#think i might pass the jar onto someone else because i don't think i can do right by it here 😔

[confinesofmy]

yesterday i finished off a whole jam jar, today i killed a jar of old-fashioned peanut butter hell yeah! 💪 zero waste in this household! i eat appropriate portions of foods! 💪

[donkeys-waffles]

It could definitely be something he built for himself, like a family most likely. It's interesting also how lost and stolen aren't the same at all in meaning. Yes, both mean to lose something, but one is more of an accidental thing and the other is deliberate. Thats why AFO blames Kudou for stealing Yoichi because from his perspective he was, Yoichi was 'kidnapped' and was in the enemy's possession. All Might never mentions a severed hand, a hand that is most likely preserved in a jar (I really hope it was preserved or it's just a hunk of rotten flesh he carried around, one I don't think All Might would take.) It sounds like from the translation, he just dropped it, lost it but it wasn't really taken. Ya feel me. While at Kamino, he's adamant that All Might STOLE something precious from him, if he was talking about Yoichi's hand, he could have just used the same terminology in that translation, lost. Because of you I lost something important to me.

And that's not taking into consideration the sheer amount of secrecy around what was stolen from him. Why not just say what he stole, it doesn't damage his evil villain image, after all we are talking about a severed hand. A simple lack of information about the true reason for him having the hand leaves just enough blanks to have everyone guessing his nefarious intentions. The secrecy suggests that he's angry, furious even but not enough to tell him exactly WHAT he stole.

It all sounds like a diversion to me, like yeah Izuku has weird shadows in the center of his palm looking a little too similar to someone we know, but AFO only care about the severed hand that fell out of his pocket.

You see, I really don't think All Might stole Yoichi's severed hand. He's not in possession of it, I feel like if he was, we'd know, it'd be brought up as a sort of evidence to 'future plans of evildoing.'

You know what I think All Might is in possession of, something he inadvertently 'stole', Izuku Midoriya.

Izuku Midoriya, the only other person in the entire series that can handle multiple quirks naturally (despite his quirkless status,) who mirrors AFO in fights with Tenko, and sharing the man's love/analysis of battle plans and quirks. They share mannerisms, interests, and a silver-tongue.

Izuku Midoriya, who is treated with such gentleness in comparison to opponents like All Might and even Bakugou. He rips into All Might about his failure as a teacher and his mentor's death, he rips into Bakugou about being in "Izuku Midoriya's shadow" (weird but okay, not untrue.) And then he gets to Izuku, he warns him about how he's going down a 'thorny path,' (okay weird that you care so much about the kid's future, especially considering you just killed off the others without a care.) then proceeds to set off the weakest bomb known to man, easily giving Izuku and everyone else time to get away. In the first war, when he takes over Tenko's body he doesn't aim for the guts like he did with All Might, or even aim to kill like with Bakugou. No, he unleashes the weakest air blast to bat him away like a fly, actually injuring his own hand holding his power back THAT much. No Izuku got a couple of useless comments that weren't even directly said to him but about him to someone else (he REFUSES to confront Izuku directly or address him.) With the comment he made about Bakugou, you'd assume he could think of a more creative insult than 'Useless'. That was such a specific comment, the man has the resources to do real damage to Izuku. But no, he chooses this ONE time to be uncreative.

And the cherry on top is the second war. The fight between All Might and AFO, where AFO says that All Might will "pay for passing on his heroic ideals to children," then proceeds to do nothing to hurt the children, like you'd assume.

It makes me question what he's truly angry about. Is he really THIS angry about losing the hand accidentally or is he THIS angry about All Might passing his heroic ideals onto HIS child.

Idk just food for thought...

I wonder if this what All For One meant when he said “All Might took something away” from him.

[erwinsvow]

𝐭𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞.

summary: he wasn't always alone. in fact, there was a time when levi had you.

warnings: angst, fluff, mentions/description of injury and patching up, levi needs sleep

author's note: been in the works for a while because i couldn't figure out what i wanted to do, but this takes place after levi & zeke's conversation and there will be an angsty part two, i hope everyone likes it! it doesn't really make much sense but bear with me :)

listening to: don't let me go

“I bet you’re not popular with the ladies. Don’t act like you know about someone’s feelings.”

He pauses, feeling his heart skip a beat.

“I know. And I was… popular enough.”

He lets his mind take him back, back a time before everything in the world was so messed up. When he knew what his responsibilities were, and when there were clear orders to follow. He can’t seem to recall when everything went straight to shit. It feels like it’s been a long time coming.

He knew he was screwed years ago, when he was trying to stitch up the deep gash on his shoulder by himself, sitting in his quarters with a bowl of warm water and bloody bandages. You had been helping the others, a traumatized recruit with a concussion and broken leg, courtesy of the fifteen meter that had overwhelmed him.

There were a few others too, especially a familiar face that seemingly always needed your assistance after a mission. He wondered just how many times the boy—because that’s all he is, a boy, and that’s all you are, a girl—could get away with the same old ruse.

Regardless, he wouldn’t be visiting you tonight. Never mind that the cut he’s trying to nurse by himself is nearly impossible to properly reach, and that he feels dizzy from consistent bleeding and lack of energy in his body. The alcohol he ingested to calm his nerves doesn’t really do anything, either, since there isn’t nearly enough of the stuff in his room to actually have an impact.

He’s going to crash soon, he knows, and even though sleep always evades him, he just wanted to get this wrapped up and lay down without making a bloody mess everywhere. He releases a deep breath he didn’t know he was holding. The very thought of you is enough to tense up every muscle in his body, and the idea of you being alone with that idiotic, improper recruit makes his fist tighten around the needle. Sewing himself up tonight is a lost cause. He finally decides a bandage, no matter how bloody it might become, will have to do.

He stands up, slowly because he doesn’t want to pass out from a head rush, when there’s a knock on the door. He groans a little too loudly at the sound of it. He doesn’t feel like talking to anyone tonight, especially in this condition, wearing a torn scrap of a shirt and blood trapped underneath his nails.

“Who is it?” he calls out harshly, wondering if maybe they’ll just leave if he sounds scary. The other scouts knew he didn’t like to be bothered, and wouldn’t have come unless there was an emergency. If it was Hange she would have barged in already, and he would have recognized Erwin’s heavy footsteps from down the hall. No, he knows who it is. He just wishes that he’s wrong.

“It- It’s me. Petra said you were hurt earlier and that it looked bad. I just wanted to make sure it was okay…” Your soft, hesitant voice trails off, and he knows how much courage it took for you to knock on his door.

What he doesn’t know is that there was no way you were falling asleep tonight without making sure Levi was okay, no matter how angry he would get at you for bothering him at night.

You’re bracing for that reaction when the door opens, but when your wide eyes meet his tired grey ones, you feel yourself melt and all the words in your head disappear. There’s only one fragment of a thought left, the fact that Levi’s bleeding, and a lot, at that. You don’t even wait for his permission to step inside, suddenly energized by anger and mumbling to yourself as you set down your supplies and rummage through them.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” he questions quietly. He tries to line his voice with steel like he always does, but the facade is fading with every passing minute.

“I have to clean out your wound, captain, before something festers. If you had told me about this, say, right when we got back, it would have been fine by now, but now I have to rush because you’re too proud to ask for help-” You still and silence yourself.

It was out of line to enter without permission, but this is something else all together. Caring too much is one thing, you know, but insubordination is not tolerated, especially not by Levi.

You pick up a clean needle and thin silk thread that you need to patch up the wound, while searching for the jar of boiled water you need to clean it out first. Alcohol would work too, and you can smell it in the air, but you can’t find the words to ask for it.

Levi’s hands are unusually still, you know because you always notice them, and it’s a stark contrast to the way you’re shaking right now. It’s strange, because you stitched up a handful of others earlier today, and you were completely fine. Even Gunther, who you had always thought was handsome and could make you blush with an off-hand smile, never incited this kind of reaction from you.

You’re silently praying that Levi doesn’t comment on the tremor, but since you’re about to dig a sharp point into his shoulder to tie the skin back together, it would be idiotic if he didn’t say something. You turn to look at him, but it feels like he’s not even there.

His head is hanging down, propped up by the single functional arm, as the other one continues to bleed. You know it’s painful and that he should be saying something, something that makes you stutter and stumble over your words like he always makes you, but he’s just silent.

“Well, get on with it then. If that’s really why you came here this late.” His voice makes you tremble even harder.

There’s so much you try hard at. You try to be the best soldier you can be, even though both you and your superiors know you weren’t meant for this. Sometimes you can fool your fellow soldiers, and the handful of people you can call your friends, and with a few years under your belt, it seems like it’s getting easier to live this life. But you know deep down that it’s not. The one person who always sees right through it is Levi, though.

It’s part of the reason why you’re such a damn mess around him, because there’s no reason to present a false veneer if he knows the truth. You’re not a real soldier, not a real fighter, and you’re more useful as a medic stitching people up than anything else.

And yet, it’s always him who saves you. Him, who makes sure that any threat in between you and the scout you’re trying to rescue from the brink of death is eliminated. Him, that keeps one eye on the target and one eye on your back just in case. And every time, every goddamn time you need to be rescued, he rescues you.

But now, with his head hanging low and any semblance of not knowing why he always saves you gone, it feels your chance to repay him has finally arrived. The shaking stops when you go to sit down near him. Maybe it’s the sudden rush of energy in your body, but you find yourself unbuttoning his shirt to remove whatever remains of the cloth.

His body tenses further, but he doesn’t stop you, and he doesn’t say anything. You’re as gentle and careful as you can be, and once you’re successful, you drop the mangled shirt on the floor. Taking the water, you pour it over the wound as Levi releases a soft hiss at the feeling, for which you’re apologizing before you can even realize the words have left your mouth. He doesn’t say anything, but his shoulder relaxing encourages you to keep going.

You take your time, trying to clean off all the blood you can. You think he’ll protest when you pick up his hands, and wash those too, but he doesn’t. It’s not until you run your own hand over his softly, squeezing the top of it because you don’t have any words to express the thoughts going through your mind, that he finally speaks up.

“Thank you.”

It’s so quiet, you could swear that you had imagined it. He doesn’t look up to meet your eyes like you wish he would, but a smile forces its way onto your face regardless. You focus on the hard part now; stitching up your captain and making sure your work doesn’t leave him with any scars. You focus on your technique, fingers working nimbly and mind focused on this, and for a short time, it doesn’t feel like you’re with your captain, your superior. It just feels like being there with Levi.

All the while, his brain is working overtime to figure out why you’re like this. Why you’re treating him so carefully and gently, when you have no reason to. He doesn’t pick favorites, and even if he did, you wouldn’t be anywhere near that list. You’re not the fastest, you’re not the most lethal, and in fact, he could count on one hand your titan kills and assists. You help people. You save people. But most of the time, you’re just recovering a half-dead soldier so that their body can be buried at home and not forced to remain out there, alone. You’re just there so that parents can have a grave to mourn at, instead of an empty tomb.

He doesn’t treat you better than anyone else, and most of the time assigns you more cleaning duties than the others. You always take it and never complain, something else that he always wonders about. He had come to the conclusion it was because he’s saved your life countless times, and the fact that he isn’t going to let up soon. So you take everything he gives you with a polite smile. And for some goddamn reason, he can’t get that smile out of his head, no matter how hard he tries. You don’t even know how you make him feel; like he’s special and that he deserves these attentions.

A particularly painful turn of the needle makes him flinch, and brings him back to reality. You’re apologizing again, murmuring how you’re almost done, but he doesn’t want you to leave yet. He lets his mind flicker over how you’re always apologizing, and how much he just wants to tell you that you don’t have to, not for anything. Not for having to come and save you, not for stitching him up, not for trying to fix him.

You let out a sharp breath once you finish, getting back up to fetch a dressing, but his hand grabs yours before you can get too far. Levi looks up, grey eyes full of an emotion you can’t exactly pinpoint, one you have never seen before from him.

“Will you stay a little longer?” And just like that, everything in the world seems to fall into place.

“Of course. Let me just wrap it up, first. I’ll stay as long as you want.” You’re surprised at yourself for finding the words so quickly, because your heart has never pounded so fast in your life. You fumble around, trying to find the right thing, hands shaking again, and you can’t seem to get them to stop.

