of homicide/suicide (explicit), injury mention/description, blood (explicit), strangulation mention, gun/gunshot mention, character death mention, drugs/alcohol mention, prison mention, tics/tourrettes (descriptive), ptsd/nightmares, panic attack, chloroform use, self injury, x-acto knife (brief), gag/restraints, discussion of past whump, vomit mention (brief), conditioned whumpee, stockholm syndrome-type language (let me know if I missed anything!)

Healing was a good look on Elias. As weeks went on, his smile returned to his face, his bruises slowly melted away, the numerous scars scattering his body faded into small pinkish lines. He cut his hair a little shorter, dyed a streak of blue through it. He and Tyson got matching tattoos, little rain clouds and with lightning bolts on their forearms. They were happy, very obviously so.

August wanted to kill both of them for it.

He wasn’t entirely jealous (he was, so jealous he was blood thirsty every second of the day), he was more so just frustrated that Elias thought he was able to be happy without August. He was stupid. Adorable, but stupid. He didn’t know that he needed August to survive. He didn’t know that being away from each other was killing them both. Rather, he didn’t know how much the distance was making August want to kill them both. It would have to be a grand gesture, a murder suicide so beautiful there’ll be copycats. He had to talk himself out of those violent fantasies several times a day, hold himself back from getting out of his car while he followed Elias and just grabbing him. Maybe he’d strangle him again, watch the life drain out of his face, watch him slip into the dark abyss of death. Maybe he wouldn’t, maybe he’d take him home and torture him until he was broken beyond broken and then put him out of his misery. Single shot to the face, like he’d made Elias do to Sawyer so long ago. And then...August guessed he would do himself in after that. He was tired of being in and out of prison, and if Elias didn’t exist anymore, then what would be the point in living? Maybe that was the thought that made him change his mind, when his hand was on the door handle and he was getting ready to make a huge, violent, romantic scene. Maybe the idea of a world without Elias was just too sad, and he knew he didn’t really want Elias dead. He just wanted him away from Tyson.

They were both entirely oblivious that August was even close by, let alone watching them all the time. He was renting a room at a motel a couple streets away from Tyson’s apartment, but he was hardly ever there. He spent most of his time parked near their apartment, which was conveniently on the first floor and had a large window in the living room that was facing the street. There was also a porch in front, where Elias would occasionally sit outside late at night and smoke cigarettes or blunts. Sometimes he was alone, sometimes Allen was there with him. August often thought about how hilarious it would be to walk up to both of them at times like that, just to see them both unravel with fear at the same time. A few nights, when Tyson is working and Elias is all alone, August sits out front in the grass next to a tree and just watches Elias inside. He can see him smoking in the living room, he watches him pass out on the couch, sometimes he goes into the kitchen, comes back with nothing. When he goes to bed, August watches him lock the door, and it pisses him off so badly he wants to throw a rock through the window. He doesn’t want to go inside, he’s letting Elias heal again, he’s respecting his space, for the moment. Still, knowing that Elias actively wants to keep him out stings. So, he holds off breaking in for as long as he can.

It’s just a shame his resolve isn’t so strong, not when it comes to Elias. He can’t stay away from him anymore, he knew it the second he bought a plane ticket back here to find him, despite the very real possibility of being arrested any second. On the plane, he came to the conclusion that he had absolutely no control when it came to Elias. He couldn’t stay away from him, he couldn’t restrain himself when he was hurting him. He loved Elias, loved him so much it was driving him insane. Things just didn’t make sense when they were apart, August could hardly form a coherent thought that wasn’t about Elias, or how much it hurt to only be able to look but not touch. Though, when he broke in he wasn't able to touch Elias still, but it was at least closer than being separated by a window.

Tyson and Elias left the house, August wasn't sure where or when, but when August finally left his motel and pulled up to their place, the car was gone. It would be easy enough to find them, August had Tyson's number still and could get his location in minutes, if he wanted. Instead, he tested the door handle. It was unlocked. He guessed if they weren't there it didn't matter to them whether someone broke in or not.

August didn't make it obvious he was there, not the first time. He went through some of their things, put everything back in its place. He took one of Elias's shirts, a pair of his boxers. He didn't think either of them would notice, which bummed him out because he wanted Elias to know he was close by.

The next time he snuck in, it was when Elias was there. August had held himself off for as long as he could, he'd been in LA for 28 days already and he hadn't been closer than six feet from him the entire time. So when Elias smoked a huge bowl and went to bed without locking the door, it was like he was practically inviting him in, and August just couldn't help himself. He let himself in, he smoked what was left in Elias's bong, and he walked around the house for a little bit, waiting to make sure Elias was actually asleep before he went to see him.

Something about watching Elias sleep had always made August go disgustingly mushy for him. He looked so small, so vulnerable and unaware. This time was even better, because this time Elias thought he was free, thought that life was moving on without August, and yet here he was, kneeling next to the bed and watching Elias's chest rise and fall with each deep breath. He was beautiful, August was jealous of the moonlight kissing his face and making his face glow pale blue, he was jealous of the blankets wrapped snugly around his waist, he was jealous that Tyson got the privilege of sleeping next to this - his - angel almost every night.

August didn't have the courage to touch Elias, he was afraid that if he started he wouldn't be able to stop, he didn't want to get carried away. It might start with trailing his fingertips over his face to see if he'd wake up, then if he didn't he might kiss all over his body until he opened his eyes, then he'd probably smother him with a pillow.

That time when he left, he took the blanket that Elias had been using in the living room earlier. It smelled like him. That night he slept in his car right out front, wrapped up in the same blanket that had touched Elias's skin, his clothes, his face. It was the closest he'd felt to him in months.

After that he was cocky. He found their spare key poorly hidden under a potted plant on the front porch, and he completely took advantage of it. He went in all the time when neither of them were home, cleaning up after them in small, nearly unnoticeable ways, or looking through their things, or just sitting on the bed where Elias often slept, wishing he was there at the moment. He also used it on nights when he couldn’t stand being away from Elias for a second longer, waiting until late in the night to sneak in and sit on the floor for hours to watch him sleep. Once, and he never did it again because Elias almost woke up, August reached out and gently pushed his hair away from his face, where it was tickling the tip of his nose and making his face twitch. It was a reflexive touch, August had only realized he’d done it as an afterthought, when Elias huffed softly and started to move under the blankets. August stared at his hand in disbelief, oh shit I just touched him. And then he left. But Elias still didn’t know he was there, and truthfully, August was getting bored. Bored? Try going insane. He wanted them to notice that something was off, that maybe they weren't as safe as they thought. But they just continued on with their stupid, repulsively happy lives. It was maddening, and at some point August couldn't take it anymore.

The first deliberate mistake he made to blow his cover was running into Allen at a grocery store. He wore a hat and a hoodie, and he carefully avoided him until he was near the front, in a crowd of people. August walked right into him, caught one of the many snack foods that he knocked out of Allen’s overflowing arms, and handed it back to him with a smile.

“Sorry, my bad,” he said smugly, watching Allen’s face fall from his tight frown to a blank, horrified stare. And then he just walked away.

Allen surprisingly didn’t go and tell Tyson and Elias that he saw him, at least if he did, neither of them seemed bothered in the slightest. That irritated August further. He’d been counting on Allen to run and tattle on him, rattle them up so that August could dive headfirst into chaos and whisk Elias away. Incompetent. Unreliable.

So August wrote love notes. He taped them to trees in the yard, tucked them under Tyson’s windshield wipers. They said stupid things like “you’re my favorite brand of heroin, I want to overdose on you” and “I can’t stop thinking about the heavenly way you scream my name today, you look nice by the way”. (His sister had taken a poetry class while they were in high school, he would like to think she would find this humorous. He’d tell her, if she would ever talk to him.) That shook them up a little bit. Really, he believed that Tyson was the only one finding and reading them, and he didn’t think he ever told Elias. Probably didn’t want to scare him. But he started really keeping an eye on the locked doors, as if August hadn’t already made himself at home there multiple times. Elias could sense his tension, it seemed, because he started passing out on the couch and staying there more often, waking up multiple times from nightmares. They were anxious. It wasn’t enough to have them anxious.

Again, August just couldn’t control himself.

So he paid Tyson a visit. He knew his work schedule, knew that he left a little after five in the morning, knew that on normal days he would be home and in bed with Elias by six, they would sleep until around nine. But that day, August was waiting for him, along with chloroform and some duct tape. He followed him to his car, he came up behind him and slowly lowered him to the ground as he knocked him out with the dowsed rag he was holding. He was hardly able to put up a fight. Then he dragged him to his car, and drove him to his motel room. It was easy enough to get inside unnoticed, and also easy enough to tie Tyson up in a chair and gag him before he woke up. He made sure it was all secure before he went back to their apartment.

Elias hadn’t woken up yet, so he had some time to smoke some of his weed and pour himself a glass of wine before he got started. He brought an x-acto knife from his motel, and he wandered around the apartment, slicing into his forearm and using his finger to smear his own blood into declarations of love on their perfect, off-white walls. He wished he could be there when Elias woke up. He could only imagine how his face would look as he walked around reading “I love you so much it hurts”, “you’re mine Bunny”, “we’ll be together forever”, things of that nature. He’d be mortified. Before he left, he slipped into the bedroom and left the nearly empty glass of wine, messy with his bloody handprint, on the bedside dresser so Elias would also see that upon waking up. Then, completely on impulse, he reached out and traced his fingertip over Elias’s cheek in the shape of a heart. The blood on his finger stayed behind on Elias’s pale skin, and August smiled brightly. Elias would be so scared when he got up and was all alone, he’d surely call Tyson first thing. Too bad he wouldn’t have his phone.

August left his car there, took the bus home with his hood pulled low over his face, folding his arms so no one could see the blood seeping through. His hands were buzzing with excitement, high off of the idea of being able to get Elias back.

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

Elias almost slept late into the morning, that was the first sign that something might be wrong. Tyson would usually be home when the sky outside was the washed-out blue it got before sunrise, would crawl into bed with Elias and pull him close. Then he would apologize to Elias for waking him up, and Elias would ignore his apology and ask him about his night, and then they would fall back asleep for a while. That morning, hours and hours after Tyson would usually be home, the sun was floating in through the partially opened curtains and turning the insides of Elias’s eyelids a bright red in it’s warm light. He woke up, stretched against the soft mattress, and then slid his hand over the sheets until he found Tyson, who would be in bed with him by now. Only, he was met with more blankets and an empty bed. Elias could feel the tired, confused scowl spread across his face upon realizing Tyson wasn’t right next to him, but he pushed the bitter anxiety that came with it away. Maybe he was making breakfast, maybe he was in the shower. It was just like Tyson to not wake him up when he decided to start his day, to try and let Elias sleep for as long as he could. He was sweet like that, always had been.

With a yawn, Elias tossed the blanket off of himself and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, stretching his tired muscles out. It was still relatively new, and a little weird, for Elias to be able to stretch and move and even breathe without the addition of earth shattering amounts of pain, but he was getting used to it slowly. It didn’t come with nearly as much strange guilt anymore, he could hardly hear that little voice in the back of his mind telling him that he wasn’t deserving of a painless life, a life of ease. Even some days, when that little cruel voice was more of a brutal yell in his ear, telling him that he wasn’t worth any part of this simple, enjoyable life, he was able to get past it now. The voice would say “this is way too nice for you, you don’t deserve any of this”, he was able to, for the most part, smile and think back, “yeah, and aren’t I lucky I get it anyway?” and most of the time, it helped. On days that it didn’t, Tyson stepped in instead, told him anything he needed to hear: “you deserve everything to be nice, you’re an angel” or “it’s a shitty apartment, not a castle, it isn’t ‘too nice’ for anyone,” or sometimes, when Elias couldn’t be convinced, “even if you don’t deserve it, I want you here with me”. It was starting to feel like today was going to be one of the days that Elias needed Tyson to be louder than that voice in his head, as he pushed himself to his feet with ease and felt bad about it. He tried to reassure himself, he told himself that Tyson was right in another room and all Elias had to do to feel better was go see him. That was easy, he could do that.

He would have done that, if right before he stepped toward the door he hadn't caught sight of a wine glass sitting on the dresser next to the bed. The glass was dirty with a rusty brown color, and Elias frowned and looked around the room before stepping closer to it. He was too afraid to pick it up (it still had some deep red wine at the bottom and Elias knew there was a chance that once it was in his hands it would end up as a stain on the floor) so instead he crouched down in front of it, inspecting the grime closely. It was hand shaped, surrounded by a couple of smudges and fingerprints here and there. It looked like blood.

“What the fuck!” Elias ticced, then, much quieter: “Ty?” As he stood straight, his stomach dropped and his head felt light and airy.

No more blood. No more blood. No more please, god, no more.

“Tyson!” He called louder this time, already feeling the familiar burning of panic clawing restlessly in his chest. There was no answer. His mouth and throat were a desert. His knees were shaking. There was blood in his room. Was he bleeding? He tried his best to keep his arms still enough for a moment to run them over his torso to look for any injuries. He wasn’t bleeding. He wasn’t even fucking hurt. “Pathetic,” he heard himself whimper, “pathetic, pathetic, pathetic! Ty-fucking pathetic- Tyson!” He stumbled back, away from the blood covered glass. Where was Tyson? Surely, Elias was being loud enough with his irritating shouting to get his attention, he would’ve come running, by now, with a comforting hug and reassurance and promises that Elias is safe and good and not dying.

The apartment was a crime scene straight out of a psychological thriller. Every few feet there were drops of blood on the hardwood, and then when he got the courage to look, he also saw that there was more smeared across the walls. As soon as he recognized it as more drying blood, he closed his eyes tightly, breathing picking up the longer he stood there. He tried to imagine Tyson’s voice teaching him how to calm his breathing: “Inhale, Eli. Deep, deep, all the way into the bottom of your lungs. Good.”

“Good boy, letting me cut you open like this. So pretty for me, all covered in blood.”

No more blood! No more fucking blood no more no more-

“Exhale now, baby.”

No more no more no more no more-

“Elias, breathe out. Stop holding your breath now.”

“You breathe when I allow you to breathe. I don’t think you’ve been behaving well enough for air.”

Don’t kill me don’t kill me don’t kill me!

With his shoulders held high and his head dropped toward the ground so that he could open his eyes without seeing the blood, he turned on his heel and threw himself back into the bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him, letting all the air out of his lungs in ragged sobs. Even then, it was hard to catch his breath in between his unintentional cries of “What the fuck! What the fuck! What the fuck!”

Something deep in his gut made him swivel around and lock the door, and then he slid down it until he was on the floor. He covered his face with his hands, knees up to his chest to protect himself as much as he could. It felt like a nightmare, waking up alone in the middle of the day to find his walls covered in blood, only he just couldn't wake up. “Tyson...Ty...fuck...Tyson…” he crawled across the room, toward his phone, left on the charger next to the bed all night. His fingers were trembling as he tapped in his password, then still as he found Tyson’s contact to call him. As he waited what felt like an agonizingly long time for the ringing to stop, he tucked himself in the corner of the room behind the bed. He made himself small, “pathetic,” so that any pain would be limited to his arms and his legs, and he wouldn’t be hurt so badly, at least.

He couldn’t wait for Tyson to start speaking once he answered the phone, only able to wait with bated breath until the long pause after the last ring.

Click.

“Tyson!” He sobbed, clutching the phone tighter to him like a lifeline. He felt like throwing up. “Ty-Tyson I need you to come ho-fuck-home, I need you to come home right fucking now! P-please-fucking shit- come home.” There was a soft, muffled, sigh on the other line, Elias let out another hoarse sob. “Where the fu-fuck are you?! I...I’m s-sorry, I’m sorry. Tyson please, please co-come home, something’s wrong-”

“Calm down, Bunny.”

No.

No no no no no no no no no no NO NO NO NO!

“You’re freaking yourself out way too much. You have a tendency to do that. It’s adorable, really.” August laughed, Elias almost threw his phone, barely stopping himself. “But not very helpful.”

“No…” Elias squeaked out. He craned his neck to look over the bed at the wine glass. August was here. Is he still here? Elias folded in on himself smaller, safer, more pathetic, “fucking pathetic!” He ticced. August laughed again. “N-no, please, August. Please don’t...don’t…”

August made a soft shushing sound, slightly softened by the static of the phone. Elias’s head always gets messed up when August acts like that, makes it feel like cotton candy and causes his chest to flutter in an agonizingly confusing way.

Sometimes he’s so nice to me I think, since I have no other choice, I’ll force myself to love him. Just so that my love doesn’t go unused. That way I’m not a waste of life completely.

“Stop working yourself up, sweetheart. Seriously, I want to have a conversation with you, you always do this.” He sighed, gruffly, with an air of boredom. “Pretty fucking annoying honestly.”

Sometimes I want to give him a bunch of his own stupid drugs and drag his ass down the stairs and chain him up and bleed him dry-

No more blood! No more blood!

Elias gritted his teeth, he tried to feel the scar on the back of his tongue, he tried to keep his mouth shut. “Where’s...Tyson?” He grumbled.

“Ugh, shut the fuck up!” August shouted.

Elias flinched, pulling the phone away from his face. He didn’t think he heard an echo of his yell in the house. He listened, close, and could hear August’s voice distantly on the phone, but not out in the hall. Not distantly, in the living room or kitchen. He relaxed a little, straightened out his spine as he pulled his phone back to his ear.

“I was about to tell you all of that. I had a whole speech...Impatient little thing.”

Elias forced himself to his feet, took a few shaking steps for the door. He didn’t turn the lock, not right away, shaking hand hesitating over the brass knob. “If y-you hurt him I’ll-”

Again, August chuckled cynically at Elias’s stammering, his false braveness, his beginning to an empty threat. Elias cringed hard. He wanted to hang up the phone and crawl back into bed, fall asleep, and then wake up from this nightmare to find Tyson next to him. But he wasn’t in a nightmare, and his apartment was covered in blood, and Tyson was gone.

