#wants them to die is reason enough to save them

[nightguide]

upon all honesty there is a point in being a woman that you're wanted for

upon all honesty, death is intermittent for you to believe than to trust

upon all honesty, speech is slurred to truance and no reason for escape than despair believing in you and patience seeking asylum elsewhere

death is nothing more than hope than what you will lose

a song you believe you wrote but honest complaint is you believing in it too much (hopeless vocalist)

feet aid you that assists with passion than dream which is a broken phone in the end like you being a human wifi tower

broken appeal to the senses than the eye which morphs with you overtime like a nymph on a parasitic run outside elsewhere in a sea you're making home to land which infects the sun's UV rays on your eyes that blind your skin from drying which was the worldly belief

lost of hearing, seeing and smell which is more prominent than the 5 senses you're used to hearing and the 6th sense being the sun which is optimal to your personality check if maintained in being stranded on the city wide perspective of your rebirth like stardust forming you back together lost and reformed again which is how familliarity is formed upon worldly recognition is how you lost compassion over a universe city alike you is how you died in the first place became an idiocracy

your soul is in despair as you became but your body is your spouse warring the world for you believed you in any accuracy formed you were before you is how you were meant to die in actual reality like you passed away like you were by ocular avenue is you being used by the motive surpassing the obvious morale token by the social circus

you're orphaned out of pure glee and not reason is how 'never' is damned of you to exist than looking at the mirror and 'being okay' is nothing to you anymore is how you're not taken into pride but by death only to consume old age wisdom for 'pity living' is rage turned into obsolete absolution of Zoroastrianism which is a belief of a curse against a pious name that needs to 'be resolved of your deadly crimes against a 5 year old inside a man who cannot take being 'lonely' like his mother abandoned him' a child created a religion to see the world but never allowed it right back is a city in the Qur'anic view that is taken to hold by a mom-ster hungry reptilians if all conspiracy theories were in one child, it would be that and you knew who made it up who lived long enough to see it come to life which is the social honest buddha who died long enough for the first man to live which is you but you're dead anyway, so you're seeing a live action effect of your life being torn apart like the one moment of you is being dead is your canon fairytale that takes place a while into your ego bruise becomes comic fiction which is how you chose to die by a problematic scandal in which you never resurfaced from is your whole career is how people tear lives apart to bite back for the existence of the meaning of why you love your job so you knew who went first (after me)

there is no saving you but yourself (ill will)

there is no

there is nothing

true selves

characters in motion in which you cannot talk about but observe

you're in pity quiet in which the obvious will hate but you're told their story inwards out (at the end of your ancestry is your story told there but you'll never get the point til damned quiet times makes you the next soul to go upending their own childhoods but you knew who destroyed their lives early on to witness the world burn in front of your own, so say goodbye to the ones you hate that believed you now that you're never going to outgrow them but die another day to see 'them' live

you'll never be removed from their energetic terrarium even if you live long enough to see yourself die with them which is what they truly wanted

heck, they'll take your identity with it

and they'll leave you naked, cold and alone til they see that as a fantasy and kill you with it is how you were born, a baby.

you'll know why you're meant to die but they'll live long enough to see you be and they are and why you immortally hated them with so much you never gave them is damnation realisation is how you were meant to tell the story in lights since you spent so much time in darkness

SO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME HE WAS HIDING ALL THIS UNDER THAT JEAN JACKET AT THE CONVENTION MATT SMITH PLS LEAVE THE JACKET AT HOME WHEN YOU COME TO MEGACON.🧎🏻‍♀️ I am simply GAGGED

[david-blackthorn]

I havnt read those books in the shadowhunter chronicles yet, what are your favorite things about them? (Im curious whether I should read them or not since I have such a big tbr already)

Oh maaan you're in for a ride

I have no idea which series in the Shadowhunter Universe you meant exactly but i'll start with my fav

Part I:

The Dark Artifices:

Do you ever feel like your soul needs a good mix of romantic pining, chaotic battles, and emotional devastation? The Dark Artifices is calling your name.

But seriously if you love stories that combine heart-pounding action, deep family bonds, and characters so real you’ll find yourself thinking about them long after you've finished the books? This is the series for you!

This series follows a family of Shadowhunters in sunny Los Angeles (yes, there are beaches AND demon fights) as they deal with forbidden love, ancient laws that make no sense, and plot twists that will leave you staring at the ceiling at 3 AM like: what just happened.

It’s got:

Two people who can’t be together because of reasons but have enough chemistry to destroy you.

A goofy warlock with more secrets than anyone is ready for.

A soft boy who paints and probably writes poetry but will absolutely murder you if you hurt his siblings and childhood friend.

A broody faerie loner who says “I work alone” but would probably die for his friends.

“I would die for my siblings, but also, they’re so annoying” energy.

Found-family dynamics that will have you texting your friends, “DO YOU SEE THIS?”

And, of course, the *painful but addictive* mix of love, loyalty, and chaos...

Enemies-to-lovers? No, wait—friends-to-lovers? Actually, it’s more like "reluctantly obsessed but too emotionally constipated to say it."

Three people staring dramatically at each other like ‘Is this polyamory or a REALLY complicated love triangle?

Characters who will make you scream, “JUST COMMUNICATE,” but you’ll love them anyway.

Enough family angst to fuel a therapy session for years.

A genius, autistic boy who solves mysteries but can’t solve the mystery of his own feelings

Main characters? Let’s just say there’s a parabatai bond that’s more complicated than your high school crush.

The plot? Fast-paced, full of betrayal, and packed with vicious fight scenes.

The family? Everything is fine...except when it’s not.

The romance? You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll probably scream and definitely ship things that should not be shipped. :)

Basically a murder mystery, faerie politics, and the most relatable struggle of all: Trying to keep your family alive and well while the world is falling apart.

Fair warning: you’ll never emotionally recover (and you’ll love every second).

part II:

The Mortal Instruments:

If you’re looking for a fast-paced urban fantasy series full of adventure, humor, and heart, you need to pick up The Mortal Instruments.

It’s got everything: shadowy secrets, epic battles, forbidden love, and enough twists and turns to keep you hooked from start to finish. Plus, the friendships and family bonds will hit you right in the feels.

If you like:

Hot people with emotional trauma

Family dynamics so messy even you would say "y’all need therapy"

Enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies-to-allies-to-love(maybe) but make it *gay*

Bonus gay dads with actual functional communication (because someone has to balance the chaos)

A love triangle that's not technically a triangle, but don't worry, it'll still destroy your soul

If you do then babe, let me introduce you to The Mortal Instruments:

It’s like Twilight, but everyone fights better is hotter and has sarcasm set to ✨maximum damage✨.

You'll question the characters' life choices, then realize your own aren’t much better.

There’s an overachieving golden boy with a superiority complex who definitely Googles his own name but is secretly baby.

A girl who just wants to vibe and maybe not be surrounded by apocalypses, but alas.

A cinnamon roll nerd who says, “I don’t want to be here,” but somehow ends up saving the day every time.

And a guy who walks in like: "I’m too goth for this mess," but then adopts everyone and pays for dinner.

The Mortal Instruments is what happens when an ex fanfic writer starts a writing carrier and makes a book series: chaotic, emotional, weirdly self-aware, and packed with heart. Read it. Your inner emo kid will thank you.

Bonus:

The plot? Like Supernatural on speed.

The dialogue? Whedon-esque but with more sass per square inch.

The drama? Every fanfic writer wishes they wrote this level of ✨chaotic bisexual disaster energy✨.

If this sounds appealing, congratulations! This series was literally written for you.

part III:

The Infernal Devices:

The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare is an absolute gem of a series, blending romance, adventure, and a touch of Victorian-era steampunk. If you love books with unforgettable characters, heart-wrenching love triangles (in the best way), and a beautifully atmospheric setting, this is the series for you.

It’s full of witty banter, emotional depth, and a story that stays with you long after you turn the last page. Trust me—there’s no ‘right’ team to root for, but you’ll love every moment of trying to decide.

The plot? Wild.

The romance? Devastating.

The side characters? Hot, chaotic, and probably more interesting than the main ones in most other books you’ve read.

Let’s not forget:

The Victorian Aesthetic™ (it’s giving Pinterest board).

A robot army that would make Skynet say, “You okay, bro?”

Poetry recitals that feel like life-or-death declarations.

And more tragic backstories than a Shakespearean play.

It's got:

a steampunk version of London where demons and shadowhunters roam the cobblestone streets, and your biggest problem isn’t the fog, but the ✨existential dread✨.

There’s a protagonist who just wanted to read books but accidentally became the center of everyone’s emotional drama (relatable queen).

A golden retriever boy who’s so perfect it physically hurts and is slowly dying.

And a sad boy™️ who looks like he stepped straight out of a My Chemical Romance album, only with a reading obsession.

A love triangle where instead of fighting, the two love interests are like, ‘Hey, what if we all just loved each other?’

Friendships so deep they’ll make you scream, “WHY CAN’T THE WORLD LET THEM BE HAPPY?”

A heroine who’s like, ‘Do I choose the guy who might secretly hate himself more than anyone else alive, or the literal angel in human form?’ (Spoiler: she chooses both. Iconic.)

Brooding boys who quote poetry in life-or-death situations (because of course they do).

*A love triangle where instead of fighting, the two love interests are like, ‘Hey, what if we all just loved each other?’

Start with Clockwork Angel and get ready to laugh, cry, and ugly sob over Will, Jem, and Tessa. But be warned: this series will RUIN you in the most beautiful way possible.

I won't write a summary of The Last Hours since i haven't finished it yet sorry babes, but hope you liked these *mwa*

[salsa-di-pomodoro]

IGNORE THIS; I AM JUST HAVING A CRISIS. WILL BE FINE TOMORROW

Emmet doesn't care whether Ingo lives or dies -ingo needs a kidney and Emmet is the only one who can give it- Emmet is informed- there is no one who is Ingo's new family - Emmet doesn't have to do this for anyone but Ingo - Emmet is a good person or tries to be- Emmet is aware that he is the only person that will be able to care of Ingo dies and he doesn't care - Emmet is aware that he is the only one who can help Ingo - they ask him if he'd like to donate his kidney and he doesn't want to but if he doesn't care then he can give it - Emmet donates kidney - Ingo lives - they do not speak again but they part knowing the other would help them out

[bonefall]

Are there any changes to Smokepaw (ShadowClan Apprentice in TNP) in BB? He is my all time favourite Warriors character for literally no reason, he existed twice, the second time to fall off a cliff and die, but I love him. I feel like he was a huge waste of potential, in that first time he appeared I thought of Blackstar as a sort of parental figure to him. Think like Firepaw and Bluestar, maybe? Or maybe more like Firepaw and Yellowfang? I'm sure that was just me serious projecting onto like less than a page of screen time, but I am so attached to him. I even made an AU where there was a conveniently placed river that swept him away to the Sundrown Place where he was taken in by Midnight.

Does BB have anything for my little guy?

Smokefall! Given an obligatory Sardonic ShadowClan name after he fell off a cliff and forced the entire journey to halt in its tracks for almost a month!

because shadowclan is like, ridiculously small and the family tree is a brick, Smokepaw (TNP), Smokepaw (Field Guides), and Smokefoot (Po3) are reworked. SmokeFALL survives, Smokepaw is now BILLOWCLOUD, and Smokefoot is SMOGFOOT.

Smog and Smoke are siblings. Billowcloud is not related to them.

Anyway, Smokepaw got REALLY hurt in that fall, but did survive

A (currently unpicked) Tribe cat actually climbed all the way down to get him. He had to be carried the rest of the way.