You go back to Levi, wrapping the cloth around his shoulder and securing it around his arm, suddenly hyper aware of the feel of his skin. It’s softer than you had imagined it would be. Both of you sit in the silence for a while, your hand finding a place over his and rubbing soft circles on his knuckles with your thumb.

You want to say something, anything, but there aren’t any words that seem right. His fingers deftly work their way around yours, and you honestly wonder if he can hear your heartbeat or the blood rushing to your cheeks. It’s past midnight now, and you have a feeling dawn will be approaching before long.

“You should really sleep now. It won’t get better until you rest a little.” You’re speaking because his actions gave you a little bit of confidence, but he interprets it wrong almost immediately.

“Of course. You’d like to go now?”

“N-no! No, I just thought that, that you would be tired now. I can go if you want, I-”

“I don’t get much sleep anyways.” He doesn’t even mean to sound so dejected, but it comes out before he can stop himself. He’s spent too, too many nights laying awake, sleep ever-evading him, wondering how it might be to sleep besides you. Would he get some rest? Would he be able to close his eyes and not open them an hour later with a pounding chest? He can’t remember the last time he was able to fall asleep, and stay asleep. You don’t make any movement to get away, and he notices your hand twitch and wonders why.

You have to fight yourself internally to keep your hand down, and not wrap your arms around your captain as you process his words. Your heart feels strangely heavy at the thought of Levi laying awake, all alone, exhausted but unable to succumb to the ease of rest. He’s on guard, all the time, every minute of every day, and half the time he’s expending his energy on saving you.

You’re not confident, like some of the others. You never have been. But in this moment, you feel something rushing into your body and coursing through your veins, something close to confidence but slightly different. The feeling makes you release Levi’s hand and shed your sweater, and crawl into his bed. It’s almost exactly as you expected, and not nearly as soft or warm as your own. But you think about Levi sleeping soundly beside you, him peaceful and content, and it doesn’t matter how comfortable his bed is. You just want him to fall asleep.

He looks at you with a mix of emotions, surprise being mixed in with them. He hadn’t been expecting that, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t appreciate it.

You’re sitting under the covers now, waiting expectedly for something. A part of you fears that this wasn’t what he meant, or wanted, but your racing heart calms down a little at the sight of him coming in to get settled beside you. He releases a sigh when his shoulder hits the mattress, at ease finally, and so exhausted that every muscle in his body is about to give out.

He sleeps on his back, you note, before shifting your gaze to the ceiling quickly. You certainly don’t want him to notice that you’re staring, or that you keep fingering the soft sheets between your fingers to remind yourself this is real and really happening.

“Stop fidgeting.” His voice is quiet, and even, and stills you instantly. You finally lift your head to look at him, letting out a breath at how he looks. Eyes closed, almost peaceful, laying on his back with his hand resting right near you.

You’re not sure if it’s the confidence from earlier, or something new entirely, but you adjust the sheets to cover him more, pulling them and letting them rest on his chest. He doesn’t open his eyes, but you notice the way he jerks a little at the motion.

“Sorry, Levi,” you whisper, trying to remain as quiet as possible. You lay your hand on top of his, intertwining your fingers and letting your own eyes close. You can hear his every breath, the scent of his skin taking over and clouding your mind as every sense slowly focused on one thing; him. “Let’s sleep now.”

[herstarburststories]

I'd die for you, come kill me

Kinktober Day 11: restrained

Pairing: Demon!Dean x Reader

A/N: This one goes for my good friend followers celebration. So happy for your milestone, @msmarvelouswinchester! Divider by @talesmaniac89.

@stillintheimpala said: i have a fic idea. demon!dean stuck in a chair on handcuffed to a bed with those demon proof handcuffs. he's completely at your mercy. you get to dom him. (I put ropes instead of handcuffs because of the gif)

Prompt: Remember how I said I'd die for you.

Warnings: angry sex, p in v, riding, restraints, power play, smangst, angst, kind of hopefully ending (?), demon!dean acts like demon!dean

“Where is he?”

Sam sucked in a breath, moving his shoulder uncomfortably as he straightened his posture. The youngest Winchester's features contorted into a grimace, and you couldn't tell if it was because of the look on your face or him jarring his dislocated arm. “He's in the dungeon, but Y/N-”

“He isn't himself. I know that. Kinda noticed when he threw me against the wall and said he couldn't wait to rip my throat out with his teeth.” You gave Sam a humorless grin before you gestured to the wound on your shoulder. “This is a good reminder as well.”

“We'll cure him.” Sammy nodded at you, wrapping his words with faith and determination; he was always a believer.

You arched your eyebrows. “Then what are you waiting for?”

You two were still standing in the living room as Dean's howl rushed through the air. He sounded more like a beast than a man, yet he was smack dab in the middle of those polarized states. He was human enough to know where to strike and animal enough to relish in the attack.

Sam's gaze softened on yours.

“I know he hurt you. He hurt both of us, but Dean is my brother. I can do it alone. You don't need to-”

“Sam, he ran away once, and you just got your arm yanked out of your socket. You won't be able to fight him. You need backup,” you interrupted him. Despite your conclusion being completely rational, there was more to it than that, but Sam didn't need to know about it yet. “Besides, it's Dean.”

The hunter glanced at you. Gentle eyes watching your jaw harden, he pressed his lips together and nodded. “Okay.”

Dean's demonic self had been throwing insults like a man feeding his dog shattered glass. He was full of them, not caring about hiding his satisfaction when he hits yours and Sam's weak spots.

A couple of seconds ago, he had called you an easy pussy that saved him the job of having to go out and get some. That display rewarded him with a thicker needle that pierced much deeper than it needed to. The pure human blood spread into his veins as a holy wash, like soap over a flesh wound. Dean growled in pain and went quiet for a while.

Your eyes abandoned the demon for once, directed now to his brother. Sam's earthy brown eyes were drawn in concern, mouth sketched into a frown. His healthy arm was onto his shoulder, obviously physically hurting.

“Sam, go. I can do it. It’s just two more needles. He'll probably pass out once it's done,” you pleaded in an attempt to catch Sam's rational side that always saw the order in chaos. His hazel orbs settled on you, and you knew he didn't want to leave his brother. You can't blame him for that. You didn’t either, but if Dean was in his right mind, he'd want that. And you needed some time alone with this demon version of your boyfriend. “Please.”

You didn’t know if it was something in your cracking voice or if the fact his brother regaining control meant he’d have even harsher words to spit, but when the tall man’s eyes swept from you to his brother and back, he sighed. In that moment, you knew he accepted it. 

“If he doesn't pass out…”

“I call you right away. Don't worry, and please take some meds for your pain.” You offered some tenderness to him in the middle of the violence through a lovingly smile. In a matter of seconds, the only traces of Sammy in the room were the boot-clad clamor of his footsteps growing quieter and quieter.

“Now you have me all to yourself, sweetheart. What are you planning to do?”

The lopsided grin was still attached to his face, and those were still his teeth. Still, something about Dean's smile made you want to rip him apart with your nails. How did he let this happen? How did the situation escalate like this? How did everything get so bad so fast?

“Shut up,” you hissed through your teeth, boots clicking on the floor as you approached him. Dean glanced at you shamelessly; the pretty little bruise on your skin proving that he had succeeded in breaking you. It twisted his guts in both good and bad ways — the bittersweet contradiction among lovers. 

“Feisty, huh? I always liked that on you. Who would guess that you were a bottom in bed?” Dean appeared to find your fury entertaining as if he relished any emotion he could instigate inside you.

“I said shut up.”

“Or what? You are gonna sting me with a flimsy syringe needle like I did to you with my cock? Go ahead, sweetheart.”

The idiotic nickname burned your insides. As your and Dean's relationship got more serious, he'd stop calling you that. You weren't just a fling or a woman he'd leave the next day, and the Winchester only called you that either sarcastically or during an argument now. Was this how the demon saw you? Just another sweetheart?

Dean smirked at your quietude, poking the bear once again. “What? Demon got that smart tongue of yours? It's embarrassing, really. You get all worked up, pretending to be that tough gal, but you can't hurt me. You didn't even fight back when I tried to kill you. How weak is that? You’ve always been a liability. Just another woman I had to protect to get inside her.”

You warned him, the words coming out more like a groan than anything else: “Shut up!”

Yet, Dean persisted. He had discovered your weakness, and he couldn't wait to see how much you could take. You'd end up giving in to him, thrashing headfirst into a fight, and he'd escape again. The demon was counting on that. “A waste of time, really. At least you had a nice pussy, but I scratched it open. It's useless now, just like you.”

The dismissal in his words laced with the cynical chuckle that left his mouth made you hit your breaking point. 

“I TOLD YOU TO SHUT THE FUCK UP!” You grabbed a syringe and stung Dean like a scorpion, right in the jugular. He wanted to set you on fire? Good, you'd make sure he got burnt too. “I said I'd die for you. Remember how I said I'd die for you? And you tried to kill me.” You grunted, throwing the empty needle away. Dean's normally forest green eyes went black as howls of outrage escaped his mouth. The blood of saints that coursed through his body was a good way to either turn the beast into a man again or kill him completely. Knowing this, he screamed and struggled in the chair, as desperate as a rat stuck in a mousetrap. It made you doubt the cure. Perhaps a good thing couldn't save him now, the whispers of sulfur that colored his heart black too intrinsic to eradicate without killing the host. You couldn't bring yourself to care about it now. The demon was suffering, and he deserved it. You wanted your own hurt ricochet back to where it came from: him. “Now you are sitting there talking about me like I'm your bitch or something like that, but I'm not. I can take care of myself, and I don't need you. I chose to stay here.”

Dean blinked, and suddenly everything was in place again. His face softened like it usually did when you two were alone, and an actual smile conquered his features. All the oxygen in your body caught in your throat.

“You're right. You are a strong, independent woman, and I should feel lucky to get myself a keeper like you.” His voice filled the dungeon with light-hearted relief. Your cheeks were hurting as you scooted closer to him. “I missed you so much.”

He was saying all you wanted to tell him the minute he left. Your eyes got glossy, and you threw yourself on his lap, clutching to him like devout patron to her bible. Dean was here. He came back to you.

A quiet gasp of praise left your mouth: “Dean-”

He interrupted whatever you were about to say, replacing your words with a kiss. A sweet one — sweeter than anything you might imagine. It was the kind of kiss shared for two lovers in the dark, recognizing each other’s bodies by touch alone. You, of course, allowed yourself to get lost in the sensation of belonging. You shouldn't have. You should never just jump into someone, or you might drown. It's hard to find corpses in a black river.

Yet, your soul was tied to the righteous sinner, so you kept pressing your lips to his while he devoured your mouth softly.

“Sammy doesn't understand, Y/N,” he said. When he pulled away, you nuzzled into his neck. The heated tang to his murmured sentiments remained there, but his voice, less gruff than usual, fooled you. “I finally don't have the weight of the world on my shoulders. I'm free. I never thought I'd be happy after that night…” Dean wore the façade, even gulping at the thought. He didn't know if it was because the human blood was slowly coursing into the core of his being, but he wouldn't waste time on it. “But I can now. We can run away together, leave Sam behind. Just me and you.”

What did you expect? He was a demon. The blame was on you for expecting repentance from the ashes of hellfire. This isn't a fairytale where the hero suddenly is hit by true love and everything is solved with the ultimate kiss. This is a hunter’s tale, and there's just one ending for those stories: the prey dying.

You lifted your head. “Dean would never leave Sam behind.”

Dean burst into laughter as if your hope was some sort of funny joke. He adjusted his hips in the chair, smirking at you with cruelty.

“Bet it almost got you. I could see your eyes shining with hope. You were ready to get on your knees and suck my cock. You’d be screaming Dean, Dean, Dean, and inevitably fall for some stupid lies.” He shook his head with disappointment. “You're too easy, Y/N.”

“Who do you think you are?” The indignancy in your tone only drew a malicious grin out of Dean. This was too good. He could feel his cock hardened in his pants. He might fuck you before killing you only to make good use of his time.

“I'm a demon. What about you? Oh, wait! I know the answer to that one.” He licked his lips, savoring the moment. “You're a little-”

Smack.

The palm of your hand met Dean's cheek harshly, transferring some of your anger into a red mark on his right cheek. The eldest Winchester's head was tilted to the side from the impact. He clenched his jaw before turning his glare at you, eyes back in black as he spoke: “You shouldn't have done that.”

Every syllable that left his tongue was imbued with a threatening crimson rage, but you didn't care. Not now.