“This would be so much easier for all three of us if you just listened, Bunny. Can you be a good boy and listen closely for a second?”

Embarrassingly, Elias felt his knees buckle at the words, and he reflexively nodded at August’s voice.

I’ll do anything you ask, just call me good, just stop hurting me, I’ll do whatever you want.

When August spoke again, Elias could hear the smile to his voice without even seeing him. “Perfect, sweetheart. Now, I need you to do everything I say, ok? Tyson will be just fine if you just do exactly what I tell you.”

“Oh, f-fuck,” Elias whimpered, pressing his forehead against the door to try and steady himself, “God fucking d-dammit-”

“Shh, Bunny. Take a deep breath.” Somehow, August had added some sort of softness to his words, making himself sound caring and gentle and human, and it made Elias even angrier.

Liar liar liar liar liar liar liar!

He forced himself to draw in a deep breath, just because he was told to, just because it was August’s voice telling him what to do, and it was easier to just listen to whatever he was told the first time rather than face the ugly alternative.

“I left my car keys on your kitchen counter, my car is right out front. Full tank of gas, it drives beautifully, by the way. Can I trust you to take care of it when you drive it over here?”

Elias unlocked the door with his breath still held, shuffling out into the hallway. He couldn’t help but glance at the blood on the wall, and his stomach churns terribly. Before he could even process it, his shoulder hit the wall as he stumbled to the side.

I love you so much it hurts.

Elias would prefer the freezing blanket of death over the paralyzing fear he felt reading that.

We’ll be together forever.

He could never get away. No matter where he went or what he did, August would find him, August would destroy him. Maybe it would be easier to just hand himself over to the wolves instead of trying to outrun them.

You’re mine, Bunny.

There were scars everywhere on Elias’s body that validated that, there was a switch in his brain that flipped every time someone sounded too much like August that also proved it, Elias belonged to him now, even when he was far away from him.

“I asked you a question, baby. Will you take care of my car?”

“You’re fucking c...crazy.” Elias cast his eyes back to the ground, pushing himself off of the wall and stumbling out to the kitchen. He found the keys August was talking about. Thinking about August in the apartment, helping himself to a glass of wine, tossing his keys onto the counter, made Elias sway where he stood.

There was a groan on the other line. August was annoyed, Elias would have to pay for that. “I know that, idiot. You don’t think I fucking know that?” A sigh, a soft thud in the back, a small laugh. “Just get here, ok? The address is written on a paper in my car. You might want to hurry, Tyson’s waking up and he’ll be wondering where you are. And if you take too long...he’ll be wondering why you didn’t come rescue him.”

He laughs.

Elias wants to kill him.

Click.

[mlmdarkfiction]

For @pickingpixel

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Ship: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Male Reader

AU: Fantasy, Monsters (Dimitri is a slime boy)

Content Warnings: NSFW, Spoilers for the End of the Blue Lions route (kind of)

Read Below:

“We’re going now,” Your father had told you that morning as you sat at the table, still eating your breakfast. 

“Try to stay out of trouble while we’re gone.”

You had just nodded. This was the regular after all. Although you were rather young to be left alone, only ten years old, your parents had to work, and living so far in the forest, away from the town, only meant longer times being away. 

Longer times that you were left by yourself. 

“Stay in the house,” Your mother had mused, fussing with your hair and planting a kiss on your forehead before finally heading to the door. 

“It’s too dangerous for you to be outside on your own.”

“Yes mother.” 

You had agreed…

But that was over three hours ago, and now you were bored. 

It was hard to find things to do indoors to keep yourself occupied. 

Well, it was hard to find things indoors to keep yourself occupied that wouldn’t cause trouble. 

One time you’d decided to try playing ball in the house, only to accidentally shatter one of your mothers vases. Your father had grounded you for a week, although that meant very little when you already weren’t allowed outside most of the time, and you had no friends. The punishment was more of a formality than an actual deterrent but the lecture he’d given was more than enough in and of itself to leave you thinking twice about playing ball again. 

Another time when you were much younger and had been left alone, you’d drawn all over the floors and walls of your bedroom, making your mother furious. 

Those times had all been accidents. And even now you’re afraid of accidentally creating another accident that will get you into trouble. 

Still it’s a nice day outside. 

You can see the outside from the window, and the sun is out, not a single cloud in the sky. 

The outside is just tempting you. 

There’s still a few hours before your parents get home, meaning there’s no reason you can’t go outside and play for a bit and go back inside before your parents get home. 

And it can’t be as dangerous as your parents say, after all, you’ve been outside plenty of times before. 

It’s just that usually you have parental supervision. 

As long as you stay in the yard nothing bad will happen, right?

You’ve already convinced yourself, so there’s no going back, after all even if you play inside you still may make a mistake and get in trouble. 

You grab your ball, and slip on your shoes before stepping out into the sunlight for the first time today. 

But you hesitate at first, eyes tightly shut, waiting to get in trouble for coming outside when your parents had so firmly told you not to. 

No yelling comes, because deep down you know they won’t be home till much later, and so you find yourself able to relax, knowing you won’t be caught. 

And now that you’re relaxed you settle in the dirt. 

Being outside is great and all, truly better than inside, but you’re still all alone. 

You roll the ball hard against a tree in front of you, letting it bounce off the bark and watching as the force pushes it back to you. 

For a while this is what you do rolling the ball every time it comes back to you, although you do eventually get bored of just rolling it, and then decide to bounce it, throwing the ball into the dirt watching the dust rise as it bounces and smacks against the bark again.

This only lasts a couple minutes before you spike it with excitement, only to have it soar over your head in the return. 

The ball bounces off into the woods behind your house, and you scramble to your feet to chase after it. 

After all if your parents come home and your ball is missing they’ll know something’s up -

That and well, you like your ball a lot. 

Although you’re chasing after it as quick as you can it seems to evade you completely, rolling out of reach every time. 

“Oh no.”

You freeze up, watching as your ball rolls steadily still towards a steep hill created by a mudslide.

If the ball rolls down there, there’s no way you’ll be able to make it down there to get it.

Maybe you’re lucky though.

Because he ball seems to stop a few inches away from the edge. 

It causes you to unfreeze in relief, once again bounding off after your ball, a sigh of relief leaving your lips when you actually grab hold of it, feeling the cool, dirty rubber in your hands. 

This relief, it’s very short lived, for the moment you try to turn around and head back towards your house, the unsteady earth underneath begins to give way. 

Of course you drop the ball, it slips from your arms and rolls down with the falling rocks and dirt as you try to grab for something to hold on to. 

But you don’t find anything. 

All you can do is curl up in a ball, your arms moving to guard your face as your body is forced tumbling down hill at full force. 

It hurts.

Your skin scrapes against the harsh earth and rocks while your ears rush with blood from the constant movement. 

With your eyes closed you aren’t able to see how far you are from the end of the hillside, all you can do is keep rolling until your body slams hard into a tree.

If you weren’t already curled up into a ball, you would have curled anyway from the extreme pain you’re in. 

All you can do is lay there, waiting for enough of the pain to pass that you can will yourself into standing up. 

“Are you alright?” 

You aren’t expecting the sudden voice. 

You hadn’t heard anyone approaching, although maybe that was because of the blood still rushing in your ears.

It’s hard to speak, maybe because of how many times your teeth had clunk together as you’d rolled down the hill, or maybe it was because the grinding of your teeth was helping to distract you from the pain. 

“Here,”

Now you can hear the stranger as he moves, the crunching of the grass as he crouches down beside you.  

Something is pressed to your face, warm and wet, but it seems to numb the pain, and so you press yourself into it more. 

When the pain finally fully subsides you peek open your eyes to look at the stranger who helped you and immediately recoil in shock, back pressing more to the tree that had stopped your fall. 

“You-What-What are you?” 

He doesn’t look like anything you’ve ever seen before, although he looks kind of like you, like he’s around the same age as you. 

Whatever he is, it’s not human.

Although...He does look humanish. 

You can make out all the right shapes, hair, eyes, nose, arms, legs, ten fingers and toes. 

But then there’s the weird part, the nonhuman part. 

He’s translucent, and blue! 

You can even see your ball floating in your torso. 

Without thinking you reach out to touch him, and he does the same. 

Your hand touches his, and by feeling alone you’re now able to realize what he’d pressed to your face. He’d simply touched you with his hand. 

It’s odd. Touching him. 

He feels gooey, like he might break away into liquid any second, but he doesn’t.

“I’ve never met anyone who looked like you before.” He says, he sounds sheepish, maybe shy, and finally moves his hand away from yours. 

All you can do is nod, sharing the sentiment entirely. 

“Yeah…What are you?”

He’s looking at you with bewilderment and wonder, and you imagine you’re looking at him the same way. 

“Me?” He asks back. “I’m a slime. What are you ?” 

It takes you a moment to respond, still bewildered by the fact this boy even exists.

“I’m a human? Have you never met a human before?”

“Well you’ve never met a slime before!”

Touché. 

“Can…Can I have my ball back?” You finally ask. 

“Oh...This is your ball? That makes sense, it suddenly bounced inside me and got stuck.”

With an odd fascination you watch as he reaches inside himself, and pulls the ball out offering to you. 

It’s...oddly not wet at all.

The slime boy seems to hesitate for a moment, before smiling politely at you. 

“If you were playing ball...You could play with me and my friends?”

The offer instantly gets your attention. He may be a slime but...He’s another kid just like you, and it’s not very often, if ever, you get to play with other kids!

Instantly you nod in excitement. 

“Great!” He seems just as excited. 

“I’m sure everyone will be excited to meet you!”

You follow the slime boy, who introduced himself as Dimitri, deeper and deeper into the forest until you found what appeared to be a city. 

“Dimitri?” It looks...the same as human cities, it makes you wonder how no Humans ever found it before. 

He doesn’t get a chance to respond to your questioning, because immediately someone else is calling out for him. “Your highness, there you are!” 

It’s another slime, of course it is, this boy is also blue in color, although a darker blue than Dimitri. 

“Where have you been, and who is this?” 

He looks past the other boy, and straight at you, trying your best to smile despite your nerves about everything. 

“I just went for a walk Dedue, and on that walk I met my new friend ____.”

“Your new friend…is a human.” This other slime boy is watching you now, looking you up and down, sizing you up. 

It makes you gulp, but you keep your best nervous smile on your face all the while. 

The anxiety doesn’t stop you from asking a question that’s been on your mind since he’d joined you and Dimitri. 

“You called Dimitri ‘your highness’, what does that mean?” 

Of course you’d heard the term before. You knew about royalty, and you’d read lots of fairytale books with Kings and Queens, Princesses and Princes, but you’d never met a member of royalty before. 

“Oh, that.” Dimitri seems to get embarrassed. It’s an odd thing to see, the color of gelo in his cheeks seems to turn a darker blue, almost purple. 

“I constantly tell him that he can just call me by my name but…”

“I am your vassal, your highness, and I want to show you the respect you deserve.”

This exchange only makes you more confused as you look between the slimes, the expression on DImitri’s face is woeful for a moment, before he seems to give up on Dedue and looks at you. 

“To answer your question ____, I’m the Prince of the Slimes.”

....Oh.

Your new friend is a Prince. 

Not just any Prince, but the Prince of the Slime people. 

The Slime people you had no idea existed until today.

This is the best day ever!

Dimitri and Dedue introduce you to their friends, more slime kids around your age. 

They introduced you to three girl slimes by the names of Ingrid, Mercedes, and Annette.

Annette, the smallest of the three slimes, and a seafoam blue color is incredibly excited to meet you, instantly bombarding you with questions about what humans were like that you struggled to answer before she fired another question at you. 

The next slime was a girl named Ingrid. She’s a light green slime, and she doesn’t seem nearly as excited to meet you as Annette is. In fact...she seems to be judging you, extending her hand for you to shake, only to completely encompass your hand in her goo. 

“So-Sorry.” You apologize as soon as you pull your hand away, moving to wipe it on your pants. 

“Ingrid,” The final slime girl and oldest of all the slime kids, Mercedes, speaks up. She’s the tallest of the three, and her skin is a lavender purple in color. “Be nice to him Ingrid,” Her voice is soft as she scolds the other girl. “Dimitri said he’s never met slimes before.” 

After the girls you were introduced to three more boys; Ashe, Felix, and Sylvain. 

Ashe is a grey slime, he’s all smiles and politeness as you introduce yourself. “I’d ask you more about humans but I think Annette asked enough questions for the two of us.” His laugh is nice, and contagious, you smile and laugh too. 

Felix is a different story. “I’m ____.” Your introduction results in nothing else but you being scoffed at by the seemingly indifferent cyan slime. He makes you uncomfortable, and so you’re quick to move on, introducing yourself to the final of all Dimitri’s friends. 

“I’m sorry about Felix,” An energetic orange colored boy says as he takes your hand. It’s a good thing he just grabbed for it, after all since meeting Ingrid you likely wouldn’t have reached to shake his hand yourself. “He can be a little...You know.” “Shut up Sylvain!” 

Sylvain, the boy you’d just met, laughs and smiles wide at you. 

“It’s probably obvious,” he says. “But I’ve never met a human before either.” He says. “But I’m sure we’ll be great friends.”

For the rest of the day you play with the slime children. And you learned really...They’re no different than you!

And it seems like your games aren’t that different either!

The nine of you end up playing kickball, split into an uneven team of four versus five. 

On the smaller team is you, Dimitri, Deduce, and Ashe, while the bigger team consists of Sylvain, Felix, Ingrid, Annette, and Mercedes.

None of you are really keeping score (except for Felix), the game is just for fun, after all. And the game is fun. You’re having the most fun you’ve had in a while, you’d almost forgotten what it was like to play with other kids.

In fact, you’re having so much fun you don’t realize how late it is until the sun starts to set. 

“Oh no.”

And you’d forgotten that you had to be home.

There’s no way your parents aren’t home by now. They’re probably worried sick, and you’re going to be in so much trouble. 

“What’s wrong?” Dimitri asks at your sudden look of panic. “I wasn’t supposed to be out this late,” You sheepishly admit. “My parents are going to be so mad…I don’t even know the way back.” 

“I’ll take you back.” The slime Prince sounds determined. “I know the way to the edge of the forest at least. Once you’re there you should be able to find your way home, right?”

“Yeah. Thanks Dimitri.” 

“Of course, ____, what are friends for after all.”

Friends.

You and Dimitri are friends now. The other slime kids are your friends now too, you hope. 

“Goodbye everyone,” You say your goodbye to your new group of friends, smiling. 

“Please come visit us again!” Mercedes says smiling as she waves you off. 

Dimitri grabs you by the hand gently leading you out of the slime peoples city and back into the dense woods. 

The sun is setting faster in the sky, and soon enough the forest is getting scarier and scarier. You find yourself gripping Dimitri’s hand for comfort. 

“____?” He turns to face you, hand still in yours, a worried expression on his face. “What’s wrong?”

It takes you a moment to respond, eyes focused on the darkness through the trees, watching for any danger, anything that might want to hurt you and Dimitri. 

“My parents...They said the woods are dangerous.” You try to keep back tears as the fear starts building in your chest.

Fear of both what could happen to you and Dimitri out all alone, and of what your parents will do to you for disobeying them if you do manage to get home. 

“Oh.” Dimitri’s expression softens as he turns to smile comfortingly at you. 

“There’s nothing to worry about ____, I’ll protect you.” 

“Really?” 

“Really. You have my word.” 

Even though you’d just met Dimitri today, you knew you could trust him. When he promised to protect you, he meant it.

Thanks to Dimitri’s reassurance you have no issue continuing on. “____?!?” 

It’s faint at first, but the closer you get to home, the louder the sound of your parents calling your name gets. “____! Where are you sweetie?” 

Last time it was your father calling out to you, this time it’s your mother. She sounds terrified. So much so you let go of Dimitri’s hand, sprinting out towards the treeline. 

“Mom? Dad? I’m here!”

Your mom practically tackles you into a hug, forcing you against her tightly. “There you are...Thank god.” Something wet drips onto your head, and you realize she’s crying. 

“Mom?”

“We were so worried-” It’s your father who hugs you now. He’s never shown much emotion, even now, but you can still tell by the trace of emotion in his voice that he was scared too. 

Once they finish hugging you your mother cups your face, using her thumbs to wipe away some of the dirt. “What...What happened to you?”

“What do you mean?” 

“Your face-” Your mother gasps, and you think for a moment she might start crying again. She digs around in her purse, and finally finds her compact lifting the mirror to your face. 

Now you see what upset her so much. 

A scar, a new scar right on your forehead. 

You reach out with your fingers, watching your reflection as you touch the newly healed gash with your fingers. 

The tumble down the hill...It must have caused this injury but…

The pain had stopped once Dimitri touched it, it was a scare now, despite happening only a few hours ago.

Somehow Dimitri numbed and completely healed your wound. 

That’s right Dimitri!

You look past your parents, and back to the dark treeline, but you see nothing.

No sign of Dimitri. 

Really...The whole story is hard to believe, but...You know it happened. 

It had to be true.

There’s no chance you’d just imagined Dimitri, and all the others. If you had, how else would you explain your new scar?

After that your parents decided you had to move. It didn’t seem to matter that aside from the scar you were unharmed, you’d given them enough of a scare they decided it was worth it to finally move into the city. 

You’d begged them not to, told them you didn’t want to move. In a last ditch effort you told them all about Dimitri and the others.

The thought was that if they knew you had friends, they’d actually let you stay. 

