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chuluoyi · 1 year ago

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LOVER'S QUARREL

- fushiguro megumi x reader

“i can't do this anymore.” you and megumi are just too different; he's stoic, you're bubbly, he prefers solitude, you love being social. it starts with fights, words you don't mean, and ends with an event that would haunt him for a long time to come.

genre/warnings: angst, breaking up, post-breakup feelings, mentions and description of injury and blood, hurt/comfort, fluff in the end (you make up!)

note: dear god i’m finally getting this out of my drafts. loosely inspired by real life events i’ve seen around my friend’s relationship sooo it might hurt a bit 🤏🏻 but who can say no to angst to eventual fluff? tagging @lees-chaotic-brain and @kasumitenbaz (as per request in the ask!), you two are always here for my megumi works, thank you!! :3 and thank you for dropping by for the event!

a part of 1K MILESTONE EVENT

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Everyone pointed it out as a joke, that you liked him way more than he did you.

And you used to never let it ruffle you. To you, Megumi’s sternness and silence meant that he was comfortable with you. You never wanted him to change his ways just because now you were seeing each other.

But when you thought it over now, as you stood before him with an aghast expression and knives stabbing your kind, soft heart, you couldn’t help but do a double-take.

You were the one who confessed first. Most of the time, you were the one who initiated dates. You always texted him first, asking about his day, and even when he brushed you off, you would keep being this ball of sunshine and wished him a good day.

You never realized it before… that through everything, it has always been you. Unfailingly.

So how dare he spout this now?

“I can't do this anymore.”

"You... can't?" you spat out, feeling the first tendrils of anger course through you. "What exactly it is that you can't do? What do you even mean?"

"Look," Megumi stared at you squarely, and you thought now, that it was the coldest of eyes, straight and true. "It's always been like this between us lately. It's only right that we end this."

This, he said. He didn't even want to define your relationship anymore.

You scoffed. "And why do you think we always end up this way? Have you ever considered, even once, that it's because you make no effort at all?"

"I'm trying," Megumi quickly replied, almost in a hiss, and you almost recoiled. "But I just see that we'll end up nowhere, that's why I'm bringing this up now."

Oh, that freaking hurts. You boyfriend had just told you that this relationship would go nowhere. Right in your face.

Your eyes stung with tears, yet you fought to hold them back, fixing your gaze on the lamp overhead and inhaling deeply.

"You're... selfish," you stated, filled with ire. "You're always walking around eggshells around me, never telling me what is it that you really want—"

Megumi's unclouded eyes fixed on your trembling form. "We just disagree on a lot of things. You know it and it bothers you. It bothers me too. Rather than forcing our relationship, I think it's better—"

"It's always me!" you yelled then, lips quivering and eyes watering, unable to hold your emotions back any longer. "All dates, lunches—everything!" you locked your eyes with him, in mocking disbelief. "How can you say you're trying when, in truth, I'm the one putting in so much for us?!"

In that very second, Megumi thought that he hated seeing you like this. You were supposed to be the cheerful one in this relationship, and when he agreed to go out with you, he made an unspoken commitment to himself that he would at least not make you miserable.

And yet...

"...I'm sorry."

Came his reply, and you were sure that this was it.

And to rub the salt in your wound, he added, "I can't lie to you and say I haven't thought this for a while too."

As tears welled within you, you wondered and questioned what you lacked that led to this. However, the overwhelming sense of betrayal consuming your thoughts ultimately prevailed over any other emotions.

Now he could've appeared before you as a stranger and you wouldn't bat an eye, as the cold steel in his tone said, "And if blaming me is what it takes to make you feel better, then so be it."

You couldn't pinpoint the source of your sudden boldness, but in the next hot minute, you marched past him, your shoulder harshly colliding with his in a deliberate, almost spiteful manner—which, indeed, was your intention—and then you ran.

Which led to the next scene: you found yourself bawling your eyes out in the girls' lavatory.

Yuji and Nobara saw everything unfolding right before their eyes. They hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but you and Megumi were literally breaking up right the middle of their shared classroom, and it was hard not to follow the discourse until the end.

"Are you okay?" Nobara had come to your side, ensuring privacy by locking the restroom door out of your consideration. You were a sobbing mess, attempting to wipe the overflowing tears away while letting out all your emotions.

"He's..." Your voice faltered amid sobs as you gazed at your steadfast friend, your throat clogging up. "He said... he's been wanting t-to... break up with m-me..."

"That's okay, that's okay..." Nobara brought you to her arms, patting your back in reassurance. "Fushiguro is insensitive like that... don't cry over him now. He's just a wimp, okay?"

"Why is it me?" you asked her, voice brittle, still shaking with tears. "I t-tried everything! Being the supportive girlfriend..."

"If he can't appreciate what you did, then the problem lies with him," your friend stated, traces of irritation brewing in her resolute gaze. And as she firmly grasped your wrist, her next words resonated. "Not you."

. . .

"Do you really have to break her heart like that?" Yuji fidgeted with his hoodie, staring at his best friend with a blend of confusion and sympathy.

Megumi sighed, finally ruffling his hair into a mess, as if expressing his own state of mind. “This is for the best.”

Yuji’s eyebrows visibly creased. “How is this ‘for the best’? She’s miserable, and you…” he assessed him, scanning him from head to toe, “it doesn’t seem you’re faring any better too.”

“The longer she is with me, the unhappier she will be.” Megumi glanced at the bathroom’s direction. “She can deserve better.”

He was always too quiet, too boring, not able to match your energy too. He couldn’t fault you for expecting more, whereas he was just not exactly built for your expectations.

Megumi really thought he wanted it to end. At one point, it even felt like a chore, but…

How strange. Why did it feel like something was clawing at his chest?

Time heals. Megumi knew that by theory, but he really did see it firsthand when he saw you all giggling and happy again three weeks after he initiated the breakup.

With Hakari.

“Yo, what are you glaring at?” Panda asked, but Megumi didn’t pay him any mind.

An upperclassman, Hakari Kinji, was naturally cool and talented. He was laid back, knew how to have fun—all in all, a total opposite of Fushiguro Megumi altogether.

Three weeks. It’s only been three weeks since then.

“Megumi?”

Wait… Aren’t three weeks too fast to get over your ex?

“Megumi!”

��Huh?” he turned to the sentient panda with a jerk. “Oh, what is it?”

He looked at him with a concerned gaze. "Why do you look so scary? It's almost as if you're about to punch someone..."

But who was he to argue? He had no right to be upset now.

"Is it Kinji?" Panda gasped, finally putting two and two together when he followed his line of sight. "Oh Megumi... but you—"

"Just shut up, please," he blurted then, a hint of annoyance in his tone. With that, Panda didn't pursue it further, leaving him with his thoughts.

From where he was at the field, he could clearly see your radiant smile for Hakari. It was clear that the two of you shared a degree of friendship, but Megumi never knew that you two were that close.

...huh?

Why did the sight irritate him so suddenly? Why did his chest twinge again?

What a fool. You're the one driving her away, you idiot.

Suddenly these memories popped up one by one—

Of you suddenly hugging him from behind in an attempt to surprise him.

How he pressed his lips on the crown of your head when you fall asleep on his shoulder.

How you would give him that dopey smile when he pulled you close.

But on harder days after missions gone wrong, he’d ignore you altogether— the slight disappointment in your smile then. How your expression fell when he told you to go. How you slumped and looked back in hopes of him changing his mind.

“Haaaah.” Megumi turned away, unwilling to keep watching you any longer. Why? Why hadn’t it occurred to him before now?

Why did he long for you now? Why not before, when you were still his?

They were right. It seems people tend to desire what isn't meant for them.

What could have been more painfully awkward than being sent into a mission with your ex-boyfriend?

You would kill Gojo for this. Or at least give him the lowest possible score in his teaching evaluation for the year. How could he? Your breakup was an infamous public spectacle, so this setup was undoubtedly intentional!

You were losing your head over this, and yet your ex-boyfriend...

"Keep your guard up," Megumi reminded curtly, in a warning tone. He looked as vigilant and straight as always, as if he wasn't even bothered.

You threw him a dirty look, offended. "You don't have to tell me twice."

This just cranked up the discomfort to an excruciating level. The mix of unresolved tension and memories—okay, you might be an emo, but how were you supposed to be cool with all of these hanging in the air?

Your site of exorcism was an abandoned warehouse, and the cursed spirit in question was supposed to be a grade 3. You two were grade 2 sorcerers now, so you were a perfect fit to exorcise it. But there was indeed this unease in the air that you couldn't put your finger to.

"Isn't it awfully too quiet?" you unwittingly muttered, staring at the darkness of the wall. You couldn't feel any cursed energy belonging to any possible malevolent entity, and that was what unsettled you the most.

Megumi frowned at your line of sight. "It is. Stay close."

You blinked at what he said, and before you knew it, the familiar scent of him being near to you made your entire body burst with this equally familiar warmth. When you looked up to him, seeing the solid sharpness in that dark eyes of his and his jaw set, dead butterflies in your chest rose back to life again, against your heartbreak and better judgement.

Stay close, he said... So he is worried...

And in an attempt to hide how flustered you were, you looked down.

You walked a few good steps, when suddenly he asked, "So, are you with Hakari-senpai now?"

"Huh?" You spun around, your expression a mix of surprise and confusion.

"You two seem close."

Seem close? Seem close... wait, so Megumi had noticed...?

Suddenly, you felt incited and it made you angry. "That's none of your business," your voice carried a sharp edge, hissing. And you knew you were being a bit mean by adding, "You broke up with me, so why do you even care?"

In that moment, Megumi could've sworn his chest throbbed. Your cutting tone pierced directly into his heart, lodging itself there.

You had all rights to be annoyed, and he knew that. Why did that question even slip out of him?

"Nah, nevermind," he mumbled in response, looking away.

Awkwardness lingered afterwards. You hated this, but no, you weren't above being petty. He had broken your heart and it still stung even now. If your intentionally biting words did to him even a fraction of what he made you feel, then you would find a small sense of satisfaction in it.

But you weren't able to ponder about your mess of feelings further when Megumi abruptly yanked your arm, his voice soaking with urgency, "It's here!"

Sure enough, the grotesque cursed spirit with the shape of a giant bee broke through the walls with a bang. The two of you immediately readied your fighting stance. Megumi was ready with his divine dogs, while you with your cursed weapon.

For a while, you engaged the cursed spirit with all you had. You were trying to focus on the enemy, but you couldn't help but notice the way Megumi always looked at you every few seconds, checking for any signs of injury or harm.

Frankly speaking, he trusted your strength and knew that you were a capable sorcerer. You had been paired in a mission before and he knew both your potential and shortcomings. It was just there was something about this place that had his senses on high alert.

And his fears were proven true when you yelped and were flung onto the grimy floor. "Y/N!"

"I'm fine!" you shouted in a rush, scrambling to your feet. However, as you spun towards him, your scream tore through the hall as you caught sight of the bee lurking behind him. "Megumi!"

He got distracted. The bee quickly latched onto him and almost stung him, until he wrestled it off and summoned Nue and exorcised it.

You went to his side that instant. "Are you okay?!"

"I am." But then he winced and almost fell on his knees if you didn't have a secure grip on him. He savored your touch and breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that now you two were safe.

"Megumi! Oh god!" Panic surged through you as you pulled him close. His side was bleeding, and you widened your eyes at the sight.

"I'm okay, I promise," he rasped, looking you in the eyes. "What abo—"

Then you saw it, the flicker from deep from that corner of platform, and suddenly, you grasped the source of the unease that had been lingering within you all this time. It wasn't the bee Megumi had just exorcised—

At that moment, there was no room for thought, one thing was certain: you didn't want him to get hurt more.

He didn't manage to finish his sentence when suddenly you pushed him away with so much force he never thought you had. Everything crashed so suddenly, he didn't have the time to brace himself or grab you with him, as another cursed bee appeared out of nowhere and—

Reality flashed before his eyes as he stared at you in sheer horror. At how the cursed spirit tore your body, sinking its hollow stinger in you.