You weren't scared of him.

“You shouldn't be a demon, but here we are,” you remarked, summoning a smarmy leer and wearing it like one of his flannels. “Shut up. I know you're not my Dean. You are just all he hates in himself wrapped with his skin. You're disgusting, cruel, and selfish.” It didn’t make any sense for your body to be as heated up as it was, but it was. And Dean didn’t care. Fuck him. “You’ve spent so long aiming at our Achilles’ heel that you forgot you have yours too. Stupid.” You chortled, grinding your hips on his. At this point, both your panties and emotional stability were ruined. “Look at you, all hard for the girl basically torturing you with poison, huh?”

“You-” He attempted to speak, to put you down so he can climb over you. You stopped him with a hand inside his pants.

“Language, Dean,” you groaned at him. It wasn't unusual for you and Dean to blow off some steam with sex, either after a fight or a hunt, but, this? It’s a whole new level of fucked. Yet somehow, your pussy didn't seem to mind, and neither did his cock. You got his length free, and his stiffened cock slapped his clothed belly. “I don't wanna hear something that makes me angry because if I get mad, then I won't let you come inside my pretty pussy. Understood?”

He groaned in response, trying to move his hands to show you who the real alpha was here, but the rope kept him in place. Silence lanced through the air because you knew you didn't want to waste time on something as exciting as foreplay; he did not deserve that, and you didn't want this. You just lifted your red skirt and slid your panties to the side. Your pussy swallowed his cock painfully slow.

The demon that ate your lover didn't offer mumbled protests at the fact you were still wearing clothes. Your Dean always tried to get any piece of fabric away because he liked to see all of you. This Dean, though, gulped and glared at you. Pleasure flushed his cheeks only he can’t deny the physical pleasure. It’s clear that, even as a demon, he could never reject the carnal appeal of your body and your sweet, soaked pussy. Hands pinned behind his back with the restraints, you two in the middle of a big demon symbols on the ground, he was completely at your mercy. He was helpless.

Dean bucked his hips to get all of his hardness inside you right way, to show both you and himself that he still had the power here. You barely blinked before moving your hips up, restricting him further entrance into your cunt. Dean was always eager when it came to sex, but you knew this wasn't about just fucking you anymore. You were in control.

Placing your hands on his shoulders, you murmured in an increasingly sultry bite: “I'm the one making the rules here. Take it or leave it.”

“Fucking a demon? That's why you told Sammy to go with all the crap about caring for his arm?” the former hunter remarked. You and he both knew Dean wouldn't — couldn’t, not with half his cock being squeezed by your tightness — leave your pussy, but he still very much had the capacity to bite.

“Unlike you, I worry about the people I love.”

“I don't love,” he snarled, watching you swallow the malcontented lump in your throat. “Hear that? I don't love you.”

“Then at least be useful and fuck me,” you groaned, finally resting wholly in his lap with all of his dick inside of you. Dean whimpered, overthrown by the sensation of your heady tightness encompassing his cock. He tried to break free again, starved to grab your thighs, your ass, any part of you he could get his hands on, but the rope limited his range of motion. The raw polyester and nylon mix around his wrists was a contrast to the warmth of his lap. His eyes closed, blinking only back into wakeful blackness because of your promise disguised as a hissed threat: “No, forget it. I'll be the one fucking you.”

There was something delightfully mercurial about the way you rode Dean. The dungeon once filled by his pained screams had now become the perfect studio for your flexing thighs slapping against his, your breathless moans camouflaging the raw hurt of your heart, and the unique sound of Dean's cock sunk to impossible degrees inside your needy cunt. He leaned in for more.

This was no longer about the sexual release for him. It was for the tiny part of Dean that always craved an order to follow. It was the small piece of him that craved carrying the weight of responsibility heavy on his back like the burden Atlas had to bear. It was the liberation of the heavy chains that held him down since he was a child, even if his hands were — appropriately enough — tied behind his back. As a demon, he didn’t have to worry, and neither did he when submissive to you. For you, it was expelling your revenge on this devilish version of the man you loved. He had it coming.

“I hate you. I hate having to save you. I hate caring about you.” You huffed, nails sinking in his clothed shoulder. The ghost of your touch was enough to make his dick twitch inside you. Tears brimmed in your eyes as the goosebumps rose your spine, and every time you sunk on his cock brought you closer to collapse. All Dean did was to praise your name with a moan. “I hate how good you feel inside me.” You sobbed, increasing your rhythmic and going fast and rougher on his cock. Your walls were tightening around his dick. Your untouched clit rubbed against the fabric, but it didn't matter. This wasn't about pleasure. “I hate that it’s you and not him.” That's not my Dean.

That caught his attention. Dean’s shoulders grew rigid. He was ready to catch a glimpse of warring emotions of hatred and disgust on your face, but he wasn't prepared for the crushingly forlorn refraction of loss and dispair he found there. 

The knight of hell should feel satisfied. That was what he wanted, wasn't it? Destroying you, turning the woman the human version of himself loved into a walking catastrophe so you wouldn't dare bring him back.

Apparently, the priorities changed. Maybe the blood was really effective, slowly disintegrating his armor into flesh again. It was the only explanation for all the humanly emotions he was experiencing.

Dean felt the conflict building as if hurting you was physically tearing him apart. His eyes contracted into livid green again, shining like the moon with tears he didn't dare drop. He was still a demon, bratty heart or not.

Yet, there was only so far a man could control himself. His lips were treacherous for your name, echoed more like a plea than anything: “Y/N-”

“Shut up! I don't wanna hear your voice. You said I'm your little bitch, nothing but a whore to you, huh? Guess what, asshole. You are my bitch now, and you’re gonna like it.” The little monster in you hummed happily to your authority, glad to finally punish someone for the incitement of agony inside your guts. You closed your eyes, riding Dean ferociously.

Dean Winchester might have been a cage to your feelings, but at least it was golden.

You said you'd be here. You said you wouldn't leave me. Your thoughts corroded your wearied heart as you tried to fuck them away with Dean's weeping cock. You could feel he was close, and you were constantly hitting your G-spot with eagerness, your sweat and harrowed feelings gushing over. You said I didn't need to leave. You said we'd find a way through this. You lied, you lied, you lied. 

I trusted you, and you destroyed me. You hurt me and Sam, and I can't even blame you for it. He knew all your enemies started out as friends. He knew how much it would hurt you if he got the mark. He knew how it would break you if he said those words, demon or not. And you know you can't put this blame on Dean’s shoulders, but you were suffocating and needed fresh air. The sacrificial game wasn’t always a virtuous act. So, you dropped yourself down hard, appreciating the way his cock hit the right spot over and over again. It forced your body to feel good despite your restless mind. I hate you. You made me go crazy. And I miss you.

What was the saying? Man makes the promise, and the demon makes him break it.

Dean's fixated you. He wanted to get free of his cuffs and cup your cheeks, see you lean into his touch so he could wipe away the tears that started to fall and haven't stopped in minutes. He wanted to tell you he was here, not completely, but he was here. He wanted to apologize and make it better, but he didn't. His white skin was burning red because of how hard he was trying to move his hands, hair moving by your movements and his. The semi-human groaned like the remainder of the beast clutching his strings when he hit his orgasm and spread his seed inside you. You whined like a broken toy as you came all over his cock.

It felt good, for a while. It was nice, feeling good.

You stayed there a little more, gaining control over yourself while he softened inside of you. Dean was doing the same in an attempt to stifle his human emotions from surfacing. He wasn't going to be weak anymore. He couldn't be because for once in his life, he hadn’t hated himself. 

You coughed, using the chair to hoist yourself to your feet. His cum dripped from your pussy, dampening his still-clothed thigh. You sniffed, grimacing a little when you noticed that your face wasn't wet with sweat. You’d been crying. 

That only made you madder at yourself.

“Fuck it,” you groaned, putting his dick back into his pants before zipping him up.

Dean smirked in a final attempt to turn the table and get on your nerves again. “That's what we just did.”

You didn't waste more of your heart on him. Taking the last needle, you sunk the devil into his sharp skin and pressed the plunger with all the fervor of pulling a gun's trigger. He screamed like the rush of humanity flowing into him was a shot to the heart.

Your legs were trembling when you threw the object away and hugged yourself, focused on Dean's fragile body in front of you. 

He looked down, eyes shutting a few times as if he was waking up before lifting his head to look at you. 

“Y/N?” His voice was back to its gruff drag, but it was carrying a strand of vulnerability and care that he had only ever directed at you. Dean frowned, confusedly watching you and the place around you both, not to mention himself. “Y/N, what happened?”

He didn't remember anything. He didn't remember the terrible things he’d done. He didn't remember the words said.

You gulped, the back of your hand pressed against your wet cheeks. “I'm going to get Sam.”

The demon may have gotten teary-eyed, but the human Dean was the one letting the tears slide down his cheeks as you turned around and left, almost running to get away from him. He didn't even know why.

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[nlsetsumuri]

BNHA QUIRKS!!!

I'm organizing my notes for a character-insert story I'm writing and I felt like sharing them here!!! I think people would be interested in what I came up with.

FEEL FREE TO USE ANY OF THESE FOR YOUR OWN CHARACTERS!!

No credit needed. I made Flourish specifically with Shigaraki in mind because I know a lot of people would like to have a quirk complimentary to Decay so that Tomura can touch them safely.

and hey, self-shippers? I love you so much!! you're so awesome, pls send me some self-indulgent stuff sometime soon!!

also! Quirks that are present in my stories will be marked as IN-USE. this just means that what the quirk entails might change in the future.

FLOURISH - EMITTER (IN-USE)

touch-based quirk. complimentary to decay, rendering the user immune to decay. decay users are unaffected by flourish (cannot be healed). touching something with all five fingers heals/reverses any damage

i like the idea of decay and flourish canceling eachother out because they're complimentary quirks. shigaraki can touch you and??? you don't die?? and???? you touched shigaraki but he's not healing????? fun times

BOND - EMITTER(?) (IN-USE)

user has the ability to use a diminished version of someone's quirk if they share a strong bond with said person. Most commonly found in mutated individuals with animalistic features.

This isn't really a stand-alone quirk but more of an ability, but I still decided to include it because it has really specific requirements.

JACK OF ALL TRADES - EMITTER(?)

user can give themselves ANY quirk they desire (meaning that they can copy someone else's quirk, or create a new one entirely) this ability requires a lot of energy and while in-use, will tire the user out until the stop using the quirk or pass out. (think of it like charging your phone. eventually, the battery power will lower and you'll have to plug it in. Or you're one of those people who doesn't plug it in until it dies.) The more powerful the chosen quirk is, the longer the user will be out for. "OP" quirks like take more energy to replicate/use, and consequentially, will require a longer recovery period. Quirks like Overhaul or Decay will put the user into a comatose state. This quirk is literally just All For One Juniour Edition.

so basically like? all for one but fair. also the quirks aren't "saved" or anything, so if u want to use bakugou's explosion quirk, but ur already using tsuyu's froggy quirk to restrain something with your tongue, you'd have to stop using it and let go so you can use explosion instead.

NULLIFY - EMITTER

Touch-Based quirk. Touching someone with all five fingers will render them quirkless for 24 hours. Only works on one person at a time, and cannot be used on the same person twice in a row. Made with Shigaraki in mind.

i made this purely because i want to hold shigaraki's hand without turning into dust. also... imagine having to constantly remind yourself to keep ur pinky/middle finger off of whatever you touch. idk about you, but that's too much work for me. I'd rather just wear those gloves made for drawing tablets.

GRIM REAPER - EMITTER (IN-USE)

Touch-Based quirk. touching someone with all five fingers immediately kills them, allowing the user to harvest their soul (souls manifest as little cheeseball sized lights. they're all different colors, depending on who's soul it was.) souls can be eaten (they taste like gummi bears) whoever eats it has their body revitalized instantaneously, each and every individual cell replaced by a new and perfect copy. souls can only be captured in jars. they act like fireflies.

firefly rave... also this is literally decay but it only works on living things and also u get a snack. and a corpse. although idk i guess a corpse would count as a snack to someone. also if someone doesn't have a soul, they just die. lol

VAMPIRE - MUTANT TYPE

user is easily sunburnt, does not have a reflection, allergic to garlic (regardless of genetics) and cannot be killed unless the heart is damaged. User must drink a certain amount of blood regularly to avoid loss of inhibition (will attack nearest person to feed) and severe malnutrition, known as "bloodthirst."

honestly? this isn't really that beneficial... sunburns, no garlic bread, if you cant get enough blood you suffer and go apeshit... but I mean at least you've got circumstantial immortality.

