#this time I’ll play sun (my first game was moon)

[sugiarttime]

Pokémon Sun and Moon ☀️ 🌙

[soni-dragon]

trainer lineup for all my main trainers! i reuse the name Snap a lot :P

[scoupsakakitty]

More than Words | idol!Mingyu x idol!Reader | fluff

The sun dipped low on the horizon, casting a golden glow through the expansive windows of the villa where the two groups were staying. It was the kind of light that softened everything it touched—much like the way Mingyu’s gaze always softened when it landed on Y/N.

They had been friends for what felt like forever. From the moment her group joined HYBE, Mingyu had gravitated toward her like the earth toward the moon. It wasn’t something he could explain; it just felt natural, like breathing.

And maybe that’s why it hurt so much to keep pretending that’s all they were just friends.

Y/N sat cross-legged on the couch beside him, her laughter ringing out as one of the members from her group told an embarrassing story about their early training days. Mingyu didn’t even register the punchline. All he could focus on was the way her smile lit up the entire room, the way her eyes crinkled slightly at the corners when she laughed too hard.

“You’re staring again,” Seungkwan whispered, nudging Mingyu’s side with a knowing smirk.

Mingyu shot him a look that could kill, but it only made Seungkwan grin wider. “I’m not.”

“Right.” Seungkwan leaned back, arms crossed. “And she doesn’t look at you like you hung the stars in the sky.”

Mingyu’s ears burned, and he turned his attention back to the group just in time to see Y/N glance his way. Her gaze lingered for a second too long before she looked away, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

Everyone saw it. Everyone knew it.

But neither of them had the courage to say it out loud.

———————————————————————————-

Later that night, after dinner and endless games that left everyone exhausted, someone suggested watching a horror movie.

��No thanks,” Y/N said quickly, shaking her head. “You all can watch, but I’ll pass.”

“Scared?” Mingyu teased, his lips twitching upward.

“No,” she lied, narrowing her eyes at him.

Mingyu tilted his head, clearly not believing her. “Then stay.”

“You just want me to stay so you won’t get scared,” she shot back.

Her words made the others laugh, but Mingyu only grinned wider. “Stay,” he repeated, softer this time.

And because it was him and because she could never really say no to him she did.

The movie was worse than she expected. Every jump scare had her clutching Mingyu’s arm until, at some point, he just wrapped it around her and pulled her closer. She didn’t even resist.

By the time the credits rolled, Y/N was thoroughly spooked, but she didn’t let it show. Or at least she thought she didn’t until Mingyu leaned down and whispered, “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she mumbled, but the slight tremble in her voice betrayed her.

Mingyu only smiled. “You can sleep in my room if you get too scared,” he said casually, like it wasn’t a big deal.

Her heart skipped a beat, but she rolled her eyes. “I’ll be fine.”

————————————————————————————-

She was not fine.

The villa was quiet, save for the soft hum of the air conditioning and the occasional creak of the wooden floors. The movie had ended hours ago, but the images still played in Y/N’s mind, making every shadow on the wall feel alive.

She had tried everything burying herself under the covers, listening to music, even counting sheep—but nothing worked. Her thoughts kept drifting back to the way Mingyu had held her during the movie, his arm warm and steady around her shoulders. It wasn’t the first time he’d done something like that, but tonight, it felt different.

Maybe it was the way his hand lingered against her skin, or the way his voice softened whenever he spoke to her. Or maybe it was just her, overthinking everything the way she always did when it came to him.

With a sigh, Y/N pushed back the covers and slipped out of bed. Her feet carried her down the dimly lit hallway before her brain could catch up. By the time she reached Mingyu’s door, her heart was pounding so loudly she was sure he’d hear it the moment he opened up.

She knocked lightly, half-hoping he wouldn’t answer.

But then the door creaked open, and there he was Mingyu, shirtless and half-asleep, with his hair sticking up in every direction.

“Y/N?” His voice was low, husky, and it sent a shiver down her spine. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t sleep,” she admitted, suddenly feeling ridiculous. “The movie…”

Understanding flickered in his eyes. “Come in.”

She hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“Y/N.” His voice was softer this time. “Come here.”

That was all it took. She stepped inside, and he closed the door behind her before leading her to the bed. It was warm, and the scent of him clean soap and something distinctly Mingyu wrapped around her as she settled under the covers.

When he lay down beside her, he didn’t hesitate to pull her close. Her head rested against his chest, and the steady thump of his heartbeat calmed her almost immediately.

“Better?” he asked, his voice a low rumble.

“Yeah,” she whispered, her fingers brushing lightly against his bare skin.

They stayed like that for a while, wrapped up in the quiet, until Y/N started tracing small patterns on his chest circles, hearts, meaningless shapes that only made her more aware of how close they were.

Mingyu’s hand drifted to her hair, his fingers threading through the strands slowly, almost absentmindedly. It was soothing, but it also made her hyper-aware of every single point where their bodies touched.

“You’re quiet,” he murmured.

“So are you,” she shot back, her voice barely above a whisper.

He chuckled, and the vibration of it against her cheek made her stomach flip.

“Y/N…” He trailed off, but she heard the hesitation in his voice.

She tilted her head, looking up at him, and that’s when it happened. His gaze dropped to her lips, lingering there for a moment before he looked back into her eyes.

Her breath caught.

Neither of them moved at first. It was like time had stopped, and all she could feel was the heat radiating off him and the weight of his arm around her.

And then he leaned in.

It was slow, almost tentative, giving her every chance to pull away but she didn’t. Instead, she closed the distance, her lips meeting his in a kiss that sent sparks shooting through her entire body.

Mingyu’s hand came up to cradle her face, his thumb brushing gently against her cheek as he deepened the kiss. It was warm and soft and everything she had ever imagined it would be.

Her fingers curled against his chest, clutching at him like she was afraid he might disappear.

And he didn’t stop.

The kiss grew more urgent, more desperate, as though they were both trying to make up for all the time they had spent pretending this wasn’t what they wanted.

When they finally pulled apart, their breaths mingling in the small space between them, Mingyu’s eyes searched hers.

“Y/N,” he said softly, his voice a little unsteady. “I can’t pretend anymore.”

Her heart skipped. “Pretend what?”

His hand stayed on her cheek, grounding her. “That I don’t want you. That I haven’t wanted you since the moment we met.”

Her lips parted, but no words came out.

“I’ve been falling for you this whole time,” he went on, his voice barely above a whisper. “And I know we’re both scared of what this means, but I can’t keep pretending I don’t feel this way.”

Tears pricked at her eyes, but she didn’t look away.

“Say something,” he murmured, his thumb brushing away the tear that slipped down her cheek.

“I feel the same,” she whispered. “I’ve felt this way for so long, but I was scared. Scared of what it might mean for us for our groups for everything.”

Mingyu let out a shaky breath, his forehead resting against hers. “You don’t have to be scared. We’ll figure it out together. Okay?”

“Okay.”

And when he kissed her again, it was slower this time sweeter. Like a promise.

————————————————————————————-

The morning after felt different.

There was no awkward silence, no avoiding each other’s eyes. Instead, there were lingering touches and soft smiles exchanged across the room, even as their friends gave them questioning looks.

“Did something happen last night?” Seungkwan asked, narrowing his eyes at them.

“No,” Mingyu said too quickly, making Y/N laugh.

“Definitely not,” she added, but the way she looked at Mingyu betrayed her.

Seungkwan raised an eyebrow. “Right. Sure.”

But neither of them cared.

For the first time, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought.

Because they had each other and that was enough.

———————————————————————————-

[veneralice]

art credit: @sesamefruit on x / twitter! all credits to the artist!

divider credits: @cafekitsune ! all credits to the original creator of the divider!

seaborn soulmates / rafayel (m.)

in a cruel twist of fate, it is the god himself who becomes the most fervent worshipper. after lifetimes of looking for you, rafayel has finally found his beloved bride once more - but this time, it is him sinking to his knees to chant your praises, not the reverse. (20.4k words)

content warnings: maybe ooc-rafayel idk i’m still an inexperienced writer, me making up lemuria lore as i go because my ass wasn’t playing the game when god of tides came out (also i’m clueless about lads lore), mc as an independent character called michaela (pushing my wlw agenda with her and simone fr), kind of dubious consent???? (past!reader worships rafayel and acts very self-sacrificing so uh? idk? i’ll note it just to make sure) (also drunk rafayel initiates some skinship but reader shuts it down because you cant give consent while youre drunk yall), they fucking, p in v, switch!rafayel (bc we all know it’s canon /j), some biting, some scratching (rafayel’s back bleeds), overstimulation (fem. receiving), violence (blood and cutting is involved in deity worship), is it stalking? 💀 (he keeps tabs on reader in the same way he kept track of mc in-game before they met), idek man, let me know if you need more content warnings 🙂‍↕️, kind of inspired by @poisonf0rest bc i read her siren rafayel fic and saw god and immediately decided i had to write a raf fic myself, so honorary mention of them LMAO (pls read their fics they are so fucking good)

A thousand moons and a thousand suns have risen and fallen on the waves, but none compare to the sight of you entering Rafayel’s court. You are the only celestial constant in this life from that day on, the planet around which Rafayel’s immortal life spins. How humorous, that mortals are so below Lemurians that they are not even worthy of appraising their worship, but it is a mortal bride that weakens the god of the tides.

You are radiant, ephemeral in your beauty. There is a certain kind of delicate balance in your mortality, a rose so ethereal before it withers. Your skirts, although handmade and of unparticular material, a sign of your lowborn upbringing, part to reveal the soft skin hidden beneath, an image that makes Rafayel’s fingers twitch in yearning. He has never envied the land-walkers their bodies, not once. But at the sight of your clay-formed body, loved and created by the earth, he finds himself straining for the shape. Your feet land on the coral floor as if the ground there had been prepared for your stride, blessed by your existence.

It’s not love at first sight, certainly not. But it feels like brushing your fingers over a book and knowing the story already. It feels like helplessly wandering into the trap out of your own volition, although you know that trap will bite. But you let it. It creeps in, the sweetest kind of death you could imagine.

Like poison, the first taste of you condemns Rafayel to eternity.

“Your divinity, we have brought you your sacrifice,” the priests chant, the human part of your procession. The Lemurian guards accompanying them cast them a dubious glance. Not every sacrifice is deemed appropriate, but it is not like the world beneath the waves would balance itself without the human’s worship. A necessary evil, an ugly truth. Their sacrifices are not acknowledged, but appreciated nonetheless. A god feeds on what is given, no matter how all-powerful they are. Even blood as soiled by the human world’s elements is sustainable. “Your bride, your blood, your heart. We have brought you your sacrifice.”

When you walked in, your beautiful face had been angled upward. Even the most stoic of people are forced by the frescoes set in the wall to halt and wonder, because there is nothing else in this world that compares to the sea’s creations. Rafayel’s court was closed in by a dome, decorated with mosaic illustrations of the kingdom’s history. Painted in with elegant whorls of blue, white and red, the image depicted here showed the creation myth of his people, rising from the foam on his fingertips. You had looked straight at that painting, ignoring the gaggle of eyes that had looked on, feasting on the sight of you. But at the call of your entourage, you lower your gaze, meeting his straight-on.

There had never been a feeling so violent seizing him than in that very moment. He wanted to crush you. He wanted to own you.

He wanted to know you.

Rafayel is not the first monarch to hold this court in his blue-scaled fist. He is also not the only one whose heart has ever been stirred for something that could wreck this empire forever. It feels like being hunted, heady and dangerous and addicting. In your eyes lies a future more enticing than anything the seven seas could ever offer him. This is damnation.

What a powerful heart that frail chest must contain; secured only by the soft bones that would willingly give way to his monstrous hands, protected only by the warm flesh surrounding it. Rafayel is the king of sirens, monarch of the abyssal deep, but it was your song that drew him in. He wonders if the prayers you had dedicated to the waves tasted as sweet as your lips looked.

The soldiers surrounding his throne stepforward, signaling the silent message until here and no further. But Rafayel has already risen. Not registering the court which sinks to their knees as they pay their respects, he draws near enough that he could grasp your hands, tucked away in your companion’s crook of his arm. You lowered your head, obedient supplicant as you are. “Court of clay, I accept your sacrifice,” he announces, breathless. He doesn’t care how giddy that makes the humans, how his court begins to whisper. A scandal, an outrage. He only sees you. Not able to hold himself back, he reaches forward to cup your chin - you are shaking, an information he shouldn’t delight in, but does - and your gaze is steady, certain. You are a docile little lamb, not afraid of the knife about to fall. He could crush your right then and there; he could snap your neck if he wants to.

That was his first mistake. Gods have always been unmade by the most simple of human emotions, a fact every single predecessor had heeded. He should have struck you down where you stood, before you could lay the seeds of destruction. But Rafayel doesn’t heed his instincts. There is nothing else in the world anymore but you. Your eyes search his face, taking in every detail, as if the roles were reversed and you were the executioner who was gently lowering him to the chopping block. He imagines your hands roaming his body as you prepare him for certain death.

Deep inside his cold, scaled body, under the layers of divinity and immortality, his godly heart skips a beat.

Rafayel is coming undone, unravelling at the seams. It is only a matter of time until he dissolves into the sea, cupped by your gentle hands, until he finally disappears.

Later, when night draws closer and washes the world in darkness like a paint dissolving in a glass of water, he accompanies you and the bridal party to the rooms you will be residing in for the near future. Gentle, gentle fingers in his hands; you are ashamed of being able to touch him like this, and he notices it. Rafayel angles his head so he can look at you. Although this is nothing but a fancy dress-up of the matter at hand, which means your death at the end of this foolery, the sacrifice is still honored. That means becoming familiar with the heart that will soon bolster his powers, immortalized in him forever. It’s an excuse, of course, but it’s what his mind settles on as a reason for trying to commit your existence to memory. Your eyes are swimming around, looking like the schools of fishes that lounge around in his stronghold. Taking everything in. His own are obsessed with gazing at every inch of your face; soon, it will become more familiar to him than his own. “Your name, supplicant,” he says, breaking you out of your trance. “You have not given it yet.”

Your answer is quiet, and he has to lean even closer to actually hear it. Your female companions, who will wash you and prepare you and celebrate the wedding with you, are chattering behind him to the point of annoyance, but the excitement is understandable. The syllables of your name take physical shape as they go through him, and Rafayel finds himself closing to his eyes as he listens to the melody of your words. Settling in. Taking root. “But you may call me as you wish, Your Divinity,” you demure. Someone has trained you well in the niceties. “I am honored to become anything that you desire.”

“Bride of blood,” he says, and his treacherous fingers finally begin to wander. The supple flesh draws him in, and he adores the way goosebumps claim your skin. He is quite cold-blooded after all. And you are oh, so warm. Human bodies are so confusing and strange that Rafayel can’t help but wonder what moves them. The unreliable skin that gives way too easily to the lightest of bites, the awkward bones that bend at the simplest of angles. As Rafayel chases the muscles running down your arms with his fingertips, you turn your wrist so he can seize it, as if you know what instincts he is following. An instinct as old as time. Life was created when intuition turned into contact, after all. You watch as the deadly king of the abyss stares at your flesh as if it was a wonder to behold. As if he is not the father of all miracles.

Soft, soft flesh. Brittle as wood worn out by the water. Rafayel does not relinquish his hold on you as he speaks. “Bride of clay. You have already become what I desired. You are welcome to ask any wish of me for the sacrifice you will accomplish. Let no one speak that the ocean’s court is ungrateful to your service.”

“I would never imply otherwise, Your Divinity.” Your cheeks are aflush with your humanity, heating below his touch in reaction to being so close to the object of your worship. You do not seem like a typical, blushing bride. He has already taken notice of the harsher, roughened way you admonished your bridal party earlier. Often times, the brides sent to him are scared, chosen at random, unprepared for what the sacrifice means. Often times, it means that Rafayel chooses other brides, casting over the human’s lot. Every year they visit, fighting to compete in their adoration with other worshippers, not realizing that they cannot compare. But you are true in your faith. There are scars feathering all over the palms of both your hands where you have drawn blood to cast into the sea. A moon-shaped indentation, where the lunar priests of the sea (as his worshippers are called above, named for the moon’s strained effort to become one with the sea) brand themselves after ascending to their positions, is situated in the hollow of your throat, right above that precious collarbone he could snap like a coral branch. You are calm, clear-headed.

You could not have been more perfect.

He tugs you along, deeper into the cold water. You do not complain once. The court to strangers is built like a maze, intended to confuse and rattle. A safety measure that is laughable. There is no one who’s might parallels the god of the sea. But Rafayel had taken care to implement it nonetheless, to protect the weak, even though the most vulnerable Lemurian could still overpower the weakest of humans. It is why it so unsettling that you stir him like this. He has loved nothing else on this earth than he has loved the folk of the water. He angles another look at you, suspicious.

The moonlight makes every edge of you luminous with beauty. From the tips of your lashes, to the curves of your features, down to the shape of your human body. It is normal to experience attraction. You were very comely, after all; it wasn’t only Rafayel’s head that had turned to follow your every move. During your presentation, even the most cranky of attendants had lit up with pleasure at such a delicious sight. But he wonders if this means more. He shouldn’t be so attuned to you, shouldn’t be so drawn in by a first encounter. Fate had such a funny way of working its motives. Its cruelty and its humor affected the happenstances of all beings, even gods like him.

The doors to your room have already been affixed with a pair of guards. They are armed with lances, sharpened at the edge to stab through even the most enduring of scales. Warriors of the sea are trained to handle even the most extenuating of threats. Rafayel dismisses them at once, and they stand aside, each taking a few steps away to grant the party their privacy. They will return to their post when Rafayel has left. He gesticulates with his free arm that the women may enter; your companions mouths shape oohs and aahs of wonder as they step inside, but you remain where you are. Your warm hand still lies inside his, a fact that makes his fish-blooded heart tucker inside his chest. “Forgive me for this presumptuous question, Your Divinity,” you say then, affixing your gaze to his face. A face of polite pliancy. He can almost imagine you leading the prayers in the rooms of your faith, the prideful upraised head looking to the sea. “But might there be a fountain which we can use for our prayers?”

“Praying to what, when all your prayers have been answered?” Rafayel swipes a thumb over the blood-darkened veins inside your wrist, the blood you wish to cast into the waves in the same manner as starlight spills over the endless sky. Your skin is as malleable as sand. He wants to dig in, a primal urge from when Lemurians still hunted humans for sport. Some still do. “You may ask the guards to show you to an appropriate location to perform your prayers. But you have already become a symbol of faith, bride of clay. You are being rewarded as such.”

You dip your head in acknowledgement. “I have, Your Divinity. But it does not mean I should stop dedicating myself.”

He stares at you, hard. You are going to die for your faith. That precious little thing you seem to guard so weakly inside your mortal chest will be ripped from you like a human child is torn out of the womb. And yet here you are, asking to dedicate yourself to the very faith who will murder you. Piety is a wondrous thing, and it has moved you so far that you have surrendered to your own sacrifice, but is it really piety that is making you go through the motions of something as superfluous as prayer, when the very act of sacrifice is the highest religious duty you could fulfill? “What an interesting bride they have brought me,” he says, and you lower your gaze, the picture of humility. “Pray, then. As long as you meet me after you do.”

You hum in response, and he watches as you finally rejoin the women already appraising the room. One of them, a younger woman who shares the curve of your jaw and the color of your hair, reaches out to grasp your hand. You free it almost immediately to brush over her hair, a startlingly gentle display of affection in comparison to the chiding you subjected her to earlier. She must be family, though she does not share your beauty.

How confusing to be jealous of a simple gesture like this. How idiotic to yearn to be in that woman’s stead. Rafayel turns his back on the bridal party, before he can do anything that could tarnish his reputation.

Rafayel finds you where he guessed you would be. Your blood is still dripping into the fountain as he approaches you, the thick drops submerging quickly as they fall, like tears of pearl. It was once said, a myth unfurling in the motions of history due to the fascination other creatures often felt at the people of Lemuria, that his folk cried pearls, a myth they had been hunted for. “Wasteful, don’t you think?” he quips at the sight, but his touch is gentle when he takes your hand into his own. “Spilling blood when you will spill so much more when we are wed.”

“Nothing performed in service of the sea god is wasteful, Your Divinity,” you answer calmly. The supplicant at your side, not the family member he saw yesterday, sends you an alarmed look before she lowers it. You questioned the words of a god, an action most people would never even dare. Had you been anyone else, your bones would have already become the fishes’ supper. Even if you had been part of this court, such a comment could still have costed your head. But Rafayel feels himself begin to bend, turning over in your scarred palms. For being the most powerful entity roaming this planet, he feels as though you are the one holding all the cards. “It may not be worthy, but I beg you to accept our meager offerings to you. It is an honor to live in the light of your divinity.”

A memorized answer, devoid of anything personal. It is not the answer he craves, and he wishes to tug at your hair, to tear the secrets you carry in your heart from your head. It is a gruesome instinct, supped on the desire that is beginning to grow inside his heart. “Come with me,” he says, and then, addressing your companion, “You may remain here. I wish to become my bride’s acquaintance.”

The companion lowers her head in pliancy, but she seems nervous, apparently not trusting herself to formulate words in answer. Not because of his presence, perhaps. Rafayel has the inkling that it is you who’s distressing the bridal party. Something mysterious is unfolding in front of his eyes, and he itches to know more. He turns to offer you his arm, and you hesitate, shying away from the fact that he is an immortal being that is worshipped by everything the waves washes ashore on. But you take it, your warmth as shocking as the flash of lightnings the rainstorms sometimes inflict on his domain. Rafayel begins to walk, directing you to the royal gardens.