You didn't really know what happened next. Everything was muffled—the frantic movements around you turned into a blur, along with Megumi's yells. Otherworldly pain coursed through your entire being and your ears rang, then everything in your line of sight became distorted and faded, along with your consciousness. Next and the last thing you knew was Megumi's battered face, a final imprint before you succumbed to the void.

Megumi had exorcised the remaining cursed spirit and staggered to his feet—falling a few times, but he made his way towards you through gritted teeth. You are hurt. He forced himself to get to you and pull you into his arms.

And suddenly, suddenly, nothing mattered anymore as overwhelming terror consumed him upon seeing you. Blood streamed from your abdomen so much that it made a continuous pool.

"You stupid—!" He choked out, voice hitching. You were no longer conscious and it devastated him even more. "Hey, hey? Wake up—hells—"

You, who did everything you could to save your relationship. You, who cried tears for him when he blatantly broke your heart. And you, who put himself first—and now facing the consequences.

It crashed upon him in that very second, the clarity. What was he thinking back then? He still loves you.

"If you die on me, I won't forgive you."

Megumi scooped you in his arms, pressing you close to his chest, the blood seeping from his wound be damned as he looked at your serene face. His heart shattered in the worst way possible and he almost wheezed at the sticky sensation of your blood—and how lifeless you felt in his grasp—but he willed it away.

"Don't," his broken rasp echoed the walls as he took each step to get both of you out of this hellhole. He winced and hissed at his own injury, chewing his lip in frustration, at how helpless he was.

"Don't leave me."

It was like a distant, hazy memory.

Was it a memory though? No. It seemed far too real for that.

The throbbing headache pounding through your skull and shivers that wracked your body pulled you back to reality. There was a heavy pressure on your abdomen and any movement sent sharp pain shooting through you.

You gradually opened your eyes, squinting against the brightness. You were in a hospital gown, an IV was injected on your arm, and the sterile scent made your stomach twist, as nausea creeping through your guts. Your vision was still blurry as you tried to look around to find someone who waited for you. As you slowly turned your head to the side, you saw him, sitting in the chair right next your bed.

Megumi was sleeping in such uncomfortable position, his head resting on the edge of your bed. He appeared peaceful, almost childlike, devoid of his usual stoic demeanor.

Your heartstrings were tugged at this rare sight. He also sustained injuries and yet... he was waiting for you to wake up, here.

Your chest swelled with warmth, which was quickly followed by a sting of heartbreak. Still, you two broke up...

You jolted, and the inadvertent movement sent a wave of pain that seemed to paralyze your nerves, causing you to whimper. The noise woke Megumi from his slumber, as he shot his eyes open in alarm, catching your hand in his.

"Hey... Are you okay?" Megumi worriedly looked down at you with a visible frown, and the grimace of pain on your face, accompanied by trembling lips, was enough of an answer. He hastily scrambled out in slight panic, "I'll get Ieiri-san."

When Shoko came and got you the painkillers, your pain receded somewhat. Through it all, Megumi stood there, casting concerned glances in your way.

"Bedrest for the week," Shoko stated firmly, assessing your wound with a no-nonsense expression. "Your injury isn't minor—it's serious enough that you're strongly advised against excessive movement."

You could only nod in response. Megumi bowed. "Thank you, Ieiri-san." Once the doctor departed, silence settled over the room once more.

“Why did you do that?” he quietly asked then, referring to what you did for him. And when you turned to him, you saw it clearly.

He looked pale, and there was this haunted look in his eyes. It broke your heart a little.

"You were hurt." Your voice came out dry, and you realized firsthand just how parched you were. Seeing Megumi looking down never quite sat right with you. He was meant to be an unwavering presence, someone strong enough to sway your convictions.

However, a pang struck when he countered with stern eyes, "You didn't have to do that."

...he was right. You didn't have to. What he didn't know was that you were still holding on these stupid feelings, which drove you to shield him. It made you ponder: if your roles were reversed, would he not step in to protect you at all?

"Why are you here?" You weren't sure if the bitterness in your tone was evident, but you continued anyway. "You don't have to be here either."

"Don't have to?" His gaze bore disbelief, as if not believing your words. "I'm—"

"If it's because I saved you, Megumi—"

“Do not even think, even for a moment, that I won’t be concerned over you.” His voice, deep and hoarse, struck you to the core, silencing your words. “Never. I always, always want you to be safe.”

Your mind became a blank slate. Suddenly, all that mattered was his voice.

"Don't you realize how terrifying it was? Seeing you like that?" Megumi spat, his green eyes shining with intensity, teeth gritted and fists clenched. "How could you even think that I wouldn't be here—" his breath hitched, and then his lips trembled slightly, "—for you?"

You blinked quickly, a feeling stirred within you—stemming from that cursed, fragile heart of yours to be exact, evident from the rapid thumping in your chest.

You dumbly uttered, "But we are—"

"Oh, Goddamnit." Megumi cursed, and honestly you were taken aback. It wasn't really in him to swear, so this really bugged him. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, and despite the situation, your heart skipped a beat at the sight. Even a mess in a hospital gown, your ex-boyfriend was still undeniably attractive.

He stared at you squarely in the eye, unflinching, steadfast and true, the very image of Fushiguro Megumi you admired from afar and fell in love with in the first place half a year ago. "You don't have to... say anything, if you don't want to. Right now... just hear me out."

And the things he said next... all of them, you could say, caught you entirely off guard.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for not trying hard enough, and—damn it, for making you sad. I never, ever wanted to see you that upset."

Megumi drew in a sharp breath, averting his gaze. "And for days, I've wondered if you and Hakari-senpai are now a thing... and you know what? I hate it so much. I know I have no grounds to feel this way, after what I did, but..."

And like a train wreck, his final words hit you hard. Tears welled up in your eyes in immediate response.

“I'm a loser, and a coward too, maybe,” he shrugged, a tinge of self-deprecation in his tone. “And I suck at telling people my feelings, but I love you. I still do.”

A sob slipped out of your throat and you hastily pulled the blanket over your face, much to his surprise. He thought he had worsened things, with the way you were turning away from him.

But then, from beneath the blanket, in a croaky voice, you proclaimed, "Fushiguro Megumi, you're a complete and utter idiot."

And Megumi didn't know that he had been holding back his breath as he chuckled heartily, relieved that you would still take his ass back after this prolonged mess. He knew he still had a lot to make up for and was determined to show it through his actions.

"Maybe I am, yeah."

"That's possibly the longest shit you have ever spouted in one breath."

"Yeah..."

But he got his chance back, and he knew that you would be alright. Both of you are.

On one sunny day...

"Hey, are you alone?"

Megumi glanced up from his phone, only to be met with a random girl standing in front of him, batting her eyelashes with an ambiguous intent. He blinked at her curiously.

"No. Can I help you?"

The girl twirled her hair suggestively. "Ah, you see... I see you all in your lonesome and I think you're quite cute—"

The hell? Megumi frowned, and he was really about to give this bimbo a piece of his mind when—

Oh, oh. Forget that. Megumi's attention snapped to you on the opposite side of the crossroad. All pretty and dolled up with that crop tee and miniskirt he once mentioned would look great on you by a slip of tongue—that accidental comment earned him your teasing quips for weeks already.

"Sorry, I'm here for my girlfriend. Bye."

Abruptly dismissing the girl, he didn't catch how comically offended she was for being turned down in a span of 20 seconds. He took big strides towards you, as you crossed the street, and you immediately beamed when you caught the sight of his face.

"Megumi!"

Ah, this is going to be a good day, he thought. As he gazed at your pretty face, and caught your hand in his, clasping it tightly, reveling in your scent and the warmth of your presence beside him—

He was content, and once again it dawned on him, that he likes you so, so damn much.

"Let's get started on our date, shall we?"

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idiopathicsmile · 6 months ago

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School Gymnastics: A Tragicomedy

So one day when we were in third grade, our P.E. teacher divided us into girls and boys. (I don’t remember what the boys had to do. Wrestling? Tackle football? I don’t know, probably not at age nine, but that’s not the point. Gladiatorial combat? I still don’t really understand kids’ sports.)

What matters for this story is that all the girls had to do gymnastics. Now—and I suspect this won’t surprise you if you know literally anything about me—I was always terrible at any form of school athletics. I am intensely, almost impressively uncoordinated. This doesn’t affect my life much at 36, but it was often a miserable way to be a kid. The only playground game I liked was playing pretend, because when you are playing pretend, you don’t have a bunch of people ostensibly on your side screaming in your ear, “Pretend faster! Pretend over there! Pretend with greater accuracy!”

Anyway, gymnastics and my clumsy, doughy little body. I couldn’t do a cartwheel. I couldn’t do a backwards somersault. I couldn't do any of it. We had an entire unit on this business and I literally did not learn how to even safely attempt a single move besides the log roll (lie flat and roll sideways on your belly). In retrospect, this seems like maybe it was in part a teaching problem, not a me problem, but that’s actually not the point either.

The point is, at the end of the unit, we were told to divide ourselves into little teams and choreograph a group gymnastics routine. My group, faced with my long list of limitations (more limitation than girl, really) decide my role will be to just forwards-somersault around the rest of the group as they do their moves. (This is itself kind of embarrassing but trust me, it is but the appetizer.) My friend Ashley has the Lion King soundtrack and we all agree that it is a great choice. The movie has only come out a couple of years earlier, and it of course features some funny, peppy options. 'Hakuna Matata'? 'I Just Can't Wait to Be King'? It's all coming together.

Carried on a wave of youthful enthusiasm, none of us even think to double-check which track Ashley has picked. Foreshadowing!

So the day of the performance comes. Another group goes right before us. They had picked “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls, which was a huge hit at the time. I mean, it still is because it’s a classic, but then it was big and new. They step onto the mat and immediately begin to do choreographed dance moves, which they have worked into their routine. We had not thought of this. Oops. Dance moves, of course! So they incorporate the necessary gymnastics, it goes over really well, the energy is high, and now it’s my group’s turn.

I take my place at the edge of the mat, the mat we are required to stay on for the length of the piece. Ashley cues up the track she’d chosen.

A song starts up. Instantly, I recognize it from the movie. It is the very slow instrumental music that plays when Simba realizes his dad is dead.

‘Well, this is not optimal,’ I think. I've been on this planet for nine years; I can see that much. But it’s too late to change the track, and so I tell myself, ‘It’s okay. I’m a performer. I can sell this.’ I put on an extremely solemn face and begin to execute a series of the world’s saddest somersaults.

Friends, when I say “sad” I mean it, in every possible sense of the word. Picture a nine year old with the gravest possible affect, determinedly doing somersaults to the slowest, most serious music she can imagine, in a careful ring around her friends who have actually learned any gymnastics whatsoever. Okay, now as the music starts to pick up and get more hopeful, imagine she gets real dizzy and in front of everyone, she rolls all the way directly off the mat, careening dangerously towards the assembled students.

Somehow, I roll myself back onto the mat, we survive what feels like hours of humiliation, we stagger away, and I blessedly avoid adding “puking my guts out in front of all of my peers” to my very short list of gymnastics tricks.

Later, I asked Ashley what in the world possessed her to choose that song.

“It didn’t have any words,” she said.

(There was absolutely no rule against using songs that had lyrics.)

Anyway, that’s why being an adult is better than being a kid.

I may have to do laundry and make my own dinner and wrestle with more complex existential angst, but you know what I haven’t been asked to do in like 26 years? Somersault for three minutes straight to the musical shorthand for “this cartoon lion cub has no choice but to process the weight of unimaginable grief for his dead dad.” And you know what? If I live another 50 years, I can be pretty confident nobody will ask me to do it then, either.

#what's the word for the opposite of nostalgia?

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ckret2 · 8 months ago

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Chapter 51 of human Bill Cipher is once more the Mystery Shack's prisoner: Dipper and Mabel try to figure out what the Axolotl's poem means; Dipper gets the hang of astral projection; and... whatever's going on up there happens.