HIGH ELF - MUTANT TYPE

user has pointed ears and is considerably taller than regular humans. naturally skilled archers, and have a strong connection to nature.

i couldn't help myself, i love DnD.

BETTA - MUTANT

fish subtype. user has fully-functional gills. The user's hair reflects the different kinds of tail types (plakat = short hair, crown tail = dreadlocs/separated strands, rose tail = long and flowy) and are naturally bright colors like red or blue. lethal close-combat skills and impressive speed. natural beauty is also a bonus

im surprised i'm not including this in my character insert story. it's my personal favorite so far. fishy!!!

WEREWOLF - TRANSFORMATION

exactly what it sounds like. full moons trigger the shift. user cannot control the shift. it's basically like periods except instead of bleeding out of your uterus, you turn into a wolf.

... yeah, i don't know what influenced this the most. the fact that i made vampires and felt obligated to also include werewolves, that i'm a furry, or that this gives me an excuse to push alpha beta omega dynamics onto bnha

GHOST RIDER - TRANSFORMATION

based on that one marvel comic series. when transformed, the user takes on the appearence of their skeletal structure engulfed in flames. the user is able to control flames and a vehicle/form of transport of their prefrence. when user establishes eye contact, the opponent will suffer the pain they have caused for others (if any.) cannot transform in direct sunlight.

i am incredibly ashamed to admit that it was only yesterday that i saw the 2007 ghost rider movie for the first time in my life. i fucking loved it. it was funny, freaky as hell, and so fucking awesome. i love ghost rider, i mean, cmon, like? that's literally what being a punk is about in a nutshell. skeletons. fire. leather jackets. metal spikes. chains. motorbikes. anti-heroes. also i really enjoyed the addition of genuine demon names. i got so excited when i recognized the name mephisopholes. the movie also gave me ACAB vibes so bonus points for that. and the little details like how johnny's fire turned blue whenever he focused on roxanne. god fuck it was a great movie i will be thinking about it for the next week or so. TL;DR THE 2007 GHOST RIDER MOVIE IS AWESOME I CANT BELIEVE I NEVER WATCHED IT. i always end up getting more attatched to the manga instead of the anime and this was no different.

P.S. lmk if you wanna know more about my character insert! i post a lot about him on my twitter account and i'm generally more active there anyways!!

[bel9ved]

Signless ==> Die.

The blackness had lifted slowly.

You did not know where you were except that you were moving. Smoothly, less like a troll was carrying you and more like you were on wheels. You are standing, your wrists chained above you in cold metal shackles. One of your arms stings in four long stripes where the cool night air hits it. It is eerily quiet, except for the rough sound of wheels on cobblestones. Is someone crying?

Your head is pounding but you are quickly becoming more aware. Your eyes flutter open, and behind the row of subjugglator enforcers you see a crowd. Bigger than any you have ever spoken to, all silent, watching eyes. There is a line of subjugs behind the crowd as well, keeping them penned in. Keeping them scared.

You twist in your chains, trying to look around. To find an escape route, to find... Your breath catches.

Your family is behind you. On another cart, being wheeled by clowns, each of them only just breaching consciousness. All chained to a pole like you are, though they are together. You are all alone.

You twist again, panic starting to set in and you go utterly still with terror when your eyes finally focus on what awaits you. There he is. The Grand Motherfucking Highblood. His grinning skull burns itself into your vision like a brand. Suddenly, he is all you can see, your eyes dilating to pinpricks with the adrenaline. No. No no no no no.

The march continues. By the time you reach him he fills your vision in all his glory. Your pusher is in your ears again but you hear your lusus begin to scream for you as your family comes to a halt some distance behind you.

Someone grabs your arms, holds you tight as they uncuff the cold metal and begin to drag you toward an anvil and a brazier you hadn't noticed until now. A blueblood stands nearby, waiting, his back straight and his head bowed in the presence of his betters.

Finally, your instincts kick in and you begin to fight. You yell and thrash and when they dig their claws into you, you wrench your arm away with all your strength. You barely feel the chunk of flesh that tears beyond your need to escape. It's useless, though. You are one, tiny little mutantblood and there are at least four clowns flanking you. Before long, they have you as immobile as you were in the chains.

As you are dragged forward by the arms, the blueblood dutifully pulls a white hot strip of metal from the brazier. It is placed on the anvil, and you swear you can almost hear the metal whine. You can see the waves of heat coming off of it, the glow against the dark steel beneath.

And then you see nothing as white hot pain takes over your vision. They've lowered your wrist to the cuff and the blueblood is hammering it into a perfect circle molded to your flesh, the agony wrapping around you until it is all consuming. You are screaming louder than you ever have before, struggling like the prey you are to these trolls. Tears are pouring from your eyes. You can no longer hear your family calling out behind you.

Your vision is only just starting to return when the second band is brought from the flames and placed down. You desperately try to get your wrist away from them, but their grip is unyielding and the second cuff is molded just as easily into place. This time, when you scream, it is raw and ragged, your voice already breaking for the audience the Grand has brought to witness your execution.

You are sobbing, shaking as they weld the chains in place. The smell of searing muscle makes you gag.

There is a long, sturdy chain that they take up and drag you forward with. You are in agony as you are wrenched up onto the platform where the stone flogging pole stands. Your wrists go up above your head and you scream again with the new white hot pain that crashes into your system. They drape the chain over the top of the pole, and one of the ones who was holding you swiftly drives a nail into one of the gaps in the links. There is no chance of escape, now.

A few moments pass as the Grand walks leisurely up to you. His smooth voice begins, but you don't understand what he's saying beyond the pounding in your head and the sizzling sound of your wrists in the cuffs. He is reaching for you, and in your shock you do the only thing you can.

You bite.

Fucker isn't even wearing armor. Your fangs, as small as they are, sink into his forearm and you dig in as far as you can. You feel him growl more than you hear it. He tugs his arm. Your teeth tighten and you growl at him, as threatening a warning as you can produce with your breath so shallow.

You see his eyes narrow, but you don't see the knife coming until it pierces into your chest. You've been stabbed before, but never with the force behind it that he has. It's a spike of pain driving into your ribs and you gasp, another sob breaking from your throat. In that moment he easily wrenches his arm from your grip and examines the wound.

You snarl at him. You don't know what else to do.

"if you was so thirsty, you shoulda just asked. you thirsty, mutant?"

"I could say the same of you."

"animal. don't know why anyone listened to you."

His insults help you find your voice. It's hoarse, ragged from your screams, but it's there. He backhands you across the face for your insolence and the throbbing pain in your head becomes much more sharp. You can feel fresh blood trickling through your hair and onto your forehead. You take a shuddering breath, and your head rises again.

"You are vile." You spit at him as you turn your eyes back to the skull on his face.

"i'd say tell it to someone who cares, but."

Your expression breaks. You snarl at him, but your attention has already been taken up entirely by the view your family, staring back in utter horror at what they are doing to you.

As the clown unfurls his scroll and begins reading your charges and crimes, you break down into sobs that wrack your feverish frame. You make eye contact with all of them, each one in turn. You see your mother's cold fury, your love's blazing anger, the worry and terror on your friend's face.

Your head falls as you keep crying.

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

"with all them tears, i think you are gonna get thirsty."

You hadn't noticed he was done reading. You look up at him, barely able to make out his paint with the tears in your eyes, but you don't have enough time to react before he is pressing a jar to your cracked lips and pouring the contents inside.

It's blood. Oh fuck, it's blood. Cold metallic slime trying to ooze its way into your throat. Thick, cloying with its taste. You try to spit it out, coughing and gagging and twisting in your restraints against the sudden searing pain in your wrists as you move.

"what, bronze not to your taste? aight, here this oughtta be better."

A second jar replaces the first as you are struggling to catch your breath, and this time you swallow almost half of it before you can realize what's happening. You are retching. You must have been out a while, because your stomach is empty and nothing comes up, but it hurts where the blade had been in your chest and it tugs at your restraints again and the choking devolves once more into a cry of pain and then into shaking sobs.

"damn he thinks he's too good for all of us, don't he?"

You hear some of the clowns laugh. You hear your Survivor snarl at him. You shake your head as much as you can, but that only gets laughter as well. You're the funniest joke on Alternia right now.

It takes him a moment to come toward you again. The jars he holds now are empty, the knife he had already tipped with crimson stain is in his hand. He doesn't make a fuss. Doesn't flourish or show off. The knife simply dips into your upraised arm, and it hardly even hurts. Not compared to the fire on your wrists or the burning in your lungs. He slices neatly, just above the armpit. You know there is a vein there that will spill your color as fast as it will flow.

He holds the vessel up to catch the precious pigment. Presses it into your skin. When the first is full and the bleeding has slowed a bit, he moves around a few steps and slices your other arm open as wide as the first. To say you are lightheaded is an understatement. The world swims slowly as you feel your consciousness begin to fade. The pain in your wrists isn't as sharp now. Everything feels duller. It would almost be pleasant, except for the feeling of your life slowly being drained into his paint pots.

Finally, he steps away. You don't hear what he says now. Everything is fuzzy and too cold. The world is moving in slow motion and your eyes are full of tears. Your family are crying. You would know those sounds anywhere. Your lusus's heavy sobbing, Psiionic's ragged pleading. Your mate's screeching, angry heaves. In your daze, you try to move your arm to reach for them. To tell them that everything will be okay.

The white hot sear of the metal brings you back into sharp focus. You cry out again, with nowhere near the strength of before. Your head is swimming, but you can see Grand walking away, cleaning his knife, as an archeradicator you don't recognize steps forward and draws his bow, the arrow already nocked and pointed at your chest.

The thudding sound of a bowstring hits your ears milliseconds before you feel the sting of the gash in your side. The arrow catches you across the ribs, missing its strike but opening a wide crimson wound. Blood spills, in a way one might almost call symbolic, and begins to soak into your ruined leggings. You hiss in pain, but the new slash brings another moment of clarity.

You see the man freeze, his ears pinning back with sudden fear. You see the Grand turn around, cold fury on his face. Before the archeradicator can even try to explain himself, you hear the sickening crunch of his neck and he drops lifeless to the ground. You stare at him, his face twisted into a rictus of shock and horror.

...He had been trying to kill you, but... He had been following orders. He had barely missed, and still the Grand treats this life, this troll, like nothing. Even one of his own is not safe from him. He wastes the most precious thing on this planet, and you cannot hear anything over the slow, drumming pulse of rage in your ears. Every bone in your body turns to fury. Every drop of blood that is still in your veins pulses red hot. Your face morphs from pain to white hot anger, and baring your bloody teeth you snarl.

He gestures to another. One you recognize as the Executor Darkleer. One that, in another life, you might have called a friend. He draws his bow with perfect posture. Aims it at your chest again but suddenly you don't care. You have eyes only for the Grand.

Your fury bubbles out of you in a screech that breaks the silence like a gun. It explodes at the Highblood like a whip from the hell that is your anger at a world unfair.

"FUCK YOU."

You don't hear the bowstring this time, or see the arrow coming.

The pain is immense. The arrow hits you dead in the side, drives into you hard enough that the tip pierces through your back. You cough up blood from the sudden impact, the fury leaving your face all at once to be replaced with terror as you realize, finally, that you are about to die. You can't breathe, your head is swimming with pain and blood loss. You struggle to focus, to look at the man who has calmly, and coldly, murdered you.

His face is impassive, but yours is pleading as you try to meet the eyes behind the goggles and find nothing but the void in return.

You barely have time to drag your eyes away from him, to find your family once more before everything.

Goes.

....Black.

[ponykidcurtis]

KLAUS PROMPTS!! if you don't like this I can try again, but what about Klaus is sick and trying to hide severe pain of some sort (you can decide!) in front of his family and someone (possibly Five?) eventually sees through it :O

This took me a billion years longer than I expected, and it’s not the best thing ever, but I did it so I hope you enjoy it

Klaus felt like shit, plain and simple. He’d had a migraine building all morning, and it seemed to have reached its peak. His head was pounding, and his body couldn’t seem to decide if it was hot or cold; he alternated between shivering under as many blankets as possible, or throwing them all off trying to get away from the heat. It felt like he was sweating and freezing all at once, and every movement made his head ache more than before. The ghosts were louder too, now that he was sober, which didn’t help matters much.