The weather is much nicer today. The sunlight fights to flood the scenery wherever it reaches, creating shadows of myth. Power is appearance. This court has been designed in a way to strike both fear and awe in hearts untouched by the heavens. You turn your head as far as it reaches, taking in the sight in the same way you had admired the ceiling yesterday. You must have an eye for art. “Tell me about yourself, daughter of clay,” he says, using the address most non-humans utilize to respectfully interact with an unknown land-walker. You whip your head back around to look at him. Today, your face is kissed by the sun, the lovely light enunciating every feature, every trace of the ancestors who had loved the idea of you so much that they willed you into existence. The sight rips into him like a shark bite, and for a moment, he finds himself envying whoever created humans. They had been much more adoring and obsessed with their work than he has, and it is reflected in the creation of you. “And none of the faithful derision today. I do adore being admired, but we are to be wed, and I wish to know whose heart I am going to consume.”

“Faithful derision,” you repeat, clearly taken aback by him reducing the faith of the sea to a simple piece of doggerel. Most of humanity’s prayers go unanswered, after all, expected from an existence so frail it could be wiped out with the smallest of tsunamis. “You mock me so, Your Divinity. Very well. What is it you wish to know of me?”

How have you managed to bewitch me, you evil thing? Rafayel thinks, but does not say. The urge to consume not just your heart, but you in your entirety has still not left him, even after a cold night of serious self-reflection. He has never realized how much desire could blur into hunger. “Who raised you?” he asks instead. “Who were you before you came here? What is it that made you become the lamb to my slaughter?”

Your eyes glaze over, an unidentifiable emotion he only manages to glimpse before you veil it over with the distanced civility you employ to interact with him. “I never knew my father, but my mother is a shepherdess above the sea,” you answer, slowly. The words are chosen carefully. “My mother used to be a priestess, but she was released from her duty when she had me. I was born of sin, you know. A lunar priestess is supposed to remain unwed and untainted, but she became pregnant with me. I am absolving both my mother and me of that taint.”

What a human belief, Rafayel thinks. To categorize love and coupling and touch as something sinful. As if the simple act of dedicating yourself to another wasn’t the holiest experience one could live through. The wax and wane of desire is as holy as the kneel of prayer to a Lemurian, which live and die for love. Above all else, it is the connection to someone else that could be the most well-guarded treasure a Lemurian could ever possess. But humanity’s civilization keeps its own rule, and to laugh about their beliefs would mean disrespecting you, so he only responds with, “I am sure the taint you speak of does not exist.”

“You are kind to say so, Your Divinity.” You do not sound like you believe it. Your words are, like nothing else, an act of worship. But perhaps it is because you understand him that you accept the answer, and that means something to him: to be understood as he is. He guides you along until he reaches a pavilion in the middle of the garden. You sit down first, a distance away from him in the spirit of propriety, but Rafayel is done acquiescing to your silly human rules. He sits near enough that your knees knock against each other, and as he cages you in like a hunter would circle his prey, he takes hold of your hand again. A bone-deep ache has claimed Rafayel, an ardor he never knew he possessed. It is taking hold of him, surging up in him like a wave. It is more than just your body he craves, something that runs deeper and hotter than the center of his own existence. “There is something you are hiding from me,” he tells you, watching as your eyes darken. You do not like being perceived, and the realization almost makes him laugh. “I will not make you tell it. You are free to do whatever it is you wish. But you fascinate me, daughter of clay. It is rare to enrapture a god’s attention, you know.”

As the night before, you roll your wrist in his hold so he may grasp it properly. Perhaps you search out his touch in the same manner as he does yours. Your fingers graze the flesh of his thighs as he lowers your hand to his lap. “I will get in over my head, Your Divinity, if you keep complimenting me like this,” you say. It makes his lips quirk into a genuine smile. Clever human, to play along like this. Your pulse thrums below his fingertips, the rhythm addicting. A true siren song. “I may overstep myself. That would not befit me at all. I am here to be free of sin, after all.”

“You are free already.” Rafayel’s fingers trace patterns into your skin, lower and lower. He unfolds your fingers for you, stretching them as far as they go. The scars on your skin are hypertrophic and ugly, but they fascinate him as much as every inch of your body does. They tell the stories of experiences and lived memories. Each one contains another secret he wants to unveil, a pearl he wants to claim as his own. “And we are to be wed, aren’t we?” His fingers curl over your own, and then you’re holding hands, intertwined in all manners of fate. Rafayel leans in, close enough to make you uncomfortable, close enough to kiss you. You don’t lean away. “There is nothing sinful about being betrothed, or what you do in the name of love. You are mine now, daughter of clay. All mine.”

For the first time since you have arrived here, you smile, your teeth gleaming like knifes. He feels it cutting into his chest, cutting away at his restraint. Although Rafayel is part of a species that is the apex predator of all predators, hunting and reigning over all that lives and breathes, in this moment, it is you who becomes the huntress.

How easy it is to climb a throne. How easy to be torn from it.

In the following days, he feels that tear at his existence in everything you do. Your allure only grows with every minute spent in your vicinity, and finally he has grown so needy that he absolves you of your prayers. Instead, he makes you worship him in person, and the time blurs into eternity, the noose at the end of the road long forgotten.

Rafayel spends afternoon tracing the traces of your creation; every bone, every tendon he explores with the devotion of a fervent prayer. Your fathomless eyes, glinting with the knowledge and the plans you keep hiding away from him, draw him in like the bait at the end of a fishing rod, and even though he knows it’s a trap, he lets himself be caught. Three nights before the day at your wedding, he finds himself caught on the sharp hook as he submerges into a bath with you.

You are not naked, but it almost seems like you are with the way the fabric of your dress begins to cling to you as the water kisses your skin. The shivering claiming your human bones create little currents in the pool, the water much colder than the ocean that surrounds this make-shift castle. Rafayel presses you closer to him, and then his face is in your hair, breathing in deeply. You both have long stopped caring about the rules of polite society. Rafayel has not allowed you to. Every touch, every word, every smile has made you more pliant, until finally you have even allowed him to partake in your ablutions before the wedding.

Every sacrificial bride of the sea god is supposed to take a bath before her wedding, washing away her past so that she can present herself in her most purified state. Most times, the bridal party is asked to help her with that, but Rafayel has stolen that role. It is the single most blasphemous thing one could do. But he is a god, and it is him who dictates the rules, delivers the scripture. All it took was a jut of his lip, the allusion of a pout, and you had caved immediately.

And now you were here, in the curve of his arm, your ear hovering above his chest. His heartbeat was powerful, pounding as loudly as the waves crashing on the beach, the sound susurrating inside your very soul. You breathe in deeply, shaking. This is the most divine thing you have ever experienced, something your mortal shell never thought it would be able to feel. “Sweet conch shell,” Rafayel murmurs in to your ear, shocking you to your core. “I’m sure you know that we have to step in even further to be able to perform the purification.”

“Just a second, please,” you speak through gritted teeth. This man vexes you in the most alluring of ways, and you cannot help but acquiesce to his every whim. You know your pleading falls on deaf ears, though, because Rafayel’s immediate reaction is a smile so mischievous it borders on schadenfreude, and he is already tugging at your shoulders in an attempt to submerge you further. You try to stand firm, even though your determination is crumbling. “It’s cold. It’s really cold.”

“Hmmm.” Rafayel nips at your ear, then your throat; you shudder violently enough for the water to splash. In the silence of your private little bubble, it almost sounds like an explosion. It makes your eyes snap open, as if preparing itself to fight or flee. Never had you let a man so close into your proximity. The village had always been ripe with gossip-mongering and backtalk. Your mother, although the most honorable person in the world to you, had been a demonized figure, to the point where your own worship had made you cull out the presence of men. No one had ever expected you to follow in your mother’s footsteps. No one had expected you to become a bride worthy of the sea. The simple pleasure of his ministrations floods your cheeks with hot blood. “See, I already warmed you up,” he teases, mouthing the words against your carotid artery. Speaking the words directly into your heart. You are guided much easier now, the water sloshing as you are pulled in. “I’ll take care of you, my pearl. You’re with your god, aren’t you?”

With your god. You turn your face toward him. Rafayel’s fingers tug at your lower lip, and you watch as his eyes zero in on the flesh; he is weirdly entranced with the way your human body works, the strange reaction it elicits from him. It is something you have become accustomed to in the past few days. His nail is sharp enough to draw blood. “See, that wasn’t so hard,” he coos, mocking you outright. But his fingers are shaking. It’s you who’s got him wrapped around your little finger, and that feels both emancipating and sacrilegious, a conflict so confusing that you do not know where you have to draw the line. You don’t even want to draw a line. When you had joined the faith of the waves, the image you had conjured during prayer had been ephemeral and fleeting, as changing as the sea. Not in your wildest dreams would you have been able to picture a man, a deity as flawless as Rafayel. His beauty kills. It constricts your lungs and tugs at your heart, as if falling into the maw of a great beast. The still water does nothing to take away from your hypersensitivity to his proximity.

Mortals aren’t made for divine dalliances. You burn too easily. But here you are, playing with fire.

You aren’t delusional enough to think he loves you. You are clay-born, after all. Rough and hastily assembled, none of the precision that the sea god had employed to give birth to his people. You are dazzling in the same way as a fire is dazzling: a short burst of destruction that is as awe-inspiring as it is revolting. But even you can recognize that he is attracted to you, and to a simple servant of the faith, that is quite enough. You are basking in whatever affection he grants you, any scrap at all.

Although you are still on the cusp of youth, old enough to yearn but young enough to grasp the moment, you had never in your wildest dreams conspired of something like this ever happening. Love just wasn’t on your cards. You had your sister, and your mother, and your faith, and that was truly enough. It was fulfilling to the point that you had felt untethered to the earth, free from the judging glances of the village, free from all the expectations the convent placed on you. Living and breathing and becoming one with the sea. If you had died tomorrow without ever having glimpsed the miraculous sea god you had entrusted yourself to, you would have died happy anyways. It was as simple as that.

But this was life-changing. Altering. You were experiencing an out-of-body experience, mythology come true. After all those years you had thrown your love into the universe, the universe was reaching back. You were spinning off axis, losing sight of everything but Rafayel. He was the new epicenter of your existence.

You jump as his fingers trail the naked skin of your arms. He settles on your hips, the touch so electrifying that you bite the lower lip he is still so fascinated by, staring at it as if it were a treasure he discovered at the bottom of the sea. The moon behind him outlines his shape in silver and white, making him seem more like an apparition than an actual person. How fitting, when you have been fantasizing about him all your life. “We should perform the purification now,” you whisper, but Rafayel is still lazily drawing patterns into the flesh of your curves. “Certainly,” he drawls out, every syllable enunciated in the abundant leisure only a god could possess. Your nerves feel like they are on fire. “In a minute.”

“Your Divinity,” you caution.

“Raf-a-yel.” He pronounces the words slowly, but with a deadly intonation. His eyes are dark, unreadable. “Say it. Say my name.”

You look at him, unsure. He looks just as much the deadly hunter he is sometimes depicted as in the murals. Before humanity had started building shrines in honor of the sea god of the abyss, they had painted warning signs about him, about the quick and bloody death he delivers. Some sailors still caution against all interaction with the creatures of the sea, their doom-calling stories a fresh batch of nightmares every time you hear them. The way Lemurians used to drag their willing prey beneath the waves, where they watched as the light left their eyes. What remained of them were the last bubbles of air as they rose to the surface. You cannot say his name, not with your tainted tongue. Not with the bastardry you carry in your veins. Not when you are deceiving him for the sake of your sister. But … “Rafayel,” you whisper.

You should feel scared about the way his lips curve into a smile. Beneath the most beautiful skins still lies the deadly bite of a venomous snake. Somehow you don’t think it’s fear that spikes the speed of your heartbeat, though. It’s not adrenaline that makes you angle your face upward so Rafayel can nuzzle your neck, and you almost buckle at the swipe of his tongue. Tasting the salt on your skin, the earth you came from. “Here, I purify you,” he answers. “I’ll lick you clean.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s what the scriptures meant, Your Divinity. Rafayel,” you hastily correct. He had frozen in his motions, but resumed nipping at your skin when you had added his name. The cold water was doing absolutely nothing against the fire racing inside your veins.

“Don’t care about the scriptures.” Rafayel draws up, pulling you with him. The languorous stretch of his figure forces you upward, and following his guide, you wrap your arms around his neck until you’re flush against him. His eyes darken at the press of your breasts against his chest. You screw your eyes shut at the delicious pressure, the way your nipples had brushed against his skin. How easy it is to throw all caution into the wind. You were losing sight of everything you built, in the name of love. “My word is law. Isn’t it?”

“Yes, Rafayel.”

He almost seems to purr at the sound of his name, easily pleased. It’s a deeply unhuman sound that should make you shrink away in fear. You screw your eyes shut as his lips trace the shape of your cheeks, inching closer to your mouth. “My name sounds so delicious on your tongue,” he whispers against the corner of your lips, bordering on a kiss. “If only all your prayers had been like this. I would have flooded all the ports and claimed the land just to have you.”

“I am yours,” you tell him, and you mean it. Rafayel grips your hips hard enough to draw blood, and he doesn’t need to tell you to know what he wants from you. You repeat it, again and again, telling him you belong to him, until Rafayel shuts you up with a kiss that tastes of both sanctity and sin, and the poison he pours into you is so decadent you almost don’t realize it’s killing you. You forget that at the end of this, it will not just be his kiss consuming you whole. You welcome the knifes and the sharp teeth and let Rafayel devour you.

The night passes then with the two of you trading kisses in the dark, small touches bordering on disgrace. You bend so many of your rules that at the end of the night, you’re not sure whether your virginity is sacred after all. But Rafayel never asks you for it, and you both remain clothed, although the bath has made you drip all over the floor. Inside the enormous bed that Rafayel claims as his own, you watch the sun rise as his fingers trace your ears, your collarbones, the shape of your body. It feels intimate in a way that is devoid of sex. It almost feels like Rafayel is the supplicant and you his deity, with the reverence he dedicates to touching you. “You do not need to be purified, bride of blood,” he says, addressing you like he did on the day you met him. Once again, it is a sign of respect. A sign that although he doesn’t understand your beliefs, he still wants to adhere to them because you treasure them. “You are flawless as you are. I chose you because you are everything I want.”

Although your sight is already blurring from tiredness, you make an effort to look at him. “Even though I am human?”

“Despite everything,” he tells you. “My heart sings with the presence of you.”

The sincerity of that statement dizzies you. You fall back into the blurness, feeling light as a feather. Never in your life before have you experienced a joy as profound as this; you have seen the face of God, and God has looked back at you. He is only looking at you.

“You do not have to do this, you know.”

It is the sister who speaks. Rafayel turns over the ceremonial knife, staring at it as he strains to hear the soft voices in the room behind him. Technically, he was eavesdropping. It was a breach of privacy, of course, but there was the matter of intention; he had come to see you, to fall into your lap as you told him about the human world, to allow himself to be reduced to a lover at the beck and call of a mere human like you. The days were beginning to slip away like sand in an hourglass, the wedding inching closer with every passing second. He had been trying to identify where the pit of dread inside his stomach came from when he heard your sister speak up, a feat so rare that he had forced himself to stop behind the door before she stopped. Your bridal party was composed of the most annoying people in the world, all of them paling in comparison to you in both faith and creature, but your sister guarded her words like a clam her pearls. And now, when she finally spoke, it was to deter you from marrying at all.

Rafayel hears something shift. You must have sat closer to her. “Do not say those words,” you hiss, a tone he has never heard you take before. “Do you forget how easily it is for a human to lose their head down here? We are already on thin ice.”

“I’m serious. You do know we could all die anyways, right? How can you be so calm? I feel like I’m about to go insane!”

“Then keep it together!” The answer is too loud, a cat mother snapping at its young. The anger in your voice is palpable. For a moment, the silence claims the room alongside the tension created by the secret conversation, but then you speak up, much calmer. “We either die together for this treason, or I die and you will live to tell my tale. In either case, it’s fine by me. I don’t care about my own life, but so help me god, Alia, if you even think of ending this ruse I will send you above water myself. I’m your older sister. It is my duty to think of you first.”

Treason. Rafayel’s fingers skim the edge of the knife. Blood pearls at the tip of his fingers, the sight of it as nauseating as the thought of a possible betrayal by the human world. Already, the world above them has started to leave them behind, with their experiments of gunpowder and weaponry. More and more patrols return decimated, the serving soldiers reporting death and violence. Complaining, pointing fingers. It’s no secret that the bridal party at court has become somewhat of a group of hostages. And hadn’t Rafayel already known that you were hiding things?

But he thinks of the way you let him cup your face in the sight of only moon and sky, how your eyes glint with the unspoken tenderness between the two of you. It was easy to lie with words, but your souls sing to each other. You both know it. There is something tucked away inside your human heart that belongs to him and him alone, something that makes Rafayel forgive you for every past and future grievance you could possibly muster against him. There is something every living heart wants for itself, and his heart wants you. The metaphorical knife sinks and sinks and sinks into his chest, slamming into bone, stuck there like Rafayel is stuck on his throne. Forever a hand-width away from everyone else, even his happiness. Just then, your sister whispers, “You love him, do you not? You have already given him your heart.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you gently reprimand her. Rafayel closes his eyes; the hand twisting the knife is rough and scarred, but familiar. He imagines taking that hand to aid it. Stab here, he wishes to say. Just a little deeper. I permit you. Only you. “This plan isn’t going to work, and I don’t care. I’ll take them down with me if I can. If I’m dead, I can’t be blackmailed, can I? I don’t care whether I die, as long as you live.”

As long as you live. Rafayel thinks of hearts, and the consumption of them, and of weddings and happy endings. He tucks the ceremonial knife away, his insides cold with the grim certainty of what he is going to do.

Later on, Rafayel will not remember the way his wedding had crashed and floundered into flames. He will not remember the sharp sting of betraying his own people, how his power had bled and bled. It was always so gruesome when gods fell. They weren’t destined for tragedies of this scale.

The only thing Rafayel will be able to commit to his recollection is how stunning divinity looked on you. He will forget the way his home had tasted, how the blooming kingdom of Lemuria had seemed to explode with colors, how the laughter of his folk had accompanied him everywhere. The only thing left will be you, your radiant face and your warm, warm tears, as warm as blood, sparking a fire in even the coldest of deep sea creatures. It should make him curse your name.

And yet he cannot forget you.

He looks for you everywhere, at every time, in every moment. The way your smile looked like the warm rays of the sun as they broke through the rain-heavy sky. The way the sound of your steps seemed to echo like the drum-like rhythm of his heart. He races after people who seem to have just the right hair color, who seem to share the shape of your eyes, who remind him just too much of you, only to realize that it wasn’t the person he was chasing after. You are haunting him. In every waking moment, in every dream that tortures his sleep, it is always you.

The resulting soul-devouring longing has turned him into quite the artist. When Lemuria fell, it took everything with it. Every painting since then he has ever drawn up fails to compare with the real thing, and he is terrified by the idea that he is forgetting how his home looked like. Already the details begin to slip away from him, becoming eroded over time. What remains crystalline is the imagine of you. Devilish you, crux of Lemuria you. It torments him to love you, but what torments him more is the loss of you. He had never been prepared for this possibility. He had never even considered what giving his heart away would look like.

And yet, he would do it again, and again, and again. Selfishly, egotistically. What he wouldn’t give to be able to make you smile again. In his most desperate nights, he strains himself to remember the way you used to laugh, the sound more heavenly than any music ever composed on earth. Even the falsification of the sound still manages to bring him so much peace that Rafayel stills his hands and abstains from painting another death trap. Although revenge has become the new mistress of his heart, he doesn’t love her as much as he will ever love you. It is the memory of you that makes him halt, makes him grant mercy to a possible victim. That, and the everlasting fear it is your blood he could be punishing. Your wish had been granted, after all - it was your sister who had lived and witnessed the death of a civilization, your sister who had escaped all culpability.

It was one of the most earliest memories he managed to commit to his brain after the atrocity that was the destruction of Lemuria. He had dug your sister’s grave with his bare hands. He had never even known her, not closely anyways, but it was your blood running in her veins, your love that had raised her. After so many years of searching and retracing his steps, he had finally found the village you had been born into. But by then, his bride had disappeared, and your sister had grown old waiting for you, and she had barely been able to squeeze Rafayel’s hand before passing on peacefully. That had hurt him in an entirely different way. Here was someone, who loved you and missed you just as much as him, who would understand how severely the loss of you had impacted him, but then she went and died. A cruel fate, as usual. But he did not regret finding her. For a little while, someone had been able to share his grief. And for a little while, that had been enough.

In his worst nightmares, Rafayel dreams he will never see you again. He will live and die for his love, but it will not matter. The bond that connected your souls stretched on into nothingness, past the place where living beings could reach, and you have already passed onto a place he will never see, because you’re an angel and he’s going to hell. Whether he believes it or not, he has betrayed his people, his court, his duty. There was no redemption, no way to come back from that.

Sometimes he resents you for it, so much so that his soul grows heavy with the anger he carries within. He stares at himself in the mirror for hours, trying to claw off the Lemurian mark that bonds you to him, but then he dissolves into sobs. He is hollow of you, a carved out corpse, a mermaid drowned. An oxymoron, like he was. He loves you so much that he convinces himself the pain is worth it; he convinces himself that he can survive this.

He becomes a renowned artist, his paintings a manifest oh the emotions he tries to overcome. But in every single one, his muse remains the same.

Like divine intervention, it is his paintings you admire when Rafayel finally finds you again.