But once safe, he really couldn't move or else jeopardize his recovery. That, paired with a lack of travelling rations and a few pregnant cats close to delivery halted the Journey.

But Smokepaw still got ribbed relentlessly for "holding everyone up." Poor guy. ShadowClan humor.

Talonpaw got really close to him in that time. In fact, a LOT of cats developed close bonds in this "intermission," including many of the cats who would ultimately support Mudclaw's claim in WindClan.

Brambleclaw and Hawkfrost, as well.

In general, this is a really important hiatus because it's adding some PIVOTAL breathing room for cats to bond free of Clan divisions.

Clan Culture is never really the same after this. It's a change a long time coming.

He is also one of Birchfall's friends. This entire apprentice/kit generation has a very odd view on Clan divisions, because the Destruction of White Hart and the subsequent journey were so formative.

It was actually Smokepaw's "idea" to make Paw Soup. It came from a suggestion towards some WindClan apprentices, that they should try to make an ancient gumbo recipe that hadn't been seen since the start of Heatherstar's campaign.

Birchkit and his big bro Spiderpaw butted in, RiverClan apprentices didn't want to be left out, and the rest is history.

They never did make that gumbo but they made something new.

At the Lake, he also prevents Talonpaw from dying to Jacques and The Dreaded Susan. By also getting his ass beat.

(But that's probably gonna be offscreen because im not dedicating several chapters to it like canon when theres a civil war that should be in focus)

Smokefall becomes the next Educator of ShadowClan, and the mate of Talonclaw. Eventually Smogfoot surrogates a kit for them-- probably Pinenose.

The couple shows up at various points throughout Po3 and OotS as very important friends of Birchfall, and general friendly faces in ShadowClan which is a major ally through the arcs.

Sadly, though, they meet a gruesome and tragic end in AVoS. The Kin is a cult, and once it takes power, it immediately targets the one who teaches history. Smokefall. Talonclaw refuses to abandon his mate.

His position is taken by the infamous Berryheart, who is the educator through TBC. He is survived by several grandkits through Pinenose-- Slatefur, Puddleshine, and Happyface.

[mercurial--supernovae]

Lets just say there is a reason why despite his vast array of connections seeing the chimera actually doing a job with someone was more than rare.

This kind of thing is exactly why.

Things like this are also one of the many reasons he predictably doesn't have any friends.

Who would have thought.

Despite knowing full well the likelihood anyone would be able to get out of the building in enough time let alone survive it coming down himself an his client included that doesn't seem to stop his stubborn onslaught of gunfire in the slightest even as Apollo attempt to stop the madness by using themselves and their sword as a shield.

"Get fucked."

He growls, smirking with self satisfaction at the telltale whine of something getting ignited.

Even then his pride won't allow for relenting in the attack at all even as the exo rushes towards the chimera with the intention to save his ungrateful life.

Up the stairs..

Bibi's expression softens slightly as the otherworlder begins to explain things..

Normally, admittedly, they probably wouldn't budge and would even probably say it's their organization's own fault for not thinking that far ahead.

Their own problem to deal with. It wasn't like they're the only ones who needs those parts.

But, fuck. It's probably the tears. Bibi isn't good with crying..

And then a warning rings out from below. It only takes them a second to realize what had to have happened, eyes wide in horror.

"You gotta be fucking kidding me."

Voice practically a whisper as panic takes over, what were they supposed to do?! Their instincts scream fly to safety but there's no way that's happening, there was no good cover on this floor. Their mind raced uselessly.

Suddenly their shockingly warm and lightweight frame is plucked off the ground and the moth lets out a grunt as the pair slam into the wall, only for the floor to give way mere seconds later.

Pain aches through their whole exoskeleton as they hit the ground, before they can even begin to get their bearings the stranger rolls on top of them, narrowly preventing them from being impaled.

As the dust settles..

The chimera shoves Apollo's body off him with a glare muttering something inaudible under his breath.

Whatever it was sure wasn't thanks judging by the look on his face.

Bibi meanwhile is frozen in shock staring at the figure on top of them. Struggling greatly with the idea someone just gave faer own life to save theirs, let alone a stranger whom had been thoroughly kicking their ass just minutes ago.

After all, for most people you can expect death to last..

But.

...

Can those two..?

Just not fucking DIE?!

As if that in itself isn't a lot to unpack..

Well. This sure doesn't look like a friendly reunion.

Pretty obvious neither of these two wanted to see each other, whatever history they had.

Kallex scoots back, away from the pair, while Bibi on the other hand manages to pull themselves out from under the bent and broken remains of the stairs, staggering to their feet, eyes traveling between the two, speechless for the moment if only from the thickness of the tension in the air.

The Young Wolf rolled their eyes at Kallex's argument. Clearly that wasn't what Apollo had meant, not that it made much difference to them. It wouldn't quite occur to them that the pair weren't on the same wavelength or knew the whole picture.

"If Bibi could take me down, there's no way they'd lose to a lightless Dead Orbit flunkie," the exo retorted, their eyes following the shifted aim of their opponent...

...Straight to the table of fucking explosives lining the wall.

"...But apparently, YOU'RE the dense one here...!" they followed up, making a mad dash for the wall, a leap and roll into a crouch, and bracing the Lament against their arm once more to interpose themselves between this sore loser and his fucking suicidal-ass plan.

The pulse rifle's shots ring true against the Lament and its barrier, SIVA nanites beginning to swarm and embed themselves into the Guardian with a stifled groan of pain. Of course this would be the one way to back them into a corner... not that it would matter.

As before, shrapnel shot off from each hit, and each piece being disturbingly closer to their volatile targets. Until they hear the sound of metal and a high-pitched whine ring out behind them.

"You fucking idiot...!" they lamented, throwing caution to the wind, and running full-bore toward the chimera, through bullets and nanites and leaping toward the man trying to kill them all, crying out a warning as they tackled them to the ground.

"EVERYBODY GET DOWN!"

Upstairs, the other-worlder had slowly begun to lower their own explosive device, giving a small sniff as Bibi attempted to de-escalate and prevent a suicidal last-stand as a sore loser might.

"A lot of what our fleet is built with involves a lot of exotic materials..." the warlock explained. A gloved hand covered a weeping face. "We... can't use our jump drive or transmatter teleporters without them. And... I don't think my organization's leaders anticipated the possibility that our equipment would wear out this quickly..."

The remainder of the explanation would have to wait however, as the lightbearer's accomplice downstairs decided to do exactly the same thing Bibi was just about to stop from happening.

Everyone is just so sportsmanlike today.

The Stormcaller's eyes dart to the stairwell upon hearing the warning from below, and back up to the wounded arachnid as the building began to shake with the thunderous clap of surprisingly high-yield prototype grenades bringing down the entire fucking wall.

Leaping into action like the fellow lightbearer downstairs, the assailant-turned-rescuer wrapped their arms around the former opponent, and carrying her, threw the pair against the opposite wall to the one coming down, as the floor crumbled beneath them.

Rushing stone, wood, metal and concrete came down around them all, pelting and impaling the pair of lightbearers as they bore the brunt of the destruction for their opponents with their own bodies.

Devotion inspires bravery. Bravery inspires sacrifice.

Apollo could feel their skull caving in from blow after blow of stone and concrete. Their jaw set, and flickering eyelights glared straight into Kallex.

Slamming into the ground, the Warlock immediately, despite being winded and struggling to breath, rolled overtop of Bibi, just in time to feel rusted steel puncture their lung, as the rickety staircase gave way above them.

Sacrifice... leads to death.

The dust settled. The human and exomind laid dead atop the pair of rivals. Whether they freed themselves or not, a familiar pair of drones fizzled into being above them, staring pitifully down at their charges and their surroundings burn with a warm, soft Light.

Just before revival, the two ghosts look up... and make eye contact.

"...Oh."

"...Oh dear."

In two flashes of light, the pair of lightbearers disappear and re-constitute, standing, and completely unscathed. Apollo looked down at the extremely punchable douche they just saved, and looked up.

To make eye contact with the Warlock that they once thought they were going to spend the rest of eternity with.

"...No. No this is not fucking happening right now..."

The warlock, who had just calmed down enough to stop faerself from doing what Kallex had just done, had, upon spotting the source of faer current woes, descended back down the mental health hell slide into losing faer actual literal shit.

Apollo took a step back as the Thunderlord was drawn back into the Warlock's hands, with bloodshot eyes glaring at them through the sights.

"...What in the Traveler's name is Set doing here...?!"

[vaguely-concerned]

I was just ambushed within the turbulent halls of my own mind by some headcanons about rye ingellvar's childhood that did 15000000 points of psychic damage to me and my heart personally and also made me almost sure of how I want to play it all at the end (very very differently from how I imagined going in!). some 'oh holy fuck this changes everything' rocking my own world bullshit going on in my neurons right now I'm reeling

[oh-my-bindery]

To this day I believe wholeheartedly that JKR decided not to write Draco switching sides when offered by Dumbledore or asking Snape to help him switch sides, because she knew she’d write Draco and Harry falling in love with each other (intentionally/unintentionally). She would have a hard time writing them as the characters she created for them and not having feelings of care and understanding for each other. It would be simply impossible unless she obliviated them both lol.

[mxdotpng]

the soremik in my head is so vastly different from anyone elses idea of them that i fear if i ever speak out on the subject i'll have rocks thrown at me. but once again they are allowed to look but never touch. you have to expect this from me by now.

[gachaparadise]

yaaarrgghhh... torn between rolling for Kazuha or Scaramouche. on the one hand. Kazuha is like. actually useful to me and would gas up Neuvillete. on the other. Hat guy is my little scrungly hater and i regret having to skip him so many times.

[chewingbatmanlikeasqueakytoy]

Alternatively:

Talia: Damian, you will be going to live with your father. Pack your things.

Damian AND Danny: Yes Mother.

Talia: **Flash back to this morning when Danny beat one of their best instructors in a fight, only to fumble putting the sword away and bring the entire rack down on his head. The lazarus water is still drying in his hair.**

Talia: Not you Danyal, Only Damian. You will not survive your fathers house.

DPxDC Al Ghul Twins Quick Thought

Jason, visiting the manor the first time after Damian showed up: *does a double take* Where's the second one?

Damian, stopping in his tracks and looking him dead in the eye: Dead.

Jason, rolling his eyes but dropping the subject: Alright.