“Just tell someone you’re sick, Klaus,” Ben said from where he’d been sitting cross-legged on the floor. Klaus groaned and shuffled deeper into the covers he had piled around him.

“…Jus’ need to sleep,” He muttered, but he flinched as a ghost let out a shriek next to the bed, and Ben sighed.

“I don’t think that’s going to–” Ben jumped and cut himself off at the sound of Luther calling from downstairs. Klaus winced.

“Family meeting, five minutes!” Luther bellowed again. Klaus shifted slowly, maneuvering himself out from under his nest of blankets. Ben tried to protest, but it’s not like he could physically push Klaus back into bed, so his brother waved him off and kept going. He pressed his palm to his forehead as he sat up, letting his naturally-cold fingers give him a brief release from the pain.

“Klaus, come on,” Ben protested again as Klaus made to stand up. “Luther would let you sit this one out if you just tell him what’s wrong.” Klaus hummed, not wanting to shake his head and make it all worse.

“No, he’d just think ’m high. Alison too.” Diego might have believed him, and Ben knew it too, but Klaus didn’t give him enough time to voice that before pushing himself up and making his way out into the hallway. Besides, Diego didn’t have the time to bother with him when he was busy saving the world, and Klaus could take care of himself anyway. He was feeling all kinds of terrible–weak and shaky, dry mouth, nausea threatening to crawl up his throat–but it was fine. He’d felt worse. He could handle it.

That is, he could, until he shuffled by the bathroom doorway a little too fast, tripped over the carpet, and stumbled enough to bash his shoulder into the doorframe. He caught himself before he could fall completely, but the movement sent shooting pain through his head and he was suddenly glad that he’d managed to bump into the bathroom door rather than a bedroom, because he was about to lose the loose hold he’d had on his queasy stomach.

Klaus had barely a second to get to his knees in front of the toilet before he was retching up the meager breakfast he’d had that morning, and god, he took back what he’d said before, this was the worst. He didn’t want to handle it. He wanted someone else to handle it, preferably someone other than Ben who could actually touch things. Between heaves, he contemplated taking Ben’s advice for once, and actually telling Luther he wasn’t feeling too hot, but the large man in question was at the door before he could finish the thought.

“Klaus! I called a family meeting, get your ass out of bed before I– oh,” Luther passed the doorway and then backtracked, trailing off in his rant when he spotted Klaus dry heaving into the toilet bowl. Klaus caught Ben glaring at him out of the corner of his eye, silently urging him to say something. He didn’t.

“Um,” Luther looked a little put out, like he wasn’t sure what to say in this situation. Klaus retched again, and Luther’s mouth curled in disgust. “Is this withdrawal again?”

“Didn’t take anything,” Klaus groaned, looking uncharacteristically miserable. He wished he could turn the lights off.

“Right,” Luther said, “Just… come downstairs as soon as you’re done, I guess.” He left more quickly than he’d come, leaving Klaus alone to listen to Ben’s angry rambling.

“You’ve been sober for ten months!” Ben was saying, rather loudly, but lowered his voice as soon as he caught Klaus grimacing.

“Not to them,” Klaus sighed, resting his aching forehead against the cool porcelain of the toilet bowl. It seemed like he was in the clear, for now, as long as he avoided any sudden movements. “Only been sober for two days, technically. Time travel’s a bitch.”

“He didn’t even ask if you were okay,” Ben said, more softly this time. Klaus waved him off with one manicured hand.

“I’m fine, Benny boy.” He stood on shaky legs and steadied himself against the wall, waiting for the pounding of his head to calm before he started his walk to the living room. He flushed the toilet twice. “Let’s head down, shall we? Can’t start a party without me, of course.”

He managed to make it to the living room in one piece–even if he’d love to have his head knocked off, because he was sure that would hurt less than it did now–and lowered himself gracelessly onto the couch. Everyone else was already there.

“Great, now that you’re done getting high, we can finally get started,” Luther said.

“You’re high?” Diego exclaimed, turning to stare at him.  “You said you were done with that shit, man.”

“Didn’t take anything,” Klaus repeated, draping himself over the cushions and closing his eyes. He didn’t have to look to know his siblings were all glaring at him with varying degrees of disappointment. He shook off his own disappointment at their disbelief with a fairly accurate impersonation of dear-old-daddy, if he did say so himself; “You may begin, Number One!”

Alison groaned, Luther sighed, and Klaus was pretty sure Diego rolled his eyes. That seemed likely. He didn’t hear anything from Five.

He tuned out the rest of the conversation, for the most part, throwing an arm over his eyes to block out the living room lights. The migraine had admittedly been getting better, after the bathroom incident, but it was back to pounding now. His head felt like it would split open and the lights were too bright and Luther was yelling at Diego, Alison interjecting, which really wasn’t helping and oh, god, Klaus hoped he wasn’t about to throw up again–

“–Christ, Klaus, are you even listening?” Diego’s voice cut through Klaus’ addled thoughts, and he covered up his flinch by sitting up quickly.

“Uh–yup, yes, definitely listening, what did you say again?” Klaus was having a hard time focusing his eyes on Diego, and he was pretty sure he was sweating now, but all he felt was shaky and cold. He really wanted to go back to bed, turn all the lights off, and hope the ghosts would shut up long enough for him to sleep this off.

“Klaus…” Alison started, like she wanted to tell him off but didn’t know how. She trailed off instead.

“You need to start taking this seriously,” Luther said, and there he went sounding like their dad again. He’d stopped yelling after Diego had started talking, but the low tone of his voice still felt like too much. “You can’t be high all the time; if we’re going to stop the apocalypse we have to do it together, as a family. We don’t have time for games.”

Klaus didn’t even want to respond to that. At this point, even Ben had given up trying to convince him to tell his siblings what was going on. He was off in a corner, reading the book he always had, like he’d finally realized Klaus was right; they’d never listen to him, sober or not.

“He’s not,” Five spoke up from the bar. Klaus glanced up at him, surprised, and badly covered up a grimace when his head swam. He hadn’t considered his youngest–oldest?–brother in his excuses to Ben, and he thought now that he probably should have. Five was looking at him with that annoyingly calculating gaze he always adopted when he was trying to solve a problem. Klaus didn’t exactly like the implications of that, but he was glad someone was actually listening to him, so he’d take it.

“Thank you, at least one of you believes your poor, dear brother,” he tried, but it fell flat. He wasn’t even feeling up to dramatics by now, and he was pretty sure that if he moved any more than he already had, he’d throw up again.

“He’s not high,” Five said again, more firmly, to the siblings. “You’ve all seen what he’s like when he’s high. This isn’t it. He’s quiet, he hasn’t made an annoying comment since he came in here, and he didn’t even complain when you yelled at him.” He turned to Klaus and asked, “Are you sick?”

“Yeah,” Klaus answered tiredly, rubbing at his eyes again quickly, “Migraine.”

“You’re sick?” Diego echoed, an oddly comical parody of his earlier question.

“I caught him throwing up earlier, but I thought it was just withdrawal again.” Luther’s face was a strange mix of sheepish and confused, sinking further into sheepish when Alison rounded on him.

“You knew he was sick, and you still made him come down here?” She challenged.

“Well, I–”

“The apocalypse isn’t going to be stopped by you pushing people past their limits, Luther! You’re not dad!”

As the rest of them devolved into shouting again, Klaus dropped back against the cushions behind him and let out a heavy breath. He wasn’t sure if he could just leave, yet, but all the noise was jarring and he really wanted to just take a nap. He glanced up, tired eyes meeting Five’s across the room.

Five rolled his eyes skyward and pushed past the arguing siblings to get to Klaus, taking hold of his arm and jumping them away from the living room in a flash of blue light. They landed in Klaus’s room, where Klaus was promptly deposited on his bed. The jump and the light had been disorienting, for him and for Ben–even as a ghost, he was clutching his book and looking a little disgruntled–and by the time he’d blinked back the spots in his vision it was clear that Five had jumped to and from the bathroom too; he popped back into the room and dropped a couple of painkillers into Klaus’s hand, along with a glass of water. Klaus stared at the tablets for a moment, confused by the small amount of care his usually stoic brother was showing him. Five sent him a pointed look, mirrored unknowingly by Ben across the room, and that was enough for Klaus to grin weakly and down the pills and water in one go.

“Thanks, little bro,” Klaus teased, and Five scowled.

“Go to sleep,” was all Five said in response, but he opted for actually walking out of the room when he left, so he could flick off the light and shut the door. The lack of spatial jumping was telling enough. Klaus chuckled quietly, shared a look with Ben, and rolled over to finally get some sleep.

[monstergalsbeingpals]

Hey, I'm an introvert pan girl, who love to learn new things, watch movie, draw and play games. I love all sea creatures, but orcas are my ultimate fav. I like when my partner is taller than me :3 The ideal date could be either stay at home or go out, as long as we having fun I don't mind. The ocean is beautiful for it's scenery. Sunrise or sunset, the colors mixed together so beautiful! The infinite horizon and the serenity it provides. -aghostwholovemonsters

Neato! Glad you’re dropping in! mermaids are pretty gosh darn tall with those tails and all

Ha, I have to stop making these intros so long probably lol but here we go!

And just a ps to others, sorry if I don’t turn these around super fast. I guess I tend to be pretty wordy and I’m not the best writer. I’m also trying to do these cute little sketches because I thought they might add a nice little touch:

You don’t know how this happened. You don’t know why this happened.

You somehow ended up on a boat trip, four days out on the sea to enjoy the air, watch for animals, and fish. It’s not that it isn’t fun and the scenery is beautiful, it’s just a bit jarring. You had brought a sketchbook and a few games with you just to help you pass some downtime and recharge. On the second day, the water had been rough, which meant no fishing and more company below deck. Of course with most of your fellows below meant there was more room open on the deck. You watched the water’s surface for a while sketching passing gulls and rough waves. You were hoping to spot whales still but you knew it wasn’t likely. Out of the corner of your eye, you caught a glint of something and ran over to look over the railing. Hopes rose for a moment but nothing, but you could feel something out there.

That night after most everyone else went to bed you stayed awake. Usually, the rocking motion was actually quite soothing but tonight it was just too much and you couldn’t fall asleep so easily. You headed above to breathe in some night air and look out watching as a sky full of stars meshed with the shine off the waves. You brought a game above with you, just as a distraction but again, you catch something, just a glint, faster this time you barely can make out a long form just below the surface. You lean out trying to get a closer look, maybe if you just gave yourself a slight boost…slip

You expected your fall to be longer, to feel a slap of cold water and to be engulfed. But someone caught you “hey, hey! Be careful!” you were going to turn and thank them when you realized you didn’t recognize the voice. Back on your feet firmly on deck, you pull your arm from their grasp and to your chest it feels slimy. You come face to face with a lithe figure a good foot taller than you, truthfully kind of androgynous. Their skin was almost a pale lime color and a long deep green mohawk was plastered down covering part of their face.

“Ok, like, don’t freak out” They held up their hands trying to keep you calm.

But like, you freaked out. Quitely, mostly internally, but a freak out nonetheless. You opened your mouth but nothing came out for a moment. You stared more, examining this person with a strange skin color and, would you look at that, a long smooth tail coiled beneath them. You took a deep breath

“Right. What are you?” You were surprisingly calm.

“It’s not obvious?” Judging by their tone they feigned hurt

“Some sort of snake-person?”

They dropped their shoulders and shook their head with a sigh they said: “yeah,yeah..no I’m not a snake…” They looked back up and forced the biggest grin they could and shouted “I’m a mermaid!” and spread their arms in a ta-da like fashion

“Don’t shout! You’ll wake everyone up! Aren’t you supposed to be like a fish then?”

“Hey, there’s more than one kind of mer. I’m more of an eel myself” This was an energetic person, to say the least, they don’t stay feeling down for long it seems.

“Right…uh, I’m (y/n)”

“Oh! OH! I’m sorry! Wow, I spaced on that! I’m Moray! Get it?” They laughed at their own joke. “It’s nice to meet you” Moray extended a hand to you which you grabbed, it wasn’t as slimy as you thought it might be, cold but nice.

“Soo…what brings an eel-maid like you onto a boat?” You asked

“I just thought it was interesting, what brings you out to sea?”