####

Ford and Dipper came back into the shack through the gift shop; Ford didn't want to risk crossing paths with Bill. While Dipper went into the house, Ford went down—returning to the safety of his subterranean study.

Once Ford had put on the old black trench coat he'd worn during his multiversal travels and gotten comfortable at his desk, he pulled out Journal 5 to document the events of the last few days. In a cheap ballpoint pen, he wrote, I've lost my #1 Grunkle pen (and favorite coat) to the waters of Lake Gravity Falls. And then, deciding this didn't adequately express his feelings, he drew a small frown. That coat had served him well for decades, and he'd really liked that pen. It did write excellently, and it had reminded him of his gniece and gnephew.

He spent three pages documenting the eclipse—what happened, what readings he'd taken, what he and Dipper observed—and then another four pages talking about Bill. What he'd told them, why Ford had dismissed it; his claims about a trans-dimensional axolotl distorting gravity with its migration; the statue, the rescue, the breakdown.

The act of writing always helped Ford clarify his thoughts and untangle mysteries; it wasn't until he was writing that he realized the limbs Bill had said he couldn't feel were the ones that had broken off the statue.

He listed the rules of the chess variants he could remember Bill inventing. He drew Bill huddled in front of the board, grim, tear-streaked, exhausted; and then scratched out his face, embarrassed at the thought of immortalizing such a raw moment for his private viewing.

He wrote, There's still a slim possibility that the entire "eclipse," start to finish, was Bill's masterfully-orchestrated scheme to make us pity and trust him; but it's unlikely. Although Bill is fiendish enough, he isn't currently powerful enough, and his lies certainly aren't elaborate enough. If he could pull off such a byzantine ruse, then he could just as easily escape—and if he can escape, why hasn't he? Bill may be insane, but he's never been THAT irrational.

And so, even as twisted as Bill's idea of "friendship" is... for the very first time, I'm convinced that he was telling the truth all along when he said he wants me as his friend. It's not an act. He risked his life to save someone who's an active threat to him.

And at the end of it all—though I'm grateful to be alive in spite of my own stubbornness—do I like him any better for it?

Ford leaned back and shut his eyes, sifting through the inner tumult of anger and old hurt that defined most of his memories of Bill, looking to see if anything had changed.

There was a sore, tender spot in his emotions, a place beginning to rot with remorse; when he prodded at those emotions, he found that it was shame over his own harsh conduct of the last couple of days. But he was only ashamed of how cruelly he'd acted; he wasn't ashamed that Bill was the one he'd done it to.

Outside of that tender spot—regret over his own behavior—nothing else had changed.

No. I still hate him. I'm grateful to be alive, but I hate him. He hasn't undone anything he did to my family and me, and he never will. Forgiveness can't be purchased with favors.

I'm only relieved at the certainty of it. Bill has committed an act that can't possibly be a lie. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he's shown me the truth; and the truth is he'd rather see me alive than dead. Whatever other lies he may tell, I can hold on to that fact.

Bill's miserable eyes peered out at Ford between the scribbles he'd drawn across his face. It was truly a pity that Ford had to hate him. Pity that Bill hadn't been somebody better. He could have been better.

Ford couldn't find it in himself to be embarrassed that he'd filled four pages talking about the monster he'd already wasted so many more on. Bill had been right about him: You might hate me to my face, but behind my back you're as obsessed with me as ever. The only thing Bill didn't understand was that hatred and obsession weren't mutually incompatible.

####

"Hey, Dipper," Mabel said, unfolding the living room sofa bed.

"Hey, Mabel," Dipper said, passing through living room on his way to the stairs. He climbed up to the attic.

He came back down from the attic. "Mabel. Why's Bill asleep in your bed."

"He really needed a nap," Mabel said.

"Okay but why on your bed?"

Mabel pouted. "Dipper, do you realize he's never slept on a real bed? Ever?"

Dipper tried to imagine sleeping on a couple couch cushions on the floor every night. "Yeah, okay, that does kinda suck." Even if it was Bill's own fault he wouldn't sleep in the living room.

By unspoken mutual agreement, having a Bill in the bedroom followed the same law as finding a centipede in the bathroom. The law was "that's the centipede's bathroom now." So once the folding bed was set up, they sat on it to serve as their hang-out spot for the evening and caught each other up on what they'd done the last couple of days.

After Dipper & Co. had left, Grenda had come over to take advantage of the low gravity to retrieve the kite that had been stuck in a tree near the Mystery Shack since last summer (it was, tragically, too tattered to salvage), and then they'd gone over to Candy's house to photograph each other performing feats of impossible strength. (Mabel would be sending some pictures to their parents to confuse them, and adding the rest to her summer scrapbook.) She'd spent the next day breaking the trampoline world record until Soos came outside and said gravity was probably too low for it to be safe to be up in the air anymore, if Bill's warnings about being off the ground when gravity hit zero were true; at which point Mabel had hung around inside air-swimming until she suddenly slammed against the ceiling, and then the ground. She was fine. She just had a couple of bruises. She showed Dipper her bruises.

In return, Dipper told Mabel about how their quest had gone: the checks for micro-rips, Bill's increasingly frantic warnings, the lake—

("You got to see a bajillion magical axolotls and I didn't?!")

—the cliff, the Axolotl, Dipper's near-death experience, and what he now knew about his out-of-body dreams.

"Seriously?" Mabel hissed, eyes bugging out. "And he had us looking up lucid dreaming books! What a jerk!"

"I know! He could have just ignored the whole thing, we didn't even think it was anything but dreams."

"And I'd thought he was being so helpful, too! Like he was really trying to make up for giving you 'nightmares'!" Mabel laughed in disbelief and flopped down on the flimsy mattress. "All that because he just didn't want us to know how it was really his fault? Biiill, ugh."

His fault. Dipper hesitated, wondering whether he should tell Mabel what Bill had said about Mabel's Fault; then decided against it. Bill had probably been telling the truth when he'd said he only wanted all the credit for Weirdmageddon.

But—Dipper did tell her about Bill saving their lives. He would have felt like a liar if he hadn't—like he was trying to trick his sister into thinking Bill was worse than he already was. He hoped Ford wouldn't mind; but how could he not tell Mabel?

"He could have just let you die and didn't?" Mabel turned that over in her head, processing this sudden shift in Bill's behavior. "Wow. I'm impressed."

He also told her about their previous encounter with the Axolotl. Considering the other lies Bill had told recently, anything he said about them meeting the Axolotl was dubious at best; but Dipper could remember the Axolotl, so maybe some of it was true, even if Bill had twisted as much as he could. ("The Axolotl said hi, by the way." "Aww. Tell him hi back!" "Yeah, I... don't know how to do that.")

Dipper laid out his journal between them on the folding bed, and Mabel read over the couplet a few times. "'Sixty degrees that come in threes, watches from within birch trees'..."

"It's got to be talking about Bill," Dipper said. "Equilateral triangles have three sixty-degree angles. I just don't know why the Axolotl wanted to talk to us about him."

Mabel frowned at the lines. "I think... I remember meeting him too," she said.

"You do?"

"Kinda. Like in a dream," she said. "We were in some kind of futury space race car. And he had a really comfortable beanbag chair."

"Yes! I remembered the beanbag chair, too!" And he hadn't mentioned it in his journal. "This is great! Talking about it must... must cause us to remember, somehow. Maybe since the universe where we met the Axolotl doesn't exist anymore, our memories of it are... detached or something? Psychically floating around between dimensions until we try to remember them?" He took in Mabel's skeptical frown and shrugged. "I don't know!"

She scrunched up her face. "Ugh. Last summer's first-grader time travel was complicated enough. This is like college-level time travel. Maybe we can ask Bill how it works?"

She said it so easily, like she thought it was actually a good idea. Right after she'd heard about the lucid dreaming thing, too. "I don't think he'd help." Dipper lowered his voice. "He really didn't want Grunkle Ford and me to find out about the Axolotl—and he kept telling me not to think about what the Axolotl told me. He's trying to cover something up."

"Oo-oo-ooh." Voice dropped to a whisper, Mabel said, "Do you think it's some kind of Space Axolotl conspiracy?"

"It could be," Dipper said. "All I know is he was trying to tell us something important about Bill. Some kind of prophecy, or... maybe a warning...?"

He trailed off. Mabel had stopped listening to Dipper. She was rereading the couplet Dipper had written, moving her lips like she was murmuring under her breath—but whatever she was saying, it was much longer than the couplet Dipper had written down. Distractedly, she said, "Do you have a pen?"

"Yeah, here." Dipper quickly handed over the pen he kept in his vest.

Mabel clicked it, went to the bottom of the page, and wrote: A different form, a different time.

Dipper sucked in a sharp breath as the words snapped into place in his mind. "That's it! That was the last line! What else do you remember?"

"That's it," Mabel said. "It was free form poetry with a bunch of rhyme pairs."

"I don't think free form poetry rhymes."

"Pbbbt." Mabel blew a raspberry and shoved Dipper's face. "Whatever! You know what I mean." She pointed at the last line. "Do you think the poem's about why Bill's here? He time traveled to the Mystery Shack in a new body..."

"Exactly! Bill must be back here for a reason. He's got all those powers—or, used to, anyway—and he knows more about the multiverse than anybody on Earth... Maybe there's some kind of big threat coming, and Bill's the only one who can stop it, and—and the Axolotl wanted us to know...?"

"I like the sound of that," Mabel said. "That'd basically make him a hero, right?"

Dipper grimaced. "I mean. I guess? But we're talking about Bill. If he does help us stop a threat, it'd be like if a serial killer picked up a hitchhiker and killed him, and then it turned out the hitchhiker was an even worse serial killer."

"That still sounds kinda heroic to me."

"Pfff, okay." He looked at his journal. "But... what is he here to do?"

Mabel considered what they'd already written. "Maybe we can use him to spy on our enemies through birch trees!"

"Thaaat's probably not it."

"No, I think I'm on to something. I can feel it."

There was a lot of empty space between his couplet and Mabel's line. "There's more we're missing, though. Maybe the rest of the poem describes the threat? Or what we need to get Bill to do?"

"I can't remember anything else, though."

"Me neither."

They stared at the page together, waiting for something to come to their blank minds. Mabel looked at the fish tank. "Hey, Primrose! Do you know anything?"

The pet axolotl in the tank ignored her serenely.

Dipper said, "'Primrose'?"

"Yeah, last summer Grunkle Stan said her name is Freakface, but I thought she deserved a cuter name. She's primrose color!"

"Ford says he originally named him Nikola."

Mabel gasped. "Nikki..."

Dipper twisted around to look at the axolotl. "Do you know anything? Do you... get messages from the Axolotl's heralds, or anything...?"

Nikola slowly opened his mouth, and slowly closed it.

Mabel said, "Hey. The Axolotl's one of those dimension-crossy time-travely guys, right? He probably wouldn't have given us a prophecy in the wrong timeline and then made us forget it unless he knew we'd remember it in time in the rightdimension!"

"I guess," Dipper said uncertainly.

"So we don't need to worry about it! We'll remember it when we need to."

"Unless this timeline's going to branch, and the only one where we survive is the one where we put all our effort into trying to remembering—"

"Shhh!" Mabel put a finger over Dipper's mouth. "Uh-uh. No college time travel. We'll be fine!"

Dipper pushed her over. "Okay, but we should at least try a little to remember what the Axolotl told us."

"What if we work on it separately?" Mabel propped herself up on an elbow. "Instead of just sitting around thinking about it. And whenever we remember a line, we can tell each other and see if it makes anything click."

"That might be faster," Dipper said, stroking his chin. "We're already remembering different lines."

"Yeah! And that lucid dreaming book said something about focusing on a problem before you sleep so you can figure it out in your dreams! We can just work on it in our sleep and we'll remember it all in no time!"