He almost doesn’t trust his eyes. After all, this is not the very first time he has chased after a mirage like a traveler lost at sea. The back that is turned to him is not as scarred as yours was, and the curls of your hair are tucked away in a neat coiffure that almost makes him look away; you had hated to have your hair up. His favorite part of the morning routine you both established was when you had let him sneak into your rooms, and you had let him brush your hair until it was smooth and silky to the touch. But then you cock your head at the painting, and Rafayel sees your face, and he almost buckles.

The moon pales in comparison of the sight of your face twitching into the amazed expression at the painting before you. The sharp teeth remember him of your knife-like grimaces, the ones you used to grace him with when he saw a little bit too much of the truth inside you. There is a horrifyingly familiar birthmark where your brandmark used to identify you as one of the most devoted priestesses of the sea’s faith. You are as beautiful as the day as he lost you, as stunning as the day you had walked into his life.

He stumbles into Thomas, who steadies him with an appalled noise. The rest of the world falls away as Rafayel drinks in the sight of you like a man completely parched with thirst, as if he might die from it. You’re staring at a rendition of how Rafayel had imagined you might look in a bridal gown. His legs carry him forward, and never has the burden of walking on earth hurt him as much as now; he feels that knowledge tearing at him, clawing away at every protective measure, before he even reaches you. Every step is razor-sharp and painful, a conscious memory of what he sacrificed to roam the earth for you. He already knows before you meet his eyes. Your eyes are as clear and amazed as the day you had been brought to him.

You have no idea who he is at all.

It had already been a weird day. You had woken up to your face wet with tears, but as you touched it, you couldn’t for the life of you remember what you had dreamt about. There was only the disturbing feeling that were was something missing, something you couldn’t live without. You had laid in bed for a very long time, your hand placed over your heart, before your bestfriend and roommate Simone had burst into your room and told you to ‘get your ass up before we miss work’.

In the subway, the feeling hadn’t subsided. Beneath the bones of your breast cage, your most vital organ sputtered and stuttered, strangely arhythmic. The thing wasn’t very reliable, anyways, and you already had monthly check-ups to ensure it wasn’t fucking you over and you could continue your work. And then sometimes, it performed miracles. So many times you had woken up in a hospital bed after having passed out with the certain thought that you were going to die, but every time your heart had won out, like it loved battling death and beating the shit out of it every time. It had mystified Zayne, your childhood friend, to the point where he had suggested setting up a field study for his university studies, but you had firmly declined. You didn’t want anyone else to know about this freak heart, thank you.

Work itself had passed by quickly either way, and you had almost passed over the opportunity of going out with your friends. But Simone had wheedled at you and whittled your rejection down until it turned into acceptance, so now here you were.

Staring at this stranger.

He almost looked familiar. In another life, perhaps, you would have walked up to him and struck up a conversation. You had a special weakness for pretty boys, even though you knew even the most beautiful of predators are still deadly. But you had sworn off men after college, the short dalliances that had sparked up remaining unfruitful, so you thought it was for the best.

But the look in his eyes was so heartbreaking.

If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought he knew you. He seemed to be looking at you like someone who he had believed dead had magically been brought back to life and returned to him. When you finally mustered up your courage to approach him, because he had been staring at you for quite a while now, the gorgeous man had turned and left. You quickly lost sight of him, which made you frown.

You were a Deepspace hunter, one of the best. You usually don’t lose track of your prey, especially not pretty ones like him.

It didn’t matter. You never saw him again afterwards. Your fake vow of chastity remained stable, even after the countless club nights Simone dragged you to and even after Tara’s desperate pleading to please, pretty please let her set you up with someone. You declined every time. Not because you were stubborn, but because there was a hollowness inside you that starved for tenderness, something so unreal you were sure you were never going to find it. There was a beast encaged by your veins and bones, starving for the scraps of affection. You had fed it and fed it and fed it, to the point where at the end, you were the one who had been left unnurtured, so you had abandoned the search.

You had never once thought it would find you instead.

There were times when the timing seemed almost too suspicious. The appearance of a fake account perceiving your social media posts. The feeling of someone keeping watch of you. Not following you, but checking in on you. The knowledge that someone was looking out for you, but every time you turned the corner, what greeted you was the sight of a whole lot of nothing.

It’s Wednesday night after Simone’s shift when the doorbell rings. “Did you order in?” you ask the girl, but she shakes her head, the freshly washed hair whipping around like a flag in the wind. “Maybe it’s Michaela?” she theorizes, and you shrug. You’ve met Michaela before; she was Xavier’s hunting partner, a competent hunter that was sure to rise through the ranks. You hadn’t realized that Simone and her had become so acquainted, though. You were definitely going to needle Simone about that.

You went to open the door, but it wasn’t Michaela standing in front of it. Instead, a delivery boy that looks like the most bored employee you’ve ever seen holds out a packaged bouquet to you. “Please sign here, miss,” he says, and holds out a board where a paper has been pinned to it. You scan it quickly to confirm it’s actually for you, then give him the signature he requires.

“Who was it?” Simone appears in the hallway, scrubbing away at her hair. You are momentarily distracted from the bouquet and stare at her instead; you always scolded her for walking around with wet hair. “Is that a bouquet?” she asks before you can say something, her voice amazed. “I thought you were a chaste nun and all that!”

“I’m not dating anyone!” you immediately defend yourself. But your heart is racing as you pass her, and you quickly walk to the kitchen counter where you reach for the scissors in the drawers. Simone rejoins you and watches as you free the flowers from their paper cage.

It is the prettiest bouquet you’ve ever received. Nestled inbetween baby’s breath and foxgloves, water lilies in full bloom reach upward, filling the kitchen with their dizzying fragrance. Simone begins to sneeze almost immediately; she is violently allergic to foxgloves. You, on the other hand, breathe in deeply, almost light-headed with the violent longing the flowers fill you with.

You stare at the flowers for a very long time.

After almost an hour of theorizing and reaching to no conclusion, you place the bouquet on the windowsill in your room where it can be seen from the street. It’s intentional, because you are almost sure that the feeling of that watchful stranger was not just a feeling. Maybe it was a secret admirer or something. But your heart was at peace with that knowledge, and the feeling that encapsulated you was as familiar as a dream; a dream where you are loved as you are, with every inch of your being. You sleep deeply and restfully for the first time in a very long time.

As someone rounds the corner, he angles his eyes upward to stare at a certain window. He passes by here almost daily, just to see whether you were sleeping and taking care of yourself. Worrying about whether when the lamp burned deep into the night, it meant you were overworking yourself or haunted by nightmares. Reassured when the light was off and your shutters closed, because it meant you were home and sleeping. When the shutters are open, he doesn’t even bother to pass by this street, having learnt quickly it meant you were on a business trip of some kind. He has quickly become resentful of your vocation because of how much it drains you. But today, he sees the bouquet he sent you, proud on display on the very windowsill he is able to see from below here, so far away from you.

Almost unwillingly, because he has yet to relearn the motion, his lips curve into a smile. Rafayel walks home, his heart as light as it never has been before. Well, maybe once. Back when the waves were still the emperors of the world. When love meant a certain, moonlight-illuminated face.

It doesn’t take long for Rafayel to re-enter your life under the guise of a part-time job. A bodyguard, for a painter. The joke almost writes himself. But you couldn’t deny how you had clapped your hands in joy when you saw him again, the pretty face with no name you had seen on that day of the art reveal. You let him seduce into the worst side-gig ever, which might as well have been a babysitting job instead of a bodyguard position.

You learn that he’s a recluse, famous painter with the weirdest quirks. You’ve never met a man as strange as him. He was immature, and whiny, and a brat. Most times, you were too exasperated to handle him, despite the ridiculous amount of money he was paying you (the dude was rolling in money) and the bonus of getting to see his gorgeous face every day for free. Sometimes, though, when you are careless, your heart jumps to your throat when your fingers brush. Other times, when you watch him paint, you have the counterproductive urge to grasp his face and kiss him until you’re breathless. You cannot understand it. You don’t know where the instinct comes from. But it runs deep in your blood, a calling as old as time.

Simone calls you a horny freak, almost guffawing when you meekly admit to having developed a crush on him. And hey, sure, maybe you were a little horny. (A woman gets quite desperate when her only sexual encounters were the reliable appendages of her own hand.) And sometimes you did want to jump Rafayel’s bones until you were sure you (or him) wouldn’t be able to walk for a least a week. But it’s not what stirs you when you look at him. Deep inside your heart, something yearns for Rafayel, something that’s even hungrier than the beast you call your own heart.

You’re never sure what will overcome you. On most days, where Rafayel mooches off the vacation days you get from Deepspace hunting and calls you in to watch him live his life, your cravings run on the need of wanting to touch him. You want to ruffle your fingers through his hair to discover whether it’s as soft as it looks like. You’ve even candidly wondered what it would be like to hug him while he sleeps; Rafayel often falls asleep on his own job, curling into a sleeping position right in front of his unfinished paintings, the elegant fingers unfurling around his brush. The need to touch him can get so severe that you brush your fingers over his hand as he sleeps, just to satisfy it; it feels like fire grazing your skin, as dangerous as his Evol. You never tell him about anything of this, though, even though you know the secret is burning you.

Sometimes he looks at you as though he can tell exactly what you’re thinking. Like now.

He looks up before you can tear your gaze away. You had been staring at him for a little too long, admittedly, but he was looking downright ethereal today. You had almost collapsed on his porch when he had answered the door. The man was already a threat because of his looks, but he had opened the door looking like he fell right out of the bed and walked to the door without doing anything. The sight of his sleepy face and frazzled hair was doing a number on your heart. He claimed he’d already had breakfast and had laid out a plate of pancakes for you (not prepared by him, of course, the man was too lazy to stand in the kitchen without incentive), then gotten straight to painting. You were fantasizing about what it would be like to wake up in bed with him, to wipe away the sleep from his eyes and kiss the eyelids, when he caught you red-handed. “What, do I have something on my face?” he quips, and you jerk upright.

“No. Why would you think that?”

“You’re looking at me as if I sprouted another head. I’m not an alien, you know.”

“Technically, you are. Aren’t you?” You blink at him, the question innocent. Rafayel rolls his eyes, though, as if he had both expected your stupidity but had hoped you would overcome it. “Lemurians are from the ocean, idiot,” he retorts, turning back to his painting. He was swiping away at another creation, something that looked like the abstract rendition of a hurricane on the sea. “Last I checked, that was still on earth.”

Well, he got you there. Before you could think of a smart response, your phone rings, bringing the conversation to a halt. Rafayel clicks his tongue in annoyance; he likes to be the center of your attention and has often hidden your phone during work hours just so you couldn’t distract yourself. As someone with the attention span of a goldfish, you had rebelled pretty soon. You turn your attention to the device in your hands and read Simone’s name on the display before you answer the call. “Hello?” You drawl out, gaze still fixed on Rafayel.

“Where are you?”

“Working. At Raf’s.” You don’t miss the way Rafayel straightens up at the nickname, looking like the satisfied cats he often chases away due to his hatred of them. It’s your turn to roll your eyes; he was easily pleased. At the same time, his simple joy at a nickname makes your heart soften. Although his dramatic flair ensures that he is never taken seriously, deep beneath it all, you have come to realize that Rafayel is a genuinely tender person. And who are you to judge for being needy when it comes to affection? “I told you that this morning. You know, when you were in bed with Michaela.” As far as you knew, they weren’t dating, since Simone claimed Michaela had only slept over yesterday because they had stayed out late, and she had refused to let Michaela walk back home in the dark.

“Do not say that out loud,” comes Simone’s buzzing response from the other end of the phone, and you momentarily hold your phone away as you cringe at the sound. You put it back just in time to hear her add, “I do not need the fish-man to know about my private business, thank you. He’s an employer after all.”

“Everyone knows about your fat crush on Michaela.”

“Well, how about your fat crush on…”

“NO!” you shout down the phone before she can speak it out loud and ruin your life. You manage to startle Rafayel so strongly that he topples from the chair he was situated on; you wince and turn around guiltily, not wanting to deal with the consequences of that. Simone had almost given away your secret feelings for the man currently painting his heart out on the canvas. “Alright, point fucking taken. Is that why you called me? To bully me?”

“You decided to bully me first! Anyways, I called to let you know that they emergency-scheduled you for this afternoon. Something about you being familiar with that no-hunting zone.”

You narrow your eyes. She was probably talking about the suburb north of Linkon that had just recently been declared a no hunting zone; they were still carrying out evacuations from the area, although majority of the place had been abandoned ages ago due to a factory accident. You often ran patrols there and had been the one to notify the agency about the rising threat-level which had ultimately led to the declaration of it now being a no hunting zone. Still, it must be pretty serious if they scheduled you without checking back with you first. Jenna usually didn’t take advantage of your willingness, since you often offered to cover shifts for your colleagues.

“When?”

“7:30 at the subway station. North exit. You’ll patrol alone, but I can join you if you want to.”

“No, that’s fine,” you answered absentmindedly, already racking your brain about what could have happened and how you could get there. Perhaps another luminivore? But you had cleared out a nest of wanderers just a week ago…

You barely remember to say goodbye to Simone before you whirl around to face Rafayel. He’s still on the ground, pouting, his full lips jutted at you in irritation. “Let me guess,” he grumbles. “You’re gonna abandon me again. Forget aaaaall about me on your fancy wanderer-hunting job.”

“Rafayel,” you sigh. He always got vexed about this, the fact that you had a life aside from basically being his handbag that he carried everywhere. Rafayel doesn’t even like public appearances, and rarely appears often enough where the necessity of a bodyguard was warranted. You step towards him and offer him your hand so he can let himself be pulled up, but he turns his face away like a child. “Don’t be like this. I’ll literally be back tomorrow.”

“Oh, will you? And what if you get another emergency? And what when your free days are over and you have to go back to your regular work? Since you’ve managed to forget to text me every time you’ve been busy, I’m assuming you’ll check back with me as soon as sharks have started walking on land.”

“Now you’re just being dramatic.”

Rafayel turns his head to glare at you. It’s the only thing your register before the world is flipped upside down in a rapid whorl of colors. Rafayel has taken hold of the hand that had intended to help him and had pulled you down. The movement is so swift and sudden that you squeak in indignation before you can remember your training, but your fight-response dies down as soon as Rafayel leans over you, his hands pinning yours over your head. You could easily free yourself if you wanted to. You were a Deepspace hunter, for crying out loud. But it’s Rafayel who’s pinning you down, Rafayel whose lovely hair is as blue as the swirling sea, his eyes capturing you like a predator hypnotizing its prey. “You’re a liar,” he tells you. It’s an insult, but your skin tingles as if the word was a caress. You squeeze your hands into fists in his hold, and he grips your wrists tighter, as if he can imprison them. As if he can imprison you. Rafayel’s eyes are as hard as flint, and you recoil from the real anger inside them; he’s never looked at you like this, never. The air is thick with tension. “You humans always lie. You’ll leave me and forget about me.”

The situation seems so silly, but there’s something urging you to take it seriously, something in Rafayel’s eyes that tugs at your heartstrings. You feel like a deer in the headlights, yearning for the approaching car. “I’d never lie,” you tell him after a few moments, unsure where the words are coming from. “And I’d never leave you.”

Rafayel scoffs, and you feel the embarrassment creep up on your face. Well, it’s not like you were the one who initiated this ridiculous situation! But you cannot help but feel this isn’t a joke. You scan Rafayel’s face, but he’s as unreadable as the calligraphy of a foreign language, unavailable and unreachable to you. “How can you be certain?” There’s a tang of anxiety to Rafayel’s voice, a tone so disquieting that you feel desperate to get rid of it. The urge is strange, but not unwelcome. You think for a long time before you tell him, “I can’t be. I’m only human, after all. But I mean it with all my heart when I say I would never intend to.”

Rafayel’s eyes visibly soften at the words. It’s a confusing, mind-muddling reaction. Although your relationship to Rafayel is indescribable by words and constrained by its professional setting, you would still be able to claim that you had grown close enough to realize this was an extremely uncommon reaction. What’s even more confusing is when Rafayel lowers himself to tug you closer; you fit like puzzle pieces as he cradles your head in the hollow of his neck, holding you against his heart. You return the embrace with a racing heart. This is everything what your touchstarved brain had asked for and more. You turn your face to tuck it into the crook of his neck, and the man above you sighs with what sounds like content. After a few moments, he finally releases you, his arms unfurling like the petals of a flower. He’s still pouting, but he looks appeased. “Go, then,” he says, sitting up and crossing his arms. “But don’t expect me to miss you or anything!”

Like a sea creature that’s washed up on the beach, unable to breathe air, you gape at him. Meanwhile, Rafayel dusts himself off, as if nothing ever happened. He goes straight back to his art, sparing you not even a glance as he says, “Be sure to lock the door behind you, will you? I really don’t want Thomas to crash in whenever he wants again. I like my privacy.”

That damned fish!

This is the shape your relationship takes on, the constant push-and-pull between tearing each other apart and digging into every crevice you can reach in the other. What has started as a simple crush is starting to drive you insane, what with how Rafayel begins to take advantage of how familiar you both become. It’s on a night like this where he makes every effort to blur the lines between you two, like colors mixing and washing over each other, creating something new. It’s the middle of the night, and you should really be in bed sleeping before your newest mission in the morning, and yet you’re standing in front of the art gallery in the middle of nowhere. Thomas’ face looks like a tomato. He’s been blushing and apologizing for at least ten minutes, begging you to forgive him and spewing excuses about how he absolutely couldn’t call anyone else. He pawns Rafayel off like a discovered item being handed in to lost-and-found, abandoning you to your new task so he can hush back inside and hide the fact that a) the artist in question being discussed in there is drunk out of his mind and b) he’s pulling the Frenchest exist ever known to humankind, having slipped out the backdoor that is supposed to be reserved for the staff. You stare at the label that marks the closed door as such long after Thomas has left you, ignoring the whiny little sounds Rafayel is making. Asking for your attention, probably. Eliciting a very different kind of response in both your pissed and tired mind, but also your easily excited abdomen.

How did you even get here?

“Can you pleaaaase stop staring at that door and stare at me instead? And I made all that effort to look pretty, too.”

Your eyes snap back to Rafayel, momentarily distracted. “Surely you didn’t dress up for me, mister,” you huff, although you did take note of his attire. It’s an elegantly cut suit and tie, the cuffs of his shirt studded with something that looks like glinting stars in the dark. As you step closer, you realize that the buttons are not buttons, but rather pearls. From Rafayel’s left ear dangles an ear ring, a silver fishing spear that seems to pierce through the earlobe. “Because you best believe I didn’t agree to be dragged out at the ass-crack of dawn to pick you up just because you can’t hold your liquor.”

“I can hold my liquor!” Rafayel complains. You want to muster up a snarky response, but then he grabs your calf and falls forward, his head coming to rest on your thigh. The proximity is making your breath catch in your throat. “That was just …. a lot of piña coladas. They were just so delicious. It’s not my fault.” The drunkard at your feet squishes his stunningly beautiful irritating face against your leg, looking up to catch your gaze as he pleads you to swallow the lie.

You are robbed of speech.

It’s one thing to have an unrequited crush. It’s another thing to live with it. And then it’s something entirely different to have that crush used against you. Rafayel’s cheeks are red from intoxication, his eyes lidded, seemingly in a haze. But his hands are steady, goal-oriented. They feel their way along your legs, up to the hollow of your knees, until finally Rafayel digs his fingers into the back of your thighs and closes his eyes.

If anyone knew how fast your heart was racing right now, you’d never live to hear the end of it. You are shy and overwhelmed and in love. Before you can embarrass yourself even further, you take Rafayel’s hands into yours and pull him, the sound of your blood rushing in your ears reminiscent of the way the thunderous waves crash on Whitesand Bay when it storms. “Let’s get you home,” you hear yourself speak as if from a distance. For once, Rafayel is obedient. He nods eagerly, wrapping both his arms around the one you offered him, and you manage to find your way back to the main street as you round the art gallery and hail a cab.

The driver looks as tired as you are. The meter, calculating the price for the amount of distance travelled, sets a ticking rhythm for the drive. As you settle in and buckle up both Rafayel and you, the former uses the chance to inch closer to you. You direct your gaze to the roof of the car, thinking, dear god, please help me survive the ride back home.

Because this is just plain torture. It takes Rafayel five minutes, tops, to fall against you and hide away his face against your throat. His breath comes more steadily now, not as erratic, and he’s still got the scent of coconut syrup and rum on his breath, but beneath all that, he smells like the Rafayel you have come to know. That strange smell of salt and paint and mint, the latter being part of the perfume he prefers to use. He’s close enough to bite through your throat if he wanted to.

Somehow, the thought doesn’t terrify you. The lack of fear ought to be a warning sign, but all you can think about is how lovely it would be die on those teeth, like the drowned sailors crushed to pulp as the waves throw them against the cliffs over and over again. You curl your fingers to your fist in your lap, willing yourself to endure it. In the darkness of the cab, every touch seems amplified.

“Missed you,” Rafayel mumbles then, almost making you leap out of your skin. He hadn’t been loud, but you’re growing incredibly hypersensitive to his every mood. His lips brush your skin as he speaks. “Thought you wouldn’t come.”

You slightly turn your head to create some life-saving distance. Your heat is threatening to jump right out of your chest. “Of course I would come to get you, silly fish,” you whisper back. Through the window, you see the cab cut by the city, drifting through its streets like a snake through a flower field. Even in the middle of the night, Linkon City doesn’t seem to sleep. You try to fixate on the sight outside, instead of the man beside you that was threatening to make you lose your grip on sanity.

Rafayel grunts, then shifts his position. As he sits up, his hand falls into your lap, and with an ease you usually only ever see him exert on his brushes, he claims your hand for his own and turns it over. He presses a thumb to your palm, the touch light, but something feathers in your muscles. Your hand twitches. “You sound so sure,” he sighs, sounding petulant. He doesn’t believe you.