“I thought it would be interesting” You smiled at each other and at the same time realized you were still holding hands. You both pulled away blushing and looked down awkwardly.

“So um, what’cha got there?” Moray asked shyly gesturing to your handheld which had been almost forgotten.

“Oh! Um, just a game, do you want to play?”

The mermaid’s eyes lit up mesmerized by the glow of the colors “yes please” she whispered.

Before you knew it you were both curled up on the deck, you almost in the mermaid’s lap, as you showed Moray how to play. You stayed up most of the night laughing and grumbling over more challenging levels. When Moray lost their last life they sighed and handed the game back and you’re most certainly in their lap at this point. “Looks like the sun will be up in a couple of hours and I think your other friends may freak out, won’t they?” Moray smiled but seemed a bit sad.

“Probably” You lightly laughed “but um, this was fun, and this trip still has a couple of days left, if you want to come back, maybe?”

Moray broke out into a smile that could be barely contained on her face “Yes! I would love that! Date number two! You’re on! Oh! And I have a great idea”

“What do you mean? What idea? Date?” you asked surprised.

The energetic mermaid climbed up onto the side of the boat and dropped most of her long tail into the water and turned back to you. “You’ll see, you should probably get some sleep in” With that Moray gave you some finger guns and dropped herself into the water. You decided to take the advice, more tired than you realized. Of course later that day you were woken by a friend “Hey, (y/n) get up here! Quickly!” They sounded excited, and for good reason! A whole pod of whales surrounded you and you had the feeling a certain mermaid had something to do with it. You grabbed a sketchbook and enjoyed the show, looking forward to your next date.

[smutnug]

What Stays and What Fades Away

My first chapter with the amazing @wardsarefunctioning as beta! A thousand thousand thank yous.

Contains awkward flirting and Drunk!Hawke.

Chapter 27: Juliet

It had been a week since Tanner's abrupt departure, and Juliet still felt ill when she thought about the way things had ended. She chafed to be away in Crestwood, where Hawke was doubtless already waiting for them. 

But the Inquisition had become a large organisation, and large organisations seldom moved quickly. While Hawke could travel alone and in relative anonymity, Juliet's expeditions must be scouted, provisioned and planned to the smallest detail. So instead she was stuck here in Skyhold, surrounded by a thousand small reminders of her indiscretion. 

She sat at a table in the hall poring over a pile of documents that never seemed to get smaller: requisitions, reports, requests for the Inquisition's help from all over Southern Thedas. Scout Harding was already on the way to Crestwood, but she had left Juliet a map and pages covered in her small, neat handwriting: the location of the village and fort, a brief history of the place and its flooding during the blight, even a few credible rift sightings. A potential logging site? That would help in rebuilding - 

"Inquisitor?" The messenger gave a quick salute and handed her a roll of paper. "Plans for the mage tower, milady."

The mage tower. She waited until the man was gone before letting out a groan, burying her head in her hands. 

"Pining for your soldier, Freckles?" 

Juliet spun in her chair to glare at Varric. 

"Firstly," she said, "I'm not bloody pining . Secondly, can we pretend just for a minute that I have some kind of private life?" 

The dwarf threw up his hands. "Sorry, Inquisitor," he said, hopping up into the seat next to her. "You're one of the most important figures in Thedas right now. Definitely the most important in Skyhold. Your inner circle has at least three spies, and a mind-reading spirit boy." He patted her on the back. "Keeping secrets is hard."

She stared at him a moment longer, her lips pursed. "Thirdly -" 

"I'll change your names."

"Do not -" 

"And titles."

"Put this -" 

"And location."

"In a book," she finished. "Or I'll throw you to Cassandra."

"Oh, come on Freckles! It's got everything: deception, mistaken identity, star-crossed lovers…"

"I think you're reading a little more into it than actually happened."

"Of course I am. I'm a writer."

Conceding defeat, Juliet looked back to the documents spread out in front of her; the lines on the vellum seemed to blur and dance, Harding's meticulous text reduced to gibberish. She blinked hard, twice, but her eyes refused to cooperate. 

"Why not take a break?" Varric asked and added, too casually, "Take a walk in the garden."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Why the garden, Varric?" 

"Why so suspicious, Freckles?" He grinned, hazel eyes glinting with mischief. "It's a beautiful day. The fresh air will do you good. See how your herbs are growing!" 

"I need to plan this…" she protested weakly. 

"Do you trust yourself to make good plans right now?" 

"Fine." She bundled up the documents, shoving them unceremoniously into a nugskin folder. "I'll go to the garden." In response to Varric's waggling eyebrows, she snapped, "but only because I've got no bloody place better to be."

With a smirk he propped his feet up on the table. "Enjoy the scenery, Inquisitor."

"Thin ice, Tethras," she shot back over her shoulder. 

It was close to midday, and she had to admit that the sunlight on her face and the smell of freshly-turned soil did much to clear her head. The air was fragrant with blooming herbs, all of which somehow seemed to thrive here despite the varying climates from which they had been plucked. She wished she could put down roots so easily.

Male laughter caught her attention; the voice was familiar, if not the sound. Beneath the gazebo a small table and two chairs were set up. Dorian faced the Commander over a chess board, hexagonal in the Northern style. The two men were too engrossed in the game to notice her approach and she took a moment to appreciate Cullen's relaxed posture, his easy demeanour as he rolled his eyes in response to Dorian's gentle ribbing. 

"Why do I even…" He finally saw her and broke off mid-sentence, half rising out of his chair. "Inquisitor."

Dorian flashed a charming smile in her direction before turning his attention back to Cullen. "Leaving, are you?" The mage's voice, much like his skin, was smooth as honey. "Does this mean I win?" 

It was jarring to see the Commander so comfortable in the presence of Dorian, of all people. Despite his wit and charm, or perhaps because of it, he didn't always rub people the right way. Plus he was a Tevinter, and an unapologetic mage. Was there some other reason than magic, then, for Cullen's reticence with her? 

Wary of spoiling the mood, she motioned Cullen to sit and tried to match Dorian's light tone. "Are you two playing nice?" 

"I'm always nice," Dorian lied without skipping a beat. He put his tower down with a decisive thunk and crossed his arms; impressively muscled for a mage, Juliet could never help but notice. If he'd been differently inclined, she was sure she could have put those muscles to good use. "You need to come to terms with my inevitable victory," he declared to Cullen. "You'll feel much better."

"Really?" Cullen pounced, shifting his tower from a black square to a white. "Because I just won," he said with a low chuckle, "and I feel fine."

Dorian raised one perfect eyebrow and smiled, impeccably gracious in defeat. "Don't get smug." He rose from his chair with the fluidity of a cat. "There will be no living with you."

Juliet shifted to let him pass and as she did so, his silken voice reached her in a pitch too low for Cullen to catch. 

"He's all yours, Inquisitor," he purred. "You lucky thing."

She felt her ears burn crimson, unfortunately catching Cullen's eye at the same time. Embarrassment painted a foolish smile across her face and the Commander looked at her with some confusion. 

"I should return to my duties as well…" he said, adding hesitantly, "unless you would care for a game?" 

Me? she nearly said. Did everyone else in Thedas die and nobody told me? Then she remembered the hand that had lingered on hers a moment too long after he helped her onto her horse, and a heat swept through her that had nothing at all to do with embarrassment. 

She maintained her composure enough to give him a tight smile. "Prepare the board, Commander."

Oblivious to the fire that raged inside the woman opposite him, Cullen was conversational as he laid out the carved pieces. "As a child, I played this with my sister. She would get this stuck-up grin whenever she won, which was all the time." He glanced up at her, a rarely seen flash of mischief in his eyes. "My brother and I practiced together for weeks…the look on her facethe day I finally won…" 

Juliet caught a glimpse of the boy he had been in his smirk, before a little frown marred his features. 

"Between serving the templars and the inquisition, I haven't seen them in years," he said regretfully. "I wonder if she still plays."

It was easy to forget that Templars, too, could become separated from their families. She doubted Michael had ever recounted such fond memories of her. But she felt a pang when she thought of Lavinia, and of Alec, whose child must have been born by now. 

"You have siblings?" 

He seemed surprised by her enthusiasm. "Two sisters, and a brother."

"We're the same!" Juliet paused. "I mean, my family. Two boys, and two girls." She shifted, nudging Cullen's foot beneath the table. It went unacknowledged by both of them as they adjusted their postures, but she was aware now of his proximity; she could swear she felt the heat of his knee close to her own. 

"Really?" Leaning forward on his elbows, he graced her with a warm smile. "Michael I know, but…"

Juliet couldn't suppress an eye roll at the mention of her Templar brother. "Alec is the eldest. He's…well, he's unlike Michael. And Lavinia is between Michael and I in age. Terribly frivolous and always has her foot in her mouth, but she means well." Unexpected tears sprang to her eyes as she thought of them; on waking in Haven to the news that she'd been publicly disowned, she hadn't dared to contact them. "Tell me about yours," she said with forced cheerfulness. 

"Mia," he replied with a smile, "is the one I told you of. Branson is my brother, and the youngest is Rosalie."

She wished suddenly, fiercely, that she might some day meet them. "Where are they now?"

"They moved to South Reach after the Blight…" A flash of pain reached Cullen's amber eyes. "I do not write to them as often as I should." Staring at the board, his gaze seemed to come back into focus. "Ah, it's my turn."

"Alright," she said with a grin, "let's see what you've got."

He paused, looking at her for the longest time before shaking his head. Leaning in to make his move, he said softly, "You always seem as if you're laughing at a joke nobody else understands."

"I thought everybody understood," she said lightly. "I'm the joke."

"No." His stare, however glancing, pierced her to the core. "You are far from a joke. You're the reason we are all here."

"And who am I?" she countered. "Someone else would have led. Hawke, if Cassandra could have found her."

"Hawke." His wry smile made a mockery of the idea. 

"Nobody should take themselves too seriously." Pondering a moment, she moved a pawn into the path of his mage. "The more power you have, the lessseriously you should take yourself."

Cullen's gaze raked her. Surely, she thought, he must sense the shifting restlessness his mere proximity woke in her. Finally he shook his head. "Are you sure that doesn't do a disservice to those who choose to follow you?" 

"The opposite." She countered his move. "Power without humility lead to tyranny."

For a moment he looked startled. Then he laughed, shaking his head. "Of all people, I should know that." 

"So you and Dorian…" she began tentatively. 

"Dorian and I…?" Cullen's eyebrows shot up. "I assure you, there's nothing of that sort -" 

"Oh no, I just meant…you seemed to be getting along so well! It's not a friendship I would have expected."

"I ran into him in the library. Varric asked me to find a book for him." At her quizzical look, he chuckled. "I think he's trying to avoid Cassandra."

"I can't say I've ever seen Cassandra in the library."

"No point in taking chances, were his words. Anyway, Dorian…" Considering his next move, he twirled a stone piece in his fingers. Such long, clever fingers…he caught her eyes suddenly and she shut her mouth with a painfully audible snap . "He just seems lost, you know. He's a long way from home."

"Don't let him think you pity him," Juliet advised. "He won't thank you for it."

"It's not pity," he said, surprised. "Sympathy, yes, but I do enjoy his company." He caught her look of puzzlement. "Is that so unusual?" 

"Only," she floundered, searching about for the right words, "because of, you know, what he is."

"What he is?" Cullen's voice held faint disapproval. "I'm not sure I take your meaning."

Oh, Maker, now she'd offended him. "Only that I thought it might make you feel uncomfortable. Threatened, even."

"Threatened?" Cullen sat back in his chair, arms folded as he studied her face. "Why should I feel threatened?" 

Could we build a lesser amulet? she thought desperately.One that would take me back to before this line of conversation began. "You wouldn't be the only one. I know several people are concerned with his presence…" Biting her lip, she trailed off as Cullen drummed his fingers on the chair arm with evident annoyance. 

"I know that some people harbour foolish prejudices," he began, "but I certainly didn't think you would be amongst them, Inquisitor."

"Me?" she answered indignantly. "Why in Thedas would I be prejudiced against Dorian? I'm the same as he is!" 

Cullen gaped. "You are?" 

She couldn't understand his reaction; this was by no means new information for the Commander. "Well, yes. I mean I'm not from Tevinter, but essentially…"

They realised their mistake at the same time. Juliet groaned, covering her face; Cullen rubbed the back of his neck as he grinned sheepishly. "You meant…"

"Yes. And you thought…"

"I did." His grin slipped. "But you're wrong to think Dorian's magic should make me uncomfortable. I mean, you're a mage and I'm not uncomfortable with you."