Dipper laughed. "What? No way, I think lucid dreaming is just one of those made up pop psychology things. I didn't get it to work at all." Either it didn't work or Bill had deliberately recommended a terrible book.

"I did! I can remember like... eighty percent more dreams. And I can tell when I'm dreaming a lot more often!"

"Huh." Or, maybe Dipper just wasn't doing it right. "Maybe I need to start over from step one. Do you know where the book we were using went?"

"Over here!" Mabel had set a couple library books on the end table next to the sofa bed; she pulled out the second one, which had a glittery pink bookmark with a cat on it stuck two-thirds of the way through. "Just don't lose my bookmark."

"Thanks." He'd reread the first step before bed. "We should probably be getting ready for bed anyway, huh?"

"Seriously?! It's barely bedtime!" And when the adults weren't watching, official bedtime was an hour and a half before Actual Bedtime.

"I'm exhausted. I just hiked up and down a mountain and faced down death."

Mabel pointed at Nikola. "You faced down a big salamander."

"Close enough."

They went upstairs, brushed their teeth, went to their bedroom...

And stopped in the door. Bill was still asleep. "Oh. Right," Dipper said.

He was curled into a ball on his left side, facing the wall, covered with only the zodiac blanket and his borrowed/stolen top hat sitting on the side of his head. He didn't use a pillow; he'd pushed Mabel's pillows and dolls behind himself to form a squishy makeshift fortress.

"Please don't wake him up," Mabel whispered. (She'd already set up the folding bed for herself; she'd clearly planned on this.) "He's had a really really hard time the last couple of days, and I think he needs as much sleep in a real bed as he can get, and it's just for one night, and I'm sure he'd rather sleep than do anything evil—"

"He said something, didn't he?"

Mabel paused. "Yeah. I think seeing his body really messed him up."

Dipper sighed. "We were trying to keep him away from it." He didn't want Mabel to think they'd forced him to stare his own death in the face. "But he did that... eye thing and looked through the trees, and..."

Mabel nodded.

Well. Dipper couldn't kick him out now. For Mabel's sake.

As children, occasionally when they got hotel rooms with a bed too few, their parents would stick them in one bed with a barrier of pillows in between them. At age thirteen and without two crabby parents trying to get them to just go to bed after a long plane flight, they unanimously vetoed that plan. Dipper decided against asking Stan if he could sleep in Ford's unoccupied bed, both because he suspected Stan would just go upstairs and drag Bill out of the room and because he didn't want Stan to think he was scared of Bill. He wasn't scared of Bill. Not anymore. He could handle one measly night in the same room as him. Anyway, somebody had to make sure he wasn't unsupervised in their bedroom all night, right?

Dipper and Mabel quietly set a floor mirror and old lamp next to Mabel's bed, draped a sheet between them, taped on a pink poster that said "WARNING! TRIANGLE ZONE!" and was covered in stickers of triangular objects, and decided Dipper was adequately shielded. If Bill did get up during the night, he'd probably trip through the sheet and wake half the house before he got anywhere near Dipper.

Dipper went to sleep with a baseball bat in his hands.

####

"Okay," Bill said, hands on his sides, "what am I looking at here?"

The feral band members of Sev'ral Timez turned toward Bill, eyes reflecting in the dim light. They were squatting around Bill's petrified corpse like a pack of apes examining a sleek black monolith.

"Hey girl," Creggy G. said.

"Hey," Bill said. He looked down at himself. His onyx black feet hovered over the ground and the yellow glow from his exoskeleton illuminated the clearing. "Lemme cut to the chase, is this gonna turn into a raunchy dream? My corporeal love life is about as cold and dry as Antarctica, I keep hoping one of my dreams will get a little hotter and wetter—"

"Nah, G," Deep Chris said. "Mr. Bratsman got us fixed."

"Aw."

"We're here to pay you reverence for freeing our minds from the chains of the conventional," Greggy C said, gesturing to Bill's corpse. Leggy P was kneeling and bowing to it and Chubby Z was posing for it. "We want to help free you like you tried to help free humanity."

Bill's eye narrowed. He tapped a finger against the edge of one brick as he considered this offer. Finally, skeptically, he said, "Fine. I'll bite. Why should I think you can help me?"

"Because we can give you the understanding your heart's been missing, girl. You're just like us," Chubby Z said. "A horror never meant to exist, born of a dream to construct the perfect golden idol, forced to dwell within an unnaturally-fabricated human shell."

Bill tilted his head thoughtfully. "I'm with you so far."

"We want you to join us," Deep Chris said. "Cavort with us in the silvan night, G. Shun the harsh light of the spotlight for the healing salve of moonbeams. We'll get drunk on the sweet fermented summer berries, uncaring of how the brambles prick our flesh. We'll dance in a frenzy of ecstasy and only sleep when the morning sun lifts the dew from the flowers and the sweat from our skin. It'll be straight Dionysian, boo."

"We can kiss the hot trees," Creggy G said.

Bill grabbed his shoulder. "Oh, you're the human that keeps making out with birch trees! I knew your face was familiar!" He paused. "So... are there any eligible ones around here?"

"Sure, girl, just downstream."

"If I'd known, I would've polished myself first."

"Say you'll join us, Bill girl," Deep Chris said. The band crowded around Bill to either side, posing around him—the backup dancers for the star singer. "You'd be one of us."

"We're already exactly the same," Creggy G said, holding up a mirror so that it reflected his and Bill's faces beside each other. In Bill's human face were two empty white eyes with pinprick pupils and pale blue irises, exactly the same as the eyes of the Sev'ral Timez boys.

He sat up with a gasp, hands flying to his face. There were still green boughs at the edges of his dreaming vision, blending into the wooden boards of the Mystery Shack's attic. Before sleep had fully fled his mind, he seized up the zodiac blanket draped over his body and stared into his embroidered eye.

The eye stared back at him. Through it, he could see his horrified sleepy face, and his normal slitted yellow eyes. His connection to the blanket's eye disappeared as he finished waking up.

He heaved a sigh of relief and flopped back down. He'd been lucid, but he hadn't been in control of that dream. He still needed practice.

He rolled toward the light of the window, groped around beneath it until he found his journal, grabbed up his crayons, and flipped pages blearily until he found the first blank one. He started writing down his dream, pausing only briefly as he tried to figure out how to translate "Sev'ral Timez" before settling on a sufficiently goofy way to misspell "several times" in Plaintext.

He made it halfway down the page before he stopped. Hold on. This wasn't his beautiful journal. These were not his beautiful crayons. He checked the cover and grimaced in displeasure when he saw a pine tree rather than a hand. Dipper's journal. Bill ripped out the page, ate it, and set the journal and Mabel's crayons back on the table under the bedroom window.

"What was that," Dipper asked, "some kind of Morse code?"

Bill yelped and twisted around. Dipper's soul was hovering above Mabel's headboard, watching over Bill's shoulder.

"Hey! Back, foul ghost!" Bill snatched up Mabel's pillow and swung it at Dipper.

"Ow—Hey! How did you hit me, I'm in the mindscape—"

"I said back!" Bill swung again, chasing Dipper off the bed. "Back into your fleshy tomb!" He climbed off the bed, stumbled into Dipper and Mabel's trap, tripped through the sheet and probably woke up half the house.

He yanked the sheet off and flung the pillow at Dipper by its corner. "Now get back in your body, go to sleep, and leave me alone."

"I don't know how to get back in it. I just wait until it happens by itself," Dipper said, floating irritably over his sleeping body, arms crossed. "Why do you think I just wander around every time I have this dream?" He paused. "Right—it's not a dream, is it."

Bill sighed heavily. "Try putting your body on like..." He almost said like an exoskeleton, remembered his audience, and amended himself: "Like it's clothing. I usually start with the hands. Just like putting on gloves!"

Dipper looked at the cold fingers wrapped tightly around the baseball bat. "How do I put hands on like gloves? There's no opening or—"

"Just try it, would you?" Bill sat tiredly on the edge of Mabel's bed.

Dipper shot him an irritated look, but pressed his ghostly hands against his fleshly ones, passing through the skin until one set of fingers rested inside the other. A fingertip twitched.

Bill gestured with one hand, continue. "Now the sleeves."

"I know how to get dressed." Dipper laid down in his body, forearm into forearm, shoulder into shoulder—until he was wholly back inside. He sat up, awake. "Huh."

"There, see?" Bill said. "And if you want to take it back off, just do the same thing in reverse. Like degloving your body from your soul!"

"Did you have to phrase it like that?" Still, Dipper tried it, peeling out of his body from the fingertips up. He left his body sitting upright as he hovered over it.

Bill chuckled tiredly. "Lookit your face, staring at nothing. Stupid looking."

"Shut up." He slid back into his body, more quickly now that he knew what he was doing.

"Great," Bill said. "Now that you know how to get back in your body, never do that again." He flopped back onto Mabel's bed and rolled over to face the wall. "It's a pain in my base having you wander around all night."

"Then you should've thought of that before you ripped my soul out of my body," Dipper grumbled. "Can you reattach me to my body?"

"Sure, easy." He lifted a hand to point down at his regrettably human form. "Not like this, though. Wanna help reattach me to my body?"

"Never in a million years."

"Then come back in a million years. There's nothing I can do for you until then." Bill dragged Mabel's zodiac blanket back over himself. "So sorry. Go to sleep. Leave me alone."

Dipper bet Bill could do it and was only saying he couldn't to try to trick Dipper into helping him. But he lay back down—clutching his bat again—and shut his eyes.

After a moment, Bill asked, "Where's Mabel? Sleepover?"

"Sofa bed in the living room."

"Right."

And then there was silence.

Several minutes passed. Dipper nearly fell back asleep. He heard Bill climbing out of bed and creeping across the room; but the footsteps didn't approach Dipper's bed, so he didn't open his eyes.

A few minutes after that, Dipper heard him come back, walking more heavily. He cracked open an eye to see what Bill was up to.

He was carrying Mabel, who was still asleep; his arms were trembling from her weight, but even at that Dipper hadn't known Bill was that strong. With a quiet grunt, he set her on her bed, then haphazardly tossed her sheet and zodiac blanket over her. He picked up his top hat from the bed and put it on; and then he wandered off, footsteps quiet as a ghost, and Dipper heard the creak of the door as he left the bedroom.

That was a lot nicer than Dipper had expected from Bill. Maybe he did care about Mabel in his own way.

Mabel rolled over and latched on to one of her dolls. Dipper shut his eye and fell back asleep.

####

(My favorite part of writing this was Bill dreaming about Sev'ral Timez saying the most absurdly flowery things imaginable. Anyway, let me know what y'all think about this week's chapter! And reminder that I MIGHT skip next week or the week after because the next couple chapters need heavier editing than usual.)

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #sev'ral timez #(a tag i have never used before and will probably never use again.)#gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher

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mrsdarkandyandere7 · 7 months ago

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BNHA Boys: 1st Time Noncon

▶ This is a yandere/dark work and it may contain triggering content so please READ THE WARNINGS before. Do not read if minor.

More at Masterlist

Female Reader

Boys -> Hawks + Dabi + Bakugo

Warnings at each part (but the title is quite explicit, right?) + NSFW Link (be careful + on twitter (you need a account to see)

AN: Please, reblog and give me feedback + Gimme ideas

–

Hawks

-> Manipulation

Keigo is a cunning guy, always looking out for a way to get things done his way. He’s used to tricking people, using his tactics to reach his desired goals. But honestly? You have to be the biggest chump he’s ever met in his life.

Did you actually believe when he deeply sighed and pretended to relent to your begging, just before meekly offering you to walk away from him?

Did your ingenuous self really trust him when Keigo swore on his hero honor - what honor really? - that he’d let you go home, safe and sound?

But the reality is that you fell for it, like a bee attracted to honey. It’s moments like those that Keigo acknowledges how naive and kind-hearted you are. Too cute and good for this twisted, cruel world.

So that’s why a minor part of him is almost satisfied at the reluctance and doubt that shades your pretty face when he tells you the inflated price for your freedom.