But…

But your parents thought you were making it up. 

They thought you were lying in an attempt to avoid moving, and worst of all your father had said to you; “Fantasy stories like this are exactly why we need to move, ____.  We’ve clearly been leaving you alone too often for you to start making things up like this.” 

It crushed you.

It crushed you because you knew you were telling the truth. 

Your scar was proof of that. 

Your parents were moving so fast with the move too.

When you wake the next day a lot of the things in the living room were already boxed up, and more than that…

Your mom had taken off work. 

It’s like they didn’t want to leave you alone now.

But if you were moving, really moving, you had to make your way back to your new friends and let them know.

You refused to just disappear without telling them, after all you promised you’d come back and play again. 

All day you’re stuck with your mother, it’s not until your father gets home that you’re allowed out of her sight, but even then there’s no real chance for you to get past either of them and get outside. 

So you make a plan. 

Tonight after both your parents have gone to bed you’ll sneak out of the house.

You’ve never done something like this before, but...you not only have to do it, you want to do it. 

The wait is absolutely agonizing. 

When it’s time for dinner you rush through your food, almost making yourself sick in the process, only to rush off to bed and wait as soon as you’d finished eating and gotten the permission. 

You lay in bed, pretending to be asleep, as you listen to your parents moving downstairs. 

After what feels like eternity you hear them make their way up the stairs, and you listen with baited breath as the footsteps stop outside your door.  

“Should I check on him?” It’s your mother. Her voice a hushed whisper, although you can still hear it through the thin walls, a reminder you’ll have to be extra quiet when you sneak out. 

“Nah.” Your father says, his voice soft but not bothering to try and whisper. “He seems pretty against the move, especially if he went to bed so early. Let him rest, he’ll feel better in the morning.”

She seems to listen to him, because your mother says nothing else and you hear the gentle sound of her footsteps mixed with your fathers heavier ones as they continue down the hall to their own room. 

You let out a huge sigh of relief and finally open up your clenched shut eyes. 

Slowly you sit up in your bed, you want to do everything as slow as possible to avoid making any noise. 

You slip on a pair of boots, and your jacket. 

It’s going to be dark out in the forest, and it’s going to be cold. 

And now that you’re dressed for your expedition you work on the decoy. Grabbing a large stuffed tiger you force it into your clothes, and then beneath your covers, making sure to tuck it in so the head is completely under the covers. 

If either of your parents were to peek in now, they’d assume the lump in the blankets to be you, and would only learn the truth if they tried to wake you up. 

Perfect. 

Now you just have to wait. 

You wait until you hear the clear sound of your fathers snores shaking the house before you slowly twist the knob to your bedroom door. 

It clicks as you open it up, and you freeze.

But there’s no change in the house. No sounds from your mother as your father continues to snore loudly into the night. 

Despite your best efforts a few of the stairs creak under your weight as you make your way down, but either due to your fathers snores, or how deep a sleeper your mother is, no one seems to hear it either. 

Once on the first floor you practically bolt to the door, hands fumbling to undo the locks. 

As soon as the door opens you’re hit with the chilly night air, you’re glad you decided to wear your jacket. 

You make your way into the yard, shutting the door to the house behind you as you survey the treeline. 

Finding Dimitri would be hard.

After all he’s the one who found you after you’d fallen…

But that’s a good starting place. 

If you enter the forest the same way you did when chasing after your ball, surely you’d find Dimitri eventually, right?

Except this time you’ll take extra precautions to make sure you don’t fall and hurt yourself again. 

It’s nearly impossible to see in the forest when it’s this dark, you have to make your way by touch, feeling from tree to tree.

Eventually you run out of path, clinging to the tree behind you as you test the unsteady ground with the tips of your toes. 

Yes!

This has to be the mudslide you fell down before.

Still holding onto the tree, you gently slide your way down, until you're sitting fully on the ground. Then you slowly, and carefully scoot your way to the edge.

It’s steep, the ground is still unsettled, possible to collapse away again. 

Instead of trying to walk down, you’re going to slowly ease your way down, inch by inch on your butt. 

Sure your pants would be covered in dirt and mud afterwards, but it’ll be better than taking another hard tumble down. 

This works, for the most part, a couple times you slide uncontrollably, but thanks to the sitting potion you mostly wind up a sore back and butt, meaning you’re alright aside from a few possible bruises. 

However now the real challenge starts. 

You don’t remember much at all about the way to the slime city. You’d been so amazed by Dimitri’s entire existence you’d spent most of the walk staring at, and talking to the prince. 

Honestly...You’re not even sure which direction the two of you had gone in.

All you can do is guess, and start walking so that’s what you do after dusting off your pants. 

You pick a random direction and start heading that way. 

Surely if you just walk enough you’ll find the slime city. 

Thankfully, it seems luck is on your side. 

As you wander, once again using the trees to guide your way through the darkness, you eventually start to see lights in the distance. 

That makes it much easier. You manage to follow the lights all the way back to the slime city but…

It’s late. And with the time comes another issue. 

You don’t know how to find Dimitri. 

He’s a prince though, right?

And prince’s live in castles so if you find a castle you’ll find Dimitri!

From that point it’s easy. There’s only one building castle-like, towering over all the other buildings in this town, and so-

That’s where you go. 

You’re not sure the proper way to ask for a prince, what you’re allowed and not allowed to do in this kind of situation but…

It’s important.

So you just knock. 

A simple knock.

And as you wait you start to worry that all of this was one big bad idea. 

On the brightside you’re pretty sure you can find your way back home, this time. 

To your surprise and relief it’s not some stranger who opens the door, but Dedue. That means there’ll be a lot less explaining to do. 

“____?” He asks, the confusion clear in his voice. “It’s late, his highness is already getting ready for bed-” “Please!” You interject quickly. “This is important. I have to tell him something very important.”

Dedue sighs, but you can see his expression break down. 

“Alright. But quickly. He could get in trouble if you’re caught.”

Although his words briefly pique your interest, why would Dimitri get in trouble,  you don’t have time to ask, now filled with this urgency from Dedue. 

You quickly and quietly follow after Dedue as he leads you past a main hall, up a flight of stairs, and through several more hallways until he stops you at a door. He’s the one who knocks. “Your highness?” Dedue calls out to Dimitri through the closed wooden door. 

“Dedue?” Dimitri’s voice answers almost immediately. “Come in, is something wrong?” 

He isn’t given a verbal answer, but he sees you clear as day once the door is opened. The prince looks surprised, but then quickly his expression changes to a smile. “____? What are you doing here?”

“I needed to tell you something!” You explain, your emotions getting the best of you, realizing that you’ve just made friends and you’ll likely never see them again. 

“My parents...They’re making us move.” 

“You’re moving?”

“I don’t have a choice. I just...Didn’t want you to think I left because of you.”

Dimitri nods. “I understand-” “Dimitri, you and your friends, you’re the first real friends I’ve ever had. So I wanted to properly say goodbye.” Dimitri looks sad, but...understanding. “Here...Let me give you something then.” 

You and Dedue watch Dimitri go through several drawers until he finds what it is he’s looking for. 

“...A knife?” A dagger, still in its sheath. 

Just like before he seems to grow a bit embarrassed, the blue in his cheeks turning a darker purple in color. 

“I said I would protect you...With this you can protect yourself, even if I’m not with you.” You take the dagger from him. It’s thoughtful...although you have no idea how to use it. 

“Thank you Dimitri.” You hug it close to your chest. If nothing else, it’ll be another reminder that Dimitri and the slimes are real. 

“I’ll treasure it.”

After that you somehow manage to get home on your own. Although you were alone, you weren’t scared, after all you had the dagger from Dimitri. You knew if you had that, you’d be safe. It’s still dark when you get back, and yet you’re able to sneak back into the house. 

Nothing’s changed. It’s like you never snuck out at all. As you carefully make your way up the stairs you can still hear the sound of your fathers snores, even as a stair creaks under your feet. 

Tired now, and in the homestretch, you don’t freeze, or worry about whether your parents wake up and catch you. 

You just hurry to your room, change out of your dirty clothes and back into your pajamas and then crawl into bed. 

The dagger from Dimitri is special to you and so you decide to sleep with it, sliding the dagger under your pillow where you know it’ll be hidden from your parents. 

That was your last night in the house. By the end of the next day your parents had packed and moved everything into a house in the city. 

A week later you’re enrolled in school, and you finally start interacting with other kids your own age, human kids. 

The first month in the city was the worst. Most of your time, when you weren’t in school, was spent trying to beg your parents to go back. 

However there was no amount of crying or bargaining in the world capable of changing their minds, not when they thought your safety was at risk. 

Time was going to move. With or without you. 

And eventually you just gave up on begging. 

As time moved on, as you got settled into your new home, new school, and made new friends. 

But you still hadn’t forgotten Dimitri, and the other slime children. 

Not when you still held close the dagger Dimitri had given you. 

You remembered it, remember being given it by a boy made of blue. 

Once you tried asking your mother about it. About the boy you remember, the boy made of blue slime who’d given you a dagger.

She had simply laughed off the story.

But her explanation as to what happened, what you remember, it made a little sense. 

“You’ve had lots of dreams about the old house since we’ve moved,” She’s right. It felt like almost every time you fell asleep you dreamt of your old home. “It’s not odd you dreamt of the forest there too...and going on some grand adventure.” She’d finished her explanation with another laugh, and a smile. “Oh to be young again.”

Eventually...You believed her.

There was no such thing as slime people after all, it all had to have been a dream. 

Dream or not, the dagger at least, the dagger was real. 

And as the years passed, you slowly did end up forgetting everything about the slime Prince, and about the forest behind your childhood home. 

But...You never forgot the dagger. Never gave up the dagger. 

It’s your most prized possession, even if you couldn’t remember who gave it to you, or how you came to own it in the first place. 

That’s why you bring it with you wherever you go. 

At fifteen you’re finally considered an old enough to be left alone, without the constant watchful eyes of your overbearing parents, and so, you did what any fifteen year old boy experiencing freedom for the first time would do. 

You decided immediately to go on an adventure to explore the forest surrounding the city.

It’s the weekend and thankfully your parents still have to work, so you won’t have to worry about them catching on. 

You still lie though, telling them you’ll be spending the day at one of your friend’s houses, and once your parents finally leave you pack some essentials. 

The forest is dangerous, you know that, there’s always a chance you could run into a feral dog, wolves, or something like a bear, however with your dagger by your side you feel invincible. 

You stuff your backpack with water, lunch, and basic hiking supplies before making your way out the town's gates. 

Most of your walk is actually nice and peaceful, it’s not at all the adventure you were expecting, but you still find yourself enjoying it. 

The sunlight filters in through the trees creating beautiful patterns on the forest floor, and the occasional touch of sunlight to your skin has you feeling warm all over. 

At one point during your forest walk you even see a deer, although it had quickly run away once it had noticed you. 

When you start to get tired you decide that it’s lunch time, you’ll stop when you find some sort of clearing to relax in. 

And carrying on you do find a clearing, kind of. 

It’s not so much a clearing than it is a yard, a yard belonging to a familiar home in the middle of the forest. 

Your childhood home. 

It’s a little odd, you hadn’t realized you’d been walking that long, nor had you been trying to find this place.

The memory of how to get you had long since left your mind, and the pathway your parents had made back then had been completely taken over once more by nature itself. 

Still having found it…

It’s a nice coincidence. 

You decide that your lunch can wait, you want to explore!

The house is worse for wear now after five years of disuse.

Although you’re not surprised it’s been abandoned, after all who would want to live in the middle of the woods far away from anyone else, it still makes you a little sad to see. 

This was a place you held fondly in your memories and heart, it was the place you spent most of your childhood, and now it was decrepit and abandoned. 

You stay on the outside for now, circling and seeing the damage time has tolled on the old building. 

Vines have overtaken the brick walls, growing and lining until they meet at the house's roof, whatever color it had once been replaced now with only foliage. 

A ball, long since deflated sits on the ground, almost causing you to trip. 

It’s yours. 

You recognize it, if even slightly. 

Your parents must have left it in their rush to move. 

What once was a shiny new red is now dusty and pink, bleached from the years of sun. 

It feels rough, scratchy in your hands, and for a moment, as you hold the husk of a toy in your hands you remember playing with it, playing kickball, with a group of friends. 

It’s only a vague memory though. 

One you can’t place. 

After all, you hadn’t had any friends since until you moved to the city. 

The ball goes back where you found it, although you make a mental note that it’s there so you hopefully won't trip over it. 

Despite the fact it was important to you, and you remember so many hours playing with that ball by yourself, there’s no reason to keep an old deflated ball. It’s odd seeing an abandoned house in such good shape. No one’s even vandalized it for the sake of it. 

The windows are intact, although it’s utterly impossible to gaze through to the inside due to the years of dust lining the glass. 

This does little to deter you though, if anything it only makes you want to see the inside even more. 

It’s not like you’re expecting to find anything. 

You still remember your last day in the house, how empty everything had been once the boxes were moved out. 

There was nothing left.

Nothing that made it a home, anyway. 

The front door looks somehow less decrepit then the rest of the old building, aside from a few cracks and splinters in the wood. 

To your immediate surprise you find the door easy to move, opening with relative ease.

You had really expected to struggle with the door until the point you had no choice to force it open with all your strength. 

But that wasn’t the case at all. 

It didn’t seem at all as if the door, aside from some weathering, had been damaged by the elements at all. No swelling of the wood, or intrusive ivy filling the lock. 

Dust. That’s the first thing you see, and yet, there’s not enough of it. 

Not enough dust for all the years this place has laid abandoned.  

In fact, it almost looks as if someone has taken the time to begin slowly cleaning this place up, they just haven't gotten around to the dust encrusted windows yet. 

A chill goes down your spine. 

Maybe this place is much less abandoned than you had previously thought. 

You grab for your dagger.

The smart thing would be to leave, if someone really is here that means you’re possibly putting yourself in harms way…

But at the same time, this is your house, or at least it was. 

You don’t want a stranger defiling it, destroying it, and all the memories that come with it. 

“Hello?” 

It’s probably not the safest option, you realize as soon as your voice echoes in the empty home. If someone is here, all you’re doing is letting them know that you’re here. 

“Is someone here?” 

Footsteps above you. Slow and steady. 

You can hear them. 

The handle of your dagger grows damp with the sweat from your nervous palms. 

“Y-You shouldn’t be here.” 

Not that you can talk, really, realistically you’re just as much as a trespasser as this person. 

They don’t respond. The footsteps just continue and you feel yourself grow less brave by the second. 

And then you see it-

Well him. 

A boy, a man?

He looks to be the same age as you, with blonde hair, and bright blue eyes but something about him isn’t right. 

Something about him is uncanny valley. 

And then you realize what it is. 

It’s faint, incredibly faint, but you can see the wall behind him. 

“Gh-Gho-”

The scream of ghost doesn’t leave your lips before you turn, scrambling towards the door. 

“Wait please!”

A familiar voice calls out for you to wait, but you don’t, not even hesitating as in your scramble for the door your dagger falls from your hand and onto the old wooden floor below. 

You run, and run, and run. 

It doesn’t matter that you were tired before you began investigating the house, adrenaline allows you to keep going, to keep running, until you’re back within the safety of the city gates. 

It’s only then, only once you know you’re safe do you finally stop, collapsing with your hands on your knees as you try to breathe, lungs and legs burning from the overexertion. 

All you can think in that moment is your parents were right. 

They were right to move. 

The woods are dangerous. 

You went straight home only to lock yourself in your room, finally eating your lunch as you stress and replay what you saw over and over in your head. 

That boy, or ghost, or monster…whatever it was, why did it look so familiar to you? 

And why had it been in your old house? 

No matter how hard you think on it you aren’t able to find an answer, at least not one that makes sense to you. 

He had told you to wait. 

He hadn’t wanted you to leave. 

Why?

And your dagger…

Your most prized possession…

You’d dropped it. 

It was gone now, and if you wanted it back you’d have to go back and possibly face whatever it was you’d seen there today. 

You aren’t sure if it’s worth it. 

And if it is, well, it’ll have to wait. 

You’re not going back today. Not now. When it’s already late, and you’re already so exhausted. 

So exhausted that a nap sounds great, actually, and you allow yourself to lean back against your bed and shut your eyes. 

Sleep takes you easier than you thought it would. 

Tap. 

A consistent tapping noise makes you stir from your slumber, but you don’t want to get up, not yet. Your bed is warm and comfortable, and you’re still tired. 

You simply roll over instead. 

Tap. 

Tap. 

Tap. 

A frustrated groan leaves your throat. You cover your head with your pillow, and hope it’ll make the sound go away. 

It doesn’t. 

In fact, the tapping only seems to get louder the more you try to ignore it until…

Instead of tapping you hear the sound of glass splintering. 

That’s what does it. 

You toss the pillow from your head, and finally sit up in bed. 

It’s dark out. 

You must have slept the rest of the day away after coming home. 

As your eyes slowly adjust to the darkness, you realize what exactly had made the splintering sound. 

The window. 

There hadn’t been a crack in it before, not that you remember at least, and now there is, although small in size. 

“...” 

Gulping down your fear you get out of bed, inching your way to the window, and peeking out to see what has managed to crack your window. 

And when you see it, see him, you freeze. 

It’s the same boy, or ghost, or whatever that you’d seen in your old house he’s standing in your yard, on the ground below your second story window. 

A chill runs down your spine. 

He’d been trying to get your attention, throwing rocks at your window like this was some sort of fairytale. 

He noticed you peeking, you can tell, if only because of the relieved, almost nervous smile that makes up his expression. 

“It really is you,” The other boy starts and he sounds just as nervous as he looks. 

“I thought it was. You’ve changed but you look the same in a lot of ways, but I still wasn’t sure, and then you dropped this,”

A dagger.