When finally the sight of Rafayel’s humble appears on the horizon, Rafayel manages to step outside the cab without falling over once. In the time it takes him to step outside and stand up-right, you’ve already paid and thanked the cab driver, who only nods and speeds away as soon as the door to his vehicle closes. You watch for a few moments until the cab merges with general traffic and then disappears, then turn back to your drunk, pouting companion, avoiding your eyes as if the eye contact could be embarrassing to him. For being so touchy in the cab, he sure has some nerve of acting like this. Without another word, you enter the passcode to his door, and Rafayel slips inside.

The studio looks like a mess. Clearly, nothing had been cleaned or tidied up before someone left to attend their oh, so important event. There is paint everywhere, even on the couch you know costs more than an entire year of your salary. You avert your eyes and press your hand on Rafayel’s back; you would talk about that tomorrow. The studio usually was a representation of Rafayel’s mental state. Whatever bothered him, had exploded into the artful reorganization of his home. “Quit pushing me,” Rafayel nags at you. He winds around so that he can free himself from your touch, then glares at you as if this was somehow your fault. “I can walk on my own.”

“Well, then maybe you’ll take yourself home, too.”

Your voice comes out too harsh. You know it as soon as you close your mouth, but Rafayel has already flinched. “I’m sorry,” you say as you try to soften the blow, and it feels ridiculous. Why is it you who has to apologize right now? But you continue speaking as if compelled, because you can’t stand the thought of hurting him, of him thinking he meant nothing to you. He doesn’t answer, so you step closer, intending to make him look at you so he’d see that you’re being earnest. That’s not what happens, though.

What happens is that Rafayel’s hands find your shoulders, and you’re about to ask what he’s doing, and then the only thing you can feel is the shape of Rafayel’s full lips crashing against yours, swallowing your words. It’s not even an actual kiss, too messy to be actually deemed one; his teeth clack against yours, grazing your lip painfully enough that you’re almost sure he’s drawn blood. But then he re-angles his face and Rafayel is actually kissing you, tasting you, stealing the air you breathe. Your brain shortcircuits. For a second, you forget why you’re here, and your fingers act faster than your mind does, gripping onto Rafayel’s shirt so forcefully you almost rip the pearls off them. Thankfully, your brain snaps back to reality almost immediately, and you push Rafayel away before the realization that you had been tasting his sinful tongue can actually hit you. That would be an information your brain would deconstruct later. “You’re drunk,” you exclaim. It is the most difficult thing you ever had to do, tearing yourself away from Rafayel. His face is the very picture of longing, an expression that makes you want to eat him alive, bones and all. But you did it anyways, because it would not be fair to him, and this is something that would have to be discussed when he’s sober. “Come on, Raf, I’ll take you to bed.”

“I don’t want to go to bed.” His fingers haven’t left you. They wander up the sides of your throat, digging into the space beneath your jaw, forcing you to angle your head up. Like this, he almost looks like the deep-sea predator he is. There’s a dangerous glint in his eyes that seems to reflect your own hunger, a kind of starvation that will not leave a single scrap of you to scavenge. If you’re not dangerous, he will drag you into the depths of the ocean, never to be seen again. “I want to make you feel good and make it up to you, please, pretty please. You’ll let me, won’t you?” He tugs and tugs, unrelenting. His wicked lips are shaping his typical pout, his favorite expression of getting you to do his bidding. He almost gets away with it, too, and the only thing keeping him from kissing you again are your quick hands, placed on his mouth before he can even think of capturing your mouth again.

“Raf, I will not take advantage of you while you’re being drunk!” you exclaim. It’s unbelievable how his face grimaces into the most heartbroken expression ever, just because you refuse to be the villain here. It physically hurts, to see him in so much anguish. You quickly spin him around so you don’t have to see his face, directing him to his bedroom. “You can make it up to me tomorrow,” you say tentatively. Secretly, you hope he will forget all about this, and you’ll never have to talk about it all. You’ll file away the kiss in your secret drawer inside your mind palace and polish the memory until it physically deteriorates, like it’s your last dinner on death row. You’ll make that memory last. Because you know he doesn’t love you; you had just been a warm body who had been kind to him at the wrong time.

“You’re so mean.” Rafayel sniffs, but this time, he comes more willingly. In the bedroom, the atmosphere has almost returned to its original tranquility, the silence enveloping you both seeming to sober him up. The bed feathers, creaking as Rafayel falls into it, but then the only sound left is his quiet muttering as he continues to complain about your attitude. He falls asleep like that, grumbling about how you would regret not letting him kiss you, how he could make it worth your while. He almost looks innocent like this, his face relaxed and devoid of his usual dramatic flair. It smoothens out the deeper he falls into sleep, sinking further into the mattress, looking like a pre-Raphaelite angel in a painting. Peaceful. Neutral. Entirely ethereal. He’s so surreal, you wonder if you might not be imagining this moment, the way you imagined him doing other things to you as you laid awake at night.

You fan your burning face, wondering what exactly had Rafayel intended to with you. It only adds on to the maladaptive daydreaming you dedicated your time to every day, ever since the fish-eyed king who called you his bodyguard had stolen your heart.

You stare at him for a very long time, until every ethereal feature of him is burned into the back of your eyelids. Your heart is light as a feather, floating, yearning. It sings his name in a steady pattern, synching almost naturally to the breath that stirs in Rafayel’s chest.

From then on, there is a current of tension underlining every interaction.

It’s not on purpose, of course. You just can’t help yourself. Every single nerve is on fire, at the beck and call of your favorite painter’s whims. You twitch when your fingers accidentally touch. There’s an involuntary gasp whenever he comes near, a sound tugged out of you against your will. You would have never thought that love would feel like a thousand fireworks going off at once. Soft, resounding explosions going boom, boom, boom in your chest.

You are so very conscious of Rafayel. Your heart jealously guards every moment you share with him.

Amor vincit omnia, famous poet Virgil once said in his own works. Love conquers all. Poets have to describe it like that, for emotions to be so consuming. It’s supposed to be a fun little tale, a nice piece of text, to be read and enjoyed. It’s not supposed to be something that happens to you, in the most violent way possible. Rafayel, although his own empire has been laid to rest centuries ago, his claim on the throne long faded, has succeeded in conquering you after all, heart and soul.

But, spoiler alert: you do not talk about what happened. In fact, you make every effort to escape the conversation whenever Rafayel tries to bring it up.

Why, you ask? Well, that’s something not even you can answer. Your friends have grown intolerable with frustration, to the point where Simone has staged an intervention to get you to fess up and confess to Rafayel. (Michaela, finally dating Simone, had planned an entire powerpoint dedicated to the benefits of admitting your feelings to someone. Which is ironic, because it was Simone who had finally gotten her shit together and told Michaela about how she felt.) Even Zayne, uninterested in your love life and its endeavors, had chipped in with his own opinion, which you had quickly ignored, because Zayne was the only mentally-sound, responsible adult in your friend group, which meant unresponsible you didn’t want to think about his advice at all.

It probably has a lot to do with how Rafayel is the epitome of perfection in your eyes, and you are nothing. You know it’s completely idiotic to think of someone as flawless, although Rafayel, being a sea creature of mythological background, might be a little closer to fitting that description than a human would. But you do. He is tender and attentive and all-encompassing. You refuse to lose him like this, to lose him to an unrequited crush that he had nurtured on a whim because he had been intoxicated.

No, you’d rather dance around it and be able to stay in his vicinity. Even if it kills you to be the outstander in his life forever, you’ll sacrifice yourself for it.

Unluckily for you, Rafayel is entirely fed up with sacrifices.

To say the door was closed would be to put it gently; it crashes into the hinges as Rafayel shuts it in front of your nose, cutting off your only route of escape. The evening sunlight paints him in a rosy hue that only adds on to the weakness your heart feels when you see him. He is exquisite. “We are going to talk about this,” Rafayel states, crossing his arms in petulance. “Whether you like it or not.”

“Ah, I’d love to, Raf.” Your lips quirk into a nervous smile. The memory of those arms wrapping you up in their embrace is so powerful, it manages to spike your blood with adrenaline. You theatrically check your wristwatch, then point at it, as if Rafayel needed some kind of extra confirmation that you were out of time. “But I really have to get to this meeting, and I already told Simone that I would…”

“Nope, don’t care.”

“But I…”

“Nooooope. You want me to say it in Lemurian?”

“Raf,” you groan out. “Don’t be like this.”

“Me, not be like this?” It seems as if you’ve missed some kind of signal in his communication, because suddenly Rafayel draws up, taut as a bowstring. There is a palpable taste of anger on your tongue, like a shark tasting blood in the water, and the realization dawns on you that you probably shouldn’t have answered him like that. “You’re really one to talk. You know, I thought we were finally getting closer. But you can’t even look at me properly! Have I done something to you?” His eyes are unhappy, glassy with emotion. It tears at you. His anguish has always been like a knife in your gut, disembowling you like a fish being gutted.

Your breath hitches. Yes, you have done something to me. You’ve ruined me. All I can think about is you, and the way your smile looks like the first streak of warm light at the break of dawn, and how even your annoying jokes make me float with joy. You’ve done something, alright. But all you say is, “No, of course not. I mean, no you haven’t done anything. I like spending time with you.”

“Then, what is it?” Rafayel has stepped closer. You instinctually step back, craving distance from him so that your heart won’t explode in your chest, but it seems like he has had enough. He ignores your attempt at evading him and grabs your arms, shaking you like a child would its toy. You look up at him, helpless. “Please. I can’t stand the thought of being apart from you.”

“Don’t say that, please.” Your voice is meek. You cannot believe he is even saying those things to you, that he could possibly replicate all the feelings in your heart, both the light and the dark.

Rafayel sucks in a breath, as if the words were a slap to his face. “Does it disgust you? That I feel like this? Because if you don’t want me to take liberties, if you don’t want me to bother you, then that’s all you have to say. I promise I’ll go back to any role you want to cast me in, as long as we go back to what we were, and you will talk and laugh with me again.”

What even is this moment right now? You are dizzy with emotion, incapable of producing speech. In all your wildest dreams, never once had you thought that it would be Rafayel begging for even a scrap of your attention. It was always in reverse, the natural order of things. You shake your head, appalled at his words, heady with them. “You can’t possibly feel like this,” you manage to say through gritted teeth. “You can’t possibly feel like you’re the one being pushy, when all I’ve done is ruin things between us. I shouldn’t have let you kiss me. I knew you did it because you were drunk, and I’m not mad at all, but I should have been the responsible one, and now I’ve ruined everything.”

“Ruined everything?” Rafayel’s voice is ripe with incredulity. When you finally gather courage to look up, you see Rafayel’s face suffusing with blood, although you can’t tell if it’s in anger or frustration. You don’t understand that in reality, Rafayel has spent his entire existence living in devotion to you, praying to you, deifying you. There is a split second where you both look at each other, completely silent, but then Rafayel’s painter-roughened fingers circle around your wrist and guide you back into the studio.

There are art supplies strewn everywhere, littered on every surface, but the actual paintings have been draped in curtains, hidden from view. Sometimes, even the most talented of creators gets shy about his works, and you’ve never once pushed him or teased him for it, respecting his privacy. But now you’re standing in the middle of his domain, his one hand still gripping your flesh, the other curling around the soft fabric that hides his art. “Then believe this,” he scoffs, and before you can protest, he rips the curtain off to reveal what is beneath.

You are robbed of speech.

That day in the gallery, your eyes had been cloudy, blind. You never once thought to stop about whether Rafayel had a muse that he venerated, something he enshrined with his paintings in an effort to cage in the feeling. Like the visionary described in Plato’s allegory of the cave, you are stumbling towards the light, blinded by the grace Rafayel utilizes in everything he shapes and touches.

Blooming all over the canvas is a rendition of you, floating in the ocean, kissed by the sunlight straining to reach you in the depths of the water. You almost reach out to feel the brushes, each stroke of the paintbrush a loving word, a compliment to your existence. Rafayel has painted you with the loveliness of an artisan completely entranced with their source of inspiration. There is an unspoken language of love woven into the material of the canvas itself, every color, every shade fondly handpicked to highlight your radiance. The drawing of you is glowing, basking in Rafayel’s attentiveness, completely wrapped up in his adoration.

“This,” Rafayel speaks up at your side, leading you back to reality, “is how I feel about you. I worship you.”

“Worship me?” You are breathless. It’s an impossible feat to tear your eyes off of the craftsmanship, but you manage to do so. The sight of Rafayel almost knocks you to your knees anew. His gaze is so full of warmth that for the first time in years, your heart is expanding, feeling full and hungry at the same time. Rafayel takes your hands in his, pulling them towards him. “You sound so shocked,” he laughs gently, the reaction so untypical for him. You let yourself be guided closer into the circle of his arms, into your safe haven that Rafayel represented for you. “Is it so hard to believe that I love you? There is no one else I’d want to kiss, no matter whether I’m drunk or sober. I dream and think of you all the time, and I hate it, trust me. Did you really think there would have been anyone else that could take your place in my heart?”

You are still adoring the painting, but when you angle your head back to look at him, Rafayel is already looking at you. It’s a soul-connecting look, the kind that reaches deeper than his eyes, the color of them ressembling the star-speckled sky reaching to kiss the pink waves. He is literally cracking open inside his chest so that you may look within, so that you will believe him. There is a memory at the edge of your consciousness, something that washes the saltiness of the ocean and the strangely sweet taste of divinity over your tongue, something that you cannot recognize yet. But what you can recognize is the heart inside Rafayel’s chest, so similar to your own, even hungrier than yours possibly could ever be. “Say it in full,” you plead with him, just to hear it once more. To realize that this incomparable man, more legend than reality, in all his heavenliness and gracefulness, belongs to you. That although your heart has always been the most insatiable creature alive, it has finally found a twin that matched its voracity. “Say you love me.”

Rafayel’s hands come up to cradle your face, cupping it like one would hold their most precious treasure. He is looking at you like a devotee who has seen his salvation, like you are the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on. It’s the look of love you’ve always, always wanted directed at you. “I love you,” he says, sounding entirely to exultant for a moment like this, his voice like the bells of heaven. It is utterly unlike your sassy crush, the man who’s outwitted you countless times, who always tugs a laughter out of you whether you want it or not. This is someone else, someone who’s set fire to the earth just to dig you out of its ashes. “I will love you until the day I die and if there is another life after this one, then let me love you in that one too, in all lives that may yet come.”

You screw your eyes shut then. You are blinded by joy, amazed at what just a single string of words can do to you. There is a key turning in the lock inside your chest, something that opens up a tsunami of emotions inside you. I love you. I love you. I love you. “Rafayel,” you whisper, and then you stumble forward at the same time as Rafayel tips down, and you collide like stars. When Rafayel finally kisses you, it tastes of cosmic dust and red strings of fate and it tastes like eternity. Your hands reach upward, seizing at his clothes and shoulders, until finally your fingers claw at his cheeks and you are probably hurting him. Neither of you cares. You fold around each other until no one can tell where you stop and he begins.

Rafayel groans into the kiss, a sound of such profound relief that you almost manage to stop kissing him just to laugh. There is no opportunity to do that, though, as Rafayel keeps dragging you back for another kiss, and another, and another. “My pearl,” he gasps against your lips, and you swallow the sound eagerly, lips moving against his like the tide crashing back into the shore. There is a loud crash as Rafayel moves backwards; you are momentarily distracted and look downwards to see the palette having strewn all its paint and contents all over the floor. In the heat of passion, you had completely forgotten your surroundings. “Whoops,” you murmur, not feeling sorry at all. It makes Rafayel burst into laughter, and for a moment, you are two idiots stumbling in the dark, two boats in a storm.

Holding on to another.

“It’s so typical of you to make a mess when I’m trying to be romantic,” he whines, becoming your unserious Rafayel again, love of your life Rafayel. You brush a lock of his storm-blue hair aside, and he tilts his head until his cheek is fitted against your palm. “You exist to sabotage me, admit it.”

“You admit something first.” Still love-drunk from the kiss, you swipe your thumb over his cheekbone, the touch electric. “When did you paint this? Do you really like me for as long as I have liked you? Because if I’m being honest, I’ve been having the most embarrassing crush for the longest time. Simone can tell you all about it.”

Rafayel dips his head, looking at you straight on. “You have no idea,” he tells you, entirely honest. He looks as if he can tell that your heart is racing, like he’s speaking the words into your veins, carried to your heart with the steady pump of your blood.

You step closer to him then, the need so primal you feel your entire body shivering. The urge is so tantalizing that you threaten to choke on it, succumb to the threat that Rafayel’s love poses. He is a walking siren song. “Help me understand then,” you whisper. “You’re always so chatty. Chat to me now.”

“But I’ve done all the talking, you know.” He pouts, the expression entirely bratty and so Rafayel-coded that you can’t help but giggle. The corners of his own mouth twitch, clearly pleased by the reaction, the sound the only symphony in his ears he likes to hear more than the swell of the ocean.

Your arms come to wrap around his neck, and you slot together like puzzle pieces, every rib fitting into the hollow of Rafayel’s chest. It feels like you are made for each other. You place your lips on Rafayel’s ears, your own only hearing the rush of the ocean, the sound of your blood racing. “Tell me, please, Raf,” you whisper. He shudders violenty, a reaction that reaches deeper than evolutionary instinct. His hands find their home on the dips of your curves, every finger digging in. “I want to hear about every single thing inside your head. Always.”

“You are unfair.”

You kiss the curve of his ear. “Of course I am. I’m the human that stole your heart.”

Rafayel’s lips are seized by a helpless smile, an expression you’ve never seen before. It’s almost as if he’s reminiscing about a secret that you don’t know, something that feathers along the edge of your memory. But he answers you nonetheless. “But there was no theft, my love,” he purrs. It’s the sound of pure, languid affection, the kind that wells up from the depths of one’s heart. “I’d give you my heart again and again and again. You can tease me all you like, but in truth, I’d sink to my knees whenever you’d like and worship you forever.”

Your lips part in astonishment. You don’t miss the way Rafayel’s eyes zero in on the reaction in hunger. “You were right, you shouldn’t talk,” you stutter then. “Your words are gonna go right to my head.”

“And it’s such a pretty head, too.” Rafayel’s lips begin to chase the soft slopes of your face, tracing a fiery path across your cheeks. It is unbelievable how such a simple act unravels you, how you are going to explode beneath the simple touch of Rafayel’s kiss. You almost preen beneath the ministrations. You angle your head to entangle him in a kiss, but this time, it’s him who moves before your lips can touch. “Let me prove it to you,” he whispers, the words itself as soft as a kiss. It’s a dangerous promise, an even more dangerous game. “Please, pretty girl, let me prove it to you, show you how much I adore you. I’m all yours. Let me show you, I beg you.”

You bite your lips. You’re pretty sure the bar is in hell, but this is the single most attractive thing a man has ever done for you. Here he stands, his heart on a silver platter presented to you, his entire being at your whim. You are heady with power, dizzy with the implications. But at the same time, you have never felt so safe. You are in the palm of Rafayel’s hands, safe and comfortable and oh, so loved. “Show me,” you tell him, biting your lip. “Please, Raf, show me.”

Those are the magic words. You didn’t even need to plead. Before a single ‘please’ has left your mouth, Rafayel’s lips once again crash into yours, and this time, he kisses you properly. His tongue, as commanding as his personality, tastes like a weirdly enticing combination of cherry coke and ocean salt; there is a loud, embarrassing squeak that escapes you when Rafayel’s teeth drag over your lower lip, but the sound quickly changes into a drawn-out moan when he gently sucks on it. He releases it with a groan of his own, and his eyes, like mirrors to his soul, reveal the depths of his hunger. “God, you have no idea what I’d do for you,” he gasps out, his brain working faster than his own mouth, the words hurtling from some part in his soul he has been jealously guarding. You are his only vulnerability, the only one. “What I have been looking for all my life. Light of my life, my love, my pearl. Need to show you.”

“Show me what?” You’re so drunk on his kisses, you’ve already forgotten what Rafayel requested from you in the first place. He tugs you in the direction of his bedroom, and you follow with a scary compliance. Maybe all those stories about the sailors drowning at sea had more than just a kernel of truth to them. Who wouldn’t throw themselves into the waves, for a chance to experience Rafayel’s experiences, even if it was only mere seconds? Your haziness chases you into the bedroom; your head is still spinning when he pulls you down into the luxurious bed you’ve always mocked him for. Suddenly, all that space begins to make a lot of sense. You spread out on the bed entirely too easily, unfolding beneath Rafayel like the blossom of a flower.

He sucks in his breath, his chest rising rapidly. Even though you are dizzy in your stupor, your brain still registers with a delight that it’s not alone in its sensation. You are doing this to him, you are undoing him just as much as he is you. The knowledge is so sweet that every inch of your body seems to sing. “Show you how much I love you,” he says. “Never gonna make you doubt me again. You’ll never think about anyone else after this. No one will ever love you like I do, I promise.”

The promise sounds entirely too harrowing for the romantic atmosphere you had been cultivating since the reveal of the painting in the studio. You almost sit up. Not too argue against him, but to question where the need for the promise came from; after all, you’d be just as ready to prove to him that no one in your life would ever come close to the reign he held over your heart. But then Rafayel bows over you, and you’re entirely engulfed by his shadow, and Rafayel’s hands are carving their way out to your abdomen.

It almost makes you shy. You’re not a blushing virgin, but you’ve never let anyone into your body in this way, not like this. You’re afraid that Rafayel’s gonna get inside and seize evey cell of your body for him, and he’ll settle in your bones and your marrow and your blood, and he’ll stay there forever. It’s a delicious fear, a kind of anticipation that makes you peer into the void, listen to its call. You want it so bad that your own fingers dig into the way-too-expensive fabric of Rafayel’s blankets, tearing, anchoring. Finally, finally, his lips kiss their way down the shape of your hip bones, chasing their way to the edge of your jeans. “May I, please?” He asks, his voice laced with desperation, the picture of a petitioner.