You clearly don’t want to sleep with him. Your attempts to bargain are immediately turned down and it takes less than five minutes for you to crumble down.

Keigo almost feels bad at your distressed teary face. But hey, a win is a win.

You try to relax when he starts kissing and touching you. To be calm when he slowly starts making love to you.

But it feels so dead wrong and the overwhelming realization that Hawks was lying about letting you go finally hits you like a brick and you try to push him away, pointlessly make him get off from you.

But no point in that cause Keigo isn’t gonna let you go anywhere.

“Deal’s off, babe. I mean, I was willing to let you go and all, but since you ruined the whole mood…there was no need to fight me, ya know? I wasn’t forcing you into anything, was I? But since you broke your promise, I suppose I’m gonna have to keep you here with me.”

(VISUAL)

Dabi

-> Noncon

Dabi isn’t one to shy away from what he wants.

He takes what he wants, when he wants and how he wants and you don’t get any say in it.

So, if for a moment you actually believed you could argue or convince the black-haired villain to leave you alone, then you’re not up for a great start with him.

Dabi doesn’t care when you start crying, spirit battered over the small burns he gives you for trying to fight back. He doesn’t care for your wails of pain when he fucks you in the way he wants to.

Dabi is sadistic like that, he actually enjoys the terror that floods your entire face when he explains in extensive detail all the scary lustful needs he wants to fulfill by using you.

He’s definitely one to use tight ropes to bend you in uncomfortable positions when fucking you - just because they allow him better access and less struggle from you.

Doesn’t give a crap about your wellbeing or if you get to cum, those are unnecessary thoughts for him.

As long as Dabi gets to end his night with a few orgasms, he’s good.

“Oh sweetheart, there’s no point in begging. That’s not gonna change my mind. And can you even blame me? Just look at you, such a pretty body you have. You’re just too tempting to let go and trust me, I’m not planning to.”

(VISUAL)

Bakugo

-> Forced Oral - (male receiving)

Bakugo has mild-anger issues and everyone knows that so, if anything, it was entirely your fault for provoking the anger out of him.

You saw an opportunity to try an escape and you took it, even though it was meant to fail miserably.

Bakugo ends up wrestling you back inside the house, tightly clutching your hair as he angrily shouts at how much of an ungrateful brat you are.

He’s so damn pissed that you almost got away that he can’t control himself. All the adrenaline and anger mixing up in his blood and all he wants is to teach you a proper lesson. Scare you into submission. Make sure that you’ll never act up again.

His hands are cruel as he roughs you up a bit, ignoring your scared shrieks.

But the real punishment is the way he fucks your mouth.

His pace is so insanely fast, demanding and brutal, and he carries on without caring for the numerous times you gag and choke around his length, unable to pull away because of the vice grip he has on your scalp.

The way he facefucks you is humiliating and brutal, and the cherry on top of the cake is when Bakugo shoots his sticky cum all over your face before leaving you bruised up and with a hurting throat.

Afterwards, Bakugo might feel a bit bad because that’s definitely not how he planned your first time doing something intimate together, but on the bright side - you get much more obedient and calm towards him.

“The hell you giving me that pathetic look for, huh. You fuckin’ deserved that and you know that. Had you not acted all lunatic and none of this would’ve happened.”

(VISUAL)

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aewon · 1 month ago

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all night, in love — YJW

pairing- jungwon x fmr genre: fluff, e2l, fake dating ⚠️: kissing, cursing, slight slight very tiny angst (practically nonexistent) wc: 3k

You hate Yang Jungwon, and he hates you too.

The reason? You ACCIDENTALLY tripped him in front of his crush in 9th grade. You never knew someone could hold such a grudge for something that wasn’t on purpose.

Ever since that day, Jungwon has made it his life mission to make you miserable.

He doesn’t do anything physical, he just makes annoying, mean jabs at you whenever he can, which you don’t hesitate to fire back.

What you never expected was for him to come up to you, asking for a favor.

“A favor? Why would I ever want to help you?” You scoff at his audacity, turning away from him on the bench you’re currently occupying.

He doesn’t go away, instead sitting next to you on the other side, facing you.

“Please, I’ll do anything!” When you look at him, he’s pouting, something that’s never been directed toward you.

He almost looks…cute?

“Anything?” You ask, not concealing the smirk gracing your face.

“… As long as it’s nothing super crazy, yes.”

You ponder for a moment, what could you possibly need from Yang Jungwon.

“I’ll help you, but I’m not telling you what you’re doing until after we’re done! So what exactly is it that you need?”

Jungwon suddenly looks away from you, biting his lip as if he’s afraid to say it.

“Well? We don’t have all day.”

He looks down at the ground, twiddling his thumbs before finally speaking, “I need you to date me.”

You almost spit out the sip of coffee you just took.

“What?”

“Look, you know Yoona, right?”

You nod, having met the girl before in science class.

“I have a huge crush on her but she never notices any of my attempts to talk to her or engage so I figured if I’m dating someone, that’ll make her notice. Everyone knows we don’t like each other so it’ll make a huge spectacle.”

Your eyebrows furrow at his rhetoric.

“Everyone knows we don’t like each other, so they’ll definitely believe we just started dating? That makes no sense, Jungwon. Come on, you’re smarter than that.”

“We can say it was all a ruse! We just didn’t want people knowing how much we like each other so we pretended to have a fued instead.”

“Still doesn’t make sense. Our friends and peers aren’t stupid, they’ll see right through us.”

“Not if we’re convincing! We’re talking right now, right? Not arguing. We’ll just tell everyone we decided to come clean. Please do this for me, you know I’d never bother you with something like this otherwise.”

That is true, and although you can’t ever imagine yourself liking someone like Jungwon, it’s fake.

“Fine, I’ll do it.”

Jungwon, for the first time, gives you a genuine smile. One that’s not devolving into a sneer or fake.

“So, what do we do now?” He asks.

“Do you have any boundaries you don’t want crossed?”

He shakes his head, “I want this to be believable.”

Without warning, you tug him forward by his shirt, planting your lips on his.

You don’t open your eyes to see if he’s shocked or not, but soon you feel his lips moving with yours.

His large hand travels to cup the side of your face.

You don’t know how long you’re kissing for, or rather making out at this point, but you’re interrupted by the bell ringing.

As you pull away, Jungwon looks as if he’s in a daze.

Your eyes look around the courtyard and multiple people are staring at you, looking away quickly when they realize they’ve been caught.

“Bye boyfriend, I’ll see you later.” You wink, getting up from the bench and leaving to go to class.

The end of the school day comes quicker than not, and you wait outside for your friend Ningning so you can drive her home.

A hand comes to rest on your waist, and you turn to find Jungwon standing beside you.

“I figured I’d get your number now so none of our friends suspect us.”

You nod, taking his phone and putting your number in, texting yourself quickly.

You save his number in your own phone as “wonnie ❤️” while he saves yours as “babe 🩷.”

“You drive Ningning to school right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I’ll start driving the both of you, just text me your address and I’ll pick you up first tomorrow.”

“Sounds good, we should also figure out some kind of timeline for this relationship. When do we wanna say this started?”

Jungwon ponders for a moment, “A few months ago? Not too specific but not suspicious either. We could say after a while the dislike toward one another became tired and we decided to be friends which then developed into a relationship.”

“And why did we hide it?”

“Because we were embarrassed.” He shrugs and you nod along.

“Sounds good, we can figure out details later.”

Out in the parking lot, his group of friends are all staring at you. “I should get home,” Jungwon says, “we’re all hanging at my place and I know they’re dying to ask me about us.”

“Call me tonight?”

He nods, wrapping you up in a hug, pulling away to kiss your lips.

You can’t help but like the feeling of his lips on yours, or maybe it’s because you haven’t felt the kiss of someone in so long.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re obsessed with my lips. You like kissing me.” Jungwon smirks at your reddening cheeks.

“Please, it’s just been a while. The feeling is nice is all,” you respond, pushing him lightly.

He raises his hands in surrender before walking away, toward his friends whose eyes are on him like a hawk.

“What the actual fuck is going on!” You hear Ningning from a mile away as she quickly approaches you, “Why the hell did I have to find out from Minji that you and Jungwon are dating?”

“I’ll explain in the car.”

Ningning doesn’t hesitate to ask a million and one questions about your newfound relationship, and you answer to the best of your abilities without making too many plot holes.

You tell her about the new arrangement with Jungwon picking you both up which she agrees to easily.

After dropping her off, you make your way home to relax and de-stress.

You shower before changing into more comfortable clothes.

Your parents won’t be home for a while so you sit on the couch, watching Netflix with an after school snack.

You must’ve fallen asleep on the couch because when you open your eyes, you’re in your room and not on the couch.

You check for your phone, finding it on the nightstand beside you.

The time reads 8:00pm and you sigh. Now you’ll be up all night.

Your phone begins to ring, Jungwon’s name popping up.

“Hello,” you say, grogginess evident in your voice.

“Did I wake you?”

“No, I just woke up. I fell asleep after school, my dad must’ve moved me from the couch to my bed.”

“Okay, good. Did Ningning bombard you with questions? Because my friends did.”

“She absolutely did. I stuck with our plan and tried to avoid any personal questions.”

“Speaking of, I figured we should learn more about each other if we’re gonna make this work.”

You agree and begin asking each other questions.

Favorite color, hobbies, family info, things that a couple should know about one another.

You learn that you and Jungwon actually have a lot in common. You both love action movies, dogs, cats, food of course among other things.

It feels very normal talking to him like this, and not arguing or making jabs at each other.

It feels like you’ve been on the phone forever, checking the time as it reads 10:00pm.

“We’ve been on the phone for 2 hours. It’s crazy how quickly time passes.”

You hum, feeling yourself start to get tired again.

“Are you sleepy?” Jungwon asks, and you hum once more.

“Then we should cut this call here, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The only response Jungwon gets is your quiet breathing on the other end, knowing you’ve fallen asleep.

He smiles on his end, ending the call before going to sleep himself.

The next morning, Jungwon texts you that he’ll be there to pick you up at 7:15, then you’ll swing by Ningning’s.

You get ready quietly, deciding to dress up a bit.

When Jungwon arrives, you get in the passenger's side of his car, wishing him good morning.

“Morning,” he says before kissing your cheek.

You smile, side eyeing him slightly, “You know you don’t have to kiss me when we’re not around others.”

You see his cheeks flush pink, “I know, but I figured it’s better to be as natural as possible.”

“Ah, okay. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you just like kissing me,” you say, throwing his words from yesterday back at him.

“Pft!”

You playfully argue all the way to Ningning’s house.

When she gets in the car, she greets you and Jungwon like this is a normal occurrence.

You talk with Ningning the rest of the way to school, with Jungwon chiming in every once in a while.

When you arrive, Ningning leaves first, needing to see a teacher before class.

You and Jungwon get out, and he takes your hand in his larger one while he carries both your bag and his.

“Who knew you were such a sweetheart?” You laugh as he glares at you halfheartedly.

The cafeteria is where students wait for class to start if they’re at school early, so you and Jungwon find a quiet corner to occupy.

His friends come in and make their way to you.

They all greet you, albeit hesitantly as if this is all still one big prank.

You realize you’ve never taken the time to get to know any of them either, just associating them with Jungwon.

They’re actually very funny, making you laugh freely.

When the bell rings, everyone disperses.

Jungwon kisses you goodbye before handing you your bag and making his way to class while you do the same.

In class, you’re just doing self work, but people still talk quietly.

“Hey, Y/N,” a voice says from beside you.

You look up to see Yoona, the girl Jungwon was talking about.

“Hey Yoona, what’s up?” You whisper, trying not to draw any attention.

“I just wanted to ask you… since when have you and Jungwon been dating?”

She’s asking, that must mean she’s at least somewhat interested, right? This could be good for Jungwon.

“A few months. We just didn’t tell anyone cause we were kinda embarrassed.”

“Ah, I see. Good for you.”

You thank her and she goes back to her work while you do the same.