The entire Batfam:

[ladystoneboobs]

so, one aspect of catelyn which i think is underrated (certainly the biggest adaptation loss which nobody talks about) is her, let's say superstitiousness, or better yet, let's call it genre-savviness, being one of the few adult characters open to magic and the supernatural in this fantasy world. we first meet her in the godswood, home of gods which are not truly hers, yet she is still very aware of their power. when she and ned talk of the deserter he killed, he hopes he won't have to go with the nw to deal with mance rayder, but she has even more fear of that idea bc there are worse things beyond the wall than just wildlings. ned scoffs and says she's been listening to old nan too much, but she's right. we already know from the prologue that she's right! and here she is, understanding the genre of their world better than her husband, who was actually born and spent his earliest years in this northern land of deep magic, listening to old nan's stories. same with the direwolves, where she was uncomfortable with them at first, but later believed in them as guardians from the old gods even after robb had lost his own faith. and once again, we know she's right even if she doesn't know the evidence to back up her instincts, bc summer and shaggydog did not fail bran and rickon and robb was almost certainly a warg like his brothers. (perhaps making it more fitting that she's the one brought back as a fantasy vengeance monster, not ned and robb, the most unbelieving dead starks.) and in her 2nd agot chapter, everyone focuses on her ambition in wanting ned to agree to the hand job (pun intended) and sansa's betrothal, and while she does recognize the value of their daughter being a future queen more than ned does, that's only her stated argument bc she thinks it's rational enough for ned to listen to. (if ambitious matchmaking were as important to her as to her father she never would have made those frey betrothals fandom loves to blame her for.) in her own head there's a deeper urge driving her. she keeps thinking of the dead direwolf with antlers in its throat, an omen which filled her with dread from the first she heard of it, before robert's arrival, and thinking of it again is what makes her desperate to convince ned not to refuse robert. she had to make him see. and really, she's not wrong, as jon snow would say. the dead direwolf was an omen of ned and robert getting each other killed. it's just one of those misread portents, with no way of knowing the danger to ned was in his loyalty to robert, not conflict with him. BUT the next time she's dealing with baratheons, she knows exactly what she's talking about. it's catelyn, not brienne, who sees the shadow slaying renly, and explains that it was stannis who did that through some dark magic. with no way of knowing how it was achieved and no prior expectation that such a thing were ever possible, she realizes with no hestitation that stannis was guilty and that his red witch was capable of pulling this off somehow. really, the only instinct of the supernatural she's wholly wrong about is her insistence that varys gathered his knowledge through some dark enchantment. however, though that might offend varys, given his own personal experience with a sorcerer, i'd say it's a reasonable assumption without knowing the dude had children moving through walls everywhere like oversized rodents. and imo it just shows she had a healthy respect and awe for varys's power which most other characters lack.

oh, oh, and let's not forget that she also believed in the curse of harrenhal, from her own childhood and the stories old nan told her kids. "and every house that held Harrenhal since had come to misfortune. Strong it might be, but it was a dark place, and cursed. 'I would not have Robb fight a battle in the shadow of that keep,' Catelyn admitted." sure, that wasn't enough to save robb, but he did not die from the curse of harrenhal. that doom was meant for his enemies from tywin lannister to roose bolton.

[mistyorchid]

Meet-Cute (Ch. 2)

Old Man Logan x fem! reader

summary: Logan is a man of his word. You and Logan have your first date in the only nice restaurant in town, except it doesn't last long because you want him the food hot to go. Ch. 1 Ch 3 warnings: MDNI, no use of y/n, smut, age gap, reader is 21+, pet names (doll, baby), oral (fem! receiving), fingering, praise kink, light slapping, logan's claws come out, set after the events of Logan (2017) except he doesn't die, some angst it's all in logan's head dw. wc: 4k

Logan mindlessly traced the glass of water he'd been nursing for the past hour. The circular rim numbed his finger as he theorized all the reasons you might've been late.

He tended to foster seeds of doubt within his mind, an old habit that was built by decades of loss and betrayal. Romance was almost always an empty promise.

Logan checked the clock on the wall without moving his head, not wanting the other patrons to assume he was being stood up. He enjoyed wallowing in his solitude by drinking alone at dingy bars, but that was before he met you. Now, all he could fantasize about was showing you off to every establishment in town, softly guiding you to each bar counter by the small of your back.

The Italian place on fifth street, 8PM, you recited after exiting Logan's limo last night. Before opening the door, you checked your phone. 7:50 PM. You would've arrived twenty minutes earlier, but you didn't want to seem too eager, so you decided to touch up your makeup before heading out.

Logan noticed the restaurant's comforting hum cease when you entered the lobby. He's pretty sure he could hear some poor guy choke on a meatball, stunned at the sight of your little black dress.

You were busy exchanging information with the maître d', nervously darting your eyes around the room to find your date. When he realized you mouthed the word, "Logan," he sprung up from the booth and briskly walked to the lobby.

"Evening, doll," he beamed, extending his arm. A faint blush settled on your cheeks as you looped your hand around his bicep. He stole glances at your outfit as he guided you to the booth, suddenly leaning down to whisper, "You look stunning. I'm glad you came."

Logan gestured towards the seat opposite him, but you motioned for him to scoot further into the booth so you could sit alongside each other.

He raised an eyebrow, confused by the unusual arrangement. You explained, "I want to be next to you, if that's okay. Sitting across from you feels way too formal after last night."

Logan inhaled sharply, suddenly reminded of the intoxicating drag of your skin against his. He replayed the heavenly echo of your debauched whines in his head, silently praying that you'd let him hear them again.

"Yeah, of course," he agreed, sliding to the end of the booth.

You followed, leaving a small gap. The urge to connect your thigh with his was strong, but you tried to maintain decorum for the other patrons. Your eyes briefly met Logan's before surveying the table, noticing that the candle in the centerpiece was comically short.

"How long have you been waiting?" You asked, peering up at Logan's relieved face.

He stroked his beard, contemplating whether to be truthful or lie to save face. "About an hour," he responded. Logan decided that you deserved the truth; he wanted the foundation of your budding relationship to be built on candor. "You weren't late, I arrived way too fuckin' early. Haven't been this nervous for a first date since . . . well, ever."

You pouted your lips and gently placed your right hand on his thigh. He instantly flexed, surprised at the abrupt contact.

"Aw, baby . . . " You doted, slightly leaning to whisper into his ear. "There's nothin' to be nervous about. You already know I like you enough to suck your co-"

Logan swallowed the end of your sentence, his left hand cradling your jaw to angle your lips into his. You gasped into his mouth, earning a playful bite on your lower lip.

"You wanna give me a heart attack, doll? Jesus Christ." He muttered, releasing his grip on you and straightening himself in the booth.

You smirked, removing your hand from his thigh. A waiter appeared, acknowledging your arrival. "Ah, good evening, signorina," he beamed. "Mr. Howlett has been patiently waiting for you. Welcome to Frizzante."

While placing two menus on the table, he started reciting the specials, emphasizing the last item. "Tonight, our chef has prepared a Festa degli Innamorati. Lover's Feast," he translated.

Logan wanted the seat cushions to swallow him whole. Frizzante's sous chef was a personal friend of his; the bastard must've seen his name on the reservation and whipped up something special to embarrass him.

You stifled a laugh at the sight of Logan's dumbfounded expression. "It's served family-style, with two separate plates so you can share. It's a beautiful spaghetti dish blended with the savory roe of sea urchins and fresh margherita tomatoes. I assure you, it's an incredibly rich and unique experience."

"That sounds wonderful," you chimed, appreciating the waiter's suggestion.

Logan couldn't help admiring the sweet smile that spread across your face. He slid the menus towards the waiter before responding, "We'll take the Lover's Feast, thank you." He silently cringed at the feeling of the special name rolling off his tongue, but he found himself willing to curtail his pride if it made you happy.

The steady hum of the restaurant lulled you into a comfortable silence. The waiter soon returned with a glass of water and a warm basket that filled the air with the savory scent of flour and butter.

Logan picked it up, offering you a slice. "Would you like some bread?"

"Yes, please. Thank you." You giggled as you retrieved a slice.

After you sunk your teeth into the aromatic bread, he took a slice for himself. "What's so funny?" He asked, playfully raising his eyebrows.

You chewed slowly, savoring the richness of the dough. "You're being so . . . proper. I'm not used to guys treating dates like . . ."

". . . A date?" Logan finished, perplexed by your response. "Those guys don't know how to treat a woman." He huffed, wondering how anyone could fuck up the privilege of courting you.

Your eyes raked over his clean blazer, following the strong curve of his arm before landing on his wrist.

"You're wearing cufflinks . . . " You murmured, in awe of the lustrous material.

Logan moved his arm closer so you could feel them. "You gotta expect more than the bare minimum, baby." He chuckled.

You slowly swirled the round cufflinks with your middle finger. "So-" You paused, shifting closer so your bare leg finally grazed the cool material of his slacks. "-If you're so traditional, why didn't you pick me up?"

Logan cleared his throat, stunned by your confidence. "I would've, doll, trust me. Then I figured that you might've been uncomfortable if I asked where you lived. Best to meet in a public space," he reasoned.

His concern for your safety was undeniably attractive. You stopped tracing the edge of his cufflinks before whispering, "I fucked you within an hour of meeting you. I would've been comfortable giving you my address."

The fragrant smell of your pasta dish wafted through the aisle, momentarily relieving Logan from having to respond.

"Attached at the hip already?" The waiter quipped, noticing your proximity to Logan. He delicately lowered the platter onto the table, followed by two silverware sets and the most intricate plates you've ever seen.

"Buon appetito." The waiter gestured towards the dish with a grand flourish of his hand and then promptly walked away.

Logan waited for him to be out of earshot before saying, "I want to get to know you, but you're making it extremely fuckin' difficult with that dirty mouth of yours."

He used his utensils to scoop a large portion of pasta onto your plate before serving himself.

You bit your lip, picking up a fork to slowly twirl the fresh noodles. "Alright, what do you wanna know?" You asked, lifting the fork into your mouth.

"What do you do for fun? Besides fucking strangers within an hour of meeting them."

You choked on your food, shooting an accusatory glare towards Logan. "Okay, okay . . . you got me good. Um, I like going to shows. Punk, country, pop . . . I just love to feel the music in my bones."

Logan put his fork down and rested his chin on his palm, invested in your answer. He briefly envisioned your hips swaying to the soulful twang of Willie Nelson. "Live music, huh? I know a club around here that promotes every genre under the sun. We should go some time."

His left hand traced gentle circles on your knee. "This okay?" He asked, briefly pausing his movements. You rested your fork on the plate. "Mhm," you chirped, pleased by his courtesy.

"I also enjoy making art," you continued. Logan leaned closer. The majority of his past was dedicated to destroying things and harming people. He'd always admired those who used their time on earth to create.

"What kind of art?" Logan asked. You were distracted by the warmth of his palm, which was now splayed over the broad expanse of your thigh.

"I, uh- I like drawing, painting, making collages . . . mostly drawing, though. It's peaceful, you know? Making something out of nothing." You chewed the inside of your cheek, flustered by how intently Logan was looking at you.

He was daydreaming about making space for a studio back at the smelting plant, bringing you tea while you worked well into the night. The domesticity that he secretly yearned for manifested itself in your image.

"You're so beautiful, you know that? Could listen to you talk forever."

You smiled and bashfully looked down into your lap. "Thank you . . . " You lingered, focused on how he absentmindedly stroked your thigh with his thumb.

"What about you? What do you do in your free time?" You asked, peering up at him through your eyelashes.

"After work, I usually head to a bar and pop a couple of quarters in the jukebox to hear Cash while I drink."

Your eyes lit up at the mention of your favorite country artist. "Cash? Like, Johnny Cash? I love him."

Logan couldn't believe that you didn't make a snide remark about his "hobby." He elaborated anyway, not wanting to seem lazy in comparison.

"Yeah, exactly. I also like fixin' old motorcycles and gardening. Keeps me in shape, I guess." He didn't miss the way your thigh flexed, reacting to his words.

You loved a man who was handy . . . in more ways than one.

"You wanna get out of here?" You asked, desperate to relieve the palpable tension that settled in the charged space between your bodies. Your senses were overwhelmed again; the heady scent of his cologne mixing nicely with the smokey tendrils emanating from the candle.

Logan smirked. "I thought you'd never ask. My place or yours?"

Although your apartment was only a short walk's distance from the restaurant, you wanted to immerse yourself in a slice of Logan's world.

"I'd love to go home with you, if that's okay." You shyly tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

He fished out his wallet and haphazardly threw more than enough cash to cover the bill and your waiter's tip. The velvet material of your dress bunched around your thighs, further exaggerating the short hem.

Logan averted his eyes as you slid out of the booth. You turned around and tilted your head, realizing why he wasn't looking at you. "You're such a gentleman," you praised, straightening your dress.