You look down at him, at this siren bewitching your body and spirit. Although he looks like something straight out of a pornographic movie, you don’t think you’ve ever seen anything this beautiful. Rafayel was like the most ethereal pictures, his lovely features carved out with the tender carefulness that makes even stone seem soft. His eyes are hopeful, open, trusting. You are falling in love with someone more divine than your mortal mind could have ever conjured, your every dream come true. “You better,” comes the weak response from you.

It’s all the consent he needs. Rafayel all but tears the pants off of you, his hands chasing flesh, craving connection. “Thank God,” he moans, and you almost think he’s enjoying this just as much as you are, more than you are. You watch his own hips buck into the soft mattress, chasing the mock-sensation your pussy would offer him, and you clench your thighs so hard your kneecaps almost pulverize. He grinds into the blankets, the torment of his own desire seemingly making him delirious, but his touches are determined, measured. Your curves fit perfectly into his hands, the elegant painter fingers gripping into your ass to angle you to his liking. “I thought I’d die without ever tasting you again.”

Again? You repeat in your mind, thinking you misheard. But Rafayel doesn’t permit you to think. Another pull, another tug, and then his treacherous mouth is around your core, kissing you through the cotton, mouthing around the shape of your pussy. You cry out, more in surprise than pleasure, but that quickly changes when he begins to drag his tongue across your pussy in a long, languorous swipe that makes your insides twitch wantonly. “Get those panties off of me or so help me god, Rafayel,” you manage to push out between gritted teeth, your own hips flying up to chase his touch. His grip is unrelenting, pinning you back into the mattress. “Weren’t you gonna prove something to me?”

Rafayel’s answer comes in a purr. “Your wish is my command, beloved.”

He pulls your panties to the side in a swift motion, placing another kiss on your clit. “Fucking hell,” he seems to mutter in amazement, and you’re not sure you were supposed to hear that. A mere moment later, Rafayel digs in like a man starved, moments away from the death sentence. You are not just a death row meal: you are the entire five-star course. You cry out entirely too loud as Rafayel plunges his tongue into you, the flexing muscle angling up to trace the soft, sensitive spot you chase with your own fingers when pleasuring yourself. You have no idea how he knows that, but you have no time to ponder as his left hands begins to trace circles around your clit, bullying the bundle of nerves with the pencil-roughened pads off his fingers. “Raf, oh my god!” you gasp, the sound dragged out of you in the same steady rhythm as his tongue pumping into you.

“I’m your god,” comes the moaned response, the sound’s vibration making your insides twitch in response. His fingers don’t let up, the ministrations steady, slowly picking up in speed in tandem with the coil of pleasure tightening inside your belly. You are twisting like a snake, your body shortcircuiting. “Say it.”

“Rafayel.” You are suprised in the coherency you fathom in expressing his name; your mind is already blurring at the edge, falling apart in soft colors like the confetti inside a kaleidoscope. “You’re my god, Rafayel, mine all mine.”

“Yours,” Rafayel keens. You notice the admission make him almost feral; he immediately puts his mouth back to work, slurping your essence in the most obscene manner. You are way beyond proprieties, way beyond embarrassment. All you can hope for is that he catches you at the end of this, as he hurtles you past the point of no return, the death-drop on a scary rollercoaster. You almost scream his name when he sucks your clit into his mouth, nursing on the spot like he’s going to die from thirst. The flick of his thumb makes you come undone; you fall back into the mattress into oblivion, shaking out of existence as Rafayel’s skilled tongue continues teasing your slit until you push him away, over-sensitive. “Stop, stop, stop,” you chant, the words slurred around the mind-blowing effects of your orgasm. Your tongue is heavy, your throat scraped raw. Did you scream that loud? “Can’t, Raf, can’t anymore, stop. So sensitive.”

“But I wasn’t done,” he whines out. His fingers still chase after you, even after you hastily sit up, dragging your unwilling body up the bed. He crawls after you, looking deliciously pathetic, his stunningly beautiful face pulled into a heartbroken grimace, as if the world was going to end if he couldn’t keep you eating out. There’s an unmistakingly large tent inside his thousand-dollar-designer pants, one that makes your mouth run dry again with hunger.

Heavens have mercy, you’ve never wanted to suck someone off so bad. You wonder if his pretty eyes would roll back into his head if you took it deep enough into your throat.

You don’t get to fulfill that wish, though. Rafayel pounces on you almost immediately, your sight taken over by his beautiful face as he kneels over you. His hips knock aside your thighs, demanding entrance, and you open up to him too easily. “Wanna make you feel good,” he begs you, but you’re too distracted with how delicious his kiss-swollen lips look. You trace your thumb over his lower lip, watch him as his mouth chases to suck on it.

He almost gapes when you place your thumb into your own mouth, tasting yourself. If he didn’t look so fucking attractive like that, you’d have laughed.

“You’re killing me,” he admits. Despite how vulnerable that sounds, he doesn’t hesitates at tearing at your legs until you’re laying below him chest to chest, ignoring the way you squeak at being manhandled into position. “Are you doing this on purpose?”

Now you laugh. “I have no idea what I’m doing. But I’m definitely not trying to kill the person I love.”

His face softens. It’s that expression you’ve begin to adore, categorized in your mind palace which is entirely dedicated to being a shrine for Rafayel. It doesn’t matter that he’s the one submitting to you at the moment, wrapping himself around your finger. It’s you who’d move all the seas in the world just to be with him. “I love you more,” he tells you, and he sounds earnest. “I love you so much more. Here, I’ll show you.”

The kiss he places on your lips is entirely too sweet for the debauchery his lower half is committing. While his teeth gently tug at your lips, begging for entry, his hips have begun to grind against your pussy. You mewl into the kiss, the sound quickly swallowed by Rafayel’s greedy tongue as he curls it around your own, tasting you, tasting him. There’s a string of saliva connecting your lip when he disentangles from you, and you’re too busy staring at it to notice the way he stares at you like you’re the single most important thing in his world.

He’d die a thousand times just to live through this night once more.

You’re only pulled out of your thoughts by the realization that Rafayel has begun tugging off his clothes. You quickly mirror him by shedding the last of your own, tugging aside all the fabric until you’re as bare before him as the day you’ve been born. You feel a little self-conscious, but to him, you must look glorious: this time, you visibly see the way his chest expands with the sheer joy, the admiration that drowns out all the color in his eyes. “Like what you see?” you tease him, but there’s an edge of nervousness tainting the words. You’re literally offering yourself up to him like a sacrificial bride.

“I adore you more than anything,” he answers, his voice reverent. His fingers shiver with tremors as they brush their way down the curves of your breast, enveloping your waist until you’re snug in his grip. It makes you blush; he’s looking at you as if he’s seizing up every detail so he can paint you anew, the devotion only a painter can muster up for a muse he loves. “This is the single greatest thing I have ever experienced.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You haven’t been inside of me yet.”

His eyes darken then, returning to their sinful mischievousness. “No, I haven’t,” he retorts, and then he pulls you towards him, the head of his cock nudging aside your labia, knocking at your entrance. You yelp, and he snickers like the bastard he is. “May I come in?”

“Fuck you,” you tell him, breathless. It was supposed to be a harmless insult, your usual banter with Rafayel that most often ends up in you guys thinking up the most creative “your momma” jokes until you guys dissolve in laughter.

This Rafayel doesn’t. “You should not have said that,” is the only warning you get, before Rafayel drags you down on his cock, sheathing you entirely on it. Your back arches off the bed as if your heart was trying to escape your chest; the intrusion is so sudden that the nerves in your brain spasm before you register there’s something kissing your cervix. Not possible, you think. Not fucking possible. He can’t be this big.

Oh. Oh.

Rafayel bundles you up in his arms and pulls back his hips just to snap back into you with the deadly precision of a predator who’s killing its’ prey. This time, you’re fully conscious of the scream you let out, your insides squeezing the living hell out of Rafayel’s dick in a desperate attempt to contain him. The only thing that amounts to is him being spurned on; you turn your head to the sound of Rafayel’s sinful moans flowing into your ear, tingling right down into your abdomen. “Rafayel, slow down”, you manage to squeeze out, but at the same time, you raise your hips to meet his every thrust, your eyelids fluttering at the same time as the rapid rhythm Rafayel sets as he pounds you into the mattress.

“What was that, my pearl?” Slap, slap, slap. The lewd noise of his Rafayel’s balls smacking against your entrance makes your toes curl in delicious pleasure, and you wind around in his hold, sobbing from how good he makes you feel. His cock cruelly bullies into you, your cervix screaming up through your nerves every time the circle of muscles makes contact with his cockhead. Your fingers claw at his back, desperate to steady themselves somewhere, anywhere. You barely even register the fact that there’s blood dripping from where your nails dig in; you’re too distracted by the fact that the pain you’re inflicting on him only seems to make him fuck you into the mattress harder. “You want me to go faster?”

“Can’t,” you wail, feeling incredulous by the fact that sex can illicit a response like this in you. You’ve severely underestimated how much everything changes when you do something with the person you love. “Can’t, Raf, it’s too much, too much.”

Rafayel’s only response is to ignore your begging. He frees a hand from where it’s digging into the mattress above of you to balance himself and cradles your face in it easily, angling your face up so you look at him straight-on. “Wish I could stop, my angel, but I’m obsessed with you. Need you to cum all over me, mark me as all yours so I can never run away again. Can you do that for me, sweet thing? Cum for me, please?”

“Raf,” you whine out, the tell-tale sign of your orgasm approaching muddling your mind again. How exactly does he expect you to form a coherent thought when he’s fucking you like it’s his last night on earth? Your fingers search for purpose, gripping into his shoulders, weaving a cradle around his neck. He bows then, kissing you like his life depends on it, never once stopping his rhythm of fucking into you. “Gonna cum.”

“You promise?” he whispers against the curve of your lips. He angled his head, instead kissing his way down your throat, swallowing the sound of your heartbeat screaming his name inside your veins. Every thrust claims your soul more and more, until you’re nothing more than a prisoner to his love. “Please, my seastar, I can’t fucking take it. Need to cum with you so bad.”

“Pleeeease.” The sound is a single cry, hollowing out your chest as you hug him closer. Rafayel bites into the soft flesh of your shoulder, and you interlock your legs behind his back, seeing white. It should hurt, but it doesn’t. His bite feels like the soft brush of a kiss, violence mingling with lust. “Come with me, Raf, I’m coming, coming, coming.”

Your orgasm washes over you like a tidal wave. You arch off the mattress, weightless for a moment; Rafayel continues to fuck you through it, chasing his own release as the most lewd moans tumble from his lovely lips, which are probably going to haunt you and your daydreams forever. His semen mingles with your release, the messy sound making you hide your face in the hollow of his neck; you slap at Rafayel’s chest when he doesn’t relent, almost wailing when the pleasure gets too much. Your heart feels raw and cradled at the same time; Rafayel doesn’t pull out when he falls off from you, instead pulling your leg with him so that you’re locked in an embrace while you both lay there, panting like animals who’ve been chased. For a long time, no one says anything. There are no words for the way your souls have converged. You’re almost not sure whether what you did even can be called sex. But then you feel Rafayel’s cum drip out of you, and the blush that rises to your cheeks reassures you that yes, it still is sex.

Rafayel squeezes your hips, hugging you against him like someone would a teddybear. “I love you,” he drawls against your still naked skin, kissing the raw teeth marks he left behind on your shoulder. You sigh out, a sound of pure contentment. Your heart still feels like it’s on the tip of your tongue. “Love you more,” you tell him, but Rafayel, stubborn as always, shakes his head. He kisses you into silence, hands cradling your face gently as he angles you upwards to receive his kisses. “Never,” he murmurs into each one. You don’t argue with him. As the moonlight bears witness to the whispered love declarations you speak in the dark, the two of you curl around each other until you’re an indistinguishable tangle of limbs, cuddling into each other like cats bathing in the sunlight.

You fall asleep like that, head pillowed against Rafayel’s chest as he props you up against him. He continues to mumble compliments into your hair long after you’ve fallen asleep, thousands of words of adoration he’s had to keep to himself in the years that have passed waiting for you.

It’s finally his turn to become your worshipper. Finally, finally, Rafayel’s hearts soars with happiness again. The sea always returns what it takes. You have washed up on the shores of his life again, mate of his soul, love of his life. And this time, he’s never going to let you go.

[wyervan]

Hello! How is your week going? :o)

I wanted to show you some of the sketches im doing for the kind of Star-centered-page

Alsoo I wanted you to talk a bit about star! whatever comes to your mind first about their hobbies, likes, relationship with Smoon, clothes or things like that (if you are ok with that)

I love to read your rambles, again!

Thank youu

The first sketch is making my heart ache 😭 It’s just so tender 🥺 I don’t have the words to explain how much these drawings mean to me.

You’re so amazing and sweet and cool. Thank you for asking about Star, giving me the space to talk about them and the AU in general. I have a hard time talking about these things without being asked to speak on it first. My first instinct is usually to tell myself “no one cares” 😬

But anyway, enof self-flagellation 🙂‍↔️🙂‍↔️.

Uhh, well, I’ll start with some bits I’ve touched on before—they’re in their 20s, live in a small apartment above a cigar shop, drive a real clanky Jeep. They’re dressing mostly in very casual masc 90s fits. T-shirts, tanks, jeans, cargo pants, hoodies. Obviously converse lol. Drawn to gamer, skater, punk and grunge aesthetics. Always wears a choker.

Their favorite band is Sneaker Pimps. Main hobby is gaming on their (original) XBox—Halo, Star Wars Battlefront, Counter-Strike. Star also owns a GameCube, a Game Boy, and enjoys a smattering of single-player action and adventure RPGs.

They’ve developed quite a skill for gamer trash talk, or at least are pretty good at dealing it back to the real sorta trash found over XBox Live in the 2000s. This aptitude for banter comes in handy for dealing with Moon’s snark 😝. Once Star realized that Moon doesn’t actually hate them (rough first introduction), he’s just kind of a rat bastard, their friendship becomes a lot of casual teasing and wisecracking. And friendly (but still cutthroat) gaming competition.

Star’s dynamic with Sun is a little different. They’re still a bit impish if Sun’s tryna play manager with them, or they think he needs to chill out. But really they just enjoy being around him. He’s eccentric, expressive, makes them laugh, and they can see how intensely he cares for the arcade and the people around him. I think Sun comes to see Star as a cheery but chill, levelheaded presence. Despite the joke-cracking, they’re kinda a “straight-man” next to Smoon’s eccentricities.

I go back and forth about how much of a solid backstory I want to give Star because of this play of them being a y/n self-insert character, or at least starting out that way. Both in the sense that the character literally started off vaguer in personality and history earlier in the AU AND even now, in that they don’t have a great sense of their own identity at the start of the story.

This feeling of existential listlessness, not knowing what they actually want from life—it’s what drives them to move out of their parent’s place. Just make a decision for themself, regardless of the judgmental eyebrow raising at that decision, regardless of all the “An arcade?! What about your degree?”

[ghoulxh]

Light In The Shadows

Astarion x GN!Wizard!Reader

These pictures are not mine! You can find the originals on this Pinterest account!

MASTERLIST

Word Count: 700 Not Proofread Warnings: hurt/comfort, fluff, Cazador's name in the first sentence, maybe Astarion is a tiny bit out of character. If you'd prefer to read this on AO3.

A/N - Hi! This is my first time posting something I've written outside of the Ghost (band) fandom, but I've been playing BG3 since August and it's taken over my life. I might write for more BG3 characters in the future, but for now here's some Astarion since he's what got me into the game in the first place! <3

It had been a few days since Cazador was finally defeated, and Astarion had yet to acknowledge it. You’d given him as much space as he desired after swaying him away from the choice of completing the ritual and ascending himself and allowing him to deal with his grief in his way. Yet as his partner, you only wished to comfort him and help him deal with his loss.

As your other companions retreated to their tents for the night your eyes lingered on Astarion who remained seated by the dwindling glow of the campfire. The corner of your mouth twitched upward into a small smile as you watched Karlach pass by him and give him a firm pat on the shoulder with a reassuring nod.

You took a deep breath before finally going towards Astarion. You said nothing as you sat beside him, your eyes fixed on the dancing flames of the campfire before you. You left some room between yourself and Astarion, being cautious as the last thing you wanted to do was upset him any further.

“Once this is all over this is what I’ll be reduced to.”

You turned away from the fire and looked towards Astarion. “What?” 

“Once we’re all done with this tadpole business I’ll have to return to living in the shadows.” You hardly knew what to say. Was there even a cure for vampirism? Could you create one? “I’ll be alone one day once all of our friends and you…”

“Don’t say that,” you said quietly.

“But why not? It’s the truth is it not?” You stayed quiet for a few moments before speaking up again.

“You don’t have to do this alone, you know.” You reached over and placed your hand over his, your fingers slowly wrapping over his palm. He looked over at both of your hands and you noted the way his thumb caressed your fingers softly. “I’m with you until the end. If you’re cursed to live in darkness I’ll endure the curse alongside you.” 

Astarion finally lifted his head and looked at you, the soft look in his eyes was a sight of which you were sure you’d never grow tired.

“Besides these stars are beautiful,” You said, looking away from him to look up at the stars that had finally emerged. “And if these are not to your liking I remember the Underdark had some beautiful sights as well. A night under that Sussur tree I’m sure would be a night to remember.” 

Astarion smiled softly at your words. “I do not deserve you.” 

“Nonsense.” Astarion shuffled closer to you and pulled you into his arms as the fire in front of you became even dimmer. You rested your head on his shoulder as you both admired the stars in the distance. “And we can… pretend while we figure this out.” 

You held one of your hands out in front of the two of you, as your fingers brushed gently through the air golden threads of arcane energy came from your palm enveloping the two of you. The navy sky above you began to turn into a beautiful shade of light blue, the stars expanding into fluffy white clouds, and most importantly the moon faded from silver to gold. The ground changed from stone to grass.

The two of you were now sitting in a sunny field looking up at the sunny sky. Though Astarion could feel the slight chill of the night, he could also feel the warmth radiating off of you and that was more to him than any warmth the sun could ever offer him.

“You never cease to amaze me, my love.” You smiled as you melted impossibly closer to Astarion.

You had hope that one day the both of you could lay under the real sun together without the assistance of a Mind Flayer tadpole. Until then you’d follow him into the shadows. His love was all the light you could possibly need in your life, the same could be said for him. The light of the sun could never be compared to that of which he found in your eyes every time you smiled at him, and laughed with him.

Thank you so much for reading this if you made it all the way to the end!

Please consider reblogging! It's free, and it would really support my work! 🤍

[aishangotome]

Azel Radwan: Dramatic Ending Ch. 25

Dramatic Ending Ch. 24 Premium Story

Thank you @passthechloroform for providing the video for this chapter!

♡———♡

The moon set, the sun rose, and began to set again.

On the day of the end –– I was walking through the wilderness with the Owner.

We pressed on, using a stole to protect ourselves from the desert path we had become so accustomed to.

Emma: It’s come into view.

At the end of our hurried journey was an oasis bathed in the twilight.

A settlement had been built around a large spring, and people were going about their daily lives.

Perhaps because this place was far from the city, the news of the end hadn’t reached it, and it was peaceful.

Akatsuki: The map says it’s further ahead.

Emma: Um… Is it that building?

We stood before a relatively luxurious building in the settlement.

There were no guards in sight. I inserted the key I had been given earlier into the lock and opened the door ––

Clavis: Haha, that makes it 49 wins and 49 losses, doesn’t it? I never thought you’d be this good at card games.

Luke: I’m getting tired of this.

Clavis: We agreed on the first to 50 wins, didn’t we?

Luke: Never heard of it. Sleeping would be more productive than entertaining you.

Clavis: Don’t say such sad things. Is it okay for your brother to cry?

Luke: You’re annoying…

Luke: Wait, why are you here, Emma?

(Thank goodness… It seems like they’re both safe.)

Luke, who had thrown his cards on the table, rested his head on the back of the chair and looked at me.

Clavis didn’t seem particularly surprised either, greeting me with his usual suspicious smile.

Clavis: An envoy of the Living God?

Emma: Correct. I have a message for you two.

*flashback to last night*

Azel: I’ll give you this.

In an indescribable atmosphere, somewhere between sorrowful and embarrassed, Azel dropped a key into my palm.

Emma: What’s this key for?

Azel: Haven’t you forgotten about the guests from Rhodolite?

Emma: …!

Azel: They’re in a building owned by the Tourism Bureau, some distance from here.

Emma: …Didn’t you say you weren’t aware of the movements of foreign guests?

Azel: I said I wasn’t aware of “everything,” not that I didn’t know where they were.

(He played dumb when I mentioned Silvio.)

-

Azel: Perhaps they were individually asked to do some errands.

Azel: More precisely, not “them,” but maybe just Luke.

Azel: Perhaps their disappearance this time is related to that.

-

Emma: About Obsidian…

Azel: That’s true. If Obsidian interfered with the end, my plan would be ruined.

Azel: Prince Chevalier is sharp. He sent the suspicious guests to a remote location just to be safe.

Azel: However, they haven’t made any particular moves since being confined.

Azel: I thought Luke might do something… Well, if it’s just a false alarm, then that’s fine.

Azel: I have to thank them for also playing the role of dispersing the city’s soldiers.

Emma: …With this key, I can save them, right?

Azel: That’s right. Leave as soon as the sun rises.

Azel: You should be able to reach your destination by nightfall.