During lunch, which you unfortunately don’t share with Jungwon, you text him about Yoona.

“That’s cool, our plan must be working 😈,” he responds.

You eat with Ningning, gossiping as you always do.

Later on, Ningning texts you to tell you she won’t need a ride home. She has a project to work on with a classmate so they’re going to her house.

That leaves you and Jungwon alone in his car at the end of the day.

“Do you wanna come over?” He asks.

“Sure.”

The drive to his home is quiet, but he stops at the coffee shop to get you both something.

Your large caramel macchiato is delicious and you promise to pay Jungwon back but he dismisses you with a wave of his hand.

“Nothing’s too much for my girl.”

You don’t know why your heart beats so fast when he says that.

Arriving at his home, you leave your backpack in his car. He invites you inside and a white ball of fluff greets you eagerly.

It’s a dog and it sniffs you before jumping on your legs.

“This is Maeum,” Jungwon says, picking up the dog. “He likes meeting new people.”

“Hi Maeum!” You take the dog into your arms and he nuzzles into you immediately.

After he’s been put down, Jungwon takes you to his room.

“Do you wanna watch a movie?” He asks, and you agree.

He lets you choose and you pick a recently released action film.

As you lay on his bed, Jungwon puts his arm around you, pulling you close.

The sunlight from outside shines into the room, illuminating it in a beautiful glow.

As Jungwon seems to be entirely grossed in the movie, you take the opportunity to look at him.

His dark hair is fluffy, his bangs laying on his forehead.

His jaw is sharp even as he’s relaxed and his eyes are big and wide, watching the screen intently.

You admire his face, his nose is long and big, something you’ve always found attractive.

His lips are plump and so, so kissable as you already know.

You can’t help it, you take his face into your hand, turning it towards you.

“What?” He asks, staring into your eyes.

You lean forward, connecting your lips with his.

He responds immediately, pressing harder.

You move before you even realize it, swinging your leg over his lap to straddle him.

You’re making out eagerly, running your hands through his hair while his hands travel down your back to eventually rest on your thighs.

His tongue meets yours as it gets hotter inside the room.

You don’t know how long you spend there, your body pressed against his.

By the time you separate, both your lips and his are red and swollen.

Jungwon’s eyes are narrowed as they stare at you.

“What?”

“You must really like me or something,” he says, giggling as you hit his chest before moving to get off him.

“No,” he stops you, “stay here.”

You end up laying on top of him.

It’s quiet and he’s playing with your hair, gently, trying not to disturb you.

Time passes and before you know it, it’s 8:00 pm.

“I have to go home,” you tell Jungwon, who whines in protest.

“Don’t want you to go.”

“I know, but I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Jungwon concedes, and you both get up so he can drive you home.

The drive is quick and he’s bidding you goodbye, not before giving you a kiss.

After doing your night routine, you lay in bed, thoughts full of Jungwon.

It’s only been two days since your plan started but you feel different.

You feel happier, happier than you already were.

Is it because of Jungwon? You feel like the answer is obvious but you’re too afraid to admit it.

The next couple of days follow the same routine. You and Jungwon meet in the morning and hang out after school.

He takes you out for ice cream and coffee, takes you to the local park to have a picnic and more.

This fake relationship starts to feel more and more real everyday.

“Heeseung is hosting a party tomorrow, do you wanna go?” Jungwon asks, watching the tv while you pay attention to your phone.

You look up, “Sure.”

Jungwon hums in acknowledgment, his arm coming to wrap around your shoulders.

You unknowingly lean into his chest.

The next day, Saturday, you do nothing until it’s time to get ready for the party.

You find a pretty dress in your closet, one that’s not too revealing but just enough.

You text Jungwon a picture.

y/n: what do you think :p

wonnie ❤️: you look beautiful 🥰 i’ll be there in 5

In the car, you and Jungwon agree to stick together and send a text if you get separated.

The party is already thriving by the time you arrive.

You and Jungwon hold hands, walking through and greeting people.

You find the other guys in the kitchen, pouring drinks.

They greet you cheerfully, handing you a drink of something. You don’t know what it is, but it tastes good so you don’t complain.

You and Jungwon make your way to the dance floor, where your bodies are pressed against one another tightly.

After some time, you excuse yourself to the bathroom.

“Do you want me to come with you? I’ll stand outside?” Jungwon asks but you shake your head.

“I’ll be fine.”

Heeseung directs you to the bathroom upstairs.

You pass by people on your way there.

The light isn’t on and you knock, no one answers.

Once you deem it safe, you enter.

You lock the door and do your business.

After washing your hands, you make your way back downstairs.

Before you re-enter the living room, you hear two voices that sound familiar.

You choose to ignore it, wanting to find Jungwon.

You search for him for 5 minutes before giving up.

Making your way to the backyard, it’s empty, to your relief.

You sit on the outside table, breathing in the fresh air.

“Hey, I was looking for you,” Jungwon says from behind you.

“I was looking for you too but I got impatient after 5 minutes.” You laugh as he takes a seat beside you.

“Yoona came up to me,” he says.

“Oh? What’d she have to say?”

Jungwon takes a deep breath in, “She confessed to me.”

Oh.

“Oh? That’s…great, no? This is what you wanted. That means we can end this whole thing and—”

“I rejected her,” Jungwon says firmly.

Your eyebrows furrow in confusion, “But the whole plan was to get her to fall for you, I don’t understand?”

“I rejected her because I realized that I really like you. I know it’s only been a couple of days but you’re nothing like I thought you were. We feuded because I was being petty. I never took the time to really get to know you. You’re…amazing, to put it lightly. You’re smart and kind, funny, we have so much in common and at this point I don’t see myself with anyone except you.”

You reel in Jungwon’s confession. Here you thought he was going to break everything off.

“Jungwon, I like you too, a lot.”

He lets out a breath you didn’t realize he was holding, “You do?”

“Yeah, I’ve realized how sweet and kind you are. The thought of you being with Yoona made me crazy but I didn’t want to get hurt by rejection.”

“Well you don’t have to worry. You have me, no matter what.”

He kisses you, fiery and passionately.

The next day as you walk hand in hand with Jungwon around town, you think you’ve hit the jackpot.

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hedgehog-moss · 5 days ago

Note

Pls give recommendations for Odd books 🙏

Here we go, a list of literary oddity :) This post contains majestic spheres, alien taxonomies, cruel subway polytheism, a fourth-dimensional cat, disturbing earthworms, infinite space football, existential mussel terror, a Parisian absurdist time loop, and a picture of a telegraph-pole-man-cheetah. I'm not exactly recommending these books, in the sense that I won't take any complaints if you find them more odd than good, and some of them transcend the concepts of good and bad anyway.

• The Other City, Michal Ajvaz. It's all like this:

• Contes du demi-sommeil, Marcel Béalu ('Half-asleep tales') —is the book that prompted my post about stories that have no ambition or justification beyond being odd. I'm sad that it hasn't been translated :( One of the tales is about a strange opaline sphere that rolls on the road. It doesn't accelerate when the road becomes a steep slope but continues rolling majestically. At one point it floats away towards the sky. Someone wonders if it was the moon. Someone else says authoritatively "It was an angel's egg." Everyone is reassured by this explanation. The whole thing feels exactly like remembering a dream you had. There is also a man who reads too much and whose body atrophies so only his head is left and his wife puts it in an egg cup for better stability.

• Leonora Carrington— The Skeleton's Holiday, or maybe the Hearing Trumpet. I've read them so long ago but I think the latter is the one with the old ladies and nuns? There's also a guy who was murdered in his bath by a still-life painter because he said there was a carrot in one of his paintings, but it might not have been a carrot? It's hard to remember details from this book without feeling like I might be making them up. Bonus Leonora Carrington painting which kind of feels like a short story:

• The Codex Seraphinianus, of course. I wish there were more bizarre encyclopaedias out there.

Also I love this review:

• Sleep Has His House, Anna Kavan —I really liked the way this book used language; making life feel like a fever dream even more than in Samanta Schweblin's Fever Dream (which I really liked too.)

The eye is checking a record of silence, space; a nightmare, every horror of this world in its frigid and blank neutrality. The actual scope of its orbit depends on the individual concept of desolation, but approximate symbols are suggested in long roving perspectives of ocean, black swelled, in slow undulation, each whaleback swell plated in armour-hard brilliance with the moonlight clanking along it . . .

• The second half of Michael Ende's Neverending Story, where things get stranger! I remember the hand-shaped castle with eyes and the city of amnesiac former emperors and the miserable ugly worms who cry all the time out of shame then create beautiful architecture with their tears...

• The Gray House, Mariam Petrosyan. This is the one I had in mind when I talked about a 'museum of the strange, but one you wouldn't want to be trapped in after closing time'. Another book that made me feel uncomfortable in a similar (good) way was Edward Carey's Observatory Mansions, the protagonist of which is a man who curates an odd private museum and can't stand the sight of his own hands.

• Oh, speaking of uncomfortable, and hands—He Digs A Hole, by Danger Slater. To me this book was in the more-odd-than-good category but I liked its refusal to have a coherent philosophical meaning. It's about a man who can't sleep so he goes to his garden shed and saws off his hands and replaces them with gardening tools. Then he starts digging a hole. And then it gets weird. (Read at your own discretion if you have a worm phobia; there's some body horror featuring sexually aggressive earthworms. And then it gets disturbing.)

• 17776 — Someone sent me an ask a few years back to recommend this online multimedia narrative to me and I really enjoyed it! Here's the summary, borrowed from the wiki page: Set in the distant future in which all humans have become immortal and infertile, the series follows three sapient space probes that watch humanity play an evolved form of American football in which games can be played for millennia over distances of thousands of miles. The work explores themes of consciousness, hope, despair, and why humans play sports.

• Saint-Glinglin, Raymond Queneau —the author admitted that this book presents some "internal discontinuities." I didn't like it much but I respect the talent it takes to write a novel where everything feels like a random digression, including the key suspenseful scene that matters to the plot. The one digression I loved had to do with the way the narrator is existentially horrified by various sea creatures. It's like he dreads them so much he can't help but think about them when he should be telling a story.

The oyster... This gob of phlegm, this brutal way of refusing the outside world, this absolute isolation, and this disease: the pearl... If I conceptualise them even a little, my terror starts anew. The mussel is even more significant than the oyster and even more immediately admissible in the domain of terror. Let us indeed consider that this little sticky mass whose collective stupidity haunts our piers, consider that it is alive in the same way as a cow. Because there are no degrees in life. There is no more or less. The whole of life is present in every animal. To think that the mussel, that the mussel has, not a conscience, but a certain way of transcending itself: here I am once again plunged into abysses of anxiety and insecurity.

Near the beginning he philosophises about what would happen if a man and a lobster were the only two survivors of the apocalypse. The lobster would break the man's toe and the man would say, "We are the only beings that remain on this devastated Earth, lobster! The only living beings in the universe, struggling alone against the universal disaster, don't you want to be allies?" But the lobster would disdainfully walk away towards the ocean, and "the sight of the inflexible and imperturbable lobster pierces the sky of humanity with its unintelligible claws." (I can't overstate how little this has to do with the rest of the book.)

• Autumn in Beijing, Boris Vian —needless to say the story does not take place in autumn nor in Beijing.* To the extent that it can be said to be "about" something, it's about people trying to build a train station in a desert with tracks that lead nowhere. (I just went on goodreads to check the title, and it's actually called Autumn in Peking in English. I also discovered that it was featured in a list of Books I Regret Reading. I liked this book, but I understand.)

(* French writers love doing this—like when Alphonse Allais said about his 1893 book The Squadron's Umbrella "I chose this title because there aren't any umbrellas of any sort in this volume, and the important notion of the squadron, as a unit of the armed forces, is never brought up at all; in these conditions, hesitating would have been pure madness.")

• The Library at Mount Char, Scott Hawkins—I fear this one makes a little too much sense for this list, but you can't say it isn't weird; and I loved it and recommend it any chance I get.