Logan didn't feel like a gentleman when he helped you into the passenger seat of his limo. He almost opened the back door, reminded of your first night together.

Your eyes grew heavy an hour into the drive. You yawned, soothed by the soft turns of the road and the limo's plush headrest.

"Sorry, doll. My place is a bit farther, away from the city." Logan apologized. "Feel free to rest up. I'll wake you when we get there," he continued.

You surrendered to your fatigue and closed your eyes. "Mkay. Thanks, Logan."

He smiled, glancing at the passenger seat a few times to admire how peaceful you looked.

The first thing you felt when you woke up was Logan's callused hands supporting the back of your knees and your spine. You felt pleasantly weightless above the ground, realizing that Logan was carrying you past the threshold of a doorway.

"Mornin," he joked, noticing you scanning your surroundings. It was still late in the evening.

"Didn't want to wake you," he whispered, gently setting you on his bed. The smooth texture of the sheets contrasted with the rough corrugated walls of your environment.

"Where exactly do you live?" You asked, puzzled by the industrial nature of his home.

"A smelting plant north of the border. People leave me alone out here," he chuckled.

Logan exhaled as he sat on the edge of his bed, turning to meet your shocked expression.

"You mean I'm in Mexico right now? Logan!" You exclaimed, lightly slapping his arm.

He caught your wrist, weaving his large fingers through yours. "You're lucky I'm such a gentleman," he teased, reiterating your choice of words a few hours prior. Your hand relaxed into his.

"First, you followed me into my car. Tonight, you fell asleep while I drove to fuckin' Mexico. Now, you're in my bed wearing nothin' but a cute little dress," Logan smirked, letting his hand fall on his knee. His back ached from turning to caress your palm.

You blushed. "I can tell you're a good guy. I wouldn't have gone home with you if I didn't."

Logan doubted your praise. I'll force myself to pretend that's true, he thought.

The comforting chirp of cicadas serenaded you from outside. Linen curtains gently billowed above your head; the cool night air swathing your body like a translucent blanket. Logan suddenly averted his eyes, exposing the rugged plane of his neck. You breathed in notes of fresh cotton and bourbon as his potent cologne fanned out across the room.

"I need you, Logan." You sighed, slowly drifting onto your back and languidly spreading your legs. Your dress prevented you from fully relieving the throbbing sensation in your core, so you settled for tracing the inside of your thigh instead.

You faint sighs cascaded over your arched form and into Logan's ears like a siren's song.

Too many fuckin' layers, he thought, quickly unbuttoning his blazer and dress shirt before tossing them onto the floor.

He groaned when you skimmed the hard outline of his torso, gently tracing a prominent scar that ran across his ribcage. Logan leaned into your touch, closing his eyes and releasing hushed breaths.

He could get used to you tending to his wounds.

Logan strained his back to grip your legs, swinging you around so that your lower half hung over the bed.

"Can I take this off for you, baby?" He whispered, gathering the material of your dress by your hips.

"Mhm . . . " You nodded, hooking your knees over his shoulders for support. His palms firmly slid up your thighs and effortlessly shimmied the dress below your ass, pausing when the hem caught on the underside of your breasts.

He purposefully pressed the material harder against your torso before exposing your tits, forcing them to bounce harshly against your chest.

"You're so pretty," he sighed, cupping your breasts and leaning forward to gently tug on your nipples with his teeth. You bit your lip, knitting your eyebrows together as you admired how content he looked.

Logan's cock twitched in his slacks when your breath hitched in your throat after a particularly hard tug.

"You like when I make your tits sore, hm? Want me to make it all better?" He cooed, blowing lightly on your stiff nipples before enveloping them with his mouth.

His eyes rolled into the back of his head when you grabbed a fistful of his hair.

You crossed your arms, hastily moving your dress over your head. Logan paused, realizing that your shoes were still on. He slowly released your tits as he slinked down your body, his hot breath raising goosebumps along your stomach.

"Fuck," Logan moaned, now eye-level with your cunt. Your cotton underwear was soaked, clinging to the outline of your lips.

It was the simplest pair you owned, but Logan marveled at it like it was the most expensive set in the world.

He pushed closer, resting his chin on the edge of the bed. He arched his back slightly to accommodate the stretch.

"Can I taste you, baby?" He pleaded, staring at your dilated pupils.

"'Course you can, Logan . . . You can do anything to me, I-" He flattened his tongue and dragged it over your underwear, tasting the wetness that escaped the material.

The delicious pressure of his tongue cut off your response. "I trust you," you continued.

You whined when Logan distanced himself from your core to unbuckle your shoes.

"Shhh, let your old man make you more comfortable," he doted, placing a sweet kiss on your heel.

He resumed a kneeling position, sliding his hands under your thighs and bringing your clothed cunt closer to his hungry gaze. The intoxicating musk of your arousal unlocked a primal instinct within Logan.

A primal groan ripped from his throat as his claws unsheathed on either side of your face. His cock bucked into the unforgiving material of his pants.

After realizing what he'd done, Logan quickly withdrew his claws. "Fuck, I'm so sorry, doll, I could've hurt you . . . won't happen again," he apologized profusely.

You propped your elbows on the bed to get a better look at the bloody slits between his knuckles. "Oh my god," you gasped, eyes widening in fascination. "Are you a mutant?"

Logan's eyes slowly met yours, initially afraid to be met with a fearful expression. "Yes, I am. I've always had these claws, but they weren't always this-" Logan flexed his arm, a faint snikt sound filling the air. "-sharp," he continued.

Logan held his breath as you slowly ran a finger along the blunt side of the blade, admiring the way it reflected the moonlight.

"They're beautiful, Logan." You carefully guided his right hand to rest on your thigh. "Can you tear this off?" You asked, lightly snapping the underwear elastic against your hip.

"I don't want to hurt you, doll." Logan's claws hesitantly hovered over your skin.

"I trust you, remember?" You pulled the elastic away from your body, allowing him to lightly twist his wrist and cut through the fabric.

You gasped as your underwear scattered on the bed. Your cunt fluttered around nothing, suddenly exposed to the cool night air and Logan's unwavering gaze.

Your empathy startled him. Those who had gifted him their trust had often suffered, cursing him to an eternity of self-loathing. He felt undeserving of your kindness.

"Wanna make it up to you," he promised, moving your legs onto his shoulders.

The tantalizingly slow drag of his tongue against your folds made your thighs quiver against his head. He chuckled, prying your legs apart with his callused palms.

He gently lapped into your eager hole, moving his head up and down to increase his range of movement.

You mewled when the tip of his nose bumped against your clit.

"Oh, fuck. My girl's rosebud is so sensitive . . . " He groaned, lightly kissing your clit before sucking it into his eager mouth.

His right hand inched up your thigh, teasingly stroking the apex of your leg.

"How many fingers can you take, doll?" He slowly slid his middle finger inside, palm flushed against your sensitive folds. His lips were still stimulating your clit, now adding the delicious drag of his finger.

Your hips raised off the bed, eagerly meeting his thrusts. "Ah!" You whimpered after Logan pulled out before adding a second finger. He spread his digits, satisfying the hollow throb in your core.

"Three . . . I need three," you elaborated, biting your lip to stifle your needy moans.

His fingers slipped out of your cunt with an embarrassingly loud squelch before easing into your pliant mouth.

"Wanna hear you, baby. That's it," he cooed, making you enjoy the taste of your own slick.

Your tongue trailed the crook of his fingers, mimicking the patterns you traced on his cock last night.

You whimpered when Logan used your saliva to guide three fingers into your weeping pussy.

"Holy fuck, Logan . . . Mm," you babbled, eyes glazing over at the overwhelming feeling of his thick fingers stretching your walls.

If you could sit upright, you'd wipe that cocky grin off his face.

"You're so fuckin' wet for me, doll. Takin' me so well," he praised, focused on increasing the rhythm of his thrusts.

"Oh, I know you want my thick cock, baby . . . Is that why you chose three, hm?" Logan taunted, abruptly pausing his movements.

You whine, spreading your legs even farther apart to invite him back in.

"Yes, fuck-" you admitted, eyes screwing shut at the feeling of fingers returning home.

You felt Logan smirk into your clit as he confessed, "You think you can come without my cock? Tonight's all about you, doll."

The growing pressure in your abdomen threatened to burst, spurred on by Logan's filthy words. He enthusiastically lapped at your cunt, collecting the wetness that pooled near the base of his fingers and gliding up your folds before licking your clit.

He lightly slapped your pearl, motivated to usher in your release as you clamped your knees around his head.

"Holy shit, doll . . . your pussy's singing just for me, hm?" He hummed, referencing the vulgar sounds emanating from your folds with every thrust.

He expertly twisted his wrist as his fingers glided through your cunt. The new movement stimulated the sensitive nerves of your walls, earning a guttural moan.

"Oh my god, I'm . . . I'm coming," you whined, throwing your head back against the mattress.

Logan intertwined his left hand with yours, silently permitting you to squeeze it through your orgasm.

Your back arched, overstimulated by Logan's relentless attention to your pussy. You were too busy rocking your hips against his mouth to register him burrowing his cock into the sheets, a ragged growl escaping his lips as he spurted into his slacks.

"It's too- fuck, too much, Logan . . . " You stuttered, pawing at his forehead to distance yourself from his tongue.

You raised yourself on your elbows just in time to witness him savoring the taste of your cum, his tongue darting against the sensitive pads of his fingers and swallowing with a content moan.

"Mhm . . ." He drawled. "Sweeter than sugar, baby."

You covered your eyes and slumped against the mattress. Logan made you feel hopelessly giddy, and you loved it.

"Stop it, Logan . . . " You cringed, aware of the rosy blush that adorned your cheeks.

He scooped your knees with his right hand and supported your back with his left, mirroring the stance he assumed when he first laid you on the bed. You nuzzled your cheek against the soft pillow, thoroughly satisfied and exhausted.

The small twin-sized bed couldn't support the full breadth of his back, so he turned on his side, lovingly bumping his nose against yours.

You lazily stroked his graying beard, noticing that the whiskers closest to his mouth were damp with your arousal.

You blushed. Again.

"I usually don't even let guys kiss me on the first date. You should be grateful," You teased.

Logan lightly kissed your wandering fingers. "Trust me, princess, I am. Thank you.

Princess . . . that was new. You draped your left leg over the strong muscle of his thigh, suddenly needing to be consumed by his warmth.

He just coaxed an explosive orgasm from you using his mouth, and he was thanking you?

Words failed you. You decided to snuggle closer into the inviting expanse of his bare chest. Logan shamelessly gripped the supple flesh of your ass, pulling you flush against his body.

"I think our first date went well, hm?" He cooed into your ear. Your breathing slowed to the point where Logan assumed you had dozed off.

You felt his body still to avoid waking you up. He whispered, "I hope we get to go on a million more."

Your ears perked up at his covert promise of devotion.

I hope so, too, you thought before finally falling asleep.

Thanks for sticking around for Ch. 2 of Meet-Cute!

an: Their banter was so fun to write. Also if you don't go to shows (I'm talkin' small clubs, not stadiums) or make art shhhh wdym, you're literally reader?! Anyway, I specified those hobbies because everyone can do them, yay! The FBI-level questioning that usually occurs on first dates was shortened to keep this a true reader insert (my reasoning for reader's vague background.) *The jukebox bit is canon, from Wolverine Vol. 1 (Benjamin Percy.)

tag list: @th3mrskory @fairiebabey @bratscave @elflutter

[smallvictorianchildwhofoundwifi]

Guess who’s thinking about this again!