Emma: Does that mean…

(Even though the apostle’s problem has been solved, I can’t see it through to the end?)

I clenched the key so tightly that it dug into my skin.

Azel: If you don’t go, I won’t guarantee the safety of the guests.

Emma: …To think you would take them hostage at the very last moment.

Azel: You wouldn’t abandon them, would you, kind Miss Emma?

Emma: At least tell me why.

Emma: Why can’t I stay until the end?

Azel: …

Azel took a breath and averted his gaze.

Azel: The end sounds nice, but what I’m about to do is a grand death.

Azel: Unless you have the noble hobby of wanting to see blood, it’s best to avoid it.

(…!)

Emma: Even though you… hate blood…

Azel: It doesn’t matter once I’m dead.

(…It’s not a beautiful death that might scar you.)

The tears that had finally subsided threatened to spill again, and I furrowed my brow.

Azel: By the way, you don’t have the right to whine.

Azel: I haven’t used your “Special Service Ticket to Grant Any Wish,” have I?

Emma: …Can I cry a little more?

Azel: You never run out of tears, do you?

A hand reached behind my head and pulled me closer, my forehead pressing against Azel's chest.

I felt like I had been given permission to cry as much as I wanted, and my vision blurred even more.

Azel: You should go back with the Rhodolite bunch.

Azel: Akatsuki alone would be enough, but you can never have too many bodyguards.

Emma: …Those two… haven’t fulfilled their purpose yet.

Azel: Then tell them this.

*back to present*

Emma: “The tri-nation alliance begins with the end of Tanzanite.”

Emma: “The country you should be investigating is not this one, but another.” …That’s what he said.

With a tingling sensation in the back of my nose, I closed my eyes and relayed Azel's words exactly.

Clavis: That’s quite a kind warning from Azel.

Luke: That God, he tricked us, but he’s awfully sweet to you.

Clavis: This is love.

Luke: Alright, alright. That’s all you’ve been saying.

Luke: What are we going to do now?

Clavis: If we’re taking God’s message literally, it’s “get out of the country now,” right?

Clavis: We’re at a disadvantage right now. It’s a fact that we’re involved with Obsidian.

Clavis: This is probably where we should back down.

Luke: Well, that’s a reasonable judgment.

Clavis: But Luke, if you haven’t finished your business, you can still stay.

Luke: ………… No.

Luke: I don’t have any business. Let’s get out of here.

(It’s all going according to Azel's plan.)

(…Don’t think about it, Emma. I cried enough yesterday to last a lifetime.)

Emma: We’re going to head to the port and return home. Are you coming too, Prince Clavis and Prince Luke?

Luke: We are.

Luke got up from his chair and suddenly noticed the bag I was carrying.

Luke: Hey, have the contents of your bag changed?

(Ah…)

*flashback*

Luke: I told you I would carry it for you, Emma.

Emma: Thank you. But this is my first trip, so I want to carry the luggage myself.

Emma: Selling books in a foreign land, buying them…

Emma: I’m really looking forward to seeing how much the contents of my bag will change between when I leave and when I return.

*flashback over*

Emma: …Yeah.

(The books in my bag were replaced as I carried out the Owner’s errands.)

(But more than that…)

I unconsciously touched the unicorn earring cuff.

The parting gift that Azel gave me is worth more than what can fit in my bag.

Emma: It’s changed.

(The weight of my bag is completely different now compared to when I came here.)

(That’s how many memories are packed inside.)

Clavis: Haha, it’s not often that you have such a hard-earned experience that you cry your eyes out.

Clavis: I hope it will become a good treasure for you in the future.

(…Clavis and Luke might have an inkling of the reason for my tears.)

Emma: You’re right.

Emma: …I’d like to cherish it.

-

We borrowed camels from the settlement and headed for the port through the desert.

It was the Owner who first noticed the anomaly.

Akatsuki: …The sky.

(The sky?)

When I looked up at the sky, I immediately understood what the Owner meant.

Emma: The moon…

The beautiful full moon that illuminated our journey gradually lost its light and was covered by a red shadow.

The surroundings were engulfed in a faint darkness, and we silently gazed at the sky.

(“When the moon disappears… the people will awaken from their long dream”…)

(Just as prophesied… the moon has disappeared.)

The sound of my heartbeat echoed in my chest, heavy and sharp.

Clavis: Oh, so this is the so-called end.

Luke: That’s pretty convincing.

Akatsuki: …Indeed. God calculated this.

Emma: Calculated?

Akatsuki: For several years now, God has been asking me for various astronomical books from all over the continent.

Akatsuki: His purpose wasn’t the wisdom of divination, but probably the records of the moon.

Akatsuki: Based on past records, he calculated the exact time the moon would become like this.

(Can he really do that…? …Azel is truly extraordinary.)

Clavis: As expected of God. This isn’t something a mere mortal could do.

Clavis: Such a perfect disappearance of the moon is a rare sight.

Clavis: It’s the perfect prop to make people believe in the end.

(Right now, Azel is…)

The red moon looked like blood.

I couldn’t bear it when I imagined Azel, the incarnation of the moon.

A single tear escaped and fell onto the dry sand.

Fortunately, no one noticed my tears in the moonless desert.

(Please…)

(May the people awaken from their eternal dream, just as Azel wished.)

-

––During the long voyage, I had a dream.

Emma: …This place again.

The dreamland I stepped into after a long time was still the same half-baked world, with only a few roses blooming here and there.

I felt like there were more roses than in the scenery in my vague memories, but that was all.

I casually walked to the end of the path and stood before the oak table.

(I don’t remember it well, but… I should have met someone here several times.)

I looked around, but there was no one in sight.

The lonely rose garden swayed in the wind, carrying faint sounds.

(…The incarnation of the moon is also the God of dreams, right?)

(I wonder if I can meet him. Even if it’s only in a dream…)

Even though it would be an illusion that disappears like a bubble when I wake up, I found myself sincerely wishing for it as the days passed.

(I haven’t actually seen Azel's death with my own eyes, so honestly, it still doesn’t feel real.)

(Since I can’t get any information about Tanzanite while I’m at sea…)

(I cling to the hope that maybe he’s still alive.)

(...)

(Is that why I’m seeing strange hallucinations?)

I felt like… I saw familiar hair growing from the rose hedge in the distance.

It was an unnatural sight, as if someone was buried there.

(No way, that can’t be true. No one would dive into a rose hedge.)

(But… this is a dream, isn’t it?)

(Anything can happen in a dream.)

(...............)

Emma: That’s… really absurd, isn’t it!?

When I called out into the distance, the hedge shook noticeably.

I hurried over and peered in, and there was a suspicious man with his back hunched.

Emma: …What are you doing, Prince Azel?

Azel: No…

Azel: …You’ve mistaken me for someone else.

Emma: I’ve been wanting to see you for so long… and you say I’ve mistaken you for someone else?

Azel: You have. I’m not your acquaintance.

Emma: …It’s alright, it’s not embarrassing, so please come out.

Azel: Don’t grin… Please don’t grin. I beg you, my spirit will die.

(It really is Azel.)

(…Since this is the dream world, it’s okay to be a little forward, right?)

I hugged Azel, who finally emerged from the hedge, still covered in leaves.

Emma: Why were you hiding?

Azel, without chasing me away, awkwardly looked to the side.

Azel: What if I was just in the mood to?

Emma: You get into a rose hedge because of your mood?

Azel: …Is there something strange about that?

Emma: Everything is strange.

Azel: …

Azel: It would be awkward to meet so easily after making you cry so much.

(I see… That’s so like Azel.)

Emma: I’m happy.

Azel: Is that so?

Emma: Are you blushing?

Azel: Yes, that’s an insult.

Emma: You’re being childish.

Despite his prickly words, Azel put his arm around my back.

Being embraced like this vividly reminded me of our last parting.

(If dreams are a mirror reflecting my heart, then surely the Azel I’m seeing now is also a convenient illusion.)

(But even so…)

Emma: …Hehe.

Azel: What’s so funny?

Emma: I just thought it was funny how realistic the “it would be awkward to meet” part was, even though this is supposed to be a dream.

Emma: It’s as if the real Prince Azel is here–

Azel: That’s impossible. I’m dead.

My words were denied without a moment’s hesitation.

Emma: Let me dream, even in a dream.

Azel: Haven’t you dreamt enough already?

(…Does this mean that my understanding of you is so deep that I can dream of Azel, who is no different from the real one?)

(I don’t want this dream to end.)

The more I realized it was a dream, the more likely I was to wake up, so I tried to numb my thoughts as much as possible.

The silence, broken only by the rustling of leaves, enveloped us for a while.

Azel: Hey… Can I talk about a hypothetical situation?

Emma: …?

Azel: Suppose I’m still alive and dreaming somewhere.

Azel: Maybe our dreams are mixed together, and that’s why we were able to meet like this.

Azel: Assuming that’s the case, what would you do if you found me next time?

Emma: Of course, I’d demand compensation.

Azel: …Huh?

Emma: It’s a natural claim since you made me cry so much.

Emma: It would make paying off the remaining debt a lot easier.

(Though I have a feeling that if I’m with Azel, I’ll soon be in debt again.)

Azel: What if that debt was gone?

Emma: I’d be happy to have it paid off, but I don’t think that will happen.

Azel: Why?

Emma: Because you’re good at making me go into debt, Prince Azel.

Emma: I feel like I’ll get another invoice.

Azel: …

Azel: Would you dutifully pay off a new debt too?

Emma: Of course.

Azel: Even if it’s a scam?

Emma: …I’d gladly accept it.

Emma: Because…

I lifted my face, which had been pressed against his chest, and peered into Azel's eyes, which had a clear outline despite being in a dream.

Emma: If I were to go into debt again, I think it would be Prince Azel's way of saying “stay with me.”

Azel: ............

Azel: That’s not true.

Emma: Even if it’s not… I still want to be with you from now on.

Emma: There’s no other reason for me to pay off a scam-like debt.

Azel: …

(You’re so easy to understand.)

Azel, his cheeks flushed, lightly pecked my lips as if to distract me.

(…This is a… dream, right?)

(But if he’s really… really alive ––)

Azel: ………… Sigh.

Emma: Why are you sighing?

Azel: It’s nothing. Just…

Azel: Don’t forget the offerings.

-

After returning to Rhodolite, my daily life at the bookstore resumed.

I switched with Rio, who had been looking after the store, and the events in the Land of Illusions became a distant dream.

But –– I occasionally received suspicious letters.

The letters, with no sender’s name, described the current state of Tanzanite and always ended with “don’t misunderstand.”

Written in illegible handwriting except for the first letter of each sentence, these letters prevented the illusions from fading into a dream.

*flashback*

Azel: Tanzanite itself is a dream to you.

Azel: When you wake up, you’ll forget everything and return to your everyday life in Rhodolite.

*flashback over*

(Even though you said that…)

(…Even though you said “goodbye” to me.)

(Your words and actions never match.)

(You’re so stubborn.)

-

––And then, six months later…

Emma: Here we are!

Using every trick in the book, I was once again lured to the desert country, and the first place I headed to was the solitary castle.

When I looked back, Kamal, who had guided me to the gate, was waving.

I waved back and stepped inside the familiar solitary castle.

(In Tanzanite, it seems God really did die.)

(That day of the end… Azel was killed by someone on stage.)

The people still respected God.

However, it seems they had accepted the reality of not being able to rely on divination and had begun to seek knowledge.

The letter mentioned that a new bookstore had opened, along with a map.

It included the usual phrase: “You must be interested. You should visit it sometime.”

(I’ll visit that bookstore later…)

There was no sign of anyone in the entrance.

Even when I stepped into the corridor on the right…

Even when I peeked into the kitchen, the master of the temple maintained his silence.

(To think you’d go out of your way to write so many letters and then decide to be absent.)

It seems the people who accepted God’s death no longer visit this temple.

However, there were clear traces of life in the kitchen.

A mountain of fresh ingredients caught my eye, and I could almost hear a hallucination telling me to “hurry up and cook.”

(…It can’t be helped. I’ll use that tactic.)

-

I knocked and entered Azel's room.

I looked right, I looked left, and after confirming that there was no one around, I put down my bag and took out the offering.

What I had prepared were simple meat skewers made using the castle kitchen.

As I opened the package, a delicious aroma that stimulated the appetite filled the room.

Emma: Well then… Let's eat!

???: No, wait, that’s absurd!

(Ah, he was easier to lure out than I thought.)

Azel, who seemed to have been hiding in the shadows of the room, jumped out and snatched the skewer from my hand.

Even though it was the first time we had seen each other in a while, it didn’t feel like it had been “a while” for some reason.

(Is it because I’ve had dreams about Azel several times…?)

Azel: Is it customary to eat offerings in Rhodolite?

Emma: Of course not, but I was about to tearfully eat it to lure out the Prince Azel who can't be honest.

Azel: Who "can't be honest"? I'm a ghost now, so I can't just appear before you easily.

Emma: So, Mr. Ghost can eat offerings?

Azel: I can. Didn't you know that?

His face looked somewhat awkward, and even though I knew he would sulk, I burst out laughing.

Emma: There are a lot of inconsistencies.

Azel: …Shut up.

Azel held the skewer in his hand, but his eyes were fixed on me.

Despite eagerly requesting the offering, his current interest seemed to lie elsewhere.

Azel: I can't believe you actually came.

Emma: After all that appealing for me to come, I couldn't not come.

Azel: Who made such an appeal?

Emma: Prince Azel did.

Azel: I don't recall doing that.

Emma: I even brought all the letters.

Azel: I don't know what you're talking about.

Emma: …I thought you'd say that, so I won't mention it any further…

Azel: …

Emma: I do think you could have told me from the beginning…

(If I had known that dying was just a “pretense,” I wouldn’t have cried my eyes out.)

Remembering the sorrowful farewell, I couldn’t help but complain.

Azel: Could I really say “actually, I’m not going to die” in that sorrowful atmosphere? Of course not.

Azel: Besides… I didn’t intend to see you either.

Emma: But you called for me?

Azel: I didn’t call for you, it was unavoidable.

Azel: …You said you wanted to be with me, didn’t you?

(I… think I did…)

(…It’s hazy, but I think I had a dream like that.)

Azel: You heard my wish. So, I have to hear your wish too for it to be a fair trade.

Azel: This is my pride as a creditor, and it certainly doesn’t mean I wanted to see you.

Despite saying he “didn’t want to,” Azel moved closer to me, not to the skewer.

(Logically, I think Azel believes that the fewer people who know the truth about God’s death, the better.)

(Especially since I have connections with the princes of Rhodolite, there's also the risk of other countries finding out.)

(But his heart hasn't caught up, so he's always inconsistent.)

When I accepted the kiss, Azel put down the skewer and began to greedily devour me.

Even though his words said the opposite, I could hear his heart saying "I wanted to see you."

Azel: Could you put up some resistance? I won't be able to stop.

Emma: That's… impossible. I don't dislike it…

Azel: ......

I was pushed onto a nearby bed and assaulted with kisses once again.

(…S-So obvious, and yet… so stubborn…)

When I opened my mouth, our intertwined tongues brought with them unfamiliar sensations.

I was engulfed in conflicting emotions: embarrassed yet blissful, my body burning hot yet not wanting it to stop.

Large hands casually unbuttoned my blouse, loosening my clothes.

Emma: Is this okay?

Emma: …I’m expensive, you know?

(If you’re going to do this…)

(…I will never let go. I won’t let you go.)

At my words, spoken with a hint of warning, Azel's eyes widened for a moment, and then he gave a mischievous smile.

Azel: In that case, allow me to tell your fortune once again.

Azel: This time, not with the Standard Plan, but with the Professional Plan.

(That’s…)

(Just how much will the invoice be?)

––The curtain of night fell, and the divine moon ascended into the sky.

..............

(Huh… That’s…)

It seemed I had fallen asleep, and I was wrapped in a blanket as if to protect myself from the cold.

When I sat up, I saw Azel sitting on the edge of the bed.

(He was awake the whole time.)

(…He seems to be lost in thought.)

I wrapped the blanket around myself so it wouldn’t fall off and crept up behind him.

Just as my finger was about to touch his shoulder, his mystical eyes caught me.

Azel: …What is it?

Emma: I was trying to surprise you… That’s a shame.

Azel: ………… Sigh.

(That’s strange…)

Emma: Why are you so sulky?

Azel: I’m not sulky.

Emma: Yes, you are.

Azel: …

I hugged Azel from behind as he turned away sulkily.

(He seems more awkward than in a bad mood…)

The silence stretched on, and I poked his cheek with my finger as if to urge him to speak.

I poked and poked him meaninglessly, partly to get back at him for all the times he had done the same to me, and finally, a deep sigh escaped Azel's lips.

Azel: …I just don’t understand.

Azel: I don’t like you or anything…

(He’s still saying that.)

Emma: If you tell me we’re “not lovers” after this, I’ll cry.

Azel: .......

Emma: Are we not?

Azel: ………… We’re not… Maybe…

(He finally admitted it.)

Even though Azel's “affection” is obvious, it always takes a lot of effort to get him to say it out loud.

Emma: In that case, there’s something I want you to say.

Azel: No.

Emma: I think you already know what I want you to say…

Azel: I don’t.

Emma: .......

I continued to poke and poke his cheek, and Azel's brow furrowed.

Azel: I’ll never say it, not even if my mouth is torn apart.

Azel: That I love you, or anything–

Emma: …Ah!

Azel: Ah, no, that was…

Emma: That was?

Azel: …

Azel: ............

Azel: It’s not true, but it’s not untrue either, damn it.

(Someday, I want Azel to know that love isn’t “violence.”)

(Love may be something that torments people like a curse…)

(But the happiness of this moment is definitely love too.)

.

.

.

Dramatic End Ch. 25 His Side Story

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[cabinseventheaterchick]

“Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping them up.”

—Jesse Jackson

Portrait done by the incredibly talented @oceans-corals-and-poisons

Kat if she had a Wikipedia page (her lore summarized)

Oh, hi! Didn’t see you see there. I’m Kat Carter!

Okay, lemme think… I’m fifteen, daughter of Apollo currently at Camp Half-Blood with my homies <3

When I’m not at camp, NYC is my home base. You can probably find me in Apollo cabin: practicing monologues/songs, playing matchmaker (it’s not just for Aphrodite kids!), or staging a kitchen coup d’état so I can bake something delicious.

Shoot me an ask, camp can get kinda boring!

he gets his own category:

@ellis--wakefield — my boyfriend <333

he’s really cute and he’s great at capture the flag and he’s nice to the newbies and damn he’s just idk how to even describe him ‘cause words cannot

Former… um… let’s just say people I used to know:

@lukemessedup — Good boss, bad business

@lieutenant-of-kronos — I regret letting him convince me to join up but he’s a nice guy.

@alabaster-c-t — Yep. You read that right. Bro is apparently not dead, nor has ever been.

@the-song-of-the-moon — We’re starting an ex-Titan Army therapy group together :3

Uncle Kronos (links to the Wayback Machine of the first version) — Literally cannot believe I wrote this. Uncle Kronos was a good person. I think I’ll always miss him, but I’m glad he found peace. Here’s to you, Uncle K.

@existence-is-pain-ahhhhhhhh — need I say more? He’s awesome. Case closed.

@the-better-castellan — new addition to the List Of People Who Aren’t Dead After All! They’re cool trust me

@peyton-is-cool — I missed him loads. Thank the gods he’s safe—he’s been in Texas? I guess?

Totally irresponsible pseudo-father to half of CHB (he does actually care about campers but he’s got a reputation to uphold):

@dionysus-god-of-all-things-wine

My fellow campers, love y’all:

@thanatoss-favorite-demigod — best murder road trip buddy a gal could ask for

@thehadescabincounsler — I’ve adopted them into Apollo cabin. They’re now officially an honorary child of the Sun Dude.

@thatonebitheaterkid — my sibling. too many pets (affectionate)

@that-dam-daughter-of-poseidon — my absolute bestie <3

@poseidons-favourite-daughter — training together ⚔️! She’s so sweet and a year rounder so I won’t be alone come fall

@yes-im-a-daughter-of-hades — she just got back from Tartarus, so you know what that means!… binge watching everything pop culture. Phineas and Ferb say what?

@lady-ariadne-of-milan — my coolest big sister. Be nice, she’s been trapped as a flower since, like, the Renaissance.

@bill-son-of-boreas — Ayyy! My Norwegian bestie!

@internal-bloodshed — I’m like ninety percent sure he wants me dead. If I step a toe out of line and hurt Ellis, my body will apparently never be found.

@the-better-stoll-brother — If anyone messes with him one more time I’m throwing hands.

(Psst. My general tag is #kat carter on the case, and my lore tag is #from the archives of kat carter)

(Extra psst. Do you want more Kat Carter content without actually having to roleplay? Send me an ask by picking something from my tag #ask game!)

[sykesandskittles]

CHAPTER 9

Harlow

My God. I feel like I’m going to throw up.

Where the fuck is Talia ? I pray Noah is right, and that she’s fine, hanging out somewhere, frantically looking for her phone. But my gut tells me something is wrong.

Very, very wrong.

I glance over at Noah, at the way the shadows play across his handsome face. He’s so damn hot—far hotter than he has any business being. But it’s not just his physical appearance I find so strangely alluring, it’s the way he carries himself. The undeniable power and confidence he exudes. Like he owns the world, and he’ll challenge anyone who questions that fact.

That level of self-assurance is infuriatingly attractive, and I won’t lie, I need his confidence right now. I need someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing. And he’s right. If I’m going to find Talia , then I’ll need his resources.

He glances at me briefly, his grip tight on the steering wheel. “We’ll find her,” he says, somehow reading the direction of my thoughts.