• The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer, Carol Hill —this book was so wacky and made me laugh. I've not yet managed to successfully recommend it to someone; its brand of odd didn't resonate with the people I know who've read it but that's okay. You could say it's about a woman astronaut whose weird cat disappears into the fourth dimension (or the quantum realm?) and she goes to space to save him—but that makes the book sound more straightforward and less messy than it is. Her cat leaves her a note before he disappears:

• The Bald Soprano, Ionesco —fun fact, there's a tiny theatre in the Latin Quarter in Paris where this absurdist play has been staged every night for nearly 70 years, with the exact same set design and costumes and everything, like the actors are stuck in a time loop. They celebrated the 20,000th performance this year! There's an actress who has been playing her character for 40 years and said joining this theatre was like joining a religion. I've been going to see this play as a New Year tradition with my best friend since we were 14, so I love it madly, though I wouldn't say it's good, necessarily—the author said it was about "absolutely nothing, but a superior nothing."

• Statuary Gardens; or Les Mers perdues (apparently not translated) by Jacques Abeille. This man is obsessed with weird statues. Unfortunately I find his writing style rather dull—I feel like he takes strange ideas and makes them feel mundane in a bad way...! But his books still have a nice, quiet, oneiric atmosphere, and images that stayed with me, like a solitary gardener trying to grow stone statues in the depleted soil of a walled garden. Here are some illustrations from the second one:

I'll look into some of the books recommended on my previous post! (and I agree with the people who brought up Cortázar, Borges, and Junji Ito. <3) Some potentially-odd books I have on my to-read list: Clive Barker's Abarat, Goran Petrović's An Atlas Traced by the Sky, Salvador Plascencia's The People of Paper, Jean Ray's Malpertuis; Jan Weiss's The House of a Thousand Floors; Brice Tarvel's Pierre-Fendre.

#ask #book recs #i know i've made some of these sound barely readable but it would be risky to oversell them #it's funny how indignant i felt when i first thought that saint-glinglin didn't exist in english translation even though objectively it #wouldn't have been a huge loss and i don't think english speakers are clamouring for more crustacean existentialism after sartre's lobsters #but they should get to choose not to read this book!

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cressidagrey · 1 month ago

Text

It's a Love Story - Chapter 10

Summary:

Azriel's shadows find their master a wife.

Azriel would just really like his heart not to get broken again.

And Sky...well, she's just really surprised that that far too handsome male is interested in her at all.

Warning:

Rhys Bashing (as usual), I classified this as Azriel x OC, even when it't technically Azriel x Sellyn Drake (but we kinda know nothing about Sellyn Drake other than that she writes books so Sky is kinda an OC), Cassian is kinda a good guy for once, Azriel has a horrible time, as usual... Stuttering, toxic families (For once I do not mean the IC), Self-Esteem Issues, Secret Identity, Body Image Issues, Fat Shaming, People being utterly horrible. Racism against Illyrians/Lesser Faes?

If any of this triggers you or makes you uncomfortable, please take care of your own mental health and don't read it.

“Azriel is fine,” Gwyn repeated drily, her nose buried in a book.

Her friends got to hear all about Nesta’s worry.

“You don’t know that,” Nesta said with a sigh. “I just…gods, I want to throttle Rhysand,” she seethed. For doing this to Azriel.

To Az. Who had always been kind to her. Who had always been…sweet to her. Who was sweet. Even when his exterior didn’t betray that. Who was kind and thoughtful and gave the best gifts…Who had sat with her when she had waken up from nightmares and had been willing to lay down his life to make sure that her sister would be happy.

He was like a brother to Nesta. He was what she had always imagined an older brother to be like. And she knew that he had been utterly miserable, but hadn’t been able to fix what was wrong for him…and now she got to find out that it was all Rhysand’s fault.

Emerge just sighed. “Get in line,” her friend said drily. “Mor wants to do worse than that to him, I think.”

Nesta held back a snort. She believed it once she saw it and not before.

“He is fine. Quite happy even,” Gwyn repeated, a small grin painting her features.

“How do you know?” Nesta demanded, turning to her red-haired friend who just smiled at her.

“Because I saw him yesterday,” Gwyn said simply.

"You saw him?" Nesta asked, her eyes widening in surprise. "Where? When?" When had Gwyn.

Gwyn just sighed. “Why would a male and a female that love each other very much come to see a Priestess?”

Nesta's eyes widened as she realized what Gwyn was implying.

"You don't mean..." she trailed off, shock and disbelief etched on her face. "They're getting married?" she said weakly.

Gwyn just grinned at her, miming to lock up her mouth and throw away the key. "Let's just say that Azriel couldn't have been more in love if he had tried," she said cryptically, flipping the page of her book with a smirk.

“Who is she?” Nesta demanded. Who was Azriel’s mate? Who was the girl that the mother had picked to be good enough for Az?

“Sweet. Quiet,” Gwynn answered easily. “Thinks Azriel hung the moon and the stars.”

That was what he deserved, wasn’t it?

Azriel deserved happiness after everything he had been through, and if his mate could provide that for him, then that was all that mattered.

"Azriel deserves someone who loves him that much," she said, nodding in agreement. "Does he seem happy too?" she asked in a quiet voice.

"He's as happy as I've ever seen him," Gwyn answered, her expression softening. "He couldn't take his eyes off her the whole time. It was like the rest of the world didn't even exist."

Nesta smiled, feeling a sense of warmth thrumming through at the thought of Azriel being so happy. "I'm glad he's found someone who makes him feel that way," she said softly. "He deserves it."

Gwyn just smiled, her eyes twinkling. "I think they're good for each other," she said simply. "They just...fit together, you know?"

That’s what Nesta wished for for him.

And once she had that confirmation… well, it was much easier to calm Cassian.

Who had been near rabid with… Nesta wasn’t even sure with what. A bad conscience maybe. Anxiety, anger…a whole maelstrom of emotions.

"Talk to me," she said simply, as she sat down on the ground a few feet away from where he was stabbing one of the training dummy. She had half expected him to pin a painting of Rhysand to it, to stab his brother’s proxy. “Stop reducing every training double to kindle,” she said drily.

“Az said three days,” and he wasn’t there this morning,” Cassian snapped.

"Calm down," Nesta said firmly. "Azriel is a grown male, Cassian. He can take care of himself. Maybe something came up."

Like breakfast with his wife after they got married.

"But what if he's hurt or...or worse?" Cassian said, his voice cracking with emotion. "We don't even know where he is or what he's doing."

Nesta sighed, knowing that she couldn't brush off his concerns completely. "Look. He said he would be with his mate," Nesta said drily. "I am sure she'll take care of him. And Gwyn did see him yesterday and said he was fine."

"Why did Gwyn see him?" Cassian demanded immediately.

“Because I had a favour to ask," Azriel's voice came from behind them, drily.

Cassian turned around so quickly that she was quite sure that he got whiplash...and then pounced on Azriel in a bonecrushing hug.

"I am so sorry," she could hear her mate apologise. "I had a talk with Rhys. I imagine you'll get a apology from him as well. It's not enough, it's nowhere near enough, but...maybe it could be a start," Cassian said softly. "I am sorry that you didn't feel like you could come to me when you found your mate."

Even when Azriel had a temper...if it was about his family he was more forgiving than they had any right to, Nesta reflected drily, as she watched him return the hug from Cassian.

"It's not your fault," he waved him off, his voice dry. Cassian disagreed with that assessment, Nesta knew. Cassian thought that he should have said something earlier, done more...

She had never seen him as angry with Rhysand as he had been over the last few days. Actually, Nesta hadn’t thought that she would ever see the day that Cassian broke his High Lord's nose on purpose.

Cassian pulled back slightly from the hug, his expression still earnest. "I mean it, Az," he said. "I should have been there for you. I should have had your back."

"He did break Rhys'nose on your behalf," Nesta said drily.

Azriel's lips twitched into a faint smile. Thank you," he said, amusement in his voice. "That...means more than you know."

Cassian just shrugged, still feeling guilty for not having been there for Azriel when he needed him. "I should have been a better brother to you," he said quietly. "I'm sorry I let you down."

Azriel said nothing, but squeezed Cassian’s shoulder.

Nesta couldn’t help but look for a ring on his hand. A simple gold band glinted there on his finger, and she was unable not to smile at it.

“Congratulartions,” she said quietly, nodding to the ring and Azriel looked at her and then the ring…and then he chuckled as she stood up and hugged him too.

“Thank you,” he thanked her graciously.

“You got married?!” Cassian said, sounding shocked, but the warmth in his voice was apparent. “Congrats!”.

"So, tell us all about her," Nesta said seriously.

"Why do you want to know?" Azriel asked, staring at her.

"Because she is your mate. She is your wife. She is important to you," Nesta said simply. "She is important to you, so she is important to us. What's her name?"

"Her name is Sky," he answered softly.

Sky.

Her name was Sky.

Named after what Azriel hadn’t been allowed to feel for over a decade. Sky. Named after what every Illyrian held dearest.

"Sky is...the sweetest person I have ever met. With the bluest eyes. She loves books and her cat," Azriel explained, a soft smile on his face.

Nesta and Cassian exchanged a small smile at the way Azriel's face lit up when he talked about Sky. "She sounds amazing," Nesta said sincerely. "We can’t wait to meet her. Whenever you are ready."

"Do you...Do you want to come to dinner tonight?" Azriel offered.

Nesta hadn't expected that. Had expected Azriel to hold a grudge to keep her away from all of them...but he was giving them a chance.

"Are you sure?" Nesta asked carefully. "We would love to come, but only if you're comfortable with it."

Azriel paused for a moment, "I'm sure," he said simply. "Sky would like it, and I...I would like it too."

Nesta smiled, feeling a warmth in her chest at Azriel's words. "We'll be there," she said warmly, Cassian nodding in agreement.

"Good," Azriel said simply. "I'll tell Sky."

"Thank you, Az," Cassian said softly, his expression earnest. "For giving us a chance."

This didn't stop Nesta's mate from telling her about his more and more ridiculous theories about Azriel's mate during their flight into Velaris and the mountains surrounding it.

Nesta couldn't help but roll his eyes as Cassian suggested her being a mythical being like Amren. "I swear, Cassian, you have the wildest imagination," she said, shaking her head. "Can you focus on flying for one minute without dreaming up these ridiculous scenarios?"

Cassian just shrugged, grinning unrepentantly. "Hey, it's fun to speculate," he said with a playful wink. "Besides, you never know...maybe Az's mate is a mermaid princess or something equally as exciting."

Nesta couldn't help but snort with laughter, even as Cassian landed in front of a charming cabin at a mountain lake. As soon as they landed, Nesta took a moment to take in their surroundings. The cabin was indeed charming, hidden away in a picturesque mountain setting near a serene lake. The peaceful surroundings seemed to perfectly mirror Azriel's quiet and introspective nature. Nesta could understand why he had chosen this spot as his home.

As they made their way towards the front door, Nesta couldn't help but feel a flutter of nerves. This was…this was important.

This was the female that Azriel had married, his mate…she was important to him.

Before they had a chance to knock, Azriel opened the door, a slight smile on his face. "Come in," he said warmly.

Nesta's gaze immediately fell to the female at his size. Shorter than average, a body that consisted out of voluptuous curves, with chocolate brown waves falling to her waist. Her hands were clenched together and she was obviously nervous as she stared at Nesta and Cassian with ill-hidden apprehension.

"This...is Sky," Nesta heard Azriel say. Nesta couldn't tear her eyes away. Sky was exactly what she had expected and absolutely nothing like it at the same time.

Nesta's first impression of Sky was that she was undeniably pretty, in a quiet and understated way. But as she looked at the nervous expression on Sky's face, Nesta couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy.

She could only imagine how daunting it must feel for Sky to be meeting Azriel's family for the first time. She gave Sky a warm smile, which she hoped would put the girl at ease. "It's nice to finally meet you, Sky," she said gently. "Az has told us a lot about you."