Also I reached the tag limit so just know there’s very gore ish stuff in there

Huh? Oh yeah yeah I'm fine I'm just thinking about the Sad Man's Parade appearing behind the Erasure group and throwing them into the concrete, constantly making more doubles and growing in mass, meaning that as they were falling on top of Eraserhead and Monoma, the ever-growing weight of doubles on top of them made them hit the ground even harder and definitely should've been enough to kill them but it didn't because the writers decide if they live or die and that's their only saving grace

[yinyuedijun]

translation

Aventurine doesn't like being understood, but he does like understanding other people. It is essential for manipulation, for scheming, for control. And he likes controlling you especially—for keeping you close but your heart a comfortable distance away, for opening your legs when he wants the pleasure of your body, for playing your emotions however he needs. And the day will come when that skill will be invaluable—the day when he must die without shattering you. (Or: You are the only person in the universe who understands Aventurine in his mother tongue. He often regrets teaching it to you.)

5k words. gender neutral reader, established relationship, angst, non-graphic sex (reader bottoms, anatomy neutral), themes of cultural loss, references to slavery, aventurine’s canonically implied desire to die. MDNI.

Aventurine cannot lie in Avgin.

Deception does not come easily to him in his mother tongue. His command of it is too weak—and too kind. The universe was a different place in the days when his life was coloured by the warble of Avgin dialect. It felt simpler, partly because he was a child and partly because Sigonia was yet untouched by outsiders. There were no corporations, no casinos, no commodity codes. His entire world was sand, desert, mother, sister, father (or more often—ghost), goddess, tent, wagon, luck, sin, rain, blessing, Avgin.

Katican.

Aventurine is sure that he knew more than just those words. He was fluent as a child. He had conversations with his sister that were complex enough to make his heart hurt, though perhaps his heart was just constantly aching anyway. But the rest of his early words escapes him. He could maybe dredge them up if he thinks long enough, but he also isn't sure if his tongue and lips could form the shape of them anymore. Sometimes he still counts in Avgin, memorises phone numbers in it, but he doesn’t remember the last time he actually strung together a full sentence in the language.

When Aventurine was first stolen into slavery (a word that he had not known as a child, and still doesn't know in Avgin), he wasn’t given a Synesthesia Beacon. He had to rely on his ears and his wits, deciphering the harsh edges of the Katican dialect and then the strange garble of Interastral Standard Language. By the time he had a Beacon installed, it was already translating all speech into Standard—his dominant language.

Sometimes he feels a little aggrieved by it, but at least it wasn't Katican. He'd have blown out his brains if it were.

But it is easy to console himself: Avgin is not a useful language anyway. Dead languages have no value, and the Avgin dialect was killed along with its people. You can’t perform commerce in a dead language, can't negotiate contracts, can't enter a gambling den and use your silver tongue to rob people blind. You can't use a dead language to fell governments and extract resources; you can't use a dead language to bring an entire planet to its knees. You can’t use a dead language to gamble your life; you can't use it to save yourself from the gallows.

You cannot deceive people in a language that is defined by sand, sister, goddess, ghost.

Aventurine cannot lie in Avgin. His command of it is too weak, and there is no one left to which he can lie, anyway.

When you ask Aventurine to teach you his first language, he gives you an amused look.

“Why Avgin?” he asks. “No one speaks it anymore. I can teach you Common Sigonian if you’d like. Or we could learn Xianzhounese together. Maybe Intellitron code? I know a little.”

“You speak Avgin,” you argue.

“Not often,” he says. “And badly when I do.”

“But it's still your language. And I want to understand you.”

Aventurine has to stop himself from laughing. Understand him? He hates being understood. When people understand him, it makes him predictable. And unlikeable. Hardly a position from which he can manipulate people in.

You understand him well enough to know that.

“You'll have to give me a better reason than that,” he says neatly. “Make it worth my while. Reward me.”

You look at him as you ponder, your eyes lingering on his. Perhaps trying to read him, though he prefers to think you're just enjoying the sight of them.

“I’ll teach you my language as well?”

“You mean—you'll reward my hard labour with more work?” he says, lighthearted.

You frown at him despite the joke. “You don't want to understand me better than what a Synesthesia Beacon would allow?” He blinks, pausing. “It’ll be convenient too. We can talk shit about other people in public and no one will understand us.”

Aventurine considers you. He doesn't like being understood, but he does like understanding other people. It is essential for manipulation, for scheming, for control. And he likes controlling you especially—for keeping you close but your heart a comfortable distance away, for opening your legs when he wants the pleasure of your body, for playing your emotions however he needs. And the day will come when that skill will be invaluable—the day when he must die without shattering you.

He also likes the idea of talking shit in public.

“I'm listening,” he says, voice lilting. You lean in, smiling. Sweet. It makes his heart feel something he isn't used to. Something addictive. Something disgusting. He scrambles to cover it with one of the usual tools: humour or distraction or maybe just plain old lying—his most reliable weapon.

“I'll throw in a kiss?” you try.

He hums. “Just one?”

“One per day.”

“Three.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“Well, I am a businessman.”

You snort, but he knows you're endeared. You have very noticeable tells when you’re flustered.

“Okay,” you say. “Three kisses on days you teach me.”

“Deal.”

Aventurine remembers more Avgin than he thought he would.

It comes to him slowly, painstakingly. You aren't interested in structured lessons, and he wouldn't be able to provide them anyway. He has a nonexistent grasp of grammar aside from this sounds right and that sounds strange, and Avgin dialect is both so niche and so dead that no textbooks are available. The scholars have abandoned the language as much as the politicians abandoned its people. Aventurine only has you, his fragmented memory, and whatever questions come to mind as you live out your days with him.

Mostly, you ask him about basic vocabulary. Sometimes you ask him to repeat sentences from your conversations in Avgin, like he’s some kind of multilingual parrot. Each prompt forces him to wade through the fog in his mind, the one that’s been shrouding his childhood memories until now. He's startled at how naturally the old words roll off his tongue: One, two, three, four. Good morning. Good evening. Good night. Sweet dreams. Five, six, seven, eight. You're lying to me. Why do you always lie to me? I don't know what you're talking about. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Welcome home. Have you eaten? Have some bread. I made you stew. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty. That was dangerous. I thought you wouldn't make it back to me. Sometimes I think you want to die. One hundred, one thousand, one million, one billion. I'm sorry. Come here. Let me kiss you. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.

When you say, How do I ask you to let me hold you, he answers easily. He'd heard the words so often as a child: Let me hold you, Kakavasha. Let Mama hold you. His mouth forms the sounds without conscious thought.

He regrets it almost immediately.

When Aventurine hears it from you—stilted, halting, but no less gentle—he stops breathing. Let me hold you. You say it all the time in Standard, but it feels different in Avgin. More painful. A strange sense of panic closes in on him when he's wrapped up in you, thinking in Avgin, thinking sand, sister, goddess, ghost. He holds you tightly, like the rags cut from his father’s shirt, or his mother’s locket won back from the shell-slashers, or a bag of poker chips beneath a card table, clutched within his trembling grip.

“Aventurine, is something wrong?” you ask in Avgin, and he replies in Standard with his usual smile.

“Hm? No. What could be wrong if I have you here?”

Lying is one of his greatest tools. Sex is another one. So he says, “I think I'd like my reward now,” and he runs his lips along your jaw, your pulse, the spot over your heart (there's a word for that in Avgin but not Standard, he tells you), until you're laughing. I thought you wanted three kisses, you tease, and he replies, Who said I wanted to kiss you on the mouth?

But he coaxes open your thighs, and once he's inside you, he collects his payment properly. He kisses you, and kisses you, and kisses you—and you swallow his lies whole.

There are some things that Aventurine doesn't teach you. Mostly, they’re things that he can’t teach you.

There are countless gaps in his Avgin. His speech is painfully childish—probably more childish than it was when he actually stopped speaking it. He doesn't know how to swear (something that disappoints you) and he doesn't know how to flirt (something that devastates you). He doesn’t know any words that would be useful for work either: commercialization, governance, stakes, winnings, profit. When you ask him what his job title is in Avgin (“Was senior management even a thing in Avgin society?”), he laughs and gives you the word for gambler.

Then there are the words that he remembers—has remembered his whole life—but never says. Not to you, and not to himself. He doesn't teach you any prayers. He doesn't teach you any blessings. He doesn't teach you about Mama Fenge, or the Kakava Festival, or how the rain fell when he was born. When you ask him, What holidays did you celebrate when you were little? he shrugs and says, We didn't have any. Sigonia’s too bleak to do any partying.

Then you ask him one day, while your bodies are spent in the afterglow of sex, sticky with sweat and sweetness, how to say I love you. And he goes quiet.

Love is a cheap word in Interastral Standard. In the language of globalisation and trade, love has been commercialised, commodified, capitalised for power. You say it to him in many contexts: I love this, I love that, I love you. He hardly ever reacts, and he's never said it back. It would feel unnecessary and also cruel if he did: Aventurine has only ever said the words himself as either a joke or a manipulation.

But love feels different in Avgin than in Interastral Standard, doesn't sound like a thing that can be traded or bought. Kakavasha only ever said the word love to his mother, to his sister, to his father's grave. Love in his mother tongue feels priceless.

When Aventurine thinks about you saying it—I love you, Kakavasha, in clumsy, earnest Avgin—something so painful swells in his throat that he can hardly breathe.

“There is no word for love in my language,” he tells you.

You blink. “Okay, then what's an idiom for it?”

“There is none. There’s no word or phrase expressing love.”

You raise a brow. “That’s hard to believe.”

“Is it?” He smiles. “There’s no Avgin in the known universe who cares about love. Only scheming, thieving, and treachery—and you can't do those things when love is involved.”

You look at him in alarm. “Why are you saying that?” You're practically squirming in your discomfort. “I don't know why you think I'd believe such a racist stereotype.”

“It’s not a stereotype,” he says. “I'm not talking about the Avgin culture. I'm talking about myself.”

After all, he is the only Avgin left.

It is an unfair thing to say. A cruel thing to say. After all the laughing and kissing and crying and fucking, after all the tender eyes and gentle words from you—it is probably the worst pain imaginable: I don't give a shit about you. He waits for you to cry.

But you only stare at him calmly, studying him. You brush the hair out of his eyes, seeing them clearly.

“If you lie to me all the time,” you say in Avgin, “eventually I'll stop believing anything you say.”

Aventurine is speechless. His heart does that addictive, disgusting thing again. He thinks about leaving, but then you say, Let me hold you, and he can't do anything other than obey.

Avgin dialect was once included in the Synesthesia Beacon list of functions. The Intelligentsia Guild added it before the Second Katica-Avgin Extinction Event, when the IPC was trying to get a political foothold on Sigonia via the Avgin people. The language was alive then, with enough value to be included into the Synesthesia LLM by the linguists.

But since the Extinction Event—since Kakavasha ran away from home—the Synesthesia data on Avgin has been stagnant, a fossil. Aventurine knows because he's subscribed to software updates for certain languages (Avgin Sigonian, Common Sigonian, Interastral Standard, and now your mother tongue). He gets pinged every time there's a new addition for slang, for neologisms—but there hasn't been a ping for the Avgin dialect since he had the Beacon installed. The live translation function hasn't even been available since the previous Amber Era. When he checks its page on his Synesthesia app, it's very clear why—

SIGONIAN, AVGIN DIALECT SPEAKERS: 0 STATUS: Extinct END OF SERVICE: 2156 AE

The complete death of the language has led to an irritating dilemma for you and Aventurine. You keep running into words that he doesn't know—this time not because of his childlike speech, but because they never existed in his language to begin with. Ocean, tropical, rainforest. Starskiff, accelerator, space fleet. Stock market, shortselling, mutual funds. Black hole, event horizon, spaghettification. All things that never came up for Kakavasha, but now come up for Aventurine, and the language has not evolved to include it.