Your dagger. 

The dagger you’ve kept on your person almost everyday since you were ten years old. 

“I never thought I’d see you again ____.” 

It hits you then, when he says your name, exactly who this is. 

Dimitri. 

The boy you’d see in your dreams about the forest, the same boy your mother had told you only existed in your imagination. 

He was bigger now, grown up a bit  just like you. 

“Dimitri?” While your own eyes widen in shock and disbelief, surely you’re still dreaming, Dimitri’s expression changes into that of a big smile. 

“You remember-”

You nod quickly, managing to force a “stay there,” from your lips as you rush.

In a haste you don’t bother to grab a coat to protect you from the cold night air, nor do you bother putting on shoes to avoid the wet grass, you simply rush as you are as quickly and silently as possible down the stairs and out your front door. 

Part of you is almost surprised to see Dimiti still standing there, as if you’d been afraid he was simply some sort of hallucination you were having. 

Maybe that’s why the first thing out of your mouth when you meet him face to face is;

“You’re real.”

It makes him laugh, the sound filling your body with warmth despite the chilly night air. 

“Of course I’m real.”

“I thought...I just meant…”

You stumble over your words. 

“It’s been a long time,” You start explaining. “Eventually I thought that I...That I made it all up. That I made you up...and I guess then I forgot.” 

For a moment you worry the admission will make him mad, that he’ll talk about how bad a friend you are for forgetting, but he doesn’t. 

He stays smiling gently at you, just glad to see you after all these years. 

“You didn’t forget ____,” His voice is soft, you can hear the fondness in it. 

“After all you kept the dagger all this time, didn’t you?” A bit of embarrassed heat rushes to your cheeks because he’s right, you did.

Not only had you kept the dagger, but you revered it as one of, if not your most, prized possession in the whole world. 

“Yeah...I did.”

“See,” Dimitri continues with a smile, “You never forgot. Not truly.”

With that said he hands you back your dagger, the dagger he originally gave you, and just like before the handle is still warm from his touch. 

“I wanted to return it to you.”

That just reminds you-

“Dimitri...Why were you at my old house to begin with?”

“Oh.” 

It’s the Princes turn to blush. 

Unlike when he was a child, he doesn’t turn purple, instead the pale shade of his cheeks turns red. 

“I visit there sometimes,” He admits softly. 

“Occasionally cleaning it up....Just in case.”

“Incase?”

“Incase you came back.”

Oh. 

“Dimitri-”

“___?”  A voice comes from inside your house, you instantly recognize it as belonging to your mother. She must have heard you talking.

“Tomorrow,” You tell Dimitri quickly. “I’ll meet you there, in the forest, tomorrow.”

Although you aren’t sure how your mother would react if she saw the Slime Prince, you don’t want to risk anything. 

Dimitri looks surprised and thrilled, although you only see his expression for a moment before you’ve turned to go back inside quickly closing the door behind you so there’s no chance of her seeing Dimitri. 

“Sorry!” You call out to your mother. 

She’s tired and annoyed. 

“That stray dog was outside again,” It’s a lie, but a believable one, at least. “It was scratching at the door so I tried to shoo it away.”

“...Fine...Just go back to bed.”

So you do. 

It’s hard to fall back asleep though, your heart seems to be pounding in your chest. 

You’re excited, excited and afraid that if you fall asleep you’ll simply wake up tomorrow and this will all have been a dream. 

When you do finally wake up you waste no time, you rush out the door and to the woods. 

The path is still gone due to time, but you remember how you’d stumbled upon the house the day before, and so it’s easy to find it with the retracing of your steps. 

Dimitri’s waiting.

Both of you seem relieved, surprised, to see the other. 

In your case you were still worried that this had all been a dream, that you’d come and Dimitri would never show.

And Dimitri…

Well you can’t know for sure why he was surprised, but maybe he simply thought you wouldn’t show up at all, after all you’d gotten your dagger back. 

“You’re here-” “You really came-”

Both of you speak at the same time, a flush taking both your features in embarrassment. 

A moment passes, both of you getting over being flustered, before either of you tries speaking again. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t think-” “I just thought that maybe-”

It happens again. 

The two of you continue hesitating in fear of speaking over one another. 

An awkward silence takes the two of you, and you refuse to speak, waiting for Dimitri to finally sheepishly speak up on his own.  

“I’m glad you came.” This time he’s able to speak without you speaking over him. “I was worried that...Well I thought that maybe you wouldn’t come back. I thought that maybe…”

Dimitri trails off, and this time you interrupt him on purpose. 

“Of course I came.” 

If only to prove this was all real, that it hadn’t been a dream.

You had to come. 

“I’m glad you came, I’m glad you’re here.”

Hearing that makes Dimitri smile, and that makes you smile too. 

The rest of your day is spent with Dimitri. He led you through the forest in the trees, pointing out natural plants and herbs and their varying different uses; “Sometimes you can find edible plants among the weeds!”

By the time the sun is going down you’re exhausted but….you’d had the most fun you’ve had in a very long time. 

“Can we do this again?” 

It’s Dimitri who asked, and you can’t answer fast enough. 

“Yes! Please!”

But you’re both busy most of the time. 

You have school, and Dimitri has his princely duties on top of studies and training. 

The weekend.

The weekend will belong to the two of you. 

Next weekend when you meet up with Dimitri he takes you to the city, the same you’d visited when you were a child, and once again you’d been introduced to Dimitri’s other friends. 

They’d aged, just like Dimitri, and just like Dimitri their colors were different too. 

And naturally you were curious about it. 

When you had a chance, when it was just you and Dimitri, and you didn’t have to worry about someone like Felix judging you for the question, you ask.

“Everyone looks different than what I remember,” You start. “Like...There colors...are different.” Realizing that you might be saying something offensive you hesitate to continue. 

Thankfully Dimitri doesn’t seem bothered by what you said at all, just nods seemingly understanding. “When we’re born we’re all one color,” He begins to explaining, lifting one of his hands to the sun so you can see the way the light slightly trickles through the now skin color slime before he turns it back to the same blue shade you remember him being from his childhood, the same blue as his eyes. 

“But the older we get, the more we’re able to control our pigments.”

“Like camouflage?” You ask, reaching out to hold his hand, seeing your own through the blue. 

“Yes! Exactly like that. It’s a natural camouflage.”

“That’s...so….cool!” 

Dimitri’s pigments seem to drop entirely, his slime turning completely blue, except for his face which seemed to be turning purple. 

“Ye-Yes! It is!” He pulls his hand free of your own. “But as you can see I’m still getting the hang of it.”

For years things continue like that with the two of you. 

During the week you’d go to school, spend time with your family, but then on the weekend you’d return to the woods, to Dimitri, and to your other friends.

You’d even started repairing your old house with help from everyone turning it from its once abandoned state to a clean, livable home. 

And when the time came, when you were eighteen, an adult, you moved into that house in the woods. 

For a while things were good. 

You were happy. 

And your friends seemed happy too. 

But it couldn’t last forever. 

Something was wrong, you began to realize, something was wrong, and the slimes were hiding it from you. 

It go to the point where you could no longer ignore it. 

It had been nearly two weeks since you’d last seen Dimitri, and so you took matters into your own hands, traveling to the forest city to find him yourself. 

And you found him. 

Easily enough. 

He looked shocked to see you, worried to see you, even. 

“____? What are you doing here?”

“We need to talk.”

War.

That’s what they’d been hiding, a war was coming. 

They didn’t want you involved. 

They were going to have to leave. 

You were going to be left alone. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I-” 

Although you’re angry, angry that he was just going to leave without telling you, it doesn’t change how you feel about Dimitri, and so you interrupt his apologies with a kiss. 

Your first kiss. 

It feels weird, your flesh against his own slime, but it’s a nice weird. 

The kiss is soft and chaste, your face and lips are warm, and you can feel the warmth of Dimitri’s face against your own.

He kisses back, pressing his lips harder against your own, as if desperate.

Your heart skips a beat. 

“Don’t...Don’t apologize.” You say as soon as you pull away, lips still inches away from his own. “Just come back safe.” 

When you finally pull away enough to see his face, it’s red, he’s finally managed to control his pigments, and so he has a real blush, not purple tint. 

“I promise.” He takes your hand in his squeezing it firmly, but still gently. 

“I promise you I’ll come back safe, no matter what.”

You help them prepare the best you can, the best you’re able, and although you’re scared, you keep a strong face. 

It’s not your place to be afraid, after all, and if nothing else you want to be a support you friends can rely on. 

It’s Sylvain who seems to see through you though, as the pair of you pack supplies. 

“Don’t worry,” He starts smiling at you. 

The slime seems as laid back as ever, but you have to wonder if even that is just a front. 

“We’re not going to let anything happen to Dimitri.” 

And as comforting as that is, you still have to stop him there, “Sylvain, it’s not just Dimitri I’m worried about.” 

Clearly you’ve surprised him, his cocky expression dropping for just a moment before quickly coming back. 

“Huh?”

“You’re all important to me, Sylvain.”

You pull him into a hug, although it’s clear from his stiffening he wasn’t expecting that either. 

“I want you all to come home safe.”

“R-Right.” 

When you pull back you can only smile at Sylvain’s sheepish face. 

You can’t help but worry this is the last time you may ever see him. 

Dimitri comes to you, the day before they’re set to march, and he stays with you in your little forest home. 

And although the two of you have a good time...the same creeping feeling you’d gotten while packing with Sylvain comes, eating away at your heart, until it’s impossible for Dimitri not to notice something is wrong. 

“____?”

He reaches across the table, gently grabbing your hand, and pulling your attention from where you’d zoned out to his worried smiling face. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I just…”

You struggle to find the words, your throat feels tight, and tears feel like they’ll spring to your eyes at any moment. 

“You can tell me,” Dimitri says, his voice is soft, and hesitant. He’s scared of upsetting you further, and somehow that only upsets you more. 

After all...He’s about to go put his life on the line, fighting something, someone you don’t understand, and all you can do about it is cry. 

“I wanted to have one good day with you,” The tears begin to cloud your vision, and you can’t stop them from falling now. “And now I’m ruining it because I can’t help but think...can’t help but think it’ll be the last.”

Dimitri seems to freeze a little, before squeezing your hand tighter. 

It’s odd, his slime envelops your hand, and although it’s an odd sensation, it’s not bad. It almost tickles. 

It does so enough to distract you as you sniffle, trying and failing to keep anymore tears from falling. 

“____, I love you.” 

Now it’s your turn to freeze. 

The emotions, the feelings between the two of you had been clear since that first panicked kiss, but neither of you had verbalized it. Either out of fear of rejection, or the reality of what was to come. 

“Dimitri I...I love you too.”

A kiss. 

Your second ever, this time initiated by Dimitr, leaning over the table to press his lips against your own. 

A hand reaches to your face, wiping the tears from your cheeks as he kisses you.

When the kiss ends you’re just staring at him, smiling sadly. 

“I love you.” You repeat again, quieter this time, voice above a whisper. 

Dimitri hesitates for a moment, and you’re stuck to simply watch him curiously, a soft smile taking your face as he gets up, coming around the table to your side where he cups your face. 

He rests his forehead on your own. 

“I will always come back to you.”

His lips capture your own again, and you wrap your arms around his neck, trying to pull him as close as you can. 

You almost don’t notice when he lifts you from your chair, surprised by his strength, but you let your legs wrap around his waist as well, in fear of falling. 

“Dimitri?” 

Parting for air you lick your lips, tasting him on them. 

He doesn’t respond, instead capturing your lips in a kiss once again, as he begins carrying you to your bedroom, the question answered. 

All you can do is blush when Dimitri places you softly onto your bed. 

You want this. You’ve wanted this. 

It would be a lie to say you haven’t thought about, and speculated what it would be with Dimitri like this, considering he’s not human. 

“Is this…”

He seems to realize now the big step he took on instinct, and is now making sure you’re okay with it. 

Dimitri is sweet.

As always wanting to make sure he doesn’t push you past your boundaries. 

“Is this okay?”

All you can do is nod. 

You want this. 

You want him. 

When you start to remove your shirt on your own he stops you. 

“Let me.”

He kisses you softly, although it lasts only a second before his lips move to their next spot, your cheek, and then your jaw, and then your neck.

Only when your shirt keeps him from kissing any lower does he finally begin to unbutton it, even going as far as to take your shirt and fold it afterwards setting it to the side. 

It’s cute how careful he’s being, although you don’t have much time to think about how cute Dimitri’s being before his mouth is on you again, this time kissing down your chest. 

Dimitri’s lips wrap around your nipple and begin to suck. 

The sensation is completely foreign to you, but it’s not bad. 

You arch into the wet sticky sensation of Dimitri’s mouth, gasping out when his tongue joins the fray, flicking your sensitive nub. 

An embarrassing mewl of pleasure leaves your mouth, and you find yourself once against wrapping your legs around Dimitri, attempting to pull him closer to you. It doesn’t help you escape the sensations though, because now your swiftly growing bulge is pressed directly against him, and you aren’t able to keep yourself from grinding it against him. 

He releases your nipple with a soft pop, although he flicks your nipple with his tongue one last time. 

“Do you trust me?”

Dimitri asks looking up at you, his head still resting on your chest. 

And of course you nod, licking your lips before you answer. 

“Always.”

The confirmation is all he needs to begin wrapping around your body with his own. 

It’s weird, an odd sensation, his bottom half joining together into one gooey mass which then sucks in your legs and hips. 

If it wasn’t Dimitri, you might have been afraid. 

Especially as you feel his goo start to slip into your pants, messaging the flesh of your calves as it steadily creeps upwards.

You’re covered entirely from the waist down, and it feels…

It feels amazing, like you’re being given a full body massage. 

“Dimitri-”

His name leaves your lips, and you’re surprised at how lust filled your voice is. 

Warm goo wraps itself around your cock, and as you moan out you find your mouth filled with it too. 

The slime in your mouth is somewhat harder than the similar sticky substance rubbing against you, and as your face flushes you realize it must be Dimitri’s cock. 

Relaxing as best you can, after all you’ve never done this before, you wrap your tongue around the somewhat solid appendage, trying your best to copy the movements you feel on your on cock. 

It doesn’t taste like you thought it would. 

It tastes like Dimitri’s lips, although a bit saltier. 

You buck your hips up and gag when Dimitri seems to do the same, his slimy cock going further into your throat. 

Something’s leaking from it, into your throat, and you realize then it must be his precum. 

“Mmm.” 

Warm squeezes on your cock force a moan from your throat, around the slimy cock settled there. 

You’re close, bucking into the warmth of Dimitri’s slimy body, but surprisingly it’s not you who cums first. 

It surprises you, causing you to cough and sputter around the slick liquid running down your throat, but thankfully the slime seems to retract at the same time, Dimitri wanting to avoid choking you if possible. 

“Sorry.”

With a blink he’s back in one form, no longer a big mass of slime, his hands now on your cock, stroking you feverishly to bring you to your own release. 

He kisses you, tongue mingling with yours passionately, tasting his own cum on your lips, and giving a soft noise of pleasure himself. 

“Dimitri!”

The moan of his name is smothered by his lips, but Dimitri still gets the jist. 

With one last squeeze to your cock by your lover you cum. 

The white sticky substance shoots onto both Dimitri’s hands and your chest as well, making a mess of you both. 

You lay prone for a moment, trying to catch your breath as you recover from such an intense, world shattering first orgasm. 

Dimitri doesn’t seem to need to wait though, his lips once again kissing at your neck, and trailing down your chest. 

All you can do is watch, panting softly, as a long blue tongue parts his lips and begins to trail further down. 

“Dima-”

It feels good, and it’s too much. 

He isn’t trying to overwhelm you though, he leaves your cock alone for the most part, the appendage licking between the dips in your ribcage, lower down to lap at the cum staining your skin before it can dry. 

The sight alone is lewd, it makes your spent cock twitch, and so you moan and shut your eyes as he continues cleaning you up. 

That same long slick tongue wraps itself around your cock, and all you can do is squirm with the over stimulation. 

Even if he’s not trying to make you aroused, just licking up your cum, cleaning you, it doesn’t stop your cock from starting to get hard though. 

He keeps at it, his tongue wrapping around and squeezing your cock with no real pattern. 

His tongue only leaves your cock when you’re fully hard, but he doesn’t stop touching you, not yet. 

Instead his tongue trails further down, the cooling slime on your cock already overloading you with sensation, but then he wraps it around your balls and you almost cum on the spot. 

“Dima-”

You clench up hard trying not to cum, although you don’t know if you really could with the vice grip of his abnormally long tongue wrapped around you. 

When he licks the underside your toes curl. 

“I’m...I’m gunna-”

He doesn’t let you cum, to your disappointment, not yet. 

Your chest heaves as he stops, slowly pulling away tongue trailing up the way it came until it’s back in his mouth. 

And then his hands reach down in its place, one wrapping around your cock, and the other going to fondly your now slimy balls. 

You cum almost instantly, Dimitri kisses you, moans silenced by his mouth. 

And after, he pulls you to him, his arms wrapping around you. 

It’s a sweet embrace. 

You feel safe, and at the same time there’s sadness in it. 

Recognizing that tomorrow he’ll be gone, and you have no idea how long it’ll be until you get to do this again, if you ever do. 

“Dimitri,”

He shushes you gently, hands moving to pet your hair softly, pulling your head to rest against his soft yet firm chest. 

It all feels so nice, so comforting despite your worry, you find your eyes starting to fall, sleep filling your body. 

“I love you, Dimitri.”

Sleepy words leave your lips as your hand tries to tighten in his chest, it’s a vein attempt to hold him, that if you just hold on enough he won’t leave. 

“I love you too.”