Sky managed a trembling smile, but the nerves were clear on her face. "It...It's n...nice t...to me...meet y...you t...too," she stuttered, grimacing at her own voice. Azriel's hand on her waist tightened and he fixed both Nesta and Cassian with a look that told them there would be hell to pay if they said a single thing about her stutter.

Nesta just gave him a reassuring smile, as she got the message loud and clear. She wasn't going to make Sky feel even more uncomfortable and insecure than she already seemed to be. Not when it was clear that Azriel cared about her so much.

Cassian didn't even hesitate to pull first Azriel into a hug and then Sky right alongside with him, her small frame utterly dwarfed by Cassian.

“So you are my brother’s mate,” Cassian told her seriously. "We are so happy that we finally get to meet the girl that makes our brother so happy.”

Sky blushed at Cassian's warm words, but some of the tension seemed to leave her shoulders. "Th...Thank you...," she murmured, her tone a barely audible one. She stepped back into Azriel's embrace and he wrapped his arms around her tightly, his wings coming around to encircle her in a protective embrace.

Even his shadows seemed to love her. The shadows that normally kept away from every other person, only clinging to Azriel…seemed to dote on her, curls themselves through her hair, and along the hem of her dress…

"Shall we go inside?" Azriel asked, gesturing towards the open door behind him. Nesta and Cassian nodded, following the pair into the cozy cabin. The interior of the cabin was just as warm and inviting as the outside, with rustic wooden floors and a large stone fireplace that crackled cheerfully. There were shelves filled with books on every wall and a few comfortable armchairs nestled around a low table.

So many books. Nesta was quite sure that it probably could be considered a private library.

But before she could really take it in, there was a rough meowing.

Nesta glanced down in surprise to see a fat, fluffy brown cat sauntering towards them, meowing loudly. The cat rubbed against Sky's ankles before trying to leap on the arm of the couch...and failing horrible. "Is that your cat?" Nesta asked, an amused smile on his face.

"Y…Yes, Th...That's H...Hector," Sky answered, picking up the cat that now pretended that falling off the couch had been totally his plan all along and instead curled himself happily in Sky's arms. His yellow eyes stared in two different directions and his fur was patchy...but he was somehow quite charming.

Nesta liked him. He had character. And his rough purring was adorable.

"He's adorable," Nesta said honestly, holding out her hand towards him. As Hector sniffed at her, she reached out to gently scratch behind his ears. The cat leaned into her touch contentedly, his purrs growing even louder.

"Sky dotes on him," Azriel said with a hint of pride in his voice. "He was a stray and she took him in. She's been taking care of him ever since."

Nesta looked at Sky, who was smiling at her cat. "That's so sweet," Nesta said. "He's a big boy, isn't he?" she said with some amusement. When Sky held him, Hector seemed to be nearly half her size.

"I...It's a...all the tuna he eats," Sky answered drily.

Nesta chuckled, "Well, he's certainly in good hands with you." She watched as Hector purred contentedly in Sky's arms, clearly very attached to her.

Cassian, meanwhile, was eyeing the cat with a playful grin. "Careful, Az, Hector might try to steal your girl with all his charm," he teased.

Azriel just cocked an eyebrow, "Oh he already did," he drawled, a hint of amusement in his voice.

Nesta couldn't help but laugh at their banter. It felt good to see Azriel being relaxed enough to joke around, even if it was at his own expense.

Even Sky was smiling as Hector let out a loud meow, clearly demanding attention. "Someone's jealous," she said softly, scratching him behind his ears. Hector purred contentedly and burrowed deeper into her arms, clearly happy to be the center of attention.

"Y...You want to hold him?" she offered the cat to Nesta. "I need to check on dinner."

Nesta gamely lifted Hector from Sky's arms, cradling him like a baby. "I'll keep him entertained while you do," she said with a smile. Hector mewled contentedly, his head tilted as he looked at Nesta with one eye.

As Azriel and Cassian made themselves comfortable on the couch, “Are you sure that’s a cat?” Cassian hissed towards Azriel. “And not a stunted mountain lion or something?”

“It’s all the tuna he eats. He had a hard life," Azriel said defensively.

Nesta looked up from where she was still playing with Hector. "I can see that," she said with a nod, gesturing towards Hector's missing eye and patched up fur. "I can tell he was loved from the moment Sky took him in though."

Nesta carried him over to the bookcases, eyes greedily reading the names and words on the spines.

It was a whole galore of romance books in these bookcases, a lot that Nesta had never even heard about, though there were some of her favourites between them...another bookcase held books from every which topic that involved sword fighting and horse riding and blacksmithing and everything in between...lots of cookbooks too...and then there was one bookcase that seemed to be solely filled with every Sellyn Drake novel in existence. Even the ones that were so rare that notneven the house had yet managed to get them for Nesta.

Nesta couldn't help but smirk as she ran her fingers over the spines of the 'Sellyn Drake' books. "Seems like Sky is just as big of a fan as I am," she said with a chuckle.

She turned to see Sky in the open kitchen, busy with a large pan. "You have all of her books," Nesta said admiringly. "I can't believe you have some of the rare ones, I have been trying to get those forever!"

Sky looked up from her cooking, surprised that Nesta seemed impressed by her collection. "Y...Yeah, I...I do like them..." Sky replied, her voice soft and hesitant. She turned back to the stove, clearly feeling self-conscious as she stirred the pot.

Nesta sensed her discomfort and decided to lighten the mood. "You know, I think I should officially crown you as the ultimate Sellyn Drake fan," she said with a playful grin. "No one has a collection like this one. Maybe we can talk about our favorite scenes sometime. I'm dying to discuss the latest novel...Did you read it already? Azriel got it for my birthday," Nesta told her brightly. "It's signed. I have no idea how he even managed that."

"I gave it to him," Sky said, turning towards her.

Sky had gotten it for Az?!

"Where did you get it from? It wasn't even out yet?!" Nesta asked curiously. "Tell me your secrets."

Azriel smirked, "I have my ways," he said with a wink. "But I can't reveal all my secrets. The fun is in keeping a few things a mystery."

Nesta just rolled her eyes, "Always the cryptic one, Az." She then turned back to Sky, "But seriously, where did you get the signed copy from? I'd sell my soul to get my hands on one of those."

"The...The author owed me a favor," Sky said, her voice hesitant.

Nesta's eyes widened, "You mean you know Sellyn Drake in person??!!"

"I...I mean...I...she is...me" Sky stammered, her cheeks turning red as she fumbled with her words.

What?

Azriel chuckled warmly, walking over to Sky and wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling Sky close. "What Sky is trying to say, Nesta, is that she is Sellyn Drake," he finished for her.

Nesta just stared for a moment, her mouth hanging open in surprise. "Are you serious?" she asked, still reeling from the revelation.

Sky just gave her a small nod, her face flushed with embarrassment. "Sellyn Drake is… a…actually a p…pen n…name," she said softly. "I couldn't use my real name and still keep my a…anonymity...So Skylar Alden became Sellyn Drake.”

Nesta was still trying to process the news. "So you're telling me that the author of my favorite novels of all time, is standing in front of me, cooking dinner?"

Sky shrugged, "Y...Yes?" There was a hint of uncertainty in her tone, as if she was unsure of what reaction she was going to get from Nesta.

Nesta's face split into a wide grin, "This is the best day ever" she exclaimed. She couldn't believe that she was meeting her favorite author, and it was even better knowing that the author was someone so sweet and unassuming as Sky.

Cassian started laughing, the sound deep and amused. "You have a few tricks up your sleeve, Sky" he chortled amusedly.

Azriel chuckled, the corners of his lips curling into a small smile. "Sky is full of surprises, even to me," he teased.

Sky just swatted at his arm, a soft blush coloring her cheeks

***

Somehow actually admitting that she was Sellyn Drake...that was easy. So easy.

She used to be so afraid to tell people about it. But with Azriel at her side, she felt safer. His love and support made her feel more confident and comfortable in her own skin. She could be herself with him without any judgement.

And why shouldn’t she be proud of her success? She wrote these books! They were her babies!

"Alright, but I need to know what happens next!" Nesta told her, her grey eyes wide and desperate. "You left the book at such a cliffhanger!"

Sky laughed softly, feeling a little less self-conscious now that the cat was out of the bag. She turned back to the stove, stirring the pot once more.

"Maybe I c…can give you a s…spoiler or two," she offered, grinning. "But just this one time. Can't give e…everything away too easily now, can I?"

Nesta leaned in, her eyes gleaming with anticipation. "Please, please tell me," she begged. "I need to know what happens next!"

"Alright," Sky agreed, amused by Nesta's enthusiasm. "But you have to p…promise not to b…breathe a word of this to my publisher. She would kill me if they knew I was spilling the beans before the book is even published."

Nesta nodded eagerly, making a zipping motion across her lips. "Your secret is safe with me."

"And we lost them," Cassian said drily.

Azriel laughed, "Can't compete with the author herself, Cass. Best to just sit back and enjoy the ride."

Nesta was lovely and Cassian was as loud and boisterous as Azriel had described him to be...and quite frankly, Sky loved Azriel's family. At least the two people that she had met.

"Was tonight...alright?" Azriel asked her softly as he pulled her into his arms that evening.

Sky smiled gently, leaning back into his embrace. She felt relieved that the night had gone well, and that Azriel's family had accepted her with open arms.

"It was...better than alright," she replied softly, feeling a warmth in her heart. She caught his hand in hers, pulling it to her lips, so she could press a kiss to the simple gold band that encircled his ring finger.

Their wedding had been a spur of the moment decision a day ago...but Sky wouldn't have wanted it any other day. It was everything she had ever wanted. Just the two of them.

No need for a big production.

Azriel's eyes softened, and he tightened his arms around her. "I'm glad," he murmured, the emotion in his voice palpable. He kissed the top of her head, holding her close. Neither of them said anything for a while, just holding each other in a comforting silence.

"We have the healer appointment tomorrow," Sky said softly.

Something Azriel had insisted on after their talk about having children. He was worried that the beautiful wings that sprouted from his back would mean a difficult pregnancy for her, an impossible birth…

Azriel just nodded, his face set in a grim expression. "We do," he replied, his voice tight. He was still grappling with his fears about the situation. "But no matter what, we'll face it together," he promised her fiercely.

Madja, that was the healer's name, put these fears to rest however.

"Quite frankly, it's unlikely that the child will be born with wings anyway," she told them after she had listened to Azriel's fears. "It will only be half Illyrian, after all"

"Nyx?" Azriel questioned pointedly. He had mentioned his nephew to her in this context, about him being born with wings which had nearly killed his High Fae mother throughout the birth.

"There were....circumstances around his conception, you know that," Madja said drily. "Skylar is High Fae with a dash of River Nymph. Which quite frankly, could be a point in your favour anyway."

"How so?" Sky asked curiously.

"Your bones are...bendy," Madja told her drily. "Even if the child would inherit Azriel's wings...and would have them at birth...which is unlikely in itself, your pelvis would be able to...expand enough to have the baby pass through the birth canal. However, it is more likely that any child the two of you had would be similar to the other half-illyrian you know," she told Azriel pointedly. "Being able to summon the wings at will, just like Rhysand."

Just like the High Lord?

"Really?" Sky asked, feeling a sense of relief wash over her. Azriel also appeared visibly more relaxed. "So there's a chance that our child will be born without wings?"

Madja nodded in confirmation, giving them a slight smile. "Yes, there is," she said reassuringly. "But even if that isn't the case, your Nymph ancestry would make the birth easier for you."

Azriel's hand found Sky's, squeezing it gently. She could feel his relief mirroring her own. It was a weight lifted off their shoulders to know that their baby's birth might not be as difficult as they had feared.

It was calming. Like all the puzzle pieces were slowly putting themselves together.

"Thank you, Madja," Sky said warmly. "For putting our minds at ease."

#acotar fanfiction #azriel x reader #azriel x oc #azriel fanfic #azriel fanfiction #it’s a love story

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