He always wants to switch to Standard to discuss these things, but you're insistent on speaking in Avgin as much as possible. He doesn't know why, but he doesn't mind humouring you—partly because he likes to indulge you, and partly because he’s grown used to hearing the honeyed timbre of Avgin dialect in your household. The place would feel strange without it.

So you start filling the gaps with other languages, filtering them through the lyricism of Avgin. Loanwords, he thinks they’re called. You take ocean, tropical, rainforest from Amazian; starskiff, accelerator, space fleet from Xianzhounese; stock market, shortselling, mutual funds from Interastral Standard. For the astrophysics terms, you try directly translating them—with limited success.

“Can't I literally just say ‘black hole’?” you ask in Avgin, and he nearly spits out his coffee.

“Please don't. That's a dirty word.” He can't bring himself to say what it means, but from the way you’re laughing, you can clearly guess.

“I thought you said you didn't know how to swear.”

“You've just reminded me how.”

“You're welcome.” You look on the verge of cackling. Aventurine finishes his coffee and wonders when you're going to surprise him with your newfound vulgarity.

“Let's just do the space terms based on Standard,” he says. Begs.

“No, that's so boring.”

“Then let's do your language.”

You open your mouth. Close it. Give him a blank look.

“You don't know how to say those words in your mother tongue either, do you,” he intuits.

“Well, ‘spaghettification’ doesn't really come up in everyday conversation, does it?”

“Then maybe we don't need it.” He smiles, senses an opportunity. Smells blood. “How about ‘love’? I'd much rather know how you say that. I bet it sounds beautiful.”

You give him a long look. Your eyes are vulnerable when you share it: Love. I love you. He’s fascinated by the sound of it. Your voice is never that fragile when you say it in Standard. It's never so earnest. He repeats it, staring at you, and your gaze falls to the ground. His mouth curls.

“I like it,” he says. “Let's use that. It'll sound nice in Avgin.”

You try to recover. “Sure. That works. But back to ‘black hole’—”

And the two of you continue like that for days, weeks, months. It feels like a complete bastardization of his mother tongue on some days, in some conversations. Almost unrecognisable. But it doesn't feel bad. It’s all he has, it's all you have, and when he walks into your home, he starts speaking it without thinking: your bastard, patchwork language. The Avgin dialect that exists only in your house. A tongue that can only be understood by a liar.

And then, one lazy Sunday morning, he gets a familiar ping. He expects it to be Interastral Standard, as usual. The language balloons with each planet that the IPC colonises.

But instead, he opens his screen and freezes.

SIGONIAN, AVGIN DIALECT SPEAKERS: 2 STATUS: Endangered. SERVICE RESUMED: 2157 AE NEW UPDATES: 103 loanwords and 5 neologisms added.

He can't stop looking at the status. Endangered. Endangered, which means dying, but alive. The Avgin dialect is alive again. The Intelligentsia Guild determined it, so it must be true. But Aventurine can't agree: there are no Avgin speakers in the known universe other than the two of you, and what you speak isn't real Avgin. The Avgin spoken by his mother and father and sister is dead; the Avgin spoken by Kakavasha is dead. The festivals are gone; the deserts have been terraformed. There are no wagons; there are no dances; there are no prayers. There are no blessings, and he has no home—

As long as you are alive, the blood of the Avgin will never run dry.

His throat locks up.

“Aventurine?” you ask. Your voice is drowsy, but concerned. “Is something wrong?”

He looks at you from his phone, a polished smile on his face.

“No.” His syllables are plain and efficient in the noise of Interastral Standard: “Just looking at details for a new assignment. It’ll be a long one.”

“Oh.” You frown. “Will you be away from home for a long time, then?”

He stops himself from swallowing. “Yes, I'll be away from the house. For several months, probably.”

“Okay.” Your voice is small. “Take care of yourself, okay? I'll miss you.”

Each word you speak resonates with heartbreak. It always does in these conversations, even in Standard—but the sorrow is amplified in Avgin. His mother tongue has an inherently sad quality to it, he's noticed. His people have lost so much over their history—their language is one of loss. It's his language of loss. Kakavasha did all his grieving in Avgin; Aventurine has never felt sorrow in Standard. When the language died, so did Kakavasha—and all his regrets with it.

“You'll come home to me, right?” you ask. It's a beautiful sentence in Avgin. A heartrending one. He feels something that he hasn't known since he was a child.

It's a feeling he has to kill.

“Yes,” he says in Standard. “Of course I'll come back.”

This is not the first time that Aventurine has been mistaken for dead, but this is the longest time.

The latest world to join the IPC network was a tough acquisition. It had been ruled by a despot who wreaked havoc on both the people and the planet, and who was too stupid and reckless to resolve conflicts with his trade partners. He probably would have blown up the whole star system had he been left to his own devices. Aventurine had no qualms about bringing him to ruin, nor did he have qualms about nearly dying in the process.

If things had gone his way, he'd either be dead or missing. This would have been the perfect opportunity to do the latter, actually—to be freed from the IPC. Free to drift alone, speaking with strangers in strange, unfamiliar tongues. No connection to his past, to the cruel history of his luck, to his commodity code. No tether to his inherently unjust destiny. But instead he's back in your house, pockets heavy with his borrowed wealth, speaking to you in his bastardised, childish Avgin. I'm sorry. Come here. Let me kiss you. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.

Your Avgin is—shockingly fluent. He doesn't know how. He can't think about it right now. All he can process is the wounded animal noise of your speech as you yell at him, as you cry. Like an injured songbird, or a weeping child. Why did you leave, why did you lie, why do you always lie to me, why don't you give a shit about me, you spit. Why do you want to die, why do you want to die, why do you want to die, you keep saying. Sand, sister, goddess, ghost, he keeps hearing. Sand, sister, goddess, ghost. Don't leave me, big sister. People will die. Why do you have to go?

“I’m sorry,” he tries again, this time in your language. “I'm so sorry. Come here. Let me hold you.”

You collapse into your mother tongue. Aventurine is both relieved and horrified. Relieved that he doesn't need to hear the language of his grief—horrified that he needs to hear yours. He's never heard you cry like this. He's never heard you break like this. These must have been the words you used when the soldiers found you hiding in your closet, when they dragged you out of your home. You were just a child.

Aventurine doesn't know the words you are using—you've never taught them—but he still understands them.

You're very malleable when you’re sad; even more so when you're hysterical. Aventurine understands this about you, and he understands how to calm you—this time in your native tongue—and he understands how to kiss you. He understands that you need to feel close to him. He understands that there are ways to accomplish this other than sex. A normal person would talk it out, have an honest conversation, come to a mutual understanding, and maybe even stop trying to kill himself. They wouldn't fuck you into the mattress while your face is still wet with tears.

But Aventurine is not a normal person. He doesn't know how to have an honest conversation, and he doesn't want to be understood. Lying is his greatest weapon, and sex is a close second. So he kisses you until you’re too breathless to cry, fucks you until you can't think, and makes you come so hard that you’re in too much bliss to grieve. And maybe it's horrible of him, but he enjoys it. He enjoys the way your body takes him in so easily, the way your nails dig into his back, the way you tighten around him when you climax, so wet and needy for him. The way you beg for him in your language for liars as he spends himself inside you: I love you, Aventurine, I love you, I love you, I love you—

Only because it feels good. This is all only because he enjoys fucking you. This is all only because you enjoy fucking him. This is all it'll ever be, and it'll be this way until he gets to meet his end.

(Some months ago, Aventurine started dreaming in Avgin.

It surprised him when he first noticed it. The last time he remembers having a dream in his native tongue, he was twelve years old and still in chains. And even then, it had become a sporadic, strange thing. Awful to wake up from. One minute he was with his mother and sister on a cool, rainy day, speaking fluently in Avgin as he laughed and played—and the next minute, he was being shaken awake in his cage, hearing the cruel lash of Katican.

But ever since he's started speaking Avgin with you, he's been dreaming in it. Vividly. Sometimes he's a child in these dreams, and sometimes he's grown. He's always back in the Sigonian desert, among the tents and the campfires and his family wagons. His mother and sister are alive. Sometimes his father is too. The skies roar with thunder and the stellar winds are always harsh, but they always keep him cocooned up in their arms. He's always warm.

Sometimes Aventurine dreams of nicer days. Clear skies, warm sun, cool breeze—all blessings from the Mother Goddess. On these days, he tends to be an adult, and you tend to be there with him. Your Avgin is fluent but strange, filled with funny loanwords and peculiar slang. His father likes the neologisms and starts using them—but only in wrong ways. His sister finds it embarrassing and keeps apologising to you.

His mother loves you. She loves you so much it hurts. This is how I know you're blessed, Kakavasha, she says, glowing. You’re so lucky to have found such a kind person.

Kakavasha knows this. He knows he's lucky, and in his dreams, that isn't a bad thing. In his dreams, his luck means that his home is not violently excised from his heart: his father never dies; his mother never dies; his sister never dies. The tents are not burned; the wagons are not destroyed. He is never forced to forget his people's dishes, their songs, their language, their joy. And in his dreams, his luck means that he meets you anyway, without all the loss and the chains and the lying.

In his dreams, he is able to bring you to the desert. He is able to teach you the Avgin he spoke as a child, to cook all the meals his mother used to make, to share with you their coffee and their tea. He teaches you prayers. He teaches you blessings. He tells you about Mama Fenge, about how the rain fell when he was born. He takes you to the Kakava Festival, shows you how to dance, sings to you all the Avgin songs until you're singing back. He presses his palm to yours in prayer; he kisses you in devotion, not avoidance.

Sometimes the two of you still fight, the same fights that you have in real life, but he handles them with honesty. He listens to you. He apologises to you. He tells you that he’ll change, and he means it—because this world is a kind one, and he has no need to be so cruel to you.

In this kind world, when you lay in bed with his arms tight around you, you smile at him and say, I love you, Kakavasha. You say it in Avgin—real Avgin, not the dialect born from genocide and deceit—and when he responds, there's not even a little bit of insincerity in his voice. Because Kakavasha never became Aventurine in these dreams, so he has no Interastral Standard in which he can lie to you, no silver tongue with which he can manipulate you, no commodity code that inspires his fear of being controlled by you. Kakavasha only knows Avgin, and he only has his sand, his family, his goddess, his home.

And he has you. Finally, he has you.

He kisses you, and kisses you, and kisses you—and then he tells you the truth.)

.

.

.

Aventurine cannot lie in Avgin.

You noticed this very early on: whenever he lies to you, he always switches to Interastral Standard. Probably he wouldn't be able to do it in his mother tongue. His command of it is too weak, and the words he knows are all too kind. He speaks with the innocence of a child, and children cannot deceive people in the way that adults can. Children cannot perform commerce or negotiate contracts. They cannot use a silver tongue to rob people blind. They cannot save themselves from the gallows.

So Aventurine’s Avgin is defenceless. Vulnerable. So vulnerable it hurts. You are not so vulnerable in your first language because your captors spoke it on occasion, and you learned to lie in it to gain their pity. You told Aventurine that knowing it would help him understand you, but this was a deception. Aventurine’s mother tongue was a language of trust, but yours is a dialect of abuse.