“Did you grow up around here?” I ask, looking out at the night sky, and down below, to the churning ocean. The road hugs a cliff that overlooks the Pacific Ocean, and if I weren’t in a panic to find Talia , I might actually find it beautiful.

“Yeah,” he says. “My family has lived in this area for a while. At least four generations.”

I nod, soaking in the information. The more I know about him, the better, I guess.

Know thine enemy.

Isn’t that the proverbial quote from Sun Tzu's The Art of War?

Am I at war with Noah Sabastian , though? He wants something from me that I’m unwilling to give, so I guess in that sense, yeah. As soon as all this Talia shit is over, I’m cutting all contact with him. His world is too big for me, and way too complicated. I thrive in the shadows, and that’s where I’ll return.

But first, I have to find my best friend.

After only a few minutes, we pull over on a dark section of road. It’s a lookout point that drops steeply off a rocky cliff, with only a short stone partition to keep people from toppling over the edge.

Noah cuts the engine and steps out of the car. I unbuckle my seatbelt and follow him to the waist-high retaining wall.

“What are we doing here? Why did we stop?” I glance around, but all I smell is brine, and all I hear is the turbulent ocean in the near distance. It’s too dark to see anything, really, even with his headlights on, illuminating the area directly in front of his car .

He leans against the retaining wall, arms crossed over his chest. He’s turned toward the ocean like he’s waiting for it to speak to him.

“What are you doing?” I ask, annoyed. We don’t have time for whatever meditation bullshit this is. For fuck’s sake. “Noah-”

He leans forward and places his warm hand on my mouth. He’s close, his warmth snaking around me, pulling me in. I suck in a sharp breath and blink.

Without removing his hand, he leans in a bit more. “This is a popular spot for people to hang out,” he says.

I nod, and he slowly removes his hand, but he doesn’t take a step back. I feel crowded, but I don’t move either, because I don’t want him knowing he intimidates me. He’d probably find it amusing. Just another one of his little

games. And I can’t stand the thought of being entertainment fodder for some bored rich boy.

Been there. Done that. Not interested.

I look again at the vast stretch of darkness in front of us, just a sliver of moon illuminating the water as it rushes up the shore. “Okay, well, there’s no one here.”

We’d see lights, or something, right?

He takes my hand, and on instinct, I try to tug it out of his grasp. “Listen, Little Rabbit,” his tone is hard, devoid of that playful edge it

usually has. “You’re with me now, and the sooner you accept that the easier this will be for you. I don’t fuck around. I don’t play games. It’s us now.” He grabs my chin with his other hand and pinches it painfully. “And I’ll help you find your friend, but make no mistake, this isn’t a fucking favor. This is what I do for the people inside my circle. And you are not only inside my circle, you are my circle, baby girl. Get fucking used to it. ”

When he releases my chin, he does it with a flourish, which causes me to stumble backward. What a fucking asshole. How do you just tell someone you’re dating them? I didn’t ask to be in his fucking circle. He acts like it’s a privilege or something. And maybe for some girls it is, but not for me. For me, it feels like I’ve been hit by a colossal wave, and dragged three feet under the water with no possible way to escape.

But I will escape. I have to. After what happened last year, there’s no way I can be under someone’s control again. No fucking chance.

As I stumble, he’s still holding my hand and stops me from falling. Pulling my hand from his, I straighten and struggle to keep cool. I want to scream at him, to tell him to fuck himself, and then walk away. But, again, I need him. I can’t risk pissing him off. Not yet, at least.

“Talia obviously isn’t here,” I say evenly. “Where else could she be?”

His heated gaze flicks over me, and for the first time, I wonder if I’m out of my depth with this guy. I can already tell he’s not easily manipulated

—so fluttering my eyelashes and pretending I’m into him isn’t going to cut it. If I want his help, I’m going to have to make it seem real. Make him believe I’m here for him, and only him.

Swallowing, I take a step forward. My heart feels like a wrecking ball inside my chest—slow, heavy thuds that jerk my entire body. Thud. Thud. Thud.

When I’m within half an inch of him, I reach out and place my hand on his chest. He’s wearing a fitted black t-shirt, and beneath the thin fabric, I can feel a wall of muscle. He must work out on the daily, because his pecks are chiseled to perfection, like a slab of marble. Perfect.

“Help me,” I say in my most sultry voice–which, honestly, is really just a deeper version of my own voice. “And I’ll give you what you want.”

I have zero intention of following through with it, but he doesn’t know that. I’m not above lying to get what I need from him.

“That’s cute.” He catches my wrist and pulls me flush with his hard body. When he smiles, it’s dark like the devil. “Because you never had a fucking choice, Little Rabbit.

[bellsluck]

☆ about me ☆

hii, i’m bells!

thought it was about time i made an introduction.

i’m 21, a capricorn sun, leo moon, cancer rising (astrology freak), my ethnicity is a little complicated but i’ll put it as half british and half portuguese. i can speak english and portuguese fluently and have a half-decent grasp of spanish. i’ve lived in the uk for most of my life. sexuality: no labels.

i’d say i’m new to tumblr as this is the first time in my life i’m actually using it regularly, i think I’ve got the hang of it now. i feel so at home on here and i love having new mutuals hehe. feel free to message about literally anything (save me from the “singles in your area looking for-” dms, i beg).

☆ interests ☆

i love writing and reading, fanfic, music and film, generally just immersing myself in other worlds tbh. kisses to pinterest, ao3 and wattpad. tumblr now too i guess.

seemingly never ending harry potter obsession. marauders era, hogwarts legacy era, etc. slytherin girly. i was part of hptok at its peak in like 2020/2021, my page was basically dedicated to it. it was so much fun.

also star wars, specifically the hayden christensen trilogy, but i love the ogs too and i thinkmy favourite spin-offs are the mandalorian and obi-wan kenobi. if i ever get married it will be at lake como, idc how many times it's been done. i was at one of the filming locations last summer (theed palace) and almost crying like a little biatch.

i like video games too (mostly play on switch), but i’m very picky when it comes to finding ones i actually like, then I will rack up hours on it like there's no tomorrow… we love hyperfixation over here. love love love stardew valley, animal crossing and games along those lines but atm i’ve been doing my rounds on the resident evil games (re2 og, re4 remake, re6, down bad for leon kennedy) and also hogwarts legacy, i’ve finished most of it, i just have to complete my field guide now (desperately want to replay for the sebastian quests, also the new mod stuff is so cool!).

music wise, i listen to lots of different stuff, constantly go through phases, but for my all timers, aka can quote their discography from start to finish, i’d probably say lana del rey, radiohead, the weeknd and nirvana. recently it’s been lots of david bowie, queen, beabadoobee, portishead, fleetwood mac, the beatles… i could go on.

always open to recommendations for songs, playlists, films, series, games, books, fanfics, or anything, i love it all.

☆ onto the topic of shifting... ☆

i am happy to announce i am free from the shackles of “shift-tok”. if yk, yk. 

i’ll take this as a chance to ask nicely for any antis to please, please, not interact from here on out. thank you.

so, i initially found out about shifting on hptok 2020 (huge surprise ik) and so obviously i wanted to go to hogwarts. like??

needless to say i got caught up in all the tiktok misinformation, blatant lies, complicated asf methods, self explanatory. sorry younger-me. i could explain more but all in all i was too impatient and clueless, didn't really know what i was doing at all, eventually got bored, busy with school, and assumed everyone was lying (a few were, it seems).

 i completely forgot about it all after that until i came across a shifting post on reddit a few weeks ago. my tiktok fyp started filling with shifting/manifestation videos too right after. i was coincidentally in between a rewatch of the harry potter films at this point too. you know where this is going. i started seeing tiktoks from smaller creators just answering people’s questions about shifting, and it was all so different from all the stuff i’d heard years ago, spoken about in a completely different way, which just made so much sense to me and was so intriguing. i decided to delve into it all once again. it was those same creators who also would mention tumblr, and i, who had just joined tumblr for writing related stuff not long ago, decided to start searching up things related to shifting.

 i eventually came across some great accounts and information, stories of experiences, motivation, help. i started reading “journeys out of the body” by robert monroe too, so interesting, btw, and have since began my own shifting/exploring consciousness journey (i try to be careful what words i use for things, for lots of reasons, and i understand everyone might use different terms, reminder that i haven’t been on here for that long). it’s been amazing so far. 

(i may have straight up searched shifting realities on google the other day. curiosity got the best of me. it was bad. don’t do it.)

to not mislead anyone, no, i haven’t actually had a full experience in my specific “dr” yet. however it’s only been a small amount of time and i’ve already had lots of different types of sensations and experiences that i’ve never had before and it’s all so beautiful and interesting to me. i definitely view things a lot differently than i did before. i have shiftblr to thank for it.

i adore finding new shifter blogs and reading everything on them, so if i’m giving stalker behaviour it just means i’m loving your stuff or you're all over my feed. 

idk what i’m even going to post about yet, if or when i do. maybe i’ll write a bit into my “journey” so far, any experiences or how and what i do to get into certain states, about my dr, or stuff i’m just nerdy about in general. 

fyi just because i write does not mean i will always use any grammatical skills at all when writing for blog. sorry ;)

if you ever have any questions i’ll love you forever i will answer as best as i can.

this wasn’t all that exciting but i just wanted a little intro because i’m always blank on my socials. 

 thanks for reading !!

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆ ୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆ ୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆ ୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆

[smilingformoney]

Rickmas Day 1: December Moon

Character: Elliott Marston (Quigley Down Under) Relationships: Elliott/Mary (OC) Warnings: None

Based on In Another Life

Read on Ao3 or below:

Mary had always loved Christmas, and although living in the Outback with Elliott was far different from London, the spirit of Christmas was still the same. She had thought long and hard about what to get her husband for their first Christmas together - her first thought had been to make him something, but she always made clothes for him, and she wanted to do something a little different for Christmas. So instead, during a trip into Perth, she excused herself from him to go shopping for a gift, one which she had to hide in a crate of fabrics she’d bought in order to avoid his finding it too early.

Knowing his love for the American West, she bought him a book on American ranching. She didn’t quite understand his fascination with American culture, but she knew he’d be delighted to learn more about how to emulate their culture.

He was indeed overjoyed to open the book on Christmas Day, so much so that he began reading it that very same day. On Boxing Day, Elliott disappeared after dinner, and when Mary went looking for him, she found him behind the house, fiddling with a rope.

“What on earth are you doing out here, El? It’s freezing!”

He looked up at her and smiled.

“I’m tying a lasso,” he explained holding up the rope, which he’d tied around in on itself.

“And am I supposed to know what that is?”

“I read about it in the book you bought me. Americans use it to capture cattle.”

“Ah, of course.” Mary smiled. She knew it wouldn’t be long before he found something in that book he wanted to emulate. “How does it work?”

Elliott explained it to her, showing her how the loop would tighten to hold its target. Mary didn’t quite understand how it was any better than his current methods of controlling his cattle, but she wasn’t about to question his work, just as he never questioned hers.

He tried to demonstrate it to her, but although he managed to land the loop over the haybale he was using as target practice, as soon as he tried to tighten the hold, the knot he’d tied fell apart.

Mary giggled. “Well, you’re halfway there, darling.”

“Quiet, you,” Elliott said warningly with a cheeky wink. “We don’t want my men thinking I’m no good at this, do we?”

He began pulling the rope back towards him.

“Ah, so that’s why you’re practising by moonlight! You do realise, of course, it’d be a lot easier in sunlight?”

“Perhaps. But where’s the fun in that?”

He looped the rope around again and began tying another knot, firmer this time, and Mary knew he’d not give up until he had it perfected.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it, darling. Don’t stay up too late, will you?”

“Of course not. I’ll be there to keep you warm, don’t you worry.”

Mary smiled, kissed her husband on the cheek, and went back inside, wondering if she ought to have a look at the book herself if there were any details of the American rancher’s fashion, so she might create something for Elliott to make him look the part he admired so much.

Elliott spent days working on his lasso technique. Every evening after dinner, when the sun had gone down, his men had finished their work, and Mary was either working on her tailoring or keeping her diary up to date, Elliott would go around the back and practise with his lasso.

On New Year’s Eve, everyone at the station gathered together to ring in the New Year. Mary mostly stayed by Elliott’s side, but when she became distracted playing a game with Tommy, she realised a little before midnight that she’d lost Elliott.

Not wanting to miss out on a midnight kiss with her husband, Mary went looking amongst the men for Elliott. Kelly pointed her to the barn, but he wasn’t there; O’Flynn suggested he might be in the cellar, where he kept his whisky, but he wasn’t there either. The gathered crowd began counting down to midnight, and Mary stepped glumly down from the porch, disappointed that she couldn’t find Elliott.

As the countdown reached twenty, Mary suddenly saw a length of rope cross her vision, and she found herself pulled aside by the waist; before she could fully comprehend what was happening, she was spinning into Elliott’s arms. He caught her, laughing as she found her footing.

“Well, hello there, little lady,” he said teasingly. “Seems I caught the prettiest girl in all Australia.”

Mary saw the rope in his hands, and realised what had happened - he’d caught her in his lasso.

“It seems you have,” she giggled. “I thought you wanted to lasso cattle, not women?”

“It’s multipurpose. Now, would you entrust your husband with a kiss to start the new year?”

“Of course I will!” Mary agreed enthusiastically. She leant up on her tiptoes, and as the gathered crowd cheered in the new year, Mary’s lips met Elliott’s, and 1865 begun as they intended it to go on - her, in his arms, safe and protected from harm.

[itsjustmebluesilly]

ok so apparently my blog was like…hidden. So, Introduction Re-Do!! Hiii! I’m Blue!

All about About me:

avid gamer

Diagnosed with ADHD(and probably has autism-)

very very silly.

birthday is on October 23!

loves fettuccine Alfredo. It’s so good. Like actually.

sleep deprived

artist (in more than one way)

loves genetics

sometimes gets a lot of nature pics

can I put whatever I want here?

chicken.

very disorganized (sorry)

What I do:

I write fanfics, some original writing, draw, make headcanon for my fandoms and remix songs! (Plus some og songs but like…I barely make any-) Speaking of, I should probably list my-

FANDOMS!!!

Legend of Zelda! (In particular, BotW, TotK, OoT, ALBW, I’ll add more as I beat more games-)

Pokèmon! (In particular: Gen 1, 2 and 4, Pokèmon Legends, Scarlet/Violet, Sun and Moon)

Friday Night Funkin’

VOCALOID (I’m relatively new to the vocaloid fandom, please please PLEASE into dump on me about it. I’d love it if you did!)

Undertale and Deltarune

Cookie Run (Kingdom is my main focus but I do play Ovenbreak)

Cave Story

Kirby

Sonic (I’m not too familiar with a lot of Sonic content/Lore but I really like the series as a whole! One of these days I’ll get around to leaning the lore, one way or another-)

Hollow Knight

Starbound

Probably something else I forgot to mention because I am into way too many things-

What this entire thing is for:

I want to spread happiness with my art and drawings (though if I’m sharing angst…😈 [I love angst-]) ok but besides that, I want to make people smile and to share what I love with other people! This blog in particular is where you can ask about my OC’s, headcanons, give me short writing prompts and such, or just ask something in general, I don’t mind. Most of my post will be about my fandoms, character development/characterization, reblogs, and just whatever I feel like honestly.

Favorite Characters:

(Characters in Bold are the ones I’m likely to talk the most about.)

LoZ:

Link/Wild (BotW, TotK)

Zelda/Flora (BotW, TotK)

Link/Time/Shade (OoT)

Malon (OoT)

All of the Champions and their Descendants/TotK Sages (BotW, TotK)

Cookie Run:

Shadow Milk Cookie (CR:K)

Pure Vanilla Cookie (CR:K)

Wizard Cookie

Black Sapphire Cookie (CR:K)

Mystic Flour Cookie (CR:K)

Dreamweaver Cookie (CROB)

Dark Choco Cookie (CROB, CR:K)

Pokèmon:

Gold/Blake (Gold - Silver Edition, Blake - SoulSilver)

Dawn (Platinum)

Red

Silver

Grey..? (Don’t quite know where to put this goober, he’s from an FNF mod but he’s also a Pokèmon trainer and I gave him a game?)

Undertale + Deltarune:

Mettaton (UT)

Papyrus (UT)

Alphys (UT)

Frisk (UT)

Chara (UT)

Kris (DR)

Noelle (DR)

Susie (DR)

Friday Night Funkin’:

Boyfriend

Girlfriend

Pico

QT

Senpai

Big Brother

Soul Boyfriend (From the corruption mod, love that mod sm…)

Cave Story:

Quote

Curly

Kazuma

Misery

Toroko

Kirby:

Kirby

Adaline

Ribbon

Meta Knight

Susie

Magolor

Sonic:

Sonic

Shadow

Metal Sonic (HOW DID I FORGET MY HUE HUE HUE WHEN FIRST WRITING THIS POST?!)

Tails (And Nine)

Silver (Can I say that even if I haven’t played 06? I really like him he’s a skrungle..)

Hollow Knight:

Grimm

Hornet

Ghost (Or The Knight)

Myla

OCs:

Fandom specific: (so many..)

Melody (LoZ, Malon and Time’s daughter)

Aryll (LoZ, reused name because it seems to be fancanon that Wild’s sister has the same name as Wind’s.)

Sojul (LoZ, Gerudo OC)

Akai (LoZ, Yiga OC)

Mabel (LoZ, Wild’s mom)

Dark Chocolate Cookie (CrK)

Feta Cheese Cookie (CrK)

Blood Hand Cookie (CrK and CrOB)

Max (PKMN Sun & Moon)

I have plenty more from different fandoms but I’m just gonna post this as is for now, I’ll edit more in when I get the chance.

True OCs-: (They spawned from my last braincells.)

Blue (Also my Sona and pfp)

Soul (Blue’s big brother)

Eliz (Blue’s bestie, full name is Elizabeth)

Amy (Full name is Amethyst, she’s Soul’s wife)

Nightmare (Completely unrelated to anyone mentioned above lmao)

Show

Eternal

Rachel

Pi

(not actually an oc but im so good with naming characters totally.)

Other Details: Kinda important!

I currently do not have an Ao3 account, so most of my fics and writing will be posted either on this main blog or on a separate blog depending on how long it is. Currently the only blog I have for writing is Re-Writing Cave Story. Also I am not open for commissions YET, but sometime in the future I will be! Also, just a heads up that my art might be uploaded poorly. I’ve tried everything I can to fix it, but every doodle I try to upload ends up looking really bad. Paper drawings seem to work better, and hopefully when I get my online artworks that will be at least acceptable quality. Sorry in advance :(

My tags:

#blues silly yapping (me just well, yapping, also sometimes reblogs with thoughts)

#blues silly writing (ignore the fact that this didn't work for the one writing i did post-)

#blues silly art (self-explanatory-)

#The (silly) Blue Crew (My favorite lil guys)

#blues original headcanons (also self-explanatory--)

#blues silly songs (my music :) [both og and remixes]

Anyway haiiiiii :D welcome to my blog sillies

[sabo-has-my-heart]

I Found You Again

3. Spoiler alert! Chapter 1044/Episode 1071 Spoilers!!!!!!

"Nika!Luffy and fem!reader where reader is the moon goddess. In the legends, the moon goddess and the sun god Nika were lovers that seperated to help humanity. Before Luffy is awakened, he feels a strange bond toward reader and so does she. Reader always loves being by his side, even in battle, which leads to her joing the crew. After the battle with Kaidou, Luffy was seriously injured. However, Luffy's awakening also trigger reader's awakening. Reader turns into goddess form that helps healing Luffy. Seeing reader in that form, Luffy laughs and pulls her in for a kiss, saying that he now knows why he is attracted to her, she was his, all this time. Reader, crying as now finally reunited with him, returns his kiss."

Warnings: Chapter 1044/Episode 1071 Spoilers!!!!

Word Count: 1180

     Nika gave his beloved a smile, though his eyes were brimming with tears. He really didn’t want to separate, much less like this.

     “I love you Nika and I know we’ll find each other again. One as untamable and restless as you? I have no doubt you’ll look for me. Just be careful. The humans are more fragile than we are.” the goddess said, giving her white haired lover a kiss.

     “I love you too G/n, I promise I’ll find you. You’re the only one who I would be willing to be chained by and the one I trust most not to do so. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. Besides, we’ll be making them strong, then they won’t be as fragile.” Nika gave her his usual sunny smile, followed by his little ‘shishishi’ laugh that always made her smile. She gave him one last kiss, before touching her forehead to his as they disappeared, heading to the earth below.

     He’d always felt close to you, from the moment he saw you, he felt something for you. Granted, he didn’t know what he felt for you, only that it was something. Almost immediately, he’d asked you to join his crew. No reason given, just ‘join my crew!’. The others hadn’t been sure what to make of it. Most of them had joined for a reason, but you weren’t a navigator, a sniper, a first mate, a cook, or a musician. You weren’t an archaeologist, a shipwright, or a doctor. You were a devil fruit user on an island they stopped by. Okay, sure, you wanted to go out to sea, you said you were searching for… something. You’d told them it was a meaning, a purpose to your life, but you still weren’t like the others. Sure, you were strong, and yeah, you could fight, but Luffy hadn’t even known that in the beginning. Just, ‘join my crew’. Of course Luffy loved being around you constantly once you’d joined. Whether it was playing games on the deck, talking about beetles or something one of you found interesting, sitting next to you during meals, or even just laying on the grass together in silence. Where one was, the other could be found. Fights were much the same unless Luffy was fighting a particularly difficult opponent, you were by his side and had each other’s backs. That being said, he always made sure your safety was a priority. Meaning if he thought the fight would be too much for you, he got you out of harm's way.