The last thing you feel before falling asleep is the gentle kiss of lips against your forehead. 

When you finally wake you find yourself alone. 

Dimitri isn’t in your bed, and when you search your home in hope he didn’t leave without being goodbye you find nothing. 

Nothing but a letter addressed to you. 

‘My dearest ____,

I’m sorry that I left without saying goodbye. It’s shameful of me, and if I thought there was any other way, I would have done that instead. I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing you cry over my absence, and I am a weak man, I know that if you were to ask me to stay with you, that I would be tempted and I have to leave. I have to do this. Both as a man fighting for what he believes in and his family, and as a Prince fighting for his people. 

I’ll return to you. I promise you. Please try to understand.

Yours Forever, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd.’ 

Part of you wants to throw the letter away in your anguish, but you don’t, you couldn’t. 

Not only is Dimitri right, you would have cried, you would have wanted him to stay, but the letter is also a testament to his love, and to his promise to return.

But knowing that, it doesn’t make it easier. 

It doesn't make the tears stop as you stand in your home, all alone, clutching the letter to your chest and crying. 

Nothing matters but Dimitri. 

Nothing matters but him coming home safe. 

And in the meantime you must carry on as normal, because that’s what Dimitri would want. 

So that’s what you do. 

You try to carry on as normal, but it’s hard. 

It’s hard without Dimitri and without your friends. 

At first you visit the slime city often, hoping for news of Dimitri and the others, but there never is.

And as you visit more on your own, the more you realize that by yourself, you’re nothing more than a human outcast. 

Eventually you stop going all together, knowing that...if something of note happened word would be sent to you, surely. 

And that’s what kept you from returning to the human city either, to your human family and friends. 

A fear that one day news would come from Dimitri, be it good or bad, and you wouldn’t be there to hear it. 

So you remain in your home. Even as the seasons begin to change. 

On the one year anniversary of his leaving for war, you get the courage to return to his city...only to find that it’s different now. 

A new ruler, a woman, Cornelia. 

She’s giving a speech and what she says…

It makes your blood run cold. 

“Our Dear Prince, Dimitri...It’s with a heavy heart that I bring the news to the people,” 

You don’t stay to listen. 

You already know what she’s going to say. 

That he’s dead. 

Dimitri is dead. 

He said he was going to come back to you. 

He’d promised. 

He’d lied. 

And it hurts. 

It hurts so bad you’re not even able to make it all the way home before you break down, your eyes clouded with tears, unable to see. 

You have to grab a nearby tree to brace yourself as the first sob leaves your mouth. 

What are you supposed to do now? 

Without him? 

Your chest hurts. 

If you didn’t know better you’d think you were dying, that your heart had broken, and now you were dying of the pain. 

It’s not his fault. You know it’s not but it doesn’t stop your feelings. 

Grief.

Anger.

Resentment. 

The letter he’d left you the day he’d gone to war, you still have it, you still carry it, just as you had the dagger before it. 

You pull it from your pocket, yelling and screaming at it as if it will help.

As if Dimitri will hear it. 

As if it will bring him back. 

But it doesn’t help.

Nothing helps. 

And eventually you know you have to move on. 

You have to go home. 

So you do, even as your face is red and wet from tears, you force yourself to continue, just as you had when he’d left you. 

The first few days after the news were the hardest, you struggled to get out of bed, or to even feed yourself. 

You simply laid there reading the words he had written to you over and over. 

‘My Dearest ____,’

‘I’m sorry that I left without saying goodbye.’

‘I’ll return to you.’

‘Yours Forever, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd.’ 

You read the same lines over and over until the page became stained with your tears, and you began to know the letters' contents by heart. 

It changed something in you, reading the note so often, and you came to a decision. 

Dimitri wouldn’t have gotten himself killed. 

Not when he’d promised so dutifully to return to you. 

No....

Something had to be wrong about Cornelia’s story, and now you cursed yourself for not staying to hear her whole tale. 

Maybe it’s just the grief. 

You recognize that it might be.

But if he’s out there somewhere...You have to know. 

You aren’t a soldier. 

You’ve never been trained in the art of combat, but it’s dangerous out there, where Dimitri is, the war he’s fighting. 

Not a soldier, nor are you a fool. 

Dimitri had, throughout your time living there, throughout your time together, left things in your home, and so you picked up his training lance. 

You’d learn. 

You’d fight. 

You’d bring Dimitri home no matter the cost. 

“Dimitri, please just wait for me.”

All you can do is pray that Dimitri, wherever he is, whatever state he’s in, can hold on until you’re ready. 

It takes a month. 

A month of nonstop training, of nonstop working, till you finally think you’re ready. 

And with determination you set out to find the man you love. 

Fairly quickly you learn that combat training can never compare to the real thing, and yet you manage to prevail, manage to survive, even if some scrapes are close. 

Perhaps it’s your pure determination, or the true love in your heart, that keeps you victorious. 

It doesn’t matter.

You never stop to think about why you win against these foreign slime soldiers, your only thoughts are towards continuing on, towards finding Dimitri.

Currently you’re stalking through an abandoned city. 

It seems the soldiers you’d fought with on the outskirts had already been here, the city itself burned and scorched, most buildings no longer standing. 

Your dagger, the one Dimitri had given you when you were still only children, sits in your anxious hand, ready to attack anything that may make itself known. 

And something does make itself known, grabbing you from behind, surprising you entirely. 

Violently you thrash, and you at least recognize you were able to get a slash on the enemy, as they give a hiss of pain. 

“Hey, hey, hey, hey!” It’s a panicked, but quiet whisper. 

And to your surprise you recognize the voice. You stop struggling, going limp, and allowing your eyes to gaze up into the face of your attacker. 

Sylvain. “There.” He relaxes, and releases you. “You were about to walk into an ambush.” 

His voice is still hushed, clearly trying to avoid whoever or whatever laid just beyond.

“Sylvain what are you-”

“I’ll explain later come on!”  

And with that you allow him to pull you along, outside of this poor ransacked town, and into the woods to a makeshift camp. 

“____? Is that you?”

“You actually found him, Sylvain!” 

Mercedes, Annette, Felix, and of course Sylvain himself. 

You’ve never been more relieved in your life, and you can’t stop the happy tears from entering your eyes. 

“Oh you poor thing…” Mercedes pulls you into an embrace, and you can’t stop yourself from hugging the woman back tightly, tears staining the shoulder of her clothes. 

“We’d heard rumors about a lone human fighting in the war, and we all thought...that has to be ____!” Annette explains cheerfully. “And we were right! We’re so glad you’re okay!” 

All you can do is nod, tears still shamefully streaming down your face, even as Mercedes pulls away and begins wiping them away with a handkerchief.  

“Where’s…” You take a deep breath, settle your shaking voice. “The others? An-And Dimitri?” 

Annette and Felix share a look. 

A look that makes you fear the worse. 

“The Boar’s gone and gotten himself captured, that lap dog of his too.” 

“But he’s alive!” Annette interrupts, smacking Felix on the back of the head, likely for keeping out that very important detail. 

“The others are keeping an eye on him from a distance, waiting on us, and we were waiting on you.” 

This is all such good news. 

Overwhelmingly good news.

The first truly good news you’ve heard in a while. 

“Then what are we waiting for,” You say through sniffles. “Lets go.” 

“No sir!” Mercedes interrupts, forcing you down onto a log by their makeshift fire. 

“You’re injured. You’re not going anywhere like this.” 

As much as you want to fight her, you can’t.

It feels like the adrenaline that’s been carrying you for days is finally crashing, and all the aches and pains, the injuries, are catching up to you. 

Mercedes is right. 

You need to rest.

If you keep going like this you’ll be no help to anyone, least of all Dimitri.

If you keep going like this you’ll get yourself killed. 

So you listen.

You rest, you let Mercedes heal you, and you listen as Felix tells you all the things about the war Dimitri had kept from you. 

He tells you everything. 

Everything about the conflict between the different slime people, about the death of Dimitri’s father and stepmother, and about his step sister Edelgard, the one they’re fighting against. 

You don’t understand it, although you wish there was some way for everyone to get along, you simply don’t understand it. 

As a human, you doubt you ever will, so you don’t try to. 

You’re not fighting for right or wrong, you’re fighting to protect your friends and the man you love. 

“He’s being held in Enbarr, so that’s where we’re headed now….Just don’t get in our way ____.” 

It’s almost too easy to make your way outside of Enbarr, to where Ashe and Ingrid are waiting to greet you all. 

Once again you’re relieved to see your friends as safe and sound as they can be given the circumstances. 

“We’re ready whenever you are.” Ingrid informs, giving a firm nod, “We know where the Prince is being held and-”

An explosion goes off within the city, and it’s clear from the mixed surprise and worry on everyone’s faces that this was not part of the plan. 

Despite the rising anxiety in your gut, you all seem to understand there’s no time for plans, only action, as you rush the gate, now no longer guarded, and enter yourselves. 

There’s a crowd of panicked guards and slime people, and you’re all able to slip in yourself, heading towards the sound of the commotion. 

When you finally find the source you don’t know how to feel. 

Afraid. 

Relieved. 

Dimitri and Dedue, both injured heavily but....

They’re alive. 

Dimitri seems to be missing part of the slime that makes up the left side of his face, but...He’s alive. 

There’s a woman in front of him, her too a slime, near defeated. 

She’s either unwilling, or unable to control her pigments, instead of appearing almost human like, she is all white. 

“El…” 

Dimitri’s the one who interrupts the tense silence between them, offering his hand to her. 

The woman smiles, you think for a moment she’s going to accept, that this whole horrible ordeal will be over, but then you see it. 

She’s reaching for another weapon. 

“No!” 

You cry out but Dimitri doesn’t need you to. 

He saw.

You know he did from the way he finishes the job, his lance slicing into the woman. 

Before now, you’d never actually seen a slime die, moving on in battle as soon as you’d cut them down.

But now you’re forced to watch as the woman wastes away into a puddle of nothingness. 

You feel sick, but it was him or her. 

In a moment your vision blurs and all you see is the ground rushing at you before nothingness. 

Warm.

You feel warm.

Instinctively you move closer towards that warmth, even as you recognize it to be the mostly solid body of someone else.

And then they chuckle, you hear and feel it, the way it echoes and rumbles your body. 

It’s a laugh you’d recognize anywhere, and you force your eyes open. 

“Dimitri-”

The light hurts. It’s too much, but it doesn’t stop you. 

“Goodmorning.” He says softly as he pet your hair. 

For a moment it feels like nothings changed, that everythings the same, that he never left for war, and you never learned to fight. 

“We’re almost home.” 

But things have changed. 

They’ll never be the same but you have each other. 

As your eyes adjust to the light, you realize his face is partially covered by bandages, you reach out gently, touching your hand to his slick warm skin.

“Dimitri…”

Tears spring to your eyes. 

You’ve been crying a lot lately. 

“I thought...I thought you were dead.”

He’s quiet for a moment, “I know.” His voice is still soft. 

“But I kept my promise, didn’t I?”

It makes you smile, even as the cart hits a bump making you jostle a bit. 

“Yeah...Yeah you did. Why did I…”

You don’t get to finish asking why you passed out before you’re interrupted by Mercedes, only now do you realize the others are in this cart with the two of you, and you find your face flushing in slight embarrassment. 

“I told you, you were pushing yourself too hard.” Mercedes interrupts, she’s scolding you but...She’s still got that motherly concern in her voice. 

“Seeing Dimitri-” She doesn’t wanna say it, to talk about what happened to Edelgard. 

“The stress was too much for you, and you fainted.”

“I see…” You’re embarrassed by that too, but you guess it doesn’t matter. 

These are your friends after all and everyone’s alright. 

It’s a silent ride, back to the city, but it’s not bad silence. 

Exhausted, but comfortable, grateful silence. 

Dimitri only lets go of you when the carriage finally jolts to a stop, but then he simply helps you to your feet. 

And when you all open the door it's to a crowd, a crowd led by Cornelia, the slime woman who’d given the news that Dimitri had died. 

She looks surprised, you can’t be the only who notices, the way her expression turns from surprised to angry before going completely blank. 

The crowd behind her however, they’re happy, thrilled to see their Prince, their real ruler back home and safe. 

Their cheers are almost deafening. 

“Dimitri,” Cornelia says, voice sounding as if it’s through gritted teeth, “It’s such a blessing to see you alive! I was told you were killed in battle.”

“I’m sure,” Dimitri is clearly not believing her either, to your relief, but he plays along if only for the crowd. “It’s good to be back.” 

He turns to you and to the others, “Head inside the castle,” The Prince says. “I want to make a speech, but you all need rest.” You go to argue, you open your mouth to do so, but before you can Dimitri’s cupping your face, pressing his lips to yours. 

“Rest.”

He repeats. 

This time you can only nod, before following the others inside. 

But aside from taking a seat, you don’t rest. 

Not until Dimitri’s back at your side. 

Not after everything. 

Thankfully, this time, he doesn’t keep you waiting long. 

Whatever speech he gave, it must have been brief, because you only waited a few moments, body threatening to doze off again in your chair. 

“Hey…”

The way Dimitri looks at you, it almost takes your breath away, his gaze had instantly softened when he laid eyes on you, and a soft smile took his face, despite how tired he looks. 

“Lets go to bed.” He says softly, taking your hand, and pulling you to your feet. 

The door to his room barely shuts before he’s on you, hands in your hair, lips on your own. 

“I...I missed you. I missed you so much.” 

His words come between kisses and gasps for air. 

You wrap your arms around him, and when Dimitri pins you to the door, your legs wrap around him as well. 

It’s passionate and sloppy, the pair of you just wanting to be together, to be closer to each other no matter the odds. 

He’s kissing down your neck, and as he does you whisper words of praise, and adoration. 

Trying to let Dimitri know just how much you love him. 

Just how much you missed him. 

“I love you.” 

He nips your neck. 

“Please never leave me again.” 

Dimitri goes in for a kiss, quick and chase. 

“I won’t.” He promises, lips still pressed to yours. 

“I promise.” 

A whimper leaves your throat, one of need, as Dimitri bites your lip, gently pulling it. 

You want him so bad.

You want him more now than you ever did back then, before he ever left, because now, unlike then, you know what it’s like to be with him. 

To be with who you love more than anyone else. 

“I want you,” Finally you tell him, giving a weak buck of your hips against his own. 

He pulls you to the bed, slime wrapping it around your wrists, and you let him. 

The pair of you eager lovers finally reunited. 

Once on the bed he kisses you, slowly trailing down as he had a year ago, his lips creating a trail for hands to follow and strip you of your clothing. 

When your cock hits the cool air you can’t help but buck forward, cock unintentionally puncturing Dimitri’s gel. 

It’s slick and warm inside, and all you can do is moan out without restraint. 

Dimitri chuckles, although all that does is create more pleasurable sensations for you. He’s clearly feeling something too though, it’s clear from his expression, and the flush of color in his cheeks. 

Your lover leans in close, his lips beside your ear as he asks just like before, “Do you trust me?”

All you can do is nod. 

He’s starting to envelope you, wrapping you up in his arms, until his body slowly morphs over yours. 

It’s a complete encasement, all but your head. 

Everything feels warm, and pulsing around you. 

Your lip finds itself between your teeth, biting down to hold back a moan. 

Especially when Dimitri moves. 

His arm moves, and by extension so does yours. 

Odd and a little scary, but you trust Dimitri, and so any fear is easily appeased.

Especially when Dimitri moves to grip your cock. 

“Oh fuck.”

Your eyes all but roll back into your head at the sensation. 

It already felt nice, a warm pulsing wetness wrapped tightly around your cock, but then he added the hand into the mix. 

Stroking it, stroking you, the two of you together. 

Dimitri’s moan comes from behind you, and the addition of it means all your senses are filled with him. 

It’s a strange sensation, being unable to control your own body, and yet at the same time pleasuring yourself and your partner. 

The only way you can think to describe it, as you buck against your hand, against Dimitri’s hand, is that you’re masturbating and getting a hand job at the same time. 

It’s all teasing, Dimitri never giving you enough, enough of anything to actually cum, even with all the extra stimulation. 

“C-Come on Dimitri,” You whisper out heatedly. 

“What?” He asks, despite enveloping you with his slime, his voice still sounds like it’s right behind you, you can feel the warm breath on your ear, making you shiver. 

“I want you to say it.”

And then he licks you.

That long wet tongue licking the shell of your ear. 

“Please, I,” Your face is flushed red, “I’m tired of the teasing, I want to cum,”

Dimitri squeezes his hand, causing your hand to squeeze down on your cock as well. 

It’s the last teasing touch, as Dimitri pulls away from you then, no longer holding your body in his own. 

As soon as he’s able though, he pulls you into his lap so you’re straddling it, your hard cock pressed against his own slick cock. 

“This time,” He shifts you again, this time sitting you so that he’s rubbing his cock between your thighs and against your ass, leaning into to kiss you as he does.

“I want to be the one making love to you.”

Making love...That is what you’re doing. 

You nod to him, lips pressed to his own. 

Sitting in Dimitri’s lap, kissing him so passionately, until you were forced to part for air, you aren’t sure how long it lasted, just that it felt like both forever and as if you hadn’t had enough. 

When Dimitri parts the two of you, once again moving your positions, pressing your back to the soft plush of his bed, you’re glad.

If it were you, you wouldn’t have had the willpower to pull away, instead choosing to sit there, kissing Dimitri forever. 

A soft moan leaves your lips as Dimitri pulls your hips to his, you can feel the way his wet cock rubs against your cock, your thighs, and eventually against the crack of your ass leaving a trail of cooling slime wherever it touches. 

It feels good, but still you’re ever impatient, legs wrapping around the man’s waist to pull him closer to you. 