The Avgin language died before Aventurine could be gutted by it; this is why it disarms him so completely. This is why he’s so indulgent and so warm when you use it with him, why he yields to all your requests. Not requests for money or gifts—you’re certain those are meaningless to him—but for affection. Let me hold you. Let me touch you. Let me kiss you. He can never say no.

This is also why he loves hearing you speak his mother tongue, you think—it makes him feel at home, it makes him feel safe. Maybe it even makes him feel loved. He never seems so at peace speaking any other language, so you try to use Avgin as much as possible. You like seeing him happy. You like it even if it means you need to teach him your own native language in exchange, even when it means you need to hear him say all the things your captors used to say. You don't mind it if it's him. You never mind the harm he inflicts on you, especially not when it brings you closer to him.

It is convenient that he cannot lie in Avgin. You only wanted to learn it in the first place because he talks in his sleep—mostly in Standard, but sometimes in his native tongue. And now that you know he cannot lie in Avgin, you also know he's always being honest in his dreams. Honest when he throws his arms around you in his sleep. Honest when he grabs you so tightly that you bruise. Honest when he buries his face into your neck and whispers prayers into your skin.

Most of the words he says are common ones, the earliest vocabulary that he taught you. But there are some things he's withheld from you—and to learn those things, you had to track down linguists from the Intelligentsia Guild, bribe them with your dirty money, have them give you all their deprecated, extinct data. It felt two-faced, and it was violating, but it was the only way. You already know that Aventurine would rather die than translate his feelings for you, would never want this part of himself understood.

I'm sorry for always leaving you.

I'm sorry for making you cry.

I can't bear the thought of losing you.

Freedom would be too lonely without you.

I don't want to hurt you anymore.

I don't want to lie to you anymore.

I missed you.

I want you.

I need you.

I love you.

end

afterword

[ahedalshaer]

🥹😭😭😭😭💔💔

Displacement after displacement, and no one cares about us. No one cares about us. We are tired. When will we stop displacement and settle in a place that will shelter us? We are displaced from death to death every day. We are tired and no longer have the energy for anything to do. We have lost passion, hope, and everything. We wish for death every time in order to rest when the time comes to rest

Enough is enough and we can no longer bear it. We are tired. Who cares about us? Who helps us to survive? No one is able to stop this genocide and this destruction. No one is able to stop this brutal aggression. No one makes us feel the situation is very bad. I hope this ends as soon as possible

I ask for your help, and I hope that you will stand by my side to save our lives before it is too late. Every minute we face death. I want us to survive. I do not want to die in cold blood. I ask you to donate even a small amount for me and my family. If you are not able, you can spread the link to your friends on your page or even on social media.

Don't forget this and be a reason to save the lives of 7 people from Gaza. My parents are tired, their health condition is deteriorating, I do not want to lose them. Please help me as much as you can and

do not forget me.🙏🥹😭😭😭

@timetravellingkitty @meaganandersoncolor @briarhips @mahoushojoe  @rhubarbspring @commissions4aid-international @wellwaterhysteria @mangocheesecakes @kyra45-helping-others @marnota @7bittersweet @tortiefrancis  @toiletpotato @fromjannah @omegaversereloaded @vague-humanoid @criptocracia a  @amygdalae @ankle-beez @chilewithcarnage @ghelgheli @sayruq @deepspaceboytoy @mohameddd @junglejim4322 @post-impressionisms @neechees @turian @brutaliakhoa @buttercuparry @journalsforpalestine @trans-girl-nausicaa @appsa @victoriassecretangelsss @aces-and-angels @meganmcisaac @vedaperonu @bloglikeanegyptian

[cherienymphe]

A Caged Bird (Coriolanus Snow x Reader)

WARNINGS: NON-CON, blackmail, stalking, abuse of power, hints of dacryphilia, slightly spoiler-esque

summary: Birds are best kept in a cage where one can see them...and where you know where they are at all times.

~

You thought that it was over when you won.

That’s what winning The Hunger Games meant, right? The psychological torture, the grueling conditions, and the fear that wouldn’t leave you until you finally left the arena was supposed to be over. You made it out through blood, sweat, and tears, and so your reward was to go home and reunite with your family and try your best to put the memories behind you.

Try your best to put him behind you.

So, why were you still being tormented?

When you first locked eyes with Coriolanus Snow, your first thought was how strikingly blue his were. Almost as if they weren’t real and had been specially manufactured in The Capitol for him, somehow. His hair, too, was just so much blonder than anything you’d seen in District 12, and again, you noted how so much about him seemed…artificial.

…but then he spoke…and the effect his voice had on you was very real.

“You don’t seem like you’re supposed to be here,” you’d said to him after stepping off of that train.

His response was expected, a charming chuckle leaving his pink lips, blond curls the perfect addition to his features.

“I’m not,” he slowly admitted.

The intensity behind his gaze whenever he so much as glanced at you was enough to make any girl’s heart race, and despite what you wished, you weren’t immune. He was beautiful—gorgeous as some of the other tributes and mentors liked to call him—and despite the initial intimidation, there was something about him that made you want to let your guard down.

…but he was your mentor…and a capitol citizen…and you were nothing more than his ticket to notoriety.

“Don’t you know who his dad was?” another tribute, one from one of the better districts, had said to you in a tone like you were stupid.

That was all the confirmation you needed, really.

…but he’d hopped onto the truck with you and gotten into that cage with you and brought you and your district mate food. He gave you poison to use against the other tributes. He wanted you to appeal to the audience so he’d have the funds to send you supplies. It was hard to decipher what was purely for show and what was just because he wanted you—and him by extension—to win. Perhaps, they were one in the same though, and it was impossible to have one without the other. Maybe it didn’t matter his reasons behind his desire to have his tribute win.

Maybe all that mattered was that you’d win.

…but that was when you thought winning meant you’d be free.

Coriolanus Snow was your best chance at winning, and so when the rebels rigged the arena, you didn’t hesitate to stay behind and save him. It wasn’t even a question in your mind because mentor or not, he was hurt, and you had to believe that that one fluke was not your only fighting chance. You couldn’t allow yourself to believe that in saving him, you’d allowed freedom to pass you by.

“You saved me,” he told you, a gentle brush of his handkerchief under your eye to catch your tears. “You saved me, and I am going to get you out of here.”

You had no idea then that he meant out of the games…and to him.

It was that flickering moment of doubt where you wondered if you could actually win, and you recalled what you’d said to him earlier about believing you could, how much you needed him to actually believe it. Now, you were the one doubting, and he could see it, blue gaze flicking over your face and soaking in the fear and uncertainty, because if you couldn’t win…

You’d die.

A lingering gaze and a tense atmosphere, and you felt yourself pulling back, realization hitting you as to just what you were about to let happen. It was hard to decipher who overstepped first, but you couldn’t allow yourself to get wrapped up in something that was only ever meant to be strictly professional. Coriolanus was your mentor, and you were his tribute.

That was all.

You didn’t know then the full lengths he went to just to ensure your victory. How could you? You were too busy trying to survive, trying to fight off rabid tributes and teenagers driven mad with the sole desire to just live. It was all so unfair and angering, and you were sure that with less focus, you might’ve gone insane too. You didn’t have the luxury to worry about your eerily handsome mentor and whatever ulterior motives he might’ve had to see you beat this thing.

So, when you did win, all you could feel was relief. All you could focus on was your family and their faces when you’d ultimately reunite with them. All you could even entertain were thoughts of pushing this very real nightmare to the back of your mind for as long as you possibly could. Initially, you didn’t even notice that you weren’t immediately reunited with your mentor when they crowned you as the winner and got you out of there.

At least, not until you came face to face with him in your own district.

“I thought they’d killed you. I didn’t know if my actions had come back on you too,” Coriolanus told you in a secluded corner, the loud music drowning out his words and the cover of darkness hiding your faces.

Those beautiful pale curls were gone, and any thought that so much of his beauty relied on his golden locks was gone too with one drink of him. He was still the same handsome boy that mentored you, the same one who’d garnered the nickname ‘gorgeous’ among the other tributes. Up on that stage, you’d been thrown to meet a familiar gaze, your harmonious tune pausing for half a second as he met your shocked stare with an expression of his own you couldn’t place, pink lips curved upwards ever so slightly.

Any question of how and why he was here had disappeared as you registered his words. Confusion filled you as you stared at him, a slight frown between your brows as you wracked your brain for how that could possibly make sense.

“Why would they kill me…?” you slowly asked him, and you and the shadows were all that was privy to his confession.

The water bottles, the handkerchief, and the snakes—even the poison. Coriolanus had cheated to secure your victory, broken rules that plucked him out of The Capitol and dropped him here in your very own district as a Peacekeeper. The shock you felt that your victory was far from a fair one warred with the confusion you felt as to why he’d risk everything just for you to win.

If you’d lost fair and square—as you probably should have—there was no doubt in your mind that he’d be safely tucked away in the lavishness of The Capitol instead of lingering about in some rundown excuse for a bar in lowly District 12. If he knew what awaited him should his treachery be discovered…then why chance it? Nothing about your brief tutelage with him could justify what he’d risked and ultimately lost.

You wanted to ask him why, but something in you was afraid of the answer.

That almost kiss—a kiss you hadn’t thought about in months—suddenly came to mind, and even though you didn’t ask him why, something in you knew why even if you wanted to deny it. It was there in the dim lighting and rowdy atmosphere of some rundown building that every minor interaction didn’t start to feel so minor.

Every brush of his hand against yours as he reached for you, the unsettling way he seemed to watch you in that short time that you’d simply written off as concern for his tribute, and the ruthless desire to see you out on the other side of the arena. The kiss that never was only seemed like a lapse in judgement to you then, but in this moment, you had suspicions that it was very much intentional.

You swallowed, realizing that in that brief internal introspection, Coriolanus hadn’t taken his eyes off of you once.

“Did they send you to District 12?” you finally asked him.

You didn’t know what gave you away. Perhaps your tone, maybe your face, or maybe your eyes weren’t as secretive as you’d like to believe. Either way, something about your visage and demeanor gave the blond man pause, head tilting just a tad as those baby blues glinted with something you didn’t recognize but you know you didn’t like. He studied your face before coming up with the answer he probably thought you wanted.

“Of course.”

You didn’t know if you believed him.

…and Coriolanus could tell.

You’d played enough cat and mouse games in the arena—you never thought you’d have to play them in your own home too.

Starving off the affections of some boy in your district wasn’t hard or uncharted territory. Even spurning the forbidden advances of a Peacekeeper or two wasn’t unheard of, but Coriolanus was different. He wasn’t some average Joe turned cop. He was born and raised in The Capitol with a powerful father, and even though the man had been taken before his time, your former mentor still had been brought up with the kind of influence and reach and mindset that surpassed the average Peacekeeper.

They were followers—controlled by The Capitol and tasked with maintaining order. Most were no more than dumb brutes, mindlessly following orders without question, simple enough to be bribed and swayed. If Coriolanus’ actions had shown you anything, it was that he was not a follower. He did what he wanted and played by his own rules, and it was how you found yourself hunted by a gaze you thought you’d left behind in the arena.

Since the discovery of your former mentor’s presence in your district, you never felt alone.

Every walk to trade for food felt shadowed, every footstep home was accompanied with an echo, and a sweep of your eye over the crowd as you played an instrument or sang a tune was rewarded with a familiar blue one that made your heart freeze. You were forced to ignore it no longer when a single rose was left for you on the doorstep, your ma’s gaze questioning as she held it out to you.

You didn’t know where or how he got it, but you only cared about giving it back.

“I can’t accept this,” you told him, gaze steady but fingers trembling as you held it out to him.