     Looking up at the top of the skull that made up Onigashima, you couldn’t help the horror that filled you. Luffy… you couldn’t hear him anymore. Couldn’t hear his heart. Tears ran down your cheeks, your beloved was gone. You didn’t even notice the sudden pounding that resonated throughout your body. He couldn’t be gone, yet there was nothing coming from the rooftop. Another pulse ran through your body as your eyes changed color. Even in your pain induced trance, you noticed the strange pulsing that resonated throughout your body. Not that you cared, not until the sound of drums reached your ears. Your hair began to float slightly as it lengthened, turning a silvery white like the moon. The drums seemed to pick up in beat and volume as you smiled. Somehow, he wasn’t dead, ignoring Kaido, you shot up to the roof, your new found powers sending you flying through the air as you smiled, landing beside a rather different Luffy. His hair and clothes were white and though he was still wounded, he smiled at you. Placing a hand on his cheek, you smiled. Your touch was cool but pleasant as his wounds stitched themselves closed, his smile widening. As soon as he was healed enough to move, he was tackling you and pulling you into a kiss.

     “Shishishi, I found you, G/n! Told you I would!” Luffy said with a wide grin, though he wasn’t entirely certain as to what he was saying. Your name was Y/n, not G/n and he’d never promised to find you to the best of his knowledge, but the words left his mouth before he could think about them, not that he would have anyway.

     “I suppose you did. Now if only I could convince you to be careful for once!” you teased, taking his face in your hands. Luffy could only give you his signature little laugh as he smiled at you.

     “I was careful, promise! Besides, you’re here so now I’ll always be okay! You always make me feel better!” he said, pulling you into an embrace. His eyes suddenly widened as he pulled away, remembering what was happening below, “Oh! I forgot about Kaido! Hang on! I need to finish my fight!” he said excitedly, making you laugh.

     “You are absolutely not doing this without me this time!” you said as Luffy reached down to grab Kaido. Though Luffy’s sudden transformation seemed to surprise the others, you found yourself oddly unphased by his new look and abilities as you stayed on the roof with him. You wouldn’t jump in unless he needed it, Nika had never needed your aid before. Your brow furrowed as you shook your head. Luffy, Luffy had never needed your help in a fight before. Where had Nika come from? The ‘fight’ didn’t take long, Luffy easily defeating Kaido before stretching his arms and pulling you close again, giving you that same sunny smile he always gave you.

     The both of you seemed to return to ‘normal’ as you stood atop Onigashima together, though it was clear Luffy was feeling rather drained.

     “Rest, my sunlight. You’d been through a lot tonight. Just as the moon watches over those who slumber away, I’ll watch over you as you sleep.” you said softly, gently lowering him to the ground and lightly forcing his head into your lap. It wasn’t even 5 seconds later that his snores filled the air, letting you watch over and protect him as he rested. Though you’d healed some of his injuries, he would still need a great deal of rest. Picking him up and putting him on your back, you carried him back down to the others, smiling when they gave you odd looks.

     “There’s no way to explain anything without sounding insane, just trust me that Luffy and I are alright and there’s no need for concern. He’ll need a few days of rest though. Awakening a devil fruit like his is… a strain on his body.” you said, as you all headed off of the ‘island’ that now sat not far from the flower capital. Turning your head, you smiled at your sleeping love. You were finally reunited, truly reunited. Though you still didn’t understand why your mind kept calling him Nika or why you felt like you’d just reunited when you’d been fighting your way up to the top together, you could figure it out later, all that mattered right now was that you were together and he was alive.

[robinette-green]

TW: Blood/nose-bleeds

How would Sun and Moon (both human and animatronic) feel/react to the reader having nose-bleeds?? Especially when it’s the first time they see reader have ‘em. As someone who has a lot of them, and quite frequently too, I have wondered about this, quite a lot

And I’ll completely understand if you don’t want to answer, this is (in many ways) a weird question, I’m just curious is all

I don’t think it’s a weird question! (I used to get nose bleeds a lot when I was younger so I know how it goes 😅)

Human Sun (Solaris): He’d panic. Depending on the AU, Solaris usually has a handkerchief on him and would fumble for it frantically before gently taking MC’s face into his hands and holding the kerchief to their nose all the while babbling about how everything would be alright.

“A-AH! Hold on! I have a-! Here it is! Here! Keep your head down! It’ll be okay! Promise! Did you hit your nose? What happened? Everything’s going to be alright! W-we’ll get the bleeding to stop and then get you cleaned up! Oh dear.”

(Meanwhile MC probably had it handled and is bemused at Solaris’s panic.)

Animatronic Sun: This Sun would also panic. Rays shooting out in shock before pulling in in destress. He’s got tissues for when the little ones have runny noses and would scramble to get them.

“DEWDROP! Y-you’re bleeding! I’ve got- I have! Where did I put them! Here! Oh! Try not to get any blood on the floor! Tilt your head forward! Come sit over here! It’s okay! Are you okay? It’ll be okay!”

(Sun’s biggest worry is you but he’s also a little concerned about any blood that gets on anything. It is a bio hazard)

Human Moon (Lucien): He’s panicking but doing his best not to let it show. Lucien would probably take MC’s face into his hands and look for any damage or distress before finding something to stanch the flow of blood.

“What have you done to yourself. Come here, let me see.” He’d use a calm voice and if MC was upset he’d provide forehead kisses and murmur reassurances.

Actually he’d probably provide forehead kisses anyway. His silly little starlight started to bleed out of nowhere.

Animatronic Moon:

I wrote a little bit about Animatronic Moon handling a Reader nose bleed in A Door You’re Unable to Close (though it’s brought on by MC slamming face first into a play structure)

I’ll slip that down below.

I cowered on the floor, hands clamped over my ears as Sun struggled and screamed, his shift over to Moon a painful one as Sun fought to prevent it.

It took longer than I would have liked to kick myself to move. Sun's scream turned into a growl as I forced my legs underneath me and scrabbled at the floor to pull myself into a run.

"You're up past your bedtime."

I didn't chance a look as I ran for the closest play structure. Moon's voice was as raspy and creepy as it was in the game. There was a faint red glow behind me, then with an evil giggle, it was suddenly gone as Moon, presumably, using his cord to lift into the air.

Dashing across the floor to the nearest play set, Moon dropped in front of me, and I had to skid to a stop and change directions.

I could barely see the padded floor before me in the dark, so I didn't see the kiddie chair set to the side until I'd tripped over it.

I was sent flying into one of the plastic walls of a play structure with a yelp. Smacking into it face first, pain rocketed up my nose accompanied by a metallic smell.

This was pathetic. I was going to be caught, and I hadn't even made it into a structure.

Slowly, I sat up, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes as pain radiated from my poor nose.

A whimper left me as I lifted my hand to my nose and found that hot, sticky liquid was trickling down my face. Was that blood? Had I broken it?

Then Moon landed next to me, and I panicked, scrambling away with a pathetic panicking noise.

On my hands and knees, I dove for one of the tubes at ground level but got stuck, back hitting the top of the tube. I'd have to slide through on my stomach if I wanted to get any further, but I wasn't given the chance.

"Stop. You'll hurt yourself more."

Large hands easily halted my escape, snagging me around the middle and lifting me out of the tube and into the air.

"N-NO!" I yelped, covering my nose and squeezing my eyes shut.

Moon had caught me so easily. There'd been no chase; I'd just immediately put myself out of commission. Would he kill me now? Choke me to death like he did in some of the fan fictions I'd read? Maybe he'd take me to Vanny, and she'd kill me.

Tears were pouring down my face now, body trembling, blood dripping into my hands from my throbbing nose, convinced that this would be my end. I'd lost the game so quickly, and there were no save files I could switch to.

Carefully, the hands holding me set me down on the edge of the security desktop.

My eyes flew open, and I looked up, confused and scared, into red eyes. With a soft, comforting noise, Moon carefully pulled my hands away from my face. I struggled, but the animatronic was much too strong.

"Let me see what you've done," Moon murmured, his red eyes flicking over the tears and blood.

A flash of blue light blinded me in the dark, leaving me squinting with an afterimage left in my eyes.

"You didn't break it, but I'm sure it hurts."

I was having a really hard time processing what was going on. Moon wasn't trying to kill me. Instead, he was caring for me as though I was a small child who had had a tumble.

I did have a rather nasty tumble, but I wasn't a child.

Though I am crying like one… and my nose really hurts.

"I-if you're not going to hurt me, t-then why aren't you allowed to come out anymore?" I asked, voice muffled from my messed up nose.

Moon just stared at me. That was probably not what he'd expected me to say in this situation.

"Stay." He instructed before vanishing into the dark.

He didn't answer my question.

If Moon wasn't dangerous, why had Sun tried so hard to keep him contained? Or maybe switching between the two hurts, and that was all that was to it? But Sun seemed too nervous about the lights for that to be the only thing. I was missing something. Had something happened that made Faz co. forbid Moon from coming out with anyone in the daycare? That would explain the generators. But what had happened?

Hugging myself, I trembled on the desktop, adrenaline still coursing through my body as I came down from my scare, blood dripping onto my knees as I let it flow, not wanting the hot red gross to flow down my throat.

"Here." A paper towel was gently held to my nose, and I flinched, having not seen or heard Moon's approach.

"Head down till the bleeding stops, then we'll use a cold pack on your nose for a bit to help with the swelling."

Holding the paper towel to my nose, I did as instructed and tilted my head down. Moon was standing just to the side of me, crouched slightly, his face plate level with my head, as he reached up to rub my back with one of his massive hands comfortingly. The stars on his puffy jester pants and the little nightcap on his head were glowing faintly in the dark.

"Thanks…" I mumbled.

Moon said nothing, continuing to watch me, hand still on my back. We sat there in silence until my nose stopped bleeding, then Moon brought me the cold pack I'd been using on my shoulders.

[musicforastylesrestaurant]

Hey everyone, welcome to my blurb masterlist !!

This is for the cute little ideas I’ll randomly come up with instead of the one shots that take up a lot of time and energy.

This is for when I have random bursts of creativity!

There will be angst, fluff and sometimes poorly written smut 😭

Word of warning, these blurbs will most likely be under 5k as there only supposed to be short, so enjoy <3

spring walks.

in which, it’s your’s and harry’s first walk as a family of four, and even though it’s spring, the weathers very chilly and your little one is in the pram whilst your four year old is sat on his daddy’s shoulders.

night time drive.

in which, your son won’t go to sleep and is very restless, so what better way to get him to fall asleep then the hum of the car and his fathers sweet, sweet singing voice.

school gates.

in which, harry picks his little one up from school and his sons never been so happier, seeing as he’s a daddy’s boy.

happy tears.

in which, your walking down the aisle on your wedding day, arm li led with your fathers, when you lock eyes with your soon to be husband, and notice the tears in his eyes.

happy mother’s day.

in which, it’s mother’s day, and what better to wake up then next your fiance and what better way to wake up then with breakfast in bed and snuggles from your two favourite boys.

kisses and cuddles.

in which, your at work (much to your dismay) and harrys at home looking after your poorly two year old, who got sent home from nursery the other day with a temperature, and harry goes into full on nurse mode, giving loads of kisses and cuddles, and nursing her back to full health.

run baby, run.

in which, harry is running the 2025 tokyo marathon, and who better to cheer him on than his fiance and little boy.

a morning in berlin.

in which, harry and madison are in berlin, whilst your back at home in the uk working, madison’s almost turning three in april, and harry wants to spend as much time with his two year old as possible.

morning kisses.

in which, it’s the morning of harry’s birthday and what better way to wake him up then with kisses.

new years eve.

in which, this new years is the most different one that you and harry have ever spent together, instead of going out to a party, your both cuddled up on the sofa with your newborn fast asleep on there daddies chest.

sweet dreams.

in which, its christmas eve, and harry is tucking his daughter into bed, just like he does every night.

just how fast the night changes.

in which, your out at a christmas market with your friends, you end up hurting yourself on the ice rink, resulting in you going to the hospital, where your fiance is doing the night shift.

baby, you’re a firework.

in which, some school friends of harry’s is hosting a firework display round his house, and thought it would be nice to invite harry and the family, the wife is over the moon and the little one is awestruck.

sun, sea and sandy footprints.

in which, it’s your daughters first time at the beach, the sun is shining, the sea is cooling and this is where you realise there’s no place you’d rather be.

family bbq.

in which, with a rare day of sunshine in london, harry and the missus decide to throw a little bbq where all of the close family are invited, drinks are spilled, games a played and memories are created that last a life time.

daddy’s little girl.

in which, harry holding his baby for the first time is everything he had wished for and more.

he knelt to the ground….

in which, you and harry have been together for three years now, and at this point your relationship basically has a third with the amount of times you play taylor around the house, so at the eras concert he surprises you with something you’ll never forget.

the best interruption.

in which, harrys been in his at home office for the majority of the day, and your little one is getting antsy after not spending time with there best friend, so when he’s typing away and answering emails, they stroll into the office, crawling onto his lap.

the finish line.

in which, harrys wife is running the london marathon, having been signed up by her sister in law gemma as a joke and now as she is nearing the finish line, harry is determined to be there to greet her.

airport security.

in which, harry and his daughter madison have a tradition of going on a little father-daughter holiday, they first did it when she was six months old, just before her first birthday and now there doing it just before her second birthday, but today, let’s just say little miss is in a very cranky mood.

in the stars.

in which, harry is remembering you, his beloved wife, mother of his child, that passed away, this is him grieving, remembering the lives that the two of you shared together and will always share together, no matter the circumstances.

sky high.

in which, your an airhostess for british airways, and harry’s been a pilot for british airways for the last four years, and your both working on the same a380 to the big apple.

school pick up.

in which, harrys on school pick up duties for his little one, and it’s his babies favourite time of the day when he sees her best friend, her father standing at the gates.

uncle harry.

in which, after the birth of her baby, you and harry decided to stop by the hospital to see her, where tears fall and memories are created.

boys day out.

in which, manchester united are playing luton town fc in the premier league, and so what better thing to do then take your two football obsessed children to watch there favourite team hopefully win.

carribbean privacy.

in which, you and harry decided to go for a little family holiday to start the new year off on the right foot, and went to a caribbean island, where your just trying to enjoy yourselves, and spend some quality time with your two children, when a couple of fans spot your husband.

when the clock strikes midnight.

in which, you and harry broke up just over a year ago, and have not seen each other since, but when your friend invites you to a new years eve party with all your close ones there, the last person you expected to see walk through the door was him.

underneath the tree.

in which, since officially dating harry for a total of eight years now, courting for three, being married for three and parents for two, you’ve both given each other, such wonderful gifts over the years, and here’s a few of them.

do you still love me?

in which, harrys been acting shifty lately, when your looking for a shirt in his wardrobe, he gets hostile, when you say your going to go and shower, he gets hostile and for some reason doubts start to creep into your mind about what he’s been doing, so when you confront him about it, he tells you of his secret all along.

santa’s grotto.

in which, harry takes his two year old son, sebastian, to go and see santa because your at home sick from the flu, but it doesn’t go aswell as he hoped seeing as all little kids appear to have a phobia of the man dressed in red.

i saw mummy kissing santa claus .

in which, when you and harry are putting the christmas presents under the tree on christmas eve, with harry dressed up in a santa costume just for his own novelty, and share a little moment to themselves, unbeknownst to them that there four year old son arlo, was watching the whole time.

daddy’s new hair style.

in which, your fiancé returns home one afternoon, shocking both you and your son milo when he appears to be sporting a new hair cut, neither of you seemed to be prepared for.

pumpkin patch.

in which, you and harry decide to take your son teddy to the pumpkin patch in honour of it finally hitting october, the three of you decide to make a day of things, and let’s just say the day doesn’t exactly turn out how you all expected it, a series of unfortunate events occur and that all starts out with your fiancé getting annoyed that the sat nav isn’t helping him very much.

snack wars.

in which, on this episode of snack wars, we sit down with a certain curly headed lad who goes by the name of harry styles who happens to be comparing british and american snacks.

the terrible twos.

in which, travelling with your husband around europe hasn’t been the most smooth sailing, especially when your daughters currently experiencing her terrible twos.

sick on tour.

in which, touring europe was meant to be a fun thing to do as a family, but when your toddler suddenly developes a sickness bug, you watch with fond eyes as your husband takes care of your little one, nursing them back to full health.

london experiences.

in which, whilst walking around the streets of london with your fiancé harry and two year old daughter mila whose currently getting her molars growing in, things appear to be going swell until a fan asks for a photo and your little one has to be disturbed.

broken ankle, karma rules.

in which, going on a run with your fiancé of two years means harmless flirting and teasing, that is until an incident occurs and he has to carry you back to the car.

jealous baby styles.

in which, five days ago, you and harry welcomed another little baby into the world, but the blissful baby bubble isn’t all it turns out to be when you have a toddler as well.

airport chaos.

in which, harry’s just finished his show in barcelona, and is en-route to madrid, but there’s one more hurdle that needs to be jumped when fans bombard him, you and your one year old son finley. this results in a very agitated harry, a tearful toddler and a wife that’s claustrophobic.

like father like son.

in which, in 2018, you and your fiancé harry welcomed a little baby boy into the world, and his name was sammy. him and his father were exact replicas of each other, same brown tousled curls, forest green orbs, matching dimples and bunny teeth, harry jr. loves everything to do with his father, wherever he went, he wasn’t far behind.

the box.

in which, your husband is ready to go on stage for fifteen out of fifteen nights at the kia forum, and the crew team come up with a way for him to get to the stage unnoticed, but his three year old daughter wants to get involved as-well.

the bath tub.

in which, your looking for your husband backstage at his concert, and get directed by a crew member that he’s in his dressing room. things get heated the second you walk into the room, and there’s nothing like a quick quickie in the bathtub.

styles on the reins.

in which, harry’s looking after his two year old son, parker whilst you go out with your aunt, so they decide to go on a walk around the small streets of italy where your currently residing, but that’s easier said then done when the little one is just as feral as his father.

a helping hand.

in which, your six months pregnant, your sweaty, ankles are swollen and your nauseous all the time, getting on the boat was a slightly easy task, but the task of getting off the boat is a lot harder, but luckily your husband is there to help you.

wedding day blues.

in which, it’s your and your fiancés wedding day, getting married in the garden of your shared italian villa, surrounded by your close friends and loved ones, but you can’t help but let the nerves get to you.

tired baby styles.

in which, you, harry and your one and a half year old son, elliott are holidaying in spain, where your little one won’t go down for his afternoon nap, so your boyfriend comes up with an idea to get him to doze off.

your blue birds.

in which, whilst your at home dealing with your sickness bug, harry takes the little one to the stadium with him so he’s out of your hair, that’s where you get sent a photo of them that makes you feel ten times better.

[midnightmorpher]

💻 DCA AU Idea: Digital Horror 💻

This is my first time posting a DCA AU so I’m sorry if my post sounds more like disconnected rambling ahaha 🥲 But here goes!

The DCA duo in a digital horror setting.

Think KinitoPet but instead of Kinito as the mascot of a long-lost pet game, it’s Sun and Moon as the face of an old creature collection/virtual pet game created by Fazbear Corp on their old 90s company, kid-friendly website.

Think like a mix between Pokémon and Neopets, speaking as someone who played too much Pokemon and played literally zero Neopets 👍🏻

One day many years after the website has been shut down, You hear rumors about a “haunted” pet game made by the Fazbear Corp and decide to check it out, because you didn’t watch enough horror movies to know this is a terrible idea :>

The game (archived and run on a server supported by Fazbear fans, I don’t know much about tech so I dunno if this is even possible but whatever) runs like it should when you first enter it. However, it starts acting up when you input your old username…

I might start writing this as a fic once I’m further along on my current fic, so for now I’ll just be dumping my AU ideas on this blog haha

Here’s a summary and a brief snippet I wrote because the idea wouldn’t leave me alone:

Virtual pet game websites are a dime in a dozen. You might’ve tried out one or two in your childhood, but memories of that are fuzzy at best. It’s only when your classmate brings up a particular website hosted by Fazbear Corporation that you begin to remember playing it briefly during its heydays, and you decide to visit it for nostalgia’s sake.

=0=

“Welcome to Sun and Moon’s Superstar Daycare!” the computerized voice of the sunny jester character trills. He lounges on top of the window asking you to create a new account, kicking his curly-tipped shoes merrily in the air as he eagerly awaits your input. His bouncy avatar, its details showing hours of love and dedication poured into each brush stroke, paints a hilarious contrast against the shoddy art that makes up the background of the game. You don’t really care, though. It’s not like anyone plays these types of games for its art.

Your hands hover over the keyboard. After a moment’s hesitation, you try to enter your old username.

“Starbite”

Most likely the “Sorry, this username has already been taken” prompt will pop up since you clearly remember using it as a kid, but there’s no harm in trying. You click on the “Confirm” option.

Nothing happens.

Weird. Is it hanging? You click it again, and again. Nothing happens. Even Sun has frozen still. Yep, it’s definitely hanging. Pity, but it’s not too unexpected considering the game’s age. You decide to fall back on the good ol’ cure: spamming the mouse button. clickclickclickclickclickcli

his eyes flick up to stare at you

The shock shoots through your whole being like a lightning bolt. You gasp sharply, eyes fluttering close for a brief moment before they’re cast on the computer screen again.

“Welcome back, Starbite!” Sun says. He takes center stage in a field of rudimentarily drawn grass, the baby blue sky matching the bright smile stretching from “ear” to “ear”, like nothing had happened. “Go forth and pick a Faz Pet to be your forever companion, and I hope you enjoy your stay at our esteemed daycare!”

The character delivers his scripted lines like he should.

The character has his arms up in celebration like he should.

The character smiles at you like he should.

So what is this cold dread trickling down your spine…?