He chuckles, amused by your impatience, or your neediness.  

And if it hadn’t been so long, if it wasn’t such a touching personal moment of reunion, you might have pouted at his laughter. 

Instead you add your arms to the embrace, forcing him down into another kiss. 

More a gasp against your lover's lips than a kiss, as Dimitri decided then to press the tip of his cock against your hole.  

“Dima~” 

The nickname leaves your heated lips as he thrusts again, filling you with more of his cock than before. 

Soft yet hard, it’s like his cock is filling every crevice of your insides, and every thrust fills them with more and more pleasure. 

Dimitri’s feeling it too. 

You can tell from how quiet he is, the furrow of his brow, as he focuses on plowing into you steadily. 

Between your bodies your cock is painfully hard, slapping against your stomach with each harsh thrust, and staining your skin with precum. 

A kiss. 

Then another. 

It feels like the two of you have only just begun, but you’re already so hard you can barely stand it. 

“I can’t,” You gasp  out between moans, “I’m gonna cum-”

A strangled cry leaves your lips as your cock is suddenly grabbed harshly. 

It doesn’t make you cum, but the feeling is so overwhelming in addition to everything else, you think your vision goes white for a second. 

“A little longer,” Dimitri says, you're so lost in pleasure you’re almost unable to make sense of the words, although the strain in his voice makes it clear it’s a struggle for him as well. 

“Together,” 

He interrupts himself with a thrust that knocks the wind from your lungs, and makes your cock twitch in his hands. “I want us to cum together.”

All you can do is nod, nod and move your arms, reaching out for Dimitri’s hand. 

If you’re going to cum together, you want to be holding his hands as you do it.

It’s when your fingers intertwined that you both cum. 

Dimitri cums first, hips stuttering and jolting inside you, trying to get as deep inside of you as he can as he cums. 

And you cum in return, unable to stop yourself as Dimitri paints your insides with his translucent cyan cum.

Your cum splatters onto both your stomachs, and Dimitri squeezes your hand, leaning down to kiss you too. 

When you pull away from the kiss, he drops your hand to cup your face instead, as he rests his forehead on yours. 

“I’m not going anywhere this time, I promise.”

You don’t remember falling asleep. 

But you wake up to a bed. 

A soft warm bed. 

 A bed that’s empty. 

That realization…

You jolt awake in a panic, beginning to sweat. 

That wasn’t a dream was it?

Please don’t let it have been a dream.

As your eyes get used to the waking world, you realize that, at least, you’re not in your room.

That’s a good sign. 

A sign that everything was real. 

But if it was real…

Where was Dimitri

There’s no letter this time, no apologies for his absence or begging for you to understand. 

It makes you equal parts anxious and hopeful.

“Dimitri?” 

It’s not your room, so you hesitate before putting on the clothes you’d worn the day before, and wandering out into the hall

There’s no sign of Dimitri, not yet at least, although you can hear the sounds of people talking.

Happy people. 

Banter.

Whatever lingering anxiety you have is put to bed by the sounds, and you follow it through the long halls until you find its source, the kitchen. 

To your great relief you see him there, the man that you love more than anyone else, Dimitri as he struggles to make pancakes.

You think it’s pancakes, whatever it is he’s making has already been burnt to a crisp, no thanks to Sylvain, who instead of moving to help the prince is mocking him instead. 

“Sylvain…” He sounds...exasperate, embarrassed too, but it’s all so cordial relaxed. 

A hope that things are already going back to normal. 

“I’m trying to make ____ breakfast, can’t you do something other than make fun of me?”

“Sorry Your Highness, no can do!” 

After everything you laugh. 

Dimitri’s here. 

He’s fine.

It wasn’t a dream. 

Everything is right as it should be.

You laugh, and you laugh, unaware of the relieved tears flowing down your face until you hear Dimitri’s worry call of your name,

“____?” 

His warm hands cup your face, thumbs begin to wipe away the tears as they fall from your eyes, but you can’t stop your relieved laughter. 

“I thought you’d left again.”

Dimitri softens and pulls you into an embrace, and you hear shifting of chairs as Sylvain rises to his feet behind you both. 

“I’ll uh...I’ll work on the pancakes...Felix is going to be upset if there’s no breakfast after all this…”

You cling to Dimitri with all you have, despite his rigidness.

“I suppose trying to surprise you was a bad idea.”

“You think?” The harsh comment comes from Felix who moves past the two of you to enter the kitchen. “You did leave him once for...well a whole year while he was sleeping. Kind of fucked up.” Dimitri’s breath hitches. 

Felix’s comments still manage to make you snort once with laughter. 

“It’s...It’s okay.” 

You finally manage, backing away from Dimitri just enough that you can properly look at him, smiling through the relieved tears. 

One day you’ll get over the fear of waking up without him there, but for now you just have to relish in the relief you get every time you see him again. 

He’s here, and everything’s going to be okay. 

[goodlucktkachuk]

Comfort Zone - Matthew Tkachuk

Summary: One Sunday afternoon you and Matt we’re relaxing at home and he catches you reading a very suggestive tumblr post about him. Being the pest he is he teases you till you admit you want try what you were reading and man is he all for it.

Warnings: Smut, Dom/Sub, Edging, Thigh Riding,

Word count: 2k

this fic is a colab between @lowkeyleaffan and myself so please enjoy and check out her work

It wasn’t unusual for you and Matthew to spend a Sunday afternoon on the couch if he didn’t have a game. Today was one of those days. He had golf on so you were just messing around on your phone. You had your feet up on his lap and your back against the arm rest. You were on tumblr because let’s face it, you’re a 22 year old female with nothing better to do. You use the website often, you just don’t post anything. You use it to keep up with drama on shows like The Bachelorette and LoveIsland.  

Today however, as you were scrolling thought something caught your eye. You saw a gif of Matthew from the other night and you stopped. You clicked it and your eyes widened as you see it’s a smut piece about Matthew. Curiosity got the better of you and you began to read it.

As you began to read it you couldn’t help but move around trying to get comfortable and settle the heat between your legs as you read out your wildest fantasy. Sure you and Matthew were on the kinkier side but you never tired this. It was starting to piss Matthew off how much you were moving around so he put his hand on your knee.

“What’s with you?” He asks and you blush softly.

“Nothing.” You say.

He just nods before he goes back to golf and you go back to reading. You didn’t know it but Matthew wasn’t paying attention to golf, he was paying attention to how you were moving, how you bit your lip and shut your eyes slightly. Matthew knew you like the back of your hand. He knew whatever was on your phone was turning you on and he wanted to know what it was.

“What are you looking at there, sweetheart?” He asks and you blush.

“Nothing Matty. Don’t worry about it.” You say and he gives you a look.

Before you knew what was happening Matthew had you pinned under him and your phone was in his hand. You go to grab it but he gives you a look.

“Now let's see what’s got you so turned on that you’re lying to me.” He says.

You go to grab your phone again but this time he grabs your wrists with his free hand and holds them above your head. He raises his eyebrow at you before you shut up and he lets go of your wrists.

“Will you keep them there?” He asks and you nod quickly “I don’t know if I can trust you.”

Without saying anything else, he grabs the tie that was slung over the back of the couch. Your eyes widen as he makes quick work tying your hands.

“Matthew!” You excalme.

“I didn’t say you could talk.” He says and by his tone you knew not to talk back.

You study his face as he reads what you were just reading, there was an amused smirk on it from the second he started. He shuts your phone off and looks at you.

“So you’re reading about having sex with me well sitting in the same room as me after we had sex this morning?” He says trying to figure it out and you just bite your lip “you can answer that.”

“Yes.” You say and he nods.

“Be honest with me princess, did what you read turn you on?” He asks, slowly taking his shirt off and you don’t say anything to which he smirks “I’ll take your silence as a yes but I need to hear it.”

“Yes.” You say and he looks at you causing you to swallow hard “yes sir.”

“So wanna try it?” He asks and your eyes widen.

“You wanna try that stuff?” You ask surprised and he nods.

“Seems fun.” He says.

“Like actually?” You ask and he laughs.

“Why is it so hard to believe I want to try that?” He asks and you look down not saying anything “shut up!”

“Stop.” You say.

“Those are the things?” He asks.

When you and Matthew first started having sex you told him that there was one thing you wanted to try but we’re too embarrassed to say. He respected that and told you if you ever changed your mind he’s willing to try 99.9% of things. True to his word, anything you wanted to try the two of you did and vice versa, you had just never gained the courage to tell him the few things you’ve been dying to try and well. He just found out.

“Oh we’re doing this. Right now.” He says and you look at him.

“Right now?” You ask and he nods.

“Right here right now. Just lay back and enjoy princess.” He says before he winks at you.

He reaches up towards your hand to make sure your hands are still firmly facined in his tie. Then he begins. He places a soft kiss on your forehead and then another on your lips. With the little control you had, you try to deepen the kiss which just makes Matt pull away and laugh. Pulling his shirt over his head your mouth waters at the sight of his toned body.

“I don’t think so princess…” He makes his way down to your neck, hitting your sweet spot instantly, causing a soft moan to escape your lips. He pulls away quickly and presses a finger into your lips.

“You know the rules, kitten.” He hums against your skin, voice lower than you’ve ever heard it before.

Moving his mouth, he places strategic kisses over the fabric of the sweater you’re wearing. His face finally makes it to the hem of your shorts and you wait for them to be ripped off you but the moment doesn’t come. He quickly pushes up the hoodie, exposing your breasts to cold air and you let out a sharp hiss that he didn’t deem punishable. He attaches his lips to your right nipple as he toys with the left between his two fingers causing you to buck your hips into him. He uses his left hand to push them down and keeps his hand planted so you don’t move.

“Bad girl.” His voice alone could make your legs shake.

Keeping his mouth in place he balls the material of your shorts in his hands and swiftly pulls them down your legs, leaving them hanging off one foot. Despite still having most of your clothes on, you’ve never felt so exposed under Matthews touch.

Slowly he slips two fingers into your exposed heat and you bite your lip to keep from screaming out his name. At this point your chest is covered in small purple marks that would remind you of today for the next week. Matthew pulled his head up to marvel at his work, two fingers still keeping a steady rhythm inside you. He always knew how to move them in the right way to make you melt in his hand. Your mouth started to open as you felt a familiar pressure build in your stomach and as he was about to send you over the edge he pulled back and a loud whine escaped your lips.

Pushing himself off the couch, you looked at him with lust full eyes, drinking in everything about him. Curls hung messily around his face and the sight of his bare torso made your head spin. He untied your hands and tapped your butt lightly to signal you to wrap your legs around him. You moaned lightly as your bare core pressed lightly against where his jeans met his skin. He slung the tie over his shoulder and walked the two of you into the bedroom.

Still wrapped around him, he sat on the edge of the bed and shifted your weight onto his right leg. As you went to push yourself off his lap his grip tightens as he gently starts to rock your hips back and forth. Your eyes shoot open in surprise and you go to protest but before you can he’s slipped two fingers into your mouth and you moan around them.

“That’s my girl… just like that” He praises you while you pick up speed.

It’s not long before you get close again.

“Sir please let me…”

“No not yet kitten.” He quickly shuts down your high by lifting you off of him and placing you on the ground in front of you. He swiftly wraps your hair around his hand and pulls you till you're up on your knees and inches away from the bulge in his pants.

“Open up, princess.” He coo’s lightly as you make quick work of his pants. You very quickly get to work on the man in front of you and watch him unravel. The one thing about Matt was he could never last long when you had him in your mouth. Every so often light moans of encouragement would pass by his lips until he finally finished, holding your head in place as he rode out his high. Loosening his grip, he pulls you up and lets you catch your breath. He smiles as he runs his thumb across your bottom lip.

“Look at you pretty girl, so good for me.” he pauses slightly as you straddle him then he continues. “How do you want to cum princess?” All you can do is grind down into his lap which earns you a hard smack on your ass.

“Words princess, let me hear it.”

“I want you inside me sir.”

“Good girl but under one condition”

“What’s that sir” A devilish grin covers his face as he presses a soft kiss on your lips.

“I want you on top.” The words made your body tense but you still give him an innocent nod and he positions himself on his back, you still straddling his lap. You knew Matthew loved you and that included the fact you didn’t really love your body. As you went to pull off his sweater he stopped you. Pushing up on his hands to place a kiss on your chin.

“Keep it on kitten” he pauses as he helps guide himself inside you, a moan escaping both your lips. “I know it makes you feel safe.”

“Thank you sir.” You whine as you start to rock your hips against his, the material of the sweater lightly catching your clit, causing more pleasure.

Matthew lightly snakes his hands under the sweater and as his fingertips meet your hips he begins thrusting into you. Holding you in place to make sure he goes as deep as possible. He can tell you aren’t gonna last long no matter what he did. What he didn’t expect was the sight of you throwing your head back and the mixture of curses and his name falling from your lips was going to send him over the edge too.

You could feel his thrusts getting sloppy underneath you as he reached his high, yours soon approaching as well causing you to grind down harder.

“That's my good girl, come on baby keep going.” His words were exactly what you needed for you to finally reach your orgasm as you let out a high scream as pleasure ripped through your body. With two more hard thrusts, Matthew had reached his climax as well and was trying his best to ride it. You collapsed onto his body and your breathing matched his as he wrapped his arms around you.

He rolled the two of you over and kissed your forehead as he got up and made his way to the bathroom. After a few minutes you heard the bath water running and saw Matthew return in a pair of boxers.

“Let's get you cleaned up pretty girl.” He says as he scoops you up in his arms and carries you into the bathroom.

[supercantaloupe]

@dimension20alphabet​ prompt fill #6: Flowers

title: A Little Fall of Rain - campaign: Fantasy High: Sophomore Year - 1882 words - set post-fysy

Aelwyn learns a new way to grow.

The window of the wizards’ tower overlooks the backyard of Mordred Manor. 

There’s a small graveyard plot, its grass overgrown. There are a few trees, as old and strange and history-filled as the rest of the house. There’s a hill that gently slopes down to the edge of the woods, a short walk into which you’ll reach a creek. But you can’t see that from the window; just the hill and the trees and the messy grass.

Aelwyn spends a lot of her time looking at that yard, when she’s home-where-it-does-not-feel-like-home. Plain and drab and sad. Her sister and her friends go to school and the adults go to work, but Aelwyn spends most days home alone. She can hardly stand to look at that empty yard for another second.

So, she decides she won’t.

She goes to the library one day, and spends hours browsing the shelves and reading, taking notes. She comes home in the evening when the library closes with a stack full of books, and stays up late reading them in bed while her sister trances in the bunk below. The next day she scours the garage and basement and storage of the manor for tools, anything she can scrounge together. She gathers them out back in preparation, leaning them against the wall outside. The next day, she goes out again, borrowing cash from Jawbone to get the items she’s missing. She thinks about stopping by the mall, too, for the right outfit, but Sandra Lynn catches on and gives her an old pair of boots and overalls for free.

The next day, she gets up early, and gets to work. 

The first few days are nothing but digging, ripping up grass and sprinkling fertilizer and turning the soil until there are new, neatly defined beds outlining the house and the yard, blank canvases.

She loses two days to a spring thunderstorm, one raining her out all day and one sunny but swamped with mud, setting her progress back at least a few more days. She feels like tearing her hair out, and throws a trowel across the yard in frustration. 

She comes back the next day, pulls the trowel out of the ground from where it’d stuck, and gets back to work. She spends hours one day lining the beds with rocks to keep them neat and pretty, and checking the levels of soil temperature, nutrient balance, everything. She makes a chart in her notebook, portioning out where everything will go. 

The next day she spends ten straight hours planting. Her only break, around noon, is when Jawbone comes out and brings her a sandwich and a lemonade and practically begs her to take a rest. She obliges, if only to quiet the distracting growl of her stomach. He has to come back out and drag her in when the sun goes down for dinner, despite her protests. When she washes up to eat, it takes her two minutes of scrubbing to remove the dirt stubbornly caked into her fingernails. 

If there’s anything good to come out of being an unemployed, out-of-school teenager slowly and painfully rebuilding herself from trauma, it’s that Aelwyn has a lot of free time. Free time she spends every day out under the sun in her new garden, planting seeds and sprouts and monitoring their progress, new greens popping up row by row. She covers the beds with mulch and straw to protect their roots, just like the books say to do. She waters them every morning, and curses when the rain comes and renders her work redundant. Her delicate elven skin starts to burn in the sunlight, even after she takes to wearing a wide-brimmed hat, but after so long it just starts to tan instead. Now when she washes in the evening she sees someone her parents would have hated – face sweaty and flushed, hands caked in dirt and callouses from work – and it feels good, in a strange way. There is a satisfaction in going to bed each night, climbing up onto the top bunk and collapsing in the pillows with the deep-set, satisfied exhaustion of hard work in her bones. 

Her garden starts out well enough, neatly arranged and manicured and ready to go. Then days pass, and weeks, and there is not much more to show. Nor is there enough new work to sustain her breakneck pace. Aelwyn stares out the window of the wizards’ tower and grows restless and frustrated again. She’s doing everything right. She’s double checked every book in the library about it. Why aren’t they growing? Why isn’t it perfect?

The manor’s inhabitants have long since figured out Aelwyn’s project, and her dedication to it, and they respect it. They don’t bother her when she’s working and they don’t offer to help, an interference. But visitors don’t always get that so intrinsically, and the Bad Kids have a lot of friends. There are the girls who live here, and then their male partymates, and occasionally other guests. The half-orc brings a satyr girlfriend along often, most times he visits.

“I like your garden,” she says. Aelwyn is sitting on the back porch, staring broodily over her stunted plants. She glances over her shoulder at the satyr unkindly, she who has broken the unspoken rule against disturbing her in her yard.