It was raining, and the cover over your heads sheltered you from the downpour, but it did little to drown out the sound of it. Coriolanus simply stared at the flower for what felt like too long, making no moves to take it from you, and you swallowed. His blue gaze zeroed in on the action before it lifted to your face.

“…and why not?”

“Because I think it means something different to you than it does to me.”

Your response was swift, and you watched him sigh, eventually reaching out to finger the flower like he did that day before he’d proceeded to put it behind your ear. He finally took it, and just like that day before the games, it found its way behind your ear once again. The only change this time was the shudder that traveled down your spine, and the apprehension you felt when his gaze met yours.

For the longest time, the only sound was that of the rain, a few stray drops making it’s way onto your face and clothes due to the wind. If the man before you still had the locks you’d met him with, they would’ve been rustling with the breeze, right now. Both of you were very still, or maybe it was just you—nervous and fearful of how he’d respond. He briefly looked past you, eyes glinting briefly before they hardened once again, his pink lips pressed together as he regarded you.

“…and if it does?”

He continued when you frowned.

“Mean something different to me than it does to you,” he elaborated, and you blinked.

Taking a deep breath, you tried to gather your thoughts.

“I know…that I’m only standing here, now, because of you,” you slowly started, watching him push his shoulders back. “I won because of you, I know that, but-.”

“Exactly,” he cut you off, making your lips part. “You won because of me…and everything I sacrificed was to make sure you won.”

“…but I didn’t ask you to do that!”

You felt…cornered, somehow, because on the one hand, yes. You did owe so much to the man before you, but at the same time, what did you owe specifically? Your attention? Your affection? Whatever he deemed an appropriate compensation? When you saved his life in the arena that day, and he vowed to save yours in return, you didn’t understand the full ramifications of the deal you were agreeing to.

“I saved your life, and you saved mine, and I’m sorry for the things you felt the need to risk, but that’s where it ends.”

The cold from the rain didn’t faze you nearly as much as the heat from his gaze boring into your back.

You wanted to believe that your lack of confrontation was what led you to the predicament you found yourself in. After all, things between you two had held too many ‘what ifs’ and lingering feelings and questions. You liked to hope that telling the man in no uncertain terms that your relationship should never and would never progress beyond anything professional would fix things.

You never would’ve guessed that your bout of confidence would only prove to make things worse.

“My ma doesn’t even know any rebels, and you know that.”

You’d whispered the words so quietly, throat too choked up to speak any louder as you tearfully stared Coriolanus down, your words only intended for the two of you. Your back was pressed to the doorway as he stood before you, a foot or two of space between you as other Peacekeepers did their duty to search your house as thoroughly as possible. The reason you’d been given was suspicion of treason—to the shock of your ma—but both you and the handsome man before you knew the truth.

“One can never be too sure. It’s always those you least expect.”

His cool response only made you look away, a few tears escaping.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You won, you were free, so why did it still feel like you were in the game…except a much more dangerous one this time? You could feel his eyes on you as you watched man after man rifle through you and your ma’s things, your younger sister not home to witness this. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see him take a step towards you—just one, but one was enough to make you flinch.

You still didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking at him though.

“Unbearable,” he quietly said. “…not able to be endured…or tolerated.”

You swallowed.

“Not to be confused with hard—requiring a great deal of endurance or effort.”

Another step towards you.

“To find something unbearable means that you quite literally cannot stomach it any longer. It forces a change to come, forces something to…give,” he whispered.

Your gaze was still focused ahead, but his words made you blink, made your heart sink, and you swore that he knew that.

“I can make things incredibly unbearable for you…and your family.”

You straightened at that, finally looking at him with a venomous gaze and a heaving chest. Coriolanus reached up to pick at your shirt, removing a piece of grass from it, and you watched him inspect it before turning his blue eyes back onto you. They lingered on your own eyes before lowering to your lips, his own twitching so subtly you might’ve missed it if you were anyone else.

“Or I can make sure you’ll be taken care of, looked after as if you were my own…” his gaze met yours again. “It’s entirely your choice.”

You two stared at one another for an infuriating amount of time before he let out a sharp whistle, telling the other men that nothing seemed to be here and to move on. His wording was not lost on you, and you crossed your arms over your chest. Coriolanus was the last to walk out, and despite the feel of his heavy gaze, you didn’t look his way the entire time.

Your ma commented on the strangeness of the whole ordeal, but nothing about it was strange to you. It was all very calculating and sinister actually, and while you grew up hearing countless talk of running away and living off the grid, you were never more tempted than in this moment…but you were not alone. Your ma was sickly, and your sister was too young.

…and if you left, you could only guess what you’d be leaving your family susceptible to.

Your future seemed inevitable no matter how much you tried to find a way out of the path set for you.

The first night you slept with Coriolanus Snow, it was storming just like that day you’d attempted to give him back his flower. You’d cried for a good three hours before, feeling helpless in the aftermath of another so-called inspection from Peacekeepers—this one much more destructive. The only light that night came from the brief flashes of lightning, and the sound of the rain drowned out the reluctant gasps to leave your lips.

Hands much softer than you ever expected trailed down your frame, curving over your hips and dipping underneath your thighs. The blond man’s lips rarely left your skin, kissing whatever part of you that came to mind, nose gently grazing you as he did and pulling shudders from your frame. It was a foreign feeling to be so heated and afraid at the same time.

Under the cover of darkness, his fingers intertwined with your own and his hips were flush with yours. The feel of him inside of you was much more jarring than you thought it would be, choked deep breaths leaving your parted lips as he pressed his face into the crook of your neck. His thrusts were slow, the complete opposite of what you expected, and you didn’t know if you liked that better or worse.

Every kiss felt wrong, like you were betraying yourself, but in the same manner, they also reminded you of that first day you met. You thought about when you stepped off of that train, and that smooth voice escaped those pink lips, and your stomach flipped no matter how much you pretended it didn’t. The person you were that day wanted to throw your head back and welcome the little nips he left along your skin.

The person you were, now, wanted to crawl inside of your skin.

This man had stalked you to the highest degree, following you all the way from The Capitol just to collect on the young woman whose survival he ensured. The things he’d risked and ultimately lost, he placed the weight of on your shoulders as if you were responsible to compensate for that somehow. As if it was your duty to make his sacrifices worth it.

When he pulled you into his lap, resting on him with arms circled around your waist, it was your turn to press your face into the area where his neck and shoulder met. His fingers dancing along your skin made you shudder, and that just made the tears collect more because you didn’t want to enjoy this, but your body and your brain didn’t seem to be in alignment.

When you were forced to come around him, you saw stars, and you were positive your nails left marks on his back.

You didn’t really think that no more trouble from Peacekeepers was worth the figurative collar around your neck. The abundance of food and supplies might have been, if only to just see the smiles on your ma and sister’s faces, but even then, when you found your back pressed to Coriolanus’ chest as he drove his cock up into you, you wondered if it was actually worth it.

Your ma would say no, that you knew for sure, but you supposed it wasn’t her call to make.

After all, the alternative was psychological torment and worst-case scenarios you didn’t even want to entertain.

“Would you have had her arrested?” you quietly wondered one night.

The sheet was clutched to your chest, and you were facing the wall, still unable to look him in the eye directly afterwards. You’d never been able to, feeling used and low and indefensible. You tried not to dwell on the feel of his fingertips tracing patterns into your shoulder, his cool breath hitting your skin as he exhaled.

“I mean…would you have…framed her somehow? Found some justification for it?”

You didn’t know why you were asking, certain you wouldn’t like the answer, and as you predicted, you felt your throat tighten the longer the silence stretched. Against your will—like many things you’d been doing as of late—a few tears escaped, and even before he answered, you knew what you were going to hear.

“Yes,” he confessed, just as quietly.

You squeezed your eyes shut, subtly wiping your face.

“I sacrificed so much for you to win, and not just because your win was my win…but because I wanted to see you win,” he murmured, placing a kiss to your back. “…because I wanted you.”

You knew that, but having it confirmed so plainly was disturbing.

“…and when I eventually make my way back to The Capitol, as we both know I will, I’ll still want you.”

Your stomach sank at that, and for the first time, you turned to look at him while still trembling in the aftermath of what had quickly become a nightly occurrence. His gaze was still focused on where your back had been, and when his eyes flitted up to connect with yours, you didn’t have the words to convey how you felt about what he was insinuating.

“In The Capitol, you’ll have access to things you could never even imagine…and you could send those same things back to your family,” he told you, reaching up to touch your face.

When you moved to sit up, he stopped you, a firm grip on your arm. Coryo—as he liked for you to call him—fixed you with a look that you knew all too well. It was the look he gave you when you tried to come up with any excuse as to why you couldn’t meet with him. It was the look you received when you briefly forgot the power dynamics here, turning away from him and attempting to push him away.

It was a look that told you not to fight the inevitable.

“I want you there with me.”

His tone left no room for argument, and there was so much conviction in his voice that the thought of arguing seemed legitimately draining. You simply stared at him, eyes glassy, and he stared back, waiting for verbal confirmation of what you both knew was going to happen, anyway. You had no choice in the matter, you never did, and for a brief horrifying moment, you almost wished you were a lone orphan who didn’t have to look out for anybody but yourself.

That thought did make tears spill over.

It was a horrible thing to think, but your loved ones were being used against you, and you knew that your ma—and your sister if she were old enough to comprehend these things—would never want this for you. Coryo sat up with you, a hand resting on your cheek as he gazed at you, a thumb brushing the tears away. It wasn’t meant to be comforting.

Nothing he did was ever meant to be comforting.

“I want you there with me,” he repeated.

You wondered what someone like you would possibly do in The Capitol.

“I don’t belong there,” you whispered, a poor attempt to get him to change his mind.

His response was swift and clipped.

“You belong with me.”

When he pressed his lips to yours, it was expected that you would kiss him back. His thumb brushed along your skin as you did, a low hum sounding in the back of his throat that quickly escalated into a groan. His free arm snaked around you, and your last attempt at resisting proved futile, so you let him lay you down.

Sex with Coriolanus was a maddening experience.

You didn’t want it, and your brain didn’t want it, but it was as if your body was its own separate entity running on hormones and animal instinct.

When he rested his full weight on top of you, you shuddered for a multitude of reasons—one of which you didn’t want to acknowledge. When he slid his hand between your breasts and down to your stomach, your back arched, chest pressing up and into his. When he pushed into you all torturously slow as he always did, you involuntarily held your breath, shaking at the feel of his hips connecting with yours, the length of him fully sheathed in your warmth.

You were terrified of him, so that was why you opened up for him like those budding roses he used to carry around, but in doing so, you made yourself vulnerable beneath him. You made yourself more susceptible to his kisses and his touch and that maddening voice that knew just how to get its way. He wasn’t a very talkative man when he was inside of you, much more content with letting his actions speak for themselves, but tonight was different.

“Look at me,” he whispered, curving his hips into yours. “Look right at me.”

You did, and while you didn’t know the specifics of the psychology behind this, you knew that looking into the eyes of your tormentor while in the act couldn’t be good.

“Keep your eyes on me,” he breathlessly told you, nose brushing against yours with every thrust.

You could hear that it was starting to rain again, and you pressed your hands into the small of his back, trying to ground yourself in some way—trying to have control over something, anything. Tears kissed your eyes, and you swore—you swore—that something in those blues of his twinkled. It sparked something in his gaze, and in his psyche, his thrusts becoming more powerful and making you gasp, nails pressing into his skin.

He only looked especially satisfied when the tears spilled over.

When he came inside of you, and you around him, you swore you saw stars.

You even thought you saw snow.