"You're not?" 

She must have sounded a touch too incredulous, because Cullen looked at her sharply. Then he smiled, staring down at his hands. "I don't know if you've noticed, Inquisitor, but I can be somewhat…awkward…at times."

"No," she answered, laughing. "Really? It had completely escaped my notice."

"If I seem that way around you, please know that it's not because of the fact that you're a mage. It's because, well…"

Juliet's mouth went dry. "Yes?" 

"It's just the way I am," he finished quickly. 

Hope gave way to sharp disappointment. Surprised by the intensity of her reaction, she hid her feelings in contemplating the next move. "Your turn," she said finally. His pawn joined the small crowd of pieces on the tabletop. 

He studied the board, frowning. "You're no stranger to this game."

"My mentor in the Circle, Lydia," she swallowed hard at the memory, "didn't believe in idle hands. Or minds. When the study of magic didn't take up our time she had us learn history, geography, strategy, mathematics…" An opening became apparent and she swiftly dispatched one of his mages. "Chess."

At the mention of her Circle, Cullen's expression became shuttered. "It seems that was time well spent," he said stiffly. "I wish…" He shook his head, apparently clearing some stray thought. "Your move, Inquisitor."

Always Inquisitor. What was it about him - or about her - that drove her to keep needling him? He was too proper, too authoritative. It made her keep trying to crack open that facade of stiff professionalism, even if she felt like a bird hopelessly battering its wings against a window pane. It made her blurt out, even as her rational mind told her it was a terrible idea, "So…tell me about you and Hawke."

Cullen's smile vanished. "How do you…? Never mind," he said, somewhat curtly. "I would rather not." With exaggerated carefulness he finished his move, putting his knight down with the barest tap of stone on stone. Without meeting her eyes, he elaborated, "It was a mistake."

"Oh." A mistake. Her chest suddenly tight, she attempted what she hoped was a smile. "You have regrets?" 

Cullen's answering smile was more of a grimace. "I regret the entire thing. Now, really…I'd prefer if we moved on."

"I'm sorry," she said with forced cheerfulness. "It seems my sister's not the only one capable of putting her foot in it." She saw the opportunity to take his queen, and considered letting it pass; then, with an apologetic smile and a half-shrug, she toppled the piece with her mage. 

"There," Cullen said. "That's Mia's look."

Juliet laughed. "I wasn't aiming for stuck-up, but I suppose I've earned the right to gloat a little."

"It's not over yet," he countered. Thoughtful, he glanced at her through sandy eyelashes. "This may be the longest we've gone without discussing the Inquisition - or related matters. To be honest, I appreciate the distraction."

"I aim to please." Impulsively, she added, "We should spend more time together."

Another misstep in a conversation littered with them. Wasn't Cullen supposed to be the awkward one? But there was no awkwardness in his heavy-lidded gaze. "I would… like that," he said, and his low voice sent a pleasant shiver through her body. She could only smile back inanely, until he shook himself and turned his attention back to the board. 

"We should…finish our game," he stammered. "Right. My turn?" 

They sat in companionable silence. Stone tapped against stone, and the low hum of insects and murmured conversations played around them. Finally Cullen played the only move that was open to him, and it was checkmate. He smiled wryly. 

"I believe this one is yours. Well played." He leaned back, rolling his shoulders in a way that distracted Juliet entirely from her victory. "We shall have to try again some time." Standing, he offered her a small bow. "Inquisitor."

"Juliet," she said. "Please."

"Juliet." It was only her imagination, adding that low, husky timbre to his voice, the flash in his molten gold eyes. It was just her name; there was no reason for it to feel like a caress. 

And yet long after he had taken his leave she sat, fingers playing around her lips as if the memory of a kiss lingered there. 

"Still here?" Dorian startled her from her reverie. He ensconced himself in the chair opposite, fingers steepled and a knowing gleam in his eye. "Do I sense a romance blooming? I would so love to attend a provincial wedding."

"Did you and Varric orchestrate this?" she demanded. 

"Varric?" he said, affronted. "Perish the thought, dear cousin. Our Commander wandered into my library and I took pity on him. He seemed so…" The mage twirled his hand theatricality. "Lost."

"How terribly kind of you to keep him entertained."

"Obviously, darling Juliet, I resent the implication to my very core." Dorian plucked an imaginary piece of lint from his trouser leg, examining it between thumb and forefinger. "But I did rather enjoy the game…and the view."

"You don't find our little garden too provincial?"

"Now, now," he chastised her. "We both know I wasn't talking about the garden. My question remains: are you two delightful creatures going to give all of us, your proud and loving family, the news we wait so impatiently to hear? Or must Varric's prize pool grow ever larger?" 

"Bloody Varric," she muttered. 

"Well?" Dorian crossed an elegant ankle over his leg. 

"I'm going to have to disappoint you."

"Oh." Dorian did, indeed, sound disappointed. "Tell cousin Dorian absolutely everything."

Juliet sighed. I regret the entire thing. Somewhere in the Hinterlands, Tanner would be thinking the same about her. "There's really nothing to tell." She turned her hand palm up; the Anchor pulsed faintly green. "I just don't want to be anyone else's mistake."

[dictionarywrites]

okay but???? i loved the one orian/zach fic you wrote--could you write more for them? as a couple or individually, i don't really care which, i just really appreciate your dexterity with both of their voices and would like to see more of them in your style. :) maybe something with orian and crosby? i dunno. they just fascinate me!

My Ao3 | Send requests | Tip jar!

It’s, uh, it’s six months into this whole thing with Zach. Six months in, and Orian, he, uh, he introduced the kids to Zach four months ago. Let them come in of the morning and find Orian paging through the news on his tablet as Zach cooked him breakfast, and Zach, he’d--

God, the way he’d looked at them. 

He kinda wishes he’d had a camera to take a photo of it, of his face: Zach stood in his clothes from last night, the spatula in his hand, and he’d just looked so surprised, and something else, too. Excited. The kids had already been dressed for school, and they’d each stopped to peer at him, examining Zach.

“I thought all your brothers were dead,” Miranda had said, in a tone that implied disapproval. 

“Mmm, no, Zach is no relation,” Orian had replied, without looking up from his tablet. “He’s, uh, the latest piece of ass.” Zach had dipped his fingers in his glass of water and flicked some into Orian’s face, and Orian had laughed, leaning back and looking at Zach with amusement. 

“You kids want some eggs?” Zach had asked, and just like that, the kids had sat down, had begun to cautiously make their weigh-up of this man Orian had invited into his bed - Miranda had called both of them narcissists, and then said they were incestuous, and had then implied in a tone of great delicacy that Zach, she assumed, must be bought and paid for. Zach had laughed, and said, “Oh, no, sweetheart, I’m a cop.” And when Miranda had gone pale, he’d laughed at her, and put some more bacon on her plate.

And that, well, that had been it.

He’d shown his dominance over the queen bee at the table, and the kids had respected him for it, at least a little. Even now, they sometimes mess him around a little, but Zach, he can hold his own, and honestly, he’s good with the kids. He can tell when Miranda’s just being nasty when she can, or when she’s genuinely in a mood; Rachel actually talks to him, which is more than she does for Orian half the time; and Cros... 

Cros, he’s a funny thing. When he was very young, Orian had been soft with him - he’d wanted to carry Crosby wherever they went, had fussed over him, and gosh, when he’d been, uh, when he’d been just a baby, Orian had just delighted in the smell of his hair, how warm he’d been when Orian had held him to his chest.

But the kid--

You know, the kid, he’s a pussy. Such a weakling of a thing, jumps at loud noises, keeps wriggling out of coming out to the gun range with Orian and the girls, only seems willing to do the bare minimum of the exercises Orian encourages the kids to do, and just wants to stay inside and draw all day. And he’s a good artist, Orian will give him that - he’s a good artist, and his grades are good, but he’s just such a milksop. 

Orian isn’t all that patient with him. He feels bad for that, he really does, but it’s just so frustrating to be dealing with him, at times, and yet, Zach, he... You know, he’s gentle with Cros. He’s patient. And Orian doesn’t know why that’s, uh, why that’s so sexy, exactly, seeing this guy talk with his son or fix his hair or make him breakfast, but--

It’s pretty sexy.

And today...

Mm. Well.

When Crosby comes into the door late, and crying his eyes out, Orian is ready to fly off the handle, because his son has a new shiner blooming on his eye, and he’s trying to talk, but Orian isn’t inclined to wait for the answer - he wants to go out and have whatever fucking boy did this to his son killed, now, immediately--

He’s pacing as Zach sits Crosby down, tilts his head back so that he can get a better look at the bruise. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. Cry ‘til you want to stop.” He says it very quietly as he holds out his hand, and Rachel passes him an icepack. “You feel dizzy?”

“No,” Crosby says.

“And the vision in your bad eye, it’s okay, right? Not blurry, doesn’t hurt to focus on me?”

“No,” Crosby says.

“Good,” Zach murmurs, and he gently sets the ice against the changing colour of his skin, making Crosby hiss out a cry of pain. There are tears wet on his cheeks, and Orian sets his jaw.

“What’s the kid’s name?” he asks, sharply.

“You can’t kill a kid, Orian,” Zach says.

“You fucking serious? Are you-- Honey, are you, uh, are you telling me how to parent my--”

“Shut up,” Zach snaps, and there’s a ringing pause in the room as Orian feels a sudden thrum of excitement in his chest (mmm, inappropriate to the setting, but hey), and also indignation. Nobody talks to him like that, not in front of his kids, not in front of people, but-- “Tell me what happened, honey.”

“I wasn’t doing anything,” Crosby says plaintively. “I was just... I was just sketching on my phone on the bus, I wasn’t drawing him - I was drawing from a pose you did for me, I just didn’t have it open on my phone because I was trying to draw it from memory and--”

“What did he say?” Zach says, and his voice is quiet and calm. Miranda and Orian are both pacing now, at opposite ends of the room, and while Orian has a more casual saunter, Miranda is stiff, her hands clenched at her sides, her jaw held stiffly, her shoulders hunched. Rachel is standing still, her hands in front of her stomach, staring powerlessly at Crosby and Zach on the sofa. “Tell me what he said, honey.”

“He said I shouldn’t... That I shouldn’t draw him, and I said I wasn’t, and he said-- He called me a...” Crosby looks between Miranda and Orian, and then back at Zach, looking down at his chest instead of his face. “And I said I wasn’t a-- That my dad was gay, and that he was a weakling for being frightened of someone just because they might be different, and he laughed, and he punched me.”

“And this was on the bus?”

“Yeah,” Crosby says. “But the bus driver didn’t see, and I ran off before he could ask what had happened, and I walked the rest of the way home so that--”

“Why’d you do that?” Zach asks softly. “Why’d you run off the bus? He could have helped, the bus driver.”

“No,” Cros says. “He would have made me sit at the front of the bus, and then Ad-- and then he’d think I was a pussy, and that he’d make me a target.”

“What is his--”

“Orian, I swear to Christ, if you say one more word, I’m gonna cuff you to the stairs.” Mmm, and that, God, that just sets Orian’s skin on fire.

“Zachary, you are on very, very thin ice.” Zach looks back to Crosby, and Orian exhales. He doesn’t know what it is that keeps him still, what makes him not just reach out and grab Zach by the hair - if anybody else spoke to him like this in front of his kids, Orian would have them killed, but... It’s different, somehow. He doesn’t know how, but it is. 

“So, what’s the plan?” Zach asks, softly. “How are you gonna fix it?” Crosby hesitates.

“I don’t want to kill him,” he says. See, this is the problem. Pussy of a kid, frightened of violence, he’s just--

“Okay,” Zach says in a light tone. “Why don’t you want to kill him?”

“Too suspicious,” Crosby says. “And all he did was punch me, and I don’t want to kill somebody for something that-- that unimportant.” Crosby looks down, and he mumbles something, and Orian hears Zach laugh quietly.  

“Yeah, hot-headed is right,” Zach murmurs, evenly. “So, what do you want to do, if you don’t want him killed?” Crosby sniffles, shrugging his shoulders, and Zach reaches up, gently touching through Crosby’s hair, and Orian feels his heart ache, because somebody hurt his son, and he just wants to rip them limb from limb, hot-headed or not...