Aelwyn grunts and turns back, scowling. “I don’t.”

“O-oh,” Zelda says nervously. “I’m sorry, that was stupid. It’s, um, it’s just…fine?” she stammers to correct herself.

Aelwyn huffs. “They won’t grow properly. I’ve done everything right.” She gestures in frustration at the neat rows of plants, manicured but underwhelming. 

“Some people, uh, some people just don’t have a green thumb,” Zelda says. “I mean, like, satyrs are supposed to be, like, really in touch with nature and stuff, right? But I can’t even keep a fern alive in my room, it’s like, crazy,” she continues. Aelwyn grunts again. “Have you tried talking to a druid?” Zelda continues. “They’re supposed to, like, know a lot about plants, right?”

“I don’t know any druids,” Aelwyn says bluntly. She’s talked to Sandra Lynn; a ranger is as close as she can get, but Sandra Lynn doesn’t know any more about gardening than Aelwyn does.

“I could ask Danielle for you?” Zelda offers. Aelwyn turns again and looks at her, confused. “Danielle Barkstock. She’s, uh, my party’s druid.”

“Danielle Barkstock,” Aelwyn repeats, placing the name. “She was one of those girls in the crystals.”

“Um,” Zelda says. “Yeah. Um. We all were. Uh…we formed an adventuring party together after…that.”

Aelwyn laughs once, no humor to it. “I’m sure she would love to help me out with my pathetic little shithole here.”

“I could ask her for you,” Zelda repeats, sounding intensely nervous again. “I don’t have to tell her it’s for you.” Aelwyn looks her over again. “Sorry, it’s a crazy, stupid idea, I’m just…ignore me, haha, it’s stupid–”

“Would you?” Aelwyn cuts her off, sounding uncharacteristically soft. Zelda blinks, then nods.

A few days later, all the Bad Kids and all the Maidens are over at the manor for a party. Aelwyn pointedly stays out of the way, spending the afternoon in her garden. She hears the back porch door slide open and looks back to see who’s there. Zelda, and a half-elven girl with flowers braided into her hair. Actually, there’s a third with them: a small silver fox. 

“You must be Aelwyn,” the half-elf says.

“You must be Danielle,” Aelwyn returns coolly. Danielle descends the porch steps and wanders through the garden, observing Aelwyn’s work silently. Aelwyn waits, kneeling in the dirt, for any kind of feedback. “You’re a druid, then?” Aelwyn says, breaking the awkward silence. Danielle nods. Her fox wanders between the plants, sniffing them as it goes. “You know what’s wrong here, then? Why they won’t grow?”

“I know more about animals than plants,” Danielle responds neutrally. Aelwyn shuts up and looks down. “But I think I have an idea here,” she continues, finally looking at Aelwyn. She turns around and meets her gaze, hopeful if restrained. “It’s too perfect. You have to step back and let them grow on their own for a bit.”

Aelwyn’s brow furrows, confused. “I’m doing everything the gardening books say to do.”

“Then stop reading books,” Danielle says simply. “Plants are living things. They’ll tell you what they need if you let them grow and listen.” With that, she walks back to the house, her familiar following at her heel. 

Aelwyn blinks, dumbfounded and confused, and offers a feeble “thanks” as she goes. Danielle holds up a hand but doesn’t look back.

It feels strange, and foreign, and wrong to sit back, but Aelwyn forces herself to heed the druid’s advice. She returns the gardening manuals to the library. She spends time in her garden still, but without tools in her hands. She lays in the grass and looks at the sky. She drinks tea and reads under the shade of the tree. She keeps the grass in the graveyard plot trimmed.

It does take a few days for her to notice, but her plants do start to grow again. They creep beyond the boundaries she’d so carefully delineated for them, and she fights the urge to trim them back. She watches and listens to them closely, not with the eye or ear of a drill sergeant but of a parent, a real one, a loving one, one like Sandra Lynn who offered her overalls and one like Jawbone who brings her lunch and lemonade and asks her to rest. She finds what the plants ask for, and she gives it to them; plucks insect pests from their stems, prunes diseased leaves, ties them to stakes so they can grow tall, waters them when they’re wilting. 

By summer, it is no longer just green. Aelwyn wakes up one morning and looks out the window in the wizards’ tower, and for the first time, she sees pink. The next day, yellows. Soon, there is a rainbow of flowers blooming all over the yard, of a variety and vitality Aelwyn has never seen before. Her old home had a garden, sure, but it was too manicured, too neat, too formal, too artificial, and never was she allowed to tamper with it; that’s what hired landscapers were for. Mordred Manor has no hired hands; Aelwyn has her own.

Jawbone and Sandra Lynn meet her in her garden one day. It’s sunny and hot out, and Aelwyn is watching the bees and butterflies flit from plant to plant, drinking their fill of sweet nectar. They say how beautiful it is, and Aelwyn agrees. They tell her how proud they are of her work, and she agrees. They say they’re proud of how much she’s grown. (At first she thinks they mean the plants, but she realizes after what they really mean.) And they thank her for livening up the manor, and bringing some color out to the yard.

When they go inside, Aelwyn gets up, and grabs her shears. She finds the best blossoms from the best plants and carefully snips them off, tying their stems together in a bouquet with ribbon. And she sends them to Danielle, with an apology and a thank you.

[revengerevisited]

So I’ve been kinda dancing around my original story idea for a little while, and I got this idea in my head of ‘what if I release chapter 1 and then get feedback without telling anyone what the story is about first so it’s more of a surprise?’ But honestly? I’m realizing since I already released a preview-of-a-preview for chapter 1, and it might be a little while until I finish chapter 1, plus I honestly kinda feel like I’d rather work on sketches of my character designs than write at the moment, I might as well go ahead and tell you guys. X’3

So! I watched a couple anime recently both centered around the premise of... monster girls! These being Monster Musume and Monster Girl Doctor, but then I noticed there’s also Interviews with Monster Girls, A Centaur’s Life, and the infamous Interspecies Reviewers, and I asked myself... Monster girls are pretty popular right now, yeah? But where’s all the monster boys?! And that’s how I got the idea! I re-watched some of my favorite anime based on Otome Games, Kamigami no Asobi and Uta no Prince Sama for inspiration as well, and a few ones I hadn’t seen before like Dance with Devils and Magic-kyun Renaissance for inspiration as well.

So now I’ve got my premise that I shared earlier: This is the story of Millie, a young woman down on her luck who happens to live in a world where monsters aren’t just real, but commonplace. She started working as a maid in a mansion-turned-art-school whose students are a group of very attractive monster boys. The twist is that these aren’t just any monster boys; they belong to various rare and exotic species with deadly reputations...

Note that character and place names are technically place-holders for now and may change if I come up with better ones. Now, I don’t wanna spoil anything story-wise, but I think I can introduce my setting and some of the characters that you’re gonna meet. The story is set in a modern setting, though it’s vague if it’s actually Earth or just some generic world similar to it, as I try to avoid referencing real-world places or events. This is a world where humans and monsters live together after a Great Interspecies War happened in the past, but tensions have mostly relaxed by the time the story takes place. The war could be thought of as the equivalent of our own World War One, one in which there was a truce decided after many years of stalemate fighting.

The city everything takes place in is tentatively named Dullahan, and was built directly after the war to commemorate peace between human and monster kind. It’s considered an artistic cultural center, and it’s got a lot of interesting entertainment places to go to, arcades, theaters, aquariums, etc, that the characters can have a lot of different shenanigans in. The other main setting is the Beaufort Academy of the Arts, which was actually a mansion that was converted into a small private school. This is where all the characters live, and our main character Millie works as a maid there.

Before I go into the characters, I should start with the various monster species. There are 12 species, divided into 2 groups: common monsters and exotic monsters. The common monsters are centaurs, harpies, lamias (snake people), kobolds (dog people), ogres, and merrows (mermaids). These species are all pretty standard, and will be mostly background characters and npcs. The main characters, and love interests for Millie, will be of the exotic variety: arachnes (spider people), sirens (deep-sea mermaids), mandrakes (plant people), dragons, manticores (with a liontaur body-type), and scyllas (octopus people).

So what differentiates a common monster from an exotic one? Well, while the Interspecies War was between humans and monsters in general, some monsters were already at least partially integrated into human society, and the rest followed soon after the war ended. These monsters were almost as common as humans, and either herbivorous or omnivorous, with the exception of the carnivorous lamias who prefer to eat eggs over anything else. On the other hand, the so-called ‘exotic’ species were not only much more rare, but they had a very different food preference... one which earned them the now derogatory nickname... man-eaters.

Naturally, most ‘man-eaters’ weren’t exactly welcomed into human --nor common monster-- society with open arms, not that most of them wanted to. For the most part, species as powerful and dangerous as them didn’t want to play nice with those they had once --and in some cases still do-- regard as prey, and so hid away into the furthest reaches of the world. Which of course makes them perfect material for all our leading men and Millie’s various love-interests!! Oh yes, while all of these monster boys are perfectly civilized --well, for the most part-- they still belong to species that many both human and monster alike continue to fear to this day. While they aren’t exactly fish out of water (well, except for the siren) there’s still plenty of awkward misunderstandings and interesting scenarios that can be played out.

So! Let’s have a quick run-down of the characters, keep in mind that none of these names are final and could change later on. First there’s Millie, a hardworking young woman who’s had a recent streak of bad luck. Through a misunderstanding she gets hired as a maid in a mansion-turned-art-school. She’s very sweet and tries her best to help others, but she’s not as innocent as she appears; she’ll understand your innuendos just fine, even if she doesn’t really say any herself! Next is Richard and Lara Beaufort, a husband and wife who run the school. Richard is rather laid-back, yet he’s also a master of all kinds of art, painting, sculpture, photography, dancing, singing, you name it! Lara is his arachne wife, a rather boisterous woman who owns a high-class fashion company. The secret to her clothing’s success?? Arachne silk, of course! The school was her idea, a way to help better integrate exotic species into society. Will her mission succeed? Only time can tell.

Richard and Lara have a son named Simon, our first love interest and a human-arachne hybrid who takes almost entirely after his mother in the looks-department (hybrids tend to look like one species or the other, rather than a mix of both). He’s a bit withdrawn due to dealing with bullying as a kid; most people --human and monster alike-- are afraid of his spider-like appearance, so he doesn’t get out much-- to the point his parents worry about him being a shut-in for life! He’s also a gamer boy, and has a secret soft side for gothic poetry, although he doesn’t want to join his parents’ art classes. He actually disapproves of his mother’s exotic species integration plan, as from what he’s experienced he feels it’s a waste of time.

Simon’s best friend and Millie’s second love interest is Louis, a mandrake who lives in the woods behind the manor. Louis is extremely shy and more than a bit lonely, even more so than Simon, and he doesn’t speak very often out of fear that the sound of his voice will hurt others around him. Mandrake screams can induce insanity or even kill those that hear them, hence his fear. Being part plant, Louis has mild shape-shifting abilities and is able to transform between child and young adult forms at will, although he’s actually the oldest of the group. He also isn’t a student at the art school, although he has an interest in floristry.

Now for our actual students! Forrest is a manticore, which in this world means he has a body similar to that of a centaur, but with the lower half of a lion instead of a horse, and a scorpion-like tail tipped with a deadly venomous stinger. Despite his species’s name literally meaning ‘man-eater’, Forrest is extremely friendly and cheerful, and is very sporty too. His passion is photography, and he also loves eating food-- any sort of meat dish is fine by him! He’s also a fan of fantasy tabletop roleplaying games, and will often make references comparing them to everyday life; he always plays the knight who saves the princess!

Anthony is a childhood ‘friend’ of Forrest’s, though he’s loathe to admit it. Highly intelligent and highly snobbish, Anthony fancies himself an intellectual-- and he’s not exactly wrong. Being a dragon, he likes to hoard things-- in his case, knowledge. Anthony loves to read, and is most often found in the library. His skill is in drawing and painting, and all his paintings’ invariably morose subject matter worry Millie. Still, this haughty dragon could definitely learn to loosen up a little, and be a little more kind; perhaps his stay at the academy --and his interactions with Millie-- will open his mind to appreciating the feelings of others. He does, at the very least, greatly respect Master Beaufort as a master of the arts.

The other two students are denizens of the sea, and have been friends for a very long time. Emil is a scylla, and like all scyllas he’s a little eccentric, and just can’t seem to keep his tentacles to himself! While Forrest is obsessed with eating, Emil’s true calling is cooking, and he loves making all kinds of dishes, especially anything seafood and/or foreign. Emil also is highly appreciative of women’s fashion, and absolutely adores everything to come from Madam Beaufort’s clothing brand-- so much so that he actually wears them himself! His pretty-boy looks and penchant for wearing women’s clothing actually has Millie mistake him for a girl at first, though he’s very much unafraid to show her his romantic side, or at least what he interprets as romantic... 

Keeping Emil’s pervy antics in check is our sixth and final monster boy, Oswald! As a siren, Oswald spent most of his life in the sea, and still has a lot to learn about humanity. He’s a pretty cool guy but gets a bit embarrassed about his species’s troublesome past as the cause of many shipwrecks at sea, and would prefer to not discuss it. His passion is rock music, and his main instrument is the guitar. He also loves to sing, but refrains from doing so due to the hypnotic effect it has on other species. His lack of legs, tentacles, or a snake-like tail means that like other merrows and sirens he requires a wheelchair to move around on land, and often feels frustrated that he can’t show off how adept he is at traversing water. He’s also easy to embarrass and obsessed with not allowing anything to ‘ruin’ his manly image, including allowing Millie (a girl!) to help carry him around.

So there you have it, all my monster boys! I left out a few things, as those would be major spoilers, but those are my ideas for the characters for now! I’ll try to draw and post some sketches of their designs later. Hopefully I haven’t forgotten anything, but this won’t be the last time I talk about monster boys. Any questions or comments would be very much appreciated! Nsfw questions are allowed (all the boys wear pants for a reason, after all), though I’m currently not sure if this series will be 16+ or 18+, if you catch my meaning. Lemme know how interested you are in this story, or if you’re not interested please let me know that too! 

[youarejesting]

Lost Boys

[Full Masterlist]

Rating: All Pairing: BTSxReader Genre: Supernatural, thriller, psychological, angst, cute nature boys, symbolism, trigger warnings: abandonment, mature, fantasy, supernatural, and character death. Words: 2.2k

Summary: Bangtan Forest was said to be evil, stealing children and anyone who got lost. Some say it was attacking the humans. You don’t think much of scary campfire stories, that is until the rocks and trees come alive.

Aisles of high tech camping gear had you in awe. You even thought about a new sleeping bag but, it just seemed like a waste. There was nothing wrong with the sleeping bag you already had and to buy a new one to use once a year was not worth the money. 

Grabbing the mosquito repellent you headed to the counter. Your friends were carrying emergency lights and flares standing in line behind you ready to make their purchases. “Good morning, just these?” The young girl smiled, she was deep in her role of customer service, which you totally respected.

“Uh... yeah and um, one of these please” You placed the emergency whistle onto the counter, it was plastic and only cost fifty cents.

“Of course, is that on the card today?” She continued talking and you smiled nodding holding up the card, stepping to the other side to pay. Taking your things, there wasn’t much left for you in the shop. That is until you heard something interesting. 

“There was another landslide by Bangtan Forest, it can’t seem to let anyone get close,” An old man said to another, “Luckily no one was hurt or went missing this time.”

The drive was beautiful and the radio played nothing but summer hits, you were singing along with the others, they were your closest of friends. Lillia was a sweet young lady, she loved nature and had a particularly soft spot for mushrooms. She brought her camera and expected to take some cool shots over the course of the weekend.

You were looking forward to going wild, not like partying wild. No, more like, sitting in the dirt, lighting fires, and splashing around in a river. That was your paradise, your escape. Having almost screamed into the phone when the suggestion of camping was brought up. If it got you out of your house and out of your life for a moment, you would take it.

The camping grounds were pretty, you passed a sign on your way in that had a lot of warning pictures but you didn’t have time to read them all. The only one you saw was to put out your fires entirely before you leave, which honestly felt like common knowledge, and if you didn’t know that you shouldn’t go camping alone. Forest fires were not a joke.

Finding a place to pitch a tent was hard, a lot of the really shady spots were taken but there was a really beautiful spot by the river. According to Jester, your know-it-all friend, the river spread through the whole of the forest intricately like a spider web. “Because of the river the vegetation inside is thick, people say as you walk the vines grow around you and if you stop, you will be buried under the vegetation.”

“I heard that bad person used to leave their kids behind, and the forest took them in and that if ever you are lost or left behind the forest takes you,” Lillia said lowering her sweet voice trying to be serious. “There was a story, of a class field trip of kids were pulled off the trail and they were never seen again. They say the forest is evil.”

“I heard it protects the kids because they are left alone.” Jester contradicted and Lillia nodded pointing at the other. Nodding in agreement as she ate a slice of orange.

“I heard that too,” She smiled “I like that idea, that the forest just is a home taking care of the children left behind.”

As if ominously on cue the three of you had heard giggling coming from across the river. But it was drowned out by laughing and cheering from up the river, another group was splashing around and soon you all joined. 

The two groups became friends and it was fun, but it started to rain, nothing extreme just a light drizzle. You had dinner early and hoped into your tents. You were alone in yours as there was supposed to be another person on the trip but they couldn’t make it due to a family event.

It didn’t take long until you were fast asleep to the sound of the rain. You don’t know how long you were asleep for when you woke up suddenly a sting in your chest, shaking that aside you heard crying. 

Getting a little scared you poked your head outside the tent and saw a child running from one of the tents in the park to the water. He was calling for his mother and moving for the forest begging his mother to come back and you wondered if the mum had been taken or went to the toilet. Either way, this child was running straight into the forest.