“Make sure he knows not to mess with me,” Crosby says. “But it can’t be... It can’t be violent in a way that other people see, or I’ll get too much attention.”

“Very true,” Zach says, adjusting the set of the ice against Crosby’s brow. 

“And I can’t do anything online because it’s too traceable.”

“Mmm hmm,” Zach hums.

“You could have me and Rachel deal with him,” Miranda says, quietly. “We can, uh-- We can rough him up, instead.”

“But then I’m a pussy who needs my sisters to protect me.”

“You are,” Miranda says, and Zach throws a cushion at her. “What? He is!”

"Except that you’re not helping him be independent, Miranda - you’re just making his situation worse! He’s saying he wants help to figure out a solution on his own. Why don’t you help him, huh?” Miranda stares at Zach for the longest moment, and it’s odd, seeing that expression of mixed indignation and upset on her face, because Orian doesn’t think he ever looks like that, and she looks just like him. 

Slowly, Miranda takes a step forward, and sinks down next to Crosby: immediately, Rachel does the same, dropping down onto the couch on the other side and taking the ice pack from Zach’s hand, supporting it against Crosby’s brow instead. Zach leans back on his heels, looking between the three of them, and Orian watches as he doesn’t say a word, as he just lets Miranda and Rachel talk through it with their little brother...

Zach steps back, and when Orian gestures for him to follow when he steps outside, they look at the pool. Zach doesn’t say a word: instead, he crosses his arms over his chest and looks out over the yard, not looking at Orian, until he says, “You can’tmow all his problems down for him.”

“He’s a kid.”

“So? Would you have done that for Miranda and Rachel? Kill any kid that looked at them funny?”

“No, but-- They’re stronger than he is, Zach, you know that. The kid’s soft.”

“He’s soft because you make him soft!” Zach retorts, crossing his arms over his chest a little more tightly and giving him a glare. “How’s he meant to get any better with you and Miranda both breathing down his neck, stopping him from doing anything on his own?” 

“You saying it’s my fault my kid’s a pussy?” Orian asks in a low, dangerous voice, and Zach laughs.

“Yeah, honey, I am,” Zach replies. “And going around killing kids for fighting, uh, forgive me, is a sign of you losing your head because he’s your baby and you don’t want anything to happen to him, not of you being smart about protecting him.”

“You think you can do that?” Orian asks in a hiss. “You think you can come in, and tell me how to parent my kids? You haven’t got kids, have you? Huh?” Orian shoves Zach in the chest, and Zach grabs his hand, interlinking their fingers and squeezing his hand. “I don’t want you holding my hand, you--” Zach lets go of his hand to grab him by the throat, and he squeezes tightly.

“Orian,” he whispers, and he squeezes so hard Orian feels himself choke. “If things go the way I want them to, they’re gonna be my kids too.” Again, there’s that sudden burst of heat in Orian’s chest, the one he always feels when he sees Zach being good with Crosby, and he heaves in a breath when Zach lets him go. “You want to go back inside?”

“No,” Orian says, and he grabs Zach by the front of his shirt, crushing their mouths together in a biting kiss. 

                                                    ---

Orian doesn’t know what Crosby does to Adrian Begley, but when he sees them at parents’ night, he scrambles out of their way and rushes into a corridor. Orian feels himself smile at Crosby’s expression of tight satisfaction, and when he turns to Crosby’s English teacher, he pats Zach on the hip, and says, “This is Zachary.”

He doesn’t bother attaching a label to it - it doesn’t matter if they assume Zach is Crosby’s uncle or his cousin or what. 

But he goes around with them, and when Zach tries to bring it up at dinner, makes some light comment about it, Orian ignores it completely. 

[eat-a-mint-jungkook]

Entanglement

Jikook, 1.8k, romance/UST aristocrats AU sequel(?) to Double Bind

Jeon realizes he wasn’t seeking to break perfection, but rather to have it for himself. 

A/N: Happy Valentine’s Day @jikook-love ! Here’s to the AU we will never write (or at least you aren’t writing it; look at me doing all the work). I’m just pretending you didn’t ruin my plans for posting something today. Also it’s the backseat AU you’ve been requesting so much OTL

Jungkook tries not to fidget as he sits in the back of the limo with his nemesis, his archenemy, the leader of the Park Family, Park Jimin. His suit is just as uncomfortable as the silence between them, and as much as he tries not to shift around, he tries not to steal any glances at the man either. Jimin and his perfectly styled hair and his perfectly shined shoes and his perfect bowtie. As usual, there isn’t the slightest trace of the imperfection, and that’s fine; Jungkook doesn’t want to think about what happened the last time they met.

The silence between them stretches with only the sound of the limo’s engine humming in the background. His driver may have obeyed his instructions without hesitation, but some part of him couldn’t help thinking that this entire situation was odd. He didn’t think he’d see Jimin ever again until the wedding or some other family event, but here the head of the Park Family was, sitting right next to him, just as he’d requested from Jungkook a few days ago.

“Let’s call it off.”

“What?” Jungkook doesn’t believe his ears. The perfect Park Jimin would never even speak before planning his every word, never mind making such a rash decision like this. There’s a queasy feeling growing in his gut and none of this makes sense.

“Contrary to what the elders think, it would just be better if we stayed out of each other’s way.” It sounds harsher and more straightforward than Jimin’s usual tone; the change is absolutely jarring, and Jungkook doesn’t know what to make of it. He was the one wanting to see the leader of the Park Family finally crack under the pressure, but he never thought that it would lead to this kind of outcome.

“But—I don't—”

“I know you have the power to call it off. Even though you say you’re not the ‘official leader’, it’s clear that they’d never force something against your will.” Jimin doesn’t meet his gaze and opts to stare past him at the window, looking at the trees passing by, the fields—heck, who knows, maybe he’d even stare at Taehyung if he happened to somehow pop up outside. Jimin looked at everything but him. That’s how it always was: he never really saw him.

Jungkook purses his lips. “I really can’t.”

“Why are you denying it?” The clarity in Jimin’s eyes made it look like he was genuinely curious, like he actually didn’t understand at all. It was fitting, really, because he never did. “We both know that you could say one word and it’d all be over. It’d be like none of this ever happened.”

“Why are you changing your mind?” Jungkook decides to fire back. It doesn’t feel right; he’s supposed to hate Jimin for doing this, for agreeing to this whole marriage fiasco, for always choosing what is best for everyone. But for some reason, the feeling isn’t there anymore. “You’re the one who insisted on going along with this when they told you to. This shouldn’t even involve me.”

He doesn’t even know why he’s trying to stop Jimin when he should clearly want this more than anything else.

“I—” Jimin frowns, finally seemingly at a loss for words. “You’re right. This doesn’t involve you. This should just be my decision then. You never wanted this union of our families in the first place, and so now if I find myself agreeing with you, this whole thing should just be cancelled.”

No, it shouldn’t be.

Jungkook swallows, finding it difficult to maintain his usual hard exterior amidst the tension. “But why did you change your mind?”

The brunette sighs and stays silent for a moment before finally speaking. “I know how much you hate me and I don’t want to make your life more difficult by being in it.”

But I don’t hate you. The thought comes fast and strong, and Jungkook is taken by surprise.

“Then what about Taehyung?” he shoots again. “Did you ask him how he feels about all of this?”

“Taehyung… He deserves someone better who can truly love him.”

“And that person isn’t you?”

“No…” Jimin sighs once more. “Just call it off, Jungkook. Do this for me and we’ll never have to see each other again.”

“No.” He knows he’s just being stubborn now, but Jungkook just couldn’t let this happen. Something about what Jimin said irks him, and he’s not sure which part it is. The part about doing something for him? Or could it be never seeing him again…?

“Why are you refusing?” Jimin’s eyes dart around his, never lingering in his gaze for too long. He looks slightly agitated, slowly losing that perfectly put together appearance.

The way he isn’t directly answering makes Jungkook suspicious, and so he leans closer and questions him back, dauntingly. “Why do you think that you can’t be the one for him?”

Jimin’s eyes blaze. “I thought you were the one who never wanted to see me again.”

“I thought you guys were getting along just fine.” Jungkook shifts even closer, wanting to see the exact flash of vulnerability in Jimin’s eyes. He knows that he’s close to cracking him, to getting him to spill whatever secret he’d been keeping, and he relishes in the way he temporarily has control of the situation.

“Getting along doesn’t mean being in love with each other,” Jimin retorts.

“Not being in love doesn’t mean it can’t lead to love.”

“Not when you might be in love with someone else!”

Stillness.

It clings to the air after that outburst and the words replay in Jungkook’s mind because he’s afraid that he’d heard it wrong. Because there’s no way that the great Park Jimin could’ve said something like that. But Jimin looks him in the eye now, holding his gaze with defiance as if challenging him to say something back. Like he’s finally refuting all of Jungkook’s efforts to break him from the last time they’d met, and edging him on.

The tension between them overwhelms the narrow space of the limo. Jungkook keeps his hand on the seat beside him, knuckles whitening with how hard he was pressing them into the cool leather.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” slips out of his mouth, but he makes no move to turn away. “You know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t,” Jungkook presses again. “Tell me exactly what you want.”

“Don’t make me say it, Jeon.” There’s a low growl in his voice; a warning that contradicts his every movement as he shifts closer until both of them seem to be veering on the edge of something irrevocable, something precarious.

The heat running through his veins reminds Jungkook of what happened at the party, and a question flickers through his mind for the thousandth time. Maybe acknowledging it aloud had already made it the point of no return.

Would you rather it be you?

Once the observation has been made, two different states collapse into a definite answer. Time is a continuum. It doesn’t go back and you can’t unlearn the things you’ve learned. A single branch, a point in time, can change your perspective and perhaps the entire human experience from there onwards.

“Then show me.”

It’s Jimin’s hand that grazes his first, and he nearly jumps back. It was barely even a touch yet it burned, the feeling quickly filtering out all his other senses and crackle of electricity heating up the air between them.

He doesn’t expect it when Perfect Jimin’s the one who leans closer to him, when there’s that look in his eyes that says so much more than the glimpse through the crack of false pretenses and charming smiles. He wonders how long it’s been there underneath each formal handshake and bow, always lurking right below that front of absolute composure. He doesn’t expect to ever see this side of the Park leader, much less think he’d be the cause of this. But it didn’t matter anymore, because now there was no going back.

If he expected the brilliant feeling of victory because he’s won in a sense, all he’s left with now is a warmth settling in his gut. Satisfaction. No, it’s something else as well. Warm lips against lips immediately chase the thoughts away and melt the rest of the world away and Jimin’s scent is all too familiar and carries the reminisce of their last encounter. If he expected a cliché sweetness of a first love as kind as the brunette has let himself seem, he was met with a sense of need instead. Soft hands make their way to his jaw to deepen the angle, to his hair where they lightly tug and run through each strand, to his chest where they rest and burn through the fabric of his stiff shirt and make everything too hot.

The slip of distance between them and Jimin’s still too far until Jungkook pulls him onto himself. He doesn’t even realize he’s lying against the stretch of seats in the limo until his back is pressed into the cushion and he’s smothered in too many layers of clothes between him and the weight of Jimin on his stomach. Too many layers before his suit is finally being pushed off and yanked away, and with more freedom of movement does he start exploring the dips of Jimin’s body. It wasn’t like this last time and now’s the first time Jungkook’s really touched him this way. Whereas before he wanted to shatter the fragile image of perfection, to have it under his control and strip it until it’s raw and immeasurable, now he fleets his fingers over the fine details of the very definition of perfection—pure and untainted by the cold shield of mildly warm pleasantries.

A tentative grinding of hips has him biting down a moan and grasping for solid ground to stop from spinning into a whirlwind of pleasure.

But for a while, it’s okay. He lets himself want. He lets himself bask in Jimin’s warmth, a kind of warmth that chases away the shadows always lurking just at the corners. The knots of thread untangle on their own and the universe settles. It holds its breath in anticipation of where this branch will go, of what will happen in this one of many dimensions. With Jimin there, he quickly loses himself in the ecstasy for a while and doesn’t think about where his is, who he’s with, and what they’ll have to do next.

As much as the question had followed him around, plaguing his every thought with uncertainty, Jimin’s every touch seemed to suggest an answer.

It was Jimin’s answer to his own question.

Because I would. I’d rather it be you.