Lost or left behind the forest takes you, you thought back on those words, The forest is evil. 

Every other thought left your head and your primary objective was to save the child, you began running, your body felt like you were moving through cement. That’s how thick the plant life was, you had a stitch in your side after a mere five minutes of sprinting but you kept pushing until suddenly the child hopped across the rocks and curled up and he was gone, in his place was a Pinecone.

You hopped across the rocks careful not to get your feet wet, you had slipped on your sneakers and you didn’t want to walk back to camp with them wet. Speaking of camp, you were lost and the child you were following had disappeared and left in his place a pinecone.

Stepping up to the small pinecone, you pocket it and it wiggled around in the dirt letting out a chorus of childish laughter. Shaking with giggles in the corner of your eyes was a small pile of leaves, you were looking around breathing heavily and freaking out. 

As you were frozen in place in shock and trying to catch a glimpse of someone playing a trick you felt something entwine around your legs. You shrieked jumping and ripping your feet free from the vines that started to grow around your shoes.

“Alright, boy’s you had your fun, go play with the other kids your age,” A voice said, you were relieved finally someone had revealed themselves it was just an elaborate plank until a decent sized boulder began to move, it was like camouflage, and from the curled up position a human stood up and straightened out. “Can’t a rock get some sleep around here?”

“Come on, Yoongi you are no fun?” a voice said from your left, you looked trying to find where the voice was coming from and you smiled seeing the moss open its eyes and step away from the tree making you shriek. 

They were people camouflaged perfectly to appear like trees and rocks. They were strange-looking and you weren’t sure if this was some weird dream or if it was real. The more you looked the stranger they appeared. Some of their features were replaced with other things.

“I am starting to solidify more and more” the rock man who may be the one the other referred to as Yoongi muttered and a Berry Bush wiggled itself free from the ground and he walked over helping the rock man stretch.

“A log pulled itself up off the ground and stretched with the creak of old wooden furniture and gave a low groan. This distracted you from the movement behind you. 

“We have been getting bored on our own, but it is nice to have a friend visit,” A voice said, and when you turned you saw a man covered in mushrooms, his head was topped by a big mushroom that made him look like he was wearing a bucket hat. You almost laughed at the insanity.

“Ahhh, it is so nice to be free” A sapling wiggled until its roots or in this case feet were free. 

“Where is Jin?” The logman asked and they all looked around. The pile of leaves and the pinecone wiggled around until children appeared gesturing to a nearby meadow.

“Thank you Hyuning, Yeonjun” The mushroom guy smiled and they began hopping over the river using the rocks, The sapling grinned waving you to follow.

“If you stay too long the vines will start wrapping around you again, I am Jungkook” He smiled, along the way they all introduced themselves and you had to admit this was the oddest and trippiest meeting you ever had.

“There he is,” Taehyung called and Seokjin who they had told you about on the way had appeared lifting himself off the grounds his body covered in sweet flowers. “What were you doing out here?”

“I was trying to get some sleep but someone was snoring” He stretched ignoring the snickering from Jungkook who said he was probably up late with the kids playing games. “Who is this?”

“Oh, this is…” Namjoon said and froze, “I am sorry, we didn’t get your name?”

“Oh my name is Y/n” you smiled and they nodded 

“We are helping Y/n get out of the forest,” Jimin said puffing his chest out his leaves rustling. It was so odd to see these people dressed like they were in some school play, like tree number one and rock number three. 

“It’s no rush, just as long as I get out at some point,” You said trying to ease their worried expressions.

No, you don’t get it if you are still here when the sunrises, you will be stuck in the forest forever.” Yoongi said, “We are all here for a reason, Namjoon has been in the forest the longest, he used to be a tree before he fell.”

“Well, maybe we should hurry,” You said looking at the vines trying to wrap around your feet once more. “I have to keep moving these vines really are aggressive when it comes to wanting to keep me here.”

Along the way the boys began talking, each telling their story. Namjoon said he was from 1761 and he was left there by his mother who could no longer feed him after his father died. “I was nineteen and very sick so I didn’t last very long. But, it wasn’t long until I met Jin he was twenty-one and got lost in the forest.”

“I was collecting flowers for my fiancee I was supposed to be getting married shortly and well, I never even got to meet hurt.” Seokjin smiled, continuing on the storytelling from Namjoon and explaining his experience “I was kind of wishing I would get lost, I was so young and didn’t want to get married to a stranger.”

“I think it was 1892 and I was about twenty as well, I had run away from home, I remember stealing food from town and whilst escaping ran into the forest and I never came back out.” He shrugged, keeping his story concise as he helped you step over a fallen tree, “life as a rock is peaceful.”

“I was part of a traveling circus and well it wasn’t a good living, the people were awful and beat you if you spoke, one of the performers had a grudge for me so I hid in the forest and when I tripped the vines grew over me quickly” Hoseok made hand gestures at you making you giggle and move away from him, you bumped into Jimin who caught you before you fell. “That was maybe 1901 and I was about nineteen”

“I can’t remember much, I remember being really drowsy in a car and being told to wait while my father got some juice, I was about eighteen and he didn’t come back. The forest called me inside.” Jimin frowned slightly.

“I was hiking and I lost my way following a pretty butterfly,” Taehyung pouted, “I didn’t mean to get lost and I wish I had paid attention, I just wanted to take a picture.”

‘For me, it was not too long ago, a class excursion, we were following the trail and a bully dropped my hat in the river I chased after it and before I knew it I didn’t know where they had gone. I was seventeen.” Jungkook said with a smile that looked somewhat forced. “But it’s not all bad. I have made some really great friends.”

“And who else would play with the little ones. So many children got left in the forest much younger than us.” Seokjin explained sadly.

You saw the forest thinning out and flashes of red and blue flickered through the trees, you stepped out to the edge to see police and ambulances and more, there was a landslide. It was at your campsite, you froze looking around spotting your friends sitting in the back of the ambulance. 

The vines were wrapping around your feet but you ripped them free, “it was nice meeting you thank you” You said, and placing the whistle between your lip you blew hard.

“We found her!” a voice shouted, you gave up on cautiously hopping rocks and went running across the river. When your foot touched the water you fell your shoes had disappeared as had your legs and from your waist down you were nothing but water. You looked up trying to drag yourself out to see your friends when you saw them carry your body out of the mud on a gurney.

You could never leave the forest but as the river flowed throughout you could visit all the residence inside.

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[slater-later]

Clarence x Reader Flirt at the Bar

Audience: General

Warnings: None, flirting

Notes: At Y/N, insert your own name, pronouns, and preferred complimentary words. That way, Clarence uses what you like!

Read below the cuff!

For: @da3m0ns-exe

The two of you had met at an Irish pub a few blocks down the street. Dimly lit under the cheap green ‘chandeliers’, at least, they were trying to be, hanging over a narrow line of booths. A green shamrock sign buzzing in the corner window, listing O’ Conners next to the four leafed sign buzzing beside it.

It was a fine dump, gritty and warm and thick with cigarette smoke. A few old geezers sat at the bar, buzzing back large thick dark beers as they chatted in Greek. It was Detroit after all, and everyone was welcome. The D brought everyone together. And if you had a few bucks to spare, it would make your night worth while. The jukebox buzzed in the corner, firmly set from the 70’s and stacked high with classic 45’s. A quarter would get you two songs, and it would flip through the rest. Buzzing Marvin Gaye’s Through the Grape Vine through the open speakers. There were a few TV’s in the corner of the bar, one showing a Tigers baseball game and the other the racetrack. A chestnut filly bending over the corner and splitting from the pack. Her jockey lit a firecracker from out under her behind as he rode her to the front, cracking his crop as they crossed the finish line. Taking home 50k- something a brod in the corner was upset by. Throwing her hands up as she watched, swearing! Because she had bet the bar that #5 would win. California Folly, the chestnut mare, bit her for the win, and she slapped up her cash to the house. Her buddy chuckled to himself at her anger. The bartender greedily took her cash, smirking, as he slipped it into the cash register. He changed the chalk boards odds for the next race. A commercial flashed across the screen.

It was a bettin’ bar, and it was a Friday night. That meant, the race tracks were on. They even caught the signal from the tracks out West. Meaning people could get drunk and lose their money all night long. At least, far enough into the night to be firmly fucked by 10, and either pissed from losing their money or giddy because they made a decent buck. Either way, it meant the crowd pounded back drinks. The bar took home a load whether it was packed full or filled with crickets. 

Clarence was seated up at the bar, his army jacket slipped off and hanging on his chair. He slowly leafed through his comic, head buried deep in his book. He slowly drank, the rum and coke sitting at the edge of his lips, relaxed and quiet after a long day at work. 

He had closed up shop and came in for dinner, a burger and fries, and read the newest edition of Deadpool in his freetime. He actually had a small stack of them next to them. He had cashed his check and sorted the freshly delivered boxes before he locked up. Making a mental note to pay the old man in the morning- he would stuff the bills in the register tomorrow morning.

The new stuff sold fast, and that was exactly why he needed to make his pick before it hit the shelves. He had to be strategic! Take advantage of the perks of running the store!

You slid into the stool a few spots down, gesturing over to the bartender as he made his way over. He was built, wearing a plain black shirt that hung over his body. A gold chain that hung from his neck. He looked kind and quiet, gentle. He had worked there for several years.

“Whatcha’ having?”

  “Pabst,” You nodded, popping out your wallet.

“Pint or pitcher?”

“Pint.”

“Alright, but they’re $7 until 11.” He collected your cash and made his way up the bar, pouring your drink.

Clarence’s nose was in the comic, one hand holding the bridge of it while the other slowly set down the beer. Reaching out for a fry and mindlessly dabbing it into ketchup before it crawled to his mouth. Slowly inching closer. 

His long and shabby fry broke off, falling into his lap and getting on his jeans. You couldn’t help but to laugh. “You okay over there bud?” The bartender handed you your beer, curling in the glass as you took a sip. The foam made a fine mustache on your upper lip.

“Jesus!” He bit, pissed. He had just gotten to a good spot- he fucking didn’t want to stop! “I don’t know man.” He shook his head, nabbing a handful of napkins out of the dispenser and cleaning his lap. 

He finally looked up as you set down your glass. Catching the side of your face- “I ain’t pulin’ your chain, but ya got somethin’ on your face,” He grabbed another handful, passing it over. “A lil’ on here,'' He rubbed his upper lip, brushing his faint five o’ clock shadow.

You grabbed a napkin from him, quickly wiping it away before you got too embarrassed. Shit happens. “Thanks,” You muttered with a smile, softly laughing. Folding it afterwards and placing it under your glass. 

He nodded, reaching for his comic again. 

You were in a good mood and company always made it better. You had the urge to chat, he was attractive, after all. “So, whatcha readin’?”

He looked over, eyebrows raised. “It’s uh, Deadpool. Issue #7,” He put his thumb on the page and flopped it over to the front. Reaching out his arm to show you the cover. “It’ll hit the shelves tomorrow.”

“How’d you get your hands on that?”

“Oh,” He flashed a guilty smile. Caught. “I work at the comic book store down the street, this is next week's issue,” The cover showed Deadpool stepping forward, gun in hand, his red and black latex suite dressed with a heavy white jeweled overcoat and flashing plants. He was wearing the iconic Evil Presley suit, black wig and sunglasses and all. Finger-pointing at a very unpleasant Cable, probably cursing Wade for being alive. Or was it that he can’t die?

“It’s the new Deadpool and Cable issue. It’s a new series they’re doing, do you wanna look?” He offered it and you happily accepted. Taking your time as you flipped through the pages, reading the inside insert. The introduction.

He rattled on, “It’s not as good as some of his other series but then I saw the front cover. I wanted to grab it before we ran out. I’m a big Elvis fan,” He smiled softly. Watching you read.

“Oh?” You peered up, raising an eyebrow. A hook- Elvis wasn’t exactly your man, but it didn’t deter you. “Is he your favorite?”

He beamed as he sipped his glass, nodding as the glass left his lips, setting it down on the wet napkin. “Favorite? It doesn’t begin to describe how much I love that man,” He could rattle on for forever. Even blab again about how much he wanted to fuck Elvis. But, usually, that wasn’t the most widely loved small talk conversation? He was better off tabling that conversation for a later time. Unless he wanted to blow his chance when flirting with a hot person. A man needed to get lucky sometimes, alright? Sheesh, he didn’t think some bisexuality was a bad thing. Isn’t that, a, you know? A sexual fantasy for some folks?

He drilled a finger into the side of his temple, elbow up on the bar as he watched you. How your feet shifted in your sift as you curled up closer to him, leaning in, tenderly turning the page of a secretly, newly loved comic. Mashing up the two things that made him bounce up and down with pure excitement. He was delighted.

“I’m a huge fan, I’ve always been since I was a kid. My dad used to listen to him while I was growing up, and I’ve had the itch ever since. He changed rock n’ roll forever, for the better,” He would watch old tapes of his dancing and performing on stage, having become familiar and comforting to his body. It was something he could return to, regardless of how he felt, and know he felt comfort in.

That, and watching him dance up on stage was light lightening. A friend and a lover.

“What’s your favorite song?” You smirked, flipping a page. You were more interested in his eyes than the panel. Wondering if he had caught on. 

He slid from his seat to the one next to you, dragging his beer along with him. The bartender snapped up his long forgotten dinner. Wiping down the table. “Do you mind?” He gestured to the seat, checking in.

“No,” You shook your head smiling, your delight so easy to read. “Not at all,” You swore you could feel your heart skip a beat. Your body felt fresh, warmed by the flash of heat spreading through your cheeks. You hoped another drink of your beer would help, at least to calm the giddy building up inside of you.

You would cut yourself off at two beers. At the rate of your drinking, you’d been in the hole after three. Too drunk to drive and by the soft patter of the rain outside, you didn’t want to be stuck in the rain. Trying to wave down a cab as it poured, head buzzed and tired, ready to flop down in your bed and forced to make it back. Getting fucked up was fun, but getting home could be a challenge.

  The thought already sounded miserable. You’d much rather be here, with the jukebox, under the warm hum of the bear and its speakers. It switched over to You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine by Lou Rawls. 

“Good,” He smiled with a surprising amount of soft charm. Voice low as his pinky mused with his lip, eyes slow as they took in your body. 

He had to look away. 

FUCK! It wasn’t polite to do that shit, he was either going to get a drink thrown in his face again or something!

He kept his eyes up at the bar, tongue flashing across his teeth as he chuckled to his mind. He could be so fucking stupid! This Y/N was going to beat him. 

He fisted for his cigs in his flannel pocket, offering you one.

Okay, this guy was an idiot, but a cute one.

“Thanks,” You took a cig and slipped it between the side of your lips. Grabbing  your lighter in your coat pocket, prepared as a common smoker should. You lit both of your cigarettes.

“So, you didn’t answer my question,” You shot, releasing a draw downward. 

He snapped it out of his mouth, square in hand as he shook his head awake. “Shit, what was it again?” He laughed, he was losing his head around you. You sucked all the smarts out of his brain.

You elbowed him lightly, amused. “What’s your favorite Elvis song?”

He paused for a moment, getting his mind in gear. Quickly shuffling the different songs on his head- “Hound Dog, and then Blue Suede Shoes, and All Shook Up,” It was the fast, catchy beats of Elvis’s drawl that got him. The electricity that he exuded, that made him want to dance and grab the hand of a friend, a stranger, even an old person! 

It made him want to boogie to the music.

You snickered, he hit right on the money. Damn, this guy had taste. Of the few you knew well, those were it. “Where does Jailhouse Rock rank?”

“8th,” He said clear as day, pointent. It was clearly not his favorite, but a hot contender. He had, in fact, listened to every single god damn song Elvis had published. Including the Hawaiian soundtrack album, which was a partial wash. He thought Elvis was at best when he was shaking it for a crowd, not trying to play at movie making. Yet, it hadn’t stopped him from consuming them all. “I paused not because I didn’t have a top three, but because…” Shit, he got himself in a hole? Wasn’t he playing the ‘cool guy’ really well?

“Because?” You flicked into the ashtray, bringing your arm in for a draw. Raising your eyebrows at him as you drew, feeling the air.

“Because I was thinking about you,” He slipped both elbows on the bar, facing forward towards the line of liquor and head turned towards you. Smirk painted on his lips, shameless in his expression, “You’re very Y/N.” He smiled, eyes stilling on you as they peered into yours eyes, then passed down your shoulder. “And I don’t normally get to talk to a Y/N like you.” Usually, they either weren’t interested in talking about comics and Elvis. So, what was there to talk about? Stupid small talk they he didn’t know much about? It was much harder, trying to find a Y/N with similar interests.

Your face felt warm again. You finished off the rest of your drink. Quenching your fuzzy head with the sharp inhale of nicotine, trying to peel the flush off of your cheeks. You couldn’t hide it- his soft pink lips looked beautiful when they moved. Especially when they were saying such sweet words.

You slicked a hand across your face, hiding the bite of your red cheeks, “How about we get a booth in the corner? And you tell me a bit more about yourself?” It seemed like a good idea. And it would give you a moment, to collect yourself, before continuing your chat.

You raised a hand to the bartender. He turned and you held up two fingers. A pint for you each. 

“Hmph!” His spiky eyebrows peaked up, elated. “Sounds good to me!” He snickered, collecting his stack of comics and waiting for the drinks to come. You two stepped to the back to back of the bar, sliding in next to each other at the dark spot in the room. A place, where neither of you would be bothered. Holed up, until the bar closes, chatting about sweet nothing while you got to know each other. Maybe get, caught in the rain together, under his umbrella. Before turning in, to his apartment. 

It was, in fact, closer than your apartment.